Ellie & the Shadow Man

by Gee, Maurice

  ‘Neil Higgs.’

  ‘Ah. The author?’

  Neil Higgs the truckdriver, Ellie wanted to say. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘We had his children here.’

  ‘He told me.’

  ‘Well. We’re pleased to have John. He looks like a bright boy.’

  ‘He is.’

  She went away feeling that the man had made her up – put her in one place, then shifted her to another without seeing her properly either time. She might have settled him down if Neil had not got in the way. How could she stop that happening, stop him from intruding on her? It wasn’t his fault, she saw that. It was the silliness of other people.

  She walked up Glenmore Street and looked at the house – her house and Neil’s – and saw, not for the first time, that it needed a coat of paint. She would choose off-white, with a stone-grey roof and orange trim. That would fold it better into the hill. Blue roofs, she believed, were against nature. Sky and sea should not be mimicked where land mammals lived. Ellie smiled: she would try that out on Neil, get him to agree. She wondered how he would feel if she did the painting herself. She could tell him that she had experience.

  Ellie crossed the road and climbed the steps, passing below the high front wall. It was like a cliff, with Neil in a cave at the foot. He had a four-paned window with a roller blind that he kept down so the outside world would not distract him, and a door – painted blue, like the roof – with a screwed-on panel reading: Visitors proceed to upper level. That was OK. Ellie accepted it; she even approved, except for the blue; and accepted that during working hours she was a visitor and must climb past. She had hoped she might be admitted now and then, to see how he was getting on, even perhaps to hear what he had written. She had hoped he would call her down to try out sentences on, or for a quick one if he got randy writing sex scenes (although he did not put in many of those); and had expected to call him upstairs if she needed him, and had made what she called a Stamp Chart: Visitors, one stamp. Important mail, two stamps. Phone call, three stamps. Emergency, running on the spot. She worked out the place in the bedroom exactly above his head: ‘Go down now. We’ll try it out.’

  Ellie blushed, recalling it. How could she have been so stupid? Neil had explained that he went to work. ‘It’s my job, Ellie, it’s not a game. What this is – it’s like asking a mathematician to stop halfway through a calculation. Or a brain surgeon in an operation.’ He had gone on to say that being interrupted actually hurt him. It was like being punched between the eyes. ‘I’m sure I lose a whole bunch of brain cells. Listen love, if anyone can interrupt me you can. But please don’t unless the house is burning down, OK?’

  OK, OK. She’d acted like a girl instead of a woman. Instead of a wife. Living with someone, loving someone, lowered her guard and made her – gush? Made her callow, made her green, when what she had been hoping for was purity. And trust. And a kind of happy thoughtlessness. All day long, including working hours? She blushed again, stepping carefully past the door. But she hated that blue. It had to go.

  She went inside and washed the breakfast dishes. The kitchen faced uphill, where a tangle of ngaio bushes rose to the skyline. In mid-winter the room would get no sun. And Glenmore Street was a wind tunnel with storms blowing up and down. The house needed better heating than the single Nitestor in the hall. She would talk to Neil about a spaceheater for the living room, and get a part-time job to pay for it if it cost too much. He made almost nothing from his books and had to write for television – was writing an episode for a cop show in his den right now. Let me bring some money in, she would say, then you can do your proper work. Betty had left because he was poor – which was a good reason for being poor, he said. But no reason for me to be, Ellie thought.

  She went to the bedroom and made the bed, smiling at him working out plots beneath her feet. He had written four episodes of the cop show so far, all with a dark edge and plenty of suspense. He was clever with twisted motives – surprising, really, considering how much he needed to have explained in real life. Maybe keeping things shallow built up a store of energy for diving deep. But you had to recognise what you found down there. He seemed to manage better in his TV scripts than his novels. Neil was a confusing man, which kept her busy and alert.

  The bed that had pleased her so much on the night they first made love annoyed her now, because of the huge blankets and sheets. They were part of Neil’s old-fashionedness. ‘I hate those new-fangled duvets,’ he said. ‘They’ve been in for years,’ Ellie protested. ‘It’s much easier making the bed. And more fun when you’re under them. Let’s get some, Neil.’ ‘I like blankets,’ he said.

