by Greg McGee
‘Not one more fucking word!’ yells Ellie.
Georgie, I think, is not a bad person, just badly advised. When she sees the family up in arms, at one another’s throats, she has the sense to take her leave, and disappears through the french doors, so distressed that she leaves her hat. I pick it up and hand it to Will. ‘Have the courtesy to see your friend out.’
When Will goes, Ellie turns and makes for the kitchen, passing Jackson and his sister over by the fire. In her fury, she doesn’t see or acknowledge them. They look stricken. They may not have understood the detail of what’s happened, but the dynamic of a family pummelling each other must seem utterly familiar.
Through the Whitneys I can see Ellie trying to calm herself, lighting the seven candles on my cake with shaking fingers. It’s coming, but I don’t feel ready. What’s the word? When that little whirling symbol appears on screen while my MacBook Pro tries to get its shit together? Bluffing . . . Buffering! I’m still trying to get a grip on all that’s happened, my RAM, or is it ROM, overwhelmed. In shock. My oldest child wants me gone from my home.
***
THE deck lights have been turned off. There’s some spill from the house, but most of the light is coming from the bamboo torches and the plaintive little candles on the cake Ellie has placed in front of me. As the strains of ‘Happy birthday’ finish, I try to summon up a mighty wind to blow the candles out. Unfortunately, as I poise myself over the candles, the build-up of pressure at one end begets release at the other. There’s a loud fart, which appears to emanate from me, shortly before the catarrhal breath in my lungs rushes out, leaving me in a coughing fit.
‘Shit, I’m not eating that,’ says Lila before Jackson can tell her to shush.
Will bursts into song. ‘Why was he born so beautiful, why was he born at all? He’s no bloody good to anyone, he’s no bloody good at all.’
‘Thank you so much, Will,’ says Ellie.
‘It’s traditional,’ says Will.
‘What about calls of “Speech! Speech!”?’ I suggest. ‘That’s traditional.’
‘We don’t want to encourage you, Dad,’ says Ellie.
I tell them someone should say something, I’ve made it to seventy after all. I’m tempted to tell them it’s also my last birthday. There’s an embarrassed silence, which gives Will an opening. He’d be prepared, he says, to say a few words, drop a few pearls of wisdom. That seems to help Ellie make up her mind. ‘We’ve heard quite enough from you. I’ll say something. Um. Just that we’re grateful, Dad, for all you’ve done for us. We didn’t have what others would call a normal upbringing but between you, you and Mum got us there.’
‘The only question is where.’
‘Shut up, Will. So, Dad. Thank you.’ Ellie grabs a glass, and raises it. ‘Here’s to you, Dad.’
The toast is fulsome. This part of proceedings is going much better than I thought it would. But when Ellie sits beside me and hugs me, there’s a yawning silence, until Jackson stands and begins what sounds like nervous mumbling, though I can hear enough of it to understand he’s speaking Māori.
‘He’s thanking you,’ whispers Ellie. ‘E te rangatira – that’s you.’
Like many of my generation, I came to te reo late, and with little application. I should have gone to classes with Carol and Ellie: it might have kept me in touch with the zeitgeist a tick or two longer. But I recognise odd words, and am flattered to be acknowledged by Jackson as the leader or chief. ‘Kia ora, Jackson.’
He seems to lose his way, but comes back to it, as Ellie resumes her whispered commentary. ‘I have travelled – I find myself in the Pākehā world,’ says Ellie. ‘I am grateful for your blessing.’
‘Tēnā koe, Mr D,’ he finishes.
I don’t need Ellie to translate that. I’m dismayed by my earlier questioning of his being here. ‘Tēna koe, Jackson.’
Ellie acknowledges him too, and I think that must be an end to it, but Jackson stays on his feet, seemingly unsure as to what might follow, until his sister rises beside him, and gives him the confidence he needs. He lowers himself into a crouch and launches into a haka, supported by Lila. ‘Haere mai rā!’
Ellie can’t keep up her translation and to be honest I don’t want her to, as I let the passion and power of these two skinny kids wash over me. I recognise smatterings of the chant, the repetition of ‘Awhi! Awhi!’, urging us to embrace, but then I’m lost.
