I suppose the freezing southerly is the real reason I’m the only passenger on deck. It’s certainly the right kind of wind to jump into. I’ll spread my arms and take off like a bird. I’ll plummet into the water. I’ll turn into a fish and dive deeper and deeper till the water turns from navy to black.
‘You feeling sick?’ says a voice at elbow level. I turn my head and see a small freckle-faced boy. ‘Mum told me to lean over the rail if I felt sick,’ he tells me in a confidential tone.
‘No, I’m not feeling sick,’ I snap. The moment the words leave my mouth I realise they aren’t quite true. I’m not sick in my stomach but I’m definitely sick at heart.
‘I was feeling sick,’ the boy says, climbing up the railing. ‘But I’m all right now.’
‘So why don’t you go back inside with your mum?’ I suggest.
‘Nah. It’s cool out here. I like the wind.’
‘If you keep climbing up the rails the wind’ll blow you overboard.’
The boy leans out over the top rail. ‘Look! I’m flying!’ he shouts. ‘Three, two, one, blast off!’
‘Gavin!’ screams a voice from the lounge door. ‘Get down from there!’
I’ve had enough of Gavin. I pick up my suitcase and walk away, velvet skirt plastered against my legs like a skin of black fur.
By the time I find another private spot a few metres along the deck it’s too late to fly on the wind. The ferry is approaching the cliffs guarding the Marlborough Sounds and in another minute we’ll be cruising into Tory Channel, which is my eventual destination anyway.
The wind is left blustering behind us as the ferry heads into the narrow mouth of the channel, black rocks foaming on either side. I lean on the starboard railing again and study the folds of land tilting steeply down to the sea. I’m looking at Taupahi Island. Mum told me you can’t really tell from the ferry that it’s an island, and she’s right. She showed me a map of the Sounds before I boarded the flight from Auckland to Wellington but I pretended to be terminally bored with the whole thing.
The island looks like patchwork. Some bits of it are covered with dark green forest and bush. Other patches are brown and barren and scrubby. But some of the land is farmed, yellowy-green rolling paddocks sprinkled with clumps of bush and criss-crossed with fences and sheep trails.
The little inlet with the jetty has to be Karaka Bay: where I’ll finally end up. A boat nudges the jetty, another swings on a mooring, and two kayaks lie side by side on the beach. As we cruise up the channel, the angle changes and I can see the red roof of a farmhouse in a fold of land close to the shore, protected by a half-circle of pine trees. No doubt it has a lovely view of the channel. It certainly doesn’t look like a prison but that’s what it is to me.
My eye is caught by a wide sandy beach a few coves along from Karaka Bay. At one end a string of rocks and humpy islets juts into the channel like a line of sentries. There are no houses and the beach is deserted. I stare hard at it. Now that looks like my kind of place. No uncles or aunts or cousins to bug me.
Hey, is that someone standing at the water’s edge, watching the ferry go by? I blink, and the figure is gone. An illusion. But I keep looking until the beach disappears from view behind the rocks. It doesn’t seem to be that far from Karaka Bay. Maybe I can walk over and explore it one day.
About an hour later the ferry passes a big white signal lamp on the port side, and in a few minutes we’re heading towards Picton. My uncle and aunt and maybe even my deadly boring cousins will be waiting there for me. I truly dread meeting them and having to act and talk as if everything’s normal.
Anger sits like a stone in the bottom of my stomach. Why do people never speak the truth? If only they’d say, ‘We hope you realise we’re only having you to stay as a favour to your parents. We know you don’t want to be here. But we’ll all just try to get along as best we can in the circumstances.’
Not much chance of that happening. Like about as much chance as me actually enjoying the next three weeks stuck on a farm on an island in the middle of the Marlborough Sounds, with nobody to talk to except for a thousand sheep and my two country-bumpkin cousins whom I haven’t seen for six years. The worst part will be knowing the whole family’s feeling sorry for me. Poor Bel, they’ll be whispering behind my back. She’s taking it very hard.
I join the stream of passengers flowing towards the disembarkation area. One person starts to move and, like sheep, everyone rushes to follow. As I shuffle along in the queue I wonder what would happen if I simply didn’t get off. I could hide somewhere on board and get taken back to Wellington. Then what? Sleep on a bench in the grounds of Parliament Buildings? No, I’m too much of a coward. A wannabe heroine, not a real one.
