Adam preferred Woodward Street before it was paved and perfect. He’d loved the turn-around platform, a unique feature at the top of the street whereby a car could successfully be spun around to face downhill. Instead, now there was a stainless-steel spinning top, decorative, not useful — and a touch of magic, a hint of carnival was missing.
And while Hagen sighed and sipped and ogled, Adam reminisced.
Italy with Judy, in July. Sunshine, Galliano, and plans for a future. Judy, refusing to throw coins into the Trevi Fountain to ensure their return to Rome, on the basis that she didn’t want superstition to spoil a great day. He, on the other hand, had stood with his back to the fountain (as you were supposed to) and thrown handfuls of loose change — lire back then, lire and lollies — into the fountain. The latter had been part of the change he’d been given when the amount owed was so small that lollies and lire became interchangeable. It all seemed such a shame now to think of euros. Half the fun of travel was border control and bartering a decent exchange rate, not to mention the collection of coins you ended up with: keepsakes worth more to the heart’s memory than ever they were in currency. Louise was always threatening to throw out his coin collection. But he knew she wouldn’t. She knew where to draw the line.
Adam could have kicked himself. What was going on? All this useless reminiscing. He’d mastered the art of not looking back and suddenly, all he was doing was looking back. First the woman in the Leyland and then the sad old stuffed kiwi in a courier bag. And just to show he was right in the moment, there with Hagen, watching women walk up Woodward Street, he leapt up and ordered another pinot for the two of them.
In his haste, Adam jostled fellow patrons and on returning with the wines, he somehow flicked three large red wine drops on to Hagen’s bright white shirt. Three red teardrops that turned from burgundy to pink, to purple as they settled on the finely woven high-quality cotton thread. Hagen was an easy-going sort of person except when it came to matters of appearance, his own in particular.
‘Fandens,’ said Hagen (and oh fuck, thought Adam).
‘Well,’ said Hagen, recovering quickly and smacking Adam on the back. ‘This just means we will have to settle in for a bit. If I’m going home splashed in vine, I may as vell drink some of it.’
Bugger, thought Adam, but he grinned instead. He knew that the next stage of a night out with Hagen would be meaningful conversation. Hagen (unlike most men Adam knew) liked to get to the heart of the matter. Especially matters of the heart. He enjoyed speculating about other people’s lives, in particular their relationships. It was an irritating aspect of Hagen and Nakita, the way they analysed other people. But it was always seasoned with humour and, in spite of himself, Adam enjoyed the occasional voyeuristic journey.
So they laughed until they cried (that was what a good pinot could do) about a friend of Hagen’s who had his wife’s torso (bust actually) cast in bronze and placed at the top of his townhouse staircase in Oriental Bay. Tittle-tattle, they called it, and laughed uproariously at their own joke, and then titillating, which made them laugh even more … and then the more they laughed, the funnier the idea of anyone’s breasts in bronze on a staircase became. Adam had imagined first Judy’s (pert, lopsided, a B cup) and then Louise’s (less pert, more ample — what a great word — and generally a C cup trying to be a B). For a moment, Adam imagined Nakita’s breasts in bronze, but she was a D cup if ever there was one, and somehow he thought the whole thing would be a) too expensive and b) probably a bit crude. No, on balance, Louise in bronze. Then, instead of nipples, he saw flashing neon signs: the left breast for managed funds and the right advertising Why Not Wellington?, a new project Louise was involved in with the city council (controversial but, according to Louise, endless funds if they got the go-ahead). None of it mattered; all of these thoughts were just fleeting fantasies. What mattered was here and now. Hagen and Adam laughing, mates — well, as good as.
After another wine, as always happened with Hagen, he became sentimental and began reminiscing about his Denmark, Århus in the summer when the temperatures soared to forty degrees in the shade (something Adam never quite believed), and how when Hagen went to Copenhagen as a young man setting out in life … the vending machines had a choice of chocolate, a banana, or a porn magazine. Denmark, according to Hagen, was way ahead of its time. And of course if you were a Dane you took the banana; you could pick the tourists a mile off. Adam had always thought of Sweden in this light, but Hagen assured him that the real libertarians were the Danes. Easy-going; well, easy — if you listened to Hagen. He liked to promote the idea of the promiscuous Danes, which was an odd thing; because here was Hagen married to Nakita now for over twenty years.
