by Carl Nixon
The well-maintained homes have given way to rental accommodation, large houses which he imagines have been divided into as many bedrooms as possible. They present sagging fences and unpainted walls to the street. Nearly every one seems to have a battered couch gracing the veranda. The girl walks doggedly on until she abruptly turns in. He picks up his pace.
A wooden gate, part of a tall concrete-block fence. Number 27. He looks around for a sign showing the name of the street but cannot see one. Red and yellow circulars have spilt from the letterbox and litter the footpath. He slips his hand in through the arched hole in the gate, fumbles for the latch and lifts it. The gate has sagged on its hinges and scrapes along the concrete path as he pushes it open. He waits but there is no response to the noise.
Inside the property there is an overgrown lawn. He follows the path up to the front of the bungalow and knocks on the door.
A pause. ‘Who is it?’ The girl’s voice. She is clearly wary.
‘Mark Alymer. Richard’s father.’
There is a pause long enough to make him think she has retreated back into the depths of the house, but then he hears a key turn and the door is opened. She is shorter than he remembers and obviously scared. She is looking him up and down, obviously curious about his clothing.
‘Richard isn’t here.’
‘It’s Sarah, isn’t it? You came to my house the other night.’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you tell me when he’s going to be back?’
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.’
For all he knows Richard is inside the house at this very moment, perhaps even listening as they speak. Mark has not come to Dunedin to play childish games of hide-and-seek with his son. The girl still remains half behind the door, revealing only her face.
‘Tell him that I am looking for him. That I have come especially to talk to him. There is something very important that we have to discuss. He’ll know what I’m talking about.’
If the girl knows about the painting, she gives no indication. Her face remains impassive. ‘Okay. I’ll tell him.’
‘I’m staying at the Ambassador Motel. Do you have a pen and paper?’
‘I know where it is.’
‘On George Street. I’ll write my cellphone number down. In case Richard has lost it. Do you have a pen and paper?’
She frowns. ‘Wait a minute.’
She returns a few minutes later with a small rectangle of white paper and a ballpoint pen which he has to shake hard before the ink flows. He writes the address and phone number down, aware of the girl watching him. She is never still, shifting her weight, moving her stockinged feet. He writes CALL ME in block capitals and circles the words several times, and then hands her back the paper and the pen.
‘Will you make sure he gets it. It’s very important that he calls me today.’
‘Okay. I’ll tell him.’
She is about to close the door. He reaches out and puts his hand lightly against the wood. ‘Sarah, can you tell me, is Richard in some type of trouble?’
She drops her eyes and shakes her head with a rattling motion like a dog with a stick. ‘If Richard thought I was talking to you he’d be really angry. I’ll give him your message though.’
She closes the door and he is left standing on the veranda. So Richard is not inside. The rain is falling harder now, and the wind from off the harbour has picked up. It is only as he is leaving the property that he thinks how he must look in his shorts and sodden T-shirt, water dripping from his nose. Closing the gate behind him, he sets off back towards the motel, moving at a slow jog in a futile attempt to keep warm.
Richard has not called.
Mark sits on the couch in his motel room with the work he has brought with him spread across the glass coffee table. It is just after ten o’clock and the hard rain strikes the roof, filling the room with a white noise that almost drowns out the soft hiss of the cars driving by on George Street.
He is just about to retire to bed when there is a knock on the door. He opens it, expecting to see Richard or the pug-faced manager with a message, but instead it is the girl again, Sarah. Her short hair is wet, slicked down across her scalp. Rainwater drips from the cuffs of her jacket. There is another change from when he saw her this afternoon. An ugly bruise hangs over her left eye, lumped and dark. The eye itself is bloodshot. She stands dripping, edgy, undecided; looks back towards the street.
‘I need to talk to you.’
‘Come in.’
He steps aside to let her pass and watches as she crosses the room. She removes her overcoat and drapes it, sodden, across the back of the couch. It is the first time he has seen her without it. When she turns to face him it is immediately apparent that she is pregnant. She is wearing dark leggings under a long woollen dress, the hem of which is darkly wet where it hung down below the coat. The dress moulds to the curve of her hips and thighs, revealing the unmistakable arc of her belly. Of course. He should have picked it before.
So this explains the overcoat. Richard did not want him to know.
She picks up the proofs of the gallery newsletter, and he watches her leaf through the pages. ‘What is this?’
He gently takes them from her. ‘Is there something you want?’
She blinks and looks around the room. ‘I need to talk to you about Richard.’ She draws in her breath and speaks without looking at him. ‘I’m pregnant. Richard is the father.’
As if to prove his son’s paternity she uses her hands to further flatten the material across her belly. He can clearly see the full curve of her now, and guesses that she is about halfway through her term — twenty, maybe as many as twenty-five weeks. It is hard to be precise. It has been a long time since he has been called upon to judge the extent of a woman’s pregnancy. Too far along though, certainly, to arrange for an abortion.
So here is his explanation for Richard’s behaviour. This young woman, in what his own mother would have called a delicate condition. This is undoubtedly the cause of Richard’s distraction, his life-crisis, the reason for the abandonment of his studies. Possibly this is also the reason he saw fit to take the Sydney. Mark is, if anything, relieved to discover that his son is suffering from such a traditional malady.
