Trilemma

by Jennifer Mortimer

  Ben turns into the port area and we drive slowly along the waterfront, dodging fishermen until we find the rendezvous. Hera’s violet minibus is parked outside one of the cafés.

  I kiss him good-bye. “See you tonight, back at the ranch.”

  Tonight I will have that talk with Alison. I will ask her why they didn’t make more of an effort to contact me once they knew I was moving into their house. We’re surely past the risk of ruining our relationship.

  Chapter 48

  “Was that the guy?” asks Helen.

  “That was Ben, yes.”

  “He looked nice,” she says.

  Nice. The greatest compliment a Kiwi can make.

  I smile. “He is very nice!”

  “It’s good to see your eyes, Lin. Contact lenses?” Marion asks.

  I nod. “I normally wear contacts on the weekends.”

  We wait in the café for Tom, Ian, and Fred who spent the morning in Wellington and have taken a flight to Napier instead of the violet minibus. Our CFO is not joining us. He is in Auckland, no doubt doing his toadying best to ingratiate himself with the Board members who have been gathering. I am happy to be here instead, celebrating with the people who’ve been doing the real work.

  Helen takes the wheel and we drive around Napier Hill and through the pretty Art Deco streets, stopping at the galleries and then climbing back on the bus. We work our way south, stopping at Trinity Hill, Te Awa, Ngatarawa, Sileni, and Te Mata, each displaying art from a local artist, before arriving at our final stop at Clearview near Haumoana where I trust Joe’s children are still being well nurtured by their grandmother.

  Here the art takes the form of cartoons by a guy named Dick Frizell. I buy Ben a black t-shirt displaying a character morphing from a Mickey Mouse to a Maori Tiki; “From Mickey to Tiki,” it is called.

  Then we sit down for an early meal before the team heads back to Wellington and I head home to Ngatirua.

  I sit next to Tom.

  “How are Kiri and the twins?” I ask.

  “They’re fine,” he replies. “I gather you’re staying in the bay.”

  “Just for the weekend. I’m staying at Ngatirua farm with my sisters tonight.”

  “The picture in your office.”

  “Yes.”

  “Up the zigzag hill.”

  “By the way, we found out who leaked to the press.”

  I am bluffing, the press would not give out their sources, but I am almost certain my suspicion is correct. I watch Tom’s eyes.

  Tom shuffles in the hard, wooden seat, stretching out his legs. He lets out a sigh.

  “If you had a beef, you should have raised it with me.”

  “I do raise the issues with you, but you don’t listen.”

  “I do listen. I just don’t alter my decisions. And I am the boss, Tom, the decisions are mine to make.”

  “Yeah, and we know how you got to be the boss, don’t we?”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “You shafted me, didn’t you Lin? When Adam died.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Does it matter? It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “I speak the truth as I see it. I don’t intentionally shaft anyone.”

  Tom holds my eyes for a moment, then nods as if to say okay I accept that, and picks up the newspaper.

  “I should have told you about Peake,” he says.

  “Peake?”

  “Leaking the stories to the media. What did you think I meant?”

  “I was worried you did it.”

  Tom’s eyes widen in surprise. “Of course, I didn’t! Okay, I did bitch about you, but it was Scott who went to the press.”

  “But why would he do that?”

  He smiles. “Perhaps he wants your job, Lin. After all, if we missed the launch date—”

  “Then he’s out of luck, isn’t he.”

  Because that morning we launched Hera’s service, five days before the official launch date. It was to have been a happy surprise for the Board on Monday. And now I know it will be an unhappy surprise for the ones who were hoping we’d fail.

  “The first installs this morning went well, Lin,” Ian says. “A couple of problems, but the guys got them sorted pretty damned quick.”

  “A couple of the accounts weren’t set up correctly, but we fixed the fields so they’re all good now,” says Fred. “And we’ve changed the guide so it shouldn’t happen again. The disconnection we tried didn’t work properly, but we won’t be handling many disconnections in the first weeks. And we’ve got a work-around while we reconfigure the system,” assures Fred. “Here. Try calling this number.”

