Carnival Sky (16 page)

Neither of them referred to the exchange again, and it wasn’t the beginning of some special rapprochement between them, but Sheff was glad he hadn’t just slipped away. After graduation Michaelson had moved to Sydney, and all Sheff knew of him there was that he married a Commonwealth games athlete.

What a small thing Sheff’s approach to Polly was in comparison to his father’s feat in the water, and insubstantial against the host of disappointments with his own behaviour, yet he felt muted satisfaction in the recollection, and would have welcomed more instances of character had they floated into his consciousness. But there was just the heavy heat beneath his father’s hat, the image of Polly’s upturned and open-mouthed face caught in the passing instant, and the relaxed voices of Jessica and his sister in the immediate world. ‘It’s not easy,’ Georgie was saying, ‘but I make a real effort to go to the farmers’ market when I can and buy fresh, organic fruit and vegetables. Something’s gone very wrong with a lot of supermarket stuff. No one
knows the true origin of much of it. There’s this recent research paper that I can lend you.’

Sheff heard the familiar call of paradise duck, and sat up to see male and female in their separate markings wheel overhead and arrow away. He loved to see and hear them: neither flock nor individual birds, close, solitary pairs whose bonding and plumage belie their wailing cries.

HIS FATHER WASN’T A PARTICULARLY HAIRY MAN,
but he didn’t welcome the growth on his torso that came as he got older. ‘Jesus, it’s coming on my back and shoulders now,’ Sheff once heard him complain to Belize. ‘I’m regressing to a damn chimpanzee.’ He was at the long, bathroom mirror and twisting in an effort to see. Belize had replied from the bedroom, saying nobody would notice anyway, but Warwick wanted her to bring in his electric shaver and take the hair off with the trimmer. Sheff had heard them laughing together, and when he came quietly to the door he saw that his mother was crouching down and trimming hair around his father’s cock and bum. It was the intimacy of it that made Sheff retreat. His parents didn’t kiss, or hug, much in public, and as a boy he had little idea of their closeness. He knew people fucked, of course, but even that seemed to have less openness and acceptance than what he’d seen.

SHEFF ARRANGED TO VISIT the Henare brothers as his father suggested. He did so not just because he wanted to earn money, but because he wished to show Chris that he appreciated his offer, and even more because he sought distraction. An exercise in his profession might achieve all three.

Andrew North came to see Warwick at lunchtime on the day of the visit: such an accustomed arrival that no apology was necessary for calling when the family had barely finished eating. Although about to set off for his interview, Sheff waited with Belize while Andrew and Georgie were in the sickroom, so that he could hear their comments afterwards. Professionally it was a delicate situation for both Georgie and the doctor: one being the family physician, the other a specialist in her father’s affliction, though they never showed disagreement in the presence of others. Andrew North was small and courteously formal. He was in his sixties and accustomed to being treated with some deference: in a provincial community a doctor has no social superiors. Belize liked and trusted him, though Sheff considered Georgie would have the more authoritative opinion if there was divergence.

That didn’t seem the case when they returned. Both were concerned at Warwick’s continuing weight loss, and agreed no further treatment would be of use. Andrew refused a cup of coffee, said he had patients to see, and smoothed his fingers in his hands: a sign of his need to
move on. Sheff was impressed, however, by the doctor’s concern for Belize. He asked her how she was sleeping, and offered medication if she needed it. He understood that the suffering in the house was not confined to one person. ‘I had best be on my way,’ he said then, and shook hands with each of them despite being such a regular visitor. Sheff walked out with him to his car.

‘Would it matter much if Dad had a drink or two?’ he asked.

‘I wouldn’t,’ said Andrew. ‘There’s so little liver and kidney function. Warm water is best.’ He stood on a fresh dog turd by the door of his car, and tried to scrape the worst of it off on the kerb without drawing attention to the action. Sheff was mildly surprised it wasn’t his own situation. ‘It’s such a beneficial thing for Belize and Warwick to have you both here,’ said Andrew before closing the car door, and then lowering the window in case Sheff had more to say. On the passenger’s seat was a frilled box holding a large cake with pink and brown icing, and writing in yellow. A birthday cake, perhaps, or celebration of a wedding anniversary. The writing was turned away and Sheff was unable to read it, but he was reminded that there were laughter and rejoicing in the world, despite his own unhappiness.

‘Thanks for the care you’re giving Dad,’ he said.

