My Brother’s Keeper (4 page)

She didn’t respond immediately. I waited. Her breathing had quickened. My normal response in the face of phone silence is to chatter, but I forced myself to wait. I took another sip of wine. Finally she answered. Her voice was so quiet I had to press the phone hard against my ear.

‘It was Justin who introduced me to stuff. To drugs. I’m not saying it was his fault. It was my decision. Well, at first it was my decision, but then I got hooked and then I guess it was …’

I thought for one crazy moment she was going to blame the devil but, whoever or whatever it was, she left it unblamed. I poured myself another wine, taking care not to clink the bottle against the glass.

‘And not the … the killing either. I take full responsibility.’

I wondered how long this had taken. Was it after Falcon’s funeral? Had she taken full responsibility before the first anniversary of his death? Before he would have turned six?

‘It’s important to take responsibility. That’s the only way you can ever forgive yourself.’ So she’d forgiven herself for killing
her five-year-old and trying to kill her seven-year-old daughter. Well, good for her. ‘But unless you’ve faced things, admitted your sins to God, I don’t think people change,’ she continued. ‘Not really.’ I took another sip. ‘Do you?’ she asked, taking me by surprise. ‘Do you think people change?’

‘Well, you’ve changed, haven’t you?’ I said. ‘You found God.’ It was impossible for me to say this without sounding sarcastic. Admittedly, it might have helped if I’d uncrossed my eyes.

‘That’s different,’ she said.

‘Uh-huh.’

It’s always a mistake to start a conversation about God, particularly with Christians. Ever since Niki was murdered I’d had trouble taking God seriously. When I was a kid I believed in Him, It, Them — whatever. Niki and I even got our school backpacks blessed by the local priest.

‘Anyway,’ I said, bringing my thoughts back to Karen, ‘is there anything particular you want me to ask Sunny?’

I waited, going over in my mind all the things she might want me to ask her daughter. There was the obvious ‘Can you forgive me?’ question. I could imagine Sunny’s response. The silence went on for so long I tried something else. ‘Or any message from you that you’d like me to give her?’ There were even scarier options here, like: ‘Sorry I tried to kill you’, or ‘Sorry I murdered your little brother’ or even ‘Sorry about stuffing up your life forever’. Maybe she would even go for broke with the old ‘I love you’ chestnut. I hoped not.

‘No,’ she said and let out a long breath, like a sigh. ‘There’s nothing I can say to her, is there? Just check she’s okay. Please.’

The phone went dead. She’d hung up.

I poured myself another glass. My second, I told myself, making that my number two lie for the day. No doubt about it, lying gets easier the more you practise it. There was a new sign going up on the building across the road, ‘Shamrock. Love Business’. Was it an advertisement for a business recruitment firm or a brothel? Hard to tell.

The conversation with Karen supported my suspicion that she didn’t want me to check Sunny was safe but to have me make the first approach on her behalf. Maybe she wanted to let Sunny know she cared enough to send someone to ask if she was okay. This didn’t seem such a bad thing to me but I had seen how Justin reacted to the idea of Karen having anything to do with their daughter. It was predictable. Understandable even. I wondered how much of the drowning Sunny remembered.

A text alert interrupted my thoughts:
Caravan confirmed for 1 pm tomorrow. Cheers Jason
. I stared at the message for a full minute, trying to figure out what it meant. Then I got it. It was a message from the real-estate agent Jason Baker, confirming that a bunch of agents would be traipsing through my house — our house — tomorrow.

Just like that, a tsunami of sadness swamped me. Sean and I had been so happy when we bought it. We had walked through the empty house talking quietly, self-conscious of the echo. It felt to both of us as if we were trespassing. We couldn’t believe we’d done something as grown up as buy a house together. We loved everything about it; even the flaking paint on the old window sashes. Later, when we had to scrape it back for repainting, we complained that it was a pain in the arse, but on this first day, possession day, we called it romantic.
When the movers rang to say the furniture truck would be late arriving we grabbed the opportunity. For some now-forgotten reason we ended up in the hallway, maybe because there were no windows or because the wall was warmed from the early morning sunshine, I don’t remember, but I do remember we were interrupted by the neighbour arriving, armed with a plate of muffins, to welcome us to the neighbourhood. She cheerfully instructed us to carry on with it and not stop for her. She even insisted we’d enjoy the muffins more once we’d finished the job in hand.

