Yes, my mum still worked here, though she wasn’t in the office full time anymore. She ran the MacGregor Trust and oversaw PR, which is a polite way to say that she ran interference between them and my dad and thought about how we appeared to the community and the country.
I said, “I need two things, Louise. First, please ring my mum and ask her to come in. Second, please tell my dad I need to talk to him now.”
“He’ll be available just before lunch,” Louise said. “He has fifteen minutes at twelve-forty-five.” She didn’t look at her computer to check. She could have recited his appointments for the week from memory.
“That won’t work,” I said. “I need to speak to him now.”
Louise said, “I’m sorry, Poppy. He’s not available now.”
I went around her.
Nappy bag. Baby carrier. Into battle.
35
Not Dancing, Either
Poppy
Louise didn’t follow me. She was on the phone, still perfectly calm. I was sure she was ringing my mum. Well, good. That was what I’d asked her to do.
I knocked once on the oversized teak door, then opened it and walked straight in. Huge, starkly modern executive desk standing beneath the windows, my dad behind it in his usual trim blue shirt, dark trousers, and no tie or jacket, a man of the people, talking to somebody sitting in a visitor’s chair.
Heavy teak bookcases, black-framed black-and-white photos on the walls. The first MacGregor, my grandfather, fresh from Scotland, standing in front of the panelbeater’s shop that had been the first step in this enterprise, then a succession of increasingly impressive buildings and fleets of luxury cars arranged in rows of gleaming perfection, both buildings and cars reflecting the changes in design that sixty years had brought. On either side of the compact conference table near the door, two huge easels with artist’s mockups of luxury developments. One outside of Queenstown, with mountains in the background. Arrowtown, that would be, the trees decked in glorious autumn color, the Arrow River flowing icy-cold and clear through them. The other easel showed a site in Northland, dominated by a golf course on a rugged peninsula where if you sliced, your ball would end up in the foaming sea.
How did I know that? Because I knew all about my dad’s business. How much did he know about mine?
He said, “Poppy. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll be with you.” In command. In control.
I said, “I don’t have a few minutes. I’d like to talk now, please, before the baby wakes up.”
Possibly not the most Lean-In, Act-Like-A-Man way to phrase it. On the other hand, it’s hard to make an adult point when your blouse is half off.
Behind me, I heard hurrying steps. I didn’t have to turn around to see that it was my mum.
My dad sighed and told the fella in the visitor’s chair—Steve McDonald, an extremely fit sales manager who’d been flirty when I’d first met him seven or eight years ago, which I’d have liked to attribute to my irresistible appeal but may have had more to do with my parentage —“Go on, Steve. Louise will reschedule.”
Steve left. He didn’t exactly wink at me, but he didn’t exactly not. Salespeople were like that, nursing mum or no. Or, possibly, I might not be quite as sexless as I’d believed. Possibly, with my new hair and the short, stretchy black skirt and deep-purple blouse I’d put on this morning, I looked like somebody new. Like a woman. Like a person.
You see how I was working on that bracing line of chat. My mum said, “Darling. What’s wrong?”
I said, “Dad rang the hospital and told them to suspend Matiu Te Mana.”
My mum sat down in the chair Steve had vacated and said, “Give the baby to me.”
“Why?” I asked.
She smiled. “Because it’s easier to stand your ground and state your case when you have your hands free.”
It took me a moment to react. Not my dad, though. He said, “Megan.”
She looked back at him. Calmly. And said, “Alistair. Our daughter’s here to talk to us.”
Another moment, and he said, “Give Isobel to your mum, then, Poppy, and say what you’ve come to say.”
He’d done this when we were kids, had had us stand in front of him and explain ourselves, argue our case. My older sister, Heather, had always seemed nearly bored when she did it, laying out her facts dispassionately, as if she knew her logic was faultless and that if Dad didn’t agree, that was his problem. Of course, as her logic was faultless, she wasn’t emotional, and she’d never done a single thing a parent could disapprove of, Dad always did agree. All she wanted, she’d told me once, lifting her eyes from the book she was reading, was to get out of here and learn something important, something that wasn’t cars and wasn’t houses. Heather was an art historian. Still dispassionate. Still cool. She was also two thousand kilometers away, living the exalted life of a professor and consultant in Melbourne. She specialized in the Tang Dynasty. About as adult as you could get.
