The Night Book (6 page)

In the afternoon the landlord, who was making preparations to evict her, had sent a man around to mow the back lawn. The gardener had found Roza slumped on the back step, and called an ambulance.

Her mother’s idea of recovery had been for Roza to find her way back to God, but Roza had told her calmly that she blamed the church for her woes. She said she would never set foot in a church again. The more her mother persisted, the more obvious it was that they were estranged.

Roza had said, ‘Mum. If you keep on with this, you’ll have to go away.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘If you can’t accept I’ve given all that up, you’ll have to leave me alone.’

Roza had been admitted to a recovery centre, and they were in the visitors’ room. Her mother said, ‘But don’t you see, your giving it up is what’s brought you here.’

Roza had looked away with a hopeless feeling. There was too much they couldn’t say.

‘I’m here because of your fucking God.’

‘No, don’t say that.’

Roza remembered standing up in sudden fury. ‘All that hellfire rubbish, that bullshit.’

Her mother made a gesture of disgust. ‘Hysteria,’ she said.

‘You messed up my mind, you and Dad.’ Childish, impotent words.

‘I saved you. Or I tried to. You were just the most immature, wilful child. It all fell on me. Your father didn’t know what to do with you. It wasn’t easy. I suffered.’

Roza struggled to find words. ‘Your religion … you call it choosing life, but you deny life.’

‘Everything I ever did was for you.’

When Roza walked out her mother hadn’t followed, but sat staring angrily at the floor. Later, Roza had watched the black Mercedes drive out of the car park, and cried for the first time since she’d been in the place.

The following year, when her mother was dying in hospital, she’d told Roza, ‘I didn’t want you to be like me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I didn’t want you to be just a wife. I wanted you to have a job, be a success. You were so bright.’

Roza remembered a still, blue afternoon, her mother in a patch of summer sun, her grey hair trailing on the pillow. As the hours went by the sun moved, the colour bled out and faded, her mother had gripped her arm and whispered in her ear, and Roza said, ‘Yes, I understand,’ and held her hands as she died, held them tight as if she could keep her back from the other side.

Later the priest, Father Tapper, had arrived outside the door. He’d put his hand on her sleeve as she was leaving, but Roza had told him to go fuck himself.

A month later, she had taken stock. She had money, her parents’
house, and she was back to being sober. She went regularly to AA meetings, which were boring but necessary, and comforting too. She’d enrolled for an arts degree at Auckland University, rediscovered reading, realising that it was a way to stay sober in the evenings, and had started to enjoy her studies. The only problem was that she was lonely. She’d had to leave a lot of destructive old friends behind.

She’d graduated with a degree and found work with a publisher. She liked the women with whom she worked, and she’d begun to be happy. Later, she’d met David, whose first wife had died, leaving him with the two children. During the months she and David were getting to know each other she’d tried out the sober Roza on him, and found, to her surprise, that the new self was a success. He’d seemed to believe in it.

Everything depended on the mask, and she never took it off, until she started to feel she’d become the person she was impersonating: someone cheerful, tough, focused, steady. She had her own money and a good job; she was a person who was not ashamed.

David had started out buying struggling companies and turning them around, and after he and Roza had got together he’d used her inherited money to increase his empire. He’d gone into packaging, food manufacturing and investment, and in a relatively short time they were seriously rich. He’d turned his mind to politics, made progressively bigger donations to the party and finally, after his astute use of Roza’s money had made him a tycoon, he’d been funnelled into leadership. The National Party rated anyone who had vast wealth.

For Roza, success in her new life had depended on not looking back. She’d felt that to turn back, to talk about what lay in the past, would be very dangerous. She’d avoided anything that reminded her of bad old times, and that was the way she’d stayed sober and well. She thought of that dragon, Trish, needling her about her new role.
She would be the prime minister’s wife. It had seemed impossible and surreal,
laughable
, and suddenly it was in front of her.

Now, in the radiant morning, in the sudden silence after the children had gone, she looked up at the house and felt suffocated.

‘You all right?’

‘Yes.’

‘You look like you gunna fall in the pool.’

‘No. Sorry. I’m fine.’

But she was dizzy and panicked; her nerves were scattered. The gardener, Conscience, hesitated and then, as she swayed, stepped forward and took her arm. He smelled nice, of sweat and cut grass. She looked into his wary, bloodshot eyes and laughed stupidly. ‘Perhaps I’m getting the flu.’

He walked with her to the open French doors and bent down to take off his boots, but she said, ‘Oh, don’t worry. Leave them on.’ They stepped inside and she sat down at the table, embarrassed, staring at the light glancing off the pool, and trying to pull herself together.

‘Thanks, Conscience.’

‘You want me to call someone?’

‘No. You could just put the kettle on, make us both a coffee.’

