From Under the Overcoat Read online

  ‘Could you … could you tell me how much is going on the card, please?’

  ‘$700 sir.’ She doesn’t look up.

  ‘Per person?’

  ‘It’s per room. $350 per night.’

  ‘Is that um … some kind of bond, or …?’

  She looks up at David, puzzled. He tries to guess at her age. Twenty, maybe. Young, poorly paid, too many zeros on these numbers to render them meaningful to her.

  ‘Bond? No, sir. Just the two nights’ accommodation. That’s all we hold. We put the meals and incidentals on at the end.’ She smiles a vacant, hospitality-trained smile.

  ‘Of course,’ says David.

  What had Neil said at the Laybourne, that hot hazy afternoon? Peanuts — that was the word he’d used. They never did discuss the actual cost. The price of things never crops up in conversation with Neil.

  So why hadn’t he asked? Sure, it would have been awkward, but that moment at the Laybourne would have been just right — the moment when he told Neil about Jamie’s treatment — that’s when he should have spelled out the facts, established the cost of things. And $700 for two nights’ accommodation at an international golf resort might well be cheap. What would he know?

  David stands quite still, resting his elbow on the reception counter as the woman finishes her paperwork. He and Trudy budgeted $400 for the whole trip, scraped it together after Ross had gifted David airpoints for the flights. The prickle of sweat is gone, in its place a dull throb of pain pulsing across his brow.

  ‘David?’ It’s Ciaran, in his ear, hand on his shoulder. David shakes his head, focuses on what Ciaran is saying. ‘Dinner in twenty minutes, alright? Meet in the dining room at seven.’

  He sits on the end of his bed for what seems like an eternity, staring at the floor. The phone ringing on the desk beside him jolts him back to the present. It’s Neil, calling from the dining room, telling him to hurry up. He looks up at the mirror, addresses the idiot staring back. You selfish prick.

  JAMIE WENT BACK TO sleep after Ross and Vivian went home from Sunday lunch that day. David stood over his bassinet. Jamie’s hands were closed tight, suspended in mid-air. His eyes made tiny movements under pale eyelids.

  ‘How do they do that?’ Trudy had slipped into the cool, darkened room. She stood in front of David, pulled his arms around her waist.

  ‘Do what?’ he whispered back.

  ‘Fall asleep like that, with their hands up. All babies do it.’

  ‘I never knew that. I thought it was to do with …’

  ‘It’s completely normal. Like little marionettes. Amazing.’

  She turned around to face David. Her eyes were shining and she smiled. She touched his cheek, ran her finger down his lips. ‘It could be the answer, David,’ she whispered. ‘This Prolaze.’

  Trudy took David’s hand, led him away from the bassinet. Their own bed was only a few steps away. She kissed him, started unbuttoning his shirt.

  ‘What about Jamie?’ It was the first time they’d turned to each other since Jamie was born.

  ‘What about him?’ Trudy’s dress fell to the floor. ‘He’ll wake up, or he won’t.’

  David held Trudy as she pulled him down onto their bed. Her hands crept over him, silently pulling his clothes away. He closed his eyes, ran his fingers down her stomach, between her legs. He kept his eyes closed as Trudy’s mouth moved down his body.

  He willed Jamie to wake.

  When he opened his eyes, she was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling. She was crying.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.

  ‘He’s sound asleep.’

  ‘But he’s bound to wake up, start screaming … just knowing that’s going to happen … I … it’s not you, Trudy. Honestly.’

  THEIR TABLE IS SET apart from the others, in an alcove overlooking the sea. The entire dining room faces the Pacific, but this private room sits right out over the ocean: a cube above rolling breakers. The entire structure, including the ceiling and floor, is reinforced glass. Waves crash into steep black rocks at the bottom of the cliff below.

  Ciaran has booked the room for both evenings. At his request, the staff have lifted out a heavy mahogany banquet table and replaced it with a smaller round one. In the extra space, they’ve put two burgundy leather couches and a coffee table.

