When the door off to her right finally opened, it came as a relief. She sucked in a stuttering breath. This time she could get a proper look at him. The boy had unfurled into a man, his teenage skin shed, his lankiness filled out, his Adam’s apple absorbed into the thickness of manhood.
He walked across to the red chair, his boyish swagger replaced now with a steady stride.
Even when the caseworker opened with a karakia, Carla couldn’t stop herself from staring at him – the three-day-old stubble, the jagged scar puckering his smooth brown cheek, the tattoo spreading out over his fingers like a spider’s web – long, tapering fingers reminiscent of scrawnier days. Those fingers. That wrist. That fist.
‘Ben has prepared a statement of regret.’ Haslop’s voice punctured Carla’s stupor. ‘Stacey will read it out.’
The caseworker opened the manila folder on her lap, swept a strand of hair off her face and began to read. ‘When I committed a crime against your family I had no thought for my actions. For this I am sorry. I have seen the errors of my ways. In prison I have found God. He has shown me the way. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.’
‘Thank you, Ben,’ Haslop said. ‘This is an encouraging first step. To ask for forgiveness, you have to first acknowledge wrongdoing, and today you have done that. Well done.’
Carla felt flat. Nothing about this ‘momentous occasion’ rung true. Toroa’s words were simply words on a page and devoid of any depth. They were not even spoken by their author. Not even acknowledged with his eyes. Nothing about Toroa’s demeanour, not even his exaggerated solemnity, suggested there was any sincerity behind them.
‘Mrs Reid?’
The group looked on expectantly. Toroa was flicking his thumbs against his forefingers.
Haslop leant towards her, inviting her participation. ‘Mrs Reid, is there something you would like to say in return?’
‘Yes,’ Carla said after a long pause.
Haslop’s face relaxed. Toroa’s tightened.
She bent down and picked up her handbag. Unhurried, she unfastened the clasp.
‘I too have something to be read,’ she said.
Haslop smiled.
‘And since we are reading each other’s words,’ she continued, ‘perhaps Ben could read it to us?’
The prison manager tilted his head uneasily, clearly uncertain as to whether it was sarcasm he’d detected in her voice. He fixed his eyes on the tatty mauve envelope in her hand.
Carla held it out. Toroa’s eyes flicked up and down, but he made no attempt to reach for it. Haslop intercepted the delivery and cleared his throat. ‘Is this your victim impact statement, Mrs Reid?’
‘Of sorts,’ she said. ‘It’s a card from my son, Jack, given to my husband and me on the day he moved out of home to go flatting in the city. I think it should give, uh, Mr Toroa, a clearer appreciation of the impact his actions had on my family.’
Haslop looked down at the floral design on the card. ‘May I?’ he asked, and on her nod, opened and perused it, then he held it out. ‘Ben.’
Toroa looked up, but did not take the envelope.
‘Ben?’
Stacey, the caseworker, touched Haslop on the elbow. ‘Jim,’ she whispered, ‘Ben can’t read.’
Carla thought she must have misheard.
Haslop flushed. ‘Of course! I forgot.’ Quickly, he passed the card back to Carla. ‘Mrs Reid, Ben can’t read. Perhaps you’d be so kind as to.’
‘Can’t read?’ Carla blurted out in disbelief. Everyone could read! Toroa was a grown man. Was this yet another ploy on behalf of the thug to retain control of the situation and steer it in whichever direction he wished?
Ignoring Haslop’s outstretched hand, Carla looked across at the prisoner. She was momentarily thrown; his self-satisfied eyes were now downcast and his brazen body had folded in on itself. His slouch spoke more of defeat, than disinterest. Confused, she hesitated, unsure of how to proceed.
Everyone was waiting.
Flustered, she left the envelope in Haslop’s outstretched hand and began to recite the words from memory.
‘“Mum and Dad”,’ her voice quivered. She clenched her teeth. ‘“Mum and Dad, you’ve always believed in me and made so many sacrifices on my behalf. Thank you! I leave the farm today with a rucksack full of your love. This is all I need to succeed. I hope to do you proud. Love Jack. PS. I’ll be back, Mum. Don’t worry”.’
