Opportunity

by Grimshaw, Charlotte

  Roysmith's face was pale in the half light. He raised his head. 'Goodness gracious . . .' I put my hand over his mouth, gently. With a tissue, I pressed down on his bloody lips.

  'It's a power cut,' I said. I left my fingers on his lower lip, just for a second. He gazed up, wondering. The thunder cracked. The rain streamed down. We were silent, looking at each other.

  'What do we do now?' he said.

  'Shall we wait for a minute?'

  'Well, I'm quite comfortable here!'

  'I love the rain,' I said. Along the dark corridor people scampered and laughed and chattered. Rowan looked in.

  'It's all down the street,' she said.

  'Blackout at noon,' Roysmith said absently. He put his hand behind his head.

  I leaned against the top of the chair, watching the clouds moving, swelling, in the square of window.

  He closed his eyes. 'So dark. It's like being in bed.'

  I had a fancy that the sky, full of its own essence, was pressing against the window, that it would burst through and flow into the air of the room like ink in water, languorous swirls of sky, of rain.

  'I watch you on TV,' I said, murmured, in the quietness. Swish and rush of the rain, the laden air.

  'Oh yes,' he said, and yawned.

  I yawned too.

  He laughed. 'I don't get much sleep. Kids. Have you got kids?'

  'I have a baby who never sleeps.'

  'Aaah. It's a bugger, isn't it?'

  We heard a sudden blast of car horns.

  When I blinked, particles in my eyes exploded, sprayed out to a point, then began to sink through the darkness, rising, falling with my eyes.

  'We'll have to reschedule,' I said. The air seemed to bend when I spoke, sensitive to sound.

  His eyes were closed. 'Let's wait a bit longer. Goodness gracious me, I've got . . .'

  'Don't say that.'

  He opened his eyes, jutted his chin and looked up at me.

  'Those exclamations . . .' The air turned over on itself, spun, swirled, flew out in all directions. 'They're too cute. On TV.'

  'Exclamations?'

  'Less is more.'

  'Jesus!'

  He was silent for a moment.

  I said, 'I used to listen when you were on the radio. I liked those long openers you did. On Afghanistan, on America. Preachy but good.'

  'Glad you approve of something.' But he said it dreamily. 'I liked radio. Now I see my face on billboards, on the back of buses. My big face, riding away. Or I look at the back of the bus and my face isn't there.'

  'Must be strange.'

  'I shouldn't be looking, should I? To check if I'm on the back of the bus.'

  'Why not?'

  'Seems egocentric,' he said, vaguely anxious.

  'It sounds normal to me.'

  Lightning, another crump of thunder.

  I told him, 'There was a big storm last year, up north. It was night. The storm was right over the house, but the sky over the sea was clear, and when the lightning flashed, the sky was lit up — blue. Bright blue sky, in the middle of the night.'

  'How surreal! Once, on a camping trip, my partner Theodora Davis and I . . .'

  But there was a great welling surge in the building, the neon panels buzzed and flickered, the instruments jerked and whined, and we were blinking at each other in the white glare. We looked away: he at the ceiling, I at the floor.

  I finished cleaning. Rowan told him he would have to come back for his X-rays; the computers were down. He said he would make an appointment. I saw him to the stairs. We smiled at each other.

  'Lovely to meet you,' he said.

  'Yes,' I said, and meant it.

  Later, as I stood out on the shiny wet street, buses surged past, and I watched Roysmith's face borne away through the curtains of rain; he was real and unreal too — part of the other world that entered my waking days, the secret, the dreamtime one.

  That evening Matthew took up a lot of my attention. By the time I'd got him properly settled it was late. I turned on the news. Roysmith appeared. The room was dark; his face hung in the square of bright light. I lay on my sofa. Outside the rain had thinned into drifting showers, falling through the orange streetlights. I dozed.

  I dreamed someone was banging on the front door. I sat up. Roysmith looked at me, blinked, gestured. The knock started up again. I went to the door and opened it, not very wide.

  A thickset man with tattooed hands and wild hair stood on the doorstep, the rain falling behind him.

