One Winter Morning

by Isabelle Broom

  ‘Is everything OK?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Kit looks up. ‘I think so. I mean, I hope so.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Kit grimaces.

  ‘Yeah.’

  For a moment he appears to deliberate, then in one fluid movement, he is up on his feet and strolling slowly away, his phone now pressed to his ear. I gaze at his back view as he talks into the handset, noticing how the material of his shirt strains across his shoulders, and how tanned his bare calves are below the baggy shorts. Perhaps because I have grown up with him, or maybe because of his slim build and lack of stubble, I always think of Billy as a boy. Kit, in contrast, is very much a man, and way more of an unknown entity. And while he is most definitely – and undeniably – attractive, I’m also slightly in awe of his size and obvious power. It is borderline intimidating – or would be, if he wasn’t such a softie.

  A steam boat with a large Christmas tree on its upper deck is chugging into shore beyond where Kit is still standing, and I can see couples lined up by the harbour wall waiting to board. How nice it would be to have dinner out on the lake. Even before my ‘date’ with Billy a few weeks ago, I hadn’t been wined and dined by anyone for years. Any boyfriends I have had are men I happened to meet on nights out with Hayley – drunken snogs that became short-lived flings. In my experience, most men don’t appreciate coming way below a horse on their girlfriend’s priority list – but that is always where they have ended up. Well, it was until the accident. Since Anna died, I have barely even thought about my love life, let alone actively gone out and sought one. Why I thought Billy was the solution to my sexual stalemate, I really don’t know.

  Still lost in thought, I start as Kit flops back down beside me.

  ‘That was Allie,’ he explains, looking forlornly at his bottle of almost-full beer on the grass. I go to ask him what she said, then think better of it, settling on an encouraging smile instead. If he wants to open up to me, then he can, but I’m not going to force the issue.

  ‘She wants us to leave,’ he says gloomily.

  ‘Leave?’ I reply. ‘Leave where?’

  ‘Here.’ He sweeps a big arm around. ‘Queenstown.’

  ‘She just told you that on the phone?’

  For a moment he looks confused.

  ‘Eh? Nah. She just said we needed to talk, and I know what that means. She’s been trying to bring it up with me for weeks and I keep making excuses.’

  ‘Where does she want you to go?’ I ask, aware that the thought of a Koru Stables with no Kit is a very sad one.

  ‘Wellington,’ he says simply, spitting out the word with disdain. ‘The big city.’

  ‘And you’re not keen?’ I prompt, filling in the blanks.

  Kit shakes his head.

  ‘Thing is,’ he admits, looking sheepish, ‘I promised her that if she stayed here for another year, then I would try living in Welly for a year.’

  ‘And how long ago was that?’

  Kit clenches his teeth together. ‘Two and a bit years.’

  ‘I see …’

  Poor Allie, I think, watching as Kit runs an agitated hand through his hair. But then, what about Tui? How would she cope if Kit were to move away? He is clearly one of the closest people to her – she adores him.

  ‘I thought I’d be ready to go by then, you know?’ Kit laments. ‘I would never have said it if I didn’t believe that. The thing is, the longer I work at Koru, the more I realise how much I like it. I’m happy where I am, and Allie’s happy, too, really – she just tells herself she isn’t.’

  ‘Do you really think that?’ I ask. ‘Or are you just saying it to make yourself feel better?’

  His eyes are wide now with bemusement at being challenged, but I don’t back down.

  ‘Because,’ I continue firmly, ‘it would be easier for you if Allie agreed to stay, wouldn’t it?’

  Kit agrees rather reluctantly that it would.

  ‘And she knows that, which is why she’s let you get away with claiming another eighteen months.’

  ‘I told you.’ Kit is now picking the label off his bottle. ‘She’s a good person.’

  ‘I would say that you’re both good people,’ I point out, but Kit shakes his head.

  ‘A good man would quit whingeing like an old coot and do whatever it takes to make his girlfriend happy.’

  ‘But if that doesn’t make you happy …’ I let the sentence hang unfinished in the air, and Kit looks at me, his mouth set in a grim line.

