Trilemma

by Jennifer Mortimer

  “What’s that, Wal?” asks Alison as she comes back into the room carrying towels.

  “Just telling Ben how much cheaper petrol is up here in the Bay.”

  “Everything is cheaper here than in Wellington,” says Alison with satisfaction.

  “Now, I’ve put you two in here.” She shows me a pretty double room.

  I don’t tell her we’re not a couple. What could I say? That we loved each other once and now we’re what? Just friends?

  Ben pulls off his sneakers and his shorts and scrambles under the covers in his t-shirt and boxers. I take my time washing my face and cleaning my teeth. When I return to the room, he has rolled over to face away from me. I turn out the light, slip under the covers, and lie on my back. It is very, very dark.

  “Well, I’ve finally met them.”

  There is a rustle as Ben rolls onto his back.

  “They’re a nice family, Lin.”

  “Alison is very kind. And Wal is a character, isn’t he?”

  “Witty repartee.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m not sure about your other sister.”

  “She is beautiful. Far better looking than me.”

  Ben makes one of those noncommittal grunts men make when they don’t wish to either agree with you or contradict you.

  I lie in darkness beside a man I have loved for two years now and feel the whisper of a cold wind against my cheek. I find myself thinking about growing old, which I’ve never thought about before. I’ve always expected everything to only get better. But next year I turn forty. A good age to be a chief executive, yes, but a bad one to be a single woman.

  I know I must try to force out the words.

  “Ben,” I say, quietly, feeling the word break free from my lips, feeling my tongue finish his name against my teeth. “Ben, Ben, Ben.”

  He doesn’t reply.

  “I would do anything to undo what happened with Robert. But I can’t. Can you forgive me?”

  It is like a cork emerging from the bottle; the wine is ready and must now be poured.

  “And, Ben? I love you.”

  There; it is said, but Ben says nothing in response.

  I wait, but he is silent and I realize I have left it too late, that he no longer loves me.

  I wallow for a moment in self-denigration, then I think, bastard, and I turn to him and say, “And I forgive you, too, for being such a fricking jerk!”

  “Wha?” he says, blurrily. “What did you say? Sorry, I was asleep.”

  “Nothing important. Go back to sleep.”

  Ben’s breathing slows, but I stay awake. Ben doesn’t leave again until Monday.

  There is still Sunday.

  Chapter 28

  Alison comes in with a bright smile and a tray of tea and toast and we sit up and prop ourselves against the pillows and pretend it is the most natural thing in the world. By the time I use the bathroom, Ben has dressed and gone.

  “Gidday!” says Wal when I emerge into the kitchen. “Ali’s out collecting the papers. Thought I’d take Ben for a drive ’round the farm. You coming?”

  I shake my head. “I’ll wait for Alison.”

  The men climb into one of those SUVs that real farmers drive, not just suburban housewives, and I hover awkwardly, waiting for my sister.

  Alison smiles when she comes in, and passes me one of the newspapers. “The other’s for Viv. I’ll go up later.” She glances at me. “Or perhaps you’d like to take it to her?”

  So I walk up to the main house and knock at the door. This morning she is wearing cream linen slacks and a gray silk blouse. Our hair coloring is very similar. I even own a shirt in an identical shade.

  “Thank you.” She takes the newspaper with a perfunctory smile. “Do come in. I’ll make coffee.”

  Max and Christopher are in the kitchen, a square, white room with a lot of white tiles and a large white granite-topped island in the middle of the room. Max is at the sink rinsing out an elaborate juicer and Christopher sits at the island drinking the freshly squeezed juice. A farming program plays on the radio.

  “Max, can you make Lin some coffee?”

  My nephew gives me his perfect smile and makes a perfect cappuccino on Vivienne’s expensive machine.

  “Tch!” says Vivienne, looking at the newspaper, her face suddenly in flames.

  She mutters something about foreigners and farms and turns to her husband. “It’s a crying shame about those Asians buying up the Simpson farms.”

