The lightning rod, p.1
The Lightning Rod, page 1
THE
LIGHTNING
ROD
GED GILLMORE
deGrevilo Publishing
[In China] there are still some 600 million people earning a medium or low income, or even less. Their monthly income is barely 1,000 RMB [$150].
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, May 2020.
People talk about a ‘wealth pyramid’, as if the assets and income of the world’s population are distributed in such a shape: broad at the bottom and narrowing slowly to the richest few at the top.
This is not the case.
A shape which truly represented the global distribution of wealth would be as wide and flat at the bottom as several football fields – to represent the billions who own and earn next to nothing. In the middle of these fields would be a slim tower. The tower would indeed narrow rapidly as it ascends but, at its top, there would be a long sharp spire. On the top of this spire would be an even narrower steeple and, on top of that, a long lightning rod.
If you are reading this, you are most probably at the bottom of the lightning rod, looking up jealously at those above you.
Prof. Arthur J. Halfstein, How Rich You Are, November 2020
PART ONE
Sydney
1.
Anna Moore is alone on a dark street. It is the weekend, and not long after midnight, but the windows of the few houses in sight are as black as the driveways that stretch between them and the road. It is a sign of this suburb’s respectability that everyone who lives here is tucked up in bed already. There are no revellers wobbling their way home; no neighbours putting their bottles out; no one, thank goodness, to witness Anna’s ultimate walk of shame. The only sign of life is from the plane trees standing guard along the pavements; their parallel canopies are thick with the cackling and squabbling of bats.
As a child of genteel English suburbia, Anna has never grown used to the flying foxes of the Sydney night. Just to hear them is to remember their grotesque size. Still, she would rather be out here with the rustling trees than return to the house she has just left. Not that she did anything wrong in there. She is a modern, independent woman and how she chooses to let Saturday slip into Sunday is entirely up to her. And yet she has crept away from the scene, not wanting to wake the foul man she left sweating in his sleep, nor even to see her reflection in the glass of his front door.
Anna scrabbles in her handbag, finds her phone, and, with impatient thumbs, orders an Uber. She needs a shower, or maybe a bath: anything to rid herself of this rind of dried perspiration – not all of it her own. She needs to climb into her bed and pretend this evening never happened. The Uber app asks her to confirm it has pinpointed her location correctly and Anna peers up and down the street for a clue. There is little more than darkness in either direction; the nearest streetlamp is fifty metres away and its dirty yellow light is unable to penetrate the canopy of the trees. There are no house numbers in sight to compare to the one the app is suggesting and Anna does not even know if it has her in the right street. She is hesitating over what to do when a noise slams into the night.
It is a rolling thunderous boom: a blast of noise that coils Anna so tight that she loses her balance and stumbles off her high heels onto the ground. The noise shakes the bats from the trees, and the animals screech into the air in a mass panic that rains twigs and leaves and droppings in its wake. It tightens Anna’s skin and leaves a dull tone in her ears. Then it beats a rapid retreat, grasping at the night in greedy echoes until it is suddenly gone.
The pavement is harsh on Anna’s hands and knees. She snatches back her phone – the flagstones grating her expensive nails – and, grabbing at an Audi parked at a tilt on the kerb, pulls herself to her feet. She is a woman of soft and gentle curves and not used to feeling her muscles. Now each one is rigid with fear. Her neck and back are so tight she can raise herself no higher than an awkward crouch. Her breathing is fast and shallow, like that of a tiny creature aware of its lowly rank in the food chain.
Hunched down against the Audi, Anna swivels in each direction, half-expecting a snarling gunman to run at her from the shadows. For surely that was a gunshot? She has heard the noise before, on clay pigeon shoots and lonely walks in the English countryside. Only a gunshot has that dangerous, bone-shuddering robustness; that rock hard bottom that, right now, distinguishes it from more preferable explanations: a car backfiring or an unseasonal firework. There is a sudden movement to Anna’s left. She flinches, but it is merely a small square of herself in the wing mirror of the Audi. Her dark eyes are wide and uncertain, her thick hair fallen forward in a mess. She squeezes herself between the car and a low-slung Aston Martin and checks herself all over. Her heart is throbbing in her ears. Tiny stones are sharp in her hands and knees. But she is not hurt. She has not been shot.
Peering out from between the cars, Anna confirms there is nothing in the street to explain the noise: no gangster with a gun cocked over his arm; no silhouettes running or fighting. Just cars parked bumper to bumper, detached mansions elegantly asleep. The gunshot has woken only the house behind her: the one she has just left. Its bedroom window is now bright, the ceiling Anna remembers all too well shimmering with shadows. She stands up and hurries across the road, her treacherous heels tapping at the tarmac. Between the canopies of the plane trees, the sky is full of bats, black shadows jagged against the stars.
Anna sidesteps between two new cars and ducks into the darkness offered by a tree on the opposite pavement. Immediately, a thick veil of web wraps her face. She tears at the sticky threads, pulling them from her skin and hair with her nails. The best way out of an Australian spider’s web is backwards – they are far stronger than those back home – but who knows if the lit window in the house behind her is still empty? More likely the man is now peering out at the street, hands cupped around his eyes. Anna imagines him spotting her and coming out to shout her back inside.
