Leather Wings (9 page)

I
DIDN’T PLAN
it, well, not like I plan my Rawleigh’s day: so much by car, so much on foot, where to cross the road to save covering the same ground twice. I know all the shortcuts, the right-of-ways, there’s only so much time, so much shoe leather, you can’t muck about. Except this time it didn’t matter. I’d given myself permission. I needed a break. In the early morning the rubbish trucks are on the streets; the men in black T-shirts running in and out of the houses with stinking loads to feed the monster — I used to be scared that’s where they’d put me when I was too young to understand — in the monster’s mouth. They call out to each other and to me, so I wave and put my head down and walk faster until I’m nearly at Jania’s house. I’ve left the car right round the corner, that wasn’t planned either but it’s a good thing I did, I do get some things right. If I don’t try. It’s like my tongue, I think he was wrong about that, it’s when I don’t try that I talk best, and he was always at me for not trying, wasn’t he?

When I see her front door ajar it jolts me. I go light in the head. I don’t know what I think exactly, yes I do, I think it’s like a trap. Why leave your front door open at sparrow fart unless you want to catch a robber, catch a Rawleigh’s man without his briefcase? It’s a queer thing to do — unless there’s someone outside in the garden, hiding doggo under the gum tree, watching me? I don’t panic, I just freeze there by the hedge, dead still, waiting for something to move, and nothing moves. I can’t go past the open door now, it’s too dangerous. I do a sort of crab walk to get myself out of the way and take the roundabout route to where I’ve left the car parked. It’s unlocked, that’s not like me either, I haven’t left a car unlocked since I became the Rawleigh’s man and had valuables to think of. Those jars and potions add up, you wouldn’t believe it.

The sky was the colour of my purple jersey only half an hour ago, now it’s so faded you can almost see through it, it’s going to be a blue sky day. It makes me feel hopeful for a minute or two as if something good might happen, as if I’d got it all
wrong before, and as it turns out that minute or two is spot on. I’ve got my front teeth in a Mars Bar, driving myself slowly past the bus shelter and bang! There she is! She’s sitting there in her little red riding coat waiting for me as if I’m a bus!

“Hello there!” I say, falling over myself to get the car door open. “You’re up early, are you going somewhere?”

“Yes.” She has this zip sportsbag on the wooden seat beside her, quite a big bag. “I’m going to see my daddy.”

“Are you sure? The buses aren’t running yet, it’s a bit early.”

Her face goes unfriendly for a second, then it wrinkles up as if she’s got a pain. I can’t bear it if she’s going to cry.

“Jump in. I’ll take you somewhere, shall I?”

“Yes please. Auckland Airport,” she says, as if I’m a taxi driver. “Or is that too far?”

I want to say, nowhere’s too far for you, little one, but instead I tell her that it is rather. Why don’t we go to my place and she can tell me why she wants to run away. At first I think she won’t do it, the way she looks at the dashboard and doesn’t answer me, but then she pipes in that clear high voice she has — “I want to go to Daddy!”

“You’re not running away?”

“Yes.” She gives a big sigh and sort of collapses in her seat and then she perks up — “Will your little girl be there — and the budgie?”

“I expect so.” I start to lie and then I think, no, I can’t start off lying to her, and I correct this, “Well, no, she’s away just now on holiday, but the budgie’s there. He’s called Joey.”

“Okay.”

“How long had you been sitting in that bus shelter?”

She shivers, I’ve reminded her how cold it is at this time of the morning. “Dunno.”

“You left your front door open.”

It doesn’t surprise her that I know this, I feel like God. She giggles at me.

“’Cos it makes a click.” She giggles again, she’s starting to relax because this is an adventure. I feel like Father Christmas.

While I’m driving I’m trying to remember what sort of a state I’ve left the flat in. I’d had a go at tidying the kitchen and it wasn’t too bad anyway after my big clean up. I must have
known she was coming. The bedroom’s a tip, newspapers everywhere and dirty clothes, but we won’t go in there. There’s the other room if she wants to lie down, I guess I’d have enough blankets to make up the bed. I’m thinking about it as if she’s moving in and I start to hum as I drive, “We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz.”

