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Exmouth seemed dead. But, after driving through the town twice, they found El Maximo, a real Italian restaurant with fishing nets and Chianti bottles bound in raffia on the walls. They were led to a table for two, next to a small stage arranged with a stool, guitar, and microphone. Rob ordered a bottle of pinot noir, impressing Toni when he chose by estate rather than price. He tasted the wine, raised his eyebrows in approval, and told her he hadn't realised how hungry he was. Toni might have wept at this, but managed to laugh instead.
"Cheers." They clinked glasses, and Toni slipped easily into the geisha role, offering the man with the company credit card laughter, query and deference as he needed them. But, when the conversation stalled, and Rob started looking around at other people, Toni decided it was time to promote her own interests. "I had to use my phone for longer than I expected, and now the card's about to run out. Do you think there's anywhere around here still open where I might get a top up?"
"Oh there's bound to be," Rob said. "I doubt there's anywhere you can get away from bloody cell phones these days. There was that poor bugger up Everest, wasn't there, a few years back, with a cell phone but no oxygen?"
Why could she never speak her mind? In the roundabout way that lets me keep my self-respect a little bit intact but stops me from asking you straight out, what I really want is to borrow your phone. It would be such a luxury for me to check things are OK at home, and it would make everything so much easier if you'd just let me use your phone. Please shut up for one minute and try to read my mind.
"Cell phones are so intrusive," Rob said.
"They're very useful though."
"I suppose so – if you're a fucking estate agent."
A stylish woman, lavish in gold jewellery, looked daggers at Rob, but he didn't notice.
"And you need to have a phone so you can lie through your teeth as you mow down cyclists in your 4 x 4 on your way to another subdivision." He paused for breath and took a huge slurp of wine. Toni watched amazed as Rob's lips hardly seemed to part and yet the glass was almost empty when he put it back on the table. "I keep mine off most of the time," he said as he tapped his temple. "I don't want my synapses getting fried. They're scrambled enough already."
Almost in a whisper, Toni said, "I don't know what I would do without mine, if there was an emergency with the boys and Johnny couldn't get hold of me."
Rob seemed blissfully unconscious of a mother's cares as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a sleek model she's envied from adverts in glossy magazines, catalogues of things she'll never have, scanned in the doctor's waiting room. He peered at the screen. "Four messages," he said with an undertone of won’t-they-ever-learn?
"Aren't you going to listen to them?" Toni said.
"Nah, there's no point now."
Toni could resist watching Rob's hand as it pocketed the phone.
"What was I thinking? If your card's running out, you can use my phone. Oh, and don't worry about how long you are, the Dependable picks up the bill." Rob handed Toni his phone.
Toni closed her fingers around the precious device in the palm of her hand, and felt it, heavy as an ingot, and warm from another's touch. She stifled the urge to tap in the familiar number right off. Instead she tried to concentrate on what Rob was saying. He was explaining why some government spy station near Blenheim was so important for her. "Whenever you use your cell phone, John Key could be listening in on everything you say."
Toni was tempted to suggest that the prime minister might have better things to do than listen in on her telling Johnny to hang up the washing or get fish fingers out of the freezer for tea but managed to raise her eyebrows in horror.
She watched Rob's lips moving but she wasn’t listening, her mind was outside phoning home. Then she couldn't wait any longer for the right moment to make her polite excuses. She stood, and, with Rob still talking, left him.
Outside, the wind had risen and rode unchallenged through the ghost town. Toni was spooked. From the corner of her eye she spotted a corpse mound of leaves. The wind animated the pile as though raising a body but it dissipated, scattering plane leaves the size of dinner plates around her. A supermarket bag rolled past as urban tumbleweed, a rotating advert for beer span fast as a turbine. Out on the street, Toni felt alone and uneasy. But after her phone call she went back into El Maximo with a feeling of unusual lightness. She'd drunk half a glass of wine on an empty stomach, but alcohol never made her feel this relaxed. The threat of a call to Pastor Kelvin had worked a miracle on Johnny, like he'd been filled with the Holy Spirit, or, at least, Prozac. He told her several obvious lies. Even so she was sure everything was all right at home.
