Starlight Peninsula
Page 18
She directed a wry smile at Silvio. Dogs, Carina had told her, can read faces. They can distinguish a frown from a grin.
The dog crunched up his pretend meat, dry as dust. The fur on his legs was black. That morning, while he was sniffing near the blackened toe toe, a cloud of ash had formed itself into a cone beside him, and whirled away along the peninsula.
Godspeed.
It’s Shakespearean, Silvio. You come from your mother. If your mother doesn’t love you, it sends a powerful message. Nature is whispering, You don’t belong. You are, in the Shakespearean sense, ‘unkind’ — inhuman, unnatural. It feels like a malign invitation. It feels like a glimpse into the Godless universe, into the void.
NINETEEN
Passing the supermarket, Eloise kept an eye out for the wolf. With her phone, she was going to film it howling, for Nick.
On foot, without Silvio, she walked east across the city. She was without Silvio because the Sparkler had protested, and requested his return. She was looking, as usual, for Sean’s Audi — for any evidence of Sean. But she was heading in the direction of Mt Matariki.
Around noon, she reached Hillary Road. It was all very staid and buttoned up, here in the plush eastern suburbs. None of the raw atmosphere of the peninsula, with its scorched grasses, high skies, and views of the silvery estuary. Here were lawns, pools, tennis courts tended by the silent help: Comrade, Buddy, Angel. In the streets, the children with their hairstyles and their iPhones and their au pairs: Inneke, Svetlana, Anke. The drone of lawnmowers, the roar of leaf blowers. The svelte blondes, in their tanklike SUVs. Sporty, burnished lycra-clad couples, bedizened widows with stiffened stacks of dyed hair. This was Jack Dance’s constituency: true blue. This was where the affluent lived and rejoiced in the gap — the gap between rich and poor. Because what would be the point of being rich, if everyone else was rich too? Look how far away the poor were! The further away they got, the more enjoyable everything was. And the clearer it was that you’d arrived. Obv.
Eloise knew all this: she grew up here. She knew the hilarity, the tolerant mirth that ideas like ‘wealth distribution’ and ‘fairness’ were met with around these parts. Left-wing candidates were laughed off doorsteps at election time: they just didn’t get it. David Hallwright had got it, when he was prime minister. Jack Dance got it. Eloise got it, and didn’t entirely approve, although she hadn’t argued with or minded Sean’s firm right-wing allegiances. (His parents, Sir Jarrod and Lady Cheryl, along with the Ellison family, practically funded the National Party.) Carina was sternly Labour: she could never have married Sean Rodd. Carina had principles. She had, for her paper, interviewed members of the Labour Party in this electorate. There were nine of them, and two were dying.
Now, Eloise climbed the side of Mt Matariki. She looked down into the crater and thought of Silvio. His nose, his tangled white fur, his strange, deep eyes. The wind blew in the dry grass; cloud shadows swiftly crossed the suburbs. Look Silvio, how the wind flips the leaves. Notice, there is something about the air today, as if soon there will be a change — to the iron light, the great wide skies of autumn. And Klaudia, you here, too! (What a fetching shirt you’re wearing, such a pretty blue, to match your eyes.) Sit down here on this bench in the sun, Klaudia. I’m all ears. Let me hear your best lines: Treat yourself well. Go easy on yourself. Don’t judge yourself so harshly. No, you are not boring, Eloise.
That was the best thing Klaudia had said: No, you are not boring, Eloise. But she’d said it a while ago, possibly before she’d found herself growing terribly, terminally bored …
She hadn’t been on the mountain for more than an hour when Simon Lampton emerged from his front gate, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. He set off, jogging slowly up Pukeora Place.
Eloise headed down to his gate and waited.
Forty minutes later, she heard him pounding along the pavement. He came around the curve of the street, his face sweaty, a dark stain on the front of his shirt. He stopped in front of her and roamed around, his hands on his hips, steadying his breath. He looked at her, wiped his face with his forearm and said, ‘Jesus.’
‘I saw you. At the opera,’ Eloise said. ‘You were leaning against the window in the foyer, talking on the phone.’
‘Right.’
‘The Marriage of Figaro.’
He went on looking at her. He took the hem of his T-shirt and wiped his face. She could smell his sweat. Politely, and as if speaking to the village idiot, he said, ‘Lost your dog?’
‘I had to give him back.’
He nodded, about to pass her.
Eloise followed and he turned, with a flash of cold firmness.
‘What’s this about? You mentioned my name. When you came on my property.’
My property. Meaningful words, around here. Like taxpayers’ money and welfarism and slap on the wrist with a wet …
Focus. Concentrate.
He took hold of the gate, about to close it. He moved around, jogging on the spot, fidgeting, impatient.
‘I wanted to talk to you. But it’s hard to explain.’
He dropped his head, waited. Flexed his shoulders.
She got it out in the end. Her voice quavered, and sounded quaint and formal, ‘My enquiry concerns … It’s about Arthur Weeks.’
She coughed, to get her voice under control. But look at him. He’d stopped moving. His whole body had gone completely still.
Silence.
