The Prosperous Thief

by Andrea Goldsmith

  But an hour later, two hours later, three hours later, and it would begin all over again. In the aftermath of Nell’s desertion, the very best times, indeed the only times when the knife stopped turning were when she was daydreaming her and Nell back together again. She played the daydreams from morning to night. She would wake before dawn and start one of her ‘together again’ narratives. She would develop it further over the breakfast she didn’t want to eat, followed by more elaborations in the shower. She would talk out loud, tender conversations with her absent beloved, conversations which ignored Nell’s desertion and theft and kept her place warm. Scenes and more scenes as she walked to the tramstop, and padded out further in the crowded tram. Then all day at work between meetings, waiting for phone calls, walking to the toilet, waiting at the lift, the dream would forge ahead. And back at home in the evening and nothing to interrupt her now, and if walls and cats could speak, such tales of happiness they could tell, such bleatings of woe beneath.

  Laura wanted to be with her fantasies more than she wanted to be with her friends, more than she wanted to be at work, even more than she wanted to sleep. Just another fifteen minutes she would tell herself at two in the morning while in the middle of a scene where she and Nell finally make the trip to India they had long planned. Just another fifteen minutes as Laura’s imaginings guide them through a landscape they would never now see.

  Then one morning a couple of weeks ago and for no reason at all, it hit her: Nell wasn’t going to ring begging forgiveness, Nell wasn’t going to turn up with two tickets to India, it was a waste of time and money to check her email hourly, Nell wasn’t going to email. Nell had neither desire nor reason to contact her. Nell had left. Nell was well and truly embarked on the next phase of her life. Nell was gone.

  And the next moment: might she be wrong? Surely there was still a chance? Laura could not bear not to think about her.

  But she wasn’t wrong. The phone wouldn’t ring, the email wouldn’t arrive, there’d be no more trips together. They were non-us, they were kaput. They were not even a ‘they’ any more.

  She had gone into Nell’s study, no Nell but still her study and still full of her books and papers, for Nell needed to travel fast and light these days in order to be in pole position for the hotly contested film money. But she’d be back, and besides, she insisted, she couldn’t make the film without Laura’s help. This was meant as a compliment, but would have been said no matter what the subject of her film. ‘You’re my soul mate,’ Nell had said over the phone soon after she left. ‘You understand the workings of my mind.’

  Nell simply could not see she’d done anything wrong.As far as she was concerned, she hadn’t really dumped Laura; indeed, Laura was as important as she had always been. A beloved sister, even a twin, was how Nell referred to her. And she certainly hadn’t stolen anything. Etti’s story was taped, it was transcribed on paper, it was in the public realm. Anyone could have used it, and surely, she kept saying, you would prefer it was me.

  As Laura opened the first drawer of Nell’s poster collection, she felt a surge of hatred for this new Nell, although in the absence of drugs and mental illness, and Nell was a stranger to both, she knew this new Nell had been there all along.This woman had shared her bed – Laura grabbed the pile of posters in the top drawer and tossed them to the floor; this woman had eaten her food – she emptied the second drawer; this woman had been privy to her private joys – now the third and fourth drawers; and her private fears – now the fifth; this woman had been embraced by Laura’s parents – she cleared the sixth and seventh drawers; this woman had been given more trust, more love than Laura had ever thought she was capable of; this woman – and the contents of the last two drawers crashed to the pile – this woman had left her for good.

  She surveyed Nell’s precious posters all in a jumble on the floor. What she wanted was to take them outside, stuff them in the old metal rubbish bin and set them alight. She wanted to see the posters burn, she wanted to see them reduced to ash, she wanted Nell to know an irreplaceable loss. This was what she wanted. But try as she might she couldn’t, not Nell’s precious poster collection. Love can make such a fool of you, she thought, and spent the rest of the morning putting the posters back in their drawers.

