by Neil Cross
Later, he picked them out, one by one, in the hotel bathroom mirror.
19
On Friday, he drove the Subaru hatchback through 600 km of landscape that proved to be wholly inconstant.
He took the Gold Coast north from Wellington. The ocean was to his left. The sky was broad and flat and endless. He drove through familiar-looking suburbs, listening to the Best of Fleetwood Mac with the window open. The suburbs began to thin out, giving way to semi-rural towns. These small communities became widely separated, then thinned like vapour and he passed into open countryside.
He took the Foxton Straight through the Wairarapa, crossing into the North Island’s agrarian heartland. He thought of Scotland, but the Wairarapa hillsides were young and jagged, as if their brittle rock was newly shattered.
He passed through one-street towns—a general goods store, a petrol station, hardware stores, real estate agents, tearooms—that might have been dumped by a Midwestern twister. He stopped at one such town to lunch in a tearoom. Inside, it glimmered with the dusty ghost of the provincial 1950s.
Back on the road, it was the Subaru’s engine that first alerted him to a long, insistent gradient. Gradually, he left sheep-farming country behind him. At its apex, the Desert Road opened on to a vast volcanic plateau. To the west, mountains faded slowly into view. He knew that one of them, Ruapehu, long believed dormant, had erupted two years before. The ferocity of its awakening had darkened the sky and coated the North Island with a thin fur of ash.
He arrived at the shores of lake Taupo, an inland sea whose beaches were pumice. Its depths boiled with geothermal currents. Mountains reflected on its surface like gloomy sentinels.
He pulled up to the scree at the side of the deserted road. He left the car and spread the map on the roof to check his position. He wanted to understand the spectacle. He couldn’t. He turned a full circle. A sound like gravel beneath his feet. The landscape rushed away from his mind. Its scale and its emptiness eluded comprehension.
It was like travelling into primal, geological antiquity. A country of ancient ghosts.
He sat down on the harsh soil and watched the lake. Tendrils of haze shifted and evaporated on its surface. Two or three cars passed him. He looked at his watch and decided to drive on.
He descended from the volcanic plain as the sun began to set in the west. At lower altitudes, scrubby native bush gave way to patches of high pine trees. The patches grew: threw out connections to one another. Became clumps of woodland. As it grew dark, he found himself alone in a forest without limit.
Deep in the dark, luxuriant woods, the land was fiercely steaming. The ground bloomed suddenly with great, white clouds that carried on the breeze and obscured the road and sky before him. The air was thick with sulphur.
After many miles, the trees began to thin. He saw the lights of a city.
He had arrived at the Road to Ruin. It lay before him, surrounded on all sides by the vaporizing earth.
He’d asked a familiar young waiter in one of the cafés off Wellington’s Civic Square if there could really be a place in New Zealand called the Road to Ruin. There was a Bay of Plenty and a Poverty Bay. A Road to Ruin would complete the trio, but Holloway couldn’t find it on his map or any reference to it in his guidebook.
The waiter swept his blond ponytail off one shoulder and said: ‘Mate—you mean Rotorua.’
Rotorua was a tourist destination set on the volcanic, new earth. It catered to those who wished to bathe in its hot mineral springs and witness some geothermal violence.
The town had been built to a grid. Its streets were lined with tearooms, hotels, fast food outlets and shops that catered to the wants of its visiting consumers. But there remained something of the frontier about it, as if Rotorua stood on the hinterland between worlds.
After a cursory drive round, Holloway checked in at the Sheraton.
He woke at 5 a.m. When he had showered and dressed, he went to the hotel car park and searched in the early morning light until he found a familiar Pajero. He re-parked the grey Subaru in an empty slot nearby. By now it was approaching six. He went to Reception.
He had dressed in cargo shorts and a blue, Hawaiian shirt, pulled a Gap baseball cap low over his eyes. He took a seat opposite the desk, crossed his legs and pretended to read a newspaper. His own daughter would not have recognized him.