Jax had never seemed bored. He’d been defiant instead. He was the one who raised his voice, who fought his way out of every tangle, or, if he didn’t get Dad to see it his way, found a way around it. Jax had known how to get out of his fifteen-meters-up window and onto the ground from the time he was fifteen, using every bit of his athletic frame and his daring. Out onto the sloping roof. Hang from the edge and drop to the next level. Rain gutter, tree, ground. If he’d known he could cripple himself, he hadn’t seemed like it mattered. He knew how to start a car silently, too, by pushing with your foot and coasting down the drive, then turning the key at the last possible second before you crashed into the garden wall. He got caught from time to time, of course. He just didn’t care. And he, too, had left the nest, and then left it more. All the way to Afghanistan.
Me? I’d been the funny one. The homebody, the middle child, the peacemaker. I’d made jokes, and then I’d made more. I’d also loved my dad beyond reason. I’d thought he was the most handsome, the cleverest, and the toughest dad in the world. The problem was, part of me still thought it was true.
So I’d charmed him, or I’d tried. On one memorable occasion, in fact, I’d accompanied my presentation by singing and dancing. That had been during my argument for why I should do a gap year overseas. Specifically, I’d wanted to go to London to work in a café, which I’d imagined would be the height of cosmopolitan sophistication. I’d thought it would be living. To bolster my case, I’d done a montage of 60s British pop that I hoped would evoke the nostalgia factor. I had made Dad laugh, and I’d made him say yes, too. I think it was my Ringo impression that finally did it.
I’d gone to London and spent my year, and I’d had fun. And then I’d come home to Dunedin, bought a house near my parents and grandparents, and stayed. But then, I liked Dunedin. I liked the wind and the rain and the long, wild beaches, the albatrosses and the penguins and the fur seals and their yelping pups. I liked the sunshine, and how glad you were to see it after the cold. I liked all the colors of the Otago autumn, and how easy it was to go on an hours-long walk on the peninsula, facing into the wind, looking out at the sea, and thinking about a story. I liked the unpretentious harbour and the way everybody flocked to the Eureka Bar for dinner when the Highlanders were playing, then walked along to Forsyth Barr Stadium to cheer on their beloved team, which appreciated them just as much. I liked the bagpipes and the kilts and the cozy, warm cafés, the steep hills and the gorgeous old Victorian and Edwardian houses, huge, rambling piles overlooking the city and the sea. Otago was unpretentious, it was wild, it was beautiful, and it was home.
So I liked it, maybe I even loved it, but I’d left it once, hadn’t I? I hadn’t been scared to go, and if I hadn’t left again, what was wrong with that? Why shouldn’t you stay in the place you loved? Why should that mean you didn’t want adventure, and did adventure always have to mean moving to a new country or defusing bombs? Couldn’t it mean changing your career and doing something else? Couldn’t it mean changing your hair, and changing your life?
; My mum took the baby’s carrier, set it beside her chair, and said, “So. Your dad called the hospital.”
“Yes,” I said, dumping the nappy bag but not taking a seat. “And I don’t want to stand here and make my case, Dad. I’d like you to make yours instead. I’d like you to tell me why.”
That was as about as much as I’d planned, but I thought it was pretty good. At any rate, it took him a second to answer, which was something.
“Yes,” he said. “I rang the hospital. When Max told me that Te Mana had spent the night with you, after you’d chucked Max out of the house? Of course I did.”
“My marriage is over, though,” I said. “I’m done, and there’s no going back. Why would you want me to stay in that situation anyway? Leaving Matiu out of it—why?”
“Possibly because Max is a steadying influence,” my father said. “An influence you need.”
I wanted to shout. Instead, I took a breath and asked, “Why?”
A long silence. “I should think it’s obvious.”
