Trix’s parcel. Judging by the weight, it could be jewellery. An intimate thing. He prolongs the pleasure of this mystery by pondering his lounge-room possessions. Apart from his leather suite, valve stereo and speakers and the little scarred rimu coffee table before him, the room is bare. Better to have a few high-quality things, he’s always felt, than a lot of meaningless junk. Simple is better. The most complex thing in life should be a good wine.
He tears open the parcel. Not jewellery, but close. It’s a watch in a hard box, by Magnus. The gun people? Jeremiah’s crowd? It’s minimalist. Time only. Black-faced, with little grey squares instead of numerals. Two plain grey hands. A black leather strap. He checks the time against his Zen Executive IV. The odd thing is that the Zen was also a gift from Trix. She knows how much he likes the chunky platinum and multiple functions. He uses the barometer and temperature gauge all the time. So why send the Magnus?
There’s a handwritten note he missed. Ah ha! He unrolls it.
Frowning, doubtful, he checks for anything else he might have missed. There’s nothing, only a promo barcode on the bottom of the black watch box. He snorts. It might be a message from Jeremiah, the Magnus man himself. Is that what Trix has directed him to enjoy? He sculls the remaining weissburgunder and activates the barcode with his screen. There’s a hologram option, which would entail moving to his viewer in the media room. To get to the point, that thing which he’s meant to enjoy so much, he selects 2D, static.
An image of the Brodericks materialises above his screen. They are seated in a flower-covered gazebo. Bill pulls the curtains. The Brodericks solidify in the dim light. Jeremiah has slicked his hair back, exposing his forehead. The fringe was boyish and it seems to Bill that Jeremiah now looks older and more decisive. The Magnus T-shirt is inane, though, with its trademark three falling bodies in silhouette drilled by a single bullet. Karen leans wistfully on Jeremiah’s bulging shoulder. She looks younger, more rested and open. Her jet-black hair has grown longer and falls in waves to her shoulders. She works her low-cut black singlet magnificently. Jeremiah’s hand rests on her knee.
The caption reads ‘Jeremiah and Karen Broderick, Magnus owners, relaxing at their new home near Masterton’. A golden couple, Bill thinks, who found each other young. He regrets the lack of a life partner on his own journey. He had Sam instead, in a way. A destructive absence. Trix came late.
It occurs to him that Trix might expect him to enjoy the profile in a celebratory way, the sight of their friends embarking on an exciting life journey together. Possibly. Trix has always thought the best of him, and might believe him capable of such generosity. He feels her absence. His companion in the golden years, the life partner who joined him late for the final journey into the sunset. He wishes he’d met her years ago.
The photographer nods significantly. ‘That’s good.’ He means the proprietary hand Jeremiah has placed on Karen’s knee. She didn’t think so. Jeremiah felt her stiffen at his touch. Did anyone else notice? The camera shutter prompt falls silent. ‘Karen,’ the photographer says, ‘can you look a bit dreamier? Wistful?’
‘It’s too hot.’
‘I know, I know. Dream of a cold drink.’
‘You’re Photoshopping the dead jasmine, why don’t you Photoshop my dreamy expression?’
The photographer laughs.
‘It’s unethical,’ Karen says.
Jeremiah frowns. This ethics focus is from her new fashion friends. ‘What about fashion?’ he asks her. ‘They Photoshop all over the place.’
‘That’s to create an illusion. Something magical, not a lie.’
‘Right.’ Jeremiah looks back into the lens and raises his eyebrows. It’s an effective expression now that his hair’s slicked back.
‘We’re dealing in magical illusions too, Karen,’ says the photographer. ‘C’mon, you’re a pro.’
‘This isn’t fashion. This is… I don’t know what this is, apart from being very hot.’
‘Dream of a nice cold drink, Karen. Imagine it: the beads of condensation running down the glass, the clink of ice as it’s placed in front of you. The glass chilly to the touch and the water so cold in your mouth that it hurts. Not you, Jeremiah. You’re guarding the castle gates, remember?’
‘You want wistful?’
‘Yes.’
