The Real Thing (5 page)

It’s a funny age to have a party, fifteen. You’re too old for party games and kids’ stuff like that. But you’re a bit too self-conscious to dance. So they sat around and talked, and told rude jokes, except Tupai.

Tupai wasn’t especially tall, and his shoulders were broad like the harbour bridge. But for all that, he could dance like Michael Jackson. Jenny was quite a dancer too, and it wasn’t long before Tupai and Jenny were boogying away in the centre of the room to some band who’d just had a hit record.

A bunch of the girls who’d been invited were dancing too. There was Cherie, whose dad owned a brewery, a small boutique one in the city; Johanna and Christiana, exchange students from Switzerland who were identical twins and even blinked at the same time; Kelly, who bussed to school each day from Orewa, about an hour’s ride, because her mum was a fan of international supermodel Rachel Hunter and wanted Kelly to go to the same school Rachel had been to. There was Lynne who wanted to be an opera singer, Annette who wanted to play representative hockey, and Erica, who Tupai had admired from a distance since the beginning of time. (About six months.) Erica was Scottish, blonde, with her hair cut short in a trendy shaggy style, and she had a delightful light burr of an accent. She had a fair complexion that looked at odds with the healthy tans the rest of them sported, and her eyelashes naturally curled around her eyes without any assistance from make-up or machinery. But she does not have any part to play in this story so that’s enough about her.

She was lovely though.

The rest of them just kind of hung out and watched the dancers, especially Phil, who didn’t take his eyes off Tupai and Jenny the entire time. Everyone agreed it was a great party, at least until the school seniors turned up with a keg of beer.

The party was for Fizzer, and everybody knew that, but nobody said anything about it. In the space of a few weeks Fizzer’s world had been destroyed, then recreated. They were celebrating his spirit, his very essence, which had returned redoubled. But there was no way of saying that without sounding like a dork, so nobody said anything.

The party was at Flea’s place because that was easily the best place for it. Jason had a rumpus room in his house but it was filled with cane and the frames of wicker chairs that his mum used in her hobby/craft business. Tupai’s place was in a very rough part of town, and Fizzer lived with his dad in a caravan on the overgrown edge of a motor camp, down by an inlet of the upper harbour that was filled with mud and mangroves and smelled like a sewer when the tide was out. Not exactly party central.

There was a knock on the double glass ranch-sliders which led to the small courtyard and English cottage garden outside.

It was the first of their two unexpected visitors that evening (not counting the sixth formers with the keg of beer). A huge man, with a grin to match, impeccably dressed in dark trousers and a casual dress jacket, with a white t-shirt underneath.

‘Henry!’ Flea exclaimed, and they shook hands warmly, with two hands, the way guys do when they really want to hug each other but know it’s not cool.

‘Come in,’ Flea said, after shaking hands for a very long time.

Henry had been Flea’s best mate the year he had played Rugby League professionally, and many said it was their combination of skills that had won the Premiership for their team.

‘Hi, Jason, Tupai, Fizzer.’

Two years, and he still remembered their names.

‘Hey, Henry!’

‘How’s the Spitfire?’

Fizzer laughed. Henry was talking about a secret playground they’d once shown him. A place called the Lost Park that the city council had forgotten existed.

‘It’s gone. The whole park is gone. I think the council must have found it on a map. They’re building an apartment block there now.’

Henry laughed too, and Flea. None of them really knew why they laughed about it. It was one of the last vestiges of their childhood. Flattened under the bulldozers of city developers. It wasn’t really funny; it was a tragedy. Maybe that’s why they laughed.

Henry grabbed a Coke and settled into a corner with Flea for a bit of a catch up. A few of the others sat in a circle around them, awed by the presence of such a big rugby league star, although, when you thought about it, he was no more famous than Flea.

Phil had brought his drums. As a drummer he was a good singer. As a singer, he probably would be better off playing guitar. And he couldn’t play guitar at all. He wanted to form a band, and wanted Fizzer (harmonica) and Tupai (guitar) to be in it, along with James McDonald (bass guitar), brother of the lovely, Scottish object of Tupai’s unrequited affection: Erica McDonald.

