Opportunity (7 page)

I crossed the lawn. We were wearing black that day, Rania
and I. A sentimental acknowledgement (to placate the girls)
of Darlene's death the day before. Her substance issues (her
smorgasbord drug habit) had finally finished her off. All
evening I would be boredly soothing deluded clients: 'She
understood me,' they would say. 'She listened.' 'She was the
only one who cared.' I wouldn't set them straight. I wouldn't
tell them: she barely noticed you. She was out of her mind.
And if you did swim into focus, she was out of her mind with
fear.

Now I stepped up to the black car. Mr Long opened the
door. I sank into the plush seat. In the front Rania lit a goldtipped
cigarette. She angled the mirror at me and raised her
eyebrows. I smiled. Mr Long drove up the drive. The iron
gates closed with a heavy clunk on the high walls. Soft music
played. We cruised across town. At The Land of Opportunity
we got out. The three of us, Rania, Mr Long and I. In our black
sunglasses. In our mourning weeds.

There are some unsolved murders in this city, and I think
three of them are connected.

I think they were done by the same man. The first was a
woman found murdered in a city office block. In the second,
a woman walking downtown went missing and turned up
dead behind a suburban building. The third was a man found
dead at the bottom of another office block. The killer is
operating in a small area. He lives somewhere central. How
do I know this? It's instinct. I just know I'm on the right track.

I used to have lunch with my husband, Max, in the city.
We'd go to a café in the mall and there was a security guard
stationed at the entrance. He had cold blue eyes and an intent
expression. When I passed him I always had the strange fancy
that he was making a noise, a sort of low, avid exhalation, like
a beast. I thought of the noise as
ravening
. My husband didn't
have any fancies about noises, and when I described this
impression he smiled tolerantly and glazed over as usual. But
I thought, that man is a killer.

When the woman was found dead in the very same building
the man worked in as a guard, I didn't have any trouble
figuring out who was responsible. The next time we went to
the mall for lunch the place was full of cops. I don't remember
seeing the guard there again. But I did see him soon after, in
Remuera, when I was buying a cake for a big lunch party I was
having. I stared and stared. He looked up and I saw that he'd
noticed me. I was worried then, in case he realised I suspected
him. Imagine if he turned up outside my house!

A week or so later, when I was with the boys in Foodtown,
I turned around and the same man was standing right behind
me. This is the sort of thing that happens to me: I go looking
for trouble and then find I've bitten off more than I can chew.
I got a fright, but I knew what I had to do. I glanced at him in
a completely neutral way. I went on talking to the boys and
dawdling through the aisles. I thought, if I show anything, it'll
confirm that I know, and he
will
follow me to the house. The
boys had no idea what was going on, and he stopped following
after a while, and went away. It was a test of my nerve. I realised
how careful you have to be, especially when you're the mother
of young children.

I didn't see the man again, but I didn't stop thinking about
him. When I heard about the woman who'd gone missing and
turned up dead I thought
him
again. And now he's thrown
someone off a building in the city. The police haven't made
any progress, although they don't tell the public everything.
But I'm sure I'm the only one who's worked it out. It all comes
from being observant, and noticing what people are really
like.

Max only ever paid attention to things that affected him. We
had a relative who started growing a tumour behind his eye.
Each time we saw him his eye had got more prominent, until
he looked like a monster. After one lunch I said to Max, 'I'm
glad John's getting his eye seen to at last.' Max looked completely
blank. He said what was I talking about. If you don't notice a
huge eyeball you're not going to pick up the subtleties.

Max and I didn't talk much about anything, to tell the truth.
He was always too busy. I told my friends Karen and Trish
about my theories, but they laughed a lot and strayed off the
point. We ended up talking about the kids and complaining
about our schedules. Karen and Trish each had two children.
My two, Charles and Max junior, were nine and four. We'd
taken Charles out of his state primary school and sent him to
King's School. Max went to a private kindergarten.

I had to do a lot of driving, what with all the children's
activities. There was golf, cricket, swimming, piano, extra
maths, violin, gymnastics. There seemed to be a competition
at King's about who was paying the biggest fortune to turn out
the most talented kid. It struck me as a bit rude the way the
mothers went on about money. They brought it into the
conversation all the time, either explicitly or by hints. They
complained about how much they'd spent, just so you'd know
how much. That's what the school was like.

