I'm a widow now. I'm an old woman. When I look at my daughters I recall my young self. I was glad to leave her behind. But how intense her life was. Bright colours, black miseries. Rage and joy. She was crazy, all right. She was insane.
***
I'm old, but it's only in the last few years that I've begun to feel it. A year ago I had a health scare. I began to have trouble breathing. Doctors told me it was heart failure. I had an operation, during which my faulty heart valve was replaced with a pig's valve. I was weak for a long time afterwards. The very thought of my heart frightened me. It made me worry about what would happen next. But I worked hard on getting fit and made good progress. I got pretty much back to normal, and tried my best to forget the whole episode.
I've always had a routine. In the summer it's dependent on the tides. At high tide I go down for a swim at the waterfront. If the tide's out in the morning, I go for a walk instead — I've always needed to get exercise before settling down to work. There's a marker in the harbour that I used to swim to before I had my heart trouble. It's a long way out, and I always used to feel triumphant when I got back after reaching it. I've missed the feeling of accomplishment that swimming out there gave me. But it's such a long way . . .
This summer my neighbours have been annoying me, playing loud music, fixing cars in their driveway. I stopped in at the local real estate office and told the agent, Mr Lye, that I was thinking of selling my house. Yesterday he rang and told me he had some clients who would like to look around. I agreed to be out the following morning.
At nine o'clock I walked up and dropped off a set of keys for Mr Lye. Since I couldn't work I decided to do some errands. I caught the bus down to the shopping centre and went into a big department store, intending to buy a new kettle. A couple of other things caught my eye. I browsed for a while.
On the way out I went to find the ladies'. In the cubicle there was no hook, so I put my handbag on the floor. I heard someone come in. A toilet flushed. A tap ran, and the hand-dryer roared. And then footsteps, and a hand snaked under the partition. Like a live thing in itself, an animal, lightning quick, it felt around, grabbed my bag and pulled it into the next cubicle. I snatched at the bag, nearly caught it — there was a tug as it was wrenched under — and it was gone. Footsteps running away. I cried out and stood up, pulling at my clothes. I flung open the door. There was no one, just the empty white room, and my own astonished face in the mirror.
I clutched my hands to my heart. I listened to the beats thudding in my chest. Before my operation I would have burst out of the lavatory and given chase. But now . . . my heart throbbed so. My own expression in the mirror frightened me.
I straightened my clothes. I walked out into the mall, and into a shop.
'I've been robbed,' I said.
A teenage girl regarded me, stopped in the act of folding a pair of jeans.
I felt a tremor go through me. This wouldn't do. I was embarrassed.
'Are you okay?' she asked. Her tone grated; it was insulting.
'Is there a . . . security person?' Oh, this was intolerable. I sat down heavily on a bench on which there were piled many pairs of trousers. The girl came out from behind her counter. She was wearing tight shorts and high heels. There was a diamond stud in her nose.
'Are you okay?' she said again. In her voice an equal measure of syrup and derision, as if she couldn't decide whether I was a deserving case or a drunk. She made significant eyes at another girl, who came down from a ladder carrying a pile of clothes.
'I need to make a complaint. For insurance purposes,' I said in an absurd, haughty voice. My eyes burned. If only the girl would stop staring at me, I could pull myself together. I looked away. I said, more normally, 'I was in the ladies' and someone snatched my bag. I need to complain to someone. I'm just not sure to whom.' There. I was myself again.
The girl who'd come down the ladder did a little shriek. 'Not again! Taylor, ring the police.' To me, 'It happened last week outside the supermarket.' She put her hand on my shoulder, gesturing at the other girl. 'Taylor, get security too.'
The girl called Taylor clomped away. The other bent over me, keeping up a stream of talk. 'It's unbelievable. I was just saying to Taylor the other day . . .'
