by Gee, Maurice
‘You should have had one there.’
‘Well, I didn’t. I’ll go in the bushes.’
He stopped the car and she got out, but walked round to the driver’s side instead of the trees. She rapped on the window and he opened it.
‘Shift over, Dave. I’m driving.’
‘No you’re bloody not.’
‘If you don’t let me drive, everything’s over. I’m not being smashed up by you or anyone else.’
‘I can drive. I’m all right –’
‘Kill yourself then. I’ll hitch.’ She walked away down the road. He saw the calves of her legs luminous in the dark.
‘Freda,’ he shouted, climbing out.
She ran. Her light shoes went pitpat on the seal. He knew she was running out of his life.
‘Freda, stop. Come back. You can drive.’
Silence in the night.
‘Freda.’
‘What?’ – distantly.
‘Here’s the keys. You can drive.’
She walked back out of the dark and stopped short of him. ‘No funny stuff, Dave.’
‘No, it’s all right. I have had a bit too much. Here.’ He was close, when she took the keys, to grabbing her arm and twisting it up her back – there was a moment when he would do it: throw her in the car, push her in the footwell, keep his boot on her.
She said, ‘Don’t you ever make me do this again.’
‘No, I won’t.’ He did not know how he kept from hitting her. But watching her drive, God I nearly lost her, he thought. He turned away and wiped his eyes and she grinned at him.
‘Vodka tears.’
‘I’m not crying.’
‘If you say so. Cheer up, Davey boy. We can be all right.’
She was so compliant then, in bed, doing what he wanted, that he believed he would always have her and she would always do what he said, no more arguing. He laid an arm across her waist and held her as she slept. This is the night I got her. She’s my wife.
The vodka, straight, made his eyes fill with tears again. I’ll end up a bloody woman, he thought, and he went to bed and slept heavily until dawn, when his bladder woke him. Back from the toilet, he could do no more than doze, suffering half-dreams that made him groan with anger and fright. He made a cup of tea and brought it to bed, where he sat and smoked. Brother, eh, he’s no brother. The bastard might turn out useful though. Freda and the money he might get would not separate in his head and the man with no face, lieutenant-colonel, was a khaki presence, insubstantial at the back of things. Then a sentence from the note detached itself, making him sit higher and find a place for his cup on the bedside table. Called in to see you. How did he know where to call?
David got up and went to the kitchen. He found the note on the floor by the table leg and read it again. Called in. David had only been in the flat three weeks. May’s girl and his father did not know the address. Freda was the only one who knew.
He’s seen her, David thought. He became so certain of it that he almost went to the phone to demand from Alan where she was, but stopped in the doorway; grew cunning; thought it out. He grinned through the lather as he shaved. He was pleased at the way he had slowed himself down, and he felt a new solidity and weight, as if he had qualified and was licensed now. When he was showered and dressed he rang the orchard number. It wasn’t half past seven yet: blow a bugle in the colonel’s ear.
A voice said, ‘Who’s that?’
‘I want to speak to Alan Macpherson,’ he said.
‘He’s not out of bed yet. You know what time it is?’
‘Some of us have got to work.’ He liked that. ‘Say it’s his brother.’
‘Oh, it’s you. Hold on.’
He waited and in a moment a man’s voice said, ‘David?’
‘Yeah. Was that May’s girl?’
‘Yes. Heather.’
‘She’s a beaut, isn’t she? Likes to have your balls.’
There was a short silence while the brother, lieutenant-colonel, sorted himself out.
‘David,’ starting again, ‘I came to see you.’
‘I got your note. That’s what I’m phoning about. I’m busy this morning so how about we meet this afternoon.’
‘Yes, all right.’
‘What say two thirty?’
‘Yes, I can make that.’
‘And you know where to find me?’
‘I know.’
‘What do you drive?’
‘What?’
‘What sort of car? It’s the cop in me.’
‘Ah. A Toyota. A Camry.’
‘Plate number? So I’ll know it’s you.’
