All Day at the Movies

by Fiona Kidman

  ‘Where have you been all these years?’ Belinda asked, when she was seated opposite her sister. Janice was dressed in a strange puffy garment. Her face had a weathered look about it, making her seem much older than forty-three. Prison guards watched, their eyes flickering over them in constant surveillance. Belinda hadn’t been prepared for the physical nature of the search she had undergone before she was allowed to enter. It was worse than airports. She kept her hands in her lap because every time she moved them, a guard came to attention. She supposed they were waiting to see if she had anything to slip to Janice. In this place, who she was counted for nothing.

  ‘Now you ask,’ Janice said. Her gaze wasn’t particularly friendly.

  ‘I knew you were alive. Grant asked the police to find you once, but they said they couldn’t say where you were. I wrote you some letters but you never replied.’

  ‘I never got no blimmin’ letters,’ Janice said. But she sighed, seeming to relent. After all, she had agreed that Belinda could visit.

  ‘You’re owed some money from the sale of the house in Brighton Street.’ Belinda felt she was babbling, as if money were the important thing, although she could see that for the moment it might not be.

  ‘Go on? How about that?’

  ‘So you ought to know about that. But I wanted to find you anyway, honestly Janice.’

  ‘I was living up in the Hokianga,’ Janice said.

  ‘I’ve been there often,’ Belinda said. ‘Magic place.’

  ‘You have? So you’ve been around, Belinda.’ There was an unexpected touch of irony in Janice’s voice as though, perhaps, she did know something of her sister’s life. ‘My boyfriend Wiremu used to read the fish ’n’ chip papers to me.’ She laughed, a short rough sound.

  ‘I’ve been a few places.’

  ‘Oh well. You’ve seen all the sand dunes? Neat, eh? And the mangroves.’

  ‘I made a couple of movies up there. One was about those mangroves, and later on one about De Thierry, a sort of a documentary about his failed settlement plan, you know.’

  Janice gave a wry smile. Beneath her scars, her face was still crooked the way Belinda remembered it. ‘You’ll know all about it, then.’

  ‘I don’t know anything,’ said Belinda, recognising her mistake. It had taken her two months of negotiating with the authorities to get permission to visit Janice. The first time she tried they had reported back that Janice didn’t want a visit, but then she’d changed her mind.

  ‘Ah well, you always were the clever one,’ Janice said. ‘Never mind, you couldn’t help it.’

  ‘It was Jessie who was clever.’

  ‘Oh yeah. I don’t really remember her. Oh well, you’re forgiven.’ This time she did smile, a grin lighting up her face.

  ‘Why did you leave the Hokianga?’

  ‘Oh heck, Belinda, I’d have still been there if it hadn’t been for Darrell. You know about Darrell? My first boyfriend?’

  ‘The one you ran away with?’

  ‘That’s the one. Frying pan into the fire. He’s Heaven’s dad. But she turned out all right. She’s a real good kid, Darrell or no Darrell.’

  ‘Aunt Agnes mentioned him once, but I never heard about Heaven.’

  Janice’s face curled with disgust. ‘Old bitch.’

  ‘She took me in,’ Belinda says. ‘She wasn’t that bad.’ She was surprised to hear herself defending her aunt.

  ‘She kicked you out, I heard,’ Janice said.

  ‘True. Eventually.’

  ‘She got you away from our father. She left me with him.’ Janice waited to see what effect her words would have on Belinda.

  Belinda flinched, unable for a moment to reply. Images from the house in Brighton Street still stung behind her eyelids at unbidden moments. Since she and Grant had made the house ready for sale, it had become a persistent setting for a nightmare, a place where evil had been done. Often, in her dreams, the landscape was hazy, as it was on some summer days in her childhood, when there were gorse fires on the hillsides, the edges of the houses blurred, and smoke drifted over the sea towards the mountains on the other side of the strait. Through the haze their white caps glowed, as if floating in space.

  There was something else she could not eradicate, the face and naked form of her sister who, like all her family, had suffered in that house. Only Janice had suffered more than all of them, in a way that made Belinda recoil.

