‘Sure, $250,’ Anahera says. It seems neither of them feels the need to check with Cynthia that everyone’s had sufficient fun for the day. So Anahera goes to the front of the boat, under the washing-line, to read a book, and Cynthia sits down to watch a bit of The Real Housewives of Auckland on her phone, at the back, by the motor and the steering wheel. Nothing much is happening on Real Housewives, but most weeks nothing happens, and Cynthia enjoys watching it out of patriotic love.
After twenty boring minutes, she pauses on a shot of Angela smiling. Angela’s smile always looks the same, all she does is turn her face at different angles. Cynthia peers deep in. It’s not plastic surgery, she doesn’t think, it’s a more profound sort of tautness. The way Angela’s features are set makes her think hard. There’s something not quite right, some emptiness in everything. She puts her phone down, and gets up to walk around the side of the boat, to where Anahera’s reading.
Anahera’s lying on her front, with one hand supporting her chin and the other holding her book. She shuffles over to make room for Cynthia, but doesn’t look up. Cynthia stands, looking down at the neck of her shirt and some escaped hair touching it.
‘You could have told me,’ she says. ‘I would have understood.’
‘What?’
‘He’s your husband.’
Anahera’s mouth drops and her eyes widen, so Cynthia regrets saying anything. ‘Cynthia, you saw my husband. At my house.’
Cynthia stands dumb, and shakes her head. ‘Oh,’ she says.
Anahera winces and pats her shoulder, firmly at first, then more gently. This Gordon character has thrown their relationship back at least a month.
No one remembers or bothers to put the anchor down, and they drift. When Anahera and Cynthia decide to sleep they do so separately, and not till late. Gordon moves peaceably from the bed.
33.
There’s a jolt in the night. Cynthia wakes and hears Anahera awake beside her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. She feels wonky. ‘Sorry,’ she says again. Another jolt, so she knows Anahera’s awake. ‘I shouldn’t have asked,’ she says.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Anahera tells her.
‘Sorry,’ Cynthia says again. She doesn’t sleep again till much later, and then she wakes twice more, feeling crooked and squashed, but each time she hardly slips out of sleep before she’s back in it. Then, later, in the almost-morning, Anahera’s rolled against her. Her face is low, breathing warm wet air on Cynthia’s chest, and one of her knees is bent up, pressing Cynthia’s thighs.
Cynthia’s pushed hard against the wall, and she doesn’t move. She tries to release air slowly through her nose, and to keep her ribs still under Anahera’s head. Anahera is warm, and very lax now. The silk leg of her pyjamas is scrunched up over her bent knee, so it rests bare against Cynthia’s thighs. She’s heavy. Cynthia squeezes her hands in fists and keeps them to herself. She’s not quite breathing properly, and her bones feel compressed. Still, this weight and warmth is beautiful. Anahera breathes gently, and her feet move.
The air lightens around them, and Cynthia can see the side of one of Anahera’s closed eyelids. Her lashes look like they’ve been drawn by a child, they’re so thick and curling. So black. Cynthia looks around, the feeling’s odd. Things are not at the angle they were when they went to bed. Everything is above them.
Gordon appears, and clears his throat. He says, ‘Yes, we are run aground.’ Then he pauses, and peers curiously down at her, lying as she is nearly underneath Anahera’s sleeping body. ‘Gosh,’ he says. ‘Are you happy?’
Cynthia doesn’t answer, but notices one of her hands has moved, and is moving up and down along Anahera’s neck. She stops. ‘What?’ she says, quietly.
‘Yes, we are run aground,’ he says again, louder. Anahera shifts and makes a gentle waking noise, rubbing her ear against Cynthia’s chest.
He says it again. Cynthia glares at him.
‘Well?’ He looks back at her, astonished.
‘What?’ Anahera says, awake now.
‘We are run aground,’ he says.
Anahera gets up quickly, and stands beside Gordon, looking around. She shifts her feet. She’s standing beside a plastic cup, in a small pool of bubbled Sprite. Cynthia sits up too. The boat shifts, and there’s a crunching noise from beneath them. It’s tilted. It’s leaning sideways, so everything’s up higher than her and the bed. Anahera’s already moving for a sweater.
‘We just get out, and we push it back in,’ she says.