After a long pause, Carla looked slowly around the room at the six other faces.
‘This is my loss.’
Ben Toroa’s face was again set strong, his posture once more defiant. But Carla had glimpsed something else, and for the first time she felt a little less hostile towards him.
As she headed out of the prison that day, through the metal detector and past the British guards, she spotted the man who’d followed her in a few hours earlier – the social worker with a brown jumper and red rucksack. He was sitting glumly on the bench beside a policeman. His rucksack lay open on the counter beside a plastic bag, which seemed to be stuffed with dry green leaves.
Chapter Thirty-One
CARLA
The days following her visit to the prison freewheeled into chaos and Carla’s carefully honed routine collapsed. Conflicting emotions, revisited memories, and puzzling thoughts had been stirred up in the cauldron of her mind.
Every morning for the rest of that week she drove up The Avenue, then down into the valley where the concrete and barbed-wire beast waited for her to slow, do a U-turn, and head home again.
One day, after returning from this pointless pilgrimage, she decided to drop in on Kevin. She always visited in the afternoon, but it had just gone ten o’clock when she pulled into the grounds of the facility, hopeful they’d let her in.
Kevin had graduated to the hospital wing, where he could receive more specialised nursing care. The previous few months had seen him suffer a series of setbacks: one bout of pneumonia after another, a deep-vein thrombosis, and recently, a bladder infection, which had spread to his kidneys and was still challenging the doctors.
However, regardless of what condition Carla found Kevin in, whether he was aggressive, in a drug-induced stupor, or simply slow and bewildered, her vigil was never less than a full three hours, the maximum allowed for a visit in the medical wing.
Mostly she knitted squares for Hospice while sitting beside his bed. Occasionally she paged through a magazine. Never a book. No longer able to engage with fictional characters, she hadn’t read in a very long time.
‘Oh, Mrs R, it is a surprise to see you so early,’ Lisi, the kitchen aide, said as she rattled down the corridor with a tea trolley. Tucked into her sharp black curls was a salmon-coloured hibiscus bloom.
Carla smiled. ‘Yes, Lisi. Just to keep you on your toes. Can I please slip in and see him?’ She herself wasn’t sure why she was there. Everything was out of kilter.
Lisi beamed, flashing her beautiful milk-white teeth. ‘All good. You just in time for tea.’
‘Oh, I’d love a cup.’
‘You look good today, Mrs R. Something different?’
Carla shrugged. ‘Washed my hair.’
Lisi chortled. ‘No. Something else. White, one sugar, right?’
‘I don’t know how you remember everyone’s preferences.’
‘Just the special ones,’ Lisi said with a wink and passed Carla a heavy-duty, thick-rimmed cup.
Kevin was snoring loudly when Carla opened the door to his room, a bubble of mucus ballooning from his left nostril each time he exhaled. She wiped his nose gently, careful not to wake him, then kissed his brow. He smelt of the fragrance-free, hypoallergenic hospital soap that swam in the soap dish of his small sink. She pulled up a chair. The whole wing had recently been redecorated, the tired pink decor making way for new beige walls and donkey-brown furnishings. The reflected light lent Kevin a more sallow hue. Or perhaps it wasn’t the light.
Carla’s tea was safely lukewarm with tiny globules of
fat floating on the surface. Lisi had also smuggled her in a freshly baked scone. It was still warm and the knob of butter on top had melted, leaving a glistening smear of gold.
Carla opened the canvas bag she was carrying and cursed. She’d brought the wrong bag. In her mind’s eye she could see her knitting lying beside the sofa where she’d fallen asleep the previous evening, Campbell Live swimming into Firstline.
Three hours stretched ahead of her, and of all days, today she needed some distraction.
She rearranged Kevin’s toiletries, repositioned his slippers under the bed, and gave his basin a clean with a wet-wipe, removing the grey blobs of toothpaste that had hardened around the rim. She switched on his radio, quickly turning the volume down. Rock music! Every day she turned it to Concert FM, and every day someone changed it back.
