by Gee, Maurice
‘I like that one over there. Did you do that?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘What’s it called?’
‘Just “Figure 10”. Hollis bought it. Why do you like it?’
‘Dunno. You haven’t made him real but you can tell he’s dangerous. I’ve known guys like that. Johansen was like that.’
Ellie looked hard at the painting. He never has been just a shadow man, she thought. Muscle and bone, not earth and air. I wonder when he’ll come back.
‘That was the last one I painted. It was ten years ago. I went on to other stuff after that.’
‘Can you make much money doing painting?’
‘Not very much. Probably not as much as cleaning houses. But I had some luck.’
‘Yeah, Hollis. The lawyer-man, eh? My mother got the dirty end of the stick. No offence. Anyway …’
‘Yes, anyway?’
‘It’s not her I care about any more. I just want to find Dion. I won’t cause you any more trouble after that.’
Barrelling the Landcruiser down the long straights took Ellie’s mind off the night before. They had gone to bed early and lain with fingers intertwined, although she would have liked him closer than that. He said, ‘Did you know she wasn’t having an abortion?’
‘Yes, I did. She told me that night on the wharf,’ Ellie said.
‘What exactly?’ There was neither withdrawal nor tightening in his hand.
‘Just, she was a Catholic and she couldn’t do it.’
He was silent.
‘I would have told you, Hollis. But too much time had gone by.’
Still quiet. Then he said, ‘Too much time.’ It seemed to be a statement not a question but she could not tell if he was agreeing. ‘Now my daughter’s here,’ he said.
‘Yes, she is.’
‘I want to help this boy.’
They did not talk after that. His fingers relaxed and he went to sleep. Ellie lay awake a long time. She heard Debbie pad past the door to the toilet. Time, she thought. This person, his daughter, had been born, and grown up and had a child of her own, and now she cancelled all those years with a single step, colliding with a huge weight of blood and significance; and asking the question, Had she, Ellie, Hollis’s lover, his ‘wife’, denied him with her silence the chance of being what he should have been? The uncertainty entered her dreams. She turned and ran on falling paths and opened easy doors but could not find him.
Now her concentration made her forget. She enjoyed driving the Cruiser, liked its weight and steadiness, and the sense she had of being inferior yet superior, like John’s Gordian worm in charge of a weta. Hollis sat beside her with his hands in his lap. Debbie, fresher than the day before – blouse and jeans – sat smoking, always smoking, in the back. They passed through Murchison and stopped in the layby outside Lyell for morning tea. Ellie had made a thermos of coffee and sandwiches.
‘All right?’ she asked Hollis.
He gave a nod: Nothing I can’t handle.
‘Where are we?’ Debbie said.
‘There’s some ruins up in the bush. There used to be a gold-mining town,’ Hollis said.
‘Jesus. Now it’s trees.’ The silence seemed to bother her. She relaxed when a convoy of cars sped by.
Ellie wondered about them heading south. She had overtaken traffic and been overtaken all the way from Nelson, more than she’d expected for a Saturday. She asked about it when they stopped in Reefton.
‘It’s the Wildfoods, lady. Down in Hoki,’ the garage man said.
‘It’s a festival,’ Ellie told Debbie. ‘Bush food, that sort of thing.’
‘Huhu grubs and wild pork,’ Hollis said.
‘There won’t be any beds in hotels. Nowhere on the Coast.’
‘So we’d better find him today,’ Debbie said.
They ate fish and chips in Greymouth, then headed down the coast road to Kumara Junction.
‘I came through here on the bus,’ Debbie said. ‘It’s about another half hour.’ She moved nervously in her seat. ‘What if these people have gone to this Wildfoods thing?’
‘We can only ask,’ Ellie said. She smiled in the mirror. ‘Try not to worry.’
Debbie’s single thought was to find her son and make him safe, using Hollis and whoever else she had to; and mine, Ellie thought, is to keep Hollis safe – which Debbie knew. An unwilling sympathy existed between them.
The hills closed in and the mountains hid themselves. Ellie found the country oppressive. You needed to get up high, stand on the tops, let your eye travel out – the long coast on one side, the plains on the other: that was how she imagined it. Down here in the valleys, no wonder this boy Dion got depressed.
