Strange Sally Diamond

I went to bed in a room with a lumpy mattress but slept well.

I woke early as usual and went downstairs to find Aunt Christine already at the kitchen table. As I filled the teapot, she gestured me to come and sit with her.

‘This Mark fellow, how well do you know him?’

I explained that we had become friends through Martha.

‘Do you know anything about his background?’

‘He’s divorced. He had an affair with a younger woman, but it didn’t work out.’

‘I see. You didn’t say anything about inviting him to the funeral?’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t invite him. He turned up at the church.’

‘Does he … I’m sorry for asking, but what exactly is your relationship with him?’

‘He’s a friend. He’s an accountant at Mervyn Park, the meat-processing plant.’

‘Are you sure he doesn’t want to be more than a friend?’

‘Oh yes, I’ve told him it’s out of the question. Because of sex and intimacy and all that. Besides, he says he fancies my friend Anubha. They work together but he’s her boss so it’s a bit tricky.’

‘Sally, he asked me a lot of questions about you, about when you were young, about what Jean had said about your time in captivity. It was strange and, I have to say, inappropriate at my husband’s funeral.’

‘I’m sorry. But I always like it a bit when other people are inappropriate.’ I laughed. Aunt Christine didn’t.

‘What’s his last name?’

‘Butler.’

‘Do you trust him?’

‘Yes. Tina says I should be more trusting of people and not assume that everyone is a predator.’

‘Don’t you think it strange that he would turn up to a funeral uninvited?’

‘Well, I invited him back to the house.’

‘But not to the church?’

‘No, he heard about it from Anubha. He said he looked up the details online. He didn’t want me to be on my own. He knows how difficult I find strangers.’

‘Mark Butler.’ She wrote down his name. ‘Accountant. And where did he live before he came to Carricksheedy?’

‘Dublin, I think?’

‘You don’t know what part?’

‘No. Why are you asking me these questions?’

She brightened then and smiled at me. ‘It’s probably nothing. Maybe he likes you more than you think he does?’

I wondered about that.

‘By the way, Sally,’ she said, ‘your piano playing was wonderful, everyone was moved. You play beautifully, and without any sheet music!’

‘It calms me.’

‘It calmed us, Lorraine and me, yesterday. It was thoughtful of you.’

‘I was sort of doing it for me?’

‘Accept a compliment,’ she said. ‘Donald would have played ragtime if he’d been here.’

‘I expect you would have preferred him to be playing rather than me.’

Her eyes filled with tears. I moved awkwardly to hug her as Tina had suggested. She squeezed me tight before letting me go. I didn’t mind.

I couldn’t wait to tell Tina that I had passed this social test with flying colours.

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.