The Real Thing Page 4

  ‘Hi, Jason, Tupai, Fizzer.’

  Two years, and he still remembered their names.

  ‘Hey, Henry!’

  ‘How’s the Spitfire?’

  Fizzer laughed. Henry was talking about a secret playground they’d once shown him. A place called the Lost Park that the city council had forgotten existed.

  ‘It’s gone. The whole park is gone. I think the council must have found it on a map. They’re building an apartment block there now.’

  Henry laughed too, and Flea. None of them really knew why they laughed about it. It was one of the last vestiges of their childhood. Flattened under the bulldozers of city developers. It wasn’t really funny; it was a tragedy. Maybe that’s why they laughed.

  Henry grabbed a Coke and settled into a corner with Flea for a bit of a catch up. A few of the others sat in a circle around them, awed by the presence of such a big rugby league star, although, when you thought about it, he was no more famous than Flea.

  Phil had brought his drums. As a drummer he was a good singer. As a singer, he probably would be better off playing guitar. And he couldn’t play guitar at all. He wanted to form a band, and wanted Fizzer (harmonica) and Tupai (guitar) to be in it, along with James McDonald (bass guitar), brother of the lovely, Scottish object of Tupai’s unrequited affection: Erica McDonald.

  Both Tupai and Fizzer had been trying to avoid getting involved in a band with Phil, but he had talked them into having a few practices together.

  Phil went out to get his drums from the car, but when he came back carrying his snares, he had unwanted company: a bunch of yahoos from the senior school, who always seemed to turn up at parties and then invite their friends over. One time at Hamish Knox’s place so many had turned up, using their mobile phones to text their friends, who then turned up and texted their friends, that it turned into a near riot and the police had to be called, with the Eagle police helicopter and their riot helmets, long batons and other assorted equipment for the purpose of dispersing rioters.

  There were two car loads this night, but Flea saw them coming and met them at the door. Tupai had also seen them, and he was right alongside Flea when they arrived.

  Henry looked up with interest, but no obvious concern. Most of the dancers were still dancing, and the party was still going on all around them.

  Flea was firm. ‘Sorry, guys, invitation only.’

  One of them made a disparaging remark, and the others laughed.

  Tupai said, ‘Another night, eh?’

  They were a bit wary of Tupai. His reputation had grown with the number of fights that he’d got into, and the number of bloodied noses and black eyes he’d left in his wake. The ‘strongest kid in school’ reputation that had seemed like so much fun at primary school had turned into ‘the toughest kid in school’ reputation at secondary school, and all the other kids, including seniors, who thought they deserved to hold that title, were always lining up to have a go at Tupai.

  Big mistake. Tupai had never lost a fight in his life. At the age of fourteen, he had been attacked by two seventh formers at the same time and had left them bloodied and crying.

  But there were at least eight of the gate-crashers hanging around outside the ranch-sliders, standing on plants, generally making a right nuisance of themselves and trying to get inside.

  Fizzer and Jason joined their friends at the door.

  ‘Look out, your mum’s arrived,’ the closest one sneered, who seemed to be some kind of ring-leader. ‘And your girlfriend too. What beautiful hair.’

  Fizzer was growing his hair long and had it tied back in a short ponytail.

  Tupai visibly bristled at the slur but said calmly, ‘You don’t want to gatecrash this party, guys.’

  ‘Actually, we do. That’s why we’re standing in this stupid, ugly garden waiting for you to get out of the way.’

  The guy’s name was Carl. He was large and podgy with horrible acne. Even his mates called him ‘crater-face’ behind his back, and to those in the junior school he was known as ‘the thing from the swamp’.

  His attitude seemed to match his acne.

  Tupai never lost his cool, not for one second. He said, ‘This is a junior school party. It’s just a bunch of kids sitting around drinking soft drink and playing party games. You don’t want to come in here, you’ll never live it down.’

  There was a murmuring from crater-face’s mates.

  Tupai resumed his softly spoken speech. ‘I heard there was a party at Mike Shanaghan’s tonight. That’s where all the cool people are.’