  Laura swings with the memories and struggles against them. She has considered drugs, not tranquillisers but heroin, guaranteed, so she learned during her marriage to Alan all those years ago, to block any pain. Considered, but only briefly, not simply because she faints with injections and has no idea how to smoke the stuff, but because memory of Alan, long dead and forever young, would have erected an insurmountable barrier between her and the drug dealer. And so she’s reduced to valerian. Finally she finds it, wonders if aged valerian is still effective, decides it must be given it smells and tastes as foul as ever, is just dropping off to sleep when she realises she has forgotten to check the answering machine. And fortunate she does because the light is flashing, just one call, but sufficient enough for hope.

  The voice surprises. It’s not Nell, it’s Raphe Carter ringing from his home in San Francisco. He’s not been entirely out of her thoughts these past three months. She’s used him, quite deliberately, as a kind of retreat, a safe, welcoming place far from what she has come to regard as Nell’s hell. She’s indulged in a few harmless ‘if only’ scenarios, has even toyed with the idea of ringing him. And here he is, again at exactly the right time, with a proposal. He says he is going to Kilauea in Hawaii next month and wonders if Laura would like to join him.

  ‘You said you wanted to see a volcano before you die. Well here’s your chance.’

  At the Volcano

  The eleven o’clock plane from Honolulu to Hilo was cancelled, with all passengers being transferred to the next flight. Raphe paced the open-air corridor of the airport, wishing the passengers had been cancelled too. His mother used to accuse him of acting impetuously, but inviting Laura to Kilauea wasn’t so much impetuous as just plain idiotic.

  He had thought she wouldn’t come, which was why it was so easy to make the offer. Just lift the receiver and dial her number, Saturday night Melbourne time and Laura unlikely to be home. Come volcano watching with me, he says to her answering machine. So easy, so uncomplicated, and the special touch that he was only responding to something she herself had initiated. But now she was coming it was clear he had given far too little thought to the post-answering-machine events.

  She had called back almost at once, seemed so pleased to hear from him.Yes, she’d love to join him, such a wonderful idea.When? Where? What should she bring? And in that blaze of spark and excitement from the real-life Laura, he realised he had again forgotten whatever was inconvenient to remember about her. He worked to temper her enthusiasm, suggesting she should give the proposal a little more thought. After all, it was not just a beach picnic, and was about to add ‘or a walk in the bush’, but decided it would be wiser not to mention that queer, heated time. He turned to other objections. What about the commission? With so many people reliant on her, surely she would need to choose her absences carefully. And her personal commitments: what would Nell think about her embarking on such a dangerous excursion with a relative stranger? Which was when she told him Nell had left her, and something extraordinary like a volcano was exactly what she needed to wrench her out of her misery and point her in the direction of a new future. She proceeded to rebut all his objections and soon he was providing dates, flight information and advice on what to pack. In short, Laura Lewin was accompanying him to a volcano and the moment of reckoning he had rehearsed countless times was to have a real run.

  Fantasies lose their athleticism when they are forced into the ring of the possible. Raphe had experienced this when he last met Laura, but he had conveniently forgotten it these past three months as he worked full-time on his grandfather’s team. Safe at home in San Francisco, Raphe had imagined standing with Laura above a lava lake, his hand on her shoulder, a gentle push and over she goes. Or a fast-
flowing lava stream and a wayward spark shoots out and she stumbles the wrong way. Or a too-firm foot on an unsteady escarpment and suddenly she disappears. Unencumbered by explanations or recriminations, accidents are so elegantly effected in fantasies, but until Laura Lewin agreed to accompany him to Kilauea, he had not realised they were designed to provide sole allegiance to his murdered grandfather. These fantasies readily removed identifying details from Laura: her face, her voice, her laughter, her humanness .And they eclipsed the ethics of justice and revenge, managing to right all wrongs in the absence of any conflicting considerations. But now Laura was coming to Kilauea she would actually be walking near fissures and lava tubes, she would be within arm’s reach of so many different dangers she could really die several times over. What exactly was he thinking when he made his invitation? What did he want with the real, the very much alive Laura Lewin?

