It was 10:46am when Matt pulled the car over to the side of the road in what had to be the prettiest little area in Auckland. Devonport was laden with beautiful wooden-clad villas and seemed to carry with it some history. Matt couldn’t help but notice the small naval base as he came past the wharfs, but this part of the village, tucked around the side of a volcano and away from the main street and noise was lovely. It struck Matt that his father at least had some taste. But leaving his mother and him, well, that just wasn’t on. She had never talked about it, except to ensure Matt his father had abandoned them. She never told him his father’s name, he had to learn that one from his Grandmother during her last days. It was her that begged Matt to find his father. And now, here he was. He decided during the drive that he would be open and listen to the excuses he was expecting to hear, but he was also determined to be steadfast in his conviction that his father had done them wrong.
Locating the correct house number on the wooden letterbox out the front, Matt pulled up the car on the kerbside. As he did so, he noticed a black car parking on the road not more than one hundred metres behind him. Matt released his seat-belt and eased himself out of the car, turning to look at the black car as he did. Yep, it was a Corolla. And bold as brass, in the driver’s seat sat the same man that Matt had seen on the airport road. The cheeky bugger was smiling at him! The fact that he was so clearly not trying to hide himself made Matt nervous. In all the films and books, if the bad guy lets you see him, it was because it didn’t matter. He was going to kill you anyway. Oh, don’t be silly Matt. He’s a government agent interested in protecting the cultural identity of their country. Not a killer. Matt smiled back. He even surprised himself by raising his hand slightly in a sort of half-wave. He quickly took it down again though, not wanting to provoke that killing instinct.
Putting thoughts of his chaperone as far to the side as possible, Matt made his way up the path to the front door of the house with a mixture of nerves and determination. It was one of the nicer looking villas. His father had done well for himself. He lifted his shaking hand to the doorbell, rang it, took a step back, and waited.
Hemi laughed to himself as he watched Matt waiting at the door of the house he had stopped at. You think you’re pretty clever, don’t you Dr. Cameron? We’ll see about wiping that bloody smile off your face.
The door was answered by a woman. No one Hemi knew. He needed to find out who she was. He waited until Matt had entered the house and started the car. Driving at a snail’s pace past the letterbox, he noted the house number. At the end of the street, he looked up at the white sign and confirmed the name. Armed with just these details, Hemi dialled Leigh’s number.
Hemi was impressed with her speed in answering.
‘Is that you Hemi?’ Leigh asked.
‘Yeah. Nothing escapes you, does it?’
‘What can I do you for, gorgeous?’
‘Got an address I want you to run.’
‘Fire away.’
Hemi gave the details he had and waited as he listened to typing in the background. It only took a few seconds.
‘The resident would be one Nadine Robertson. House ownership is under the name Andy Robertson though. Maybe the husband. Gimme a sec.’
‘Take your time,’ Hemi said, as he scrawled down the two names.
‘Ah, not the husband. It’s the father.’
‘Thanks Leigh. Could you put together a file on them and get it across to me ASAP?’
‘I’ll get it done this arvo.’
Hemi disconnected the call and turned the car around. Driving back past the house, he glanced briefly at the front windows. Who are you? He put the car into second gear and sped away. He had some more research to do.
Matt stood, glued to the doorstep, transfixed by the young woman looking back at him. She was beautiful. So familiar. It was a strange feeling.
‘Ah, excuse me?’ She interrupted his thoughts.
‘S… sorry.’ Matt stammered for the first time he could recall and realising that he had ignored her when she opened the door, he added, ‘I was expecting somebody else.’
‘Oh.’ She looked almost deflated. ‘Maybe I can point you in the right direction?’
Matt was unsure if it was worth taking this any further. Oh, what the hell. ‘I’m looking for Andy Robertson.’ Matt rushed the words out. ‘This was the last known address that I found for him.’
‘Andy Robertson?’ She looked concerned. ‘What do you need him for?’
‘He’s my father, I’ve come to find my father.’
The woman trembled and steadied herself by grabbing the door frame.
‘Matthew?’
Matt was stunned. Who was this woman? How did she know his name?
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t believe it. All these years.’ The shock on her face eased into a calm smile. ‘I’m Nadine, your half-sister. You’d better come in.’
All of a sudden the familiarity registered with Matt. Her deep brown eyes, the broad nose, the dimples that formed with her smile. It was like a feminine reflection in the mirror. Matt followed her into the house in a state of absolute shock. He had a sister. Matthew Peter Cameron had a sister. You might as well have just presented him with a million pounds, he was so stunned.
