The Cruel Peak

by Gil Hogg

  When they started cruising at eight thousand feet, it was clear and calmer. The plane came in over Cook Straight with a southerly tailwind, the sea in serrated white lines below. Stuart had a brief and, to Tom, an unintelligible exchange with the control tower. He circled over Evans Bay and landed at the Aero Club at Rongotai. They took a taxi to the city; all three were going separate ways: Tia to see friends at Victoria University, Stuart his business colleagues, and Tom to a meeting he had previously arranged on the telephone with an old friend, Roderick Crawford, whom he had first met during his ill-fated stay in the law offices of Gottley & Son. Crawford had invited him to lunch at the Wellington Club. ‘Where New Zealand is governed from,’ Crawford had joked.

  He idled through the shoppers walking along Lambton Quay and then climbed to The Terrace, found the club premises, and entered at precisely 1pm. Crawford was in the lobby to greet him, small, effusive, and neat in his black jacket, striped trousers and wing collar shirt.

  “I thought you were the doorman at first,” Tom said.

  “The old uniform, you know. I had a hearing this morning and hadn’t time to change, but my time’s my own now. We can have a good talk.”

  Crawford was a warm friend and in many ways a pleasant person, but he had always had an annoying peculiarity. His kind of mind could recall the minutiae of life in detail; a helpful quality in a counsel or judge. He persisted in using the edge this gave him over other people to embarrass them. When you said, ‘I enjoyed Provence,’ he would ask, ‘Where did you go?’ You would waver - those difficult French names - knowing he could probably recite the name of every hill town in the province. When you said, ‘We had a decent Cloudy Falls white for lunch,’ he would ask ‘What was it?’ When you couldn’t remember whether it was a chardonnay or a sauvignon blanc, and chanced, ‘A pinot grigio,’ he would reply, ‘Funny thing. I don’t think Cloudy Falls does a pinot grigio.’ Crawford got satisfaction from seeing your discomfort. Tom had learned to plead inattention or ignorance to such questions.

  “I hear about you occasionally from friends,” Crawford said, leading him to a corner of the lounge where two armchairs gave a degree of privacy from the rest of the room. They agreed on two Campari sodas.

  “I don’t hear about you, Rod. You’ve disappeared into the priesthood of the judiciary.”

  “I don’t regret the anonymity. It’s comforting.”

  “You’ve worked your arse off for it.”

  “I have. It’s what I wanted, and… thought perhaps I’d never get. Mind you, I enjoyed the Bar. But it can be a strain. I’m very young to be appointed. I appreciated your letter of congratulations, by the way.”

  Crawford wriggled, unable to conceal being pleased with himself, despite what Tom knew to be his natural modesty.

  “Now you can watch your former colleagues sweating from your eyrie on the bench - and collect your pension eventually.”

  “You’d have been good at it, Tom. It’s a loss to a small country when somebody like you settles abroad.”

  “On the contrary; I wouldn’t have been good at it. It’s a vocation. I think you take a lot on yourself when you give judgment. It’s not about knowing the law - lots of lawyers are good in that department - it’s having the gall to say that the right way is this way. It’s all the conclusions you draw about people you don’t really know and can never know. All done from the point of view of our somewhat imperfect selves.”

  “You make it sound as though it’s arrogant to judge.”

  “Isn’t it, unless you keep an iron grip on yourself?”

  “Somebody has to do it.”

  “We’ve had some wacky judges and some not very choice characters.”

  Crawford’s eyebrows rose. Tom didn’t care. They talked of colleagues and the politics of the country. When they went into the dining room, he could see that Crawford was nettled that he had been less than gushing about Crawford’s judicial appointment. As they passed through the crowded lounge and dining room to their table, he saw some faces peering at him, trying to remember who he was; some were people he recognised, now politicians, diplomats, businessmen, and he stopped twice to shake hands and say a quick, jocular word.

  “Well what’s so great about your career, anyway?” Crawford asked irritably when they sat down. “You married money, but that didn’t seem to work.”