She pulls out her phone again, careful to keep the trunk of the tree between her and the house, and confirms the pick-up address suggested by the Uber app. She can only pray it is correct. The app considers her delayed response like a receptionist reconfirming the balance of power, then tells her she will have to wait eight minutes for a car. Eight minutes! Anna would be better off calling the police. Except, it is all too easy to picture what will happen then: two upright officers of the law, studying her in her highest heels and lowest-cut dress, as she tries to find acceptable words to explain what she did tonight. Why, exactly, she met that hideous man in a bar, went back to his house and had sex with him. ‘Oh yes, and then I realised he so disgusted me I didn’t want to spend another second in his company. No, sorry officer, I don’t actually remember his name.’
Anna’s friend Penny would flaunt the story like a diamond, daring one not to admire it. If only Anna was half as brave. If only she was Hard Hearted Anna. Then she could greet the police unashamedly, swinging her handbag and flaunting her cleavage, one finger held up to the neighbours for good measure. And maybe if tonight had been an impromptu one-night stand ... Anna feels a strange urge to spit, as if that would dislodge more than just the taste of red wine lingering in her mouth. She gives up on the idea of the police and dials Penny’s number instead.
The ring tone purrs slowly, teasing Anna’s fevered impatience. Come on, Penny, pick up. And please, please be home. The darkness under this tree offers only fragile protection. If anyone were to shine a light Anna’s way ...
‘Annie! Hello, darl! What are you doing calling so late?’
Penny is loud and excited, overcompensating for the music and laughter behind her. Anna’s heart sinks.
‘Penny, you’re not home, are you?’
‘No. We’re still out. Aw, Annie, dumpling, you should have come. The show was great; just lovely. And Lizzy’s dragged us all to this great champagne bar. It’s open till two – why don’t you come?’
Overhead a family of bats returns to its roost, the huge animals cackling close.
‘I’m in Woollahra, Penny. I just thought—’
‘There’s a really dishy guy here. I showed him your photo and said you were single, and he’s desperate to meet you. Why don’t you come and join us?’
‘Penny, I’m in Woollahra. I’m alone, and I swear I just heard—’
‘Woollahra? What are you doing there? Get out of my hood, girl!’
Penny bursts into peals of laughter, amused at her own sad, white slurring of an African American accent. For a brief moment, Anna can only hear the bar, the music, the crowd. Fun on a distant planet. Then there is another noise, not on the phone but much closer: here, in real life. Anna drops her hand to her side and stands alert to listen. Footsteps? Definitely footsteps. Running now and louder, so they must be coming towards her.
Penny’s voice shouts up from her hand. ‘Annie, darl? Are you there? Are you coming out? Hang on – excuse me. Excuse me, Mr Barman! What’s this place called? WHERE AM I?’
Penny is the loudest thing in the street. The footsteps could still be approaching, their owner on tiptoes with Anna unable to hear. Still, she hesitates to kill the call, to cut the fragile thread connecting her to the world she knows. Her thumb makes its own decision, hitting the red circle and darkening the screen. There are no footsteps now. No voices. Nothing but the bats in the branches overhead.
Anna presses her back against the tree, the rough bark scratching at the flesh between her shoulder blades. Beyond the tree’s shadows, without the light pollution from her phone screen, a garden wall delineates itself. Other than th
Anna’s muscles contract of their own accord, every limb and joint pulled in close against the tree. Brown droppings smatter the ground around her feet as the bats take flight again, but she is shrivelled so tight that only one catches the hem of her dress. Anna struggles in a breath and tries to regiment her thoughts into a logic that will tell her what the hell to do. She jabs desperately at her phone and – thank you, God, who looks over me even though I only believe in you when I’m scared – by some small miracle her Uber is now only two minutes away and moving steadily in her direction.
She is going to stay right where she is until the very last moment. Only when she hears the car throbbing impatiently will she leave the shadow of this tree. And if there is someone still out there, walking around with a gu— No. Don’t think about that. Even if respectable neighbours come out onto the street to stare at her, even if that vile man – Andrew, his name was Andrew! – opens his bedroom window and calls down to her, Anna will be in the car and gone before anyone can stop her.
She huddles closer over her phone as if it were the only source of warmth on a freezing night. In fact, the opposite is true: a viscid humidity has been sitting on the city all week, barely weaker at night than during the day, and the phone offers only cold comfort. The car is still two minutes away. It’s just two minutes, you’ll be fine. Still two minutes. Still two minutes again, but no new noises in the night and no one out of their houses yet. Then one minute. Thank you, God. Still one minute. Still one more minute as the Uber crawls towards her on the map.
Then Anna hears the car, its tiny hum barely louder than the bats. She forces a deep breath. The normally forgiving material of her sexiest dress is clinging to her back and her breasts but, for once, she does not care. She will ask the driver to turn the air conditioning on and the radio off, and soon she will be home. She will be absolutely fine. Except the little Uber on her screen is no longer approaching. And, when Anna cocks an ear to listen, the car engine she heard a moment earlier is no longer growing louder. The map on the phone says the car is only one corner away but, thirty seconds later, it is still there.
