by Gigi Fenster
The listener might look over at Morris now, respectfully even. And he’d immediately feel like a fraud. Once or twice he’d started to explain himself. ‘It’s no big deal really. It’s just computer—’
Sadie wouldn’t allow him to spoil her story. ‘Something hiding there, wondering whether it will be discovered.’
Hiding and wondering. Sadie could take things too far. Morris was relieved when she brought things back down to earth.
‘The computer keeps information about the file too. When it was opened, and by whom, when it was closed, what actions were performed, et cetera. This is information about information or, to be la-di-da, metadata. So, for example, the metadata might say that the file was opened at 3 p.m. on David’s computer, that it was kept open for two hours, during which time words were deleted, that it was then opened on Sam’s computer, that words were then added, et cetera.’
At this point Sadie might cross her arms or hold them akimbo as if to say ha and the listener would nod, pleased with himself for having learned something new. Morris could almost hear them thinking, I must remember that. That’s something worth knowing. That’s a term I can use sometime. But they wouldn’t get to use the word. It is not the sort of word you get to throw into conversation. Morris could tell them that.
You’d think that would be the end of it but no, there was always someone—the engineer’s brother or the long-suffering wife—who’d say something like, ‘That’s really interesting, but tell me, what does Morris do,’ or, if it was the travelling economist, he’d point a finger towards Morris’s chest and say, ‘That’s all very well, but I’m still not sure, exactly, what you do.’
‘I … I analyse the metadata.’
‘Yes, but for whom? And why? For what purpose?’
Sadie was quick to step in. ‘Let’s say someone is stealing information from a company. Say he opens confidential documents, saves them under a different name, emails them to a friend, then deletes the saved document and the emails. A metadata analyst would be able to tell the company what files were opened by him, when he opened them, and so on. The actual files may be deleted but the metadata about them would remain. Or say someone downloaded porn, printed it, then deleted it. The porn might be deleted but the information that he’d downloaded and printed it would be the metadata.’
Morris hated those examples. They made his work sound sordid, like he spent all his time digging about in people’s personal files. This didn’t seem to bother Sadie at all. She seemed to revel in the examples, embellishing and expanding them. She said the examples helped people to understand and were, anyway, a true reflection of what he did. ‘Whether you like it or not,’ she’d fired at him once, ‘that is where your work goes. It does have practical implications, you know. It’s not just you in a room with a box.’
The examples gave people the wrong idea. Morris was sure of it. They encouraged responses like, ‘Ooh, industrial espionage. Sounds very 007 to me.’ Or, ‘Does that mean Morris is the one I should speak to if I want some tips on how to download porn without leaving a trail?’ Or Morris’s very worst: ‘Tell me. I promise not to tell anyone. Have you been involved in any juicy cases lately?’
Then Morris would mumble that he was just the guy who worked on the computers and all he saw was numbers and formulae and strings of letters. The listener would lose interest then, and the conversation might finally shift.
When Sadie was in hospital there’d been a doctor. A young man who seemed to spend a lot of time at Sadie’s bedside, chatting. Just chatting. Morris did not mean to disapprove of this doctor. After all, having a doctor close by was something to be pleased about, and you could hardly complain that the man was paying too much attention. But did he not have places to go? Other patients to visit? On one occasion Morris found himself standing outside Sadie’s ward, waiting for the doctor to leave. He’d stood there for maybe five minutes when a slow nurse on shuffling feet came past and, opening the door, said, ‘Go right in. Family can visit any time.’
The doctor stood up when Morris came in. He stepped towards the door, but Sadie detained him with small talk and soon he was asking Morris what he did.
Sadie seemed quite lucid, though she must have had morphine because she seemed to have forgotten her shtick. There was no Palatable Version.
‘My husband,’ she said, ‘sees the spaces left by absence. Where others see only emptiness, my husband sees, if not exactly a presence, then the gap left behind.’
Morris never heard the Palatable Version from Sadie again.
