‘Shit, you should have stayed yesterday. I got bored with trying to study and trying to get you so I rang Manu and he came round with some great videos he borrowed from the video shop,’ Richard said. ‘We sucked up all the liquor we got from the supermarket yesterday while we watched them. Man, hot, hot stuff!’

  That’s it, Fale realised. That’s the stuff that blocks us from our studies! Since his first shag – and the luscious, hypnotising memories of that were even now threatening to clog out everything else – sex and sex and sex dominated most of his waking life (and much of his dreaming), and he knew it was also true for Richard and his other friends. Ever since that first shag, his grades and interest in school had plummeted like a sad sack of stones. When they added alcohol and dope to that, using them until they blottoed out, doing well at school and getting a good job went out the fucking window. Last night he had been in the study-revision zone until midnight, then sex and sex and sex infiltrated his concentration again and he’d given into it willingly, heatedly, with a naked Rochelle sitting facing him while he was in his desk chair, her legs around him as she pumped and –

  He broke from those delicious thoughts as they left the bakery. Richard handed him one of the pies; it was hot. Absolutely nothing can compete with – what did Richard’s father call them? Yes, their ‘natural addictions’ as teenagers. He bit into his pie and with his tongue juggled the piece that was burning the inside of his mouth. Hot but bloody tasty!

  That day, when Richard tried to persuade Fale to skip their last three classes and go to the movies with a couple of girls he’d met over the internet, he refused, and was confused as to why and hated himself for refusing. Feeling bad about turning down Richard, he agreed to bus down to the New World at Victoria Park after school, where they shoplifted two six-packs of Coke, a packet of potato chips and two peanut slabs, before stopping by the bottle shop next door and lifting two bottles of Jack Daniel’s.

  But he declined Richard’s offer of a party at his house. He told Richard he had promised Fou he’d come to her gym that afternoon so she could start him on a fitness programme, knowing the Fou-struck Richard would never doubt that. They divided their loot and Fale went home and straight into his revision. When sex and sex and sex threatened again, he escaped into the garden and raked and turned over the compost many times, the powerful acrid stench of it driving up through his nostrils and cleaning out the sex and sex and sex in his head. When Fou and their mother came home, Fale could tell they were surprised to find his bedroom door open for the first time, and even more surprised that he was sitting at his desk, studying.

  Friday night, they had the fish and chips Fou brought home, and then his mother and Fou went off to a hen’s party for one of their cousins. He showered, sprayed himself with deodorant with a wild exuberance and rubbed some of the Aveeno lotion that he’d meant to give Rochelle all over his body and, with swooning care, into his genitals until his erection threatened to burst and he stopped, saving that for the lucky girl he would surely meet at the party he and Richard and Manu were going to. He plastered gel into his hair and then, for a long, narcissistic while, admired his face while he spiked and respiked his hair. You look great, dude!

  An hour later, after dressing and changing and redressing and changing in front of his wardrobe mirror until his outfit was right, yes, the latest shit, man, Fale shoved his comb and wallet, with the twenty dollars from Fou and the forty from his mother in it, into his back pocket. He put on the brand new Bron James boots that he and Richard had lifted from The Flying Shoes at St Luke’s the Saturday before, got out the bottle of Jack Daniel’s and the six-pack of Coke, checked that all the windows and back door were locked and then headed for Richard’s, feeling as if he was made of helium and floating a few miraculous inches off the ground.

  Richard had persuaded his father to let him stay in their garage, and it had been renovated according to Richard’s specifications: a bedroom with three bunk beds for his friends to use, a small toilet and shower, a small fridge, a large flat-screen TV and, most important of all, a computer-music-video-party studio. Fale envied Richard’s palatial pad.

  They never went to the clubs or parties until after ten because that was when the real action began, so when Fale got to Richard’s they ribbed and congratulated one another about the ways they were dressed, mixed a large jug of Jack Daniel’s and coke, which they sucked back while they watched The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reruns and waited for Manu and ten o’clock.

