Drybread: A Novel (18 page)

'I remember that. The guy went to the police straight
afterwards.'

'Some reports made a good deal of such a violent
end to such a trivial issue, but they missed the point:
what happened was the culmination of forty-odd years of
hatred. "That bastard always had it coming," that's what
the murderer said to me. He said it was always going to
end that way.'

'Nothing like a close-knit rural community,' said
Theo.

'He told me it was something that had to be done, and
he seemed a quiet enough, thoughtful guy. He had a damn
good farm too.'

'Became obsessed, I suppose,' said Theo. He understood
that Nicholas was trying to distract him but wondered
what Penny would be doing; where she was; if Erskine was
perhaps laying out a business plan for the future of their
family. How absurd and flimsy Theo's hopes for Penny
and himself had become.

'Exactly,' said Nicholas. 'Anyway, here's a toast to your
promotion, and I'm really sorry it doesn't seem to be
working out with Penny. Don't give up on it, though. Give
it your best shot.'

Theo was watching a documentary on Bactrian camels
when Melanie came round. The programme had a certain
inconsequential fascination, and was pleasantly remote
from his own life. He liked the sardonic droop nature had
given to the camels' lips, and their worn, utilitarian tails.

The evening wasn't advanced, but at that time of year
darkness had already come, and when he opened the door,
Melanie's small, pale face, velveteen jacket and mass of hair
caught the spilling light. 'Hi,' she said. 'Nick said I should
check up on you, but bugger Nick, I'd made up my mind
to call anyway. The phone's not the same, is it?'

They sat on the sofa. 'I was wondering if I preferred one
hump or two,' said Theo.

'Funny,' said Melanie.

'So what do you know?' said Theo. He surprised
himself with the pleasure her visit gave him, though he
hadn't thought of her for days.

'I know you've been offered the chief reporter's job.
Congratulations. I know things haven't worked out for you
with Penny Maine-King, right? I'm sorry about that. We
can talk about any of those things, we can sit and watch the
camels, or we can have a drink, and bitch about the usual
journo stuff.'

Theo switched off the camels. He said he'd decided
to accept the job as long as Nicholas was willing to carry
on as deputy chief reporter and actually accept some
responsibility. He told Melanie he didn't feel like talking
about Penny: it was all too fresh, too confused. 'In the
morning I wake up feeling okay, but then I remember
what's happened, and everything rolls in again.'

'You don't ever want to end up like Nick,' Melanie said.
'I know he's a good friend to you, but you realise that,
don't you?'

They both knew that was something that needed to be
said, but then set aside for elaboration at another time.

Melanie's romance with the architect neighbour hadn't
worked out either. It was the daughters who were the sticking
point — not that they weren't great kids in themselves,
but that Robin put them first. It was understandable,
even admirable, she said, but no basis for a marriage. His
need was first a mother for them, rather than a wife for
himself. No good, that, Melanie said: not the right motive
for a marriage. He took her decision badly. The thing
she'd noticed most since the split, wasn't the loss of his
companionship, but the awkwardness created by their still
being neighbours: mutual furtiveness in their respective
sections, and the reluctance to speak, or acknowledge each
other. 'It's so confusing for the girls, too. They still want to
come over and tell me about their lives. They say they miss
the treats I used to make for them. How do you explain
these things to kids.'

'I'm sorry,' said Theo, but he wasn't. He could
have said he'd never taken to Robin — thought him a
self-satisfied prick in fact — but such honesty after the
event would only highlight the earlier hypocrisy. He
did wish that he could see Penny's loss with the same
equanimity Melanie apparently felt about her break with
the architect. There were obvious parallels: Penny with
her son, and Robin Sellus with his daughters, and the
outcomes for Melanie and Theo. No one else, of course,
could feel as sharply and poignantly as he did himself;
no one else could have so much at stake, or have lost
a relationship with the possibility of such extraordinary
and exemplary completeness. Stella had said one of his
faults was selfishness, and for maybe the first time Theo
admitted to himself the truth of the charge.

'Still, better that we made the decision now,' said
Melanie. 'For us both. I think his pride's hurt as much as
anything. I'm not expecting you to talk about Penny and
what happened. Guys don't seem to find it helps much,
right? And you've never been much of a one for crying on
shoulders.'

'But it's really good of you to come round,' said Theo.
Even with her own problems, Melanie had come to give
some support. Empathy is perhaps a more natural and
persistent quality in women.

'We've both taken a bit of a pounding. On the rebound
and all that. Let's just keep in touch casually for a while.
Phone when we can, meet with the others for a Friday drink.
You know? There's no one I think of more as a friend than
you. Nobody's more important to me.'

