Opportunity (16 page)

'All set?' the agent said.

Marie did exactly what she'd intended. She took her bomb
into town, left it in the building, walked away, and succeeded
in shutting down the whole of the central city. It was the aerial
that made it so effective; this I learned from the TV news. The
police, unused to dealing with such things, refrained from
using their radios in the ensuing panic, for fear of setting the
thing off. There was chaos, evacuation, workplaces shut down.
Hours later the army arrived, and — does my memory serve
me or am I making this up? — a khaki robot, appearing on
the TV news like a jerky green reptile, trundled towards
Marie's little creation, picked it up in its metal jaws, carried it
delicately out into the street and blew it up. Boom! A small
explosion after all.

Marie walking away, her curly hair, her baby face. Her
oversized handbag, long earrings, short skirt: the unlikeliest
terrorist. Her plump shoulders used to shake with mirth, with
terrible laughter. Where was she now? Was she still 'political'?
I used to love her, even though she could be distant sometimes,
cold suddenly, then warm and generous and kind, tougher
than I was. I admired her self-sufficiency. I was soft, compared
to Marie. She was my age. Does she have kids? I think she
does. She would. She would have got them. Got what she
wanted.

You bastard, you fucking Peter Pan, why won't you tell me
you want to share a house with me, why won't you say you
want to have a baby with me, didn't we have our youth so we
could grow up, so we could
leave our childhoods behind
?

'I used to spend a lot of time in this house,' I said, and the
agent made a sound, a cluck of impatience, and stood
uncertain and annoyed while next door the youths revved the
engine again, a high note, a scream.

I went around to her place afterwards, came round here;
she was out in the garden burning evidence, like a professional
criminal. Masking tape, wires, plastic, glue, went into the
garden incinerator, Marie poking them down with a stick. I
said I'd seen a TV statement from the anti-tour group HART,
denouncing her stunt, calling for restraint. Marie laughed. I
did too. Her curly hair blew in the wind. We stood out there
in the evening light, the smoke drifting up and over the trees,
Mt Hobson on the skyline. Lights coming on in the houses on
the hillside, melancholy notes from a piano. Marie's mother's
face at the window, turning away. The incinerator, still there,
down in the garden, by the lemon tree.

The police vowed to catch the perpetrator at the time, to
catch Marie. She showed no signs of being scared. They never
did. She was clever, Marie, cleverer than I was, but she didn't
go to university as far as I know, didn't take up a career, but
disappeared into the suburbs, or to another country. I rang
her parents a few times, usually when I was a bit drunk and
sentimental and lonely at university, asking for news of her.
Once they said she was in Australia, another time she'd moved
flats and they didn't have a number. I imagined her with
children, a boy and a girl, curly hair, unreliable smiles. I
looked down at the garden, the hedge, once clipped, now
allowed to grow wild: the artistic hand of Celia Myers. What
struck me was how
long
ago it was, how long since I had stood
out there with Marie.

Peter walked out onto the lawn. I looked at him. What is it
to get pregnant without asking, consulting the man? To take
what you want, just take it. Is it opportunism? Is it theft, or
female terrorism? Is it a crime?

I look back on my marriage, searching for patterns and clues.
I think about the good times and the bad times, and I try to
work out why things turned out the way they did. Sometimes
I get an idea and decide to write it down, although I don't have
much faith in my scrawled notes. There's no point talking to
Max. He doesn't believe in analysing. 'Best to move on' is what
he says. 'No need for post-mortems.'

Last night I had a dream about our trip to Wanganui, when
we were still married and Charles was still at King's School. I
remembered how I'd loved the town, and how it seemed to
have a special flavour, particularly because of the bad thing
that had happened there. The way I dwelt on it, as if it had
been laid on as a special entertainment just for me! I see
myself, hair-trigger alert, alone, running through those silent,
dusty small-town streets. And then later, on the trip back,
something happened that made me feel — not different, but,
I don't know — more reflective. Perhaps I understood better
what the bad thing had meant to the people whose lives had
been crushed by it.

