Black Tide by Peter Temple Page B

dark with sweat after tennis, the gleam that lay on her light-brown skin, that she didn’t look at me, that she was looking at my mother, laughing, punching me gently on the upper arm with her left hand, holding my right hand playfully, her palm upward, not letting go.
    Then she said, ‘Oh God, the time. Off, off. Lucy, darling, lovely afternoon. Jack, you’re my mixed partner for Portsea. Knock their socks off. People coming for dinner. Boring brokers. Nothing done, absolutely nothing. Neil will be livid.’
    I remember the smell of juniper on her breath.
    And I remember something else: her eyes locked with my mother’s, she drew a fingernail down the inside of my hand, from the callused flesh at the base of the fingers to the centre of the palm.
    And there, in that tender delta, her long nail scratched.
    Wanton. Exquisite. Unbearable.
    ‘Changing your mind?’ Sylvia said, still holding my hand.
    I broke the clasp. ‘Another time perhaps,’ I said unsteadily. ‘Cyril, a word.’
    He followed me onto the landing.
    I gave him a card with Gary Connors’ name on it. ‘The favour,’ I said. ‘Just the most recent spending. Anything with his name on it. Might not be on his plastic. Might have paid cash.’
    Wootton didn’t look happy. He didn’t like to use his expensive network of underpaid credit-card, airline and car-hire clerks when he wasn’t making anything out of it. ‘I’ll ring you after 9 a.m.,’ he said. ‘Once.’
    ‘Thank you. I leave the witnesses in your capable hands. In a very loose manner of speaking. Mind you don’t put it on Bren’s bill.’
    Outside the bar door of the Prince, hand raised to push, I paused. Raised voices within. I hadn’t heard the Fitzroy Youth Club so animated since the night it became clear that the Fitzroy Football Club was going to be given to Brisbane. Given with a bag of money.
    I pushed, looked straight across the room into the publican’s eyes. Stan was leaning against the service hatch between the bar and what would be called the kitchen if what came out of it could be called food. He gave me a resigned nod.
    I sat down on the right flank of the club. No-one paid any attention to me. Norm O’Neill was saying, voice deep and dangerous, hands flat on the bar, heroic nose aimed at the dim, tobacco-dyed, fly-specked ceiling, ‘I suppose, Eric, I suppose, it’s off with the old and on with the new. Easy as that.’
    ‘Well,’ said Eric Tanner, looking a little shrunken, ‘can’t see the bloody fuss. Always bin me second team.’
    ‘Second team?’ Wilbur Ong said. ‘Second team? Since when did a man have a second team? Can’t recall you tellin us you had a second team. Bit of news. Bit of a shock. Takes a bit of gettin used to, that idea. Second team. Raises a question or two. How does a man get the proper spirit when his first team’s playin his second in a final? Got an answer to that? Got an answer, have you?’
    ‘Given the sides,’ said Eric, ‘that’s a bit hyperthetical.’
    ‘Oh it is, is it? Here’s an example: 1913.’
    ‘Hang on,’ said Eric, ‘that’s before the first war.’
    ‘Oh right. Thought it was hyperthetical. Depends on bloody when then, does it?’
    Eric sighed, made a gesture of dismissal. ‘Stuck in the past, you blokes. Can’t bring the Roys back, everythin’s moved on. Well, it’s round five and I’m not sittin around here anymore lookin at your ugly mugs on a Satdee arvo.’
    Norm O’Neill took a deep drink, wiped his lips, didn’t look at Eric, said at a volume that bounced off the ceiling. ‘Yes, well, off ya go. What’s a lifetime anyway? Saint Kilda’s waitin for you. Club’s holdin its breath. Whole stand’ll jump up, here’s Eric Tanner, boys, welcome Eric, three cheers for Eric Tanner, hip bloody hip, bloody hooray.’
    The whole bar had gone quiet. I looked around. Charlie was shaking his head, always a sign that something needed doing. I took a deep breath, cleared my throat. It felt like