by Stella Duffy
Saz slept and her brain was grateful for the chance to relax. Whatever dreams she may have had, she did not remember them when she awoke.
FORTY
Saz woke the next morning to hot sun falling on her face. She’d fallen asleep exhausted and strained, leaving the curtains open and by seven-thirty stark white light had cornered the house to her room and was slamming itself against her tightly shut eyes. Roaming the quiet house, she found Pat had already left with Dan and Dennis was out in the garden, raking over the runner beans before the ruthless sun drove him inside. So far she’d seen no sign of either Greg or Siobhan. She showered and slathered her body with the vitamin E and lavender creams she used for her scars and, dressed for the spring sunshine, was just sitting down to a thick piece of toasted wholemeal bread and loganberry jam when the phone rang. It was the local florist she’d called briefly the day before. Just in case.
Saz quickly swallowed her half-chewed mouthful of food and spluttered out a reply, “Yes, this is Saz Martin, can I help you?”
“Look, I know it’s probably a bit early to be calling, but this really weird thing just happened so I thought I’d better let you know about it. You know you asked me to call if anyone came in for yellow roses?”
Saz knew exactly what she’d asked and hardly needed the florist to tell her, but she kept her voice level and answered politely, “Yes?”
“Well, it happened! Now isn’t that just the funniest thing?”
Being only too pleased to finally have a concrete lead, Saz would have agreed it was absolutely fucking hilarious had she not correctly guessed that Mrs Dolman of Kath’s Plants and Flowers probably wouldn’t extend her bad language to anything much stronger than “pissed off”. Within ten minutes she had the address of the shop, had changed into her running gear and, following the directions she’d hurriedly got from Dennis, was on the empty road and heading into the town centre.
She arrived at the shop twenty minutes later, boiling hot and almost breathless. While she ran several miles most days, she didn’t usually do so at quite such a fast pace or on hot mornings in a country with great sun and little ozone. As it was Sunday morning, the single main road which constituted the shopping centre was quiet. Not yet summer enough to encourage much Sunday opening, most of the shop doors were locked under the sheltering corrugated iron awnings that leant out into the street, giving an air of a small town waiting for high noon to happen.
Having admired the cut flowers on display, accepted a cup of tea, twice turned down the offer of gingernuts only to have a packet of fig rolls opened for her instead, Saz tried to encourage her informant to get on with the story, “So, Mrs Dolman—”
“Call me Kath, dear.”
“Ok, Kath, do you want to tell me about it?” Saz smiled encouragingly as Kath frowned, her glance taking in Saz’s tired, three-year-old trainers. She knew she might have made a better impression had she turned up looking a little more like Helen Mirren and a little less like someone who thought the concept of burn time was for sissies, but Pat hadn’t been back with the car when she left and not insured to drive the van, running had been her only option. Her scrutiny of Saz’s attire over, Kath swallowed the end of her third fig roll and began, “Right you are. I got in at, let me see … seven forty-ish, unlocked the front door as I always do, locked it again after me, of course. If I didn’t, I’d have all sorts in bothering me when I’m trying to set up for the day, pensioners mostly, the old dears love a bit of a gossip and a chat when they’re passing, not that they ever buy anything most of them. Still, can’t complain, won’t be long till we’re all there, will it?”
Saz, thinking it would be sooner than she thought at this rate, swallowed a mouthful of the weak tea and muttered encouraging comments.
Kath continued, “Well, anyway, there I am, just taking out the curly kale seedling—it’s good to get the veges out on a Sunday, the weekend gardeners just can’t resist. Do you have a garden?”
Saz gave up on smiling, “Yes. Shared. It’s very small. The woman?”
“Well, there I am with the seedlings and in she comes, large as life and asks about the roses.”
“I thought you’d locked the front door?”
“Yes, dear.” Kath smiled, her greying permed bob nodding for her.
“So how did she get in?”
“Back door.”
“Right. So you hadn’t locked the back door?”
