Settlers' Creek (7 page)

‘Sure.’

Box kept one arm around Heather as they both followed Liz through into the kitchen. The man in the suit was sitting at the breakfast table with some papers spread out in front of him. There was a plunger of coffee on the table next to a plate with a neat pyramid of scones. The man stood and Box saw how some crumbs, which had fallen into the lap of his suit, landed on the kitchen floor. The funeral director held out his hand and Box shook it.

‘Mr Saxton. It’s good to meet you. I’m Bevan Rogers.’

‘Box. Everybody calls me Box.’

The funeral director’s smile thinned slightly. ‘Box. Is that a nickname?’

‘It’s what everyone’s called me since I was a kid.’

‘Box, then. I’m very sorry about the circumstances. The suicide of a young person is probably the most difficult situation for a family to deal with.’

Box only nodded. No shit, Sherlock. And then wondered why he was already angry at this guy. Liz had called him in to make things easier. He was just doing his job.

The three adults sat down at the kitchen table but Heather remained standing.

‘Mum?’

‘That’s fine, love.’

Box gave Liz a questioning look.

‘Two of Heather’s friends from her old school are coming here soon — Kate and Grace. They might stay the night. I said it would be all right.’

‘Fine, that’s good. It’s good that your friends are here for you.’

Heather hugged him with her arms around his neck. Her long pale hair fell in front of his face. He could smell apple and cinnamon shampoo.

‘I’m really glad you’re home, Dad.’

‘Me too. I love you.’

His big hand came up and briefly settled again on the top of her head. He was glad that he had finally found something to say to his daughter apart from the obvious lie that everything was going to be all right. She started to cry again and pulled free and quickly left the kitchen.

Box turned back to the funeral director. ‘When can I see Mark?’

The man exchanged a look with Liz. Box again got the feeling that he was the last person to turn up at the train wreck.

‘It depends on when the autopsy can be done.’

‘Autopsy? Are you serious? Why the hell does there have to be an autopsy?’

‘I’m afraid that in all cases of suicide the coroner has to conduct an investigation and make a report. An autopsy is a legal requirement.’

‘When, then? Today?’

The man looked down at his papers and noisily cleared his throat. ‘No, unfortunately. I’m sorry, but because today’s Sunday it won’t be possible until tomorrow, at the earliest. Even then it will depend on what type of backlog they’ve got.’

‘I need to see him.’

‘I’m sorry, you can’t until after the autopsy. The law is quite clear.’

‘Doesn’t someone have to identify him?’

That’s how it always was on those American cop shows, thought Box — someone had to go in and identify the body. The clear sharp thought came to him that this was all a stupid mistake. Mark must be sleeping off a hard night at some mate’s place. He’d been too pissed and too stupid to call home. Some poor bastard had died on the hills last night, but it wasn’t Mark. They would go to identify the body and it would be someone else — a boy who looked like Mark or a thief who had stolen Mark’s wallet. That must be it.

‘Elizabeth has already identified Mark.’

Box’s fantasy shattered. He looked at Liz. She hadn’t said anything about that on the phone. She was staring into her cup of coffee. Box didn’t have a clue what to say to that broadside. He couldn’t even start to imagine how that had been for her.

The funeral director was still speaking. ‘I fully expect the
coroner will release Mark’s body back to you by tomorrow afternoon, Tuesday morning at the very latest.’

Box felt the muscles in his shoulders bunch even harder than they already were. Both his hands were lying open on the table in front of him like tide-stranded flatfish. He watched them curl into fists.

‘You’re telling me I might not see my son for another two days?’

‘Probably tomorrow.’

‘Fucking hell.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said the funeral director.

‘This is hard enough without bloody red tape!’

‘Box,’ said Liz quietly. The word was a gentle exhalation that drifted between them over the table.

‘This is hard enough,’ said Box again.

‘No, it’s perfectly natural that you’re angry. I understand. Any delay is very unfortunate. You can guarantee that I’ll be talking to the pathologist to make everything happen as quickly as possible.’

‘Thank you,’ said Liz.

Box was still staring at his clenched fists. The funeral director cleared his throat again. It was a noise that annoyed Box. ‘Before you arrived, Box, Elizabeth and I were talking about the details of the funeral. We need to arrange some things today if possible. The first thing you’ve got to think about is where you want to have the actual funeral.’

