Cairo (26 page)

‘OK,' he said. ‘Let's go and chat to our friend Queel.'

We stepped from the car into the cold winter air. Did I know what was going to happen that night? For many years I told myself: no, I didn't. But, really, I probably did.

*

Queel lived on the top floor of an apartment block built in the late sixties; stylish rather than fancy, cut like a good suit. Although
there was a lift, we took the inside back stairs. We saw no one else, heard nothing from any of the floors as we ascended. Once upstairs, we shuffled our feet on the thick, blue carpet outside Queel's door. Max put his ear to the door to listen.

‘Alright,' he said, and pressed the brass doorbell set into the wall.

A grinning Queel opened the door at once, as if he had been hovering inside awaiting us.

‘'Allo, gentlemen,' he said, with a shallow bow, ushering Max and me inside. He was, as usual, inordinately pleased with himself.

The apartment was enormous, lamplit, fragrant with tobacco, liquor and cologne. The floors were strewn with Persian carpets, and the walls were covered with dozens of paintings and drawings. Line-drawn nudes, expressionist portraits, at least one Roy Lichtenstein print. In addition, there were piles of art and fashion magazines on sideboards amid sculptures and esoteric trinkets, African masks and the like: a wooden bowl glittering with jewellery; a painted Egyptian bust. The place was like nothing I had seen before, outside the pages of a magazine or the reels of a James Bond film. I was dumbfounded.

Max, too, looked uncharacteristically unsure of himself. He clasped one hand in the other; his knuckles strained white against the thin sheet of his skin. Like a hungry waif he looked around and licked his lips.

Queel gestured for us to follow him into the open-plan lounge room. He glided soundlessly towards a sideboard on which bottles of liquor and glasses were arranged like a miniature city of crystal. He brandished a bottle of Scotch. ‘Drink?'

We nodded. As soon as he had turned his back to mix our drinks, Max hissed at me, ‘Keep an eye on him.'

Max left my side. ‘I might use the bathroom,' he announced.

Queel shrugged and handed me a tumbler of Scotch and ice. ‘As
you wish. Why don't you sit down? Tim, isn't it?'

I watched Max creep up the hall, out of sight. I stepped forwards and took the glass of liquor. ‘It's Tom.'

‘Tom?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘We've met a few times at openings. I'm friends with Edward and Gertrude.'

Queel ran a finger delicately across his mouth and lowered himself with a greasy creak into a paunchy, black-leather couch. He crossed his legs, revealing a hairless shin above the line of one grey sock. A red handkerchief peeked from the breast pocket of his pinstriped jacket. He inspected me, nodding and smiling to himself as if what he were seeing accorded with a rather unfavourable conclusion he had already formed. ‘A friend?'

‘Yeah.'

‘
Yeah
,' he mimicked. ‘In French we have a different word for this:
arriviste
.'

Although I didn't understand this expression, the tone in which it was uttered left no doubt as to its implied scorn.

‘How did they do it?' Queel asked.

‘Do what?'

‘I mean the painting is only small but …' He sipped his drink and then slapped his knee, as if what he had imbibed sparked inspiration within him. ‘Perhaps you're the thief, eh? The newspaper said someone was maybe hiding in the cupboard. Was that you? Amazing. What I do not understand, though, is why there were three versions of this
Weeping Woman
painting at the studio.'

I looked around for Max. From a far corner of the apartment I heard a tap running, the slam of a cupboard door. What the hell was he doing?

Queel contemplated me, wiped his mouth again. ‘Let me give you some advice. You should be more careful who you associate with. They are — what? — fun, interesting?' He gave a theatrical
shiver. ‘They are glamorous; all this is glamorous. You want to be like them, don't you? But that is not the same as being their friend. I saw you with them at some openings. They let you come along with them, like a leetle, um …
pet
. That's all. I can see maybe what you get out of it, but what do they get from you? Who knows, eh?'

My determined refusal to answer only goaded him. ‘And that girl, what's her name? Sally?
Leetle
, innocent Sally. Very attractive, no? She would pretend anything to get what she wanted. Let's say you would not be the first to fall for her. In fact I myself —'

‘Shut up, will you!' I said, furious — not because I thought he was wrong, but because I feared he was right. Embarrassed at my outburst, I scrutinised the ice melting in my glass.

