by Gee, Maurice
‘What was all that hammering?’ Athol appeared in the room, making her start.
‘I nailed up the cat-door. If you frighten me like that I’ll do the back door as well.’
‘Sorry.’ He went outside; inspected; came back. ‘That’s a rough job. Why didn’t you get a man to do it?’
‘I like to do my own repairs.’
‘Yeah, but things nailed up like that, it starts to take the value off a house. Isn’t there a catch you can lock a cat-door with?’
‘Yes,’ Gwen said, surprised, ‘there’s a pin inside. I forgot.’ She gave a single mirthless caw at her stupidity.
‘God,’ Athol said, ‘I give up.’
‘Yes, do. What is it, Athol? What do you want?’ Which was her welcome nowadays, where once she had pulled them in and kissed them and tried to make a difference in their lives.
‘I can’t go tonight,’ he said. ‘There’s something I can’t get out of.’
‘Do you want me to?’
‘Yes. I know you and Olivia were there this afternoon, but she doesn’t want me. She looks at me once and that’s that.’
‘Moving her eyes is all she can do.’
‘She talks to you. They told me.’
‘You’d hardly call it talking. I do the talking.’ I say, Hello, Ulla, I’m here, I’m holding your hand, I’ll kiss you now. And what do you say? she wanted to ask Athol, but did not because it was unfair. One could only be careful with Ulla now. Be alert but hold oneself in abeyance too. She was good at it, while Athol wanted to alter things by an act of denial, for his own benefit and – she must be fair – for Ulla’s too.
‘Yes, I’ll go. Does Damon … ?’
‘I don’t think it’s good for him to see her like that. I talked to Dad today. He wants Damon to go up.’
‘To Auckland, you mean?’
‘Yes. After his school year. He could be there for his holidays. And then maybe, next year … ’
‘Ulla will be in Auckland. At the spinal unit.’
‘I know, but by then it won’t be so … ’
‘Harrowing for him?’ Gwen said.
‘Yes. She’ll be … ’
‘Better adjusted?’
‘Jesus, Mum.’
‘What about Olivia?’
‘We thought – ’
‘You and Howie?’
‘Yes, we thought you and her, you could stay together. And Damon and Dad. That way … ’
‘The boys with the boys and the girls with the girls. What does Damon say?’
‘He’s all right. He knows Ulla will be going up.’
‘And you want Olivia and me – ? Was it Howie’s idea?’
‘No, both of us.’
‘You know he doesn’t have any say in my life?’
‘It’s not you we’re thinking about, it’s Olivia.’ She could only push Athol so far, then he showed his teeth.
‘I’ll have a talk with her and if I think it’s what she wants … but don’t you talk about me with Howie, I won’t have it. What was he down here for anyway?’
‘He’s got this deal, PDQ, the old Kitchener block.’
‘On Lambton Quay? Is that still on?’
‘It’s starting again. They thought they’d lost out to the Framework mob – you’re not interested in this, Mum.’
So Howie Powie wins again, with Dorio and Quested, PDQ. She had hoped he would be finished with Wellington and would keep himself to Auckland where he belonged.
‘How long does he spend here?’
‘Two or three days.’
‘At the Glencoul?’
‘It’s nothing flash. Just a room.’
‘And this time he thought he’d fit Ulla in? Did he visit her?’
‘It was a courtesy. He won’t be going back.’
Courtesy, she’d taught him. It was a word, a function, he had learned fairly well and that he put to good use now and then. But Gwen did not believe in it here. Involving himself with Ulla was likelier to be an act of imperialism. She was angry. But she could not entirely subtract good feeling from his visit. It came with his sentimentality.
‘Did he say anything about Gordon?’
‘Not much.’
‘How is Gordon?’
‘God, Mum, anyone would think he wasn’t your son.’
‘Well, how is he?’
‘Read the papers.’
‘Gordon’s just a little fish, isn’t he?’
‘That’s his best chance. He’s talking about a cheaper flat. And going on legal aid. Dad and I are going to have to pay for his lawyer.’