“No, love, got to get the seedlings through from the yard, don’t I? Anyway, I’m on my knees with the boxes and in she walks and says, ‘So, Kath, how about a bunch of yellow roses?’ Well, you could have knocked me down there and then. I mean, I haven’t seen the little minx for two years and in she walks large as life and twice as cheery!”
Saz stared at Kath, wondering if she was hearing right, “You know this woman?”
“It’s a very small town, dear. We’re not exactly Auckland or Wellington, now, are we? Not London either, I suppose. You might miss out on your theatre and dinners and all that in the city, but it’s nicer for the people in a small town. You get to know them, their families, you watch children grow up and become parents themselves. You’d never get me living in a city.” Kath brightly finished her discourse on essential metropolitan differences, “I like to think you get to know your customers better in a small town.”
Saz repeated, “You know her?”
“Yes. So do Pat and Dennis actually. She used to be their girl’s best friend. Inseparable they were before the Marsdens moved to Auckland. Shona Henderson. Lovely girl, but quieter than she used to be. I think she took it very hard when we lost Gaelene. They were really very close. She doesn’t live here now, of course. Went to London for a while—I thought she was still there, that’s why it was such a surprise this morning.”
Saz was up and out of her chair before Kath finished speaking, “Can I use your phone, please?”
“Yes of course, dear.”
Kath led her to the telephone in the back room where she assembled the bouquets. “I do hope nothing’s wrong. That’s why I was happy to call, you see. I mean, Shona—you must have got mixed up, musn’t you? Whatever it is you’re investigating, she couldn’t have done anything wrong. She’s just an ordinary girl. Right?”
The phone was engaged, Saz tried twice more and then gave up. “Is there a taxi rank near here?”
Kath pointed down the street. “That way.” She hesitated and then asked, “I haven’t got her into trouble, have I? I mean, I wouldn’t want to …”
Saz shook her head, “No. You’ve been great. Thanks. Look, how long ago did she leave?”
“Right before I rang you. I called straightaway. Must be almost an hour since then.” Kath frowned again, her hands nervously playing with the hem of her overall, “I did do the right thing?”
“Yes. Really. You’ve been brilliant, thanks. Look, I have to get back to Pat and Dennis’s place, I’ll call you later, ok? There’s probably some more questions I need to ask you.”
Saz edged her way out of the shop and away from Kath Dolman’s worried look. She ran down to the taxi rank, dragged a reluctant driver away from his breakfast conversation with three other drivers and forced him to take her to Pat and Dennis’s house as fast as he could. He drove a little over the speed limit and then double charged her, thinking the pushy English bitch could probably afford it.
By the time Saz got back Pat and Dennis had already called the police. Greg pulled her into the car. He left Dennis holding Shona’s note. The one that told him where he could find Siobhan.
FORTY-ONE
I wouldn’t have been this fast if I’d had a choice. This speed has a recklessness to it which I would not normally approve. I had a plan, a strategy. One after the other. No madness, only method. Like pruning. Remove the dead wood and find underneath the shoot of new growth. And it’s true, it does seem harsh to cut them back with such ferocity, to removed the rosehips, dead-head the blown bloom. Still, the bare branches are always worth the pain wh
en spring comes. Cold winter has its reason in spring. But he left this morning, the beautiful one. He left early before I could remove him. And so the gears are moved up a knotch, graunching against their wheel cogs to be travelling so fast so soon. They’ll catch up.
It was easy to get Siobhan here. Easier than I expected, although admittedly, I had not foreseen much trouble. Siobhan has always thought she was charmed. And then again, she thought this was all about her. Wrong on two counts.
Gaelene was walking along the beach with her father, the two of them, hands in pockets, faces out to the sea, looking for all the world like a pair of Kiwi blokes. Pat had taken Dan to the airport, and the English girl was in town, no doubt chatting to Kath Dolman, getting my name, my age, my telephone number. I expect she will. Eventually. It’s hard to uncover the truth when you’re told the story in half lies. The thief was drinking tea, sitting in the kitchen. She had not seen Gaelene on the beach, they were further up, past the headland, I passed them when I came down the road. You could not have seen them from the kitchen. Though anyway, Siobhan was looking at the paper in front of her, ignoring the real world outside. I had parked in front of the house, walked up to the door. I held a single yellow rose in my hand.
