Opportunity

by Grimshaw, Charlotte

  Afterwards I lay in the hotel dark looking out at the city lights with the feeling that I was utterly lost and that Rob — this stranger beside me — was the only point of reference I had.

  We parted casually, but when we were both back in Auckland he started ringing me, and it wasn't long before we were going out together.

  I looked at the dog scrabbling along the window. 'You can't have a dog and a boyfriend with the same name!' Rob had said. Recently I was a wife — newspapers called us a 'high-achieving couple'. Now I had a boyfriend. I turned the word over in my mind, neutralising the protest that rose, some convulsion of the old self that I would not regain.

  Now we were driving up the harbour bridge in Rob's elegant, battered old car, heading to Whangaparaoa. It was summer. We had both taken a week off work. He had borrowed his brother's yacht. We were to set sail, just the two of us. 'Nothing fancy,' he said, winking. 'We'll be at one with the elements!' He joked about my lifestyle — my family wealth, my job. He wasn't materialistic. He liked things to be natural, honest, down to earth. He loved the outdoors and sailing. I wasn't so sure about boats. But I was willing.

  'Look at the sky.' I pointed.

  There was an intense turquoise haze on the horizon. The sea was navy blue and broken up by choppy waves. Over Rangitoto Island there was a strange configuration of clouds, like great rags hanging in the pearly-blue glare. Below it the colour of the sea had intensified, as if there was a disturbance spreading across the water.

  Sudden changes in the light. The wind buffeting the car on the bridge.

  'Good sailing weather,' he said.

  I smoothed out the paper. Released to Attack Again. I looked at the picture of Chase Ihaka, the man who had ruined my marriage.

  Rob shook his head. He put his hand over the page. I took it off, gently.

  Chase Ihaka was awaiting sentence. He had been convicted of murder. There was an old picture of him, a school photo perhaps — a round-faced, gap-toothed Maori youth with a shock of messy hair, smiling.

  The wind hit the side of the car with a roar.

  Ihaka, now aged 20, has a substantial list of criminal convictions, having first been arrested for theft when aged just 10. In January last year, the career burglar broke into the substantial Remuera home of prominent businesswoman Jenny Francis and her husband, the filmmaker Raymond Wright. Surprised on the premises by Mr Wright, Ihaka subjected him to a beating that left Mr Wright permanently scarred. Ihaka received a light custodial sentence and . . .

  'All right, darling?' Rob said. 'I'll put some music on.'

  Released into the community only five months after his conviction for attacking Mr Wright, Ihaka lived on the streets. He had significant drug and alcohol issues, and acquired numerous further convictions for theft, before the night when he broke into the home of Mr Eric Crombie, owner of the Firebrand chain of clothes shops. Mr Crombie was found beaten to death in his kitchen. Ihaka was arrested driving Mr Crombie's car and wearing items of Mr Crombie's clothing. He had bragged to associates about beating Mr Crombie, and admitted the assault when spoken to by police. During his trial, Ihaka claimed that Mr Crombie had made sexual advances to him, and that he had 'lashed out' in reaction to this 'provocation'. The jury rejected this claim, finding him guilty of murder.

  Following his conviction, questions are being asked about why this youth was released to attack again, only months after being convicted of the serious assault on Raymond Wright.

  Rob looked sideways, shook his head. He patted my arm.

  I said, 'Journalists keep ringing. They say, "The man who attacked your husband went on to commit murder. How do you feel about that?" They can't understand why I don't want to comment. But it's done. There's nothing to say.'

  'Keep your answerphone on. Screen your calls.'

  I remembered going to the hospital. Raymond's face. He was badly hurt; his nose was broken. But it was his expression that struck me most. The bewilderment, vulnerability.

  It made it worse for him — my pity. His spirit was damaged. He'd been so frightened. The youth could easily have killed him. He became depressed. A doctor recommended we have counselling together — a mistake, I know that now. It made Raymond shy away from me. I was a witness to his hurt, his shameful tears. To his fall.

  I said, 'We'd done all that charity work for street kids. The Francis Foundation, the fundraisers. Raymond did his free film school in South Auckland. All that "reaching out".' I laughed bitterly. 'What rubbish it was.' I looked for a handkerchief. 'Ridiculous . . . sorry.'

