Tonight’s quizmaster was a man of mature age and conventional tastes, aside from a penchant for multi-part questions.
‘Part One: The horse race that stops a nation is…’
Stuart gave Derek a look that said, let Sheilagh have a shot first. It was technically a sports question, but it touched on history and geography, and our expert in that area needed a confidence boost, or at least a bit of cheering up.
‘Melbourne Cup,’ she said.
Derek nodded: write it down.
‘Part Two: When is it held?’
The first Tuesday in November is a public holiday in Melbourne. The horse race may stop the nation for a few minutes, but it stops the host city for the whole day.
My colleagues were not going to accept any excuses for missing the department’s chicken and champagne breakfast at the Flemington Racecourse. Nor, to my surprise, was Angelina going to accept being left out of it.
‘I thought you had a commitment,’ I said.
‘I told you: I had about five invitations and I said no to all of them. I’m an actor, not some sort of…decoration for a bunch of middle-aged businessmen to ogle.’
‘Not sure my lot will be any more civilised.’
‘We’ll find out, won’t we?’
It was a bit of a lark: formal dress for some, fancy dress for others, plastic champagne flutes, takeaway chicken and all of it in the car park.
It took us a while to locate our group among the similarly attired racegoers with their coolers—eskies—and folding tables. Angelina was wearing a knee-length black dress with a black and red sash, black stockings, heels and the most elaborate hat I had ever seen, at least until that morning. Technically, it was not a hat but a fascinator, featuring a stiff net that floated to one side of her face. A racegoer dressed as a beer can recognised her and the two of them narrowly avoided knocking each other over.
Booze on a warm spring morning, high heels on asphalt and grass, fragile headgear: it was a recipe for sprained ankles and perhaps worse. There were signs of over-indulgence around us, but my colleagues behaved themselves and made Angelina welcome, after admonishing me for not sharing my personal life with them.
Angelina was more surprised than they were. ‘You haven’t told anyone you were seeing me?’
‘They’re my clients. For two more months, then I’m gone. I wouldn’t expect my doctor to tell me who he was dating.’
‘I get that, but…’
‘You’re Angelina Brown.’
She laughed. ‘I don’t know whether to be insulted or flattered.’
Apparently she decided that restricting my showing off to databases and piano playing was a positive, because she reached up and kissed me. In front of my workmates, one of whom decided it was an opportunity to introduce herself. Tina—on wobbly heels, with an entourage of admin staff.
I hardly saw her at work and had put our awkward half-date out of my mind. She had not.
‘Oh my God, everyone, this is Angelina Brown. Angelina, this is everyone. You’re not going to believe this, but I basically introduced them. I took Seagull to this bar…’
Angelina burst out laughing. ‘Seagull?’
Tina helpfully explained the joke, which fitted nicely with her story: ‘Because, no offence Adam, I got nominated to tell you, basically on behalf of everyone, to pull your head in a bit, which to be fair you have done, and she—Angelina—was there, in the bar, having a drink, and Sea…Adam…was like a rabbit in the headlights, so I said, “Play something on the piano.” I mean, he wasn’t going to impress her by sounding off about databases.’
‘Good advice,’ said Angelina.
‘Then, after you’d gone, I had to tell him who you were.’
‘You told him who I was? He said he’d never heard of me.’
History was already being rewritten.
‘Not until I told him. Of course, he was gobsmacked. Anyway, I could see where it was going. I walked out and, well, here you are.’
‘Thank you,’ said Angelina. ‘You were right: without the piano, I wouldn’t have been interested.’ She smiled. ‘And that might have been a mistake.’
‘Not bad for computer nerds and insurance clerks?’ I said, as we joined the throng heading into the racecourse proper.
‘They were great. Especially Tina. Considering you dumped her for me. Seagull.’
‘I suppose lawyers would be doing something a bit more salubrious.’
Angelina pulled an envelope from her handbag—red and black to match her dress—and passed it to me.
