The Last Time We Spoke

by Fiona Sussman

  ‘This is good,’ Adams said. ‘Really good. Who’s the artist?’

  ‘Get on with it,’ she said, ignoring him. ‘If my partner finds you here, you’re dead meat.’

  Adams licked his lips and pulled himself out of the dip in the couch. He opened his notebook and produced a pen.

  ‘Mrs Toroa—’

  ‘The name is bloody Kāpehu. Never married Ben’s father.’

  ‘Oh sorry. I mean, not that you didn’t marry, just that I got your name wrong.’ Her mouth twitched, barely camouflaging a smile. Adams felt stupid. It wasn’t as if he was new to this sort of work. The story had been his initiative, his editor running with the idea. It was a well-worn issue, juvenile crime, but he was good at finding the angle, teasing out different truths. He’d wanted to be a lawyer, but his grades weren’t good enough.

  ‘How do you feel having a boy up for murder?’

  ‘Jesus, man! How do you think I feel? Fuckin’ over the moon?’ She sucked her teeth loudly. ‘You fellas are something else.’

  Already he’d been lumped with ‘you fellas’… The first minutes of an interview were everything. He’d already blown it. He was behaving like some junior intern, his apprehension out of all proportion to the task.

  ‘Could you see it coming?’ he persisted. ‘I mean did you ever get an inkling when he was growing up that—?’

  ‘He’s a good boy, my Ben!’ she said, her vehemence and passion taking Adams by surprise. ‘He just got in with the wrong crowd.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to …’ He averted his eyes, not brave enough to let them accompany his words. ‘Murder … That’s a serious charge.’

  She didn’t reply.

  He looked up. Her taut face had slackened and the hardness had loosened. A shine of water tracked across her eyes.

  Adams swallowed.

  She must have been pretty once, he thought. She had a high, rounded forehead and full lips. But her hair fell away from a middle parting to drape limply down the sides of her sallow face. She was thirty-three – he knew that from the research he’d done – yet the years had weathered her body and added at least a tatty decade to her.

  A baby started to cry.

  She didn’t move.

  ‘Ben been in much trouble before this?’

  She sniggered, exposing discoloured teeth. ‘You could say.’

  ‘So did you get help?’ he asked abruptly. ‘I mean, what did you do to try and stop him?’

  She looked momentarily taken aback at Adam’s change in tone, then shrugged. ‘What could I do? I got other kids to worry about. I clean offices at night. I can’t keep them locked up, can I?’

  He refused to give her the satisfaction of shaking his head.

  ‘Look,’ she said, staring directly into his eyes. ‘I’m real sorry for what he’s done. For that … for that family.’ She stopped, chewed the inside of her cheek.

  ‘And your partner. So he’s not Ben’s father—’

  The baby’s crying grew louder and more desperate.

  ‘He’s a member of a motorcycle gang, isn’t he?’

  She looked up slowly, her lids lagging. Then she stood up and left the room.

  Adams shifted on the couch. Was this his cue to leave? He pulled out his business card and put it on the table.

  He was just about to get up when she reappeared, a baby on her hip. The sour smell of a soiled nappy filled the room. She sat down, stuck a hand into her T-shirt and pulled out a drooping breast topped with a large maroon nipple. The baby’s mouth hit the bullseye first time and began to suck furiously.

  ‘How old?’ Adams asked, trying not to focus on her breast. His wife was expecting. Eight months. Their first.

  Kāpehu looked up to the ceiling, as if doing a calculation in her head. ‘’Bout five months.’

  Adams couldn’t tell whether it was a boy or girl. ‘Very cute,’ he said.

  She looked down at the baby in a strangely detached way, as though he’d just pointed out something she hadn’t noticed before.

  ‘The kids in the yard yours too?’

  ‘Two of ’em,’ she said, craning her neck to look out the window. ‘Six altogether. Another in the oven.’ She tapped her board-flat stomach, then let out a chesty laugh. ‘So much for breastfeeding being a contraceptive, eh! You gotta smoke?’

  Adams shook his head. He felt a rush of anger at the thought of her smoking while pregnant and breastfeeding. His wife had been so careful to avoid any risk to their unborn child.

