'I'm dialling,' said the waitress, and she picked up a mobile phone from beside the till, waved it in admonition.
She wasn't Chinese, and she wasn't distraught. She was thin and contourless, perhaps still a schoolgirl. A shorter, bland-faced Chinese man appeared at her side from the kitchen curtain, anxiety widening his smile.
The four young buggers gathered in the doorway briefly, shouting and swearing in a fury of triumph, but they didn't enter. It was as if they recognised that their habitat was after-hours streets and gathered cars, garage piss-ups or a sand dune fracas. They withdrew with self-congratulatory shrieks, and then their car laboured into the night.
It took time for the thudding of the words at the wall and window to die away, for the small restaurant to empty of such virulent, ugly language, and while it did no one moved. Then the three customers began again to eat, the schoolgirl put down the phone, and the proprietor waggled his fingers and smiled to minimise what had happened. Nicholas was bleeding from the nose. There were drops of surprising vividness on his jacket, his striped shirt and the pale gloss of the floor. The Chinese man offered wet paper napkins, and Theo and Nicholas stood between the counter and the curtain — not quite within the private domain of the kitchen, but territorially removed from the dining area though still in view.
'Young bastards,' said Theo.
'You can't reason with pricks like that,' said Nicholas.
He made as if to wipe his blood from the floor, but the owner said he'd fix it.
'Do you still want me to call the cops?' the girl asked.
'No, what's the use?' said Theo.
They thanked her and the boss, then left, not pausing at the door in case that be seen as fear. The couple, and the older man, gave them a quick glance as they passed: a look not so much of sympathy as embarrassment, and satisfaction that they themselves had not been abased.
The two friends said little during the short walk to Nicholas's flat. As Theo helped his friend to clean up, soak his shirt and sponge his jacket, Nicholas quickly began to fashion the night's experience into one of his stories. Theo realised, however, that he was shaken nevertheless. Theo was upset himself; not because they had featured so unheroically, but because Nicholas's intelligence and worth had been so easily overcome by intimidation and stupidity. He was reminded that beyond their own circle of acquaintance and experience, their accepted codes and expectations, whirled incomprehensible worlds. Maybe Penny was in one of them and it, too, was beyond him.
'You and your damn exercise,' said Nicholas, reclaiming his wry humour. 'Don't ever bother me about it again.'
'You rang me, remember.'
'You have this thing about running — about fitness. I'd rather have the exercise at that Cargoe Street massage parlour. What's the name of the girl you had there again?'
'Becky,' said Theo. He was surprised by his own ease of recall, though he'd never been back. Her nakedness remained quite clear in his mind, but without lust, as you might recollect a well-executed painting of a nude.
Nicholas sat with just a V-necked jersey over his singlet. Greying hair showed at the base of his throat, and, though he had thoroughly washed, his nostrils were faintly pink with blood. The left side of Theo's face was sore to the touch, but the skin was unbroken. Both of them realised that what had happened was an aberration, unrelated to the rest of their lives. There was no sense to be found in it, no action regarding it to be taken. They began to talk of themselves again, as a form of comfort and normality.
'At any given time, the place I want to be in my life, and where I find myself to be, never seem to quite coincide,' Nicholas said.
'That's because you're an old, divorced bugger with too much time to think,' said Theo. 'Your sons will ginger you up a bit, and don't you drink much more tonight, or you'll be hopeless at work tomorrow. Take some Panadol and sleep everything off.' He wanted to go home and close off a night that had become meaningless and futile: exactly the outcomes he most feared for his life in general.
But Nicholas wanted Theo to stay, so reached into his grab-bag of recollections for something to hold him. 'I had an odd experience the other day. I was coming out of the chemist's, and I saw this woman walking away who must have been Cynthia Jenkins, one of my old girlfriends. It gave me a real jolt. I walked after her, and then she turned to look in a shop window and it wasn't her after all. From the back I could have sworn, though.'
'She'd have changed a hell of a lot by now. I bet she dumped you anyway, didn't she?'