  ‘Stupid bugger,’ Ellie said, grinning down at him.

  Back in the kitchen, she made his morning coffee, wrapped the pot in a teatowel to keep it warm, put three mallowpuffs on a plate – his greediness for mallowpuffs had charmed her – and took the tray outside and down the steps. She placed it, dead on time, 10.15, on the wooden ledge built waist high by the door. Ellie did not like this chore. It seemed reasonable when she thought of it – taking someone (her husband for want of a word) his morning coffee the way women through the centuries had taken lunch to their men working in the fields – but somehow it demeaned her. She wanted to open the door, put the tray on his desk, and say, ‘Don’t let it go cold or I’ll screw your neck’ – something like that, instead of creeping away making no sound. As often as not the coffee went cold. Why couldn’t he bang on the ceiling when he was ready? It would make more sense than 10.15, although sometimes he reached out on the dot – an extendable arm – and lifted the tray inside. It was going to be interesting to see what would happen in the winter. I’ll be buggered if I’m taking it down in the rain, Ellie thought.

  Now she had two hours to herself and could go into the garden – Betty’s weed-patch, Neil called it, which put Ellie off, although she would make it her own with flowers and herbs and vegetables very soon – or paint the roof or paint a picture or walk through the gardens and have her own coffee break downtown. It’s early days, she thought, and chose for pleasure: Lambton Quay and Taste of France. Walking through the cemetery, she remembered her promise to visit her mother. Their conversations went round and round: the children, George, the need for this and that in the house, the shortage of money, the greediness and selfishness of people, the stupidity of politicians; and Ellie was left thinking, Why can’t we sit and hold hands? She would like to be with her mother and not talk. It made her guilty that she did not want her visiting Glenmore Street – not, she said quickly to herself, until Neil and I are a bit more settled.

  She ordered coffee and a Danish and sat at a table with a view of the street. Coffee black, unsugared; Danish sweet. She became both sharp and melting too. At lunch time we’ll go to bed, she thought. What was the use of having your man at home if you couldn’t do that? He had a puritan disapproval of daytime sex, at war with his appetite for lots of it. Neil most certainly needed her help. Ellie smiled.

  ‘Ellie, I thought it was you,’ a woman said. She got up from a nearby table and approached. ‘How lovely.’

  Ellie took a moment to find someone she knew: a girl’s face inside the plumped-out one. ‘Angela,’ she said, and wanted to gesture casually, Have a seat, but knew she must get up and embrace. They stood off and studied each other and laughed. A scented sophisticated creature: she’s no surprise, Ellie thought. And I’ve become a country girl – although I can drink coffee and eat Danish with the best.

  ‘Sit down. Let’s talk.’

  ‘Oh no, I can’t, I’ve got my daughter’ – a girl in a Marsden uniform eating chocolate cake. ‘She’s just had her braces off, poor lamb, so I’m treating her. Ellie, it’s twenty years. Tell me – oh I wish we had time. Are you married? Have you got children?’

  ‘I’ve got a son,’ Ellie said. ‘He’s ten years old. We’ve been living in Nelson but we’ve just come over here.’

  ‘I’ve got three. Three girls.’

  ‘So you never g
ot to be a ballet dancer?’

  ‘Oh, that was just one of my silly fads. And you wanted to draw cartoons, I remember. I suppose we were both a bit unreal. Look, telephone me. We’ll meet and have a proper talk. Here, I’ll give you one of Barry’s cards. It’s got our home number for after hours.’

  Barry Abbot. Real Estate.

  ‘You married Barry?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘I went out with him a couple of times.’

  ‘Well, we were young. He’s standing for parliament, did you know?’

  ‘What party?’

  ‘Oh, Ellie.’ Angela was not pleased.

  ‘National, eh?’ Ellie grinned. ‘I suppose I could give him my vote for old time’s sake. What electorate?’

  ‘Here. Wellington Central. Now I must get this one back to school. You will ring me, won’t you?’

