Here was Eloise sitting on a bleached log, on a rocky beach. One of Arthur throwing stones. She turned up a photo of him sitting on a rock against a bank of intensely green bush. He was wearing his old oilskin. His hair was slicked down with rain, his potent gaze fixed on her. That look he could give you, his startling eyes.
Arthur.
In the first shock of his death, random phrases came. Arthur’s died, but he’ll be all right. Something has hit Arthur so hard that he’s died. The thing was, you couldn’t understand it. These odd phrases came to you out of the confusion, and you tried them out in your head.
She drew out a Polaroid. It was a faded picture of a girl sitting on a bench, looking away from the camera. There was a background of sand, lupins and marram grass. The girl looked to be early teens, Maori, thin and pretty with glossy black hair and intense, pale eyes. She turned the photo over and found a name written in Biro on the back: Mereana.
Eloise listened. The dryer had stopped rumbling. She could hear Demelza talking upstairs, and Silvio’s claws clicking as he crossed the wooden floor.
Mereana. There was a memory, but she couldn’t retrieve it. Now she heard her mother preparing to leave, asking where she was, an inaudible reply from Carina, and the Sparkler’s high voice. The front door opening — Carina would be out in the street, positioning Demelza’s car.
The front door banged again and her sister started making bedtime commands: teeth, pyjamas, book.
While Carina and the Sparkler were arguing in the bathroom, Eloise took the file to the spare room. After she’d got into bed, Silvio poked his nose around the door, and with surprising grace leapt up, turned a number of times and settled himself hotly, with an emphatic sigh, against her body.
The handwritten pages were dated just a few weeks before Arthur died:
Lin Jung Ha 021 233 9436. Housekeeper, boss of the help. Runs Hallwrights’ city house, now staying at Hallwrights’ summer residence, Rotokauri.
Also at Rotokauri, David Hallwright’s closest circle:
His wife Roza.
His children.
His oldest friend and fellow campaigner, Police Minister Ed Miles.
His best friend, and the adoptive father of Roza’s daughter Elke, Dr Simon Lampton.
Simon Lampton’s wife, Karen.
The Lamptons’ son, and Elke.
Hallwright’s Deputy PM and Finance Minister, Colin Cahane.
Also on site, domestic staff, political and security staff, and children’s nanny Tuleimoka Faleuka.
That summer: Arthur was preoccupied, full of enthusiasm one moment, silent the next. He always had too many ideas; she’d thought he should concentrate on just a few. He was usually working on three or four projects at once.
Re Hallwrights and Lamptons: the Lamptons adopted Elke Lampton when she was eight. Former adoptive parent had died. They didn’t know at first she was the daughter of Roza Hallwright. RH had given birth when she was a teenager, and had the baby adopted. (Parents strict Catholic. After the adoption RH became alcoholic and drug user — is now sober — ref Roza’s old friend Tamara Goldwater 027 436 6602). The Lamptons discovered the connection with Roza after becoming National Party donors and meeting the Hallwrights. The two families are now close friends.
Eloise paused. These people were real and so were the connections between them. Everyone knew about Roza Hallwright and the daughter she shared with the Lamptons. Back then, there were magazine pieces about it, also about Rotokauri, the luxury compound north of the city, where the Hallwrights went during the summer break. But Roza Hallwright a recovered alcoholic? A drug user? That wasn’t common knowledge. Had Arthur uncovered a secret, or had he invented it?
There was a soft knock. Carina stuck her head around the door and said, ‘There you are, Silvio. Want me to drag him off?’
‘No. He stinks, but I’m touched he finds me acceptable.’
‘You can stay here as long as you like, by the way.’
‘Thanks. Sorry.’
‘No, honestly, the more the merrier.’
‘Well, thanks.’
Eloise thought, for the thousandth time, how much better she would be if she was like Carina. How much saner, cleverer, kinder.
‘Just kick Sil off if he gets too hot,’ Carina said.
Eloise wanted to say, I love you and I’d be dead without you. But not wanting to be uncool said, ‘I will.’
