Drowned Sprat and Other Stories (17 page)

‘Yeah? What’s your name again?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’ What if he went around to fix her mother’s sink or something? ‘I know your daughter,’ he might say. ‘I met her in Auckland. She’s a filthy little hooker.’

The sex had made her full bladder sting. She couldn’t hold on a moment longer. Sitting up, she pulled the sleeping bag around her, like a slippery, puffy cloak.

‘Wait a moment,’ she said, picking her way across the littered carpet and down a short hall to the bathroom. In the silence that followed the last of the gushing water she heard the door to the flat open and shut. He’d gone. The bastard had done a runner.

Sleeping bag dumped in a puddle from the leaking shower-box, she was out of the bathroom and into Amber’s room, which had windows that gave out onto the road. There he was on the other side, striding through the rain, his shining head and sports jacket shoulders moving from one pool of street-light to another, late-night traffic roaring and slicking in the wet between them. Kneeling on Amber’s bed, she pushed the window out on its hinges — it could only open a few centimetres — squeezed her face into the narrow gap and yelled after him.

‘You! Over there! Effing come back and give me my effing money!’

He disappeared around the corner and the last shreds of the bravado that had buoyed her up all night went with him. Stumbling over Amber’s boots and clothes, her arms locked around her stomach, colliding with the shitty, crumbling walls, she made her way back to the sofa and collapsed on it face down, her chest heaving. Maybe she was going to be sick, toss up the KGB and all the wine she’d drunk at Leonard’s. There wouldn’t be
anything else. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday.

Something sticky and cold glued itself to her knee. She sat up again, peeled it off — the condom, full of spoof. He had come then. She’d wondered. She flung it away and was about to lie down again when her eye was drawn to the candle, which had burnt down below the lip of the jar. In the gentle light, on the carton, there was a sheen of green and blue. She lunged for it. Two twenties and a ten.

You see, she told herself, in the motherly voice she reserved for the rare occasions she saw the twins, you see? You were right. He was an honest guy. He didn’t rip you off.

She dressed and left the flat, the fifty dollars tucked into her purse. Downstairs a carload was heading into town and she got a lift with them. She’d go back to Leonard’s and get the money, she decided, then go around to Tip’s and make everything all right. On the way they passed Blake, still walking fast, his hair glued to his head with rain, and she waved at him from her perch on some guy’s knee, but he didn’t see her.

Once there was a blank. As blanks often are, it was white. It was propped up on two wooden legs, and was very bored with itself and everything around it. Especially the five lanes that roared in front of it and gave it a headache.

One day two men and a woman parked a blue van on the grass verge. They unloaded ladders, some buckets of paste, and several large cylinders of paper. The woman leaned a ladder against the blank with a loud thud.

‘Ouch,' said the blank, but nobody heard it.

The woman began to slop paste onto the blank with a paintbrush. The blank sighed. The day was very hot and the glue very cool, if a little sticky. After a while the woman climbed down and moved her ladder along. One of the men pushed up a ladder where hers had been. Thunk.

‘Ow,' said the blank. But nobody heard.

The man unfurled a long piece of paper and pounded it very firmly so it stuck. Below him the other man pasted and pounded other bits of paper. The blank was slowly disappearing.

‘Am I dying?' it thought.

Eventually all three packed away the ladders and the glue and stood back to admire their work. They'd made a picture of a beautiful young man, stretched out as if he'd just woken up.

‘Pretty, isn't he?' said one of the men.

Then the blue van drove away.

‘Hello,' said the blank, a bit muffled.

‘Hello,' said the beautiful young man. ‘Where am I?'

‘Don't ask me,' said the blank. ‘I've asked before myself, but nobody hears me.'

‘Who am I, then?' asked the young man.

‘You?' asked the blank. ‘Don't ask me. I don't even know who I am.'

