The Night Book Part 19

She laughed, 'Get off me, you big oaf, you're squashing me.'

He put his face against her neck.

She said quietly, 'She's going to punish you for that.'

'Dianne. Punish? Who's the boss around here? I'll punish her.' He kissed her. 'I'll ring you. Okay. Don't forget, just ring me, it doesn't matter where I am. I'll answer, or I'll make sure I ring you straight back. It starts now, proper. This is it.'

'I know. Good luck. I mean ... good luck.'

'We'll meet in the middle. We'll fly you in. Whatever one-horse dump we're in; we'll have dinner, spend the night, all that.'

He said goodbye to the kids and Roza followed him to the door. Dianne was standing by the car, scanning a list and not looking up. Ed Miles paced the driveway, talking on his phone, drawing a line in the gravel with his toe and saying intently, 'Yeah yeah no yeah. f.u.c.k no, absolutely, yeah.' Behind the tinted gla.s.s was the compact form of the driver; behind the car, the industrious help. Conscience working his trimmer along a section of hedge; the pool man hefting a plastic canister through the gate and dumping it on the path with a grunt, and, beyond, Jung Ha opening a door and booting the dog out onto the patio, the big setter rearing up on his hind legs, claws sc.r.a.ping the gla.s.s. From upstairs came the faint sound of Izzy shouting at her brother. Roza watched a helicopter nosing its way across the top of the distant city.

The driver climbed out with a friendly groan and took David's bags. Dianne helped him pack stuff into the boot, but she dropped her phone on the gravel and when she knelt to pick it up, her handbag slid off her shoulder. She stooped, with a fl.u.s.tered shake of her head, scrabbling on the ground for items of make-up.

David said to Roza, 'You could use that Lampton.'

Dianne straightened up, clutching her bag. Her eyes met Roza's, and she blushed angrily.

'You mean Simon?' Roza was still directing a cool gaze at Dianne.

Dianne brushed some gravel from her trousers.

'If you needed that kind of doctor,' David said.

'But he's supposed to be sort of a friend now, since he's been here for dinner. I don't think doctors want to treat you if they know you, and anyway ...' She looked away.

'He could recommend someone.' He held her arm.

'Yes, maybe, but you've got to be pregnant first,' she whispered.

He released her. 'Well, take care. I'll be with you wherever you go. I'll have my satellite trained on you.'

She gave him a silent, enquiring look, her lips pressed together.

'Right. We ready?' He clapped his hands and nodded to Ed Miles.

'I'll miss you,' they said at the same time. He got in, and the cars drove away.

Roza marched back to the kitchen and said to Mike, 'Need money?'

'No,' he said, affronted. 'G.o.d.'

'What do you mean, G.o.d? What's He got to do with it?' She was suddenly cheerful, as if a weight had been lifted off her.

'No, I don't need f.u.c.king money, okay. G.o.d.'

She imitated him. 'Okay. G.o.d. So you don't need any f.u.c.king money. Good. Have a nice time at f.u.c.king school.'

Izzy giggled. 'Goodbye, f.u.c.kin Roza.'

Roza put up her hands. 'No. Don't talk like that. No. That's naughty and rude. At least, don't talk like that at school.'

'At f.u.c.king school,' said little Izzy, who always overdid the joke.

'No. No. Stop. Here, off you go. Have a lovely time. No swearing. Absolutely not. Bye Mike, bye Izzy.'

Jung Ha was expressionless.

Roza said, 'Sorry, that's all a bit rude, isn't it. Just silly jokes. Well, never mind. See you,' she added brightly.

Jung Ha said nothing.

Roza waved them off and went upstairs, feeling herself relaxing. It was so quiet and peaceful in the big empty rooms. She looked through her things, glanced in the mirror, shrugged, pulled at her shirt, smoothing down the material. It was wrong. She took it off and dropped it on the floor, then took out four shirts and tried them on before she found the one she wanted, wading through the mess to her desk.