She went back to reading Arthur’s notes.
The names: there was something about the names.
ELEVEN
‘I’ve been wondering about balance,’ Eloise said.
Klaudia positioned herself in her seat, holding a coffee mug in both hands.
Eloise considered, then decided against mentioning the rat she’d seen during the last session. ‘Balance. How do we know I’m not sitting here editing out the truth? How do we know, either of us, that what I’m saying isn’t a load of subjective invention? Delusion?’
Klaudia had a smile that turned her mouth up at the corners like the Joker. She had an especially fairytale quality today, her eyes large, bright and intensely blue. Eloise thought of lost children, wicked stepmothers. Dark forests. Snow.
‘Balance. Big question.’
Would it be rude to mention the rat? Would the rat seem to represent something Klaudia hadn’t been privy to, and therefore a kind of assertion on Eloise’s part, a piece of one-upmanship: You weren’t anticipating that, were you? You didn’t see that coming. Eloise considered this while saying, ‘Also, I have the slight concern that since I’ve been seeing you I’ve got more mad, not less.’
‘Ah.’
‘Well, perhaps not more mad. But my life seems to have got more chaotic.’
The rat was in league with Klaudia. The rat was part of her repertoire. It emerged and showed itself to the patient, and then Klaudia measured the reaction. After the session, the therapist and her colleague, the rat, conferred. Eloise thought this while saying, ‘Talking about my mother, for example. It seems, potentially, a recipe for disaster. The only way I get on with my mother is by not thinking about her too hard.’
It was quite difficult to say all this. And Klaudia, it had to be said, was being disconcertingly tight-lipped today. Eloise, whose headache was so bad she felt like screaming, selected a tissue from the box on the desk and wiped her brow. Honestly, Klaudia, let me know what you think. Jump in whenever you feel like it.
She went on, ‘Now I’ve talked to you, I notice everything my mother says. I don’t skate over things. I’ve become too aware. It’s going to lead to fights, is all I’m saying.’
‘You mention balance.’
‘Oh yes. Two issues.’ (Was it terribly hot in here?) ‘Balance, and the fact that raking up family problems might lead to fights. Perhaps,’ Eloise tried a smile, winced and thought better of it, ‘perhaps there’s a lot to be said for the good old-fashioned stiff upper lip. Everyone bent into their dysfunctional shapes and the ship moving along just fine. Whereas if you start unpicking the family dynamic, you undo the winning formula that keeps the ship, er, afloat …’
‘I notice you looking at the garden. Is it too cold with the French doors open?’
‘Too cold? No. I … sometimes there’s an old woman out there.’
‘Yes, she is the gardener.’
There was a pause. Eloise said, ‘I just wonder about the wisdom of opening this can of worms.’
Klaudia smiled. ‘The can of worms — horrible expression — the can of worms was already partly open, don’t you think?’
Eloise shifted in her seat, embarrassed to have used a horrible expression.
She said, ‘Perhaps one should just force the lid back on.’
‘Better to let those worms out!’
‘Oh God,’ Eloise said. How would Klaudia interpret it if she crossed the floor and threw up all over the patio?
Klaudia’s voice softened. ‘It can be painful, I know. And sometimes, through therapy, you will find you are raising things w
ith your family that may in the past have been kept usefully taboo. If you kick a holy cow, you can ruffle a few feathers!’
A short silence. Eloise frowned.
Trying to sound normal and even upbeat, she said, ‘I’m wondering if I should get a puppy.’
‘Ah. They are a lot of work. You have a full-time job?’
‘That’s the problem. Maybe I couldn’t look after it properly. But I’m so …’ She stared at the desk with mad intensity. ‘I’m living alone, and I’m having trouble sleeping at night.’
‘You have been using the sleeping pills?’
‘I want a guard dog.’ It came out like a demand.
‘I see. But of course if you got a puppy, it wouldn’t guard for about a year.’
