The Last Time We Spoke (24 page)

The tennis ball rolled across the carpet. Pania pounced, sinking her claws into the fluorescent fuzz.

Ben let out a snort. ‘Puss, puss, come here, you.’

But the kitten had other ideas, all of which involved the ball.

‘She’s got heaps bigger.’

Carla smiled. ‘She has, which is pretty surprising considering what a fussy eater she is. Only the very best for Miss Pania.’

‘Did Jack have a cat?’

These days, Ben’s questions arrived without warning. There was no guessing what he’d toss next into the ring. Sometimes his enquiries were too intrusive, too familiar, and she instantly repelled them, still scared that Ben would in some way wreak more havoc, even if only on her memories. She alone would determine what to share. Yet despite her resistance, deep down she believed that these unpredictable enquiries actually sprung more from a genuine interest in her life than an expedient gathering of information – his interest in her life in fact a measure of their kinship.

Kinship? Something had happened between her and this young man – something bewildering and frightening and good all at the same time.

She swam back to the surface of her thoughts.

‘He did, Ben. In fact he could have filled Noah’s Ark entirely on his own! He had everything from a Bearded Dragon to a family of twenty-six mice. Then there was Sinbad the parrot, a Siamese cat called Cleopatra, and Tutti the guinea pig. He even used to catch frogs in the pond on the farm and smuggle them inside under his cap.’

Ben sniggered at the thought of Jack sneaking them past his mother. ‘Chancer!’

Carla laughed. ‘Yup, he was full of mischief. And you, Ben? Did you have pets?’

Ben looked down at his shoes. ‘Nah. Well, yeah. I mean, we had this mongrel called Diesel, but he wasn’t really a pet, like. We also had a bitch called Tequila. She had puppies, but I don’t remember what happened to them.’ He paused, his face darkening. Then the wave passed and his eyes lit up again. ‘Once, my friend Pania gave me this bottle of silkworms. I used to go over to her place to get leaves, special swan plant leaves, ’cos that’s what they live off, you know.’

‘They sound more like the caterpillars of Monarch butterflies.’

‘Anyway, Pania and me—’

‘Pania and I,’ Carla corrected.

‘Pania and I had these stupid plans to set up our own silk factory and get rich.’ Ben laughed with embarrassment. ‘But Ryan threw the jar at Cody when he shat— I mean pooed in his pants, and that was the end of that – Cody crying like a baby and all my munted worms sliding down the wall.’

‘Had any got to the cocoon stage?’ Carla asked, trying to steer the conversation away from the darkness.

‘Nah.’

Ben’s face lit up as Pania somersaulted into view and he bent down and picked the kitten up.

‘I’ll try to get hold of some for you,’ Carla said. ‘It’s an amazing thing to watch – their lifecycle from tiny black egg stuck to the back of a leaf, to caterpillar, cocoon and then butterfly.’

He nodded. She could tell he didn’t believe her. No expectation, no disappointment. Or maybe he just didn’t care. He was a grown man, after all, and she was still treating him like a teen. Yet at times he seemed almost half-formed and vulnerable, and she felt the urge to mother him.

‘Actually,’ Carla said, thinking out loud, ‘there’s a great short story by a New Zealand author. Her name just eludes me. My memory! Anyway … Oh, I know. Patricia Grace. The story is called “Butterflies”. I’ll try to get a copy for you from the library. Yes, that’s what I’ll do.’

Ben shrugged.

‘So, tell me, how’s that writing of yours coming along?’

He opened his exercise book, his face retreating behind a curtain of long hair. ‘I’m rubbish at it.’

She scanned the rows of letters tracking down the page. ‘No. This is good, Ben.’

He looked up slowly.

‘It’s good. Really. Just make sure that when you write the letter r, you start from the top of the little stem and keep your pen on the page all the time.’ She traced one of the letters with her finger.

‘’Kay.’