Karen crosses her legs, leans her head on Jeremiah’s shoulder and pulls a wistful expression.
The photographer nods. ‘Yes, yes.’ The shutter rattles. ‘Oh, great. Got it. Thank you.’ He checks the screen. ‘Yeah, that’s a wrap.’
She leaps up out of the gazebo like a gazelle. ‘It’s like an oven in there,’ she tells the surprised crew. ‘Must be 40 degrees already.’
Bill returns to Karen’s face, her pensive expression against the backdrop of jasmine. It’s not quite right, a touch vacant. It’s a subtle pisstake. According to Trix, Karen’s like a new person since getting off the meds, having three months away from Jeremiah while he was in New Hokitika and embarking on her new career at TS Stanaway as a model and designer. Things have changed. The Brodericks, he remembers, are no longer something he and Trix laugh about together. That ended a while back. He wonders if Jeremiah alone is the thing Trix has directed him to ‘enjoy’.
He scrolls through the text. The gist of it is that they’re a golden couple in a golden house in the golden heart of the Golden Gate, blah de blah. Jeremiah has just been promoted to high-stakes corporate law for Venture Group, and has become the national face of the Magnus Opus handgun. He has also received a police bravery award after the Berhampore Beach bombing. Jeremiah claims that he’s definitely no hero, that anyone would have done it. False modesty, Bill thinks. I sure as hell couldn’t do anything. Jeremiah speaks earnestly about the importance of home security and having adequate firepower. Peace of mind, quality of life, he says. He recommends Magnum’s new Traveller for car defence. It comes with a convenient holster that attaches to the inside of the door, improving weapon retrieval time compared to conventional glovebox storage, as well as providing that crucial element of surprise.
Karen is a model and designer for the notable fashion label TS Stanaway. She’s grateful to Trix Stanaway for believing in her. She’d like to move more into the design side of things. All standard stuff. He skips over Karen’s enthusiastic ‘teasers’ regarding the upcoming autumn line. They have a beautiful four-year-old son named Mandela, who recently had appendicitis, which gave the two of them quite a scare. He was hospitalised right when the Beach was bombed. It felt like the world was ending. It made them both reevaluate the important things in life. The second reference to the bombing sharpens Bill’s attention. He’s pleased to find himself omitted from their account entirely. That’s important. The parcel and box are definitely empty, he finds. There is nothing else, just the note:
The Golden couple stand in their large and spectacular summer garden, next to the flowery gazebo of the previous shot. At least 100 metres of garden separate them from their two-storey Mediterranean-style mansion. It’s adobe, by the look of it. Bill feels a pang of envy for the house, or at least the coolness that thick brick adobe walls provide in summer. It’s a great low-energy cooling option now that the temperatures are climbing. The only drawback is structural vulnerability in earthquakes, but their mansion will certainly have been reinforced.
The cob house being constructed a few kilometres down the road comes to mind. Bill stopped at the property’s electric fence to watch the mix being slapped on what looked like a three bedroom-sized wooden frame. It was late afternoon and the build was 50 metres away. He’d stopped to give his knee a rest as much as anything. A wiry, deeply tanned elderly man in a singlet, shorts and jandals waved and strode over and told Bill about cob—the traditional mix of clay, soil, water, manure and straw—and its virtues. He said that cob has the same thermal mass as adobe and keeps things cool in a hot, dry climate, but is much stronger in earthquakes because it’s brickless. Much easier and faster to build with as well, he said. Bill s
aid that the same principle was applied in winemaking. Thick concrete vats were used for that very reason, for regulating temperature. Bill felt he’d stolen the old guy’s thunder, so he mentioned their expense, and added that he’d taken to wrapping his thin ceramic vats in blankets at night, as a substitute. Ceramic? Yeah, Bill said. Egg-shaped. Great generators of convection currents. You can leave the wine alone. Let it express itself. Why don’t you pitch in on one of our local cob-building projects? the old guy asked. We’ll help build something on your farm. Vineyard, Bill said. Vineyard, said the old guy. I’ll look you up after the harvest, Bill said, when I have more time. Excellent, the old guy in a singlet said, shook Bill’s hand firmly and strode off to rejoin his workmates. No more pleasantries or polite questions about where his vineyard was. Bill felt dropped. Cob clearly came first for the guy. And then farming. For him, talking was something that happened while plastering cob on to a frame at a farm. As Bill watched the old guy rejoin the build and set to work, he was attracted by his sense of mission and the certainty of the relationships on the site.
