by A C Praat
Like Ra’s house, this one was full of photos, but also found objects from the beach – shells, pebbles and feathers – and it smelt of rising bread and brown sugar. The windows framing the sea were crusted with salt, wiped into swirls that seemed to be a motif of Ani’s art: the closed fist of fern fronds.
‘My mokopuna,’ Ani said to Mishra, nodding toward the front windows. ‘Always out to do those jobs that earn them a bit – always in a hurry to finish.’
She must have seen Mishra studying the patterns on the glass. Ra was right – not much got past her aunty.
Ani placed a plate of biscuits on the table, each biscuit a large golden sprawl scattered with chocolate. ‘Don’t tell Vicky,’ Ani said to Ra.
‘Aunty has type two diabetes,’ Ra said to Mishra in a conspiratorial voice. ‘She’s supposed to be off the sugar.’
‘And setting an example to you young ones.’ Ani returned to the kitchen, came back bearing four mugs of tea, and sat down. She bent her head, her lips moving rapidly.
Mishra bowed her head and waited.
‘Amene. Kei te pai.’
Ra passed Mishra the biscuits and Mishra took one, smiling at Ani. ‘Like my mum’s,’ she said and bit into the chewy disk.
The desire to see her mother welled in her eyes and she blinked away the tears. Her emotions were all over the place. Inside her all the worry and loss seemed to be coalescing into one thick quagmire in the middle of her chest. She put down the biscuit.
Aunty Ani smiled at her sympathetically. ‘Hard to know where to put yourself.’
Mishra nodded.
‘Rawinia, fetch the map and my laptop.’
Mishra sent a fleeting half-smile to Raffe as Ra left the table and disappeared through a door. She’d never seen anyone tell Ra what to do. Raffe smiled back.
Ra returned – the laptop open, the map cradled within – and put them down in front of Ani who passed the map to Raffe. He leaned back from the table to unfold it while Ani tapped the keyboard.
Ani tutted as she read the screen, but there was a smile on her face. ‘Look at those fellas!’
Ra leaned in to see who her aunty was referring to. Ani turned the screen so Mishra could see the group of teenagers standing in various hero poses at the end of a wharf, one holding a huge fish up by its gills.
‘Nothing yet about Philip,’ Ani said, turning the screen back around.
Raffe moved his cup to the edge of the table to make room for the map. ‘We’re here,’ he said, pointing to dots on the coastline that indicated sand. ‘We were moored here.’ His finger moved up and pointed at a small bay indented in the coastline with an island opposite. ‘Lexi and I scooted round here.’ He traced the lines of the beach, the headland and the island.
Aunty Ani was nodding. ‘That’s the bay just over there,’ she said, raising her eyes to look out the window to the north. ‘The water moves this way’ –she swept her finger down the map from north to south– ‘but Tangaroa doesn’t have it all his own way.’
Mishra glanced at Ra for a translation.
‘These headlands and the islands break up the flow and create local eddies.’ Ra circled her finger around the edges of the coast. ‘Anaru – my Search and Rescue uncle – says there’ve been strong rips just out from us, but that wouldn’t affect Philip on the other side of the headland.’
‘We’ve asked the whānau to search the coastline. They started yesterday – the ones up from town for the weekend.’ Ani reached across and squeezed Mishra’s hand.
‘What should we do?’ Mishra asked.
‘We’ll go up here’ –Ra pointed to the headland north of the beach– ‘and walk around to here where Philip jumped off.’ She indicated the small bay on the other side.
Mishra nodded. Finally she was doing something.
* * *
‘People are getting lazy!’ Ra puffed. She was leading them up the headland, switching a stick back and forth in front of her through the knee-high grass, following a path that was undetectable to Mishra.
Mishra looked down the bank – over the grass and knobbly bushes and flaxes – to the rocks and sea a hundred meters below. At least she’d have something to grab onto if she fell.
‘When I was a kid there were paths all over this headland. Wasn’t overgrown like this!’ Ra whacked a clump of grass and stopped to catch her breath.
Mishra sank onto a rock and leaned back, then yelped and snatched her hand up as something pricked her fingers.