Someone coughed. Carla looked up and was surprised to see three youngsters slouching in the doorway. Two darted away as soon as their cover was blown. The third – a thin fellow with purple-brown acne scars pitting his forehead remained. ‘Can we sit in, miss?’

‘Sit in? On the lesson?’

‘Yeah.’

The other two reappeared behind their spokesman.

‘Where are you meant to be?’ she asked.

‘Nowhere, miss,’ they replied in unison.

‘Sorry, guys, but—’

‘C’mon. How come Ben gets to learn to write and all?’

‘But you guys know how to, don’t you?’

Silence.

‘All right, then. Pull up a chair. Let’s see if I’ve got a few more pens.’

Later that week, Carla came home to a message from the prison manager asking if she would consider helping with the literacy programme at the unit. They’d had a surge of interest in the course since she’d been teaching Ben. She accepted.

The rollercoaster ride she’d been on for so many years finally felt less of an ordeal – the dips not as drastic, the ascents not as steep. When Paul visited his daughter in Germany for six weeks, Carla coped. And when the anniversaries of Jack and Kevin’s deaths came round, she did not crumble.

One thing, however, continued to tamper with her equilibrium, and plague her new-found evenness; she had not heard back from Myra. It had been months. Paul cautioned her against trying to track the woman down, and it took all Carla’s willpower to adhere to his advice. She had a grandson. Somewhere in Auckland was Jack’s son. It had been easier not knowing.

‘Ben! Hey, Ben!’ Isaac’s voice boomed through the space.

‘Sounds like you in for a hiding,’ Rusty, a new inmate on the block, snorted, cornflakes and spittle spraying from his mouth.

Ben stood up from the breakfast table, preparing for a rumble. In the boob he was always prepared.

Isaac burst into the canteen. ‘Jesus, you motherfucker,’ he panted. ‘I be-be-been calling you for ages.’

Chalkie walked in behind him, drawn by the commotion. He laid a hand on Isaac’s arm. ‘What’s up?’

‘It’s them— I mean, it’s them c—’ He couldn’t get the words out. In the end, he just pointed to the door.

The canteen cleared faster than in an emergency drill, the promise of excitement spicing up the day. They ran down the corridor, their numbers swelling till all twelve of them, plus Chalkie, were headed for the meeting room. They careened round the corners like a freight train in the night – all muscle, steel and noise.

Neil, the unit guard, was at the end of the passage when they rounded the last corner. He took one look at the entire muster heading his way and slammed the gate shut just in time to bring all thirteen to a clanging halt. Then he was shouting
into his radio. ‘Incident on Fourteen! Incident on Fourteen!’

‘What’s up, Neil?’ Ben puffed, pressing himself against the cold bars.

‘On the floor,’ Neil shouted. ‘On the floor!’

‘But what we done?’ Wiki hollered.

‘Yeah. What we done?’

Chalkie pushed through the hunch of guys. Neil spotted him, and his expression relaxed a little. ‘Chalkie, you got to get down too.’

Chalkie nodded and sank to the ground. He knew the drill.

Ben pulled himself along the floor until his face was right up next to Isaac’s, the guy’s hot, agitated breath blowing over his face. ‘So you wanna tell me what’s going down, Isaac? Slowwwly.’

Isaac’s bad stammer could drive a man mental. The only words he never struggled with were swear words; they rolled off his tongue as easily as a morning piss.

Isaac sucked in a deep breath. ‘It’s … it’s them chr … chr … chrysalis things. There’s fuckin’ b-butterflies ev … ev … everywhere.’

Ben started to laugh. A snicker at first, that grew into a shaking howl.

‘What’s so funny, bookman?’ Rusty sneered.

Ben ignored him, tears of laughter running down his cheeks. He could these days ignore most taunts. His anger had gradually burnt down to cooling embers.

