The Road from Midnight Read online

  First published in 2013

  © 2013 Wendyl Nissen

  National Library of New Zealand Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  Nissen, Wendyl.

  The road from midnight : a novel / Wendyl Nissen.

  ISBN 978-0-473-25955-6

  I. Title.

  NZ823.3—dc 23

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced to transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-473-25955-6

  Epub ISBN 978-0-473-25956-3

  Published by Paul Little Books

  PO Box 78-361

  Grey Lynn

  Auckland 1021

  Phone (64) 021 372 880

  Email: [email protected]

  www.paullittlebooks.co.nz

  Designed by Katy Yiakmis

  Cover photo: Venice exterior by Wendyl NIssen

  Back cover photo: istockphoto

  Author photo: Jae Frew

  Proudly printed in New Zealand by Printlink

  All characters in this publication are entirely fictitious

  and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,

  is purely coincidental.

  I am going to start at the beginning. Well, what I can remember as the beginning.

  I was always so sleepy and when I did wake up I would feel scared and numb. It was dark. I would cry out and then someone would put their hand around my wrist and hold it, then something funny smelling came over my nose and I went back to sleep.

  I only have memories of sounds. A loud whirring and whining like a big plane. A big engine like a van and voices. Men’s voices I couldn’t understand but they talked like they were very worried and they would say my name but it sounded funny: “Cherlatte. Cherlatte.”

  I would try to open my eyes, but I couldn’t. I would be scared when they said my name. And I would start to cry.

  Part One

  1

  He was tall and dark in that black Irish way which makes you think of Elvis, but unlike the King he was tall and slim and had no arse whatsoever. He had a penchant for black jeans and old T shirts bearing the name of some ancient rock band, chain smoked, drank heavily, smoked copious amounts of marijuana and mostly sat in the corner of any room glowering at the world. And he had a huge following as an investigative reporter. No one ever referred to him as “Jim” it was always “Jim Craig” as you do when talking about Lex Luthor or Charles Manson. You never just say “Lex” or “Charles”.

  Jim Craig would famously disappear into his special office at the newspaper and emerge three months later with a story which would blow the bejesus out of government officials or corrupt cops. He was also a beautiful writer. He could weave so much atmosphere and emotion into mundane reports and interviews that, in his hands, they became easy reads. He had spent time working on Fleet Street in the UK and brought back to New Zealand a hard-arsed attitude to journalism which meant he kept digging and sniffing at a story until he got it and delivered it at the feet of his editors. He was just shy enough to dupe his interviewees into believing they had to tell this poor loser who couldn’t string two words together something to make a conversation. His shyness was his secret weapon.

  No one could say they knew Jim Craig well, even his group of old mates who were the older sub-editors on the bench and the chief reporter. The only sign young cadets like myself ever had of his personality was the day he famously came back pissed from lunch and called the editor a “fucking jumped up prick of a man” in the middle of the newsroom. He was nearly fired, but his credibility index leaped to an all-time high in the newsroom as we all unanimously agreed with him.

  I don’t think Jim would have ever noticed me at the Auckland Daily unless I had pissed him off one Thursday morning when I decided that although I was just a lowly cadet I had a story which needed the Jim Craig treatment. It involved the girlfriend of a notorious drug dealer named Jenny Crocker who was serving time at Mt Eden jail. I had met Jenny at a friend’s party and somehow managed to convince her to talk to me after many drinks, a few joints and some heavy female bonding which involved leaping up and down and dancing with our heads to Souixsie and the Banshees until four in the morning. The next day she gave me the most powerful interview, full of emotional turmoil and most importantly the unforgivable treatment dealt to her by the drug dealing partner. He would regularly beat her and leave her tied up for hours while he sat in the corner and watched her writhe in agony before having sex with her until she bled. It was brilliant. The only problem was she had just rung to say she had changed her mind (clever girl) and I desperately needed to know how to talk her back into it. Jim Craig was famous for getting most of his stories by being drunk or stoned with his subjects, so he was the man to help out as I was sure his subjects had often regretted giving him an interview the day after the day before. Jim Craig also knew everyone in the drug world and I felt certain he would know Jenny and have some incriminating information up his sleeve I could use to “persuade” her to talk. So I knocked on the door to his office which displayed the sign: “Fuck Off.” I thumped purposely as I imagined policemen do when they come around for a visit, in the hope he would open it thinking I was someone important.

