Robert’s eyebrows rise slightly, but it is hard to tell the difference from his carefully cosmetically tightened forehead.
“I thought your father was British.”
“He immigrated here in the sixties. He had this romantic idea that New Zealand was a South Seas paradise and took a job as professor of English Literature at the university.”
“Must have been a shock when he arrived in a Wellington southerly.”
“It’s still sunnier than England. Most of the time. Anyway, I was born in Wellington, but when I was a toddler, he took me to the States.”
God knows why my father hooked up with Mom. They never talked to each other beyond a grunt from him and “uh-huh” from her. Maybe she thought Dad was a tasteful accoutrement for her décor, and maybe he thought she was an easy way to keep him in comfort once his career had collapsed.
But it wasn’t a comfortable household. I can still remember the fights my stepbrother, Steve, had with Dad. Mom always used to take Steve’s side; “he’s just a boy,” she’d say, and it would always be Dad who left. “Another conference,” Mom would explain when I came down and he wasn’t at the breakfast table.
Looking back, I think he’d just take off whenever he couldn’t stand living with us any longer. That last time it turned out he’d driven off the road on one of those long stretches between the mountains where you can’t take any risks or you end up down a cliff. Mom kept saying he wasn’t drunk, but it was a while before they found him, so who knows?
“You might say I’m a Kiwi.”
He snorts. “Don’t delude yourself. You are what your accent says you are. In your case, a Yank.”
The South American girl shuffles on the bar stool, crossing and re-crossing her legs. Robert’s attention wanders.
But I am not a Yank, although I grew up in America. My stepsister, Hilary, used to call me “Cuckoo” which was cruel, especially since no one could have pushed Steve and Hilary out of the family nest if they didn’t want to go. Like Mom they were large blond people with blue eyes and a lot of gleaming white teeth. I was little, with brown hair and the dark slanting eyes that marked me as different. A small brown cuckoo.
I am not the Brit my father was either, even though I followed in his footsteps and studied at Oxford and have worked in London on and off for years. I am not French, although I’ve lived there too, nor Australian. And, although my birth mother was Chinese, I know nothing of that heritage.
I think about the alien I have always been and I decide it will be different this time.
Although I’ve searched all the directories and the social media sites, I haven’t found any trace of Vivienne or Alison Mere. My sisters from my father’s first marriage.
I guess both must have married and changed their name. No matter. From past experience, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. But one way or another, I plan to belong in this country.
I want to be a kiwi and not a cuckoo.
“When can I start?”
Chapter 6
Five percent of the population are psychopaths, or so the article says. Psychopaths are often confident and articulate. They lie with ease, they feel no guilt, they smile and smile and yet are villains.
According to the writer, the modern psychopath typically doesn’t kill—why take that kind of risk? They don’t even break the law. The modern-day psychopath can gain everything they want through legal manipulation of the world they live in. If you’re not encumbered by self-doubt, consideration for others, or the inconvenient need to be truthful, what can you not achieve?
The writer states that being a psychopath is a genetic predilection, unlike the sociopath who is likely to have suffered neglect, abuse, or some major trauma that has damaged their humanity.
Seek out the untruthful, self-serving egotist when you look for your five percent, the writer says. Psychopaths always focus on their own best interests.
The article deteriorates into emotive claims that such people lack “souls,” and I stop reading. But that doesn’t mean there is no truth in the conditions described, and it makes me wonder how many of the people I meet might be a psychopath.
I consider myself adept at reading people; it is a useful skill for a manager, and I pride myself on being able to read the truth or the lie in a person’s eyes. But I wonder what you can read in a psychopath’s eyes?
I put away the paper, stretch, then roll out of bed and prepare for my working day. Washed, dressed in black, and made up in the immaculate image of a career woman, I climb into my car and drive down the hill into the city.
At the office, I add the final touches to our presentation on the status of the launch for this afternoon’s Board meeting. The elevator arrives, and Hera’s chief operating officer Tom Heke emerges; tall, dark, and self-assured, striding across the office like a warrior coming to battle.
