mowers. Jung Ha got the kids in the car, telling them off in her good-natured, hectoring way, and they drove away to school.
Roza walked along the path towards the pool. It was a bright,hard day with a blue sky, so clear that the creeper on the garden wall shone with points of light. She looked up at the house. She and David had bought three sections and demolished the old weatherboard bungalows on them. The Hallwright house, surrounded by high, creeper-covered walls, faced onto the street and had a view over the suburb to the sea from the back. It was a square, solid concrete mansion, with a grand front door, landscaped gardens, a large swimming pool and several outbuildings. It was only four years old and still had a raw quality. The architect had aimed for something grand and imposing, but its brash newness gave it a slightly fake, arid appearance. There were patches of bare wall where the creeper hadn’t yet taken and parts of the garden that were still being landscaped, and looked sparse and barren.
They had hired an interior designer, since neither Roza nor David had much interest in choosing furniture, and the result was luxurious, but impersonal. Roza loved the house, its colour-co-ordinated interior, its vast, light spaces. It was a barrier against everything that had happened before she met David. It was her security, her retreat, and its ostentation affirmed to her that she was safe, rich and respectable. She was indulgent about its crass aspects, because these seemed refreshingly innocent. She was done with jaded things.
David just thought the house was classy. He was enormously proud of it. It was proof that he had reached the highest pinnacle — he had landed, in his own estimation, at the top. And its grandness and newness, its lack of history represented something, Roza thought, an idea, mostly unspoken, that she and David shared: that they had both made good, had arrived here, after trials and troubles in their former lives.
Since David had been elected leader of the National Party the mansion had become a fortress. Security cameras monitored allpoints of the grounds, gates and driveways; panic buttons had been installed inside, and a private security firm was always on call.
David worked in Wellington for much of the week, and Roza lived here with her stepchildren, Jung Ha, the cat and the dog. She went to her publishing job each day, finishing at four so as to be there for the children after school. David came home at weekends and on some nights during the week. Life had gone on peacefully like this for four years.
But soon, David would most likely win the election and Roza Hallwright would be the prime minister’s wife. Everyone said her life would be utterly changed. And yet, she privately wondered, did it have to change? Couldn’t it go on just as it had before? David would be away more often, she would have to go with him on overseas trips, but there were no plans for them to move into the residence in Wellington. She didn’t see why she couldn’t try to have the same life she’d been leading.
She stood in the courtyard, looking at the pool. There were insects floating on the surface, reminding her of last night’s dream, which would have been triggered, she knew, by her encounter with Simon Lampton. There’d been that suggestion of the past in the dream: the blurred vision of the old priest, Father Tapper. The danger of secrets.
She remembered last Saturday: she and David had been lying here in deckchairs in the late afternoon sun.
She’d told him, ‘I don’t want to move from here.’
‘You don’t like change,’ he’d said.
She had leaned back and stared up at the patterns made by the branches. ‘Change isn’t good for me.’
‘It’s all right. I want you here. This is where you belong. With the family. In the bunker.’
‘Am I just the nanny?’
He’d caught hold of her hand. ‘Don’t say that. Jung Ha’s thenanny. You I can’t live without. You know
Roza walked along the path towards the pool. It was a bright,hard day with a blue sky, so clear that the creeper on the garden wall shone with points of light. She looked up at the house. She and David had bought three sections and demolished the old weatherboard bungalows on them. The Hallwright house, surrounded by high, creeper-covered walls, faced onto the street and had a view over the suburb to the sea from the back. It was a square, solid concrete mansion, with a grand front door, landscaped gardens, a large swimming pool and several outbuildings. It was only four years old and still had a raw quality. The architect had aimed for something grand and imposing, but its brash newness gave it a slightly fake, arid appearance. There were patches of bare wall where the creeper hadn’t yet taken and parts of the garden that were still being landscaped, and looked sparse and barren.
They had hired an interior designer, since neither Roza nor David had much interest in choosing furniture, and the result was luxurious, but impersonal. Roza loved the house, its colour-co-ordinated interior, its vast, light spaces. It was a barrier against everything that had happened before she met David. It was her security, her retreat, and its ostentation affirmed to her that she was safe, rich and respectable. She was indulgent about its crass aspects, because these seemed refreshingly innocent. She was done with jaded things.
David just thought the house was classy. He was enormously proud of it. It was proof that he had reached the highest pinnacle — he had landed, in his own estimation, at the top. And its grandness and newness, its lack of history represented something, Roza thought, an idea, mostly unspoken, that she and David shared: that they had both made good, had arrived here, after trials and troubles in their former lives.
Since David had been elected leader of the National Party the mansion had become a fortress. Security cameras monitored allpoints of the grounds, gates and driveways; panic buttons had been installed inside, and a private security firm was always on call.
David worked in Wellington for much of the week, and Roza lived here with her stepchildren, Jung Ha, the cat and the dog. She went to her publishing job each day, finishing at four so as to be there for the children after school. David came home at weekends and on some nights during the week. Life had gone on peacefully like this for four years.
But soon, David would most likely win the election and Roza Hallwright would be the prime minister’s wife. Everyone said her life would be utterly changed. And yet, she privately wondered, did it have to change? Couldn’t it go on just as it had before? David would be away more often, she would have to go with him on overseas trips, but there were no plans for them to move into the residence in Wellington. She didn’t see why she couldn’t try to have the same life she’d been leading.
She stood in the courtyard, looking at the pool. There were insects floating on the surface, reminding her of last night’s dream, which would have been triggered, she knew, by her encounter with Simon Lampton. There’d been that suggestion of the past in the dream: the blurred vision of the old priest, Father Tapper. The danger of secrets.
She remembered last Saturday: she and David had been lying here in deckchairs in the late afternoon sun.
She’d told him, ‘I don’t want to move from here.’
‘You don’t like change,’ he’d said.
She had leaned back and stared up at the patterns made by the branches. ‘Change isn’t good for me.’
‘It’s all right. I want you here. This is where you belong. With the family. In the bunker.’
‘Am I just the nanny?’
He’d caught hold of her hand. ‘Don’t say that. Jung Ha’s thenanny. You I can’t live without. You know
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