He said, 'You're much more interesting.'

She looked up. 'Are you using your cop training on me? Some incredibly subtle technique?'

'What you mean?'

'Well, I feel I might just dissolve and confess things to you. I've already told you I have a weird paranoia about being followed.'

He said seriously, 'Roza. As a cop, an ex-cop, I can tell you this: don't confess anything to anyone. I'm a stranger. How do you know you can trust me? You got to protect yourself.'

'Should I not trust you?'

'No. I don't mean that. You can, actually. I'm only saying, you got to be careful in life. And in your position, don't get free with any confessing.'

She sighed. 'I've got to be careful.'

'I should know. Bitter experience. People twist things. People pretend you can trust them and then, bang.'

'Ray? Did you ever do anything wrong? Were any of the accusations true?'

'No. I thought you'd accepted that if you're helping with my book.'

'Hmm. I do really. I do. But Ray?'

'Yeah.'

'This conversation has made me so paranoid that I don't know how I'm going to get up and walk out of the park.'

'I used to go out the back way around home, when they were all after me. Over the neighbours' fence, down through the gardens. Park in the next street.' He gave her a considering look. He said, 'Probably those geese. They're not real. They're surveillance geese.'

Roza laughed out loud, then covered her mouth with her hand.

He added, 'The CIA trained a surveillance cat once. They had it wired and miked. Its tail was the antenna. They let it go in a park to spy on someone, and it ran straight onto the road and got squashed by a car.'

'No!'

'It's true. Look it up. It cost them millions.'

Ray's wife had got up and wandered across the park. Now she came close, tossing her coffee cup in the bin. 'You nearly finished, Ray? I need to get to work.'

Roza said, smiling, 'We're finished.'

They went to the car. Sharon Marden took the ma.n.u.script, shook Roza's hand and drove away. Ray stared bleakly after her.

'Where are you going now?' Roza asked.

'I went to the gym earlier. Now I'm going to run home.' He picked up a piece of gravel and tossed it against a tree. 'I can't get used to being unemployed.'

'Can't you get a new job, a different one?'

'With my baggage. It's not easy.'

Roza said, 'Anyway, I'd better go.' She added with an artificial laugh, 'By the way, all that about being followed. I hope you don't think I'm mad. I was only joking.'

He looked at her. 'I don't think you were joking. If you've got some reason to worry, just be careful.'

'What reason would I have?'

'How should I know? I don't know your secrets.'

'I don't have any secrets!'

'No. Okay.'

She added, 'Except that n.o.body knows I've met you. You could keep that quiet for me, because it's delicate at work, and then there's the election, which makes things ...'

'Yeah. Does your husband know you've met me?'

'No. Okay? No.'

'I understand.'

'You can ring me at work if you want to. Say it's Bruce calling. Ron. Whatever.'

He said, 'More important, stay away from unusual things.'

'What do you mean, unusual things?' She stared at him with her charged eyes. He rubbed his hand over his face, laughed lightly and said, 'I don't know. Anything compromising. Drugs ...'

She drew back. 'Drugs? What are you talking about?'

He put up his hands. 'Nothing.'

She said, 'How can you say such a thing? What an amazing thing to say.' She dug her keys into the palm of her hand. 'I suppose I shouldn't have come here.'

'Look Roza, I'm grateful. I'm only ... wishing you well.'

'Why would you even say such a thing?'

'No reason. It's the only thing I could think of you should stay away from. I could have added, I dunno, shoplifting. I just meant, go well. Take care.'

She smiled, but her eyes were troubled, dangerous. 'Good luck with your book.' She walked away.

'Goodbye Roza,' he said thoughtfully.

He picked up another piece of gravel and weighed it in his hand. Roza Hallwright. Well, well. Mrs Roza Hallwright.

He skimmed the gravel at a tree, then leaned his palms against the trunk, doing a few stretches. He turned it over in his mind. The way she'd reared up at his warning. Her sudden anger. Those searchlight eyes, the feverish, intelligent face. She looked like a woman on the brink of something. And her reaction to the hint he'd thrown out. Interesting. You pick their possible weak spot, you give it a try. He'd hit it. You say 'drugs' she practically has a nervous breakdown. Well. Rich jet-set type. Wife of a bigwig. Wife of the. She was probably addicted to valium. But there was something in her eyes, what was that look? As if she was seeing more than what was in front of them, or reacting to more than ordinary data. Like you were seeing a parallel universe reflected, right there in her eyes.

