‘Sanitary reasons I understand. But you can’t get people to dig mass graves because you’re worried about a bunch of remote and invisible watchers, and what they’re thinking.’
Theresa heard Curtis concede the sanitation point. She decided his concession was a lever, and leaned on it. ‘I wouldn’t ask you to do anything more than photograph bodies for later identification.’
‘No. Listen. You have to know that you’re not representative. You’re a very tough person.’
‘But you’ve been filming stuff.’
‘And I’ve discovered that I don’t want to.’
Theresa looked across their kissing shopping trolleys, and the different declarations of their contents. Her heart was pounding. ‘This is just a difference of opinion,’ she said. ‘You’re over-thinking everything.’
‘You’re the one who’s imagining she’s being watched and judged,’ said Curtis. He turned his trolley and went on hard-headedly gathering his meals for one.
That evening, when dinner was over, Theresa explained to the others that Curtis had decided to leave them. She emphasised what he’d said about missing his wife more when he was with people. She tried not to let on that she felt she’d failed him.
Belle touched Theresa’s arm and said, ‘I guess that’s where he is right now in the process.’
‘Where is he now?’ Sam asked.
Belle looked baffled.
‘Belle means where he is in the grieving process,’ Bub said, helpful.
‘I think Sam’s asking where Curtis actually is,’ said Theresa. Then, to Sam, ‘He’s been to the garden centre, and he’s out there in the dark planting petunias on his wife’s grave. I wouldn’t bother him. I think it’s a private ceremony.’
*
‘What do you want, William?’ Curtis said. He was working in the light of Bub’s big storm lamp. It was drizzling, and the soil was cold.
William unfurled an umbrella and held it up over him. ‘Are those petunias?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘I’m surprised Theresa knew what they were. The model and make of cars maybe—but flower names, not so much.’
Curtis grunted. He pinched a cell in the tray of seedlings and extracted another plant. Its roots resisted and tore. He said, ‘I trust you’re going to support her. Theresa has a hard row to hoe.’
William crouched. He kept the umbrella positioned above Curtis’s head. ‘If the madness was a disease and you were asked to make a list of its symptoms, how would that list go?’
‘Okay, you tell me. What’s your list?’
‘One—’ William began, ‘it switched on all of a sudden and—two—seemed to communicate itself to everyone simultaneously, except—three—all of us, excluding Sam. Four—it went on for forty minutes to an hour. Five—it had an end stage, that passive going-away period just before each of its victims died. That’s what we know about it.’
‘But we don’t know what caused it.’
‘No. But I know a bit about insanity. And the insanity I’ve known has had a kind of logic to it, as if the crazy person’s only problem is one of perspective, or a sense of proportion. For instance, a woman I knew used to say that her roof was leaking but that it wasn’t rain that was coming in. She’d climbed up into her roof to look at the holes rusted in its iron and, while she was up there, she noticed a lot of pipes that seemed to have no purpose. So she decided that of course someone had put them there. And though liquid ran down the walls either when it was raining or shortly after, it was obvious that it wasn’t rain, it was from these pipes and it wasn’t water, it was something else, something sinister and bad for her family’s health, worse for their health than a leaking roof.
‘What’s going on there, with that madness, is that the woman had built a logical scheme of thinking based on a false premise. Her premise being that everything was about her. There was no point asking her why anyone would go to so much trouble with a rundown house, and impoverished occupants, to put pipes between roof and ceiling to periodically release some mysterious liquid. “Why would someone take the trouble to do that to you?” wasn’t a meaningful question. Crazy people can’t consider probability. Of course everything is about them. They are a constant—and it’s the world that has changed. They’re in the know—and everyone else is in the dark.
