Weeping Waters

by Nicholson, Anne Maria

  As they drink their tea, Frances relays greetings from Cedric and Pauline.

  ‘They were so good to me,’ Beverley says. ‘They helped me then and they helped me through the years. Such good people.’

  Frances reaches into her bag and brings out a black-and-white photograph of her parents and Valerie. Her father is wearing a suit and tie and his jet-black hair is slicked back in the fashion of the fifties. Her mother is wearing a tailored woollen jacket and a felt hat with a protruding feather. In her arms is Valerie, in a sleeveless lacy dress, the tiny chain bracelet on her chubby wrist.

  ‘They look lovely,’ Beverley sighs.

  ‘Can you tell me about that day on the train?’ Frances asks. ‘My parents may have been in your carriage. They had that little girl with them, my sister. She was just a toddler.’

  Even as she says the words, Frances feels her throat catch.

  Beverley thinks for a moment or two. ‘It’s such a long time ago now…’ Her words trail away. She nibbles on one of the tarts, and her cat, which has been ignoring them both until now, is suddenly alert and watchful. Beverley breaks off a piece of the tart and puts it in the cat’s eager mouth.

  Beverley’s eyes mist over and for a minute she seems lost in her own memories. ‘Oh yes,’ she says, remembering Frances, ‘I do recall seeing quite a few families on the train. It’s a terribly long time ago now. But I knew you would ask me. Cedric said you would. So I’ve been thinking about it again. It’s very painful, but I can remember hearing children laughing and crying. I do remember one little girl, a pretty little thing, running up and down. She came up to all of us. Not shy. Maybe that was her. I can’t say.’

  ‘Do you remember anything else about her? Maybe you saw her parents, my parents?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. I can’t. As I say, I really only had eyes for my David. We had only recently announced our engagement and we, and we…’

  ‘I’m sorry, Beverley. I can only imagine how terrible it must have been. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  ‘It’s all right. You must think I’m a foolish old woman still blubbing after all these years.’

  ‘No, not at all. I wasn’t there. I didn’t know my sister—I was born a long time after she died—but I still grieve for her.’

  ‘The trouble is they never found David. I still see him in my dreams, floating out there somewhere. I was in his arms one moment and then…he was gone forever.’

  ‘Do you remember much about the crash?’

  ‘Nothing—I was asleep. I woke up under the water. Drowning. But when I was pulled out I could hear people screaming who were trapped in other carriages. I can never get those screams from my ears. I’m lucky to be alive. Nearly everyone else in my carriage died. I still don’t know why I was spared.’

  ‘That’s what my mother used to say. She’d say, “I was the one who should have died, not my baby.” My father didn’t say anything at all. He’d just sit there staring at the newspaper.’

  ‘That must have been hard for you when you were young.’

  ‘It was but we all have to deal with what’s served up. I just got used to my parents being quiet and solitary. It’s all I knew growing up. Maybe you noticed them at the army camp. Do you remember much about that?’

  ‘Unfortunately, I do. It’s not the sort of thing you can ever forget. I went there every day for a week afterwards hoping to find David. I never did. But I helped identify three of our friends and I saw so many bodies, so many bodies. I’m sorry, Frances, I don’t remember seeing your parents.’

  As Beverley reaches into her pocket for a lace-edged white handkerchief the cat leaps off the couch. Frances goes to the older woman and strokes her arm.

  ‘I’m sorry if all this has upset you. Have you ever been back to Tangiwai?’

  ‘Never. And not likely to. What’s the point? He’s gone.’ Beverley’s eyes are red and her sad mouth struggles for control. ‘I never saw his face again. And now, now I can’t even remember what he looked like. I try to remember the sound of his voice. But it’s gone. Just as though he never existed. For years, I waited and hoped he might walk through my door but…’

  Frances hugs her. ‘Maybe you should go back,’ she says. ‘Perhaps I could take you.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Beverley says presently. ‘I don’t usually like to travel. I’ll have to think about it.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Thick snow blankets the mountain and a bitingly cold wind gnaws at the three scientists as they unload their gear from the four-wheel-drive in the car park below Whakapapa Village. None of them is looking forward to visiting the summit but Theo has insisted that he needs both Sam and Frances to complete the surveying for the computer modelling project.