  I looked at him. He said, 'You need to come out and shift your car. We're moving a house up your street. Your car's in the way.'

  I peered out. The street was empty. There was no one around.

  He said, impatient, 'You got a note in your box today.'

  'I didn't.'

  'Yeah, you did. You got to come and move your car.'

  I rubbed my eyes. 'I don't know who you are. It's late. I can't just come outside with you.'

  He reared back, indignant, not believing I would argue. 'I'm from Farr. Farr's House Movers. You got a note.'

  'I didn't.' Hadn't.

  'Your car's going to get crushed. There's no way you can leave it there.'

  'I'm alone in here with my baby. I can't just come out.'

  'You got a letter!'

  'Where's your ID?'

  'I don't need ID. I'm from . . .'

  I closed the door.

  He swore and walked away up the path. He slammed the gate.

  I watched him go off up the road. There were no trucks, no workmen out there. Could they be moving a house up this narrow street? I had seen them moving one along Remuera Road recently. Amazing how they could put a whole wooden bungalow on the back of a truck. I looked at Roysmith. A man has come in the night. If I don't come outside he will squash my car. You smile, you look down at the paper in your hands. It does sound amusing, I know. But can I ignore him? I need, I value my car! Roysmith shakes his head, looks grave. Indeed, he acknowledges, something must be done.

  I dithered. Then I thought of asking the police. I rang the station, was put through to an orchestra, made a cup of tea while it played. Finally a policeman answered. He asked for my name. He told me my address.

  'A strange man's come to my door . . .' I said.

  'At eleven o'clock at night!'

  I paused, surprised. I supposed I was being assessed. Perhaps a drunk or mad person would begin to rant at this point, encouraged by the expression of sympathy. I pressed on, explaining. 'I'd just like to know,' I finished up, 'is it possible they could be moving a house up the street? Will my car be squashed?'

  'He was threatening, you say?'

  'Aggressive.' I paced on the wooden floor.

  'What's that banging? Is he banging on the door?'

  'No, he's gone away.'

  'Good. One moment.' The orchestra again. He came back on. 'I can't find anything about a house being moved. Don't go outside with this man. I'll send someone to find out what's going on.'

  I thanked him and hung up. Outside the street was silent, empty, the rain drifting. I went to bed, left the curtains open, Roysmith watching the street.

  I dreamed Roysmith was warning me of something, his head framed by the TV. 'Don't go outside,' I begged him. 'I'm alone. Stay in there. Stay with me.'

  Someone was knocking on the door. I pulled on jeans and a shirt. A voice said, 'Police.'

  There were two cops, one young and handsome, the other older, sallow, bored.

  'You'll have to move your car,' the younger one said.

  I swayed, dizzy. There was a film in front of my eyes.

  He told me, 'Farr's are moving a house up the street.'

  'I'll get my keys,' I said.

  I went out into the drenched garden. I backed my car into the neighbour's driveway. I passed the sitting-room windows. Roysmith had gone. When I came back the young policeman was feeling the glass panel in my front door. It moved when he pressed it.

  'That's not secure at a
ll,' he said. 'It's not safe.'

  I said, 'Want to stay the night then?'

  'Sorry, I'm on duty.' He grinned.

  The older cop fidgeted sourly. 'We gotta go,' he told me.

  They left. I stood on my doorstep. I waited. The dripping garden, the stormy sky. Something scurrying in the bushes. Orange lights flashed in the branches of the trees, the wind roared. Thunder over Mt Hobson. And then it came over the crest of the hill, a wooden bungalow under tow, a large, slow, stout vessel lit by blinking lights, struts creaking, planks groaning; crewed by torch-lit men, it sailed by in the drifting dark, cruised grandly on up the rain-slicked street, slid over the swell of Upland Road and was gone, into the liquid night.

  gratitude

  I saw my cousin Juliet last week. I hadn't seen her for years. She came into the place where I work and we talked. It reminded me of one holiday when I was eight, and we went to stay at her brother's house in the country. She'd always lived out of Auckland and I didn't know her very well. Her brother was much older, grown up. His name was Stephen. He and his wife Derryn lived near Gisborne, where he was working as a fisherman.

