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When he got out of his car in the evening and surveyed the forbidding height of the wire-mesh gate--it was strung across the dark driveway on the opposite side of the street--Ben Truscott felt visited by a random and wrenching memory. The sort of memory that, now he was in his forties, quickly became so vivid as to leave him floundering. He heard the reassuring sound of the car doors closing; but already, starting across the dim, stubbled asphalt on the road, he was struggling to maintain any control over his sense of the present.

Truscott was remembering when he and Valerie had first moved into Heatley Avenue, over a dozen years ago. How they'd waited to meet their neighbours and settle in--though nothing happened and he'd just gone off to work every day at the university without really getting to know anybody in the area. They had a little Shetland collie then, named Miss Prism. His wife's idea of a joke after he'd introduced her to the genteel pleasures of Being Earnest. Miss Prism was inclined to get out to the garden in the middle of the night and bark along the back fence-line; most nights, Truscott had to get up at some point and shoo her inside. Then one summer afternoon, while he was at work, his wife answered a brief phone-call: 'why can't you keep quiet that fucking mongrel-dog?' Click. After talking to Valerie and hearing about some oddities that had happened over recent days, Truscott deduced that someone had stolen the mail out of their letterbox, used it to look up their telephone number and then, after replacing the mail, made the anonymous call. Truscott calmed his wife. That evening he went to each of the three houses that adjoined the back of their section. At each he'd knocked on the door, introduced himself, apologised for the trouble about the dog and promised in future to keep the animal inside at night. He carefully, but firmly, added that he would appreciate it if his wife did not receive any more phone calls. And it was this Truscott remembered so fully: how, as he stood at the trim front-doorways of these strangers' houses in the sticky air, with the quiet yellow glow coming from porch-lights and the irritation of moths battering about, and a glimpse of long, floral-wallpapered passageways into other lives in the background, every one of these neighbours had blankly denied knowing anything. About the trouble, about the noise or, in one case, a young woman said, 'You have a dog?' Poor old Miss Prism. Shut inside the living-room each night for the latter half of her life until, at length, she died. And all this despite the absolute fact that, throughout the afternoon on almost every summer weekend, that boy in the place to their left, that what's-his-name, he liked to wax his car out on the road with its windows down and the base from his sound-system up loud--so loud that Truscott felt the picture-frames trembling on his walls.

Truscott pushed open the wire fence with unexpected difficulty. He was a tall man, and athletic, I'd say, heavy-necked and with a large head that was balding from the front, but he was still in his nice casual-jacket from work. In the poor light he had to be careful not to catch any threads on the wire, and anyway the wobbly gate rose nearly to his shoulder and so it was hard to shift. As he walked up the driveway a big dog began its throaty barking somewhere inside the house. Giving tongue, his father used to call it. Truscott could sense Jason cringe a little at the sound, even though the boy was walking behind him.

No sign of any vehicle in the carport, but the lights were on at the front of the house. The place was a rough, square shape, and the porch attached like an after-thought--maximum floor-space from the minimum use of materials. Typical of the state houses along this part of Crewe Crescent, Truscott thought. He eyed the weathered-brick exterior. Its chunky roof was mostly lost in darkness, despite the glow coming through the thin curtains onto the scrappy lawn and the path off the driveway. These people couldn't bother with an outside lamp. And the garden that Truscott could make out in the shadow along the front wall as he approached, it was an overgrown mess, predictably. He imagined cobwebs hanging from the soffit. Truscott stepped up to the door.

He looked back at his son, his glance meaning to say: are you sure this is what you want? The boy could see him in the light available.

Then, examining Jason's soft-shouldered, ten-year-old frame, small for his age, Truscott recalled that this was not what Jason had wanted when he started crying to his mother after school earlier that day, and saying he wouldn't go back there, not to school, ever. The boy took after Valerie: he just hoped his troubles would go away by themselves. And so Truscott looked up the name Winterburn in the phone-book, and it had been pretty straightforward to guess which of the Winterburns they were. Round the corner and along here with the disadvantaged.

But Truscott paused from these reflections--his son was saying something.

'He's a hori,' Jason repeated with vehemence, his nose wrinkling up in contempt as he lengthened the 'o'.

Where on earth did the boy learn this sort of thing? Not in their own home, that much was certain. Truscott was sure he'd never...he felt shocked. He was about to scold Jason but he heard someone, alerted by the dog's continued warnings, no doubt, coming along the corridor on the other side of the door. There was just time to knock loudly and thus give some propriety to their being here before the dog-noise ceased and the door decisively opened. Truscott made a mental note to talk to Jason about language later.

