'Who's this?'
'The leader of the discriminated men I interviewed. I've just been talking about him. This stuff I'm doing at the moment about the origin of party funds. It's not a very interesting story. I have a feeling there's something more significant going on in our relations with the States. There's been undisclosed meetings right up to ministerial level. I'm going to ask to go to Wellington for a few days, and poke around. If we weren't run by useless tight-arses I'd go to Washington.'
'Won't it just be the old nuclear-free waltz again?' Theo asked.
'Nah, a fresh scent on the breeze, I think,' said Nicholas.
The evening with Nicholas, his projects and opinions, made Theo realise how preoccupied he'd become with Penny and her circumstances: how closely focused on the connection between their lives. Even the small woman at the next table was a reminder that everyone has a life going on, though it seems only shadow play to others. He was half aware of her conversation with her nodding and acquiescent female companion, even as he and Nicholas talked and ate.
She was a dumpy woman, full of unnecessary movement like a clucky hen. She had recently lost a husband named Bruce, and expressed bitterness at his desertion. 'He didn't put his affairs in order,' she said. 'Not at all, despite the diagnosis. He left everything to me. I mean he left everything for me to do, as well as everything to me. He never could make decisions.' Her friend nodded over a plate of noodles and cauliflower stalks.
Nicholas interrupted himself on diplomatic chicanery to lean closer to Theo. 'What ever order his affairs were in, I'd say, by the look of her, that each one was both a necessity and a blessing.'
'People don't realise the pressures of being a carer at the end,' she said. 'Bruce became a sad child, and petulant too. People have no conception, no idea until it happens to them. And they have a misplaced sympathy, don't you think?' Nod, nod was the response at her table, a grimace from Nicholas was the acknowledgement at his.
Theo glanced at his watch. It would be night at last in the Drybread gully. There would be no strong lights in any of the three huts, but if there was a moon the serrations of the Dunstan tops would perhaps be clear on the skyline. The wind would stream down the small valleys, and the rabbits would appear in silence like target pop-ups on a fairground range. Ben would be asleep, and Penny too perhaps, or she might be sitting by herself with a Tilly lamp, wondering just how she had ended up back at Drybread as a fugitive. At night resolution is at its most precarious, and misfortune the more naturally nocturnal creature. Sometimes there was a wind in the dark which came directly north — a drop in temperature as if a great door were opened somewhere and the air moved in from above that long ocean between Antarctica and the South Island.
When Nicholas got up to leave, he paused at the widow's side. 'Our condolences for your loss,' he said, and was rewarded with an affronted, yet impersonal, stare and an agitated rustle of clothing. The woman's companion nodded agreeably. Perhaps her mind was far away. Maybe her body too. They say women of a certain age become invisible to men as they cease to register sexually. A certain agitation of matter particles occasioned by admiration and lust in the regard of others might be necessary to maintain their corporeal existence; otherwise they disappear, slipping beneath the male radar.
As he paid his share of the bill, Nicholas spoke to the slim Thai woman who very much existed. He used a sentence of Thai which Theo knew from other visits meant thank you and good fortune. It wasn't entirely affectation, but also an expression of Nicholas's wide-ranging curiosity. Theo was reminded again of his own limiting and selfish preoccupations. Why didn't he give a rat's arse for the Thai culture, the sorrows of Bruce's bantam widow, the possibility of a change in our relationship with the USA? Nicholas's personal life was as humdrum and as much a failure as Theo's own, yet he was more active in observation of the world. His sons were growing up in Australia with his ex-wife. He sent them presents, visited occasionally, tried not to think of his true obligation towards them. He told Theo they never gave any outward show of missing him, and he was grateful for that. Maybe they didn't miss him, he admitted. No use deceiving yourself.
As they left the restaurant, Nicholas told Theo about the windfarm protest story that Anna had pushed onto him. Stories were his profession, and that's how he managed his life also, packaging his experience as commodity: shaping it from the raw until it was external to himself and so less threatening.
'So how did it go?' asked Theo. 'They get worked up?'