  'I'm sorry,' Rob said. 'Told you not to read it.'

  He reached over for the paper and threw it hard into the back seat. I stared at him. We drove in silence for a while.

  Rob looked at me. He said in a softer voice, cautiously, 'Just because your husband was attacked doesn't mean the charity wasn't worth it. The Francis Foundation does good things.'

  I wound my handkerchief around my fingers. I looked out, white houses against a blue-black sky. 'It was all bullshit,' I said.

  ***

  At Whangaparaoa I stood on the marina looking at the boats. The wind blew hard and constant, jinking and clinking the lines and struts; there was the sound of straining ropes, the whine of the wind in the masts. The light was bright and the sea was pale, turquoise, stained with patches of darker blue.

  I helped Rob to load up the gear. The yacht was small and compact, well kept, with a neat little cabin and a scrubbed wooden deck.

  'Snug, eh?' Rob said. He busied himself with ropes. I had been on yachts but had never had anything to do with the actual sailing. Rob sailed a lot. He knew what he was doing.

  He started the motor and we chugged out of the harbour. As soon as we hit the open water we felt the force of the wind. Rob shouted instructions. I did what I was told. We raised the sail. We were tacking up the channel. Boats passed us, racing for the harbour. We were the only ones making for open sea. I looked ahead and saw great clouds hanging ahead of us, and then the nose of the boat dipped and I was looking at the churning water. I felt the jolt in my stomach as we ploughed into the wave then, rearing ahead, I saw the clouds again, like a robed phantom with its cloak stretched out to catch us, and I thought I could see matter whirling in the depths of the cloud mass, a fury of agitated air, and then I was looking down again, down into the green water, and felt the plunge in my stomach, as if I had fallen off a cliff, and the sickening pull as we rose.

  I held the rail with both hands. I shot out a burning stream of puke, saw it whisked away on the surface. Spray hit me, stinging drops. I retched again, although there was nothing to bring up but miserable strings of bile. Above me the sky loomed like a cathedral, all points and buttresses, ragged banners, a monstrous edifice into which we battled, up and down, rising and plunging. We were well into the channel, heading past the islands. The waves were getting bigger, and the sky ahead had got much darker. The wind was ferocious. Behind me, Rob was all action, but I was so overwhelmed by my physical crisis that I couldn't speak. I assumed he was trying to turn back, and that we would probably die.

  I lay on my side along the rail. A green bush-covered island rose and fell. Ropes of sunlight broke though and shone hurtingly bright on the sea around it, a jumbled, foaming mass of pale green. Water came over the side as we hit each wave, showering spray. Rob had edged over to me. He was shouting above the scream of the wind.

  'Bit rougher than I thought!' He said something about the weather forecast.

  I moaned.

  'Feel better?'

  'Can we get back?' I said.

  'We'll make for Kawau Island. No problem.'

  'Let's go back,' I said, but he had gone. I felt angry at the hyperactivity of males, why they needed to complicate everything, drag one on elaborate adventures. But another wave of nausea carried me away from this thought, and I was leaning over the side again, crying my complaints into the sea.

  I don't know how long it took to make it to Kawau Island. The wind screamed so hard
that it whipped the words out of our mouths. Rob fell over once. There was a trickle of blood on his temple. 'It's nothing!' he shouted. His eyes were screwed up, his hair was blown wild by the wind. His jacket billowed behind him. I wondered how much strain the small boat could take.

  I mouthed, 'Sorry!' I meant sorry to have been so useless.

  He shook his head and pointed. 'Nearly there,' he shouted. 'Hang on!'

