‘I further move that we pass a motion to censure our local Member of Parliament, Kit Kendall.’
They quietened then, as if a wave of nerves had caught them, almost like children who have been caught smoking behind the bikesheds and respond with that aggressive hysteria that reduces them to giggling.
‘We might as well,’ Denise shouted, still excited, the flag-bearer, it seemed, in a pink tracksuit tonight with fluffy moccasins.
‘What good’ll that do?’ called Larry Verschoelt, thickly. ‘It won’t make a blind bit of difference to what he does down there in Wellington. We just dump him at the next election.’
‘It’s like we don’t exist to that man any more,’ the old man next to Rose told her, as if, in fact, she did not exist either.
Toni stood up then. ‘Mr Chairman,’ she called, attracting Matt’s attention over a new volume of noise. He signalled to her to speak. ‘Matt, there’s not much we can censure Kit Kendall for at present. He still represents us. It’s just that nobody listens to him down there. It’s what he stands for that we’re attacking, not the man. Isn’t it?’
Rose could hear Katrina’s voice in her head: He never meant to get in, did he? It was something she and Kit had never faced, never voiced out loud: what the consequences would be for them both if there was a landslide in the Party’s favour at the polls, if in this most unlikely provincial town there was a swing to the left. When it happened it had been too late even to talk about it. It was true, they had meant to change the Government, but had they ever meant to go this far? Had they intended, by changing it, that they would also become it? The past is the present we live in, that is our territory, she thought, what is happening now is simply a rehearsal for the future. The journalist who had interviewed her had not asked her, either, what she thought of herself. If he had, she might have said, not especially good or evil, or even clever; nothing special — only I believe in what’s right. Only then, she realised, she might also have been asked to define what was right, and was grateful that these questions had gone unasked.
Toni was still on her feet, and Morris stood too. Rose looked for Sarah, whom she had liked, but for reasons she would now prefer to forget, had never known as well as the others did. She was nowhere to be seen.
‘One at a time,’ said Matt, and there was another fluttery laugh in the room which Rose did not understand.
Morris said, ‘The Government’s standing firm on nukes. Kit Kendall’s always been against nuclear ships and the Government’s still supporting that view. Kit’s quite influential in that respect.’
The old man beside Rose muttered to her, as if he really did not recognise her any more. ‘That doesn’t give my boy a job,’ he said.
Toni had taken the floor again. ‘Kit put himself on the line against the tour. That’s where I’m coming from in respect of Kit. I’m not ready to censure him yet, not personally. We know he’s capable of tough options. We need him still, to listen to what we believe in now.’
‘We can put up another bloody good candidate at the next election if he doesn’t,’ shouted Larry.
‘Shut up.’ Matt stood, shouting back. ‘Order.’
We meant to do good, Rose thought, and that is still what we want, but the reality is different. She would have liked to be back on the edge of the road with them all, faced by the drama and the challenge of what was to come.
When the meeting was over, she slipped out without waiting for supper. As she stood fumbling in her handbag for her car keys, Toni came up behind her and touched her arm. Rose fought the urge to throw it off.
‘Am I supposed to thank you for saving Kit’s skin?’
‘Not unless you want to.’
‘What’s happening, Toni? What’s really happening?’
Toni didn’t answer.
Abruptly, Rose changed the subject. ‘I feel like I’m spooked, Toni. Do you think there’s spooks out there?’
Toni laughed uneasily. ‘Shall I walk to the car with you?’
‘No. Thank you. Look,’ she said, turning, ‘I don’t mean ghosts. I’m not a child. I mean, spooks.’
‘The SIS? Being followed, that what you mean?’
‘It’s just a thought.’
‘But why? You’re not a security risk.’
‘I don’t know. Why not? They have to follow someone.’ She checked the impulse to say that it might be Kit who was the risk, though she supposed that must be clear to Toni.
‘The Prime Minister’s falling apart,’ Toni said at last, ‘don’t let it happen to you, Rose.’
