“This is so awful,” Kelly says. “So awful.” She makes it sound like liver. Esther begins to smile but her mouth slips and wobbles disobediently at even this plastic sympathy. She sniffs hard, smiles fiercely.
“Where’s your luggage?”
“Oh, don’t worry, Esther — we’re not going to put you out. We’re booked in at Quality Inn, you’ll have enough to cope with we decided. Since there’s two of us.”
“Yes.” Why? How serious is Kelly? Will she be Jania’s stepmother? That’s assuming …
“There’s no news.”
Esther thinks this is a question and begins to recite the story of the psychic. She finds her voice bucks and chortles rather hysterically.
“We know,” Kelly says. “Yes, we rang the police.”
“But the inspector’s coming here. Should be here now.”
“I don’t know who the officer was we spoke to.”
“For God’s sake!” Rex shouts. “Can’t we sit down?” He is, in fact, sitting down. They turn and look at him guiltily. He has been sick, near death.
“How are you, Rex?”
“I’m perfectly all right! Well, I’m okay. It hasn’t exactly been a picnic. I should be well dead when you add up the stress points on my life chart — I read about it in a magazine in the hospital — but I’m still here. How about you?”
“Still here too. Just about.” He pulls a face and waggles his ears, a trick they remember he used to do for Jania. Then he becomes serious. “I don’t know, this can’t be happening, can it?”
“Which?” HIV? Abduction?
“Exactly. All of it. It’s all too much!”
Does Kelly know anything about the HIV thing? An awkward silence floats down like a mosquito net trapping the conversation. Outside the window another net, soft rain, is buzzing down like tinnitus.
“This awful weather” Kelly says. “Isn’t this your summer?”
“Wait till the wind blows,” Rex says with relish. The wind might be his personal weapon, temporarily sheathed inside him ready for the challenge. So much anger; and why shouldn’t he be angry? They are all angry.
“But you will eat with us? Dinner?” Esther speaks as if they have already announced their departure.
“Thank you.”
Suburban gardens backing on to reserve land, on to church property, have been combed, plodded over by police helpers, with no result. The bush behind a Haast Pass hotel is being searched following a call from a hiking Swedish tourist. This is there again on the television news before dinner, the second repeat. An ominous weight of hopelessness fills Esther’s belly, but dinner must nevertheless be provided. Dinner is, in fact, takeaway Indian. She drives to collect it, keeping her head down. Well, she was on TV wasn’t she, but quaking with tears, distorted beyond recognition? The neighbours certainly watch when she leaves the house, she is quite sure of this. She has seen faces in windows, blurred like ghost figures, ghouls, gorging on her distress.
“Tell us about this salesman weirdo,” says Martin. “What do we know about him?”
“Don’t,” Esther pleads. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“She doesn’t want to talk about it,” Rex says. “So. So we don’t talk about it, do we? Esther always gets her own way in this house.”
Martin looks at Rex’s tone with mild astonishment. Is this a public argument he is witnessing or has he misread the meaning of Rex’s words?
“There’s nothing to tell anyway — beyond what you’ve heard already,” Esther offers swiftly. She glances at the red telephone again, a reflex action, they all do it.
“It seems incredible the police have turned nothing up in three days. With all these leads.”
“Phony sightings,” Rex says. “Par for the course apparently. But the ferry — looks like that was them on the ferry.”
“It isn’t so long,” Esther lies. “We’re not about to give up hope yet.”
“Well, of course not,” Kelly agrees with a sort of reverence as if she is in church. Her face lengthens over her chicken tikka, which she continues to feed into her mouth.
After a bottle of Chardonnay — Martin believes he knows his wines — he begins to relax. Rex, still slippered, eyes hooded, is enclosed in the deepest armchair. Martin’s hand is on Kelly’s thigh, and he begins to knead it rhythmically while he pronounces upon the academic course he has just completed in Toronto. “Re-engineering has replaced strategic planning today, Esther. The word manager is going to become defunct.”
Esther nods helpfully, not listening.
Rex opens his eyes a fraction and watches Martin’s kneading fingers. “Love her, do you?” he blurts suddenly.
Martin starts. “What?”