But she frowned: her papers and books had been rearranged. Someone had moved a pile of printed emails and pushed her books to the other end of the desk, and the novel she'd been reading had lost its place; the bookmark was inside the front cover. In the bathroom she opened the cupboard, and it too had been rearranged, with pill bottles in different places. Or was she imagining it? She locked the bathroom door, took a packet out of her bra and shook some powder into a gla.s.s of water. She drank, wrinkling her nose, and drew in a sharp breath.

There was a murmur of male voices. From the bathroom window Roza peered down. On the path two men, one tall and gingery, the other bulky with a shaven head, were walking together. Dressed in suits and ties and dark gla.s.ses, they paced along the path, the bald one pointing at the fence with his mobile phone. Another man came into view, carrying a notebook, and they stopped and conferred at the gate that led to a right-of-way down the side of the property. They opened the gate, stepped out and looked along the path; the bald one shook his head, pointed towards the road and said something emphatic. They nodded seriously while the third man made a note.

Roza pushed the window open wide. Below the ivy-covered wall, the men bent to look at something near the ground. The light changed. It was strangely, unseasonably warm, as it had been throughout these stormy, unsettled days, and as a cloud crossed the sun the light turned heavy-green and the trees were coloured with the uncanny brightness that comes before a squall of rain. At the window, Roza mused over patterns, shapes, light on dark: the hedges that Conscience had pruned into rectangles, the paths, the moving lattice of winter branches. As black cloud swelled from the west, a metal slice of sun, blazing with white light, entered the outer rim of the rainbank.

Heavy drops began to fall. Roza enjoyed the hiss of the rain and the rush of warm, scented air. She put out her hand. The shimmer and flash of water. Rainshine, waterlight. She entered a dream of water and silence: Roza lying in a boat on a wild, remote river, mild grey sky heavy with rain, the old boat chugging, the riverbank a green smear in the distance, the watersurface dimpled with drops. She saw this in a vivid flash, and at the same time watched the three cops hurrying along the path with their heads dipped against the rain.

The cops were coming more often now - like everyone else, they didn't expect David to lose the election and they were planning ahead. It was a question she and David had yet to resolve: if he became the prime minister, where would they house the diplomatic protection squad? With other leaders, the cops had tended to rent a house next door, but this was a street of established mansions, and Roza couldn't see any of her neighbours moving out. It was a prospect that had made Roza laugh with horror: sharing her mornings, her private afternoons, with a vigilant squad of cops.

She dug Ray Marden's ma.n.u.script out of the drawer and slipped it into her bag. Turning to the room she was slightly surprised at the mess on the floor, but she caught sight of herself in the mirror and saw that her eye make-up was smudged.

'f.u.c.k,' she said softly, and dabbed at her face with a tissue, before dropping it on the floor, picking up her jacket and looking around vaguely, with the sense that she'd forgotten something small but important.

'Jung Ha,' she called downstairs, but Jung Ha was taking the children to school. In the kitchen, the cupboard under the sink was open and the cat was up on his hind legs, inspecting the rubbish bucket. Roza clapped her hands. The cat turned his head and looked at her. Sylvester knew Roza was not Jung Ha. She was not exactly an ally, but she wouldn't pick you up by the scruff and boot you out the door, so he stayed firm, nose quivering.

'Oh, you moggy,' Roza said indulgently, and left him to it.

Roza drove out into the traffic jam, heading for her meeting with Ray Marden. She accelerated and slowed dreamily, edging across the city. At one point she sat beneath a party billboard, David frowning down from his blue background as she pa.s.sed, and his eyes followed her, as eyes in pictures do; there he was in the rear-view mirror, receding, falling away. There was a sudden roar of rain, and the collective patience snapped: several cars left the queue and headed recklessly up the bus lane, to a blast of indignant horns. Roza turned on the radio and hummed. She was calm.

She turned into Domain Drive and parked under the pohutukawa trees. Climbing out into the laden air, raising her face to the mild rain, she remembered that word Simon Lampton had used. Hyenas. Hyenas, the women had laughed, what are they, a kind of dog? She thought of the nature programmes the kids loved to watch on TV, the waterhole, the drifting herds, and creatures circling in the parched gra.s.ses, waiting for the weak or lame or straying one, ready to tear it to pieces.