I began to think about what I'd lost. My wallet, all my cards. Keys. Fifty dollars cash. Two letters I'd been meaning to post. In the zip compartment, floppy disks with my latest stories. I'd printed some of them out. Most were stored on my computer, but were they all? There were other things on the disks too. Letters . . . I pressed my fingers against my temples.
'It's not the end of the world,' I said.
A security guard came. Then a policeman. He said, 'Can you describe the person?'
'It was a hand.'
'A hand?' He glanced at the two girls.
'It was brown. A woman's, of course. It couldn't be a man's, could it?'
There was a silence. They were all looking at me.
'I was in the lavatory. The hand came under the partition. By the time I'd got out there was no one there.'
'Ah . . .' The policeman wrote in his notebook. The security guard said he was going off to look at 'footage.'
'Footage?'
'They'll be on the camera. Name, date of birth?'
I supplied details.
The policeman said, 'I'll give you a lift home.'
'No.' I rose. 'I'm perfectly all right. I'll get the bus.'
'How're you going to pay for it?' Taylor said, smartly.
I blushed. 'Oh. No handbag, no money.' I felt ridiculous. I needed to get away. 'I'll go to the bank and sort it out first.'
I managed to extricate myself. Their concern was humiliating. I couldn't bear little Taylor's mocking smiles.
I went to the ASB in the mall and explained the situation. They cancelled my old cards. They asked a series of questions, security passwords and so on. They promised me that new cards would be on their way.
The policeman was waiting for me. He led me to his car. Odd to travel without one's handbag. I kept reaching for it. I had him drop me on the main road, so I could pick up my keys.
I walked along the street. It had been a week of those hard, bright days at the end of summer, when the light has altered and autumn is in the air, the gardens shining in the clear light and everything very beautiful. But now the weather had changed again. There were black clouds, sudden showers, gusts of wind roaring in the trees. Leaves were falling onto the pavement.
I got the keys from the estate agent and hurried home. Mr Lye's card was on the dining room table. The house was bright and warm, the light falling in stripes along the hall. I didn't really want to sell it.
I rang the insurance company. I made myself a snack and turned on my computer, intending to get some work done.
At two o'clock the phone rang.
'Mrs Myers?' A male voice: soft, breathy, full of warm concern. 'This is Trent from Armadale Security? Just ringing about your bag that wuz stolen?'
'Yes?'
'Just to inform you, ma'am, that we have found your bag in the car park area.'
'Oh, good!'
'There's good news and bad news, Mrs Myers. The wallet and cards are there but I'm very sorry the cash is gone.'
'Oh, never mind the cash. What about the disks?'
'I'm not sure, ma'am. But would you like to collect it? Just come to Information at the mall, the booth on the ground floor near the main entrance.'
'Yes, I'll come.'
'Are you able to come today? Only the booth shuts at four.'
I told him I'd come in an hour.
I took the car, using the key on the set I'd lent Mr Lye. I had my mind on the floppy disks in the bag. I wasn't efficient with storing work and I was sure there was material on them that I should keep. I wondered whether I'd become less organised since my heart operation. The thought made me anxious.
I parked and found the information booth.
I smiled at the woman. 'I'm Celia Myers. I've come to
collect my bag.'
She looked blank. She fluttered her eyes. 'A bag?'
'My handbag was stolen here this morning. It's been found. A Trent from security told me to pick it up.'
She looked under the counter. 'We don't have bag here.'
I leaned on the desk while she picked up the phone and made a tentative explanation. 'She say her bag was stolen here? She got call, come here? No? No call?'
She put down the phone, shaking her head.
'I've come all the way down here. Can you ask someone who knows what's going on.'
'Sorry.'
'Sorry. Sorry. The bag has disks in it. Important work stuff. Understand? Where is Trent?'
'I don't know . . . Trent?'
'Get me a security guard.'
I waited, agitated. He came out, slouching, eating a sandwich, a different man from the one that morning. I explained.
'I know there was an incident,' he said. 'I'll have to check.'