  That was all it took. There was a short, muttered conference amongst the hydrangeas and fuchsias, then they were gone. Not even a backward glance or departing repartee. The kid who had never lost a fight was learning how to avoid them.

  As if he had been waiting for them to leave, a tall, slim man stepped into the pool of light in the courtyard as the seniors drifted away, trampling across the lawn. He had broad shoulders like a swimmer. He smiled warmly at Tupai then his eyes settled on Fizzer.

  ‘Hi, Fraser,’ he said. ‘I rang your place, your dad told me where you were.’

  Tupai seemed stunned to see the man. Fizzer seemed, almost (just almost), not to be surprised.

  ‘Hi, Mr Truman,’ Fizzer said. ‘Guys, this is Harry Truman, from Coca-Cola.’

  They all stepped outside then, as the music was too loud in the room for easy conversation.

  ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your party,’ Harry said, ‘but a very tricky problem has developed at our head office in Atlanta.’ He paused and looked seriously at Fizzer. ‘Do you have a passport?’

  Fizzer shook his head.

  Later that evening, against all odds, Erica McDonald asked Tupai to dance.

  ATLANTA

  Anastasia Borkin was a Russian. Not from one of the satellite states of the former USSR, who were often mistakenly called Russians, but from Mother Russia herself. She looked like a Russian too, in that broad-jawed Slavic way. But her long, softly curling, brown hair, and the artful use of make-up softened that appearance, and her twinkling, sparkling smile lit up her face like a fireworks display, and was worth a fortune in cosmetic surgery. Most of the men she had known throughout her life had thought her quite attractive, in a broad-jawed Slavic sort of way.

  Anastasia Borkin was Vice-President (Security) for The Coca-Cola Company. That a Russian should hold such a post as Vice-President (Security) for a bastion of Americanism like The Coca-Cola Company seemed like a strange international irony, but really it was no more than a person who happened to be particularly good at her job rising, through talent and hard work, to a position of high authority.

  And in any case, anyone who knew their history would know that a Russian named after the long-lost daughter of the last of the Russian Tsars would be no great comrade of the communist government in that country.

  Born in New York, the daughter of a Russian defector, she sometimes wondered if her father had really been a spy, but there was no evidence and her father emphatically denied it right up until his death.

  Borkin was Russia mad. She studied Russian music and poetry and collected paintings by great Russian painters. She helped fund a small cinema that ran Russian films. She was a keen chess player and avidly studied the great Russian chess masters. She was a fan of Russia the same way some people are fans of baseball, or certain breeds of dog. Not that she would ever want to live there. The thought of giving up a comfortable life in a warm southern state for bleak winters in Moscow was not even an option for discussion, and her young family would have absolutely mutinied.

  Anastasia Borkin was a Russian. That’s what she told everyone. But scratch the hide of the Russian bear and the Stars and Stripes shone through.

  Borkin smiled as the two New Zealand boys emerged apprehensively out of the customs area of Hartsfield International Airport. A flight attendant walked alongside, chatting animatedly with them. Their flight chaperone no doubt. The board had insisted on an airline chaperone, and also i
nsisted one of the Vice-Presidents meet them at the airport. As VP (Security) Borkin had felt it was her responsibility and, as much as she disliked the idea of babysitting, seeing them gave her a small hope that it might not be quite as arduous a duty as she had feared.

  Borkin stepped forward as the three approached, the boys looking around uncertainly. ‘Mr Boyd and Mr White?’ she asked.

  The taller one stuck out a hand in greeting and said warmly, ‘G’day. I’m Fraser.’

  ‘Gidday,’ Borkin said, a little awkwardly, trying to make the lad feel at home.

  ‘Tupai,’ said the other, with a smile as wide as Gorky Park.

  ‘I’m Anastasia Borkin,’ she said. ‘I’m a Vice-President with Coca-Cola. I’ll escort you to our offices.’ She turned to the chaperone, smart and sharp in her Qantas uniform, and said, ‘Everything go all right on the flight?’

  ‘Oh, they weren’t any trouble at all,’ the chaperone said, and gave Borkin a knowing wink that made her wonder just what she was in for.

