In the Frame

11

I had a window seat near the rear of the aircraft, and spent the first part of the journey in the same sort of fascination as on the way up, watching the empty red miles of the ancient land roll away underneath. A desert with water underneath it in most places; with huge lakes and many rock pools. A desert which could carry dormant seeds for years in its burning dust, and bloom like a garden when it rained. A place of pulverising heat, harsh and unforgiving, and in scattered places, beautiful.

GABA, I thought. I found it awesome, but it didn’t move me in terms of paint.

After a while I took off the exaggerated hat, laid it on the empty seat beside me, and tried to find a comfortable way to sit, my main frustration being that if I leaned back in the ordinary way my broken shoulder blade didn’t care for it. You wouldn’t think, I thought, that one could break a shoulder blade. Mine, it appeared, had suffered from the full thud of my five-eleven frame hitting terra extremely firma.

Oh well... I shut my eyes for a bit and wished I didn’t still feel so shaky.

My exit from hospital had been the gift of one of the doctors, who had said he couldn’t stop me if I chose to go, but another day’s rest would be better.

‘I’d miss the Cup,’ I said, protesting.

‘You’re crazy.’

‘Yeah... Would it be possible for you to arrange that the hospital said I was ‘satisfactory’, and ‘progressing’ if anyone telephones to ask, and not on any account to say that I’d left?’

‘Whatever for?’

‘I’d just like those muggers who put me here to think I’m still flat out. For several days, if you don’t mind. Until I’m long gone.’

‘But they won’t try again.’

‘You never know.’

He shrugged. ‘You mean you’re nervous?’

‘You could say so.’

‘All right. For a couple of days, anyway. I don’t see any harm in it, if it will set your mind at rest.’

‘It would indeed,’ I said gratefully.

‘Whatever are these?’ He gestured to Jik’s shopping, still lying on the bed.

‘My friend’s idea of suitable travelling gear.’

‘You’re having me on?’

‘He’s an artist,’ I said, as if that explained any excesses.

He returned an hour later with a paper for me to sign before I left, Jik’s credit card having again come up trumps, and at the sight of me, nearly choked. I had struggled slowly into the clothes and was trying on the hat.

‘Are you going to the airport dressed like that?’ he said incredulously.

‘I sure am.’

‘How?’

‘Taxi, I suppose.’

‘You’d better let me drive you,’ he said, sighing. ‘Then if you feel too rotten I can bring you back.’

He drove carefully, his lips twitching. ‘Anyone who has the courage to go around like that shouldn’t worry about a couple of thugs.’ He dropped me solicitously at the airport door, and departed laughing.

Sarah’s voice interrupted the memory.

‘Todd?’

I opened my eyes. She had walked towards the back of the aeroplane and was standing in the aisle beside my seat.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Mm.’

She gave me a worried look and went on into the toilet compartment. By the time she came out, I’d assembled a few more wits, and stopped her with the flap of the hand. ‘Sarah... You were followed to the airport. I think you’ll very likely be followed from Melbourne. Tell Jik... tell Jik to take a taxi, spot the tail, lose him, and take a taxi back to the airport, to collect the hired car. O.K.?’

‘Is this... this tail... on the aeroplane?’ She looked alarmed at the thought.

‘No. He telephoned... from Alice.’

‘All right.’

She went away up front to her seat. The aeroplane landed at Adelaide, people got off, people got on, and we took off again for the hour’s flight to Melbourne. Halfway there, Jik himself came back to make use of the facilities.

He too paused briefly beside me on the way back.

‘Here are the car keys,’ he said. ‘Sit in it, and wait for us. You can’t go into the Hilton like that, and you’re not fit enough to change on your own.’

‘Of course I am.’

‘Don’t argue. I’ll lose any tail, and come back. You wait.’

He went without looking back. I picked up the keys and put them in my jeans pocket, and thought grateful thoughts to pass the time.

I dawdled a long way behind Jik and Sarah at disembarkation. My gear attracted more scandalised attention in this solemn financial city, but I didn’t care in the least. Nothing like fatigue and anxiety for killing off embarrassment.

