In the Fifth Season

by Jonathan M Barrett

  #

  Had Toni imagined a glacier would be a frozen avalanche, a great tumbling river of snow and ice put on pause forever? That's how she thought she would describe it to Byron and Kyron before she saw it. Now, standing in front of the glacier, she found it grubby and despoiled, like an ice block dropped in gravel. Hunched in contrition, Rob pointed out various features. He sounded embarrassed to know the technical terms. "Um, that's called 'terminal moraine', and that snowy stuff up there is called 'névé', and that crevasse at the very top is the 'bergschrund'. Well, I think that's how you pronounce it."

  She knew it would sound sulky, but Toni told Rob she didn't need him to take photos for her. He took them all the same and offered to email them to her for her boys. She didn't commit.

  It was late afternoon by the time they finished at the glacier. When Toni told Rob they needed petrol for the journey back, his normal casualness about money faltered.

  "Damn it," he said. "Accounts will pick up on my credit statement that I bought petrol right down here."

  "Does that matter?"

  He didn't answer but looked at her as though she was the most stupid person on earth, and, in return, she hated him.

  "I suppose I could get cash out and pay for it myself. No, stuff it," he said, "what do I care what Accounts say?"

  Toni drove back as fast as she dared, the last few hours in real darkness, evermore tired and stiff. They stopped off for a burger that gave her heartburn. Rob didn't sleep as she’d expected – hoped for. He stared straight ahead so the occasional passing headlights, sparkling across the lenses of his glasses, illuminated zombie eyes. Several times he pressed all the buttons of the radio, giving a commentary on each station. "In the blue corner we have the vicious harridan and, in the red corner, the Minister for Public Deception – golden oldies for old morons – adverts, adverts, adverts – oh, brilliant, country and fucking western – god, why is it all such crap?"

  Then Rob inserted the CD he’d brought with him, but, as Toni started to listen and relax, he told her he was bored with it, and clicked it off. Once the Geiger countable green numbers of the dial had faded, he carried on staring straight ahead.

  Toni watched the windscreen become freckled with raindrops. It seemed so long before the wipers cleared them away. Then again. And again. Again. She shook herself awake.

  When they finally drew close to the motor camp, Rob brightened up, saying they were almost at home sweet home. The day had been too long for Toni to muster pleasantness, but there was time left for more friction. A chain of bobbing lights snaked down the hillside ahead of them.

  "What's that?" Toni was panicky, tense and brittle from all the driving.

  "Miners," Rob said.

  "No," she said, "it can't be. You said all the mines had shut."

  "Ghosts of miners killed by capitalism."

  Toni glanced at him, he seemed serious enough.

  The lights were moving fast, and Toni could see they would soon converge with the road. She tried to ignore his nonsense, but she really was scared, her heart was palpitating. But, when they met, she saw the lights were on the helmets of mountain bikers. She laughed, uncontrolled and derisive. "Look at the ghosts of the miners," she said, "they're all wearing Lycra. Oh and there's my cute detective." Toni tooted and waved. "Nice legs too."

  Toni couldn't bring herself to ask for Rob's phone. Johnny and the boys would survive another night without talking to her. She fell asleep thinking fondly, even longingly of her partner and children. Would she care if she knew that, on the other side of a thin veil of timber, her colleague would lay awake thinking only of her, analysing how a day of such promise could have ended so empty and bitter? Probably not.

  Rob was scanning through pixelated images of his colleague. The first picture he’d dared to take in the car – the flutter of her hair and that smile. The poses at the waterfall, then all the others she hadn't known about. The colours were lurid. Toni's hair looked redder now than it did in sunlight, her eyes cat green. The images rippled slightly as Rob's fingertip touched the screen.

  THURSDAY

  39

  The Arcadia estate abutted the Five Seasons Motor Park but was so vast that Toni and Rob travelled several kilometres before they spotted the sign, 'Arcadia, ----- Morgan Washburn.' Though painted over, 'Artemis and' could still be read like tagging buffed on a shop wall.

  "Look at that," Toni said. "He didn't waste any time."

  The driveway curved through indigenous forest to a magnificent old house. "Jesus! Now that's what I call a bach," Rob said.