  ‘Sure,’ Ellie said, not meaning it. She meant her smile. Although Angela had not been missing from her life, it was pleasant to fill her in. And Barry Abbot – fat tennis player, prim-kissing date. Her memory of him had always been shadowed by the boy who had killed himself. Barry was looped inside the noose. Now he was a man with daughters, selling real estate and standing for parliament over on the right. The line seemed straight enough from the Primes’ tennis court to this comfortable state – except for Barry’s admission that he had been afraid he might cry for Robert Morton. Ellie hoped he had stayed sensitive, although it would not be enough to make her vote for him: Wrong party, buster. Then she remembered, with annoyance, that she had not asked Angela about Hollis. Where had he gone, with his limpy foot? Dolores might have turned up in his life again. The baby might have turned up. Was it malicious to hope it had?

  Back in her kitchen Ellie made macaroni cheese, which Neil would eat every day if she offered it. He had plain tastes, a working-class boy, and Ellie liked that, even though the sauce he splashed on made her think of murder.

  ‘Watties,’ he said, banging the bottle with the heel of his palm, ‘our life’s blood.’ It was a joke he repeated superstitiously. The Dark Before the Light was entered for the Wattie Award.

  Ellie let it pass.

  ‘I started John at Thorndon. You didn’t tell me Kevin and Siobhan went there.’

  ‘It’s the local school,’ Neil said.

  ‘Yes. How did you get on?’

  ‘What with?’

  ‘Sergeant Padget and the murdered chicken farmer?’

  ‘He’s just gone into one of the sheds and found three hundred chickens dead.’

  ‘How? Wouldn’t they squawk?’

  ‘I haven’t worked it out yet. Gas maybe.’

  Ellie laughed. He would not discuss his novels, as though hearing praise might damage them, but enjoyed throwing out script ideas and having her ridicule them.

  ‘That’s not spooky enough.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. I’d like them all beheaded like Giltrap.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘The chicken farmer. I’ve changed his name. I might make him castrated too.’

  ‘They’ll have to buy whole cartons of tomato sauce. You could tell Watties. Make sure of the prize.’

  ‘That’s not a joke, Ellie. Just shut up about that.’

  ‘Sorry. Who’s the murderer? Is it the wife?’

  ‘Too obvious.’

  ‘How about a nun? You could have a convent next door.’

  ‘Maybe a man dressed as a nun.’

  ‘Or a nun dressed as a man.’

  ‘Hey Ellie, that’s good. A nun dressed as a priest.’

  ‘Or as the pope.’

  ‘The pope disguised as a rooster. We’re getting somewhere. Celestial rooster. The feathered hand of God.’

  ‘This will be a good episode,’ Ellie said. She wished she could keep him writing scripts. Lunches would be no fun when he went back to novels.

  She took him to bed – ‘Can you spare an hour?’ – but made him scrub his teeth first: macaroni. There’s nothing like living together to take the romance out of an affair, Ellie thought. Reality had a longer life and was more fun in the end. Reality was an aid to sex. But love was the best aid – love was best.

  She did not know why she loved Neil, or even how; had learned it quickly, as a fact, and was finding that it survived later discoveries: his selfishness, obtuseness, snobbery, silliness. She did not like his way of driving the car, impatient and dreamy by turns, and thought she might have to leave him to save her life. When John was a passenger she drove. Nor did she like his dislike of climbing hills and getting views: ‘Come on, Ellie, people are what matter, not all this clouds and rainbows junk.’ His ignorance: of politics, religion, medicine; of architecture and music (he knew even less than her), and native trees, gardening, astronomy, law; of sex and childbirth, childcare, education; of how the world worked and much more. She had never met a person who knew so little and made so many mistakes. ‘Well, Ellie,’ he said; and confessed that until his late teens he had not known babies were born through the vagina. He had thought the woman’s abdomen split to let the baby out. ‘It seemed logical. A baby’s so big.’ ‘Oh, Neil. Oh, Neil.’ She was close to tears, and yet such huge ignorance meant failure; it was sick. She would have hated him if she’d met him then. Yet she had to admire the way he had put himself together. Neil was a self-made man. And somehow, for some reason, she loved him, even though she was not sure he knew about love.

