Marietta stayed up there until Susi came home and began making the dinner. Then hunger drove her down and as usual an argument about her name followed. When Tony arrived he quietened it down, but it erupted again over the meal and in the midst of the wailing and shouting Marietta knocked over an open bottle of Chardonnay and it broke on the tiles. Louie made her move.
“Dad,” she said in her quiet, older and reasonable daughter voice, “I’ve got to go to work. Could I borrow your car? I think it might rain.”
Tony had a second’s hesitation before Marietta started up again about her rights as an individual and then he reached into his suit pocket and drew out the keys. This he could deal with. He raised a cautionary finger at Louie. “Nowhere else, and don’t speed.”
Louie smiled reassuringly and popped the keys in her own pocket. Then she stood up and put a hand on Marietta’s shoulder. “You know, arguing while the argu-ee is cleaning up your mess is not very smart,” she murmured.
Marietta looked in surprise to where her mother was picking up the shards of glass from under the table, and took her sister’s advice. As she left the room, Louie heard her mother say, “Never mind, the tiles needed a good clean anyway.”
p.
It was always quiet on a Monday night and Louie and Joan chatted while they packed the few orders and pretended to wipe the cupboards Kevin had told them to clean. Simone was on the counter and another new kid was clearing the tables.
Joan was like the camp mum of Burger Giant. She wasn’t super-efficient and sharp-tongued like Deirdre, but she got the work done quickly and laughed at just about anything you said. Louie loved to entertain her and they cackled so loudly a couple of times that Simone poked her head around the divider and told them to shut up. Kevin hung about for a while and tried to get them to come for a drink at his place after work, but Louie thought of Willa and grinned broadly. “Are you serving chicken nibbles?” she said, and after he disappeared Joan doubled up and laughed so hard she had to rush cross-legged to the loo. About ten o’clock Kevin came back in and told Louie in his best managerial voice that she could get away now if she wanted. Louie knew that would mean she didn’t get paid for the last half hour, and Kevin was only doing it to get back at her, but she smiled and thanked him all the same.
It hadn’t rained. In fact, the stars were sparkling so much in the frosty air that they really did appear to be jumping about in the sky. Louie cruised down George Street in her father’s smooth car, listening to the stereo and playing with the electric windows. As she approached the Duke, she slowed and looked inside. There were people in the front bars and lights behind the long-toothed windows upstairs as well.
Impulsively, Louie pulled the car over and parked. A part of her was surprised, and another part was enjoying her own surprise. She was still wondering what on earth to say as she pushed open the door to the public bar.
There had been a rugby match that day, and the room was full of ecstatic rugby supporters. They
had
been ecstatic, rather—now they were drunk, bored and maudlin. Dreadful, mournful singing erupted every few minutes, which usually descended into the famous dreary “Otaaaaa-goh, Otaaaaa-goh,” cry of the Otago rugby supporter.
Louie was rather overwhelmed by the smoke, the smell of beer and the number of men in the room, but she weaved her way around groups until she reached the bar. There was a big red-faced man with a completely bald head serving someone, and a collection of men sitting around on stools. Her mother would have described them as “under the weather.” A couple of them noticed Louie and seemed to brighten up.
“What have we got here, eh? Gidday love, have a seat,” slurred the guy closest to her.
“Oh, Jeez, here we go!” laughed one of his mates.
The first one leaned over to her. He was in his twenties and had wavy brown hair and his lips looked wet. “Don’t take any notice of him. Here, honestly, have a stool.” He pushed a spare wooden stool behind her so that Louie sort of fell onto it. “I’m Jason,” he said, and put out his hand.
“Umm, Louie,” she answered and took his hand because she didn’t know what else to do. The barman hadn’t noticed her yet.
“Louie?” he asked, still holding her hand in his own warm, soft one.
She nodded. There was a lot of noise. “Louie,” she said, louder, “As in the kings of France? No? Okay, how about short for Louise?” and then she felt annoyed with herself because she had given him something private.
“Louise,” he repeated, nodding in reply. “That’s a nice name, it’s a lovely name. Now, Louise, can I get you a drink?” he asked, moving his stool closer to her own. He still held her hand and she wished he’d let it go. His friends were groaning and calling out, but he ignored them and fixed his heavy eyes on Louie.