  “You’re right. I got sick of being welcomed everywhere effectively as Mr Robyn Ashton. As though I had no skills of my own, and only a big portfolio of shares and lots of financial influence.”

  “You could have made it on your own merits without any help, Tom.”

  “Sure, but to answer your question, I didn’t see my working life as a career. You know, where you start on the bottom rung and climb up. Okay, I have a good job now as head of risk for an insurance group. Quite a number of people work for me. Employing and organising managers is interesting, and I’m left with some big decisions. I see myself more as adventuring in a very complex world. I’ve had several jobs. I even spent nine months in chambers for the Bar in London; most of that time was out of court in coffee shops, gossiping about the judiciary and my colleagues to be. Didn’t like it. And solicitors’ practice, it’s the same as here in my experience. You know, solicitors aren’t bad people; they’re like everybody else. It’s just that their natural human mendacity spoils partnerships. The solicitors’ firm that is even-handedly - fairly - managed is rather exceptional.”

  “Memories of Gottleys,” Crawford said, leaning back in his chair and tasting the wine he had ordered.

  “Gottleys was Dickensian, and primitive. Fairness, or even employment procedures, didn’t come into it. Gottleys was the embodiment of the ego of Reginald Clyde Porter.”

  Crawford, who had done very well there for a few years, smiled but didn’t comment.

  “I flirted with the newspaper industry - as a lawyer. Libel law mostly. Found that I liked the corporate environment. Now I am where I am. I’ve had plenty of time to travel and consider the ways of others.”

  “I admire your free spirit.”

  “It’s chancy ‘out there’. You’re snug in your judicial seat.”

  “It was chancy getting to the judicial seat.”

  “Yes, but it wouldn’t have been that painful, would it, to see out your time earning big bucks at the Bar?”

  “You’re suggesting my career was win-win. I don’t think I’m all that complacent, Tom.”

  “I’m sure you deserve your post. And I’m sure you’re a credit to the bench, but you’ve bought what I regard as the myth of the ascending career, Rod.”

  “It’s not a fucking myth.” Crawford leaned over toward him, slopping his wine on the white cloth, speaking in a low voice out of the corner of his mouth. “All round us are the people that make this country.” He gave a quick glance behind him as though he might be overheard. “These are the people in politics, business and the law, that call the shots. I think I’ve had a pretty decent career; yes, a distinguished career. And it’s not over yet.”

  “Not at all over. Court of Appeal, Supreme Court, all that.”

  “I have my hopes. And what’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing. Your choice. You’ve simply had your head down since you came out of university, heading for the New Zealand judiciary. You’ve made it. I hope it’s worth it. There’s a big, nasty, complicated world out there. Ever get curious about it?”

  “I think I know what it’s like…”

  “Television news and trips to Raratonga aren’t -”

  “I’ve been to bloody England!”

  “Staying for a week at the Park Lane Hilton, with your judicial umbrella at home for safety? You have to get out there and survive.”

  “I’m happy with my choice,” Crawford huffed. “I’m making a contribution to this country.”

  “You sound a bit like Stuart Ashton and my dear ex- wife. They are ‘somebodies’, or they think they are.”

  “Do I detect sour grapes?”

>   “I told you I wouldn’t be a good judge because I’m not a good enough person, but that apart, I wouldn’t mind the comfort, intellectual interest and security of the bench. But I wouldn’t have been prepared to wager my life for it, Rod. That’s how it looked to me after I’d been in practice for a couple of years; a life dedication, a long road maybe leading to a judicial post or some other public appointment. I’ll grant you that bits of the road would have been interesting, but very limited.”

  “Limited?” Crawford frowned. “I don’t see it that way. The whole of a country’s life passes through its judicial system in a sense… Every human contortion you can think of.”

  “Yeah, and you pronounce judgment on it, but it’s a voyeuristic position -”

  “Hunh!” Crawford growled. “Tom, that really is balls. I - we judges - make a rational analysis of the people and the facts we have to deal with.”

