by Laura Elliot
‘You’re indispensable,’ he said. ‘We’re falling apart without you.’
This realisation fills her with dismay. Soon the trip will be over. Cathy will be married and, hopefully, old scars healed. Julie herself will return home, Mamma Mia, to wither away, stale yet indispensable. Freedom. Such a small demand. Its power seduces her.
Yellow cliffs rise like magnificent organ pipes as they emerge from Arthur’s Pass and drive towards Kaikoura where there is an ocean to explore. Tomorrow, they will swim with dolphins.
Seb’s house overlooks the Pacific. High wooden steps lead to the front door. From the fold-up table and canvas chairs, the basic shelves and the galley kitchen, his house has been designed for the minimum amount of indoor living. Four guitars hang on one wall. Another wall is entirely filled with shelves of CDs, tape cassettes and a collection of vinyl records. Julie remembers when he started collecting the vinyls. The hours they spent together in second-hand shops going through crates of dusty, discarded records. Collecting music he would never find time to play because Seb Morris was always restless, his feet dancing him over the next green hill.
She perches on a high stool and watches as he cooks dinner, pasta and prawns with a lemon sauce. His bedroom is separated from the living area by an aquarium of tropical fish. King-sized and placed on solid wooden legs, his bed looks like the only sturdy piece of furniture in the house. She admires the fish, the vibrant flick of fin and tail providing a boundary between sanity and sin. What are his intentions? Her demons begin to chant. What are yours? Does he practise safe sex, keep an up-to-date supply of condoms? What if he sees you naked and your stretch marks cause him to suffer erectile dysfunction for the first time in his life? What if Paul rings when you are in the middle of an orgasm?
As her thoughts roam hysterically from one crisis to the next, she discreetly switches off her mobile phone. Perhaps Lauren is right about that liberating feeling.
‘You seem nervous.’ Seb pours her another glass of wine.
‘Not at all.’ She forces herself to sip, not gulp. ‘It’s good to meet up again and talk about old times.’
‘You didn’t bring your mandolin.’
She shakes her head. ‘It needs tuning.’
‘Tuning is essential.’ He holds her hand, traces his finger across her wedding ring. ‘Have you been happy?’
‘Highs and lows.’
‘You’ve told me very little about your life.’
What can she tell him? He will yawn if she describes school runs, company accounts, shopping excursions, family holidays. Paul is a good man, she wants to say, reliable, hard-working, dependable. But how boring that will sound? She only has to look at the framed posters hanging on the walls to realise the different paths their lives have taken. Posters of travelling troubadours, bearded and brooding musicians posed against different backdrops, in different countries. There are women too, sexy singers, guitarists and drummers, tough-talking and hard-drinking, unafraid to experience the extremes life can offer. Julie could be in those posters, chic and waif-like, even bisexual, and no stranger to rehabilitation. She could be every tabloid journalist’s dream, ever teenage boy’s fantasy, if only she had had the courage to go with him.
Seb talks about his ex-wives, two marriages, but Julie is unable to see any wedding photographs. He walks to the other side of the aquarium and through his bedroom, flings open slatted doors leading onto a balcony. The vibrations cause the fish to dart and dive within their coral caves. He carries food and a bottle of wine, places them on a circular table and pulls out chairs, lights candles. The flames barely move in the breeze. After they have finished eating, he switches on his stereo and plays a CD of his songs. He has sent it out to play stations. A little bit of luck and some airtime should not be too much to expect. Julie hears the undertow of doubt in his voice. When does reality set in, she wonders. When is it no longer advisable to dream?
‘We could have made it in Australia.’ As his voice sings in the background, he stares across the table at her. ‘Your voice, my songs. I’ve thought about you many times.’
‘I’ve thought about you too, Seb. I treated you badly.’
‘We were young. It’s allowed.’
‘The odds were stacked against us. When it came to the crunch…I couldn’t leave them.’
‘Them?’
‘My sisters.’
