Thunder Road (21 page)

The nurses’ station was closed so there was nothing to do but wait. The clock said it was after three but time had long since ceased to mean anything. Hour followed hour. We sat in silence now. At five-thirty the eastern sky was beginning to brighten when the swish of the lift door made us both sit up together. It was the doctor. Without him saying a word we both knew Devon was dead. Ra placed Aroha’s head gently on the couch, then rose slowly and stiffly to his feet.

‘Mr Santos…’ the doctor began ‘… I’m sorry. There was no time to come and get you. Te Arepa passed away twenty minutes ago. We have been trying to revive him but there has been a major shutdown … .’

Ra stood and proclaimed ‘
Ka ura he ra. Ka to he ra!
’ to the dawning world.
*
Then he turned to me and said, ‘Eruera, you stay with Aroha. I need to go to Te Arepa.’

He left me and walked off with the doctor. I looked at the little girl, at the deep untroubled sleep of childhood. She would awaken to an adult world. The still pond of innocence was waiting for this, the first stone, to break its reflective beauty: to know that we all must die.

AS I SAT IN the quiet room the veil of grief descended on me like a frost. It ate itself deeper and deeper until it sat on my heart. All other emotion disappeared. No longer did I feel fear or anger. My limbs were heavy and any will to move had gone. It was as though I had been set in concrete.

Ra re-entered. He spoke to me but I heard nothing. He went. Hours passed. Daylight came. Aroha awoke. She looked around for her grandfather and then sat silently beside me. A nurse came and crouched in front of her. They went off together. When they returned Aroha was carrying a cup of tea and a roll. She offered it to me. I shook my head. We waited again. Ra returned with another man. The four of us wound our way downstairs to the front lobby. We waited while Ra spoke to the front desk and signed papers, and then two men appeared with Devon on a trolley. Out the front in the covered area was an old pick-up. They loaded Devon’s body onto the back. I climbed on with him. They tried to get me into the cab with them but I stayed there with Devon. We drove to a house in the south of the city where a family waited for us on the verandah. There was wailing and crying. Devon was carried in and placed on a bed. I sat next to him on a chair. The family tried to persuade me to come and eat but I knew it was no good.

Later he was placed in a coffin and we headed for the Coast. I travelled in the back of a station wagon with my hand on the edge of the box. Other people had come and they travelled with us in procession. It was a long way. We arrived as the sun
was setting and formed a group at the gateway to the marae. Speeches were made. Songs were sung. The wharenui was small and old, lined with framed photos. Mattresses were placed next to the casket and people came and sat with me all night; some for an hour, others slept there.

When I woke in the morning my hand was still on the side of the box, stiff and set. Ra came and eased it off. He led me to some showers and indicated he expected me to wash. I stood under the water for a time but it did no good. The water on my skin felt remote, as if it was not managing to wet me. When I emerged my clothes were gone and new ones were in their place. These looked as if they hadn’t been worn for a while. The coat smelled of mothballs. Ra reappeared and took me to the kitchen. It was full of people preparing food. They all greeted me but all I could do was nod back. A chair was placed near the big wood-burning stove. I was given a mug of tea. It took a long time but eventually I was able to drink it and even eat some porridge. But that was all.

I went back to the meeting house. It had filled up since I had been away and it was difficult to get close to Devon. I sat a row back beside some weeping women. It was good to be next to this noisily grieving group. They made the noises I longed to make, but couldn’t.

Later that day the ceremonies began. I held my place next to the coffin. I seemed to be regarded as a fixture. They moved Devon and me out onto the paepae so we could both hear the speeches. Although I couldn’t understand much it was
comforting
to hear the layers of language descend upon us like layers of bedding.

I noticed among the seats of speakers was a man with a
policeman
on each side of him. It had to be Devon’s father. Green
eyes but his face more like Ra’s. Monumental, carved, warrior profile. When the speeches finished he was a pallbearer and we faced each other across the closed coffin. In his face I saw pain and anger. He nodded at me. The urupā was some distance from the marae but we walked it in procession. I stared at the backs of the men in front, not caring how long it took or where we were going. I was content to just walk and follow.