Later we learned that eighty-six-year-old Madeleine’s eyesight had failed some years earlier and she’d thought we were putting up a shelf. From then on Sean and I used the phrase ‘putting up a shelf’ as our private code. Over the years we put up a fair number of shelves. We even put up a real shelf against that sunny hall wall and let our books slowly fade there. Now I’d have to sort those faded books into his and hers.

It was never a good idea to ring Sean when I was feeling nostalgic but I needed to let him know I was on to selling the house. I didn’t want him making any more buddy calls to Robbie with messages to pass on to me. Sean’s mobile rang for a lifetime. I wondered which ring tone he had for me. Probably a song, ‘We are Family’? No, probably not. He finally answered and without any preamble I told him I’d contracted an agent and there was going to be a caravan at the house tomorrow.

‘So it’s all go,’ I said, repeating an upbeat phrase Jason had used on me. ‘I don’t need to ring Abi for advice.’ I resisted the urge to point out I was unlikely to ask Abi’s advice on anything. She’d had the hots for Sean for years. It had sparked at my party
four years earlier when he’d done a joke striptease as a surprise birthday present for me.

‘Thanks for arranging that,’ Sean was saying, all business.

I could hear the cry of a baby and pots and pans banging in the background. My heart gave a lurch. Either the baby was taking out his frustration on the cooking utensils or Sean’s partner was. Suddenly my anger and sadness lifted off somewhere.

‘You’re welcome,’ I said cheerfully. I almost meant it.

‘Well, if there’s anything you need from me, just let me know,’ he said.

I refused to let the formal phrase and its deeper meaning affect me. I felt no need to lecture him about talking to me through Robbie. Felt no necessity to remind him what our house had meant to us. And when I hung up I was smiling. It’s impossible to explain why — probably those two glasses of wine.

I thought about ringing Robbie. I even hovered my thumb over his name in my contact list. Instead, I plugged the phone into the charger and fell asleep almost immediately.

T
HURSDAY
22 N
OVEMBER
2012

J
ustin’s office was on the floor above his wife’s gym in Jervois Road within easy walking distance of where they lived. At the back entrance were two car parks designated for the directors. Justin’s silver BMW was parked in one of them. A sky-blue version of the same model kept it company in the other.

There were no surprises with the layout of the gym: a warehouse of equipment with low ceilings and mirrored walls. No surprises with the colour decor of Apricot either. The music was loud and vibrating. Sweating bodies pounded the treadmills. At nine-fifty on a Thursday morning the place was packed with penitents, feverishly working off their lifestyle sins. Who needs it? Give me a rosary or Stations of the Cross any day. Gym clothes, sweatbands, dietary supplements, health
products, nut bars and probably the phone number of the cute guy working out beside you were all available from the reception area. No sign of Salena. A kitted-out twenty-something with a perfect body, hair and skin, smiled a perfect set of teeth at me. I grimaced my imperfect bag of tricks back at her. A boy of about five playing on an iPad gave me the briefest of glances. Presumably this was Neo, Sunny’s half-brother.
The Matrix
had a lot to answer for. My phone beeped a text alert. It was from Jason, wanting assurance my dangerous dog wouldn’t be at the house during the pre-open home inspection at one o’clock. I replied,
All good. No dog
and got a smiley face in return. Jesus.

I looked up from my texting as a middle-aged man approached.

‘You Diane?’

I could handle the oiled chest on display above his low-necked singlet — just — but did my best to avoid looking at the eye-wateringly tight baby-blue Lycra shorts. ‘Mr Bachelor said to take you up to his office when you got here.’