Then the blank was silent. The young man looked at his downy arms and dark brown nipples in his hairless chest and realised he was beautiful. He felt his legs under the sheet and knew he was strong. His penis pressed hard against the linen, making a little tent. Around him the traffic screamed, and people walked in and out of their houses on the other side of the five lanes.

Presently two girls dressed the same came and stood underneath him. They were in school uniform, but the man wasn't to know that. He'd never been to school.

‘Look at that,' said one girl, who had silver bars glinting on her teeth. ‘Isn't he a spunk?'

‘Yeah,' said the other girl. She scurried around behind the blank.

‘She's lighting a cigarette,' said the blank, trembling slightly. ‘I hope she doesn't set us on fire.'

The young man didn't reply. Through half-closed eyes he was examining the remaining girl. She was staring up at him with a look on her face that made his penis lie down flat again. The other girl reappeared.

‘I think he's fucking beautiful,' breathed the girl with the metal mouth.

‘Yeah,' said the other girl, breathing smoke.

‘He's a prince,' said the first girl.

‘Yeah,' said the smoking girl. ‘Wouldn't you like to meet the real thing, but?'

They laughed and the metal mouth flashed. They walked on, smoke curling around their heads.

‘The real thing?' asked the young man. ‘I am the real thing.'

‘She told you what you are, anyway,' said the blank.

‘What was that?'

‘A prince,' said the blank. ‘I must say, it's awfully hot under you.'

‘Prince of what?' asked the young man.

But the blank was silent.

Later, just before sundown, a very old swallow flew by. She perched on top of the blank and panted.

‘I am a prince,' said the young man.

‘Uh huh,' said the swallow, which was all she could manage.

‘What am I prince of?' asked the young man.

‘Everything you can see around you,' replied the swallow, and flew off.

The young man swivelled his eyeballs around. For three days and three nights he watched and learned. Through the windows of the houses opposite he saw people eating and making love. He saw them sitting in front of mirrors taking black shadows off their faces, or reddening their pursed lips with pink sticks. He saw
children sitting at tables laden with food, screaming for an alternative.

On the third day two women stopped. One glanced at him. ‘Turn you on?' she said.

‘I think it's disgusting,' said the other woman, bending to her bootlaces. ‘I think it's consumerist sexism.'

‘Well, at least the boys are doing it to each other,' replied the first woman. ‘No need to graffiti this one.'

‘What's he advertising?' asked the bootlace woman, straightening up.

‘Who cares?' said the first woman, taking the other's arm, leading her off.

‘Consumerist sexism? Advertising? What's that?' asked the young man, baffled.

At least the young man now knew he was the Prince of Sensuality, where people walked about draped in satin sheets eating avocado with their fingers; and Prince of Vanity, where there were so many mirrors people often found themselves talking to mere reflections for hours. He knew he was Prince of Plenty, where everybody always wanted more; and Prince of Noise, reigning supreme above the grinding cars, where people talked loudly about nothing and slowly grew deaf.

He could see for miles. He could see over the five lanes, and the pink and yellow terraced houses, and the wattle and clotheslines in the gardens. He could see over the barracks to the golf course. He could see through the smog to the tops of the very tall buildings like tall, rich ladies, ugly with flashing diamond lights and grimy pearls. And beyond he could see the Blue Mountains, far off. The young man knew that the mountains meant the boundary of his kingdom. He wondered if they were in fact another prince. A prince so huge that he was distinguishable
all around the edge of the city. This other prince did not seem to move much except for inching a little closer on fine days. The young man wasn't worried. He couldn't move any more than an eyeball either, and even then only very discreetly.

All day every day he lay stretched out on the cream bed, his naked torso open to the grey-streaked rain or blistering sun. Above his sleepy mouth and just visible tongue dangled a bunch of purple grapes held at the stalk by a white hand with crimson talons. The hand puzzled the young man. He wondered who it belonged to. Occasionally, when his mouth was dry, he would demand that the grapes be lowered. But the hand remained immobile, the red nails glistening.