  “Fuck off I’m busy!” Jim shouted from behind the piece of solid heart rimu standing between him and me. “Read the sign.”

  “I know and I’m really sorry to bother you,” I shouted at the unforgiving door. “But I have a really good story I thought you might like to help me with.”

  Silence. Then I heard his chair squeak as he got up from his desk, and the sound of his heavy footsteps coming to the door. He opened it with such ferocity I thought it was about to come off its hinges.

  “I don’t care if you’ve got the fucking next Pulitzer Prize winner I don’t help anyone with anything and I’d appreciate it if you’d … ”

  He paused briefly as he looked me up and down.

  “ … leave me alone. Okay? I’m not your fucking daddy!”

  And with that he attempted to shut the door which would have willingly closed for him had it not been for my foot which was now firmly lodged between it and the door frame.

  “You can’t say that to me,” I responded, suddenly feeling insulted and fuming with indignation.

  “You have an obligation as a senior member of this newspaper to encourage and help young writers. How do you think you got where you are today?” I paused, becoming vaguely aware of my left foot which was sending alarming messages of pain up the left side of my body as Jim continued to push the door tight against it.

  “Listen, love, no one ever helped me, it was all my own fucking hard work. I have no idea who the fuck you are, nor do I give a flying fuck. Nor am I obligated to help you. No one, and I mean no one interrupts me and if you need a bit of help with your pathetic little story about a lost puppy down the drainpipe then there are plenty of other old bastards in the newsroom who would be more than happy to gaze at your tits for half an hour and make you feel appreciated. Now fuck off, do not show your face at this door again and if you do I’ll see to it personally that you spend a week on the shipping round. Now kindly remove your foot from my door.”

  I was speechless. Here was a man I had seen waft in and out of the newsroom and thought looked like a decent guy. I also thought he was quite cute, and yes in a brief fantasy moment in the newsroom two hours ago I had seen us work on the story together with him standing behind me as I typed furiously, pausing occasionally to look up at his encouraging face for advice as he sucked meaningfully on his cigarette and shook his head in amazement at the powerful pr
ose pouring out of me. We worked late into the night putting the final touches to my award-winning copy and then headed off for a drinking session which would end in … Now the object of my fantasies was threatening to have me spend my days detailing which ship was coming into the Waitemata Harbour with a load of petrol and which was leaving with a load of lamb.

  “Well alright then,” I said as I removed my foot slowly, remembering not to wince at the pain. “Have a nice day,” I announced with as heavy a drop of sarcasm as I could muster and attempted to walk away without limping. I walked four steps then turned.

  “Oh and Jenny Crocker says hi,” I lied while attempting to wiggle my bum as seductively as I could while favouring my left, and no doubt heavily bruised foot.

  He paused in his doorway.

  “Hold it!” he shouted. “Did you say Jenny Crocker?”

  I stopped and gave him my best over the shoulder sexy glint.

  “I did indeed. I’m so sorry to have disturbed you, Jim Craig. Now why don’t you fuck off?”

  And with that I walked, or rather hobbled down the corridor and back into the newsroom.

  After my less than encouraging encounter with Jim, I became determined to get Jenny to talk and by the Saturday edition I had managed it through sheer persistence and another mad night with Siouxsie and several joints. Jim might not have given me any help but I found that by asking myself the simple question: “what would Jim Craig do?” I got the answers. I had my first front page lead that Saturday night complete with Jenny and every little bit of dirt and sexual torture she knew about her drug dealing lover, including pictures she had taken of the bruises he had inflicted upon her and a doctor’s report after one particularly brutal session.