With that he turned and walked away. He had the classic gait of a body builder, arms forced outwards from his body to accommodate the bulk of water-wing biceps. I followed his muscular balloon butt up the narrow wooden stairway. We didn’t say a word. What can you say when you’re faced with a butt like that? Outside the office door he held his hand up like a traffic cop and peered at his watch, lips silently counting down the seconds until ten o’clock. Oh please, what drama. So Justin had a tame gorilla, big deal. He knocked once, opened the door and nodded in the direction he wanted me to take. I wasn’t going to argue with him.

Sunny sat cross-legged in the middle of a blood-red sofa, a foot in one hand, the other holding her hair back from her forehead in a gesture of frustration. Justin hovered over her, his neck blotchy with emotion. They had been arguing. I pretended not to notice and spent a few minutes enthusing over the ultra-cool office space of brick walls and four-metre-high sash windows. The ceiling had been removed to expose kauri structural beams and a high arched roof cavity. Very nice. Signage and clothes samples lying around the place suggested this was where Justin ran the merchandise division of the gym business. One corner of the room was sectioned off by a bamboo-framed silk screen. Posters of disturbingly young girls in skimpy gym gear adorned the walls like hunters’ trophies.

Sunny unfolded herself and padded barefoot to a coffee machine in the far corner. She was wearing a tiny pleated skirt that only just covered her bum. The sleeveless cut-away T-shirt was emblazoned with the word ‘whore’. I hoped this was what she and her father had been arguing about.

‘Coffee?’ she asked, casually tilting her head over one bony shoulder. ‘I do an okay cappuccino.’

I couldn’t help but admire her bravado. ‘Great. Thanks,’ I said.

Justin glared at me. Meaningfully, I suspect. I followed Sunny, partly to get Justin out of my line of sight. He followed.

‘Da-ad,’ she protested. ‘Leave us alone!’ The habitual cry of the teenage girl.

‘I checked you out,’ Justin said, pumping his fists open and closed like he was preparing for a blood donation. I hoped it was
his
blood he was planning to donate.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘It’s what I expected you to do.’

After a brief respite his neck and chest had mottled up again. Just looking at him made me feel tired. How boring it would be to live with someone whose first and only response to everything was anger.

‘Word is you’re legit. If you weren’t, I wouldn’t have let you in the door.’

Sunny rolled her eyes theatrically. ‘Da-ad, you promised!’ She turned her impossibly fragile little neck to look at him. ‘Please,’ she added. This time without the attitude. It worked.

‘Five minutes,’ he said, splaying his hand in front of my face for emphasis. ‘You get five minutes and that’s it.’ He turned to Sunny. ‘Anton will be right outside the door.’

‘I don’t want him there.’ Her eyes darted to the door. ‘I don’t want him …’

‘Okay, okay.’ He held up his hand in the same stop gesture Anton had used on me. ‘I’ll tell him to go back downstairs. If you want me, you just yell, honey, and I’ll be here in a heartbeat.’

Her back was to him, but she nodded.

The cappuccino was more than okay and so was Sunny. She’d built a little hard carapace about herself but it was surprisingly easy to get beneath it. We made a bit of small talk about why she didn’t drink coffee or tea and about her dad’s gym gear importing business, but we were both aware our time alone was short. I thought her first question would be, ‘What’s my mother like?’ She surprised me.

‘What’s your mother like?’ she asked.

I tried not to let the question throw me. Fair enough, I
thought. She has the right to find out about me before she gives anything of herself away.

‘Well.’ I let my breath out. ‘My mother died when I was five so all my memories of her belong to a five-year-old.’

‘Same,’ she said, pulling her bare foot into her hand. ‘Only the other way round.’ I waited, not following her meaning but knowing more was coming. ‘I wish my mother was dead and Falcon was alive.’ She made it sound very matter of fact. ‘He was five when she killed him.’ She slid a little smile in my direction. ‘I’d probably hate him. If he was alive, I mean. He’d be twelve. Twelve-year-old boys are so totally disgusting.’ She hid her emotion in her oversized cup of hot water.