  “I agree. I also agree that your motives and moral standards are high, and that there probably isn’t a better way of fitting you for your task than the Bar. But, and it’s a very big but, you see life across three feet of oaken bench. And before that, you saw life looking up at a man in a wig behind three feet of oaken bench.”

  “And you live it, I suppose,” Crawford said, with a sarcastic inflexion in his voice.

  Tom nodded. “Yes, in a relative sense.”

  Crawford watched his wine, twiddling the stem of his glass. After a short silence while they concentrated on the asparagus vinaigrette, Tom steered the talk toward their exploits of the past, mutual friends, and their families. The conversation about careers remained merely a grain of grit in the warm belly of their relationship.

  Petra and Darren were at breakfast when he went down from his room. It was Sunday. Breakfast was served from a buffet kept alive by Beryl and her helpers for a couple of hours every morning, and the inmates of the house, except Ernest, attended at their whim. Darren was wearing a suit with a tie, and Petra a modest dark blue dress.

  “You’re going to church?” Tom asked, surprised.

  “Yeah,” Petra grimaced, and Darren chuckled.

  “It’s not a habit?”

  “Oh, God, no. Mother insists. Just before the wedding, you know. A couple of visits. To please her and Reverend Beck, and maybe some of the other old wrinklies.”

  “We’ll be going down to the Hardie’s in Fairlie for elevenses,” Darren said.

  “Well, you have to pass the church on the way, don’t you?” His voice sounded weary.

  Conversation with Petra and Darren was like trying to light a wet match. Instead of turning his attention to the wad of Sunday newspapers that he had taken upon his knee, he remembered a windy afternoon at St George’s - it would be twenty years ago - when he and Robyn arrived with Petra.

  “Ah, Mr and Mrs Stavely with their… child,” Maurice Hewitt said, appearing to grasp bitingly for ‘second child’ and then omit it as he greeted them in the vestry. Maurice made notes in a huge ledger, sitting at a small spindly-legged table, like a schoolboy’s desk, his robe spilled out around him on the floor. He asked about godparents and allowed that Stuart and Michael Curran could be named without being present. Out of the narrow gothic windows of the vestry, Tom could see, in the distance, the yellow scar of the highway through the forest of pines on the hillside.

  When the notes were complete, Maurice led them to the christening font behind the pews at the rear of the empty church. He transferred water to the font, a stone bowl sculpted by a Maori craftsman. Petra started to become restive. Tom could hear the wind outside, the engine of a car, the brushing of a tree against the building. It seemed that Maurice, too, was listening to these noises.

  “Is nobody else coming?” he asked.

  The idea that the Stavelys could have a ceremony without a party was unusual.

  “No. It’s not necessary… Not what we want,” Robyn said.

  Maurice turned the corners of his mouth down and began to read the service, chanting his lines mechanically. With surprising agility, he took Petra from Robyn and tilted her over the font, wetting her head. He said, “We receive this child into the congregation of Christ’s flock, and do sign her with the sign of the cross…”

  Petra mumbled a few friendly sounds to Maurice who hustled on.

  “This child has promised by you his sureties to renounce the devil and all his works, to believe in God, and to serve him; you must remember that it is your duty to see that this infant be taught, so soon as she shall be able to learn, what a solemn vow, promise and profession she has made here by you.”

  Petra was back in her mother’s arms, with her head being wiped. In the vestry, Maurice completed the certificate, and Tom handed over a donation in an envelope.

  As he and Robyn walked down the path afterwards, she said, “You weren’t even listening.”

  “I heard every word.”

  As they settled in the car, and Robyn made the child comfortable, she said, “Do you believe that stuff?”

  “No. Do you, Robyn?”

  “Yes… I’ve never asked you. Were you baptised and christened?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “You’re a savage, Tom. Why did you agree to Petra’s baptism, then?”

  “Because it places her socially; baptised and presumably later to be confirmed. She’s got the option to go on later if she wishes. It’s convenient but not essential.”

  “That’s false,” Robyn snapped.

  “She’s joining a club.”

  “Anybody would think you were her business manager. Petra is my idea of reaching out beyond my life.”