  Dr Washburn didn't recognise Toni when Rob introduced her, and she was pleased about this. The old man had not been menacing that day in the cove. In fact, he'd been quite patient as he explained how people had disturbed the nests of an endangered penguin, whose name she forgot, if she ever took it in, and that's why he had to ask her to leave. Yet it was a shock to discover Dr Washburn was the man from the beach, and her unease returned as she glanced down at his hand that didn't shake hers. She saw how it was curved and gnarled like a claw. Toni was glad to have Rob with her, although she might have preferred the detective as company.

  It was obvious that Rob didn't share her impression of Dr Washburn. In fact, he seemed blown away by the man and his house. For someone who took so much pride in how he treated everyone equally, Toni was taken aback by Rob's fawning over this scary old man.

  Rob and Dr Washburn walked ahead of Toni down a long corridor that was cold and poorly lit, and smelt of damp. She was taken back in time: the surgeon was in front with the junior doctor aping him, his hands clasped behind his back too, and she, the invisible nurse, silently behind them. She noticed shapes of discolouration on the walls where pictures must have been removed. At the end of the corridor, Dr Washburn led them into his study. Here it was warm and sun-filled. At his invitation, they sank into the comfort of old leather armchairs and looked around, admiring the delicate paintings of birds, and towering hardwood bookcases.

  "To be perfectly frank," Dr Washburn said, "I didn't even know my wife had taken out a policy on her life. I found it when I was going through her papers. I'm sure you're aware, she came from a very wealthy family, and I don't understand why she felt it necessary to generate more money on her death. She certainly left me more money than I could spend in my lifetime."

  I bet not in mine, Toni thought.

  "Can I confirm something, Dr Washburn? Are you the sole shareholder of Artmor Investments Ltd, the owner of the policy in question?" Rob said.

  "Indeed, I am the sole beneficiary of my wife's estate."

  For a moment, it seemed Rob would take the question further, but he said nothing more. After a long pause, Dr Washburn broke the silence. "I suppose your Huntly chap could have persuaded her to take out the policy. He had a fair bit of influence over her business decisions. Have you spoken to him?"

  "Yes, of course," Rob said, and looked away from Toni's frown.

  Another awkward silence ensued before Toni dared to ask her first question. "Dr Washburn, can you tell us about the property development that's planned for Arcadia?"

  Dr Washburn stiffly turned his neck to her. His expression suggested his surprise at Rob’s allowing her to talk, and she wished she hadn't. But, at last, Dr Washburn said, "Ah, the infamous Orion Park."

  Toni glanced at Rob. The idiot had told her it was Onion Park, but he seemed too engrossed by the old man's every word to realise his mistake and be embarrassed.

  "The greenies made a bit of a fuss about it," Dr Washburn said. "But my wife was only toying with the idea of the development. She wanted to revitalise the town, and she also felt it was her duty to provide sanctuary for likeminded compatriots in the event of a major war or some other event."

  "Dr Washburn, on the application form, your wife put down her occupation as 'dream maker'," Toni said. "What do you think she meant by that?"

  Dr Washburn's laugh was unconvincing. "I'm afraid my wife was what her countrymen call a bi
t of an 'airhead'. Orion Park was never going to come to fruition. It was a pipe dream, no more. In the event, I will be leaving everything exactly as it is now. And, when I go, all of Arcadia will become a reserve – irrevocably, in perpetuity. It will be one of the most important sanctuaries for bird life in the South Island."

  The expression on Dr Washburn's face was so smug Toni couldn't resist asking, "How did you and your wife meet?"

  He didn't respond immediately, and Toni could feel Rob's glare boring into her.

  "Some people might consider that an inappropriate question," Dr Washburn said.

  "I'm sorry," Toni said softly.

  "But I don't." Dr Washburn attempted a smile, but his jaw wasn't designed for that. He looked like an eagle trying to be endearing. "My wife was formerly my patient."

  "What for?"

  "Now that is an inappropriate question." This time, Dr Washburn didn't bother to smile but stood, and told them he would find his housekeeper to make tea.

  Once she was sure Dr Washburn was out of earshot, Toni leant forward from the fat armchair. "What do you think of him?" she whispered to Rob.

  "Wonderful man," Rob said. He had a dumb smile. "Actually, he reminds me a lot of my public law professor at uni."

  It was not the answer Toni had expected, but Rob didn't seem to notice her frown, and she didn't press him. She snuggled down in the solid luxury of her surroundings, comforted by the flames in the open fireplace and the diamond patterned view through leaded windows across forest to the ocean.

  Rob was soon up inspecting the study, touching things like a cat slinking around an unfamiliar room. There was a large box, overflowing with books in one corner. Rob picked one seemingly at random. He held it up and read out, "Therèse Raquin. A sorry tale – heroine commits adultery, all ends in tears."

