by Gee, Maurice
The old man tired of it. ‘I can keep my mouth shut. When’s he coming, anyway? Why doesn’t May come?’
‘She will.’
‘You did what I asked? You made sure?’
‘She’s your daughter, Dad. There’s no doubt. And Heather’s your granddaughter.’ She deserves this place, he wanted to say, even if she’s just someone who walked in off the street. ‘Do you know where her mother is? Is she still alive?’
‘That one? Fay’s her name. She’s dead.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because some lawyer wrote me a letter. She put me down as next of kin.’
‘How long ago?’
‘It must be ten years. All my wives are dead. All my women. I’ve beat the lot.’
‘Have you still got the letter?’
‘No, I burned it. I wasn’t having her call me next of kin. I kept the other one.’
‘What one?’
‘It’s in the box. You can show her. That one’s proof.’
‘What of?’
‘In there. Have a look. See for yourself.’
Alan went to a small wooden trunk against the wall. It was banded with brass and roughly painted grey on its carved lid. Inside was a concertina file bulging with papers. Not the will, Alan thought, that must be with the lawyer. He did not want to see it anyway.
‘T for Taylor,’ the old man said.
Alan took out a manila envelope with Taylor, Fay written on it in a big round hand. He slid a sheet of paper from inside and saw that the woman printed and even so could not keep her letters straight. Dear Robert, he read, You will be surprized to hear from me. I am writing to ask you to help me in bad times for old time sake. I wish I hadn’t run away but it is water under the bridge. This is not a begging letter it is just for old time sake. Whatever you think of me I tried my best. Anything you could send me would be much apreciated. I can’t work any more and it is hard trying to live on my pension. If you remember my trouble with my legs, my legs are swelled, not so pretty now.
Someone told me Clare turned out bad. I hope you do not blame me for Clare. I tried my best but I could always see that she was bad. Your old friend, Fay (Taylor)
Underneath, his father had scrawled: Sent $20, 14/1/79. Cheque no. 2471.
‘Is Clare – is that May?’
‘That’s her. A bloody stupid name if you ask me.’
‘And this is proof you sent her mother money?’
‘If anyone came at me. It’s like a receipt. I told her not to ask for any more.’
‘Twenty dollars?’
‘It’s worth more than that today. That’d be worth a hundred dollars today.’
‘And May hasn’t seen this?’
‘No reason to show her. You can show her if you like.’
‘I’ll keep it for a while.’ He wanted to get out of the room and burn the letter quick. It made him think of Phoebe. He folded it and put it in his pocket, where it seemed to itch against his thigh. He must burn it so that May would never see.
Out on the patio, he watched the pickers at work. They thrust their sharp ladders like spears into the trees and appeared in the branches, snapping out long-armed, denuding the tops. Wasps spun sharply in the bottom spaces. A cider smell, the ferment of trodden apples, filled the air. He would enjoy this if it weren’t for the letter in his pocket, and for his worry about Freda. He looked at the mountains and thought of her crossing them – a small woman in a big car, controlling it, he had no doubt, with ease, and smiling her derisive smile. In that square-built tank she might front up to David in his Silverado. It seemed to him that she would have the courage. Beyond a certain point, though, courage did not work. He had seen enough of it to know.
He was on the patio when David arrived. It was eleven o’clock. The Silverado came at no more than a walking pace past the cottage and down through the S-bend to the house. Alan went into his father’s room. The old man was struggling back from sleep.
‘He’s here,’ Alan said.
‘Who?’
‘David.’
‘Who?’
‘David. Your son.’
‘Is it night?’
‘No, it’s still morning. You don’t have to see him if you don’t want to.’
‘Where’s that … where’s Heather?’
‘Shall I get her?’
‘Yes. Get her.’
Alan went out. He heard Heather’s voice. She must have run down from the shed. David said, ‘It’ll take more than you to stop me seeing my old man.’
‘I’m not stopping you but I want to get him ready.’
They faced each other by the open door of the Silverado. David seemed easy. He was grinning. Heather, panting, head scarf in her hand, was like a schoolgirl.
