Carnival Sky (7 page)

SHEFF HAD DELIBERATELY kept away from the paper after his resignation. Often he’d witnessed ex-staffers turning up, ostensibly just in passing, but obviously adrift, nonplussed, in their retirement, or voluntary exclusion. The more perceptive of them quickly realised how superfluous they were to the busy workplace, and didn’t return. Others, with increasingly less appreciated bonhomie, continued to appear, to loiter, while their former colleagues paid scant attention, or carried on with their tasks regardless.

The editor rang Sheff at home not long after his visit to the journalism school. ‘What are you doing with yourself?’ he said, knowing well enough after talking to Nick and others that Sheff was doing very little, that there was no work for him at the university, that he’d set up no enterprise of his own, that he hadn’t yet departed on his vaunted overseas sojourn. As a means of bolstering Sheff’s esteem, Chris complained about the workload at the paper, the extent to which Sheff’s presence as chief reporter was missed, how much he himself longed for a change of lifestyle. Sheff recognised the ploy, but appreciated the motives behind it.

‘I’ve looked into a couple of opportunities, but nothing worked out,’ he said. ‘The thing is I don’t want to be full-time, or be tied into a routine.’

‘Still heading overseas?’

‘Yes, I think so. After a bit of time with family perhaps. Europe most likely. I haven’t been for years, and I’ve never been able to set my own itinerary before – never had time to poke around the less obvious places.’

He’d been to the northern hemisphere three times: a four months’ journalism scholarship in Bristol, a year’s exchange at the
Daily Progress
, Charlottesville, Virginia, and a bus tour of Europe with Lucy four years ago. A kaleidoscopic thirty-seven days visiting the postcard centres of that part of the world, and a Hong Kong stopover on the way home.

‘If you want to come in on Wednesday morning, I might have something for you that could fit in with that,’ Chris said.

A pelting rain came in from the harbour that morning, cloud lowered the sky, and even in the time it took Sheff to run across the car park to the newspaper offices, he became so wet that his hair was plastered down, accentuating the pale dome of his forehead, and his light trousers caught at his knees. At the door to editorial he stood for a moment to get his breath before entering.

Everything was as he remembered it when he went inside, yet foreign also, because he belonged there no longer. Once he’d been part of it all, with relationships established by position and common purpose. As a visitor, shorn of both, he felt it quite changed. Although everything physical was in place, it seemed diminished, distanced, because no emotional tie remained.

Nick was out on interviews, and Raewyn, instead of being at her usual desk, sat in Sheff’s glassed office.

‘It’s not confirmed yet,’ she said, after waving him in. ‘You know the protocols, and I reckon nobody’s in any special hurry because they can save money until it’s all sorted.’

‘They’re just bloody slow. You’re a shoo-in. They just want to see you doing the job for a few weeks, I reckon, and save some money, as you say. I’m chuffed, I really am.’ And he meant it. Yet it was strange to see her at his desk, with a pot-plant flowering yellow, and
her blue, patent-leather bag before her. Where were his own heaped documents, work diary, the magnetised frog, and the paua shell he had used as a paperweight? He had several times requested a new screen, and saw that his departure had triggered its arrival.

‘Do you want a towel or something? You look like a drowned rat,’ Raewyn said.

‘No, I’m fine. Just the front of my trousers and my shoes. And it’s not that cold.’

There was a time, not so long after his separation, when as well as admiring her skills as a journalist he’d hoped to make love to her, perhaps even live with her, but she had made it plain she wasn’t interested. She said it was fatal to have relationships with people you worked with – a general principle that made her refusal less personal. He appreciated the tact while not being taken in. And there she was, brisk, friendly and somewhat distracted by the pressures of the job that not long ago had been his. ‘So why are you in?’ she said.

‘Couldn’t keep away from you.’

‘Come to see what sort of a mess we’re making?’

‘A chat with Chris, actually. He probably thinks I’m bored silly.’

‘And are you?’

‘Not at all. I’ll head off overseas for a while.’