  Carrying cross-country skis and backpacks, they mingle with hundreds of skiers and snowboarders, trudging up through the snow to the first chairlift. With their orange ski overalls, jackets and orange safety helmets, they stand out among the more fashionably attired visitors. Attaching their skis, they by-pass the queue to the lift. Sam shares a chair with a skier. Frances and Theo take the next one and are quickly whisked up the first set of slopes.

  Even with her strongest sunglasses, the reflected glare off the snow makes Frances squint. Bitterly cold air currents blow across the mountain, forcing her to put on the balaclava she stuffed into her snow jacket. She is thankful she remembered to wear thermal underwear.

  ‘You’re a tough old thing, Theo, you don’t seem to feel the cold so much,’ she says, leaning close to his ear so he can hear her.

  ‘I guess I’m used to it after all these years. And I can’t stand having my face covered. Makes me feel like I’m suffocating.’ He pauses before saying, ‘Did anyone ever tell you you look like a burglar?’

  Frances grins. ‘Hey Theo, if ever Sue gets sick of you…’

  They switch to a second chairlift but a few minutes later it stops, suspending them over a deep ravine. ‘Damn, I hate it when this happens,’ Theo says. ‘Hang on to all the gear—we’ll never find anything if it drops down there.’

  Frances squeezes his arm. ‘Don’t worry, I know the drill.’

  The minutes crawl slowly by as they dangle in the air like insects caught in a spider’s web. Although it is freezing, Frances absorbs the warm strength of Theo and deliberately draws close to him so their arms are touching. He makes her feel like his favourite child and it’s a sensation she craves, one that her own father denied her.

  The chairlift jerks. ‘Don’t know why we stopped,’ Theo says. ‘But glad it wasn’t for too much longer. We’ve got a lot of work to do.’

  Frances enjoys observing the experienced skiers below her, skilfully manoeuvring around moguls, zigzagging rapidly down the slopes. She sees a few teenage boys on snowboards bombing out of control down a steep incline. Moments later, two of them crash into a snowbank and then stagger to their feet, laughing and unharmed. A ski patroller rushes to check they’re OK, then admonishes them for their recklessness.

  The highest T-bar is operating so they’re spared some of the climbing of the summer ascents. As they’re pulled steeply up, Frances feels the bar drag uncomfortably on her bottom. She clings tightly to her gear until they eventually arrive together at Knoll Ridge. She follows Theo to the lift operator’s hut where they stow their skis.

  It’s another brisk half-hour climb to the summit. On this clear day, the view is spectacular and they can see a fourth volcano, Mount Taranaki, on the western horizon. Like Ngauruhoe, belching out steam a short distance from them, it is perfectly cone-shaped and seems much closer than 130 kilometres away.

  When they reach the summit, Frances hears Theo’s pager go and then his mobile phone rings. ‘Yes, yes, OK, thanks for ringing. We’ll be careful.’

  He tells them that the laboratory has picked up an unusual seismic signal. ‘They say it’s screw-shaped, maybe a tornillo. We’d better keep an extra lookout. Let’s get a move on and be ready to leave quickly if we have to. Oh, and make sure you all
keep your safety helmets on.’

  An uneasy sense of déjà vu makes Frances nervous. She recalls a day in the crater with Olivia at Mount St Helens when they received a similar warning from the university laboratory. Nothing eventuated but that did not ease her anxiety now.

  ‘Theo, are you sure we shouldn’t leave now?’

  ‘The chances of anything happening immediately are a thousand to one,’ Sam interrupts. ‘It might surprise you but we do know what we’re doing.’ He crunches on through the snow towards the crater.

  ‘You don’t have to come if you’re not sure,’ Theo reassures her. ‘I’m sorry Sam’s so brusque. You know how he is. But we’ll be out of here before you know it.’

  Frances nods her agreement. If it were her decision, she knows she would leave immediately, never taking the changing mood of a volcano for granted. Against her better judgement, she continues climbing.

  From where they stand the muddy grey water of the lake looks like a giant dirty puddle plopped in the centre of a cone of virgin-white snow. They rely on the crampons on their climbing boots to grip the snow and ice and use their ice axes to help traverse the crater. A freezing westerly cuts through Frances’ balaclava.

