The Last Time We Spoke

by Fiona Sussman

  As the van pulled away from Paremoremo, Ben felt as empty as the vehicle in which he was travelling.

  He was tired. If only he could sleep for a hundred years. Even the drugs had started to pall, flattening his mind into a collage of nothing.

  He thought he’d learnt not to cling onto stuff. With no control over anything, it was best to skim across the surface of your lag, and form no attachments to people or place. So why was he so eaten up over the move?

  Prison was a riddle. Everything seemed so certain – your sentence, your timetable, your space – yet everything was also completely uncertain – your placement, friendships, your privileges, and safety, your very next day. The endless constant always threatened to change. A bombshell around the next corner? Hide and Seek.

  Strangely, Ben wasn’t that scared of what lay ahead. Not like when he’d moved from remand to Paremoremo as a newbie. He wasn’t so worried about starting at the bottom of the pack again, obliged to forge fresh connections, find new protection, set new precedents. He was sort of indifferent to all of that. It would happen. He’d most likely survive. But there was this other thing tugging at him and churning his innards. He’d lost something, and by travelling farther away from where he’d lost it, he had even less chance of ever getting it back.

  In Whangarei they stopped for fuel. One of the guards bought him a doughnut. It was greasy and delicious, the yellow icing alone a novelty. Colour, after the monochrome existence that was Pare. Then they were on the road again.

  For a time, Ben crouched beside the back window, watching the landscape slip by. Despite his legs going into cramp, he wouldn’t give up his position. From it, he could see green. Life green. Bursting bright green. Calm green. Frog and frond and grass green. Peace green. He’d forgotten the whole damn colour.

  ‘Transfer from Pare,’ someone called out.

  They’d stopped. Ben pressed his face up against the grill. Surely they weren’t there. They were in the middle of the countryside, green grass rolling away in every direction.

  The van door opened.

  ‘Morning, Ben.’ A tall screw with an accent, not Kiwi, stretched out a hand. His grip was strong and surprising.

  Ben … Ben … Ben. The name. It ripped through him.

  A breeze. The air smelt different. Tasted different. It blew him into a memory. He is small. Someone, Debs maybe, is teaching him to fly a kite on Bastion Point. The picture is hazy but at the same time sharp. Sweet wind. Green grass dipping into a basin of blue sea and sky. Triangular colours soaring. A yellow tail trailing fun and possibility.

  Processing at the Northern Regions Correction Facility was routine, with all the usual – strip-search, kit, medical. The difference was that the guards kept addressing him by his first name.

  He was given lunch in the kit room because he’d missed out – a polony roll with no gristle, and a carton of cold, full-cream milk. Then he was led to his cell.

  They had to walk some way from the main admin block along a gravel path that curved through park-like grounds. A haunch of laggers was weeding the lawn.

  ‘Why you fuckin’ pulling them out?’ Ben asked as he passed. Any green was good.

  His cell was in a pod: a closed circle of booths around a concrete yard. In the centre of the yard was a small rectangle of lawn with a basketball hoop planted in the middle. The cells were all unlocked, the doors opening onto the communal area. Inmates hung around in clusters, listening to music, lazing in the sun, playing cards. A grey-haired guy was doing weights.

  Ben’s cell looked clean and bright, but he didn’t linger long. Impatiently he removed his shoes and headed out into the yard to the small patch of kikuyu lawn. He stepped onto it and let out a slow sigh as the cool sponginess pushed up between his toes, making its way through his body to his head, where it unlocked years of grey. Years of no grass could kill a man.

  ‘Today we welcome a new brother to our family.’

  A scrawny guy with brown hair gathered in a thin ponytail stood in front of his seated audience, tattoos inking all of his visible skin.

  Ben looked around. Almost everyone in the room was brown and young, some still with the baby-faced freshness of first-timers, their expressions not yet tightened, their newness not yet decayed.

  ‘Ben arrived yesterday from Pare. He’s classified AB and is up the hill, but has been granted daytime leave to be with us in the whare till we have a vacant crib.’ The man nodded at Ben and smiled, showing off two rows of broken teeth. ‘We begin the day with a karakia. August, please.’