“No—thanks,” she added, leaning away from his beery breath, and finally extracting her hand. “I’m just visiting someone.” just then the bald man from behind the bar came over and said, arms folded on his chest, “I.D?”
Louie paused in confusion and before she could answer, the men around the bar began yelling and booing. “Oh, come on, Sid! She’s all right!”
“Best looking thing in the bar all night for godsake!”
“Leave her alone you big bully! You’re just too old to remember, you bloody geriatric.”
Sid smiled wryly and looked back at her. “Come on, kid, you’re too young for here.”
This was met with more cat calls and carrying on. Louie tried to say, “I just wanted to see Willa,” but nobody heard her and then Jason took her arm and tried to lead her away.
“Come on, it’s all right, we’ll sort it out. You just sit down here at a table and I’ll get you a drink.” He pulled a chair out for her and Louie took hold of the back of it but didn’t sit down. “She’s my daughter!” Jason yelled out to Sid, and the whole place erupted into laughter and banter again.
Sid pointed at her from behind the bar and called, “Out!” very firmly. Suddenly Louie decided that was exactly what she wanted to do, and she turned and headed straight for the door. She had to push her way through a group of men laughing around the entrance. None of them moved for her. As the door closed behind, she heard an aggrieved voice yell, “Ohh, ref!!” and another roar of laughter.
Louie took a couple of breaths of the night air, and savoured the relative quiet outside. Then she walked quickly away from the bar door in case Jason came out following her. She glanced at her fathers car, but didn’t go to it. Instead, she investigated around the corner of the pub, where she saw a corrugated iron fence and a wooden gate. As she waited for her eyes to adjust there was an explosion of ferocious barking and Judas appeared, paws on the top of the gate, his head snapping at her.
“Judas, Judas, it’s all right,” Louie tried to calm him, and herself, down. “You know me, remember? I smell good, yeah, sure I do.”
He did quieten down a bit, but ruffed a couple more times, and he wouldn’t let Louie touch him or come inside the gate. Above, Louie heard a window slide open heavily.
“Judas!” It was Willa. She looked down and there was a pause as she realised who was there. “Louie,” she said finally, “—hey.”
“Hey.” Louie stood and stared at the black figure of Willa outlined against the bright window. “I, um, I was just cruising in the car, you know, getting
RSI
from electric windows overdose and I remembered you’re a night freak too. I figured you’d still be up.”
“Logarithms. I’ve done two in an hour,” she replied. “You want some company on your cruising?”
Louie’s heart stopped thumping quite so much, and she grinned. “Can your logarithms spare you?”
“Can a bird fly?” She disappeared without waiting for an answer.
Louie patted Judas who was trying to make friends with her again. “A fly can’t bird but a bird can fly,” she sang softly, and he cocked his head to one side.
Louie had forgotten all Tony’s instructions about the car—or if she hadn’t altogether forgotten, they just didn’t figure suddenly. Was she imagining it, or did Willa seem to know ahead of time what Louie was going to ask? Perhaps it was fate. Louie smiled to herself and opened the gate as Willa appeared out of a lower storey door. Judas acted as if a gigantic bone had just walked into the yard. He whined in excitement and leapt about, his front legs splayed playfully.
“We’ll have to take Judas, he’ll make a fuss if I leave him,” Willa explained.
“Sure.” Louie tried not to think what Tony would say about that.
As his mistress approached the gate, Judas rushed in front and tripped her up. Louie grabbed Willa to steady her, only for a second, and it was only on the arm. But it was like a great yell in her head. Willa was wearing a woollen jersey, and it was heavy and warm to touch. Louie let go and rushed to the car where she fumbled with the doors. She felt stupid again, like this afternoon in the library, and her hands still tingled with rough wool.
“Dipstick, Judas,” Willa was grumbling at him. “Why d’you always have to go first, huh?”
Willa loved Tony’s flash car. “Oh, it’s beautiful,” she said, running her hand along the leather seat. “What’s the engine?”
“Engine?” Louie shrugged, changed gears jerkily and followed the road north, her heart still scudding. From behind Judas panted happily in her ear. He had terrible breath and was fogging up the windscreen. “I wouldn’t have a clue.” She looked at Willa in the passenger seat. “Would you?”