  We were passing the coast of the island, heading for the mouth of the harbour. I looked at waves crashing onto rocks, at the dark slopes covered with bush and pine forest. Rob pointed out the harbour mouth, a swirl of silver water with the light shining on it, and above it a sky that was growing intensely black. It looked as if every cloud was hurrying towards that place, the sky gathering energy into itself. Rain was sheeting down, and soon great squalls of it were blowing over us. We made for the harbour, and it was like riding into the end of the world. I did cry then, with fear. Just before we got inside the sheltering edge the sky unleashed itself, and we were blinded with rain, ripped by wind, jerked and tossed and thrown about, both of us shouting, every rope straining and the mast groaning. At the moment when I thought the boat would be ripped to pieces we came about, the sail filled with a jolt and we skimmed sickeningly over the crest of a huge swell. I looked into the green trough and saw fish streaming through the wave. Water slapped into my face, the boat heaved and Rob yelled. The wind slackened, the water became calmer and the rain, although it kept pouring down, stopped lashing our faces. We had entered the bay. I looked back at the jumble of silver and foam and sunlight and rain, and couldn't believe we'd come through it.

  ***

  Rob made me a gin and tonic. I lay on the deck in the strange, hot light. The sun was shining, yet directly above us the sky was swollen with purple-black clouds. I was light-headed, smiling with relief, with the joy of no longer feeling sick.

  'That was the most inadequate weather forecast in history,' Rob repeated.

  We listened to the radio. The rough weather wasn't a storm any more; it was a cyclone. There were severe gale warnings in all parts of the country. Rob insisted that it hadn't been predicted at all. I watched him from my invalid's position on the sunny deck. I had an intense feeling of well-being that made me sanguine, careless. I turned over in my mind, detached, the fact that I didn't believe him. I'd lately been avoiding all news except business and finance, and the paper I'd had that morning was the first I'd looked at for days. I thought a cyclone must have been mentioned at least, in marine forecasts, which he said he'd listened to. Perhaps he'd dismissed it as only a possibility, or thought we could outrun it. We had outrun it, and now we were trapped in the harbour at Kawau, a perfect shelter, deep inside the encircling hills of the island. We were protected from the wind, and the sun, when it broke through the vast black clouds, was extraordinarily hot and intense. In the distance on the hills the trees were being lashed by the wind but down here at the jetty we were floating in calm water, the light dancing on the wall of the cabin, clothes hanging on the railings to dry, Rob propping another cushion under my head . . .

  I watched him. Everybody said, 'Rob Farnham. What a nice man!' He bustled cheerfully about on the deck, making things ship-shape. I closed my eyes and felt slightly drunk. I was helpless, weak. It was a sensual feeling. I've lost control, I thought. I remembered that first night in the hotel, where I'd thought everything in my old life was gone, and he was the only point of reference I had.

  Had he wanted the trip so much that he'd turned a blind eye to an approaching storm?

  ***

  We swam and lazed on the beach. In the evening we made ourselves a meal and ate it on the deck. We drank a lot of wine. We could hear the wind tearing the trees on the hills, a roar that died as the sun was going down but began to rise much higher as it got dark. In the brief stillness at sunset the sky was a jumbled black mass, cloud piling on cloud, and the air was heavy, humid, full of whirling drops. We were drunk. It got very dark, and there were only the few lights from other boats shining on the water. The roar of the wind deepened and intensified. Rob took a torch and we walked up a track into the pine forest, shining the light on the branches, hearing the whole forest shifting and creaking above us. We walked a long way, towards the top of the hill. Up there the storm was battering the tops, and when Rob shone the torch up the trees were crashing and lurching together. He walked away from me. There was blackness all around him; he walked in a pool of light. A branch fell near me, then another. I went towards him, through the dark. The crashing of the trees was exciting, agitating. Lightning lit up the forest, followed by a boom and crack of thunder. Rob started to sing. Lightning flashed again. We linked arms and marched down the hill, falling about in the deep pine needles, hauling each other up, ignoring the falling branches, laughing, singing drunkenly at the tops of our voices.

  Back at the jetty the rain came, great sheets of it, drumming on the deck, hissing into the water. We went into the cabin and dried off. Rob poured some more wine. We sat at the little table, laughing at each other. One of his shoes had disintegrated in the wet. The toe had burst open. 'I've got another pair somewhere,' he said, tugging off the sodden relic.

  I had a sudden vision of Raymond's wardrobe. The sharp suits. The lines and lines of fashionable shoes. Raymond loved shopping for clothes. He liked to look good because he had a strong visual sense. Our house was full of good art because we had the money to buy it, and Raymond had good taste. Not that I didn't, but he was the one with the real eye. He had left his paintings, just as he left his dog. Soon we would divide them up, through our lawyers, in a settlement. After Chase Ihaka beat him, his face was no longer symmetrical. He was still handsome. Is. Was. I don't live with Raymond any more. Raymond is not dead but he is gone. He was gone.

