by Else, Chris
'If there's been a crime, where are the cops?' Gray asked. There was a shadow there behind him: his wife Mary. She said something and he shushed her, waving her back with his hand.
'Mary!' I called after her. 'Is Ray there?'
I could see her make a move. Gray shushed her some more.
'No!' she called before she went back inside.
'Listen,' I said, 'if he's laid a finger on her, I'll shove his dick so far down his throat it'll be hanging out his arse. You tell him that!'
Gray stopped himself from answering, took a step back and shut the door.
I started up the Surf, but instead of turning and heading off down the drive I kept on going, making a full circle of the house, looking for the van or the Nissan Cefiro Ray had been driving the other day. If they were there, they were shut away in the garages.
I leaned out the window and yelled at the house: 'Ray, come out, you prick!' Maybe it was the sound of my own voice saying that but my rage suddenly turned. I felt like an idiot. Why the hell hadn't I called Hemi and got him out here? Why the hell was I racing around on my own?
I headed slowly back down the drive towards the road. As I rounded the curve of the hill I saw a vehicle heading up the drive towards me. I figured what it was from the position of its headlights. I kept on going. There was no way for us to pass but I sure as hell wasn't giving way. The van driver slowed and then stopped. After a second he started to reverse, heading back down to the road, where he pulled aside to let me by. I stopped in front of him, reached across for the rifle and got out. At first I was half blinded by his headlights but as I got out of their beam I could see, in the light reflected from my vehicle, Ray Tackett in the front seat with Bobby beside him.
Soon as he saw me, Ray swung the wheel and took off in the direction of Te Kohuna. He had a head start of maybe fifteen seconds but it was never going to be enough. The Surf had a lot more guts than the van and I was a much better driver. I mightn't have been Steve Winston but I'd taken the V8 round Manfeild a few times and I knew how to handle the winding bends of Tacketts Valley Road. I was on his tail in less than a minute. I had maybe eight more to stop him before he got to the highway. Still, I had to watch it. I couldn't push him too hard. I figured Gith might be in the van, locked in the back, and she'd be scared enough already, without another car wreck. I knew where I could get him.
A few ks west of Milne Creek is a straight flat stretch of road with a decent-sized shoulder. It would be enough, as long as nothing was coming the other way. I eased off the gas pedal, let Ray increase his lead, hoping to make him feel safer so he'd slow down a bit. Then, on the last bend before the straight, I planted my foot. I was past him before he knew it.
From then on it was easy. Bit by bit I slowed down, covering him if he looked like making a passing move. I guess he knew he was beaten. We were doing no more than twenty when he suddenly pulled over into the gateway to a paddock and stopped, with his bonnet against the gate and his rear towards the road. This time I didn't let him get away. I pulled up and did a quick reverse, stopped close behind him, blocking him off. But he was already out of the van and over the fence and running across the paddock. Bobby was slower. He was tangled in the wire, one foot caught between the strands.
I got out, leaving the gun in the car.
The first thing I did was open up the van. It was empty.
I went up to Bobby, who was struggling in the fence like a stranded sheep.
'Sorry, mate,' I said. 'Sorry about this.'
He looked at me with big scared eyes and made a little whiny animal noise.
'It's okay,' I told him. 'I'm not going to hurt you. Let's just wait here for Ray, eh?'
I helped him back over the fence.
'Sit in the cab,' I said.
He did as he was told. I turned to where Ray was still running. I could see him in the moonlight, big steps through the silver-grey grass. Where the hell he thought he was going, I don't know.
'Ray!' I yelled as loud as I could. 'Bobby's here with me. I want to talk to you.'
He slowed a bit.
'Come back here and get your brother!'
He stopped. I guess he saw that there was no percentage in running anyway. Slowly, he started to walk back. The grass was longish and already dew-soaked. He was going to have seriously wet feet, I figured.
I went to the Surf and got the rifle.
'Put that thing away!' Ray yelled when he saw it. He had stopped on the other side of the fence.
'I'm not going to use it,' I said. 'Unless I figure you're lying to me.'