  ‘I didn’t know about our father,’ Belinda said at last. ‘Not then. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry. That’s what they say.’ Janice looked around at women sitting on plastic stools, divided by low tables from their visitors. Belinda recognised the face of a murderer whose case had been in the papers.

  Janice’s eyes followed hers. ‘You don’t want to stare, Belinda. They’ll scratch your eyes out before the screws get to you. They don’t care, ’cause they’re in here for a long time. Anyway, I thought Darrell was all right — he was good to me at the beginning. But I got it wrong, you wouldn’t believe.’ She pointed to scars on her face. ‘I got flattened that often, it took me a while to figure out how bad he was for me. It was the Italians who got me out of it.’

  Janice told Belinda, then, about the Italian tunnellers and Tommaso, who was her second love (or perhaps, really, her first one), but he’d gone back to Italy and, besides, he’d figured that Janice would never be free of Darrell so long as that man was alive. He would always make trouble.

  ‘And he has?’ Belinda said.

  ‘Oh yeah. I keep thinking he’s out of the way, but he isn’t. But I’d found Wiremu, or he’d found me. He turned out to be my real one. I could never look at another bloke.’ Janice was embarking on an account Belinda sensed she had told before. As she listened, she knew this story was not a gift; it was a burden that Janice was bestowing on her.

  She thought, I owe her this.

  ‘Darrell gets put in jail,’ Janice was saying, as she came to what seemed to be the end, ‘and then he’s out again and I’m on the run because he always catches up with me. Running away, moving, my whole life I’ve been running. It’s like you’re in the dark, not knowing where you’re going to end up next. And then he’ll find me.’

  Belinda felt her own shoulders bowed. Nothing could shift the weight of what she had been told.

  ‘What happened to Grant, anyway?’ Janice asked, at last.

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in years.’

  Belinda was ashamed she’d quarrelled with Grant. What had she been thinking of, that morning? She’d driven away from the house, leaving him sitting forlornly on the doorstep. When she got as far as the seashore, she’d pulled over and turned back. Grant was already gone. Since then, she’d tried to reach him, phoning, writing to his last address, both to apologise and to ask him to help her find Janice.

  ‘Did you and him have a fight?’

  ‘It was my fault.’

  ‘What happened?’ When Belinda remained silent again, Janice stared at her with clear candid appraisal. ‘Was it about me?’

  ‘I said he hadn’t looked after you. You know, protected you from our father.’ Belinda’s voice was choking.

  ‘Oh, my goodness,’ Janice said softly. ‘Oh my. What did you think Grant could have done?’ She glanced at her hands, the short chewed nails, revolving her thumbs around each other. In the room, a child cried, wanting to stay with its mother as visiting hour drew to a close. The sobs rose to a long wail of despair. ‘Grant’s mate got done for drugs, just like me. Did you know that?’

  ‘No. What happened?’

  ‘I heard about it just before I ran off from home.’ Janice stirred and shifted her position. ‘His name was Allan. I heard he topped himself. After he came out.’

  ‘Oh, no.’ Belinda’s voice was soft. ‘You wouldn’t do anything like that, would you?’

  ‘Me? Don’t be silly. I’ve got the kids. I wouldn’t do that to them.’

  The guards were checking their watches. ‘You’ve been on remand for
a long time. What happens next?’ Belinda asked urgently.

  ‘Oh yeah, well I’m waiting for sentencing now. You know, you done the crime, you do the time.’

  ‘You pleaded guilty?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Is it true?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why? Jan, why would you do that?’

  Janice sighed and turned away. ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘You need to fight. Have you got a good lawyer?’

  ‘She’s all right. Her name’s Annabel. Legal aid.’

  ‘I can get you a better one. If she’s not doing her job. Jan, please, I want to help.’

  Janice stood up, as if ending an interview. ‘I gotta go. You don’t understand. I’m hoping for home detention. I’ve gotta keep my little girl Heaven out of trouble. She’s running with shit, they’re dragging her down. I can’t see the kids, they’re not allowed to visit me because of their convictions. I could be in here another year waiting for a jury to hear me. This way, well, you see what I mean. I can look after her, she can come and live with me if Housing’ll give us another place. I lost my house by the way. That’s what they do, they even chuck you out on the street before you’ve been found guilty. Heaven and Patariki are staying with her rotten boyfriend. He acts like a goody-good but man do I know bad when I see it.’

