Starlight Peninsula (14 page)

Eloise was in two minds: the music was beautiful, Susanna’s voice was sensational, but there was something about the Countess… She checked the programme. The singer, a visiting star, hailed originally from Lancashire. The voice, the face …

‘The man next to me — his nose keeps whistling.’

‘I’ve preordered drinks and snacks,’ Scott said, ushering them forward. ‘All taken care of.’

‘Scott, can we swap after? So you have a turn with the nose-whistler.’

‘Of course, love.’

‘Do you think the Countess is singing in a Northern English accent?’ Eloise said.

Thee frowned. ‘Is that even possible?’

Eloise said vaguely, ‘A sort of
eh oop
delivery. And the way she laughs dismissively, and combs her hair in quick movements with the ends of her fingers.’

Remember, Arthur? Next she’ll be singing, I don’t eat foreign muck. Oh no, chuck. Does it contain garlic?

‘Anyway, who do you think’s the father?’

‘Minister O’Keefe? I reckon sperm donor. Cos she’s a workaholic.’

‘She’s secretly gay. So, a gay friend.’

‘Who needs to be
secretly
gay? No one’s secretly gay these days.’

‘Wasn’t she a Mormon?’

‘Can Mormons be gay?’

‘She’s not gay!’

‘She’s pretty hot.’

‘Every time Bradley Kirk gets near her he looks misty.’

‘So do they all.’

‘Not any more. Now they look shifty.’

‘Here comes trouble,’ Scott boomed.

A change in atmosphere (one of the Sinister Doormat’s high-pressure systems, approaching from the west) made the crowd turn, faces shining like a row of little suns. And the two television stars came together and collided, with soft kisses. Beyond, everywhere you looked, a constellation of shining eyes.

‘Mariel, darling.’

‘Hi, guys! Thee, you look amazing.’

They were used to this: talking as though no one was looking. And they were being doubly scrutinised, now that there were two television people on display. Mariel Hartfield was all smooth brown flesh and striking eyes: she was media glamour, fashion, money. She wore a parody of a tuxedo, with a tight, revealing white shirt. She was almost too thin yet sexily curvy, and her heels were wickedly high.

Eloise found herself next to Mariel’s husband, Hamish Dark.

‘Hi,’ she said.

He was tall, lean and sarcastic, rumoured to be depressive. He was a journalist, but he didn’t disguise his allegiance to the National Party; in fact he had a sideline as the MC at National Party functions. Eloise had seen him jogging in the Domain, fully clad in lycra, his teeth bared as if he were in an agony beyond the physical.

‘Hello,
Eloise
.’ His tone was knowing: he was too cool for all this.

Arthur would have had a
take
on Hamish and Mariel: he resents her fame, but also likes it. He’s cleverer than she is, but she’s more successful, because he’s thin-skinned and she’s not. Her lack of subtlety is her armour, his complexity predisposes him to the Black Dog.

Or something like that.

Hamish said, ‘Amazing how everyone loves opera all of a sudden. Even ZB DJs. Even weather girls, celebrity chefs.’

‘Well it’s for child cancer, right.’

‘Exactly. They turn up because it’s a charity event. Not because they love Mozart.’

Eloise felt vaguely that this was kind of a redundant thing to say. Hamish Dark: keeping it real. Behind the pretension, with Hamish Dark. The master of the scathing quip, the guy who ‘sees through things’. And here comes another brilliant statement of the obvious. She had a sudden yearning to say something earnest, impassioned (and therefore uncool). Sure, life is absurd. All is bullshit. Quite a few of us can see that. But what do you love, Hamish? Is there anything that you love? That’s what’ll save you from the Dog.

But what did she know? Hamish had a partner and kids; all she had was an empty stone house. Not exactly qualified to give advice, then. Who do I love — whom? Carina, the Sparkler, Scott and Thee. It’s not a very long list. Well, you have to start somewhere …

The Sinister Doormat walked by in witchy red shoes, and winked.

And the bells rang, and they trooped back in.

After the hysterics and the high jinks, after the drama in the garden, after the celestial singing … Tinsel floated down onto the stage in jubilant celebration. The audience erupted in applause and eventually rose in a ragged wave to its feet; there were hoarse and ironic cries of bravo from the high-spirited invited guests, some of whom had whispered and checked their cell phones throughout.

Then they were filing along the seats and out into the foyer, most of the crowd surging away into the night, but others washing up against the bar, where a lively group was jostling for drinks: reward for having sat through that boring shit for so long, in a good cause.

‘It’s a good cause.’

‘Mate, all for a good cause.’

‘Starship. Kids’ cancer. You’ve obviously got to do it.’

‘You’ve got to give back.’

