by Cowley, Joy
“Pressure,” Paul murmured.
“Exactly,” said Mrs Wilson. “Seven hundred and three kilograms per square metre. Imagine what that would do to your ears!”
Jeff stared at the diagrams. Pressure. Ears. That morning, when he’d seen the body under the branch, something had happened to him. It was as though every function in his body had closed down and then, in his ears, had come a swelling sensation, a popping as though he were in a plane coming in to land. He clasped his hands under the desk, tight, to squeeze out the memory. No, it hadn’t happened. It couldn’t have happened. There was no reason for it.
* * *
Andrea brought the letter home from school, and he was able read it on the dining room table because both their parents were at the hotel with Mr Staunton-Jones. It was another one-page letter, pencil on thin brown lined paper, faint and not easy to read. Andrea had explained that they weren’t allowed to have ball-point pens in prison because those could be used as weapons or to conceal forbidden substances.
“Like drugs?”
“Or needles. Or razor blades.”
Beckett’s writing had got smaller, which gave Jeff the feeling that his brother was shrinking in that Thai prison, but Andrea said it was probably to get as many words on the page as possible.
They leaned over the paper, picking up each word like some kind of treasure, aware that Beck’s hand had shaped them. Can’t tell you how I’m looking forward to coming back. Have the snowmen thawed yet? Or is it still the South Pole? I don’t know when it will be but soon, I hope, and I might bring you some souvenirs, cockroaches as big as rats. You’d love that, Andy, and you too, Jeff. But at least we don’t need central heating in this place …
Jeff looked at his sister. “It’s all nonsense. He doesn’t say anything real.”
“He can’t write real things. You have to decode the nonsense, Squidge. He says it’s horrible there, hot and vermin infested, and he wants to know if Mum and Dad have changed their attitude or is he still no longer a part of the family. That’s what he’s saying.”
Jeff thought about the weight of his father’s statement, Beckett is dead. He said it in a heavy way to make sure Jeff and Andrea understood that separation was final.
“They will know, of course,” said Andrea. “You can be sure they’ve been notified that their son is going to serve the rest of his sentence in New Zealand.”
“Did they tell you?”
“Of course not. Beck’s right. They’re made of ice where he’s concerned.” She folded the page in half and put it back in her media studies book. “You’d never believe he used to be Dad’s favourite. Beckett, the golden-haired Adonis! But it’s all right, Jeff, they’re not going to stop us from seeing him.” She said it with such determination that he knew it was going to happen. He wanted to hug her but she was on the other side of the table.
The roar of a chainsaw filled the room, and became high-pitched as the chain bit wood. That was Eddie and François cutting the fallen branch of the gum tree. Eddie had brought in his partner to help with the clean-up and they had found the barbecue cover floating under leaves in the swimming pool. Eddie didn’t say anything to Jeff about the cover, just hung it on the deck to dry while he cleaned water out of the barbecue.
Andrea picked up her phone. “You know what? I’m going to phone the hospital again.”
“They won’t tell you anything.”
“So? Let’s try something different.” She gave him a sly smile as she jabbed in the number. “Hullo? Public hospital? This is Nurse Lorimer speaking. I’m enquiring about an elderly woman admitted by ambulance this morning, suffering hypothermia and amnesia. Thank you. I appreciate that. Is this the intensive care unit? Oh good, I’m Nurse Lorimer enquiring about one of our patients, an elderly woman brought in this morning. Yes, yes. Which ward did you say? Thank you very much.” She smiled again at Jeff. “Good afternoon, I’m checking on an elderly woman admitted today. She was found in the storm. Yes. Suffering from hypothermia and – oh. So someone identified her?” Andrea frowned. “She signed herself out? Well, how could that be?” Her voice became less sure. “I’m – I’m a friend, I mean –” She shut down the phone, put her hand on her forehead. “She’s gone.”
“What?”
“That old woman walked out. She was in a hospital gown, waiting for an x-ray. Then she disappeared. Just vanished. No one knows who she is or where she went.”
