Desperately, he clutched at the counter and, trying to counterbalance the momentum of his fall, pulled with all his strength. The result was that his head jerked forward and hit the edge of the counter. Blood spurted from his nose, and he slumped to the floor.
The barman caught the bottle of bourbon as it slid across the wet counter.
“You’re out of your bloody mind!”
On the video screens fixed to the wall, a guy with long hair was jeering at a row of westies,15 who stared back at him grim-faced, pints in their hands, their other hands clenched in fists. No one was paying any attention to the pakeha pissing blood on the already sticky floor of the establishment.
The big Maori who ran this pub on the outskirts of the city glared angrily over the counter. Osborne lay on his back, in a dreadful state.
“Get out of here!” the Maori yelled. “Now!”
Shaking with rage under his Enjoy Coca-Cola T-shirt, he came around to the front of the counter to do the job, but Osborne got to his feet without help. The mixture of alcohol and amphetamines had made him as high as a kite.
“It’s OK,” he said, as the man was getting ready to throw him out. “It’s OK.”
A warm liquid was dripping onto his nice white shirt. He found a handful of banknotes in his pocket, let go of them, and, through a veil of blood, saw the exit.
Surviving took a lot of discipline.
5.
Paul was approaching his eighteenth birthday. He hadn’t said anything to his mother, let alone Thomas, but it was all he thought about. For months it had been going around and around in his head, now that Hana had abandoned him to his fate. He had to know, he had to see him. Without a father, he felt crippled, as if parts of him were missing.
Paul had never felt much affection for his mother. She was a nurse through and through, so used to smoothing things over and avoiding any conflict that she had grown to resemble her own mask, her own shell. Inevitably, so had he. As for his stepfather, he had given him his name and that was all he could do for him. But Paul would soon be coming of age, and he had to know. Although his father had left before he was born without leaving any address, there must be a face behind the name Todd Preston.
Whenever he had mentioned him to his mother, she had avoided the subject. She had remarried, it was all ancient history, there was no point in stirring up these old ghosts. All Paul knew was that his father had been working at the time as a laborer on construction sites in the city, that he was a tall, handsome man, a bit of a bruiser, not the kind to burden himself with a wife . . .
Eighteen years old. Paul had to see his father, it was a physical need—a way to find closure.
So far, his search had led him nowhere. Todd Preston had indeed worked as a laborer on various construction sites but, as he hadn’t belonged to any particular agency, he had proved impossible to find. Paul had managed to get hold of an address, but it was several months old and the room had been let to someone else. He had scoured the neighboring areas in vain until that rainy morning in September when, in some agency or other, he found a mention of the name.
Spencer’s, a struggling local construction firm, had hired Preston as a stonemason. The work, a factory extension, would last several months.
Paul’s heart started beating faster. It wasn’t yet noon. He got on his bicycle and rode along the avenues. The roadway was slippery, but he didn’t give a damn about that, or the litter, or the pedestrians slouching wearily along the sidewalks. He was going to see his father.
The factory was a red-brick building. Paul propped his bicycle against the fence and waited. It was lunchtime, and the first workers were coming out, all dressed in blue coveralls, all except one. Paul recognized his father even though he had never seen him: a tall, sturdy guy in worn jeans and threadbare safety shoes, with rugged arms and almost insolent blue eyes, surrounded by other, equally burly men.
Paul went up to him and introduced himself. Everyone stopped.
“What do you want, boy?” Preston asked.
“To talk to you.”
“Oh yes? What about?” He seemed suspicious.
“Mary Stanford,” replied Paul.
“Who’s she?”
“My mother.”
Preston frowned. His first reaction was one of surprise, but then he became irritated by the way the others were looking at him. “You go on, guys,” he said, “I’ll join you.”
He seemed ill at ease in his large, rather awkward body. And this kid had really strange eyes. The other workers looked at him uncomprehendingly, then walked away. Paul had his hands deep in his pockets, his fists clenched.
“Listen, boy, I don’t know what Mary told you, but there was never much between us.”
“Except me.”
Preston clicked his tongue. His face spoke volumes about his confusion. “Listen—”
“We could go for a drink,” Paul suggested.
Preston wasn’t used to this kind of situation. “What for?”
“To talk.”
“What’s the point in that when we don’t have anything to say?”
It was a long time since he’d last thought about Mary. Besides which, the others had stopped at the corner of the street and were waiting for him, the lunch break didn’t last for ever, and he was hungry. The kid was staring at him as if he had never seen a worker in his life, which Preston found really annoying.
“I’ve been looking for you for a long time,” Paul said.
“You shouldn’t have.”
“My mother never talks about you. I wanted to see you, to be sure you existed.”
“Well, now you’ve seen me.”
