Somebody Loves Us All (34 page)

He considered joining her at once.

Paddy turned so he was facing the perfume counters where young women in nurse-style white coats moved around offering samples to those entering the store. They pressed strips of card to women’s wrists and offered the wrist back to its owner to smell. Sam had come to stand beside him. Paddy kept staring at one of these women until she looked across and saw him. He made her watch them. He acted nervous, shifting from foot to foot, glancing around. She was curious at first. Did he want to try a perfume? But no, this pair was up to something. She’d started to look around for someone to tell. Then Paddy said to Sam, ‘Are you ready for this?’ The boy didn’t look at him. ‘Are you ready?’ Nothing. ‘Right, go!’ and Paddy ran from the store.

He heard the perfume girl shouting after them, moving to the doors, and, glancing back, he saw a white-shirted security guy going past her, running and speaking into his walkie-talkie. He was after them.

Of course Paddy had seen these running figures before in Cuba Mall and Manners Mall and Lambton Quay. Young guys
mainly, a little older than Sam usually. White guys, Maori guys. Two Asian kids once. No one as old as Paddy. He’d seen it in their eyes as they went past, that mix of panic and fun, it looked like. A few were even smiling as they pumped their arms and raised their knees, spitting sometimes. Only seconds before they’d set all this in motion, they’d crossed the line, done their bad thing, and this was what it came down to: a foot-race.
This?

To watch it was to share some of that mixture too. It did seem absurd, two people chasing each other through the streets. Often you heard it before you saw it. The amazingly loud noise of two figures running as fast as they could; their sudden size, since in the natural bounce and uprightness of the running, their bodies grew taller. They were the mightiest things on the street these runners and they made everyone who was walking seem small and tired and uninteresting. Because condemnation wasn’t automatic. It wasn’t a stretch to think of them admiringly.

For the length of the street, before they disappeared around some corner, even while running through crowds, their pace never altered. With always this difference, the runner who was being chased never had problems with getting past people; the chaser usually did. The chaser, for one thing, wasn’t dressed for the chase. He wore heavy black shoes. He had a tie on. He had things on his belt to deal with. Often he ran holding some piece of equipment. And he ran apologetically. He had to say sorry to people and excuse me. He had to be careful. The chaser was corporate fundamentally, and was running further and further away from his work, to which he’d have to return soon. The chaser was running home.

Paddy had never seen the runner caught.

Now they were the runners. They headed up Cuba Street as fast as they could, almost shoulder-to-shoulder. They made that noise on the pavement and they spat and pumped their legs. Paddy’s heart was hurting—with adrenaline?—and his stomach was sore almost immediately from being knocked up and down. People got out of their way. They crossed Vivian Street without slowing, somehow finding a gap between cars. Horns sounded
behind them but they kept going. Sam went ahead of him slightly, his bulky frame lengthening. The boy had abandoned his hunch, his lumbering strides, his tripping heaviness. Had all that been an act? He was truly fourteen years old and now ran with a terrifically erect posture, shoulders back. There was another round of car horns which must have been the security guard crossing Vivian. Paddy had hoped he might have given up by now.

And running was different from biking. Different set of muscles. A new pain.

Sam pushed on, taking a sharp right turn down a side street, vaulting a recycling bin that had been left in the middle of the footpath. When Paddy tried to do the same, his toe clipped the bin and he almost fell on his face. Somehow he managed to stay upright though he’d lost a lot of speed. Up ahead Sam turned round, waving at him to get going. It was the first purposeful gesture Paddy had seen from him and one not prompted by anyone.

The security guard was still coming. Paddy glanced back and saw his tight determined mouth, the fierce flush. But he also saw the wayward movement of his shoulders, as if he were running into a strong headwind. His hands clawed the air. The day was still and the guard was tiring. He was putting everything into it and Paddy understood why. It’s me. He’ll never catch Sam but it’s become a point of pride to lay his hands on some sorry, saggy middle-aged guy who thought he could do a runner under his watch.

He’d abandoned the rules of the chase. That was the problem.

Paddy saw Sam take another turn, this time down a narrow lane between two old houses. Again he slowed a fraction to make sure Paddy had seen where he was going. Further example of thoughtfulness!

