by Jan Ruth
‘Have you booked two rooms, at this swanky hotel?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s a waste of money,’ she said, and calmly proffered her passport to the smiley Malaysian guy at the security desk. For a moment, he was thrown by her words, by the casual way she’d dropped them into the conversation and how much they shifted the axis of his feelings. They sky-rocketed into a place he’d imagined would be off-limits. In the transit hotel, she’d given no indication that the two-room arrangement was unnecessary. In fact, she’d apologised for not taking up the suggested whistle-stop tour of Singapore, preferring instead to grab a shower and get some rest. As it turned out, this was pretty sensible but then that was Kate all over, which only went to accentuate her out of character remark. He had to remember though, that since he’d booked the accommodation, they’d shared that high voltage kiss in the pub car park, not that he could forget it, ever.
Once on the aircraft, he removed the deluxe head-support from its extensive Chinese packaging and recoiled slightly at the bright pink colour, which was not indicated on the box. Even before it was fully inflated it seemed to take up a lot of room. Kate shot him a mischievous look when he began to blow into it.
‘You could have just bought me an eye mask.’
‘This will be much better for you,’ he said, feeling positively heroic. He inhaled deeply, as if he were about to dive into deep water and blew into the tiny valve. After a good five minutes of this he began to feel dizzy, and it had ballooned into something which was clearly not a neck support.
‘Shit, what is it?’ he said, trying to open it out in the small space provided between his lap and the row of seats in front. One of the cabin-crew gave him the evil eye as she sailed up and down the aisle, checking for loose bags and the like.
‘Kiddies paddling pool?’ Kate said, pointing to the decorative line of fish.
The hostess homed in on him as he was trying to deflate it but the valve must have been faulty and it remained billowing and semi-inflated, like a giant amoeba.
‘Have you got anything sharp?’ he whispered to Kate. ‘I’ll have to pop it.’
‘Nope, security even removed my tiny tweezers.’
Apologising for the second time to the passenger seated on his right, he stuffed it in the overhead locker and avoided contact with some six hundred pairs of eyes.
‘Made in China huh?’ Kate said, a big smile on her face.
*
They arrived to glorious full sun, slightly punch drunk and having no idea what day it was let alone something as precise as the time, and made their way through the concourse of Auckland airport. It was considerably smaller and a hundred times more rustic than the oriental glamour of Singapore, but in truth they didn’t take much notice of their surroundings. Following the general crowd, they headed silently for bag reclaim, Al struggling with the semi-inflated paddling pool. He’d purposefully left it behind on the aircraft but some kind American tourist had caught up with him, and he was re-united with it.
Kate still had the energy to find this funny.
It wasn’t quite as amusing having to stand with it at the reception in the hotel but Kate took control at the desk, cancelling the two small doubles and booking instead one larger room with a king-sized bed. He followed her obediently to the lift with the bags and the paddling pool, while she organised the key cards and took them to the twenty-seventh floor, room eighteen.
Room eighteen had a view of the small white, vertical city which comprised city centre Auckland, the harbour just discernible, glinting in the distance behind the tinted glass of the floor to ceiling window. It could be any city in the world so far as Al was concerned, it was a bland combination of columns and boxes. Traffic and pedestrians passed silently, many feet below.
‘It’s not called the Sky-Tower Hotel for nothing, is it?’
Kate was spreadeagled across the bed, luxuriating in its horizontal space. When he slid alongside her she turned to nestle into him. ‘Hey, don’t go to sleep, it’s fatal,’ he said, smoothing hair off her face. ‘We need to stay awake till we’re in sync with the sun and the moon. It’s only around midday.’
‘What will we do to stay awake?’
He whispered close to her ear. ‘Go find a chemist?’
‘That’s so romantic.’
‘I could have got something at the airport but heaven knows what they might have turned out to be. Bloody Chinese firecrackers or something.’
‘Al, unless you have some horrible disease, what on earth do we need contraception for?’
‘Now who’s being an old romantic?’ he said, kicking off his shoes.
