Acid Song (9 page)

‘People are stupid.’

‘Are you stupid?’

‘Not like that, no.’

‘So why aren’t you voting for her?’

‘Who said I’m not voting for her?’

‘Are you?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Can’t stand the bitch.’

‘Democracy,’ Richard muttered, surprised by how loudly he said it. Whisky. Both men looked at him.

‘What was that?’ asked the bitch-hater, when nothing more was offered.

‘Sorry,’ Richard mumbled. ‘I didn’t mean to say that quite so loudly.’

‘Yeah, but what did you mean though?’

The inquisitor leaned forward, primed for a confrontation. Lawyers.

‘I meant, I suppose, that this is what we fight for. The inalienable right of every adult citizen to teach the bitch a lesson.’

They thought about this for a moment, clearly trying to gauge whether this old, poorly dressed man was taking the piss.

‘What do you do?’ asked the less odious of the two.

‘I’m at the university.’

He thought about this response for a moment, before nodding.

‘Figures.’

Elizabeth was standing at the doorway, a moth belting itself to confusion on the veranda light above her head. Worry had settled into its familiar pattern on her face. Richard had married a worrier, although nobody else would know it. It was one of their little secrets. Often relief got in the way of the anger she was entitled to. He hoped this was such an occasion.

‘Waiting for your present?’ Richard joked. The light drizzle made his skin prickle. Elizabeth didn’t look at her watch. Nor did she step forward to embrace him.

‘Richard, we’ve been robbed.’

Richard was caught short by the moment. A beat of puzzlement before the obvious, necessary, question.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Of course I’m all right. I wasn’t here.’

‘Well when … where were you?’

‘I went round to see Judy. When you rang to say you’d be late, I went round to see Judy.’

‘Lucky you did.’

And now the hug. They disengaged, standing at the doorway like awkward almost-strangers at the end of a first date.

‘How’s that lucky?’

‘Well, if you’d been here …’

‘If I’d been here, they wouldn’t have broken in,’ she told him.

‘You don’t know that.’

‘Where’s the car?’

‘I caught the boat.’

‘You’ve been drinking.’

‘William was beaten by some protesters today. He’s all right.’

‘When did this happen?’

‘Lunch time I think.’

‘Why didn’t you …’

‘I didn’t want to worry you.’

The creases returned to her still-beautiful face.

‘Well, where is he now? Is he in hospital?’

‘No, he was at his office when I …’

‘You should have invited him here. Why didn’t you invite him?’

‘I did. He’s … he wants to be by himself.’

‘Of course he doesn’t want to be by himself.’

‘He told me he wanted to be by himself.’ Richard raised his voice in contradiction, well aware volume was not the missing ingredient.

‘Well of course he did.’

‘I took him at his word.’

‘You shouldn’t have. You’re very late.’

‘Happy birthday.’

Richard took the small gift-wrapped parcel from his coat pocket.

‘Where’s the card?’ She was smiling.

‘I sent a stripper. Did he not arrive? Perhaps when you were out.’

‘Perhaps the burglar scared him off.’

‘Or vice versa.’

Richard watched her small pianist’s hands work free the wrapping.
The eyes, he realised, do not age. Looking at her eyes it could be twenty-five years ago. How many gifts had he bought her in that time? When did he start letting shop assistants make the decisions? Elizabeth was a small woman, always had been, her nervous energy burning everything the world could throw at it. She had let her hair turn grey, and now mostly white. He had said to her once that women who didn’t dye their hair always interested him. It was true. And perhaps she had listened. More likely she was already that type of woman. He was lucky.

‘It’s lovely.’

‘Put it on.’

‘It’s just what I need.’

‘Really?’

‘Well, mostly they stole jewellery.’

‘Oh. What else?’

‘Nothing much. They found some cash, in the drawer in our room.’

‘They were in our room?’

‘Why wouldn’t they go into our room?’

‘Well, it’s a bedroom,’ Richard reasoned, knowing at once he was being ridiculous. ‘It’s … I don’t know … manners isn’t it?’

‘They’re burglars, Richard.’

‘Have you called the police?’

‘They’ll be round in the morning, for insurance purposes. Or we can just make a list and drop it by the station.’