3
BLACK HOLE: A black hole is a region of spacetime from which gravity prevents anything, including light, from escaping. Black holes of stellar mass form when stars collapse at the end of their life cycle. After a black hole has formed it can continue to grow by absorbing mass from its surroundings. By absorbing other stars and merging with other black holes, supermassive black holes may form. It is believed that supermassive black holes exist in the centre of most galaxies.
Saturday morning, the third day of the southerly, wrapped the house in light rain, turning it into a dull cave. Andrea spread the newspaper over the table and read headlines to Jeff – most sporting fixtures cancelled, men out continuing the repair of slips, blocked drains and washouts on the roads, some houses without power, ferry sailings resume, train timetable disrupted for maintenance on rails near Petone. She then passed the newspaper to her brother and took her cereal bowl back to the dishwasher. He watched her shelve the breakfast cereals. Out of school uniform, she looked like one of those chicks from a fashion magazine, skinny white jeans and red boots turned down at the cuffs. Jeff knew she was going out, long before she said it. His sister had two boyfriends, one her parents knew about and one they didn’t. Even Jeff had no idea who the other one was, and he was glad he didn’t know.
“Any stirrings from the north wing?” she asked.
“I think they’re still asleep.” He was looking at pictures of storm damage. “They were late. From the noise they made, I guess they had a lot to drink.”
Andrea laughed. “Special celebration noise or just normal?”
“Celebration, I think. Dad was singing.”
“And I didn’t wake up?”
“I did. Mum was trying to shush him but her voice was just as loud. Did that man go back go Sydney?”
“Flew back this morning.” She hoisted the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “Will you be all right, Squidgy, if I go to town?”
“Sure. Are you meeting Daniel?”
“We might go to a movie.” She smiled. “I’m leaving my phone. It needs recharging.”
“Right.” He nodded, understanding that it was not Daniel, year twelve at St Pat’s, she was seeing. “Have fun.”
“I’ve hidden Beck’s letter where they won’t find it. I’ll take it back to school on Monday.”
He nodded again.
She leaned over to hug him and he smelled perfume. “Next Saturday I’ll take you to a movie.” Then she was gone. He heard her car, the little Toyota Vitz that Winston bought her for her birthday, reverse out of the garage.
He read through the paper to the advertisements. Fifty per cent less fat in a pot of margarine. The statement annoyed him. Fifty per cent less than what? It was frustrating when people deliberately muddied numbers in order to sell something. Clinically proven to be twenty-five per cent more effective. Will make your wash sixty per cent cleaner. You saw it all the time, numbers turned into lies to make money. He turned a page over. Statistics were all right. Graphs were all right. With graphs, numbers worked with change but remained true to themselves. He had invented a name for that. Integer integrity. But still, in his mind, he liked to keep numbers separate from the messiness of life. It meant there was always a place of thinking to go to, an inner room in the mind that was pure and constant.
He folded the paper. It was nearly eleven o’clock. His parents were still asleep and Saturday cricket had been cancelled. He hated wet weekends. They were so empty. Maybe he would see if Paul was home. The Fitzgibbons had a basement den with a keyboard, a bass, and a Mapex drum kit. O
r maybe Paul would want to go down to the indoor skateboard park.
He sat, chin in hands, looking at the glass doors and the cloud that had collapsed around the house as grey mist, so thick he couldn’t even see the front wall. Inside, the only sound was the humming of the fridge.
He wasn’t as daring as Andrea. If he walked out without telling them, there’d be big trouble. He’d leave a note on the table, and take his phone and the gate opener. He had enough money for a movie if all else failed. Bus or bike?
* * *
He counted the steps down the hill to the bus stop, two hundred and twenty-three to the white house with the friendly German shepherd. He wished he could have a dog like that. Three hundred and ninety-four to the corner of Angus Street where the mist was thin enough to see the harbour, and exactly six hundred and ten to the small glass-sided alcove with wooden seats, bus timetables and about half a dozen people. He took his phone from his jacket pocket and leaned against the glass to text Paul, hoping he hadn’t gone to help his father at the timber yard. Could be since the rain was easing. Still a lot of water lying around, and rolling waves in the harbour, but not as wet as yesterday. If not Paul, then who? Maybe Salosa or Ken could be interested in the skateboard park.
