by Fiona Kidman
He doesn’t come in until morning for five nights in a row.
Dixie says, ‘How come you never come out for a drink? How about you come with us tonight?’
‘You know I can’t. Gene would kill me.’
‘Strikes me, Gene wouldn’t know about it. I mean, if you really want to know.’
‘No I don’t.’
‘Yes, you do.’
At the pub she meets Ruka, who Dixie says is her cousin. He’s a big man in working clothes, a tree feller with the smell of bark on his skin. An easy friendly voice, an open face that she likes. An untroubled expression, big mouth, big laugh, big white teeth. Big family, Dixie says, at some point in the evening, which should have told her to be careful, but they’ve drunk so many beers and followed them with so many chasers that one thing’s blurred into the next.
Mr Blue Satin stands in the witness box in front of the old dark wood panelling of the courtroom. His shirt is shimmering like one of those auras around aliens in science fiction movies. His hair is slicked up to a point and falls over to one side in a curl. Against the glare of the lights in the room, his face looks dim and pale and pointed.
‘Tell us what happened?’ the lawyer says.
‘I got a phone call about three in the morning.’
‘Who phoned you?’
‘The witness. Tania.’
‘What is the relationship between you and Tania?’
‘She’s a friend.’
‘Your girlfriend?’
‘No sir. A friend.’
‘Where were you?’
‘I was at a friend’s place.’
‘Another friend’s place.’
‘Yessir.’
‘You seem to have a lot of friends. What time was this?’
‘Three o’clock in the morning.’
‘What did she say to you?’
‘She said some joker had picked up and taken her out to Moa Point and tried to … well, you know.’
‘No, you tell me.’
‘Tried to rape her. She was hysterical, crying her eyes out, you know, really sobbing.’
‘You say he tried to rape her? That’s what she told you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘But he hadn’t succeeded?’
‘That’s what she said. Well, she said he’d had a go and she’d tried to push him away, and then he went to sleep. When he woke up he drove her home.’
‘Did she tell you whether she’d gone with him of her own accord?’
‘Objection, your honour. My learned friend is leading the witness into the realms of hearsay.’
‘Objection upheld.’
‘Very well. What did you do when your friend rang you in distress?’
‘I said I’d pick her up.’
‘Where from?’
‘My house.’
‘Oh, so she was at your house?’
‘She stays over there. She used to. We shared, you know, some of the facilities.’
‘I see, so you hurry from your friend’s house back to your house where your other friend, the witness, Miss X, is waiting for you, and then what do you do?’
‘She tells me what happens and I say, we’ll go out and look for him, you and me. He’s not going to get away with this. She says she’ll know his car if she sees it.’
‘So you think this man might still be driving around town?’
‘Well, he might have been.’
‘How long did you drive around for?’
‘All the next day. Till about three in the afternoon.’
Driving around, not knowing what Gene might do next. Trying to remember exactly what did happen, the night before, because it was like there was a great fog in her mind, a slumbering beast. If she could push it away, get out from under it, she would be able to see. Touring around, cruising from one place to another, places she and Gene’d been to, out to Eastbourne and along the bays, like a farewell trip. Knowing he had the gun under the seat, not knowing who he would decide to use it on, Ruka or her. Wondering, when they stopped for petrol, whether she should run for it, and risk getting gunned down on the spot. Thinking, Ruka will have gone by now, back to wherever it is he comes from, because he has three kids at home. Some time before the blankness took over, when they were still back at the pub having laughs and drinks, and she was feeling the best she’d done in months, he was saying the missus would be after him if he wasn’t careful. Gene asking, is that his car, does it look like that, what colour was it, don’t tell me you didn’t get the registration, what are you? And Tania getting more and more scared that she might actually see Ruka’s car, and deciding that if they did, she wouldn’t say anything, she’d pretend she hadn’t seen him, because next thing there’d be blood and bodies everywhere and it would all be her fault — if she wasn’t already dead anyway. And if she could just have one chance to get out of this, she might go home to her mum.
‘And all this time, your friend is distressed, and hasn’t had any sleep, and she hasn’t been to the police?’
‘I figured we had to find him before he got away.’
‘We figured we had to find him before he got away.’ This, echoed very slowly, deliberation after every word.
‘Yes. Something like that.’
‘Something like that. So then your friend decided to go to the police?’
‘I told her go to the police. You can’t have people doing that kind of thing.’
Out at Moa Point. Where she’d been the night before. The smell of sewage in the air, because it’s the outfall for the city, or it was back then, before they put the treatment plant in. A scummy brown film among the rocks. Bits of toilet paper. The gun in her back. Gene, taking her out across the rocky outfall, underneath the flight path of the planes coming in to land, the roar in her ears coming and going. The surf. The planes. The ringing sound of fear and the total light-headedness she was experiencing.
‘Sit down,’ he says.
‘I’ve gotta get some sleep, Gene. Please take me home.’
His blue satin shirt, like a kid’s dress-up, the violet smudges beneath his eyes, the oily sea behind him.
‘What did you do with him?’
‘Nothing.’
‘He tried it on with you.’
‘Yeah, but nothing happened. He was too drunk to get it up.’