‘Most mental illness is like that. There are problems with a sense of proportion. And it’s internal. The way in which the Madness was different, apart from its coming on all at once, was that the logic of some of it was like something imposed from the outside. As if there was someone overseeing what happened. Someone saying, “Okay, this woman is a shopkeeper. Shopkeepers take money from customers in exchange for goods, and the money puts bread in their mouths. But this shopkeeper is going to give her customer money, is going to feed her money, post each coin between her lips until she chokes.” That’s a total mad reversal of the normal relationship between shopkeeper and customer.’ William paused and said, ‘Sorry, Curtis.’ He clenched his teeth, and a muscle rippled in his jaw.
‘That’s all right,’ Curtis said. ‘Please go on.’
‘My point is that it was as if some intelligence examined the normal relationships between people—including fairly superficial, social relationships—then did something to flip them. The Madness worked completely differently from the way madness normally does. And, contrary to popular belief, madness has a kind of normal in it. The only real mystery in madness is how hard it is to fix, and the usual, ordinary mystery of where people go when they disappear while still standing in front of you.’
Curtis sat back on his heels and looked up at William. ‘You said “some intelligence examined”. That implies a point of view, an agent of evil, not just psychosis-inducing nerve gas.’
‘A narcotic that caused psychosis would produce behaviour that was distorted, but characteristic. The mad acts would come out of private fears or anger. But with some of what we saw it was like the public person went mad—the person seen from the outside, as if by some evil puppeteer.’
Curtis cast the empty seedling trays into the hedge of oleanders. William helped him up, then looked at the grave and remarked that the earth was settling already. Then, ‘Where will you go if you’re not staying with us?’
‘I thought I’d take a room at the bed and breakfast. I couldn’t go to a private house. Even if it was empty the bedrooms would all seem to belong to somebody. Someone dead—or out there.’ He gestured at the world lost behind the rain.
‘Doesn’t it seem strange to you—staying beside Warren’s aunty’s grave and not your wife’s?’
‘I’ve lost my sense of things being strange.’
‘That’s just grief, Curtis.’
‘Yes. But, William, you’re only saying that to reassure yourself. To reassure yourself about yourself.’
William said, ‘Yes,’ very quietly, and Curtis moved to pat his arm, before remembering the mud on his hands. He patted the air instead, and said, ‘You’re afraid of losing your mind.’
‘I always have been. Or at least from the moment it occurred to me, at six or so, that my mother’s ways were mad ones.’
‘Then at least you’ve had a lifetime of policing your thoughts. That should help you. You can keep a close eye on everyone else. And stay a step back from them.’
‘Meanwhile, you’re a mile off.’
‘It isn’t a mile. It’s scarcely three minutes by car.’
‘Close enough for daily visits.’
Curtis shook his head. ‘Please don’t visit. I won’t feel so alone if I actually am. I explained this to Theresa.’
‘And she passed it on. But, Curtis—I don’t think we are alone.’
Curtis thought that William might well be right, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He could see William’s fear, and his courage—but what he saw was drained of significance. Adele was
in the ground. The rain was tamping down the disturbed earth with its gentle fingers, and rinsing blots of mud from the furry leaves of the petunia plants. But Adele was here too, beside him, alive to him—much more alive than he was to himself. He said, ‘I must go. The Volvo’s packed. I thought I should eat a first supper in my new place, even if it’s only a can of soup.’ He wiped a hand on his pants and offered it to William, who took it. ‘I can’t help you,’ Curtis said. ‘But please—you help Theresa. Look to her. And look after her.’
Theresa, Bub, William and Jacob paused in Mary Whitaker’s carpark to put on protective clothing. Jacob had gloves and three hazard masks from the garden centre, plus two surgical masks from the pharmacy. He had a bottle of eucalyptus oil they could dab on the cloth beneath their nostrils. He was uncapping the oil when Sam broke away from the group and hurried inside. Jacob raised his voice. ‘Wait, Sam! You’re going to want some protection.’ She didn’t hear him. There was too much noise. Daniel was bringing the digger up the driveway. It came clanking and grinding, and left a white striated track on the paving stones.
William ran after Sam, fastening his mask as he did so.
Theresa and Bub waited till Jacob had dripped eucalyptus oil on the bits of gauze that would rest just below their noses.
