I could hear her smile down the phone. ‘You’ve made your bed,’ she said.
A while later, Hampster suggested I go with him to Auckland. We’d drive up and he’d pay my airfare back after a week. We set the date, and on Sunday morning I walked over to Bruce’s house. We talked while the girls played in another room. Reluctantly he agreed to extend his childcare while I was away.
He drove us back towards the flat and began to berate me, angry that I’d derailed his life. ‘If it were just you in the car, I’d drive us into the fucking river,’ he said.
He never swore, and Bonnie leaned forward in her car seat. ‘It’s okay, Daddy.’ She patted his shoulder.
We were beside the Avon and he swerved from the road onto the grass. The ducks that huddled over the banks flew up around the car. ‘I could do it,’ he hissed.
Rachel began to cry. ‘Ducks, Daddy, ducks,’ she said.
He stopped, and I leaned over and took the keys and got out. ‘Let’s talk over here.’ We unbuckled the children. His girlfriend, Alice, had made them sandwiches, and the girls ran down to the water to feed them to the ducks.
‘We made this mess together.’ I touched his hand.
He snatched it away. ‘You’re like a bird of prey. Without Alice in my life, I don’t know what I’d do.’
I’d caught sight of Alice’s blonde hair a couple of times. But she always disappeared when I arrived at his house and she refused to meet me.
He’d never been violent or even raised his voice. Our arguments and displeasures communicated in silences and pot-shots. Six years of playing our roles and this was our first real argument. The ducks surrounded the girls and we paused to watch them. They were too far away to hear the bitterness and recrimination.
‘Don’t speak to me ever again,’ he said. ‘Unless it’s about the girls. Don’t ask for money. I’ll give you nothing. I don’t care if you starve.’
‘Shall we shake on that?’ I asked, trying for levity.
‘You’ve ruined me,’ he replied, and I knew it was true.
The following week I was in the car with Hampster. The weather was grey and overcast. We sped along the Kaikōura coast, listening to Van Morrison. The sea grew dark, lidded with masses of cumulonimbus. On the ferry to Wellington, my stomach heaved with the waves. Standing at the railing in the freezing wind, I wanted to strip off all my clothes. I was desperate to be so in the moment that no other moment existed. I felt the rush and fear of the high diving board and the pull of the water, the yearning to plunge.
He came over and hooked his arm through mine. ‘You’re chilled through,’ he said.
I shivered and pointed to the circles of light that surrounded the moon. ‘That’s an ice crystal halo. Ring around the moon means rain soon.’
We stayed in Hampster’s house, hidden in the hills above Wellington. In the bathroom, and later when I looked in the bedside drawer, it was clear his wife had not left. I should have said something, taken the next ferry and a bus home. But I felt new with him. As if being twenty-five with three children was not old.
We visited a friend who’d arrived from Canada. We walked into the house and she was on a ladder, wallpapering the hall. They hugged and laughed and talked about the film business in Vancouver. Her pale curly hair fanned around her head. She breathed in the energy of the room and reflected it back and I felt like I was bathing in her light.
The next day we drove north towards Napier. Towering macrocarpas lined Highway 50. I still remember the exact spot, a sharp bend near Ongaonga. Hampster took it too fast and the car spun out. He laughed and put his foot down.
We rolled into Napier and I thought about visiting Mavis and Max. They’d recently moved there from Upper Hutt. Later I would think of their move as returning to the scene of the crime. We drove past their house. Max was in the driveway, washing his car. He turned at the sound of the Porsche, spraying water over the lawn. I raised my hand, but his face was devoid of recognition and we drove on. Perhaps he did not see me.
I tried to explain to Hampster how it felt not to belong anywhere.
‘We’ll find a motel.’ He smiled. ‘And I can be your Daddy.’ I thought again that it was time to go home to my kids.
We visited Mavis and Max the next morning. Max did not mention he’d seen the car the previous day. We sat at the table and drank tea and talked about the weather and how their cat loved her new home. As we drove away, the sun came out for the first time in days and I closed my eyes. Hampster put Van Morrison on again.
We drove to Tauranga and stayed with his friends. I was anxious to be away. I’d never been to Auckland. I wanted to walk along Ponsonby Road and see if any of it matched the image I’d conjured in my mind.
We took the twisting, steep road over the Kaimai Ranges. As he was passing a truck, Hampster leaned forward to change the CD and swerved into the path of an oncoming car. I saw it bearing down on us and thought: My turn, my poor girls. It hit my side, the Porsche collapsing around my legs, spinning in silence.
When I came to, Hampster was sitting on the grass nearby, his head in his hands. I noticed the jagged edges of my teeth. Somewhere nearby a baby was crying. The car lurched forward, sliding by degrees down the bank towards the gorge. I could hear my girls laughing as they chased the chickens.
As they cut me from the wreckage I woke to the shock of blood over the new clothes
