Singularity

by Charlotte Grimshaw

  The first time she came she brought half a bottle of rum. Reid had his eyes closed and she came around the side of the house. In a second he was up out of the deckchair; she was lucky he didn’t grab her by the neck. He didn’t know how old she was. Late teens, maybe. She had a funny face. He could never decide whether she was beautiful or ugly: big shining brown eyes, a snub nose, a curved, overfull mouth. She was thin, with shapely legs and her hair was wild, growing in an afro. No, she was beautiful, he thinks. She said she’d seen him in town, and did he want a drink, and soon he’d brought her out a chair and they were sipping the sharp sticky booze mixed with some coke he had. He remembers how beautifully the rum burned down into his stomach, and how good it was to have all the tension inside him met with something, given something to fix on. He was lonely, he needed company, and there she was.

  She lived with her uncle, a monstrous looking man with a raddled and twisted face; he had a scar that hiked his nose up, making his left nostril too big. Reid told her he looked like Quasimodo and she shrieked with laughter, but she said he was a nice, kind guy, that he’d looked after her since her mother died, even paid for her to board at Queen Victoria School in Auckland. She’d come back up North and started working in a clerical job in town. She said she wanted to be a manager. She said when the wind blew over the paddock it looked like a big invisible comb straightening out the grass. She said all sorts of things, chattering on while Reid listened, or while he thought out what to do that evening. She asked questions about him, and he told her he was on the dole and working out what to do next. She smoked menthol cigarettes, one leg hitched up on the side of the old armchair he’d got out for her.

  That first time she came to visit they’d got through a lot of rum before the phone rang. It was Teina, as usual, with Reid’s instructions.

  Reid sometimes dreams about Teina, about what happened to them. He hasn’t seen him for years. Teina worked for a man the police were interested in, a large-scale dealer called Huru Wright. In order to gather evidence against Wright, Reid had had to befriend Teina. He realised, after a while, that the friendship he’d invented had become real.

  Teina said Reid was to go to a house on the other side of town, an address he didn’t recognise. Reid turned to find Charlene looking around the room, picking things up and making cheeky comments. After the phone call he was on edge as well as slightly drunk. He grabbed hold of her hips and pulled her towards the bed. He pulled her clothes off, and he had the impression she was laughing. Afterwards he lay there with a huge feeling of relief. He started hugging and kissing her but she jumped off the bed, got dressed and ran off. He went back to worrying about Teina. As he got in his car and left for town Reid wondered why she’d rushed off. He asked her the next time she came over, but she just shrugged and stared off over the paddock.

  They became a ritual, those Friday afternoons. For Reid it became a kind of need. He started to think he couldn’t face the evening if he hadn’t had a few drinks and a roll in bed with Charlene.

  One day she sat up next to him and said, ‘You don’t care about me.’ He stared at her. It was true; she was like something he’d made up in his head, something he needed. The next time she visited she kept stalling about getting into bed, and Reid got anxious, thinking he wouldn’t be able to get going until she came across. He started rushing her; Teina had rung late and he only had about half an hour.

  ‘Say please,’ she said.

  ‘Please.’ He was getting wound up.

  ‘I’m not in the mood. You’ll have to force me,’ she said, with a sly, stubborn smile, hooking her leg up on the seat and lighting another menthol.

  Did he force her? Well, Christ, he only had half an hour. Teina was so sharp and vigilant that Reid was getting paranoid. He had a mountain of evidence against the people Teina worked for. He was yearning to be pulled out so Huru Wright could be arrested and he could move on.

  Did he force her? She told him to, so maybe he did. The truth is he can’t remember now. He remembers that he liked her, but that sometimes he had trouble separating her from his own pressingly serious needs. That she bounced around him and talked at him, and that he screened out most of it, not bothering with the idea that she had her own inner life, her own desires.

  She started to suggest that she move in with him. She was sick of Uncle Quasi; he was nice but always nagging her to get home on time and not drink and smoke.

  ‘Not a good idea,’ Reid said. ‘I’ll be moving on.’

  ‘I could come with you.’

  ‘Not where I’m going.’

