From Under the Overcoat (5 page)

The hole is 185 metres — an easy three iron from the tee to the pin. David addresses the ball. He knows, at that still moment, just before he lifts into the swing, what will happen. He has never felt it before — the certainty runs through his body like an electric shock. The ball soars over the gully and drops onto the green. It rolls into the hole.

The others are ecstatic, whooping and hollering like boys. One after the other, they shake David’s hand, thump him on the back. David knows that, should he be lucky enough to play golf until the day he dies, this will never happen again.

FOR THE NEXT FEW
holes, Ciaran falls in beside David. David watches him as he lines up his shots. A few connect cleanly, and David murmurs his admiration loud enough for Ciaran to hear. He says nothing about the airshots — humiliating wild swings into the air, the taunting ball stationary on the ground. He says nothing about the duff ed shots that dribble on just a few yards, about the divots gouged from the fairway and left behind by the enraged Ciaran, storming on to hack again at the ball. David says nothing about any of this but he is careful, after the conversation in the car, to mark all shots taken on the card.

David lingers and pushes the clods of perfect green back into place. They are like the trickiest pieces of a jigsaw puzzle,
uniform in colour but each slightly different in shape. Placed correctly in the ground, they will lose their seams and take root again.

Not all of the carnage is Ciaran’s — Mitchell and Neil are ahead; the fairways are pockmarked with the evidence of their arrogance. The finest clubs, the best clothes, shoes: all these things are farcical props for three slapstick clowns. The last vestiges of envy — was it ever envy? — disappear as David watches them congratulate each other on their ignorant play.

The day’s getting warmer. There’s no breeze. The air’s salty and heavy with the coconut scent of yellow gorse flowers on the cliff s marking out of bounds. David finds the smell nauseating.

‘How’s business at the moment?’ David recalls Ciaran’s involved with franchises, a string of businesses, a deal he got in on when someone else went bust. What was it? Furniture?

‘Pretty good. People always need beds.’

That’s it. Beds
. ‘How long have you had the outlets?’

‘About five years or so. I was a cop before then.’

‘Why the change?’

‘I’d just had enough.’

‘I can understand why you would. I don’t know how you do it, you guys, the doctors too. Don’t know how you cope with the terrible things you see.’

Ciaran laughs.

‘No, seriously. You see the worst of it, I reckon.’

‘It’s true, I did. I saw some shit.’

They are in step with each other. Ciaran’s smile has
disappeared; his mouth is a thin, tight line.

‘It started to get to me in the end.’

David sees a slight quiver in Ciaran’s left cheek, as though his eye might be twitching. He can’t tell, though, because of the sunglasses.

‘How could it not?’ David doesn’t know what else to say.

‘I brought it home. To Linda and the kids.’ Ciaran has not broken his stride towards his ball; David wonders now if Ciaran is talking to himself.

‘You’re married?’

‘Not any more.’

They have arrived at Ciaran’s ball. It’s sitting cleanly on the open fairway. Ciaran stands over it, preparing for the shot. He swings hard and misses.

David hesitates, then says it. ‘You’re lifting your head.’ It is his father’s voice, not his own:
Keep your head down, son. Keep your eye on the ball
. Never criticism, simply wanting David to know the joy of playing the game well.Ciaran says nothing.

‘You’re lifting your head, taking your eye off the ball just before you hit it. That’s why you’re not connecting.’

Ciaran stands over the ball for a second time. His chin tucks deep into his chest and he stares at the ball. He lifts the club and swings slowly, fully. His head stays absolutely still. A textbook swing, it sends the ball soaring high and long towards the pin.

‘I started to see Linda and the girls as the victims.’ The club is still sitting over Ciaran’s left shoulder. He is looking at the ball, which has landed just off the green. David presumes it is a look of satisfaction, though Ciaran’s expression is
immutable. He puts the club back in his bag, pulls the sock over the head and talks on. It’s almost as though he is in a trance, David thinks, delivering a soliloquy to the mountains and the sky.

‘Once you’ve taken your mind there you can’t get rid of the image. Somehow, somewhere along the way, I stopped seeing my family as people I love. They were victims. It’s hard to like victims. To respect them, David. Respect for victims is very difficult.’

David hears it now, the anguish in Ciaran’s voice. It has been sitting just below the veneer of wealthy arrogance all along. He recognises the panic, the edge of feral contempt brought on by entrapment. It’s a voice he hears coming out of his own mouth sometimes, when everything about Jamie is too much to bear.

