Gith (5 page)

***

I MADE A mistake talking to Pansy Cleat. Somehow she
got it into her head that I was going to give Billy a job. He
turned up later that Thursday, on foot. I'd just finished serving
a customer when he shuffled up to the shop doorway and
hovered there, trying to make up his mind if he should be in
or out.

'Yes?' I said.

He looked over his shoulder like he was scared somebody
was going to jump him. Then he looked back at me, took a
step forward.

'Gidday,' he said. 'Mr McUrran. Sir.' He was a skinny bloke,
wearing clothes that were too big for him: a pair of baggy
jeans, a shirt that might once have been white, a brownish
nylon jacket. He was younger than me but he was kind of
haggard. He had straight brown hair like his mother's, and
the same sort of thin, caved-in face. His eyes were different
though. They were big and brown and looked like he was
going to start blubbing any second.

'My name's Billy Cleat,' he said, staring somewhere around
my left shoulder.

'I know,' I said. 'Hi.'

'My mum said you might give me a job. Sir.'

Piss off, I wanted to say, but it was hard with those damp
brown eyes. I felt I had to let him down gently. 'You any good
with cars?' I figured I knew the answer, given the state of
Pansy's Honda.

'Aw, yeah?'

'What've you done? Experience and so on.'

He looked down at the floor and did a little shuffle with
his feet. Then he looked at me straight, just for a second. It
was a helpless look, like he was begging me for something. I
figured I had to put him out of his misery.

'We don't have anything right now,' I said.

'Oh.' Then suddenly his eyes shifted. A blue Peugeot had
drawn up on the forecourt and a young woman was getting
out of it. She was slim and blonde and wearing a pink blouse
and close-fitting black pants. An out-of-towner. Billy was
staring at her with his mouth open. Slowly, the tip of his
tongue drew a circle over his lips.

'We don't have anything right now,' I said again, louder this
time. 'Okay?'

He nodded. 'Sure, sure.' He looked at me like he was
scared.

I moved round the counter and out towards the door. The
woman was standing by the car waiting to be served.

'So bugger off,' I told him over my shoulder.

Did she hear me? No. I smiled at her and she smiled back.
I could feel Billy behind me shuffling away from us. She
looked at him and then at me.

'Fill it up, please.'

'Yes, ma'am.'

She turned away from me and looked out over the road
towards the bus shelter and the trees on the boundary of the
Domain.

I set the pump going and then started to wash the Peugeot's
windscreen. I could still see Billy. He was down by Kath and
Len's place now, moving with a half-sideways kind of walk
like he was fighting through a crowd. I felt weird watching
him go. Part of me felt sorry for him. He seemed so hurt and
bashed around. On the other hand, I sure as hell didn't want
him anywhere near Gith. Or any other woman I knew, for
that matter.

BY THE TIME Monty got back, Gith had finished with the
ute.

'What did you do to it?' I asked her.

'Withgat,' she said. It sounded kind of like 'waistcoat' but I
knew what she meant.

'Wastegate on the turbo,' I told Monty. 'Stuck in open.'
Gith nodded. 'If it'd been stuck in closed you could have had
serious trouble. Blow your whole engine, that can.'

'Yeah. I know.'

I charged him thirty bucks. Mate's rates.

'You on for a beer later?' he asked me. Monty's wife had left
him a couple of years back and these days he spent most of his
evenings in the pub.

'Not sure. Maybe. A few things to do here first.'

'Thanks for this.' He winked at Gith.

'Take it for a run before you thank us,' I said.

We usually closed at six, so from about five-thirty it was
packing-up time. We tidied the workshop and rolled Jack
Henare's Cortina further in so we could shut the doors. The
car had been with us since the day before, waiting for a clutch
plate to come over from Parts-4-U. Jack was an easy-going
sort of bloke but I could see him getting a bit pissed off if
something didn't happen soon. I called up to see what the
story was and got shunted around between the supplier and
the courier so I gave them both a bollocking. Then I went into
the shop and cashed up, locked the money in our floor safe,
which was in a cupboard off the back room.

Gith was drinking a mug of tea and staring at the list I'd
pinned to the corkboard. She looked at me, wanting to know
what it was.

'Van owners,' I said.

She reached up pulled the pin out, took the list to the table.
The pen and pad were still there from the time we talked to
those two cops. Gith bent over the list with the pen in her
hand. Slowly, she started to cross names out. There were three
left when she'd finished: Rick Parline, Colin George and 'the
bloke in Ramp Street'.

'You know all the others?'

'Gith.'

'Could be anybody, anywhere,' I said. 'Could be somebody
who never comes in here.'

'Na-narg.' She made a waving move with her right hand.

'He does come in here?'

'Gith.'

'But you don't know his name?'

'Narg.'

'He gets repairs done?'

'Narg.'