  I take out my cell phone and make the call.

  A resigned voice answers. “Yes, it works,” he says before I have the chance to say anything.

  “Our first customer,” says Fred. “Try sending him an e-mail.”

  “Come on, guys, leave it. Let’s eat,” says Marion.

  Ian reaches over to offer me the wine.

  “She doesn’t drink,” says Marion.

  But today I am not Caesar’s wife. “I’ll take a glass,” I say, and Ian pours me a Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay. “Cheers!”

  “Cheers!” come the replies.

  “Here’s to Hera!” I toast and, “Hera!” they reply.

  Then Helen calls, “And to you, Lin!”

  “To Lin!”

  This is it, I realize. This is the feeling of success. When you achieve something exceptional, and the people who know best tell you you’ve done a good job. I sit there and enjoy that feeling and smile at them, my friends, and raise my glass again.

  “To you guys,” I reply. “The true heroes of Hera. You’re everything good about the Kiwi can-do culture. I just helped clear a few of the obstacles from your path.”

  Tom reaches out a firm hand and places it on my shoulder. “We’ve learned a few things from you.”

  I let my eyes crinkle into a genuine smile.

  “Ditto.”

  Finally, replete and happy, we start for home. Tom has to drive the rental car back to the airport, but Fred and Ian join us in the bus, and the driver turns the wheel toward Wellington. They sing songs on the way, songs I don’t know, something about Aotearoa and leaky boats then something about a drive.

  When we reach the turn off to the zigzag road, they look up at the steep hill and tell me I’m mad. We’ll drive you up, they say. It’s not far out of our way.

  “No,” I tell them. “I like to walk. And I haven’t walked for a long time.”

  “Knock the bastard off!” cries Ian.

  “What?”

  “It’s what Sir Ed said.”

  “Sir who?”

  “Jeez, Lin! Sir Edmund Hillary, the world’s greatest mountain climber! It’s what he said when he conquered Everest!”

  “Oops, sorry.”

  I get drunken kisses from Ian and from Fred and hugs from Marion and Helen.

  “Good-bye!” they call as the minibus rolls on down the road.

  I watch it vanish around the bend, and then I turn onto the zigzag road and start my walk up the hill to Ngatirua.

  Chapter 49

  I wake in darkness, curled like a fetus on my left-hand side and take a breath—and a vile sweet stench explodes in my nostrils, in my throat, and I gag and retch and thrash out with all my panicked strength, but my arms, my legs, they are caught, trapped, buried, I can’t get away from it, I can’t move at all—oh God, trapped in a hole—my worst nightmare—My mind explodes in blind irrational terror and all goes blank.

  I wake again. I am still in the nightmare. Not dreaming then, for a moment I don’t move, but the smell, the smell! I breathe through my mouth, panting in short gasps, whimpering, trying to escape that terrible stench, the blood pulses and my brain must surely burst! But it doesn’t, I am still here, still alive. Oh, let me die now, please let me die, I am so afraid. God doesn’t answer. I am still here, still here, trapped in the dark.


  My lungs suck the vile air. My throat hurts, but I can still breathe. I listen to myself panting. The air is poison but there is oxygen. I tell myself to be calm, don’t think about being buried—no—think about what you can feel. Be rational, Lin, evaluate your situation. Be rational, you have oxygen, you’re not suffocating. Be rational, there might be a way out—

  My head hurts. What does my body feel? Everything narrows to the sense of touch. I feel a wall against my neck and back. I feel something pressing down on me from above. My left shoulder is a dull ache, and I can’t move my left arm at all. My right arm lifts a little, an inch. Whatever is above me is less solid and unyielding than the wall to my back. My fingers twitch and my nails scrabble and catch in some rough cloth. Can I move my legs? I try to straighten my leg, but the hard barrier is there too, I’m trapped, my body convulses, I scream and the stench catches my throat and chokes me—I can’t breathe—oh, God I’m going to suffocate! All goes blank.