‘We’re about to find out.’
‘I thought you said no to the corporate events.’
‘Dad gave me these. He can’t go—conflict of interest. It’s one of the big law firms. Law’s different.’
I opened the envelope. Angelina apparently had not done so. Because with the tickets was a note. Tony: If you can’t make it, feel free to give these to your famous daughter. She’ll be a lot more decorative than you.
We were in one of the corporate marquees, in what was called the Birdcage, with no view of the actual races. It was all about the drinking and socialising, and I was grateful that I had gone easy on the bubbly at breakfast. Though Angelina knew only a couple of the guests, and then only vaguely, she still had plenty of attention.
The lawyers were predominantly male, from sharp-suited thirty-somethings to overweight barristers with double-breasted jackets unbuttoned in the heat. They were louder and more intoxicated than our morning group. Even with me at Angelina’s side, and the presence of wives and colleagues, a few were a bit boorish.
The women were dressed to the nines in hats and high heels, perhaps more expensively than the car-park crowd, but no less flamboyantly.
My accent led me into a conversation with one of them who was considering a move to the UK. Angelina excused herself to circulate, and the woman and I were well into the London housing market by the time she returned.
‘I’m going to put a bet on,’ she said. ‘Are you coming?’
‘I’m not a gambler.’
‘Come on—what about the roses you sent me?’
‘Seemed like a sure thing to me.’
‘Lucky you don’t gamble, then. But you have to have a bet on the Cup. Pick a horse.’
I scanned the whiteboard with its list of the twenty-three starters.
‘Empire Rose.’
Angelina held out her hand and I gave her ten dollars.
‘Each-way bet. Five for a win, five for a place.’
‘Wimp.’
The woman’s husband—a nice enough bloke who worked in patent law—had joined the real-estate conversation by the time Angelina returned with my ticket.
‘Who’d you back?’ I asked.
‘Hidden Rhythm. For a win.’
We watched the race on a TV screen mounted high in the air, in the sunshine, with delayed sound from all around the course and the cheering of the crowd making the commentary unintelligible. I had no idea which horse was winning or where mine was.
Near the finish, a jockey in a red cap streaked to the lead, the shouting and commentary rose to a crescendo, and a few moments later the placegetters were posted on the screen. Empire Rose was not among them, nor Hidden Rhythm. Nobody seemed to have backed the winner, an outsider named Tawrrific.
Angelina grabbed my arm. ‘Watch the tall guy.’
A big chap, probably mid-thirties, had turned away from his companion, a shortish, dark-haired woman of about the same age, and was shuffling through a bunch of betting tickets. He found the one he was looking for, tapped his lady and gave it to her. Her expression lit up, and for the next few minutes we all shared in the glory: twenty dollars on the winner at 30-to-1. Six hundred dollars—more than enough to buy champagne all round.
As the winning lady toured the tent pouring the spoils, my patent-attorney friend filled us in.
‘Eloise Ditta. Divorce lawyer. Supposed to be a ball-breaker. If you’re bitter, get Ditta.’
Angelina smiled
. ‘Who’s the husband?’
‘No idea,’ said the patent attorney. ‘Why?’
‘I was behind him in the bookie’s queue. He put twenty dollars on every horse in the race.’
I did a quick calculation. ‘Bloody hell—four hundred and sixty dollars. Not great odds.’
‘I suppose not.’
Later, Angelina joined a bunch of other celebrities to judge Fashions on the Field and I had time to reflect. What sort of life did Angelina want? The car park or the members’ enclosure? Would she rather be the hard-nosed divorce lawyer or the celebrity fashion judge? I had not sensed any envy towards Eloise: her win, her job, even being the centre of attention. There was just that moment of admiration for the guy who had backed every horse in the Melbourne Cup to ensure his wife would win.
‘Part Three: Name one winner of the Melbourne Cup.’
