Second Chances Part 18

'Sacha, you don't need to diet so much.'

'OMG! There's the bus.' She wrenched at the handbrake, and was gone.

Five minutes later my phone sang its text song. Those b.u.t.terflies were going crazy. I could almost see my stomach rippling.

I pulled over. Sacha's name was on the screen.

Luv ya mum. Gd lk. Knk m ded :) x.x.xxx Mercifully, Lillian Thompson was on leave. Keith was expecting me though, and showed me into my cell. Someone had scribbled appointments in the diary.

'Where's all the junk?' I asked, looking around.

His chins wobbled. 'In Lillian's cupboard. She's going to have a fit when she opens the door and it all falls out. How are your children getting on?'

'The boys have started school.'

'Happy so far?'

'Happy as prehistoric man on a woolly mammoth hunt. Their teacher's a friend of ours. He's got dreadlocks down to his waist, and he's the best storyteller I've ever heard. It seems at this school they have pet days, rock pool days, wacky hair days . . .'

'Any actual learning days?'

'Nah, don't think they have those. But the boys don't care, and neither do I.'

The next eight hours were a kaleidoscope of images and personalities. I was straight into the deep end with a thirty-year-old airline pilot. Gareth's life had been a roaring success until the moment when his motorbike met a power pole. The broken limbs had healed; the brain injury shattered his life forever. He needed us to teach him how to brush his hair, how to tie his laces, how to get through his day. One side of his face drooped. He had lousy short-term memory, poor concentration, no patience. He roamed the corridors of Capeview like an angry wolf, and he wished he'd died. He wished it bitterly, openly and justifiably. His wife was thin and twitching. She didn't bring their children to visit him.

From there on I didn't stop. I had two visits to a.s.sess work environments in Napier and a staff meeting at which I finally got to meet Jenna, the other OT. She was about my age with micro hair and little oblong gla.s.ses. She'd emigrated from Zimbabwe five years earlier with her husband, her mother and two children.

'How are you finding New Zealand?' she asked.

I glanced at Keith, who was listening with amus.e.m.e.nt. 'It's . . . well, what a dream lifestyle. But I can't pretend we're never homesick. Everyone is so very far away. How about you? Do you ever wish you'd stayed home?'

'No, I don't.'

'But you must miss your country?'

'We don't allow ourselves to look back.'

'How sensible,' I said half-heartedly.

'Back in Zimbabwe, three men broke into our home. They held us up at gunpoint while they robbed us. As they were on their way out, one of them put his gun to my head'-she pressed two fingers to her temple- 'and pulled the trigger. I actually heard the click. I thought my children were going to watch me die.'

I stared at her, aghast. 'What happened?'

'I was so, so lucky. The gun misfired. He hit me with the barrel of it instead. Knocked me out. We left a month later. New Zealand took us in- thank G.o.d-and this is where we have made our lives. For us, there is no going back.'

Eighteen.

The temperature rose as Christmas approached. Pesky mosquitoes droned through the night, pausing only to suck our blood. I soon invested in nets. We watched our hills fade from lush emerald to a parched expanse of dust, leached of colour. It was hard to believe that the sheep got any nutrition at all.

'Drought,' remarked Pamela, who'd dropped by to warn me about the voltage on a boundary fence; she was putting through a ma.s.sive charge because she had bulls in the next field. On the back of her truck there was a dead sheep rolling around like a rug with ears, and three dogs chained to the cab.

'Is it a problem?' I asked, following her gaze across the desiccated landscape.

'Well, it's either drought or it's floods. That's farming for you; always something to gripe about.'

It was ten o'clock on a Sat.u.r.day morning, and I'd had a frantic week. There was such a lot to learn: new faces, new hang-ups and a ma.s.sive geographical area. At the same time, I was trying to get my head around the cultural nuances and keep up with a.s.signments on my Maori paper. I'd been on autopilot in Bedfords.h.i.+re, and suddenly I was back at the controls. It was exhilarating, but exhausting.

I'd thrown off my kimono and dived into a sundress when I heard Pamela's truck. My hair looked like a bird's nest, a frizz of wet straw. Pamela, by contrast, had the air of someone for whom the day is half over. She seemed quite human this morning: almost smiley in an efficient, no-frills kind of way. She was wearing a peaked cap and smelled of lanolin and sheep.

'Been crutching,' she said, as we strolled around to the verandah.

'Been what?'

'Cutting the dags off the sheep's backsides.'

'Dags?'

'Sheeps.h.i.+t.'

'Oh.'

'We'd get flystrike, otherwise. Maggots. They eat the stock alive.' And with this delicate observation she handed me an ice-cream punnet full of ginger crunch.

'You know the way to my heart!' I enthused. 'Coffee?'

'Lovely.' She followed me into the kitchen. Christmas carols were playing on the radio. 'It's pretty quiet around here.'

'The boys have a schoolfriend over. They're all glued to the telly, I'm afraid. Sacha's staying in town.'

'Again? She was there last weekend, wasn't she?'

'She has orchestra on a Friday-extra late at the moment, because of the Christmas concert-so it's tempting to stop with one of her friends.'

'You must be pleased! She's settled in very well.'

'You've got four boys, haven't you?' I was looking for our milk jug, because a plastic bottle was good enough for us but not for minor royalty like Pamela Colbert. I eventually found it at the back of the fridge, harbouring congealed gravy.