'I don't know what you're talking about.'
'Bullshit! Where is she?'
His mouth opened to say something and then he changed his mind.
'Home,' he said. 'We took her home.'
'When?'
'Not sure. An hour ago maybe.'
'So why was she with you?'
He lifted his hands and rubbed his face. 'Oh fuck,' he said.
'What did you do to her?'
'Nothing. Okay? Nothing.'
'What happened, then?'
'It was Wayne's idea,' he said.
'Wayne who?'
'Wyett.'
'You know him?' Jesus, I thought. What's going on?
'Sure. Sure I do.'
'So?'
'Well, he's been on about how tough life was for Bobby. How he never got any of the normal things.'
'Like what?'
'Put the gun down,' he said.
I laid it on the ground next to my feet.
'Like what?' I asked again.
'Like pussy. He said, you know, we ought to get Bobby hooked up with the dumby girl from the service station.'
'When was this?'
'Oh, he talked like that a couple of times. Tonight he was wired. We were down the pub. Bobby stayed in the van and Wayne went into the bottlestore to buy some bourbon and well, you know, Gith came by. I said hello to her and she seemed okay. I think she wanted to tell me something or ask me. She kept doing things with her hands but I couldn't figure out what she meant. Then Wayne came back and he got all excited. This was our chance, he said. What we'd been talking about. So she got into the back of the van with Bobby.'
'She went with you?' I couldn't believe it.
'Well . . . it was all Wayne. I didn't want to. I thought it was a dumb idea.'
I didn't believe him.
'Nothing happened,' he said. 'I swear to God. Bobby got scared. He couldn't do anything. We took her straight home.'
'Jesus!' I felt sick. I felt murderous. I picked up the rifle. My hands were shaking. I truly thought for a second I was going to shoot him, and then I saw Bobby's face through the windscreen of the van, round and pale, his eyes and mouth wide open. I looked back at Ray.
'Listen,' I said, 'you're done, mate. You are completely done. And you can tell your pal Wyett I'll get him too.'
I went back to the Surf, drove away.
***
THERE WERE LIGHTS on in the living room. I could see them in the side window. I parked the car and ran up the steps to the front verandah, opened the door, walked quickly down the length of the hall.
Brenda was sitting on the sofa, a glass of wine in her hand.
'Ah,' she said. 'Possum hunting?' She pointed to the rifle.
'Where's Gith?' I asked.
'Asleep.'
'Is she all right?'
'She seems to be.'
I turned and went back down the hall, opened the door to her room. It was empty, the bed as tightly made as ever. She was in the other room, curled up in my bed. I went and touched her hair. She stirred.
'You okay, sweetheart?'
I bent and kissed her. Her hand came up and stroked my ear and cheek.
I felt a shadow. Brenda was there in the doorway.
'Can I have a word with you?' she said.
'Sure.' I stood up. I was still carrying the rifle and wasn't sure what to do with it. In the end I just took out the magazine and stuck the gun back on top of the wa
rdrobe. I went back to the living room.
'Hi,' I said, moving to sit next to Brenda on the sofa.
'No. Over there.' She pointed to a chair.
The change in her tone was clear now. It was not friendly. The wine bottle, I saw, was half empty. I went and got myself a beer and sat down where she had told me.
'Are you okay?' I asked.
'Well,' she said, pushing her hair back with her free hand, 'that's a difficult question. I suppose I'm a little confused. No . . .' she took a gulp from her glass, 'no, not confused exactly. I think I understand things perfectly well.'
I didn't answer. I didn't know what to say.
'Did Gith break my window?' she asked.
'I don't know.'
'Ah, that's interesting. You didn't say no, absolutely not, did you? Why's that?'
'Because . . .' I let it trail off.
'Let me put it this way. Of all the people you know of in Te Kohuna, who would have the best motive for throwing a brick through my window tonight?'
I felt myself go cold. 'Whose idea was this? Hemi's?'
'No. No. Absolutely not. I came here in all my rather sad innocence because I wanted to see if you and your family were all right, because I was concerned for the welfare of . . . your niece.' The last word came out in a hiss. She was leaning forward with her teeth clamped hard.