  Manu lived with his parents, strict deacons in the Tongan Wesleyan Church, and eight sisters and brothers in Westmere. He arrived at Richard’s dressed in a plain blue shirt, tailor-made charcoal ‘ie lavalava, and thick black scandals, his hair combed conservatively. He was allowed out by his parents to supposedly stay at a Tongan friend’s house for the weekend so he could attend a church choir competition in Otara. Manu had his parents and school conned. His proud parents swallowed everything their angelic Manu said or did because he always got high grades, was a prefect and in Mr Bell’s champion league team, and outperformed all other Tongan youth in being ‘truly Tongan’.

  ‘Shit, bro, you look just like a FOB!’ Richard greeted Manu.

  ‘Yeah, just like Manu Vatuvei on his way to church, bro!’ teased Fale.

  Laughing, Manu disappeared into Richard’s bedroom, where he kept clothes and possessions for his other life. He strode out half an hour later in his unlaced, thick-soled Air Nikes, his hair curled and glowing with gel, wearing an oversized black t-shirt with the golden profile of Bron James on the front, his beltless jeans with the dropped backside barely clinging to his lower flanks and showing off his multi-coloured silk shorts.

  ‘Now do I look like a FOB?’

  ‘Wow, you look just like the poncy Prince of Tonga!’

  ‘Yeah, man, the fags are gonna love you, Manu!’

  ‘You guys are jus’ jealous, eh,’ Manu retorted. Richard handed him a mug of Jack Daniel’s and coke. ‘So what party are we going to?’

  ‘A girl’s birthday party down off Jervois Road,’ Richard explained. ‘A girl I know texted me the address and said it’ll be okay for us to come.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Manu asked.

  ‘Too right,’ Fale intervened. ‘Anyway, doesn’t matter if it isn’t; there’ll be other uninvited guests.’ They laughed and drank some more, knowing this was only one of the many parties happening around Auckland that weekend, particularly in Pālagi suburbs where wealthy parents indulged their children.

  ‘Got two others I know of,’ Richard offered. ‘And if we don’t like this one, we’ll trip over to those.’

  A persistent ringing, far away but coming closer, was seeping into the core of her ears and head. Her heart was thumping wildly in her gullet when she awoke with that stark fear she experienced every time one of these early morning calls broke into her life. She scrambled for control and stopped her hand from grabbing the phone on her bedside table. Slow down. She swallowed repeatedly while the phone continued to ring. Her husband was now right in the centre of her vision, right there again as he always was whenever these calls came. Six times now, in the twenty years of their marriage, and each time meant the beginning of another long period of the unbearable fusion of police and lawyers and court and suffering victims and pain and humiliation and his absences … She cut that off by picking up the phone.

  ‘Hello?’ She tried to control the shaking in her voice.

  ‘Is this Mrs Feeaou, Mrs Victoria Feeaou?’ The speaker struggled with their name.

  Her dread turned to suspicion, to guardedness, knowing automatically it was a policeman. ‘Yes,’ she answered slowly.

  ‘Do you have a son by the name of Farlee?’ The policeman mispronounced Fale’s name, too.

  She swung her legs out of bed and was on her feet, phone clutched to her ear with all her strength, as if she was shielding Fale, trying not to cry aloud. She nodded and nodded and said, ‘Yes, yes, yes, he’s my son! What’s happened to him?’

  ‘We have him here at Auckland Central,’ the voice said, ‘with a friend. They were involved in a fight –’

  ‘Is he all right?’ she interrupted, starting to undress. ‘Is he?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Feeaou, but one of his friends was killed –’

  ‘I’m coming down!’ She dropped the phone onto the stand, and dressed quickly, swallowing back her tears. Calm down, calm down, you have to save him. Like you’ve had to save his father all these years.

  She hurried into Fou’s room and woke her, and while a panicking Fou dressed, she used her mobile phone to ring her husband’s lawyer on his unlisted number – he wasn’t happy about being rung up at that hour – and tell him what had happened and that she was going to the police station. Again, the pattern of defence she’d learned and followed over the years was taking over.

  As Fou drove them down through the empty streets, she reached over and, holding Fou’s trembling arm, said, ‘Darling, we have to be calm and in control of our emotions, otherwise we won’t be able to help your brother.’ She paused and reached over and kissed her on the cheek. ‘We’re used to it after all these years. And your brother is used to it too.’

