by Lee Hayton
Daina 2004
When the hand clamped down on my shoulder, I bit my lower lip clean through. Blood swelled and tipped down my chin while I tried to stem it with my hand.
‘We’d like you to follow us,’ the man behind me said. I turned to look at him. His face was blank of all expression. Just a skin holding all the parts together. Just a working Joe doing his job, and not stopping long enough to consider if he liked it or not.
That was the part that was frightening. It didn’t even look like he was giving what he was doing consideration. A few hours at most since he’d killed a man in his car, and he was stopping me in a mall in public to take me somewhere and do something similar but he wasn’t even going to check it against some moral compass before he went ahead.
If he had a moral compass to check against, that is.
His companion was nothing more than a blur to my side. The blood was still dribbling from my lip.
The panic grew too much for my body to take. There was a flash of light, and then my whole body was calm. Everything snapped into focus. My heart seemed to pause between beats instead of racing at a trot.
I wiped at my chin again, but instead of cleaning the blood away I smeared it over as much of my face as I could. Then I opened my mouth and screamed.
‘Help!’ I jerked back as though the man’s outstretched hand had been holding me instead of resting on my shoulder. I stumbled back, and turned so the shoppers could clearly see my bloodstained face.
‘Help me, please. I don’t know this man!’
That turned out to be the magic phrase. A domestic dispute, or a parental admonishment, instantly coalesced into a man assaults woman, or man assaults child.
I pulled at the bottom of my school uniform and curled over to hide my height. With my hair hanging down either side of my face, my face covered with blood, I hoped I looked younger. I hoped I looked like the child I wished I still was.
There were hands helping me to my feet. I pretended to be limp so that I didn’t have to straighten up. Activity was on all sides, and then a security guard arrived.
He assessed my condition and picked up his radio.
Before the crackle of static could clear into an open channel the two suited men faded back into the crowd and walked briskly away. The guard started to follow them, but as more concerned people gathered, his way was blocked so they escaped outside.
He returned to me. ‘Are you okay? Do you want me to call an ambulance?’
I shook my head. ‘I think I’ve just cut my lip. I’m sorry to make such a fuss.’
More magic. A cluster of womenfolk reassured me that, ‘You’re not causing any trouble,’
‘Don’t you worry,’
‘It’s not your fault,’
‘You just sit and rest.’
I allowed them to seat me and clean up my face. There was a lace-edged hankie offered, and when I hesitated at its intricate needlework, it was pressed to my lip by old-age-pensioner hands.
‘Let me see,’ said a kind voice further back. A woman stepped forward and knelt to examine me. ‘It looks like you’ll need some stitches. Is there a doctor on site?’ she asked, turning to the guard who was still standing and fiddling with his radio.
He shook his head. ‘There’s a doctor’s surgery down the road. I can give them a call.’
‘You should call the police,’ said another voice, and there was a chorus of agreement.
I saw the Grey Man edge into the cluster. He shook his head. I understood. Police would take time, and they would take effort, and they would more than likely divine that the state of my life wasn’t quite up to scratch.
Group home. That was what the police meant. Group home.
So now I needed to find the magic words that would let the group disperse.
‘The surgery’s nearby?’ I questioned. The guard looked relieved to have a solid question to answer.
‘Just down the road. Opposite the McDonalds and a few doors further down.’
‘Well?’ said the woman tending to me. ‘Are you going to take her?’
‘That’s not his job,’ I interjected. ‘If it’s that close I can easily walk there.’
‘I’ll walk with you, and make sure you get there okay,’ the woman said as she stood. ‘We can’t have you fainting out there and doing more damage.’
There were a few mutters, and the crowd began to disperse back to its shopping.
The guard hovered as the woman helped me to my feet. ‘Can I call someone for you? Your mum or dad, maybe?’
‘They’ll be at work,’ I answered. ‘Thank you,’ I quickly called as I saw the old lady who’d donated her hanky was moving away. I turned back to the guard, ‘I’ll let them know once they’re home. If I’m not back by then anyway.’
He nodded, and started to move away, and then came back.
‘It’s on CCTV,’ he said waving his hands from one camera to another. ‘I’ll get operations to set aside the tape in case you change your mind. About the police. It’ll be here if you need it.’
‘I think that’s a good idea,’ the woman said. Then took my hand. ‘I’m Marjorie. What’s your name?’
‘Daina,’ I replied as I let her lead me out of the mall doors. ‘Daina Harrow.’
#
There was a wait in the doctor’s office. I wasn’t enrolled with them, or with any PHO for that matter, and with no appointment I would have to wait. The medical receptionist mentioned twice that I could visit the emergency room or the after hours clinic on Bealey Ave.
Poor thing. She didn’t know that a long wait in a brightly lit, safe environment felt like heaven to me at the moment. Her anxious glances upped my panic levels until I moved seats so my back was to her.
Marjorie stayed for a while. In the end, I had to fake a phone call to my mother who was coming right now before she felt able to leave.