‘Arthur Weeks,’ she said. ‘Arthur is actually dead. He was my partner — we were going to get married. The reason I’ve come is … it’s a bit difficult to explain …’
No response.
‘I know it must seem a bit weird.’
Silence.
Finally he said, ‘Okay, come inside.’
‘Really? Are you sure?’
He nodded, held the gate open, gestured for her to go ahead up the path. His big hand was twisted in his T-shirt.
Directing her around the side of the house, he led her through a gate to the back, where he unlocked the glass doors. They entered the big, sunny room, and he pointed to a seat at a wooden table.
‘Back in a minute,’ he said.
She waited, looking around. It was a very big villa. There were shelves crammed with books and ornaments and photos. Pictures of Simon Lampton with his family. A blonde woman. A glamorous girl, presumably Elke Lampton, a plain young woman with Lampton’s features, a young man holding a tennis racquet, a dark, curly-haired boy with freckles on his nose and striking, pale eyes. There was an expensive kitchen, a view through to a wide hall with a polished wooden floor and a staircase that he’d presumably just run up — she could hear him moving on the floor above — large windows with a view over the lawn to the mountain. She watched a figure climbing the slope and then she saw eyes, a face in the glass — he was standing behind her.
He had a towel around his neck, and a clean T-shirt.
‘I’m going to make a coffee. Would you like one?’
He moved smoothly into the kitchen; she followed and watched him. His movements were controlled. Those big hands: so very steady. Surgeon’s hands. The life seemed to have gone out of him. His tone was flat, unanimated, ‘How d’you have it? Milk? Sugar?’ A little twitch at the corner of his mouth made Eloise think of Demelza: he was probably suppressing his irritation. She felt bad.
‘Sorry about the intrusion,’ she said.
‘I do have things to do. I’m catching up on work.’
‘You go and get your PE and then you can focus,’ Eloise said warmly. ‘I can’t concentrate at all unless I’ve been for a walk.’
The look he now gave her was complex: incredulous (he really couldn’t believe he was having to put up with this) and potent. His face was oddly white, and set.
Potent: full of potential. But potential for what?
‘My name’s Eloise Hay.’
‘And you know my name.’
He handed her a coffee. They sat down, faced each other. Eloise coughed.
Silence.
‘And this relates to me how?’
Eloise paused. She focused on his face. His expression faltered, his brow creased, then his eyes went hard again.
‘Arthur rang you,’ Eloise said.
Their eyes were locked.
‘Arthur rang you. He was a journalist. Do you remember?’
She put down the cup, leaned forward. ‘You were at Rotokauri with the prime minister, David Hallwright, and Arthur called you. He wanted to ask about the Hallwrights and you fobbed him off. After that he died.’
‘Right. I remember.’
‘I would have thought you’d remember, since the police asked you about it.’
‘Of course.’
‘So why do you ask, relates to me how?’
‘I’d forgotten. Sorry.’
Eloise sat back, sighed. ‘I know, it was a long time ago.’
‘It was.’
‘Do you remember anything? Any clues?’
‘He had a fall, didn’t he? From memory. I have no idea. It was nothing to do with me. And so long ago. They only came to me briefly because they’d checked his phone records, and my number came up.’
‘The Hallwrights had a housekeeper, a Chinese woman. I think Arthur might have talked to her, maybe got information.’
‘Really. I don’t know.’ His expression was closed, set against her.
‘Are you still friends with the Hallwrights?’
‘Sure.’
‘Have you seen them? They’re back in the country.’
He just looked at her: no comment. None of your business. He put a hand up to his head and calmly smoothed his hair. He swallowed.
Eloise went on, ‘I got an idea. There was a piece of paper with your name and a woman’s name on it, that the police found in the flat. Did you know about that?’
‘No.’
‘They didn’t ask you about it?’
He shrugged. ‘Not that I remember.’
‘I wondered if Arthur was talking to you about the woman, when he rang you.’
‘No.’
‘Because your name and hers are together on the bit of paper. Separated by a forward slash.’
He mimed puzzlement, mouth turned down, slowly shaking his head.
‘A forward slash. As in, Simon Lampton forward slash Mereana Kostas.’
Silence.
‘And the woman, Mereana Kostas — she’s a missing person.’
A bird flashed past the window and swooped towards the green slope of the mountain. Beyond the glass were the rings within rings of yellow light, dancing in the blue pool.
He was speaking.
‘I have helped people all my life. Every week I look after women. I help them deliver their babies. When they need surgery, I fix them. I fix them.’
‘I understand.’
‘And you come here. You come here.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You come into my house and question me. These people, these names, I don’t know who they are.’
Something rising. Eloise put up her hands. ‘I’m sorry.’
He blinked, hard. His jaw working.
‘I’m just trying to find out. I want to know what happened. I loved Arthur. He was the love of my life.’
Arthur.
Remember that morning, on the side of Mt Eden. Try to describe it. All the world dissolving, falling down …
She couldn’t stop talking. Sitting there, holding the coffee cup in both hands, explaining herself while the man, the stranger, ranged near, came close, veered away again, his movements smooth, like liquid, he waited out near the edge of her explanation — watched and waited, in a zone of his own.
