After the Fall

by Norman, Charity

  ‘Jani is a very bad influence. Hung-over, at her age!’

  Kit laid a hand each side of me on the sink, nuzzling his nose through the curls at the nape of my neck. ‘You have to stop expecting that poor child to be immaculate and superlative in every way. She loves her brothers, helps around the house and gets the best school reports I’ve ever seen—bloody swot. Jesus, what more do you want?’

  I leaned back against him, swaying slightly. ‘So I leave her to go off the rails?’

  ‘You leave her to make her own mistakes.’

  ‘You think I’m behaving like my own mother, don’t you?’

  He pressed his mouth onto the side of my throat. ‘If the cap fits . . .’

  ‘It doesn’t. Mine was impossibly controlling.’

  ‘Sacha’s a fantastic girl,’ he murmured, ‘and you’re a fantastic mum. Maybe sometimes just a teeny bit of a fusspot.’

  ‘I resent that remark!’

  ‘I’d tread lightly, if I were you,’ he said as he headed for the studio. ‘You may have influence, but you no longer have power.’

  Twenty-two

  January was breathless. We spent the nights spread-eagled like intergalactic starfish under our mosquito nets, longing for the cool of the morning. Sometimes we’d trudge down to the river and sit gasping as the cold water rushed around us.

  Under that burning sky, Kit was truly at peace for the first time since I’d known him; perhaps for the first time in his life. I had to work flat out during the long school holidays, but he threw himself into his role as house-husband with galling competence. To my delight, Sacha gave up most of her summer holidays to help. With their father and sister—and sometimes even Bianka—at their beck and call, my lucky sons had the best summer of their lives.

  In early February, Pamela Colbert invited us for Sunday lunch. Her grandson was visiting and she wanted some playmates for him.

  It was a shimmering day. Sacha drove her brothers on the quad bike through our fields and across the river, Kit and I following on foot. Singing warlike songs, the three children rushed downhill through parched summer grass and across the vineyards, accompanied by a zinging orchestra of cicadas. The Colberts’ place was a 1970s bungalow with picture windows, deep eaves and a garden straight out of a magazine. Finn and Charlie tore off their clothes and began to cavort in the sprinkler, coloured light arching over their heads.

  ‘There have been small boys playing under that sprinkler for over thirty years,’ said Pamela, who’d come out to meet us. ‘Ah, William!’

  A boy emerged from the house; perhaps seven or eight, he stared at the twins, arms held stiffly by his sides. He had delicious auburn hair in a short back and sides, like a grown man, and dark eyes. When Pamela beckoned he marched solemnly up to us and held out a hand.

  ‘My grandson, William. This is Martha, Kit, Sacha, and these are . . .’ Still talking, she steered him towards Finn and Charlie, who were ballooning up their shorts with water.

  Finn was the first of the boys to speak. ‘Wanna havva go?’ he asked courteously, offering the sprinkler. ‘It’s great. You fill your shorts, see? It looks like your bottom’s a’normous melon.’

  Pamela chuckled. ‘William won’t be shy for long. Come on in, the rest of you. Glass of wine?’ She led us into the taupe gloom of the kitchen, where she had a bottle of white chilling in the fridge. ‘William is home-schooled— poor Hannah’s very protective, understandably—so I’m keen for him to have a bit of rough and tumble. Lemonade, Sacha?’

  ‘Please!’ Sacha looked around. ‘Anything I can do to help?’

  Pamela made a face that said bless. ‘Well—could you take this out to the boys?’ She watched as Sacha left, carrying lemonade. Home-made, inevitably. ‘Credit to you, that girl. Is she still seeing a lot of Tabby Mills?’

  ‘Not so much, actually,’ said Kit. ‘She’s not, is she, Martha? That friendship seems to have fizzled out a bit.’

  It was true. Sacha had talked about Tabby constantly for the first school term, but we’d not heard of her since Christmas. Bianka had the top spot nowadays.

  ‘I’m glad, really,’ I said. ‘Lovely girl, but maybe a bit—I don’t know—a bit too cool for Sacha.’

  ‘Too skinny, she means.’ Kit put an arm around my shoulders, smiling at Pamela with a suggestion of eye-rolling. ‘Martha thinks Sacha’s got anorexia, or maybe bulimia.’