He raised one hand palm outwards in surrender and recrossed his legs. ‘I have a sense for this sort of thing. Besides, I saw you and her together. At that Roar Gallery in Fitzroy, out the back one time.'

I knew the night he was referring to. It was a month or so ago, at the opening of an exhibition of drawings by a friend of Edward's. We were all there: Gertrude, Edward, Max and Sally, even James. The crowded room was thick with the fragrance of hair gel and pencil shavings. It was not long after Sally and I had spent our first night together, and I was sick about her. I had drunk too much cheap white wine, and when I happened upon her alone in the dim back stairway, I couldn't resist clasping her around the waist in a clumsy attempt to steal a kiss. It happened quickly, but the memory of it was still vivid: her warm body pressed to my own, her hand at my hip, the winey flavour of her lips. My actions were stupid, dangerous, but I was confident that nobody had seen us.

I said nothing, but Queel — relishing the raw nerve he had touched — smirked. ‘You're lucky it was me who found out,' he said. ‘Lucky it wasn't someone else.'

I didn't know if he was referring to the theft or to the incident with Sally, but at that instant Max materialised in the lounge room.
He was pale and war-eyed, like a desperado from one of Egon Schiele's drawings come to life. My first thought was that he had done something terrible.

Queel sprang from the couch to fix Max a drink. ‘There you are, Max. Now join us and let's have a good talk. We were chatting about your wife.'

I couldn't stifle a low groan. Surely he wouldn't say anything about Sally and me? My body felt heavy, almost too much for my legs to support.

Although I have — most reluctantly — relived the next few seconds over and over in my mind, what happened is forever unclear. The memory footage is grainy and scratched.

Max strode across the room as Queel turned (wet smile on his fishy lips, tumbler in hand) to face him. An expression of puzzled alarm.

‘What do you have there, Max? No!'

Then a crack. Queel grimaced and doubled over. The glass slipped from his hand as he collapsed to the floor. The twitch of his leg, ice glistening on the plush carpet. I had never seen a man shot before, but I was familiar with the choreography of murder from a thousand such cinematic snapshots and realised at once what had happened.

For the following twenty minutes we might have been underwater. Noises dark and muffled, gliding down the back stairs and onto the street. Not a word about what had happened. The drag of a wet, black night. Driving up Punt Road, tail-lights of cars ahead fragmenting beyond the glass, the digital clock on the abandoned silos displaying — between juddering swipes of windscreen wipers —
11:12
. A city soundless and full of sound.
11:13. 12°
.

‘
Merde
,' Max said as we passed beneath the Richmond station bridge. ‘We did it, Tom. We did it. What a thing to do. It's not
like I thought it would be. I have a weird taste in my mouth. Like metal. I never heard of that. Have you got that, too?'

I shook my head, watched the traffic straight ahead. But I felt his searching gaze upon me. Those glittering eyes, that beatific smile, the exultation eerily reminiscent of the minutes after the
Challenger
disaster. We drove on. Our breathing loud and close in the car interior. And seconds passing like hours.

THE PARTY WAS BEING THROWN IN A LARGE TWO-STOREY,
Victorian-era share house in Carlton. Max and I arrived around eleven-thirty and parked on the opposite side of the wide street. I clenched the sticky steering wheel to keep my hands from shaking.

Proceedings were in full swing; snatches of a Prince song and ragged outbreaks of laughter drifted over the road to where we sat smoking in my car. I saw a long-haired woman writhing in the hall. The famous Dancing Susan. People spilled from the front door onto the porch. Despite the wet weather, others gathered on the upstairs balcony. For some reason I was sickened by the sight; they reminded me of maggots thronging a carcass.

‘Do we have to go inside?' I asked. ‘I don't feel very well.'

‘People need to see us here. You understand that, don't you?'

I nodded.

Max gripped my shoulder. ‘It will be alright. I promise I'll look after you. We need to keep ourselves together for another week and then we'll be out of here. Just think of it — we're almost in France.'

My throat felt sour and swollen, as if a lump of vomit had congealed there. I nodded again; it was all I was capable of.

