Settlers' Creek (9 page)

Box stepped forward. ‘Now’s a really bad time to start something with me, mate.’

‘Cunt,’ Digger repeated, but it was thrown at Box with less certainty this time. Obviously he had expected Box to be intimidated.

‘Don’t you people realise that there are families living round here? People who have to get up in the morning. People who are trying to sleep so they can get on with their lives — go to work, look after their kids. And you lot are over here carrying on just like nothing’s happening to anyone except you. Don’t you realise that what you do hurts us? Did you think about that? You selfish little pricks!’

Box paused, breathing deeply. He’d been yelling, almost screaming the words into the faces of these young guys. It was the middle of the night and he was standing on his neighbours’ dead lawn in boots with no socks and yelling into the faces of four pissed strangers, not one of whom would remember sweet all of what he said in the morning anyway. And wouldn’t change even if they did.

More people were starting to spill out of the house, standing by the front door and watching him wide-eyed in the red light coming through the open windows. Box rubbed the back of his right hand across his eyes and his hand came away wet.

Without another word, Box turned and walked away. He half expected a bottle to find its mark against the back of his head, but there was nothing. It wasn’t until he was walking up his own path that he heard a low electric hum of voices start up next door.

On the veranda, Box undid his laces and slipped off his boots. His hands were shaking again and he tried to steady them. It helped a little but not a hell of a lot. He went inside and locked the front door behind him. Then he went to the bathroom, where he turned on the light and examined his right hand. There were several cuts, but none of them seemed very deep. A flap of skin, thin as paper, was folded back off one knuckle, but the blood had mostly stopped flowing. He was lucky. He ran some warm water into the basin and poured Dettol into it. The antiseptic landed in the water, white and cloudy, giving off the sharp odour of childhood mishaps.

He was soaking his hand when Liz appeared in the mirror.

‘What happened?’

‘They turned it off.’

‘I can hear that. I mean what happened to your hand?’

‘It’s just a scratch.’

‘I heard you yelling. Most of this part of the city heard it.’

‘They had it coming.’

‘Let me see. Ow, that looks painful.’

‘It’s fine. I’ll tell you about it in the morning. Go back to bed, eh.’

Liz sighed. ‘I can’t sleep.’

‘You want a cup of tea?’

‘Okay.’

Box dried his hand on a fresh towel, then went out into the kitchen. He could hear car doors slamming out on the street. The voices were relatively subdued, though the car engines still growled deeply as the party-goers’ cars pulled away. Box filled the jug and switched it on.

While he waited for the water to boil, he stood and stared at his own reflection in the kitchen window. Christalmighty, what a mess.

Later, Box and Liz sat at the table and drank in silence. By the time the police arrived at the front door, Box was onto his second cup of black tea. He invited the two constables inside and offered them a cup. They seemed grateful.

Box was woken later in the night by the sound of a car pulling up the drive. Woken really wasn’t the right word. For that, you had to be asleep first. Box had been tossing in a shallow ocean of tangled thoughts and emotions that slopped around inside his skull somewhere just below consciousness. He rolled over and looked at his alarm clock. The red numbers glowed 4.13. He got out of bed and pulled on the clothes lying in a pile on the floor, trying not to wake Liz. Box was jealous of her ability to sleep deeply even at the worst of times. He’d seen her sleep on hard plastic bus terminal seats, on planes and boats, in rooms with a hundred noisy people. Anywhere, anytime.
That was her motto. During their wedding party he’d found her curled up on a pile of coats, exhausted from the preparations. Twenty minutes’ sleep and she was back — the glowing bride who danced the night away.

Slipping out of the room, Box went to the front door. He unlocked it and opened it as quietly as he could. In the mixture of street light and moonlight he saw that it was the ute. It was parked halfway up the drive. There was a dark figure standing next to it.

Box went down the steps. ‘Mitch.’

‘Jesus, Box! Last thing I need’s a heart attack.’

‘You didn’t have to bring it back tonight.’

‘One of the boys was coming back up anyway. Thought you’d need it.’

‘Thanks.’

‘No worries. Least I could do.’

There was a pause. Somewhere to the east, over towards the beach and the broad teardrop-shaped estuary, a car alarm howled faintly in the night.

‘How are you going to get home? I can give you a lift.’

‘Helen’s picking me up. I said I’d meet her down by the shops.’

‘You didn’t have to get her out of bed.’

‘It’s okay. It’s not like she needs her beauty sleep — too late for that.’

Box grinned ruefully. ‘Well, I appreciate it, Mitch.’

