Drybread: A Novel (3 page)

'You'll end up antisocial,' said Nicholas. 'You need to watch
that. You're going to end up a sad, old bore, talking shop
endlessly, embellishing your potted stories and not wanting
to go home after work.' It was a fear for himself, that he
transferred to Theo. 'And you've got too focused on that
Penny-farthing woman's court case. It doesn't pay to get
emotionally involved with people you interview and write
about. Your writing becomes partisan and sentimental, you
know that. Cynicism is the whetstone of good journalism.
You're not screwing her, are you?'

They were having coffee at their shared office window.
The alley below was temporarily blocked by the van of a
squat woman who was delivering bags of cat litter to the
back of the pet shop. The inside of Theo's mug was stained
to a tobacco brown, from having been rinsed only and put
back amid the jumble of the draining tray. From farther
back in the large reporters' room, where the overhead lights
were always on and the hum of computers was a corporate
tinnitus, came the snatches of talk among colleagues, and
the more pronounced voices of those speaking on the
phone, unconsciously compensating for distance.

Theo didn't need Nicholas to point out the narrowness
of his life. 'I've invited you to come running with me,
haven't I? At least I get a bit of bloody exercise.'

'Exercise doesn't count,' said Nicholas. 'That sort of
exercise is mindless and atavistic. We don't have to outrun
sabre-toothed tigers any more. Social interaction is the
thing, some cultivation of the mind and the spirit.'

'Yeah, sure.'

'That's why I think we should go to that new massage
parlour in Cargoe Street,' said Nicholas blithely.

'Ah, a cargo cult,' said Theo.

'I'm serious,' said Nicholas. 'It's the twenty-first century,
for Christ's sake, Theo. We're single guys who work bloody
hard. We'll be middle-aged soon. Jesus. If we don't watch
it, in no time we'll be in carpet slippers and watering a
Super Tom daily in a cloche behind the garage. We'll be
supervising primary school road crossings, and spilling
our self-pitying guts on late-night talkback radio. We'll
be watching
Coronation Street
, and doing an extra-mural
Massey course on post-colonial literature, or maybe taking
minutes for the fucking Society for Sewage Pond Reform.'

'Yeah, but you're older than me,' said Theo.

Maybe Nicholas had a point, though: maybe it was a
warning. Theo the sad-sack. Was that how they saw him?
Theo looked about the reporters' room and tried to think
of the last time he had laughed out loud at anything
his colleagues said. So much of his time spent on failed
relationships: writing and thinking about Penny with all
her problems, and being reminded of Stella and his own
marriage. One bag of cat litter had fallen and burst in the
alley, and the squat woman drove the van away, leaving the
pet shop man in a black apron to scoop up the pellets with
a red plastic shovel. 'You know,' said Theo, 'a visit to the
parlour sounds a bloody good idea, but don't you dare say
anything to Melanie.'

The Cargoe Street premises were in a brick building with
tight, orifice windows, above a shop selling photography
equipment. 'They take the video footage straight downstairs
to be processed,' quipped Nicholas. It was after eight, yet
still fully light, and he and Theo stood at the massage
parlour entrance. The brazen element to their pause
there had more to do with an assumed insouciance than
familiarity. 'I've been before. Credit cards are quite okay,'
said Nicholas.

'Let's not split it down the middle, though,' said
Theo.

The stairs were a straight, narrow ascent, and having
reached the top, Theo and Nicholas found themselves
facing an elderly man in shirtsleeves behind the desk of
the small reception room. His considerable, bald head was
in uneasy equilibrium on the thin stalk of neck, but his
smile was assured. 'I'm standing in,' he said from his chair,
realising that he was somewhat incongruous as the public
face of the business. 'My daughter won't be a moment. It's
just the change of shift, actually. Some of the girls going
off, and a good many more coming on.'

'We'd prefer to be matched with the latter,' said
Nicholas.

