The Road from Midnight

by Wendyl Nissen

“Wow,” said Daisy unpacking her usual array of oils and incense in her hotel room. “Sit, this is going to take a while and I need to find the candle I bought for you to light.”

  I sat, obediently, lost in my own thoughts, feeling miserable.

  “Ah, there it is. Now, let’s light this and ask the spirits and angels and your Madonna for some guidance and then we are going to Piha to sort this out.”

  Ah Daisy, always there, always sorting me out.

  She lit the candle, we said our silent prayers and then she blew it out, tucked it in her pocket “in case we need it again” and we headed out West, up into the Waitakere Ranges and then down into the black sand and surf, the wild prevailing westerly and a beach which had seen us drunk, stoned, naked, sunburned, and always enormously happy.

  “Now let’s deal with Jim Craig first,” said Daisy as we settled in the sand dunes with a bottle of Chardonnay for me and organic apple juice for her and a blanket we borrowed from the hotel. “Why do you blame yourself for anything that fuckwit did to you? This is the voice of an abused woman,” she pronounced.

  “Daisy, if I had let him have that blood test, then none of this would have happened. If she was his daughter then I would have had to accept that and we could have worked something out. And if she wasn’t then he would have just walked away.”

  “How do you know he would have walked away? The man is obviously unhinged and for all you know he would have done it anyway. Jim Craig was always about hurting you, this had nothing to do with Charlotte. You know that deep down. And I’m betting he’s still getting off on it, even though he’s in prison. He’s probably scheming more ways he can connect with you by hurting you.”

  “Do you really think he is that obsessed with me, even after all these years?”

  “Jane, have you forgotten? He will go to his grave haunting you, eager for just a look or a glance. Best he rots in jail I think.”

  Jim Craig had been charged under sections 69, 208 and 310 of the Crimes Act with committing a crime outside of New Zealand, abduction and conspiring to abduct.

  He apparently showed no remorse at his court trial. When asked “How do you plead?” he said, “Happy,” then pleaded guilty and was sentenced to the maximum penalty of 12 years in prison. I briefly considered walking into the court and blasting his head to bits with a shotgun, but restrained myself.

  “Well, now he’s gone down,” said Daisy employing her best private detective voice. “And I guess we’ll never know if he is Charlotte — I mean Katya’s — father. Does she want to know do you think?”

  “Not at all, we talked about it the other day and she said she already has enough fathers in Nikolai and Lawrence and doesn’t particularly want another one, especially one as ugly as Jim,” I laughed. “She’s quite the aesthete our Katya.”

  God it felt good to laugh. Daisy always had that effect on me. We could not see each other for years and then as soon as we sat down and started talking it was as if we had never been apart.

  Sensing my lightened heart Daisy moved on to Marco.

  “Now tell me what happened with Marco. I don’t believe for one moment that the two of you are over,” she said.

  So I told her of our lunch and my stubborn need to be with Katya and to put her first.

  Daisy gazed off over the waves and out to the horizon.

  “Jane, I know that is how you are feeling at the moment, but things change with time. I know how important finding Katya is to you, but I also know that Marco has been there through this, he has never left you or neglected you, he has been your one true light throughout. He literally kept the flame alive. You must not lose him, or you will find that light inside you will die a very slow death,” she said, turning her gaze on me.

  “And Katya will not want you around forever. She sounds to me like an independent spirit just like you. Be with her now, but learn that you must let her go eventually.”

  “Daisy,” I interrupted. “If you start reciting that thing about ‘if you love something set it free, if it comes back it is yours’ I may be forced to throttle you, even in your delicate state,” I laughed.

  “You know I’m right,” she said smiling.

  “Yes, Daisy, I know. I guess I just got all mixed up in my thinking with the excitement of finding Katya, and all the drama surrounding it. I’ll send Marco a grovelling email attempting to explain myself.”

  “Good girl. And I’ll send him one too with my report on your state of mind. Now what’s all this about Katya being difficult and spoilt and her liking horrible Lawrence more than you?”