He filled the kettle and turned it on. ‘If you okay, I’d better get back to work.’

‘All right. Thanks.’

He went to the door. She said, ‘Probably just a migraine,’ hearing how artificial she sounded and he nodded and slipped out, happy to get away.

She made a cup of coffee and watched Conscience climb a ladder and go at the creeper on the wall with an electric trimmer.

She was going to be late for work, but still she didn’t move. The light made a burning prism in the side of the glass fruit bowl and
tiny pieces of dust revolved in the rays of sun.

Everything, today, was loosening the rigid organisation of her There were her early days, before she’d started drinking heavily. And there was the raw, tentative time of recovery, when she’d taken charge of her parents’ house and enrolled at university, and invented her new self. These were times that she was able to revisit, warily, without any danger. In between them was the dark place, the time she never wanted to think about again.

The steam from her cup curled and slipped in the bright air. She replayed over again her encounter with Simon Lampton. What was that word he’d used?

Hyenas.

It was her encounter with Lampton that had unsettled her, made her turn and look back. It was like allowing yourself to let go, falling forward into clear air, the terror of having nothing to hold. Roza remembering.

She heard the automatic gate creaking open as Jung Ha drove in. A voice on the radio said, ‘A man is in hospital after being stabbed last night in the Civic car park in central Auckland. The man, who police have not named, was returning to his car after a fundraising dinner for the National Party.’

‘Shit. Is it nine o’clock?’ Roza picked up her keys and hurried out of the house. 

Simon was in hospital for one night. He had a lot of bruising, and stitches in his forearm. He found it humiliating being a patient, and was conscious of the golden rule with hospitals: get out as fast as you can. On the morning after he’d been admitted, he was interviewed by a policeman. The two boys had been arrested as they ran out of the building, by police responding to Karen’s call. Simon felt vague and tired and gave a rambling account. Each time he was asked a question he felt a spear of pain at his temple, as if his weary brain was resisting being used at all. All he wanted was to be still and silent. The policeman spoke of an identity parade. A pushy woman from Victim Support hung about and drove Karen crazy, wanting to talk about her own experience of violent crime, and taking up the cop’s time asking questions. Karen said the woman was a voyeur and a nutcase. The woman gave them a spiel about delayed shock and post-traumatic stress, until Karen snapped that they were both fine and all they needed was a bit of peace. The woman gave Simon a hurt smile and left, ignoring Karen.

That first morning his side ached like hell, and they dosed him up with painkillers. Karen was in overdrive making sure he got attention; she rang his secretary, and made sure his partners had
all his patients covered. He watched Karen pacing and frowning, giving orders into her cellphone. She enjoyed taking charge, dealing with problems and he thought, secretly, that she had the slight air of putting it on, like a kid playing at dress-ups.

By the afternoon he’d got better control of himself and had a few hours of dreamy ease, lying in the sunny room high up in Auckland City Hospital. Karen had gone to see to the kids. His arm felt huge and hot and his fingers were bound and immobile. What he’d been afraid of was nerve damage, but the doctor had told him some time in the blur of the night that no nerves or tendons were damaged.

He lay remembering. The brutal glare of the emergency department, the sounds and smells of human distress, Karen and Trish and Graeme looming and bobbing in his blurred vision like tragic clowns, helpless and out of place in their expensive clothes. A bloodied, tattooed gang member had twitched up the curtain and asked Trish, ‘Got a smoke?’ Trish had snapped, ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ and after that there were waves of laughter and fruity, falsetto imitations from behind the curtains, ‘Don’t be rid-i-cu lous,’ and then the great roar and stench of the big bro chundering into his bed and the shouts as his mates leapt out of range.

They’d watched silently as a pregnant woman was wheeled past the door, her huge belly sticking up under the sheet. Along the corridor a child’s desperate screaming stopped abruptly, as if a hand had been clamped over its mouth. A doctor leaned over Simon and the bright light hurt his eyes. Simon had said, ‘Look, I’m really sorry but I’m going to have to …’ and vomited, the hot spurts tricking out through his fingers until a nurse jammed a styrofoam cup under his chin. He’d smelled the wine he’d drunk and couldn’t stop apologising, until the drugs had kicked in and he whirled away into a kind of shocked peace.

He was given outpatient’s appointments for the doctor and physiotherapist and told he could go home; Karen arrived with clean clothes. He felt stiff and a bit dizzy but otherwise fine. He got dressed and was putting on his socks when Karen’s phone rang.

‘Oh hi, Trish. He’s … No. Really?’ Karen went to the window and looked out distractedly. ‘
Now
? Yes. No. Wow. Lovely.’

She turned to him, agitated. ‘David Hallwright’s coming to see you.’

