The Bit In Between (17 page)

Tiptoeing down the hall, he peeped into the first room he came to. There were two sets of bunk beds and the floor was covered in clothing. An eclectic mix of earrings and ribbons and necklaces were scattered across a small set of drawers and there was a giant poster of a boy band on the wall. It was obviously a room inhabited by young people. Oliver found a small stool being used as a bedside table and took that out to the living room.

He returned to the hall and peeped into the next room. This room was clearly an adult's room. A couple of double mattresses were piled on top of each other beside a large cupboard with mirrored doors. Across the room Oliver spotted a chair with a suit draped over it. He took a step into the room.

‘You must be Oliver!'

The wardrobe door swung shut and a pleasant-looking man beamed at him. Oliver steadied himself and shook the man's hand.

‘I'm Peter,' the man said. ‘Sera's husband.'

‘Sorry, I didn't realise anyone was here. I'm looking for chairs.'

Peter smiled. ‘Of course.' He carefully picked the suit up off the chair and draped it on the mattress. ‘You can take that one,' he said. ‘I'm just going to get changed. Could you tell Sera I'll be down in a minute?'

‘Of course,' Oliver said, concerned that his first impression was that of someone who wanders into stranger's bedrooms without knocking. He picked up the chair and left hastily.

Outside, everything was ready to go. The women had taken away the stones and carefully removed the parcels from the motu. Alison had helped Sera to unwrap them, placing the moist steaming kumara in a bowl and cutting up the cassava pudding that Aunty Patti had added after Alison left the day before. It smelt amazing and Oliver's stomach growled impatiently as he arranged the extra chairs in the open living space beneath the house.

As the women placed the bowls of food on the table, Sera's husband joined them in the yard. Out on the street there was the sound of a taxi pulling up. Doors slammed and footsteps crunched across the stones.

‘Ah,' Peter beamed, ‘our new friends are here.'

A group of whitefalas walked into the space.

Oliver saw Alison's eyes widen in shock.

‘Ed?'

A tall, dark, extremely handsome man broke into a huge smile.

‘Coops!'

He rushed over and swept her into a tight hug. The cousins started tittering.

‘Ed,' Alison's muffled voice said. She pulled herself away from his shoulder. ‘Ed.'

She looked over at Oliver.

‘Ed. This is Ed.'

She nodded to herself.

‘Ed,' she added one more time for confirmation.

Oliver stared at him open-mouthed. He hadn't actually expected it to happen so fast. He had been planning to fix it up later, but now here he was.

‘Ed,' Oliver said, trying to sound confident as he stuck out his hand and strode over. Ed barely looked at him, shaking his hand briefly and then turning back to Alison.

‘It's so good to see you, Coops!' he said, shaking his head in amazement.

‘Coops?' Oliver pursed his lips, annoyed by the nickname he didn't understand. Everyone was staring at him, and he realised suddenly that he had not really thought this through. On reflection, it was a terrible idea. Conscious of the watchful eyes, he glanced at Sera.

‘So, um, is the food ready?'

Sera looked at him with owl eyes and nodded vigorously. ‘Yes. Food. Let's eat.'

Oliver sat to one side nibbling at his kumara, scowling as he watched Ed and Alison chat. He had not thought this through at all. In her descriptions, Alison had described Ed as beautiful but a veritable human mess, not to mention a bit of a wanker. It was this part, and not the beauty, that Oliver had committed to memory. In his haste he had figured that Ed's appearance would trigger an avalanche of revulsion from Alison, therefore consolidating her love for Oliver, and proving to her beyond all doubt that it was true he could somehow write things into existence. But even he was dazzled by Ed's beauty. Ed's skin practically glowed, like one of those over the top Adonis paintings that adorned the walls of magnificent Greek villas and his thea's master ensuite. Oliver wanted to stroke him almost as much as he wanted to punch him. He took an angry bite of kumara and chewed it violently. With Ed sitting right here in front of him, shining like a Grecian wrestler, it was clear that his plan was literally the worst plan in the world. No doubt he would pay for this.

Someone sat beside him.

‘Enjoying your food?'

Oliver nodded at Peter.

‘The fish is always my favourite,' Peter added.

Oliver nodded again. Peter glanced over at Ed and Alison.

‘I didn't know you knew Ed. My colleagues over there are staying in the same hotel and extended the invitation. Sorry . . .'

‘Nothing to apologise for. It's great he and Alison can catch up.' Oliver gave a forced smile.

‘Are you sure?'

‘Of course,' Oliver lied and gave the fake smile again.

‘It's just when you smile like that I feel uncomfortable, like someone is going to stab me from behind. It is an unsafe smile.'

Oliver gave a genuine smile. ‘You have a very Australian sense of humour.'

‘I went to high school in Australia and then university. I understand Australian sarcasm. I also understand how Australian girls think when it comes to love and relationships.'

‘Do you?' Oliver asked despondently. ‘I don't.'

Peter looked over at Alison and Ed. ‘No. Me neither.'

They watched as Alison made a joke and Ed laughed far more than was probably necessary and then steadied himself on Alison's shoulder. To one side Oliver could see Sera giving Ed a Solomon death stare as she gnawed a chicken drumstick. He had a feeling Peter would be getting a talking-to that night after everyone left. By the look on his face, Peter was thinking this too.

‘So, look, Oliver. I also invited someone I think you might be a little more interested in meeting. Sera has mentioned you are writing about our Independence. I'd like to introduce you to one of the founding fathers of our nation.' Peter indicated a large tall man sitting on the other side of the room picking at the bones of a small parrot fish. ‘He was part of all the early negotiations.'