Both Tupai and Fizzer had been trying to avoid getting involved in a band with Phil, but he had talked them into having a few practices together.

Phil went out to get his drums from the car, but when he came back carrying his snares, he had unwanted company: a bunch of yahoos from the senior school, who always seemed to turn up at parties and then invite their friends over. One time at Hamish Knox’s place so many had turned up, using their mobile phones to text their friends, who then turned up and texted
their
friends, that it turned into a near riot and the police had to be called, with the Eagle police helicopter and their riot helmets, long batons and other assorted equipment for the purpose of dispersing rioters.

There were two car loads this night, but Flea saw them coming and met them at the door. Tupai had also seen them, and he was right alongside Flea when they arrived.

Henry looked up with interest, but no obvious concern. Most of the dancers were still dancing, and the party was still going on all around them.

Flea was firm. ‘Sorry, guys, invitation only.’

One of them made a disparaging remark, and the others laughed.

Tupai said, ‘Another night, eh?’

They were a bit wary of Tupai. His reputation had grown with the number of fights that he’d got into, and the number of bloodied noses and black eyes he’d left in his wake. The ‘strongest kid in school’ reputation that had seemed like so much fun at primary school had turned into ‘the toughest kid in school’ reputation at secondary school, and all the other kids, including seniors, who thought they deserved to hold that title, were always lining up to have a go at Tupai.

Big mistake. Tupai had never lost a fight in his life. At the age of fourteen, he had been attacked by two seventh formers
at the same time
and had left them bloodied and crying.

But there were at least eight of the gate-crashers hanging around outside the ranch-sliders, standing on plants, generally making a right nuisance of themselves and trying to get inside.

Fizzer and Jason joined their friends at the door.

‘Look out, your mum’s arrived,’ the closest one sneered, who seemed to be some kind of ring-leader. ‘And your girlfriend too. What beautiful hair.’

Fizzer was growing his hair long and had it tied back in a short ponytail.

Tupai visibly bristled at the slur but said calmly, ‘You don’t want to gatecrash this party, guys.’

‘Actually, we do. That’s why we’re standing in this stupid, ugly garden waiting for you to get out of the way.’

The guy’s name was Carl. He was large and podgy with horrible acne. Even his mates called him ‘crater-face’ behind his back, and to those in the junior school he was known as ‘the thing from the swamp’.

His attitude seemed to match his acne.

Tupai never lost his cool, not for one second. He said, ‘This is a junior school party. It’s just a bunch of kids sitting around drinking soft drink and playing party games. You don’t want to come in here, you’ll never live it down.’

There was a murmuring from crater-face’s mates.

Tupai resumed his softly spoken speech. ‘I heard there was a party at Mike Shanaghan’s tonight. That’s where all the cool people are.’

That was all it took. There was a short, muttered conference amongst the hydrangeas and fuchsias, then they were gone. Not even a backward glance or departing repartee. The kid who had never lost a fight was learning how to avoid them.

As if he had been waiting for them to leave, a tall, slim man stepped into the pool of light in the courtyard as the seniors drifted away, trampling across the lawn. He had broad shoulders like a swimmer. He smiled warmly at Tupai then his eyes settled on Fizzer.

‘Hi, Fraser,’ he said. ‘I rang your place, your dad told me where you were.’

Tupai seemed stunned to see the man. Fizzer seemed, almost (just almost), not to be surprised.

‘Hi, Mr Truman,’ Fizzer said. ‘Guys, this is Harry Truman, from Coca-Cola.’

They all stepped outside then, as the music was too loud in the room for easy conversation.

‘I’m sorry to interrupt your party,’ Harry said, ‘but a very tricky problem has developed at our head office in Atlanta.’ He paused and looked seriously at Fizzer. ‘Do you have a passport?’

Fizzer shook his head.

Later that evening, against all odds, Erica McDonald asked Tupai to dance.

Anastasia Borkin was a Russian. Not from one of the satellite states of the former USSR, who were often mistakenly called Russians, but from Mother Russia herself. She looked like a Russian too, in that broad-jawed Slavic way. But her long, softly curling, brown hair, and the artful use of make-up softened that appearance, and her twinkling, sparkling smile lit up her face like a fireworks display, and was worth a fortune in cosmetic surgery. Most of the men she had known throughout her life had thought her quite attractive, in a broad-jawed Slavic sort of way.