A sharply dressed man, someone vaguely familiar, perhaps, from a television programme half-watched over the ironing board, held the door open for her. He smiled at her and, with his gorgeous young companion, passed in a cloud of aftershave and perfume.
The atmosphere inside El Maximo had changed. The lights were low and intimate. Toni weaved her way back between the tables, vaguely conscious of male glances at her hip sway. She saw the piled plate of food that awaited her. Rob's eyes were latched onto a much pierced, overweight girl with a guitar, who was singing badly. Although his smile was warm when he saw Toni, Rob said nothing until the song ended, then, clapping, leant close enough for her to feel his breath against her ear, and asked if everything was OK. She nodded and hid a yawn behind her hand. For once, everything did seem to be all right.
Toni laughed without her normal restraint when Rob beckoned her near during the next song, glanced up at the unfortunate singer and whispered, "I’m afraid she’s more out house that Winehouse."
Although Rob was clearly slammed by the end of the evening, Toni didn’t detect any lechery or threat. Instead, he became pompous, using long words he must have known she didn't understand but made up for it by swearing too much. Barely suppressing a belch, and, assuming what he must have thought was a charming expression, he told the waitress, when she asked how dinner had been, it was 'execrable', and she said, "You're welcome". The joke fell flat though because Rob had to explain the meaning of execrable to Toni. She guessed saying that to the waitress when he'd anticipated her response might have been funny but, too tired and bored now, couldn't bring herself to laugh in hindsight.
Rob protested when Toni blocked his suggestion of a last bottle of wine or a beer to cleanse the palate but, waving a gold credit card, he called for the bill.
As they drove back to the motor camp, Toni said, "Well, I thought the food was pretty good."
"It was OK. I'm not sure my fish of the day was actually blue cod though. How was the veal?"
"Good." Toni wanted to change the subject quickly. She'd never been able to afford veal. As she took her first bite, Rob had explained in great detail about suckling calves. "The music was terrible though," she said, remembering how Rob had clapped with such enthusiasm.
"Abysmal."
"But you even gave her a standing ovation."
"Of course I did. Live entertainment performed in a fake Italian restaurant, in a town as small Exmouth on a Monday night, ought to be that fucking bad."
Toni couldn't help laughing.
"No, no, it was authentic," he added with a straight face.
“OK, if you say so.”
Toni was uneasy arriving back to a flimsy chalet in a deserted camp to sleep in a room next to a drunk she hardly knew. So she was relieved there was no suggestion of having coffee or any other offer that might lead to awkwardness or compromise.
Once she’d again checked her door was properly locked, Toni turned off the light, immersing herself in the complete black of the country night. She lay tense and anxious a while, as she strained to identify the amplified noises of nocturnal animals. First, she adjusted to the insect butt and flutter, then to the hopeful call of a distant morepork. She managed to drift off, but was jerked back awake by the nasty laughter of possums clattering across the roof. She accepted that.
Then she heard a growling that was alien and disturbing until she realised it was not, as she feared, a monstrous wild pig rooting outside her door, but her neighbour's snoring. She wrapped a pillow over her ears and fell into deep sleep.
TUESDAY
29
"Daddy. Daddy!" Byron tugged at Johnny's shoulder. "Daddy, Kyron wet the bed."
"Uh, what about his nappy?" Johnny said, thinking that he'd got one over Byron for once.
"He takes it off in the morning. Don't you remember, Daddy? Duh!"
For a moment Johnny smiled and thought, If our family life was a sitcom, Byron would have to be played by a dwarf – I mean someone vertically challenged – the boy was so bright. Then Johnny took in what Byron had said. He jumped up and whipped off the duvet from the other side of the bed. "Oh fuck, I mean, heck."
Kyron was missing but it was obvious where he'd been. Oh, why had he been such a wimp and not made them sleep in their own room? They all knew it was a lie that Mummy would have said it was OK. Now the marital bed, which hadn't been the marital bed as such for the last month, was saturated and already starting to stink.