  ‘Right,’ he mutters. ‘Now you see my problem.’

  ‘You know what my mum always used to tell me?’ I say, and find myself smiling at the memory. ‘That it’s important to make others happy, but in order to do that, you must start with yourself.’

  Kit doesn’t miss a beat.

  ‘Used to tell you?’ he says softly, and I feel myself wince.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your mum is the one you lost?’

  Kit scoots across the grass as I drop my chin, and puts one of his vast arms around me.

  ‘Ah, come here, you,’ he says, pulling me against him for a moment.

  ‘I’m fine.’ I shake my head, surprised to find that for once, the tears have not automatically appeared. I can hear the opening bars of ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham! playing in the nearest bar, and wonder if my own heart will ever mend enough for me to give it to someone special.

  ‘How long?’ Kit murmurs.

  ‘Almost a year.’ It comes out as a croak.

  ‘Bloody hell.’ He squeezes me a bit harder. ‘You poor little mite.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say, even though we both know that it’s anything but. He is so close to me now that I’m practically resting my head on his shoulder, but as soon as I become aware of the warmth of him, I feel his phone vibrate in his pocket.

  ‘Ah,’ he says, extracting it with some difficulty. ‘Bon. Oh, good stuff – she says it’s grand to have a barbie at the yard.’

  ‘Hooray,’ I declare, but my delivery is weaker than a daddy-long-legs faced with a hairdryer.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ Kit says. ‘About your mum. That fucking sucks, if you’ll excuse my language.’

  ‘I do,’ I assure him, and with a sudden eruption of laughter, I realise that he’s right, too – it does absolutely fucking suck.

  ‘FUCK DEATH!’ I shout, causing several people to glance around in alarm. Kit, however, looks thrilled.

  ‘Yeah!’ he cries, getting to his feet and pulling me up to join him. ‘Death, mate, you are a right shithouse – now why don’t you swivel on THIS?’

  I splutter with amusement as he holds up an index finger.

  ‘I am literally laughing in the face of you, Death!’ I bellow, letting out a scream as Kit grabs both my hands and starts to spin me around. The bars, restaurants and lake all merge into a blur of colour as we whirl, and while I am dimly aware that I must look totally bananas, for the first time in a while, I don’t care. I feel like myself, like the old Genie, the one who thought nothing of dancing as if nobody was watching, and of laughing until she could hardly breathe.

  ‘Stop!’ I protest, falling into an exhausted, giggling heap on the grass.

  Kit joins me, reaching for his beer only to find that he’s drunk it all.

  ‘Balls,’ he declares, but shakes his head when I offer him a sip of mine.

  ‘I shouldn’t – I have to drive back to Koru.’

  Panting slightly, overcome with a sudden, crushing embarrassment, I find that I have no idea what to say to him. The resulting silence drags on for an uncomfortably long time and, just like that, the moment Kit and I shared slips away out of reach.

  25

  The day has arrived.

  Anna has been dead for a whole year. Twelve long months, 365 arduous days, and too many agonising hours, minutes and seconds to fathom. One winter morning she was there, alive and glowy-cheeked in my bedroom doorway, then, just a few hours later, she was gone.

  It is still the previous day in England, bu
t I call David anyway.

  ‘Darling.’ He answers on the second ring.

  I open my mouth to reply, but all that comes out is a strangled sort of gasp.

  ‘Oh, Genie.’

  I can’t stand his sympathy. It makes me feel worse. It makes my horrible snarling guilt intensify. I wish he would shout at me – somebody needs to shout at me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, but he cuts across me before I can continue, always so ready to reassure and comfort. What he doesn’t understand is that I don’t deserve either of those things.

  I’m not sure exactly when I decided that I must tell David the truth – whether I came to it gradually, or I blinked and the notion was there – but once I knew that I was going to do it, I became almost impatient, as if it wasn’t the most terrifying thing imaginable. No, strike that, the most terrifying thing imaginable had already happened – and then some. All I know is that I have to tell someone. I can’t keep holding on to it while it erodes me from the inside out.