  Did she ever cry? No, he’s sure she didn’t. Maybe when he said that. He doesn’t know. She came at him out of the heat and silence of those Friday afternoons; she was always coming at him, and when he didn’t see her any more he was left with fragments of memory: her wild hair, her stubborn expression, her walk as she teetered over the clumpy paddock in her high-heeled sandals.

  One night, outside the McDonald’s in town, Reid was talking to Teina and a man from Melbourne, Andre Moran. They were arguing and Reid was staying out of it. Someone slapped him hard on the back and he turned to see Charlene and two other girls done up in elaborate clothes and make-up, Charlene tipsy and laughing and the other girls nudging and giggling.

  Reid gripped Charlene’s arm hard, bent over her and said, ‘Not now.’

  ‘Why not?’ she said loudly. Her friends looked askance at Teina.

  ‘I’ll see you on Friday,’ he said.

  She stood her ground. Her friends, half-laughing, tried to pull her away.

  ‘Just Fridays is it, Brad?’ she said in a high voice.

  ‘Please, Charlene,’ he said.

  ‘Please, Charlene,’ Andre imitated. ‘You want to come in the car with us?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Charlene said boldly. Her friends backed away.

  ‘Come on then.’ He opened the car door. She hesitated, then, with a challenging look at Reid, went to get in.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ Reid said, grabbing her arm.

  ‘Why not?’ Andre said. He went to push her in the car.

  ‘Forget it. She’s a head case.’ Reid dug his fingers into the soft flesh of her arm, deliberately hurting her.

  Teina inclined his head at Charlene. ‘Sounds like he loves you,’ he said.

  She was staring at Reid. She raised her free hand. He caught her wrist, wrenched her apart from Andre, marched her along the street and shoved her away. She stumbled, going over on one ankle. Her friends caught up and stood about, shocked. Her eyes filled with tears of humiliation and rage.

  They walked away from him, arms round one another’s shoulders, turning to give him the finger. ‘Fuck you! Bastard!’ They weren’t much more than schoolgirls.

  Did she ever realise what he spared her that night? He could imagine what Andre Moran would have done to her. She was so young and naive. How old is she now? Time hasn’t changed her much, only she’s broader in the hips and her face has lost its open eagerness. She’s smartened up; she became a manager as she said she would. She has three children, boys. She lives in Melbourne. Married a builder, a tall Australian guy, arms all knotted with lean muscle, pinheaded and thick as a plank. He glares with fixed intensity, convincing himself, whipping himself up. Oh, if he could get his big hands on Reid. She looks five times more intelligent than her husband, but she’s nervy, unstable, damaged somehow. Her forehead is lined. Her husband stays as close to her as he can, moves around her; he’s always got his face up close, whispering in her ear.

  Reid stares across the courtroom but she won’t meet his eye. Her performance is smooth; she always had a pleasing way about her. But he remembers her when she was thin and raw and yearning, and she was an actress back then, as she is now. She was lonely and intense, she tried to change the shape of the world, and it wouldn’t bend. She was always coming at him, out of the heat and silence of those stalled afternoons, and she’s coming at him now, crossing time just as she used to cross her uncle’s paddock
, coming back through the years, to get him.

  Shame. Fear. Rage. Reid feels them all. Charlene points at him across the courtroom, identifying him. She paints a picture of that time, all subtlety and nuance removed, a picture in black and white, no, not black and white, in primary colours, in cartoons. She talks baby talk. I young and soft. He big and savage. He force me when I say — I scream — no! She twists a hanky in her hands. The prosecutor questions her in a voice throbbing with compassion. ‘You had no mother in whom you could confide?’ The jury is motionless. It’s her finest hour.

  Reid has plenty of time to wonder about her. Why is she doing this to him? He knows the official part of it: that a group of police in the undercover programme and in other sections have been investigated; that an inquiry was set up to look at historical complaints after two women complained they’d been assaulted; that Charlene was visiting New Zealand and heard about it and came forward to make allegations against Reid, after how many years? He has a theory about her motive. She remembers that he hurt her feelings — that he was the one who hurt her first. She was the kind of girl, sensitive, lonely, vulnerable, who was always going to get hurt. She tried to bend the world and it snapped back in her face. And she thinks that Reid, among others, deserves to pay. It doesn’t matter how. If her purpose is served by telling lies, then so be it. Bad things must have happened to her after Reid; perhaps he made her vulnerable, and the vultures started to circle. Men are predatory, that’s what the Crown Prosecutor says. And women? Women are big on revenge.

