True Stars

by Kidman, Fiona

  ‘How do you know he stole all of these?’

  ‘They were all together.’

  ‘Couldn’t he have bought the comic?’

  ‘Not if he could have stolen it.’

  ‘O’Meara.’

  ‘He said he pinched it.’

  ‘How did you extract that startling confession?’

  Teddy looked straight ahead. ‘He got into some kid’s stuff in one of the houses he did.’

  ‘I gathered that.’

  ‘He just dumped all the stuff together, he said.’

  ‘Jesus. Make sure you get it identified. Don’t miss a trick.’ He wasn’t usually given to sarcasm.

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘No … sir.’ Teddy returned the insult with a subtle emphasis but he picked his words carefully. ‘There’s reason to believe Muru was the hit-and-run on that kid up Orchard Close last week.’

  Campbell sighed. ‘Why?’

  ‘The car being driven at speed down Orchard Close was seen to be a Hillman Hunter. The mudguard he stole.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I see that. All right.’ He looked at O’Meara. ‘I expect you’re right, O’Meara. I’d hoped … you know the marchers are screaming police brutality already.’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘I’d hoped the march would go without incident.’

  ‘We all did … sir.’

  ‘Did we? Did we, Teddy? A pious hope. Or was it a way of getting all the troublemakers together in one place and watching who would make the first mistake? Is that what we wanted?’

  ‘There’s a few of them left in town.’

  ‘Maybe. Where are the marchers staying tonight?’

  ‘They’re camped on the roadside, but I understand they’ll be staying on a marae tomorrow night.

  ‘I suppose that’s what they’ll do all the way south.’

  ‘Right. My mate and I sussed out a few of their locations today.’

  ‘I understand you’re staying with the march to Wellington.’

  ‘That’s the general idea.’

  ‘You’ll be on the road for awhile. You should get some sleep.’

  ‘I like cruising. Bit of country air.’

  ‘Try and keep the media off our backs, will you?’

  ‘It depends on whether those bastards keep in line, doesn’t it? With respect, sir.’

  Campbell picked up his book where he had left it after his teabreak. It had been a quiet evening for him, and come eleven o’clock he could go home. Tomorrow he would be at home all day. He started to read and put the book down again. Even Zane Grey couldn’t hold his attention. He had read Wild Horse Mesa fourteen times. This evening, if anything, it disturbed him. He wished life were as simple as it had been then, seeing himself as a kind of sheriff, riding away into sunsets, the glow of the sky on his horse’s mane, the cheering of those he left behind. He suspected that once O’Meara might have too, except that he was probably too young to have read westerns. Or perhaps he had and liked shooting Indians. Campbell was squeamish about that.

  O’Meara was looking up phone numbers.

  ‘Take any one newspaper, and take any one Saturday night, take this station, and what do you get?’ Campbell knew he sounded agitated. ‘Headlines,’ he answered himself.

  ‘Rapes, muggings, stolen cars, a couple of us getting beaten up, and threats to the blokes’ families.’ O’Meara ran his finger down a column of names. ‘Those who have them. Tell you the truth, I’m beginning to think it’s a choice between celibacy and the force.’

  ‘And you’ve chosen the force?’

  ‘For the moment.’

  Campbell sighed. ‘They say you beat up on them.’

  The younger man studied him. ‘How long’ve you been in the job … sir?

  ‘Long enough.’ He rubbed his eyes. He knew what O’Meara was thinking, that he’d been around for what seemed like centuries to him; that he was in a safe job, no night shifts, small chance of violence, a useful appendage for getting boring work out of the way, someone who could be replaced at any time.

  ‘You’ve forgotten how they love to hate us. The media’s all the same.’

  ‘Is it true though, O’Meara?’

  ‘Muru had been in a fight on the march.’

  ‘Yes. I see, of course I do. Teddy, why don’t you take leave when you get to Wellington?’

  ‘I don’t reckon the march’ll get that far.’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘You could be right. Is that what the bosses think?’

