True Stars

by Kidman, Fiona

  ‘A meeting of the political wives’ support group,’ she cried when Rose introduced Toni. ‘Do join us.’ A waiter opened their second bottle of wine.

  ‘Some other time, but thanks.’ Rose studied the menu.

  At another table a young woman with neat brown hair sat alone trying not to look conspicuous. She studied a folder of notes from a briefcase. There was something familiar about her.

  ‘Alan Smart’s all right, isn’t he?’ Toni said, when they were eating pasta. ‘What’s wrong with his wife?’

  ‘Nothing. I think she’s quite straight. It’s who she’s with. You can never tell for sure who stands for what in this town.’

  ‘I don’t know if you can anywhere.’ For a moment Toni’s voice was bitter.

  ‘What’s the matter? Why are you really here, Toni?’ She thought Toni was going to tell her something, the way her eyes clouded.

  Toni shook her head backwards and forwards as if denying something to herself. ‘Nothing,’ she said at last.

  Later, in the women’s room, the Opposition member’s wife came in behind them, her complexion glassy.

  ‘How long is it since you’ve been sick at lunchtime?’ she said to Rose in passing.

  ‘So where does Kit stand?’ Rose had collected the Metro, now sleekly navy-blue again, and driven Toni out to the airport.

  ‘Why don’t you ask him.’

  ‘We have. He just waffles. The branch is split right down the middle.’

  ‘I know there’s a plan to get rid of him,’ said Rose.

  Toni looked away, embarrassed.

  Now was the moment for her to speak of Morris. Rose waited.

  ‘They did ask someone. But I’m not sure that he’ll do. The person’s an opportunist, just like all the rest.’

  ‘You mean, no better than Kit?’

  They were talking doublespeak. Rose was about to say, forget it, when Toni added, ‘The branch is like all the rural electorates, you know. They thought they were going with the left, but now that it’s turned out to be the right and they’re running scared, they’ll simply run further to the right. They don’t know what they want.’

  ‘Well thanks for telling me, anyway.’

  ‘So where do you stand, Rose? Have you decided yet?’

  ‘On my own,’ said Rose.

  Toni leaned against the wall by the airport bookstall. Outside, they had seen the Friendships rock dangerously on the tarmac as they passed the wire; wind, still rising, had snatched their breaths in the carpark.

  ‘Remember the tour, Rose?’

  ‘All the time.’ And for a moment that seemed true. Maybe it was true. You clasped one moment of history, she had thought, and it became your yardstick, your touchstone by which you measured all the rest of your life. Sometimes she could hardly remember the time between, from 1981 till now. That unity had carried her for years. But it hadn’t lasted, and she and Kit were to blame. It was the loneliest feeling in the world.

  Toni’s voice was quiet beside her. ‘Rose, when you left town I got scared. I had this crazy feeling I wasn’t going to see you again.’

  ‘Well there you are. You’ve seen me. Shows how crazy you can get.’

  Nick Newbone ordered his second beer. He hadn’t intended to stay in town for the evening. He had meant to go home to his wife Hortense who, to their mutual sorrow, remained childless. Well, he supposed it was still mutual, Hortense no longer discussed the subject with him. She denied the need for comfort and he had almost come to believe her. The soft toys in the spare bedroom had been put away in Kleensaks in the garage. There were so many other things one could do without children, he heard Hortense say.

  Still, Nick always went home.

  It was six o’clock and he did not know why he had been so easily persuaded to stay in Wellington overnight. The Oaks was filling up with out-of-work actors, underworked stockbrokers and a cross-section of rebels without a cause. He smiled at himself. Showing his age, he supposed. He brushed at his shoulderpads and wished he had worn a better jacket. But it seemed clear that he was going to spend the evening alone.

  He looked at his watch. Once he would have phoned up his local Member; maybe they would have gone out on the town, or he would have gone down to the House if it was in session and listened to the debate. It was no longer appropriate. Besides, Kit Kendall’s wife was supposed to be here.

