Turbulence

by Maggie Rainey-Smith

  And as any good bloke would do, Adam swallowed his indignation and ordered more beer, over here, in a loud and nearly happy voice, because nearly happy was what he and Hagen could do.

  Neither of them was sober enough to drive home. Adam considered his options. Sit it out and sober up … grab a cab … text Ness and see if she was still up at the uni library. And that was when he remembered Frankie. He’d committed in his heart to being there tonight (failed again), but it wasn’t too late. Hagen had dialled Nakita, who was coming down to pick them up. The last person Adam needed to see right now was Nakita, so he told a little white lie.

  ‘Ness says she can do a detour from the library.’

  Hagen probably sensed this wasn’t true, but he didn’t challenge Adam. They shook hands outside the men’s toilet and then embraced. Hagen’s bear hug was almost Adam’s undoing, but he managed to blink back beery tears and slap Hagen’s back, before dashing out to grab a cab.

  In the taxi, as the driver prattled on about the wonderful weather Wellington was having and Adam grunted assent, the beer-inspired tears took a course of their own, spilling on to his lap, wetting his thin-skinned hands and chafing his thick-skinned heart. He hadn’t cried (actually cried) since before Michael’s death. He wasn’t about to open the floodgates, as he wasn’t sure he could ever close them. But he indulged for a moment in wet sadness, in the back seat of the cab. He despised sad drunks, tipsy tears, maudlin men — and here he was, one of them.

  He arrived home full of remorse, and sobered up quickly at the sound of Frankie and Louise arguing. They rarely did, which he sometimes felt was more of a problem than it seemed. (It was normal for teenage girls to be rebellious, wasn’t it?) But now they were arguing or, at the very least, having a heated discussion. Perhaps about all the texting.

  Should he stay in or out of this?

  ‘I’m going to phone Caitlin’s mum.’

  Louise in charge. His action woman.

  ‘No, Mum, no. Please don’t do that!’

  Frankie sounded desperately unhappy. So unlike her.

  ‘People who spread malicious gossip need to face up —’

  Louise stopped mid-sentence. Adam had clumsily dropped his keys on the breakfast bar, intending to remain quiet and not to disturb them.

  ‘Is that you, Adam?’

  Her voice was less strident now, almost relieved.

  ‘Tisss me.’

  He was doing his very best light-hearted Dam voice for everyone’s benefit, but instead he just sounded tipsy. As luck would have it, this was just the solution required. Who needed antibodies, when a drunken husband and stepfather could dispel the poison?

  ‘Dam, you’re drunk.’

  Frankie was delighted. She ran to greet him (obviously as relieved as Louise to end the argument) and sniffed his breath and screwed up her nose in disgust.

  ‘I could get drunk off your breath.’

  His gorgeous Frankie restored him to delight. He was a complete wuss when it came to loving her. Soft as a boiled turnip, as Louise often said. He was sure she meant it as a compliment. Tonight the two of them approved him, encircled him, adored him, as if he alone was the answer to everything. It was a lot for a man to live up to, but he gave it his best shot.

  It was only later, when Frankie was in bed asleep (oh well, texting then) and Ness had gone upstairs to watch television, that Louise and Adam discussed the reason for the argument he had interrupted. He may have been tipsy when he arrived home, but he was very quickly sober when Louise explained what was going on. Sober and angry.

  ‘She what?’

  His voice was raised, and Louise bit her lip to quieten him, tilting her head to indicate that the girls might overhear.

  Ness called out from upstairs.

  ‘Anyone want to watch Six Feet Under?’

  ‘We’re off to bed.’

  It appeared, Louise told Adam in bed, that Frankie had confided in Caitlin about not hearing from her dad. But as with all important secrets, it was far too important to keep secret. Caitlin told her mum. Her mum then told Caitlin (in the strictest confidence) that, as far as she knew, Frankie’s dad was not the same dad that Ness had.

  God almighty.

  At last the rumour had surfaced. They’d always been grateful that Frankie’s real dad, in whose angry mind it had originated, had told only Louise his suspicions (well, that was what they had believed). Unfounded, untrue, but if you put words around any unfounded untruth, it began a journey of its own. George had left for Australia with this nasty untruth packed in his suitcase, they’d thought.