The other option was to run through the small park and head off along the more open streets leading either into town or in the direction of Aro Valley and Brooklyn. Did they stand a better
chance if they split up? Sam, in reality, was gone, safe. Paddy looked towards the park. But he didn’t have the puff to keep it up for much longer. There was a slight curve in the road so that if he could get to the lane before the guard saw him, he might run on. He sprinted as hard as he could and went down the lane. It was a dead-end. Ten metres away, there was a chain-link fence sealing it. He had no choice but to run to it. Was he supposed to jump it? But it was topped by barbed wire. He looked to his left and there was Sam crawling through some broken boards under the veranda of a derelict house that seemed to be full of car tyres. Paddy followed him.

They stayed under the veranda for several minutes, panting like cats, lying on their stomachs in the dry dirt. There wasn’t enough room to sit up. Paddy picked up a nail and it crumbled in his fingers. Light came through the gaps in the weatherboards. Earthy air that also smelled rubbery, perhaps from the tyres. They could hear traffic and snatches of people talking, shouting, but no one came down the lane. They listened to their own breathing. The blood was beating in Paddy’s right ear. He shut his eyes but his father wasn’t there. He opened his eyes. The beating in his ear slowly faded.

The security guard might have realised they were hiding somewhere, that they couldn’t have just vanished, and he might search for them. But searching was different from chasing and Paddy’s guess was that, in spite of his need to get the old guy, the guard wouldn’t want to become involved in a situation where he found them down some deserted lane, cornered. It was two against one and he’d already done his best. You ran until you stopped and then you went back to the store to fill in your report sheet.

His phone rang. It was in his pocket and impossible to get out. It rang until it stopped.

Paddy couldn’t bear the discomfort any longer, and anyway the phone had given up their position. He moved his legs out
the opening and backed awkwardly into the daylight. His whole body was stiff and sore and he slumped against the side of the veranda, watching Sam emerge from the hole.

Once he was out, he stood up, staring down at Paddy with a look of annoyance, disgust even. There was, for the first time, a directed emotion. He looked capable of lashing out, or running off. His sweatshirt and his trousers were covered in dust. He seemed to hate Paddy.

Good.

‘What did you take?’ said Paddy.

Sam recoiled. Held his hands up.
Me
?

Say what you liked, the Covenay kid was good. All this and still no speech.

‘What did you steal from there?’

He was filled with disbelief. He mimed it with genuine horror, taking a step back, flinging his arms around. Search me, if you want.

‘You take a bra or something?’ said Paddy. ‘Panties?’

He put two fingers to his brain. You must be mad, what are you talking about?

Paddy took out his phone and checked for messages. There was one from Pip saying his mother was home. He looked at the kid again. ‘I don’t care what it is, just tell me. You a panty thief, Sam Covenay?’

He was shaking his head. I pity you, you’re sick.

He
was
sick. Sick of this. Paddy stood up so they were facing each other and pointed a finger against the boy’s chest. ‘I think you have female items on your person, Covenay.’

Sam looked at the finger and smiled, baring his braced teeth, still shaking his head.

It was Paddy’s first real look inside the mouth. He thought, It’s me. I was like this too. Age fourteen, I was on this path. I was this. The Year My Father Died. Same age. Same mouth. But wait on. Did I stop speaking? No. Did I draw stuff on my hand? No. Did I get or seek help? Hell no. So they were different too, he thought.

The Covenay kid was not sui generis, nor was he generic. Okay then, that established it: he was human. The search for Sam had narrowed.

The boy’s head-shaking went on. You’re a lame fucking therapist, man. You think this will work? Then Sam gestured towards his pockets. Paddy could look if he wanted to. He didn’t care. He was clean.

‘Why’d you run then?’ said Paddy, suddenly losing any playfulness, speaking earnestly, accusingly even. Hating him too. Hating his blackness, his cowardice, his foolish confidence in an act that would have been insupportable without the indulgence of the people who loved him. ‘Why are you with me? I don’t get why. And I’m not sure I need you here right now. I have serious things to think about.’

