‘And now his father’s really bad with cancer,’ Nick said.
‘Yeah, but he’s becoming a grumpy, pernickety bastard all the same,’ persisted Lloyd.
‘He’s having a tough time. I feel for him really,’ said Raewyn.
During the weekend Sheff spent some time assessing his financial position. Giving up his job carried risks, and the divorce from Lucy had been financially as well as emotionally damaging. But he’d never considered money a priority, and never had trouble finding work. And there was excitement in contemplating such a major shift: new prospects had been rare in recent years.
He rang Nick on the Sunday evening and talked to him about it. ‘Maybe you’re just feeling down,’ said his friend. ‘I wouldn’t jump ship until you’re sure – not until you’ve something sussed out to go to. I mean we all get pissed-off at times in this business, but you come through it and things aren’t so bad. I wouldn’t throw it in, not when you’ve beavered away to get somewhere.’
‘It doesn’t give me a buzz any more.’
‘Yeah, but that’s not just the job, is it? It’s the family stuff, the divorce and everything, your father being crook. You’re having a really bad patch, but you need to think of the rest of your life now. You could walk away from the paper and find yourself worse off in the end. What’s really bugging you, that’s the thing, isn’t it?’
‘Well, crap journalism for one.’
‘You’re not going to change that,’ said Nick.
‘Be nice to be clear of it for a while, though.’
‘All sorts of things are nice, but what the hell would you do? Corporate newsletters, or spin for some political bozo. You know you wouldn’t hack it.’
‘Maybe a complete break,’ said Sheff. ‘Maybe lecturing on a cruise liner, or writing up museum exhibits, or organising duty rosters. Maybe a small business of my own.’
‘Maybe bullshit,’ said Nick, and one of the last things he said during the conversation was that Sheff needed to stop being angry. That comment stayed with Sheff: it was true and it was obvious, but he hadn’t admitted its extent before, or tried to understand the cause. Anger lay not far beneath almost all his other emotions and surfaced when they wore thin. Yet he never thought of himself as an angry man. Anger meant a lack of self-control, and he prided himself on holding to reason in his behaviour. That balance had been remarked on, and also his self-sufficiency. When he thought about his feelings over the last few months he decided that, rather than anger, justifiable impatience had become his first and characteristic response to any difficulty, or to disagreement with his views. Yes, impatience was what Nick intended to suggest, Sheff decided. And all of that, surely, was further proof he needed to make some sea change in his life.
Sometimes, too, he experienced passing concern for his health. Nothing serious enough that he would consult a doctor. Small concerns considered singly – occasional nosebleeds, vaguely located and passing stomach pains, drifting, pale fragments in his vision, neck cricks, receding hairline, and sometimes his piss was so dark that he could see the colour spiralling down to the bottom of the bowl. Lucy would have told him that such things were no cause for anxiety, but it’s different when you are alone. Reassuring yourself brings little comfort.
When he talked to the editor a little over a week later, Sheff had already moved from the urgency of the decision to resign, to anticipation of the choices it offered. Chris, however, was taken by surprise. ‘Jesus, Sheff, this is all a bit sudden. It’s not the llama, is it?’ He leant well forward, as if he might find the answer written on his chief reporter’s face.
‘No, nothing like that.’
‘What the heck then? Money? You haven’t been head-hunted by some business outfit?’
‘I haven’t any idea what I’m going to do, but I know I need a break. Something to take the rind off me so that things are fresh again.’
‘I can give you a few weeks off. I could swing that. Have a camel tour in the Gobi, or shack up with a mademoiselle in Paris. No need to throw everything over just because you’re feeling down.’
Sheff knew that part of the editor’s response was selfish: a resignation created one more complication, one more problem to be addressed, but he knew also that Chris was concerned as a colleague.
‘I’m fine, honestly. It’s not some impulse thing. I’ve thought it all out, and leaving’s the best way. I’m at a sort of dead-end. I need to try some other things, for a while at least. This place isn’t to blame. It’s more personal than that somehow.’ All part truth, but he saw nothing to be gained by making Chris feel guilty about aspects of their profession he couldn’t control.