  A lanky fellow stood up and bowed his head. Ben checked him out with a side-on glance. After the prayer, each of the guys came up to shake hands with him. One even tried to treat him to a hongi, but Ben pulled away; he wasn’t about to press noses with some random stranger. Then the meeting broke up and the guys headed off to their work programmes, leaving Ben alone in the room with the main man.

  A thin blue carpet covered the floor. A whiteboard with red scrawl rested on an easel at the front of the room. Big windows took in the grass outside. Cream prefab buildings broke up the view.

  The scrawny fellow was as straight as a needle, his shoulders pulled right back to make a proud platform for his head. He oozed mana.

  ‘I’m Chalkie. I’m a lifer. I run this joint. While you are in this unit you answer to me, you understand. And the screws, of course.’

  Ben raised an eyebrow.

  ‘You’ve come to a crossroads in your bid, mate. The prison service has decided to give you a chance, you lucky bastard. You’ve been selected to join this unit as part of a trial. Everyone high up is watching. The fate of other laggers will depend on you. Which path you choose.’

  Ben looked at him.

  ‘So, which house you prefer to live in – a jailhouse or a marae?’

  Ben frowned.

  Chalkie scribbled something on the whiteboard with the red marker, drawing two squiggly lines. One joined up where it started; the other went off the board.

  ‘Two different routes, bro. One starts in a marae,’ he said pointing to the ground, ‘and ends out there in the real world. The other route starts in prison and ends in prison. A revolving door. You get my drift?’

  Ben stared at the board to avoid the guy’s eyes, all-seeing eyes that left him feeling naked.

  ‘Your choice. Here we run things like on a marae. Same rules. Same customs. Same comforts. By now you’ll know the boob ain’t such a cool place to be.’

  Ben shifted from one foot to the other. Why had he been put in a youth unit? It was like going backwards. In a strange way it also felt kind of good. Like someone had lifted adulthood off his shoulders.

  ‘You can say “fuck society” or you can embrace it,’ the guy continued, his voice growing intense and loud. ‘You can go back there’ – he pointed across the green lawns to the pod – ‘and get stabbed, or maybe even get to see a mate hang himself with his bedding on his cell door handle. Perhaps someone’ll fuck you over in the shower. I’m guessing that after, what, six, seven years, you’ve seen it all. It ain’t a pretty place, is it?’

  Ben found himself shaking his head, hypnotised by the guy’s words.

  ‘It’s not so cool to have a screw strip-search you at random just ’cos he wants to teach you a lesson. It isn’t such a cool thing to be told when and where you can shit, and whether or not you’re allowed more bog roll. Alone for fourteen hours a day with just the cold walls for company is no party neither. Boredom and hatred fester like school sores. I’ve been inside a long time. I’ve lived it. I know.’

  Chalkie’s face was yellowy brown. The tips of two of his fingers on his left hand were missing. His eyes were thin, his nose bent.

  ‘You can keep on this road,’ he said, pointing to the line on the board that fed back to itself, ‘or you can do the right thing – tikanga.’ He pointed to the other drawing where the red line ran off the board to freedom.

  Ben didn’t know what to say. This was a different sort of stand over t
o any he’d experienced before. Things were definitely weird in the north of New Zealand. Experience told him to smirk and toss his chin, flip off this guy’s hold. But he couldn’t. The brown guy’s words had hijacked his attention and were demanding his respect.

  ‘I’m not playing high and mighty with you neither,’ Chalkie said. ‘I been where you been, boy. I’ve murdered dudes. Been president of a chapter. You could say I’ve lived a little. Got blood on my hands, just like you, and every night I sleep with my victims, swimming through their red.’

  Ben swallowed. Same dreams! His eyes started to sting and his vision blurred. How did this dude know he surfed on waves of gore every night?

  ‘I still got at least eight years in here,’ Chalkie continued, ‘before they even consider me for parole. But one thing I know is that I’m not coming back after I been released. I got a life to live.’ He pointed to the line that led to freedom. ‘I’ve chosen this route, brother.’

  The word ‘brother’, the way Chalkie said it, lassoed Ben and was pulling him in. He ground his teeth, trying to keep tears at bay.

