The Last Time We Spoke

by Fiona Sussman

Carla laughed. ‘Actually, it’s … Well, we could use a little extra cash right now.’

  ‘Couldn’t we all,’ replied the school principal. ‘Look, we’ve no permanent posts available at present, but I’ll put your name down on the reliever’s list in the meantime; something more long-term is bound to come up.’

  Carla felt the muscles down the back of her neck loosen.

  ‘It’ll be good to have you back, Carla. Really good.’

  Carla replaced the receiver. Dusk was falling fast, robbing the kitchen of light and wrapping a faded evening around the homestead. There wasn’t really sufficient time to achieve much before tea, despite the growing list of jobs that challenged her from the refrigerator door, so she decided to pour herself a drink instead.

  She positioned a stool against the kitchen cupboards, clambered onto it, and reached for a glass on the uppermost shelf. Kevin hadn’t taken into account her height, or lack of it, when he’d installed the kitchen.

  Her hand found the last surviving tumbler from a set of eight she and Kevin had collected on their only trip abroad together – a trek around the Yucatán Peninsula twenty years earlier. It was a chunky blue thing with bubbles of clear glass trapped in the thick cerulean rim. They’d lugged the set around Mexico for six weeks, Kevin cursing her impetuous purchase all the way.

  Carla twisted the ice tray and frozen cubes clattered onto the bench, one sticking to her fingers and tugging painfully at her skin as she shook it off. She unscrewed the bottle of whisky and poured, ice blocks crackling and screeching as she drowned them in the amber liquor.

  She was about to take her first sip when she heard footsteps behind her. She swung round, the drink slipping from her grasp. Shards of blue glass and whisky sprayed across the room.

  ‘Jack!’

  Her son was standing in the middle of the room, his head bowed under the low ceiling beams, his eyes wide with alarm. In his hand was a bunch of purple irises.

  ‘The door was open. I wanted to surprise you.’

  Carla sucked in a warbled breath. ‘Well, that you certainly did, son!’

  He screwed up his face apologetically. ‘Sorry, Mum. I’ll get the dustpan.’

  ‘No, leave it! I’ll do it in a minute.’ She grabbed him by the hand. ‘Now, let me take a good look at you, my handsome boy.’

  He looked so grown-up in his jacket and tie, no resemblance to the grubby youngster she’d battled for years to keep clean, the streams and paddocks his playground.

  He grinned and wound a lanky arm around her, pulling her in. She inhaled his sophisticated city scent.

  ‘Happy anniversary, Mum,’ he said, handing her the flowers.

  It was just like Jack. He’d always been such a considerate kid, even as a six-year-old spending his pocket money on trinkets for her at the Ag Day fair. Years flashed before her – the emptiness and heartache, then the giddy news, the hope, and finally, unbelievably, a baby. That first night in the maternity ward, Kevin asleep in the La-Z-Boy beside her, their child moulded to his chest and a tall vase of deep purple irises on the windowsill.

  The sound of barking dogs intruded.

  ‘Seems Dad could use a hand,’ Jack said, glancing out of the window.

  ‘You’ll want to get out of that suit first. Have a shower.’

  ‘Later, Ma,’ he said, peeling off his jacket and hooping the tie over his head as he made for the back door.

  Carla stood watching as her son made his way across the paddock, the half-light smudging his outline till he’d been erased altogether. Reluctantly, she bent down and began picking up the fragments of glass, a thread of disquiet ruching her mood. She felt the loss of the tumbler more acutely than she’d have expected. In a strange way, it felt as if some tie with the past had been severed.

  Suddenly a sharp pain sliced through her ruminations and a bubble of blood sprang up on the heel of her palm. She cursed and hurried to the bathroom, leaving a thin crimson trail behind her.

  Dinner had been in the warmer for some time when she finally saw father and son, with their identical gait and tall-man stoop, sloping towards the house. Jack now had at least two inches on his dad. They appeared to be in earnest conversation when both stopped a short way off from the back door. At first Carla thought they were merely catching their breath – that incline could be punishing at the end of a long day. But the men remained there for longer than a breather, till even the bantams nearby had resumed their foraging.

  Kevin spotted her at the window and gave a quick smile, spreading out a hand to say they’d be in in five.