  A woman with a briefcase smiled pleasantly at him. She had straight shiny brown hair. He felt the old familiar panic which possessed him when the unknown presented itself. Certain that he could not refuse the overture, he motioned to the chair beside him, resolving not to get picked up.

  At the Cobham Drive/Evans Bay Road intersection, with the traffic built up in four directions, Rose turned at the lights to head past the boat marina and home, but the ministerial car heading towards her failed to stop on the red. Even as she felt the impact she had seen Rex Gamble seated in the back.

  She found a place to park through the intersection and waited for the beige car with Crown numberplates to pull in behind her on the next change of lights.

  The daylight was almost gone and the streetlights had just come on. In the dim light she examined the driver’s side where the limousine had hit. The damage was not great. Thank God for heavy traffic, she thought, even a speeding chauffeur could hardly have driven her off the road. But the Metro’s paint job was another write-off.

  The Minister’s car pulled in; it had a broken headlight.

  The chauffeur got out of the car. ‘Silly bit of driving, if you ask me.’ His voice was high and nasal.

  ‘I had the green.’ She looked for Rex Gamble, but he was nowhere to be seen. It occurred to her that he might be injured and was flooded with panic.

  ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘Is who all right?’ The chauffeur was becoming querulous.

  ‘Rex. Mr Gamble.’

  The chauffeur looked mutinous, and took out a pad. ‘I’ve got your number,’ he said, writing quickly. ‘It’d make it a lot easier if you gave me the details now. We can just send the bill.’

  ‘The bill?’ Glancing across his shoulder she saw movement in the back of the car. ‘I’m not paying for anything.’

  Stalking along the path, she wrenched open the back door of the ministerial car. A hand shot up to push down the lock, but she was there first.

  Rex Gamble was lying the full width of the car floor. He looked up at her and giggled.

  ‘Rose, how lovely to see you. I was taking a nap.’ He called out to the driver. ‘Lennie. What seems to be the problem?’

  He uncurled himself from the floor and peered out across the front seat at Rose’s car.

  ‘What a pity, Rose. Send the bill to the Public Service Garage will you. We’ll attend to it.’

  ‘Thank you, Rex,’ she heard herself say.

  ‘Lennie, be a dear boy and hurry, I must get that plane.’

  Lennie jerked the car door out of Rose’s hand and slammed it shut. Rex Gamble pulled his knees up under his chin on the back seat of the car. As Lennie prepared to take off at speed, one headlight swaying wildly, Gamble crooked his forefinger from under his chin and wiggled it at Rose.

  8

  The mail was late but then it often was in Hataitai. Rose supposed it must be the hilly terrain that made it hard for the posties to deliver early in the day. Anyway, the mail services seemed to be a shambles. Everyone said so.

  Well nearly everyone. She did not deliver this opinion in the company she kept with Kit. They dined frequently with the heads of the new state-owned corporations, usually men with glossy faces who wore a lot of gold and commuted almost daily between Auckland and Wellington, business class. Only one or two, like the head of the new forestry corporation, were older men who had survived the shake-up. They were prone to long silences that appeared to hide a yearning anxiety about the social cost of their activities, and rushes of conversation to cover what in other company might pass for conscience. Kit avoided this latter breed, if he could
, but sometimes Rose would find herself seated by one of them at dinner.

  She probed, without much success, over the obligatory chicken breasts. Persistence sometimes paid off. By the time they got to the mousse, there would be dreary admissions. Yes, some people were out of work in Kaingaroa, and yes, Murupara, and well yes, Weyville too. But it was a challenge. It was up to the people to meet it. Then, over coffee, the conversation would move on to prospects for increased privatisation while Rose fell silent or engaged in discussion with the woman nearest to her about children and exam prospects or successes. Failures were seldom mentioned. She had yet to meet one of the new postal bosses, but when she did she thought she might raise the subject of postal deliveries.

