by Greg McGee
As they headed back up Richmond to the Ponsonby strip, he made some panicky small talk about Yelena’s BMWi3, told them he was about to do a big TVC about an E vehicle. He couldn’t reveal the brand, but the brief was big on cloud metaphor.
‘Not a magic carpet ride?’ asked Yelena.
Will wasn’t sure whether she was taking the piss. What the fuck did she expect? It was advertising, for fuck’s sake.
Ellie was saying nothing. Will noticed she’d cut her hair shorter. It lifted her face and she looked younger, happier, but not when she looked his way. He became aware that he was talking to fill a big hole when Yelena made it worse by falling silent too. They passed all the cafes on the strip, whispered down Franklin and Wellington, took a left to the on-ramp and into the motorway tunnel. There was nothing to look at, no engine noise, no conversation, just the whoosh of the air con keeping the stifling heat at bay. The safety belt started to feel like a straitjacket. ‘Coffee wasn’t the plan, then?’ he asked. ‘What is the plan, actually?’
In reply, Ellie said something in te reo, her first words, he realised, since he’d seen her at the bottom of the stairs. She sounded pissed off about something, but Will had little idea what it might be. Yelena had replied in kind. He picked up some words here and there, words he remembered from their kapa haka group at primary school and intermediate. That’s all Will had left, along with a vague idea of some of the chants and dance movements they’d learnt, whereas Yelena and Ellie had, obviously, persevered. It was natural enough for Yelena, Will supposed. Her father had spoken Māori: his mother, her grandmother, was from some iwi up north. Will remembered Branko’s mother visiting the Flame offices, bringing Kerikeri oranges and kiwifruit, which she called Chinese gooseberries, and saying things in Māori to Branko when, Will suspected, she didn’t want others to understand. Which was exactly what Yelena and Ellie were doing now. Using code. Locking him out. Fucking childish. Words like whānau and mātua jumped out occasionally, but it was the repetition of his own name that gradually began to piss him off. ‘You think I don’t know who you’re talking about?’ he said, finally. ‘It’s just fucking rude.’
So they began talking in English. About him, as he suspected, but still in the third person as if he wasn’t there.
‘You remember how sweet Will used to be to us?’ asked Ellie, draping her arms over Yelena’s shoulders from behind.
So that’s it, thought Will. They’re an item. It made sense, he supposed. He could understand a woman’s attraction to another woman. What he didn’t get was why a woman would be attracted to a man, or, much worse, a man to another man.
‘I do remember how sweet he used to be,’ said Yelena. ‘What I can’t remember is when exactly he turned into such a self-obsessed arsehole.’
Here it comes, thought Will. The fucking rent.
‘I was ten and you were eleven,’ said Ellie. ‘Will was twelve and went to Springs.’
‘That’s right! The next year, when I started there, he was a total prick to me. I was a newbie at this big high school, and all he did was shit on me.’
‘I got it at home too. He stopped being our friend and became a . . . what?’
‘A mean, treacherous little shit, who pretended not to know us.’
‘My big bro. My friend.’
‘Our bestie,’ said Yelena, finally turning to Will. ‘Do you remember?’
Will remembered being friends, but not how or why it changed. ‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘We grew up. Things change.’
‘Did you hear that?’ asked Yelena.
‘Things change,’ mimicked Ellie.
‘I think what happened was your balls dropped,’ said Yelena. ‘Your balls dropped and we went from being friends to being girls. Is that what happened, you reckon?’
Will was mute. Ellie started talking about him in the third person again, as if he wasn’t there. ‘Just another nasty little fuckwit boy.’
‘Who grew up to be a self-obsessed arsehole.’
‘A vainglorious neo-liberal shit.’
‘A man for whom money speaks. Which, if you measure him by his own values, must make him a complete fucking failure.’
Here it comes, the fucking rent. ‘Having fun?’ asked Will. ‘It must be such fun.’
‘Does that sound like him?’ asked Yelena.
‘That’s him, definitely,’ confirmed Ellie.
