Soon (29 page)

‘You want, you'd like Elke to . . .'

He waved his hand noncommittally. ‘Just a thought. Talk about the Weeks problem with David and see what you think. The main thing is that Johnnie and Elke should feel secure.'

She came close, eyes searching his face. ‘Simon . . .' He smelled her perfume, felt the hairs lifting on his scalp. She smiled, her eyes were ice.

‘Simon, you surprise me. I didn't think you had it in you.'

Understanding

The final morning, Karen was in a bossy flurry of packing, toting armfuls of clothes, elbowing him out of the way, reaching under the bed and coming out with dusty items held between finger and thumb. Sensing work to be done, Elke and Marcus had made themselves scarce, leaving their usual fantastic mess. Karen loaded Simon up with bundles and ordered him out to the car and he trudged obediently back and forth, surprised at the amount of luggage.

He was in a state of tension bordering on madness. The previous day he had driven into town to his clinic, called in at the hospital, returned to his rooms in the afternoon — and Ms Da Silva hadn't shown up. He'd even lingered in his rooms after five o'clock, and she hadn't appeared. There was no sign of her or her silent colleague O'Kelly. And nor had she called.

Barely able to contain his restlessness, he decided on a last swim. He invited Karen along, guessing she would decline: still too many things to do. She tucked her hair up into a baseball cap and went on with her organising.

Ford was hitching a ride back to town with them, but Simon wanted to get him alone. He found him out the back of the Little House, emptying sand out of a sports bag.

‘Last swim? Come on.'

He waited impatiently for Ford to change.

‘Let's go the long way,' he suggested, grabbing Ford's arm, heading out towards the point. When they were out of earshot he said, ‘She hasn't called or been to see me. The policewoman.'

Ford said, ‘That's good, that's a good sign.'

‘But the signs weren't good, before. The police rang me again, they wanted to re-interview me. I realised I'd have to do something more. So I spoke to Roza.'

‘To Roza!'

‘I had to do something.'

He described the exchange at the pool. Ford listened. ‘You didn't want to talk about it with me first?'

‘I kept looking for you; you were nowhere to be found. The police had rung me again, they wanted to see me. Ed Miles hadn't fended them off. You said it yourself, the more often the police talk to me, the more trouble I'm likely to be in. I knew what they were going to be asking next: Where were you on the day of?'

‘You've got that covered. You were here then you were at work.'

But Simon's mind now went back to the conversation at the pool. He saw Roza's expression, hard, opaque, her chin raised, her eyes coolly appraising him.
Simon,
I didn't think you had it in you.
He squared his shoulders.

Ford looked worried, as if he couldn't take it in. ‘You think she'll be desperate to get David to do anything to bury the whole thing?'

‘If there's any hint she's mentioned, David will act. He'll do anything to protect her.'

‘God.' Ford rubbed his chin anxiously.

Simon said, ‘The police haven't come back. They haven't called.'

‘And you told her you want to keep Elke with you.'

‘There can be no half measures with Roza.' Simon set off towards the point. He said over his shoulder, ‘Believe me, I know. It's the only way to play it with her. She's a junkie for power. That woman will only pay attention if you go nuclear.'

Ford walked in silence. Eventually he said, ‘Simon, if you've managed to get out of this, will you leave these people behind?'

‘These people?'

‘The Hallwrights. The Cahanes. Miles. They're . . . moral imbeciles.'

‘And I'm not?'

‘You don't have to be.'

Simon stopped and looked at Ford steadily. ‘I'm not finished, Ford.
I'm not finished.'

They headed out towards the point, Simon lurching ahead on his painful knee, Ford following in his tracks, close behind.

When Simon came to find Roza to tell her they were ready to go, a ceremony was taking place on the parched grass under the pohutukawa. Johnnie held out the glass jar and solemnly unscrewed the lid.

‘Go free, spider,' Roza said. ‘The prison door is open.'

There was a silence.

‘He's not going,' Johnnie said.

Roza laughed. ‘Give him a shake. That's right. There he goes. Whoops. Stretching his little legs.'

Another silence.

Johnnie said, ‘If you were an animal, what would you be?'

Roza spread out her fingers, made the shape of wings. ‘I would be a dragonfly,' she said. ‘And you would be my nymph.'

Johnnie reached down towards the spider, now groggily unfolding its legs in the grass.

‘Make Soon talk.'

Soon and Starfish looked out the window and saw that the Bachelor had landed in the clearing. They went outside.

He told them, “The Green Lady and Soonica met secretly on the beach at dawn.”

Starfish asked, “What were they talking about?”

