Moonlight Sonata

by Eileen Merriman

  Noah returns outside and around the south side of the house, where he pees on Nana’s mint bush instead.

  What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

  Mid-morning and they are gliding across the blue-diamond surface of the sea. No clouds in the sky, the horizon a blue-gold shimmer. Ahead of them are Joe and Tom in single kayaks; behind them Beckett and Molly in the second double.

  ‘Mum told me off for not inviting McKenzie,’ Lola says. ‘But she was still hibernating in bed.’

  ‘With her phone,’ Noah says, nudging his ankle against her hip, and Lola laughs. She rests her paddle across her knees and drops a hand over the side.

  ‘It’s so hot,’ she says, splashing water over her face. ‘I can’t wait to swim.’

  ‘Me neither.’ He bumps her with his foot again. ‘Are you slacking off?’

  ‘No.’ Lola picks up her oar again, and now he’s noticing the water droplets glistening on her biceps, the same biceps that propel cricket balls at terrifying speeds. It’s giving him an odd swirly feeling in his gut.

  Fish, he thinks, dipping his paddle into the water.

  Behind them, Beckett calls out, ‘Whales.’

  ‘Orcas,’ Lola says, delight in her voice. When Noah looks up he sees them, too, a pair of slick black-and-white bodies arcing over the water only a couple of hundred metres ahead. In front of them, Joe and Tom have stopped paddling.

  ‘I got a photo,’ Beckett says, as he and Molly draw up beside them. ‘I’m going to text it to Austin, show him what he’s missing out on.’

  ‘He’d love to have got a shot of that,’ Lola says. Austin had left for a bush walk that morning with Aunt Kiri’s digital camera and a flask of coffee, saying he was going to shoot a kereru.

  That’s weird, Beckett had said.

  All the coolest people are weird, Austin had replied, his tone casual but his cheeks pink.

  ‘Don’t forget McKenzie,’ Lola says. ‘Snapchat her, see how fast she replies.’

  ‘Text it to Dad, and see how fast he doesn’t reply.’ Noah knows he’s baiting his mother, but he can’t help it.

  Predictably, his mother says ‘Noah’, and picks up her paddle.

  ‘Wait,’ he murmurs to Lola as the others resume paddling, and they stay where they are until the orcas are specks in the distance. Ahead of them, the other three kayaks round the point and disappear from sight.

  ‘I’m so hot,’ Lola says again.

  ‘Me too.’ Noah dangles his foot over the side of the kayak, watching the water slide over his skin. ‘It’s so clear, like glass.’

  ‘Awesome swimming spot,’ she says, turning to look at him.

  He takes off his cap, aware of his sweaty hair underneath. ‘Do you want to?’ It’s a challenge rather than a question. Noah knows she won’t say no.

  Lola shrugs her life jacket off and strips down to her bikini, the kayak wobbling beneath her.

  ‘Hold this,’ she says, shoving a paddle at him and slips over the side. Well, he can hardly stay sitting in the kayak after that — he’ll look like a pussy, and besides, he’s roasting too. After taking care to ensure the paddles are resting lengthways in the kayak, he peels off his t-shirt and follows her into the blue.

  The water is deliciously cool on his burning skin, and so clear he can see all the way to the rocks below. After turning a somersault, he surfaces half a metre away from Lola, grinning. Grinning back, Lola sweeps her arm, sending a wave of water towards him.

  ‘Watch it, or I’ll dunk you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare,’ she says, treading water.

  ‘Want to bet?’ He lurches towards her. Lola lets out a screech and swims away fast, overarm strokes. Noah swims after her, grabbing first her ankles and then her hips.

  ‘Don’t,’ she gasps, but she doesn’t resist when he wraps his arms around her, pulling her back into a lifesaver’s hold.

  ‘Like playing with fire, do you?’ he teases.

  ‘Are you the fire?’

  ‘Yes, Lola, I’m the f—’ he manages before she wrestles free and kicks away from him. He’s about to swim after her, but he’s getting tired now, so he looks around for the kayak, and that’s when he realises they’re in. Deep. Shit.

  ‘Oh crap,’ he says. How did they get so far from the kayak, and why’s it drifting so fast? Idiot, idiot.