'A bunch of country bigots who reckoned the turbines would drive them all mad with noise not audible to humans. They had a protest march along a goat track in the Seaward Kaikouras. A day of follies really. Linda and I drove ourselves up there. At Amberley we picked up a hitchhiker who had a placard claiming the Americans were building spy stations in the South Island. Linda didn't want to give him a lift because of her cameras in the back, but I said he'd be a useful addition to the protesters and be good for some copy and photos. He never once looked us in the face, and spoke as if he had a treble pipe in his throat. When he wasn't talking about the worldwide conspiracies of American capitalism, there was still this slight whistle when he breathed. We were up by Cheviot when there was this strong smell of plum jam in the car. You know the smell of home-made plum jam?'
'Sure.'
'It's not entirely unpleasant. Anyway there was this strong smell of it, and in the end I said something to Linda, and she said the guy had taken his shoes off a way back. That's just what it was. The guy can't have washed his feet for weeks. We dropped him at Kaikoura, and Linda wouldn't have anything to eat. She was pissed off with me for most of the day, but the smell was exactly like that — like plum jam.'
'You could do a story on that, about hitchhikers who don't wash and smell like plum jam.'
'Exactly like,' said Nicholas. 'It's funny isn't it.'
'It's actually quite nice, plum jam.'
'Did you know that twenty-four wind turbines can provide power for thirty thousand homes?' Nicholas asked.
Theo didn't answer: none was expected. Nicholas said such things just to imbed them in his capacious memory.
As they neared the work carpark a tall boy in a tracksuit loped past. 'Are you still running, Theo?' Nicholas asked.
Theo chose not to take it as a figurative summation of his life. 'A couple of times a week at least.'
'You must be a fit bugger,' Nicholas said. 'I should be doing it, but somehow I can't get into the routine. We should try for a fishing trip soon. Blue cod in the Sounds — what do you reckon?'
'Good idea, if Anna will let us off together. I've got a fair bit on. This Maine-King story is taking up a hell of a lot of time, what with the secrecy and everything.'
'You want to watch it there,' said Nicholas.
'They're not divorced yet.'
'Whatever. Anyway, you watch yourself, Theo. Catch you later.'
Nicholas went into the building that housed the paper; Theo wandered into the darkness of the carpark.
The distant artificial light glinted here and there on glass, chrome or a polished bonnet, but wasn't strong enough to cast definite shadows. The carpark was almost entirely walled in by the high buildings around it. Traffic noise was muted, and more insistent over it was retro ballad music from the direction of the beauty shop. There seemed to be plenty of overtime available for beauticians. The smells were not of the cars, but of wood and lino corridors, refuse skips, female potions and, faintly, the penned lesser creatures of the pet shop.
A pace or two from his Audi, Theo used the remote to unlock it, and in the quick flash that the park lights gave in response, he glimpsed a figure standing close by. 'Theo Esler?' the man said pleasantly. He came closer to the side of the car. Even in that dim light Theo recognised the parson, though standing near him he realised that he was a bigger man than he'd appeared while driving.
'Nice car,' the parson said.
'Thanks.'
'Very nice cars these.' He nodded. 'You're the rep
orter who's been dealing with the Maine-King custody business, aren't you?'
'That's right, and you are?'
'My name's Hugo Doull.' The parson didn't extend a hand. Hugo Doull was a good name for a private detective, the carpark was a suitable place for him to materialise — slightly noir in atmosphere. But Hugo didn't have a trenchcoat, or a felt hat low over his face. He wasn't smoking.
'Ever been in holy orders, Mr Doull?' Theo said.
After the wine and meal with Nicholas, he couldn't see that Hugo Doull's appearance was something to be taken seriously.
'I'm a private investigator,' the parson said. 'Maybe we could sit in your comfortable car for a while and talk.'
'I haven't got that much time,' Theo said.
'Okay, just a quick word here then.'
Was that the parson's life: attempting to get reluctant strangers to talk to him, standing on the outside of doors and gates and open friendship? A life of uninvited and reluctant intercourse. A dispassionate professionalism would be needed, otherwise you'd come to believe other people found you personally unattractive. He tilted his head back in the semi-darkness and worked his shoulders a little. Maybe he'd been standing in the carpark a long time, and was disappointed at not being able to sit in the car. He seemed in no hurry to begin. His shirt had a soft collar, and there was a monogram of some sort on his jacket pocket.
