by Gee, Maurice
‘I thought you didn’t like him.’
‘I don’t very much. But he’s so beaten, Howie. And you are his father.’
He looked at her smooth pretty face. She’s not there either, he thought. Yet he loved her. She was built into his life.
Maybe I’ve made her up. Maybe I just invented her.
‘I knew it. You are cold.’
‘Yeah, get me a scarf.’
I’m the only thing I can be sure of, he thought. The boy too, he’s something I invented. But without them he would be alone.
When she came back he pulled her on to his knee. ‘Sorry, I’m a bit crabby. Wellington gets to me.’
He let her knot the scarf around his neck. Then she held his face and looked in his eyes. ‘I love you, Howie. Don’t forget.’
‘Love you too.’
‘Don’t go to the court if you’re too tired.’
‘I’m not tired.’
‘You won’t have to visit him in prison, will you, pet?’
‘They’ll put him in one of those open ones down country, I suppose. And let him out for weekends. He’ll visit us.’
If I was put inside, he thought, they’d have to make it top security and I’d be over the wall on a fucking sheet, trying at least. But Gordon would land a job as tally clerk in the kitchen. He would grow fat in his cheeks and learn to make them tremble even more. I’d see him breaking rocks if it would make a man of him, Howie thought.
He dressed carefully. He knew they would be flashing bulbs at him. Howie Peet come to see his son get sent down would be the biggest part of the story. Tony Dorio and Quested wanted him to stay away, and he should. He hadn’t shown his face until now. But that had started making him ashamed. It began to seem like cowardice. He walked a roundabout way from the parking building to the court; enjoyed the gusty wind and the clashing palm fronds in the park. The journalists, the cameras, converged on him as he reached the steps.
‘No, it has no connection,’ he said. ‘PDQ is a different matter. I’m here because one of the defendants is my son, and he, I assure you, has nothing … No, excuse me. No comment. Let me through.’ He was close to lashing out at the cameras.
‘I understand the Kitchener project has hit some snags, Mr Peet.’
‘You understand wrong then, sonny.’
‘What do you think the verdict will be?’
‘No idea.’
‘Will you be giving your son a job?’
‘I’d give him one before I’d give you one.’
‘You had business dealings with Neil Hopkins, didn’t you?’
Howie lunged through. He got inside the door and could not see which way to go. Coming here was a bad mistake. He found a toilet and was alarmed at the blotchy redness of his face. He splashed water on his forehead and cheeks and straightened his tie, straightened his hair. Now, how do I get out of here? Then no, he thought, fuck it, no. I’m not going to be driven out by a bunch of snot-noses. I came here for Gordon and I’m staying, by God. Where do I go?
He found his way into the courtroom and sat in a seat near the back, on the aisle. Another mistake. Neil Hopkins, coming in with his lawyer, stopped to shake hands.
‘Good to see you, Howie,’ as though they were equals.
‘Neil.’ Nothing more. He wasn’t going to wish the bastard luck.
The court was filling up. Broadhead and Rope came in with their lawyers – lawyers like barracuda cruising the reef. That’s the game, Howie thought, that’s where the pickings are; but no place for someone wanting to keep his self-respect. Give me bricks and mortar any day.
‘Dad. I didn’t think you’d be here.’
‘Good luck, Gordon. See me after.’
He was afraid Gordon was going to cry. He’s like Fatty Lupton at school, Howie thought. Everybody picks on him and he wobbles like a jelly and starts to cry. Leave him alone, the poor little sod. He could not identify the feeling that made him reach out and touch Gordon’s hand. And when, a dozen rows forward, a woman in a brown skirt and flat shoes, with a bag made of canvas and bamboo, darted into the aisle at Gordon, he did not for a moment recognise her; thought it was some crazy woman who had lost her money in Lupercal; but no, it was Gwen, only Gwen, clutching Gordon’s sleeve and kissing him. Howie had not thought she would travel up. He turned his face away, not to know her.