"Where is he?" Johnny asked Byron.
"He's hiding from you," Byron said, calm in the face of his father's panic.
"What?" Johnny scratched his head. "Why's he hiding from me?"
"He's scared of you," Byron said. "He thinks you'll be mad."
"Is that what he thinks – that I'd be mad at him for wetting the bed? Oh God, I mean, gosh." What a cunt I must be, Johnny thinks, not knowing the righteous substitute – he'll have to ask Pastor Kelvin about that one.
"You shouted at us yesterday, remember?"
"No, that wasn't at you, mate. That was for Mum. Oh forget it. Where is he?"
Byron shrugged, but it didn’t take Johnny long to find Kyron, sodden and shivering behind the bathroom door. Johnny reached out his hands. "Come on, mate, in the shower with you."
Foetal and wide-eyed, Kyron wouldn't move. But Byron appeared in the doorway. "It's OK. Daddy isn't mad." Trust me – I'll probably become a doctor.
Johnny laughed. "Look, I must admit, I could have done without this, but I'm not mad with you. Promise. Come on, Ky. You too, By. Big hug." Johnny felt cold osmosis on one half of his t-shirt, and burning in his eyes.
30
After the birth of the twins, Toni had exercised herself back into good shape. There was gym for a few years. And, after her gym membership ran out, almost every morning, no matter how many times she'd been up for the boys in the night, in rain and cold, she walked five brisk kilometres, up and out of the pall of smoke that, in winter, hung as a cloak around the state housing, and left a taste of carbon, tart and particulate on the back of her throat. Up the steep gradient to crescents where 'turning difficult' signs meant 'keep out', and estate agents' boards showed the tasteful interiors of executive homes, viewing by appointment only.
It was hardly light but Toni was wide-awake, fired up by the faint sound of the ocean and the promise of her morning walk on a wild beach. Across wet grass towards the increasing noise of the breakers, she passed the hibernating play area where the go-karts were mothballed and the crazy golf course sedated. At the looming waterslide, more like a watchtower from below, the smell of chlorine lingered and the echoes of children's wild screaming could be imagined. She followed the path through a copse of ferns and twisted trees, sunless and suddenly chilling like stepping into a chiller room. A hair thin strand of cobweb trawled across her cheek. She batted it away in panic, then wondered when she first became scared of things like that – perhaps, at the moment of parturition.
Toni quickened her pace, and reached the beach. It was long and deserted, as Rob had promised. Her feet sank into the dune sand as she looked around. She saw Adam, the camp handyman, combing the beach with a metal detector and feeling better in herself today waved to him but he was too engrossed in hunting and gathering to notice. She decided to head south, away from Exmouth.
Once on firm ground, Toni was soon into her long stride, thoughts flowing into her mind, half forming and flowing out. She still had Rob's phone. She’d called Johnny before she left and, more personal assistant than husband, he handed over straightaway to Byron, who always led in these things. It was funny – actually, worrying – how different the boys were, even at this age. And poor Kyron seemed to have inherited his father's particularly slack strand of DNA. Perhaps she should have insisted on naming both boys. Never mind, everything sounded fine at home. Without her to boss them around, they were probably having a great time. And, no doubt, Johnny was giving them ice cream with their cornflakes. She smiled at the sitcom image, well aware that she would make his life hell for a week if she caught him doing that.
The tide was far out. The waves had retreated behind the reef, leaving tepid pools and killing fields. Haggling sea birds scattered at the shoreline as she approached. Toni didn't like sea gulls, they screech and shit on children, but the fat black ones with long, orange, pencil beaks, makeshift disguises that didn't fool anyone, they appealed to her.
Toni did know a few birds' names but was never sure which name belonged to which bird. Birds and bird's names flew around in her mind without ever coming together. The same was true for trees and fish, anything really except parts of the body and cars. And even studying anatomy for nursing had been a slow battle of hours conquering the instinct to call a 'femur' what everyone else called a 'tibia', or was it the other way round? Only cars have never presented a blind spot for her. With taxonomic certainty, she can identify a shape passing at speed – manufacturer, model, often, even the year. She's often wondered whether there's a market for that skill.