You can’t have the least idea how I feel, rolling along with this precious bundle on the front seat and she starts to sing with me, she knows the song. She moves her little knees, so delicate and naked, jigging in her seat to the tune. I hold on tight to the wheel, I won’t let go, I need to be in control. I’m rescuing her, I’m going to look after her, poor wee girl, keep out the cruel world as much as I can. I understand, I remember what it is to be little, it’s true, sometimes I feel no older than nine years old, eleven at most. But today I’m her Daddy! I’m the Wizard of Oz!

T
HEY ARE STILL
looking for her at three in the afternoon. Because the little girl has run away several times before — Esther was bound to confess this to the police — a feeling of optimism has infected the official inquiry, slowing it down like a heavy cold — or so Esther feels. She can’t accept the police optimism. Before making the call to them she had visited all the usual, possible places, not forgetting the public toilets, while Rex drove further afield, taking it seriously like herself. Why is it so much graver on this occasion? Jania’s sinister syrup and its measuring cup sit on the kitchen shelf, testifying to the gravity of her absence. This is a piece of information Esther has withheld so far. The fact that the green zip bag is missing along with items of clothing, these are good signs, they tell her. Signs of a stubborn little girl, well organised, with a plan in mind. Where would she go? A relative? A friend? Sharon’s mother is no help. The school is no help, although Mrs Flett reports seeing a man with a bicycle hanging about on more than one occasion, but she can’t describe him usefully beyond noting that he wasn’t Polynesian.

Esther and Rex fight. They blame each other. “You were too rough with her medicine.”

“I got it down her — more than you could do. What should I have done? Swallowed it myself? She had to have the stuff.”

“Mothers should know how to handle these things.”

“I’m not a mother — not any more — remember? Oh, God, where is she? What are the police doing? It’s after three o’clock.”

“You haven’t given them a lot to go on.”

“
I
haven’t! Why is it up to me? What have
you
given them?”

This dialogue hisses between them in the bedroom where Esther is putting on her face (she has been too distraught to apply make-up until now). She paints her eyes and lips with a less than steady hand, forgetting her eye foundation, preparing herself for the next police encounter much as Rex prepares a chicken for the microwave. A young policewoman is in the kitchen now, balancing a mug of Earl Grey tea.

An album of media pictures, depicting earlier cases of child abduction, rape, murder, turn themselves over shot after shot in Esther’s mind. Shivery half-sketched recollections. Mutilation, blood. She has a responsibility to inform the police about Jania’s HIV status. She has a responsibility to Jania, who needs her medication, to Martin who will have to be told she is missing if she isn’t soon found. She can’t quite pin down her feelings, determine whether these are predominantly guilt or predominantly fear for the child. It makes little sense to be so afraid for a child who is already in mortal danger even before she slipped out of the house with her dirty cushion. And yet Esther is clapped about the ears with a deafening anxiety, so that Rex and now the policewoman need to address her twice before they can elicit a response.

“Can you think of anyone else? Neighbours?”

“No! I told you! We’ve told you all we know. We don’t see a lot of the neighbours.”

“I understand from your husband you prepare the local Newsletter.”

“I used to. So? That doesn’t mean I live in my neighbours’ pockets — I don’t.” She thinks. “I believe the people on this side are away. I don’t know about Mrs — what’s her name, Rex?”

“Actually we’ve covered next door, the woman two doors along was keeping a key for the owner; we searched the place in case she’d climbed in a fanlight.”

“Well then.”

“You’re quite sure the father’s in Canada? Sometimes in cases like this …”

“Quite sure. Look, Martin wouldn’t steal his own child even if he was in the country, which he isn’t. He did say he was coming over but he had to put it off … she was upset.”

“There’s something else,” Rex says, giving Esther a sharp look. “Something else we have to tell you.”

“All right,” Esther nods. “You tell them.”

