Ten

He recognised the voice immediately.

‘Shara. What’s up?’

‘Wil’s been kicked by a horse and he wants to see you.’

‘Christ.’

‘Yeah. He’s in hospital with internal bruising. Something about the liver capsule or God knows.’ She gave a long sniff. ‘He’s a mess, Rob, a real mess.’ He could see her, a small bedraggled creature, all toughness gone. ‘When can you get down?’

‘This weekend,’ he said hoping he could and how much was the fare and what did the old man want and God, let me get there.

‘I’ll meet you.’

‘Thanks.’

*

The local hospital was threatened with closure. The words were seen and heard often in the media, discussed and repeated throughout the country; small hospitals, freezing works which had ceased to be viable, sheltered workshops, psychiatric units and small country schools were all at risk and some were threatened with closure. The phrase was loaded. It had a ring, a plangent echo like ‘shallow grave’, or ‘ageing Skyhawks’, or ‘God’s Own Country’.

There had been a stay of execution on this one. Locals had marched, politicians had arrived, drunk tea on television and departed. Wilfred greeted him with news from the front. The head doctor, the man he was under, a man who had his letters from Bombay, had told him. The proposed closures were mad. Stark staring raving mad. ‘He says at the end of the day we’ll all be on the road with our gall-bladders or hips or whatever looking for a bed. Ranfurly to Balclutha, Balclutha to God knows where.’ Wilfred paused briefly. ‘God, it’s hot in here. And how are you, Tom? How are you?’ The old man lay alone in a four-bed ward, his legs moving irritably beneath a cotton blanket. ‘Take it off man, take it off. The heat’s killing me. And sit down. I’ve something to tell you.’ He stretched, blew out slowly. ‘Now don’t you worry about what Shara says. I’m OK. Just give me a week or two. Bloody sore at the time, I don’t mind telling you. Got me right in the slats but I’m better now.

‘Lucky Shara was there though. We were up the back cleaning out the race again. Needn’t have taken the horses, just as easy have gone in the truck. Easier. Flat as a pancake out there but they get too frisky if they’re not ridden. Frisky’s right. I didn’t know old Bess had it in her. Thought I was a goner at first.’

He puffed again, a long careful release of air. He was very pale, the skin round the mouth yellow and waxy. Even his eyes seemed paler.

What did the doctors say? Was he in pain?

An impatient movement of the legs. ‘Yeah, yeah. Now shut up eh. I’ve got something to tell you.’ The head turned. ‘Where you staying?’

‘Round the corner.’

‘I’ll get Shara to bring it down tonight then.’ An ambulance wailed, was silent, then sped away ululating. If Emmie had been here he would have said it. She liked the weird ones. Wil looked at him, a quick nervous slide of his eyes.

‘Haven’t got that tape thing have you, Tom?’

‘Rob.’

‘Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter a fish’s tit. Now listen. And no bloody tape recorder.’

Two nurses chattered past the window, their hair snarling and tugging in the wind. One carried a sharp-edged guitar, white and gold and spiky. She stopped suddenly, roared ‘Eeelaine’ into the wind and hurried on.

‘I’m not going to cark or anything,’ snapped Wil as though it had been Rob’s idea and a useless one at that. ‘It’s not that. Funny you know. I never felt, all that time we were charging backwards and forwards across the desert, after Minguar Qaim, at Alamein even. Mates, good cobbers, men I’d known all my life being scuppered all round me and the Brits as well, fried alive in their tanks often enough. And never, not once, not at any moment of any day or night did I think I’d cop it. It just didn’t occur to me.’ His brow was furrowed. He didn’t want his listener to get the wrong impression. ‘Not courage. It wasn’t that. I just knew I’d come home and I did, and Dorrie’d gone like I said.’ He paused. Wil’s surprised acknowledgement of the prospect of his own mortality filled the room.

Rob watched the pale blue curtains stirring above the old-fashioned radiator as the old man hunted up the words. He had time to note similar ones tracking between the beds for privacy, and a cardboard urinal to hand.

‘That’s why,’ said Wil finally, ‘that’s why it knocked the stuffing out of me. I don’t mean Bess kicking me in the gut or wherever, that goes without saying. Ever been kicked by a horse? Don’t bother. A bugger like I said but it was later, when they’d had a look and said I’d probably be OK, that I thought about things. It wasn’t till then that I thought Jeeze I could’ve gone, and I’m not getting any younger either. I don’t mind telling you, it made me think. So I told young Shara to get on to you and tell you to come.’ He reached for a glass of water. Rob, like all sickbed visitors, leaped to help and was dismissed. Wil leaned back. ‘Where was I?’

‘Telling me to come.’

‘And you came.’