  “They’ve got approval?” asks Christopher. “Bloody sissy Government.”

  Vivienne continues to read.

  Max’s smile fades. He glances across at me, embarrassed. “I’ll show you the house if you like, Auntie.”

  Vivienne snorts. “I don’t think she expects you to call her Aunt.”

  “He can call me Aunt if he likes,” I reply. “Do you have other aunts besides Alison and me?”

  Max’s face goes blank, and his eyes dart at his mother’s face and away again.

  “He has no other family,” Vivienne says. “His father deserted him years ago. He’s never bothered to return any of Max’s calls.”

  Ah, poor kid. I know how he feels. When anyone eyed Mom’s face and then mine, there would always be questions. She’d say my Chinese mother deserted me when I was a baby. I know she didn’t mean it to hurt.

  Vivienne flicks the newspaper back into an even set of folds and stands up. “I’ll show her around.”

  She walks ahead of me down the long, wide hallway with its beautiful waxed wooden floors and artwork carefully placed on the walls. At one side is the guest bedroom with antique furniture and its own bathroom and sitting room. At the far end is the formal living room. She opens the curtains and the sun floods into the room. Here, too, the walls and the shelves are covered with original art and sculpture.

  I ask about a piece of ceramic, and she picks it up and caresses the surface and tells me about the artist before returning it to its carefully chosen position. She shows me the formal dining room, the family sitting room, and then the main bedroom wing. Max’s bedroom is up in the eaves. His room is unusually tidy for a young man. Vivienne repositions his silver hairbrush on the dresser.

  I have seen and admired the whole house except for the suite at the far end, beyond the main entrance. I guess it to be hers and Christopher’s.

  Then she takes me to the front entrance and holds the door open.

  “You’re welcome to use the pool,” she says. “It’s unlocked.”

  I step outside and Vivienne closes the door behind me. I walk past the tennis court and turn to look back at the house, sparkling in the fierce morning sunshine. Birds swoop in and out of the tall trees that line the path. The air smells sweet; of grass and flowers and fresh clean air.

  I return to Alison’s house, change into my swimsuit, and walk through the rose garden to the swimming pool, encased in blue anodized steel and glass. The noise from the filtering system and the lapping of the water reverberates against the glass with a distorted echo. I dive in and breaststroke to the far end, then turn and thrust myself through the water again, emerging gasping. The water is tepid, with a cool edge as it touches my skin. An air mattress floats enticingly on the surface of the pool. I climb aboard and lie with my sun hat on my face, toasting in the sun, and think about the last twenty-four hours.

  This is the magic place my father talked of, his eyes gazing into the distance. I think I, too, could grow to love it here, and my newfound family. Kind Alison and prickly, elegant Vivienne. Bluff Wal and cool Christopher. Pretty Jess and gorgeous, sweet Max.

  I am part of a family, a proper part, connected by blood. I belong here.

  And maybe, just maybe, Ben and I can work something out. As a smile stretches my mouth, I suddenly feel a bump beneath me and then I’m tipped off the air mattress and into the water, falling against a hard body.

  Huh! He thinks he can dunk me and get away with it! I slip downward and grab his Speedos and pu
ll them down.

  Speedos?

  I kick away to the edge of the pool, looking back at the thrashing shape of my sister’s husband Christopher. I have just groped a blind man.

  “I thought you were Ben.”

  Christopher’s face turns toward me. The sun glints off the droplets of water on the dark glasses that have managed to stay on his face. He says nothing, but scrambles out of the pool.

  “I guess you thought I was Vivienne. When you bumped me off the air bed.”

  His jaw is set. “I didn’t realize anyone was in the pool at all.”

  I appraise him openly. After all, he can’t see me looking. He has a splendid body, unscarred by whatever happened to him in the car crash.

  Then I shake my head, ashamed. “Do come back in. The water’s lovely.”

  “I think I’ve had enough for today.” Christopher stalks out of the pool room.