  ‘Is he a gang member or something?’

  ‘I wish. Well, perhaps you could look at it that way. His old man’s a cop. The kid’s as bent as a bobby-pin but he’s sly. His dad thinks the sun shines out of his arsehole.’

  ‘I’ll come again. Is there anything you need?’

  ‘Some money for a phone card. You have to give it to them at the desk. Seeing as I’ve got an inheritance, eh? How much, Belinda?’

  ‘About a hundred grand. With the interest. Our father left you a bigger share than Grant and me.’ Belinda felt herself blushing.

  ‘Did he now?’

  Belinda turned at the door and waved to Janice. Her sister hadn’t moved. The guards were hustling her. ‘See you next time, eh?’ Janice called.

  BELINDA DROVE SOUTH THE DAY Janice’s sentencing was supposed to take place. She was being transported south the day before and kept in a holding cell overnight. Belinda had to change a day’s filming schedule and that had created chaos, but now that she was in it with Janice, she felt committed. Seth said he didn’t see what she could do to change things and how did she know what Janice had been up to in the past, how many convictions she already had. (Two, it turned out, both for shoplifting, nothing for drugs.) Seth couldn’t help wondering if she’d been growing stuff up north — you heard enough stories.

  ‘She’s my sister,’ Belinda said. ‘You’d do it for your sisters.’

  He hardly need remind her, he began, and stopped. Seth’s sisters won the upright citizens’ awards, real or imagined, hands down. No contest. Belinda didn’t mention her trip to her children, not at this stage.

  The courtroom was a long wood-panelled space, designed to make people think it was user-friendly, with a high red wall behind the judge’s seat. There were bright blue chairs for the lawyers at their tables. Belinda didn’t feel comforted. Men roamed the corridor outside wearing dirty jackets and torn jeans; stripped of their patches they still spoke of gangs. A smell of stubbed-out cigarettes and stale marijuana hovered in the air. Girls with blank eyes leaned against the walls. A woman of indeterminate age who had arrived in the back of a police car as Belinda pulled up outside the courthouse lay on the floor, refusing to enter the courtroom. ‘Stand up, stand up, Nance,’ shouted the court attendants, trying to get her to budge. ‘I can’t stand up,’ she mumbled. She had slender white hands and a mane of dishevelled brown hair. From her position beneath them, she flashed a cell phone. ‘I dialled for an ambulance, see? I’m sick.’ Someone swooped to remove the phone. ‘It’s not right, I shouldn’t be here,’ she cried.

  None of them should, Belinda thought grimly. Low-life and sorrow, poverty and pain, and many more Maori faces than white. Among them, she saw a girl she thought pretty: blue-eyed with small regular features, her fair curly hair streaked with purple. Beneath her left eye a delicate row of dots had been tattooed, smaller than the tips of flower stamens. Belinda found her face compelling. The girl was with a tall rangy Maori boy, a teenager, Belinda guessed, his hair pulled up in a topknot on his head, a tattoo on one cheek. Both of them wore carved bone pendants. They leaned into each other, before entering the court, then sat down near her in the gallery.

  Janice appeared, her face stony and set. Her eyes flicked towards the young people and then she stared straight ahead, her hands folded. Belinda understood, with a sudden charge, that she was sitting two seats away from her niece and nephew. Her flesh and blood, whom she could reach out and touch. Silence had been called in the court.

  Judge Penny wasn’t sentencing Janice after all, that day. It turned out he was merely giving a pre-sentencing indication. A woman stood up at her desk at the front of the court. Her name was Annabel Rose. She was skipping-rope thin and as ripe as a peach ready to fall, so flawless and yet so fragile in her appearance that Belinda was afraid she might break. It seemed Ms Rose was objecting to this delay in the proceedings.