Tom and I are metaphorically circling; not in a sexual way, well, yes, there is something of a sexual element to male-female interaction when you work together, but this circling is more about who is going to be top dog. Tom is used to being the leader of the pack and he doesn’t like giving ground.
Neither do I.
He places a firm hand on my shoulder and smiles at me with warm brown eyes.
“How are the plans going?”
I shrug my shoulder to dislodge his hand. “They’ll go better once you decide on the location for the operations center.”
“I’m getting another opinion on the fault line in Petone,” he replies. “And we’re still working out how to get network across the rail yards if we go for the port site.”
“What’s wrong with Seaview?”
“Nothing’s wrong with Seaview, but we need to look at all our options.”
“We need to get started.” I relax my mouth into a small polite smile of encouragement. “When can you make the decision?”
Tom smiles widely back. “Don’t be so impatient.”
His eyes are so self-assured. Oh, man, don’t you ever wonder if you’re wrong?
“We’re running out of time—”
Tom pats my shoulder lightly. “We need to do this right,” he says, and strides away before I can answer.
I watch him pace across the room with my eyes calm, my anger hidden. The decision on where to locate the operations center is on the critical path for the project. The location has become less important than the delay in starting the build.
I’ve reasoned, I’ve cajoled, I’ve pushed, but Tom still won’t commit to a choice, and Adam listens to Tom.
Corporate testosterone has a smell of its own; a subtle blend of cologne with high notes of expensive soap from the executive washroom where they wash their hands of responsibility for any mistakes, a touch of cigar smoke, maybe a whiff of the bouquet of a fine wine, a soupçon of eau de secretary’s perfume. There is never any stink of sweat. Never the stale odor of well-worn shoes nor the whiff of wet wool from walking the streets in the rain.
I sit at the foot of the table with Hera’s chief executive, Adam Challoner, wearing the calm and confident mask I present to the corporate bosses.
It’s best, I’ve found, to show no emotion at all. If you smile, they think you want to be liked and mark you down as needy. If you frown, they think you’re at a loss as to what to do and mark you down as indecisive. If you narrow your eyes, they think you’re challenging them, and they’ll huff and they’ll puff louder to make you back down. I prefer to keep them guessing. My father’s little hothead keeps her temper well hidden.
Robert, representing the American shareholders, sits on the nearest side of the boardroom table. Alongside Robert is Quon Dao from Hong Kong who heads up a Chinese company that seeks to invest in New Zealand. Dao has short, thick, ash-colored hair and eyes like mine.
On the other side of the table is gray-suited, gray-haired Stewart Hobb, CFO of Australian shareholder Ozcom and chairman of Hera’s Board. Beside Hobb is plump and pleasant Pita Lane from Christchurch representing the iwi—the term for a Maori tribe, and Mark
Stanton, a lawyer from Auckland, who is the independent professional director who ensures good governance and proper bureaucracy. There’s something of an Old Boy and Old Girl network of directors in New Zealand, I’m told. Same as anywhere, I guess.
Stanton is white-haired, red-faced, and pleasant when the going’s easy, gruff when it’s not. Right now he’s gruff.
“That is not acceptable,” Robert states after I present the plan. “The launch date is not negotiable.”
“Okay,” I say. “Then working back from the March launch date, we’ll need to start the build by this date,” and I point at the chart. “Which means we need to complete the design by this date, which means we need to make the decision on the operations center by—”
“This week!” snaps Robert.
“This week?” asks Lane.
“This week.” I confirm.
After the Board members have gone, the management team arrives for a debrief. Adam slumps amongst the clutter of papers, teacups, and leftover food, dark rings around his tired eyes. Hera’s head of human resources, Marion King, glances at him before taking her seat. Fred Mitchell, head of IT, and Ian Green, our marketing guru, help themselves to the leftover sandwiches and Tom snags the last sausage roll. CFO Deepak Gupta hurries in last and closes the door.
