Necessary Secrets

by Greg McGee

  Lila just grinned, then gave Ellie a big hug. ‘Sorry about your dad. That’s how it’s s’posed to be.’ Stan didn’t get it, but Jackson and Ellie seemed to understand.

  The obvious warmth between Ellie and Lila was a surprise. When Stan first heard Jackson describe Ellie as his ‘guarding angel’ he thought it an endearing malapropism, but it had grown on him as an accurate description of his own bond with Ellie, made strong by so many shared hurts, especially Carol’s death. That was what ultimately defined their relationship, changed it from just sister and brother, to what? ‘Guarding angel’ covered it. There was something similar between Ellie and Lila, a crisis shared, or a disaster survived, an intrepid journey completed: a bonding, a binding. Stan felt a pang of jealousy, which he quickly suppressed. Jackson and Lila had nothing, while he had always sipped from a silver spoon.

  Lila was opening the passenger door to the Prius. ‘Hop in, bro.’

  Jackson hesitated a moment, then solemnly shook Stan’s hand. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Hope you get the lettuces.’

  He eased himself into the passenger seat while Lila smiled back at Ellie across the car roof. ‘See you at the funeral.’

  So there was to be a funeral of some kind. Den had been agnostic, as far as he knew, and Stan couldn’t imagine what form such an event would take. An extended commercial for himself probably, with music over.

  ***

  IT had only been nine months or so since he was last here, yet there seemed to be massive changes to the industrial estate surrounding the airport. More roadworks, roundabouts, traffic lights, under-passes, overpasses, more enormous sheds with ostentatious branding for freight couriers, hotels, motels, God knows what. Monuments to the world of commerce, a world which he seemed hell-bent on joining. Ellie negotiated the first roundabout and had time for a sidelong glance. ‘You’re looking good, Stanley. Got your good threads out of the closet, I see.’

  Stan nodded.

  ‘And Jackson looked great. How was he down there?’

  ‘Good,’ said Stan. ‘Easy company, fits in with whatever’s going, works bloody hard.’

  ‘Thank you for taking him. He needed a break from Auckland. His mum had a stroke, after she was beaten up by his father, who seems to have disappeared. With a bit of luck he’ll never come back.’

  ‘Right,’ said Stan. ‘Jackson didn’t really say anything, and I didn’t think I could ask.’

  ‘And the lettuces?’

  Ah, so she’d picked up on that. He was going to tell her anyway. There was something about being in Auckland that made the plan, played back for Ellie, seem less preposterous. Maybe it was being around so much commerce, so much endeavour, so much wealth. Even the new motorway tunnel, which projected them out onto the old north-western like a cork out of a bottle, made the impossible seem less so. And yet, the story had no happy ending that he could see. Other than possible employment for Jackson, if it had gone ahead: he would have been the ideal manager of the two big sheds. Ellie would like that bit.

  And she did, he could tell, even though she listened to it all in silence. Then, after another little spell, she said, ‘You couldn’t have known this when you were talking to Ron Halston, of course, but you must realise your deposit is now a million, not half a million?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Your share of Dad’s estate.’

  Holy fuck, he thought, looking out at the looming Sky Tower. This is what Auckland does. Kills you but gives you money.

  Ellie was taking the Western Springs exit. When they stopped at the lights, she asked him to drive. She was blind with tears.

  ***

  STAN drove them up the Bullock Track and through West Lynn on Richmond Road, as Ellie wiped her eyes and admitted she’d taken the wrong exit. Stan didn’t mind: these were the tracks of his mid-teens at Springs. Yes, there were new cycle lanes and definitely more traffic, but the map in his head still worked. Ellie gave him the rough itinerary of the next few days. They were meeting this evening at a bar in K Road, tomorrow, Sunday, was free, and their father’s memorial service was eleven o’clock on Monday morning, at All Saints, where Branko’s had been.

  ‘Did Dad find God then?’

  ‘Good God, no!’ she laughed.

  When Stan wondered aloud whether the Anglicans were okay with hosting services for non-believers, Ellie said churches had to adapt to a more secular world.

  ‘Couldn’t think of anyone more secular than Dad.’

  ‘He had a spiritual dimension too.’

