Strange Sally Diamond

‘You have often said to me, Sally, that you can’t relate to her as your mother, but you must have witnessed things or at least seen some of the aftermath of the most extreme emotional and physical abuse. When you or someone or something you love is threatened’ – she was referring to the time I attacked Angela when she took Toby from me – ‘you want to lash out, like Denise probably did. Anger is a secondary emotion. Rage can be sparked by fear or any emotion where we feel vulnerable or helpless. But now you’re an adult, you’re not locked in a room. You can use different powers. You can use your voice and you can walk away. Two of the most important tools you have. Remember, you are not a child locked in a room. Violence is almost never an appropriate response.’

I had a lot to think about.

Mark never replied to my text, and when Angela put me in touch with Elaine, she hadn’t heard from him either.

‘I am worried,’ she told me, ‘but he has done this before, disappeared for weeks when he got stressed and then surfaced again, full of apologies and promises never to do it again. It’s a pattern with him. I guess you’re my ex-niece-in-law?’

She was friendly and offered to meet me.

‘I don’t think so. We’re not properly related, you and I.’

‘Okay, if that’s the way you feel.’

‘It would be strange, though, wouldn’t it? All we need to do is exchange information. We can do that over the phone. You’re not my family.’

‘I guess not.’

‘Mark is my uncle and he should have told me.’

‘I couldn’t agree more.’

Sue asked me if anything had happened after the party. Kenneth had told her Mark was the talk of Mervyn Park. Apparently, he was on stress leave, and wasn’t in his apartment. They were full of speculation about what had happened. I told her, because she was my best friend. Sue was as shocked as Angela, Aunt Christine and me.

‘Anubha thought he was mad about you. He talked about you a lot, always asking questions. She eventually told him to shut up one day at work when he was speculating about what you must have gone through as a child. She said it was creepy, but the rest of them thought he had the hots for you, like as if he was fascinated by your “little orphan Annie” story. God, that’s so weird, Sally, and nobody knows where he is now?’

‘No.’ I paused. ‘I hate that film. The sun rarely comes out tomorrow, not in Carricksheedy. Not in winter anyway.’ Sue laughed. ‘What are you laughing at?’

‘I don’t think musical lyrics should be taken so seriously.’

Before the builders left the cottage, I had a locksmith put bolts on all the doors and windows. And then they left, the first week of October, and I had my own beautiful space and my dream bathroom. The lines were sleek and straight. I could hardly believe that this gorgeous home was my own. The stream ran through the house under glass panels and emerged in a rockery in the back yard. Everyone who came admired it as if it had been my work. I gave them Nadine’s business cards. When the piano moved into the cottage, I finally felt at home. I felt secure, I suppose, but sad and a little scared.

While I was concerned about Mark, I was far more worried about ‘S’. The guards couldn’t find out anything about where the card had been sent from except that it was processed through the main post office in Auckland, like every other piece of overseas mail from New Zealand. It frightened me. Conor Geary was still out there.

44 Peter, 1989

It took me a while to get over Dad’s death. I felt the weight of the phantom disease lift off me. I missed him and I hated him and I loved him, but I could not forgive him. There was nobody with whom to be angry over all the lost years, the years where I could have gone to school, the years where I needn’t have been so physically uncomfortable in hats and gloves, years of friendships, connections, sports and parties, and most particularly the decades of Rangi’s life that were lost because I was gullible enough to believe what my father told me.

I missed the companionship, though, the care and consideration.

Jill from the Daily Post encouraged me to write an open letter to thank the local people for their generosity and wanted another photo of me at home. I agreed to the letter but refused another photograph. Years of hiding didn’t disappear overnight; the feeling of escaping and hiding never left me. I wanted my anonymity back and so I went from being a minor local celebrity to being a recluse. I had a telephone, finally, but nobody to call.