Gith (16 page)

'Who's that?' I asked.

'Fucking Cleat,' he said. 'Little shit's following me around.
I swear to God he is. Gives me the creeps.'

'Gives everybody the creeps,' I said.

'He's like a rat,' Parline said. 'You try to catch him and he's
off. Soon as you stop he comes creeping back.'

Billy hadn't moved. I guess he had his binoculars trained
on us. Parline made a noise like the growl of a big dog and
suddenly started to run, straight at Billy. He was quick but
Billy had a good long start. He turned and he was away.
No sign of the sideways shuffle this time. He was off to the
Domain fence and over it into the paddock on the other side.
Parline stopped after twenty metres. He stood with his hands
on his hips, just like the long-haired bloke in Ramp Street
had done. Then he turned round, looked at me for a second,
and headed off towards the boy and the dog. That pretty much
left me standing there like an idiot. I started walking towards
the people watching the cricket.

They were in twos or groups, adults with a few kids as well.
Some were sitting on folding chairs, others on rugs spread on
the ground. I knew a fair few of them, Brenda Paddigon and
Susie Smeele for two. They were sitting together on a tartan
rug with a chilly-bin and a picnic basket between them, along
with an ice-cooler with a bottle of wine sticking out of it.
They had glasses in their hands.

As I got closer Brenda saw me. 'Hello,' she said. She was
wearing a big straw hat, which tilted back as she looked up,
a nice smile.

'I thought you folk would be working.' I squatted down
next to them.

'No,' Susie answered. 'We have help in.' She was small and
serious-looking, with wavy dark hair and dark eyes. She gave
me a grin that seemed almost sad.

'They can do without us once in a while,' Brenda said.

'Julian's playing.' Susie waved her hand at the pitch. 'He's
scored . . . how many did I say?'

'Twenty, was it?' Brenda said.

'Something like that. And that's Laurie batting with him.'

'Father and son,' Brenda said. Then she turned to me.
'Wine?'

'Sure.' I sat down, stretched my legs out. She poured
another glass and handed it to me.

'Cheers.' We clinked glasses.

'So what brings you here?' Brenda asked.

'I'm at a loose end, I guess.'

'Is . . . er . . . Gith with you?'

'No. She's out at my parents' place.'

'It'll give you some time to yourself,' Susie said.

'Yes. Only trouble is, I don't know what to do with it.'

Another whack of the cricket bat. Susie put her glass down
and clapped.

'Bravo,' she shouted.

Away over towards the Domain gates were two figures and
a dog. I pointed to them.

'That bloke over there. He was near here before.'

'Yes,' Susie said.

'It's Rick Parline, isn't it?' I felt Brenda start listening. Susie
gave the answer I wanted.

'Yes,' she said.

'You know him?' I asked.

'Sure. He buys things from us.'

'A collector?'

'In his way.'

'What does he collect?'

'Porcelain.' Susie looked at me, frowned. It was as if she
wasn't sure she should be telling me. 'Why?'

'Oh,' I said, 'just curious about him. I heard a story.' Why
did I say that? I had to go on now. 'And I just walked past
his house in Church Street. There was a woman doing the
garden. His wife, I guess. She had a black eye.'

Susie didn't answer for a second and then she said, 'Well,
yes, I did hear that about him.'

'What?' Brenda said. 'That he hits her?'

'Just a rumour.'

'She had dark glasses on,' I said, 'but you could still see.'

'Oh God,' Brenda said. 'Another bloody victim.' I wasn't
sure what she meant.

Susie said nothing. She was looking down at her wine glass
but I guess not really seeing it.

Brenda turned to her. 'Well, it's not acceptable, is it?'

'No. Of course not. Absolutely not.' A little flash of anger?

'All a bit too rural, if you ask me.'

That was a word that Joanne used when she wanted to run
down the locals.

'It's just as bad in town,' Susie said. 'Maybe worse.'

'That's no excuse.'

Susie didn't answer. I looked from one to the other but I
couldn't figure out what was going on. Suddenly I seemed to
be in the middle of an argument that had already covered a
whole heap of ground. Brenda looked at me, gave me a little
smile like she could see what I was feeling.

