At the Lake

by Jill Harris

  Simon thought Jem had put it really well, but he wasn’t going to tell him that.

  ‘Let’s get on with it, then,’ he said and picked up his end of the ‘rope’.

  They got the bouncing rhythm going again, but they had to stop quite soon — their arms were just too sore. Besides, their sweatshirts were stained and torn. ‘Mine was new,’ said Jem. ‘Mum’ll be mad!’

  So they pulled their sweatshirts off the branch and unknotted them — which took some doing as the knots were wet and tight.

  ‘Actually,’ said Simon, ‘I can reach the branch from the ground now.’ Their efforts had caused it to droop lower. He raised his arms and gripped a handful of leaves to prove it. Then he sprang up just enough to get his hands hooked over the branch. Under his weight, it groaned, cracked loudly and fell towards the creek without actually breaking off.

  ‘Let go!’ screamed Jem.

  Simon dropped to the ground and his feet gave way beneath him. He half-slid, half-rolled down the slope, across the track and up against a tree. He sat up, rubbing his left shoulder. It hurt, and so did the rest of him.

  Jem scrambled down beside him. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Simon. ‘It hurts a bit.’

  ‘Can you get up?’

  Simon pushed himself up with his other arm. Jem placed his feet against Simon’s to give him some leverage.

  ‘Thanks,’ grunted Simon.

  They climbed back to the track and looked at the creek. The broken branch hung down across it.

  ‘I think I could get across now,’ said Jem.

  ‘But I don’t think I could help you if you got stuck,’ said Simon. ‘We’ll have to come back another day.’

  So they turned around and tramped back. It felt like a long time before they reached their bikes. Jem held Simon’s bike for him while he climbed on stiffly, and they were glad of the downhill ride.

  Back home, Barney was thoroughly annoyed with them. They came in looking like tramps, their sweatshirts were muddy and torn, and Simon needed patching up — again.

  ‘Look, I’m all for outdoor pursuits and pushing yourself,’ he said tersely, ‘but for heaven’s sake, use your common sense. Every tramper knows not to tackle swift streams and rivers without the right gear. You damaged a tree for nothing and you took a stupid risk. And wear old clothes next time.’ He turned to Simon. ‘You seem determined to put yourself out of action for anything else. Your arm’s back to square one: you’ll have to use the sling again.’ He went into the kitchen and banged around getting lunch.

  ‘I think we should back off this yard stuff,’ said Simon.

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ said Jem, but he was thinking: No way! I need to see that dog again.

  Simon soaked in a hot bath, then rubbed some gel onto the sore bits. After lunch he helped Barney to stack wood in the shed. ‘You need to keep moving,’ said Barney, ‘otherwise you’ll stiffen up.’ Jem helped, too.

  They put away most of the pile that had been dumped on the grass. By then, Barney’s good humour had returned. ‘Maybe we’ll pay a visit to Glow-worm Grotto tonight,’ he suggested.

  14

  It was as though they had floated into a bubble of green-blue light

  Barney and Simon went down to the jetty to fix up a rod for trolling. ‘There’ll be a bit of a headwind on the way to the cave,’ said Barney. ‘Always helps when you’re trolling.’

  He watched as Simon selected a spinner. ‘Why did you choose that one?’

  ‘It’s pretty,’ grinned Simon.

  Barney laughed. ‘Fair enough! Actually, it’s not a bad choice.’

  ‘You need something bright for evening fishing,’ said Simon, ‘and it’s not too big.’

  ‘What if you hook The Monster? He’ll just spit out something as small as that.’

  ‘The Monster’s far too savvy to take a spinner,’ said Simon. ‘I’ll be playing him with a fly.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Barney, ‘that’ll be the day. Besides, he’s got my name on him.’

  Simon carried the gear down to the boat. His shoulder ached and he felt a surge of irritation about the morning’s escapade. What did they think they were up to? It was Jem’s fault for refusing to let the yard go. Simon had thought that telling him about the incident with Squint Lewis would frighten him off, but hearing about it wasn’t the same as being there. How could he get Jem to back off? He had enough worries of his own without Jem adding to them. His antagonism towards his brother flared up again.