Willa smiled in reply and turned on the demister. “A bit.” Louie watched her hands on the dashboard. Willa had very small, fine hands with milky fingernails, and on her right ring finger she wore a plain gold band. Louie wanted to ask her about it.
“How come? Engines, I mean,” said Louie, wondering suddenly if Willa had a boyfriend.
“My father taught me. He’s dead,” she said, looking at Louie briefly. “He used to be a truckle. He drove them, and he raced them, and he didn’t have any sons. So I spent half my childhood under the chassis of the
Buffalo.
That was his home town,” she explained. “Buffalo, New York.”
The car headed up Opoho Road almost by itself. Louie had no idea where she was heading. “American?”
“Even liked apple pie, and cried at the anthem. He left when he was a teenager. Came to the big time in Dunedin instead.”
Willa laughed and shrugged. “He was a hippie. And he met Jolene.”
The road narrowed and veered steeply uphill, leaving the suburban houses behind. It was perfect. Louie swung the car round a bend to the right and felt the tyres grip beneath her. Everything ahead was blackness and bush.
Willa opened her window and tucked her legs up onto the seat. The air blew in the cool, deep smells of the native forest. “Faster,” she said quietly, almost as if to herself. Louie paused for a moment then put her foot down and something wild shot through her limbs. The engine surged and gravel spat out to each side of the car. They both leaned to the left and right as the car swung up the winding road, its high beam lighting up the bush ahead.
As they rounded the final corner they saw the road widened into a circle of grass and a carpark, and to the right rose the dark shape of a monument. Louie put on the brakes and some loose stones clattered under the car.
Beyond the monument were the lights of the city. Everything else was black. As Louie opened her door, it swung beyond her hand with the force of the wind on the hilltop. She got out and was knocked a pace backwards—”Wo!”—then she grabbed the car door and heaved it shut again. Willa let Judas out from the back and he leapt away into the darkness.
The monument was a big rectangular shape with what looked like a flagpole on top, but there was no flag. On either side sat giant carved figures of pioneers—one male, one female, wrapped in stone robes and sitting cross-legged like Scottish Buddhas. Louie and Willa felt their way along the railings to the front of the monument. Ahead of them was the fabulous view of the city. The harbour was a black space in the middle, and all around it the yellow, white and red lights spread out over the hills like a huge embroidered coverlet. Above, the stars seemed incredibly close, crushed glass flung across the sky. The wind was freezing and roared in Louies ears. She opened her mouth wide and gasped into it. Across from her she could just make out Willa’s hair whipping about, and watched her raise a pale hand to hold it.
Louie found some steps leading below the monument to a gravel path and bushes. “Here!” she yelled at Willa. “Come down here, it’s more sheltered.”
There was a rustle in the shrubs beside her and Louie jumped. Judas appeared, his eyes yellow spots momentarily in the blackness, then his breath warm by her hand. Willa was stumbling down the steps.
“God!” she shouted, a bit too loudly for amongst the bushes, “it’s freezing!”
Just then there was another movement in the undergrowth and something white zig-zagged ahead of them. A rabbit. Judas’s paws skidded on the gravel as he took off after the animal and both plunged into the bush.
“Judas!” yelled Willa, “No! Judas!!” She turned to Louie. “Damn. He thinks he’s a great rabbit hunter.”
“Can’t trust a Judas,” Louie replied, flinging herself after him. “Thirty pieces of silver and all that. He’s probably dobbing us in. Come on.”
She ran ahead, not realising Willa had stopped. Then, turning back, Louie saw Willa stumbling after, her hands and face pale against the bush. “Hang on!” Willa grabbed Louie’s arm. “I can’t see a thing,” she explained.
Louie laughed back, the wind making her feel crazy. She took Willa’s hand, and this time it felt good, that small white hand in her own, and they staggered after Judas through the scrub until they reached an open bank of grass that whirred in the wind. Louie spread out her free arm and pulled Willa into a run, and they whooped and laughed, their clothes cracking behind them, until eventually, deliberately really, they fell over in the tussock.
For a while they lay and caught their breath, and let the wind wash over them. In the grass it was much warmer and seemed quiet.
“Dare truth or promise,” said Willa suddenly.
“What?”
“Dare truth or promise. You know.”