Weeping Waters

by Nicholson, Anne Maria

  ‘Very kind of you.’ Frances climbs out of the pool feeling their eyes all over her tall, contoured body. ‘I’ve got a full day planned. Thanks anyway.’

  They glide together to the edge of the pool and bob about like a pair of psychedelic seals. She catches them staring at her wistfully as she hurriedly wraps herself in a large white towel and heads purposefully towards the stairs.

  Driving slowly down to the bottom of the mountain she is gripped with indecision. At a T-junction, she stops, unsure of which way to go, and sits there for a minute, squinting in the glare of the sun pouring through the windscreen. A car pulls up behind her and beeps its horn impatiently. She bangs the steering wheel with her fist. ‘Coward!’ she hisses as she turns right. Tangiwai can wait: she drives determinedly east.

  Before long, she leaves behind the wild alpine vistas and the road descends towards Lake Taupo, its sparkling navy waters extending as far as she can see. Enormous pipes cling to the emerald hills, evidence of a massive labyrinth of tunnels belonging to the hydroelectric scheme fuelled by the waters of the lake. She knows that an eruption or lahar could destroy them. The road straightens and soon she is greeted by street after street of small nondescript wooden houses, soulless avenues leading into a town called Turangi. She recalls this was once home to thousands of Italians brought to this isolated place to tunnel into the mountains. The tunnellers have long gone but the project houses they inhabited seem to echo the loneliness of the immigrants.

  Just past the town, Frances is startled by her first close glimpse of the lake—a vast expanse of blue water, mirroring an equally blue sky rippled with cirrus cloud. The road narrows and hugs the shoreline. As she winds around the bends through tiny fishing hamlets towards Taupo, Frances catches flashes of postcard vistas between stands of pine trees.

  Rounding one corner she crosses a small bridge bearing the name Waitahanui. A long line of fishers, perhaps twenty or thirty of them, are standing waist deep in the lake, stretching across the mouth of a small river. She stops to watch them balancing in waders in the swirling water, casting their lines in and out of the currents. In their multi-pocketed fishing waistcoats over long-sleeved shirts and their floppy hats, they resemble a human picket fence, not about to let a trout pass through.

  She soon arrives on the outskirts of Taupo where, on the lake’s edge, every second building seems to be a motel. There’s a small traffic jam as the cars travelling through the town are forced into a bottleneck. Following Theo Rush’s directions, she easily finds the Office of Seismology, a small square faded building a few streets back from the main shopping centre.

  Parking her car close by, Frances sits for a few minutes, taking in the faces of people with whom she will share this town, at least for a while. Walking into the building, she follows a sign pointing to the upper floor. Inside an office, she can see a genial-faced, tanned man in his middle years shuffling a pile of papers on a desk surrounded by a mess of boxes.

  ‘Ah, you must be Frances. Great to see you’ve arrived here at last.’ Theo surprises her by reaching out to give her a bear hug and kisses her firmly on the cheek. ‘That’s the welcome I was promising you,’ he grins. ‘Glad you made it safely. Had a good trip?’

  Frances returns his kiss awkwardly, but is reassured by his confidence and the deeply etched laughter lines on his face.

  ‘Yeah. Long trip, though. I feel like I’ve been travelling for weeks! It’s not hard to believe I’ve come to the other side of the world.’

  She sees Theo is sizing her up. ‘Well, you look fit enough for the job ahead,’ he says. ‘You’re going to need to be. It’s pretty rough country. But then you’re used to that, eh?’

  ‘Yeah, no job too tough, no mountain too high.’ She grins and flexes her arm to show a muscle.

  ‘That’s what I like to see, a positive attitude!’

  A strong-looking man in his thirties bursts through the door carrying a battered brown leather briefcase in one hand and a backpack in the other.

  ‘Ah Sam, there you are,’ Theo says. ‘Meet Frances Nelson. Just arrived.’

  ‘Figured you must be the Yank.’ Sam looks her straight in the eye. With practised carelessness, he drops his gear heavily onto a desk and turns to shake her hand. ‘Don’t have too many other scientists around here fitting your description. Most of them have beards.’