Anyway, the dream set me off thinking about that holiday.
It was high summer in Wanganui. There I was, flustered, one
eye on Max junior, the other on the local newspaper spread
out on my knees. Max lounged beside me, his gaze fixed on
Charles, who stood out on the cricket pitch, a slim, elegant
figure in the hot light, poised to deliver his killer bowl . . .

Charles was playing in a four-day cricket tournament. It
was just before the end of the school holidays, the hottest days
of the year. We'd come down from Auckland with him for the
fun of it, to see the town and stay in a motel. Charles and the
rest of the team were billeted in the dormitories at Wanganui
Collegiate. Karen and Trish's sons were playing; they'd come
with their husbands, along with a lot of other parents. They
were lined up along the edge of the field with their deckchairs
and umbrellas and picnic baskets. It was early but already it
was hot, cloudless, still. The grass was faded; the ground was
hard and dry. Simon Lampton, strenuously jolly, his nose
covered with white zinc, was handing around boxes of juice.

The parents, the milling kids. Karen and Trish waving. I,
fiddling with my glasses, looking down at the paper, pretending
not to see. I didn't want to sit with those two. I was reading
about the murder.

There were streets cordoned off near the river when we'd
driven in. It had been on the radio. A young woman, a
barmaid, had finished work, stayed for a few drinks, left the
bar and vanished. She'd been found in the Whanganui River,
floating by the bank. She was twenty-one years old.

'Slow down,' I'd said to Max as we passed. There was a
caravan set up, some policemen. Those tapes they use to
cordon off crime scenes. I see myself as if from outside, the
laden car slowing, my face pressed against the glass.

After we'd unpacked that first day I went for a walk. The
motel was by a railway line. Heat rose off the stones, the grass
was withered. I looked along the train track to where it
disappeared around a bend, the trees forming a green tunnel
over it. The streets were quiet, full of misty light. There was
hardly anyone about. In the suburban streets around Wanganui
Collegiate there was silence, hush, closed windows and gates,
streets so thickly covered by trees that the sun shone down in
thin beams of light. Empty gardens. Green shade. Walking, I
kept looking behind me. Thinking of that girl.

But it wasn't here she'd been killed, in the prosperous
suburbs around the Collegiate, but down near the river, where
the houses are small, shabby, poor — tiny workman's cottages,
ragged bungalows. These were the streets we'd seen as we
drove in. I wanted to go down there.

The police had no early leads. They were 'building a picture'
of the girl's life. A 'lovely', 'bubbly' person, she was the daughter
of regular churchgoers (Baptist). She was 'always willing to
help someone in need'. She had ambitions beyond working in
a bar. There was no regular boyfriend, but a wide circle of
friends. A popular young woman. Her parents too devastated
to comment . . .

That first day of the tournament, Max and I watched the
game for an hour or so. I finished reading the paper. 'I might
go for a run,' I said.

'It's a bit hot, isn't it?'

'Will you look after Maxie?'

'Yeah.'

Little Max settled down against his father. They looked
very alike: handsome father, white-blond child.

I said, 'You know the murder? I think I'll go and look for
clues.'

Max laughed.

'Go on, Mummy,' Maxie said. Big Max patted my leg and
lay back. I went away feeling happy.

I changed into my running clothes at the motel. The room
was stifling. I locked it and set off, across the main street and
down towards the river. The further you got from the
Collegiate, the poorer and more ramshackle were the houses.
The streets were just as empty down here. Occasionally a dog
looked up from a porch, or a figure moved between washing
lines, behind a slatted blind. I recognised the name of one
street: the young woman had lived there with her parents.
There was a tiny Baptist church on the corner, where they'd
held her angry, desolate funeral, described in the local paper.
I reached the river and stopped. The river was wide, stretching
away into a blue summer haze. I ran along the path looking
down. Somewhere near the bank, in the shade under the trees,
the body had been found, floating. I looked at the long grass
along the path, thinking I would find something. I stopped a
couple of times to look at bits and pieces lying on the ground,
knowing it was foolish yet hoping to find something, a real
clue.

