Te Awamutu police station was small, basic but friendly. Calli was allowed to sit in an office, rather than in the custody area and Jim and Uncle Pete gave her antiseptic wipes to clean up her scratches and showed her where the bathroom was. She knew Simon had arrived by the stiffness in Jim’s body when he checked on her a while later. The wet-wipe made it difficult for a large fabric plaster to stick to her skin either side of a nasty cut on her left knee and Calli was in the process of holding it on, her leg raised and her body bent out of shape in concentration. “No,” she said shortly, even before Jim opened his mouth. Guilt gnawed at her insides at the embarrassment Simon would feel in front of his colleagues, but she didn’t know how else to be. “He’s not my father. He has no right to see me. I’m not going home so he can leave now.”
Tears welled up again as Jim left the room, a sheaf of paper casting itself to the ground in the draught the door made, committing suicide onto a cold, grey, institutional carpet which begged for a good clean. Calli wiped the hot tears away and made her second major decision, overriding her emotions and commanding her body, no more crying.
The volume rose in the room outside, demonstrating Simon’s anger at being denied access to her. It was an injustice at its very worst. All the man had ever done, was feed her, clothe her and try his very best to raise her, despite overwhelming odds and opposition from the woman whose body she climbed out of. Surely he deserved better than this? The hiss of Jim’s voice as he acted as Calli’s bodyguard was low and insistent and eventually the noise ceased altogether. With the last vestige of support stripped away, Calli finally knew she was completely and unutterably alone.
It actually didn’t feel so good; not as releasing as Calli thought. She was now unguarded, cut loose and whilst she expected a visitation from that elating sense of freedom, all that came instead was grief. She refused all attempt to make her return home and in the end, a lady from Child, Youth and Family Services arrived. She was motherly and kind, not at all what Calli expected. She asked Calli why she didn’t want to go home, looking for tales of abuse, neglect or violence but got none. Instead, she got the sad truth - Marcia admitted Calli was the product of a rape, she wished she had aborted her at the time and never ever loved her. She repeated the conversation word for word, stumbling over her secret, but holding it together. Calli hadn’t wanted to tell the truth, but the kindly middle-aged woman seemed intent on probing for details and obviously began to cast Simon as a child abuser. Despite everything, Calli reasoned he didn’t deserve the slur of that kind of accusation. “He tried,” she said, sticking her chin out as a show of defiance. “It just wasn’t enough. Marcia doesn’t want me.”
The woman made notes, patted Calli on her good knee and promised she would make a few calls and find her somewhere to go for tonight.
After she left the room, Calli had the inexplicable urge to run after her, to beg not to return to Hamilton, but to be able to start afresh somewhere altogether different. The thought of returning to school next term and having to face Declan’s accusing face filled her with a sick feeling that made her want to physically retch. He blamed her for robbing him of his salvation and perhaps she did, but it took both of them to make a mess of things, a splendid, consensual mess. Pete and Jim asked casually about Calli’s injuries and seemed to be probing as to whether she was intercepted and harmed. They were interested in how she made it as far as the mountain without transport. “Did you see anyone up there?” Pete asked, smiling awkwardly as he eyed her cut hands.
Calli fudged their questions, brushing them off with a partially truthful ‘lost in the bush’ tale which seemed to satisfy their relieved faces. “I saw people but I didn’t talk to anyone,” she said with determination.
“Need anything Calli?” Jim asked. He was polite, his face peering around the office door. Calli asked for a drink of water and her rucksack. He nodded and reappeared a few moments later, bearing both items. Calli drank, realising suddenly how very thirsty she was and tempted to ask for more. Having her possessions with her, somehow made her feel more complete and less out on a limb.
“Did you make an emergency ‘111’ call yesterday?” Jim asked her outright and Calli looked him full in the eyes and acted surprised, denying it profusely. He knew she was lying, she could see it in his family-man’s face and it didn’t make her feel so good, deceiving a friend. He didn’t press the matter, allowing her to settle back down and Calli resisted the urge to ask if the injured man was dead, knowing instinctively he wasn’t and wishing she could kick him in the head again.
A short time later, the kind CYFS lady poked her head into the office and told Calli to get her things together. The teenager thanked Jim with a small nod of her head, but Uncle Pete seemed to be elsewhere. It was only as Calli’s boots contacted the pavement, turning to watch the front door click shut behind her, that Uncle Pete’s absence was explained. In an office behind the reception desk, visible through the glass partition, Simon sat bent over in a chair, his head in his hands. He wasn’t in uniform, his wavy dark hair hanging over his face and stubble clearly visible in the spaces between his hands. Uncle Pete sat in the chair next to him, his arm firmly around the other man’s heaving shoulders. With horror, Calli saw her father was crying, big fat tears dripping from the end of his nose. She caused it. He was a good man. Calli reasoned somehow she had done him a favour, releasing him from the oath of fealty he should never have sworn.
No more tears, she promised herself and so she forced them back, getting into the little blue Vitz the social worker drove and allowing herself to be driven to her future.