  That night, Jim Craig walked up to me at the Occidental pub where all the Daily staff congregated after deadline and said two words I’ll never forget.

  “Well done,” before he walked off into the night.

  “Oh My God!” screeched my best friend, Daisy Norton, who was prone to loud expressions of excitement.

  “That was Jim Craig. You know that don’t you? Jim Craig, high priest of the newsroom, gorgeous older man type everyone is lusting after just walked up to you and said ‘well’ and ‘done.’ Did you see that everybody?”

  For a brief five minutes I was the talk of the office. Jim Craig had stepped out of character and for the first time in anyone’s memory had not only complimented another journalist but a lowly female cadet at that.

  And so it began. For the first few weeks it was just significant looks. Me to him as he passed my desk in the newsroom, him to me as he walked into the pub after work. And then before I knew it my friends and I were allowed into the inner sanctum of the older hacks of the newsroom at the pub and we were one big happy drinking family of reporters.

  At last we belonged, thanks to Jenny Crocker and her bruises. But if Jim Craig didn’t turn up at the pub my night lost that special frisson his presence gave it. And if I wasn’t there Daisy would always inform me that “Jim Craig asked where you were and then he left after just one drink. He’s got the hots for you.”

  Then Jim Craig and I had lunch.

  “Hey, Jane,” he murmured to me as I was at the bar getting another round and he was buying matches.

  “Yeah?” I responded, doing my best to seem nonchalant and intimately involved in a conversation with the barman who was ignoring me as he pulled pints.

  “I’d like to take you to lunch tomorrow, are you free?”

  “Might be, have to see what’s on the board for me in the morning,” still staring at the uninterested barman.

  “Don’t worry I’ll make sure you’ve got nothing too urgent.”

  “Thanks a lot, I’d rather get a good story than have lunch with you actually.”

  “That’s what you think … today,” he said with a glint in his eye. “Meet me at Le Pain in Elliot Street at 12.30. Oh and I don’t need to tell you this is private so don’t go blabbing to your mates.”

  “As if. Meeting Jim Craig is hardly the epiphany of lunch.”

  “We’ll see about that,” he grinned and I realised that I had never seen him smile before. When he moved his lips his nose wrinkled and I was instantly floored. That one nose wrinkling smile reached out and grabbed my heart with a ferocity I had never experienced.

  “And I think you probably mean epitome, not epiphany.”

  “Oh,” I managed to blurt out as my heart struggled to find a beat and my blood flowed to places it wasn’t supposed to when you’re buying five pints of lager.

  “See you then, baby,” he threw in my direction as he left the pub.

  As my heart rate returned to normal and I set down the pints on the table I mused that normally I would have thought the use of “baby” was all a bit tragic, demeaning and uncool. But when Jim Craig said it, it covered my entire body with goose bumps and threatened to put me out of action for half an hour.

  The next day over lunch he taught me how to eat an artichoke by peeling each leaf off and slowly sucking the flesh out of it. We never made it back to the office as Jim had told his mate, the no doubt astounded chief reporter, he was taking me on an assignment because after my spectacular front page lead he thought I had what it takes and he was keen to teach me the ropes. After several bottles of wine I had interrogated him about everything I could think of to do with being the coolest journalist in town. In my mind I hoped this lunch meant something more than two colleagues getting together over a few drinks, some artichokes and deep fried camembert, but I figured if it wasn’t then I might as well get as much out of it as I could. Lunch with Jim Craig was better than a three-year degree in journalism.

  “Jane, I hate to interrupt the 165th question you have for me about my job, but there was a reason I asked you to lunch today,” Jim said.

  “Uh huh,” I responded, a little tipsy from the wine and suddenly feeling the urge to smile a lot. I knew I was doing that loopy grin I get when I’ve had a few, which makes me look like a Labrador getting its tummy rubbed.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong but I think there’s something pretty special going on between us, don’t you think?”

