They arrive in Kawhia in the afternoon.
He carries her backpack and puts it in the boot of her car and slams it shut.
They stand there together.
Then, for the briefest moment, she thinks: ‘I can’t. It’s impossible.’
Something gives, and she loses her footing, her composure. She holds out her arms and pulls his body to hers. He holds her tightly, lifts her off the ground and whispers in her ear.
‘It’s only a day or two.’
And then, the unavoidable.
‘I love you, Marion.’
She doesn’t weep.
She says: ‘I love you, Mikael.’
He gets into his car and rolls down the window. He leans out and calls: ‘See you in Auckland!’
She stands and watches him drive away, his hand waving until he disappears around a bend.
She sits in her car until someone honks a horn. She realises she is blocking another parked car, and she starts and drives out of the carpark.
Where will she go?
Where would I go?
That was how George had answered my question.
There are moments in life when we find ourselves at a crossroad that we have completely lost the capacity to evaluate. When all we can manage to do is to drift.
I watched myself driving, on my way to nowhere, and even now I could not understand how I had managed to leave.
When I got home from George’s, I went inside and sat down at the kitchen table. It was late, and I still felt affected by the wine and the calvados. I lit a candle and placed it on the table.
Although I could not see much of the room I could feel how clean and tidy it was. It felt soothing. As if my home had become stronger and happier, better set to care for me.
I walked into the bedroom and picked up the magazine, sat back down at the kitchen table and opened it.
There they were, Mikael’s pictures. Several pages of them. And a large portrait of him. It must have been taken much earlier, because his hair is short. But it is the same smile. The same grey eyes.
I let my finger trace his forehead.
Eventually she has to stop. It’s late afternoon but the rain has not yet arrived. The sky is dark and threatening and the sea below is leaden, with white froth topping the waves. The wind is so strong the gusts rock the car. But she gets out. Stands for a moment looking out over the sea.
She reaches into the pocket of her jeans and pulls out her mobile. Lifts her arm high, and with all the power she can muster she throws it in a high arc towards the sea. She can’t see where it lands.
She sinks down to the ground beside the car. Finally, she weeps.
She stays there until the rain arrives. It is a driving, hard rain that whips her skin and pulls at her hair. But she lifts her face to it. Invites it. She staggers to her feet and tears off her jacket. Opens her arms and screams into the wind. She stays there until her voice cracks and she is completely soaked.
Then she lies down in the back seat and goes to sleep.
When she wakes it is still dark but she can sense that it is no longer night. She looks at her watch; it is 4.30. She is stiff and cold. But something has passed.
She is alive.
She stops in Raglan and has breakfast in a small café. A pale sun has risen. She asks around and finds a small bed and breakfast. The young woman who receives her is heavily pregnant. She smiles a pitying smile at the sight of her sodden guest.
‘Terrible weather last night,’ she says.
It is an impossible effort to think of an answer, so she just takes the key and walks towards the room.
She undresses and stands in the shower, turning up the heat until her skin blushes.
Then she wraps a blanket tightly around herself, lies down and goes to sleep again.
She stays in Raglan for a week, doing nothing at all. Even the most insignificant decision, the slightest act, is a huge effort. Get up. Dress. Have lunch. Go for a walk. Each stage of the day feels insurmountable and requires all her strength.
The nights are emptiness. She sleeps without dreaming. But it is not dreams that she dreads. It is the thoughts that overwhelm her in the grey early morning hours.
23.
Ika was allowed to stay with George for the time being, and our new existence gradually found its shape and form. We alternated cooking dinner, and Ika slept at my house every now and then. We continued working on our project, and George never asked any questions. He might somehow have found out what we were doing, but if so, he never referred to it.
My home was inspected and I went through the entire caregiver evaluation process. It didn’t make me any the wiser; I was still unable to assess my chances.
I watched Ika settle in and develop new routines with George. Routines that didn’t include me. I tried to look on it as a positive. A sign that Ika was developing socially. I convinced myself that my only concern was that he might become attached to George, while George was viewing it as a temporary arrangement, no different from the others he had accepted.
It was almost three months before we were called to a meeting with Ika’s family. I asked George if it always took this long. He didn’t know, his own experience was too limited. Some of the cases he had been involved with had been resolved much more quickly, and a few had taken even longer.
We were to meet at a lawyer’s office in Hamilton. George offered to drive. The meeting was at midday, so Ika would be at school.
I woke that morning with the memory of my usual dream. I lay with my eyes closed trying to retrieve it before it faded. It was the same dream. We were walking hand in hand though the eerie forest. We reached the cliff and his hand slid out of mine. But when I looked up, there was no railway bridge. And when I turned my eyes to the water it was no longer distant. I slid down into the water. It was warm, the same temperature as my skin and it didn’t feel as if I were submerging but as if I were one with it. It glowed around me, as if lit from above. I saw him moving towards me and when we met he stretched out his arms.
