Calling the Gods

by Jack Lasenby

  There was a clink — his flagon of sweet sherry — as he put down the duffel bag. I bled and gutted the kahawai, and we sat on the old railway sleepers by the front door and talked about the days when you could catch snapper straight out from my place.

  “Thanks for the brew.” Mac plodded towards his cottage up the beach.

  That bag’s getting heavy for him, I thought. Old Mac’s slowing down.

  “If you’re going to smoke it, I wouldn’t mind a taste,” Mac called over his shoulder, and I realised he hadn’t noticed the strange boat. That’s when I saw it had gone: the children, the woman, the trickle of water, pool, and flax; there was only my cottage, the boatshed and firewood shelter built hard against the cliff, the smokehouse on the ledge halfway up.

  At that time, my daughter was flatting in town, going to university, so when I gave him a smoked fillet off the kahawai, Mac was the only person I spoke to for several days. My next-door neighbours, both teachers, were busy with school and their own kids during the week.

  I saw the strange boat again, coming and going up and down the harbour. My own sailing dinghy was smaller, about five metres, and I had to drop the mast to get under the rail and road bridges. Somehow it didn’t seem to matter how the strangers’ boat with its taller mast got under them.

  The weekend came, and I mentioned to my friends next door that I’d seen an old-fashioned boat come in with a woman and a noisy mob of kids, but nobody else had seen it, and I took care not to say too much.

  There was something odd about the way the strangers came and went, how the beach changed when they were there. At first I even wondered if they were rehearsing one of those amateurish re-enactments of an early European landing. You know the sort of thing: somebody rigged up as Captain Cook in an unconvincing cocked hat and wrinkled white stockings; women in long frocks and bonnets — we’ve grown the wrong shape to wear that century’s clothes convincingly; a couple of Maoris waving tongues and taiahas; and some top-hatted men who’ve — “Ha, ha” — grown beards for the occasion. How does it go? “The present pinning on the past like a decoration …”? Curnow said something like that in his poem about landfall.

  But we had both a morning and an evening paper at that time, and there were a couple of local rags, rubbishy with advertising. The lot of them would have reported to death any anniversary of that kind.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Gods Must Have Been Helping

  I got a fire going with the flint and steel, propped the oars against the cliff, rigged a spare sail for a roof. Ansik brought fresh water. I propped a cooking pot over the flames and stirred in oats. My legs wobbled a bit, and I found myself near tears as the children still ran screeching.

  Every day of the journey, I had made sure they chewed oats and barley dry, ate plenty of fresh fish and dried whale meat, and each morning I gave everyone a sip of whale oil. Now the children knelt just long enough to gobble thick porridge from the pot, shriek, and run again.

  Ruka and Peck found mussels and oysters on the rocks further along, and the falling tide showed cockles everywhere. At evening, we brought the boat up the beach on the top of the tide, gorged on steamed mussels, and lay in a heap under the sail, the five of us.

  “Sleeping on the ground,” said Lorne, “it doesn’t rock up and down.”

  “And it’s dry,” Peck told her.

  I woke to voices. It was morning, and they stood where the cliff had fallen away, staring at a round ball of iron. It must have been buried deep, because when Ansik struck it with a stone I saw the dark metal gleam.

  “It has been dry inside the cliff, so it has not rusted much.”

  “How did it get there?”

  “Somebody must have dug a hole into the cliff, pushed it in, and filled it up again. And it has been there for years, till the cliff fell away.”

  “It only came down a day or two ago.” Ansik pointed at some crushed plants, still green.

  “It means there were once people here, and they had iron, too.”

  “Is this where we came from, Selene? Our ancestors?”

  I shrugged.

  Peck rolled the round ball of iron to Lorne, who tried but couldn’t stop it. It bumped her toes hard, her face crumpled, and I swung her up in my arms, rubbed and blew on her foot.

