Soon

by Charlotte Grimshaw

  ‘You were lucky.’

  ‘Very. And now I’m full of nuts and bolts.’

  Simon waited, then said, ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Something unusual’s happened the last week or so.’

  A phone went off. David checked the screen, let it ring out. ‘Unusual how?’

  Simon paused, squinting at the glittering sea. ‘I’ve been visited by the police.’

  ‘Police. Here?’

  ‘In the city, they’ve come to my rooms when I’m working.’ Simon looked around. There were a few people at the water’s edge, some early swimmers, Ray and Shaun and the other men keeping pace but not close enough to hear.

  ‘What did they want?’

  ‘While I’ve been staying here a man called Arthur Weeks rang me. He was some kind of journalist. He got hold of my cell number, I’m assuming from my secretary, and rang me, fishing. He wanted to know about Rotokauri, about all of us. Gossip in other words. Once I realised he wasn’t a patient I hung up. He tried again, I told him to go away. Remember those magazines kept ringing Karen all hours of the day, wanting to know about Elke and Roza. I thought, more of that.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Now, apparently, he’s died.’

  David glanced behind: Ray picking up a shell and skimming it into the sea, Shaun talking on his phone.

  ‘Died.’

  Simon made himself talk slowly, casually. ‘He’s had some kind of fall and died, and the police came to me because they found he’d rung me. They had phone records. I thought nothing of it, just a routine inquiry. But they came back, once when I was at a medical conference, of all places. I don’t know why they thought it was so urgent. I felt slightly as if they were harassing me.’

  Silence.

  Simon went on, ‘They didn’t tell me anything, just asked why this Weeks would have rung me. I told them he was obviously fishing for information, gossip.’

  ‘Sure. That seems pretty straightforward.’

  ‘But there was more. They said they’d discovered he was writing a screenplay about a Prime Minister, a National Party one, they’d found it in his flat. I said that explained exactly why he’d rung me. He must have wanted material.’

  David let out a sound, dismissive, possibly amused. ‘A screenplay.’

  ‘Anyway, it’s not important, only I thought I should mention it because it’s the police, and I thought you’d want to know. And also because they asked one odd question that concerned me: they asked whether I thought anyone would want to harm Weeks because of what he was writing. I asked what they meant by that . . . I got a bit, I don’t know, indignant; it seemed a cheeky thing to ask. The man’s certainly been snooping around, but that’s hardly something you’d care about.’

  David’s phone went, he looked at the screen, answered it. ‘Colin. Ten minutes.’

  He took Simon’s arm, signalled to Ray and Shaun, they all turned and started walking back towards the house. ‘So what are they thinking, this Weeks person was ferreting around, wanting to write about me, so I had him thrown off a cliff? That’s a nice story.’

  Simon waited.

  ‘How long’s this been going on? Why didn’t you mention it to me?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m telling you now. I assumed it was nothing at first, just a minor, routine police inquiry.’

  ‘You should have told me straight away.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Does anyone else here, anyone at Rotokauri know about this Weeks? He talk to anyone else? Or have you?’

  Simon looked at him, expressionless. ‘No one. Far as I know.’

  ‘And what’s in his screenplay about a prime minister?’

  ‘They didn’t tell me. They just said they’re reading it.’ Simon added, ‘Apparently it’s about a tall, fair-haired, left-handed National Prime Minister who walks with a limp.’

  David snorted. ‘Well, in that case it had to be me who killed him. Obviously. Although couldn’t I just have sued him?’

  Simon tried to smile.

  ‘Or does he make this blond, left-handed leader out to be a great man? In which case they might say I was paying him.’

  ‘This Weeks was some sort of arts person, probably made the PM out to be a prick, but who cares. It hardly matters.’

  David took a Blackberry out of his pocket, checked it. ‘I’ll talk to Miles.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘You said he fell? Did they actually say the death was suspicious?’

  ‘All they said was he fell and died, I don’t know where or how. It could have been an accident. I assumed they thought it might be suspicious because they’re asking questions.’