  "That's weird." Toni pushed herself up from the armchair and went to Rob. She forgot herself and rested her chin on his shoulder, pressing close to see.

  Rob chose another book. "Anna Karenina. Wife commits adultery. All ends in tears – wife commits suicide." And another. "Madame Bovary. Wife – of a country doctor – commits adultery – with a life insurance agent."

  "An insurance agent? You're joking!"

  "Yes," he said, "I am, but it all does end in tears, and the wife does commit suicide."

  "I bet these books belong to Artemis, and he's dumping them," Toni said. "Do you think they can tell us anything about her death?"

  Rob seemed to be considering her suggestion, but perhaps he was enjoying being so close to her. "Maybe," he said at last.

  "Do you really think so?"

  "Then again, it might just show nineteenth century authors had very small moral imaginations."

  "Don't be a smart arse." She pinched his arm. "Do you think it's relevant, or not?"

  Rob turned to face her. "OK. It doesn't seem likely to me that the radiant Artemis Washburn would commit suicide over an affair. Would you?"

  This close, they could be slow dancing. "For one thing, I'm in the middle of a divorce." Toni didn't flinch as she lied. "That means I'm not really going to have the chance to commit adultery and–"

  "And?" Rob said, his voice catching.

  She looked him boldly in the eyes, "I have children. And they would come before any lover." 'Lover' is a word Toni had never used before, a possibility she'd never contemplated.

  When Dr Washburn and his housekeeper returned with the tea tray, Toni was looking at a chart of birds. On the other side of the room, Rob was checking the much-read file on the doctor's dead wife. The housekeeper left without speaking.

  "Beautiful aren't they?" Dr Washburn said as he approached Toni. "And every one of them endangered, you know. I sometimes wonder whether it would have been all for the better if birds had dominion over the earth instead of Man. They could wipe us all out, if they wanted to, you know, but, unlike us with them, they do not."

  "Dr Washburn, something puzzles me." Toni is so relieved when Rob called the old man away. "It says in the police report you found your wife on the morning of the 17 August, yet it's assumed she died late the previous day."

  "I'd been in Nelson overnight. We had a fund raising dinner for the kakapo programme. I stayed overnight and came back first thing. I went straight to the cove to check on the penguin nest. That's when I found her." Dr Washburn looked through the window towards the ocean, and Rob and Toni exchanged glances, respectful of his stoic grief. In fact, he was recalling the relief he felt when he discovered that the body, so close to their nest, had not distressed the penguin chicks. He was sure his wife died immediately, with no prolonged wailing to disturb the hatchlings.

  Toni shivered. "Artemis died at the cove where I met you?"

  "We've met before?"

  "Yes," Toni said. "I climbed over the rocks to your beach by mistake. You told me I might disturb the penguins."

  Rob looks puzzled. She should have told him about this before.

  Dr Washburn turned and fixed her with avian intensity but showed no sign of recognition. "Ah, yes, that's right," he said. "The most northerly nesting colony of the Fjordland crested penguin. They mate for life, you know."

  40

  When Johnny arrived at the crèche, he was not ignored. In fact, as soon as she spotted him, the principal left a whiny mother in mid-complaint to greet him.

  "Mr Shannon."

  "Johnny."

  "Johnny, I'm so pleased you could make it."

  "I've put together a play list, Jules." He handed her a crumpled sheet of paper.

  "Julia. That's lovely." She looked at the list carefully. "Hmm. These are some of the songs the children are more familiar with." And she gave Johnny a list of her own.

  He pushed his shades up his forehead and read aloud, "The wheels on the bus – Postman Pat–"

  "Do you know them, by any chance?" the principal asked.

  Anyone who's watched as much pre-school television as Johnny would have to know the full repertoire of kiddie tunes by heart. And, with his ear for music, well, if he could pick up a passable Stairway to heaven by ear, he could certainly do Wheels on the bus justice. "No worries."