  Detecting a note of aggression in his voice, Frances flashes him a brief smile. ‘Shaved mine before I got here,’ she says as she meets his gaze and feels his hand grip hers firmly.

  ‘I just have to finish a few things then I’ll take you to your motel,’ Theo says. ‘You might like to have a quiet night to settle in and we’ll regroup tomorrow.’

  Theo drives a dark green Range Rover that is worse for wear. When he pulls up alongside her car and motions her to follow, Frances sees the dust and scratches of a workhorse vehicle. He weaves in and out of Taupo’s small CBD before stopping outside a motel perched on the lake’s edge.

  ‘You should be comfortable here for a while,’ Theo says, handing her a business card. ‘That’s the real-estate agent I told you about. She’ll show you some places to rent. You’ve come at a good time because it’s off season and there’s lots of choice.’

  From her room Frances can see right across the water to the mountains. The sun is just setting and the blue of the sky is splattered with tangerine-tinted clouds. The light blue melts into navy and starts to blend with the darkening wash of the lake. She is reminded of Seattle, the beautiful water-surrounded city that was her second home for so many years.

  Unpacking her bag, she finds a cable connection for her laptop and, after a lapse of four days, decides it’s time to check her emails. Her inbox is flashing—seven new messages. For the first time that day, the gnawing returns to her stomach. The email she clicks on is the one she least wants to read but knows she can’t stop herself. ‘Hi Babe,’ it reads. ‘Hope you arrived safely. Miss you. Message me. Love, Damon.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  She misses the intimacy. Their relationship was passionate for so long and in the early years they used to joke that the one way of preventing yourself rusting in Seattle was to avoid the rain altogether and spend the day in bed. They explored each other’s bodies for hours at a time. He was a confident and considerate lover. Their lovemaking could be boisterous, Damon teasing her and calling her his Mount Vesuvius. At other times it was tender and they would drift in and out of a contented sleep, their limbs tangled together.

  She had met him within weeks of arriving from England to take up a post-graduate university scholarship to do research on the Mount St Helens project in Washington State. During a lunch break at one of the busy cafés surrounding the vast parklike campus, one of her new friends, Olivia, grabbed her arm.

  ‘Come and meet someone real cute, Frankie!’ she whispered. ‘He’s the star in final-year architecture.’

  He appeared to be holding court at one of the tables. Brushing back his fair curly hair, Damon Beresford displayed a brash boyish charm as he debated the merits of post-modern design with other students from the prestigious architecture faculty.

  He beckoned them over. ‘Ah, another of Olivia’s coneheads,’ he said, reaching out to touch her hand and giving her the once-over. ‘Come and join us.’

  They squeezed in next to him on a long bench seat. He wore a plain black sweater and jeans. She breathed in his earthy, masculine smell, grateful it wasn’t overwhelmed by too much aftershave, which had become overly popular with a lot of the students she’d met.

  Damon entertained the gathering with loud stories of architectural follies as they downed bowls of cheap and filling spaghetti vongole. Frances sensed his interest in her was more than passing as he included her in the talk and returned her glances with a sparkling eye.

  ‘What do you think of Seattle architecture?’ he asked.

  ‘I haven’t thought much about it at all really. Don’t like the Space Needle much,’ she said, referring to the quirky tow
er built for the 1962 World’s Fair.

  ‘That’s heresy!’ one of the other students interrupted. ‘That’s the finest edifice in the whole of the Emerald City.’ The group burst out laughing.

  ‘We get a bit sick of the Space Needle,’ Damon said, rescuing her. ‘It’s an important part of our curriculum because it was revolutionary when it was built and it can withstand all the earthquakes we have around here. Right up your alley, I would think, Frances?’

  ‘I’m told there’s as many as six thousand earth tremors a year here and from what I’ve seen for myself so far with all the seismological activity it doesn’t seem like an exaggeration,’ she replied.