‘Tautokotia – support, true support,’ says Ellie at one point, clasping her hands together in acknowledgement, as Jackson rips into repetitions of ‘mātua’, the word for father, before their rousing finish: ‘Tihei! Tihei! Tihei mauri ora!’
I’m drawn to my feet, more moved than I can say. ‘Kia ora, Jackson, kia ora, Lila, I’m honoured, very honoured.’ I feel that anything I can say after such intensity will be flat, but I know it’s customary to sing. ‘Carol loved this waiata,’ I tell them. I try not to be deflected by Will’s groan. ‘It was her favourite. Bob Dylan wrote the hymns for our generation, y’know, and Carol and I, our first date was a Dylan concert, at Western Springs I think, or maybe that was Neil Young . . .’
Ellie is holding up two fingers. ‘Just sing the song, Dad.’
So I do. ‘May God bless and keep you always, May your wishes all come true . . .’
And am joined by Ellie and Stan, and eventually even Will, standing together and singing those words of Dylan that Carol loved so much.
Unfortunately, it’s not an easy song to sing, and as we quaver our way towards the end, I overhear Lila’s stage whisper to her brother: ‘Jeez, who’s drowning the kittens?’ Jackson tells her to shush, but she can’t help herself, as we bellow our way into the last couplet, me trying to desperately make up in volume what we lack in harmony. ‘How can they be so bad?’
‘Kia ora, Mr D and all of youse,’ says Jackson graciously once the cacophony has stopped. We all sit, except Lila, who resists her brother’s attempts to pull her down.
Will groans again. ‘Christ, we’ll be here all night. Why don’t I do a Morris dance and then maybe the Highland fling?’
‘Thought that’s what you were doing, bro,’ says Lila, ‘sounded like the bagpipes.’
‘Cheeky bitch!’
‘Cool it, Will, f’godsake,’ implores Ellie.
Lila eyeballs Will, fierce, and whatever doubts she may be harbouring, go. ‘For you,’ she says to him. She steps back a pace from the table. The effect is accidental, but macabre, as the half-light strikes the angular planes of her thin face and her eyes get lost in dark pools. Her voice drops and takes on a rhythmic, insistent beat, like a bass drum, or, as the words begin striking me, the thump of my heart.
‘One bullet in the chamber, one thought in my head, one press of the trigger, shoot and I’m dead.’
I’m panicked. I think I’ve been rumbled, that she must know about Walter. How can she be privy to my secret plan?
‘One shot at happiness, one push at the dread, one shot at bliss, miss and I’m dead.’
One push at the dread. One moment of insight before the encompassing terror. She must know!
‘I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead in the head, I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m lost in the dread.’
In the shocked silence, there’s a muffled sob. Which I try to turn into a cough, to help cover my streaming eyes. I’m grateful for the lack of light.
Predictably, Will is the one to break the silence, laughing nervously. ‘Jeezzus! What the fuck was that?’
Ellie tries to bridge with determined cheerfulness. ‘Thank you, Lila. Who’s going to help Dad cut the cake? Jackson?’
Jackson takes the knife from Ellie, who immediately crosses to Lila, still standing alone. I can sense Ellie wants to hug her, but Lila is still projecting a forcefield. Instead, Ellie tells her that she’ll make up a bed: Lila can stay as long as she likes. The girl looks towards Jacks
on, who nods.
I feel relieved. I don’t want her going back out into the world she’s just described. My relief isn’t completely altruistic, however. I have so many questions for her, but I daren’t broach them. The questions aren’t all about me. I am seventy years old and staring into an entirely natural abyss of degeneration and degradation. She’s eighteen or maybe nineteen. ‘I’m lost in the dread?’ What on earth can she have seen to give her the same sense of impending doom?
***
THE cake is cut, the cake is eaten. I don’t get to follow up with Lila. Will commandeers her, steers her away from us and into an intense conversation over by the pool, watched anxiously, I notice, by Jackson. At one point Jackson tries to casual his way into the conversation. ‘Two’s company, bro,’ says Lila and Jackson moves back to cracking twigs and stoking the fire.