They grinned at each other, the slow accepting grin of men with time to talk. Presumably it might all make sense eventually. All Robin could do was wait. The tea-wagon, manned by a diminutive tea-person in a pink gauze headdress and sheepskin boots, rumbled to a halt at the end of the bed. ‘Tea dear? Milk and sugar was it? All on our owny-oh today are we? Never mind, you’ve got a visitor, that’s something. Good as gold then.’ She retreated, backing and filling the clumsy wooden crate out the door with the precision of a truckie in a tight alley, then waved through glass.

Wil nodded. ‘That’s Betty, got a daughter married next week. They’re all nice here. Two men even. But someone’s always popping at you to do this, do that, get on a pan or wash or eat or whatever. Well, they have to, it’s their job. But more than that. If you’re not watching the bloody telly or listening to the radio or talking your head off they think Christ the poor old geezer’s all on his own, better pop in. Why do they do that?’

‘They think you’re lonely.’

‘On your own’s not lonely.’

‘Not if you mean to be.’

‘That’s right. You’ve got it, you’ve got it in one.’ Wil, overcome with excitement at anyone understanding what he was on about, moved too quickly and winced with pain. ‘Can’t move. Hard to remember that.’

Rob stowed the empty cup on the locker behind the urinal. ‘What did you want to see me about, Wil?’

‘I told you, this cock-up’s got me thinking. All those years ago when Alice asked me and I promised her I would—and I meant it. Of course I meant it. But I hated that bitch so much I thought I’ll leave it hoping she’d die and then I wouldn’t have to deal with her. And now she has and I still haven’t done anything.’ Wil turned his head, his face puzzled. ‘You ever hated anyone? Personally I mean.’

There is always this compulsion towards truth. Not virtue, there is no virtue in fussing about shades of meaning; nevertheless he did not hate Murray, he merely despised the man. He preferred to be where Murray was not. Murray brought him out in a rash. ‘No,’ he said.

‘No. Me neither till her. Not even the Jerries. Not like that I mean. You have to when you’re killing them of course. But personally. And I’ve never even seen the woman.’ Wil rubbed a button on his striped pyjamas, examined it thoughtfully. ‘You know curses?’ he said suddenly.

‘Curses?’

‘Real curses. Damn your eyes. Rot in hell. What if there was one and they did? Think about it.’ Wil was silent; the skin stretched tight across the beak of his nose gleamed yellow and waxy. The eyes were far away, the hands clenched. ‘I hope there is. I hope there is for that one.’ His voice was fierce and strong. ‘Rot in hell,’ he said.

God in heaven. Candida Bowman?

Wil leaned his head back on pillows, his eyes now on the pegboard acoustic tiles of the ceiling. ‘I want you to contact Alice’s girl for me,’ he said. ‘I can’t leave it any longer.’

The skin on the back of his neck was crawling, his heart still. ‘Alice’s girl?’

‘Yes.’

How in the world, the whole flaming world, had he not guessed?

‘What’s her name?’

The head did not move. ‘Emmeline. Emmeline O’Malley she called her. The bitch wouldn’t even let the child keep Alice’s name. What’s the difference between O’Leary and O’Malley? Six of one and half a dozen of the other but that was the point, to my mind. It was nothing but spite. That’s the difference. Sinful, vicious spite, another way to break Alice, and by Christ it damn near did when she found out. Not at first, I don’t mean, when Candida said she’d mind the child. Alice was grateful then. Grateful beyond words. She said so. Told me night after night as we lay together. What else could she have done at the time except kill herself and Micks were funny about that then. And besides there was the child.’

 

It was a long story. It went on for a long time with diversions and rethinks and thoughts of no relevance at all. The Western Desert reappeared, a ferry trip when he was a boy, the celebration in the back of the local butcher’s shop the night he and Ivy heard about the Rehab farm ballot and how the hams had dripped fat when things hotted up. Both Ivy and Doris, Rob learned, were buried in the Ranfurly cemetery but fortunately there was no plot reserved for him and what did it matter anyhow.

The meal trolley was clanking down the corridor smelling of fish pie and hot metal when Rob walked out to the empty car park and the cold blaze of the stars.

He refused to go back that night. ‘There’s all day tomorrow,’ he said, avoiding any mention of possible exhaustion.

The story rolled on next day, shunting into byways or steaming ahead until darkness. There were few names to remember and Robin did not miss the tape recorder.

 

Alice Amy O’Leary was born near Woodstock in Vermont in one of those villages you see pictures of in the autumn with sugar maples and clapboard houses and that and bloody cold in the winter with barns built for snow to fall off. Houses are built right in the woods with no fences seemingly, but then the trees are deciduous over there and it’s blazing hot in the summer.

She was an only child, Alice, only child of—names’ve gone, doesn’t matter. Her father ran a general store, one of those country stores with everything, you see pictures of them now as if it was history, but I can remember the same round here. Wood floors, all wood, clothes, longjohns, boots, dry goods, drench, stuff for miles. Lots in bulk then, all weighing and wrapping and tying up. People took a pride in it. Huge roll of brown paper, string, knots; quick-fingered you had to be then.