Jik and Sarah, with only hand-baggage, walked without ado past the suitcase-unloading areas and straight out towards the waiting queue of taxis. The whole airport was bustling with Cup eve arrivals, but only one person, that I could see, was bustling exclusively after my fast-departing friends.

I smiled briefly. Young and eel-like, he slithered through the throng, pushing a young woman with a baby out of the way to grab the next taxi behind Jik’s. They’d sent him, I supposed, because he knew Jik by sight. He’d flung turps in his eyes at the Arts Centre.

Not too bad, I thought. The boy wasn’t over-intelligent, and Jik should have little trouble in losing him. I wandered around for a bit looking gormless, but as there was no one else who seemed the remotest threat, I eventually eased out to the car park.

The night was chilly after Alice Springs. I unlocked the car, climbed into the back, took off the successful hat, and settled to wait for Jik’s return.

They were gone nearly two hours, during which time I grew stiffer and ever more uncomfortable and started swearing.

‘Sorry,’ Sarah said breathlessly, pulling open the car door and tumbling into the front seat.

‘We had the devil’s own job losing the little bugger,’ Jik said, getting in beside me in the back. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Cold, hungry, and cross.’

‘That’s all right, then,’ he said cheerfully. ‘He stuck like a bloody little leech. That boy from the Arts Centre.’

‘Yes, I saw him.’

‘We hopped into the Victoria Royal, meaning to go straight out again by the side door and grab another cab, and there he was following us in through the front. So we peeled off for a drink in the bar and he hovered around in the lobby looking at the bookstall.’

‘We thought it would be better not to let him know we’d spotted him, if we could,’ Sarah said. ‘So we did a re-think, went outside, called another taxi, and set off to The Naughty Ninety, which is about the only noisy big dine, dance and cabaret place in Melbourne.’

‘It was absolutely packed.’ Jik said. ‘It cost me ten dollars to get a table. Marvellous for us, though. All dark corners and psychedelic coloured lights. We ordered and paid for some drinks, and read the menu, and then got up and danced.’

‘He was still there, when we saw him last, standing in the queue for tables just inside the entrance door. We got out through an emergency exit down a passage past some cloakrooms. We’d dumped our bags there when we arrived, and simply collected them again on the way out.’

‘I don’t think he’ll know we ducked him on purpose,’ Jik said. ‘It’s a proper scrum there tonight.’

‘Great.’

With Jik’s efficient help I exchanged Tourist, Alice Style, for Racing Man, Melbourne Cup. He drove us all back to the Hilton, parked in its car park, and we walked into the front hall as if we’d never been away.

No one took any notice of us. The place was alive with pre-race excitement. People in evening dress flooding downstairs from the ballroom to stand in loud-talking groups before dispersing home. People returning from eating out, and calling for one more nightcap. Everyone discussing the chances of the next day’s race.

Jik collected our room keys from the long desk.

‘No messages,’ he said. ‘And they don’t seem to have missed us.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘Todd,’ Sarah said. ‘Jik and I are going to have some food sent up. You’ll come as well?’

I nodded. We went up in the lift and along to their room, and ate a subdued supper out of collective tiredness.

“Night,’ I said eventually, getting up to go. ‘And thanks for everything.’

‘Thank us tomorrow,’ Sarah said.

The night passed. Well, it passed.

In the morning I did a spot of one-handed shaving and some highly selective washing, and Jik came up, as he’d insisted, to help with my tie. I opened the door to him in underpants and dressing gown and endured his comments when I took the latter off.

‘Jesus God Almighty, is there any bit of you neither blue nor patched?’

‘I could have landed face first.’

He stared at the thought. ‘Jesus.’

‘Help me rearrange these bandages,’ I said.

‘I’m not touching that lot.’

‘Oh come on, Jik. Unwrap the swaddling bands. I’m itching like hell underneath and I’ve forgotten what my left hand looks like.’

With a variety of blasphemous oaths he undid the expert handiwork of the Alice hospital. The outer bandages proved to be large strong pieces of linen, fastened with clips, and placed so as to support my left elbow and hold my whole arm statically in one position, with my hand across my chest and pointing up towards my right shoulder. Under the top layer there was a system of crepe bandages tying my arm in that position. Also a sort of tight cummerbund of adhesive strapping, presumably to deal with the broken ribs. Also, just below my shoulder blade, a large padded wound dressing, which, Jik kindly told me after a delicate inspection from one corner, covered a mucky looking bit of darning.

