Black Teeth by Zane Lovitt Read Free Book Online

possibility.
    But then Stuart walked in and presumed to run the meeting, because he’s a partner or because he’s a man or both, and I knew in the first five seconds that I wasn’t going to get my quota.
    Therefore: I have altered the terms of the deal.
    ‘Let me put this another way,’ Stuart says, adjusting the tension of his braces. ‘It’s come to my attention that you don’t use your real name in these interviews. I’m sure you have your reasons. But I’m also sure you can understand that, from our point of view, it seems odd. I’m wondering if it doesn’t scare off our best candidates. Can you explain that practice to me?’
    Madison bends forward as far as her tummy will allow and stares down another biscuit. She does not pick one up.
    ‘You come to embrace certain work practices,’ I say, breathe in hard. ‘…when a crazy person attacks you in your home.’
    Stuart licks his lips. He always seems to be preparing to speak, but now he stays quiet. They watch me blink down at the boardroom table to properly dredge up the memory.
    ‘You may have seen it. It was on the news. Do you know the name Paul Heaney?’
    Stuart, not a man to let on when he doesn’t know something, doesn’t respond.
    What else I knew in the first five seconds of this meeting was that Madison de Silva is pregnant, evidenced by the baby bump as much as by the macaroons she’s had three of. This is someone I’ve only ever known to nibble at a rice cake, to wear a thick layer of make-up and do aerobics in the park at lunch. My theory is that Madison is not one of those thin people who do not get food, forwhom eating is as uninspiring an act of replenishment as a visit to the petrol station. My theory is that Madison has fought hunger every day of her life: circled her trouble spots in the mirror; sniffed at a hamburger while she devoured a stick of celery; flirted with eating disorders and maybe even taken one home. But now that she’s With Child, something has triggered: she’s lurched for cover behind the big-tummy branding of Mother-To-Be.
    My decision, therefore, is this: if Madison eats four macaroons or more, I’ll make the call. Today. Like, before I go home. As it stands, one more macaroon and it’s ring-a-ding-ding .
    For now, Madison shakes her head, waits for me to explain, doesn’t so much as bat her eyes at the biscuits.
    ‘Paul Heaney was a candidate at SoSecure. This is a while ago, before they went public. I used my real name back then and I interviewed him and he told me he was a blank slate. He said there was nothing I would find on him.’
    Madison just listens. So does Stuart.
    ‘I wound up with a photo of him at the Jabiluka protests. Remember those? Students in the Northern Territory? Big placards, bongos. The photo was a police officer dragging Heaney out of a picket line. He had long hair and a different wardrobe to the one I’d seen, but it was him. So I passed that on to SoSecure and they cut him from the harvest. For obvious reasons. They didn’t want an employee who’d once picketed their clients.’
    Still nothing. She’s had enough. What kind of glutton did I take her for? The alternating current of relief and disappointment surges through me.
    ‘Then one night, I’m at home and there’s a knock at my door. And I think it’s the pizza guy so I open up. And it’s Heaney. And he’s got a broken bottle in his hand. And he’s drunk. And he demands an explanation from me, for why I doctored that photo. He said he’d never been to Jabiluka, it never happened. So I must have shopped him into the pic. I tried to shut the door, he swiped at me. Cut me pretty deep along here. They call this a defensive wound.’
    It’s an effort, but I pull up my shirt sleeve to display the four-inch scar below my elbow.
    ‘Oooooh,’ Stuart says. Madison sighs in sympathy.
    ‘I got the door closed but he cut up the security screen. Cops showed up and that was it.’
    Stuart says, ‘Christ.’
    ‘You know