by Kate Genet
Her father Frank said she should have been born with gills. Right from a baby, he teased, she’d been obsessed with water. Another sip of beer – it was good, this one; she’d have to remember the name of the brewery – she smiled at the memory of her first boat. Little more than a dingy with a sail the size of a handkerchief, her father had been so proud when he presented it to her down on Sumner beach one early spring day when she was all of six years of age.
‘We’re going to sail this little boat right out into our dreams, Poppet,’ he said, and she’d followed his gaze to the blue of the horizon and grinned right along with him.
Zoe hadn’t turned up. With a start, Claire realised she’d been sitting in the dappled shade for half an hour. Tugging her phone out of her pocket, she checked for messages, found none, saw she hadn’t missed any calls either, and shrugged. She knew the work Zoe did, and as far as she was concerned it was about as unforgiving as being out on the ocean. The work was big, the decisions life or death.
They’d catch up soon enough.
Claire stretched her legs out and picked up the menu. She’d eat anyway, she decided. Sit here in the warmth of a Christchurch February, where the summer was just tipping towards shorter days and sharper nights and listen to the sounds of the landlocked world for a change.
With that in mind, she ordered, and picked up a newspaper to while away the time until her lunch arrived. Grimacing, she shied away from her own face on the front page, along with the shot they always put with any article about her now. It was the one showing Matthias waving from the circle of his yellow life raft. A Royal Australian Air Force plane had taken it about ten minutes before she’d arrived, finally pin-pointing his whereabouts in the huge seas, and somehow managing to pull him aboard.
Folding the paper, she skimmed over the other headlines, and jerked forward when she saw the one about the kid.
Girl Drowned at Birthday Party it blared at her, and a quick skim gave place and time but scant other details.
The place was Jacaranda Park, and the time was 21st February, yesterday.
Jacaranda Park was in Zoe’s neighbourhood. Claire pulled out her phone again and double-checked. Last trip home, she and Zoe had spread out a blanket there, sat gossiping in the sun while Rose crawled around like a chubby little ant.
Rose had been at a birthday party yesterday.
Not the same one, surely? And of course it couldn’t be Rose who had been found in the river. She looked back at the newsprint. It said girl. No age, indication of size, no description of bright orange hair, nothing.
Besides, there was no way Zoe wouldn’t have called her if something that terrible had happened. No way on the planet. Claire might buzz in and out of town only every couple of years, but they were still tight. They were family. Ever since they were fourteen years old and Zoe’s mum died of cancer, and her dad made good friends with a whisky bottle, they were family.
Skimming through her contacts list, Claire hit on Zoe’s smiling picture and pressed the phone to her ear, listening to the call connect and holding her breath despite herself.
‘Shit, Claire – I'm so sorry!’ Zoe’s voice was harried. ‘It’s been the day from hell. Literally the day from hell. Like the lord of the underworld decided to make a personal visit and fuck up my day just for the sheer pleasure of it.’ The tiniest of pauses. ‘Okay, so I'm exaggerating, but honestly, some days I don’t know why I do this job. It’s soul-destroying, and just plain sucks a giant boiled turnip.’ She took a breath.
‘Sorry,’ she said, this time in a contrite squeak. ‘I meant to call, but things got away from me.’
Claire was holding the phone and grinning. She waved at a passing waitress and held up her empty bottle, giving a nod for another.
‘No worries,’ she said. ‘I just read in the paper about a drowned girl at Jacaranda Park and had the worst thought for a moment.’
‘Oh, god no,’ Zoe said. ‘Not Rose, thank all the lucky stars – as horrible as it is to say so. You know – the glad it’s not me thing. But I know the girl all the same. Which is partly what made me forget to call you to say I couldn’t make lunch. I'm so sorry about that, Claire. I really am.’
‘Look, I said no problem, and I meant it,’ Claire said. ‘You know me – no panic unless I'm overboard and the boat’s heading for the horizon without me.’
A laugh from Zoe. ‘Doubt you’d panic even then, you idiot. You’d just hitch a ride on a passing porpoise and everything would be copacetic.’