  ‘So they didn’t give much away.’

  ‘No. But they asked that one odd question, would anyone want to harm him?’

  ‘I’ll mention it to Ed. In the meantime don’t tell anyone about this, not Karen, not your socialist brother, and definitely not Cahane. This is the kind of non-issue journalists love to turn into an issue.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I don’t want Cahane getting wind of anything unusual. He’s an opportunist and he’s virtually clairvoyant, so don’t even think about it while he’s here. It’s about time he left, by the way. I’ve given him enough hints. He can’t tear himself away from Roza, can’t blame him there.’ David sighed. ‘Arthur Weeks. Have I heard that name somewhere? “The weak shall inherit the earth.”’

  ‘The meek.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘The meek shall inherit — Oh, nothing. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Whatever, this is the kind of little detail Graeme Ellison specialised in. Anything where delicacy was required. He would have had a quiet word with this one and that one, finding out. Knew everyone, finger in every pie, old Graeme. He kept Ed Miles in line too.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Ed’s a zealot. Every now and then he needs a leash. Roza calls him the Disciple. Or the Handmaiden. She’s very cruel about poor Ed, but he’s a good soldier.’

  ‘The best, I’m sure.’

  ‘Ed and I go back to the beginning, before the Ellisons. The Ellisons gave us money and advice and contacts but Ed’s a fixer. I tell Roza, leave Ed alone. He’s a believer. And a brilliant operator. We wouldn’t have the high popularity without Ed, he’s always known exactly how to frame our policies, pitch them to the punters. If you’re popular you can sell people anything, even policies they don’t like.’

  Simon looked away. Was David using the royal we? The chrome blue sky, seagulls riding over the glassy swells, the hazy outline of a distant island in the gulf. He said, ‘Great to have people you can rely on.’ His mouth was dry and he heard the strain in his voice but David was distracted, fiddling with his iPhone, and didn’t seem to notice. He sent a message, touched Simon’s arm. ‘Don’t quote me on any of that.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I can talk to you in the way I could talk to Graeme. I value that.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Petty politics. You and Roza are above it. Take it as a compliment.’

  ——

  He palmed an Arcoxia and two painkillers, poured water, rattled ice out of the dispenser in the Little House fridge and knocked back the pills, the cold making his scalp shrink. The pain was still playing a tune in time with his heart. He dressed, suit and tie, black socks and shoes, and as soon as he put it all on he was sweating. He passed the tennis lesson, Garth standing behind Sharon Cahane and showing her how to angle her forehand smash while Roza waited, languid, elegant, faintly bored, standing on one leg, a foot lightly resting on her calf. Across the court Karen rose up on her tiptoes and nodded and listened, her face flushed, blonde hair sticking to her plump cheeks. He called out and they waved him off; he limped to the car, paused, went back, hooked his fingers in the wire. He
called to Karen, ‘Want to come?’

  ‘Oof. Sorry! What’s wrong with me today?’

  She stooped for the ball, annoyed. ‘What, Simon? I’m trying to focus.’

  ‘We could drive in together, you could check on Claire, we could have lunch.’

  ‘Claire? She won’t want me interrupting. She loves having the house to herself.’

  ‘You could do some shopping.’

  He wanted her next to him in the car chatting, a string of details about the children, the house, a new holiday destination, an idea for renovating the kitchen; he wanted to reach over while he was driving and squeeze her arm lightly, a touch, just a touch.

  Garth was poised, racquet extended, ball held in position, about to serve. Roza bounced her palm against the taut strings; Sharon waited then put her racquet between her knees and retied her ponytail. They all looked at Karen.

  ‘Honestly, Simon. We’re playing a game here.’

  ‘OK. See you.’

  Garth unleashed his serve; Karen lunged and hit the ball with the frame of her racquet, sending it smacking into the wire next to Simon. He ducked.

  She didn’t look at him, went for the ball, frowning.