‘Heather, he’s asking for you,’ Alan said.
She ran up the steps and crossed the patio. ‘Don’t you let him in till I say.’ She vanished inside.
David grinned at him. ‘Gidday, chief.’ He reached back into his car and brought out a paper bag. He came up the steps in a slowed-down walk. ‘I brought a few grapes.’
‘Grapes?’
‘He’s sick, isn’t he?’
‘You’ll have to wait till Heather’s got him ready.’
‘Have to, eh? She’s boss, eh? Well, I’m not in a hurry.’ He was wearing a white T-shirt with a scorch mark shaped like an iron high on one shoulder. The red of his cheeks was like a disease.
‘What are they picking?’
‘Delicious.’
‘Good crop?’
‘I think so.’
David winked, heavy-lidded. ‘We’ve got to know these things. I might ask to see the books.’
‘You’ve got no chance. She’s manager, on a salary. She’s in charge.’
‘You’ve given up, eh? Suit yourself.’ He propped himself against the iron rail. ‘Well, it’s nice sitting here in the sun. Have a grape.’
Alan could not work out what was happening. David was acting a role, he was sure of it, yet he could not see what it was. He was cheerful, aggressive, insulting by turns, and none was real.
Heather appeared in the open door. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘You can have a quarter of an hour.’
‘You’re the doctor. Why didn’t you tell me he was sick? You told this joker.’
‘Robert sent for him. It was Robert’s choice.’
‘Sent for him but not for me?’
‘I’m not here to argue,’ Heather said. ‘Do you want to go in?’
‘Sure I do. I brought some grapes.’
‘He can’t eat grapes.’
‘Okay, give them to his nurse or something. Where do I go?’
‘In there. He’s had a pill so you’d better be quick. He’s getting dopey.’
David winked at Alan again. ‘He always was dopey. She wouldn’t know.’ He went inside.
‘You watch him,’ Heather said.
‘He won’t hurt Dad. It’s Freda he’s after.’
Heather looked around for a place to put the grapes, then set the bag down by the rail. ‘I’ve got to go back to work. If he isn’t gone in half an hour let me know.’
‘He’s got a right to see him, you know.’
Heather, halfway down the steps, rounded on him. ‘No one’s got a right. Unless I say.’ She went on, and in the yard broke into a heavy trot and vanished up the road.
Alan looked across the lounge at the sunroom door standing ajar. He wondered if David would take his chance to go through the trunk, and was glad he had taken Fay Taylor’s letter. There was no sound from the room, but a part of David’s back came into view as he sat down in the bedside chair. Alan moved across to the rail. After a moment he sat on the top step and watched the pickers filling their bags then loosing streams of apples into wooden bins for the tractor to pick up. He went down the steps and circled David’s Silverado. It was dusty – months of dust. Feelth someone had written on the rear window. It was like a farm vehicle: fans drawn by the wipers in the windshield d
ust, tools in the back. It seemed made for some brutal purpose, some mounting or breaking. He stepped away from it and saw David on the patio, watching him. I’ve seen men like that, he thought, ready to kill.
‘What are you sliming round for?’ David said.
‘Nothing.’
‘Why don’t you piss off, then? Do some fucking manoeuvres. Just don’t push me.’
It’s time I stopped him, Alan thought. But David grinned at him suddenly. ‘Brother,’ he said, and went inside.
Alan stood undecided. Okay, he thought, I’ll give him ten minutes. Then I’ll tell him to clear out. He went into the trees and walked towards the back of the orchard, wanting to keep away from Heather. He circled back through Cox’s Orange trees. Tomorrow he was getting Freda out – tomorrow morning. But would she ever be free? David would always follow. What does that leave, he thought, Phoebe’s way? It struck him like a blow in his chest, almost doubled him up. His heart made an alarmed beating. ‘No,’ he said, and turned towards the pines, walked in them, felt their crookedness and their green weight. The tractor roared far off, like a beast. A car door slammed with the sound of a gunshot. He stepped round trunks that blocked his way. Dead matches and cigarette butts made a little pyramid in the needles. He knew they were David’s but the knowledge had no significance, everything was far away and thinned.
