Soon (12 page)

Simon coughed and jogged down the steps onto the lawn. ‘There you are.'

David looked up at him, calm, his cigar clamped between two fingers.

‘You as knackered as I am?' Simon said. ‘I know Karen's shattered — it's the sun partly, and the big walk. It's good, but it's lethal to drink afterwards.'

‘Fatal,' David said.

‘Shall we go to bed?' Simon said.

Karen hadn't noticed David's stillness, his lack of expression. She was annoyed. ‘I'm not tired, Simon. Actually.
You
go to bed.'

David stood up and stretched. ‘Well. It's late.'

He stubbed out his cigar and shook Simon's hand, gripping his shoulder and looking into his eyes in the way that moved Simon. He was understood. David cared about him, they shared something.

‘Goodnight Karen,' David said, and moved neatly away as she positioned herself for a kiss on the cheek. He glanced at Simon again, the look of charged complicity.

The Lamptons stood alone together on the lawn. Above them the rotund moon, like a button made of bone.

He wanted to say,
you stupid, stupid woman.
To think she could gain something with David by criticising Roza. But she was massaging her temples, looked exhausted and crumpled, and vaguely troubled, as if she sensed she'd misjudged something, and he felt sorry for her; she wasn't equipped to deal with these complicated people, his poor, straightforward, innocent Karen.

These people.
He stood looking out at the sea, the moonlight on the vast, moving stretch of water. She'd tried to ingratiate herself, she'd wanted to flirt; as Ford had said, she had a crush on him with the power, but there was something else — in her dim-witted way she'd been trying to make a point about herself and Elke. She was saying, ‘I love my children and I love Elke.
I
would never give her up.' But it was a point made at Roza's expense and David wouldn't tolerate it.

‘Come on, let's go down the beach. Look how beautiful it is.'

She consented, still grumpy, and they walked slowly through the grounds, out the gate and along the path through the dunes, taking off their shoes to feel the cool, sliding sand, down to the water's edge.

They didn't talk. She was thawing out, put her hand on his arm, but he was thinking about David. Karen had been shut out just then, but the channel between David and Simon had lit up. He felt a thrill from it, as if he'd been blessed, and it made him feel merciful. He put his arm around her.

The entire court, including the Cock, was nervous around David. Even Ford's silence was a kind of wariness. The only people who behaved like David's equals were Simon and Roza. It was a fact Simon secretly contemplated, hoarded to himself like money in the bank: that he'd been singled out as the friend of the country's most powerful man. He had achieved the position by straightness. He'd never ingratiated himself or played power games. He was the only one who argued with or contradicted David, who treated him without reverence. He felt he'd been tested by the friendship, he'd held his nerve and been rewarded, and he was thrilled.

And he knew what David had just signalled to him. No matter what blunders Karen made, Simon's place was safe.

They went back up to the Little House. He steered her through the gate. Ford was sitting on the veranda.

‘Let's go to bed,' Simon said.

‘Would you mind,' Karen said, ‘not putting on that tone. Like you've just been given a prize by the headmaster.'

He was suddenly angry too. ‘Don't blame me if your little chat didn't go the way you wanted.'

‘What d'you mean by that?'

‘Trying to ingratiate yourself. I heard you. David didn't like it, and now you're taking that out on me. Because you're pissed off with yourself, and you've had a few drinks.'

‘You patronising shit.'

Simon stumbled on the uneven path and lurched sideways. Pain stabbed through his knee.

‘You all right?'

The pain made him angrier. ‘See, I treat David like an equal. You're all either flirting or grovelling. I have his respect.'

Ford's deep voice came out of the dark. ‘You sure you're not bending yourself into whatever shape he wants?'

It wasn't worth answering. Disgusted with them both, Simon left them on the veranda and limped off to bed.

Rage

At six in the morning he put his feet on the floor and winced. He tried again after an hour; the pain was sharp. Karen was restless and sighing, looking for the cool side of the pillow; she would be hungover, she couldn't drink much without suffering the next day.

