Weeping Waters

by Nicholson, Anne Maria

  ‘You put so much importance on the funeral, don’t you,’ she says. ‘We tend to brush it aside and avoid confronting it. Rushing away from work for just a couple of hours, if that. Certainly not three days.’

  ‘Death is part of life. That’s what we believe. We know we’ll all die and we’ll live again in the afterlife. Bill still walks among us. We’ve buried him but he’ll continue to share our lives. He has just gone before us.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  A sense of strangeness runs through Frances on her first day back at the office. So much has changed since the eruption. Theo’s desk is tidier than she has seen it, abandoned, lifeless. She runs her finger along its edge as she skirts past it to her own workplace, still littered with tiny reminders of her life: a framed photo of Olivia and her in the crater of Mount St Helens, another of her holding the trout she had caught with Tori in the river, her battered reference book on the Pacific Ring of Fire and her favourite porcelain mug, its whiteness broken up by pretty alpine daisies.

  She has visited Theo daily, trying to stifle her tears as she avoided looking at the empty space on the bed where his left leg should have rested. Too badly shattered to save, it was amputated from the knee down.

  Theo’s mind had been saved, though. For the first week after the operation they had all but held their breaths, waiting. One morning she was standing by his bed gazing at his scarred arm. Once covered with thick blond hair, it now looked like a bald newborn bird. Suddenly he opened his eyes and gave her such a look she had to step back. It was an unexpected gaze of recognition, of intimate familiarity. He laughed at her. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost!’

  They were all worried about how he would react to his injuries, especially the loss of his leg, but he seemed so pleased to be alive. He told Frances he couldn’t wait to leave the hospital so he and Sue could start to live their lives all over again.

  ‘Doesn’t look like I’ll be climbing for a while.’ He dismissed her concerned expression. ‘I can still feel my toes, you know, even though they’re gone. I fully intend to be back on the other foot as soon as I can.’

  She walks over to the seismometer. One of the relieving scientists from Wellington is looking at the printouts from overnight. The zigzag graphs are small with no signs of unusual activity. As she looks over his shoulder, Sam comes up behind her.

  ‘Good to have you back. We’ve missed you.’ He looks genuinely happy to see her and as Frances turns he reaches out to embrace her, pulling her close. She hugs him back but pulls away when he shows no sign of letting go.

  ‘You’re looking wonderful, Frances. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Better,’ she smiles at him. ‘And glad to be alive.’

  ‘You can see it’s still quiet up the mountain. Nothing much has happened since we were up there. A few tremors but that’s it,’ Sam tells her.

  ‘Are we still on high alert?’

  ‘No. We’ve dropped back from level five to level two. But we’re still watching it round the clock. I think we have things under control up there at last. Everyone in the region knows the drill if the alarm goes to evacuate. But I hope it won’t come to that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Frances asks him.

  ‘Ah, it’s just that the level of the Crater Lake is now steady. It has stopped rising.’

  ‘Are the skifields open?’

  ‘Yeah, most of them. The ash wrecked them but the fresh snow has covered that. But the numbers are right down. Lots of people are too scared to return just yet. Anyway, the spring melt is already beginning.’

  ‘I’m worried about the equipment on the summit. Has anyone been up there to check it?’ Something about Sam’s demeanour is bothering Frances.

  ‘I went up last week with a couple of the ski patrollers. It’s remarkably intact underneath the Dome Shelter, though the hut was a bit of a wreck. We’re having that repaired. But the microphones are still doing their job.’

  ‘Good. I was hoping not to climb up there just yet.’

  ‘I don’t think you should. Leave it to me.’

  Frances sifts through a pile of mail on her desk, noticing a blue envelope addressed to her in Damon’s familiar handwriting. She flicks it open. A get well card with a caricature of a skier with bandaged limbs makes her smile. ‘Glad to hear from Olivia you’re on the mend. Did you get the flowers? More importantly, did you get my message? What do you think? Missing you. Love, Damon.’