Chris’s PA appeared at the door, but he waved her away, came from behind his desk and sat down in the remaining uncomfortable, armless chair next to Sheff. ‘Have you thought maybe it’s some delayed reaction to all the family stuff?’ he said. ‘You’ve had a hell of a pounding. Or maybe it’s the mid-life crisis thing all the magazines go on about?’
‘You think I should read up on it.’
‘Well, you’re bang on the age, aren’t you?’ They both felt more at ease with offhand evasion than personal revelation. They were comfortable on professional ground, but preferred not to probe each other’s emotions. ‘Anyway,’ Chris said, ‘I refuse to accept a resignation for two weeks, and then we’ll talk about it. I really hope you change your mind, but whatever’s best for you. Come and chat about it any time you want to. Right? Ring me at home if you like. Christ, Sheff. Talk about a bombshell.’ From habit he ran his hand over his fine, sparse hair, and the almost yellow strands were pressed close like inlay on a leather cover. ‘You’re making a pretty significant decision here you know,’ he said.
As he went back through the reporters’ room, Sheff had the feeling he was already distanced from his colleagues: that their application and concerns were no longer as important to him. Some emotional tether had been cut and he felt himself both oddly and advantageously set adrift. His own office, even, seemed to have undergone a subtle change, so that he was more aware of its plainness, its signal of laborious intensity. Unable to settle immediately to work, he began to tidy his desk. He forgot the damaged stand of the computer screen, and when he accidentally nudged it with Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, the monitor fell forward with a crash.
‘Fuck.’ The division between his office and the larger room was largely glass, but no one out there had noticed what had happened. Sheff sat and watched his workmates for a time, the blank, plastic back of the screen before him. Their space was full of activity, and he was very still in his. ‘Fuck it all,’ he said with deliberation, and noticed how Donna played with her hair while talking on the phone, how Paul hunched at his desk, how people’s faces mirrored their mood although their voices couldn’t be heard. It was a busy place, with constant pressure and deadlines for editions that so quickly were superseded, forgotten, placed beneath the cat’s bowl, used to wrap the peelings, or line garage shelves.
Sheff didn’t change his mind. Rather, he became increasingly focused on leaving the paper, yet with no clear idea of what would follow. It was as if by that indecision he issued life a challenge to surprise him with opportunity. He rang Lucy to tell her. Surely it was a necessary consideration that she be aware of his action before hearing of it from others, even though they were no longer together.
‘What’s brought this on?’ she asked. As happened during most of their infrequent phone calls or meetings, he found it difficult to adjust to the diminished importance he had in her life.
‘I just need a complete break for a while. The work hasn’t been giving me much of a lift lately, and I know I’ve been getting a bit stroppy. Nick reckons I’m getting to be a grumpy old bastard.’
‘You okay?’
‘Fine. Just bored and needing a challenge, I suppose.’
‘Don’t sell the house, or anything silly. Don’t start growing a beard and wearing collarless shirts. Well, maybe just the shirts.’
&nbs
p; He heard her laugh, and something in the manner of it made him think she wasn’t alone. It was her in-company laugh, higher than when she was spontaneous. Nigel would be with her, his stomach folding slightly over his belt in a soft dewlap, his dark hair combed straight back from his face. He was one of those people for whom rebuttal is the automatic response to comment, as if he feared acquiescence synonymous with subservience. If you remarked on the warmth of the afternoon, he would say it had been better the day before. If you praised the All Black pack, he would respond that there had been a sad falling away of rucking skills. If you commended the diversity of political opinion in Parliament, he would insist that MMP had ruined our democracy. Sheff found it easy to dislike a man who slept with his ex-wife.
‘I talked to your folks a few days ago,’ Lucy said. ‘Well, your mother mostly; Warwick was resting. She said things are much the same. They’re hoping Georgie will be able to go down for a while.’
‘I should too, I suppose.’
‘Yes, you should. Anyway, what about money? What are you going to do?’