‘You damn near tore a whole flap of skin off. There are four lots of stitching. Looks like Clapham Junction.’

‘Fasten it up again.’

‘I have, mate, don’t you worry.’

There were three similar dressings, two on my left thigh and one, a bit smaller, just below my knee: all fastened both with adhesive strips and tapes with clips. We left them all untouched.

‘What the eye doesn’t see doesn’t scare the patient,’ Jik said. ‘What else do you want done?’

‘Untie my arm.’

‘You’ll fall apart.’

‘Risk it.’

He laughed and undid another series of clips and knots. I tentatively straightened my elbow. Nothing much happened except that the hovering ache and soreness stopped hovering and came down to earth.

‘That’s not so good,’ Jik observed.

‘It’s my muscles as much as anything. Protesting about being stuck in one position all that time.’

‘What now, then?’

From the bits and pieces we designed a new and simpler sling which gave my elbow good support but was less of a strait-jacket. I could get my hand out easily, and also my whole arm, if I wanted. When we’d finished, we had a small heap of bandages and clips left over.

‘That’s fine,’ I said.

We all met downstairs in the hall at ten-thirty.

Around us a buzzing atmosphere of anticipation pervaded the chattering throng of would-be winners, who were filling the morning with celebratory drinks. The hotel, I saw, had raised a veritable fountain of champagne at the entrance to the bar-lounge end of the lobby, and Jik, his eyes lighting up, decided it was too good to be missed.

‘Free booze,’ he said reverently, picking up a glass and holding it under the prodigal bubbly which flowed in delicate gold streams from a pressure-fed height. ‘Not bad, either,’ he added, tasting. He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to Art. God rest his soul.’

‘Life’s short. Art’s long,’ I said.

‘I don’t like that,’ Sarah said, looking at me uneasily.

‘It was Alfred Munnings’s favourite saying. And don’t worry, love, he lived to be eighty plus.’

‘Let’s hope you do.’

I drank to it. She was wearing a cream dress with gold buttons; neat, tailored, a touch severe. An impression of the military for a day in the front line.

‘Don’t forget,’ I said. ‘If you think you see Wexford or Greene, make sure they see you.’

‘Give me another look at their faces,’ she said.

I pulled the small sketch book out of my pocket and handed it to her again, though she’d studied it on and off all the previous evening through supper.

‘As long as they look like this, maybe I’ll know them,’ she said, sighing. ‘Can I take it?’ She put the sketch book in her handbag.

Jik laughed. ‘Give Todd his due, he can catch a likeness. No imagination, of course. He can only paint what he sees.’ His voice as usual was full of disparagement.

Sarah said, ‘Don’t you mind the awful things Jik says of your work, Todd?’

I grinned. ‘I know exactly what he thinks of it.’

‘If it makes you feel any better,’ Jik said to his wife, ‘He was the star pupil of our year. The Art School lacked judgment, of course.’

‘You’re both crazy.’

I glanced at the clock. We all finished the champagne and put down the glasses.

‘Back a winner for me,’ I said to Sarah, kissing her cheek.

‘Your luck might run out.’

I grinned. ‘Back number eleven.’

Her eyes were dark with apprehension. Jik’s beard was at the bad-weather angle for possible storms ahead.

‘Off you go,’ I said cheerfully. ‘See you later.’

I watched them through the door and wished strongly that we were all three going for a simple day out to the Melbourne Cup. The effort ahead was something I would have been pleased to avoid. I wondered if others ever quaked before the task they’d set themselves, and wished they’d never thought of it. The beginning, I supposed, was the worst. Once you were in, you were committed. But before, when there was still time to turn back, to rethink, to cancel, the temptation to retreat was demoralising.

Why climb Everest if at its foot you could lie in the sun.

Sighing, I went to the cashier’s end of the reception desk and changed a good many travellers’ cheques into cash. Maisie’s generosity had been far-sighted. There would be little enough left by the time I got home.

Four hours to wait. I spent them upstairs in my room calming my nerves by drawing the view from the window. Black clouds still hung around the sky like cobwebs, especially in the direction of Flemington racecourse. I hoped it would stay dry for the Cup.

