‘Sexylicious.’
Caitlin’s verdict on the French toast was followed by high-pitched giggles. Her head was inclined towards Frankie, whose head was in turn inclined towards Caitlin … and as their heads touched, they erupted into another fit of giggles. Vanessa looked on with superior indifference. Louise admired the two giggling girls silently, even wistfully. Adam decided that Caitlin’s daft and dizzy behaviour was entirely appropriate for this morning. She needed encouragement. They all did. So he swooped on a piece of toast from the platter on the table and agreed, in his best don’t give a dad-Damn imitation, that the toast was indeed sexylicious. Louise started to frown, but seemed to sense he was only trying to humour her and Frankie (possibly himself, too) and she managed, instead, a weak smile. Louise was hurt, that was certain. Had Judy intended it? Was this revenge … or reconciliation?
They would have to talk about it. Reopen old wounds. Lift the scabs and poke around. He’d noticed of late, when he ripped his hand on a rose bush, that his skin was thinner and small wounds took longer to heal. In contrast, his heart-skin had grown thicker, like Pink Batts (blood-coloured insulation) — a necessary part of the architecture of his heart.
‘Dan Carter is sexylicious.’
‘Tana has the mana.’
‘Na, Ma’a’s the man, like … fresh.’
‘I quite like Richie McCaw.’ This from Louise, deadpan, and she didn’t even like rugby.
Adam fought back resentment. He did a quick inventory of Richie McCaw’s credentials and his own (the physical ones), came up short (height, too) and then castigated himself. It was great that Louise could stir resentment (okay, jealousy); still, in the context of last night’s misery, he was amazed at his own capacity for such pettiness.
‘Richie, eh?’ he heard himself respond, catching Caitlin’s eye (meaning to catch Louise’s). Caitlin squealed.
‘Ooh, my mum loves Richie, too.’
Caitlin’s mum would. Caitlin had the misfortune to have a mother who competed with her. Thankfully, Ness and Frankie didn’t have to contend with that as well as an absent dad. Caitlin’s mum stayed two steps ahead of her all the time which, instead of defeating Caitlin, would spur her on to what was destined to be failure. Mothers and daughters. Complicated stuff. But from where Adam sat, Louise did a good job. Her achievements coalesced comfortably with her sexuality, so that her attractiveness wasn’t the first (nor necessarily the last) feature you thought about. Caitlin’s mum, on the other hand, was all about allure.
Richie Bloody McCaw.
He could piss Louise off and say he fancied Caitlin’s mum. Oh, wouldn’t Caitlin love that (sadly yes, she would): girls like Caitlin expected their mothers to be fancied and now here he was, having lewd thoughts about Caitlin’s mum over breakfast. And lewd thoughts were the best antidote for an aching heart. Oh God, being male was sometimes so foolishly uncomplicated that he was grateful. Woman — the moon to his tides. Did that make him shallow? Possibly, but then who was measuring and what was the yardstick?
There was work to be done. With a bit of luck, his sweltering compost bin might yield nutrition for his roses. It was worth considering that tomorrow’s fertiliser was yesterday’s decay. Out of the waste, there was always something to salvage if you tended it carefully enough (worms, air and — as the garden book said — troubleshooting): it was all about balance really.
Judy had opened the can of worms and he wasn’t sure if the compost was quite ready or, more importantly, whether he preferred the decay with the lid on.
The only way forward had been to marry Louise, become Dam to Vanessa and Frankie. He had constructed a reality that Judy had now undermined.
Last night, oblivious to everything except her need to unburden herself, Judy had burned her hand on the hot potato dish. A blister formed on her index finger. Nakita had wanted to pop the blister, rushed out to put the kettle on so she could sterilise a needle, flapping as women do in a crisis (except the blister wasn’t the crisis). Judy held her finger up to the light to examine the swollen white flesh, touched it almost lovingly and declined Nakita’s offer. Everyone at the table became concerned about Judy’s blister. A small flesh blister offered them redemption; there was something they could do about it. But wounds like Michael’s death, Adam and Louise’s affair, Judy’s last words to Michael … these required specialist intervention, not first aid.