  She selects a tea bag from the small staff kitchen cupboard—English Breakfast, the flavour her parents used to like. As she pours the boiling water over it she knows what she must say to him.

  Since leaving the hospital, she has thought a lot of her old life in Seattle, the happy years when Damon and her were so close. When they first started making love, they couldn’t get enough of each other. Once, they spent two entire days in bed, just getting up now and then to shower and grab snacks and drinks from the fridge. The intensity of their passion left them breathless and limp, their apartment sweetly disordered. Sometimes he would phone her at the lab and suggest a lunchtime rendezvous. They would race home and devour each other. It all seemed so long ago, like trying to hang on to the details of a dream that was evaporating quickly as wakefulness takes hold.

  Returning to her desk, she sips the tea, its warmth permeating her and giving her strength. She logs on to the Internet and sends Damon her answer, then sits back, feeling satisfied.

  Among the many emails in her inbox, her eye is drawn to two older ones from head office in Wellington, written when she was still in hospital. She opens the one titled ‘Re: Sam Hawks Appointment’ and reads ‘Sam Hawks has been appointed interim manager of the Taupo office. All staff will be under his authority. The position will be advertised in the near future.’

  Her heart misses a beat as she opens another titled ‘Remedial Work at Crater Lake’:

  The Minister of Public Works has given her approval for the use of bulldozers on the summit of Mount Ruapehu at Crater Lake. The decision to allow the machinery to break up the tephra dam was taken after consideration of all competing interests. The Minister accepted the recommendation of the acting manager of Taupo’s Office of Seismology, Sam Hawks, to proceed immediately. She believes that while the intervention may not be acceptable to everyone, it is in the wider interests of public safety.

  ‘Sam!’ Frances cries out. ‘Sam!’ she shouts out again, turning to look for him.

  ‘The boss has gone back up the mountain for the day,’ one of the scientists says as he walks over to her carrying a printout. ‘They’ve got more bulldozing to do and he wants to make sure it’s done properly. Anything wrong?’

  Frances grabs her phone and quickly punches in Sam’s number. She’s surprised to hear his cellphone ringing on the desk opposite hers where he has left it behind.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Did you know about the bulldozers?’ Tori sounds unusually aggressive when he rings her just minutes later.

  ‘I’ve only just found out myself.’ Frances is annoyed by his accusatory tone. ‘The Minister gave her approval while I was away. I came into work today for the first time. Sam’s behind this and he’s taken advantage of Theo’s and my absence. I haven’t even had a chance to talk to him about it. He didn’t tell me and he’s cleared out.’

  ‘Well, we’re furious about this desecration. It’s been kept very secret. I hope you’ll be able to do something immediately to get those machines off the mountain. I hear there’s already been some working in the Crater Lake and the dozers are still up there.’

  ‘Tori, I don’t know if I can do anything…’

  ‘I thought you were senior to Sam, Frances. We’re counting on you. I’ve got to go now. There’s a meeting at the marae about this. I’ll call you later.’

  He rings off abruptly before Frances can reply. She sits, angrily tapping her fingers on the desk.

  ‘How dare he?’ She feels equally cross with Sam and Tori and tries to separate her reasons. Tori has
attacked her unfairly—at least that’s what it feels like. She has forgotten that arrogance she detected the first time they met. Now he’s expecting her to do the impossible.

  I must be stupid to think that we could ever bridge the gap between our lives, she thinks. She feels used, as if Tori is taking advantage of their friendship to further the ends of his iwi. As for Sam…Once again she wonders if he might be right after all. Maybe she has been unreasonable about this, unfair to him. The last thing she wanted to see was more deaths on the mountain. Wasn’t that why she became a scientist after all? She has come here to help solve the problems, not walk away from the difficult decisions.

  Tori didn’t even bother to ask how she was feeling. She has seen him only a few times since Bill’s funeral. He has seemed preoccupied and although he was affectionate, she wonders if he is having second thoughts about reconciling with his wife. He denied it when she asked so she has left the subject alone.

