‘Do you remember the Aboriginal guy in the park right by the Albury that night?’ Harry asked.
‘Green Park?’
‘He greeted you but you didn’t greet him back. Why not?’
‘I didn’t know him.’
The lights turned to green and Andrew jumped on the gas.
The Albury wasn’t busy when Harry entered.
‘You’re early,’ Birgitta said. She was putting clean glasses on the shelves.
‘I thought the service would be better before the rush.’
‘We serve anyone and everyone here.’ She pinched Harry’s cheek. ‘What do you want?’
‘Just a coffee.’
‘It’s on the house.’
‘Thank you, sweetheart.’
Birgitta laughed. ‘Sweetheart? That’s what my father calls my mother.’ She sat down on a stool and leaned over the bar towards Harry. ‘And actually I ought to be nervous when a guy I’ve known for less than a week starts using terms of affection with me.’
Harry breathed in her aroma. Scientists still know very little about how the olfactory cortex in the brain converts impulses from receptors into conscious senses of smell. But Harry wasn’t thinking so much about the hows, he just knew that when he smelt her, all sorts of things started happening in his head and body. Like his eyelids closing halfway, like his mouth spreading into a broad grin and his mood soaring.
‘Relax,’ he said. ‘“Sweetheart” belongs to the more innocuous pet-name category.’
‘I didn’t even know that innocuous pet names existed.’
‘Yes, they do. There’s “love” for example. “Sweetie”. Or “honey”.’
‘And what are the dangerous ones?’
‘Well, schnookiepooks is quite dangerous,’ Harry said.
‘Wha-at?’
‘Schnookiepooks. Muffiewuff. You know, fluffy-bear-type words. The important thing is that they’re pet names that don’t have a hackneyed or impersonal sound to them. They have to be more tailor-made, intimate words. And they’re generally pronounced through the nose, so they have that nasal sound people use with children. Then there’s reason to feel claustrophobic.’
‘Have you got any more examples?’
‘What’s happened to the coffee?’
Birgitta whacked him with the cloth. Then she poured some coffee into a big mug. She was standing with her back to him, and Harry felt an urge to reach over and touch her hair.
She gave him his coffee then went to serve another customer as business began to pick up. His attention was attracted by the sound of the TV suspended over the shelves in the bar. The news was on, and eventually Harry understood that it was about an Aboriginal group demanding certain territorial rights.
‘. . . with regard to the new Native Title legislation,’ the newsreader said.
‘So justice has prevailed . . .’ he heard a voice behind him say.
Harry turned. At first he didn’t recognise the long-legged, powdered woman with the coarse features and the blond wig towering above him. But then he identified the fat nose and the gap between the teeth.
‘The clown!’ he exclaimed. ‘Otto . . .’
‘Otto Rechtnagel, His Highness, in person, Handsome Harry. That’s the trouble with these high heels. I actually prefer my men to be taller than me. May I?’ He parked himself on the bar stool beside Harry.
‘What’s your poison?’ Harry asked, trying to catch Birgitta’s eye.
‘Relax, she knows,’ said Otto.
Harry offered him a cigarette, which he took without a word of thanks and placed in a pink holder. Harry held out a match, and Otto, hollow-cheeked and provocative, observed him while dragging on the cigarette. The short dress clung to his slim, nylon-clad thighs. Harry had to concede that the guise was a minor masterpiece. Otto in drag was more woman than many he had met. Harry took his eyes away and pointed to the TV screen.
‘What do you mean by justice prevailing?’
‘Haven’t you heard about Terra Nullius? Eddy Mabo?’
Harry shook his head twice. Otto pursed his lips and out came two thick smoke rings, slowly ascending into the air.
‘Terra Nullius is a funny little concept. The English hit upon it when they came here and saw that there wasn’t much cultivated land in Australia. And just because the Aboriginal people didn’t stand over potato fields half the day, the English considered them to be of lower status. However, the Aboriginal tribes knew a thing or two about nature; they went wherever there was food, in whichever season, and lived a life of apparent plenty. But because they weren’t settlers, the English determined that no one owned the land. It was Terra Nullius. And according to the Terra Nullius principle the English could just issue property deeds to the new settlers without taking any account of what the Aboriginal people might have to say. They hadn’t laid claim to their own land.’