Song of the Sound

by Jeff Gulvin

  A girl her age was waiting outside the door to the secretary’s office. She looked up as Bree came in. ‘Are you Breezy?’ she asked.

  ‘I prefer Bree.’

  ‘Sounds like cheese.’ The girl shrugged. ‘I’m Angela Brownlow, head girl in our year.’ She was pretty with curling blond hair and the beginnings of a suntan. Her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows and she looked older than her years. ‘Anyway, you’re in my class. Mrs Billingshurst asked me to look out for you.’

  ‘Who’s Mrs Billingshurst?’

  ‘Our form tutor, silly. Didn’t Mr Peters tell you that?’

  Bree just smiled.

  ‘Come on,’ Angela said. ‘I’ll take you to registration.’

  Libby looked for Ned Pole’s house on the road back to Manapouri. She had left the instructions John-Cody had given her back at the house and she drove up and down the main road until she discovered the shallow turning and the long hedged drive. It opened onto a gravel turning circle with a log-cabin-style house, built on two levels with paddocks running up the hills to the tree line. She could just glimpse patches of the lake below the Murchison Mountains.

  Pole stood on the balcony and looked down at her as she got out of the truck.

  ‘G’day,’ he called. ‘I just made some coffee.’

  Libby shaded her eyes from the sun and looked up at him, silhouetted in a long lean shadow against the sky.

  ‘Come on up.’ He pointed to the door directly in front of her. ‘Door’s open.’

  Libby went into the house, not sure about going upstairs until she realized it was built upside down with the bedrooms on the ground floor. She knew virtually nothing about Pole but could sense the touch of his wife in the soft furnishings, wall colourings and the general air of good order. The stairs led onto a wide landing with the open-plan kitchen leading off it. Pole stood at a work surface with his back to her and she sniffed the aroma of freshly ground coffee. He turned and smiled and for the first time she thought he was quite attractive. He was lean and straight-backed, probably a few years older than John-Cody.

  ‘How you going?’

  ‘Good, thank you.’

  ‘Get your little girl into school, did you?’

  Libby nodded. ‘It’s her first day.’

  Pole passed her a cup of coffee. ‘She’ll be all right. Sugar?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  He led the way into a study where deer heads and racks of antlers adorned the walls. Libby sipped her coffee and stepped beyond the desk to the balcony. The sun warmed her face. Pole lit a black cigar and flicked ash with his third finger.

  Libby looked back at the deer on the walls, noting their dull eyes and dry black nostrils. ‘Do you shoot a lot of deer, Mr Pole?’

  ‘Ned, please. Only my bank manager calls me Mr Pole.’ He looked beyond her then, to the paddock where a huge black stallion was trotting the line of the fence. ‘I used to shoot a lot of deer. I still hunt but no longer commercially.’

  ‘I heard you were a good shot. You used to work on the helicopters.’

  Pole squinted at her. ‘Gib told you that, did he?’

  ‘Yes.’ Libby looked at the photograph of the young man on Pole’s desk. ‘He also told me why the Korimako has a roller-reefing jib.’

  Pole leaned on the balcony rail and spoke without looking at her. ‘You asked him then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did he say exactly?’

  ‘He said the previous jib had hanks and your son died trying to untangle one from the forestay.’

  Pole squinted at her, then looked again at the stallion.

  ‘Is that him on your desk?’

  ‘That’s him.’

  ‘A good-looking man.’

  ‘He was.’

  ‘John-Cody said it was an accident.’

  Pole pursed his lips.

  ‘He said you didn’t blame him, even though other people did.’

  Pole flicked ash again. ‘I’ve worked on boats, Dr Bass.’

  ‘It must have been terrible for you.’

  He nodded to the stallion. ‘Barrio there was Eli’s. I bought him for his twenty-first birthday. He only rode him once.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘So am I.’ He looked at her then. ‘Libby,’ he said. ‘Is that short for Elizabeth?’

  ‘Liberty.’

  He smiled. ‘I like that. Means freedom, eh?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I like that.’