“They’ve told me to go with the Seaview site,” Adam tells us.
Tom splutters pastry crumbs on the table. “But—”
“No buts,” says Adam. “That’s the decision. Let’s get on with it.”
Tom glares at me. I gaze steadily back.
He turns to Adam and lifts his chin. “Okay, boss. I’ll call the agent and make the final arrangements for Seaview.”
“We need to talk,” Marion says to me. “Let’s go to my office.”
When we reach her office, she closes the door, picks up my working visa application from her desk, and places it on the table. She tilts her elegant, silvered head toward the papers.
“You didn’t tell me you were actually born in New Zealand.”
“I didn’t think it was relevant.” I pause. “And I’m illegitimate.”
Marion snorts. “Haven’t heard anyone call themselves illegitimate for a long time. No one here cares whether your parents were married or not. You could probably get citizenship since you were born in New Zealand,” she adds. “But it would have been even easier if you still had family here.”
“Oh?”
“That would make it a dead cert.”
“Actually, I do have some family in New Zealand.”
“Fantastic! Give me their details, and we’ll include the information in the application.”
I mutter something noncommittal.
I can’t tell her I don’t know where they live. I can’t tell her that they have never wanted to know me, that every time my father tried to make contact, they sent back a reply that always had the same theme.
Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
Chapter 7
When the weekend arrives, I sleep in and it is late morning by the time I get up, shower, pull on jeans, a shirt, and my most comfortable shoes. I make coffee and toast with Marmite. The first time I tried the stuff, I slathered it on thick like Nutella and it made me gag. Ben laughed until he fell off his chair. Now I dab it delicately in dainty dots like a Pissarro.
Outside in the bright sun Michael and Polly are chasing each other around the house. They stop to wag their tails at me and then take off again, giggling happily.
I love to walk. I don’t care whether I walk the busy streets of a city or the alleyways of old stone villages, shady forest paths, or wild and lonely beaches. It’s the act of placing your steps one after another, letting your eyes see whatever the world has to offer, your ears hear the sound of the birds or the buzz of foreign-sounding voices, and your nostrils smell the earth or the food cooking in some back street café.
I head down the road and turn onto a path through a forest. I could be in another world. The trees are tall and their foliage is dense and green and lush, full of hidden birds who twitter, honk, ring, screech, cry, and sing. A jogger jogs past, panting, sweat glowing on his pink skin, feet slapping the leafy carpet as he thrusts himself onward. A man walking his terrier greets me with a polite nod. The dog sniffs my leg and passes on.
When I emerge from the trees, ahead lies the city, glinting in myriad shades of black, white, gray, and green. The jagged shapes of buildings rise up from streets that are neither boulevards nor alleys but somewhere in between. Every building is a different height and shape, and every street emerges on an angle.
I walk down a steep hill and arrive at the top of Cuba Street. I pass art galleries and boutiques of handcrafted clothing, a New-Age gift shop, a fish shop selling dozens of varieties of fish and shellfish, a coffee roaster. To my left and right are cafés of all types; rich ones, poor ones, Italian, Malaysian, Thai, Chinese, Indian, Mexican, Turkish, French.
Young girls strut past in laddered tights and short-skirted dresses alongside boys with pants falling off their behinds. A middle-aged woman sits at a table on the pavement drinking coffee and reading a book. A couple walks by carrying bags of shopping and arguing over where to stop for lunch. I count three street performers—an Asian boy playing violin, a hippy with a guitar, and a Maori couple singing to a boom box. “How bizarre” he sings in a beautiful tenor while she warbles the chorus and taps her tambourine.
I collect a baguette from a French deli and a fillet of local fish, hapuka, I am told, from the fish shop. On my way back up the street, I pause outside the window of an art gallery. Inside are canvasses in black and white, with Maori words scattered across them in red. I don’t know what any of the words mean, although I am starting to recognize the language.
Reading the words, a sudden thought strikes me.