I stayed on for another half-hour. Relaxing in the soft comfort of the waiting room. I even felt peaceful enough to check my backpack to make sure everything was safe and sound.
When the receptionist was tied up with a patient checking in and another paying her invoice I slipped back outside. I hoped that my disappearance gave her a breath of relief, instead of inducing more anxiety.
The late afternoon sun was hitting the tops of houses and shops, making them glow with red undertones. There was the sound of twittering birds overhead, starting to sort out their evening sleep arrangements.
I walked up the road towards the intersection of Riccarton and Clarence. If I turned there, I had pretty much a straight line home. It would take an hour, an hour and a half maybe, and then I could put this day to bed.
My lower lip throbbed, and I could see it out of the bottom edge of my vision. Swollen. It would be black and red tomorrow. I wondered if not getting the stitches would result in a scar. I could be a badass. I smiled, but the cracking of my lip dissuaded the action.
It was the rapid movement that alerted me to the men. They bolted at me from across the road.
I turned and ran down a side street. I cursed as I did so. I’d chose the wrong path. What I needed were lights and action. Instead, I’d chosen silent suburbs. Their residents at work. Their children at after-school care.
I tried to increase my pace. Although my energy output increased, I didn’t move any faster. I was already at full tilt.
I rounded a bend. There was a park to one side. The Grey Man was at the gate, pointing further in. I turned, almost overbalancing in my speed. I could hear the pounding of the men’s footsteps closer. Closer.
I skidded behind a house. Ran up the side path. It opened out onto concrete grounds. A showhouse. A display house. The Grey Man was in front of me again.
‘Quick, through here.’
There was a set of doors leading into bush. I ran through the first as he held it open. There was a second door. I closed the first and pressed the button. It was a predator gate. It wouldn’t open if the first door was still ajar.
It see
med to take an age, but the jamb clicked open, and I was through.
I took off my backpack, holding the door ajar with my foot. The men arrived at the other side. Pulling at the door. Pressing on the button. Cursing at me.
I pulled the papers out, grabbed the phial from the front section and stuck it in my pocket. I placed the emptied backpack between in the doorway and let the door go.
It bumped up against my backpack. For one horrified second I thought it was going to close anyway, that the fabric wouldn’t be thick enough to stop it. But then it rested against it. Ajar. The first door would stay locked.
I ran down the path for a hundred metres, then dove into the bush to the side. There was swampy ground where the sprinklers maintained the climate of dense bush. My feet were instantly soaked. My canvas shoes dip-dyed brown.
I waded ahead. There was a large tree in front of me and I placed it in my line of sight and walked to it. My sense of direction was bad. I needed to be able to navigate by sight.
When I reached the tree, I walked to the other side of it and picked out another. I walked to it. Another.
I must have been angled slightly off because I arrived back at the path. At first I had the confused thought that I had somehow walked in a complete circle and navigated my way back to the first gate. But it was different.
A sign said emergency exit only. The gate structure was the same. One door on the outside, another on the inside. And only one could be open at a time.
I picked up a piece of rotting branch from the forest floor and opened the inner door. The wood held securely, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Unless the men had managed to get inside first.
The thought had me backing away from the door again. Fading back into the forest.
I crouched down, my knees only just touching the top of the swampy water, and waited for my immobility to create silence.
There was rustling in the bush. The constant sing-song of native and introduced birds flittering in the tree-tops above or rooting about in the soil for a fat grub.
I stayed in the same position for as long as I could stand it. My locked knees started to complain loudly; my thigh muscles started to burn.
When I couldn’t take it any longer, I stood as quietly as I could. One knee popped on its release – the sound a gunshot in the quiet surrounds.
There was no corresponding rush of activity.
I was alone.
#
I hid until I heard a man swearing in the dim light.
I stepped onto the path, ready to run if my assessment was off and it was one of the goons again. It wasn’t. A man swore on the other side of the second gate. He fished a key out of his pocket and manually unlocked the outer door. He kicked the stick out of the inner one while swearing, ‘Damn kids think it’s funny,’ under his breath.
I waited until he’d gone, then made my way back out through the doors.
I could hear him in the stillness of the night at the main gate. Swearing again. I made my way past the gatekeepers house and down his driveway until I reached the street. I didn’t want to hang around until he put together the thought that if both inner doors were open someone must still be inside.
Instead of heading for the bright lights of the mall, I clung to the shadows this time instead.
It was a clumsy movement, with the folder in my hands, so I lifted up my school dress and stuck it down the front of my pants. Then pulled the dress down again.
The edges of the folder caught the skin just under my bra. I moved it through the fabric, but as soon as I let go it wormed its way back there. Wearing at my skin. I let it.
I kept one hand on the top of my pocket. Scared that the glass phial would somehow leap to freedom.
I moved slowly and carefully. Trying to keep my noise to a minimum so I could hear if someone else approached.
I tried to think of the route home. Suddenly I didn’t want to go there. I could see in my mind’s eye the two men suited up and guns strapped on sitting in a replacement dark saloon across the road. Waiting for me to return. Waiting to spring their trap.
