Gith Read online

'Go. Pup.' She raised her hand like she was drinking and followed it with her finger yapping.

  'Maybe I don't want to go to the pub.'

  The same flapping move, bigger this time. The look on her face was one I hadn't seen before. It wasn't that she was upset. It was like she couldn't be bothered.

  'What about tea?' I asked.

  She rubbed her fingers together, signalling money.

  'Takeaways?'

  'Gith.'

  'Will you be okay?'

  She rolled her eyes. I was being real dumb.

  ***

  TE KOHUNA IS not a bad place if you don't mind small towns. The climate is a bit on the damp side, although the summers are usually good. I guess the population is about two thousand — small enough to know a lot of people but not everybody. There is a school and a church, a war memorial, a library and a pub, and, along the main drag, a string of shops and other little businesses, with a few houses still dotted among them. There was an accountant but not a lawyer, a vet but not a doctor. There was even a bloke who fixed computers. I'm not sure how he made a living. A lot of people commuted to Katawai, about thirty k south, where there was a freezing works and a fertiliser factory. A few more went to Tapanahu, fifty k to the north, but other than that the rest worked locally — those who had jobs, that is. A good number were contractors or casual labourers for the local farms: doing fencing or mustering or making silage or whatever was needed at the time. A few — and Gith and I fell into this group — got at least part of their living from the trade passing up and down the highway. There were one or two upmarket businesses, like Bank Antiques and Café Allegro. There was a second-hand bookshop called Bibliotalk and a couple of cheap eating places — the Big Asia Takeaway and Queenie's Tearooms. There was also the pub.

  The Te Kohuna Arms is on the corner of the main drag and Basingstoke Road, on the right as you come into town from the south. It's a two-storey building with a big tarseal car park around the back and along one side. When I was a kid it was a pretty run-down sort of place but then Faye and Simon Ingrest bought it and did it up. The big front lounge was back to the old style, with frosted glass and dark polished wood and a plush-looking carpet on the floor. There was a dining room, too, where they did the thing with napkins and wine glasses. The most important part of the business, though — or at least the one I reckon made the most money — was the back bar. Faye and Simon had the good sense to leave that alone.

  It was an L-shaped room and you walked into it through a pair of narrow doors in the long wall. To your left, on the small end wall, was a big TV screen playing Sky Sport. The sound was always off unless there was a big game. Next to it, in the corner, was a servery into the kitchen where you could buy a meal. The locals said it was the same food you got in the dining room but at half the price. Next came the bar itself, taking up the rest of the wall opposite the door. It was maybe eight metres long, with three sets of beer pumps and the spirit bottles up behind. To the right, round the corner in the small leg of the L, was the pool table.

  There was nothing fancy about the back bar. The floor was grey lino. The walls were painted cream, bare except for a few old posters for long-gone events. The tables were made of black tubes of metal with off-white Formica tops. They were waist high and there were a few stools of matching height with brown padded vinyl seats. The drink was beer, Tui for choice, in plastic jugs, although now and again somebody would have a go at the top shelf. It was a place where you could come in your working clothes, a bit sweaty, and no one would care. It was a place for blokes, pretty much. There were one or two sheilas but they may as well have been blokes, the way they talked. From six o'clock it was just about chocker, especially later in the week: a mixture of blokes on their way home from wherever they worked, and farmers who had come in at the end of the day to catch up with one another.

  I was never a regular at the Arms. Two or three times a month was about my lot. It was partly because I'm not that sociable and partly because I never really liked leaving Gith alone. The pub wasn't her sort of scene. It was too noisy and the effort of talking always pissed her off. She didn't mind me going though. Even so, having her push me out of the house like that made me feel a bit weird, like I was being made to do something I didn't want to do.

  It was a warm night for Te Kohuna, and standing round the door of the back bar was the usual clutch of smokers, glass in one hand and fag in the other. I stopped for a word or two but the smoke got to me pretty quick and I soon went inside. The place was even fuller than usual. There were a few faces you didn't normally see, even that late in the week. I figured it was because the cops were in town. All the nosy buggers had come down from the hills to find out what was going on.