  So how the hell did Caitlin’s mum get hold of this?

  Caitlin’s mum’s ex was friends with George.

  Oh, yes, they’d all wondered at first. Louise, George and Adam. But from the moment of Frankie’s birth, it was obvious she belonged to George. Except it seemed to suit George not to notice. He wanted (as cuckolds do) someone to lash out at, someone to blame. Adam was with Judy grieving the loss of Michael, and George had given Louise another chance, but he never forgave and he never forgot. And when Frankie was three years old, he abandoned his family on the premise that he could never be sure, not really, that Frankie was his.

  Louise was too proud to suggest blood tests to prove her point. A woman knows was all she said to Adam. And he believed her. And now that Frankie was a young woman, it was plain to everyone (except her real father in Australia) just whose beautiful daughter she really was. She wore his nose, his skin and the line of his chin.

  ‘What did you tell Frankie?’

  ‘I told her the truth. What else is there? I told her George is her real father, but that George was angry because I had a relationship with you.’

  ‘And she’s not angry with me?’

  Selfish, he knew, but all Adam could think of was how this would affect his relationship with Frankie. He’d never tried to be her dad, just her Dam. He’d never lied to her. But she and Ness were as important to him as Michael had ever been. It seemed impossible, but right now he knew it was so.

  ‘Are you going to talk to Caitlin’s mum about this?’

  ‘I was going to, but Frankie has begged me not to. The less said, I suppose, the less this stupid untruth is given credence.’

  The truth rarely emerged unscathed. Even when it was presented as pristine, untainted by gossip, it was still a construct. As Adam had begun to see, the truth was not fixed and finite. It moved when you did, changed shape when you least expected and rearranged your view of it.

  There was some truth to his being Frankie’s dad, not a biological truth but, as far as he could tell, a more important truth. Damn and blast Caitlin’s mum. Damn and blast George, the fool. Damn and blast. Or, as Hagen might say, For fanden!

  Something strange was happening in his life. It was as if a storm had washed up all his personal debris. All the emotions (taken personally to the depths of the ocean, buried under hand-picked rocks) were now surfacing, bobbing about. Turbulence.

  He had serious regrets about the upcoming reunion, but it was planned now. Louise was looking forward to it: she loved Australia. He admired her pragmatism; he admired her. Of course he did. It was admiration that had led to all of this.

  Lying alongside Louise, he touched her at the side of her neck. He knew exactly where. He blew softly as if unfogging spectacles, and then he licked. Now might have been the time to talk about her feelings, but he was a coward, and he knew his way from the hollow in her neck to shelter. And to a different sort of turbulence — the sort that had started all of this.

  Sex restored him. Loving sex was something else: the shelter he sought.

  Louise looked like women do the morning after. He tried not to look smug.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘Dam-Dad I am, no egg, more ham,’ sang Adam.

  He did his very best dad-Dam routine this morning. Cooked eggs and fried bacon. Ness wasn’t eating this morning, but Frankie was. It was as if she wanted to say things were okay. She wolfed down two e
ggs and extra rashers and Louise didn’t even grumble that her eggs were too runny. Fat spluttered up on to his freshly ironed shirt (Louise — morning-after domestic goddess). He sponged it with a wet tea-towel, making the stain go darker instead of lighter. Now he had two stains: fat and wet. But he couldn’t care less. He ignored his mobile as it beeped two reminders, and switched it off midway through washing the fry-pan when he saw it was Martin. Frankie wanted a ride to school this morning. The factory would wait, but fatherhood would not.

  ‘Can I drive?’

  ‘Is the Pope a Catholic?’

  Frankie took advantage, though. She changed the radio station and took a detour past the local delicatessen. He forked out for a filled roll that she could have made at home and, when he dropped her off at school, she somehow got his permission to shop for a wetsuit on the weekend. Why not? Up until now she had been borrowing Ness’s wetsuit without any conflict, but he could see trouble brewing once Frankie got her diving certificate.

