The Night Book (21 page)

‘Oh? All right.’

Jung Ha finished picking up the cutlery and went to look at the kitchen floor.

David spent some time checking emails. At 2 a.m. he went to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. Jung Ha emptied a bucket into the sink and wiped her hands. ‘Finish,’ she said.

He leaned against the bench and rubbed his eyes wearily. ‘Thank you, JH.’

‘No worries. Well, off to bed.’ She paused. ‘Nice people tonight eh.’

‘The guests. Yeah. They’re nice people.’

‘That one with the curly hair, with the blonde wife. Nice man.’

‘Simon Lampton.’

‘Yeah. Simon. He old friend of Madame Roza.’

‘Old friend? Not really. More new friend.’

‘Oh. I thought they
old
friends. When they talk here in the hall. Whispering away. So sweet. I thought they muss have like gone to school together.’

David looked at her. ‘Really.’

‘Night,’ she said.

‘Good night, Jung Ha.’ He left her.

Passing through the dining room, Jung Ha smiled savagely, and paused to kick a last spoon under the sofa with her foot. She went to her flat over the garage.
Roza had turned off the lights in the bedroom but the blinds were still open. Her clothes were strewn across the floor. The moon shone behind the tree branches, soft black clouds moving across it. David opened the window and heard the harsh purr of a possum. The sound gave him the creeps. He closed the window and pulled down the blinds. Roza muttered, ‘David, come to bed, hurry up. Come here.’

He got undressed, folding his clothes, putting them in the right places, placed his shoes in the line in the bottom of the wardrobe, then bent to pick up Roza’s clothes, folding them and laying them on a chair. He went to the children’s rooms and looked in. They were asleep. All was in order, the house was silent.

He went back to the bedroom. Roza was lying on her side facing away from him, breathing evenly. She didn’t move as he stood in the dark, looking at the shape of her in the bed.

He settled down carefully, resting his cheek on the warm curve of her hip. He lay in the dark, listening.

Roza looked at David across the table. It was early morning, down there in the Hallwrights’ kitchen. Outside the light dimmed and brightened as clouds crossed the sun and from upstairs came the sound of Jung Ha rousing the children. A ray of light crossed the room, making a sparkling line of dust motes. Roza squinted, watching all those tiny dancing specks, and chasing a thought that had crossed her mind and seemed now, abruptly, to have left again, slamming the door behind it.

‘I mean. I mean …’ She gave up. Her smile (like her body, like her resolve) was weak. ‘I don’t know what I meant.’

‘Look pale darling,’ David said, through a mouthful of toast. He was reading something. He frowned and flipped back a couple of pages, checking.

‘Pale? Do I?’ Funny, she thought. She didn’t feel pale, more like she’d been travelling at high speed in a hot wind. Cheeks flayed, eyes streaming, mouth dry. She sipped her tea; her hand, she was pleased to note, was steady.

She watched David reading. His lips moved. She wondered what it was doing to him — their new life. She knew what it was doing to
her
, but to him? They’d given him a thorough makeover — new hair,
media training, new clothes — and it had worked, had made him appear smooth, competent and photogenic. He needed elocution lessons, but it was suspected in party circles that his strangled way of speaking, the train-wreck sentences, malapropisms and mispronounced words, were a hit with the public. The public thought the current government was a bunch of blue-stocking, ivory tower academics, all abstract principles and nanny state over-regulation. The current government would rather crap on about gay rights and whales and Maoris and ‘environmental concerns’ for godsake, than work out how to look after the people. The country was overrun with criminals, business was strangled, the nanny state wouldn’t even let people smack their own kids, bureaucracy was running riot, taxes were enormous, and only so the bureaucrats could go on bleeding everyone dry and lecturing on how they should live. It was time for a straightforward man who cared about the real things: money, business, families, the mortgage. Who would talk
to
the people, not
at
them. All that. That was the narrative the party was promoting.

Roza sighed. All that. What did she think about
all that
? She was apolitical. It was a flaw. She avoided thinking about politics because she was too preoccupied with her own survival. Had marrying David been a means of survival? Perhaps all marriages were that — maybe even for David. She loved him. But had she ever been in love with him? Did he love her? These thoughts crossed her mind, made her uncomfortable, and then vanished into the air. What would it do to David if he won? He would know he’d finally left his old self behind. He liked to talk about the ‘politics of aspiration’. When he gave speeches to high school kids he sketched an outline of his childhood; he would tell them how, in this country, anyone could succeed. For him, it was personal, so much so that people wondered whether he had any politics at all, beyond the goal of realising his own ambition.

Roza covered her right eye with her hand.

‘Headache?’ David said, without looking up.

The children were thumping down the stairs. He put the papers in his bag and came round to Roza. ‘You all right?’

‘I’m fine.’

He pulled out the chair beside her and sat down. ‘I was sort of hoping you might be, you know.’

She frowned.

‘Pregnant,’ he whispered.