  Fou nodded once, knowing her mother was referring to her father and the life that had evolved to enable them to cope with him and his lifestyle. Now they had to save her beloved brother.

  Hour of the Wolf

  Often, after a confusing time of trying to analyse, understand and untangle your most demanding and immediate relationships, you may finally see them clearly, and that clarity usually allows you to believe you can sort your way through them or live ‘comfortably’ with them and not cause too much rancour or pain for those involved. That’s how you now feel about your relationships to Annette, your former wife, Earl, your eleven-year-old son, and Paula, your partner of seven months, the second one since Annette ended your marriage four years ago. Besides, you’ve never been one for ‘over-worrying and over-analysing’ relationships: you usually allow them to happen, evolve and develop according to circumstances.

  You can say that’s how Simon found himself married to Annette: it all began when her advertising firm hired him to make a series of television advertisements for a big poultry company, and, as the scriptwriter for the ads, she joined his team.

  He didn’t notice her at first: being of slight build, with short auburn hair, grey eyes and a soft voice, she kept a low profile, only breaking her reticence – that’s how he would come to describe it – when she needed to correct the direction of the filming. He and his crew also found her unattractive physically. After filming each day, Simon and most of his crew hit the Blue Tide, their favourite bar in Ponsonby. He was intrigued when some of the crew informed him Annette wasn’t joining in, so after shooting on Friday he deliberately invited her to join them. She looked relieved more than grateful at his invitation, and that intrigued him more. She wasn’t into drugs, she declared when they were seated at the bar. Surprised (cynical) silence, the crew looking at him. ‘So what are you into?’ he heard himself asking on their behalf. A slow, challenging smile, then, gazing mischievously at him, she said, ‘Oral sex, God and Obama!’ Unbelievable; ‘what the hell?’ was everyone’s reaction. She started laughing, deeply, from the pit of her belly, and when it reached her throat and then her mouth it was a shrill satirical declaration of accepting them as equals. He joined her laughter, and so did the others soon after.

  The next night he wasn’t surprised when she accompanied him to his apartment, where she refused his offer of drugs but accepted, with incredible enthusiasm, his offer of oral sex, during which, as she mounted towards her climax, she repeatedly evoked God’s and Obama’s names.

  Before Annette, only three women had lasted more than three weeks in sexual relationships with him. One of them had even lived with him for that period. Sometimes he even believed – but it never lasted – he was ‘in love’. He found his inability to forge lasting relationships with women ‘strange’ and ‘worrying’, because his parents had stayed together for fifty-five years and he believed their annual declarations that they were ‘in love’.

  After a few nights of leaving in the early hours of the morning, Annette shifted some toiletries and clothes into his apartment and stayed whole nights; by the time they finished the shooting, she’d shifted everything into his apartment and was selling her apartment with his encouragement; a month or so later, when her father asked when they were getting married, they decided ‘why not?’ and, with her parents’ financial encouragement, they had the white wedding (in St Mary’s Cathedral) that her mother insisted her beautiful daughter and only child had always wanted. Annette’s best friend, Wilma, a well-known chef, and her restaurant catered a reception for two hundred guests round the theme of ‘Kiwi fusion’, enjoying the most expensive New Zealand wines and Wilma’s fusion cooking of New Zealand lamb, seafood and produce.

  It is a balmy Saturday morning of bright sun and slow traffic as Simon drives past Mercy Hospital and then past the Governor General’s official residence into the heart of Epsom and Exeter Street, stopping in front of an impressive double-storied house with spacious gardens and grounds and an exuberant spread of indigenous trees. He and Annette had bought the property soon after they married: her wealthy lawyer parents had paid the hefty deposit and they’d gone into an even heftier mortgage unconcerned about it because, at that time, he was making lots of money producing lucrative television commercials and documentaries, and Annette was earning heaps as an advertising executive. Besides, like all their friends in the advertising/film/entertainment business, their credit seemed limitless in a booming share market.

  He gets out of his car, noting that the grounds and gardens need attention, badly. Nothing to do with him now; Annette had bought his half of the property in their marital settlement. He’s never liked gardening, and while they were together they were both busy with their careers, so they’d hired a gardening firm to tend the gardens once a month.