  ‘And don’t abuse the staff here, neither, ’cos all they doing is their job,’ Chalkie added, ‘to pay for food and a roof over their family’s head. You gotta girlfriend outside?’

  Ben shook his head.

  ‘Okay, then, a mother?’ It was a rhetorical question and Chalkie didn’t wait for Ben to reply. ‘Say someone broke into her house and was going to rape her. Who’s she gonna call for protection? You’re inside and can’t do nothing to help. It’s the police who will come to her rescue. The police! So don’t slag them off.’

  Ben’s mind was spinning, his emotions tumbling.

  ‘Who the screws gonna call if you get stabbed in your crib? The ambulance officers, that’s who. People just doing their job. They deserve our respect, don’t you think?’

  Ben wiped his nose on his sleeve.

  ‘Now some basic rules.’ Chalkie turned to the board. ‘No drugs, no drink, no bashings, and in my unit you’ll be sweet.’

  Beyond

  Who would have thought you would find tūrangawaewae in a prison of all places – a secure and safe place to stand right in the midst of other prison inmates. Ha! Such is the wonder of life and the reach of tikanga Māori. But I am cautious, so for now I say no more, but watch and wait with hope.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  CARLA

  It was early December and the pohutukawa trees were in full crimson flush. Shop windows boasted brash Christmas displays and postboxes overflowed with advertorials promising the world and guaranteeing a summer of stupid prices.

  Carla leant against her front door, a pile of post and papers wedged under her arm. Suddenly the jammed key turned in the lock, catapulting her into her apartment.

  Thirty seconds later, Mingyu was standing at Carla’s door. ‘Carla! What happen?’

  ‘I keep meaning to get the damn lock replaced,’ Carla cursed, collecting her post on all fours.

  Mingyu helped her up. ‘You got time for a cup of tea?’ she asked, placing a packet of strawberry-cream biscuits on the counter.

  Carla was about to decline, but her friend was already ferreting around in the cupboard for tea bags. ‘Where you move the tea, Carla?’

  ‘Behind the jam jars. Yes, there.’

  Mingyu was in the habit of popping in every evening as soon as she heard Carla’s latch.

  Carla sneaked a look at her watch. Paul would be arriving in less than an hour and she still wanted to have a bath. ‘I won’t be able to make it a long one,’ Carla began. ‘I’m expecting a colleague shortly.’

  Mingyu raised her eyebrows. ‘Colly?’

  ‘A col-league. One of the people who works with me at the library. He’s asked me to teach him Italian.’

  A knowing smile crept across Mingyu’s face. ‘He,’ she repeated. ‘Very good, Carla. About time.’

  Carla felt herself blushing. ‘No, no. It’s not like that at all.’

  ‘Too bad. I’m think a man is what you need.’

  Carla bit her lip to hide her embarrassment. The whistling kettle rescued her.

  ‘Oh, I mean to give you,’ Mingyu said, rummaging in her trouser pocket. ‘Yesterday I am find a letter in dustbin outside. Not yet open. It is lucky. I am looking in bin because I lose my pearl earring. I’m not find the earring, but I find this.’ She unrolled a crumpled blue envelope.

  Carla had become ruthless about tossing out unsolicited mail and advertorials, sometimes without first sifting through them properly.

  She peered through the bottom of her glasses. The faint postmark came into focus. A crest. The Department of Corrections.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Thanks, Ming.’

  ‘That postie, I’m never like him,’ her friend said indignantly. ‘I think I complain. He throw them in the bin. Too lazy, that man!’

  Carla was only half-listening, the letter already toying with her equanimity.

  Mingyu picked up the TV remote. ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire is already start. We watch with our tea?’

  ‘Would you mind actually if we don’t tonight?’ Carla said. ‘It’s just that I’ve got a lot to do before my visitor—’

  ‘Oh, okay. No tea today. I see you tomorrow.’ Mingyu said, retreating towards the door, the tea left unmade. On the threshold, she turned. ‘You not open the letter?’

  ‘Later. I will later, thank you,’ Carla said, slipping it into the pocket of her cardigan.

  Not long after Mingyu’s departure, the doorbell rang, reverberating through Carla’s tiny flat.

