MINISTERIO PÚBLICO FISCAL DE LA CIUDAD AUTÓNOMA DE BUENOS AIRES FISCALÍA GENERAL

The first couple of weeks passed with the three of us doing nothing more than readjusting to our old lifestyle and soaking up the support offered by friends. Although we were all anxious to visit Richard’s and my families, who lived a few hours’ drive away, Zachary and Rebecca were keen to ease themselves back into the more relaxed New Zealand lifestyle. This they did with very little effort, announcing that they were never going to leave. I had no time to process this information since I was too busy transporting them, taking a summer course at my old university, attending to Rebecca’s orthodontic work and helping Zachary practise driving on a tractor.

Early in the piece I had a call from Annie. It wasn’t an easy call – stiff and formal – but she apologised for being at Richard’s workplace and said that it wouldn’t happen again. I accepted her apology and we made polite conversation about the children, about Phil’s job opportunities, but with much of what we had to say a strain. The call ended with me making a loose arrangement to drop in at a waterside café on the North Shore and look at some art that she had on display. It was progress, and I decided to share it with Richard on the daily call.

I had been trying to stay in touch with Richard daily since leaving Sydney but he was increasingly difficult to get hold of. I tried to phone him before work, since he seemed refreshed by sleep. This was something that he was beginning to

recognise, and when I had missed him in the mornings and he was at work, he would get exasperated with his lack of concentration and ask me to phone him back early the next day, when he was less tired. I filed it mentally under ‘new Richard’ and created a shimmering colour gold for his times of self-recognition.

But making contact with a self-aware Richard was not the only incentive that I had to try to catch him at home. If I did have to ring the office I had to partake in chitchat along the way with the receptionist who, without having met me, always recognised my voice.

‘Is that you, Jane?’ she would ask and then leave me hanging endlessly after my identity was confirmed.

I found this difficult – I wondered what she was doing and why it took so long. In my deluded self-importance I imagined that, having established that Jane was Richard’s long-standing wife and partner, she would rush me through the system. But it wasn’t to be. Typically, after the long wait, and knowing that Richard was not available, she would then put me through to Monica, after announcing robotically that this was ‘Jane calling from New Zealand for Richard’.

When it came to efficiency Monica was in a category of her own. If there was a file on me anywhere in the office, Monica would have compiled it. She was a reservoir of information, from the murky pools of gossip to the sediments of company policy. She had a strident voice and a brittleness that made her unsuited for the task of answering for Richard, whose voice I had once described as rich and mellow.

‘Oh, Jane,’ she would say with the air of someone in the ‘in’ crowd. ‘I’m sorry but maybe you forgot, Richard’s out with those gentlemen from COZAC. He’s on a really tight schedule at this time of the month and as well as that it’s Tuesday. No possible chance of getting hold of him today.’

I had not forgotten for, as she already knew, one has to have the knowledge in order to forget, and I had no idea what COZAC was. I had long given up on acronyms, despite the fact that they were bandied around by everyone in the company in a jargon that rendered conversation useless. So I didn’t know who the gentlemen were, either. And what was it with Tuesday? I went to university on a Tuesday and left my mobile on. It rang frequently. Last Tuesday Zach crashed the tractor and the Tuesday before, Rebecca had developed food poisoning from a

‘Just tell him I phoned and that I’ll call him tonight.’

‘Certainly,’ she replied. ‘I will pop into his office or pass it on when he phones in.’

Popping in was an obvious winner and with a few thousand kilometres between us she had presented me with her green card, which gave her

unquestionable access and the ability to stay. In response, all l had to offer was a losing hand – my refugee status with its continual assessments and zero chance of being let in.

I hung up relieved that even though I hadn’t been able to get Richard, the game with Monica was over for the day. I stood staring at the phone, musing on her mode of operation and her attitude to male power.

Even though we had begun phoning each other again, I was still struggling with the tension in my relationship with Annie, but when I tried to make sense of Monica’s behaviour and translate it into concrete terms, she seemed to be indicating that to be chosen by a man in the corporation, in whatever capacity, conferred privileges on her as a woman that she could not earn by herself. Unfortunately she viewed these privileges as something that pitted us against each other. It was another sorry state of affairs, not only because of the wasted opportunity to be mutually supportive, but because I was not interested in the procurement of this deferred power. I was not interested in the type of job that existed as a symbol of success in men’s competition with each other, nor the mediating role and social lubrication that such a job required.

I was still pondering the subject, and whether I could use it as an opener to improve my situation with Annie, when the phone rang again.

‘Mum!’ I enjoyed the new intimacy that my mother and I seemed to be

forging as adults and delighted in the novelty of having her so close by. But she was quiet and unresponsive and I knew that something was wrong.

She finally spoke. ‘It’s your grandfather. He died of a heart attack this morning. He was lifting the lawnmower into the boot of the car.’

I struggled to take the words in. My grandfather was dead; not a tragedy, but a predictable life event. He was an old man. Yet his dying came as a shock and regret grabbed me. He had been like a father to me, but I had yet to drive down to see him and had only spoken to him by phone. I needed some time for the news to sink in. ‘Why was he lifting the lawnmower into the car?’

‘He was going to mow the lawns of one of his neighbours.’ My mother spoke in the calm, flat voice of one who has broken such news before. ‘Mrs Morrison, in number forty-three. Her husband walked out on her last year and Grandad didn’t want her to be out there mowing. She’s only middle-aged, but he thought that she was too old to do that kind of thing.’

She gave a sad little laugh at a value system that was disappearing; at the chivalry of a man who not only mowed women’s lawns but insisted on tipping his hat and opening doors as well.

Overwhelmed, I searched for something to say. ‘He called me “treasure” and his face lit up when he saw me.’

‘I know, Jane,’ my mother sympathised. ‘He cared for you a great deal.’ Her compassion jolted me. After all, this was her father and she needed my support.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes, I’m doing okay. It’s Nanna that I’m worried about. She’s lost a partner of over sixty years.’

I shuddered at the implications. The longevity and familiarity of Richard’s and my relationship already felt like a blood tie. I immediately wanted to touch him, to reassure myself of his presence in the world, to take him away from the turbulent world in which he was now engulfed and keep him physically close. Instead, I made an effort to focus back on Nanna.

How could anyone comfort my dear Nanna? She had been rescued from a housekeeping job by my grandfather, married him at seventeen and he had

protected her ever since. She didn’t drive, she had never written out a cheque and she still resisted decimal currency. Yet she had raised her children during the long years of the Depression, all the while nourishing my grandfather’s spirit.

At least they had made it to their sixtieth anniversary. I had bought them silver goblets with their names engraved on each. We had wanted to take them to a restaurant but my grandmother had discovered the new chicken that was cooked in herbs and spices and could be taken away. She had requested that we eat it at home. Hardworking people with simple tastes. The meal had turned into a family party and my grandfather had sung old Scottish songs, his faded blue eyes misting over as he sat on the couch with his arm around my grandmother.

‘I’ll be right down.’