  For the second time she walked up to the gate in the drizzling rain. Olivia had not written for a fortnight. The last time her letter had been full of complaints about where she was going to stay in the August holidays if Rose was not at home in Weyville. As her daughter had spent the minimum possible amount of time at home in the past three years, this came as a surprise. Now, she said, the prospect of Wellington did not appeal to her and anyway Daddy had said that there wasn’t really room in the flat. This was the first Rose had known of such an exchange between them, but so far she had not commented on it to Kit. When she wrote back she had told Olivia that they could probably make room in the flat, but if she was quite set against Wellington then there was no reason why she could not stay at home in Weyville, provided she had a friend with her.

  After she had sent this letter she had worried about it for days, feeling certain that Olivia would interpret it as a suggestion that she was not responsible for herself. Three times since then she had tried to phone her at the flat in Dunedin but she was never in. No doubt she would decide her mother was neurotic (if Kit had not already suggested this) if she said she was worried about her being in the house on her own, but at least if Rose voiced her fears in so many words, it might convince Olivia that her mother was not treating her like a child.

  There were two letters and one of them was from Olivia. What she said, in effect, was that she had spoken to Daddy on the phone and he was sure that her mother could be persuaded to return to Weyville with her for a few weeks. She got the impression, Olivia wrote, that Daddy thought it was a really good idea and might give Mum a break from all the engagements that political life imposed on her there in Wellington.

  Point to Olivia. She was always the better of their children at playing one parent off against another.

  The handwriting on the second letter was vaguely familiar, a childish scrawl, different from the Phantom’s; the postmark was Weyville. She made coffee before she opened it. It sat on the breakfast bar like a time bomb.

  Kit, at that moment, sat crying on the sea wall at Oriental Parade with the rain trickling down the back of his neck off a Norfolk pine. A full tide lapped at his feet. An air hostess called Violet Rumgay stood under the tree wearing her teal and white uniform. Her regulation wide-brimmed black hat was tilted over her brown eyes so that passers-by would not recognise her. Her public was all around her, she often said.

  Violet was fed up with not being able to ring Kit at home any more. ‘I come in from an international flight and I’m dead beat,’ she said, above the waves. ‘The first thing I want to do is to talk to you. You’ve no idea how lonely it is.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m doing an overseas tour next week. I’ll be away for a month.’

  ‘I’m trying to get leave from the House for a study tour.’

  ‘You’re always saying that.’

  ‘Perhaps we should give this all away. It’s too hard.’

  Her eyes were suddenly frightened. He noticed the shadows like bruises under them. Once she had told him that she crossed her fingers when the planes were coming in to land. ‘I think I’ve had it in the air industry,’ she told him, ‘it’s just a matter of time.’ Her mouth was like a fuschia, quite perfect, and he wanted to hold her and tell her she would be safe.

  Rose’s second letter was from Larissa. It read:

  Deer Auntie Rose

  I don’t now weather my mother, your sister, has told youse down there that her little boy Bas is real sick. It doesnt meen nothing much to me as hes not my brother reely but I thort maybe you should now about this.

  The wethers not too good here. Me and Gary and his frend Jason were going to go off for a bit of a cruise round the North island but Gary reckons we should stay put until the wether gets better.

  Yours faithfully,

  Larissa.

  PS I have not told Gary that I am written you a letter.

  PS agen I have not told my mother I am written you a letter.

  When Rose rang Katrina’s number Minna answered the phone.

  ‘She’s not here,’ said Minna.

  ‘Where is she?’

  The voice at the other end was guarded. ‘I’m not sure right at this minute.’

  ‘Did she say if she was going to be long?’

  ‘I really don’t know, Rose.’

  ‘Are you looking after Sharna?’ She had heard Sharna call out in the background.

  ‘Rose, who’s been talking to you?’

  Rose checked herself. ‘Nobody’s been talking to me. Katrina’s my sister, remember.’

  ‘I know that.’ There was a pause. ‘Basil’s got cystic fibrosis. He’s having tests at the hospital.’

  ‘Jesus. Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. That bloody doctor should have picked it up long ago. I knew as soon as she said she tasted salt on Basil’s skin.’

