Death Actually

  Death Actually

  Death. Love. And In Between.

  Rosy Fenwicke

  © Copyright 2018 Rosy Fenwicke

  Rosy Fenwicke asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the copyright holder.

  Published by Wonderful World

  Author website: rosyfenwickeauthor.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.

  Cover design by Estella Vukovic.

  Permission for the use of High Country Weather is granted by the James K Baxter Trust.

  To the friendship of women

  High Country Weather

  Alone we are born

  And die alone;

  Yet see the red-gold cirrus

  Over snow-mountain shine.

  Upon the upland road

  Ride easy, stranger:

  Surrender to the sky

  Your heart of anger.

  – James K Baxter

  4 October 1945 1948

  Contents

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  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

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Peeping around the door, Maggie smiled to see tendrils of dark hair draped across the pillow and to hear the slow breathing of her daughter’s exhausted sleep. This bedroom had been empty for two years, a tidy testament to a daughter full grown and travelling the world. In just five hours, Kate had managed to recreate the chaos of her youth. The contents of two backpacks were sprayed across the room, socks and underwear dangling from open drawers, bottles jumbled amongst magazines, and T-shirts dumped in dirty piles, mingling with unmatched shoes and boots.

  Maggie pulled the door shut and tiptoed downstairs. She was late. Letting herself out into the half-light of early morning, she walked carefully over the icy cobblestones to her car, where Elka stood waiting.

  “You’re late!” said Elka accusingly, in the soft German accent that hadn’t faded in the twenty years she’d lived in New Zealand.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” said Maggie, unlocking the car. “Kate’s plane was diverted and it was almost one o’clock in the morning when she finally arrived. I slept in.”

  “You could have called – texted even,” replied Elka, getting in and reaching for her seatbelt. “I’ve been waiting outside for over five minutes. But I am pleased she’s back.”

  There were times when Maggie could cheerfully have throttled her friend for her German ways, but this wasn’t one of them. She was too happy and the morning was too perfect.

  “I think we should do the loop, today,” said Maggie, changing the subject.

  Without waiting for a reply, she drove out of Queenstown and into the surrounding countryside just as the sun crested the mountains. After the night’s snowfall, a duck egg blush on the horizon heralded the start of a stunning day.

  The council’s grader and grit machine had tilled the new snow onto the roadsides in gravelly mounds, de-icing and clearing the way for the bumper-to-bumper traffic for which Queenstown was now famous. The ski season had started early, and with two huge dumps of snow in the past month, the town was packed with eager skiers from around New Zealand and Australia.

  Travelling away from town, Maggie made good time and parked her car beside a fence under an ancient macrocarpa tree. Fifteen or so sheep were taking shelter from the snow on the other side of the fence on the only patch of bare earth for miles. Lichen-tufted fence posts glistened with frost, and icicles dripped on the wires.

  “It’s a perfect morning for a walk,” said Maggie as she clicked the key to lock the car.

  Elka grunted.

  They had been friends for more than twenty years, meeting soon after Maggie’s return from Australia and just after Elka had opened her restaurant in town. They were the same age, both single and both busy in their work. Neither woman could bear the false cheeriness in the town’s gyms, so they walked together most mornings, around the lake or in the surrounding countryside, traffic permitting, enjoying the seasons and the silence, not feeling the need to talk unless there was something important to discuss. On this basis a friendship had been built, sustaining them through good times and bad.

  Maggie shivered and huddled deeper into the upturned collar of her black down vest, before clamping her beanie firmly over her blonde ponytail. They set off, their breath mingling in their wake, their feet crunching frozen gravel, one woman in black and the other in every bright colour ever invented.

  “How is she?”

  “Hard to tell,” said Maggie. “From London to Doha then another seventeen hours to Auckland without a break is pretty gruelling. The plane was diverted to Invercargill, so a four-hour bus ride on top of all that didn’t help. I guess I could say she’s tired, worn out and just a little emotional to be home after two years. Or maybe she’s tired and emotional about having to leave London because her work visa ran out. You know what Kate’s like.”

  “I do, and I’m looking forward to seeing her, but you know – can’t today,” said Elka. She stopped but Maggie didn’t notice, and Elka had to run a few steps to catch up. “It’s been very quiet without her.”

  “Understatement,” said Maggie. “So quiet. Thank goodness Nick was here or I might have had to get a dog.” She stopped and grabbed Elka’s arm. “I’m so stupid. I forgot. You’re going to Dunedin.”