Bill sips his mass-produced wine without enjoyment.
A group of Kiwi men need to build something or have some common goal or focus, he thinks. Take that away and they quickly get bored and antsy. Alcohol provides them with a sense of motion and discovery. And for me as well, to a certain extent, he admits to himself, even when I’m alone. Yet his case is different, he knows, for he has a dispensation, having been scarred so uniquely. The special licence has its limits though; he’s learned the hard way that it’s imperitive he move under his own steam and provide his own sense of motion and discovery, for alcohol has a way of swallowing time, not just occasional weekends or months, but whole years. Look ahead, he reminds himself, and remembers the promise he made to himself that afternoon while standing at the fenceline as the old man strode away: that his next new building, he be it a cellar door or little bar, will be cob.
Karen centres his attention. He’d been saving her up. Jeremiah rests a muscled arm over her shoulder. It can’t be comfortable for her, that weighty slab. She holds one of his dangling fingers. He wears a wedding ring and a larger Venture Group ring, with the logo set in diamond. One of her sandalled feet is off the ground. She’s smiling, in motion, despite the weight of the arm slung over her. It looks like a happy, spontaneous moment, even if Jeremiah’s main contribution is limited to a raised eyebrow. For a moment Bill’s tempted to activate the hologram. That would mean moving to the other room though, transporting things, flicking switches, setting the fan up.
‘They’ve made it,’ he says to himself. At 35 Jeremiah has probably already made as much money as most people make in a lifetime of work, with the potential to make many times more. There’s no luck involved, he thinks. Or only to the degree that Jeremiah’s talent for writing and reading contracts is so richly rewarded by society. In other ages such a talent would not even be noticed, let alone rewarded with all the gifts of the world. But there’s more to it than that special facility he has. Jeremiah got from Outer Wellington to the Golden Gate through loyalty, diligence and plain hard work. His loyalty is unquestionable. Bill feels safe in the knowledge that Jeremiah has his back. The guy is rock solid.
Karen lifts Jeremiah’s arm off her shoulder. ‘That was a professional fart?’
The make-up and hair people are disgusted. Some of the camera crew, who contract for a wider variety of clients, are amused.
‘Desperate times call for desperate measures,’ replies the photographer as he checks the image. ‘It worked, Karen. The shot’s gold. We can get out of the sun now.’
‘That’s unethical,’ Jeremiah says, sending one of the camera crew into paroxysms of laughter.
Gratitude to be out of the heat is general. The fart is forgiven or forgotten and Karen’s the first to go. She turns and runs back to the house as quickly as her tight skirt will allow.
Jeremiah has his back slapped by the photographer and one of his still-laughing assistants as he watches his wife run down the path for the shelter of their huge new house. It’s an idyllic picture, like the opening shot of a miniseries—one called The Brodericks, perhaps—but for the state of the garden on either side of the path, which has wilted and withered under the sun’s onslaught. It’s been very hot, and when the previous owner cut off the water to the sprinklers before disappearing, the damage was considerable. It must have been a serious crime, whatever it was, that led the previous owner, also a Venture Group employee, to lose his house and career. Murder? A crime of passion? And why take it out on the garden? The real estate agent denied any knowledge of anything. They didn’t push too hard to find out because the sale was their lucky break. The missing executive’s wife is not a Venture Group employee, didn’t live at the property and was unwilling or unable to pay the mortgage. They got a bargain.
He nods to the photographer. ‘You can really fix up the garden?’ The act of sabotage wasn’t picked up on for a week. Partly because it was so crushingly hot.
