Misplaced

by Murray, Lee

  Corey picks up the conversation where they left off.

  ‘Anyway, my mum says your behaviour wasn’t all that surprising. Not when you consider the stress you’re under. On Sunday night after you left, she lit a joss stick and asked our ancestors to look out for you, and for your mother.’ He colours again. It could be the longest speech Corey’s ever made in front of a girl. Kieran takes the last bite of his sausage roll. Flakes of pastry drop on his sweater.

  ‘You’re kidding?’ he says, his mouth still partly full.

  ‘What’s so silly about that?’ Skye says. ‘Māori people often call on the spirits of their ancestors, their whakapapa, to help them.’

  Corey nods. ‘Mum believes friendly spirits have the power to influence things that happen to us.’

  ‘Ever since I mentioned wanting to go to university, Aroha’s been calling on our ancestors to help with our Lotto numbers!’ Skye laughs.

  ‘Well, it can’t hurt, can it?’ Corey’s comment makes Adam pause. What if you really could call on spirits for help? Through a medium, for example. It’s something to think about. But Kieran is looking sceptical, so Adam changes the subject.

  ‘So, Kieran, how did it go with Felicity on Friday? You get her to come over to the dark side?’ he teases.

  Kieran laughs. ‘Not yet. But I’m working on it.’

  ‘I thought you two called it a day?’ Skye asks.

  ‘It wasn’t consentaneous,’ Corey says.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Skye says, looking baffled. Kieran and Adam grin. Skye doesn’t know about Corey’s thing for long words.

  Corey explains. ‘Felicity called it a day. Kieran is having some trouble accepting it.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘She totally ignored me at Ants’ place,’ Kieran says. He sits upright, sending bits of pastry everywhere. ‘I don’t get it. One minute we’re getting on great, I mean really great. We were connecting, you know? Then she suddenly breaks up with me, and the next thing I know, she’s dating Mikey.’

  ‘Could you have said something to upset her?’ Kieran considers Skye’s question.

  ‘With this face? Nah.’ He shakes his head, grinning. Skye shrugs. ‘Why? Did Felicity say something?’ Kieran says, suddenly doubtful.

  ‘No,’ Skye replies evenly. ‘Why don’t you ask her?’

  ‘How can I if she’s ignoring me?’

  ‘You could apologise first.’

  ‘Apologise? What for?’

  ‘If you apologise, maybe she’ll tell you.’ Adam looks at Skye in awe. She’s so smart! She goes on, smiling now. ‘Take Adam here. All he had to do was say sorry, look a bit despondent, and what happened? Corey forgave him for puking all over his t-shirt.’

  Even Kieran laughs at that.

  ‘Yeah, you could have a point. I’ll think about it. Anyway, I’d better get off,’ Kieran says. The chair legs scrape as he pushes back from the table. He brushes himself down, removing the last pastry flakes. ‘Contractors dumped a load of firewood on the lawn yesterday. I told Gary that I’d stack it under the eaves. Might use it to tick off one of Reece’s workout boxes. Catch you guys tomorrow.’ He throws them a parting wave. Corey gets up, too. He mumbles something about a music exam coming up and needing to practise, then skedaddles after Kieran. Adam and Skye look across the table at each other. Suddenly, Adam feels ten years old.

  ‘We should probably be going too,’ Skye says, her green eyes smiling merrily.

  ‘Probably,’ Adam says, but he doesn’t make a move. He’s enjoying the sensation of sitting with Skye. Just the two of them. People coming in and out of the supermarket might think they were a couple. Adam has a brainwave. ‘Skye, do you want to go somewhere?’

  ‘Well, we should probably go and finish your English assignment. It’s due on Friday, remember?’

  ‘Or we could go to the beach? Maybe take a walk?’ Adam attempts to look nonchalant, as if it doesn’t matter in the slightest whether or not Skye Wētere would like to take a walk with him on the beach. He checks out his casual manner in the window behind Skye. The face staring back is pale and anxious. Not exactly nonchalant. At last, Skye giggles.

  ‘Okay, you talked me into it,’ she concedes. Adam’s pulse skyrockets.

  ‘You won’t get into trouble with Aroha?’

  ‘That’s okay. She’s working tonight. It’s late night for Farmers’ cardholders.’ Adam’s heart does a little flip of joy.