When backup arrived, the guards found thirteen inmates on the floor hollering with laughter. It took a bit of explaining, but finally the gate was unlocked and a more subdued crew spilt into the meeting room.

Isaac went in first, his grin stretched taut across his teeth.

‘See! S-S-See!’ He was spinning round and round – a hairy, hulking ballerina pointing at the ceiling.

Floating above them, like autumn leaves swept up in a gust, were monarch butterflies, their orange paper wings ignited by the sun.

Then the room was still, except for the faintest, perhaps imagined sound of beating wings. Everyone was looking up. Up was different.

So the caterpillars the Reid woman had brought in had done good, mused Ben. Silly little critters …

Isaac counted them. ‘Five chrysalises. F-f-four b-b-butterflies.’

The guys pushed past Ben to check out the two potted swan plants drooping in the corner. Four torn balls of burst silk hung there like emptied pockets. Only one perfect package remained. It was no longer cucumber green with golden pimples, but almost see-through – a window onto a folded world of orange and black.

‘Let’s see!’

‘Hey, give us a look!’

‘Don’t push, you cunt!’

‘Fuck you!’

They pushed and shoved and jostled to get closer. Ben didn’t react. Once he would have thumped anyone who tried thrusting him out of the way.

The regular old room was like some giant popcorn machine spewing out excitement. All twelve of them refused to budge for the rest of the day in case the final pouch popped. They even missed out on lunch because Neil wouldn’t let them eat in the meeting room. In the end, a screw’s a screw, no matter what’s going down, thought Ben. However, it didn’t escape his notice that Neil hung around for a lot of the day too – finding one excuse or another to put his head in and check on the guys (and that last cocoon).

Ben was just glad that no one from outside could see him now – hanging around a plant waiting for some butterfly to hatch. How mental was that!

By late afternoon, the guys were bored, and Ben was starting to think that the last chrysalis was a dud. Then at ten past four, as the sun was painting fat yellow stripes across the carpet, the chrysalis shuddered … A faint tremble that swallowed the attention of the entire room. And, after some serious vibrating, something wriggled out.

It was misshapen – nothing like what Ben had been expecting. All long body.

It hung from the ripped sheaf for what seemed like forever, the creased and crumpled wings slowly opening like one of those capsules he and Lily used to buy from the corner store which, when dropped in water, morphed into some super cool shape – an octopus, a fish, a star.

Ironed-smooth. Flexing. A quivering sort of grace.

Then lift off!

Ben had never seen anything so awesome in his whole life.

The woman’s feet are bare, and her long hair is twisted into a knot. A cluster of speckled feathers drives through the thick, greying bundle. Her face is a calm crease of age.

She lifts her hands; they tremble with life. Her voice, like the call of a tui, reaches high in welcome. She is one of the
tangata whenua
– the hosts. Behind her the timber walls of the meeting house stand strong – the pitched roof an embrace; the carvings a record of time and tale; the blue eyes
pāua
-wide with seeing.

A kaikaranga comes in reply. The messenger is once again a woman. Her voice is both strong and sweet like the honey of manuka, and she chants a retort. Her hands quiver too, and her feet are also bare. She is of the
manuhiri
– the visitors.

So continues this exchange, back and forth, back and forth, until the call comes inviting these guests to enter the sacred house.

They move slowly towards the sanctuary, this place with ribs and backbone, pillar and post, with its sturdy flax-woven walls.

Listen out for the
karanga
, Benjamin Toroa. It will invite you to take off your shoes and enter your ancestors’
wharenui
. The meeting house still exists despite all that has transpired. Some of your people have kept it strong.

When the time comes, though, I will leave you on the threshold. I cannot push you inside. It will be for you to accept the challenge.

The grandmother plaited the granddaughter’s hair and then said, ‘Get your lunch. Put it in your bag. Get your apple. You come back straight after school, straight home here. Listen to your teacher,’ she said. ‘Do what she say.’
9

Carla paused in her reading and looked up from the book. The room was still. Even the butterflies. Thirteen faces – brown, scarred, and dented – listening intently.