Below the young man's bed there was a sentence. The letters marched along, hiccupping at the many exclamation marks and hyphens, but making it to the edge of the blank all the same. The young man wondered what the sentence said.

The summer pounded on. There was a gap when everybody went away, the word ‘Christmas' on their lips, avarice in their eyes, and pockets jingling lighter each time they walked past. This was when the young man discovered he was lonely. For a month now the blank had been quiet, as blanks should be. And loneliness was not the young man's only discomfort. He'd noticed his chest was bubbling, little blisters rising and tearing. The sheets were fraying, and although he wasn't sure, the young man felt he was lying on more of a slant than usual. He wondered if his beauty was impaired.

One evening, just before sundown, the young man heard a familiar fluttering. The old swallow had returned. She sat on top of the blank, picking nits from under her wings. He waited for her to speak, to acknowledge his presence. Finally he cleared his throat.

‘Don't you remember me?' he asked.

‘Mmm,' said the swallow, her head beneath her wing.

‘I'm the Prince of Everything I See Around Me,' he continued.

‘Mmm,' said the swallow, scratching her chest.

‘Um,' said the young man, ‘would you do me a favour?'

‘If it's quick,' said the swallow.

‘I've got a sentence under me. Do you know what it says?'

‘A sentence?' said the swallow. ‘Once I sat outside a jail and heard them talk about their sentences. Are you in for long?'

‘I don't know,' answered the young man. ‘Do all princes live in jails?'

‘Hang on a tick,' said the swallow, taking flight.

The young man looked down on her beating wings as she followed his sentence along the bottom of the bed.

‘It says,' said the swallow on her return, getting ready for the recital, ‘“Once You've Slept With Prince You'll Sleep With No Other.” And underneath that it says “Billboard Enterprises Ltd.”'

‘But I sleep alone!' said the young man.

‘It's a kind of mattress,' said the swallow. ‘You're an advertisement.' And flew off.

After that the young man grew sadder and sadder. He hardly noticed when people returned from their holidays and once again the five lanes were clogged with cars.

One morning around dawn, two men walked hand in hand along the road and paused beneath him. They passed a sweetsmelling cigarette between them and looked up at his blistered chest and face.

‘He hasn't enjoyed the summer any more than you have, love,' said the man whose turn it was with the sweet cigarette.

‘I'll bet his bum isn't as red as mine is,' said the other man, uncomfortable in his tight pants.

‘He's become an affront,' continued the first man. ‘I rather fancied him when he first went up.'

‘Oh — you'd fancy anything up,' said the one with sunburn. He reached up and peeled away a bit of the sentence.

‘Once You've Slept With Prince You'll Sleep With No Other,' he chanted and laughed. They embraced, for a long time, breathing through their noses.

Just after sunup it rained. It was the first rain since well before Christmas. With his unblistered eye the Prince watched the people coming out of the houses opposite. They were smiling.

‘Thank goodness it's rained,' they said. ‘That ought to lower the temperature.'

If his people were glad about it, then he ought to be too, reasoned the Prince, although the rain had weakened the last remaining scrap of paper that held his right arm to his shoulder. While it had previously cushioned his handsome head on the generous pillows, it now drifted about the footpath. The young man watched it disappear under the blank, to be tangled up in the long grass and fraternise with the plastic bags.

When the sun was at its highest, two women and a man pulled up in a blue van with Billboard Enterprises Ltd written on it. They surveyed the Prince.

‘Just as well he's got to come down,' said the man. ‘He's coming away from the board.'

With that they raised their ladders and began tearing and ripping at the young man.

He commanded them to stop.

He screamed in agony.

But nobody heard him.

After they'd gone, the blank woke up from its long summer sleep.

Tomorrow morning the Department deliver him up to me — they'll bring him home. Not that he ever lived here, in this poxy house — how many times have I shifted since he went out into the world for the last time? They're bringing him between four and six, while it's still dark, which they have to do, given all the hoo-ha drummed up around his release. I'll get a phone call on their approach.