‘I didn’t trust myself. So in the end I had to move out.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Yeah, well. You do what you have to do.’

‘I know what you mean,’ David says quietly. They are walking side by side, their golf bags thumping behind them in the heat. David’s heart is pounding. Now is the moment. His opportunity to disclose the situation about the money, to apologise and retreat. Ciaran’s looking at him; he can feel the stare through the black lenses. ‘I’m married too. Family … well, one kid. A boy. Jamie. He’s … disabled.’

David knows what Ciaran’s eyes look like, although he can’t see them. The dispassionate, calculating scrutiny of the cop interviewing the suspect.

‘The thing is, he shouldn’t have been born. I mean, we knew there might be a problem, from the amnio.’

Ciaran nods slowly, releases David from the gaze and looks at his feet. He puts his hand on David’s shoulder, squeezes it lightly, then takes it away.

The words gush now. ‘We had a huge argument about whether to terminate the pregnancy. It nearly finished us off.’

‘It’s pretty hard to fight the raging hormones, I guess. Women and that nesting instinct, when it kicks in.’

No no, it was me, not her
. But David says nothing.

‘So what happened? I mean to you two? Are you still together?’

‘Yeah, we’re fine.’

David is very hungry. He notices this sometime after midday. Breakfast was the glass of water washing down the paracetamol back in his room — anything more would have sent him heaving to the bathroom. Now his gut is twisted. He craves plain, hot, salty food. He is too scared to say this. He dreads what the response might be to a simple request for something to eat.

Two holes on, he sees a golf cart. It is tiny in the distance, just a speck of white. But it grows as it travels towards them, against the tide of golfers on the course.

They are marking the card on the twelfth tee when the cart pulls in beside them. David recognises the driver as one of the waiters from the resort’s dining room. On the back of the cart there’s a small wicker basket.

‘Lunch,’ says the driver, with a wide, obliging smile, and turns the cart towards the nearby grove of tall, shady pine trees.

Mitchell takes the driver to one side while the others eat sandwiches under the trees. David sees he is whispering,
smiling. He hears the words
hole in one
. The driver’s nodding, grinning, looking back at David.

‘Congratulations … it’s a first for the course,’ he says.

‘Thanks. Bit of a shock — my first one too,’ says David.

The talk over lunch meanders around the gossip of the night before, but drifts back, always, to David’s hole in one. They want to know everything: where he learned to play, the honours, the schoolboy trophies. Why he stopped.

‘You gotta get back out there,’ says Neil.

‘Maybe I will,’ says David. ‘Get out there with the old man.’

‘Fuck Miramar. Journeyman’s course. Join Heretaunga,’ says Neil.

Journeyman. The word stings. Slogging his way round
any
golf course in pursuit of a professional ticket would be a dream. Heretaunga, with its gold-plated membership fee, is a joke.

‘I’ll be eighty years old before I get to the top of that waiting list,’ he says.

‘No you won’t. I’ll sort it. You’ll be teeing off next week.’

THERE’S A TOUR BUS
and a dozen cars in the carpark back at the hotel. It’s early afternoon. David, Mitchell, Ciaran and Neil leave their clubs at the golf shop, ready for the
Sunday-morning
game, and head for the lobby.

The tour party’s checking in, other small groups of people are drinking and talking around tables.

‘Loser’s shout,’ says Ciaran. ‘What’s everyone having?’

A middle-aged man is looking at them from behind the reception desk. While Ciaran’s at the bar, he comes over.

‘Which one of you is David Fowler?’

‘That’s me,’ says David.

‘Very pleased to meet you, David. Ralph Simons. Manager.’

He puts his hand on David’s arm. From somewhere, a microphone appears. ‘Excuse me everyone, could I have your attention for just a few minutes. I’m proud to tell you that today this beautiful course reached an important milestone. Our first hole in one.’

Ciaran and Neil and Mitchell are grinning, clapping. David’s face burns red. He smiles vaguely at the sea of faces.

‘Congratulations, David,’ says Ralph, and a camera flash goes off.

‘Thank you. Thanks a lot.’

‘They said it couldn’t be done, the architects. Not on this course.’

David laughs, looks at his shoes.

‘Well, we all know the rules, don’t we, David.’ Ralph beams at David, slaps him on the back. ‘Hole in one shouts the bar.’

David can not look up from his feet. He can not lift his head.

‘But on this special occasion, the pleasure is mine.’

David’s heart stops thumping. He looks up at Ralph. ‘Thank you,’ he says.