The policewoman looks hopeful, her face opens out with anticipation, this could solve her case perhaps. No. The pretty face above the cool navy uniform clangs shut again like a lift door. Going down. She is shocked. She thanks them for the
information in blank respectful tones and lifts the cell-phone, calling the station.

When Rex suffered his first heart attack Esther had noticed her lack of real friends. She notices it now. She is stung by an unwise urge to telephone Donald again at the office. The instinct survives even in someone as secretive and contained as Esther, the instinct to share trouble. Melanie? There is something comfortable about Melanie, like warm cocoa and loose shoes.

“Excuse me, all right if I use the phone?” she asks the policewoman, as if it is her house and not Esther’s own. “In the bedroom?”

“Fine. But, like I said, don’t tie it up for too long. Oh, and I should tell you — we’re monitoring calls, just to be on the safe side.”

“What? You think this is a kidnapping or something! What for? We don’t have money!”

“No, that isn’t it. Standard procedure, we don’t want to miss anything which could be a clue.”

“Well, I won’t bother, thank you, I prefer my calls private.”

“Who would you call?” Rex quizzes her, suspicious.

“Melanie.”

“Melanie! You laugh at Melanie! What for? She won’t be at …”

“Oh, mind your own business! I’ll call who I fucking like. Sorry” she adds to the young policewoman, who responds with a thin smile.

“Would she be at this Melanie’s?”

“No. She doesn’t know where Melanie lives.”

“She wouldn’t have met her and gone home with her?”

“No! Why? She hardly knows the woman.”

“I’m sorry, I have to ask these questions. There are some funny people about, sometimes people you think you know quite well …”

“Of course. And we’ve answered your questions. Oh.” A thought occurs to her. It goes through her like a gulp of ice-cold water. The Rawleigh’s man. A funny person. “Wallace,” she says to Rex, eyes wide.

“I thought of Wallace.”

“You didn’t say!”

“I was about to.”

“Wallace …”

“He works for the Rawleigh’s company, one of their salesmen. He gave her a glo-ball, she likes Wallace. Wallace — something. I don’t know his other name.” She chews her finger.

“That’s all right, we can ring up the manager, get details …”

“Oh, God! Is it
him
? He’s got his own little girl; he gave her a budgie for her birthday.” She is talking to herself.

The woman looks up from her cell-phone. “Jania’s birthday?”

“No, no, his own daughter. He’s got a wife.” Esther looks across at Rex who is wearing an expression of triumphant cynicism. “Oh shut up! What are you looking so clever about? You’re not that clever, there’s a lot you’re not clever about at all!”

“What d’you mean?”

The policewoman raises a hand above her cell-phone demanding silence. She frowns disbelief at husband and wife who seem to hate each other at a time when a family should be “pulling together”. She is scribbling an address on her notepad.

“I’ve got something here. Actually,” she looks up, “He’s a single man, lives alone. Wallace Wells. A bit of a speech impediment. Right?”

S
HE’S MINE NOW
. She doesn’t want to go home. She fell asleep on the sofa, with her cushion and a fistful of Dairy Milk — I had to ease it out of her hand so it wouldn’t melt and lay it down beside the birdseed packet. She was talking to Joey, over and over, loving him with her chirpy voice until I felt quite jealous, and then when I came back from the bathroom she’d fallen asleep, crashed out with the sun in her candy-floss hair. Joey was prattling on but she wasn’t listening. As soon as she’d shut her eyes and begun to breathe, so quiet and small, with breaths hardly lifting her chest at all, I realised we couldn’t stay here. I don’t know what I’d been thinking of. They’d come here straight off and ruin everything.

What I’m doing isn’t wrong, I could explain, but they wouldn’t listen, people don’t listen when it’s really important, they only listen to sales talk, the patter, don’t forget the eye contact. No amount of eye contact would convince them if I tried to explain Jania. In fact, I can hardly explain her to myself. We just have to get out, leave this place and find somewhere else.

