Harlequin Rex (3 page)

A
great
staircase
leading
from
the
hall,
a
landing
at
its
turn
with
a
green
and
red
poppy
plant
window,
and
the
stairs
 
then
again
angling
up,
up.
He
would
sit
and
rock
on
the
landing
when
he
should
have
been
in
his
bed,
and
listen
to
the
voices
below.
The
landing
was
a
halfway
house,
a
fringe
zone,
a
no
man’s
land,
a
pushmi-pullyu,
between
the
up
and
down.
The
lights
reached
just
that
far
from
below
and
the
dark
encroached
that
far
from
above.
He
would
rock,
and
hold
the
smooth,
wooden
leg
of
the
stair
rail
until
it
was
egg
warm
beneath
his
arm.
If
he
held
on
and
leant
far
back
with
tipping
head,
he
could
see
the
oval
landing
window,
which
was
almost
black
unless
there
was
a
moon
behind
it,
and
in
its
darkness
was
the
glimmer
of
the
poppy
caught
in
the
faintest
hall
light,
as
a
goldfish
gleams
with
indistinct
allure
in
a
brown
lily
pond.

The
life
downstairs
was
trivial
and
transient,
no
doubt:
neighbours
in
for
birthday
drinks,
an
election
night
get-
together
,
former
friends
passing
through
the
district
once
again,
his
mother’s
committee
to
make
submissions
on
the
beautification
of
reserves.
Nothing
of
significance;
nothing
of
remembrance
beyond
the
time
of
it,
unless
recalled
hazily
from
a
diary
entry,
or
more
emphatically
because
linked
with
incident
—
Tommy
Concoran’s
heart
attack,
lightning
striking
the
woolshed,
Dot
Maddox
seeing
the
risen
and
glowing
Christ
walking
down
Hotten
’
s
Spur.

But
for
David
then,
the
voices,
scents,
opening
and
closing
of
doors,
the
spilling
of
warm
light
along
the
hall,
all
had
the
enchantment
of
adult
life
of
the
night.
And
uniqueness
a
part
of
it,
because
not
set
among
street
lights,
flashing
signs,
comings
and
goings,
any
companionship
of
buildings.
Their
house,
surely,
was
the
one
bulwark
against
the
night
in
all
the
world.
If
he
stood
and
stretched
to
peer
through
the
clear
glass
lozenges
at
the
base
of
the
landing
window,
what
he
saw,
indistinct
and
restive,
were
the
macrocarpa
at
the
tractor
sheds,
the
hill
behind
flayed
with
sheep
tracks
if
the
moon
shone,
the
gully
flowing
darkness
where
the
creek
bore
water
for
the
day.

And
from
his
bed
he
could
hear
the
sound
foam
away 
from
the
great
ships
that
tossed
among
the
pines,
and
spray
on
wet
nights
was
slung
like
gravel
against
the
windows
of
his
room.
Quiet
nights,
too,
with
the
furtive
rattle
of
a
dog’s
chain,
the
punctured
cough
of
a
ewe,
the
stark
benediction
of
the
morepork
who
sees
all
there
is
to
see
without
need
of
sun,
or
moon.

In
the
yard
was
the
dog
tucker
ewe
hung
high
in
a
tree
by
the
kennels
to
beat
the
flies,
and
with
a
split
sack
to
cover
it.
His
father
would
unhook
the
rope
and
run
it
down
the
pulley,
and
swing
the
carcase
on
to
the
broad
stump
that
served
as
butcher’s
block.
The
heavy
cleaver
was
never
lifted
high,
but
bit
through
the
ribs
as
if
they
were
kindling,
and
his
father
would
throw
a
part
shoulder,
or
leg,
to
each
dog
without
moving
from
the
block,
and
each
dog
took
it
according
to
character
—
with
a
snarl
and
twist
to
subdue
it,
with
a
fawning
uncertainty,
with
a
quick
snap
and
retreat
into
the
kennel.
Usually
his
father
tossed
the
meat
with
an
odd,
backward
flip
of
his
hand,
as
a
card
sharp
deals
in
a
routine
display
of
skill.

And
when
his
father
had
gone
on
to
the
next
chore,
David
might
watch
the
dogs
eat,
the
tucker
in
the
sack
sway
high
again,
the
white
leghorns
and
the
sparrows
pick
the
meat
and
fat
from
the
cuts
in
the
stump.
In
time
it
was
his
own
turn;
with
the
same
cleaver
grown
less
mystical
and
the
stump
so
much
reduced,
and
the
dog
tucker
in
an
old
freezer
under
the
tractor
shed
overhang,
instead
of
strung
and
idling
in
the
aromatic
macrocarpa
branches.