Back came a text within a minute. Yo bro cool see ya P. Jeff smiled and closed his phone. The Karori bus pulled in and most of the people at the stop got on it. He went inside the shelter and sat on the bench to wait for the bus to the railway station. His mind was full of Paul’s new drum kit and an afternoon session in the basement, practising riffs. Right on! Mr and Mrs Fitzgibbon seemed to be deaf to the noise their kids made at the weekend.
Deaf? He touched his ears. That sensation was back, a fullness, not quite pain, behind his ear lobes. He swallowed and there was a popping noise in his head, clearing the hiss of passing traffic. He wondered if he was getting earache again, like when he was a little kid and had to have grommets.
Then someone said, “Hello Jeff.”
He turned, realising there was someone at the other end of the seat, saw a woollen hat and pink scarf, dark padded jacket, brown handbag. Between the hat and the scarf were small eyes, dark and shining like chestnuts, and bits of grey hair.
“Hello Jeff, Number Nine.”
That was when he saw the mouth, a turned-down crescent, some teeth missing, others blackened at the edges, and he knew, he absolutely knew.
“Thanks for the cushion and the umbrella,” she said.
“Are you all right?” It seemed a lame thing to say but it was all he could think of.
“No, I’m not all right.” She clutched at her jacket. “I hate this worn-out carcase. You’d think I’d get dumped into something a little more useful, faster maybe. And the timing was atrocious, slap into the worst storm of the year. No, I am definitely not all right but thank you for asking.”
Dementia, he thought. She was crazy. Like Mum’s Great-aunt Rose who put all the groceries in the washing machine to get rid of germs. He looked directly at the sharp, dark eyes. “How did you get under that tree branch?”
“I don’t know. There’s always a forgetting. One minute there, next minute here. The reason it was your place was because it’s about you.”
“About me?”
“Yes, you – and your family. That’s why I’m here.” She coughed and wiped her mouth on her scarf. “You want me to explain? Some people choose hard paths. Don’t get this wrong. Hard paths can be the best teachers, but if you don’t pick up on the lessons, you go under. That’s when you need help from outside. Or inside, however you see it.”
He didn’t see it. He didn’t see anything. She was a skinny old bird of a woman and he wasn’t afraid of her, but her madness had an intensity that made him wish his bus was coming. He looked down the street. “You don’t know us,” he said.
She laughed like a honking goose. “I know you better than I know this ancient body. Your father’s Winston Lorimer, up to his neck in quicksand, mother Helen Lorimer on the edge of a cliff, Beckett in a Thai prison for drug trafficking, Andrea about to leave school, you – do you really want to know about Jeff Lorimer?”
He didn’t want to know. “Who are you?” he said.
She opened the clasp on her bag, looked inside. “She was called Maisie, although she was baptised Eleanor May Caldwell, and she lives in a council flat with a yellow budgie. That’s as good a name as any.” She wiped her nose on her hand. “Who I am doesn’t matter. We don’t need labels because we have no self. We’re the dream-keepers. Isn’t this your bus?”
He wanted to ask what a dream-keeper was, but it was his bus, although he was sure she couldn’t have seen it from where she was sitting. He stood in front of her for a moment but she had rested her head back and had closed her eyes. Her mouth hung open.
“Goodbye. I’m glad you’re not hurt,” he said.
She didn’t answer.
He climbed on the bus, pressed his pay card against the glass and moved down to the nearest vacant seat. As the bus pulled away from the kerb, he looked back. The bench was empty.