'Me too. Yeah, you're probably right.'

'You're an okay guy, Theo. You don't have to do things
wrong for them not to work out. That's something we
need to remember. Penny's had to make one of those hard
choices, I suppose. Anyway, I'm going to leave you with
the camels, if they're still on. I just wanted to come and
make sure you were okay.'

Melanie sat forward on the sofa in preparation for
leaving. She gave her springy hair several customary and
ineffectual pats.

'I read your pieces on eating habits and on changing
attitudes to debt,' said Theo, to show he was interested in
what she did, and not overpowered by his experience with
Penny. He didn't want to be pitied.

'I quite enjoyed doing it. Those appalling credit card
figures — mind-boggling what some people said.'

'I did this story once about a Lyttelton woman who won
several hundred thousand in the lottery,' said Theo. 'She
was a radiologist and unmarried. She had her own house
and had always been responsible with money, but the win
seemed to set her off somehow. She decided to be a poet,
and a whole bunch of pseudo literati and artistic wankers
battened onto her until the money was gone on parties and
vanity publishing. The house too. The friends moved on,
of course, and she went back to radiology. About a year
later she won an even bigger prize in an Australian lottery,
bought a house in Merivale and invested the rest.'

'I remember that story,' said Melanie. 'What are the
chances, eh?'

'Just sometimes life plays out a morality tale, doesn't it?
She was a great person to interview — she really appreciated
the humour of it all. She knew she'd fluked an almost
impossible recovery, and made the most of it.'

'It's a good story, but I would have enjoyed it more if
she'd squandered the second lot of money exactly as she
did with the first.'

'That's been done too,' said Theo.

Even as he talked it occurred to him that, despite
Melanie's warning, he was becoming more and more
like Nicholas: packaging his life and experience into
anecdotes which deflected his own attention and that of
others. He didn't give a damn for the Lyttelton woman.
He yearned to offer something sincere and revelatory to
Melanie, something close and consoling concerning their
disappointments, but all he found was banal and secondhand
commentary. He wanted her to know that he admired
her generosity and friendship, that he sympathised with
her in an emotional setback, but instead he continued to
talk of unlikely coincidences in life, and windfalls against
the odds.

Melanie put on her black, velveteen jacket and gave
him a brief kiss on the mouth. Theo walked out to the
roadway with her, then watched until she reached her car.
Three cats crouched close together on the grassed verge,
waiting to regain their privacy. A cool breeze moved in the
darkness. She was there for him, supportive, even though
she and Robin Sellus didn't go to each other's homes any
more, and only his daughters came, and would visit less
and less as they realised that things had changed. Melanie
was having a bad time of it, yet she was still concerned
for Theo. Theo hadn't given a bugger for anyone except
Penny, Ben and himself.

Melanie's visit didn't leave Theo content, or resigned.
He'd had several whiskies before she came, and he settled
before the television with the bottle when she'd gone.
Sustained and solitary drinking to the point of inebriation
wasn't a habit with him, but then what was the point of
being sensible when life was otherwise? The programmes
continued upon the screen, but Theo paid little attention.
His unhappiness inclined him to anger, and that was
intensified by alcohol. He released the bitterness by
directing it at someone whose responsibility was specious,
but that's one of the conveniences of becoming drunk.
What a bastard Robin Sellus was. How badly he'd treated
Melanie. And nothing would happen, would it, because
Melanie was too reasonable. A self-satisfied wanker of a
guy who'd hurt someone so much his superior in every
way. Action was needed on her behalf. That's what friends
were for, weren't they? And Theo nodded at the screen in
his own support, convincing himself that his concern for
Melanie obliged him to be her champion. He found the
phone book and the architect's number.

'Robin Sellus speaking.'

'What sort of a bastard treats a woman like Melanie in
that way?' said Theo.

'Who is this?' The words were very clipped, deliberate.

'I say what sort of a bastard takes up with a woman just
so she can look after his kids? It's not on, and she deserved
better than you.' Theo was leaning down as he spoke, the
mobile phone in one hand, with the other trying to reach
the remote to turn off the television. Stooping in that way
wasn't pleasant with so many drinks on board. His head
seemed to enlarge painfully with each pulse of blood.

'Who the hell are you, and what business is it of
yours?'

'I've been watching you,' said Theo. 'I've been
watching you and I've got you sussed. A jumped up
bloody draughtsman who's taken advantage of Melanie's
sympathy for your kids.' Theo felt rather better when he
was sitting on the sofa again.

'You're that guy on the other side, aren't you. I know
you. The neighbour on the other side that Melanie's told me
about, who can't keep his nose out. Mellhop, or Bellhop,
or something. You need to mind your own business.'

