The Last Time We Spoke (25 page)

The sun pushed through a crack in the curtains, casting a skew of light across Carla’s dreams. She stirred and slid her feet towards Paul’s heat, wheedling her legs in and around him until she was enveloped by their warmth and weight.

‘What must a man do to get some sleep?’ he protested groggily, trapping her between his thighs. ‘Isn’t it Sunday?’

She moved her hand down his torso until it reached the rise in his boxers. ‘Why sir, it appears you’ve been expecting me.’

‘Carla Reid,’ he said in mock chastisement. ‘No rest for the wicked, eh?’ He rolled onto his back, yielding to her attentions.

Carla loved him first thing in the morning when he was still doused in the earthy smell of sleep, his face crumpled, his hair all tousled and wild.

A ringing telephone interrupted their play.

‘Has everyone forgotten what day it is?’ he grumbled, hauling himself up and rubbing his eyes.

Paul reached for the handset, fumbled with the receiver, then passed it over to Carla. He was good that way, still respecting her place after all this time, and not allowing familiarity to blur boundaries.

‘Hello,’ she said in a husky morning voice.

‘Is Mrs Reid there?’

‘Speaking.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t recognise your voice for a moment. It’s Myra. Myra Catchpole. I hope I haven’t woken you?’

‘Myra!’ Carla’s voice sprang forward in anticipation. ‘Not at all. Been up for ages.’

Paul yanked the sheets over his head.

‘I was wondering …’ Myra paused. ‘Russell and I wondered whether you were going to be in Auckland in two weeks’ time. We’re coming down for the weekend and—’

‘Yes. Yes, we’re free.’

‘The fourteenth. It’s a Sunday. Perhaps we could meet up?’

Carla’s mind sighed and whooped and started to spin. ‘Of course!’

‘Where would be a good place to meet?’ Myra sounded tense.

‘Here, of course! Come for a meal. Lunch. Does that suit?’

‘We really don’t want to intrude; a cup of tea will be fine.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Carla said, hopping out of bed and starting to pace around the room. ‘You must come for a meal. I insist. It won’t be a problem at all. We’re on the Shore, about five kilometres from—’

Paul popped his head out from under the sheet and mouthed, ‘Slow down.’

When she put down the phone, Carla stared into space.

‘So … What’s up?’ Paul said, relieving her of the telephone receiver.

‘It was Myra. You know, Jack’s girlfriend. She, I mean they, are coming for lunch. I don’t know if the boy is too. I should have asked. I don’t know if Joshua is coming too. Oh, I hope he is!’ She climbed onto the bed and started jumping up and down, the springs creaking under her excitement.

‘Slow down, Mrs Reid, or you’ll blow a gasket,’ Paul said, tackling her at the legs and dropping her.

The following week dragged, refusing to be hurried. At the library Carla forgot to swipe books out and shelved a whole trolley of returned ones incorrectly. At home, she added salt to her tea, sprayed hairspray under her arms, and located her lost tube of toothpaste in the fridge.

Paul tried his best to anchor her enthusiasm, anxious about what the reunion would bring. In the end he gave up; Carla’s mood was too contagious.

Every evening after dinner she scoured recipe books, planning what to prepare for the approaching lunch date. First it was to be a slow-roast leg of lamb, Greek style, the meat marinated in lemon juice and stuffed with feta cheese and anchovies. Then she opted for roast chicken rubbed with a paste of rosemary, garlic, and olive oil. Finally, she settled on pasta with a simple sauce of bacon, egg yolks and Parmesan cheese.

‘Probably more suited to a child’s palate,’ Paul agreed wearily. ‘That’s if they decide to bring the children along. I don’t want you getting your hopes up.’

The week of the impending visit finally arrived. On the Tuesday, Carla could feel a cold coming on. The thought of even a minor ailment ambushing the upcoming Sunday was too much to contemplate, and she dosed herself up on vitamin C and zinc, Panadol and echinacea. But on the Thursday she still felt virally. Paul was spending the night out of town at a book fair, so she didn’t bother to make dinner for herself, instead climbing into bed just after six.

When her bedside alarm went off the following morning, she struggled to muster the energy to silence it. Paul was her usual alarm, waking her each morning with a mug of freshly brewed coffee and South African rusk to dunk. Carla couldn’t have stomached either
now; her whole head was aching and the yellow taste of nausea coated her tongue.

Hauling herself out of bed, she headed for the kitchen to make a cup of hot lemon water, but then left it untouched.

