After the Fall (32 page)

Finn made angel shapes in the sand. ‘Better not leave any bally women alone in the house,’ he said. ‘Those bloody burgerers might come back.’

Beneath the prone body of Hinemoana’s hill a clump of seaweed lay half-submerged in the surf. The waves tugged and pushed, making the dark fronds sway fretfully, like long hair. My eyes were drawn to it, though I tried to look away. It looked so terribly like the corpse of a young woman.

Twenty-six

At first, I thought the call was benign.

I was in my pokey office at Capeview and had spent lunchtime talking to a patronising idiot at the insurance company who wanted valuations of everything stolen. A migraine was mustering forces behind my eyes, and I wondered about taking a couple of ibuprofen. Which was when my phone rang.

‘Martha McNamara?’ It was a pleasant voice. Female. ‘Lyndsay Carpenter, Sacha’s dean. Is this a good moment?’

‘Yes! Hello,’ I said brightly. ‘Is it about the Performance Diploma?’

‘Not directly.’ The dean sounded taken aback. ‘I’m calling about Sacha’s attendance record.’

‘Her what?’

‘Her name came up at today’s staff meeting. It’s a problem. She has missed a number of internal assessments.’

‘She’s missed
what
?’

‘Internal assessments. They are essential if she’s to gain enough credits to pass—’

‘Yes, I know what internal assessments are. But isn’t this an overreaction? She’s had a week off with a cold, maybe a couple of other days. I don’t think she’s missed anything important.’

‘Sacha’s attendance was less than sixty per cent last term, and the pattern is continuing.’

I was flabbergasted. ‘Are you sure we’re talking about the same girl?’

‘Well, take today as an example, Martha.’ New Zealanders rarely do the surname thing. ‘You are aware that she’s absent from school?’

‘No, she . . . Are you sure?’

Lyndsay was inexorable. ‘A message was left on our absence line at . . . let me check . . . nine fifteen this morning, ostensibly from you. It said that Sacha was unable to attend school today due to a dental appointment.’

‘No. I think there must be a mistake.’

‘There’s no mistake. I checked the records myself after the staff meeting. The head of music raised the issue. She’s suspended Sacha from the orchestra for non-attendance.’

The little room spun. It wasn’t possible.

‘She’s one of our most talented musicians, but she appears to have given up,’ said Lyndsay. ‘Her flute teacher hasn’t seen her for weeks.’

‘Is Bianka at school? Her friend, Bianka?’

‘Bianka Varga . . .’ there was a pause, just long enough for the teacher to check her computer files, ‘. . . is at school today. Yes. And her attendance record is excellent.’

‘Oh.’ I was deflated. ‘So Sacha isn’t with her?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

I was thinking frantically. There had to be an explanation. My daughter was not a truant; she was good and honest and biddable. Then I remembered how jealously Sacha guarded her texts from prying eyes. Modern tormentors used technology to harass and torture their victims, even after the school bell had rung. ‘Perhaps she’s being bullied,’ I suggested. ‘I think she might be getting abusive texts. She never lets me see them.’

‘Okay. Well, that’s a thought. We have a zero tolerance policy on bullying, and text messaging is a live issue . . . I think the best thing is for us all to meet as soon as possible.’

‘But where is she now?’ I asked helplessly. ‘Do I call the police?’

‘That’s up to you, but I’d expect her to turn up,’ Lyndsay predicted briskly. ‘She’ll come home in the usual way, which is presumably what she’s done on all those other occasions. We have a lot of truants, Martha. You’re not alone.’

As soon as the teacher rang off, I called Sacha’s mobile.

Hi, this is Sacha. Don’t bother to leave a message.

I felt so powerless. She’d been attacked, abducted, raped in the cellar of some sordid house, waiting to be skinned like the girl in
The Silence of the
Lambs.

Redial. Same result.

And again.

And again.

And— ‘That you, bro?’ It was a breathless, garbled voice. Male.

‘S-sorry, I think I’ve got the wrong number,’ I stuttered. ‘Is this Sacha’s phone?’ Muffled voices. Howls of laughter. ‘Is that you, Jani?’ I asked sharply. ‘Jani?’

