Guns 'n' Rose (14 page)

‘Aaarrghh rhnhtt grshlirp oorghiij,' begged the man in the cape.

‘What in the fuck's that?' said Les.

‘Christ! I just hope he doesn't see me,' answered Jimmy.

At the sound of their voices the man spun around in a flourish of glinting, green talisman and swirling cape. As soon as he spotted Jimmy his eyes lit up and spun round wilder than ever.

‘James, James, my friend. It is you. It is ordained. It is written in the stars. It is truly the prophecy. The great one has … grrnhhh arrghnnh sckrorghhn nyennnhh.' The man went into another hail of complete gibberish, then knelt at Jimmy's feet and kissed the back of his hand.

‘So what's up, Crazy? They won't let you in?'

‘Aarrrghjkt.'

‘And you've got no money.'

‘Zzzjghrrngh.'

‘Well I can't fuckin' help you.'

‘Aaarrrghnjrghnjjkkngh,' howled the thing in the cape.

‘Ohh, for Christ's sake. Here.' Jimmy pulled out twenty dollars and gave it to the cape who immediately went into even greater raptures, bowing in front of Jimmy and kissing his fingers.

‘Oh, blessed one. Oh, pearl of the lotus flower. Light from ten thousand suns. Jewel of the cosmos. I will make you a jacket. I will make you a vest. I will… aarrgghhhjjkkgh ghrzzjwiijkll.' Then he noticed Les. He stood up, walked across and started pawing at Norton's vest. Les wasn't quite sure what was going on, whether he was trying to pick his pocket or what, and was half thinking of putting one up his ribcage. ‘This vest. This vest. I know it. You wear a creation of the
Shamash. Aarrghjklnmghj.' He looked up at Norton. ‘You are blessed. Greatness is upon you. You walk the shining path. The universe … nnggrrhllkjhgh.'

Norton shook his head then for some strange reason pulled a twenty out of his pocket also and handed it to the cape. ‘Will you please go away.'

‘Aaarrggghnjggrhtzzklnmmh.' The cape went into even bigger raptures again. ‘I am leaving. I am leaving. Oh, efendi. Oh, chosen one. This worthless pile of rags is leaving.'

‘Good. That's the best news I've heard all night.'

‘But before I go,' the cape held up the talisman in the palm of his right hand, ‘what do you see here, my friend?'

‘A lump of green glass on a piece of tin can.'

The cape shook his head adamantly. ‘No. It is the sacred stone of the Pharisee.'

‘Go on.'

‘And do you know what the sacred stone does?'

‘I wouldn't have a fuckin' clue,' said Norton.

‘Turns me into Michael Jackson.'

The cape turned side on, pointed the hand with the gardening glove on it up in the air and struck a pose like John Travolta in
Saturday Night Fever
, then moonwalked down the driveway, through the people and off into the night. Norton looked at him in bewilderment for a moment, then he and Jimmy walked past the doormen and through the revolving door.

‘What the fuck was that all about?' Les asked Jimmy.

‘That's Crazy—the Shamash. He likes a drop of Jack Daniels.'

‘Crazy?' Norton shook his head. ‘Stark raving mad'd be more like it. The cunt should be wearing a fuckin' straitjacket. Not a cape.'

‘He's also the bloke that made your vest.'

‘What!?' Norton stopped dead. ‘That gibbering, drunken idiot made this? Why didn't you tell me? I'd've slung him another twenty bucks and got him to measure me up for another one. Where do I find him?'

‘Don't worry, Les. From now on, he'll find you.'

They climbed the stairs to the Baron Riley Bar.

It was nowhere near packed, but there was quite a good crowd. All the tables were taken with couples or small groups of friends, as were the stools round the bar, and between the serving area and the dance floor stood a group of men with name tags drinking mainly beer on some company account. Instead of the piano player an attractive, dark-haired girl in a black leather vest and matching skirt was seated on a stool strumming a guitar in front of a sequencer. As they walked in she was warbling ‘All I Want to Do is Have Some Fun' and doing a pretty good job; two couples were on the dance floor and most of the tables were singing along as well. She was that good Norton started to join in himself as they crossed to the bar.

‘What do you want, Jimmy? I'll get them.'

Jimmy thought for a moment. ‘Get me a Bacardi and orange with a dash of strawberry liqueur.'

