'Cliff, it's Megan.'
My daughter. 'Yes, love?'
'Good news.'
'Always welcome. Tell me.'
'I'm pregnant.'
I said 'What?' so loudly people in the street gave me an alarmed look.
'I said I'm going to have a baby.'
'I can't believe it.'
'Why? Didn't you think Hank and I were fucking?'
That was pure Megan-direct. 'Yes, but… Well, that's terrific. When?'
'Six months. We waited until we were completely sure. We phoned Hank's people in the States and you're the first to know here.'
I mumbled something, said I'd see her that night and walked on in a sort of daze. Fatherhood had been sprung on me; I hadn't known of Megan's existence until she was eighteen. Now this. I didn't know what a grandfather's credentials were, but I was pretty sure they didn't include bankruptcy. I thought about it as I moved on. Megan was young, who knew how many kids she might have and what help she might need? The stakes just climbed higher.
3
The happy couple were so involved in what they were doing-and they behaved as though they'd achieved something no one else in the world had ever done-that they didn't ask me what I was up to. That suited me. Like them, I wanted to be sure before making any announcements. I was happy for them and myself: I'd missed out on the real experience of fatherhood, a big thing to miss out on, and now I was getting a second chance at a version of it.
I went home from their flat with two-thirds of a bottle of champagne inside me. Megan wasn't drinking and Hank was almost too excited to drink. The walk from Newtown to Glebe sobered me and it wasn't late. Time to work.
I transferred Standish's list and his brief comments on the people on it into a notebook. I had names-Stefan Nordlung, Felicity Standish, Rosemary Malouf, Prospero Sabatini, Clive Finn and Selim Houli. Sabatini was the journalist who'd written on the Malouf matter; Finn and Houli were gamblers.