“Do you love this woman?” He might be a marriage celebrant posing the statutory questions. He stares challengingly.
“Why?”
“Just wondered. Doesn’t last, you know. We Kiwis pronounce ‘love’ like ‘laugh’ which is a good idea, I suppose. Both happen and then they’re gone, eh, Esther?”
“That’s real clever,” Kelly says with a pretty gurgle of humour.
Rex ignores her. He nods his grizzled head vigorously at Martin. “When you have your heart attack don’t expect her to take care of you.”
“What do you mean?” Esther explodes. “I’ve taken care of you!”
“I’m sure he’s not talking about you,” Kelly says softly.
Esther and Rex pass sour looks between them.
Kelly’s golden fingers pluck Martin’s hand up off her thigh. “These people need their space. Come on. We’re outta here. Thanks for the supper.”
Esther hugs herself with her strong white arms as she walks with her visitors to the door. Martin is looking bemused, distracted, perhaps puzzling Rex’s direct question about love.
“He’s been through a bad time,” Esther explains, keeping her voice down.
“So have you,” Kelly says, indignant.
Esther feels herself beginning to warm to this Canadian Viking.
“And we’re not through it yet,” Martin groans.
“There has to be an end to it!” An End. Well, yes, there does but Esther hasn’t put this well. She watches their faces flicker, a variety of cliché endings turning over in the mind’s eye like film slides.
WALLACE
I HAD TO carry the bird cage upstairs, it’s starting to pong, not just the bird shit, it’s the seed on the bottom seems to be going mouldy. I’ll clean it out later. Damn bird. Meanwhile, we’ve had a couple of lucky finds in the back cupboard; a cuckoo clock for a start. The cuckoo looks like a tiny gold acorn with a red beak. Jania was rapt. She was disappointed he won’t “cuckoo” but she says he’s a budgie now, he’s Joey. Even better than the cuckoo was this Swiss weather clock, it’s totally stuffed, leaking borer dust, but there’s a little man and his wife, real little dolls. The man’s a bit broken, it happened getting him out, he wanted to stay attached, but the wife’s not damaged. I suggested they could be me and Jania but she wouldn’t have that.
“We’ve got a Rawleigh’s man, the peg — that’s you — you can’t change people over.”
I remembered the lemon sago business. “No. Well, we haven’t got a Father Christmas,” I told her. “It’s going to be Christmas soon.”
She clasps her hands together as if she’s praying. “Yes! Santa Claus.”
“And his wife could be Mother Claus. They do have Mother Clauses.”
“Don’t be silly.” Now she’s getting bossy. “No, she can be Esther.”
I’ve lied to Jania about her grandma. I had to go out earlier to pick up a few bits and pieces; I went to an Indian mini mart a few streets away, just before closing. I feel safer in the dusk. I picked out the things I wanted so that I didn’t have to talk to the man and give away the sound of my tongue. I had to be careful not to spend more money than I’d got in my wallet, so it took a bit of figuring out before I got there with my list. I spent it all. And when I got back I knocked on the
door twice and said “Lemon sago” before I let myself in with my key, just so she wouldn’t be frightened. I’d told her not to answer the door to anyone but me, there’s some funny people on the streets, but I didn’t tell her I’d turned the key very softly when I left, locking her in. It was to keep her safe, but she might not have understood. So I was relieved when she was pleased to see me, not mad at me or anything. I’m dead scared she’ll turn round and misunderstand and get mad at me. If she got mad at me then I might… What might I do? No, but she didn’t get mad at me and why would she? I didn’t point out that she shouldn’t have been sitting there with both torches wasting when I’d lit the candles. I gave her this blue-striped lollipop. And then I told her I’d made some phone calls. My wife was sick, I told her, she’d gone down with the flu, but not to worry, I’d telephoned Esther and she and her daddy were coming to collect her in a day or so.
“Daddy!” Jania yelled, in a voice I didn’t recognise, it was too sharp and high. That’s when I went right off “Daddy”. “Is Daddy here then?”
“I don’t know. If he’s not he’s on his way.” This fib dug me in the gut like indigestion, but it was my own fib, I couldn’t blame Jania if it hurt.
“We can show him our city.”
