Chapter 5

“I suppose to make sense of any of it I will have to start at the very beginning. My dad was a diplomat, working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He met my mother on a post to the embassy in England. She was from Kent, working as a teacher in London. He convinced her to come back with him to New Zealand in ’76 and they were married soon after that. My dad was part Samoan, part German (that’s where Brandt comes from) and part New Zealander. In reality the Samoan and German parts were overwhelmed by the Kiwi in him – he grew up in Whakatane. A few years after he and my mum were married he was posted to Samoa, partly on his own request. They didn’t know until after they got there that my mother was pregnant. So I spent the first couple of years of my life in Samoa. We came back to Wellington in 1980, and then were off to the US for a couple of years, then in the late eighties to Singapore for another two years.

“I was what they call a diplobrat. I went to expensive schools in the US and Singapore, and was often in the company of other children like myself. In reality I wasn’t particularly brattish. I was an only child – my parents decided not to have any more – but I wasn’t really indulged that much. I was studious, I suppose. Mum and Dad always said that I was quite serious.

“When dad’s post in Singapore finished we returned to Wellington and we remained there throughout my Secondary School years. I never had any trouble at school. I did well in all of my subjects, but particularly enjoyed English and Geography.

“The end of high school coincided with Dad getting the Ambassadorship to Samoa. I decided that I would go to Auckland and try to get into Law school. At this stage I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. I partly decided to do Law because dad had a Law degree.

“I spent my first year in a hostel. It was a good way to meet people, but I actually found many of them inherently disagreeable. I hadn’t been a rebellious teenager in any serious way, but in my first year of Uni, like a lot of students I suppose, I took up social smoking, skipped lectures and drank too much. I spent most of my time with a couple of guys I met in the hostel who both shared my outlook on life, Jacob Strang and David Henderson. We were in a few of the same classes, so we lived in each other’s pockets.

“Even though I was trying on my James Dean persona, I still did fairly well in my courses and got into second year Law. At that stage I still thought that doing law could prove useful, even though I couldn’t see myself totting up billable hours and trawling through volumes.

“I spent the summer working at a warehouse in South Auckland, packing stationery. Jacob, David and I had found a flat in Mt Eden, and had a great summer. We went on regular road trips and Dave taught us both everything he knew about fishing. I spent Christmas with Jacob’s family in Tauranga, and we all went to Hawke’s Bay, to Dave’s family’s for New Year’s eve.

“When I got back to University the next year, ’97, it only took a few weeks to realise that I wasn’t going to last at Law school. I didn’t have any friends in my law classes and couldn’t face the drudgery. I think I was also repelled by the competitive nature of Law students. I mean, they were all very bright, well…most of them, but there was that sense that many of them were already mentally spending future earnings.

“Spending time in the warehouse over the summer had instilled in me a sense of the futility of acquisition, watching the ceaseless banality of pallets of stationery coming and going. Jacob and I talked long and hard about the wastefulness of society and the manipulative excesses of marketing and advertising. I think I felt this way because my parents had lived pretty frugal lives. They kept their possessions to a minimum because of moving around the place all the time.

“That year I took Geography and English papers as well as some politics. I officially pulled out of Law, and agonised over what I would say to Dad. I realised that I would have to have some other option. I thought long and hard about it. The most plausible option at this point seemed to be that I would major in Geography, maybe do a Masters and look for work with a council or something similar.

“That was what I told dad and truth be told he was perfectly happy. He simply wanted me to do whatever would make me happy, for which I was immensely grateful.

“Those were heady times. Jacob and I would smoke pot now and then and wax philosophical. We had both started to take an interest in the growing anti-globalisation movement. There were a few scattered protest groups on campus that would make use of the periodic student demonstrations and occupations to push their agenda. But I was reluctant to take part in organised protests, marches, that kind of thing. It seemed like we were substituting membership of one group for membership of another. I preferred a more detached stance. Isaac was keen to go along to that sort of thing. He went to several of the occupations that went on during our time at Uni. Dave was even less interested than me. He had a girlfriend by then, so he had plenty to occupy him.

“We did stay together as a flat for the first three years of Uni. Dave finished his BSc and got a job with a horticultural research company in Hastings. Isaac and I both decided we would do an honours year, myself in Geography and he in Sociology. We got another flatmate in, an older guy who was doing his Phd. We didn’t see him much, which suited us just fine.