They were at the top of the harbour bridge. Will looked out at the grey heat-flattened water and the distant blue hills and imagined the black beaches beyond, and the wide Tasman. He could just walk out through the break and start swimming west. He needed to get whatever journey they were on over and done with. ‘Where the fuck are we going?’
‘When did you last see Dad?’ asked Ellie.
Will shrugged. ‘Been a wee while . . .’
‘Where was he when you last saw him?’
The truth was, at home, at his party, the night of the fire. But he wasn’t going to tell Ellie that.
***
IT was happy hour at the Sunset Road Retirement Village, though Den looked far from happy. He’d spat his first gobful of wine back into his plastic stemmed glass. ‘That’s fucking chateau cardboard!’
‘They do have some bottles of white wine there,’ said Ellie, glancing back to the bar. Will followed her gaze and saw a dozen grey geezers and geezeresses in various states of physical degeneration making a show of being merry, standing in a tight wad because otherwise they wouldn’t be able to hear each other wheeze and fart.
‘You know what’s in those bottles?’ asked Den. ‘Alcohol-free chardonnay. What’s the point?’
‘Try this,’ said Yelena, offering Den a sip from her glass.
‘What is it?’
‘Sauvignon blanc, sans alcohol.’
‘I might be losing my marbles,’ said Den, ‘but I haven’t completely lost my palate.’
‘Are you losing your marbles, Den?’ asked Will.
Ellie sputtered on her wine. ‘Jesus, Will!’
They were standing at a remove from the others in a large carpeted room, or hall, it might have been. The lighting was so low that the room might have extended for miles beyond the huge, deserted billiard table that loomed out of the darkness. Spaced regularly along the beige plastered walls were paintings of inoffensive rural scenes. The English ones looked a bit like Constable on a bad day, and the local ones were faux washed-out Grahame Sydney. Everything about the room screamed its desire to be least offensive to the largest number of people. It looked like a cross between a hotel conference room and the antechamber for a mausoleum. Which, Will supposed, it was.
Den didn’t seem at all offended by Will’s question about his marbles. ‘It’s strange,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what’s gone until it’s already gone, and then it’s too late, I can’t remember what it is I’ve lost.’ Then he gave them the Den smile, and that made it so much worse. It had become a rictus grimace and he looked terrified.
‘You’re doing really well, Dad,’ said Ellie.
‘Am I?’ He shook his head as if to clear it. The shaggy mane seemed electrified.
‘I’ll ask them to give you a haircut,’ said Ellie.
‘They’re not to touch me!’
‘Okay,’ said Ellie. ‘Not if it’s a problem.’
Den leant towards Will, conspiratorially. Will had forgotten how short he was, or perhaps his father had shrunk. He couldn’t hear Den’s whisper at first. ‘This is a very strange hotel,’ he said. ‘Full of old buggers. Where are the kids?’
Will didn’t know what to say.
‘I’ll tell you something else,’ whispered Den. By this time Ellie and Yelena were leaning in too. ‘Carol doesn’t like this place.’
‘She tell you that?’ asked Will.
‘She won’t talk to me. That’s how I know.’
‘Right.’
What the fuck do you say, thought Will. He looked at Ellie, whose eyes were brimming with tears.
‘She hates it here,’ said Den, oblivious. ‘She won’t come near it.’
Ellie had explained in the car – the rest of the journey from the bridge and up through the bays had passed civilly, relatively – that Den had entered an assisted living apartment on a ninety-day trial basis and sooner or later they had to make a decision about whether he stayed. When Will had asked what the options were, there weren’t many, or any. Den had been assessed as not being able to safely live alone, so the autonomous villas and apartments were out. Some kind of care facility was necessary. Sunset had serviced apartments, where food and housekeeping was taken care of and trained staff were available twenty-four/seven. ‘And,’ said Ellie, ‘Dad can shift from the serviced apartments to the actual rest home and then hospital care as part of the same complex. He doesn’t have to leave and go somewhere else, as his condition progresses.’
