MIRACLE ON KAIMOTU ISLAND/ALWAYS THE HERO

by Marion Lennox

Visions of knife-sharp iron flooded her mind but she shoved them away. Just hold on. Use her body to protect Button and hold on.

  Wait until the earth found a new level.

  * * *

  Ben was just about to turn into the gate when the road buckled.

  As buckles went it was truly impressive. The coast road was long and flat, and he saw the buckle start half a mile ahead of him, rising with a massive, unbelievable heave of solid earth. It hurled towards him, a great, burrowing mound, trees swaying, bitumen cracking and falling away, coming, coming...

  It must have been seconds only before the great buckling mound hit him but he had enough time to think about getting out of the car and then to change his mind and decide to stay in the car but veer away fast from trees, head for the grassy verge away from the sea, pull to a halt. Or almost pull to a halt for then it hit and the car rose in the air as if it had been thrown.

  It wasn’t just the one wave. It was a series of massive jolting, shaking heaves, as if the world was shifting and not knowing where to settle.

  He gripped the steering-wheel and hung on. It was all he had to hold onto—the car was like a bucking bronco.

  Oh, God, his island.

  And stunningly, even while he was holding on for dear life, he felt himself switch into doctor mode. Earthquake. Casualties. This was major.

  Squid had been right. Never doubt the sages, he thought, and then he stopped thinking because he had to hold tight and nothing else could matter.

  The car rolled—it almost rolled right over—and then, unbelievably, it rolled back again, righting itself with a massive thump.

  What sort of power...? What sort of damage...?

  Tsunami.

  The vision crashed into his mind with sickening dread. Earthquake, tsunami. Get to high land.

  Not yet. He could do nothing yet but hold on.

  His seat belt was holding him safe—sort of. He was fine, short of the cliff caving in and his car sliding into the sea...

  Not a lot of use thinking that.

  Hold on. There was nothing he could do until the rolling stopped.

  But he was still thinking medicine.

  Casualties. He hardly dared think but already he knew the islanders were in real trouble.

  One doctor.

  No, two. First things first. He’d grab Ginny.

  Please, God, she was okay.

  Don’t go there. He glanced towards the house and saw it heave and shift on its foundations. Please, hold.

  He’d get Ginny, take her back to the hospital, leave Button with his mother...

  His parents. The kids.

  Do not go there.

  Plan instead. The earth was settling. Panic was turning to focus.

  He’d call the mainland, get help organised. Maybe he could do it now.

  He flicked his phone. He had a signal.

  And then he didn’t.

  The telecommunications tower at the airport must have toppled.

  No phone.

  The authorities on the mainland would figure it out anyway, he thought grimly. A quake this size would show on every seismograph in the world.

  He had two nurses on duty at the hospital, with six more on call. How many could get there?

  Roads would be cut.

  Roads... How...?

  The car jerked and bucked and his grip on the wheel tightened.

  Ginny, he thought. Please.

  He stopped planning. He held on like grim death and he said the word over and over and over.

  Please.

  * * *

  It went on and on and on. Just when she thought it had ended it started up again. She couldn’t move—she daren’t. Yes, the safest place was outside but to get there she’d have to negotiate her way through the house. There were massive exposed beams in the historic homestead. She was terrified of those beams and the table was midway between two of them so she was staying right where she was.

  Button was amazingly calm. She clung and clung, and didn’t say a word as they lay huddled under the massive table.

  Weirdly, Ginny found herself singing, odd little nursery rhymes she’d heard from nannies as a child, and sometimes she heard Button add a word or two as well.

  There was nothing and no one but the two of them and this table. The vineyard was miles from the nearest neighbour. The shaking went on.

  She held Button, she clung to her table leg and she’d never felt so alone in her life.

  * * *

  One part of Ben was totally focussed on what was happening, seeing the cracks open in the road, watching parts of the cliff fall into the sea, watching Ginny’s house buckle and sway.

  One part of him was moving on, thinking tsunami warnings, casualty centres, evacuation plans, emergency resources.

  The hospital was on high ground. It was weatherboard, and watching Ginny’s house he thought weatherboard was the way to go.

  But one of Ginny’s chimneys had crashed.

  Please...

  Don’t go there.

  The ground was settling now, the massive undulations passing. Any minute now he’d dare to get out of the car.

  And go see if Ginny was safe.

  The thought of her inside, near that crashed chimney, made him feel ill.

  But... It wasn’t that he was especially worried about Ginny, he told himself. It was just because she was here, now. He’d watched her house heave—of course he was worried.

  Plus she’d been part of his childhood. A friend.

  But he knew there was more.

  What were the levels of love?

  It was hardly the time to think about that now. Finally the world was ceasing to shake.

  Maybe it was worst on this side of the island, he prayed. Here the roads were buckled beyond using. Here huge trees had crashed. Here Ginny’s house...

  Was still standing. He could see broken windows and tumbled masonry. He thought suddenly of those massive beams above the kitchen and the thought had him out of the car and running before the earth had completely settled.

  Ginny.

  * * *

  She should take Button out from under the table.

