The Spanish Helmet (10 page)

Matt was stunned. Who was this woman? How did she know his name?

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t believe it.
All these years.’
The shock on her face eased into a calm smile. ‘I’m Nadine, your half-sister. You’d better come in.’

All of a sudden the familiarity registered with Matt.
Her deep brown eyes, the broad nose, the dimples that formed with her smile.
It was like a feminine reflection in the mirror. Matt followed her into the house in a state of absolute shock. He had a sister. Matthew Peter Cameron had a sister. You might as well have just presented him with a million pounds, he was so stunned.

‘How old are you?’ Matt asked, realising too late that this wasn’t the time or place.

‘I’m thirty-two, a couple years younger than you.’

Someone just handed Matt another million pounds. He sat down on a chair at the dining table without asking. If he hadn’t he might have fallen over.

‘But that means…’ Matt wasn’t sure he wanted to think about what it meant.

‘We have a lot to catch up on. I can tell from your reaction that you knew nothing about me, but I’ve heard about you my whole life. Have you got time for a coffee?’

She spoke Matt’s language. Not a tea drinker. ‘I’ve got all day.’

‘Good. I’ll tell you everything I know before I take you to meet Dad. That will make things easier for everyone.’

‘He’s alive?’ Matt stood up. ‘I’d just assumed…’

‘Yes,’ Nadine said, pushing him gently back into the seat with her trembling hand. ‘But he’s not the man he used to be and he’s probably not the man you expect him to be either.’

‘What do you mean?’ Matt asked. He felt transparent.

‘If you don’t know about me, chances are you don’t know anything about your father, right?’

‘Of course I know nothing about
him,
he walked out on us when I was a four.’

‘He didn’t walk out.’ Nadine corrected him like a disappointed school-teacher. ‘He was pushed.’

The emotions swirling around in Matt’s head overwhelmed him. What did she mean he was pushed? His mother had told him for years that his father had walked out.
Just not returned from one of his trips to New Zealand.
It couldn’t really be any other way, could it? He blurted out his story a little uncontrolled. ‘He went to visit his parents.
Every year.
When I was four, he didn’t come back.’ Fighting back tears now. He didn’t know how to confront this. At the same time, he didn’t want to appear weak.

‘Dad isn’t perfect,’ Nadine said, handing Matt a box of tissues, to which he nodded without taking one. ‘He loved Grandma and Granddad though, and he came to visit them every year. On his second visit, he met my mother and--’ she paused ‘--he fell in love for a second time. They had a holiday affair. The last thing your father expected a few months later
was
a letter telling him Mum was pregnant.’

The thought of his father cheating on his mother didn’t make things any better for Matt. Even worse, the thought of his father choosing his New Zealand family over him and his mother made him angrier than ever.

‘How does your telling me this
make
my father look any better? Not only did he walk out on us, he cheated on my mother and chose you over us!’

‘He didn’t choose us!’ Nadine cried, as she sat down at the table. ‘He chose you. He did what was right and stayed put in the UK. He visited us the year I was born, when he visited his parents, but he went home to your mother. The next year, before he came out to New Zealand, he felt so guilty about what he was doing that he told your mother what had happened. She told him to go and never come back. She decided you’d be better off without him.’

Matt sat perplexed. If what Nadine said was true, his mother had lied to him. Could his mother really be capable of maintaining her story that his father had left them for thirty years?

‘He never contacted me. He never wrote a letter. Not even a birthday card.’

‘Yes he did. He tried for years. At first he just got the letters and cards back. You mother returned them unopened with a note refusing receipt. We still have them all somewhere, you wanna see them?’

‘That’s not necessary.’ Matt didn’t really want to have tangible evidence of his mother’s deceit. It was bad enough thinking about it. He calmed down a little ‘Why did he stop trying?’

‘He never stopped trying. But your mother moved and stopped using the name Robertson. Your address wasn’t published and Dad had no clue where you were. He sent letters to your Gran but she wouldn’t say either. She took money from him though. He set up a trust fund for your education.’

‘He what?’

‘Did your grandmother pay for your schooling?’

‘Yes,’ Matt said. ‘All
except
my bachelor degree.’ He sat thinking about the implication of this knowledge. This changed everything. He had always assumed his Gran got the education money from Warren, but now he realised his father had tried to do the right thing.

‘And then he couldn’t even try to contact you again. His stroke saw to that.’ 

Matt sat bolt upright.
‘A stroke!
How bad is it? Can he walk and talk?’

‘It was a right-hemisphere stroke. He’s alert and coherent but he has trouble walking and doing things as simple as tying his shoes. You also sometimes have to repeat yourself to him or tell him what he did yesterday. His short-term memory is shot, but he can remember everything from his past better than I can. He remembers you and will be so happy to see you. You’ll still get a chance to get to know your father, our dad. We can go and visit him in the care-home on Sunday if you’d like.’

