I Am (Not) the Walrus (20 page)

34

Tuesday

I have a plan.

The first part of the plan is that I tell Michelle I'm getting on the ten o'clock bus to Port Jackson.

That goes off without a hitch.

The second part of the plan is that I say goodbye to Michelle, then get on the bus. Once I'm on the bus I watch her leave the bus station, then as soon as she's out of sight, I get back off the bus and make my way back to Julie's building.

That seems to go okay as well.

The third part of the plan is that I go up to Julie's flat, persuade Rupert to give me back the bass, then return to the bus station in time to catch the last bus, which leaves at eleven.

Like all good plans, it's simple, but maybe it's a little too simple. Maybe I should have worked out a few of the details and prepared myself for some variables.

The first variable is that Julie's neighborhood at night has very little in common with her neighborhood during the day. A group of three heavyset gents in black hoodies throw pretend karate kicks at each other on the corner of her street.

Several sirens swell and fade. The karate gents are using the entire width of the sidewalk as their dojo. I'm just about to cross to the opposite side of the street when a police car and an ambulance fly past with their lights flickering.

I change my mind about crossing over. In the blue glow, I catch sight of a biker with his arm around the waist of a girl not much older than Michelle. A few yards farther, a kid on a mini-motorcycle is tossing brick-sized bags in through the open window of an SUV.

I have no choice but to brave the karate gents. There's a yell. One of them stumbles backward across the sidewalk and slams into a street lamp. He looks like he's in a film being played backward, and speeded up. Under the right circumstances I'd probably find this funny.

These are not the right circumstances. I don't even want to smile in this part of town, let alone laugh.

The guy folds forward to catch his breath.

This is probably my best chance. I march toward them. Just as I'm about level, the one who was catching his breath snaps upright and charges back at the other two. He's just about to plow right over me when he stops.

“Alright, mate,” he says, and nods at me.

His expression is not so much fear, as uncertainty. He has no idea who I am. He's as scared of me as I am of him.

Makes no sense.

Finally, I arrive at Julie's driveway. I stop at the gate, and scan the front garden. It's pitch black, apart from the few streaks of light that have managed to filter through the bushes. I move into the shadows by the gate, and give my eyes time to adjust. A jumble of different styles of music and TV shows spill down into the front garden and merge with the distant roar of traffic and sirens. It reminds me a little of the Beatles's “Revolution Number Nine,” from
The
White Album
.

A flurry of pops erupts in the distance. I don't like to think about what they are.

When I'm satisfied that nobody's lying in wait for me, I make my way up to the front door. This is it. This is as far my plan goes. Rush up the stairs, kick Julie's door in, and take Rupert by surprise. Somehow it slipped my mind that I'd have to kick the street door in as well. Now that I'm here, I don't really want to kick anybody's door in. I would have repaired Julie's door for her, but I don't want to be responsible for repairing the street door as well. All-night carpentry isn't one of my strong points. Especially in a
war zone.

On the other hand, this door looks so flimsy that it seems like even an outburst of strong language would probably knock it off its hinges. First I lean on it, but it stays put. I try pushing, but pushing gets me no farther than leaning. Finally, I shove my shoulder into it as if I'm going into a rugby scrum, but all I get is a sore shoulder.

My last resort. My finger hovers over Julie's bell. So much for surprise. Not that my idea was that much of a good idea in the first place.

I push the bell.

I wait for the voice on the intercom. Will it be Julie? Or will it be Rupert? And which of them will be less pleased that I've come visiting?

But there's no voice on the intercom. Just a scream from one of the TVs. It's a man screaming. For some reason, I find this more disturbing than the sound of a woman screaming. What's even more disturbing is that I'm not 100 percent certain that the scream came from a TV.

I need to rethink this. Maybe I should just go home. I'm just on the point of turning around, heading for the bus station, when I hear voices. A moment later a couple staggers through the gateway. They're the Hells Angel and the much younger girl I saw out in the street.

The girl stops and studies the front of the building. Seeing her up close, she's not actually as young as I thought when I saw her earlier.

“Got your key?” she says to the angel.

“Shit,” he says as he pats his pockets down.

“Just as well, I remembered mine,” says the girl, waving her key ring. “You'd forget your head if it wasn't fastened on.”

I move off to one side as she runs past me up the steps. She glances at me. I smile at her, but she doesn't smile back. I move even farther to the side as the guy sways past me. He smells even worse than the toilet-changing-room at the Jubliee Cinema. He burps, but doesn't look at me.