Anyhow, this room looks so cheap and mean now that I have her here, the huckery sofa, the gilt mirror above the fireplace flaking from behind so that your face has holes in it. Jania deserves better than this. I watch her breathe and I hope she isn’t ill. I fancy a shadow flickering over her skin, but that’s because I know about the HIV, well I don’t
know
but I
suppose
— Sharon supposed and now I’m stuck with supposing. The shadow turns out to be a moth, I bat it away from her — piss off! I kill it and then I go into the bedroom and I start to pack.

It’s nearly three o’clock. I fill a carton with kitchen stuff, food from the fridge, chocolate, teatowels, as if we’re going camping, but I don’t know where we’re going yet so I put in as much as I can fit, all mixed up. I’ve taken several loads to the car and Jania’s green zip bag, which I carry very carefully because I haven’t looked inside and I don’t want to break
anything; there’s something in there that rattles. I hold it in my arms as if it’s Jania herself and ease it into the back seat with the rest of the stuff.

When I come back she’s woken up and she’s sitting on the sofa with a startled look on her face, blinking her eyes. There’s a mark on her cheek from the cushion braid, like an extra scar. I want to pick her up and give her a hug, but when I get to her she squeaks — “Where’s my bag gone?”

I explain that it’s in my car and we’re going somewhere special. I’ve talked to Esther, I say, and it’s all right for her to come with us on our holiday with my family.

“How many little girls do you have?” she asks me.

“Just the one.” And it isn’t a lie, is it? “Her name’s a bit like yours. Her name’s Janice.”

“Where are they having their holiday? Is it Auckland?”

“That’s right. Auckland.”

“Oh, good, I want to go to Auckland.” Her little trainers dangle and arrive on the mat beside the sofa. “You mustn’t forget Joey. It’s not cruel to put a budgie in a cage, Esther says, but you have to feed it and keep it clean.”

I reach for the handle of the birdcage, I’d like to forget the budgie now, he’s a complication, but he’s become Jania’s budgie so I have to be grateful. Jania puts out her hand with a bit of a smile, she expects me to take hold of her hand, I’m so surprised I nearly drop the cage. I can feel my face going red. We walk like this to the car. I’ve forgotten to lock the front door, it’s a deadlock and I sometimes forget, but this time it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing left inside that matters. Everything that matters is in the palm of my hand.

“I
TOLD YOU
he was queer,” Rex crows at Esther.

“Queer as in homosexual? Well, you’re wrong. The majority of men who like little girls are hetero, everyone knows that.”

“You’re always right, of course.”

“I’m right this time. Shit, I don’t want to think about it! Oh, Rex.” She feels again the warm clutch of Wallace’s hand on her wrist in the wine bar. What was that about? The clutch of his warm hand on Jania’s soft thigh … “They have to be wrong!”

“Perhaps you should listen to me next time. I’ve still got a few marbles in here.” He taps his head. “I’m usually right as it happens.”

“What?” She snorts disbelief. “You mean you’ve been keeping score? Look, I don’t care who’s right or wrong. I just want to know she’s all right. This is about Jania, not your ego.”

“Or your conscience.”

“My conscience? What are you saying? It’s my fault? It’s all down to me?”

“Up to you, down to you — yes, well it is, isn’t it? Women are supposed to be the ones with conscience. If you want to take charge you have to take responsibility.”

“And what are
you
supposed to do?”

“The same — except I don’t make such a hoo ha about it.”

She has been holding her breath with anger, now she lets it out in a hot puff of air. “Oh, look, why are we fighting? You know you mustn’t get worked up — it’s bad for your blood pressure. We’re both upset, can’t we help each other instead of getting angry?”

“Getting angry helps me. I like to get angry sometimes. Okay? I’m angry with your bloody Wallace.”

“He’s not my Wallace.”

“He might have been if you’d had half a chance. Toy boy — isn’t that what they call it? You don’t think I notice these things, do you? I notice when my wife switches her lights on. That’s a joke, isn’t it, switching on for a pathetic …”

“I did not switch on, my God, you get things wrong! You get so many things so wrong!”

“Like what?” He is confident now. “Tell me. You can’t think of one thing can you? When it comes down to it?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“What does that mean? Esther?”