Bed's made. Did that this afternoon. Three blankets and the spread should keep him warm enough. He'll notice the difference, how much colder it is. Pare's a long way north — a long, long way.

It's coming up 6 pm. Could turn on the telly, see the news — see the concerned residents, see the Corrections Minister defend the court's decision. But I'd rather sit here by the window, look out at the darkening street and think about it all, be thankful
I went to the supermarket as soon as my benefit came through, bought enough food for a week, so that we won't have to go outside. Best we stick in the house, best no one sees his face.

Not sure I want to look at his face.

Not the face he's got now — twenty-nine years old, after eleven years inside. He looks forty, his teeth gone bad, deep lines in his brow. He was a handsome boy, Jared, but he's pissed it away. Father was a looker, too, a brown Casanova with the strongest smoke in Tauranga. Didn't know him long, only a couple of weeks in the fourth form before my family away to another town.

Phone's ringing — but I won't answer it. It'll be that journalist chap again. Certainly won't be any of my four others, born after Jared over the next ten years, all to different dads, all girls and not one of them talking to me, not since some time in the nineties. They like to blame me for the mess their lives are in. They've all been offered counselling for trauma and grief at different times, and the counsellors park it all at my door. After Sheena lost her baby in a house fire, after Kareena got stabbed by her useless boyfriend, after Deirdre was raped by the Mongrel Mob, after Shandra's partner was had up for interfering with one of her kids — all that colossal fucking shit, they told me the counsellors told them, was all my fault.

They don't want me: that's fine. I know I made plenty of mistakes. But nothing'll stop me worrying about them, reeling around out there from one disaster to another, taking my grandchildren with them. Least Jared hasn't fathered any.

There's someone knocking at the door.

This evening, Debbie had decided, was the time to deliver the letter and petition. It was leaving it a little late, but there were
still some signatures to collect from the other side of town. Nobody wanted him. Nobody at all. The Department wouldn't listen, the government wouldn't listen, the mayor said his hands were tied. Mrs Knowles was the last resort.

She asked her husband drive her, even though it was really only just around the corner, and he said he'd be honoured and that it was great she'd at long last found something she could really commit herself to. He was so proud of her, even staying home from work this morning to give moral support when she was interviewed on
Morning Report.

‘Mothers have to be responsible for their own children,' Debbie told the interviewer. She didn't hold with all this blaming-the-state business. In the end it came down to personal responsibility, and Knowles's mother had to understand that there were a lot of young families with children in the area, that this part of Wanganui had changed now that everyone wanted to be near the river. As Craig said, this whole business was affecting the town's image and could effect a downturn. Craig should know, being the president of the Mainstreet Business Association. It was criminal the way that up until now no one had listened, not even to Craig or anyone from Lions or Rotary.

One bright street-lamp cast a sharp shadow over the little house, a dun-coloured wooden one like the others in the street, but
orig. cond
., as Craig would advertise it. There were deep cracks in the front path, purple in the fluorescent light with thick moss bulging in them like her own varicose veins, she thought suddenly, anxiety welling as she knocked on the front door.

Craig was watching. She'd keep it short and sweet, hand it over and go. She gave him a brave little wave, just as the door opened a crack. At thigh height an old dog's muzzle protruded, black flecked with grey.

‘Yes? Can I help you?'

There was no porch light — the wall fixture was empty. It was hard to see her — grey hair, of course, or was it an ashy blonde? The door opened further and Debbie saw that the woman who stood there was not much older than her. The same age even, in her early forties. She wore cheap cotton half-leg pants, a long black T-shirt, myriad chains around her neck. She had more wrinkles around her mouth than anywhere else — probably a smoker. Big rings in her pink, slightly protuberant ears, two dots tattooed on her cheekbones to say she'd been inside herself: like mother, like son. Debbie's heart sank. Silly, but she'd had an idea in her head that Knowles's mother would be ancient, grey: a mournful old lady. And Maori, since Knowles was. She'd thought she'd be a little old Maori lady. Just as she thrust the papers at her, Craig started up the car, ready to go.

