Strange Ink Page 2

  Dave shrugged. ‘He doesn’t mean any harm. You know how it is.’

  But Harry didn’t. Not at the moment. He wouldn’t have risked his relationship with Bec for a one-night stand.

  Dave laughed, flicking through the photos. ‘She got really aggro. Security headed over. . .’

  Harry had a vague flash of two beefy Islanders who looked pissed off at having to wear suits on a sweltering Brisbane night.

  ‘. . . but then he lost anyway. Is any of this ringing any bells?’

  ‘The bouncers. But only because you mentioned them.’

  ‘That’s okay, we’ll get there. You were still with us when we left the casino, so there was no chance of you sneaking off for a quick tatt then. You had a little hissy fit on the way to Showgirls.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, you didn’t want to go. You said you were sick of the boys asking you about the break-up.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I told you to pull your fucking head in. It was my buck’s night, after all.’

  Harry nodded, sipped his coffee. ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘So you were definitely there at Showgirls, although you spent the whole time propping up the bar. Tequila shots, I think.’

  ‘Shit. No wonder I’m so fucked today.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Do you remember anything from Showgirls?’

  ‘No. Wait. Yeah.’

  ‘Girls on Film’ on the sound system, a woman in a pink g-string and matching bra cavorting on the circular stage with its shiny brass poles.

  ‘Simmo wanted me to “get it out of my system” with a lap dance,’ Harry said.

  ‘Sounds like Simmo.’

  Dave consulted his iPhone again. ‘Aha. You might have been shitty but I guilted you into sticking around. Look.’

  The photo was blurry. The inside of a MaxiCab. Harry in the back seat, resting his head on his hand, staring out the window.

  ‘Not a happy camper,’ Dave said.

  ‘Where were we going?’

  ‘Jamie’s place. Do you remember him?’

  ‘From school, yeah. From last night, not so much. He’s an accountant, something like that?’

  ‘Stockbroker, mate.’

  Harry remembered a towering white apartment building. Remembered thinking that whatever Jamie did, it pulled in a lot more than reporting for a local paper. He closed his eyes.

  ‘Jamie had porn going on his laptop. Kept joking that it was Simmo’s mum.’

  ‘Yep, that’s right. And check this out.’

  Another photo of Harry. In this one he looked much happier, standing on the balcony of Jamie’s penthouse apartment, clutching a bottle of Oban. The lid was off, but there was no glass in sight.

  ‘Shit. What a waste of single malt.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And then?’

  Dave consulted his phone. ‘Dunno. Last photo. I woke up at Jamie’s. We’d just had brekky when you called.’

  Harry rubbed his face. ‘So, somewhere between West End and here, I stumbled into a tattoo parlour and got inked.’

  ‘Probably West End Tattoo. That’s where I got mine done.’

  ‘Would they even have been open that late?’

  Dave shrugged. ‘Got mine during the day. One way to find out.’

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Yeah, we can get a decent cup of coffee while we’re over there.’

  Harry dragged himself up from the table.

  ‘Oh, I’ve got a wedding thing on later, so I’ll probably head over straight from West End,’ Dave said. ‘Are you right to drive yourself?’

  Harry gave him a sour look. Dave replied with a wink.

  ‘Legend,’ Dave said.

  CHAPTER 2

  West End was buzzing, people coming alive as the temperature dropped ahead of the incoming storm. Harry climbed out of his car and negotiated a path down the pavement, past an eclectic collection of cafes, bars and grocery stores, to where Dave had parked. Suits sipped wine and imported beer, jostling for space with Gen Y hipsters slurping coffee and jabbing at their iPhones, and world-weary locals who’d seen it all.

  West End Tattoo had a low-key shopfront. No gaudy artwork on the window, venetian blinds to discourage gawkers. Harry had walked past the place dozens of times without realising it was a tattoo parlour.

  ‘Now, when we get in there, let me do the talking,’ Dave said. ‘You don’t want to piss them off, okay?’