'Just gas, then.'

'Gith.'

'How often?'

She shrugged. Don't know.

'Every week?'

'Nar.'

'Every month.'

'Nar.' She made her so-so move. Maybe not.

'He doesn't buy all his gas from us, then.'

'Nar.'

Right, I thought. The three blokes on the list all fit that
description.

Gith had the pen and paper again and was drawing. A face.

The same cartoon face she'd done for the two cops. It looked
like this.

It meant nothing to me. It certainly didn't remind me of any
of the blokes on the list, but I didn't like to say so. I knew how
upset she could get if she wasn't getting through.

'That's good,' I said.

She looked at me. She didn't believe me, I could tell. And
suddenly she was waving me away, making flapping moves
with the back of her hand like the tail of a fish.

'Go,' she said. 'Go.'

'What?' I didn't get it.

'Go. Pup.' She raised her hand like she was drinking and
followed it with her finger yapping.

'Maybe I don't want to go to the pub.'

The same flapping move, bigger this time. The look on her
face was one I hadn't seen before. It wasn't that she was upset.
It was like she couldn't be bothered.

'What about tea?' I asked.

She rubbed her fingers together, signalling money.

'Takeaways?'

'Gith.'

'Will you be okay?'

She rolled her eyes. I was being real dumb.

***

TE KOHUNA IS not a bad place if you don't mind small
towns. The climate is a bit on the damp side, although the
summers are usually good. I guess the population is about
two thousand — small enough to know a lot of people
but not everybody. There is a school and a church, a war
memorial, a library and a pub, and, along the main drag, a
string of shops and other little businesses, with a few houses
still dotted among them. There was an accountant but not a
lawyer, a vet but not a doctor. There was even a bloke who
fixed computers. I'm not sure how he made a living. A lot
of people commuted to Katawai, about thirty k south, where
there was a freezing works and a fertiliser factory. A few
more went to Tapanahu, fifty k to the north, but other than
that the rest worked locally — those who had jobs, that is.
A good number were contractors or casual labourers for the
local farms: doing fencing or mustering or making silage or
whatever was needed at the time. A few — and Gith and I
fell into this group — got at least part of their living from
the trade passing up and down the highway. There were one
or two upmarket businesses, like Bank Antiques and Café
Allegro. There was a second-hand bookshop called Bibliotalk
and a couple of cheap eating places — the Big Asia Takeaway
and Queenie's Tearooms. There was also the pub.

The Te Kohuna Arms is on the corner of the main drag and Basingstoke
Road, on the right as you come into town from the south. It's a two-storey
building with a big tarseal car park around the back and along one side. When
I was a kid it was a pretty run-down sort of place but then Faye and Simon
Ingrest bought it and did it up. The big front lounge was back to the old
style, with frosted glass and dark polished wood and a plush-looking carpet
on the floor. There was a dining room, too, where they did the thing with
napkins and wine glasses. The most important part of the business, though
— or at least the one I reckon made the most money — was the back
bar. Faye and Simon had the good sense to leave that alone.

It was an L-shaped room and you walked into it through
a pair of narrow doors in the long wall. To your left, on the
small end wall, was a big TV screen playing Sky Sport. The
sound was always off unless there was a big game. Next to it,
in the corner, was a servery into the kitchen where you could
buy a meal. The locals said it was the same food you got in the
dining room but at half the price. Next came the bar itself,
taking up the rest of the wall opposite the door. It was maybe
eight metres long, with three sets of beer pumps and the spirit
bottles up behind. To the right, round the corner in the small
leg of the L, was the pool table.

There was nothing fancy about the back bar. The floor was
grey lino. The walls were painted cream, bare except for a few
old posters for long-gone events. The tables were made of
black tubes of metal with off-white Formica tops. They were
waist high and there were a few stools of matching height with
brown padded vinyl seats. The drink was beer, Tui for choice,
in plastic jugs, although now and again somebody would have
a go at the top shelf. It was a place where you could come in
your working clothes, a bit sweaty, and no one would care. It
was a place for blokes, pretty much. There were one or two
sheilas but they may as well have been blokes, the way they
talked. From six o'clock it was just about chocker, especially
later in the week: a mixture of blokes on their way home from
wherever they worked, and farmers who had come in at the
end of the day to catch up with one another.

I was never a regular at the Arms. Two or three times a
month was about my lot. It was partly because I'm not that
sociable and partly because I never really liked leaving Gith
alone. The pub wasn't her sort of scene. It was too noisy and
the effort of talking always pissed her off. She didn't mind me
going though. Even so, having her push me out of the house
like that made me feel a bit weird, like I was being made to
do something I didn't want to do.

