Soon

by Charlotte Grimshaw

  ‘What?’

  ‘He said he needs a bigger bum.’

  ‘A bigger bum?’

  ‘Bigger muscles there, I suppose. Anyway, he has plans to enlarge it somehow.’

  ‘Are there special exercises?’

  Karen snorted, ‘Garth, on the other hand, is working on making Roza’s bum smaller.’

  ‘Mm. Meanwhile, does David actually want a bigger bum?’

  They lazed about until it got too hot, and then wandered down to the beach. Simon thought, It’s good to slow down. To live in the moment . . .

  It was a fine, hot day, with no wind and the waves breaking evenly along the shore. They swam out and looked back at the Wedding Cake, its glass windows reflecting the sea. The flag hung limp on its pole. A convoy of cars was making its way along the coast road.

  After the swim, Karen went off with Roza, Juliet, Sharon and Ray to a café in the town centre and he wandered up to change. At the Little House his cell phone was signalling a missed call. There was no message. He checked; it was the number of the stranger who’d asked about Mereana.

  If he ignored the calls, the man might give up. But would he start asking questions elsewhere?

  He retrieved the number from his call log and rang it.

  ‘It’s Simon Lampton,’ he said. ‘You rang me?’

  ‘Dr Lampton. Thanks for calling back,’ Arthur Weeks said. ‘I wanted to ask you about Mereana Kostas.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m not in my office at the moment. What was the name?’

  ‘Mereana Kostas. I think you know her.’

  ‘I don’t. What’s this about?’

  ‘I thought you knew her.’

  ‘No, I don’t know anyone of that name, unless she’s a patient, but I have hundreds and of course I’d need to know what you . . . ?’

  ‘She’s not a patient.’

  ‘I don’t know her.’

  ‘Can I meet you?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Your number’s in her cell phone, listed under “Simon”.’

  Simon ducked, involuntarily. He waited, then said, ‘Well, she might have been a patient at some stage, but I can’t discuss patients obviously.’

  ‘I’m trying to find her address.’

  ‘Can’t help, sorry.’

  ‘There’s a photo of you in her phone.’

  Silence.

  ‘A photo . . . How do you know what I look like?’

  ‘Google Images. In the picture you’re laughing and reaching towards the camera. You look happy.’

  Simon closed his eyes. ‘How do you come to have this person’s cell phone?’

  ‘She left it behind. Can I meet you?’

  ‘But why? What’s your interest? Who are you?’

  ‘I’m a journalist, and I guess a film-maker.’

  ‘Christ,’ Simon said.

  ‘I could give you the phone.’

  ‘Why would I want it? I don’t . . . I don’t . . . Oh . . . I suppose . . .’ Another silence. ‘You could give me the phone? But I have no interest . . . I’ll be at my rooms later today, I have a clinic. But there’s no point, since I don’t know anything.’

  Weeks said, ‘Great. I’ll see you then.’ He hung up.

  Simon washed his face. He raised his head and looked in the mirror. Every year that had passed since he’d last seen Mereana had made him feel safer, more sure that he would never hear from her again. But this didn’t need to be complicated. All he had to do was deny knowing her, get the guy to give him the phone and then throw it away.

  On his way to the car he met Roza dressed for the pool in a towel and flip-flops, with a pair of sporty goggles on her head. Behind her came Tuleimoka and Johnnie, hand in hand.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Karen tells me you’re mentally ill.’

  ‘She’s spreading it around, is she?’

  ‘And that she’s completely sane.’

  ‘She’s thrilled to imagine that I’m nuts.’

  ‘Well, take care of yourself. You’re on a knife edge.’

  ‘Thanks, darling.’

  ‘Hurry back!’ She kissed his cheek. ‘Take your medication.’ She turned to frown at Tuleimoka, who was now instructing Johnnie on the importance of wearing shoes.

  ‘We didn’t get up early enough,’ she whispered. ‘Now we’ve got the Priestess in tow.’

  ‘Pecause in the ground, in the tirt, there are tirty things,’ Tuleimoka was saying.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Roza rolled her eyes. ‘Is it only for the day? Do hurry back.’

