Conditions are perfect as they push out towards Flores Island. Greta relaxes and stares over the side of her kayak into the glassy green ocean. Aware of Henry’s splashes ahead of her, she moves forward intuitively, watching the ocean life twirling beneath her as she does so. A tiny red crab spins into the dark depths and she watches until its red light goes out. When she looks up again she’s surprised to find that the clouds have thickened in the sky and the sun is sliding behind them. Henry is a long way ahead. She quickens her pace. As she moves forward, focusing on the form of her husband in his kayak, she can see a dark band of fog hurtling towards her to her left, blotting everything in its path.
‘Henry!’ she calls.
He twists around and looks shocked to see her so far behind. Then he sees the fog.
‘Take out your compass,’ he yells. ‘Go north-easterly. I’ll keep in that direction, but very slowly. Don’t worry.’
He’s blanked out. The fog has come between them and she can see nothing but swirling white vapour. Her heart pounds as she pulls out her compass and examines it. Now the wilderness is no longer beautiful but dangerous. She’s heard of kayakers lost in fog, never seen again.
‘Henry!’ Her voice echoes across the white sky.
‘I’m here.’ She can hear him calling back, but it’s impossible to know where his voice is coming from. She knows well the tricks fog can play with sound.
She looks at her compass and focuses, beginning to paddle confidently in the direction Henry has told her to.
In the fog time passes slowly. These moments feel eternal. Greta keeps on moving, because to pause could put her at risk of drifting further out to sea.
‘Henry! Henry!’ she calls, but her voice is muffled and she can hear no one calling back. She feels chilled to her bones and begins to shake. Just keep paddling, she chants, just keep paddling.
And now, all sorts of ghostly apparitions assail her out of the fog. A tiny little islet is illuminated, a drop of green and blue, in the vast expanse of white. Then, just as suddenly, it has vanished. There seems to be some kind of glow breaking through the fog. She hopes it’s Henry and a torch, but as she squints at it, the glow turns into a golden ball that drops into the ocean and spins out of sight.
She cries and gulps with fear. The fog has left her completely exposed. She can deny it no longer, put off her reckoning no more. Tears leave trails on her cheeks and drop onto her hands. Memories which she had managed to suppress that morning resonate through her. She can see figures floating above the waterline and pulling at her – her mother and father, Christina, Angeline, Tomás and Bill, and then the click, lock, click of the lock-in ward and the whiz, whir, whiz, whir of the cotton reel song.
She looks down at the compass she’s gripping with white fists and wipes condensation off its surface. She’s on course. And now, as she passes through the water, she can see the tentacles of fog, contracting as fast as they arrived, and in an instant, above a grey broad band, she can see the island.
On the shore is Henry, waving to her.
CHRISTINA
All the shapes of the islands look like a stationary herd, arrested in the slipstreams. A family. And the driftwood floating looks so odd to her. She imagines these logs of redundant timber, bleached and bony, piling up, divergent diagonals hemming the boat in until they stop moving.
And what is left?
The white. Blue sea bleached into off-white sky, not creamed but icy shades. And she’s sitting on the white, hard metal lifejacket chests. There are white rails there for your safety, but to her they look like grills, too much like a prison.
She surveys this scene. It seems untouchable. When she lived at home, at The Mill, she used to love walking through the fields. Her daddy owned close to forty acres. Once you left civilisation – the house, the river and the garden – you could roam from field to field. And when she looked about her there, what she could see all seemed tactile. The hills rolled up and down in front of her eyes, partitioned into tiny fields, marked by the odd wobbly tree. It was like a soft blanket of green rolled out on top of a sleeping giant. She had always felt she could reach out and touch it because it was so much a part of her.
Here, in this western land, she has no sense of ownership. The sea, the sky, all these rocky islands command her respect. The ocean looks brittle, like a sheet of blue glass, and the ferry cuts through it, taking her closer to her mother, further from all she’s ever known.
