Sam Read online

  Sam

  a novel

  Luke F Harris

  Gwendoline Press

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-0-473-37184-5

  Wellington, New Zealand

  Copyright © Luke F Harris 2016

  Gwendoline Press

  For Mum and Dad

  Contents

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Chapter five

  Chapter six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Chapter ten

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Chapter thirteen

  Chapter fourteen

  Chapter fifteen

  Chapter sixteen

  Chapter seventeen

  Acknowledgments

  Author bio

  chapter one

  “Get out of bed this instant!”

  Tom rolled onto his side and pulled the pillow over his head with a groan. The shrillness of his sister’s voice seemed to pierce his skull.

  For the past hour, he had been staring at the bedroom ceiling. In the far corner, a tiny black spider was industriously repairing its web. He watched, mesmerised, as it plucked at the silk thread, oblivious to the world below. God, how he envied the spider.

  It must be nine by now, he thought, glancing at the blank screen of his alarm clock. It was becoming a habit, lying in bed all morning.

  The alarm clock had packed up weeks ago but was still sitting on the bedside table, gathering dust. He reached across the bed and pulled back the curtain a couple of centimetres. The sun had already cleared the ridge of hills opposite and was now inching its way across a cloudless blue sky.

  It hadn’t rained anywhere in the North Island for weeks, and by the looks of it, today wasn’t going to be any different. The six o’clock news the previous evening had led with the story of a Waikato farmer whose business was on the brink of collapse.

  “How do you feel?” the grinning news anchor had asked, the camera panning across what had once been a lush green paddock but now looked more like barren wasteland.

  “Fucking marvellous,” he had replied on the farmer’s behalf and had changed the channel without watching any more.

  He gazed out the window. The trees at the bottom of the garden were in full bloom. He watched as a tui flitted happily from tree to tree, the white tuft on its throat gleaming in the morning sunshine.

  He let go of the curtain, flopped back onto the mattress and closed his eyes. Whoever had said that hell was other people had been right on the money.

  “I take it you haven’t eaten yet?” His sister appeared in the doorway. She looked like their mother, standing there with her hands on her hips. He shook his head.

  Five minutes later he was sitting at the kitchen table, a mug of steaming hot tea and a plate of toast in front of him.

  “I put the Vegemite on extra thick—the way you like.”

  “Thanks,” he said. He didn’t realise just how hungry he was until he took the first bite. “Look,” he mumbled through a mouthful of toast. He swallowed what he was chewing and washed it down with a slurp of tea. “I’ve got work to do.”

  “Don’t make me laugh,” Carla replied.

  He glowered at her over his toast as he took another bite. “I’m fine. You don’t need to keep checking up on me. I’m not going to do anything stupid.” He didn’t tell her that he had considered ‘doing something stupid’ several times.

  He stood and carried his breakfast back to the living room. Carla followed him.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” she said, sitting down next to him on the sofa and tucking her bare feet up underneath her. “When was the last time you left this house?” she asked. His sister had never been one to beat around the bush.

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “I know you don’t like talking about things,” she continued, unfazed by his silence. “You’ve always been the same.”

  He felt his stomach muscles contract. He and his sister had always been close. He knew better than to try to lie to her. Like the proverbial dog with a bone, she wouldn’t give up until he had told her what she wanted to know.

  “It’s OK,” she blew on her tea and then took a small sip, “to talk about stuff.”

  He reached for the remote, which was balanced on the arm of the sofa, and turned on the television instead. His sister sighed.

  “You can’t go on like this. It’s been three months now.”

  He munched on his toast and flicked through the channels as if he hadn’t heard her. He paused on the weather channel and feigned interest in the forecast.

  “I bet you haven’t left this house more than half a dozen times. When was the last time you had a shower?” She leaned in and sniffed his T-shirt.

  “Get out of it,” he growled, and as he shoved her away, a wave of tea sloshed over the side of her mug, into her lap. She jumped to her feet and ran to the kitchen for a cloth.

  “Sorry,” he said when she reappeared. She was dabbing at her pants with a tea towel. She looked up and glared.

  “How’s Olivia?” he asked, quickly changing the subject. Carla rolled her eyes and continued to blot at her jeans. “What’s she done this time?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

  He got up off the sofa and followed her back into the kitchen.

  “What hasn’t she done, you mean?” Carla replied. She sat down at the kitchen table and started to flick through one of the unopened newspapers. He made a mental note to cancel his subscription. A dozen pages in, she stopped and leaned back in her chair. “She’s met a boy.” She pushed the paper away. “Need I say more?”

  “You met Adam when you were sixteen.”

  “And look how that turned out,” she laughed caustically.

  He sat down opposite her. The steam from his tea fogged up his glasses. “Remember when you brought Adam home the first time? I thought Dad was going to kill him and bury his body in the back yard.”

  Carla smiled, but her eyes looked sad.

