Dr Robert presents a Christmas mystery
26the December 2009
The tides of Christmas have washed me into a strange backwater. I awake this Boxing Day morning to find myself cast ashore on the bank of the Wanganui River, a houseguest of Dr Robert.
Our presence in Wanganui is explicable in the ebb and flow of families. Years ago my brother John moved here and after many Christmas journeys to Canterbury with his family we have decided to return the favour.
Wanganui suffers more bad press than most towns - drive-by shootings, gang patches, Michael Laws and that confounded ‘H.’ In reality it is delightful, warmed by a climate that allows banana plants and bougainvillea to flourish. It is a town that seems to attract a greater than usual share of the bohemian, judging by the number of quirky bookshops and galleries and by the company at my sister-in-law’s work party the other night.
Our residence at Dr Robert’s is a small piece of uniquely kiwi theatre. With John’s house fully booked by siblings and grandparents we sought alternative accommodation. He put the word out that we were looking for a house. A mate at the rowing club mentioned a friend who might have something. The friend said no, he didn’t, but he knew a neighbour whose wife’s ex had left for Australia and his house was empty. And so here we are, guests of Dr Robert, a man we never knew existed until last Wednesday, a man we will likely never meet and yet whose life is laid bare to us.
This is a most unusual house, a crumbling wooden villa that has been tweaked and fiddled with until it is practically uninhabitable. It perches high above the Wanganui River, which, although still several kilometres from the sea, is rendered brown and purposeless in the grip of tide. The river squats like a Louisiana bayou.
The property too has a faded southern beauty. The house, aging and mildewed, sags on its haunches while the garden, acres of it, creeps and coils around it like a Tennessee Williams protagonist. Vines entangle ancient fruit trees and weeds rush through the gaps in the wooden deck. A collection of plant pots, fifty or more, gasp for breath on the terrace, their contents long desiccated.
There is, indeed, a mystery here. For Dr Robert has vanished. According to the neighbour (whose wife’s ‘ex’ Dr Robert is – or was) he simply walked out with wife and child. They say he is in Australia but the material part of his existence remains here.
The place is like an apocalypse movie where humankind has vanished without trace, taking nothing. Shoes and soft toys bestrew the front porch, beds are unmade or the covers hastily pulled across the sheets. A set of keys lies on the television. A blue towel is cast, crumpled, on the bathroom floor.
Kitchen drawers brim with cutlery and plates. The pantry is stocked, only perishable food has been removed. Children’s drawings decorate the refrigerator. In the master bedroom the curtains are drawn and there is a smell of gas.
Photos on the hall table show Dr Robert as a tall, well-built bearded man of about 60, unsmiling, his arm around the slender waist of his much younger Thai wife (a replacement for the earlier wife who came to prefer the neighbour). He wears a navy blue 3-piece suit, the waistcoat a little strained. She leans into him, one hand across his stomach, smiling radiantly.
Sylvia, unsurprisingly, is spooked by the house and would have refused to stay had there not been an adjoining flat that is clean, sunny and altogether less revealing of the lives of Dr Robert and his family.
Why did they leave? Where have they gone? What will become of this place? Will Dr Robert return or will the house and its contents collapse into ennui?
I have found only one clue to the mystery. Somebody has stuck a piece of A4 paper to the fridge with the inscription, in gothic text, “when you realise you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.” In this house the words have endless possibilities.
