Part Two
Sarah Williams was readying herself for work, applying lipstick and deciding what shoes to wear when the phone rang.
Her husband had left early without leaving a note, which, while unusual, was not a complete surprise, as he had in the last few months become increasingly distant and, at times, frustratingly inscrutable.
Sarah held within her a bitter disappointment at the way her marriage had evolved, and, if she had somewhere else to go, she often told herself, would have left for good some time ago.
She hadn’t, however, and she had to admit to herself on occasions when the clarity of the situation struck her that was because it would have taken too much effort.She put down her lipstick and picked up the phone.
Constable John Masters introduced himself.
"You’re Mrs Williams?" he asked.
"Ms," Sarah corrected him.
"It’s about your husband, Ms Williams."
"Has something happened?"
"No, no, he’s fine," Const Masters replied, "it’s just we had a complaint from a group of fishermen at the Steamer Basin, he seems to have sort of moved in ... taken up residence there, so to speak, and he’s scaring the fish away.
"It’s not really a police matter, but the city council and the regional council can’t decide which of them is responsible.
"We considered ringing Fish and Game ... anyway, we were wondering if you might come and take him home?"
Sarah grudgingly agreed to this proposition, unable as she was to quickly figure out any way of getting out of it, and hung up the phone.
She spent a moment considering which jacket to wear, and rearranging her hair this way and that, before driving to the wharf.
The policeman was standing by the ladder with another man; squat, middle-aged, wearing a check shirt and carrying a thick document held together with spiral binding.
"Bruce is from the city council, Mrs Williams. I’ll leave you with him, he’ll explain the situation."
"Ms," Sarah said.
Bruce Miller had been woken earlier than he would normally have chosen to deal with the matter of Mr Williams, and he was none too pleased his daily routine had been compromised.
He had risen from his slumber and done his duty for the local government he worked for, something he always did, and something he took pride in.
Dealing with people, however, particularly in difficult situations, was not his forte.
He was, he would have admitted if anyone asked, more comfortable with infrastructure, roading, underground pipes and the like, than people.
He had been reprimanded in the past for being gruff with council clients, but mostly he just felt faintly embarrassed during his dealings with the public, and reacted in unexpected ways to social stimulus in a way he found frustrating.
He introduced himself to Sarah Williams, and tried to keep eye contact for a reasonable length of time as he shook her hand, not too long lest it become uncomfortable, an interaction he had been trying hard to get right.
"I’m not sure if this is really within the council’s purview," he told Sarah.
"The regional council usually deals with harbours and rivers, but they refused to send someone, as they usually do, so you’ve got me."
Bruce nodded towards the spot where William stood beneath the harbour’s grey-green surface.
"I asked your husband if he would come out, but he said he had absolutely no intention of doing any such thing."
"You talked to him, Mr Miller?" Sarah asked.
"Dr Miller; I have a PhD in Russian foreign policy," Bruce replied forcefully, before immediately silently cursing himself, both for being brusque and for showing an unnecessary level of hubris.
He calmed himself.
"If you shout your questions to him," he told her, "then cup your ear near the water, you can just make out what he’s saying.
"You have to be careful not to do it when the swell gets up; the elbow of my jacket got quite the soaking."
Bruce flicked through the pages of the district plan he had been cradling in his damp jacket to a page he had marked earlier by folding its top right corner.
"The fisherfolk want him gone, the police want him gone, and he’s bound, at some point or other, to cause safety issues for shipping; this is a working harbour, and not just for recreational boating.
"Unfortunately, the district plan is silent on the issue of residents taking up lodgings underwater, and it’s not against the law.
"If he was on the water, we might be able to move him on, but under the water, well ..."
Bruce made a show of finding a page within the plan, and stabbing at a paragraph with his stubby finger.
"The closest bylaw we have that might deal with this situation regards dumping waste in the harbour, but frankly, a lawyer could drive a truck through most of these rules. They’re hardly worth the paper they’re written on.
