Necessary Secrets

by Greg McGee

  The voice on his mobile had to compete with excited screams and splashes – the big kids doing bombs off the high board into the diving pool, the mash of water and bodies in the main pool. He glanced back to the more sedate action of the shallow pool, where Archie was still teetering about pursued by Kristin. There were mothers sitting in the shallows, playing with babies, watching their toddlers.

  He’d been one of those babies. Carol had brought him here when she was pregnant with Ellie. He had no memory of that, but he did remember being in the toddlers’ pool playing with Ellie when Carol was huge with what turned out to be Stan. He could remember Ellie screaming about something he’d done. Some things never change.

  This pool complex had been the centre of his social life every summer until he was twelve or thirteen, when he and a couple of his mates had been caught by a security guard having a midnight swim after climbing over the fence. He’d nicked a bottle of blackberry nip from Den’s liquor cabinet and he was so pissed the security guard damn near had to save him from drowning. His mates were too drunk themselves to see that he was in trouble after a mistimed tumble from the diving platform had flat-backed him onto the water so hard it took all the wind out of him. He’d been banned from the complex after that, never been back until today. Wonder they hadn’t asked for ID before they’d let him and the kids in.

  Moments ago, Will had been sitting there among the mothers until, restless and anxious, he’d pretended to be drawn away by his vibrating mobile, out onto the grass where blankets had been thrown down in the shade of a huge oak and whole families, mostly from the south or west, big, square brown bodies, were settled for the day. Families. Whole.

  He pressed the mobile closer to his ear and tried to hear what Trish was saying, about a cameraman who wanted a daily rate they hadn’t budgeted for. Who did these pricks think they were? There were guys out there putting iPhones on steadicam rigs bought off the net for two hundred bucks making features for sweet FA, putting them on YouTube, getting millions of eyeballs, selling them to Netflix for megabucks, and this prick was trying to extort them for a one-day shoot on a TVC they were obliged to quote for but probably wouldn’t get? It struck him, not for the first time, that it was all a complete waste of time, the whole bloody thing. Used to be if you owned an Arri 16 mil you were made; now every cunt and his dog could make pretty pictures with an over-the-counter smart-phone. Turned out the song was wrong: video didn’t kill the radio star, digital killed the video, and film, and all the pros who relied on it. It wasn’t just the climate that was stuffed. ‘Tell him fuck, Trish, there’s gotta be someone else who needs a day.’

  He doused that call and speed-dialled Lila’s number. It didn’t ring, went straight to her message. Don’t leave a message, text.

  Fuck her. But he texted her. Takeaways tonight? Who knew if she would turn up, but what else could he do? He pocketed the mobile and worked his way back towards the kids. Some of the yummy mummies were hot. One of them, in a pink bikini with her dirty blonde hair tied back into a pony-tail, was lifting Archie out of the water. He was crying, face red and crumpled, his pain distressing his sister. ‘He slipped over and got a mouthful,’ she was telling the woman.

  ‘Where’s your mummy?’ the woman asked Kristin.

  ‘Finishing a long lunch probably,’ said Will, taking Archie from her. ‘Come on, mate, the water won’t hurt.’

  ‘He fell over, Daddy. I tried to catch him.’

  ‘He’s fine, sweetie.’ He patted his daughter on the head, wiped the snot from Archie’s nose, back-handing it on the boy’s rash-suit, and held out his hand to the woman, still hovering. ‘Will.’

  ‘They’re too young to be left on their own, Will,’ she replied, refusing his hand, and turning to her own little boy, a bit older than Archie.

  ‘Thank you for helping out,’ said Will, ‘not to mention the advice. Cheque’s in the mail.’

  ‘You should try leaving your phone in the car,’ she said, not unpleasantly. ‘It works.’

  He knew she was right. On the few occasions he’d come to the kids with no agenda, just gone, Okay it’s your time, we do whatever the hell you want, he’d had more fun and got out of himself, chilled in a way that nothing else could do for him. Almost nothing else.

  Archie started bawling for another ice block as they passed the cunningly positioned kiosk on the way to the exit. He bought them both one, then hustled out to the carpark. By the time the sugar hit their little receptors, they wouldn’t be his problem.

