Dead Lemons

by Finn Bell

  “Now, the more wrong things you do, the more you lie to yourself, the less faith that part of you has in you, the less hope, the more fear. Do the wrong things long enough and you’ll feel it, underneath it all. Doesn’t matter how many pills you take or how often you get high, or how much money you earn, it will be there, slowly building. That sense that you can’t trust yourself or really believe anything you decide anymore, so that steadily you just have less hope and more fear.

  “But it’s simple to fix—although not always easy. You got there by doing the wrong things for a long time, years even. And it’ll take time to get yourself back out. You can’t just decide yourself out of being something it’s taken you years to live into.

  “If you want to get back to believing in yourself, in having more hope than fear, you need to reverse the process. You have to stop doing the wrong things and keep on stopping it every day, also for a long time. If you do that, then eventually you’ll stop feeling this way. It’s a day at a time. It’s not the answer to finding happiness, but it’s definitely the answer to stop finding unhappiness,” Betty says.

  That night, long after Betty’s left and I’m again awake at 3:00 a.m., I realise for the first time in a long time, it’s a different kind of 3:00 a.m.

  Because it’s okay now, I get it now.

  It doesn’t have to be tonight, or even this year, or ever, really.

  Because this is only half the answers, like Betty said. I may not know the answers to finding happiness yet, but I do know the answers to stopping finding unhappiness, so I’m doing that.

  And the longer I do it, the better things are going to get.

  All I need to do is keep going, and I can be plenty stubborn.

  I’ll chip away at the fool I am, one night at a time.

  CHAPTER 41

  June 3, YESTERDAY . . .

  “Congratulations! It’s a boy!”

  Or so the crooked sign taped along the wall in Tai’s living room proclaims amongst a cluster of balloons and streamers. The Rangi girls have been decorating for the celebration of my return to Riverton and temporarily, their couch.

  They have a gift for finding things to be excited about.

  I think they get it from Tai.

  Even Mihi, who’s just finished making the slow climb up onto my lap, surprises me by a considerate, “Hi,” followed up after further inspection by pointing a tiny finger at my face and declaring with calm certainty, “Poop.”

  Which draws a happy laugh from Tai who says, “Outstanding! Took me all week to teach her that, bro. And it’s only like her fifth or so word, too,” then continues laughing when Mihi turns and points at her father and says poop again.

  “Another proud moment, my husband,” Becks adds, deadpan.

  Well, at least she’s consistent.

  It’s been seven weeks since the fire and I am, for the most part, almost fully mended. And, since last week, completely bandage-free. Just a few treatments and things per week that I can do from home. It’s my first day back in Riverton and it feels really good to be back.

  In the last few weeks, things have steadily built momentum out at Albie’s Museum, which I’ve enjoyed vicariously. I’ve actually liked my part of the work, too. I’ve had the chance to learn about loads of strange and interesting bits of history via the unending stream of pictures and notes the very thorough and tireless Brumhilda keeps sending on.

  She’s even sent me pictures of pictures as she’s unearthed more of Albie’s albums. It’s these that I’ve found the most fascinating. Even though most of them are fuzzy black-and-white images, they capture times and faces of real lives, some even hundreds of years ago. Most of them are set in places right outside the door. Looking at them somehow makes me feel more connected to everything here, like we’re all part of something bigger. In some of the more recent ones I can even spot some younger but familiar faces. Both Emily and Pruitt, smiling arm in arm at a talent show back in the ’70s. A young, familiarly be-smiled Tai still on stout legs, already towering above the rest of his under-13 rugby team. There’s even one with a young, tattoo-less Hot-Water Tui, resplendent in some kind of outdoor adventure group uniform of the Boy Scouts variety, lined up all neatly in a row with the rest. Seeing everyone as part of the past makes me realise again that I want to be part of a future here.

  “So it won’t be long before the opening now? I still can’t believe how fast this is all going,” I say.

  “Yeah, we’ll open beginning of July, just over the weekends at first. Got all the family sorted to take shifts and everything. If we can get a grant from the government, we’ll look at getting some paid staff. There’s still some drama about calling it a museum but it’ll get sorted. It’s all been pretty easy, really,” Tai answers.

  “And the building’s all done?” I ask.

  “Yup, we just gotta do some painting, and then it’s onto sorting out where everything goes. That’s where you come in, of course,” Tai finishes. At least I’ve got that to show for my time in the hospital. Pruitt and I may have produced nothing of value in our re-work of the case, but at least I’ve got something to show for Albie’s Museum. The hours studying his notes and looking at potential exhibits has probably left me with more of a picture of Riverton’s past than many. At least I know where everything’s going to go.

  “It’ll be tight, but I think we can do it and have things arranged in some kind of logical order with everything that’s there now. It depends how much more stuff is coming from Te Papa Museum still. That may have to wait a bit,” I say, as neither Brumhilda nor I have had a chance to find out what or how much there actually is still to come.

  “Nah, bro, already called them and told them to send it all down. We can just give it the once-over and pull out the cool stuff, and the rest we just put away for later somewhere. There’s already heaps of stuff out there now. Truck comes tomorrow.

