Soon

by Charlotte Grimshaw

  Trent glanced at the Cock, quickly looked away.

  Sharon selected a grape, pincered it between finger and thumb. ‘Please don’t talk about the economy while I’m eating.’

  The Cock held up his hand. ‘You’re right. It wouldn’t do to strain my wife’s brain so early in the morning.’

  Sharon cackled.

  ‘We wouldn’t want her to black out.’

  Roza picked up a banana. ‘Would you like one of these?’ she asked the Cock. He gave her a sideways, amused look, took it from her and weighed it in his hand. The effect was suggestive. David watched with a neutral expression.

  Juliet fidgeted, clasping her freckly hands together. ‘You know what? It’s going to be a great year.’

  ‘It is going to be an excellent year,’ the Cock said to Juliet, who blushed. ‘Your husband’s going to reduce the crime rate. Aren’t you, Miles.’

  ‘I already have. If you’ll just build me some new prisons.’

  ‘To me, it’s one of the most important things,’ Juliet said in a hushed voice. ‘Getting criminals off the streets. The violence . . . They give them bail and then they go out and just . . . kill people.’

  ‘Oh please,’ Sharon said. ‘We said no politics at the table. Pass me that banana, darling. You look simian, clutching it in your paw like that.’

  ‘Simian. The year is beginning well. My wife has learned a new word.’

  Ed Miles said, ‘We’re going to get even tougher on crime.’

  ‘Great,’ Karen said. ‘No excuses. Lock them up and throw away the key.’

  Ed said, ‘I’m sure your husband agrees, Karen.’

  They all looked at Simon.

  Silence.

  ‘Violent criminals, Lampton. Lock them up and throw away the key?’ Ed Miles said.

  ‘Oh, absolutely,’ Simon said.

  They walked over the dunes, down onto the beach. The heat made mirages, patches of blackness hovering over the sand, like holes torn in the mesh of the sky. The tide was high, the sea was vigorous, great walls of pure white foam rolling towards them over the shells, sighing back into the surge. Seagulls rode on the easterly, crying their sad cries.

  Karen stumped over the sand, the wind whipping her hair around her face. ‘You see the way they’re treating me. The way Roza’s behaving now she’s got her way.’

  Simon shifted the heavy bag onto his other shoulder. His knee burned. ‘She’ll change when the Cahanes leave. Sharon’s a bad influence.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with Sharon. Roza’s freezing me out because she knows she’s getting Elke.’

  ‘No, it won’t be like that.’

  She rounded on him. ‘For once, why don’t you tell the truth? If Roza freezes me off I’ll never see Elke, she’ll poison her against me. You’ve obviously never cared about Elke, you’re made of ice.’

  ‘Keep your nerve,’ Simon said. A wave surged up, cool water flooded around his ankles. The gulls screamed. ‘Stay friendly with the Hallwrights, maintain contact with Elke.’

  ‘I say we persuade Elke to come with us now. Just leave. Cut them off.’

  ‘You can’t do that. It would be wrong. Roza is her mother. And anyway . . .’ He hesitated.

  ‘What?’

  He said, expressionless, ‘Even if you fall out with Roza, David and I are close.’

  ‘You care more about that than about Elke.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘You never wanted her. You didn’t want to adopt, remember? You thought it would be too much trouble.’

  His mouth twitched. ‘Well. I was right.’ Little Elke. She was the ruin of me.

  ‘Are you actually smiling? You cold bastard.’

  Little Elke Lampton. Oh, Karen, you will never know. How much I loved her then and still do now, how I searched for her in others, how that led me to the woman who doesn’t resemble Elke when she’s still yet mimics her exactly when she walks and smiles, how I lost my will to succeed and loved a young woman until my will returned and I hated her, how a young man came to call me to account and I was filled with rage and drove him . . .

  Ahead was a sandy lump on the beach, the seagulls whirling around it. When they got closer they saw it was a dead seal. There was a red hole in the place that used to be its eye and one flipper was raised, as if in a last appeal to the void.