  Father and son had always got on well, despite their quite different personalities. Kevin was all Anglo-Saxon – a man of few words and even fewer emotions. Like a trusty old tractor, he had a quiet consistency about him. There were no surprises or breakdowns, but no glamour either. Jack was more volatile. He had a touch of Carla’s Italian heat in him – his impulsiveness landing him in trouble on more than one occasion. Fortunately, his charm usually won out. Now he had a serious girlfriend – surprisingly his first – however, he hadn’t yet introduced her to them. From what Carla could glean, the young woman was training to be a speech therapist and shared Jack’s passion for tramping and the great outdoors. Not surprisingly, Jack’s phone calls home had dwindled of late.

  Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife …1 Sunday’s sermon echoed in Carla’s head. Their son had been lent to them; a daughter was for keeps.

  Lately, Carla hadn’t been able to keep this undertow from sweeping her thoughts to that taboo place in her mind, the place she’d successfully kept buried for so many years. What if Gabby had lived beyond those few thin weeks? Carla and Kevin would have a grown-up daughter now too.

  The light had drained out of the day when the three of them finally sat down to eat. Carla was glad for the early autumn nightfall, the darkness lending the dinner a more formal tone. She’d lit the candles and drawn the drapes, swathing the old kauri room in a cosiness, and had even folded the napkins into the shape of fans, just as they did in restaurants.

  ‘Any chance of thirds, Mum?’ Jack asked, eyeing the last burnished square of lasagne.

  ‘It’s for you to take back to the flat,’ she said, moving the dish out of his reach.

  ‘You’re a hard woman,’ he teased. ‘How’d you put up with her all these years, Dad?’

  Kevin smiled, but his eyes held onto a more sombre expression. Carla wondered what he and Jack had been discussing out in the yard.

  ‘Keep some space for dessert,’ she said, uncovering the apple pie. ‘Ay! Fingers out of it!’

  Jack was scraping the last of the custard from the little red jug when he stopped and looked up at his parents, his brown eyes unexpectedly earnest. ‘Dad. Mum. I’ve been thinking. About the farm and all. It’s a lot of work for the two of you.’

  Kevin cocked his head to one side and looked at his son from under a heavy brow. ‘Bit a work never did anybody any harm, boy.’

  ‘I know. But you and Mum … You aren’t getting any younger.’

  ‘Thanks very much!’ Carla said with a chuckle. ‘I’m not in a wheelchair yet.’

  ‘I just mean that you don’t want to be getting up at four in the morning for the rest of your days, do you?’

  Jack had grown his hair longer since leaving home, allowing the natural wave to reveal itself. He reminded Carla so much of her own father, with his liquorice-black eyes and caramel complexion, his drive and determination, his stubbornness. Her father hadn’t been much older than Jack when he’d hidden from Mussolini’s Blackshirts in the sewers of Turin before escaping with his bride on a boat bound for New Zealand.

  Kevin clicked his tongue. ‘It’s not as hard as you make out. Rangi and Rebecca are good value. In fact, they’re the best share milkers we’ve had. Anyway, won’t be long before I can sleep in till six,’ he added, ‘and you’ll be doing the hard yards.’

  Jack slid his hands under his thighs, his neck sinking be
tween hunched-up shoulders. ‘See, Dad, the thing is … I’m not sure that’s what I want to do any more … I like living in the city.’

  Kevin put down his fork and wiped his mouth with his serviette. He stared at the placemat in front of him. Carla shut her eyes.

  Jack swallowed. ‘I don’t know if I want live on the farm for the rest of my life. The bank’s offered to sponsor me to go to uni next year, get a degree in finance.’

  She opened her eyes and looked across at Kevin. Jack’s job at the bank was only meant to be a stopgap, a way to earn some money for his big OE. The ‘Overseas Experience’ was a rite of passage for so many Kiwi kids – a way to see the world and satisfy their wanderlust before settling down. Jack was supposed to return to the farm. That had been the five-year plan: come home, work beside his father, one day, take over.

  ‘University,’ Kevin repeated slowly. ‘Well, that’s … I mean, if that’s what you want. So they’ve offered to sponsor you, eh?’