  He checked his watch. The next flight was due in an hour. Too little time to go anywhere else and, with no other choice, he went inside. He was not tempted by the café and so wandered over to the newsstand. There was a short row of bestsellers. He picked up the latest John Grisham and began to read.

  Laura had flown into Honolulu late the previous night and stayed near the airport after what had been the most enjoyable flight she had ever experienced. She’d had her own movies, plenty of leg room, and all manner of food and drink delivered to her with a courtesy and alacrity only dreamed about at the back of the plane. She was, she decided, definitely a business-class sort of girl. Sitting next to her had been a small, antisocial man with a laptop, who, after a curt nonverbal greeting, had devoted himself to a reconfiguring of America’s tea-drinking habits. He drank only coffee, Laura noticed, and plenty of it while he gazed at his screen. No lover could be more attentive than this man with his computer, and no person made a more desirable travelling companion.

  Twelve perfect hours. No telephone, no work emergencies, no accusingly empty house, and with a steady flow of food, drink and entertainment, no unwanted memories. Rather than going into therapy when disaster struck, a long trip taken up the front of the plane was far more effective. As Laura settled back for a snooze, she decided that even if Kilauea suddenly went dormant, the trip would have been worthwhile. Although she was looking forward to seeing Raphe, this man who seemed to turn up just when she needed him. She knew that if not for him, she might never have listened to her mother’s tape (certainly she had no desire to hear it now with Nell’s greedy fingers all over it), and because of him she was about to see an active volcano. She felt very much indebted to him.

  She was the first to disembark when the plane touched down at Hilo. It was a moment before she found him, standing towards the back of the small crowd. He on the other hand saw her as soon as she stepped off the plane, and with that first glance the familiar clutching in his stomach he’d come to associate with her. She had shed pounds and years, and he happy simply to take her in as she walked across the tarmac. But as soon as she saw him she slung her bag over her shoulder, ran towards him and threw her arms around him. Her excitement and pleasure flowed over him in an unexpected comfort.

  She pulled away long before he was ready. She wanted to see everything, and she wanted to see it now. ‘I have to know I’m at Kilauea volcano and not just any lush tropical isle.’

  He found himself laughing, he couldn’t help himself despite his resolve. She seemed to have that effect on him, one minute he’s struck dumb with fear and anticipation, and the next he’s on top of the world.

  ‘You and Kilauea will be on intimate terms before I’ve finished,’ he said.‘And that’s a promise.’

  As they drove the thirty miles south from Hilo to the Volcano Village past shuttered stores, ramshackle houses and unkempt fields, he told her about the collapse of the sugar industry, how it had been disastrous for the island, with dozens of plantations a few decades back and not a single one left today. He spoke of the ruinous development, particularly on the west coast, and much more still on the drawing board. And he told her about the resurgence in Hawaiian nationalism after years of almost nonstop erosion of their culture.‘There aren’t many Hawaiians left, but they sure as hell have vision and determination.’

  ‘Clearly they’re not following the victim trail.’

  Her response caught him up short.That word ‘victim’.Was she being critical of him? She, who had no right to criticise. And might have lost himself in his old imaginings except she pulled him back with an avalanche of questions about their itinerary on the Big Island, about the current volcanic activity, about the likelihood of a new flow starting in the next three days.And every now and then an incredulous,‘I can’t believe I’m about to witness the world’s most active volcano.’

  As they approached Volcano Village, he thought it only polite to ask about Nell. Laura was disinclined to talk about her; however, she did tell him about the film.

  ‘That’s all the Holocaust has become for a good many people,’ she said.‘A leg-up the career ladder, Hollywood entertainment, an up-for-grabs myth. March up, march up, and take your pick – which is what my former partner certainly did.’And no, she didn’t want to discuss it any further; she wanted to leave Nell and her grubby deceptions behind.