  He would never forget that afternoon, twenty years before, when his sister had introduced Adam to their father. She should have known that arriving on the back of a Harley was only going to provoke a reaction. Or perhaps she had known that all along, he thought.

  “Speaking of Olivia,” Carla said. He had a fair idea of what was coming next but he stayed silent. “I was thinking that you could maybe have a word to her. She’s only got a year of college to go, and if she doesn’t pull her finger out soon, she can kiss goodbye to varsity.”

  He took a deep breath. “You think she’ll listen to me?” And for the first time in months, he almost laughed. The idea of him counselling anybody, let alone a sixteen-year-old girl, was ridiculous.

  “Well, she won’t listen to me. I swear she does the exact opposite of anything I tell her just to spite me.”

  He stood up and walked over to the pantry. It was cram packed with food, none of which he had purchased. His friends and family clearly had low opinions of his ability to survive. The fact that he had lived by himself before he met Sam counted for nothing.

  “I know there’s a packet of biscuits in here somewhere,” he said, searching each shelf. He found the biscuits hiding behind a family-size pack of Weet-Bix at the back of the cupboard. He tore open the foil wrapper and offered the packet to Carla. “Can’t Adam talk to her?” he asked, dunking a biscuit in his mug of tea. “He is her father, after all.”

  Carla see
med to deflate at the mention of her ex-husband. “Who knows where he is? I haven’t heard a peep out of him in weeks. Last weekend, he was supposed to take the kids to the movies, but he didn’t show up.”

  She looked as if she were carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, and he felt his resolve beginning to weaken.

  “Look, I’m sure she’ll be fine,” he said, getting to his feet before he agreed to anything that he would later regret. He tipped the remainder of his tea down the sink and put the biscuits back in the pantry. “She’s a smart girl—far smarter than we ever were.”

  “So you won’t talk to her, then?” Carla crossed her arms over her chest.

  He should have known not to hesitate.

  Carla snatched her handbag off the bench and marched out the kitchen. She was halfway to the front door before he caught up with her.

  “Carla.” He made a grab for her arm, but she yanked it away.

  “I’m sorry about what happened to Sam,” she said, “I really am, Tom. But you’re not the only one who has problems.”

  He waited until she had driven off before he closed the door and went back to bed.

  He spent most of the afternoon and evening in the garage, tinkering with his bike. It was months since he had last ridden it, and its warrant of fitness was already long overdue. He was so absorbed in what he was doing that it was almost dark before he realised the light was fading. He put down the wrench he was holding, clambered to his feet, and retreated into the house, his arms full of oily engine parts.

  He spread an old newspaper over the kitchen table and carefully arranged the various parts into neat rows, wiping his hands on his pants when he had finished. In the morning, he would reassemble the engine and ride the bike down to the local garage to be signed off.

  I’ll just close my eyes for a moment, he thought, dropping exhausted onto the sofa and propping his feet on the coffee table. The sun had now disappeared behind the western hills, out of sight, and the last rays of the day illuminated the thin, wispy clouds from below, so that they shone like pure gold.

  The first rap on the front door failed to wake him fully. He nuzzled his face into the soft fabric of the couch and scratched the side of his nose. Sam will get that, he thought, his mind drifting between sleep and consciousness. The second knock was distinctly louder and brought him to his senses with a jolt.

  He sat up and rubbed his eyes. He squinted at his watch and slowly the hands came into focus. It was half past nine; he had been asleep for over an hour.

  With a sigh, he got to his feet, stretched, and wandered over to the French doors.

  A thick blanket of sea fog had glided in off the Cook Strait, concealing the airport below. The tail of a Boeing 737 sliced through the cloud like a shark’s fin and disappeared again into the mist.

  He hadn’t taken two steps before there was a third knock, followed by raised voices. “I’m coming!” he shouted.

  “She yours?” asked the police officer standing on the doorstep. For a moment, he was struck dumb. Flanked on either side by uniformed officers stood his niece. She had her arms crossed and a look of defiance on her face.

  “Not quite,” he replied, finding his voice at last. He glared at Olivia. “She belongs to my sister.”

  “Well, she told us she lived here,” the other officer continued. “We found her spray-painting a fence. Luckily for her, the owner doesn’t want to press charges. If she cleans it off, he’ll let the matter drop.” The officer gave Olivia a contemptuous look. “Bloody youths.”

  “Get inside,” he said to his niece. Without looking up, she uncrossed her arms and pushed past him into the house. Thankfully, the officers seemed as eager as he was to end the conversation and barked, “Just make sure she cleans it off, otherwise we may be forced to take the matter further.”

  He nodded politely and closed the door.

  “What the hell?” he cursed. He forced himself to take a deep breath.

  Olivia was slouched on the sofa flicking through the channels on the TV when Tom walked into the living room. He went straight over to the television and turned it off at the wall. “Hey, I was watching that,” Olivia protested, but he paid no notice.