Progresses? Will had thought it a strange way to describe the gradual disintegration of Den’s mind, but kept his peace, as Ellie went on to explain that everything from dental care to pharmaceuticals to physio rehab was right on site, so Den wouldn’t have to travel anywhere for anything.
‘That’s a plus?’ Will had asked. ‘He can’t get out of there for anything?’
‘He’s lost his driver’s licence,’ explained Ellie patiently, ‘so not having to travel is important.’
There was a pressing question, which Will did his best to delay while he feigned interest in Ellie’s exegesis on the benefits of Sunset Road. But sure enough, when Will finally got it out and asked what all this cost, Ellie just stared at him. ‘That’s your first question?’
‘Third, actually,’ said Will. ‘But a reasonable one, surely. I mean, presumably he doesn’t get all that for nix. When the trial’s over, and if it’s the right place for him to be, how much does it cost?’
Ellie explained that the apartments were going for between 650 and 850, depending on their view and how much sun they got.
‘Six fifty and eight fifty what?’ asked Will, facetiously.
‘Hundred thousand, doofus,’ confirmed Yelena.
‘He’ll own the apartment. It’ll be his, effectively,’ said Ellie.
‘Effectively?’
‘They call it a right to occupy.’
‘How does that work?’ Will asked doubtfully. If it was ownership, why didn’t they call it freehold like everyone else?
Ellie had turned to Yelena to take up the ownership story.
‘Den gets to live in the apartment until he dies or moves on to, say, the rest home or the hospital, okay?’ said Yelena. ‘When he vacates the apartment, he, or his estate, get the purchase price of the apartment back, less twenty-five per cent.’
Will couldn’t help himself. ‘You are fucking kidding! He stays there, what, maybe five years, ten years, and not only gets no capital appreciation for all that time but actually loses twenty-five per cent of what he paid for it?’
‘Yes.’
‘So he buys for eight hundred thousand, say, he lives there for five years, say, which might be ten per cent appreciation per annum, minimum, which makes it worth, what . . .’
‘One million two hundred and eighty.’
‘And when he kicks the bucket or gets taken away to eternal care, these Sunset fuckers resell it to the next poor old geezer who turns up for more than one and a quarter million, thereby banking four hundred and eighty thousand fucking dollars’ appreciation which should be Den’s, and pocket another two hundred thousand of Den’s original eight hundred?’
‘That’s the guts of it,’ confirmed Yelena.
‘Who do I fuck to get into this money-making carousel?’ asked Will. ‘Where do I sign up?’
‘You might as well hear it all, so you can get all your frothing out of the way before we arrive,’ said Ellie. ‘Dad would also have to pay a weekly fee for his servicing and care.’
‘How much?’
‘Well, it starts at four hundred a week, but it’s pegged to inflation so it might increase over time.’
‘Jeezus!’
‘That covers all the care and facilities, like food, housekeeping, laundry services, and all the engagement programmes and activities they provide, like gardening, arts and crafts, baking, aromatherapy, singalongs . . .’
Will jumped in with heavy sarcasm. ‘Scrabble? Trying to remember all the words he no longer knows? What about trips down memory lane, to emphasise it’s now a complete bloody dead-end? Sounds like value for money.’
Part of his anger had been precipitated by the quick calculations he’d been making as Yelena spelt out the financial conditions. He had a rough idea what the section might sell for, three mil say. Split those proceeds in half, give Den his share of one and a half, take his third of Carol’s share, that’s half a mill. That would keep the wolves at bay until the insurance proceeds came through, but he’d been counting on also getting the rest of it, his third of Den’s one and a half, plus appreciation, in the short to medium term when his father carked it. He could feel the sun setting on any hope of getting his hands on that. ‘Where’s the fucking government in all this?’ he asked, trying not to let his sense of disappointment show. ‘What do we pay our fucking taxes for?’