  ‘I think you’re right. So they drum it into us that our designs can be as unconventional as they like, as long as the engineering is there to stop the things from falling over. Anyway, I’m sure Carl F. Gould would agree with you about the design, Frances. Pretty it ain’t,’ Damon said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Our great founder. He designed the university. He was the mover and shaker of architecture early last century. The trouble is too many of the money people around Seattle now still want buildings just like that.’

  ‘But you’re going to show them, right Damon?’ teased one friend.

  ‘You bet,’ he said in a tone that left Frances in no doubt he would achieve whatever he set out to do.

  ‘A few of us are going downtown tonight,’ Damon called as Frances was heading back to the laboratory. ‘Maybe you’d like to come. Do you drink beer?’

  ‘Sometimes.’ She hesitated. ‘Actually, I love beer.’

  ‘There’s a great place near the waterfront where they brew it and you can drink it fresh. The Pike Pub. What d’you think?’

  ‘Sure. I have to stay back a bit tonight, though. We’ve just installed some new microphones up in the crater. There’s a bit of a buzz in the lab. But I could be there about eight.’

  ‘Great,’ he said, moving so close that she was looking directly into his blue eyes. ‘It’s on 1st Avenue. I’ll be inside.’

  ‘Fast mover!’ Olivia, who had been waiting for her friend to catch up with her, poked Frances in the ribs.

  ‘Yeah, hardly the shy retiring type. What do you think, Ollie?’

  ‘A bit up himself. But, hey Frankie, very cute.’

  The two women had clicked almost immediately. Olivia, who had moved north after researching earthquakes in San Francisco, was Frances’ physical opposite: short, thick curly black hair and, although extremely fit, a little on the tubby side. Her infectious laugh and devil-may-care personality made her popular at the university.

  When they reached the gushing Drumheller Fountain they paused, as they usually did, and gazed over towards the Cascade Range where they had been the day before.

  ‘Look, you can see Mount Rainier really clearly today.’ Olivia pointed to the spectacular cone-shaped peak on Seattle’s horizon. ‘It’s so much bigger than Mount St Helens it’s surprising it’s not as active. I went up there once. Hell of a climb!’

  ‘I’m still recovering from yesterday, that was hard enough. My thighs are aching,’ Frances said.

  Three of them had left shortly after dawn the day before to drive four hours to the research base at Mount St Helens. They were constantly developing a network of seismometers on and around the volcano which would beam back any telltale signs of activity to the university laboratory.

  That afternoon passed slowly in the laboratory, although there was plenty to do.

  ‘Ollie, look at this,’ Frances called, indicating her computer screen. ‘What do you think?’ There were some curious peaks and troughs, showing something vibrating on the mountain.

  ‘Helicopter,’ Olivia said quickly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A helicopter’s landed on the mountain. It throws you when you first see one but the microphones are becoming so sensitive to vibrations now, they pick up everything. Look there and there—they’re people walking, probably from the chopper. Listen, you can probably leave early, seeing you have a hot date. I’m happy to keep watch here. See you tomorrow.’

  Frances heard the noise from the pub filtering along a street above the Pike Place Market. Once inside among the large crowd she could see the liquid amber of the beer bubbling through the clear pipes of the machinery behind the drinkers.

  ‘Over here!’ She saw Damon beckoning her to a table where she recognised a few other students.

  ‘A pale ale for you, ma’am?’ he asked after he had installed her on a seat next to him.

  ‘Love one.’

  She watched him push confidently to the bar and return with two pints of the beer, handing one to her.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, downing a quarter of the glass in one gulp.

  Frances followed suit, enjoying the cool crisp taste.

  ‘Hungry? The food’s on its way. There’ll be plenty as long as you like fish. We’re having a bit of a celebration to mark the end of exams so we’re lashing out.’

  Plate after plate arrived of the rich local catch: slices of freshly grilled pink salmon, crabmeat cutters, steamed mussels and fried oysters. They feasted and drank late into the night.

  ‘So why haven’t I seen you before today? Where have you come from?’ Damon asked.

  ‘I haven’t been long in the States. I studied seismology in England but as you can imagine there aren’t many volcanoes there any more. So I’ve been travelling a lot to Turkey and Italy and other shaky places around Europe,’ she explained. ‘I heard they were offering scholarships here so I applied et voilà!’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you did, Ms Nelson. Hope we can do business together,’ Damon said, clinking his glass to hers.