“Siobhan?”
She started, was not expecting my voice, a woman’s voice. She looked around her to the back door before realizing it was me who was calling. When she stood I saw the flesh of her thighs before she pulled the thin dressing-gown around her. I think she knew who I was, saw me hold the rose out to her.
“Hi, Siobhan, I’ve come to explain. I met Gaelene on the beach. She’s at my place. Come down to the car. I need to talk to both of you. I want to tell you why.”
I didn’t know if she would. I thought maybe she’d call out, and the Gaelene masquerade would come running up from the beach, running to protect the innocent girl. Maybe all of them would be there. I’d thought I might have to tell them what I’d done, why. Or not. I know it seems silly now, having made all the preparations, all the work to clear the ground, but by the time the end was nigh I was starting to feel a bit confused. Not so certain of the plan. Dan’s leaving had thrown my routine. I thought I’d just go along. Improvise. See what happened. And it was far easier than I expected. She just came walking down the steps to me. Because she loves Gaelene. Cares for her. But not properly, not as much as I care for the real Gaelene. She came with me, simply because she believed me. Believed I had Gaelene. Which is true in a way, I’d always had her more than Siobhan ever had. The real her.
I held out the rose as an invitation and she took it. She followed me because she thought I had Gaelene. She believed me. She wasn’t wearing any clothes under the dressing-gown, she held it to her as she walked down the steps, the thin material smooth over her breasts, the hollow of her stomach, the slight bulge of her cunt, red silk flowing open to her legs with each step.
I left a note for Gaelene, put it in the letterbox, the one piece of that old house not made new and we just drove away. Drove here.
Ruby hasn’t lived here for years. She died in ‘81. I cried for her then, silent karanga in my small room. I cry for her still, I tangi alone and whisper a silent karakia. I hope she will accept my prayers. Ruby died the weekend the game was stopped at Hamilton. But John had moved her out of that old house a couple of years earlier. Starting to do well for himself in Auckland, he bought her a house much closer to town. She said it was what she wanted. But I knew it was too far from the sea. Closer to her daughters and their babies but too far from the sea. Too far to hear the wave lullaby at night. Too far from me. They just boarded up the house once she was gone. And it wasn’t tiredness that killed her, or all those years of caring for others, or giving and giving until she was too tired to give more, but cancer. A long, slow stomach cancer that killed her from the inside, poisoning her slowly until she couldn’t eat anything, couldn’t swallow, until the kai that had been her mainstay became something to taunt her with.
Ruby had fed us all, holiday after holiday, fed armies of kids on God knows what, God knows where from. A dish of kumara and fresh sweet watercress usually or if we were really lucky maybe a wild pig one of her brothers would bring back from hunting. For years Ruby waded sideways through doors, creaked herself down into unwilling armchairs and her hand was a soft fist of fat flesh and kisses, even when it whipped the back of your legs for running across the road without looking, for talking back to the grownups. But the day they finally came to carry her out she weighed in at five stone. John could have carried her himself. She had been such a big woman my whole life and all there really was to her was this tiny skeleton underneath.
I planted a tree for Ruby that weekend. A kowhai. Yellow flowers to hold the sun from her laughter. I planted it in a quiet place in the bush, one of those bits of bush near the sea that the tourists and inlanders don’t know about. Just me and Gaelene. We used to go there when we were little. It was our rest area. I hope Ruby is resting.
