‘You’ll need a career,’ he’d told her. ‘What are you interested in?’
Her vague smiles, her shrugs. ‘Dunno. Like, journalism? The media? Something with animals?’
Karen said, tense, ‘There’s more. Roza wants Elke to move in with them. In Auckland.’
He stroked her back automatically; he was partly trying to soothe himself. ‘She’s old enough to move away from all of us. We can’t control where she goes.’
‘I’ve devoted myself to Elke. Slaved for her. All that time we spent getting her right when she was little, the sleepless nights, the worry, year after year, while Roza was swanning around being the grand lady, having abandoned her. How can she get rid of her own child and then just suddenly decide, OK, I want her back, now it suits me. She’ll take her up and then get sick of her, like she’s a toy or a puppy. She’ll hurt her.’
‘Karen—’
‘How dare she? She sees what a beautiful success I’ve made of Elke and she thinks, I’ll have that. Just decides to take her away.’
‘Elke’s grown up; she has to make up her own mind.’
‘Roza’s manipulating her, trying to turn her against me.’
‘That’s not true. I know it’s hard, but they are going to have a bond; they’re mother and daughter.’
Karen let out a harsh, doomed laugh.
‘Come on. When she adopted Elke out she was so young, she was in confusion, she had the Catholic-zealot depressive mother. Then she had her alcohol problem, and she didn’t know where Elke was for years. It’s natural she wants to make up for it now.’
‘I could never adopt out my own child. It’s sick. Unnatural.’
‘Ah, you don’t know what you’d do.’
‘You think I’m competitive. You think I want to “own” Elke. But I can tell that woman will hurt her. What hurts her hurts me.’
He pulled her down to the bed, hugged her, stroked her hair. ‘There comes a point where you have to let go, let nature take its course.’ She didn’t answer, only looked bitter. ‘Anyway, look at the way Roza is with Johnnie. She wouldn’t hurt him.’
Karen waved her hand, dismissive. ‘That little boy is exactly like David. Nothing could hurt him.’
‘Really?’ Simon was distracted by this.
‘And no, Roza wouldn’t hurt Johnnie, he’s completely her creature. He’s like her creation. The way they talk and talk together, always the secrets and private jokes; the kid is unnatural. What is he, four? The vocabulary he has already, like an adult. They’re like a witch and her familiar.’
‘A witch.’
‘But Elke’s been mine, so Roza thinks she’s tainted. She thinks she’s got to get her back and purify her, make her into her own again, like Johnnie.’
‘Tainted? This is starting to sound quite mad, Karen.’
She pushed him away. ‘You don’t know because you’re a man and a doctor, you’re utterly unimaginative. You don’t see anything. You’ve got your secure world, everything up front and straightforward, nothing below the surface. All your medicine and your reason, and half the time you’re blind. I sense things. The world is more animal than you think.’
He felt the noise in his head rising. ‘We need to be rational. And if we can’t, we should invent an excuse and go home.’
‘No.’
‘But if Roza knows you’re thinking all this it’s hopeless, we can’t stay here.’
Karen smiled. ‘Roza? She doesn’t know what I think. Roza loves me. She thinks I’m simple and easygoing and we’re best friends.’
Simon stared. ‘I see. And . . . David?’
‘David and I have a bond. We understand each other.’
‘So, the other night . . .’
‘When he and I were talking and you came barging down? It was so obvious you were jealous.’
Simon thought for a moment. He put his arm around her shoulder and drew her close. ‘Darling, I understand what you’re saying. But these are complicated people we’re dealing with. Do you think you can keep your thoughts to yourself while we’re here? There’s just a faint possibility that you — or I, of course — might get some signals wrong. Misjudge things. And we have to think of Elke. We wouldn’t want to ruin what we’ve got with the Hallwrights just because we’ve misunderstood.’
She groaned. ‘Don’t patronise me. I can’t stand it. You have no idea about people. You’re all science. With human beings, two plus two does not always equal four.’ She lay back, inspected her nails. ‘Poor David.’
