Into the Darklands (27 page)

‘Anything in here that shouldn’t be?’ asked the rather large policeman with overalls and a sinister-looking rubber glove on one hand, rummaging through my briefcase.

‘Just a Willy Nelson CD,’ I quipped.

He didn’t laugh.

I met the little glass girl from an earlier chapter quite by chance just after the book was published. She’s almost grown up now and doing about as well as can be expected. Things did catch up with her dad, just by the by. He ended up doing serious time after she
disclosed he’d been sexually abusing her for years. It is a reassuring and frightening thing that the truth waits for us all somewhere up around the bend.

I’ve heard stories in just the last three months about kids who’ve suffered lives which seemed too horrible to be real. Except just like all the stories down here, they are
all
real. And inevitably, every time something bad has happened in the intervening months, the same tired old questions do the rounds. Every time some tragedy hits the evening news, we’re still looking for someone to blame.

Which brings me all the way to this night as I write, to another girl’s tragic, although far less public death, and to a very simple request.

After Coral was murdered everyone wanted to know what could be done to stop more children from dying, what we could do to stop such a thing from happening again. Politicians did their thing, and talkback radio callers prattled on and on. I didn’t listen to any of it because it just pissed me off. It always does.

I don’t have all the answers to all the problems, but I do have one suggestion of something you could do if you want to play a real part in stopping kids from dying, and perhaps not surprisingly, it is a very simple thing.

Today is a Wednesday, and as usual I went out to the Child Youth and Family Services (CYFS) office in Papakura, Auckland, as I do every week. Except today was a little different. Today I learned that a girl I’d seen a couple of times a few months ago, a girl of just 14, had killed herself. Her family was a mess—gangs, violence, neglect, abuse, all the usual suspects. But this girl was different. There was something about her that shone. She wanted to get out of her old life; she had plans to study and wanted to become a doctor. She was bright enough to do it too, and if that was all it took, some dreams, talent and a good heart, she would have been
OK. The first time I’d seen her she’d really impressed me, and she seemed to be on track, amazingly so, given the car wreck her life had been up until that point.

For a while she
had
stayed on track. Reports back were positive. I truly believed she would make it. I bumped into her a couple of weeks ago at the CYFS office. She’d smiled and said, ‘Hi, Nigel.’

‘Hey,’ I said, pleased to see her, but in a rush as always. ‘How’re you doing?’

‘Good,’ she’d replied, ‘really good,’ and her smile had seemed genuinely full of life. I can see her face now as I write this line, I can still see that smile. Unfortunately, though, life is not always kind, or fair, or sometimes even just a tiny bit decent.

Everything had been going well for her for months, but then last weekend she went to a ‘party’ organised by someone who knew her, knew her history and should have known better. She had too much to drink, sniffed some solvents with other young people and later that night she quietly slipped away and killed herself. I don’t know what she was thinking in those last few hours, but I suspect the alcohol and drugs simply made it too hard for her to fight the demons when they came.

Her social worker—a bloody good social worker who genuinely cared for the girl—put it best this afternoon as we’d talked: ‘I think she saw the light at the end of the tunnel, but it was just too far away.’

I have never heard a life so elegantly and tragically encapsulated in a single sentence.

We talked about her for a while, about what had happened, and about how utterly fucking pointless her death was. At such times the weight of this work feels almost intolerably heavy. Sitting in that room this afternoon we both felt it.

This girl who lived and hoped and lost her faith as the rest of us
went about our busy lives. This girl whose death went unnoticed by the world. Unlike Coral, her death didn’t make the evening news, but it was no less horrific, no less unjust.

Then, after we’d both vented a bit, we had to get on with the rest of the day, with all the other kids and families, all the stories and tragedies that are the bread and butter of CYFS social workers. It was much harder than usual to get myself going. Things like that tend to kick the legs out from under you. One feels a little drained.

I’m writing this tonight while it’s still fresh because I’m angry, and I want some of that to filter through. I’m angry because we make simple things so fucking complicated, and because it’s so fucking easy to make a difference. It’s easy for all of us to start to change things, it’s just most of us don’t bother.

So how do we stop kids like Coral from dying, kids like my Wednesday-afternoon girl?

When I wrote this book I didn’t think anyone would listen, let alone do anything, but people did. They listened
and
they did stuff. So this time I’m going to ask the world for something, and we’ll see where it goes. Sometimes even an old cynic like me starts to believe there might still be cause for hope.

Recently I was invited along to the planning day for the CYFS Youth Services team I work with at Papakura, my Wednesday-afternoon crew. These are people who are actually
doing
stuff, not just talking about it. These are the social workers who did everything they possibly could to save that girl, and then had to move on to the next one when nothing worked.

More sensible hearts would break.

My guys had no budget to go anywhere nice for their planning day so we met in a local ‘sports’ club, which is a fancy name for a corrugated-iron shed where guys meet every weekend to drink
themselves blind, fight and break stuff. It was depressing to say the least. The seats were ripped and broken, the place stunk of cigarette smoke, and the floor was sticky with old beer. It looked like no one had tidied up after the brawl the night before. I couldn’t believe these people, who were spending the day planning how to help our most desperately needy kids, were having to meet in such a place. They had to get out of the office so they would have some peace and quiet, but the only place they could afford to go was pretty bloody grim.