Anna takes a deep breath and steps out tentatively from beneath her tree. She crouches between the nearest cars, then leans out to peek up the street. The headlights of the car are just visible on the nearest corner, about fifty metres away. The juddering of the car’s engine is clearer from this angle, but now it is accompanied by the hollow thudding of car doors.
Everyone has a tipping point. A point of unfairness beyond which they become the person they are not normally brave enough to be. One second Anna is crouching, still and silent. The next, she is nothing but legs and lungs. She is mass transformed into energy as she sprints towards her Uber. She is Hard Hearted Anna, this is her ride home and no one is about to steal it from her. She pushes herself faster still, racing the noise of her heels on the tarmac – tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap – and reaches the corner just as the headlights start to move slowly forward. She runs into their path and holds her phone aloft as if it alone can save her.
The car breaks to an awkward halt, its dark-skinned driver and white passenger jerking forward in their seats. At the same time, as if she too were wearing a seatbelt, Anna’s stomach clenches tight. What if this is not her Uber after all? What if she has just thrown herself in front of a random car? A car that is now spotlighting her, as every inch of her skin sucks on her diaphanous dress so that she might as well be on stage in her underwear. Anna turns away, awkwardly covering her breasts with one arm as she checks her phone again. But the vehicle registration on her phone screen is indeed the same as the one on the dirty yellow number plate two metres from her shins. Anna straightens, turns back, and holds up the phone with a severe smile.
‘You’re my Uber!’ She steps out of the glare of the cruel headlights and uses her free hand to unpick her dress from her skin. ‘I’m Anna Moore. Going to Hope Street, Coogee. You’re Toyota Kluger, BS2 1KD.’
The driver turns to the man in the front passenger seat and, when Anna arrives beside his open window, the two men are muttering over one another.
‘Give it you back ...’
‘... not yet ...’
‘... can’t do anything about it ...’
‘... trust me ...’
‘This is her ride ...’
Anna interrupts them. ‘Look it doesn’t matter what’s happened. The point is, this is my Uber, it’s late, and I want to go home.’
The driver looks up shamefully; he knows he is at the mercy of her star rating. The man in the front passenger seat – the man who tried to steal her ride home – is less contrite. His bright eyes sparkle in what little light is on offer from the dashboard; his voice is smooth and confident.
‘Sorry. I think we’ve confused our cars.’
‘No, we haven’t. You don’t have a car, and you’re sitting in mine. Come on, out.’
The man tries a frowny little pout, a single raised eyebrow. People born good-looking, however, get as little sympathy from Anna as those born rich. She walks around the car and opens his door. The man in the passenger seat tries a generous smile, expensive teeth taking their turn to catch the scant light. Then, at the look on Anna’s face, he sighs, and steps one leg out of the car. To bring out the other he must use both hands, lifting the leg carefully but roughly, the way a farmer handles a sick animal. He uses the door frame to pull himself to his feet, frowning at the effort it affords him. If this is an act, it is a good one. Anna is tempted to lean in and ask the Uber driver if this Uber thief demonstrated any such effort on his way into the car. Instead, she lets the man, now taller than her and noticeably broad-shouldered, apologise again.
‘It was a genuine mistake.’ He glances up the street as if at a noise and then his green eyes are back with Anna. The whole action is so quick she wonders if it is a twitch. ‘I apologise. Madam, your car.’
‘Did you hear that noise a few moments ago? Gunshots or something?’
The man hesitates before answering, as if weighing up whether he still has a chance. ‘I thought it was a car backfiring. Thought maybe it was my Uber; that’s why I came out.’
‘I thought it sounded like a gun.’
‘Really? I wouldn’t know about that.’
Back in England, Anna was told there is no class system in Australia, that money is the only distinction. She discovered the fallacy of this shortly after arriving in Sydney and nurtures her accent as carefully here as she ever did back home. It is at times like this it proves a wise decision. She can smell the private schooling on the handsome Uber thief as clearly as the sandalwood scent that has accompanied him out of the car. He sounds as English as her own father, the vowels softly mellifluous. When some Australians say ‘car’, they sound like a cockatoo; in this man’s mouth, the word ebbs away and leaves one hungry for more.
’Listen,’ he says. ‘I don’t suppose you’re going anywhere near Randwick, are you?’
‘Randwick?’
‘It’s just, if this is your car, I haven’t got a clue where mine is. Maybe you could give me a lift if you’re heading that way? I thought I heard you say you were heading to Coogee.’
He is smiling again, too friendly too soon. When he adds his little pout, Anna tuts and shakes her head. But then he limps further out of her way and says, ‘Oh well, no harm in asking.’ He should have tried the limp the first time. The pout is too unlikely, too ‘little boy lost’ above his strong neck and muscular torso. The limp is humbler, and he is obviously shy about it. Anna gives her haughtiest sigh.
‘Where in Randwick?’
‘The hospital.’
‘How much?’
‘What?’
‘How much will you pay me to give you a lift on my Uber account to your destination?’
