by Alan Duff
Yeah, Jake knew that, that he had a bed here, in the garage — his reserved place — a single bunk where he could snore without disturbing anyone, when what male here didn’t snore? Ask any of the wives. But they didn’t mind, not when your man’s a loving, decent man, who works hard all week and then shares the weekend like this with the family.
The night over, they all turned in.
One of them dreaming of his ex-wife. (Oh, Bethy.)
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
GUILTY
GUILT-RIDDEN, CONFUSED, disgusted with herself, Beth intended confessing her unimaginable sin to Charlie at the first opportunity. Except she didn’t figure on the power of routine, and Charlie’s Sunday-night playing bridge with his club mates. She usually enjoyed a documentary or three, for dramas were of little interest, not when your previous life had been a miserable drama. Or she might catch up with a friend at either’s home for a chat, a couple of glasses of wine, a habit that shocked her now she was comparing the Beth of old to herself of now. Two different people, and yet back with the same man — or was he? Not for a moment. (You’ve grown up, Jakey.)
Whatever, by the time Charlie came home and with that quiet look of a win, Beth had lost her courage. And rationalisation had crept in from somewhere. One routine she did know, Charlie was not a man who pressed for sex, which was as well. (How would I do it with him?) Conversation, though, he was on for twenty-four hours a day. So she had to force herself to respond, even to give a supposed viewpoint on a political issue normally of interest but not in the circumstances; she could hardly think straight. She kept seeing Jake’s face in the place of Charlie’s. Her husband’s kindly smile, those warm, intelligent eyes, the soft deep voice as meaning so differently now. (Oh God, what have I done?)
In bed Charlie liked to talk until sleep claimed either of them, on all manner of subjects. Though it was almost an inevitability that he’d get onto the subject of near obsession for him: the Maori problems. An area Beth came into her own on, from having lived the life and able to comment from both sides of the fence, a position she felt privileged to be in — if not for the fact that often Jake was used as a reference, the model of how not to be.
Well, of all the nights Charlie brought Jake up in, asking if one reason Maori were failing so badly at nearly every aspect of modern life was that they had decided, consciously, not to compete since they had perceived they couldn’t compete with their European counterparts.
Charlie put to Beth, Do you think Jake just gave up without even trying, like a lot of his types?
Beth found herself responding irritably, Why Jake for your example, when there’re lots to choose from?
And naturally Charlie took her tone the wrong way, grinning at her and telling her not to be so hard on the poor man. Then he went on with his theory on indigenous races suffering a collective inner collapse, perhaps one of trauma, an unbearable cultural shock at going from top dog to bottom.
Beth muttered, Sounds like you had an overwhelming victory at bridge tonight.
Why do you say that? Charlie up on one elbow to puzzle out his wife.
Because you’re magnanimous. On an issue you’re usually hard-nosed about, she told him whilst avoiding eye contact.
I’m looking for answers, Beth. Then he touched her breast, out of the blue for him, and his hand lingered there. On her right nipple. And her response was almost one of revulsion. At herself, what she’d done; at her husband for breaking with the pattern, the routine, at a time like this. At everything.
Not tonight, Charlie. (Never thought I’d hear myself saying that. Not when I’m ready most nights.)
Oh, that’s a shame. Just when I was warming to the idea, what with you laying there with that little bothered frown on your lovely face.
Please, don’t go there, Charlie. Not tonight, if you don’t mind. I’m in a funny mood.
Five days later she found herself on the phone to Jake, What are you up to? Doing anything tonight? Want me to come over? But let’s just talk this time, eh? You promise? He promised.
Yeah, sure talk. He was willing, but she wasn’t and hadn’t been to start with. (What’s come over me? I’m behaving like a love-struck high-school girl.) Giving herself to him, taking turns at playing the dominant role, kissing (oh, the kissing), touching, riding him, making love how it should be made (and we knew our good times like this, despite the terribly one-sided relationship, there had been times of sexual ecstasy, or why else was a woman so easily back joying like this with the man?).