  ‘See ya later, Jan,’ Fraser said.

  ‘See ya,’ Tupai echoed.

  To Anastasia’s surprise the flight attendant, Jan, impulsively reached out and hugged each of the boys in turn. ‘You be good,’ she said.

  The two boys hugged her back, without embarrassment or backslapping, but with real affection.

  Borkin’s broad Slavic jaw wrinkled into a half smile. They must have made quite an impression on their chaperone, she thought. She was still smiling as they made their way out of the terminal to where their driver was waiting.

  The boys were fascinated by the limousine. Bright red, with white suede upholstery. Coca-Cola colours of course. Tupai opened a small fridge in the centre of the limo and, for some reason, seemed surprised to find it stocked, not with champagne, but with Coca-Cola. Having opened the fridge, however, he was having some trouble getting it closed. It popped up out of an island in the centre of the limo and created a small table as it did so. But it wouldn’t pop back down. He pressed it down, but each time it just sprang back up. Eventually Borkin, with a polite smile, reached across and shut it for him. Fraser just stared out of the window, seemingly overwhelmed by the sheer scale of all things American.

  ‘I heard you had to get a passport in quite a hurry,’ Borkin said.

  Fraser nodded. ‘Never been overseas before. Never even been on a plane before.’ He pulled his passport out of a pocket in his jeans and showed it to her proudly.

  ‘Never been on a plane?’ Borkin was a little surprised. She knew very little about New Zealand, but surely they had planes.

  Fraser continued. ‘Nope. And I don’t think the assistant had used the camera before. Look, I look like an escapee from a home for the weird.’

  Tupai laughed. ‘You are an escapee from a home for the weird.’

  Borkin laughed with him. ‘How about you, Tupai, did you have a passport?’

  ‘Yeah, I got one when I went wallaby hunting in Oz with my old man.’

  Borkin looked blankly at him for a moment, and eventually asked, ‘You like hunting?’

  ‘Crikey, yeah!’ Fraser exclaimed. ‘Tupai and his dad get themselves dropped off by helicopter in the middle of the bush, two weeks from the nearest civilisation, with just two days’ supply of food. They live off the land on the way out.’ There was a grudging admiration in his voice, but it was clear from his expression that he felt it was something you’d be sentenced to if you’d committed a major crime, rather than something you did for fun.

  ‘It’s great,’ Tupai smiled. ‘The only bit I’m not too keen on is burning off the leeches after a trek through a swamp.’

  Fraser shuddered comically.

  ‘Are there wild animals in New Zealand?’ Borkin asked.

  ‘Well, there’re the Captain Cookers,’ Tupai replied.

  ‘Captain Cookers?’

  ‘Huge wild pigs,’ Fraser explained. ‘Big tusks, charge right at you.’

  ‘But they’re all right.’ Tupai grinned. ‘It’s the moas you’ve got to worry about. Giant birds, three metres tall. Legs like small trees. Sharp claws.’

  ‘Holy Cow,’ Borkin whispered, wondering what kind of a place they came from.

  Fraser and Tupai looked at each other, then both burst into laughter. At some point, Borkin realised, they had started teasing her. Only she wasn’t quite sure where that point was.

  Anastasia Borkin decided she was going to enjoy the company of these two exuberant young men.

  COCA-COLA PLAZA

  Tupai had come on the journey because Fizzer, who considered himself generally to be at one with the universe, had never been at one with any part of the universe other than New Zealand, and the thought of wandering around a foreign country without at least one friendly face was a little daunting, even for Fizzer, imperturbable Fizzer.

  Fizzer had asked Harry if Tupai could go, and Harry had approved it without even consulting his superiors in Atlanta, which had made them realise that, whatever was going on, it was pretty big stuff!

  Not two days after his passport arrived – in a plain brown envelope at the office of the motor camp – Fizzer and Tupai pulled up outside Coca-Cola headquarters in a bright red limousine with Anastasia Borkin.

  Coca-Cola headquarters turned out to be not one building but four. It was situated on a road named after the company, Coca-Cola Plaza, stuck right in the middle of North Avenue, Downtown, Atlanta, Georgia, on the south-eastern side of the United States of America.