The digger had reached the carpark. Daniel turned its engine off and got out. He said that he should inspect the lawn and check for buried cables, sewers, and stormwater drains.
Theresa gave him a thumbs-up and led the others into the building.
William caught up with Sam in time to see her upend a large pan into the kitchen bin. William was about to say that if they were cleaning, the stovetop seemed a very strange place to start. Then he saw what it was she was getting rid of—human nipples, burned at their edges and adhered to sticky oil. Sam bashed the pan on the rim of the bin. Her foot slipped off the pedal. The flap clanged shut, and a scrap fell out onto the floor with a stiff little filliping noise. Sam dropped the pan. The front of her shirt was blotted red. She had torn her stitches.
William went to her, and moved her gently aside. He put on his rubber gloves, let his eyes go out of focus, and felt for the thing. He picked it up and put it in the bin, then pulled out the full bag and tied its top. He opened the back door, found a dumpster, and stuffed the bag into it.
When he came back Sam was rinsing the pan under the hot tap—and scrubbing it with an already blackened pot scrubber.
William removed both from her hands. He led her outside and told her to sit down for a minute. Then he joined the others.
They were frozen at the door to the dayroom. Bub held a bloodstained pair of scissors, contemplating them rather than the figures sprawled in the armchairs, and on the floor.
Theresa stooped and righted a fallen walking frame.
Jacob said, ‘It’s hard to know where to start.’ Then he removed the scissors from Bub’s grip.
‘We should identify everyone,’ Theresa said. ‘That’s a logical first step. Where’s Sam? She knows who all these people are.’
‘She’s popped her stitches.’
Jacob said he’d have a look, and followed William out onto the porch. He lifted Sam’s bandage, frowned, and asked if she could give them half an hour to identify the residents in the dayroom. ‘So we can make a start,’ he said. ‘Then you and I can go back to the spa, and I’ll fix you up.’
Sam nodded.
Jacob produced another mask—already sprinkled with oil. He fixed it over Sam’s mouth and nose.
William put his lips to Jacob’s ear and whispered, ‘Sam told us that she did it. Remember?’
Jacob took Sam’s hands. ‘Sam—what makes you think it was you who hurt the old people, and not someone else? If you were unconscious, like you said, couldn’t someone else have hurt both you and them?’
Sam shook her head.
Jacob said, ‘If you don’t remember, how do you know it was you?’ He showed Sam the scissors. ‘Did you have these in your hand?’
Theresa appeared in the middle of this interrogation and asked whether Sam was up to the job. ‘I’m not going to sanction the burial of anyone we haven’t identified.’
‘I’ll come,’ Sam said.
Jacob supported her under her elbow while they walked into the dayroom. Sam baulked and leaned on him. She began to cry. Jacob patted her back and murmured in her ear. He said that this was something she could do for her old people. It would help their families. They’d get these poor souls cleaned up, then hold a service and do everything properly. He turned to the others. ‘My pockets are contaminated with that bloody oil. Have you got a clean tissue?’
Theresa took off her gloves and fished about till she’d found a handkerchief. She wiped Sam’s eyes.
‘When you’re ready, sweetie,’ Jacob said.
‘I can look now.’
Jacob put an arm around her shoulder and led her to the first lounger. They stopped short of the black mat of dried blood. Everyone peered expectantly at Sam, while Sam studied the swollen and discoloured face. After a moment, ‘This is Snow,’ she said. ‘Mr Abbot.’
They had begun.
On the second day they were working up at Mary Whitaker, Sam got something nasty on her shirt. Theresa drove back to the spa to fetch a change of clothes. On the desk in Sam’s room Theresa noticed a collection of pages covered in a laborious scrawl. It seemed Sam was making notes. Theresa glanced at the pages, and was taken by their dogged attention to detail. Sam’s writing was ungrammatical and had poor spelling, but it went on, grimly, page after page.
Theresa stood with Sam’s fresh shirt in her hands, reading Sam’s account of that first day and night. We went to my bach. We all had a banana. William said no lights. In the morning he fixed my bandage. . . .