  Harry was angry, but the anger was offset by a sickening feeling in his stomach. He was sweating, his heart racing. It wasn’t all the hangover, and he wasn’t scared of a looming confrontation. He had to ask plenty of hard questions in his job. Questions people would rather not answer. In his personal life he found confrontation harder to deal with, but he could still flip the ‘journalist’ switch if he had to.

  The place looked just as foreign as every other time he’d passed it. So much so that as Dave pushed the door open, he knew what the result was going to be. No. No, we did not do that tattoo. Sorry, pal. A shrug. A see ya later. Which would leave Harry facing the prospect that he had been so bombed he actually went out of his way to get the tattoo. What else had he done, and couldn’t remember?

  ‘You okay?’

  Harry jumped. Dave was staring at him.

  ‘Not really. None of this is familiar,’ he said, shaking his head.

  The walls were covered in framed tattoo designs. On the far side of the small room a woman sat behind a counter. People were crammed in shoulder to shoulder on bench seating around the other three sides of the room. A young guy with bleached blond hair clutched an art folder. A woman with a pram flicked through a magazine. From the doorway behind the counter, tattoo machines buzzed. Stairs led up to the second storey, and Harry could hear more tattooing going on up there.

  The woman behind the counter looked up. ‘Hey, Dave!’

  The ring through the middle of her lip glistened when she smiled. She wore a vintage dress: red flowers on a cream background. Her hair was pinned up, revealing the art that cascaded from her neck down over her shoulders and under the fabric of her dress, before continuing out from under the sleeves and down her arms. Flowers, faces and intricate scrollwork.

  ‘Hey, Sian.’

  She nodded at Harry. ‘Brought in a convert?’

  ‘Kinda. Um. . .’

  ‘I’ve already got a tattoo,’ Harry said. ‘I just don’t know how I got it.’

  Dave seemed happy to let Harry do the talking, once he realised he wasn’t going to explode. When he finished the story, she shook her head.

  ‘Not ours.’

  ‘You haven’t even looked at it!’ Harry said, a little louder than he intended.

  Sian’s lips set in a firm line. Dave touched her arm. ‘He’s a little. . . Things have been a bit fucked up lately.’

  Her eyes flicked to Dave and her face softened a little.

  ‘Well, for a start, we’re not some 1950s dockside operation. We don’t open at night unless someone’s got an appointment. Even if we were open, we wouldn’t be doing walk-ins. There’s a two-month waiting list for most of the artists here. And even when we do walk-ins, we don’t tattoo people if they’re wasted. Too much grief for all involved.’

  Harry blinked. The rising anger dissipated. Now he could feel a lump in his throat. Sian rolled her eyes.

  ‘Let’s have a look at it then,’ she said.

  She came out from behind the counter, pushed Harry’s head forward a little more roughly than was necessary.

  ‘Hmm. I was gonna say you might’ve got it done at Stones Corner. But this doesn’t even look like it’s been done with a tattoo machine. The edges aren’t defined enough. Looks more like krob kru.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Buddhist monks in Thailand have a ceremony where they tattoo people using shafts of bamboo. Mix the ink with snake venom. It’s pretty full on.’

  ‘I think I’d remember that.’

  ‘Yeah. You’d think so, right
?’

  She let go of his shirt, and he turned to face her.

  ‘It’s weird though,’ she said, frowning.

  Harry rubbed his neck. ‘Oh yeah? It gets weirder?’

  ‘Yeah. They’re not krob kru tattoos. I mean, it’s not a krob kru design. In fact, it looks kinda Persian.’

  ‘Persian?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Don’t suppose you happen to know what it means?’

  ‘Um. Offhand, no. Sorry.’

  ***

  Harry stared into his coffee. ‘Worst. Day. Ever.’

  Dave shuffled his feet under the table, watched the waitress as she delivered another couple of drinks. Tight black t-shirt, tight black shorts. Cars and buses droned past. Up and down Hardgrave Road steel shutters clattered down. The storm was edging nearer, flashes of lightning illuminating clouds in the west.

  ‘Well, she could be wrong,’ Dave said.

  Harry stared at him. ‘Er, she looks like she might know a thing or two about tatts, Dave.’ He slurped his coffee.

  ‘Just sayin’.’