  “That wicked old iron ball, it hurt your poor little toes. Come on.” Half-strangled, I piggybacked her across to the fire, and the others came running to eat the leftover porridge. Ansik brought some of the fleshy spinach he’d found, and we chewed it raw. There was chard, too, its roots growing almost into the salt water as it had done at Hornish.

  “I never used to like it,” said Ruka, “but I might now. I like the spinach.”

  “It is having something fresh for a change.”

  “It tastes strong.”

  “Remember we had a kitful when we started off? But it only lasted the first couple of days.”

  Ruka and Peck looked at each other. They were forgetting the long time on the boat, as they were forgetting Hornish, like the memories of our parents that were disappearing so fast, and I wondered at the differences between our ways of remembering, how quickly Lorne especially could forget things. Something to do with our sense of time, I supposed.

  The tide still had a long way to come in, so we skidded the boat down over bits of driftwood. We rowed across, setting the net between sandbanks, climbed the dunes on the protecting sandspit, and searched for a sail. Table Island was out of sight behind the bay’s southern headland.

  I wanted to explore the rest of the inlet while the tide was making and it would not matter if we ran aground. There was enough wind to fill the sails and carry us up and around a point where the inlet opened wide. We worked out that our beach lay the other side of a narrow peninsula.

  “Just through there,” Ansik pointed. “Up the hill this side, and down the cliff.”

  Shoving off sandbanks we drifted easy up the inlet, scanning the shore, the bush-draped hills a thousand shades of green, a spot of yellow here and there. No sign of people, no smoke. The air filled suddenly with grey, black, white wings, red beaks, unwinking eyes. The boys yelled back, “Galore. Galore.” Jumping fish slapped beside us.

  “Good for netting.”

  I smiled at Ansik and pointed at the reeds growing thick at the shallow head of the inlet. Tall flax clumped and arched behind them. A creek wound away through swamp, and flat country rose into easy hills.

  Tacking from side to side of the inlet, skimming over banks where we grounded before, we ran home, picking up the net on the way. It held flounder, karfish, dogfish, and two big trevally.

  “A flattie each,” I said, and fried them in their own juice while Ansik filleted and hung the rest to dry.

  “We’ll build a smokehouse,” he said.

  The cliff and a high ridge at the foot of the peninsula protected our beach from the south; it would be open to westerlies, but the fetch across from the sandspit was short. On the cliff there were big mercy trees we could use to bring the boat right up. Close in, it would lie safe to its anchor, but further out a rip grew in the channel on both tides. The current through the entry itself would be too much, unless we had the wind with us.

  Between cliff and beach, there was rich black soil for garden and orchard. I was already thinking of where to build, looking at the trees growing along the clifftop, the driftwood piled above the high water mark. The inlet had all we wanted. Finding the others, fishing, exploring, we were going to be busy, and we needed warmer shelter. During the night I had woken and pulled more sacks over the children.

  The others should make land no more than a day or two’s sail up or down the coast. The southerly had not been big enough to blow us far apart.

  The boys climbed the cliff behind and came back saying they had seen the upper inlet where we had sailed.

  “Just a hop, step, and a jump,” said Ansik. “And you can look out the other way over the sandspit and see the north half of the bay.”

&
nbsp; “We couldn’t see Table Island,” said Peck. “The one where you wouldn’t land.”

  “We could keep a lookout up there,” said Ansik. “And send up smoke if we see the others.”

  “They cannot be far away. We will sail out and search the bay, just in case they landed somewhere close.”

  I put the trevally and potatoes into a pot and stood it among embers, shovelled more on its heavy lid, and covered the fire with turf again. The wood Ansik had split and dried overnight he stacked under the cliff with a heap of dry grass and fern. Just along from where we drew up the boat there was a good spot for building, far enough out from the cliff to catch the sun early and keep it till last thing. We could put up a frame and thatch a roof with reeds, warmer than living under sails.

  “So much to do,” I said aloud as we sailed up the other arm of the inlet. No sign of the others. We looked at several promising spots, but saw nothing as good as our beach. As I had thought, most of the arm would be swept by the southerly and the north-westerly, first one way, then the other. By the lean and hunch of marnoo scrub on the cliffs, the north-westerly must blow often.