She walked towards the duck pond, under the dripping trees, the ma.n.u.script under her arm. By the pond, on the wet gra.s.s, geese were hissing and pecking. She looked with distaste at their slicked feathers and cruel, blank eyes. Vicious things. Birds gave Roza the creeps. Birds were ... overrated, she thought. Their claws, their dead eyes, the terrible repet.i.tive sounds they made - it was a stretch, it was surely overegging things, to call it 'song'. Nothing worse for Roza, at five on a summer morning, than the depressed dirge of the endless tui. Tuis in the morning sounded like they needed Prozac. Now, from the sodden hedge the cheep of a thrush, plink plink, sharp as an electronic hammer, set her teeth on edge.

A woman came stepping across the gra.s.s. Behind her, the drifts of light rain. She was in her forties, with a round pretty face and curly hair, wearing a boxy pin-striped skirt and jacket. Her manner was brisk, clerical, efficient. The curls shook as she nodded, holding out her hand to shake.

'Sue, right?'

Roza said, 'I'm sorry ...?'

'Sue, is it?' The curly head shook. Roza looked into the woman's face, with its bright, encouraging smile.

'Oh yes,' Roza said, remembering, and smiled. 'I'm Sue.'

'I'm Sharon Marden? Ray's wife? Ray's buying a coffee. Have a seat. Lovely. Awesome. ' She looked expectantly towards the kiosk.

Ray Marden emerged, carrying takeaway coffees on a cardboard tray. He was wearing trackpants and a sweatshirt and running shoes.

'h.e.l.lo, Sue. Ray Marden.'

'I'll pop back to the car and leave you to it then,' Sharon said, and crossed to a small Honda parked nearby.

Ray shook Roza's hand. He coughed. 'Offer you a flat white, Sue?'

'Thanks,' Roza said, suppressing a laugh. She felt ridiculous, but when they'd sat down at the table under the awning and were both contemplating his ma.n.u.script, she focused. She took out her pen and he cleared his throat and frowned diligently down. His body was all muscle and his face was ma.s.sive, the bone structure brutally exaggerated, so that he seemed to peer out of his own face like a man in a helmet, reminding Roza of those cartoons David's children watched, in which bulked-up creatures called Skulkor and Terrortroid, half-man, half-robot, strode through ruined cities. Close up his skin was covered with light freckles, and his eyes were alert and intelligent, his expression pleasant. He was staring at her now, his brow furrowed.

Roza frowned and looked stern. 'As I said, um, Ray. Can I call you Ray? As I said on the phone, no one wanted your ma.n.u.script. But I picked it up, and I thought it was ... sad that no one would give you any advice. So I went through it.'

'It's good of you,' he said, looking at the pages. Roza's notes filled the margins.

She said, conscientious, 'You'll see I've covered it in my own jottings. I hope you don't mind, but that's just what happens when your work gets edited.'

'It's fine,' he said. He lifted up a page and flinched. Roza had written in large letters, 'No! Wrong tone!'

She leaned forward with sudden intensity. 'See, I think you're making a mistake,' she said. 'You're striking a tone that's all wrong. It won't persuade anyone. There's prejudice against you. You're supposed to be showing people that you're a reasonable person, that you've been falsely accused, and to do that you have to be ... judicious, rather than angry.'

'I ... I get the idea. Yeah.'

The geese were moving in an irritable line towards the pond, squawking, stretching out their orange beaks. Roza watched. She shivered. 'G.o.d, they're horrible.'

He twisted round in his seat. 'What?'

'The geese. Why do they have those lumps on their heads?'

He smiled, surprised at her abrupt change in focus, but there was something sharp under the perplexity, a kind of trained vigilance. He was paying close attention. She thought his surprise was feigned - a kind of subtle encouragement to her to act up and 'be herself', to 'surprise' him further. Probably nothing could surprise him. He was encouraging her to reveal herself.

