Carnival Sky Read Free Page B

what would follow. It was as if by that indecision he issued life a challenge to surprise him with opportunity. He rang Lucy to tell her. Surely it was a necessary consideration that she be aware of his action before hearing of it from others, even though they were no longer together.
    ‘What’s brought this on?’ she asked. As happened during most of their infrequent phone calls or meetings, he found it difficult to adjust to the diminished importance he had in her life.
    ‘I just need a complete break for a while. The work hasn’t been giving me much of a lift lately, and I know I’ve been getting a bit stroppy. Nick reckons I’m getting to be a grumpy old bastard.’
    ‘You okay?’
    ‘Fine. Just bored and needing a challenge, I suppose.’
    ‘Don’t sell the house, or anything silly. Don’t start growing a beard and wearing collarless shirts. Well, maybe just the shirts.’
    He heard her laugh, and something in the manner of it made him think she wasn’t alone. It was her in-company laugh, higher than when she was spontaneous. Nigel would be with her, his stomach folding slightly over his belt in a soft dewlap, his dark hair combed straight back from his face. He was one of those people for whom rebuttal is the automatic response to comment, as if he feared acquiescence synonymous with subservience. If you remarked on the warmth of the afternoon, he would say it had been better the day before. If you praised the All Black pack, he would respond that there had been a sad falling away of rucking skills. If you commended the diversity of political opinion in Parliament, he would insist that MMP had ruinedour democracy. Sheff found it easy to dislike a man who slept with his ex-wife.
    ‘I talked to your folks a few days ago,’ Lucy said. ‘Well, your mother mostly; Warwick was resting. She said things are much the same. They’re hoping Georgie will be able to go down for a while.’
    ‘I should too, I suppose.’
    ‘Yes, you should. Anyway, what about money? What are you going to do?’
    ‘There’s always freelancing, or the journalism school. I’m not worried. I haven’t been spending much.’
    ‘Well, you know your own mind,’ and then she began telling him about some ornaments his mother had given her, and that he was welcome to collect them, otherwise she would donate them to charity. ‘It’s the cleaning,’ she said. ‘Never-ending. That’s the trouble with brass and silver. Don’t say anything to Belize, though, I don’t want to hurt her feelings. I should’ve left them at the house.’ She must have come across them after all these months and wanted the storage space they occupied.
    Why should he expect Lucy to consider his decision to leave the paper of particular consequence? She was no longer bound to have her life influenced by what he did. She talked more often to his mother than to him. He tried to recall the things Belize had passed on to her, no doubt accompanying each with an account of the family provenance that was their chief value. No sharp memory of any individual piece came to mind, but he did see them grouped on a folded sheet on the dining room floor, and his mother wearing a blue apron, and busy with cloths, Brasso and Silvo, all the while listening to the radio.
    ‘Anyway,’ he told Lucy as the conversation thinned out, ‘I just thought you should know what I’ve decided.’
    ‘Okay then. Thanks for telling me. I hope it all works out for you,’ she said. ‘Oh, by the way, Mary Ransumeen died. I meant to tell you. I sent a card for both us. It seemed simpler that way, as we hardly know the family.’
    ‘I assumed she went years ago.’ Mrs Ransumeen was a deaf, old woman who had been their neighbour when they were happy and lived in Whanganui. She shouted at blackbirds, had a painting by Tony Fomison that Sheff coveted, gardened in dressing gown and slippers, and Lucy had been kind to her.
    ‘She was ninety-seven,’ Lucy said. Sheff had no comment. ‘Anyway,