Half an hour before it was due to be run I left the Hilton on foot, walking unhurriedly along towards Swanston Street and the main area of shops. They were all shut, of course. Melbourne Cup day was a national public holiday. Everything stopped for the Cup.

I had taken my left arm out of its sling and threaded it gingerly through the sleeves of my shirt and jacket. A man with his jacket hunched over one shoulder was too memorable for sense. I found that by hooking my thumb into the waistband of my trousers I got quite good support.

Swanston Street was far from its usual bustling self. People still strode along with the breakneck speed which seemed to characterise all Melbourne pedestrians, but they strode in tens, not thousands. Trams ran up and down the central tracks with more vacant seats than passengers. Cars sped along with the drivers, eyes down, fiddling dangerously with radio dials. Fifteen minutes to the race which annually stopped Australia in its tracks.

Jik arrived exactly on time, driving up Swanston Street in the hired grey car and turning smoothly round the corner where I stood waiting. He stopped outside the Yarra River Fine Arts gallery, got out, opened the boot, and put on a brown coat-overall, of the sort worn by storemen.

I walked quietly along towards him. He brought out a small radio, switched it on, and stood it on top of the car. The commentator’s voice emerged tinnily, giving details of the runners currently walking round the parade ring at Flemington races.

‘Hello,’ he said unemotionally, when I reached him. ‘All set?’ I nodded, and walked to the door of the gallery. Pushed it. It was solidly shut. Jik dived again into the boot, which held further fruits of his second shopping expedition in Alice Springs.

‘Gloves,’ he said, handling me some, and putting some on himself. They were of white cotton, with ribbed wristbands, and looked a lot too new and clean. I wiped the backs of mine along the wings of Jik’s car, and he gave me a glance and did the same with his.

‘Handles and impact adhesive.’

He gave me the two handles to hold. They were simple chromium plated handles, with flattened pieces at each end, pierced by screw holes for fixing. Sturdy handles, big enough for gripping with the whole hand. I held one steady, bottom side up, while Jik covered the screw-plate areas at each end with adhesive. We couldn’t screw these handles where we wanted them. They had to be stuck.

‘Now the other. Can you hold it in your left hand?’

I nodded. Jik attended to it. One or two people passed, paying no attention. We were not supposed to park there, but no one told us to move.

We walked across the pavement to the gallery. Its frontage was not one unbroken line across its whole width, but was recessed at the right-hand end to form a doorway. Between the front-facing display window and the front-facing glass door, there was a joining window at right angles to the street.

To this sheet of glass we stuck the handles, or rather, Jik did, at just above waist height. He tested them after a minute, and he couldn’t pull them off. We returned to the car.

One or two more people passed, turning their heads to listen to the radio on the car roof, smiling in brotherhood at the universal national interest. The street was noticeably emptying as the crucial time drew near.

‘... Vinery carries the colours of Mr. Hudson Taylor of Adelaide and must be in with a good outside chance. Fourth in the Caulfield Cup and before that, second at Randwick against Brain-Teaser, who went on to beat Afternoon Tea...’

‘Stop listening to the damn race!’ Jik said sharply.

‘Sorry.’

‘Ready?’

‘Yes.’

We walked back to the entrance to the gallery, Jik carrying the sort of glass-cutter used by, among others, picture framers. Without casting a glance around for possible onlookers, he applied the diamond cutting edge to the matter in hand, using considerable strength as he pushed the professional tool round the outside of the pane. I stood behind him to block any passing curious glances.

‘Hold the right-hand handle.’ he said, as he started on the last of the four sides, the left-hand vertical.

I stepped past him and slotted my hand through the grip. None of the few people left in the street paid the slightest attention.

‘When it goes,’ Jik said, ‘for God’s sake don’t drop it.’

‘No.’

‘Put your knee against the glass. Gently, for God’s sake.’

I did what he said. He finished the fourth long cut.

‘Press smoothly.’

I did that. Jik’s knee, too, was firmly against the glass. With his left hand he gripped the chromium handle, and with the palm of his right he began jolting the top perimeter of the heavy pane.

