New Zealand Brides Box Set

by Diana Fraser

  Tears pricked Gabe’s eyes. “Then why did he leave, and not come back?”

  “He made a mistake.” Jim shook his head and picked up the astrolabe. “A mistake; an error in judgment, compounded by his illness. That’s my guess anyway.” He held it out for Gabe to take. “But he’s back now. He’s given you the most precious things he has, and he wants you to cherish them, and in so doing, cherish your and his connection, your love. Don’t let pride stand in your way like it did when he left. That was one thing you both shared—pride. Don’t do it.” He rose. “That is my advice to you. The rest is up to you.”

  Jim knocked back the rest of the whiskey and gave an appreciative sound before nodding to Gabe and leaving the room, his steps heavy on the polished floorboards. The door banged shut, and Gabe was alone once more. But something had changed. It was like finding that final key to unlock the whole truth, and re-arranging the pieces, so they suddenly formed a coherent picture. His father was right. It wasn’t all about him and Jonny; it was about Maddy.

  He understood now.

  Maddy couldn’t settle. She’d sorted out the accounts at the Backpackers and left a detailed list of instructions for Flo to follow once she’d left. Then she’d gone for a walk, fingering her cellphone ten times a minute, tempted to ring, tempted to text, but doing none of those things. She’d done what she’d told Jonny she’d do. The rest was up to Gabe.

  She peeled off her clothes and ran into the sea to cool her heated head and heart, needing to wear out the agitation and upset which filled her. But as she walked along the wind-whipped beach, the warm air drying her, it had no effect. Eventually, she returned and sat down again, outside the Backpackers. She’d be leaving tomorrow, and it was up to Gabe whether he wanted to hear any more of her and Jonny’s story.

  She returned to the hostel and told Flo that she was hanging out on the beach that evening, refusing the company which Flo offered. Instead, she took a beer and nursed it on the beach. It wasn’t until the moon had risen over the hills that she heard a noise behind her. Some sand rose in the air and stung her eyes. She jumped up and turned around.

  “Gabe!”

  “Maddy,” he said. “Flo told me you’d be here.”

  “I texted you and told you, too.”

  “Ah, well. Unlike my brother Jonny, I’m not wed to my phone.” He barked out a dry laugh. “Ha! Funny. He wasn’t only wedded to his phone, was he?”

  And at that moment, she knew that this wasn’t going to be easy. “We weren’t married,” she said quietly.

  “No. He died before you could marry.”

  She heard the hurt in every syllable. She flexed her hands into fists to stop herself from reaching out to him. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

  “No, well I didn’t think I’d come either. But I guess I didn’t want a repeat of when Jonny left. The barest of communication until we were notified of his death.”

  “He was going to get in contact. I’m sure of it. I think to begin with he’d wanted to cut loose and then he’d gotten sick. But he was recovering and had been talking about you all.”

  “Talk.” He grunted dismissively. “He was always good at talking. Except not to his family.” Gabe sat down beside her and looked out at the dim horizon. “Do you know what it’s like to be a member of a large, tight-knit family and have one of you disappear like that? It devastated everyone, especially my sisters.”

  Especially Gabe, she thought. “It devastated him, too. Except he didn’t admit it to himself until he got sick.”

  Silence descended, and she looked at Gabe as he gazed out into the mid-distance, his mind thousands of miles away. His hair lifted with the brisk breeze, and the smell of a nearby barbecue drifted down the beach to them. She shivered. Then he looked at her for the first time. She hadn’t thought he’d notice her shiver, but he had.

  “You’re cold.” He pulled off his jacket and put it around her shoulders, his fingers lingering as he smoothed it over her. Their gaze caught and tangled before he looked back once more toward the sea.

  She opened her mouth to speak but thought better of it.

  “What were you about to say?” he asked.

  She bit her lip but held his gaze. “That Jonny used to do that.”

  Gabe nodded and looked away again. “Of course he did. He loved you, and he sent you here, to me, because he wanted me to love you, too.”