  Muttering under her breath, Carla looked through the peephole. The distorted frame of Paul came into view. He was twenty minutes early. She was still in her dressing gown and had not yet dried her hair.

  ‘One minute!’ she called out, darting back to her room to pull on a dress.

  When she opened the door, there he was with his wide smile, a bunch of proteas in one hand and a bottle of red in the other.

  ‘Sorry, Paul. I’m running a bit late,’ she blurted out. ‘Excuse my attire.’

  He eyed her towelling turban. ‘Very fetching headgear,’ he said in his thick South African accent. ‘I am early. My apologies. But I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get here in the traffic.’

  A noise in the stairwell distracted Carla. She peered out into the lobby to see Mingyu standing in her doorway. On being spotted, her neighbour gave Carla the thumbs up. Carla hurried her visitor inside.

  The masculine smell of sandalwood filled the living room. Carla realised she’d not entertained a man in the apartment before. Feeling suddenly awkward, she excused herself and went to finish getting ready.

  By the time she re-emerged, hair blow-dried and make-up applied, the curtains had been drawn, the flowers arranged in a vase, and two glasses of red wine poured.

  She stopped in the doorway to catch her breath. It was a giddy feeling having someone attend to such things for her.

  ‘Wow, you’ve managed to make my small box of a place look good,’ she said.

  ‘You look good,’ Paul said with a skew smile. Paul had suffered from Bell’s palsy a few weeks back and his facial muscles had yet to regain their full function. Disconcertingly, the creaseless left side of his face still drooped.

  Carla’s mind went blank.

  ‘Proteas!’ she suddenly blurted out, jumpstarting the conversation again. ‘I haven’t seen them in years. We used to stop at a protea farm on the way up north. Such dramatic flowers. I tried to grow them once, but the Auckland climate – it’s too wet, and the soil too clayey. Not everyone likes them, mind you. The flowers, they’re quite different. I do. I mean, I like them.’ Words tumbled out of her mouth.

  We used to stop … We used to stop. She and Kevin used to stop … Kevin … She was being highjacked by her own words. She felt like a traitor.

  ‘I hope you drink Pino,’ Paul said, proffering her a glass. ‘It’s a Pinotage from Stellenbosch. I still have a bit of a thing for th
e reds of my homeland.’

  ‘I drink anything and everything.’ Oh Carla! Now he’d think she was a lush. She was behaving like a schoolgirl – gauche, inept, tongue-tied. And this wasn’t even a date. What was she thinking?

  Paul worked at the library. He was a quiet man, which she’d initially mistaken for aloofness, but over time had come to realise was simply a manifestation of his shyness. Buried beneath this reserve was a delightful, dry sense of humour.

  The other librarians had filled Carla in on all the gossip. Paul was a retired publisher who’d worked in Durban until he and his wife followed their only daughter to New Zealand. Soon after arriving, however, Paul’s wife was diagnosed with a brain tumour, and eight months later died. Not long after this, Paul’s daughter was headhunted for a job in Germany, and after much agonising, decided to make another shift. This time Paul did not follow. He couldn’t face relocating again, or leaving his late wife behind; she was buried in New Zealand.

  Now, a year later, he planned to visit his daughter in Berlin and had decided to combine this with a trip to Italy. When he learnt of Carla’s heritage, he’d asked if she might teach him some basic conversational Italian. And so it was that she’d come to invite him over.

  He was a tall man, in his late fifties, with haywire grey eyebrows. Their prominence lent him a serious demeanour and belied his playful eyes, which sloped away gently to disappear in deeply rutted crow’s feet. He usually wore cashmere jumpers and baggy trousers.

  ‘Mmm. Something smells good,’ Paul said, breaking another awkward silence.

  Preparation for the Italian-themed meal had taken Carla the entire weekend. Parma ham and melon to start, home-made ravioli filled with spinach, ricotta cheese and porcini mushrooms to follow, and Tiramisu to finish.

  Carla squeezed her eyes shut, trying to blot out the intrusive thoughts about Kevin. She’d never had trouble working alongside Paul. Yet somehow allowing him into her home had altered the dynamic. It was all Mingyu’s fault for putting a different spin on what was going to be an innocent evening. This had been a bad idea.