‘How old are you?’ Matt asked, realising too late that this wasn’t the time or place.
‘I’m thirty-two, a couple years younger than you.’
Someone just handed Matt another million pounds. He sat down on a chair at the dining table without asking. If he hadn’t he might have fallen over.
‘But that means…’ Matt wasn’t sure he wanted to think about what it meant.
‘We have a lot to catch up on. I can tell from your reaction that you knew nothing about me, but I’ve heard about you my whole life. Have you got time for a coffee?’
She spoke Matt’s language. Not a tea drinker. ‘I’ve got all day.’
‘Good. I’ll tell you everything I know before I take you to meet Dad. That will make things easier for everyone.’
‘He’s alive?’ Matt stood up. ‘I’d just assumed…’
‘Yes,’ Nadine said, pushing him gently back into the seat with her trembling hand. ‘But he’s not the man he used to be and he’s probably not the man you expect him to be either.’
‘What do you mean?’ Matt asked. He felt transparent.
‘If you don’t know about me, chances are you don’t know anything about your father, right?’
‘Of course I know nothing about him, he walked out on us when I was a four.’
‘He didn’t walk out.’ Nadine corrected him like a disappointed school-teacher. ‘He was pushed.’
The emotions swirling around in Matt’s head overwhelmed him. What did she mean he was pushed? His mother had told him for years that his father had walked out. Just not returned from one of his trips to New Zealand. It couldn’t really be any other way, could it? He blurted out his story a little uncontrolled. ‘He went to visit his parents. Every year. When I was four, he didn’t come back.’ Fighting back tears now. He didn’t know how to confront this. At the same time, he didn’t want to appear weak.
‘Dad isn’t perfect,’ Nadine said, handing Matt a box of tissues, to which he nodded without taking one. ‘He loved Grandma and Granddad though, and he came to visit them every year. On his second visit, he met my mother and-’ she paused ‘-he fell in love for a second time. They had a holiday affair. The last thing your father expected a few months later was a letter telling him Mum was pregnant.’
The thought of his father cheating on his mother didn’t make things any better for Matt. Even worse, the thought of his father choosing his New Zealand family over him and his mother made him angrier than ever.
‘How does your telling me this make my father look any better? Not only did he walk out on us, he cheated on my mother and chose you over us!’
‘He didn’t choose us!’ Nadine cried, as she sat down at the table. ‘He chose you. He did what was right and stayed put in the UK. He visited us the year I was born, when he visited his parents, but he went home to your mother. The next year, before he came out to New Zealand, he felt so guilty about what he was doing that he told your mother what had happened. She told him to go and never come back. She decided you’d be better off without him.’
Matt sat perplexed. If what Nadine said was true, his mother had lied to him. Could his mother really be capable of maintaining her story that his father had left them for thirty years?
‘He never contacted me. He never wrote a letter. Not even a birthday card.’
‘Yes he did. He tried for years. At first he just got the letters and cards back. You mother returned them unopened with a note refusing receipt. We still have them all somewhere, you wanna see them?’
‘That’s not necessary.’ Matt didn’t really want to have tangible evidence of his mother’s deceit. It was bad enough thinking about it. He calmed down a little ‘Why did he stop trying?’
‘He never stopped trying. But your mother moved and stopped using the name Robertson. Your address wasn’t published and Dad had no clue where you were. He sent letters to your Gran but she wouldn’t say either. She took money from him though. He set up a trust fund for your education.’
‘He what?’
‘Did your grandmother pay for your schooling?’
‘Yes,’ Matt said. ‘All except my bachelor degree.’ He sat thinking about the implication of this knowledge. This changed everything. He had always assumed his Gran got the education money from Warren, but now he realised his father had tried to do the right thing.
‘And then he couldn’t even try to contact you again. His stroke saw to that.’
Matt sat bolt upright. ‘A stroke! How bad is it? Can he walk and talk?’
‘It was a right-hemisphere stroke. He’s alert and coherent but he has trouble walking and doing things as simple as tying his shoes. You also sometimes have to repeat yourself to him or tell him what he did yesterday. His short-term memory is shot, but he can remember everything from his past better than I can. He remembers you and will be so happy to see you. You’ll still get a chance to get to know your father, our dad. We can go and visit him in the care-home on Sunday if you’d like.’
Matt hesitated, only briefly. ‘Yes, I’d like that. The least I can do is give him a chance.’
‘Brilliant,’ Nadine said, pouring Matt a refill and smiling widely, ‘in the mean time, I’d love to finally get to know my brother.’