'This is so inefficient!' I could feel my heart banging in my chest. I saw myself reflected in a shop window. An elderly woman, angry, fists pressed against her collarbone. I straightened up.
'Probably just some wires crossed, Mrs . . . ?'
'Myers. Mrs Myers.'
He spoke into his radio. Then to me. 'There's nothing about a bag.'
'You've got my number. Ring me when you've got your . . . act together!'
I hurried away. I stood by my car. I had the strangest feeling. My eyes filled with tears.
Why do I feel so raw? Is it the way people speak to me, their patronising tone? Is it because I feel my heart, because I'm suddenly aware that it beats?
I sat in the car. Honestly. Get a grip. It was life. Things like this happened all the time. People committed crimes. People were inefficient. One got mucked about.
But these moments of feeling so unnerved. It was like dropping an outer shield I'd worn all my adult life – like returning to my raw younger self. I had an odd, fearful sense that something — what? — was wearing thin. If I should become weak in some way, lose my focus . . .. would fiction and life blur again, would I lose the control I had over my work? It was another way of saying I was afraid of death . . .
Oh, what nonsense. I drove out of the car park, fast.
I would buy a new bag. I'd cancelled my cards already; no point in getting them back. I would just not worry about the disks. Everything was stored on my computer. Forget it. Let them keep the bag.
I pulled in to the garage. I walked down the path. The front door was open. My heart sank. Was I forgetting simple things now? The door one week; next, forgetting to put on my trousers. Oh, really. All this brooding, it was maudlin. I needed to ring an old friend, go out, have a drink.
There was an alien smell in the hall. I recognised it: sweat.
'Oh dear,' a dim little voice rattled in my head. 'Oh dear.'
And then I understood what had happened.
They had really been very efficient. My stereo, my precious CDs. Paintings: a Pat Hanly. A small McCahon. A Louise Henderson. Gone, all gone. Kitchen things: appliances, some expensive bowls. The TV and DVD player. Ornaments. My favourite, most valuable vase. I walked upstairs very calmly, pressing my hands against my chest, thinking perhaps they'd got tired; perhaps they had no room in their vehicle . . .
But of course the computer was gone.
I sat on the bed. When I was sure I could speak clearly I rang my daughter, Dee.
'I've been very stupid and gullible,' I told her. And then a terrible fear took hold of me. I ran downstairs as fast as I could and closed the front door. But it was no use locking it: 'they' had my keys! 'Trent' had simply got my address from the letters in the stolen bag, had rung and tricked me into going to the mall, then, once I was out of the way, had let himself into the house.
I went out onto the deck. It started to rain. I lifted my face to the white sky. So many feelings at once . . . I had to get them under control. When I was young I was abnormally sensitive. I would have been overwhelmed by that sensitivity if I hadn't been able to write. If I began to flounder, if I couldn't write any more . . .
Dee had said practical things. Ring the police. Get a locksmith straight away. Change the locks. Insurance would cover everything. She was coming over to help me sort things out.
I felt unable to go back in the house and wait for her. It wasn't just the thought of the burglary, or the misery of the lost computer. I felt a deeper sense of anguish, unreality. And I thought, suddenly, I must go for a swim.
I took my gear from the laundry and got in the car. I drove away.
There were black clouds over the harbour. The wind was blowing the sea into choppy waves. Out in the gulf, Rangitoto Island wore a shroud of mist. It was past high tide and there was only one other swimmer, a young man in a wetsuit who swam out powerfully, past the buoys and away towards the next beach. I got changed, and the wind blew cold against my damp swimsuit. I hid my keys, checking that no one saw.
There was rain falling out at sea. The islands were indistinct, distant. The water wasn't too cold, after the first shock. I struck out, swimming my usual mixture of overarm, breaststroke and backstroke. The rain began pattering around me. I was calmed by my slow breathing, by the rhythm of the exercise. I swam to the first buoy and paused to look back. The beach was deserted. The cars drove slowly on the waterfront road, headlights on because of the heavy shower. The sea was rougher now. I looked at the distant marker I used to swim to, before my heart problem. It was a long way out. I thought for a moment. I swam towards it.