  “At one.”

  “And?”

  “Ben said they’d tell me the results of last week’s tests. And the surgeon, Sally, will examine me, do a scan and tell me what it all means. After everything he�
��s said, I’m pretty sure I’ll need surgery but I’ll have to wait to find out. If I’m lucky, it could all be over and done with this afternoon, so here’s hoping. What do you say? Fingers crossed.”

  “Yes, fingers crossed, and toes and legs – everything crossed,” said Maggie.

  They started walking again.

  “So far Ben seems very good and thorough. He’s like the doctors back in Germany, which is a relief. He listened to me and didn’t tell me I was feeling tired because I was stressed, like the first doctor I saw.”

  “Betty agrees with you,” said Maggie, referring to their friend. “She told me he knew what he was doing, which is high praise coming from her. Do you want me to come to Dunedin with you this afternoon? I will if you need me.”

  Before Elka could answer, Maggie’s phone rang deep in her pocket and she stopped to retrieve it.

  Elka walked a few steps ahead and stretched her arms above her head.

  “It’s Betty,” said Maggie softly as she put the phone back in her pocket. “She died half an hour ago. I’m sorry, but I can’t come now. Betty made me promise that I’d be the one to look after her. She didn’t want any of the other funeral directors in town seeing her bits and pieces. Just me. I promise I’ll come with you if you have to go back – which you won’t of course, but if you do.”

  They drove back to town in silence, both thinking of the day ahead, paying little attention to the traffic. Carloads of excited young people were whizzing past in the opposite direction, chains rattling on the road as their occupants’ eyes strained to get their first look at the new snow on the fields above them.

  When they reached Elka’s house, Elka gave Maggie a quick hug.

  “It will be OK, I know it will,” Maggie whispered, hugging her back.

  “Tell Kate I’ll see her soon,” said Elka, “and please tell Jim I’m thinking of him and will call first thing tomorrow. I don’t know how he’ll cope without Betty.”

  “You’ll be fine, but text me when you know.”

  Elka waved her off and Maggie drove home. Turning into the stable yard, she saw the empty patch in last night’s snow where Nick’s scooter had been parked. It never ceased to amaze her how many people wanted fast food delivered so early in the morning, but if home deliveries kept her son in work and saving money for his education, who was she to judge?

  The signs of his hurried breakfast were littered all over the kitchen bench, but dear boy that he was, he’d put the coffee on and it was just coming to the boil as she walked in.

  Cradling her cup in both hands, Maggie leaned back against the bench and listened to the silence. For so many years when Kate and Nick had been younger she’d longed for such a moment, when she could take her time and drink her coffee in peace. Now, though, the atmosphere was oppressive with the prospect of the looming emptiness. Kate was home, but for how long? Next year Nick would be gone. And then what?

  Maggie had been younger than most mothers when she’d had her children. Bursting with the misguided determination of youth to escape her home, and more importantly her father’s expectations, she’d been eighteen when she’d run off with the first good-looking silver-tongued Australian who had paid her more than a passing attention on her nightly jaunts to the bars in town

  Whether he really was attractive, or she was just burnt out by her lifestyle, it took very little persuading for her to agree to accompany him back to his home-town of Melbourne at the end of the ski season. Their relationship was already starting to wear thin when Maggie became pregnant with Kate. But Andy was a good bloke brought up by his family to do the decent thing, and they’d married in a registry office before their daughter was born.

  Times were hard for the young couple. His paid work as a personal trainer was sporadic and didn’t bring in enough money for them to have a place of their own, but it did mean Andy was able to represent his beach volleyball club in the interminable summer tournaments that were his true love. They moved in with his mother, who reassured Maggie she was happy with the arrangements and was looking forward to being a grandmother.

  Maggie had had little contact with her family since leaving. She was too ashamed to call often, and angry that her father had been right about what would become of her if she left home. Every now and then she’d talk to her mother, to let her know she was safe and to hear the familiar voice. Most of all she missed Simon, her older brother, who was now firmly ensconced in the family business. But he seemed different when she called – quieter and more subdued, and not the fun-loving mad skier she’d grown up with.

  When Kate was seven months old and things were starting to improve, Maggie became pregnant for the second time. She was hurt and surprised when her mother-in-law suggested an abortion, which she refused. From then on this woman, who had been so good to Maggie when she’d first moved in, started to distance herself not only from Maggie but also, inexplicably, from her baby granddaughter.

