Opportunity (20 page)

I denied it. We had a row. I said, 'No one's closer than Dad
and Tim. You don't know them.'

'He's rude, though, Tim. He wants people to know he's in
charge. And what a redneck he is.'

'You're rude!' I said.

But it had been a deadly evening — if ever the conversation
had promised to get interesting Tim and Alison had grimly
dragged it back to their staple subjects: appliances (the best
TV or Playstation or stereo), property (house prices) or
immigration (how foreigners threaten all this). And Tim did
have a new air about him, as though, having been little brother
for so long, he was enjoying an expansion of his powers. He'd
been fierce and loud, almost shouting, about the importance
of 'family', for example. He'd seemed to direct his tirade at
Emily, who was smiling insultingly across the table at him.
And it was true, he had seemed to jerk his head at Dad when
Dad was hesitating in the hall . . .

I dropped Emily off at her flat, refusing her invitation to
come in. She tried a few sly persuasions but I froze her off. I
thought about Tim and felt uneasy.

I got over sulking after a few days. I asked Emily to move
into my flat, and then a couple of months later we raised a
deposit and bought a small house in Ponsonby. We were
heavily mortgaged. Neither of us earned much yet. But the
good thing was that Dad and Tim stopped nagging me about
throwing my money away on rent.

One day Dad rang and said, 'Tim's talking about selling the
bach.'

I laughed. 'That's a good one.'

There was an odd silence.

My stomach started to feel rough. 'He's not serious?'

Dad said slowly, 'Tim says it's worth a lot of money. Rising
property values . . .'

'It's worth practically nothing. And he doesn't
need
money.
He's loaded. You don't want to sell it, do you?'

'Tim's very sensible about these things,' Dad said.

'You don't want to sell it, do you?' I repeated.

'I want to be buried with your mother,' he said in a neutral
voice.

I was at the supermarket when I got a message on my
cellphone. Tim's voice played back, rugged, brisk: 'We need to
meet and talk about selling this . . . house.'

This house. As though it were any old house, instead of our
family bach, where our mother was buried. It was the tone
Tim used when he said, 'Someone's got to make the hard
decisions.'

I was furious. I went to see him. He was pumped up,
important. He told me he could get a good price. 'There's
money to be made,' he said.

'I don't want money. I want to keep the place.'

'You can be sentimental. But someone's got to make the
hard . . .'

I cut him off. 'You and Alison are rich. What do you need
the money for?'

He lost his temper. 'I don't have to tell you how I use my
money!'

I appealed to Dad. But he wouldn't say anything. He sat on
the window seat, leaning his head against the wall. He looked
old and furtive and unhappy. He needed Tim.

I threw myself on Tim's mercy. I begged. I reminded him
our mother was buried there, and that Emily and I spent our
holidays there. I said I couldn't believe Dad really wanted
this.

Tim made a little speech. He was sorry he had to be the
strong-minded one, the one to make the realistic financial
calls. He reminded me that I had never had a serious attitude
when it came to money. I listened to him, to the tone of his
voice. I'd always been stronger, effortlessly cleverer than he
was. Now he was forcing his will upon me. He knew I couldn't
stop him. He sounded positively exhilarated. Behind him my
father sat silent, leaning his head against the wall.

I said, 'Where will I go for my holidays?'

He smiled. 'Ali and I like Fiji.'

I stood up in a fury. 'You're not selling it.'

He stepped back. 'Ali and I have seen a solicitor,' he said,
blinking rapidly. 'Our name is on the title, yours and mine.
I've been advised that I can force you to sell.'

I shouted, 'Your name's on the title as a
tax dodge.
You've
got a legal right, but you've got no
moral
right. It's Dad's bach.
You can't demand your inheritance before Dad's dead. Dad!'
I turned to him.

He put out his hands. 'It's between you two,' he said. His
fingers shook. He wouldn't say anything against Tim.

'If I ever have kids I want to show them the old places, take
them to Mum's grave. You're supposed to care about "the
family".'

He snapped nastily: 'You look after your kids and I'll look
after mine.'

It was hopeless.

'You won't do it,' I said.

Tim smiled angrily. He shot a triumphant glance at Dad.

'I'm sorry,' he said.

I couldn't afford to buy Tim out. The bach was sold. It
wasn't worth much. Tim and Alison took winter holidays in
Fiji, and rented houses in summer. In the holidays Emily and
I couldn't decide where to go. We booked motels in some
spots, but they made me feel empty and rootless and I didn't
like them much. My mother's grave was abandoned. Dad
didn't get to visit it again. His eyesight was too bad for him to
drive himself.