I ploughed through the chop, swimming on my back for a while, turning to make sure of my direction. The outgoing tide threatened to carry me off course, beyond the marker. I had to readjust by swimming across the current. I stopped once, treading water, and looked back at the wet beach and the drooping trees and the cars with their lights on. The sky was heavy, whirling with water; the afternoon was collapsing into early, rainy dusk. Waves splashed into my face. I thought of Dee, walking around in the dark, plundered house, calling my name. I was out in the channel now, pushing against the tide. The marker was still a distance away, and for a while I made so little headway that I thought I wouldn't be able to reach it. And then it was closer, and still closer, and finally I was there, gasping, hanging on to the green, barnacled wood.
The sea rose and washed against me, splashing stinging water up my nose. Another shower swept across, the drops hissing on the surface. I was alone, far away. I could feel the shush shush of my heart. The sea heaved and broke against the marker, the rain blurred my eyes. Far away at the port a container ship showed its lights. It was frightening to be out here so late. I looked at the bush slopes of Rangitoto, rising up to the crater. I thought of striking out towards it. Swimming toward the black volcanic rocks, the silence of its cold stone shores. Above me gulls were flying. They skimmed down to the waves, swooped up into the rainy air, turning, pearly white against the grey sky. I was filled with fierce happiness. My eyes stung with tears. I said something out loud, something stupid and dramatic. And then salt water splashed into my face, bringing me to my senses, and I set off overarm, counting the strokes in my head.
It took a long time to get back. Halfway back I grew tired, and could only do a slow breaststroke. There was a hot heaviness in my chest. When my feet finally touched the sand I looked back at the lonely marker out in the channel, surrounded by rough water. That I had been all the way out there, in this weather. I laughed. I wanted to punch my fist in the air. But when I raised my arm it felt so strangely heavy and sore . . .
I dressed and drove home. I was light-headed, shivering. My heart was going full tilt. I turned on the radio and sang at the top of my voice to a ridiculous pop song. I did something wrong at the lights. There was a squeal of brakes. Someone tooted long and hard. I parked outside the house and hurried down the path.
Dee had been waiting at the window. She came out.
'Where have you been? It's terrible. Your paintings. The
computer — all gone.'
I flew to her. 'Dee. It was marvellous. I went out there, all the way. The sea . . .'
I put my arms around her, folded her in my happiness. 'It was wonderful.'
Oh, Dee made all sorts of responsible noises. Said I was 'hysterical.' Made hot sweet tea. She even stood, frowning, like a pretend nurse, and listened to my pulse. It 'sounded funny', she announced. She went upstairs and made a phonecall, said she wanted to take me to the doctor. I sat on my sofa with a blanket over my knees, looking at the patch on the wall where my Pat Hanly used to hang.
She came back in.
'I'm so sorry about the burglary,' she said.
I smiled at her dreamily. I took her hand. My head was light. I was dizzy, seeing stars. I could hear a strange, new banging in my heart, a little drum of happiness.
'You're a funny colour,' she said, alarmed. She fiddled with the rug on my knees.
I said, 'It was magical out there. Frightening — the dark coming down, the rain, the beach so far away . . .'
But your computer,' she said. 'Was there work on it? Your stories . . .'
'Stories?' The idea of writing seemed distant, unfamiliar. There was something bright and swelling and immediate in the way. I heard her voice, although, funny, I couldn't see her very well.
'Your Opportunity stories. Remember you told me: they "contain all your crimes". '
I had a rush of feeling, irritation almost. Didn't she understand? I hadn't felt like this since I was young.
'I'm alive,' I said. 'I'm alive. What do I care about those?'
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
ISBN 978 1869792213
Opportunity Page 27