  “What about the other child? Are you immortal through him?” he asked. In their most raw discussions, the lost child intruded inevitably.

  “He’s part of me. The part that wanders at night.”

  “What a fantasy. We should have separated long ago.” He was exasperated and no longer shy about referring to the roadblock he could see ahead.

  “I married you because I loved you, Tom.”

  He could be candid now. “I think I was very confused.”

  “The child linked us,” Robyn said, appearing to see their marriage in the past tense. “It’s a secret we share.”

  “You’re wrong to think of the child as a link. Or Petra. And neither are extensions of you. They’re just separate people.”

  “We married because of the lost boy.”

  “No, we married in spite of him. Don’t you remember what Maurice Hewitt said, ‘The empty space at the breakfast table?’ The ever-present reminder of our folly and loss.”

  “I never believed Maurice.”

  “I never forgot what he said, Robyn.”

  “Then why in hell did you marry me, Tom? It was a doomed marriage.”

  “At the time we married, I suppose I hoped he was wrong.”

  “You’re just ignoring your own failings as a lover, and seizing on a crazy voodoo pronouncement by a mad priest.”

  “Maurice isn’t mad, Robyn.”

  “He’s eccentric. He’s an actor.”

  “Don’t you remember what Mrs Rueben said, long before Maurice Hewitt?”

  “She wasn’t an abortionist, Tom. She was an extortionist. She gulled you out of your money.”

  “She said we wouldn’t be free if we had a child.”

  “That’s the link between us, as I said. Painted bitch.”

  “No. She wasn’t referring to us sharing a hidden peccadillo. She was saying it would tie our future relationship, and it did; it tipped us into marriage.”

  “I don’t remember her as a philosopher. And I intend to find the lost boy… some day.”

  “That’s a very bad idea, Robyn.”

  The hut came into view over a rise. Stuart charged wildly down the slope towards it, sliding on the rough footing. A thread of smoke came from the chimney, torn away by the wind. It was padlocked on the outside.

  “This is it,” Stuart said, his face dark.

  “The man can’t be
far away.”

  They walked around the hut, Stuart cursing their bad luck and kicking the door angrily. The noise echoed in the narrow valley.

  “Where are you, you sodding little man!” Stuart shouted.

  Then they heard the crack of a rifle, and the almost simultaneous whisper of the bullet as it passed near them.

  “Shit!” Tom yelled, and held his arms above his head.

  About fifty yards away, a man with a grey ponytail in a black poncho was leaning on a rock, resting his gun.

  “Shoot me, you cunt!” Stuart roared, slowly raising his arms.

  The man made no immediate move. The wind dashed rain in their faces.

  “We’ve alarmed him. Let’s cool it, or we won’t get inside the hut, Stu.”

  “I’ll get inside if I have to choke the bastard!”

  They waited for a few moments, and Tom said loudly, “Can we talk?” He moved slowly along the path towards the man, to a point where he could address him more easily. “My name is Tom Stavely. The man with me is Stuart Ashton. I’ve come to ask you to show me the things you found on the mountain. We don’t have any weapons.”

  The man didn’t move or speak; he had all day to pause, and eventually Tom said, “Look, I’m prepared to pay you, if you have anything we could use. Can’t we sit down like mates and have a drink?”

  The man never moved.

  “What’s your name?” Tom asked.

  No answer.

  “I have some whisky, mate.”

  The man seemed to be impressed by money and whisky, and lumbered forward. He was about fifty, but that could have been the hard life. He had a long gray beard to go with the hair. His pink lips ringed a huddle of green teeth, his eyes cloudy and yellow. His ungloved hands were brown and metallic-looking, like excavator grabs. He surveyed Tom for a moment, and then, apparently satisfied, came closer and examined Stuart.

  “Get the door open, man, and let’s see the stuff!” Stuart snarled.

  “You want me to blow your head off?” The man replied.

  “Shut your mouth and cool it, Stu, or we’ll get nowhere.”

  “Yeah, nowhere. That’s you,” the man said, baring his teeth.