  “What the hell just happened?” he said.

  She didn’t answer. She stared straight ahead at the blank screen. “Fuck!” he cursed in frustration.

  He was standing at the kitchen sink peeling potatoes when Olivia finally appeared in the doorway. Without saying a word, she walked over to the kitchen table and sat down. He kept his eyes on the growing mound of peelings in the sink.

  “So your exams are coming up soon?” The atmosphere was almost unbearable. If he didn’t say something now, they would probably sit in silence for ever. “Are you ready?”

  Olivia didn’t reply immediately. “I guess so,” she mumbled. Her eyes scanned the engine parts laid out across the table.

  “What do you want to do when you finish school?” he persevered.

  It was now pitch-black outside. He looked through his reflection in the window, towards the flickering trail of red and yellow lights on the other side of the harbour. Where are you when I need you, Sam?

  He plunged his hand into the ice-cold water and plucked out another potato.

  “I’m talking to you,” he raised his voice. “What are you going to do when you leave school?”

  Olivia looked up at him and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. Mum wants me to go to university. She says that if I don’t get qualifications I’ll end up old and miserable like her.” She started to chip away at the black nail polish on her right hand.

  He could feel himself getting irritated. “And you don’t think she’s got a point?”

  “Well, you didn’t go to university.”

  “My life’s hardly been a fucking success story,” he snapped and instantly regretted it. “I’m sorry,” he apologised, “I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’ve heard worse.”

  After tea they watched television for an hour before he drove Olivia home.

  The wind was picking up again from the south and the orange air sock at the end of the runway was flying almost horizontal. As they drove along Calabar Road, he felt the wind tug at the steering wheel. The radio was switched off and the silence was broken only momentarily by the roar of a twin-engine jet coming in to land. Olivia still hadn’t spoken by the time they pulled up outside Carla’s house.

  “Don’t give your mum a hard time when you go inside, please.” He didn’t cut the engine; instead, he waited, one foot on the clutch and the other on the brake. As soon as she disappeared into the house, he swung the car round and sped off back towards the eastern suburbs.

  He didn’t take the direct route home. Instead, he drove up through Newtown to Island Bay and took the coastal road round the southern tip of the island. He hadn’t ventured so far from home in months—in fact, he could count on one hand the number of times he had left the peninsula—but now, having been forced to drive halfway across the city, he didn’t feel in any particular rush to get home.

  A quarter of an hour later, he was turning the corner into Breaker Bay. He pulled over onto the gravel at the side of the road and turned off the headlights.

  The lights from the houses along the bay were reflected in water close to the shore, but further out the ocean was black. He wound down the window and took a deep breath, his lungs burning as they inflated with ice-cold Antarctic air. He pulled up the collar of his coat, removed the keys from the ignition, and climbed out of the car.

  The gravel crunched underfoot as he made his way down to the water’s edge. As he vaulted over the wooden barrier that separated the car park from the beach, he felt the first drops of rain fall.

  He perched on a rock, the water lapping below, and watched as the evening ferry from Picton glided northward, towards the safety of the harbour. The ship, a mass of sparkling lights, looked remarkably peaceful, but he knew better. The last time that he an
d Sam had made the three-hour crossing, he had been violently seasick. Afterwards, he had vowed never to step foot on a boat again.

  Within minutes, the rain drops had trebled in size. It won’t be long until the storm makes landfall, he thought, and felt a trickle of freezing cold water run down the back of his neck. He hunched his shoulders and thrust his hands into the pockets of his duck-down jacket. Perhaps if I sit here for long enough, the southerly will numb my brain as well, he wondered. He was tired of thinking—tired of feeling sad.

  It was then that his fingers registered a small cylindrical object at the bottom of his pocket. He removed the container and held it up close to his face so that he could read the small print in the dark—Diazepam. “Hello, my little friends,” he said. He had forgotten completely about that particular stash.

  Those first few weeks after the funeral were still a blur. They probably always would be. At one point—looking back, he wasn’t sure quite how she had managed it—Carla had convinced him to see a doctor.

  The doctor had taken one look at his sunken, bloodshot eyes and had prescribed a cocktail of pills. “I’m not depressed,” he vaguely remembered protesting, “but I’ll take the ones to make me sleep.”

  He held the plastic container between his thumb and index finger and stared at the little white tablets inside. Without giving it much thought, he unscrewed the cap and upended the bottle into the palm of his hand.

  It would be so easy. So easy. The thought that it could all be over before the night was out was enticing. No more grief. No more thinking. Nothing.

  “Life’s one big head fuck,” he had told Carla only the other day. “We’re born—we don’t ask to be born, by the way—we work our arses off for thirty or forty years, and then, just when we think we’ve got it made, life comes along and screws us in the arse.”

  “You’ve got such a poetic way with words.” She had laughed and then given him a bear hug.