The Last Guests

by JP Pomare

  Today I keep my phone in the glove box of the ambulance. My partner Scotty is a veteran of the service with receding ginger hair on a slightly pink, ruddy head. Anything beyond about ten years qualifies as veteran status, but he’s spent around twenty-five years saving lives. The only times we don’t work together is when I pick up extra shifts on my days off.

  A suspected heart attack starts the day for us, a 61-year-old male at a golf course. He’d bent to pick his ball out of the hole and when he stood up again, he’d had intense stabbing pain beneath his sternum. His friends said he just stood rubbing his chest, red in the face. Then he dropped down to one knee.

  In any ambulance there’s the lead and the driver, and between jobs we swap to keep the workload even. For certain calls, a hierarchy instantly establishes itself where the most senior officer will take the lead but for this call, I’m responsible for the patient. Scotty hesitates at the edge of the golf course, looking out over the perfectly manicured grass.

  ‘Go,’ I say. ‘It’s dry.’

  He starts driving onto the grass of the course. I see a man rushing out of the clubhouse, waving at us. The wheels spin, flicking turf. My look tells the man to stay out of the way; his lips seal in a pale line.

  We see cardiac arrest calls once a month or so but this one sounds more like a garden variety heart attack.

  I find the patient lying down with a group of men in conspicuously bright golf attire, their carts parked off at a distance. They’ve not moved the patient, thankfully. I assess him. Pupils a little dilated, but fine. Heart rate is at ninety-two, blood pressure is low, ninety over fifty. Oxygen levels at ninety-eight percent. Everything else is fine. We’ve got time to get him to the hospital. I radio ahead. Scotty pulls the stretcher out, running it over. With his skinny limbs and pot belly, Scotty always reminds me of those middle-aged men who play social sport and drink too much beer after.

  ‘We’re going to help you stand and climb onto the stretcher, okay?’

  One of his friends comes forward, volunteering to help.

  ‘It’s fine, we can manage.’

  ‘He’s okay?’

  ‘He’s doing well, just need to get him to the hospital if you don’t mind.’

  One of the men says something I don’t quite catch but the two others with him snigger. I get it a little bit less now that I’m in my thirties. Years ago, I stopped wearing make-up at work. Now I don’t wear any jewellery at all, I keep my nails clipped short and free of polish. When my hair was longer, it was always pulled back tight into a no-nonsense ponytail.

  The patient looks sick in the face but gets onto the stretcher and lies down. We load him up and force the stretcher into the back of the ambulance. I notice that Scotty’s eyes are a little dilated.

  ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Let’s get him on the road.’

  I climb in the back and keep an eye on the ECG the entire trip. At the hospital I brief the triage nurse, then they wheel him into a monitored unit. I fill out the notes on the call, filing the report. By the time I get back to the ambulance Scotty still hasn’t finished cleaning and replacing the equipment and stretcher. He’s off the pace today. He can be a little aloof, with a sense of humour some would describe as un-PC and others would call crass or perhaps worse. I’m his eleventh partner but we’ve been working together for almost four years now. Someone has to work with him, and I find it easy enough to block out the crap. If nothing else, he’s always been a hard worker.

  The moment we are cleared from the job I expect the next call from the station but nothing comes through.

  ‘Greasy Spoon cafe?’ Scotty says.

  ‘Why not?’

  You learn early as ambulance officers to order food and drinks in takeaway containers. You never know when the next call is going to come. Scotty has finished his BLT and I’m two-thirds of the way through my salad when our pagers sound. We stride back to the ambulance and head out.

  It’s another standard call. A suspected broken wrist and possible concussion. A woman tripped and fell while carrying two bags of groceries from the car. Her son called it in.

  Scotty should be the lead, but we swapped so he could drive and I could finish my salad on the way.

  ‘Any plans for the weekend?’ he says, as he speeds through traffic. The sirens wail above us, and cars part, or shift to the road’s edge.

  ‘Nothing really, might head down to Tarawera if the weather is nice.’

  A car ahead won’t get out of our way, Scotty leans on the horn. ‘Move!’ The grey-haired woman behind the wheel looks stricken.