'I have a seven-year-old grandson, too,' she said, puffing out her chest. I hadn't expected Pamela to be an adoring grandmother. It seemed too mushy a role for one so no-nonsense.

'Where are they all?'

'The eldest, Jules, is in Perth.'

'Scotland?'

'Western Australia. He's a geologist in the mines. He's single-it's not a life for a family. But we live in hope.'

I was searching for another jug. Kit had inherited a silver one in the shape of a cow. 'And the younger three?'

'Michel is in Wellington. He does something in graphic design, and I have no idea what that is but I'm sure it's very clever. He's got a girlfriend called April.'

'D'you like her?'

'No.'

'Oh dear.'

'April's imagination is as limited as her chest is copious. But she's got her feet firmly under the table, so I'd better get used to her.'

Wretched jug wasn't in the cupboard where it belonged. I stood on tiptoe in the pantry, checking the top shelf among the jam jars. 'That's two.'

'Ah, yes. Philippe was our afterthought. He's only seventeen.'

'Really? I thought you and Jean were empty nesters. Let's sit on the verandah,' I added, coming out of the pantry and lifting the tray. 'Sorry about the uncouth plastic bottle. Couldn't find a jug. Chaos in this house.'

I was startled when she laid a hand on my arm. 'Martha, cut that out. You never, ever have to stand on ceremony for me. I think you imagine I'm some kind of domestic superwoman with polished dustbin lids. I'm not, believe me. I'm very flawed.'

Touched, I led her outside and poured our coffee. 'Your youngest, Philippe . . . he must still be at boarding school?'

'Philippe chose to leave school. He's working on a farm in Canterbury.' Pamela's mouth twisted. 'That boy's drifted. He isn't happy in his own skin. His latest ambition is to cycle from the Caribbean coast to Tierra del Fuego.'

'Good Lord! Through . . . my geography's shocking, but that's through places like Brazil. The Amazon. What do you think about it?'

'I think I can't stop him.' Pamela held her mug to her cheek. Perhaps the warmth was comforting.

'So you've mentioned three,' I persisted. 'The fourth must be the father of your grandson.'

'Yes, that's right. Daniel.'

'And what's Daniel up to?'

'I don't know.'

'Oh.' I hesitated, sensing a raw nerve. 'But isn't he-'

'He died.'

I blinked, fighting that unforgiveable, inevitable urge to giggle in horror and embarra.s.sment. 'Pamela. I am so sorry.'

She chewed on the side of her mouth, looking down the valley. 'It happened very . . . suddenly.'

'When?'

'Ooh . . . over seven years ago now.'

'That's no time at all.'

'No time at all,' she agreed. 'Sometimes I feel as though it happened yesterday.'

'How are you both coping?'

She made a small moue, bless her, and tried to wave the subject away. 'That's life. You just have to get on with it.'

'No. No, Pamela. Don't pretend it's just a slight inconvenience.'

'There's never a day goes by when we don't think of him. He was twenty-three . . . he was my third son. My precious third son.'

'What happened?'

She sipped absent-mindedly at her coffee. 'He'd just become a father. The mother's a lovely girl. Hannah. They met at university in Otago.'

'Are you still in touch with her?'

'Hannah is like a daughter to me, so I lost a son and gained . . .' Pamela took a long breath. 'Visiting hours came to an end at the hospital, so Daniel went out with a couple of friends to celebrate his new baby.'

She broke off as Kit made a noisy entrance from around the corner of the verandah, brogues drumming cheerfully on the wooden boards. His hands were in his pockets, and he was whistling.

'Pamela Colbert,' he declared, throwing himself into the swing seat. His hair was an ebony thatch, blue eyes amused and vital. I wondered for an anxious moment whether he'd been drinking. 'You are a vision of loveliness.'

She wagged a forefinger at him, as unruffled as though we'd still been discussing the weather. It was an impressive performance, and it put her up several hundred points in my estimation. 'You're a shameless Irish flirt, Kit,' she scolded severely. 'I may be a vision of something, but it isn't loveliness. I'm a beanpole in shapeless slacks.'

Kit poured himself some coffee, and Pamela looked out at the hills.

'Your dam's getting low.' She s.h.i.+elded her eyes, skin taut across her cheekbones.

'Our . . . oh, the pond.' I squinted down at the patch of water with its sentinel of cabbage trees. The air carried a faint smell of drying mud.

Kit sprawled in the seat, rocking himself with one foot on the ground. He always enjoyed Pamela's company. 'Ask me what I'm working on,' he begged. 'Go on, ask me.'

Pamela rolled her eyes indulgently. 'What are you working on?'

'Glad you asked me that! It's a trompe l'oeil.'

'Ah!' She grasped her hands around one knee. 'Tell me more.'

'Well, I got the idea from Sacha-she said she was too old to have a mural on her wall and I thought, what about murals for grown-ups? Imagine a window framed by shutters. Through your window there is a view. Can be any view. This paradise could keep me going for a lifetime. But for example,' he extended both arms towards the valley, 'that view. Those bare hills, drawing the eye down to the sea. In the foreground, purplish light reflects from this glorious bougainvillea.'

'And emphatically three dimensional, isn't that the idea? It tricks the eye.'

'That's it! But I didn't want to lose spontaneity; it isn't photographic. I've spent the last ten days working with native bush.' Kit began to sketch in the air like a conductor with hyperactivity disorder. 'A vine curls across the sill. You can almost touch it. Tree ferns, vines, trunks of magnificent kauri. Arrows of sunlight-'