Matt grabbed a delicious looking chocolate biscuit from the tin Nadine had placed in the middle of the table. Comfort food. He leaned back into his chair, and wrapped his hand around the warm coffee mug.
‘Well, you can start by calling me Matt.’
Matt sat in the car looking across to the city from the top of Mount Victoria. The peaceful vista helped to slow down his rapid heartbeat. Still, five minutes after leaving Nadine’s house, his breathing and pulse hadn’t returned to normal. It was as if he had just run up the volcano, rather than come by car. The city glistened in the sunlight. The water in the boat-filled harbour was calm and green. The car windows were down and the fresh air that greeted his nostrils had a calming effect. A stroll was in order. Noticing the group of drinking youths nearby, Matt tried to remove the GPS from the window. They looked harmless enough, but this was Warren’s car. Better safe than sorry and all that. His efforts were fruitless. All Matt succeeded in doing was putting a big scratch on the device’s metal frame, beside the power button.
Sorry Warren, I was trying to help. He left the GPS where it was, stepped out of the car and carefully locked it.
Matt walked by a large Disappearing-Cannon, submerged in a concrete bunker beside the car-park. Red and white concrete mushrooms filled the small field behind it. They looked like an odd art installation, but Matt realised these could be the air vents of an underground bunker. It was the first time he had considered the preparations New Zealand must have made for threats like the Russians in the late 19th century, or the world wars in the last one. Amazing, the distances that war travels. It creates divides and crosses them too. He walked further across the hillside, passing by a harbour signal station, and eventually came to the edge of the volcano. He sat down on the roof of a concrete gunning bunker. As he gazed out at Rangitoto, the island that Warren had told him about, he compared the dormant volcano to the dormant relationship he had with his father. Who knew when either could spring back to life? His pocket started to vibrate and ring.
Matt jumped a little, the ringing phone having rudely interrupted his daydreams, and pulled the vibrating monster from his pocket. A quick glance at the screen told him that it wasn’t Warren or Julia. Is that Aimee’s number? It was someone in New Zealand. He could tell from the +64 that showed up on the display. He answered hesitantly.
‘Matthew Cameron.’
‘Hi Matt.’ There was a brief pause as if she was waiting for him to guess. ‘It’s Aimee.’
‘Oh… hi Aimee.’ Matt sat up and brushed the sand off his pants.
‘I thought I should give you a call to make sure you don’t forget me when you’re famous,’ Aimee said, laughing.
‘Pardon?’
‘You seem to be a bit of the talk in the town right now.’
‘What? I am? How so?’
‘Well, the kind of people who are interested in proving that the Celts were here before the Maori are definitely talking about you. It seems like word has got out that you and your friend have found some sort of Celtic site that has been taken over by the DCI. The conspiracists are running wild.’
‘I hope we aren’t causing any trouble.’
‘Not at all. I think everyone’s enjoying the situation. The conspiracists for obvious reasons. And the DCI are, of course, always interested in any advancement we can make to New Zealand history.’
Matt smiled. He didn’t really believe the DCI were interested in advancements at all anymore. Only cover-ups. ‘We?’ Matt asked.
‘We, you know, New Zealand.’
‘Ah right, of course, but I don’t know how much of an impact our finding these two coins will make,’ Matt said, attempting to plant Warren’s story firmly with Aimee.
‘Is it only two coins?’ she asked, sounding a little disappointed. ‘With all the work in the rumour-mill, I thought it might be more than that. Perhaps I could help out. I’d love to get away from my study, it’s so boring always doing the same thing. If you like, I could look into your find for you. Anything I can do to help is good with me.’
Matt though about her offer for a minute. On the one hand, he was slightly unsure of why she was so eager to help. Warren telling him to trust no one played over in his head. Until now, he had only discussed the true nature of his trip with Julia. On the other hand, Aimee seemed like a nice girl and Matt wanted the opportunity to get to know her better. Besides, her input and unbiased opinion would be a welcome addition. ‘Tell you what,’ he said, ‘why don’t we meet up on Saturday? You could show me about a bit and then I’ll buy you lunch to say thanks.’
‘Sounds great to me.’
Matthew made arrangements to meet Aimee in front of the Britomart station at ten on Saturday morning and ended the call. As he sat on his army bunker, he watched yachts and ferries travelling to and from the city’s wharfs. His thoughts mirrored their organised chaos. Despite being nervous about meeting his father on Sunday, Matt looked forward to the weekend.