Blood Guilt. Lindy Cameron
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to park down the street a little in a No Standing Zone.
Half an hour later Kit grabbed her camera to get a shot of one of the city's new breed of boy wonders leaving one of the city's oldest boys' clubs. Kit recognised Ian Dalkeith from two photographs she'd seen in the weekend papers. One had shown him hobnobbing with all the right people at a recent polo match, obviously trying to polish off a few of his rough edges. The other had accompanied a short article describing in typically vague terms the re-development plans for Dalkeith's latest acquisition. Several hectares of disused docklands would eventually be transformed into 'a state of the art integrated business and residential district worthy of Melbourne's position in the international market place' - whatever the hell that meant.
It appeared the young property developer was cultivating a public persona. Two years ago the press would have said 'Ian Who?' But now there were two things about the boy-from-Nowhere, that mythical place not found on any map, that the social pages at least could not ignore: he was very, very rich and very, very handsome. For the life of her Kit couldn't work out how a 40-year-old parvenu from the world of real estate had become friends with a 54-year-old wanker from the publishing industry. Unless of course they had first met in the front seat of Geoffrey's Bentley! But that would be too weird.
Kit was beginning to wonder just what went on amongst the Patricians that prompted Geoffrey to follow a couple of hours at his club with a few quick thrills in St Kilda. For there he was again, cruising along the gutter, checking out the local merchandise. The punk from Saturday night, or at least it looked like the same guy, stuck his head through the open window of the Bentley but was obviously not the desired flavour for the night. He stepped back from the car and pointed down the street, whereon Geoffrey pulled out into the traffic and then parked one block further down.
Kit watched as Geoffrey just sat there, waving off the approaches of a couple of perfectly acceptable sex workers, until a tall redhead sashayed passed his car - expertly ignoring him. 'Hooked you, you jerk-off,' Kit said with a laugh, as she saw Geoffrey lean across the passenger seat.
The woman, dressed in very long black stockings and what was probably a skirt but looked more like a crimson leather belt topped off, literally, with an almost-but-not-quite transparent black singlet, turned on her professional heels with a casual 'what, who me?' look. She approached the car and with one finely muscled arm resting on the roof she bent, from the hips with a perfectly straight back, to find out how she could possibly help the gentleman.
Whatever it was he needed was apparently within her field of expertise. Kit followed the car down a couple of backstreets, then photographed the woman escorting Geoffrey towards the wide concrete steps of a nondescript two-storey house. St Kilda was full of these once grand old buildings, many of which had been divided up into self-contained apartments. Kit grabbed her leather jacket, chucked a blanket over her camera gear, leapt out of and locked her car and sprinted across the street. She struggled into her jacket, zipped it up to throat and pulled a black baseball cap from the pocket. She slowed down to a brisk walk but was level with the gate before she realised Geoffrey was still standing in the building's well-lit lobby. Pulling the hat down over her eyes she kept on walking till she gained the cover of a large tangled bush on the other side of the front garden, then vaulted the low fence and made a dash for the wide veranda, directly in front of which was a bed of hydrangeas. She pulled herself up and from a crouching position peered through the tall, narrow window beside the front door in time to see Geoffrey and the crimson tart ascend the carpeted stairs.
Kit tried the door before she noticed the numbered key pad recessed into the wall.
Pretty posh for a cathouse, she thought. Now what?
The only access to the rear of the house was a narrow garden down the right hand side of the building, overgrown but not exactly unkempt. Kit noticed a light go on above her on the first floor but could only assume it was Geoffrey. She pushed her way through the bushes till she found the bottom of the fire escape. It was unlikely, however, that the rickety wooden stairs would provide a safe escape in the event of fire and absolutely no way was Kit going to test their ability to carry anything heavier than a woodworm.
She figured the building, in its hey day, had been one of those charming seaside guest houses specialising in a touch of gracious living for middle class holiday makers. Or perhaps it had been an annual retreat for a collection of crusty old bachelors and spinsters - à la Deborah Kerr and David Niven in Separate Tables. Whatever it had been before the veneer of seediness had taken root in this part of the city, before drugs and prostitution had taken over from Luna Park and the beach as the main tourist attractions, it was now only the stuff of memory. The muffled sound of grunting and groaning followed by a clearly audible 'Oh yes! Yes Mr Bond. Give me both barrels,' escaped from the window just above Kit's head to confirm the fact.
Kit climbed the fence, under where she'd seen the light go on, to see if there was higher ground on the other side. Next door was a derelict building, similar to the one in which Geoffrey was ensconced but missing most of its windows on this side. Derelict did not necessarily mean empty so she gave up on the idea of trying to get a better view and went back to her car.
An hour later Kit was having serious problems with a dead body. She had just watched it fall forty feet from a South Melbourne warehouse roof into a conveniently-placed dump bin. Too convenient! It needed to be found fairly soon. She dragged it out of the bin and back up to the roof. This time it landed on the roof of a car. Now, that should attract some attention!
She saved the file, closed it, and opened a new one. A new, empty one. She got up and walked away from the very blank screen, then wandered into the kitchen, removed the cotton scarf she'd tied around her neck, soaked it under the cold tap again and put it back on.
How could she be creative when even the weather was against her? She was sure the heat was turning her brain to mush.
Excuses, excuses, O'Malley! Kit knew she was doing everything she could think of to avoid the issue at hand. Which was...what?
'Come on, you know,' she said to herself.
'OK. It's love. Or is it romance?' herself answered.
'Either one O'Malley. Just get on with it.'
'All right already!' She went back to her desk and flopped into her chair a safe distance from the unhelpful keyboard. Everything was ripe, the set-up was perfect, it had to happen sooner or later.
'Later,' she said. 'I'll think about it tomorrow.'
I've heard that one before, Scarlett, a little voice from nowhere said. She eyed the blinking cursor suspiciously, as if it had been going through her garbage or reading her personal diary.
'You've forgotten what it's like O'Malley, that's your problem,' Kit said dismally, as she downed the last of the iced coffee in her mug and escaped to the kitchen to pour some more from the jug.
'Oh no I haven't,' she argued. 'I know it's been a while but it's not something you forget. My problem is I don't have the faintest idea how to write about it.' She made a piece of toast and vegemite to put it off a little longer.
How do you make someone fall in love - on paper?
How do you do it in real life, for god's sake?
That one you can answer Katherine O'Malley.
No I can't, Kit argued silently. I've no idea how that happened. I just opened my eyes one day and I was right in the middle of it. These things are not planned, so how the hell do you put it on paper so that it doesn't look contrived?
'It is going to be contrived no matter what you do,' she shouted at the empty room.
The Cat, which was sensibly maintaining a safe distance, mewed loudly as if she agreed wholeheartedly.
'Oh be quiet Thistle. What the hell would you know? All you ever do with that handsome Mr Rufus next door is flirt.'
Kit returned to her computer to see if it had written a page or two of erotic fiction while she'd been in the kitchen. The cursor winked on, off, on, off - taunting her from the otherwise empty screen.
So far