  Guessing that talking about Anna is only making me feel worse, David cautiously changes the subject. He is now telling me a story about some party he went to at his publishers’ in London. His editor gifted him a specially made Evangeline ornament sculpted from glass. Sales of his latest book, Evangeline And … The First Father Christmas, have surpassed all others in his genre, and there is talk of an animated TV series. My adoptive dad is very much the golden boy of the moment.

  ‘That’s great,’ I say, staring hard at a scuff mark on the wall of my little apartment. It is still early, but the sunlight is already splashing through the open curtains in great golden waves.

  ‘David,’ I say, but he isn’t listening.

  ‘Did I tell you who they’ve got to do the audiobook, darling? Only the girl from that period drama we used to watch on Sunday nights – you know the one. Anna fancied the lead actor something rotten, that Irish fellow with the preposterous hair. What was the name of it again? Anyway, it doesn’t matter, but she is very popular, apparently – won a Bafta last year, or so they told me, and then—’

  ‘David!’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I need to tell you something.’

  ‘What’s happened – are you hurt? Did someone hurt you?’

  ‘No,’ I say patiently, then almost add, It’s me who did the hurting.

  I went through some more of Anna’s memory book before I rang him. I have been doing so every morning and night for the past few days, and each time I open it, I am edging closer to her final entry, her final memory. Will telling David the truth now help me to face it?

  I have discovered that Anna almost always wrote about me. Sometimes it’s just the briefest of mentions, things such as ‘Genie let me plait her hair today. It reminds me so much of when she was a child’, while other entries are full transcripts of a conversation we may have had, with her thoughts pencilled in carefully underneath. Anna was not the type of woman to agree with something just for the sake of it, but she was not argumentative either – not for the most part. That was the thing about Annabel Nash – you had to really push her to make her angry.

  David has fallen silent now; for once he is waiting for me to speak. I close my eyes for a moment to steel myself, and am surprised to see an image of Kit, of his wide, kind face and sleepy-edged eyes. What would he say if he could see me here, on the verge of confessing it all? Would he urge me to get it over with, or warn me to keep it to myself? I already know the answer, and just that simple fact alone gives me the final bit of courage I need.

  Despite the abundant decorations in Queenstown and the familiar music belching out from the taxi radio as it hurtles along the highway towards Glenorchy, I have yet to feel festive. Christmas with sunshine just doesn’t feel right. I’m wearing a summer dress, for heaven’s sake – with no tights, and no slippers – this is all wrong.

  Forty minutes later, however, when I push my way through the treeline at the bottom of the stony pathway and head towards Koru Stables, it looks as if Santa himself has set up his grotto right in the middle of the yard. There are colourful paper chains pinned up above each stall and swathes of fake snow covering the outer walls and windows. Baubles hang from the bolts of the open half-doors, and I exclaim with delight when Keith sticks his whiskery chestnut nose over the top of one to reveal a jaunty Christmas hat, which some enterprising staff member has attached to his headcollar.

  I can smell but not see the barbecue; a faint plume of smoke is drifting up from one of the paddocks behind the indoor school. The radio in the office has been cranked right up, and as I make my way over, I spot an enormous Christmas tree inside, its branches covered in a tangle of fairy lights. It has just gone four p.m., and the earlier fug of the afternoon has been tempered by the gentlest breeze. As I always do when I venture out here to the Dart Valley, I take a minute to admire the view of the mountains and the vast, endless blue of the sky.

  The skin on my face feels sore from my earlier tears, but I also feel cleansed, as if the weight that has been sitting so heavily and for so long on my chest has lessened somewhat.

  David was silent at first, for once allowing himself the time he needed to absorb what I was telling him rather than rushing to reassure. I had feared disappointment – perhaps even anger – but in the end, my adoptive father was pragmatic. His measured response to my tearful confession had been almost a let-down, because in my mind, at least, my crime deserved a far greater punishment. That’s the thing about David, though – he is kindness and forgiveness personified. If only he really was my father, then perhaps I would have inherited those same admirable traits.

  As for Anna, she is still very much in the forefront of my mind, but keeping her there is not as painful as I suspected that it would be today. Of all the days, this should be the very worst, but as I am beginning to learn, if that pain is not already there, I don’t always have to go rooting through myself to find it.