Will and Lila seemed so antipathetic, I wonder what they might have to talk about. I’ve never believed that hoary old cliché that opposites attract, yet Carol and I were so different. I suppose clichés become clichés because they’re so often true – or is that another cliché?
Stan has also brought me a Chinese lantern, which he lights and hangs from the underside of the huge umbrella that spans the table. It gives off a rose-hued glow that softens everything around it, including Stan, who hugs his sister, tells her she’s completely wonderful for offering Lila a bed. It’s a lovely, rare moment, which I’m hoping bodes well for what remains of the evening.
I celebrate by helping myself to a second slice of birthday cake. Dr Jeetan has warned me that I’m showing some of the early symptoms of type 2 diabetes. Naturally, I checked them out on the internet, and discovered I’ve indeed got symptoms for that and half a dozen other incurable diseases. What the hell. Walter is waiting.
I’m so absorbed shoving Ellie’s carrot cake into my gob that I don’t see Will leave Lila and cross to me. ‘You could have your cake and eat it, Den.’
‘Ho fucking ho.’ I tell him I’m in no mood to forgive him for shaming me in front of a stranger.
‘That’s a bit dramatic,’ he says. ‘Everyone loves a funny story.’
‘It wasn’t funny!’
‘Not at the time,’ he concedes.
‘A stranger whom you’d invited to my birthday with the intention of selling my house out from under me!’
‘Georgie’s presence at least raised the subject of the house.’
‘It’s not something I want to discuss.’
Will looks like he’s going to explode, but instead takes a deep breath. ‘Den, the world doesn’t stand still, circumstances change for all of us.’
‘Yes, I’m old and weak, I get that, but–’
‘I’m not talking about you, actually. My circumstances have changed, in ways I didn’t intend and couldn’t have imagined. I know you disapprove of my leaving Claudia, but you’re not in the relationship, you can’t make that call. I tried hard to make it work, for the kids, for me. But I couldn’t. So I did the honourable thing, I think – walked away and left her and the kids in the family home, so they had as little disruption as possible, okay?’
What can I say? I do so agree that only those inside a relationship can say what’s really going on in there. I have to admit that it’s Will’s call, of course it is. And that what he’s done is right.
‘But that’s had consequences for me, Den. If I insist on my share of the matrimonial property right now, Claudia and the kids lose the house.’
I’m so familiar with this situation. In his early fifties Branko ditched Nadine for a younger woman, whose name I cannot recall, a publicist for an ad agency. The disruption to Branko’s life, and those of Nadine and their daughter Yelena, was obvious, but the changes had unforeseen effects on the business. Branko’s assets were suddenly halved. He held on to his shares in Flame by borrowing heavily against them so he could pay out their value as cash, and his sudden indebtedness put pressure on us in the early noughties, when the TV commercial business was becoming much more competitive. We’d been cruising along on our reputation with the big agencies, knowing we didn’t necessarily have to submit the lowest quote to get the gig. But the environment was changing quickly, and Branko’s marital woes damn near sank us.
Carol had died a couple of years earlier, at the turn of the century, and was at least spared having to take sides. I had every intention of maintaining my friendship with Nadine and Yelena, but that fell away quickly when the matrimonial property battles turned nasty. I tried to stay above it, but Branko was my business partner and closest friend, what else could I do? I think that Nadine, particularly, felt some deeper resentment towards me – I was part of the world that broke their marriage, a big cog in a lifestyle that had seduced her husband and corrupted him. And killed him, within a decade. By the time Branko died, he was, I discovered, my only true friend. When I retired it quickly became clear that all the others were in fact business colleagues, and when we no longer had any business to do, they were no longer collegial.
I’m no better. I remember promising Branko’s new wife, widow, whose name I can no longer remember, that I’d stay in touch, but I haven’t. She was so much younger, a trophy wife I suppose, and the only thing we had in common was her deceased husband. That sounds cruel. Is truth a defence?
I try to concentrate on what Will is telling me.