Sam stared at the ground for a moment and moved his foot around in the dusty grass, considering. He flicked at some of the dirt on his trousers, brushing half-heartedly at the knees. Then he looked up and said right to Paddy’s face, ‘I didn’t see your mother come out of the building. But then I wasn’t looking for her. Maybe she did and I missed her. Or there’s a back way.’

‘There’s no back way!’

He flinched at Paddy’s harshness then recovered. ‘Okay.’

‘Wasted a whole lot of time here.’ Paddy tapped a knuckle against one of the tyres on the veranda. Through a grimy double sash window he could see a workbench, a chain winch above it coming from the ceiling and the parts of an engine. It triggered easily an image of his mother, when she was hardly much older than Sam Covenay, working in the dark in the forest to prise the part from the car that would disable it. In fear of her life. Those were stakes, true stakes. He wanted to be at the lunch.

‘So can I ask something?’ Sam said. ‘Why’d
you
run?’

‘Why’d I run?’

‘You didn’t steal anything that I saw.’

Paddy looked at the boy who was now talking. It didn’t seem strange at all that he had this power back again. His voice showed no obvious signs of its captivity though Paddy wasn’t
the best judge of that. Sam needed to stand in front of his parents and say things to them for everyone to know whether he sounded different from before. He didn’t croak, he wasn’t husky or hoarse. Of course he might have been chatting away in private all this time, keeping the voice in shape. He wasn’t aphasic.

‘Why’d you run?’ he said again.

‘I don’t know. Wanted to see what it was like,’ said Paddy.

‘Okay,’ he said doubtfully.

They walked into the lane, both brushing vigorously at their clothes. Dust rose up and made Sam sneeze loudly. Again the noise was novel. At once Paddy knew he’d been able to suppress even this. Sam gripped his mouth and looked shocked; as if he’d said something he shouldn’t have but was pleased it was out.

‘But you know what, I really wanted to see the guy give up, the security guard,’ said Paddy.

‘He did though.’

‘To be aware of him pulling up, stopping in the street, waving his hand after me in disgust.’

‘That guy would be pretty disgusted with you right now.’

‘You think?’ The kid was even experimenting with kindness.

They’d come to the end of the lane and Sam went ahead, checking the street was clear before Paddy emerged. ‘I just thought,’ said Paddy, ‘I’ll never be able to go to Farmers again. I’m a wanted man.’

‘Wanted for not stealing anything,’ said Sam. ‘By the way, you checked the basement, right? For your mother.’

‘What would she be doing in the basement though?’ He didn’t yet want to tell him the truth, that his mother was found, was never lost. He wanted a pressure maintained. The kid was speaking, a miracle, but that didn’t make him likeable. He was likeable but that didn’t make Paddy disposed to like him. That didn’t make him, despite the braces, the unaccountable sadnesses, the unreachable desires, a frère.

‘I don’t know. That’s where you keep all the junk though.
Stuff you should have thrown out. All of those things of Dora’s. Plus it’s where you keep your bike.’

Paddy stopped him. ‘All this time, you’ve been listening.’

‘Never said it was my hearing that was wrong.’

‘Never
said
anything.’

‘That’s true.’ The smile he gave was wry, slightly remorseful. Was he considering what he’d lost over these last months of self-imposed silence? Did some image of his parents’ pain come to mind? That was probably stretching it. He was after all a devious vandal, the kid who’d not only changed the face of his folks’ lives but the face of Paddy’s cartoon. The smile may have been more smug than anything else. He was speaking again but was he better?

Paddy stood just inside the door of the apartment and listened. This pair was having lunch, behaving as if nothing had happened—not in the last hour, not in the last week, not ever. Cutlery knocked against plates, there was laughter. For a moment he thought nothing
had
happened and that everything was back to normal. Except that category had been banished. Then he heard the voices: Southern African English and French Kiwi. The huge oddness of it made him happy and just a little nervous, as if it all might collapse at any moment when the oddness was recognised, the terror of it acknowledged, and he waited. They’d not heard him come in.