‘Your account’s been settled too,’ Ralph says quietly to David, as people move towards the bar.

‘By who?’ David thinks, for a horrible moment, that Neil and Mitchell and Ciaran have paid his bill. That they have finally recognised the imposter among them.

‘On the house. It’s all good publicity for us, David. Every person here will go home talking about the course. About the
guy who got the hole in one.’ David thinks his arm might dislocate, if Ralph Simons keeps shaking it with such vigour.

THE AFTERNOON ROLLS ON
in a blur of congratulatory backslaps and questions. Someone puts a glass of wine in David’s hand. No matter how much he drinks, the glass is never empty.

The four men settle down into two couches in the corner of the lobby. Food arrives from the bar — plain breads and dips, French fries — David’s ravenous and eats until the platters are empty. He looks out the window, across the immaculate fairways towards the mountains. The view takes his breath away every time.

An urge to sleep washes over him, and he rests his head against the high back of the sofa and closes his eyes. Sleep is, of course, out of the question but for a moment he lets himself relax. Has it been only twenty-four hours since they arrived? This time tomorrow he will be touching down at Wellington Airport. Then home, to Trudy. And Jamie.

David sits quietly, eyes still closed. The hum of loose talk swirls around him. It’s moved on from his hole in one — the others are discussing dinner. Mitchell’s muttering about some gorgeous woman on the other side of the room.

He wants to open his eyes; he would like that very much.

When the guys say
Jesus, she’s coming over
, he tries to open his eyes, but he can’t.

He can’t, because if he does, he will cry. So he keeps them shut, feigning sleep.

Then there is the shuffling of bodies moving, and the boyish guff awing of Neil and Mitchell and Ciaran.
Would you like a seat
…
can I get you a drink
…

A poke in the ribs, Neil’s voice in his other ear.
Wake up, dickhead. She’s hot
.

With his eyes closed, there is only the smell. No, not a smell — fragrance. The fragrance of a woman, and the warmth of a thigh close to his on the sofa. A woman’s voice, laughing, tinkling like ice in a glass, close to his other ear.
Tell me about that hole in one, sleepyhead
.

David breathes in and out, slowly. He can’t open his eyes, not just yet.

THE OPEN HOME

A
great brouhaha was not necessary in order to sell one’s house. That’s what my mother told the real estate agent Claudia Button, when Mrs Button came to see her that very first Saturday afternoon.

I was at the bottom of the stairs, round the corner from the big lounge, trying to find out what was going on. Earwigging, Mum would call it. Brouhaha was a new one to me. Weird, even for my old-fashioned mother. I tried it out in my head first, then said it quietly to myself.
Brouhaha. Brou — haha
. I giggled and missed hearing what Mrs Button said. She must have disagreed, because the next thing Mum said was, ‘Poppycock, Claudia.’

On my mother went. ‘I know of people who have sold recently, without a For Sale sign in cooee.’

‘Unlikely, Martha,’ said Mrs Button.

‘Oh yes,’ said Mum. ‘It is likely. In fact, a certain person told me that a complete stranger actually pulled up outside her house, walked up the path, knocked on the door and offered to buy the house there and then.
Name your price
is what the stranger said, apparently.’

‘Really.’ This didn’t sound like a question. ‘Who is this certain person, Martha?’

Mum gave that never-you-mind laugh of hers; I could picture her Doris Plum lipstick creasing into the corners of her tight little smile. ‘Well, I’m sorry, Claudia, but I can’t disclose that. I was specifically asked not to mention it to anyone in real estate. But believe you me, it’s the truth of the matter.’

‘And did the sale go through?’

‘Yes, it did. For a very good price, by all accounts. It was a price made better by the fact there was no agent’s commission to pay.’

‘Lucky vendor,’ said Mrs Button. I was impressed with her patience. ‘Have you tried this method yourself, Martha?’

‘Method?’ asked Mum.

‘Yes, this method of selling whereby you just sit and wait for a wealthy person to drive by your house, fall in love with it and march right on up your path to offer you an amazing amount of money to take it off your hands.’

I wondered what Mum would say to that.

‘Yes, yes I have.’ She spoke quietly. ‘I’ve been waiting for just that to happen.’

There was a moment, then, when neither Mum nor Mrs Button spoke. I was tempted to peek around the corner. But Mum got her second wind.

‘This is by the by, Claudia. Not the point at all.’

‘Fine,’ said Mrs Button. ‘Fine. Let’s start again. Is your house on the market?’

