Star Sailors

by James McNaughton

  ‘Why did his daddy tell a lie about the gas?’

  ‘Well …’

  The big workers stand as one and Jeremiah tenses. Others are standing as well, nicer-looking people out of earshot. The ferry is approaching the end of the pier. Movement towards the door is general and Jeremiah feels a twinge of joy. The surly tradesmen can afford the tickets and their records are clean. Good on them. He wishes them well.

  Mandela takes the e-reader and scrolls through a few pages. ‘Daddy, what does this say?’

  It’s a US diner. A waitress stands over a grumpy man.

  Jeremiah reads the caption: ‘“Are you going to order or do I have to stand here for eternity?”’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Mmmm.’

  ‘What’s eternity, Daddy?’

  ‘For ever. Millions and millions of days going on forever. The days never stop.’

  ‘Is it funny, Daddy?’

  ‘I don’t get it. Maybe Mummy does.’ Feeling himself free of scrutiny in the emptying café, he rolls up his sleeve, removes his very expensive screen, photographs the cartoon and sends it to Karen with the subject heading, ‘How is that funny, Daddy? Help!’.

  ‘She can tell us,’ Mandela says. Thankfully, he’s finished with the New Yorker. ‘Can I eat a grain of sugar, Daddy?’

  ‘Just one.’

  ‘Another?’

  ‘Okay, last one.’

  ‘Oh, it’s getting rough, Daddy.’

  ‘Yep, lucky we’re going back by bus.’ One for Inners only.

  They watch waves slide up and run along the sea wall. A wave chops and a fat drop of salt water smears across the window. The ferry rocks at the end of the pier. Passengers board tentatively, helped across the gang-plank by two deckhands.

  A special treat for them, Jeremiah thinks. They’ve paid for a return ticket so they’ll sure as hell get their money’s worth. He checks his old watch; it seems to be running slow. ‘Did you have fun with Mailer yesterday?’

  ‘So many stairs, Daddy.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  Mandela frowns. ‘The stairs up to his house and then down and then back up again because his mum forgot something. And then the stairs up to the café and then up to his house again. Man.’

  ‘Do you think you should have stayed at home?’

  ‘No, I had to climb the steps to see Mailer and play with him and have fun!’

  ‘That’s right, Mandela. You have to work to get good things. And you’ll get stronger and fitter. You’ve been sick, remember. You won’t even notice steps soon.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’ The window is streaked with spray now and Jeremiah feels vindicated. ‘Look, there’s the bus.’ He leans in. ‘Oh no, it has two steps. Do you think you’ll be okay?’

  Mandela narrows his eyes, leans forward and throws his fist. Jeremiah catches it and says, ‘Arrrrgghh.’

  They’re on the bus heading back to the Mount, safe and warm with half a dozen other lovely Inners in modest apparel and no one else. The wind’s getting up but it probably won’t rain again. Le Stratton’s game of golf will be ruined though, after a four-week wait. Having never played golf seriously himself, Jeremiah has an outsider’s detachment towards the game and the peculiar distress that surrounds it. He is reminded of the cartoon with the board of directors and the failed air-con unit which is forcing them to rethink climate change. Many older managers, he’s noticed, appear to lament the current difficulty of playing a good round of golf above almost every other consequence of climate change. It’s the thing they mention most frequently and with most feeling, anyway. The wind has now increased by 50 per cent since the turn of the century and will continue to rise exponentially, according to some models. The cost of water has closed many ‘wonderful’ golf courses overseas, which adds international tourists to the lengthening local waiting lists. Some will actually fly in for a game and then fly out.