  He drove south until the city appeared ahead of him, its blocks and spikes ranged against the cloudless blue. Crossing the bridge he looked down at the marina, at the hundreds of white-rigged masts jinking and clinking in the breeze. He liked the alien quality of the city during the few weeks of summer holiday, when the streets and buildings became a hot, empty, concrete landscape — a different place.

  The radio played him the news, a string of curiosities from far away: extreme cold weather had damaged pipes in Ireland, leaving thousands of people without running water; Israeli rabbis’ wives had issued a public letter warning Israeli women not to form relationships with Arab men — such marriages would lead to beatings and humiliation, they advised . . .

  He headed straight for the surgery, stopping to talk to his receptionist Clarice before shutting himself in his office, turning on the computer and looking out at the park, its grass all brown and withered after the long, hot summer.

  Having got the idea from the stranger himself, he Googled ‘Arthur Weeks’ and found Weeks was a freelance writer and film-maker who’d made a trio of short films called The Present. He ran through a review of the films, and a posting by a blogger called Stars-In-Her-Eyes, who said they’d ‘done nothing for her’. Weeks had also written a comic play about Captain Cook, it seemed, and some episodes for a local television drama. He consulted Google Images and found Arthur Weeks to be young and handsome, with dark, wavy hair, a wide mouth, an angular face and small, keen eyes. None of this helped. He tidied his desk. So much for improving his mental health — he had a stress headache.

  His clinic was soon behind schedule. A young woman sat in his room with her six-week-old baby in a car seat at her feet. Her clothes were expensive and immaculate but her face was expressionless, dark circles like bruises under her eyes. He vaguely remembered the baby’s birth; checked his notes for its sex, which wasn’t obvious.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he asked, jovial. ‘He letting you get any sleep?’

  ‘No.’ She didn’t look at the baby. ‘He cries and whines all night.’

  ‘They settle down after a while. Have you got yourself some advice?’

  ‘They all tell me different things. Nothing works.’

  ‘So . . . you might be feeling a little bit tired, a bit down?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh good. That’s the spirit.’

  ‘Mostly I feel nothing.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Do you remember my husband, from the birth?’ She gestured at the baby, angry. ‘He looks just like him. Same hair. See those black tufts, how thick they are already? They’re not soft like baby hair.’ Her face wrinkled with disgust.

  ‘Right. I see . . .’ Shall we say moderately mentally ill? He made a series of notes, glancing down at the baby, which balled its tiny hands and began to wail. The woman looked out the window and he went about making notes for a referral while the poor, unwanted kid screamed itself hoarse and the mother sat barely moving, with her numb, glassy stare.

  He said gently, ‘Try picking him up.’

  ‘It won’t do anything.’

  He touched her sleeve. Her eyes were dark, strange, empty.

  ‘Just try,’ he said again. He smiled, tried to will life into her eyes.

 
; Lunchtime, he went out for a sandwich at the café down the road. A young man came in after him, called out his name, offered his hand.

  ‘Arthur Weeks. Hi,’ he said. ‘Buy you a coffee?’

  Simon nodded and sat down. The young man ordered coffees, came back, stumbled against a chair, seemed at a loss for a moment. He sat down, coughed. ‘So. It’s about Mereana.’

  ‘I don’t know anything.’

  The man looked sharp. ‘You don’t know anything, but do you know her?’

  Simon leaned back, touching his fingertips together. ‘No. Why don’t you tell me about this person.’

  ‘I’ve known her since I was a kid.’

  Simon straightened up. ‘Really?’

  ‘You’re surprised!’

  ‘Not at all.’ It was too hot in the café. ‘Could we get to the point, please? I have a lot of work on today.’

  ‘My parents had a holiday bach next to her father’s land up north. We used to go every summer, and she’d be there, and we’d play on the beach, swim, go fishing. Her father was Greek; he came from Australia and married into a Maori family. They own a lot of land, including beaches, and we all used to mix every year, the Pakeha families like ours, and theirs.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘So I was there this summer, and they asked me to look up Mereana when I went back to Auckland. Her parents are dead, but the rest of the family, especially these old women, these matriarch types, have wondered where she is. They never go to Auckland, so they see me as a connection. They invited me in for a cup of tea and talked about it. They suggested I drop in on an old friend of hers, a guy called Lydon, who lives in Whangarei, to see if he knew her address.