  I shrugged him off, feeling patronised. A minute or two later I left the two of them in the kitchen, heads bent over a book of sculptures by a very trendy Australian artist who left me stone cold, and followed delicious cooking smells out to a paved terrace where Jean greeted me with an exuberant wave of his barbecue fork. I was relieved to see he wasn’t wearing a novelty apron or silly chef’s hat.

  ‘Brought you a present,’ I said, handing him a glass. ‘Your best year, apparently.’

  The terrace was a pleasant spot, shaded and bathed in the scents of barbecue and wine, lavender and dry grass. Beneath us, vines ran down the hillside in parallel lines with rose bushes at the ends. I’d always thought these were to encourage bees, but Jean explained that they were a bit like the canary in a miner’s cage—if there was disease around, the poor old roses would cop it first. Across the lawn I could see the three boys jumping together on the trampoline, talking urgently. They were best mates already.

  Sacha came to join us, kissing Jean’s cheek. ‘William is so cute,’ she said. Jean glanced over at the boys. ‘It would have been his father’s birthday today.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Sacha—dear, warm-hearted Sacha—seemed ready to cry. ‘Jean, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘We like having William to stay with us at this time each year, and it gives his mother a few days to herself.’

  ‘How are you?’ I asked. ‘How’s Pamela?’

  ‘So-so.’ Jean lifted a shoulder. He couldn’t meet my eye. ‘Daniel would have been thirty-one today. He was just starting out . . . a brand-new father.’ He smiled weakly, and patted Sacha’s cheek. ‘You would have liked him, Sacha. You know, I really think he might have saved the world . . . But I mustn’t talk like that. Pamela says it isn’t productive.’

  ‘I read about your petition,’ I said.

  ‘Do you know what happened to Daniel?’

  I felt terribly ignorant. ‘Just what it said in the paper.’

  He glanced at Sacha. ‘I’ll tell you another time. I think perhaps this isn’t a subject . . .’

  ‘It’s okay, I won’t be upset,’ insisted Sacha.

  ‘You will.’

  ‘Really, Jean,’ I said. ‘We’ve never sheltered her from life.’ Privately, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear this story.

  ‘Well.’ My neighbour breathed deeply for a moment, frowning fiercely, steadying his voice. ‘Daniel was out in Wellington, celebrating the happiest day of his life. He had a baby son! Was it a crime, to have a few drinks? I don’t think so. He left his friends in a bar for a moment, nipped over to a cashpoint machine. And that’s when his luck ran out.

  ‘Two men were walking up the street. They’d been bingeing on pure meth—P—and they’d fried their tiny brains. They hadn’t slept for a fortnight and they were in a state they call tweaking. These people were already a waste of space, but this night they were psychopaths. One of them pretended to make a grab for Daniel’s money, just to distract him. The other one struck a massive blow to the back of his head. Daniel fell to the ground. Then they began to kick him as he tried to crawl away. It was a feeding frenzy . . . they were laughing out loud as they booted my son. They screamed like karate fighters, exhorting one another to greater savagery. They took run-ups and kicked his head as though it was a football. This carried on long after he’d stopped moving. Finally they walked away, laughing fit to burst. How do I know all this? Because it was caught on the CCTV cameras.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ Sacha’s hand was pressed across her mouth, her eyes bright with horror. ‘Oh, Jean.’

  ‘I’ve watched every second of it many times. I’ve
even seen it in slow motion. I know every blow by heart.’

  ‘Didn’t anyone try to stop them?’ I asked.

  ‘A group of girls ran up, shouting—not much older than you, Sacha— and pulled out their cell phones to call the police. That was when the morons finally walked off. They didn’t even run! They just swaggered away, jeering and pulling fingers at Daniel’s body. I admire those girls. I don’t believe they were the only people who saw, but they were the only ones to take action. A crowd began to gather, and Daniel’s friends came to find out what the commotion was about. But he was already beyond help. The doctors kept him artificially alive on a machine until Pamela and I could get there to be with him. Hannah had come from the maternity ward with the baby, and spent some hours with him. We were holding Daniel’s hands when they switched him off.’

  Sacha stared into the vineyard, blinking desperately, a tear spilling down her cheek. I sat silent. These parents had witnessed the end of their son’s life. I couldn’t imagine it.