‘Thanks for the advice.’ She pulled away, wanting to leave.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
‘Don’t keep asking me that.’
The car was sitting under a street light and when she reached it she saw that its paint had slid all down its sides and it didn’t look like her car at all. She was about to touch it until she realised that it had had paint stripper thrown all over it.
It was nearly 2 a.m. before she was able to track Kit down in Wellington. He sounded tired, or a bit drunk, she was not sure which. ‘I tried to let you know about the meeting, I tried to warn you not to go,’ he said, ‘but you weren’t answering the bloody phone.’
‘Who told you?’
He hesitated. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does,’ she shouted, ‘everything matters.’
‘Harry,’ he said finally. ‘Harry told me.’
That figured. Trust Harry to go soft at the last minute when it came to Kit. ‘He might have told me,’ she said. A picture of Harry turning his wedding ring over floated in front of her.
‘Maybe he tried,’ said Kit. ‘Perhaps you didn’t answer when he rang either.’
‘You don’t know what it’s like.’
‘No. So you keep telling me.’ His voice faded with weariness.
‘It rings twenty times some days and ten times there won’t be anybody there.’
‘It’s too bad.’ When she said nothing, he sighed and said, ‘I’ll speak to Telecom again.’
‘Kit, it’s not just the phone any more. After tonight, I don’t know what they’ll do next. Kit, will you come home?’
‘Rose, the car can be fixed.’
‘I know.’
‘The House is in session. You know I can’t come home.’
‘Another parcel from your mother?’ Sergeant Jeffrey Campbell placed a large square object in front of the constable at the desk. ‘Animal, mineral or vegetable?’
‘It’ll blow you away,’ said Teddy O’Meara.
Campbell winced.
‘Bad-taste joke,’ said Teddy, ‘you shouldn’t laugh at my mum’s cakes.’
‘Do I get to eat it?’
‘Say pretty please.’
‘You’re getting too big for your boots, lad,’ said Campbell. He meant it too, although he felt affection for the tall young man. At night he sometimes lay awake and thought about Teddy. He often lay awake at nights; years of night shifts in earlier days, before he had moved into the relative safety and permanence of the uniformed inquiry branch, had destroyed his sleeping patterns. His thoughts about Teddy were not specific to him, he dwelt on all the young staff. He called them the kids. Sometimes an edge of bitterness, quickly suppressed, crept into his reflections. Where had his familiarity with them got him? Nowhere much. He had been in the job for thirty-two years, and Weyville for fourteen; he should have left by now. But his wife didn’t want to leave. And maybe he didn’t either, perhaps she was an excuse for lethargy. The kids liked him and the way he was always there. His wife had a son (she had been a widow when he met her), but he had no children of his own. He supposed that what he felt towards the youngsters was paternal. They all seemed so lonely when they arrived in this town.
Not that Teddy gave the impression of needing friends, not these days. He was self-confident in a way that Campbell himself was once, and now the older man envied him. Weyville had been Teddy’s first posting, but he had gone away after tha
t, spent years in Wellington and then come back. Almost as if he liked the place. If anything, since his return it was Teddy O’Meara to whom the new recruits turned. The boy was made of tough metal, thought Campbell with admiration. No wonder he blushed when his mother sent him fruit cake from the King Country.
‘Here’s a knife,’ he said encouragingly while Teddy pulled the wrappings off.
The cake was a lustrous brown object with clumps of cherries sticking out all over it. Teddy cut a hunk and put it on a plate beside Campbell’s coffee cup.
‘Have you looked at last night’s work sheets?’ he asked the older man.
‘Not yet. What were you doing on night shift?’
‘I did one for Reg. He’s crook.’
‘So you did.’ He could see, now that he looked, that the constable was a trifle grey. ‘And you’re doing a swing shift today? Bloody hell, they muck you around, don’t they?’
‘Yep, sure do.’
‘Anything special last night?’
‘Couple of domestics on the Blake Block. A burglary. We picked him up. One alleged rape, probably false. And that Kendall woman was in here ranting and raving again.’
