Gith (7 page)

She lay there on her back with her eyes closed. Her lashes
were long and dark brown, two fringes resting on the creamy-coloured skin.
She looked peaceful, even with the huge bruise on the side of her face and
the breathing thing over her mouth and nose and all the other gear hooked
up to her. The dressings round her head made her look kind of like a nun.

Bit by bit, as the weeks went by, I spent less and less time
looking for a job and more and more time sitting with Anna.
I'm not sure why. Something about her had got to me. She
just lay there, without moving, but you could see her getting
better day by day. The bruise turned to yellow round the
edges, and it started to shrink and fade. The bandages came
off and there was brown spiky hair underneath and a shiny
bald patch where they'd fixed her skull. The doctors gave her
scans and said her insides were doing fine and her brain was
working. There was an excellent chance she would wake up,
and it might happen any time. I wanted to be there when it
did. I wanted to see those long lashes flick open and the light
come back into her eyes.

Michelle didn't say anything about the time I was spending
at the hospital, which surprises me looking back. We were
seriously short of money because she had signed up a deal on
a salon in Lower Hutt and had taken out a loan to do some
fitting out. Maybe she was just too busy or too into doing
her own thing. Maybe she was just glad I was there to do the
nursing bit instead of her. One of us had to. Or so we felt. I'm
not sure we both had the same reasons, though.

Anna came into a tidy sum when it was all added up.
The house in Seatoun Heights was worth $750,000 and the
mortgage wasn't huge. James and Sophie each had a super
plan with ten or more years of contributions. Plus there was
some savings and insurance, a car, and the furniture and stuff.
James's lawyer, Peter Vanray, took charge of all that, although
he kept Michelle and me in the loop. James and Sophie
hadn't said anything special in their wills about what to do
if something like this happened. Because Anna was still only
fifteen there had to be a legal guardian, and if we didn't do it,
Child Youth and Family would take over and she'd be a ward
of the state. Did we want the job? We talked about it.

From Michelle's point of view, the question had a lot of
angles. On the one hand there was the money. Peter had said
it could go into a trust with him and us as trustees. We could
use it for Anna's care. Maybe we could even buy a house with
it if she was living with us. And then, of course, if we adopted
Anna and she died . . . It was awful to think like that but you
had to be practical, didn't you? On the other hand, what would
happen if Anna never came round? Or, worse still, if she did
and turned into some semi-vegetable? Did we really want to
saddle ourselves with that? But if we didn't, she might get
shunted off into some warehouse for idiots, where God knows
how they treated you. She was family, after all. If only we knew if
she was going to wake up, and what she would be like if she did.

She did wake and I was there when it happened, but I
missed what I wanted to see: her eyes opening.

I'd been sitting with her for about half an hour, talking
away as I usually did. I think I was telling her about a friend
of mine who'd just bought an E-type Jag that he was planning
to restore and how I'd like to do that some time. Maybe it
was the day-dream that made me look out of the window at
the sky, which was clear and blue. A brilliant summer day. I
thought how sad it was that Anna was missing it. I looked
back down at her. Her eyes were wide.

I couldn't move for a second or so. I just stared as she
blinked a couple of times.

'Anna?'

Her head shifted. Her eyes swivelled over towards me. The
skin round them crinkled in what might have been the start
of a smile.

'Can you see me?' I said. 'It's Uncle Ken.'

She seemed like she was going to say something and then
her face twisted into a frown.

I reached for the bell to call the nurse, kept my finger on
it for a long blast. In a few seconds somebody was there,
walking quickly into the room and up to the bed, stopping
there, staring.

'Well,' she said. 'Hello, there.'

I started to laugh. I couldn't help myself.

Gith didn't hang round long that first time. After twenty
minutes or so she drifted off again, and stayed that way for
a couple more days. It worried me at first, this coming and
going, even though the staff said it often happened in cases
like this. Bit by bit, though, over about three weeks, the
waking times grew longer and longer, until Gith was almost
keeping normal hours. The mask came off too, and now and
again she'd try to say something.

'Gith.' Her mouth seemed to get tangled round the sound,
the tip of her tongue poking out the right side like she couldn't
work it right.