"Anyway, we were hoping you might have some idea of how to get him out."
Sarah folded her arms and her brow furrowed slightly in a look of vexation.
She had been particularly looking forward to having lunch with a friend that day. The two of them had planned to go shopping after, and she had taken time off for that purpose on what she knew was the only afternoon in at least the next month the pressures of work would allow it.
The idea of getting her elbow wet attempting to talk to William irked her terribly, and despite feeling some responsibility for the situation — and that was only because he was her husband — she decided she would flatly refuse if anyone attempted to force her to do so.
She wondered if the fellow from the council would take the situation in hand if she feigned a work emergency, or came up with some other excuse for leaving in a hurry, but decided she must at least appear to be making an effort.
"Would a rope help?" she asked, "or perhaps a hook of some sort?"
"Perhaps we could get him out with a crane."
"I suppose I could take him home and keep him in a tank ... I don’t have much experience with this sort of thing."
Sarah tried to at least appear she was interested in the situation, despite not knowing at all how to deal with it.
She looked around the Steamer Basin and saw the yachts, the tug and a small motor launch or two and wondered vaguely if any had such equipment, but dismissed the idea because it involved talking to the sort of people with whom she had little social experience about matters of which she knew little.
Those situations were almost always embarrassing and uncomfortable, and it was getting closer to the time of her lunch date.
Sarah thought about the mechanics or other tradesmen she had dealt with over the years, and their stupid smirks and condescending attitudes, and she sighed.
Bruce began to feel uncomfortable with the length of the silence that had developed, something that made him intensely irritable, a feeling that only multiplied because he did not understand why he felt so.
He began to hate himself for not being able to control his emotions and, almost unintentionally, he stamped his foot on the thick boards of the wharf.
Sarah looked at him, slightly aghast, and in her mind feverishly scrambled for a way out of the situation, which seemed to have no obvious resolution and was making her quite uncomfortable.
She looked at her watch and went to say something, but could not think of anything at all.Bruce felt himself going red.
"Well," he said, finally regaining a vestige of composure, "we could think about it during the afternoon and see what develops."
"Yes," Sarah almost shouted, overcome with relief as she was to see at least a temporary respite from the situation.
"Then we can get in touch."
"In touch, yes," Bruce responded.
The pair shook hands and went their separate ways, sharing a tacit agreement that telephone numbers would not be shared and no particular time would be set for any further meeting.
Bruce knew the police, having passed the job on, would worry about it no longer, and he felt quietly confident if he said nothing more about it the matter would be forgotten, and if anyone else complained, he could merely claim he was liaising with the proper authorities to develop a response, and continue doing so until everybody just accepted nothing could be done and moved on to worry about something else.
Sarah, despite not fully admitting it to herself, felt nothing more than a sense of relief that her husband had decided to live underwater.
She recognised she had almost immediately, upon hearing the news, done a quick calculation of her financial affairs and come to the conclusion she would be able to survive alone, if not with quite the financial freedom of the past, at least with a perfectly comfortable lifestyle.
The only minor issue was a vague sense of embarrassment her marriage had been ultimately unsuccessful. However, that thought passed from her mind almost as soon as she had it.
In any case, she was now quite hungry, and if she rushed, was still just in time to meet her friend for lunch.
William had some time since decided to dislodge his foot from beneath the rock that kept him swaying back and forth in the Steamer Basin, and was now gently drifting with the tide, along the harbour channel and out through Taiaroa Head.
Time passed, he knew not how much: it didn’t matter.
He observed a fur seal as it tore apart an octopus, breaking through the surface of the water and tossing the dying creature across the waves, its body parts ripped and scattered in a fury of raw nature. He felt nothing, and recognised his disconnection was complete.
William sank deeper and deeper into the Pacific and felt the slow dissolution of his parts as he spread across the ocean floor and was welcomed back into the cold earth.
