by K T Bowes
I indicated left and merged with the steady traffic, explaining my dilemma. “I haven’t been down there since I got rid of the old car, so didn’t realise he’d been using my space. He got rather upset when I wouldn’t move out of it earlier and I kind of threatened him.”
“You what?” Jack’s merry laughter destroyed the last vestiges of my confidence.
“Yeah, thanks for that!” I spat, heading downtown and deliberately aiming for the most expensive restaurants on Quay Street as revenge.
“I just can’t imagine it,” he mused, watching me sideways through narrowed eyes.
“It wasn’t my finest hour,” I grumbled, pressing too hard on the accelerator and scaring him enough to make him face forward.
Jack’s idea of dinner out ended up as fish and chips on the beach. We sat side by side in a patch of sand as the sun removed its light by degrees and darkness shrouded us in simplicity. “You have the rest,” I said, wiping my greasy fingers on a tissue from my pocket. “I’m stuffed.”
“Me too.” Jack crumpled the wrapper and balled it next to him, fixing his eyes on the water as it sent white waves onto the Mission Bay sand. “Have you settled in East Tamaki?” he asked. “Don’t you miss Devonport and the sea being so close?”
“Of course I do. Moving from a beautiful house near the beach to an apartment block wasn’t in the grand plan for my life. It was pure necessity.”
“Because of the debts you mentioned?”
“Yeah. They didn’t die with Pete; just became repayable with immediate effect and I didn’t have the money.”
“What kind of debts were they?” he asked and I saw the flicker of a cop’s interest.
I sighed and listed them one at a time, crossing the seventy-thousand-dollar mark with a memory of the sick feeling the number caused. “Online gambling attributed some of it but he’d done other, really odd things with cash loans that were never accounted for. He’d got into a mess and selling up and modifying my lifestyle seemed the only quick way out.”
“Until now.”
Jack’s words stilled me and I realised how incongruous the opulent car must appear. “Yeah. I had a year left on the last of the loans and they agreed to let me pay monthly. I’ve lived like a monk and cleared it early.” The lie tripped off my tongue like an Olympic diver.
“Weren’t there penalties for that?” Jack asked, his gaze intense.
I hid my cringe as much as possible. “Worth it just to have them off my back. Can we not talk about my private finances anymore?” My voice sounded pleading and needy.
“Ok.” Jack put his arm around me and pulled me close. I felt the comfort of his strong arm muscles and the hardness of his ribs as I nestled in. But I’d seen something else in his eyes; something really worrying. He’d watched me with the eyes of a cop, one who could spot a lie at fifty paces and wanted to chase it down like a hungry lion. He stopped because I asked him but it hadn’t left his sphere of thought and hung there whenever he caught my eye. I couldn’t tell Jack about Terry’s gift because of the dirty way I’d earned it, threatening him with his son’s indiscretions. Nor was he aware of Peter Saint’s sexual preferences.
The thing in my cousin’s eyes looked like something different. The suspicion ran deeper than me finishing a loan or coming into money and as the evening wore on and we spent more time together, I realised he thought I’d done something criminal; something which might attach to him and his career. Neither of us raised it as we dumped our rubbish in a public bin and spread white sand all over the carpets of my new SUV. But it hung over us like a mantle.
My brain felt rattled by the time I crept under the roll door into the parking garage and the sentence roiled round and round in my thoughts. “What the hell does he think I’ve done?”
Chapter 21
I put the handbrake on and stared at my neighbour’s car, nestled between a pillar and the vehicle next to him.
“I thought you said you threatened him,” Jack said, watching my face as an embarrassing blush crept into my cheeks.
“Well, it was obviously really effective and terrified him.” I didn’t hold back on the barb in my tone.
“I’ll go see him. Where does he live?” Jack wrestled with the door handle and hefted himself out.
“Ground floor,” I sighed. “It’s messed up because his wife has 12a, which would be mine if I had a partner but their other space is number 2 near the exit.”
“If there was a 2a, wouldn’t they have both?”
