Second Chances Part 36

I stared at a calendar hanging on the wall: two emerald taniwha with swirling tails. The world had turned upside down and inside out. I despised the courier, the dealer, the cook, everyone involved in supplying those monstrous crystals to my beautiful girl. I loathed them. They were vermin, hiding under hoods and behind gang insignia. They were creatures with no self-respect, no future, scrabbling for rotting sc.r.a.ps on their filthy heap. I agreed entirely with Jean Colbert: put down poison, lay traps. They had to be eradicated.

Not Sacha.

Bianka's words were tangling. 'It doesn't matter what I do or say, she won't listen, just nuts off at me. I told her to go ahead and screw up her life-but I didn't mean it!'

Not Sacha. Sacha was a G.o.ddess in a white dress, weaving magic with her flute; a beloved sister who splashed her brothers in the river. She was a chatterbox with a high forehead and apple cheeks who never stopped smiling, and loved hot chocolate and marshmallows. When a bee stung her, I put on special cream. On my wedding day I told her I loved her most in the world, and she said she loved me more.

No, not Sacha. She wasn't vermin.

'Rival gangs,' Bianka ran on breathlessly, 'do anything to shut each other down. You don't mess with them . . . She told me someone attacked her car when she was doing a delivery. It was a warning. The deeper you get into this, the freakier the people.'

'Doing a delivery? No, no. She was grocery shopping. She can't have been . . . I mean, that was weeks ago.'

'She started using again the day after you got back from skiing.'

I saw Sacha on the mountainside, gazing at the pristine cone of Ngauruhoe. I'm lucky: I've been given a second chance, and there's no way I'm going to throw that chance away.

'That isn't possible.'

'Yes.' Bianka sounded heartbroken. 'Coming home brought everything back. She got hit by this craving and it was driving her crazy, she was afraid she was going to kill herself if it didn't stop. So she sent a text from your phone. Someone drove out and left the stuff under your letterbox. She took the dog for a walk and collected it. She thought she could handle it, she'd just have a little bit to perk her up and everything would be okay.'

The ground was opening. There was nowhere safe.

Bianka was still talking. 'Look-I'm sorry, but you've got to know-she sells it, too.'

'Sells it? You mean she's a dealer?'

'Well, sort of. She breaks it up and sells it to her mates.'

My legs were shaking. I pulled out a chair and fell onto it.

'Please take her away, Martha,' begged Bianka. 'She's s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her life, big time. Take her back to England while you still can.'

I couldn't move, after that call. I sat irresolute and stunned as the wind rose outside. So far, every decision I'd made had ended in disaster. I jumped in terror as a violent gust tore the lid off our dustbin, rolling it across the yard.

Pick up that phone and call the police! wailed Mum.

'Shut up, shut up. I'm trying to think.'

For heaven's sake, blow the whistle! This is too big for you now.

Dazedly, I lifted the phone. Once I'd shopped Sacha to the authorities, I could let go. They would take it irrevocably out of my hands. No more choices. Listening to the dial tone, I mouthed my first words: h.e.l.lo, good evening, hi, um, I'm calling to betray my daughter. Perhaps they'd send a posse and arrest her tonight. She'd be so frightened, and what would I tell the boys? There would be police interviews and court appearances. She'd be a criminal, her life in tatters; and all because I'd made this call.

I dropped the receiver. I couldn't do that to her, to all of us. Surely we could sort this out behind closed doors? First, Kit must be told that his stepdaughter was a criminal, tied up with maniacs who attacked cars. I forced my steps across the sitting room and stood in front of the studio door. The handle shifted under my palm.

That's right, urged Mum. Put him in the picture.

But he'd never forgive her. Anyway, I reasoned, why burden the man with such terrifying knowledge on the eve of realising his dream? In a few hours he was off to Dublin for an exhibition that could change all our lives. If he knew what I knew, he might even cancel his trip.

I lifted my hand off the door handle, and crept away. I had another, perhaps even more difficult, conversation ahead of me.

Sacha was pacing in her room, half-dressed, her cheeks leached of blood. 'I'm sorry,' she sobbed. 'I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. I love you, I love Kit, I love the twins.' Her contrition seemed absolutely genuine, but the change in her was bewildering. It was as though there were several Sachas, all living within the same body. She took hold of my face and turned it towards her. 'They're out there.'

'Who?'

'Can't you hear them whispering?'

I listened. Yes . . . there was something. The possum was dancing on the tin roof, scrabble scrabble of little feet; or perhaps it was a family of rats gnawing on the rafters.