The Bachelor laughed, a strange little chuckle that made Starfish feel almost frightened. “I believe they were coming to an understanding,” he said.

The Bachelor leaned down to Soon. “They talked, then they embraced. And before they parted, Soon, the Green Lady said one word to your sister. Do you know what it was?”

“What?” Soon asked.

“She said your name.”

Soon

‘Let me take one more photo. Please, Johnnie darling.'

‘No.'

‘No? Monstrous child! Mummy will be “heartbroken”.'

The boy narrowed his eyes. ‘Make Soon talk.'

‘Only if you do as you're told.'

‘Only if you make him talk.'

Roza said in a hushed, soupy voice, ‘Mummy's eyes filled with tears when Johnnie forced her to beat him.'

‘Make Soon talk!'

The mother and the boy with their intense eyes, their identical smiles, moved slowly along the path, absorbed in the rhythm of their exchange. Simon thought: I have never seen two creatures more strangely attuned.

Roza ran her hand over the boy's hair, inspected him with pleasure. ‘At least you've had a shower. Tulei will be pleased; you were starting to get dreadlocks. Did you put the money in your safe? I can't believe you've stung me for another five bucks.'

The new housekeeper, Friend, emerged with a school bag and lunch box and Roza took the bag, adjusting it on Johnnie's shoulder.

‘Thanks, Friend. Hello, Simon.'

He greeted them from his seat by the Hallwrights' pool. They were back in the Auckland house and he'd been summoned by David. ‘Come over for breakfast,' he'd said on the phone. ‘Something to tell you.' Across the suburb the city buildings were ranged against the washed, cloudless blue of the early February sky.

Friend said, ‘First day school. Doesn't he look handsome in new uniform!'

Johnnie stood looking tiny in shirt, tie and blazer. His hair was plastered down, his face unusually clean. His expression was neutral.

Roza straightened his collar. ‘Mm, it's a bizarre rig-out really, isn't it. Why the blazer? He'll die of heat. And as for the weird cap . . . And a crimson
tie
, for God's sake.'

Friend was disapproving. ‘King's Prep. Is wonderful school. Very well respected.'

Roza grinned at Johnnie. ‘Fabulous get-up, darling.'

Johnnie laughed.

‘King's is a school for the cream of Auckland: rich and thick,' Roza said to Friend. ‘I think that was a joke of Samuel Beckett's.' She glanced at Simon.

Friend looked high-minded; she was used to Roza carrying on this way, as if she and someone else present, usually the little boy, were sharing a private joke. Friend was known to agree with Tulei: Missus was far too lax with the horribly intelligent child. Nothing was censored in front of him; in fact, Roza was even more likely to share her anarchic cracks, her habit of swearing and her shockingly inappropriate vocabulary with the boy than she was with adults.

‘First day at school. Good luck!' Simon said. He looked at Johnnie's sturdy little legs, his feet in poignant new sandals. A tuft of the boy's hair had escaped the plastering and was standing straight up, and there were freckles on his suntanned nose. He was a small, touching figure and then you looked into his eyes and saw how alert, how powerfully noticing . . .

He sat and waited. A helicopter buzzed along the skyline. The Hallwrights' gardener, Conscience, ran his clippers over the topiary, smoothing hedges into cones, squares, balls. Patterns of light turned rangily in the pool like paper stars, folding and refolding. Friend went away, reappeared and placed a cup of coffee in front of him.

Mother and son took a turn around the garden. They passed Simon's table.

Johnnie said, ‘Tulei says a story has to have a moral.'

Roza spread out her hands. ‘Does she now. She would. The moral is: there is no moral. No moral, no God, only forces.'

Simon and Roza looked at each other over the boy's head. Simon said, ‘Only forces. So are there any forces for good?'

She pretended to think. ‘Hmm. I don't know, Simon. Are there any of those in the world?'

‘How about love. And politics.'

But Roza only gave him one of her unreadable smiles.

He waited half an hour, until David came out of the house talking to his new personal assistant. According to David, Roza had got rid of the previous assistant, Delwyn, and the one before that, Dianne, before settling on a sturdy young woman with bad skin and no sense of humour: Debbie. Now David said, ‘Action that, er, Del, Di . . . Debbie. Let me talk to Simon.'

Friend bustled out with more coffee. David sent a couple of quick emails, took two calls, then put the phone on the table and faced Simon. ‘Let's have some breakfast.'

When Friend had taken his instructions and gone to the kitchen he said, ‘Right. I've got the full story from Ed Miles. Weeks was out of his mind.'

‘You mean . . . intoxicated?'