  Motoring out to the Hutt (late again), he enjoyed the lack of traffic, watched the Interislander doing lethargic manoeuvres around Somes and saw two tugboats greeting an oil tanker. It was busier on the water than the motorway — hardly a motorway really, just a small strip of grey flanking a much larger wash of green and blue. New Zealand was extraordinary because of the constant coastline. You took it for granted, mostly. But you couldn’t travel far without the curve and wash of the sea, a reminder of just how insignificant you were in the scheme of things.

  Waiting for him at reception were three recruitment consultants, a disgruntled employee and Zeus, closely followed by Heather in splints. Adam’s shirt had dried with a watermark the shape and size of Tonga (on a world map), and inside Tonga was the grease spot. Paris was wearing razor blades in her ears and behind her was Martin in his ‘Who Killed Kenny?’ tie. Yes, thank God for the coastline, his frame of reference.

  Luckily for him the three recruiters were all from the same company. Two smart young women and a tired suit who smirked at Adam as he apologised for keeping them waiting. He’d forgotten that Martin was trying to attract another engineering graduate to join the team. He hadn’t actually agreed to this, but now he would have to go through the motions.

  Zeus was captured by one of the recruiters — an enthusiastic redhead in high heels and a short black skirt, who beamed at Adam as she handed Zeus to Heather. It was a delicate exchange, as Heather had to embrace Zeus with her ample chest (rather than actually hold him in her hands), using her splints as a sort of platform for him to sit on. Adam sensed the redhead considered she had already scored brownie points for this unexpected act of kindness.

  Martin sauntered from behind reception and took over. He ushered the recruitment team into the boardroom (there was no board, but they had a room that masqueraded when required) and hinted to Adam that coffee would be a good idea. Adam looked at Paris, who looked at Heather, who just hugged Zeus a little tighter. So, it was his morning: he’d done breakfast, done the school drop — why not coffee as well? Why not, indeed? When he returned with a tray-load of mugs (two of them chipped) and a large pot of freshly plunged coffee, Martin was holding court with the recruiters. They were seated around the table, each of them with a black folder and a lined refill pad, writing down every single thing Martin said. Then, as if they had rehearsed it, or were part of a school play, all three took turns asking questions from a prompt sheet about company culture … benefits … performance appraisals … why there was a vacancy (why indeed?) … exit interviews. Martin responded (flirting with the redhead) eloquently, effortlessly, peddling the same line that Adam had peddled to Martin when he wooed him from university.

  Expansion, state-of-the-art, customer care, return on investment, user-friendly, win-win (it was musical if you ignored the words) … worker-friendly … free flu injections … Adam remembered pressing business elsewhere and excused himself politely.

  The recruitment company left a proposal for a three-week advertising campaign that was going to cost Adam more than his holiday in Australia. He wondered if he ought to shut the factory and take up recruitment. Three of them to take a job order … okay, so he didn’t pay for that, but how could they afford the time out of the office? Martin said they were specialists in the technical field and would attract graduates of the right calibre. In a candidate-driven market, this was the best way to tap into talent. Adam wasn’t sure just which talent Martin meant.

  Anyway, he had GST, fringe benefit (although just exactly whose fringe and what benefit?) and PAYE to do: the things that really kept a factory running. The Inland Revenue reports generated more work than Martin. One day overdue, and miscalculations meant penalties on an already stretched overdraft. The cash flow would ease up with the Tahitian bar-stool sales, if the down payment Martin had negotiated was forthcoming.

  Martin was unaware of how close to the wind they sailed, financially. Like all good employees, he seemed to think they not only manufactured bar stools, but money as well. And this suited Adam; after all, he was grooming Martin to take over the factory (overdraft included).

  The clutter he called life. Cynicism punctuating his reactions and thoughts about people. When did he allow this crankiness to be him? This morning, dropping Frankie off outside the school, succumbing to wheedling about a wetsuit — this was what really mattered. But without a factory he couldn’t afford a wetsuit and that wasn’t cynical, that was true. He wasn’t about to do a Landmark course, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to bang a tambourine and shout Hare Krishna, but there had to be something in between, something that stopped him turning into a complete bastard.