‘You know how it goes,’ Claire said with a smile. ‘I'm sorry about the kid though. That’s rough.’
‘Yeah, tell me about it. An accident most probably, but it’s a bit bloody close to home, you know?’
‘I thought the park was fenced?’
‘Not well enough, obviously. Anyway, I have to shove off, I'm afraid. Sorry again about lunch. I really was looking forward to you and Alfredo.’ A hum of dissatisfaction. ‘Oh, hey listen, while I think about it – Moana’s having a barbeque at her place next weekend, and she says to drag you along to it. You remember Moana Hodge?’
Of course she did. Claire pulled up the image of the tall dark-haired detective with the acerbic sense of humour and nodded happily.
‘Sure I remember Moana. I’d love to come. Even if I wouldn’t currently accept any invitation that gets me out of Mum’s clutches, I’d want to come. Moana’s a hoot.’
‘Yeah, you’re right there. The party’s in honour of Andy getting engaged.’
Claire scratched her head. ‘Hang on – isn’t Andy…’
‘Moana’s ex-husband. Yep. She says she’s going to personally see him up the aisle again and off her hands once and for all.’ Zoe giggled.
‘Count me in for sure,’ Claire said. ‘Sounds like fun.’
‘It’s a date then. But I’ll see you before Saturday, Claire. I promise.’
The call ended, and Claire’s food arrived. She looked at it, feeling good. It was good to be home. It was good to be able to catch up with friends and family.
She was especially looking forward to seeing Zoe. She bet little Rose had grown like a weed since she’d last seen her.
12
Rose sat at the table, slurping yoghurt and cereal from her spoon with supremely lacklustre enthusiasm while Danny watched her. He leaned against the kitchen counter enjoying the way his mug of coffee steamed against the skin of his face like a warm, damp cloud, and thought about the day ahead.
Everything had changed on Sunday, he decided. The child’s death had been an unfortunate accident – he acknowledged that inside his head, but it did do him the favour of showing him certain facts that could no longer be ignored.
Number one of which was that there was no point trying not to be what he was.
It wasn’t like he was even alone in his predilections. Guys like him were everywhere. Women too. Not so many of them, perhaps, he didn’t know about that, but he knew there were plenty guys like him out there. He’d crept around on the internet a bit. There were corners where they lurked. Swapped photos. And goodness knows he had plenty of those. Not explicit ones, though.
Or not explicit ones he was willing to share. Not even to sell. Those ones were his. Special.
But he had plenty of lovely shots of little girls, some of boys too since they were generally at the weddings and play dates, though the girls were his own decided preference. Little flower girls, little angels, all curls and smiling cupid lips, plump little arms and pert little bottoms.
Rose dropped her spoon and splashed yoghurt across the tablecloth. He put down his coffee and picked up the dishcloth, wiped up the mess with an expert swipe, kissing Rose on her orange hair as he did.
‘Whatcha pouting about, Pumpkin?’ he asked, cleaning her hands as well. She had yoghurt smeared all over her face as well, but he wasn’t going to use the dishcloth on that. They’d go into the bathroom in a minute, clean her up properly, get her out of her pyjamas.
‘What day is it?’ Rose demanded
. She’d been busy trying to learn the days of the weeks for the last couple of them and had the names if not the order. It made her feel very important to schedule their activities according to what day it was.
Danny had to check the calendar on the wall, crinkling his nose as he always did at the big colour photo that showed three women from some tiny nobody town down South, all of them stark naked except for strategically-placed newspaper, magazine, and some sort of road map. It was hard to tell with the road map one, because it kind of blended in with the old bitch’s wrinkles. Danny hated the damned calendar which Zoe had given to him as a fake birthday present, laughing her arse off and saying that was as close to another woman as he was ever going to get.
She needn’t have bothered. Nor did she have to pin the bloody thing up on the kitchen wall. He’d even complained that it was a bad influence on Rose, but Zoe had rolled her eyes and said there was nothing wrong with it, and Rose never even looked at it, as far as she could tell. She had her own flashcards of days and months she pored over. It was amazing what a kid her age could learn to read.