  I’m just wondering whether or not to drop off my bag of presents in the office, when Tui and Allie emerge from the same direction as the barbecue and, seeing me, wave and head across. Tui is wearing a bright red dress festooned with yards of tinsel – there’s even a piece threaded around her messy ponytail. When I tell her that she looks like a Christmas fairy, she beams with pride, and puts up a hand to self-consciously pat at her updo. Allie, who is looking extremely chic in a skin-tight black dress and flat silver sandals, blushes at the compliment. It turns out that she is responsible for Tui’s hair, while my sister is the mastermind behind the additional tinsel.

  ‘Where’s Beavis?’ I ask Tui, and she replies with a roar of laughter.

  ‘Tell her! Tell her!’ she cackles, and Allie raises an amused eyebrow.

  ‘Beavis is sitting in a puddle of his own drool by Kit’s feet,’ she explains. ‘There are bangers on the barbie, and there is no way that little dude is leaving until he gets one.’

  ‘Sensible,’ I concur, then, holding up a clanking carrier bag, ‘Where shall I put the booze?’

  ‘Straight into my brother, probably,’ Allie says dryly.

  I follow the two of them around the side of the indoor school and find Kit and Griff – both clad in comedy reindeer antlers and snowman aprons – cooking the meat, each with a bottle of beer in their free hand. A table bearing bowls of various salads, sliced buns and condiments has been set up alongside the paddock fence, while another table the same size is groaning under the weight of bottles, cans and a huge ice box. Several groups of people are milling around – some I recognise as staff from the stables, but there are quite a few that I have never seen before, who I presume are Kit and Allie’s friends. Everyone seems to have a drink in their hand, and nobody seems to care that there is a relative stranger in their midst.

  I had worried that I might be left stranded on my own today, but of course, that was never going to happen with Tui around. Before I’ve had time to help myself to a drink or say more than a quick ‘hi’ to Kit and Griff, my half-sister is dragging me across
to a makeshift seating area built from bales of straw.

  ‘Daaaaad,’ croons Tui, coming to an untidy halt at the elbow of a dark-haired and dark-skinned man. So, this is Bonnie’s ex – the man she chose to have and keep a child with. Is this my birth mother’s type? And if so, should I expect my own father to look or have looked similar? Or perhaps not, given the fact that he – whoever he is – was presumably found to be lacking. It could be that my real father doesn’t even know that I exist, and I’m not sure whether to be comforted by that notion, or disturbed by it.

  When Tui’s dad turns to face me, an expression of adoration already in place for his daughter, the likeness to my half-sister is apparent immediately, and I find myself warming to him straight away.

  Simon, as he quickly introduces himself, has allegedly heard a lot about me over the past couple of weeks.

  ‘Really?’ I’m touched. ‘All good, I hope?’

  ‘Very much so,’ he says, before confiding in a half-whisper, ‘I think Tui is a bit besotted, to be honest.’

  ‘Hey!’ Tui is indignant. ‘Jeez, Dad.’

  Simon pokes her playfully in the ribs until she squawks. Then, noticing that I don’t have a drink, he suggests to Tui that she fetch me one, ignoring my assurances that I’m fine.

  ‘This is your first Kiwi Christmas barbie, right?’ he checks, and I confirm that it is.

  ‘In that case, drinking is a requisite must, I’m afraid. Grab her a beer, Tu – the same as mine, yeah. Sorry, Genie – is beer OK?’

  ‘Perfect.’ I beam at her. The prospect of a cold beer genuinely is thrilling.

  We both watch with affection as Tui gallops off trailing tinsel, then Simon turns his attention to me. He is older than I originally thought – or perhaps his weathered complexion is more to do with New Zealand’s UV rays than the toll of time passing. Tui has inherited his wiry hair, smudgy-hazel eyes and rounded nose, but the rest of her must be pure Bonnie. That determined, heel-shaped chin is something we both share, and seeing it on Tui has made me like my own more. I have to accept that if I like all of Tui’s features – which I do, very much – then it only stands to reason that I allow my own the same courtesy.