by Carl Nixon
Maniototo Six
Egg tempura on canvas — 590 x 500 mm
the missing painting is a small landscape of the Maniototo by Grahame Sydney. He admired it immediately for its emotive depiction of the folding ground, the morning shadows creeping across barren hills, yellowed tussock in the foreground. It is the sky, however, which dominates the piece: indescribably huge and empty. A vast expanse of blues fading down to almost white where it doesn’t quite connect with the land. Almost, it seems, pushing the earth away, subjugating it, forcing it down so that it occupies less than its fair share of the available space. Sydney has included a slight clue to the season. Fingers of snow seen in the shadowed valleys suggest autumn or early spring, and in the foreground a small patch of unmelted snow lies in the shadow beneath a clump of tussock. It is early morning or possibly late evening. The shadows are long. The light is crisp. There is absolutely nothing, nothing at all romantic about this lighting. This is in no way the buttery light of traditional English romantic pastoralism.
Mark has owned this painting for fifteen years. It was one of the first important works in his private collection. One of the first paintings he truly loved. He bought it from the artist directly. It hung in a recess next to his front door where he could admire it as he came and went or moved between the kitchen and the bedrooms. And now it is gone. It has been stolen from his home. It would not have been a difficult item to steal; to lift it from the wall and conceal it inside a large handbag or beneath a buttoned-up coat would have been a matter of moments. The frame was oak, narrow and very light.
The obvious culprit is his son, Richard.
The previous evening Richard had arrived unexpectedly at Mark’s fiftieth birthday party. Of course Richard was invited but Mark had not expected his son to materialise. On the phone Richard had mumbled something about exams, had clearly intimated that he would not be making the trip up from Dunedin.
But arrive he did, and there was a girl with him. They had stood outside on the terrace, not mixing, notably apart from the other guests. Both appeared to smoke constantly. Smoking is not a habit that Mark is comfortable with. His son, as a medical student, a future doctor, should know better.
The girl kept on a long brown overcoat buttoned down the front. Mark’s first impression was of a short solid frame — what in a less correct era men would have openly referred to as child-bearing hips. She was not fat but approaching that condition. Richard himself had on what looked like a second-hand jacket over a pair of jeans, tattered and dangling at the heel. His one concession to propriety was a mismatched tie. He looked tired. Dark creases loitered beneath his eyes and he appeared to have lost weight. There was an unfamiliar gauntness to his face.
Mark had found himself irritated by his son’s appearance. Couldn’t Richard have made more of an effort? Surely with a bit of forethought it would have been possible to borrow or even buy some more appropriate clothes. After all, the deputy mayor was here as well as several trustees of the gallery. Would a simple haircut have been too much? His son’s hair was moppish, frizzled above the ears, and his sideburns were long. It was completely unnecessary to have Richard looking like a refugee among his guests. How long could he be expected to cling to this bohemian image of the down-at-heel student before entering a more mature phase of his life?
‘Hello Richard. Are you enjoying yourselves?’ They did not embrace or even shake hands. Mark had felt the girl’s scrutiny.
‘Sarah, this is my father. This is Sarah.’
‘It’s nice to meet you, Sarah. Please call me Mark.’
‘Hello.’
He had wondered what happened to Richard’s last girlfriend. A pleasant enough young woman, although he couldn’t immediately remember her name. This new girl’s hair was too short, cut in a no doubt fashionably jagged bowl but left long at the back, and a natural black that went well with her dark skin. Despite her hairdresser’s efforts, however, she was undeniably pretty. Her face was a symmetrical oval, her eyes large. Large dark eyes. He thought of the Tahitian women in Gauguin’s later work, posed semi-nude alone and in small groupings. It was a full face, yet it still managed to be strong. A face to match her body.
‘When did you get in to town?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘I hope you didn’t miss anything important on your course just for my birthday.’
‘I was coming up anyway.’
‘I see.’ There was an awkward pause. ‘Where are you staying?’
‘With friends.’
‘You know that you’re always welcome to stay here. Both of you. I’ve got room.’
‘We’re okay. We’re staying with friends.’
Perhaps it was just as well. No doubt there would be stresses involved if Richard and this girl, Sarah, if they stayed in his home. His offer had been made. The girl turned her head and watched the other guests as they stood in small groups in front of the paintings. He had taken that as his cue to make the usual excuses and leave.
He had not really noticed them after that. His impression was that they had stayed outside. He was sure that they had not mixed with the other guests. Someone had made a comment later in the evening suggesting that dope was being smoked in the courtyard. He had decided to let sleeping dogs lie. About midnight Richard and the girl had said a perfunctory goodbye and were gone. If anything, he had been relieved.
It was only much later, after all the guests had gone and he himself had retired to bed, that he noticed the painting was missing. He had been unable to sleep and had fetched himself a glass of water. It was while carrying it back to his room that the painting’s absence registered. There is a nook in the wall close to the front door, filled by a small oak table where he leaves his keys, the spot where he sorts his mail. Something had struck him as being not right and he turned on the single recessed ceiling light to reveal a slightly darker patch of wall, an empty picture hook near its apex.