  We drove down with Juliet's parents, my aunt and uncle. They were going to leave us there for a week while they went on a trip by themselves. We got to the house in the evening. Stephen was tall, with a beard. He talked in a low, mumbling voice, shifting around on his feet, his smile baffled and harassed — he was as shy as I was. Juliet went ahead into the house. She had been there before.

  The house was tiny, weatherboard, with peeling paint. There was a rusty old truck on the grass outside, with weeds growing up into the cab and a cat sitting on the roof. Derryn drifted out, carrying a baby. She was thin and freckly, and her mouth naturally turned down, which gave her a disappointed look. She was wearing a floppy jersey and flared cotton trousers, and her feet were bare. She shifted the baby on her hip.

  My aunt and uncle stayed for coffee, then we waved them off. The baby started to grizzle. Derryn hitched him up higher on her hip. She didn't say anything. Stephen gave us his perplexed smile. We followed Derryn inside.

  I was too shy to talk to Stephen and Derryn so I whispered to Juliet.

  She was fierce with me. She was two years older. She said, 'Why are you whispering?'

  'Where should I put my bag?'

  Juliet asked where we were going to sleep. Derryn said, 'I'll show you.'

  We followed her out the back door and down the garden path. There was a stationwagon parked by some bushes. I thought she was going to drive us somewhere, and I hoped it would be nice.

  'In there,' Derryn said. She pointed at the car. 'Did you bring sleeping bags?'

  'Oh goody,' Juliet said. She gave me a hard look.

  'The seats fold down,' Derryn added. She gazed off across the garden. Her eyes were bloodshot.

  Juliet got in and started pushing down the seats. When I turned around Derryn had gone.

  I climbed into the car. The vinyl was warm and sticky, and gave off a strong brownish reek; in the days that followed I would spend many hours lying on those musty seats, tracing lines in the vinyl with my fingers, the springs beneath me letting out little excruciated squeaks and cracks, the windscreen above, with its splattered blobs of dirt and leaves, making patterns of jungly light on the ancient dashboard.

  Juliet put her stereo on the seat and switched on her favourite tape, the soundtrack of Jesus Christ Superstar. We lay and listened for a while.

  'What about a pillow?' I said.

  Juliet had a round face and curly hair and gaps between her teeth. 'A pillow?' she said in a dangerous voice.

  'Oh, don't worry about it,' I said. There was a pungent ashtray in the door, crammed with mashed and crooked butts.

  'Your Highness needs a pillow,' Juliet said. I said nothing. She yawned.

  I could see a clothesline with sheets blowing in the wind, and beyond that a paddock stretching away to the rainy sky. I wondered what the time was. I was hungry.

  'Let's get out,' she said.

  We went around the garden. The rain stopped and the sun broke through the clouds. We looked at a couple of pigs in the paddock and stroked the cat sitting on top of the old truck. Behind the truck was an enclosure made of wooden stakes stuck in the ground. Inside it was a bath. Juliet said it was connected by a pipe to inside the house. There were melted candles on a stand, a soap dish, a scattered array of shampoo bottles. A path made of wooden boards led from the enclosure to the back door. I walked on the slats — and stopped short. Derryn was standing in the doorway.

  'Dinnertime,' she said. She turned away. We followed. Stephen was sitting at the table. The baby was in a highchair.

  Derryn came slowly out of the kitchen. Everything she did was slow. She smelled strongly of some kind of herb. She shared the food around. The meat was tough and the vegetables were raw in the middle.

  Stephen looked up, sighing. His forehead wrinkled with effort when he spoke, as if it was hard for him to frame the words. When he got them half out he swallowed them. He filled the spaces between the words with a breathy, humming noise. His expression was kind but helpless. He asked Juliet about the trip, and I noticed that some of the things she said weren't true. It had been pouring when we stopped for lunch. She said it was 'blazing hot and sunny'. The sea had been rough, churned up by a spring storm, and no one had felt like going in. She told him we'd had 'a long, lovely swim'. Stephen looked at me. I ducked my head. She said we'd had three icecreams, then she corrected it to two. Derryn fed the baby and didn't say anything.