  Before he can press the buzzer, he hears Earl running towards the front door. After months of a bitter custody battle, he’d reluctantly agreed to his having Earl the last weekend of every month. Why he’d fought for custody he didn’t understand because he’s never felt that close to his son – to him children aren’t that interesting and take up too much of your time and energy. However, over Earl’s subsequent stays with him, he’s grown protectively fond of him; uncanny how he observes so much of himself in his son, not only physically but in his mannerisms, and he likes that: good for his ego and their bonding.

  ‘Hi, Dad!’ the red-haired teenage boy says, awkwardly, avoiding his eyes. ‘I’m ready!’ Earl is dressed in his favourite Breakers cap, dark blue and white Adidas track suit and Puma sports shoes, and is carrying on his back his red rucksack that is bulging with what Simon knows are his sci-fi fantasy books and electronic games. Under his arm is his Dolphin Racer skateboard. Simon has bought all those for him.

  Annette is down at the end of the corridor. Dishevelled, pale and utterly distant in her red silk bathrobe, she nods once. He waves to her. Out of the kitchen door steps Robert, Annette’s partner, who, in the heady young days when they were establishing themselves, was one of Simon’s best friends. Simon raises his arm and nods. Now it feels so unreal that he was once married to her – and for seven years. Even more incredibly, she is with Robert, who they all considered a ‘loser’ unable to hold down a job for long because of his drug habit. ‘C’mon, Dad, let’s go!’ Earl urges. ‘See ya, Mum,’ Earl calls over his shoulder.

  As they drive away from the house, into the brightening day and the thickening traffic, Earl declares, ‘Robert’s a fucking dope-head!’ Startled by his son’s directness, Simon fumbles for an answer as he gazes straight ahead. ‘He’s a dickhead!’ Earl attacks him again. Simon continues fumbling. ‘And now she’s doing it too, Dad!’

  ‘Lots of adults do that, you know that,’ he tries to counter.

  ‘I know that, but when you and Mum were together, she never touched any drugs except alcohol,’ Earl reminds him. ‘And they’re having lots of rows – and she bashes him.’ Simon doesn’t want to hear any more but Earl continues, ‘Last week, I had to ring Granddad and he rushed over and stopped them …’

  ‘Sorry, son …’

  ‘I want to come and live with you.’ And there it is: the demand Simon’s been dreading ever since he and Paula started living together. ‘Can I, Dad?’ Though Earl isn’t looking at him, the penetrating intensity of his demand is inescapable.

  ‘I’ll have to discuss it with Paula.’ He hears his evasion. ‘Besides, your mother may not agree to it. Legally she …’

  ‘Fuck her!’ Earl snaps, hugging himself and turning his back to him.

  ‘You shouldn’t talk like that about your mother!’

  Paula is ready and is dressed in her usual summer wear – brightly coloured aloha shirt, black jeans, and sandals – when they reach the house, Earl webbed in sullen silence and Simon desperately hoping for understanding from Paula, who is much younger than him and who he’d hired as the sound recordist for a BBC-commissioned documentary he was making, and who is now totally meshed into his ‘sinews, heart and desire’; so he described it to his friends a few days before. ‘What’s the bloody problem?’ she asks Simon when she slides into the back seat, behind Earl. No reply. She reaches over the seat and, caressing Earl’s hair, says, ’Hey, how are ya, man?’ He winces away from her hand.

  ‘He wants to come and live with us,’ Simon hears his trembling voice pleading.

  ‘So, what’s wrong with that?’ Her statement is so unexpected Simon can’t believe it for a moment. ‘Is that what you want, Earl?’ she asks, thrusting her face over the car seat. Earl squirms away. ‘If you want to come and live with us, then you have to leave all your shitty behaviour with your mother, man! Right?’ Again, Simon can’t believe she can be so frank, and expects Earl to react angrily. ‘Right?’ she demands in the boy’s ear. Earl nods once. ‘Good, man,’ she says. The tension in the car deflates immediately, and Simon is joyously relieved – and surprised, because over the past five months, since they met, Paula and Earl have been moving around each other as if they are treading on eggshells, Paula trying not to interfere with Simon’s and Earl’s relationship and the boy communicating with her only through his father. Is she now trying another strategy?