Soon (11 page)

‘Killer whales,' Johnnie said.

‘Aren't they big?' said Tuleimoka.

‘So shiny. You could see your face in them.'

‘Stand there, Sharon,' commanded the Cock, looking down at the screen of his camera. ‘Roza, you too.' He angled, peered, shading the camera screen with his hand.

‘How about one of you and Roza and Sharon?' the Cock said to David.

David ignored him, turned away.

An orca leapt right out of the water. There was a collective gasp.

‘They revel,' said Ford.

‘They revel and frolic,' Roza said.

‘Can you frolic in water?'

‘Yes, but not gambol.'

‘That's lambs. You need legs to gambol.'

‘What about frisk?'

‘Do they really kill you?'

Ford said, ‘Yeah, ones in marinelands. The captured ones. They do the tricks with the balls and hoops and then one day they turn. The keeper gets his head wrenched off.'

Roza said, ‘You can see why. How could you keep an animal like that in a tank? They play, they love the sea. I bet they feel misery too.'

‘And rage,' Ford said.

‘Exactly. The keepers deserve what they get.'

‘Roza!' Karen said.

‘Well, I'm just saying. Look, the Gibsons. In their freighter. Their ocean liner.'

The bright white boat, tall, polished wood decking, flag on the stern, heading briskly for the beach at the end of the point.

‘That's lunch. Lead on.'

The orca swam along the coast for a while and then, perhaps following a school of fish, turned and veered out to sea, no longer leaping but only surfacing occasionally.

They crossed the rocks to a beach covered in grey stones. A stream ran down a cleft in the rock face, crossing the beach to the sea. A reef jutted a long way out from the shore, and Gibson had steered a wide arc to avoid the rocks, the boat plunging through a patch of chop, gulls whirling around the stern.

‘Windy out there.'

But here you could feel the heat from the grey stones through the soles of your shoes. The size of the stones made walking difficult; they slowed, teetering, overbalancing. The heat came up into their faces and the stones moved underfoot with a hollow, clopping sound. There were brackish pools full of tea-coloured water and dead leaves, insects skating across the surface. When Simon and Ford climbed onto the rocks Tuleimoka was dragging Johnnie away from the corpse of a puffer fish, its spines dull yellow, its mouth open in a frozen O.

Roza said, ‘He can poke it, surely. The germs won't come swarming up the stick.'

Karen said to Simon, ‘What?'

‘Nothing.' He smiled, limply.

‘You were staring.'

‘You look so suntanned. So fit.'

She sighed and reached for his hand, and he pulled her up onto the rocks. They stepped across sharp beds of broken oysters and skirted around hot rock pools, the surfaces shimmering as sea water washed in, creatures retreating as their giant shadows passed, crabs sidling, tiny fish veering. Simon looked down into the glassy worlds. When he was a boy he would touch the fronds of a sea anemone to feel them close around his finger, the strands sticking as he pulled gently away. He would pick up a crab by its back and watch the frantically waving legs, lower the creature down into its pool, watch it bury itself in sand. He would do no harm, not like the boys down their street who killed the small animals they came across, beheaded eels, smashed crabs, ripped off their shells and watched them curl up. Down at the hot mudflats in summer, the stink of blood, salt, cruelty. Ford had once punched a boy for torturing a gull he'd found tangled in a fishing line. Ford had pushed the boy away and finished off the bird with a rock. Simon had cried, angry about the rock, but Ford had said the bird had no chance, was in agony. Simon wanted to shout, who are you to decide how something dies? It was wrong, self-righteous. He ran at Ford; Ford fended him off with a few perfunctory blows and kicks, unbothered.

He remembered the bird's pierced eye, the red centre of the black hole.

Simon lay in the shade watching the swimmers. Even the Cock had waded in up to his waist, his hands hovering over the surface of the water, his large, pale body mottled pink with sunburn. Karen was swimming strongly. Near her David floated on his back, watching. He turned and swam after her.

Roza patted the top of a sand castle with a plastic spade. Johnnie silently placed a shell and looked at his mother, eyes narrowed.

‘Make Soon talk.'

Simon dozed. Words, the sea, the crunch of feet on shells, the crackle of cicadas, sounds carrying him out of consciousness and back again, in and out, words, his own breathing, the waves.