As we left the entranceway to the marae there were more people: some onlookers, local people who had just stopped because they were passing by, and others dressed up but who had arrived late and couldn’t enter. I noticed, numbly, that Wiremu and a couple of Scorpions were with this group.

It was a slow walk and the load was surprisingly heavy. By the time we reached the gates I was beginning to struggle. The days and nights of grief had taken their toll. At last we lowered the coffin next to a freshly dug grave. I sat next to it, my hand firmly around the handle. Women came forward and kissed the coffin. After a while Ra came forward to free my hand so that the box could be lowered into the hole. He held my arm. All around us were wild cries and weeping. I was silent and my eyes were dry. I felt locked up, frozen, unable to perform any show of grief.

Back at the marae I was able to eat at last and the bitter cold which permeated me began to thaw. People came up to me and tried to talk but I was unable to utter a word in response.

That evening Ra took me for a walk. We went up to the freshly turned earth that marked Devon’s grave. Ra took a small stone adze from his pocket and handed it to me. It was made of a glossy, black stone, almost like glass. It was beautiful, heavy and cold. A groove had been carved into the thin end, and a string fastened to it so that it could be worn around the neck. It seemed impossibly old. I tried to hand it back but Ra turned
and walked to the edge of the urupā. I stood there with the adze seeming to fizz in my hand. He returned with a small sprig of mānuka and placed it in the top pocket of my coat.

‘Listen, Eruera. When the leaves fall from this twig of mānuka you will know it is time to put your grief behind you. Time to move on.’

He walked to the corner of the fenced-off area and washed his hands at a tap.

Then he left me. As soon as his outline faded away I looked at the adze lying there in my open hand. It demanded my grief.

And then it came. First tears, silently running down my face; then huge, convulsive sobs erupted painfully to the surface from deep within my body. Like some monstrous presence was leaving me, battering its way out. The noises I made were not my noises. They were scarcely human. I fell onto the soft mound of heaped earth and flowers and let my body perform its long-suppressed ritual.

When I eventually stood my chest ached and my eyes were gritty and sore. But I felt light. My feet barely touched the ground as I walked down the hill from the urupā. There, in the gloom, Ra was waiting at the gate. Together we walked back and rejoined the hākari. Devon’s dad had gone but I met his cousins and aunties … and other people, whose relationship was explained to me in great detail. After a while we all sang and for the first time I began to feel fully human again.

Wiremu was standing near the food slide in the whare kai. I went over and we shook hands and hongi-ed. It was the
natural
thing to do now. He said to call him when I got back to Auckland. That he had something to tell me, but this wasn’t the place or time.

The following day I joined Ra in farewelling people as they left to return to their homes. I felt the sadness one feels when old friends depart, and yet I had only just met these people. I stayed on for a few days after everyone had left, doing jobs in the garden and helping clear scrub. Aroha, who lived with an aunt, went back to school, while Ra and I stayed on in the wharenui. He was a rangatira and spent most of his time
travelling
between relatives and attending to affairs of the iwi.

The tough little leaves of the mānuka were beginning to curl and as he had predicted, it was time to move on. I was going to hitch back to Auckland so we walked together to the main road. The traffic was thin in this remote part of the Coast but he flagged down someone he knew who was going to Whakatane. It would be easy after that.

As I was about to get into the car he stopped me and said, ‘Eruera. Before long, your heart will burn for utu. For revenge. It’s the natural thing. You mustn’t listen to it. No good will come from it.’

I told him that I had no taste for revenge, that there was no one I wanted revenge against. I had other plans.

We hongi-ed and parted.

AUCKLAND had a harsh impersonal air after the warmth of the Coast. Too many people, too much noise. I knew that I could no longer stay. Those tickets which Devon had booked would be my way out. Angela wasn’t in the travel agency when I went in to pick them up. I needed to see Karen one last time. Not to explain, but just to say goodbye. To wish her well. I rang the cellphone I had given her but was greeted by the recorded voice saying, ‘The number you have dialled is not currently switched on or within the receiving area’.