‘I’m trying to see it as one of the advantages of getting older. And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m post-menopausal so there’s no way you can get me pregnant.’
A shadow must have crossed his face or his eyes may have betrayed him, because she caught hold of his hand and twisted her lip. ‘Ugh, sorry, not very tactful.’
‘Let’s not go backwards, huh? I’ve got a trail of stupid mistakes with relationships I’d rather forget.’
‘I know.’
‘Here’s something you don’t know; how I feel about you.’
‘Forwards then?’ she said, and pressed her lips to his, silencing his declaration of love. In truth, he’d started to have serious feelings for her the day he’d watched her riding Becca’s horse, badly. Fire and ice, that’s how he saw her. Such cool eyes and reasoning, but fire-hot hair and sensuality. His own fire was already fully stoked and she said something about sex being easier for men and how nervous she was. ‘Unlike you, I’m extremely out of practise. Can we pretend to be virgins?’
He couldn’t help laughing. ‘Virgins, at our age?’
She shot him a coy expression, but this admission coupled with her bold sensuality was sweet, and oddly arousing.
‘Does sharing the shower come under general foreplay?’ she said.
‘Yeah, go and switch it on.’
He watched her shuffle off the bed and go into the wet-room, a delicious sense of anticipation swirling new life into his body. There was a bottle of good champagne in the mini-bar. He didn’t look at the price and managed to swig a good third of it while she was running the water, then poured a large glass and tapped on the shower screen. She peered round the door and wiped her face, droplets of water still trickling from her hair.
‘How gorgeous,’ she said, and took the cold elixir from him, downing it in one. He reclaimed the glass, refilled it and placed it on the vanity unit, then he stripped off his travel-worn clothes and stepped into the cubicle with her. The double shower was so powerful, for a moment all he could do was stand immobile and let it blast his body while he devoured her naked proximity. She was every bit as beautiful as he could have imagined, such delicate freckled skin.
‘We met in a shower, do you remember?’ she said.
How could he forget? He began to soap her body with the complimentary geothermal soap from Rotorua Spa. They laughed at the smell, but it was gloriously thick and creamy. She reciprocated, until his hands began to move over her breasts, and then with infinite delicacy, between her legs and over her buttocks. She closed her eyes and lolled her head back, exposing her throat.
‘That feels… almost too good.’
He kissed her face and her throat, moving gradually to her lips and this time, she opened her mouth to his and her hands roamed his body, dispelling any idea that she was shy and retiring.
When she finally broke away from him, he just about had the foresight to turn off the water, then he enveloped her in a towel and carried her to the bed, where he began to dry her.
‘No one’s ever done this for me,’ she said, searching his eyes.
‘Shush. Lie down.’
The complimentary Manuka honey body-butter and oil duo scored a lot more points perfume-wise than the weird soap. He oiled, rubbed and stroked every inch of her, until she was glistening and the sweet honey
stickiness was flowing in full. And when he finally moved into her, it was like finding the right slipstream after years of swimming against the tide. And it was all because of the essence of her, of Kate. When she climaxed, she took him with her, followed by a long moment of exquisite aftershock.
‘Don’t talk… and don’t move,’ she whispered. ‘I want to stay suspended in this moment,’ she said, her eyes closed. ‘Is that corny?’
‘Yeah, but it’s good corny.’
He hugged her to him, her leg slid across his, and they must have fallen into a fathomless sleep because when he opened his eyes it was dusk and his stomach was rumbling, but the thought of a big meal was nauseating because it somehow felt like breakfast time. Bloody jet lag on top of sex and champagne added its own, surreal spin.
Kate was making coffee. ‘So it’s true,’ she said, passing him a cup. ‘The water goes down the plug-hole anti-clockwise.’
He struggled to sit upright. ‘Maybe that’s what wrong with me. Everything’s upside down and back to front; including my guts.’
‘Stop moaning. Can we go for a stroll on the waterfront?’
