Stark (8 page)

41: DENIAL

K
aren was finally going. She got up and kissed CD.

For one appalling moment Rachel thought she was going to kiss her. Thankfully Karen confined herself to a squeeze of the shoulder which was still over-familiar considering it was based on an acquaintance of about fifteen minutes.

‘Come round to dinner sometime, you must,’ was her parting shot. ‘Rash and Basil and Tish and Blossom said they might probably come round one evening or, if they don’t, some other time.’

Another big, sloppy smacker delivered on the lips through a cloud of frizziness and she was gone.

There was a pause. Then CD spoke.

‘I have never met that woman before in my life.’

42: STARK CONSPIRATOR

43: MAN WITH A MISSION

Sly had left the dinner in LA a changed man. Changed for ever. He flew home to Oz a fully committed member of the Stark Conspiracy.

44: THE PROBLEM WITH ABORIGINALS

U
nfortunately with trust came responsibilities. Sly had a specific role to play, a role which he knew would not be an easy one. He had been charged with acquiring the land. The consortium had done their homework and Western Australia was certainly far and away the best bet for the very detailed specifications necessary for their purposes — no doubt that was why Sly had been brought into the group at all. The clever bastards had already roughly picked out the bit of scrub that they wanted, which was almost convenient. Except, of course, for the Abs.

In his efforts to ingratiate himself with his new partners, Sly had spoken glibly of simply persuading the Abs to move on to greener pastures but in the back of his mind he knew it would be tougher than getting red wine chunder out of a duck down duvet. To say that Abs were a strange crew would, in Sly’s opinion, be stretching the well-known Aussie talent for understatement to its limits. He knew kangaroos with more horse sense than an Ab. They were stubborn too, strange and stubborn, that was Abs, and on no subject were they stranger and stubborner than on the subject of land.

Land was an obsession with Aborigines. Of course, no one could argue with a man being attached to the place he hung his hat. Sly himself had a little spread on the Swan River that was his pride and joy. It had a swimming pool the shape of Western Australia, an outdoor cocktail bar made of glass, with real fish inside it, and a genuine Henry Moore which Sly had bought unseen and had hastily had to plant a bunch of gum trees to hide the bloody monstrosity.

Beautiful land, beautifully appointed, but unlike some Abs he’d happily move on if he was paid enough. What was their problem? What were they protecting? Nothing, just a load of dust and rocks and empty bottles. It wasn’t what was on the land, it was the land itself. For some reason specific bits of land had specific spiritual relevance. Sly thanked God he wasn’t religious, he’d have bulldozed down Notre Dame if he’d thought there was half a barrel of oil underneath it.

Maybe the Abs have grown up, thought Sly in a brief moment of hope. Maybe they’d move after all! He’d give them good grazing country, access to a river, their own pub! But deep in his heart (which was not awfully deep), Sly knew they wouldn’t. He could just see some bastard head man, standing leaning on his stick, staring straight through him chewing his gums, through a huge, stupid, white beard that made him look like he was frenching a sheep. He wouldn’t budge an inch. The bloody-minded old goat would fuck Sly off like he was Lord Muck with a million in his jeans, instead of some broke old derelict with a headful of lice.

These were Sly’s bitter reflections as he sat in his first-class seat the morning after the dinner. It wouldn’t have been so difficult a few years before but land rights had become a real big issue in the last decade or so. You couldn’t just push people around anymore. You’d get every government sponsored bleeding-heart in the country down on your back. It was ridiculous, how were you supposed to run a country for the good of all if you kept worrying about people’s damn rights?

Sly looked at the middle-aged hostess who was serving his champagne. Steel-grey crew cut, clearly a lesso, thought Sly. That was equal rights for you! Sly could remember when air hostesses were a bunch of little spunks, every one. They’d lean over to pour your fizz in their cute white blouses and you’d get a tiny, tantalizing glimpse of the tops of their frilly little bras. Sexier than any full-on strip show that glimpse, thought Sly, because you knew the girl had class. They’d get sacked at twenty-eight of course, and why not? Why should people get a meal ticket for life at the expense of the consumer, he asked himself? What was a hostess for he’d like to know? Jesus, a machine could serve the fucking drinks and microwave the chops. A hostess was there to make the flight more bearable.