‘There’s always freelancing, or the journalism school. I’m not worried. I haven’t been spending much.’
‘Well, you know your own mind,’ and then she began telling him about some ornaments his mother had given her, and that he was welcome to collect them, otherwise she would donate them to charity. ‘It’s the cleaning,’ she said. ‘Never-ending. That’s the trouble with brass and silver. Don’t say anything to Belize, though, I don’t want to hurt her feelings. I should’ve left them at the house.’ She must have come across them after all these months and wanted the storage space they occupied.
Why should he expect Lucy to consider his decision to leave the paper of particular consequence? She was no longer bound to have her life influenced by what he did. She talked more often to his mother than to him. He tried to recall the things Belize had passed on to her, no doubt accompanying each with an account of the family provenance that was their chief value. No sharp memory of any individual piece came to mind, but he did see them grouped on a folded sheet on the dining room floor, and his mother wearing a blue apron, and busy with cloths, Brasso and Silvo, all the while listening to the radio.
‘Anyway,’ he told Lucy as the conversation thinned out, ‘I just thought you should know what I’ve decided.’
‘Okay then. Thanks for telling me. I hope it all works out for you,’ she said. ‘Oh, by the way, Mary Ransumeen died. I meant to tell you. I sent a card for both us. It seemed simpler that way, as we hardly know the family.’
‘I assumed she went years ago.’ Mrs Ransumeen was a deaf, old woman who had been their neighbour when they were happy and lived in Whanganui. She shouted at blackbirds, had a painting by Tony Fomison that Sheff coveted, gardened in dressing gown and slippers, and Lucy had been kind to her.
‘She was ninety-seven,’ Lucy said. Sheff had no comment. ‘Anyway, I sent a card.’
‘Good. Good. Ninety-seven, eh?’
‘Yes, quite an age. Bye then. Thanks for the call. Good luck and keep in touch,’ said Lucy.
How matter of fact the voice he still associated with intimacies, and yet how clear the image and strong the emotion from their first meeting. With something of a hangover he had gone to the council offices to interview Mr Bean about proposed changes to the city bus services. They called him that afterwards because of the resemblance, close physically, but in no other aspect. Mr Bean was all business and not at all droll. Behind him at her own desk, Lucy had feigned absorption in her papers.
It was her legs that Sheff had noticed first. No longer than other women’s legs, but shapely, with the Achilles tendons clear above her flat shoes, then smooth knees and a glimpse of thigh. Using shorthand, Sheff had no difficulty in recording all he needed about terminals, lanes, advanced computer ticketing and imported Korean chassis. His gaze went often to Lucy, and whenever she looked his way he gave a little eyebrow hike of appreciation. Her hair was fair and short, she had a large, round forehead, and she wore several loose silver bangles that jangled on the desk.
Mr Bean answered Sheff’s final queries with competence, and offered no small talk to follow, but when Sheff thanked him and was about to go, Bean jerked his head in Lucy’s direction and said drily, ‘Her name’s Lucy Orr.’
Sheff passed her desk with no more than a smile, but when back at the paper he rang the council and asked to speak to her. ‘Mr Bean told me your name,’ he said, and she laughed. She could hardly comment with the man himself sitting not far away. She laughed too when he asked her, ‘Lucy Orr what?’ though she must have had that proffered as a witticism many times. It’s a good sign when a woman laughs at something she has heard before.
Was it a happy marriage? Sheff thought it was, but the only close comparison he had was the relationship of his parents, and a child’s view is almost completely self-centred. The unions of his friends were too incompletely observed to be evaluated with confidence. For Lucy and Sheff, however, marriage was a game of two halves, as the sports commentators say. The first years carefree and persistently enjoyable, or seeming so in retrospect once baby Charlotte was dead; the time after that and before they split surely the worst in their lives. That at least they could agree on.