  She catches up to Sam, who is assembling the electronic distance meter so they can begin their surveying of the tephra dam. Today, it will take both of them to measure any growth in the dam, which looks like a giant sandbank.

  ‘The snow’s going to make our measurements a bit unreliable,’ Sam says to her. ‘Let’s get going. You take the reflector over there,’ he says, pointing Frances towards the opposite side of the lake.

  They have an uneasy truce but Frances is grateful that when it comes to the science, it’s business as usual. The two of them move around the crater quickly. Each time he positions the meter in the snow, he clicks the laser beam on, aiming it towards Frances, who is holding the reflector. He presses a small button on the meter each time, capturing the distance.

  Theo is below them, closer to the lake, taking new photos to compare with some shot on their last inspection.

  ‘Holy hell, look at that!’ he shouts.

  A large bubble is rising from the surface of the lake, up and up like some strange alien clawing its way out of the volcano’s throat. The three of them stand transfixed, too in awe to move. The dome-shaped object makes no sound and from where they are they can’t detect whether it is all water or rock. Then, just as quickly, it disappears, sinking back into the muddy depths of the crater.

  ‘OK, let’s pull out, quickly, just in case,’ Theo says.

  As they move to the top of the ridge and look back, they see the bubbling again, only this time the object is bigger. Suddenly the top of it opens up and there is a violent explosion as water and rocks are hurled high into the sky.

  ‘Run for it,’ Sam shouts. The mountain is shaking and they can hear rushing water. As they run, the rocks splash back into the lake but then the ground around them starts to move and there is an enormous bang as the volcano leaps into life like an angry imprisoned beast suddenly released from its cage.

  Frances and Sam reach the top of another ridge and can see Theo further down trying to follow them. As they watch him they see spirals of liquid and debris catapult out of the lake like an upside-down waterfall.

  ‘Hit the ground!’ Sam shouts.

  Frances stabs her ice axe hard into the ice, flings herself face down into the frozen slipperiness, tightens her helmet, pulls her pack over her head and holds onto the axe for dear life. She hears the hissing first, then feels water pelting her body. It’s hot and starts to sting as it saturates her clothing and the acid seeps through to her skin. The ice around her melts and she can feel her ice axe coming loose. As she starts to slide, she digs her boots into the snow and, mustering all her strength, rams the axe into a thick ridge of ice.

  Glancing up, she sees black rooster tails of water blasting into the sky, punching into giant steam clouds above. She glimpses a flash of orange a couple of metres away and thinks it is Sam. She shouts out his name but there’s so much noise around her she can barely hear her own voice.

  As she pulls the pack over her head again she hears a voice faintly calling her name on her tiny radio. She thinks it is Theo but she can’t risk reaching for it from her pocket.

  Seconds later she feels another assault. Black sticky ash rains down on her. Every time she takes a breath she chokes, the blackness penetrating her nose and her mouth, right through the balaclava. She can smell and taste gas and feels sick knowing it is poisonous hydrogen sulphide.

  ‘Sam, help me!’ she shouts as hard as she can.

  She hears sounds like the whooshing of a stormy ocean, then whistling noises as huge rocks pummel the side of the mountain. The axe is loosened again and the ice scrapes her face as she slides a little further down until her left foot catches on a ledge. She brings her right foot up and pushes in. Steady now, she looks back up. Rocks are falling around her like bombs and flaming fragments of shrapnel fly through the air, hissing as they burn holes in the ice where they strike.

  She glimpses Sam on another ledge. He raises his head towards her and gives a thumbs up. More rocks are falling and he buries his head once more. Frances struggles to breathe. The gas assaults her lungs and makes her want to throw up. Its sickly fumes are infiltrating her body and for a moment she wonders if this will be the end of her. But then an icy saviour, a freezing blast of air, roars at her. She gasps and swallows. The cold wind penetrates her mouth and her throat and seems to blow right through her, washing away the nausea and purging her mind. She claws her way back up the slope to the ledge nearest to Sam. Using the last of her depleted strength, she pulls herself up onto it. From here she can see the Crater Lake and she is met by a sight that both stirs and terrifies her. Huge rocks are whizzing over the water, colliding and crashing into each other. They churn through the water like dodgems in a fun-fair in hell.