But now of course, that was called sex discrimination. No sackings on grounds of sex or age. These days you either got served by some boy faggot or a middle-aged hag who never married a captain because she was a muff-tucker. The only way to get a decent floor show was to fly a Far Eastern airline like Malaya or Singapore. Beautiful girls but could you trust the pilot? It wasn’t that he was an ogler or anything like that, Sly assured himself, he’d never been a perv, no way!! It was just nice to look at pretty young girls, everyone knew that, so why couldn’t these damn do-gooders admit it?

He wished he’d used his private jet.

Sly was getting pissed and working himself into a frenzy because he knew that what he had promised in Los Angeles would be very difficult to deliver. He just fervently hoped that when he headed north to scout around, the Aboriginals he would have to deal with would not be the spiritual type and would like a drink.

45: THE COLLAPSE OF A DREAM

S
ly may have been feeling bitter, but CD thought he was going to die. He was discovering that there are worse feelings than just being in love. There is something horribly worse, much worse than he could ever have imagined. Unrequited love. Two of the saddest words in the English language had laid CD as low as sure as if they’d been written on a brick and he’d been hit over the head with it.

The shock of learning how much he was capable of feeling made him scared and angry. He had always presumed that he was a fairly shallow sort of person, not wont to feel either joy or sorrow to any great degree, and now he discovered that he was at the mercy of feelings way way beyond his control. It was very confusing, he felt impotent, awash with emotions so palpable they seemed to have an actual physical form. The feeling that had dwelt in his guts for the last few weeks now seemed feather-light and gentle compared to the large piece of lead that somehow had managed to insert itself into his abdomen whilst he wasn’t looking. Because…

She wasn’t interested!

No, it wasn’t anything to do with that Karen woman, Rachel had assured him in answer to his desperate protests…or any of the other people he had introduced her to. It was simply that she didn’t feel that way about CD. Also she had had no idea that he felt that way about her either. She felt that they had just become very good friends, which was great. That was the way she wanted it. There was certainly no question of anything else. Just friends, that was all.

‘I’m sorry, Rachel, I can’t deal with that. It would be too much,’ CD had said with dignity. Just friends! What a suggestion! What an insult to the strength of his feelings. Didn’t she understand how much he loved her? Just friends! What did she think he was! You can’t feel the things he was feeling and settle for ‘just friends’!

‘I’m an all or nothing sort of person,’ he had said, looking at her with what he thought was an expression of boundless sorrow. ‘Me and half-measures never did get along.’ The eyes misty now, staring at hers with unrelenting frankness. In his anguish CD failed to recall that this trick did not work for Karen the hippy, and was unlikely to work for him. ‘I have to have it all,’ he added, switching his look to lean and handsome.

Rachel said, ‘That’s a shame, Colin. Oh well, I suppose that’s it then.’

This was a surprise. One of the most irritating features of unrequited love is that hope springs eternal. CD had rather been hoping that Rachel would say, ‘oh well, in that case, do you want me now or shall we wait till we can find a bed?’

Summoning up all of his dignity, which at that point took about a picosecond, CD rose to leave. ‘I’m history Rachel. I’m outa here, yesterday’s news. Maybe I’ll travel, don’t look for me tomorrow baby, because I’ll be gone.’

‘What about the casserole dish?’

‘Keep it.’ He slung his pretend leather jacket over his shoulder.

‘It’s mine. You’ve got it at your house.’

In a magnificent gesture CD walked out without a word, returning a few minutes later with a brand new casserole dish.

‘See you,’ said Rachel.

‘Yeah, maybe,’ CD replied with another portion of boundless sorrow. This time he really did leave. Walked out magnificently. Stood on the pavement in his torn jeans and burst into tears. HERO

He had no right to resent Rachel for not falling in love with him. He knew that but, by God, he did and as he walked home his anguish assumed ever more heroic proportions. He was magnificent in his loneliness. He could do anything now because he no longer cared. There was no greater force than a man with nothing to lose, CD told himself. He could achieve great things because all his achievements would mean nothing to him. Nothing because he was nothing and nothing comes of nothing. And when he had done all these great things, and returned, tired or dead, the fruits of his terrible solitude spread about him for all to see, then she would be sorry, then she would realize what she had passed up. Then she would weep and wish that things had been different. But he would just smile at her — presuming he was still alive that is — smile at her with infinite weariness etched in the lines of his lean, craggy face and then turn away without a word…No wait, maybe he would say…maybe he would say…well, something brilliant about fucking casserole dishes anyway.