  ‘It’s what I think. Anyway, why did you ask? Want to get rid of me?’

  Campbell considered his reply. His job might be safe, but even O’Meara would agree that he worked his butt off on most shifts, just like all the rest of them. This peace was unusual, and the implications of the march hadn’t escaped him. He knew exactly what he had meant when he asked O’Meara if it wasn’t to the advantage of them all to have the marchers together. Nor had it escaped him that though there had been a major rally of concerned citizens in the town just days before, those who had set off to Wellington were the people they referred to as troublemakers. What sort of a town was it, he had wondered more than once during the evening, that could not keep its shit together long enough to stage a real honest protest? In Orchard Close they were partying up tonight but none of them was marching. The truly poor sleep in the highways and byways. The rest commend them for their sacrifice. These were the same people who screamed brutality when the men snapped.

  Yet he could not say, for certain, that they were wrong, or dispel the images that haunted him in his worst nights, of random fists and casual boots, the cavalier young men with whom he worked turned hunters. He had seen the cruising cars, the sharp blast of joy like an adrenalin surge when a youth had been dragged from an ancient vehicle, thrown against it and frisked, his possessions tossed on the road, his groin carelessly punched; he knew that the streets out there were often no more than a glorified schoolyard, the big boys and the little ones. But O’Meara was different again. Although Campbell knew he had done all of these things, and would no doubt do them all again, there was something about him that he could not place. Increasingly, he was unsure that he knew him.

  The young man held him in an intent, unfurrowed stare.

  ‘Chronic celibacy’s unhealthy,’ Campbell said at last.

  O’Meara smiled.

  The sign at the camping ground read NO PETS ALLOWED. Larissa would have liked a dog, or even a little cat. She had smuggled a kitten in once but Herbert had caught her out. Nowadays she kicked cats when she saw them. But a big dog like an Alsatian would be neat. In her imagination it liked her better than Gary. It would be cool if it bit people, even Gary sometimes, to tune him up.

  She watched the clouds skudding across the dark sky, and shivered, noting the change in the weather.

  ‘You should put something on,’ Jason said beside her, so that she nearly jumped out of her skin.

  ‘Shit, don’t do that to me.’

  ‘It’s cold as a frog’s tit out here. You’ll catch something.’

  ‘You’re an old woman, Jason. You’re getting like your old lady. What do you want me to put on, cardigan and slippers?’

  ‘What are you doing out here?’

  ‘Thinking. There’s no law against it.’

  ‘Penny for ’em.’

  ‘You are weird, aren’t you? Like the Middle Ages, really.’

  ‘What would you know?’

  ‘You’re right, not much.’ She traced the edge of the step with her finger. ‘I was thinking it was time we were on the road. I’d like a dog.’

  ‘Yeah? You ever had one?’

  ‘Not really. My aunt had this silly little mongrel I used to mind sometimes when they were away. Creepy little thing.’

  ‘Yeah, well it’s dead.’

  She was still. ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Nah. I saw her bury it this morning.’

  ‘How
did you get in on the act?’

  ‘I didn’t. I watched. She didn’t know I was there.’

  ‘You’re putting me on about this.’

  ‘Straight up. It’d had its throat cut. It was high.’

  ‘Oh.’ There was a small catch of pain in Larissa’s voice. ‘Well, who’d have thought she’d do that to it?’

  ‘I don’t reckon she did.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Jesus, how should I know?’

  ‘Seems like you’re the expert.’

  ‘I’m not.’ He hesitated. ‘Where’s Gary?’

  ‘Out.’

  ‘Gone out on his own, has he?’

  He felt her diminishing in the dark beside him and found himself absurdly awash with tenderness. Often at this time of night she was stoned or drunk, or both, or they might be out on a job. Mostly they stayed sober when they went out at night, Larissa and Jason anyway. Jason had sat her down and told her the facts as he saw them. You’ve got to be sharp or you’re half-way inside already. He knew, he’d been there. He had tried to tell Gary too, but Gary reckoned he knew everything.