  Libby felt a little uncomfortable. Pole seemed distant, preoccupied. She moved the conversation on. ‘You told me you could supply me with a boat, a launch of some kind, something I can leave at Supper Cove.’

  He nodded. ‘I can give you a tow too if you want.’

  ‘That’s not necessary.’

  ‘Going with Gib then, are you?’

  ‘He offered ages ago. Before I even got here.’

  ‘Fair go: the Kori’s a good boat.’

  ‘He told me you wanted to buy her.’

  ‘I do, her and the wharf.’

  ‘So you could take people to Dusky by sea?’

  Pole nodded, flicked ash and stuck the cigar between his teeth. ‘DoC won’t allow any more wharfs in Deep Cove. It’s the ideal place to ferry people from if they don’t want to fly.’

  Libby put her coffee cup down on the rail. ‘You know if I think there is a dolphin pod down there I’m bound to oppose your plans.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. But my plans won’t interfere with any dolphins.’ He cracked a smile then, only not with his eyes.

  ‘They might if you’re landing planes on the water and running high-speed boats, not to mention diesel engines from floating hotels. John-Cody told me where you plan to site them. I’ve looked at the chart and the sound generated could reverberate through the whole fiord. Nobody’s ever created an acoustic model of Dusky Sound, Mr Pole. We don’t know what the implications might be.’

  ‘What about the implications of all those new jobs going begging? New Zealand’s economy is hardly booming right now.’

  Libby shrugged. ‘I’m a scientist, Mr Pole. The economy isn’t my problem.’

  Pole finished his coffee and smiled at her again. ‘I tell you what,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk about your boat instead.’

  ‘Are you sure you still want to help me?’

  ‘I’m not helping you. I’m a businessman, Liberty. If I don’t lease you a vessel, somebody else will. Feelings don’t come into it.’

  They went down to the yard again and he led the way behind the house to a large barn-style garage. Libby saw an eighteen-foot motor launch with a canvas hood over the wheel area. It was sitting on a steel trailer. She walked round it, taking in the lines. It was in good condition and the engine was an outboard Evinrude. She had used similar boats before and instinctively she knew it would more than suit her purpose.

  ‘It looks very good,’ she said. ‘Can I afford it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?’

  Bree had two lessons, maths and information technology, and then there was a fifteen-minute break and the whole school descended on the playground. Some of the girls threw a volleyball around, others a rugby ball. The boys had a cricket pitch set up on the playing field in double quick time. Bree had sat next to a girl they called ‘Biscuit’ during the lessons, but she had not said much and struck Bree as a little bit timid. Now she stood alone by the netball posts and watched everyone watching her with the extra-special scrutiny reserved for a new student. Three girls from her class were sitting on a low wall with a tousle-headed girl in the middle. Her skirt was hiked up her thighs and her small breasts pressed against the material of her blouse as she pulled her shoulders back. Jessica Lowden: Bree had already singled her out as potential trouble. There was generally one to watch in every class and she had experienced a few over the years, some worse than others. This one had a tough and confident face and what appeared to be the respect or fear of most of her classmates. As Bree watched,
the three of them slipped off the wall and sauntered across the playground, eyes on her, eyes all over her, greedy, intimidating. Bree felt her heart begin to beat that little bit faster.

  ‘What kind of a name is Bree?’ Jessica faced her, back to the net-ball post. ‘We were told it was Breezy.’

  ‘It is. I just shorten it to Bree.’

  ‘Sounds like cheese,’ one of the others said. ‘Smelly French cheese: Cheesy Breezy.’ They laughed then and Jessica turned up her nose. ‘Smells like cheese, too: definitely smelly cheese.’

  Bree folded her arms, then unfolded them again. Jessica’s stare was full and unnerving and she had that hardness about her mouth that a person couldn’t reason with.

  ‘Not only smelly and cheesy, but a Pom to go with it.’

  Bree moved to get past her, but Jessica stood in her way. Bree looked at her, then beyond her to where she saw a dark-haired boy watching from the cricket pitch with his hands fisted on his hips. She recognized him from their class.