‘You shouldn’t think about it. If you worry about it all the time it doesn’t happen. I don’t know, anyway. Just wait and see.’

‘All right, don’t freak out. It doesn’t matter. I just like the idea, that’s all. It’d gimme something to think about, apart from my own greatness.’ He grinned, kissed her and stood up but she gripped his arm and pulled him down, and they kissed again.

Behind them Mike made a disgusted sound.

‘G’day buddy,’ David said. ‘Hello Mousey.’ He picked up Izzy and tickled her. She squeaked and writhed. Mike sank into his chair and eyed Roza.

‘Dianne here,’ Jung Ha said, coming in from the hall.

And Dianne bounced in, with her pony-tail, her bright smile. ‘Hello people!’

David looked at his watch. He said coldly, ‘Can you just wait in the car until I’m ready thanks, Dianne.’

Dianne stopped short. There was a pause. The children looked from their father to Dianne.

‘Oh. Okay. I am a bit. Early.’ She turned and walked out of the room.

David raised an eyebrow at Roza. He drew her aside, into the hallway outside the kitchen, pushed her against the wall, and whispered, ‘I fucking love you, Roza.’

She laughed, ‘Get off me, you big oaf, you’re squashing me.’

He put his face against her neck.

She said quietly, ‘She’s going to punish you for that.’

‘Dianne. Punish? Who’s the boss around here? I’ll punish
her
.’ He kissed her. ‘I’ll ring you. Okay. Don’t forget, just ring me, it doesn’t matter where I am. I’ll answer, or I’ll make sure I ring you straight back. It starts now, proper. This is it.’

‘I know. Good luck. I mean …
good luck
.’

‘We’ll meet in the middle. We’ll fly you in. Whatever one-horse dump we’re in; we’ll have dinner, spend the night, all that.’

He said goodbye to the kids and Roza followed him to the door. Dianne was standing by the car, scanning a list and not looking up. Ed Miles paced the driveway, talking on his phone, drawing a line in the gravel with his toe and saying intently, ‘Yeah yeah no yeah.
Fuck
no, absolutely, yeah.’ Behind the tinted glass was the compact form of the driver; behind the car, the industrious help. Conscience working his trimmer along a section of hedge; the pool man hefting a plastic canister through the gate and dumping it on the path with a grunt, and, beyond, Jung Ha opening a door and booting the dog out onto the patio, the big setter rearing up on his hind legs, claws scraping the glass. From upstairs came the faint sound of Izzy shouting at her brother. Roza watched a helicopter nosing its way across the top of the distant city.

The driver climbed out with a friendly groan and took David’s bags. Dianne helped him pack stuff into the boot, but she dropped her phone on the gravel and when she knelt to pick it up, her handbag slid off her shoulder. She stooped, with a flustered shake of her head, scrabbling on the ground for items of make-up.

David said to Roza, ‘You could use that Lampton.’

Dianne straightened up, clutching her bag. Her eyes met Roza’s, and she blushed angrily.

‘You mean Simon?’ Roza was still directing a cool gaze at Dianne.

Dianne brushed some gravel from her trousers.

‘If you needed that kind of doctor,’ David said.

‘But he’s supposed to be sort of a friend now, since he’s been here for dinner. I don’t think doctors want to treat you if they know you, and anyway …’ She looked away.

‘He could recommend someone.’ He held her arm.

‘Yes, maybe, but you’ve got to be pregnant first,’ she whispered.

He released her. ‘Well, take care. I’ll be with you wherever you go. I’ll have my satellite trained on you.’

She gave him a silent, enquiring look, her lips pressed together.

‘Right. We ready?’ He clapped his hands and nodded to Ed Miles.

‘I’ll miss you,’ they said at the same time. He got in, and the cars drove away.

Roza marched back to the kitchen and said to Mike, ‘Need money?’

‘No,’ he said, affronted. ‘God.’

‘What do you mean, God? What’s He got to do with it?’ She was suddenly cheerful, as if a weight had been lifted off her.

‘No, I don’t need fucking money, okay.
God
.’

She imitated him. ‘Okay.
God
. So you don’t need any fucking money. Good. Have a nice time at fucking
school
.’

Izzy giggled. ‘Goodbye, fuckin Roza.’

Roza put up her hands. ‘No. Don’t talk like that. No. That’s naughty and rude. At least, don’t talk like that at school.’

‘At fucking school,’ said little Izzy, who always overdid the joke.

‘No. No. Stop. Here, off you go. Have a lovely time. No swearing. Absolutely not. Bye Mike, bye Izzy.’

Jung Ha was expressionless.

Roza said, ‘Sorry, that’s all a bit rude, isn’t it. Just silly jokes. Well, never mind. See you,’ she added brightly.

Jung Ha said nothing.

Roza waved them off and went upstairs, feeling herself relaxing. It was so quiet and peaceful in the big empty rooms. She looked through her things, glanced in the mirror, shrugged, pulled at her shirt, smoothing down the material. It was wrong. She took it off and dropped it on the floor, then took out four shirts and tried them on before she found the one she wanted, wading through the mess to her desk.

