Sam

by Luke F. Harris

  He looked down at the palm of his hand. He had never taken the easy way out before, and deep down he knew that he never would.

  Quickly, before he changed his mind, he jumped up, walked down to the water’s edge and threw open his hand. For a nanosecond the tiny tablets flashed white in the darkness, and then they were gone.

  chapter two

  Tom eyeballed the computer screen. His eyes were beginning to ache, and he could feel the muscles in the back of his neck getting tighter. He gripped the mouse in his left hand and dragged the cursor across the page. No going back now, he told himself, and double-clicked.

  The sky was already darkening in the east, and the lights of the houses on the surrounding hills flickered on one by one. The solitary wind turbine that towered over the suburb of Brooklyn would soon vanish for another night.

  As he stood up, he caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the window and paused. Hesitantly, he raised a hand his face, to the lines on his forehead, the creases around his eyes. God, when had he got so old? He seemed to have aged ten years over the past twelve months.

  With a sigh, he slipped the laptop into its case and returned it to the antique bureau in the hall. The desk-cum-sideboard was a rimu monstrosity that he had been guilted into taking after his grandfather died. When he got back from his trip, he would sell it, and to hell with the consequences.

  Speaking of family, he hadn’t seen Carla for a couple of days. Although he had enjoyed the peace and quiet to begin with, he was starting to crave human contact. Even the cat had been keeping his distance.

  Cats don’t really bring a lot to the party, now, do they? he could hear his grandfather saying. He smiled at the memory. Yet again, he had been right on the money. In exchange for food and shelter, his own cat was systematically destroying the house.

  He wandered over to the kitchen bench, lifted the phone from its cradle, and pressed the speed-dial button number one.

  He let the phone ring for longer than he normally would have. Nobody in his sister’s house ever paid attention to the phone, and he knew the odds were that at least one person was home. After what felt like an eternity, there was a click on the other end of the line.

  “Yeah,” a voice grunted into the receiver.

  “Just the person I wanted to talk to.” He tried to sound as cheerful as possible, but his enthusiasm met with a stony silence. “I really need your help with something important tomorrow morning.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you be ready to go at seven?”

  “Are you crazy?” Olivia asked, her voice suddenly becoming animated. “It’s the school holidays.”

  “Make it eight then, but no later. We’ll have a drive ahead of us, and I don’t want to get stuck in traffic.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked. Now she sounded intrigued. He didn’t have the heart to tell her not to get too excited.

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow. I’ll have you back by early afternoon. Is your mum there?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “Uh-huh.” He heard a clunk as she dropped the receiver on the sideboard and yelled for Carla at the top of her lungs.

  He turned and looked at the photo of Sam grinning back at him from the windowsill. “You’d better bloody appreciate this,” he said aloud and smiled.

  There was another long pause before he heard the sound of jandals slip-slapping against the wooden floorboards. The footsteps got louder and louder as his sister approached the phone and then stopped altogether. “Tom, is that you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Is everything OK?”

  He could hear that she wasn’t in a good mood. “Yeah, everything is fine. Look, what you said about talking to Olivia—I’ll do it.”

  Although he couldn’t see her face, he heard her sigh with relief. “Thanks, Tom. I appreciate it. Just tell her that she needs to take the next few years seriously—”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And make her understand that boys can wait. I don’t want her making the same mistakes I did and get tied down to some waster—”

  “Look,” he cut her off, “do you want to talk to her instead?”

  “OK, OK. It’s just that I’m worried.”

  “I know you are, but I really don’t think you need to be. She’s got her head screwed on right. I’ll be there at eight on the dot. Just make sure she’s ready.”

  “Thanks, Tom,” Carla said. She sounded a lot more cheerful than she had only a minute before. “Love you.”

  “Yeah, you too,” he replied, and hung up the phone.

  The next morning he pulled up outside his sister’s house at a quarter to eight and blasted the horn three times. The curtains were still drawn but he was reluctant to leave the warmth of the car to knock on the door.

