All Day at the Movies

by Fiona Kidman

  ‘Just take your time. Take it easy,’ one of the projectionists says.

  ‘What is it? The machine?’ Joe asks.

  ‘A light box. LED. It’s brighter than an ordinary lamp. It sends out ten thousand lux of light. A lux measures the intensity of light passing through a surface. Very therapeutic.’

  ‘I know about that,’ Joe says.

  ‘You do? Well, mate, you want to try it?’ The man, who has introduced himself as Claude, is small and dapper with a slim moustache, like a magician. This bothers Joe, but the man who has just undergone the light therapy seems in good shape. His assistant looks more rugged, with a bushy beard like Joe’s own, wearing a Swanni and boots.

  ‘Right,’ Joe says, and takes his place on the chair facing the light machine.

  ‘Cost you a hundred. You all right with that?’ Claude says.

  ‘Sweet as.’

  The machine begins again. Joe can’t feel the light there, but he knows something is happening. He feels tranquil as if the very core of him were being reached. It is a frightening feeling and yet he feels at ease.

  There’s a slight commotion in the bar downstairs. A group of people have come into the bar, asking for a table where they can have a glass of wine, a bit of finger food if there’s anything going — just some hot chips would do. Everything in town seems to have closed up for the night. Joe closes his ears to these voices. If he concentrates, he doesn’t need to hear them at all, they can become just a blur at the far edge of his consciousness.

  The next minute, the group comes up the stairs and settles at the corner table where he sat earlier in the evening. Focus, he tells himself, just focus.

  All the same, he can’t help but overhear the conversation. It’s a group of film makers on location to shoot a documentary. He hears a woman’s voice talking excitedly about the beautiful visual composition they were making. Something to do with Central Otago’s lakes and waterways, with a dark underside of pollution. ‘We just have to get to some of those runholders, get them to talk,’ she is saying.

  Joe freezes; this is a voice he knows. He opens his eyes. There are some women wearing skinny jeans and bright tops, men in denim, some with their hair tied back in ponytails like girls.

  ‘Keep your eyes shut, mate,’ Claude says.

  The woman’s voice says, ‘What’s going on here?’ She has a slim behind, grey hair fashionably cut in a wavy bob.

  Claude says, ‘Nothing to worry about.’

  Then the woman says, ‘Grant, it’s you, isn’t it? Grant, I’ve been looking all over for you.’

  Joe feels himself flinch, willing it to be so momentary that it won’t show. But she’s walking towards him and he knows that she knows. He jumps to his feet, fumbling in his pocket for a roll of notes. ‘A mistake,’ he says, thrusting the money in Claude’s hand. ‘I’m Joe,’ he says, as he heads for the exit. ‘Sorry, ma’am.’

  As he takes to the stairs, two at a time, past a barman carrying a tray bearing a plate of chips, and a dish with the unmistakeable pungent smell of fried onion, he hears someone say, ‘That was Joe Higgs. That’s his name, that’s just Joe.’

  Does he imagine it, or does he hear someone say that he’s a quiet old coot, keeps himself to himself as a rule? It’s what he would expect to hear of himself.

  He is trembling as he starts the ute, worrying that the woman who has spoken to him might try to find him. As he hurtles along the road he feels a sickening bump, and another one. Dead rabbits. He slows down. There are eyes like pinpricks in the dark. They’re pests to be shot, but still he feels like a murderer, cutting them down like that.

  DAYS PASS AND HE BEGINS to believe that the danger is past, although he’s overtaken by a feeling of gloom. The skies have been overcast all week. Then, around about Tuesday, the clouds lift and the morning is the way he likes it, a bright white-gold building up to a smashing day. Fraser appears at his door on his quad bike.

  ‘Mrs Fraser would like you to call in later,’ he says. His manner is cool, his eyes appraising. Joe knows straight away that it’s not good news. So long as she’s not one of those women who starts telling their husbands about their fantasies. Perhaps he flatters himself, but he can’t think what else could bring about this request or why Fraser would look at him like that.