The woman unlocks the door and sashays inside. The man follows her. He lets the door swing shut behind him. I strain my ears, but I don't hear the click of the latch. I give them a moment to get upstairs, then I try the door again. This time it swings open and I step into the greenish light of the lobby.

35

Tuesday

I stay back in the shadows while the Hell's Angel hauls himself to the top of the first flight of stairs. He stops and stretches when he reaches the landing, and then disappears through an open door. Just as he shuts the door there's a pop, and everything goes black.

Fantastic. One more thing I didn't factor into my plans. The hall lights are on time switches.

It really is pitch black, so I push the front door open a fraction. This throws an eerie glow across everything, which is not quite bright enough to make out any details. I slide my hand along the wall until I find the time switch. It's one of the push-button kind. I punch it, and the darkness is replaced once again by a greenish gloom.

I wonder how long the light is going to stay on. If the Hell's Angel punched the switch as soon as he got through the door, and then the light went off just as he got inside his flat, then the lights must stay on for about a minute.

Sounds about right.

Just to make sure I get my full minute, I wait for the light to go off, and then hit the switch again. The light flickers on with a loud clicking sound, and I head up the first flight of stairs as softly as I can. I go especially softly past the Hell's Angel's door.

I wait for the downstairs light to pop off, then I hit the second floor switch and run up to the next flight. I go through the same procedure at the third set, and then I'm on the little top-floor landing, which has only one door. Julie's.

I lean over the banisters. This must have been quite a fancy building at one time. The stairs spiral down and round, like the inside of a shell, before coming to an end on the black-and-white tiled floor about forty feet below. I was wrong about the lights staying on for a minute. The second floor light is still on. They must stay on for random amounts of time.

It seems quiet up here, and I get the feeling there's nobody home. I press my ear against the door. The wooden surface is cool and smooth. I can't hear anything, although it's difficult to be sure with the clicking sound of the light. I stand back. There are three slow clicks, and then the light pops off. It's not totally dark though. The light from the second floor is still on, and I can just make out that there's another light switch next to the door.

I punch the switch, and shove the door.

It feels really solid. I guess kicking doors off their hinges isn't really my thing. Perhaps if I'd invited a couple of the karate guys from down on the street and brought them up here with me. Maybe then I might have a chance of forcing the door open.

But me on my own? Not a chance. I reckon I could easily break my ankle if I tried kicking it open.

The clicking noise slows down, and a moment later the light pops off. I punch the switch again, and almost at exactly the same moment the street door bangs shut downstairs.

I lean over the banisters and look straight down the spiral stairwell. I hear footsteps cross the tiles, but whoever it is remains hidden by the stairs. The sound of a man clearing his throat echoes upward, and that sound is followed by footsteps pounding up the first set of stairs. The second-floor light comes on and more footsteps, closer this time.

The third-floor light snaps on, and finally I get a brief look at him. I spring away from the banister and flatten myself against the wall. It's a man with no shirt, carrying something long and shiny. The landing I'm on has only one feature. Julie's doorway. Nowhere to hide. I catch a glance of Rupert's pork pie hat as he mounts the third flight of stairs. I crouch down so I'm out of his line of sight.

The footsteps slow.

Has he seen me?

Has he slowed down because he's out of breath?

Or does he just know I'm here out of instinct?

Three more footsteps. He's almost at the top. I catch a glimpse of the pork pie hat, then, click … click … click. The overhead light snaps off.

“Shit,” says Rupert.

As for me, if I wasn't trying to hide I could say the same thing. It's not completely dark. There's a glow from downstairs. Probably the second-floor light. I look up. Rupert is outlined in a perfect silhouette in front of me. I can even make out his sunglasses. Grasped in one hand is the p-bass.

He has to be able to see me, and yet he doesn't say anything to me?

“Shit,” he says again, but not to me as far I can tell. He reaches into his pocket and pulls something out. A knife? My heart pounds, but it's only a key.

He can't see me. It's totally insane. It could barely be described as dark up here.

Then I get it.

The sunglasses! I'm not sure which of us is the bigger fool. Him or me. He balances the bass across the top of the banisters, then reaches forward and prods around the door frame. I guess he's looking for the switch. Just at that moment the downstairs light goes off.

Now we really are in the dark. If I have any chance at all, then this is it. I spring to my feet. “Hi, Rupert,” I say.

“Good sir,” he says.

I angle myself toward the sound of his voice, bend forward, and ram the top of my head into something that feels too hard to be Rupert's stomach.