‘David can look after himself.’
‘Oh sure, in politics. But dealing with Roza.’
Simon thought, David is the only person around whom Roza is just slightly uncertain.
‘I’m sure David’ll be fine. Meanwhile, there’s Ed Miles to watch out for. And I wouldn’t confide in Juliet. Since she’s an open book and Ed reads minds.’
She sighed. ‘I told Elke I didn’t want her to move out.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She just hugged me, very sweet, very dreamy. She never says anything.’
Simon fixed his eyes on her. ‘David’s got attached to Elke too, because she looks like Johnnie.’
‘Oh.’
‘Not that you’d be jealous of David.’
She looked up quickly. ‘David’s influence is good for Elke.’
Their eyes locked. It felt like something was twisting in his chest. He squeezed her shoulder, got dressed and went out before he could say anything he would regret.
He walked slowly under the pohutukawa trees, across the lawns where Trent and Shane were browsing over the hedges with clippers. He skirted past the dancing lawn-sprinklers and took the broad shell path to the seaward side of the Wedding Cake where David, wearing a tight Lycra shirt and a towel around his neck, sipped from a glass of dark green fluid. Below the deck Dwayne and the new guy Chad stood hands on hips, silently contemplating a flower bed.
David raised his glass. ‘You’re late.’
Simon sat down with the usual pleasure that he’d been expected and waited for. He hadn’t got over the thrill that he was the only one at Rotokauri who was invited to join David for breakfast. Roza and Johnnie slept late and Simon and David met early each morning like a couple of lovers, with their shower-wet hair and their yawns and their occasional sleepy exchanges about what was in the newspaper — they were provided with one each — or the weather, or what had been said by whom at dinner the night before. Simon felt chosen. It was partly excited vanity — he, the son of loser Aaron, picked out to be friend of the country’s top man — and partly affection for David, who could be charming and confiding in the mornings, bleary-eyed, relaxed, talking blokeishly or even crudely about women, asking Simon’s opinion of politicians and staffers, sometimes describing a recent altercation, grabbing Simon’s arm, working himself up: ‘You wait. I’ll get him. I’ll fuck him up.’
Now he said, ‘Try this shit Dean’s got me on. It’s seaweed. Fucking disgusting but makes you live forever. And I’m supposed to have lean protein and no butter or cheese. And guess what. We’ve just been for a run. Right to the end of the beach.’
Simon nodded, sliding into his seat.
David signalled to Troy. ‘Bring Simon some of this green stuff. And what else? Your usual?’
Troy received his instructions and glided away.
‘It’s going well with the training then?’ Simon spoke politely, with correctness; he was naturally reticent, careful.
‘I’ll have a body like iron.’
Simon’s eye fell on the vivid blur of colours in the flower bed. Still hazy from last night’s pain pills he murmured, ‘It’s already bothering me that I can’t run. With the knee.’
‘It’ll get better. Try this.’ Solicitous, David handed him a glass of liquid seaweed.
He sipped. ‘Mm. Yuk. Vi
le.’
‘Swill it down.’ David rustled the newspaper, raised it, and the headline appeared in front of Simon: Mt Eden Death Investigated.
Whipping the paper away, David said, ‘Vince Buckley’s got his publicity about suicides. What an arsehole. I’ll laugh if the suicide rate goes up. Sudden waves of jumpers and wrist-slashers.’
Simon smiled thinly. David shook the paper up again. ‘Cahane’s tax working group’s about to report. They’ll recommend something radical and we’ll act moderate, go for the middle ground. It’s Cahane’s method, sort of like good cop–bad cop, isn’t it. Drink your seaweed.’
The article bobbed in front of Simon: The man found dead in a suburban back yard on Wednesday was local journalist and film-maker Arthur Weeks.
They would see that Weeks had fallen over the retaining wall, but would they realise he’d been pushed by a car? There’d surely be a bruise on his leg or hip. Maybe there were tyre marks on the road, maybe someone had seen the whole thing: an old lady high in the house next to Weeks’s, hiding behind her curtains, telling her story when the police came knocking.