‘No worries. Look, I’d better get going, she’s probably waiting.’

‘Okay, thanks.’

‘Take care. And I’m sorry.’

And then he was out the gate. Box stood and watched him walk up the dark road until he disappeared from view.

Monday morning, like the song, Box thought. Except, of course, there was nothing for him to sing about. Maybe there never would be again.

He was driving along the eastern rim of the city, past the the settling ponds and the rubber factory and the gelatine plant. The combined stink seeped into the ute, even though the windows were rolled up tight. The smell was still there later as he navigated around the edge of the hills to the south, with their long spurs and valleys.

He knew where to go. Of course, Liz had asked where Mark had been found. She’d asked and the police had told her. And she’d told Box; had almost whispered the words to him as they sat together at the kitchen table, after the funeral director had finally packed up his morbid papers and gone. Box had sat, staring at the patterns of the oak’s grain, not looking at her, just hearing it from her disembodied voice — like a biblical angel’s, with tidings of doom. That was all those years of Sunday school talking.
You could never put that imagery behind you, no matter how hard you didn’t believe.

Now he turned the ute up a steep road that led past a scattering of privileged houses built up and down the western slope of a spur. The road only went for a k or so, then stopped abruptly at a metal gate. Box parked and got out. This far up the spur there were a few houses below the road but above him were just paddocks — farmland or maybe it was part of the reserve, he wasn’t sure. It was a sunny day though a cool easterly breeze was skimming some low clouds across the sky. From where Box was standing he could look over the roof of the nearest house and down into the valley to where the dark cloud shadows were moving over the suburb. He watched them slip from house to house, over deserted streets and mown lawns, before they moved onto the tussock hills. Dodging and weaving, the shadows dashed for the top of the far spur.

He was procrastinating. He felt sick to his guts.

He climbed the stile next to the gate and began to walk. The track was rutted and stony from rainwater run-off and from the tyres of the mountain bikes. There was still pooled water from yesterday’s rain. A single magpie watched him from the branches of the first pine tree. He expected to hear it sing out, but it made no sound. He turned a bend in the track and then another. About a hundred metres ahead of him on the downhill side of the track, he could see white and blue police tape strung up between tall pine trees.

When Box came to the tape he bent low to go under and began to walk down the hill. It was cool in the shade of the pines. Apart from the police tape there was nothing to show him what had happened. He stood in the shadow of
the trees, with one foot slightly down the slope, and looked out over the valley to the tawny expanse of tussock hills. There were caves in the far wall of the valley. He could see the half-dozen entrances, low rock overhangs framing thick shadows. To the north he could see the buildings of the central city.

‘Excuse me. Excuse me! You shouldn’t be down there.’

Box turned and saw a man standing up on the track, peering down at him through a gap between the trunks. Box guessed that he was in his early seventies. He was only about twenty metres away but because of the slope Box had to tilt his head to look at him. There were wisps of grey hair above the man’s ears and he wore a thick brown jersey and jeans that were too baggy for his thin legs.

‘It’s fine. I’m okay,’ he called.

‘This is part of a police investigation.’

‘I know.’

‘A boy hanged himself here.’

‘Leave me alone, please.’

‘You can’t stay down there.’

‘He was my son. So just leave me alone, okay.’

The man didn’t say anything.

Box turned away and looked back over the valley. Behind him he could hear the sounds of the old man making his way down through the line of pines: the snap of dried twigs and the man’s rasping breath and the occasional muttered curse.

When the man was almost upon him, Box turned. ‘I asked you to just leave me alone.’

‘My name’s Charlie Watson. It was me who found him, your son.’

The man shuffled close enough to thrust out his hand. Box saw how the fingers were twisted and the knuckles
swollen. They shook hands and Box felt the fingers in his palm like a bundle of loose twigs.

‘Box Saxton.’

‘Eh?’

‘Box.’

‘Like what you put things in?’

‘Right. My son’s name was Mark.’

The man nodded and then both men turned and looked out over the valley.

‘I’m sorry that you had to find him. That wasn’t fair.’

‘It came as a shock, I can tell you that for free. I was out here collecting pine cones for the fire. It was the last thing I was expecting.’

‘Where exactly was he?’

‘Over there.’ He pointed a crooked finger. ‘The last big tree from the end. I could show you if you want?’

‘Yes.’

Box followed him until they came to the last tree in the uneven row of pines.

‘There. The rope was over that low branch. He used that fencepost to climb up.’

‘This one?’