  At sunset they set off in the dinghy — the runabout was too big to get into the cave. A slight chop on the water caused the bow to slap into the small waves so that the boat pitched unpleasantly. The wind chivvied them in gusts. For Jem, the second trip in this direction in almost as many days went a great deal faster with Barney doing the rowing. ‘You can help me row on the way back,’ Barney told Jem. ‘The wind will have died down by then.’

  Simon sat in the stern waiting for a jerk on the line to tell him he had made a strike. He watched the orange line stretching down until it disappeared into the dark-green murk. ‘Orange!’ he’d exclaimed, when he saw the new line. ‘It’s supposed to be green so the fish don’t see it!’

  ‘Nah,’ Barney had said. ‘Makes no difference, and it’s easier to see what’s happening. On special — good buy.’

  Simon wasn’t convinced. He had heard that trout had colour vision. He was glad he had a long, transparent leader between the spinner and the swivel — he knew trout mostly saw things close-up, and he hoped the orange line would be beyond their range. The speed of the dinghy was just right for trolling. He watched the swirl of bubbles where the oars dug into the water, and listened to the water glug-glugging under the hull. It was certainly a lot easier fishing from a boat. Not that he would ever say that to Bill at the store. ‘Where’s your fisherman’s soul, boy?’ Bill would respond.

  He imagined his crimson-and-gold spinner twisting enticingly under the water.

  But the minutes ticked by and the fish ignored the temptation.

  ‘No luck,’ commiserated Barney. ‘I’ll do some zigzagging — it’ll make your spinner look more like a real fish.’

  They were well beyond the point now, and the land was darkening against a pale-apricot sky. The rain had cleared in the late afternoon, and the evening was cool and clear. In the bow, Jem scanned the shore for the mouth of the stream which had thwarted them that morning. Beyond that, where a small bluff shouldered its way into the lake, was the low cave entrance hung with ferns.

  Reluctantly, Simon started to reel in the line. Suddenly it jerked fiercely and began to run out again — faster and faster. Weeeeeee! went the reel. Simon stood up, bracing his legs and raising the tip of the rod high. Barney stopped rowing and kept the bow into the wind while Simon played his fish — one moment letting the line race away, the next slowly reeling it in. Barney reached for the net in readiness. The line whizzed out again as the fish made another desperate bid for freedom. Simon kept the rod braced. Then suddenly the line went slack, and he quickly took a step back to avoid sitting down with a bump.

  ‘I’ve lost him,’ he said in a flat voice, and began to wind in the line.

  ‘Too bad,’ sympathized Barney. ‘I thought you were playing him well.’

  I might still catch the first trout after all, thought Jem.

  The orange line came towards them, and as the leader came into sight it was obvious the spinner was gone. Simon pulled the leader into the boat and he and Barney examined it.

  ‘Could have got tangled in the weed,’ said Barney. ‘That would have increased the pressure. Too bad, but it’s all good experience and I bet you don’t go home without having caught a respectable trout or four.’

  He started rowing again, taking the dinghy closer to the shore. Dusk was turning into dark and they needed to find the cave entrance quickly. Jem had seen the stream mouth just as the fish struck, so they were close.

  ‘There it is!’ Jem directed Barney towards the bluf
f, and they all saw the low entrance. Barney lifted one oar out of the rowlock and shipped the other. He swapped places with Simon and slipped the blade of the oar over the stern.

  ‘Watch your heads,’ he said as he sculled the dinghy gently forward. Jem kept the sides from hitting the walls and helped to propel it forward. It floated through, almost stationary. Once inside, it was possible to sit up straight again.

  No matter how often they visited the cave, each time was like a transition from the known world to something utterly other. It was as though they had floated into a bubble of green-blue light. Glow-worms covered the ceiling and sloping walls and were reflected back in the obsidian water. They sat in trance-like silence in a boat which barely moved. How much time is passing? Simon wondered. Where’s the entrance? He felt as though he was being hypnotized. He slid his hand into the water. Would a magical lake-creature seize it and drag him under? Ripples spread out and the reflections jiggled and fractured. The spell was broken.