'The thing is,' he said. 'The thing is Mrs Maine-King's in defiance of a legitimate court order. She's in hiding despite that court order and warrant to enforce it, and the authorities and other parties concerned are entitled to know where she and the boy are.' There was nothing threatening in the parson's tone, rather it was one of gentle reproof. 'And your articles, Theo, although perfectly justifiable in themselves, indicate you know where Mrs Maine-King is. You know where to contact her.'
Theo told the parson about journalistic freedoms, about the protection of sources and so on, and the parson nodded slightly in the dark, even worked his shoulders. It was late enough for them both, and the novelty of the encounter was wearing thin for Theo. 'I'd better be off,' he said.
'The thing is,' said the parson, not moving from the car door, 'that my client's willing to pay for information. How to get in touch with Mrs Maine-King, I mean. Her whereabouts in fact.'
'Not interested,' Theo said.
'Willing to pay quite a lot. Remember that Mrs Maine- King's in the wrong here. Breaking the law in fact, Theo.'
Being called Theo by the parson irritated him. It was the talkback host's unjustified assumption of familiarity. And Theo didn't like to have Penny classified as a law breaker when he was aware of her suffering. He told the parson he didn't want to talk any more, and without much thought put the flat of his hand on the parson's chest to move him from the car door. He wasn't thinking all that clearly. The parson took his wrist with a markedly firm grip and suggested they didn't need to get physical. 'Fuck off,' Theo said.
Having had a few wines and feeling morally superior, Theo assumed that dealing with the parson would play out according to their respective just deserts. He was wrong. Theo hit the parson's long face with his free hand, but thereafter it was all parson. He slammed Theo into the side of the car and kneed him in the hip, catching a nerve. He put a hand behind Theo's head and pushed him into the outside mirror. The mirror unit came away from the connection as it was designed to do after such trauma, and bounced on the carpark seal. 'Maybe you need to do more than just the running, Theo,' the parson said, trying to keep his breathing even. 'I don't like to be pushed. Sorry about the mirror. They're excellent cars these — hold their resale value well, I'm told.'
He walked away quickly, already regretting what had happened. There would be no repercussions: he was disappointed in a lapse of professionalism, and Theo was humiliated at being so easily bested one on one. Theo was left alone in the dim carpark and glad of it. He retrieved the plastic mirror unit and sat in the car for a while to calm down. He told myself that if he hadn't been drinking he'd have had the bastard. He decided he wouldn't worry Penny by saying anything about it.
In the morning he noticed a bruise on his cheek, the fractures on the glass of his watch face and the scratches on the door of the car. That pissed him more than anything. The Audi's colour was a metallic blue of deep iridescence, and any touch-up from the bottle was always obvious. He would be on the lookout for the parson in the future, feeling a playground determination to get his own back.
Stella used to tell him that he could be very unforgiving.
'You can be so proud, can't you,' she'd say. 'You find it so hard to let things go.' He never understood what she meant by it.
10
Melanie was the editor of the leading local community newspaper. It wasn't cutting-edge journalism by any means, but she didn't care about that any more. She'd been on the main newspaper with Theo, Nicholas and Anna, but the community newspaper gave more regular hours and was less rigorous regarding copy: mainly feel- good Christchurch stories and thinly disguised advertising. She had an acknowledged flair for computers, and her male colleagues were sexist enough to be impressed. She was good at friendship too, without the exclusiveness that marks some women's affection. 'Come round for pasta tomorrow,' she said on the phone, the day after the parson and the carpark.
'What have you done to your face?' she asked Theo on his arrival, and with the misdirection that truth allows he told her that he had hit his head on the outside mirror of the car. 'Looks sore, Theo,' she said. 'You should take better care of yourself.'
