She sits staring down at the screen. Who could she ask? Who?
The answer’s so obvious. Lisa might remember.
Except she has no idea where Lisa is. Who she is even. It’s seventeen years ago. She’s most likely married, got another name, possibly moved out of the area. She remembers feeling envious of Lisa, grown-up and glamorous in her short, pastel-coloured skirts, tops with little straps, her fastidiously shaped and painted fingernails and toes. Lisa was at their house with Ed Black that year.
What was her surname? What was it? The family weren’t locals. They’d not long moved into town. She had a younger brother. Not so good-looking as Lisa, gingerish hair and glasses, he was at school, a year or so younger than Stephanie. Gary. There was something about his name, something everyone laughed about. His name was Gary but they called him something different.
Gee-gee. They called him Gee-gee. Because his surname started with G.
Green. Lisa Green. Okay. She writes down the name, picks up the phone directory. Wanaka. Green. Six Greens. No Green, L. There’s a G. Green, though. She punches in the numbers.
A child’s voice. Tentative.
‘Could I speak to Gary Green please?’
‘Da-ad.’
She hears footsteps, the phone being picked up.
‘Hello?’
‘Is that Gary Green?’
‘Yep.’
‘Do you have a sister called Lisa?’
‘Who wants to know?’
‘I’m an old friend of Lisa’s. I’ve been away a while but now I’m back I’d like to get in contact with her again.’
‘And you are?’
She’s trusting he doesn’t have a good memory for his sister’s friends. ‘Stephanie. Stephanie Anderson. You probably don’t even remember me. I used to be round at your place a lot, though.’
‘Can’t say I do. Lisa’s in Roxburgh now. On an orchard.’
‘She’s working on an orchard, you mean?’
‘Living. Working.’
She gushes, maybe that’ll make him believe her story and warm to her, ‘I can’t believe it. Lisa on an orchard. I’m so sorry we lost touch with each other.’
‘Yep. Married an orchardist. Got kids as well.’
‘Really? Oh my God. I’d love to give her a call. What name is she under?’
‘Stevens. Rock Road.’
‘That’s fantastic. Thanks.’
As easy as that.
23.
She’s homeless and, for all intents and purposes, unemployed. Her laptop, sleeping bag and pack are in the boot of her car. She’s been shopping, bought jeans, T-shirts, sweaters, an anorak, a swimsuit; the kind of clothes she hasn’t worn in a long time. Sandals, Nikes for walking, soft, leather flat-heeled boots that fit so neatly on her feet and around her ankles they’re as comfortable as slippers. And they’re red. Her new boots are fire-engine red. There’s nothing in her bag that’s grey or brown or beige. It’s as though she’s setting out on holiday. New clothes, a zippy car.
She’s heading for the West Coast going the Central Otago route, calling in on Lisa along the way. She weighed up whether she should phone her first. Decided against it, doesn’t want to give her a chance to say no and, anyway, she hasn’t altogether worked out her story yet. She can’t just turn up on Lisa’s doorstep questioning her about past boyfriends.
Who? Look, piss off would you?
She’s filled with apprehension, that lump of disquiet she’s become so familiar with filling up the cavity beneath her ribs. But at the same time her heart’s lifting. Because she’s taking off in her shiny car. Because she has the new jeans that fit so snugly and smoothly over her hips. Because she’s got her new short hair cut and knows it suits her, knows she looks younger, prettier; lately she’s been getting the odd head swivel when she passes a man in the street. And because she has no idea where she will sleep tonight. She’s worked out if she’s careful she has enough money to keep herself for the next six months. But she’ll have to be utterly prudent. No luxury accommodation: she’s going to have to stay in backpackers.
Perhaps Minna was right at least I’ve shown you if something’s not right you can leave it behind. You don’t have to stay and be miserable.
Though it wasn’t so much that she was miserable, just that she’d become stuck within Sensible Stephanie. What was that poem she learned at school when she was little? Brown shoes, black shoes, walk along like that shoes. That’s what she’d become. Walk along like that Stephanie. Keep your eyes fixed on the road ahead, Stephanie.