‘Sounds all right. I might even have one of those myself.'

This time Les got a tall barman with a Canadian accent, along with another pleasant smile, and soon had the two drinks.

‘Why don't we stand over there.' Jimmy took his drink and pointed to an archway near the corner of the bar closest to the pool area.

‘Yeah, righto.' Les followed Jimmy over and had a sip. ‘Hey, not bad, James.'

‘Yeah, I noticed what you were drinking earlier. It's not quite the same. But it's still a nice way to go.'

‘Gee, I drank some nice rum when I was in Jamaica.'

‘Yeah?'

Les related to Jimmy an anecdote or two about Jamaican rum and margaritas in Florida. Jimmy said he picked up a taste for good wine after working in a winery for a while and doing a course in it. Now it was a bit of a hobby. Beer always bloated him and if he went out he liked cocktails or light rum. They nattered about this and that while they checked out the punters and talked about the singer, who did an Oasis song, then an old Van Morrison, and took a break. Jimmy got the next two drinks and they stayed near the archway listening to a tape playing through the speakers. A couple round the end got up to go and left two empty stools. Les was about to point this out to Jimmy when he noticed a woman seated near the corner, leaning around gesturing to him. She was barely sitting a few metres away, so Norton started to check her out. She looked around forty with corporate-style, brown hair and a very pretty, very foxy face. A denim skirt with a long split up the side and a maroon, knitted top displayed enough flat, hard boobs and tanned arms and legs to show she was madly into aerobics. Next to her, a girl about thirty with pale blue eyes and short black hair tucked behind her ears got up
to get something from her pocket. She was wearing a short-sleeved white shirt tucked into faded blue jeans and was a bit more solid than the older one with much bigger boobs. The older one gestured again. What the hell? thought Les, starting to walk over. I wonder if she's seen
Taxi Driver
?

‘Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Me? Are you talkin' to me?'

‘Listen, come here,' said Maroon Top. She took Norton by the elbow. ‘Are you and your friend gay?'

‘What!?'

‘I want to know, are you and your friend gay?'

Les gave her a blank look. What she said was hardly worth an answer, let alone any witty kind of verbal repartee. ‘What a stupid bloody question. What would you have said if I'd have come over and asked you if you and that scrubber with you were dykes?'

‘Oh, well you know what I mean.'

‘No, I don't know what you mean.'

‘All right then. You're not poofs.'

‘Thank you. And if you ever say that to me again, I'll hit you with my handbag.'

‘Listen, why don't you and your friend come and join us. There's two empty stools there.'

‘Hang on.' Les went back to Jimmy.

‘What's going on?' he asked.

‘Do you want to come over and have a talk to these two potatoes. I don't know them, but there's a couple of stools there and it's better than standing up.'

Jimmy took a look over Norton's shoulder. ‘Yeah, why not. I'd just as soon sit down. And if they get too punishing we can ignore them.'

‘What'll we tell them?'

‘I don't know. You think of something. I'm just a poor dumb abo.'

They walked over and shuffled the stools around; Les finished up next to the older one and noticed she was drunk, but not as drunk as her girlfriend.

‘Anyway, I'm Les and this is James.'

‘Megan,' said the older one.

‘And I'm Paula,' said the other one, already drooling over Jimmy and wondering how he'd managed to fall into her lap.

‘So, are you two up here on holidays?' asked Megan.

‘No,' said Les. ‘We own a string of fashion boutiques on the North Shore and we're up here buying some clothes off a local designer.'

‘Who?' asked Megan.

‘The Shamash. The Chosen One.'

‘Never heard of him.'

‘You've never heard of the Shamash?' said Jimmy. ‘El Crazino.'

‘No.'

‘Me neither,' said Paula.

‘Then you have surely not trodden the golden path. Nor been blessed by the Messiah of the sacred delicious. Grrnhhgjkknllgh.'

Megan and Paula looked at each other then back at Jimmy. ‘What?'

‘Don't worry about it,' said Les. ‘Your day of atonement will come. Zzzjkkgmjllknh. So what do you two girls do?'