  Reid said to his lawyer, ‘Look at her eyes. Her expression. She’s mentally ill.’ The lawyer doesn’t answer. He knows this doesn’t help.

  The hearing drones on and then, in a lull just after the morning adjournment, while the lawyers are arguing a minor point, Reid hears the door creak open and turns and sees … a pale, intense woman with blonde hair. At the shock of recognition something comes loose in him, sends him spinning. She stands for a moment by the door. He can’t close his mouth but sits staring, twisted around in his seat. Their eyes meet. She edges quietly along the rows and sits down, never taking her eyes from his face.

  Since then she — Lisa Green — has attended the trial every day. Silent, watching, clear-eyed, she expresses it to Reid by her stillness: the perfect weight of information, of all that she knows.

  That day. Years ago. He remembers how hot it was. On the beach the waves broke evenly, sending sparkles of light across the water. Teina lay in the shade under the pines and smoked a joint. Reid watched the seagulls shifting about gingerly on their red feet. A hawk flew in spirals over the trees, sailing on the still air. There was a group a long way down the beach, a man and two women and a young kid. The beach was remote, it took an hour of off road driving to get there and it was all Maori land, so there wasn’t usually anyone around. Reid wondered who they were. The man swam out through the breakers and the women stood in the shallows and watched, taking turns to hold the kid.

  Teina complained about his love life. He had a nice wife but he was a terror for taking on other girlfriends. It wasn’t surprising, the success he had; he was tall and good-looking, in a sharp, slightly scary way. He had presence, force. He was good at making people laugh. He liked to be the DJ at parties, and he could sing. Reid had done a lot of partying with Teina; some nights they ended up in his car, still buzzing after everyone else had run out of steam, smoking joints and laughing. Often, too often, Reid forgot about what he was doing, what he was supposed to be doing to Teina. They talked about everything, even about their childhoods. Teina said his father used to beat him with the electric jug cord until he passed out. He said because of that he never hit his five children. He was teaching his oldest son Pawhau to play the guitar. His wife had had meningitis and nearly died, and sometimes he had to drive her all the way down to Auckland to see specialists.

  Teina was clever. He’d been good at staying out of trouble, had never done any jail time in his life. He was making a living working for Huru Wright, none of it lawful or legitimate. Big trouble was waiting for Wright and his people — that was what Reid was there for. Reid liked Teina. He was happy about what he was doing, but not about how it was going to affect Teina. He didn’t want to see him arrested. The more time he spent with Teina and the closer they got, the worse Reid felt.

  They waited. Andre Moran had a hangover and had gone off into the trees. Teina didn’t like him. Andre was a pasty-faced, cold-eyed guy with a habit of getting too close. He always seemed to be inching around Reid, sizing him up, breathing in his face. He made Reid nervous, and he was already on edge all the time.

  Teina drew on his joint, one eye squeezed shut against the smoke.

  ‘Hey. Brad. You all right, bro?’ he said in a breathless squeak, holding the smoke in.

  ‘Yeah.’ Reid had a bad headache.

  ‘You look a bit … peaky.’

  Reid laughed. He looked nervously at the wall of trees. ‘What’s Andre doing?’

  Teina flopped over on his back. ‘He’s a nasty fucker,’ he said idly. ‘I caught him talking to my Parekawhia; she was sitting up high on the fence and he was sort of standing between her legs. I wanted to smash him.’

  ‘He’s coming back,’ Reid said.

  Andre gave them both a sour glance and stood a way off, wiping his hands on his pants.

  The group on the beach were loading their gear. The younger woman stood at a distance, shading her eyes, looking at them.

  ‘Who’s this?’ Teina said.

  The woman was walking towards them, the glittering sea behind her. The shadows of the pines were lengthening; a sudden squall of wind blew a little tornado of sand up at their feet.