Maybe she’s more like Minna than she’s ever wanted to acknowledge. Because as she drives out over the motorway, out of the city, climbing upwards then down, down past the turn-off to Mosgiel she feels set free. Trees, hedges, houses, past the turn-off to the airport, hills curving green and lush and now Waihola, the lake stretching blue-grey, turn right at Milton and she’s on the road to Central. Half an hour on and the sky seems to lighten, broaden. Blue on blue, tinged with gold-yellow. Sun warms the car, beams through the windscreen onto her face. Years since she was on this road. She remembers trips to the city. Crammed between Jonny and Liam, all of them elbowing each other. Later, Gemma there beside them riding high in the car seat. They had to get the bigger car when she arrived. Minna always hated it racy eh? Never thought I’d end up driving a station wagon. They used the station wagon for family occasions. Family holidays Mu-um, Liam’s bumping into me on purpose. Dave and Minna in the front. Minna glaring back at them you kids stop it right this minute.
An ordinary family. No concept of what was ahead.
Through Lawrence. The old poplars still edge the road but the buildings have been perked up and repainted and there are cafés clustered together along the main street. She doesn’t stop. There’s hardly any other traffic. There’s such silence, such stillness and her car hugs the road, weaving around the bends, climbing the rises so beautifully that she feels in tune with it; with the road, hills beyond her, the stretches of pasture spreading and merging with this vast expanse of beaming sky.
Beaumont. Juddering over the bridge, the Clutha below her. Deep jade, the shivers of silvered light along the surface, the water frothing up creamy along the edges. She always thought of it as hers, her own river. Stopping on the way home from the city okay, we’ll stop here, you kids can have a run don’t go near the river it’s treacherous. She’d edge closer and closer, take off her shoes, dip her feet in to test herself, see if she could take it, the bite of iced water on bare skin. She’ll stop. It’s time she had a break. She slows down, looking about her. There was a track here somewhere leading down to the river. She pulls off the road.
She walks along the river stones until she’s under the bridge. The water is dark and deep, moves so rapidly. She sees a log of wood caught up, spun into the centre of the river, forced along then submerged below the rush and force. A truck passes overhead and she flinches at the sudden rumble of sound, the shuddering of the bridge. She clambers back up the track, climbs into the car.
Did Gemma feel that same sudden shock that day when she looked around, found the boys had gone and she was left behind? What happened? What happened? Did she start after them, calling out, picking her way over the grass, through the pine trees?
She starts up the motor. She’s driving past orchards now. The trees are bare, the branches stark but in a few weeks they’ll burst again into life, there’s an abundance of buds, the occasional flicker of frail blossom.
Roxburgh. She buys a bread roll at the bakery, asks where Rock Road is. Rock Road? You go right down past the end of the town, it’s the last road turning left before you get to the dam turn-off, if you pass the dam you’ve gone too far, left then hard right, you can’t miss it, love.
She parks the car beside a playground, sits on a bench, drinking juice. Walks around, stretching her legs and body, leans against the car feeling the sun on her face and neck. Putting it off. Putting off getting back into the car, starting it up and moving off up the
road. But she has to do this. It’s the first step. First test. She gets in, switches on the ignition.
Last road left before you get out of town. She turns and winds slowly upwards. The seal ends near the top and the car’s jolting over loose shingle. There’s a green mailbox, Stevens painted on the side in fat black printed letters, and she turns into the drive, passes fences, packing sheds and stops beside the house. Square and compact. Red brick. Roses along the front, pruned almost to the ground, bursts of lavender beside steps leading up to a concrete terrace surrounded by a wrought-iron railing. She pushes the doorbell.
The body is thicker, the face plump and round, but it is Lisa. She wears a sweatshirt and track pants, has a toddler hoisted on her hip. She peers suspiciously out at Stephanie.