  At the start of the base-track, Adam holds the gate open for Skye, who’s stopped to zip up her polar fleece. The afternoon is overcast and there’s a stiff breeze. Skye does a little skip to catch him up, and Adam lets the gate swing back behind them.

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’ she asks.

  ‘A bit.’ He’s freezing. He turns up his collar. He left his jersey at home again this morning. These days, without Mum to remind him, he usually manages to forget something.

  ‘Here, this should help.’ Taking his hand in hers, Skye slips them both into the pocket of her polar fleece.

  ‘There, that’s better,’ she announces.

  She gives his hand a squeeze. Adam smiles and squeezes back. It’s true, he does feel warmer. They set out along the trail, their hands clasped in Skye’s pocket and their feet crunching out a regular cadence in the grit. To their left, they glimpse the bronze statue of the sea god Tangaroa rising from the water, his taiaha at the ready as he guards the entrance to the harbour. Opposite, on the slopes of the mountain, the scars of January’s cyclone are beginning to heal, the gouges softened by new vegetation. Both Adam and Skye have walked this track before. Everyone has. It’s a favourite venue for school trips, family outings and Waitangi day celebrations. Mauao is such a landmark, Adam wouldn’t be surprised if one day a stroll around the little mountain becomes a condition of New Zealand citizenship. Not that it’s a hardship. Not today, anyway. Walking the track with Skye, Adam savours every moment.

  ‘Let’s stop here out of the wind,’ Skye says, letting go of his hand and pointing to a wooden bench a few steps above the track. They climb up and take a seat. It’s a good spot: through the twisted boughs of an ancient pōhutukawa they look north over the water to Matakana Island. Feeling brave, Adam puts his arm around Skye’s shoulders. She doesn’t push him away, shifting closer instead.

  ‘You know the story of Mauao, don’t you?’ Skye says when they’re settled. ‘Why he’s sitting alone out here in the sea?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so. It’s a tale of lost love, isn’t it? Poor old Mauao was spurned by his girlfriend. I’ve forgotten her name.’

  ‘Pūwhenua.’

  ‘Yeah, Pūwhenua. A beautiful mountain. She dumped him for some other mountain, and he couldn’t bear it. Hey, it sounds like Kieran and Felicity, doesn’t it?’ Adam says, recalling their earlier conversation.

  ‘It’s a bit like your story, too,’ Skye says.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, Mauao figured he’d drown his misery. Tried to kill himself.’

  ‘I didn’t try to kill myself!’ Adam protests.

  ‘Maybe not, but you could have. You really scared me the other night, Adam,’ Skye whispers, her voice barely audible over the wind. ‘Don’t do it again, okay?’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Promise?’ Skye turns to face him, her eyes imploring. Adam’s heart jolts.

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘Good.’

  She smiles and, turning back to the view, she captures his left hand in her right, slipping it into her fleece pocket where it belongs.

  Chapter 22

  The next day at lunchtime, Adam’s leaving the canteen, juggling a hot mince pie in his hands, when Simon appears. He waves Adam away from the line of waiting kids with a subtle lift of his chin, beckoning him into the blind alley that runs between the boys’ and girls’ toilets.

  ‘Hey, bro.’

  ‘Simon.’

  ‘This is Motor.’ Simon tilts his head to the right, and a boy, his eyes, dark and reflective, steps out of the shad
ows. The new boy acknowledges Adam with a quick nod, the movement almost imperceptible.

  ‘Motor here thinks he might have seen your ol’ lady,’ Simon announces.

  ‘Yeah?’ Adam tries not to sound too eager.

  ‘Motor tells me that night, the night your Mum disappeared, he was hanging out at the reserve behind the school. By Carlton Street. That’s when he saw her. She was wearing a green sweat shirt.’

  Adam suppresses a rush of excitement. Everyone knows Mum went missing in Ōtūmoetai. Her description has been broadcast all over the country. There are photos pasted to telephone poles, fences, shop windows, anywhere with a flat surface. So far, there’s no new information in Motor’s testimony.

  ‘Mum wouldn’t have gone there,’ Adam says. ‘That’s the wrong direction. We think—the police think—it’s more likely she headed toward Brookfield.’