‘Phar Lap,’ said Roger.
‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘Do you know what year? Because that’ll be Part Four. That’s how this guy works.’
‘Correct,’ said Sheilagh.
‘Jeez. Nineteen-thirty-something?’
‘Tawrrific, 1989,’ I said. ‘At 30-to-1.’
‘What do you need me for?’ said Roger.
‘There must be a song about it,’ said Stuart. ‘But I sense a disturbance in the Force.’
8
A week or so after the Melbourne Cup, Shanksy buttonholed me between sets.
‘Still seeing the actress?’
I smiled a big, happy smile.
‘Remember the joke about the nine-inch pianist?’ said Shanksy.
‘I’m being nice to her.’
‘Pleased to hear it. I’ve got another one about a genie.’
Shanksy helped himself to a drink. ‘Bloke walks into a bar, and he’s got this tiny head. He’s a pinhead. Barman says, “What happened?” Bloke says, “This genie appeared, stark naked, long legs, big tits, and offered me a wish. I say, “How about a little head?” and…’
I laughed. I hadn’t heard it.
Shanksy took a slug of his soda water. ‘So the moral is?’
‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth?’
He nodded. ‘And don’t get a big head.’
I wasn’t. On the contrary, I was painfully aware that the relationship was temporary and not just because I had a flight booked for the end of December, only six weeks away. Angelina could do better than me. I was trying to keep my expectations in line with reality, which is to say I was trying not to fall in love with her. Or at least I was trying to deny that I had already done so.
We had finished dinner at Jim’s Greek Tavern on a warm evening in the courtyard. It had been several days since we had seen each other and I was mentally halfway to the upstairs loft in my apartment when she said, ‘Let’s have a drink at the bar.’
We walked to Victoria Parade and I ordered two glasses of sparkling wine while Angelina found a table.
Shanksy pulled a bottle of real champagne from the fridge. ‘On me,’ he said. ‘As long as you don’t play.’
I gave him a look of mock offence.
He uncorked the bottle. ‘If I had a lady like that at my table, I wouldn’t be playing the piano.’
When I had poured our drinks, we clinked glasses and Angelina said, ‘So why? Why me?’
I could have laughed at the ridiculousness of the question. But apparently it was not obvious to her that a database architect and jobbing piano player of average looks would think that only a cosmic error could have delivered this beautiful, intelligent and ambitious television star into his arms.
I told her all that. I added that I saw something of myself in her. We were both performers. Even at work, I wanted to show my client that I was worth what they were paying me.
She laughed. ‘You’re such a know-it-all. Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen. “Root i’ togevver, din’ vey?”’
‘You know why I’m a show-off?’ I said, compelled to prove that I knew the answer to that too. ‘When I was a kid, I had to play for my dad every day. I’d come home from school, and he’d say, “What’ve you got for me today, lad?’”
Angelina smiled at the hammed-up version of my dad’s accent, but didn’t laugh. ‘And?’
‘At first, I’d just do an exercise better than I’d done it before, but later it was always a proper song. I’d pick something he liked—from his records. Now you understand why I know all that sixties and seventies stuff.’
Angelina refilled our glasses.
‘My parents’ marriage was pretty screwed,’ I said. ‘I felt I was doing my bit to keep my dad from leaving.’
Then I told her the part I had not told anyone else.
‘When I was fourteen, I stopped practising. I was a stroppy teenager and I was stuffed if I was going to practise piano twenty minutes every day so I could play for my fucking father who was never home and who I knew even back then was cheating on my mum.’ I emptied my glass, again, and put it down. ‘So he left. Never came back.’
Some adolescent part of me was waiting for Angelina to draw away in horror. Of course she didn’t. Her eyes filled with tears and she took my hand.
‘Don’t say anything,’ I said. ‘I’ve never said that out loud before, and I know you’re about to say, “No, no, don’t blame yourself”—but you weren’t there. They made a bad decision getting married in the first place. Then they had to live with it because of me. And if I feel like being kinder to myself, and to him, I’d say he left when he decided he wasn’t needed anymore.’