‘You’re not selling vacuum cleaners are you? Because—’
‘No, I’m not. You’re Lisa aren’t you? Used to be Lisa Green? You probably don’t remember me. I’m Stephanie Anderson.’
She’s faintly puzzled. ‘From Wanaka?’
‘I was hoping I might be able to talk to you.’
‘To me? What about?’
‘It’s a bit difficult to explain. Could I, do you mind if I come in?’
‘The school bus is due soon. I have to go and meet the kids.’
‘It wouldn’t take long.’
‘Well, okay.’
Stephanie follows her through a passage into a kitchen. Lisa puts the toddler down beside a pile of toys. There’s an ironing board propped up beside the bench and a green enamel coal range belting out heat, washing drying in a wire rack above it.
‘It was freezing this morning so I lit this thing and now it’s too hot. Don’t know what the weather’s going to do from one day to the next. Cup of tea? What’s all this about?’
Glamorous Lisa worrying about weather and lighting coal ranges.
‘Thanks, tea would be great. Uh, well, I—’
‘Milk? Sugar?’
‘Just milk thanks.’
‘I’ll carry on with this if you don’t mind.’ She picks up the iron. ‘So?’
‘I’m a trainee psychiatrist. As part of the course I have to submit a paper on a traumatic incident in my life. I’m writing about the day my sister went missing. Do you remember what happened to Gemma?’
‘Yeah, course I remember. Terrible. But I can’t see how—’
‘I hope you don’t mind me calling in on you like this but I need to talk to people who were there to, well, to give a full picture of what happened.’
Lisa has her head down over the checked shirt she’s ironing. It’s hard to tell what she’s thinking.
‘How did you find me?’
‘I phoned your brother.’
‘Oh, yeah, he said someone rang, couldn’t remember who it was, though. You’re going to be a psychiatrist?’
‘Yes.’
‘Must be hard if you have to do that kind of stuff. I’d have thought you’d want to forget all that.’
‘Part of the course work is having to face up to tough personal issues.’
‘And you can remember me being there?’
‘You were sitting quite close to where we were. You were wearing a yellow bikini. I thought you were terribly sophisticated.’
Her eyes brighten and she chuckles. ‘That bikini. Wouldn’t get into it now.’ She takes a pair of jeans out of the washing basket. ‘So what do you want to know?’
‘Just any memories you have of what happened.’
‘I remember feeling that awful when I found out about it. You know I went to your place a few times for barbecues and things? Gemma was such a cute wee kid. Sorry. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, you won’t want to hear things like that about her, it must be—’
‘It’s okay. It was a long time ago. Gemma was cute.’
‘Never found out what happened, did they? Didn’t they think she drowned?’
‘That seemed most likely. What I was wondering is what you can remember. Were you able to help look for her, for example?’
‘Yeah, I joined in with the search parties.’
‘Maybe if you could tell me what it was like being part of the search party that helped look for her when she first got lost. That day, I can’t remember much about it from the time we couldn’t find Gemma. It’s all kind of a blur.’
‘Well, it would be. What I remember about searching for Gemma is they split the search party up into groups and our group walked right along one side of the lake. We spread out and walked in a line with a couple of metres between us calling her name and we stayed until it was too dark to see anything.’
‘Can you remember anything else?’
‘Not a lot. Just heaps of police being around Wanaka and the TV cameras, lots of reporters, that sort of thing.’
‘Were you by yourself at the picnic? Because if you were with someone else maybe I could get in contact with them as well. As I said, it’s all a bit of a blur and I can’t actually remember who was there.’
‘I went with Ed Black. Used to teach at the high school?’
‘Yes, I remember. It might be good to talk to him. Do you know where he is now?’
‘No idea.’
‘He didn’t go back to school the next year, did he?’
She screws up her face. ‘Dumped me and left town.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. I went round there one day and he was packing up. We’d been together over a year and he hadn’t said a thing to me about it. I said what about me and he got quite nasty, started on about me knowing the score, knowing it wasn’t serious.’