Terror? Surely nothing as bad. It seemed like they’d taken in foreign boarders, or that Helena was home with some pupils. He heard his mother laughing, or guessed it was Teresa, or Thérèse, since the laugh followed the low, insistent, smiling sound of Pip who, it seemed, was playing host. His mother’s laugh was new, higher-pitched than before and it trailed off shyly, almost as if a third person was in the room with them. Yet the flow between the cousins was completely natural, marked by habits formed decades ago obviously, the patterns relaxed, spirited.

‘But I think secretly you like it,’ he heard his mother say. ‘You like how small it is. A real
town
town.’

Then Pip: ‘It’s true, I can’t be in a big city for long now. Lost the habit.’

‘You could move to Lower Hutt!’

‘Yes! I should have bought your house, then you could visit and sleep in your old room.’

They laughed at this, and his mother said: ‘But Lower Hutt isn’t small any more.’ Lower
Utt
.

Hear that, he thought, she was remaking the place. It sounded exotic and new, somewhere almost worth looking into.

There was a silence and then Pip said: ‘I met a Somalian man in the Palmerston North Public Library the other day. I’ve been surprised at the number of Africans here.’

His mother said in mock horror, ‘They’re everywhere!’

When he appeared, they both stood up and apologised for starting without him but they’d been starving and had begun to pick, just pick, though it looked more than that now, sorry. Pip pulled a chair out for him, giving him the briefest look as if to say, everything’s all right, play along. It’s fine.

He saw that the food he’d bought had been added to. The table was set for a jolly picnic: a bowl of green salad, two types of bread, a plate of ham, smoked fish, cheeses, a jug of water with ice and slices of lemon in it, the strawberries, cloth napkins he recognised as his mother’s, also her vinaigrette bottle. In the centre of the table, an untouched pear tart. Their own plates were half-finished. ‘Look at this,’ he said.

‘Your naughty mother went out and bought things,’ said Pip.

‘Yes, I have it down now,’ said Teresa. ‘I go, I point. I nod and smile. I hand them my bankcard.’

‘She says she’s not understood by the locals.’

‘I’m not!’ His mother looked at his clothes. ‘But Paddy where have you been?’

He was still dusty, despite his efforts. ‘Oh, mucking about,’ he said.

After he changed his clothes they sat together eating and talking. He was admitted into their company by Pip with a kind of pretend deference that was still lovely. ‘Here he is!’ she said. ‘The owner of the house. The great columnist!’ She helped load his plate with food. Then she was asking his opinion on the best
small town in New Zealand, which had been their topic before he arrived and he was no doubt much better placed than either of them to give an informed view. He said he liked Central Otago, anywhere down there. He was a Central bore. He began to speak of driving through the region in late summer. His mother cut him off. Too extreme, she said. Hot and cold, no. ‘Pip,’ she said, ‘can never handle a real winter again, she’s too soft.’

‘I am! I am! I’m ruined,’ said Pip. ‘But forget about me.’ She asked Paddy what he liked about Central exactly.

When they retired he and Helena had a dream about a house on a hill, north-facing, solar panels, a river below them, orchards nearby, the sun moving in a great arc.

His mother said a word they didn’t catch. She repeated it rather sourly. ‘Melanoma, from the sun.’ Her mood seemed fully collapsible. Was she annoyed he was there?

Pip laughed and struck her cousin lightly on the arm. She said to Paddy, ‘Will you grow grapes?’

‘We’ll eat grapes. And we’ll drink the fruits of others’ labour.’

‘Exactly! Because there’s too much work in a vineyard and you’ll be there to—’

‘Bask in the summer heat,’ he said, ‘while covered in sunscreen.’

Pip then asked about Helena, whom she’d never met.

His mother said unhappily, ‘She works very hard, very hard. Harder than he does.’

‘That’s fair,’ he said. He explained about the language school, the review. How committed she was.

‘What a neat lady,’ said Pip.

‘There’s a daughter,’ said Teresa. It seemed an ominous pronouncement.

‘There is a daughter, yes,’ he said, smiling.

Then Pip was asking about his work. What sort of problems was he treating typically?

His mind went straight to Sam Covenay. What followed now in that case? There was a good chance the boy might simply
return to his old ways. And Paddy could hardly give the Covenays details of the ‘cure’. Or Sam might go home and tell the whole truth, the chase, the hiding. Could be a problem there for Paddy, although first they’d have to believe the devil.