  She arched her back, fumbled in her jeans pocket, and retrieved a crumpled box of cigarettes. So she had her own!

  She pointed to a box of matches on the table, and leaning forward, got him to light one for her.

  As she inhaled, the baby came off her nipple and started to cry. Deftly she swung it under her other arm and lined it up with her left breast. Adams wondered where the milk came from; her frame was so spare, her body all chipped and used.

  ‘Any chance Ben could be innocent?’

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, the boy’s ’fessed, hasn’t he?’ Adams felt the heat spreading through his hair. Another pointless question he’d not even planned to ask. This was a disaster. There was no rapport – a journalist’s most important tool. Too much other stuff seemed to be getting in the way.

  He stumbled on. ‘Have you or Ben’s father spoken to him since he’s been in custody?’

  A car door slammed. ‘Sure I have,’ she said, pulling the baby off her breast and laying it down on the couch beside her, before emptying the glass of dirty paint water out the window and hurriedly sliding the painted card, paintbrush, and box of paints, under the sofa.

  ‘But it’s real difficult ’cos I haven’t got no transport, have I?’ she said, sitting back down again and picking up her squalling charge. There was a thud and then the sound of footsteps. Adams’ eyes met Kāpehu’s. His limbs felt suddenly heavy.

  A huge man strode into the room.

  Adams’ eyes widened. Tattooed biceps bulged from under a black sleeveless jacket, and black leather trousers hugged a pair of tree-trunk thighs. Adams took it all in – the steel-capped boots, slit of sunglasses, the tail of greasy hair, and in an instant he was a boy again, cowering in the corner.

  ‘Yo,’ the guy said with a grimace, his legs locked astride. ‘Visitors, have we?’ He removed his sunglasses and his black eyes swung from Adams to Kāpehu, to Adams. ‘And who the fuck might you be?’ Adams was already on his feet, his notebook squirrelled away, perspiration sucking his blue Polo shirt to his skin in dark wet patches.

  ‘Just another bloody Jehovah’s Witness,’ Kāpehu said, tossing her head with feigned casualness. Adams looked down. His business card was lying on the table. Perspiration trickled down his sideburns onto his cheeks. He stepped forward, trying to obscure it from view. ‘Just on my way.’

  ‘Too bloody right, you are.’ Adams stumbled as he moved toward the door. Glancing back, he saw the card was gone. He tipped his head at Kāpehu, then turned and hurried out.

  As he passed the car with the kids playing inside, the mongrel deserted her litter to snap more seriously at his heels.

  He swung a foot at her, leapt over the low wall, and flicked his car remote. Inside, he hit the central locking button, fumbled with the keys, and pulled off; the car lurching in fits and starts down the avenue.

  Ten minutes later, and out of state-house territory, he pulled up under a tree, switched off the engine, and remained there until his legs had stopped shaking.

  Chapter Sixteen

  CARLA

  ‘I hear he’s entered a guilty plea, thank God,’ Vera said, dabbing at the cake crumbs on her plate with her forefinger. She’d dropped in unannounced, bearing a home-made banana loaf.

  They were sitting out on the deck overlooking the garden. It was a grey day, but at least not raining. Although freshly mown, the lawn looked untidy; it had been churned into long ridges of mud where Rangi had got stuck on the ride-on mower. The roses were straggly, their leaves
peppered with black spot, and the lavender was dry and woody. Geese had soiled the deck with droppings, and the outdoor cushions had grown fine webs of mould. The roof had sprung a leak in the laundry, the gutters needed clearing, and the swimming pool was a slimy shade of green.

  Kevin stuffed a whole slice of banana loaf into his mouth and slurped his tea, spilling clumps of wet cake down his front.

  Carla daubed his mouth with a dishtowel. He swiped it away.

  ‘At least there won’t be a long trial,’ Vera persisted. ‘Just the sentencing in the High Court, then.’

  Carla nodded. Steve Herbert had advised her against speaking to too many people. ‘It’ll suffocate you, Carla,’ he’d warned. But Vera had a knack of worrying at a loose thread until it eventually unravelled.

  ‘I’m meeting with a real estate agent later,’ Carla said, changing the subject. ‘It’s time to put the farm on the market.’