And afterwards, when he wanted to broach the matter of them being together like this, she’d not wanted to know. Let’s just enjoy this for the totally unexpected surprise and pleasure it is, Jake. And they made love again. And he had her giggling with his crude humour, yet not over the top; hadn’t giggled like this in — well, since him.
At home Charlie’s image seemed to change. He looked not just fat but doughy; the look of a sedentary man, an office blob who didn’t like sport. His lack of interest in sex became reason for Beth to justify to herself what she had done, was doing. (A healthy woman had to get it somewhere, somehow.)
She stayed at friends’ houses till later and later, not wanting to go home to Charlie’s incessant drone on yet another issue or, worse, the bloody loser-Maoris topic. (Why can’t they get their shit together like I did, like Jake has?) Wanting more and more to hear Jake’s voice. Yet knowing it had to rupture sooner rather than later. And then what? (Then what, Beth Bennett who thought this last decade she had never been happier?)
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
STOP BABY SCREAMING, THE SCREAMING IN MY HEAD
SHARNEETA HAD THE baby held up above her head.
She had this image of it smashing against the wall, the (awful) sound it would make and yet the sound of its effin’ crying and colic-induced screaming, always screaming, would come to a final end.
She saw outside through the living-room window that it was full daylight, middle of the day, and yet plastered over the walls, everywhere within her immediate sight, was this stuff like dark gauze, or dark-tinted film.
The baby she saw as a shape, and a weight labouring, hurting on her uplifted arms. It wasn’t Rachel. It didn’t have that name suggested and accepted by the hospital angel, the beautiful Sue Clifford nurse. No. It was just this thing, this living lump that she didn’t allow, couldn’t allow too long of feeding, suckling, from her breasts. (Greedy li’l shit, near sucked my nipples off. Or it was never satisfied and kept spitting me out and scratching my tits with its tiny fingernails. No sooner fed than throwing it up everywhere. Or it would have colic and scream from dawn till dusk and nothing, but nothing, would shut the li’l effer up. Nothing!)
She called the doctor and he wouldn’t come, she had to take baby to him. For some reason the baby decided she’d stop crying for the duration of the visit to Dr Reynolds, who said Rachel looked a perfectly good baby to him, and he seemed suspicious about something as he asked Sharns to remove baby’s clothing, and she hoping that’d set the li’l bitch off shrieking again, in the doctor’s smarmy, upper-class face.
Doctor ran narrowed eyes over the baby: Do you strike her when she’s crying, as you say she is doing — a loaded pause — non-stop?
Sharneeta didn’t get the question, asked him, What? What did you say, doctor? (I don’t know where you’re coming from.)
There are bruises around her armpits, Ms Hurrey. Looking directly at her now.
I haven’t hit her. I grabbed her. Quite a few times. Because she’s driving me nuts.
How about the medication I prescribed you, for depression? Have you been taking it?
No. I haven’t.
Why not?
Made me feel funny, all fuzzy in the head. Like my thoughts got muddied up. (Even though my mood flattened out and the darkness did ease considerably. But why would I opt for darkness if the damn Prozac pills were so damn good for me?)
I see. Doctor turned away, dropped beneath the sightline of his spectacles, lo
oking not at Rachel but at papers he had. And still the baby didn’t, wouldn’t cry. In fact, she gurgled a bit and smiled, and when the doctor tickled under her chubby chin she giggled.
So, how are you feeling now, still down, is everything still, as you put it, as if in shadow?
Mostly, yeah. But I still don’t like what the stuff does for me. It’s like I’m in even less control of things. I guess I keep thinking I’ll wake up one day and it’ll be gone.
If only it did happen like that. But it doesn’t. And I would urge you to reconsider and start taking the Prozac again.
She nodded to save saying the lie that she would when she had no intention. (I just know it’s not where my condition is at. I just know that some day I’ll find the answer.) Though with the baby it seemed finding an answer was an impossible dream.
Doctor said, I’ll prescribe some Pamol, which you can use to calm baby. But only if her crying is driving you to — he hesitated (why, does he know?) — to distraction. I suggest if it is becoming too much to bear you get in touch with a Karitane Family Unit. There’s a very good clinic in Pine Block. They’ll happily take baby for a few hours to let you get some rest, catch up on lost sleep. Whatever you do, please call for help. Will you promise me that?