  Back at the bungalow he carried her bag into the bedroom. His own possessions were packed neatly on a chest.

  ‘I’ll sleep on the couch, of course,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the living room.

  She looked at the double bed. ‘There’s ample room here, and you’ll be a lot more comfortable.’ She smiled, ‘I trust you, even asleep I trust you.’

  And suddenly Martin filled his mind, Martin asleep with typhus in the woods outside Belsen, Martin with Henry who couldn’t be trusted. And for the first time Raphe was sure Laura didn’t know her father’s crimes. Strangely, it afforded him little relief.

  He waved the bed question aside, for now he’d prefer to be out of here.Volcanoes, he decided, were safer than this woman.

  He had arranged for a helicopter to fly them over the area, as much for him as for her. It had been nearly two years since he was last here and the eruption had changed considerably. He didn’t expect any of the pyrotechnics seen on his previous visits, and neither did he care. It was the changing eruption he had always found so seductive about Kilauea.

  As he and Laura headed off in a hire car to the volcano park headquarters, he told her about the lava fountain he had seen on a previous visit, a huge jet of brilliant fire spurting a couple of hundred metres into the night sky.At its core was a blazing orange-red radiance framed by a cloud of darker, cooler fragments; like a vision from Blake, he said. He shaped its brilliant fall, he told of the flying globules of molten fire spitting onto the blackening earth and collecting in a flow down the slopes.

  She listened mesmerised, as if in the presence of the volcano itself. ‘The path we walk is both beautiful and dangerous,’ she said finally.

  Again she caught him up short. It was one or other in his sort of life: beauty or danger. In fact his entire life was rent by polar opposites: real Laura or imagined Laura, ideal fantasies or unpredictable reality, and given his grandfather had been silent since Laura’s arrival, his grandfather’s demands or Laura Lewin. He tried to understand as she did: beauty and danger, but it was an unnerving experience, like free-falling without a parachute, and he was quick to return to familiar territory.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll see no lava fountains this trip.’

  ‘No dangers at all?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Different dangers,’ he said as he turned into the car park.

  • • •

  An hour later they are flying over Kilauea towards a remote area of the park where the current activity is occurring.

  ‘Pele’s been a busy girl since you were last here,’ the pilot, an old acquaintance of Raphe’s, says. ‘New vents, new flows, new breakouts. Nothing too explosive, more her subtle, subversive side.’

  Raphe tells Laura about Pele, the volcano godd
ess who lives beneath Kilauea.‘We’ll see the exact site, her home and hearth so to speak, tomorrow at the Halemaumau crater,’ he says. ‘She’s one tough and angry gal this one. Hasn’t had a moment’s rest since 1983 when the volcano started erupting.’

  He has always liked the stories of Pele, the uncompromising, high-spirited woman who every now and then wakes up and bursts out of her home. Pele the volcano goddess who caused the volcanic eruptions on the ocean floor which formed the Hawaiian islands in the first place, and ever since has exacted a Faustian price. Pele gave Hawaii life, but in one of the most volatile places in the world, she can also take it away. It’s a type of justice, Raphe is now thinking as he looks at the glorious panorama below. A type of justice.

  The first glimpse of Kilauea is awesome. All those years ago when he first came here, he had expected a symmetrical, cone-shaped mountain with its peak neatly chiselled off, a puff of smoke at the top plus a bit of fire if he were lucky. But Kilauea is a vast volcanic landscape of multiple craters and solid black lava flows which actually form the hills and plateaus of the south-east section of the island.

  ‘It’s not human-sized,’ Laura is saying. ‘It makes you want to burst out of your skin.’

  Raphe smiles in spite of himself. When he least expects it, and often when he least wants it, she shows herself as not so different from him.

  He tells her about the lava tubes which flow like giant arteries a few metres beneath the earth, and points to a brilliant pool of liquid fire where the roof of the main tube has collapsed. Laura is transfixed, the great gaping orange pool beneath the black blisters of cold pahoehoe lava.