The Shadow Maker (31 page)

He couldn’t afford to relax. After going through his strategy for the next meeting, he drank down the rest of his coffee, straightened his tie, got up and walked towards the TV network office among the buildings looming over the harbour. As he strode up the slope the metallic whirr of the monorail zoomed overhead.

He’d been summoned by the network’s head of programming

- media super-bitch Curtis Cole. Most people in the industry knew her only by way of poisonous gossip, but Barbie knew her intimately as well as professionally. It was a daunting privilege and a burden.

She was one of the reasons he’d switched his career base back to Melbourne.

They’d met when they started in television together on a children’s program - he as showbiz reporter, she as producer. They were both in their early twenties and their professional relationship quickly became something more. They’d tried living together but couldn’t settle into conventional roles. It had turned out to be no more than a volatile fling ending in a salvo of recriminations. She was too bossy and demanding, accusing him of being too detached. She behaved like a bully. He treated the relationship like a game. That was over ten years ago, when they were at the bottom of the heap and little more than overgrown kids. Now they were both at the top and thoroughly adult-rated.

Curtis’s appearance belied her reputation. She was slim and petite, with dark curly hair, gypsy-black eyes, full lips and the face of an angel - though what came out of her mouth was hardly angelic.

Verbal abuse was one of her strong points. She packed a literal punch, with Barbie on the receiving end more than once. Like the time he made a joke about her westie background and called her a bogan. She’d replied with a left hook that nearly dislocated his jaw.

After that he chose his words carefully, which was just as well given her rapid rise through the corporate ranks. She was now tipped as the TV channel’s next chief executive, and no man dared put a glass ceiling in her way. She’d blow a hole in it with a bazooka.

Curtis interested Barbie in a compulsive sort of way, like watching an executioner in action. She had a frightening combination of looks, perception, mental certitude and the instincts of a hammerhead shark. She’d devoured her way to the top by adhering to the agenda of the tyrant - motivation by intimidation - and by outspending her rivals in the ratings war. She was a living embodiment of the dynamic of aggression.

Barbie sat patiently in her office suite while Curtis aimed her rancour down the phone, apparently at an interstate line manager, telling him variously to ‘get a grip’, ‘find your balls’, ‘stop being a softcock’ and ‘sack the dickhead’. She was wearing a salmon pink suit opening on a red silk top, and Barbie wondered what sort of statement she was trying to make with it. As the one-sided conversation dragged on, it became even louder and more irksome. Barbie got up, strolled to the window and took in the view over Darling Harbour. Life was so much less stressful down there.

The sound of Curtis finally slamming down the phone pulled him back from the window.

‘For Christ’s sake, Barbie, stop hovering and sit down.’

He did as he was told and waited.

‘You know why you’re here.’

‘Ratings?’

‘Well it’s not to play tonsil hockey. Of course bloody ratings.

You’re not delivering. Why not?’

‘It’s summer, Curtis,’ he said, smoothing down his jacket.

‘Fuck that!’

‘You have another explanation?’

‘No wow factor. Your show’s gone stale.’ She thumped the desk with her tight little fist. ‘As presenter and producer that’s down to you.’

Barbie sighed. ‘Have you got me here just to have a fight?’

‘Not
just
a fight, no. But that’s top of the agenda.’

‘As long as I don’t end up with more bruises,’ he said, his face calm and patient.

‘Don’t count on it.’ A hint of humour played around her lips, but then her already dark eyes darkened further. ‘My spies in Melbourne tell me the show’s on the slide because you’re playing hookey on me. Not putting in the time. Too busy with other enterprises. Don’t forget, I’ve got personal experience with your lack of commitment,’ she said, waving an admonishing finger at him.

‘I’ll bet you rehearsed that one,’ he said, thoroughly unimpressed.

‘But it’s not true. Your spies are fools.’

‘I’m getting feedback direct from your studio floor.’

‘Tittle-tattle from toadies.’

‘Nothing gets past me. I’m fed information from everywhere in this industry.’

‘Unreliable sources.’

‘Don’t try to bullshit me. I’m the gatekeeper. I know who you are.’ She slapped the top of her desk, making her black paperclips jump, then reached for a file of photocopied cuttings. ‘Have you read what the critics are saying about your show? Look at the headlines. gold rush goes down the pan. Wonderful publicity.