'No, she terrified me with her possessiveness. It was my first experience of that in a woman. She was like one of those pilot fish who swim into the gills of sharks, or those African birds who pick the teeth of yawning hippos. She was always squeezing the pores on my face, hanging on my neck, combing dandruff from the back of my head. She wanted to know everything. What are you really thinking, she used to say, tell me what you really think. Even when we made love I felt this strange suction, as if she was determined to empty me out, to absorb me completely.'
'You've certainly struck some weird ones,' said Theo. 'Damn lucky it wasn't her, then. Anyway I'd best be off.'
'Did I tell you that Trish was a great one for talking in her sleep?' Nicholas began quickly to tell of being woken in the small hours and lying there as his wife unwittingly confided to the darkness long monologues which revealed her fears of humiliation, divorce and ageing, her extravagant hopes for her sons and her own material wealth, softvoiced and precise descriptions of items in her mother's wardrobe recalled as by a child. 'In dreams even the closest of partners go their own way,' Nicholas said. 'I knew things about her life that were beyond her own conscious reach.'
'Was she interested in it all when you told her?'
'I never did. I never took advantage of it either, and I'd only say to you, Theo, but I take a small pride in that. Even in the bad times I never used it for ammunition.'
'Good on you,' said Theo. 'Maybe it wasn't all true anyway.'
'The subconscious makes nothing up — it just stores and selects,' said Nicholas. The interest of the subject had animated his face again, though his pinkish nose gave just a suggestion of clownish absurdity. Theo wished that expression to be the last he saw as he left Nicholas at the door.
'See you then, Nick,' he said.
When Theo reached home he sent an email to Penny, although it was almost midnight and she wouldn't retrieve it until she next went to Alexandra. 'Hi Penny, I hope all is well and that your spell at Drybread is almost over. I think of you often, no, all the time, and look forward to seeing you soon. Theo.'
Sending it made Theo feel closer to her, took his mind from his sore face and the dispiriting meeting with the hoons outside the Chinese restaurant. He dreamed that night of the three of them, Penny, the boy and himself, at a picnic: not in the open sweep of Central, or its small valleys, but some bush area with ferns, and fungi with bold, sematic colours. They were sitting on a yellow railway tarpaulin which Theo knew, with the unsubstantiated certitude of dreams, to be stolen, and Ben was singing a childish song about a spider and a waterspout. His small voice was threatened by foul, multi-toned mutterings from somewhere in the bush behind them. In the dream Theo was convinced that if he kept looking at the boy, kept a countenance of encouragement and attention, then those responsible for the growing chorus couldn't materialise. To maintain the focus wasn't easy; the tarpaulin became ever more steeply angled beneath him, and he wasn't able to see the expression on Penny's face. A silly dream, and obvious in its connection to the night's experience, yet the sense of sad dismay and powerlessness persisted long after he was awake and had begun his day.
26
Stella's father died after a fall from a ladder while attempting to clear the leaves from the guttering of his house. Stella was angry because he'd promised he would get a handyman in. The doctor wasn't sure whether the fall had caused the stroke, or the stroke had caused the fall, but either way it was very quick, he said. Stella found Norman, with slipper
s on, lying among the lavender bushes, with a child's yellow plastic spade by his head. She'd tried twice to ring him earlier in the day. All this she told Theo on the phone, so he wouldn't see the death notice in the paper without knowing about it.
'I'm terribly sorry,' Theo said. 'I talked to him not so long ago. I liked your dad.'
'I know you did. He quite liked you. He was slipping noticeably though. He got anxious over little things that once would never have bothered him, and he worried that he might be forced to go into a home. I suppose that's why he was so bloody stubborn about doing things himself.'
'Do you want me to come round?' asked Theo.
'It's okay. I've got a friend with me. I'm actually not too bad. I guess it hasn't hit me yet.'
'When's the funeral?'
'Wednesday. Dad wanted to be cremated. Do you want to say something?'