Our city, I liked that. That made me feel better.
“Esther hasn’t seen Joey — I mean the wooden one.” She’s looking warmer now and I suppose the temperature has gone up a bit since the rain stopped. Just the same, it’ll be another hot-water bottle for her tonight. We don’t actually have a hot-water bottle but I had this good idea — I filled up a lime cordial bottle with hot water and wrapped it in a towel for Jania’s feet. The Gaz bottle is still holding out, but once it’s finished there’s no more hot water bottles or soup. You can’t mix dried soup with cold water. I’ll think of something, I have to.
“She’s seen the real Joey,” I remind her, thinking back to that day in the wine bar when she said all those things about Jania, what a nuisance she was to have in the house, something along those lines. Well, I’ve taken care of that, she doesn’t need to worry about that.
“You don’t like living with your grandma, do you?” I say. “Where would you like to live?” I have to stamp my foot to get the words out. I find it helps whenever my tongue gets locked to give my foot a bit of a stamp on the floor. It looks odd, I expect, but she’s used to it now, we’re used to each other. “Where would you like to live?” But she isn’t listening, she’s thinking about something else.
“Does your little girl know Joey’s here with us?” She’s looking worried. I have to think quickly, it keeps you busy this telling lies, keeping track of what you said last.
“It’s a present. She doesn’t know about him yet, it’ll be a surprise.”
“Oh.” She is still puzzled or perhaps she’s sad because Joey isn’t her own bird and she’ll have to give him up.
“But the wooden one, he’s yours,” I say, very cheerful, wanting her smile back. Then I remember my question about her grandmother. I’m wondering how soon I can ask it again.
“Am I allowed to take it home? All the new stuff? The Santa Claus and the slide and that?”
“Of course you can.” Anything, everything, my socks, my purple jersey, I feel like that song: “Why not take all of me?” “Do you want to go home then?”
She looks at me, blank. “You ran away” I have to remind her.
“Oh, yes.”
“I didn’t think you liked living with your grandma?”
She goes quiet for a bit, then, “Will she shout at me? Sometimes she shouts, it doesn’t mean she’s a villain, she still tucks me down. She’s all right.”
“Is she?”
She stares at me because I’m staring at her. “You like her! She’s your friend.”
“Yes, of course she is. I just wondered if you were happy there.”
“I don’t like school. I lost my best gumboots. Daddy might take me home to Canada with him. Look — this can be a tree for the cuckoo — for the budgie.” Then she yawns deeply, showing her pointy white teeth and the pink tonsils waving in her throat. “Can I go to bed now?”
It’s late. I’m guilty. I should be making sure she gets enough sleep but it’s so hard letting go of her company. I’m selfish because I can’t sleep myself, hardly at all. We go upstairs. I put her ahead of me so she won’t fall and she scrambles, her darling little legs right in my face, they smell like apples. It isn’t fair that she should smell so sweet. My hands shake so much when I fill the cordial bottle I scald myself and nearly drop the thing.
Good. The pain helps.
DONALD IS STANDING at the gate of number forty-one with a yellow rose hooked in his thinning hair and more blooms cascading off his charcoal grey shoulders. While Esther watches, several clutching stems detach from his suit and drop buttery rose heads on his shiny shoes. Petals drift on his shoulders like coins of golden dandruff.
“What …?” Esther advances behind Rex, whose hand is still poised so that when he turns he seems about to strike his wife. “Rex!”
He lowers his hand and the veins in his wrist are shimmering with tension. Donald bends down to retrieve one rose and offers it bravely to Esther. “For you. The others are for Rex. I bought them for Rex.”
“You didn’t! Liar!” His face bulges with disbelief.
“I did. I meant to get in to the hospital when I heard you were sick but — I leave for Auckland in the morning, Es. I came to say goodbye. I was hoping you’d have heard something before I went.”
“Es! Her name’s Esther!”
“In the morning?” Esther repeats faintly.
“Yes! That’s what the man said! That’s nice, isn’t it? And now he can bugger off!” Rex shakes his head and shoulders like a wet Alsatian, as if the thrown flowers have been strewn on him and not on Donald. He is ridding himself of Donald, not of roses. “Bugger off!”