  They walked past it in silence. The seagulls bombed and pecked and screamed. He looked at the merciless birds worrying the dead thing, swooping up with shreds of meat dangling from their beaks. The waves broke closer as the tide advanced, the water reaching the heavy corpse, running in foamy streams around it, hissing away again over the shells.

  ‘This is all there is.’ He pointed. The wind blew the stink of decay at them.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He said, ‘This is all there is unless there’s love.’

  ‘I think you’ve gone mad, Simon.’

  ‘It’s my fault. Elke, Roza. All of it is my fault. I love you.’

  She sat down on a dune, clasping her arms around her knees. He sat beside her. They looked at the sea where a rip had formed, the current washing out across the line of breakers, creating a channel between the waves. There was an object floating on the rip, rising high on the swells, disappearing in the troughs. Foam flew up, whirled in the air, broke into droplets.

  ‘I don’t know what you care about, Simon. What do you care about, really?’

  ‘You. I care about you. It’s been a difficult year. I’ve had a terrible fear of losing all of you.’

  ‘You’ve been depressed,’ she said.

  Depressed. Beside myself.

  ‘Yes I’ve been depressed, but I’ve realised something. The only thing I care about is you. Our family.’

  ‘How ironic then, that you want to send our daughter away. To live with a woman who’ll make sure I never see her.’

  Simon watched the object borne away on the churning rip; it was far out at sea now, just a speck.

  ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘I’ve done wrong. But how can I make it right?’

  Power Junkie

  They were grouped in the drive, waiting for the car. The Cahanes’ luggage had been piled up by Chad and Shane, Sharon was giving orders and the Cock was pacing and talking on his phone. Ed Miles frowned, whispered savagely in Juliet’s ear; she ducked her head and looked stricken.

  Roza went on, ‘So respectable Helen Schlegel has an affair with Mr Bast. She runs away to hide the scandalous pregnancy, but her sister and Mr Wilcox catch up with her and find out. And when Mr Bast comes looking for her, Mr Wilcox’s son hits him with the flat side of a sword. Poor little Bast clutches at a bookcase and it falls on him, and his weak heart gives out.’

  ‘Right,’ Karen said.

  ‘They made a film of it. Mr Bast walks from the city into the country to look for Helen. He walks through fields of bluebells, all night, to go to her. It made me cry.’

  ‘How romantic,’ Karen said.

  ‘Mr Bast’s lower class but special. He loves music. Early on he tells the Schlegels about walking all night, from the middle of the city clear into the country. They think it’s a terribly novel idea.’

  Simon looked at his watch.

  ‘The twist in the story is that respectable Mr Wilcox has also been having it off with the lower orders. He’s actually had an affair with Mr Bast’s disreputable wife, ten years before, in Cyprus, when she was only a teenager. And left her in the lurch.’

  ‘It all sounds very complicated,’ Karen said.

  Roza said, ‘Oh, it’s not really. I’m sure you could grasp the plot, Karen. If you concentrated. It’s not much different from real life. Only the funny thing is, when it was published, people said the plot wasn’t plausible, because it involved these liaisons between the classes. Well, they could believe Wilcox would have
it off with Mrs Bast when she was a little slapper in Cyprus, but they absolutely couldn’t go for the idea that Helen Schlegel would start bonking Mr Bast. It was unthinkable.’

  ‘Here’s the car,’ Simon said.

  The driver brought the heavy BMW to a stop next to the pile of bags.

  ‘But these things do happen. Don’t they, Simon?’

  He faced her. ‘I don’t think we’ve ever had quite the same level of class distinction here.’

  ‘You’re looking very chirpy, darling,’ David said, arriving with Ray and Jon.

  ‘I am in rather a good mood. It’s such a beautiful day. I’ve been telling them about Howard’s End.’

  ‘Oh yes. Is that the movie I can’t stand with the old bat and the house and Anthony Hopkins acting like there’s an umbrella up his arse?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘Such a philistine, your husband,’ the Cock said.

  ‘Isn’t he. Howard’s End was actually a novel before it was a film, by the way.’

  ‘No doubt,’ David said.

  Roza snorted.

  ‘My wife, meanwhile, packs so many bags that we need a bus. Fortunately she’s expert at driving the Sherpas.’