‘Yes. I had to climb up on it as well, to cut him down.’

‘Thank you.’

Box’s voice broke on the last word and he turned again and looked away towards the city. The old man shuffled his feet on the layer of needles through which not even the tussock could grow. A gust of wind eddying among the hills ruffled the tufted hair above his ears.

‘I’m sorry that I yelled at you before. I didn’t pick you for his father. So his mother must be …?’ He let the question hang.

‘No. I married Mark’s mother when the boy was two.’

‘I see.’

‘I was the only father he ever knew.’

‘My wife was married before she met me. He died in the Vietnam War. But they had no kids.’

Box was staring up at the branch. He could see where the rope had rubbed the bark smooth.

The old man was still speaking. ‘Police and ambulance people, I suppose they get used to seeing terrible things, you know, to a certain extent, I guess. Car crashes and accidents and even murders and whatnot. There were a whole lot of those blokes up here yesterday. None of them looked that worried. That’s their job, I suppose. But the only other dead person I’d ever seen up close was my mother, but even then she was seventy-three, and she died in hospital after having cancer for a long time. It’s a different thing, isn’t it?

Box turned back to him. ‘I’m sorry he put you through that.’

‘The truth is I’ve hardly slept at all the last two nights. I close my eyes and I can’t help myself seeing him there. It was a shock. His clothes were in a pile, just there.’

Box went over and squatted down and put his hand where the man had indicated, against the dry pine needles between the raised roots of the tree.

‘His phone went off. Almost gave me a heart attack.’

‘His mother, Liz, was trying to call him.’

Up in the pines the magpie Box had seen earlier took off and flew a short distance before coming to a hopping standstill in the long grass. It turned its head towards them. The old man watched it. Box saw the way he shuffled from side to side, shifting his weight as though his feet were uncomfortable.

‘This is none of my business but I’ve been thinking about it all the time, I mean, do you know why? Why he did it, is what I’m asking.’

‘I’ve got no idea.’

‘Sorry. You’re right. It’s none of my business.’

‘No, I’d tell you if I knew. He broke up with a girl a few months ago. She was nice enough, but we didn’t think it was that serious. He finished school at the end of last year and didn’t know what he wanted to do, was having some time off, that’s what he said, while he decided. I think he was drinking too much.’

The old man shook his head gravely. ‘I’ve got two sons of my own. They’re older now, of course, but when they were that age I remember there were girl problems and drinking. I think it’s pretty normal.’

‘I’m grateful to you for finding him.’

The man shook his head. ‘I live down the road. I was just collecting pine cones.’

Box looked towards the caves below them on the far wall of the valley. There were two main ones almost at the level of the valley floor. The old man followed the line of Box’s gaze.

‘I heard that the Maoris who lived over in the harbour on the other side of the hills, before the whites came, they used to walk through here on their way to trade with other tribes. People reckon they used to stay overnight in those caves. There’s nothing to see though, I’ve looked, no drawings or anything.’

Box felt suddenly tired. ‘I don’t want to be rude but I’d like a bit of time here by myself.’

‘Of course. Right.’ Suddenly formal. ‘Well, I’m glad I met you, Box. I’m sorry for your loss.’ They shook hands again
and then the man turned away and started slowly up the slope.

Just before Charlie reached the track, Box raised his voice after him. ‘The funeral is Wednesday morning. We’d be happy for you to come.’

The man turned back. He stood with one knot-fingered hand against the trunk of a tree and looked back and down at Box. ‘Yes. Thank you. I think I’d like to.’

‘It’s at the old church over in Regent’s Bay.’

‘I know where that is. Nice place.’

Box nodded. ‘It starts at eleven.’

‘Thanks.’

He turned and walked slowly through the trees and up to the track and Box watched him go.

When he was alone again he went over to the fencepost that Charlie had shown him. Box climbed up onto it. He stood, balancing, facing north-west so that he was looking over the city. Box tried to imagine what this same view had been like two nights ago. It made sense that Mark had probably come up here when it was still light enough to see. No one had said anything about finding a torch. Maybe it had been early evening — semi-darkness then. Perhaps. He was only guessing. It was possible that his son had stood right here and watched the lights of the city flickering on. The house lights would come on one by one but the street lights would jump into existence at the pull of a lever; whole streets lit up together, suddenly making luminous noughts and crosses out of the scene below him.

Box shook his head. He was fooling himself, romantising things. The truth was he had absolutely no idea what Mark had seen as he stood here. Or, more importantly, what the hell his son had been thinking.