  When dinner was over I whispered to Juliet.

  'Talk properly,' she said. 'It's down the hall.'

  I was glad the toilet wasn't out in the garden, like the bath. Then I wasn't so happy — it meant we couldn't use it during the night. The walls of the bathroom weren't lined. On the exposed wooden frames were rows of spare toilet rolls, and the toilet was one of those big old thrones with a wooden seat and a metal chain; the flush roared and the pipes let out a trumpeting moan, finishing off with a metallic shriek. A dog barked in answer in the garden. I hurried out.

  Juliet said ominously, 'We've cleared the table, Viola.'

  The plates were piled up on the kitchen bench. Derryn and Stephen, having given Juliet a torch and two pillows, had gone away into another room. We went out into the garden. I could hear the dog moving around on its chain. Behind a lighted window Derryn was carrying the baby back and forth. We went down to the car. Juliet brought out bags of sweets and chips and turned her stereo on. The wind blew in the trees. I saw a torch moving far away, across the paddock.

  Juliet was restless. 'Let's get out,' she said.

  We crept through the garden. The night was cloudy and dark. A light was shining through the wooden stakes of the enclosure. Stephen was sitting in the bath. Steam rose and curled through the flickering light from the row of candles; he held a small cigarette between his finger and thumb and drew deeply on it, and a rich grassy smell blew through the garden. The moon came out, riding between the black clouds. The top of the old truck looked like a skull in the moonlight.

  Back in the car I pulled out my pyjamas.

  Juliet said, 'What are they for?'

  She grabbed them and held them up. They were juvenile, embarrassing yellow. Happy faces, flowers.

  'Nice,' she said. She lay back and hitched her thumbs into the belt of her shorts. She was wearing the clothes she always had on: boy's shorts, a sleeveless checked top, and sandals. She had strong brown arms. Her fingernails were bitten down to the quick and her hands were broad and powerful.

  I stuffed the pyjamas in my bag. A little squall of rain drummed on the roof. Brief desolation. I thought of my mother carefully packing my bag, fresh clothes for each day. She'd said, 'You'll have a nice time. Juliet's almost your age.'

  'Do you ever change your clothes?' I asked, politely.

  'Why bother?'

  We heard a weird, coughing, retching sound.

  'Possums,' she said. I wriggled
on the creaking vinyl. I needed the loo. I climbed out and went behind a bush. Light rain fell. Juliet turned the torch on in the car. I looked at the small stationwagon, its back rammed up into the shrubbery, a song from Jesus Christ Superstar floating tinnily out over the garden.

  Juliet wound down the window. 'Look,' she called. She was shining the torch on a possum, its round dazzled eyes and damp nose.

  Juliet wound her window up and I ran back, afraid that she would lock the door.

  I slept. At dawn the pigs started making noises; a rooster crowed along the road and I woke up, smelling the ashtray. A cigarette butt had stuck to a strand of my hair. I removed it and sniffed it, sat up and looked over the dashboard, past the washing line, to the paddock. On the far side was a row of tall thin trees that grew along the edge of the river. The sky was white, the air mild and humid. It was strange to have slept in my clothes. I prodded Juliet but she was lying on her back, snoring, and she pushed me away.

  I got out. There was a roaring of wind in the trees. Stephen came out of the house. He looked in my direction, wrinkled his forehead in his baffle d way, mumbled something to himself and walked past me carrying a big plastic box. He was wearing white gumboots. He loaded the box into his van and drove away, and I had the sudden ghostly sense that I was not physically present in the bright, windy morning, that if I had been closer he might have walked right through me, feeling no more than a ripple of air.

  Juliet was awake. She said, 'Look what I've got.' There was money in her hand.

  'My mum gave me some money,' I said. I looked for my purse and saw it on Juliet's lap.

  I looked down. 'Is that my money?' I whispered. The ghostly feeling again.

  'Our money,' she said.

  She tossed over my purse. It was pink. It was my best possession; I hadn't thought of it as babyish — now, naturally, it looked grotesque.