  From that night on, they were an item. Frances had been staying in student accommodation near the university while Damon shared an apartment with two others. When one moved out it seemed natural for her to move in.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The local newspaper’s front-page headline spells it out: ‘Mountain mudslide threatens to engulf Ruapehu region’. Frances reads the article while having breakfast. Though cool, the early sun from the west is warming a line of cafés facing straight across the lake. Sitting at an outside table, she gratefully sips a strong fluffy cappuccino, nibbles on some fruit toast and starts to digest the latest moves in the debate over the mountain.

  The newspaper quotes from Theo’s most recent report, describing the danger and explaining the instability of the tephra dam and the likelihood of a massive lahar when it collapses. He is promoting the new early warning system and other detection methods.

  Frances almost chokes on her toast when she suddenly sees her own name in print: ‘One of the world’s leading authorities on the new acoustic monitoring systems for volcanoes, Frances Nelson from Seattle, will be joining the team in Taupo. Ms Nelson has had extensive experience with the technology at Mount St Helens in Washington State and at Pinatubo in the Philippines.’

  As she reads on, it’s clear that Theo’s recommendations appear to have the backing of the government and national park authorities—but nobody else. A prominent opposition politician, Ian Carmody, is accusing the government of ‘indulging in political correctness and bowing to Maori interests rather than taking responsibility for people’s lives. “They have their spiritual values on Mount Ruapehu and I respect that, but public safety and property including railways, roads and hydroelectricity infrastructure and people’s homes are paramount and it’s vital that we overcome all opposition and do earthworks around the Crater Lake.”’

  A Maori spokesperson for the local iwi, Tori Maddison, is ruling out any suggestions of altering the Crater Lake. ‘This is as sacred to us as a cathedral is to you. We’ll resist anyone who tries to violate it.’

  A local mayor says her council is lobbying the government to allow the tephra dam in the crater to be blasted or tunnelled through with the help of bulldozers. ‘We believe our constituents’ safety is far more important than cultural sensitivities. We’re con
fident we can persuade the doubters to our side.’

  When Frances opens the office door she can tell immediately that Theo is rattled. The same newspaper is spread across his desk and he is having an agitated conversation on the phone. His brow creased and speaking in what sounds like a barely controlled voice, he waves her over, pointing towards an empty desk.

  Sam Hawks is already at his desk, one foot propped lazily on the edge. He nods at her curtly as she walks towards him.

  ‘I’ve just been brought up to date by the local newspaper. Looks like we may be the centre of attention?’ she says.

  Sam winks at her. ‘Sure you’re used to that. See you made the paper yourself. Looks like you’re out to make a big impression.’

  Frances feels her face redden. ‘Ah, that was nothing to do with me. I found it a bit embarrassing really.’

  She welcomes Theo’s interruption as he walks determinedly towards her with a large box.

  ‘The wolves are baying! You’ll be right in the thick of it. Hope you won’t regret coming. Here’s your kit. There’s a mobile phone in there too. We can’t get by without them now. Supposed to keep the private calls to a minimum,’ he says, throwing her a smile. ‘Sam will take you through the data we collected yesterday and the options paper for dealing with the crater. I’ve got to prepare another report for the government that will take me a day or two and I’m getting a lot of calls from journalists. There’s definitely a feeling of panic in the air. Let’s catch up later in the day.’

  ‘Come on then, I’ll take you through our material,’ Sam says.

  Theo suddenly sticks his head back around the corner.

  ‘Oh Frances, the local paper wants to do an interview with you and take your photo. OK?’

  Frances catches a hostile expression in Sam’s eyes. ‘Sure, Theo,’ she says evenly, ‘but put them off for a bit. I’m not ready for that yet.’

  ‘You’ll be a celebrity before you know it,’ Sam persists with a taunt in his voice.

  ‘Give me a break, Sam. You can see it’s out of my hands. Let’s get on with the briefing, shall we?’ she says as lightly as she can.