  God, that was embarrassing. I swim a few more lengths before I, too, leave the pool. I meet Vivienne on the path.

  “Have you seen Christopher?” she asks.

  “I think he went back to the house.” Thank goodness she didn’t come down any earlier.

  “You look flushed, Lin.”

  “It’s very hot,” I reply. “I’ve had a little too much sun.”

  She reaches out and touches my shoulder. “I’m glad you came after all,” she says. “I’m sure it will work out.”

  I smile, searching her beautiful face for her thoughts. “I hope so.”

  She nods and walks past me to the pool.

  When I arrive back at Alison’s house, she takes me by the arm.

  “I thought I’d show you the studio,” she says in a half whisper. “Come along.”

  We climb the hill in the direction Christopher had led me on my first visit. I wasn’t stupid enough to only bring high-heeled shoes to a farm, like the archetypal New York city slicker, but my sandals aren’t quite up to the dangers of the paddock. I manage to avoid the crunchy round disks of cow pie only to fall victim to the squishy pellets the sheep have dropped.

  “That sheep is walking on only three legs,” I tell Alison.

  “This is the dog tucker paddock. Any animals that get injured are put in here. If they don’t get better Wal kills them and feeds them to the dogs.”

  “Oh.”

  “Unless they’re diseased, in which case he buries them in the offal pits.”

  Ugh. “I guess there’s a less pretty side to farming.”

  “Pretty?” Alison gives a snort. “It’s a business, Lin. We do what we do for money. Like you and your—whatever you do.”

  I have to smile because I don’t think what I do is remotely like anything here.

  Amongst the trees is a small hut crouching on the very edge of the cliff. Alison fishes the key out from under the doormat and opens the door.

  I walk into a room with a large window and a spectacular view out over the valley. The studio has everything you’d need to make yourself comfortable: a television, an old stereo with a stack of CDs, a bookshelf full of classics, a guitar, and a big divan covered in cushions. To one side are a small kitchen bench, sink, and pantry. A steep staircase rises to a mezzanine.

  “He built it himself,” Alison says, in that same half whisper.

  “Dad?”

  She nods. “After he left, Mum used to come here and paint. When she died, Gran let Viv and me have it as our playhouse. Now we just use it for extra guests.”

  I open the door by the pantry to see a small shower room and a hand basin.

  “The toilet is outside. A long drop over a long drop.” Alison giggles.

  “Do you remember him at all?” I ask.

  “Of course we remember him, dear, but we don’t talk about him. Mum couldn’t bear him being mentioned, and Gran would always tell us off. So I guess we just got out of the habit.”

  Alison gives a small sigh, and then opens the door and holds it for me to leave the studio. After she relocks the door, we walk back on the path between the trees to the field.

  I glance at my sister’s broad face and ever-present smile. I want to know why they never tried to make contact, but I’m afraid to ask.

  Now that I’ve found them, I don’t want to run any risk of losing them again.

  Chapter 29

  “The brakes feel jerky.”

  “For God’s sake, Ben, stop beating up on the car!” I say. “It’s perfectly all right.”

  At the turn of the bend, I look back and can just glimpse Vivienne’s house behind the trees. Sometimes you see something that is so beautiful that it makes you feel small because you know you could never create anything quite as perfect no matter how much time or money you have.

  “Magical.”

  “The house?” Ben asks.

  “Every room is perfect and every piece of furniture perfectly chosen. The floorboards are some lovely old wood waxed to a perfect shine. In the living room, the walls and the ceiling are paneled, and she’d lime washed the wood.”

  “Wal puts lime on the driveway. Did you know they have an old limestone quarry?”

  “And she’s filled the rooms with a mix of old antiques and modern pieces of furniture. Everything either coordinated or completely contrasted. You should have come. You would have loved what she’s done.”

  “Wal was keen to show me the farm. Did you know there’s a special bug that eats thistles?”

  “And the art and the sculpture. She has originals all over the house. The colors were just right. When I came last time, I only saw what was hanging in the hallway. But she has gorgeous pieces everywhere, from some of New Zealand’s best artists, I’d say.”