  ‘You heading there to check on your WeStay?’ he continues to me, the red fading from his cheeks.

  ‘No,’ I say, wondering when I had actually told him about it. We’re driving through a wealthy inner-eastern suburb of Auckland.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Good, just waiting for the bookings to come flooding in. It’s been two weeks without much traction.’

  The conversation abruptly ends as we pull up in front of the house.

  ‘Look at the state of this place. Rich bastards,’ he says.

  It’s palatial. Even for this part of town, a few kilometres from the CBD where properties are big enough to have their own postcodes. The garage is open, and I see hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of vehicles parked side by side. A sports car with a rearing stallion and an SUV with the distinct boxy font of Porsche.

  Scotty turns his head to smirk as he pulls into the driveway.

  I climb out and knock hard on the door, twice. A man, with impossibly white teeth, a tan he’s picked up somewhere tropical and silver-fox slicked-back hair. ‘Hi, thanks for coming out,’ he says. ‘But I think we’ve got it covered now.’

  ‘I’ll just have to see her to complete paperwork.’

  His smile falters. ‘Sure. Come on through.’

  She’s a small thing, sharp clavicle and birdlike bones showing through the back of her hands. When she meets my eyes, she tries to smile but there’s pain in it.

  I kneel down to speak to her at eye level, check her pupils, her heart, her ears.

  ‘Do you still have a headache?’

  ‘Umm, no it’s okay now.’ The husband is there, right over my shoulder when Scotty comes in.

  ‘Any dizziness?’

  ‘No,’ she says.

  ‘Scotty?’ The man’s voice is loud. I turn. Scotty’s eyes are open wide, but he’s smiling. ‘Rick?’ he says. ‘Rick Reynolds, is that you?’

  They’re shaking hands now, clapping each other’s back.

  ‘You’re a paramedic these days.’

  ‘Twenty-four years now.’

  His eyebrows rise. ‘Far out. Twenty-four years, straight out of high school. I had no idea. You’ve lost a lot of weight since high school too.’

  Scotty gives an awkward cough. ‘I’ve seen your billboards,’ he says.

  Billboards? I thought I recognised him. He’s the politician. The upstart businessman espousing populist ideals. A NZ Trump, except he’s hardly gaining much momentum. A few of the crazies have probably bought in though. ‘Hoping to get into parliament and start taking out the trash,’ he says.

  I try to block out the boys’ chat and focus on the woman.

  ‘What’s the day of the week today?’

  ‘Tuesday.’

  ‘How did you fall?’

  ‘I, umm, I just stumbled. I wasn’t concentrating.’

  A sound in my mind like a distant alarm. She doesn’t appear to have concussion, but she mumbles the answer as if unsure of herself.

  ‘Who called it in?’ I say, turning back to the husband, interrupting his catch-up with Scotty.

  ‘Ah my son,’ the man says. ‘He’s eleven and got a bit spooked.’

  I turn back to the woman. ‘Alright, let me get a look at that wrist.’ I go to lift her sleeve, but her left hand flies across, holding it down.

  ‘Sorry, I just need to get a look at it,’ I say.

  Her eyes go to her hus
band, then back to me. My senses are tingling. Something is not quite right here.

  I peel the woman’s fingers away gently, then lift the sleeve and hold the wrist up, supporting it. Then I see what she’s hiding away. Those four grey spots, finger marks leading up her forearm. I look into her eyes; she looks away. The boys are laughing about something now, reminiscing.

  Examining the large kitchen we’re in, I see no sign of groceries, so unless this man, Rick, put them away while his wife was in pain, there never were groceries. I spy a fruit bowl on the marble benchtop, limp bananas and soft apples. Not fresh produce.

  ‘Does that hurt?’ I say, gently testing the wrist.

  She winces. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And that?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘On a scale of one to ten, how painful is it?’

  ‘Seven or maybe eight.’

  ‘Well I’d say there might be a break in there. You’re going to need an x-ray. We can drop you at the hospital, if you like, or you can organise to see a radiologist through your own doctor.’