‘But you won’t pay his rent for him.’ Gwen knew exactly how far their charity would go. They would keep Gordon just afloat for as long as they could, and try to keep him clean, or the Peet name clean; then they’d let him sink. And perhaps would find a job for him when he came out, an office without windows at the end of the corridor.
‘He shouldn’t have played on the money-go-round,’ Athol said.
‘Isn’t that what Howie does?’
‘Dad’s in development. He’s doing a job.’
‘What about you? Are you doing a job?’
‘Lay off, Mum.’
‘You’re in the papers.’
‘My job is rental property.’
Fifty houses, Gwen thought. How many houses does a man need? Newtown, Mt Cook, Island Bay, Miramar: bits of Athol scattered all over Wellington. If you brought them together they’d make a suburb: Atholtown. And the people there all worried about their drains and their rent, and the rent flowing steadily into Athol’s pocket. But he would say, I’m giving people houses, I’m putting a roof over their heads. It’s simple business, supply and demand – which was true, but it had a flaw in it that she couldn’t see. You’d have to go right back to Athol for the flaw, and there it became too difficult.
‘This other thing is on the side,’ he said. ‘The Post will make a fuss but it was legitimate. My part was, anyway. All I did was make an investment.’
‘Is that what Mr Fox did, make an investment?’
‘Yes.’
‘But wasn’t he involved, as an engineer?’
‘It’s ancient history, Mum. He hasn’t done anything wrong.’
‘The opposition wants him to resign.’
‘They always want that. You’ve only got to – hiccup.’
He had almost used a coarser illustration. All her men were good at being coarse. What did Howie say about Neil Hopkins – he’s got a ten-foot flame shooting out his arse? Gordon and Athol had their little flames, propelling them all over the place like Christmas balloons shooting out their air. But Gordon hadn’t managed to ‘keep his nose clean’. She hated that, more than all the faecal and sex ones, because she had wiped too many infant noses and at times had seemed, as Howie said (leaving for work), up to her ankles in snot – which came from Gordon, there in court, and Athol here, lean and bald and brown, with a rat-trap mouth. His pink mouth was gone now, and his soft nose, from which everything that came, no matter how messy, had somehow seemed natural and clean.
She put the kettle on. She took a packet of chicken soup from the cupboard. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’ll talk to Olivia. She won’t be as comfortable here, you know.’
‘She would if you’d look after the place.’
‘I look after it my way. She can’t have the dog. He’ll have to stay over there with you.’
‘That won’t work.’
‘Why not?’
‘He sleeps on her bed. She’s soppy about him. You can’t ask her to stop now, not with Ulla … ’
‘I’ve just got rid of the cat, Athol. I don’t want a dog.’
He heard something weak in her voice. ‘We’ll see. What did you think of the identikit picture?’
‘It looked like James Dean. Didn’t they see the poster in her room?’
‘She told them that was what he was like. They seemed to think it was pretty useful.’
‘He had a more closed-in look than that.’
‘Even when they’ve got fingerprints?’
‘Fingerprints are no good if he hasn’t got a record. Dad wants to offer a reward.’
Gwen gave her mirthless caw again. Where had it come from, in a few days? Was it a response to Ulla, a statement that escaped? There was no amusement left even though funny things kept on happening. Howie would catch the burglar, catch James Dean. Funny, funny! He would buy Ulla a new spine if he could, and so would Athol – and at least they’d buy a special bed for when she came home, if she came, and turning and lifting devices, and an implanted receiver for her sacral nerve so she could pee, if that’s what she needed. Howie could visit her and use the transmitter, he would love that, the next best thing to catching the man who had crippled her. She made the sound again, and again; and Athol had her by the shoulders, holding her.
‘Come on, Mum, come on, it’s all right, it’s a shock for us all.’
‘Let me go, Athol.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘Let me go.’ He obeyed. ‘And it’s not all right. Nothing is going to be all right. Do you understand what’s happened to Ulla?’
‘You’d better not go tonight. No one needs to go.’
‘Do you understand?’
