Soon (9 page)

For years he had wished her dead. ‘Why do you look at the funeral notices?' Karen would say. And there he'd be at the breakfast table, casting his eye expectantly down the columns. He had buried her, and the details of the affair: the row of tiny houses where she lived near the airport, the squalid pub they'd once visited, the quirky interior of her house, the smoky smell of her hair and skin, her primitive way of talking, her rough hands and feet. Her memory was tainted by the depression that had made him crave her kindness and her love. And here, controlled by Weeks, she was lithe and beautiful and wandered across the sand and tossed her hair and swam in the sparkling water, spoke corny dialogue and made a joke, while a young man (‘Hamish') trailed after her, yearning . . .

Weeks had called her Anahera, which means angel.

Taking the DVD out of the machine, he hid it. Sleep came again, an escape.

He woke with a crick in his neck and a dry mouth, thought his phone had rung and that Karen had called out, but there was no missed call and no one in the Little House.

Everything lay still in the heat. The tuis and thrushes had stopped squabbling at the bird table and there was a hush in the green shade under the trees, only the sound of the sea coming across the dunes and the faint drone of a car on the coast road. The teenagers were no longer shouting and splashing over at the pool. His sweaty legs peeled off the canvas of the chair and he was dizzy when he got up, lurching into the bathroom to wash his face.

He tidied himself and walked across the compound to find David holding court under the trees and Troy and Trent hovering with trays and glasses; it was a Saturday which meant, according to David's regime, they were allowed wine with lunch, although Simon hated to drink during the day, the afternoon narrowing into a tunnel of lethargy, headaches.

The Cock was holding a spray can which he squirted fitfully around his feet every few moments, complaining of mosquitoes.

Johnnie arrived with Tuleimoka. He had something to show everyone: a jar with holes punched in the lid.

‘It's a poisonous spider.' His small face was solemn, thrilled.

They all peered at the dark shape in the jar.

‘It's deadly,' the boy said, shaking the jar. ‘I caught it.' He brushed past the Cock, tipping over his glass. The Cock, mopping the table, visibly irritated, said, ‘I'm starting to feel sorry for that spider. Why don't you let it go?'

‘It's a specimen.'

‘Surely it would be more humane if you tipped it into the bushes.' A bitter, hectoring note entered the Cock's voice. He stood over the boy. ‘It's not going to be a pet. It's going to die in there.'

David watched the Cock without expression.

Roza said, ‘I think in this case my sympathies are with the human creature, rather than the animal.'

The Cock, incredulous: ‘The human?'

‘The child,' Roza said.

‘The human's not in a jar.'

‘It's Johnnie's find. His prize.'

The Cock shrugged, picked up his can of insect spray and squirted along the edge of the table.

Ed Miles said to Sharon, ‘Can you tell your husband to stop squirting me?'

‘But he seems to be enjoying it,' she said.

Ed lifted his feet out of the way. ‘He's not so high-minded about flies and mosquitoes, is he. Not all David Attenborough about
them
.'

David went back to sorting through photographs. ‘Here's a good one of you and me,' he said, beckoning to Simon. ‘Put these aside, Roza, I'm going to frame them — the one of me and Simon, this one of us and Karen, and this one of Elke and Johnnie.'

Roza, Karen and Juliet crowded around. Roza snatched one up. ‘That's going in the bin.'

There was a chorus. ‘Give us a look, no, you look gorgeous Roza, what a waste, don't throw it away.'

Ed held out his hand. ‘Can I see?'

‘No you can't,' Roza said. ‘It's terrible.' She folded it and put it in her pocket.

David said, ‘What about this one of all the four ladies together? You like that one, Ed?' He handed it over.

‘Nice,' Ed said. He looked at Karen. ‘Lovely trio.'

Karen was expressionless.

The four women looked and regretted their own hideousness and praised each other's beauty, and put the picture aside.

David said to the Cock, ‘Cahane, here are the ones Roza took yesterday — you and Sharon on the boat, you two on the beach, you and Sharon looking lovely by the pool.'

The Cock fished reading glasses from his shirt pocket and dutifully took up each print before Sharon passed them around.

‘Great,' the Cock said, bored.

David collected them and patted them into a pile. He handed them to the Cock. ‘These are all the pictures with you and Sharon in. Take them.'

There was a silence.

‘Oh, you keep them,' Sharon said. ‘Honestly, we . . .'

‘Go on. Take them. Summer memories.' He started gathering up the rest of the photos. ‘Where's the box, Troy? Let's put the rest away and have lunch.'

Trent came around with more wine, and they rearranged the chairs so lunch could be served.

Sharon and the Cock looked at each other, a flicker of anger in his face. She took out her sunglasses and started polishing them, her pale eyes vulnerable.