She’d got an urgent message from Neil at the prison. He told her the butterflies had hatched, and she had to come up. It wasn’t Thursday, her usual day, but she was needed. So she’d taken leave from the library and headed north, Patricia Grace’s short story tucked into her bag.

Carla continued.
Her grandfather was out on the step. He walked down the path with her and out onto the footpath. He said to a neighbour, ‘Our granddaughter goes to school. She lives with us now.’

‘She’s fine,’ the neighbour said. ‘She’s terrific with her two plaits in her hair.’

‘And clever,’ the grandfather said. ‘Writes every day in her book.’

‘She’s fine,’ the neighbour said.

The grandfather waited with his granddaughter by the crossing and then said, ‘Go to school. Listen to the teacher. Do what she say.’

When the granddaughter came home from school her grandfather 
was hoeing round the cabbages. Her grandmother was picking beans. They stopped their work.

‘You bring your book home?’ the grandmother asked.

‘Yes.’

‘You write your story?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s your story?’

‘About the butterflies.’

Isaac let out a guffaw. ‘It’s about b-b-butter—’

‘Shut your gob,’ Rusty shouted.

‘Hey, you shut it!’ Wiki snapped.

‘Shhh.’ Ten voices in unison.

Carla dropped her voice to re-enlist her audience. ‘
Get your book, then. Read your story.’

The granddaughter took her book from her schoolbag and opened it.

‘I killed all the butterflies,’ she read. ‘This is me and this is all the butterflies.’

The audience was suddenly restless. Ben stroked Pania’s ears.

‘And your teacher like the story, did she?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What your teacher say?’

‘She said butterflies are beautiful creatures. They hatch out and fly in the sun. The butterflies visit all the pretty flowers, she said. They lay their eggs and then they die. You don’t kill a butterfly, that’s what she said.’

The grandmother and grandfather were quiet for a long time, and their granddaughter, holding the book, stood quite still in the warm garden.

‘Because you see,’ the grandfather said, ‘your teacher, she buy all her cabbages from the supermarket and that’s why.’

No one moved. Carla lowered the book slowly. She smiled. Faces glowered back. ‘So what do you think?’

‘It sucks,’ Wiki said. ‘That kid killed the butterflies.’

‘Yeah,’ another piped up indignantly.

‘Well, yes,’ Carla said, choosing her words with care. ‘And if someone killed these butterflies’ – she pointed to the orange arcs dotted around the room – ‘you’d be angry and hurt too.’ The men had invested over six weeks in these creatures – setting up, watching and waiting, preparing, nurturing, even photographing.

Heads nodded.

‘It’s painful to lose something you love and treasure, something beautiful.’

Ben looked down.

‘But I think Patricia Grace was telling us something else. Life is a lot about how you look at things,’ she went on. ‘To understand how someone thinks, how they feel and behave, you need to understand who they are. Need to walk for a time in their shoes.’

She took a swig from her water bottle. No one in the room moved. A man she’d not seen before, was standing at the back of the room.

‘For the girl and her grandparents, the butterflies were pests, eating holes in the family’s carefully tended cabbages and destroying the crop. The teacher didn’t understand that when she read the girl’s story.’

Some nods and gradual smiles.

‘These are monarch butterflies,’ Carla continued.

‘
Kahuku
, in Māori,’ interjected Chalkie.

‘The Aztecs, people from an ancient civilisation, believed monarch butterflies were the spirits of their fallen warriors, their colourful wings the colours of battle. But the butterflies in
this
story were probably cabbage butterflies,’ Carla said. ‘They’re different. Also beautiful, with white wings and powdery black markings. But they lay their eggs inside cabbages, and the caterpillars that hatch chew huge holes in the leaves. They can decimate an entire crop.’

‘I hate fuckin’ cabbage,’ Rusty blurted out.