He died young, her father. I don’t know when, but Alice and her Mum carried on running the store. Alice’d be good at it too. She was quick with sums, checked her change quick as a flash. Well you have to if you’ve any sense, but lots don’t, they haven’t the head for it. But she did and ran the farm books for me later and what a joy that was. I’ll show you a photo of her then when I get home. All in white with her hair tied back. Long hair. That’d be the forties. Her mother was widowed by then. And the men were away, lots of them at the end, and soon after this Edwin Calder came home again. He was some sort of war hero from the Normandy landings and he was well-heeled as well. That made it harder for her later. There was this feeling about that she’d done pretty well for herself. She was twenty-five by then and a quiet girl and a country store didn’t add up the same as Calder and Calder who’d been attorneys since the Mayflower, to hear them talk.

His mother wasn’t keen, Alice said, but again that wasn’t all. There was another reason why Alice felt it was her fault. She felt she hadn’t loved him enough. Not the old gut-slammer, the ball-squeezer, know what I mean? But it was a long time ago. In those days if you didn’t get married in Vermont by the time you were thirty you had to go and hide under the bed for the rest of your life she said. She was funny too about cheerleaders. She said she could kick high enough and her face was OK but her fanny lacked oomph. She told me see, she told me everything. Everything about her I wanted to know, and the same with her and me.

So she married Edwin Calder when he qualified and joined his father and his dead grandfather and Calder and Calder was motoring again. Seen a photo of him? Yes, well you see what I mean, and it was worse when he started drinking. One of the few things about the man was his war record. I’ve seen that round here. Everywhere. It’s understandable mind, some returned man takes to booze and the wife feels that she wasn’t there and how would she know and the poor devil’s having nightmares and trying to bayonet the enemy in bed night after night. All that and not loving him enough. If she had she could have helped him, that’s what she felt anyway. Don’t ask me why.

And it got worse. We all know boozers, seen the poor buggers at it, who hasn’t. And it got worse, of course it got worse. They had some grand wedding presents, glass bowls and crystal and that, and one night he came back blind and biffed the lot at a wall and asked her next morning what she’d done to them.

And then there was the business of no children and him roaring and screaming about the bloody House of Calder or whatever and her having every test under the sun. And finally the doctor said he couldn’t do any more until Edwin was tested and that went down like a lead balloon as you can imagine, but he was and it was his fault all right and that finished him she said. Mind you he wouldn’t admit it, and he’d be buggered if he was going to stand with his balls in cold water like the quack suggested, and he certainly wouldn’t take on another man’s bastard by adopting and by this time Alice could see that it was no place for a child anyhow.

Why did she stay? Yes well. Why do they? It was being sorry for him almost if you like, grieving for the man. For his nerve which had gone and his dry balls and his rage which had stayed. But I agree. Why? Why the bloody hell do they? Pride as well of course. The only person she told was that woman, her best friend—kicked the bottom of each other’s cots out they had, that sort of friendship which had gone on for ever. So she told Candida Bowman who said leave him immediately, and so she should have. I’ll give the bitch that. Alice never told her mother. She couldn’t tell the poor old lady who was a real mess by now, what with arthritis and heart. Why worry her? What could she do? No one could do anything but Alice herself and she knew it.

Before that, well before that, long before she was married, she’d published those poems and he’d never once mentioned them so she knew he wasn’t exactly interested. So she kept it secret when she started up with the stories. She sat beside him night after night with him coming back more and more glassy-eyed every time he pretended to go to the toilet which was often, until finally he fell asleep with his mouth open, drunk as a skunk and she could creep off to bed praying he wouldn’t follow her. She told me; the watching and waiting, how it destroys you. Not the body, the mind. Fear is like ants, she said. Carting your will away grain by grain like ants with a dead moth. So what she did, or what she tried to do rather, was to sign off and write things in her head. Poetry was too hard she said. But she could think about her people, get them moving in her head. She’d sit there quiet as a brown mouse waiting for him to flake out, and in the morning when he’d gone she’d get them down on paper, or try to.

Her stories would never have been published mind, if it hadn’t been for Emmeline’s father—though he wasn’t that then, of course. This’d be more like the mid-fifties and Emmeline wasn’t born till sixty. Stephen Gilchrist was his name. He’s dead now, long gone, but he was a decent enough man she said, though Christ, I think that’s pushing it. Younger than Alice, just a kid, but married already; one of those rush jobs and two kids already and a pathetic little bunch of a wife. He was a law clerk in Calder and bloody Calder and wrote poetry in his spare time. Though what spare time he’d had in that set-up God knows, let alone at home. But they used to talk together at office dos about poetry and stuff, not that they had the chance often in that outfit, which was mean as cat shit. Alice said it was just loneliness at first, and probably would have stayed that way, them both being so trapped and so sort of defeated. But then Edwin went to New York for some law deal and Alice and Stephen became lovers and Stephen sent the stories off and they were accepted.

