My Brother’s Keeper

by Malane, Donna

  Sunny was silent as I poured a glass of water and handed it to her. She took the glass but studied the liquid suspiciously.

  ‘It’s just water,’ I reassured her.

  ‘From the tap?’ she said, screwing up her face with disgust.

  I nearly responded ‘It won’t kill you,’ but stopped myself in time. There were so many things that were inappropriate to say to this girl.

  She put the glass on the floor and picked up the story exactly where she had left off.

  ‘And this cop, he was quite old, he walked right into the house and said he had a warrant for Justin Bachelor’s arrest and a warrant to search the house, and Dad went, like, nuts! And poor Neo was there holding his bowl of Coco Pops with his eyes all big and scared, and Dad was, like, yelling at Salena, “Call my lawyer! Call my lawyer!” And she was standing there holding this warrant, just staring at it and staring at it and then she looked at Dad like … like he was evil or something and then she spat! Right on his bare feet. Salena just spat this big glob at him.’ She lapsed into silence, eyes bright with the memory of it. ‘That was so not Salena. We’re not even allowed to wear shoes in the house.’ A little smile flickered at the corners of her mouth. I suspect she was impressed by Salena’s visceral reaction. ‘I made Jasmine leave but she was all “Oh no, let me stay with yooou”, pretending she wanted to be there for, like, me, but it was just because she thought this was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her, which it probably was. She was probably filming the whole thing on her phone …’ She stopped abruptly. The other filming, Justin’s filming of her, smashed into her consciousness. Her eyes were huge with the horror of it.

  ‘You shouldn’t have been there when the police arrested Justin,’ I said. ‘They handled it really badly.’

  ‘One of the cops said they hadn’t meant for me to be there. They were supposed to wait until Neo and me had left for school, but they stuffed up.’

  They sure had. I didn’t think Fanshaw would have been thrilled by the way the Auckland cops had handled it.

  ‘Did they take anything from the house?’

  ‘They took Dad away, to the police station, and Salena and Neo and me had to sit on the sofa with the policewoman watching us while they went through the house. That was when Salena told me what he’d been arrested for and I went to the bathroom and vomited with the policewoman standing beside me checking her make-up in the mirror.’ She leaned forward to place the rice tray on the floor, then tented the blanket over her knees. ‘Salena said they took all our computers, but I don’t know what else they took.’

  ‘So where did the police get the photos from? The ones he was arrested for?’

  ‘They were on the computer at the gym. Salena said they told her they were like soft porn. But, well, they would have to be, wouldn’t they? I mean, I’ve never done anything gross. Except undressing and being naked and … and posing, and maybe dancing and all that. But not in front of anyone! Just by myself.’ Her eyes moved, figuring it out. ‘He must have been hiding behind the racks of clothes, where he keeps the new imports. He was always saying I could go in there and try on whatever I liked but not to wear them on the street.’ She buried her face in her hands. ‘It’s so gross to think he was watching me when I was, you know, playing around, thinking I was on my own, and all the time he was taking photos of me.’ She glanced shyly at me, a blush spreading across her face and neck. ‘You know the sort of thing you do on your own … posing and stuff?’ I nodded. I remembered trying out sexy poses in front of the mirror when I was her age. Sunny had lapsed into thought, her eyes darting. It seemed she hadn’t yet considered the possibility Justin had taken the photos not only for his own use but for trading on the internet. It was impossible to know if Sunny would think this was better or worse.

  ‘What sort of father would take photos of his daughter like that? I’ve had, like, five showers today already. Salena said that’s understandable.’

  ‘How’s she been?’

  ‘Who?’ she asked petulantly, not yet ready to relinquish being the centre of attention.

  ‘Salena.’

  ‘Oh. She’s grossed out too. Neither of us ever wants to see him again. She is actually being quite nice to me,’ she added, ‘which is a first. I hope he stays in prison for the rest of his life. I hope he dies there.’

  ‘Has Justin done anything before? Anything that creeped you out?’