And the man standing sideways in the corridor was indeed Maori--not too dark--younger than Truscott and shorter, a bit undernourished-looking, actually. He was wearing a ragged, sleeveless denim-jacket over a white t-shirt and one of those tracksuit bottoms with stripes along the sides, and his longish hair was unwashed and dishevelled--he looked as if maybe he'd just woken up.

'Mr Winterburn,' Truscott managed to say. 'Are you Zack's father?' He was about to extend his hand when a grimly panting Alsatian bounded round the man and stopped short on the rubber front-mat. The large animal examined Truscott with its black eyes and nostrils wide. Then it let out a muscular growl.

'Careful,' said Winterburn. 'He's pretty wild, eh. He'd go for you.'

Jason was backing away, but Truscott thought the dog was nothing more than curious. He put forward his fist, fingers well out of the road, and let the creature try a sniff.

'Watch your hand,' Winterburn warned. 'He'd have it off.'

The dog licked exploratory slobber onto Truscott's knuckles. Truscott gave the canine head a reassuring pat. He glanced at Winterburn: the man seemed a little disappointed.

'I'm Jason's father,' he said, nodding behind him to his son. 'Our boys are at Winchester School together. Can we come in for a minute?'

'Yeah, course.'

Winterburn stepped back into the house and called the dog inside. It loped off along the passageway to the far end and disappeared round a corner. Winterburn reached past them to shut the front door and then opened a door in the passage. Truscott and Jason began to follow him though into the living-room.

The room was another terrible mess: cold, and with fish-and-chip papers and some broken toys spread around an ugly sofa and two grey, second-hand-looking easy-chairs. The floor uncarpeted--just bare, unpolished boards. Everything was grouped around a large television playing something loud from its dusty, dark cabinet in the corner, with the edge of the curtains bunched along its top. As Truscott walked in further, he noticed that the pale green colours on the walls didn't really match. And three urchins, two little boys and a girl but each with remarkably adult hairstyles, all blond-dyed streaks cut short at the front and left long at the back--there was no sign of a mother anywhere--were looking up at him from the tatty sofa. Each in a rugby-league-club t-shirt and orange sweatpants stained with tomato-sauce. The girl just a pretty infant, but with an untidy ribbon in her hair and wearing jandals. Truscott had the impression the children were part of the mess too, amongst the confusion and the close smell of grease from the chip-papers.

One of the boys, the elder of the two, appeared to recognise Jason, who was shrinking in a bit behind Truscott's legs. Truscott could see this Zack, though fleshy, was only about the same size as his son. Was the name short for something? A child with a square face, it was flat with a certain yellowish tinge--he didn't appear particularly strong. Though he looked mean, certainly. One of those tough little toddlers in the playground who just doesn't care how far things go. Probably had a lot of practice at handling hurt. Whereas Jason was a lovely, gentle, dreamy boy when he was left in peace and, not to put too fine a point on it, the lad was a bit of a cream-puff. He'd curled one hand around Truscott's thigh, but even so his hold wasn't all that tight.

Truscott gazed across at Winterburn in the middle of the room. The man didn't look as tough as young Zack. True, Truscott saw, he needed a shave, and speckled, homemade tattoos were prominent on Winterburn's forearms, but still...he was actually scrawny. He already had a somewhat beaten look. Truscott realised that he could probably take the man in a fair fight. He told himself that this was silly, not at all the sort of nonsense he should encourage in anyone--but I have to interject here and point out that, underneath, the thought still gave Truscott enormous pleasure. If necessary, he could...but, of course, there was no condoning that type of thing.

'D'you like a beer?' Winterburn asked over the noise from the TV, although he didn't move.

'No thanks, I'm really only here about some trouble Jason's been having at school.'

'Right.'

And now Winterburn seemed to take action, as if he were trying to find better manners. He proceeded to shoo the children off the furniture. He had to speak to them a second time, a bit roughly because they looked reluctant, but he got Zack and the kids to hop off and then he motioned for Truscott to sit. Truscott lowered himself onto the sofa's upholstery--it sank a long way down on the springs--and as he bent and was brushing off some crumbs of fish-batter that slid in towards him, he felt Jason climbing up close alongside. Their legs were touching, although there was plenty of space. Winterburn took a chair nearby. Zack and his siblings were on the floor. The scratched and gappy floorboards must be chilly to sit on, Truscott thought. He could see Zack was staring hard up at Jason. Rather obviously from his face, the boy was calculating what might happen next. Truscott mused that, really, this was something he himself would decide, thank you--and so he had to force himself to pay attention to Winterburn, who was already mumbling a few nervous words.