In the hot bathroom, sun already shining through the blind onto the wood panelling, little thumps and scrapes of birds squabbling on the roof, he hitched his heel on the edge of the bidet. The knee was swollen but not too dramatic and he decided to ignore it, taking his towel and limping out into the bright morning. The air was still and pure, and the pine-covered hill at the end of the beach stood in sharp outline against the perfectly clear sky.

Dwayne came around the corner of the pool house carrying a clipboard and a coffee mug. Trent and Shane were conferring at the door of one of the equipment sheds; Troy had set a portable stereo on the concrete and was listening to rap music while stacking a pile of orange life jackets. From across the grounds came the sound of an early morning tennis match.

It was already warm in the dunes, and it felt good wading into the sea, the water soothing his aches, lifting his spirits. He swam beyond the breakers, looking along the sweep of coast. The sand was damp after the high tide, a crowd of oystercatchers browsed along the water's edge and a fishing boat headed into the estuary, sending up spray as it chugged against the outgoing current.

He sank under the water, a million bubbles rising around him; he listened to the sea. He thought about Ford and Karen. His anger had subsided, he was magnanimous. Karen, ridiculously, tried to patronise him, and Ford couldn't stop treating Simon as his inept, dreamy little brother. But they were both naïve, and neither was equipped to handle Rotokauri. He would forgive them, protect them.

Roza emerged from the dunes with Garth. They talked on the beach, the trainer giving a long-winded exposition, then set off towards the northern end, slowly jogging.

And now he saw Elke, in white bikini, a white towel turbaned on her head and sunglasses with white rims. Shading her eyes with a languid hand, little movie star . . .

‘Like them? Mum says they're too short but Roza says they're cool.' Elke clicked the seatbelt, leaned back and hiked her feet up on the dashboard.

‘Yeah, nice,' he said, glancing at her incredibly brief shorts. ‘Get your feet off.'

He'd tried to be positive about the knee but it was bothering him now, not just the ache but the frustration that he hadn't been able to go for a run. He'd got addicted to exercise. A run out to the Kauri Lake in the heat left him spent, satisfied, fulfilled. Jogging was good drugs. It was also a preventative measure: against anger.

Now he thought, Why the anger? He dealt with it every day. Jogging, sex, work, drinking/not drinking — all were strategies for controlling his anger. He hadn't seen it clearly before.

‘Feet,' he said.

‘Yeah, yeah.' She searched in her bag. ‘Want some gum?'

He took a piece. Father and daughter chewed silently as he drove towards the gate. She blew a bubble, popped it with a cracking sound, waved at Ray, who raised his forefinger, butch, expressionless. Simon had noticed this about Elke: she made men snap to attention. Their eyes followed her. She seemed unaware of this. She had Roza's unaffected presence; it was one kind of charisma.

‘What you got planned?' he asked her.

‘Shopping!'

His girls and their differences. Claire: acutely sensitive to every nuance. Her quickness and blushes and sudden rushes of mirth, her infinite capacity for taking offence. She was too sensitive to act natural, she was so busy reacting
.
She noticed everything, could be shrewd, was intolerant of human failings, had a strong sense of justice. Was scathing about her mother and yet wanted to be loved. Hard for Karen to love a daughter whose capacity for contempt was limitless. During a recent row Claire had looked thoughtfully at Karen and said, ‘The Hallwrights. They couldn't care less about you. You know who they care about? Each other.'

‘Oh fuck off,' Elke now said to her phone, genially chewing, texting. She was regularly stalked by suitors.

‘Some boy?'

‘Hm. How shall I play this?' She was able to text without looking.

He said, ‘Marcus seems to be acquiring quite a collection of girls.'

She rolled her eyes. ‘I know! God.'

After a moment she said, ‘I talked to Mr Cahane.'

‘Did you.'

‘He watched me have my tennis lesson with Garth.'

