Yes, surely.
Completing the PAYE alerted him to the ever-expanding wage bill (temps). A quick assessment of profit and loss confirmed yet again that he was treading water, staying afloat, but hardly freestyling to the finish line.
His breakfast bacon and eggs required an antacid tablet to assist their journey beyond the vicinity of his chest wall, where there was a niggling discomfort. This was new. He didn’t think it was serious, but he did regret the fourth bacon rasher.
The disgruntled employee he’d seen at reception had an appointment with him this afternoon. It was all about Martin. Paris wanted to talk to him too — about Martin. Heather happily conveyed both messages. Adam was king of a crumbling castle. He was Humpty Dumpty (looking at his growing paunch), about to fall off the wall and not a king’s horse in sight. From the classics to a nursery rhyme — this was his life.
What was that show? The man in his tuxedo, clasping the leather-bound volume, inviting friends and family on stage to surprise some poor unsuspecting git? The latter was either Man Alone or an over-achieving sportsman now living offshore. When did you ever see the ordinary bloke, the man in the street, the public servant, the manager of the local factory (surrounded by his secrets and sadness), applauded for surviving?
Ladies and gentleman, tonight we are surrounded by the carnage, the fall-out, the genuine mistakes of an ordinary man from the suburbs. He started out with more advantages than most. A beautiful wife, a happy childhood. And look, just look what he’s done with it. It takes a lot of effort to get here …
The phone went, Paris put her head around the door and Martin beckoned Adam from across the corridor. His mobile beeped and the task bar on his computer popped up with several reminders. The antacid had taken effect. He breathed deeply, had a surge of goodwill, and attempted to prioritise.
Martin stood in front of him looking nervous. This made Adam nervous. He relied on Martin to sneer at him, not to be afraid of him. Perhaps the situation with Paris was serious. He closed the door. Martin fiddled with his tie, which wasn’t unusual, but instead of annoying Adam, it earned Martin compassion. The tie-fiddling had an anxious edge to it. Martin’s arrogance had wilted, was curling at the edges.
‘She’s blackmailing me.’
That was a serious accusation.
‘Over what?’
‘She’s claiming sexual harassment.’
‘And?’
‘Oh, no grounds whatsoever. I mean we flirted with each other electronically, but I’ve never laid a hand on her.’
‘How, Martin, can you flirt electronically?’
‘Jokes, mainly, just jokes.’
‘What sort of jokes?’
‘I thought she had a sense of humour.’
‘And you’re the one who wrote the policy on internet usage … you can see the irony here, Martin?’
‘Butt-covering, only covering butt … I mean if she didn’t like the jokes, she could have deleted them. Actually, that’s what she has done — deleted her own responses to me, so that it looks like I’ve been harassing her.’
‘And have you?’
‘Oh Christ, Adam, just normal stuff. She was part of it, enjoying it, and now … who knows what’s brought this on?’
‘You do!’
‘Well, yes, I suppose it could be the new temp. She’s rarked up Ajax about his rights and rates and now she’s moved on to Paris. Reckons Paris isn’t getting enough training and development and Ajax ought to be earning the same as the qualified engineers because he’s doing the same job.’
Oh, great: he was paying Heather full-time wages to work part-time while recovering from OOS (rather than make an ACC claim, which would up his levies and create a paper war). And now he had three employees doing the one job, and one of those three was spending most of her time creating havoc.
He’d phone the agency and end the troublemaker’s contract, Adam decided, and Martin would need to apologise to Paris. And before he did any of that, he’d phone his lawyer and check out the ramifications of Paris’s allegations and ending the temp contract. Always best to check the lie of the legal land before making major decisions. He hated lining his lawyer’s pocket, but she was worth her weight in … maybe nowadays they said bling, not gold. Whatever, he relied on her.