Staying awake was just the start of it though. In the
beginning she was pretty close to helpless. She was partially
paralysed down her right side and she couldn't do the simplest
things, like feeding herself. Michelle came to see her and
wasn't impressed.

'God,' she said when we got home. 'How can we possibly
cope with that?'

'She'll get better. They say so.'

'What if she doesn't?'

'Well . . . I guess they give you help — carers and such.'

'Not twenty-four seven. Who's going to get up in the
middle of the night to change her nappies?'

I wanted to say I'd do it but then I thought that wasn't such
a good idea. Michelle was looking at me. She could see what
I was thinking.

She said, 'You've got a bit weird about her, you know?
Sitting with her all day when you ought to be looking for a
job. What's happening?'

'Nothing.'

'What do you mean "nothing"?'

'Nothing.' I shrugged. I wanted to talk about something
different.

'It can't go on like it's been. You've got to start pulling your
weight again. I mean, you can't really imagine you're going to
spend the rest of your life looking after a cot case. You're not
a nurse, after all.'

'I don't know,' I said. 'I might like to be a nurse.'

'What?' She stared at me.

Well, I guess I couldn't believe it either. There had to be
some reason though.

'I just like her,' I said, but I knew that was wrong. Whatever
I felt, it was more than like. I didn't get it at all.

***

THE COPS DID talk to Tom Kittering, and they took his
wagon away too. They had it down in Palmy for a couple of
days. He was seriously pissed off. I wasn't sure, though, if it
was being a suspect that got to him, or the fact that he had
to drive into town in his old Rover, which was more like a
rolling scrapyard than a real vehicle. The bodywork was full of
rust. The motor blew out big clouds of grey-black smoke and
rattled like a chaff-cutter. It made Pansy Cleat's Honda look
like Car of the Year.

'Timing's a bit off,' I said, winding him up. 'Rings need a
look too.' I stuck the nozzle in the petrol tank and started the
pump.

Tom stared at me. His jaw was tight. I could see the pressure
building but it didn't stop me. 'How's the warrant?' I asked.

'Bloody . . . bloody . . . bloody . . .' It was like the words were
just stuck in there. He shook his head, trying to get them out.
'Shit!'

I wiped the spit from my cheek. 'Bloody nuisance,' I said,
taking him seriously now.

'Bloody cops! Any bloody cop gives me a ticket for not
having a warrant . . .' He left it hanging like maybe he would
do the same thing to the cop.

'Yeah,' I said.

The cops were pissing me off, too. They had set up shop
in the back room of the community hall next to St Peter's.
There always seemed to be half a dozen of them about the
town now, working in twos: talking to people and checking
on vehicles. I'm not sure why, but seeing them out there had
started to wind me up big time. I guess I figured they should
be talking to me — or to Gith — even though we had told
them just about everything we knew already. Maybe it was
just that they hadn't taken any bloody notice.

'They've got the wrong end of the stick, that's for sure,' I
said.

'Bloody right. Bloody embarrassing, you know. And like
you said, a bloody nuisance.'

'What did they ask you?'

'Oh, the usual stuff. Just like on TV, eh. What was I doing
that day? Where was I? How's a bloke supposed to remember?
It was just like any other Monday at that time of the year. I
was probably out checking the fences. I sure as hell wasn't
down here. Not before five o'clock, anyway. And I sure as
hell didn't pick up any bloody hitch-hikers. That's the bloody
trouble though, eh. They just don't listen to you.'

'No, they don't.' I hung up the nozzle, screwed his petrol
cap back on. 'There you go. Ten bucks' worth.'

'Thanks. I'd fill the tank, you know me, but it's just a waste
of money in this heap.'

'No problem. Take it easy though. The way that engine's
running you might be empty again before you get to the
pub.'

'Aw, Jeez!' He pulled a face.