Weatherell and his wife didn’t show up until eight. Holloway supposed they’d enjoyed a lie-in. Liz was walking with the aid of a stick. Weatherell followed her, pushing the empty wheelchair. Outside the lift, she stopped and lay a hand on his elbow. He kept pace, funereal step for funereal step. They left the wheelchair with an obliging member of staff at the restaurant door.
Holloway watched them enter, then he folded his newspaper and followed. He took a seat close to the window, a few metres from Weatherell’s back.
He watched them eat an unhurried breakfast, interrupted with brief snippets of muttered conversation and a snorted laugh or two. Holloway caught the eye of a mismatched pair of men in the corner and looked away. He wondered if he looked suspicious, if perhaps something in his manner or his gaze hinted at his intent. He forced himself not to stare at the Weatherells, in case the two men were watching him. Instead, he concentrated on a page of the newspaper that already seemed so familiar he might have recited it from memory.
He waited until they had nearly finished breakfast. Then he walked to the car park and sat low in the driver’s seat of the Subaru. It was another half-hour before the Weatherells appeared in his rear-view mirror. He wondered where they’d been for so long. Dan Weatherell had put on a floppy sun hat with his washed-out University of Wellington T-shirt, baggy shorts and flip-flops. His legs looked hairless and nude, like an old man’s.
Holloway followed them at a prudent distance. With some judicious light-jumping, he was able to keep three or four vehicles between them. It was to his benefit that the Pajero was the size of a house.
He followed them to Whakawerawera, which his guidebook told him was a thermal park and Maori cultural centre. It was sited on the edge of town. From the car park, outside the wooden boundary fence, he saw the muscular spurt of a hot water geyser and heard the yells of people caught in its spray. Drifting clouds of steam half obscured the park entrance.
Judging by the empty lots in the car park, the thermal park was not yet half full. He waited until the Weatherells had paid and entered before joining the short queue. At the turnstile, he bought a pamphlet that folded out into a simple map of the park.
Through the gates he found a souvenir shop and a cafeteria. He checked to ensure the Weatherells were not inside.
The park was not yet busy. Small groups of visitors maintained a muted, respectful distance from each other. White clouds flowed and eddied like battlefield smoke across the ruined, cratered landscape. Only the most resolute plant life had taken hold here; unearthly species with needle-like leaves.
The path through the fissures and splits in the earth was marked by wooden duckboard walkways. Arrows painted on the walkways corresponded with those marked on his map. Thus he was able to navigate the blighted earth. Keeping close enough to the edge of a German coach party for a casual observer to assume he was part of it, he followed the Weatherells from minor crater to minor crater: cleaves and gashes in the earth, within which smoke billowed and rolled and hot grey mud seethed.
He left the Germans and, separated from the Weatherells only by a ragged haze of vapour, he followed them across a bubbling mud flat. The geyser stood at the mud flat’s centre. Its eruption was accompanied by a sudden hot spray of water that dropped vertically from the clear blue sky and soaked his clothing. The brief shower was followed by a dense, warm cloud of vapour that caught on the wind and engulfed him. He became disorientated. He caught shifting glimpses in the fog, forms that might have been the Weatherells, or trees, or his own refracted shadow.
&nbs
p; He waited until the smoke had cleared before proceeding.
He caught up with them five minutes later. Liz was standing. She had joined Dan in leaning on a metal railing. They overlooked a crack in the crust of the planet. Coloured mineral deposits encrusted its walls, like a witch’s grotto. Its depths ebbed and rushed with super-heated water and boiling mud that exploded forth in a great roar of steam and heat.
Holloway waited under a needle-leafed bush while a crowd of Japanese joined them: took photographs, passed on. The Weatherells showed no inclination to move. He wondered if this was a special place for them.
They kept their silence, contemplating the seismic violence beneath them. His hand was clasped over hers. Holloway walked to the handrail and grabbed it in both fists. He stood a metre from Weatherell.
He said: ‘I’ve come to get you, Dan.’
There was a moment without sound or motion. Then Weatherell turned his head.
