Chapter 24

It is Wednesday morning and I just have one meeting scheduled for the day. Hope Wilson contacted me and said they would remove the bugs from my house, so I plan to attend the meeting while they do it. I assume she was just referring to the foreign bugs. They must have some of their own, for how else did they arrive so promptly after I called Hope on Sunday? I would have liked them to have arrived more promptly still but delays do happen, I suppose.

Mikaere has time before leaving for his course to again make my face look more presentable. Even so, I need to get my story straight when I get asked what happened. Hope urged me to be discreet, which I can understand. I have time before my meeting to visit the tea room, so I do that in order to practice my response. The effect of my injuries on the staff in the tea room is overwhelming. Foolishly, I had imagined people quietly asking me individually what had happened but I find myself with a whole group of staff clustered around me, concerned but highly curious. I feel my narrative is sparse. I talk of two men barging into my house and threatening me. I say the police have some leads but we can’t talk about that at the moment. The phrase ‘home invasion’ is suggested to describe my ordeal. Apparently, in New Zealand law, various crimes involving violence can carry a higher penalty if accompanied by home invasion.

My meeting goes well, after expressions of concern and a brief summary of what had happened. I am fluent in my story by now. I return to my office and find Maria waiting for me. I say I had planned to return home soon but she suggests we can walk and talk. We talk over what happened in my ordeal, allowing me to add to what I told Joanne on the way to hospital. She checks that Mikaere had told me what he did after he returned. I confirm I hadn’t met Rawiri before. We stop in at the Grounds of Enlightenment for a snack. It is pretty empty and we are able to carry on talking discreetly. She walks with me all the way home and only leaves when she is happy that I feel safe inside. I find I am exhausted and fall asleep on my bed.

On Thursday I do meet with my graduate class. While I hadn’t prepared to the extent I normally do, I know what I want to cover and the whole class appears very sympathetic and supportive. Jason and Mathilda jointly play a useful role once more and the class works well enough. I leave the class pleased that I did it but also exhausted and in no mood to work. I amble in the general direction of home and run into McDuff. He expresses concern about me and tells me that what I need is a drink. He knows a bar that is reasonably close and we walk there slowly. His conversational skills provide me with a comforting cocoon. He doesn’t interrogate me but somehow gets me to express how I felt at the time of the attack and how I am dealing with it now. He tells me how impressed my colleagues are by the way I have returned to work so soon.

At the bar he offers me a rusty nail, which I accept, though it is not a cocktail I really know. We both sip our rusty nails in relative silence and the warmth of the drink in the almost deserted bar is reassuring. I start to relax. A little later McDuff offers to walk me home but I say I will be fine and he returns to catch up with someone back at work. As I am walking, I am surprised to get a call from Hemi. After checking to see how I am doing, he tells me Rāwiri had just been in touch to say that a friend had seen someone resembling Zoltan in level 7 of Auckland CIty Hospital. Rāwiri had previously circulated his photo of Zoltan’s identikit image amongst some friends. I cut the call short and phone Hope Wilson. I can’t get through to her in person so call Maria. She picks up immediately and says she will have it checked out.

I arrive home and lie down for a while. That evening Mikaere and I have a long talk. It is strange; it is as if I have known him for years. He tells me some of Rāwiri’s back story. In his youth he had been a gang member, though had already left by the time he got together with Aroha. Aroha herself had experience with motorcycles, though did not associate with gangs. Mikaere says there are early photos of her in black leathers on the back of a Harley with Rāwiri and also on her own Triumph. For a while, Rāwiri became a campaigner against gangs, or at least against some of their illegal and violent activities. He settled into an uneasy accommodation with his former associates when he provided support for younger gang members who had got into trouble with the law. As his gang contemporaries got older he became more accepted and they kept in touch. The guys I saw by his bedside were some of them.

Mikaere oozes sympathy for what I have been through. “Thank you again for calling for help and being part of the rescue,” I say. I don’t want to say, “You were very brave,” as it might sound as if bravery were more remarkable in his case than for the others. I try to turn the conversation onto him. While I have been caught up with my own troubles, his life of course has carried on. After some resistance, he does talk about himself. He admits he has become a bit disillusioned with his course, not because he can’t do it or it isn’t providing useful skills but because he finds his fellow students rather shallow, or at least that is my word for what he is saying about them. He has made a bold move to reinvent himself and now wonders whether he likes the new version.

“You have a choice as to whether to quit without completing the course or whether to finish it and then assess your options,” I say wisely.

“Mum would growl at me if I quit this course after changing from IT.”

“You are probably right, but you have to make the best choice for you. If you know exactly what you want to do now then it could be right to quit but, if not, then it might be best to complete the course, which would lead to work that would help you fund a course in another area.” I don’t know why I think I am in a position to offer this kind of advice. My career hasn’t always been the result of careful planning.

Mikaere seems to like the idea of work in the beauty industry being a stepping stone to something different. Talking about Mikaere’s life is the perfect distraction from my own problems.