We drifted weightless in the golden water with our arms around each other, and I knew it would never end.
I opened my eyes and looked around the room. After we cleaned the house George had helped me repaint. The bedroom walls were a warm white and I had had copies made of Mikael’s pictures and framed them. They were not perfect, just scanned from the magazine, but somehow the loss of sharpness seemed a benefit. It was as if the pictures, just like my memories, had developed a skin, become a little blurred at the edges. Somehow they seemed to have slowly merged and become a whole. All the images had become one. They were on the wall across from my bed and they were the first thing my eyes landed on every morning.
I had chosen what to wear the evening before. A sleeveless navy blue dress and a grey cardigan. I stood and looked at them hanging on the wardrobe door. It felt as if I were dressing for a trial where I was the defendant. As if I had to make a trustworthy and respectable impression.
I was ready well before the agreed pickup time and I went outside and lay down in the hammock to wait for George. It was a clear autumn day. High skies and a light breeze.
I had turned on the music in the kitchen and suddenly ‘Peace Piece’ began to play. And I remembered the long time when I had not been able to listen to it. Then time when I allowed myself to listen without responding.
But now the sound of the tranquil touches found its way inside, I was no longer able to – willing to – resist. I was finally ready to receive it. I closed my eyes and I listened with my entire body.
It no longer hurt, it was just beautiful. Peaceful and beautiful.
She drives to Auckland. She has dreaded this trip, but she can’t put it off any longer.
‘See you in Auckland,’ he had said.
And ever since the city has taken on a new dimension. It is no longer the anonymous city that she left. Now it is the city where he is. If he is still there.
She might run into him. It is possible. How w
ould she survive such a meeting? It is inconceivable. Yet there is a part of her that wills it. Her brain doesn’t listen to commands; she cannot control her feelings.
But it is her obligation. She must find a way.
It is absolutely essential, whatever the cost.
And she doesn’t meet him. Although her eyes sweep over the crowds of people in the street. When she waits at crossings. Sits in cafés. Occasionally she spots a bronzed back. A head of curly blond hair. And everything stops for a second. But it is never him.
She knows that this is as it must be. She has to find a way of living with it. One minute at a time.
She cannot possibly know that there is no need for her to be on her guard.
She flies back to London.
She moves into a small rented flat in Hampstead, near the hospital where she works. It is spring, and when she is off work she walks on the Heath, where the spring flowers open and the magnolia blossoms. She is not aware of having any thoughts or plans. Cautiously, she takes one day at a time.
A month. A year.
It doesn’t get any easier, but it changes character. It is like accepting a handicap. Rage and grief slowly turn into acceptance, and the struggle for survival begins. Then adjustment. And a kind of life.
She makes good use of her ability to stow away her memories. Put them in their separate boxes and seal them. But the price is high. So much effort is required that there is virtually nothing left for anything else.
It is just as she has come to believe that she has created a kind of bearable existence that everything collapses.
She is doing her usual rounds. Shopping for the usual things. She stops to look in the odd shop window. Then she enters the bookshop. She has nothing in mind; she is just passing time. She is not interested in the magazine section and she has almost passed it when she meets her own gaze.
She stands frozen, her eyes on the image. Then she puts her shopping bags on the floor and with stiff fingers she takes a copy of the magazine from the shelf. She doesn’t open it, just keeps looking at the cover. Then she walks to the checkout and pays.
Afterwards, she can’t remember how she made it home. But she does remember when she opened the magazine and read the entire article.
She looks at the pictures first. His photographic album Man and the Sea has won the Pulitzer Prize. But what she sees is not the photos, but the photographer. She looks at the pictures through his eyes, sees what he has seen. Understands exactly what he was wanting to capture.
Does she deliberately delay reading the article? Flick past the article to the pictures? In the end it suffices to read the headline. The prize has been awarded posthumously.
He never reached Auckland. The article doesn’t give the details, of course. Just ‘tragically killed in a car accident on his way’. But she thinks she knows. She imagines that his smile didn’t even fade.
‘See you in Auckland,’ he calls, waving through the window. Then there is a bend in the road and she can no longer see him.
She will never see him again.
For the first time she is forced to acknowledge that she has carried that minuscule possibility as a kind of hope. An impossible possibility that she has refused to give up on.
Her carefully constructed existence falls apart. The walls cave in around her, the ground falls away from under her feet.
We were greeted by the lawyer at her office in Hamilton. She was middle-aged, very nicely dressed in a dark two-piece suit, but she had an air of impatience about her. She took us straight into the meeting room and introduced us to the three people who were waiting inside: two representatives from CYF – a woman I had met before and a man who seemed to be her superior – and a woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties. Lola was not there.
The woman was Lola’s half-sister, Nina. My heart skipped a beat. For some reason I had not expected a family member.
Coffee had been laid out on a side table and we all served ourselves before sitting down.
The man from CYF opened the meeting.
