Show Me a Huia!

by Chris Barfoot

  “I don’t really see what I can do.”

  “Excuse me.” She went to the kitchen and returned with the teapot complete with cosy. “Please, Vicar, I know just how Dr Corbishley feels.”

  “I’m afraid that Dr Corbishley may have a mental health problem. In fact he almost seems to blame himself for his colleague’s disappearance.”

  She poured his tea. “I hope it’s drawn enough. Milk and no sugar? Had you thought of asking Randall for help?”

  He sipped his tea. “Perfect.” Then he recalled last Sunday. “Of course, Randall met David after church on Sunday. He had a conversation with him about his search.”

  She sat down on a small stool opposite him and was looking up at him with those clear blue, unanswerable eyes. “When can you see him?”

  He could hardly credit the tenacity of someone who any moment might know that she was bereaved. “It’s not very easy. He’s the only parishioner who insists on an appointment, and, when I ring up, he is so busy he can’t always fit in a time to see me.”

  “He’s such a good man. Why don’t you just call in?”

  “He doesn’t like me doing that.”

  “Please, Vicar.”

  He could not resist those eyes.

  The same day in the hot midday sun the vicar walked – he rarely used his car in visiting – through the leafy lanes and the flower-filled gardens of Epsom, savouring the scents and the blossoms and the summer song of the bees and the cicadas. At the end of a shady oak-lined street on the slopes of One Tree Hill he found himself outside a large villa with a return verandah.

  GLENFERN PRIVATE HOSPITAL – VISITORS BY PRIOR ARRANGEMENT ONLY

  He knew that Randall looked after a small number of psychiatric patients in his own home.

  He knocked at the front door. There was no answer. Dr Richardson’s wife was also a doctor, but had her own practice in South Auckland. He supposed there was no one to answer the door. Almost as if by habit he made his way around the side of the house.

  A single-storey annexe had been built on to the house at the rear. So this was the hospital. Still he saw no one. He wondered whether there was someone in the garden. Again, as if by habit, he followed a pathway which ran alongside the lawn. It was a very hot afternoon. The pathway ran into the welcome shade of a woodland copse growing over rocky lava outcrops from One Tree Hill and then mounted up towards the boundary of Cornwall Park. The path was well kept and the steps had been recently repaired.

  As he walked up the steps, he realised that Randall had far more land than he had imagined, and there was no other house in sight. The copse was dense and it was a little dark. He wondered whether he should turn back.

  Then he heard footsteps behind him, moving fast.

  Suddenly he thought about the mental condition of some of Randall’s patients. There was a reason for the notice, and he was trespassing.

  He turned quickly off the path, hid behind a large rock and looked out nervously. His pursuer’s head was down, looking at the steps, but as he approached he glanced up. He was a Maori man, stocky with a mop of dark unkempt curly hair. He looked young but his face was old. The eyes stared but did not focus.

  The look on that face compelled him.

  Poor dear man.

  He followed, but still cautiously, to the top of the knoll. At that point, almost half way up One Tree Hill, though still on Randall’s property, he came suddenly out into the open. Straight ahead, rising up against the western horizon, he saw the Waitakere Ranges, hazily outlined in the light blue January sky.

  He saw his ‘pursuer’ with his back to him, sitting on a bench looking out to the ranges in an attitude of what seemed rapt attention. Suddenly, the man plunged his face into his hands.

  Compulsively, Harry began to move forward.

  Then he heard a sound from the bench which caused him to stop in his tracks. An involuntary gasp escaped his lips.

  Hearing the noise behind him, the other turned, leapt up like a hunted animal. Then he shot frantically past Harry and stumbled away down the steps.

  Harry followed him, as fast as he could but keeping his distance. As he emerged on the lawn, he was just in time to see the patient disappearing into the annexe.

  He did not follow.

  When Harry reached the road, he resumed his normal gait but walked as if in deep thought and did not give the usual cheery hail to people working in their gardens or getting in and out of their cars. Miss Milliken, one of his most regular parishioners, stared after him in consternation when he did not greet her as she was planting a little plot of climbing geraniums around the telephone pole on the roadside verge.

  “Oh dear, what have I done to offend him?”

  CHAPTER 24

  The relationship between a vicar and his vicar’s warden is one of the foundations of parish life in the Anglican church.

  The vicar’s warden is a lay person appointed by the vicar because he has the confidence and respect of the parish. Yet he is the vicar’s own sounding board, his confidential counsellor, his escape route in times of stress, his apologist to the parish if this is necessary.

  The parish of St Peter-on-the-Hill was no exception. In spite of all his visiting Harry Mountjoy was at bottom a shy man who lacked confidence in making decisions. Randall Richardson, his warden, could always be relied upon for sound advice and encouragement. Between the two men there was a good working relationship and a personal friendship.

  Ask Randall. See what he thinks. There was nothing so easy as picking up the phone.

  Yet the evening after his visit to Glenfern Hospital he had picked up the phone several times and put it down without dialling.