  The four men look at the sea. Ciaran and Mitchell have stayed before. They point out islands and luxury holiday homes dotting the coast below them. David looks down at fenced tennis courts and swimming pools. He pulls up short of doing the arithmetic. The number, whatever it is, would sustain Jamie for several lifetimes.

  He takes his place at the table and looks at the spread of cutlery. Silver knives, forks and spoons form a two-handed salute to a black heavy menu directly in front of him.

  Inside, there is a single sheet of crisp, heavy white paper with rough edges. The words are handwritten in black ink and centred on the page. The first line is the date. Then, there is:

  WHITEBAIT

  PAUA

  CRAB

  CRAYFISH

  DESSERT

  There are no prices on the menu, no indication which are entrées, which are mains. David turns to the next page; it is blank.

  The chatter of the others surges and recedes around him. He sits back in his chair, his hands clasped between his knees, and looks down. It’s dark, but he can just make out the shifting sea and the waves churning black on the rocks below.

  He wonders, for a joyous moment, whether the meals might be included in the price of the room. They could be; that could be why there are no prices. Yes, it makes sense, the more he thinks about it. It might be some sort of a package deal, all inclusive.

  Then he remembers what the woman at reception said. Meals and incidentals go on at the end. He feels giddy, nausea rising for the second time that day. Still he is unable to draw his eyes away from the swirl of foam and seaweed far below the dining room.

  ‘What’s everyone having?’ he asks. The inside of his head feels strangely hollow; the thinking, rationalising functions settling like sludge. He wonders whether each of them might pay for his own meal. Then he laughs, just quietly, a little shrug of his shoulders as he stares down through the floor. As if. As if these guys would sit down at the end and, like careful students, tally up who had eaten what.

  ‘It’s a set menu.’ Ciaran’s flicking through a second folder, much thicker than the one in front of David. ‘It’s what they do. A single menu, a new one each night. They decide on it during the day, depending on what the chef can get hold of. The best ingredients on the day.’

  ‘Wow,’ says David.

  ‘He knows his stuff.’ Ciaran closes the thick menu. ‘White wine, with seafood? Everyone okay with Chablis?’

  Mitchell and Neil nod, barely breaking their conversation. David nods too. What does it matter? he thinks. Cheap accommodation costing $700, gourmet food costing God knows what. What does the wine matter now?

  The food comes in waves. Plate after perfect plate. A tower of whitebait — each tiny fish cooked in subtle seasonings, then stacked precariously to form a lacework pyramid. Exquisite pasta parcels filled with crabmeat, tossed in herbed butter; each mouthful singing of the sea. Crayfish slashed in half lengthways, delicate white flesh seared to perfection, drizzled with imported truffle oil.

  This is what David eats. What he tastes is thick, salty and sour; bile tainting every mouthful.

  The wine helps him through the meal — he fills his glass again and again, tasting none of the French grape but thankful for the numbing effect. The bottles keep coming; Ciaran making sure that no glass sits empty. The talk swirls around trading gossip and David is grateful, at least, that he can contribute without too much thought.

  Towards midnight there is dessert — something chocolate, David can’t define it any more specifically than that. Something rich and chocolate and no doubt sourced from the best ingredients available on the day.

  Sometime around one in the mo
rning they push back their chairs and move to the couches around the coffee table.

  Four crystal bulbs of brandy are on the little table — David can’t remember anyone putting them there. He hates brandy; the harsh heat of it reminds him of sly teenaged drinking in an empty clubhouse in the early days after his mother’s death. He hates it but he reaches for the glass, throws the drink into the back of his mouth and gulps it down. The logic for why he might or might not drink something he hates, but must pay for, is too complex to contemplate.

  Mitchell takes a box of matches from his shirt pocket and David waits for fat, pungent cigars to follow. It would be enough, he thinks. Enough to push the nausea over the edge and send him heaving to the bathroom. But Mitchell opens the box and counts out twelve matches. He hands three to each of them, keeps three for himself.

  Spoofing. They will spoof for the meal. One of them — the last one left in the game — will pay for the entire evening’s indulgence. The other three will pay for nothing.