David said, ‘Troy, take the Cahanes' photos to their room, and can you put the ones we're
keeping
in the box — only keep these four out, because I'm going to get them framed.'

Roza said to Ed, ‘A trio is three. Not four.' She smiled at him, not nicely, and sat next to Simon. Ed pressed his thin lips together, amused.

‘Shall we have a quick lunch,' Roza said to Simon, ‘and then we could walk out to the Kauri Lake.'

‘I'd like that,' he said. Glancing at Ed, he felt guilty. ‘We should ask Karen if she wants to come.'

‘Of course. But she and Juliet are going to town, to buy sports bras.'

‘OK,' Simon said. Happiness. Simple treats: lunch, exercise in the burning sun, Roza's company. To live in the moment, to look after the body; it was very good.

‘I had a look at
Howard's End
,' Roza went on. ‘I've found a copy if you want to read it. There's a bit in the introduction about the affair between poor little Bast and Miss Schlegel. It says critics of it as a plot element — who included Forster's mother; she was
shocked
by its impropriety — have “perhaps forgotten how sympathy given and received can take an erotic turn”.'

Simon vacantly rattled the ice in his water glass. He cleared his throat.

‘Possibly true,' he said.

Ford

On their way to the gate they met Ford, who was carrying a sports bag with a broken handle. He looked shy shaking Roza's hand. He was tall, rangy and pale; his big blue eyes and bony face raised a memory of Simon and Ford's father, Aaron. His outfit — khaki shorts and running shoes — made Simon feel prissy and twee. He eyed him, irritated; couldn't the stupid bugger have made an effort? He loved him and wanted to protect him, but Ford was always big brother: tough, inscrutable, spiky, mocking.

‘Will you come?' Roza was saying. ‘We'll show you the Kauri Lake. It's beautiful.'

‘Sounds good,' he said. ‘Just need to dump my bag.'

In the shade of the veranda, Tuleimoka and Johnnie were lying on grass mats, playing ludo. Tuleimoka was singing hymns. She was teaching Johnnie to sing. She also told him about Jesus and read him Bible stories, to make up for his parents' ungodliness.

They stowed Ford's bag and Roza tried to persuade him to stop at the kitchen and get some lunch from Jung Ha.

‘Had a pie on the road,' he said.

Playing the rough diamond, Simon thought. It was the way Ford acted when he felt at a loss. He could come across as a complete yob; you'd never know he was a university academic.

They passed Marcus and the Gibson boy sunbathing on the grass with the three girls. Simon noticed his son's hand resting on the nearest girl's brown thigh.

Beyond the gate the road was sheltered from the sea breeze and the heat was intense. Roza walked between the two brothers. ‘Johnnie thinks God's a big Niuean,' she said.

‘He might as well be,' Ford said.

‘Well, I don't think God's anything. Which shocks Tuleimoka. Islanders are so churchy.'

Ford said, ‘She's got a beautiful voice. Out where I live there's a Pasifika church — all the women in their white Sunday dresses, big hats. You can't believe the singing.'

‘I like her speaking voice too,' Simon said.

‘But you don't run into many Islanders where you live,' Ford said.

Simon smiled. ‘They do the cleaning, the ironing.'

Silence. Simon added, winding him up, ‘The driving, the gardening.' He thought, This is like lancing a boil.

Ford said, ‘They're struggling out where I live. Thanks to your friend's fuck-the-poor agenda.'

Simon said, ‘Here he goes.'

‘Tuleimoka's so annoying,' Roza said. ‘She thinks I'm a bad mother.'

‘Roza's ignoring me,' Ford said.

She touched his arm. ‘No I'm not.'

Simon returned his brother's stare. The burning eyes, the thin face — Aaron Harris. He thought he was calm but suddenly his throat closed over.

‘OK?' Roza said. ‘Are we done?'

Ford kept staring for a moment. ‘Yeah,' he said.

At the lake Ford walked along the edge, pushing the long raupo stalks out of the way. ‘Beautiful place,' he said.

Roza sat down on a log and took off her sandals to soak her feet in the water.

‘You going in?' Ford called.

‘No.' She said to Simon, ‘When I was about ten I was swimming in a lake and a big eel got hold of my ankle. I screamed.'

Ford had taken off his shirt and shoes and was wading in.

Simon sat next to Roza and slipped off his shoes, watching his brother. ‘Jesus. What a nature boy.' Ford had changed since Emily had left him. He used to have a sweet tooth and a big heavy frame; now his body was hard and muscular.

They watched him launch into the water and swim towards the middle of the lake with smooth, even strokes. The summer light shone, hurtingly bright. Simon said, ‘What you said about sympathy given and received . . .'

‘Taking an erotic turn. Respectable Miss Schlegel and lowly Mr Bast.'

‘Yeah. Them.'