  The carpark was chokka with people movers, some already loading up, towels, flax mats, lava lavas, about to head back home, out west or south. The cool people wouldn’t be seen dead in these minibuses, the cool people would rather pay a premium for an SUV, the mugs. He corralled Archie into the baby seat in the back of the waiting Kia Sportage.

  He adjusted the seat, belted Archie in and was clicking the buckle when the little boy dropped his ice block on Will’s forearm, then grabbed it back with sticky fingers. I’m over kids, he thought, wiping his arm and hands with the towel draped over Archie’s shoulders. Had them too late, should have done all that ten years ago, fifteen. Kristin would be flatting by now, at uni or whatever. Archie would at least be a sentient human being, capable of conversation, not this loud, constantly demanding, caterwauling maker of messes. Too late now. Story of his life. Too fucking late. As he got into the driver’s seat, he glanced instinctively out towards the house, and was grateful that the ruins were obscured by the big oaks and eucalypts covering the southern slope of the park.

  The ice block was doing its evil work on Archie, distracting him from his wet togs and the damp, sticky towel around his shoulders: he couldn’t be comfortable, but he’d be home soon enough. Kristin, little angel, had climbed in the back alongside Archie, to keep him amused once he’d finished. He belted up behind the wheel, pressed the starter button. The Sportage SUV had seemed like a good idea at the time, three years ago when he leased it through Flame, brand new. It looked stylish, designed, he’d heard, by some dude associated with Porsche, but closer acquaintance had revealed it to be a fucking bread-van with leather seats and pretentious accessories, powered by a 1.6-litre with the power-to-weight ratio of Kim Dotcom. Now the three years were up, he’d have to upgrade – at a premium – or pay out the residual bubble. He was so fucked, unless . . . If he did manage a financial miracle, there’d be no concessions to family this time: he’d get something sporty that went like a cut cat.

  They were heading up to Jervois Road before Archie finished the ice block and started cracking up. Please, shut the fuck up, you’re hurting my head. ‘Hang in there, boy,’ he said, ‘we’re nearly home.’ He looked desperately for a distraction. ‘Can you see the fire engine?’ He made the sound of a siren. It was like turning off a tap. Archie began imitating his father.

  ‘Where’s the fire engine, Daddy?’ asked Kristin.

  ‘We must have missed it,’ he lied. ‘Maybe it went down a side street.’ Archie’s noise faucet instantly turned on again.

  ‘He’s upset he missed the fire engine, Daddy,’ said Kristin, trying to keep the disappointment out of her own voice.

  ‘Me too,’ he lied. He made a right turn down Mackelvie, a short cut to Williamson, remembered running for his life down here, tearing out a fence paling to defend himself. When was that? He’d have been fourteen, fifteen, snuck out the bedroom window again, hooning around with his mates. The streets round here used to be fucking dangerous after 1 a.m. through to dawn. Big mean cunts who’d missed the last bus home after hitting all the bars and clubs in K Road, done all their dough, hungry or just looking for their bus fare back to Clendon or Kelston or wherever the fuck they came from. Roaming the streets of Ponsonby and Grey Lynn, waiting for dawn and the buses to start running again, looking for easy coin from white-boy stick-insects. The good old days. Might still be like that at dawn in the weekends. He wouldn’t know – couldn’t dra
g himself out of bed.

  Left off Williamson and they dropped down into Ariki, pulling up outside a villa on the high side. Archie was wakening the dead as Will carried him up the steps. Claudia had the front door open before they arrived. ‘Can you bring him in?’

  He wanted to drop the kids and run, but he took the boy up the hallway to the kitchen in the lean-to addition at the back, which looked out onto a deck and water feature backgrounded by a burnt-brown lawn. Claudia readied the high-chair and he dropped the boy’s feet through the stocks and sat him square. ‘Has he had anything to eat?’ Will shook his head.

  ‘An ice block, Mummy,’ said Kristin.

  ‘That explains a bit.’

  ‘Hey, we were at the pool . . .’