  David understands entirely and in the cacophony of men laughing about profit and loss, and rain hammering against the windows, he recognises the frightening mad mess that he has made of it all.

  IT WAS ONE OF the first things they noticed, after they came home from the hospital. Before the vomiting started, before the pain in Jamie’s wrists made him scream through the night, tiny fists twisted and flailing. Around the time he started following them around the room with his dark eyes — it was at that traditionally golden parental moment they discovered he was deaf.

  David had come home from work early. He took his shoes off, unlocked the front door and tiptoed into the house, in case Jamie and Trudy were sleeping. He heard sobbing. He stopped at the door of the lounge. In the kitchen, he could see Trudy. She was sitting at the dining table, her head in her hands, her whole body convulsing. The noise drove a chill up David’s spine — he could think of it only as a wail, like nothing he had ever heard before. He recognised it, somehow, as a cry of grief.

  Jamie was in his pram. Trudy had wheeled it inside, as she often did if he was still asleep when they returned from their walk. The pram was right next to her. David walked through the lounge and looked at Jamie. Jamie smiled up at him, and David’s heart filled with joy at the rare expression of happiness. Then he realised that Jamie was oblivious to Trudy’s distress — that he could not hear a thing.

  DAVID SITS FORWARD IN his seat, clutching the little white sticks in the palm of his hand. He presses hard on them, keen to feel their sharp edges, perhaps a splinter.

  He has played the game before — many times, business lunches and dinners — but always with the corporate credit card. It’s never occurred to him that it might be played with personal wealth at stake. He looks at Neil, hopeful for a glance saying Are you okay with this?, hopeful for any sign of connection. But Neil talks on to Ciaran, rubbing his matchsticks between his hands as though warming them up.

  The four men lean forward over the coffee table, each holding a clenched fist towards the centre. Some might have all three matches in their hands, some two, some one, or none. Twelve is the highest possible result, zero the lowest. Smiles all round, then Mitchell speaks.

  ‘Ten.’

  Ciaran is next to Mitchell. He looks quickly round the group. ‘Six,’ he says.

  David shakes his fist, as though juggling the matchsticks. ‘Nine,’ he says finally.

  ‘Eight,’ says Neil.

  They open their hands and count. Mitchell has kept all three of his matchsticks. Ciaran dropped his three, his hand is empty. David has two, Neil three. Neil has guessed correctly — he’s safely out of the game.

  It begins again, this time only three hands in the middle. David looks hard at Mitchell and Ciaran, but there is no skill to draw upon. It’s a game of chance.

  ‘Four.’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘Nine.’

  They open their hands. There are four matchsticks in total. David has won. He sits back in his seat and closes his eyes as the game continues without him.

  HE WAKES NEXT MORNING in a puddle of sunlight, his hair damp on the pillow, and squints towards the window. Seagulls swing low, white acrobats against the bright blue sky. He has no idea of the time. His head throbs as he tries to sit. The sunlight stops him opening his eyes so he feels for his watch on the bedside table.

  It’s eight o’clock.

  What arrangements did they make for the day? David recalls talk of a daylight start on the course and wonders whether the others are already playing. They might be, he hopes; they might have hammered on his door, heard nothing and decided not to wait.

  He lies back down and rolls to the cool side of the bed. His stomach heaves and he slides out of the bed and into the bathroom. He retches violently into the toilet.

  The grey tiles are cool against his skin. He slumps backwards against the wall, feeling the delicious chill of the marble work its way through the waves of nausea, through his body, cooling it down. The desire to go back to sleep is strong — almost hypnotic — but when he closes his eyes the room spins in grey circles.

  The night before comes back in snapshots. The rich food, the menu with no prices. The foul, burning brandy, the rain slashing against the glass cube. And the spoofing — the little white sharp matchsticks pressing hard into the palm of his hand. The spoofing. Christ. How had that finished up? David feels his skin prickle; hot, then cold, then hot again, and he puts both hands down flat on the floor to steady himself. Then he remembers. He won the second round, exited the competition. David owes nothing for the evening — for his meal or for anyone else’s.