And then she found she was pregnant. Ask yourself. At first she didn’t tell Stephen. Well you can guess why, and yes you’re right. Because she knew what he’d do. She knew he would panic and by God he did, though mind you he was in a mess, I’ll say that, two kids and a third on the way and the junior partner’s wife in trouble in a firm like that in the fifties. They’d have eaten him raw so he scarpered. Took to his heels and ran and sent for his wife and kids later. And all this time Alice went on writing. Bitter stuff, as you can see, and why not? How she did it at all God knows, but then again we’re all different and she said otherwise she would have gone completely flyblown. She got that one from me. I’m not proud of it mind, especially when you’ve seen the real thing. The Maoris have a better word for mental illness—porangi—in the dark. Benighted. But she liked it. The tougher, the more basic the word was, the more she seemed to like it for herself, know what I mean?

‘Yes.’

It was different when she knew she was pregnant. Then she said it was survival. Survival for her child and herself and she turned to Candida Bowman.

Of course she would never have got away with it if Edwin hadn’t packed up in London that time like I told you, and been away for so long. I think maybe she’d got sort of punch drunk by then. One foot in front of the other waiting for whatever was going to happen. And one thing was certain and that soon. She’d got past panicking. She moved in with the Bowman woman and lived in a sort of dream and walking for miles. All this she told me. Ever read the second one? That tells you something. The Hand of Time. Yes. It’s grim but you can see that one’s more … well hopeful. It’s the only one to my mind that gets better towards the end. Ends better. She said Candida minded her, cared for her, couldn’t have been kinder, she said. And then one day she handed Alice a piece of paper all typed out neat as a pin, and left for work. She ran a specialist plant nursery. Carnations, I think it was. Here, this is what I told you about yesterday. Shara brought it in last night. You can see how old it is.

THINK ABOUT IT.

1. The baby is due next month.

2. Either Edwin will be

a) Home

b) Coming soon

c) Dead

There are no other alternatives.

3. In a), b) you cannot keep this child, and you can’t bank on c).

THINK ABOUT IT.

SO 4. Possible alternatives after the birth:

a) The child is put up for adoption.

b) The child goes into a state home.

c) You run away with your illegitimate child.

5.    a) and b) are self-explanatory.

c) requires clarification.

How can you support a child? You have No money, No qualifications and No home.

6. What other alternatives are there?

THINK ABOUT IT.

Someone has to.

Alice told me she sat reading and rereading the piece of paper till the words blurred. She could remember the pattern the words made, the gaps between the lines. She was in shock or something. All this, all this she told me, and more.

So Bowman came back from work happy as a clam, all smiles and pink about the edges and asked Alice what she had thought of the document. And Alice said she had found it interesting and had Candida any suggestions to make herself, because if not she thought it was one of the most vicious things she had ever seen, and the fact that every word was true did not alter that in any way whatsoever.

So Bowman takes off her boots and curls up and tells Alice that 4a was the only possible option and she has given the matter a lot of thought and it was no use Alice sitting around like a stranded whale with its eyes shut. She, Candida, would take the child after it was born and bring it up and when Edwin died, as he must soon by all accounts, Alice could move in and they would all live together.

Alice said No. She said No for a month. She went on and on and on saying no till the bitch wore her down. She had the power see. There’s always one that’s got the power, say what you like, and this time it was Bowman. She made promises. She wouldn’t bring the child up as her own. She promised that. She would never pretend it was hers. She would be a foster parent, a foster aunt. What sort of life would the child have otherwise, she said, an illegitimate, a byblow trailing around after a New England vagrant? Who would mind it while Alice worked? What would she work at? What was she qualified for? All that. You can imagine and still Alice said No. And then she gave in. Quite suddenly, and later even when she lay with the child in her arms she still knew she had to. They didn’t know then, all this stuff they go on about now how even a half-dead mess of a mother is better for the child than anyone else, and if you ask me there’s a lot of muddled thinking going on there too, but how would I know? So Alice gave in. Candida had a bit of money coming from her grandmother, her garden business was doing OK and she would put in a manager for a while. Alice could see the child, though not too much as it would be unsettling and when Edwin died they would all live together, and that couldn’t be long the way he was killing himself, like I said.

So Alice signed. She signed the adoption papers and collapsed next day. She was mad she said, completely deranged. Cold and shivering and out of her mind. Things you couldn’t imagine giving a thought to tore her apart. A packet of peppercorns she’d taken by mistake from a store counter years ago and what could she do? She’d taken them back at once but the person who had paid for them had left the store and would be missing them and Alice didn’t know her name even, or where she lived, and what could she do. She could still remember years later, when we were tucked up in bed together she could remember every minute of it all. How she couldn’t sleep, she wouldn’t eat, she tried to cut her wrists and made a mess of it.