'At the service?'
'Yes,' said Stella.
It was probably the lawyer friend who was comforting her: the guy Theo had met at the Darfield pub on his way back from the Coast that hot day. He couldn't remember much about him except that he had thick, floppy hair, heavy wrists and a legal complacency of manner. How long ago was that? Stella had now lost her father and her mother, and she'd been close to them both. Theo wondered whether his parents' death would arouse in him more love than he felt for them while alive.
'I remember the spade,' Stella was saying.
'The spade?'
'He must have been using it to clean the guttering. It was part of a set I had as a kid, and we'd go down to New Brighton by the surf club building. There was a bucket and a little rake and shovel, and a flag, all yellow, and they'd watch me play where the sand was just right for building — between the dry dunes and the stuff at the water's edge that's too wet. It's sad, isn't it.' Stella was trying to keep her voice matter of fact.
'Bloody sad,' said Theo.
'You don't have to come at all if you don't want to.'
'If it's not awkward for you I'd like to come,' Theo said.
'Well, it's not really about us, is it. That's the way I look at it. It's for people who knew Dad and want to say goodbye.'
'I see it that way too,' said Theo. 'You let me know if there's anything I can do.'
'You and Dad got on well, Theo. I suppose you're alike in some ways,' said Stella. He put that observation aside to ponder later, for the moment assuming it a compliment.
Should funerals be wet and blustery as nature pays homage in its way? Wednesday was still and cool, with high, pale cloud like an eyelid. There was no inexplicable eclipse for Norman, no sudden rush of wind as some spiritual departure. He wouldn't have wanted anything like that. The chapel and crematorium were set in lawns and gardens, and only when you were close did you see the numerous plaques amid the roses, on artfully placed boulders, or set into the low walls of the terraces. Some were of brass, some of dark, polished granite, and some of a noticeably cheaper material that looked like Formica. So the demonstration of means follows people even after death.
Before the service began, Theo wandered among the long flower plots and the silver birch trees on which the leaves had turned to yellow. The lawn was closely cut, and the dew that remained in the afternoon was barely enough to gather on the glossed toes of his best shoes. By walking he avoided any prolonged talk with mutual friends from the time of his marriage, and any awkwardness he might cause Stella. He wondered how many dentists would attend the funeral, and how many geologists, and whether he would be able to identify members of each group without knowing them individually. The dentists would surely have a short-sighted appearance, and be better dressed than the geologists.
Norman's cremation provided the occasion for Theo's first meeting with Melanie's boyfriend, and his formal introduction to Stella's. He was made more aware of being on his own, and wondered if he was pitied by the people gathered at the chapel door. 'Theo had no one with him, did he?' they might say, and speculate as to his mode of living and state of mind. 'I've not heard of anyone, have you?' they might say.
By a round bed of camellia bushes, Theo met Linda from work, and an accompanying woman who was introduced to him as a fellow photographic artist. 'Theo used to be married to Stella,' Linda said frankly. Neither did she pretend any particular grief, but spoke about an exhibition of monoprints that she had seen the night before, and then was curious as to Norman's age.
'I'm not sure,' said Theo. 'Early seventies anyway.'
'Women live longer than men,' said Linda. 'They have a stronger immune system.'
'Something like that, I gather,' said Theo.
'Exactly like that.' She bent down and pulled chickweed from the base of one of the camellias, then walked on, leaving her friend standing for a moment with Theo. They exchanged wry, slightly awkward smiles. 'Coming?' said Linda. Theo was reminded, as he watched the two of them move away, that her urge for trivial dominance was not entirely sexist.
Melanie and Robin Sellus came from the grouping around the chapel entrance to meet him as he walked back. The architect was a bulky man with heavy crease lines on his forehead and neck. He was talkative concerning his own interests, but distracted when others had a chance to speak, glancing obviously about him as if in search of more distinguished company. Theo was disappointed in Melanie's choice, and thought her kindness and intelligence wasted on Sellus. She looked even smaller beside such a heavy man. Her halo of hair trembled as she kept a conversation going among the three of them. Theo had never intended to marry Melanie, or live with her, but felt an immediate vindictiveness towards her choice of partner.