A bird casts a long shadow on the deck, but when she looks up she can’t see what it is, the sun is in her eyes. She draws Cian closer to her, puts her arm around his shoulders. She thinks about Angeline, and how safe she always made her feel when she was little. It has taken her this many years to begin to wonder about her stepmother. Her childhood is a puzzle. Where exactly did Angeline fit in? Christina found it hard to distinguish between the time when she was just the housekeeper and when she actually moved into her father’s bedroom. It had all seemed so natural at the time, seamless. Christina had been grateful for her Angeline. She never wanted her to go.
Did she even wish for her mother to come back? She must have. Her mother had been the biggest part of her life for six years. She had just forgotten to recognise it.
GRETA
The fire flickers and Greta watches the glowing embers. She feels calmer now. Henry had told her that she had only been lost in the fog for a matter of minutes, but to her it had felt so much longer and the experience has now put images inside her head that she can’t shake.
When she had first landed she had lain on the beach trying to rest while Henry had gone back out to catch a fish for their supper. She had been afraid to close her eyes, and instead she had gone for a walk on the beach, following the lone tracks of a wolf. This had helped her to still her mind, and now she feels a quiet resolve.
They have just finished feasting on the wild salmon Henry caught and a handful of succulent gooseneck barnacles Greta collected on her walk. Henry is lighting his small pipe. He passes it to her, but she shakes her head.
‘I don’t think I will, honey, not tonight.’
He looks mildly surprised. ‘Okay,’ he says, puffing away. ‘Are you feeling better now?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ she says, taking a sip of her orange tea. ‘When I was in the fog I kept seeing the faces of people from the past.’
Henry’s eyes look curious. ‘Like who?’
‘Bill…’ she pauses, ‘and my parents. And Tomás, my first husband.’
‘Why did you leave him, Greta?’
‘It’s a very long story,’ she sighs.
‘It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me,’ he says, tapping the dead ash out of his pipe.
‘No, I want to. I think it’s about time I did.’ She continues, ‘Tomás and I were very young when we married. Looking back, I think I was lonely because my parents were dead, and my sister, Maureen, was away in America and I was stuck with this dotty old aunt called Shirley.’ She laughs softly. ‘Oh, she was awful, Henry. I couldn’t wait to get away from her, so when I began courting Tomás, I had one objective – to get married as soon as possible.’
She pauses, takes another sip of tea and stares at the small, neat flames of their fire. ‘We lived in the middle of nowhere, in an old house that belonged to his family. It used to be a mill, and the wheel still went around. We lived on the water. Tomás was a farmer. We had a lot of land. It was hard work.’
Henry refills his pipe and lights up again. ‘So what happened to you and Tomás?’ he asks hesitantly.
‘I never stopped loving him,’ Greta says wistfully, remembering the churning river, the roll of the land around her old home and Tomás, standing in front of it as if posing for a photograph, his damp curly hair, tall heavy frame and a dog at his feet. She sighs. ‘But things happened…and I could never go back.’
‘What things?’
‘I’m afraid to tell you,’ Greta’s voice cracks. ‘But I feel like I can’t carry the weight of it any more.’
>
‘If you need to tell someone, then tell me,’ Henry says. ‘I’m your husband.’
Greta takes a deep breath. ‘I suppose the beginning of the end was when Angeline came to work for us. Although at the time I thought it was great because I couldn’t cook, and she was fantastic. She was an old school friend. I trusted her, but she betrayed me. She stole Tomás.’
Henry comes over to her side of the fire and wraps a blanket around both their shoulders so that they sit huddled together.
‘Your husband betrayed you as well, Greta. He couldn’t have been completely innocent.’
‘And there’s something else.’ Greta speaks fast, afraid that if she slows down she’ll never be able to tell Henry. ‘I was pregnant and I lost the baby, and then I lost my mind. They locked me up, Henry. I was put inside a mental hospital for months.’
Henry looks horrified. ‘Oh my God, could they do that to you? Against your will?’