‘You two just aren’t fit enough.’ Raffe removed his cap to wipe the sweat out of his eyes. The wind buffeted his hair one way then the other as he surveyed the ocean. He looked like he belonged to the land, Mishra thought. Raffe looked like he belonged wherever he went.
She plucked the thistle from her finger and sucked angrily on the blood welling in its wake. Inside her sneakers, which were now damp from the grass, a blister was forming on each of her heels, and she’d lost track of the number of times she’d tied her hair back, only to have the wind snatch it free again.
‘Tide will be out on the way back,’ Ra said. ‘We can scramble round the rocks at the bottom.’ She raised the binoculars hanging from a cord around her neck and scanned the coastline.
On Mishra’s right Raffe was doing the same. She wished she had a pair of her own. Instead she squinted into the grey light. Clouds had overcome the morning’s bright start and the air smelt of rain. At the far end of the beach below, a group of people – no bigger than matchsticks from this distance – were approaching the southern headland.
‘Shit,’ said Ra.
‘What?’ Mishra was instantly alert.
‘Did you feel that?’ Ra held up her arms, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and stared at the sky. ‘We’re going to be drenched.’
Mishra whacked Ra’s leg. ‘I thought you’d seen something!’ she scolded.
‘Come on.’ Ra pulled her to her feet. ‘There’s a hut in the bush on the other side.’
They crested the headland and started a dizzying descent to the beach below as the rain stung their faces. Sliding on pebbles and stones hidden by the undergrowth, they stumbled down the track, skidding on their bottoms the last ten meters before dropping onto smooth rocks. Mishra cursed while she jogged after Ra and Raffe up the beach, sand tugging at her shoes, her lungs and raw heels burning.
Ra stopped at a wooden post on the edge of the bush, painted red at the tip, but took off again just when Mishra caught up.
‘Ra!’ Mishra bent over her knees in the shelter of manuka and dragged in one breath, then another. Raffe trotted back and offered her his water bottle.
‘Got enough of that!’ Mishra puffed.
Raffe waited with her until she stopped panting, and she followed him up the sandy track through the bush.
‘Don’t know how Lex and I missed this,’ he said as they emerged into a clearing and were confronted with a wide deck on which sat walls of glass bordered by thick, wooden sills – the kind that required endless maintenance. The bottom of the windows was streaked with the rain that swept in under the glassed-in pergola, spoiling the view to the interior. It was straight out of a catalogue for luxury escapes.
Raffe headed left and disappeared around the corner of the house. Ra was on the deck, her hands cupped against the glass, peering inside. ‘Not the hut I remember. Reckon there’s a key?’
Mishra squeezed water out of her ponytail and sat on the deck to remove her shoes. ‘Tell me there’s a road down to this place,’ she begged Ra.
‘Wasn’t when I was here last. Boating or walking access only. But this wasn’t here then either.’ She knocked on the window. ‘I’ll take a look around the back.’
Raffe plonked down on the deck next to her. ‘Someone’s had a huge party. The bin at the back is full of wine bottles.’ He pushed his wet hair off his face and looked up through the pergola extending over the deck. ‘At least we’re a bit sheltered here.’
She didn’t want to hear about other people’s par
ties. She was soaked through and starting to chill, the skin at the back of her heels was stinging and there was still no sign of Philip.
‘Can’t find a key. But look.’ Ra held up her phone. ‘Got coverage down here. Bloody miracle!’ She frowned. ‘Missed a call.’
She tapped her phone and Mishra watched her face. Ra gazed back down at her, her eyes widening.
‘What?’ Mishra asked.
‘Just a sec.’ She tapped her phone again and held it to her ear. ‘Hey, Aunty. Got anyone you can send round to pick us up?’ She waited. ‘Sweet. We’ll walk round to Point Rock.’
She closed the phone. ‘Come on. The fellas at the other end of the beach have found something.’
‘Like what?’ Raffe asked.
‘A body? Clothing? Part of a body?’ Mishra said.
‘Nothing like that.’ Ra looked at Raffe. ‘Describe the bag he took again?’