‘But he was, wasn’t he?’
‘Probably,’ I said. ‘But I’ve got some okay memories. If he’d stayed, all the bad stuff would have buried them.’
‘Did you miss him?’
‘I think I missed the good parts. A fantasy, not the reality of what he’d have been if he actually stayed. If that makes sense.’
‘It makes loads of sense. My mum and dad: I can’t imagine them without each other. But I can relate to what you’re saying. About letting them down, driving them away, which is part of why…Then there’s me and Richard. I so much wanted it to work.’
‘And we both blame ourselves.’
‘You said not to say it wasn’t your fault—’ she began.
‘If you want to make me feel better, tell me why you chose me. Because this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’
Angelina looked away for a few moments. ‘On the night you played for me, you were probably the only person in the bar who didn’t know who I was. And you liked me anyway. With the panda eyes and everything. Just for whatever was happening right then. Richard had been in a shit all night, and everyone was tiptoeing around him, and you saw it and made a joke of it. I thought, there’s someone who’s prepared to take a risk, do something for me, and he doesn’t even know who I am…And now you do.’
It was true. She had been more open than me in sharing her background, her uncertainty about her marriage, her plans and dreams. I knew who she was.
We looked at each other for a while, holding hands across the table.
‘One of us has to say this first,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t mean that there’s anything after December or that I’ve given up on my marriage, or that if I did…’
She was speaking slowly and that gave me time to go first.
‘I love you,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t mean I’m going to throw in my contract and run away with you and live happily ever after, but I love you.’
‘I love you, too,’ she said. ‘With all that stuff.’
If there was one conversation in my life that I could have over again, to keep the feelings but change the words, it would be that one. Because, at the same time that we declared our love for each other, we ensured it was doomed.
9
There was no email from Angelina in the morning, and by 4 p.m. I had to concede that she was not going to reply to me that night—or, perhaps, ever.
There was an obvious explanation. A few years earlier, I had registered
on a school-reunion website and was inundated with emails—all right, six or seven, but it felt like a flood—from girls I had known at school, a couple of whom had been well beyond my reach in the popularity stakes.
They were all divorced. Without exception, one word put an end to the correspondence. Claire. To their credit, they were only interested if I was single. If Angelina and Charlie had parted, why would she not put out a feeler to see what I was up to and withdraw it just as quickly when I told her?
I opened Sent Items and looked at my message again. It was innocuous enough. I started browsing Wikipedia, but could not concentrate, and finally I did something I had not done for two years. I dug out my trainers and shorts, and went for a jog.
It was a short one. Up to Eaton Park and back, about a mile and a half in all. I could not believe how unfit I was.
In the bathroom, I took a hard look at myself in the mirror. I was no longer the lean, lightly tanned young man I had been in 1989. My beard needed a trim and so did my waist. I had been wearing tracksuit pants instead of jeans for the last couple of months, and there was a reason for that.
I wondered what Angelina looked like now. It wouldn’t be like her to let herself go, but she might have said the same about me. What had twenty-two years done to the rest of the cast of my Melbourne sojourn? What had happened to Shanksy, to Tina, to the actress I remembered as Jayne Mansfield? And Richard?
Angelina had met Richard during the year she studied law. He had given a guest lecture and afterwards she had approached him with a question that led to a drink and… nothing. She fancied him, but he did not contact her until she was established in her Mornington Police role.
I assumed that Richard’s diminutive-movie-star looks had been part of the attraction. Angelina denied it.
‘He’s smart. When you spend most of your time with actors, you realise that looks aren’t everything.’
‘When you spend most of your time with computer people, you realise that being smart isn’t everything either,’ I said. ‘But we still end up being attracted to smart people.’
‘I’m not apologising for being attracted to good-looking men.’