'It does fucking hurt though, doesn't it,' said Theo. Stella had never been avid for sex in their marriage. That had been one of the justifications for his own brief affairs. Theo thought her concern was more to maintain attractiveness than any joy in sex. 'So who is he?' he asked. It didn't really matter. Theo wanted no biography that would provide for his existence in their lives.
'An old friend. You wouldn't know him. We met up again just recently. I haven't seen him much at all.'
'So it's serious?'
'I don't know. It's all just happened so quickly.'
'Well, it's the end of us, you realise,' said Theo.
The direct accusation, the bitterness of it, surprised him, for he disliked any overflow of emotion. It was the end of them. They talked for over an hour, Theo standing all that time as the light gradually faded in the sunroom. They arranged their separation with conscious, reined in reasonableness, as if each were determined to escape the clichés of passionate denunciation. What Theo suppressed wasn't anger so much as the sense of bewildered failure and futility. What was the use of talk, what was the use of it when they realised that they were no longer essential in each other's lives.
Whenever Theo thought of that night, he remembered the brief awkwardness which arose when it was time for bed. Stella came to the study door, her face with the soft sheen of moisturiser she applied when she'd removed her make-up, her eyes bright with tension. 'I'll use the spare room,' she told him. Nothing more was said of it. Both could appreciate there was too great an irony in Theo going to lie in the spare bed alone. He half wished she'd shown less sensitivity. He wished also that she had made more apology, taken greater blame on herself, and so let him escape it. 'I never felt cherished,' she told him before she went away. She said it on the spur of the moment, without much emphasis, as is so often the case with words that matter. 'I never felt cherished.'
12
Theo found no evidence that the parson had entered his home, despite the little placement traps he set. He didn't sight him, or the immaculate Honda Civic, in the days after the carpark confrontation, and thought maybe that was the end of it. He was content to forget him, as we all wish to forget those who are witness to our failings. But the parson wouldn't be forgotten: he was being paid to continue to feature.
There was another windfarm protest at Mount Somers, which had been mooted as a site, and since Nicholas was in Wellington researching his US story, Anna asked Theo to cover it, with Linda along for the photographs. Anna told him that Linda had said she didn't need a companion, that she could cover the story as well as the pics, but Linda said nothing of that to Theo as they set off. Nicholas called Linda the sourpuss in her absence, and SP to her face. It annoyed her, even though she never understood.
She was a lank, competent woman in whom feminist principles had hardened to a habitual competition with, and denigration of, men. Theo wasn't interested in the value or otherwise of windfarms, and found Linda's company a trial in any case. 'Hi, Linda,' he said when she came to his desk.
'I need to be back before five,' she said.
She had a habit of looking away while talking, and a flat weariness of tone that deflated enthusiasm in others.
'Sounds okay by me. Let's head away pronto then. Do you want a hand down with your stuff?'
'It's at the bottom of the stairs,' she said.
'Would you like to drive?' said Theo, when they were standing beside one of the staff Mazdas. Linda talked slightly less when she drove, and Theo also thought his offer demonstrated a non-macho disposition that might ease the relationship for the afternoon.
Theo was never able to ignore the driving habits of others, no matter how much he concentrated on conversation, the passing world or his own thoughts. He had trained himself not to actually watch the various manoeuvres of hand and foot, but was aware of it all, and slight, almost involuntary, movements of his arms and legs betrayed the parallel simulation of driving. With a good driver he would gradually relax; with a poor one his exasperation would express itself in increasingly critical views of politics, acquaintances, sport and the efficacy of the major international aid agencies — whatever. It wasn't that he feared for his life; it was the incompetence that rankled with him: the lack of any feel for the vehicle, or awareness of its susceptibilities. Someone with no appreciation for mechanical function could have no sympathy for the feelings of people either, no comprehension of the synthesis necessary if the world is to turn smoothly.