Ebullient, he opened his car door and stepped onto the pavement. ‘Alright,' he said, ‘let's get shickered.'

We encountered James in the busy entrance hall. He was more anxious than usual, tugging at his sleeves and rubbing his neck. It was clear he was drunk. His mouth glistened with red wine, and there was ash scattered on the lapels of his black velvet jacket like flakes of grubby snow.

‘Well?' he asked. ‘What happened?'

‘Don't you worry your pretty little head,' said Max, looking around with his hands jammed into his trouser pockets. He nodded a greeting at a woman descending the stairs.

But James was not so easily deterred. ‘What do you mean? Tell me what happened.'

Max waved him away. ‘Don't worry about it.'

‘Your idiotic plan,' James hissed. ‘As if you would
ever
get away with this.'

Max grabbed James by the sleeve, but James shrugged him off. Max took hold of him again, more firmly this time. ‘Look,' he said in a low voice. ‘Pull yourself together, for God's sake. We're almost there. Don't wreck it for everyone now, James. It's all been sorted out. Trust me.'

James gulped wine from his plastic cup. He shook his head and tightened his mouth; he was on the verge of tears.

Realising his aggressive approach was not working, Max put an arm over James's shoulder and pulled him close. Until then I had not noticed the disparity in their respective heights; Max was several centimetres taller. He nuzzled his mouth into James's silvery hair. He kissed him there.

‘It will all be fine,' he whispered. ‘It will soon be over and we can get away from this place. Alright, baby?'

People brushed past us in the hall. I felt distinctly uncomfortable, but James smiled, reassured.

‘I know,' he said. ‘I'm sorry, Max. It's …' He drank the last of his wine and made a face. ‘I think I'm a bit drunk.'

Max released him. ‘A drink. Yes. Excellent idea. I'll fetch us each a glass of wine, eh? Are you alright now?'

‘Yes.'

‘You're sure?'

James nodded and straightened his jacket.

‘Make sure he doesn't do anything crazy,' Max whispered to me as he brushed past and waded into the throng.

James cast aside his empty plastic cup and wiped his nose with a handkerchief. After some fumbled attempts, he extracted a crooked cigarette from a packet and lit it. ‘Tell me, Tom. What happened tonight? What did Max do? What did you both do?'

I didn't know what to say. There were some acts too monstrous for the paltry words that might describe them. I gazed around. Most of the people at the party were a few years older than me. I recognised a junkie friend of Edward's who was wearing earrings that glowed different colours. A woman who had modelled her look after Madonna (torn fishnets, bright red lipstick, layers of necklaces) slouched against a doorjamb, smoking. I wondered if she had witnessed the incongruous tableau between Max and James and, for a few seconds, my embarrassment at being associated with them overcame my nausea at the events of the evening.

Just then, a pair of very drunk guys crashed into a bike that had been resting along the wall and sent it toppling to the floor, where it lay with one wheel spinning lazily. James and I watched them lurch off into the melee with arms around each other's shoulders. I didn't answer James's question, and he didn't press me further. Either he sensed already what had happened or he didn't want to know. He smoked his cigarette and staggered out the front door without another word.

The next few hours were a weird and busy nightmare. Edward and Gertrude had, I was told, been at the party, but no one had
seen them for an hour or so. Sally had not attended at all.

Although I liked the idea of parties and was always grateful to be invited, I was never sure whether I enjoyed them. My woeful self-consciousness made it difficult to talk with strangers or dance. Instead, I hovered on the sidelines smoking and drinking, uncertain what to do — how to convey the impression I was enjoying myself with the least outward suggestion of doing so. All this was intensified to an almost unbearable degree that night.

In the bathroom I discovered a bathtub filled with melting ice and bottles of beer. When I lifted a bottle from it, the ice cubes rattled like cheap jewellery. When that bottle of beer was finished, I gulped some horrible red wine from a plastic cup. I was cornered by a tall Englishman named Rod, who related his saucy seaside adventures in Byron Bay earlier that month. I caught glimpses of Max throughout the remainder of the night: arguing about Cole Porter with a moon-faced boy with braces on his teeth; warming his hands over a fire in a rubbish bin out the back; sitting on the stairs with his hand on the knee of a freckly, redheaded girl.