  ‘Did he?’ Stan didn’t mean to be challenging, but couldn’t help it. She’d always defended him. ‘Does a belief in the power of advertising count?’

  Ellie ignored that, told him he’d be staying with Will and Claudia as there was no room at Yelena’s little cottage. Stan had just assumed that Ellie would have a place for him, as she always did. Jesus, home and hearth with Will. Could he make it through two nights with his older brother? He’d have to book a flight out on Monday afternoon, flee as soon as the service was over.

  Ellie directed him left onto Ponsonby Road, down a block or two, then suggested he find a park. ‘Will wants to meet you here.’

  ‘Where?’ They were just past SPQR, surrounded by Tex-Mex places, bistros, Thai. It was too late for lunch, surely.

  ‘Over there.’ Ellie was pointing across the street to what looked like a menswear outfit in a shopfront squeezed between a women’s fashion boutique and a poke bar, a typical stretch of Ponsonby Road’s two-storey mix of masonry and weatherboard: unevenly shabby but inexorably becoming chic. She grabbed his hand. ‘Give Will a chance,’ she implored him. ‘He’s been great, getting the section sold. And this last little bit with Dad hasn’t been easy.’

  ***

  AND she was right. Stan found Will at a small table in the central well of what seemed at first glance a menswear boutique, but was also a cafe and barbershop. Will was communing with his laptop, but quickly rose when he spotted his brother. Stan wasn’t sure what to expect: a handshake, a man-hug or a punch on the arm. Turned out to be a man hug of epic proportions. Will, shorter but more powerful, gathered him into a fragrant embrace – was Old Spice still a thing? – and murmured ‘Bro, sad times, but good to see you,’ with what appeared to be sincerity.

  When Stan said he was sorry he hadn’t made it earlier, Will quickly absolved him. ‘Better you didn’t see him,’ he said. ‘He wouldn’t have known it was you. Last time I saw him he looked at me as if he was the same old Den, then said, “I should know you. I think I’ve seen you before.”’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Poor old bastard was terrified most of the time. Didn’t know who he was, where he was. Kept trying to do a runner. He was locked in, didn’t know why. We should be glad for him that it’s over.’

  ‘End of an era,’ said Stan, not knowing what else to say.

  ‘That’s why they’re eras,’ said Will, not unkindly. ‘They have a beginning and an end.’

  His designer stubble was gone and the hint of belly in the slim-fit white cotton shirt that hugged his torso seemed to signal a softer Will. Instead of the usual barrage of sarky observations and put-downs, Will actually asked him questions, once he’d got Stan settled with a cup of coffee. He was happy to tell Will about the lettuces – the devil’s ones too – because Will was exactly the sort of cynical capitalist who would shoot Stan’s plans out of the sky, so he wouldn’t have to torture himself for one more second with the possibility of the lettuces being a viable business. He could dismiss the whole idea and move on. After Stan, prompted very gently by occasional questions, had laid out everything Ron Halston had told him, Will confirmed that though another half-million would be landing in Stan’s account within six weeks, courtesy of Den’s estate, Stan’s figures still wouldn’t work – one and a half million was too much to borrow.

  So that was that. A pity, really, that th
e conversation was at an end, because Stan had found it a profound relief to be finally talking to his older brother about something they could connect on. He loved Will’s certainty, the way he talked about millions of dollars as if they were crumbs on the floor that could be gathered up or swept away. Even the brutality with which Will was burning up his dream appealed: the lettuces needed to be put out of their misery.

  Except that wasn’t where Will was going. Stan couldn’t borrow a million and a half. What he needed was a partner, a silent partner who would put up another million, and then the partnership could borrow the further half-million. ‘Now that would make the figures work,’ said Will.

  ‘Would it?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘So all I need,’ said Stan with a laugh, ‘is a silent partner who would put up a million dollars. How would I find someone like that?’

  ‘You’re looking at him,’ said Will.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Stan.

  ‘Does that mean you’re pleased?’

  ‘I’m, I mean–’

  ‘Why not. I trust you, I think it’s a viable enterprise and, like you, I’ve got a million looking for a home.’ Will handed Stan a card. ‘Get your man to email the guff through. We’ll get my lawyer and accountant to look at the figures and we’ll talk to the money. I’m serious,’ he said, as if there was any doubt.