He would never allow Linda to drive his own car. The thought brought a quick grimace to his face. She drove as if pushing a sofa about the living room: a series of violent lunges and pawings at the carpet. She tended, on the open road, to forget there was a fifth gear, and talked more loudly to be heard above the crescendo of the engine. Theo at these times made a small gesture with his hand to indicate the change required, while trying not to seem obdurate.
Photography has its own skills and secrets, he was sure, and Linda had won awards for it. She had a flair for black and white night scenes — rain falling on silvered puddles, the neon sign with a letter missing, an alley dog with its arse above the rim of the garbage bin. She fancied herself as a journalist also, and insisted on taking part in the occasional editorial staff meetings, at which she complained of a patriarchal bias in the paper's underlying attitudes and choice of stories. Nicholas of course said that she needed a good shagging, which would encourage a mellow and balanced view of the world, but he didn't go as far as offering his own ministrations. He was a stirrer, and professed such simplistic prejudice to make life more interesting for himself.
To Theo he admitted that Linda was the best photographer they had, and a better reporter than most. Talent is not personality, however, and Theo was glum as they drove towards Methven. Stella had curated one of Linda's photographic exhibitions, and Linda, who seemed oblivious to the divorce, often talked admiringly of her when with Theo. It wasn't that Theo wished his ex-wife to be disparaged, but that too many regrets and memories were resurrected. Linda tortured the gearbox, and told Theo of meeting Stella not long before at an Arts Society function. 'She was with a surprisingly nice man. A successful man — a solicitor I think.'
'I know,' said Theo.
'He's completely behind her having her own career. Very supportive. I've been talking with some friends about nominating her for president of the society. They've had that witless old fool with a knighthood for years now. She's highly thought of by her academic colleagues, I'm told.'
Linda was the sort of woman who baulks specific physical description. Even seated beside her, Theo had only a general impression, compounded of height, angularity, wholesomeness and large-featured intensity. He trailed his attention and one arm from the car window, watching the farms of the plains pass by.
He wished to be in far poorer country; in the raddled, sluice-despoiled gully at Drybread with the rabbits, the paradise duck pair, the dun harrier hawk and the few merino, their fleece grey with dust. Penny and her son would be there — in the clay cottage, or on the rough slope around it which was Ben's playground. Her hair would be pulled back from her face and she would be displaying active enthusiasm for her son's benefit, when confusion and apprehension were her true feelings. Penny expected some support from him, some exercise of ability and energy on her behalf, and he was on a journey to a windfarm protest with an opinionated woman who had some small fame for photographing canine arses, and insisted on praising his ex-wife. He could see exactly the absorption on Ben's rather beautiful face as he played. He could see exactly the way Penny's top teeth rested on her lip at the conclusion of a smile, and the smooth base of her throat, yet had nothing in his mind of Linda beside him.
Only when they had left the main south road at Rakaia, and the traffic immediately thinned, did Theo notice the car at a distance behind them. He watched in the side mirror, and soon decided it was the parson's maroon Civic. For a moment he felt some melodrama in it, and thought of telling Linda to speed up, or stop around a
blind corner so that the parson would pass close by and realise he'd been recognised. But then it came to Theo that Penny's hiding place wasn't at risk, that nothing in fact was required of him, and that the parson should be allowed his professional perseverance. And Theo didn't want to make any explanation to Linda — didn't want to talk about Penny and Drybread to her at all.
Linda had moved on to a more negative aspect of the sisterhood and was complaining about Anna. The chief reporter was the most highly ranked woman at the paper, but rather than taking satisfaction in that, Linda considered she had become complicit in a male hierarchy. 'She's so blokey,' said Linda, almost tearing the sunshade from its fitting as she tried to lower it. 'She talks sport with the guys, and loves to get into the bar with them on Fridays. She lets Nick and you do what you like virtually — you get away with hell. I can remember when she used to do great stuff, challenging stuff.'