  He lifts himself off the floor and into the glass shower cubicle. The copper shower head spits hot needles over him. He leans against the wall. It’s absolutely clear, through the fog of the hangover, what he has to do. He has to go home. He has to get out of the shower, pack his clothes, zip the leather cover back over his golf bag and say goodbye to Neil, Ciaran and Mitchell.

  Luck has been on his side, but he is not a lucky man. He must quit with total damage of $700 for the weekend, maybe just $350, if the woman at reception takes pity on him.

  His head thumps as he pulls on his socks. The conversation in the car on the way over the hill comes back — the talk about the fourth guy, the one he replaced. How he’d cheated with the scoring. David remembers the scorn at the man’s lack of form oozing through the conversation.

  How would it look if he appeared in the lobby and claimed a convenient emergency at home? After he had fortuitously escaped paying for an evening of extravagance? David feels himself blushing at the thought of it, imagining the car conversation next time around, about that guy who freeloaded the first night of the trip, then ran home. He imagines facing Neil at work each day — Neil, always pleasant, always fair.

  David finishes dressing and takes two painkillers. He sits on the end of the king-sized bed and looks around the room. Smooth, cool grey lines; uncluttered, clean, simple. Extravagance in terms of what is missing, not what is there: the detritus of family life.

  A life could be lived simply, like this, he thinks. Imagine that.

  He curses himself for not asking more about the trip before agreeing to come. He curses again, for not mentioning that the cost of Jamie’s treatment falls on him, not the government. For all of these failures, he curses.

  The paracetamol is working. The shirt he wore last night is on the floor beside the bed. David takes his cellphone from the pocket and dials home. The line is engaged. He sends a text to Trudy’s cellphone: Need excuse 2 come home. Ring me @ 11 with ‘emergency’.

  IT IS NINE O’CLOCK; the early morning golfers teed off hours ago. They’ve agreed on match play. The first hole is a 554-metre par 5 — a finger of land poking at the line where the Pacific meets the sky. To the left and right, the fairway drops away to the sea far below. At the very end, teetering on the edge of the sharp verdant fingernail, is the flag.

  The four of them are on the tee, staring at the impossi
bly thin fairway.

  ‘How would you play it?’ asks Neil. The question is directed at no one in particular but they all look at David.

  ‘There’s only one way, straight down the middle,’ says David.

  Ciaran groans. ‘Thought you might say that.’

  David lines up the centre of the fairway and swings. The three wood is an extension of his arm and once more he feels the rush of pleasure, the anticipation of hitting the tiny white ball cleanly with tremendous force. It’s a science — he knows that — a complex combination of exact angles, strength and velocity, but it comes as naturally to him as walking and talking. The ball soars high against the open blue of the sky and drops in the middle of the fairway, halfway between the tee and the green.

  He stands in the shade of a tree as the others hit off. They behave as though they haven’t noticed the club David used, but then each takes the same one out of his own bag. Neil tees off next, hitting the ball well, but it lands well short of David’s shot. Mitchell moves towards his bag and reaches for his two wood, but changes his mind at the last minute. David smiles at this most primal expression of male ego, at the unwillingness to cede strength by way of a numeral scratched into a fist of wood. Mitchell’s ball lands short too. Ciaran’s shot veers off to the left, the ball disappearing over the edge of the cliff to the pounding surf below. ‘Fuck,’ he says.

  David’s hangover is coming off its abrasive crescendo. For the first time since he left Wellington, he is calm. They will be a quarter of the way round the course at eleven o’clock, having chosen to walk instead of take buggies. It’s just a matter of patience. Control and patience, hanging in there, seeing the morning out. Waiting for his phone to ring in his pocket.

  With each step, David feels the phone thud softly against his leg. He has set it to maximum volume. The loud ring will breach etiquette, make him a pariah in the clubhouse. Too bad — he won’t be there to hear the scathing remarks. One staged, panicked conversation with Trudy, one apology, and he will take his leave of Neil, Ciaran and Mitchell, of the luxury course, the spoofing, the spending of Jamie’s Prolaze money.