  It’s funny, Jeremiah thinks, the way that mass extinctions, epidemics, famine, water wars, human trafficking, failed states and so on, don’t touch senior management in the personal way that a long-awaited round of golf postponed by a gale does. The dead are strangers in other countries, and overseas disasters, at the end of the day, are either good for business or bad for business. He understands the tough mentality required in a changing world, but golf: really? There’s a smugness around it, as if dressing up to hit a little ball around unlocks special knowledge. Le Stratton says it’s a more agreeable way of proving superiority than learning Latin. He likes the dull and fiddly affair and will get up at 5 am for a round. Le Stratton suspects that with golf and boating on the wane because of the weather, the need for new elite play areas will result in ‘real tennis’ coming back, the Tudor-era combination of tennis and squash which Henry VIII excelled at as a young man, played with a heavy cork and felt ball. Court-time is much more expensive than regular indoor tennis so only the right type of person can afford to play. They’re going to play a game next week.

  ‘Daddy, how long until we get home?’

  ‘Eternity,’ Jeremiah tells him. ‘Forever and ever. Days without end.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Forty-five minutes.’

  ‘How long is that?’

  His screen vibrates.

  ‘Oh, Mummy’s going to explain that cartoon, remember? The waitress saying, “Are you going to order or do I have to stand here for eternity?” She’ll tell us why it’s funny.’

  Mandela snuggles his head on Jeremiah’s forearm to look at the screen as he reads Karen’s message aloud: ‘“It’s a cartoon so she’s going to stand there forever anyway. Kiss kiss.”’

  ‘Forever?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jeremiah says, showing Mandela the cartoon again. ‘She’s just a drawing so she’ll stand there forever anyway, waiting for the man to order his food. She can’t ever move—because she’s just a picture.’

  Mandela looks out the window at the wind-whipped harbour, in which the little white ferry can be seen with its load of joy-riding Outers battling through whitecaps. He frowns.

  ‘How long’s forever, Daddy?’

  Sometimes while drifting near sleep Jeremiah experiences a sense of grace rare in his waking life and things fall unbidden and perfect into place. Some things he returns to, replaying and improving seamlessly, such as his dream house in the golden doldrums of the Wairarapa, which builds effortlessly once more in his mind, a large two-storey English-style country house with steep tiled roofs, ivy climbing the white walls and columns at the entrance between the wings. The rooms he knows well: the dining and drawing rooms with their open fires, the large library filled with leather-bound books, the grand staircase, over which mighty stag heads of yore stand vigil. Only the German kitchen by Flennel, Flesch and Sons is resolutely contemporary, a sleek horseshoe of black granite and stainless steel. Each of the double bedrooms upstairs has a balcony, character leadlight, walk-in wardrobe and an ensuite. The park-like grounds are hedged; there is an indoor tennis court, pool, mesh-house and stable. Amid flowering trees beside a pond nestles a Summerhaven Sustainable Macrocarpa Rotunda with solar panels and power points.

  He strolls the manicured grounds early on a dewy morning, among his 800-year-old totara and massive oaks, carrying a shotgun under his arm should an opportunity for game present itself. He checks rows of staked tomato plants sagging under the weight of fat red fruit and gives instructions to the head gardener.

  The subsequent leisure activity on his property, following the issuing of instructions to staff and settling of other administrative matters, is not yet clearly established in his fantasy; it may involve a horse, a vintage motorcycle or a microlight. In any case, he is in motion when an urgent work call comes through. They need him at the office immediately. He’s off—either jumping hedges and fences on a white stallion, taking dusty backroads on an Indian, or banking a Nano Fortuna hard—to arrive or land neatly minutes later on the lawn at Sky Park in the Golden Gate. As he strides across the sun-beam pill
ared atrium, his podmate—a weaker, smaller version of Le Stratton—runs out to brief him. Relief is palpable as he enters the office and removes his leather jacket. Problems are tackled head-on; time flies; sleeves are rolled up; steaming coffee fetched. His shoulder is slapped and then slapped again and again as the problems fall like dominoes. The day has been saved. Shadows are long and the air balmy when he walks out of the office and mounts his horse, motorcycle or microlight.

  Day segues into a wonderful late-summer night at home. The upstairs viewing deck and entertainment area buzzes. Standing by his telescope, he picks out points of interest among abundant blazing stars. His guests stand in groups or relax on padded recliners, having dined on lobster starters prepared by caterers and the steak main he barbecued himself. They cradle a selection of Gravel Pit rieslings and cabernet sauvignons from the miracle vintages of 2018–21.