  Johnny didn't have time for a sound check, and he was soon set up, with the audience gathered around him, cross-legged, in a semi circle. He dared to close his eyes and imagine the scene: Johnny Shannon unplugged, soon to be a You Tube sensation. There was an expectant silence. In the front row, his boys gazed up at him. Byron radiated concern, Kyron stoned love. Johnny arranged his fingers on the frets, he coughed, and his thumb eked the first note from the strings. "The – wheels on the bus–"

  The gig was a knockout. Sure, the fans didn't cheer or whoop in recognition of the first chords of each song, or even clap, or hold cigarette lighters and cell phones aloft, or stomp for encores, or heft their fat-arsed girlfriends onto their shoulders, but the teachers beamed, the excited children joined in, and even some of the mothers stay behind to listen. As the last note faded, Johnny did not confess through tears, "Hutt City, we love you." But he did.

  As soon as the set was over, Byron and Kyron rushed to cling to a leg apiece lest any other fans might try it on. The teachers flocked like groupies and the auditor from the Department extravagantly ticked a box. The principal stayed in the wings, an A&R woman, ready to sign him up.

  "Johnny, you really do have such a gift for entertaining children," the principal told him and handed him an envelope.

  He'd landed a residency, a confirmed gig every Thursday morning. And the principal was sure some of the other crèches would also be interested in talking to him. A tour was on the cards too. Johnny strode out of the Early Advantage Education Centre Inc with a swagger in his step. It was a little after morning tea, but he felt like the midnight rambler.

  41

  Overnight, Owen Huntly stayed in an emergency hut deep in the forests of Arcadia. There he revelled in the company of his dogs and their worship. He fed them first when he returned home at daybreak. God, he loved it every time, the
way they waited slavering, taut as athletes at the mark, before he gave them the nod of consent, and they ravaged the cylinders of meat stuff and butted the bowls around the kitchen floor. Then he prepared himself to visit his empire. He showered away the scent of the animal forest, and admired his still buff body and manly abundance in the full-length mirror. He dried and quiffed his hair, slapped on his pheromonal cologne, chose a rich tie from the rack where they hung like an exhibition of exotic snake skins, slipped into his most ducal of business suits, and was ready. Almost.

  Owen tried to pronounce the sage's name. "'Frederick Night – nights – z – sch' – oh fuck it. 'Overcome the little people; they are the enemy of the superman'." He paused to consider these words of wisdom, inhaled deeply three times and said, "Right, Owen R Huntly, you superman. Up, up and away."

  When he travelled, Owen liked to bring ideas back from the smart restaurants where he ate. That's how he'd recently discovered authentic Italian fishing motifs were no longer the very latest thing, and so he planned to have El Maximo redone in the style of a Tuscan palazzo. Actually, some smart arse has suggested that 'El' was Spanish, not, strictly speaking, Italian, so he might even be changing the name – maybe to something even classier like La Maximo.

  The painting of him and Artemis would be delivered today, but Owen decided to store it in the cellar until the restaurant could be suitably redecorated. He gave precise orders to fawning minions for tonight's dinner with Rob Hamilton and his sidekick.

  At the backpackers he’s recently bought into, Owen was gutted to learn the Scandinavian girl – from Belgium, he thought she said – who'd accepted free accommodation in exchange for a few hours work, and the unspoken understanding, on his part at least, of certain favours, had left for the bright lights of Greymouth. Then, at the office, there was no Kylie and, in her place, a neatly typed notice of immediate resignation was waiting for him. Although the message was coldly professional, and mentioned nothing personal, he hoped she would have enough pride to return the necklace he gave her just two days ago.

  42

  Kylie had no intention of returning Owen's necklace. She was on her way home to pack a bag. In her sky high heels, her ankles twisted on the lumps of coal that seeped up from the earth along the lane to her mum's house. She squeezed past her brother's low-slung hoon-mobile, a nudge of her hip sent the high spoiler on the boot wobbling. Poor kid, bits stuck on to a mum's taxi. That was so him: sixteen and stunted, shuffling and wary in his hoodie and baggy jeans, as if he'd just stolen them from a big man's washing line. Once she was settled in Sydney, maybe he could come and stay with her. She was sure Dylan wouldn't mind.

  Kylie let herself into the dark sleep out, her place. She kicked off the crippling shoes and slipped out of the slinky dress, which coiled and shimmered at her ankles. She thrilled as the gorgeous young men ogled her near nakedness from their posters, chose low waist jeans and a midriff top, all the better to show off the navel ring Owen had forbidden her to wear. On the bed she counted out the money the jeweller had given her for the necklace, and, adding that to the tally of her bank account she carried in her head, she came to a magic sum. Kylie found the scrap of paper with Rob Hamilton's mobile number. Her thumb tapped the message, '4 Toni - yr a rl m8 b4 u I h8d me life – off to Oz K'.

