Skeletal (21 page)

What the hell was it that he’d set me up for? What was it that I’d stolen?

I could hear the voices more clearly. If I concentrated harder I could even make out individual words.
Payment. Clean-up. Fa'amoe. Dead.

No, no, no, no, no.
You’re making it up,
I thought to myself.
This is just a dream and you’re making this shit up.

The voices continued. The sun warmed one cheek while the other one pressed into scratchy grass. I didn’t wake up. This wasn’t a dream.

Footsteps sounded, but I couldn’t tell if they were coming closer or moving away. I closed my eyes. Maybe I could pretend that I’d fallen asleep here. If they caught me I could pretend I’d walked twenty minutes away from the city so I could fall asleep in a field on my stomach.

It was worth a try.

I tried to calculate how quickly I could get to my feet if I needed to. I hadn’t seen a car nearby so they must be on foot. Could I outrun two men who were caught by surprise and dressed in suits?

Probably not. But that was worth a try to.

I tensed up my calf muscles. I pressed the palms of my hands into the ground, ready to leverage.

And the footsteps grew fainter. And fainter.

Aware that they would have a view for a good long while, I stayed where I was while I counted to one hundred over and over. I waited until the shade from the blades of grass nearest my face grew longer. I waited until I was sure.

By the time I moved, my body had locked into position and my muscles groaned with the change. I slowly got to my knees and scanned the street. There was no one in sight. There was nothing.

I looked over at the half-finished house. I’d come all this way in order to retrieve those files and read through the information I’d soiled my morals to get. But I no longer felt like looking through them. In fact, I was quite happy to let them rot in there.

Whatever they contained was important to someone. More important to them than I would be. If those men came back, or a new set arrived, there was no way my luck would hold out again. Better to be on my way.

I chose to walk further away before crossing over the back line of a field, and doubling back on a parallel road. The last thing I wanted to do know was meet up with those men.

Mr Fa'amoe. Whether I’d really heard the other words I thought I had, I had definitely heard his name.

The Grey Man was scared. Two men had patrolled a site that they should’ve known nothing about. They were talking about Vila’s Dad.

When the Grey Man told me that Vila’s Dad was old enough to look out for himself, I’d accepted it. But that had been when I’d only half-believed there was any sort of trouble. That was before I’d heard his name in the mouths of men who scared the shit out of me.

What if he didn’t even know about the trouble he was in? What if he was just going about his daily work and his daily life and his daily grind and he didn’t realise that full-blown trouble was on its way?

What if he met with trouble and he relied on the documents that I’d stolen to get him out of it?

What if I was the reason that trouble would find him?

I started to jog along the road. When I reached the Main North Road I started to run. The fear and the confusion spilled into endorphins that fuelled me, until I had to stop, gasping for breath, dripping with sweat. But calmer. Certain.

I would go to Mr Fa'amoe and tell him of my fears for his safety.

And once I’d told him he could be old enough to take care of himself. And maybe at the heart of the impulse I thought,
And maybe he’ll take care of me.

***

I didn’t think that he’d be home that early. When I arrived at Vila’s house there was a flood of students on the roads. School had let out so it must only just be after three.

I expected to walk past her house and carry on to Nunweek Park. I could find a bench and sit myself in the shade, or the sun. I could try to reason myself out of my panic. Try to think of what I needed to say to make myself understood. There was no use in me talking to him if I sounded like a bumbling paranoid fool.

I expected it so much that I was almost past the turnoff when I registered that his car was in the driveway. He was home.

For a minute I almost walked past. I could continue on to the park and take the time I’d promised myself. Sort my thoughts into order. Sort my speech out. Sit down and take in the end of the day.

But then I might miss him. If he was home early I couldn’t trust it would be for the day. He may be paying a flying visit before going back to work. He may be changing to go out for the night. He may be doing a thousand different things with a hundred different time limits, and if I left now to gather my thoughts there may be no one left to distribute them to.

I pulled my hands through my hair to make sure that it was free of any grass. There was little I could do about my frayed and stained jeans, or my tatty sweatshirt, but I pulled them into line so they were at least as neat as they could be.

When I drew back my fist to knock I hesitated. There was no way he would believe me. This was a useless exercise. There was no point.

But I forced my knuckles to tap on the door. I held my hands to my side, and locked my knees so my legs wouldn’t turn and run. I waited while no one answered the door, and then I made myself knock again. Louder.

This time there was a response. Mr Fa'amoe opened the door and his eyebrows raised when he saw me. Then his smile fell away, and his brow furrowed into anger.

‘Vila’s not here, and to be honest I don’t think you should come around here any longer. You’re not welcome.’

He made to close the door, and I forced my foot forward, to jam it open.

‘I’m not here to see Vila. I was here to see you.’

The force against my foot didn’t decrease. ‘To apologise,’ I added. ‘For my behaviour. And for getting your daughter into trouble.’

The pressure on my foot eased, and the door opened wider.

‘Well, I really think that you should apologise to Vila instead. She’s the one that you hurt with your actions.’

‘I will. Tomorrow. I just wanted to apologise to you first, and make sure that you were aware it was my fault. Vila didn’t know what was happening.’

Mr Fa'amoe moved his hand further up the doorframe, and leant his forehead on it. His body was still using the door as a shield between us. He still didn’t invite me in.

‘That’s very odd. Vila said yesterday that you didn’t know what was going on and none of it was your fault.’

I stared at him, but if he was lying then he hid it well. Vila was protecting me, even lying to keep me out of trouble. I didn’t understand.