Then Sacha’s voice, spiky and long-suffering. ‘Yeah?’

‘Where the hell are you?’

‘At a friend’s.’

‘Why aren’t you at school?’

‘I felt really,
really
ill.’ Another burst of hilarity from the background.

‘I’m coming to get you.’

‘You’re not,’ she said flatly. ‘I’ll be home on the school bus, and there’s fuck all you can do about it.’

The line went dead. I stared at the phone in my hand. There was indeed fuck all I could do.

Kit was painting at an orchard near Hastings, and greeted the news with maddening calm. ‘She hasn’t really gone
missing
, has she?’ he reasoned. ‘I’d call it AWOL.’

‘Kit, a man answered her phone! Bet it was Jani. I’m going to have him arrested.’

‘Sacha’s a young adult.’

‘She’s not,’ I protested. ‘She’s a child.’

‘She can leave school any time she likes, legally. This is going to get blown out of all proportion if you make a ginormous fuss.’

I could have throttled him. ‘What a stupid thing to say. I’m
fussing
, Kit, because she’s left fake messages on the absence line and I’ve absolutely no idea where she is right now, and actually it’s time you fucking grew up.’

Slamming down the phone, I reached for the ibuprofen.

Adolescents surged out of the school gates like a flood from a washing machine. Some of the boys needed to be shaving, and a few of the girls wouldn’t have looked out of place in a singles bar. You could smell the hormones. I’d parked the car and was leaning against it.

My phone rang. I grabbed it, but it wasn’t Sacha. It was Kit.

‘Have you heard anything?’

‘No,’ I said tersely. I was still smarting. ‘I’m waiting outside the school.’

‘Sorry,’ he said. I huffed. ‘Really, Martha. I’m sorry. It’s time I fucking grew up.’

I couldn’t help but smile. The best thing about Kit McNamara is his voice; it melts me still.

He seemed to sense a thawing. ‘I’ve got the boys,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait for you at home. Stay in touch.’

A school bus started its engine and pulled away, followed by a second. There were only two left when someone spoke behind me, and I spun around. It was Bianka: a Hollywood waif in a gingham miniskirt.

‘Sacha sick today, Martha?’

I folded my arms. ‘Don’t play games with me. Sacha isn’t at school and she isn’t at home, as I’m sure you know. So where is she? And where’s Jani?’

‘Oh my God.’ I caught the fear in her voice. ‘Martha . . .’ She took a step closer to me, glancing over her shoulder. ‘I’m so scared.’

At that moment a figure hurtled up the street, a crumpled slapper with grubby hair. She looked terrifyingly like a girl who’d just climbed out of somebody’s bed.

I grabbed her arm. ‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’

Heads turned; a long row of parents, bored in their cars, all entertained by the family drama. Bianka slipped away. Sacha pulled free of my hand, dragged the passenger door almost off its hinges and threw herself in.

‘
Where?
’ I screamed.

She shrugged, jamming headphones into her ears. ‘I’m here now, aren’t I?’

‘Take those frigging things out of your ears!’

I was shrieking. ‘I thought you might be dead in a ditch! Were you with Jani? You answer me, or I’ll—’ I was furious. So furious, that now I had her sitting beside me—alive, not skinned—I burst into tears.

‘She won’t tell me anything.’ I was unburdening myself on the phone to Dad the same evening, sitting on the verandah steps in the dark. ‘She was scruffy. She
smells
, Dad! She’s avoiding school, but she won’t say why. If someone’s bullying her, she won’t say who. I drove straight into the staff car park and marched her up to the dean’s office. Sacha had to admit she’s missed loads of school—a week with flu, admittedly, and two other Mondays she was genuinely ill.’

‘Always Mondays? Mondayitis?’

‘Mm. I hadn’t thought of that . . . And all those times she said she was going to orchestra, and wasn’t.’

‘Fibbing on the absence line,’ murmured Dad. His voice was immensely calm. ‘Devious. Not like our Sacha at all.’

‘Kit spent an hour talking to her this evening. He’s been really good, but he got nowhere. She’ll get herself suspended if she carries on like this.’ ‘Has she promised to stop truanting?’