  Marcus and an unidentified suntanned girl strolled past, sharing an iPod, one earpiece each. Saves having to talk to each other, Simon thought. No awkward silences. The boy gave him a slightly defiant smirk. He heard, ‘That’s my dad . . . Yeah, I know.’

  At the exit one of the silent muscle crew behind the glass, Jon or Shaun, made his fingers into a pistol and saluted. Ray opened the gate, an insolent little smile on his chiselled face. Simon stared straight ahead, gripping the wheel. This was crime: you couldn’t go past a policeman without your heart speeding up. He rubbed his thigh, trying to redirect the nerves that spread fire from his knee to his heart to his head, a highway of pain, the pills taking their time to kick in. He pictured a remote beach, no sound except the sea, blazing enamel sky, his knee burrowed into the hot sand and Karen next to him, pressed against his side. Her lovely head on his arm, her breath on his cheek, talking to him: furniture, foreign travel, credit card bills, school reports, car maintenance, problems with the help, her words, familiar, loved, ordinary, safe, would rise and fall, blur and lull.

  He overtook a truck, drove faster, sped on, as if he could outrun the pain.

  The hospital doors opened and a young couple came out: a woman holding a toddler by the hand and a man lugging an infant seat, the newborn baby’s wrinkled head just visible in its cocoon of wrapping. The young father reached down to arrange the covers, his expression so reverent and solemn, so burdened with love that something came loose in Simon and he actually reached for his phone; it would take one call, they would come for him, they would show him to a room and he would tell them what he had done, killed a defenceless young man, left him dead on the concrete; he saw the sprawled limbs, the curled fingers, the shoeless foot in its boyish sock.

  A shiver of glass, the doors opened again. ‘Simon! There you are. The situation’s changed since I rang. And it’s not one situation now, it’s two!’

  And then he was walking fast along the corridor and entering the hot room, the notes pushed into his hands, a woman writhing and moaning on the bed and a man fidgeting and sweating. You could feel the aggression coming off the man, the animal anxiety; he wanted action, he wanted an emergency response stat, and looking at the notes Simon saw he had a point.

  ‘OK, we’ll need to perform a caesarean. Just a couple of minutes, we’ll have the anaesthetist.’

  The man’s shoulders slumped. Relief. Then he was furious. ‘That woman,’ he pointed at the midwife. ‘We’ve been here for hours. She’s done nothing.’

  ‘Let’s discuss that later. We’ve got a baby to deliver.’

  ‘She’s a fucking idiot.’

  A nurse soothed the man into a chair; the midwife started telling Simon why she wasn’t an idiot, he signalled to her to leave it. Examining the woman, he bumped his head against the side of her knee; she apologised politely then went into a contraction. Suppressing a shriek of pain she kneed him hard in the nose. Her eyes were closed, her face was screwed up, her teeth bared. He was blinking away tears, turning to speak to the nurse when the woman grabbed wildly and caught hold of his arm, gouging her nails into his skin. He stood and waited until the contraction had passed and she relaxed and breathed out, sobbing under her breath. She let go and he looked at the red marks on his arm as blood welled up and ran in a thin stream down his wrist.

  ‘Whoops,’ the nurse said, reaching in and pressing a sterile pad on his skin.

  The man’s voice rose, he was going for the midwife again, the midwife wasn’t taking it well and the nurse went to help.

  Opening her eyes, the patient saw him holding the reddening pad. ‘Oh God, did I do that?’

  ‘It’s fine.’ He dabbed at the blood, chucked the pad in the bin.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s nothing.’ He put his hand on her shoulder, held it there. ‘You’re going to be fine.’

  In theatre he put his hand on her arm again, steadying her as if he was doing it for her benefit alone, and when he’d got the baby out and put the flailing, slippery creature onto her chest he caught sight of the plaster covering the welts where she’d gripped his arm, and he would have liked to lie down beside her, to stretch out his aching limbs and hold her, press himself close to life.