He paused, holding his sock. ‘Why?’

Karen had gone into a flap. Darting around the room, tidying up, she grabbed the shirt he’d been wearing in bed. He sat there, watching.

‘Simon. He’s coming. Now.’ She threw the shirt at him.

He didn’t move.

‘Simon,’ she squeaked.

‘What?’

She threw up her hands in frustration, kicked a towel behind the cupboard and looked around, frowning, hands on her hips, assessing the scene. ‘You’ll have to get back into bed.’

‘What?’

‘Get back in bed. So he can visit you.’

‘Why do I have to be in bed?’

‘Because you’re in hospital. He’s visiting your bedside.’

Simon stared. A throb of antagonism started up in his temple. He knew his slowness was driving her crazy. ‘You want me to get in bed so he can “visit my bedside”. Is it a visit or an event?’

She tried to make a joke of it, laughing and fussing around him.

‘What if I don’t want to see him?’

She made a furious face, but the door swished open. They turned. 

Trish said, ‘Knock knock.’

Karen blushed and said tensely, ‘You only just caught us. We were about to go.’

Trish bent over the bed. ‘How are you, poor darling?’ She said to Karen, ‘They’ll be here in a minute.’

The two women stood over Simon, seeing him as Hallwright would. It was the same frowning show they put on when they were critiquing a new set of curtains. He sat there while they sized up what to do with him, and he noted, sourly, how Karen imitated Trish’s mannerisms.

Trish said, ‘He’s bringing
her
with him,’ and rolled her eyes.

They fluffed up his pillows. Karen made him put his legs back up on the bed, pushed him into the pillows and draped a hospital blanket over him. They were enjoying themselves now, and Simon, at the mention of Roza, had become distracted, allowing himself to be arranged like a mannequin. Trish turned a vase of flowers to a satisfactory angle.

The weather had changed; it was raining, and the world was shrouded in misty grey. Out in the harbour a ship made its way slowly from the container port. Drops of rain zigzagged down the windows. There was a slow squeak squeak as a trolley was wheeled past the door.

Simon remembered the concrete stairwell. In the moment before he fainted he’d been dazzled by the flashes in his reeling brain; he remembered staring at a throbbing border between the brightest silver and the deepest black. And how was Roza Hallwright connected to the weird, floating euphoria of that moment? He remembered being impressed by her at the dinner, and that there was some striking quality about her that he couldn’t fix in his mind. He thought she might once have been a patient — he would look at his files, if Karen would let him out of here.

Trish opened the door a crack and peered out while Karen arranged her hair and make-up. Trish said, ‘Let’s just pull back that curtain, and do you think we should wheel him nearer the window.’

Simon came alive and said, ‘He’s not bringing bloody cameras in here.’

They heard voices in the corridor.

‘He’s coming.’ Both women laughed. It sounded as if a crowd was coming along the hall. Shoes squeaked on the shiny floor and someone said, ‘Oh yeah, look, no problem, yeah.’ Simon leaned back with a groan and put his arm over his face.

Trish threw open the door. ‘Hi,
David
. Hello
Roza
. Welcome. It’s so good of you to come.’

Simon heard David Hallwright say, ‘Can we have a bit of privacy just at this stage? Thanks.’ There was a low murmur.

Hallwright limped in, followed by Roza, a woman in a suit, and Trish. He came to the bedside, his hand outstretched, and when Simon took it he cupped his other hand over Simon’s.

‘Dr Lampton. Simon. I hope we’re not intruding. Roza and I obviously were shocked to hear what happened, and obviously wanted to share our deepest sympathies. We hear the news is good, though, no lasting damage.’ He turned to Karen. ‘Roza and I have been thinking of you obviously, and we just thought we’d quickly pop in, to show how, how … tremendously shocked we are at the events that happened — really right after we spoke to you at the gala dinner.’

Karen gulped, ‘Thank you for coming.’ She’d gone very flushed under her make-up. ‘Simon’s doing very well,’ she added. ‘He’ll be up and about in no time, won’t you, Simon.’

‘Oh look, yes, in no time. In fact I was just about to …’

Trish lowered her voice. ‘Simon could have permanent damage.
We’re all hoping for the best.’

‘Look, we’re wishing you all the very best. Roza and I …’

Roza came forward and shook Simon’s hand. She looked different in the harsh neon light, and for a moment he was disappointed. He remembered a face made mysterious by shadows, a slim figure emphasised by the elegant evening dress; now she was dressed in trousers and a shirt and she looked younger, rounder in the face, more competent and ordinary than she had been at the dinner. That evening he’d felt there was something wild about her, mad energy just contained, something other-worldly. Exotic.