  ‘Two ice blocks, actually,’ said Kristin.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said, fussing over the boy. ‘I’ll feed him now. You could stay for dinner if you want.’

  ‘Can’t.’

  ‘So busy, on a Sunday?’

  ‘We’re struggling to get a gig,’ he said, seeing an opportunity. ‘Everything’s gone cold, which means we have to put ourselves out there, quote for every bullshit job. Have you thought over what we talked about?’

  ‘Selling this?’ She’d lost weight – the good old separation diet – and she looked gorgeous. ‘Are we that far gone?’ He said nothing, hoping his silence was eloquent. It seemed to be. Her eyes welled. ‘My lawyer–’

  ‘Your lawyer? You’re lawyered up already?’

  ‘I didn’t know whether –’

  ‘That’s how dead in the water we are then,’ he said.

  ‘Can you cut some silver beet, darling?’ she asked Kristin, handing her a little knife. Kristin went out onto the deck and he watched her wandering unhappily over to the raised veggie patch made by Claudia’s father, Vince. Claudia was over at the sink, pulling out the chopping board, facing away from him. ‘Barbara, my lawyer, says that it takes time to sort out matrimonial property, that usually the court allows about two years.’

  ‘Two fucking years?’

  ‘It’s only been six months, Will. It’s all still new. And–’ She turned to face him. ‘You used to say you’d be able to pay off the mortgage here with the proceeds of Den’s house.’

  ‘I might need that to keep the business afloat.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, clearly dismayed. ‘You know what I did this afternoon?’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me.’

  ‘I went to visit Den.’

  ‘Good on you.’

  ‘He says you haven’t been to see him.’

  ‘He’s forgetful.’

  ‘You should go and see your own father.’

  ‘I told you, he’s–’

  ‘He remembers some things. He told me you brought some woman to his party to make an offer on the house.’

  ‘You can’t rely on anything he says.’

  ‘Is that why you walked out on me and the kids?’ Claudia asked.

  ‘Is what why?’

  ‘That woman, whoever she was. You knew the big house was about to be sold and you didn’t want your share of the proceeds to be part of the matrimonial property.’

  ‘That’s not Claudia-speak. Has Barbara been priming you?’

  ‘That’s not an answer, Will.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Barbara might have raised it, but I wouldn’t put it past you.’

  ‘Such good faith and trust!’

  ‘Good faith? You’ve just walked out on us for no reason you’ve ever given!’

  ‘Things change.’

  ‘Some things don’t.’ Her eyes finally locked into his. ‘You’re high.’

  If only, he thought, as he slammed the front door behind him. I’m crash landing, not flying. As he picked his way back down the mossy steps he could hear Archie crying for him behind the closed front door. Daddy! There was some satisfaction in being wanted like that: the kid can’t have had too bad a time with his old man.

  He did a U and then a left onto Williamson, heading west towards Grey Lynn. Claudia’s father had been a tough old bastard. You could see shades of the young man who helped drive the Moawhango tunnel under the Kaimanawas. If he’d still been alive, old Vince would be round like a shot door-stopping him, no matter where he hid. He’d forced them to do the Catholic wedding thing. Will had had to get confirmed, the whole nine yards of nonsensical ritual: This is the body and the blood of Christ? Yeah, right. How could anyone believe that shit.

  Why did he leave? He didn’t have a rational explanation. She hadn’t done anything wrong: what was wrong was the picture he had of himself in his head. It didn’t gel with a forty-something lock-stepped to a wife, two kids and a family wagon. He had tried. In his dreams he’d always been running, free, towards something, but now he’d begun ducking, weaving, dodging from some felt but unseen menace. It had become a waking nightmare, the need to flee. Get out! Bail! He missed her voluptuous warmth at night, the way she’d spoon his back, press her breasts and pelvis against him, a movement that quite often quickened and turned into something more urgent. What the fuck was he doing? Keep running.