After a third pinot, Hagen was on one of his favourite topics, his marriage and how successful it was. Nakita and Hagen had no children and Adam often wondered if this was the reason for their success, or if being so successful was the reason they had no children.
‘Solit as a roock.’
Hagen resorted to songs to define the important moments in his life. Even when he was peering at legs on stairs going up Woodward Street. Enighed gør stærk (something about agreement makes one strong, Hagen’s Danish version of the old adage ‘United we stand, divided we fall.’). And, when really sentimental about Nakita, he would launch into one of Abba’s songs about loving or leaving, with particular emphasis on ‘I do, I do, I do, I do, I do’, as if singing would convince him.
Actually, Hagen had a good voice. The whole romantic lyric thing was far too sentimental for Adam but it did bring back memories.
He was transported to the small suburban street of his own childhood. Art deco stucco homes with flat roofs, weatherboard bungalows, backyards with chooks and glasshouses, home-grown tomatoes. His mother’s new freezer outside on the patio, under an awning, but plugged illegally by an extension cord into a socket above his father’s shadow board. The freezer filled with club sandwiches and unfilled pastry cases, for special occasions like a twenty-first, a funeral or, one day perhaps, a wedding. And as it turned out, a wedding it was. But his mother was dead by then. Her freezer was still plugged in, though the backyard had been freshly paved and a new fence built. The new wife could sing like an angel, according to the neighbours. The night of the wedding, his stepmother sang ‘Danny Boy’ and it carried hauntingly out across the new subdivision behind them.
Adam’s father’s new wife’s voice rising above the concrete patio, over the backyard fences, invading the neighbourhood. ‘Too big for her boots.’ ‘Bit of a show-off.’ And then, months later, when someone called and found her washing her skimpy underwear in the kitchen sink, ‘Mutton dressed as lamb.’ His mum well and truly buried.
‘So, what’s this reunion?’
Hagen could do silence really well, but it usually meant he was waiting for his moment, ready to pounce, his curiosity and enthusiasm for personal contact winning over his comfort in silent companionship.
‘Ah, that’s a long story …’ Adam put his wine glass down and saw Louise’s face, disapproving, telling him to move on. Then he saw Judy standing in the duty-free store, triumphant, clutching the stuffed kiwi. Look what I’ve found. It’ll be the perfect gift. But for whom? he had asked and she’d explained to him patiently, Just in case, Adam, just in case. You have to be prepared. She’d bought three greenstone tikis and some paua shell as well. They were travellers now. And they had to travel bearing gifts. Even Captain Cook had exchanged muskets for cloaks and they were now on the reverse journey, heading to the motherland: they had to take something that identified them as Kiwis.
Now, in a master-stroke of diversion, Adam remembered Frankie’s school project.
‘Hagen, help me out. Frankie has a school project to complete. They’re researching the impact of World War Two on the next generation in Europe. You’re the closest thing to it, my friend.’
And just to ensure that Hagen took the bait, Adam leaned forward and punched Hagen lightly on the shoulder. Hagen was a s
ucker for it. He settled back and even stopped watching the window for legs. A storyteller and proud of his European heritage, he began with an anecdote about his dad — one of the five thousand Danish sailors who had joined the Allied effort near the end of the war — and wound backwards to the Danish neutrality during World War One. Justification appeared to be his main thrust. It was as if he wanted to counter any notion that the Danes had been passive in the fight against Hitler. You would have thought Hagen himself had been there, involved in industrial sabotage, disrupting the Nazi occupation, a key member of the resistance.
When Adam arrived home, Louise and Nakita were sitting at the kitchen buffet, drinking wine. Nakita had a way of drinking wine that made her look vulnerable. She swirled the glass clockwise and held it up to the light, and then just before her lips met the glass her tongue emerged — childlike, darting. It was endearing in a way, softened her often overbearing manner. She was instructing Louise on how to complete the first segment of her life-coaching questionnaire.