Tim started driving a new sports car. He and Alison bought
a big house with a pool. They sent their kids to expensive
private schools. The tiny bit of profit they got from the bach
sale was swallowed up, meaninglessly, in the vast swirl of
money they made themselves. Selling it had been a gratuitous
act, without any financial rationale. But perhaps, for Tim, it
wasn't just about the money, but more to do with something
he'd inherited from Ted and Barry — the quality I thought I'd
seen running like a current between them, and that I'd thought
of as the will to power.

Dad wouldn't let me go off about it. He said, 'Everyone's got
their own opinion.' And 'Tim's very steady about money.'

He still spent a lot of time with Tim, and if he had any
thoughts he kept them to himself. It must have hurt him that
he couldn't visit his wife's grave. But he was old. He had to
look after himself.

I refused to have anything to do with Tim, and avoided our
extended family for fear of meeting him. Dad grumbled about
it, but he didn't go so far as to try to persuade me to see Tim.
He realised that would be useless.

Emily and I decided to get married. We had the wedding in
the church, and I invited the whole family except Tim and
Alison. After the ceremony we walked outside and I was
shocked to see Tim standing near the door, greeting people as
if he'd been invited.

I said to Dad, 'What's he doing here?'

'I asked him to come. Say a word to him. Go on.' Dad
looked sly, moist-eyed.

'No,' I said. I watched Tim shake hands, smile, 'share' with
an admiring group of uncles and aunts.

I was angry, but I tried to put him out of my mind, for
Emily's sake. We went to Dad's house, where the reception
was to be held. There was catered food and hired waiters and
it all looked very nice. Emily was bursting with excitement
and good humour. Tim was nowhere to be seen. I cheered up
and started enjoying the party.

Then I turned and Tim was walking towards me.

'Dad,' I said, 'tell him to go away.'

'Son, son,' he said, shocked, censorious, laying his hand on
my arm.

Tim was followed by a crowd of admirers — aunts, uncles
and cousins I hadn't seen for years. He was holding a glass of
champagne high as he threaded through the crowd, and the
relatives swooped along behind him, chattering excitedly: the
common folk following the charming prince. He arrived; the
group packed around him. He was buoyed up by the wine and
the adoring looks of his aunts and girl cousins. He was wearing
a glamorous tailored suit and a bright, stylish tie. His cheeks
were flushed, his eyes shone and his forehead was speckled
with sweat. He stopped in front of me and tilted his face
challengingly. He had never looked so handsome.

He turned and raised his glass. 'To my brother,' he said. He
put on his church face: self-righteous, stupid, intransigent.

The group raised their glasses for the toast. Then Tim took
the arm of one of the blushing girl cousins and made a little
speech.

'Many of you haven't seen my brother for a long time. He's
been busy. He's probably been living it up!' He winked.
'Anyway, let's drink to his health.'

Then he added, with a flourish, to a ripple of laughter and
applause, 'We welcome home . . . the Prodigal Son!'

I turned on my heel and pushed between the murmuring,
bright-eyed women, their faces glowing, it seemed to me,
with enjoyment and malice.

In the kitchen, later, my rage was starting to subside. I felt
weary, cynical.

Dad came in. He stood, twirling an empty wineglass.

I laughed quietly. 'Oh, that's rich,' I said. 'The Prodigal
Son . . . That's good. I didn't think the idiot had it in him, to
make a joke like that.'

Dad didn't say anything.

I said, 'He demands his inheritance before you've died. He
takes it and squanders it on sports cars and swimming pools.
He comes to my wedding and you give him the fatted beef
sausages, and tell me to welcome him and to forgive. And he
calls
me
the Prodigal Son. Oh, it's very good.'

My father eyed me steadily. His cheek twitched.

I leaned close to him and said savagely, 'I say
he's
the
Prodigal Son. But he hasn't repented. He's grasping, stupid,
cold . . .'

Dad shook his head.

I struggled against myself. I wanted to get control, to go
outside to Emily. I said, '
You
made him worship money! You
told him he was more "good" than other people. And he was
too stupid . . . he wasn't bright enough to see when he wasn't
being good but bad! He takes your property and sells it, shouts
at you, orders you around. He talks down to you, even though
you've got twice the brains. You were right about one thing:
you reap what you sow. You've reaped that . . . that fraud.' I
gestured towards the garden.

Dad kept his face fixed in a sententious smile. 'My place is
not to judge,' he said.

I said, 'You only forgive him because you have to. It's not
Christian charity or virtue; it's pure animal need. You don't
dare
fall out with him. If only you'd admit it, if only you'd stop
your platitudes and your stories and talk about things as they
really are.'