It was a warm night for Te Kohuna, and standing round
the door of the back bar was the usual clutch of smokers, glass
in one hand and fag in the other. I stopped for a word or two
but the smoke got to me pretty quick and I soon went inside.
The place was even fuller than usual. There were a few faces
you didn't normally see, even that late in the week. I figured it
was because the cops were in town. All the nosy buggers had
come down from the hills to find out what was going on.

I bought myself a jug and looked for a table to join. My
usual school was Tom Kittering, Mark Morgan and Monty
Praguer. Tom and Mark were there most nights, like
Monty. I was never sure why I hung out with them. I liked
Monty well enough, and Tom was all right, except for the fact
that he spat when he talked, but Mark was a bit of a loudmouth,
and dirty-minded — a real pain in the arse at times.
I guess it was just habit that I went with them, or maybe we
were all misfits in our own different ways.

That evening I spotted them up under the TV screen
and headed off towards them. Then I stopped. Gray Tackett
was with them. I wasn't sure I wanted a session of little digs
about the Tacketts and the McUrrans. But before I could join
someone else, Monty spotted me and waved me over.

'Gidday,' I said, squeezing in beside him.

'That girl of yours is a genius,' he said.

'Give it a decent run before you say that,' I told him.

'I did. I've been to Basingstoke and back since I left you.
Went like a bloody dream.'

'What did she do?' Gray asked.

'Fixed the wastegate on the turbo,' I said.

'Is that all?' Gray sounded like anybody could have done
it.

'Must be weird living with someone who's dumb,' Tom
said.

Monty turned to him. 'She's not dumb. She's smart as a
tack.'

'No, I mean not talking.' Tom's an odd-looking bloke, tall
and thin, with not much hair and teeth like an old ewe. It was
hard to take him seriously and usually I didn't.

'Sounds pretty bloody good to me,' Mark said. 'Living with
a silent woman.'

Gray laughed but Tom didn't.

'Why's she like that, though?'

'Brain injury.' I tapped the side of my head. 'Apparently
there's something up about here that controls the talking. It
got pretty much wiped out in her case.'

'Say,' Mark said, 'is there a waiting list for that? Can I get
the missus on it?'

Gray laughed and so did Monty, which surprised me a bit.
There was a time when he was right into all the anti-woman
jokes, but since his wife shot through he seemed to have let
that go.

'Tough,' Tom said. 'Bloody tragic, really.'

'Yes.' I nodded.

Gray took a long pull at his beer, smacked his lips. 'That's
life, though, eh? You just have to get on with it.'

'True,' I answered. Nobody else said anything. They figured
Gray had a right to say something like that and they didn't.
Gray had two sons, Ray and Bobby. They were twins and a
year younger than me. Ray was normal enough but not what
you'd call sharp and sensitive. Bobby was the second one out
when they were born, and something had gone wrong that
left him with brain damage. He was slow and clumsy and
talked like a five-year-old. Gray figured that Bobby and Gith
had the same problem and that, as their guardians, he and I
had something in common. I felt sorry for Bobby but I didn't
see it that way at all.

'How's your old man?' Gray asked me.

'Okay.'

'Heard he broke his ankle.'

'Nah. Sprained it, that's all.'

'Can't take the pace, eh?'

I didn't answer.

'Must piss Bill off a bit,' Gray went on. 'Must feel like
Prince Charles — waiting for the bloody Queen to die.'

I looked at him. He grinned. He was having fun.

'Hey.' Mark was nudging Tom and pointing down the bar.
'That bloke that just came in. He'd be the cop, right?'

'Yeah. That's him. Ryan, his name is.'

'Jesus, he's not staying here, is he? I hope Faye and Simon
changed the sheets.'

Monty laughed and then he turned to Tom.

'Have they talked to you yet?'

'Why would they want to talk to me?'

'You own a white wagon, don't you?'

'Yeah? So?'

'It wasn't a wagon,' I said. 'It was a van. Gith saw it.'

'Yeah?' Mark turned to Gray. 'Then it's your Ray, mate. He's
got a white van.'

'So what? He's not the only one.'

One more for the list, I thought. I hadn't thought of Ray
Tackett. He could easily be somebody Gith didn't really know.
But then I wasn't sure. I had no time at all for Ray, but could
I really see him racing off with Anneke Hesse? And killing
her? It seemed crazy. But then, somebody did it.

'Yeah, except the cops are looking for a wagon,' Monty was
saying.

I turned to him. 'That's not right, though, eh?'

'Well . . .' He shrugged.

'You were there,' I said. 'What did you see?'

'Not sure. I think, on reflection, it might have been a
wagon.' He looked at me. 'Sorry, Ken.'

Jesus, I thought.

I didn't take much part in the talk after that. I felt kind of
out of it, like the world wasn't working right. Monty knew
he'd upset me but I guess he believed what he believed and
there was nothing he could do about it. And if Monty and
Mavis Blake were both saying it was a wagon, then it was
odds on what the cops would think.