  Motor shrugs, and makes a move as if to leave, but Simon stops him with the flat of his hand. ‘Motor reckons he saw her. Says he identified her from the posters.’

  ‘Did he call the police? Tell them what he saw?’

  ‘He’s telling you.’

  Adam turns to the shrinking boy. ‘You should call the police. Speak to Detective Pūriri. If you have information, it could really help,’ he says.

  Motor doesn’t reply, just shakes his head no.

  Simon goes on, ‘Let’s just say Motor would prefer not to contact the police. He’d rather not draw attention to himself if he can help it. He likes to keep a low profile.’

  ‘Bit like you then, Simon?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘What were you doing there, Motor, in the park?’

  Simon and Motor exchange glances, then Simon pipes up. ‘If you must know, he was sitting on the play equipment in the kids’ playground, on the ship thing, enjoying a joint. Motor says your Mum was crossing the reserve, headed toward the swamp marsh.’ Adam wonders how Motor managed to convey all that to Simon without even moving his lips.

  ‘What time did he see her?’

  ‘Just after five-thirty,’ Simon answers again. So Motor may have been the last person to see Adam’s mother. Adam has a desire to reach out and touch him, as if the physical contact might recreate a connection with Mum. Instead, Adam grasps the straps of his bag, hitching it higher on his shoulder, causing the paper bag containing his pie to crackle.

  ‘How can he be sure about the time?’ he says.

  ‘Motor says he’s confident ‘bout the time.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Except he was half-stoned.’ An experienced man-of-the-world now, Adam knows about these things.

  ‘But Motor says his guy didn’t turn up with his stuff until five-thirty, and Motor saw your mum go past the culvert just after that. After he left.’

  ‘The police have already done a poke through the waterways there. They got some divers in. Didn’t find anything.’ Adam has to concentrate hard when he says this. There’s a chance he could hyperventilate since the ‘anything’ he’s talking about would be his mother’s corpse.

  ‘She’s not in the water,’ Simon declares.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘‘Cause if she went in the water there, Motor would’ve seen it, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Mm. Maybe. Look, thanks for trying to help. I’ll tell the police.’

  Motor shakes his head violently at Adam’s mention of the police.

  ‘Motor doesn’t want any trouble. I told him you were good, you know, after last time with me. You can’t tell the police. They’ll want to know how you know, who told you. You’ll have to tell them Motor’s name, what he was doing there, that stuff.’

  Adam thinks. Motor’s information isn’t likely to add anything to what the police have already learned. There have been plenty of ‘possible’ sightings reported. And they’ve already trawled the waterways.

  ‘Okay. I won’t say anything. Is that all he remembers?’

  ‘Yup, that’s all.’

  ‘She didn’t seem agitated, tense?’

  Once again, the two younger boys exchange glances.

  ‘Motor says it was starting to get dark and she was walking kinda fast, not looking all about like she was frightened, but purposeful, in a hurry, and she didn’t have a handbag. He says he watched her go through the gap towards the road. She could’ve crossed over and gone through the swamp marsh, or she could’ve got picked up on the road. Motor doesn’t know ‘cause he didn’t see anything after she went through the gap. He was there a bit longer, you know, finishing, but he didn’t see her come back. That’s all he knows.’

  Adam nods, absorbing the information. Meanwhile, Motor gives Simon another small nudge. Adam can only guess what this means.

  ‘Okay, see you round, Motor. Thanks for fronting up. We ‘preciate it, don’t we, Adam?’

  We?

  ‘Yeah, sure. Thanks for the info... Motor.’ Adam says. With another barely discernible nod, the boy slopes away.

  ‘Well?’ Simon asks when Motor has gone.

  ‘Well, what?’

  ‘Think that’ll help? I’ve been asking around, see, networking.’

  ‘Simon, that’s great. Any help is great. Thanks.’ Adam’s about to leave. Lunch is nearly over, and his pie is cooling rapidly. But Simon has something else on his mind.

  ‘So, Adam...’

  ‘Yup?’

  ‘I’ve been wondering...?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘About what you said...?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘About me being fast.’ Simon seems flustered. ‘Maybe you could put in a word for me with the running coach? I thought I could give it a go. I know it’s nearly the end of the year, but I wondered with you being a senior...’

  Adam hesitates.