More than usual he was aware of her appearance, perhaps because it was Penny who had been on his mind. Melanie was small, and when they lay together her head almost tucked under his chin. Her height was less noticeable when she was upright because of the great, springy fan of her brown hair. The exaggerated, cheerful hair seen in a child's picture book, but quite her own, and although she used the brush often, it remained recalcitrant. Sometimes, when they were quiet together, Theo would rest his hand on that abundance of hair and feel his slight pressure returned by natural resilience.
They ate with trays on their knees and watched the television news. An easy domesticity although Melanie was unmarried, and Theo lived alone. She carried on a sort of derisive interrogation of the newsreaders, reporters and interviewees which required no response from him, and surely would be just the same if she were alone. 'Christ almighty, call that national news,' she would say of an item in which a spaniel was rescued from a sewer after three days, a Lithuanian woman won a newt-eating competition, or a potato looking like the Duomo in Florence was dug up in the Weka Weka. 'How do you think she feels, you cretin,' she would say when a dead boy's mother was invited to elaborate on her state of mind. 'And they call this headline news,' she would say. 'I can't stand to watch it. I just can't.' But the deficiencies, and her vehement criticism of them, kept her before the television.
Only when the news was over and the screen dead did they begin to settle to talk. First she wanted Theo to tell her about the colleagues they both knew, and the trivial yet absorbing politics of the workplace which is so much of life, then she shared her own experience of a personal grievance case arising from the sacking of a journalist, and the commercial resistance to the hike in advertising rates she felt obliged to introduce. The childish mass of her springy hair, her round face, the overall smallness of her person, were all in constant, startling juxtaposition to the shrewd and mature understanding of her conversation.
Later she talked about Stella, and that too was a usual, if passing, topic of their evenings together. Melanie remained a friend to them both, and was one of the few intermediaries equally trusted. She had had no part whatsoever in the collapse of the marriage, and only months later had she agreed to have sex with Theo, who never asked if she later told Stella they were occasional lovers.
'Stella's father isn't well,' Melanie said. 'He's been having blackouts, and now he has to go for a brain scan. Stella thinks he won't be able to live by himself for much l
onger, and yet he swears he won't go into a home. You know what he's like. She thought you might like to call him.' Theo thought of Mrs Bell in the Malahide Home: the slowing of time there, the lizards and the one-bed rooms, the drift of the past behind the eyes. Norman was right not to go gentle into such a place.
Theo liked Stella's dad. He'd never interfered in their marriage, and never accused Theo of destroying it. He was a quiet man who spent his professional life drilling people's teeth, and his private life absorbed with the geological formations of Banks Peninsula. He published papers on the drowned calderas of the peninsula, and discovered several volcanic dikes. He never asked Theo if he could keep Stella in the manner to which he'd accustomed her, or why there'd been no children. Theo admired the way he could sit still, relaxed, for long periods of time, and his thinning, grey hair immaculately harrowed into lines by the comb. Of course Theo would call, but what annoyed him was being pushed towards it by Stella, and indirectly at that. It was a sort of exemplary manipulation that was difficult to criticise, but which he resented all the same.
'Stella could have told me herself, couldn't she?'
'We happened to meet in Merivale, and I said you were coming round. "Tell Theo about Dad," she said.'
'I like Norman.'
'Why don't you ring from here?' said Melanie.
There it was again, the disposition of other people's lives. Theo waited a bit to let the small irritation subside. 'It's okay,' he said.
'She's going to Melbourne soon for an art historians' conference. The head of department chose her over more senior people, apparently.'
Theo knew the head of the university faculty. He was an intellectual bore who specialised in kinetic sculpture and hung his glasses on his chest by a blue ribbon. Most of Stella's university colleagues had spent too much time, mole-like, in libraries and study cubicles. Each seemed to have cultivated some small but determined idiosyncrasy of appearance — a goatee beard, a Mexican silver medallion, striped winter stockings, or a green corduroy suit — which served as a signal of academic and personal freedom. Stella said his mockery of her work friends arose from insecurity. 'Theo,' she'd say, 'no one cares if you haven't got a doctorate, just be yourself. You're good at what you do. You've had a fellowship in London, for Christ's sake. You've won awards.' She'd enjoy the Melbourne trip, even if in the company of the intellectual bore.
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