Eloise stared, baffled by this piece of wisdom. It hadn’t occurred to her — puppies don’t start work straight away. Should she take up Carina’s offer of Silvio? Noisome Silvio … But what would he do all day while she was at work, apart from shit on the floor and gnaw the stairs. She would have to borrow the Sparkler to see to him, and she went to school most days, presumably. Think of the mess. Trashing the place would certainly annoy Sean and Lady Cheryl.
Klaudia had swivelled a photo on her desk. Eloise looked at the picture: a large brown dog with a noble head and soulful eyes.
‘I am a dog-owner myself, so I know a bit about them. The alternative for you would be some human company, wouldn’t it?’
A hot sigh rose in Eloise’s chest. ‘Well, I thought maybe a hobby, involving a club. There’s a book club on the peninsula with some nice women. Or yoga or zumba, or whatever. And there’s a man. A neighbour, who’s friendly.’
‘We have to keep building those bridges.’
‘Yes. Bridges.’ Like Giles, she thought. The bridge builder.
‘Tell me about this man.’
‘Nick? He owns properties. He’s sort of good-looking, athletic. A nice manner, not rough. There was a fire, near my property, he helped put it out.’
‘A fire?’ Klaudia raised her eyebrows. ‘The one you started?’
‘Yes.’
Out there in the garden, the wind flipped the silvery fern leaves and shivered the colourful heads of the flowers. She saw a line of rats performing a song-and-dance routine on the bricks. Little top hats and sticks and tails.
‘I’m glad to hear he’s a nice man. Puts out fires.’ Klaudia smiled.
But had they actually answered the question about balance? Eloise gathered her strength and said, ‘What I mentioned before. Balance. How do we know everything I tell you isn’t so subjective that it’s giving you a false picture? What if I tell you my mother makes comments that seem designed to attack, but in fact she’s not doing that, and I’m just deluded and paranoid?’
‘You don’t seem so paranoid to me. But think of this as a conversation. An exploration. I’m not the judge. I’m the mirror. In a way, you are having a conversation with yourself. When you talk about the past, you have a strong reaction. It can be helpful to focus on the Now. Things that happened in the past are gone, but their effect still reaches you, like light travelling from a dead star.’
‘The past is a dead star,’ Eloise repeated.
‘Yes. Its light still crossing the universe.’
Klaudia sat up straight. Glancing at the clock, she tapped her notepad with her pen. ‘We talked before about the past, how your current situation has brought it flooding back to you. Certain things for you have been unresolved. The mementos you mentioned, belonging to Arthur. You felt they were significant. Have you explored your feelings about those?’
A conversation with the self. A memory: the image of her face swinging back in front of her in the bathroom mirror. Her eyes wide and black …
Eloise wondered if she were perhaps slightly frightened of Klaudia. They were talking so intimately, but Eloise didn’t know who she was. She kept talking to Nick, and she didn’t know who he was either. Perhaps this was what happened when you went mad: eventually everyone was a stranger. You went on talking and in the end you were surrounded by faces you didn’t know.
She heard herself: evasive. Avoiding the question. ‘That’s a beautiful dog, Klaudia. What a glossy brown coat. Is it some kind of rare breed …?’
She drove away from Klaudia’s office, windows wound up and the air-conditioning roaring. Instead of heading straight back, she parked at the Herne Bay shops and went to a café.
Over a calming trim flat white, she mentally replayed the conversation with Klaudia. The past was a dead star, its light still reaching her. Was therapy making her saner? This was unclear.
Deep breaths. Right. All serene. She rang Sean’s cell phone.
A woman answered, ‘Sean Rodd’s office.’ It was that awful little bitch, his secretary, Voodoo.
‘It’s Eloise. Let me speak to Sean.’
Voodoo tried to fob her off and then made her wait. Eloise remained composed.
Sean came on the line. She said, ‘Right. It’s me. Please thank your secretary for making me wait. I suppose she’s just had to get up off the floor. Off the … off the desk. Whatever.’
‘What? Who?’
‘Your secretary. With the tiny neck and the big round eyes. Voodoo.’
‘Oh,’ Sean said.
‘Anyway. I have a question, okay?’
‘Okay, sure. Shoot.’