  She sits at the table in her dining room, not in the kitchen, so he knows this is to be formal. There is a dresser lined with fine china and old silver. Her hands are in her lap, and she’s not really looking at him. In front of her lies a folder of papers.

  ‘What is it?’ he says. ‘Mrs Fraser. Margaret.’

  ‘There’s been a woman here,’ she says.

  Immediately, he guesses, but he waits for her to tell him.

  ‘She was looking for a man called Grant Pawson.’

  He takes a deep breath. ‘Oh, Grant Pawson,’ he says, trying to make his voice easy. ‘Yes, I knew a fellow by that name once. Reckon he owes money, people are always after him.’

  ‘She saw someone at the hotel last Thursday night. She thought it was this man she’s looking for. Only they said his name was Joe Higgs. They said it was you.’

  He shook his head. ‘Well, fancy that. Fancy that I should be mistaken for him. He must get around, this fellow Pawson.’

  Margaret Fraser has opened the file in front of her. Her computer sits beside her, a little cloth protecting the high polish of the table. When he went to work at the station, Joe had had to provide a lot of details about himself, his IRD number, a copy of his licence, even his passport because, as Margaret had explained at the time, they’d had a chap who stole some valuables — some Oriental ivory, a lovely piece of jade. They didn’t find out until he was well clear of the place, by which time he’d done a runner overseas. Well, he would have fetched a tidy sum on those items. This was when there was still money in antiques. Of course, she could see that Joe wasn’t like that, but her husband said they must be very careful in the future.

  ‘My papers are all in order,’ he says.

  There’s a pained expression on her face as she studies the file. ‘There was another Joseph Higgs born the same day as you,’ she says. ‘In the same place. The same little town.’

  ‘Well, I never knew that,’ Joe says. ‘But thank you for telling me anyway.’

  ‘He had a brother. I’ve tracked him down. He told me about the little boy in the family who died.’

  Her expression is intense, but it’s not desire she’s feeling. It’s pity perhaps, that’s the kindest way he can interpret it, but more likely it’s a mild contempt. ‘You haven’t asked me who the woman was. The one who came here.’

  ‘Some busybody,’ he says, getting to his feet. She won’t get anything from him.

  ‘She says she’s your sister,’ Margaret says. ‘Belinda. Does that mean anything to you?’

  He has his back to her. ‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘No, can’t say it does.’ His head is full of pain; light is burning into his brain.

  ‘What will I tell my husband?’

  He hesitates at the door and turns back for a moment. He remembers the face of his mother, the same helpless, uncertain expression when she knew she was beaten.

  ‘Tell him I’m on the lookout for that fellow Pawson,’ he says. ‘I’ll talk to him in the morning. Thank you.’ He bobs his head like one of the servants in the period dramas he sees replayed on television now and then.

  It is a reprieve, the best she can offer him. One more night to gaze up into the stars, the cool, deep, sparkling dark. One more morning to catch the first light of dawn and all that radiance.

  13

  The beautiful flower

  2015

  THE LONG GARDEN AT THE BACK of Belinda and Seth’s house has been terraced. Here, not far from the heart of the city, they still have their quarter-acre dream. As Seth has grown older, he has turned increasingly towards tending the garden. The top terraces have been planted with small hedges to create garden ‘rooms’ where they entertain friends and hold family
barbecues. Further down, he has planted New Zealand native trees along one boundary fence. In autumn he climbs up ladders to trim them with a chainsaw in order to keep them from shading the neighbour’s garden. Belinda gets anxious when he’s up the ladder, wielding the angry machine.

  ‘Please promise me you won’t go up there when I’m not around,’ she pleads.