Eloise sipped the wine Scott had brought her and looked across at Thee, who’d got her second wind, and was talking intensely to Hamish Dark. Thee had agreed to take photos of the event. She took out her camera and moved around the room, lining up shots.

Beside her a group of women were discussing the performance.

‘The costumes were amazing.’

‘I know. And what an amazing turn-out.’

‘Look, it’s an amazing effort all round.’

‘I’m amazed by it, to be honest.’

And here came Scott Roysmith, walking among his people. Beaming, frowning — the beam, then the frown. Shades, layers — he was known as a deep thinker. And then he was standing in front of her and saying, ‘Eloise Hay, meet Sir David Hallwright.’

‘Oh. God. The PM,’ she said.

‘Ex,’ Hallwright said, smiling down, offering his hand. How tall he was. He had deep eyes, an angular face, a pink and gold complexion, blonde-grey hair.

‘And Roza Hallwright.’

‘Of
Soon
fame,’ Eloise said — and blushed and laughed at her own brilliant statement of the obvious. The Hallwrights’ smiles were warm as they paused, on the brink of turning and moving on. They smiled beautifully, they were all surface, opaque, beautifully unreadable.

Which one was the brains?

Him, Eloise thought. Those noticing, calculating eyes, the air of intelligence and control.

And then the Hallwrights were passing by, shaking hands, murmuring greetings. They reached Mariel Hartfield and stopped to talk, turning occasionally to the crowd, as if almost inviting them in.
The crowd frankly staring. David Hallwright put his hand on Mariel’s arm. Roza Hallwright looked away, and her eye fell on Eloise, whose cheeks went hot again.

Maybe we’re pack animals, and maybe a crowd is one animal, its nervous system linked by all the five senses …

Roza Hallwright and her glamour, its pixelated shimmer. Money and fame. What would Arthur have made of the Hallwrights, if he’d ever got to meet them? He wanted to know what lay beneath, beyond.

The Hallwrights moved on again. Now Mariel Hartfield walked away from the bar. She took out a cell phone, went to the plate-glass window and began to talk. She made her fingers into a claw and inspected her nails. She stood briefly on one leg, and adjusted her high-heeled shoe.

A man came and found a space to lean against the window near her. He was facing ahead, also talking into a phone. They were so absorbed in conversation they didn’t notice each other. Look at that, Scott would say. What a paradox. The way technology connects us and yet keeps us apart. The phone traps us in our own little bubble, the crowd becomes a group of individuals, loses its sense of itself.

The man and woman, so close and yet so far apart. Behind them the black window, and the city spread out beyond, all the yellow windows stacked along the curve of the motorway and the cars flowing through the glossy dark, like a river of jewels.

It was evening. In the upstairs bedroom, the rays shining through the thin blind turned the room sepia. The blind stirred in the breeze; gulls cried on the roof; from along the peninsula, a distant radio sent out a tinny, reverberating pulse. Silvio lifted his head and listened, then rested his nose on his paws again.

Eloise had finished
The Great Gatsby
, and had now gone back to the book Arthur had given her:
The Chekhov Omnibus
. All the books she owned had been bought by Arthur, or belonged to him.

Arthur used to come over all scandalised: You haven’t read any Dickens? What,
none
? No Balzac?

You and your Balzac. Damn your Balzac
.

But there was this: even though she’d failed him (by not asking
questions) she’d finally taken his advice. Not when he was alive — when he was alive she ignored his carping and stuck to TV box sets and movies — but after he was dead Eloise, for no apparent reason, went over to her parents’ house, looked through their extensive library, and borrowed
Wuthering Heights
. She’d been making her way through the classics ever since.

Arthur said it was a mystery. How had the daughter of a bookworm managed to avoid the canon? Was it rebellion? It was something to ask Klaudia. She told Arthur (who laughed strangely) that the closest she’d got to a Brontë was a novel whose cover portrayed a muscular jock (dark, heavy-browed, lowering) leaning against a locker, while a blonde schoolgirl gazed up at him. It was called
Wuthering High
. ‘Pretty Cathy’s the star of her cheerleading team, and set to be prom queen! But a chance meeting at the ballpark with troubled track star Chip Heathcliff …’

‘Listen,’ she said to Silvio.

Silvio licked his paw with a slow, clopping sound.

So it was a mystery, her late arrival at books. But her mother’s disdain for schoolteachers — ‘Oooh, Sparkles, you shouldn’t put up with that’ — it wasn’t new. Perhaps it was Demelza who’d steered her away from the classics, and from doing well at school. She heard Demelza’s voice:

Demelza was the owner of the copy of
Wuthering Heights
. She was well read. But she had left school at sixteen, had no university degree.

‘Question, Silvio. Does the autodidact despise formal education?’

Silvio turned his head, lolled his tongue sideways and smiled.
Only
when he fears a loss of power
.