What annoyed him about the political studies student stirring up trouble was that if Ajax was paid trade rates, that would mean the trade-qualified staff would want a raise, and before he knew it, the unprofitable factory he was running would be closed. Perhaps Ajax had forgotten about the return trips to Samoa (tax-free — Adam had put them down as market research), not to mention the overtime, and a promise to employ his cousin who was due out next month (no visa, but Adam knew how to circumvent the red tape).
Yes, Ajax came at a good price. Yes, he relied on Ajax being unqualified and unable to find another job. Yes, he could tick all the boxes. He was exploiting the Polynesian workforce for his own evil ends. Except, it seemed to him, he worked just as hard as anyone else in the factory (give or take a few late mornings) and, if push came to shove, he knew how to work the lathe (which was more than Martin did, for all his engineering qualifications). Not to mention that the student causing this trouble was dropped off in the mornings by her mother driving a monstrous black SUV with tinted windows. He wondered how they earned their money.
Martin agreed to apologise without reservation to Paris. He wasn’t to mention the emails or the blackmail. He was simply to address his own inappropriate behaviour: sending sexist jokes using the company email system. And while he was at it, he should redraft his own internet policy and post it online, set an example.
Adam spent fewer than ten minutes talking to his lawyer and over an hour faxing documents through to her office, incurring a bill of over one thousand dollars. Before he had even completed this process, Paris and Martin were seen laughing happily at reception and, according to Heather, hugging. Good one, Martin. Why not go right ahead and add to your woes by hugging Paris?
Just to round off Adam’s fruitful day, the political studies temp resigned without notice, thereby rendering his lawyer’s careful, costly scrutiny of the contract unnecessary. It went against all of her principles to remain in such a politically incorrect work environment.
Adam insisted that the employment agency not send a replacement and spent another half-hour discussing the rights and wrongs of employment contracts with the recruitment agency, who were insisting he had signed off on a three-month contract and they had the right to replace.
Out there, somewhere, men of greater fame and fortune trod the boardrooms of successful enterprises and made the headlines. He tried not to be envious, bitter or even resentful. He walked around the factory late in the afternoon to breathe in the fumes that had once fuelled his grand passion. Ajax was happily training a new immigrant on the lathe and called out to Adam with unreserved warmth; he stood and admired the skill with which the two men operated the machine. They were filing. The floor around them was spotless. Ajax had laid paper to collect the filings. His hair was up in a shower-cap (covering his dreadlocks), and both he and the trainee were wearing regulation goggles. It wasn’t a flash factory, but this was art, and they were the artisans. Adam should have worn earmuffs, but he liked the noise — the noise and the smell. His legs ached on the concrete floor after ten minutes, but even that was reliable and comforting. Aching legs were predictable, his veins not quite varicose but sore enough to testify to his years on the factory floor; a knot by his knee that might also be the start of something. Ajax eyed Adam, acknowledging him and inviting him closer to admire his mastery of the lathe. In this, they were equals. Actually, Ajax was superior but he didn’t flaunt this, just enjoyed acknowledgement. The new recruit was sweating with concentration. It was a delicate operation in spite of the hefty machinery. The end result was akin to a work of art. They all admired it: a cylinder, tamed into shape with perseverance and a loving sort of patience for the finished product. Ajax insisted Adam touch
the cylinder and feel the smooth finish. The new recruit tentatively touched one end, and Adam joined him in stroking the cold, perfect steel.
He was hungry again. The bacon and eggs had subsided, and with all the unexpected meetings he’d forgotten to eat his lunch. He had tins of tuna stacked in his broom cupboard (a tribute to his plan for a diet one day), but what he really fancied was a sausage roll. Martin had fêted the recruiters with savouries that morning and Adam had seen two left-over pastries on a plate in the production room. He could hear phones ringing and wondered where Paris was. The sausage rolls were nowhere to be found. He headed for the kitchen, but made a quick detour when he noticed Paris and Martin by the fridge in what could only be described as a clincher. On his way back to his office, he passed Zeus, whose cage was strewn with singed paper — or was that pastry? It was five o’clock and he still hadn’t made a dent in the tax returns.