‘In the bay,’ said Box immediately. ‘It should be at the church there. That’s where all my family are buried. My grandmother still has land over there.’

‘Regent’s Bay? Elizabeth already mentioned to me that you were raised there.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well then, that’s certainly one option. My thinking is that the churchyard there is where the internment would take place, with possibly just the family present. However, in my experience, it would be much easier if the actual service was somewhere in the city. I say that because …’

Box didn’t let him finish. ‘No. The whole thing should be at the bay.’

‘I was thinking that it’s a long way for people to travel.’

‘It’s only a forty-minute drive.’

‘I’ve already discussed with Elizabeth a couple of other options that are worth at least considering.’

‘Look. I don’t think anyone’s going to mind a forty-minute trip to say a final goodbye to my son. And if they do, then we don’t want them there anyway.’

The funeral director licked his lips. Box noticed again how girlish his bottom lip was: it was as though it had been stuffed, like a Christmas turkey.

The man made a scrawling note on the pad in front of him. ‘Elizabeth, do you have somewhere you’d prefer?’

‘There’s nowhere special. Regent’s Bay feels right. Mark always loved it over there.’

‘Fine. As long as you’re both happy with the choice, that’s the important thing.’

‘We’re happy,’ said Box.

‘Would you like the minister from the church there to lead the service, or someone else? Perhaps you have a celebrant who knew Mark?’

‘The minister used to be Reverend McKellar.’

Liz spoke up. ‘Mark wasn’t religious. We’re not a religious family.’

‘A minister can normally tailor the service to include as much Christian content as you’re comfortable with. I
can contact Reverend McKellar if he’s still there and you could talk to him about it.’

Box caught Liz’s eye and she nodded.

‘Okay,’ he said.

While the funeral director — Box had already forgotten the man’s name — jotted down some more notes, Box looked around the kitchen. The feeling of unreality he’d been experiencing on and off since Liz had first phoned washed back over him. When he had driven down — only what, ten days ago? — the biggest problem facing his family had been working out a budget that would see them through the next few months, until he could land a permanent job. Box had sat with Liz at this same table. Liz had a worn-down pencil, scribbling numbers into an old notebook. It had been late, close to midnight. Heather and Mark were both asleep in their rooms. As far as he remembered, all the talk hadn’t solved any of their money problems. They couldn’t budget properly on the piecemeal work he’d been getting from his contacts in the trade. Apart from Mitch, who was working for the government, most of the builders he knew who’d had their own businesses were either out of business like him or had gone back to doing small jobs: new kitchens and bathrooms and decks. They didn’t need Box. All Liz’s numbers had just made them more certain about the depth of the financial poo they were swimming in. And now here he was sitting at the same table, with the same coffee plunger, the same chip in the paint above the light switch by the back door, the dried flowers poking out of the pig-ugly vase Liz had inherited from her mother. Everything looked the same. Except, of course, instead of income and expenditure, now they were talking about the arrangements for their son’s funeral.

The funeral director coughed quietly and Box was back in the kitchen.

‘Sorry. What?’

‘I was asking if you recalled the name of the church.’

‘It’s St Matthew’s. Anglican.’

Another quick note in the little book. ‘I’ll contact the minister there and see if the church is available. And now there’s one other very important thing we need to discuss today. Before you arrived, Box, Elizabeth told me that she doesn’t want Mark’s body embalmed. Are you happy with that?’

‘I hated the way that Mum and Dad didn’t look like themselves,’ said Liz. ‘They were both like waxworks.’

Box remembered the taut grey skin, the head-hunter’s shrunken face. ‘Sure. That’s fine with me.’

‘You understand that if we don’t embalm Mark’s body, we’ll need to keep him cool, essentially refrigerated, and the funeral will need to be as soon as possible. I suggest Wednesday.’

Liz nodded.

‘Fine,’ said Box again.

Fine. Fine. Why did he keep saying that? When actually it couldn’t be less fine if you tried. Things were a million miles away from fine.

With his eyes closed, Box replayed a vivid image of his grandfather, Pop, walking down the rows of tomatoes. The old bloke is in the bottom field, probably in the late seventies, the years just before they’d had the big glasshouses built. Pop is moving slowly, wearing a black suit. It’s a sunny day.