'What happened?' I asked.
'Well, she answered the door and found me there carrying my two glasses and my bottle of wine. She looked a little . . . what's the word? . . . dishevelled. Her shirt was torn and there were dirt marks on her jeans and her forehead. Oil marks, by the look of it. She seemed surprised to see me and for a moment I thought she was going to slam the door in my face. She didn't, though. She kind of smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. It's hard to describe what kind of smile it was, but not nice. She beckoned me in.'
She took another gulp of wine and topped up her glass. She looked at me. Hers wasn't a nice smile either.
'On the way down the hall she turned into a bedroom. Your bedroom, I supposed. There was something on the bed — I think a bag for carrying that gun you just had. She looked at it for a moment and then she put it on top of the wardrobe. I didn't really think anything about that but I've been wondering since. Where's the gun now, by the way?'
'On the wardrobe.'
'And the bullets?'
I pointed to the magazine, which I'd put on the table by the TV set.
'Good.' She gave a little sigh. 'Thank you.'
'What happened?' I asked.
'Ah, well. We're coming to that. She and I came in here and we sat down and I offered her a glass of wine. She refused. She glared at me, in fact. Then she stood up and left the room — sort of flounced out, I suppose. I wasn't sure whether I should go or stay but I thought, well, I came here as a good Samaritan so maybe I should see it through for a bit longer. Anna or Gith, or whatever you call her, was, I realised, in the shower, which seemed sensible, given the state of her clothes and so on, so I decided I would at least wait until she was done and, if I was waiting, I may as well have a drink while I was about it.
'She was quite a long time, in reality, but she did emerge in the end, with her hair all dried and a towel wrapped around her. She's a very pretty girl, I can see that. Although somewhat scrawny, I would have thought. Somewhat sharp in the elbows. Anyway, she stood there in front of me, with that same weird smile. Then she suddenly beckoned me to follow her. She walked down the hall and opened a door. Inside was a neat little nun's cell, which I took to be her room. She closed the door on it and beckoned me again, led me into the other room — your room, where she'd been before. She went over to the bed and turned on the reading lamp. Then she turned around to face me and took off the towel, spreading it wide to make sure I could see everything. Then she got into bed, pulled the covers up to her shoulders and put her hands behind her head. She just looked at me and smiled. A different kind of smile now. Did I misunderstand that look? Did I misread it?'
'No,' I said, feeling the scare of it. Everything was out in the open now.
'And was that what you were going to tell me this evening just before she broke my window?'
'Yes. I guess. Look, I'm sorry. I . . .'
'Don't you think you should have mentioned it before you started mauling my breasts? You know, as a courtesy?'
'Look, I . . .'
'At least that would have given me the opportunity to tell you to fuck off before I got to the stage of deep embarrassment.' She sipped her wine but then she turned and pulled a face like she was drinking poison. She looked at the glass and then she threw the wine at me. The glass followed, smashing against the wall behind me. She stood up, grabbed the bottle and the other glass and walked out of the room, a little wobble at the door. Nothing for a second or so and then I heard the front door slam.
I sat there for a while, feeling nothing much except the coldness of the wine soaking through my shirt. I went into the bedroom.
Gith was still sleeping — or pretending to. I went over to her and this time saw the damp towel lying half draped over the bedside table. I bent over her, kissed her again, and she rolled over onto her back and her hands reached up to the buckle of my belt. I got undressed and climbed into bed and hugged her.
'Sweetheart,' I said. 'I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.' I felt like I'd made the worst mistake of my life, risking everything.
She hugged me closer, winding herself around me, warm and fierce.
9
WITH MICHELLE PRETTY much living in Wellington, Gith and I spent our evenings by ourselves. We usually watched television, especially the movie channels, or else we got DVDs from our local video store. At first we were a big fan of action movies, which Michelle hated. We went especially for anything that had to do with cars and car chases, like Gone in Sixty Seconds and The Fast and the Furious. I could never figure out why Gith liked this stuff. I mean, you'd think that anything with car crashes in it would have seriously put her off. But it didn't seem to work that way. Maybe watching something that wasn't real was a way of getting used to the accident.