  ‘You don’t think I’m good enough...’ Simon looks gutted.

  ‘Sure, I think you’re good enough, Simon. I said so, didn’t I? But you’re the kind of guy who’s looking for quick thrills. You’re wanting an adrenalin rush, a feeling of getting one over on other people. You’re not going to get that sort of buzz unless you’re winning races, and training for races takes effort, commitment.’

  Simon’s face flashes with anger. ‘I’m asking you, aren’t I? Means, I’m prepared to do the work, doesn’t it? Make an effort. Shit, if I’d known you were gonna give me a lecture...’ He turns to go.

  ‘Simon!’

  ‘Yeah?’ Turning back, the boy’s face is full of hope, the way Adam’s face used to be only weeks ago.

  ‘Come down to the track today after school. I’ll introduce you to Reece, the coach.’

  ‘You will? Awesome!’ Simon scampers away as the bell for afternoon classes sounds.

  Grinning, Adam chucks his cold pie in a nearby bin and makes his way to E-block.

  Surprise!

  It’s 4:00am and here I am awake again. The surprise is, I’ve woken from a sleep of six glorious hours. You’d think I’d be relieved, except it wasn’t restful. Instead, I dreamed of Mum, my unconscious mind leading me to a place my conscious mind refuses to travel to.

  In my dream, I’m with Motor on the ship thing in the kids’ playground, waiting for something that’s as compelling as it is vague. I’m nervous. I wipe my sweaty palms on the uprights of the play structure. Motor jerks his head, signalling to me in a wordless message.

  My mother appears from the trail to our left. Curling through a shaded glade, the track skirts two sides of the school grounds, a convenient course for school cross-country events. But Mum isn’t paying any attention to the scenery. Walking briskly, she has her head down. Suddenly, in the bizarre way of dreams, I’m close to her. Her lips are pursed, not tightly as if anxious, but gently, the way a person might hold their lips when humming. There’s no soundtrack to this dream, so I can’t tell what the tune is. I imagine something catchy. Something from Mamma Mia. Lost in the melody, she doesn’t see me. She veers left, passing the culvert, and heads for the road. Motor was right, then. She’s not in the water. I look over my s
houlder to where Motor waits behind me on the play structure, giving him a look which says, ‘Yep, you were right, she’s not in the water.’ It’s a mistake because when I turn back Mum is already at the road.

  I spot the man before she does. Stepping out of his car, he moves swiftly, like a predator with shoulders bunched and muscles primed. Thin lips twist into a sneer as he quickens his pace. A bolt of ice plunges into my gut. His eyes! His eyes are cruel. Dark and knowing, they gleam with coiled malice. Following her. Watching her. There’s no mistaking his intent.

  Mum!

  She doesn’t respond. The dream-sound stays firmly on mute, and Mum carries on walking, heedless of the man on the footpath. My chest tightens. My blood races. I look frantically to the nearest house for help. No one is home, the windows shuttered with thick black-out curtains. There’s no subtle movement of fabric, no slice of light below the shades. There’s no one to see, no one to help.

  A hand flings out and he grabs Mum. He covers her mouth with his fist, dragging her close so her back is hard against his chest. Almost upon them, the smell of sweat and cigarette smoke assaults me. I see wiry black hairs on the back of his hand, wiry black hairs stuffed in Mum’s mouth. Above his grip, my eyes meet Mum’s.

  She sees me!

  I read the recognition in her stare. In an instant, Mum’s knowledge mutates into panic, alive and pulsing. Startled, I realise her fear is not for herself.

  ‘Go back!’ her eyes command. ‘Don’t come here, Adam!’ Turning cruelly, the brute shoves her bodily in the car. Her eyes never leave mine.

  ‘Go back, Adam.’ The door slams silently and they speed away.

  Dream cars have no registration plate.

  Chapter 23

  Adam tells Mrs Paine about the nightmare, taking care to leave out Motor’s name. Mrs Paine doesn’t seem surprised by his revelation.

  ‘Hmm. Thank you for sharing your dream with me, Adam. That took a lot of trust.’ She lumbers out from behind her desk and takes a seat beside Adam. Her earrings, a pair of crimson cherries, bob when she moves.

  ‘Do you think it means anything?’ Adam says, moving his own chair a little to the right to make room for the counsellor.