But she frowned: her papers and books had been rearranged. Someone had moved a pile of printed emails and pushed her books to the other end of the desk, and the novel she’d been reading had lost its place; the bookmark was inside the front cover. In the bathroom she opened the cupboard, and it too had been rearranged, with pill bottles in different places. Or was she imagining it? She locked the bathroom door, took a packet out of her bra and shook some powder into a glass of water. She drank, wrinkling her nose, and drew in a sharp breath.

There was a murmur of male voices. From the bathroom window Roza peered down. On the path two men, one tall and gingery, the other bulky with a shaven head, were walking together. Dressed in suits and ties and dark glasses, they paced along the path, the bald one pointing at the fence with his mobile phone. Another man came into view, carrying a notebook, and they stopped and conferred at the gate that led to a right-of-way down the side of the property. They opened the gate, stepped out and looked along the path; the bald one shook his head, pointed towards the road and said something emphatic. They nodded seriously while the third man made a note.

Roza pushed the window open wide. Below the ivy-covered
wall, the men bent to look at something near the ground. The light changed. It was strangely, unseasonably warm, as it had been throughout these stormy, unsettled days, and as a cloud crossed the sun the light turned heavy-green and the trees were coloured with the uncanny brightness that comes before a squall of rain. At the window, Roza mused over patterns, shapes, light on dark: the hedges that Conscience had pruned into rectangles, the paths, the moving lattice of winter branches. As black cloud swelled from the west, a metal slice of sun, blazing with white light, entered the outer rim of the rainbank.

Heavy drops began to fall. Roza enjoyed the hiss of the rain and the rush of warm, scented air. She put out her hand. The shimmer and flash of water. Rainshine, waterlight. She entered a dream of water and silence: Roza lying in a boat on a wild, remote river, mild grey sky heavy with rain, the old boat chugging, the riverbank a green smear in the distance, the watersurface dimpled with drops. She saw this in a vivid flash, and at the same time watched the three cops hurrying along the path with their heads dipped against the rain.

The cops were coming more often now — like everyone else, they didn’t expect David to lose the election and they were planning ahead. It was a question she and David had yet to resolve: if he became the prime minister, where would they house the diplomatic protection squad? With other leaders, the cops had tended to rent a house next door, but this was a street of established mansions, and Roza couldn’t see any of
her
neighbours moving out. It was a prospect that had made Roza laugh with horror: sharing her mornings, her private afternoons, with a vigilant squad of cops.

She dug Ray Marden’s manuscript out of the drawer and slipped it into her bag. Turning to the room she was slightly surprised at the mess on the floor, but she caught sight of herself in the mirror and
saw that her eye make-up was smudged.

‘Fuck,’ she said softly, and dabbed at her face with a tissue, before dropping it on the floor, picking up her jacket and looking around vaguely, with the sense that she’d forgotten something small but important.

‘Jung Ha,’ she called downstairs, but Jung Ha was taking the children to school. In the kitchen, the cupboard under the sink was open and the cat was up on his hind legs, inspecting the rubbish bucket. Roza clapped her hands. The cat turned his head and looked at her. Sylvester knew Roza was not Jung Ha. She was not exactly an ally, but she wouldn’t pick you up by the scruff and boot you out the door, so he stayed firm, nose quivering.

‘Oh, you
moggy
,’ Roza said indulgently, and left him to it.

Roza drove out into the traffic jam, heading for her meeting with Ray Marden. She accelerated and slowed dreamily, edging across the city. At one point she sat beneath a party billboard, David frowning down from his blue background as she passed, and his eyes followed her, as eyes in pictures do; there he was in the rear-view mirror, receding, falling away. There was a sudden roar of rain, and the collective patience snapped: several cars left the queue and headed recklessly up the bus lane, to a blast of indignant horns. Roza turned on the radio and hummed. She was calm.

She turned into Domain Drive and parked under the pohutukawa trees. Climbing out into the laden air, raising her face to the mild rain, she remembered that word Simon Lampton had used. Hyenas. Hyenas, the women had laughed, what are they, a kind of dog? She thought of the nature programmes the kids loved to watch on TV, the waterhole, the drifting herds, and creatures circling in the parched grasses, waiting for the weak or lame or straying one, ready to tear it to pieces.

She walked towards the duck pond, under the dripping trees,
the manuscript under her arm. By the pond, on the wet grass, geese were hissing and pecking. She looked with distaste at their slicked feathers and cruel, blank eyes. Vicious things. Birds gave Roza the creeps. Birds were … overrated, she thought. Their claws, their dead eyes, the terrible repetitive sounds they made — it was a stretch, it was surely overegging things, to call it ‘song’. Nothing worse for Roza, at five on a summer morning, than the depressed dirge of the endless tui. Tuis in the morning sounded like they needed Prozac. Now, from the sodden hedge the cheep of a thrush, plink plink, sharp as an electronic hammer, set her teeth on edge.