‘Easy enough. Facial expressions are much harder. It won’t feel like it to you, but it’s easier to get them right at this end. And, you know, people at home can undo Photoshopping now. There’s money in that. Flowers we get away with, but not faces. See you inside.’
Jeremiah admires his new house once again as he makes his way towards it. It’s nearly perfect. A second spa pool, in addition to the one in the back garden, will be installed next week in the rooftop barbecue area. A shot of excitement runs up and down his spine. It’s actually happening. The recurring dream of his adult life is becoming reality. Everything will come together at the forthcoming housewarming party celebrating their arrival in the Golden Gate.
He visualises the soon-to-be-constructed, tastefully lit pool, bubbling blue-green and warm on the roof. Happy laughter rises up from the dark garden and marquee down below. He’s at the telescope, alone with Tiroli, showing her the Moon’s Sea of Tranquillity. He tightens the focus on a crater, turns from the eyepiece and finds her gone. No, a trail of her discarded clothes leads to the steaming, bubbling pool…
Tiroli. The thing about Tiroli is that although they’ve only spoken a few times, and briefly at that, they are firm friends. Conversation is, and always has been, effortless. Everything is so easy and pleasant with her. She was genuinely thrilled when he was promoted to the Golden Gate. Her happiness was pure and immediate. Other people were not so happy. Or at least, not totally happy; their congratulations were qualified by various degrees of envy, or even sheer disbelief, as in Charles’s case. He would have liked to meet up with Tiroli for a drink in New Hokitika. They tried to make a date on three occasions but either one or the other was busy. (In the glimpses he is given of her she is always working, always dynamic). Tiroli. How musical her name is, like birdsong. Tiroli.
She’s the princess of a kingdom more golden and untangled than his own, one in which he will be loved attentively and unconditionally, and celebrated nightly and respected always.
And yet. He knows their spa together on the magically cleared roof is a fantasy in itself, that senior management is likely to knot around it until late and bemoan diminishing golf opportunities, as is their habit when properly drunk. Yet he feels it’s eminently possible, or even probable, that he will find himself alone with Tiroli in the rooftop spa pool under a starry sky, because the promotion and the house in the Golden Gate prove that any dream can come true if you work hard enough.
And nightmares too, he thinks, as a whiff of rotting meat screws his face. Something’s started to putrefy in the slumped and sun-crushed garden. A rat, or something bigger. A body part? He wonders again what could have prompted the previous owner’s flight. It can all still be lost, he reminds himself. For the first time he perceives danger in Tiroli, loss and recrimination lurking beneath her golden hair and smiling face. Real, irretrievable loss.
The telescope! Delivery has been delayed by the Rimutaka Tunnel bombing. Unfortunately it’s in the train trapped inside the tunnel b
y thousands of tons of rubble (increasingly faint tapping can be heard from the crew trapped inside), and no more telescopes of the particular model he wants are available in New Zealand. Despite assurances from KiwiRail that the telescope will be recovered from the mountain’s black heart and delivered to his door within five working days, he remains worried. Their housewarming party is now only two weeks away. What if there’s another rockslide during the rescue/recovery?
The next shipment from China is no good. That will arrive in six weeks—if pirates or a hurricane don’t claim the ship. He looks for a positive and finds it. At least the telescope doesn’t have to come through the Suez Canal like the new De Rosa 01 Monarch road bike he ordered (manufactured and assembled in Italy), because then it might never arrive. The current blockade, holding up hundreds of vessels and his bicycle, shows no sign of being resolved. The big players in the International Maritime Taskforce—the US, China and Brazil—are divided over whether to make a land invasion or recognise the new Egyptian caliphate.
He sighs. The bike he can wait for, but the telescope is a symbol of his destiny, and all else follows from it. There can be no substitute. One of the computerised models that look and move like heavy mortars is out of the question. It must be exactly like the telescope in his dreams, the centrepiece around which they’ll all eat and drink. He must swing the sleek black barrel on its tall tripod with masterly assurance and point out shining objects to senior management until they subside into awe-struck silence. And Tiroli must be helped to look through the viewfinder while the new open-air spa pool bubbles seductively in the corner.
Star Sailors Page 24