  ‘Oh crap,’ Lola echoes, following his gaze.

  ‘The life jackets,’ Noah says. They look towards the point and the rocks.

  ‘It’s not that far.’

  ‘No, it’s not that far,’ he says, but his heart is hammering. Two hundred metres, maybe? More? He looks out to the horizon, wondering how far away the orcas are (otherwise known as killer whales — no, don’t think that), and how far away the others are, and what it’s like to drown.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Noah asks.

  ‘Yeah.’ Lola’s eyes are wide. ‘Don’t leave me behind.’

  ‘I won’t,’ he says.

  They begin to swim.

  Of course, it’s further than he thought. It always is, in water. By the time they make it to the rocks, his lungs are burning, and his limbs feel like concrete. He asks Lola if she’s OK a few times, and every time she says she’s fine. But now he’s too tired to talk, and he’s pretty sure she is, too.

  And he has to concentrate so hard, knowing if he judges it wrong, a wave could slam them into the rocks. He sticks close to Lola, indicating they should swim towards a ledge a couple of metres back from the point. As they draw near, a group of seagulls fly off the rocks, their wings pounding the air.

  Arriving at the ledge before Lola does, Noah clambers up before turning to look for her. She’s right below him, clutching a rock and trying to keep her head above the waves. When he stretches out to her, Lola shakes her head and mouths something at him. He thinks she’s saying can’t.

  No, no, that’s not an option.

  Tipping further forward, he holds out both arms, hoping she won’t pull him in on top of her. ‘Just hold on and I’ll pull you up.’

  He can hear what she’s saying this time — I can’t, I just can’t — until a swell thrusts her forward and she scrabbles up the rocks in a final burst of energy. Noah grasps first one hand, then the other. Then she’s up and out, and they’re shivering on the ledge, wet limbs pressed together.

  Gripping his knee, Lola leans into him, her chest heaving.

  ‘See,’ Noah says, trying to sound calm, ‘I told you you’d be OK.’ He’s hoping she hasn’t noticed he’s shaking too.

  Lola coughs.

  ‘Don’t think I believe everything you tell me.’ There are smears of blood on her knees; his too. Funny, but his heart’s pounding too hard to register the pain.

  ‘But it was true, right?’ Noah squints, looking for a boat or a kayak, and instead sees something almost as wonderful. ‘Look.’ The orcas are defying gravity again, their tuxedo bodies twisting through the air, plumes of foam streaming out from beneath their bellies.

  ‘Maybe they’re good luck,’ he says.

  ‘Maybe.’ Lola’s teeth are chattering. After wriggling until he’s sitting behind her, Noah hugs his arms around her, rests his chin on top of her head.

  ‘They’ll come looking for us,’ he says. ‘Any minute now.’ Is it possible to get hypothermia in summer? And how come he never noticed how damn good she smelt before?

  Lola’s thin voice winds between the colliding thoughts in his head.

  ‘That’s good,’ she says. ‘Because I think I’m having a hypo.’

  Chapter 5:

  MOLLY 1982

  Molly wound the passenger window the rest of the way down and dangled her leg over the sill. They were deep within Northland now, the trees both strange and oddly familiar — giant kauri, spindly manuka, gnarled pohutukawa with spiky red blossoms. The summer scents of freshly cut grass and ocean salt were giving Molly an odd feeling in the back of her throat.

  ‘How much longer?’ Molly asked.

  Her mother shot he
r an irritated glance. ‘I told you five minutes ago that it was about twenty minutes away. And stop dangling your leg out of the window like that, it’s dangerous.’

  ‘It’s hot.’ And dusty. And fifteen minutes was excruciating at the end of a three-hour drive from Auckland, not to mention the ten-hour drive from Wellington the day before that. The day before that, they’d driven five hours from Christchurch to Picton before catching the ferry to Wellington.

  And before that — before that, she’d had to endure six long years when she’d thought she’d never see her father or brothers again. But now her estranged parents had agreed to give it another go, and the closer they got to Tern Bay, the more unbearable the pulling sensation in her gut became.

  Molly couldn’t wait to see them, especially Joe. She was worried they wouldn’t recognise each other. She was worried they wouldn’t know what to say to each other. She was worried he wouldn’t want to hang out with her anymore. Worry, worry, worry, it was killing her.