'I've been watching you,' said Theo. He considered
the possibilities created by Robin Sellus's mistaken
identification. 'You haven't heard the last of this, you
know. We're not going to let you get away with, ah, with
treating Melanie like this.'

'You're drunk,' said Sellus triumphantly. 'I don't have
to listen to your nonsense. I'll ring the police if you bother
me any more.'

'I should come over right now and sort you out,' said
Theo. 'I will — that's what I'll do. And you can bet you'll
know all about it when I get there.' He took another
swallow of whisky, but his stomach rebelled and his
eyes hurt if he moved them. Abruptly the conversation
no longer interested him: accusing Sellus and allowing
a second neighbour of Melanie's to be falsely impugned
weren't important. He wanted to rest. He interrupted the
architect's angry reply to his threat by coming up with what
seemed to him a very original and appropriate remark. 'I've
been watching you,' he said slyly, and cut the call.

All he wanted to do was sit quietly back with his eyes
closed. It would've been better if the light was out. Was
the necessary movement beyond him? With an effort he
reached the switch and returned heavily to the sofa. He
wasn't aware of relaxing his grip, but he heard the whisky
glass thump on the carpet and give a slight bounce. Each
time Theo breathed out he made a small noise, something
between a sigh and a groan, which was soothing and
seemed to release the pain from his head. He fell asleep
there finally, alone in the dim room with the flickering
colours from the television screen playing on his face.

Did he dream? Perhaps a dream of sitting in the Mack
while his father drove the unsealed country roads, the heat
coming through from the engine, and his father's hand
resting on the smooth, black top of the gear change with
the fingers vibrating as some of the abundant torque came
back through the lever. Did he dream? Perhaps a dream
of first wearing his mid-calf, soft leather coat as he walked
hand in hand with Stella into a London art gallery. Did
he dream? Perhaps a dream of the Dunstan hills above
Drybread and ascending there with a happy, loved woman
who'd been able to escape the abuse of her girlhood. Did
he dream? Perhaps a dream of being quite different from
the man he was, with high purpose and some nobility of
spirit. Did he dream? Does a sad drunk dream?

There was a farewell for Anna at the paper: Theo organised
it, and gave a speech. He exaggerated one or two of the
prevailing stories about her for effect, as is expected on
such occasions. Anna took it well, and responded in kind
when congratulating him on becoming her replacement.
She said she'd been over him in more ways than one.
There was a lot of laughter and goodwill during the night,
and although Theo joined in, everything seemed somewhat
reduced and at remove. In the midst of conversations with
his colleagues, his mind slipped away to concern itself with
the loss of Penny, and he found himself nonplussed when
some response was required of him. Incompetent Michael
kept coming up to tell him mediocre dirty jokes, and, under
the guise of congratulation, insinuating that Anna was
better gone. Theo was exasperated and also embarrassed,
because one of his first jobs as chief reporter would be to
recommend that Michael be sacked.

Late at night, when the celebration was winding down,
when the editor and his broad-beamed wife had already
left, when the grand swirl of the party was past its peak,
and those people remaining had subsided into smaller,
seated groups, Anna and Theo found an opportunity to
talk together by the buffet slide. Three catering women
washed dishes close at hand, but were engrossed with their
own conversation. Michael, wearing a green smock donned
during some nonsense earlier in the evening, came open
mouthed towards Theo and Anna to distract them from
friendship by yet another sexual cliché.

'Not now, Mike,' said Theo.

'Bugger off,' said Anna.

Michael tossed up his hands in mock horror and
acquiescence, and wandered away across the reception room.

'I'm glad it's you taking over,' Anna said. 'You've got
those gut instincts a journo needs.'

'Thanks.'

'Do you think I've made a silly move?'

'No, I admire you for having a go. You'll make a bloody
good mag editor. You can build a team around you, and
not everybody's got that sort of personality.' Theo meant
what he said, and wished he'd shown his regard more
before then. Anna was a Girl Guide a lot of the time, but
she was professional and a good colleague.

'I know it's not working out with Penny Maine-King,'
she said. 'Sorry about that.'

'Yeah, well, that's about par for the course for me,
isn't it.'

Why should he be surprised that Anna knew? Everyone would.
There was a process of osmosis by which your
personal life became the mundane gossip of the workplace.

'I know it's trite to say it, Theo, but you'll find the right
person. I hope it's Penny, but if not, things will work out
in time.'

'You think I should pump it up?' said Theo to deflect
concern.