They went for a stroll on the waterfront, and he took her hand in his. When they passed the plate glass windows of the stores, he couldn’t help noticing how much a couple they looked. They even stopped to look at the same things. That had never happened with Helen, or Jo. When they found a bar on the harbour, instead of studying the menu, he stared stupidly at her as she glanced down the list of drinks, sunglasses on top of her head. She was wearing a mid-blue linen dress with a chunky silver necklace and matching bangle, and the colour combination was perfect against her skin.
It fascinated him, how grown-up she was and how incredibly vibrant she seemed to him, as if he’d looked for the wrong kind of woman all his life. He watched her talk to the waitress and order something, then they both stared at him expectantly. ‘Uh… the same,’ he said, closing up the menu. When the waitress had gone, Kate unwrapped her cutlery. ‘So, I ordered the sea food special with extra deep-fried whale belly.’
‘Good,’ he said, then caught the smirk. ‘Okay, very funny. I’ve a feeling I’m going to be lousy company till this will-reading is out of the way.’
‘I’ve no complaints about your company so far,’ she said and touched her fingertips to his, then sighed. ‘Tell me what’s in your head?’
‘Oh, you know, the usual stuff, chaos and mass destruction.’
Looking around, everything still seemed lost in the eighties. Jim Silver would have felt at home, which was a bitter-sweet irony. The local drawl sounded like an American-Australian blend and he wondered if Ruby had spoken like that. More to the point, had any of these strangers known his mother?
Had she eaten here?’
‘Just seems an alien concept to think I was born here,’ he said.
‘Do you remember anything, as a boy?’
‘No, nothing. I went through that scenario the last time I came over, but I still don’t like the place, let alone feel any connection to it.’
She raised her brows at this, and in truth, he was slightly surprised at his own venomous admission. If he didn’t keep his mouth shut, he had the feeling he was going to be forever apologising to Kate, so he drank the beer instead, well, they called it beer but it was more like bottled lager.
‘When’s this appointment?’
‘Can’t remember, sometime tomorrow afternoon.’
She smiled and covered his hand with hers. ‘Al, it’ll be fine.’
*
So, the following day they did some tourist stuff and watched idiots jump off the Sky Tower, then unable to postpone the moment any longer, they walked the hot streets searching for B. Bennet & Sons. He couldn’t wait to get Ruby’s business all squared away and draw a line under it then he could maybe look at the rest of the trip with a different agenda.
The office was located in an old, Colonial building and they were shown into a mercifully air-conditioned room, to wait. He’d got the day and the time wrong, of course, but no one seemed bothered. Brian Bennet pottered out of a secondary office to shake hands. He was easily into his seventies, skin like distressed leather and sporting a pair of bright shorts and a polo shirt.
‘I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr. Black.’
‘Thanks. It’s Al.’
‘Brian,’ he said, pumping his hand.
‘And this is Kate.’
In another room, they pulled out chairs to sit at Brian’s desk. They made small-talk about the flight, the weather, the hotel, while Brian shuffled huge files of paper around. At his request, Al handed over his passports, bank details and birth certificate. Father unknown. Brian gave him a good look and scrutinised the documents. ‘You’re so like her, you know?’
‘Look, I don’t mean to be rude but can we just get on with this? I had no relationship with the woman, in fact I don’t even know what I’m doing here.’
He was aware of Kate staring at him, but then she took hold of his hand and nursed it in her lap. Brian passed his documents back across the desk, then looked over the top of his spectacles at him, before he read the last will and testament of Ruby Martinez. The mumbo jumbo seemed to go on forever and Al zoned out, his heart hammering, his palms sweating. Through the window he could see the top platform of the Sky Tower, a line of people in safety harnesses, waiting to jump off.
‘To my son, Alistair Black, I leave the sum of five-hundred and fifty-three thousand dollars, my property at Rotowaro and all the contents therein.’
To my son.
Brian opened a safety deposit box and slid a heavily-labelled bunch of keys across the desk to him. ‘It’s a bit of a drive, I’m afraid.’
‘I know. I’ve been once before,’ he said, and shoved the keys back across the desk. ‘I don’t want it, and I certainly don’t want to search through all her stuff either.’