The judge came in and everyone stood up: the lawyers in their fancy dress; Gwen in her browns and greys, contemptuous of the ritual, he could tell from her back. For half an hour he listened as the setting-out was done – lawyers mouthing formulae and doing their steps. Then Mr Justice Paviour was away, and Howie knew from his tone that no one was getting off. The guy was a marathon talker and he left nothing out, but kept an edge on his voice and made cuts and jabs. ‘The conditions in which commercial enterprises and their senior executives operated in 1986 and most of 1987 were dramatically different from those existing today. This undoubtedly influenced the nature of decisions that were made and actions taken. But while conditions may change, in the very nature of things, standards of honesty never vary. What is dishonest now was dishonest then and no argument of pressures and influences is able to change that.’ He talked about the ‘loop’ the money went through and the ‘wiring diagrams’ the lawyers had used to work the payments out. ‘We have here,’ he said, ‘a clear case of theft and, in several counts, of conspiracy to defraud. Hopkins’ dishonesty hardly needs elaboration … ’ All the same he elaborated, and did it too for Dingle and the rest, even for Gordon. They might not be culpable on all counts, he said, but on this and this …
You’re going down, son, Howie thought.
Paviour made his judgments: guilty here, not guilty there, and Gordon came out even, one of each. That was better than Howie had expected. But he could not help shrinking inside – his son Gordon guilty of theft. He wished it had been some longer and less ugly word.
Sentencing was deferred for a week. Howie waited while bail was allowed, then he went out quickly and waited in the foyer with his back against the wall.
Gwen came out with Gordon and Parfitt, his lawyer. They nudged her along and she turned to speak; you couldn’t stop Gwen, she’d have her say – how it had been, how it should have been. They kept away from the others; all of them kept away from each other, Hopkins, Dingle, Broadhead, Rope, as though they musn’t be seen to associate, these pirates who had sailed together on the same ship. Now they washed their hands of each other. Howie couldn’t believe their uprightness, their frowns and perfect ties and perfect suits, and he saw that Gordon, ruffled and plump and uncoordinated, had a dignity that they lacked. He had been a thief and he knew it. The others seemed to say, All this has nothing to do with me.
Howie waited until Parfitt left, then went across to Gordon and Gwen. There was nothing to say to Gordon, so he patted his arm and said to Gwen, ‘When did you come up?’
‘This morning, on the plane. I didn’t expect to see you here.’
‘Why not?’
‘Oh, guilt by association. I thought you’d be far away.’
‘Lay off, Gwen. Take a break from it. How are you, Gordy? Think you can get by?’
‘Of course he’ll get by.’
‘I asked him. Parfitt will get you to appeal, I suppose?’
‘He thinks I’m going to get two years,’ Gordon said. He had a wobble in his voice.
‘That’s about what I thought,’ Howie said.
‘Oh thank you, Howie. Thank you very much,’ Gwen said.
‘He might as well be realistic. It’s no use thinking an appeal is going to work.’
‘Look Howie, you can see Gordon any time. How about letting him and me have some time together?’
‘Okay.’ He kept his temper. ‘How’s Ulla?’
‘Ulla, Howie, it’s Ulla.’
‘How is she?’
‘She lies in bed. She tries to get used to it.’
‘Give her my love.’
‘Really?’
‘Just do it, eh
? Come and see me, Gordon, before next week.’ He patted him again and went outside.
The journalists were busy round Hopkins and Dingle. He walked along Princes Street and went down through the park. Gordon he began to feel comfortable about, Gordon was human somehow, and Gwen was Gwen and could not touch him now, although he would wear her, he supposed, like a wart in his armpit until he died. But the others, Hopkins and his gang, made an ugly feeling in his head, as though a surface there had been disturbed and underneath was a whorling and sucking. The guys who shift the money here and hide it there and find it secretly in some other place, they went with deregulation, he supposed, the bad side of it. You had to have them if you were going to have the freedom to do things. But by God they were shifty and dirty little sods. They bloody rob everyone, Howie thought. They rob that woman I saw in Wellington.