I decided to head for the half-house again. I should have stayed there to begin with. Now I’d come full-circle it all seemed like wasted effort. My faint. The car accident. My adventure at the mall. My chase through the wilds.
I should’ve stuck to the Grey Man’s plan and left everything in place until the whole thing blew over.
Or I could be encountering the men at my home right now, clueless and defenceless.
I mapped out the quietest street route there. Every time I approached a well-lit intersection I tried instead to cut through the back of a house. To stay out of the way.
At one, I woke up a dog who thought I’d either come to feed him, or to be his food. I scurried back out of there and risked the main lights. Hard to listen for any noise with a dog barking, a household screaming at it to shut up, and my heart pounding in my ears.
I stopped a short while later, crouching in a pagoda on a front lawn, listening for footsteps in the silence. Hearing none, I carried on.
For a while, I lost the map of Christchurch from my head. Instead of a route there were blank sections with question marks. Places I’d never been, only knew the surrounding suburbs of. I spent a long time navigating around areas I probably could have walked straight through. If only I’d had a compass instead of landmarks in my head.
Then I was back in familiar territory. Close to the pinpoint.
I stopped in the empty field opposite the house and watched it as the moon rose above the treetops, and started to trace a semicircle across the sky. It was on the descent, but still cast silver light over the scene.
When I was satisfied there was no one inside, I crossed the road. I boosted myself up onto the floorboards and stepped as lightly as I could across to the manhole.
My fingers were stiff. They couldn’t find a hold at first on the cover. Instead sliding along the ridge, mocking my efforts.
The folder dug into me as I bent lower, trying to find purchase. At last my fingertip gripped and I could lift up the cover enough to slide my hand under. Instead of lifting further, I pulled it toward me so it was free of its snug fit, then shoved it to one side.
I jumped down into the hole, twisting my ankle as my weight tipped to one side. I swore and knelt. My ankle still protested, but I tried to use the other for navigation.
I moved the folders back to where they’d been and then lay down on the earth to rest. I closed my eyes and the whole day spun in front of me. Each moment run through at fast forward, pausing on each horror, each fear, each fright.
It was too much risk to go home, and nowhere else that I’d be welcome. I wished again that I had the extended families that existed on sitcoms: the grandparents and aunts and uncles who were always ready to lend a hand, take you in, offer their advice.
My own father wouldn’t even spend a day with me. And my mother was too out of it to notice if I was there or not.
There had been a different life once. It was so long ago it was hard to think of. A life where both of my parents were in the house. Where there was the fresh memory of a sibling.
I could hardly remember my brother at all. There were photos, tucked away in an album, travelling with us from state house to slum house. I had memories I’d imposed on myself that included him. Memories that I knew weren’t real not because they didn’t feel real, but because they only existed in the same timeframe as each photo. Before, nothing. After, nothing. But in the moment of the photo, a storyline complete with emotion.
It was hard to think of my childhood. There wasn’t much to draw me back there; the things I’d enjoyed were gone and to think of them left me wistful.
There was a low hum outside. The sound of a car engine. At first it didn’t mean much; I heard the same sound all the time. Then I remembered where I was. The edge of nowhere. This could only mean trouble.
I pushed and crawled over to the manhole cover just as a sharp knock
sounded above me. I froze in fear, and then feet dropped down into the hole in front of me. I cowered backwards, but there was no escape.
The legs kneeled and then a head appeared below the level of the floorboards. The Grey Man was grinning at me for a second, revelling in my discomfort, then his expression turned grim.
‘Give me a hand. We need to get this cover pulled across.’
I scurried over as quickly as I could. My knees ached from their contact with the cold earth, and my ankle was already swollen and painful.
I helped position the manhole back into place, and gave a sigh of relief as it dropped snugly into position.
‘Who’s out there?’ I asked as we both moved in tandem back into the dark edges of the foundations. ‘I heard a car.’
‘I don’t know their names,’ he snapped back. He sounded rattled. I couldn’t see his face well enough to work out what his expression was, but his posture was hunched and defensive.
‘What’s the time?’
He turned to look at me. I shrugged. I had lost track when I was hiding in Riccarton Bush.
‘It’s just after eight.’
I lay back down full-length on the ground. The cold seeped into my bones, but I needed to stretch my muscles out more than I craved warmth.
My lower lip still throbbed, and I put a tentative finger to it. It felt about three times its usual size, and I could feel the scabbing split where my teeth had bitten through.
‘Won’t they work out we’re down here?’
‘They will if you keep talking.’
I blew him a soft raspberry. He covered his mouth with his hand. I hoped to keep from laughing.
I lay still and kept quiet. After a few minutes, there were footsteps overhead. At first one set. Then another. After a while, I couldn’t keep track of the noises. It was possible there were three or four. Then I heard a grunt as someone jumped down. A moment later there was the sound of someone else jumping down from the building site, landing in the high grass.