My whole life Ruby had been there, huge and warm, holding it all together, the house, her family, her own kids and everyone else’s kids too. I was strange there, down at her place. Little bright white kid, a skinny, long legged Pakeha runt, I stood out long before I wanted to be noticed. Every holiday, every long weekend, my mum would ship me off down to Ruby’s and then it would just be all us kids, free in the sunshine, laughing and swimming until we fell into bed, five kids to a room and no talking after ten and waking up at six because there was so much to do and so far to run. I loved those holidays, and I never felt bad about it, never felt like my mum didn’t want me. It never occurred to me until I was about fifteen that she sent me to Ruby to get a break herself—I thought it was a present to me. Ruby was a koha for me, this big mountain of a woman. Just touching her dress felt like coming home.
At Christmas, in those too few years until my mum got married again, we’d go down the week before the big day and the men would go out fishing and maybe hunting, the ones without jobs or the ones on holiday, and the women would be in the kitchen. The big kitchen with the window you could lift out to make it easier to pass the plates of food through. Sometimes Gaelene would come down too, but even when we were tiny Gaelene always wanted to be out there where the men were going, wanted the fishing and the hunting, wanted to be digging in the garden. At night when we sang in the garage she wanted to be the one playing that “ringadicky-ringadicky” strum on the ten guitars, not sitting at the back, not doing the cooking, the cleaning, the harmonizing, the caring. Gaelene never could remember to sit at the back on the marae, she always thought she belonged up front. It was hard for her, I know. But not for me, I loved it. All of it. When Gaelene was there I didn’t stand out so much, she had that shock of white blonde hair and it took the attention away from me. And at Christmas time anyway my aunty would come up from Wellington and she had Pakeha kids too. Well, she had one Pakeha kid and one Maori kid. Ruby used to say all she needed was a Samoan kid and she’d be all of Auckland. And she had him too, eventually.
I loved it then. There was a row of years, maybe ’69 to ’74 when it was exactly the same, year after year. When nothing changed and no one got older, taller maybe, but nothing really changed, at least not that you noticed. We did the same things and sung the same songs and even the first couple of years that my mum was married, it still didn’t change, even after the baby came. But by the time the baby went to school it was all different, my new dad didn’t like it so much down at Ruby’s, he didn’t really feel part of our family and my aunty met her next man and she stopped coming up from Wellington and then sometimes I’d just go down to Ruby by myself but it wasn’t the same. Ruby was always there, always the same, but the people had changed. They wanted me to change too. I don’t know why. John had gone away to school, to Hatu Petera, and when he came home after third form he wasn’t John anymore, he was Hone and then Ruby was so proud of him. Not because of doing well in his exams or because of the rugby—though he had done well and he was going to be the Capt
ain of the First Fifteen one day, everyone said so—but because he was Hone now. She was so proud that he was Hone. And they started to sing songs I didn’t know the tunes to and Ruby said I was always welcome, I was her whanau too. I know she meant it, but I don’t know if the others thought so. It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand the words. I knew all the words, I’d always been able to understand the words. I just couldn’t follow the tune any more. The tune grew away from me.
Then Gaelene moved to Auckland and she was so different and they had a big house and our new baby came and my mum was so much nicer and happier with the new baby and my new dad and I did get a bike and everything should have been good—it looked good, all new and shiny. It wasn’t good though, because I wanted what had been. I wanted it to be like when I was the little one. When I used to climb on Ruby’s lap at night and get into her dressing-gown, she’d button it up around me and I would sit there while she laughed with Wai and they shared tea or a couple of bottles of beer. I was warm there between her body and the pink nylon, scarred by cigarette burns along the hem, and I felt the same as her and while her brown skin was different to mine, it was not so different. She promised me that one day the freckles would all join up and we would be the same. But they didn’t. We never could be the same.
And then there just wasn’t anywhere for me to be. No home. No safety. The places and the people kept changing. They changed their names and their identities and their faces and their bodies. And on the day they carried Ruby out for the tangi I tried to call Gaelene. Tell her what had happened. How our childhood was dead, my one place of safety had shrivelled and shrunk and was a thin, dried out old lady, too weak to lift her head from the pillow, too tired to want to try. Too dead to have the will. I tried to call Gaelene. But Gaelene wasn’t there either. Gaelene was dead too.