Simon drained his glass. His stomach was full of ice. Troy arrived with plates, scrambled eggs for Simon, poached for David. Below, Dwayne worked his way round the edge of the flower bed. Chad followed, intent, a plastic pack strapped to his back, a thin hose spiralling out of it. He stooped and sprayed, little rainbows dancing in the drops of liquid.
David had got rid of the sports towel and was busy with his eggs. His cheeks and neck were flushed from the morning workout, his blond hair damp. He glanced up and Simon met the hard grey eyes, took in David’s pink-and-gold charm, the solidity of his body in the sports clothes. Claire had said David was in love with him; she was all hot air and fiendishness but he did himself sometimes feel love for David.
As a boy he’d hung around in loose gangs with Ford; later he’d been so driven and uptight he hadn’t been good at making male friends. He was better with women; the barrier of difference allowed him to relax. No surprise he’d chosen to practise O and G. He’d married Karen in order to belong, in order not to be alone, and yet in some ways he’d remained alone. There was Claire, his own girl, the best girl in the world, and Elke and Marcus; all three of his children were a joy, but still there was something he yearned for and had never achieved; it was what Ford had had with May.
He’d been singled out by David, and it had turned his head. The people surrounding David were politicians and staffers; you could tell he didn’t trust any of them. David’s only close friend had been old Graeme Ellison; now Graeme was dead, David seemed to be drawing Simon closer. It occurred to Simon that David, for all his power and popularity, was oddly solitary. He had Roza and Johnnie; he had his two older children, Izzy and Mike; but no extended family, no large circle, at least not one that was close. He had Simon and Karen. He wanted Elke . . .
Simon caught sight of the newspaper headline again. He felt nausea at what he was hiding and what damage he could inflict. There was no way to come clean, nothing to do but wait. If they came for him, he could bring everyone down.
That hot, stunned morning, driving slowly down the mountain and entering the plain of the suburb, he had crossed his Rubicon. His mind clear, he’d envisaged the alternative: frantic and pointless CPR on Weeks while on the phone to the ambulance, full explanation, submission of his knee, car and statement for inspection. Handwringing: so dreadfully sorry, the poor young man, a tragic accident, I did everything I could. He’d briefly considered this course and rejected it, because it was impossible.
The mistake had been agreeing to go to Weeks’s flat. If he’d rung an ambulance as soon as Weeks had gone over the wall, he would have had to explain too much. Why, the police would ask him, had he gone up that street instead of driving into work? To look at the view? If he denied knowing Weeks and they discovered Weeks had rung his cell phone, they would want to know why he’d lied. They would conclude the pair must have met, and for a reason. Simon Lampton — David Hallwright’s friend — and an unknown young man. What had they been up to? Some gay thing, a lovers’ fight? Once a police inquiry was under way the media interest would be unstoppable. It would not stop until everything was tainted and everyone he loved was damaged.
So he’d checked the neighbouring windows for signs of life, and when he’d satisfied himself there were no witnesses he’d retrieved the two coffee cups, got in Karen’s car and driven away. Crossed his rust-red river, driven slowly west, carrying in his head the shimmering wall of noise. The sound hadn’t left him. Late that night as he drifted between dreams, he’d imagined it was the sound of Weeks’s soul shrieking out into oblivion.
He’d pulled himself together reasonably quickly, driven back home and put Karen’s car back in the garage without going inside or seeing Claire. There were no marks on the front bonnet; he’d only nudged Weeks, after all. He got into his own car and drove into the car park at work with the dashboard warning light pinging and the faint smell of burning rubber. After he’d finished his paperwork and seen his patients he drove all the way back to Rotokauri without breaking down, and left the car at the local garage.
During the day he could think rationally in his own defence. The death had been an accident. Weeks had threatened him; his nerves had been on edge; the bang on the window had startled him; the pain in the knee had been extreme. He’d tried to drive away and his hot, sweaty hands had slipped on the wheel. The young man, when he’d got to him, had had a fractured neck and had died instantly, and as a doctor he was qualified to judge. There was absolutely nothing he could have done to save him. More damage, infinite damage, would be done by owning up and trying to explain.