At David’s party, when the long-suffering lovely wife asked the question, Morris had to clear his throat before answering. ‘Me? I’m just a metadata analyst.’ When the second question came, when it was time to explain what a metadata analyst did, he had, like the man in the funny story he’d just heard, found himself wondering where he was and what he was doing there.
‘Um …’
Then David was there to say, ‘Did I hear someone ask what my father does? Well, let me tell you, ’cause it’s really interesting.’
He’d stood there, half-full bottle in his hand, and given Sadie’s Palatable Version.
He’s learned it off by heart, Morris thought. He must have. But no, David’s version was slightly different and ended with, ‘He’s supposed to be retired, but you know, some men!’ Then he’d clinked the wine bottle against Morris’s glass in a movement which caught Morris completely unawares, though it was, he later recognised, the equivalent of Sadie’s pat on the head.
‘Let’s face it, there are some people who can never really retire. My father’s one of them. He’s doing a job for the Competition Commission at the moment.’
David had taken it too far with that last bit about the Competition Commission. Sadie wouldn’t have said that. She would have realised it was opening the door to questions which Morris would have to answer.
‘Tell me about the Competition Commission,’ asked a small woman whose glass David had just replenished. ‘Do they sort out competitions like Lotto?’
‘I, um.’
‘Oh my God,’ the long-suffering wife interrupted. ‘Lotto. Has Simon told you what an ass he made of himself at the Lotto counter?’
And so Morris had been saved, first by David with his Almost Palatable Version, then by Simon and his still funny folly. But he should have known better than to relax into his seat and sip at his wine. Next time might not be so easy. Next time David might be out of the room and Morris might be alone with a policeman.
The policeman doesn’t realise that Morris has lied to him. Either that or he doesn’t care. All he says is, ‘Retired huh. Lucky you,’ and goes back to his drumming. He keeps at it until David comes back.
David has tea on a tray, home-made biscuits and a copy of the flier which Rachel had up on her pinboard.
Morris says, ‘Where did you get that?’
‘From Debbie’s gym bag. It’s got all her class times.’
David smooths the flier against his chest. It must have got crumpled in the gym bag. People don’t look after those fliers. They throw them in amongst their sweaty sports clothes and forget about them. They let them get damp and crumpled. They don’t care about the person whose photo is being kicked by their dirty shoes.
David hands the flier to the policeman. ‘I thought you might want to see this. It has some information about the training she does. Confirms that she’s as fit as I said she is.’
‘That’s good to know. You wouldn’t believe how many people go rushing off on tramps that are way beyond their fitness level. And without any bush skills. Only the other day I heard about this Japanese tourist …’
For a moment Morris thinks—this is absurd, he knows it’s absurd—that they should make copies of the flier and post them up in the area where Rachel is missing. They could put them at bus stops, on poles, on trees.
Like Sadie and David did that time Rachel’s cat went missing.
When Rachel’s cat went missing, Sadie and David made fliers and headed
out to post them up like they were going on an adventure, Sadie chanting, ‘The sooner we’re ready the sooner we’ll leave, the sooner we’ll find Miss Genevieve.’
The cat was not called Genevieve.
Morris and Rachel stayed home.
David and Sadie did a thorough job. Pictures of Rachel’s cat were everywhere. It greeted Morris at the bus stop and was there waiting for him all along the route home. From trees, fences, lamp posts, the lost cat peered down at him, charting his course. And wherever the cat went was the word Lost in thick red ink. The cat was more present than before it went missing.
And then it was gone—really gone. Run over.
They’d held a funeral. Sadie must have insisted on it. She’d stood beside Rachel, holding her hand. She’d given Rachel a poem to read, but Rachel had refused so Sadie had read it herself.
Morris remembers looking across at them over a great deep hole, but that can’t be right. It would have been a small hole—the size of a shoebox. They would have been standing quite close to each other. He would have kept his eyes on Sadie, waiting for her to signal that he could cover the box, pat down the earth and be done with it.
Morris was secretly relieved to be burying that cat. Rachel didn’t seem too perturbed either. The spurt of affection she’d once shown for it had died down some time earlier, as quickly and unexpectedly as it had sprung up in the first place.