‘And Paul?’
‘I went back with him after you left but we probably would have drifted apart in time. Like you said, it’s hard to get through the young years without hurting others. Then I became pregnant…’ She shrugs. ‘He was there, determined to do the right thing. What’s the right thing? And who benefits by it? Becks saw it as a personal betrayal. Paul saw it as a responsibility. I saw it as an unbelievable bloody awful mistake.’
Sand glints on his jeans. Earlier they had walked the beach and left their footprints behind. She pulls her hand free and brushes his knees, watches the grains scatter and disappear. ‘No one ever warned me condoms could burst.’
‘Ah…I wondered.’ He leaves the balcony and returns a few minutes later with a framed poster, hands it to her. ‘My favourite,’ he says.
Julie stares at Maximum Volume. The photograph was taken on top of the garden shed in Heron Cove. It lacks the sleek confidence of the other posters but she is struck by their youth and exuberance. Her sons, particularly Aidan, display the same cocky assurance and she wonders, sometimes, as she encourages them in their latest ventures, if she is seeking wish fulfilment through their own dreams.
Seb glances sideways at her, studies her expression before he asks the question on both their minds. ‘Are the odds still stacked as high?’
He offers her a carefree passion and she, on the other side of the world, freed from familiar constraints, is filled with a heady excitement. She can meet his gaze, hold it for an instant longer than necessary, the instant of acquiescence, and, afterwards, everything will be different. She will carry a secret. A memory she made without thinking about anything other than her own desire.
‘The odds are balanced on a pinhead at the moment, Seb.’ She stands and walks to the balcony rail. Crimson clouds drift above the distant peninsula. Earlier, from a headland, they had watched a whale rise, humped and hulking as a barren island, before its tail splashed off the waves and it sank again into the deep.
He stands beside her, takes her into his arms. Everything about him is unfamiliar, the pressure of his lips, the confident stroke of his hands on the small of her back, his whispered endearments. The poster lies abandoned on the table, along with the remains of their meal, their empty wine glasses. She sees Paul sitting behind his drums, drumsticks raised, his face split in an infectious grin. A week after the photograph was taken, her parents were dead. At their funeral he held her grimly. She felt him trembling and pressed her face harder into his denim jacket. He was her rock then, the two of them suddenly made mature by tragedy.
She thinks about the row they had over her decision to come here. The evening he returned home early from work with flowers, the passion and tender aftermath, and how, when they rested in the familiar hollow of their bed, he gave her Traversing New Zealand, the dog-eared copy she has kept close to her throughout the trip.
She sways back from Seb, knowing that the same courage that made her stay behind when he left will carry her through this moment.
‘It’s not going to happen, is it?’ He leans against the balcony rail.
She shakes her head and breathes deeply into the briny air.
‘Paul Chambers is one lucky bastard.’ He grins ruefully. ‘He told me once he’d wrap my guitar strings around my neck if I didn’t leave you alone. But he needn’t have worried. You’ve always been able to make up your own mind.’
He leads her through his bedroom and on to the living room where his guitars and his posters cover the walls. Earlier, her eyes riveted on the different bands, she had not noticed Maximum Volume hanging in the centre. He hangs the poster back in i
ts customary position.
‘Want to try the guitars?’ he asks.
‘Absolutely.’
Julie plays until her fingers are sore. The light is beginning to seep from the ocean. Only the ruffled trim of waves is visible as the tide rides across the beach to shift their footsteps from the shore and obliterate their presence in a single surge.
She takes a taxi back to the holiday park where her sisters, awake and ready to attack, demand to know where she has been until two in the morning. Even Lauren has the nerve to stare accusingly at her. Why does her marriage matter so much to everyone? Do they see it as the rock in the chaos of their own lives?
Julie collapses into the nearest seat and kicks off her sandals. ‘I was making music with Seb Morris.’
‘What kind of music?’ Rebecca demands.