Simon frowned. He would have enjoyed that, the bastard. Elke bouncing around in her little white skirt. He'd seen her going off with Garth that morning. Escorting his pupil across the grounds the trainer had looked censorious, as if he wasn't going to be distracted by all this feminine glamour, and Simon had thought, Good. Garth's gay. Garth and Dean: it's David's arse they're after.

He shifted in his seat, his knee burned.

‘We went for a swim. I needed to cool off, it was boiling.'

‘You went for a
swim
with Cahane.'

‘What's wrong with that?'

How to explain the wrongness. ‘He's a . . . strange person.'

‘Whatever. He's really nice. Actually.'

‘What did you talk about?'

‘He asked about the family, about me and Mum and Roza and David and you.' She sent another text.

Simon swore, braked, swerved.

‘Dad. Slow down.'

He eased his foot off the accelerator. ‘You should be careful what you say to people about private stuff. I've told you that.'

‘Whatever.'

‘I don't mean Cahane, but other people, strangers. People make things up. They get some real details for authenticity and then twist them.
Will you make up your mind
.' He tooted his horn at the car ahead. An arm emerged from the driver's window, an emphatic finger.

‘God, Dad. Relax.'

Elke had taken her feet off the dashboard and was sitting up straight.

Simon glanced at her. ‘Sorry.'

‘What's that noise?'

He listened. ‘What noise?'

‘That kind of thumping. Like there's something banging in the engine.'

‘I can't hear anything.'

After a while he said, ‘I tripped last night, did something to my knee. I wanted to go for a run this morning, it was no good.'

‘Mm.'

‘I might have to get it X-rayed.' He flexed his hands on the wheel. ‘So. You're moving into the big house.'

‘Johnnie wants me to. Roza says all he wants is me and Soon and Starfish. It was her idea. She said she was sick of him asking for me.' She looked pleased, hiked her feet up on the dashboard again. ‘Hey, you know what old Cahane asked me? What I'm going to vote.'

‘What did you say?'

‘I said, God, I don't know. I probably won't bother.'

‘You have to. It's important.'

‘But I don't care.'

‘It affects everything, who's in government.'

‘Well, I'll vote for David then, but honestly, I don't care.' She added, amused, ‘Anyway, Cahane went on like you, saying it's important to vote and I said OK, you've convinced me, I'll vote for
you
. He liked that.'

‘I bet he did. Sounds like you were flirting.'

‘With that old man? Anyway. You know what Claire says? You vote for the one you'd go out with.'

He thought about it. ‘That's only a political test if you're political. If you're like Claire or Ford and you'd be turned off by someone who doesn't have the same opinions. Whereas Roza says she's not political, so . . .'

‘
Whatever
.'

He waited, then said, ‘We'll be hoping you come back.'

‘From the big house? Why does it matter where I sleep?'

‘It doesn't. Course.'

‘Johnnie is actually my brother. My
real
brother.' Her tone was wronged, self-righteous — unusual for her.

‘He is indeed. Good. It's important.' It cost him something to add, ‘You and Johnnie look alike.'

She was texting again and Simon, speeding up the passing lane, took advantage of the space to get ahead of four cars. Gaining his place in the queue just as the lane narrowed, he powered over the ridge and coasted down the long straight. When he was young, he and his friends, coming back from trips up north, had used this hill to compete for speed records; surprising they survived in the old cars they used to drive, rusty bombs that overheated and broke down, the old Ford Cortina so dilapidated the bottom was falling out of it, he'd ended up selling it for scrap.

They were on the motorway, the city ahead of them. They crossed the Harbour Bridge to the jittery flashes of light from the hundreds of white masts in the marina, rigging and flags and cables blowing in the breeze, sun moving on white hulls, the wake of a ferry a pure white V in the blue. Cars moving on the marina road, cars heading up onto Shelly Beach Road, up onto the Southern, movement but no sound except the roar of the air conditioning.

He said, ‘I've just remembered a dream. I was trapped in a train station, there was a terrorist attack. A guy stood in a doorway and killed a woman. He stood there with her dead at his feet, then he slammed the door. The funny thing is, him slamming the door was more scary than the killing.'

