by Ben Sanders
Then again, he hadn’t turned out any different.
The door was protected by a two-sided shelter of corrugated plastic on timber framing. He knocked. He’d drafted a greeting on the way over: an apologetic icebreaker that steered clear of full-blown pathetic. Ultimately, wasted rehearsal: the anxious doorstep wait obliterated recall.
A little boy answered. His little boy? Surely not. A tiptoe stretch for the handle, a one-eye peep around the edge of the door.
Duvall said, ‘Hello.’
The kid said nothing. He took a step back and bit his bottom lip, hands clasped tightly in front of him. He must have been seven or eight years old.
‘Is your mother home?’
The child nodded, disappeared with a pattering scurry, door left ajar.
She appeared a moment later, hair bloated in a loose tousle as if she’d been sleeping. She had the door fully open before she recognised him.
‘Shit. Mitchell?’
He smiled. ‘Hi.’
She kept hold of the door, reached across herself to smooth her hair. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I just wanted to see you.’
She stood there for a moment, palm turned in against her hip, elbow cocked, like she always used to. ‘Jordan, you can play on the PlayStation for a wee while.’
She jerked her head to signal him to come inside. He ducked his chin to his chest and stepped in. She closed the door after him. The kitchen was left of the entry. She led the way through and stood leaning against the edge of the sink, fists propped knuckles-down either side. Her eyes hadn’t left him, like he couldn’t be trusted unwatched. He drew out a vinyl-covered chair and sat down at the table. The chair was metal tube. A bent leg left it jittery.
She said, ‘I don’t even know why I let you in.’
‘Thanks anyway.’
She didn’t answer. He noted a trio of beer bottles arranged beside the door.
‘Is that your son?’ he said.
She nodded.
‘How old?’
‘Seven.’
She saw his quiet arithmetic: ‘Relax: he definitely isn’t yours.’
Duvall tried for a laugh, saw her expression, sealed his mouth. He said, ‘Were you asleep?’
‘I’ve got a migraine coming on. So you can make it quick.’
Migraine. He restrained himself from a reflexive glance at the bottles.
‘Did you call me earlier?’ she said.
‘Yeah. Wanted to check you were in.’
‘And you hung up without saying anything. Big of you.’
‘I’m sorry. I just wanted to check that you’re doing okay.’
‘First time you’ve ever had that thought.’
‘No reason not to start.’
She bent and delved in a cupboard, came out with a silver blister pack of Nurofen. She cracked a tablet into her open palm and threw it back like a breath mint. A wincing, dry swallow.
‘Might want to keep them a bit higher,’ he said. ‘Case the young fella finds them.’
She arched an eyebrow. Still looked great as she did it. ‘Right. Anything else?’
He shrugged, like he meant nothing by it.
She shook her head, like marvelling at good luck. ‘I thought maybe one day you’d come back.’
‘Well. Ta-da!’
She ignored him. ‘Probably spent half my time hoping I’d never see you again, and the other half hoping you’d come back so I could tell you some things I wanted to say.’ She picked a cuticle. ‘So I guess they sort of cancelled each other out, because here you are and I don’t really know what to tell you.’ She shrugged again and looked at the floor. ‘Other than I got married and had a child and found someone who doesn’t make me hate myself. Actually feels pretty good, if you know how that feels.’
‘It must be great.’
She didn’t answer. Electronic noise from the next room: the PlayStation in action. ‘Why isn’t he at school?’ Duvall said.
‘Behaviour problems. They’re giving him a break for a couple of days.’
‘Like, being stood down?’
‘Yeah, I guess that’s what it is.’
He took a breath and went for it. ‘I came because I wanted to tell you I’m really sorry.’
She combed her hair with her fingers. ‘You may as well not have bothered.’
He didn’t answer.
She looked at the door. ‘I think we’re past that point where apologies actually mean anything. Just makes me feel sorry for you really because you’ve actually gone this long before it occurred to you that you’d done something you needed to fix.’