* * *
The afternoon was a mess. It wasn’t just him and Paul in the basement. One of the younger Fitzgibbons had a birthday and there was a crowd of kids, some belting out old video games on an equally old TV, and the others drumming, arguing and playing table tennis. The parents were all upstairs around the kitchen table, talking and drinking tea, the dog picking up crumbs. It was a nice dog, fat and friendly, and there was a heap of party food. Every now and then the basement door would push open and someone would bring in a plate of cakes or sandwiches. But Jeff’s stomach was tight with unease, and even the smell of it turned him off. He sat on a bean cushion in the corner and thumbed through some of Paul’s war comics, not really reading them. His mind was like a grasshopper, springing away from the pages and back to the conversation with the woman at the bus stop. He should have asked her more questions.
He should have remembered everything she said. Now, only two things stuck in his mind, something about his father in quicksand and Andrea leaving school. Well, this was his sister’s last year. Of course, she’d be leaving school. How could that be a problem? And quicksand? As far as he knew there was no quicksand in New Zealand. Was that supposed to mean something else? Or was it just gaga talk? If she was crazy, how come she knew their names and that he was Jeff, not Jeffrey, and that he was a number nine?
Paul’s cousin Zac had taken over the drums and the noise was out of the tolerance zone. Jeff felt his phone vibrate. It was a text from his mother wanting to know when he would be home. He was going to leave anyway, and Helen’s message gave him an excuse to go upstairs and thank Mr and Mrs Fitzgibbon. He said goodbye to Paul and then headed for the station.
On the short train ride, he tuned into quietness, trying to remember more. He came up with very little. He could picture her eyes, like dark beetles, but couldn’t recall the words. It had been a short conversation, hadn’t it? Was there more to remember? Maisie! She said that! The name was Maisie!
A further thought disturbed him. If he told his parents about the woman at the bus stop, his father would phone the police. They’d have to go through it all over again – and she was just a daffy old woman, not a burglar. Jeff was sure of that.
He would tell his sister. Andrea was safe.
From the railway station, he took a bus that let him off at the bottom of the hill. As he got out, he looked at the bus shelter, wondering if he would see her again. There were only a boy and a girl kissing, and a man talking to a scruffy brown dog. Jeff didn’t know if he was disappointed or relieved.
* * *
Winston and Helen had chairs together at the table, and they were leaning together looking at Winston’s laptop. She had her hand near his head and was doing that thing with his ear, absent-mindedly stroking it between her thumb and forefinger. When Jeff walked in, they closed the computer and Winston said, “Is Andrea with you?”
“No. I think she went to a movie with Daniel
.”
“She didn’t take her phone,” Helen folded her arms.
“It needed recharging.” He pointed to the kitchen bench where Andrea’s phone was connected with the power point near the toaster. There was something wrong. He was sure they didn’t believe him, and he saw that in the look they gave each other. He said in her defence, “She is seventeen. She doesn’t need permission to go out with Daniel.”
Helen said evenly, “Daniel has phoned several times, trying to contact her.”
Winston turned on his fatherly stare. “We are not strict, understand. It is not our intention to turn our children into puppets. But while you live under this roof, you both obey the rules. You say where you are going and what time you will be home.”
“I left a note,” Jeff said.
“He doesn’t mean you,” said Helen.
“No, lad. Not you. I’m talking generally. We gave Beckett far too much freedom and look what happened. We won’t make that mistake again. There is no doubt in my mind, Mr Staunton-Jones would never have done business with us if he had known I had a drug dealer son languishing in an Asian prison. Never! Warren is an old English gentleman with the highest sense of respectability. He wouldn’t allow his property to become tainted by a family with criminal associations.” He glanced at Helen.
Jeff was silent. So the old business partner didn’t know about Beck.
Helen smiled. “Jeffrey, do you know what he said to your father at the airport? He told us Winston was the son he never had.”
“No children of his own, no heirs, poor fellow.” Winston spread his hands. “We hit it off from the time we met. I told you, didn’t I? When we had the accountants’ conference? He was in the Brisbane Marriott Hotel. He stood out in the crowd, this elderly English gentleman in a grey suit. Distinguished.”
Jeff had heard the story many times. “You played golf with him.”
“That was in Sydney,” said Winston. “The Royal Sydney Golf Club at Rose Bay, would you believe.”