A man wearing a hood passed me, his head down, his face
hidden. His hands were heavily tattooed. He turned once and
looked back, as if he'd sensed me staring. There was the black
shadow under the hood, an absence of face. He turned away,
with a flounce almost, a quick rotation of the hips, something
smooth and furtive. I checked my watch. Murderers often
return to the scene of the crime.

I didn't find the exact spot. It was too far along the river. I
came to a railway bridge. There were rowing boats and
spectators along the bank. I was getting to the end of my
strength. Max would be wondering where I was. I rested,
watching the boats. Then I turned back.

I went a different way. Three young men sat on a veranda,
their feet resting on old beer crates, silently watching me. Two
little girls played outside a rundown house, the door open, a
shape moving behind the flyscreen. Towards the main road a
van pulled out of a liquor wholesaler, nearly running into me.
I called out, 'Hey!'

The driver's shaven head sat necklessly on his shoulders.
He had a beard, a gold earring. The van's back windows were
blacked out and it was daubed with symbols: suns, moons,
stars, crosses. Painted along the side, in black Gothic lettering,
were the words Sinister Urge. The man glared, reversing out. I
saw his face behind the windscreen, reflections of leaves
sliding across it. He had missing teeth, a tattoo on his cheek.
He drove off with a dramatic little squeal of tyres.

That night in a café on the main street I was describing him
to Max. The van with its blacked-out windows, the painted
words: Sinister Urge. Imagine him parked outside a school! I
said, 'But if he was genuinely sinister, if he wanted to abduct
people, he wouldn't want to advertise it, would he? He'd drive
an anonymous car. So why just threaten people? Why does he
want to
do
that?'

'More wine?' Max said. He was trying to get Maxie to eat
his dinner. The little boy was slumped, exhausted, in his chair,
red circles of sunburn under his eyes. Max held a piece of
garlic bread under his nose. Maxie gave it a weary swipe.

'Did you find any clues?' He signalled for the waitress.

'No. I probably saw the murderer, though.'

'The freak in the van.'

'No, a guy in a hood.'

'Oh, right.'

I looked at Maxie. 'He's sunburnt,' I said.

'Well, while you were looking for
clues
I couldn't find his
hat
.'

'Oh. Sorry.'

Maxie slumped moaning into Max's lap.

We walked back up the main street under the hanging
baskets of flowers, Maxie on Max's shoulders, asleep. I looked
at his little brown leg, Max's big hand holding it.

'It's so nice to get away, out of Auckland.' I put my hand in
Max's back pocket. The town had woken up a bit. Boys cruised
down the street in low-slung cars, stereos thumping. There
were groups of teenagers. A band was setting up on an outdoor
stage. A banner behind them read: Subhuman.

'Jesus, look at them,' Max said. There were three boys,
twanging their instruments, testing their microphones in that
humourless way they do, 'Two two. One two.' Their faces were
painted, their clothes ripped. Their heads were shaven at the
sides. Dreadlocks sprouted from the tops of their heads.

Max eyed them. 'Imagine if your kid turned out like
that
.'

One of the boys had black lipstick and eye-paint; another
had his face blacked out.

'Fucking nightmare,' Max said. He hitched Maxie up higher.

'You never know,' I said. 'They might be Collegiate old
boys.'

'Over my dead body,' Max said vaguely.

One of the boys donned an oxygen mask. Max applauded.
'Oh, tremendous, that. Nice touch.'

I laughed. 'He's got quite a nice little face, the one with the
makeup.'

'Nice? God!'

We walked on companionably through the warm dark.

