Witi Ihimaera - The Thrill of Falling - Stories

At that moment, I heard the police siren. Can’t blame the neighbours really. One of them must’ve called the cops. I heard the commotion as they restrained him.

‘What the fuck? Lemme go-o-o-o-o-o-o.’

I heard one of the neighbours saying, ‘It’s not handcuffs you need. Get a straitjacket. Take him to the loony bin.’

I waited upstairs. Mrs Fitisimanu joined me and gave you to me. I was rocking you in my arms when the cops came upstairs with my darling between them. He was frightened, bewildered, crying.

‘What’s happening, Anahera? What’s happening to me?’

I wake up to a huge noise — it’s Whero, Dermot and Tupou returned from Karl Jeff’s studio. I tiptoe to the door to see Tupou opening a bottle of champagne and pouring into three glasses. And I can hear Whero singing one of her songs:

Come home before the dark of night …

Come home before you lose the light …

‘Why the feck didn’t you sing it like that when we recorded you?’ Dermot teases. I’m so jealous. We always do things together, me and my mate, always.

Time to make my entrance.

But someone pushes through the door and closes it after him. My nemesis. The one and only Petera. ‘Now see what you’re doing?’ I growl at him.

He won’t let me pass. His prodding fingers hurt.

‘I would die for Whero,’ I tell him. ‘Leave us alone.’

‘Why do you think she called me?’ he asks. ‘She wants to go back.’

‘She never called you!’

‘She does it every time she remembers … her dad … her mother … every time she looks in the mirror …’

‘She doesn’t want you, Petera.’

‘Then tell her to stop remembering … Tell her to stop feeling guilty that she has become a burden, like her father was, to her mother.’

He pushes me again and, whoa, I am falling.

‘This is it, Red. It really is time to go.’

I manage to cry out ‘Whero!’ through the open door of the bedroom. As soon as she sees me fighting with Petera she comes running.

‘Dermot!’ she cries. ‘Help me!’ She pushes Petera away. ‘Let her go, you bastard!’

And I fall into her arms, I’m really hanging on to her by my fucking fingernails. She collapses with a groan.

‘Okay,’ Dermot says. ‘I gotcha, girl … I gotcha … I’m here now … Nothin’ matters any more — just you, babe.’

‘Oh, Dermot …’

He consoles her. ‘D’ya remember the first time we met? Y’played y’music for me — I fell in love with it the moment I heard it, swore I’d be your manager. My God … you sounded — looked — feckin’ amazin’, grit and tears and blood and spit like all the rock divas reborn.’

All the time Dermot’s talking to Whero, I can see him scanning her. He’s looking for me. And he sees me inside Whero and whips her face close up to his.

‘Red’s here, isn’t she?’ he says to Whero, shaking her. ‘You’re off your pills again, aren’tcha? Did she take them away? Has she been talkin’ to you?’

‘No, that was Petera.’

Tupou’s gone bug-eyed. He swivels around, looking for ghosts.

‘Oh, the other one,’ Dermot says.

Whero begins to weep. ‘Please don’t do this to me, Dermot. I’ve been a good girl, haven’t I? Since that time I walked off the stage I’ve been okay. I …’

‘Yeah, but as long as you’re not takin’ your pills, you are still a feckin’ liability, you stupid bitch.’ Dermot turns to Tupou. ‘Start lookin’, will ya? The pills must be here somewhere. They’re not very far away.’

Tupou begins a frantic search around the bed, drawers and cabinet.

‘If you don’t tell me where they are,’ Dermot continues, ‘I’ll get the doctors in and tell them everythin’. No need for them to wait for your medical papers from New Zealand. I’ll tell them exactly what your mother told me.’

Tupou starts to hunt on the bed, under the pillows and, damn it, he zeroes in on the wastepaper basket where I’ve hidden the pills.

Whero’s shocked. ‘My mother told you?’

‘Yes,’ says Dermot. ‘About when it started for you. Around the time you were eight. You were comin’ back from the beach and you introduced her to a little girl called Red.’

And then Dermot tells my Whero the truth.

‘Your father was in a mental institution in New Zealand. Your mother went to visit him every week until he died. And you, Whero, you’re sick too.’

‘And Red?’

‘She doesn’t exist.’

‘But I can see her,’ Whero wails.

Tupou joins Dermot on the bed, cradling and rocking Whero.

‘I know,’ Dermot says. ‘I know …’

He spills some pills into the palm of his left hand and signals to Tupou to get a glass of water.

Whero looks at me. She’s struggling with her tears, aching with pain. ‘Give me one more night with Red. Please … one more night.’

Dermot isn’t without sympathy. He places the right dosage of pills beside the glass of water. ‘Okay, one more night … but take the pills by the morning. Promise me.’

Whero nods. ‘Okay.’

‘Good, but if you haven’t taken the pills, I kid you not, I’ll ram them down your feckin’ throat myself.’

That night, I lie down beside Whero, we lie within each other’s warmth. I am her and she is me.

And Whero dreams.

And now the dawn has come and the time for Whero to kill me, softly, in the glow of morning.

The weak bitch can’t do it. Ahh, fuck. So I’m the one who reaches over for the pills and puts them into the palm of one hand. I give her the glass of water. ‘Down the hatch,’ I tell her.

But she hesitates.

‘Do you want me to show you how to do it?’ I ask. ‘You’ve got the balls now, bitch.’ I mime myself drinking from the glass as if it was poison and then thrash around in the bed, my eyes crossed and tongue lolling out. By the time I’ve finished my little performance, Whero is laughing her head off. And then she gives a quick, tearful nod.

‘I love you, Red,’ she says. ‘You’re everything that’s brave — the guts to chase a dream. I’m gonna miss you so much.’

Before I can even stop her, she’s upended the glass and swallowed the pills.

No, no, no.

At the last moment I see Petera. I give him the fingers. At least I have the consolation of knowing that he’ll be murdered too. Fuck you, Petera.

With the last of my life I kiss Whero. ‘Girlfriend, be happy.’

Hey, see that Maori girl getting ready to take the stage? Her name’s Whero Davies. Surely you’ve heard of her? And her hit album, One More Night ? Everywhere you go on the London tube you see her poster. She’s got a new album out now, and it’s at the top of the charts.

Those two guys waiting with her? The skinny Pakeha is her manager and the other guy is his partner. They once had dreams of their own but Whero is now their dream.

Did you know Whero’s come back to New Zealand to kick off a world tour? Isn’t that great for a Kiwi girl to do that? From here she goes to Sydney, Singapore, and they want her to guest-star on American Idol in Los Angeles on her way to New York.

Her agent also wants her to go to Dublin. Why Dublin, for goodness sake?

Man oh man, the stadium is filled to capacity. The tickets for Whero’s first concert sold out in minutes and there are some people still out there hoping for a cancellation. The prime minister is here, and I saw some of the Shortland Street stars coming in. Anybody who’s a somebody is here. She’s a hometown girl who’s made good. Her dad died last year, but her mother has come to the concert. That’s her, the woman in the green dress.