'They're coming.' Sacha's eyes were wild and staring. 'I've seen them, hiding behind the trees.'

'But who's coming?'

'I wish I was dead.'

Five minutes later she was limp, her eyelids thin as gauze. I covered her up and made her warm, because she was my special girl. My lost girl. When I kissed her, my own tears ran onto her face.

I lay in the dark, rigid as a board, listening to the wind trying to tear off our roof. Kit came up at midnight. He moved quietly around the room, and I heard his suitcase being zipped before he slid in beside me. To my intense relief, he was sober.

'I know you're awake,' he said softly.

'Wish I wasn't.' I turned over to face him, but I didn't move closer and neither did he. We lay two feet apart. Sacha's addiction was a physical presence, malevolent and ugly. It had lodged between us.

'She's paranoid,' I said. 'Thinks there are people prowling around outside.'

'People prowling . . .? Hang on.' Kit swung out of bed and strode to the balcony door, peering into the night. 'Maybe there are, though. Some of her burglar mates, d'you think?'

'She says she hears voices, people whispering. It's a bit like . . .'

He was still at the window. 'Spit it out.'

'Well, I don't know. Schizophrenia or something.'

'G.o.d help us.' Kit rolled back under the covers. 'Should we take her to hospital?'

'I don't think we can, without blowing the whistle. How are we going to explain the state she's in? Anyway, if she starts babbling on about hearing voices she could end up in the psychiatric unit! No way.'

'For Christ's sake.' His frustration was rising again. 'Stupid, stupid girl! Why is she doing this to us? Is she punishing us for something? Is this all about emigrating, or not knowing her father?'

'I don't know why she's relapsed. People do. Look at smokers.'

'Nicotine isn't quite in the same league.' Kit was silent for a minute. 'Look, I think I should cancel the trip.'

'Cancel the-?' I moved across to him, resting my forearms on his chest. 'After all your work? Don't you dare! In the world outside our troubled family, there is an art festival waiting for a collection of Kit McNamaras.'

His arms wound around me. He was alert; I sensed the watchfulness in his body, the rapid breathing. 'If she's using again, those lowlifes may come back. You're going to be alone here with the kids. What if someone breaks in at night?'

'She's not going to use any more,' I said confidently.

The deeper you get into this, the freakier the people.

Five hours later, Kit's alarm sounded. The storm had blown itself out, leaving frozen stillness. I don't think either of us had slept.

We huddled close together under the walnut tree, our breath misting. Kit had the engine running to defrost the windows. He turned my face up to his. 'If you hear anyone out here, get the children into the car and leave. Okay? No heroic stuff.'

'Okay. I promise.' I wondered how he'd react if he knew why Sacha's car had been trashed.

He looked strained. 'Keep your phone and car keys by the bed at night. Call the horse whisperer before you call the police-I'll bet he's a useful man with a shotgun.'

'You've an overactive imagination,' I said, letting my mouth brush the coa.r.s.e skin of his cheek. He smelled of soap. I desperately, madly didn't want him to go. 'You are about to be the toast of Dublin. Your paintings will be festooned with Sold stickers. And when our famous-and disgustingly rich-artist comes home, we'll put up all the flags and bunting. We'll be happy as five pigs in clover.'

He ducked into the car. I stood in the icy dark, feeling bereft and trying to look upbeat. Suddenly he was beside me again, slamming the door behind him, squeezing me to his chest as though he'd never let go. 'I love you,' he muttered fiercely. 'You're my life, Martha. You know that, don't you? My whole life.'

Soon I stood alone on the drive, watching with cold misgiving as a set of tail-lights faded into the pearly pre-dawn.

Thirty-three.

It was the worst crash yet. Sacha shivered in bed, sleeping and whimpering. As the days pa.s.sed she became stronger physically, but she seemed to be living in a nightmare of her own. She'd get up at night and walk around the house, shying wide-eyed at shadows, but be comatose the next day. I contacted the school and collected work, though she never touched it. On the third day I persuaded her to have a shower. She could hardly sit still long enough for me to dry her hair. She ducked and twisted, tearing at her face and arms.

'Stop that,' I begged. 'Look, you've scratched a great hole.'

'They're crawling,' she raved, eyes flickering. Before I could stop her, she'd grabbed a pair of tweezers from the dressing-table and was trying to dig something non-existent from the back of her hand. 'Gotta get 'em out.'