  “You can’t keep living here with two children,” she overheard her say to Andy one day. “It’s not fair to me or to you.”

  Andy had said nothing, walking out and slamming the door behind him on his way to the beach.

  Seeing Maggie standing in the kitchen, tears running down her face, beside Kate in her highchair covered in mashed banana, his mother had explained clearly but not unkindly, “Well you can’t stay, dear. You know that. It’s time your family helped out. Andy doesn’t earn much and he’s so young. He needs a life away from work, away from being a father with so many responsibilities. It breaks my heart to see him like this. Couldn’t you have been more careful?”

  Maggie wiped Kate’s face and put the mushy bib in the washing machine. She picked her daughter up and hugged her close. A chubby hand reached up and patted her hair, smearing it with banana.

  “Maybe you should put Kate in day care for the next few months, get a job and then you could afford your own place. Andy’s worn out. He’ll do what’s right, of course, but you could do more, you know.”

  Maggie knew her family back home would help, but was determined not to ask, being too proud to admit all was not as she pretended. She organised day-care for Kate, and found work with a local cleaning firm.

  Andy was away playing interclub when Maggie moved into their new home. She had walked the streets to find an affordable one-bedroom apartment in a suburb close to the beach. The other side of the city would have been cheaper, but Andy and his mother made it clear they had to live near the beach so he could follow his dream and play volleyball. He couldn’t let his team down, he explained.

  Maggie was at work when she went into labour. One of the other cleaners took her to the hospital, and by the time Andy finally arrived, covered in sand, with Kate still grubby and tired from day care in his arms, her son was three hours old. They named him Nick, after Maggie’s grandfather.

  Andy was not as entranced with Nick as he had been with Kate. The novelty of reproduction was seemingly inversely proportional to the work involved in the children’s care. He moaned to Maggie about having to miss club night to look after his daughter, and asked when she would be home to take over. Cuddling her daughter and son on the narrow hospital bed, Maggie had sighed and promised to leave first thing in the morning.

  The next day when Andy collected them in his mother’s car, she saw his packed bags in the back. On the drive home he told Maggie he couldn’t cope anymore. His mum had suggested he take a break and move back in with her while they sorted everything out. Grudgingly he helped Maggie with her bag and the babies in their cumbersome car seats, before pecking Kate on the cheek and galloping down the stairs to his car. He drove off without a backward glance.

  A short while later, sore and exhausted from the birth, Maggie was standing in the kitchen looking blankly at her children, wondering what on earth she was going to do, when the phone rang. It was Andy telling her not to worry – he’d paid the rent till the end of the month, stocked the fridge, and there was money on the bench by the cooker.

  Mag
gie said nothing and hung up. Speechless with disbelief she’d tucked Nick into the middle of her bed and wrestled her laughing, wriggling baby daughter to the ground to change her smelly nappy. The three of them slept wrapped in each other’s arms for a few hours.

  She was lucky to have plenty of milk, because the money for food didn’t last long and Andy’s mother was running interference for her son whenever Maggie called.

  A week later, just before the next rent payment was due, Maggie called her mother-in-law’s number and was greeted with disconnected pips.

  Still in her post-partum fug, it took Maggie a little while longer to realise this was it. She was the twenty-one-year-old mother of two beautiful babies in a foreign country with no friends, no family, and worse – no means of support. Her babies were depending on her to look after them, not just today, but tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. There was no one else.

  It was sheer terror that pushed her into to calling home.

  Simon answered. “My God, Maggie,” he said. “Where’ve you been? I was just about to ring the police in Melbourne to ask them to find you.” Cutting off her response he continued, “Maggie, are you sitting down? I have terrible news. Mum and Dad died two days ago in that helicopter crash in Milford Sound.”

  “What helicopter crash?”

  “It’s in all the papers and it’s been on TV.”

  “Sorry, Simon, I’ve been busy.” The exhaustion in her voice must have been obvious.

  He paused for a moment. “I’ve been trying to find you but the number you gave me is disconnected. Maggie, you have to come home, I can’t do this by myself. I just can’t.” Maggie heard her big brother sobbing on the end of the phone.

  “I don’t have any money. That’s why I was calling.” She heard her practical voice talking a long way off in another place and another time, anywhere but here and now and about this.

  “I’ll buy your tickets for chrissakes, Maggie. Just go to the airport and pick them up from the counter. Please come home, I need you. There’s a flight at six tonight – you can get it, if you hurry.”