‘I had a little sister,’ I said, and took a sip of the coffee. ‘I thought I’d hate her but I loved her right from the start. And even when she was an annoying twelve-year-old I still loved her.’ The words were thick in my throat. The emotion surprised us both. I glanced at Sunny before adding, ‘But maybe it’s different with a brother.’

Sunny shook her head. ‘Falcon was a really cute kid,’ she said. Her eyes moved as she pictured him. She blinked slowly, shutting the image down. ‘I try not to think about him too much.’

I could understand that. ‘You get on okay with Neo?’

‘Sure,’ she said with a hitched shrug. There was a fierceness about her as she readied herself for the difficult stuff. ‘What does she want with me?’ Her eyes darted as she searched for another way to ask the question. She ended up just repeating it. ‘What does she want?’

I took my time answering, aware every word I said was loaded. ‘Karen says she wants to know you’re alright,’ I said.

‘What do you mean alright?’ she shot back. It was the first flash of anger.

‘To be honest, I don’t really know.’ She’d drawn her legs up and was hugging them with skinny little arms. ‘Are you alright?’ I asked.

Sunny opened her mouth to speak. There was something there; some thought, some secret. Her eyes darted to the door again. I wondered if Justin was outside listening. Or Anton. Or if she thought one of them was. Whatever she’d intended to say was swallowed.

‘Alright for someone whose mother tried to murder her, you mean?’ She lifted her chin in a parody of pride. ‘Oh yeah, I’m totally excellent.’ Her voice hitched.

‘I believe Karen cares about you, Sunny.’

This was pushing the limits of what I was prepared to say about Karen’s feelings for her, but I had to give Sunny something. She feigned nonchalance and nearly convinced herself.

‘Yeah, well, whatever.’ A new thought took hold. ‘You won’t tell anyone at school, will you? Promise you won’t talk to any of them. No one at school knows …’ This was clearly her worst nightmare.

‘I won’t talk to anyone …’ I began.

‘And don’t let Mum go anywhere near my friends! If she does, I’ll … I’ll …’ She tensed. I reckoned there was a fifty-fifty chance of her making a run for the door.

‘Listen to me, Sunny.’ My chair squeaked as I leaned forward. ‘I won’t tell Karen anything you say to me. I won’t tell her anything about you. Not unless you want me to. You are in charge of this. That’s the deal. I give you my word.’

The seconds ticked away while she stayed frozen and stiff with indecision. Then the hand closed over the foot again with a comforting squeeze and the tension deflated.

‘Okay.’ She shrugged as if she didn’t care. ‘Whatever,’ she added bleakly.

Suddenly the door clattered opened. Anton stepped back to allow Salena entry. ‘So you’re the person Karen sent.’ She dismissed me in a single eye movement.

There was no reason to respond and she didn’t seem to expect a reply. Neo slunk in behind her, iPad swinging casually in one hand. He perched on the sofa next to Sunny and continued his game. Anton remained in the open doorway, displaying his bulk. He was looking at Sunny in a way that made me uneasy. It was a relief when she put her feet on the floor.

‘Justin didn’t want Sunny to talk to you but I said she should. She has to come to terms with what her mother did.’ Salena didn’t even glance in Sunny’s direction.

Sunny reacted. ‘Hell-ooo,’ she called, waving her arms above her head. ‘I am actually here in the room, you know.’

Salena kept her eyes averted. ‘I know you are, darling.’

An uncomfortable silence followed; well, uncomfortable for me anyway. Sunny glared at Salena with undisguised distaste. Salena shifted papers on the desk, ignoring her. No love lost or otherwise between these two. Neo edged closer to Sunny. His attention appeared to be focused entirely on his game, but I had my doubts.

‘Are you alright, love?’ Justin pushed past Anton, looking from me to Sunny.

‘Why is everyone suddenly so interested if I’m alright. Of
course I’m alright. What did you think she’d do — kill me?’