“Well, no,” I said. “It isn’t.”
“You rush in,” he said. “No analysis, no planning. One risky endeavor after another. You throw your heart into things too easily, and, I’m starting to think, into people. Loving your kids is all good. We all know you’re a good mum. Get that from your own mum, don’t you. That’s fine. The rest of it isn’t. To state one obvious example, leaving Te Mana out of it, your work hours are all over the shop, you forget appointments, and you’re in another world half the time. A family can’t go on like that.”
I didn’t rush in, not this time. I thought about it, and I said, “I’m different from you, yeh. I don’t do it your way. I forget things sometimes, and I live in my imagination, because that’s where my work is, but my kids are fed and clothed and cared for, and that’s not Max. That’s me. I don’t work at a desk, because I’ve never been able to stand the idea, and, yes, I love too hard. I clearly love too unwisely, too, or I did. It was my lesson to learn, though, and I’ve learned it. Also, I’ve succeeded in all those risky endeavors, whether I worked at a desk or no. Maybe I do analyze, because that can’t actually have happened by accident. Maybe I don’t do my initial analysis with spreadsheets or committees, but maybe something seems like a good idea to me because it is a good idea. Because I’m good at knowing what people want, and what they will want. Just like you.”
“It sounds good,” my dad said, “but it’s not how business works. What do you have to show for it, when all’s said and done? The glamping—right, I’m willing to concede you got lucky there, or, since I don’t believe in luck, that you made good choices, even though I thought they were mad at the time. Fair enough. But instead of expanding that when it was showing real potential, you sold it. And for what? To write stories and draw pictures. What has it been, a dozen books? Maybe thirty pages each? Your drawings are clever. They always have been. Three hundred ninety pages of pictures in five years isn’t a career, though. It’s a hobby. You have a fine mind, if you’d use it. You also have three children, and if you want to be the breadwinner, it’s time to think about them.”
This was one reason my dad was so successful. He made the other person react instead of acting, which meant he was driving the discussion. I didn’t have to do it, though. When I’d been eighteen, he’d been my judge and jury, the person I wanted most to please. I wasn’t eighteen anymore, though, and I didn’t have to dance for him. I also wasn’t going to point out that he was worth some hundreds of millions of dollars—exactly how many, I didn’t know, and after a certain point, it didn’t matter—which meant that I probably wouldn’t be out on the street any time soon. If I had pointed it out, he’d have given me the line about how I’d best not be counting on that, because he wasn’t dead yet, and anyway, he might give it all to stray cats. He wouldn’t. He didn’t like cats. They killed birds, and my mum loved birds.
“It works for me,” I said instead, “and that’s all that matters. I’m not going to be on the dole, no worries, and neither are the kids. I’m not going to be asking for a withdrawal from the Bank of Mum and Dad, either. My finances will be all good, even once I work the settlement out with Max. You helped me there, remember? Had me see your lawyer before we got married, which is why I kept the glamping business separate from our personal finances. Which, yes, was another thing I thought through. Whatever happens with the books, which are going to be marital property, because there’s no way out of it, my profits from the sale of the firm are safe. And you know what’s good about books? You can write more, and those won’t be marital property. It all works, Dad. I’ve got this.”
Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t. Financially? Yes. Otherwise? We’d see.
“And does it work for your kids?” he asked, as if he’d read my mind, which he probably had. “Does it work for Hamish, with no dad at home? Does it work for wee Olivia, who cried all night, Max told me? Does it work for Isobel, who’ll barely have a chance to know her dad? Does it work for them if they have to leave their house, if you can’t afford to buy Max out?”
You don’t want the battle taken to you? Take it to the other fella instead. I asked him, “Do you cheat on Mum?”
I realized too late that I shouldn’t have asked it with my mum right here. Blame my impulsivity again.
I thought I’d get stunned silence. Instead, I got, “No. Absolutely not.” You could call it “forceful.”
“Why not?” I asked. I hoped it was true. I thought it must be. My mum had a happy nature, but she wasn’t weak, and she wasn’t a fool. At this moment, she was sitting and watching. Calmly. Encouragingly, I thought.