But for now it was definitely over. He had told her, that was it, he had walked out of her life for ever and he was going to stick to that. He would never speak to her again, that was the only way. He knew it was the only way…

46: HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

H
i, Rachel, your friend and main man CD here, Colin to you.’

It was evening, hours after he had left her at the cafe with the casserole dish. Not that he had held out that long. He’d been trying since about three minutes after he got home but she had been out.

‘Oh, hi Colin, I wondered if you’d phone. I had to go to Mum’s. Promised to help her with the garden.’

This was scarcely the hours of anguished pacing along pavements made strangely unfamiliar by her new isolation, which was what CD had rather hoped Rachel had been up to but, there you go. He wasn’t quibbling, he’d recovered slightly. Hope springs eternal.

‘Listen, I was just wondering if we could still be, you know, what we are at the moment, you know, just that,’ he said.

‘But of course, that’s what I want, Colin,’ replied Rachel, ‘as long as you know that I meant what I said, I really did, and I do.’

‘Oh yeah, of course, forget it, no problem, won’t mention it again,’ said CD. ‘It’ll be exactly the same as it was.’

‘Great,’ said Rachel, knowing that it would never be the same again.

Actually, although neither Rachel nor CD knew it, nothing was ever going to be the same again. Nothing in the whole world.

It was only early on in the southern summer but already it was very very hot, much hotter than usual. The times were definitely a-changing. It was definitely very very hot.

47: ON THE BUSINESS OF STARK

S
ly piloted his own four-seater light aircraft out of Perth and headed north east, up towards the Territory. It was a flight he normally enjoyed hugely, the place was so utterly enormous. It was what flying must have been like in the very early days, when you had the whole sky to yourself and could dodge and weave as you felt like it.

These days it was like playing space invaders with air traffic control. That wasn’t flying, circling high in the stack, waiting in line to put down in a blanket of smog so thick you couldn’t see the landing lights. Petrified to drop or rise by the width of a credit card because you’d probably get a jumbo in the face..

‘Those passengers on the right of the plane should get a good view of the mountains and those on the left should just be able to make out a 747 full of terrified people pointing at you and screaming ‘get the fuck out of the way’.’

Sly would not personally fly himself anywhere these days except over Oz. Maybe Africa would be all right but Sly wasn’t going to go to Africa if he could help it. As far as he could see, the Third World was getting Thirder, soon they would have to start calling it the Fourth World, maybe even the Fifth. A continent full of poverty. What would be the point of going there?

48: POOR BASTARDS

A
ctually, as he sat at the controls of his little plane, Sly was on a journey into poverty on the business of Stark. He was going to chat with some Abs, and you don’t get much poorer than your average Ab’. That’s why most people hate them, thought Sly, they’re so horribly poor. It gets on your nerves. Why do they have to hang around all the time being so poor? Why don’t they fuck off and be poor somewhere else?

Lots of Aboriginals end up as piss-heads, causing people to say ‘no wonder they’re so poor, half of them are piss-heads’. It would, of course, make much more sense to say ‘no wonder half of them are piss-heads, they’re so poor.’

Australia is guilt-ridden by Aboriginal history and people get nasty when they feel guilty, they seek to find a scapegoat and often end up blaming the victims themselves…

‘Jesus, mate, they’re fucking rolling in it. Christ the government’s so fucking wet it just spoon feeds them handouts and they piss the lot up against the wall.’

This, of course, is the way people deal with degradation the whole world over. Sympathy for victims is always counterbalanced by an equal and opposite feeling of resentment towards them. How often had Sly said:

‘See that tramp. Wanted money for a meal. I gave him a buck of course…Ha, probably earns more than I do, probably got a fortune stuffed under his mattress.’

Sly never asked himself why someone with a fortune stuffed under his mattress would choose to sit in a gutter all day.