‘For example … see this question here … when my ideas are not accepted by others, I feel upset. You can tick either yes or no — yust do it without too much thought, respond to your gut instinct and then you will get the best results.’
Adam was happy to answer that one for Louise. It was a big tick on yes. Louise hated to be thwarted.
There was a moment or two when neither of them acknowledged his presence and yet he knew they knew he was there. Louise was wearing a close-fitting, finely woven pale blue top, no make-up, and a frown. Seriously sexy (but that could wait), and just as he decided he would slip away into the study …
‘Adam — would you consider helping me too?’
Nakita was beaming at him as if he were her next project. As if his saying no to her was beyond imagination.
‘N. O.’
He kept a neutral tone, not wanting to be offensive, but ensuring Nakita understood and managing to catch Louise’s eye.
Louise didn’t do subtle; she avoided nuance. ‘Adam thinks it’s a load of hogwash. Don’t you, Adam?’
Nakita, unfazed, turned her best empathetic expression on Adam. The one he dreaded. The meaningful eye contact, the smile gone now and the lower lip encroaching on the upper lip.
He’d seen the look before. (Maybe it was in the human resources handbook.) She’d been there. After Michael, picking up the pieces, encouraging reconciliation, rewarding confidence, ensuring they all got through. In situations like this, he realised, people became lifelong friends, or you lost them forever.
He smiled at Nakita in an attempt to neutralise her empathy.
‘We’ve eaten.’ Louise gestured towards the buffet, where Adam’s dinner sat under a blue and white Ruth Pretty tea towel. He lifted the tea towel and there was doubled-smoked ham in thick chunks with new potatoes (cold) and minted peas (he sniffed) and a scruffy little left-over salad. He lifted up the almost-empty wine bottle — a not-so-scruffy gewürtz (Louise didn’t skimp on wines) — and poured what turned out to be half a glass of wine.
Frankie walked by, leaned over and peered at Adam’s food.
‘We had chips with ours. Are you on a diet?’
And she poked his belly and received a rebuke from Louise by way of a distracted frown. But at least a poke in the belly was contact and affection and he didn’t mind in the least. He knew his growing paunch was a source of amusement to Frankie. It cheered him up no end that being a bit overweight was not a deterrent when it came to his parenting. And he mourned the chips he hadn’t been offered and ate the boiled potatoes with a larger than usual dollop of butter, just to show — who, he didn’t know — but just to show.
Tonight, he was in the mood. Bugger Europe and bugger Martin. He should check out details of a client in Tahiti, but he wasn’t going to.
He was ready for affection. Louise in blue tonight had unsettled him. Their relationship was mostly about spaces and their places. They balanced intimacy with independence, a see-saw. He wanted that, hated taking anything for granted any more, and tonight he wanted Louise.
In the bathroom, he patted his paunch, a conciliatory gesture to both him and it. He sucked in his breath and pulled back his shoulders, then slapped on some aftershave and strode into the bedroom naked (perhaps his Tarzan routine, perhaps not?). Louise placed the book she was reading on the side table, lowered her lids and smiled. It was all on. It was all about timing.
Louise on top tonight. Ah well, that was what had attracted him in the first place. And he closed his eyes and imagined Paris, of all people — well, it was only fleeting, and not like the other night when Heather popped up. And, as always, in the final throes, he always knew it was Louise: she made such a bloody great noise.
Whew. Roll over, say thank you — and work in the morning.
Louise turned her back (she always did) and rolled into a foetal curl that excluded him.
‘Oh, by the way.’ Her voice was muffled, half asleep already. ‘Nakita is having us all to dinner next Saturday … you, me, Judy and Phillip. She thinks it’s a good idea to get us all together before the reunion — knowing how you feel about Phillip and all that.’
His first reaction was what the fuck but he didn’t say it. Typical Nakita to think she knew what was best for all of them. She’d tried the dinner-party healing trick years ago and failed, so why was it going to work now? They had a truce; Louise and Judy were friends. Adam and Phillip were not. Anyway, why had Louise told Nakita about the reunion … or perhaps it was Judy? He could see Phillip now, clutch-bag, pinstripe suit, all concern and creativity. Hardly a man’s man. It wasn’t that he disliked Phillip; he just didn’t care for him. He certainly wasn’t good enough for Judy, not half.