I stand in the middle of the crowd with my suitcase between my feet and my knapsack hitched over my shoulder, trapped. A kind of panic begins to bubble up in me. The woman jammed next to me has a large box in a string kit and the corner digs painfully into my leg. A man nursing a whining baby pushes from behind. The baby is breathing on my neck.
At last the crowd begins to surge forward. I feel like a piece of rubbish rushing along a flooded gutter. We flow along a sloping walkway and suddenly sweep out into the airy space of the terminal where we split up into dozens of little groups. I’m left feeling very alone. I don’t stop. I don’t look round. I spot a sign at the top of the stairs that says EXIT and stride towards it, my eyes fixed on the bright blue carpet. ‘Annabel?’ cries a woman’s voice. ‘Bel? Is that you?’
I stop. A large man pushes through the crowd towards me, a woman and a teenage boy close behind. I recognise my uncle, Steve Carlson. He hasn’t changed in the six years since I last saw him. He still looks like an older, bulkier version of my father. He gives me a slow smile from a leathery face full of creases.
Aunt Lorna pops out from behind him. Her face is also brown from long hours in the weather, but there are laugh lines round her eyes. A T-shirt stretches over her soft bosom and plump stomach. She examines me thoroughly. Looking for signs of stress, no doubt. ‘Goodness, Bel, you’ve changed so much!’ she exclaims. She takes firm hold of my arm in case I have ideas of running away. ‘It’s lucky Kate sent us a photo or we’d never have spotted you. We would’ve been looking for a skinny little kid with brown hair and a ponytail.’
Yeah, well, I do actually look a hundred per cent different to the ten-year-old she’s remembering. My hair’s cut short now, shaggy at the back with long bits in front and a bright blonde streak. I swallow a giggle as my aunt’s eyes flick over my rows of ear studs, the black nail polish, the patchwork satin jacket and black velvet skirt, and the thick striped socks bunched over my boots.
She finally lets go of my arm. ‘Bel, do you remember Glynn?’ she says. I look up into the face of my older cousin. He’s 17 now but I have no trouble recognising the lumpish 11-year-old who drove me nuts when the family came up to Auckland for Christmas that year. All he did was follow his father round, looking bored out of his brain. Now he’s a lot bigger, with muscles swelling across his shoulders, and hands that look as if they could rip a telephone book in half. He’s sunburned rather than tanned and his thick sandy fringe flops so far into his eyes I can hardly see them. Like his father he’s wearing jeans and dirty sports shoes and a faded T-shirt. ‘Gidday,’ he mutters, staring at my boots.
‘Hi,’ I say, very brightly. I can’t resist adding, ‘Goodness, haven’t you grown!’
He jerks his head up at my tone, shooting me a wary glance from under the hair. He reminds me of an overgrown puppy, one of those Old English sheepdogs. ‘Take your bag,’ he mumbles, reaching out a huge hand towards my suitcase.
‘Have you got any more luggage?’ Aunt Lorna asks.
‘No. Just these two.’
‘Okay. Let’s hightail out of here.’ Lorna winks at me. ‘Too many people per square foot. Makes us feel like we can’t breathe.’
I stare at her. Is she for real with all this good-old-country-boys stuff? Maybe she’s nervous
too?
Uncle Steve leads the way downstairs to the car park. I notice his slight limp and recall the old family story. When he was younger his leg had been smashed by a falling tree. He’d spent weeks in hospital in Wellington and Lorna had been one of his nurses. He’d told her so many stories about Taupahi Island that she’d fallen in love with both the patient and the place. She’d come with him to the farm when he was discharged and they got married a month later. Six months after that, Gramps and Gran decided the farm was in safe hands and moved themselves to a retirement unit in Christchurch. My dad had taken off to university in Auckland by that time, no doubt overjoyed to leave the mucky farm work to his brother.
We all pile into a battered station wagon that stinks of paint and dead fish. ‘Sorry about the pong,’ Lorna says cheerfully. ‘We share the wagon with a friend who lives here in Picton.’
‘Where’s Tracey?’ I ask. Tracey is my other cousin, three years younger than me. I remember her as an obnoxious little brat, always talking non-stop in a loud voice.