“That year the irrationality of the world was running high. Y2K was scaring normally sensible people into abject terror and internet stocks were defying economic gravity. Isaac and I went down to Hawkes Bay for The Millennium. It was good to catch up with Dave, and it seemed like a good time to be out of the city. Soon after New Year’s I went to visit my parents, who had just come back from their stint in Samoa. Dad was taking a senior position at MOFAT. I hadn’t seen them in a year or so, since their last Christmas trip back. They were both in good spirits and looking forward to being back in the country.

“Back in Auckland Isaac was working in a café and I had been doing odd jobs through Student Job Search. We were both pretty keen to go and do our OE. We planned that if we worked for a year we could save enough to get over to England. I got a job with a firm of surveyors, working the theodolite. It was pretty lame work really, but at least it felt like I was using some of my skills, and was better paid than the other work I had been doing.

“Then on March 23^rd of 2000 I received the visit that changed everything. At about seven in the evening a policeman knocked on the door. I asked him what I could do for him and he asked if I was Paul Anthony Brandt. I told him that I was and asked him again what I could do for him. He said that it was his sad duty to inform me that my parents had both been killed in a car accident. I must have gone a sickly shade because he insisted that we go inside and sit down. It took me quite a while to accept it. At first I was sure that it was a mistake and I got him to confirm their names, and the make of their car. Then he told me how it had happened: they were driving to Martinborough for the weekend and somebody had lost control on a corner and had careered into them. My mother had died instantly and my father had died in the ambulance. At the thought of this I felt ill and had to go to the toilet to be sick. When I got back the policeman asked me if there were any other relatives that would need contacting, and whether I was going to need a hand. I said that there was my Grandmother in Whakatane, but that she was a bit senile now. My Uncle, Dad’s brother lived with his family in Brisbane. My mother’s parents were still in the UK and so was her brother.

“I rang everybody I could that evening and then the next day I rang work and told them I wouldn’t be in for a little while. I went to Wellington that day and had to go through the body identification, which was really unpleasant, and then start the arrangements with the undertakers. My Grandparents were going to fly out from the UK and my Uncle was going to come over from Brisbane and pick up my Grandmother on the way down.

“We had the funeral at the end of that week. It was harrowing, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I was kept busy organising everything I think I would have struggled. I saw a whole lot of people that I hadn’t seen in years and they were all very sympathetic.

“The next day I drove out with the family to the scene of the accident and put some flowers by the roadside. The skid marks were still fresh on the tar-seal and there was broken glass in the grass on the verge. Once I had done that I felt more human again. It was an incredibly lonely feeling though, knowing that the two people who knew you best, who had spent the most time with you, were gone. It really was like a piece of me had died.

“After that I went back to the house in Mt Victoria. Some of their stuff was still in boxes after moving back from Samoa. I saw the executor of the will the next day and he told me what I knew already. I was the sole benefactor of their wills. I trolled through their stuff and sorted out everything that had sentimental value – photos, books and so on.

“I had to make a decision about whether I wanted to keep the house. I talked to my family, particularly my grandparents. They said that at my age I shouldn’t be weighed down with a house, and in any case the mortgage wasn’t entirely paid off.

“I told them about my plans to come to England and they thought it was a great idea. They told me I could stay if I wanted to.

“I decided then and there that I would sell the house and the furniture and put the money aside. I contacted a real estate agent the next day and discussed the sale. They said they would arrange it all at this end and get in touch.

“I went back to Auckland with my family and bid them all farewell, promising I would be in touch about coming over to England.

“Going back to the flat felt very odd, as if nothing had happened at all and that the previous week was nothing more than a nightmare. Isaac was really good about everything. For a few days I wandered around in a bit of a daze. Eventually Isaac insisted that we go out and get drunk. I talked about my parents, told him about the funeral and everything. We agreed that we would still go to England, and I told him that we could stay with my Grandparents if we needed to.

“Also that night I decided that I was going to set the money from the house aside. I didn’t want to use the money to go and buy frivolous things, and I still had to find my own way, because money would only last so long.

“The house sold fairly quickly, and having sorted out all the financial details with the mortgage, I paid off the small amount of student loan I had, and went into the bank to invest the rest. It felt very strange having money, being an investor and being treated obsequiously by the bank staff. I didn’t enjoy it at all, and it felt awful to think of how I came to have all this money. I resolved that I would only use the money to buy my own house, whenever that might be.

