Chapter 20

On Monday my long foreshadowed dinner with Carolyn is finally settled. I will get a ride with her after work on Thursday and she will drop me home afterwards. She and her family live in Otahuhu, which is a bit further north from Papatoetoe. Afterwards I look it up on Google Maps and see that Otahuhu lies on an exceptionally skinny bit of New Zealand where an inlet coming in from the east ends up only a couple of hundred metres from an inlet coming in from the west. Carolyn tells me that her husband, Derek, is a police detective (let’s not talk shop). Her son, Adam, 16, is into computer games and her daughter, Kylie, 8 is into teddy bears. It will be interesting to visit a Kiwi family different from Aroha’s.

This week’s graduate class runs very well. Both Jason and Mathilda are transformed. Clearly something has developed between them. In fact, to my eye, they are now a couple. This had certainly not been my intention and indeed takes me by surprise. I have seen young women attracted to older men who display success, confidence and worldliness but this is not the dynamic that I can now see. On the contrary, Jason is the one who looks like the love-struck adolescent and Mathilda now appears more confident and mature.

Jason still contributes to the class but in a more restrained manner, often glancing across to Mathilda who, while not overtly contradicting Jason’s points, tactfully suggests a qualification or alternative and looks round to draw in the other students, who now appear more comfortable joining in. In fact, the class pretty much runs itself after I lead off with the key themes. Mathilda would make a very fine teacher. Well, my plan was a success, although not in the way I had envisaged. A thought strikes me. My lunch at home was being listened in to by the Russian GRU, if indeed they are Zoltan’s current employers. While it was an innocuous meeting, I hope I wasn’t drawing students into my mess. I raise that topic when I meet Maria Johnson the next day.

“I’m not too concerned,” she says. “If you had asked me before arranging that lunch I’d probably have advised against it but, really, I don’t see much danger for them. In fact, it would give the listeners the impression you don’t know about the bugs.”

Even so, I am anxious about the overall situation and find Maria’s ‘business as usual’ attitude slightly irritating. There is an unresolved murder with a dangerous man still at large, someone who seems to have me in his sights. We discuss her directed study project. She continues to make good progress.

It is Thursday and I am in Carolyn’s car with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc driving north. We were a little late setting off as she was trying to find something in her rather chaotic office, and we hit a fair bit of traffic on the Great South Road, going north this time rather than south as I did with Mikaere on the way to the Botanic Gardens. “Maybe we should have taken State Highway 1 instead but it’s probably just as chocka,” Carolyn suggests.

Although it really isn’t very far, it isn’t until about 6.45 pm that we get to her home, which is a standard, single story, three bedroom home, larger and a bit more modern than my place. Carolyn went straight to the kitchen. “I need to get a wriggle on getting tea ready.”

“Can I do anything?” I ask.

“No thanks. I have it all planned out. Why don’t you go and talk to the kids? Derek should be back soon.”

I go into the living room and find just Kylie. True to Carolyn’s description she is playing with a Teddy bear. “Hello, I am Inka. You must be Kylie. What’s your bear’s name?”

“This is Roy. I made him, you know.”

“That is very clever. How did you do that? Can I have a look at him?”

“Yes, here he is. Mummy bought a pattern. I cut out the material and me and Mummy did the sewing. I have Mummy’s sewing machine in my room now. I put all the stuffing in.”

“I think Roy is very smart and he has such a happy face.”

Adam comes into the room. We introduce ourselves and I wonder if discussion will be difficult, but then he says, “Mum says you come from Finland. Do you have a Nokia phone?”

“Not now. I have an iPhone. I don’t know quite what Nokia phones there are now. But certainly ten years ago, before I went to America, Nokia phones were everywhere, not just in Finland.”

“Yes, a friend of mine has an old one that used to be his father’s. It is kind of cool they come from Finland.”

Derek arrives. He is cheerful, but tired. He says he needs a drink, and gets me one too. “A hard day at the office?” I inquire.

“Yes, very busy, and there is some restructuring going on.”

In spite of my resolve, I can’t help probing. “Carolyn said you’re a detective. I’ve met a couple of your colleagues, Hope Wilson and Dave Smithers, when they were investigating that death on our campus.”

“Yes, I know them. They’re based in the Counties-Manukau station, and I’m in Otahuhu, but we do cooperate. Carolyn says there’s plenty of interest on campus in Sammy’s death.” I wonder how much he knows about Sammy’s case. Maybe more than he is letting on. Quite right to be discreet. Or has he been asked to check me out in a different setting? Probably not as Carolyn has been promising this dinner for ages.

It doesn’t seem long before Carolyn says ‘tea’ is nearly ready. Adam and Kylie are asked to lay the table. I am impressed with Carolyn’s efficiency and I like Derek. He is interested in my American experience. He had been to some kind of training session in Boston in mid 2016 and heard local reactions to Trump. We discuss whether the presidency will settle down. We aren’t optimistic. After dinner Derek leads the clearing up routine. I try to help but Derek matches Carolyn’s efficiency so I don’t succeed in helping much. Derek makes coffee, while Carolyn goes with Kylie and encourages her to get ready for bed. Adam promptly retires to his room, very likely to engage in intergalactic warfare.

The after dinner chat starts to peter out and I suspect that they don’t want to make a late night of it, so I say I’m happy to have a lift back whenever they like. On the ride back, which is much quicker through light traffic, Carolyn talks about the process to appoint a longer term Dean of Arts to replace Aroha. Apparently her acting appointment had been a little controversial, as was the way she established my position in financially shaky times. But Aroha came to be generally liked and there was some anxiety about a new Dean coming in as a new broom. That puts my role on the curriculum review committee in sharper focus.