Anastasia Borkin was Vice-President (Security) for The Coca-Cola Company. That a Russian should hold such a post as Vice-President (Security) for a bastion of Americanism like The Coca-Cola Company seemed like a strange international irony, but really it was no more than a person who happened to be particularly good at her job rising, through talent and hard work, to a position of high authority.

And in any case, anyone who knew their history would know that a Russian named after the long-lost daughter of the last of the Russian Tsars would be no great comrade of the communist government in that country.

Born in New York, the daughter of a Russian defector, she sometimes wondered if her father had really been a spy, but there was no evidence and her father emphatically denied it right up until his death.

Borkin was Russia mad. She studied Russian music and poetry and collected paintings by great Russian painters. She helped fund a small cinema that ran Russian films. She was a keen chess player and avidly studied the great Russian chess masters. She was a fan of Russia the same way some people are fans of baseball, or certain breeds of dog. Not that she would ever want to live there. The thought of giving up a comfortable life in a warm southern state for bleak winters in Moscow was not even an option for discussion, and her young family would have absolutely mutinied.

Anastasia Borkin was a Russian. That’s what she told everyone. But scratch the hide of the Russian bear and the Stars and Stripes shone through.

Borkin smiled as the two New Zealand boys emerged apprehensively out of the customs area of Hartsfield International Airport. A flight attendant walked alongside, chatting animatedly with them. Their flight chaperone no doubt. The board had insisted on an airline chaperone, and also insisted one of the Vice-Presidents meet them at the airport. As VP (Security) Borkin had felt it was her responsibility and, as much as she disliked the idea of babysitting, seeing them gave her a small hope that it might not be quite as arduous a duty as she had feared.

Borkin stepped forward as the three approached, the boys looking around uncertainly. ‘Mr Boyd and Mr White?’ she asked.

The taller one stuck out a hand in greeting and said warmly, ‘G’day. I’m Fraser.’

‘Gidday,’ Borkin said, a little awkwardly, trying to make the lad feel at home.

‘Tupai,’ said the other, with a smile as wide as Gorky Park.

‘I’m Anastasia Borkin,’ she said. ‘I’m a Vice-President with Coca-Cola. I’ll escort you to our offices.’ She turned to the chaperone, smart and sharp in her Qantas uniform, and said, ‘Everything go all right on the flight?’

‘Oh, they weren’t any trouble at all,’ the chaperone said, and gave Borkin a knowing wink that made her wonder just what she was in for.

‘See ya later, Jan,’ Fraser said.

‘See ya,’ Tupai echoed.

To Anastasia’s surprise the flight attendant, Jan, impulsively reached out and hugged each of the boys in turn. ‘You be good,’ she said.

The two boys hugged her back, without embarrassment or backslapping, but with real affection.

Borkin’s broad Slavic jaw wrinkled into a half smile. They must have made quite an impression on their chaperone, she thought. She was still smiling as they made their way out of the terminal to where their driver was waiting.

The boys were fascinated by the limousine. Bright red, with white suede upholstery. Coca-Cola colours of course. Tupai opened a small fridge in the centre of the limo and, for some reason, seemed surprised to find it stocked, not with champagne, but with Coca-Cola. Having opened the fridge, however, he was having some trouble getting it closed. It popped up out of an island in the centre of the limo and created a small table as it did so. But it wouldn’t pop back down. He pressed it down, but each time it just sprang back up. Eventually Borkin, with a polite smile, reached across and shut it for him. Fraser just stared out of the window, seemingly overwhelmed by the sheer scale of all things American.

‘I heard you had to get a passport in quite a hurry,’ Borkin said.

Fraser nodded. ‘Never been overseas before. Never even been on a plane before.’ He pulled his passport out of a pocket in his jeans and showed it to her proudly.

‘Never been on a plane?’ Borkin was a little surprised. She knew very little about New Zealand, but surely they had planes.

Fraser continued. ‘Nope. And I don’t think the assistant had used the camera before. Look, I look like an escapee from a home for the weird.’

Tupai laughed. ‘You are an escapee from a home for the weird.’