'Very good,' said the old guy with appreciation, and
his smile widened. 'Reciprocality is important in massage.'
The use of such a word, the slight twitch to his smile, were
signs that he wasn't as out of touch with the business as he
had seemed. 'Look,' he said, 'I'll just take you through, if
you like, and then Alison will pop in and introduce one of
the girls. The full body massage is ninety dollars.'

Behind the far door, the place opened up surprisingly,
with a corridor well lit by recessed strips, and with five
doors leading off on each side. Theo was given the second
on the right. 'See you at the cars,' said Nicholas, 'but let's
neither of us wait for more than fifteen minutes or so.'

Theo's room had an adjustable massage table, two
straight-backed chrome chairs, a tiled floor and an ensuite
of toilet, basin and shower. Everything was neat. If the
padded massage table hadn't been there, the room could
well have been a towel showroom. There were shelves of
green towels beneath the one high window, more folded
on the table, flannels and more towels, all green, padding
out the ensuite. Theo sat and waited. He thought for a
moment about giving up the idea: he hadn't sought sex
in that way for a long time, but he became distracted by
the towels, and was counting them when the woman came
in.

It wasn't Alison, but Becky. Becky said Alison was still
busy, but that it didn't matter, she, Becky, could do the
talking as well as the massage, if that was okay with him.
Becky was young and attractive enough. Sleek was the
word that occurred to Theo. She was well rounded and
had dark, shiny hair. Her skin was good, her arms and legs
compact and close to her body. She wasn't beautiful at
all, but had the sleekness of an otter, and the sleekness of
youth. And she was right at home.

'You know the basic full body massage is ninety bucks?'
she said. The voice wasn't sleek; rather a retail counter
voice, very forward in the mouth.

'What else is there?' said Theo. He had decided to be
quite pragmatic about the whole business. Any sensitivity
would only lead to awkwardness.

'Well, full sex is another hundred,' said Becky. 'Then
there's the other forms of release for less. With me there's
nothing anal, or any of that.'

'There's no bed in here,' said Theo. Becky was still
standing with the closed door behind her, and Theo
was sitting. It didn't feel right, but to stand up would be
ridiculous.

'There's rooms on the other side of the corridor for
that,' she said.

Theo decided to go with the massage for the time
being. Becky told him to have a shower as hot as he
could stand, then come out to the massage table with just
a towel. 'Wrap it round you like a miniskirt,' she said.
'I'm just going to tell Alison we're underway.' She hadn't
returned when Theo came back from his shower. He sat
barefoot and bare chested on the massage table. It had
a slight springiness. He lay on his back, but that was a
strange feeling with no one else in the room, so he sat
up again. Becky came back immediately afterwards. 'Sorry
about that,' she said. 'Alison's dad needed help with the
credit card machine. I don't know, he just doesn't seem to
get it. Okay, lie down on your stomach.'

Theo had few sources of comparison, but Becky
seemed to be good at massage. She had strong fingers
and kneaded the muscles vigorously as well as making
firm strokes. There was no obvious concentration on
erogenous zones. The massage oil had a pleasant fragrance
of the outdoors. She was interested in the profession of
journalism, she said. Melanie's community paper came up
and Becky said she didn't like it — all second-hand car
ads, the miraculous return of pets and people overcoming
disease. Theo didn't mention that the editor was a friend
and occasional lover. Becky said what she liked was the
travel pages. She'd been overseas once already and was
saving for a trip to Portugal and Spain. She bent Theo's
legs back so far that the cartilage popped. 'You've got a
nice bum,' she said.

'I run a bit,' he said.

'The squash players I see almost all have great bums,'
Becky said. 'It must be all that sudden change of direction
that firms the muscles.' She gave his back a final rub down
with yet another green towel, then asked him to turn over.
Even though he was then cock up, Theo found it more
natural to talk when he could see her face.

Becky wore a short-sleeved blouse, and her breast was
close to him as she massaged. Theo was in a state of easy
relaxation.