‘I know the business isn’t your concern any more,’ he’s saying, ‘and I don’t want to burden you with it, but there are big headwinds out there, Den, big disruption. It’s hard yakker. I’m living hand to mouth in a rented shoebox and I wouldn’t complain about that, but it’s no place to bring the kids. I need to re-establish myself, and I’ve got no means of doing that.’
‘Don’t browbeat Dad.’ Ellie arrives, with Stan not far behind. I assume they’ve spotted Will quartering me and have rushed to my defence.
Will’s tone immediately changes. He and I are no longer confidants, it seems. ‘Georgie’s talking four mil,’ he says to me, brusquely. ‘So you’d walk away with two.’
‘Two? You said four.’
‘Mum’s half would be distributed between the three of us, just as she wanted.’
‘Mum wanted Dad to be able to live out his days in the family home,’ points out Ellie.
Will carries on as if his sister hasn’t spoken. ‘This is an opportunity for a new life, Den–’
‘I’m happy with my old life.’
‘Isn’t that a bit selfish? Not unexpected, but–’
‘Back off, Will,’ warns Stan.
‘I’ve lived here for forty years,’ I say, regretting the pathetic, plaintive note in my voice. ‘I built this home.’
‘You bought it,’ says Will.
‘We made it our home!’
Will is implacable. ‘It’s a house. It was here before you, it’ll be here after you go, unless you let it fall down around your ears.’
‘Mum’s will made it clear that–’
‘I know exactly what Mum’s will did, sis. It left Den a life interest in her share of the house, until he dies, remarries or sells this house. In which event, Den, your life interest over Mum’s half crystallises–’
‘Crystallises?’
‘Ends. And under her will, passes to the three of us, the remainder-men.’
‘Jesus, Will,’ says Stan, impressed. ‘Who’ve you been getting advice from?’
I know exactly where Will gets his advice: Flame is still using the same legal and accounting firms that Branko and I set up. I feel betrayed in absentia by those vultures who profited so handsomely from our endeavours.
‘So you’re fine, Dad,’ says Ellie valiantly. ‘You can live here for the rest of your life.’
‘Unless you choose not to,’ says Stan. This is a surprise. I assumed my youngest would be fighting my corner as vociferously as Ellie.
Will, of course, delights in
the chink that Stan has just opened in my defence. ‘You could buy an apartment for a mil and have a mil in the bank to see you out.’
‘To see me out?’
‘Dignity money,’ says Will.
‘Cash is king,’ says Stan.
Ellie is horrified. ‘Jesus, Stan!’
‘Just saying. I mean, Will is right about that.’
Just saying, just said. I feel beleaguered by Stan’s change of tack, but maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. He’s talked about Te Kurahau needing a ‘cash injection’. I imagine a long syringe with my home being squeezed out through the end.
I begin to ramble, I know I do. Talk about how hard I worked to make the money to buy this house, get into dodgy gender territory by minimising Carol’s financial contribution, which is guaranteed to antagonise Ellie. But I needn’t worry about her. Will launches into me anew, telling me I got the deposit for this house on the back of a ditty for a sugar drink that helped cause an epidemic of obesity and diabetes among school-age children. That might be cruel, as Ellie protests it is, but it’s also true. It won’t help me to say we didn’t know about toxic sugar back then, because we did know about tobacco and we did know about booze, and that didn’t slow us down. I could say in my defence that there were worse advertising crimes – the dancing Cossack TV ads that sank Labour in ’75 and allowed Muldoon to ditch the superannuation scheme that would have made us, by now, the Norway of the South Seas. My children know none of this, but it might have been relevant. Would Will still hate our generation if we had left that sovereign fund intact and our little nation was farting through silk? Would Will actually give a fuck? Ellie does, but she’s trying to defend me. Will cuts her off, tells her it’s a straight choice between the past and the future.
‘Except that it’s not our choice, is it?’ says Stan. ‘It’s Dad’s.’
In some strange way Stan’s putting it back on me. If I dig in and say no, I’m holding on to the past, all my privilege and power, which is way past its use-by date. That much is clear. I feel suddenly very tired.
I say something stupid, out of context, tell them Carol says she can smell the Abraham Darby. It says poor me. It says I’ve lost it. Even Will looks at me with a degree of pity.