‘Shoot. Shoot. You would say that, wouldn’t you.’
‘Eloise, I have to go to a meeting.’
‘Right. A meeting. You know what, fuck your meeting.’
Silence.
‘Okay, Sean. I just want to say one thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘Fuck you and your meeting.’
‘Right. Is that it?’
‘No. Actually. What I want to know is have you been in the house?’
‘In the house? No.’
‘In our house. In our ex-marital home. Have you been sneaking in?’
‘No. I wouldn’t dare after last time.’
‘Very funny. You haven’t, not once? It’s important. Do you promise you haven’t been back when I was out?’
‘I swear, Eloise. I haven’t been back since you threw the whole kitchen at me.’
For a moment, Eloise couldn’t decide how she felt about this. ‘I think someone’s been in the house.’
‘What, broken in?’
‘Just, got in. Things were moved around. I left the door unlocked and stayed at Carina’s and when I got home it was deadlocked.’
‘The cleaner. Amigo.’
‘No, it wasn’t his day.’
‘Was the alarm on?’
‘No. I never bother. I’ll start using it.’
‘Well, you should. Are you all right?’
‘Of course I’m all right. What’s it to you? What do you care?’
‘All right. Jesus.’
‘Where are you and Barbie holed up? In some student flat?’
‘Actually, Danni has her own house.’ His tone was aggrieved, and faintly proud.
Eloise’s whole body filled with nausea and pain. And yet it was easier if he was hateable. She sighed, sounding like Silvio at his most weary and long-suffering, and said, ‘I suppose you’ll be wanting me out soon. Of the house. The sale.’
‘Eloise, don’t cry.’
‘I’m not crying.’
‘Yes, we have to sell soon. We’ll make a lot. Values have really gone up. Starlight Peninsula was a dump when we bought there, compared to now. Now it’s hot. I don’t mind talking, but I’ve got to go. The Hallwrights have flown in from the South of France. They’ll be here in a minute. The whole team’s working around the clock, we’re doing a due diligence. Eloise? I promise, I haven’t been near the house.’
The waitress said, ‘Can I clear that for you? Are you okay?’
‘Fine, thanks.’ Eloise pressed the heel of her hand to her cheek, nodding: yes she would like another flat white. And if you could throw in a slug of rum. Or horse tranquiliser. Or cyanide.
‘I can’t tell you. It’s a big deal, that’s all.’
‘Perhaps you could rename Auckland, now Wellington’s called Soonworld. What’s Auckland going to be: The Idiot’s Village?’
‘Actually the village idiot characters were edited out by Hollywood. As offensive to the differently able. Eloise, I …’
‘What?’
‘Sometimes I wish …’
‘What?’
‘I miss …’
She waited.
‘The thing is, Danni …’
‘Good bye.’ She slammed down the phone, only it was an iPhone, and there was a distressing crack as it hit the table. Around the café, heads turned.
Stare all you like. Whatever.
Sean. Sitting in his high-rise office at Jaeger’s. Jaeger’s: Auckland’s oldest and richest law firm, advisors to the Hallwrights, and the Hallwright group of companies. She’d stood there in that office many times. Waiting for him on a cold clear day with a roaring wind, everything harsh and full of white noise and Sean coming in as she stood looking at the harbour and the bridge and the yachts and saying, Let’s get married.
His specialty was intellectual property and entertainment law, which was why he was running round after the Hallwrights. Jaeger’s was a big commercial firm with a lucrative sideline; they acted for TV stars, film directors, for the country’s only famous pop star. She’d met Sean after Arthur had died, when he’d come to ask whether she had any copies of a screenplay Arthur had apparently written for a film-director client of his. Later, he came to the set of Roysmith. He was accompanying a Jaeger’s client, a rich Chinese businessman who was being interviewed and wanted to be seen sweeping around town with a team of suits. On first meeting them the businessman had whipped out photos of himself with Prime Minister Jack Dance: connected, see. Sean asked her out to lunch in front of Scott, who’d immediately (warmly, richly, melodramatically) urged her to accept.
Starlight Peninsula Page 10