Becky was attractive and he wanted access to that
without the hassle of close engagement. 'How about you
massage me topless?' he said.

Becky didn't halt, or alter, the rhythm of her massage.

She was firmly stroking beneath his ribcage.

'Forty dollars,' she said. She wiped her hands, and
took off her top with care: beneath it she wore a black,
soft fabric bra. She undid it at the back, shrugged it off
and began the massage again, without any inhibition, or
pause for conscious display. She had nice tits, with dark
areolae. As she massaged Theo, she allowed her nipples
to glance his face, her flesh to briefly touch his own, but
nothing was exaggerated in her movement; no honky-tonk
titillation. 'Anything else?' she asked him.

'Nothing else,' said Theo.

He didn't need anything else, not even to lift his hands
the short distance to touch her slanted breasts, or the
sleek belly visible above her skirt. He just lay with eyes
half closed and enjoyed the play of her hands on his flesh
and bones, and movement of her naked torso. She talked
about saunas, spa pools and massage. She had formal
qualifications, she said, from the Athene Academy in
Sydney, which was recognised worldwide.

'Why are there so many towels?' asked Theo, and Becky
was for the first time mildly surprised.

'How do you mean?' she said.

'In here. So many towels everywhere.'

'We never use a towel more than once before it gets
washed. That's a strict rule here. I reckon our rooms are
cleaner than the homes the guys come from. Alison's a
real stickler for it,' she said.

Theo made no argument of it.

He saw her once, weeks afterwards, in a mall. She was
at a café table half in the thoroughfare with a woman
about her own age. Theo paused close by, but Becky's
unhurried glance showed no recognition. Sleekness would
be replaced by bulk in middle age, he thought. He had a
repressed inclination to say hello.

'Is there anything else?' she might have said, but
instead she'd asked her friend why a certain Michelle was
being such a bitch again.

Nicholas was waiting in his car. 'I was just about to go,'
he said.

'You weren't long,' said Theo. 'I expected to be back
first. I just had the regular massage, but topless — the
woman I mean.'

Nicholas said he'd skipped the massage and gone
straight over to one of the other rooms.

'Ah,' said Theo.

'It was both good and bad,' said Nicholas.

'You don't have to give me a blow by blow account,'
said Theo, but Nicholas always enjoyed recounting such
episodes in his life with a satirical gloss. The woman had
continually talked about showtime, which Nicholas had
found detrimental to performance. 'She kept saying,
"Showtime, Nicholas" as we undressed, and before each
manoeuvre, and I half expected her to crack a whip, or
introduce a ring of miniature trotting ponies.' Whatever
reservations he had about the session, Nicholas would
make it work for him as a raconteur. Theo knew the tale
would burgeon, and that he would hear it several times and
so chart its growth. Experience was only the raw material
of life for Nicholas, and subject to processing. 'And what
about your woman?' he asked finally.

'Becky was bloody easy on the eye.' Theo felt a
slight superiority in mentioning her name: a sign of his
awareness of her apart from the transaction between them.

Nicholas had not mentioned any name at all throughout
his account.

'Maybe I should have just had the massage.' Nicholas's
tone was considered, rather than regretful. 'I was thinking
before you came about our inability as a society to express
ourselves about sex. It's so sought after, so compulsively
essential, yet almost all our language concerning it is
derogatory. To tell someone to get fucked should be to
wish them great pleasure and fulfilment, but we mean the
opposite.'

'I feel fine,' said Theo.

'Odd though, isn't it.'

It's just that you've become meditative after getting a
shot away. Blood is slowly getting back to your brain.'
'Language is interesting, that's what I mean. It should
be closer to experience.'

'Showtime, Nick,' said Theo. 'That's what you should
concentrate on. Keeping all the balls in the air, managing
a three ring circus. At your age you're lucky to manage any
showtime, I'd say.'