He found himself telling Pip about Caleb, his most recent ‘graduate’, he said, and he spoke of the boy’s mother, Julie, who’d read him the poem.

‘What a brilliant tribute. They put you in poems! Wonderful,’ said Pip.

‘It’s my one and only appearance.’ He told them about the baking too.

‘How astonishing,’ said Pip. ‘In our day of course,’ she said, turning to her cousin, who’d stopped eating, ‘we had nothing like it, did we?’

‘Ginger gems?’ said Teresa unhumorously.

‘Speech therapy.’

His mother now looked in danger of dropping out of the meal altogether. She’d been staring at her food in sullen contemplation. She put down her fork and rubbed at her eyes. ‘There seem to be more and more of these problems nowadays.’

‘But is that true, Paddy?’ said Pip. ‘Maybe back then if you had a problem you just suffered it.’

‘You just got on with it,’ said Teresa. She lifted her head sleepily.

‘Well,’ said Pip, resting her hand on her cousin’s arm. ‘Was it that simple?’

‘I don’t see why not. People were stronger.’

Pip laughed. ‘Okay.’

Paddy said, ‘Are you tired, Ma? You could go and lie down in the spare room.’

She ignored this or failed to take it in. ‘If you can invent a name for it, you can charge people money for it. Slapped cheek syndrome.’

‘What’s that, darling?’ said Pip.

‘It’s Slapcheek,’ said Paddy. ‘Quite a nasty virus. All Steph’s kids—’

‘Slapped cheek syndrome,’ Teresa interrupted. ‘All Steph’s kids get it. Off they go to the doctor, paying out the money.’

‘Doctor’s visits are free for under sevens,’ said Paddy, irritated, yet hoping to pass this off as pure information for Pip.

‘Drugs aren’t,’ said his mother sharply. She was reviving. ‘Now
we
never had slapped cheek syndrome. Slapped backside syndrome, yes.’ She stared at Paddy. ‘Another subject, that one.’

‘Indeed,’ said Pip.

Paddy reached for some more bread at the same time as Pip. ‘Please, after you,’ he said. They’d never been hit as kids. For Brendan, it would have been unthinkable.

‘The child is king,’ said his mother.
The child ees keeng.
‘You get arrested for touching them.’

‘Actually no.’ He’d not intended to make a response. He laughed. ‘That is not the case.’ It was a mistake to pursue the topic any further. His mother was clearly failing and of course Pip understood this. Yet even when well, Teresa had always been perfectly capable of saying such things and usually he was drawn to answer. There was a goading spirit in her. Its presence now didn’t necessarily suggest that she was under strain, perhaps only that she was in the mood to reveal his sensitivities. Right then he discovered he disliked her thoroughly.

‘The child is boss,’ she said. The stupid accent gave these provoking statements an edge.

He spoke to Pip, still smiling. ‘Yes, of course it was fairly recently in history that the child was sent into the fields, down the mines, sold into slavery.’

‘Slavery!’ said his mother with joyful scorn.

Pip sat back suddenly and brought her hands together in an attitude almost of prayer, bowing her head as she spoke. She was hoping that the table would reconvene itself in peace. ‘We’ve come a long way, that’s for sure.’

‘I agree,’ he said. ‘But as you of course know, Pip, children still end up in the army in some parts of the world even now,
parts that you’d be more familiar with than us, so notions of progress aren’t universal.’

Pip sent a look in which her annoyance at him flashed briefly. She had loyalties. ‘Paddy, you’re right. It’s a terrible thing.’ She picked up a pie slice and addressed the pear tart. ‘Now, can I cut some of this wonderful-looking creation for anyone? I mean, this is something you just can’t get in Palmie.’

‘And yet,’ said his mother, ‘they say the army is exactly what some of these young people need. The discipline.’
Dee-cee-pleen
. ‘And they’ve had some good results with that.’

‘Patrick,’ said Pip, ‘I want to give you a big piece.’

‘Terrific,’ he said, holding out his plate. ‘Terrific.’

