Nature of Ash, The by Mandy Hager Read Free Book Online

lawyer named Lucinda Lasch. She calls straight back and sounds okay, sympathetic but not too gushy (despite her porn-star name), and asks if I can meet her first thing Monday to talk things through. I tell her about the twelve grand quoted for the funeral. She reassures me Dad has made provisions in his will. Thank god: skimping on his last farewell would truly suck.
    I’m trying to find Dad’s bank statements when I hear Mikey holler from the living room. ‘Ashy! Come!’
    The little shit has switched over from his game to the TV, and there’s Dad’s picture plastered all over the screen as the newsreader rattles through his life and times: ‘… longstanding supporter of human rights. Born in Motueka, son of noted immigration lawyer, the late Dennis McCarthy, he graduated from Otago University with an MA in political science …’
    Mikey edges right up to the screen and presses his index finger to the picture of Dad’s face. ‘Look, Ashy, no sores.’
    I bite back an impatient explanation. What does it matter if he thinks Dad’s face has been restored? If it helps him to forget what he’s just seen, then so be it. I wish to god I could do the same. ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘No sores.’
    But now they’re showing a picture of Mum.
    ‘… together through many student protests until her unexplained disappearance in two-thousand and —’
    What the fuck?
    ‘ Despite rigorous searching, Grace McCarthy was never found, declared officially dead seven years later — though it was rumoured she’d gone underground after the cyber attack of the Government Communication Security Bureau, commonly attributed to radical separatists Muru …’
    Are they allowed to broadcast bullshit like this? Surely this can’t be for real? They’re saying Mum could still be alive? That she deserted us? Just walked away? The idea that she’d topped herself was bad enough, but this ?
    My knees give out from under me and I have to hang on to the sofa or else I’ll drop. It’s all too much. Why would Dad lie to us for all these years? Hold on, hold on … get real, the media is doing one of its outrageous spins. Of course! Okay, so maybe Mum did walk away, but chances are she topped herself somewhere remote, that’s why they never found her … yes, that must be it. Poor Dad. No wonder he was cagey when I used to bring it up. Imagine what he must’ve gone through in those first few days, then months, then years …
    While I’m waiting for my pulse to slow, not helpedby trying to fob off confused questions from Mr Please Explain, the ‘breaking news’ music blares out.
    ‘ The UPR just confirmed several attacks have been carried out on its New Zealand-based factories and farms ,’ the newsreader intones as pictures of fenced dairy farms dissolve into a live feed from some spokesman in the military get-up of the UPR.
    ‘ We believe the New Zealand SAS are working under orders from the Western Alliance to attack our assets,’ this man says. ‘ As far as the UPR government is concerned, this is an outright act of war .’ He sure as hell looks like he means it: the veins on his neck nearly pop out through his skin. He says their military have cordoned off all their facilities, including both of the country’s major UPR-owned ports. They’ve brought in extra ‘security’ — from now on no one will get in or out. Bloody hell . This means access to most of our food and mineral resources will be cut.
    Our PM Bill Chandler’s face flashes on the screen. ‘ Such unsubstantiated claims are dangerous at this time. I urge the United People’s Republic to call off their unwarranted aggression towards New Zealand and our trading partners —’
    I snatch the remote away from Mikey. Kill the TV. Throw the bloody remote across the lounge.
    ‘Want to watch!’ Mikey yells. ‘Bad Ashy. Mean.’ He scrabbles over to reclaim the remote, but there’s no way I’m going to let him turn the bloody TV back on. I need some goddamned quiet time