He would run home now and look through the ma.n.u.script, which Sharon would have dropped off on her way to work. He stretched, feeling the burn deep in his muscles. He started to run slowly, warming up.

Exercise was his drug. It was the only way he'd got through the tough times. Running to the gym, working out and jogging home: this straightened out his head. If he hadn't been able to get hard exercise he would have killed himself by now, or become a two hundred kilo junkie, or given in to anger.

He'd thought a lot about anger since he'd been falsely accused of rape. The experts said rape was all about power, but this didn't seem quite right to Ray. If he imagined his way into it he saw it as a crime of anger. If s.e.x and exercise were anger management, then rape was a form of losing control - to anger. Violence and s.e.x - it would certainly blow off a bit of steam. He smiled wryly to himself. Strange thoughts. All the things you couldn't say.

He speeded up. From the bus stop, a man and woman watched the big, muscular figure run by, his cap pulled down low over his scowling face, his body steaming. The man took a photograph of him.

The water sprayed up from puddles under his feet and the air was full of tiny fractured rainbows. He powered on through the rain, ran home.

He'd forgotten to say to her: fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. He wanted her husband to win the election: this would rid the country of the politically correct a.r.s.eholes who'd set up the police inquiry and ruined his career. He thought, let's hope nothing happens to compromise Hallwright. Missus was right to feel paranoid if she had anything to hide.

Sharon hadn't noticed anything unusual about 'Sue' - he rang her for a quick debrief - nor had she recognised her as Mrs Hallwright. He decided not to tell his wife what he'd found out. He usually told her everything, but the discovery was so unexpected and exotic, and Roza herself was so attractive and strange, that he wanted to keep the knowledge to himself.

fourteen.

Slowly, and with a horrible smile, Ed Miles finishes the last of his pie. The convoy is stopped briefly in a layby outside town, while David's people call ahead. David is to walk the main street, to speak at a retirement village, and afterwards, to eat lunch in a cafe in the main square. The cafe staff are expecting them, and have promised to act surprised. To act natural.

You show you're accessible, is the thing. You mingle with the people. The media are behind in their bus, waiting to catch the moment they walk into the retirement village, the speech, and then the scene in the cafe as they order their humble repast: pies, or fish and chips, tea in a metal pot. There will be a shot of David beaming as he squeezes the plastic tomato full of sauce, as he mingles with star-struck locals and talks about opportunity, the politics of aspiration, and the unused potential in this great country of ours. The police are behind in their tinted van, but trouble isn't expected. It's a small, sleepy town with a National majority. And David's popularity is through the roof.

David has woken with a toothache. At 9.30 a.m. he took two Panadol. His head feels light and fuzzy and somewhere outside his body the pain queues at the barrier, impatient to get in.

Lunch is not far off, so why is Ed eating a pie? Ed has shown a talent for continuous eating, for finding food between their all too frequent meals. Clearly he's nipped along to the petrol station while David was on the phone; now he comes close, and leans down to the open window. David identifies steak and kidney. His stomach registers a small protest.

He squints into the light, touching the sore side of his face, testing the ache. He says to Ed, 'How d'you stay so skinny, mate?'

'It's a gift. You want me to get you one?'

'No.' David sighs. There have been so many lunches, morning teas, afternoon teas; people go to all that trouble and it's rude to refuse. He shifts in his seat, feeling the uncomfortable pressure of his belt. His stomach is in ruins.

The young man who's videoing the campaign diary for the website is not filming now, but gazing dreamily out at the landscape, his hands folded over the camera. On the plain the tussock blows in the wind, and the mountains rise above the brown land, their slopes crossed by soft black shadows. Now the young cameraman leans forward. 'The gra.s.s, blowing like that. It looks like suede,' he says.

David looks out. The suede landscape. There is a sound, like the sea, in his ears.