She looked around. There was little left in the generic cubicle of space to link to Kevin. His few belongings had been further whittled down in the latest shift – a gradual paring back to naught.
She peered through the thick glass water carafe, screwing up her eyes and playing with the visual distortions it created of the photograph behind it. She reached for the frame, recapturing the clear lines of the three people in the picture. Moisture had crept under the glass and a milky stain now discoloured an already sun-faded family. In the centre stood the farmer – sun-brown, leathery skin, strong muscles, bright eyes – one hand resting on his young boy’s shoulder, the other wrapped around his wife’s tiny waist.
Carla put down the photograph and looked over at the wretched figure in bed – folds of transparent skin pleated over sunken eyes, a crumbling frame collapsed into the soft mattress … She sank back in the chair and closed her eyes.
‘Carla?’
She started. No one else was in the room.
‘Carly.’
It couldn’t be. He hadn’t called her that in ages.
Kevin’s eyes were open and shining, as if cloudy cataracts had just been stripped away.
‘Kev, you’re – you’re awake!’
‘How are you?’ he croaked, struggling to sit up.
She jerked into action, slipping an arm through the crook of his, and behind his back, pulling him in to her. He was so light. ‘Here, let me help you.’ She cradled his wafer of body against her while using her other hand to puff up the pillows. Then she lowered him gently back down.
He sighed and shut his eyes. ‘How are you?’
‘Me? Oh me? I’m – I’m fine.’
‘That’s good, snoeks.’
Snoeks! Was she losing her mind? Had she finally succumbed to the madness that ever hovered in the wings?
‘Well, maybe not so good,’ she found herself saying.
Kevin coughed, tenacious strings of phlegm netting across his airways. ‘Not so good,’ he repeated.
In an instant the years concertinaed and they were again sitting out on the deck at sundown, sharing a drink and the day’s events.
‘… and when I gave him Jack’s card, he couldn’t even read it. He can’t read, Kev! How can he understand what he’s taken from us when he can’t even read? I mean, it’s like he’s a child in the body of an adult. God, I almost felt sorry for him. Can you believe it? I must be mad.’
Kevin stretched out his hand – a web of raised purple veins and sunken furrows. Her heart swelled with the connection, the voluntary touch of his skin on hers.
‘You are a teacher,’ he said slowly.
‘I was a teacher.’
He squeezed her hand tighter. ‘You are a teacher,’ he repeated. His hand was cold and bony and pulsed irregularly with life.
Tears ran down her cheeks. The relief of a problem shared after all this time.
She slipped her arms under him and lifted him again towards her, his frame like a wisp of air in her hungry embrace. ‘Thank you, my love. Thank you.’
Then she felt his body gradually deflate and the breeze of his thin breath on her face grew still. She laid him back down. A faint smile pulled at the corners of his chapped lips.
She waited for the next bubble of mucus to balloon from his nose. It never came.
Jack’s ashes were put alongside Kevin in the casket. Carla would not have her husband cremated like she’d done with their son. She wanted him to be laid to rest somewhere beautiful, surrounded by gracious old trees and an undulating lawn. She wanted him to be somewhere permanent – a rectangle of grass that resembled his exact height and girth, a patch in the sunshine she could tend, visit, talk to.
Chapter Thirty-Two
BEN
It is rising. Up to his neck. He can’t swim and struggles to stay above the warm, red current. He’s going to drown. It is waterfalling into his mouth. He can’t breathe. It gushes into his ears, loud as thunder. He cries out, but the waves of blood swamp all sound.
‘Jesus!’ Ben sat bolt upright in bed. The walls, fractured by a web of fine cracks, came slowly into focus.
He wiped a hand across his face, then stared at his trembling palm. No red, just tears. Same dream. The same suffocating feeling he’d experienced the time he’d jumped off Kauri Point Wharf as a kid – all bravado, unable to admit to his friends he couldn’t swim. Down, down, down, kicking and jerking, arms and legs flailing. Some big guy, an off-duty fireman, had jumped in to save him.