'Well,' I said, 'I guess we've got our fair share. Billy Cleat
was over there before.' I turned and pointed. 'With a pair of
binoculars.'

'Spying?' Brenda asked.

'I don't suppose he was watching the cricket.'

'Urgh!' Susie shuddered.

We all turned and looked. Nobody there. Unless Billy had
hidden himself better.

'He's gone now,' I said, feeling the way I'd done at the pub.
I hadn't really told the truth about Billy. Why had I even
brought him up?

***

WE STARTED TO relax after that. It was real nice sitting
there with the two of them and pretending to watch the game.
We talked a bit, but not about anything important, and I was
glad of the company. We had another glass of wine (I have to
say it tasted better each time I tried it) and I could feel my
brain starting to float.

After a while Laurie Smeele joined us, and then a bit later,
Julian. Laurie was fifteen but already about the same size as
his father, tall and well built. He was a boarder at Wanganui
Collegiate but came home most weekends. Susie fussed over
him and he pushed her off in an awkward sort of way. He
seemed to be good at cricket but pretty useless at talking, at
least with us. Still, he was easier in company than I was at his
age. Fifteen was just about the low point of my time at school.
Boy, did I feel useless then.

I lay down on my back with my hands behind my head
and looked up at the sunlight that twinkled through the
branches of the trees. I wasn't thinking about Gith but I felt
the emptiness that meant she wasn't there. Could it be that
the reason I had got so keen on her after the accident was
that she was fifteen and helpless? Nobody looked after me at
fifteen. Except for Ma, and she never fussed over me the way
Susie was fussing over Laurie.

'Hello there.' It was my sister-in-law Leece with two of her
kids, Tommy and Rachel. I sat up.

'Hi,' I said. I went to introduce Leece to the others but it
seemed she knew them already.

'Lovely day,' she said, looking at the sky.

'It is,' Julian nodded.

'Would you like a wine?' Brenda asked.

'No thanks,' Leece told her. 'We have to be getting back.'
She turned to me. 'They tell me Anna's up at Ma and Dad's
place.'

'Yes.'

'Big deal, eh?'

'Yes. First time on her own.'

'I suggested that she spend the night with us but Ma won't
hear of it.'

'It depends where the puppies are,' I said.

Leece laughed. 'Oh, we've got the puppies.' She called the
kids, who were chasing each other round a tree.

'Bye, Uncle Ken,' Tommy said.

Rachel waved to me.

I watched them as they walked away.

When the cricket ended, Brenda and Susie packed up the
glasses and what was left of the picnic and we started back to
where the cars were parked. Brenda and I finished up side by
side, a little behind the others.

'Nice way to spend an afternoon,' I said.

'Yes. Kind of English, don't you think? Village green and
all that stuff.'

'Yes,' I said. 'Guess that's right.' There were scenes like that
in TV shows, only in some of those programmes the peace
just hides the nasties going on underneath. A murder in every
cottage.

'What are you doing this evening?' Brenda asked.

'Don't know.'

'Would you like to come over for dinner?'

I was going to say no — I should have — but my brain got
it wrong somehow. 'Thanks,' I said. 'That'd be nice.'

'About seven. At the café.'

***

BACK HOME I turned on my mobile but there was nothing
left in the battery. I plugged it into the charger and got the two
numbers out of it. Then I checked them in the LTSA database.
Like I thought, the Hiace was registered to Richard Avery
Parline, 29 Church Street, Te Kohuna, and the Mitsubishi
Delica to Wayne Wyett, 16 Ramp Street.

It was four o'clock by then. I went out and did some
gardening for an hour: picked the tomatoes that were ripe and
got a couple of lettuces. There were a few small caterpillars on
the cabbages so I puffed some derris dust over them. Then I
did some general hoeing and weeding. Afterwards I took a
shower, dressed myself up in what was sharp gear for me: dark
wool trousers and a navy blue shirt. I thought of putting on a
tie but figured that would be going too far.

At quarter to six I strolled down to the service station and
relieved Pita. He had had a good day. There was a couple of
hundred cash in the till and over a thousand had gone through
on eftpos and credit cards. I gave him an extra twenty and he
was as pleased as.

'Going somewhere?' he asked, waving a finger at my gear.