A name came to him: Gaston Means. It came from way back – sixty years. Some sort of gangster, wasn’t he? Some little guy from when the gangsters were big, Al Capone and the rest, and he robbed poor boxes – was that it? – when he was a boy, or robbed his poor old grandma, something like that? His mother had used Gaston Means as an example – when I pinched something, Howie remembered. Gaston Means started that way, robbing his grandma, so you’d better be careful, son … Gaston and Means, what a pair of names, and maybe he grew up to be pretty big, though never in the Al Capone class. But these guys – Hopkins, Dingle – were Gaston Means grown up. Roger’s real children, he thought; although they’ve always been there, doing their bloody thing. He was glad Gordon had got caught and was out of it now.
Howie drove home. He found Darlene out with the flymo, cutting grass, and he stood in the french doors and admired her as she went back and forth, trailing the cord. He turned the power off and laughed at her silently as she flicked the controls.
‘Howie. Oh Howie, that was you. You bastard, Howie.’
‘Get your togs. We’ll have another go at that stone.’
She still could not reach it but that was okay. He lay in the sun with her, on the new-mown grass, and knew that he was lucky; lucky to have her, lucky to be here.
‘Guilty,’ he said, ‘the lot of them. They’re going to sentence them next week.’
‘How did Gordon take it?’
‘He’s all right. He’s got his mother there.’
‘Gwen?’
‘Yeah, Gwen.’
‘How was she?’
‘Shooting from the hip still. Thank God I went in to buy some shoes.’
‘Just imagine if you hadn’t, Howie.’
‘Don’t imagine.’ He lay on his elbows and looked around. ‘I’ve earned all this. I worked for it.’
‘Of course you did.’
‘So hold my hand. And let’s have fillet steak for tea.’
‘Lunch too if you want it, Howie.’
‘Okay, lunch. And we’ll go out for tea. Somewhere flash.’ A restaurant with a view somewhere. Where I don’t have to think about Ronnie and his mates. And Neil Hopkins and the rest. For tonight. ‘That okay?’
‘That’s great, Howie,’ she said, and held his hand.
Gordon was waiting outside in his car when they came home. They took him to the living room and Howie said, ‘You go up to bed, love, I won’t be long.’
He poured two drinks. ‘Now, what’s up?’
‘I don’t know. I just couldn’t – be alone,’ Gordon said.
‘Where’s your mother?’
‘She went back this afternoon. She had to visit Ulla. I didn’t think she’d come up. She never writes to me or telephones.’
For God’s sake, Howie wanted to say, you’re grown up now, you’re forty-one, you don’t need letters from your mother.
‘Where did you go?’
‘We bought some rolls and ate them in the Domain.’
Typical, he thought. She comes to Auckland to see her son and instead of having a decent lunch they end up with rolls in the Domain. She probably had him feeding the ducks. And told him to get an honest job – social work or gardening or delivering Meals on Wheels. And stay away from the bad boys when you go to prison. You don’t have to swear, Gordon, just because they do.
‘She give you any good advice?’
‘No.’
‘Bad advice?’
‘We talked, that’s all.’
‘What about?’
‘Growing up. What we did and all that stuff. And you and her, when you were poor.’
‘Why, for God’s sake?’
‘I don’t know. I never know why Mum says all the stuff she does.’
She’s trying to make him soft, Howie thought, instead of hard, which is what he has to be. He had never seen so clearly the difference between Gwen and himself. She would make those days of being poor some sort of magic time and make it seem that that’s where they should be today, because of … because of ‘happiness’ and ‘being close’ … instead of seeing that it was a place they had to climb out of. She flew to Auckland to offer a few tarted-up memories to Gordon, like some lolly he could suck while he was inside …
‘Then she had to catch her plane. I drove her to the airport. Listen, Dad … ’
‘Yeah? What?’
‘I know you don’t want me here … but if I can just … while I get myself sorted out. I’ll go crazy if I’m alone.’
‘You got a bag?’
‘Yes. In the car.’
‘Go and get it.’
Gwen had made her throw – domains and ducks and memories – but Gordon had come to Howie, and come for real things: a bed, a drink, a place to sit himself down and ‘sort himself out’. Okay, Howie thought, I’ll give him that; and then he goes to prison because he made a damn fool mistake and got too greedy; and he does his time, and I’m buggered if I’ll try to talk some fancy path through all that for him. A bed. A drink. Then he goes.