The insurance money arrived, and I invested in a pile of DVDs to entertain the boys. I also sent them to play with friends when I could, determined to steer them out of Sacha's path. 'She's got a yucky snotty cold,' I told them. 'You don't want to catch it.'

So they drew pictures of Bleater Brown, and made them into get-well cards which I propped up on her bedside table. In a display of pure adoration, Finn showed up at her door with his greatest ever treasure- excluding Buccaneer Bob-held behind his back. 'It's for Sacha to play with,' he announced, holding out his Game Boy. 'Pretty good when you're stuck in bed. But tell her to keep it under her pillow, because the polty guy got Charlie's.'

'The what?'

'The polty guy. The guy who keeps sneaking in and taking things. He took Charlie's Game Boy. I heard you and Dad talking about the polty guy. If he comes into our room again I'm going to do a karate kick, ha!'-Finn demonstrated his skill, throwing his foot in the direction of an imaginary groin-'right on his meat and two veg. That'll send him packing.'

For a fortnight we froze. The wind turned to the south, and although I kept the fires blazing I suspect our house was colder inside than out. Stepping out of the kitchen into the hall was like walking into a crypt; the cold seemed to suck the breath from our bodies. It smelled like a crypt too, damp and deathly, as though we living people had no right to be there. The dark panelling of Patupaiarehe harboured shadows.

After a week the Colberts headed off for their skiing, leaving Tama to manage their stock. Kit phoned every couple of days, on a high. He'd had some glowing reviews and picked up two commissions. And-wonderfully- his paintings were selling. One of the vast trompe l'oeil had fetched over three thousand pounds.

'Oh, that's great,' I enthused. It wasn't just the money, though I was very relieved to see it coming in. If Kit was happy, everything else would fall into place.

'Sacha okay?' he always asked.

'Fine,' I always replied. 'More herself this morning.'

I think we were both buying into the same fiction because we so needed it to be true: Sacha had been through a little setback, but it was nothing we couldn't handle and the future looked rosy.

Towards the end of his trip, Kit phoned from his mother's house with the news that one of the New Zealand national papers wanted to do a piece on him. He planned to stay the night in Auckland on his way home, and fit in the interview then.

'You'll be jetlagged,' I said doubtfully.

'I'll have had a night's sleep first. It'll be no problem.'

I felt an absurd lift of happiness. 'It's all happening! The dream's coming true. I'm married to a famous artist.'

He chuckled; it was a beautiful sound. 'Maybe one day.'

'When do you leave?'

'Tomorrow morning. The coven are driving me to Dublin. Then it's London, Hong Kong, Sydney . . . Jesus, I wish I'd paid for a direct flight . . . a night in Auckland, do this interview, drive home to Napier on Tuesday afternoon. You'll have to iron me flat because I'll be stuck in a sitting position.'

'Next time you can travel first cla.s.s.'

'I'd like to sleep flat on a plane, it's my new ambition. What are you clowns up to?'

'Well, it's been freezing down here in G.o.dzone but today the sun's come out. The boys and I are just off to Jane's for Sat.u.r.day morning pancakes. I need several shots of her coffee.'

'Sacha okay?'

'Fine. Fine. On the mend, I think.'

Actually, that was true. Sacha did seem chirpier that morning, although she didn't feel up to coming with us to Jane's. She said thanks, but she was looking forward to a long bath with lots of Body Shop bubbles and a darn good book.

The twins and I had a lovely time at the cafe. Destiny's lop-eared rabbit had new babies and they were improbably cute. Tama Pardoe dropped in for coffee when he saw my car parked outside. He was relaxed and mellow, and we sat in the winter sun at a cotton-reel table.

'I'm glad you're here,' I said, lowering my voice. 'We've had a relapse.'

Tama looked grave. 'How bad?'

'She's been a mess. You know, I really thought she'd beaten this b.l.o.o.d.y thing.'

'It puts up a fight.'

'Do you think I should get help? A counsellor?'

'You could.' He looked across at the boys, who were prattling to a floppy-eared ball. 'But it's not a magic wand. Jonah went to scores of counsellors and talking shops but he never really wanted to be there, you see? And the shrink isn't sitting beside them the next time they get offered the pipe or the needle.'

'What do we do, then?'

'The people who escape are the ones who make up their own minds. They somehow see what they're doing to themselves, and it wakes them up. But Sacha's friends, her haunts, the dealer she can contact with a single text-those things make it hard for her.'

'Oh G.o.d,' I sighed. 'You really think we should go back to England?'

'Only you and Kit can decide what's best for your family.'