  I bought myself a jug and looked for a table to join. My usual school was Tom Kittering, Mark Morgan and Monty Praguer. Tom and Mark were there most nights, like Monty. I was never sure why I hung out with them. I liked Monty well enough, and Tom was all right, except for the fact that he spat when he talked, but Mark was a bit of a loudmouth, and dirty-minded — a real pain in the arse at times. I guess it was just habit that I went with them, or maybe we were all misfits in our own different ways.

  That evening I spotted them up under the TV screen and headed off towards them. Then I stopped. Gray Tackett was with them. I wasn't sure I wanted a session of little digs about the Tacketts and the McUrrans. But before I could join someone else, Monty spotted me and waved me over.

  'Gidday,' I said, squeezing in beside him.

  'That girl of yours is a genius,' he said.

  'Give it a decent run before you say that,' I told him.

  'I did. I've been to Basingstoke and back since I left you. Went like a bloody dream.'

  'What did she do?' Gray asked.

  'Fixed the wastegate on the turbo,' I said.

  'Is that all?' Gray sounded like anybody could have done it.

  'Must be weird living with someone who's dumb,' Tom said.

  Monty turned to him. 'She's not dumb. She's smart as a tack.'

  'No, I mean not talking.' Tom's an odd-looking bloke, tall and thin, with not much hair and teeth like an old ewe. It was hard to take him seriously and usually I didn't.

  'Sounds pretty bloody good to me,' Mark said. 'Living with a silent woman.'

  Gray laughed but Tom didn't.

  'Why's she like that, though?'

  'Brain injury.' I tapped the side of my head. 'Apparently there's something up about here that controls the talking. It got pretty much wiped out in her case.'

  'Say,' Mark said, 'is there a waiting list for that? Can I get the missus on it?'

  Gray laughed and so did Monty, which surprised me a bit. There was a time when he was right into all the anti-woman jokes, but since his wife shot through he seemed to have let that go.

  'Tough,' Tom said. 'Bloody tragic, really.'

  'Yes.' I nodded.

  Gray took a long pull at his beer, smacked his lips. 'That's life, though, eh? You just have to get on with it.'

  'True,' I answered. Nobody else said anything. They figured Gray had a right to say something like that and they didn't. Gray had two sons, Ray and Bobby. They were twins and a year younger than me. Ray was normal enough but not what you'd call sharp and sensitive. Bobby was the second one out when they were born, and something had gone wrong that left him with brain damage. He was slow and clumsy and talked like a five-year-old. Gray figured that Bobby and Gith had the same problem and that, as their guardians, he and I had something in common. I felt sorry for Bobby but I didn't see it that way at all.

  'How's your old man?' Gray asked me.

  'Okay.'

  'Heard he broke his ankle.'

  'Nah. Sprained it, that's all.'

  'Can't take the pace, eh?'

  I didn't answer.

  'Must piss Bill off a bit,' Gray went on. 'Must feel like Prince Charles — waiting for the bloody Queen to die.'

  I looked at him. He grinned. He was having fun.

  'Hey
.' Mark was nudging Tom and pointing down the bar. 'That bloke that just came in. He'd be the cop, right?'

  'Yeah. That's him. Ryan, his name is.'

  'Jesus, he's not staying here, is he? I hope Faye and Simon changed the sheets.'

  Monty laughed and then he turned to Tom.

  'Have they talked to you yet?'

  'Why would they want to talk to me?'

  'You own a white wagon, don't you?'

  'Yeah? So?'

  'It wasn't a wagon,' I said. 'It was a van. Gith saw it.'

  'Yeah?' Mark turned to Gray. 'Then it's your Ray, mate. He's got a white van.'

  'So what? He's not the only one.'

  One more for the list, I thought. I hadn't thought of Ray Tackett. He could easily be somebody Gith didn't really know. But then I wasn't sure. I had no time at all for Ray, but could I really see him racing off with Anneke Hesse? And killing her? It seemed crazy. But then, somebody did it.

  'Yeah, except the cops are looking for a wagon,' Monty was saying.

  I turned to him. 'That's not right, though, eh?'

  'Well . . .' He shrugged.

  'You were there,' I said. 'What did you see?'