  “You’ll see,” I told her, too exhausted to explain it all. “She’s a tough nut to crack.”

  Daisy and I took Katya out to dinner that night, and Daisy was everything a doting aunt should be. She presented Katya with her birth stone, an aquamarine which she had taken to be blessed by the Dalai Lama 15 years ago in anticipation of this day.

  “Your mother had the Madonna, I had the power of this stone to guide you home.” And by the end of the meal she had extracted a promise from Katya that she would be her daughter’s godmother.

  “She’s a bit weird,” confided Katya, as Daisy disappeared to the toilet for the third time.

  “I know, darling, but she is my oldest and dearest friend and I always find my life is better when she’s in the room.”

  “I know what you mean,” she agreed. “But could you do something about her wardrobe?”

  I laughed and gave Katya an entertaining description of all Daisy’s wild and wonderful outfits over the years.

  As I put Daisy on the plane home a few days later, she held my hand and gave me one of her predictions.

  “Katya is not going to be your best friend, or your perfect daughter, Jane, and you will need to accept this. You cannot replace those years she missed out with you, so don’t try. Just let her be who she needs to be and be there if she needs you. But be prepared for the fact that for a while anyway, she might just not need you at all.”

  34

  As usual, Daisy was right. Katya, the darling, beautiful daughter, had turned out to be quite the handful once the reunions were out of the way. For a while Katya was a celebrity in her own right, and within weeks was hosting her own TV show about missing people called Phone Home. Fortunately, it didn’t last long. She denied Lawrence had anything to do with it, but they were as thick as thieves those two. I could only sit back and wonder about the genes versus environment argument.

  I had hoped that we would become very close, like most mothers and daughters, after the initial excitement wore off, but that never happened. We discovered in each other a kindred spirit based around loss and recovery, and we liked to spend time together drinking wine and talking. But Katya had continued to have a terrible temper on her when she didn’t get her own way. The sulking and the tantrums were astonishing and only Ola seemed able to sort her out.

  Eventually, Ola suggested that she and Katya should return to Europe. Nikolai was no longer a concern as he had not been seen or heard of since he kissed Katya goodbye before her supposed breast enlargement. Ola was finally convinced he would not try to make contact after Agapeto explained that the instructions he left with his lawyer were intended to be full and final and to release Katya. He also passed on a letter Nikolai had written the moment he realised Katya had gone.

  Katya had taken the letter out into the garden to read in private. She hadn’t told any of us what the letter contained except to say that he told her he will always love her.

  “While she stays out of Russia she will be safe, and so will you,” he explained. “But I would not recommend ever returning there, under any circumstances.”

  “And from what you tell me he loves Katya very much and I doubt he, or his friends will want to see her harmed in any way. If anything I think she will be protected by them from afar.”

  Agapeto returned to Venice but only after extracting a promise to bring Katya to Sicily for a holiday and noting Marco’s absence.

&nbs
p; “I am always there for you, Jane,” he said. “You know that.”

  Katya was still unable to think ill of Nikolai. Her conditioning had been so thorough at his hands that she found nothing wrong or repulsive about sleeping with him and The Others. It was all she had known. And she was still struggling to believe that he had anything to do with her abduction.

  “I do not believe you!” she would shout as soon as I tried to talk about it. “I don’t want to talk to you about this!” she would screech. And I would back off.

  In the end I had to accept that what was real for her, would have to be real for me too.

  “I think she must return to the only life she really knows, Jane,” Ola explained. “She is not really a Kiwi at all, she is a Russian princess and it is too late for her to change her ways, to adopt a new culture. The only thing she really likes about this country are lamingtons, her grandparents and Lawrence, oh and you, of course.”

  As lovely old Ola talked about her views on the best way forward for Katya, I realised that I was looking at the only mother Katya had ever known and also the only woman who would really ever know Katya as a mother should.

  “Ola, you are right, of course,” I said. “And I feel I must say to you that you really are Katya’s mother. Thank you so much for taking such good care of her all of these years.”