  ‘Where’s the way out?’ whispered Jem, and immediately the glow-worms started to go out. In the new blackness a pale, misshapen triangle took form, and Barney sculled the dinghy towards it.

  They emerged into another sort of darkness — but a darkness with reference points. Brilliant stars provided a faint illumination, and the land was black against the sky. They could find their way home without difficulty.

  Barney took the middle seat again and started rowing. His body moved rhythmically forward and back, and the rowlocks squeaked in unison. Nobody spoke. The strange, disembodied experience of the cave still gripped them. The wind had died and the boat slipped easily across the water. Jem leant back against the bow and looked up at the stars. He was deadly tired. He’d pushed himself very hard over the past two days, and it had suddenly caught up with him. His head fell sideways. Barney smiled to himself: guess who would be rowing all the way home?

  After a while Barney stopped rowing. A sound which had been on the edge of their hearing for a minute or two was growing louder.

  ‘Not again,’ said Barney. He set off towards the shore. ‘It’s Lewis’s outboard,’ he said. ‘He keeps his boat a couple of coves around from here. He’s not likely to be going any further — there’s nothing much between us and Lake Tarawera, and he’s not the fishing sort — but we’ll wait just to be sure. I don’t feel like meeting up with him again on the water — he’s too unpredictable. He won’t see us against the bush.’

  Barney nudged the dinghy in against a pumice ledge under some ferns.

  Simon hunkered down. He became aware that his jaws were clenched. He opened his mouth to relax his jaw. He was with Barney, and Barney was handling it.

  The other boat droned past, the noise gradually fading. Barney waited another couple of minutes before pulling out and continuing. Jem slept all the way, and Barney had to carry him up to the house and put him to bed. Simon could hardly keep his eyes open either; he tumbled into his bed.

  The next morning they found a dead cat outside Simon’s window. It had been shot.

  15

  There was no hiding now as he approached the gate

  The next morning, Simon wandered down to the glasshouse.

  ‘Give Rosie a hand with the tomatoes,’ Mrs Mason had said to Simon when he and Jem turned up after breakfast; she’d sent Jem and Tommy off to pick beans.

  Barney was helping Bill at the store for the morning.

  Simon had mixed feelings about seeing Rose again. He liked the way she stuck up for herself and Tommy, but he found he both wanted and didn’t want her to talk about her father. He would have liked to ask her about the house-yard, too.

  He pushed open the door to the glasshouse. She looked sideways at him through her red fringe. ‘’lo,’ she said, while carrying on tying tomato plants to their stakes.

  Simon watched her for a moment, then joined in. They worked in silence; she deftly, he clumsily.

  After a few moments, she spoke. ‘My father said he met you at the yard the other day. The day you said you fell off your bike.’

  Simon could feel Rose watching him. His hands fumbled and a bunch of green tomatoes broke off. He bent to pick them up just as Rose did. Their heads bumped. They both stepped back and stared at one another.

  ‘See this?’ she said, touching a large bruise on her cheekbone. ‘My father did this — he hit me the other night. He’s like that, always hitting us. ’Specially my mum. You saw Tommy’s legs.’ She spoke dully. ‘I think he hit you, too — at the yard. That day.’

  What can I say? thought Simon. She’ll just tell her father, and then I’m in big trouble.

  ‘I … I can’t tell you,’ he stammered.

  They went on with their task in silence, but Simon knew that Rose was crying and trying to hide it.

  ‘I didn’t come off the bike,’ said Simon quickly. ‘Your father twisted my arm up behind my back. Said he’d come after me if I told anyone.’

  Rose sniffed and rubbed her eyes. ‘That’s what he says to us. It means nobody can help us.’ She went on: ‘But why would he do that to you?’

  ‘He’d warned me off going into the yard the day before, and I went back early the next morning. He said he’d already told me not to and now he’d have to teach me a lesson. He did other stuff, too. He said if I ever returned he’d set the dog on me. He said I wasn’t to tell Barney or anyone else. But I’ve had to warn Jem not to go to the yard, so I’ve already told someone — and now you.’