Theo liked to run. At the end of the day at the paper, or
early, before he began work. He ran down the cycle tracks
that parallel the railway line through Papanui, and then into
Hagley Park. The park has a changing exercise congregation.
In the early mornings many are women with dogs: in the
evenings there are more men, some with singlets bearing
esoteric lettering. On winter mornings frost encourages a
vigorous pace; on summer evenings mood and movement
are more languorous. There are cyclists too, on the sealed
paths through Hagley, some with leashed dogs which
patter, or lope, according to their size and the speed of
their owners.

He liked to run. As a young guy he had run to build
fitness for other sports, and when he gave them up he
continued the running. Journalism is a sedentary, stodgy
career. Theo liked the perseverance of jogging, the sense
of progress and the evasion it provided. You could
concentrate on the physical endeavour for the duration
of the run, and so keep at bay those things that gather
about you when you're at rest. He ran a lot during the end
of his marriage. When he was going through the divorce,
Anna, who knew all about fitness, said how slim he was.
He felt physically better that he had for years, though his
life was crap, though he could laugh only at the misfortune
of others, though sometimes at the paper he went into the
old photography room and stood alone in the dark there
for minutes at a time.

It was after the visit to Drybread, and while Theo was
running, that he first noticed the parson. He came later to
call him that because he was bald and had an expression
of compassionate resignation on his long face. Maybe
what Penny had said about the police and her husband
wanting to find her had remained with Theo; maybe it was
the way the parson didn't look away when Theo became
aware of his gaze at the traffic lights. Theo had seen him
before, and the polished, maroon Honda Civic which
had a bright chrome ball on its tow-bar and was trailing
a rubber strap. Something to do with static electricity
someone told Theo, which seemed odd, as rubber is a poor
conductor. He crossed into the park and ran through the
practice fairways of the golfcourse. For a minute or two he
wondered where he'd seen the parson; whether he was new
to the paper's clerical staff, or worked in a shop that Theo
went to regularly. Although the guy looked like a parson, it
was highly unlikely he was one — Theo didn't go to church,
and wasn't on any ecclesiastical visiting list.

Theo saw him again a few days later as he reached home
after work. Well, rather he saw the car, which was parked
facing away on the opposite side of the street. The same
high polish, same chrome ball on the tow-bar and trailing
strap. SJ were the letters on the number plate before the
numbers. Saviour Jesus perhaps. Theo couldn't see anyone
in the car, and when he'd parked his Audi in the drive, he
walked over and past the Honda. He visualised the parson
crouched between the seats, ungainly, ignominious, and
with a meek and sheepish face, but the car was empty. If
he was nearby and watching, he'd realise Theo knew about
him. Theo had no substantial debts, no ongoing dispute
with Stella, he wasn't writing an expose on some tycoon:
the parson was surely connected with the Maine-King
custody case.

Theo went through all the rooms of his house and
noticed nothing amiss. Two windows were ajar, as he had
left them, with no obvious sign of entry. He looked briefly
at the phone, but had no idea how to recognise that it
had been bugged. In a life as mundane as his, there had
been little to fear from surveillance. Penny's whereabouts
was the only secret he had which could be of interest to
others.

For a moment he saw the place as the parson may have
observed it on a quick recce: the newspapers still open on
the sofa, the bed clothes pulled up rather than remade, the
crumbs and cheese gratings on the tiled floor by the kitchen
bench, a piece of cardboard folded and wedged to keep the
wardrobe door from gaping, the yellowed sellotape on the
fractured edge of his computer keyboard. The soap tray in
the bathroom streaked with yellow and blue residue from
the precursors of the white oval that lay there. The trivial
sordidness of everyday living which you notice in other
people's homes, but are oblivious to in your own.