  Jason didn’t fancy Larissa when she was high, she swaggered a lot and puked easily. He didn’t care for her when she smelled of Gary either. But like this, he wanted to put his arm around her, only he knew she would think he was wet. There was nothing in the world that he could think of that would make her care for him, and so he didn’t ask that she did. But when he heard that Gary was out he felt alarmed for them all, and thought how much he wanted to protect her.

  ‘Where did he go?’ he asked urgently.

  ‘I dunno. Maybe the pub. I thought you’d know.’

  ‘That guy’s a maniac. The town’s real quiet — too quiet.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Gary’s staunch.’

  ‘Larissa, your Auntie Rose went away.’

  She sat down suddenly on the caravan step. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Did Gary know?’

  ‘I didn’t tell him.’

  ‘Yeah, but I said, does he know?’

  She read his silence. ‘He won’t get much there. Unless she’s bought up fancy gear just lately. Rose’s an environmentalist. Non-materialist and all that stuff.’

  ‘Yeah? D’you want me to roll you a smoke?’

  ‘Why not? Jason, that bitch had it coming to her anyway.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  He shrugged, took out his pouch. He supposed it was something to sit here beside her. There were things he wanted to think about, like the size of the universe which he had lately heard was expanding, amazing though that might be, and to wonder what was the life of a seed and how many times it would regenerate before it became nothing. It seemed like a good time to talk to Larissa about things like this. And because the Studebaker was gone he guessed he would have warning of Gary’s return.

  ‘We could make highballs,’ she said dreamily.

  ‘Don’t bother.’

  ‘A Steinie?’

  ‘No, don’t put on the lights.’

  ‘Tomorrow I’m going to paint my nails yellow and black, yellow and black, black and yellow all the way across.’

  ‘Yeah, Larissa, yeah, do that.’

  ‘I’ve got like little star transfers to put on them. Neat, Jason?’

  ‘Yeah, neat.’

  The bed was deep and soft. Gary lay outstretched in Rose and Kit’s master bedroom jacking off. He thought about some poor sod who he heard about lying down in the street in Weyville with nothing but his underpants over his head jacking till they came and took him away. He could kind of see why it had its appeal but this was more peaceful and more full of disrespect. A kind of anarchy. Though there were times when he wished he could be rescued, that somebody, maybe his mother might come and take him away. If he could just remember what she looked like.

  Afterwards he took a crap on the Kendall’s dining room floor, turned over some furniture including a desk full of papers, some of which he strewed around the room and the rest he threw out a window watching them float ghost-like into the night, kicked in the glass face of the oven, and finding nothing else of interest, departed with the stereo under his arm and a little bundle of electronic gear which as yet he had not identified, in his pocket.

  As he was leaving the phone began to ring. He paused, tempted, then carried on across the lawn and into the trees.

  The morning sun clawed behind Toni’s eyelids. As she pulled the covers over her head she reached from habit to the other side of the bed; it came as no surprise that Lyle was not there. He often slept in a spare bed in their son’s room these days. It was no big deal, he said, he was just a hell of a sleeper as she had always known. She could hear him laughing with the kids now. They had had such good times together. Bad dreams were not reliable.

  He came into the room bearing a cup of weak tea.

  ‘Can you face this?’ he said, sitting on the bed beside her. His hand ruffling the sheet was gentle.

  ‘How did you know I felt so bad?’ She sat up and sipped gingerly. ‘We were both pretty awful.’

  ‘No, I was worse than you,’ he said with contrition.

  ‘Maybe, but I feel worse. You look, hey you look beautiful.’ She meant it, liking his throat beneath his fresh shirt. She put her hand on his chest.

  ‘You took the words out of my mouth.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘Just call me angel/ of the mo-orning,’ he crooned. He sang in the local operatic. They begged him to go back every year. He had met Belinda there.