'Animal need! He's my son. I love him. What do you
know?'

I laughed coldly. 'Your Prodigal Son.'

'The Prodigal Son is a parable,' Dad began in a smothered
voice. He was holding on to the back of a chair. 'It tells us a
story of forgiveness and redemption. The Prodigal Son
returns, repentant, and the father rejoices, for we must
forgive . . .'

'It's all a myth,' I said. 'All of it. The Bible. The parables. Tim's
as repentant as a snake. And your forgiveness is . . . need.'

Dad struggled to keep his composure.

'Did any of your Christianity make Tim good? No!'

We were silent, looking at each other.

'God is a myth,' I said.

I felt light-headed suddenly. I couldn't talk to him any
more. Sooner or later he would try to tell me a 'little story',
and I'd realised, long ago, that his stories were as much about
avoiding truths as confronting them.

I left him standing there, old and silent, staring out into the
garden, and I went in search of Emily.

I was sitting in the car; the radio was playing a song. I was
looking at where a lane runs off the main road. The lane
lay ahead of me, a long narrow stretch, with a high bank
overgrown with agapanthus on one side and houses on the
other. The song played loud. There was no other sound. An
old woman came out of a driveway, carrying a shopping
bag. She started to walk away from me down the lane. There
was a yellow line painted on the lane. She walked along it. I
watched her going steadily away. The lane, the yellow line, the
old woman's bent shoulders. A girl came out of the bushes
on the bank and jumped down onto the lane, landing in a
crouch, righting herself in a quick athletic whirl of limbs; the
old woman, startled, still walking, turned her whole body,
shoulders hunched, head sideways, to look at the girl, then
kept walking away. The music played. The girl went into a
house. There was a bend in the lane. The old woman reached
the bend and was gone.

Sun on the asphalt. Figures in the distance. The absence of
words. The old woman making her way, the whirling girl. The
empty lane, the yellow line, the song.

Rob came out of the house, loaded up with bags. 'What's
wrong? What? Why don't you help me? See what I've got here.
Everything we need! Everything.'

He opened the boot and packed in the gear, tossing a couple
of bags on the back seat.

'You relax! Enjoy the drive. This is going to be good. It won't
take long to get there. What a beautiful day. Look at the sky!'

We never had children. I always thought there would be
time.

'All set?'

Rob got in. He rubbed my shoulder, shook the hair out of
his eyes, glanced in the back seat, briskly checking. He saw the
newspaper in my lap. The black headline:
Released to Attack
Again
.

His expression changed. He went solemn. He put his arms
around me.

'Oh, darling. Don't read it. Don't think about it. Look,
there's dear old Osama at the window waving goodbye!'

My dog's name was Robbie, but Rob called him Osama bin
Laden because he was such a villain of an animal, and because
he said I couldn't possibly have a dog with his name. Robbie
was barking at the window. My housekeeper would feed and
walk him while we were away. I didn't feel bad about leaving
him. He was really Raymond's dog.

Rob took the newspaper off my lap and folded it. 'Don't
think about anything. No work, no sorrows, just holiday.'

I smiled. 'Okay.'

Everyone said Rob was a lovely man. I met him after a
Francis family meeting in Wellington. He was a barrister, a
QC. He was divorced, the father of three boys. It was six
months since Raymond had left me.

I had been staying at work until late, coming home to the
dog and the empty house, sleeping in the study on the top
floor because I felt afraid, waking in the night, listening to the
whirr of the pool pump and the dog snoring on the floor, and
feeling stunned with loneliness. Grief started to feel like fear.
I was jumpy. There was an odd side-effect to my rawness: I felt
as if every part of me was reaching out for sex. I was washed
out, nervous, tired, but I felt I was radiating
need
and that
people — men — were responding. The world was suddenly
full of sexual currents, looks, glances.

I was glad to go to the Francis meeting because it meant I
could stay in a good hotel and forget myself a bit. The meeting
was routine, the usual thrashing-out of issues to do with
distribution of the family wealth. I went back to the hotel on
the second night and Rob was in the bar. He'd been appearing
in the Court of Appeal. He was tall, shabbily dressed, with
alert, humorous eyes and messy, wavy hair that fell across his
forehead. We started talking. He knew who I was, and that I
worked in an arm of the Francis Group of companies. He told
me a lot about himself. He was humble and funny. His wife
had left him. Had 'despaired' of him, he confessed with a
rueful laugh. 'She was terribly respectable. She didn't approve
of my cigars or my old car or my messy clothes — or anything,
really. She stuck it out for decades. Then she went off with a
chap, a hugely wealthy
corpse
. She met him at tennis.'