In the spare bedroom, which had become his office,
he set a simple test in case the parson came again, or for
the first time. Just papers from his case, but with their
juxtaposition on the desk exactly measured and recorded.
If the parson was dropping in he'd surely be drawn to work
documents. After his meal, when dusk was filling in the
spaces between houses and drawing down the sky, Theo
walked out to the gate. The car had gone. Theo wondered
where such a man would go at the end of his working day,
and whether he found his occupation more futile than that
of other people. Boredom at first hand calls for a form of
endurance: to experience it vicariously as a secret observer
of the lives of others must be doubly stultifying. Theo
hadn't smoked for some years, but standing there in the
dusk at the end of the driveway he had a strong desire for
one of those thin, dark cheroots. He imagined the texture
of it between fingers and thumb, saw the end glow as an
ember against the sky, felt the smoke of a deep drag thump
into his lungs as if it had a body of its own. Such memory
gusts had little to do with addiction: they came as indirect
cats' paws of happier times.

A motorbike came past, with a sound like a fat man's
rich, bronchial cough, then two cyclists in single file and
without lights. Theo could barely make them out, but
knew they were both girls because the one behind called
out, 'Wait up, Nadine. Nadeeeen,' ending in a sort of angry
wail.

A good handful of mail was showing in the box at
Theo's gate. Even had there been sufficient light, Theo
wouldn't have checked it there: he disliked people who
stood at their mailboxes, sometimes in slippers and
housecoats, sometimes in gardening clothes and holding a
hoe, and read their mail before the passing world. And his
eventual perusal when inside showed there was no reason
for urgency. All could be winnowed away without leaving
solid grain, or gain. The rates demand, the 134th issue of
Behind the News
, a credit card statement, a slip announcing
that the milk delivery round was changing hands, with
two apostrophes missing and one incorrectly used, a letter
from a former colleague saying how much he was enjoying
working in Sydney, seven multi-coloured advertising
circulars and a donation envelope from the support group
for those with clinical flatulence. What more did he
expect? But he did, of course — he yearned for something
unsolicited and undeserved, a lightning strike that would
galvanise his world.

There was no way Theo was going to start smoking
again, but he hadn't sworn off a tipple. Whisky was a good
friend to him in the evenings: whisky and water, the sports
channel, maybe a chat to Nicholas, or Melanie. Whisky
and water, and programmes well removed from the present.
Maybe just whisky and water. Sometimes just whisky.

While he was sitting with his drink on the sofa, Theo
recalled the drifting cry of the girl cyclist in the dusk, and
thought of his own Nadine: a woman with whom he'd
had a sudden and unfortunate affair that perhaps signalled
the failure of his marriage, though the essential causes
lay elsewhere. Nadine was a dental assistant, and there
was nothing romantic in their relationship there. On his
occasional visits she would sit close to his side, but only to
expedite the use of the small suction device that removed
excess saliva during the pauses in the dentist's use of the
drill. Theo hadn't known her name. They exchanged only a
few commonplace words, and his main impressions of her
appearance were the considerable bosom beneath the white
smock and a round face of blameless, schoolgirl innocence,
though she must have been in her late twenties. He felt no
particular interest in her, and she displayed towards him
no more than professional attention.

They met in rather different circumstances at a BP
service station in Papanui. Theo was checking tyre pressures,
and Nadine was attaching a trailerload of firewood she'd
purchased there. He noticed that the trailer was still chained
to the fence, and jumped in front of her car just as she was
about to drive away. 'The guy's forgotten to unchain the
trailer,' he called, when her startled face appeared at the
driver's window. 'I'll get him over.'

He knew he'd seen her somewhere before, but didn't
know where, and she gave no sign of having recognised
him. Perhaps she was accustomed to him only when he
was semi-prone and with his mouth stretched open.

She thanked him and drove away apprehensively, with
the trailer bouncing noisily over the kerb. She drove a
Commodore, and Theo imagined it wasn't her choice, but
her partner's car.

Theo went to the dentist not long afterwards because
a piece had broken off one of his lower left teeth. He
and Nadine recognised each other immediately, and
entertained the dentist with the story of a small disaster
averted. 'I didn't think you looked comfortable in that car
at all,' said Theo.