He had stood staring at the empty space until his bare feet grew cold against the tiles.
Yes, he is sure. There is absolutely no doubt in his mind that Richard is responsible. The question now is what is he going to do about it?
Two days later he travels to Dunedin. For the most part the road south is straight and makes for boring driving. Occasionally he glimpses the Pacific Ocean on his left as, south of Timaru, the highway draws in conspiratorially to follow the coast. Apart from the heavy trucks there is little traffic midweek. By habit he drives cautiously, and the trucks overtake him in the passing lanes, their drivers staring down at him from the high cabs as his car shudders in their turbulence.
Within five hours of leaving his house he is entering Dunedin. The highway ascends a steep hill and he has his first glimpse of the city wrapping itself around the head of the narrow harbour like a patterned shawl of white and red roofs.
He has booked a room at a motel on George Street, close to the centre of the city. The pug-faced Asian woman at reception walks him across the concrete courtyard to his room with its faded pastels, blue and pink. She points out where the tea bags are kept and hands him a small green carton of milk for the morning. Then she leaves him alone. He is not anticipating that his business with Richard will require him to stay here more than one night. Of course he has tried to call, but his son’s number is no longer in service. Nor is his cellphone. Consequently Richard is not expecting him. Probably it is just as well.
The address he has turns out to be a squat weatherboard house on the hills close to the green belt, up by the public swimming pool. It reminds him in some ways of his father’s old home on the hills which was sold three years ago after his father succumbed to a brain tumour. He parks his car on the narrow street, pulling the handbrake on hard, and angles the wheels in towards the gutter. The house is surrounded by a dense, seemingly unplanned garden of native trees, the path overgrown with five-finger and ragged pittosporum. There is a clearing close to the house, a patch of weeds he thinks must once have been a lawn. Near its centre charcoaled pl
anks of wood and half-burnt faggots of newspaper lie in a rain-sodden pile.
The door is answered by a girl of no more than eighteen whose hair is dyed a violent shade of red. Small sleepy eyes, marsupial eyes, he thinks, question his presence.
‘I’m looking for Richard. Richard Alymer.’
‘I think you’ve got the wrong house.’
‘I was given this address.’ For lack of anything else to do, he hands over the piece of paper he is holding.
She frowns, barely glancing at it, and half-shrugs and begins to back away.
‘Could you please ask if anyone else knows him.’
She looks doubtful but says ‘Okay,’ and turns and retreats into the dim interior of the house. He waits on the porch where he hears a surge of noise from a television set as an internal door is opened. There are muted voices under the soundtrack for an advertisement for batteries. Are these people students like Richard? Don’t they have lectures to go to? Even if they are not students, there must be better things to do in the middle of the day than sit in front of a television.
The girl returns. ‘Nick thinks there was a guy called Richard here before we moved in. No one knows where he’s at now.’
‘He didn’t leave a forwarding address? A phone number?’
She is already shaking her head and has closed the door before he has finished talking. She has taken his piece of paper with her, and he is left standing on the porch, clutching nothing more substantial than an uncollaborated rumour of his son.
But he is reluctant to give up so easily. It is not in his nature to leave without thoroughly exploring every possibility. He drives back into town and parks as close to the campus as he can. From there he walks. The original gothic buildings are now cheek by jowl with concrete towers from the 1970s and more recent glass-faced lecture theatres. It is, he thinks, an aesthetic mess.
At the student registry he explains that he has paid a surprise visit on his son but has somehow foolishly managed to lose the boy’s address. No, there is no one at home at the moment whom he can call to find out the information. The woman behind the information desk must be in her sixties but has pale copper streaks in her hair. He wonders if the streaks are an attempt to blend in, to give herself that air of youthful experimentation that he has observed in the students he has seen around campus.
‘I was wondering if you had my son’s new address in your records.’
‘I can check.’
She turns back to her computer screen. He is surprised it is that easy, that she is willing to part with a student’s personal information so informally. She has not even taken the precaution of asking for identification. Her fingers tap the keyboard and there is a pause. He watches her reading from the screen.
‘I’m sorry but our records show that Richard Alymer is no longer enrolled.’
‘There must be some mistake. He’s doing fourth-year medical. Could you check again please?’
‘Richard Edward Alymer?’ She gives Richard’s date of birth, her finger now tracing the screen in front of her as though the information is written there in Braille.
‘Yes. That’s right.’
‘The only records we have for him are from the last academic year. He didn’t complete his course and hasn’t re-enrolled this year.’
‘I see. And you have no address?’
‘The last address we have is Willis Street. Is that any good.’
‘No. That’s out of date.’
He thanks her for her help and walks out into the sunlight. So Richard has dropped out of university, has given up his medical studies. There is no mistake. For six months — no, for longer, for a portion of last year as well — Richard has been telling him blatant lies. His son has been concocting a life of lectures and exams while actually … He is unable to complete the sentence. What has Richard been doing? He has no idea. His son’s activities over the preceding months are a complete mystery to him.