  ‘I went to his place on my way back to Auckland. He said she’d disappeared, but that she’d left one of her phones, and he still had it. We looked through it and he knew most of the numbers, but there was yours. I rang it and got a phone message — it said the number had changed, but it gave a new number, which was the one I called you on.’

  Simon cleared his throat. ‘The message probably listed my number by mistake.’

  ‘But there’s the photo of you.’

  ‘As I said, she may have been a patient, but if she was, I can’t discuss her. I do make my cell phone number available to some patients, given the nature of my work.’

  ‘Can you check if she was a patient?’

  ‘No. And even if I did, which I won’t and can’t, it wouldn’t locate her, would it?’

  ‘You’re an obstetrician. Was she pregnant?’

  ‘Oh, come on.’

  ‘Sorry — no, don’t get up; I know I can’t ask that. But you must admit it’s strange she had a photo of you.’

  ‘Perhaps she got it off the internet. Sometimes patients form attachments . . .’ Simon felt heat rising to his face. He looked away, ashamed.

  ‘Like a stalker? Like she was fixated on you?’

  He stood up. ‘This is not appropriate. I don’t know this person, couldn’t discuss her if I did, and I can’t see what’s to be gained by this.’

  ‘But the photo’s not like a press picture off the internet; it’s intimate, taken by a friend. The expression, the laugh.’

  Simon said, without knowing whether this was possible, ‘Perhaps she got it off someone’s Facebook page.’

  ‘The picture must have been taken by the camera in the phone.’

  Simon’s anger was increasing. ‘Let’s have a look at it then,’ he said.

  Weeks hesitated, then took a Nokia out of his pocket. He brought up the number in the contacts, listed under Simon, and then he held up the picture of Simon laughing and reaching towards the camera, wearing a business shirt and no tie. Behind him was a wall with the weatherboards partly exposed and a blind with sunlight shafting through it, and below it on a windowsill a cigarette packet and a beer can.

  She must have held up the phone and pointed at him and he’d reached for it and pulled it off her, not realising she’d taken a shot.

  He looked; he was silenced. It was impossible to explain away that background — the beer can and the cigarette packet and the weatherboards and the shabby blind. Anyone who knew him would see it was not his house, and not the kind of house his friends owned. He was back in the room with the afternoon sun and Mereana lying on the couch with her feet propped up, swigging on her beer, teasing him.

  ‘Her friend Lydon told me that’s her house in the picture.’

  Simon reached, but Weeks pulled away.

  ‘You said you’d give it to me.’

  Weeks put the phone in his pocket. He held up his hands. ‘Show it. I said I’d show it to you.’

  ‘You said you’d give it. That’s why I agreed to meet you.’

  There was a silence. Simon considered wrenching open the jacket and grabbing the phone, but it was impossible, the café was full of people.

  Weeks said, ‘So why do you want it? If you don’t know her?’

  ‘You’ve got me curious about it myself. There’s no photo of you in there, is there? Maybe I’ve got more right to it than you have. Why shouldn’t I try to find out why she had my photo? And you don’t know it was this Mereana person who took the picture — anyone could have taken it.’

  Weeks said, ‘I’ll help you find out. I like mysteries. And if you truly don’t know her it, is a mystery, isn’t it.’

  ‘It’s her phone, her business.’

  ‘I like other people’s business. I’m a journalist. I’m always looking for material. Anyway, Mereana’s an old friend.’ His tone softened. ‘You know, she’s got the most amazing dark skin and green eyes — because her mother was Maori and her father was Greek. She’s really striking. I was in love with her from when I was about twelve. I was always trying to get her to kiss me. She’s clever . . .’

  Simon thought of her, on a beach, aged twelve. Something bad went through him, the thought of Weeks trying to kiss her. He said, cold, ‘Where is this bach, your parents’ bach near her land?’