‘But, I…’

‘We didn’t believe her. In case you’re wondering. We’ve worked very hard to make sure that Vila gets a good shot at life. That she gets a fair shot at being anything that she wants to be. We know that she would never get into trouble like that by herself.
Stealing.
Carol and I raised her better than that.’

I felt the slap. In another situation I would’ve responded to it. But it paled in comparison. There were bigger stakes at hand.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know that she’d said that…’

‘That’s because you ran away yesterday when I specifically said to stay here because we wanted to talk to you.’

‘I wasn’t feeling well. I needed to get home and lie down.’

‘I could’ve driven you. It would’ve been safer. Instead you just up and walked out and left Vila on her own telling us a bunch of… a bunch of
baloney
.’

‘I’m very sorry.’

‘You’ve said that. Was there anything else? I need to get back to work.’

I stared at him. The words that I needed weren’t there. I should’ve gone to the park and practiced after all.

‘There was something…’ I started. But then I couldn’t think of where to go with it.

Mr Fa'amoe stood in the doorframe, his eyebrows raised. He was flushed from his outburst. There was a line of sweat clinging to his brow. He didn’t look like someone who wanted to listen.

‘Funny you should mention stealing,’ I said. As soon as the words left my mouth his face pulled into itself and darkened. ‘I think you’ve been stealing something too.’

The words had come out wrong. I’d meant to say
I’d stolen something from him
. But when I tried to correct them my mouth refused to say it.

And there was something weird going on with Vila’s Dad. I expected he would grow even angrier, but instead he pulled back. His head nodded forward. Not in a determined way as the result of thoughtful action. More like an unconscious response to a truth.

‘I haven’t stolen anything in my life,’ he said quietly. His posture relaxed against the doorframe. He even opened the door wider and gestured me inside. It didn’t make sense. I’d said completely the wrong thing, and instead of slamming the door in my face he was making me welcome.

I walked into the lounge, and took a seat on the couch. The pale floral covering was beautiful and unsullied. Too late I thought of the grass-stains and dirt that covered my jeans. I tried to sit lighter on my bottom so it wouldn’t press my grubby imprint on the clean fabric.

‘I haven’t stolen anything,’ he repeated as he took a seat next to me.

‘Where’s your file on BRAC1?’

He looked at me and his lower lip was trembling. ‘I really don’t think you’re in a position to ask me about my work, young lady. Not after the trouble you’ve been causing.’

‘Except it’s not your work, is it? That’s why you’ve got it hidden away in your briefcase instead of filed in your drawer.’

He stared at me, his gaze level. ‘I think you should keep out of things that don’t concern you.’

‘I think that you should keep your head down. They’re after you. They’re after both of us.’

Mr Fa'amoe stood and paced the length of the living room. ‘No one knows I’ve taken that file. No one.’

‘Someone not only knows you’ve taken that file, they know that I took it off you, and they know that I hid it. And if they’re onto me, they’re certainly onto you.’

He paced the floor, back and forth, back and forth. And then he stopped right in front of me. ‘I want you to leave. You need to leave right now.’

He grabbed a handful of my sweatshirt, and pulled me up off the couch. I pushed back at him, but he didn’t let go. He dragged me over to the door and pulled it open.

‘Stay away from me, and stay away from my daughter.’ He pushed me out of the door, and slammed it behind me.

I turned and hammered on the heavy wood. ‘Mr Fa'amoe please listen to me. You’re in danger. Your family is in danger.’

There was no response, and I tried again. My hands flat against the surface, both slapping in time on the wood. ‘Please, you have to watch out for yourself. You’re in danger. They’re coming to get you.’

A window opened off to my left. He was in the kitchen. He had a phone in his hand.‘Get off my property or I’ll call the police. I’m serious.’

I opened my mouth to call out a warning again, but he waggled the phone in his hand and my words stopped short of forming.

‘Get off my property,’ he said again. His voice was a low growl, and he held the phone like a weapon.

I turned and got out of there.

***

Coroner’s Court 2014

Vila adjusts her shirt. She pulls at the collar and fiddles with the small pearl button that holds it closed.

‘I was quite angry that she had just left like that. Without a word. And then she didn’t turn up at school the next day and I started to get worried. She’d really hit herself hard when she fell down. I wondered if she’d ended up in hospital or something.’

She jerks her hand away from her throat and sits on it. She’s staring at a point on the floor in front of her; it’s where there’s a divet in the floorboards. The hall used to be used for musical recitals. The divet formed in front of the cellist. A tiny chink in the floor, and the cellist found that if she rested the point there she didn’t have to squeeze her knees as tightly. One year, two. She moved on to other things, marriage, motherhood, but the divet remained.

I wish I could snap my fingers and tell her to get a move on. Listening to this testimony has been alternating between entertaining and frustrating, but the emotive response has now passed through into boredom. Come on, already. I’ve been through this once before, so it doesn’t hold the thrill of the unknown. Get to the good bits.

‘She went to see my father. I didn’t know it until I got home. He was riled up like I’d never seen. He’d been angry because of, you know,’ she waved her right hand in circles, ‘The shoplifting and stuff. I’d never really been in trouble like that before. But he was wild, just wild.

‘He told me that she’d been around there sputtering garbage. Not,’ Vila turns to the coroner, ‘Not like lies or anything. Actual garbage. Like she couldn’t form sentences or anything. He said she was just making sounds, and pointing and gesturing. In the end he’d had to throw her out. Then she just started banging on the door and yelling that he was trouble, he was trouble, he was gonna get his. Making threats and stuff, I don’t know. She’d torn up some of the flowerbed where she’d stomped up to the kitchen windows. Mum cried over that; she spent ages getting that looking nice.’ Vila paused and her hand popped out from under her to fiddle with the button again.