  A massive Coca-Cola symbol stared down at them from the tallest of the buildings as they were ushered, like VIPs, up the steps of the smallest building, which turned out to be the corporate headquarters.

  There was some compulsory handshaking with a bunch of Important People, with names that both of them forgot as soon as they heard them, overawed, as they were, by the whole process. Then they were whisked off to the tallest of the buildings, in through a huge reception area with floor to ceiling windows and shiny black floors. The windows were covered with a colourful tapestry of transparencies: photographs of Coca-Cola employees and their personal stories.

  They passed through corridors where Coke was dispensed in cans from free vending machines or flowed from soda fountains, up in a plushly upholstered lift, or ‘elevator’ as their hosts called it, and eventually into a large room panelled in a dark, rich wood with a matching table that stretched the length of the room.

  Here, there were more introductions: Mr Fairweather was a tall, grey-haired man with an angular Adam’s apple that bobbed as he spoke; Mr Pansier looked Italian, but spoke with a slow Texan drawl; Mr Capper looked for all the world like a kiwifruit, with little brown hairs sprouting in all directions; Mr McCafferty was young and friendly, but there was a fierce determination behind his eyes; Mrs Whitaker was a rather severe-looking lady in her fifties.

  A series of ten plastic tumblers were set up on small white paper coasters in a row along one side of the table.

  The tall man, Mr Fairweather, indicated to Tupai and Fizzer that they should sit down in front of the tumblers, but it was Mr Pansier who spoke.

  ‘Reports are that you have quite a discerning palate when it comes to soft drinks.’

  Fizzer nodded. It seemed easier than talking in front of all these important-looking executives in their dark suits.

  ‘Naturally we are a little sceptical,’ Mr Pansier continued, ‘but if it turns out to be true, then your talents could possibly have a small practical application in some new field trials that we are planning.’

  Tupai and Fizzer looked at each other. They may have been young, naïve and from a small country at the bottom of the world, but neither was foolish enough to believe that they had been whisked away from New Zealand at a moment’s notice and were now standing in front of a bunch of high-powered executives just because Fizzer might be able to assist with a field trial.

  Mr Pansier’s manner was friendly, but there was a small bite of disbelief in his voice. ‘If what is claimed about you is tru
e, then you’ll be able to pass this simple test we have prepared for you.’

  He indicated the tumblers.

  ‘All of these glasses contain cola drinks. One of them contains our own product, Coca-Cola. We’d like you to see if you can identify it.’

  They’re not glasses, Fizzer thought, they’re plastic tumblers, but he nodded anyway.

  ‘Take your time,’ Mr Pansier said, meaning that Fizzer should start.

  ‘Could I have a glass of water?’ Fizzer asked. ‘And a bucket? Oh, and a pen and some paper.’

  There was a small delay while these were fetched, during which Fizzer noticed a small, discrete smile trickle out from the face of Anastasia, just a few sparklers, not the full fireworks display, as if she had suggested this herself earlier but had been overruled.

  Tupai folded his arms and tried to look like a bouncer because he was a bit nervous and had nothing much else to do.

  When the water arrived, Fizzer took a sip, rinsed it around inside his mouth, then spat it into the bucket. It seemed a crass thing to do in front of high-powered executives in such a posh boardroom, and he caught a disapproving glance from Mr Pansier, but Anastasia winked at him and he relaxed and smiled back at her.

  Fizzer went quickly down the line of drinks, watching the bubbles, sniffing the tumblers, sampling the drinks, rinsing his mouth between each one, pretty much the same routine as at the Glenfield school fair. The main difference was the notes that he jotted down on the supplied notepad as he went. He finished the last sample, rinsed his mouth for a final time, and sat down studying his notes.

  ‘Any luck?’ Mrs Whitaker asked gently.

  There was a silence, during which even Tupai began to look doubtful.

  Mr Pansier crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, shaking his head sceptically.

  Eventually Fizzer looked up. He said quietly, ‘These drinks have been sitting here too long. You should have waited for me to arrive before you poured them.’