The coroner’s verdict had been ‘Accidental Death’, with blame given to the vehicle Adam was driving: the poor visibility due to the height and shape of the four-wheel drive. The accident was preventable, but Adam was not at fault. He’d wanted to claim responsibility, to scream at the judge, ‘I didn’t look!’
Judy wouldn’t let him.
She said he must not be a martyr for Michael, that she needed him. And because he didn’t want to be responsible for two deaths, he tried to breathe new life into his marriage.
At first, there was a form of euphoria that only the grief-stricken could understand. Heightened senses, new sensations of how it was to be human, and watching yourself and others anew. He and Judy found a kind of love and exploited it, tore at it, greedy for consolation, hungry for new bodily sensations to dull the sharp edge of thought. It worked fleetingly and then not at all. And then they tore at each other, until there was nothing left of their marriage but a bloodless carcass and they were both ready to call it quits. In the end it was peaceful, a relief, and they parted almost friends — the ‘almost’ was Michael between them, and he would always be there.
At first he and Louise avoided one another. He couldn’t even recall if Louise had been at Michael’s funeral. There was no contact, no explanation, just a mutual understanding that after something so awful, whatever they had together was now over.
How did Louise’s husband find out? George was friends with a guy who drove the dive boat. Someone Adam didn’t even recall meeting, still couldn’t place him. He was a friend of Caitlin’s mum. Adam had been so obsessed with Louise and his new-found love for diving that other people became peripheral to his passion.
In the end, the terrible end, Louise admitted she had never intended to woo Adam away. She had never planned to break up his marriage. The plan had been to save her marriage to George. Adam had been a pawn in this game plan. Sure, she fancied him (might even have loved him) but she had a family to look after. And in the aftermath, when George left, that family became Adam’s. Oh yes: Louise had a way of looking after her family.
Chapter Nine
Manufacturing was no longer fashionable, unless it was high-tech communication systems that could enhance third-world warmongering. The good old widget days were gone and the Hutt Valley was searching for answers, new opportunities, slogans to appease. This evening Adam was heading to a manufacturing seminar. He went to seminars to set a good example to Martin and not because he believed they mattered. A part of him admired those men who did believe, wished he was one of them: anaesthetised by foolish greed, always imagining the next great golden opportunity. He’d known one such man who used to sit outside in his car playing motivational tapes before he went to meetings, beating his own chest, repeating his mantra over and over.
‘I’m excited … I’m excited.’
And maybe he was.
Enough, enough, Adam thought. Out loud actually, but to himself, as he negotiated a busy intersection (the guy on his right mouthing bitch to some woman who had shot through without looking), and then trawled the street for a park. Suits were converging en masse on a tired little hotel (the conservatory circa 1980; cane chairs less Somerset Maugham, more discount garden centre). Pinstripes (oh God — Phillip lookalikes), greys, blues and then some browns — and to be fair, he was greyish-bluish-brown himself. This was the face of manufacturing. The cardigans had vanished and the faces too were greyish-blue. It reminded him why he had appointed Martin. Smart move. And there was Martin in his murder tie. This time Adam could admire his taste in ties because at least it demonstrated youth, progress, a future.<
br />
He made haste to catch up with Martin, who was now ahead of him and shaking hands with the guy who had mouthed bitch from his Mercedes. Adam had seen him before at business meetings but never quite connected. Up close his mouth was pinkish-blue, benign and immaculately closed. He opened it.
‘How’s business?’
Adam was about to respond, but Martin interjected.
‘Excellent. Excellent. Offshore orders coming thick and fast.’
Adam presumed Martin meant the Tahitian bar stools.
‘Economic boom in the valley, an economic boom,’ said the pinkish-blue mouth.
Martin was nodding enthusiastically. Adam couldn’t see how a rising New Zealand dollar (okay, so it dropped a bit last week) was anything to do with an economic boom. He knew, too, that if the dollar did drop he was still in trouble — importing. You took a bet both ways and you got hit both ways.