‘No, I don’t. How can anyone? It’s one thing that leads on to another. We can’t stop just because she’s stopped – if she has.’
‘Oh, she hasn’t, that’s the point. She goes on.’
Gwen sent Athol home. She made soup and toast and ate it at the kitchen table, then rinsed the dishes and left them in the sink. She drank a glass of water, Wellington water tasting of chemicals and rot, and remembered Athol’s scheme for buying the rights to a South Westland stream and shipping tanker loads of water – ‘Find a name for us, Mum’ – to Europe and the Middle East; and how it had shocked her so profoundly – water was like sunlight and air – that she had found herself stepping back from him and putting up her hands to ward him off. Well, he had dropped that idea, though not for her reasons, and not before he had cried at her, ‘I notice you don’t mind drinking that stuff of Ulla’s’ – by which he meant Ramlösa, which Ulla bought for its name and the bottle’s shape.
It all comes back to Ulla, Gwen thought.
Does that mean I’m not allowed to die?
Dial-a-Dinner arrived with steak and vegetables and chips, which Athol and Olivia ate off their knees in the livingroom. Damon was having a night out with Howie at the Glencoul: a swim in the pool there, then dinner in the Magic Isles restaurant – a name the boy had screwed up his nose at, showing good judgement in Athol’s view. Fancy naming meant fancy pricing. He didn’t believe in being on the receiving end of that. But he wished that Howie had asked Olivia too. It was natural that he should favour the boy but it left Athol feeling that he had to make it up to her. Getting dinner sent in didn’t seem enough. He felt they should be talking and laughing.
Olivia turned off the game show on TV. ‘I hate her, she’s so skinny.’
‘Isn’t that what models are supposed to be?’
‘She’s not a model, she’s a presenter. She looks as if she’s going to snap all the time.’
‘Ha, crack!’ Athol said, but that seemed to be the end of it. Then he thought of Ulla’s spine and he glanced at Olivia. She hadn’t picked it up. She fed Butch a piece of steak, which he gulped noisily then stood looking up with bulging eyes, wanting more. That’s the best thing, Athol thought, I’ll have that bloody dog out of the house. He thought of Damon gone and was surprised to find that his life would be much easier. Olivia next door with his mother – he would see her. But Damon’s never liked me. He likes Ulla better, they both like her.
‘It’s good not having dishes, eh?’
‘I don’t mind dishes.’
He saw her think of Ulla then; Ulla washing them.
‘Have you got much homework?’
‘A bit.’
‘What?’
‘Maths.’
One word conversations. Silences around single words.
‘Make a cup of coffee, Liv.’
‘Sure.’
‘We should have got a pudding.’
‘I’m still dieting.’ She made the coffee and put it on the table by his knee. ‘I’ll be upstairs.’
‘Yes, okay. I’ve got to go out. Your grandma’s going in to see your mum. She’s coming over soon to talk to you.’
‘What about?’
‘Just an idea she’s had. She’ll say what it is.’
‘All right.’
Olivia went upstairs with the dog paddling behind her. So that’s that, Athol thought. He took his glasses off and polished them. He felt a little sick and greasy round his mouth, and he pushed the cup of coffee away and got a can of beer from the fridge. He would have liked to stay home. Ulla was bossing him still, in the silent way she had perfected. Where would he go? He could go to the office. He could go and see Fox. Fox wanted to see him, but only to worry and complain. He drank some beer and looked at the movie ads in the Evening Post, but none of the names meant anything. The actors and actresses, who were they? And were the pictures meant to be funny or serious? He turned away from them, rattled pages over, and looked at the identikit picture again. He could not tell whether the burglar was a boy or a man. He had a nose too sharp and long – no one had a nose like that – and brows too clean. He should be a thug, he should be a Maori, not someone who looked as if he was walking home from school. Caucasian, Athol read. That meant white, although, of course, it pointed to a place where someone, some scientist, had said we started off; us white people, Athol thought. He did not know if the theory stood up. Had it been superseded, as scientific theories always were? His mother would know, it was her sort of thing. He wished there were only white people in the world. That would be a damn sight easier even if it still left things like this. Okay, Athol thought, he’s Pakeha, but the inside of his mind has gone way back, he’s primitive.