  Jessica sniffed the air again and coughed. ‘Ugh, you stink.’ She coughed again and the three of them descended into fits of laughter.

  Bree walked across the playground to where Biscuit was standing, sipping from a paper cup of water. She might be timid and say nothing, but right at that moment she was Bree’s only point of refuge.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Biscuit said when Bree got to her.

  ‘Fine. I’m just fine.’

  Libby drove home, having agreed terms with Pole. It had been a strange meeting but, as he had pointed out, business was business. She knew they were going to be on opposite sides of the fence, but he seemed a decent enough man. She told John-Cody about it when she got back to the house.

  ‘He’s all right,’ he said. ‘People like him: he’s a big man down here, still got a hell of a reputation. Not just here either, all over the South Island. His wife’s not stupid. I’m not saying it’s why she married him, but he’s central to any plans of the kind the Americans are looking at. He’s what they call marketable, I guess. I’ve seen some of the promotional stuff they’re going to use in the States and it’s all about Ned.’ He made a face. ‘I take a different standpoint to him and I don’t agree with some of his business methods, but it’s not personal.’ He shrugged. ‘Me and Tom have different ideas too, but he’s still my friend.’

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘Tom Blanch: you haven’t met him yet, my old skipper. He’ll fix us up with the barge at Supply Bay.’

  John-Cody said he would go over to Pole’s place himself and hook the trailer up to his Ute so they could tow the boat down to the barge, but he would sort out the lake crossing with Tom first. Tom lived only ten minutes’ walk away and John-Cody set off with Ned Pole on his mind. He didn’t care about going to his house to get the boat and in a way that surprised him. But then he had surprised himself already lately, effectively moving into the homestay when they got back from Preservation Inlet. The trip had eased his soul somewhat: he felt he was no longer failing Mahina by sitting on the Korimako day after day wondering whether to end it all.

  When they had got back across the lake at the weekend he’d had no idea what his intentions were, beyond going for a last meal in the pub with the guests as usual. Afterwards he just went to the homestay and climbed into bed. That had been a weird moment, listening to Libby next door in the bathroom that he and Mahina had shared for twenty years. They had showered together under the same fall of water that he could hear falling on Libby now. He imagined her at Sealers Beach, in her shorts and barefoot with mud climbing the skin of her legs. His mouth dried and his tongue grew thick and he was appalled at himself: it was only a year since Mahina had died and another woman could do that to him.

  He had tossed and turned all night, contemplated going back to the boat first thing in the morning, but he didn’t. When he got up he cut the grass, which always took an age because he did it so infrequently and there was a lot of it. Then he mooched about the garden, shovelling compost and putting food out for the birds, inspecting the trees that had been partially felled by the electricity company on the section next door. He had checked his possum traps but they were empty. Then he cleaned the old hunting rifle Tom had given him for his twenty-third birthday; he hadn’t used it in years. When he and Mahina had got into the ecology charter business, hunting seemed incongruous, even though the deer were not native and the damage they did was devastating. He still ate feral venison whenever he could get it and he always told hunters when he came across fresh spoor in the bush, but he had not shot one himself for a long time.

  Bree had helped him with the bird tables, told him again how much she had enjoyed the trip and thanked him for teaching her to snorkel. He showed her the frogs in the pond that she could hear croaking at night and she helped him with the grass clippings. He had glimpsed Libby watching them through the window and it gave him a start, seeing her dark hair in the half-light cast by the sun’s reflection.

  He had watched them driving to school this morning; he’d meant to come out in time to wish Bree all the best but they had gone earlier than he’d expected. So he just went to the office, bumping into Alex along the way. He had opened his file on the national park boundaries: he had written to one of the newly elected Green Party members of parliament and he was waiting for a phone call. He was sure that somehow the change in boundaries from the Tasman to the mean high-water mark was a mistake that could still be rectified. If that was the case, the likes of Nehemiah Pole could whistle for their floating lodges. In the meantime, though, he wasn’t going to hold his breath and he owed it to himself, and particularly to Mahina, to fight the application all the way to a full hearing.