They both worked for the same bank, different branches, and tomorrow was an RDO so they were
both out on the drink and having a bit of a knees-up. Megan had two kids and was divorced and, like Norton guessed, was an aerobics princess and sometimes taught classes. Paula was single, had never been married, played netball and was a lifesaver at some beach and rowed in the boat crew. They lived together at Copacabana, had got a lift over with Paula's brother and were catching a taxi home. Megan was into Jack Daniels and Paula was hitting up on Bundy and Coke.

Les ordered four of what he and Jimmy were drinking and handed them round. The girls thought the drinks were delightful and it helped break the ice. Not that the ice needed much breaking. Paula was Jimmy's for the taking and Megan was all Norton's way. Normally Les didn't get off on older women. It wasn't a hangup about age or anything. It was just that he'd had a couple of liaisons with divorcees when he first arrived at Bondi and it was okay. Except that when you'd see them down the beach with their children the next day you knew what the kids were thinking and it didn't exactly make you feel like beating your chest. Then if the ex-husband happened to come ambling by you didn't quite feel like striking up a bright and breezy conversation with him either. Besides, there were that many younger, single women running around Sydney, why bother? But Megan was one horny aunty. Fit as a fiddle with sexy eyes and a film star face. And this was up here, not home. If Megan wanted to come back to the house later on for more cool ones and a bit of the other, ripper. It was truly the prophecy. Grrrnghjkklng.

The night proceeded swimmingly. The girl in the
black vest got up and did more songs and more drinks went down including four Chocolate Surprises. Then the singer cut into Bob Marley's ‘Is This Love?'

‘Ooh, this is one of my favourite songs,' said Megan. ‘Come on, Les. How about a dance?'

‘Yeah, righto.' Les got up, leaving Paula boozing on next to Jimmy.

There was plenty of room on the dance floor and Megan started flouncing and posing around doing more of a Jane Fonda workout to show everybody how fit and healthy she was, as much as dancing. Les looked at her for a moment and thought, oh well, here goes nothing, and started linedancing. Somehow he managed to get away with it. A frieze here, a couple of buttermilks there. Do-si-do and away we go. Megan was taken aback and surprisingly impressed by Norton's amazing versatility. She even tried to join in herself, but couldn't quite hack it. Norton was just too cool. The singer slipped into ‘Blue Suede Shoes' and Norton started bootscootin' again. After the last Chocolate Surprise he even threw in a bit of attitude. When that finished Megan didn't fancy being upstaged and said she wanted to sit down, which suited Les; even though he was doing it easy this time around, the denim and leather vest didn't quite cool him down. When they returned to their stools Paula said she wanted to go to the ladies. She was breaking her neck to go sooner but, like a good Aussie girl, there was no way in the world she was going to the can on her own and leave her very best girlfriend.

‘You'll be here when I get back, won't you, Les?' said Megan, picking her handbag up off the bar.

‘With every single beat of my heart. Oh, pearl of the lotus flower.'

‘I think I'm beginning to like you, Les.'

‘There's worse blokes out there than me, Megan.'

Norton took a swallow of his drink and as soon as they were out of earshot turned to Jimmy.

‘Well, what do you want to do with these two scozza's, Jimmy? That aunty's a bit of a horn. I wouldn't mind dragging her back to the gaff and seeing if she wants to play hide the sausage. How do you feel about the clubbie?'

‘Paula? Paula's got a jam melon for a head and about as much style as a pig with mad cow's disease.'

‘Yeah, but she hasn't got a bad set of tits.'

Jimmy reflected into his glass for a second. ‘Yeah, fuck it. Why not? At least she's better than what I've been looking at lately.'

‘Righto. Well, here's what I reckon we ought to do…'

The girls came back and sat down looking both relieved and like they'd had a good tete-a-tete in the ladies. Jimmy waited till they sat down and picked up their drinks.

‘Listen, it's all right in here, but we're getting sick of it. You want to come back to our place? There's a pool, music, plenty of booze. If we get our fingers out, I got us a lift.'

‘Who with?' said Megan.

‘My aunty's going to pick us up.'

‘Your aunty?' said Paula. Jimmy nodded. Paula looked at Megan for an answer she didn't need. ‘Sure—why not.'

‘Okay. Let's go,' said Megan.

They finished their drinks, the girls picked up their things and they walked downstairs to the foyer.

‘This aunty of yours,' said Megan, sounding a trifle suspicious, ‘she must be a sweet old thing to come out and get you in the middle of the night?'