He didn’t answer.
She smiled wryly. ‘So what sparked this great guilt then? Did you find religion? I’ve had guys do that before. “Since I’ve found God I realised it was bad of me to abuse you.”’
He shrugged. ‘Just thought the scales were stacked one way and not the other.’
‘Which means what?’
‘I think I’ve done more bad things than good. I want to switch that around.’
She flicked the Nurofen sleeve idly, seemed to consider another helping. ‘I don’t think one “sorry” is going to tilt the scales back the other way very much.’
‘Better than not at all.’
She returned the tablets to the cupboard and pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him. ‘You’re not a bad person. You’re just an idiot.’
He avoided her gaze. ‘I dream about the people I hurt during the tour. I used to dream about them virtually every night. On the nights that I didn’t, I’d worry that they had dreamed about me.’
She didn’t answer. He said, ‘Sometimes I just lie awake in the dark and I think about everything bad stacked up behind me, and I wonder if at some point something changed for the worse, or whether things were just never any good.’
‘Is that meant to win some sort of sympathy vote?’
‘No. I think that’s just the truth of it. Don’t do anything you think you’ll regret. Hindsight will blow the dust off it one day.’
She palmed something unseen off the table. ‘What did you hope I was going to say to you?’
‘I don’t know. I guess if I was hoping for something then it’s probably a bad sign. I just wanted to get it off my chest.’
The noise from the television paused. She waited for it to resume before speaking. ‘So. What are you doing with yourself?’
He smiled. ‘Balancing the scales.’
‘Don’t. No one cares.’
‘I care.’
‘There’s no point. Nobody’s keeping score. People waste half their lives doing bad things. The dumb ones feel remorse and try to do something to fix it. The smart ones just move on and try not to waste any of the time they’ve got left.’
‘And what do the good ones do?’
She didn’t reply.
‘I don’t see this as time wasted,’ he said.
‘Depends whether you’ve got something to show for it. If you don’t, then I’d say it’s time wasted.’
She squinted one eye, like the headache was gaining ground.
He said, ‘There were internal police investigations after the Springbok tour. We all just closed ranks and walled them out. Nobody cooperated. They made us do this run along Hobson Bay. They had some assault victims at various positions who were supposed to identify us as we went by.’
‘And?’
He shrugged. ‘And nothing happened. I did the run. I got from one end to the other and nobody picked me out.’
‘Which is a good thing.’
‘I don’t know. I spent a long time thinking that maybe I somehow sidestepped what was owed to me.’
She was quiet for a long time. He didn’t know whether she agreed with him, or she’d run out of things to say. ‘I’m training to be a nurse,’ she said. ‘End of this year, I’ll have my degree.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘You need to do something, too.’
‘I am doing something.�
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‘Whatever it is it’s not doing you any good.’
‘I thought maybe I could come back and see you.’
She shook her head. ‘That isn’t going to do any good either. I’ve boxed you away and forgotten about you. It isn’t going to be any good for either of us if I start pulling stuff out of storage. I’m pleased you came today because I thought I hated you but having you sitting here I realise that I don’t and that’s a good thing. But you can’t ever come back.’
He didn’t reply.
She said, ‘Forget about everything that happened up to now and try to make everything that happens after it worthwhile. I’ll see you around, Mitch. Or, maybe not.’
EIGHTEEN
They’re at it again.
The same old ritual. They’re in the bedroom. She’s crying. He’s shouting. She’s firing accusations between snivels. Sean’s downstairs. The television’s on. It’s early evening. The Goodnight Kiwi has just come on, telling him it’s time to go to bed. Sean thinks it’s too early for bed, and he won’t get any sleep with the noise going on.