Eloise turned the pages. A long, peaceful silence. How comforting to feel the hot weight of Silvio across her legs. The sunlight crossed the bed through a crack in the blind, and a spicy smell came off his woolly flank. She was starting to feel unhappy at the thought of giving him back.

Eloise marked her place and closed the book.

‘Right. Shits,’ she said.

On the wooden bridge, she looked dreamily down at the slow, brown water. Crabs edged between holes in the creek bank. The mangroves
stood in the shallow, blood-hot, impure water, their reflections wavering. The estuarine mud sent up its briny stink.

‘Last chance,’ she said.

And as they crossed the dry lawn, ‘Are you sure? Nothing?’

Silvio paused and turned. His eyes were deep, steady.

‘I hope you’re not going to do anything while I’m out.’

The dog trotted delicately over to the blackened toe toe stumps. He sniffed the sooty dust, sneezed, but declined to squat or lift his leg.

‘Okay. On your head be it …’

She went through the house, checking and locking, and positioned Silvio’s bed and water bowl at the bottom of the stairs. The burglar alarm would have to stay off; the dog would trigger it unless she locked him in the garage, and she didn’t have the heart. She wanted Silvio to like her. (She wanted him to adore her!) So far he seemed to tolerate, rather than openly welcome, her charm offensive. His tail wags were more polite than effusive. She would look up from her book and find him regarding her levelly, with his shrewd golden eyes.
Come on, Silv. Give me a bit of love. Tell me I’m not so bad
… She plied him with dog biscuits and choice bits of sandwich; he would take the morsel delicately from her fingers, and look away while he ate it.
Come on, Silv, a penny for them …

‘Right. Anyone comes to the door, make a massive racket. Ditto anyone walks past the deck. Got it? Loud as you can.’

He looked up at her.

‘I really like having you here, Silv. There you go. All fluffed up nice for you.’

But he ignored his bed and headed for the sofa, which was already marked with paw prints, and giving off an earthy smell that Amigo the cleaner hadn’t managed to shift. He fixed his eyes on the television.

‘You got a clock in your head, Silvio? How do you always know what the time is?’

Eloise put on make-up, listening to Mariel Hartfield: ‘Kurt Hartmann has appeared in the High Court on matters relating to his extradition. He’s vowed to expose what he calls the Prime Minister’s “lies” about spying in this country. Andrew Newgate has revealed he will go to court to seek a judicial review of Justice Minister Ed Miles’s decision to deny him compensation for wrongful imprisonment. Anita O’Keefe has confirmed that despite earlier reports she has not made a formal complaint against
Witness
magazine over an article detailing her personal circumstances. And more bad news in the polls for Jack Dance.’

‘I’ll be back,’ Eloise told Silvio. ‘Be good.’

She drove the Honda, which she rarely used. Sean had taken his sleek black Audi when he left: the Audi was one thing she kept an eye out for, on her weekend walks.

Golden light along the peninsula; a red sky blazing off windows as if the houses were burning inside. Cars slid by, lightly buffeting the Honda as it beetled along. Face it, in a city ruled by giant SUVs and 4WDs, the tiny vehicle was a death trap. Reaching the top of the peninsula the apologetic car trundled into the traffic, a toy-town whine in the engine. It would be good, Eloise thought now, whirring and battling along in the slow lane, to sit behind the wheel of a big car like Carina’s. Driving the masterful Holden, the model all plainclothes cops used, Carina looked like a detective, and other cars got out of her way.

At this hour the motorway was a river of metal sweeping her into its path; it was also a zoo and a jungle and a war zone. The rip and zip, the whine and snarl, the swerving, cutting off and messing up. Everyone was in a tearing hurry, and murderous with it. Damn you. No, damn
you
. An old bomb crossed the lane in front of her, tiny pieces of debris flying off the rim of the temporary wheel on which the chassis wobbled, too loosely balanced. Soon after, police cars with sirens sped through,
causing dangerous swerves in the current. And near the city, like the contents of a clogged pipe, the whole stream slowed, banked, and came to a noisome halt. Eloise sat hunched over the wheel, furiously texting.

Untangling itself, the motorway sped up again and spat her out below the slopes of Mt Hobson. The tiny car shot out of the exit lane like a rocket. Eloise flew over a sleeping policeman, and checked the speedo. Whoa. Really? Who knew the Honda could go that fast? She changed down, barely braking, and took the tight bend with style. There was a tortured shriek from the tyres.

Here, below the mountain, the streets were orderly and quiet. The Hay house stood on the highest ridge of the affluent eastern suburbs. Down a long drive off the main road, you passed through the gate to a terraced lawn with a view over the valley, and across the suburb to the sea. Rangitoto Island shouldered up against the horizon, and beyond it stretched the gulf, with its haze of distant islands. The driveway led past a willow tree on an island of grass to the house, a spacious classic villa with a return veranda covered in bougainvillea flowers.