Jik had cut a lot of glass in his time, even if not in exactly these circumstances. The big flat sheet cracked away evenly all round under our pressure and parted with hardly a splinter. The weight fell suddenly on to the handle I held in my right hand, and Jik steadied the now free sheet of glass with hands and knees and blasphemy.

‘Jesus, don’t let go.’

‘No.’

The heavy vibrations set up in the glass by the breaking process subsided, and Jik took over the right-hand handle from me. Without any seeming inconvenience he pivoted the sheet of glass so that it opened like a door. He stepped through the hole, lifted the glass up wholesale by the two handles, carried it several feet, and propped it against the wall to the right of the more conventional way in.

He came out, and we went over to the car. From there, barely ten feet away, one could not see that the gallery was not still securely shut. There were by now in any case very few to look.

‘... Most jockeys have now mounted and the horses will soon be going out onto the course...’

I picked up the radio. Jik exchanged the glass-cutter for a metal saw, a hammer and a chisel, and shut the boot, and we walked through the unorthodox entrance as if it was all in the day’s work. Often only the furtive manner gave away the crook. If you behaved as if you had every right to, it took longer for anyone to suspect.

It would really have been best had we next been able to open the real door, but a quick inspection proved it impossible. There were two useful locks, and no keys.

‘The stairs are at the back,’ I said.

‘Lead on.

We walked the length of the plushy green carpet and down the beckoning stairs. There was a bank of electric switches at the top: we pressed those lighting the basement and left the upstairs lot off.

Heart-thumping time, I thought. It would take only a policeman to walk along and start fussing about a car parked in the wrong place to set Cassavetes and Todd on the road to jail.

‘... horses are now going out on to the course. Foursquare in front, sweating up and fighting jockey Ted Nester for control...’

We reached the front of the stairs. I turned back towards the office, but Jik took off fast down the corridor.

‘Come back,’ I said urgently. ‘If that steel gate shuts down...’

‘Relax,’ Jik said. ‘You told me.’ He stopped before reaching the threshold of the furthest room. Stood still, and looked. Came back rapidly.

‘O.K. The Munnings are all there. Three of them. Also something else which will stun you. Go and look while I get this door open.’

‘... cantering down to the start, and the excitement is mounting here now...’

With a feeling of urgency I trekked down the passage, stopped safely short of any electric gadgets which might trigger the gate and set off alarms, and looked into the Munnings room. The three paintings still hung there, as they had before. But along the row from them was something which, as Jik had said, stunned me. Chestnut horse with head raised, listening. Stately home in the background. The Raoul Millais picture we’d seen in Alice.

I went back to Jik who with hammer and chisel had bypassed the lock on the office door.

‘Which is it?’ he said. ‘Original or copy?’

‘Can’t tell from that distance. Looks like real.’

He nodded. We went into the office and started work.

‘... Derriby and Special Bet coming down to the start now, and all the runners circling while the girths are checked...’

I put the radio on Wexford’s desk, where it sat like an hourglass, ticking away the minutes as the sands ran out.

Jik turned his practical attention to the desk drawers, but they were all unlocked. One of the waist-high line of filing cabinets, however, proved to be secure. Jik’s strength and knowhow soon ensured that it didn’t remain that way.

In his wake I looked through the drawers. Nothing much in them except catalogues and stationery.

In the broken-open filing cabinet, a gold mine.

Not that I realised it at first. The contents looked merely like ordinary files with ordinary headings.

‘... moved very freely coming down to the start and is prime fit to run for that hundred and ten thousand dollar prize...’

There were a good many framed pictures in the office, some on the walls but even more standing in a row on the floor. Jik began looking through them at high speed, almost like flicking through a rack of record albums.

‘... handlers are beginning to load the runners into the starting stalls, and I see Vinery playing up...’

Half of the files in the upper of the two drawers seemed to deal in varying ways with insurance. Letters, policies, revaluations and security. I didn’t really know what I was looking for, which made it all a bit difficult.

‘Jesus Almighty,’ Jik said.

‘What is it?’

‘Look at this.’

‘... more than a hundred thousand people here today to see the twenty-three runners fight it out over the three thousand two hundred metres...’