No one paid him any heed. Carla was impressed. The others were
getting used to his attempts to sabotage the calm. And even though he could clearly drive them crazy, they seemed to understand; he was, after all, the newest on the unit. They’d once been in the same dark place themselves – in that abyss of purpose, where there was only room for anger.

‘So are we ready to release them?’ Carla asked, after a time.

‘Release them?’ the guys shouted incredulously.

‘There’s nothing for them to feed on,’ she said above the protests. ‘Just a few wilting pot plants and a dish of water. You can’t hold them prisoner.’

That word hit hard, quashing all protest instantly.

‘The butterflies need to eat and mate and carry pollen from plant to plant,’ she continued. ‘That’s their job.’

Rusty gurgled and thrust his hips back and forth.

‘Do you know,’ Carla said, ‘that butterflies taste their food by standing on it?’

‘Fuckin’ hell!’

‘Rusty! Remember the rules of this unit,’ Chalkie cautioned.

‘They do this because they have taste sensors, sort of tongues, on their feet.’

This induced a wave of hilarity, Ben promising to walk over his porridge in the morning and Wiki declaring he’d lick his toes. The face of the mysterious man at the back of the room also dissolved into a grin.

‘So it’s freedom to the little buggers,’ Ben muttered.

‘I’ve brought some nets with me,’ Carla said, standing up. ‘You’ll need to group in two or threes, as there are only five butterflies. You
can
catch them with your hands, but you have to be very gentle; a butterfly’s wings are really delicate. Fingertips can easily rub off their scales.’

Outside in the yard, the setting sun had bordered the day in a carmine hue. Carla looked on at the youngsters standing on the
small square of lawn – tough men with big hands guarding their fragile cargo. Who would be the first to release their charge?

‘Miss Carla.’ It was Ben, he was standing next to her, his hands empty. He’d let Roach hold a butterfly instead.

‘Yes Ben.’

‘You live in Albany, hey?’

‘Yes,’ she said warily, her defensive instincts kicking in. ‘Why do you ask?’

He shook his head.

‘What?’

‘I learnt something yesterday. Do you know what Albany was called before?’

The others were becoming restless. Everyone was waiting for someone else to make the first move and let a butterfly go.

‘Lucas Creek. I think it used to be called Lucas Creek,’ she said.

Ben shook his head. ‘Nah. I mean in Māori, the name for the whole area.’

Carla was getting a little impatient. This was an important moment for everyone in the unit, and she didn’t want to distract from it. ‘Ben, can we pick this up lat—’

‘
Okahukura,’
he said. ‘
Okahukura
. It means “place of butterflies” or “place of rainbows”. Cool, huh?’

Carla’s skin rose into goosebumps.

‘That
is
pretty cool.’

Then there was a gust of wind. A host of hands opened spontaneously and butterflies were tossed into the air like orange confetti. They hung there momentarily, suspended in the air as if on a wall frieze in a child’s bedroom, before scattering across the evening sky.

‘Carla, I’d like you to meet someone.’

She turned. Next to Neil stood the mystery man.

‘Mike Adams,’ the man said, his hand outstretched, a collection of copper bracelets on his wrist jangling.

Carla tried to place him. He looked too casual in his jeans and corduroy jacket to be part of the staff. And his ponytail was definitely not regulation.

‘Mr Adams is a freelance journalist,’ Neil said. ‘He’s heard about the work you’re doing with literacy here.’

‘Word does gets around,’ Carla said, with a brittle smile. ‘I thought only bad news travelled that fast.’

‘Mr Adams was keen to meet with you and Ben to learn more of your stories. Maybe write a piece about the two of you.’

‘No!’

Both men looked startled.

‘No more written about me, or Ben,’ Carla said starting to walk towards the building.

‘He’s gonna fry! He’s gonna fry!’ Rusty shouted. One of the butterflies was balancing on top of the electric fence.