  “How could he? No, that wasn’t it. That would have been crazy.”

  “Not if you know the other person as well as a twin does.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “No, he simply wanted me to heal the rift between you. He wanted me to be the conduit, a bridge between you both, to help you to heal.”

  “Don’t you see, Maddy? It was more than that. He wanted me to fall in love, and I obliged. Trouble is, I’m not Jonny.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He stirred himself to look up at her as if his mind was far away. “You loved Jonny, not me. He seemed to imagine you could switch allegiances, fall for me too, and ta-da, neat happy ending. But real life isn’t like that.”

  She couldn’t begin to tell him what real life was like so kept silent.

  He laid the astrolabe out on the sand before them. “I loved this thing as a kid. I found it and kept it safe for a long time, refused to let anyone play with it in case they damaged it. And when Jonny got hold of it one time he knocked a chip off it.” He held it up to the light. “See, here?” He traced a thin line of white with his finger. “Here’s where I tried to glue it back together. I was eight years old and had a bench space on Dad’s garden shed where I mended things. I loved it.”

  “So how come Jonny had it?”

  He looked up and shook his head with a smile. “He always loved beautiful things.” He paused as his eyes swept her face and hair. “So I gave it to him as a kind of peace offering—a way of remembering what we had. We loved each other, we fought each other’s battles, and what was his was mine, and mine his. We were always there for each other.” He bit his lip. “Except at the end. When he needed me most, I wasn’t there.”

  “How could you have been? He didn’t tell you where he was.” She shook her head. “And the end was the result of a stupid accident which no one could have foreseen.” She huffed. “Except apparently Jonny. You couldn’t have been there.”

  Gabe’s gaze focused back on her. “But you were there.” His voice was quiet. It wasn’t a question, but rather a resigned statement that showed his sadness that she had a past she hadn’t revealed to him, and a past that was intimately connected to his family. She felt ashamed of her duplicity all over again.

  “Yes, I was there.”

  He indicated the bench. “Let’s sit down under the tree, and you can tell me everything.”

  After so long with living with the secrets, it was a relief to tell him—almost everything.

  They sat down. The breeze off the sea had quickened and tossed the branches of the pohutukawa tree, creating crazy criss-cross moon shadows on the silvered wooden bench, upon which lovers’ names had been carved beside knots in the grain which had been weathered by rain and sand and wind. They sat across from each other and Maddy felt the distance keenly. She fingered one of the knots as she tried to collect her thoughts.

  Gabe leaned his arms on the table and didn’t take his eyes off her. “Go on, Maddy.”

  “I’m trying to work out where to begin.”

  “Let’s start with where you met Jonny. After he left New Zealand in such a dramatic rush, we didn’t hear from him for ages.”

  “That must have been hard.”

  “Yes. We knew he was backpacking around Europe but little else. For a while he sent us regular postcards, which had jokes, teasing things on them, but nothing really about the life he was living. Then he told us he’d got married and was expecting a child. My sisters were devastated he hadn’t invited us to the wedding.”

  “Jonny told me it was an impulse registry office wedding. And that they were
separated shortly after his son was born.”

  Gabe pressed his lips together and looked down. “That was Jonny—all impulse and no sense of responsibility. Tell me how you met him.”

  “It was in Amsterdam. I’d finished a contract at the university there and had arranged to hang out with some friends for a few more weeks before moving on.”

  She faltered as she relived the memory of her first meeting with Jonny.

  “Go on.”

  “I noticed him as soon as he walked into the room with a small group of friends. He lit up the room. And, then he looked at me, and that was it.” She shrugged, unable to describe the intensity of what had happened next.

  Maddy glanced at Gabe who briefly closed his eyes before picking up a stone and throwing it into the sea. He sighed. “You fell for each other.”

  She didn’t raise her long lashes but continued to tease out a knot of wood on the bench top. “Yes. It would have been hard not to fall for Jonny.” She bit her lip, wondering if she should continue. But one glance at Gabe’s haunted eyes, and she decided not to. He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand as if trying to rid his mind of images of herself and Jonny.