  “Now don’t get too involved; you’ve still got other welcomes to go to tonight,” Tai says with big eyes, distracting me from my joint project with Mihi, who is industriously stacking paper cups into a tower on one another and, after every successful insertion, holds out a tiny hand to me demanding another cup.

  I realise that he’s talking about Patricia and I feel grateful and guilty in equal parts. I’m again amazed by how easily Tai takes all of this. He knows everything I know, so he understand the risks as well as I do, probably feels it more, as he loves so many more people here than me. That includes Patricia, and for years longer than me. But no anger, no anxiety, no dire warnings. Tai just gets on with things.

  “I know what you’re thinking, bro,” Tai says as if he’s reading my thoughts. “Don’t worry about what other people are going to do. All you need to do is the right thing, until you can’t. Nothing else matters.”

  I wish I could be like that, I think.

  “Besides, bro, you’re not alone in this,” he adds. But, unfortunately, unlike Tai, that fact makes me feel worse, not better.

  CHAPTER 42

  June 4, TODAY . . .

  It’s too early the next morning, after my now expected wake-up call from Mihi, when I’m startled midway through my first still-zombie coffee of the day by a shrill phone ringing next to me. It’s a very excited Brumhilda, who clearly has no conception of how wrong it is to be this loudly happy at people this early in the morning and seems intent on sharing it with me.

  And through the multiple “Ja’s” and exclamations about unique new discoveries of things that happened thousands of years ago over at Albie’s Museum, I disguise my grumpiness and promise that I will be over later today. I’ve got to meet Pruitt there at ten in any case, as he’s doing a front-page article for the Western Star on the opening of the museum. And as I tell Brumhilda, “If it happened thousands of years ago, it can stand the wait till after lunch.”

  First, I’ve got to go home.

  I manage to get myself washed, fed, and out the door before hurricane Rangi roars through the house in all their bickering,
pre-school chaos.

  It’s a cold but clear day out, and everything is still quiet in the pre-dawn as I drive through the sleeping town, making my way home just as the first light hits the treetops.

  I don’t know why I needed to come out here, but I do. I have to see.

  When I arrive, I park by the gate instead of by the ruin of my cottage, and get myself into the wheelchair, then just sit there.

  Finding I don’t want to go closer yet.

  It’s easier looking at it from a distance, smaller.

  I still have jumbled flashes of what happened on that last night but no real terror or fear, it all happened so fast. It’s only thinking about it afterwards that adds to the weight of my anger, but not by much. With everything that’s happened, it just adds to the flavour, hot and acidic in my mouth, when I think of the Zoyls.

  Like last night with Patricia, when we stole away in my car. The sadness sat wide-legged on my chest, pressing the joy out of me till only anger was left.

  And when I saw the tears form on Patricia’s face, she turned away from me and I said nothing. You can’t console somebody for what you’re not going to stop doing to them.

  I could tell that Pruitt was right, now that I actually looked for it. She loves me.

  Father Ress is right, too.

  You can’t choose when love comes and you can’t make it go away even if you wanted to, because that’s what love does, it takes away your freedom.

  But for most it’s a fair trade for the safety you get in return. We accept the chains gladly.

  Except when you end up chained to men like me.

  And I think that’s how it mostly goes, good women chained to foolish men.

  Despite everything between us, despite the heady promise of goodness to come, we both know that I’m willing to risk it all for this.

  To keep following this half-made angry knot of selfish hate to wherever.

  I would when she wouldn’t, and we both know it.

  Patricia’s had her fill of fools long before I came along.

  Maybe it’s that past, plumbing the depths of childish men and the bad things they’re willing to do that made her ask me, out of the blue, “Finn, if you could kill the Zoyls, kill all of them and get away with it, would you do it?”

  I had the lie ready in my mouth but I hesitated and it was enough. The silence lasted too long to deny it.

  “God, Finn,” Patricia said, shaking her head as she looked out the window. Then, “Just take me home.”

  She didn’t look back once, just closed her door behind her and turned off the porch light. The darkness hasn’t felt this alone in a long time.

  Maybe that’s part of why I’m out here this morning, to reassure myself that all this badness is worth hanging onto.

  But I don’t feel anything now that I’m finally here again, just tired.

  No signs from vengeful prophets telling me what to do next. Hate is as blind as love.

  I notice the mound of earth where my cats are buried close by to where I’m sitting. Plants have started growing over it, and soon they’ll just be another fading memory too.

  I think nothing good has lasted out here.

  Maybe Tai was right and the land here is tainted, badness in the earth, the water, and the air. Nothing good can take root here. Not my cats, not the cottage, not Alice or James or Emily. Everything just worn away until only the Zoyls are left out here.

  As I round the car, I see another notice from the police taped to my gatepost. It’s a message to come collect my valuables from the police station which they recovered from the scene after the fire.

  I leave it there and roll up to the house, what’s left of it.

  Now that I’m here, I realise it’s pointless.

  There’s nothing out here but wet ash and blackened pieces of wood. It’s not a real place anymore.