  Tiroli, Tiroli, Tiroli. She’s desperate to drop her successful career in HR to become his personal assistant, even though it means a drop in pay. His promotion has also made her taller, slimmer, and less pasty and round-shouldered. More than that, most importantly, it’s made her want him badly. She stares and bites her lip as he swivels the telescope and says ‘the firmament’ and words in Latin and Greek, such as ‘Capella’ and ‘Pleiades’, issue from his lips. She tentatively interrupts his astronomy lecture to ask him if he’s renting this estate, only ten minutes from Venture Group’s Masterton head office, in the heart of the Golden Gate. He shakes his head. Her mouth forms a red O. He turns back to the telescope.

  As well as celestially inspired myths and legends for the scented cluster of ladies at the telescope, he has data for the men. He regales them with masses, crushing gravity, extremes of temperature, vast expanses of space and time. Tiroli draws closer, collects her long blond hair over one shoulder and holds it as she bends over the eyepiece, somewhat sensationally in her summer-appropriate short skirt and heels. He adjusts the eyepiece for her. She murmurs her thanks. He shows her the surface features of Venus and the canals of Mars, and while viewing the site of the Apollo lunar landings they are fortunate enough to catch a gleam of sunlight on metal. She squeals with excitement. He sees himself in the centre of the group, pointing spacewards, his biceps and quadriceps swelling under his tight shirt. Wire and Gully radiate approval as palpable as heat from the Dirk & Wande outdoor grilling station. Sirius Major, he says, adjusting knobs and dials. Drawn to their feet from padded recliners, senior management tentatively submit questions on refraction and lenses. Their number has been depleted by a new virus taking out the elderly, and all kinds of opportunities are in the air. Radley and Cooper are conspicuous in their absence, and Dennis, Collins, Straus and Murray. Yes, some of the middle-aged are gone as well. Le Stratton is in Wellington, but will come tomorrow for a bike ride on his second bike, after everyone else has left. Surviving management regret the way they’ve treated him in the past. The injustices don’t need to be individually articulated, it’s more a bath of sorrow they’re experiencing, but they nevertheless ache particularly over their failure to entrust him with the Mengele job and the geothermal aspect of the Tindall development, and badly regret their lack of praise over the Donaldson & Sons case and their failure to invite him to the New Year’s gathering in Taupo. Gully and Wire turn and raise rueful eyebrows at each other as they subside back into their loungers, and he adjusts the telescope for Tiroli, who has a new wine in one hand—a refreshing Weissburgunder—and her long straight hair in the other as she bends over the telescope again, flashing her blue eyes at him on the way down. His telescope morphs into something else, with her greedy mouth and tongue circling the end of it. It feels so amazingly good. A mighty jolt releases cries. Earthquake! The Wairarapa fault! She’s slipping at last! The entertainment area lurches and Jeremiah finds himself on the bus with Mandela, crossing the judder bars at Wellington Station.

  12

  Next in Bill’s inbox is a job for Venture Group’s client, Regal Greens, the developer of a new private coastal community in Whangarei. Regal Greens funded a study which found coastal erosion was decreasing in that area, yet a new government study has found that coastal erosion around Whangarei is accelerating. Bill’s job is to make a third report, using any positive or ambiguous statements in the government report, that can be combined with Regal Green’s findings. It’s 3 pm.

  A simple cherry-picking job and yet Bill can’t bring himself to begin. The mid-afternoon wall is becoming increasingly unassailable; higher, wider and broader every day. There was a time when mere coffee dissolved it, high-vaulted him over or punched him through it. Just a piddly amount of caffeine. No longer. He wants very badly to rest his head on his desk and sleep.

  Only seven days to go, he tells himself, and it will all be over. One last push and I’ll be free.

  A brisk walk, he decides, is the answer. And then to transfer that physical momentum into the erosion report. Once around the block and into it. Wham. Then home. Where a fine new pinot gris awaits.