‘I wanted you to be mine.’
‘You can’t own me, Gene.’
‘I do, but that’s not the point.’
‘Then what the fuck is the point?’
‘I told you, I never had a girl who was mine. Who’d do anything for me. Just for me. I really really liked, really fucking loved you, you dumb cow.’
‘I love you too, Gene. Honest.’
‘But you went with this joker.’
‘I go with lots of jokers.’
‘No, you don’t, that’s different. You wanted to go with him. You stayed out late with him.’
‘He just gave me a ride home.’
‘Why didn’t you try and jump out of the car?’
‘I didn’t want to get killed. I was scared.’
‘You could have run away from him when he went to sleep.’
‘He went to sleep on top of me. He was a big fella. Please Gene, this isn’t getting us anywhere.’
‘Prove it. Prove that he forced you. Make me believe it.’
‘What do I have to do?’
‘You know. You know.’
‘You mean go to the police?’
‘Yeah, well, he sounds pretty dangerous. You should report an attack.’
‘I can’t go through with that.’
Gene just looks at her, contempt written on his face, as if she’s dirt.
‘So now,’ says the lawyer, flicking his gown behind him with one practised hand, ‘now you’re providing the witness with sympathy and support?’
‘Objection, your honour. That question is not relevant to the facts of the Crown’s case.’
‘Objection upheld.’
‘Thank you,
your honour. I have no further questions for this witness.’
He has another fish to dangle in front of the jury. Dixie. Blinking, awake far too early, still a stunning figure in her black gear. Standing up straight, a small half smile hovering round the corners of her carmine mouth, the matching fingernails peeping out from the black lace mittens, the hair gathered over padding to create a high pompadour, the ringlets flowing from beneath a comb.
‘You introduced the first witness to the defendant?’
‘Yeah.’
‘He is your cousin?’
‘Nah.’
‘But that’s what you told the witness?’
‘He was a mate from way back.’
‘When she asked you if it was safe to ride home with him, you told her, yes, it’s all right. Is that true?’
A toss of her head, ‘I didn’t know he was a bad fulla then.’
‘And now you think he is?’
‘Stands to reason, wouldn’t you say, mister?’
‘I’m asking the questions.’
‘Well, we can’t all be wise with hindsight, as the saying goes.’ A triumphant malice at having got the better of her questioner.
‘Well, as you’re so full of aphorisms, wouldn’t you say that perhaps you’re a person who likes two bob each way?’
‘Objection, your honour.’
Tania steals a look at Ruka, the first time she has allowed herself a glance. A muscle is working in the thick column of his throat. As if he is swallowing and swallowing. His eyes are very still.
The jury’s still out. Tania’s mother gets to her feet, restless, knocking a half-empty bottle of soft drink to the floor without noticing what she’s done.
‘I’m going out for a breath of fresh air,’ she says. She and Tania have been so on edge with each other there’s nothing much left for them to say, especially with Gene sitting there preening himself. Tania looks at him, and thinks what a sad person he really is. He thinks he’s done all right in that courtroom, that he cut quite a figure. Now that she sees him in this harsh real place, she sees how much of a fantasy world he lives in, and how little she knows about him — what his life was before, where he came from, whether anyone had cared stink for him. She knows he likes Batman comics and George Michael, and that’s about it.
Her mother’s not hiding her dislike of him, and although Gene doesn’t appear to notice or care, it hasn’t helped the hours to pass, as the jury sits somewhere and considers all their lives and what’s going to happen to them.
When her mother comes back from her walk, she looks indignant. ‘That poor woman,’ she says.
‘What poor woman?’ says Tania.
‘His wife. She’s beside herself out there in the other waiting room.’
‘You’re not telling me you spoke to Ruka’s wife? Tell me this isn’t happening.’
‘I certainly did speak to her. I’ve been watching that woman — she’s on her own, too ashamed, I expect, to tell her friends what’s going on. It must be hard, having to get someone to mind the kiddies, and keep it all to herself. The whole thing’s just killing her, you can tell. I said to her, I’m sorry about your trouble, I tried to bring her up right.’
‘You said that about me?’
‘She’s a decent sort of woman. She said, I don’t blame the girl, he shouldn’t have been where he was, he shouldn’t have put himself in that situation. It’s just that he’s innocent. I said to her, but Tania had all these bruises and things, I’ve seen the pictures to prove that. She said to me, well, Ruka didn’t do it, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
‘You don’t know anything. You always think you know better than me.’
‘So you tell me what you know, more to the point.’
‘You’re my mother,’ Tania says. ‘You’re supposed to be on my side.’
‘Well, don’t tell me you didn’t want Ruka,’ her mother says. ‘Because I can tell you, I would.’ She looks at Gene with distaste, as if he’s just crawled out from under a stone.
‘Oh, I’m out of here,’ Tania says, picking up her jacket. But then the court attendant says the jury is coming back and so they file into the back of the court, behind Ruka. She knows exactly what the foreman is going to say, and while they’re waiting for him to clear his throat, and steady his voice, she slips noiselessly out again, walks down the corridor and moves into the night.