‘It’s – RN7267.’
‘Thanks. I’ll see you.’
He hung up. Got him on the back foot, he thought. I’ll throttle Freda out of the bastard if I have to. But with any luck he’d get her easier than that. They should have taken me in the CIB. He felt so ready to go that he did some housework: shook the mats, did his washing, pegged it on the line. Soon he wouldn’t have to do this sort of female stuff. Get Freda and talk to her, she was his again. And with money coming when the old man snuffed it he’d buy into a business, dealing in cars, that’s what he knew. Things were going to be all right again.
Late in the morning he drove to Ruby Bay. Toyota, he thought. In the army all his life and he drives a Jap car. He bought a pie and a can of drink at the store and drove up the hill and along towards Tasman, passing the orchard but giving it no more than a glance. At the intersection with Marriages Road he turned back, passed the packhouse again, and pulled off the road, finding a place where the Silverado sat level. Up the slope two hundred metres away the roofs of the house and the packing shed rose above the trees. Pine trees stood beyond them – king pines, thick, bent-branched, that hadn’t changed in all the years he’d known. He felt, although he could not see, the cliff that fell away to the road and the camping ground; and wondered if his track was still there, with the footholds carved in, and whether he would still be able to climb it. He took his binoculars from the glovebox and looked at the trees, at the house, the packing shed, the roof of the cottage the old man had built for pickers in 1961 or ’2. Called it a cottage, the mean old prick, when all it was was a tin shed. May’s boyfriend – Jesus, boyfriend?, poxy hippy was more like it – had spent half a season there. They had sneaked away fucking up the back of the pines. He’d spied on them, could have hit the boyfriend’s arse with a pine cone if he’d tried. He had known even then that she didn’t like it, known that all she was was desperate.
‘Poor bitch,’ he said.
He swung the glasses to the orchard sign, but was at a narrow angle and could not read it. Ben Alder though, he had seen it go up in the same year that he’d left. It was from the book: the old man playing games. Cluny fucking Macpherson lived on Ben Alder. That should make the orchard mine, David thought.
He watched a girl up a ladder picking Red Delicious half a dozen rows back from the road, and wondered what she’d do if he yelled out. Don’t you eat my apples, he could yell. No bra, Christ, and just a singlet. He sharpened the focus and saw her brown breast slide out each time she picked an apple. She was no girl though, she was a grandma, no good to him. He ate his pie and drank his can of juice, wanting a beer. Later he saw May’s girl, fat Heather, march through the trees and grab two apples, one in each fist, from the picker’s bag and hold them in her face and shout at her. He grinned with pleasure. He did not mind how long this went on. Then pictured the old man too, watching from his patio, drinking beer in the sun and looking like he’d go on for ever. Didn’t like that. He wished that Alan would come out. He’d have to come soon if the plan was going to work.
A white car, a Camry, nosed out past the sign at a few minutes after one. David didn’t need to read the plate but got the glasses on it as the car turned towards Ruby Bay, and got the driver too, sitting up, long-armed, well back from the wheel. No proper face yet: he saw him with a boy’s face, then wiped it out for a blimpy colonel, even
though he sat in a skinny way. He started the Silverado and followed down the hill. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘now lead me to my wife.’ Alan had to be visiting somewhere. The drive to Nelson didn’t take an hour and a half.
He followed several hundred metres back, letting cars pass him. The soldier up ahead didn’t drive at much over 80 and on the straights through Appleby, David found it hard to stay back. He was used to travelling at 120 k, 130, and he couldn’t believe in a grown man puttering along like some old dame out on a Sunday drive. He trailed a tourist bus up to the Camry’s tail and kept close into Richmond, feeling as if a rod had extruded from their cars and joined in the middle and they were locked together, he and his brother, and Freda was in a blind street at the end of their journey and would not be able to get out. He did not know what he would do when he found her. That would look after itself.