  ‘It wouldn’t make much difference,’ Rose said, amazed at her own brutality. Minna evoked something unpleasant in her. ‘He’ll die anyway.’

  ‘Sooner or later. There’s things they can do to help, though. It’s called quality of life.’

  ‘Is Mungo doing them?’

  ‘Mungo. Mungo. You’re all the same, you’re all mates.’

  ‘Minna, don’t hang up. Doctor Lord, whatever you like, I hardly know him.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘He’s not my doctor.’

  ‘… who cares? He speaks to people like dirt round here.’

  ‘She should change her doctor.’

  ‘Oh listen to you.’ Rose could hear the plums rattling in Minna’s mouth. ‘You don’t change your doctor here. You haven’t been away long enough to forget that.’

  It was true, Rose thought, standing on the end of the phone, reduced to helplessness. She doubted if she would ever have had the courage to change, and she didn’t live in the Blake Block.

  ‘I’ll come home,’ said Rose.

  ‘There’s nothing you can do.’

  ‘Maybe I could talk to someone.’

  ‘Who? Are you going to save his life Rose?’ Minna’s voice was cutting.

  ‘Katrina needs family around.’

  ‘She has. Jim’s here, him and his wife come in nearly every day. I’m here. Ellie drops in most days.’

  ‘Ellis Hannen?’

  ‘Why not? He’s kind. And Larissa’s even been in, not that that’s saying much.’

  ‘Does Katrina need money?’ She knew it was the wrong thing to say straight away.

  ‘Sure,’ said Minna in a drawl. ‘Send some money, that’s a really good idea.’

  Toni said, ‘We could discuss this. Like reasonable people.’ She was standing at the kitchen bench cutting up ingredients for ratatouille, a mound of purple eggplant already cubed lay on the board, another of sliced zucchini. She scooped the seeds out of a brilliant red pepper and began chopping it.

  Now that certain decisions had been made she felt empty and quite unemotive. While Lyle had shouted for the past half hour, her thoughts had flowed above what he was saying like clean water over a dirty stretch of riverbed. She thought suddenly: This is how Rose must have felt.

  At the time she couldn’t have understood. She was too young and she and Lyle loved each other so much. Even then. Even
when he got angry and couldn’t understand her passion and how she got tied up in causes.

  ‘What are you thinking about now?’ he shouted. ‘Speak to me. Say something.’

  ‘Rose. I was thinking about Rose.’

  ‘That silly bitch.’

  ‘That’s so like you, Lyle.’

  The garlic bulb separated under her fingers. She began stripping a clove. It was very strong garlic, maybe it would cure them both of whatever ailed them. Above the bench she caught a reflection of herself in the glass, and Lyle standing behind her. We were so handsome, she thought. Perfect in every way. She smiled at their reflection. She could afford to admire them both from afar.

  He sneered. ‘You’ve got plenty in common with her.’

  ‘It’s over,’ she repeated for perhaps the twentieth time.

  ‘Then why are you leaving?’

  ‘I would have thought you’d be pleased. You’re free. Belinda can come here.’

  ‘You’re taking my children.’

  ‘They’re our children, I don’t feel like giving them to Belinda.’

  ‘I don’t feel like giving them to Applebloom.’

  ‘You’re not. I’m just taking them away for awhile.’

  ‘You’re not taking anything anywhere.’

  He had hit her before. She didn’t want it to happen again. Carefully, she said, ‘They’ll be home soon. Let’s stop shouting, don’t let’s argue any more. We can eat dinner together, like we always do.’

  ‘What do you see in him?’

  She paused, selected a knife for the onions. ‘Did. Did see in him.’

  ‘What could he do that I couldn’t?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Tell me. I’ll do it to you too.’

  ‘Don’t be disgusting.’

  ‘Is that what you call it, disgusting?’

  ‘It wasn’t anything, well, not much to do with sex, Lyle.’

  ‘Politics. Trendy wanking bloody politics.’