  Stan, in shock, took the card and inspected it. White, black lettering, ‘William Sparks’ on one side, a mobile number and email address on the other. That was it, no description of his business. When Stan looked up, a lanky, very thin man in a suit and no tie had sidled up to Will. ‘Nick Preston,’ said Will, ‘my brother Stan. Nick’s a creative for a major.’

  Stan glimpsed red, rheumy eyes behind designer glasses and a nervous tongue wanting to talk. Before he could, Will pushed Stan towards the barber shop, speaking over his shoulder to the thin man. ‘Grab a seat, Nick, short black for me, be with you in a sec.’ Will was ruffling Stan’s hair. ‘What is that look? New Romantic meets hippy?’

  ‘More like don’t-care meets who-gives-a-fuck.’

  ‘I get it. Style by omission, style by neglect. But we can’t ask for serious money looking like that.’

  Stan let himself be ushered into the barber’s, wondering if this was what happened when your parents were dead. Older brother goes all paternal and the children are forced to be nicer to each other because now there’s no one left to blame, no one to adjudicate, take sides, pull warring siblings apart. Maybe Will was making a pitch to be head of the family. Nature abhors a vacuum and so does power: the king is dead, long live the king! Whatever, this new Will seemed an improvement on the old.

  A young Asian man in a black apron asked him to take a seat in one of three big steel-framed chairs, as Will gave instructions. ‘Sharpen this kid up, Patrick. Give his head some edges, f’chrisssakes.’ As Stan sank into the chair, Will got up close to his ear and pointed to the big mirror along the wall in front of them. It reflected the lanky man, making his way back from the counter to a table. ‘See that cunt? Every dollar he owns or can borrow or steal will be mine.’

  This sudden flash of what seemed like genuine hatred, and the old Will, was unnerving, but Stan tried to stay calm as Patrick asked if it was okay to start with the hand-piece before he went to the scissors. ‘Sure,’ said Stan. Anything about to happen in Auckland was out of his control; he might as well relax and try to enjoy the ride. And he did, as Patrick mowed his locks to a controllable length, then went to work with the scissors. Stan’s dismay at the amount of hair falling to the floor was mollified by the rhythm of Patrick’s hands on his head, the way he scooped a fillet of hair in two fingers, tapped the scissors gently on his skull as if to anchor them, then cut. Scoop, hold, tap, snip. Stan gave his worries away and watched Will and the other guy in the big wall mirror.

  Preston was sitting at the small table with his knees together, elbows on the table to stabilise himself, bony hands clasped together. He looked like a praying mantis, but Will was clearly the predator, one hand dancing up and down on a plastic-backed file, face down on the table between them. When Preston reached for the file, Will flattened his hand on it. Baulked, Preston’s hand went to the inner breast pocket of his suit. He extracted a white envelope and slid it across to Will. It was unsealed. As Will took a quick peek at its contents, Preston fumbled the file, which dropped to the floor. The contents must have spilled, because Preston retrieved only an A4 sheet of what looked like stippled foil. Stan could see that Will was pissed off as he rapidly reconstituted the file, before handing it back to Preston. Preston quickly stood up and left.

  When Stan’s focus returned to his own image, he saw the soft hair that had framed his face was gone. His head looked suddenly bony and square. Would Rachel recognise him? That life down there was already starting to recede, Auckland seeping into him like the tide reclaiming mangroves.

  ‘At least your head’s got some corners now,’ said Will when Stan was released back to the cafe, ‘but those clothes are thirty going on pensioner.’ Will must have given the nod to the young woman hovering by the nearest clothes rack: she arrived on cue. ‘Can we find something a bit less Grey Power AGM-ish?’ he asked her.

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Shirt?’

  ‘And jacket and shoes,’ confirmed Will, steering Stan towards a changing cubicle, then hanging on the curtain as Stan started unbuttoning his shirt.

  ‘Look,’ Stan began, ‘I can get by with what I’ve got, I don’t want to spend–’

  ‘Those pants look a bit billowy too,’ said Will, closing the curtain.