  ‘No way! Dad’s totally old school. He always knocks when I’m in the bathroom and stuff like that. I thought maybe it was Anton who took them. He’s such a creep. I told the social worker. I mean, Anton has keys to the gym. Maybe it was him who took the photos.’

  It had occurred to me, too. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Just that she was sure the police had got the right person.’

  Oh, well, if she thinks that, it must be right then.

  Sunny followed me into the spare bedroom and stood, arms crossed, leaning against the wall while I stripped the sheets and pillowcases off the bed.

  ‘Whose is that?’ she asked, nodding towards a jacket draped over the back of a chair.

  ‘It’s Ned’s. He stays here sometimes.’

  ‘With you?’ she asked, looking me up and down as if she thought it unlikely.

  ‘No. He’s a friend of your gran’s.’ I found him in the photo and pressed my index finger under him. ‘That’s him there.’

  She studied the photo closely. ‘Cute,’ she finally pronounced. She lifted the photo off the wall to study it more closely. ‘His dad was called Arthur, eh? The old man who lived with my gran?’

  ‘That’s right.’ She didn’t turn but instead held the photo closer to her face to examine it better. ‘Do you remember him? He would have been around when you were a kid.’

  ‘I don’t remember the cute guy, but I remember his dad. He had this totally Irish accent that made everything he said sound funny.’

  ‘Yeah, well Ned’s a bit like that, too.’

  With the bed stripped I went in search of clean sheets. Sunny was studying a photo of her mother and grandmother when I returned. The sheet cracked like lightening as I flung it over the bed.

  ‘That smell reminds me of Gran. Her things always smelt like that.’ It was lavender. I’d noticed the sachet in the linen cupboard.

  ‘Did you like your gran?’

  Her skeletal shoulders went up and down. ‘Falcon was her favourite. She liked boys more than girls, I think. Or maybe she just didn’t like me.’ She lapsed into silence but remained staring at the photos. ‘Mum said Gran wasn’t a very good mother.’ A harsh laugh. ‘Not that Mum was that hot either.’ She tried to make a joke of it but it fell flat. ‘I guess there’s not much hope for me.’

  ‘Great sisters make great mums,’ I said confidently. I’d made that up on the spot but thought it was probably true. Sunny wiped away a tear. I hadn’t realised she was crying. ‘Are you okay?’ I asked. She nodded. ‘You’re a fabulous sister to Neo, Sunny.’

  She didn’t respond, but her fingers reached out to touch the image of Falcon.

  ‘Gran came to see me. After I got out of the hospital. I think it might have been the day Mum was arrested. It was before the funeral anyway.’ She lapsed into silence again.

  This must have been the time Ned told me about, the day Sunny had screamed and wouldn’t stop. When Sunny spoke again she addressed one of the photos of her gran. ‘That’s when she told me Falcon was her favourite. She said he had always been her favourite. She told me she never wanted to see me again and she said she wished it had been me who drowned, not Falcon. I was only seven years old when she said that to me.’ There wasn’t a lot I could say. She turned to face me. Her eyes were dry now. ‘Pretty harsh, eh?’

  Now there’s an understatement.

  I left her studying the photos and went to bring in her bag from the car. When I returned she was sitting in the middle of the bed, the photos arranged around her like a magical circle. She had a framed high school photo of her mo
ther clasped in both hands.

  ‘I look like her, don’t I?’

  ‘A bit,’ I agreed, keeping my tone neutral.

  ‘I wish I had met her now. Just to check out stuff like that. I’d changed my mind about meeting her, you know, at the last minute. I said no way, I’m not going, but Dad made me.’

  ‘Really? That surprises me. He was so dead against it.’

  ‘I know. He was in such a weird mood that morning. Not that I blame him. I mean, he totally hated her for what she did to Falcon. He probably just lost the plot, knowing he was going to see her again.’

  So she still didn’t know Justin had seen Karen the night before they were supposed to meet; she didn’t know he’d flown to Wellington on Friday night to plead with her to leave Sunny alone. The only reason I could think of for why he would then insist that Sunny go to meet Karen was to maintain his cover. It would look suspicious if they didn’t turn up to an arranged meeting. Some might even make the leap that he didn’t go because he knew Karen was dead.