Jik had reached the end of the row and was looking at the foremost of three unframed canvasses tied loosely together with string. I peered over his shoulder. The picture had Munnings written all over it. It had Alfred Munnings written large and clear in the right hand bottom corner. It was a picture of four horses with jockeys cantering on a racecourse: and the paint wasn’t dry.

‘What are the others?’ I said.

Jik ripped off the string. The two other pictures were exactly the same.

‘God Almighty,’ Jik said in awe.

‘... Vinery carries only fifty-one kilograms and has a good barrier position so it’s not impossible...’

‘Keep looking,’ I said, and went back to the files.

Names. Dates. Places. I shook my head impatiently. We needed more than those Munnings copies and I couldn’t find a thing.

‘Jesus!’ Jik said.

He was looking inside the sort of large flat two-foot by three-foot folder which was used in galleries to store prints.

‘... only Derriby now to enter the stalls...’

The print-folder had stood between the end of the desk and the nearby wall. Jik seemed transfixed.

Overseas Customers. My eyes flicked over the heading and then went back. Overseas Customers. I opened the file. Lists of people, sorted into countries. Pages of them. Names and addresses.

England.

A long list. Not alphabetical. Too many to read through in the shortage of time.

A good many of the names had been crossed out.

‘... They’re running! This is the moment you’ve all been waiting for, and Special Bet is out in front...’

‘Look at this,’ Jik said.

Donald Stuart. Donald Stuart, crossed out. Shropshire, England. Crossed out.

I practically stopped breathing.

‘... as they pass the stands for the first time it’s Special Bet, Foursquare, Newshound, Derriby, Wonderbug, Vinery...’

‘Look at this,’ Jik said again, insistently.

‘Bring it,’ I said. ‘We’ve got less than three minutes before the race ends and Melbourne comes back to life.’

‘But—’

‘Bring it,’ I said. ‘And also those three copies.’

‘... Special Bet still making it, from Newshound close second, then Wonderbug...’

I shoved the filing-drawer shut.

‘Put this file in the print-folder and let’s get out.’

I picked up the radio and Jik’s tools, as he himself had enough trouble managing all three of the untied paintings and the large-print folder.

‘... down the backstretch by the Maribyrnong River it’s still Special Bet with Vinery second now...’

We went up the stairs. Switched off the lights. Eased round into a view of the car.

It stood there, quiet and unattended, just as we’d left it. No policeman. Everyone elsewhere, listening to the race.

Jik was calling on the Deity under his breath.

‘... rounding the turn towards home Special Bet is droppng back now and its Derriby with Newshound...’

We walked steadily down the gallery.

The commentator’s voice rose in excitement against a background of shouting crowds.

‘... Vinery in third with Wonderbug, and here comes Ring-wood very fast on the stands side...’

Nothing stirred out on the street. I went first through our hole in the glass and stood once more, with a great feeling of relief, on the outside of the beehive. Jik carried out the plundered honey and stacked it in the boot. He took the tools from my hands and stored them also.

‘Right?’

I nodded with a dry mouth. We climbed normally into the car. The commentator was yelling to be heard.

‘... Coming to the line it’s Ringwood by a length from Wonderbug, with Newshound third, then Derriby, then Vinery...’

The cheers echoed inside the car as Jik started the engine and drove away.

‘... Might be a record time. Just listen to the cheers. The result again. The result of the Melbourne Cup. In the frame... first Ringwood, owned by Mr. Robert Khami... second Wonderbug...’

‘Phew,’ Jik said, his beard jaunty and a smile stretching to show an expanse of gum. ‘That wasn’t a bad effort. We might hire ourselves out some time for stealing politicians’ papers.’ He chuckled fiercely.

‘It’s an overcrowded field,’ I said, smiling broadly myself.

We were both feeling the euphoria which follows the safe deliverance from danger. ‘Take it easy,’ I said. ‘We’ve a long way to go.’

He drove to the Hilton, parked, and carried the folder and pictures up to my room. He moved with his sailing speed, economically and fast, losing as little time as possible before returning to Sarah on the racecourse and acting as if he’d never been away.

‘We’ll be back here as soon as we can,’ he promised, sketching a farewell.

Two seconds after he’d shut my door there was a knock on it.

I opened it. Jik stood there.

‘I’d better know,’ he said, ‘What won the Cup?’