‘That’s all we need. Telecom’s supposed to be handling her complaints now.’
‘Yeah, well, maybe. But she’s got a new problem. Somebody chucked paint stripper on her car.’
‘Christ. How much damage?’
‘It’ll need a new paint job. Her insurance’ll fix it.’
‘It’s not good enough. Where was the car?’
‘Outside the Presbyterian hall.’
‘What was she doing there?’
‘She wasn’t saying her prayers.’ Teddy looked at Campbell. ‘Sorry. She was at a meeting. It’s just,’ he hesitated, ‘well, if you don’t mind me saying so, she seems a bit out to lunch, that lady.’
‘Was anyone else’s car done over?’ asked Campbell, ignoring this opinion for the moment.
‘No.’
‘There was a whole row of cars, and hers was the only one that got done?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What did she do?’
‘Walked all the way down here bawling her lights out …’
‘Walked? Why didn’t she go back inside and phone? They’ve got a phone in that building.’
‘Seems she didn’t want to go back inside. Said she didn’t want to show her face. Has she got a boyfriend, sir?’
‘Not that I know of. Doesn’t mean she hasn’t. Why?’
‘Dunno. Just a thought.’
Campbell scratched his head. He liked old-time dancing and he did it with his wife. Sex, too. He liked the music on the National Programme. He could see why people thought he was soft. He was also unsurprised by almost anything and that was a facet of himself that he cultivated. He liked Rose Kendall. He couldn’t agree with her politics but he had been taught not to discuss politics in polite company from the time he was a child and so he didn’t. It had been pleasant calling on her, even if she was upset whenever he had had occasion to talk to her over the last year or so. There was a homely quality about her, he considered. Once he had mentioned something along those lines to his wife, called her a nice lady. His wife, who worked in a dress shop — she called it a frock shop, or sometimes, lately, garment retailing — had told him tartly that his girlfriend’s (that was how she put it) bras, which she had seen, were, if not grubby, at least rundown. He remembered Rose’s children doing traffic patrol when they were at intermediate; he could still see first Olivia and a year or two later Richard holding out the lollipops to let the other kids go over the zebra crossing. Bright kids. Their mother missed them since they went away. He supposed she got lonely. It was possible she could have a lover.
He thought about the bra. Possible, but unlikely. ‘I’ll check the idea out,’ he said. ‘Have you any thoughts?’
Teddy fingered his moustache. ‘Could be any of half a dozen.’
‘But all your contenders were inside the hall last night?’
‘As I said … it was a thought.’
I asked him to help, Campbell thought, I should listen to him. But it was so easy, such a young man’s response. Teddy had been present when Rose Kendall laid her first complaint. It was a coincidence: Teddy was on patrol section, there was no need to involve him. But he hadn’t laughed. Most cops did just that when people came in to complain about things like obscene phone calls, or at least as soon as the complainant was out of sight. So what, they said. Or, I expect it’s her old man’s girlfriend (or the other way round). Always assume it’s a domestic, Campbell had been told once, and though for Rose Kendall’s sake he had tried to forget that advice, it was there at the back of his mind. He was known as a thorough cop — don’t discount any possibilities.
But: ‘She could have quite a lot of enemies,’ Teddy had said thoughtfully at the time. ‘It can’t be easy for her.’
So Campbell had kept on referring the matter to him, talking it over when it troubled him. There had to be something to it, surely. He hoped Teddy might come up with some fresh perspective when others he spoke to laughed.
Seemingly Teddy had had enough, and in a way he couldn’t blame him. There was enough real crime burgeoning in Weyville to keep double the staff in this station busy. Still, something had happened to Rose Kendall last night, something more than voices in the air.
‘What happened next?’
‘Jack and I went back to the car with her and found she’d run off leaving the keys in the lock where anybody could lay their hands on them. Lucky the car was still there. I told her that too. We asked her to come back to the station and talk it over.’
‘That was when you got the old megila?’
Teddy glanced sideways at him.
