Wake

by Elizabeth Knox

  Bub changed tack. ‘Will—the other Sam—be okay while she’s—not here?’

  Sam nodded.

  Jacob sat down on the end of her bed. He made an effort to collect himself. ‘I think I can manage a single patient with bradycardia if I can find some more atropine eye drops. I used what I found in the pharmacy on Warren, but there might be some at Mary Whitaker. Atropine is used to dry up excess saliva.’ He touched Sam’s hand. ‘Did any of your old people have a problem with saliva?’

  ‘Annie had motor neurone disease,’ Sam said. ‘She had drops and a patch.’

  Jacob considered. ‘And I believe there are asthma inhalers with orciprenaline.’

  ‘Sam didn’t leave me a note,’ Sam said. ‘She was going to stay here for a long time, I think. She’d talked to the man in black.’

  ‘We know that,’ Bub said. ‘How come there are two of you? Like—how?’

  Sam shook her head.

  ‘Does the other Sam know?’

  ‘We don’t know what they did or why they did it.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Uncle and the visitor.’

  Belle, Bub, and Jacob exchanged looks.

  ‘Visitor?’ Bub said.

  ‘The woman. She was very black, like the man.’

  ‘Myr?’

  Sam nodded.

  ‘So your uncle and this woman who looked like Myr did something to you?’

  ‘Before the visitor came we were sleeping in the same bedroom. Wa was in her cot and I was in mine. When I woke up Wa was gone. My cot was gone too and I was in hers. I never saw Wa after that. We only wrote each other notes.’

  ‘Sam is Wa? The other Sam?’ Belle said.

  ‘I was little. I couldn’t say “Samara”, and she couldn’t say “Samantha”. I called her “Wa” and she called me “Fa”. Once Wa was gone Uncle said it was better if we were both just “Sam”.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Bub.

  Jacob plundered the pharmacy again for alupent, the asthma drug. And, once Sam had rested, they went together to Mary Whitaker, unsealed the doors, and walked along a corridor carpeted with dead flies to Annie’s room. The atropine solution was in the bedside cabinet.

  Jacob made ready for the other Sam, but William talked Jacob out of asking his own Sam to let the other return.

  *

  William was the first person to whom Jacob explained what he and Bub and Belle now knew—William first, because he was involved with Sam, and because Jacob wasn’t feeling strong enough to face a bombardment of questions he couldn’t answer. He told William what had happened then said, ‘Sam has explained as much as she is able to, I think. And I’ve told you everything we know. I’m making ready for the other Sam. I want to be sure she’ll be okay.’

  ‘Because if you lose one of them, you lose both.’ William looked thoughtful. ‘Do you think Myr knows that there really are two of her?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He was confused when we mentioned his having healed her. And William—there aren’t two of her, there are two of them. Twins, separate people, Samantha and Samara.’

  William was pale—too pale—and Jacob had a dark suspicion that, if they ever did get out of Kahukura, William might need a heart valve replacement, or a pacemaker. Jacob put his tea-light holder to William’s chest and listened to his heart.

  William said, ‘Perhaps it would be better to demonstrate Sam to Myr. We want him to think through any significance, and the other Sam isn’t going to reveal herself willingly.’

  ‘Shhh,’ said Jacob.

  William kept quiet while Jacob listened. When Jacob straightened, turned away and began fussing with his first-aid bag, William went on. ‘She knows more than we do,’ he said. ‘Can I get up and see her?’

  Jacob shook his head. He wasn’t going to let William get excited or argumentative till he had him well-established on some drug for arrhythmia. Treating William required research. He didn’t say this to William. Bad news was of no benefit to him—and Jacob hated to be the one to tell this fit, cared for, spectacularly handsome man that he had a damaged heart. He only said, ‘You’re on bed rest till I tell you otherwise.’

  William’s scrutiny was exacting. Jacob began gathering up his pills and his contrived stethoscope. Then he thought of a distraction. ‘If this Sam stays here for the next little while, that gives you a chance to—’

  ‘Make things square with her.’

  ‘She was deceiving you, only not in the way you thought.’