  “Hallo, Vicar.” At last he had waited long enough to hear the familiar well-modulated tones. “How are you this beautiful summer’s evening? And how is Lavinia?”

  “Oh, very well, thank you. Randall, do you recall meeting that young university lecturer at church last Sunday?”

  “A very interesting young man.”

  “I formed the opinion that he was over-stressed about his search for his colleague. I would like your opinion as to whether he should seek psychiatric help.”

  “Get him to see his GP who would refer him to a psychiatrist if there is any cause for concern.”

  “You don’t think you could help?”

  “No, that’s the best course.”

  Randall had a habit of getting to the point quickly, dealing with it briskly, then giving the impression that he had something else to do. The vicar feared that the conversation would be cut short. “Randall, as a matter of fact I was so anxious about him that I walked up to your hospital to see you at around midday today. I am sorry that I did not phone before I went.”

  The confession was met by silence.

  “I knocked and when no one answered the door I went around to the back. I thought you might be working in the garden.”

  “You thought I might be working in the garden – on a Thursday at midday?”

  He had not heard that tone from Randall before.

  “Incidentally I happened to meet one of your patients. He was walking up to the lookout.”

  Again silence.

  “May I discuss this as a pastoral matter?”

  The silence continued.

  “I was wondering if you would allow me to be part of your ministry in his case. The chaplain at Carrington Hospital has a good arrangement with me and I provide prayer support for him.”

  “Why are you so interested in this patient?”

  He hesitated. “I just felt sorry for him.”

  “You just felt sorry for him.”

  The conversation was becoming increasingly strained. “Perhaps you would like to think it over and let me know if there is any way in which I can help in my capacity as a priest?”

  The reply was courteous but cold. “I’m rather surprised, Vicar, that you should visit my hospital and speak to my patients without asking my permission. I am even more surprised at your request, espec
ially in view of the professional confidentiality involved.”

  It troubled the vicar that the relationship with his warden had broken down. He had made a mistake. He had disobeyed instructions about visiting. He had not respected Randall’s professional confidentiality. It was true that he had apologised. Yet his apology had not been accepted. His call had not mitigated the offence but added to it. He had wanted to discuss something pastorally important with Randall about the visit, but he had not been able to. Instead he had been treated like a child caught in a misdemeanour.

  Randall was a dependable churchwarden, a faithful communicant. He had been at the church a long time and Harry’s warden for twelve years. Everybody in the parish respected him and trusted him. Yet Harry at this time found himself reflecting on how well he really knew his warden. Though he provided good advice and counsel to him as a warden, Randall never shared anything with him at a deeper level. In fact he never shared very much about himself at all. This was not unusual with the men of the parish who tended to keep their professional lives separate from their church lives. However, in the case of his own churchwarden whom he knew to be a man deeply concerned about society and its problems, it was a sadness to him that their conversations never got beyond the minutiae of church administration. Surely the closeness of their pastoral relationship deserved better.

  I know I make mistakes, but I am still his parish priest.

  ***

  Interfering simpleton!

  Randall Richardson sat in his study in his Epsom home studying the file of the patient under discussion.

  What right had Mountjoy got to go sneaking around his property and talking to his patients, then to ring him up and ask if he could help with the treatment? And just because he felt sorry for that person! It was getting to the point that he would have to go to another church. Harry Mountjoy was a good man, but simple, one who was always bludging on his parishioners for cups of tea, a person practised at holding babies at christenings and standing at bedsides and gravesides, but a man totally lacking in knowledge of the ways of the world. A gullible man whom people could twist just by making him feel sorry for them.

  There was a time when he had wondered whether he should speak to the vicar about his own problem. He had decided against it. He was used to keeping his own counsel, and to do otherwise would show a lack of confidence in himself. He also suspected the vicar’s rather narrow theological outlook and his naive political views. How could this unworldly man understand his wrestling about the whole direction of society and the anger which grew in him as a result? The Anglican Church regrettably was no longer the bulwark of society it once had been and, if it was made up of people like Harry Mountjoy, it would never face the present threats. In fact it sometimes even supported them. He recalled with disgust a vestry meeting where a motion supporting the Maori terrorists had been put forward by Stan McTaggart.

  He thought about the phone call again. The thing that concerned him was not the vicar’s naivety or his failure to obey instructions, but the fact that he was not telling the truth.

  His vicar was a very poor liar.

  He knew which patient it was. This person had been his individual and particular responsibility. By a mixture of personal bonding and drug dependency, he had established a relationship which had kept this patient at the hospital for nearly two and a half years without using locks or bars.

  Fortunately, the problem had been neurotic and not psychotic and there had not been difficulties with violence or criminal conviction. If so, the patient would have been under a different system requiring stringent team supervision. Fortunately too, the patient’s parents had both died, and with no immediate family Randall had more freedom to develop his own treatment. Moreover, being a private concern, the hospital was not visited by patient advocates who could be an administrative complication.

  The patient’s problem was associated with guilt, and this guilt produced nightmares during which he would wake up screaming. The relief which he prescribed was a particular drug which deadened all nervous reactions. It was not the only form of treatment, nor was it the orthodox treatment recommended by his professional body, but it was the one which in the circumstances was the most effective.