Why did she talk like that, when she knew he and Nicholas were close friends, when she knew he was likely to pass on her criticism to Anna? Was it a source of pleasure for her to put out such challenges? Was defiance of conventional subterfuge in relationships a matter of principle for her? 'I think Anna does a bloody good job,' he said. If Linda wanted something to chew on then he'd oblige, but he wasn't interested except not to appear too faint-hearted. He gave more attention to the parson's car behind them, and to thoughts of Drybread and Penny.
'She should be giving more of a lead,' said Linda, 'should be making sure there's more on women's health and equality in the workplace — even sport. She's supposed to be shit hot on sport.'
'Angie's a damn good journo, I reckon,' said Theo. He made a shifting motion with his hand: Linda hadn't changed up into fifth after crossing a narrow wooden bridge. The comment was such an obvious provocation that Linda didn't reply, and they drove on in silence for a time until she began to tell him of the last time she covered one of the windfarm protests — how Nicholas had insisted on picking up a hitchhiker who stank the car out by taking off his shoes, and that she was sure he would steal some of her expensive equipment.
'What did it smell like?'
'What smell like what?' said Linda.
'The hitchhiker's feet.'
'Like plum jam, actually,' said Linda. 'Just like homemade plum jam.'
It was one of those small synchronicities which life provides. Theo savoured it, then went back to thinking of Penny and Drybread as Linda thrashed the Mazda towards the hills, and the red car presumably driven by the parson trailed after them at a respectful distance.
There was barely a Mount Somers settlement: a bunkerlike electricity sub-station, the road lined with pale-leaved eucalyptus trees, high, shaped windbreaks in the paddocks, and a couple of old community buildings stark on their rough lawn. Not far beyond, a hillside had been partly excavated and there were small, semi-abandoned shafts for low-grade coal. On the hill crest the protesters had set up camp, claiming some connection between the minor despoliation caused by the coal mining and the environmental threat of the proposed windfarm in the area. Sixty or seventy people milled about a makeshift wooden and fabric wind turbine replica, and some rather self-consciously held stick placards that read 'Peace Before Power', 'Scenery Before Turbines', 'Natural Skylines'.
It was not entirely a homogeneous group: there were representatives of the local iwi, some ill-defined supremacist organisation and several buskers and impromptu players from a polytechnic.
Linda's camera equipment identified her and Theo as the media, and in the absence of the more favoured and glamorous television crews, they became the focus of protest. A furrowed man in a yellow anorak and a cheerful Chinese woman introduced themselves as the spokesperson for opposed local residents and the representative of the Kiwis Against Windfarms organisation, respectively.
'Do you know if the TV is coming?' asked the man, and when given a negative answer the lines on his face deepened, until it resembled one of those historical photographs of defeated Sioux chiefs. How does a twentyfirst century New Zealander come to possess a visage of such endemic suffering and exposure?
'Never mind,' said the Chinese woman, whose face was as smooth as a flower bowl. 'We're pleased you're here. We don't plan too much in the way of formalities, the weather isn't that great. I'm going to talk briefly, and then Guthrie will say a few words on behalf of local people opposed to the turbines. Right, Guthrie?'
Guthrie nodded, but with the bitterness appropriate to the receipt of a death sentence.
Linda wanted photographs before the speeches, because she said the light was going, so the Chinese woman used her bull-horn loudspeaker to round up the protesters, and she and Guthrie stood in front of them. The iwi representatives also claimed a central position, and the polytechnic entertainers and leather-clad supremacists formed a rather uneasy margin. Theo could see no sign of the parson. Maybe he had remained close to the gate, where cars were parked on the grass. Perhaps he was a supporter of windfarms, and had no wish to appear within the protest.
The young Chinese woman showed her organisational instinct by beginning her speech immediately after the photographs and before a dispersal could begin. A rising wind tended to buffet and distort her words, but she made her points clearly, briefly and even with humour. It was Theo's practice on such occasions to alleviate boredom by mentally grading each speaker while getting the gist in shorthand. He gave her a B plus, but was more interested in what Guthrie might have to say. His bitter zealot's face held promise of profitable eccentricity.