‘Yes. Tomás did that to me, Henry, and worse, he never came and got me. They put me there and left me to rot.’ The tears are rolling down her cheeks and Henry holds her.
‘Why did you bottle this up for so long, Greta? Why have you never told me?’
She shakes her head and is unable to speak, her mouth full of sorrow. Henry wipes her cheeks and kisses her forehead gently.
‘My poor, sweet Greta. I’m so sorry.’
‘My baby was called Matthew…after my father,’ she whispers.
They sit in silence for a while by the fire. Tiny sparks shoot up into the starless sky. They sit on the white sand, the noise of the surf at their feet, with the dark green forest behind them. She sits between two worlds, between exposure and concealment, between silence and sound.
‘But if your husband never came to get you,’ Henry says, slowly gathering his thoughts, ‘how did you get out of the hospital?’
‘I escaped.’
Henry smiles. ‘That’s my girl.’
‘I went back to The Mill to try to get Christina, but when I got there she was out, with Tomás. I came face to face with Angeline. I don’t know how she managed it, but she persuaded me to leave. She told me that if Tomás found me he would drive me straight back to St Finian’s. I couldn’t take that risk. She gave me some money and my passport and told me to go to America, to Maureen. She said that I would be safe there. So I went, Henry, I ran away. And that’s how I came to be here. And I still don’t know whether Angeline was trying to help me or not that day. I’ll never know whether she’s good or bad.’
She’s been talking for a long time. The fire is almost out and Greta shivers, getting up and pouring a large mug of water from the water bag.
Henry sits behind her. ‘Who’s Christina?’ he asks softly.
Greta’s heart lurches. Her voice is so sore it sounds like gravel. ‘My daughter. I had a six-year-old girl.’
‘And you left her?’
‘Yes, Henry, I ran away from my daughter as well.’ She can see the shock register in his eyes as he tries to compose his face.
‘But why did you never go back?’
‘At first I was too sick. It took me ages to get off the medication, to get back to who I was, and then too much time had passed and I was afraid that if I went back they would still say I was manic depressive and put me back in the hospital.’ She turns to look at her husband. She can see him struggling with all that she has told him.
‘I wrote to Christina every week, but she never wrote back. I wonder if she even got the letters.’
Henry takes her hands and grips them.
‘Do you think I’m terrible, Henry, for leaving her behind?’
‘You had no choice,’ he says tightly. ‘How can I judge you?’
She bends her head into his chest, feels his hand on her hair and smells him, his wood smell of smoke and man. She has always felt safe in his arms, even from the beginning. Maybe that’s why she never left Henry.
She feels him shift his weight. His hand moves to stroke her forehead. What does Henry really think? She knows he won’t tell her.
Greta loved Henry’s self-belief in what was right and what was wrong, and how he would stand up for these things no matter how difficult it could be. But more than anything, she loved him for giving her shelter, protecting her and never asking her for a single thing. He was her tree.
What she has told him will probably change the way he feels about her forever. But she had no choice. No matter how hard she tried, over all these years her past just wouldn’t go away. She had to tell him.
She closes her eyes and listens to the comforting swish of the waves. She feels like she’s being rocked gently in rhythm with the sea. She’s calling her daughter, praying that she’ll look for her one day, because she’ll never go back, even now.
LUKE
It’s late afternoon by the time they disembark from the ferry. Christina spent the whole time sitting outside on top of the lifejackets, Cian pressed in close to her, the two of them sharing a secret, silent dialogue.
Luke had found a phone on the boat and called Sam. Being with Cian made him miss his own son. He envied Christina and the freedom she had to be with her child all the time.
Sam sounded good. He told his dad that he had been fine the very next day after Luke had left.
‘Did you see any wolves, Dad?’
‘No, not this time.’
‘And Big Foot, any sign of him?’
‘Nope, I guess he was on vacation someplace else.’
‘Mom said she’s going to take me to California in a couple of weeks with Larry and his son, Gene.’