  Eventually, I found my voice. ‘They caught the attackers?’

  ‘Of course.’ Jean shrugged contemptuously. ‘Easily. The whole thing was on film. And you know what one of these scum said when they arrested him? He said it was “hug a ginga” day. It was, too. That’s an idea invented by some genius at a radio station.’

  ‘Ginga?’

  ‘Redhead. Daniel had auburn hair. So this monster said he and his mate decided it was “pulp a ginga” day. They went out looking for a redhead. He was still giggling about it when they put him in the back of the police van.’ ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this.’

  ‘One pleaded guilty to murder. The other said he didn’t intend to injure Daniel.’

  Sacha’s mouth fell open. ‘What?

  ’ ‘He’d been playing a violent computer game for seventy hours straight. Claimed he had some temporary psychosis and believed Daniel would “respawn” somewhere, get up and walk away. Pamela and I were there for every single second of the trial. We watched that video again and again. You can imagine how we felt. That was our son on the ground.’

  ‘But surely the guy didn’t get off?’ I asked.

  ‘No, he didn’t get off. There were hours of legal argument, three psychiatrists gave evidence, and on the third day he pleaded guilty. So the pair of them got life imprisonment, which doesn’t mean life at all. They’ll be out quite soon. Those worthless imbeciles took Daniel’s future, yet they still have a future. They can even become fathers. One of their mothers dared to appear on the television and complain that her son was a victim!’

  ‘How could she possibly say that?’

  Jean folded his hands and mimicked the whine of a spoiled child: ‘ “It was the P that did it, the P changed her son, he was such a lovely gentle boy, always helping old ladies across roads. Poor me!”’ Jean snorted. ‘I felt sick to hear her.’

  ‘Stupid woman!’ Sacha looked disgusted. ‘Her son wasn’t good enough to tie Daniel’s shoelaces.’

  ‘She never said sorry?’ I asked.

  ‘Sorry?’ Jean held up despairing hands. ‘Not in her vocabulary! It was all about how she’d lost a son, too. Well, boohoo. I hope he hangs himself in jail. The world would be a better place.’ He shook himself. ‘You must excuse me. I shouldn’t say these things. Pamela says it’s my obsession.’

  Sacha put her arm around his shoulders. ‘Those monsters ruined your life.’

  Jean closed his eyes for a moment. ‘The worst thing is that my grandson will never know his father. William’s birthday is the anniversary of Daniel’s death. Every year his mother tries to make it a happy day, and every year she fails.’ He turned a knob on the barbecue and lifted a tray of steak from underneath. ‘One of our own beasts.’ He sounded choked. ‘You won’t find a cut like this in the supermarket.’

  ‘What was Daniel like, Jean?’ asked Sacha. I was surprised by her courage; at her age, I think I would have wanted to change the subject.

  Jean thought for a second. ‘Look through the French doors, there— you’ll see him above the fireplace.’

  We leaned to peer into the Colberts’ sitting room. Family photographs lined the mantelpiece, and above them hung a painting of four boys. The scene was redolent of Hawke’s Bay in the summer, blue and brown and ochre. Three were freckled, rangy lads—teenagers, I’d guess—sitting on a hillside with their arms around one another’s shoulders. One had striking auburn hair. A much smaller boy sat on his lap, laughing. The four looked like a team, like comrades. You could sense the brotherliness.

  ‘Our boys,’ said Jean warmly. ‘See, Daniel is holding Philippe? Poor little fellow, he thought the world of Daniel. Pamela’s mother commissioned that painting for a Christmas present when they were all quite young. It’s a local artist.’

  ‘What a wonderful idea,’ I said.

  ‘But you ask what was Daniel like?’ Jean rocked back on his heels. ‘There’s a big question! Our third child, the peacemaker of the family. Where Michel and Jules fought like cat and dog, Daniel would defuse the situation with his wit. He was very funny. Wit was his skeleton key, opening all doors . . . And what else? A dedicated scientist, a conservationist. As a schoolboy he gave his holidays to the kiwi breeding project up here. Just before he died he’d begun a doctorate, working to save a little bird called the fairy tern from extinction.’

  ‘The fairy tern?’ I said blankly. ‘Sorry, I haven’t come across it.’