  Everything the young woman, Emily, handed through the curtains was chosen by Will and everything was colour co-ordinated and sharp – even the snouts of the blue-black leather lace-up boots with exposed stitching. ‘Just stick it all on, and give us a gander,’ said Will.

  Stan did as instructed, as items came through the curtain: stretch cotton chinos in what Emily said was ‘sand’; slim-fit dark blue stretch cotton shirt; the boots; a Donegal weave wool jacket in ‘rust’. Stan looked at himself in the full-length mirror and hardly recognised the urban hipster staring back. When he stepped out of the cubicle, Will and Emily made approving noises.

  ‘Doesn’t it all look a bit tight?’ said Stan, lifting the jacket so they could see the shirt and trousers.

  ‘Fitting,’ said Emily. ‘Like, way to go if you’ve got a bod.’

  ‘Dunno about the shoes,’ said Stan, ‘but maybe I’ll take the jacket.’

  ‘We’ll take the lot,’ said Will, drawing a bundle of purple notes from the white envelope. ‘My shout. Ems, can you stick his old gear in a bag? He can wear it when he gets back to the farm.’

  ‘I’m not going back to the farm,’ said Stan.

  ‘Exactly.’

  When Emily disappeared into the cubicle with an extravagant paper bag, Stan tried to get in front of Will, put his hands up in front of his face. ‘You can’t do this, Will.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s too much! It’s not me!’

  Will put the notes and the envelope on the glass counter and grabbed Stan’s hands in both of his. ‘Bro. Give it a chance. See if you relax into them. If you don’t, you’ve still got your old gear sitting there waiting for you. Okay?’

  Stan was unused to this quality of attention from Will. While it came with implicit criticism of his previous style, or lack of it, it seemed born of kindness and concern. Surely it would be churlish to object to such a change in attitude after all these years. And it was seductive. But . . .

  When they walked outside, Stan, carrying the bag with the remnants of his old shell, was hit by the chilled breeze welling from the south. His ears and the back of his neck felt suddenly cold without the protective hair. There was something else. All those fifties in that white envelope, which Will flicked onto the glass counter like a croupier paying out a luc
ky call. Stan didn’t know quite how to put it. ‘Ellie said you were working for Yelena.’

  ‘Yesterday’s paper,’ said Will. ‘Yelena was great but I prefer being the owner driver.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Fuck, where did I park it?’ Will looked up and down, the low sun yellowing the eastern side of the street, traffic crawling through the after-school jam. A private-school bus pulled out of the stream long enough to disgorge some uniformed young toffs, its arse still poking into the traffic and drawing ire from the fog-horns of the SUVs backed up behind. Stan watched the bus edge back into the stream, its place immediately taken by a black Porsche driven by a blonde. Into this hopped one of the young uniforms from the bus. Stan hoped home was more than two blocks away, but doubted it.

  Will seemed to remember where he’d parked his car and pointed across the street to a graceful-looking SUV, power curves sculpted to a blunt end. When Will strode out to the middle of the road as if he owned the place, Stan felt obliged to follow. Will nodded to the traffic coming the other way and walked on. As Stan scurried with him, one of the cars braked hard and gave them the horn. Will flipped the bird, and Stan felt a perverse reassurance that Will 2.0 hadn’t completely reformatted the original version. When they got to Will’s car, the badge on the back confirmed it was a Tesla X. ‘Stand back,’ said Will, as Stan reached for the door handle, and the whole door rose like a wing to admit him. ‘Fuck,’ said Stan.

  ‘I’ve gone green,’ said Will. ‘Within reason. Where it’s fun. This fucker can smoke a Porsche off the lights.’

  Stan thought Will had forgotten his question about work, or decided to ignore it, but then he pointed back across the street. ‘Not just a coffee shop, not just a barbershop, not just a menswear retailer. You go in there and you’re captured by all three. That’s the future – diversity.’

  ‘Like,’ asked Stan, ‘fingers in a lot of pies?’

  ‘Some middle-man stuff, clipping the ticket as the money runs past,’ said Will. ‘Some commercial property, using what I picked up from Yelena, but also other things, diverse services, products. You see Lila at the airport? I’m a silent partner in her Uber. Working with people I like, people I trust. You know what Den and Branko and the hippies called money?’