  Just when she has begun to believe she could belong to this country, a sense of isolation strands her once more. She clicks open her email to Damon: ‘Thank you so much for the flowers. They were beautiful. My injuries were relatively minor and I have now recovered. In regard to renewing our relationship, pity you trashed it. Let’s leave it there in the dustbin of finished love affairs. Frances.’

  For a moment she thinks she has been a bit abrupt. ‘God, get a grip on yourself,’ she mutters. ‘One thing I’m certain about is that I don’t want to go back to him.’

  She walks swiftly out of the office, heading for the one person she can turn to for advice.

  Bathed in sunshine, Theo is sitting in a wheelchair on the veranda of his home, which looks out over the lake. He is wearing a hand-knitted moss-green jumper and has a pile of newspapers on his lap.

  ‘Frances, great to see you. Come and sit down.’ His voice is warm and although his tan has faded, his face has regained a healthy pinkness.

  As she leans over to kiss his cheek, she grimaces when she sees the trouser leg tucked around his knee.

  He catches her expression. ‘What’s up? Everything OK?’

  ‘Look, I just wanted to see if you are all right. You don’t need to know about work.’

  ‘I don’t need to know, Frances, but I’m sure as hell still interested. You don’t invest thirty years of your life in something like that and…I was going to say, walk away, but I guess in my case it’s limp away.’ He laughs loudly until a bout of coughing stops him.

  Frances pats him on the shoulder and notices for the first time how the accident has altered his whole appearance. Once, he appeared young for his age; today he looks every day of his sixty years.

  ‘Sorry, Frances,’ he says, reaching for her hand. ‘I guess keeping a sense of humour about all this helps me get through it. Now what’s this all about?’

  ‘While I’ve been away, Sam’s been very busy. He’s in your job for the time being and he’s managed to persuade the Minister to allow bulldozers up on the summit. They’ve already done some work and I understand there are two bulldozers up there now and guess whose name is now mud with the Maori?’

  Theo sighs deeply. ‘I had heard and I suppose I’m not surprised really,’ he says after a while. ‘When times are good and there are no bad headlines to worry about, the politicians stay out of things. But after the eruption, it was probably only a matter of time before they gave in to the likes of Sam. There are a lot of powerful interests backing intervention at the summit.’

  ‘What can I do about it? I feel so helpless, Theo. The early warning system is working well but they see that as too passive. In this climate, they don’t want to take what they see as risks with public safety, and cultural sensitivities seem to have gone out of the window. We told the Maori we wouldn’t intervene and now I feel responsible. What should I do?’

  Theo sees the deep lines creasing her forehead and the sadness shadowing her eyes.

  ‘Hey, listen, girl. The one thing is not to take this personally. You’re not responsible. I’ve been around the track a few times, long enough to know when the wind changes there’s not a lot you can do about it. Suddenly, political correctness sounds like a dirty word to the politicians so they feel they can ride roughshod over Maori feelings.

  ‘You know I’ve always been against intervention. I think it’s idiotic to take bulldozers up there. But I’m afraid I don’t think I can be of much help. I did what I could but the tide has turned. I’m already yesterday’s man.’

  Frances smiles at him. ‘I don’t think so. But I understand what you’re saying.’

  They sit together until Theo breaks the silence. ‘How’s that Tori going, by the way? Great guy. How are you two getting on together?’

  ‘How did you know?’ Frances asks, surprised.

  ‘For one thing, you always had that slightly startled look when he was around.’ Theo laughs. ‘And now you’re blushing.’

  She grins.

  ‘And I guess I have to confess that Sue dobbed you in. She said Tori was waiting at the hospital when we were brought in and he was in a real state. Obviously more than just an acquaintance.’

  ‘Yeah, well we have seen a bit of each other. But Theo, I don’t know what I’m getting myself into. There’s always a conflict of interest with my job. He’s just had a go at me about the bulldozers. As if I drove the bloody things up there myself.’

  ‘Forget about all that. What do you feel about him, Frances? In the end that’s what’s important in life—the people and how we treat them. Heaven knows how I would have survived without Sue.’