‘The best kind,’ says Julie. ‘Now, give me a break and let me get some sleep. I’m exhausted from my musical activities.’
‘Better contact your husband first,’ advises Lauren. ‘He’s been ringing Rebecca regularly since midnight. The least you could have done was leave your mobile on and let us get some sleep.’
‘What did you tell him?’ Julie sits up straight and clutches her hair.
‘What were we supposed to tell him?’ demands Lauren. ‘You left no instructions on how we should lie with conviction.’
‘But we did our best.’ Rebecca flops back on her bunk and yawns. ‘We told him you were suffering, yet again, from alcoholic poisoning and had been transferred to a local rehabilitation centre.’
‘You bitch! You did not?’ Julie grabs a pillow and beats it against Rebecca’s head.
‘It’s a better excuse than telling him you were making music with Seb Morris.’ Rebecca swings her legs over the side and grabs her own pillow, launching a counterattack. The shrill of Rebecca’s mobile is almost inaudible as they shriek and chase each other around the camper.
‘Oh, holy Jesus! What am I going to tell him?’ Julie grabs the phone from Rebecca and leaves the camper.
‘I’ve been trying to contact you for hours, Julie.’ Paul’s anger instantly ignites her own.
‘I heard.’ She hurries towards a deserted sun terrace and sits down. ‘Is everything all right at home?’
‘We’re doing fine. Where were you until now?’
‘I was with Seb Morris.’
‘Seb Morris is in Australia.’
‘Not the last time I looked. He told me you once threatened to garrotte him with cat gut.’
‘Too bloody right I did. What were you doing with him?’
‘Talking about old times.’
‘Old times?’
‘Yes. Dreams and how they become trapped by reality.’
‘Is that how you see our marriage…a trap?’
She has hurt him. She can always tell by the way his voice sinks. Her anger ebbs away. She holds the phone a little tighter, as if, somehow, this can lessen the distance between them.
‘Yes, it was a trap, Paul. How could it have been otherwise? I wasn’t ready for babies, neither were you. But, until tonight, I never realised that the door was always open. There are no locks in a marriage, or walls that can hold it together if someone wants to escape. I could have escaped tonight, even for a brief while. I chose not to.’
He is silent at the other end.
‘You can decide whether or not you believe me.’
‘Come back to me soon, Julie.’ He clears his throat but is unable to steady his voice. ‘The heart has gone from our home since you left.’
Chapter Fifty-two
A grey sky broods over the Pacific. Aboard the boat, swimmers shuffle awkwardly in their flippers, snorkels ready to be clamped into position. At their indoctrination course, no guarantee was given that the dolphins would appear. They are wild and independent. Jumping through hoops or bareback displays are beneath their contempt. If the dolphins do appear, each swimmer is advised to make the most of this unique encounter and enter the water quietly.
For a while it seems as if the overcast weather has dampened the dolphins’ enthusiasm. Then, a triumphant shout from a woman causes the passengers to surge to one side of the boat. Julie aims her camera as the dolphin leaps upwards and turns a cartwheel. Other dolphins, determined not to be upstaged, arise from the water, their synchronised movements drawing gasps of admiration from the onlookers.
Lauren moves closer to Rebecca, nervous now that the moment has arrived. Gillian, the young woman in charge of the trip, herds them into position at the stern. She is a jolly bronzed girl with sandy hair, completely at ease in her ocean environment.
Lauren gasps as her body adjusts to the cold but the thrill of being surrounded by somersaulting dolphins soon outweighs her discomfort. They spin and cavort among the waves until, as if responding to an inaudible command, they dive under the waves and depart as swiftly as they arrived. Lauren hears the whistle from the boat and prepares to follow the swimmers back on board. As she turns in the water she realises that one dolphin has remained behind and is swimming in increasingly close circles around her. She has been warned not to touch the dolphins but the urge to reach out and touch the sleek flesh almost overwhelms her. She stares into its eyes and the dolphin, as if sensing her thoughts, noses against her, a gentle flip, almost imagined. It glides under her, a buffeting motion that should alarm her but has a dreamlike choreography where fear and anxiety and loss, all the emotions she understands and carries within her, fall away until there is only weightlessness. The dolphin lifts her on its back and carries her through the water with a sensuous swishing motion before ploughing a final circle and diving deep into its subterranean world.