“I think —” Esther begins.
“Obviously —” Donald begins then stops, his eyebrows raised, twin question marks. “I did wonder why …”
Esther is trying to remember whether she has told her lover about revealing their relationship to Rex. Has she even spoken to him since then? Surely she has? No. Oh dear. Not since she rang him at the office distraught with Jania’s disappearance, informing him she wouldn’t be in to work. She has switched him off like a soap opera she no longer feels any compulsion to watch, switched him off just as she has feared he might switch off from her. She takes a doubtful step towards him as he turns back to the gate.
“Esther! If you say one word to that man I’m going to have an attack, I’m warning you! I can feel it. One word!”
“Donald, I’m sorry,” Esther says. “I hope it all goes well.” Several words. She looks nervously towards her husband, but he is still upright, his mouth still chewing with rage.
The neighbours are privileged audience to their performance, viewing from their windowboxes, not even hiding behind curtains. The Ackersleys are becoming prime-time entertainment. It could be worse. The media could have got hold of the HIV story. In fact, the published reports discreetly claim she is “on medication for a blood condition”. She has told Melanie, she had to tell someone. Melanie had said in her clumsy way, “I hope she gives the bugger AIDS,” and then apologised, going as rosy as her supermarket uniform because that might have implied the kind of contact no one wants to think about. “Well, you know what I mean.” Making it worse.
Inside the house Rex deflates and sinks into his wonky armchair. He looks smaller after this encounter.
Esther feels smaller. “It doesn’t do you any good to get yourself worked up. Over nothing,” she adds, arranging roses defiantly in the blue jug.
“Yes it does. It does. The doctor told me to let it all out. Get angry, he said, and give up cream.”
“And whisky?”
Rex looks rebellious. “That’s a good idea.” He hoists himself and ambles towards the drinks cabinet, glancing slyly at Esther ov
er his round shoulder.
WALLACE
I CAN’T SLEEP. Oh, I dozed off for a bit, scrunched up like a slater, this sofa isn’t the most comfortable, but now I’m bang awake again. In the dark all the bugs and beetles creep out of the cracks. If the electricity was connected I could flash a switch and send them all scurrying back into their holes. I know they’re there. The world is seething with nasty things, perhaps I’m one of them. It isn’t nice being awake in the dark with all your best and worst fears. I don’t know how much breath I’ve got left. Everything runs out. The gas will go, there’s no more money. Time is money. Money is time. We need time, we need …
Money. I’ve more or less decided this will be the next thing I have to do. When I was seven, not much older than Jania, I wanted to please Mother and I thought I knew how to do it. She’d been arguing with the old wizard about the housekeeping, the cost of feeding us, him and me, him with his expensive tastes for deli food. There was a delicatessen down the road and I’d been there with her, queueing for salami. The sausages hung like ugly turds, like dead eels, I hated it. But then sitting up in my bed I imagined how pleased she would be if I could break into that shop and help myself to a sackful of food. I would empty my sack on to the kitchen table and take her breath away. She’d gasp with joy and thank me. She’d forgive me for turning my toes in and for being kept in at school. So I sat up in bed when I was seven and took myself step by step through the night streets — aargh! creepy! — and next I’d be in the dark shop, smelling the meat, the shadow of dead eels, the shapes coming at me from the shelves. I scared myself silly and woke her up with my crying out instead of bringing home booty to make her smile.
No, I’m not breaking into any deli. I’ve got a better idea. If I go right round the block from here, I come to Mother’s flat and I know where the spare key is kept. She’ll be asleep if I go now. Well, it’s my home, too, or it used to be. Why shouldn’t I let myself in and go look in the family Bible? That’s where she hides her money, the big notes. I don’t know why I haven’t thought of it before. Yes, I do. I’m scared. I’m scared shitless. Of her? I can’t be scared of my own mother, an old lady. I can’t be scared of the family Bible. But I’m scared of being found out. Yes. A blaze of light, uniforms, booming voices gunning me down, it could happen, I feel as if it has happened, I’ve dreamed it so often. Found out. Caught. But I’m going to do it. For Jania. It can’t end now. Just a few more days.
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