'Nothing but the best for my boy,' Max said. 'You get what
you pay for,' he said.

I shared the driving with Karen and Trish, and I supposed
it was good the boys had so many activities. My childhood
was different. I remember my mother coming home from
work and asking, 'What've you been doing?' and we always
said, 'Playing under the house.' We spent hours down there in
the dirt and cobwebs. There were no adults around. We made
huts. We pretended. We ran wild.

Sometimes, when we were driving to golf, I looked back at the
boys. They had their faces pressed against the window. I wondered what they
were thinking. I tried to talk to them but they just grunted and glowered.
I tried to keep to the speed limit. In the back the trolleys and golf bags
rattled with a cold, clinking sound.

***

Charles was playing soccer and I was standing on the sideline,
warming my hands with a takeaway coffee.

Karen said, 'And I picked up some cute ski suits from Baby
Gap?'

There was a man coming across the field. He was in jeans
and a T-shirt, although it was cold and showery. He had strong
shoulders and a nice lean body. I'd seen him somewhere
before.

'It had to be the five series. Then the Porsche Cayenne.
There's no pleasing . . .' Karen stopped. She nudged me.

The man was smiling at us. His glasses were smeared with
rain.

'Hi, Kim,' he said.

I remembered: he was Dan Weston, the father of one of
Charles's school friends.

'I had a word with the coach. Tom's changed to Charles's
team.'

'Oh
good
.'

Dan was young and good-looking. We started talking.
Karen made it obvious she thought he was pretty nice. He said
he worked in TV, some technical role. Tom was his only child.
He lived near the soccer ground, and he said why didn't we get
together after the game so Charles and Tom could play. Karen
dropped hints that she'd like to come too, but he didn't pick
up on them. She turned huffy after that. Dan smiled at me and
I thought he knew she was annoyed, and that he was sharing
a little joke with me about it. His eyes were sharp and alert. He
looked as if he noticed things about people.

I walked along with Dan after the game. Charles looked
surprised when I said we were going to Tom's, but soon the
boys were racing ahead, shouting and kicking the ball to each
other. Karen stood by her car, watching.

Dan and Tom lived in a stucco building a few streets back
from the beach. They had a small flat on the ground floor. The
sitting room was full of pot plants and the winter sun shone
directly in. There were shelves full of books. They had a yard
out the front, and a picnic table. There were some big tubs
with palms, the dirt filled with cigarette butts. The kitchen
was tiny but clean.

Dan said, 'I've only got instant coffee. Is that okay?'

It all seemed so sunny and simple; it made me feel light and
happy. I thought: why do we need all the stuff we have? There
was a ramshackle garage in the front of the yard, with a
battered car that Max wouldn't have been seen dead in. It
made me feel embarrassed, but in a rich, pleasurable way, as if
Dan had told me a family secret.

We sat at the picnic table. He had an opinion about
everything: books, politics, TV, the arts. The time went by
fast. It seemed all right to ask, 'What does Tom's mother do?'
He said they'd split up and that she'd gone home to the
Wairarapa, leaving him to bring up Tom as best he could.

He seemed so hard up I wondered how he could afford to
send Tom to King's. Straight away, as if he could read my
mind, he told me that his ex-wife's parents paid. They were
wealthy farming people. He got very serious and said he
wanted only the best for Tom, even if it meant he had to go
without things himself. He said he believed fiercely in
education, and that he wanted to make sure Tom worked
hard. He said he thought Charles would be a good influence
on Tom, because Tom was lazy, whereas Charles was a
studious, bright boy.

'Charles is tall for his age isn't he?' he said. 'Well coordinated,
too. He looks great on the soccer field.'

He got up suddenly and called out, 'Tom! Keep the noise
down!'

He explained that the other tenants were old and
complained.

When we were leaving, the boys kept kicking the ball. Dan
grabbed Tom's arm and said, 'Tom. Manners.'

'Thank you for coming,' Tom said.

On school days Dan parked his old Holden among the
expensive cars and SUVs. There was a kind of dignity about it.
He never looked embarrassed, even though some of the other
parents made jokes about his car. On sports day he stayed the
whole afternoon and sat with us on the grass. He said he
worked flexible hours so he could be around for Tom. He
stayed to watch Charles high-jumping. When Charles came
first I hugged him, and Dan did too. He'd told me he'd had a
word with the headmaster and that Tom was to move into
Charles's class. He was pleased, because he thought their
friendship was so good for Tom. There was something about
the way he said it that made me think he was pleased for his
own sake too. I blushed. Then he said, boyishly, 'So we can
spend a lot of time together.' And I blushed even more.