They have been filming the campaign diary on the road. The young man does the filming from the back seat, with David in the front pa.s.senger seat, turning around to make his commentary. Ed sits in the back, eating and making phone calls. The idea is: you're not grand. You don't lurk in the back of some limousine. You sit in front and turn around, and tell it like it is. 'Here we are, crossing the Hauraki Plains.' 'Just a few thoughts as we enter the Desert Road.' The broadcasts are uploaded onto the internet as soon as they're filmed. He finds them excruciating to watch - he imagines Roza's critical eye - but they're easy to do once you get into the rhythm. Apparently they're popular: they get thousands of hits. 'Driving round this great country of ours, speaking to people along the way, we only get more energised, more excited about our campaign. There are some great ideas, and great people out there, just waiting for their potential to be tapped. And I'm going to be talking a lot about that: potential. We're about to visit a retirement community called The Hub. And I just want to express a few thoughts about our exciting programme for the elderly in this country. I think we've got some ideas that'll really wake people up. After that, we'll be off to find the best place for a quick lunch around here. And I for one have sure worked up an appet.i.te!'

Out on the edge of the highway, Ed has started on a jumbo sausage roll. The wind crosses the brown land, the wind crosses ...

David says moodily, 'Look at him eating. How does he do it? The man's a stick insect.'

'Metabolism,' the cameraman says.

Now Dianne is out on the road edge, stretching her legs, talking on the phone. The wind crosses the brown land, and he hears it, mixed with the shush shush of blood in his ears. The heat of sun through gla.s.s sends him into a reverie. Brown study, he thinks. In the brown land. Thoughts of Roza. He has dreamed about her twice since he went on the road. He thinks of the way she notices when he misp.r.o.nounces a word. The flash of quick laughter, like a bird crossing a window and disappearing, leaving the pane blank again, then the look of indulgence, warmth. She thinks he doesn't notice. She has no idea how much he notices. Roza is clever, but he has reserves she can't imagine. She has no idea how much cleverer he is.

He thinks of what he knows. That she and Lampton have some kind of connection. That they spoke on the balcony at the Ellisons, and at one point touched hands. That Karen Lampton knows nothing of this. That Roza and Lampton were brought together experimentally at the house, and that they talked in the hall when they thought no one was listening. That Roza has renewed her friendship with Tamara Goldwater, and has not mentioned this to anyone, but that Tamara Goldwater is not being so discreet. That Roza has edited a ma.n.u.script for the disgraced police officer Ray Marden and has met him in the domain, even though his book has been turned down by the publisher she works for. That she is stepping outside the framework, making mistakes, leaving footprints in the wrong parts of town.

Graeme and Trish are right: Roza is the wild card. They are so close to winning the election, only a disaster can bring them down now. There can be no mistakes, no public relations messes. Roza is the wild card.

They discussed whether he should pressure her to come on the road. Better not, they decided. She doesn't want to. It suits her to be where she is. It suits the children. But they must be on guard. She must be contained, she must be sure to go to her AA meetings; there must be no confrontation, no questions, nothing that will cause a blow-up now. When they discussed this, agreed to it, he turned away and a feeling shook him, so strong he had to pause. It was the same when he heard about the discussion on the balcony. The touching of hands. He controlled himself. There has to be control, or they will not get through. Sometimes you have to wait, be patient, watch. Take your time. He knows about waiting, he knows about control. He remembers his uncle, the wheezing grey-faced wreck, chasing him around the garden with the wooden spoon. He remembers watching him try to get his breath and thinking, aged nine, It's only a matter of time. I need not even wait very long. And sure enough the day came when he rattled home early from school in the back of the old van, his cousins sobbing because their dad had died.

Ed's been back on the phone, and now he waves to Dianne, swings open the door, jumps in. 'We're on. We're good to go. All right, mate?' He slaps David's shoulder. 'Off we go. Wal-Mort here we come.'

The convoy pulls out into the road. David watches dust blow up over the plain. He frowns over his notes, and then has to sit out a moment of nausea. It's no good; he can't read in the car.