Every effort had been made to trace Lola, he said. It had been established that she was living up north, but no permanent home had been identified and it had not been possible to find her. Her family no longer had any contact with her.
They had, however, found trustworthy witnesses who could confirm that Lola had abused Ika on several occasions. He had been admitted to hospital twice with broken bones – an arm once and two ribs the second time. Neither had been reported as suspicious and no enquiry had been undertaken.
Ika had undergone an extensive health checkup. His physical health was good, though there were signs of neglect. His teeth, for example, were in bad condition. His mental state and his skills had been tested and the results had confirmed my suspicions that he had a mild form of autism. But the tests had not given any clear indication as to how serious his problems were, or to what extent they could be attributed to his upbringing.
I glanced around the table. The lawyer looked as if she had other pressing matters waiting. She kept checking her watch discreetly. George sat with his hands clasped in his lap and a neutral expression on his face. The woman from CYF made notes in a small notebook – or she may have been doodling. I reflected that in spite of the crucial effect of the outcome of this meeting on Ika, and although he was the main character, he was oddly absent. Not even when he was mentioned by name did it feel as if we were talking about a real live little boy.
When it was George’s turn to speak he kept it short. He just confirmed that Ika had settled in well with him, and that he supported my application wholeheartedly.
Then he turned to me.
‘Whatever the outcome, I have now become so fond of him that I simply can’t imagine not being allowed to play a part in his future.’
He stopped talking and looked a little embarrassed.
I tried to keep my speech factual. I emphasised how well Ika had developed during the time he had lived with me. And I assured them I would facilitate his contacts with his biological family in every way I could.
The man from CYF looked at me and nodded.
Then he invited Nina to speak.
I looked at her, and now I thought I could discern a vague likeness to Lola. It was the eyes more than anything else. But this woman was fairer than Lola, although not as beautiful as I thought Lola must once have been. Nina looked down-to-earth and sensible. A farmer’s wife, perhaps, I thought.
I was completely unprepared for her speech.
‘Lola is my older half-sister,’ she began, ‘but I have not seen her for more than twenty years. The last time was when our mother sent me to help Lola with the twins. I was fifteen and Lola twenty-one.’
She paused briefly. She didn’t seem uncomfortable or hesitant, and she chose her words carefully. I found myself liking her.
‘I never really knew Lola – she left home when she was fifteen. But Mother thought Lola needed help and it was the school holidays. At first I looked forward to it. I have always liked children. But it was awful. I was scared of Lola. The twins were tiny, newborn and underweight. But she hit them. Slapped them here and there if she was the slightest bit irritated. And she left them crying forever. I called Mother and told her, and said I wanted to come home, but I guess Mother thought it sounded even more like Lola needed help. So I stayed a little longer. Until the day she dropped one of them. She said it was an accident but I couldn’t help wondering. It didn’t feel right. And we didn’t go to the hospital until the following day. By then the baby was just lying all limp and breathing very fast. Lola said I mustn’t say a word at the hospital. And while we were there, Lola was very different – kind and nice and good with the babies. The little girl had a serious concussion and was kept in hospital. I called Mother again and cried and begged to be allowed to come home. I left the following day. Lola didn’t even say goodbye.’
She paused again.
‘There is something wrong with Lola. She has never been like other people. At
home she lied all the time. About little insignificant things, too. It was as if she wanted to show that she could make people believe anything. She was proud of it, like it was a valuable skill. She was very good-looking, too, and when she smiled and said something, everybody believed her. It’s an illness. Of course, sooner or later she gets exposed for what she is and has to move on. Find a new audience. In her sick world there’s no room for anybody else. Her relationships have all been short and violent. Her children had awful childhoods. The twins might have done a little better because they were fostered out when they were little, and later adopted. But the other two must have suffered terribly, even though nothing was ever reported. And now they are both dead.’
She took a sip of water.
‘What I would like to say is that Lola should never have been allowed to care for a child. I have never met her grandchild, but I would have offered to take him in if I had been able to. I have thought about it carefully, and I simply can’t. I have four children and my youngest is handicapped after a brain injury. My husband and I don’t think we can give Mika the care he needs and deserves.’
I took a deep breath.
‘When I listened to what Marion said I could see how much she seems to care. I’m convinced she really loves this little boy, and I think he would get the very best care in her home.’
She looked at us all around the table.
‘It is not my decision of course. But I’d like to state that Mika’s family, as represented by me, fully support Marion’s appeal. I hope this helps.’
She turned to me.
‘And I look forward to staying in touch.’
She smiled at me. As if she assumed that all would go well.
The man from CYF and his colleague ended the meeting, stating that they had made a note of our statements and that a decision would likely be made within a couple of days. Then we all said our goodbyes.
I would have liked to talk to Nina but she had to rush off – her husband was waiting outside. She gave me a quick hug and a peck on the cheek.
Memory of Love (9781101603024) Page 18