  Sharon came breezing around the car. ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘You mean you’re actually ready? I thought you’d need another hour.’

  There was a long farewell. Sharon kept thinking of another thing to say to Roza and the Cock was inclined to hang around, kissing Roza three times and vowing to get hold of a copy of Howard’s End.

  ‘I don’t think my wife has ever read a novel. She prefers the Woman’s Weekly.’

  ‘I’m like David,’ Sharon said, looking at herself in a small mirror. ‘I don’t have the time.’ She painted some gloss on her lips. Mwah.

  ‘I know. You’re too busy saving the world, darling. And getting your hair done.’

  ‘Stop droning on about books. You know you’ll go berserk if there’s traffic.’

  Ray and Jon stood ready to open the gate, the driver drummed his fingers on the steering wheel; across the lawn Shane or Chad, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, skimmed the surface of the swimming pool with a long-handled net. Trent packed the last bag into the car and stood back, his eyes on the ground. He hadn’t once looked in Sharon’s direction.

  Ford emerged from the side gate as the Cahanes drove past. He raised his fingers in what could have been a wave and then slung his towel over his shoulder and hurried off between the hedges. He would be keeping away deliberately, in a mood of fastidious high-mindedness, not wanting to shake Colin Cahane’s hand.

  And then the car passed through the gate and droned off along the coast road, and there was a desultory silence before the group broke up and trailed back across the lawn in twos and threes. Simon saw Ford already in the dunes, heading for the beach.

  On the path to the house Elke appeared, dressed in tiny denim shorts, a halter top and high-heeled sandals.

  ‘There you are,’ Roza said, kissing her cheek. ‘Ready?’

  Elke nodded, her eyes sliding away from Karen. David came forward and the three of them stood in an awkward embrace, David, Roza and Elke. The Lamptons were forced to stop and wait.

  ‘Kodak moment,’ Karen said.

  ‘She looks a bit like a model, doesn’t she?’ David said, and Roza made a play of inspecting the girl with pleasure.

  Simon put a restraining hand on Karen’s arm. For God’s sake, Roza. Since when were you such a ham? But the look Roza gave Karen now wasn’t sentimental, it was implacable and cold. Simon saw what she was thinking, what she had always been thinking: that Karen had stolen her child. All the time the Lamptons had spent caring for Elke didn’t mean anything to Roza except insult and theft; their very presence was a reminder that she’d been an unfit mother. Now Roza was fit and Karen would be punished. In matters of love the mind is not rational, nor is it fair. Roza would have no mercy for Karen. There would be no mercy.

  And Elke wouldn’t look at them. If she felt rejected by Simon’s suggestion she should leave them, Roza would reinforce that. Karen was right; the connection would be lost.

  ‘I’m going to pack,’ Karen said.

  The Hallwrights stepped aside. Roza smiled. ‘Get Trent to give you a hand.’

  Simon watched his wife cross the lawn looking small and dumpy, her shoulders hunched. She raised the heel of her hand to her face, perhaps wiping away a tear. Roza drew herself up, her eyes actually seeming to shine. Her triumph was indecent; he was angry and then with wearying suddenness his imagination turned. What if, when I was young and desperate and ill, someone had taken possession of my child . . .

  Roza said, ‘Here comes the Bible-banger. Let’s rescue Johnnie and get going.’

  Did Roza hate him too? He didn’t think so. But what about those strange, charged remarks she’d made, when she’d seemed to suggest she might turn against him as well?

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

  ‘Into town. We’re taking Johnnie to a movie. Then some disgusting burger joint.’

  Tulei and the little boy were wandering across the grass hand in hand, Tulei carrying a bunch of lavender and Johnnie wearing a woven flax headband with feathers stuck in it.

  ‘I’m a Niuean chief,’ he said.

  Tulei picked him up; he hugged her, pressing his cheek against hers. She peeled him off and handed him to Roza. ‘Here’s your chief.’

  Johnnie said, ‘Can Tulei come to the movies?’

  ‘We’re going to give Tulei some time off.’

  ‘I want her to come!’

  ‘Don’t forget to wash your hands, ’ Tulei told him.