  The judge listened to her with glistening attention, his large handsome eyes resting on her as she waved papers before him. He looked patient and resigned.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I appreciate your attention to the detail of this matter, Ms Rose. I should point out that I’m looking at a starting date of two years and three months imprisonment. There’s a twenty-five per cent reduction in light of the prisoner’s admission of guilt, so let’s say one year and eight months. However,’ and he raised his hand, to stop the lawyer from commenting further, ‘it may not be in the best interests of justice to confine Ms Pawson indefinitely. I consider the prisoner in need of rehabilitation. I’m considering a lengthy period of home detention, during which time she will be required to undertake counselling. I take it Ms Pawson has an address where she can be detained?’

  ‘My client has had her tenancy agreement with Housing New Zealand terminated,’ the lawyer said. ‘I’d have to confirm a suitable address for her.’

  ‘I see. Thank you, Ms Rose. The prisoner is further remanded in custody.’ He checked some notes in front of him, and provided a date for the next hearing, three weeks from then. Belinda thought she must be imagining it, but she could have sworn he smiled.

  She heard the sharp intake of breaths from the young people beside her. The boy called out, ‘Mister, how long do you want to keep her banged up?’

  A court attendant appeared and grabbed the boy she took to be Patariki, and yanked him from his seat.

  The judge looked up. ‘If there are any further disturbances in this courtroom, I’ll have those responsible detained. Do I make myself clear?’

  Belinda followed the pair into the corridor. The girl was crying.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Belinda said. ‘I’m Belinda.’

  Heaven and Patariki turned to her in bewilderment.

  ‘I’m your aunt.’

  Patariki said, eventually, ‘Well, we did hear there were some aunties. Kia ora, Auntie.’ He put his arm around his sister, brushed hair back from her face.

  At this point, they were joined by Annabel Rose, her creamy face flushed. Belinda offered her hand and introduced herself. ‘I think we should talk,’ she said.

  In a side room that Annabel found for them, Belinda said, ‘Do you think Janice is guilty? If you don’t mind me asking.’

  Annabel studied her carefully groomed fingernails. ‘I can’t change what she’s said.’

  ‘But it’s not the truth.’

  ‘Truth. It’s always an interesting concept,’ Annabel said. ‘You do understand that she could stay in prison another year waiting for a trial if she’d pleaded not guilty? I couldn’t guarantee she’d get bail.’

  ‘HER SISTER WILL TAKE HER,’ Annabel told Harold. ‘She was there in the courtroom. She
makes films. I’ve read about her in the newspaper.’

  ‘It sounds like a fairy story,’ her lover said, appraising the pinot noir she’d poured for him. ‘Elegant,’ he remarked. ‘Quite intense. The wine, I mean.’

  ‘The sister’s for real. I recognise her from her pictures. She’s very well thought of in the film world.’

  ‘I saw her in the courtroom, I know who she is.’ He turned his glass around. ‘I’d say this is a Canterbury grape. Quite distinctive, don’t you think? Have you thought any more about where you’d like to go? We could track this vineyard down.’

  When she didn’t reply, he said, ‘Look, sweetheart, it wouldn’t work. Wealthy fairy godmother turns up and saves the day. How long do you think it would last?’

  ‘It turns out Janice has some money sitting with a lawyer in Wellington. An inheritance.’

  ‘It’s not going to buy her freedom. She’s a drug dealer.’

  ‘Harold.’

  ‘She might be your cause, but I have to uphold the law.’

  ‘What about justice?’

  ‘You want to think her innocent because she’s strung a good line. And now she’s got a glamorous sister. You know your client’s run with a scumbag all her life. I’ve put her old boyfriend away more than once.’

  ‘Then you know she’s been trying to get away from him for years. You can’t hold him against Janice.’

  ‘Violent criminal. I’ve sentenced him more than once. That family’s what it is.’

  What had happened in the past could hardly be held against a whole family, Annabel argued. He wasn’t a part of them now, hadn’t been for nearly twenty years. Harold said Darrell would always be part of them because he was the girl’s father.

  Annabel tried changing tack. ‘You’re not allowing for the time Janice has spent in prison.’

  ‘Aren’t I? Oh dear, my mistake. I just want them out of town,’ he said with finality. He checked his watch. ‘I should get going. Fleur’s having her golf buddies over for drinks.’

  ‘I thought you were staying over? I’ve made coq au vin.’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, I forgot to tell you. Fleur left a message with the secretary just as I was leaving.’