Gith (20 page)

'Thanks,' I said.

He looked at me. 'Well, it takes all types, eh? I knew a
bloke over in Feilding was shagging his sister. I couldn't see
anything wrong with it. You know — consenting adults and
all that.'

'Right,' I said, not sure if this was the kind of support I
wanted.

Things settled down a bit. We started to talk about cars.
Mark's wife had been bugging him about the one she drove
and he was thinking about swapping it for something newer.
I told him if he wanted a smallish car, he couldn't go past
a Toyota Corolla. They weren't the most popular car in the
world for nothing. Tom had other ideas. Pretty soon we'd
forgotten about everybody else and they'd forgotten about us.
Until Ray Tackett walked in, that is.

I lost track of what the other three were saying as I watched
the blokes near the door all saying hello to him and clapping
him on the back like he was the local hero. Tackett took his
jug to his table looking pleased with himself. One of his mates
had a word in his ear. Ray said something back and looked
at me. We locked eyes for a second and he gave that nasty,
greasy grin he'd had on his face the day he talked to Gith in
the workshop. I remembered how he'd said that grabbing her
had been Wayne Wyett's idea. Yeah right, I thought.

My beer tasted sour all of a sudden.

'Listen,' I said. 'I'm off.'

'Shit, mate. You only just got here,' Mark said.

'Yeah, well. I can't stand being in the same room as that
prick Tackett.'

Monty nodded. 'I can understand that.'

'And I'm not coming back,' I said. 'If bloody Simon won't
ban me, I'll ban myself. So if you blokes feel like a beer
sometime, come round to my place.'

I walked home along Main Street past Brenda's boarded-up
window. The kids were there as usual, hanging around the Big Asia Takeaway.
They stared at me like they were in on it too but they said nothing.

Gith was sitting on the sofa watching TV. Next to her,
leaning against the arm, with its butt on the floor, was the
rifle.

'Christ!' I said, grabbing it. It was loaded but the safety
catch was on. 'Did anything happen?'

She shook her head. Then she lifted her hands like she was
pointing the thing.

'Pag!' she said.

'You've been using it?' I sniffed the breech. Yes.

'Practith,' she said.

'Jesus, Gith, please! Where did you go?'

She waved her hand in the direction of the back of the
house.

'Out in the paddock?'

'Gith.'

'You can't fire these things around houses. You'll get
arrested.'

'Houth. Narg. Can.' She lifted her hands again. 'Pag!
Ping!'

'Look,' I said. 'You don't have to be scared. I'm not going
out to the pub any more. Fuck those bastards.'

What I wanted to say was fuck the whole town. Maybe it
was at that point that I knew I wanted to leave.

***

THAT TUESDAY I went to Katawai while Gith stayed
behind with Pita.

I angle-parked the Surf in the main street and went to the
bank. Then I took a stroll down to the Toyota dealership on
the corner of Ward Street to check on the prices of their new
models and figure out what sort of trade-in they might give
us. Not enough, it turned out. Walking back to the Surf took
me past Hunters and Game and that made me think about
the rifle. How much ammunition had Gith used in her target
practice? Maybe we needed more.

The shop was small and full of racks of clothing, a row of
fishing rods up on one wall and, behind the counter, guns
locked away in a cabinet with iron bars between them and the
glass. There was one other customer, standing at the counter
with his back to me. It took me half a minute to see it was
Wayne Wyett.

I got out of there fast, stood outside on the pavement for a
second, looking up and down the street. The Surf was about
ten metres to my right. To my left, about three metres away,
was the white Mitsubishi van. I went back to the Surf and got
in. After a few minutes Wyett came out and went straight to
the van. I started up and backed out when he did. I was four
or five cars behind him but the Surf rides pretty high so it
was easy to keep him in sight. He turned left into Mangatiki
Street and then into Ridge Line Road. I kept a good safe
distance. Ahead of us on the skyline was the big ugly brown
block of the freezing works. After three or four minutes
Wyett turned into Stock Road. I let the gap between us grow
bigger. Had he seen me?