  We checked the south side of the open bay first, crossed and cruised along the northern side, off its beaches and rocky stretches.

  “So much to do.” The words kept repeating them selves. Ansik was helpful, much more confident, but having Tobik and Jenek would make it easier. Perhaps I should have kept Tobik in our boat.

  Now the tide was low, a reef rose clear on that side of the bay.

  “What’s that?”

  “Where?”

  “On the reef.”

  “driftwood,” Peck told Ansik. “A big log.”

  “No.”

  I ducked my head to see under the sail. “Just a log?”

  “It’s something.”

  “I want to look at that beach over there, then we will come back, see what your something is.”

  We checked the beach, came about, sailed inside the reef and towards the cliffs at the south end of the bay, to have a look at the thundering sand where breakers were crashing when we arrived.

  “It is something.” Ansik and Peck both pointed at the reef. “It’s them.”

  The other boat had worked itself stern-first up a narrow gut between two arms of the reef, and lay on a mattress of seaweed and kelp over the rocks. The anchor was out, as if somebody had deliberately dropped it at the mouth of the gut. The mast and sails were lashed down, everything in its usual place, stores, tools, net, but there was no sign of anyone, no bodies on the rocks when we searched.

  We eased and slid the boat off its perch and into the water. Thanks to the kelp and seaweed, there was no damage. The hardest thing was working the anchor free, heaving this way and that until it came up, kelp on its flukes.

  Even with the tide sweeping us through the entry, it was dark before we towed the other boat in and dragged it up with block and tackle. Before Ansik and I had finished, Peck and Ruka opened up the fire and had its flames leaping.

  We sat around the heavy pot and ate the fish and potatoes, thoughtful. Only Lorne asked, “Are they all drowned, Selene?”

  “I think they are all alive somewhere,” I smiled. “The boat is in good order, as if they heaved to for the night. Perhaps they put the anchor over, to slow any drift. Unless they landed somewhere, and it dragged. We will get going first thing, search.”

  “What about Table Island?”

  “We can have a look at that.”

  I woke a couple of times, waded out and brought our boat in so it was afloat just off the beach in the morning. We swept out through the entry, the half-filled cooking pot aboard. Breakers boomed on the big surf beach. We were sailing past, looking at the cliffs beyond, when Ansik shouted and pointed.

  “Smoke. Smoke.” A white cloud lifted from Table Island.

  “Is it them?”

  “Will Larish be all right?”

  I cuddled Lorne. “They’ve got a fire going, so they must be all right.”

  “It’s turning blue,” said Ruka. “And dirty grey.”

  “They are putting on damp stuff, for more smoke.”

  It rose from above that steep, dangerous beach. I glanced under the sail and saw two figures running along the boulder spit, leaping, dancing, pointing.

  I still was not going to risk tearing the bottom out of the boat. We backed in with the oars, and they waded out. Ansik helped them both over the stern, and I was already pulling into deeper water, happy to be clear of that beach.

  “Where’s Jenek?”

  “We don’t know,” said Tobik, and Larish shook her head. I looked at her closely.

  “We landed.” Her voice shook. “We left Jenek keeping an eye on the boat while we found water and somewhere to camp.”

  “I climbed a hill,” said Tobik, “and looked around for you. We found water, came back down to the beach, and saw the boat drifting away, and Jenek swimming after it. We lost sight of him around that boulder spit. By the time we ran there, he’d disappeared, and the boat was out of sight. We just hoped he caught up to it. Have you seen him?”

  We stared at Tobik silent.

  “We found the boat on a reef,” said Lorne. “But Jenek wasn’t in it.”

  I pointed to the cooking pot. “Eat something.” I knew from all the playing around in boats we’d done as children that a boat usually drifts faster than someone can swim after it.

  Ruka was silent. He had lost his father, mother, and sister, and now his brother. Lorne stared at him. Peck looked unsure, as if he didn’t know what to say. I drew Ruka on to the stern seat beside me, and steered with one arm around him.