‘This is a letter and list of signatures from the residents of our town,' she announced swiftly. ‘Read it and please think about what we have to say. Thank you.' And she turned around and strode down the path in her new adidas shoes, which really did put a new spring in her step, the first since the birth of her first child six months ago — that worth-every-penny expensive baby who would now be needing his evening feed.

‘Well done, darling,' said Craig as he drove, giving her knee a sweet little pat.

The woman at the door looked like a television cook, like Easy-Peasy or Food in a Minute: the same wedge haircut and creamy chin rolls. Tracksuit pants didn't do a thing for her. She smelt clean, like packaging, as if she spent so much time in places like K-Mart or The Warehouse that she'd taken on a polymer scent.
The hands that delivered the papers were practical, podgy, small moon nails neatly clipped. Inside a little shiny car pulled up at the kerb was a man bent low over the steering wheel, watching, engine running, and when she turned back up the path he leaned across to open her door for her. I didn't wait to see them drive off but carried the letter inside.

‘Dear Mrs Knowles,' read the letter, held out under the hall light. ‘You cannot help but be aware of the level of anxiety and distress in the community over the arrival of your son. All other avenues explored to prevent this eventuality have been exhausted. We beg you to put yourself in our position and to consider either — even at this late stage — refusing to accept responsibility for the prisoner, or relocating your household elsewhere. Should you select the second option, a small fund to assist would be forthcoming. We beg you to think of this next generation growing up and of their safety. By our calculations the signatures that follow number one thousand and four.' The list was headed by Craig and Debbie Former, with an address about two blocks away, just up the river in a new subdivision.

Maybe that was her that brought this round. That part of town people hardly go outside, all these big new houses jammed on tiny sections, televisions flickering through chinks in the curtains morning and afternoon — even if I'd walked past she would likely have been inside cleaning one of the four bogs it most likely has. No garden but plenty of places to crap.

Well, stuff her. I take the papers over to the fireplace and lay them on the grate, find some matches and set fire to them. At least, that's what I fully intend to do, but just as I light up the match I change my mind. There's bound to be a lot of trouble
in the first few weeks Jared's back. What if he's assaulted, accosted? This list of names could be useful. I fold the sheets in half and put them in a kitchen drawer.

What happens, when we drive through these dark, small towns, is that I don't actually see the lights blurring in the rain, one after another, but the grey in the back of the van shifts, ebbs, loses its grip; lets me see the face of the officer sitting opposite. There are three of them and they take turns to sit with me or up the front. Only one drives.

Three of them, returning me to the care of my mother — singular, female, getting on.

Yesterday they sent the priest to me and I asked him to tell me the story of the prodigal son. Except I couldn't remember ‘prodigal' properly, struggled a bit with the word, but he got my meaning.

‘It's a parable,' he said and he opened his Bible and read it out to me, from St Luke, and there's no mention of the mother. There's a father and a brother, and the brother was fucked off that he's done everything right while the other has ‘wasted his substance with riotous living'. Lucky he had any substances to waste, I thought, and would've told the priest that joke, but he was an ancient old bugger and wouldn't've got it. Don't know why they sent him to me — he wasn't going to tell me anything interesting, not until I asked him the story. Then he did.

These fat-arse officers are always hungry, stopping for chips and burgers and shit. Me, I stay in the van; they won't even let me out for a smoke. In Taumarunui some passing dick bangs hard on the roof while we're parked and fuckin' freaks me. Doing well till then.

The old girl won't believe I'm cured, but I am. Not everybody reoffends. In prison I made a survey of it — lots of them weren't
priors. I might've fucked up more than once, but I'm finished now. Gonna keep my head down, get a job, earn some money to get out when I can. Get up to Auckland, get a new life, a new name. That's my dream. Possible, no reason. Get a dog, something to love. I'll feed it, keep it close — people who look after things don't get in so much trouble. The screw opposite has a wedding ring that lights up in the towns.