She stumbled through her morning routine with limbs like logs and her head in a fug that was intermittently punctured by a painful spear of sunlight. By the time she got to making the bed, she was already half an hour late for her shift at the library. As she bent down to tuck in the sheets, a wave of heat swept over her and the room listed. She teetered there for a moment, then slid to the ground and crawled on all fours towards the telephone.

Paul stood impatiently at the information desk. The woman’s perfume was very sweet.

Her long fuschia fingernails clicked away on the keyboard.

‘What you say the name is again, love?’

‘Carla Reid,’ he repeated slowly.

She scrolled down the computer screen. ‘Not in this hospital, pet. Sure you got the name right?’

‘Look, I was phoned this afternoon by a medical registrar to say she’d been admitted. I’ve driven all the way up from Taupo.’

‘Sure it was on the Shore?’

Paul panicked. ‘The registrar said Waitemata Health, I think. I mean—’

‘What’s her address, love?’

Paul repeated it robotically.

‘Hmm.’ She pursed her lips. Lines of crimson had bled into the creases around her mouth. ‘The only other thing I can think might have happened is … if she, um … Oh dear. Just a minute while I check.’

Paul froze, the world around him suddenly on pause. He knew what she was suggesting.

‘How do you spell that surname again, hon? Two “E”s or an “E” and an “I”?’

Paul spelt it slowly and deliberately, his impatience tempered by fear.

The woman shook her concreted curls. ‘Silly me, love! There are so many variations these days. Here we go. She’s in intensive care on the fifth floor. Poor sweet. Must be awful sick.’

A gloom had settled over Unit 14, mirroring the day outside. The canteen was like a morgue, the meeting room an empty school hall. Ben missed breakfast and lunch, spending the day in his crib staring at the ceiling.

By evening, the walls had started to close in around him and the ceiling seemed lower. He was suffocating. He jumped up, trying to shake off the heaviness, and cussed so loudly the whole corridor heard.

Neil put his head in. Ben searched the screw’s face for news. Neil shook his head.

The other laggers mooched about too, occasionally snapping at one another and lashing out. Two fistfights went down, and Rusty was sent to solitary for booting Isaac in the balls. It was calmer once he’d been locked away.

Finally, Chalkie called a meeting.

Outside the sky was black. The wind thumped at the windows and messed with the rain, sending sheets of water colliding into the glass. The room was cold and the floor hard. Eleven of them sat on the worn blue carpet waiting to hear what the tattooed lifer had to say.

‘I’m disappointed in you,’ he began. ‘Not only have you let me
down, you’ve let Miss Carla down, too.’ The group stirred. ‘So her visits, they’ve been in vain, have they?’ Chalkie looked at Isaac. Isaac shrugged. ‘Can you only be cool when she’s around?’ Chalkie’s eyes landed on Ben. Ben glowered.

‘She was trying to set you free, don’t you see? Just like them butterflies. Teach you to read and write, so that one day you’d be able to make something of your lives. How’d you think she’d feel if she knew that the first thing you do when she’s not here is sink back into old habits, into a vacuum of meaningless shit?’

Ben let his head collapse onto his chest.

‘Look, I know you’re worried. Angry. At the randomness of it. Me too. Sometimes life is just plain unfair. But the best thing we can do is keep working. Miss Carla believed in you. I believe in you. Do her proud, boys. Keep up with your writing. Your reading. That way you respect her.’

Ben looked up from under his fringe.

Chalkie pointed a thin finger at him. ‘I want you to take charge of the lessons in her absence.’

Ben shook his head. ‘But—’

‘No bloody buts.’

I must leave you, Benjamin Toroa, even though your story is not yet finished. The wind has brought me news of another who has fallen from our people’s embrace. I must go in that direction. But I will never really leave you, boy, for I am the mountains and valleys, the sea and the sky. I am everywhere and everything. Recognising me is what takes time. You are just at the beginning of understanding. I am hopeful. I have seen the early buds of change.

I leave you with this one thought. Time stacks each generation upon the one that has gone before, just like layers of rock. What is built today depends on the strength of what was laid down yesterday. Your life, Benjamin, forms the foundation for those who come after. What you do now, son, will determine whether the platform stands strong or crumbles under the weight of new lives. Live well, for this story is about more than just you. It has always been about your people.

Haere mai.

Paul pushed open the heavy swing door, leaving the metal-cold air of ICU behind him. A vending machine lit up the dingy corridor,
offering a selection of hot drinks. Paul scrutinised the menu, then rammed a gold coin into the slot and pressed
Coffee black no sugar.
The money rattled, clunked, then dropped into the hollow belly of the dispenser. Nothing. The screen fluoresced:
$2.00. $2.00. $2.00
.