He had made a commitment after Michael’s death, and the death of his marriage, never to let the factory run his life. As a result he had a mediocre business that made a good enough income and afforded him time with his family. Now he phoned Louise and promised takeaway Thai, which he would pick up when he left the office at six. He would phone his favourite restaurant in Petone and order his favourite green curry, stuffed chicken wings for Frankie, fish dishes for Ness and Louise. And while waiting for the food, he would grab a video across the road.
In the right frame of mind, he managed twice as much work in one hour as he had the rest of the day.
They watched Dr Zhivago as a family, and marvelled at the intensity of the blue of Julie Christie’s eyes, laughed (the girls) at Omar Sharif’s moustache, paused and reran the sleigh-ride four times until they were all singing ‘Lara’s Theme’ (even Ness). Frankie sat, chin cupped in her hands, head on a tilt; Ness held her hand over her mouth as if to hold back her sense of wonder; and Louise nestled her thigh against Adam on and off, just long enough to advise and short enough to surprise. For a night, romance was king, and being Adam was enough.
It was way after midnight when the movie finished. In bed, Louise had a surprise. Not what he had been expecting. The saga of Frankie and her father had progressed. Louise sat up in the dark unsupported by her pillows. ‘Lara’s Theme’ faded as Adam listened. Frankie had decided she liked Caitlin’s mum’s version of her life. She was now telling everyone that Adam was her real dad.
A part of him, for a moment, was overjoyed, but he was not stupid enough to indulge that sentiment for too long. He could hear that Louise was unprepared for this development and uncertain how to handle it.
‘It’s a lie.’
‘Yes, but isn’t that what we’d do at her age?’ He was trying to remember back that far — and of course he’d been a boy, not a girl, so how would he know?
‘It’s a lie, Adam.’
‘She’s trying to punish her real dad for ignoring her.’
‘That’s what Ness says, but it’s not that simple.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I think she believes it.’
‘Why don’t you talk to her father about it?’
Wrong move. Adam knew immediately, but it was too late to retract. Louise had given up on George when he’d crossed the Tasman. She felt betrayed (Adam had never had the courage to point out that it was Louise who had been the betrayer).
‘For Frankie’s sake.’
He was pushing his luck, he knew. But surely Louise could see that she was as much a part of this fantasy as Frankie. They both were. They had created a family together out of what was left of both their families. And now Judy and George were pushing their way back into their lives, confronting them with a past they were trying very hard to forget.
‘Everything I’ve done has been for the girls.’
The words were stark and somehow, he thought, directed at him. As if her being here with him was entirely about the girls, a practical thing, that had nothing to do with a Russian winter, sleigh-rides; the particular shade of any blue eye.
And then, having offloaded with a minimum of emotion, and just as Adam’s hopes for the night were fading, she straddled him, pinned his arms (and a small cynical part of him fought unsuccessfully with the less cynical and not so small part of him) as she rode them both to a happy conclusion. Was it all that simple for her?
Practical outcomes for everyone.
Lying silently together, just touching, they heard muffled cries from Frankie’s room, footsteps and the soothing voice of Ness, a door closing. Louise folded a smoothly shaven leg across his stomach, placed her head on his chest, and wept quietly. He didn’t move, not even to hold her; so sacred and important were these tears, he was bathing in them.
They all slept, it seemed, forever. The morning was a crisis of mismatched awakenings and ill-timed showering; cross, tired faces; and a scramble for food. A normal family trying with the very best of intentions to get out the door to school and work, each person shrouded like an early morning chrysalis. They would slowly hatch throughout the day.
On the way to work, Adam remembered Martin and Paris in the kitchen and decided he would ignore this. He would save it up as Paris had saved her emails: should he need the ammunition, then it could be loaded. Perhaps they loved each other — but he didn’t think so. The human species had an inbuilt capacity for self-destruction, carefully camouflaged as the biology of reproduction. Love: well, that was constantly up for debate.