“There isn’t a 2a.” I glanced behind me at the empty bay where his car should be. “The ground floor flats have a second space outside in the car park. The landlord thinks it’s easier for them to walk outside. He leased the mother the park next to me on the understanding I didn’t need it.” I chewed my lip. “I guess if I complain he’ll intervene and revoke the second space, but getting hold of him through the land agent is impossible.”
“Take his space for now,” Jack said, pointing to the empty number 2. “Reverse in and then you can drive straight out.”
“I haven’t reversed it yet!” I squeaked. “I’ll ding it.”
Jack snorted out a laugh. “It’s got so many bloody sensors; it could probably park itself! Get on with it, woman!” He strolled off towards the lifts, ignoring the button in favour of the stairs. He was right about the reversing sensors. The automated BMW voice told me everything I needed to know and then repeated it at least eleven times in case I was either hard of hearing or suffered from short-term memory loss. The big SUV slid into the ample space under the guidance of the smooth Australian male voice and I left the gear stick in reverse, just to hear him say, “Half a metre of clearance to the rear,” just one more time.
I brushed sand off the mats from the foot well into the open space in front of the car, waiting for Jack to return. I gulped when he strode out of the lift with my neighbour, who sported a child on his shoulders. “This is Ahmed,” Jack said, introducing us like strangers. He pointed to the man’s shoulders. “And this is Liliane.”
I watched through eyes filled with wariness as the man’s face remained blank. Jack turned to me. “Liliane can’t walk. She’s got Cerebral Palsy. Ahmed’s wife explained the problem. They need to park the cars together so that in the morning, Ahmed can carry Liliane downstairs and then help his wife with the younger kids. He takes Liliane to school, but he needs to help his wife load in the other children or they run around down here and it’s usually busy by the time they leave.”
I looked at the man’s blank face and felt my heart squeeze in my chest. I taught primary school children and he was trying to keep his own safe. “I’m so sorry,” I gushed, noticing how the little girl’s legs hung at odd angles on her father’s chest and she clung to a clump of his hair as though it was a natural riding position. I looked to Jack for a solution and watched him in cop-mode, negotiating using his hands. “Ursula can have this space, and you take hers?” he said, pointing to my car and then to the man’s battered station wagon.
Ahmed nodded, a huge up and down action which almost pitched the child off his shoulders. “Ee!” he said with enthusiasm. “Ee.”
I pointed over at the locked cabinets above the parking space and mimed the turning of a key. “I’ve got stuff in there,” I said, directing my concern to Jack. “I’ll need to get it out.”
Jack jabbed his finger at the cabinet above my vehicle and Ahmed shook his head and wagged his finger. “La sha,” he said and shrugged, forcing the girl to use both hands and adopt another clump of the tufty black hair.
“He’s got nothing in there,” Jack confirmed. He pointed towards the cabinet over number 12 and the man nodded again with vigor. Rushing across, he unlocked the vehicle, dumping the little girl into the passenger seat and running around to the driver’s side. He jammed a key from his pocket into the ignition and dropped the car forward so Jack and I could scoot behind. I used the key from my fob to open the heavy doors and together we unloaded the cupboard.
“Don’t hurt yours
elf,” I said to Jack, watching him struggle to use his broken wrist. “I’ll do it. I meant to clear this stuff out months ago but kept putting it off.”
Ahmed ferried items to the bottom of the lift and the men held the door open using one of the stacker boxes while we pushed the rest over the corrugated metal surface. When the cupboard was empty, Ahmed dropped his car back into place, reattached his daughter to his shoulders and smiled as I handed over the key. He swapped it for the one matching the cupboard behind my vehicle and we parted as friends, despite my need to repeat my apology another eighty times.
“He doesn’t speak English,” Jack said under his breath and I nodded.
“I still shouldn’t have been so mean.” I looked at him with curiosity. “What language does he speak?”
“Arabic.” Jack didn’t miss a beat. “He brought his family over from Syria.”