She said, 'You'll get the idea better from my notes. You can fix the ma.n.u.script up, then try another publisher. I don't need to tell you any more than what I've written on the pages. In a way you've got to win a PR battle as much as anything. See here, let me show you ...' She brought out a page. 'These bits where you let yourself go and have an absolute b.i.t.c.h about the government and the inquiry. You can do that, but you have to back it up with evidence and you have to sound as cool as a judge while you're doing it ...' She stopped. 'What?'

'You're Mrs Hallwright.'

She sat back.

'I've just got it. Where I seen you before. You're Mrs Hallwright. Married to the Hallwright.'

She laid the page down, put two fingers to the bridge of her nose. There was a silence.

'Have you ... seen me before?'

He said, 'I dunno. Only I never forget a face. You know, cop. Sorry, are you all right?'

'Yes,' Roza said. She shrugged, half-laughed. 'Oh, it's ridiculous- I was just going to post the ma.n.u.script to you but I thought I might as well meet you to talk properly. I didn't want to give you my real name because I'm not free. I can't just do anything I want. I have to think of being the wife of the Hallwright. And if you could feel the atmosphere at work. You know, at AT Press we published Sh.e.l.ley O'Nione's book, and everyone's a fan of her and thinks you're, you know, a monster.'

'I get it.'

Roza said, 'Anyway, as I was saying.' She shuffled through the pages, paused. 'Sometimes I think I'm being followed.'

He stroked his chin and eyed her, thoughtful. 'Who by?'

She looked around. The park was empty. Cars swished by on the road, rain fell into the brown pond. Ray's wife was a misty shape behind the gla.s.s of the small Honda.

'People in the party. People who look after my husband.'

He shook his head. 'I think that's unlikely.'

She laughed and reached for the coffee. Her hand trembled. 'I suppose it is.'

'Why would they follow you?' He didn't take his eyes off her face.

'I don't know. Because I do things like this, come and see a controversial person like you without telling anyone. They might think I'm a liability.'

'I would've thought you'd be an a.s.set,' he said.

Roza smiled. 'That's kind of you to say.'

'You're kind doing this for me.' He jerked his thumb at the mess of pages. 'Listen, Mrs Hallwright ...'

'Roza,' she said, biting her lip. A door slammed inside the kiosk. She gave him a quick, tense look.

'Roza, can I say something? If you're worried about strange things like being followed, even though I don't personally think that's likely, maybe you should just not do unusual things at the moment. Like coming here. Maybe you should take a break from unusual things.'

'Unusual things,' she repeated. What exactly was he saying? She thought of Tamara's stash, and felt his cop's eyes on her.

He picked up the pen and tapped it on the wooden table. 'Do you do a lot of unusual things?'

'What do you mean?' she said, rapidly patting the papers into order. 'No. I don't do anything. No.'

'I'm just trying to get why you think they'd follow you.'

'So you're questioning me. Should I call a lawyer?'

He smiled. 'Just trying to help.'

Roza felt weak. Should I call a lawyer? What a lame thing to say. She tried to empty her features of expression, and felt herself fail.

He leaned forward. 'Listen, I know what it's like to feel paranoid. When I was defending my case, I know I was being followed. Watched, bugged, photographed, you name it. But you, you're not like me, public enemy number one. You're just the wife. I don't mean that in a bad way: I mean you shouldn't worry. You're just the wife, and all you need to do is keep smiling, look beautiful, keep your nose clean.' He broke off and threw the pen on the table. 'I mean, Jesus, if you knew what it was like to be in the s.h.i.t storm I was. We couldn't even look out the window without the media jumping on us, making something bad out of everything we did. '

Roza said, 'You fought it and won. There was something to fight - the criminal charge, and you beat it. I just feel ... I don't know ... thousands of eyes.'

They looked around at the park. There was no one in sight.

He said, 'I beat the criminal charge but I didn't win. Everyone still thinks I'm guilty. They just say the jury got it wrong. That's what my book's about.'

'Yes, the book. The book! How did we get onto me? We're meant to be talking about you.' Apologetic, she started turning the pages.