Theresa couldn’t imagine why Sam would feel the need to write notes. Theresa’s own writing in her little police issue notebook made sense. Sam’s didn’t. Sam just didn’t strike Theresa as someone with any instinct to put pen to paper in order to sort her thinking or soothe her nerves.
Theresa got to the last page to find that Sam had left off her account after the third night. There was only one further sheet of paper. It contained a kind of list:
Oscar Brice is 15. His mum and dad work in Nelson. Warren Crootser smokes dope all the time. Jacob F? is nice. He is an Islander. Kate is Mrs Mcneal from Mary Whitaker. She knows me. Holly is Kates daughter. She has glasses. Belle works with the kakapo. She is the one with curly blond hair. Bub Lanagan is a fisherman. Maori. He is a good person. William Minute is not a good person. He is American. Theresa Grey is a police officer. She lives in Nelson. She is very pretty with red hair. Dan Hail lives in Christchurch and has a wife and kids. He is bald. Lily Kay runs races. She has been on TV and is thin. Curtis Hanes is about sixty. He is gone to live at the bed and breakfast. There is another man who is black and does not speak English. He is not with us. I have not seen him.
I like Jacob and Bub and Bell and Kate and Oscar. I liked Curtis but he is gone. I have not decided about Holly and Dan and Lily and Theresa. I do not like Warren and William.
Thats everything. Its 2 hard.
Theresa didn’t know what to make of this. Why the underlining? Why those words—words that provided the briefest possible description of each of Sam’s fellow survivors?
Part Three
When they had finished dealing with Mary Whitaker, Theresa called a meeting, and put it to the others—what they should do. They had a vote, and Theresa got her majority.
After that, for nearly three weeks, they went from house to house collecting bodies for burial.
There were two teams, and they followed a planned procedure. On each there were those who wore gloves and overalls, touched bodies, turned them over, and looked through their clothes for any identification. On one team Bub, William, and Sam did the job, and on the other it was Theresa, Jacob, and Warre
n. They were the ones who spread the shrouds—bed sheets lined with slit garbage bags—and moved bodies, rolling them off their damp shadows, the darkened ground.
The others didn’t have to handle the dead, but cleaned up—mindful of the flies. Belle was the cleaner on Bub’s team, and Lily on Theresa’s. The cleaners also had the job of taking photos, of the bodies, and of objects that might help identify them later. They’d sort through letters tucked behind the phone, or bills fastened by magnets to fridge doors. They’d write down the names they found: the name on a power bill, or on a summons to jury duty, or names spelled out in candy-coloured letters glued to a child’s bedroom door.
On their second week Lily announced that she had to get back to her training. There was a world championship in March of the following year, and she had to hope she’d be free by then. Thereafter the others would sometimes see her running a street away from where they had parked their rank vehicles, wherever they were plying their buckets and Spray ’n Wipe, their sheets, their binder twine and ziplock bags. They’d glimpse Lily only as movement; a blur of coloured smoke.
Though Lily stayed away, Curtis began to appear, sometimes waiting outside a house while a team finished up, sometimes standing at the edge of the mass graves. He didn’t offer to help, only filmed what they were doing, panning from the ute to the grave, then away to the settlement of Kahukura, pretty in the pink evening light.
Theresa challenged him once. ‘I hope you realise that what you’re filming is going to be pretty upsetting for these people’s families.’
He lowered his camera. ‘I’m not filming the bodies, I’m filming you. Tight shots of Sam’s hands, and yours. And Bub’s bearing. How he handles himself at the edge of the pit, and keeps a leaking sheet away from his legs. I’m making a memorial of your bodies. Your capable graces.’
‘I thought you said you didn’t want to record any of this.’
‘I’m doing it for posterity. It turns out that posterity won’t leave me alone. My sense of it has always been so solid. It was never on a cloud above me, or gathered worshipfully at my feet. I’ve always had it by the hand, and gazed into its eyes.’
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