An odd
boing
from Neo’s iPad game was the only sound in the room. Salena threw Justin a ‘this is what I have to deal with’ gesture. He didn’t respond. My knees clicked from sitting rigid for too long. In full view of Justin, I handed Sunny my business card.

‘All my contact details are on there, Sunny. You can ring me any time you want.’

She studied the card intently, forcing the tears back. I resisted the urge to hug her goodbye. Salena called a sarcastic ‘Bye now,’ as I reached the door. Anton held it open for me. I was already anticipating the very deep breath I’d let out once my feet hit the pavement.

‘I want to meet my mother,’ Sunny said, addressing her father. I paused in the doorway, Anton’s arm hovering above my head.

‘No way, Sunny,’ he said. ‘I won’t allow it.’

‘You can’t stop me, you know,’ she said, without conviction. ‘I have a right to see her.’

Justin looked to Salena for advice. She feigned interest in the wall. Anton stared at Sunny; he seemed fascinated by her. No one looked at me, frozen in the doorway, craving a cigarette for the first time in twenty months.

‘I have to, you know, confront her,’ Sunny said. ‘Tell her how much I hate her,’ she added, unconvincingly. Justin struggled to contain some emotion, his repertoire of emotions so limited I was guessing the emotion was anger. ‘You have to let me do this, Dad. Please.’

Even the iPad had stopped boinging.

‘Okay,’ he said. We all breathed again. ‘But I have to be there. I won’t let you do this on your own.’

Sunny immediately got down to practicals. ‘Not you, Dad. It would be impossible with you there. You’d just get totally angry and stuff.’ There was no heat in it. She was stating a fact. Surprisingly, Justin nodded in agreement. I saw a thought take hold.

‘You’re right, honey,’ he said, a barely repressed smile developing. ‘It should be another female with you. Someone you trust.’ Thrilled with the possibility, he looked the question at Salena. She offered a complex range of gestures in response, which I interpreted as meaning she would do it, but unwillingly.

‘I want her to come with me,’ Sunny said. Justin released the smile. He assumed she meant Salena. We all did. ‘I want Diane to come with me,’ she declared, studying the card in her hand, probably making sure she had my name right. Justin was speechless. So was I. ‘I trust her,’ she added. She might as well have said: Suck on that, Salena.

The iPad boinged.

Maybe Sunny chose me just to piss Salena off. Salena thought so, though she refused to give her stepdaughter the satisfaction of showing it. Whatever her intention, once Sunny had set the idea in motion she wouldn’t back away from it and, having agreed to the deal, Justin knew he was stuck with it. Finally, he gave in and asked me to set up the meeting. Well, ‘asked’ would be a euphemistic way of describing his belligerent demands. He made it abundantly clear that I wouldn’t have been his first or last choice as go-between. And from Salena’s cool gaze levelled
in my direction, she wasn’t too big a fan of my involvement either. As for Karen, I was confident she would leap at the chance to meet her daughter.

Me? I wasn’t so sure it was a good idea for either of them — or good for me either, for that matter. Taking charge, Justin instructed me to bring Karen to the Ja Coozy restaurant in the Wynyard Quarter at one o’clock on Saturday afternoon. No doubt he’d chosen a fishbowl-style setting where he could keep a close eye on us from a chosen spot close by. He confirmed my suspicion by assuring me he would be nearby at all times.

No amount of warning from me could dampen Karen’s excitement. She was overjoyed at the prospect of meeting her daughter. Breathless with anticipation, she began planning an early flight up on Saturday morning in time to meet with me beforehand. The more she chattered eagerly about the meeting, the deeper my heart sank. Call me a pessimist but I couldn’t help thinking it would go badly. When she asked for details about Sunny I reminded her of our agreement that everything about her daughter would remain private until Sunny chose to share it with her. Karen agreed immediately, apologised for her transgression and told me I was quite right. Such was her elation and gratitude she would have agreed to anything. Try as I did to remind myself that this woman had attempted to murder her daughter and had succeeding in killing her five-year-old son it wasn’t enough to stop me feeling some compassion for her. I tried one last time to warn her that things might not go all that smoothly.