  Harry searched for a subject that wasn’t going to lead back to tattoos or Bec. ‘So, you ready to get hitched?’

  ‘Yeah, pretty much. There are some last-minute dramas about the seating arrangements for the reception, but that’s about it. Ellie isn’t too impressed that I’m on night shifts every night leading up to the wedding but, ah, she’ll get over it.’

  ‘No, I mean, are you ready? Emotionally?’

  Dave laughed. ‘Ha! You know me. I wasn’t fussed. It was mainly Ellie’s family. I mean, I love her. A ring on the finger is neither here nor there. You live with someone long enough, you just know, right?’

  Harry looked into the street; an old guy in a tattered blue jumper was pawing through an overflowing bin. Harry thought about the last conversation he and Bec had. If you could call it a conversation. He provoked her, but then she really let him have it. About how he was still at the Chronicle. About how all he ever did when he was at home was watch TV. She even had a go about the middle-age paunch he was growing.

  ‘Sorry,’ Dave said. ‘I just mean. . .’

  Harry waved it away. ‘I better get going. I’ve got a big day at work tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Toastmasters’ convention? Over-60s Blue Light Disco?’

  ‘Har-dee-fucking-har-har. You should be a fucking comedian.’

  ‘That’s what the director of nursing keeps telling me. Maybe I should.’

  ‘Our local MP wants to talk election coverage.’

  Dave tipped his head back, offered a fake snore, jolted awake. ‘Sorry. Did you say something?’

  ‘He’s not that bad.’

  ‘Ron Vessel. Man of Action,’ Dave said, delivered deadpan.

  ‘Laugh all you want, but Andrew Cardinal is Opposition Leader, and Ron is his right-hand man. If Cardinal gets up, Vessel’s going with him.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Like that’s going to happen. Cardinal would have to stop running marathons to have a successful run at the Lodge. And that’s not going to happen.’ Dave leant in close, offering a conspiratorial whisper. ‘He’s addicted. . . to the endorphins.’

  ‘Well, I think he’ll get plenty of excitement on the campaign trail.’

  Harry stood, started loading his possessions into his pockets.

  ‘Hey, do you want to catch up for a coffee during the week? Last coffee of freedom?’ Dave said, picking his wallet, car keys and phone off the table.

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’

  ‘Cool. If not, I’ll see you Saturday.’

  ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

  Harry turned to leave.

  ‘Hey, Harry.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Thanks for coming last night. I mean, I know you haven’t really had much to do with the guys since high school. It really means a lot to me. And I do feel bad about the tattoo.’

  ‘Not your fault. I’ll talk to you during the week, okay?’

  ***

  Harry was still a hundred metres from his car when thunder boomed through the sky and the heavens opened. He sprinted through the rain, gasping as he fumbled for his keys. He slid into the front seat and sat there for a moment, catching his breath, listening to the rain smashing against the roof.

  He opened the glovebox and pulled out a well-worn cassette tape: Counting Crows’ A&EA. Dave thought it was hilarious that Harry still had the Corolla – his second-ever car – and even funnier that he had never bothered to buy a car stereo with an iPod dock or CD player. Harry wasn’t averse to technology. He just figured there was no point putting a new stereo into a car that could die any day now.

  He’d been saying the same thing since he bought it, shortly after joining the Chronicle. Back then, he didn’t have a choice. He needed a cheap and relatively reliable vehicle. These days, he could afford the repayments on something better, but he’d grown fond of the old girl. The Corolla rolled off the assembly line the same year he did.

  He keyed the engine, watching the steam rising from the road. As he pulled out into the street the first guitar strains of ‘Round Here’ came crackling through the speakers. The music, like the car, pre-dated Bec. Dave had introduced him to Counting Crows, back when they were delivering pizzas and Harry was in the process of running his first car into the ground. The music anchored him in a time before Bec, when he was alone, when he was still full of twentysomething angst and thought he’d never find anyone.

  Yeah, it was depressing. But right now he needed that. He drove out of West End, eyes tearing up in sympathy with the sky. Across the Grey Street Bridge, the chocolate-coloured waters of the Brisbane River churned below him. City lights refracted off the raindrops on the car’s windows.