After a while, though, we started to get sick of them. They were all pretty much the same. Gith got to feel this way before I did. It was she who first made the change to something else. We took turns in choosing, and one day, out of the blue, she picked Shrek. We both really liked it and pretty soon all we were watching was cartoons, stuff like Finding Nemo and Beauty and the Beast and old things like Fantasia. Then we went through a classic movie phase — The Third Man and Casablanca — and after that a whole string of romantic comedies.
I guess Gith was looking for something. Maybe we both were. We lived pretty limited lives, spending time with each other and not seeing anybody else much, except customers and the people in the local shopping centre. Now and again we took a trip up to Te Kohuna to visit the family but that was about it. I didn't mind — or at least I didn't think I minded — but Gith must have felt she was missing out. She was nineteen by then, and smart enough to figure out that other people of her age weren't kids any more. They were moving out into the world and having new experiences, whereas she was kind of stuck, locked up in the fact that she couldn't talk. I'm not sure she thought it through logically like that — it was hard to figure out what she thought sometimes — but I guess that's how she felt.
It all started one night when we were watching Four Weddings and a Funeral. She seemed quieter than usual, not laughing as much as she normally did and kind of mooning over me, leaning against my shoulder and giving me little kicks on the ankle. We went to bed about ten-thirty. At two in the morning I woke up to find her in my bed. I was lying on my side and she was curled up behind me, with her arm around my waist, fitting herself into my shape. She was wearing pyjamas. We both were but I felt suddenly scared. I twisted round and pushed her off.
'Go away,' I said.
She went.
I didn't say anything about it the next day. I thought maybe it was just a one-off thing, but the n
ext night it happened again.
'Go away.'
She went.
This time I figured I had to do something. I wasn't at all sure how to tackle it. I mean, I'd never talked to her about sex and I doubt if Michelle had. I guessed, though, that she knew something. Her parents had been pretty liberal types. By the age of fifteen she would have had the usual talks and been shown books. She would've nattered with her friends about boys. Maybe she'd had a boyfriend or two. Maybe she'd even done it with somebody.
I waited all day to find the right moment. I knew what I had to say but I had no idea how I was going to start.
We finished work and got cleaned up. Then we had our tea and settled down, like we usually did, for the evening. There was a bar of chocolate in the kitchen cupboard so I fetched that and we sat on the sofa and had a couple of pieces. The plan was that we would watch Notting Hill, but I knew I had to say my piece before that. If I left it till afterwards it would be too easy to let it go again.
'Last night,' I said, 'when you came to my room.'
She went stiff, looked at me.
'You shouldn't do that. It's not right.'
She didn't answer, just kept on looking at me. She seemed kind of puzzled, hurt. I couldn't meet her eyes.
'I'm your uncle,' I said. 'And your guardian. We can't carry on like that. We can't.'
She laughed. It was a kind of witchy laugh.
'I mean it!' I was rattled, scared. Suddenly I felt I was going to cry.
'Gith.' She put her hand on my arm and rubbed it. 'Poor Ken.'
That night she was back again. Only this time it was worse — she had nothing on. I didn't say anything. I just threw back the covers and went into her room, got into her bed. I'd only been there a few minutes when she came in and started pulling at the covers, trying to get in too.
'Jesus, Gith! Leave me alone!' I yelled at her. She stepped back surprised and made a long sad kind of noise. I ignored her, went back to my bed, shut the door. I wished there was a lock on it. Tomorrow, I told myself, I'll get a lock.
In a couple of minutes she was there. I could hear her sobbing outside the door. It was weird. She could have come in but she didn't. She just stayed there crying. Next thing I knew I was crying myself. It was just a little thing at first but in no time at all I couldn't control it. Everything came flooding out of me. I guess I made a noise that she heard because before I could stop her, she was there in bed with me and we were hugging each other and bawling our eyes out.