We laughed. We drank a fair bit and I told him I lived alone.
At the end of the evening he took my hand and held it hard,
and I said something, some cliché about not wanting to spend
the night alone.

Afterwards I lay in the hotel dark looking out at the city
lights with the feeling that I was utterly lost and that Rob —
this stranger beside me — was the only point of reference I
had.

We parted casually, but when we were both back in
Auckland he started ringing me, and it wasn't long before we
were going out together.

I looked at the dog scrabbling along the window. 'You can't
have a dog and a boyfriend with the same name!' Rob had
said. Recently I was a wife — newspapers called us a 'high-achieving
couple'. Now I had a
boyfriend
. I turned the word
over in my mind, neutralising the protest that rose, some
convulsion of the old self that I would not regain.

Now we were driving up the harbour bridge in Rob's
elegant, battered old car, heading to Whangaparaoa. It was
summer. We had both taken a week off work. He had borrowed
his brother's yacht. We were to set sail, just the two of us.
'Nothing fancy,' he said, winking. 'We'll be at one with the
elements!' He joked about my lifestyle — my family wealth,
my job. He wasn't materialistic. He liked things to be natural,
honest, down to earth. He loved the outdoors and sailing. I
wasn't so sure about boats. But I was willing.

'Look at the sky.' I pointed.

There was an intense turquoise haze on the horizon. The
sea was navy blue and broken up by choppy waves. Over
Rangitoto Island there was a strange configuration of clouds,
like great rags hanging in the pearly-blue glare. Below it the
colour of the sea had intensified, as if there was a disturbance
spreading across the water.

Sudden changes in the light. The wind buffeting the car on
the bridge.

'Good sailing weather,' he said.

I smoothed out the paper.
Released to Attack Again
. I looked
at the picture of Chase Ihaka, the man who had ruined my
marriage.

Rob shook his head. He put his hand over the page. I took
it off, gently.

Chase Ihaka was awaiting sentence. He had been convicted
of murder. There was an old picture of him, a school photo
perhaps — a round-faced, gap-toothed Maori youth with a
shock of messy hair, smiling.

The wind hit the side of the car with a roar.

Ihaka, now aged 20, has a substantial list of criminal
convictions, having first been arrested for theft when aged just
10. In January last year, the career burglar broke into the
substantial Remuera home of prominent businesswoman Jenny
Francis and her husband, the filmmaker Raymond Wright.
Surprised on the premises by Mr Wright, Ihaka subjected him
to a beating that left Mr Wright permanently scarred. Ihaka
received a light custodial sentence and . . .

'All right, darling?' Rob said. 'I'll put some music on.'

Released into the community only five months after his
conviction for attacking Mr Wright, Ihaka lived on the streets.
He had significant drug and alcohol issues, and acquired
numerous further convictions for theft, before the night when he
broke into the home of Mr Eric Crombie, owner of the Firebrand
chain of clothes shops. Mr Crombie was found beaten to death
in his kitchen. Ihaka was arrested driving Mr Crombie's car and
wearing items of Mr Crombie's clothing. He had bragged to
associates about beating Mr Crombie, and admitted the assault
when spoken to by police. During his trial, Ihaka claimed that
Mr Crombie had made sexual advances to him, and that he had
'lashed out' in reaction to this 'provocation'. The jury rejected
this claim, finding him guilty of murder.

Following his conviction, questions are being asked about
why this youth was released to attack again, only months after
being convicted of the serious assault on Raymond Wright.

Rob looked sideways, shook his head. He patted my arm.

I said, 'Journalists keep ringing. They say, "The man who
attacked your husband went on to commit murder. How do
you feel about that?" They can't understand why I don't want
to comment. But it's done. There's nothing to say.'

'Keep your answerphone on. Screen your calls.'

I remembered going to the hospital. Raymond's face. He
was badly hurt; his nose was broken. But it was his expression
that struck me most. The bewilderment, vulnerability.

It made it worse for him — my pity. His spirit was damaged.
He'd been so frightened. The youth could easily have killed
him. He became depressed. A doctor recommended we have
counselling together — a mistake, I know that now. It made
Raymond shy away from me. I was a witness to his hurt, his
shameful tears. To his fall.

I said, 'We'd done all that charity work for street kids. The
Francis Foundation, the fundraisers. Raymond did his free
film school in South Auckland. All that "reaching out".' I
laughed bitterly. 'What rubbish it was.' I looked for a
handkerchief. 'Ridiculous . . . sorry.'

'
I'm
sorry,' Rob said. 'Told you not to read it.'

He reached over for the paper and threw it hard into the
back seat. I stared at him. We drove in silence for a while.