He hears no bell, but suddenly doors are flung open and students spill out into the sunlight in colourful groups. They chatter, laughing loudly. The end of lectures. He is struck by how very young they look, how fresh faced and optimistic. They fill the paths in course streams. He is standing still in the middle of a path, unsure where to go and what to do now. He finds himself in their way. He is unexpectedly surrounded and facing against the current. A girl bumps his arm with her tasselled shoulder-bag but does not apologise. Young people sidestep, flood around him and past. Out of desperation he moves from the path on to the lawn and watches them go by.
He had intended to go running during his time here. Now, at a loss for what else to do, what to think, he drives back to his hotel and gets changed.
Running is something he has taken up only in the last few years. Since his father’s death really. He freely acknowledges that it was the spectre of ill health that made him seriously consider his own well-being. He runs three or four times a week, mostly in the park in the early evenings when it is still light. Sometimes he meets up with Martin, a colleague from the gallery, but mostly he runs alone. There can be no doubt he feels better for it and has lost some weight around his middle. Not that jogging is any protection against the type of thing that killed his father. Brain tumours, he knows, are more random but at least he can be said to be proactive, to be battling the more avoidable conditions that afflict men of his age.
But he is not used to running on hills. He discovers that a different rhythm is required: something slower than his usual pace, relying more on leg power. He runs slowly past rows of solid brick houses, two and even three storeyed and obviously expensive, but closer to the road than they would be in a city with more room to sprawl. He is unsure of his route. Twice he heads up a cul-de-sac and is forced to turn and retrace his steps. Other streets end in long rows of concrete steps that snake-and-ladder him up to the next level of streets. He stops more often than he would in the park.
By the time he gets to the green belt he is breathing hard. A wide band of bush has been preserved on the hills above the centre of the city. From streets of suburban houses he suddenly finds himself on a stretch of road surrounded by tall trees that arch overhead. The transition is almost instantaneous. There are houses and then … this. It is like moving from the open into a moist cave. The light is mottled. There are ferns growing on the earth banks next to the footpath. The road no longer climbs but is almost level, traversing the bowl of the hills. He is now running parallel with the narrow harbour, which he glimpses occasionally through breaks in the bush.
For him one of the appeals of running is that while he is moving he does not have to think. It is pure doing. But today his mind slips repeatedly, annoyingly, back to Richard. Richard has stolen from him. Now it appears he has also dropped out of university. He has been hiding behind a well-constructed wall of lies. Mark is at a loss to explain any of Richard’s actions. He has to accept the fact that his son is a stranger to him.
Ahead of him a group of women round a corner. There are seven or eight and they are walking briskly, swinging their arms like foppish soldiers. No doubt some type of walking group for women warding off the spread of hips and thighs. It is only when he gets closer that he sees that all of them are pregnant. They approach him in a ragged echelon, their bellies riding out in front. Most of the women walk with a look of dogged determination, as though the well-being of their unborn children depends on the vigour with which they perform this exercise.
As he passes, a blonde woman on the outside edge of the group makes eye contact. She has a wide, open face that he immediately likes. Her belly is covered by a bright white T-shirt several sizes too large for her. The writing on the shirt says, BABY ON BOARD! She smiles at him, acknowledging the absurdity of her situation. He smiles back. For a passing moment they are co-conspirators. And then his eyes flick forward and his legs have carried him past.
He runs for an hour. The road through the green belt loops around, leading him back into suburban streets. He moves downhill, walking on the stee
per stretches to preserve his sometimes fragile knees, until he is back on George Street close to the Octagon. He is almost back to his motel when he sees the girl, Richard’s partner from the party. She is walking in the same direction as him but on the other side of the street. There is no mistaking her. He recognises the short black hair, the rounded soft features. She is even wearing the same overcoat she wore the other night.
He crosses the street and slips in behind her, keeping back amongst the crowd of students who clutter the footpath between them. He feels absurd moving in furtive spurts like this, loitering in shop entrances, a figure straight out of the movies. He considers catching up, confronting her and demanding to know where Richard is. It is possible that he could bully her into taking him to his son. He is just about to catch her up when she turns and enters a pawn shop. Is Richard using her to canvass potential buyers for the Sydney? He doubts that she has the painting with her. Richard is not that stupid (he cannot speak for the girl). Only a stupid person would walk the streets trying to hawk something as immediately recognisable as a stolen painting. Unless they are counting on him not having reported the theft. An assumption which in the event has proved correct.
He walks past the shop and waits in a doorway where comic books are on display. After a few minutes the girl appears again and continues walking. He turns and pretends to be examining a rare early edition of the Green Lantern, and then when she is past he follows her. She walks until the shops thin out and give way to rows of tidy but plain wooden houses. She turns down a side street and then another. There are fewer people on the footpaths here, and he slows his pace, dropping back further. If she glances back he is sure she will recognise him immediately. He is poised to turn suddenly into a stranger’s driveway or dart up a garden path.
Clouds have blown in from the south in a dirty smear. Now it starts to rain, drizzle which drifts down from a low concrete sky. He is still wearing only his T-shirt and shorts and is suddenly freezing. He should have thought to bring a windbreaker. He can feel the first drops of rain against the skin of his arms and at the back of his neck. Up ahead of him the girl puts her head down and begins to walk faster.