Truscott asked, 'I'm sorry, what?'

'What sort of trouble you got?'

'Well, you see, Jason's been getting some threats at school all week. Something along the lines of how he was going to be assaulted on the way home. And, naturally, he's been worried sick and then today--'

Winterburn stood up. He muttered something more and walked out of the room for the kitchen, leaving Truscott with nothing for it but to look severe for a minute in front of the three children. They all watched the television while they waited. Truscott had no idea what was playing: just a lot of blurry colours with bursts of intermittent noise. Either the reception wasn't very good, or he wondered if the prescription for his glasses didn't need checking again. Then Winterburn was back and in each hand holding a narrow, open bottle--Truscott was no drinker and he had to search for a moment for what that type of bottle was called: a stubbie, that was it. He had a sudden, violent memory-flash of a party he'd been at as a student long ago, with stereo-noise and heavy drinking and some argy-bargy.

Winterburn gave one bottle to Truscott. With the other he sat on the chair again, taking a sip.

'Sorry, what'd you say?' he asked, and motioned to drink.

Truscott offered his thanks and took a sip of the icy beer; but he felt as if he'd just lost at some subtle contest, at the close of the first round. He started to say quickly, 'Well, this afternoon your son, Zack, he hit Jason just after the bell went and knocked him down. Then he took Jason's bag and ran off into the playing fields, you know, down the bank, and threw the bag away in the bushes, the ones on the far side.'

Truscott wondered, why was he bothering to describe which bushes, as if Winterburn never went to the school--and did it matter? He paused, to see how this was sinking in. But Winterburn just blinked and gazed at his beer.

'You sure?' the man said at last.

That sounded like a formula: exactly the sort of thing one said in these circumstances. But Truscott dutifully turned to his son beside him.

'Is it about right?' he tried to ask kindly.

Jason was looking like someone who just wanted to die from embarrassment. Truscott recalled, he'd been swigging at some fizzy drink not long before they left--it would be difficult if the kid was wanting to go pee--but Jason glanced up and managed to nod a brief affirmative.

'Don't know if my boy'd do all that,' Winterburn muttered. But he was still blinking and staring now at the floor, as if he'd been caught biffing the child himself.

'I can assure you there's no mistake,' Truscott said. 'Is there, Zack?'

He tried to glare hard at the damn little urchin who, like his father, seemed only interested in the patch of wooden floor he was sat cross-legged on. Oh yes, the child was guilty all right. Bent forward, head down, and he was wriggling his shoulders sulkily in his somewhat overlarge t-shirt. Didn't like it, resisting. Truscott had to admit the boy was gamy. He searched his mind for what to say next. He wanted to press home his advantage. But the only thing he could think of--it was the very thing he'd told himself in the car, as he started up the snarling engine and waved an anxious Valerie goodbye, with Jason buckled into the passenger seat, the one thing, the only thing, that he wouldn't stoop to using.

'I really don't want to bring the School Principal into this,' he said, 'if we can resolve this here, this evening...'

Too late--and that was that, said. He waited. Looking for Winterburn to do something. But nothing happened. Winterburn just kept staring guiltily at the floor, his badly cut denim-jacket bunched up awkwardly behind him and his bare, tattooed arms on his knees, and the brown stubbie dangling forgotten from his small fingers--gazing down without even a suggestion of defiance.

'Do you think you could talk to the boy?' Truscott asked.

Winterburn nodded, but did nothing more.

So, when on earth was the man going to act, Truscott fumed, was he simply wishing his visitors would go away? He decided to concentrate his attention on Zack. Truscott, I can tell you, was proud of his powers of concentration. He fixed on the child, next to those fidgety siblings who were completely enthralled by the TV. Truscott steadied his mind and said at last, 'Zack, I think you must realise how serious this is. You just can't treat other people and their property this way.'

Even as he spoke, he thought how foolish he sounded, how utterly ridiculous. And how hypocritical. Didn't society itself treat these people in exactly that same terrible way, with nobody to care? But...and he reminded himself what he was here for.