  "Mum," Kylie shouted to her mother, who was hanging washing on the lines strung under the eaves. She had enough money for a flight to Sydney to look up her old boyfriend. "Mum, I'm getting out of here. I'm going to stay with Dylan."

  43

  In the office of Huntly Insurance Services, Owen sat at his desk and shook his head as he pondered the unfaithfulness of women compared with the steadfast loyalty of his dogs. He flicked through his notebook once more. "'When the going gets tough, the tough get going' – Joseph P Kennedy." He pondered the quotation for a moment and said aloud, "Very wise, very valid."

  Owen left a message on Rob's mobile, inviting him and his colleague to dinner tonight, refreshed his standing order at the job agency for a highly presentable personal assistant, and set about phoning potential clients for a tax avoidance package he'd recently invested in.

  "We'd never have heard of him if he'd been called Kublai Khan't." Owen chanted his mantra between calls.

  44

  Andy Wu received an email from the consultant with the mannish hairstyle and gunmetal grey business suit, whose previous presentation on marketing strategy – and, it must be said, her impenetrable technical vocabulary – had impressed him so much. She was asking for an OoO. After Google told him she wanted a one on one meeting, Andy readily agreed. But, this time, he was not blown away by the slickness of her presentation; he was completely rattled by its message.

  Through the Babel of jargon and feast of pie charts, it became clear that the consultant's key recommendation was to do away with the name of the Dependable, and replace it with an exclamation mark. She was very passionate about it. "Semiotics is so twentieth century." She pronounced it 'semi-otics'. "No half measures. Today's business Lebenswelt needs total otics, über otics."

  "Otics?" Andy asked. "Isn't that to do with ears?"

  She didn't answer but added, "Names are an obsolete relic of the Guttenberg Age." And, with the blind stare of the evangelist, pressed home. "A dematerialised enterprise in the electronic paradigm demands a dematerialised signifier."

  Andy was speechless.

  "As our leader, you must liberate us from the legacy of a name," she said. "Kill it. Dead." She sighed, exhausted. "No more words."

  Andy thanked the consultant, agreeing how necessary such a change probably was, and promised to consider putting her proposal to the board. He thought he might need to prise her fingers from his desk otherwise. But when she'd gone, doubt struck him. Could you actually say it? He tried. The best he could manage was an enthusiastic grunt. Perhaps that's what she'd meant by 'post-language'. Certainly it might look cutting edge on the company website, but how would the sales people introduce themselves? The consultant had pointed out that a certain artiste who replaced his name with a symbol didn't suffer sales-wise from it. Andy had been on the verge of arguing with her, but the way she gripped his desk and stared, told him reason might not be the best option. Her advice was clearly detached from human reality, and suggested to him the possibility of alien infiltration.

  What if all the other radical business solutions the consultants had recommended and he'd so blithely adopted were equally detached from reality, and he'd not recognised it? Disquiet growled in Andy's gut as he remembered how another consultant, apparently without irony, had recommended a classic paper on process reengineering that showed how the hours long Japanese tea ceremony could be cut down to a hyper efficient ten minutes through the judicious use of an electric kettle and tea bags. Had he himself not clapped his hands, leapt to his feet, and exclaimed, "That is precisely the kind of quantum leap in efficiency we need for the Dependable?" Now he cringed like a repentant drunk piecing together last night's escapades.

  Andy stumbled over the words as he repeated the maxim he himself had composed. "Only by outsourcing non-core functions, can we liberate our core functions." But, as that old fool, the Underwriter, had asked at a recent meeting, "What exactly are our core functions, Mr Wu, er Andy?"

  "I think that should be obvious for anyone who's been paying the slightest attention around here for the last few months," Andy had replied.

  The others in the room nodded knowingly as the horde instinct kicked in, and would, no doubt, have ripped Methuselah to shreds at the pack leader's signal, but the old buffer simply wouldn't let go. "You see everything we used to do seems to be going to China–"

  One of the Business Unit Managers stepped in. "Only policy issuing is pencilled in for China."

  "–All right, China or somewhere," the Underwriter said. "Now, that's fine for old Johnny Chinaman, but I don't understand what we're going to do anymore."

  A few smug sniggers and derisive splutters had, of course, erupted around the room, but
Andy was no longer certain about much at all, and the Fortune article had taken a different direction in his mind – One Man's Folly: How A Venerable Institution Was Brought Low. He needed some fresh air.