The earth hissed and roared beneath them.
‘Will?’
Holloway removed the baseball cap and threw it to the wet ground. Inexplicably, since he had felt no emotion until this second, his eyes welled with tears of self-pity and rage. He removed the sunglasses.
‘I told you I’d come for you.’
Liz took a shaky half-step forward. She lay a protective hand on Dan’s shoulder. Dan took it in his and squeezed.
‘Honey,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you go back to the car?’
‘She’s not going anywhere,’ said Holloway.
She fixed him with frigid contempt. There was no fear there.
‘What do you want?’
‘He doesn’t want anything, love. Just go on back to the car. I’ll be there in a minute.’
‘Stay where you are.’
‘Will,’ said Weatherell. ‘I don’t know what’s going on. But, whatever it is, it’s got nothing to do with my wife.’
‘Not with your wife. No.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Will. Let’s just you and I can go somewhere and talk. Jesus. You should see yourself.’
Holloway put a hand to his mouth.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘You’re unbelievable.’
Weatherell made a pacifying gesture with his hand. He looked left and right.
‘Will,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what’s going on here.’
‘You are what’s going on.’
‘Listen to me. I don’t understand that. I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’
With urgent, furtive movements of his left hand, Weatherell edged Liz behind him.
From the hip pocket of his shorts, Holloway took out the hunting knife.
Liz said: ‘Run, Dan.’
He squeezed her hand.
‘Will,’ he said. ‘Please don’t do this. You don’t know what you’re doing.’
‘I can’t believe what you did to me,’ said Holloway.
‘I didn’t do anything,’ said Weatherell. ‘Come on, this can’t be about Kate, can it? This can’t be about Kate, for Christ’s sake? That’s a million years ago.’
Holloway blinked rapidly. A passing drift of steam obscured Weatherell, made him a grey shadow on white fog.
He looked at Liz, leaning now on the railings for support. He couldn’t meet her eyes.
‘Will,’ said Weatherell. His tone of voice had changed. He looked left and right. ‘I don’t want to fight you. But you’re scaring me, mate. Now, if you take one step forward with that knife in your hand, you won’t leave me with any choice. Do you understand that? I’m warning you, Will. Stand back. Stay away from us.’
Holloway tried to speak. But now he needed them, no words would come.
‘I’m not kidding round,’ Weatherell said. He looked hurriedly to his left and right, as if preparing to yell for help. ‘Take another step and I swear to God I’ll fucking kill you, Will. I’m not joking now. Put the knife down.’
Holloway glanced into the pit below him.
He wondered what it would do to a human body.
‘Please,’ said Weatherell.
Holloway shook his head.
‘No,’ he said.
Weatherell licked his lips.
‘Whatever it is you think I did,’ he said. ‘I didn’t. OK? Whatever it is—it wasn’t me.’
Holloway saw himself mirrored on beads of moisture that had condensed on the blade. He saw himself reflected there a dozen times, inverted in miniature.
He took a step.
Two figures emerged from the steam.
The first was a big, shaven-headed man who wore wire-rimmed spectacles and an unruly, tangled beard. He was accompanied by a skinny, scruffy younger man with a grown-out blond crew cut. He wore gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses that had slipped down his nose. Both were breathing heavily.
‘Jesus fucking Holy Christ,’ said Weatherell. His voice had climbed an octave. ‘Where were you guys?’
The younger man joined the Weatherells and held up his hands, as if in surrender.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘We lost you. All the smoke. The big geyser.’
‘The fucking smoke? You’ve got to be joking me, right?’ Weatherell pointed at Holloway. ‘That bastard’s fucking crazy.’
The younger man muttered something. It sounded to Holloway like agreement.
‘You fucking promised,’ said Weatherell. ‘You fucking swore to me.’
‘What can I say? Sorry.’
‘He’s fucking sorry. I guess it’s OK, then. Jeez. You fucking arsehole.’
The younger man splayed a gently restraining hand on Dan’s sternum.