  Ola looked at me with her deep brown, knowing Russian eyes.

  “Jane, from the moment I saw that little angel in her bed staring at me like a frightened cub she had my heart,” she said thumping her heart forcefully. “She will always have it,” she finished passionately.

  That night I sat down with Katya and opened a bottle of wine.

  “Oh God, not that awful Kiwi chardonnay,” she moaned predictably.

  “Katya, I think it’s time you went home,” I said softly.

  “Home? You mean Paris?” she asked looking at me carefully.

  “Yes, Paris. Ola and I have talked and she says you have more than enough money to live on, and you have the title to your apartment and as much as I would love it if you lived here and experienced some of your real culture I know that this is not the life you were raised for,” I said. “I can never understand the kind of life you have had over there, but I do understand the lure of Europe, I have after all lived there for 15 years.”

  “This is fantastic news. I have been sitting here for days trying to work out how to tell you that I am so miserable in this tiny country with people who eat nothing but mince pies and drink their over-rated wine. They are all so … well … ”

  “Basic?” Jane suggested.

  “Yes, that is it. No breeding, so crude,” she finished, happy with her character assassination of our culture.

  “You need to understand, darling, that we are all descended from very little. We don’t have the cultural background people do in Europe, but we are an amazing country. You have seen how beautiful it is and we’re real battlers because of it. I am very proud of the achievements of my people, and you should be too. We are different, but we are no less talented or intelligent.”

  “Yes, yes I suppose,” she said eager to return to the subject of returning home.

  “Jane, I will go home, if you don’t mind, but what should I do about Lawrence and Grandma and Grandpa, I feel I need to be here for them.”

  “Well you could move down to the Catlins at the ripe old age of 20, but I wouldn’t advise it. You are young yet, my darling, you have an active mind with huge knowledge and you could be anything you wanted to be in this world. Come and visit them as often as you can, but don’t become a martyr about it. They will be fine. And Lawrence will be more than happy to come and visit you, I’m sure. He doesn’t seem to be that busy at the moment.”

  “Jane, that is not nice,” she reprimanded me as she often did when I put Lawrence down.

  “I’m sorry, I know he has changed.”

  “What about you, will you stay here with your talented and intelligent countrymen?” she laughed.

  “Katya, I know we haven’t exactly hit it off and become really close. But that doesn’t matter to me. I have spent so many years without you that I’m not going to spend another minute away from you,” I said cautiously.

  Katya looked at me thoughtfully. “I know I might not show it, but I do love you, I’m just learning how to do that. And I know I am tiresome and difficult, but I would be honoured and privileged to have you live with me in Paris. I think one day, perhaps when I have grown up a little and have had time to settle back into my old life, we will become very good friends … Mum.”

  “I hope so, Katya,” I said, secretly holding that word “Mum” to my heart and not wanting to bring up one other subject that had been bothering me all day.

  “And I know what you are thinking,” said Katya quickly displaying some of the intuition we were beginning to discover we had about each other. “I will continue my studies at the university and I will no longer belong to The Others. Nikolai has left me independently wealthy.”

  “Oh, okay then,” I responded, at once relieved, but also a little worried about these strange men she called The Others.

  At that moment the phone rang. Katya picked it up and grinned from ear to ear.

  “Mum, it’s for you,” she said barely containing her excitement.

  I took the phone from her and rather distractedly barked out a “Hello?”

  It was Marco. I had not heard from him since he stormed off.

  “Good news,” he said matter of fact, as if nothing had happened. “My next job in Paris has been delayed for two months. I can fly out and be with you in New Zealand tomorrow,” he paused and I knew he was smiling. “If you want?”

  “Just a moment, Marco,” I said returning his official nonchalant tone.

  “Is there room for him in Paris too?” I whispered to Katya as

  I covered the receiver with my hand.

  “Jesus Christ, praise the Lord and your bloody Madonna,” screeched Katya. “God yes, let’s all be one big happy family!”