She looked well, he had to admit — Judy doing the crossword at Toast, delighted to see him. They were friends. Funny how life gave you what you wanted in ways you hadn’t quite imagined.
Adam fell asleep on a note of triumph, but not before reaching out with his right foot and nudging Louise, who nestled back a little and allowed him the comfort of her foot, the warmth of her leg.
He was dreaming: seaweed the colour of aubergines and Louise a phosphorescent blue mermaid … then he saw scruffy sheep, fluffy lambs and a bantam rooster, sliced and chopped silver beech, a rusty red iron fence, a stand of pines, and sheep shit sprinkled like freckles on the lawn. He’d lost his mobile phone somewhere in the sheep shit and the panic set his heart to pounding, followed by relief because of course, he had a SIM card, and then more panic as he discovered he’d eaten his SIM card. He woke, sweating, and his mobile phone was bleeping in a low, monotonous, flat-battery bleep.
Louise rolled over and growled at him, flinging an arm up as if to direct or chastise him. Then she rolled back on her stomach and pushed her pillow up and out of the way so that she lay face down on the sheet. Hearing a muffled groan, he lifted his side of the duvet carefully — trying not to dislodge all the warm air — and slipped his feet on to the cold, varnished floor. Even his bones seemed to creak and the floorboards responded in kind. Without a light to guide him, he caught his knee on the corner of the bed (fuck). He’d said it under his breath but Louise heard him.
‘Fuck yourself.’ From she who never swore, except at night and in the dark — and then usually as encouragement, not censure. The green light on his mobile flicked and winked and he pushed Bluetooth instead of off, and ended up with a screen full of possibilities flashing greyish into the black. He was fully awake, alert and relieved. The dream world was a stark and potent contrast — the sweat real, but swallowing his SIM card evidently not. Louise moved her head from side to side on the cool sheet, her hurry back to bed I’m trying to sleep gesture. He did. He even rubbed her bum, because even when she was shitty, she couldn’t resist a bum-rub. Louise groaned and he wasn’t sure if it was in annoyance or delight, but he didn’t care. He was alert and ready and patient.
Chapter Six
Louise had a flash office on the fourth floor of a new building down by
the wharf. It cost an arm and a leg, but she said that in public relations, position was all about perception (or was it the other way around? He could never remember). Louise wasn’t often brittle, but when she trotted out this adage, there was a certain finger-clicking tone to it that he disliked. She was hanging out for the Why Not Wellington? contract, which by itself would cover the rental. The location was close to one of the plaques on the Wellington Writers Walk, featuring someone she admired and knew (of course). Louise liked to flaunt her literary connections. Her MA stint at Vic in the very early eighties had been a period of ferment. Fermentation: the bubbling and redistribution of people, the ebb and flow of influence — a bit like sex with Louise … sometimes on top, sometimes not, but Louise calling the shots (although she never said that bit).
It wasn’t the sea view that mattered, she said, so much as the view of her PR company that a sea view would bring. Their two worlds couldn’t be further apart really — his factory floor with cheap imported labour and her floor-to-ceiling-glass office that could probably house half his factory. Mind you, when they first met, it was her flash office and flippant philosophies that appealed. Flippancy was like whipped cream in a fresh doughnut, instead of the stale mess his marriage to Judy had become.
This morning he was here to help. Louise wanted pictures moved from one wall to another and a desk relocated from one room to another. He was her altmuligmand — a saying they had picked up from Hagen — something about making all things possible. Boiling it down to something less romantic, it meant that when Louise needed muscle power, she called on Adam. Her ex-husband had been a builder and he’d done all the heavy lifting and shifting, and it was assumed that as well as playing Dam to Vanessa and Frankie, Adam would fill this role. And he did. He loved being this necessary. He enjoyed flexing his muscles while the poofters she employed to write copy sat about in flash suits drinking takeaway coffees — their desks festooned with laptops, mobiles and palm pilots — all talking to one another (the gadgets: the suits were silent). He preferred Sergio knowing fuck all and even Martin’s smugness to this slickness.
Turbulence Page 5