Oliver looked over with interest. The man appeared to be in his seventies and had the unself-conscious air of someone so used to public life that he forgot anyone else existed.

‘Come.'

Oliver followed Peter across the room and smiled as he was introduced to the tall man. Oliver offered his hand and the man put the fish to one side, and looked around for somewhere to wipe his hands before giving up and shaking hands anyway. Oliver grinned as he felt the oil smear across his palm.

‘It's an honour to meet you,' he said, casually wiping his hand on his shorts.

The tall man pretended not to notice and cleared his throat. ‘A pleasure to meet you too. Peter mentioned that you are working on a book about our Independence.'

‘Well, kind of. It's set during Independence but it's more about people and life and, you know, relationships.'

‘Ah,' the tall man nodded, ‘much more interesting than our statehood.'

Oliver held his breath until he realised that Peter was laughing and then joined in. The tall man motioned for him to sit down.

‘Do you mind if I ask you some questions about Independence?' Oliver asked.

‘Certainly.'

‘What was it like? Independence, I mean?'

The tall man thought about this for a moment. ‘Liberating.'

His face remained serious for a couple of beats and then he let out a smile. Oliver chuckled.

‘Independence,' the tall man continued, ‘was an amazing time. We were building a new nation. It was the first time our people would be ruled as a single state by leaders of their own colour. We were all working together – us, the British, your people, a couple of Kiwis. We felt so incredibly lucky to be creating our nation under the eyes of a loving god, drafting our constitution as we felt best fitted our people.'

Oliver was fascinated. ‘Did you feel pressure to get it right?'

‘Of course. Of course we did. Pressure from ourselves. Pressure from our people. Pressure from the British. Pressure to bring together all these different forms of governance – the British systems and all our own – and make something for everyone. It's a big responsibility to birth a nation. I remember thinking, will I be able to look back on this when I am an old man and be proud of what I've done?'

Oliver leant closer. ‘And?'

The tall man leant in too. ‘And I'm not an old man yet.'

Oliver grinned and the tall man sat back. ‘Am I proud? I am proud of what we did and what we were trying to do. Am I proud of what we have become? Somewhat. We have achieved a lot but . . .' His voice trailed off and he stared into space for a moment. ‘Can I be proud of the corruption? Of the misused and disappearing funds? Of the never-ending votes of no confidence? I am proud of my people. Proud of their spirit and their determination. What you would call resilience. No matter the obstacles my people see plaguing our nation, they do not give up their passion and their desire to see our country flourish by the grace that God gave us.' He paused again and stared at the plate balanced on his knee absentmindedly. ‘Would I wish for more? Do I wish the story had gone somewhat differently? How can I answer that question?'

The tall man looked suddenly exhausted. In his face Oliver saw far more stories than one could ever hope to capture. The deep wrinkles, the dull, sunken eyes – they told of long, hard struggle, of countless arguments that circled around and around and started where they finished, of hours spent arguing, negotiating, drafting and redrafting.

‘Are you still a politician?' Oliver asked softly.

The tall man gave a snort. ‘Not for many years. I couldn't. It's a crooked game and I couldn't be a part of it.' He paused and his gaze hardened. ‘I care about politics still, of course. But more from the sidelines now. I give interviews, write many letters to the editor, that kind of thing. It's not the same but I can sleep at night.'

‘And your family can look you in the eye and call you a good man,' Oliver added gently.

The tall man nodded, staring beyond Oliver. ‘Something like that.'

His wife had stood by his side every step of the way, supporting and encouraging him and reminding him why he was doing it. She had hosted parties, run their household and borne six children, all the while acting as the unofficial campaign manager he couldn't live without. His children had always accepted his absence, secure in the knowledge that Daddy wasn't there because he was making sure that other children could live the same sort of life they were lucky enough to live. And when he had returned defeated to his house after losing his bid for the prime ministership, they had rallied around him and told him that they were proud of his honesty and integrity and that he should try again because he was the person who deserved it most. It was then that he realised he had been a better father to the nation than to his own flesh and blood and he promised them all that he would make it up to them. He stepped away from politics determined that he would get to know his children, that he would be there for his wife, and that he would never again be a stranger in his own home. He scaled back his public commitments to a fraction of what they had been, only appearing at the most important of dinners and functions. It was from one such function that he returned home to find shocked neighbours gathered around the charred ruins of the house where his family had been sleeping, now nothing but a smouldering pile of burnt wood. A single daughter, already married and living far away, was all that remained of the family he was only just beginning to know.

Nearby, Alison sat talking to Ed. It had been months since she had last seen him, and in recent times she had barely given him a thought, but the moment he'd walked in, everything had come flooding back. His loping gait. His messy hair. The way he used to click his jaw when he was deep in thought. His beauty – oh lord, his beauty. He was more beautiful than she remembered, because the chaos of their final days together had distorted his character in her eyes. But now here he was in all his tall, dark, ridiculously amazing glory. And she was, once again, trapped in his spotlight.

A small part of her remembered that this was what he did – focus intensely on someone and make them feel like the centre of the world – until he tired of them and then wandered off in search of a newer, brighter distraction. Distraction was what Ed was all about, but he did it so well. That was why a small part of Alison was waving its warning flag while a much larger and more vocal part was giggling like a teenager and letting Ed hoist her high above on a pedestal. Right now, for instance, she was boring even herself as she discussed the difficulty of hand washing the stench of sweat from clothing, but Ed managed not only to look like he was utterly enthralled by her story but asked engaging questions that demonstrated his attentiveness. He was very good.