I walked to her father’s surgery and sure enough I could see her in the front room, wandering backwards and forwards, doing those menial tasks that clerks do. I sat on the fence and waited for her to look out the window and see me. The last thing I wanted was a confrontation with her father. It took longer than I expected, so absorbed was she in her jobs. Her face didn’t register pleasure, just anxiety. She signalled me away. Moments later she came out to where I was waiting a little distance down the road.

‘I didn’t think I would ever see you again.’ There was no warmth in her voice.

‘I’ve come to say goodbye.’

The words were brushed away and her face clouded with
anger
. She no longer looked like Karen but like someone else.

‘Have you any idea of the shit you dropped on us? What you put Angela through?’

I tuned out, having no interest in responding to this. It was her father talking.

‘We’ve had half the Auckland police force tramping through our house, Angela’s father blaming me, my parents accusing me of doing all sorts of things behind their backs….’

‘Devon’s dead,’ I cut in.

She stopped for a moment, as if this was news. Then she started again.

‘So’s the policeman he hit.’ The shutdown response. ‘His wife’s been on TV. There was an appeal from her to the boy racers to stop before more people die. The mayor has closed off Whaitiri Street ever since….’

‘He’s dead, Karen.’ My voice flat and steady.

She stopped and let out a huge sigh. ‘I’m sorry, Trace. I wish I could say that I feel sorry for him too, but I don’t. The trouble he’s caused….’

I walked off. This had been a mistake. I wished our last,
blissful
, time together could have stayed intact. The treasured, final memory. Now this one had eaten into it. Our lovemaking had eroded into mere sex.

Back in Newmarket I sat in a coffee bar smoking and taking stock. The first flight out was early the next day so I had a bit of time to kill and a couple of things to do. In a newspaper lying on the counter I found a statement about the accident on the opinions page. It was an article written by the mayor. He and the widow of the dead cop, Mrs Carmody, were forming a task force to close down the street racers.

Mrs Carmody explained that she knew where the racers were coming from; her husband used to be one but he had ‘dedicated his life to stopping this senseless and dangerous activity’. The
mayor’s comments were mostly things like ‘dicing with death’, ‘an accident waiting to happen’ and ‘take it to the track’. I guess he wanted to appear hip. There was no mention of drugs or money or guns. I noted the date. The day before my birthday. Twenty tomorrow and no one to celebrate with.

Near Grafton Bridge there were a number of backpackers’ hotels. I paid double rate to get a room to myself. I had no
luggage
: all my other stuff had been left behind in the motel in Mt Eden. The money was beginning to call me again now I was in its orbit. It couldn’t be left. It had to be dealt with. There was simply too much of it to leave where it was, but I knew now that no matter what else happened, I didn’t want it.

As it was a sunny day the Domain was full of tourists and office workers on their lunch break. The duck pond area was teeming with Koreans getting their photos taken. I had no time for stealth, so I must have made an interesting photo for some Asian family’s album, hauling a café table up against a tree, and then with the aid of a chair, retrieving the bag of money. I strolled off through their midst with a jaunty stride, carrying over a hundred thousand dollars in a bag worth about five cents. In a nearby post office I crammed it into a post bag and sent it off with a note containing two words: ‘Pirate treasure’.

I sent it to Ra, care of the marae we stayed at. I hoped he might use it for Aroha’s education, but that was his call. He was just as likely to throw it into the river. Nothing could be better, though, than the feeling I had squeezing that package into the parcel slot.

There was one last thing which would wrap everything up: one last action I wanted to carry out, before I walked away from the places, the memories – the world I’d known with Devon. I had
to go back to the little Parnell house and lift the money I had hidden that last afternoon I spent with him.