All the same, Danny decided he was going to take the calendar down today. He’d been a good sport about it for the whole three weeks it had been up since his twenty-eighth birthday, but enough was enough. It wasn’t even good photography.
‘It’s Tuesday,’ he replied at last, taking away Rose’s bowl and giving her a bright pink sippy cup filled with water instead.
‘What’s so special about Tuesday?’ Zoe asked, coming into the room dressed for work.
‘It starts with T!’ Rose crowed. She was learning her alphabet as well. She had those on cards too. T was her favourite.
‘Morning love,’ Danny said, pulling another mug from the cupboard and filling it full of coffee, adding two spoonful’s of sugar and a good dollop of milk. He handed it to her, pressing a kiss to the powder on her cheek and giving her pear-shaped bum a good pat the way he knew she liked. ‘Nice shower?’
‘The only bit of wonderful I'm going to have until I get home again,’ Zoe said, sitting down at the table and closing her eyes as she breathed the coffee in. ‘Thanks Danny. I’ve a real shit of a day ahead of me.’
‘What’s new?’ he asked, pretending grumpiness. ‘Honestly, I don’t know what families would do without people like you, taking care of them and their children. Everyone needs to wake up and smell the roses – kids are our most precious resource.’ He picked up his own coffee again and went back to his post leaning against the sink. No need to pile it on too thick.
‘Rose, Dora the Explorer will be playing on the telly,’ he said, and watched the little girl slide from her chair and run off into the other room.
‘We shouldn’t let her watch so much TV,’ Zoe said.
Danny shrugged. ‘It’s educational.’
Zoe laughed. ‘Yeah, she’s learning Spanish from that one.’
‘Don’t worry. Tiki Tour is right after it. So then she’ll have Spanish, Maori, and English. A proper modern kid.’
‘I'm going to go see Jeanette Woolsley this morning,’ Zoe said, abruptly changing the subject.
It was hard to tell if the hard knot that suddenly appeared in his belly was apprehension or excitement. With the tiniest of nods, Danny conceded it might be both.
‘The post-mortem said it was an accidental death, right?’
They’d done the PM the day before. Zoe nodded, and Danny watched her droop over the table. ‘Poor mite,’ she said. ‘She was such a bright wee baby too. Such fine blonde hair she had, I remember.’ Zoe raised round eyes to him. ‘You will always keep an eye on Rose, won’t you?’ Her face threatened to crumple. ‘I mean, I know accidents will always happen, and kids can slip away in the blink of an eye, but well, don’t let anything happen to her, okay?’ She stared back into her coffee cup and heaved one sigh after another.
‘I just don’t know how I’d go on living if anything terrible ever happened to Rose.’
Danny smiled. ‘I’ll make sure nothing bad ever happens to her, I promise,’ he said. ‘She’s my treasure too, remember.’
Zoe straightened. ‘Yeah,’ she said. There was a glisten of tears in her eyes, and Danny cast around quickly for another conversational avenue. He despised it when Zoe started in on the waterworks.
‘Give Jeanette Woolsley my condolences,’ he said, making his voice brisk and hearty. ‘I didn’t know her or the girl, but she’s local; that’s our community playground, so we’re all kind of in it with her.’ He nodded. That had been a good one. He liked the sound of it. ‘You know,’ he said wonderingly, ‘if she has a favourite photo of – Sahara, was it? – tell her I’ll enlarge it and frame it no charge, just out of, you know, solidarity.’ He’d use one of his own photos of the girl, goodness knows he had some really good ones, but then he’d have too much explaining to do. Better to pretend he didn’t know either child or mother. Jeanette would hardly be likely to remember him, after all. He was good at blending in. It was a talent of his.
Zoe was sniffing. ‘That’s really nice of you,’ she said, flicking him a sad smile then going back to her coffee. Danny moved to the toaster and slotted in a couple of double-wheat.
‘What do you have planned for today?’ Zoe asked, pushing her still-damp hair out of her eyes.
He picked up his mug again even though it was practically empty and spoke without thinking. ‘Have to take the car in to get fixed.’
