Thunder Road (9 page)

IT WAS LATE SUMMER when Karen came back into my life.

Devon had persuaded me to skip work for the day. ‘It’s a crime to work on a day as nice as this … a crime against the soul.’

We both threw a bit of gear into a backpack and headed off on the Norton for a day on the black sand of Piha. The beach was quiet: being mid-week most people were sweating it out in the work place. There was that freshness in the air, the water was thick and glassy and the sunlight took on a golden tinge as it found its way through the spray. We lay near the high tide mark savouring every moment.

Down the beach a small crowd emerged from behind the rocky outcrop that cut off the next bay. Their clothes were
mottled
and fragmented in the heat haze. I lay back with my towel over my face. Sometime later the quiet was broken by Devon hissing, ‘Chick alert!’

I sat up. There were about 30 girls and a couple of older people. They were obviously some sort of school expedition. Everyone was wearing a dinky little day pack and carrying a water bottle.

Even a hundred metres away I could hear them laughing and talking over the roll and thump of the surf. ‘Girls en masse. What happens?’ Part of the group broke away from their
controllers
and walked our way to check us out. Devon lay quiet and still, watching their approach with a hunter’s calm. I felt a bit outnumbered. About eight of them walked past quite close – not paying any direct attention – using the group to scope
us out. Karen was one of them. We looked at each other for a moment and then she moved on, saying nothing.

She was a vision to me. Tanned, elegant even in shorts and T-shirt, her feet seemed to hardly dent the sand.

When they had passed Devon said, ‘School girls! Give me a break.’ Then he lay back and I guess resumed mulling over mysterious schemes and obsessions.

I replayed the little movie of Karen walking towards me again and again in my mind. The same nine steps. It wouldn’t go away.

The next day, back at work after my day bunking off, I was given a note asking me to ring her. What was this about? Perhaps her parents had reconsidered. I would be allowed a second chance. Why should I ring her? I was the one who was rejected. The one who wasn’t good enough. But I knew I’d call her no matter what my head tried to tell me.

The phone was answered by a strange girl with the ponciest accent I have ever heard. When I asked for Karen there was some muffled remark followed by giggling before Karen came on.

It was awkward at first. Neither of us were sure quite how to get started on all that ‘what’s up’ stuff but then we were into it. She was sorry about what had happened. So was I. Her parents had seemed so
modern and liberal
; she now realised that this
modern and liberal
didn’t apply to her, their prized possession. I told her that I was no one to talk about fitting in with parents. I had walked the first chance I got … and never looked back. She wanted me to come to a particular address because there was something she wanted to ask me.

I was blown away. All my anger and hurt melted in a moment. Without Devon around, my attitudes to the stuck-up middle class doctor types seemed to vanish at the same time. The
straight world still had some appeal. I scribbled the address on a piece of paper and told her that I’d be there.

The address led me to a street of stone walls and grand
entrances
: a quiet oasis in the busiest part of Auckland. There was this big wooden house stuck on the side of Mount Eden by some shrewd settler a hundred years ago. It was two storeys high with this dinky little room like a lookout stuck on top.

I parked the Norton out on the road and walked up the curving tar-seal driveway to the front door. It had a stained glass version of a kowhai tree on the door and a sort of twisted rope pattern down each side, all panelled with fancy wood. My knock was answered by a pretty blonde girl. She was puffing on a cigarette and had that sort of over-the-top confidence you get when you are playing dares. I could tell that there was no adult at home. The next thing I expected was that we’d all raid Daddy’s liquor cabinet.

Karen appeared and the three of us sat in the kitchen. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a brand name on it. To anyone else she probably would have seemed like any other well-groomed private school girl but to me she was a vision, golden and shimmering. Her heavy hair, flawless skin, clear eyes reminded me of a world left far behind: a world I knew when I was nine years old. A world of purity, of virgin beauty.

We sat around for a while. It was like I had walked in on a conversation and had no place there.

‘Trace, this is Angela.’

‘Hi.’

‘It’s her place.’

‘Me and my dad live here … but mostly, it’s just me.’

‘Her dad’s an airline captain.’

‘Cool job!’

‘I guess … it means he’s never here. This place is just a
stopover
.’

I could tell that this was a topic not to get started on.

‘Parents eh!’ I offered. ‘Can’t train ’em. Can’t tame ’em.’

They laughed.

‘I thought mine were trained,’ said Karen. She sounded
serious
. ‘Or my mother, at least, but I was wrong.’

I made like it didn’t matter. That I understood. But it did matter. I had been prepared to like her parents. To make the big effort to be something I wasn’t – but it hadn’t worked. They’d reminded me that I was someone you invite around only once – to prove how reasonable you are … how accepting. Finally, though, I had to be reminded: I was a nobody from nowhere. I imagined one of those dry little stories being told at the bridge club, or by the photocopier at work.

This rough boy from Karen’s work … language of the streets … showed unusual gallantry … we thought it would be nice if … it was quite funny really … shouldn’t have been surprised … drunk and rowdy.… I suppose one could say it was an interesting experiment … what do they say? … oil and water….