TWENTY
Eloise said, ‘The way the rings of light move in the pool — they’re not just “dancing”. They move like fat people with big round arses, bumping and grinding.’
Rhythmically. The bump, the grind, the rings of light. The interval between the words could be expressed as a forward slash.
Double rings, circles but not round, they are wavering, elliptical, like smoke rings, yet their motion, conforming to the movement of the water, is regular and muscular.
It was hypnotic: the twanging, elastic samba on the pool’s blue walls. On the white paint of the weatherboard house.
Simon Lampton was standing at the edge of the pool, one thumb hooked inside the waistband of his shorts. Eloise was sitting on a deckchair six feet away from him, holding a glass. They were surrounded by the patterns of light.
This was after she’d sat at his table, explaining herself. After she’d talked, and he’d listened, until she’d suddenly stopped talking, her throat closing over, and he’d stood over her, inspected her warily and said, ‘What can I get for you? Would you like me to call someone? A friend? Your mother?’
Call Demelza. How taken aback he was when she laughed.
Eloise had looked up, swallowed, and said, ‘Can we go outside? Get some air?’ And then, ‘I’d like a stiff drink.’
The bump/the grind/the rings of light.
Now he came near and squinted down at her, shading his eyes.
‘Can I have another one?’
‘You’ve had quite a lot.’
‘Can I call you Simon?’
‘Of course.’
‘We’ve been brought together by a forward slash,’ Eloise said.
He sat down heavily on the seat beside her. ‘Christ.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Eloise. Eloise Hay, did you say? Let me make sure I’ve got it straight. Because you’ve told me quite a tale, and you’ve been a bit incoherent.’
‘Sorry,’ she said again.
‘Your boyfriend’s, partner’s, name was Arthur Weeks. You and he spent half your time at his flat, half at yours.’
‘I was partly living in a flat my parents owned. But I was about to move in with Arthur.’
‘You arrived at Arthur’s flat after getting off a plane from Sydney, and the police were there.’
‘I walked up the hill, and they were on the road outside the flat. A woman had come out her back door and found Arthur dead in her yard. She hadn’t heard anything, apparently. The police said he’d been taking sleeping pills, and that he’d walked out of the flat and fallen off the retaining wall. I didn’t question. But there was a bruise on his leg and they didn’t know how it had got there.’
Simon nodded. ‘Right. So they looked at his phone records and found my number. And they found a note among his stuff with my name and the name of a woman.’
‘And the only woman of that name they could find is missing.’
‘But you don’t know who the woman is, why Arthur wrote down her name?’
‘No. I don’t know why you and she are connected with a forward slash.’
‘Neither do I,’ Simon said. He shaded his eyes against the sun. ‘Although, Arthur was a journalist, right, so maybe we were just the two people he’d decided to call that day. He called me because he was interested in the Hallwrights.’
‘He didn’t mention Mereana?’
‘No. I hung up on him pretty quick. We were used to journalists taking an interest. Given that we shared our daughter with David Hallwright and his wife.’
‘Arthur was a lovely person.’
Simon looked at her, expressionless.
‘He was so talented. I used to tell him, just focus on one thing at a time, but he had so many ideas. There was the screenplay, and he’d written two plays, and he wanted to write a novel. And he worked for television, he did some writing on comedy shows — he was hilariously funny, did I mention that?’
‘He sounds too good to be true.’
‘I know, but he was.’
‘But after he died, you got married?’
Eloise sat up. ‘What do you mean “but”? Do you
think I should have pined forever, never got with anyone else?’
He made a quelling motion with his hand. ‘No. Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just, this is all very confusing — you turn up out of the blue, you spring all this detail on me.’
‘Yes, I married Sean. The thing is, getting married was so conventional, it made me feel safe. I really loved Sean. Now he’s left me. And suddenly I realised I’ve been living in a kind of denial, a fog. I never asked any questions.’
‘How did you know to look for me?’
‘The police showed me the piece of paper with your name on it, when they were questioning me. Actually I remember overhearing the woman detective mentioning a gynaecologist at some stage.’
‘The woman detective?’
‘Her name’s Marie Da Silva. She’s got odd eyes, one blue, one brown. You’d remember her.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘She remembers you.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘When she mentioned you she made a kind of face. As if she had an opinion of you.’
‘You’ve got a good memory, Eloise.’
‘Well, it wasn’t long ago I saw her.’
‘Not long …?’
‘I went back to Central Police Station. Recently. I told them I regretted not asking any questions. I asked about the names.’
Simon got up so abruptly, she blinked. He went inside and came back with a glass and a bottle.
Eloise looked up from her phone. ‘Just going to text my sister.’
He smiled, without warmth. ‘Ah. That’s an iPhone, is it? Where would we be without our smart phones.’
She shrugged. ‘Yeah?’
‘Can your sister wait? We’re talking.’
‘Okay, sure. I was going to ask her when I could borrow her dog again. You remember Silvio?’ She put the phone away.
He refilled her glass and poured one for himself.
Eloise said rapidly, ‘Thanks. It’s good to talk. This is a beautiful house by the way.’