And this one: you-reeker!’

‘That’s quite clever.’

‘Not for the network it isn’t!’

‘Then the network’s paranoid.’

She threw the file at him.

He batted it away with a deft backhand, then said, ‘Calm down, Curtis, before you wear out your batteries.’

She stretched forward on her desk, face flushed with anger. ‘You won’t be so smug if you lose your prime-time slot. And I’ll do it, too,’ she warned. ‘And don’t bother threatening to switch networks.’

‘I’ll leave the threats to you.’

‘Good. Because you’re one step away from being rescheduled, cost-cut and held to contract. Fancy spending the next two years in late-night oblivion?’

‘You know what your problem is and always was?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘A lack of faith.’

She gave a derisory laugh, ‘Faith in you gets a girl nothing but broken promises.’

‘It could never have worked. Trust me.’ Then he went on dispassionately, ‘We’re not real people, you and I. We don’t live in the real world. We inhabit a consensual fantasy. Like the line from the song.

We broadcast our images in space and in time. And we’re experts at it. The best. You as a commodity broker. Me as a brand name.’

‘What’s your point?’

‘My show is my shop window. Me as product in the spotlight.

To suggest I’d let myself be degraded is ridiculous.’ He glowered at her. ‘I’m telling you now,
Gold Rush
is still a winner. The contestants are one week away from turning on each other. It’ll be dog-eat-dog.

The viewers will love it. The critics will swallow their words. The network will be full of self-congratulation. You can doubt me on anything else, but not this.’

‘You’ve got till the end of the month,’ she snapped, before picking up her mobile phone and putting it in her handbag. ‘I knew it was worth hauling you here for a face-to-face.’

‘Does that mean our fight’s over?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Now let’s go eat and get drunk together.’

She’d booked a table at Doyles, so they took the company launch across the harbour. The water was choppy, the wind whipping up spray as the prow slapped against the waves. In their wake lay the Opera House, the late gleam of the sun brushing its arches with a tint of dusk. Behind it rose the Harbour Bridge and the city skyline, the angles of the buildings burnished in the light.

‘You should never have left Sydney,’ she told him, to which he didn’t respond.

The launch dropped them off at the Watsons Bay pier. Clearly a favoured customer, she’d been given an outside table for two under the awning. The significance wasn’t lost on him. It was where they’d shared their first date more than a decade ago. But why had she brought him here? Nostalgia? To make some sort of point? Revenge?

If he didn’t know what she wanted, it was harder to negotiate - and with her there was always a transaction involved.

As they sat down Curtis ordered a bottle of vintage chardonnay.

The waitress filled their glasses and Curtis raised hers for a toast.

‘To old times.’

‘Is that why we’re here?’ said Barbie, deadpan.

‘I thought we’d revisit our roots.’

He spotted the glint in her eye - and the double entendre

- and their glasses clinked like the soft chime of a bell to ring in Round Two.

It was dangerously familiar. The restaurant had the same seductive old charm. Mostly couples at the tables. Languid conversations. The tang of seafood. And opening out beyond the stretch of sand, the vast rippling sweep of the harbour.

‘It’s a special city,’ he said as he looked out over the water. ‘Scene of my liberation.’

‘Whatever happened to your father?’

His jaw tightened and he put down his glass. ‘He died. Just over four years ago. Why do you ask?’

‘He beat the shit out of you as a kid, didn’t he?’

Barbie took a short, sharp breath. ‘Yes.’

‘Nasty old bugger, wasn’t he? Served the Nazis in Estonia. Some sort of war criminal.’

Barbie answered slowly, an unnatural heaviness in his voice. ‘He was investigated. But there were no proceedings against him.’

‘Not enough evidence,’ she said glibly.

As he wondered where this was leading, the waitress returned.

Curtis ordered oysters as a starter for both of them and lobster for her main course. Barbie asked for the barramundi.

‘So,’ she resumed. ‘Tell me. How bad was it? As a kid.’

He rubbed his eyes, feeling suddenly tired. ‘It was bad.’

He gulped down the rest of his wine and observed the sunset casting a blood-red glow over the darkening harbour.