'That's something you'll have to watch — making fun
of him.' She laughed though, for she was no longer duty
bound to be scrupulously loyal to the editor, and the
freedom of it, and the relaxation and wine of the night,
flushed her normally pale face just a little, and in an
odd, asexual expression of intimacy she leaned her warm
forehead on Theo's for a moment, then straightened.

'Yeah, I know. I've got to become a good boy, and let
Nick have all the renegade fun,' said Theo.

'You'll do okay,' she said. 'You'll do just fine.'

Theo spent the next few work days arranging the chief
reporter's office in the way he wanted, and drawing up a
strategic plan which involved a professional development
session with each of the reporting staff and the reallocation
of rounds. Also he devised a role for Nicholas as deputy
which was no longer nominal and took into consideration
both his abilities and his idiosyncrasies. All of that kept the
surface of his mind busy during working hours, and helped
him to sleep at night.

It wasn't at all what he'd hoped for, however, and often
he found himself suddenly wound down, quite still, staring
at some object as if it had assumed the power of fetish — the
outside tap and hose fitting perhaps, a donation envelope
to combat dyslexia, the caps lock button on his keyboard,
a small, pale stone embedded in the tread of a colleague's
sneaker. He'd reached for too much: he'd allowed his
prescription for happiness to outgrow what he deserved.
He'd forgotten life's natural drive towards disappointment.

Penny rang to say they were returning to America
very soon, and she wanted to talk to him before then.
Maybe they could meet at the same place by the Bridge
of Remembrance? But Theo didn't want to meet there,
so they arranged to see each other at ten thirty the next
morning at the coffee shop in the art gallery. There were
so many other things he'd hoped to say to her: instead
their conversation had retreated to appointment times.
Her voice still had power to move him, although he knew
every conversation was now part of the calculated retreat
they were making from each other.

He was there before her, and sat looking through the
ceiling to floor glass at the old university buildings on the
opposite corner. He had marched from there in gown and
hood to his graduation, years ago. Beverley Limm was in
front of him and kept complaining that the pinned weight
of the pink and grey academic hood was pulling up the top
of her dress. The night of his graduation his mother and
father had taken him to a hotel for a self-conscious family
celebration, and Theo, rather than being grateful, had
hurried through it so he could join his friends at a party in
Spreydon, where he spiked his right foot on a hedgehog
while running barefoot and drunk through a garden
overgrown with twitch and rank asparagus.

Theo and Penny could see each other for some time
before she joined him; both were aware of this, but choosing
not to make acknowledgement until they were together.
Theo watched her cross the road from the bluestone
buildings of the Arts Centre and come into the gallery.
She looked even less like Drybread Penny than at their
last meeting. She wore a winter skirt and boots, a jacket
with panels of coloured leather. Her pale hair was up and
her lipstick on. She was almost beautiful, he realised with
a jolt. She was almost beautiful, but she wasn't Drybread
Penny, and that made the failure of his hopes the greater.
She was Californian Penny, with the stability of Erskine's
money and resources behind her again, and free to move
about the city.

'I wanted to make a better effort to thank you,' she said
after she sat down. 'I guess we were pretty wound up last
time. I felt I didn't say the things I wanted to, and don't
know if I can now. It all seems completely bloody selfish
to you, I suppose.'

'I got caught on the hop. I thought something was
happening that was good for us both, but there you go.'

'It wasn't natural down there at Drybread, though,
Theo. I couldn't think how things might end. I'd taken off
from Erskine in a panic, and finished up in a place that had
some bloody awful memories. You were just about the one
good thing for me — you and Ben.'

'I know it didn't go well that last time in the bach,' said
Theo, 'but I thought that didn't matter. It had to do with
Ben being there and stuff like that — you being under all
that pressure.'

'It wouldn't be any different anywhere else. I can't think
of you in the way you do me,' said Penny.

'Do men and women ever think of each other in the
same way?'

'But I don't think of men in the way other women do
either.'

'It wasn't the right time, I realise that now,' said Theo,
'but then we never seemed to have enough time together.'

'No, it's not that. Sex doesn't work for me the way it
does for other people. I don't want to go on about it. My
father fucked up that part of my life for me, you see. That's
it really. He fucked me more completely than either of
us could possibly realise at the time. It's ugly to say, ugly
then and ugly still. It's no good when you hate the people
you love, Theo. I'm not going to unload all my hang-ups
on you, but I wanted you to know, even if you can never
understand, that's all.' Penny's face had a slight agitation
of pain as she forced herself to speak, but she continued to
look directly at Theo.

'Christ, I'm sorry. What a bastard he must have been.'

'I owe it to you to talk about it I suppose, but I just
can't. I've tried professionally, and even that didn't help.