Eloise swept down the drive, parked up against the stone wall and cranked the brake. The car ticked and creaked, giving off a smell of burning rubber. She slammed the door. One day the tinny little bomb would disintegrate while she was driving.

‘Oooh, helloo, chuck.’

She kicked the Honda’s tyre and went to greet her mother.

Eloise sat on the sofa drinking gin and tonic, and blandly smiling. She seemed to have developed a new preoccupation: with breaking things. Fresh from punishing the Honda, she was now looking at the dining table, which was laden with the settings for a family dinner: china, glassware, a tall vase of flowers. To pick all that lot up and hurl it off the veranda … Only yesterday she’d sat in the staff café with Scott and pictured herself throwing cups and cutlery against the plate glass.

Her mother’s sister Luna settled herself on the sofa.

‘How
are
you Eloise?’ Aunt Luna asked, with a hopeful smile.

The desire to break things: it was something to discuss with Klaudia.

‘
Great
, thanks.’

‘Oh
good
.’

Silence. Luna gently blinked.

She was spending a lot of time thinking about Klaudia. At the end of the last session, Klaudia had suppressed a yawn, and Eloise had thought with dismay, she’s bored. I’m boring her. She’s going to fire me.

Did she care if Klaudia fired her? Evidently she did, because she’d spent an afternoon thinking out how to describe her maddest attributes, in order to rekindle Klaudia’s interest. You could imagine it becoming like the
Thousand and One Nights
: introducing a new set of symptoms each week so the shrink didn’t decide you were cured, and give you the chop.

It was all there when you looked on Google: it was called transference. Reactions to the shrink coloured by your past experiences of significant others. Which included something worryingly called
erotic
transference
, where you developed a powerful sexual fixation on the shrink, even if he or she wasn’t
remotely
what normally lit your candle. What Eloise was worried about was countertransference — of the negative kind: putting Klaudia off.
I fear I am that novel
. It was a bit like trying to win over Silvio. Come on, Klaudia. Wag that tail. Tell me I’m not so bad …

Carina was beckoning from the hall.

She interrupted her aunt and excused herself. Luna gave her a smile of great sweetness.

The two sisters strolled out on to the veranda, holding their glasses.

Because she could tell Carina anything, Eloise said, ‘I was just thinking about the shrink.’

‘Really? Are you in love? You’re meant to fall in love with the shrink.’

‘She’s a woman. I’m a failure at being gay. I’ve never been able to manage it.’

‘Me neither.’

‘People have tried. Remember that butch Traci at school? She propositioned me. I couldn’t see my way to it.’

‘God, that school was like a woman’s prison. Anyway, I know you went on about it, but I’ve been so busy — I can’t think where to put the thing, you know, Arthur’s file.’

‘Surely there’s somewhere.’

‘How about here? I’ve got it with me.’

‘No. Not here.’

‘Well, I don’t
have
anywhere else. No safety deposit box, nowhere at work. I mean, I could bury it if you like.’

‘Give it to me. I’ll think of something. I suppose I could open a bank deposit box.’

‘Isn’t this all a bit unnecessary?’

Silence. Eloise put down her glass. ‘Okay. Forget it. It’s unnecessary.’

‘Don’t fly off the handle. No need to go berserk.’

Eloise drew in a long breath. ‘Just humour me for a minute. Just bear with me: If there was something funny going on with Hallwright and Miles at Rotokauri, and Arthur rang Lampton about it …’

‘That’s a big if.’

‘
If
Arthur did go looking for a missing woman called Mereana, and then died shortly afterwards, just say there was something funny about that …’

‘It was investigated.’

‘Yes, but if there was more to it, I want to find out. I know Arthur thinks I let him down. I never asked any questions.’

‘You know Arthur thinks?’

‘I mean Arthur
would
think, if he was alive.’

‘You should definitely keep going to the shrink.’

‘What if the missing woman was murdered?’

Carina shook her head. ‘Just keep going to the shrink. And stop thinking about murders. You’ve spent too much time with Andrew Newgate.’

They both looked into the sitting room, where their mother, with her sausage dog Gerald in her arms, was holding forth, while her sister gazed up at her, her small bulb of a head faintly wobbling.

‘The shrink says the past is a dead star, its light still reaching me. She says it helps to live in the Now,’ Eloise said.

‘How’s that going?’

‘I’d quite like some more wine
now
.’

They went in search. In the kitchen Eloise said, ‘Maybe I could give Arthur’s file to Klaudia. She has security, locked cabinets.’

‘Who’s Klaudia?’

‘The shrink. The one I’m supposed to be in love with. Klaudia of the Thousand and One sessions.’