  Louise?

  They took each other for granted on purpose. Neither of them dared, really dared, to be vulnerable. Losing a child (his and Judy’s), losing a marriage (Louise’s to George, his to Judy) … these things meant you were careful next time. They were careful. The taking for granted was about practicalities. Being vulnerable (like last night) was a luxury. Last night was a window opened unexpectedly on to a still, sunlit morning; a hint of blossom in an otherwise stark garden. They could do it, he knew they could, but each of them was waiting for a lead from the other.

  And with that, he rustled in his raincoat for a ciggie. Breathed in, blew out, imagined smoke damage (momentarily), enjoyed the journey as the nicotine hit, erasing guilt, reaching … well, only a smoker knew where — you had to be one, damn it; and was glad, really glad, that his one visible vice was both a death threat and a life force. It was helpful to know his health was compromised. Who was he to live, anyway? And realistically he was choking to death with or without the ciggies.

  Heather must have caught a whiff. She couldn’t smoke wearing her splints. The next thing he knew, he was locked in his broom cupboard with Heather sniffing the air he exhaled. She said Paris was threatening to resign on the grounds of Martin’s improper attention. Lack of, Adam presumed, after the redhead got all of Martin’s attention this morning. But no, it seemed there was evidence in the form of emails, printed off by Paris and disputed vigorously by Martin. He claimed Paris had deleted her own messages of encouragement, leaving only a trail of what might be construed as sexual harassment. Clever Paris. Who would have thought it? She barely managed to direct phone calls to the right offices. And all the while she was storing emails from Martin. It had been Martin who insisted they have an email and internet policy and Adam who resisted.

  He blew one more exotic breath and Heather inhaled. The GST could wait no longer. He wondered, but only for a moment, if a wetsuit could become tax-deductible — Tahiti and all that — but he sensed that, with his luck, he would end up paying fringe benefit tax.

  On his computer keyboard was an orange Post-it note. The new temp (not the one who made the weak coffee) had a penchant for Post-it notes. Usually it was about ordering new stationery supplies, but this one read ‘Phone Judy’. How odd. Why would Judy phone, and why would the new temp leave a note, instead of Paris on reception sending a quick email mess
age? What could it mean? Urgency, priority or inefficiency? He couldn’t tell. But the rate at which his heart beat meant that any message to phone Judy was important.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She was sorry. Three weeks after spilling her guts all over Nakita’s dining table (not literally but it might as well have been). Adam was furious at first. It felt good. For so long, he’d been the one in the wrong. The fury now reached the space between trachea and vocal cords, but for some reason (blame the nicotine … blame sex with Louise … give Frankie the credit) he waited.

  ‘That’s okay. It wasn’t your fault either.’

  There, now he was trying to make Judy feel better. Relieved of his own guilt, he wanted to assuage hers.

  ‘It’s okay, Adam, I don’t need reassurance. I’ve worked this through. I just wanted to be honest … to be fair. I wish the best for you and Louise. I know you find it hard to believe, but I do.’

  She did, he knew, though he found that bit difficult. He’d like to say ‘Oh, I feel the same about you and Phillip.’ But he didn’t feel that, not yet anyway: he didn’t think Phillip was anywhere near good enough, prissy little poofter.

  ‘I’m happy again, Adam, truly happy.’

  Well, don’t go rubbing it in was what he thought.

  ‘You are?’

  The bastard in him forced a question into the response. He meant it to be affirmation, but something in him just couldn’t do it.

  ‘Thanks, Adam. See you in Oz.’

  She knew him too well. She wasn’t buying into it. She really was happy.

  He focused his resentment on the IRD. Phoned the call centre, abused one of the customer care people, and it felt good.

  What do you mean, I’m paying a penalty? I’m paying your goddamn wages.

  It felt good. It felt really good. He bawled out an enthusiastic call centre trainee who probably enjoyed the challenge and thought he was a prick: it was all a game, he was just a grumpy customer and the voice on the other end of the phone sounded amazed at the capacity for some nameless, faceless taxpayer to harbour so much resentment towards a government department. Surely the man needed to get a life!