He climbs the stairs. It’s not an easy process. He’s still hurting from where Derren struck him with the belt three days before. Derren’s study and the phone within it are sacred. They’re strictly off limits, and failure to adhere to this brings savage penalties. The penalties had remained nameless until three nights earlier when Sean tried to ring 111 on the desk phone. Retribution was swift. Derren dealt punishment with a calm and wordless determination: a faint smile, a small showing of tongue at the corner of his mouth. Derren took his sweet time. Derren beat him raw.
Sean reaches the landing. The door to the master bedroom’s shut this time — no gap. He puts his ear to the door. The shouting’s all one-way traffic: Derren only. The wife’s crying. Sean hears slaps in rapid succession.
He pauses at the door. Conflict lulls. He can hear snivelling. Sometimes when the wife’s been put in her place, Derren leaves her be and goes downstairs and drinks a beer, or pumps some iron in the back yard. Sean hurries along the hallway to his own bedroom, fearful Derren’s on the way out. He’s just reached his doorway when the wife crashes out of the master bedroom in a stumble and disappears into the adjacent bathroom. Derren’s not far behind, and he drops his full weight into a shoulder-slam against the bathroom door, but somehow she manages to get it closed and throw the catch across.
Derren steps back. He’s in a singlet, fresh from lawns duty. His shoulders are rising and falling with exertion. Maybe the new wife is more than he’s bargained for. He stands there, hands on hips, facing the bathroom door, in profile against the entry to the study, maybe weighing up the pros and cons of busting the lock. A mirror shatters.
‘Bitch,’ he says. ‘If you bust up my bathroom, you’re going to be so fucking sorry. I tell you.’
He sees Sean hovering in his periphery, and turns to him. ‘Piss off, you little shit.’
He takes a step towards him, palms him in the centre of the chest and sends him sprawling on his back into his bedroom. Sean’s head whips back and cracks the floor. He sees stars, like a handful of crushed glass tossed beneath a bright light. Derren slams closed the bedroom door. Sean hears him move back down the hallway. Shouts back and forth through the bathroom door. A tap is running full on.
It takes Derren a minute to put two and two together and work out what’s going on. When it all clicks he’s hammering on the door with his fist, hollering to be let in. No luck. He decides on a break-in. He’s a big guy: two kicks and he’s through. Sean hears the panelling crack like dry bone.
‘Oh, shit. Shit. Shit. No.’
Sean picks himself up off the floor and steps into the corridor. The bathroom door’s in tatters. It’s creased lengthways at midpoint, twisted backwards and clinging by its fingertips to the bottom hinge. Sean steals a glance around the frame. The tap’s still running. The bath’s half full and rising, the water deep scarlet. The wife’s draped limp as old bedding across one edge of the tub, one pale arm trailing gashed and blood-red in the water. Her head’s sideways, hair lank atop the water’s surface like some stringy weed. The frame and winking detritus of the trashed mirror are all around her. She’s got a wide pointed shard in one hand. She’s torn her forearm bone-deep, wrist to elbow.
Derren’s on his knees, but his hands are in his hair, not helping her. He’s realised the time to stop her was maybe twenty or thirty minutes back. He’s a military man. Maybe he’s seen this before. He knows she’s on the verge of a flat line.
Sean lingers there a second longer, and then he’s away down the stairs, full sprint. This time around, Derren doesn’t even bother to chase.
He followed advice.
He went home and slept: catch-up on hours owed from last night, plus preparation for his outing with The Don. He woke at two-thirty p.m. and brought himself round with a shower and a cup of coffee. His phone was loaded with missed calls. He hit redial without checking the number, waited to see who picked up. He figured it could only be bad news. Call it Russian roulette, all chambers loaded.
Ellen picked up: ‘Are you okay? I’ve been trying to call you but you haven’t—’
‘Yeah … sorry.’
‘So are you okay?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine.’
‘You shot someone.’
‘It’s under control.’
‘Christ.’ She sounded strung out.
‘Are you at work?’ he said.
‘Yeah. I mean no. I’m at home.’
‘Should I come round?’
‘Yeah, come round. We need to talk.’