Chapter Twelve
His father had loved his mother. How did Adam know this? He moved from the fast lane in behind a petrol tanker to mull this over. How was love identified?
Building a shadow box; planing the wood; sweeping up the shavings (beyond the call of duty); not complaining when Adam’s mother frowned, bit her lip and admitted that the lovingly crafted piece of joinery didn’t quite fit where he had hung it and was perhaps even a bit too big.
How to make a shadow box smaller? His father outside in the autumn evening; smacking the back of his pipe on the concrete step that led to the shed; scratching his head; working out how to reassemble the wood pieces.
His mother accepting admiration for her Lladro collection (three pieces actually) when Mrs Schwass — or the Reverend Roe, or Aunty June — was invited into the front room. His dad’s name spoken with just a hint of wonder at her own good fortune, as she explained that Arthur made the shadow box.
A cake of dark fruit-and-nut chocolate cost two and six, and could last a whole Saturday afternoon. There were warnings of course with the diabetic neighbour with the bulging eyes, but his mother had a sweet tooth, and every Saturday his father bought her a cake of the same dark and bitter-tasting chocolate. She received it with the same twinkle of surprise each time, as if she’d never been given a whole cake of chocolate before.
Adam’s father remarried quickly after his mother died. A lot of people commented. Adam realised later that true love didn’t grieve in the same way as unrequited love. True love meant you moved on easily to new love, with no regrets. He was wary of those who cried of great lost loves, because there was always a hint of suspicion that perhaps the relationship had been flawed, and this was the real grief.
His father’s second marriage was a happy one. That Adam didn’t get on with his stepmother didn’t impinge on his father’s happiness. She and Adam had a pact of sorts. They tended to ignore one another, and as soon as he could, he left home and went flatting. And then he was grateful that his father was loved. It didn’t matter who he loved. That realisation was enough to lower the barrier and his feelings for his stepmother over the years became a sort of love, though he’d never really thought about it.
People often had their romantic legends. Him and Judy (at school): her bicycle wheel locked sideways, preventing his exit from the bike shed … her handlebars weighed down with a satchel full of library books — by the time she’d unhooked the satchel, he was hooked. Him and Louise (at diving school): it started with her wetsuit zipper — at the time he’d focused on her laugh
ter, but there in the edges of his memory was the complication of desire. His mother and father (the end of a war): Arthur home from Japan, with strings of real pearls. Adam’s mother, engaged to another man, offering to bite one of the pearl necklaces to see if it was real or not. It was the sight of her teeth on the pearl necklace, Arthur always said. Perhaps Adam was not so unlike his dad. He remembered Louise and the tune she’d picked out on her teeth, her manicured nail clip-clipping the back of her front teeth, with the hush-rush of the sea for orchestral backing.
His stepmother’s story was far less romantic — and quite silly, Adam always thought. His father had bought a brand-new sports car with sharp lines (a Sunbeam Rapier) soon after Adam’s mum had died (people talked about this — the sheer audacity of a new car at such a time). They’d been necking on a knoll above the city (a well-known knoll at that) and Arthur’s bum had pressed against the cigarette lighter — a particular feature of the new car — and the ensuing smell of burning doused their own romantic fire, first with concern and then with hilarity. His stepmother and Arthur still laughed about it.
Adam allowed a smile to escape; recognised, finally, what a marvellous name for a car Sunbeam Rapier was.
Martin arrived on his bike at precisely the moment Adam drew into the yard. He waved enthusiastically at Adam and parked his cycle discreetly out of the way, offering no challenge. Adam was disappointed for a moment, and then relieved.
‘All sorted with Paris.’ Martin said.
All sorted, thought Adam. ‘All sorted?’ he said aloud.
He’d tried for a statement rather than a query, but failed. Martin ignored the hovering question mark.
Turbulence Page 12