“Why ... not?” he asked.
I’d achieved the impossible. My dad was gobsmacked.
I said, “It would help me to know, Dad. Why not?”
“Because I ... This is rubbish. A pointless waste of time, and completely off the subject.”
“No.” I felt the emotion rise into my throat, trying to choke me. “This is the subject. Please. Tell me why not. Please be my Dad who made himself dizzy giving me airplane rides every night when he got home, before he even got into the house. Please be the dad who took me fishing and taught me to ride a bike, and not the company director. The one I danced for, because I wanted to make him laugh. Because I loved him and he loved me. Please, Dad. Help me.”
Silence. I held my breath, and beside me, maybe my mum did, too.
Finally, he said, “Wait,” and I thought, Really? No? You can’t even help me when I’m begging you? I tried to remember all the ways I’d been lucky, all the ways I was lucky, but they wouldn’t come.
He said, “Right,” again, then, “I wouldn’t cheat on your Mum because I love her.”
“Uh, Dad?” I was trying to laugh, even though my chest was aching. “A little more detail, maybe?”
“What d’you want?” he asked, but I thought I saw a smile there. A reluctant one. “I’m not the best at describing things. You should probably ask your mum. She’s right here to explain.”
It was tenderness, now, that was tightening my chest. Relief, too, and if being relieved that he understood after all, that he loved me after all, was weak? I was weak, and glad to be. But I didn’t think it was. How could showing your love and wanting to get it back ever be weak? Why wasn’t it just human? If I loved too hard, some of those people I loved were my parents and my grandparents. I hadn’t stayed here because I was afraid to leave. I’d stayed because Dunedin had the things I needed. The things and the people I loved.
I said, “If I ask Mum, I won’t know how you feel. And I do want to know.”
“You’ll probably know better how I feel if you ask her,” he said, “and that’s the truth. All right, then. Because it would hurt her, and I wouldn’t do that. And because it wouldn’t be worth it.”
“Even when you were young?” I asked. “Even when we were young, and Mum was too wrapped up in keeping our mad life sorted, both of you working so hard and you too wrapped up in the business, when you wa
nted to feel ... free again, maybe, and able to take advantage of all that exciting power you were starting to have? When you had to go home instead and give those airplane rides and eat sausages and chips with your family, and Mum had just had a baby and was too tired, and maybe she wasn’t as beautiful as the woman you married?”
“I didn’t want to feel free,” he said. “I wanted to go home to her. I knew I was well suited. And she was always beautiful. Why would I want anybody else?”
My mum finally said something. It was, “Oh, Alistair. I do love you.” She was laughing, and maybe trying not to cry, too, and when he looked at her, he smiled. Ruefully. And the love was right there to see between them.
I said, hearing my voice break on the words, “But don’t you see? When I found out what Max had done, don’t you see how it made me feel? How ... how worthless I’ve felt? That I wasn’t enough, and I’d never be enough, not the way Mum is for you? Don’t you see that I couldn’t go on like that?”
Outside, the sun was shining and the birds were singing, and university students were falling in love. A few kilometers away, little blue penguins and seals and albatrosses were hatching and birthing their babies on the wild beaches and rocks and tussocks of the Otago Peninsula. Here in this office, tears were welling up behind my eyes.
Silly, scatty Poppy, tearing her heart open for everyone to see.
My dad asked, “Are you sure he did that?”
“Yes,” I said, wiping the stupid tears away. “I’m sure. I saw him with her. They were together when I was having Isobel. He admitted it. And—Dad. I spent this morning getting tested, and having Isobel tested. They swabbed her for gonorrhea. For syphilis. For chlamydia. Look at her. She’s perfect. She’s everything. And I have to think about whether Max gave her a sexually transmitted disease. I have to know that he didn’t love me enough, love us enough, to care about that.”
“Oh.” That was all, and then he sighed and said, “Well. Changes things a bit.”
Stone Cold Kiwi (New Zealand Ever After Book 2) Page 26