‘Is this about your affair?'

Simon held up his hands, nervous. ‘Not so loud.'

Ford was swimming backstroke. Roza said, quiet, ‘So he lives alone, does he?'

‘He's been unlucky. After his wife died he lived with Emily. She had a daughter, but he's got no kids, which is sad; he should have some, he'd be a good father.'

‘Big eel out here,' Ford called.

‘I knew it. I hate them!'

He came wading in, water streaming off his strong thighs. The shorts sagged on his arse; he hitched them up. Simon looked at his own brand-new shoes placed carefully on the bank, clean, just the odd fleck of mud. Ford's aggravating grin and sagging pants got to him. There'd always been a provocative side to their father. His alcoholism grew out of defiance and rebellion: he lived in a world he didn't make. Ford's hair was slicked down wet and Simon saw Aaron's ugly head; the big, intelligent, vulnerable forehead; the burning pale eyes. Aaron had been musical and mathematical, intelligent and thwarted, all his life a taxi-driver, his talents wasted, stewing in failure and rage and booze. Simon couldn't remember how old he was when he first perceived the blackness in Aaron. He had loved Aaron and nothing had come back.

When he looked at his brother, something savage opened in him. But, he thought, I was protected by being younger, and by Ford. I should be grateful for that. Simon knew there'd been something in their father so hurt and bewildered that all he could do was defy the world, stick up two fingers. It had made Aaron low, ungenerous, a liar; it made him turn away rather than help anyone; it made him grandiose, and finally degenerate. Ford wasn't like that. He was solid; he didn't turn away from the world. He only looked like Aaron; you could say that was his cross. Did he shrink from the mirror some tired, hungover mornings, see a ghost in his own eyes?

‘I like this place,' Ford said. He sounded happy.

Simon slipped on his shoes. Ford dragged his T-shirt over his head. Big wet patches formed on his back and shoulders. He roamed ahead through the reeds, slashing at them with a stick, his shoelaces untied.

‘Herons,' he said, pointing at a graceful pair, motionless against the green bank.

Ford crashed his way through the reeds, and they followed him. All his young life Simon had followed Ford, before he'd got himself set up, married Karen, gone his own way. Ford had told him to try for medical school. He'd told him to wash his hands, not steal things, be kind to animals, don't let anyone make you do things you don't want to do.

‘Are we lost?' Roza said after a while. They were in a green world, waving stalks, the burning blue sky. The reeds had given way to high grass and scrub. It was hot, there was a sharp, peaty smell and the ground squelched underfoot. They slapped flies away from their faces.

‘We'll join up with the track,' Ford said, whacking with the stick.

Simon stopped. ‘We're going the wrong way.'

‘No we're not. Look at the sun.'

‘Fuck the sun — the track's back there.'

‘We need Ray,' Roza said. ‘Ray and his GPS.'

‘We don't need anyone — look.' Ford pointed with his stick. ‘See those cabbage trees? They're growing along the fence we climbed over that runs north–south — we cross it, and that'll take us to the track.'

Simon's shirt was sticking to him. ‘I don't think so.'

Roza wiped her forehead. ‘Aren't we going away from it?'

‘Trust me,' Ford said.

They wallowed on. Simon stuck his foot in a bog, and his new shoe came up soaked and brown.

At the cabbage trees they allowed Ford his moment; the track was exactly where he'd said it would be. Simon said, ‘I've wrecked my shoe.'

They followed the track to the road and then walked into the valley, past the little wooden houses. Roza picked handfuls of long grass and fed the thin white pony. Simon and Ford sat on the side of the road, watching.

Simon said, ‘You've got to be polite to Hallwright.'

Ford looked sideways. ‘What are you these days? His right-hand man?'

‘We're friends. Good friends. It just happened.'

‘Did you vote for him?'

‘What if I did?'

‘He takes from the poor and gives to the rich. He's anti the welfare state that nurtured him. He's the soft face of a very right-wing agenda. You've seen the way he goes all dreamy when he talks about money? It's his god.'

Simon sighed. He scraped at his muddy shoe.

‘When did you start hanging around with the fascists?'

Simon took off his shoe and wiped it on the grass. He said, ‘Presumably you're going to partake of the fascist barbecue and the fascist wines, and the luxurious fascist bed they've made up for you?'

‘I had to come. Voice of reason. Persuade you to defect.'

Simon lay back on the grass. ‘I didn't vote for him.'

‘That's no excuse. Karen thinks you did. They all think you did. So you might as well have.'

They watched Roza leaning close to the pony, whispering to it.

‘You should go out to South Auckland,' Ford said, relentless. ‘Then you'd see.'

‘What do you know about South Auckland?'

‘At least I think about it.'

‘Great. You think about it. I've done more than that.'