Waiting for the crash to happen, the earthquake to start toppling things. Feathers of rain touch her skin; soon they turn to bee stings. She thinks if she runs fast enough and far enough away, she will reach open space.
ALL THE WAY TO SUMMER
On the drive home from the hospital Annie Pile stared straight through the windscreen, her baby asleep in her arms. She held him as if he was a snake in a basket. The beaten-up light truck rattled and banged over potholes. All around us, the landscape was steeped in dark yellow sunlight, shining between the leaves of trees, trickling through the dry kikuyu grass at the edge of the road, nearly blinding her husband who was driving the truck.
‘I had chloroform when I had my operation,’ I said. I was wedged between Annie and the passenger door. My parents had hitched me a lift home from the hospital. I’d had pneumonia, and then, when I got over that, the doctor said, well, she might as well have her tonsils out now and get it over and done with. The hospital was a long way off, more than twenty miles, and because my parents didn’t have a car, they hadn’t visited me during the three weeks I was in hospital. My mother had started out to walk one day, but the heat got to her. I was seven, going on eight, at the time.
Nobody in the truck responded, although Annie Pile’s husband passed his hand over his straight chunky hair, as if this in some way signalled an acknowledgment.
‘I read fourteen books while I was in hospital,’ I said. ‘My teacher at the hospital said I’ll probably go up a class when I get back to school.’
‘Make her be quiet, Kurt,’ Annie said to her husband. Her hair, as plain as his, but fairer, was caught with a pin above her ear, like fencing wire over corn silk. Her mottled cheeks had a raw chapped appearance; beneath her eyes it looked as if someone had made thumb prints on her skin.
‘My wife is so tired,’ the man said, with a slight foreign inflection in his voice. ‘From having the baby.’
I thought about stroking the baby’s finger, to see whether that might make the mother happier, but then I decided it wouldn’t work. Instead, I looked out at the lush and surprising landscape as we came to the town. In the hedgerows banana passion-fruit hung in ripe yellow clusters. I leaned my head against the cab window, my brown pigtail pressed against the glass. When I shifted I could feel the imprint of my hair on my cheek, as if my face had been tied to a mooring rope.
When we arrived at the gate of the small farm where I lived, my parents were standing side by side, waiting to welcome me home. My mother was dressed in a pair of dungarees buttoned over a checked blouse. She was a tiny woman, barely five feet, but so thin and energetic that she seemed to occupy more space. My father was wearing a tweed jacket and a tie. His English brogues held a reddish tint in their polished surfaces. He was a tall lean man, with hollows in his olive cheeks, eyebrows like inverted tyre tracks and a hawkish nose. He had a suitcase beside him, as if he had just arrived home from a journey of his own.
My mother put her arms around me when I got down from the truck, examining me closely, touching my hair and cheek. ‘Mattie. Darling,’ she murmured. My father inclined his head towards me, his shoulders stiff.
Kurt climbed down from the truck cab and shook hands with my father. ‘A holiday,’ he said. ‘Nice for some.’
‘A few days in Auckland.’
‘Oh well. What did you get up to?’
My father was clearly going to say, mind your own damn business, but remembered just in time that he owed Kurt. ‘I saw a couple of musicals.’ He drew on a cigarette, holding the smoke in his mouth.
‘Gilbert and Sullivan? I heard there was some on.’ Kurt’s lip
curled.
My father released a perfect smoke ring into the still air. ‘Cox and Box. At least there’s a good laugh or two in it, not all your Mozart and high falutin’ stuff. My cobber and I had a good laugh all right.’
‘Very good. Good for you. We’ll be off then.’
‘Better have a look at this young ’un of yours. A boy, well, there’s something to smile about.’
Annie continued to stare straight ahead of her as if she couldn’t see any of them. Her husband looked at her as at a mystery so large and unfathomable that he was afraid of being caught in it. No, worse than that, that he was inside it but couldn’t yet understand what had trapped him. He was a lot older than Annie Pile, but in that moment he looked like a fledgling sparrow, immensely young and vulnerable. My mother approached the truck.
‘What have you called the baby, Alice?’
‘Jonathan.’
‘A sound name. He can shorten it if he likes. Names are important.’ She leaned in the truck to peer at the baby, putting out her hand to move the blanket aside a little. Annie snatched the cover back, so that the baby was hidden from view. My mother flushed and straightened. ‘Thank you so very much for bringing Mattie home. I hope she was no bother to you, Alice.’
‘She needs to hold her tongue more,’ Annie said.
‘I expect she was excited about coming home.’ When Annie didn’t reply, she said, ‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.’
As the truck drove away, clouds of red dust billowing behind it, my father glanced down to check that his shoes were not getting dirty. ‘Unfriendly sort of a coot. Pile, my Auntie Fanny. He’s a Jerry, you know, name’s Pilsener. You know how they change their names, those fellows.’
My mother said, ‘Their baby’s a Mongol.’
‘Oh my Lord,’ said my father. ‘Well, too bad about that, eh.’
‘We’re fortunate,’ said my mother and, taking my bag in one hand, she led me, with the other, up the path to our two-roomed cottage with the low ceilings. After a moment’s hesitation, my father followed her, drew abreast of us.