It turned out that the pinkish-blue mouth was a consultant to trade and industry in the valley — one of those failed businessmen who turned up invariably in the best cars and the worst suits, to offer advice to practical men like Adam. Louise would be in her element. She could spin with the best of them and keep her soul intact. He always felt slightly soiled after such encounters. Leave it to Martin. He could wipe the drivel off his chin afterwards with his bloody tie.
‘Very wonderful.’
He had no idea who said it, but whoever did repeated it.
‘Very wonderful.’
A waiter passed by with a tray-load of fat beer glasses full to overflowing. Adam helped himself to a light ale and alerted Martin with a sideways nod. But Martin and the other chap were leaning towards a waitress with a tray-load of wines. The local MP was working the room, glass of wine in hand, but not drinking. Adam despised politicians, though this chap wasn’t so bad. He was terribly earnest and well-meaning and less inclined to bullshit, unlike the mayor, who was now opening the meeting with waffle about the economic boom. Beside him the man with the pinkish-blue mouth was nodding and enthusing as if to say you took the words right out of my mouth. Adam realised he’d have to watch it; he was starting to think in song titles like Hagen.
They moved to seats in the front row. Martin was spokesperson for Galatea tonight. Adam’s heart was no longer in this sort of thing. He’d worked the floor and played the game too many times to take it seriously. Twenty years on and they were still debating the future of manufacturing when it was staring them all in the face: there wasn’t a future. Being practical was never going to make you rich. He could hear words like silver bullet … economic boom (again) … carbon tax … and beside him he saw a pair of stout tanned legs, feet in black patent-leather sandals. A small vein had split, flowering into a floral bruise. The tan was almost orange, probably out of a bottle.
‘We need to invest in technology; the future is technology.’
Martin was off on his hobby horse. He was probably right. Except that Adam had invested in Pacific Islanders. Married men with families; some of them trade qualified, some not. He saw himself in romantic terms, as landowners of old saw themselves managing their estates, looking out for the peasants. He knew it was paternalistic, outdated and probably faulty … but it was all he had. He sure as hell wasn’t making millions, so the idea that he provided work and income for others was a consolation.
Up front the speakers (all male) sat chin-fingering, ear-pulling, tie-stroking, pen-spinning, all waiting their turn to spout their own political treatise. Not one of them was listening; not one had even a skerrick of an idea about running a factory. Wouldn’t know shit from clay, when it boiled down to it.
Ah, but what they did know was what Martin knew (and Adam too): that change was in the wings. And Martin was the man to lead it. You had to know when to step back but Adam wasn’t ready … not quite yet.
A female voice interjected. The entire audience swung around to track the source, a young designer lamenting the loss of machinists and the cost of pattern-makers. Her voice was shaky, sweet and passionate. Her hands were trembling, too, as she read from a pre-prepared speech. Adam envied her passion, her youth, and her trembling hands.
Now Martin was reading his speech. All about the lack of technical training, the need for engineers — pushing his own bloody barrow again, and making a damn good show of it all, actually. Adam took a mouthful of beer and allowed himself a twinge of pride. After all, Martin was his protégé.
Applause followed Martin’s address and Adam basked in glory by association. Well done, Martin, he thought and was going to say it to the man himself, but the bloke with the pinkish-blue mouth was there, patting Martin on the back and introducing him to another suit (some other government-funded business group).
My tax bill pays your goddamn wages.
But he didn’t say it; he just sloped over to the bar and chatted to the woman with the bruised leg, who was an industry stalwart, a survivor, who managed to look glamorous in spite of her fake tan. They talked about safe things like kids and holidays and Adam found his heart lifting as he spoke about Frankie taking up diving, about teaching her to drive and Vanessa’s success in the Creative Writing course at Victoria. The woman had a son doing Law at Victoria and another son in London. They weren’t really engaging with one another; they were taking turns to tell each other and anyone else in earshot how wonderful their kids were, because if anything was worth making a fuss about, it was that. He warmed towards the woman with the bruised leg and tackled a waiter for wine for both of them. They settled in, talking about their children’s achievements — not competing exactly, but indulging and if not embellishing, then maybe just exaggerating (pride, love, call it what you want — might have been the wine).