“Jesus!” he yells. For a second nothing happens. I'm about to ram him again when something that sounds like a heavy suitcase goes tumbling down the stairs.

There's another sound—wood sliding on wood—and then the sound of one of the stair rods snapping.

I have just enough time for one breath when I hear the worst sound of all. It's the sound of something heavy hitting the tiles in the lobby. It's a sharp, splintering crack, a little like the sound a whip makes but with a kind of musical throb underneath it.

I punch the light. A shirtless figure lies crumpled a dozen stairs below me. “Rupert,” I say. For a second I think I've killed him, but then he looks up at me.

“Good evening, good sir,” he says.

It's Rupert's voice, but I hardly recognize him without the sunglasses. He has the saddest eyes I've ever seen.

“Are you all right?” I say. I come down a couple of steps, but I don't want to get too close, as he may still be dangerous.

He points toward one of his feet. “I don't think I'll make the football season this year.”

I follow his finger and notice that he seems to have a shoe on backward. The snapping sound I heard wasn't a banister. It was Rupert's ankle. He must be in agony, but he's just lying there as if he decided to take a nap halfway up the stairs.

“Where's Julie?” I say.

“She's at work,” he says, and then I notice the slur in his words. I don't know what Rupert's been dosing himself with, but it's got to be one hell of a painkiller.

Something shiny catches my eye. The key is lying on the landing. Rupert must have dropped it when I hit him. I pick it up. “I'll go in and call an ambulance,” I say, holding up the key.

“Very decent of you,” he says.

I unlock Julie's door, find the phone, and call for the emergency services. I give them the address, tell them the front door is open, then go back to the landing.

“Help is on its way,” I tell him, then look over the banisters again.

Far below, shattered on the tiled floor, with its neck splintered, its body smashed, and the whole thing held together only by its strings, is the p-bass.

I stare at it.

Even like this it's beautiful.

Like a sculpture.

“I wasn't going to hurt you.” Rupert's voice cuts into my thoughts. “I just wanted the bass back.”

“That's nice to know,” I say. I tear myself away from the sight of the p-bass and sit down on the top step. I still don't believe him.

“I just wanted the bass back,” he says. He shifts and draws in a sharp breath. “That's all I wanted to do. I just wanted to play bass in a band.”

“You have an unusual way of going about it,” I say. “Why couldn't you just buy a cheap bass and learn to play it like everyone else does?”

“Once you've played a bass that was owned by George Harrison, you can't go back to any old bass,” he says. “Can you imagine how sad that would be?”

I can imagine it, but I try not to. “You believe that?” I say. “Was it really George Harrison's?”

“I think it was,” he says. “Who the hell knows for sure?” He tries to shift his position again. “In the end, who cares?”

I'm not sure what to say to this, but I don't have to say anything as a siren sounds outside on the street.

The siren becomes almost deafening, and then stops. There's a flurry of voices and radios, then someone hammers on the downstairs door.

I hit the light again, then I make my way down the stairs. I vault over Rupert without touching him, and jog the rest of the way down. As I pass his door, the Hell's Angel pokes his head out.

Down in the lobby, I step over what's left of the bass and open the door. Three ambulance men barge in, almost pushing me over. I point up the stairs. “He's on the third floor,” I say. The ambulance men thunder up the stairs with their radios chattering. More people have come out to look. Heads peer over the banisters.

I look down at what's left of the bass.

Not even Harry Haller could fix this.

I stack the pieces together, being careful not to get any splinters. The head has come away from the neck, but the strings are still attached. I wind them around everything to keep it all together, then stuff the whole thing under my arm.

A moment later I'm outside. I don't have much time to get to the bus stop, but I have one last call to make. I jog back past where I saw the karate guys, past where I saw the kid on the mini-bike, and finally get back to the boardwalk.

The tide has come in and the waves are lapping at the foot of the lifeguard stand. Ignoring my wet feet, I wade across to the stand and clamber up onto the platform. I watch the sky flicker for a moment. I wait for a fair-sized wave to roll in, then I swing my arm back and hurl the bass out as far as it'll go.

I take a long breath, and then I hear the splash. Sounds like it was one of my better throws.

I jump back down to the beach and head for the bus station. I wonder what'll happen to the bass. I don't even know if it'll sink or float. If it floats, maybe it'll wash out to sea and end up in France. Maybe it could even float back to America where it came from.

Five minutes later I'm on the bus, heading back to Port Jackson.