  Dead at twelve years old, before she got to see her twin again. Now that would really piss her off.

  Molly chanted Tern Bay, Tern Bay, Tern Bay under her breath the entire way. When they finally reached the quiet street at the base of the hills, she felt an instant shock of recognition. There were no other cars on the road, but she glimpsed a couple of people in their front yards, a pair of kids running down the middle of the road in their togs.

  Molly jiggled in her seat, opening the door before the car had come to a standstill in the driveway. As she set foot in the gravel, she heard a clatter of feet and glanced up to see a pair of teenage boys running down the balcony steps.

  Her middle brother, Ants, was first to set foot on the lawn. Fourteen now, he was all arms and legs, his Mortimer-blond hair curling around the base of his neck. Sully was next — his frame filled out, as though someone had inflated his eleven-year-old body into the seventeen-year-old version in front of her — wider, taller, chunkier.

  ‘Hi,’ they called out, before halting and staring at their mother.

  ‘Hello, boys,’ their mother said, stepping forward to hug them, one by one. ‘Oh, it’s so good to see you.’

  ‘You’re earlier than I expected,’ a voice called out. Could the bearded man striding around the side of the house really be her father? He was ruddier and wrinklier than she remembered.

  The man smiled and held his arms out to her.

  ‘Wee Molly,’ he said, which was stupid, because twelve wasn’t wee anymore. Molly tolerated a bone-crushing hug before stepping around her father, cymbals of disappointment crashing in her chest. Joe, where’s Joe, is he even here—

  And oh, but there was a boy coming through the ranch sliders on the lower level of the house, peering out at her from beneath his salt-bleached bangs.

  ‘Mirror, mirror,’ her father said, releasing her. Mirror, mirror, yes and no, the same as her but different. A familiar stranger. A strange familiar.

  Her twin’s chest rose and fell, his ocean-blue eyes locked on hers.

  ‘Hi,’ Joe said, and she saw that he had a spray of freckles across his nose too, just like her.

  ‘Hi,’ Molly said. They kept looking at each other. What was she meant to say now? Was she meant to hug him? What if he didn’t want her to?

  Sully said, ‘We made pizza for lunch, do you want some?’

  ‘Oh yes, I’m starving,’ her mother said, and the family walked inside the house, all apart from Joe and Molly. Joe looked up at the balcony, back at her.

  ‘There’s a rope swing at the beach,’ he said. ‘Do you want to see?’

  ‘That sounds awesome,’ Molly said, and they took off down the road, casting sideways glances at each other the whole way.

  Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?

  You are you are you are

  Joe showed Molly how to climb up the bank holding onto the rope swing, before swinging out over the sea. After a couple of practice runs, Molly got brave enough to jump off into the water. Joe took his t-shirt off, but Molly left hers on, conscious of her newly budding breasts. The sea was like tepid bathwater, so much warmer than the numbing embrace of the ocean down south.

  ‘Did you swim much in Christchurch?’ Joe asked after they’d finally collapsed, exhausted, into the sand.

  ‘Sometimes. On a hot day.’ Molly hunched up, tracing pictures in the sand. A mother, a father, two boys. A smaller pair of children came next, their middle arms joined as one, like Siamese twins. ‘It was lots colder than here.’

  ‘Did it snow in winter?’

  Molly looked up. ‘Sometimes. But it always melts before you can make a snowman.’

  ‘Did you go skiing?’ The hair on Joe’s limbs shimmered golden in the sun. There were bruises on his shins, a graze on his left knee.

  Molly averted her eyes. ‘No, never.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I never learned how. And it costs lots of money.’

  Joe began tracing shapes in the sand too — serrated mountain peaks, a sun, a crescent moon.

  ‘Did you miss me?’ His head was lowered.

  ‘Of course.’ Molly stood up and tiptoed to the tideline, let the water splash over her feet. She sensed Joe approaching before she heard him, the air shifting around her as if she were surrounded by some sort of magnetic field.

  ‘Dad said we can share a room,’ he said.

  Molly pushed long strands of hair behind her ears. ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘We can have midnight feasts.’ Joe bounced on the balls of his feet, his face aglow.

  ‘With marshmallows,’ Molly said, spreading her arms and turning 360 degrees.