  “So… did you stay in The Netherlands?”

  “For a while. But he wanted to explore the world, so we left after a few months.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “We headed East. Jonny had tired of the Amsterdam scene. He’d been mixing with the wrong crowd, taking drugs. At first I thought some of his more extreme behavior was because of them. It was only later…”

  “Ah, so it wasn’t until later that you got to learn of his problems.”

  “Yes. He hid it well. But I knew something was wrong when he kept on wanting to travel away from the West. He seemed to have some sort of phobia about it.”

  “And, I’m guessing, it didn’t stop.”

  “No. It got worse.”

  “Was he still taking drugs?”

  “I’m not sure. If he was, I didn’t see him take them. But later I found out that he should have been taking medication.”

  He reached out and touched her hand. “Jonny was diagnosed bi-polar shortly before he left the country. It was what drove him away. We tried to make sure he took his medication, but I’m guessing between the drugs he took in Amsterdam and lack of prescription medication in the East, he stopped.”

  She looked up and saw a reflection of her own pain in his eyes.

  “Were you with him at the end?”

  “Yes. He died in hospital; I was at his side.”

  “That must have been hard.”

  The raw pain that was behind the tears nearly ripped her cool apart. “Yes,” she mouthed, unable to speak. She cleared her throat and swallowed. She had to keep it together; she had to tell him everything. “I couldn’t believe it. He’d been improving; he’d been talking about home, but had some morbid premonition of death.”

  “His bi-polar talking.”

  “Probably.” Although she still couldn’t help believe it was something more. “And because of that, he made me promise to come here.”

  He picked up the astrolabe and turned it in his hand. “To come to Akaroa, track me down, and return an ancient, dysfunctional, out-of-date piece of memorabilia to me.”

  “Yes. I thought it sounded crazy then, and it sounds even crazier now.” She pulled her hands away and swung her legs off the bench. “I’m sorry, Gabe. I should never have come. I’ve wasted your time, and I’ve only made you sad.”

  He rose and stood beside her and looked out to sea while she pulled a tissue from her pocket and swept the tears from her cheeks and blew her nose.

  “You haven’t, you know,” he said at last.

  “What?”

  “Wasted my time. You knew Jonny what, for a couple of years?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I knew him for twenty-two years, until his diagnosis and his disappearance. I was born first and apparently stopped screaming when he emerged. He started screaming as soon as he was born, and I stopped. And that’s how we went on. We were inseparable for years. We shared the same bedroom, the same hobbies, the same humor. I knew him, Maddy, I knew him, and I hunted for him after he left, tried to find him, but couldn’t. And you telling me what you know about him, how he lived the last two years of his life has meant a lot to me. It’s completed a story which I kept trying, but failing, to complete. It’s brought some closure, I guess. Closure on something that had closed over a year ago. So, no, you haven’t wasted my time.”

  “Good. I’m glad. I guess Jonny knew that and that was why he wanted me to come here and find you.”

  “No. Now there you’re wrong. Sure he wanted me to know. But it’s more than that. Don’t you know why he wanted you to come here?” He tossed the astrolabe in his hand again.

  She shook her head, suddenly off-kilter. She’d come to Akaroa to tell Gabe about Jonny. It was her with the secret, not Gabe.

  “I think the recurrence of his bi-polar symptoms scared him,” said Gabe. “He loved you.”

  “What makes you so sure? Sometimes it didn’t feel like that.”

  “No, he loved you. I know that for sure because we always loved the same things.”

  She looked up sharply at his acknowledgment that he still loved her, and she knew from the intensity in his eyes that, despite everything, he did still love her. He reached out and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. His face flickered with a wince or a smile—Maddy couldn’t have said which— as he touched her cheek before pulling away with a sigh.

  “He loved you,” Gabe repeated. “And he wanted you cared for if anything happened to him. And I’ve always cared for things, for people; that’s what I do.”