  On the opposite boundary, he grows a strip of gladioli and dahlias that bloom in summer, planted in memory of his mother. Granny flowers they might be, but he loves them. Besides, he says, they’re back in fashion. The central terraces between these boundaries are planted with citrus trees, a plum tree and vegetables. Seth collects manure from the fowl house to feed his plot. He has four Black Orpington hens and would love a rooster, but roosters aren’t allowed inside the city limits. He loves the dark plumage of the breed, with its green sheen, the black beak and eyes, the bright-red comb. They are the hardiest kind of hen, he says, charmed by the way they chuckle about their business. Good-natured hens, he tells Belinda. But, also, he rescues commercially raised caged birds so he can give them a better life. There are two of them, spongy-looking creatures with sparse white feathers and swollen pink bottoms. They seem to blink perpetually at the light and lose their way. If ever a hen is going to find a gap in the fence and wander onto a neighbour’s property, it will be one of the freedom hens. Sooner or later, all the others will follow like Judas sheep behind their leader. Seth calls them Bundle and Squat.

  Belinda likes the hens, too, although if Seth is away sometimes she forgets to feed them if she’s in a hurry, and then she spends the whole day fretting about them being hungry. She wonders if Seth will be able to tell, which of course is absurd, but it’s almost as if the birds can talk to him.

  It’s on one of these mornings, when summer is on the rise, that Belinda remembers, at the very last moment before she drives off to a meeting, that this chore has still to be done. Seth has flown to Sydney for a meeting of his own and will be away for two nights. He is off to present a paper at a symposium. Although he has officially retired, he’s still in demand, a mine of knowledge. Travel to these gatherings of his colleagues invigorates him, reassures him that his life’s work hasn’t been in vain.

  Belinda is wearing a lime linen suit and chartreuse Italian leather shoes with high heels. She parks the car in the driveway and runs back towards the house, thinking that she should change her shoes. When she glances at her watch, it’s clear that if she’s to survive the traffic and make the meeting on time, it’s best to make a dash for it down to the garden shed, grab some grain and fling it to the chooks without further ado. Her phone rings when she’s in mid-stride. Yes, yes, she says, she will be in soon. Start without me if I don’t make it in half an hour. Make sure lunch is organised. It’s on the edge of the lower terrace that her heel catches and she’s falling. She’s falling through a space that she knows, as the day will wear on, is short but it seems to take forever for the impact to happen. The snap of her leg is a broken stick, a sharp tiny refrain, the pain a black fire of agony that shoots through her body. Her phone has flown through the air.

  At first Belinda can’t believe her predicament. Her mind is focused on dealing with pain. She hears herself groan, and a tight little voice that isn’t her own, or not that she recognises, cries help. Her vocal chords seem to be wedged in the back of her throat.

  There’s silence all around her, except for the disturbed cackle of the hens. The end of the garden is bounded by a high wooden fence that borders a driveway. The neighbours at the rear are out of earshot, unless they happen to walk down their drive, perhaps to collect mail from the box at the gate. It’s on this account that Seth has chosen the site for the hen house. Belinda is utterly alone, although this takes a few minutes to register. Here, close to the centre of the largest city in the country, she is on her own. Her phone rings from inside the foliage of a budding dahlia bush, some metres away, or that’s where she thinks it is. It’s set to ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’. When she tries to move in the direction of the ring tone, it’s impossible. She can’t move. At this point, Belinda lapses briefly into unconsciousness.

  When she comes round, the sun is beating in her face. Someone will come soon, she thinks. The people at the meeting will wonder where she is. But she doesn’t know them well, and besides, she discourages people from ringing her at home. It’s now some time since she’s made a film of her own; rather, she’s consulted by others on matters like technical skills, production problems, raising money. Belinda has become one of those go-to people who has contacts in the industry. The team will think she has been delayed, or that there is some emergency that has taken precedence. Well, they would be right about that. They will, perhaps, have been calling her not once, but several times. The phone continues to ring on and off in the dahlia bush. In the sun, one of the buds has begun to unfold. Her leg, waxed, tanned and silky, throbs with a steady incessant pain; she sees how it has begun to swell.

  ‘Help. Help me,’ she croaks. The thinness of her voice is terrifying.