He didn’t reply. The ‘need to talk’ line stalled him.
‘Not that talk. Just come round.’
He washed his coffee mug and left. Across-town traffic was light, mid-afternoon. She was house-sitting at her parents’ place in Herne Bay, just west of the CBD. It was an old two-storey villa, well maintained. A Marine Parade locale afforded panoramic harbour views. He left the Commodore at the kerb and walked down. The front door was open, he made a clatter of removing his shoes in preference to calling out. It was a routine he didn’t know why he’d adopted. She came through from the kitchen: a concerned bustle, threading hair behind an ear as she moved.
She kissed him and hugged him close. Her hair smelled so good he wondered why he hadn’t visited sooner.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t call.’
She hung on to him. He realised he was just standing there blankly. He put his arms around her.
‘I hate having to find out from other people that you shot someone.’
‘I shoot anyone else I’ll tell you right away. I promise.’
She laughed.
‘God. I’m glad you’re okay. I thought you might have been hurt or something.’
‘They would have told you if I was dead.’
She pulled away and led him through to the front of the house. The dining room’s bay window framed picturesque still life: pohutukawa trees below a two-tone block of blues where the harbour met horizon.
They sat at the table, adjacent corner seats, her knee against his thigh. She looked out at the view.
He tried for idle chat: ‘How long are your parents away?’
‘You can’t ever do that.’
‘What?’
‘Not tell me stuff. You didn’t ring to tell me anything. It scared the shit out of me.’
‘I didn’t know what to say.’
‘I’m sure you would have thought of something.’
‘I tried. Nothing came to mind.’
‘You could have just started with “I shot someone” and we could have worked from there.’
‘I think I’m just used to dealing with things myself.’
‘Yeah, but I’m not. And that’s the whole thing about a relationship. You kind of work together.’
He didn’t answer.
‘You can’t just internalise everything. You’ve got to tell me about these things.’ She smiled. ‘Otherwise I just worry,
and I’m sure it can’t be good for you.’
‘I told John Hale.’
‘Yeah, but he’s not a normal human.’
‘Just because he drives a Ford Escort.’
‘Mmm … hilarious.’
Devereaux didn’t reply.
‘So what happened?’ she said.
‘I was light backup for a surveillance job. They were putting a GPS thing on a guy’s car. But the guy caught them at it, went at them with a machete. I had to shoot him.’
‘Was it …’ she searched for the word, “proper”?’
‘Could be touch and go.’
‘Why?’
‘I shot him through a door.’
‘So there could be trouble.’
‘I think there is trouble.’
‘Are you going to lose your job?’
‘Probably not.’
It didn’t seem to reassure her. She released a breath, touched a thumbnail to a cut in the edge of the table. ‘Is he still alive?’
‘No. He died this morning.’
‘Oh, God. Sean, I’m sorry.’
He didn’t answer.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I was building up to it.’
She blinked, wiped tears with the heel of her hand.
He said, ‘It’ll be all right.’
‘I’m meant to be the one saying that.’
He almost laughed, but bit down on it. ‘You shouldn’t chew your mouth. Makes you look slightly less pretty.’
She smiled and took his hand in both of hers, then leaned and kissed him on the mouth. He kissed her back, conscious of the fact he probably tasted like cigarettes and fast food. Maybe she liked it. Something about the mix had appealed to him. Her hand went to his collar, ran out along his shoulder.
‘Let’s go upstairs,’ she said. A whisper, an inch from his lips. He felt the heat of it in his mouth. She took his hand again and she led him.
The cop’s name is O’Dwyer. He’s a tall fat man in a suit. Sean can tell he’s had a long day. His jacket’s creased, and his tie’s spilling out one pocket. His hair’s rooster-tailed at the front like he’s been running a greasy palm past it for the last eight or ten hours. He puts Sean in the back of a police car and smiles and tells him he’ll be along in a minute. He offers a piece of chewing gum, but Sean tells him no thank you.