  ‘He was never, ever going to forgive her for killing Falcon,’ Sunny continued. ‘You know, after the funeral he never mentioned Mum again. He never went to visit her in prison or wrote to her or anything like that. And I just knew never to talk about her. We never talked about Falcon either. It was like, to him, both of them were dead.’ She put the photo of Karen back down on the bed. ‘I thought I had a good dad …’ she said, and shook her head. ‘Now there’s nothing about him I believe any more.’ She picked up another of the photos and studied it for a long time. It was the photo of her leaning on the bonnet of the car her mother had attempted to drown them in. Karen was in the driver’s seat, looking towards the camera with what seemed like a look of defeat. And Falcon, unsmiling, was reaching towards the car as if to anchor himself. She studied the image so closely her face was hidden from me. Her fingers slid down the glass like a blessing. She kissed the glass and then, embarrassed, sniffed back her tears and rubbed the kiss away with the sleeve of her jumper.

  She was struggling enough knowing her father had taken pornographic photos of her. I had no idea how she was going to handle it when he was charged with her mother’s murder. I tried to steer Sunny back there to see if she had any suspicion at all.

  ‘Justin was so against you and Karen meeting. Do you have any idea what changed his mind? Why he insisted you go?’

  ‘It was probably Salena,’ she said, her old nemesis rearing her snaky head again. ‘Dad does whatever she says. He probably just got sick of her nagging at him and wanted it over and done with. He came home late and she was yelling at him half the night. Neo came into my bed, he was so freaked out.’ She looked at me intently. ‘Someone killed Mum, didn’t they? She didn’t, like, OD or anything like that?’

  Luckily, before I had to answer, Sunny’s phone rang. Her skin turned waxy as she listened to the caller. I could hear Salena’s tinny voice still talking as Sunny threw the phone on the floor.

  ‘They’ve let him out,’ she said, her voice barely a whisper. ‘He got out on bail. Anton has already picked him up from the police station.’ She grabbed a pillow and buried her face in it. I retrieved her phone. Salena was still talking, unaware Sunny was no longer listening.

  ‘He’s not allowed to come anywhere near you, Sunny. And he won’t. I’m sure of that. But if you want us to get out of town, we can do that. We can just—’

  ‘It’s me, Salena. Diane.’

  ‘How’s Sunny? Is she alright?’

  ‘She’s okay. Give us a minute. I’ll get her to ring you back.’

  Sunny was biting into the pillow, her arms wrapped around it as if it was a giant teddy bear. ‘Justin’s not going to come here, Sunny. He knows better than to do that. You’re completely safe here with me.’

  ‘How can they just let him out after what he’s done? That’s so sick!’

  ‘Listen,’ I said, hunkering down beside her. ‘How about we get out a movie and just forget about Justin. Forget about everything for a while. We can buy some popcorn—’

  ‘Are you totally crazy?’ She looked at me in horror.

  I thought I’d made a dreadful mistake but her horror had nothing to do with my insensitivity. ‘Do you know what kind of crap they put in popcorn these days?’

  She chose Bridesmaids. I’d managed to steer her clear of anything that looked like it might resonate with today’s events. We were at the hilarious scene where the bridesmaids are all vomiting on the white carpet of an expensive bridal outfitters when we both startled at a noise outside. Sunny leapt from her couch to mine and leaned into me, one hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Dad!’ she whispered, her fingers trembling.

  I made steady eye contact with her, motioned her to get behind the sofa and made a quick dash to the utensils drawer where I’d seen a heavy marble rolling pin. I knew better than to draw a knife. Knives can too easily be turned against you with devastating results. There was a scrabbling sound at the door handle. I mimed ‘phone’ to Sunny, thumb and little finger extended. She responded with an expansive gesture indicating that she had no idea where her phone was. Mine was plugged into the charger upstairs. The landline would by now be sitting on Aaron Fanshaw’s desk at the Wellington police station, waiting for him to listen to Karen’s phone message. Excellent. I motioned for Sunny to duck down behind the sofa and readied myself to hit the intruder with the rolling pin. The door opened.