They assembled in front of the castle, and though the battle had been long and hard and men had been lost, the mood was triumphant. The enemy had been driven a long way to the south and even if they and their henchmen regrouped and rearmed, they wouldn't be able to attack again for some time.

The Ort Cloud made a speech thanking all who had had the courage to fight his terrifying wife, and the Village Idiots sang a song of praise to their God, the Great Wedgie. Crackers got into the Bachelor's drinks cabinet again and had to be imprisoned for drunkenness after shouting from the tower, “Green Lady, I love you!” The Bachelor proposed a toast to the Green Lady that went on for so long the Cassowaries nearly hissed themselves to madness, and the Red Herring made the following observation: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” His colleague, Tiny Ancient Yellow Cousin So-on, added, “A drowning man will clutch at a straw.” After that there was feasting and merriment.

The Bachelor recited poems, got drunk and drove his bed wildly over the treetops in an attempt to impress the Green Lady. His Cassowaries clung on, their feathers flying. The Guatemalans let off their shotguns, the Village Idiots danced. They all farewelled the Ort Cloud, who went whirling off into the Universe.

Then the Green Lady called for quiet. “I have grave news.” She looked around the group. “There is a traitor in our midst. One of our number is in the pay of Barbie Yah.”

For a time in the slow, drugged afternoon the sun rode like a white-hot coin behind a bank of thin cloud, but an hour later it had burned away the haze and directed its full glare on the cliffs. The trees made patterns of light and shade on the sand. Gulls picked their way along the shore, pecking among the seaweed.

David held a briefing paper in front of him but his sunglasses had slipped down his nose and he was looking over the top of them at the sand dune, where Elke lay on her back having her legs buried by Johnnie. Out in the water, between the Gibsons' boat and the shore, were the small dark heads of swimmers: Karen, Juliet breaststroking after them in a hat and shades. Ford was swimming to the boat and back, part of his new fitness regime. He had a powerful stroke, overarm, no sign of slowing. The Cock, disturbed to find there was limited reception for his phone, fussed and fiddled with it before wandering off to try high points along the beach.

Sharon Cahane's harsh voice: ‘Honestly. The way he goes on.'

The Cock had now climbed up a bank at the end of the beach and was hanging onto a branch for balance.

Roza said something. Sharon Cahane cackled. The Cock slipped, clutched at the foliage, righted himself. From across the water came the sound of a door slamming on the boat; a figure appeared and emptied a bucket of liquid over the side. Ray and Jon were walking slowly towards the Cock, who was bending to look at something on the sand.

Simon slept, then surfaced; some remnant of his dream had returned, May pulling down her mask, the bloodied figure on the table. He looked up and saw dazzling light between branches, a kaleidoscope of flowers and trees and sky. There was something missing.

He raised his hand to his eyes, felt the thump of displaced sand as someone flopped down beside him. The lost fact came to him: May was dead.

The walk back, for those who hadn't opted to go in the boat, was rugged and exhausting. Simon slogged behind Ford, enjoying the heat and the tired ache in his legs, Ford setting the pace, not slowed by all his swimming. A stingray as big as a door had swum under him, he said; it had followed him, like it was using him for a sun shade.

‘Could have Steve Irwinned you,' Simon said. He imagined Arthur Weeks: dragged ashore, blue-faced and rigid, a long barb in his heart. Suddenly he wanted to tell Ford about Weeks and Mereana, ask for his help, unburden himself. But silence was wiser, if you talked about things you gave them life, better to stifle the whole problem with denial. He fixed his eyes on the back of Ford's shirt as he used to when they were boys, walking home from the mudflats, Ford leading, Simon silent, daydreaming. Ford taking charge, out the front of the house hosing the mud off their legs, ordering him to go and wash his stinking hands, spraying Simon's sandals, laying them out to dry.

‘It's good you came,' Simon said.

Ford didn't slow down. ‘Nothing else to do,' he said.

Karen had opted to go in the Gibsons' boat. When he got back she was lying on the bed in the Little House, a flannel over her eyes. ‘I got windburnt,' she said. ‘Janine was flirting with Ray. Outrageously. Johnnie's been stung by a jellyfish.'