Stuff like that isn't fixed by sympathy or counselling or
medication. Not for me, anyway. Nobody wants to know
those things — even when you've experienced it you don't
want to know. It's like some tumour, or excrescence, which
you're ashamed of even though it's invisible. There's just
part of your emotional response that doesn't work properly
afterwards.'

'You know for me it isn't just about shagging. We've
never even done it properly, for Christ's sake. There's
more than that, and that's what I hoped for.' Love was the
word Theo should have used, but he couldn't get it out. A
word too much vaunted by puffery, and heavily taxed in
everyday conversation. He'd never used it to Penny when
there were hopes of the thing itself between them, and it
wouldn't serve once love was unattainable.

'It's all in the bundle, though,' Penny said. 'What it
comes down to for me, is Ben. I won't jeopardise his
growing up for anything, and Erskine realises that too,
now. He's the real thing left between us, and that's the
most important tie I've got. The love you have for a child is
completely untainted by whatever else has gone wrong.'

'Not much of a marriage,' said Theo, but he had no
wish to argue against the rights of a little kid.

'But that's what I'm saying. I can't have much of a
marriage, and that was decided years ago by my father.'

'Christ, what a mess.'

'So don't be too angry, okay?' She put out her hand tentatively,
so that just the fingertip rested briefly on his wrist.

Where did you take a conversation after that? They
didn't talk at all for a while, but fiddled with their coffee
cups, and watched the people outside. And talk continued
at tables around them, some laughter as well. Was there
any reason however to think that Penny's and Theo's
concerns were of more significance than those of others
present? The suited man by himself may have just been
made redundant, though he kept his hand steady; the
thin woman behind may have been told she would never
conceive a child, the student with shiny hair and small
hands could be in possession of a letter offering her a place
at Cambridge, and so the prospect of a marvellous career.

'I want you to have something,' said Penny. She took
some sheets of paper from her bag, folded like an essay
assignment, and put them in front of him. 'Zack drew
them up for me. All you have to do is sign, and the bach
in Central is yours. For all the help, and the newspaper
articles especially. Well no, for the personal support
especially. I want to forget that time, but not you.' Theo
told her she didn't have to give him anything, didn't have
to feel guilty. 'It's not that,' she said. 'I won't be going
back there. It's not worth that much anyway. It's never
been a good place for me, but I hope it'll be different
for you. You like it there, I know. You like those places
unpopular with most other people.' She put two identical
and old-fashioned keys on the table. 'Maybe you can have
a spell from your work there sometimes,' she said. 'Do
some of the walks too.'

'I don't know. You don't owe me anything at all. What
about Ben and Erskine?' Would he ever want to go to the
place now she was leaving it?

'Erskine doesn't give a stuff. He's not interested in
anything here. I think you'd get something from Drybread,
and anyway it'll just go back and back if no one ever goes
there. Even a place like that needs some basic care.'

'What's going to happen about your mother?' The
lizards and frogs of the enclosed garden would be staring
still, and old Mrs Bell equally static. On the broad paths
and through the wide doors of the Malahide Home,
the Zimmer frames and wheelchairs would be quietly
circulating, the population migrating to the dining hall,
then back to their beds and familiar chairs.

'We've talked a bit about that. Probably we'll bring her
over to the States later. She'll never know the difference,
and I'll be able to look after her more.'

'And you'll never be back, I suppose.'

'Who knows? But there's no reason we can't keep in
touch if you want to. Erskine wouldn't see anything odd
in that. If you want to we can be friends. I don't have any
hang-ups about friends the way I do about lovers. Jesus,
I'm almost normal in so many ways.' She laughed briefly
to mitigate her tone of voice.

Theo wondered how he could ever have expected any
other outcome. Drybread had been apart from the forces
of the world and the logic which prevailed elsewhere.
Despite the disappointment, and the anger that arose
from disappointment and his powerlessness, he had never
admired her more. 'Fuck,' he said softly.

'I wouldn't have got through it without you. I would've
gone under. I know that now,' she said. Making a v of her
thumb and forefinger, she pushed at one side of her heavy
hair. 'I feel something's been tamed within me somehow
because of all this.'

'Tamed?'

'Well, not tamed. I mean realising that you can do one
impulsive thing, justifiable or not, and everything else
starts to unravel. You know? You make one sudden shift
and the world tilts. I don't want anything to tilt for Ben,
and I don't think Erskine does either.'

Theo had no argument against her that wasn't entirely
selfish, so he didn't try. He had for a moment the unfamiliar
feeling that he was going to cry, but he drew his breath
with deliberate regularity, and focused on the people in the
foyer of the gallery not far away. 'I want the best for you
and Ben despite what's happened,' he said.