We were out of the commercial area now. On either side of
the road were houses, tatty old boxes on small sections, built
in the twenties or thirties for workers on the railway. Wyett
was eighty or so metres ahead of me, about halfway down
Stock Road, when he pulled over. Should I stop right away?
Before I could figure it I was just too close. I kept on going,
past him and on down the hill. In my rear-view mirror I saw
him getting out of the van and walking in my direction. There
was a side street on my right so I pulled into it, looked back
up the road. Wyett had gone. Into a house, I guessed. I turned
and headed back the way I'd come. I parked where I could
see the van up ahead of me on the opposite side. I wasn't sure
which house he'd gone into. They were all below the road on
that side, not even letterboxes or fences showing. What now?
Wait, I thought. Just wait and see. I turned on the radio, Solid
Gold. I was too wound up to take much notice.

After half an hour I called Pita and asked him if he was
okay to stay on longer. He was fine so I got him to put Gith
on the line.

'Gith,' she said.

'Hi, sweetheart. Are you okay?'

'Gith.'

'Look, I've got caught up here in Katawai. I might be a
little while. Is that okay?'

She didn't answer for a second. 'Gith,' she said. When
we're on the phone it's hard for me to pick what she's feeling
because you get so little to work on.

'I'll be quick as,' I said. 'Promise.'

'Gith.'

'I love you,' I said after a second or two.

'Gith.'

'See you then.'

She hung up. My first thought was to just leave Wyett to it
and go straight back home, but then I thought, no, this was a
chance to learn something. I figured I'd give it an hour.

Why had I followed him? If you had asked me, I couldn't
have said. I guess I just wanted to get one over on him and
Tackett because of what they had done to Gith. That, plus I
still had a feeling they were somehow mixed up in the Anneke
Hesse case. Or one of them was. I just couldn't get it out of
my head that one of the blokes on my list knew something
about what had happened to her. Wyett or Tackett or George
or Parline. I remembered talking to Parline at the Domain.
I thought about his wife's black eye and the empty house in
Katawai Road. Something about all that gave me a creepy
feeling. It reminded me again of the day Gith and I had gone
up to the lake.

In the end I waited an hour fifteen. I was well past the
news and the sports news and into a talkback slot about global
warming. By then I was starting to feel dumb for still being
there. I was just reaching for the ignition key when I saw
Wyett walking towards his van. Follow him? No, I thought. I
want to find out where he's been. I lay down across the seats
so he wouldn't spot me; stayed there for three or four minutes.
When I sat up again his van was gone.

The house he had come from was number 103. It had a
concrete path from the road down to the gate, and a garden
that had nothing but grass that needed cutting. The roof was
grey corrugated iron, the walls cream-coloured weatherboards
with green trim round the windows. Not well kept but not a
mess either. I walked down the path and onto the wooden
porch, trying to think of a story, something I could say. That
I was a friend of Wyett's? But what then? It was mad to even
be here but somehow I couldn't stop myself.

I rang the bell. It ding-donged a fair way off inside the
house. After maybe half a minute the door opened. It was
a woman, short and round, with straight grey hair. Just for
a second she reminded me of somebody but I couldn't think
who. Was it Pansy Cleat?

'Yes?' She looked up at me, a little frown on her face. Her
eyes were weird, like they weren't working right.

Suddenly my story about being Wyett's friend just sounded
nuts. I had nothing to say except, 'Er . . . good morning.'

'Are you a customer?' she asked. 'I'm not sure you've been
here before.'

'Er, yes,' I said. It seemed the best answer. 'I'm a friend of
Wayne's.' I had nothing else.

'Oh Christ,' she said, shaking her head. 'Well, you better
come in then.' She swung the door wider.

I stepped into a narrow hallway, made narrower by a row of
coats hanging on hooks.

'You've just missed him,' she said.

'I know. That's okay.'

The woman pointed to a half-open door on my left. 'Wait
in there and I'll just see,' she told me.

It was a living room: a three-piece suite and a TV, not much
else except a half-size rugby ball. The TV was on. A woman
with blonde hair was giving a cooking demo. On the arm of
one of the chairs was a ball of dark blue wool stuck through
with a pair of knitting needles. From somewhere down the hall
I heard a voice, half shouting. I couldn't make out the words.