I don't embrace him because of the other men. They stand around, watch him walk up the path towards me on the porch. He's carrying a small bag. I've watched him walk up paths towards me and away from the Services before — how many times? The contents of the bag have changed over the years — teddies to track shoes, Ritalin to Aropax. Who's to know what they've got him on now?

Strange how silent it is. None of the men move or talk. Jared keeps his eyes on the wet path ahead; I watch the men.

‘Go now,' I think. One of them steps away from the van, looks up and down the street as if he'd been expecting trouble and can't believe there is none.

We go inside, close the door and look at each other.

‘It's going to be all right,' I tell him. I light two ciggies and hand one to him. ‘It is, Jared.'

He takes a drag, shakes his head.

‘Come in the kitchen.' I take his hand, which is clammy and cold, and lead him to a chair by the heater.

While I get him a beer he sits quiet, though a couple of times he starts to say something, then stops himself.

‘Don't rush yourself, pet,' I tell him. ‘Take it slow.'

I could talk instead, tell him all the things I never have, like, for instance, how it's not as if I ever made a decision about
whether he did it or not; how some days I think he didn't; other days I don't know; but most days I know in my bones that he did. I could tell him that no state of mind is more bearable than any of the others, and that I don't want him to ever try to talk to me about it. I don't want to know.

He drinks his beer, asks for coffee and another cigarette.

‘In the drawer,' I say, without thinking. ‘There's a whole new packet.'

When I turn to bring him his coffee he's standing by the dresser, reading the letter I got earlier, and the pages of signatures are fluttering in his hand like the wing of a dying bird.

The plan was that a group of about twenty girls from Plunket and Playgroup would meet at Debbie's place before walking around to start the vigil. They were to meet a photographer from the local newspaper outside the Knowles house, who would take their picture, all of them just ordinary normal mums pushing strollers and waving placards.

After she'd provided everyone with morning tea, Debbie led the charge down to the double garage to pick up the signs that she and Craig had painted over the weekend. They leaned on their shafts against the walls, ranged around Craig's boat.

Kerry-Anne's ginger-haired four-year-old came to stand beside her, extending a finger to trace the O of Offender.

‘That's for the man that sexed the little girl and killed her dead,' she said solemnly.

‘Shsh!' said Kerry-Anne.

‘How does she know that?' demanded Debbie. ‘Did you tell her?'

‘Of course not!' Behind her spectacles Kerry-Anne's pale blue eyes widened defensively.

‘I think it's appalling,' Debbie said, ‘just appalling that she knows that. You're her mother — you shouldn't let —'

‘— TV or radio, one of the older kids —' Kerry-Anne was saying, louder. But Debbie matched her volume.

‘— talk about it in front of her. Sponges! Kids are sponges! You're denying her a childhood!'

‘What's going on?' It was Tammy, who was young and solo, like Kerry-Anne, and probably just as unskilled at parenting. They lived next door to each other in a block of scruffy units.

‘Nothing,' said Debbie.

Kerry-Anne began to cry and her four-year-old joined in.

‘For goodness' sake!' said Debbie. She hoisted up a couple of signs and lugged them out to the other mothers, who were gathered outside on the driveway, chatting. ‘I could do with a hand,' she told them.

After last night's rain it was still overcast and cold, which made for an invigorating walk down to the Knowles house. Debbie pushed Jared in his buggy, his head a fuzzy blue sphere in his woolly hat. It was most unfortunate he shared his name with the offender — if he'd been born only six months later the shared name could have been avoided. On quite a number of occasions recently she'd wept about it, and she and Craig had had long talks into the night about whether or not they should change Baby's name, even though it was Debbie's favourite even from before they began the fertility treatment. Baby — that's what he was called most of the time, but that couldn't go on forever. Right now he was asleep, a little bubble shining on his lower lip. Poor sweet innocent, thought Debbie, hating suddenly the idea of taking him into close proximity to the monster, close enough to breathe the same air.