  I wake again. The nightmare. My mind is numb. I take a shallow breath and then another, and force myself to calmness. You’re not dead yet, Lin. Try to work out what happened, try to work out where you are, try to work out how to escape.

  I remember crunching over the remains of the debris outside my father’s studio and stepping onto the path that winds through the trees to reach Ngatirua. I remember catching sight of something out of the corner of my eye and turning, but not quite fast enough to see whatever it was, whoever it was, and then a sudden blow, and everything went dark.

  Now it feels like rough-woven cloth enshrouds me, and I’m buried in a hole amongst dead things.

  Don’t think about it, Lin, don’t think.

  I push myself backward, hard against the solid wall behind me. Whatever is piled on top of me slithers around when I move. The fingers of my right hand feel some space, I move them back and forth. There is a gap in the cloth! I move my right hand as far as it can go. The gap in the cloth has been pulled tight with string. If I can just loosen it!

  I pant with the effort, and the air is moist and warm and the smell is of dead things. Oh, God, where am I? Patience, Lin, be calm, be still, and I try again, working my fingers through the opening and ripping where the string holds the cloth. It’s looser now. I raise myself an inch and then another inch. Whatever lies on top of me is soft like a rag doll.

  Now my left arm can move, but, God, my shoulder hurts! With the extra purchase I pull the binding apart. In sudden frantic desperation for air, I push my head through the hole. Something damp spatters onto my face and into my open mouth. I spit it out. My body jerks in revulsion and I panic again, trying to escape from the corpse above me but still caught in the cloth that binds my body, and I have to let myself go still again and relax. Calm, Lin, calm.

  I get my arm out and push aside what lies on me, and reach up as far as I can. There is space above. Thank you, God! Relief washes over me. If I can sit up, maybe stand, it’s not so bad, I’m not buried, I’m just in a tight space.

  The blind panic subsides and my brain reconnects.

  The air is still moist but cooler now. I am lucky whoever put me here did not bury me properly. There must be a gap letting in fresh air to replace the carbon dioxide I’m panting out.

  I can work the cloth open now, but I hold it tight around me to protect myself from the other dead things that have been tossed down in the hole. I reach out and touch something furry and the fur comes away wetly in my hand so I jerk back and there is a crackle and a crunch as things snap beneath me. Snapping means dry and long dead so I grope with my right hand beneath the sack and find a bone, I think, but it doesn’t come free. I don’t mind dry bones, I just can’t stand those that have wet stuff still attached, and maggots, so I feel around for a free piece of old bone, my hand following the carcass, feeling along its body to its shoulder, I hope, groping for the front leg.

  It doesn’t feel like the sheep hoof I expected so I snatch my hand away, hitting my wrist on something soft that clinks in an unnatural way, unnatural if it’s a skeleton, that is.

  The soft thing feels like bare leather and has a long shape and I feel the open top with my fingers. Inside there is something long and sticklike, with a bulbous knob. Golf clubs? I pull one out, and almost chuckle, thinking I should have paused to ponder which iron to use.

  I push aside the furry dead things—possums? And reach up with the club. There is a clang as if against metal. I thrust again, and the metal shifts with another clang.

  There is more fresh air now, fresh misty air. It is still dark, but I know the open sky is up there. I pull myself out of the cloth I was bound in and clamber awkwardly over the dead things and raise myself up. I can just touch the corrugated iron that covers the hole with my fingers. I feel around the edges until I find a gap and push my stick through the hole and jerk the metal sideways, it catches momentarily, but then the iron shifts and there is open air above me. Oh, thank you, God, and I know I am going to be able to get free.

  Then I hear the distant barking of dogs.

  I grasp the rough edge of the iron sheet and twist till it swivels to one side, then I grab the earth, and pull myself up, slowly, my shoulder screaming in pain, and slither out of what I have guessed is one of Ngatirua’s offal pits.

  I lie panting on the safe ground above. The grass feels like silk. The air tastes like ambrosia. Shakily, I stand. Clouds must be covering the sky tonight, as the night is very dark.