What could he be except an egotist and a thuggish lover?' Theo accepted that this conviction might be proprietal envy, but was surprised by the concern, the affection, he felt for her.
Entering the crematorium chapel for the service, he took Stella's hand briefly, and she introduced him to a second man that day who had supplanted him. There was an irony to it that he appreciated, and he filed it for mention to Nicholas. 'This is James Rowlands,' Stella said, and the two men shook hands.
It was an unequal situation in so many ways, not just who stood with whom. James had a great deal of information about Theo from a privileged, but not unbiased source, and Theo knew next to nothing of him. Would the lawyer recall having met him that hot day at the Darfield hotel?
'Good to see you again,' said James.
'Maybe we'll have a chance to talk after the service,' said Stella.
'Sure,' said Theo, and passed on to allow others to express their sympathy.
Theo took a back seat. He had declined Stella's offer to say something about his ex father-in-law. His role was to be respectful and, yes, take a back seat. Gillian and Thor Aargard came and sat beside him. Thor taught at the university with Stella. Theo had met the couple socially, but not since his divorce. Social acquaintances are like waiters: you know when you go to certain places they'll be there, but they have no essential place in your life. 'Quite a blow, quite a blow,' said Thor quietly, and proffered his hand.
'Nice to see you, Theo,' said Gillian. Theo was aware of her unabashed and intent scrutiny. She was looking for evidence of his life since splitting with Stella: the stains of takeaway meals perhaps, unchecked nasal hair, the false ebullience of incipient alcoholism and the scorch of indulgence on his breath.
'How have you been in yourself, Theo?' she said.
'Not so bad,' he said.
'We've been meaning to have you for a meal. The time just flies, doesn't it. We see your pieces in the paper, of course.'
'It's quite a blow for Stella,' said Thor. 'I didn't meet him myself, but I gather they were very close.'
'It's nice she does have personal support though isn't it,' said Gillian. 'You've met James?'
'Gillian,' chided her husband.
'A few times,' said Theo. 'Seems a nice guy.' Truth wasn't the aim in such a reply, but to deny her the satisfaction that any glimpse of pain, or a falling away in life, would give.
'I gather he
r father was well known as an amateur geologist?' said Thor.
'He was a specialist on the volcanic origins of Banks Peninsula. He did a great deal of fieldwork there over the years,' said Theo.
'And things have been going okay for you?' asked Gillian. She was adept at the verbal angler's art.
'I'm pretty busy,' said Theo. 'The journalism's always demanding, but the sex is great. You know what it's like for single guys.' It came out unplanned, but intended. Gillian wasn't put out, but her smile contained a grimness that showed a realisation she was baulked.
'Ah, memories, memories,' said Thor lightly. There was no more conversation among the three of them.
Nor was there an opportunity to talk to Stella following the service, after the burnished coffin had passed through the cosmetic entrance and presumably into the maw of the furnace. The invitation hadn't been a serious one for either of them. Theo slipped away through the birches and the rosebeds studded with plaques. He resolved that he would think of Norman over a drink that night, for he had paid little attention to the service. Most of the time he had been thinking of Penny, and Ben too. Penny longlimbed and wry at the sod bach at Drybread, with the heat and the openness and the bare hills — perhaps the heat no longer visiting, and frost warning of later snow. Penny Boomerang: all the way to America and marriage, and back again. Penny and her son, feeling the world was against her. Norman had been a decent guy, he had been significant in Theo's life for a while, but he was dead, and Theo was concerned with the living. It's harder for the living.
Stella phoned him at the paper on the following Monday morning. She wasn't back at work yet. Theo wondered if there was any message in that, conscious or subliminal. An evening call from one home to the other might be expected to be longer, and more personal. 'I just wanted to thank you for coming to Dad's funeral,' she said.
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