Sure I will. Think I want to carry on like this forever and a day? Told you, it’s driving me nuts (nuttier).
Good. Now, I have one more question to ask. Do you feel as if, well, as if you could harm the baby sometimes? I’m asking, is her crying so getting to you you feel you could near, well, kill the child?
(Oh yes, Doc. Course it is. Only this morning. Yesterday morning. Last night. All through the day — less the few hours I get out and walk or drive the streets to get away from the crying. Sure like killing her, Doctor. Wouldn’t anyone?) Do you ask other mothers that question?
Some, yes. I mean no offence, but in light of the medication I have prescribed for you, and the bruises on baby, it had to be asked.
And how do these other (mothers) women answer?
Well, mostly they answer in the affirmative, I have to say.
Affirmative? What’s that?
Means yes. They answer yes, that indeed they do feel like doing harm to the child.
What do you say then?
Usually that I intend informing the appropriate authorities and health bodies who handle this kind of thing. To protect mother and child.
You mean child from mother?
In the final analysis, yes. It stands to reason. Though of course one has both party’s interests in mind.
Okay then. Yes. Now what? (Please tell me now what?)
Now let’s seek some help that is available.
She took herself to the pharmacist to get the Pamol, and the baby started up soon after the doctor’s, crying in its pram like she’d pushed it live into a coffin. Be quiet. Oh, shut-up. Yeah, you would start now the doc’s not here to hear you, ya li’l shit. Shuddup!
Then she went to the Karitane Family Unit and the doc was right, they were so nice, so understanding. Took baby — who was still bawling loudly — and told her to come back in five hours, have a sleep, enjoy some respite, Sharneeta.
But that was yesterday, last week — no, last month. No, two months ago. The Karitane people expressed concerns that she was using their service every day and for longer and longer extended periods. (I just can’t stand the crying. How can you love a thing that won’t stop screaming?)
A visit from a man — they send a man? — who was from this special unit that dealt with cases — he called it instances — like mine (and baby’s, you keep forgetting, Sharns. And baby in the same instance). Who turned out to be real nice, of real understanding, a big Maori man, gentle as a lamb. Name of Charlie Bennett, who asked who the father was and I found myself telling him of this coconut raping me and how it wasn’t enough, he had to assault me, too.
He said, From such an ugly act you get this beautiful child? It could be a miracle, if you wanted it to be. I couldn’t see it quite like that, but I did end up crying in his arms and he felt like a good father I’d never known, and kept saying, There there, it’ll be all right.
And he made me feel as if indeed it would be all right. The baby had been crying her head off when he arrived, but during his visit she settled down to a steady grizzle, and so we both felt things had already got better. And I said, No, never, I wouldn’t kill my own baby. And he did look at me like he wanted to believe and yet, I have to say, did not necessarily. (But that was a long time ago now. Despite several visits he, Charlie Bennett, made. And several visits by a psychologist, asking weird questions. My wall went slowly up. Things change, don’t they?)
With her arms aching now, wanting relief from this pain, ears wanting relief from the most awful, soul-shattering screaming, Shuddup! Shuddup! Shuddup! Shut-up! Shuddup! Shuddupshuddupshuddupshuddup — SHUT THE EFF UP! SHUT YOUR EFFIN’ GOB! SHUT YOUR DAMN EFFIN’ CRYING! (It’s breaking me in pieces. Bringing the final dark curtain down.)
Readying to hurl it now. Hurl it. Into eternity. Where it can cry for ever, who cares? Where I’ll be going there won’t be no babies, just iron grilles slamming, cell doors opening and closing. Women, deprived mothers, murderers, taken away from their babies, crying softly, sometimes, in their cells. For life and lives got ended. Yet with relief the noise had stopped, even though you had to murder it to stop. Is there any worse sound that gets to you than a child in pain that won’t cease? Your child? Which you didn’t want to have, not a missing lowlife father. Oh, baby, Mummy’s sorry …
About to hurl it. Dash it against the wall. End the noise. End the darkness, bring on another kind of darkness, bad but not as bad as this. Shut up, baby. I said: Shut-up. Voice calm now, and thinking it was being reasonable (to justify myself ).