Ford went for a shower and Simon joined her on the bed. He said, ‘You look so smooth and brown.'

She threw the cover over them and he pushed up against her. Her body was hot, she smelled of suntan lotion. He peeled off her shirt, pushed at her shorts, felt her hands moving down over his stomach. After a moment she said, ‘Quick. Someone. Ow. Fuck.' He kissed her, held her hard, she said, ‘No, there, yes.' She pressed her forehead against his, they were trying not to make any sound, she suppressed a giggle and said, ‘no, what if the kids . . .?', she went silent, clutched his arms, they moved together, he came and lay still. They could hear birds squabbling on the roof, Ford humming in the shower. He rolled on his back, his hand across her stomach. They lay in silence for a while; she stretched out her arm and examined her hands, the manicured nails.

‘We'll have to go to dinner,' she sighed.

After they'd showered and dressed and were walking with Ford through the grounds he thought, Sun, exercise, sex — I'll be serene now, nothing will bother me. He had armed himself.

They joined the group. But after the first glass of rocket fuel he was irritated rather than soothed by the booze. Sharon Cahane's laugh was too loud; he hated the way Ed's eyes slid around the company; and Ford's pent-up silence made him worry there was some embarrassing argument on the way. Karen was flushed, voluble and clearly under surveillance by Ed, who gave Simon a deadpan look, lips parted, eyes deliberately void. Ford noticed, and looked curiously at Simon.

Roza said, ‘Simon, Karen, it's so sweet — Johnnie's been waking up in the night and asking for Elke. He wants her to come and stay with us in the big house.'

Karen frowned. ‘But Elke needs her sleep too.'

‘I told Johnnie he's not to wake her up. She can stay in the bedroom next to his.'

‘We'll send her up to say goodnight. She's happy where she is.'

Roza said, ‘It's all arranged. I've already asked her, she's keen to change. It's so nice she and Johnnie have got close.'

Karen looked down.

Simon felt Ed's eyes on them. He smiled blandly. ‘That Johnnie. He's a great little kid,' he said.

It would have been wise to stop drinking. He accepted another of Troy's cocktails, and drank wine through the meal. Karen was strained, brittle and drinking a lot too. Her laughter was forced.

Afterwards he stood out on the veranda and looked at the first stars and the sky streaked with skeins of black cloud near the moon. The sea was unusually still and full, a brimming high tide, and there was a glimmer over the sand, shapes moving down there, couples walking along the water's edge, a lone jogger, and a swimmer splashing out with strong strokes, riding over the gentle swell. Across the dunes he could see the glow of a floodlit tennis court, figures moving silently in the unnatural green light behind the wire. Closer, the Hallwrights' pool was lit up chemical blue by lights hidden in the surrounding ferns, and Marcus and Elke and other teenagers were messing around in the pool house, banging doors, talking loudly, a splash, a shriek. Boats were making their way out of the estuary for night fishing, testing their floodlights.

Smelling smoke, he went silently to the side of the deck. Below, Karen and David were sitting on the wooden seat where David liked to smoke his cigars. He could hear the booze blur in her voice as she said, ‘One puff, that's all I can stand. I don't know how you do it.'

‘You gotta be tough,' he said, passing her the cigar.

She puffed, coughed. ‘No. It's too strong.'

Simon was going to move away, but David said, ‘Like me.'

‘Yes, like you. Dear Leader.' She giggled.

Simon hesitated. It wasn't her flirting that bothered him, it was David's tone. He sounded stone cold sober.

‘You like strong men?' Teasing, ironic.

‘Oh, of course.'

‘I like strong women.'

Simon was caught between needing to hear and wanting to break it up. Karen said something he didn't catch.

‘That sounds very naughty,' David said.

‘It's a double entendre,' Karen said.

‘Is that right.'

After a silence Karen said, ‘Roza's a strong woman.'

‘Yes. She's the boss.' David's tone altered.

She tilted her head, ‘There's one thing I've never been able to get my head around.'

‘What's that, darling?'

Her voice turned coy, sugary. ‘There's one thing that would take incredible strength. I've never been able to understand how you, how you . . . could give up a baby for adoption. Once you'd given birth to it, surely it would be—'