by Cowley, Joy
“Seventeen months,” said Winston.
“And you say he flew to Wellington from Sydney to bring you the final documentation and the keys to the house. When was that again, sir?”
“Monday March eleven, the day after the storm.”
“And that was the day you transferred the money, in total, one and a half million Australian dollars.”
“Not to him!” Winston leaned forward. “It went to the lawyer, Vincent Pritchard, who was holding it in a special account until the title came through.”
“Did you meet this Mr Pritchard?” asked the thin detective.
Winston hesitated. “No. I didn’t think I needed to meet him. I knew him to be a senior partner in one of the most prestigious law firms in Sydney.”
“According to his letterhead,” said the plump man.
Winston sank back in the seat and briefly closed his eyes. “When I went to the firm, they’d never heard of Vincent Pritchard.”
“So that was just another alias?” said Helen. “Mr Staunton-Jones’ lawyer was really –”
The plump detective nodded.
“He seemed so genuine.” Helen was holding back tears. “Do you know what he kept saying to my husband?”
“That your husband was the son he had never had? Yes. He used that line many times. I’m sorry. I know this is distressing for you.”
Jeff leaned forward. “He said he wanted me for his grandson!”
The detective nodded. “This is not the movies, son. In real life people don’t always look bad. Some of them look like angels.”
Winston crossed and uncrossed his legs. “Look, fair’s fair. We’ve given you all the information. Now we would like some answers. Where is this – this criminal right now? We live in the cyber world. There will be records of flights, bank transactions. If he’s been working this racket for years, why hasn’t he been arrested? I mean, what the hell is wrong with Interpol? I have to get my money back!”
The thin one said, “You can be sure the money has gone through several bank accounts by now, and that Julius Clarke has several passports.”
“That’s no excuse for not catching him!”
“Mr Lorimer, sir.” The plump man was no longer smiling. “You wanted to buy a very desirable property that was, in fact, in a trust set up by an old Sydney family. Julius Clarke had short-term rental of this property. Sir, you are an accountant with Horton Fledger and Partners. You are a man naturally cautious with money. When he offered to sell it to you, what checks did you do?”
Helen cut in. “We trusted him!”
Winston added, “He sent it all by email, the title, history of previous ownership, original land claim, amenities map, ratings values. I suppose you’ll tell us now they were all forgeries.”
There was a long silence, and then the plump one said, “Sir, you know what they say. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
* * *
When the detectives left, Winston sat in one of the wooden deckchairs facing the harbour, and drank his whisky. The sun had set and the long shadows of potted plants had blurred and spread a cool greyness over everything on the patio.
Jeff stood inside the glass doors and watched his father, who was so still he could have been a statue except for the arm that held the glass. At this moment, some of the things Jeff had thought about his dad seemed unimportant. All the yelling and swearing that had driven Jeff into his room, the pillow around his ears, were now insignificant. His father had been cruelly beaten. Not outside. But on the inside he was black and blue and hurting. Jeff could see hurt in the hunched shoulders and the fingers gripping the whisky glass.
There was a movement in Jeff’s chest, something like a bit of swallowed warmth, that flowed out into his arms. He didn’t have to think about it. He opened the door, went out, and put his arm around his father’s shoulders.
For a while Winston didn’t move, then he put his glass down on the concrete and placed his hand over Jeff’s. “You’re a good kid.” He patted Jeff’s hand, then said in a flat voice. “It wasn’t all my loss. I invested clients’ money. I shouldn’t have, but I was going to repay it with interest before the end of the year. If I don’t get it back, well, the truth is, Jeffrey, we’ll have to sell this house.”
8
IN MATHEMATICS, THE FIBONACCI NUMBERS, or Fibonacci series, are the numbers in the following integer sequence: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144 … The first number is 0. The second number is 1. Each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two. The Fibonacci pattern of numbers is often found in nature, in leaf arrangement, tree branches, flower petals, sunflower seed heads and pine cones.
Jeff had discovered that there were currents of events that escaped logical planning. For example, if you couldn’t think of a word you let it go and soon after, some tide would wash it up, unbidden, on the shores of your mind. It was the same with wanting something. You could chase it, like a dog after a cat, and all you did was wear yourself out. Give up the chase, and it came to you. There were no rules about this. No one, to the best of his knowledge, had come up with a formula of possibilities for this phenomenon. It just happened.
After a week of desperately seeking Maisie, he gave up. Some of the crazy things she’d said were making sense in a weird sort of way. Andy had left school. Winston in quicksand? Well, maybe debt could suck you under. But what did she mean about Helen on a cliff edge? Was that about an accident or something else? Jeff was full of questions. There were things he’d half forgotten. He needed her to repeat them. He also needed her full name again, and address so he could visit her. Searching the city was a waste of time. He went to the library every day after school. He even stood against the verandah post outside the Chinese restaurant, but she didn’t appear. He didn’t know what else to do.
He met Andrea at McDonald’s and although she was smiling and lively, he was aware of a jittery distance between them.
“Beck is coming tomorrow,” she said.
“I know.”