‘Good on you,’ said Raewyn. They talked for a bit about places each had been to, or wanted to visit, then Sheff went out, knowing how busy she was. He’d never seen her play badminton, but knew she was a bit of a star. He imagined her on the court, compact and nimble, leaping for a high shot with her racquet arm extended, pale, but muscular. There had been boyfriends, but no regular partner as far as he knew. Maybe she was too ambitious and independent to wish to be tied to any one man. Maybe she was disappointed with those on offer. He gave himself some small credit for not offering her advice concerning her new responsibility, or seeking favour by mentioning that he’d suggested her for the promotion. He had suffered people who couldn’t pass the baton without unsolicited instruction as to its use.

As he went back through the reporters’ room Sheff was surprised, after several weeks away, how hot it was, and Chris’s office was little better. How could he have put up with the fug of the place for years without noticing?

‘Good to see you,’ said Chris. ‘Been up to much?’ He pushed back in his chair to show that he wished to give Sheff full attention.

‘Bugger-all, and that’s the joy of it. Reading, watching sport on SKY, I’ve even ventured out armed into the section. I’ve discovered plants and paving I never knew existed. And I’ve taken some hidings on the squash court, but improved nevertheless.’

‘You’re looking okay. What’s top of the list in Europe?’

‘France and Italy certainly, maybe Scandinavia, and I’m thinking of other places. With the cost and time of getting over there, it’s no use going for less than five or six weeks.’

‘It won’t be cheap, though, will it?’ said Chris.

Money. That’s what he wanted to talk about. He had an offer for Sheff to send back some articles for the paper. Travel impressions, contrasts with home, whimsical characters: he would leave choices up to him. Not so many pieces that Sheff would feel his holiday imperilled, but enough to bring in some cash if the need was there. Chris made no big thing of it, but Sheff knew there wasn’t a large budget for freelance work; the proprietors expected the staff to provide the paper’s content. ‘I can’t promise to publish everything,’ said Chris. ‘And not a lot of boring stuff about economics and politics, for God’s sake.’

‘So something out of character?’

‘Exactly,’ said Chris.

‘I might think of something right away. I’ve just had a repair bill of 750 bucks for the car.’ Sheff’s tone was light-hearted, his comment more a criticism of the mercenary nature of all occupations except journalism, than an admission of hardship.

‘Bummer,’ said Chris. ‘Well, why not? If you come up with something catchy I’m happy to look at it. You know that.’ It was an expression
of goodwill that Sheff appreciated, although he showed it only in the strength of his handshake when they parted later. He wondered, however, about Chris’s private opinion of the choice he’d made. The editor, at a morning meeting with Raewyn and Wayne, might say he wondered what had got into Sheff, why the hell he felt he had to resign, and that things seemed to be unravelling in his life. Each of them might give a summation of his motivations, his personality and his future. Together they might casually agree he deserved better than he’d received, or they might be more critical.

On Sheff’s way back through the reporters’ room he stopped to talk to former colleagues. People were friendly, but he knew that for most he was no longer of significance, no more an influence on their tasks, moods and prospects. It was now Raewyn who allocated their rounds and evaluated their copy. He left a note on Nick’s desk accusing him of slacking off, and saying he would be in touch. How hot it was, despite the dampness of his clothes. The long room flickering with computer screens, active with movement, and noisy with telephone conversations and chat among reporters. He talked a bit with Donna and Lloyd, who were more interested in telling him of a stand-off between the union and the paper than in his doings. ‘Hey, take it easy, okay,’ said Lloyd as they parted. When Sheff glanced back from the door they had become engrossed in that discussion again. And why not? People were spun off from busy workplaces all the time, and those left closed ranks with common purpose. He hadn’t once bothered to contact his predecessor after he took over the job. He’d been too busy, and too selfish.

He stood by the car park with time to spare. The rain was over, and he watched the people passing, a few skipping as they went to avoid the puddles. How very ordinary most of them were, and apparently ungrateful for being alive, while he had a commission from a city newspaper and an overseas trip to plan. Yet below that acknowledgement was a dragging dissatisfaction. What the fuck did any of it matter?

He shouldn’t have paused for that unremarkable rumination: a seagull muted expertly on him, then wheeled away overhead in noisy triumph. The loose excrement soaked quickly into his shirt, still damp from the earlier rain. It both startled and angered him, but even before taking out his handkerchief, he looked furtively about to see whether the humiliation had been witnessed. No one in sight paid him any attention, and yet, life being what it is, he was convinced that at some window above him a casual observer had been rewarded, would reel back laughing from the glass.