She watched his cheek muscles harden as he struggled with his inner demons. ‘Go on,’ she said.

As Barbie’s eyes fell on her he realised she was the only person he’d ever bared his soul to. He could do it because of the unbridled intimacy they’d shared and because her soul was as debased as his.

He refilled his glass, drank some more and stared into the middle distance. ‘The bathroom was where he did it. Like a ritual. Marching me into the punishment chamber.’ He was speaking in a monotone now, controlling the flow. ‘The first beating I can remember, I must’ve been three years old. But it got worse as I got older. He was still doing it when I was at grammar school, using his belt with the big metal buckle. He was a devout churchgoer by then. A fundamentalist. He’d make me strip off while he thrashed the wickedness out of me and recited the Bible. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” Old Testament quotations.

“Wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” “Honour thy father -”’ Barbie’s voice trailed off. He turned and looked at her, a deadness in his eyes. ‘I had to wipe up my own blood afterwards.’

Then the oysters arrived.

They tipped them into their mouths and drank more wine and watched the night swallow up the view, leaving a scattering of lights to dance upon the water. Gradually he recovered his composure.

‘How’s your wife?’ Curtis asked, deliberately changing the dynamic.

‘Fine, thank you,’ he said, wary now.

‘What do you see in her?’

He thought for a moment and said, ‘Dependability.’

‘You make her sound like a four-wheel drive.’ Curtis had never met the woman but she hated her anyway. ‘Give you much of a ride?’

‘We have a rewarding marriage.’

‘That’s a “no” then.’

She smiled to herself as she slid the last of the oysters down her throat and ordered another bottle of wine. He drummed his fingers on the pale blue tablecloth and wondered what she was after. It wouldn’t matter so much if his economic position weren’t so precarious. As if to underscore the problem his mobile phone bleeped and he pulled it from his pocket to find a text message from Jojima, saying there was no change yet in corporate thinking about the VR game. No change meant no deal. Great. The bank, the TV

network and now Tokyo. One after another they were threatening to pull the support from under him, leaving him financially exposed like a tightrope walker with no safety net.

When the waitress delivered the main course he’d lost his appetite. He picked at his fish while Curtis cracked open her lobster with relish.

‘You’ve got a wife who’s
dependable
,’ she said sarcastically. ‘So where do you get your kicks?’

He shrugged off the question, but she went on. ‘I know your secret vices. I helped you find them. You and an honest marriage just don’t go together - like wanking at Sunday school.’

‘Charming.’

‘Still got a thing for prostitutes?’

He bent forward on his elbows. ‘I’m a respectable married man.’

‘Know what I think? I think your marriage is just another commercial production. And why not? Like you said, that’s what we do. Project the fantasy. We’re the best in the business.’

He didn’t bother to disagree, but asked, ‘What about you? No husband on your running order?’

She laughed and wiped her mouth on a napkin. ‘Can’t find a man whose cock’s as good as yours.’

‘Curtis, that’s years ago.’

‘Big deal. You pressed the right buttons.’ She flicked back her curls, reached over, laid a hand on his and looked into his eyes. ‘You and I are two of a kind.’

That’s when he realised what she was after - what this evening was really about. She wanted sex. With a smile of relief he took hold of her hand, dipped forward and brushed it with his lips.

When they’d finished their meal and their third bottle of wine she got out her phone and ordered a water taxi.

‘I’ve got a beach apartment in Manly,’ she explained. ‘More relaxing than going back to the city.’

As they strolled down to the jetty, the vibrancy of the night around them, the lights on the water, the waves hissing along the shore, he peeled off his jacket and hooked it in his hand over his shoulder - just as he’d done on their first date over ten years ago.

Despite his misgivings he felt strangely calm. It seemed he could be more honest with Curtis - in a warped kind of way - than with anyone else. Between fights, they clicked. She was a cruel bitch and he was an ineffable bastard, but in their occasional moments together it didn’t matter. Nor did the decadence of the world they lived in, where fathers could torture their sons in the name of deliverance, and daughters could indulge in backstreet fornication. They were both at home with corruption and perhaps, in the end, they would stroll with one another to damnation. As the water taxi pulled up, waiting patiently like the boat of Charon, the thought didn’t bother him at all.