6

SOUND is a sequence of waves of pressure through a medium such as air or water, and the perception of sound is limited to a certain range of frequencies. For humans, hearing is normally between the frequencies of 20 Hz and 20 000 Hz, although the upper limit often decreases with age. Other species have different ranges of hearing and many species have produced special organs to generate sound. Sound cannot travel through a vacuum.

They were not moving to Sydney. The argument was about something else, Jeff didn’t know what, that had put his father into a state of major irritation.

Although Winston had come home late, he was up early and pacing about the kitchen, phoning, checking emails, shouting at Helen for no reason. He couldn’t sit down for more than a few seconds. His arms moved, his legs twitched, as though someone was pulling strings.

“Have you got hold of him?” Helen said, as she put out the breakfast cereals.

“I can’t! I told you! His health won’t take long flights. He’s going back in short hops, Darwin, Singapore, Hong Kong, Rome, Berlin, London. Rest days in between.”

“Surely he can answer his phone,” Helen said.

“His bloody phone’s off!” Winston threw up his hands. “If you can’t say anything intelligent, just shut the hell up!”

Helen’s mouth went thin and her movements slowed. She put bowls deliberately in place, a glass of orange juice beside each, and told Jeff to go and wake up his sister.

Andrea was already up and dressed but she looked half asleep, hair all over her face and dark marks under her eyes. She, too, was grumpy. “I’ve been sleeping in a war zone.”

“It’s Sydney. Something’s gone wrong.”

“Who cares?” She picked up her hairbrush. “Listen to him! I don’t know how any of us put up with his moods.”

“Breakfast is ready,” he said.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’ll be late for school.”

“Too bad!”

“Andy, you have to come for breakfast!”

“Oh, go away! You’re as bad as he is! Control, control!” She looked at him in the mirror and her expression changed. She jumped up and gave him a clumsy hug. “I didn’t mean it, little bro.”

He shrugged within the squeeze of her arms. “I know.”

“You’ll never be like him. Never! All right, I’ll come out and have some orange juice.”

* * *

It was Mrs Wilson’s birthday, although she wouldn’t say how old she was. Paul reminded the class that a lady never told her age, and Mrs Wilson said it wasn’t that, she had just given up counting when she got to a hundred. This made them laugh, everyone except Clive Fisher, who didn’t get the joke and remarked that she had to be exaggerating.

They had put money together to buy her a ball-point pen with a rolled-gold cap and her name on the barrel. Salosa’s father had a shop that did engraving, but because they were unsure of her first name, the pen simply had Mrs Wilson on it, which was appropriate for a school pen. They had all signed the card and Peter had written that the pen was designed to give high marks to pupils’ assignments.

They were right in assuming Mrs Wilson would be so pleased, she would fritter away a good percentage of a history lesson. “Do you know, when my mother was at school, the desks had holes for little pots of ink they called inkwells and students had to use pens with nibs that were dipped in the ink.”

They knew how to keep her stories going. Salosa said, “When were ball-point pens invented, Mrs Wilson?”

“Some time in the forties, I think,” she said. “But students were not allowed to use them. Teachers thought it would make their script sloppy. Ballpoint pens would ruin handwriting! That was the catchphrase of the day.”

“What about smart phones?” someone said.

Mrs Wilson chuckled. “I’ll leave you to answer that. Have you all got your history text? Turn to page seventy-three –”

Peter quickly put up his hand. “Is it true, Mrs Wilson, that ball-point pens don’t write in outer space?”

“Correct, Peter!” she said. “The first astronauts discovered their ball-point pens would not work in zero gravity. So, do you know what happened?”

They all did, because she had told this story before.

“NASA scientists spent ten years and billions of dollars designing a ball-point pen that would write in any condition, upside down, under water, in zero gravity, in all temperatures and on any surface, including glass.”

They waited for the punchline.

“And do you know what the Russians did? They used a pencil!”

Everyone else laughed as expected, but Jeff merely shook his head. It was not a funny story. It was a comment on the evolution of the human race.

* * *

After school, Paul invited Jeff to come around and have a jam session in the basement. Jeff wanted to say yes, but couldn’t with the way things were at home. All day he had carried his father’s angry voice and while he wanted to get as far away from that as possible, he also needed to find out what was going on. He said, thanks, another day, to Paul, and then walked to Argonaut Travel.