  It was a fresh morning, and there wasn’t a wisp of cloud in the blue expanse of sky. “The gods must be smiling on you,” he said, looking in the rear-view mirror at the wooden box on the back seat.

  Ten minutes passed before the front door opened and Olivia emerged. She had a cellphone in one hand and a can of Coke in the other.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, dropping onto the front passenger seat and pulling the door shut with a thud. Her eyes stayed glued to the cellphone while she spoke.

  “Castlepoint,” he replied. He put the car into gear and pulled out into the traffic with a wheel spin.

  Olivia put her phone in her lap and looked at him. She had a confused expression on her face.

  “We’re going to scatter Sam’s ashes,” he explained. “Sam wanted you to be there, so I’m taking you.”

  “And you don’t want me to be?”

  “Don’t be silly,” he replied. In fact, he didn’t want to be there either.

  Fifty minutes later they were clear of the city and winding their way up the Rimutakas. The previous winter the road had been closed for two days because of heavy snowfall, and the commuters from Masterton and the other towns dotted along State Highway 2 had been forced to abandon their cars and crowd onto the Wellington-bound train instead. But that was more than six months ago, and there was no trace of the grey sludge that had covered the grass verges for weeks.

  Olivia didn’t like heights and she kept her eyes down as they wound their way up the mountain. The road came close to the edge in several places, the sheer drop down to the thick bush below unnervingly close.

  After a windy ten-minute ascent, they passed the summit and dropped down onto the grassy plains of the Wairarapa. The weather was always better over the hill, and today was no exception.

  “What are we stopping for?” Olivia asked when he stopped on the high street in Featherston.

  “I’m hungry. You want anything?” He nodded at a bakery across the street. Olivia shook her head. “Suit yourself then.”

  As he waited patiently for his trim flat white—extra shot, no sugar—he scanned the rogues gallery on the wall behind the counter. “How long ago was that taken?” he asked, pointing at a signed photograph of a well-known All Black.

  “Since a long time before,” the lady making his coffee answered in what sounded like a Dutch accent, but she didn’t offer any more information.

  She heaped two large sugars into a polystyrene cup, filled it with coffee and lukewarm milk, and passed it across the counter. “Four dollars, please.”

  He paid with a five-dollar note and dropped the change into the charity tin next to the till. He didn’t hurry back to the car but sat down at one of the café’s weather-beaten patio tables.

  He took a sip of his coffee and promptly spat it onto the pavement. It was truly awful.

  Olivia was still sitting in the car, her feet propped on the dashboard. He could see she was talking to someone on her cellphone, and from the grin on her face, he knew it wasn’t his sister. Carla’s going to have her work cut out there, he thought, standing up and tossing the full cup into the nearest bin.

  “You OK?” Oliva asked, as he slipped the seatbelt over his shoulder.


  “Yep,” he answered and started the engine.

  They drove in silence for the next ten minutes. Olivia gazed listlessly out the window as the countryside whizzed by in a green blur.

  “You’re addicted to that thing,” he said when she had checked her phone for the third time in as many

  minutes. “Who were you talking to before?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Nobody, eh?”

  “Nobody you’d know.”

  He waited another minute before trying again. “So what’s his name?”

  “Who?”

  “Come on, don’t play dumb. I wasn’t born yesterday. The boy you were speaking to before. I saw the way you were smiling back there. Is it serious?”

  Olivia seemed to squirm in her seat. “You can’t tell Mum.”

  “I think she already knows.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Language, please,” he felt duty bound to say. He didn’t really care whether she swore, but he knew Carla wouldn’t approve.

  “His name’s George. He’s in his first year of uni.”

  “Older guy, eh?” he winked, and nudged her in the ribs to try to lighten the mood.

  “If you’re going to take the piss, I won’t tell you,” she snapped. She crossed her arms and turned to face the window again.