They passed the meatworks, with its savoury smell. He liked it although it had the rotten edge – bad meat and ripped-out guts – that always had Freda winding her window up and saying it was enough to turn a person into a vegetarian. He didn’t mind her bullshit, or her arty talk and stuck-up music and books from the library on tapestry, for God’s sake, and astronomy, and monks in monasteries, and candle making, and female diseases, as long as she didn’t hit it heavy when he was around. She could play her games in her own time. Call him a barbarian? The way she said it made it plain it was what she liked. She didn’t mind a bit of rough – and he found the question back in his mind: where did she get it from before he came along? Not Prentiss, whose photo made him look like a nancyboy. And where was she getting it now? The Silverado leaped as his foot came down and he was only two metres back from the soldier’s car. He felt the rod that linked them thicken and compress and he wanted to push harder, shunt the Camry forward and flip it on its side; but made himself fall back and felt their connection thin as his rage reduced. Easy, he told himself. Easy goes.
Alan took the inland road. David followed, three cars back. They passed the hospital and Nelson College and Alan made a right turn on the corner by the Girls’ College and went along at grandma speed through the intersections to Collingwood Street. He turned right, went up the hill and pulled up in the shade of trees at the kerb. David stopped on the corner. He watched his brother get out of his car and fit a green cloth hat on his head. A big guy, David thought, as tall as me. He stood straight, which might have been the army, and didn’t stoop even when he started up the steep part of the hill where the trolley derby used to start, just put his body on a forward slant. He went behind trees and David drove his wagon past the Camry and brought him into sight again, still climbing, past the fences and the letter boxes, towards the walking path that zig-zagged to the lookout on the summit.
‘The bastard’s having a walk,’ David said. He watched with disbelief. Walking. Up the steepest hill in Nelson. With the heat at damn near thirty degrees. The guy must be some sort of crazy.
Alan climbed the stile and vanished into oak trees and came out in a moment on the elbowed path. David got out of his car, then reached back for his binoculars. Maybe they were meeting on top. Freda went for walks, she had even tried jogging once or twice. She could be up there waiting. He got the hilltop in view, the wooden bench with the donor’s plaque fixed on the back. A few trees, a bit of sky. The bareness emptied him out and he knew it made no sense following Alan; then thought, But he knew, how did he know where I live, she’s the only one.
He watched Alan walking back and forth on the bare hill. At the top he turned and faced the town and the boulder bank. That was why he had gone, to look at the view. David’s anger came back. She had told him he was unfit, he was getting a pot, he should walk with her and not take his car, or go and play squash if that was what macho fellers did. You’re going to seed, Davey boy. ‘Bitch,’ he said, and got in the Silverado. She was always there, never a moment when she wasn’t there, telling him he wasn’t good enough. Using his brother now, that fucking officer-type on top of the hill, to get at him.
‘By God, he’s going to tell me where you are.’
He waited until Alan started down, then he turned and drove down Collingwood Street. Parked where he could keep the Camry in sight. Waited until it passed, with the soldier at the wheel, sitting up, shoulders back, like some kid at school, the teacher’s pet. He followed to his own street, then drove around the block and came in from the other end. Alan was inside the gate, closing it.
David pulled up, climbed out and slammed the door. He put on his good-mates grin. ‘Alan, I just about missed you.’ They shook hands across the gate, and David believed at once that he could take this guy, bend him, break him. Alan was taller, that was all, but thinner in his body and his arms – womanish in the way his shoulders sloped; and looked as if he got a lot of practice apologising. David broadened his smile.
‘Come inside, you’re sweating. We’ll have a beer.’ They went in. ‘The kitchen okay?’ Bared his teeth again. ‘Near the beer.’ He took two cans from the fridge and handed one to Alan, opened his own, said, ‘Cheers,’ drank, and saw that the guy wasn’t used to drinking out of cans and wanted a glass. He sat down. ‘Have a seat.’ Face more like the old man’s than he had. Dents in his temples, long nose, big red ears. Beads of sweat. David felt healthy, felt in charge.
‘You been running or something?’
‘I’ve been walking. I went up the Grampians to look at the view.’