‘Weird,' Elke said.

‘Why was that, you think?'

He remembered the violence, the speed, the finality of the slam. The closed door. He'd woken in a sweat.

‘Maybe you had one of your headaches.' She received a text. ‘Can you drop me in Newmarket?'

‘Going to be a big shopping session, is it?'

‘Yes — pooh, can you smell that?'

‘I can actually. Burning rubber.' He peered at the dials on the dashboard.

‘I hope you're not about to blow up, Daddy dearest.'

They drove the rest of the way in silence. He dropped her off, watched her sauntering away, still texting. She was beautiful and droll and unknowable and he felt the weight of loving her.

As he pulled away there was a pinging from the dash and a red light came on. He caught the faint smell of burning rubber again.

It was still early so he drove home to check on Claire. She was out on the deck, the table covered with notes, a laptop, empty cups. Before heading to his surgery he sat down with her and had a coffee, asked how the studies were going. He told her about his dream. He was still wondering why all the fear was in the slamming of the door.

She said, ‘Maybe because it seemed arbitrary, irrational. Harder to make sense of. It meant he could attack again without warning. You wouldn't see him coming and you wouldn't be able to reason with him. Lack of communication is scarier than violence. Or makes violence scarier.'

He gave her an affectionate little punch on the arm. ‘The strange thing is, the brain constructs the story — creates the fright with one part of itself in order to scare the other part.'

She tilted back her chair, yawned. ‘And then spends a whole lot of conscious energy working out what its own story actually means.'

He thought about this, looked at the crooked parting in her fair hair, her freckly, pleasant face. Her nose and jaw were shaped like Ford's and she'd inherited Simon's ungainly figure, worse luck, his shapeless legs, big bum and heavy bones. No, she wasn't beautiful like Elke, but her eyes were lovely: striking and full of clear intelligence. She could stare you down. He thought: eyes like a physicist. You see a physicist interviewed on some TV documentary, he'll have those searchlight eyes, those lamps.

He said, ‘Who are you going to vote for next election?'

Amused curl of her lip. ‘Not the rich prick.'

‘What's his being rich got to do with it?'

She hesitated. ‘I talked to David about politics.'

‘I know, you asked him about “third-world diseases”.'

‘There was that, but there was another time, when you and Mum weren't there.'

‘Oh God. How did that go?'

‘It's strange. He's not political. It's like, with him it's personal. Don't you find it weird that they don't talk about politics at Rotokauri? There's just a stream of inanity about movies and tennis and workouts. They talk about what's happened on
CSI New York
. They're totally anti-intellectual. Don't you die of boredom?'

Simon sighed. ‘They don't conduct business at the dinner table, no. They run the country, then they go and have dinner and unwind.'

‘But it's so unsatisfying — it's all wrong. There's no ethics, the only thing they worship is money. They're not Conservative or conservative or anything. And with David, there's all this stuff going on underneath. He . . . hates something. He wants to kill something in himself.'

‘He probably wants to kill you.'

She ignored this. ‘There's a reason why you and he fit so well together.'

‘What's that then?'

‘For one thing, he's in love with you. Or he loves the idea of you. Wants to be like you, maybe. But Dad,' she turned serious. ‘I worry.'

‘Oh, do you now.'

‘Roza. She and Mum are best friends, right. They do everything together. But Roza . . . she hates Mum.
Hates
her.'

‘Oh come on.' He thought,
You
hate her. Don't project your own feelings on others.

She said, ‘I worry. Because—'

‘You're imagining it. Roza's good friends with Karen.'

‘No. You're wrong.'

He sighed. ‘Why would Roza hate Karen?'

‘Elke.'

He thought of Ford, and Aaron. Aaron's genetic legacy: suspicion, paranoia. The old man was so minutely attuned to undercurrents that it killed off all his spontaneity and generosity. Simon thought, Maybe the less sensitive you are to signals from the animal kingdom, the easier it is to love and be loved.