  “OK, I’m sorry. It’s serious though?”

  “I dunno,” she replied. “We’ve only been seeing each other for a month. We haven’t even done it yet.”

  “Whoa!” This time it was his turn to squirm, and he let the subject drop immediately. There was a long pause before either of them was ready to speak again.

  “Do you think you’ll meet someone else?”

  Olivia’s question came from left-field and caught him completely off-guard. He opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it again without saying a word.

  “I don’t know,” he answered at last, casting a guilty look in the rear-view mirror at the casket sitting on the back seat. “No, I don’t think so.”

  By the time they reached Castlepoint, the weather had begun to close in. Strong gusts of wind buffeted the car as they crawled the last fifty metres along the gravel track that led to the beach.

  He pulled the car into the makeshift car park and cut the engine.

  Up on the rocks sat the lighthouse, majestic, towering over the beach. It looked exactly the same as it had the last time he had been here—with Sam. Nothing had changed.

  And yet everything had changed.

  “You ready?” he sighed, waking from his daydream and turning to look at Olivia, who was tapping away on her phone, a look of extreme concentration on her face.

  She grunted in reply, slid the phone into her pocket, and opened the door. But she wasn’t holding on to the handle tightly enough. A gust of wind caught the door, yanked it wide open, and the litter in the passenger foot well flew across the sand.

  He put on his windbreaker and rubbed his hands together to get the blood flowing through his fingers. “Bloody cold, eh?” He pulled the hood of his jacket over his head and tightened the drawstrings.

  “You look silly,” Olivia laughed. She walked around the car and loosened the hood for him. “That’s better,” she said. “We’re not going skiing, you know?”

  Slowly, they wound their way up the footpath that led to the lighthouse; Olivia out in front, him trailing behind, the wooden box clutched to his chest. By the time they reached the top, he was wheezing and beads of sweat were running down his forehead, into his eyes. When did I get so unfit? he thought, placing the box gently on the ground and leaning back against the handrail until he got his breath back.

  At the top of the slope, they skirted around the lighthouse, past a solitary Japanese tourist gazing intently at a plaque on the wall, and climbed over the wooden fence, out onto the rocks.

  The wind was even stronger beyond the shelter of the lighthouse, and for a moment, he thought they might have to abandon the idea altogether and retreat to the car. Yet when he looked up to tell Olivia to be careful, she was already a good ten metres ahead, leaning into the wind, her long blonde hair blowing wildly behind her.

  “Wait up!” he yelled, holding the wooden box as tight as he could. He scanned the rocks for cracks, for fear of tripping and dropping the casket. “If you fall into the ocean, your mum will kill me.” But Olivia was too far in front to hear him.

  For the past three months, Sam’s ashes had sat on the dresser in his bedroom. Ashes collecting dust. How ironic, he thought, and clutched the box even tighter.

  He knew that Sam wouldn’t want to be kept on display, like an old relic—they had talked about it briefly, before he had changed the subject—yet even now he wasn’t sure he would actually be able to let go. A box of grit was all he had left. Grit that would be gone in a few moments’ time.

  “Shouldn’t we say something?” Olivia asked. Her eyes welled with tears.

  He stared straight out to sea, at the endless expanse of blue that stretched out to the horizon and beyond.

  “Somewhere out there is South America,” he said, speaking to himself, to Olivia, to the casket in his arms. “We never made it to South America.”

  He sensed Olivia moving closer.

  “We were planning to go when—” His words trailed off on the wind. He turned and looked at Olivia,

  whose tears had already been blown dry.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  He took a deep breath. “Ready.”

  Gently, he lifted the lid and unscrewed the cap on the square plastic container inside. “Hold this,” he said, passing the cap to Olivia.

  The wind, still howling from the southeast, was driving the large white-capped waves onto the jagged rocks below, sending plumes of water several metres into the air. Slowly, he extended his arms until the casket was perpendicular to his body.