  The long face lengthened and the slender fingers came together in an attitude of prayer. It was his habit every day to remember each one of his patients.

  CHAPTER 25

  I wish I’d never touched it!

  On Thursday evening after her visits to the library and to Susan McAndrew, Kate had been excited as the results of her detective work had started to come together on the table at her flat. But when the final pattern emerged late that night, she was filled with apprehension. It was as if she had caught some loathsome disease and needed to make an appointment with the doctor yet hesitated because of what the treatment might be. The whole thing was so improbable that she wondered if she would ever find someone who wouldn’t laugh at her or say “Whatever.” She longed to find someone who would listen sympathetically, then tell her there was nothing in it. This way she could stop worrying and rip it all up. After all, her holidays were almost finished, and then she would get back to normality.

  But everyone she thought of had his or her own problems. Sergeant Piriaka was cautious about commenting on racial issues and didn’t seem to want to offend his superiors. Her pastor might have started preaching. John McTaggart didn’t have enough imagination. Her bird friends would be too busy on field expeditions. As for her bosses or colleagues at work, their little world of finance was too neat and structured to admit even the existence of such a problem.

  It took her till Friday at noon to decide to make a phone call to the Department of Geology at the University. Like her relationships with her male colleagues at work, she would keep this relationship on a strictly professional basis.

  “May I speak to David?” She realised that she did not know his surname and wondered if there were more than one David on the staff.

  “Are you looking for Dr Corbishley?” The receptionist seemed to hesitate. “He’s not here.” Sensing Kate’s disappointment, she asked in a changed tone. “Are you a friend of his?”

  “No,” she said emphatically, “but we have an interest in the same project.”

  “I’m sorry to say this, but have you heard that there has been an accident?”

  “What?”

  “His car was found down a cliff this morning.”

  “Oh, no! Where?”

  “Somewhere beyond Opotiki on the Te Araroa Road.”

  She couldn’t speak. Surely it must be some horrible nightmare.

  “Are you there, caller?”

  She tried to control her voice. “Have they found… anything?”

  “He hasn’t been found – yet.”

  “Yet.” The word echoed ominously. “I can’t believe it.”

  “I really am sorry. The police are doing what they can. They want any information they can get. You may like to phone them.”

  She took a hold on herself as she got through to the Opotiki police.

  “Sergeant Herewini here. Can I help?”

  “I’m phoning about Dr Corbishley. Is there any more news?”

  “The local landowner has been very cooperative. Comes from up your way. Dr Charles Hawthorne. By the way, what was the name again?”

  She could stand it no longer. She flung the phone down and burst into tears.

  “I’ve sent him to his death!”

  Why did I ever accept his offer and get into his car? If I hadn’t thrown doubt on his Dr Hawthorne, he might never have gone down there. That’s what comes from interfering in other people’s lives.

  She looked again at the photocopied material in front of her and felt like screwing the whole lot up and shredding it.

  I should never have tried to copy Miss Marple.

  The feeling she had had at Achilles Point came upon her again. She was no longer a high-flying career person with her own means but a vulnerable 29-year-old woman
living on her own.

  She was afraid.

  She went to the window. Beyond the little lawn which belonged to her unit were forty hectares of native bush which stretched as far as the main trunk railway line. The line at this point ran along a mangrove-lined tidal creek, an arm of the inner harbour. She normally loved the bush because of the tui and the moreporks that lived there. Suddenly it had changed and become a hiding place, concealing people who could be watching and waiting.

  She shut the windows, locked all the doors and sat where she couldn’t be seen from outside.

  They haven’t found his body – yet.

  She saw in her mind’s eye the red Honda Accord on the black rocks at the foot of the cliff with huge waves breaking over it. The door was open. On the shingle the waves were rolling up a long dark object like a log….

  She jumped as the phone rang. It was three o’clock in the afternoon.

  “Hallo, it’s me, the One Tree Hill chap.”

  She dropped the phone and collapsed on the settee.

  The voice continued to speak out of the phone. “Can you hear me? Are you all right? Is that, er, Miss Fairweather?”

  “Of course it’s me. What’s going on?”

  “I got your name and number from Forest and Bird. They didn’t realise who I was. I know it seems a bit unusual in view of our last meeting, but may I come and see you?”

  She had trouble in keeping her voice even, so great was her relief. “It’s 5 Cruttwell Place which is off Kepa Road. Go to the end of the right of way, then it’s the rear flat. Knock three times. Can you find that?”

  “Don’t worry. And don’t tell anyone I rang.”

  It was a most unusual way of making a date. But she needed to pull herself together and preserve her detachment.

  Three knocks at the door.

  She could have hugged him, but the sight of him changed her mind and she rushed for some warm water and her first aid kit. His long fair hair which she remembered as being carefully combed was dishevelled. There was a bruise on his forehead and his face was scratched. His jeans and T-shirt were torn and there were bloodstains on his sleeve. “Sit down here. Let’s have a look at that arm. Coffee?”