The small town awaits them, a huddle of low buildings and corrugated iron roofs under a sky that's full of strange cloud formations: great wispy figures, like cartoon ghouls, heads slanted, arms outstretched. On the outskirts they swing through the gates of the retirement home, a compound around which are arranged long concrete buildings, like motel blocks. There's a crowd gathered next to a wooden summer house or rotunda, a ma.s.s of wheelchairs, walkers, bent and bobbing grey heads, tottering figures supported by staff, all craning and jigging expectantly. The media bus pulls in and parks by the dusty flowerbed. You have to wait for the media. You don't get going without the media. Otherwise, obviously, what's the point? Above, the clouds are all fancy dress; the clouds are robes, sleeves, scarves.

David sits bowed over his notes until the driver, Ant, nips round and opens the door. David steps out, limps forward and is introduced by one of his people, Doug. Ed and Dianne hover outside the official group, on the phone. The manager, a busty, competent woman with red cheeks, welcomes David and presents him to inmates and staff. He shakes papery old hands, sends them into whispery laughter with his jokes. Above the rooftops the cloud is a giant mouth, howling. He thinks of ghosts drawn in steam on a mirror. All around him the old heads bob. It comes to him: these people were individuals. Now they're lost in the collective ident.i.ty: old person. Why is it that the older people are, the less easy it is for the young to distinguish them? For a moment, he feels sad. He takes the arm of an old woman, gallantly guiding her forward. She's wearing a crocheted poncho, a woollen hat. The cameraman comes around the flowerbed, angling in, as David bends to her wrinkled ear, and whispers into her hearing aid. Her smile seems to halve the ma.s.s of her face, as if the flesh is being sucked into the toothless hole, and inside it the tongue is strangely mobile, fluttering.

'I knew your father,' she says. She pats his arm, swallows, pants up at him.

He nods. 'Did you? Lovely.'

Slowly, heads bent together, they walk inside.

fifteen.

Simon opened his eyes and groped for the clock. He crept from the bedroom. From the window in the hall he saw the moon, so clear he could make out the grey, pitted surface. He leaned against the windowsill. The lawn stretched away to the dark wall of the hedge. He watched the cat, picking its way through the dew.

He had a shower, dressed, entered the kitchen and stopped short. Karen was bending over, peering into the cupboard under the sink. She straightened up, glanced at him distractedly, took a can of flyspray and squirted it along the wainscot.

'Ants,' she said.

It was Thursday. Thursday morning usually brought crisis to the Lampton household. Thursday was the day the cleaner came. If you'd asked Simon, he would have said the cleaner was definitely more trouble than he was worth. His imminent arrival drove Karen into a frenzy. She did everything but stride through the house clashing saucepan lids. The source of tension in the household of a Thursday, was Karen's insistence that they all clean up, for the cleaner.

Simon sighed and turned on the kettle. He felt fragile, having spent part of the night awake. Outside, the sun was rising, and the garden now glowed with delicate light. Karen had bounded upstairs, holding the flyspray; now came the sounds of struggle, as she dragged the children from sleep. Drowsy oaths, the odd indignant shout as she threw curtains open, brutally yanked at blinds and swept clothes and books out of the way.

'Get on with it,' she commanded, and came downstairs again. The kettle hummed to its climax and clicked off.

The children descended, in the usual disarray. Simon reached for a teabag and wondered at his family's capacity - was it so in all families? - to have the same argument, on the same subject, without variation, every week. Could they not learn from last Thursday's spat or dingdong or barney, and move on? No, they could not. They were all too tired. They were all too p.i.s.sed off.

Elke sat against the window, her hair a golden brown bird's nest. She dipped a spoon in her cereal, eyes closed. Marcus picked his toast apart and wiped milk onto his collar. Claire, her hair tied back severely, stared severely at her siblings. A sore, red pimple had come up on her cheek, stark against the pale skin. Her face and body expressed anger. Her skin was angry. She looked at Karen and crunched an apple with a vicious yank of her neck, as though killing it. Even her eating was angry.

Simon sat down carefully. Perhaps, if he moved very quietly, none of them would go off ...

But Claire began, in the usual way. 'Why do we have to tidy up? For the cleaner? Isn't that his job?'

Karen crossed her arms impressively. Her enunciation was crisp, 'I have told you before. His job is to clean. He does not tidy. And he does not have to be confronted by your incredible squalor.'

'What's he for then? Why doesn't he tidy? What's the point of him?'