‘Oh yes. Solemnly. But since none of us know what’s going on, how can we protect her?’

‘What about the other girl? The friend?’

‘Bianka knows something, for sure; but nobody’s prepared to pile on the pressure because her mother’s in hospital again. She may or may not pull through the latest crisis.’

‘Could Bianka herself be the bully?’

‘Family of beautiful vampires,’ I mused. ‘No. I don’t think she’s the problem, but she knows who is. And then there’s her brother . . . everything started to go wrong when he arrived on the scene.’

‘Hm.’ Dad paused for thought; I imagined him stroking Bernard’s black fur. ‘Have you looked at Sacha’s phone?’

‘She’s wiped all her messages.’

‘Laptop?’

‘She gave Kit her password, but there’s nothing. She’s got hundreds of Facebook friends. Even Lou’s on the list.’

‘Any nastiness at all?’

‘No, just complete drivel. Can’t believe they waste their lives writing that stuff. Lol and rofl and wtf, streams of consciousness. Oh, and an absolutely priceless four-second clip of Belinda Rothman falling off the stage after the Christmas show, kitten heels and all. You’ve
got
to see it.’

Dad was silent.

‘I’ve been so busy,’ I said. ‘I haven’t been on the ball. She’s been off key since . . . I dunno. Off and on for months. So edgy, so volatile. There’s no fun in her any more.’

The possum chose that moment to run along the bough above me. I jumped, but I was growing used to its midnight dancing. I took a breath. ‘It’s as though she’s . . . well. Never mind.’

‘Go on,’ prompted Dad. ‘I
do
mind.’

‘As though she’s possessed. Some devil has taken my Sacha.’

After talking to Dad, I walked along to the studio. ‘What a day,’ I groaned, collapsing into a chair.

Kit regarded me bleakly. It made me think of the day the squall caught us, and sea and sky became one bruised shadow.

‘Kit?’ I sat bolt upright.

‘They’ve been back.’

‘Who’s been . . .?’ My hands flew to my cheeks. ‘God, no. Not the thieves? In here?’

‘Yep.’ He turned a full circle, looking around the studio.

‘But there’s nothing worth taking . . . There can’t be an illicit trade in art materials, surely?’

The light was gone from Kit’s eyes. His face looked heavy. ‘Visa card,’ he said. ‘A new one came in the post. It was still in the envelope.’

‘Bollocks. We’ll have to put a stop on it.’

‘I don’t care about the fucking visa card.’

Following his gaze, I looked up at the wall. Great-Aunt Sibella was gone. Her absence left a square, dusty ghost.

‘Jesus Christ, Martha,’ breathed Kit. ‘Is nothing sacred?’

Twenty-seven

Kit was drinking. I could no longer ignore the signs. When I caught him heading for the studio with a bottle in his hand, I lost my rag.

‘We had a deal,’ I said. ‘
We
come out here.
You
control the booze.’

He swung around to face me, his movements grandiose, holding out his arms. ‘Martha, we’ve been burgled. Sibella’s been stolen. My stepdaughter’s behaving like a little bitch. Can you blame me if I want to relax on a Saturday afternoon?’

‘We’ve nowhere left to run,’ I pleaded. ‘Don’t do it. Just don’t.’

I saw his point, though; our New Zealand honeymoon was certainly over. Sacha had been grounded for the first time in her life. Every day for a week I had escorted her to Lyndsay Carpenter’s office, and collected her in the afternoons. It was like having a cloud in the car. She spent her evenings barricaded in her bedroom, complaining bitterly because all her teachers were demanding she catch up on missed assessments. She’d only herself to blame, of course.

‘You’ve got a visitor,’ snapped Kit, nodding towards the driveway as a vehicle rolled across the cattle stop. Then he barged past me into the studio and locked the door.

It was Ira, returning our quad bike. He’d borrowed it for a fishing expedition further down the coast. The young teacher looked steadfast and sane as he climbed out of Tama’s truck. ‘Hi, Martha,’ he called cheerfully. ‘Thanks for this.’