  When he told me he was leaving I begged him not to go. I said that we could live through this. I said that a burglar, a nobody, should not be allowed to destroy our marriage. I shouted. 'Fuck Chase Ihaka! He's nothing to us!'

  I remember Raymond's expression. He despised me. For begging. For wanting our lives to carry on as before, even though everything — words, promises, memories, shared ideas — all the things that had held us together had been spoiled and broken.

  By Chase Ihaka.

  Those words. I hear them sometimes when I've been asleep and I'm just at the point of waking. I hear them as if it's my own voice, whispering in my head. The smiling brown boy in the photo, gap-toothed, head on one side, the crooked collar of his school uniform resting on his smooth cheek, long eyelashes, the narrow brown eyes. Little man, his mother's lost boy. Little destroyer.

  ***

  I was in the narrow bunk, squashed up against Rob. I lay with my eyes closed. These days I struggled with that point between sleeping and waking. I often woke with a feeling of dread. There was something all around me, an unpleasant, alien presence. I realised it was a smell. Something heavy, overpowering.

  Rob sat up.

  'Oh, Christ. Oh, my God.'

  I rolled over. I grabbed his arm. 'What is it?'

  The floor of the boat was covered with something dark and pungent. I felt sick. My head reeled.

  'The engine's leaking. Bloody hell!'

  I pulled on some clothes. He said, 'You'd better get out. Get some air, love.'

  The morning air whirled with rain. All the trees were tossing and roaring now, even those near the harbour. The sky was heavy with intense black clouds. There were flashes of purple sheet lightning and cracks of thunder: sharp, one after another, like a series of gunshots. It was hot. I breathed in, deeply, to get rid of the taste of the fumes.

  After a long time Rob came up. He sat down heavily. 'It's terrible. I can't get at the leak. What a mess.'

  'We'd better get the food out,' I said.

  He looked blank.

  'We can't get back in this weather. We'll need it.'

  'Right.' He leaned his face against the rail. 'I've got a blinding headache,' he said.

 
'It's the fumes.' I laughed. Horrified.

  'What a disaster,' he said. He looked bleakly at the hillside.

  We worked to pack the supplies into boxes and bring them out onto the deck. We covered them as best we could from the rain. Everything was drenched. Clothes hung dripping from the railings. Cardboard boxes were sodden. One box broke up and cans crashed onto the deck. Some rolled off into the water.

  The cabin was uninhabitable. The floor was soaked with fuel, and Rob couldn't figure out how to drain it, or to stop the leak. Some of the bedding had fallen onto the floor and was wet and stained. Packets of food that we'd opened were spoiled.

  We got everything out onto the deck. Rain splattered across our faces. Rob got up, grim-faced. He stood with his back to me, staring at the tossing trees. My wet clothes clung to me. My skin hurt, pinched by the shrinking material. There was rain in my eyes. I'd been inclined to laugh, but the discomfort was increasing. I couldn't think how, or where, we were going to spend the days until the storm had passed. Then there was the question of how we were going to get back. If we couldn't fix the engine we would have to steer back into Whangaparaoa under sail, and I knew that wouldn't be easy.

  Rob said, 'I know what we'll do. Load up the dinghy.'

  'Where are we going?'

  'You'll see.' He didn't confer. He wanted to be in charge. He would provide. I thought about this.

  He rowed around the point and out across the bay. The wind hit us. I stopped talking and leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. It was rough out from the shelter of the trees — not as bad as the open sea, but choppy enough to bring the nausea swirling back. Spray broke over us. There were sticks and branches floating in the water. Rob rowed, grunting with effort, muttering to himself, 'There? There? Where's it gone now?'

  We were passing a stretch of pine forest that had been cleared for sections. Small houses showed among the trees.

  'Here we are,' he said, steering the boat towards the shore. We landed on a tiny jetty. He fastened the rope and pulled me up onto the wooden boards.