  When Pole had first put in his plans a year or so ago, there had been many submitters against him, but one by one they seemed to have dropped out. Five of the other charter companies who operated in Doubtful Sound had opposed him initially, as well as the Department of Conservation. Southland Tours had not put in a submission, which was understandable given that they were one of the largest operators in the area. They ran buses into Milford every day and boats on day trips from there, and they had two large overnighters and a similar operation running in Deep Cove. If Pole and his backers got their way that would open up all kinds of opportunities for them. John-Cody could see a day when the wilderness he fought to protect would be lost for the next generation. He had been pondering these thoughts when Libby came back from Ned Pole’s place and told him about the boat.

  Tom Blanch was in his garden when John-Cody got there, sweating under a polythene tent that stood fifteen feet high and eighty feet long. Beneath it were the twin upturned hulls of the catamaran he was building. Tom was fifty-seven years old and knew more about the seas round the South Island than any man alive. He had been John-Cody’s mentor and friend for twenty-five years. The cat was a project he had undertaken four years previously and already the hulls were shaped and set with bulkheads and the masts lay in the garden, perfectly tooled from the North Island kauri timber that shipbuilders loved so much. He looked up from where he was standing on a section of hull, embraced by a scaffolding platform he had fashioned himself.

  ‘G’day, Gib. How you going?’

  ‘Good, thanks, mate. See you’re still at it.’

  ‘Got to be. That’s if I want to launch her next year.’

  John-Cody ran a palm along the smooth flank of the hull.

  ‘Heard you took a tour out last week. That was about time.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘It’s been a year, Gib. A man’s got to go back to work some time.’

  John-Cody sat down on a workbench and took out his tobacco. ‘It was hard, Tom.’

  ‘But good though, eh?’

  John-Cody nodded. ‘Yes, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t good. Good to be out there again.’

  Tom looked at him then and laid down his sander. ‘I know we don’t agree on everything that goes on in the fiords, Gib. But you do a good job. The Korimako is the only boat
that really stands for something.’ He shrugged. ‘Me, I like crayfish, but what you’re doing is important. I’d hate to see you give up on what you and Mahina created.’

  John-Cody stuck his cigarette paper against his lip. ‘I appreciate that, Tom. Especially coming from an old fisherman like you.’

  Tom looked darkly at him. ‘Less of the old, I can still cut it when I have to.’

  John-Cody laughed. ‘You keep telling yourself that. Hey, listen. Can you arrange for the barge to take Libby’s boat across the water?’

  ‘That the new scientist I’ve not met yet?’

  John-Cody nodded.

  ‘I heard she was young and pretty.’

  ‘I hadn’t really noticed.’

  ‘Jean Grady’s been spreading the word. Apparently you gave up your half of the house for her.’

  ‘She’s got a daughter, Tom. It wasn’t a difficult decision.’

  Tom nodded. ‘I reckon. But it’s the kind of situation that makes tongues wag in a small town, mate, especially women’s tongues.’

  John-Cody shrugged. ‘So let them wag if gossip makes them happy. It makes no difference to me.’

  ‘What’s the daughter like?’

  ‘Bree. She’s a nice kid. In fact it’s her first day at school today. I hope she gets on OK.’

  ‘Te Anau can be a tough town, Gibby.’

  ‘She’s bright and I reckon she can be tough when she has to.’

  ‘Then she’ll be just fine.’ Tom looked enviously at his friend’s cigarette. ‘Where’d you get the boat for the scientist?’

  John-Cody snorted. ‘Nehemiah Pole.’

  He drove over on his own to hook up the boat for Libby. She was busy in the office, making phone calls to Dunedin and talking to Alex about the possibility of her looking after Bree when she was in Dusky Sound. He drove slowly, one hand on the wheel, an arm out of the window, and watched a pair of harriers performing their courtship ritual, two black shadows against the blue of the sky. Pole was in the paddock when he got there, exercising Barrio on a lunge rope. He looked round when he heard the truck, tipped back his hat and took a rag from the back pocket of his jeans.