  ‘I’ll go later,’ she says.

  I administer fentanyl for the pain. Scotty chooses to complete his report inside, so he doesn’t need to stop talking to Rick. I go to the ambulance and come back a moment later. ‘Hey, Scotty, can you give me a hand finding something?’

  He glances up from the iPad. I give him a look that says, don’t ask.

  ‘Sure. Be right back.’

  Outside, tucked out of sight from the house behind the ambulance, I stop him. ‘I think she’s got signs of abuse.’

  He frowns, his ruddy cheeks pinken. ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘I know the signs, she’s hiding bruises.’

  ‘They’re from the fall, surely? You might be jumping to conclusions.’

  ‘She might have been pushed or hit.’

  ‘Hit,’ he says, and the word tumbles into incredulous laughter. He’s a bit off today. If we suspect domestic violence, we have a duty to report it. Even if it turns out not to be the case. ‘He’s a politician, Lina. He’s a good guy and there’s nothing to suggest he has hit her.’ He has an odd, serene smile – is it possible I’m overreacting? ‘Come on, Lina. I’d be the first one to phone it in, you know that, but there’s no real evidence of abuse here.’

  He can’t be serious. The guy who’s called the cops on every potential domestic violence situation we’ve seen. But those cases were almost always lower socio-economic homes. The violence was obvious. Children with black eyes. Women with cigarette burns. Scotty knows this man.

  I shrug. ‘I’ve got to ring it in. If there’s nothing to hide, it won’t hurt them at all.’

  He touches my arm as I reach for my radio. ‘Let me speak to him, please. I’ll get to the bottom of it.’

  ‘Scotty, no,’ I say. ‘We don’t warn them, we don’t let them get a story straight. That’s how men like him get away with it.’

  He pulls his hand away, shows me his palms as if to say, your call. ‘Alright. Can you wait until we’ve wrapped it up at least?’

  ‘Okay,’ I say.

  Scotty goes back inside to finish the report. When he comes back, I add to it. Noting the bruises, the wife’s demeanour. Police don’t need the wife to confess to what has happened, they need only to suspect abuse before they intervene. The eleven-year-old son probably called 111 before he knew what he was doing. How will that man punish the kid if that is the case? Or it could all be a mistake. Those finger bruises could be from some adventurous role-play. Or a judo class she takes. There’s no certainty, just a balance of probability. Scotty is at one end of the scales and I’m at the other.

  Rick comes out to the ambulance. ‘What’s going on?’ he asks, that smile gone now. ‘What’s taking so long?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘We’ve almost finished up the paperwork here.’

  ‘Right.’ He looks to Scotty, raising his eyebrows as if this is one of those women things. Thoroughness, am I right?

  ‘Sorry,’ Rick adds now, zeroing in on me. ‘Have we met before?’

  ‘Me?’ I say. Feeling a sudden flush. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  His eyes narrow just a touch. ‘I could have sworn I recognise you from somewhere. Maybe not.’ He stands uncomfortably close, hands on hips, forcing his suit jacket open. ‘No, I have seen you somewhere. It’ll come to me. Or maybe you’ve just got one of those faces.’ Then he lets out a laugh and slaps Scotty’s shoulder, before retreating to the house. I radio for the police and we stick around outside the property until they arrive and I explain what I saw. Then, Scotty insists we clear off. He doesn’t want to see his friend’s face when the officers knock on the door.

  I back out of the driveway, look once more at those vehicles, that house, then ease my foot down on the accelerator and head towards the station. Scotty is quiet, unreadable. He’s playing on his phone and barely speaks for the rest of the shift. I’ve ruined his little catch-up with an old school friend who appears to be doing well for himself. Maybe Scotty could see a friendship re-forming before I snuffed it out. At six-thirty when we get back to the station, he simply says, ‘See you next shift,’ signs out and takes his bag to his car without another word.

  •

  ‘How was work?’ Cain asks. He’s got his tattered light boxing gloves on and has been hitting the bag in the yard.

  ‘It was okay, had an odd call this afternoon. Have you heard of Rick Reynolds?’