At
nine
he
was
old
enough
to
make
mash
for
the
chooks
each
morning
before
his
own
breakfast,
while
his
father
milked
the
cow,
taking
down
to
the
fowl
house
one
bucket
half
full
of
warm
water
and
another
of
kitchen
scraps,
and
mixing
in
the
mash
meal
with
an
old
butter
pat.
There
were
wooden
troughs
in
the
runs,
and
in
the
winter
the
mash
steamed
as
he
ladled
it
in,
and
the
frozen
chicken
droppings
glittered
like
agates
in
the
first
of
the
sun.
When
he
dished
out
the
mash,
he
always
left
the
run
gates
open,
because 
there
were
some
leghorns
that
roosted
in
the
sheds
and
trees
of
the
yard,
and
they
would
come
stupidly
running,
late
for
their
share,
beaks
agape.

Nothing
of
this
is
ever
lost,
Alst
Mousier
and
Schweitzer
would
say,
though
it
may
be
inaccessible.
The
white
leghorns
run
stupidly
and
incessantly,
the
dog
tucker
carcase
sways
on
high,
the
glass
poppy
gleams
in
the
faintest
of
light.
Forever.

Pedder Culhane was the director of the Slaven Centre at Mahakipawa — the Great White Father of the place.
Everyone
said how lucky they were to have him. He’d been born in Bulls and gone on to a world reputation in some of those fearsome shape-shifters coming out of Africa: Lassa fever, Ebola, HIV. He could have stayed in any of the world’s research institutions, but he came back to Mahakipawa to do what he could against Harlequin. Schweitzer, people called him at the centre, and only partly tongue in cheek. There was pride and gratitude that someone of such ability, and with such career options, chose to be heading up things at the Slaven Centre. He had graced the cover of
Time
magazine without becoming convinced of his own divinity. He had a wife and three daughters in Wellington, and every second weekend flew out from Nelson to visit them. All other days but those, he was on call around the clock.

David saw him first on the orientation day for new staff. Three male and four female nurses, Polly Merhtens and David who were block aides, a visiting radiologist from Adelaide and a pudding-faced payroll guy from central admin. They were such a small group, that after Alst Mousier
had taken them for a tour of the facilities, and after the nurses and radiologist had displayed a deal of medical
knowledge
while Polly, David and Pudding Face added little, they were all able to fit into Mousier’s office, which was roomier than most because he was chief administrator. It was hot, and Mousier altered the slat blinds to keep out the glare of the sun.

Mousier’s secretary brought in glasses of dilute and artificial orange drink, and Schweitzer carried one too when he came. He had a candy-striped straw in his, though, and he sat on the end of the desk with easy informality, and his cheeks sucked in as he drank. Then he said, ‘You won’t have been in any place like this before, and neither have those of us you’re joining. We’re not sure at all what we’ve got by the tail here, but it’s sure as hell some sort of tiger.’

He sat amid the trays and papers on the desk, while lifeguards pursued bikini babes as screen savers on Mousier’s computer. He wore very light, blue fabric shoes and no socks. On his left ankle a vein curved over his Achilles tendon. He had a tight, nimble body and a heavy shaving shadow on his cheeks and neck. Sustenance for the follicles there was perhaps drawn by gravity, for by contrast the hair on his head had retreated to accentuate the brow.

‘The aetiology of this one is so lacking as to be both ludicrous and scary,’ Schweitzer said. ‘The pathology of it, on the other hand, is all around us, and dauntingly complex. The treatment we’re making up as we go along.’ He paused, and seemed to concentrate on an even swing of his blue shoes. ‘But that’s enough reassurance for you on arrival at Mahakipawa,’ he said. Had there been more of them for induction they would no doubt have laughed, but as it was, intimate within Mousier’s office, they smiled and leant back in their vinyl chairs.

He had presence, did Schweitzer. You didn’t listen to him long before admitting the intelligence, the concern, the quiet confidence, and only that degree of unconscious arrogance
which arose naturally from a long time living with the deference of those around him. Schweitzer himself had coined the name Harlequin, which was increasingly used for the illness, because he thought primal brain regression inaccurate and unhelpful. ‘After all, primal brain dominance, if you must. The regression is from powers more recently acquired. Over hundreds of thousands of years higher brain functions evolved which imposed control over more
rudimentary
responses, and what we seem to have in Harlequin is the failure of these later functions for some reason, and so the archaic response of primal brain, the thalamus,
hypothalamus
, limbic system, are set free again. Our original soul: call it what you will.’

‘And it’s an odd brute,’ said Alst Mousier from behind them. ‘Evolution can never go back to the drawing board. It’s had to build on what’s there.’