In a minute or so the woman was back. She walked straight
past me and sat down in the chair where the knitting was. It
seemed a weird place to sit because the TV was to her right
and she was facing the bright square of the window.

She shook her head again. 'You can try your luck,' she said.
'Not sure you'll get very far.' She picked up the wool and the
needles without looking at them, her stare still fixed on the
window. I saw then that she was blind, or close to it.

'Along the hall, second right,' she said.

Why not? I thought.

The door was ajar and the light inside was dim, like the
curtains were closed. I wasn't sure what to do so I tapped on
the wood. It was three or four seconds before a woman's voice
said, 'Okay.'

She was sitting on the edge of a big bed, wearing nothing
but a long lacy black thing, like a coat or a dressing gown,
except that you could see through it. There was a big rip down
one side, showing even more of her pale, yellowish skin. Dark
hair and dark slanty eyes.

'Okay, lover,' she said and stood up slowly — she had to
steady herself to get fully upright. She was small, her face
wide at the forehead but curving round to a little pointed
chin, small pouty lips. Big dark eyes that looked far, far away.

'You big boy,' she said, blinking slowly. 'You got big cock,
eh?'

Then she wobbled and gave a little laugh. 'Ooops!' She
sat down again on the bed, her hands folded in her lap. For
several seconds she didn't move, just stared in front of her.

'You all right?' I asked.

She didn't answer, just kept on staring. Then slowly a big
smile spread over her face.

'I good,' she said, still looking into the distance. 'I feel real
good. Happy girl.' Slowly, her head swung round, her eyes
lifted to mine. 'You want pussy? Pussy sore. No pussy. You
want cock suck, eh? I cock suck real good.' Then she laughed
and started to sway. 'Whoooo!' she said and fell backwards
onto the bed, her arms and legs every which way.

I turned to go but it didn't seem right leaving her splayed
out like that. I lifted her legs up and laid her on the bed,
untucked the sheet and covered her the best I could.

I went back to the living room. The old lady was still
staring at the window with the TV going beside her. She
didn't hear me at first but then I must have made some move
that she picked up. She put her knitting down on the arm of
the chair.

'Over there,' she said, waving me further into the room. 'In
front of the window where I can see you.'

I did as I was told.

'Don't suppose she was much use to you, was she?' she
said.

'No.'

'It'll still cost you twenty. Time's money.'

'What's wrong with her?' I asked, taking out my wallet.

'Your bloody friend Wayne is what. He goes so long he
hurts her and then he fills her up with something and she's
away with the fairies. She'll be gone for hours now, and at
three thirty the boy comes home from school and that's it for
the day. Christ, I don't know.' She took the money, lifted it to
her nose to sniff it. Then she stuffed it into the pocket in her
shirt on the slope of her bosom.

'Who is she?' I asked.

'Who is she? What is she? She's a slut, that's what she is.

Mind you, she doesn't have much option. She's got no other
way of keeping food on the table now that prick's left her.
Left her on my hands, mind you. With that sprog of theirs
into the bargain.' Her brows twisted into a frown. Her eyes
seemed more staring than ever. She was angry. 'It's not like
I've got anything, have I? Blind as a bloody bat. I mean, what
assets have I got? No one's going to pay good money for my
twat, are they? At least she's got that going for her. What's
your name?'

The question came so out of the blue that it threw me.

'Er, Rick,' I said. 'Rick Parline.'

'Rick? You're Rick?' Her eyes opened wider, like she didn't
believe me. 'You're not supposed to be here till next week.'

'This week,' I said, wondering what the hell was going on.

'Bloody hell! Well, the packet's in the kitchen. The cupboard
over the fridge.'

I didn't know what to do.

'Go on!' She almost shouted it. 'I don't want it. I don't want
it anywhere near this place.'

I left her there, walked down the hall. The kitchen was
clean and tidy; a teapot and a cup and saucer stood on the
bench beside the sink. I opened the cupboard above the
fridge. There was a square packet wrapped in brown paper
stuck down with cellotape. I lifted it out. It weighed maybe a
kilo and a half. No markings on it except a small K in black
felt tip in the top right-hand corner.