34
Peter, 1982
After Rangi drowned, I gathered all my things and went back to the house to wait for Dad. Why didn’t we have a phone? I knew Rangi didn’t have one but we weren’t poor. We should have had a phone. I knew Auntie Georgia wouldn’t be home until late. I lay on my bed, unable to stop shaking.
I must have dropped off because the next thing I heard was my dad’s voice. ‘Who’d like some fush and chups?’ It was our Friday evening treat and Dad liked to say it in a Kiwi accent.
I emerged from my room, wrapped in my blankets, and promptly burst into tears.
‘What’s happened?’
I told him the whole story, starting with the fact that Rangi and I had become friends, that he had watched television regularly in our house, that I had helped him with his schoolwork, all the way to his drowning.
Dad glared at me. ‘What did I tell you? Didn’t I tell you to stay away from him?’ In the next sentence, he asked, ‘What did you take with you, to the lake?’ I told him about the towels, the chilly bin of Rangi’s beer cans. ‘You drank alcohol?’ He was shouting now. ‘Did you leave anything of yours behind, anything at all?’
‘Dad, you have to get the police, an ambulance, you have to drive into town and tell his Auntie Georgia. She works in The Pig and Whistle.’
‘Answer the question. Did you leave anything behind?’
‘No.’
‘Stop crying like a girl. We are going to do absolutely nothing. Do you hear me? Do you want to be accused of drowning your “friend”?’ He said the word sarcastically.
‘But, Dad, if he’d touched me, I would have died. It was him or me! I didn’t know what to do.’
His voice softened now. ‘I know that, but the police will see it differently. They believed that bitch Denise, didn’t they? They can’t be trusted. And your disease is so rare that most people don’t even believe it exists. If they took you into custody, they would kill you within a matter of hours.’
‘But, Dad –’
‘That’s enough. Get some plates. Our fish and chips will be cold by now.’
I stared at him. I didn’t move.
‘Now!’ he roared.
I moved mechanically to the dresser and withdrew plates, knives and forks, and collected salt and vinegar from the cupboard beside the sink and placed them on the kitchen table.
He unfurled the newspaper and turned straight to the TV page. ‘What would you normally watch on a Friday afternoon?’
I looked at the paper and picked out the programmes I was in the habit of watching.
‘Right. If anyone asks, you stayed indoors today because it was too hot. You watched these TV shows. You noticed Rangi come home around lunchtime and you never saw him again. Okay? Where are the empty beer cans?’
‘We left them at the lakeside. His T-shirt is still there.’
‘Good. Accidental drowning because the stupid boy was drunk.’
‘What about his Auntie Georgia?’
‘What about her? She’ll move away now because she can’t drive. It suits us. I’ll buy her property. Dangerous having neighbours that close. It’s only a shack. I might even pay her more than it’s worth – or maybe not, that wouldn’t look right.’
I didn’t understand what he was talking about. I tried to make him understand.
‘Dad, my friend died. My only friend. Ever.’
He put his hand out and clasped mine. ‘I know it’s tough right now, but you have me. You’ll always have me.’
My tears pooled with the vinegar on my plate. He didn’t get it.