“He’s flying in with a police escort and he’s going to that new prison. Mark is going to help me get to Auckland to see him.”
He wanted to say, what about me, but he didn’t.
Andy unwrapped her burger. “Did you see his photo in the paper? He’s lost a lot of weight. His hair is short. He looks a lot older.”
Jeff wasn’t hungry. He nudged the chicken wrap in front of him. “She told me you would leave school. That old woman. She told me, and you said –”
“Jeff, don’t have anything to do with that crazy creature! She’s demonic!”
He continued, “I asked you if you were going to leave and you laughed at me. You said of course not.”
Her eyes softened. “Oh, Squidgy, I had to go. I felt rotten leaving you, but look, one day you can come and live with us, Mark and me. Mark is amazingly kind and considerate. He’s always thinking about other people, and you know what? He loves me exactly as I am, and Jeff, I am so in love with him!”
He picked up a chip and then dropped it back in the packet. “What about the law degree?”
She wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. “I’ve left school. There’s no turning back. If I was going to change my mind, Mum made sure I didn’t. She went to the school and cleared my desk and locker. Did you know that?”
He nodded. “Yeah. She found the letters from Beck.”
“Oh! Trust her to snoop! Well, that’s no longer important, thank goodness. No more hiding things. I’m in the process of getting a job.”
“Where?”
“I’ve got two interviews coming up, the restaurant at the Klaxton Hotel and the museum café. Aren’t you going to eat that?”
He looked at her. “Dad has to sell the house.”
“What?”
“If he doesn’t get the money back, he’s in trouble. Big trouble. He invested money belonging to some of his clients.” Jeff broke a chip in half. “Even if he does sell the house, it’s got a mortgage. There mightn
’t be enough left over to buy something else.”
She leaned towards him. “What does Mum think of that?”
“Not much.”
“I know. More arguments, more cat and dog fights.”
His throat was closing up and he was close to tears, but he had to say it. “It might help if you came back.”
“Not a hope!” she said. “I’m truly sorry, Squidgy, but that won’t happen. Never!”
“At least talk to Mum.”
“I’ll do that when she stops calling me names.” She reached across the table. “If you aren’t hungry, I’ll take that chicken wrap for my dinner tonight.”
He pushed the food towards her hand. “Don’t you eat with – you know, Mark?
She wrapped it in a paper serviette. “Not always,” she said. “Sometimes he has dinner with his children.”
“Children?”
She put the food in her bag. “He’s been separated from his wife for over a year. She’s a very cold woman. But he’s a good father. It’s nice to know there are some good fathers in the world. You take care, little brother.” She got up, hoisted her bag straps over her shoulder, then bent over to kiss his cheek. “I’ll text you about Beck.”
He stayed seated after she had gone and didn’t move until an attendant came to wipe down the table. By then, he’d been sitting so long that one leg had gone to sleep. His sister might be in love but there wasn’t much of it leaking out. He limped down to the bus stop and caught the next bus to the bottom of the hill. He felt tired. He felt empty, as though something had drained all his blood.
He got off the bus, his pulse pumping air in his ears, and there, in the glass shelter waiting for him, was Maisie.
* * *
He’d got used to her smile, the broken grey teeth edged with black and the way her eyes narrowed to shards of dark glass.
“Maisie, I’m so glad –” He stopped. He didn’t know what he was glad about, only that seeing her made a difference. But he had to admit he was still not one hundred per cent sure of the dream-keeper story. Was she an old lady like Great-aunt Rose, imagining things? He dared to ask the question. “Are you really Maisie?”
“At the risk of repeating myself, Maisie left the dream weeks ago. I thought I’d made that clear. She gave me permission to use the body she was leaving.” The woman hit her stick against the concrete. “But use is not the word for something useless.”
“So what do you want me to call you? Maisie? Dream-keeper?”
She put out her hand and touched his face. Her fingers were cold against his cheek. “I told you, Maisie will do. Dream-keepers don’t have individual names. They’re a category.”
He scratched the back of his neck. “Do you like being Maisie?”
“Like? What is there to like? Arthritis, deafness, memory loss, palpitations and now, kidney failure!” She drummed her stick at each ailment. “It’s like jumping into a car that’s ready for the scrap heap.”
“I mean, do you like being human?” He was looking directly into her eyes. When she didn’t answer, didn’t blink, he said, “You don’t look sick. You have a lot of energy.”
“That’s the fuel that goes into the car,” she said. “But it’s the state of the car that counts.” She leaned towards him. “This is rent-a-wreck. The engine’s had it. Do I have to spell it out? I can’t be in your dream much longer, Number Nine.”
For a couple of seconds he studied the thin, lined face and the intense eyes. There was so much he wanted to know. “You said things. They didn’t make sense, before. But now – now I’ve got feelings about them and I’ve got questions.”
“What do you want to ask?”
He hesitated, then said, “How did you know about my family?”
“There’s no copyright on knowledge,” she snapped. Then she turned her head to look at the sea. “It’s my job, Jeff, and there are ways of knowing that are beyond the function of a small human brain. For example, I understand the bond between you and your brother. When you think about him there is pain in your upper chest and arms. Right?”