  At some point, she believes she hears a neighbour walking down the driveway behind the fence. The person doesn’t hear her feeble bleats. She wriggles out of her suit jacket and puts it over her face, to shield herself from the sun. In the dim light beneath the fabric, she tries to work out what she can do, or whether there’s anyone who might have been calling on her that day. Simone often comes in with the children after school. But the house is locked. Belinda’s car is in the driveway but that wouldn’t signify anything, the garage door is closed. Simone might assume that Belinda had been picked up and had left the car out. Her thoughts become more and more convoluted. She’s wracked with thirst, yet at the same time shivering in the heat.

  Hours pass. If nobody comes, she could be here all night among Seth’s carrots and lettuces. The petals of the dahlia flower are unfolding. She remembers that it’s called ‘Tutti Frutti’, one of Seth’s favourites, a coral pink cactus flower, the first dahlia of the season. The scents of mint and rosemary waft from her herb garden. Remember me. At funerals, baskets of rosemary have been passed around so that the congregation can put sprigs on the casket. She thinks that if she lies very still and tries to gather her strength, she might be able to drag herself to the dahlia and find her phone. After a time, she begins to cry, not sobbing because even the movement that causes is enough to rally the pain, but letting the tears trickle down her face and over her neck. The hens squawk in bursts, hungry and angry because she’s there but won’t feed them. Surely someone will hear the racket they make.

  It occurs to Belinda that if she could open the gate they might get out, as is their wont since the freedom chooks appeared. She remembers Seth telling her that Squat is broody at present, but Bundle is out and about. One of the neighbours would be sure to notice if they appeared on their doorstep. They always come fussing over when it happens, protective of their gardens, the mess the hens make on their immaculate paths. The latch is almost within her grasp. She reaches for it with her fingertips, thinks she has caught it, but the gate swings an inch or so back and doesn’t move again. The effort is too much. As she subsides, she understands how weak she has become.

  Just when she thinks the heat so unbearable that it will get her if nothing else does, a cloud passes over the sun. Her watch tells her that it’s three o’clock. Six hours have passed since she fell. Another hour passes and she knows Simone won’t be coming. More clouds have massed, threatening a change in the weather. If she’s not fried she’ll be drowned. Rest, she tells herself. Gather strength, carry your leg to safety if you have to, two hands and one good leg.

  The next hour is dream-like, a kind of half-sleep in which faces gather around her. They’re looking down at her. All her children. Her and Seth’s grandchildren. None of this is fair. Belinda thinks she has done the best she can, all things considered. Sure, she’s made some mistakes, but who doesn’t? There have been losses and gains. She’s in the back seat of a little car in the countrysid
e again, pushing aside Maisie Anderson’s gardening gloves as she makes love with her son. He could have abandoned her, but he didn’t. He could have treated Peter like Jock had treated her and Jessie, unwanted cuckoos in his nest. But Seth didn’t. If anything she is the one who has had the troubled relationship with her older son.

  She has surprised herself, the way she behaves over Peter. Although there has been a thaw between them, there are some distances that can never be recovered, she has told herself. And here, in the garden where she may well be dying, Belinda thinks about a woman she never knew, the woman who was, briefly, Peter’s mother. Over the years, she has tried hard not to think of her, not to conjecture what she might look like, and, most of all, not to imagine what she gave to Peter that was so special.

  When he came home to her and Seth, he was a crotchety baby. Colic, Maisie had said, but she looked anxious. Just a change of routine, the Plunket nurse said, as if it were nothing. Belinda had phoned the social worker who had organised Peter’s return and asked if perhaps she and the other mother might meet, only to be given a frosty refusal. ‘Have you no idea how that poor woman feels?’ the social worker had said, putting Belinda in her place. As if she were still a delinquent teenager, not a married grown-up mother. And it is this idea, about how the other woman felt, that she has refused to entertain through all the long years since then. Why would she? No, that wasn’t right. How could she not have done? Her failure, staring her in the face. Now, she wonders if the woman is still alive and whether she’d had more children. And would Peter be the same kind of person had he grown up with her? Surely it can’t be possible that he missed his other mother, that he misses her still? You will never know. Like a story or poem she read him in one of the countless Dr Seuss books. She can’t remember the rest of the quote, something about the value of a memory.