I remember playing in the sand of Cannon Beach back in Oregon, years ago, just my father and me. We built a hill out of the damp sand, with a castle at the top where I buried gold-colored candy wrappers. My father marked the spot with a Z, and then he named our castle “Ngatirua,” creating the word out of small pieces of gray driftwood.
“Who lives there, Dad?” I’d asked.
“A prince used to live there, but he escaped.”
“Is there a monster?”
I remember him laughing. “Maybe there’s a monster. Or a wicked witch.”
I turn back to the road and walk briskly up the hill. When I reach my apartment, I retrieve a large envelope from the battered leather suitcase under the bed. On top is a photograph of Ben and Emmy standing in front of Ben’s studio, but beneath is the handful of old photographs I’d found in Mom’s house.
I take out the first clue I found in my father’s papers, a photograph of an infant lying asleep in a buggy. On the back of the photo is a scrawl, saying “Linnet,” the year of my birth, and the address of the house in which I now live.
I pick out another photograph, this one of my father. Behind his head is a painting of a Maori warrior so the photograph must have been from when he lived in New Zealand. On the back of the photograph is a word; “Ng” then a squiggle then “rua,” it says.
I had thought Ngatirua was a funny made-up name, but now I realize it might be a real place.
Clue number two. I type “Ngatirua” into Google. No locations come up, just a jumble of similar words. I scroll through the results. The last is an image of a painting, called: The Road to Ngatirua. The painting is of a road zigzagging up a hill, tan and ochre with touches of green.
Then I see the artist’s name. Rose Mere. Mere!
I type in “Rose Mere.” And at last I strike gold, of sorts. I find an article on a Hawke’s Bay artist who painted in the fifties and the sixties. She died the year I was born. Married, two daughters.
I continue reading. Now when I bring up the maps, I search the hills of Hawke’s Bay for a road like the one in the painting. After half an hour of careful examination, I think I have found the road to Ngatirua.
&nb
sp; I make a pot of tea and take my cup outside onto the roof terrace, where the break in the railing stills gapes like a hasty exit. The breeze has stiffened and tugs at my hair. I gaze to the north, beyond the harbor, where steep green ridges march into the hazy distance.
A precious feeling of happiness washes over me, the first time I’ve felt hopeful since the day I lost Ben.
Somewhere beyond those hills must be a trace of my sisters.
Chapter 8
It has rained overnight and the sky is hovering between gray and blue. When I look to the north, I can see the long white cloud hanging over the hills.
Should I, shouldn’t I? What’s to lose?
The edgy charge of anticipation suspends rational thought. Half an hour later I drive alongside the river to the top of the Hutt Valley. The road narrows and becomes a single lane to climb the Rimutakas, turning and bending and turning again to reach the summit, high in the mountains and covered with dense native bush and trees. Going down the far side is easier and ten minutes later I emerge into a small country town. One blink and it is gone.
The next place arrives with a prettiness of flower baskets and a charm of colonial architecture, and is bustling with people. I drive on, deeper into provincial New Zealand, where the flat lands are stocked with dairy cows, the hills in sheep and beef. Higher up, the grass turns to bush and higher still there is a scattering of snow on the otherwise bald peaks.
I see the road sign and make the turn.
In front of me a range of steep hills towers above green pastures dotted with sheep. Climbing the hill, cutting left and right into the green land, runs a zigzag road. I stop the car and take out my copy of Rose Mere’s painting.
It is the same shape. This is the road I seek.
What am I going to find at the end of this road? A haven amongst my long-lost family? A pot of gold? A weird castle with a monster in the dungeon? Or nothing at all?
I shake my head, smiling at my foolish fancies, downshift, and drive slowly up the switchback to the top of the hill. The rise is steep and the corners are sharp. The car strains and chokes and splutters as I reach the summit. Five minutes later I see a corridor of tall trees to my left. At the roadside is a mailbox large enough to hold a sheep.
Trilemma Page 3