‘Are you sure?’ Cynthia asks. But Anahera and Gordon are already moving outside to look around. Through the window above the kitchen she can’t see anything, just half-dark sky. A few stars. Their voices are outside, moving around the edge of the boat, behind her head. The window frame shifts a little, and Cynthia thinks their moving is pushing them deeper into the sand. Then, their voices are further away. They must have jumped off, onto the beach. Gordon says, ‘Okay.’
She recognises the odd, weird feeling then. Static. The boat is so still. But why don’t they sleep, and then shift it? Clearly they’re not listening to her. She stands and wipes her eyes, then walks around the edge of the boat to sit and look down at them. They’re just standing there for now, gawking this way and that. It’s lighter. Cynthia looks up at the vanishing stars and understands—Anahera’s afraid that they’ll meet people, and have to speak to them. She’s frightened of the police, and of their own foreignness to this place. It’s a small town, and they’ll immediately be registered as strangers, and so suspect. They’re caught at the beach where Gordon parked the dinghy before they went to the supermarket. She can see some public bathrooms and a road with no cars on it. ‘So you’ll just push it, then?’ she asks, sitting on the deck.
Anahera’s standing with her hands on her hips, and she doesn’t answer. Cynthia wants to tell her not to worry. There’s no one around, they have hours. What they should do is think.
‘Okay,’ Anahera says, and she and Gordon both push.
‘Alright,’ Cynthia tells them, although it still seems like a nonsense idea. They should be calling in a person, a professional.
‘Push harder,’ Anahera tells Gordon.
He stops, shrugs, and pushes again, but his face doesn’t change.
Cynthia pulls her knees up, near her chin, and holds her ankles. She notices her guts, caught inside her arms and between her legs like a huge fruit, whole, in a small jar. It makes her feel sick, all of that new fat. Sick, and hungry.
She bites her knee. If Gordon wasn’t there she could tell Anahera how she feels and how sorry she is and Anahera would make her feel better. But no, there he is.
‘Push,’ he says to Anahera. She doesn’t. She’s stopped, and she’s looking past Cynthia, squinting at the sea. She waves. Cynthia turns, and there’s a yellow boat anchored near them, with a guy standing on the deck. He waves back, then disappears around the side of his boat.
‘Well,’ Gordon says to Cynthia. ‘Do you know what this is? It is reality! We are out of your little-cellphone-little-TV, we are really stuck!’
‘Excuse me?’ Cynthia says. He very clearly knows exactly nothing.
‘Well, that stuff’s all, what is it? Devised.’
She stares at him, and he shrugs as if he hasn’t said a thing at all.
‘So?’ Cynthia says, and feels her lips puckering.
Anahera’s not paying attention, she’s still looking at the other boat. Cynthia turns and the guy’s paddling over in an inflatable dinghy. Gordon just stands there, looking up at her. She wants to put her fingers in his mouth and wrench the skin off his face. ‘Do you think people aren’t told what to do in real life?’ she asks him.
He shrugs again, and looks behind her. She can hear the guy’s paddling. Cynthia officially doesn’t like Gordon now; he’s not a person she can speak to. She gets up and goes inside for some breakfast. When she’s got Nutella on her bread she realises she can’t go out and eat it in front of them, not politely without offering them s
ome. So she eats fast, wipes her mouth, and re-emerges to see what’s going on.
He’s so stupid and dumb. When she arrives back on the deck, under the washing-line, it feels like they’re deeper in the sand. ‘What did you do?’ Gordon asks her. She ignores him. The guy’s parked his dinghy, and he’s standing with his hands on his hips beside Anahera, who maintains the same position. He’s got on an orange singlet, and some little black elasticated shorts. Gordon’s leaning on the boat, stretching one of his arms out after all the pushing.
‘Gordon, I know you plan everything you say,’ Cynthia tells him.
‘I mean,’ Gordon says, scratching his nose, ‘we could just do more pushing.’
‘Cynthia, why don’t you come down and help?’ Anahera asks her.
Cynthia starts. ‘I hardly think—’
‘I’ll tow you.’ The guy interrupts her, then touches Anahera’s shoulder.
‘Well, thank you,’ Anahera says, and turns to him.