‘Who’s Larry?’
‘He’s mom’s friend, they go out drinking together.’
Luke winced. His son saw it all. ‘Well, we’ll try and do that camping thing again, right?’
‘Sure, Dad,’ Sam said, but Luke could tell he didn’t believe it.
They spoke for a little longer. He could have talked to Teri and asked her about Larry and California, but it depressed him too much.
Luke drives out of Sidney and heads towards Victoria. It’s getting dark by the time they drive through the city centre and back out along the coast road.
‘I think we should find somewhere to stay tonight,’ he says, breaking the silence. ‘It’s getting dark.’
He can sense her shift in her seat. ‘Okay,’ she says quietly. ‘It’s just…God, this is so embarrassing.’
‘What’s up?’
‘I don’t really have much cash.’
‘That’s okay, most places take Visa.’
‘Well, I don’t have a credit card either. Jesus, I know that you hardly know me, but would you mind lending me some money? I’ll pay you back when I get to Tofino, I’ll be able to get some money then.’
‘It’s cool,’ he says. ‘Not a problem.’
What was she doing halfway across the world with no money?
There was something wrong, definitely. He had seen it back there in the woods. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he had seen something coming out of Christina, an emotion that manifested into a blue light. That sounded crazy. He shook his head.
‘I’m hungry,’ Cian says.
‘We’ll find a place to stay and then get something to eat, okay?’
‘Okay,’ Cian says and squeezes his arm. Luke reaches down with his left hand and flips the cap off Cian’s head. The child giggles. Sam hated him doing that now.
They find a quiet bed and breakfast with a secret path leading from its backyard down to a beach. The garden is pulsating with colour and the sweet aroma of dozens of different flowers and plants. It immediately seduces them, and Christina books the double room for her and Cian while he takes a single. The house is modern but full of beautiful old things. Christina tells him that most of the furniture is antique. She picks out pieces – Victorian, Edwardian. The words mean little to him, but he can appreciate their weight, the age of the wood, their resonance with history.
‘You know all about that sort of thing then?�
�� he asks.
‘Not really,’ she blushes. ‘I mean, I never studied it or anything, but I used to enjoy buying things for my house. We had an auction in our town every month and I loved going. I just picked up the information there.’
She has changed now and is wearing a dress. It’s black, like a long straight pinafore. It drops straight down to the ground. Her feet peek out at the bottom in a pair of black sandals. Nothing about her is contrived. Her arms are bare, pale and freckled. She’s wearing no jewellery, just her wedding band, and no cosmetics. He can see that she has tried to tie her hair back, but it’s already coming loose. He fights an impulse to pull it free. Cian is in the same clothes as earlier, though his face and hands are clean.
‘I’ve got to wash some of his clothes,’ she says as she sees Luke looking at him. ‘Does he look really dreadful?’
‘No, he’s a kid, isn’t he?’
They’ve been told about a nice place to eat. Luke drives down to a large pub, open and airy, with windows facing out onto the harbour.
‘Cool,’ Cian says, running down to the main window to look at the view. The sea is dark and the lights from the marina twinkle across it.
‘So listen,’ Luke says as he sits down. ‘Don’t worry about money, this is on me.’
‘No, really, I have to pay you back.’
‘It’s okay, I’ve got extra. I was away last week and I didn’t spend as much as I reckoned I would.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘Up to the mountains, the North Cascades, very near La Conner.’
‘Was that the mountain I could see from the inn?’
‘Yep, that’s one of them, Mount Baker.’
‘Did you go on your own?’
‘Yep,’ he says, then adds, ‘I wasn’t supposed to. I should have brought my son.’
She looks up, surprised. ‘You’ve got a son?’
‘Sam. He’s a couple of years older than Cian.’
He takes out his wallet and shows Christina the photograph. She smiles at it. ‘Oh, he’s gorgeous. You’ve just one?’
A Small Part of Me Page 20