She is watching him closely, gauging his reaction.
‘I hope you won’t be insulted if I ask whether you are sure that Richard is the father?’
She takes no offence (which in itself makes him believe there may be some doubt). ‘Richard knows that it’s his. He’ll tell you.’
‘I see. And when is this baby due?’
She has to think. ‘I’m about six months now. It’s due in August. I saw a nurse at Family Planning. She told me I was pregnant. I thought I might be, but she told me that I was.’
It is clear to him that she has made some effort for this meeting, that this has been thought through. He sees now that she has tried to camouflage the bruise around her eye with makeup. There is lipstick and eyeliner in relatively modest amounts by student standards. He detects perfume. This dress is probably her best.
‘Why have you chosen to tell me now after you both went to so much trouble to keep me in the dark?’
‘Richard’s kicked me out. Out of the flat.’
‘I saw you there this afternoon.’
‘We had a fight when he came back. He threw most of my stuff out the window. I didn’t have anywhere to put it, so I just left it on the veranda out of the rain.’ The thought of her evicted possessions seems to make her forlorn and she sits on the arm of the couch and hangs her head.
‘Were you fighting about the painting you stole from my house?’
He waits for her to deny responsibility, but to her credit she nods. It is a quick, almost involuntary gesture. ‘I told him you might help us if we gave it back. He took the painting to a guy he knows but he was only going to give him a hundred dollars for it.’ She touches her stomach again with the flat of her hand, moving it in the circular
rubbing motion he thinks of as common to all pregnant women.
‘So what is it you want from me?’
‘We’ll need money for the baby. For food and stuff.’
‘You have just admitted that you stole from me. Why would I be at all inclined to give you money?’
‘You’re Richard’s father.’
‘Richard is an adult. He is old enough to deal with his own problems, with this … situation.’ He cannot think of a better expression. ‘He has made his own bed. It’s no longer my place to take care of my son or his child, either financially or in any other way. And frankly I don’t think Richard would thank me if I did interfere.’
He watches as she tucks her head like a bird, burrowing her chin into her shoulder, and starts to cry. But he is not going to let himself be manipulated.
‘You must have friends, family. People you can ask for help?’
She shakes her head. ‘Both my parents are dead. I have a brother in Scotland but we don’t get on. He won’t want to know about it.’
He persists. ‘But you must have friends here in Dunedin. Somewhere you can go.’
She shakes her head again and will not be drawn by further questions about her family. It occurs to him that he could be the intended victim of an elaborate confidence trick. Really, he knows nothing about this girl. It may be that she has taken advantage of her pregnancy to collect money, gifts, free board, who knows what else, in this manner before. Possibly she has convinced other men that she is carrying their child, their grandchild.
‘Stop crying. I can’t talk to you properly when you’re crying.’
He crosses to the window and shifts the heavy curtain with his hand so that he can see out. It is still raining. The drops hit the sill in the light spilling from the room. If anything it is raining harder than before.
‘I need to talk to Richard. Tonight. Do you know where he is now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will you take me to him?’
She nods.
The girl directs him back to the flat. She sits next to him, bleary eyed and silent, as the windscreen wipers shift the water across the glass. A dozen cars are now parked in front of the house, and water is pooled, inching across the road where the drain is clogged with the spilled advertising from the letterbox. She fumbles for the latch on the gate and he follows her through.
There is a party in progress. The house emits a steady bass thump. Despite the cold, several windows are open and squares of pale red light spill on to the grass. Shadowy figures loiter on the porch, drinking from cans and bottles. The girl moves quickly past him and vanishes through the open doorway into the crowded hall. Mark hesitates, unwilling to fully commit himself to this house, to this crush of people. It is in all likelihood the wrong time to be confronting his son. But if not now, then when?
There is a pile of jumbled possessions stacked on the open porch by the door. It at least partially confirms the girl’s story of hasty eviction. He identifies a torn duvet, clothing, a desk drawer stacked with tapes and compact disks, a stuffed toy giraffe. Several people stare at him curiously. They yell at each other above the music.
Inside there is a strong smell of beer and marijuana. There are even more people than he first thought. The house is bulging at the seams. Someone has painted all the light bulbs red. He glances into rooms and sees by the Martian light people standing, leaning against walls, splayed over beds and sofas, sprawled across the floor. Several seem to be sleeping or unconscious. People sway to the bass rhythm. Couples openly kiss and fondle each other. But there is no sign of Richard.
In the kitchen, dishes caked with dried food sit in piles in the sink and spread across the bench where someone has spilt brown sugar. Two more bags of sugar sit on the Formica table among a litter of unopened mail and more dishes. Among the smells, he can now distinguish the rubbish bag gaping open in the corner. A group of people sit around the kitchen table. A red-headed woman in a thick jersey slumps forward into her arms. No one speaks to him and the woman does not move at all.
Richard suddenly appears. He is wearing faded jeans and a sweatshirt with an old-fashioned V collar that shows the dark hair on his chest. His shoulders are coat-hangers on which the sweatshirt hangs, barely touching his body.