  She was afraid to move.

  The quake seemed to have passed. There were still tremors, but minor ones. She could venture out from under her table and make a run for outside.

  She didn’t want to. Here seemed the only safe place.

  She stayed under her table and she held the silent Button and she hugged and hugged.

  ‘It’s okay, it’s over,’ she whispered, but she barely believed it.

  ‘Ginny?’

  The voice came from nowhere. No, it didn’t, it came from the back veranda.

  ‘Ben?’ She could scarcely believe it. Ben! Here!

  ‘Where are you?’ he yelled.

  ‘I-in the kitchen. Under the table. But the beams...’

  She didn’t finish. There was a series of crashes, like a bull moving through her living room, but maybe it was one desperate doctor hauling away the litter of damaged furniture blocking his path.

  And then, unbelievably, he was under the table with her. He was gathering her—and Button—into his arms and he was holding them.

  He held and held and her world changed yet again.

  * * *

  She’d thought it was over, but just as she pulled away a little, just as she relaxed and thought the world was settling, that Ben was here, that they were safe, another tremor hit.

  It wasn’t nearly as big as that first, vast wave, but it was big enough for Button to cling, for Ben to haul them both close again, for her to cling back.

  And think again.

  What she’d just thought. />
  Which was nonsense. Which was everything she’d vowed never to think again.

  Safe in the arms of someone who loved her?

  Life was a travesty, she thought as she clung, because she still needed to cling, for Button’s sake as well as her own. Button was cocooned between them, safe, protected by their bodies, a Button sandwich between her two protective adults.

  Button needed Ben.

  For now Ginny needed Ben—but just for now. Only for now, she told herself fiercely.

  This was crazy. This was an earthquake, for heaven’s sake, so why was she suddenly thinking of James, of a marriage that had made her glow, had made her think this was happy-ever-after, had made her believe in the fairy-tale?

  Why was she thinking of the travesty that marriage had turned out to be? Of infidelity, of shattered trust. Of anger, more, of hatred, that she was the one to live. Of the knowledge that her judgement was appalling, that trust was stupid, that love was for the pages of fairy-tales.

  ‘Ginny...’

  ‘Mmm.’ It seemed almost wrong to speak, as if somehow voices might stir the demons to shake some more.

  ‘We need to get outside.’

  ‘I think I like my table.’

  ‘I like your table, too,’ he said. ‘But there’s the little matter of beams above us. We can’t depend on them falling straight if this gets any worse. We need to risk it. Button, we’re going to run. We’re going to wriggle out from under here, I’m going to carry you, because I’m stronger and faster than Ginny...’

  ‘Ginny,’ Button said, and clung tighter.

  ‘I can see Shuffles,’ Ben said, lightly now, making it seem almost conversational. ‘He’s right by the door on the floor. If you let me carry you, we’ll rescue Shuffles and take him outside.

  Button considered. There was silence while they let her make up her mind and then she gave a decisive nod.

  She turned within their sandwich squeeze and transferred her hold to Ben.

  ‘Get Shuffles,’ she ordered. ‘Go.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Ben said, and touched Ginny’s face—just fleetingly, but she felt herself flinch.

  He gave her a sharp, questioning glance but the time for questions wasn’t now.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said, and hauled himself backwards from under the table, holding Button and Button holding him, and there was nothing left for Ginny to do but follow.

  * * *

  Outside was weird.

  It was as if a giant hand had picked up and shaken the house, leaving its contents a vast, jumbled mess. Outside it almost looked normal.

  The veranda steps had cracked and fallen sideways. The downpipes were hanging at crazy angles, windows were broken and a chimney had crumpled. Otherwise you might almost look at it and think nothing had happened.

  ‘Old and weatherboard,’ Ben said. They’d scrambled out of the house, moving fast in case another tremor hit, but now they were in the yard between house and stables, with no trees close, nothing but open ground. There was a deep crack running across the width of the yard, a foot wide, heaven knew how deep, but they were well clear of it.

  ‘Wooden houses seem to stand up to quakes much better than brick,’ Ben said. ‘Thank God most of the island houses are wooden.’

  He turned and stared towards the town and Ginny could see his mind turning to imperatives. Medical imperatives? Plus the fact that his parents and siblings were in the valley.

  ‘Tsunami,’ he said, and just as he said it a siren started, loud and screeching, blaring a warning. Even as a child here Ginny had learned what it meant.

  What Ben had just said.

  ‘It’s too close,’ she whispered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I did a project at school. Tsunamis come when quakes happen out to sea. This one was so big...surely the fault’s right under us.’

  ‘Let’s not bet our lives on it,’ Ben said grimly. ‘Get in the Jeep, now.’

  ‘I can—’

  ‘Get in the Jeep or I’ll throw you in,’ he said grimly, and he grabbed her hand with his free one—he was still cradling Button with the other—and ran across the yard.

  Seconds later they were bucketing across the paddocks, heading up the steep valley incline. Fences were ignored—Ben simply steered his battered Jeep between the posts and crashed straight through.