Lauren climbs back on board and faces Gillian’s stern reprimand. As the skipper turns and follows the dolphins, the swimmers again take their positions on the stern.
‘Ready for action,’ Gillian shouts as the dolphins rise from the water and begin another acrobatic display. The swimmers plunge overboard once more. Lauren walks to the centre of the boat and takes off her snorkel. Her chest expands, the sensation so powerful she understands why happiness is such a potent emotion, only given in doses small enough to hold the heart steady.
‘But you must.’ Gillian is adamant when Lauren shakes her head. ‘This is a unique opportunity to swim with dolphins. Just obey my signals and you’ll be fine. No need to be afraid. I’ve been watching you. You’re a strong swimmer.’
‘I’m not afraid.’ Lauren smiles and removes her flippers. ‘I don’t want to go back in again. Anything else will be an anticlimax.’
Above her a small plane dips like a dragonfly before scooping the air and disappearing beyond the cloud-wreathed mountains. The dolphins leap, as if they too want to see beyond the distant peaks.
Rebecca’s phone rings and startles them awake.
‘Yes, she’s here.’ Her voice croaks with tiredness. ‘No cracks last time I noticed. OK! Keep your hair on, Steve. I’ll see if I can waken her.’ She hands the phone to Lauren.
‘At last we’re in communication again.’ Steve makes no effort to disguise his annoyance. ‘Why can’t I get through on your mobile?’
‘I left it behind in Akona’s place.’
‘Left it behind? Bloody hell, princess, it’s state of the art. And what’s to stop you purchasing a phone card? You know I worry if I can’t contact you.’
‘Why on earth should you worry? I’ve never felt better.’
‘Not from what I’ve heard.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I had to speak to Paul Chambers to hear about the accident.’
‘What accident?’
‘Julie emailed him about your reaction to the crash.’
‘There was no crash. We got a fright but no one was hurt. Not a scratch, even on the camper.’
‘I’m not talking physical injuries. The shock alone would be sufficient to trigger…’
He is difficult to hear above the staccato blast of a Tannoy system speaker. Must be an airport. Lauren tries to r
emember if he mentioned his travel plans in a previous call.
‘I won’t stay long on the phone,’ he says. ‘I’m at the airport rushing to make a connection. The deal’s done on Wallslowe, princess. Ts crossed, Is dotted. Just in time too.’
‘Congratulations,’ she replies. ‘That was fast work.’
‘Fast and fucking furious.’
‘Are you drunk?’
‘Just celebrating. The property bubble hasn’t just burst, it’s in total freefall. Lucky I saw it coming and made my plans. You don’t have to worry about cutting up your credit card, princess.’
‘I wasn’t worried—’
‘I’ll keep this short,’ he interrupts. ‘I’ve one business stopover to make in Singapore and, assuming there are no delays with my connections, I’ll be at Havenswalk to greet you.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m on my way over. I’ll be glad to escape the weather. It’s hailstones here. What’s it like at your end?’
‘You’re coming here?’
‘Got it in one.’
‘But it’s crazy to travel so far—’
‘I assumed you’d be pleased.’
‘Of course I’m pleased…delighted.’
‘I’d better go. They’ve called my flight. And organise that phone tomorrow.’
‘Steve…wait. Let’s discuss this—’
He hangs up in midsentence, in transit, out of contact.
Moving quietly, Lauren locks the door of the ensuite and removes a blade from the lining of her cosmetic bag. She draws the edge lightly along one finger and presses the wound against her palm. She shudders when she sees the patina of blood on her skin.