Tuesdays, he usually took the bus home because Helen worked late, but today he didn’t want to go back to a house that echoed bad energy. Then there was the other thing, a stranger doing Eddie’s work in the garden. So much change! Even if his mother was working late today, she could spare a minute to tell him what was happening.

Because it was a fine afternoon, he walked along the wharf. At least, that was the reason he gave himself. Actually, he was hoping to see Maisie somewhere in that public space. All along the waterfront were seats where old people often sat, watching boats and enjoying the sunshine. It was a logical setting. Maybe she would be there.

He strolled past the three red tugboats snuggled up against the pier, past the Dominion Post ferry, past the restaurants, his head turning. There was a party of Asian tourists taking photos, a couple on a tandem bicycle, children, parents, some kids with rollerblades. No old Maisie. He got as far as Circa Theatre and went right, leaving the sea to walk into the city and his mother’s workplace. His sensible self asked him, how would Maisie know that he had decided to walk along the wharf? The answer was, the same way she knew he was going to be at the bus stop, the restaurant, the library.

Oh yeah? the voice argued. And how did she know that?

This time, the answer was silence.

By the time he arrived at the door of Argonaut Travel, he had walked two thousand, three hundred and twenty-seven steps.

There was a young redheaded woman sitting at Helen’s desk. She smiled. “Are you Jeffrey? Hi! I’m Amiria. I’m filling in for your mother. She went home at lunchtime. She had a migraine.”

Helen with a migraine? That was a headache, wasn’t it? He stepped backwards. “Thanks.”

“I used to get terrible migraines. Tell her putting her head under a cold shower really helps. Hope she’s better tomorrow.”

* * *

Helen was home, cleaning the fridge. Winston was at the office. Outside, the grey-headed man with a moustache was clipping the small box hedge that separated the herb garden from the roses.

“It’s a mess,” Helen said. “Your father’s trying to sort it out.”

Jeff poured himself a chocolate milk. “What kind of mess?”

“I’m not sure. Neither is your dad. He’s trying to get to the bottom of it, but it’s possible we don’t have that harbour property.”

“The sale’s fallen through?” He sat up straight, trying to conceal his pleasure. “So there’s no Sydney house?”

Helen took the chocolate milk packet and put it back in the fridge. “It rather looks like it. No house. No courier package.”

Jeff swallowed. The drink tasted wonderful. “No wonder Dad’s upset.”

“It’s not the end of the world. He’ll invest the money elsewhere.”

She shut the fridge door. “At the moment he’s talking about suing Mr Staunton-Jones’s lawyer, so that’s keeping him occupied. You’ve got chocolate milk down your shirt.”

“I’m pleased,” he said.

“What about?”

“About Sydney. I’m really, really glad.”

“Your father had better not hear you saying that,” she warned.

“Andy, too. We said we’d never move away from Wellington.”

“There was never any question of moving.”

“But it might have happened,” he said. “Mr Staunton-Jones thought we were all going to live there. He talked about that.”

“It was an investment. Nothing more. And it’s not our only concern.” Helen sat at the counter opposite him. She leaned forward. “Jeffrey, I know you and Andrea talk – about a lot of things. Does she ever say anything about Daniel?”

He knew where this was going. He shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“Daniel thinks she’s always busy with school work.”

Jeff put his hands around his glass and felt the chill in his fingers. “She is busy with school work. If she’s going to do law next year, she’s got to get good marks. She works all hours.”

“Nonsense,” said his mother. “She’s out all hours – and it’s not with Daniel. Do you know who she’s seeing?”

It was a relief to shake his head and mean it.

Helen watched him for a few seconds, then she got off the chair. “If you did know, you would tell me, wouldn’t you?”

He tried a small smile. It worked. She put her hand on her forehead and said, “At least there is one person in this family I can rely on.”

* * *

The historical figure Jeff had chosen for Mrs Wilson’s assignment was Dmitri Mendeleev, who had created the periodic table. For Jeff, the man was not as important as the work that gave order to the world. The periodic table was like a holy book for scientists.

The computer gave a few statistics: Mendeleev was born in Siberia in 1834, and he died in 1907. There was a photograph, too, of an elderly bearded man at a desk. Jeff imagined him floating upside down in a space capsule, writing out the periodic table with a pencil, arranging the 65 elements he knew, in a grid. The elements were all neatly assembled according to ascending atomic weight.