Morris blamed the short-lived infatuation on a girl from ballet who’d come to the house to play with Rachel and spent the whole visit fussing over the cat. For the next few weeks Rachel had fussed over the cat too. She used the same words as that overbearing little ballet girl, bubbling and crooning, ‘Oh this fur is so soft. Oh it is. Oh it is. Oh it is.’
It was, Morris thought, all a bit much. The cat must have thought so too. For weeks Rachel’s hands and arms were littered with tiny scratches—the gentle wounds from an unassuming cat that wanted simply to get to his food, slink in the night, mind his own business. How many times had the cat dashed for the flap only to be swept off the ground? ‘Oh, the naughty torty. Trying to run away, were you? Come to mama.’
It made Morris uneasy to watch.
Then one day Sadie picked the cat up and tried to hand it to Rachel. ‘Naughty Torty wants a cuddle,’ she crooned.
Rachel turned away.
Sadie kept thrusting the cat at Rachel, though it was clear to Morris that Rachel was no longer interested.
Maybe she was also relieved when they finally buried it.
There had always been at least one cat. Sadie had seen to that. ‘A child must have a pet,’ she’d said, emphatic when Morris reminded her that she’d once promised there’d be no pets. Every child must have a pet. A promise to the contrary was simply not binding.
Always at least one cat. Still to this day. And if Morris doesn’t exactly love the current cat, he has got used to having one around and sometimes, perhaps, feels pleased it is there when he comes home in the evenings.
But if the cat goes missing no fliers will be put up. That Morris will not do. Not for a cat.
The policeman has drunk his tea and left.
‘You should never have offered him tea,’ Wendy says. ‘Cops can’t resist a cup of tea. Rest assured.’
David collects the tea cups.
‘I’ll help,’ says Morris.
‘Dad, just sit. I can manage,’ says David, but he leaves without the milk jug and sugar bowl.
‘He needs some time alone,’ Wendy whispers and then, as if Morris hadn’t heard her the first time, ‘Give him some space to breathe.’
When David comes back he looks blankly at the jug and bowl, then flops into a chair. A moment later gets up and leaves the room empty handed, then comes back empty handed. He stands in the doorway, runs his hands through his hair and turns to leave again, muttering that this time he’ll bloody remember what he went for.
He’s gone before Morris can tell him that sometimes a person forgets what they’re doing in a room. It happens to everyone. It happened to David’s friend Simon.
‘It’s because he blames himself,’ Wendy whispers when David is out of earshot. ‘He’s all shaken up blaming himself.’
‘Blaming himself?’
‘Be careful what you say to him, okay?’
‘But what has he got—’
‘Morris, we’ve already discussed this. A bit of sensitivity is in order here.’
‘But he hasn’t done anything.’
‘And don’t say that to him, whatever you do. He’s cut up enough already about not doing something earlier.’
‘But he couldn’t—’
‘Oh for God’s sake, Morris. How would you feel if your younger sister had gone off? All alone? And got herself lost?’
Wendy is right. David must be blaming himself. Morris must be more sensitive. He must watch what he says. Or say nothing at all, to be safe.
‘All alone,’ says Wendy.
‘—’
‘Couldn’t she have asked someone to go with her?’
‘—’
‘Anyone. I mean, honestly, if she couldn’t find someone to go with her maybe she shouldn’t have gone at all.’
Keep quiet, Morris. There’s no point in challenging her.
She sighs loudly and theatrically.
He says nothing. There’s a feeling building in his throat. His face feels flushed with it. Morris feels … burned. That’s the word—burned. One of Sadie’s words. She used to use it all the time, to cover all manner of irritations.
Newsreaders burned Sadie. So did the plastic clasps on top of bread bags. She was burned by the woman who lived across the road, the babysitter whom the children loved though she was, Sadie told Morris repeatedly, even thicker than two bricks. Half the children’s schoolteachers burned Sadie, as did ballet mothers, shop assistants, bus drivers. Morris’s resistance to having guests at the house burned Sadie. As if to confuse him, so did people who wanted to stay longer than one night.