  Jack pressed on, as if getting a rehearsed speech out of the way. His words were tentative and his demeanour strangely wooden, as if his audience was foreign to him. Jack playing at being an adult, thought Carla. She wanted to reach out and shake him. Reverse the years. Rewind his words.

  ‘It got me thinking about you guys and the farm. I’ve been wondering whether you should consider diversifying. Say, get into ostriches or alpacas? They’re a lot less work than dairy, you know.’

  Kevin swayed back and forth on his chair, his forehead creasing into deep ruts, his sunburned arms pushing back against the table.

  ‘And when they’re established, you could downsize the dairy side of things.’

  Oh, Jack! Carla rolled a thumb over the back of her other hand, stretching the skin till it hurt.

  But Jack kept going, words now sliding off his tongue with careless ease. ‘You’d have time to travel a bit. Mum’s always talking about wanting to go to Italy. You guys should enjoy life a bit, instead of always working so hard.’ He shot her a sideways glance.

  Carla sat back, allowing the evening to wash over her and packing her disappointment away carefully. Jack had been gone only a handful of months and already she missed sharing in his world, an intimacy she imagined his new girlfriend now enjoyed. The plan for his return to the farm had made the emptiness tolerable.

  She looked over at Kevin, her rugged man who worked the land, cared for his family, and shunned the draw of the city. Beneath that tough carapace lurked a sensitive and shy Kiwi bloke who even enjoyed listening to poetry, and who desperately loved his son, though would never tell him. Jack’s decision would be unfathomable for him.

  ‘The bank, eh,’ Kevin said, with a sigh, pushing his thumb and forefinger into the corners of his eyes.

  ‘Look, Dad, we’ll talk about it another time. I shouldn’t have brought it up tonight,’ Jack said, suddenly backtracking. ‘On your wedding anniversary and all.’ He turned. ‘Hey, Mum, you still make the best apple pie ever.’

  Carla smiled too widely.

  Kevin took the cue and said in a gravelly voice, ‘Yes, a great feed, Carl. You know what they say – Kissing don’t last, good cooking do. Not that you aren’t a fine kisser too.’ With that, he pushed his chair back and hoisted himself up. He’d kept lean and strong on the farm, but already arthritis had crept into his knees and toyed with his steadiness.

  ‘How about a port?’

  For a moment he looked so vulnerable standing there, his shoulders a little rounder, his conviction threadbare.

  ‘Good idea. Let’s have it out on the deck,’ she said, unlocking the French doors and inviting the navy night in. ‘It’s so mild.’

  ‘I’ll stick with beer,’ Jack said, disappearing into the kitchen. Carla followed.

  ‘You realise you’ve just dashed your father’s dreams?’ she said, coming up behind him as he peered into the fridge.

  Jack turned, his face collapsing. The second she’d said it, Carla wished she hadn’t, but the words were out, her disappointment selfishly articulated.

  ‘They’re all finished,’ Kevin called out from the lounge. ‘You might be lucky to find one in the garage.’

  For a moment, mother and son stood staring at each other in the ice-blue light of the refrigerator.

  ‘He means the beer,’ she said. Then quickly, ‘Jack, I’m sorry.’ But he had already turned and was walking away down the hall.

  The moon hung like a Christmas bauble in the sky, silvering the barn’s corrugated iron roof and transforming the drooping branches of willow into lametta. Carla sank into the slack of a canvas deckchair and sighed. Kevin handed her a drink and pulled up the chair opposite. He’d brought a pack of Peter Stuyvesant outside with him. They sat in silence, the still night interrupted only by the haunting cry of a morepork. There was a new intimacy between them, a shared loneliness the day had imported.

  ‘Twenty-seven years, Carl. A pretty good innings,’ he said, patting her thigh. ‘Remember that first dance at the Freemason’s hall? You arriving late. All eyes on this honey-skinned beauty.’

  ‘You didn’t look too bad yourself, Elvis,’ she said, forcing a laugh, ‘except for those awful gold bell-bottoms you kept having to hoist up!’

  ‘Bloody costume was too big,’ he said with a chortle ‘God, how come I got a look in? Reckon it was that disco ball … Blimmin’ hypnotised you.’

  Carla leant across and kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘Your poor dad,’ Kevin continued, shaking his head. ‘Must have thought he was selling his only daughter down the river. Mind you, this rugged Kiwi bloke with two left feet didn’t turn out so bad.’ He laughed, but it was a hollow laugh – a valiant effort to varnish his defeat.