  He made it through Rosalie Village before the tears got so bad he had to pull over. He switched off the engine. The music fell silent but the song played on in his mind. He leant his head on the steering wheel and gave in to it. Tears cascaded down his face and to the floor below, as the storm raged around him.

  CHAPTER 3

  Harry sat sweating in Ron Vessel’s electorate office, staring at the clock on the wall, trying to make it run backwards. He was an hour late. His shirt was crushed. His iPhone was about to die again. He felt very much like the unprofessional hack he was often cast as. Vessel’s PA sat behind a faux wood counter, click-clacking away on a keyboard. Ron was behind the closed door at the end of the corridor. It sounded as though he was on a conference call.

  Harry had slept poorly the night before, tossing and turning. Every time he slipped into sleep the nightmare returned. The men smoking, the knife slicing slabs of flesh off his body, the feeling of dirt on his tongue, up his nose, in his ears. He’d jerk awake, sweating, thinking he could hear someone or something scratching around under the house. Then he’d drift back to sleep, and back into the nightmare.

  He woke as the first rays of daylight crept through the window, his bed soaked in sweat. He couldn’t remember where he was. He had a bizarre urge to throw on some shorts and a singlet and go for a run. He hadn’t run since he was in the cross-country team in high school. He lay there, listening to the kookaburras, thinking there was no way he was going to get back to sleep. But he did.

  He missed his alarm. Ran around the house frantically searching for work clothes and, when he found them, they were crumpled. There was no time for ironing, or breakfast. He couldn’t afford to miss the shower though, but then afterwards spent a frustrating five minutes upending boxes, naked and dripping, looking for a towel.

  Then the car wouldn’t start. This can’t be happening. The tired old Corolla disagreed, vehemently. Whirr-whirr-whirr. . . whirr-whirr-whirrrr. . . click. He pulled out his phone, only to realise it was dead.

  Harry resisted the urge to smash it against the dashboard, and instead took it back inside and upstairs, found the charger, and plugged it in. Called the RACQ. During the short wait he sat on the front steps with his bag, watching people dressed in business attire trud
ge up the hill to the bus stop.

  Eventually, the RACQ van reversed down the steep driveway. A man climbed out, shook Harry’s hand, and got him to pop the hood. He opened the back of his van and pulled out a multimeter, then pressed the end of each probe to the battery terminals.

  ‘Yep, this battery’s dead,’ he said.

  Harry ran a hand over his face. ‘I only got it six months ago.’

  ‘Well, it’s gone. Did you leave the lights on?’

  Harry shrugged. He didn’t think so. Although he was pretty rattled when he’d returned from his visit to the tattoo parlour the day before. Anything was possible.

  ‘I could have.’

  At Ron Vessel’s office the secretary saw the state Harry was in and took pity on him, telling him to take a seat and she’d see what she could do.

  Harry had interviewed Ron a few times over the years; the first time when he was still in state politics. A devout Catholic, Vessel found succour in the Australian Labor Party’s ascendant right wing. He survived the infights and bloodletting as the party struggled to reinvent itself in the face of successive losses to a dominant Coalition government, and was now part of what the national media had dubbed ‘the Cardinal experiment’.

  Cardinal had come out of nowhere, but what he lacked in political pedigree he more than made up for with electoral appeal. A military man, he’d seen action in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a bunch of lesser-known hotspots. A real-life action hero. After his honourable discharge he returned to Brisbane, where the ALP offered him preselection. A year later he won his seat, despite accusations from the Liberal Party that he’d been parachuted in (which the political cartoonists had a field day with, given the military connection). The victory was one of the few bright spots for Labor, which was relegated to another term in opposition.

  Cardinal made his mark as defence spokesman, and was promoted to foreign affairs by the party leader to assuage his ambitions. The move did just the opposite. The ALP powerbrokers, seeing his abilities at the Dispatches Box, were more than willing to back Cardinal’s tilt at the leadership. Cardinal took Vessel with him, offering voters the ultimate one-two of youth and experience.