He thought he must have imagined it, but then she spoke, and at the sound of her voice his sense of her came back. Her eyes were large and grey and full of light, and her voice was alive with nuance. When she spoke it was such a contrast to her husband’s stumbling delivery that it seemed as if everyone should be embarrassed. But no, Karen and Trish were gazing at Hallwright as if he were the Second Coming.

Roza said, ‘I was shocked when I found out it was you who’d been hurt.’

I was shocked. You.
He said, ‘It’s nothing.’

She smiled. ‘A mere scratch I suppose.’

‘Yeah. Mere scratch.’ He fought down a grin, still holding her hand.

A cellphone rang. Hallwright said to the woman in the suit, ‘You’re meant to turn that off in here, Dianne.’

The woman called Dianne said, ‘Have we given some thought to a picture?’

Hallwright looked innocent. He pursed his lips and gazed out the window and Trish said warmly, ‘Good idea.’

Simon said, ‘I don’t think …’

‘We won’t let the TV in, but how about one for the
Herald
?’

Hallwright said, ‘Sure. Why not? That’s a great idea.’

‘I don’t want …’ Simon said.

Dianne signalled and a young man came in. There was a quick readjustment, Hallwright angling himself to the side of the bed so that he was frowning down at Simon, Simon saying no, the click of the camera, Hallwright changing positions and the click again. And behind it all Roza, standing coolly apart. He had a flash of resentment that she’d participated in this — lulled and bewitched him and then left him to the idiots around the bed.

Hallwright stepped back and looked at his watch, he and Dianne exchanged a glance, and he said to Simon, ‘Look, I really hope you’ll be out of here soon, and up and about.’

‘I’ve already been discharged actually.’

‘Well. That’s magnificent news. We’ll obviously get out of your way, and let you recover in peace.’

Roza came forward and Simon looked coldly at her. What was she, the fixer for the bozo husband, the one who smoothed out the impression left by his mangled verbs and jangling adverbs? She registered his cold look but made no sign of apology or embarrassment, just raised her chin, as though meeting a challenge. He suddenly remembered feeling almost antagonised by her at the dinner, and for a second he was close to realising what was significant about her. But the PA Dianne was ushering Hallwright to the door and Trish and Karen were lining up to shake hands. Simon subsided against the pillows, cursing his own cowardly politeness.

There had been three murders in South Auckland that week. The Sensible Sentencing Trust organised a march in protest at the violence, and people rallied outside Mt Eden Prison waving banners and calling for stiffer penalties. Police were quoted as saying they wanted armed patrols on the streets, and the government was
forced to defend its policies on justice. David Hallwright was affected by crime himself, when his good friend, surgeon Mr Simon Lampton, was injured in a street mugging after a National Party fundraiser. Mr Lampton was in a stable condition, but his family was waiting to hear whether there would be permanent damage. Hallwright was photographed at his friend’s bedside, and later made a statement to television reporters outside the hospital. He looked forward to tackling youth crime himself, when National became the government. He would be innovative and decisive; he would have a much firmer hand. This state of affairs had gone on for a long time, and obviously people were nervous and afraid. He had yet to release detailed policy, however. That would come, closer to election time.

Claire said, ‘When’s he going to tell us what his policies actually are?’

They were watching the six o’clock news. Simon, as the invalid, had the whole sofa to himself. The news switched to the American election and they watched the Democrat candidate speaking to a crowd.

Simon said, ‘Do you think Hallwright hired those two muggers himself?’

Elke, twirling her hair and staring into space, said dreamily, ‘What muggers?’

‘Definitely,’ Claire said.

They watched the American president talking to reporters. Behind him, his wife fixed the reporters with a glazed smile. There was a local item, about tax cuts. If National won the election Simon would get a tax cut of fifty dollars a week.

Karen said, ‘About time.’

Claire looked at Karen. There was a silence. They all waited.

‘How much does Dad earn a year?’ Claire asked.

‘What’s that got to do with it?’ Karen said.

‘Do we
need
an extra fifty dollars a week?’

‘The point is …’ Karen began.

Simon said wickedly, ‘Just say, theoretically, I earn more than eight hundred thousand a year.’

Karen glared. She didn’t approve of telling anyone that kind of thing. She didn’t see why he had to help Claire attack her. Her look said, You’ll pay.

Claire was triumphant. ‘So that fifty dollars will really be a
godsend
. At last we can
eat
. Don’t let it be wasted on poor people. Just let them all
rot
out there in South Auckland and hope they don’t come bothering us over
here
. Just get tighter
security
.’

Karen snapped, ‘You don’t know anything about money. Spoilt brat.’

Claire picked up her economics textbook, making a face at Simon. He grinned at her.

The next item came on: a senior policeman, Ray Marden, had been acquitted of an historic rape charge. There was a shot of him outside the High Court, furiously denouncing his accusers.