Cynthia goes inside again, to pull up her shirt and look at her stomach. She grabs what of it fits in her two hands and squeezes tight. It hurts, insisting on being part of her, and she squeezes harder, more hatefully. Her legs are bent up and she shakes them, they wobble under her knees. She pokes her stomach hard, trying to make a specific organ feel it, but it’s all of her that’s the problem. All of her is flab now. Suddenly, it’s like she doesn’t have organs at all, she’s nothing but this new hurting excess. Only her breasts have stayed the same size. She tries to comfort herself with them but can only think of udders and cows. They used to feel better in her hands, warmer, maybe, and now they’re just two flesh-sacs. The boat moves, Anahera and Gordon are clambering back on it. She tucks herself away, and it stills again.
They talk outside, on the deck, then they’re talking to the guy again. He’s handed them a rope. He must be in a dinghy. He says alright then, and they say alright then back.
A long moment while he paddles, then Cynthia hears his boat, and Gordon shouting something at him. He shouts back, and the boat moves in a shudder. There’s a horrible scraping noise, and Cynthia worries about the bottom of her boat. Then, a gentle feeling. The back of the boat is on the water, floating, and the dragging feels softer. Through the window, Cynthia sees that a lady’s stopped on the footpath to look at them. She glares back and hunches down. The tide must go out then, because it feels like they’re flat again, and even sinking into the wet sand. She goes to stand on the back deck, by the steering wheel. Gordon and Anahera are there, staring forward, along a long, thick blue rope, attaching them to the guy’s yellow boat.
The tide’s left them. It’s on its way back in, but they need to be out and away, in reliable water as quickly as possible. ‘Pull,’ she shouts at the guy. Anahera looks at her briefly, and Cynthia wonders what face she turns back to him with.
He makes a gesture to say he’s waiting for the tide.
‘Pull!’ she yells again.
He shakes his head, they’re waiting. The water’s around them again, but not under them, as it was. They’ve sunk in.
‘Pull!’ she yells a last time. He does. The rope makes a strained, gratified noise, and she nods. Again, the boat lifts. It’s floating. ‘Faster!’ she yells, she doesn’t want another tide to get them. He maintains the same speed, and gives her a nice, placating wave. Cynthia grimaces back, it’s important to get along with at least some people. Gordon’s got his hands on the steering wheel.
It’s okay, they’re in the water and they move smoothly.
‘Come for a coffee!’ Cynthia yells at the guy, and he makes a smile so big she can see it through the distance. With a nice, jolly look about him, he gets in his dinghy and paddles over. Cynthia stands in front of Anahera and Gordon, smiling and encouraging him. He arrives and he’s sweet, looking up at her. He’s got a round nose.
‘Do you want coffee?’ she asks him, and he nods.
He ties his dinghy up to the ladder, next to theirs, and she waits while he struggles onto the deck. She can feel Gordon waiting beside her, before he interrupts the quiet and says, ‘Thank you for helping us.’
Cynthia was going to say that when she’d sat him down inside. Anyway, it turns out he’s boring, so it hardly matters. Still, Anahera gets perky talking to him, and Cynthia nestles in beside her, with a head on her shoulder. Their hair mixes together, into a shared soft mess.
‘Sorry,’ she whispers.
‘It’s okay,’ Anahera whispers back, then shrugs her off.
‘Not for not helping with the boat,’ Cynthia murmurs, ‘for—’
Anahera interrupts her. ‘I know.’
‘Northland College boy, me,’ the guy’s saying.
Anahera laughs. ‘I went to Okaihau,’ she says. ‘We were afraid of you.’
They both chuckle away together, and Gordon looks back and forwards between them, smiling. Cynthia sits and waits for something she can laugh at too.
34.
The guy goes, and Anahera goes for a swim. Cynthia gets back in bed but can’t sleep. She gets up again and Gordon’s fishing. His arms are huge and veiny. He’s using ham, which is excessive, considering it’s his hobby and an unattractive, unproductive one at that. There’s porridge on the stove, but he doesn’t mention it. She eats it straight from the pot, cold, and sits watching him. He lumbers, he’s ugly and German. Anahera’s a woman of dignity—Cynthia can’t think how she imagined him to be the husband.