  ‘Please send her in to me, Jacob,’ William said.

  ‘Okay. But take it easy.’

  ‘On Sam?’

  ‘No,’ Jacob blushed. ‘I’m sorry. I have to make this clear. I don’t want you exerting yourself.’

  ‘Sure, whatever you say.’

  Jacob went to call Sam to her long-awaited reconciliation.

  Sam sat beside William, her nose pressed to his shoulder, and her eyes closed. She was in a trance of animal happiness. She didn’t mind that he wasn’t paying attention to her right that minute. He was busy helping Theresa with their made-up code. He had a job—the jobs were all cause for happiness. Nor did she mind that, when they were alone, he seemed content to just let her lie beside him. She did want him to touch her everywhere again, and to watch her face the way he did as she changed colour and forgot to cover her scar with her cupped hand. But she had faith that would all happen. Jacob had told her that William wasn’t fully recovered. He’d said, ‘Don’t worry. It’s early days yet.’ It was okay anyway, because William took a different kind of interest in her. He finally liked to talk to her, too. He asked her lots of questions, and she told him things that she’d never been able to tell before. She talked about those things the only way she was able to, from her point of view, and they seemed at last to make sense to someone.

  For instance, she told him how she and Sam had contrived to be one another. She said that, for ages now, the other Sam hardly ever came out. That had helped. And they both knew it was sabotage to make any changes in their appearance. She never had—deliberately—and the other had stopped that nonsense years ago. If she—Samantha—had been gone, when she came back, she would make sure to loop her ponytail so no one would be able tell how long her hair was till she could figure out how long the other’s was—she’d do that by pulling hairs out of the shower drain and measuring them against her own. And when she had got a little fat—because she was eating lunch and dinner at Mary Whitaker and only walking the short distance to work and back—the other Sam had taken to coming out on the weekends and leaving her miles and miles out along some local bush track so that she had to walk all the way home.

  This was the sort of stuff William was interested in. Insights into her life, he said.

  Theresa and William were still busy with their code when Warren stormed out of the kitchen swearing at Oscar. He and Oscar were supposed to be making dinner. ‘The kid can’t follow simple instructions. Apparently he’s above that.’ Warren took off his apron and tossed it on the floor.

  Oscar appeared, and tried to say something in his own defence.

  ‘Can’t you be trusted to do the least little thing I ask?’ Theresa sprang up out of her chair.

  ‘Are you talking to me or Warren?’ Oscar asked. ‘And have you done the dishes even once since we’ve been here? Or don’t cops do dishes?’

  ‘Stop being a smart arse.’

  ‘I’ve been helping in the kitchen for weeks and weeks. I’m not trying to get out of anything. But it’s my kitchen now and I don’t have to listen to him!’

  Sam got up. ‘I’ll help you, Warren.’

  Behind Oscar, Warren started shaking his head furiously at Theresa.

  Oscar caught this out of the corner of his eye and gave Warren a look of disgust. ‘If you’re too nervous to share a kitchen with Sam, just bugger off.’

  O
scar came and took Sam’s hand in his own large one and led her off to the kitchen, saying, ‘Yes, you can help me. It’s nice of you to offer.’

  A few minutes later Theresa followed them and apologised to Oscar. ‘Warren is a grown-up so expects to be in charge. And, Oscar, I keep trying to limit your responsibilities. I know it aggravates you, but you must see why I do it.’

  ‘You have the job of feeding the cats now,’ Sam reminded Oscar, to cheer him. To Theresa she said, ‘Everyone needs to feel they have a part to play.’

  Theresa looked at Sam and did careful things with her expression.

  ‘Don’t be scared of me,’ Sam said. ‘I’m not dangerous.’ She wished she knew what to do to make them all feel easier with her.

  Theresa said, ‘You’re just going to have to put up with our nerves.’

  ‘But I looked after you when you were all sick.’

  ‘I know, Sam. I’m trying, okay?’

  ‘When Jacob has his medicines worked out the other can come back. She’ll help you. You’ll see.’