  Everyone was quiet as we landed below the other boat at our camp. That night I heard Ruka crying and crawled across and cuddled him.

  Day after day, we searched the bay. We drew huge arrows above high tide mark on the beaches and made others out of driftwood, all pointing to the mouth of our inlet, but only the younger children still thought there might be any chance. We sailed along off the rocky stretches, just in case we saw something, but there were many places a body could lie hidden.

  Rough days we couldn’t sail but explored our peninsula for straight poles, chopping and sliding them down the cliff. Out towards the point we found young tote trees and felled six for heavy posts. Slid down, they floated, and we towed them to our beach on the outgoing tide. There we brought them up on the next high water, and dragged them on to the terrace with block and tackle.

  “This is where we could do with Jenek,” Tobik said.

  I nodded. “We are lucky to have you. And Larish,” I added quickly, and thought to myself: Seven. It will be harder, but we can survive.

  Ansik was able to help Tobik but did not have Jenek’s strength, and he had lost a lot of his confidence since we found Larish. She had her sisterly ways of cutting him down, ridiculing everything he said and did. I wondered if she disliked the way he had grown up on the voyage from Rabbit Island, his independence.

  “There’s a big old tote log out near the point,” said Tobik. “The heart’s solid and dry. We could split shingles to roof a shelter.”

  “I was going to thatch it. There are reeds up the top of the inlet.”

  “They’d be quicker, I suppose.”

  “Warmer, too. We could take both boats up tomorrow, and bring down a load.”

  “What about searching?”

  “There is little chance now. If the wind keeps going down, we will have a look along the beaches inside the bay, scratch the arrows again. But we must get a proper shelter built. It is going to be too cold, living under the sails.”

  Ruka and Peck paddled their raft across to the sandspit first thing next morning, to check the net. They came back, waving their poles, yelling. The wind was still southerly, a good day for going up the harbour for the reeds, and the rest of us were getting both boats ready.

  “What have they caught?” asked Lorne, but their raft came closer, and they were shouting, “Smoke.”

  �
�Where?”

  They paddled closer. “We climbed the sandhills and saw smoke coming from Table Island again.”

  “It has been a long time.” I didn’t want them too disappointed. “Sparks from your fire might have blown into the driftwood up the beach,” I said to Tobik. “Even with the rain we had, you get a big dozy log going and it will smoulder away for ages. This wind could have made it flare up and set fire to something else.”

  The southerly was strong outside. It took us a while to work past the surf beach and run out under a reefed mainsail.

  “See the waves breaking along the bottom of the cliffs? There is more wind out there, enough to fan it into a fire.” I was trying not to let my own hopes get too high.

  We got closer, and Tobik called, “There’s somebody on the boulders.”

  “Sit down.” I could not see for the sails and everyone standing, screaming.

  “It’s him. Climbing out on the boulders.”

  Ansik called: “It’s Jenek.” I saw Larish look at Tobik. We came up into the wind off the island’s southern end, dropped the jib, put in a second reef, and came about carefully. The waves were too big to risk taking the boat in as before, the beach wild with tossed and smashing water. There might be a bit of protection in the lee of the boulder spit, on its other side, but I dared not go too close.

  Jenek had climbed to the very end of the spit and hung on to a boulder as a wave swirled up and around him.

  “He’s going to dive in.”

  “He can’t. Don’t.”

  I tried to spill wind, but we were coming down fast, the southerly behind us.

  “Sit down, everyone. I have to be able to see. Tobik, you be ready to grab him on that side. Ansik, give him a hand. Larish, stop that shrieking, get the little ones on the other side, and shut up.”

  Even reefed down and with no jib, we are going too fast. The current seizes the boat. Larish shrieks again and sets off the little ones.

  I curse her, duck my head, see Jenek throw himself off a boulder on the back of a retreating wave, keep my eye on the spot, then we are surging past, and Tobik dives half over the gunwale.