  ‘Most people haven’t. To Maori, it’s the tara-iti. A truly delightful creature, but mankind has destroyed its habitat and it has the doubtful distinction of being New Zealand’s rarest breeding bird—there are just a few pairs left. Daniel was passionate about its conservation. He felt that focusing on the exquisite details of nature was as vital as big, sweeping projects. He and his team were relocating four breeding pairs from Northland to an estuary on the East Cape. Not easy.’

  Jean turned the meat competently, with a flick of his wrist. ‘What else? Well . . . he was the light of our life. It’s true. The world changed forever at the moment when we heard the news. It became a darker place, not only for Pamela and myself but for everyone who knew Daniel. It is still a darker place.’

  ‘His young brother?’ I asked.

  Jean nodded sadly. ‘Philippe was just ten. He’s constantly striving to find meaning in his life and Daniel’s death. So you see, when those two imbeciles butchered my boy for fun, they destroyed more than one life.’

  ‘But you have William,’ whispered Sacha. Her eyes were still glimmering.

  Jean managed a smile. ‘Will! He is hilarious.’

  ‘That kid’s a dag,’ said Pamela, who’d arrived with Kit in tow. She was holding a beeswax candle. ‘They’re up to something, Martha. William swiped a roll of cling wrap off my kitchen bench, and now they’re all three giggling in the bathroom.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I groaned. ‘That’s the twins’ new prank. They’ll be stretching it across the loo.’

  A minute later the boys sidled out of the house and up to Jean, smirking. Finn and William nudged Charlie. Go on, go on.

  ‘Excuse me, Jean,’ wheedled Charlie, opening his eyes wide. ‘Would you like to go to the toilet?’

  ‘Definitely,’ replied the Frenchman genially, with a wink at Sacha. She smothered a smile and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

  ‘Now?’

  ‘After lunch, I shall be busting. I assure you of that. First, let’s eat.’

  It took a minute to get the boys around the table. Once they’d stopped giggling, Pamela raised her glass. ‘Here’s to our new friends, the McNamara family, who have joined us from across the world!’

  ‘It’s an honour to be here with you,’ said Kit, and we did that absurd clinking thing with our glasses. Finn and Charlie stood on their chairs to reach.

  ‘And happy birthday to Daniel,’ added Pamela, striking a match and lighting her candle. ‘Wherever you are, my darling.’

  Twenty-three

  March. The first breath of autumn.
/>   The air held a new crispness. Willows and beech began to flame along the river bank, and the sky was high and delicate as blue porcelain. We needed our duvets at night, and to our joy the mosquitoes began to disappear. On Saturday morning walks the boys and I would stop to marvel at umbrella-sized spider webs hanging in the bushes, spangled with billions of dewy pearls. The new school year was well underway, with Kit umpiring cricket matches and running sausage sizzle fundraisers like an old hand. He was also putting in inhumanly long hours in the studio, muttering cheerfully about Dublin.

  Sacha passed her restricted test and was allowed to drive on her own. We bought her a cheap little diesel. I felt as though a last cord had been cut, but it made life a lot easier because she could get herself into and out of town. She was in Year Twelve now, and the pressure had come on with a vengeance. Every week there seemed to be some test or assignment; her flute teacher wanted a pound of flesh, too.

  ‘I can’t concentrate with these little nutcases in the house,’ she complained one Sunday morning, pretending to bang the boys’ heads together. ‘Can I light that stove out in the hut? So much work this weekend, it’s a nightmare.’ There were mauve crescents under her eyes, and she had a couple of spots around her mouth. She looked taut as a rubber band.

  ‘Got a face like death warmed up,’ remarked Kit. ‘Those bastards are pushing you too hard.’

  Sacha blinked at him. ‘Put it this way, Kit. I worked all day yesterday, but I’ve still got an essay, five pages of physics and a debate to prepare. I’m totally screwed.’

  ‘By when?’ I asked, feeling sorry for her.

  ‘By tomorrow! It’s frickin’ ridiculous.’

  ‘There’s no need to jump down my throat.’

  She picked peevishly at a mosquito bite on her arm. ‘Dammit Janet, I need to do well in that essay. It’s an assessment.’

  ‘I’ll help you take some wood across,’ said Kit. ‘C’mon, let’s get the wheelbarrow. And if you’re very very nice to me, I’ll cut you some kindling.’