‘We’re going to pick her up now,’ Lorna tells me. ‘She’s visiting a friend with a new pony. Then we’ll go down to the boat.’
I sigh under my breath. This trip seems to be going on forever. Like one of those nightmares when you’re running madly but never get where you want to go. I look sideways at Glynn, hunched at the other end of the back seat. Maybe I’ll see if Muscle Man can talk. ‘So how’s school?’
Glynn stares at the back of his father’s head. ‘Boring,’ he mutters.
‘You going back next year?’
Glynn shrugs. ‘Don’t know. Maybe.’
‘Then what?’ I ask.
Lorna answers me from the front seat. ‘We want him to go to Massey to get an agricultural degree. We keep on telling him proper farming involves a lot more than knowing how to string a fence.’
Glynn’s scowling. Muscle Man doesn’t want to go to university. He certainly doesn’t look the type.
‘So what do people do for excitement round here?’ I ask. ‘Any dance parties? Any discos?’ I’ve never been to a dance party in my life but I’m not going to tell my relations that. Let them think I’m a raver. Glynn shakes his head and I see the shadow of a smile on his lips. Hey, signs of life.
Lorna turns round again and looks at me with arched eyebrows. ‘There are no dance clubs in Picton. Just the odd café with a bit of musical entertainment. I’m afraid you’ll have to get used to the quiet life while you’re here, Bel. At least it’ll give you time to think about things.’
Stuff that. I don’t want to think about things. There’s nothing to think about. Unless you count the shattered remains of my life. And what’s the point in thinking about a total shambles?
But I don’t say the words aloud. I’ve already said them over and over again to my parents and my friends and anyone else who’ll listen. And that’s why I’ve been exiled to this disgusting pimple of an island miles from anywhere. I look out the window at the dust-coated bushes flicking past the car and ask, ‘How long before we get to this farm?’
Luckily Tracey is waiting on the front driveway to be picked up. So it’s just a matter of a few minutes’ chit-chat and at last Tracey squeezes into the back seat next to me. I shift up closer to Glynn. He presses himself hard against the door. At least he doesn’t pong of horses like his sister.
‘Hi, Bel,’ says Tracey, wriggling and poking for the seat belt. ‘Mum, he’s such an excellent pony! Jumps like an absolute dream. Lucy is so lucky! She’ll be able to win hundreds of ribbons now. Wish I could have a decent pony instead of stupid old Apple. It’s just not fair!’ She sighs theatrically, flicks her long blonde ponytail back over her shoulder, and glares out the window. She hasn’t changed at all, even after six years. Except maybe she has a few more freckles.
‘Tracey, you could say hello properly to your cousin,’ Lorna says severely, ‘instead of raving on about ponies as soon as you get in the car. Where are your manners? What will Bel think of you?’
You don’t want to know what I think of you, Tracey, believe me. Aloud I say, ‘It’s okay. I don’t know anything about horses. I’ll just listen to my CDs and you can talk as much as you like.’ I open my knapsack and pull out my player and an Enya CD. Enya’s ethereal voice ripples into my ears and I feel the muscles in my shoulders begin to loosen up a bit.
We park the station wagon in a car park near the entrance to the marina. There’s a big curved footbridge over the waterway which leads to an old ship-turned-museum called the Echo. It has beach umbrellas on the deck and tea-towels hanging on the rigging. But we don’t go over the bridge. We unload boxes of stores from the station wagon and carry them down to the edge of the waterway where a few launches are tied up. Uncle Steve’s launch is exactly the kind of boat I expect him to have — solid, unglamorous, slightly worn round the edges. Her name is Queenie.
When everything’s stowed away I clamber awkwardly into the cockpit and settle myself on a hot vinyl squab. The others go about the business of starting the engine and casting off the ropes. I curl myself up to take as little space as possible but Lorna still manages to trip over my boots. Same as always, Bel’s in the way.
We cruise under the sign on the foot bridge that says KEEP RIGHT and head out into the bay. My ferry is still berthed at the terminal, dwarfing the cluster of yachts moored nearby. Picton itself seems very small compared to the steep fire-scarred hills behind it. Then we’re rounding the point and the town’s two huge cement silos disappear from view. Queenie chugs steadily down Queen Charlotte Sound, carving a white slice in the green water. I watch the shoreline drifting past. Now that we’re closer I can see the bush isn’t just a dull green — there’s grey and silver and black and white in there, along with the yellowy-orange of the clay and the brilliant green lichen on the rocks. Quite pretty, if you like that sort of thing.