  She gripped his hand, fighting tears. The words ran on through her head, Touch my che-eek/ before you le-eave …

  ‘Why don’t you lie down and sleep a bit, I’ll get the kids off this morning. They’re dressed already and started breakfast.’

  ‘Why are you being so nice to me?’ She tried to keep the edge out of her voice.

  ‘You’re getting your period, aren’t you?’ he said.

  Mrs Jane Marment’s house squatted amongst her chrysanthemums. It was a utility house, the kind that people used to build on beach fronts, and add pieces on to. In hot weather the fibrolite-clad walls overheated it until it was almost unbearable. She drew the shades lower and suffered, and in cold weather she kept them drawn for warmth. It always puzzled her how people threw open their blinds and curtains, exposing themselves to the world. Her late husband had been inclined that way. She shuddered with distaste when she thought of it, it was too revealing of a side of his nature that she would rather not dwell on in retrospect. Teddy agreed with her. People ask for trouble, he said, leaving their doors and windows open, advertising their goods. If you saw what I do. She had no wish to, she believed him, though she liked him to tell her what he had seen. Lived vicariously, she could stand the burden of her boarder’s life. What he told her confirmed all the baser things about human nature that she had always suspected. ‘Shoot the lot of them,’ she said sometimes. She knew he didn’t approve of her talking like that, but it was how she felt, especially when she thought of him being in danger.

  He slept now, while she sat in her front room, breathing deeply, in and out, as if breathing with him, grateful that he had returned safely again from his last shift, willing him to sleep late. The room contained solid furniture, and little ornamentation but a framed photograph of the Queen wearing her diamonds and a tiara. A slight smile hovered at the edge of the Queen’s mouth, and she stared more across the room than at Mrs Marment; but that was how it should be, she felt. On the dresser stood a smaller black and white picture of the Queen and Princess Margaret when they were children, with their mother. Mrs Marment had thought about taking it out and replacing it with something without Princess Margaret, after all that had happened, but it still brought a lump to her throat when she remembered the two children saying goodnight on the radio during the war. She had heard them herself.

  She breathed, in out in. Her life had been happy since Teddy came to live in one of the added-on rooms.

 
; Standing at the bench of her Continental Streamline kitchen, Lola Campbell sliced open a grapefruit and carefully separated the flesh from the skin. She did every small household task as if it were a minor work of art, and with precise timing. As a working wife, she told her customers, she must organise her time with care or else things would get out of control.

  On the gate of the wall, which surrounded the white colonial-style house with frilled net curtains at the windows, hung a sign which read No Collectors, No Canvassers, No Hawkers. Jeffrey had demurred when she ordered the sign. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it looks too much as if we’re saying, this is mine, and we’re not sharing with anybody.’

  ‘But why should we share?’ she had responded, genuinely puzzled, ‘We worked hard, it’s a beautiful house and it’s ours. Besides,’ she added, ‘it makes me feel safer. If anyone can walk up to a policeman’s house they’ll get to know it too well.’ She put it to him, what with firebombings on police houses all over the country, and her on her own at nights so often, it was hardly fair, was it, exposing her to the risk.

  And Jeff, who loved his wife, and had to agree that there was danger in his work, had said, well, he supposed she must be right and actually nailed it up. She had the feeling that he still didn’t like it much, and it worried her that he might be going soft in the job.

  It was just past 7.30. Lola finished preparing her husband’s breakfast while the last of the news was playing. With luck, he would not wake up until ten — by the time he ate she would be unpacking new stock at the shop and pinning up hemlines. She was glad hems were going up this year, so much smarter, but the manufacturers still made garments as if they were intended for Amazon-length women with wasp waists.

  Lola attached a note to the fridge door with a ladybird magnet. The note read, ‘No egg this morning.’ Jeff was carrying more gut than she considered healthy. He would eat eggs three times a day if she didn’t keep an eye on his diet. It worried her what he got into some days when she was at the shop, after he had been on night shift. Still, she only had to remind him that his fitness test was coming up for him to try harder.