Matt hesitated, only briefly. ‘Yes, I’d like that. The least I can do is
give
him a chance.’

‘Brilliant,’ Nadine said, pouring Matt a refill and smiling widely, ‘in the mean time, I’d love to finally get to know my brother.’

Matt grabbed a delicious looking chocolate biscuit from the tin Nadine had placed in the middle of the table.
Comfort food.
He leaned back into his chair, and wrapped his hand around the warm coffee mug.

‘Well, you can start by calling me Matt.’

  * * *

Matt sat in the car looking across to the city from the top of Mount Victoria. The peaceful vista helped to slow down his rapid heartbeat. Still, five minutes after leaving Nadine’s house, his breathing and pulse hadn’t returned to normal. It was as if he had just run up the volcano, rather than come by car. The city glistened in the sunlight. The water in the boat-filled harbour was calm and green. The car windows were down and the fresh air that greeted his nostrils had a calming effect. A stroll was in order. Noticing the group of drinking youths nearby, Matt tried to remove the GPS from the window. They looked harmless enough, but this was Warren’s car. Better safe than sorry and all that. His efforts were fruitless. All Matt succeeded in doing was putting a big scratch on the device’s metal frame, beside the power button.

Sorry Warren, I was trying to help.
He left the GPS where it was, stepped out of the car and carefully locked it.

Matt walked by a large Disappearing-Cannon, submerged in a concrete bunker beside the car-park. Red and white concrete mushrooms filled the small field behind it. They looked like an odd art installation, but Matt realised these could be the air vents of an underground bunker. It was the first time he had considered the preparations New Zealand must have made for threats like the Russians in the late 19th century, or the world wars in the last one.
Amazing, the distances that war travels.
It creates divides and crosses them too. He walked further across the hillside, passing by a harbour signal station, and eventually came to the edge of the volcano. He sat down on the roof of a concrete gunning bunker. As he gazed out at Rangitoto, the island that Warren had told him about, he compared the dormant volcano to the dormant relationship he had with his father. Who knew when either could spring back to life? His pocket started to vibrate and ring.

Matt jumped a little, the ringing phone having rudely interrupted his daydreams, and pulled the vibrating monster from his pocket. A quick glance at the screen told him that it wasn’t Warren or Julia. Is that Aimee’s number? It was someone in New Zealand. He could tell from the +64 that showed up on the display. He answered hesitantly.

‘Matthew Cameron.’

‘Hi Matt.’ There was a brief pause as if she was waiting for him to guess. ‘It’s Aimee.’

‘Oh… hi Aimee.’
Matt sat up and brushed the sand off his pants.

‘I thought I should give you a call to make sure you don’t forget me when you’re famous,’ Aimee said, laughing.

‘Pardon?’

‘You seem to be a bit of the talk in the town right now.’

‘What? I am?
How so?’

‘Well, the
kind
of people who are interested in proving that the Celts were here before the Maori are definitely talking about you. It seems like word has got out that you and your friend have found some sort of Celtic site that has been taken over by the DCI. The conspiracists are running wild.’

‘I hope we aren’t causing any trouble.’

‘Not at all.
I think everyone’s enjoying the situation.
The conspiracists for obvious reasons.
And the DCI are, of course, always interested in any advancement we can make to New Zealand history.’

Matt smiled. He didn’t really believe the DCI were interested in advancements at all anymore.
Only cover-ups.
‘We?’
Matt asked.

‘We, you know, New Zealand.’

‘Ah right, of course, but I don’t know how much of an impact our finding these two coins will make,’ Matt said, attempting to plant Warren’s story firmly with Aimee.

‘Is it only two coins?’ she asked, sounding a little disappointed. ‘With all the work in the rumour-mill, I thought it might be more than that. Perhaps I could help out. I’d love to get away from my
study,
it’s so boring always doing the same thing. If you like, I could look into your find for you. Anything I can do to help is good with me.’

Matt though about her offer for a minute.
On the one hand, he was slightly unsure of why she was so eager to help. Warren telling him to trust no one played over in his head. Until now, he had only discussed the true nature of his trip with Julia. On the other hand, Aimee seemed like a nice girl and Matt wanted the opportunity to get to know her better. Besides, her input and unbiased opinion would be a welcome addition. ‘Tell you what,’ he said, ‘why don’t we meet up on Saturday? You could show me about a bit and then I’ll buy you lunch to say thanks.’

‘Sounds great to me.’

Matthew made arrangements to meet Aimee in front of the Britomart station at ten on Saturday morning and ended the call. As he sat on his army bunker, he watched yachts and ferries travelling to and from the city’s wharfs. His thoughts mirrored their organised chaos. Despite being nervous about meeting his father on Sunday, Matt looked forward to the weekend.