‘So what, we have to leave it all untouched?’

Elizabeth began to laugh. It crinkled the eyes first, and then her hand shot instinctively to her mouth, to keep the sound in, but still delight gurgled from her throat. It was her favourite thing, making comedy of him.

‘Oh Richard.’

‘What?’

‘They don’t do DNA tests for break-ins.’

‘I could do one for them,’ he grumped.

‘I’m sure they’ll appreciate the offer.’

‘They didn’t break anything?’

‘No, I don’t think so. Why are we standing out here?’

‘I don’t know.’

This time they kissed. As warm and familiar as coffee. They walked through into the house. Richard didn’t know what he was expecting, something less ordinary he supposed. He cast his eyes about, looking for some sign of the intrusion.

‘You’ve already tidied. Why did you do that?’

‘I had nothing else to do.’

Fair point. ‘Sorry. I just think, I think I would have liked to see.’

‘There wasn’t much to see. Just a few drawers open, cupboards, the wardrobe. I haven’t finished in our room yet, if you want to look. The policeman I talked to on the phone said it’ll be kids…’

Elizabeth’s voice followed Richard down the hallway. The bedroom door was open. The ransacking had been quick and random. On the left the dresser drawers were pulled wide open and socks and underwear spilled onto the floor, as if caught mid-escape. The drawers on the right were apparently untouched. The wardrobe door was open and a box of old papers had been hauled out into the middle of the room, tipped on its side with its contents fanning out across the floor. The bedspread was turned up on one side, marking a place where some stranger had peered beneath their bed. Not such a transformation really, nothing that couldn’t quickly be put back in place. Yet, Richard realised, something had changed. The gap between their world and the world outside could no longer be considered impermeable. One less thing they could pretend. This place, their place, had been made common.

The burglars would not have intended this. They wanted some easy money, and perhaps the thrill, that was all. They (he imagined
two of them: skinny, surly, brown) would not have stopped to think of the people who had made these walls the boundary of their promises. A memory swam unexpectedly to the surface. Sitting here, on the end of the bed, holding their youngest, Julia. She would have been three. The first of her asthma attacks. He’d never felt so helpless, nor so ready to do whatever was asked of him. Somewhere inside Richard’s stomach another wall crumbled and he was sitting again, sniffing back the beginning of a tear. Reliable whisky. Elizabeth sat beside him, her small hand rubbing the top of his broad, son-of-a-farmer’s back, as if he were a child.

‘Sorry, this is … it’s not … it’s ridiculous. Look at me. It’s your birthday, we should be … come on, I’ll clean this up.’

Richard stood but Elizabeth didn’t move.

‘Richard.’

‘What?’

‘I haven’t checked your study.’ She spoke gently, as if afraid the news might break him. ‘They were in there, but I haven’t checked. I wouldn’t know if anything was missing.’

The mode of operation was the same. Drawers open, papers thrown to the floor as they sniffed out the portable and the valuable. Richard saw immediately what was missing.

‘There was a hard drive. Here, plugged into the back of the computer, a little silver case, with all my … you haven’t moved …’

‘Is it important?’ She stood beside him, her arm around his waist, head pressed against the side of his chest. It would have been so easy then to tell her, but this was the wrong time.

‘No, no of course not. Well, you know, work things. Back-ups mostly, but nothing I can’t … Shit. Shit shit shit.’

‘Your speech for tomorrow?’ She guessed. Right and wrong.

‘No, no, it’s fine. It’s here.’ He pointed to the computer. Just kids. That was all it was. They’d dump it. They wouldn’t have any idea, couldn’t possibly understand the importance. Richard looked down
at his wife, who gave him her ‘Oh well, it isn’t going to kill us is it?’ look, which so far had proven accurate. Still, you only get to slip up once.

‘Well, happy birthday eh? I should have brought food back with me.’

‘I’ve ordered from Jonty’s.’

‘I should have done that.’

‘You’re wet through. Run a bath. It’ll be half an hour, they said. Red or white, or are you done for the night?’

‘No, of course not. It’s your birthday. Ah, white.’