And in some weird way that saved her. Well, obviously it did, she felt if she was so useless she couldn’t even kill herself then she bloody well deserved to have to live. And you can see that in her books can’t you? Certainly the last two, All Fall Down and The Load.

But always she knew she would have her daughter with her eventually, and that’s the bit that doesn’t show up in the books to my mind. You get the loss all right, I reckon, but no hope except in The Hand of Time. I read them and read them but I don’t get that feeling in the last two, not the hope. Survival. Acceptance even. Stoicism? Yeah, that’s there too, sure, I agree. You’ve put your finger on it. But it doesn’t add up though. Not to my mind, because why doesn’t the hope show up in them? It was what kept her going she said, the hope of being with her child. That and her writing. It makes you think, doesn’t it? Gawd, I wouldn’t know the subconscious if I met it in the street, but it makes you think. Did she have some sort of premonition or what?

The first shock, and even then she didn’t see through the bitch, was when Candida said she and Emmeline were going to New Zealand. The climate was good the woman said, and the soil, and her grandmother’s money had come through and she was going to New Zealand to start her own plant nursery, which she never did nor intended to if you ask me. She told Alice she had always wanted to leave New England, and land was cheap here, and with the climate, well, why not now she had the chance.

By this time Edwin was back home and completely dependent on Alice. She shut off, she said, detached herself, went through the motions, put him back in bed when he fell out, cleaned up after him and you can imagine that too. He was pathetic she said, though I’m damned if I’d have seen it. He wasn’t violent now, just a complete wreck, a wreck of what had once been some sort of man. He scarcely knew her half the time, stared through her like glass, she said.

Sure, sure, why didn’t she leave the man when her child was here and waiting? You tell me. You’re the smart one. You tell me. Pity? Yeah, plus guilt I reckon. Even though she thought, even though she tried to convince herself, knew she had done the right thing, millions of women have half starved themselves to support their kids and done so. Maybe that was it. Maybe she thought she hadn’t had the guts, had given in because she was feeble, had taken the easy way out. Hadn’t had the courage. That was one bit we didn’t talk about. Perhaps because she knew I’d have loved a child, but that’s easy for me to say. Perhaps that was it. I don’t know, I just don’t know. It was part of the pact with Bowman too, though that wouldn’t have kept me back for a second. I’d have been up there like a robber’s dog. I don’t know.

She was told, allowed, mind, to write to Emmeline no more than once a week. Any more, the woman said, and it would be unsettling. When the child could write there’d be two or three letters a year. Little formal things. Thank you for my birthday present. It has been raining here. Photos? What photos? She didn’t say. There weren’t any with the letters. I told you about the letters. I told you just now. The unopened ones. I did. I said. All right, all right, I’ll tell you again.

When Edwin died she sent off a letter that very day to say she was coming. She told me. ‘He is dead. I’m coming.’ That’s Alice. She never messed about. Straight as a die. Make you laugh, wouldn’t it, if it didn’t make you bucket. I can see her writing it. He is dead. I am coming. Wacko! So she came straight out. And when she left Seatoun, when she was thrown out on the street with no child and dead as mutton because nothing could touch her or matter ever again, you know what that bitch did? She gave Alice a cardboard box and said you might as well have these and the taxi drove off to the airport and Bowman walked back up her drive.

Alice didn’t open the box till they were well up—over the Kaikouras, she said it was, all that snow. And inside the box was every letter or card she’d ever sent Emmeline since she was a little tot and every one unopened. All those years and the kid had never had a glimpse of one except for presents. Think about it. Kids love things with their names on, love them long before they can read. I’ve seen it. Bowman must’ve been pretty quick off the mark, pretty cunning to beat a kid to the mail year after year. That’s what gets me. Not only what she did, but the viciousness, the spite. Never a thought to tell Alice before. I know why she did it, she did it because she was the victor and she’d won and she wanted every twist of the bayonet. I’ve done it and I know. The twist is part of it. She wanted death, not walking wounded.

It was Central that saved Alice. And me she said, but I don’t know. And the dogs. She had her own dog you know. Yes. Real little goer he was too. A huntaway, couldn’t see him for smoke.

Why didn’t she go to court? Work it out man. Use your loaf. What chance did she have? This was sixty-nine remember. She had signed the papers, Emmeline was adopted. It was all legal. Oh, she begged, of course she begged, she damn near destroyed herself. Saw a Wellington lawyer who wasn’t hopeful, and begged Bowman some more. Just to be able to stay. That was the arrangement. And there was another thing. A thing she didn’t tell me till much later. A thing she told me only to stop me storming up and clobbering the bitch and bringing the kid back to her mother, legal or not legal.

Christ, it’s hot in here.