And yet they just got on with the job of stretching resources and time, and all good common sense, to try to work the impossible. They got on with the business of trying to save kids like my Wednesday-afternoon girl. Shame on us though, that they should have to do it in such a depressing and soulless place. Shame on us all.

So here’s the bit where I ask the world for something. You see, saving kids isn’t about policies, or politicians, or experts, or any of that tired old bullshit. Saving kids is about you and me. Saving kids is about just one person standing up and doing something. Saving kids is about giving a shit.

It would be nice, don’t you think, if my Wednesday-afternoon guys had somewhere nice to go to plan how to achieve the impossible? I think it would. I think it would be just grand. And all it would take is for some good person out there, who has somewhere nice for people to meet and plan, to ring up the CYFS Papakura office and ask to speak to the Youth Services Supervisor.

Not much to ask, really, is it? Such a simple thing.

And if you don’t live in Auckland, or if you don’t even live in New Zealand, I’m sure the people who work in
your
local social-work office might like somewhere nice to meet as well. This book has now wound its way across the ditch, and even round the other
side of the world. It doesn’t matter where you are, or what language you speak, the problems, and the solutions, are the same.

For my part, I’m off to practice what I preach. By the time this second edition hits the bookstores I will have started a new life. There comes a point, after you spend enough time telling other people to do the things that make them happy, when you really need to walk the talk yourself. As I write this my family is in the final stages of closing down our life in Auckland and moving back to Dunedin, back to Otago, back to the place where my bones are buried. This will mean leaving behind a number of people who have become very special to me, but if I’ve learned anything in the last couple of years, it is that loss is simply part of the ride. We all leave sooner or later.

I crave simple things. I crave southerly changes, wild coastlines, and watching storms roll in over the Pacific. The sea has always been my church. That’s the place I go to reconnect with the bigger picture, to reconnect with the things that feel real to me. That’s where I go for perspective and peace.

I want to lead a simpler life, to spend more time writing books, and more time reading them. Writing has always been my great passion. That’s the box I tick when asked what my real job is. Most of all though I want to spend more time with my family, to enjoy my kids before they get too old for having adventures with their dad. I am determined to do what I tell others to do, to follow my passions, and spend more time with the people I love.

I’m still going to get about the place doing my thing. In truth I don’t think I could stop that even if I wanted to. I have some ideas about playing on a bigger stage as well. Politics is not my thing, and never has been, but the media, now there’s a bed of thorns worth jumping into. If I’ve learned nothing else from the journey that this book has become, it’s that it just may be possible for one person to
make some kind of difference, even though you might not always know just exactly what or how when you set out.

So at the end of this book then, the second and final end this time, let me leave you with this one last thing. The next time you hear about some new horror on the evening news, or read about it in the paper, don’t believe them when they tell you that the causes are complicated, or that the answers are multileveled. Don’t believe them when they tell you that we need a special commission for families, or another ministerial enquiry, or another blah-de-fucking-blah task force. Don’t believe the talking heads when they tell you how complex the issues are. They’ve been saying that for a long time now, and they’ll be saying it long after we’ve all returned to dust.

If we have to rely on
them,
we’re
all
lost.

In the end it comes down to you and me. All it takes is for one person to do one small thing, and that can make all the difference in the world. Whether that be giving my Wednesday-afternoon guys somewhere nice to meet, or raising some money to help disadvantaged families pay their school fees, or some other thing altogether, is pretty much up to you. Just don’t wait for someone else to fix it, because it doesn’t work like that. We can listen to the ‘experts’ argue and debate this stuff for the rest of time if we want to, but the
real
answer to stopping the bad man has always been, and will always be, the same:

Simple things.

THANKS MUST FIRSTLY GO to the team at HarperCollins: Lorain Day and Sue Page, who first came up with the idea, and then made it happen; Lorraine Steele, whose thoughtful input helped make this a better book; and Tracey Wogan, who helped take out the kinks. Their collective faith, editorial wisdom and continuous support made the process a joy. All writers should be so lucky.

Thanks also must go to Dr Ian Lambie, Dr Fred Seymour and Janet Peters, for reading the manuscript and doing their best to ensure I didn’t stray too far from the path.

Thank you as well to Vivienne Thomson, without whose wise counsel I’m sure this would all have ended in tears a long time ago.

Over the years I have been privileged to work with a great many talented and highly skilled professionals from across the board. Amongst this group are therapists, psychologists, social workers, probation officers, cops and even the odd lawyer or two. I have been lucky enough to work with some of the very best in the business, and I have learned from them all. There are too many names to mention, but you all will know who you are.

A heartfelt thank you is owed to Neela, for her unending support, her ideas and opinions, and for being my first and most important critic. A final thanks to the K-Man and Mr B, my boys, who are pretty much the reason for everything.