Kate put a restraining hand on his arm. ‘Al, think about it. Let’s at least take a look.’
Brian nodded and agreed, ‘Kate’s right. I can arrange a clearance and a sale for you in due course, but there might be some items you’d like…?’
Something buzzed and crackled on his desk.
‘Ah, sorry. I have another client waiting. Why don’t we meet for dinner before you head back? We can have a better talk, off the record and all that.’
‘Did you know her, Ruby?’
‘A little, yes.’
He left it to Kate to pick up the bunch of keys and make arrangements with Brian. He just couldn’t get his head past those three, powerful words; To My Son. When they got outside on the pavement, he’d walked half a mile or so in the wrong direction before Kate snatched at his sleeve and pulled him to a stop.
‘She had to die, before she could acknowledge I was her son?’
‘I know, I know,’ she said. ‘Can we get a drink or something? It’s too hot for this marching.’
She guided him back towards the harbour, where there was a breeze ruffling the water and they shared a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from a local vineyard. Ironically, it was cheaper to buy the same label in the supermarket back home, but Kate pointed out that he didn’t need to go looking too closely at the price any more.
‘Five hundred thousand dollars is a fair wad, even in old money.’
‘I don’t want it. I’ll give it all to Tom and Maisie. It means nothing to me.’
She sighed and filled his glass. ‘Are you going to let me be the voice of reason here?’
‘I’m being a jerk, aren’t I?’
‘I understand your feelings, I really do.’
‘I just want to know why?’
‘Guilt? I dunno, maybe she had an awful life herself, but she clearly wanted to make some sort of gesture, at the end.’
‘What fucking use was that, at the end?’ he said, hunting for his cigarettes. The temptation to light one was overpowering but he threw the packet down and drained the wine instead. He felt suddenly,
inexplicably, close to tears. It made him feel stupid, a grown man crying in the street, all this emotion wasted on someone he’d never known. Kate got up and came round to his side of the table and cradled his head against her. ‘Al-’
‘Don’t do that, I’ll be a blubbery mess,’ he said, so she went to sit down again and passed him a tissue.
‘Where are you up to with the adventures of Jim Silver?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Quite a lot, I think. You left me with an interesting piece of dialogue at the end of the last book. Jim said something about death being the ultimate beginning and that’s why we are all born with our eyes closed and die with them wide-open.’
‘Did I honestly write that rubbish? It’s not true. My eyes are open, possibly for the first time in my life and I’m looking at you. And I’m still alive.’
She smiled a long, thoughtful smile.
*
They hired a car and drove South from the centre of Auckland to Ruby’s house in the middle of nowhere. New Zealand was an odd country, too young to have any soul buried in its soil. The little townships they passed through were ex-mining communities from the last century, most of which resembled stage sets from the American Old West. The countryside in-between was unremarkable, monotonous and bone-dry brown. The only divisions running across the land, was thousands of miles of identical wire fencing.
Kate read sections out of a tourist guide about the gold and silver mining industries but soon, even she lost interest in the scenery. ‘I can’t imagine anyone wanting to live out here, alone.’
‘Maybe if you didn’t want to be found?’
‘Are you sure this is right road?’
‘It’s the only road.’
She fanned her face with the map and turned up the air-con. When the dirt-track to Ruby’s property came into view, his stomach turned over with the memory of his last, shaming visit. Mostly wooden, like most of the houses were in the country, despite the terrible risk of getting burnt to the ground, the bungalow sat in a pleasant enough location, surrounded with some semblance of a parched garden.
When he killed the engine noise of the car and the dust cloud settled, they sat for a moment contemplating the scene before them. It didn’t look like the property of a movie-star. Kate fumbled with the keys. Inside, it was just as he remembered some fifteen years ago. He sank onto the first available chair in the main living room and took a long draft of bottled water. The place was crammed with books, film posters and memorabilia. It presented an opportunity for answers and information, but now that he was faced with all her belongings, the prospect of how to go about it seemed altogether too complicated and weighed down with a tangle of emotions.