The promise was fulfilled when Guthrie took the bullhorn and stood in the flurried, shin-high dry grasses to talk. He began with wind turbines, their inherent evils and proximity to his own eighteen-hectare angora goat property, which had fallen on hard times, but he worked back along the timeline of his life, cataloguing injustice, misfortune and betrayal at every point. For each tribulation some external malice or discrimination was proclaimed, and never a personal failing admitted. It was pre-ordained that all the world, both living and inanimate, would conspire against him: his haggard, generic face had been ritually buried in Neolithic bogs, hung in stocks, lampooned in broadsheets and captured in the grainy photographs of soup kitchen queues and the death pits of genocide.
Nothing would deter Guthrie from a recital of injustice: a captive audience was the balm he needed. But that, too, let him down soon enough. People eased away, or began their own conversations and activities. Guthrie stood on the slope in the brown grass and the wind tossed his words away, the polytechnic entertainers began small mimes and gymnastic feats to instrumental music, the Maori group started an action song, a placard bearer fell heavily at the entrance to one of the small mines.
'Jesus,' said Linda, 'let's head back. We've got what we need.'
'I just want a quick look in one of the coal diggings,' said Theo. He was her senior after all, and a weary representative of male autonomy.
'I'll wait in the car. Don't be all day,' she said.
A fine, almost horizontal rain began to come in with the wind. It occurred to Theo that whatever the aesthetic and economic arguments concerning the turbines, the meteorological consultants had got it right about the wind. Rain is always welcome in Canterbury: the treeless brown hills stretching back to Mount Somers were proof of that. He went by himself down one of the rough dozer tracks and into a small shaft at the end of it. Theo expected to see railway lines, perhaps of wood, but there were no tracks, or skips, just a scattering of poor quality brown lignite on the tunnel floor. He wasn't interested in the excavations, or the coal: he wanted to see if the parson would be drawn after him. He stood back from the entrance, protected from the wind and swirling drizzle, and waited. It was possible, of course, that he'd been mistaken about the car behind them earlier in the day, or that the parson had turned back once he saw that the protest was Theo's destination, not a rendezvous with Penny Maine-King.
A protester wandered away at a distance, placard held in front of her body as a shield against the rain, then there
were just the gravel excavations, the shafts, the scattered rusting implements of a barely profitable enterprise, and the hills beyond. Linda wasn't a patient woman, and Theo didn't wish to antagonise her unnecessarily when they had a considerable drive back. He was on the point of leaving the shaft when the parson came into view, walking with an assumed casualness, and with a frayed parka as inadequate cover. Theo kept close to the side of the tunnel so that he wasn't easy to see from the track. He enjoyed the feeling of being dry and out of the wind there, while able to see the parson uncomfortable in the elements, and not sure whether to enter the shaft. To watch and yet not be seen produces a powerful, atavistic satisfaction.
The parson seemed concerned for his town shoes, so picked a path to keep him from the worst of the wet clay and the brown, soft coal. He saw Theo, was indecisive for a moment before continuing forward sufficiently to gain shelter from the tunnel overhang. 'I'm afraid Mrs Maine- King doesn't live in a coal mine,' said Theo.
'No.' The parson seemed relieved to be recognised. It meant he didn't have to bother any longer with surveillance techniques, which were inconvenient in the worsening weather. And his meeting with Theo in the carpark had proved he needn't feel apprehensive about a physical contest. 'I don't suppose you've thought any more about the advantages of co-operation,' he said.
'Not at all,' said Theo. It was the first really close-up look he'd had of the parson, and what struck him was the unadulterated physicality of the man: the heavy flesh of his facial features, the creases in his clothes containing that large body, the faintly audible breathing as he pumped in oxygen. 'You enjoy hounding Penny Maine-King and the boy, do you?' Theo asked.
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