‘Anubha thought he was mad about you. He talked about you a lot, always asking questions. She eventually told him to shut up one day at work when he was speculating about what you must have gone through as a child. She said it was creepy, but the rest of them thought he had the hots for you, like as if he was fascinated by your “little orphan Annie” story. God, that’s so weird, Sally, and nobody knows where he is now?’
‘No.’ I paused. ‘I hate that film. The sun rarely comes out tomorrow, not in Carricksheedy. Not in winter anyway.’ Sue laughed. ‘What are you laughing at?’
‘I don’t think musical lyrics should be taken so seriously.’
Before the builders left the cottage, I had a locksmith put bolts on all the doors and windows. And then they left, the first week of October, and I had my own beautiful space and my dream bathroom. The lines were sleek and straight. I could hardly believe that this gorgeous home was my own. The stream ran through the house under glass panels and emerged in a rockery in the back yard. Everyone who came admired it as if it had been my work. I gave them Nadine’s business cards. When the piano moved into the cottage, I finally felt at home. I felt secure, I suppose, but sad and a little scared.
While I was concerned about Mark, I was far more worried about ‘S’. The guards couldn’t find out anything about where the card had been sent from except that it was processed through the main post office in Auckland, like every other piece of overseas mail from New Zealand. It frightened me. Conor Geary was still out there.
44
Peter, 1989
It took me a while to get over Dad’s death. I felt the weight of the phantom disease lift off me. I missed him and I hated him and I loved him, but I could not forgive him. There was nobody with whom to be angry over all the lost years, the years where I could have gone to school, the years where I needn’t have been so physically uncomfortable in hats and gloves, years of friendships, connections, sports and parties, and most particularly the decades of Rangi’s life that were lost because I was gullible enough to believe what my father told me.
I missed the companionship, though, the care and consideration.
Jill from the Daily Post encouraged me to write an open letter to thank the local people for their generosity and wanted another photo of me at home. I agreed to the letter but refused another photograph. Years of hiding didn’t disappear overnight; the feeling of escaping and hiding never left me. I wanted my anonymity back and so I went from being a minor local celebrity to being a recluse. I had a telephone, finally, but nobody to call.
The logistics of sorting out Dad’s estate were overwhelming, and I was appointed a social worker and a lawyer who handled everything for me. I wasn’t alone, but everybody thought I was. Money was transferred into a bank account for me. I was not rich and I would have to work hard to pay the bills, but I owned the house outright. Questions were asked about why I hadn’t gone to school, but I told the truth, that my father had believed I suffered from a disease and that socializing could put me at risk. I had to take some equivalent of their National Certificate of Educational Achievement exams. The authorities were dismayed, I think, that I scored so highly and was duly awarded the certificate. My social worker also made sure that I was registered with the Inland Revenue and explained that my income was taxable. She managed to persuade the authorities not to pursue me for revenue I had already earned. The weeks on crutches were difficult. I was dependent on social workers and district nurses to take me to and from physiotherapy and grocery shopping. In the superette, as I filled the shopping cart, they commented that I had a big appetite. They didn’t realize that I was shopping for two.
Lindy had been half crazy with hunger when I unlocked the door for the first time ten days after the accident. She ate cheese out of the packet and stuffed potato chips into her mouth between screaming at me for leaving her alone for so long. I waited for her to notice my short haircut, the stitches on my head and the crutches I leaned on, and when she did, she sat back on the bed and looked at me. ‘What happened? Where is he?’
I told her about the car accident, the argument that led to it, how I had let my father die. My eyes filled with tears and her eyes glistened too. When I finished explaining, she tipped her head back and her hair hung over her shoulders, her beautiful face pointed at the ceiling. Even with a missing tooth, she was still lovely. ‘It’s over,’ she said. ‘I can go home.’ And then she looked at me suspiciously. ‘Where are the police? Why aren’t they here?’
I stared at her. It had never occurred to me that she might want to leave now that Dad was gone. She was all I had.
‘You’re mine, Lindy. I’m going to keep you safe.’ I swore I would never rape her, never hurt her. I told her that I’d let Dad die so that he would no longer hurt her, and that was true. I wanted us to be friends and that could never happen if I let her go. She turned her face to the wall and howled and wailed like I’d never heard her before. ‘Lindy,’ I said softly, ‘it’s for the best. I’m in charge now. I’ll look after you.’
‘Fuck off, Steve!’ she screamed at the top of her lungs. She hated me. If she ever did get away, she would tell them exactly who I was and where to find me. I had been complicit with Lindy’s kidnapping for two years already so there were two strong reasons for keeping her: I loved her; and I didn’t want to go to jail. The first one was more important to me.
I was given an old car by one of Dad’s former patients. Eventually, the dental practice sold and my inheritance hit a bank account in my name and I could get on without social workers, lawyers or nurses. I got my independence back.
By 1989, when I was twenty-one, I noticed girls in town looking at me sometimes. I’d never paid much heed to my appearance before. The scar had faded into a thin white line on my forehead. You wouldn’t notice unless you got close, and nobody got close. I ate well and exercised regularly. I had joined a gym and was lifting weights and bench-pressing. I’d leased a small shop in town and set myself up as a greengrocer. I still supplied to the superette but also to other outlets in surrounding towns. I’d studied what other producers were charging and undercut them. I was on nodding terms with some guys in the gym and in the shops I supplied, and a few customers. But now that I could have friendships, I didn’t want them. I didn’t want anyone getting too familiar because I had Lindy. She was my secret. She wasn’t my girlfriend, not yet, but I knew she would be eventually. I was prepared to wait.
I was good to her. I let her have the newspapers when I’d finished with them. I had installed a proper bed and a colour TV. I bought her favourite food instead of the essentials like Dad did. She loved Shrewsbury and MallowPuff cookies, so they were her weekend treat. I bought a plug-in radiator for the winter because she had always complained about how cold it got out there. When I went out of town on a trip, I bought her new clothes and jandals, women’s magazines and lipstick. It was trial and error with the sizing, but I got it right in the end. When she asked for sanitary towels and tampons, I was shocked that Dad had never supplied those. I got them in bulk twice a year after that so that she would never have to ask and she would never run out. I gave her a clock and a calendar so that she knew what day and time it was. I bought her a record player and a radio. Everything I could do to make her happy. And yet, she was never happy. ‘Why are you keeping me? If you don’t want sex, what do you want? I’m never going to be your “friend”,’ she said, scorn in her voice. ‘I’m never going to feel like you’re anything other than my jailer, and you’re an idiot if you think differently.’