The bearded man took his place between Holloway and Weatherell. Holloway relaxed his grip on the handle of the knife. Measured against the bearded man’s girth, it seemed an ineffectual weapon. His hand dropped to his side.
The bearded man and Holloway faced each other.
Something passed between them.
Will said: ‘Do I know you?’
He felt empty.
The big man took another step forward.
Holloway could smell him: a sweaty mustiness, like an old book.
‘No,’ he said. The voice was gentle, without threat or frailty. He spoke with an English accent.
He held out his hand.
For a moment, Holloway nearly obliged: he had to stop himself passing the blade, handle first, into the man’s grip.
Then he laughed.
‘What’s going on?’
Shepherd kept his hand out.
Holloway was nearly overcome with hilarity.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ he said.
‘I called you,’ said Shepherd. ‘The day Joanne died. I called you at the station.’
Holloway laughed.
‘Fuck off,’ he said.
He looked around, as if cameras might lurk in the bushes.
‘That’s not true,’ he said.
Shepherd lowered his hand. He wiped his palm on the leg of his trousers.
‘You’re joking,’ said Holloway. ‘Is that really who you are? What are you doing here?’
Shepherd said: ‘Caroline sent me.’
The sound of her name was like cool water.
‘She told me where to find you.’
Holloway turned and grasped the railings. He stared hard at the fluid earth.
Through the corner of his eye, he saw the younger man leading the Weatherells away. Dan moved with short, stolid, shocked steps, as if ankle-deep in mud. He was gesticulating furiously with his right hand. The frame of Liz’s wheelchair was flecked and caked with grey mud. The younger man attended them like a paramedic.
Holloway and Shepherd were joined by a Japanese tour group. Holloway put the knife in his pocket and stooped to pick up his baseball cap. He settled it on his head. Its crown wa
s muddy. He leaned on the railing.
Some of the tension left Shepherd. He sighed and let his shoulders drop. He took the rail in both hands and faced the boiling pool.
He said: ‘Have you ever seen It’s a Wonderful Life?’
Part Three
It’s a Wonderful Life
Hark, hark
The dogs do bark
The beggars are coming to town
Some in Rags
And some in jags
And one in a velvet gown—
‘Hark, Hark’, from ‘Mother Goose’
20
I
It was not until they returned from France that Shepherd told Lenny about his conversation with Kate Holloway.
It was Lenny who suggested they track down Dan Weatherell. He had a strong feeling, he said, that Dan Weatherell was their next logical step.
But the experience in France had left Shepherd despondent. He said he was uncomfortable with the expense a trip for two to New Zealand would involve. He didn’t say as much to Lenny, but (one way or another) William Holloway had already cost him too much of the money he’d taken time and care to misappropriate. He’d planned to rely on that cash for three years, four if he was careful.
He had anxiety dreams about destitution.
Lenny, who had never retracted his claim to financial genius, offered to pay the fare. He said they could travel business class if Shepherd preferred. And he would look after any expenses they incurred.
Shepherd said no.
He said: ‘I think we should just let it go.’
Lenny said: ‘Of course. Right. OK.’
Then he went to the kitchen, made a cup of tea and took it upstairs to his office. And that was that.
Although they lived in the same house, Shepherd and Lenny saw little of each other for several weeks. The decline in their friendship made Shepherd mournfully nostalgic. He, who had forgotten so much, still remembered with remorse boys who were best friends at nine and ten, and nodding acquaintances in school corridors at fourteen. He remembered all their names, these long-ago, lost boys. Colin Fairgreaves. Brian Hunt. Steven Kierney.
To assuage his fears of penury, he took an evening job washing up in a local Italian restaurant. By day he found employment as a cleaner at the University of North London, pushing a whirling, motorized polisher along trainer-smeared corridors. He made plans for the future. He considered applying to the Open University under his new name. If he worked hard, he could have a Bachelor’s degree in three years. After that, he could requalify as a teacher. He might have fifteen years as a professional ahead of him, albeit at a comparatively junior level.