‘You know he bikes now?’ said Teresa, her voice slippery with amusement, veering towards a sort of spitefulness. ‘He bought a bike and he goes out on it, he goes everywhere. He dresses up.’

‘How wonderful,’ said Pip.

‘He wants eternal youth.’

‘Bit late for that now, I think,’ said Paddy. ‘Besides, I didn’t even like my youth. Happier now than I’ve ever been.’ Instantly he wished to retract the first part of that.

‘He’s desperate,’ said his mother.

‘For this pear tart, I am.’

‘It’s very good for the planet anyway, biking,’ said Pip.

‘Oh, the planet,’ sighed his mother.
Pluneet
. ‘Sick of that too.’

Pip reached for his mother’s plate. ‘Thérèse?’ She’d said the name in her best French accent.

‘Oh, don’t patronise me, please! I can’t stand that. Both of you, just give it a rest.’ His mother stood up from the table, shaking. Then she caught herself, correcting her tone at once. Who is this mad woman in my body? ‘Sorry, dears. So sorry. Not feeling myself is the problem here. I’m so tired. Would it be too rude to lie down? I think I have to. I could go home but this is all right, isn’t it.’ Pip and Paddy were standing now and they reached to take an arm but Teresa waved them off. ‘No, no, I can manage. Thank you.’ She was walking steadily away from
them. ‘You know the French for “sorry” is “désolée”. Learnt that. Je suis désolée. Now watch the elephant in the room as she moves slowly but with purpose to a place of rest. Did you see many elephants in Africa, darling? You probably kept them as pets. Tell me later.’

While his mother rested on the bed in the spare room, he and Pip did the dishes. Shortly after that, Pip had to leave for a meeting with a lawyer, a New Zealander, who’d been recommended by friends. She was trying to sort out a few things regarding her property, which she’d lost in Zimbabwe. She told Paddy that there was no question of compensation but she was trying to arrange for some people she knew to have living rights there. She’d talked on the phone and the lawyer had told her it was going to be very difficult but he would do what he could. Pip’s briefcase contained documents that she hoped might help him. She held the briefcase up and tapped it. ‘So many forms! So boring!’

She’d told Paddy all of this with her polite smile back in place, as if he couldn’t possibly understand what it really meant and she couldn’t possibly explain it to him or was unwilling to try. He recognised again how close she’d come in her story about the bike ride to allowing him to see into a sort of entrance. Now with great tact she seemed to be closing that entrance. Well, could she be blamed? What had he done to meet her?

They arranged that she could stay the night either in his apartment or his mother’s, depending on Teresa’s feelings, and be present at the MRI the following day. Though again, and despite his assurances that she’d be a great help, Pip insisted that this would only happen if his mother wanted it. If not, she could easily drive back to Palmerston North that evening.

She was about to leave and he wanted to engage with her again. He said something about Mugabe. There’d been stories in the paper about police beatings. A photo that was hard to look at of Morgan Tsvangirai’s stitched skull.

‘I once saw Mugabe on a bicycle,’ she said. ‘To carry on our biking theme.’

‘Tell me more,’ he said.

‘A dangerous invitation with me, as you know. But yes, it’s hard to believe now. It was in 1982, the year after the election. A nearby high school had been completely rebuilt and they’d put in a new sports field. Mugabe was very big on education back then, having been a teacher himself and then he’d studied for all those degrees. You know he’s a very educated person, a BSc, several BAs, a law degree, others.’

‘He got them in prison, didn’t he.’

‘He did. Anyway, he was coming to this school for their opening and we went along.

‘We sat in the new stand at the sports ground and waited for ages. I remember thinking, okay Mugabe’s not coming. He’s a busy man with a big job in front of him. It was a small rural area, nothing much. Then finally a line of black cars comes through the school gates and turns into the sports field, parks in the middle of the grass, and out steps the man himself. Robert Mugabe, the great hero of our nation! I mean, he was a hero.

‘Of course everyone goes absolutely crazy, weeping and screaming, men and women. There are children sitting on the dirt behind ropes and they started banging the ground with their fists. And he stands beside the cars for a while, smiling at us. Just smiling. You felt really great to be there that day.