  A spark of recognition. ‘Yeah, I have actually. I think I’ve seen him at Axel’s gym. Tallish, Pākehā fellow? Pretty lean.’

  Everyone in Auckland is connected somehow. ‘That’s him. He’s running for prime minister with about zero point one percent of the population behind him.’

  ‘Careful, there is plenty of looneys that will probably vote for him in the next election.’

  ‘We got called to his house. His wife had bruises.’

  I see a vein near his temple. This is one of Cain’s rules: men should never hurt women or children. They shouldn’t hurt other people at all unless it is completely necessary.

  ‘You sure?’ he says.

  ‘No, but my intuition with this stuff is normally pretty good.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  I pinch the bridge of my nose, massage my eyelids. ‘I called the cops, Scotty wasn’t too pleased about it.’

  ‘You called the cops on him?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Peephole

  Live Cam Premium

  Stream: 019C

  Viewers: 009

  A man in his sixties is nude in the villa’s pool as seen on camera 3. The stone Balinese statue behind him spurts a stream of water into the pool and he swims to it and lets the flow splash over his head – 9 viewers. On camera 2 a grey-haired woman is mixing pineapple juice with vodka in tall glasses with ice. She does a small dance in the kitchen to whatever music is playing. Then she carries the drinks over, puts one near the pool’s edge and the other on the low table beside the banana lounge. She steps out of her sundress, wearing a bikini now – 11 viewers. Puts on a large straw hat and lies down on the banana lounge, taking up her drink. They pass most of the day like this, moving in and out of the pool, in and out of the house. Two masseuses arrive in the afternoon. In the sun, the couple get massages.

  EIGHT

  IT’S ONE OF those weeks of sulky New Zealand weather. Rain that comes down slowly, consistently for days. Halfway through my next shift Scotty says, ‘Heard from Rick.’

  ‘Rick Reynolds?’

  ‘Yeah. He didn’t say anything about the cops but he asked about you.’

  ‘What’d he say?’

  ‘Nothing really. Just wanted to know how long we’ve worked together.’ He laughs. ‘Haven’t seen him in twenty years and he just wanted to talk about some ambo he met for five minutes.’ A stitch digs in at my side. I don’t want to push him any further about it, but it doesn’t feel right. He might just be winding me up as payback for calling the police. The shift p
asses slowly, it’s a quiet night and when I get home I can barely sleep again. Every night I think about Daniel, I wonder when he will try to get in contact with me again. I relive that night we spent together, the guilt pressing down.

  The next day after my run I get back to find Cain standing there waiting for me. He’s beaming. ‘We have a booking,’ he says.

  ‘A booking?’ I swipe my forearm across my brow. ‘A WeStay booking?’

  It’s been weeks; I was beginning to wonder if it was going to happen. Cain had tweaked the photos, lowered the price and, voila, we have contact. ‘Come have a look.’

  Cherry has requested to book Casa Tarawera – mid-century retreat. That’s what I see on the screen of Cain’s computer when I walk into his study. $432.60 for two nights. The first money we’ve made from the property. It feels odd. Strangers will sleep in our beds, they will sit on our couch looking out at our view of the lake.

  ‘That is so cool,’ I say, as he lowers himself into his desk chair. ‘Go on, check them out.’

  He turns back to the screen and clicks the profile. A small maple leaf flag suggests they’re Canadian. Home town: Vancouver, BC. Cain scrolls through the reviews from other hosts: 5.0 stars average rating. Perfect. Six reviews.

  Left our place spotless.

  Easy to communicate with and very tidy.

  Loved hosting Dan and Cherry, very friendly and flexible.

  ‘Look at the other places they’ve stayed.’

  ‘How?’ Cain asks.

  ‘Click the profiles of the people who have left reviews.’

  He does, we see the listings and go through them one by one, checking out the places they’ve been. They’ve got good taste by the looks of it. Always big houses from different parts of the world: Portugal, Morocco, Japan. They seem to be working their way around the globe and Lake Tarawera is next on their list.

  ‘Anyone could follow them around,’ Cain says, ‘stay at the same places after them, relive their trip.’