‘Did he help search for Gemma as well that night?’
‘That night she went missing? No, you’ve got it wrong. I didn’t search that night because I’d left by the time she got lost. I didn’t know anything about it until the next morning. I went down to help the minute I found out.’
‘What about Ed Black? Did you leave together? Because if you did there’s not much point in trying to find him since it’s the actual day she went missing I’m focusing on.’
‘Uh. God, it’s all so long ago. Yeah, well, he must have stayed at my place that night because I remember we were both there when I turned on the radio in the morning and found out what had happened. I suppose we would have left at the same time.’
‘Did he help in the search the next day as well?’
‘Yeah, he did. He was right in there, really involved. He was in the search parties every day until they got called off. Talked to the police, said he’d help in any way he could. Whenever he was at my place he’d have the radio and TV on all the time in case there was any news. He’d got quite friendly with your family and he was really upset.’
‘I remember him being at our place quite a lot.’
‘I’m going to tell you something I felt really ashamed of later on. Before Gemma went missing I was that jealous of Minna. She was good-looking, your mum, and I had this idea that Ed, well, that he liked her a bit more than he should have. It was stupid but I used to make up excuses so we wouldn’t go to your place. I felt terrible about it after Gemma got lost.’
Stephanie shrugs. ‘Everyone gets jealous. It sounds as if he didn’t treat you well, anyway.’
‘I felt really let down by him but, anyhow, I could never make him out. I always had this feeling he thought he was too good for me. I suppose that’s why I got jealous. Never knew where I stood with him. I admired the way he helped look for Gemma, though. What I thought was that proved he felt a lot more about things than he let on. Then a few weeks later he dumped me as if he couldn’t have given a shit about anyone except himself.’
‘Sounds like you were much better off without him.’
‘Didn’t see it at the time but then Ron came along and that made me realise just what a bastard he’d been. Ed Black, well, you want a guy to make you feel better about yourself, don’t you? Not some prick putting you down all the time. What about you? You with someone?’
‘Not just now. So you don�
�t think Ed Black could’ve helped with the search that day Gemma went missing because you left together?’
‘He couldn’t have because, like I said, he only found out when I did and that was the next morning. You look like Minna, you know that?’
‘I probably do a bit. You two left at the same time? Went to your place together?’
‘Yeah. But, come to think of it, we didn’t drive there together because we’d met up at the picnic. I had to work that morning so I’d taken my car and he took his and, and he didn’t come straight around either. What happened was he went over to his place first then he picked up takeaways. He’d had a shower, got changed. I remember that because when he got there he wasn’t wearing a T-shirt and shorts like he usually did, he had on jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. That’s when we heard the sirens. Police sirens, you know. I said looks like there’s been a car accident. But he wouldn’t have known any more than me about Gemma because if he had I’m sure he would have said.’
‘Lisa, thanks for helping look for her. And for talking to me.’
‘I don’t know if it’s been any help or not. It’s funny how you remembered me, I wasn’t all that involved. I’ve often thought about Gemma. It’s why I always meet the school bus. I just like to be there when the kids get off, you know. Ron thinks I’m over-protective but I always say you never know what’s going to happen.’
‘You’re right to want to protect them.’
‘You must see a lot in your line of work. Too much, I’d say. Hey, it’s been great talking to you, Stephanie. You were this giggly teenager back then. Right into boys and clothes.’
‘I suppose I was.’
‘Different now, eh? You’re like Minna but— You’re going to be a psychiatrist? I’d never have thought that. Good on you, though.’
She drives out of Roxburgh. Along the flat part of the road then the climb up into the hills. She has to concentrate: the road is steep in parts and there’s the sharp corners she has to slow for, glide carefully around. And there on each side, looming up above her, gigantic rocks crisscrossed with silver, ochre, cobalt.
Hunting BLind: It's Every Family's Deepest Fear Page 17