  Tsunami.

  The word was enough to block out everything else. She held Button tightly—Ben had obviously decided he wasn’t wasting precious seconds fastening her into her child seat—and stared down at the sea. Willing it to be okay.

  Willing a wave not to come.

  It didn’t. They reached the ridge above the vineyard and stopped, then climbed from the Jeep and watched the sea while the siren still wailed across the island.

  Ben produced field glasses from the Jeep and his expression grew more and more grim as he surveyed what he could of the island.

  Ginny didn’t ask to see. She didn’t want to see. She held Button and she thought this was a hiatus. The last moment before reality.

  She thought suddenly of the day she and James had gone to the hospital for him to get tests. They’d been practically sure but not...not prepared. Did anything prepare you for such a thing?

  The tests were run. ‘Come back at six and get the results,’ the oncologist had said, so they’d gone to the beach, swum, had a picnic, talked of everything under the sun until it was time to go back.

  ‘If I’m okay we’ll even have a baby,’ she remembered James saying.

  And she remembered thinking, Please, let this time not end.

  Knowing that it would.

  She was still watching the sea. Waiting for the world to end?

  Ben was jabbing at his cell phone then turning his field glasses toward the island’s small airport.

  ‘The tower must be down,’ he said, staring at the screen. ‘I hoped it was just a glitch during the shake but everything’s dead. We should be able to see the tower from here. There’s no reception.’

  Ginny hauled her phone out of her back jeans pocket and stared. No bars. Nothing.

  ‘Oh, God,’ she whispered.

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ Ben said, and she saw the way he hauled himself under control. What lay before them might well be appalling. For him to be the only doctor... ‘The guys on the fishing boats have radios that’ll reach the mainland. A quake this big will be sensed from there. I’m guessing we’ll get help fast.’ His eyes roved over the island, noting signs of damage that from up here seemed small but she knew that once they got close it could spell calamity. ‘Choppers can get here fast. An hour to scramble, two hours for the flight...’

  ‘They’ll come?’

  ‘If they can’t contact the hospital they’ll come anyway. Hell, Ginny, I need to be there.’ He winced as the siren kept on wailing and Ginny wondered whether if he wasn’t saddled with Button and with her, he would have gone now, tsunami threat or not.

  ‘If the coast road’s out...we’ll go overland as soon as the siren stops,’ Ben said grimly, his field glasses sweeping slowly across the valley again. ‘The coast road won’t be safe. It’ll be rough but the Jeep should do it.

  ‘What...what’s a few fences?’ she said unsteadily, and Ben managed a smile.

  ‘I hear the local landowner shoots trespassers on sight. Risks are everywhere.’

  The local landowner would be her. She managed a smile back. ‘You might be granted dispensation.’

  ‘Dispensation. Wow!’ And then his smile died. ‘Ginny, will you help?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘No, really help,’ he said. ‘No holds barred. We’ll need to leave Button with Hannah, as long as Hannah...’ He broke off and went back to staring through his glasses and Ginny followed his lin
e of sight and thought he’d be staring at an old wooden house in the middle of town that held his mum and dad and siblings.

  ‘I think the hospital’s intact. It’s on high ground overlooking the harbour. It looks solid. I hope to hell our equipment’s safe,’ Ben said.

  Ginny nodded. Ben needed to think of medical imperatives, she thought, or any imperatives rather than thinking about family, friends, for a quake of this magnitude had to mean casualties on a massive scale.

  ‘Your family will be okay,’ she said stoutly. ‘Your house is as old and sturdy as mine, and your kitchen table’s bigger. And I’m thinking your mum’s the one who taught me about diving under it.’

  ‘And Mum was preparing lamb roast for dinner tonight,’ Ben managed. ‘I hope she’s taken the spuds under there with her. She should be peeling them now.’

  She grinned, and then hugged him because she knew how hard it had been to joke—and then she pulled away because there was no way she wanted him to think a hug meant anything but a hug.

  ‘Ginny,’ he said, and put a hand to her face, and for the life of her she couldn’t stop herself flinching again.

  Why did she flinch? Of all the stupid... Wasn’t it about time she learned some control?

  There was a moment’s loaded pause, a silence broken only by the wail of the siren. For a long, long moment Ben gazed down at her, as if he was seeing right inside her.

  ‘What did that bastard do to you?’ he asked at last.

  No. One minute they’d been talking earthquake, thinking earthquake, feeling earthquake, and the next...this?

  She stared at him, stunned to stupefaction. She didn’t want him to see. She didn’t want anyone to see.

  ‘I won’t hurt you, Ginny,’ Ben said gently, and he touched her face again. ‘How can you think I will?’

  She shook her head. This was crazy. There was no way she was answering that, here, now, or at any time.

  She’d made a vow. Life on her terms, now and for ever.

  As long as this shaking world permitted.

  ‘Of course I’ll help at the hospital,’ she said, far too quickly.

  ‘Good,’ he said, and moved his field glasses on. But she knew he wouldn’t be deflected. He knew her, this man, like no other person had ever known her—and the thought was terrifying.