Karen explained everything rapidly, as if it had all been rehearsed a few times before I arrived. She wanted me to take her to a school ball. She wouldn’t tell her parents. Then there was this big story that I couldn’t follow: some sort of cunning plan. It involved taking Richard but actually he was going with Angela, and Jason fitted in there too or something. I couldn’t follow all the complicated scheming. I just blissed out on the way Karen kept flicking her hair off her forehead and how clear and bright the whites of her eyes were. She was such a picture, prattling on, enjoying her own deviousness.

I guess after Euphoric Enterprises it all seemed like
school-girly 
high jinks. The only danger was that it would turn into one of those boring, awkward, social traps, like the dinner at her parents’ place. With me ending up shaming myself in front her twitty friends. But it was a while away yet. Plenty of time to pull out if something better turned up. And anyway, there was Karen, flowing like warm water into my life. Every moment, every gesture, fed the lonely places.

Angela made herself scarce and Karen’s giggly girl stuff gave way to a quiet seriousness that I liked. We went out and sat on the front steps. I had to invent stories about what I had been doing, because the truth would have scared her to death. She picked up my hands and spotted the spider’s web of little scars, reminders of our mad midnight scramble in the bush up north.

‘What are these from?’

‘Me and Devon did a bit of farm work a while back.’

‘What sort of farm work?’

‘Harvesting.’

For a moment we sat there on the step. We held each other’s hands and the sun dipped low over the city beneath us, clothing it in hazy light. From somewhere there came the soft whoosh of cars and the smell of freshly cut lawns. It was all a bit too perfect, too brittle to last. Like that time you have in a warm bed last thing in the morning before the alarm rings telling you it’s time to get up and go for it. We both stopped talking and sat there, enjoying just being there. Being alive.

Karen’s dad was picking her up on the way home from the surgery so I left early to avoid crossing his path. Even his
intrusion
couldn’t dent my bullet-proof happiness. I rode aimlessly for an hour, through the endless streets, feeding on the feeling. It was still there when I decided I definitely needed to return to Mrs Jacques’. Sergei had snibbed the front door for some reason
and had to let me in. ‘Ah!’ he said ‘The Valkyrie returns!’ and disappeared into his room, wreathed in his own laughter. Mrs Jacques appeared momentarily in the hallway, stared at me and then returned to the lounge. Devon wanted to know where I had been but I was in no mood to tell him. I knew his attitude to Karen. Any news of our reconnection would only start him on his favourite topic,
The Glass Dome, Chapter One: The Hypocrisy of Rich Doctors.
I had no answer to that. After years of brooding, his bitterness went too deep.

I felt stink because he was so open and here was I, nurturing a guilty secret; it was as if we’d agreed to pool all our money, but I still had this big stash hidden in my back pocket. A stoolie, holding out on him.

I READ SOMEWHERE that animals can tell when an
earthquake’s
coming. That they can pick up on stuff that we don’t know about. It would have been good to have had some sort of animal warning about the next quake headed my way.

I had worked late on a Thursday because a load of paint had arrived five minutes before the place closed. Instead of telling the driver to come back tomorrow as I would have done, Bob insisted that we unload the order. Everyone else had gone except him and me, so we spent 25 sweaty minutes getting the stuff off the truck.

By the time I hung a right off Dominion Road it was after six o’clock. In the distance I could see a green Holden outside Mrs Jacques’ house. There is some little alarm bell that rings when I think I’m near cops. I chopped back a gear and cruised past. Sure enough the Holden had those little blue pursuit lights buried in the grille. My mind was racing. Had they busted the place? How could they prove who the dope belonged to? It had to be either mine or Devon’s. It would hardly be Mrs Jacques’ or Sergei’s. I had no idea how much was stashed. Devon hadn’t told me and I hadn’t asked. I knew where it was though: stuffed into a disused food safe attached to the outside of the house.

I drove a block and then pulled in behind a van about a hundred metres short of the house. There was nothing to do but hang back in the shadows and wait for the Ds to go. I needed to think long and hard about my next step. A lot depended on it.

What was going on? Would Devon nark? After 20 agonising minutes I couldn’t bear it any longer: I had to sneak closer. I was two houses away when three figures emerged. I flattened out against a hedge, too late to hide in a driveway. I pushed hard until I was mostly enveloped in its spiky foliage. The doors slammed then the car started. It powered off like there was no time to lose. I had to act fast. Every light in the house was blazing … something strictly against house rules. That was a sign.

I snuck up through the long grass and junk which filled the gap between the house and the hedge. There might be a cop left behind, waiting to pick me up. Why hadn’t they come for me at work?

I could hear a strange snuffling noise. It came from the kitchen. There was Mrs Jacques at the dining room table, her head in her hands, crying. I felt this stab of guilt, like I had brought dishonour on her house. Had violated it. I circled the property, checking the other rooms. There was no one there. Back at the kitchen window again, I saw something that
completely
threw me. It was Devon. He came in from somewhere, pulled up a chair and sat next to her, his arm around her
heaving
shoulders. His radar must have been working because he looked up and locked eyes with me. I walked forward into the light and waved. He signalled me in.