  Alone in the lift, slumped on the earthquake emergency toilet unit, the thought of dragging himself around the block through pummelling wind and shattering bright light brings about a change of plan. A cup of herbal tea in the canteen, he decides, and then he’ll hop out of the lift two flights short of his office, take the stairs and—wham—into the Regal Greens job.

  Satisfied with the plan, Bill’s mind drifts. Simon has an interview today, to be a retail assistant in a pharmacy. The interview clashed with a court-imposed anger management course and Simon had to get permission from his probation officer to attend it. It’s ridiculous. The only reason that Simon should attend an anger management course is to lead it. He’s the most forgiving and nonviolent man on Earth. To slap a schoolboy he found in bed with his wife strikes Bill as a display of admirable restraint. However, the court didn’t see it that way. An assault conviction doesn’t look good on job applications. But Simon’s got to the interview stage for this job despite that black mark, so there’s hope. Surely he’ll be able to explain the ‘assault’ to the interview panel if it comes up, which it will, and, hopefully elicit some sympathy from them. Five kids, Bill thinks, as he stands and the lift wishes him an enjoyable tea break—the duration of which it will note.

  His thoughts turn to Cheryl. Not once in her life constrained by the demands of paid employment. She has a psychology degree. Bill has suffered more than once at her hands a theory about himself and his unresolved father issues. The fact that his father left the country when Bill was 10 set Cheryl off about Sam as a substitute. He wonders. People pay good money to hear themselves and their lives explained. They even risk their lives beyond the seawall on the south coast to talk to psychics.

  The aroma of fish pie envelopes Bill before he reaches the canteen. A late lunch, he decides, then four flights of stairs and—wham—into Regal Greens. Accentuate the positives, eliminate the negatives.

  He smiles. The prospect of fish pie and Cheryl going off to work pleases him. She can take the financial load off my back, he thinks. And a job will keep her out of trouble, direct her energy into something constructive. Pregnancy and motherhood have never really agreed with her. Like Simon says, she gets bored at home. And when Cheryl gets bored, that’s when trouble starts.

  Increasingly excited at the thought of Cheryl spreading her wings and making money, and what that would mean for his finances, Bill doesn’t immediately place the young man at the counter as the young corporate law lion, Nelson Le Stratton. Bill’s heart sinks. They’re alone together. Sustained ‘casual’ contact is unavoidable. So near to retirement, he thinks, to fall at such a hurdle.

  Le Stratton’s by far the worst of the new breed: young, good-looking, energetic, outgoing, hard-working, intelligent, very fit and totally career-focussed. Had Bill been alert, he would certainly have fled at first sight of the lawyer, but it’s too late now. Le Stratton, rocking up on his heels with every point of his finger at the dishes he selects, turns and salutes Bill in quasi-military
fashion, then returns to the counter to use the server’s first name in a friendly and familiar way. Le Stratton’s entire existence, it seems to Bill, is a presentation to the board. Now ‘off-duty’, he’ll probably want to discuss another novel he’s just ‘read’, that is, a short well-known work selected by age (at least 30 years old) and researched on the internet in terms of plot, theme and character that Bill and other senior Comms managers will be familiar with. It’s clearly a ploy to curry favour because Le Stratton has no feel for fiction. He looks to the written word for tips on relationship management and improving workplace performance. In the back of a taxi to the airport on the one occasion it proved unavoidable, Le Stratton said, ‘Plumb by Maurice Gee. What’s your take-home, Bill?’

  Bill dawdles at the cutlery, pretends to find fault with a fork and selects another. Le Stratton has taken a table near the counter and is waiting, facing him, impossible to ignore. They will have to sit and break bread together.

  It’ll soon be over, Bill tells himself, all of this. Inland Hawkes Bay: I shall have peace there. But as he pictures the lifestyle block awaiting him, a mostly buried worry strikes him that there’ll be too much peace and quiet. He sees rows of silent vines, trees blowing, trees not blowing. Trees blowing again. Against a sky of blue, then grey, then blue. Weeks alone with blighted leaves, vermin and insects. Hundreds and hundreds of hours without Trix, waiting for grapes to grow.