“I worked the rest of that year and by January of 2001 both Isaac and I were ready to get out of the country. We flew out together in March, arriving in London just as the first signs of spring were appearing. We went and stayed with my grand-parents in Chatham for a while, did a bit of travelling around, before deciding that we would need to find some work. Isaac enrolled with a temping agency and they got him all sorts of office work. I found some work with a firm that was building a shopping centre in Acton. We found flats individually. It was odd actually. We had lived together for the last 5 years, and were still very close. But it worked out well because we both got introduced to new groups of people through our respective flats.

“Isaac was really keen to go to Genoa that summer. There was going to be a meeting of the WTO and the G7 and, following on from similar events in Seattle and elsewhere, there was a huge protest planned. He thought it would be great to finally get involved in something that was real, something that actually mattered. I was keen to go away for a while, and truth be told I did sympathise with the aim of the protests, but I just couldn’t imagine myself storming police lines in disgust at the World Trade Organisation.

“But I agreed to go. We flew to Nice and pitched a tent in a camp-ground there. The place was overrun by young Europeans – Italians, Germans, French – all seemingly members of one group or another, Anarchists, Zapatistas, Greenies, the works. They were hyped up about the protest.

“We met a couple of English girls, Rachel and Jenny, staying in our campsite. They had done the same as us, flown down to be part of the action. We spent an evening with them, talking about the ills of the world and drinking cheap French wine.

“The next morning there was talk all through the city about the protests. Rumours were circulating that people had been caught with the makings of bombs. The police were being bussed in from all over Italy apparently. I started to get a bit nervous about the whole thing. I just couldn’t see how so many people could get that worked up about world trade. My righteous indignation of previous years had faded. Life seemed too short all of a sudden. Anyway, in the end I decided that I would stay behind and look after the campsite. Isaac generously offered to escort the two girls. They set off and I stayed behind and wandered around a now very empty Nice.

“They got back the next day. Isaac had three stitches in his forehead from being hit by a tear-gas canister. They described the mayhem that had occurred. They had been gassed and shot at with rubber bullets. Apparently there were agents provocateur throughout the crowd, and even peaceful groups had been set upon. Apparently somebody had been shot dead in a scuffle with the police.

“That night I spent the evening talking to Rachel. It was the first time in years that I had found a girl I could talk to. She was a biology graduate working as a researcher for WWF. We had a great time and I got her number.

“When I got back to London I called her. We met up a few times. She was nice, but she seemed reluctant to go any further. Eventually I confessed to her that I thought I was falling for her. She sighed. She had feared that might have been the case, and had been trying to decide what to do. She told me that she had been seeing Isaac. They had got together on the evening of the protest – little did I know – and she had realised that I was interested and had been hoping that Isaac would say something. I was too disappointed to say anything very coherent. I said goodbye to her and went straight over to Isaac’s.

“I was livid at what he had done, and told him so. He said that he didn’t know what was going to happen with Rachel, so he hadn’t wanted to say anything. He hadn’t realised that I was that keen, he said. I told him that I thought that was all just bullshit and stormed out.

“They kept seeing each other, and I didn’t see much of either of them. I threw myself into work again. It was soon after that that the World Trade Centre was attacked. This only made my mood all the more black. Isaac and I drifted apart, and not just over Rachel. He was wrapped up in his scene, anarchists and dance parties, and I just couldn’t get excited about it anymore

“I got a new job in Brighton as a computer operator for a construction firm. Some old University friends were living down there. It was a welcome relief from the uncomfortable silence that had developed between me and Isaac. I spent a couple of years down there, saving money and doing trips away to Europe.

“I finally resolved that I was going to make a real go of travelling. I really wanted to see Russia, and particularly to do the Trans Siberian. So about a year ago now I set off across Europe and on to Russia. It was an awesome trip, and I am so glad I did it. But, by the time I got to Vladivostok I was ready to come home. When I arrived back I knew I needed to take a bit of time out, and Castlepoint seemed ideal. So that’s how I ended up here. I told you it was long and boring.”

“It wasn’t boring at all.” Jeanette said.

“But I still don’t know what I’m going to do. In fact, with what’s happened I’m even less sure than when I arrived. I’ve got a bad feeling that things are going to get really messy.”

“You’re an intelligent young man, you’ve got some financial resources and no one dependent on you. I think you are in an excellent position.”

“Funny I think you’re in a good position as well: On your own land, not dependent on anyone.”

We both looked at each other.

“Maybe we’ll both be all right.” I said

“I hope so.” Jeanette said. “Do you want a cup of tea?”

“Thanks. That would be nice.”

The afternoon was wearing away. When I looked outside I could see that it was threatening rain. I had to make a decision, I thought as I watched Jeanette boil the jug. And soon.