  I can’t even make out where any of the rooms were, and of what was inside there’s nothing left now. I didn’t have a lot that would be worth much to other people; I’d left everything from my previous life behind in Wellington, both possessions and people. What was here were the last things I couldn’t leave behind. So after circling it and staring, I finally get myself back in the car and drive off.

  Staying means nothing now.

  As it’s still early, I decide to head straight over to the police station to see what they’ve saved.

  Morning has started in Riverton and it looks like it will be a bright, if cold day, as I get myself settled in the chair again. It’s just as I turn away from the car that I see them passing by on the water below.

  It’s the Zoyls on their boat. They are chugging out of the harbour along with the other crayfish boats, just like real people. I can see their yellow waterproofs catching the sun.

  I can even make out Sean Zoyl at the wheel as they slowly move past. None of them notice me, but I can’t take my eyes off them.

  When I finally lose sight of them I start breathing again, and realise that I’m drenched in sweat despite the cold.

  God, how long do I keep living like this?

  I jerk inadvertently as a hand is laid down on my shoulder and my chest tightens in a start.

  “I said are you all right, Mr Bell?” John repeats in his deep, quiet voice.

  “Yes, sorry, just lost in thought. Just got a bit startled,” I mumble, taking a deep breath.

  “You don’t look well. Do you want to come into the station? Have a cup of tea?” Lucas adds as he steps from behind John.

  “Thanks, it’s kind of you but I’m fine, really. Just didn’t sleep well. I was coming in anyway,” I say, trying to hide the trembling in my fingers. Then I continue, forcing myself to sound more relaxed, “I went out to the cottage and there was a notice from the police to say that I could collect some of my things here.”

  As we make our way through the entrance, with the twins leading the way, they take charge of things before I can think of who to ask. Soon we’re in an empty office, with John handing out cups of sweet, hot tea, despite my polite protests. Which I thankfully accept.

  I’m feeling a little more myself by the time one of the local cops comes in and hands me a clear plastic bag with what he calls, “Your valuables.”

  And it’s not a lot.

  There’s my phone and my wallet and passport and keys. Everything I’d grabbed up and took with me when I fled my house.

  I’d forgotten I’d done that. There’s also my gun.

  Still looking no worse for wear. Although the police have unloaded it and taped the clip and bullets in separate smaller bags to the gun itself. But none of these hold my attention because there, scratched and a little warped, but still looking remarkably intact for something that’s been in a fire, is Alice’s cake tin.

  The parachuting Santa still manages to smile back at me.

  “I’m afraid this was the only thing we could recover from inside the house, Mr Bell,” says the cop who brought in the bag.

  “Bit of luck, really. See, all the water you poured into the bathroom ended up pooling underneath the house and somehow, probably when the gas tanks exploded, this landed there. Probably saved it from the worst of it. The fire department says sometimes a blaze can be strange like that, leaving the odd thing untouched,” he continues.

  “Now if you could sign here, and here . . .” and the rest of the formalities I run through on autopilot. I only really come back to myself when I’m alone again with the twins, my bag of things sitting heavy on my lap.

  “We actually came down today to see you, Mr Bell,” John says, and Lucas nods as they both smile at me in that open, sincere way they have.

  “We knew it would be your first day here, and we thought it would be good to see you,” Lucas adds.

  “Have you got any news for me?” I ask, already knowing they won’t.

  “Not good news, I’m afraid. The investigation into the arson is still ongoing at this stage. We’ve had the opportunity to interview the Zoyl brothers on several occas
ions, and have followed up on various witness accounts and at this stage, while we are not ruling out the possibility of their involvement, we have nothing to suggest that they were directly responsible,” Lucas says.

  “It seems they were at sea, riding out some rough weather in Pegasus Bay out at Stewart Island on the night,” John ads.

  “Okay,” I say, keeping a firm lid on my emotions. I knew this would happen. Father Ress was right; they’ve been getting away with it for decades. Why would that change now?

  “And please, Mr Bell, we must ask you to put your own notions on this matter aside and let the law take its course. We’ve already spoken to Mr Bailey as well. This is not a time for rash action, please.”

  “Yes, of course, you’re right,” I make myself say. Then, “Was there anything else?”

  I know they don’t deserve to be treated this way but I can’t help it.

  So when they finally usher me out I just nod when Lucas says, “Please, Mr Bell, you have to remember you’re not alone in this.” I can’t look them in the eye, I just roll straight out of the station.

  It’s when I’m back in the comparative privacy of my car that I realise, aside from some toiletries over at Tai’s place, everything I own, both good and bad, are now in this car.

  Again I’m moved to take out the cake tin and carefully hinge it open. I don’t know why I wanted to look inside it again.

  It’s like going back to the cottage.

  Everything inside is a ruin of papier mâché that comes out in one big piece, with the buttons and rocks and marbles sticking out here and there. It must have been all that water and heat, I think. Alice’s cards to her parents are finally gone.

  The only thing that looks undamaged is the little bottle of gold ingots. Which some thorough police officer has conscientiously taped shut.

  It happens when I take the little bottle out and hold it up to the light.

  Click.

  In that moment, when I see that they look exactly the same, I realise that they’re completely different.