It didn’t matter to Jeff that the table was constructed from false reasoning. Electrons hadn’t been discovered in Mendeleev’s time. People thought the atom was the smallest particle. It took a whole forty-four years for them to discover the missing elements and work out the correct explanation. But it was Mendeleev who first knew that chemistry was simply numbers. Jeff wrote all that on his pad and then put down his pen. He picked up a 2B pencil and added, The universe is made of numbers.

* * *

It was dark and neither Winston nor Andrea was home. Helen and Jeff shared a microwaved lasagne, without conversation, Helen reading travel magazines while she ate. The house was so quiet that when the phone rang, they both jumped.

It was Paul Fitzgibbon, eager to talk to Jeff. “Hey, man, I’m in a sweat with the maths I didn’t do yesterday. Fractions, okay. Percentages, okay. But what’s with identifying linear functions? And this graphing of a proportional relationship? Did you do that?”

Jeff could almost see Paul tugging at his scruffy hair, something he always did when anxious. “Yes. They’re not difficult.”

“Can you come over, man? Dad can come and get you and if you like you can stay the night. Would you be cool with that?”

Words such as saved, rescue, escape, came into his head and he didn’t have to consider for long. “I think so. I’ll need to ask Mum.” He saw Helen looking at him, and added. “Here, you ask her.”

She was careful, wanting to speak to Paul’s parents, but in end she agreed and said he could go to school with Paul tomorrow. He ran, sixteen bounding steps, to his room and packed pyjamas, clean shirt and underwear, books.

Winston would be home soon and it would all start again. Andrea would walk in on it. “Sorry, Andy,” he said to her empty room; but he wasn’t sorry enough to stay. He went out the front door, ran along the drive, and waited outside the gate for Mr Fitzgibbon.

* * *

Paul’s house was always noisy. Four-year-old Isabella had been to a library party and had her face painted like a tiger. She was now yelling because she didn’t want it washed off, and her older sister was yelling that she’d mess up the pillow. Mrs Fitzgibbon came between them and said she’d rather wash a pillowcase than put up with the argument, so that was that. Jeff thought that Mrs Fitzgibbon came from Peru or Bolivia. She was a short woman with long black hair and a round face, and she often swore at the children in Spanish.

The noise in the Fitzgibbon house had a good feeling to it, like the noise in a farmyard. But it was hard to find a quiet corner of the kitchen table where Jeff could help Paul with his maths homework. It didn’t take long. Paul was smart and once he understood the questions, he was finished in less than twenty minutes. He shoved the papers into his satchel and they were off to the basement for a session on keyboard and drums.

At eight-thirty, Mr Fitzgibbon came down to tell them supper was ready. A light meal at bedtime was usual in Paul’s family. Jeff’s mother said that one should not eat before going to sleep because the energy needed to digest food caused restlessness and bad dreams. Mrs Fitzgibbon had the opposite view. Food calmed the body, she said. A full stomach was a happy stomach that dreamed of heaven.

Whatever, her suppers were always good. Tonight it was grilled cheese and tomato on toast, which would sit well in lasagne. They sat around the table, Jeff and six Fitzgibbons, and the dog under the table like a furry vacuum cleaner. Jeff wished he could have a dog like that. He fed it bits under the table and let it lick his fingers.

Out of the blue, Paul’s father said, “You must be pleased about your brother coming home.”

Jeff went still. “What?”

“Beckett coming back to Auckland. I think the government did a good job of negotiation. It’ll be a relief for you all to have him here, safe and sound.”

Paul, seeing Jeff’s blank look, added, “It was on the six o’clock news.”

“Was it?” Jeff put the toast down on his plate. “Did they say when?”

“Soon, they said.” Mr Fitzgibbon looked at his wife. “Did they give a date?”

“I did not hear.” She said to Jeff. “Your mama and your papa will be very happy. La familia es todo.”

“Family is everything,” Paul translated.

Jeff’s smile began inside him and spread out to his mouth and then to the faces around the table. He had not seen Beck for three years, two months and five days, and in every day of that time, he’d thought of him.

Now it was official. His brother was coming back. Winston would have seen the news. Helen too, and Andrea. At that moment, Jeff wanted to hug the entire Fitzgibbon family, even the sulky ex-tiger. “You’re right,” he said. “Everything.”