He reached the sunlight. Over the shed, in the trees, he saw David rise on to the patio and stand with his back to him, looking at the mountains. He stretched his arms above his head and worked his shoulders. Then he went into the house.
‘God help me,’ Alan said. ‘Help me, please.’
He went down from the pine trees, passed the shed and struck out through the Golden Delicious to the yard. Everything was changed; it was as though a sound had been deleted, wind or sea, or a colour taken from the spectrum. He went up the steps and into the sitting room. David was sprawled in an armchair, smoking.
‘Where’d you get to, bro? I been looking for you.’
‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘He went to sleep. Hey, you think I put a pillow over his face?’
‘Did you talk to him?’
‘I asked him how he was. He said fine. Well –’ he stood up – ‘gotta go. I’ll see you, colonel. Keep me posted, eh. I don’t want to miss the funeral.’
Something’s changed, Alan thought. He’s taken a step. We’ve both taken one. He followed David out and watched him get in his car. David rolled the window down. ‘You look worried, colonel. You got something you want to say?’
‘Was that you smoking up there in the pines?’
David stubbed his cigarette out on the car door. He flicked the butt at the base of the steps. ‘Not me, mate. You got the wrong man. Enjoy the grapes.’ He winked at Alan and drove away.
He’s in control, Alan thought. He knows something I don’t know. Again it came to him that David was ready to kill. Cheerfulness was sometimes a part of it. He had the still excitement and the single gaze, even when he stood and lurched, slewing his eyes here and there. Men who were ready could not hide it. You used them then or you sent them back down the line. All I can do is watch and be ready too, he thought. He was close to something he could neither touch nor understand.
At lunchtime, when Heather came to the house, he drove to Motueka and put petrol in the car, checked the oil and water and the tyres. He wanted to be ready to take Freda to her plane in the morning. Then he went to the travel agency and picked up her ticket.
May did not ring until close to five o’clock. ‘Alan, has he been? Has he gone?’ He told her yes and she called Freda to the phone.
‘Did he ask about me?’
‘No, it’s all right. He sat with Dad a while and went away. You can come home.’ ‘Home’ was on the table now, for them to contemplate.
She said, ‘Why don’t we eat out? In Motueka? There’s a restaurant called Pete’s Place. It’s not as bad as it sounds. Will you make a booking?’
He agreed. It was best that she spend as much time as she could away from the orchard. The smoker in the pine trees worried him, although he saw now that it could have been a picker sneaking off.
He told Heather he was going out and that Freda was leaving in the morning. ‘You’ll have to get a new day nurse. You should get a night nurse too.’
‘Don’t tell me what to do. How long are you staying?’
‘As long as he wants me.’
He met Freda at the restaurant at seven thirty – and she had altered. She had turned her hardness round to show a softness on the back; and seemed to be saying that she liked him how he was. He wondered if it meant that she and May had talked about him. He showed her Fay Taylor’s letter.
‘You can’t let May see this,’ she said.
‘No, I’m going to burn it.’
‘Let’s do it now.’
They moved to a table on the smokers’ side and burned the letter in an ashtray. A waitress ran up with a jug and splashed the flames, sending wet ash across the cloth. They moved again, chastened by her scolding, and ate their meal quietly at a back table. Over coffee Freda said, ‘May told me you were religious.’
‘Yes. Does it bother you?’
‘It’s interesting. I’ve never known a man who was religious before. I mean, you go to church and drink the wine and all that?’
‘Yes. I’ll be going tomorrow after I put you on the plane.’ He gave her the ticket and for a moment her sharpness came back.
‘I’m paying you for this. I don’t want to be kept.’
‘I’ve never “kept” a woman in my life. Tell me how you met David. How did someone like you …’
‘Do we have to talk about him?’