Rob looked at me. He said in a softer voice, cautiously, 'Just
because your husband was attacked doesn't mean the charity
wasn't worth it. The Francis Foundation does good things.'

I wound my handkerchief around my fingers. I looked out, white
houses against a blue-black sky. 'It was all bullshit,' I said.

***

At Whangaparaoa I stood on the marina looking at the boats.
The wind blew hard and constant, jinking and clinking the
lines and struts; there was the sound of straining ropes, the
whine of the wind in the masts. The light was bright and the
sea was pale, turquoise, stained with patches of darker blue.

I helped Rob to load up the gear. The yacht was small and
compact, well kept, with a neat little cabin and a scrubbed
wooden deck.

'Snug, eh?' Rob said. He busied himself with ropes. I had
been on yachts but had never had anything to do with the
actual sailing. Rob sailed a lot. He knew what he was doing.

He started the motor and we chugged out of the harbour.
As soon as we hit the open water we felt the force of the wind.
Rob shouted instructions. I did what I was told. We raised the
sail. We were tacking up the channel. Boats passed us, racing
for the harbour. We were the only ones making for open sea.
I looked ahead and saw great clouds hanging ahead of us, and
then the nose of the boat dipped and I was looking at the
churning water. I felt the jolt in my stomach as we ploughed
into the wave then, rearing ahead, I saw the clouds again, like
a robed phantom with its cloak stretched out to catch us, and
I thought I could see matter whirling in the depths of the
cloud mass, a fury of agitated air, and then I was looking down
again, down into the green water, and felt the plunge in my
stomach, as if I had fallen off a cliff, and the sickening pull as
we rose.

I held the rail with both hands. I shot out a burning stream
of puke, saw it whisked away on the surface. Spray hit me,
stinging drops. I retched again, although there was nothing to
bring up but miserable strings of bile. Above me the sky
loomed like a cathedral, all points and buttresses, ragged
banners, a monstrous edifice into which we battled, up and
down, rising and plunging. We were well into the channel,
heading past the islands. The waves were getting bigger, and
the sky ahead had got much darker. The wind was ferocious.
Behind me, Rob was all action, but I was so overwhelmed by
my physical crisis that I couldn't speak. I assumed he was
trying to turn back, and that we would probably die.

I lay on my side along the rail. A green bush-covered island
rose and fell. Ropes of sunlight broke though and shone
hurtingly bright on the sea around it, a jumbled, foaming
mass of pale green. Water came over the side as we hit each
wave, showering spray. Rob had edged over to me. He was
shouting above the scream of the wind.

'Bit rougher than I thought!' He said something about the
weather forecast.

I moaned.

'Feel better?'

'Can we get back?' I said.

'We'll make for Kawau Island. No problem.'

'Let's go back,' I said, but he had gone. I felt angry at the
hyperactivity of males, why they needed to complicate
everything, drag one on elaborate adventures. But another
wave of nausea carried me away from this thought, and I was
leaning over the side again, crying my complaints into the
sea.

I don't know how long it took to make it to Kawau Island.
The wind screamed so hard that it whipped the words out of
our mouths. Rob fell over once. There was a trickle of blood
on his temple. 'It's nothing!' he shouted. His eyes were screwed
up, his hair was blown wild by the wind. His jacket billowed
behind him. I wondered how much strain the small boat
could take.

I mouthed, 'Sorry!' I meant sorry to have been so useless.

He shook his head and pointed. 'Nearly there,' he shouted.
'Hang on!'

We were passing the coast of the island, heading for the mouth
of the harbour. I looked at waves crashing onto rocks, at the dark slopes
covered with bush and pine forest. Rob pointed out the harbour mouth, a swirl
of silver water with the light shining on it, and above it a sky that was
growing intensely black. It looked as if every cloud was hurrying towards
that place, the sky gathering energy into itself. Rain was sheeting down,
and soon great squalls of it were blowing over us. We made for the harbour,
and it was like riding into the end of the world. I did cry then, with fear.
Just before we got inside the sheltering edge the sky unleashed itself, and
we were blinded with rain, ripped by wind, jerked and tossed and thrown about,
both of us shouting, every rope straining and the mast groaning. At the moment
when I thought the boat would be ripped to pieces we came about, the sail
filled with a jolt and we skimmed sickeningly over the crest of a huge swell.
I looked into the green trough and saw fish streaming through the wave. Water
slapped into my face, the boat heaved and Rob yelled. The wind slackened,
the water became calmer and the rain, although it kept pouring down, stopped
lashing our faces. We had entered the bay. I looked back at the jumble of
silver and foam and sunlight and rain, and couldn't believe we'd come through
it.