  Theresa patted the air between them—trying to push an invisible something back into its invisible box.

  The kitchen door blew open as if another unseen entity had rushed to the aid of the one Theresa was trying to confine. Sam hurried to close it. She had been startled, but not spooked. The door had been caught by an easterly wind. Kahukura didn’t get them very often. There was a porch at Mary Whitaker where they used to store stuff, and once or twice a year the rain would blow in and the manager would say, ‘We have to think of some more permanent arrangement.’

  ‘Is that—?’ Theresa’s voice was watery.

  ‘It’s the wind,’ said Sam.

  ‘And by “the wind” you mean?’

  ‘The wind.’

  It was a wild night, and at midnight Bub and Theresa drove down to the supermarket to check on the lights they’d rigged. They made everything secure and climbed back into the car, soaked through. Theresa shouted to make herself heard over the rattle of rain on the car roof. ‘My hair was blowing in my eyes. It’s usually too short. Time is moving on but we’re not.’

  ‘First clear night we’ll get to it,’ Bub said, gesturing at the quivering array of lights. ‘I’m sure they’ll work out our code.’

  The survivors’ very first message would be the twenty-six letters and ten numerals of their contrived Morse-like code. They’d send it over and over till someone out there caught on and responded.

  On their way back they glimpsed a faint fire glow from the house where Myr had held Sam prisoner.

  ‘He’s up there again,’ Bub said. ‘Shall we do a detour to talk to him?’

  Theresa said she was too wet and cold for that.

  The following morning was calm and clear. Oscar took his bike out early to feed Lucy and the other cats. Jacob’s patients on bed rest got up and camped in the sunny atrium. When Sam saw Kate hadn’t come downstairs she went up and coaxed Kate from her room, then carried a folding chair out beside the garden beds. She sat Kate in it, then fetched a hoe and began weeding between the seedlings.

  Jacob brought Kate a cup of tea on a tray and left it by her chair.

  Back in the atrium, William, Bub, and Theresa had their heads together and were trying to work out what came next.

  William asked Jacob when he thought he’d be ready for the other Sam.

  Jacob shhhed and came to join them. ‘I can’t take any chances. I have to be absolutely certain she’ll survive. It can’t be a coincidence that she’s here. That they’re here.’

  Theresa said, ‘Yes. The other Sam has that strange affinity with the monster. Which suggests they’re here to do something.’

  ‘What say “doing something” harms them?’ said William.

  Jacob took William’s wrist. ‘Take it easy,’ he reminded.

  William let Jacob check his pulse, but declared that he wasn’t going to be ruled by some dumb glitch in his body.

  ‘Buddy,’ Jacob said, gently, ‘you have heart damage. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to tell you but I’ve got to get you to behave and give yourself a chance. When we get out of here you can go put yourself into the hands of some top-class cardiac surgeon and get it fixed.’

  William had lost his colour. He looked appalled. He snatched his hand out of Jacob’s grasp.

  ‘I’m worried about Warren too, if that helps,’ Jacob said. He wanted William to say something, and stop looking at him accusingly. ‘You’re really sick, buddy. For a time there you were losing your peripheral circulation, like Warren. I’m not sure why Warren came through with fewer ill effects. My professional guess is that he has the constitution of a cockroach.’

  It was at that moment that Oscar came in with his pockets stuffed with sun-yellowed paper, and his arms full of plastic bottles.

  *

  The main cat-feeding place was below the high-water mark on the boat ramp at the western end of the beach. It was a good place, because whatever the cats didn’t eat was cleaned up by the seagulls and the sea. Oscar had got to the boat ramp at ten, after spending a bit of time with Lucy. As he rode up on his bike the gathered cats got to their feet, and others jumped out through the broken windows of the shorefront properties and trotted across the road. Oscar leaned his bike on the district council’s big sign about boat ramp use, and took the cat food cans out of his saddlebag. He walked down the ramp, the cats sauntering after him or contriving to trip him by making affectionate dashes at his ankles. The cats butted his hands as he worked on the first tear-top can. He got that can open and tipped the sausage-and-gravy out onto the sea-worn concrete. He left the first cluster of cats and walked to a new spot, followed by the smarter and more patient animals. He tipped out another tin, then stepped back to admire the two quivering scrums. Then he rinsed the cans in the sea and put them back in his saddle bags.