***

MICHELLE AND I took Gith home to the house in Epuni.
She was doing okay by then. She could walk, although she
still dragged one foot a bit, and she could eat and generally
do the basics for herself. But she was still fragile mentally.
The slightest thing would throw her into a screaming rage,
like a little kid's tanty, or else she'd roll her eyes and curl up
into a ball like a baby in the womb. The two biggest problems
were that her short-term memory was pretty shot so she
couldn't figure out where she was or what she'd been doing
half the time — that and the fact that she couldn't say what
she wanted. She had been a real outgoing kid before, chatting
to everybody, and now all that was just gone. Talking was a
minefield. It was okay if you were telling her something or just
rabbiting on the way I'd done when she was in hospital, but
soon as anything came up where she wanted to join in there
was serious danger of a meltdown. It got so bad that Michelle
refused to say anything to her, didn't even like to be in the
same room as her. I felt sorry for them both. Being with Gith
was real difficult, but I could also see how bad it was from her
side. Her whole life had been destroyed, nearly. I mean, she'd
lost both her parents and she couldn't even tell anyone about
it. Sometimes she'd just sit there and cry, or stare at the wall
for hours at a time. Michelle found that nearly as bad as the
meltdowns, I reckon.

During the day there was somebody to look after her, a
professional caregiver called Freda. She was about fifty and
she had dealt with people with head injuries and brain damage
before so I guess she knew what was what. I didn't like her
much — I wasn't sure she was as nice as she seemed. How was
she with Gith when nobody else was around? I had plans to
rig up a closed-circuit TV to keep an eye on her but Michelle
rubbished that idea pretty quick. I should leave Freda to do
her job, she said, and I should go and find a job of my own.

In the end I did.

Finch Street Auto was a small place, with four staff, and
it handled the usual range of repair and service work. I liked
the blokes there, especially Scotty Freedman. Scotty was
about the same age as me, a bit older than the youngest guy
but younger than George, who was in his forties and the
top mechanic. We were both married, too, although Scotty
had a couple of kids under five. It was Scotty who found the
Riley.

It was a 1955 RME and it had been sitting in a shed in
Whitemans Valley for a good thirty years. The engine still
turned over but it wouldn't start and the diff was shot. There
were no spares either. Scotty reckoned we could get it for next
to nothing and, if it was decently restored, it would be worth
maybe fifteen grand. He'd seen the same model selling on the
classic car websites for 6000 pounds or more. Michelle had
her doubts about the whole thing but she figured if it was
coming out of my money it would be okay. So Scotty and
I borrowed a tow-truck from a mate of his and went up to
the valley and brought it back. The tyres were stuffed but the
bearings seemed to be all right and we managed to roll it into
the garage at my place. We stood there looking at it, trying to
figure out what the hell we'd got ourselves into.

The Riley turned Gith's life around. Mine too. I started
working on it weekends and it wasn't long before she got to
coming out and watching me. She must have remembered the
Miramar days. At first she got in the way a fair bit, looking
over my shoulder and making moves like she wanted me to
show her things, but I didn't mind because there was such a
change in her. The curling up and the meltdowns were gone
when we were working on the car, and she started to smile for
the first time. After a while she started to do a few things. The
whole car had to be stripped down, cleaned and gone over
to see what state it was in. She didn't have the strength for
some of the work but she went nuts over the details, soaking
and brushing and polishing something over and over again.
Sometimes she'd just keep going like a crazy thing until I had
to make her stop.

In the end it got so that Gith wanted to work on the Riley
all the time. On weekdays, when I was at work, she would get
more and more pissed off. I tried telling her how to do things
while I was gone but this was tricky because she could only
handle the simple stuff and the jobs soon ran out, leaving her
more pissed off than ever. Freda didn't like it, anyway. She
said it wasn't safe for Gith to be on her own and she didn't
know anything about cars herself so she didn't know what
was dangerous and what wasn't. It was winter and the garage
was pretty cold and draughty. Keeping an eye on Gith out
there was not a patch on doing it in the nice warm living
room. According to Freda, Gith should stick to the easy
kinds of occupational therapy — knitting or basket-weaving
or whatever it was that they did in the classes Freda took
her to once a week. Gith wouldn't have a bar of it. She was
crazy about the car and would throw a fit if she couldn't get to
it. From Freda's side, then, nothing had changed. In fact the
curling up and the meltdowns were worse than ever when she
was around.