When David was a teenager he burned Sadie. Rachel did not. This burned her too. ‘She’s a teenager, for crying out. She’s supposed to burn me. That’s what teenagers do. Remember how David used to burn me? My God, he could piss me off. But Rachel’s so well behaved. What kind of a teenager doesn’t burn her mother? Damn it, Jim, it burns me.’
Sadie got burned so often, so readily, you could hardly take it seriously. And the word was imprecise. It suggested that Sadie was the victim, the burnee, the passive bystander who just happened to be in the firing range of ‘that sanctimonious little prick who calls himself a school principal’.
The principal business had been too much for Morris. ‘You burn him as well,’ he’d finally told her. ‘You give as good as you get.’
She seemed to like that. ‘I know. But the difference is, I’m right.’ Then she’d laughed, whether to undercut the smugness of her words or because she was proud of her own rightness he wasn’t sure.
Morris left it to Sadie to feel the indignation. He never burned along with her. But faced with Wendy’s shooting eyes and disapproving sighs, he understands precisely how Sadie felt. Wendy is burning him. She’s the one doing the burning. He, on the receiving end, feels strangely empowered.
He knows what he could say: I’ve had enough of the implication that David has to be protected from me. And as for Rachel—I get it. She doesn’t have friends. So what? Maybe she likes to be alone. Did you ever consider that she might prefer her own company to being with a bunch of silly girls?
David interrupts Morris’s thoughts. He’s standing in the doorway. ‘Are you two okay to phone the ballet mothers? I’ll just …’ He turns and walks away.
See, Morris thinks, I’m right. Wendy is wrong. There are people who will miss her. But he can’t sustain the burn for as long as Sadie could. He just feels tired.
And there’s something nipping at the edge of his mind—a question which needs to be asked.
Then come the phone calls. The endless phone calls. And the waiting
in between, and the checking whether Search and Rescue has called. The wondering whether they should call Molly in case she tried to get through while Wendy was on the phone speaking to ballet mothers. Rachel has hours and hours of students.
Wendy does the talking (‘Don’t worry, Morris, I won’t force you to’). Morris runs a finger down the list, ticking off names, grateful to Rachel for her neat lines, her straight margins, her organised columns: student’s name, parent’s name, time slot, phone number.
Wendy takes a deep breath before each phone call. ‘Jesus Christ, Morris, this is hard.’ Then: ‘Hello, Mrs Burdon, my name is Wendy. I am the aunt of Rachel, your daughter’s ballet teacher. I’m afraid that there won’t be a lesson tomorrow … no, she’s not ill … she’s missing … tramping in the bush … We’re sure she’ll be back tomorrow, but just in case … She’s been doing it for years actually, yes, I know, not many people knew she did it. In the Tararuas … yes, yes, I know. Classes as usual next week. Unless you hear from us. Classes as usual.’
There is no theatrical sighing when the calls are over. Just a soft, ‘Jesus Christ, Morris, I had no idea Rachel has so many students. No idea at all. I don’t think Sadie knew. Rachel should have told her. She would have been so proud. Jesus Christ, Morris.’
The phone rings. Morris snatches it up, sees David come rushing into the room, and hands it over to him. David grabs the phone, ‘Hello … yes … yes.’
Wendy shrugs and mouths the word, ‘Molly?’
David says, ‘Thank you for calling. Thank you. Thank you. Goodbye.’ He stares at the phone. ‘That was Search and … Molly. They’ve checked all the huts. Rachel didn’t sleep in any of them, but she passed by four and signed in. Last time she signed in was yesterday afternoon. She wrote that she was going to sleep in her tent.’
Wendy says, ‘So they know where she was yesterday afternoon. That’s good news.’
David says, ‘Confirmation that she had her tent with her.’
As if a ticked-off list wasn’t confirmation enough.
Wendy says, ‘This is definitely good news. Good news, David.’