‘The ear-bashing.’
‘I know what it is. How we weren’t doing our job and nobody cared, all that stuff. The same crock of shit they all trot out.’
‘O’Meara!’ Still, he could see why he was so wound up. He probably would have been himself. She had received more consideration than she realised.
Teddy looked at him, taking his time. ‘It was a long night.’
‘All right then.’ Campbell knew it was true, they were short-staffed and the pressure had been on; he didn’t have any answer for it. You had to let the kids run their course in here where they couldn’t do damage. The boy looked strained; it was time he had a break. Campbell thought he had a girlfriend in Wellington. ‘I’ll check where Telecom’s at with Mrs Kendall’s complaints,’ he said.
‘I did that, first thing.’
Campbell looked surprised, but nodded approvingly. ‘Well done. And?’
‘Two leads, same as before. Phone boxes on the opposite ends of town.’
‘This turkey knows what he’s about.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘The calls are damn near impossible to trace in phone boxes.’
‘I expect that’s right, sir.’
‘Well of course it’s right. Those calls were made late at night, weren’t they?’
‘I believe so. It’s awhile back since they were intercepted. The last few weeks she’s been getting them in the daytime. She says.’
‘Is there still surveillance?’
‘Alternate weeks. Telecom says it costs money to keep a line open on her — means they have to tie up a staff member doing nothing else but check her calls. They’re getting fed up.’
‘Why do we have to spend time on stuff like this?’ Campbell sounded weary and it was true, the pettiness of this case suddenly disgusted him. He cut himself another piece of cake without consulting Teddy O’Meara.
‘Because she’s a politician’s wife,’ said Teddy idly. ‘Or wasn’t I supposed to answer that?’
‘She’s entitled to peace and quiet like everyone else.’
‘I knew I shouldn’t have answered.’
‘Bugger, I’ve chipped my filling. Could you tell your mother not to put nuts in her cakes?’
‘Yes
sir. A big chip?’
‘It’s all right, it happens all the time. So how d’you know what megila is, O’Meara? That’s New York.’
‘I know, sir. I stayed with my uncle on the way back, last time I went to Ireland.’
‘Might have known. Your uncle’s a New York cop?’
‘Bronx. How d’you know, sir?’ Teddy was relaxing, back in charge of himself.
‘Eh? Oh, the same. There’re plenty of Irish Campbells.’
‘And here’s me thinking you were a Scot.’
‘O’Meara, you offend me.’
Teddy smiled.
‘I stayed with my cousin twice removed when I was on my way back. It’s twenty years now. You going back again to the old sod?’
‘I hope so. It feels like home.’
Campbell looked troubled. ‘I reckon it’s good for a look; once is enough. Even my father didn’t want to go back. They treat us like foreigners.’
‘Not me, sir,’ said Teddy.
Again, Campbell was aware of his confidence. At the same time, he realised that it was not correct to think of O’Meara as a boy. He had been in the department for eight years now. Nor was he certain how well he knew him, or how accurately he gauged him.
‘Myself, I can’t even understand them when they talk,’ he said, sounding short, wishing he hadn’t let this conversation go on for so long. ‘You’re a New Zealander anyway.’
‘Sure,’ said Teddy easily, ‘when it comes to rugby, that’s what I am all right.’
The phone rang then.
‘I think there’s going to be some trouble at the Blake Block,’ said Teddy when he had replaced the receiver. It was five to three in the afternoon.
4
The kid stood on the corner of Hyde Street and Blake Pass. The look was nonchalant, leather jacket drawn up round the chin, dark glasses, cigarette trailing from the hand at the side. Opposite to where the watcher stood was a Christian video shop with a big pile of tapes labelled ‘CHRISTIANS AND COMMUNISM — What the Russians are Hiding’ in the window. It was a temptation not to throw a rock through it, given what the kid thought of fundies. Neither it nor the fish and chip shop on the far side of the service station were open. Wind whipped up a scatter of rubbish and rolled it along the gutter.
True Stars Page 5