  'Not sure. I think, on reflection, it might have been a wagon.' He looked at me. 'Sorry, Ken.'

  Jesus, I thought.

  I didn't take much part in the talk after that. I felt kind of out of it, like the world wasn't working right. Monty knew he'd upset me but I guess he believed what he believed and there was nothing he could do about it. And if Monty and Mavis Blake were both saying it was a wagon, then it was odds on what the cops would think.

  After a while the talk drifted round to the Annual Show and the fact that Tommy Loumis from the gun club was running another clay pigeon shoot. Mark started bragging about how he was going to win it. Gray laughed and told him he didn't have a chance.

  'I'm working the trap,' he said. 'And I've already taken my bribes.'

  'So who's it going to be, then?' Tom asked.

  'Well,' Gray said. 'Seriously. If you want to bet on the beginners, you can't go past our Colly.' Colly was Gray's nephew, a kid of about twelve.

  'That right?' Tom said.

  'He's a cracker.'

  I figured I'd had enough so I bought another jug, filled my glass from it and left it on the table. Then I made my way down the other end of the bar and chalked my name up for a game of pool.

  I stood and watched and drank, without thinking that much, until my turn came. By a stroke of luck I finished up partnering Pat Harrigan, who was one of the best players around. We won six games straight. It was dark when I left.

  I walked down the road to the Big Asia Takeaway. There were no other customers and Dong was wiping up behind the counter.

  'Has Gith been in?' I asked him.

  'Sure. Bout one hour.'

  'What did she get? Fish and chips?'

  'That right.'

  'Me too. Two fish, one chips.'

  He ladled a scoop of chips into a basket and lowered it into the fat. Then he dipped a piece of fish in the sloppy white batter and dropped that in. A second piece after it.

  'Do you know anyone with a white van?' I asked him.

  'Sure,' he said, looking over his shoulder with a grin. 'Me.'

  Yes, I thought. That's about par for the course.

  There were no lights on back home. I panicked for a second but I knew it was all right. Gith sometimes did this, going to bed soon as it got dark. I put my parcel of food on the kitchen bench and went through into the hallway. The door to her room was open just a crack. I swung it a bit wider and a shaft of light spread across the floor and over the bed on the far side, my shadow in the middle of it. I could see Gith's head on the pillow, just poking out of the folded bedclothes. I wanted to go in and touch her, to make sure she was all right or just to feel her warmth maybe. But that was dumb.

  I closed the door again and turned away, went back to the kitchen for the food.

  ***

  ON SATURDAY WE went for a drive up to Lake Nihonui. We took the Riley and Gith drove. The Riley is her car, registered in her name, and she really likes the chance to get behind the wheel. I didn't honestly know if the learner's licence she got when she was fifteen was still valid but, given that Hemi never said anything, we reckoned it must be. The car did all right, purring along at fifty mph on the flat bits and taking the hills in its stride. We stopped at a layby on the northern edge of the lake. It was too cold to have lunch in the open air so we unpacked the sandwiches and ate them sitting in the car.

  'Len,' she said, after a while. 'Thad.'

  'Sad? Yes. Too right.'

  'Poor Len. Poor Kath.' She sighed. 'Die. Thcary.'

  'We're all scared to die, I guess.'

  'Acthident. Mum an Dad.'

  'You remember that?'

  'Narg. Ferry. Birdth. Gullth. Waaark.' She made a fair shot at the sound of a gull. Then she said. 'Thcream. Thcream. Braketh thcream. Mum thcream. Eeeeeeeeeeeee.'

  'You remember that? The brakes? Your mum?'

  'Narg. Mebby. Mum an Dad. Dead.'

  'That's sad.'

  'Gith.' She said nothing for a second or two, and then, 'Hurt.' She started to cry, one hand over her eyes. She had a cup of tea in the other. A half-eaten sandwich on a piece of Glad Wrap in her lap.

  She was a long way away in the Riley's front seat but I moved across and put my arm around her shoulders.

  'Yes, sweetheart. I know. I know. It still hurts, eh.'

  She sniffed.

  'We don't talk about it much,' I said. 'Maybe we should.'

  She knuckled away her tears, sniffed again.