‘I’ve known him for years, and just wish we’d had more time together. We met often enough socially, and several times talked of doing a hike together, but nothing came of it. I like him. He wanted me to play golf, but I’ve never had the time. You’ve noticed he wants to talk about things long gone?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s a common regression, and it gives him relief, escape almost. The past keeps welling up. Anyway –’ and Andrew lifted a hand and smiled to ease his departure and the subject.

Sheff went inside again, but only to collect his camera. He walked to the Henare home despite a barely felt drift of warm drizzle that joined cloud and ground. It was weather to which he’d become accustomed in the north, but was novelty in the summer of Central
Otago. A localised luminosity in the sky showed midday was past, and blackbirds were especially active and full of song. The mist was so fine that the droplets stayed entire on his sleeve, giving it a flexing lustre rather than soaking in.

The Henare place was in need of paint, but tidy in a minimalist fashion: no garden and the lawn close-clipped to the sides of the buildings, one of which was a relatively modern corrugated-iron workshop as large as the dwelling. Brothers Lee and Hemi came to the door of their home in dark, woollen work socks and, as Sheff could see their boots side by side on the folded sack that served as doormat, he took off his own shoes and left them there before going inside. The room into which he was taken showed the same allegiance to basics. A kitchen-cum-living room with little furniture apart from wooden chairs and a long Formica-topped dining table with a television set on one end. The wooden surfaces were clean and there was no sign of dishes by the sink. Through an open door he could see in another room an old-fashioned upright piano with a guitar case on its top and a clothes drying rack folded on the floor nearby. Both brothers wore unbuttoned shirts, but Hemi had on jeans, and Lee shorts faded to grey by repeated washing and sunlight.

In quiet, unhurried voices they asked after Sheff’s father. They must have been at least Warwick’s age. They seemed surprised that their occupations were of interest to a journalist, but answered his questions readily for his father’s sake, sat unselfconsciously at the long table for a photograph, showed him various grades of river gold flakes in medicine bottles, some small oddly shaped nuggets, took him to the shed to see possum fur, the gold-washing cradle and pans.

‘No, we don’t go over the old tailings,’ said Lee. ‘These days the fine tree roots close to the streams are often the best bet, ’cause they sort of sieve it out. And we’ve got our special spots when there’s been a good flush. And if you brush out the cracks in river rocks sometimes you’ll get lucky.’

Gold and possums were done separately, the brothers explained:
either they worked the trap lines, or fossicked for gold. They didn’t want to carry both sets of gear, and often the country best for one occupation was unsuitable for the other. In summer they gave demonstrations of panning at one of the tourist enterprises on the river, salting the gravel to excite the loopies. It was easy money, and the Americans in particular were good tippers. Possums were more work. They were attracted to the orchards, of course, but were there in the hills as well, where they went for briar and crack willow. They hunkered down in the gullies, Lee said.

‘What about the meat?’ asked Sheff.

‘In some places they bring it in for pet food, eh,’ said Lee, who seemed to be the spokesman, ‘but there’s no processing here, and it’s easiest to pluck the fur when they’re still warm, rather than humping everything out to the ute.’ Despite his outdoor life, his legs were thin, seeming to have just one long muscle behind the bone, and his knees had circular wrinkles like the growth marks in a cross-section of a branch.

The possum fur was tufted chocolate brown and grey, and the Henares had small, white sacks of it ready to be collected. Lee said prices were okay at the moment, but there was no fortune in it. They did more trapping in years when the return was there, and spent more time on gold when possums didn’t pay. The brothers had lived all their lives close to the land, no matter what other jobs they had, or other places they had lived in. They’d been rabbiters, fencers, truck drivers, fruit pickers, and as young men had played in a dance band in rural halls and sheds. Sheff asked if life was still the same.

‘Nah, it’s all about water now,’ said Hemi, coming into the conversation with some urgency.

‘Water and wine and rich buggers coming in from the cities,’ continued Lee.

Sheff wanted to ask them why they’d never married, whether a lifelong brotherhood was a sufficient compensation for having no other family, but that was surely intrusion beyond the scope of his
journalistic intention, and instead he drew them out more about the occupations quite ordinary to them, and strangely historical to city folk. It was a long time since Sheff had been with such people. They had a rough directness of speech, yet a natural and unforced courtesy. They found nothing unusual in their lifestyle and jobs and, apart from Sheff being Warwick’s son, they showed no curiosity concerning him, or the world he knew. The Henares had always been of the one place and saw no restriction in it, were aware of no deficiencies.

‘Not so many Maori round here,’ said Sheff. He’d grown accustomed to a Maori presence in the north. ‘Are you Ngai Tahu?’

‘A bit of everything, even German, but mainly Ngapuhi,’ said Lee.