‘I mean drugged. On prescription medicine. He was an insomniac, hounded his GP about it, apparently. There's a list of sleeping pills, strong ones. There were levels of the stuff in his blood: Ed tells me he's seen a report recording the levels as high. They think he woke after taking medication in the night, headed for his car and stumbled against the fence. It was a wire fence, quite low, and it collapsed under him. He fell head first down the retaining wall, died instantly of neck and skull fractures. He wasn't able to break his own fall because he was too impaired.'

Simon waited then said, ‘I was worried by that ridiculous question the police asked me: would anyone want to harm him because of what he was writing. I'm glad it's so clearly an accident. They can't make any trouble out of it for you. No lurid stories: Hack Nosing Around PM. Was He Pushed?'

He hesitated, then added, ‘God knows what rubbish he put in his screenplay. He seemed to be desperate for salacious gossip.'

‘Indeed.'

‘It's called
The Night Book
.'

‘How do you know?'

‘The cop told me.'

‘Ed's taking care of it. No one will be interested. Weeks wasn't writing for any commission. No reputation for writing movie screenplays, not a great deal of track record. Well, the man was practically a drug addict by the sound of it.'

‘I wonder what's in it. The screenplay.'

‘Who cares?'

Simon looked at him, expressionless. David would surely get hold of the screenplay. But Ed Miles would look at it first.
Let's hope David can keep Ed under control.

Ray had brought the car to the front of the house. They walked across the gravel. David paused, his hand on the car door. ‘How's Elke?'

‘She's fine. Looking forward to the American trip.'

‘Roza's happy at the moment, too.'

‘I'm glad.'

‘The Weeks thing will be referred to the coroner.'

‘Good to know it's not a problem.'

They shook on it.

Those weeks in early February: they kept calling them the hottest on record. The streets retained the heat of the day and the nights were stifling, the city breathing hot air back at itself. Two o'clock in the morning, unable to sleep in the upstairs bedroom under the roof, Simon went down for a glass of water, walked around the quiet house, eventually stretched himself on the sofa in the cooler air of his study. He could feel the loved presences in the sleeping house: Karen, Claire, Elke, Marcus, his family safe and near. Closing his eyes, he dozed.

He was looking down from a tall, narrow upstairs window like an arrow slit. A black shape, a dog, crossed the lawn; the shadows rearranged themselves like holes in the fabric of the air, blacker than black. There was the round eye of a bird, cruel, shiny, opaque, and a voice, May's, whispered close to his ear, ‘
Somewhere, someone knows
.' He saw a haze of bright colour, something red writhing up out of it. He started, struggling to wake himself. There was an insistent electronic sound.

His cell phone was beeping and vibrating on his desk, about to shake itself onto the floor. He picked it up, lay back on the sofa. It would be a woman in labour or a gynaecological emergency; he would have to go in to the public hospital. He answered, resigned, eyes closed, ‘Simon Lampton.'

‘Simon. It's me.'

‘Hello. Who's speaking?'

‘Mereana.'

He sat up.

‘It's Mereana. Sorry, I know it's the middle of the night there.'

He said her name. The voice came to him through the phone static. ‘Simon, I'm coming back to New Zealand. A job offer . . . out of the blue . . .'

The room was very dark. He had a sense of falling.

She said, ‘I have a son. I think it's time you met him. Soon.'

A son.

‘Simon? Simon?'

The hottest February ever, records falling, who knows where it will end. Is it climate change, will the planet last for the children and their children? But there's no time to consider the planet or the children, or the terrors of the hot dark hours, no time to wonder what the future holds,
soon
. After the hottest night, for Simon Lampton the stunned and reeling morning: an urgent call, the speeding drive to the hospital, a corridor, voices, feet squeaking on the floor, he enters the bright room and they're coming at him with forms and printouts and notes: patient brought in by Westpac rescue helicopter, a protracted labour, placenta may be knitted to old caesarean scar, blood set aside for transfusion, and the pregnant woman's moaning on the bed and a man's wringing his hands, there's a toddler screaming in the corridor, a door slams, the sound is abruptly cut off, above his head a neon light ticks and whirrs, he looks down at the woman, a moment of stillness
. Increase your tolerance to uncertainty.

He carries out an examination. Yes, life is on its way, it will not wait; life will kill her if he doesn't get a move on . . .

Putting his hand on the woman's arm, he holds it there for a moment, as if it's her alone he's keeping steady. The air trembles and reels, and then holds firm.

‘I'm here,' he says. ‘My name's Simon Lampton. Everything's going to be fine.'