  She shook her head as she tried to comprehend what Gabe was saying, and jumped to her feet. “No. No, that’s not it. He wanted me to come here purely for you, for your family, for me to heal the rift, to tell you that he loved you.”

  “Listen to me, Maddy.” Gabe took hold of both her hands. “Jonny wanted me to fall in love with you, and I have. He wanted me to cherish you, as he couldn’t cherish you, and I do.”

  All the strength drained from Maddy’s body, and she crumpled to her knees on the wet sand and heard the sound of loud, uncontrolled sobbing. It was shocking to her, not least because it was coming from her and she hadn’t a hope in hell of controlling it. She tried to fight off Gabe’s arms but gave up instead and pressed her cheek to his chest while he held her and let her sob.

  “It’s okay,” he said as he tenderly pressed his lips to her head. “It’s okay.”

  But it didn’t feel okay. She’d thought she’d been sent here for Gabe’s sake, not her own. But now the memories, the words of the past flew through her mind, stopping only to confirm Gabe’s statement. She should have known. She should have realized, but she hadn’t. It had taken Gabe’s knowledge of Jonny—their shared bond which hadn’t been severed, despite the distance between them—to make her see.

  Slowly the sobbing subsided, and she pulled away from him.

  “It’s okay,” Gabe repeated, releasing her from his arms.

  She nodded and dug into her jeans for another tissue and blew her nose. She nodded again and cleared her throat. “I guess it will be okay.” She sent him a watery smile. “Just doesn’t feel like it yet.”

  “And I will, Maddy, if you let me.”

  She frowned, trying to follow his train of thought.

  “I will,” he repeated, “cherish you, if you’ll let me.”

  She loved him; she knew that now. But did she want her life to be arranged for her by Jonny? Jonny had taken control of her life from the moment they’d met. From giving up her work, to where they lived, the decisions had been his. Did she really want Jonny’s influence to extend beyond the grave and to predict her future?

  Gabe stood up and held out his hand to her. She accepted it, and he helped her up. “But I don’t want to know if you’ll let me yet. Only when you’re ready. Now, come on, let
’s go back to the Backpackers and see if Flo can rustle up some tea for us.”

  * * *

  Gabe kept his arm around Maddy as they walked back to the Backpackers. He was worried about her. He’d never seen her like this, so exposed and raw. He knew that an infected wound could be hidden by newly formed skin, and overlooked. And that sometimes that surface had to be taken away and the raw wound revealed for it to heal. And Maddy had to heal; she had to grieve for Jonny. And all he could do was give her time.

  Back with Flo, they drank tea in a shocked, aching silence. Maddy didn’t want Flo to leave, and so Flo tried to fill the silence with talk about inconsequential things—from how well her veggies were doing in the garden, to the local amateur dramatic production in which Jim Connelly was starring. Gabe watched as Maddy nodded vaguely when Flo talked about the difference that having the archaeologists staying had made to her cash flow, and to the future of her business. Maddy sighed as Flo continue to talk about how she’d already put out feelers to banks and potential backers to fund some of the more ambitious plans. Then, eventually, even Flo fell silent and turned to them.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with you guys, but you need to sort it out.”

  Maddy bit her lip and glanced awkwardly at Gabe. “I don’t think we can, Flo. It’s too difficult.”

  “We could try, Maddy,” said Gabe, refusing to leave without a fight.

  “You could,” said Flo enthusiastically. “Don’t do what I did, and be too proud to put things to right when things went wrong.”

  “What things?” asked Gabe, wondering if she was talking about his brother, Rob.

  “None of your business,” said Flo, closing the subject. “The details aren’t important. What is important is that I let my stupid pride stop me from accepting an apology. I had this ridiculous sense of how things should be, and if they didn’t match up, then there was no point.” She reached over and deadheaded a rose. “God, I was stupid.” She allowed the fading petals to fall one by one from her hands onto the wooden veranda. When she looked up, there were tears in her eyes. “And I’ve regretted it every day since.”