  She came up close, out of the dazzle of light. Reid’s body gave an involuntary jerk as he saw who it was. He couldn’t believe it. Lisa Green. She was from his past. He knew her. She knew him. The real Reid.

  ‘Reid,’ she said.

  ‘Who?’ he said.

  ‘Reid.’

  He looked at Andre and Teina. ‘Who’s this?’

  She said to him, in her familiar, soft voice, ‘You were in Dunedin, remember? Just before I left the flat. When you were in the police.’

  Andre and Teina looked at Reid. They didn’t move.

  ‘Are you still in the police?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know who this chick is,’ Reid said. He started to back away.

  She said, ‘Weren’t you going to be a detective?’

  They were all very still. She smiled at Andre. ‘I was sure it was him. He used to have a little star tattooed on his shoulder.’ She shrugged and walked away.

  Reid saw her face through the car window as they drove off. Intent, watching, clear-eyed. Now, in the courtroom, she looks just the same as she did, all those years ago. She’s heard about his trial and she’s come to watch. What does she want, what does she have in mind?

  Lisa Green might deny it but Reid knows it was revenge when she outed him that day in front of Andre and Teina. It must have been four years since he’d seen her last, but she remembered he was heading for detective back then, and she remembered her grudge. She was clever and sharp, she could see those two were criminal types; she would have guessed Reid might be acting undercover. He remembers the way she spoke, the things she made sure to say, to ID him. Telling them about his tattoo. No, she knew what she was doing. She was throwing Reid to them. She had an old score to settle; she came across him by sheer chance. She went to a beach one day and there he was, right up the other end of the country from where he used to know her, pretending to be someone else. Here was an opportunity and she took it.

  He hadn’t done anything bad to her. All he’d done, four years before, was help the landlord kick her out of the Dunedin flat they were living in. Here was another woman with hurt feelings. How could she take such revenge? Is she mad? Or is there something else, did she have some feeling for Reid back then, before he booted her out in the street? He can’t tell his lawyer about her, can’t even tell h
is wife Angela that Lisa Green’s sitting in the public gallery, her eyes boring into his back. She wears a gold cross around her neck. He needs to know what she wants with him, what more she knows.

  Someone is made vulnerable, and the vultures start to circle. Silence. Lisa Green’s car disappearing over the dunes. The beach was deserted. The late afternoon wind blew the marram grass, shaking the dry branches of the lupins. Andre reached inside the truck and pulled the rifle out through the open window. He breathed heavily through his mouth. His eyes glittered. Officiously, he ripped Reid’s T-shirt sleeve up and found the star tattooed on his shoulder. Teina looked at it wordlessly. Everything seemed very near. Details stood out sharply. The edge of the pine shadows. The delicate traces of pink in the western sky. Gulls turning on the bright air.

  Teina held his face between his big hands. Reid forced himself to meet his eyes. He looked sick.

  Andre pointed the gun at Reid and made him walk over the low dunes towards the pines. The sand was white, rippled, the grasses waving. The air was clear and glassy, the light dancing and dappled. It was like walking along the bottom of an aquarium. Everything was beautiful.

  They crossed into the pine forest, into the cool shadows under the trees. Sunlight angled down through the dusty air, the light was honey-coloured.

  Andre hit Reid with the butt of the gun. He staggered sideways, astonished by the pain. His eyes filled with tears. Andre recovered his balance, aimed and cocked the gun. No one said anything. The pain in Reid’s head and neck filled him; it was overwhelming.

  There was a dull crack. Reid turned. Teina was standing over Andre with a rock. Andre lay on his side, blood oozing from his head. His foot twitched in its brown boot. The rifle had fallen on the ground. Reid leaned against a tree and he and Teina stared at each other. Then in a spasm of movement Andre was up and staggering for the gun. Reid shouted with fright and rushed him, pushing him down, forcing his face into the pine needles while Teina raised the rock. Andre had his hand clamped on the gun; Reid couldn’t make him let it go. His legs thrashed, he got hold of Reid’s neck with his free hand. His boot caught Teina full on. Teina hit him. The sound was sickening. He went limp, fell back, but started fighting again.