  ‘Best,’ Vera concurred, pouring herself another cup of tea.

  Carla regretted refilling the pot.

  Later that night, after she and Kevin had finished watching a programme about orangutans in Borneo, Carla readied Kevin for bed. They no longer slept in the same room; Kevin was too fractious and sometimes soiled himself.

  ‘Do you alarm the house at night?’ Vera had pried earlier. Carla knew that Vera was really asking whether she was scared of sleeping alone. In truth, nothing frightened her any more. While some victims apparently became paralysed with fear, Carla felt a strange sense of numb detachment. Sometimes it bothered her that her emotions had become so blunted, that she was skimming across the surface of life. She felt like an astronaut adrift in space, unsure of how to get back to the craft, and not even certain she wanted to.

  ‘What did you make of the estate agent?’ she asked Kevin, as she unbuttoned his shirt. ‘Do you think he’s right that the farm won’t sell easily because of people’s superstitions?’ She was still in the habit of running things by Kevin. After a lifetime together, it was a hard habit to break.

  ‘Didn’t like his shoes,’ Kevin said.

  She couldn’t decide if this was her old Kev’s sense of humour breaking through, or simply the meaningless observation of a brain-damaged fool. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, or at least pretend.

  She laughed. ‘Me neither.’

  His quick wit and dry sense of humour had been one of the first things that attracted her to him.

  Kevin’s shirt dropped to the floor. She hoisted him to his feet to remove his trousers. As he rose, she closed her eyes and kissed him on the mouth, a deep, hungry kiss. His lips were dry and peeling. She leant into him, his bare chest grazing her blouse.

  The first time they’d made love was on their wedding night. She’d been both excited and apprehensive. Despite her parents’ worldliness, sex was never a topic discussed, her mother in particular keeping a Catholic silence on the matter.

  But Kev, the burly farmer with thickset hands and no-nonsense demeanour, had surprised her with his tenderness, and shown her the way. It was to be the start of an incredible love affair, so it felt quite absurd when they couldn’t conceive a child; their bodies fitting so perfectly together. Eight years later, when she did eventually fall pregnant, Carla quickly forgave the heartache of those barren years, safe in the knowledge that the child she was carrying had been conceived out of absolute love.

  Now Kevin pulled back and pushed her away. She tripped and fell backwards onto the bed. Then he was wiping his mouth with his hand, his big pink tongue slathering over his arm as he tried to rid himself of her kiss. ‘You taste bad.’

  BEN

  It stank inside the Chubb security van, the sharp sweetness of ganja-poking fingers through the rancid stench. Ben scratched his nose with his left hand, his right cuffed to Diamond – a pro lagger who’d been in and out of the boob pretty much all of his life.

  Ben watched as Diamond drew on the joint he was smoking. After a while, he couldn’t stand it any longer.

  ‘Hey, brotha, give us a toke. I haven’t been wasted in forever, man.’

  Diamond cocked his head to one side as if he hadn’t heard correctly. Then slowly he lifted their conjoined arms, and before Ben could react, brought Ben’s arm down like a bullet on the edge of the metal seat.

  Pain fired through Ben’s arm. He cried out and tried to drag his wrist away, but Diamond held firm. Water pushed out of Ben’s eyes and tracked down his pain-hot cheeks. He rocked back and forth, murmuring to himself as he tried to soothe the agony. The thrill of this adventure was fading fast.

  Finally the van jolted to a stop.

  ‘We’re home, darling,’ Ben’s companion purred, a loud fart accompanying his words.

  A bell. Voices. An intercom. Then the scraping of metal and the van jerked forwards.

  Ben peered out of the small windowed cube of light. A tall blue gate was grinding closed. He needed fresh air. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast and his wrist was throbbing. A soft bubble of skin had ballooned at the base of his hand, causing him to yelp every time the handcuff rode over it.

  The van door swung open and white afternoon light rushed in, stunning him.

  ‘Okay, guys, out!’ a guard bellowed.

  Ben’s travelling companion yanked him forwards and they jumped in unison to the ground.