It’s a memory he has conjured up before, one he has even talked about with Liz. His grandfather was wearing the suit and the crease-topped hat because they were going to church. It must have been right on harvest because Pop was out there first thing, checking the plants, even though it was a Sunday morning. The only things that didn’t fit with the suit were the big, black, mud-encrusted gumboots. Pop had tucked the bottoms of his suit trousers into the tops of the gumboots so that they wouldn’t get muddy. He would stop every few steps to inspect one of the tomatoes, turning it between a permanently stained finger and thumb, gently, careful not to bruise it or pull it free too soon, scrutinising it to see if it had gone over the cusp into full ripeness.

They, he and Pop and Dee and Paul, had probably walked together down from the house to the main road and then along the road to the church. It was, still is, a fifteen-minute walk. They took the farm truck only if it was raining or it looked like it might rain before the service finished. They didn’t go to church every single week, but they went most Sundays.

Box opened his eyes. He was standing at the bathroom sink. Hot water was pouring down the drain, steaming the glass on the window. He turned the tap and the water stopped.

There had been Saxtons living on the family land in Regent’s Bay for over a hundred years. His grandfather was the fourth generation to grow and harvest there. No, he thought, there was no doubt that Mark should be farewelled in the bay. That’s where he would be buried. There was no doubt.

The door to Mark’s bedroom was closed. Box stood outside in the hallway with his hand wrapped around the cold metal knob, but did not turn it.

The funeral director had left twenty minutes ago, clutching his notebook full of choices: what music to have; what flowers; what colour coffin with what handles; what price for everything. How much did a funeral cost anyway? Thousands, all up, Box guessed. And then hated himself for even having the thought.

It was the wording of the notice that was going in the next morning’s paper that had been the hardest choice to make.
Unexpectedly
. That was the word they had settled on in the end. It was a word for public consumption.

Deeply loved son, brother and grandson who died on
Saturday tragically and unexpectedly, aged nineteen
.

Box turned the knob, pushed open the door and went in. He walked over to the window and pulled the curtain back, but when only weak grey daylight fell into the room
he turned on the light. There were so many posters on the wall that they resembled wallpaper — bands mainly. Box couldn’t tell one band from another, let alone name what songs they played. The room smelled of unwashed clothes, of foot odour and sweat and testosterone, of pores that had leaked alcohol into the sheets after a hard night’s partying. The state of the room drove Liz crazy. So crazy that she never so much as looked in here.

When Mark was growing up, before puberty, when they still lived up at the old house, the kid was famously tidy. Box used to tease him about it. But then around fourteen he’d proved the cliché by transforming into some type of cave-dweller. Liz had been on his case about it. Mark had started complaining and there’d been a couple of blazing rows. In the end, Box had brokered a family meeting and they’d all somehow managed to agree that the kids’ rooms were their own private spaces to keep in whatever state they saw fit. The only thing Liz insisted on was that the rooms weren’t actually expelling debris or toxic pongs into the rest of the house. Or, as she said, ‘cultivating the next major pandemic’.

From Heather’s room, which was next door, he could hear voices. Her friends had arrived some time in the last hour and now the three of them were in low and earnest conversation. Kate and Grace were from Heather’s old school, St Mary’s College. One of the hardest parts of losing everything had been telling the kids that they couldn’t carry on at their private schools. Paying the fees wasn’t close to being an option anymore. Mark had been in his final year at his school, what Box still thought of as the seventh form. He had to stop and think about it to work out that it was now called year thirteen. The boy
hadn’t always been popular with the teachers — could apply himself more to his schoolwork, that was the refrain they got at the parent-teacher interviews. As far as Box was concerned, though, Mark was a kid who was bored by boring subjects. As someone who’d only gone to high school to eat his lunch, and who’d been out of the place himself at sixteen, Box could relate to that.

Mark did well enough in English and he was heavily involved in athletics. The two and four hundred metres were his best distances. Also, he batted at number three for the first eleven. He didn’t have a lot of friends but there were two good mates. And to Box’s surprise, in year twelve Mark had taken part in the school’s major production,
West
Side Story
. He wasn’t the lead but did a good job playing one of the street gang. Mark singing and dancing, in black T-shirt and torn jeans, moving in slickly choreographed finger-clicking formation like someone in an old Michael Jackson video. That had really been something to see. Box had sat in the school’s flash new auditorium and watched in gobsmacked amazement.