  Half an hour later and we’d forgiven Ned for the fright he’d given us. He was good at eliciting forgiveness, probably because he’d had plenty of practice at it. But when I came back into the room to find Sunny making pancakes with him and doubled up laughing, I decided he had more than paid for scaring the hell out of us. Sunny adored him and we spent a happy couple of hours laughing, playing charades and eating. She didn’t even mention the pancakes not fitting her picky white food-only criterion. He most definitely had a way about him, this Irishman. At midnight Ned said he had to be off, but not before gallantly offering to sleep on the sofa so as to ward off any late-night bakers who might decide to break into the house, looking to steal the impressive marble rolling pin I’d brandished at him. When I assured him we were fine, he packed a bag of overnight necessities and then stood staring at the side table with a look of bewilderment.

  ‘That’s very strange, now where’s the telephone gone?’

  ‘I couldn’t figure out where the tape went so I took it to Wellington, remember?’

  ‘Oh, that’s right. So you did. Well, I’ll just go up the road and grab a taxi off the rank then.’

  ‘What tape?’ Sunny asked, her back to us as she searched for her own phone between the sofa cushions. Ned and I exchanged a look. Neither of us wanted to say the tape with the message from your mother, recorded moments before she opened the door to her killer.

  ‘The tape on the phone needed replacing so I took it to the manufacturers in Wellington,’ I lied.

  ‘Found it!’ Sunny declared, holding her phone in the air triumphantly. ‘Okay, I’m going to bed now. Goodnight, you two.’ She pecked me on the cheek but hesitated in front of Ned, as awkward as the fourteen-year-old she was. Without any hesitation, he kissed her on both cheeks in the French manner and, though she flushed, her eyes were bright as she bounded up the stairs; a different girl to the one she had been a couple of hours before. I felt ridiculously grateful to Ned and when he repeated the cheek kisses with me I returned them with one in the Diane Rowe manner — the lips on lips version. It was a long sweet kiss that made us look at each other when it was finished. His smile mirrored mine. We had crossed a line into something else and we knew it.

  Chapter 23

  THURSDAY 29 NOVEMBER 2012

  I have the dream again. The one of the car drifting down through the murky water thick with weed. Again it’s me inside the car. I’m in the front seat. My knobbly knees jut out from beneath the lace edge of my dress. The seat belt is tight across my chest as the car plummets down. Water bubbles up through the floor. Alread
y it’s above my ankles, making my feet swollen and wobbly. The water is desperate to get into the car, cascading down from the tops of the windows, squirting out of the dashboard. The metal creaks and yaws with the pressure of the water trying to force its way in. The supermarket trolley, draped in long fingers of river weed, is buried in the silent grey mud beneath me. Falcon’s hands are around my neck. He’s crying. I take his hand in mine. Sticky, chubby little fingers. I look into his face, all gluey with tears and snot. It’s not Falcon. It’s Neo. ‘I don’t want to die,’ he says. ‘Don’t let me die.’

  I startled awake to the sound of mynahs arguing in the tree outside the bedroom window. A distinctively Auckland sound; one of the sounds of my childhood. Sunny was curled up in bed beside me, her knees pulled up tight to her chest, her chin tucked into her neck. She looked heartbreakingly vulnerable. I hoped my dream hadn’t leached across and infiltrated hers. She must have plenty of nightmares of her own without mine adding to them. Slowly I extricated myself, careful not to wake her, and crept downstairs to make coffee.

  I’d bought white bread for toast from the corner bakery and found some butter and marmalade in the fridge. I was pouring the coffee when Sunny rushed in, clutching her phone. ‘Neo’s totally freaked out. Dad’s at home and he and Salena are having this, like, huge fight. I’m going to get him. You can’t stop me.’

  I flicked off the coffee and grabbed my jacket. ‘Neo rang you?’