‘Yes,’ said my mother. ‘For the right buyer.’

‘Alright then.’

‘But I don’t want people to know.’

‘You won’t sell it if no one knows.’

Silence from Mum.

‘Are we talking about the neighbours here, Martha? Is that what you’re worried about?’ said Mrs Button. There was this fluffiness in her voice, followed by a shuffling-of-chairs noise. Then one of them blew her nose. Mum. Even the sound of that was antique.

‘Well, it’s none of their business, what’s happening. Unless they want to buy it, which is hardly likely.’

‘You mean because of work that needs doing.’

I heard Mum take a big breath. She held it. Then let it out.

‘Oh for goodness’ sake. No, that’s not what I mean. Have you looked out the window, Claudia? Have you seen the sort of people who live in this part of Karori now? If they pooled all their savings — every last scraped-together cent — they wouldn’t come close to being able to afford it.’

Mrs Button changed her approach. She was good. Really good. ‘What do you think the house is worth, Martha? Have you had a valuation done?’

‘No.’

‘Well, let’s get that under way. I’ll sort it out.’

Another gulpy breath from my mother, then, meekly: ‘Discreetly, of course.’

‘Of course,’ said Mrs Button. ‘Meanwhile, if someone comes along looking for … something like this, I’ll give you a call. It won’t hurt, will it, if someone comes along, just to bring them around and show them through.’

Mrs Button walked right past me on her way out. ‘Look after your mother, Katie,’ she said, without looking at me. But when she got to the end of the hallway, she turned and came back. She sat next to me on the step.

‘How old are you now?’ she asked.

‘Thirteen,’ I said. She had nice green eyes.

‘Do you like this house?’

‘Yes,’ I replied.

Mrs Button sighed.

‘I love it,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to shift. My mother will mess you around forever. That’s the sort of thing she does.
God
. The amount of people’s time she’s wasted over the years. Write that down.’ I tapped the folder in Mrs Button’s hand.

She started to smile. ‘The house is too much for her, Katie. It’s too big, run down …’

‘We can’t leave.’

She hugged me. I felt a lump in my throat but I swallowed it down.

‘It’ll be alright, you know.’

Mrs Button was the same age as Mum but she seemed years younger. Her strappy high-heeled bronze sandals matched her tanned legs, and she wore a cool denim skirt. Her face was tanned, too, and her blonde hair looked as though someone had tousled it up in fun. My mother had
an obedient brown bob which never looked tousled. Not surprising, given the total absence of fun in her life.

You might not know this if you don’t live in Wellington, but there’s a certain way that women in Karori like to dress — a blouse with the collar turned up, tunic sweater, tartan trousers or skirt and flat shoes. My mother never bought into this. She considered the Karori look
somewhat agrarian
. She wore a blazer, shirt and knee-length pencil skirt, plus her office heels every day, regardless of whether or not she was going in to her secretarial job. I’d heard people call her a classic beauty, with her English rose complexion and her freaky lingo. She was that sort of a woman.

Mrs Button’s sandals clicked in a snappy way on the old tile floor in the kitchen, then she was gone, out the back door. I watched out the window as she kicked her way through the dandelions, past the broken gate at the bottom of the garden, right on through the park to her black Volkswagen two streets over, where my mother had told her to park.

OUR HOUSE WAS A
two-storeyed wooden villa. It stuck out among the modern townhouses on our street. It was built in the early 1920s and was a heritage property.

The colour was dark green, with yellow windowsills and a matching front door. The front porch was painted in the same yellow — Karitane yellow is how my mother described it — a name that meant nothing to me but to give you a better picture, it was the same yellow as a very ripe banana.

There were two chimneys on the roof, which were a great mystery to everyone because there were no fireplaces,
upstairs or anywhere else. You had to stand right out in the middle of the road to see them — two red and white brick stacks, which as far as we could tell had never puff ed out smoke. Possibly the very first owners had chimneys. Maybe someone, at sometime, bricked over the fireplaces, then covered them with the same fancy wallpaper that was used in the rest of the house. Who knows?

Once when I was younger, the chimneys made me cry at Christmas.
What if Santa can’t slide down them?
I imagined the big guy stuck, unable to crawl back up again with that enormous sack on his back. Mum said I was a nincompoop but Dad took me downstairs and showed me how he planned to prop open the yellow door for Santa.

By the way, that is one of my favourite memories of my father, but I’ll get on to him later.