In the night the motel room was hot, pitch black, silent. I
woke from dreams that were loud, garish, raucous; they came at me and receded
and I lay spinning in the dark before I sensed them coming again, points of
light rushing across the blackness, a mad caravan: their flaming torches and
whirling figures, their fires.

***

The next day we went out for breakfast, then to the Collegiate
fields. Trish arrived, clambering down from her husband's
SUV. She was wearing an extraordinary outfit, all stripes and
pleats and ruffles. Maxie stared.

'I've got a red waine hangover!' she called. 'Saimon and
Karen haven't even got up yet!' She sank down next to us and
talked lazily to Max for a while.

Women liked Max: he had a kind of restless, rogue air. I
listened and smiled. I wasn't at ease with Trish; she brayed and
talked about money and never stopped fundraising and
ordering people about. What was it about her and the
Lamptons that made me uncomfortable? Their stifling
'respectability', I suppose. Deep down, some small, fierce part
of me despised the way they behaved, although I was faintly
shocked at myself. But already I was thinking of running
away, down to the river, through the hush of the Collegiate
neighbourhood, then the treeless glare of the poor streets
with their rickety fences and scruffy gardens, and finally the
river with its gorgeous misty distances, its blue beauty
glittering under the pearly sky — its beauty and what it held
within it, things hidden below the surface, terrible things.

Here came Simon Lampton trudging across the field, a pair
of fold-up chairs slung over his shoulder. He stood waiting for
Karen, who was carrying a tiny shopping bag. She told him
where to put everything. Karen and Trish talked about their
night out.

'You were a raiot. You nearly got Saimon into a faight!'

'It wasn't quite like that,' Simon said, embarrassed.

Trish let out a screech of laughter. It carried in the still air.
Out on the pitch the boys and their coach looked up. Simon
glanced at me, wrinkling his forehead. He was a big, awkward
man. He held up his hands, as though to quell the cackling
women. Max stretched out, sexy and languid on the grass. I
caught Trish eyeing him and giving Karen a look. I imagined
them over their red wines, the lewd things they'd say.

I said to Simon, 'Have you been reading about the murder?
I went down to the river, where she was found, the dead
woman. The town's different down there. It was spooky on the
riverbank.'

I stopped. Consternation in his eyes. 'The murder?' he said.

'Yes, I went looking for clues,' I said, trying to charm,
ingratiate. Oh, funny little me.

He looked pained. 'How horrible.'

'Mmm, awful. A young woman, bludgeoned to death . . .'

I was getting this all very wrong. There was a look of
revulsion on his face.

'It
is
terrible,' I said hastily. 'I'm being frivolous. Sorry.'

He gave a weak smile. Silenced, I watched the cricket. I
listened to Max murmuring with the women, his louche,
cynical chuckle. Why wasn't I horrified by the idea of the dead
girl? I just wanted to go back there. I wanted to go down to the
river and find the exact spot this time, where they fought,
where he picked her up and threw her dead body down the
bank, down into the speckled shallows.

I surprise myself. I can run faster and further than I ever
could before. I'm running away from the playing fields, genially dismissed
by Max, who doesn't mind looking after Maxie, whom he adores, released from
squawking Trish and nervous Simon, running away, down to the river. What is
it in me that wants to stand in the very spot? Is it just that I want to be
right at the point of something, anything, so long as it is at the highest,
hardest pitch of feeling? Or is it that I do not understand something that
Simon Lampton does? I remember thinking as I ran: I don't know if Max loves
me. I don't know.
How can I know
?

***

I didn't see the man with the hood again, nor the man with
the sinister van, although I looked for them, running each day
through the silent, heat-shimmering town. I loved the place;
the more I ran through it the more it turned away from me:
charming, secretive, elusive. I felt as though I were following
some important thing that I couldn't quite catch, only saw
it at the corner of my eye, fading into the leafy shadows. In
the afternoons, drugged with exercise, I watched the clouds
moving across the sky, the boys on the field, thin figures in
bright light.