  “Wal makes his fertilizer from fish heads he buys on the wharf in Napier. Brews them up in a big iron vat until he gets this stinky black rotten mush. Then he sprays it on the paddocks with this twin-armed thing—”

  “Vivienne has a bronze twin-armed fertility goddess in the garden.”

  “I bet her garden smells better than Wal’s paddocks.”

  “I have never seen such a beautiful place.”

  “It seems funny she goes to so much effort to make the house beautiful for a blind man to live in.”

  “I never saw their bedroom. Perhaps she doesn’t bother putting any art in there.”

  “Was she any friendlier?”

  “Not to start with.” I give a sigh. “She didn’t look at me. Rushed me round the house. Ignored my compliments. So I walked back to Alison’s, but when I went back for a swim she seemed a little friendlier.”

  I stare out the window, searching the green hills. “Alison showed me our father’s old studio. It’s several paddocks back, on the edge of the same cliff as the zigzag road. He built it himself, she said.” I turn in my seat. “I think it must be just over there, to our right. The road takes a long loop north before cutting back to the ridge. The farm isn’t far away from here as the crow flies.”

  We reach the top of the ridge and start the descent.

  “I didn’t see the spectacular view when I came the first time, the weather was too shitty. But you keep your eyes on the road, Ben.”

  “You’re beginning to sound like Alison.”

  “Tha—”

  We’re going too fast, heading toward the bend in the road and the cliff face beyond. Ben stamps his foot on the brake, but nothing happens.

  “Ben?”

  Ben fumbles with the handbrake, but it is not enough, the car is still accelerating.

  “Ben!”

  He slams the gearbox into reverse and the car shudders and then skids into the fence line on the edge of the road, twanging against the wire.

  The car teeters on the edge, the front end over the edge, held by three slim strands of barbed wire. In front is a long drop onto the final twist of the road below.

  I can hear the fence posts creak and creak again as the heavy weight of the car’s clumsy metal body pushes against the wire.

  “Undo your belt and climb out! Carefully.”
<
br />   I press the belt release, but nothing happens. Ben leans down and presses it for me and holds the belt away as it slips loose.

  “Won’t me moving make it worse?”

  “Please, Lin, get out. I want you to be safe!”

  The handbrake is creaking, and I can almost feel it shudder.

  “If the car starts to slip, I can jump,” I say. “But I’m not moving until you do.”

  The sun shines down oblivious to our plight. Birds fly across the sky in front of us, their calls disappearing with the wind. Animals graze in the pastures just beyond us, the safe side of the pasture, where the land is steep but not perpendicular as it is here beneath our car’s wheels.

  The brake is still holding.

  “Let’s both get out slowly.”

  I open the door and edge my way across the seat, trying to keep my weight balanced, avoiding any sudden lurches. I look back and Ben is doing the same.

  “Count of three, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Ready? Three, two, one, jump!”

  I roll free and immediately turn to make sure he is out.

  Ben is safe. He is standing beyond the car, which is rocking but hasn’t slipped off the edge.

  My pulse slows.

  Ben drags a broken fencepost over, shoving it under the car, in front of the back wheels. I push a stone over, wedging it in front of the post.

  “I think it will hold.”

  I take my cell phone out of my handbag. “I’ll call Wal.”

  “Yeah. But give it to me.”

  Jess answers the phone and Ben asks if her father is around.

  “Wal? I’ve managed to put this dumb shit of a car into the ditch. Any chance of getting a tow?”

  “Sure, mate! Where are you?”

  “On the zigzag. You won’t be able to miss us.”

  “I’ll be there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  When Wal arrives in the Land Rover, he gazes at the orange car in silence. “How the bloody hell did you manage that?”

  “The brakes failed.”

  He ties the towrope to the bumper and pulls the car away from the edge of the cliff. The men settle it on flat ground.

  “Let’s have a look,” Wal says and crawls in on his hands and knees.