But if the police caught up with him now, it would be harder to convince them the death had been accidental. He could plead panic, but it wouldn’t go down well. The scandal would be greater; he could even be charged with manslaughter. Or murder. There would be questions about the time of death. Had he driven away while Weeks was still alive? He knew that wasn’t the case, but the evidence would have to be analysed, discussed, picked over. It would be the end.
The night before, loosened by the evening pill (his knee hurt more at the end of the day), his mind had ranged free. He remembered his anger, heightened by his fright at the bang on the window, then the wrenching pain in his knee. Had he driven at Weeks in rage? Would the young man have gone over the flimsy fence if Simon hadn’t jammed his foot hard on the pedal? In his agitation, driving Karen’s automatic rather than his own manual car, had he pushed the accelerator thinking it was a clutch? He couldn’t recall.
In a dream he saw Mereana. It horrified him that she was smiling. She said, ‘Did you wish you could push a button, make him disappear?’
He woke with a dry mouth, compulsively smoothing the top sheet with his hand. He thought: but what was my crime? I had an affair with Mereana Kostas. I got involved with her because I was at a low point. That’s all. He lay listening to the rustling, moving black night. He slept and dreamed again: Roza walking in a green forest with Johnnie, shapes in the trees behind her, the light unreal, theatrical clouds writhing in the sky.
He heard Roza’s voice. She said: ‘I am the Green Lady. I am the Voice. I made this happen to you.’
Roza and Johnnie laughing and the sound again. He saw a dark cloud; it was a whirling cone of insects, coloured shapes shimmering inside the darkness. They were dragonflies.
There will be no mercy, he thought.
He was walking towards the dunes. It was hot and still and the track stretched ahead, broad and overgrown and pitted here and there with the tracks of mountain bikes. He stopped to rest, adjusting the tight bandage on his knee. Now when he walked across the lawns with David, people joked about it: ‘They even walk the same.’
David’s limp was permanent, the result of a car accident in his youth. Simon’s was less pronounced already and would eventually disappear, he hoped, al
though the improvement that morning was partly due to the double dose of painkillers he’d popped before leaving the Little House. In his bag he was carrying towel, suntan lotion, book, two phones and two blue coffee cups.
He’d tried to think it through. Weeks had called Simon’s cell phone and those calls must be logged, most obviously in Weeks’s phone. Those who got away with crimes were forensically aware (it was so easy to slip into the jargon). He decided to get rid of his own phone, as well as the cups and Mereana’s phone. But he would still have to think up a reason why Weeks had called him.
There was so much he couldn’t control. Had Weeks told anyone about meeting him? In a city full of eyes, it seemed impossible that he hadn’t been seen on Weeks’s street.
Someone calling. He turned, shielding his face, saw a dark shape against the blaze of early sun. Karen.
‘Marcus wants to go over to the Gibsons. Can you give him a ride?’
‘Off for a swim,’ he said, shouldering the bag.
‘I’d drive him but Juliet and I’ve got Garth for the hour, they’re waiting for me.’
He sighed, trudged after her.
‘They’ve invited him out on the boat.’
‘You think it’s safe?’ He pictured Gibson drunk out of his mind, exuberantly ramming the wharf.
‘Of course it’s safe. It’s not like they’re going out in a dinghy. They’ve got crew.’
They reached the gate, passing Ray, whose eyes seemed to follow them unpleasantly. Karen went to get Marcus, Simon fetched his keys and waited in the car. He didn’t want to see his son. He didn’t want to talk to him or look at his hands or his messy hair or his young, volatile skin, the quick changes of expression: bravado, secretiveness, baffled innocence.
There was a voice in his head, very light, tired, washed out. He blocked it. A seagull swooped down and landed on the fence, and he looked into its pitiless black eye, like a tiny peephole into the universe. The bird stood ruffling its pure white feathers against a blue sky that was bright, hard, clean.
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