Before I did this I would ring Wiremu as I had promised. I knew, now that the bulk of the money had gone, that there was nothing for me to give, there were no items of trade. I wondered what it was he wanted to tell me.

As it happened Wiremu was after the remaining dope. I told him he would have to scrape it out of the burnt car.

And the money?

That too.

‘Yeah right,’ he said.

‘What was it you were going to tell me?’ I asked.

‘Where are you staying?’ he asked.

I hung up. I was disappointed. I thought somehow he was better than that. Sort of noble.

It must have been five o’clock by the time I arrived at the
familiar
street that was once our sanctuary. I guess I should have anticipated what I saw, but I didn’t. Where the house once stood there was a gaping crater. The path and the outline of piles were all that remained of a house that had spent 90 years
looking
out on the overgrown gully. It was as though someone had done the job of erasing every trace of my summer with Devon. Up against the footpath a large sign advertised a row of
three-storey
town houses to be built at the site, and the developer, Elysian Fields Corp. So that was the name Wes traded under. It sounded right. He had this thing about death.

Using the outline of the old house it wasn’t hard to find where I had concealed the money. The ginger plant, whose roots I had used to hide the tight little wad, had been smashed by the wheels of a machine and the bag was partly visible. I guessed it
was only days before some young builder’s labourer like myself would have stumbled upon it. Winning Lotto without even
buying
a ticket. No, fate was not that friendly. There was a heavy price to be paid for this money and it had been well and truly paid. I stuffed it inside my shirt and was about to walk out onto the road when a white Bentley purred up in front of the gate. I immediately fell back behind the big tree that marked where the land fell away sharply to the railway line.

It would be interesting to see Wes in the daylight. Part of me thought that he had the vampire’s aversion to full sun. But nothing happened. The car remained shut up so I imagined that inside Wes was jabbering away trying to impress some would-be investor. For rich people like Wes, every occurrence, no
matter
how disastrous to others, blew fortune his way. Devon had cleared a path. He had removed the tenants and now he too had gone. As with the little house itself, soon there would be nothing left to mark his passing except a small upward
movement
in Wes’ fortune.

What happened next lit a fuse I could never put out. The door of the Bentley opened to reveal the suited figure of Steven Sloane. What was he doing in Wes’ car? At first I thought he might be a customer and that any moment Wes would spring out, but it didn’t happen. He was alone. He had to be some sort of partner. Then it all made sense. No matter how careful we were, we could never hide. We were followed so easily: when we thought we were ahead, we were in fact always one step behind. There was an enormous unfairness about it. As if we were
playing
cards against someone with a marked deck. We never had a chance of winning. He picked his way around the site, carefully avoiding anything that might soil his smart shoes. He stopped not three metres from me and spread out a plan on the fallen
remains of our chimney. His hair, his face even his fingernails had a plastic perfection about them. He had the blemish-free good looks of an American soap opera star.

I longed to tear him to pieces. To feel his flesh rip between my fingers. He straightened up and took a number of slow steps backwards until he was almost close enough to touch. My body began to shake as the rage grew inside me. Here we were, one on one, no advantage of numbers or weapons. It would be clean and fair. Then, as if some inner alarm bell had rung, he strode briskly back to the car.

My moment had passed.

I hoped the walk to the backpackers’ would calm me but it did nothing. I kept remembering Ra’s caution, about utu, but it still burned within me. I lay for hours in my hard little bed, in the stark room, staring out at a street lamp. Waiting for the night to pass. Waiting to be on that plane and away from all this. But it was no good. My thoughts kept coming back to the unfairness of Wes pulling the strings at a safe distance. Ropes around our necks. Devon’s mentor, his idol, was finally his killer. I had no idea how it all held together. But I knew that Rebel and his
little
Nazi cell out in Glen Eden were only pawns. So was Sloane, the private school boy. It all came back to the cold, hard eyes of Wes, sitting safely in his eagle’s nest of a house looking down on everything. Laughing. Wherever I went I knew that this would follow me. I sat up in bed. It had to be resolved.