The Dingoes' Lament. John Bois

was building a parallel with my anxiety attacks. If I perceived the sentence correctly, if my powers of logic could prevail over a lawyer, a QC and four men (for, by now, everyone was prepared to go along with the QC’s opinion), then perhaps they could also prevail over the irrational nocturnal tigers of anxiety and beat them back to their primitive den.

      We parked opposite Seymour’s office in J.L.’s white Morris minivan. The day was hot and Seymour had his window open; smoke was billowing out. A pigeon alighted off its air current and onto Seymour’s window ledge. It flew off immediately.

      ‘I’ve read that sentence so many times,’ said Stockley. ‘It could say Eat at Joe’s for all I know. I say we go along with the Queen’s how’s-your-father.’

      ‘I think we have to,’ said Kerryn.

      ‘Even if it means we go nowhere,’ said Brod, ‘I think we have to take the QC’s opinion seriously. We can’t risk being ruined for life.’

      ‘Let’s see what the Q-fuckin’-C says,’ I said.

      We climbed up and out of the mini. Seymour had heard our footsteps on his stairs and was waiting at his open door. He had a smile that desperately tried to show concern but was smug beyond the hiding.

      ‘Come in and sit down,’ he said. ‘How was Adelaide?’

      ‘Good,’ I said. ‘How was the Queen’s Counsel?’

      ‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid he thinks we have a problem. He says that at best the sentence is ambiguous, and that it probably means you have to pay back whether you make it or not.’

      We were silent. J.L. buried his head in his hands.

      Kerryn was exasperated. ‘Well, where does that put us now.’

      ‘We’re fucked,’ concluded Stockley. ‘That’s where it puts us.’

      ‘It’s up to you. If you sign these contracts you’ll have to be prepared to pay back for the rest of your life. Of course, you can gamble that you’ll make it. But if you want my advice — I wouldn’t sign for anything.’

      ‘I think you’re wrong,’ I said.

      ‘Well, as I said, it’s up to you. It’s your risk, not mine.’

      ‘I think you and the QC are wrong. The sentence means we don’t pay back if we don’t make money.’ My voice was shaking with exhilaration; I made no effort to hide it.

      Seymour looked at me with a bemused expression and said, ‘Wait a minute. Where did you say you got your degree from, John?’

      ‘Hey! Don’t talk to him like that,’ said Kerryn menacingly. ‘He’s not an idiot.’

      ‘I can understand English as well as you. And that’s what these contracts were written in.’

      ‘And what about the Queen’s Counsel? I suppose you can read law as well as him, too.’

      ‘He, Seymour. I don’t know anything but that that sentence is a protection for us. It’s common sense.’

      The others were a silent but appreciative audience.

      ‘Come with me,’ snapped Seymour as he snatched up his pipe and lit it. He headed for the conference room. I walked out last, and the single file of bobbing heads, with Seymour’s sending out clouds of smoke, looked, for all the world, like a train of heads. But this time I didn’t get the giggles.

      We sat at the conference table while Seymour wrote, on a blackboard, the disputed sentence. After twenty minutes of his syntactical browbeating, the blackboard was covered with underlined syllables and arrows pointing from preposition to conjunction. I calmly said, ‘I’m sorry. But it says just the opposite, in plain English. I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about, but you must have made a mistake somewhere.’

      Seymour shouted, ‘John, if you can’t see it now you’re a bloody moron!’ He quickly withdrew. ‘I’m sorry. Look, I don’t blame you. That’s why you hired me. But you’re not letting me do my job. Would I tell you how to play drums? Ha, ha. I hope not. No. But let me interpret the law, won’t you?’

      But the more he carried on, the stronger my conviction became. I felt as I would if Seymour was a doctor and we were all studying an X-ray. Everyone was saying the dark spot is a tumour. I can plainly see it is a fly.

      ‘There’s only one thing to do,’ I said. ‘You reword it to your satisfaction, and I’ll ring their lawyers tonight. If they agree to your change, we sign. If they don’t, I’ll bring the cyanide tablets to our next meeting.’

      ‘What do we have to lose,’ said Stockley.

      ‘Cool,’ said Brod.

      At one in the morning I rang Peter Rudge’s lawyer. She agreed to the change without a quibble.

      I saw Seymour only once after that. The amended contracts were mailed to him and I had the privilege of picking them up.

      ‘I’ve looked at that sentence again. You might be right,’ he said.

      So six months after the first call, we signed, sealed and sent off the contracts. Two months after that we boarded a jumbo jet bound for America.