‘Holy fucking shit,’ he yells. She looks over, and his line’s bent. He grunts and bends down, letting it run, then he grunts again and pulls it back. He doesn’t seem to think she’s watching him. This is his natural state, she thinks, swallowing a spoonful. How revolting. He’s leaning back and pressing his crotch forward, against the edge of the boat. He groans now, like he’s gargling a throat full of liquid. All his muscles are tensed, right down to his calves, and his bare toes press so hard into the floor the blood runs out and they look yellow. She shifts her porridge around and looks at it. His groan becomes a moan of release, and the fish slaps wet against the side of the boat. It’s not humane, she thinks. He holds the line in his hands and pulls it up; the fish, in a twirling panic, gasps and wets everything.
‘That is so not okay,’ Cynthia says loudly.
‘They don’t have minds!’ he shouts, excited. The fish swings and hits him in the leg. ‘Get a towel and wrap it up!’
‘We are not using one of my towels for that,’ Cynthia informs him.
‘Ah,’ he says, with the fish still swinging. ‘Hold this,’ and he tries to give it to her. ‘I will use my shirt.’
Cynthia won’t take it. The fishing line looks sharp, the way it’s digging into his hand. ‘I’d prefer not to be involved,’ she says.
‘Well how can I take off my shirt?’ he asks.
‘Why would you want to?’
The fish is hanging from its lip, with two more hooks banging against its face. Blood drips from its puncture onto the floor of the boat.
‘I will wrap it in my shirt,’ he says.
‘I’m not helping,’ Cynthia tells him. ‘I think you should put it back. That is my political opinion.’
He blinks, as if that doesn’t make sense. The fish hits his leg again, leaving a red, watery mark on the side of his knee. Its lip breaks, finally, and it lands with a splat on his foot. He kicks it aside, laughing, and removes his shirt. Cynthia gasps, sickened. His chest is fatty and muscular at once, nearly bald, but with a few long hairs. She should leave, her presence is encouraging him in this behaviour, but she can’t. The fish’s eyes bulge.
‘It is only like a plant,’ he tells her, bending down to pick it up with his shirt. ‘Read the science.’ It writhes in his hands, but Gordon holds the fish tight, stands, and pulls it to his chest.
‘You can’t gut that on here,’ she tells him.
‘Anahera will gut it,’ he says, with his simple confidence. He hugs the fish, and reddish water shows through the shirt.
Cynthia goes to sit in
the cabin.
After a while she comes back out. She doesn’t say anything to him, just sits watching the nearly dead fish make its last, sudden flaps on the floor. They’re all three of them waiting for Anahera.
Gordon sees her first, and he stands and holds the fish for her to see. It’s only now that Cynthia notes the size. It’s at least forty centimetres. Its eyes still bulge, and its stomach’s palpitating. Gordon shifts it up, down and sideways, as if it’s tugged by waves. Anahera giggles and swims faster.
Cynthia takes her phone to sit at the front of the boat; she won’t be there while they gut it. The washing-line’s hard and thin to sit against, and the window’s at a weird angle—she can’t get comfortable leaning on either of them. She wants to go home.
The smell’s as repulsive as she knew it would be. She imagines bones, and more and more of its blood. All their knives are blunt, Anahera’s always saying so. How thick is a fish’s skin? Or, maybe it doesn’t have skin, maybe beneath its scales there’s only a thin, papery film, like under the shell of an egg. She remembers Anahera’s calm hands, and her long fingers. Where will she put the blade first? It might still be moving now, and it might still be moving when she kills it. She might have already killed it, and still it might be moving. Maybe Cynthia will become a vegetarian. She thinks about Anahera’s nails and the webs between her fingers, sticky and wet with blood. If Anahera were to hold Gordon—if she put her fingers at the nape of his neck, or the top of his pants—there’s a sheen all over him, and if Anahera were to touch it? Cynthia mustn’t think of it.
She peers down through the window. Gordon’s on the bed, under the covers, laughing and making jokes. Cynthia can’t hear them, but there’s a hum of Anahera’s laughter under his. Her face isn’t visible, but she’s cut down the belly-middle of the fish, and Cynthia can see her fingers inside it. It’s pink. Neither of them looks back at her. He’s oiled with something, false somehow; evil, even. For a horrible moment Cynthia thinks: Gordon is what they deserve, after the boy. But they weren’t anywhere near him, he was too high to hear anything Cynthia yelled.
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