‘Come to our tea room,’ Neil said, quickly following. ‘We can talk more easily there.’

Carla helped herself to a gingernut and dunked it in her coffee. ‘You see, Mr Adams—’ she began.

He leant earnestly over his elbows. ‘Please, call me Mike.’

‘Mr Adams,’ she began again. He had warm eyes and an open face, she’d give him that. ‘I’ll be honest with you. I don’t have much time for you people. Journalists, I mean. I once believed in good journalism, but have come to realise that the truth usually gets in the way of a good story.’

Mike Adams opened his mouth to talk.

‘I’ve nothing against you personally,’ she went on quickly, affording him no opportunity to interrupt. ‘You look like a decent
chap. It’s just that reporters these days seem to have forgotten that it’s people they are dealing with. Real people, real lives, real pain. They have a moral responsibility to those they are writing about. They need to carefully consider the impact their words have on the world.’

The end of Carla’s biscuit broke off and sank. She fished for it with a teaspoon. ‘It’s my experience that words used carelessly remodel reality, sometimes wreaking as much damage and pain as the knife, bullet, or baseball bat.’

Adams looked out of the small window. She followed his gaze. The inmates were still watching the last remaining butterfly perched atop of the security fence.

‘Freedom of speech does not translate into a free-for-all. It is not an absolute freedom to trawl through other people’s lives, and write without thought for the consequences.’

Adams bit his lip. She should stop. Just say no. Move on. But she couldn’t. The extraordinary lengths some had gone to to get her story had only heightened the suffering she’d had to endure. The lies. The violations. The unremitting attention. And then, when her life had been sucked dry of all sensation, when there was nothing more to keep the story spinning, she had been discarded like a piece of garbage.

Neil cleared his throat. ‘Carla, I’m sorry to have put you in this position. Perhaps Mr Adams can talk with Ben alone and not bother you again.’

Carla jumped up. ‘Absolutely not! You will not speak with him!’ She rested her palms on the table. ‘He … He … Just don’t.’ She wouldn’t let Ben’s progress be thwarted, nor measured and confined by words. She would not risk anyone damaging what they had.

‘I think that should be Ben’s decision,’ Neil interjected.

Mike Adams held up his hand in a gesture of peace. ‘I should explain.’

Carla clenched her jaw and shook her head. She would not be persuaded. Enough reporters had hidden in the shrubs on her
farm with their long lenses, to cement a permanent distrust for the media. Money changed hands when news was reported. That corrupted the integrity of the process.

He stood up. ‘I’m sorry to have disturbed you,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave your story intact. I think the work you are doing is incredible.’

He ran a hand through his hair. As he did so his shirtsleeve rode up to reveal the green patterned ink of a traditional Māori tattoo. Carla was surprised. He didn’t look Māori.

‘You know, I tried to write about Ben and you a long time ago,’ he said, his hand gripping hers in a handshake. ‘For a number of reasons, I couldn’t. The story refused to be tamed into a one-page article. Perhaps I got a sense, then, of its depth, and the onus on the one who would try to tell it.’

Carla swallowed.

‘Eight years on I thought I’d give it another crack.’

Carla looked down at his hand; his fingernails were all chewed. ‘So you’re a biter too.’

Adams blushed, curling his fingers into a fist.

‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘you know what they say:
Fact writes stranger than fiction.
Who would ever believe that a bunch of hoodlums could be bewitched by butterflies?’

Adams laughed. A genuine, endearing laugh.

He walked towards the door.

‘I’ve got a proposition for you,’ Carla said.

He turned, his expression a little wary now.

‘Why don’t you come up to the prison when time permits and assist me in my classes. I could do with a helper. Being the wordsmith that you are, I’m sure you’d be a great asset.’

Adams’ eyes grew wide.

‘Maybe after a while you’ll be better equipped to write the kind of story I think Ben and I deserve.’