I collected my jacket and took off my tie. In the kitchen I annoyed the clearing-up caterers by making myself a chicken sandwich. I took it out to the car with me, chewing slowly and wishing I had some wine to go with it. But I gave up keeping wine in the car a long time ago. As I started the engine I remembered Helen Broadway. I hadn’t seen her go and I didn’t know where she lived. I could ask Roberta-but not just now.
3
I got home to Glebe around 2.30 a.m. I’ve given up tucking the car away in the backyard; the strain of the backing and filling is too much and the local vandals seem to have decided my car isn’t worth their attention. The street is narrow, with a dogleg; my place is just past the dogleg. I let the wheels drift up on to the kerb and slotted her in-slap-dab outside.
I glanced at a newspaper Hilde, my tenant, had left lying around while I got a few last dribbles from a wine cask. We had a commission of enquiry into the early release of prisoners scheme on the front page, and a commission of enquiry into the conduct of boxing on the back. Both dodgy was about all the reaction I could muster. I took the glass up to bed; there was light showing under Hilde’s door; I knocked softly and pushed the door open. She was sitting up in bed, reading. A long strand of her blonde hair was in her mouth, and she was chewing it rhythmically as she read. She lifted her blue, German eyes reluctantly from the page.
‘It’s 2.30’, I said.
‘I’m reading Gorky Park.’
‘That explains it. Goodnight.’
I slept late. By the time I got up, Hilde had gone off to do her dental research. She tells me that fluoride in the water has cut dental decay by 84 per cent, so that the emphasis in her trade these days is on preserving and presenting the dentition. When I asked her what that meant she said, ‘Capping and straightening’. I understood that.