‘I’ve got Damon coming next Friday’ – when Gordon came back – ‘so you couldn’t have stayed any longer than that.’ There were plenty of rooms, but he didn’t want to mix Damon up with a failure. No, he thought, not a failure, Gordon’s still got his chance if he does it right. But mix him up with a man who gets tears in his eyes.
Gordon blinked. ‘Damon?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What’s he coming for?’
‘A holiday. Get him away from all that emotional stuff down there.’
‘How long will he stay?’
‘As long as he likes.’ He saw that Gordon was jealous, and he gulped his drink and said roughly, ‘He’s a kid, Gordon. You’re grown up. Come on, I’ll show you a bedroom. I want to get my head down for the night.’
Thank God it’s noise insulated or I’d hear him crying through the wall. He was, he realised with shame, close to crying himself.
Howie did not sleep well that night. He felt that his house – more than his house, the inside of his head – had been invaded. Bits of time, bits broken off past events, and people who were younger and simpler than they should be, moved in the space behind his eyes. Gwen, Gordon, Athol, Damon, Ulla. Himself. Gwen with Athol sucking at her breast: why should that come back? It disgusted him, not because of what was happening there but because it was old and gone. Ulla with Damon on her back like a papoose, striding through the wind and sleet in Central Terrace. And Gordon behind a door, where he thought no one could see him, picking his nose. Why that? Why should that appear? And himself in the garden in the house in Miramar, digging potatoes, while sweat trickled into his belly hair and the radio played a rugby match through the open window and Gwen pegged napkins on the line. He could not tell if he was dreaming or remembering.
He got out of bed. There’s someone broken in, he thought. It was a house that did not creak or whisper, but somewhere there had been a click and a change of air. He pulled on his dressing gown and went downstairs. The french doors were open and the curtains moved in a breeze. He went to the door and looked across the moonlit lawn. Gordon was walking past the naiad towards the tennis court. His stri
ped pyjamas looked like a prison suit. Escaping, Howie thought, and was pleased at his son’s cleverness in switching off the alarm. The grass slopes gleamed. Gordon slid down them like ice. His scalp was as yellow as a lemon. The Rangitoto channel shone and the islands lay flattened out, spreading into the night. Gordon seemed to be walking there.
Don’t do that, Howie thought. It was an easy step off the cliff. His spine tingled at the thought of falling. He saw the rocks and sea rushing up, and saw how Gordon would be free. Don’t, he thought. Don’t be a coward, son.
He lost Gordon in the shade of a tree, then saw him come out shining – like a bloody angel, he thought – and walk straighter, taller than he managed in the day, to a gap in the flax bushes planted to keep the cliff from crumbling away.
Howie did not want him to start back; stumble and run. He wanted him to look down, consider everything, and only then choose to turn away. I’m not going to interfere, he thought. If he jumps he jumps. Gordon, if I save you you’ll be a fucking no-no for the rest of your life. Save yourself. I don’t care how much you cry afterwards.
He could feel himself sweating, yet he was cold.
Gordon put his hands on his hips. All I need to do is call his name, Howie thought. But he has to call his own. Say it, Gordy, say Gordon Peet. The things you’ve done are here, not there, you can’t work them out by getting in behind the door.
Howie found himself on the lawn. He felt grass pricking the soles of his feet. I’m not going any further, he said, and he stood in company with the cold statue; held her ankle hard to keep in place. He was overwhelmed by love for his son, but would not move, would not let his voice lassoo out. He’s got to get himself back from there, it’s not my job. Gordon had squatted and put his hands on his knees. It’s either a way of jumping or of holding on, Howie thought. He squatted too, keeping the naiad’s ankle in his grip. Gwen would do the wrong thing. She’d run and fight with him and scream and hold him by the ankles. They’d fall off together, the pair of them. But I’m fighting for him, I’m fighting too.
Gordon stood up. He put his hands over his head and seemed to yawn. Then he turned away from the cliff and walked up the lawn – saw Howie standing by the statue.