‘Drybag.’ Raffe stood up and levelled his hand at his waist. ‘Yay big. Green. Yellow logo in the middle – can’t remember what exactly.’
Ra nodded.
Mishra didn’t like the look on Ra’s face – more serious, more scary, than Ra’s worst interrogation expression.
‘Stacey found it.’
Mishra didn’t know who Stacey was, but Philip had gone overboard and lost his only means of flotation. She fought the panic swelling her stomach, pushing its contents up her throat. Her brain refused to work. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Maybe we should be looking further south,’ Raffe said.
‘Stacey’s dad was with him,’ Ra said.
What was she on about? ‘So?’
‘The guy in the picture,’ Ra said, glaring down at Mishra.
‘What picture?’ Raffe asked.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Ra, holding Mishra’s gaze.
She’d been wrong. Things could get worse. Philip didn’t have his drybag with all his starting-again support, if he still had his life, and Mishra was sure she was about to meet the reason Ra had fled New Zealand all those years ago.
And maybe, for the first time since her return, Ra was too.
FIFTEEN
On Sunday morning Philip sipped his tea as he sat on the doorstep of his hut, rereading the paper. The Bay Chronicle Rex had left him was enlightening. It confirmed the date: early November, not September. Rex hadn’t been lying about that. Whichever article he was reading, Philip’s eyes drifted back to the date on the top corner of the page as if he needed convincing, once again, that there was a gap in his life for which he couldn’t account.
At least some of that time he’d been on a boat. Even if Rex hadn’t told him about the yacht and the people looking for him, his dodgy gait would have indicated that he’d been doing something that messed with his balance. It was better today. Good enough to explore the rest of the island. He just needed to keep his eyes off the water. One glimpse of that rippling blue was enough to stir nausea in his stomach.
The newspaper also confirmed he wasn’t in a populous part of the country. It covered small local events: pet day at school, changes to bylaws, the impact of the weather on food crops. Not much in the way of international news, and nothing about a castaway just off the coast. For that he was grateful. The classifieds carried advertisements for carers, horticulturalists, retail assistants and teachers. No jobs for bureaucrats, as you’d expect in a place of any size. When he got off this island he wouldn’t stick around. There was no demand for his skillset as far as he could see.
Philip swirled his tea in the bottom of his cup and tossed the dregs into the bush at the edge of the clearing. He stood, waited for the dizziness to pass, then picked his way around to the back of the hut to rinse his cup in the stream. The birds were quieter now, and the scufflings that had woken him in the middle of the night had receded with the morning. Rex was a trapper. What was his target? The trapping program wasn’t working if the activity of his nocturnal visitors was anything to go by. Traps triggered the memory of that deer hunt with his father, which then brought him full circle to his own predicament. Why was he here?
Dipping his hands into the stream, he splashed water over his face and head. When Rex returned Philip needed to be physically well, and he needed a plan. Trying to force back the darkness cloaking his memory of the last couple of months had delivered little in the way of useful information. Worse, it made him anxious. Whatever his brain was shielding him from was still too big to drag into the light.
Time for a walk. Picking up his cup, he ambled back to the hut, deposited his cup on the bench, then collected a sweatshirt and a muesli bar. Apart from his flight from Rex and Stacey yesterday he hadn’t strayed far from the hut. His legs weren’t up to it and neither were his lungs – and the clothes he’d tried on so far all fell off his hips. He’d eat, even if he wasn’t hungry, so that when Rex came back he’d be ready.
Outside, clouds were jostling against the halo of blue sky, promising rain later. He stood in front of the hut considering his options. Left or right? Right would take him through the bush back to the sea-cliffs that had almost cost him his life. Left? The long-drop, but beyond it the bush sloped gently away. That would be easier going.
Behind the outhouse an overgrown track wound its way into the bush, heading in the direction of the mainland. With the first brush of foliage against his bare arms he began to itch. Although it was darker here the day was warm and he had no desire to pull on his sweatshirt, but be needed to protect his arms. The scratches were only just beginning to heal.