Too scared to fall asleep again, Ben got up. He’d had enough. Robbed of Zs yet again – the only way to use up fourteen hours of nothing. Ever since that woman had come to visit, he hadn’t been able to sleep properly. She’d brought the spirits with her and they were playing noughts and crosses with his sanity.
His mum had started appearing in his dreams too – blood trickling from her ears like the time Ryan burst her eardrum. Whenever Ryan and his mum used to fight, Ben and Lily would hide under the bed until the screaming stopped. It was horrid huddling there – their own reprieve marbled with fear. They were safe while Ryan was distracted, but they never knew what they’d find when they climbed out.
Ben wiped his nose on his sleeve. No place for tears in Pare. He hoped to hell nobody had heard anything. He could just imagine what would go down: ‘Staunch Toroa bleating in his sleep like a fuckin’ baby!’
Lockdown wasn’t lifted till eight. Ben counted it out in his mind. Still ages to go. He was out of smokes and out of fun. He toyed with the idea of clanging on the metal pipe that ran along the back of his cell to the adjacent cell. He could call in a favour. Get a joint or something to tide him over till the muster. Then he thought better of waking the whole block. He wasn’t up to a rumble. He felt too stink.
Looking around the cell, he let his eyes settle on one of the posters on his wall, then slid his hands into his pants. But after what seemed like forever, he abandoned the ritual; the topless slag had lost her magic.
He hauled himself out of bed and lay face down on the floor to do push-ups. ‘One and two and three and four and—’
‘Which dick is exercising in the middle of the fuckin’ night?’ Silver’s voice hollered down the corridor.
No one messed with Silver unless they had a death wish. He was head of the Pare Chapter. He could get to people, whether they were inside or out. Rumour had it he’d recently arranged a hit on a narc who’d run off to Oz.
Silence.
‘Well, listen up, brotha, whoever you are. I’ll smash your lousy head in if you make another fuckin’ peep.’
Others began to waken and stir, scratching about in their cells like rats in a roof. Ben slipped back under his blanket and closed his eyes. The next thing he knew, the bell was announcing first roll.
‘Prisoner Toroa.’
‘Here.’
‘Prisoner Toroa.’
‘I said here!’
‘To Visits.’
‘What?’
‘To Visits,’ the guard repeated impatiently.
Ben felt the surge of excitement that any change in routine imported. He wasn’t expecting anyone, but if admin had got it wrong – and they sometimes did – j
ust the walk to Visits and back was a sufficient change from the habitual boredom of each day. Then again, if by some stroke of luck someone had decided to visit, smokes, weed, chocolate, or even a bit of porn could be on the menu. So long as it wasn’t his Bible-bashing sister, Lily, he’d be good.
Lily’s latest foster family – the third ‘permanent’ placement since their mum had died – was better than the previous ones. Before that, she’d had it pretty rough, poor kid. The first time she was allowed to visit him in jail, he’d got a real shock. She looked awful, not like the pretty Lil he remembered. Her skin had broken out into angry red cysts and her beautiful hair had been peroxided and turned a greenish yellow. Yet it wasn’t the physical changes that bothered Ben so much as the fact that the light inside of her seemed to have gone out. There was stuff going on she just couldn’t talk about, not even to him.
After running away for the hundredth time, she’d been placed with this new family, hopefully the last before she was deemed an adult. Things were good for a while. When she visited, she seemed a bit more like her old self. But then she started going all weird on him. By the sounds of it, the family was into some fundamentalist religious stuff and soon Lily was caught up in it too. She became bent on prising Ben from the devil’s clutches. Whenever she visited, which started becoming too often, she was on a mission to convert him to the ways of the Lord.
As for the rest of his brothers and sisters, well, they were sprinkled all over the North Island like freckles on a Pākehā’s face. He’d lost touch with them all. Someone told him Anika had topped herself, but he never got it confirmed. Getting information in prison was like playing Chinese Whispers; and you didn’t know how far down the line you were when someone passed on information.
Haslop was standing at the top of the stairs. ‘Ben.’
No staff ever used Ben’s first name inside Pare. Hearing it carried him back to a different place, a different time, a forgotten world.
The Last Time We Spoke Page 17