He’d seen the show three times — twice with Liz. The last time he’d gone back by himself, on closing night, without letting Mark know he was going to be in the audience. It wasn’t until the lights came up at the end that the boy had seen him.

Mark had talked about auditioning for the major production again in his final year, maybe trying for a bigger part. But then, bang, that dream was gone. Box had broken the news to them on the last Tuesday of the first term. That Friday had been their last day. Two weeks later they both started at the local state school. If Box could’ve kept Mark at his old school, and, of course, Heather too,
if there was any way, he would have. But the fees were twelve grand a year, and that was each. Fat chance.

The local high school wasn’t bad. He had kept telling himself that. The place had a newish headmaster who’d tightened things up, introduced a bit of pride, but Box knew without saying that the school was a step down: the facilities, the academic standards, the type of kids they were mixing with. Mark had taken it well, better than Heather. At least, Box had thought so.

It took Box a while to realise that Mark’s computer was gone — not the screen, that was still on the desk, but the hard drive. Among the clutter on the wooden floor was a clear space framed by a rectangle of dust. He remembered that Liz had told him the police had taken it when they came to tell her the news. Apparently, they had to look for a note. Box gazed around the room but it was impossible to tell what else the police had touched. It was the room’s natural state to look as though it had been ransacked. The bed was a whirlpool of crumpled sheets, the duvet half off. There were clothes and books and sports gear and glasses of stale water and music magazines. He suspected that if he looked closer, under the mattress, in the wardrobe, he’d find a different type of magazine. At least that’s what you would have found in Box’s room when he was nineteen. Or maybe he was showing his age. Glossy pages full of naked women were probably old hat. It was odds on that these days young men found their fantasies of easy sex online.

One of the few pieces of clothing that was actually on a hanger was Mark’s old school blazer. Box lifted it off the rail in the wardrobe and held it up. The blazer was navy-blue with a white trim around the lapel and the cuffs. On the breast pocket, below the school crest, was stitched the
word ‘Athletics’. Box ran his thumb over the raised white stitching. Mark had earned his colours by making the final in the four hundred metres at the national schools’ athletic meet. Box had been right in the thick of all the financial crap at the time, trying to control the tsunami as it rolled over his life, but he’d taken the day off anyway. He had flown to Auckland to watch Mark race.

The boy could run.

As the eight competitors came around the last bend and straightened up in the final of the four hundred metres, Box was on his feet. He was up in the stands, yelling at the top of his lungs like a drunken loon, pumping the air with his fists, his throat already hoarse from the first three hundred metres. Mark ran effortlessly, seeming to prance ahead with each push of his feet against the red surface of the artificial track, his long strides gobbling up the final fifty metres. Twenty, ten and then there were only two long, almost weightless strides left in the race. The first three runners dipped together, heads down, arms raised behind them like featherless wings.

Box watched as Mark stood on the track and sucked down the humid Auckland air. It was early evening and the big lights were on and everyone out there cast three hard shadows. There were stacked towers of white clouds blowing over the stadium, their edges in a state of constant flux. Box’s shirt clung to him in the clammy twilight. Auckland smelt of damp tropical earth and broad green leaves. The sudden rain that had briefly called a halt to proceedings an hour before Mark’s race had turned into a warm mist that came and went. The results hadn’t been posted yet. The race was close but Box was sure that Mark hadn’t won. The boy had lost it by a head, but there was
nothing between him and another boy for second place.

Mark searched Box out with his eyes. Box grinned, hadn’t stopped grinning since the starter’s gun went off, and gave him two thumbs up. Mark grinned back. One of the other runners shook his hand and then the results came up on the big electronic board at the far end of the stadium.

Second: Mark Saxton. 47.25.

Box had whooped. The people standing around him smiled and laughed. Brilliant. Absolutely bloody brilliant. Second in the country for his age. And a personal best by almost half a second.