  ‘The dog’s called Ace,’ said Rose. ‘He’s not that fierce.’

  Simon continued. ‘One night he prowled round our place with the dog and stared in through my bedroom windows. Barney warned him off that day we went to the shop, so he probably thinks I’ve already told Barney. I guess he’ll be coming for me any time now, and I don’t feel safe anywhere.’

  He looked around him. If Squint Lewis walked into the glasshouse right now, how could he get away? It would be no good shouting for help: they were too far from the house. Would Rose dare to get help? Probably not.

  They worked on in silence — down to the end of one row and halfway up the next.

  Rose broke the silence. ‘There’s something funny going on. Mum and him — they’ve been going into town heaps, and Mum’s up at the yard a lot at night. I asked him what she was doing — that’s when he hit me. Then he said she was doing the books — you know, the money side of the yard. Maybe it’s instead of working for your grandfather and Mrs Mason. He doesn’t like her doing that — they’ve had some big fights about it. Then he knocks her around and she can’t go out for a while — because of the bruises. I don’t care about that any more. If there’s a bruise, there’s a bruise.’

  Mum and Dad had lots of fights, too, thought Simon, but Dad never hit Mum. He just walked out and left us to it.

  ‘At least your dad still lives with you.’

  Rose stared at him, the colour flushing her face. ‘I wish he’d leave!’ she shouted. ‘I wish we could run away! You don’t know how awful it is!’ She was openly crying now. ‘I can’t bear it when he hits Tommy. Tommy’s too small. Mum and me, we can take it. Sometimes he laughs when he’s hitting us.’ She put her hands over her face.

  Simon wanted to cry, too. Why had he said such a stupid thing?

  ‘Rose … Rosie,’ he said, ‘I’m terribly sorry I said that.’

  After a while Rose wiped her face with the edge of her skirt. ‘It’s even worse now,’ she said very quietly, ‘because I think Mum’s having another baby. I’ve found packets of baby formula and bottles hidden in the back of the wardrobe. How can we possibly leave with a new baby coming and nowhere to go?’

  ‘Hey!’ exclaimed Simon. ‘When I was looking in one of the houses in the yard — before your father caught me — I saw a cot. I thought it must have been left behind, but maybe your parents are storing it there.’

  They heard footsteps coming down the path.

  ‘We shouldn’t have had this conversation!’ Rose whispered fiercely. ‘It was da
ngerous — for us both. We must never tell anyone else. Do you promise?’

  ‘I promise,’ said Simon.

  ‘I have to finish with the dog,’ Jem had insisted after Barney had driven off that morning, so when they had finished in the Masons’ garden they went home.

  ‘I’m expecting you for lunch at midday,’ Mrs Mason called out after them.

  In spite of all that Simon said, Jem had taken his bike and ridden off. Simon was stuck. If he followed Jem, Mrs Mason would ring Barney at the store to find out why they hadn’t turned up for lunch, and then they would be in real trouble. However, if he turned up at the Masons’ on his own, while he could make excuses for his brother’s absence, Jem would be on his own crossing the creek, following the overgrown track and facing up to whatever happened at the yard. And if anything happened to Jem, Simon would take the blame. It was a no-win situation and he felt angry with Jem for putting him in such a position.

  In the end he went back to the Masons’ and said that Jem had gone for a bike ride.

  ‘Exactly where?’ Mrs Mason had asked, looking slightly worried.

  ‘Oh, just along a track we found the other day,’ said Simon airily.

  So when Simon went home after lunch and Jem wasn’t there, his worries rushed back — about where Jem was, about being on his own in the house, and about what he should do. First, he locked the door.

  He would have to look for Jem. That meant going out alone. What if he bumped into Squint? What if he didn’t find Jem on the track? Would he have to go all the way to the yard? Should he leave a note for Barney? But how could he describe where the track began — maybe he should leave his bike on the edge of the road? But what if Squint Lewis saw it? And what about the dog? And if he reached the fence and there was no sign of Jem, what would he do then?