She said the kid didn’t like her. That was what finished it. If there had been any spark, anything other than obvious dislike … It wasn’t only that Emmeline wasn’t interested, why should she be? What’s an unknown woman to an eight-year-old. And she was unknown. There was no photo of her in the house that Alice could see. Obviously no one had talked about nice Alice in Vermont and how Emmeline would like her and what fun she was. And here was another card for her, look, with her own name on it—love from Alice. And that’s another thing doesn’t add up. Alice was fun. Not at first my word, not at all, but even then she had a quickness. She noticed. Later we’d roll about. It must’ve been there. It’s in the letters. You see it a bit in the poems but the laughs got knocked out of her and the breakdown didn’t help. That’s no fun believe me. I’ve seen it in the desert. Men half out of their minds and not a scratch on them. You’re lucky if you can sign off, and that’s what Alice did when she saw the unopened letters.

And Emmeline was happy in Seatoun, Alice could see that. It’s a nice place she said, beach and that, and the woman, whenever she did write which wasn’t often, told Alice about the good school and how Emmeline had lots of friends and was happy as a Cape Cod clam. And she certainly seemed happy according to Alice, one of those skinny kids always jumping about the place and her father’s red hair. Quick on her feet, you know the sort, and by this time there was ballet as well, though what the hell that had to do with the price of fish is beyond me. But all this, all this added up, and what with the kid not liking her as well …

No, I don’t know why the kid took against her, not really. But then again maybe I do. Alice had no fear, not physical fear. I’ve seen her eyeball a bull, a great thundering Hereford, and get herself back to the fence cool as you please. It wasn’t that. But when she got nervous she tried too hard, know what I mean? She sort of pushed things. She talked too much and her hands were all over the place and she went on and on. Well, a lot of people won’t shut up, I could show you a couple of real snorters round here, but it was different to that. She only did it when she was nervous, not like old Don down the road who can’t even pour a drink when he’s talking. Stand there with the bottle in his hand and your tongue hanging out and on and on till you could throttle the man.

No. Hers was different. It was nerves, it only happened when she wasn’t easy. At ease. At the races say, or Dalgety’s tent at the Show—somewhere else where she didn’t feel at home, didn’t feel easy in herself. And I can see her, that’s the tragedy. I can see her putting the kid off and longing to be liked and trying harder and harder, and laughing too much maybe, or not enough, and making it worse. There was too much at stake. And she couldn’t take her eyes off Emmeline she told me, the way the child moved, and everything got worse and worse and things got tougher with the bitch saying she’d fight every inch of the way and that Alice hadn’t an iceball’s chance in Hades, and what did she want to do to the child? Did she want to destroy her own child? Take her away from her security and happiness? And there was Alice getting more desperate every day and more shy until she would’ve put anyone off, let alone a bright sparky kid like Emmeline. What could Alice do? Cut her in half like Solomon? I always thought that was one of the dumbest stories I’ve ever read, even for the Bible. What would anyone want with half a child, mother or no mother.

I told you she’d changed Emmeline’s surname to O’Malley. Yes. By deed poll. Alice didn’t even know that till she arrived in New Zealand. She went butcher’s. Well, wouldn’t you? Gave the woman both barrels, told her what she thought of her and how she couldn’t believe it, let alone understand it. And you know what the woman said. She just smiled and said she didn’t have to understand it. It was done and that was that. O’Leary to O’Malley. So near. Why not O’Connell or O’Riley or any damn thing, not Irish at all? I’ll tell you why. The nearer it was the worse, don’t you reckon? More rub-your-nose-in-it if you see what I mean. And my God Alice saw pretty damn quick.

Suspicions before she came out? Well there you go. Did she? If it’d been me I damn well would’ve. As I said I’d have been here in a flash years before, but I think there were two things. I think that she just went on day after day cleaning up after Edwin and knowing that her child was happy and she would be with her one day. And the other thing was that she trusted Candida bloody Bowman. She had ever since they were kids, she said. She was straight like Alice, and you know what some kids are like, especially girls, well they were in my day. Sneaky often. But Candida never was. One day somebody wrote Fuck on the blackboard and the whole class was kept in and finally Candida got sick of it and said she’d done it when she hadn’t. She’d just got sick of it, know what I mean? Kids don’t usually do that. Not when it’s the strap, or not in my day.

Maybe she’d made up her mind, made up her mind even as a kid that she didn’t give a stuff what anyone thought of her, that she’d play it her way. Maybe it was that and good luck to her, except for what she did to Alice. But surely Alice should have realised? That’s what gets me. But then again if you trust you trust, if you don’t you don’t, and I’ll tell you something else. You don’t have to like people to trust them, and the other way round as well. And Alice admired her; not giving a damn about what she looked like, not giving a damn what anyone thought, being so independent, making her own life. Alice fluffing about with poetry and books and Candida getting on with what she wanted to do, which was grow things and to hell with the rest. She knew the woman was honest. Except you know something? Probably you haven’t noticed but I’ve read them so often now, thought about them for years, especially the last two. Why does she go on about betrayal? Sure you can say it was Stephen, but you know what I think? I think she was preparing herself—no not that—more stiffening herself in case. Does that make sense? Well, I’m glad you think so.