  ‘I like him a lot but we come from different worlds. I just doubt him at the moment and I suppose I doubt myself.’

  ‘Let me tell you something, Frances. I haven’t been completely straight with you. I had another visitor earlier today—Tori.’

  She raises her eyebrows in surprise.

  ‘I’ve known him for many years. We trust each other. He also came to ask my advice about the intervention, but he also told me about his feelings for you. He’s not toying with you, Frances. He’s a deep thinker and he’s serious but he’s also weighing things up.’

  ‘And his wife?’

  ‘He talked about her too. But from what I was hearing, he’s just keeping the peace on the homefront. You’re the one he’s interested in. Maybe you have to let him know a little more about your feelings. I think he’s waiting for a signal.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right, Theo,’ she replies, getting up. ‘I’d better get back to the coalface. Thanks for hearing me out. I wanted to explode at Sam when I found out—probably lucky he wasn’t in the office. I’ll have to deal with that now. And thanks for letting me know about Tori.’

  She sees his face in her mind as she drives back to the office. Theo’s right, she thinks, maybe I have to be more honest with Tori, let go a little. Maybe I have to start trusting again.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Sam chuckles to himself as he walks across the helipad and greets Luke Gallagher, who has just finished refuelling the chopper. For once, he feels satisfied. He’s in control of the mountain and has finally outsmarted the do-gooders.

  ‘Ready to go, Luke?’ he says with a new air of authority. ‘I need to get back up to the summit to supervise those bulldozers.’

  ‘Sure thing. I just need another couple of minutes to get the chopper ready and then we can go. But you can hop in.’

  Luke springs the chopper to life and Sam puts his headphones on. As the pilot checks the fuel levels and the flight path, he says to Sam, ‘Surprised you haven’t had any flak about the bulldozing. How did you keep that quiet?’

  Just as Sam is about to answer, Luke notices a car pull up. Four Maori men, Tori Maddison among them, jump out and start running towards them.

  ‘I take back what I just said, Sam. I think the word’s out!’

  ‘Stop! Come back, you bastard!’ Tori is yelling and waving his arms.

  ‘I think that’s our cue to get out of here. Let’s go,’ Sam s
ays.

  As the chopper lifts, Tori, Uncle Eruera and two others from the iwi stand watching it rise, their hair blowing furiously in the downdraught, their faces set in angry resignation.

  Luke gives them a sheepish wave. He’s surprised to see Sam do the same, until he notices he has two fingers in the air.

  As the chopper descends towards the summit, Sam can see the contractors are already waiting with their bulldozers, two smaller machines that could be partly dismantled and dropped in by chopper. Even Sam acknowledged that driving a big dozer up the mountain would cause too much damage.

  It has cost plenty to secure the drivers’ services, to provide them with accommodation further down the mountain and to transport the machinery there.

  ‘We need danger bonuses,’ one contractor told him. ‘You’ll have to pay us four times our normal rate because of the altitude, the cold and the fact that we won’t be able to show our faces around town for a while or some of those Maori blokes will punch our lights out.’

  Sam agreed without much negotiation. He needed them and felt confident that with public fears about safety running at an all-time high, the department wouldn’t be quibbling about an extra few thousand dollars.

  ‘You sure this is going to work?’ Luke asks as he lowers the chopper.

  ‘Absolutely. It’s going to take a bit longer with the small dozers but I’d stake my reputation on the fact that if we can dig a trench behind the dam wall so we can drain the water out, we’ll all be much better off.’

  ‘Yeah, well you’re right about one thing—it’s your reputation.’ Luke glances at him wryly. ‘Hope you’ve made the right call, Sam. Certainly not what the boss, I mean, not what Theo wanted.’

  ‘Theo was too long in the job and he lost the plot. He was sucked in by the Maoris and didn’t think he had any control over the volcano.’

  ‘Well, he was right about that! Poor bastard. I’m going to drop you off just near that ridge. I’ll be back in three hours to pick you up.’