  “I’m not sure that I can,” he said, suddenly overwhelmed by the finality of what they were doing. He hadn’t thought it would be this difficult.

  Olivia reached out and placed a hand on his. She rested her head on his shoulder. “We’ll do it together.”

  “Sam would be really proud of you today,” he replied, turning and kissing his niece on the top of her head.

  “Right, Sammy, it’s off to South America for you!” he said. And with one, resolute movement, before he could change his mind, they turned the urn upside down.

  Neither of them had been paying any attention to the direction of the wind, which had changed to the south and increased in intensity. At the exact same instant the ashes came pouring out of the box, a strong gust whipped up from below and sent them flying back in their faces.

  Blinded, his eyes, nose and mouth full of ash, he dropped the empty box. He heard it go tumbling over the edge and shatter on the rocks below.

  “Are—you—OK?” he struggled to speak between coughing fits. It was a full minute before he was able to breathe properly again.

  With red, watery eyes, his hair full of grit, he stumbled back towards the fence and the safety of the lighthouse. Olivia had already taken off her coat and was beating it against the wall.

  They walked all the way back to the car in silence.

  “Fuck!” he cursed, thumping the steering wheel, once they were back in the warm. Olivia turned to him, an earnest look on her face.”

  “I don’t think Sam wanted to do South America,” she said.

  He looked back at her in disbelief. Then, for the first time in he didn’t know how long, he actually laughed—a muscle-wrenching laugh that brought on another coughing fit. “Let’s get going,” he wheezed. “At least you’ll never forget today, eh.”

  “I think I’m traumatised, Uncle Tom, but a beer ought to fix that.”

  “Nice try,” he laughed again, and swung the car around, towards home.

  chapter three

  Sam had been revising for his college finals since before breakfast, and the clock on the wall was now fast approaching five o’clock. He stretched
his arms, yawned, and leaned back in his chair.

  His bedroom was a complete mess. Textbooks and scraps of paper littered every surface including the bed. In the corner, Patch was curled up, fast asleep. The light streaming in through the open window gave his black coat a copper glow.

  Sam took a deep breath and picked up his pen. Quickly, before he changed his mind again, he jotted down the answer he had been mulling over for the past twenty minutes. He flicked to the answer section at the back of the textbook.

  “Come on!” he cursed and threw his pen across the room in frustration. He put his face in his hands and let out a low groan. Patch looked up and cocked his head to one side.

  The coffee his mother had made him was still sitting on his desk, untouched. He picked it up and took a sip. It was stone cold. He spat it straight back into the mug and wiped a hand across his mouth.

  “I guess it’s time we took you for a walk,” he sighed. Patch was on his feet and out the door before Sam had finished speaking.

  All the way to the beach, Patch pulled on his lead. Each time a cyclist or a bus whizzed past, he lunged forward and almost garrotted himself.

  “Heel!” Sam scolded again and yanked hard on the lead. Reluctantly, Patch fell in beside him. But as soon as they reached Lyall Bay, he was off like a shot, careening down the beach towards the water, scattering the seagulls that were clustered together on the sand. The gulls squawked angrily as they took to the air.

  Sam perched on a rock at the far end of the bay and watched as Patch sniffed a piece of driftwood that had washed up on the shore overnight.

  For the past month, Sam had barely seen the light of day, and now, with less than twenty-four hours until his final exam, he felt as if his head was about to implode. He rubbed at his eyes and yawned so wide that his jaw gave a disturbing crack.

  Never before in his life had he been so nervous. If he didn’t pass tomorrow’s exam, chances were he wouldn’t get Bursary—and if he didn’t get Bursary, he could kiss goodbye to his place at the University of Otago.

  Half a dozen surfers were bobbing about on the water, waiting patiently for the perfect wave. As he was watching, one of the surfers jumped to his feet, glided several metres across the water, and face-planted into the swell. Patch was busy darting in and out of the waves, snapping at the foam as it lapped around his legs.