‘That’s news,’ said Ellie. ‘I thought Flame’s losses were just a way of evading taxes.’ Yelena put a comforting hand on Ellie’s forearm. She had taken a deep breath, disappointed, Will could see, in allowing herself to descend to her brother’s level. That must have been agreed when they hatched this plan, the holier-than-thou fuckers. ‘Sunset apply his pension towards the fee,’ said Ellie, ‘but that won’t cover it, and the government rest-home subsidy doesn’t kick in until his assets fall below about two hundred and fifty thousand.’
‘This is intergenerational theft!’ railed Will. ‘Those bastards are stealing our money!’
‘Dad’s money.’
Will seethed in silence for the rest of the trip, as he came to terms with the idea of Sunset Road bleeding Den dry till there was no blood left for Will to siphon up. There was no justice, the world was fucked.
The sheer bleakness of happy hour, the bad wine, the stilted company, the bent, broken, deaf, blind old bodies clinging together, the nondescript paintings on the nondescript concrete cavern walls, dumped Will’s spirits on the bilious floral carpeted floor. Fuck it, might as well spill it all, get it over with. ‘Shouldn’t we discuss the elephant in the room?’
‘What, now?’ asked Ellie, exasperated.
‘Is it her?’ asked Den. He was indicating a large woman close to the others at the bar. Her legs were withered but the rest of her threatened to overflow the green summer print she was wearing and submerge the wheelchair she was sitting in.
Is he playing me? thought Will. Den didn’t look like he could take himself for a ride, let alone anyone else. His smile was, for the first time in his life, hesitant, as if his face couldn’t quite remember which muscles to twitch. ‘Den, the insurance company won’t pay out on the fire because they think you started it.’
‘Now’s not the time,’ began Ellie.
‘When is the right time?’ insisted Will. ‘All Den needs to do is say on record that he doesn’t remember taking a couple of shovelfuls of burning embers from the outside oven and dumping them on the kitchen floor.’
‘I certainly don’t remember doing that.’
‘Great! I’ll record that on my mobile.’
‘I don’t remember being downstairs at all. Last thing I remember was having a joint upstairs.’
‘Wanna record that, Will?’ asked Yelena.
Ellie gently corrected her father. ‘But Dad, fortunately, you were downstairs when the smoke alarm went off.’
‘Where was that little shit Jackson?’ asked Will.
‘He helped m
e rescue Dad from the sofa in the sitting room.’
‘There you go!’
‘Jackson raced past me in the downstairs hallway from the bedrooms to try to get upstairs to Dad. I had to call him back when I found Dad in the sitting room. We’ve been through this a thousand times, but if you have any alternative theories, Sherlock, we’d love to hear them.’
‘Did I do something wrong?’ asked Den.
‘No, Dad,’ said Ellie, then turned to Will. ‘Back off!’
‘I’m just trying to get some clarity–’
‘Enough!’ said Yelena.
That would have ended the conversation, except that after another sip of the chateau cardboard, which now seemed acceptable, Den said that he remembered something else. ‘I saw you and Lila,’ he said, looking at him directly and, Will thought, not entirely innocently.
‘You saw Will and Lila what?’ asked Ellie, rediscovering some enthusiasm for the discussion.
‘How is this relevant to–’
‘Shut up, Will. Where were Will and Lila, Dad? Where did you see them?’
‘I was out on the balcony having a toke.’
‘But where were they?’
‘Out by the pool.’
‘Doing what?’ Ellie asked.
‘What the fuck business is it of yours?’
Yelena rounded on Will. ‘You started this.’
Den seemed to realise he had somehow edged onto swampy ground, that whatever he said next was going to sink someone, perhaps himself. Will tried to catch his eye. In the old days, when Den was the pitching maestro and in full flow, but had forgotten some key element, Will or Branko would only have to catch his eye and he would pick it up, almost telepathically. Now Will stared into Den’s opaque blue gaze and had no idea what was registering.
‘You saw Will and Lila out by the pool,’ reiterated Ellie. ‘What were they doing, Dad?’
Den began nodding, as if he finally understood what he had seen. ‘Lila went for a swim. In the pool. Will held a towel.’