  He sat at a desk typing notes. Outside in the corridor the argument with the midwife had started up again, the father of the new baby threatening to make a complaint. Simon had his doubts about that midwife himself, he’d met her before and found her aggressively anti-doctor. She was all about natural birth, even if that meant a near-death experience for mother and child. Only when she’d messed it up and there was foetal distress and all kinds of disaster for the mother would she make the panicked call for the expert. His mind wandering, he fingered the plaster on his forearm. A man’s voice repeated, ‘Who’s in charge here? Who’s in fucking charge?’

  A nurse put her head around the door and he sidestepped the argument, now grown louder and involving a security guard, and followed her down the hall to a room in which the female members of a large family had assembled to witness the grand event; he had to angle his way around the aunties and grannies and cousins to get to the labouring patient, and at every fresh development the group burst into prayers and singing. Someone had brought a guitar, and the relatives snacked incessantly, keeping up their strength between songs.

  The birth was straightforward despite earlier anticipated com­plications, they didn’t have to send the audience out into the hall, and the baby emerged to claps, cheers, whoops and high-fives, Simon

  and the midwife and the attendant paediatrician working in an atmosphere of festive chaos, communicating without words, occasionally smiling in spite of themselves at the antics of the aunties. The baby was a handsome brown giant, nearly eleven pounds, as smooth and peaceful as a Buddha. The paediatrician took a phone call in the middle of his examination and Simon held the child briefly, looking down at the glossy dark eyes. The baby was awake and calm and unknowing, unaware of its power. The strong little hands clawed the air, Simon bent his head closer, wrinkled fingers brushed his face. The midwife bustled in to take the bundle. Looking up he saw the mother watching him.

  ‘Beautiful baby,’ he said, embarrassed, and turned away.

  He changed and left the building, swigging lukewarm coffee from a takeaway cup. Heat struck up from the asphalt, bright light glanced off the parked cars. His steering wheel was hot to touch, the car seat cooking his legs, burning pleasantly through to his sore knee. He drove out through the dead, sunstruck suburbs, past the park where the grass had turned brown and the hedges looked sparse and dry.

  His waiting room was full of women and Clarice was in one of her moods. She swept about, refusing to ma
ke eye contact, sunk in a grand gloom. In the chilled air of his office he shivered, something walking over his grave.

  Two patients in, he looked down at his notes, pen poised, delivered his next polite question: ‘Have you tried having sex yet?’

  Red marks bloomed on the patient’s neck, shot into her cheeks. ‘No. Well, not actual sex . . . I mean . . . it’s complicated.’

  There was a silence, she laughed at the wrongness of ‘it’s complicated’, the image of not-actual sex hanging in the air. He pressed on, used to this. They often laughed; a minority were extraordinarily frank. At the public hospital recently a heavily tattooed woman with a ring pierced through her lip had snapped at him, ‘Sex? No. Not unless you count blowjobs.’

  A few were blunt and candid but many clammed up; a lot of information could be conveyed with a look, a blush or a laugh, with words left unsaid. He thought of Ms Da Silva and her silent companion. How much had he told them without actually speaking? Had he blushed, hesitated, turned pale, left out telling parts of sentences? Police were trained to notice. But perhaps many of the people they dealt with were simpler, more unguarded. No, it was folly to assume so.

  The patient was squirming. Embarrassed by her blush she’d gone redder still. (A vicious circle he encountered often.) He could have said, If you knew what I’m thinking you wouldn’t blush. (You might turn pale.) If only I could touch you, lay my cold hand on your fiery cheek. You see, my whole life is falling away and when I reach out there’s nothing . . .

  He laid down his pen, slapped his thighs. ‘Well. You’ve healed up beautifully. Any problems give me a call, but I don’t expect you’ll need to for a long time.’

  She thanked him, dropped her handbag, bumped into him as he saw her out the door. When she asked about the bill Clarice’s icy disdain threw her into further confusion; eventually, puce-faced, she floundered out as Simon was calling the next patient.