  She placed a hand on his. ‘It’ll work out fine, Kev. You’ll see.’

  ‘Mind if I light up?’ he asked, rummaging in his pocket for matches.

  She didn’t begrudge him the occasional cigarette. ‘Just don’t go offering Jack one.’

  Kevin inhaled, the red tip glowing fiercely. He flung his head back and exhaled into the black. ‘Do you feel trapped here on the farm?’ he asked, staring at the night sky.

  ‘Now where did that come from?’

  ‘Maybe Jack’s right. I mean we’ve hardly travelled.’

  ‘Stop it, Kev! Our life is good. Really good. You know what our Jack’s like. Always full of crazy ideas. Where’s he got to, anyway?’

  Then she felt it, cold on her neck. She lunged forward, shrugging her shoulders to distance herself from it. ‘Jack, you silly boy, I’ll—’

  ‘Don’t fuckin’ move!’ The voice, rough and unfamiliar, split open the mellow night.

  Carla froze.

  Kevin’s face was a kaleidoscope of expression – surprise, melting into horror, then fury. Struggling to lever himself out of his chair, he bellowed, ‘Now look here, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ His face was puce, his body trembling with rage. ‘Put that down!’ He lunged forward.

  Then there was a dull thwack and Kevin dropped heavily to the ground, his temple glancing off the corner of the patio table as he fell.

  ‘Kevin!’ Carla screamed, but before her voice could spread across the night, a hand had trapped it. The smell under her nostrils was strange and foreign. She had an overwhelming urge to vomit.

  ‘Shut it, bitch! Or the motherfucker won’t stand up no more.’

  Blood tracked over Kevin’s ear and collected in swollen red spheres on his chin before dripping onto the kwila decking.

  Chapter Two

  CARLA

  ‘A one-eight-seven, bro. A fuckin’ one-eight-seven!’

  ‘No use if we don’t get no dough, man. Check out the rest of the joint.’ Furious footsteps disappeared down the corridor. Doors slammed. Glass shattered. Close to Carla, only inches away, a pair of sneakers with fraying red and black beading, circled, paced, lashed out. The laces were undone. Wiry black hairs thinned into smooth brown ankles.

  Carla lay face down on the entrance hall floor,
the musty smell of the kilim rug filling her nostrils. Her skirt was riding high; she wanted to pull it down. Bubbles coursed up and down her windpipe, searching for a way out. Her lips were burning where the masking tape had strained and stripped off slivers of skin.

  Sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four … All she could do was count out the thumping beats of her heart, her mind jammed like a frozen computer screen.

  ‘Where’s the cash, you motherfucker? The money! The fuckin’ money!’ The voice crashed around Carla – a young voice made bold by a bandanna. Someone had pressed the fast-forward button. Carla couldn’t keep up, couldn’t process the words.

  The eyes behind the voice were bloodshot, hyped, wild. ‘Maybe I gotta take payment from someplace else.’

  ‘No! Leave her alone,’ Kevin cried, fumbling in his pockets. ‘We don’t keep much money at home, you must believe me. You can have anything. Everything! Just don’t hurt my wife. Please—’

  Carla could scarcely recognise Kevin’s voice.

  Ooof! The pipe wrench swung, forcing wind from his mouth and backside simultaneously. She started to count heartbeats again.

  ‘Want another hidin’? Now where’s the money, mister? You got a safe?’

  Objects rained down around Carla and ricocheted off the floor – her lipstick, her Liberty diary, a packet of tissues, passport photo of Jack …

  Jack! He would have been in the garage when the thugs burst in. Hopefully he’d gone for help. Please God! Carla lifted her head, trying to intercept Kevin’s bloodied gaze and caution him not to allude to their son. But Kevin wasn’t looking her way. He was cowering in the corner.

  She’d only ever known Kevin to cry twice. After their daughter Gabby died, he’d sobbed softly behind a locked bathroom door. And when Pasha his favourite sheepdog was crushed under the tractor he’d let slip a few tears before putting her out of her misery.

  ‘Hey, bro, nothin’ more here,’ the other voice shouted. ‘Let’s take the electronics and beat it before the pigs come.’