  It was a hot afternoon, yet Ben couldn’t stop spasms of shivering from highjacking his body. He was standing in the middle of a long yard. At one end towered an ominous building, its black scoria walls rising up against the sky. The slab of darkness was interrupted only by chalky bird droppings, which tracked down the wall like white tears. At the opposite end of the yard stood the arch they’d just driven through. Topped with silvered hoops of barbed wire and a sun-bleached flag, it straddled the gated entrance to Mount Eden Remand Prison.

  A pigeon swooped low. Ben felt the wind from it wings. It circled once, then landed on a ledge of the black building, between the vertical bars of a window.

  The sun ducked behind a cloud, importing a gloom more in keeping with the grim surrounds. The gate screeched again. Ben turned. Another van was pulling in to the yard. With any luck Tate would be in this one.

  The two had been apart since Tate’s arrest, catching only corridor glimpses of each other at Auckland Central. The police had told Ben his accomplice had ‘spilt the beans and bleated like a baby’. After that, there’d seemed little point in denying the charges. Only later did he learn he’d been duped. Tate hadn’t cooperated at all, and Ben had dropped them both in it.

  A squalling noise like the sound of cats fighting came from above. Ben looked up. An arm covered in tattoos was reaching out between the bars and throwing signs. ‘Come here, sweetie! Come, come, come.’ A coldness thudded up his throat.

  ‘Welcome to Mount Eden Prison.’ A female officer dressed in an olive-coloured uniform with a coffee-brown tie stood in front of them, her legs apart, her arms packed neatly behind her. Three diamond studs ran up her right earlobe. An enormous bunch of keys more suited to a dungeon hung from a chain on her belt. Another guard, this one the size of a nightclub bouncer, stood behind her, like some grotesque shadow.

  ‘The first thing you need to know is that Mount Eden is a transit prison,’ she said briskly. ‘Which means you will only be kept here while on remand. You will not be staying once you have been sentenced, so don’t get too comfortable. You will be moved on.’

  At the receiving office, Ben was assigned a number. He was told to remove any ‘instruments of suicide’ – his belt and the laces from his trainers. After that, his jeans kept riding down over his butt and his trainers slopped on and off when he walked. His few possessions were packed into a large brown paper bag, and an officer wearing a pair of latex gloves handed Ben his bedding, a grey tracksuit, and a copy of the prison rules. ‘Stick to them rules and your stay with us will be a happy one.’

  Ben held up the piece of paper and squinted at the meaningless squiggles.

  At the medical station,
he got undressed behind a curtain, keeping on his trainers. The nurse, a red-faced woman with enormous breasts, weighed him, listened to his chest, examined his hair for lice, then made him piss in a pot.

  She eyed his Nike trainers. They were new, bought with money from the farmhouse haul.

  ‘I’m not leaving my trainers in some paper bag,’ Ben said, pre-empting any request to remove them.

  ‘First time in prison?’ she said with a knowing smile.

  He stared at her.

  ‘You can keep those shoes, son, for as long as you can hold onto them.’

  He relaxed his jaw. ‘I think my hand’s broke, miss.’

  She lifted his wrist with her gloved hands and examined the blue-black bulge. ‘How did it happen?’

  He shrugged.

  She eyeballed him sideways, before carefully moving his hand up and down.

  ‘Jesus!’

  ‘Don’t think it’s broken,’ she said, releasing it. ‘Just bruised. Now tell me, is your family mad at you for what you’ve done? Are they still speaking to you?’

  He nodded. She ticked a box on a clipboard. He didn’t know whether the tick was for mad at you or the still speaking to you question. He didn’t care.

  ‘Ever thought of harming yourself?’

  She must have taken his silence for a yes, because he spent the first night in a Special Needs unit in a stitch gown.

  ‘Can’t be ripped, so don’t try.’

  The green lino walls had no corners, one curving smoothly into another. It felt as if he was locked inside some giant ball, just how he imagined it would be inside the ZORB at Rotorua. Simi’s brother lived in the sulphur-smelling city, and once he’d shouted Simi a ride in the giant, tumbling ball. It had sounded intense – ‘the most awesome ride ever’– rolling down a hillside, the outside world spinning away until there was just bellyaching laughter left.