  'Girl. Van girl. Dead,' she said.

  'Dead?' I wanted to say she was wrong but I couldn't.

  She rubbed above her left eye with the tip of her finger. 'Head,' she said. 'Thtuffed. Talk. Thtuffed.'

  'I know.'

  'Bugger.'

  'Yes.'

  She looked at me and then waved her hand out towards the water. 'Thad,' she said. 'Here. Thad. Thad light. Bad. Mebby.'

  'Here?' I knew what she meant. There was always something weird about the lake. Right now a flock of ducks, maybe thirty or forty birds, were skimming over the surface. Dark shapes with their blurred shadows in the silver water. To the south the hills rose up, a deep dull grey against a blue-grey sky, while to our right, along the western side, a pale mist was rolling in like smoke, tumbling down the gullies and spreading out over the surface.

  Gith opened the car door and got out, stood hugging herself against the cold and sipping her cup of tea. I joined her, put my arm round her, felt her shiver. A damp breeze was stirring, flicking her hair against my jaw. Bit by bit, the lake was sinking under the mist.

  'We should go,' I said.

  She didn't move.

  I remembered the story of the taniwha they said lived up here, and how the lake sometimes turned to blood. It was a trick of the light but that didn't stop it freaking you out. My brother Bill had seen it once. He was up here on a tramping trip and spent the night over on the western side where the mist was coming down now. He woke at sunrise the next morning. The sky was red in the east and the lake even redder, a dark blood colour. He was blown away by the strength of that colour. He said it made him think the worst kind of thoughts. He tried to take a photo but all that came out was the brightness of the sky.

  'Weird place,' I said.

  She looked at me. 'Gith.'

  And suddenly I got an odd feeling. Somebody was around here somewhere. Somebody had died, right near here, and it hadn't been an easy death. There was a body in one of the gullies along the side of this road. Was this what had made Gith talk about the van girl?

  'Let's go,' I said.

  'Okay.'

  We got back in the car and Gith reversed and turned, moved towards the road. The mist was coming in quickly now, swirling about the Riley like grey water. It was no more than half a metre deep but it was enough to hide the surface of the road. Our tyres popped o
ver the gravel. Gith stopped, looked at me, worried. What the hell were we going to do?

  'Wait,' I said. 'If it covers us we might be able to see better.'

  We sat there and it rose round us. It seemed like we were slowly sinking into the lake itself, drowning in the cold grey water. In a few minutes we were below the surface.

  It was easier to see but not easy enough. On my side of the car we could just make out the gatepost, but there was nothing beyond it. Gith turned on the lights but all that did was fill the grey with brightness. I looked at her. I was scared she might freak out but she seemed okay. Just worried like I was.

  'We could sit and wait,' I said, 'but we might be here all night. Maybe if I walk in front of the car and you follow me we could get ahead of it. Or below it.'

  'Okay.'

  'I'll walk along the left-hand edge of the road. Keep the left wing behind me.'

  'Gith.'

  I got out. The car door sounded loud when I shut it. Nothing now but the hum of the Riley's motor. I could see the ground though — just. I guided Gith out of the car park and onto the road, and set off walking along the edge of the lake. It was a good four k before the road veered left over a saddle and dropped down into the valley towards Te Kohuna. Unless we were moving faster than the mist it was going to be a long, long walk.

  I could see nothing much on the right-hand side — vague shapes of bushes, clumps of reeds along the lake's edge. To my left the dark of the rising ground, covered in bush. From time to time I could hear running water there, little streams coming down through the gullies. I kept my eyes on the edge of the road and walked on steadily about half a metre from the narrow shoulder.

  I was still thinking about somebody dying. A woman. Or maybe it was Gith's mum in the car. I could feel the person somehow. It was like there was a voice calling just out of earshot or on the edge of my mind. The further I went, the stronger the feeling got. It was like she was screaming and the screams were getting louder, except that there was nothing to hear. To my left up ahead was the sound of water, rushing. It got louder and louder and the scream seemed to flow into it and under it. I could feel the cold coming towards me, even colder than the mist. Then the Riley's engine cut out.

  I stopped, went round to the driver's side of the car. Gith had the window down.