Lucy and he had been apart for more than two years, yet without realising it he still awaited an explanation, as if the divorce was something imposed from the outside and for which he bore little responsibility. Of course they’d talked about it, initially with the alternating vehemence of defence, or attack, and later with resignation that at times bore the guises of understanding and sympathy. Sheff had even agreed to counselling, though he was able to predict platitude before it was delivered, and lacked faith in generalisation.
During the second session he noticed that Stuart, the counsellor, nodded his head affirmatively when Lucy spoke, but when Sheff was talking had the distracting habit of tightening his mouth so that the tendons rose like whip cords beneath the slack skin of his neck, and then he would relax, open his mouth with a barely audible sigh of disenchantment like a Galapagos lizard. His bias was so obvious that Sheff felt a juvenile resentment, and assuaged it by working a hole in the ochre fabric of the office chair with his car keys. Was he to have the most personal aspects of his marriage laid out for mundane comment and specious advice from this man – an old prick pushing seventy with a reptilian neck and a scatter of dandruff on his shoulders? It was almost unbearable for Sheff, and Lucy knew it, but he continued to go with her for as long as he was able, so that she couldn’t claim he refused to make an effort to save their marriage.
Stuart talked of openness, healing, acceptance, good intentions, unconditional positive regard, the putting aside of bitterness and the adoption of calm self-scrutiny, while Sheff sat beside Lucy and grieved for the ineffable understanding and trust that is the fragrance of love, and that is never restored by the intervention of others. They had cried and hugged, had managed occasionally a sort of desultory sex, they had gone out with groups of people in the hopeless determination to forget, but the death of their baby was also the death of their marriage. Maybe that was illogical, but it was certainly irrevocable.
He’d walked out when Stuart began to probe concerning Charlotte’s death. He just gave one last jag at the chair fabric with his keys, and then got up and went, despite Lucy’s hand on his arm. There was no way he could bear Stuart saying his daughter’s name, talking unctuously about something completely beyond his comprehension. No one could know how he and Lucy felt about Charlotte, because no one else had loved her as they did.
When he’d reached the bottom of the counsellor’s stairs, entry to the street was blocked by a fiddle-playing busker on a folding stool, a large man with a greasy cascade of hair. Because he was facing the traffic and sawing vigorously, he didn’t realise Sheff was behind and wishing to pass. In taking a high and exaggerated step to get by, Sheff was struck by the busker’s whisking elbow, and lurched forward, stepping on the edge of the violi
n case open for donations on the footpath. He managed to regain his balance, but the case was flipped, and the many coins and few notes scattered on the footpath. The big man began scrabbling to retrieve them, and was abusive when Sheff tried to help.
Passing shoppers paused because of the minor spectacle, and Sheff realised he was cast in the role of robber of the needy. No explanation would change that, and he walked away, hoping no one had recognised him. ‘It’s my only livelihood,’ whined the busker, quickly turning supplicant before an audience. Sheff didn’t run, or turn to look behind, but he listened for the rush of an accusatory posse. How often does life choose to crown serious vicissitude with minor misfortune, like a bright berry atop whipped unhappiness? Someone behind him was calling him a shit, but he couldn’t hear footsteps.
When he and Lucy argued later concerning his walkout, he couldn’t bear to talk about Charlotte, and tried to tell her of the busker: the blatant posturing and the old-fashioned pointed shoes scuffed grey at the tips, the greasy yet luxuriant hair.
‘What is the matter with you?’ she’d exclaimed. ‘Christ, it’s got nothing at all to do with it. We’re not talking about that, for Christ’s sake. I’m about ready to give up, do you know that? Right on the edge.’ Her voice was both harsh and shrill. He knew the busker was irrelevant, but the incident seemed nevertheless to be a distraction from the intrinsic malevolence that had come into their world. You couldn’t let go in talking of terrible things, or they tore you to pieces. You couldn’t add someone else’s grief to your own, and not be crushed by the accumulation.
SOMETIMES, WHEN HE WAS CARRYING his daughter to comfort her, she would fall asleep with her head on his shoulder and an arm over his back. As he moved quietly about the house he would feel the even puff of her breath on his neck, and the relaxed weight of her small body against his own.
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