Toni walked on, looking all around her. She examined the clouds but sees little in them – maybe a face, a VW Beetle. Emptied shells and hollowed crabs cracked and crushed beneath her feet. In the wet sand of the water's edge, her footfalls left mirror pools, soon reclaimed and forgotten.
The beach was bisected by a promontory that would be impassable at high tide, but Toni reckoned she could scramble over it. She checked the time on Rob's phone. The walk had taken her about three quarters of an hour so far. She thought she ought to turn back but clambered over the rocks to a small cove. It was a deserted amphitheatre with steeply banked bush leading to matted forest and a brutal cliff-face. Toni became hot in the shelter of the cove. She took off her fleece and knotted the sleeves around her waist. Then she was overcome by the sensual – near sexual – urge to go further, to plunge naked into the surf. She freed her t-shirt from the band of her jeans and her fingers went to the button, but a stern voice arrested her. "This is private land, you know." A tall, old man in waterproofs stepped out from the bush. He wore binoculars around his neck.
31
"I'm going to work now." Andy stood in the doorway of the guest room.
Samantha’s back was to him. The pillow she clutched was damp. She couldn't recall sleeping and supposed she'd wept all night. She said, "OK," but didn’t turn towards him. She guessed her eyes must be swollen and her face puffy. She would never want her husband to see her like that.
"I'll be back about seven this evening," he said.
"OK."
"Fine." He turned to go but stepped into her sanctuary. "Look. What I don't understand is this. It's you that's been sleeping around and yet it's me in the doghouse."
Samantha snatched the duvet over her face and screamed. "Go away. Get out. Just leave me alone, you moron."
33
On the porch of Starboard, Rob reclined in a plastic bucket chair he remembered as a sophisticated orange, but was now bleached beige from the UV rays. His bare feet on the porch rail shone white in the sunlight, but the rest of him, in his black suit, slouched in shadow and cigarette smoke. He'd rooted around in the kitchen of his chalet and found a rust freckled canister with 'Coffee' written in groovy font and a supply of Air New Zealand UHT milk pots. He was delighted that the kettle, with its stony furred element, only worked if a match was wedged in
to the switch, and it was Adam, for sure, who'd thoughtfully left a match by the kettle. This wasn't a few days away from the office – it was time travel. No wonder they’d renamed the place the Five Seasons.
Rob could already recognise his neighbour's form from a distance, her long purposeful stride, perhaps, a little too much hip sway. He wondered whether she would insist on shaking his hand again but, when she reached him, she smiled broadly, Howyadoin – not intimate, but close. She sat on the step of the porch and, letting out a long sigh, held her hair up. Now, this was intimate – the way the nape of her neck was revealed, damp at the hairline, the vertebrae like half-submerged stepping-stones.
Rob made Toni a mug of coffee. "Do you do this walking thing every day?" he said and handed her the mug.
"Thanks. Almost. I started when my gym membership ran out."
"Oh really?" He sat on the step next to her. "I get gym membership as part of my remuneration package – it's a fringe benefits tax dodge. But I've never got round to using it." He regretted telling her this the moment the words were out. He always forgot when it was the right time to brag about remuneration (networking sessions at conferences of peers) and when not to (conversations with organisational underlings).
Toni looked down. "Maybe you ought to," she said.
It was too late now to breathe in. "So, my doctor tells me."
Toni didn’t need to explain to Rob how unfair she thought his having free, unused gym membership was – her eyes told him that well enough. And Rob would have been happy to transfer his gym membership to her, there and then. But he could no more assign to her those benefits of status that meant so little to him than he could gift to her his qualifications or vocabulary or the dreams he’d had last night.
Her affront seemed to pass quickly, and she told him about her walk.
"We'd–" Rob hadn't expected his voice to crack like that. He didn't want to cut short this brief idyll but tried again, "We'd better get going. We've got to meet with Owen Huntly in less than half an hour."