Blindsight

by Gee, Maurice

  ‘Yes, keep it,’ I said and wrote the landlord a cheque. I told Angus he could have Gordon’s bottle of sauce.

  Bets took Adrian home for lunch. When she dropped him back she took me.

  ‘I don’t think all this talking to him works,’ she said.

  ‘No, it doesn’t.’

  ‘Adie just wants him to open his eyes. I know it’s bloody garbage but he needs to say that stuff about his dad.’

  ‘It’s not garbage,’ I said.

  She dropped me at the hospital and drove away, very free with my car. I met Gordon’s doctor in the corridor, and after I’d pressed him he told me it was rare for people to come back from as far away as Gordon had gone, and anyway, would I want him to, the damage that was done? I did not think Gordon could be damaged more severely in his mind than he was already – but in his brain, yes, I conceded that, and thanked the doctor for his honesty. In the room I found Adrian murmuring still: ‘Brahn boots. Remember that one, Cyril, brahn boots?’

  There’s no way back, but perhaps he hears, I thought, so why not try?

  ‘Are you staying here?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘for a while.’ His stamina came from his need.

  Gordon, I wanted to say, please help him.

  ‘I’ll come back tonight,’ I said, and went home and tried to rest, but my mind kept turning over what I must do.

  I sat with Gordon again for an hour that night, and telephoned the hospital in the morning. They were feeding him intravenously and helping him breathe with a respirator. The question would soon be asked: How long should it go on? When I rang Bets she told me Adrian was with him again. I said I would go in after lunch.

  ‘You’re taking it a bit easy, aren’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Be quiet, Bets,’ I said, and hung up.

  I put on walking shoes, took my shoulder bag and walked the long dark paths over Tinakori Hill. It was harder than I remembered. My heart banged like a hammer and I grew dizzy, but after resting several times I came to Gordon’s hut. A boy about ten years old was sitting on the upended bucket, wearing Gordon’s quilt around his shoulders like a robe. He was pretending to be a king on his throne.

  He started up when he saw me, and cried: ‘I’m not doing anything.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘you can sit there. Just go a bit further away.’

  ‘The old man who lives here is dead.’ A well-spoken boy: private school.

  ‘Not yet,’ I said.

  I took the photograph Adrian had copied for me from my bag – Gordon and Marlene at Barb’s party – and fixed it with brads to the front beam of the hut, using Neville’s tack hammer from his box of tools.

  ‘What’s that?’ said the boy.

  ‘None of your business. You can keep the bucket and quilt but don’t touch this.’

  ‘Why? What’ll happen?’ he said, growing cheeky.

  ‘You’ll go to hell,’ I said. I don’t know if threats like that work with children nowadays.

  I walked down to Park Road and caught the Wadestown bus. What I’d done might seem self-serving. It wasn’t that. I had made myself a step to put my feet on while I did what had to be done next.

  At two o’clock I ordered a taxi to the hospital. Adrian said: ‘God, Alice, you look shot to hell.’

  ‘No, I’m all right. It’s hard to sleep, that’s all. How are you?’

  ‘Getting hoarse. It’s a waste of time. He can’t hear.’

  ‘Stay and listen to what I’m going to say.’

  I sat in the chair. I felt clear-headed, although my face was numb as though I’d had too much to drink.

  ‘Gordon,’ I said, ‘you can hear me. I know you can. Gordon, I’m Alice. Your sister, Alice Ferry. You wrote me a letter and I’m going to answer it now. I was good at knowing what you felt but I don’t think you knew much about me – what was happening to me back then.’ (My voice plays in my head like a record I can’t stop. There’s no word I want to change.) ‘I was in love. You know about it – love, I mean. You loved Marlene. And you loved me. But mine was a deep black hole. He left me alone in there and I couldn’t get out. I thought I was going to die. So I got in my car and I drove to the ferry in Picton and left it at a service station there. I came across to Wellington to ask if you could save me. I didn’t think you could, no one could, but Gordon, way off in the distance, in the dark, I could hear you ringing like a bell. I thought: If I can get there, Richie Ayres will go away. I didn’t say: Richie Ayres will come back to me, which was what I wanted. It was a little bit of sanity: Gordon will make Richie go away.’

  ‘What is all this, Alice?’ Adrian whispered.