  ***

  HE climbed up the narrow wooden stairs to his flat through the cloying smell of frying fat. The downstairs tenant, a fish and chip shop, had a sign assuring customers that only rice-bran oil was used, and maybe it was true and maybe it made a difference to the customers’ clogged arteries, but not to the smell of his stairwell: the hot breath from those boiling vats almost congealed on each step as it rose and cooled. He’d been put off fish and chips for life.

  He washed down two tramadols with a beer and waited for his ragged edges to soften. When the beer was cut, he opened a bottle of jammy Aussie ‘Reserve’ shiraz, $8.99 at the nearest supermarket. How the fuck did those winemakers stay in business? He thought he might cook something up, but the fridge was sparse, so he settled for the liquid substitute and tried to find the calorific intake on the label of the bottle. He was on his second glass, the trammies were just beginning to take effect, when his mobile burped: Here. Open up. Fuck it, if he’d known she was coming he would have held off the trammies. He liked being edgy, scratchy, horny, when she came, not blissed out. Too late. He got up and descended through the pungent shroud to let her in.

  Lila looked as she always looked: scrawny, lost in her big coat, which she wore even in the height of summer. The only thing that changed with the seasons and her mood was what she did or didn’t wear under the coat. Her black hair was shaved short on one side; the other side fell across her face, thin and sharp but beautiful. He hadn’t thought so at first, but she was, no doubt. Her beaky face looked more Italian than Claudia’s – big black eyes and lashes over a hooked aquiline nose and full lips. He followed her back up the stairs in her boots, clomping loudly. She didn’t give a fuck who heard her, she didn’t give a fuck, she said, about anything any more. She told him once that she’d already given all her fucks, she had none left to give. And yet . . .

  They did the deal, cash for the little ziplock, and as he stuck it in his pocket, she nuzzled into him. He didn’t want to fuck, not really, didn’t want to puncture the bliss. But she unzipped him, got him hard with her mouth, opened her big coat and pulled him in. She didn’t take off her top this time, but he knew the scars on her back had healed, meaning the bastard had stopped hurting her, touch wood – maybe because of him, he liked to think, the money he paid her. He knew the old man was supplying. One of those nights when she didn’t want to fuck, when she was anxious and dropped the P and ran, he’d looked out the front window through the leaping neon fish at a crappy grey hatch waiting down below, wiper blades going, engine running. His eyes were drawn to a man across the street, leaving the Indian dairy with a pack of fags, one of which he’d already lit. He was a scrawny bastard in a dirty denim jerkin showing sinewy arms with big ink, a white-tras
h whippet with a mullet. That was a surprise, he’d been expecting big and brown. The mother must be Māori.

  Usually, Lila would have a taste of her product – ‘a little fifty’ she called it, like a courtier testing food for a king. He liked that. Most of all for the effect it had on her, even though it was a tab and didn’t give the same instant rush as smoke. There was nothing about her that conformed to his template of sexy. She had big nipples but no tits, was so scrawny her hip bones dug into him. She looked boyish or almost pre-pubescent if it wasn’t for the thatches of black hair under her arms and around her cunt. He loved that. Claudia had got the idea from somewhere that the feminine ideal was to shave everything. If it was true that women dressed for each other, maybe they shaved for each other too. There was never any foreplay with Lila, just stand and deliver – what he and his mates used to call knee tremblers, though he’d never had one before Lila. Front on or back to front against the cheap Formica table that threatened to collapse. Rutting not fucking. When she was coming, or sensed he was close, she’d call him, as if he was wasting her time: ‘Come on, come on for fucksake!’ Then last time, something he’d never heard her say before. He’d been horny and rough, banging her from behind over the back of the sofa, then, unusually, she’d turned round and lain down on the carpet. She told him she wanted to see his face when he came. That worked. But when he did, she locked her ankles behind his back as he thrust towards the custard stroke and her face was a painful grimace and what she grunted to him was ‘Kill me! Kill me!’ He’d been thrown, faked a come and pulled out. She didn’t seem to notice, wiped herself with her knickers as usual and pulled her jeans back up. That memory, and the trammies, almost finished him now too, but he ground on and got there. She seemed to recognise his dogged lack of inspiration and said nothing. He offered her a trammie as she pulled up her pants. ‘I’m sweet,’ she said.