‘A long way from home,’ said Sheff.

‘Home’s always there,’ said Hemi.

‘Well, I hope you find plenty of gold. I never could scrape any out myself.’

‘The gold’s okay. Beats possums most of the time, eh?’ said Lee.

Only when Sheff was leaving did a small, quiet dog join them, give him a cursory sniff as a farewell, and then stand with its masters. The mist had lifted somewhat and the sun was shouldering through. Sheff’s last glance caught the backs of the Henare brothers as they returned to their stark house. They walked carefully to avoid stepping on the long laces of the boots they had slipped on at the doorway to wear out to the shed. The dog remained facing him, relaxed in posture, yet intent on seeing him off before turning away.

Georgie and he had a dog when they were growing up. He hadn’t thought about it for a long time. A border collie, a farm dog, given to them as a pup by one of Warwick’s clients. No doubt Sheff and his sister had been nagging Warwick to get one because of some storybook pooch, or friend who had a pet. They called it Gandhi after the Oscar-winning film that year, but Sheff could recall no connection whatsoever between dog and movie. Passive resistance certainly wasn’t one of the collie’s characteristics, and although it was lovable and loved as a pup, nothing went right afterwards. Gandhi was a boisterous adolescent, and
as he received no training, became ungovernable and a general pain in the arse. He barked interminably if locked in his small enclosure, and when released was destructive, interfering and inclined to bite. Gandhi pissed on the lawn causing burnt patches as if small bursts of spray had been haphazardly applied. Georgie had become frightened of him, Sheff bored and negligent in his care, their parents fed-up.

The dilemma as to severance was solved when, during a typical sprint after a passing cyclist, Gandhi was run over by a Rover car coming in the opposite direction. All over, Rover. They buried him at the far end of the orchard without ceremony, but with unstated guilt that they felt no sorrow. Within a few days the netting run was gone and the dog biscuits given away; within a few weeks the lawn was a uniform colour again; within a few months there was just a small depression in the orchard as a sign the Davy family once had a dog. Cats were a different story. They suited the family because they required little attention and had lives of their own. Two large tabbies in sequence Sheff could recall, mother and daughter who spanned most of the years he spent at home. And there was still a tabby, which he assumed was of the same line.

As he walked back from the Henares’ place, he thought Gandhi might provide a different point of conversation to entertain his father, but when he reached home, Belize was upset because Warwick had fallen when getting out of bed, and Sheff was drawn into the tight cycle of worry once again, and he forgot about cats and dogs, even later at dinner when talking of the Henare brothers. Belize mentioned that they always paid their bill in cash, and would sometimes come to the house to give it directly to Warwick.

Sheff woke in the night needing to piss. 3:12, the numbers green on the face of the digital bedside clock. Because of Warwick’s illness one low-power hall light was always left on, but despite it Sheff’s bare foot struck the ajar door of the lavatory with surprising force. The pain was briefly intense, and he swore loudly. ‘What’s the matter?’ Georgie called from her room.

‘I’ve stubbed my fucking foot. Jesus it hurts.’

‘Is it bleeding?’ enquired his sister.

‘Are you okay?’ called Belize.

‘Bleeding a bit, but I’m okay,’ said Sheff. There he was in the toilet, carrying on a conversation with unseen women. Next Warwick would be speaking up. He put lavatory paper around his toe, but when he went out he found that Georgie had the bathroom light on and was waiting with a plaster.

‘I’ll come out,’ said Belize.

‘No need, Mum,’ said Georgie. All their voices were pitched as forced whispers so as not to disturb Warwick. What sad irony: the concentration on Sheff’s stubbed toe, while Warwick lay close and dying. Sheff almost said something of that to his sister, but thought maybe she would take it as flippancy.

‘Thanks, doc,’ was all he said.

‘I’ll just pop in to see that Dad’s okay,’ she said, so Sheff waited in the hall to get her report. ‘He’s half awake with his hands in the air,’ she whispered when she returned. ‘No answer when I spoke. I’m off back to bed.’ She tried to be matter-of-fact, but even in the reduced, yellow light of the hall Sheff caught the glitter of her tears.

SHEFF HAD EXPECTED HIS DAUGHTER
to crawl and then walk. Surely that’s what children do, but not Charlotte. From the sitting position she discovered that she could move around on her bottom, the thick wedge of her nappy providing a base. On the polished wooden floor of the living room she could move surprisingly fast, pulling forward with her short, strong legs, and using her hands almost like paddles. It was a form of locomotion that made adults laugh, and she seemed to enjoy the response: stop, smile, and then scuttle all the more. She never did walk.