‘There,’ Debbie said, ‘that’s the pub. You turn before you get to it. Down there.’
A settlement of abandoned railway houses. Somewhere up the gorge the tunnel went in, running nine kilometres under the alps to the wide yellow river valley on the other side – a world as open as this was enclosed. She drove across the railway line and turned into a broken-edged street. How scrawny and pathetic empty houses became – like old men in hospitals, stripped to their underpants. Weed-grown paths, dead flower beds, a lopsided set of Venetian blinds, hurricane wire curling off roadside fences, a dog on a chain – alive at least, barking and wagging its tail.
‘There. Stop there.’
Ellie stopped off the road. They got out and Hollis slipped his hands into his crutches.
‘Sore?’ Ellie whispered.
‘I’m all right.’
‘Her name’s Charlie. He’s Jeff,’ Debbie said. ‘I’ve just thought, maybe Dion’s come back.’ She rattled her pocket, looking afraid. ‘I brought his lithium.’
Ellie went ahead and opened the gate. She crossed the lawn and calmed the dog. When she looked again, Hollis and Debbie were talking to a woman at the door.
‘You didn’t need to bring all these extras,’ the woman said. ‘Anyway, we told you, he’s not here.’
‘But you know where he is,’ Debbie said.
‘What if I do?’ She was tall, high shouldered, thin chested, wearing a limp green petticoat as a dress. ‘He said he didn’t want anyone coming after him.’
‘I’m not just anyone, I’m his mother,’ Debbie cried.
‘So? If he’d wanted you to know he would have said.’
‘Can we talk to your husband?’ Hollis said.
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Dion’s grandfather.’
‘He never said anything about you either.’
‘He’s a lawyer. We can make you tell,’ Debbie cried.
‘Calm down, Debbie,’ Hollis said. ‘Look,’ he said to the woman, ‘Charlie, is that your name?’
‘What if it is?’
‘If we can just come inside for a minute …?’
‘No, you can’t. You’ll wake my baby. I’ve only put her down ten minutes ago. And you,’ she said to Ellie, ‘get away from the dog. He’s ours not yours.’
‘Charlie, we’re not here to upset you,’ Hollis said. ‘Maybe you can ask your husband to come out.’
‘I haven’t got a husband, I’ve got a partner. And he’s down at Hokitika at the Wildfoods, OK?’
Ellie approached. ‘How old is your baby?’
‘Who wants to know?’
‘Charlie,’ Hollis said, ‘I know you think it’s Dion’s choice. But he needs our help. He’s got manic depression, do you know what that is?’
‘Everybody gets depressed,’ Charlie said.
‘Not like this. It’s a sickness, it’s like cancer or diabetes; it doesn’t leave you things like choice. He needs his medication. Was he taking pills here?’
‘No, he wasn’t.’
‘How was he?’
‘A bloody wet blanket. He just sat and stared at the wall. Look, I’m not telling you where he is. He was Jeff’s friend, not mine, and I’m not involved. Go down the Wildfoods and ask him.’
Ellie said, ‘Did they leave you behind?
Is that the trouble?’
‘They didn’t want a baby in the car. Him and his mates. If it’s any of your business,’ Charlie said.
‘Is Hokitika on the way to where Dion is?’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘We can give you a ride down there if you’ll tell us where to find him.’
Charlie stood still.
‘We’ve got room in the car. Hokitika, is that where he is?’
‘No, he’s not.’
‘But down that way?’
Charlie shot her eyes from one to the other. She gave her shoulders an angry twist. ‘They’re turds, all of them, leaving me.’
‘We can take you. Maybe we can even bring you back.’
‘I can get my own ride back.’
‘So,’ Ellie said, ‘shall we wait?’
‘How do I know you won’t dump me halfway?’
‘A woman with a baby, sure,’ Debbie said.
‘We won’t,’ Ellie said. ‘You can tell us where Dion is after we get there if you like.’
Charlie’s eyes moved quickly again. ‘Wait here,’ she said.