  What direction do I head? Over the hill lies the main house and just below lies the other. Who has done this to me? Which house do I stumble my way to? What should I have read in someone’s eyes that I must have missed?

  And then I hear footsteps, stealthy footsteps pattering up the hill, and I know that whoever it was that put me in the pit is coming back. I can’t see them, but they are between the houses and me.

  Do I call for help? But will anyone hear me if I do? And even if they hear me, can they get to me before whoever is jogging toward me now?

  I start running blindly away from the person coming for me. Where can I hide? I blunder in the dark and trip but catch myself and keep going.

  Branches hit me in the face, and I gasp and pause, trying to see, trying to hear where they are.

  Then to my left I see a light, a small light, moving back and forth, a flashlight, it moves back and forth down below on the paddock, searching, searching for me. I huddle behind the tree and move backward into the forest.

  I watch the light and I move away at a different angle, feeling my way among the trees. The ground is rising so I think I must be climbing the ridge above the studio.

  Suddenly my left arm is grabbed. I scream in pain, but a hand muffles my mouth and starts to drag me backwards, higher up the hill. I kick helplessly but I can’t get free. My hurt shoulder is on fire, oh, the pain!

  The wind buffets me, we must be near the top of the ridge. Oh, God, I’m going to be thrown over the edge. Oh, no, I’m not going to let you do that.

  Fool, you secured the wrong arm. I swing the club I still clutch backward over my head, there is a crack! as the iron connects with my attacker’s face and his grip loosens, I leap sideways, free, and dart away at a tangent.

  Suddenly, a full moon bursts through the clouds and trees emerge like ghosts coming to Dunsinane. Startled, I pause.

  “Bastard!”

  A cry breaks the silence, and I look toward a voice I recognize. The moon lights up the contorted face of Wal, my sister’s husband, standing on the slope below me.

  “Bloody bastard!” he cries again and lifts his gun to aim at me.

  “Lin!” cries Ben’s voice.

  I see him running to rescue me, but he is too far away. Wal’s rifle lifts higher, and I can see the look of death in his eyes.

  But his eyes are not focused on me. Slowly, I turn and look behind me.

  Chapter 50

  The moon shines on the figure of my other sister’s husband, Christopher, silhouetted against the sky at the crest of the ridge. The moon
light reflects off his dark glasses and the wind ruffles his hair.

  Ben arrives and grabs me in his arms and squeezes me until I cry out in pain from my damaged shoulder.

  “Thank God you’re okay!” Ben holds me at arm’s length and sniffs. “What happened?”

  “Someone tried to kill me!”

  Ben looks at Christopher’s immobile shape. “Was it you? You?”

  Christopher’s mouth relaxes into a smile and he gives a small laugh. “Me? Of course not. I’ve been helping search for Lin.”

  I close my mouth and think. Someone must have caught me from behind as I walked home and struck me on the head. And then tied me in a sack and stuffed me down the offal pit.

  I think about the fire at the studio. I think about the spring that incapacitated the brakes of our car. I even wonder about the chocolates that arrived for me, which the dog ate and then was fortuitously made to vomit back up. I recall the railing that fell, nearly taking me with it.

  Could a blind man have done all these things? Stolen softly through our lives and engineered those attacks without us having any inkling?

  Then I think about the sheer ineptitude of the attempts. Even when he hit me, the blow must have glanced off my shoulder and knocked me out rather than killing me.

  “Maybe it was you, Wal,” says Christopher. “You have as much motive as me. Or Max. Yes, Max! He’s a dark horse. He likes killing things.”

  “Liar!” yells Wal. “You’re a damned liar as well as a rotten swine!”

  Christopher shakes his head. “I am blind. How could a blind man attack anyone?”

  As he shakes his head, the light splinters, and I see that both of the lenses of his glasses are broken and the frame skewed, smashed by the blow I gave him. I can see his eyes now, but they hold no expression.

  “I know for sure it was you, Christopher,” I say. My blood starts racing. “You hit me and then you buried me in a pit. And you were going to throw me off the cliff, I know!”