The sun glowed at the chinks of the blinds, Schweitzer went on to explain how the Slaven Centre worked; and all the time the primal brain, old Harlequin, was biding its time in them, and rampant within the patients they were there to help. The only difference was that, with the guests, he was already able to slip his collar and come out dancing. It never paid to bait the monkey man.

How had they all come to be there: the nurses, Polly, the Aussie radiologist, the pudding pay man? And which of David’s many poor decisions had brought him to Mahakipawa when all his ambitions had been different?

‘I hope that your choice will prove a happy one for us and you,’ said Schweitzer before he left. David noticed that he had wound the candy-striped straw around his left index finger as he’d been speaking, and that there was a slight sheen of sweat on his frontal baldness.

The
farm
was
named
Beth
Car
by
David’s
great-grandfather,
who
had
come
out
from
Wales.
It
was
near
the
head
of
the
valley,
and
Coal-pit
Road
went
only
a
few
kilometres
more
 
past
their
gate,
and
finished
in
a
trivial
reserve
where
there
was
a
picnic
area
among
the
broom
and
lupins,
a
shallow
swimming
hole
under
heavy
willows,
a
concrete
fireplace
smudged
black,
and
beer
cans
in
the
lank
grass
within
throwing
distance.
The
place
altered
little,
and
was
too
far
from
town
to
be
under
any
pressure
of
use.
Occasionally
the
Palliser
kids,
or
the
Mercers,
would
pedal
up
in
the
shimmer
of
a
summer
afternoon;
sometimes
in
the
evening
a
local
guy
would
take
a
girl
there,
the
family
Commodore,
or
Falcon,
throbbing
through
the
dusk.

The
creek
ran
through
Beth
Car,
and
the
farm
sloped
up
to
the
west,
steeper
and
drier,
although
still
with
limestone
beneath
it
which
sweetened
the
soil,
so
that
grass
came
away
quickly
with
the
rain.
The
house
David’s
great-grandfather
built
was
tucked
behind
the
macrocarpas,
close
to
the
busi
ness
of
the
farm
—
the
yards,
the
old
concrete
dip,
the
shearing
and
equipment
sheds.
The
new
house,
built
over
forty
years
ago,
was
higher
up,
to
claim
a
view
and
get
above
the
shit,
shingle
and
shout
of
the
working
area.
It
had
a
feature
stone
chimney
that
was
visible
both
inside
and
out,
and
feature
greywacke
boulders
covered
most
of
the
house
end
that
could
be
seen
from
the
road.

For
years
the
lower
house
was
used
by
married
couples.
David
had
recollections
of
them
coming
and
going.
The
Lawsons
and
Hayters
stayed
the
longest,
and
were
the
only
ones
David
remembered
well.
The
Lawsons
had
a
daughter
he
had
his
eye
on,
but,
before
David
was
old
enough
to
make
anything
of
it,
Gavin
Lawson
went
into
a
mussel
farm
partnership.

John
Hayter
bred
border
collies,
and
took
over
his
wife’s
washing
machine
for
weeks
on
end
to
make
home
brew.
She
had
a
thing
with
Stella
Jones
who
taught
at
the
Waipounae
primary
school,
and
it
was
the
talk
of
the
district
until
the
three
went
their
various
ways.
Hayter
went
to
Ashburton
and
set
up
a
business
making
mud
and
cement
bricks,
but
the
booze
got
him,
which
was
always
the
likely
outcome.

After
the
Hay
ter
s
there
wasn’t
another
married
couple.
Times
were
tighter.
David
was
old
enough
to
do
more
at
weekends
and
holidays,
and
his
father
would
also
get
casual
labour
in.
His
mother
didn’t
like
the
idea
of
renting
the
old
house
to
people
they
had
no
connection
with,
so
it
was
just
shut
up
for
a
few
years,
and
then
downgraded
by
random
convenience
to
a
storage
place.
Eventually
it
was
gutted,
and
used
for
hay
and
super.
On
winter
feed-out
days,
David
would
haul
bales
from
a
window
through
which
he
once
saw
Wendy
Lawson
inspecting
her
new
breasts.

He’d
been
out
with
the
.22
after
possums,
which
swarmed
in
the
walnut
trees
in
season,
and
he
walked
back
past
the
yards
with
the
dark,
shifting
macrocarpas
behind
him,
and
the
air
gathering
the
weight
of
night.
There,
clear
as
you
like,
was
Wendy
Lawson
having
a
look
at
herself
in
her
mirror.
She
held
her
arms
at
different
angles;
she
leant
and
turned.
It
was
as
if
she
were
trying
on
a
garment
and
liked
the
fit
of
it.
So
did
David.
Tits
of
a
thirteen-year-old,
but
shapely,
high,
the
nipples
more
pronounced
than
he
expected.