And added to that there were the other things. So few letters came back to Alice and what there were from Candida so wooden, and the same from the kid. That would have been Candida, see. No little kid’s going to love someone they never see unless someone tells them about that person are they? Let alone her hiding the letters. Someone who shows photos, talks. This is Nana, this is Pop, this is Alice who loves you. It’s a two-way plug to my mind. I see that with nieces and nephews.

Yeah, I agree. You wouldn’t think that after all she’d been through she’d have left it like that again but I saw her, and yes I can imagine, and it’d break your bloody heart. She thought it was best for her child.

It all came to a head when Emmeline had gone on to ballet from school one afternoon and the two of them were at it hammer and tongs all day and finally Alice dashed out the door and that was it. The bitch had won and Alice came south the next day.

 

‘I saw her.’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘I saw her that day. I was about six but I’ve never forgotten. I lived next door to Emmie and Miss Bowman.’

‘You never did.’

‘I still do. Well, my mother does.’

Wil’s grin was wide and slow.

‘Then you know Emmeline! What’s she like?’

Rob’s head moved. ‘Fantastic.’

Wil was moving too quickly, grimacing with pain and excitement. ‘Bring her down man. Bring her down soon.’

‘I’d like to a lot but …’

‘But what?’

Use your head man, rub a few memories together. Here is a woman who longs to know who her mother was, who disliked her the only time she saw her as much as Alice thought she did if not more, and who loved and admired Miss Bowman. The woman who had devoted her life to her, had brought her up, encouraged her, given her freedom. He saw the bundled figures biking towards the Seatoun tunnel through the years, the corn popping, the food, Emmie’s grin. This is the woman you’re going to rip apart in front of her. Turn her into a monster.

No. And Emmie won’t believe you or me.

‘Emmeline loved Miss Bowman very much,’ he said.

‘That’s because she doesn’t know what she was like.’

‘She would never believe you. Never in a million years.’

And God knows what I believe. Things had become chaotic. His mind was spinning, heading for white water on a leaking raft. The session, the revelations, the call for attendance at the sick bed had all promised good things. Things of meaty goodness on which to chew. Things which had in fact been provided and had turned into red toadstools with spots.

‘She had wanted to come in August,’ he said. ‘Very much.’

‘Well, then?’

He looked the patient straight in the eye. ‘She loved Miss Bowman and you’re right, her mother worried her. OK Alice was wonderful. OK she could write. OK you loved her. That doesn’t alter Emmie’s reaction and why should it?’

‘I’m going to tell her.’

‘You won’t. I’ll break it to her. I’ll tell her about …’

‘What the hell’s it got to do with you?’

‘She’s my …’ His tongue was wide; there was too much of it, thick as a cow’s. ‘I love her,’ he said.

‘Ah, so that’s it then. You love her so that’s all hunky dory and the truth can go out the window. The big straw boss can shield his girl. What about my girl! What about Alice? She’s dead. She doesn’t matter! Well, she matters to me, get it. You’re happy to flag away the rest. Happy to have her daughter think she didn’t care, didn’t give a stuff and dumped her?’

Rob was overheated, stupid, infuriated by sense. ‘She did‚’ he muttered.

Wilfred ignored the pain. ‘Get out.’ He grabbed the grey cardboard urinal and threatened barrel first. ‘Get out.’

Robin stood, took the thing from the shaking hand and put it on the floor. ‘Sorry, that was stupid.’

‘Just bugger off will you.’

You could have killed him. You realise that. You realise he’s right. You realise Emmie will have to know everything and Emmie will hate you and Emmie will never believe you because Emmie is steel from Toledo or wherever the fuck it comes from.

The old man was chewing, gnashing, glaring into his face. ‘Oh, sit down you stupid bastard,’ he said.

 

‘Why didn’t you tell me all this the first time I came down?’

‘I told you. I kept hoping the bitch would die and I wouldn’t have to deal with her.’

‘You knew she was dead.’

The eyebrows wouldn’t have it. ‘No.’

This is where it gets tricky. His mind goes sailing along, rational, convincing, authoritative, then slips a memory cog, a cog which was operational five minutes ago and leaves you floundering. Rob/Tom, that’s nothing, but the occasional unpredictable lapse …

‘I know you did,’ he said.

Wilfred switched tracks.

‘Well, OK, OK. Maybe I didn’t trust you then and I’m not as honest as Alice was. The odd lies never worried me. And how did I know I could trust you coming out of nowhere like that? There’ve been others sniffing about. Weird-looking types, all jeans and dirty hair.’

Rob grinned. ‘When did the light dawn?’

Wil chewed on it for a minute and let it pass. ‘It was more Bess and the kick. Ever been kicked by a horse?’