  ‘God, how many times. A bit of dirt’s good for him.’

  ‘Tulei likes movies. She told me. She likes Star Wars.’

  ‘Does she now. Right. Let’s get going.’

  ‘Pecause you’ve been digging in the dirt and playing with feathers and there are germs . . .’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake. I’ll dust him with insecticide. Will that make you happy, Tulei?’

  ‘I’m sorry Missus?’

  Roza ushered Elke and Johnnie ahead of her, rolling her eyes at David. ‘Bye, darling. We’ll take Ray. And Jon can drive.’

  ‘Can I hold Ray’s gun?’

  ‘No!’

  They went off across the lawn.

  David said, ‘Tulei. Got any, you know?’ He mimed smoking.

  ‘Oh, sure. How many you want?’

  ‘Give me three. Four. You got four?’

  ‘I give you whole packet. Five left.’

  ‘Have you got more for yourself?’

  ‘Sure, in my room.’

  David winked and put a twenty dollar note in her hand; she tucked it in her pocket and went off towards the house.

  ‘You going to the pool?’ David waved a cigarette and Shaun, who’d been lounging against a tree, snapped to attention and brought a lighter. David lit up and blew out a stream of grey smoke. ‘Roza’s happy today,’ he said.

  ‘Karen’s not.’ It was sharper than Simon had intended. He added, ‘She’s just sorry the holiday’s over.’

  David consulted his giant designer watch. The chunky strap like chainmail, the series of implausible dials, as though for deep-sea diving. It looked suddenly absurd.

  ‘Shaun? Where’s Dean? He’s late.’

  The young man nodded, flipped open his phone.

  Two rosellas flashed between the trees. Simon asked politely, ‘How’s it going with the arse?’

  ‘Roza says she can’t understand why anyone would want a bigger arse.’

  ‘Maybe just firmer.’

  ‘Firmer. Stronger. No, prouder. That’s it. I want a proud arse.’

  ‘Of course, you know Dean’s . . .’

  ‘Gay. Yes. I’ve noticed tha
t.’

  ‘So his interest in your arse is . . .’

  ‘A gay interest. You’re impugning Dean’s professionalism. He has a degree. In . . .’

  ‘Arses?’ Simon’s face was stiff with feigned heartiness.

  ‘He tells me his approach is holistic.’ Bored and impatient, David walked over and punched Shaun on the arm. ‘Well?’

  ‘He’s on his way.’

  Simon shaded his eyes, scanned the dunes. ‘I think I’ll go to

  the beach.’

  But David had turned away and was waving to Dean, who was dragging an enormous sports bag along the path. He thrust his cigarette at Shaun. ‘Get rid of this. Pretend it’s yours.’ He took out a little aerosol and sprayed it in his mouth. ‘How’s that?’

  Shaun said, ‘Peppermint and smoke.’ David laughed.

  Simon headed onto the hot sand hills, looking for Ford. The beach was crowded in every direction; squinting along the hot stretch he couldn’t see Ford. Heat waves rippled over the sand, obscuring his view. There was a crowd of surfers out near the point, waiting for the best of the swells, and a lone swimmer chasing the waves, lifting both arms out of the water in a powerful butterfly stroke. Ford liked to bodysurf, although he’d condemned the waves at Rotokauri as pathetically small by his standards. He liked to go to west coast black-sand beaches like Piha and Karekare, and get hammered by real surf.

  Simon’s phone went off. In the bright glare he shaded the screen with his hand, couldn’t see who was calling. He answered.

  ‘Dr Lampton. Marie Da Silva.’

  Silence. He looked at the surfers riding over a big, smooth swell.

  ‘How are you, Dr Lampton?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Detective O’Kelly and I would like to see you again.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Glad you approve,’ she said.

  Simon sat down on the dune. Aren’t you sounding jaunty. Little rare-eyed Marie.

  ‘Where are you now, Dr Lampton?’

  He wondered if she could hear the waves. The seagulls. A quad bike droning by. It would be a mistake to sound uncooperative. Or would it? If only he knew how to do this.

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because my colleague and I would love to see you.’