I went around to the the front door and walked into the house like everything was normal: dropped my bag in the bedroom and went to the kitchen. I wanted to go and ask what had happened but I knew I couldn’t. It was all too tense. After a time Mrs Jacques raised her head and looked at me with
reddened
eyes. She gathered up a sponge and after a frantic wipe of the surfaces announced that it had been a long day and if we wanted any tea tonight we would be getting it ourselves
because she was
off duty
.

At this point she left so fast she almost ran to her bedroom.

Devon leaned back and put his feet up on the table.

‘Do you believe in omens?’

I stared at him blankly.

‘That could have been us, man. Whew!’

Devon had lost his cool this time – his face was frozen and he looked really scared.

‘What’s the story? What happened?’

‘It seems our Sergei is more than just a bit
artistic
. He’s the real thing.’

‘What do you mean?’ Then I knew from the way Devon
gestured
. ‘He’s gay? That’s not against the law is it?’

‘August’s a minor. It’s called molestation.’

‘Sergei’s a molester?’

‘Is, was, will be.’ He began to recapture his old confidence and turn it into a story. ‘Look, it’s like this. Musos are horny bastards, right?’ He paused, waiting for agreement. ‘Well, it seems he’d been playing with August’s little willy as he ran up and down the scales of the pee-anna fortie.’

‘True?’

He nodded.

‘You sound like you knew all the time.’

‘I used to wonder … he’s such a weird bastard, but then I thought, “No! He’s a musician, a foreigner,” and anyway, you know my motto. “Live and let live.”’

This amused me a bit. I’d never seen Devon as a tolerant person.

‘Anyway, Augie told his big brother – who it seems had
enjoyed
the same finger exercises when he was learning.’

‘So big brother thought, “enough is enough.”’

‘Got it.’ Devon had an almost smug look on his face.

‘What an evil bastard. August is just a little kid. I tell you. I would have beat his head in.’

‘I was sitting here in the bedroom, doing my homework … organising some foils … when they came. Mr Plod and his friends knock at the door and I think, “It’s probably just the Mormons … who else calls here wearing a suit?” I open the door and there we have it, two police dudes in mufti asking me if my name was Sergei Hakanakaoff.’

‘Sergei what?’

‘Sergei something absolutely unpronounceable. He is a Pole for God’s sake.’

‘How did you know they were cops?’

‘There’s something about cops, you can spot them a mile away. They might as well have had revolving red lights screwed on their heads. My first reaction was, “That bastard, he’s
dobbed
us in”.’

‘He doesn’t know about the dope.’

Devon looked around anxiously. ‘Not so loud man, Mrs Jacques is just through the wall … on her bed of sorrow.’

‘Well he doesn’t, does he?’

‘Who knows what Sergei knows? But he’s not dumb. He knows we smoke it. He’s not like Mrs Jacques. He doesn’t buy the “herbal tobacco” line.’

‘Yeah, but that’s no reason for him to dob us in.’

‘Listen man, he’s been collared for the big one. Nothing good’s going to happen to our Serge for a long, long time. He’ll do anything to buy favour. It’s all he’s got.’

‘But he didn’t.’

‘He hasn’t
yet
. He had his hands pretty full. But like I said, it’s an omen. We ought to get out of here.’

‘Mrs Jacques seems pretty cut up.’

‘Ah well, there is a reason for that. He’s definitely been
slipping
her one from time to time.’

‘What bullshit!’

‘True. As a means of avoiding his rent.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I’ve heard their sighs and grunts when I’ve been having a midnight dump in the back toilet.’

‘Man. I thought he’d been stringing her along getting her hopes up. You reckon he hasn’t paid any board for a while? Maybe she thought he was going to be the third Mr Jacques.’

‘After what happened to the other two I reckon he chose the easy way out. Anyway, Trace, it’s a sign.’

‘A sign?’

‘Yeah man. A sign that….’ then he began to sing ‘We’ve Gotta Get Outta This Place’.

‘Time to get a flat?’

‘We can do better than that.’ He paused, as if he had been planning this for a while. ‘I’ve taken possession of a cosy little cottage in snooty Parnell. Something more fitting for our new status.’

‘When?’

‘A week or two ago.’

‘Parnell? Are you planning to deal in smack? How can we afford that?’

‘Remember Wes, the big property guy? We’ll stay in one of his places.’

‘What’ll that cost?’

‘Nothing … much, maybe a few bullets from time to time.’

‘He imbibes?’

‘They all do, Trace, it’s the thing for richies. They like to
play at being one of the cool guys when all the time they’re still one of the stiffs.’

So there it was. Proof. Proof that every action causes a
reaction
. We were all in for a change of scene. Me and Devon were going up in the world. Mrs Jacques was left to potter around in the ruins of her tidy little life. And Sergei? We never saw or heard of Sergei again, but I’d say he’s got plenty of time to
reflect
on how sweet he had it at Mrs Jacques’, because I reckon he won’t be getting first shower where he is.