‘Hi.’
‘Hello, Richard.’
As he watches, Richard crosses to the bench and fills the jug awkwardly, barely able to fit it beneath the tap. He is obviously slightly drunk or stoned. ‘You should’ve given me a bit of warning before you called around, eh. The place is a bit of a mess at the moment. We’re having a bit of a party to celebrate.’
To celebrate what? he wonders. Richard does not elaborate and he does not ask.
It infuriates him that Richard should act as though there is nothing at all amiss between them, as though he has just dropped by for a cup of tea. They both know this is not simply an unexpected social call. The girl slumped over the table still has not moved. The others have gone back to their own conversation.
‘Richard, I’ve been trying to get hold of you.’
‘Haven’t you got my new number? I thought I’d given it to you. I’ve been busy, you know. There’s exams all the way through the year. I’ve got to study a lot to keep on top of it all.’
So many untruths in the space of one utterance. ‘Don’t lie to me any more, Richard. I’ve spoken to the university. I know you’ve dropped out. You haven’t even been enrolled this year.’
If he had expected denials, shouting, histrionics, then he is disappointed. Richard is po-faced, silent.
‘Why didn’t you tell me if you were having trouble with the course? We could have talked about the situation, maybe arranged something with the university, some type of break.’
‘I didn’t need to talk to you. It was my decision to leave. That’s it, end of story.’
‘So you’re just going to waste three years of study and leave yourself with no direction, no future.’
‘Obviously I think I have a future. It’s you who think dropping out of bloody university is the end of my life.’
‘That’s not what I said.’
‘I don’t even see why we are discussing this. It’s my decision.’
Richard is at least partially right. He is old enough to make his own decisions and, by extension, to have to live with the consequences. As a father, Mark cannot be expected to police his son’s life. If this is the path Richard has chosen to stumble along, then so be it.
‘All right, I agree. We won’t discuss your leaving university any further. I didn’t come here to talk about that. When you were at my home recently I have reason to believe you took a painting. It is a painting of which I am particularly fond and I have come to get it back from you.’
‘Okay.’
In the end it is as simple as that. Okay. Richard turns and walks from the room.
Mark follows him through the crowded hallway into a small room, a deserted laundry, at the back of the house. There is no washing machine, but the plumbing for one protrudes from the floor. Mark watches as Richard uses a key to open a cupboard in the corner and takes out the Sydney. It is wrapped in newspaper tied together with binding twine. Richard hands it to him, and he unwraps it. He is relieved to see that the painting is undamaged.
‘Aren’t you at least going to apologise?’
Richard shrugs thin shoulders. ‘You’ve got it back now.’
‘If you’d been anyone else I would have called the police days ago. I hope you appreciate that.’
‘I took your precious painting, okay. I tried to sell it for money but I couldn’t. You’ve got it back now. Why don’t you just go?’
He is suddenly furious. ‘Do you seriously think you can just dismiss me? That I’m going to leave it at that. Richard, you stole from me. Do you have any idea how seriously I treat that?’
‘Call the police then. Go on.’
‘I should.’
‘Go on, the phone’s in the hall. Call them!’ Richard is wavin
g his hands agitatedly in the air.
Who is this doppelgänger, this haggard parody of his son?
‘I want you to acknowledge that what you did was a gross betrayal.’
‘I don’t need a lecture!’
‘Frankly, Richard, I don’t know what you need.’
‘Fuck off! Just leave me alone!’
‘Right. I’m going to leave now.’
‘Go on then, fucking leave!’ And Richard snatches something from the cupboard shelf and, bending back his arm, throws it towards him in a short whiplash. It hits him in the chest. He feels it as a dull thump like an ill-timed heartbeat.
Mark looks down to see a glass paperweight fall to the ground. Inside is swirling snow, a Christmas scene. It hits the floorboards near his foot and rolls away. Without any conscious thought, he crosses the space between himself and his son. He has Richard by the top of the arms and is shaking him hard. His son’s arms feel bony, the muscles wasted beneath his palms.
Then Richard punches him. It is a swinging uppercut that only partially connects with his jaw. He feels his son’s knuckles graze across his cheek, and then he is striking back. It is a reflex action. He feels his fist connect with Richard’s face, the nose gristling sideways into the cheek a fraction of a second before the solidity of the teeth, the bone against his knuckles. There is a sharp pain in his hand and he realises that he may have broken his own thumb. And then Richard is falling back. Is lying on the floor looking up with blood already flowing down his face. Is reaching out his hands to ward off another blow.
Before Mark can react, hit him again or take him in his arms, strong hands are dragging him away. There is a swirl of angry faces as Mark is manhandled out of the room and down the corridor. The music is still playing. People are shouting. He is shouting. He looks desperately for Sarah but cannot see her. He falls and for a moment has a close-up view of a woman’s shoe. There are small hand-painted flowers on the leather strap. Someone kicks him hard in the thigh and his leg goes instantly numb. And then he is pulled to his feet again, dragged and shoved, and with a final lurch is propelled out from the porch and on to the muddy lawn.