'When you hurt someone like that, you just make things worse for everybody,' he went on. 'Zack, what if everybody went round hitting other people for no reason? Would you like it, if this happened to you? You know what it's like to get hurt, don't you?'

Zack was starting to nod his head up and down, though he still wasn't making any eye contact. Truscott had to wonder if this, too, was just the formula on display. But he knew what was the best course: keep on sounding like an adult.

'If you know what it's like to get hurt, then you'll know why it's bad to do it to others. Zack? Zack, look at me.'

'Look at the man,' Truscott heard Winterburn growl, though now the father was only in Truscott's peripheral vision. He concentrated on the boy, sitting there with the other two children on the floor.

Zack raised his large, flat, almost jowly face. Doing his best to look innocent. And in that childish dark face Truscott could suddenly descry Winterburn's features: the boy was a miniature copy of his father, a version with baby fat, a still-unformed version. A social problem waiting to grow old enough--all at once Truscott felt sorry for the world to come. Because Jason, clinging here, his leg up too hard against his father's on the sofa in that need of support, Jason was an unformed version of himself. All he really had to do, Truscott thought, was threaten the father. Yell. Smack him one. That'd solve the problem, solve it for good. Speak to these people in their own fucking language. And Truscott realised that that was probably what Jason was waiting for: not this namby-pamby stuff.

He tried to slide his bottom forward, to extricate himself from the over-soft padding on the couch.

'You won't do it again, will you, Zack?' he said. 'Promise me you won't do it again.'

The kid lowered his head once more and bobbed it up and down.

'Tell the man,' Winterburn growled.

Zack mumbled, 'Promise.'

They all sat still for a moment, only the television's pictures and blather going on in the background. Something had happened. One of the younger children, the girl, squirmed a bit as if she were going to giggle, but Winterburn gave her a hard look. Then, understanding at last that everyone was, in fact, expecting him to do something, Truscott turned to Winterburn and said with the most magnanimous tone he could conjure, 'Thank you for letting me talk to him.'

'Yeah, it's all right,' said Winterburn. Then he gestured in Zack's direction and added, 'I talk to him later.'

'Well, Mr Winterburn, I'd be grateful if you could just...keep an eye on things for me at your end.'

There. Truscott congratulated himself. Progress. This was how adults resolved things. It would be a good lesson for Jason and, perhaps, for the boy Zack, too. Yes, they'd all learn something here today. The dog pushed open the door from the passageway and came into the living-room; it had been somewhere outside and was working a pale, freshly-dug-up bone in its excited jaws. Winterburn ignored the animal as it nuzzled in among the children with the bone. Truscott watched the two younger kids begin to squeal and roll around with the dog, but then, they didn't really have a clue about what'd been going on.

Truscott stood up. He was feeling a little seedy from the beer, which he realised, now, he'd been sipping at so hesitantly the whole time that he'd actually finished the bottle. But he was always more nervous than he appeared, I would think--and no more so than when he was making a mess of things.

'Well, thank you for the drink,' he said.

'D'you like another?'

'Thanks, but no.' The smell of the chips and ketchup were making Truscott unaccountably hungry. He added, 'My wife will be waiting for us.'

'Right.'

Winterburn stood up too, and he led Truscott out into the passageway. Jason and Zack were following along behind. Winterburn reached for the front door, half-turning in the narrow space, and said, 'Your boy got hurt, eh?'

Was that a smile on his face? Truscott thought. But as he pondered this, Winterburn continued.

'I'll keep an eye on him.'

Ah, this was progress indeed. Truscott nodded his thanks. He walked out the door and remembered Jason and turned back for him at the porch, but as he did so, his eyes fell not on his son but on Zack. That little, grown-up-looking rogue in his footy t-shirt and high-fashion haircut, he was passing a finger across his brown neck at Jason: a you're-dead gesture. Jason was stepping over the front-mat, and Truscott wasn't even sure if his son had seen the signal, or perhaps not.

But they were heading down the concrete driveway now. Winterburn was nowhere behind them, though the Alsatian was trotting along cheerfully at their heels--Truscott was going to have to get rid of it when they reached that wire-mesh gate. Seedy, the beer was definitely making him feel unwell. He saw his car across the street, realised that he'd been foolish in not parking it under a light in this part of Palmerston North and almost began to wonder for the first time if he hadn't made a mistake.

Copyright Ian Richards, 2008

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