‘View?’
‘I haven’t seen it since I left. We used to run up there, the first fifteen, getting fit.’
‘Yeah, me too. I played for them. I was a forward. What were you?’
‘Fullback.’
‘The fancy stuff, eh? Booting for touch. I liked to mix in there. You want to go in the bathroom and clean up?’
‘No, I’m all right. You wouldn’t have a glass would you?’
‘Sure.’ David got one. ‘So how’s the old man? I haven’t been out there for a while.’
‘He’s sick.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Worse than sick. The doctor came this morning. I don’t think he’s got long, David. He’s running down pretty fast.’
So that’s why the bastard’s here. He’s in for his chop. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘Congestive heart failure, the doctor says. It’s just going to stop beating one day.’
‘You got to die of something,’ David said. ‘At ninety-one.’ He drank, and thought, Just go for it, this guy will fold up. ‘So what’s the story with the property?’
‘What?’
‘The orchard. Who gets it?’
The soldier pulled his head back like he’d smelled a fart. ‘I haven’t asked him that. That’s not why I came.’
‘Why did you come? It’s not like you visit down here often.’
‘He asked May to ring me. I came when I heard.’
‘To see if your name was in the will?’
Alan drank a mouthful. He seemed pretty good at keeping control. ‘No,’ he said, and left it there although David waited.
‘We’ve got to talk about this,’ David said. ‘That girl of May’s has played the whole thing clever. If we don’t watch out she’ll get the lot.’
‘She probably will. I don’t mind. Nor does May, I think.’
‘May wouldn’t. Look, we’re the sons, you and me. I’m not going to let some little tart from God knows where … I’ll contest it.’ He felt control slipping away, felt again the lurch to one side that brought an oily wave of nausea with it. It started with Freda and it all came back to her. He was on the point of leaning across the table and grabbing the soldier by his shirtfront, demanding to know where she was, but made an effort, held himself in check. ‘You’ve seen May?’
‘I went across.’
‘She told you all about me, I’ll bet.’
‘No, not much. Just you and your wife are separated.’
‘Freda’s separated. I’m not.’
‘Well’ – the soldier shrugged – ‘I did
n’t come to talk about that.’
‘Why did you come?’
‘Just to see you. Say hello.’
‘All the best, eh, after thirty-five years? All we’ve got to talk about, you and me, is who gets the orchard. I’m the one who stuck by the old man. I been going out there the last ten years, before fat Heather turned up. I’m not going to sit still and see … Look, I don’t mind you and May getting a share, and May can halve hers with the girl if she likes. But I’m having one third and the courts will back me up. If you and me work together it should be easy.’
‘No,’ the soldier said.
‘Why, for Chrissake?’
‘I don’t want it.’ He looked out the window to be finished with the topic, and David saw the back of his skull rounded like an apple. He felt how it would break with one good hit, and he remembered shooting with a friend from Police College, Stan something, in the hills out the back of Belmont – going after rabbits with .22s, and nothing was there, no rabbits in sight, and they were getting ratty with each other, and then he saw one across the gully, right by its hole, looking at them, and if they moved it would be gone. Stan was sitting on his haunches, lighting a smoke, he hadn’t seen it. David, behind him, raised his rifle and the line of sight was under the curve at the back of Stan’s skull, and David took it, made the shot, and saw Stan jumping, holding his neck where the bullet had nicked his hair, and saw the rabbit rolling, heard it scream … I took the shot and stuff him, David thought. The prick said he’d report me, careless use, but by Christ we came down with a rabbit, I had blood dripping on my boots.
‘Are you all right?’ the soldier was saying.
‘How did you know where I lived?’
‘Ah. May told me.’
David lifted his beer and rattled it. He drank the last mouthful, crushed the can in his fist and laid it on the table. A lie. He felt calm. Here was the lie. So he was right, the soldier knew where Freda was. He got another can from the fridge. ‘Want one?’
‘No thanks,’ the soldier said. ‘I think I’ll go.’