That evening he’d taken Mark out for a late dinner. Nothing flash, just a good Thai place that someone had recommended to him. Neither of them was a great talker but the silences that occasionally hung between them during the meal weren’t awkward. Box had ordered them each a glass of beer and then, when the food was almost gone, another. The food had been good and he remembered that Mark had been hungry.

Now, he tried to recall what they had talked about but nothing came to mind. He didn’t like not being able to remember. He should be able to. The race, certainly, they must have gone over that. But what else — job prospects, his friends? No, he couldn’t be sure.

Box realised that Liz was standing in the doorway. He was still holding the blazer. He laid it down carefully on to the unmade bed.

‘Sorry, but I need to talk to you.’

‘It’s okay.’

‘I called Stephen.’

Box was surprised. ‘When?’

‘Before you got back. About lunchtime.’

‘You could’ve waited to talk to me about it.’

‘He has a right to know, Box.’

‘He’s shown no interest in Mark’s life, absolutely none. Hasn’t seen him in, what, sixteen years?’

‘He still has a right.’

Box frowned. Liz shook her head and looked down at the floor, then back up at his face. ‘Mark talked to me about maybe meeting up with him a couple of years ago.’

‘Nobody mentioned it to me.’

‘He thought it might upset you.’

‘And did he, meet him?’ Box wasn’t sure that he wanted to hear the answer.

‘I don’t think so. He just dropped the idea, stopped talking about it.’

‘Good.’

‘This isn’t helpful.’

‘Okay, sorry. So what did Stephen have to say?’

‘The normal things I guess, that he was sorry. He said that he’d come to the funeral.’

‘How did he sound?’

‘Shocked, upset. What you’d expect. I had trouble finding him, he’s changed his name from Stephen to the Maori version — Tipene. And he’s not Sullivan any more, he’s using his middle name. Now he’s Tipene Pitama.’

‘I don’t care what he’s calling himself. Do you really want him to be involved?’

Liz finally came into the room. She walked right up to him so that they were almost touching. ‘Don’t make this into some competition. There’s room in the church for whoever wants to be there. I told Stephen because he has a right. Whether he chooses to come is up to him.’

‘What exactly did you tell him?’

‘That Mark is dead.’

‘Did you say that his
son
had died?’

‘Come on, Box. What’s the point?’

Box saw that he was hurting her but he kept on, couldn’t help himself in the face of the injustice of what she was saying.

‘Did you actually tell him that
his son
had died?’

‘Stephen was Mark’s father.’

‘Not in any way that counts.’

‘That’s your opinion.’

‘Yeah, it is.’

‘Don’t pick a fight, Box. Not today.’

‘I’m not picking a fight.’ But he knew damn well that he was, just couldn’t help himself.

Liz shook her head in exasperation. ‘This is hard enough without you going all macho on me. Stephen might not even come to the funeral, but it’s the right thing to do to tell him. Box? You still with me?’

‘Sure.’

‘We need to hold it together. The two of us.’

‘I know.

She stepped into him and slipped her hands between his arms and the sides of his ribs. She hugged him with her cheek against his chest, then kissed him gently on the lips.

‘Let’s get going. There’s a lot to organise.’

Box gave a wavering crooked smile. ‘Right behind you, boss.’

Box marvelled at Liz’s strength, always had. That was what had attracted him to her right from the start. Liz
may have been five foot nothing with the body of a ballet dancer but at her centre was a rod of reinforced steel.

They’d met for the first time at a barbecue in Nelson, at the ramshackle home of a mate Box had been in the army with before he did his building apprenticeship. The guy’s name was Tom but everyone called him Thumb. Funny joke — the first two hundred times you heard it. Not that a guy with a name like Box was in a position to be critical.

Liz had been flatting with a couple of other girls in the house next door to Thumb’s place, and Thumb had invited them all over. Most of the street was there. It was a sunny day in early February and you could practically feel the hole in the ozone as the sunlight splashed down onto your skin. Everyone was outside on the deck or standing around on the lawn where grapefruit trees were dotted around, huge and shiny leaved and covered in improbably large and thick-skinned fruit. There was no wind. The smoke from the barbecue hung in the air, full of fatty marinated smells. There were kids running everywhere, bouncing on the trampoline, washing backwards and forwards in shrill colourful waves over the lawn and in and out of the house.