'You fancy him,' Karen said.

'No,' I said. But I thought about him, in his jeans and Tshirt,
waiting for Tom in the car park while the big cars purred
and throbbed by. Once I saw him and Tom having a sword
fight with long grass stalks, laughing, falling down.

'I don't like him,' Karen said. She made a spiteful face.

Tom started coming to our house after school. Afterwards
Dan picked him up and he always stopped to talk. He repeated
that he wanted Charles and Tom to be best friends; it was a
kind of refrain with him, but he made it clear he was glad for
his own reasons. He said how lucky it was that we'd got
together, two people who were interested in the same things.
He said we had the same ideas about bringing up children.
Too many people didn't really think about it, he said, and that
amounted to negligence. They spoiled their kids and let them
behave like slobs. He and I were going to have a really terrific
pair of boys, because we thought about things and knew what
mattered. He talked as if he and I had a secret pact, and the
rest of the world could do what it liked.

He was observant. He imitated the teachers: their walks,
the way they talked. He made me laugh. He said things that
I'd thought myself, privately, but hadn't had anyone to tell. I
began inviting Tom over myself, without asking Charles
whether he wanted me to.

Dan didn't approve of the boys watching TV. He liked them
to have healthy outdoor activity. He was very serious about
that. He said that Charles had such a good physique, it would
be criminal to let him sit around. We had a rope swing that
went right over the bank at the back of our garden and Dan
went down with me and the boys to have a look at it. We were
talking, and the next moment he leapt onto the swing. I
watched him flying through the air, his shirt riding up, his
legs kicking. He was a big, strong man, but sometimes he used
his body as if he was still a boy.

Dan invited Charles to their place, but Charles told me he
wouldn't go.

'Why?' I demanded.

Charles scowled and wouldn't say. I went on at him.

He said, 'It's too small and you have to be quiet because of
the tenants and he hasn't got anything to play with.'

'You're a spoiled middle-class brat,' I told him. I kept
inviting Tom to our place instead. I liked to think he enjoyed our big house
and the pool. And I looked forward to talking to Dan.

***

Every week at soccer Dan watched Charles and praised his
skill. He paid more attention to him than to Tom, who wasn't
so sporty. 'Charles is a real athlete,' he said, following him with
his eyes. Each time he said nice things about Charles I had
the impression that he was really saying something about me.
But there was a shy side to him, and so he communicated in
this sideways way, through Charles. Once, after he'd watched
Charles for a long time, he said to me, 'I think Charles takes
after you, not Max.' I smiled and looked at the ground.

One day Dan told me he'd had to move house. He said the
flat wasn't a suitable environment for a child. He'd rented a
villa with a garden. I felt sorry for him. He was so keen to do
the right thing for Tom, and it couldn't be easy when he was
short of money. A few weeks later he told me they'd moved
again. The house hadn't worked out. This time he was going to
try a flat in the inner city. I didn't think that sounded very nice
for Tom, but I didn't say anything. I was a bit surprised when
I discovered they'd moved yet again. It became quite a pattern.
I can't remember how many times Dan came up with a new
address, a new phone number. Tom seemed resigned to
packing up and moving on, and I thought Dan must be one of
those restless people who's always thinking somewhere else
will be better, more interesting.

Dan wanted to have a sleepover at his place for the boys.
He said he would pitch a tent in the garden. The boys would
love it. I was a bit embarrassed, because every time I put this
to Charles he refused, and I had to keep making excuses. Dan
wasn't put off. He kept raising the subject. I didn't like to think
Charles was too soft and spoiled to sleep in a tent.

I bought a computer, and when I told Dan this he said he
would help me set it up. He was an expert on the internet. He
knew everything about computers, and I asked his advice
because I didn't know much. He said, 'I'll be your computer
fixer. You'll never need anyone else. Call me for advice any
time.' He said he wanted to create a website for Tom. 'It's a fun
thing. I'll get Charles's photo and we can post it on the web.
Then they can communicate with kids all over the world. It'll
be educational.'