I groaned and rolled my eyes. Teina Fox had lit a fire in my belly which seemed determined to erupt from my mouth. I contemplated his hold on my soul and wished I could believe it was all bad.
On the third floor, Jack jammed the lift doors again and pushed items out with his foot while I hauled them over to the front door. I unlocked the apartment while he removed the stacker box and let the lift go about its business. “What is it?” Jack asked and I shrugged.
“Pete’s,” I said, my voice reflecting my remembered exhaustion of the weeks after his death and the hurried exit from our shared home. “I got rid of most things I couldn’t sell but these boxes contain random things I didn’t have time to look through. I’ll give most of it to Terry and Margaret to deal with.”
“Don’t you want to look through it first?” Jack nudged a dusty box with his toe, a policeman’s curiosity in his eyes.
“Not really.” Aware I sounded far too dismissive, I added a smile. “I’ve got work in the morning and I’m tired. Thanks for dinner.”
“Hey. Thanks for the company.” Jack wrapped me in his arms and I fought the tug on my heart strings which promised how easy it would be to fall into his bed and pick up the fragile threads of our teenage connection. I yearned for companionship and solidarity and Jack offered all those things. Then I thought of Lacey and how easily my childhood crush replaced me without a minute’s argument and the feeling passed. I avoided his lips and closed myself into my bedroom, falling asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Chapter 22
“Is Mark Lambie still missing?” I asked Jack the next morning as I shoved toast into my mouth and applied mascara at the same time. He looked up at me from his position on the lounge floor amidst the detritus from Pete’s life and shrugged.
“Haven’t heard anything. Guess so.”
“I wonder where he’s gone,” I mused, shoving the lid on my mascara and ramming it back into the cutlery drawer. The compact mirror snapped shut in my fingers after a final examination of my makeup and I pushed it into my handbag. “He was just a bit drunk when we dropped him off.”
“We?” Sharp as a knife was our Jack and I swallowed and hesitated a moment too long.
“A guy from the club gave us a ride to Mark’s place and then dropped me home. He seemed nice enough but neither of us wanted to be puked on so leaving Mark on the doormat was a mutual decision.”
“What was his name?” Jack’s hair stuck up on end and a line of dust created a black smudge on his forehead. He hadn’t shaved and still wore yesterday’s clothes.
“Bloody hell, Jack!” I exclaimed. “Twenty questions! Check with your mates; I told them everything. How’d you expect me to remember some stranger a week later?”
I pointed at the mess on my lounge floor. “I don’t want all that stuff out when I get home. I never want to see Pete’s stuff again; do you understand?” I couldn’t reign in my vehemence and knew that Jack’s perception would see right through my protestations. “Please put it back in the boxes,” I asked.
He sloped off to the bathroom, leaving me to clear up the kitchen after my foray and I walked through to the lounge to peer over the mess. There were notebooks and odd bits of clothing scattered in a large arc around Jack’s absent body and my eyes came to rest on a laptop next to the sofa.
“Ooh!” I swooped down and seized it, hefting it into my arms. I’d never found the charger to it but a home computer would be awesome. Pete’s old Apple Mac wouldn’t keep its charge anymore .I turned it bottom upwards and checked the manufacturer’s logo, realising with a skip of pleasure it looked the same as the one in my class. “I’ll charge the laptop at work,” I called down the hallway towards the closed bathroom door.
“What?” Jack replied and I ignored him, leaving the apartment before my wily cousin could put his finger on my sore spot through his investigation of Pete’s possessions. Admitting I’d been duped into marrying a closet homosexual wasn’t a source of shame in itself, but having Jack know I’d considered pregnancy by him acceptable, increased my bloom of embarrassment to fever pitch as I entered the parking garage. Nor did I want further questions about Teina Fox, which would end up with an admission of our night of unbridled passion and the fact I still thought of him almost constantly; hankering for more of the same.