When I said the house was green, I wasn’t being strictly honest. It
had
been green, but the heat of the sun had blistered the dark paint. It bubbled up, then a good heavy downpour would split the surface and the paint would peel away. You could slip your fingernail under one of the cracks and flick off a big slice of green. The bits underneath were a pinky shade, about the colour of smoker lollies. You’re probably getting the picture of a dark green and yellow house with pink splotches. If so, that’s exactly it.

The answer to this problem of the peeling house was to repaint it. Obviously. A lighter colour that reflected the sun, rather than absorbed it. A few years ago, just after Dad went away, Mum realised this. She went to the hardware store on a mission to buy paint and to hire someone to come and do the job. She came back quite excited — for
her — with a small piece of cardboard that was a grey-blue colour.

‘Sea-mist,’ she announced, fanning the card in my face. ‘Our house will be this sea-mist colour. We could even call it that, put a little plaque on the front door.’

I liked the idea a lot. It didn’t matter that we lived inland, where no sea-mist would ever drift. I had secret hopes that this development might lead to some more modern improvements, such as Sky TV.

But two days later, a man and a woman came to the front door and asked to speak to my mother. The man was wearing too-short jeans that sagged in the backside and a shabby navy sweatshirt. The woman was agrarian Karori, head to toe. I stood behind Mum as they introduced themselves as members of the local Heritage Committee.

‘What’s that, when it’s at home?’ asked Mum.

‘It advises the council,’ replied the man. ‘About our lovely heritage properties.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Mum, looking them both up and down.

‘Can we come in for a moment?’ asked the woman.

‘I’m just going out, sorry,’ said Mum. I didn’t know this, and I wondered where. Then again, the visitors’ clothes would have been enough to justify a fib, as far as my mother was concerned.

‘Oh. Well, it’s just an enquiry,’ said the man. ‘We understand you’re having your house painted.’

Mum’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘Heavens to Betsy, you
understand
, do you? And in what way is that anyone else’s business but mine?’

Neither of them answered.

‘Are you aware your house is heritage listed?’ asked the woman.

‘Yes, of course.’ Mum smiled her old money smile: understanding but all-knowing.

‘The thing is, you are obliged to keep to the original colours of the house, Mrs Des Moines. It is spinach green, that you’ve chosen?’

I was behind my mother, so I couldn’t see her face. But from the back she grew, like the Incredible Hulk during his transformation. Her hands flew to her hips.

‘Excuse me?
Spinach?
Would you like to come and have a look at what
burnt spinach
looks like?’

‘We know how hard it is, Mrs Des Moines,’ said the woman. ‘The upkeep of these heritage properties. But …’

‘Are you offering to pay for the paint job?’ Mum interrupted.

‘No,’ said the man. ‘I’m sorry. There is provision in the bylaw to provide funding for restoration, except when the owners are able to meet the expense themselves.’

‘Well, let me assure you, this owner isn’t.’

‘But have you not already ordered paint?’ said the woman.

‘Yes, I have ordered paint.’

‘Well, then,’ said the man.

‘I’ve ordered long-lasting, heat-reflective, inoff ensive
seamist
. I will not pay for wilting spinach.’

‘I’m afraid if you are going to paint the house, it must be in spinach,’ said the man. The agrarian woman nodded at him and Mum with one of those
Hey, what can you do?
expressions on her face.

‘For crying out loud,’ said Mum. ‘If that’s the case, I won’t
be painting it at all.’ And she shut the door.

That’s how our house came to be in such a state. My mother refused to touch a thing after the row on the front steps with the people from the committee. She seemed to take a pride in abandoning even the inexpensive maintenance. I’d watch her kick her way down the front steps every morning, holding her good skirt close to her so it didn’t get snagged in the overgrown rose bushes along the front path. She left the broken gate swinging, and headed off to work.

The lawnmower sat unused in the shed, the handrail fell away from the broken concrete steps leading up to the revolting yellow porch. I was getting lots of bee stings from all the clover. I offered a few times to mow the lawn.

‘Ah!’ said Mum, waving me away as though I was a fly hanging around her on a hot day. ‘Don’t bother! What’s the point!’

Most of my friends lived in the townhouses that my mother described as deplorable. I’d visit them and marvel at the developments in modern living: taps that didn’t shake when you turned them on, proper heating, that sort of thing. I’d go home and tell Mum all about them. I asked if we could get Sky TV and she said no, because we weren’t allowed a satellite dish on our roof. A lot of the time, I thought she wasn’t listening to me. But she must have been quietly thinking about it, because eventually she rang Mrs Button.