  ‘And Fanta.’

  ‘Fanta,’ Molly said, delighted. Her mother never let her have Fanta, never. Joe took her by the hands and they spun around, faster and faster, until they fell over.

  ‘Do you want to see my secret hide-out?’ Joe asked once they were sitting up again, sand clinging to their limbs.

  Molly blinked at him. ‘Where?’

  Joe pointed at the rocks to their left, at the edge of cliff jutting out into the sea.

  ‘There’s a cave around the corner. You can only get in when it’s low tide.’

  ‘What happens at high tide?’

  ‘The water comes in, of course.’ Joe stood up, and Molly followed him, the suck and the whirl of the sea filling her with an electric energy. When they got to the end of the rocks, Joe turned and reached out to her.

  ‘Slippery here,’ he said. ‘Don’t fall.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Molly said, but she didn’t let go of him, not until they had descended onto the exposed area of sand below. She couldn’t see the pohutukawa tree or the bank anymore. When she turned, she saw a narrow opening in the cliff behind them.

  Joe strode ahead of her. ‘Wicked, right?’ he said, once they had rounded the corner.

  ‘Wicked,’ Molly agreed, surveying the cave floor, maybe ten feet at its widest point. She turned a circle, looking at the walls rising above her.

  ‘Wicked,’ Joe called out, and the cave replied, wicked, wicked, wicked.

  Walking in further, her vision adjusting to the dim light, Molly saw shells and a large piece of driftwood in the shape of a crocodile.

  Joe sat on the driftwood and pointed at a spot on the wall, at waist height.

  ‘This is where the water comes up to when the tide comes in,’ he said. ‘But if there’s a king tide, then it would go above your head.’

  ‘And yours,’ Molly said, because she’d already noted that she was slightly taller than Joe.

  ‘Yeah. We’d drown.’

  ‘That would be the worst.’ Molly had a sudden, bizarre urge to hug her twin. No, not just that, to climb into his skin, to search through the memories in his head, so she could see and feel all the things he’d experienced without her over the past six years. Instead, she sat beside him, shivering a little.

  ‘I reckon burning to death would be worse.’ Joe turned towards her, and she
felt the sea-cool pads of his fingers on her forehead, as if he were searching for her, too. Molly at six, seven and eight, at nine and ten and eleven. Who were you then? Who are you now?

  Mirror, mirror, I missed you so much.

  ‘I dreamed about you,’ she said, braver in the poor light of the cave, a photo negative of the blue day outside.

  ‘Me too,’ Joe said, and then, ‘I hate how she took you away.’

  ‘Me too.’ Molly moved away from him, scared her tears might escape down her cheeks. ‘I don’t want to go away ever again.’

  ‘We could make a pact.’

  Molly wrapped her arms around herself, another shiver rippling through her. ‘What sort of pact?’

  Joe’s eyes glittered. ‘That we’ll never let anyone split us up again.’

  ‘Never,’ Molly said, looking up, and the cave whispered back, never never never.

  ‘Pinkie swear,’ Joe said.

  ‘Pinkie swear,’ Molly echoed, linking her little finger through his. Then they pressed their noses in a hongi, and she drew her twin’s breath deep into her lungs. They were back together, and nothing, no one, could ever separate them again.

  Chapter 6:

  LOLA

  Lola always loses track of time when she is having a hypo. The low blood sugars don’t happen very often — usually when she’s forgotten to eat, or has miscalculated her insulin dose because she’s ended up doing more exercise than she intended.

  Six months ago, when she was first diagnosed, her diabetes specialist had taught her how to recognise the hypos. Doctor Kay had warned Lola if she had too many hypos, her body would fail to recognise the signs: shaking, sweating, fatigue, hunger, light-headedness.

  If you leave it too late, you could go into a coma.

  In the seconds after she tells Noah what she knows to be true, she feels his muscles tense, hears his sharp intake of breath.

  ‘Do you need insulin?’

  ‘No, I need sugar.’ She closes her eyes. ‘There were barley sugars in my shorts pocket.’ Which she has left in the kayak, the fucking kayak. Why hadn’t they swum for the kayak instead of the rocks, which were probably farther away? What had they been thinking? Had they been thinking at all?