The Tax Inspector

33

He would ‘show his life’, sure, silly as this was. He would be a monkey for his son. You know what was weird? What was weird was he was finally an inch away from happiness.

Show his life? Bare his arse? Sure, but not like the little blackmailer imagined.

He would talk to her, sure he would. What’s more: he was busting to do it. He had the day’s job sheets spread out across his desk, but he could not concentrate on them. They had finally become irrelevant.

He knew nothing about tax. He could not even read the balance sheets he signed each year, but he knew enough, by Christ he did, to show his life to the Tax Inspector. He would embrace her. He would draw her towards him like a dagger, have her drive some official stake into the business, right into its rubbery, resisting heart.

Howie and Cathy were always full of blame, always had been. They could blame him for not selling. They could blame him for fuck-ups in the workshop. They presumably blamed him for Benny turning out a poof, and Johnny going to the cults, but they could not blame him for the tax investigation. They were the ones – Mr and Mrs Rock ’n’ Roll – who played funny buggers with the tax.

Mort took three Codis tablets and stacked the work sheets in a pile and threw them in his filing cabinet. He came and stood in the cavernous doorway, pacing up and down just inside the drip line of the roof. When he saw the Tax Department’s Mitsubishi Colt park at the end of the lane-way he put up his umbrella and walked right towards it. He filled his wide chest with air and came down the oil-stained concrete with a light-footed athlete’s stride.

I’ll show her my life.

The Tax Inspector was already erecting her umbrella, juggling with her papers and her case. When he saw her age, how pregnant she was, he laughed. The little bullshitter was going out with her?

This Tax Inspector was very, very pretty – a lovely soft wide mouth, and stern and handsome nose. He saw straightaway that she would want to walk quickly through the rain and that he was going to have to stop her. He was going to talk to her in front of the Front Office. This was what he had agreed with Benny.

You would think it would be humiliating, to be a prancing bear for your disturbed son. But actually, no. He was dancing on the edge of freedom.

‘Mort Catchprice,’ he said.

He had the workshop courtesy umbrella, big enough to take to the beach. He held it over her and her umbrella. She put her own umbrella down, but the rain was bouncing around their ankles. He guessed it was worse for the woman with stockings on.

Benny stood behind the glass with a strange-looking young man in a light-coloured suit. He grinned and pointed his finger at his father.

You want me to show her my life?

O.K., I touched you.

Not touched.

O.K., fucked, sucked. I made you stutter and wet your bed. Made you a liar too, quite likely. My skin responded. It’s physiology. The male skin – you touch it, you get a response. Like jellyfish – you touch them, they fire out darts. The jellyfish cannot control it. There are men more sensitive than others. Is that unnatural? You hold their hand, they get a hard-on. Whose fault is that? When does that happen? If there is no reason then there is no God.

If there is a God I am not a monster.

In my great slimy shape, in my two great eyes, my dark slimy heart, I am not a monster. Was I the sort of creep who hangs round scout troops, molesting strangers?

‘It must have occurred to you,’ he said to the Tax Inspector, when he had introduced himself, ‘that what you decide affects our whole life.’

She took a step away and put up her own umbrella again.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘All the time.’

Behind her back, he could see Benny winking and grinning. Benny could not hear a damn word he said.

‘Does it look bad for us?’ he asked.

‘It looks nothing much yet,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you’ll just be fine.’

‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘It won’t be fine.’

‘Maybe you should let me discover that.’

‘I don’t need to. I can tell you,’ he said. He was a little out of breath, but he felt great. ‘Look at the salary claims for our sales manager. I’d look at that one closely.’ There was thunder all around them now. The traffic on Loftus Street was driving with its headlights on. ‘Plus the trade-ins. You’re going to find the lack of trade-ins interesting.’

The Tax Inspector was shaking her head and frowning.

‘Mr Catchprice, please … don’t do this.’

Mort looked at Benny and saw that he was frowning too. He thought: maybe he can read my lips. He said: ‘No one set out to be crooked. Not even Cathy.’

‘Mr Catchprice, please.’ She put out her hand as if to touch him and then something about him, some stiffness, stopped her. ‘Please just relax.’

He laughed. It was a stupid laugh, a snort. He could not help it.

She looked at him oddly.

‘He wants me to show you our life,’ he said.

The Tax Inspector frowned at him. She had such a pretty face. Benny was right – it was a kind face, but she would kill him with a rock if she could see his soul. Every time you turn on the television, someone is saying: child sexual abuse. But they don’t see how Benny comes to me, crawling into my bed and rubbing my dick, threatening me with jail. Is this abuse?

‘Maybe I should show you the true Catchprice life?’ he said. He felt half dizzy.

I am the one trying to stop this stuff and he is crawling into bed and rubbing my dick and he will have a kid and do it to his kid, and he will be the monster and they’ll want to kill him. Today he is the victim, tomorrow he is the monster. They do not let you be the two at once. They do not see: it is common because it is natural. No, I am not saying it is natural, but if it is so common how come it is not natural?

The rain was pouring down now. It was spilling across the front office guttering and running down the windows like a fish shop window.

Maria Takis looked at Mort Catchprice. He was staring her directly in the eyes and his own eyes were too alive, too excited for the context. His lips trembled a little. It occurred to her he was having a mental breakdown.