He’d held the same dream once for Michael that he now held for Frankie and Ness. Not London or elsewhere overseas, not even university necessarily, just a life lived better and more bravely than his own.
Driving home from the meeting, Adam thought about the reunion, his life with Judy … top stream, childhood sweethearts, good-looking, in love, popular, happy.
None of these things prepared you for adulthood. Back when he’d met Judy, his life was full of possibilities and it made him generous, likeable, but ill-prepared for his future. A normal life could be envied until you recognised the pitfalls. Even failing at university (he lasted only six months at Canterbury) didn’t dent his prospects back then. Six months of Classics, just time enough to form a lasting friendship with the Greek gods. His interest piqued by the Pygmalion myth, he found work at a local foundry, imagined himself creating his very own works of love and art. He discovered he was better suited to physical labour while Judy excelled in History and English Literature, went on to complete Honours and continued loving him in his blue overalls, with his blackened hands. There was nothing in his past to account for his sad future. He had the world at his feet and a woman who loved him.
Judy, clever, blonde and loving. Her degree was an accessory, something a seriously beautiful blonde needed for respectability. So much love and beauty that a man could sink — and he did, though not straight away. Adam worked his way up through the foundry, waiting for Judy to complete her degree. He was just clever enough to stand out and just ordinary enough not to alienate his co-workers as he climbed the management ladder. It all came so easily.
Their love affair grew with the distance between them; improved, in fact. University holidays meant just enough time together to reinforce how gorgeous they were, how lucky, how much in love. Other men noticed Judy; other women wanted Adam. But they had each other and, instead of making them vain and self-centred, this made them generous. Back then, Adam didn’t question his good fortune, and neither did he take it for granted. It simply was. It made him care about the men on the factory floor who would never make management and who were stuck with ordinary wives and girlfriends.
He wanted more, they both did, and it was agreed they should travel. From Belgium to Budapest; from Rome to Russia; Dover to Dubrovnik; to Greece and Turke
y; and home again … fifteen countries in five months. So many photographs to prove they’d been there and endless reminiscing even years later, as if the European holiday had been the high point of everything. There were no photographs, though, to show he’d been unfaithful (briefly) on the tour.
The temple of Zeus was in a paddock below the Acropolis. (Perhaps it was a park, but it might as well have been a paddock.) Overland Adventurers was into its second week of travel. Twenty-five enthusiastic tourists, all under thirty, were looking up at the Acropolis on a clear day — as luck would have it — in Athens. And Adam insisted on a photograph of himself and Judy beside the temple, with the Acropolis in view.
Elena (a Latvian girl from Sydney) offered to take the photo. Adam really liked Elena. She was tall, blonde and somehow angular where Judy was round. A hefty girl was what his dad would’ve said. Elena was up every morning with her tent packed and stowed; she’d board the bus fully made up (including mascara), hair styled (wound on top of her head), long before anyone else stumbled out of bed. She was, like Adam and Judy, on her first overseas trip — if you didn’t count her flight from Latvia as a child of two with her widowed mum, some eighteen years prior.
Judy wrapped her arms around Adam’s waist, and together they squinted into the sunlight and towards Elena, who was struggling with framing both Zeus’s temple and the Acropolis. Adam unwrapped Judy from around his waist and stood beside Elena. He helped Elena adjust the lens, firstly focusing on Judy, then zooming towards the Acropolis. But mostly he was aware of silver-blonde hairs on Elena’s tanned arm and for a moment or two, while she learned about opening and closing the aperture, he imagined down there, silver-blonde … then he was beside Judy again, wrapped in her actually, reciting with her ‘snap it, Harry’ in his best American accent.
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