  Halfway up the ridge she can see an unmoving orange figure. Frances retrieves her radio. ‘Theo!’ she shouts again and again. He is not responding. His legs are spread-eagled in grotesque angles in the snow. As she inches forward she hears another whizzing sound and a shocking pain spirals through her shoulder as if she has been smashed by a baseball bat. The last thing she remembers before a silent blackness descends is that she does not want to die.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Tori is mooring his boat in the town marina when he sees it. At first he thinks it is a large flock of birds migrating, travelling high in the distant sky towards Taupo. It billows and curls on air currents, rising and falling this way and that like a dragon dancer unsure of which way to go. As it comes closer he sees it is much denser than at first glance. It comes more in a wave now, winging on the southerly breeze, parts of it dispersing here and there. Tori hurriedly finishes securing the rope, sensing a peculiarity in the early afternoon light. He shades his eyes to focus on the formation and quickly sees that it is not birds at all. It is a great black cloud of volcanic ash.

  He can hear his heart thudding in his ears—Frances! She was heading up the mountain that day. He grabs his jacket and starts to run, pulling out his mobile phone as he goes and punching in Frances’ number. She doesn’t answer and the phone switches to her voicemail. He jumps into his vehicle, still listening as he screeches away from the boat ramp into town. He finds the Office of Seismology and bursts through the door, searching, hoping for signs of her.

  A dozen or so people are rushing around with phones and files and no one bothers to look at the wild-eyed man wearing a fishing jacket who is trying to get someone’s attention. He puts his arm out to stop a young woman carrying a briefcase who is about to leave the building. ‘I’m looking for Frances Nelson. Do you know where she is?’

  ‘She’s with the others on Ruapehu. There’s been an eruption and we’re trying to get them off the mountain.’

  ‘Is she OK? Do you know what happened?’

  ‘Sorry, that’s all I can tell you.’ She
runs out the door.

  The crackling of a two-way radio is constant in the background and Tori follows the sound into a room to the side. A curly-headed middle-aged man who would look at home in a university lecture theatre glances up as Tori taps on the door.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, I’m a friend of Frances Nelson. I’m trying to find out what’s going on up the mountain.’

  ‘Come in, I’m Ben Walker from the volcano watch group,’ he says, beckoning over his shoulder. ‘I’m just getting information now. The army is trying to land a chopper up there to move her and the two others from the summit. Sam Hawks radioed for help.’

  ‘Do you know if she’s OK?’

  ‘Not yet. I’m sorry. We’re all waiting to hear. The trouble is there might be another eruption and a lahar so we’re all switching on to high alert.’

  ‘Can I stay and listen?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Reports from civil-defence marshals, park rangers, ski patrollers and other seismologists in the area start to filter in over the radio.

  Black ash has fallen on the slopes of Mount Ruapehu. Everyone has been told to evacuate except for a skeleton emergency team. Thousands of skiers and workers have rushed to their cars, causing a traffic jam as they all try to drive down the only road at the same time. The ski lodges are ordering everybody to leave at once and, further down the mountain, the Chateau is telling guests to prepare for evacuation in the event of a major eruption.

  ‘They’re trying to establish a central data bank so we can locate people known to be on the mountain. We’re already worried about a missing group of soldiers who were snow-caving on the upper reaches,’ Ben tells him.

  Waiting in the tiny radio room, Tori leans back in a swivel chair, closes his eyes and focuses on sending his spirit high up to meet Frances. As if in a dream, he feels himself walking in slow motion, up and up and up, over craggy ridges and snow-covered valleys, drifting over icy crystal peaks until the volcano starts to engulf him in steam, gas and ash and an incredible heat. He is sinking into the snow, shocked to find it hot rather than cold. And he’s calling out to her. He sees the ghosts, the atua, the guardians of the sacred mountains, warning him to go no higher, pushing him back down the mountain, away from the crater. He cries out to Frances again and again. But he hears no reply. He feels himself sliding and sinking, further and further away. Through the steam and mist he sees the face of his grandfather trying to tell him something and he remembers.