  ‘Stay back,’ I said. I said to Gordon – further off in the dark than he had been then, but close enough for his hand to lie safe in mine – I said: ‘I walked up from the ferry to your place in Ghuznee Street. Your “place”, Gordon, remember? I went in through the iron fence, and you weren’t home, and that nearly crumpled me in a heap. But I knew where to find the key in the bricks, so I got it out and went inside. I waited for you until it got dark, then I turned on the light and saw things I hadn’t seen when I first came in – your table, your chairs, your coir mat – and that made you stand at my side. I even said your name out loud. Then I saw you hadn’t done your breakfast dishes. You were never much good at housekeeping, Gordon. So I ran hot water in the sink and washed and dried them. That’s when I heard the gate open and you come in. I heard your footsteps, and I thought: I’ll be finishing his dishes when he arrives, and he’ll tell me what to do. I had the door wide open for the warm night, and moths were coming in as it got dark. Then you were there – only it wasn’t you, Gordon, it was Cyril Handy. And that was like having something ripped out of me – can you understand? – like having my chest cut open and something that shouldn’t be there pushed back in its place. He had a cigarette butt on his bottom lip, as if it was stuck there with glue, and he said: “Gordy’s sister,” and he put one foot inside – in your place, Gordon, our place. I told him to go away, but he took off his hat and said you’d told him if he came round tonight you’d give him half a crown so he could drink your health. So I went to him and pushed him. You remember your knife, Gordon, your sharp one for peeling the potatoes? I always told you you should cook them in their skins, remember? I was drying it, I had it in my hand. It went into him. I think I meant it to. It was hard at first, it went with little jerks, then it got easy, and he made a rushing noise with his mouth – I got his smelly air all over my face. Then his blood squirted up my arm. That must have been his heart, but I kept on pushing the knife until it wouldn’t go in any more. Then I pulled it out. I didn’t see him after that. He went back out of the light into the dark.’

  Adrian’s hands were on my shoulders. I was grateful for that. Gordon, my lovely brother, made no change.

  I said: ‘Can you hear me? I didn’t look to see if he was dead. After a while I washed the blood off myself. I looked for bloodspots everywhere and wiped them away. I washed the knife and put it in my bag. I put the dishes in the cupboard and the cutlery in its drawer. Oh, I was thinking entirely without thought. His cigarette butt had dropped on the doorstep, so I picked it up and threw it into the dark. I wrung out the dishcloth and hung it on the tap. Then I put the key in the pile of bricks. He – Cyril Handy – was lying by the wall. I ignored him. I went out into Ghuznee Street and walked into town. I stayed at the YWCA that night and took the ferry home next day. Somewhere, I don’t remember where, I stopped the car and took the knife out of my bag and threw it in a creek. Then I went home and lay on my bed for days and nights and lived in my head with Richie Ayres and I forgot about Cyril Handy. I forgot about you. But you wrote to me, Gordon, do you remember? Just two sentences: I know it was you, Alice. When are you going to say? As soon as they let you inside and you saw the dishes were washed, you knew it was me. Only Marlene and I knew where you hid the key. You never told them that a knife was missing.’

  I was panting. ‘And perhaps I left some
smell of myself too.’

  Adrian was holding my shoulders tight. I said: ‘I didn’t answer your letter. I tore it up. I put all that aside. And you went looking for Marlene. Were you also waiting for me? Years and years went by and I didn’t come. I was happy with Neville, Gordon. And I was waiting for you. But you changed yourself into Cyril Handy. I didn’t know that. And you stopped being able to look at anyone’s face.’

  ‘Alice, Alice,’ Adrian whispered.

  His was not the voice I needed to hear. Gordon lay still. There was no pressure in his hand and no change, no tremor, in his face.

  I said: ‘I’m sorry. I’m finished now. If you heard me, Gordon, it was Alice.’

  I said to Adrian: ‘I’m going now.’

  ‘I’ll come. I’ll get Bets. We’ll drive you home.’

  ‘No, stay and talk to him. Try brahn boots again. Goodbye, Gordon. I’m not coming here again.’

  I put his hand on the coverlet and kissed his brow. Then I went home.

  I’m not bothered by what happens to me. Adrian will, of course, tell Bets. You tell things to the one you love. If she’s the woman I take her for, she’ll go to the police. That’s all right, but I’m bothered by the damage it will do. I don’t want Adrian to lose her.

  Gordon will not come back. He didn’t hear me. I was trying to wake him up so Adrian could say his father’s name.

  I am sitting by the open French doors with a glass of sherry. The evening light is fading and the last slow yachts are sailing home.

  I saw his face a moment ago, smiling, but not at me. Adrian will be coming soon to say that he is dead.

  Perhaps he opened his eyes and they looked at each other, perhaps they spoke – but I don’t think so.

  My name is Alice Ferry. Gordon Ferry was my brother. Father taught us how not to love.

  About the author

  Maurice Gee is one of New Zealand’s best-known writers, for both adults and children. He has won a number of literary awards, including the Wattie Award, the Deutz Medal for Fiction, and the New Zealand Fiction Award. He has also won the New Zealand Children’s Book of the Year Award. In 2003 he received an inaugural New Zealand Icon Award and in 2004 he received a Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement.

  Maurice Gee’s novels include the Plumb trilogy, Going West, Prowlers, Live Bodies and The Scornful Moon. He has also written a number of children’s novels, the most recent being The Fat Man, Orchard Street and Hostel Girl.

  Maurice lives in Wellington with his wife Margareta, and has two daughters and a son.