His mother came in but went past the living room and climbed the stairs to Olivia. He heard their voices sound, one, two, and cut off as the bedroom door clicked shut. The house seemed built in cubes like building blocks. He shifted Olivia’s room to his mother’s house; saw his own with an empty space and frowned at it. But he could bring her back whenever he chose; bring Damon too. Ulla, he knew, was never coming back.
She wouldn’t even look at me, he thought. It was good having her out of the house – except, of course, she wasn’t out. She was everywhere, with her words going up and down in the way he had grown used to and not heard for years, and then had started hearing again, and felt the wrongness of and had wanted to stop.
‘I didn’t push her,’ he said.
Fox, he thought, I’ll go and see Fox. He left the beer half drunk and went upstairs. What he would like most was to go jogging in the botanical gardens, but he had said to both of them that he was going out. And his new running shoes were gone. Athol straightened, with his hands soapy, and thought of the rat-faced boy wearing his shoes. It made all his clothes, and the house, seem polluted. It hollowed him out with revulsion and fright. He washed the soap off and dried himself. Pull yourself together, he said. He hated having his mind go out of control; he wanted all the ways it went to lie in his command and no places, either dark or light, to be reached unexpectedly. Since Ulla, since the burglar, things kept arriving to disturb him. The house is the same, he thought, nothing’s changed at all; just some jewellery gone, and a bit of money, and my shoes. I’ll buy new shoes.
He changed into a paler suit and put on a tie with colour in it. He brushed his hair around the sides – the burglar should have taken the brushes, they would fetch a bit – and polished his forehead and took a fresh handkerchief from the drawer. The pile was getting low and he’d have to make arrangements for the washing soon. What he would do was hire a woman for two or maybe three days a week. He had been at Ulla for years to get some help. T
he way she had let the house run down made him furious. He saw that now he could change all that.
Athol cleaned his ears and dropped the tissue in the lavatory pan. He knocked at Olivia’s door and put his head in.
‘I’m off.’
‘You can give me a ride down town,’ his mother said. She stood up and touched Olivia on the crown of her head. ‘All right?’
‘Yes.’
Gwen kissed her. ‘You’re not nervous alone?’ Olivia shrugged. ‘Keep all the doors locked.’
‘He’s not coming back,’ Athol said.
‘Wait downstairs, Athol. I won’t be long.’
He waited in the hall. Except by pushing her out and closing the door he couldn’t see any way of stopping her from talking to him as though he were a child. He stood on the porch when he heard her coming.
‘She shouldn’t be left alone.’
‘She’s all right. She’s fifteen now.’
‘She’s fourteen. Are you sure you know what form she’s in at school?’
‘You don’t let up, do you?’
‘I’m trying to civilise you, Athol. Why didn’t you tell me Damon was having dinner with Howard?’
‘Was it any of your business?’
They got in the car.
‘Who are you going to see? Mr Fox?’
‘That’s not your business either.’
‘Foxy-Loxy.’
‘What?’
‘The gentleman who smiles with his teeth and strokes his nice red whiskers.’
‘You always have to be smart, don’t you, Mum?’
They drove down Central Terrace, down Kelburn Parade, into town. The traffic lights, and footpaths going up and going down, and people on the crossings, were familiar to Athol; they made him feel he’d stepped across into the world that made sense after the one where meanings turned away. He blew his horn at the car in front to make it move.
‘Here will do. I’ll take a bus,’ his mother said.
Athol pulled alongside the kerb.
‘Is there anything you’d like me to tell Ulla?’ she said.
‘No.’
‘Ring Olivia, Athol. Make sure she’s all right.’
‘You coddle them too much.’
She stopped with the door half open. Her hands closed like bird claws on the bamboo handles of her bag. ‘Are you sure you know what’s happened, Athol? Your wife’s in hospital with a broken neck. Her spinal cord is cut in two and it can’t be put back together again.’