'Got a date,' I said. It felt a weird thing to say but I guess it
had to be true. What the hell was I doing going on a date?

'Have fun. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.' He laughed.
'That'd leave you pretty free, eh.'

I put the money in the floor safe and locked the cupboard.
On the table was a pad of paper with the top pages folded
back. For some reason I started looking at it, flicking the
pages. On the second page was Gith's drawing, the earlier one
of the face. And then I saw it — the thing I'd been too dumb
to see before. This picture was different from the one she'd
done later, on the day of the show. That one had no hair. This
one had a row of little standy-up spikes. Between picking up
Anneke Hesse and grabbing Gith at the show, the bloke had
shaved his head. And that put me in mind straight away of
Wayne Wyett.

I set the alarm and locked up. Then I strolled back to the
house and stood in the quiet there. I felt excited or scared, it
was hard to tell which. I started to walk about from one room
to another. The kitchen, the back verandah, the living room,
down the hallway to the bathroom and the two bedrooms. I
stood in the doorway of Gith's room. It was neat as, the narrow
bed made, with a red cushion on the pillow, a photograph of
her with her parents in a frame on the little dresser, a poster of
Danica Patrick on the wall. I felt weird looking at it. It seemed
like a room in a picture book. I thought of the tragedy and
pain that was Gith's life and that had become mine. Suddenly
I felt real lonely. It was almost like she was dead too, I missed
her so much.

I turned away, walked back through the house and out onto
the verandah, sat there for a while watching the beginnings
of the sunset, the lightening of the sky along the curve of
Bobrown Hill and the ridge beyond it, the change from blue
to green to yellow and orange. Too much to think about. Had
Wyett taken Anneke to the place in Ramp Street? Nobody
down there would ask questions. But wouldn't she have
worked out what was happening and made a fuss? He couldn't
have driven from our place to his without her knowing that
she was in trouble. She wanted to go north, not south. And
the same was true of the house on Katawai Road.

Around seven I left. There were still three kids outside the
takeaway.

'Don't you have homes to go to?' I asked them.

'Yo, Fat Man,' one of them said. It was a girl, maybe twelve
years old. Long straggly dark hair and big brown eyes.

'You should be home,' I said. 'It's not safe out here.
Especially this time of night.'

She laughed. White teeth.

I turned away. Not much I could do except yell at them,
and I figured they would just laugh if I did that. They laughed
anyway. I thought of calling Hemi but my mobile was back
home, still on the charger.

I walked the length of Main Street to the Arms and went
into the bottlestore. The chiller was full of beer mostly, but
there was one section with bottles of wine. I looked through
the glass at the labels. Lofty Gunning came out from the
back.

'You right, mate?' he asked.

'Wine,' I said. 'It's a bit beyond me.'

'Is it white you're after?'

'Guess so.'

'The ladies generally prefer white,' he said, like he knew
something. I guess I wasn't that hard to read.

'What sort, though?'

'You could go a bubbly,' he said. 'That's always safe.
Although my missus likes that riesling.' He waved his finger
in the general direction of the chiller. 'She reckons it's a bit
sweeter than the others.'

'All right.' I opened the door and pulled one out. He stuck
it in a brown paper bag for me and I paid for it.

Outside, I crossed the road and headed back the way I
had come. I stopped for a second outside the café and looked
towards Maungaiti Road. The kids were still there. A couple
of them were pulling at one another in some sort of play fight.
Maybe I could call Hemi on Brenda's phone, I thought. I
turned away, knocked on the café door. The main room was
dark but there was a light on out the back. Brenda's shadow
moved over the pane of glass and then she turned the lock.
The door swung open.

'Come in.' She was dressed in black, a long skirt and a tight
top. It had a squared-off neckline that showed most of her
breasts. They were big and high and, as she stepped back to
let me in, they seemed to roll around in whatever was holding
them up. She was smiling too.

I gave her the wine. She didn't bother looking at it but
waved for me to follow her, through the door into the kitchen.
I walked behind her. I couldn't help watching her move. She
was wearing a nice perfume. Slowly, though, as we passed
through the kitchen, the scent was overtaken by cooking
smells. There were pots on the stove and bowls and things on
the benches.