The cornflower blue BMW lit my face with instant effect. Excitement bubbled at the realisation I wouldn’t have to wait by the bus stop in driving rain or sit for hours while it crawled a circuitous route through the city taking us all home. The perfectly engineered hunk of blue metal would cut my journey time into a third and overnight, I’d become my own boss again.
The sunny day fit my wonderful mood and I buzzed down the motorway towards school, windows down and the radio blaring like a teenager. When a severe looking man in a Jeep cut me up on the turn towards Takapuna, I used Helen’s tactic and waved. He looked uncomfortable, his olive face flushing a deep red and then to my amusement, waggled his fingers back at me.
I plugged the laptop into my charger in the corner of the classroom and left it there, teaching the children with my usual brand of enthusiasm and backed up by Helen’s bad cop routine. My first chance to open it arrived at morning tea time when Vanessa called an emergency meeting with the management team and kicked everyone else out of the staffroom.
“What’s that about?” Helen asked, retreating to the classroom with her coffee and sandwich. “She threw us out!”
“No idea,” I mused. “Probably money, it usually is.”
Helen grunted and went outside, sitting on the bench under my window surrounded by adoring children. I listened to the tenderness in her voice and saw her feeding her sandwich to the hungriest of the class like a mother sparrow feeding torn off meat to baby birds.
When curiosity dictated I should fire it up, the laptop behaved as though closed mid-task only the day before and not abandoned for half a year. The screen opened onto a chat room page with a thumbnail picture of a saxophone at the top. The name of the profile owner was ‘Musician’, with a header photo depicting a landscape scene of a Devonport park. I’d been to it with Pete heaps of times in the days when we walked together and communicated like married adults. There were over four thousand notifications pending in a box in the corner and a speech bubble demanding attention for over seventy missed conversation prompts.
I opened up the private message box and flicked through, assuming most of the profile names were fake, although a few looked genuine. ‘I missed you tonight, baby,’ one remarked, the date of the message set four years earlier. My breakfast rolled in my stomach at the thought of who might have typed the message or why he missed my dead husband. I closed the lid of the machine as Helen brought the class back indoors like a string of baby chicks bouncing behind her.
The laptop pulled at me the whole day, luring me over during lunch time and causing me to miss an important announcement in the staffroom.
“Vanessa’s bloody leaving!” Helen raged afterwards, hissing under her breath. “She said if the ministry doesn’t give a shit, why should she?”
I commiserated and waited until she went
outside before scrolling back through message after message, sorting out the indecent from the blatantly lewd with a calm which surprised me. I should’ve felt worse, glimpsing this private view into Pete’s secret world and hearing the voices of his many and varied sexual partners through the typed text. Yet it affected me less than I’d believed. Some of the messages were graphic and included photographs and after the horror of the first few, I couldn’t look, getting the gist and closing down those boxes in rapid succession.
Unused to social media and technologically naïve, it never occurred to me that my actions would draw online attention, or that the other members in the conversations would receive a notification when their message was read. I hadn’t banked on the flurry of response or the sudden influx of notifications which heralded a barrage of questions.
‘Hey, baby, where’ve you been?’
‘Big boy! We need to meet up xoxo’
‘I’ve missed you so much!’
‘I heard you were dead.’
Seeing the messages pop up in the browser, I read the first line and resisted clicking on them, not interested in the rest of their dialogue. I worked through the remainder, reading them quickly and then right clicking the mouse to mark them unread, hoping nobody would notice. My heart pounded and I cursed my mistake. The tiny picture of the saxophone remained greyed out, but the messages kept coming. Looking at the name, ‘Musician’ as Pete’s profile made me sad, reminding me of his gentle guitar strumming during better times.
One conversation caught my attention because the first line said, ‘Don’t do it.’ It tugged on my curiosity and drove me forward, working out how to open the whole conversation without marking the message as read. My heart gave an unexpected jolt in my chest as I recognised a different kind of relationship in play. This person spoke to my husband without the dirty sexual references and their conversation seemed at times, like an agony of revelation. When I read my own name on the screen, I knew I’d have to read it all.