Eventually I get tired of the scenery and watch the others: Tracey flicking through a horse magazine on the other side of the cockpit, Glynn perching at the bow like a Viking figurehead, Steve standing solidly at the steering wheel, and Lorna in the cabin, sorting through the supplies. She looks as if she’s singing to herself.
Without warning, my throat chokes up and my eyes start to water. They all look so much at home in this solid little boat. None of them have a care in the world. Honestly, they don’t know how lucky they are.
CHAPTER 2
When we arrive at Karaka Bay, Steve noses the launch into the jetty and Glynn slings the ropes to bring us snug against the tyre fenders. ‘Do we have to actually carry all the stuff up?’ I ask, staring at the gravelled pathway winding between clay banks.
‘Gracious, no!’ Lorna laughs. ‘Our days of staggering up and down pushing wheelbarrows are long gone.’ She turns and points to a four-wheeled motorbike parked close to the end of the jetty. ‘We’ve gone high-tech.’
It doesn’t take long to load most of the grocery boxes into the tray at the back of the bike. ‘My turn! My turn!’ yells Tracey, grabbing the handlebars.
‘Okay, Freckleface,’ her father says, tugging gently on her ponytail. ‘But no wheelies on the corner.’
Tracey slips me a glance to make sure I’m watching, climbs on the bike, and starts it up with lots of unnecessary revs. She drives slowly up the path while the rest of us follow along behind, shoes crunching on the gravel.
‘It’s so good to be home,’ Lorna sighs, draping an arm over my shoulders. ‘I always get a flash of pure happiness when we come round the point and see our bay waiting for us. Don’t you think it’s lovely, Bel?’
I look round. It’s postcard-pretty, I have to admit that. The sun is sitting on the hills to the west, its rays painting golden spangles on the sea and making Queenie’s white trim sparkle. The bushes on both sides of the path throw long purple shadows on the grass. ‘Very nice,’ I say politely.
Lorna drops her arm from my shoulders, much to my relief. She’s obviously the kind of person who likes touching, little pats and squeez
es, and I just can’t cope with it right now.
We walk on a couple of metres and Lorna points off to the left where a rutted clay path winds round a corner and disappears under a stand of huge twisted macrocarpas. ‘You can’t see it from here but there’s an old crib up there. That’s where Lenny lives. He’s our full-time farmhand.’
I wonder what Lenny’s like. Young, old, ordinary, weird?
Soon we come to the farmhouse, a comfortable middle-aged sort of place with a verandah in front and steps leading to a sloping area of lawn. There are a couple of flower beds at the edges of the lawn but the flowers don’t look all that healthy. If Mum were here she would have rushed over and examined every petal. She loves flowers.
We follow the path round the side of the farmhouse to the back door. There’s a huge vege garden out the back, complete with fruit trees, looking much more cared for than the flower beds. Everyone has to help transfer the grocery boxes into the kitchen. I keep on falling over two meowing cats and an over-excited cocker spaniel. ‘This is Goldie,’ Tracey says, rubbing behind the dog’s ear. Goldie’s back leg begins scratching the air. ‘She’s eleven. Like, that’s so ancient for a dog.’ She picks up the cat with patchwork fur of white and black and ginger. ‘This is Cleopatra and the black one’s Caesar.’
Gee, how cute. But when Caesar twines round my legs I can’t resist putting my hand down and stroking the soft fur of his neck. He’s jet black with green eyes and a startling white blaze on his chest. I hope I can make friends with him. Dad doesn’t like animals in the house because they make a mess, so I’ve never had a pet.
The kitchen is huge. In the middle there’s an enormous oblong table with wooden chairs round it. The air smells of coffee and something sweet. Cinnamon, I think.
It’s not a tidy kitchen. There are biscuit tins stacked on the bench and folders of papers spilling all over the table and unwashed mugs sitting in the sink and recipe books falling off a bookshelf on the wall and three dozen thingammies stuck on the fridge door. It’s a real kitchen. Real food gets prepared here for a real family. Not like the kitchen we had at home.
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