Free Drybread: A Novel by Owen Marshall Page B

Family
Law Act and what difference it's going to make in your
Maine-King case.'
    'Not a hell of a lot, I imagine. I ploughed through
some of it and then gave up. Zack Heywood says the main
changes are procedural, making the sittings more open to
other parties, that sort of stuff.'
    'Heywood's shit hot I'm told.'
    'One quite important thing is that the court's been
given greater powers to enforce its orders. Maybe that's
going to make it more difficult for Penny.'
    'I'll have extra steamed rice and some of that sweet
and sour,' Nicholas told the waitress. He enjoyed his food.
'Heywood acted for the council when that building assents
guy took a personal grievance case for wrongful dismissal.'
You could categorise Nicholas as crass and lacking concern
for others, but you'd be wrong. His often disconcerting
directness was not an entirely true representation. He
vacuumed up information, and recalled it, with impressive
ease. He took nothing at face value. As they went on to talk
more about family law and Zack, Theo knew that long after
the conversation Nicholas would retain the useful bones
of it. 'Two years ago I interviewed one of the founders
of that group set up by men who considered they were
discriminated against by the Family Court,' said Nicholas.
'He was an angry, disappointed guy all right. Does the new
law address that issue?'
    'I'm not sure.'
    'Like Dr Johnson he wasn't a fastidious man about his
linen. The inside of his shirt collar had a ring of grime like
candle smudge.'
    'Who's this?'
    'The leader of the discriminated men I interviewed.
I've just been talking about him. This stuff I'm doing at
the moment about the origin of party funds. It's not a
very interesting story. I have a feeling there's something
more significant going on in our relations with the States.
There's been undisclosed meetings right up to ministerial
level. I'm going to ask to go to Wellington for a few days,
and poke around. If we weren't run by useless tight-arses
I'd go to Washington.'
    'Won't it just be the old nuclear-free waltz again?' Theo
asked.
    'Nah, a fresh scent on the breeze, I think,' said
Nicholas.
    The evening with Nicholas, his projects and opinions,
made Theo realise how preoccupied he'd become with
Penny and her circumstances: how closely focused on the
connection between their lives. Even the small woman
at the next table was a reminder that everyone has a life
going on, though it seems only shadow play to others. He
was half aware of her conversation with her nodding and
acquiescent female companion, even as he and Nicholas
talked and ate.
    She was a dumpy woman, full of unnecessary movement
like a clucky hen. She had recently lost a husband named
Bruce, and expressed bitterness at his desertion. 'He
didn't put his affairs in order,' she said. 'Not at all, despite
the diagnosis. He left everything to me. I mean he left
everything for me to do, as well as everything to me. He
never could make decisions.' Her friend nodded over a
plate of noodles and cauliflower stalks.
    Nicholas interrupted himself on diplomatic chicanery
to lean closer to Theo. 'What ever order his affairs were
in, I'd say, by the look of her, that each one was both a
necessity and a blessing.'
    'People don't realise the pressures of being a carer at
the end,' she said. 'Bruce became a sad child, and petulant
too. People have no conception, no idea until it happens
to them. And they have a misplaced sympathy, don't you
think?' Nod, nod was the response at her table, a grimace
from Nicholas was the acknowledgement at his.
    Theo glanced at his watch. It would be night at last in the
Drybread gully. There would be no strong lights in any of
the three huts, but if there was a moon the serrations of the
Dunstan tops would perhaps be clear on the skyline. The
wind would stream down the small valleys, and the rabbits
would appear in silence like target pop-ups on a fairground
range. Ben would be asleep, and Penny too perhaps, or she
might be sitting by herself with