He nodded, suddenly afraid. No one but he could possibly know how he felt when people talked about Beckett.
“But your clever little brain hasn’t worked out why the pain should happen. Has it?”
This time, he shook his head.
“So that’s my answer,” she said. “You can’t understand how I know about your family, but at least you can accept the limitations of the human brain. Now what’s the next question?”
He opened his school backpack. “Is it okay if I write things down?”
“As long as you’re fast about it,” she said.
He took the notepad out so quickly that his bag dropped to the floor of the bus shelter and books slid out. He didn’t pick them up.
“Where do you live?”
“Number 7B Aurora Council Flats, Newtown.”
“Nine!” he said. “That’s perfect!”
“What?”
“B is two. Add two to seven and you have –”
“All right, all right. What else?”
He held the pen ready. “What exactly, is the definition of a dream-keeper?”
“I’ve told you many times.”
“I know. But now I want to write it down.”
“It’s a spirit that comes into the dream. It inhabits a body – a person, or maybe an animal.”
He wrote a few sentences then said, “That sounds more like a movie than something real.”
Her smile came back. “Real! Remember what I said about limited understanding? You think this little life is reality? Fiddlesticks!” She clenched the stick between her knees and threw up her hands. “How many times do I have to tell you! It’s about ten per cent of reality. The moment you get a body you lose the memory of the other ninety per cent. Even if you don’t understand that, you’d better believe it.” She turned on the seat so that she was facing him. “In the dream you call life you know only what comes through your five senses. Right?”
He nodded. “What I see, hear, taste, touch, smell.”
“So in the dream you think you know everything. You don’t. You know only what your body allows you to know. The other ninety per cent is the realm of spirit.”
For a moment he was acutely aware of colour and form, the folds in her padded jacket, the green-and-orange dress that lay around her thin legs, the small bushes outside that collected bits of paper and other rubbish, and the smell of the sea that rolled against land and sky. In that moment, it seemed that his senses were bombarded with information. He looked down at his notes and said to her, “My sister Andrea thinks you’re some kind of devil.”
He wondered if she’d be offended, but she thought it funny. She laughed and slapped her knee. “Your sister shouldn’t believe everything she thinks! Devil or angel depends on the kind of human judgements you make. It has nothing to do with the reality.”
“But you and me sitting here. Isn’t this reality?”
“No, no!” She looked frustrated. “It’s only a small part of it! Jeff, you are a spirit renting a body for a short time in order to add to the increase of Light. You come with a plan – the body you will inhabit, the tools you will have, and the growth you need to accomplish. Some spirits have a modest plan. They take on a body for a short time, or they choose a path that is not too demanding. Others are more ambitious.” She was talking so fast, she was spitting through the gaps in her teeth. “A difficult path has greater growth potential, but it can be dangerous. You see, Number Nine, when you take on a body there’s the forgetting. Suddenly, the spirit is a prisoner to body experience and it doesn’t remember –”
“Stop!” he said. “You went too fast.” He lifted the pen. “I can’t write all that!”
“Then write this down,” she said. “Your family chose demanding paths and now they’re in grave danger because they have lost the memory.”
“Memory?” He paused at the word.
“The other way of knowing. I sai
d that when you come into a body, there is a forgetting. That’s true. But every spirit brings a spark of the Light with it. The Light is a guide, like a compass. It’s a little memory of the big reality. In the dream, people call it heart knowledge, although it has nothing to do with the muscle that pumps blood.”
He said slowly, deliberately, “What exactly – does – a – dream-keeper – do?”
“Oh! Shut your cakehole, Number Nine!” she snapped. “You keep saying you don’t understand, and when I try to explain, you interrupt –”
“I need to know.”
Now she was annoyed with him. “A dream-keeper is a nanny, guardian, shepherd, tour guide, angel, advisor. We are spirits. When the dreams are in danger of becoming nightmares, we jump in. But we can only work with someone who hasn’t lost the memory. That’s you, Jeff. You still know the Light within you. So it’s my job to help you. Your task is to fan your Light into a flame. Got that? It will bring back the memory of Light to your entire family.”
He thought for a while. “You mean love? That’s it, isn’t it? Love!”
“You found a good word for it. There are others: forgiveness, compassion, empathy! But the words are just words unless they connect with the Light in you. Write that down, too.”
He wrote hastily, hoping he would be able to read it. This is like a story, he thought as he wrote, like some kind of myth or legend. Parts of it felt right.
She coughed and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “The reality is too big for human language. At school you learn about metaphor, allegory, parable. Well, don’t you? Okay. The words themselves don’t really matter. When they match the Light in you, you will respond to them. You’ll get what you call a feeling. Is there anything else you want to know?”
He knew there was a multitude of new questions that would attack him as soon as he got home, but right now, he couldn’t think of one. He said, “You told me things that have happened, like Dad in the quicksand. I suppose that was a metaphor, but Andrea’s was real. She left school. Everything has changed. Mum goes between crying and shouting. Beckett is coming back to New Zealand and our house has to be sold. Is anything else going to happen?”