  The beach looked different after the storm. In a westerly or northerly gale, the sand would be either heaped in huge ripples or beaten flat and hard. It all depended on the tide. But an easterly only moved stuff around. Oscar’s father knew Kahukura really well and would say, after an easterly, ‘You might like to do a bit of beach-combing today, son.’

  The sand was covered in flotsam—the usual driftwood, plus skeins of seaweed, even bull kelp torn from its anchorage on the rocks around Pepin Island. There were a couple of faded orange fishing floats, and near the ramp a grey ironwood hawser threaded with torn rope, so weathered it might have been drifting for decades. And there were plastic bottles.

  There were always a few plastic bottles—but today there were dozens of them, none buried in the sand or even concealed in the piled debris at the tide line. And, as Oscar looked at them, he suddenly understood why they were on top of everything else, and why they were familiar—not just a common sight after an easterly. They were familiar because he’d seen them before, sitting like giant bubbles on the mess of stuff in the cove below the shoreline track where flotsam always fetched up. The cove Oscar hadn’t stopped to take a good look at on any of his rides since it stank so—having collected the bodies of seabirds the No-Go had killed. The bottles must have moved when the easterly scoured the cove. So—that was why they were familiar. As for why they were lying on top of the rest of the flotsam—that was because they were all sealed, and watertight.

  Oscar jumped off the ramp and ran to the nearest bottle. It was a two-litre soft drink bottle, lid screwed down tight, and sealed with the same soft wax his mother used on her jars of preserved lemons. Oscar picked the bottle up and shook it. The paper inside it rattled drily.

  Oscar employed his teeth to get the lid open. He tipped the paper out. He took his time unfolding it—it was brittle after long exposure to the sun.

  The paper was a photocopy of a hand-written letter. Oscar recognised the handwriting before he was able to read a word. He sat down in the sand. His ears roared. He tried again.
>
  Dear Oscar. This is Mum and Dad . . .

  Oscar’s eyes swam. He wiped them and went on reading.

  By the time he finished the letter his sleeves were damp with tears.

  Oscar’s father had first put his message in a bottle into the outgoing tide at the mouth of the Motueka River seven days after Kahukura was lost to the rest of the world. He wrote to his son that local experts on the vagaries of Tasman Bay tides and currents all agreed that things drifting from the river mouth would eventually find their way with the tide to Kahukura, or Mapua, or Ruby Bay (or, in certain winds, across Tasman Bay and out to sea). But you see, Oscar’s father wrote, it was worth a try.

  The first letter Oscar opened was his parents’ fifth. It—and ten other copies in ten different bottles—had been dropped off the wharf at Motueka six weeks before. Because Oscar’s parents couldn’t have been sure he was getting any of their messages, in each letter they repeated their story. They explained their decision to attempt to communicate this way, what the local experts said, and how they finally came to know that they were talking to Oscar every time they consigned a bottle to the tide.

  Only four days before they wrote the letter Oscar first opened—number five—his mother and father had had a visit from ‘the officials’. They were shown satellite pictures of their son. They were asked to identify him, and told that he was part of small group of survivors. He had been photographed riding his bike—which suggested to everyone that he was fit and well. Oscar’s parents were also told that, on the day after that terrible first, their son had inscribed a message to them in the sand of Kahukura beach. If we had been told that straight away it would have saved us weeks of agony. His parents were clearly angry.

  From the sample of their letters that Oscar found—letters written on the twelfth, eighteenth, twentieth, and twenty-sixth of October, and the third and ninth of November—plus a handful of other communications the survivors spent the morning gathering, they were able to glean that, after the event, there had been a seven-day news blackout, during which all the media was able to do was report with gnawing repetition on the bare facts about what they were calling ‘the Zone’. They reported on its known casualties—the crews of an air force Orion and navy Sea Sprite.