The bathroom mirror steamed over, the polite thing to do. Richard rubbed a space clear and regarded his ageing body. It was a sort of punishment, this kind of truth. He wondered what the heavy feeling in his heart was, and why he couldn’t shift it. Could it be the first glimpse of that perimeter fence which must not be mentioned? A greeting. Not today, it said, but not never. Not any more.

Richard looked closer at the body he hardly recognised. It was still a shock to him, that time could grow another self and place it so ingeniously over the body of the man he felt inside. A disappointment. There was hair now, in places where hair had never grown. It encroached like weeds in a garden. His skin was patchy and put upon by gravity: too many meals enjoyed, too few steps taken. His muscles had retreated in modesty, and when he pinched a fold of flesh at his arm, it recovered only slowly. This is what it means to be alive, Richard thought. To decay. And this is what it means to be human. To watch. To be aware.

The water was warm, the world offering a gentle apology. He leaned back, closed his eyes, and saw William’s beaten face hanging Banquo-like before him. Accusing him of what? Comfort. Of becoming comfortable. There was a time when that had seemed the greatest of crimes. But he was warm and food and wine awaited him. They would lock the doors tonight. Comfort seemed not
criminal but reasonable. He would hold his form a little longer. He would not fade away.

They ate in front of the fire. Good food, delivered to the door by a local restaurant, in a suburb where wise investments came home to roost. They drank good wine, a bottle he had been given by a supplier at the lab. They talked about William. Elizabeth had questions Richard could not answer, about the protest. It was her talent, to find the image at the heart of any story. She should have been a painter. Instead she taught music, private lessons, piano and voice, and said she liked it well enough. Richard never quite believed her.

The late news carried a breaking story from Christchurch, where a National Front rally in support of One Nation (although how Wilson backed away from the mess he had created) had turned predictably ugly. A rumour had swept through the crowd that the Chinese boy beaten two nights before had died. It was untrue: he still remained trapped in that modern euphemism, the critical condition, but the skinheads believed otherwise. And they danced at the news. Young, drunk, ignorant: adjectival excuses paraded before Richard but he dismissed them all. They danced. Animals.

Onlookers, sickened by what they observed, hurled insults. The skinheads hurled bottles. Windows were smashed, a car turned over, and the TV crew, with hand-held Hollywood sensibility, made art of it. A reporter barely old enough for a driver’s licence, with glasses he probably didn’t need, panted into the camera, giving a melodramatic look over his shoulder as he arrived in shot.

‘Violence has erupted tonight, as the city shows off its ugly underbelly.’

A young man staggered into shot, uncommonly thin, as so many of this type seemed to be, his shaven head showing off every bump and imperfection. Like all forms of nakedness, it revealed only uncertainty. The stretched scalp brought to mind the feel of uncooked chicken skin. The boy’s teeth were crooked. Attractiveness amongst
skinheads was a rarity, as it was amongst politicians. Nature had done this angular fellow few favours. A rash of pimples high on his forehead had been incited further by the razor, and his eyes were too small to ever charm. Yet now they gleamed as he leaned forward into the camera, pulsing with his moment of power.

‘Fucking wonderful isn’t it?’ he asked the world, the opening of his sentence bleeped out by an alert editor.

‘What’s so wonderful about this?’ the reporter asked. The skinhead paused, as if suspicious of a trap. His face wrinkled in confusion.

‘It just fucking is isn’t it? Fucking nips deserve it.’

‘Seannnneeeey!’ A scream of recognition from another Fronter, as he hurtled past, pursued by two policemen.

‘White power!’ returned the interviewee, his clenched fist raised in triumph. Then it all became too much for him, and he started to giggle uncontrollably, a small child overwhelmed by the world’s attentions. The camera swung back to the reporter, who for a moment also appeared lost for words.

‘This is Andrew Collins reporting live from Christchurch, a city tonight coming apart at the seams.’

Hyperbole, of course. Richard knew this. And yet little drops of sweat formed on his brow.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah. Just a little warm, after that bath and the wine, I think.’

‘Shall we turn this off?’

‘Yes, let’s. Where’s the remote?’

The room blipped to silence and the walls became solid again. But for Richard there was no comfort to be found.

SIMON HATED THE bus. He was supposed to love it. He told people he did. He remembered once using the words romantic and real. In truth it was dirty and slow. Full of other people.