  ‘I get things right in my novels,’ he said.

  Ellie was uncertain about that. Sometimes she wondered if they worked by cunning placement or a trick of words or his cleverness in pushing the story on.

  ‘I do research. Afterwards, though, not before, unless I have to.’

  But the things that made her shiver, sometimes with fear, then with delight, in what he wrote, did not come from research. Or from normal intelligence …

  All this Ellie turned over while he snoozed post-coitally beside her. His energy wore him out. She loved his enthusiasm, once he had got his puritan hang-up out of the way (closing the curtains to keep out the light), but wished he had less of it when, as usually happened, they carried on. She liked long close love-making, deeply involved and slowly building, but he had no patience, preferred athletics: a great pity. She was trying to teach him. But lunch hours were not the best time.

  She got up and dressed, then sat on the bed and kissed him on the mouth. He woke and blinked at her. ‘Hey, you’ve got your clothes on.’

  ‘It’s time you got back to your chicken farmer. Listen, Neil.’

  ‘Ah, no –’

  ‘I want to get a job. Part time. I had a job when we met and it wasn’t part of the deal for me to stay home. I either start applying next week or I paint the roof. I’m good at painting roofs.’

  ‘Have you seen the height? It’s a bloody cliff.’

  ‘Neil, listen –’

  ‘You’ll fall off.’

  ‘No I won’t. I’m serious, Neil. A job or the roof, or we start a baby.’

  ‘Jesus, that’s new. You never said babies.’

  ‘I am now.’ She had thought of it suddenly. It was seeing him on his elbow, blinking in the gloom. She had felt a sharp kick, the twist of a muscle inside her, and along with it a wave of love that washed further on to take in a child. It was Neil and Ellie and what, between them, they might make. She had cleared a space.

  ‘Ellie, we’ve got children,’ he said.

  ‘Not yours and mine.’

  He wet his mouth and swallowed. ‘I don’t want any more. I’m forty-two.’

  ‘That’s not old. I’m serious, Neil. We’re not just going to put this aside.’

  He hung his head for a moment, then looked up and sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Ellie, you’re out of luck.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s no babies.’ He pulled the sheet off his loins. ‘Give me your hand.’

  ‘Neil, I’m talking to you. I don’t want that.’

  ‘Just give it to me.’ He guided her
fingers. ‘Feel that lump?’

  It rolled inside the crinkled skin, as hard as a knot in a piece of string.

  ‘That’s where they tied me. I’ve had a vasectomy.’

  Ellie withdrew her hand. She sat still.

  ‘When?’

  ‘About five years ago. Betty was scared of having more kids. So was I.’

  ‘Scared?’

  ‘I didn’t want them, I mean. And now I can’t. So –’ he spread his hands – ‘I’m sorry, Ellie.’

  ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘I would have. When I got the chance.’

  ‘You let me go on taking my pill.’ Her mouth was wooden, as though she was drunk.

  She stood up and went outside and sat on a bench with her back to the kitchen wall. So, she said to the baby, you only had five minutes. Goodbye. She closed her hands across her abdomen and rocked herself, but stopped when she heard Neil coming through the kitchen.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Yes. I’m not going to paint the roof.’

  ‘That’s good. I don’t want to lose you, Ellie. It’s a long way down.’

  ‘I’m getting a job. But I’m going to do the garden first.’ That was for herself. It would also be, in some way, for the baby.

  ‘I hoped you would. Ellie, we’re still all right? You and me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I suppose we are, she thought, but how much is lost?

  ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you,’ he said.

  ‘Go back to your chickens.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She could see him thinking that if she could joke she had forgiven him.

  ‘Ellie, one more thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s a board that creaks in the bedroom over my head and it goes right through me. So, if you could make the bed in the morning before I go down? Or lunch time, eh?’

  ‘I’m getting duvets.’

  ‘Ah. They’re expensive.’

  ‘I’ll use what I save on contraceptives.’

  He took it as another joke. ‘I don’t mind how much we creak the bed. Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Of course, Neil. Ask away.’

  ‘Some women think if a man’s had a vasectomy he’s sort of not complete …?’