In a deliberate exercise in self-control, Sheff uttered not one swear word as he carried on to his car, instead whistling and graciously waving a woman driver on at the exit although he had the right of way. ‘Not at all, madam. Not at all,’ he said aloud to himself in response to her smile. He was agreeably surprised that there was hardly any smell at all. Would there be germs in bird shit though? Parasites splashed into his face and already working their way into the bloodstream? He saw them as in a television commercial: sperm-shaped and resolute in their malice. A wash with Dettol might be a sensible precaution.

In the evening Sheff rang his sister, Georgie, in Wellington.

‘How’s things?’

‘Things are fine except I’m too busy and haven’t found the ideal man to marry yet.’

‘Well, you’re getting on a bit, and anyway I don’t think guys want to marry a doctor. It’s offputting to have a woman know so much about one’s biological workings.’

‘So that’s it? Because I’m brainy I can’t have a lover.’

‘You could marry another doctor,’ said Sheff, and then he told her that he’d left the paper and was planning a trip overseas. ‘Most other times I’ve had to concentrate on study, or interviews and research. This trip I’ll smell the flowers, sit in terracotta village squares, eat goat cheese and imitate the locals.’

‘Mum told me. You’re a lucky bugger,’ said Georgie. ‘I guess journalism’s one of those jobs you can put down and take up again
without trouble – the skill set doesn’t change. It’s more difficult in medicine to take a break. Anyway, good on you. A trip will be marvellous. There’s Dad, of course.’

‘Dad?’

‘Well, let’s face it, he’s not going to get better. You know that. You should at least go down there before heading off anywhere.’

‘Yes, I intend to, but he’s just the same, isn’t he?’

‘Well, he could die soon,’ she said, ‘and you haven’t been to see them for months, Mum says.’

‘I ring pretty regularly.’

‘It’s not the same, though. They want to see you,’ Georgie said. Sheff knew she was right, but didn’t enjoy being instructed.

‘What’s he like?’

‘Sick and sad. What do you expect.’

‘I suppose that’s what I’m afraid of, and there’s nothing you can do except sit around.’

‘But it’s not about you, is it? It’s what Dad might get out of it.’

‘Okay. Okay.’ Did he need a younger sister to be reminding him of his family duty? It was a tendency in Georgie that irritated him. ‘I can’t believe it’s happening. Don’t want it to happen,’ he said, surprising them both, so that there was a long pause, and then he said, ‘I think that’s stopping me thinking much about him being so sick, but you’re right of course. I should go.’

‘Of course you should.’

‘Is there anything especially harmful in seagull shit, do you know?’

‘Seagull shit?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I imagine not, unless you swallow a heap of it. What brought this on?’

‘Nothing really,’ said Sheff. ‘It’s just I got shat on today and it splattered a bit.’

‘Have a good wash and forget it,’ said Georgie briskly.

The call finished soon afterwards. Brother and sister were well
intentioned, but neither had much knowledge of the other’s life, and since he’d left home they had always lived in different places, even other countries: Georgie had spent two years at Western General Hospital in Edinburgh. As children they hadn’t been close; both had their own group of friends and divergent interests. As adults any deepening of feeling was thwarted by separation and busy occupations, but brother and sister they remained, and his awareness of that had grown since his separation from Lucy, and then his father’s illness. No one except Georgie shared his knowledge of their mother and father, a family life memorable only because it was their own.

Sheff worked in his section most of the next day. The energy he displayed in lawn-mowing, pruning and weeding wasn’t the expression of any enjoyment, but his fierce almost desperate resolve to atone for months of neglect. For Sheff, gardening wasn’t a love affair, but an act of war. The docks and twitch had flourished, while the flowers pined. Of the legitimate plants, only the climbing roses were luxuriant, sending arms even into the shrubs and tree branches, and tearing at his hands as he cut them back. Lucy always wore gloves, but when he fossicked them out from the garage bench they were too small for him. The paraphernalia of gardening bore witness more to Lucy’s interests than his own. Sprays, potting mixes, packets of granular plant food, plastic planters, garden tools, and on the windowsill dry pods for seed, small sarcophagi, were all relics of her industry. So much of his home still bore trivial yet painful testimony to a partnership, a happiness that lay as sunset in the past.