She is walking away from him. “That’s the door. Are you going deaf now? It’ll be the police — it could be …”

It isn’t Jania, but it is the police. No news is good news they say, so what is it that the police — man and woman this time — bring to Esther and Rex’s door? Hardly news and hardly good. The address they trawled on the advice of Wallace’s boss has delivered no catch, not Jania, not even a Rawleigh’s man. The door of his flat was discovered to be unlocked, the place empty of all but a full rubbish bin, a sink cluttered with fat-smeared dishes.

“What about the car?” Rex asks. “No sign of the Marina?”

“Good question. We checked at the local garage in case he’d filled his tank recently — nothing.”

“Someone must have seen something. What about his customers? There must be plenty who know what he looks like.”

“We’re a bit tied at the moment. A news blackout seems the best way to go until we know just what we’re dealing with.”

“Like what?” Esther hears her voice yelp. “What could we be dealing with? What’s the use of keeping it quiet?”

“Too much media attention. We don’t want this man to panic. We don’t want to put him on his guard. We’re doing plenty — we’ve got the car number.”

“It’s only a matter of time,” the young woman endorses.

“We don’t know if we’ve got any time!” Esther shouts. “She could …”

“We don’t know either if this man’s anything to do with the missing child. We’re moving as fast as we can, we take cases like these very seriously, believe me.”

“What about the Rawleigh’s people — they must know what his movements are?” Rex’s contribution.

“Very little. He hasn’t made contact in the past two weeks
so far as we can establish. He certainly begins to look like a possibility. He’s the only lead we’ve got.”

Esther is gripping tightly on to the back of a kitchen chair. She stares first at Rex, then at the policeman. When she speaks she speaks through half-clenched teeth. “What do they do? These men? What do they usually do — do they …?”

“It’s not worth speculating, every case is different; you mustn’t think about it. More often than not the child turns up with a perfectly good explanation of where they’ve been — concentrate on that as a possibility.”

“It’s him,” Rex says roughly when he and Esther are on their own. “I told you so! I knew I wasn’t wrong!”

“Oh, yes, all right, you’re so clever. If you knew, I don’t know why you let it happen. Are you such a wimp? You should have stopped it. You’ve no courage, is that what you’re saying?”

“I’ve got as much courage as you have. How dare you call me wimp! At least I face up to things. Who had to tell the officer about the HIV? You couldn’t even open your mouth and do that.”

“All right, you’re not a wimp. You face up to things — ha! So how come you haven’t done anything about Donald and me?” She can’t believe she has said this, just let it fall out of her mouth. She gasps once and then knows she is glad to have said it. The relief buoys her like a draught of pure oxygen.

“What? What did you say?”

He has gone so pale Esther has to believe she has misjudged him. It isn’t simply that he needed to avoid a confrontation, he has had no inkling there was anything to confront.

“That’s a joke isn’t it? Esther?”

“You must have known something, after all this time?” She has gone as pale as Rex, her stomach rumbles inconsiderately. “I’m sorry!”

“All this time? Years?”

“Of course not … not years. But — I’m sorry, darling — I really thought you knew and didn’t care.”

“Didn’t care? Donald Fraser?
Didn’t care?
”

“It’s finished, honestly, he’s moving to Auckland. It was nothing — nothing much. It’s over.” Is it? Is it? She must believe this to have spilled it at last, the dregs.

“How long?”

She pats his shoulder awkwardly where he has sunk on to the side of the bed; he doesn’t pull away, scarcely seems to feel her touch.

“
How long
?”

She says, “I can’t believe you didn’t suspect — something.”

“Oh, well!” His voice is a growl. “I’m so stupid, aren’t I? You knew I was stupid. How would I know a thing like that was going on under my nose? Oh, well, that explains how you’ve managed to keep your job on, I did wonder. Do it in his office, do you? No you can’t, too public, isn’t it? Where do you do it then? Where? In the lift? Suck his cock, do you? Where? Where do you suck his cock?”