Paul cursed and fumbled in his pocket for another coin. Finally, a plastic cup dropped down and the machine spat out a treacly brew.

He hadn’t eaten for eleven hours. His mouth felt dry and his tongue furry. He held a hand over his mouth; his breath smelt foul. He took a swig of the scalding liquid. Pleasure and pain.

Meningitis. Just like that. Normal one day, near death the next. Carla had already had her fair share of suffering. Was there no balance or even-handedness to what life dished out? Was fate really so capricious?

‘Jeez, Carla, don’t do this to me!’ he said out loud, his words echoing down the corridor.

He thought about ringing his daughter in Germany, then dismissed the idea. It would be the middle of the night there. And she hadn’t even met Carla.

What he needed was a cigarette. He hadn’t touched one in years. Now he’d sell his soul for a smoke.

He headed down the long green corridor, stopping just short of the window at the end. A huddle of humans was gathered there, their pain silhouetted against the milky light of dawn. In just a handful of hours Paul had got to know these strangers so intimately. People were more real in the face of tragedy, the hindrances of pretence and polite restraint stripped away in the face of grief. They were about to switch off their child’s life support machine. The teen had ‘come out’ that he was gay then jumped off a bridge, breaking his body and his parents’ hearts. The tubes were still in place, the machines whirred and beeped,
and the lad’s chest heaved and fell fifteen times a minute. But the papers had been signed. The kid’s life had already been lost. His body was just tricking the eye.

In that moment the essence of human existence was distilled for Paul – the need to belong and the need to be loved.

‘Dear God, my new granny is very sick. I was supposed to have lunch with her today. I hope she won’t die, because … uh … because she’s my father’s … my other father’s mother.’

‘Amen. Okay, boy, into bed,’ Myra said, tousling his hair.

‘Mum?’

‘Yes, Josh?’ she said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and smoothing the creases in the duvet cover.

‘Did my other dad like cars too?’

‘Sure he did,’ she said pulling the sheet up under his pudge of chin. ‘His first car was a VW Beetle – an old turquoise one with cream-coloured seats and an indicator light that flicked out from the side. I helped your dad sew the seat covers, you know. We called it his love bug, after a movie we’d seen.’

‘That’s a funny name. Love bug. Love bug. Love bug.’

Myra smiled.

‘Ma?’

‘Yes, my boy.’

‘Was it sore for my other dad when he died?’

She swallowed. ‘I think God reached down very quickly and took him before he had time to feel sore.’

‘Mum, don’t turn off the light. I’m scared. What if God reaches down and takes me or my new granny.’

The blackness was solid – an impenetrable nothingness.

Slivers of light poked in around the edges.

Cool floating fabric. Rigid. Plastic. Dry wet bubbling. A prickling. Smell.

Beep, beep, beep.

Sandalwood and Dettol.

Grey turned to white, then yellow. Light.

‘Carla.’

‘Carla.’

‘Carla, can you hear me?’

Yes, I can hear you!

But the voice kept asking. Kept asking. Kept asking. ‘Carla, can you hear me?’

The light was now expansive, whole and round. A mood. An understanding. A golden comprehension.

Her father is stooped over his desk. He looks up, brown eyes dancing as he spins the globe on his desk. Her mother stands at the kitchen bench in her purple slippers. She wipes floured hands on her housecoat and smiles a smile that shares a childhood. Dana wags her tail and trots under the table in search of scraps. Jack leaps down off the school bus and lollops towards her, a stick of cherry-red sherbet in his hand. Kevin winks a no-worries-Carl wink, and there is Gabby, pin-size petite in the incubator.

A kauri tree drives through a cerulean blue sky. A tui calls. Clouds settle. A carver kneels over a long beam of wood and chisels a story. Fronds unfurl. A moa pushes through the undergrowth disturbing a hedgehog’s stuttering passage. One young man holds a book in his hands and reads, his posture all pride. Another cradles his baby and makes promises. Butterflies capture magic. An elderly woman, her chin 
patterned with ink, weaves fingers of flax into a coat of great beauty. A farm fence divides one place into two.

Carla wraps herself in these images, all seamlessly sewn into one enormous quilt. She is comforted by the colours and stories it tells.

Suddenly lights, metal, a windowpane, blue curtain, white sheets, twists of tube, a graph, a vase of freesias, a face …

‘Carla, you’re awake!’

A familiar face.

‘She’s awake. Nurse, she’s awake! Oh my God, you’re awake.’

Too much. Too fast. She shut her eyes.

Trembling lips touched her cheek. Cool water ran down her face.

She opened her eyes slowly this time.

It was Paul.

Paul.

And Carla smiled, for she was still on the same side of the fence.