  “Umm, well, umm?” I muttered, thinking I’d better play it cool in case the “special” something was a unique meeting of journalistic minds.

  “How unlike you to be stuck for words, Jane. I can see I’m going to have to do all the talking here. So here goes … I’m in love with you.”

  At that moment the world stopped moving, except for the Eiffel Tower in the tourist poster behind his head which suddenly seemed to be swaying in an attempt to resemble the leaning tower of Pisa.

  I took a long draft of my wine, grabbed one of his cigarettes from the packet on the table and lit up.

  “Jane, you don’t smoke.”

  “I know, but I think I do now,” I coughed.

  At which stage he broke into loud, raucous laughter, and there was that nose wrinkling smile again.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I suddenly started babbling as my speech returned in a gush. “The age difference, the work thing, the … well … how can you possibly love me? I’m just an annoying little cadet!”

  “Jane, listen to me,” he said, losing the smile and suddenly becoming serious. “I’m not a man who falls in love. In fact at the age of 35, I can safely say I’ve never loved anyone. I’ve had girlfriends but I’m a bit of a loner and that’s the way I’ve always liked it. And then you knocked on my door three weeks ago and I feel like my world has turned upside down. I can’t stop thinking about you and seeing you every day is driving me crazy.” He paused to size up the effect his words were having on me. “Have I shocked you?”

  “No, yes, no, well a bit.” The truth was I had no idea if I loved him or what I felt for him. In my innocent fantasies I had got no further than some heavy pashing in the office car park.

  “I realise this is a bit sudden. But I just wanted to tell you in case you felt something for me, because I’d really li
ke to see a lot of you. In fact I’d like to spend every fucking hour of my life with you,” he laughed cautiously.

  I stubbed out the un-smoked cigarette I had been holding and forgetting to puff.

  “Let’s have another drink!” I giggled, feeling warm all over and wildly turned on.

  That evening we ended up at a party somewhere in Herne Bay in a restored mansion owned by one of Jim’s underworld friends. I’m not sure how we ended up in the walk-in closet, but that’s where we first kissed, first fondled and first made love, having snorted a long line of cocaine on the antique kauri occasional table in the ballroom. That day will remain embedded in my mind forever. Not so much because of the declaration of love over lunch or what we did in the closet, but the fact that once we got our clothes off he was wearing bright red Jockey briefs. I had never seen a pair quite like them before, or after that day. Funny the things you remember.

  I have a photo of Jim and I together, from that time in the Occidental where we used to spend most of our afternoons. There are five of us in the photo snuggled into one of the worn red velvet booths surrounded by tired mahogany. But you only notice Jim Craig and me. He’s sitting next to me with his arm casually draped around the back of the booth and his hand lolls casually on my shoulder. His long black hair has a soft curl to it as it hits the end of his collar. His face is not conventionally handsome. Everything is too long. His chin, his nose and his hair. But his black eyes are irresistible even if they are slightly glazed in the photo, where he half grins into the camera, as if he’s up to something. It’s a very sexy scowl and next to him I’m doing my loony Labrador smile. My blonde hair is curly, the result of a bad perm, and I’m wearing long dangly ear-rings which Daisy made out of balsa wood and painted in red and black geometric designs. I’m also wearing my favourite black 1940s suit which I bought at an op shop for $10. It fitted perfectly and I thought it made me look like Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday. There is no mistaking that we are a couple in love. But that’s not why I like that picture. I want no reminding of the love bit. I like that picture because I look full of life and enthusiasm and at that moment caught on the black and white print I seem full of promise. If only my life, that promise and Jim Craig had remained as gorgeous as it all looked in that photo. But from the moment Jim Craig entered my life with his curly hair. black eyes, and old rock band T shirts, he ruined it. There would come a time when I wished Jim Craig dead, I still would.