‘I just want to fill him in a bit. There must be more …’
‘There is. He can be charming. What a word! I mean’ – she shrugged – ‘he pays attention, does little things, like you with doors, but not that.’ She looked at him sideways, made a deprecating face. ‘Sexy things, you know, that point to bed and just, well, make you feel good. Made me feel good. I can be excited by a man. That’s been my downfall. He doesn’t have to have much up top.’ She grinned. ‘That’s bad too. But David wasn’t always a thug. It’s just when things don’t go his way that he gets like that.’ She drank the last of her coffee and signalled with her cup to the waitress for more. ‘That’s enough about him. Tell me about you.’
‘There’s not much to tell.’
‘I think maybe a woman did something bad to you.’
‘Something bad happened.’
‘A woman you loved?’
‘Yes, I loved her. I still see her every time. With every woman I’m getting on all right with she comes and stands in the way.’ He saw that he would tell her about Phoebe and that she would not wear Phoebe’s face.
‘Do you mean you can’t love anyone else?’
He shook his head. ‘She doesn’t spoil it that way. I don’t love her any more.’
‘What is it, Alan?’
‘I’ve never told anyone.’
‘Tell me. Did it happen when you were in the army?’
‘No, later. After the army. She was younger than me. I was forty-six. She was thirty.’
‘And married to someone else, I’ll bet.’
‘Yes. She was married to a man who owned a chain of sports stores.’
He told her about Phoebe – how they met. The firm he had found work with kept her husband’s books. He went sailing with them out of Westhaven, on their launch, and he and Phoebe became lovers after the second trip. Two or three evenings a week she came to his flat and they had the sort of non-stop sex he had only read about. He was as virile as a boy. He could not tell Freda this – could not say words to her he had used with Phoebe, although he knew Freda would not mind. Nor could he explain his love – could not separate the carnal from the non-carnal parts. He no longer knew whether Phoebe had loved him and he could only say to Freda that her excitement had seemed to match his own. It went on for a
month in a kind of frenzy of tenderness and invention, and he began to wait for the next part of it, the settling down and calmness that would reveal what they must know of each other beyond this. He saw he would not have her until they moved there.
He told her that he wanted her to divorce her husband and marry him. It turned her silent. She was a woman who verbalised everything. It was for him, a quiet man, part of her fascination. She asked him not to talk about it yet, and in their next two meetings, though she spoke – loved to talk herself and him through their love-making – he heard a whisper in her, another voice, as she held a conversation with herself. He could not make out what she said, and wondered if he was being tried, assessed, for the role he had asked her to let him play. It disturbed him, and he told her that they must always be out in the open with each other.
They lay still, side by side, fingers twined after making love. She said, ‘He’s a rich man. I can’t let all that money go.’ ‘Money,’ he said. He picked the word up, handled it like a piece of machinery that would not fit. ‘I’ve got enough. We won’t be short.’
‘Alan,’ she said, ‘you don’t know money. I know it. I’ve learned all about it.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘Be quiet, love.’ He was quiet. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said. ‘Yes?’ ‘You’ve been a soldier. You must be able to do it. You must know ways.’ She looked at him quickly, but his stillness gave nothing away. He was stunned. His heart lay stunned like a fish. She said, ‘It could happen out on the boat. He could fall over the side. Alan? Alan? It wouldn’t be hard to hold him under.’
‘She wanted you to kill him?’ Freda said.
‘Alan, listen. You could jump in and pretend to rescue him but what you’d do is hold him under and I’d turn the boat round and come back for you, but by that time he’d be dead. He’s small, Alan. He’s not big like you. We could do it.’
He knew that when he looked at her she would be ugly. He looked at her. His heart gave a flap and beat again. But now he was in a wrong element. He smelled their love-making, sour, corrupt, and smelled her breath. He looked into her eyes. His own eyes were wrung and squeezed and dry. She said, ‘What’s wrong?’ He said, ‘You want to murder him?’ She put her hand on his chest and pushed herself up, away from him; looked at him sideways, said, ‘I’ve done it wrong, haven’t I?’ Said, ‘You’re not the man I thought you would be, Alan.’