What was he allergic to? The bush was a mix of massive palm trees, some with straight hairy trunks patterned with diamonds where fronds had broken away, while others were smooth-trunked with an upright spray of broad leaves at the top. Beneath the canopy immature versions of the palms mixed with shrubs. Some had tiny, sharp leaves while others produced large heart-shaped leaves with holes in them. His mum was the nature lover; maybe she could identify them if she was here.
She might not even know he was missing. When was the last time he’d called her? Stopping on the path, he rubbed his arms and tried to remember.
No, even sneaking up on his memory wasn’t going to work. He sighed.
The path dwindled into closely grown trees. Philip waded through, raising his arms above the undergrowth, pushing leaves out of his face, and catching the odd branch when his balance faltered. Just ahead the light grew brighter. He knew what that meant now: an abrupt end to the bush. Slowing down, he edged forward and stopped, hooking an arm around the branch of one of the smooth-trunked palms.
A few yards beyond the vegetation growing around his feet the ground fell away and the view opened up: a blue-grey sea with foamy waves breaking along two beaches, divided in the middle by a windblown headland. Philip willed away the giddy nausea gripping his middle and focused on the headland. Shiny streamers of brown and grey grasses vied for a foothold amidst clumps of bush and rocks on the steep slopes.
What was that? Movement?
A woman stopped and held up her arms. She wasn’t alone. There were at least two people behind her, one sitting on the path. Philip stepped back from his palm tree and crouched. Rex had said there would be people looking for him. He was too exposed here at the edge of the trees.
Bent over, on legs beginning to ache with the effort, he retreated into the trees, pausing only when the bush had enveloped him, and his breath striped his lungs. They hadn’t seen him; they couldn’t have.
Philip raised his head. Around him trees had collected like stone monoliths, filtering the sun to grey-green light and obscuring the path back to the hut. Then darkness; the clouds had moved in.
He pivoted on the spot. It all looked the same. The bush was a confusing tangle of limbs and leaves in every direction. Which way? Overhead, the canopy pushed back against the sudden rattle of rain, leaving only a few plump drops to scatter on his sweatshirt. Hot beads of panic skittered from his stomach to his limbs. Where was the hut? How had he become disoriented so easily?
&nbs
p; An island. The thought came unbidden, interrupting forlorn images of death among the trees, a lonely corpse consumed by birds and insects and rats.
An island was a discrete parcel of land. No matter which way he walked, he would come to an edge. If he followed that edge he would reach the cove that Rex used, and from there finding his hut would be easy.
Stupid, he said into the bush. His voice startled him. It seemed an age since he’d heard human speech and the sound he made wasn’t familiar: a withered snatch of a word, half whispered, half croaked. Tears pressed hot and painful through his tear ducts, but didn’t make it to his eyes. If he couldn’t find a hut on a tiny scrap of land he didn’t deserve to live.
With that thought he selected a direction and pushed through the vegetation, brushing his arm across his face every now and then to wipe away the raindrops and the increasing allergy of tears leaking from his eyes. Frustration grew with every twig that slapped his face, and every step that seemed solid but turned his ankles in a hollow of rotting greenery. Where was the edge?
He clambered over a giant trunk alive with fungi and moss and swirls of vine, then paused, leaning against its mass, both soft and solid. This wasn’t the way he came. There had been no trees across the path. As he tore the top off his muesli bar wrapper cold seeped into his shoes and chilled his feet. Frowning, Philip looked down. Water choked with twigs and dead leaves bubbled around the soles of his shoes. What the hell?
Climbing back up the fallen trunk, he traced a channel cutting left through the composting earth before disappearing in the undergrowth. A spring? How many springs could there be on an island? While he gobbled the rest of his muesli bar he reconsidered his strategy. Stay true to the direction he’d selected, or follow the spring in the hopes that it fed the stream behind the hut? With a mouth like a frying pan burnt dry, his thirst decided for him.
The rain stilled, condensing the soundscape to patters and drips punctuated by the cackle and trill of birdsong. There. A dark patch among the glistening vegetation. Then the sun emerged, reflecting a neat square of light that winked through the trees in the forest beyond. The tin roof of the hut?