They went back to the Landcruiser. Charlie came out of the house and locked the door. She still wore her petticoat but had put a pink crocheted jacket over it. She had a daypack on her back and her baby in a sling on her breast. The dog howled as Ellie drove away.
When they reached the Junction, Hollis took a road atlas from the glovebox and handed it back. ‘Can you mark it for us, Charlie? Where to go? Here’s a biro.’
‘When we get there, I said.’
‘You’ll save time. It’s half past two. You’ll miss the stalls.’
‘I can just tell you. It’s a shack out on the coast, past Harihari. I’ve only been there once, so I don’t know if it’s got a name. And I don’t know if he’s still there. He went more than a month ago.’
‘Who owns it?’
‘I don’t know. Jeff used to stay there whitebaiting. You go up the river to get across. All he did was tell Dion how to get there.’
‘Mark it on the map,’ Hollis said. ‘And draw the roads. Come on, Charlie. No one’s going to tell on you.’
She unslung her baby and drew lines, marked crosses, then wrote directions inside the back cover. Ellie drove slowly into Hokitika. The streets were lined with cars, and noise in a crackling lump lay over the showgrounds. She stopped at the gates and Charlie got out, put on her pack and snatched her baby. She slammed the door and went away without a word.
‘How do we know she’s not lying?’ Debbie said.
‘I don’t think she is,’ Hollis said.
‘How long will it take to get down there?’
‘Harihari’s about an hour. It depends on how rough it is once we’re off the main road.’
Ellie drove out of Hokitika, crossed the long bridge over the river, and headed south. Hollis took the atlas from Debbie and kept it on his knee. South of Harihari he said, ‘Watch out for a road on the right.’
‘What name?’
‘She couldn’t remember,’ Debbie said. ‘Halfway to Whataroa.’
‘We’re halfway now,’ Hollis said.
‘Nothing but bush,’ Ellie said. ‘Here’s something. Shall I go down here?’
It was little more than an opening cut in the trees. Two ruts led away, separated by weeds.
‘She said it was pretty hairy,’ Debbie said.
‘“A mailbox in the ferns”,’ Hollis read. ‘It’s got to be this.’
Ellie drove the Landcruiser into the opening. She locked the hubs. ‘How far did she say?’
‘She didn’t. Not far. There’s some old bloke lives down here in a bach.’ Debbie was leaning forward between the headrests. ‘Dion must have walked in from the road. Why come to a place like this?’
Why not? Ellie thought. It was ideal for being alone. She drove slowly, not wanting to jolt Hollis. The Cruiser was higher than a road car but weeds and bracken scraped its underside. It dipped and reared through ruts and potholes. She tried to hear the sea above the grinding of the engine.
They emerged from the bush as though from twilight into day. Sand dunes spread out like a no-man’s land. The light from over the furthest one was brilliant with refraction. That could be a reason for coming here: Dion might crave light – a kind of natural lithium. Ellie drove more slowly. The track looked as if no vehicle had been along for months. Her impression of a no-man’s land grew stronger. The up and down of the dunes made shell holes and trenches. A grey heaviness one way, yellow light the other: she began to see the colours and shapes as paint.
The track turned right along the back of the dune fronting the sea.
‘There should be a bach soon. There. I think we should ask,’ Hollis said.
‘I’ll go,’ Debbie said. She was out of the Cruiser before Ellie stopped, and through the opening in a fence of driftwood twisted in wire. She ran to the front door of the bach and knocked.
‘Are you all right, Hollis?’ Ellie said.
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Then he smiled, apologising for his abruptness. ‘I’ll take something when we get there.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise. Thanks, Ellie. Thanks for driving.’
‘What if we don’t find him?’
‘We keep on looking.’
Debbie got back in the Cruiser. ‘No one home. Let’s keep going.’
A labrador dog appeared on top of the dune. It barked once, then looked behind. The man who climbed up – head, shoulders, torso, legs – paid no heed to them. He came down the dune with sliding steps and walked along the side of the track. Ellie drove to meet him. He was an old man, stringy where once he must have been heavily muscled. He wore a red singlet, corduroy trousers, a baseball cap, and had a sack of driftwood slung on his shoulder.