The frown on her face was immediate. ‘What? What’s wrong with it?’
‘Oh,’ he said. Damn. He’d not meant to say anything.
‘Nothing much. In all the excitement, I forgot to mention it. Someone side-swiped me, that’s all. A little bit of paint damage, nothing more.’
Zoe was on her feet. ‘Show me,’ she demanded in the same tone of voice her daughter used when she was being a right little tart.
He shook his head and refused to move. ‘Honestly Zoe, it’s nothing.’
But she was off out the door and there was no choice but to trail along. Still, he wasn’t going to act like he’d done anything wrong.
‘Look Zoe, it’s no big deal, just a little scrape. Happened in the carpark at the mall the other day. Take the guy at the garage no time at all to fix.’
‘You taking it to our usual place?’ She was standing in the driveway, arms crossed, staring at the scrape along the rear panel like some dreadful crime had been committed. She always got a bit shirty over things that were going to cost them money that wasn’t in the budget.
‘He doesn’t do panel beating,’ Danny said.
Her frown deepened, and Danny looked away. He hated her face like that. It made him think of what she was going to look like when she was old. The thought always made him queasy. She was already too old. He wanted to take her arm and drag her back inside.
‘C’mon Zoe, you’re going to be late for work if we hang around out here. It’s just a scratch, for crying out loud.’
‘It’s a lot more than just a scratch, Danny,’ she said, and he winced at the sound of her voice. She sounded like his bloody mother, all disapproving and judgemental. It was just a fucking scratch.
Her lips were pursed. ‘I would definitely call that more than a scratch.’ She turned to him, eyes accusing. ‘How the hell are we going to pay for that? The insurance only covers some of it.’ Her eyes suddenly narrowed. ‘You did get their insurance information, right? The person who did it?’ Her temperature gauge was on the rise.
Of course he hadn’t got their insurance information. He’d been the one doing the fucking side-swiping, but he couldn’t tell her that. And it wasn’t any of her business anyway.
Her eyes were back on the car. She leaned in to peer into the back seat, where Zoe’s car seat was. They had one in each of their vehicles.
She turned slowly and stared at him, gaze glassy.
‘What is it?’ he asked, shaking his head. ‘Look, it’s not worth making a fuss over. The panel beater will have it fixed in twenty minutes, and big deal. Stuff like
this happens all the time. Jesus, Zoe, what’s the problem?’
‘The problem is that you went to the mall when you said you’d be at home, and even though you knew I’d be on call, you didn’t bother to answer the phone when I called, and now, on top of all that, I find out that you managed to wreck the car…’
‘I didn’t wreck the bloody car, Zoe. Someone hit me. Not my fault, okay. I'm not in charge of how everyone else drives.’
‘I haven’t finished, Danny,’ she said, lowering her voice and speaking slowly as though his IQ had just dropped 50 points. He rolled his eyes at her and wished it had been her going into the river two days before.
‘All this happened because you went to the mall. And why did you go to the mall?’ She spun on her heels and yanked the car door open, leaning in a moment, fat bum in his face, then pulled out a froth of blue and gold netting. There were two hectic pink spots on her cheeks when she turned to face him again.
‘You went to the mall to buy another princess dress?’
‘For my daughter,’ he spat at her.
‘Another bloody princess dress for our daughter.’ She cocked her head at him. ‘How many does that make now?’ she asked, her voice taking on that fake conversational tone he knew meant real trouble. And over what?
‘It’s a pretty dress for a pretty girl,’ he said, unable to keep the annoyance out of his voice.
‘It’s the motherfucking fifth or sixth bloody princess dress you’ve bought her! What sort of man even buys this sort of shit anyway? What exactly is wrong with you?’ She held it up and shook it at him. The spangles glittered in the early summer sun, catching his eye. This one had ribbons that criss-crossed over the breasts, tying in a beautiful bow that just made you want to give it a tug until it came undone.
He swallowed.
‘This is not the lesson I want us to be teaching Rose!’ Zoe yelled.
Gritting his teeth, he looked around the street. A car cruised by, but there was no one on the footpath. Zoe, however, wasn’t slowing down.