Then I look up at movement and see it’s Alistair. No, it’s just another shape at first, an intrusion on my intended (good or foul) deed. And I hear him like he’s the father, not the one who impregnated me, but the kid’s father by being here in this flat, by getting to know the kid and loving her despite the never-ending crying.
And he’s saying: What are you doing to Rachel, Sharns? Give her here. Give the — did he say the or my? — child to me.
So Sharns unknowingly saves herself consequences too dire to contemplate. (Jail’s a lot worse than you’ve ever imagined, Sharns.) She unknowingly saves her child’s life and hers with it. She utterly unknowingly, and yet can kind of intuit, has handed Alistair back his childhood, so scarred and suffered from whatever did damage him, even if a lot was his character, a tendency to self-pity.
He’s smiling, even though the horrible li’l shit’s crying is deafening. Come to Uncle Al, Raych sweetie. Uncle Alistair’s here.
And so, therefore and thank heaven, is Sharneeta Hurrey. If only tomorrows didn’t always come.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
A BEAST AMONGST LESSER BEASTS
WORD SPREAD IN no time of a new arrival in the form of a large, face-tattooed Maori gang leader from the Black Hawks, plus two other pretty big Maoris, come on the same transfer from the notorious Paremoremo Prison, north of Auckland, where the meanest were kept.
Roger Ambrose wasted no time in fronting up to the guy who went by the scary name of Apeman, out in the exercise yard, with several hundred witnesses, plus the screws, who knew to stay out of it, unless it turned ugly, which in here is like seriously ugly. People not only get hurt here, they have a term for it: wasted. Or dead.
They watched as the two big men met face to face. To the guys it felt like a meeting of two great international leaders. Or heads of clans. Or the actual fact: of two born leaders from possibly opposing camps meeting on this field that happened to be tar-sealed and with a high razor-wire fence surrounding it and guards looking on with world-weary (of you, guys) cynical expressions.
One clan chief had a tattooed spider web on his neck and throat, a couple of stars under each eye, tattooed chest and arms the same purple-black as the other’s. Though Ap
eman’s darker complexion made his tats look black and his tattooed face an exact copy of an exquisite design from days when a man’s face was his meaning, spoke his meaning, were his written form of communicating who he was when no other form of writing existed. Tattoos on arms, hidden by prison-issue shirt.
Breathless, hoping for a fight, the inmate (village) audience watched as Roger went straight up to the black Black dude and told him his name, in a tone saying quite clearly what he was. Kingpin, legend in his own time of years and years here, in sentences prior and this sentence now, of killing a man over a debt owed him so he didn’t eff around did Roger the Dodger. They were deprived of breath at the Maori guy sticking out his hand, with a friendly smile, telling the kingpin, My respects to you, bro, the inmates let out a sigh several hundred strong of disappointment.
Roger said back, You can start showing it by not calling me bro. I ain’t no bro of no man not my blood kin. Nor my race. Meaning, this was a white man’s prison, not ruled by the blacks like the North Island prisons. And a white ruler who was prepared to die for it, if he had to. If the unlikely actually did happen. For Roger was supreme in his self-belief in the arena where violence battled it out for supremacy.
Even though at least one of the prisoners, trying to keep out of Apeman’s vision, thought he could give Ambrose a run for his money, if not plain beat him. A man, even one who has disavowed violence (except that one stupid time I lost my sanity), knew who he could beat and who he couldn’t.
Apeman looked taken aback at Roger’s front, but then he nodded and said, Cool. That’s cool by me. Mind if I call you man? I call everyone man. Habit of a lifetime.
Sure. Man’s okay. I can dig a lifetime habit, long as it don’t offend me, if you get my meaning. Which Apeman did, this was leader’s talk, postured and filled with public meaning. Roger asked, How long you doing?