'It's my husband's. By rights he should've been getting
the firewood anyway, but he kept putting off ringing up,
and then he was away and I needed some right then. My
car hasn't got a tow-bar.'

'Always useful, a tow-bar,' said the dentist indulgently.

'So what do you drive?' Theo asked her.

'I've got a Corolla.'

'Bloody good little cars,' said Theo.

'Just keep on keeping on,' said the dentist, who had a
Saab.

'I've been pleased with it,' said Nadine, and then all
three concentrated on Theo's tooth: in a dental surgery
time is money.

It wasn't a conversation that foreshadowed intimacy, but
a few days later by one of those small coincidences which
litter everyday life, Theo met her again at a private gallery
exhibition of lithographs. Stella was to give the speech for
the opening, so was in a group closely connected with the
show. She and Theo were cooling from an argument in the
car on their way to the show: a disagreement concerning
Theo's interest in a job in Auckland.

Theo was relieved to move away and look at some of
the work. He recognised Nadine close beside him. They
were surprised by the meeting, then tried to disguise this
lest it be taken as incredulity that the other had any cultural
inclination. 'I do mainly screenprinting,' said Nadine,
when Theo had explained why he was at the exhibition.
'I'm in a co-operative with several of the people exhibiting
here.'

'Dentistry and screenprinting, now there's a combination,'
said Theo. He was close to the long table that
held ranks of glasses bottom up and carafes of wine, so he
filled a glass for Nadine, topped up his own. The availability
of reasonable wine was one of the few benefits of attending
art functions with his wife. He talked with Nadine of art
and the fashion dictates that seemed to rule there.

'Oh, my stuff doesn't sell for big bikkies,' she said. It
was the first time Theo had seen her dressed up, and it
was something of a transformation. Freed from her nurse's
smock the top of her breasts and smooth shoulders caught
the light well. Her dark hair was down, and the effect
of that, together with evening make-up, was to make a
different woman of her. 'Yes,' she said in answer to him,
'I've had an exhibition of my own stuff here, earlier this
year, and most of the prints actually sold.'

'How do you find the time?'

'I only work at the clinic three and half days a week,
and we haven't got any kids yet.'

'You'd like to be a full-time artist?' asked Theo.

'I'm not driven enough. Sometimes I go right off it for
weeks at a time, and this way I don't have to get uptight
about it.'

Theo filled their glasses again, and they went and sat
on a black sofa in the small foyer of the gallery. It was
the one piece of furniture there, and other people came
in and out, but didn't stand about. Theo enjoyed talking
with Nadine. She knew a good deal about art, but seemed
to enjoy his iconoclastic comments and cheerful slanders
of local academics and artists. He didn't bother to ask if
her husband was with her, because her manner provided
the answer. The night was warm, and from the crowded
exhibition room came a hubbub like that from a colony of
seabirds. Theo and Nadine noticed when it subsided and
stopped their own conversation for a moment. They could
hear Stella talking. 'Shouldn't we go in?' said Nadine.

'And lose the only sofa in the place?' said Theo. 'You
know, I'd rather go out — go out and have a coffee or
something at the Mad Butcher's round the corner.'

'It's the Mad Hatter's.'

'What?'

'The café's called the Mad Hatter's,' said Nadine. She
seemed very relaxed, and her lipstick caught the light.

'Through the looking glass and all that. Anyway, what
about your wife?'

'She'll be going on somewhere for a meal with the artist
and hangers-on. You know how it is at these things. I'll just
beg off. She won't mind. I'll say I'm going to have a drink
with the best screenprinter in the city.'

He did beg off. He went into the small gallery when
Stella finished her speech and pushed his way towards
her. The swell of conversation had begun again, and
people were on the move about the room as well to view
the paintings. Stella didn't mind that he preferred not to
go with them for a meal, but she introduced him to the
artist, a gaudy young woman with striped hair, and several
others. A certain amount of conversation was required for
politeness, and Theo half expected Nadine to have left the
sofa when he finally got back to the foyer.