He shook his head.

‘Nasty. Very nasty. It’d never happened to me before. Can kill a man any day. I was lucky, but like I said it shook me rigid and I thought Christ I’d better get on and find Emmeline before I snuff it.’ The voice became petulant. ‘I told you all that.’

‘Tell me again about why Alice stopped writing,’ said Robin, his voice gentle to disguise cunning.

‘I told you all that. God, don’t you remember anything? She didn’t need it. She said.’

Researchers can be honest too. ‘I can’t believe that.’

‘Nor can I sometimes, now I read them all the time but I didn’t read them much before. It’s only in the last ten years …’ Wil stretched his legs gingerly to the end of the bed. ‘Nearer fifteen since she died.’

‘So it wasn’t being stuck in the ooloo with Wilfred Q. Hughes?’

There was a gleam in the eyes, a recognition. ‘What do you reckon?’

Rob shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’

‘There’s a hell of a lot you don’t know if you ask me.’

The prescribed pills were being handed out in minuscule white origami containers; the blinds were drawn as they shook hands.

‘Bring her down, boy. Bring her down and I’ll give her the letters.’

It would be so easy to say yes. So easy to flannel and much kinder. ‘I’ll try. I’ll work it out. I can’t promise.’

‘Promise nothing. Just do it, you drongo. Or I’ll come up.’

 

Rob lay tossing on his hired bed, aware that he was being ridiculous, that he was behaving like some goddamned insomniac in a TV ad before his partner tiptoes smiling through the night to his side with the product and the glass of water and they flash their love across the covers and don’t have to say a thing. They have the cure. Unlike him. He was a fully paid-up participant in a moral dilemma and unable to sleep. He flung himself on his back and went through it again.

There was no dilemma for Wilfred, who had loved his wife. He was an honourable man who had lied to him and why not. He had never clapped eyes on Robin before, didn’t know him and disliked both smart-arses and sniffers. They were town men for starters.

No problem either for Emmeline. She knew right from wrong and was amoral which was an oxymoron. No, no, a paradox, get it right you fool, and that isn’t right either because you can sleep around, not that she does now, and still be good as gold and moral means virtuous in general conduct, as she is, as well as concerned with the rules of conventional morality which she is not. She has moral courage and it is a moral certainty that she will hate me for ever if/when …

She will undoubtedly shoot the messenger.

He turned on the light, turned it off. Life had not prepared him for this but then what could have. Only sons of widowed mothers are not trained for this sort of thing. He could blame his mother. Release the Inner Child. Oh fuck.

Any decision, he had read recently in some corporate management magazine, was better than none. This statement, slipped among comments on front-end evaluation and income projections and an advertisement for a new voice-mail recruitment service, had surprised him. Wasn’t the decision to make no decision at that point in time a decision within the meaning of the act? A decision per se to defer the big one, the hot potato, the bottom-liner to another point in time at the end of the day. And if not why not? Perhaps if he could write it down. Tabulate. He put out a leg, pulled it back.

Go to sleep you drongo. A good word, drongo. I am indebted to Mr Wilfred Q. Hughes for his permission to use the word drongo. I am indebted to Ms Emmeline O’Malley, O’Leary, for her interest in the word ululate. Would Emmie come creeping to him, smiling through the night with soporifics? Probably not, thank God. The sky was lightening beyond the thin curtains. He could get up.

 

The airport was not busy. A ring of men and women stood staring at a cardboard container in the foyer, their faces thoughtful as cows ringed around a still-smoking meteorite. The box had contained cheese and said so.

A man cradling a bike helmet gave a yap of laughter. ‘Perhaps it’s a bomb‚’ he said.

‘Reuben, come here at once,’ yelled a woman in a pink tracksuit. A teenager in a T-shirt labelled CREW lifted a downy upper lip and stayed. ‘Rube!’ she yelled again. ‘You want to get blown up or something?’ Rube shrugged and sauntered away, his muscular buttocks rolling with contempt.

‘Can’t be a bomb,’ said Robin. ‘It’s open.’

He looked again at the label. Twelve times one kilo equals total weight twelve kilos. That made sense. Perhaps he could use the format for finding the solution. Robin shook his head. It was not funny and it never had been and there was something wrong with his gut too. Maybe he had picked up a little bug as Eileen would say.

He swung his leg and kicked the empty carton high in the air as the herd scattered.

A young Maori standing beside him dropped an eyelid. ‘Easy to shift, eh. Must be a little Pakeha bugger.’ He dropped his pack and took a leisurely drop-kick at the box which sailed towards the automatic doors. They opened obediently and sighed to a close behind it.

The guy peered at him as he straightened his pack.

‘You OK man?’

He must look a mess. ‘Me? Yeah, I’m fine thanks, yeah.’

There was one comfort. He had lost Murray’s Dunedin telephone number which Emmie had given him.

‘Yeah. Fine‚’ he said again.