  ‘In the Far North, beyond Kaitaia.’

  ‘Do your parents still go there?’

  ‘Yeah, sure, about four times a year.’

  Simon was silent. Mereana had told him about her father hitting golf balls into the sand dunes, about a little house so close to the beach they could fish from the front veranda.

  Weeks went on, ‘I write for Metro, North and South. I’ve written a couple of things for TV. And I’ve made some short films. One I made last year’s going to Sundance.’

  ‘Give me the phone,’ Simon said.

  Weeks looked up quickly. ‘You do know her.’

  ‘What if I do? Why is it your business?’

  ‘Because she’s disappeared. People are looking for her.’

  ‘Not very seriously, by the sound of it.’

  ‘So, should they file a missing person’s report?’

  Simon said, ‘Most people are just living their own lives. They don’t want to be disturbed. You say she was always escaping from you. Maybe you should leave her alone. Maybe you’re stalking her. Is that why she’s disappeared?’

  ‘I’m not stalking her.’

  ‘Are you stalking me?’

  ‘No. Honestly, they asked me to find her address. I’m just doing what they asked.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got work to do.’

  Weeks said, ‘I’ll write down my details, in case you think of anything. Give me a call, any time.’

  He wrote numbers on a scrap of paper. ‘Sorry to have bothered you.’ He took a DVD out of his pocket. ‘Can I give you this too? Three of my short films. I made these a while ago now, four, five years. I based one of the characters on Mereana.’

  ‘Sure.’ Simon took it and tried to smile.

  ‘By the way,’ Weeks said, ‘I’ve read about your adopted girl, how she’s the daughter of Roza Hall
wright. So you’re quite closely connected to the PM.’

  Simon looked at him.

  ‘That’s so interesting.’ Weeks’s grin was eager, slightly buck-toothed.

  ‘Is it.’ Simon turned away.

  Back in his office, there was no chance of concentrating now. He did what work he could, mechanically, before driving home to check on the house, which he found all in order, and Claire diligently studying in an upstairs room. He talked to her for a while to satisfy himself she was all right — he worried about her — and then set off to drive back to Rotokauri.

  He frowned ahead at the road — and his frown felt impossibly weighty. He was oppressed by a feeling of confusion. He thought of Weeks’s description of Mereana as ‘clever’ and ‘beautiful’, the wistful mention of her on the beach aged twelve. He recalled the photo of himself, laughing and reaching towards the camera. ‘You look happy,’ Weeks had said. But he knew nothing, the presumptuous little bastard. Simon hadn’t been ‘happy’ back then, he’d been desperate. The very details of the picture showed the wrongness and squalor of the affair — the shabby backdrop, the beer can and fag packet.

  He had recovered himself; he was back in the real world, and that was where he would stay. This sentimental busybody, this Weeks, would have to be kept at bay.

  Training

  Roza said, ‘I’ve got to do my session with Garth.’

  ‘I don’t like Darth.’

  ‘Garth. What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘He’s got a big chest.’

  ‘That’s because he lifts weights.’

  ‘He’s got big tits.’

  ‘Don’t say “big tits”, it’s rude. He has big muscles.’

  ‘Make Soon talk.’

  ‘God! Can’t we just be Mummy and Johnnie for a while?’

  ‘Make Soon talk!’

  Roza lay on her back on the sand, with Johnnie sprawled next to her.

  Soon and Starfish, who along with the Village Idiot had avoided the High Priestess Germphobia by taking refuge in the forest, now came out of hiding and joined the Green Lady in front of the castle. All the friends were assembled; the Weta and the Praying Mantis struck up a battle tune; Crackers had sobered up; the Bachelor and his Cassowaries were mounted on his bed and hovering above the trees, the Cassowaries gaudily decorated in battle feathers and hissing threateningly; and the Red Herring and his colleague, Tiny Ancient Yellow Cousin So-on, had climbed onto a tree stump to address the troops with some wise words. There was a blast of shotguns as the Guatemalans arrived late in the clearing and then the Red Herring held up his hand. An expectant silence fell.