Ford looked sharp. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Nothing. Forget it.'

Ford let out an amused grunt. ‘What is it you're not telling me?' he said.

Simon hesitated. ‘Only that a few years ago I was depressed.'

‘Weren't we all.'

‘No. Clinically.'

‘Clinically. What happened?'

‘I nearly went off the rails.'

Ford looked him over, his eyes lit. ‘So?'

‘That's it.'

‘But now you're all right. Fit and healthy. Worrying about your thousand-dollar shoes.'

‘Yes. I'm all right now.'

Ford looked serious. ‘But you've lost something.'

Simon groaned. ‘Ah, give me a break.'

Silence. Roza farewelling the pony with a pat on its flank, its slanting shadow black on the field. She closed and latched the gate.

Ford said, ‘When we were kids they used to leave you with me. Hours and hours following you around. Steering you away from things.'

They watched a dog crossing the paddock towards Roza.

‘It was such a drag.'

Simon laughed.

Ford said, ‘I could do with a fascist beer. Swim in the fascist pool.'

‘Come on then.' Simon shaded his eyes. ‘That dog.'

‘Yes,' Ford said, and they both started running.

It was coming at Roza, its body low, growling. Standing still, she looked at them, her mouth turned down. It was a male, a bad breed, massive head and jaw, long-legged, heavy, huge balls, a bald scar patch on the side of its head. It was crouching, coming forward as Roza backed away.

‘Distract it?' Simon spoke low.

‘OK. Same time.'

Ford shouted. ‘Hey! Hey!' The dog turned to them, then back to Roza. It advanced on her, snarling.

‘Shit. It wants her.'

The dog started barking, strings of saliva coming off its teeth and jowls. They ran, shouting, Ford waving the stick, slashing with it, and the dog veered sideways, trying to plant itself to face them, confused, Ford brought the stick down on its head, it let out a high-pitched bark and Simon saw Roza skimming up the bank, holding her skirt around her thighs. The dog got hold of Ford's stick and wrenched it, Simon whacked its head with his shoe and overbalanced, falling on the grass, the stick broke and Ford jabbed the dog on the nose with the broken end. It yelped and ran away, disappearing into the scrub.

Roza was standing at the top of the bank, her hands over her mouth, laughing.

‘Very funny,' Ford said. He reached to give Simon a hand. ‘Got your shoe, mate?'

They walked out of the valley. Roza said, ‘Here comes Ray, caught up at last. Don't tell him about the dog. We'll never get rid of him.'

‘He could have shot it for us.'

‘Bodyguard, is it?' Ford said, looking Ray up and down.

Simon laughed.

‘What?' Ford said, a half smile.

They joined Ray on a path that ran through the beachside properties, down to the dunes. The beach was dotted with small groups of swimmers and sunbathers, the air rippling above the hot sand. Roza shaded her eyes. ‘Who's along there, Ray?'

‘Kids. Marcus. Girls. Mrs Cahane, Mrs Miles, Mrs Lampton; the others I'm not sure.'

On the beach directly below the Wedding Cake, women were sitting under striped umbrellas, kids were ranging about, Troy was coming out of the dunes carrying a chilly bin. There were a couple of vans parked above the dunes, big men pacing, watching.

Simon recognised Peter Gibson from the marina and his girlfriend Janine sprawled on the sand next to Sharon Cahane. A man walked out of the sea and stood on the wet sand, energetically towelling his hair.

‘Here come Tulei and Johnnie,' Roza said. But Simon was looking at the man drying his hair. A young man, thin and dark. They got closer. It was Arthur Weeks.

Roza introduced Ford. Sharon Cahane gave him a long, considering look. ‘You're a lot like Simon. Only taller.'

Simon let out a breath. The young man wasn't Arthur Weeks.

The women were inspecting Ford. ‘He's bigger,' Juliet said. Little simper, soft look.

Karen rolled her eyes.

‘Older,' Ford said.

Juliet shook Ford's hand; the bracelets on her freckly arm jingled, she tossed her hair, turned her head on one side. Simon was surprised. He saw Ford as a stranger might. Slimmed down, he was impressive — tall, muscular and broad-shouldered, with those penetrating blue-grey eyes.

Ford stooped to kiss Karen, who said, cold, ‘Hi Ford, how are you?' and looked away. She'd argued against this: how could they have him here, even for a day, it would be unfair to the Hallwrights, Ford was eccentric, rude, hopelessly left-wing. But the visit was actually Roza's doing. One night, sentimental after a few wines, Simon had expanded on Ford's misfortunes, the death of his wife May, his new partner Emily's abrupt departure. Roza and David had immediately said, ‘Invite him to Rotokauri.' Simon would have forgotten about him, but Roza kept bringing it up: ‘When are we going to have your poor brother to stay?'