it back on soon,’ Pip said. ‘I bloody hope so, anyway. I’ll get rapidly homicidal in this weather without air conditioning. How are you getting home?’
‘At least you’re down by the harbour. I’m bang in the thick of it in a wool skirt and stockings. Um, not sure yet,’ she said. ‘Walking, probably.’
‘Poor you. I’d come and get you if I could. By the way it’s pouring here. Hope the rain stays away from where you are.’
‘Jesus, really? That’d put the icing on it. I …’ Just at that moment a fat drop landed on Cressida’s knee, and more pinged on the seat next to her, then out of nowhere a sheet of water roared across the square from the sky behind the Hannes Swartling building. Three weeks of forty degrees and it was raining now? Cressida scrambled for the tiny umbrella in her handbag.
‘Hang on,’ she yelled. ‘I’d better go. Are you okay getting home?’
‘Yeah I’m fine. You too I hope. Good luck finding Felipe!’ her friend yelled back, and Cressida hung up. Feeling like a gazelle on ice, she ran across the paving to the overhang of the nearest building, where thirty other people huddled looking out at the rain. Down at the bus stop, the queuing workers stood with heads bent sideways like horses in a field. One woman had her face to the sky letting the drops pelt her cheeks. Cressida half longed to do the same, feel the rain wash the sweat from her face and where it stuck to her clothing, but that would ruin her blowdry so she didn’t. Looking around she decided there was only one thing for it. She’d have to walk, and hope Felipe could look after himself. Quickly she closed the umbrella and fished her running shoes out of her gym bag, standing awkwardly to slip off her heels and jam first one foot then the other into the runners. She stashed her heels in her handbag and put the umbrella up again, pressing the speed dial to Felipe again with the other hand. Hopefully the mobile phone fairy was still on the job. He picked up on the first ring.
‘Felipe? Oh thank God,’ she said, feeling another wash of relief. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’
‘Darling, where are you?’ he said. ‘Are you alright? You sound distressed.’
‘There’s a bloody blackout here. And it’s pouring.’
‘Cressida, what are you yelling for?’ he said, irritated. ‘What’s all that racket in the background?’
‘It’s the rain. Sorry. Look I’ve been trying to call you. It took ages even to get out of the building, let alone on a bus. Where are you?’
‘What do you mean? I’m at the hospital of course …’
‘Oh,’ said Cressida, stopping. Someone behind her ran into her and swore, and she apologised, cupping the hand with the umbrella in it round the phone. ‘But … but I thought you were meeting me at the hotel?’
‘Yes, look I know, darling, I’m so sorry – to tell you the truth I clean forgot! They’re down an orthopod registrar here and it’s bedlam; I haven’t had a minute to think.’
‘Oh. Yes, of course,’ said Cressida, concealing the disappointment in her voice. It was alright. He’d remember about the partnership vote later, when the chaos had died down.
‘And I did say to you, Cressida, that I wasn’t sure about this the night before such an important triathlon meet.’
Oh God, the triathlon. Felipe was obsessed with them, in part because he was certain it helped with seniority on the Australian Orthopaedic Association Board, of which he was a member. Cressida wasn’t convinced, but she wasn’t about to argue.
‘Yes, yes of course absolutely … Hey, um, we just had the partnership vote, Felipe … remember?’
‘I’m sorry, Cressida, I can hardly hear you – can we talk about this later? I’ll get a taxi and … oh, there’s one. Excuse me.’ Then there was the sound of a scuffle and a door slamming. ‘Oh for goodness sake. Now I’ve seen everything.’
‘What?’
‘Oh nothing. Just a bloody wardsman jumped the queue for the only taxi there’s been for half an hour. Can you flag one and come here?’
She looked around. On the street below, four taxis were bumper to bumper under the grey sheets of rain, but their signs were dark.
‘Ah …’ she said. ‘Look, how about I get home as soon as I can and drive over. Only, well, it’s total gridlock here. How’s the street outside the hospital?’
‘I wouldn’t know, Cressida, I’m in the car park underneath.’ The irritation in his voice went up a notch. ‘Where the taxi rank is. Oh—’ There were muffled words on the end of the phone again. ‘It’s alright, all is well, Peter can give me a lift. See you. No need to drop over. I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘Oh. But …’ she began, and the phone went dead. She looked down at it and swallowed. It was okay, it was a long way from the hospital to here. What did she expect him to do – come all the way down and pick her up? The two bars of chocolate in her bag were glinting at her again, and before she knew it she had ripped the wrapping off the Jelly Popping Candy Beanies and devoured half of it, falling into its consuming decadence as the rain coursed over her umbrella. Hadn’t that whole chocolate/Porsche plan turned out well, she thought, watching water stream into the drain in the gutter beside her. She looked down at her shoes. They were soaked, and the bottom half of her skirt was drenched from the angle of the downpour. Then a pool of light flooded the street ahead and she looked up to see a helicopter bank above the buildings, its searchlight backlighting the shards of rain. At least it warded off the dark. She squeezed the water out of her skirt and began to walk.
On Elizabeth Street the restaurants and nightclubs were like toys run out of batteries, the bar owners standing and looking forlornly out into the street, while next to them disgorged patrons leant against walls finishing clear-glass beers. Police were everywhere, doling out witches hats along the edge of the roadway to keep the crowd on the footpath. It took her forty minutes to make it along Oxford Street to Bondi Junction, but at the bus terminus she squeezed onto a bus full of wet office workers and exhausted-looking European backpackers, and stood for the journey up the hill to North Bondi. On the kerb at the corner of Military Road the bus let her out and she stood to watch it go, a box of golden-lit noise, red tail-lights and steam winding its way up the hill. The street was slick with rain and as the bus receded, like a tide the silence settled in, broken only by a deep, bouncy ping that echoed from the golf course on the other side of the road – frogs? Distantly she could hear the roar of the sea from the foot of the cliffs, and then a night bird called, far off. She felt caught like a fly in amber in the strangeness of it, between the heavy sky and the wet ground, listening as nature extended its fingers into the gaps left by the stillness. And there was that alone feeling she’d had in the boardroom, again, after everyone had left. As if the frogs and the birds were the only other things living. Quickly she shook off the feeling and started for home.
At her apartment building all she wanted was to get inside, heeling off her wet shoes and shucking her skirt in the hallway. As she fell against the wall she flicked the light out of habit, too tired to find the torch on her phone in the dark. By feel she identified a juice left over from that morning in the fridge, the sediment that had floated to the top meeting her tongue. Blecch. Spinach, kale and beetroot would never have flirted in the kitchen at a party. The expensive cold-press juicer made a dark shape on the counter. Hopefully the five kilos of veggies in the crisper would keep. She fell on her bed and coaxed open a window, noticing again the silence thick on the hot night air. But then, some flats away, there was laughter, and she felt herself relax. Someone was having a blackout party. The human race did still exist. She fell onto the pillow, fast asleep.
5
Eighteen months as Premier, four years in senior ministry, and nearly twenty years as a member of parliament, and the whole time this place had been in the bowels of the building and Robert had had no idea. He always felt like he was the last to know