‘Hello,’ Ellie said.
‘I’m not home Saturdays,’ the man said.
Hollis leaned across. ‘We were wondering if you could give us directions.’
‘Where to?’
‘There’s a whitebaiter’s hut. We’re looking for a young chap who might be living there.’
‘What’s he done?’
‘Nothing. This lady’s his mother. She needs to see him.’
The old man gave Debbie a sour stare. ‘I run away myself when I was his age,’ he said.
‘You’ve seen him, then?’
‘He’s sick,’ Debbie said. ‘He needs his pills. I’ve got them here.’ She showed the bottle.
‘What sort of sick?’
‘He’s manic depressive. We’re worried he might do himself some harm,’ Hollis said.
The man put down his sack. ‘I don’t go much on interfering.’
‘Is there a shack? Is he there?’
‘I seen a young bloke. Five six weeks ago. He was askin’ where the whare was, so I told him.’
‘Have you seen him since?’
‘Asked him how long he was stayin’. He didn’t know. I told him he should keep north of the creek because south is mine. I guess he done that. I haven’t seen him.’
‘Do we keep on driving?’ Hollis said.
‘’Bout a mile. Don’t ask me in kilometres. Whare’s on the other side. Go up where it stops being tidal.’ He nodded at the Cruiser. ‘This thing’ll get you across.’ He hoisted his sack.
‘Thank you,’ Ellie said.
‘Skinny kid. Looked like he thought he might burrow there underground.’
Ellie drove again in the hollow behind the dune. The Cruiser lurched, making Hollis grunt with pain. She went slower, with dips and curtseys, leaning like a yacht. Bush moved in close; the dune petered out; a long beach appeared, losing itself in haze. Ellie took the Cruiser on to hard-packed sand. She followed an inward curve to the mouth of a creek.
A tin shed, little more than a box, stood behind flat dunes on the other side. The door was ajar as though someone had passed in or out – but long ago, Ellie thought. She drove up the side of the creek into stringy bush. Branches slapped
the windscreen and scraped the roof. Nothing had travelled this way since last year’s whitebaiting season, she was sure. The Landcruiser might be too wide to get through.
‘We’re going away from it,’ Debbie said.
‘No,’ Hollis said. ‘There’s the ford.’
Red water from some swampy source flowed on shingle into a tidal pool. Ellie drove across in low gear. The sand came further inland on the northern side, with tussock grass hardening it. She wound and dipped towards the sloping roof of the shed, then crawled through a hollow between mounds and brought the Cruiser to the half-open door. Andy’s whare read a sign burned into a board. The walls were so eaten with rust she felt she could nudge them flat and drive on over the top. She turned off the engine. The grumbling of the sea began.
Debbie got out. The half-open door seemed to unnerve her.
‘Wait on,’ Hollis said, fitting his arms into his crutches. Ellie had meant to get his painkillers from the bag in the back but felt herself drawn beside him to the shack.
‘There’s no one,’ Debbie said. She held the lithium bottle squeezed in her fist – an explanation, a charm to force her son to appear.
The door had scraped a crescent in the floor. Ellie forced it open.
‘Anyone here?’
There was no window and she could scarcely see; then something pale, a plastic bucket, caught her eye beside an iron stove. There were bunks against the far wall, with mounded clothes on the lower one and a tongue of mattress lolling from the top. A smell of urine pushed like a live thing into her throat.
Debbie edged past her. She made a step, then crouched and hissed, dropping the pill bottle. She ran, half her normal height, to the bottom bunk. The boy, Dion, lay underneath the tangle of clothes, his hands like two white balls of wool on top, his face framed in beard and hair. Ellie thought he was dead.
Debbie fell on her knees. She touched Dion’s face, stroking it flat palmed, then laying her cheek on it. ‘He’s alive. He’s warm,’ she cried over her shoulder.
Ellie ran to the Cruiser and brought back a torch. She went again for water and a pillow and a blanket.
‘He’s dehydrated,’ Hollis said. He looked in the bucket. ‘Empty.’
Debbie had grown calm. She took the bottle and trickled water into Dion’s mouth. He made a faint coughing sound, then a cat-like mewing.
