by Baker Chris
‘Sorry, mate,’ he said after Kevin told him what had happened at the old Chateau, and Sean had embellished the tale by describing Colin’s deed in Taihape. ‘If I’d known all that he’d have sunk with his motorbike.’
They stayed that night in Geoff’s Tinakori Road home, a stately old mansion, particularly rambling and decrepit by lamplight. During the evening Zed and Fiona decided to make the crossing too.
Early in the morning, a mild nor’easter blowing and a steady ground swell from the same direction, they began their voyage. They weren’t going to Picton via Queen Charlotte Sound, Geoff said. He preferred to stay clear of Cook Strait with its treacherous currents and sudden wind changes.
‘Okay in a big vessel,’ he said, ‘but we’re only small, so we’re heading due south out of the harbour and landing near Lake Grassmere, on the coast.’
Both Sean and Kevin thought of Colin doing an enraged dance on the breakwater. They looked at each other, sharing an unpleasant twinge at the prospect of running into him again.
The scow felt small as they chugged out of the harbour into the open sea. Bojay and Sofa were tied to a ring in the middle of the deck. They were surrounded by a dozen bewildered goats who were making the crossing with their new owner, a Marlborough farmer called Richard. The two travellers left the saddles on their horses but stowed their saddlebags and weapons against the wheelhouse. They could see their destination, distant but clear, as the scow rose on each following swell. But the clear view didn’t last.
First it started to rain, no great cause for alarm, but then it started to blow as well. In less than five minutes the sky behind them turned black.
‘Not looking good,’ commented Geoff, as he and Zed stoked up the firebox and crammed on all possible speed. It wasn’t looking good to Sean either. As the roiling mass of storm cloud advanced steadily, the ground swell increased in size and frequency and wind-blown rain lashed the group. Geoff yelled something about the breakwater.
‘If we can make it there we’re safe,’ they heard.
Sean wasn’t too keen on the way he said ‘if’ but kept the thought to himself. Geoff looked like he knew what he was doing and Sean didn’t want to put him off his game. Fiona was sitting on one of the saddlebags in the shelter of the wheel-house. Richard hung on to the mast in the bow, while his goats kept as far astern as possible. Bojay and Sofa stood splay-legged in the centre of the deck. Sean imagined he saw revenge in their eyes. Hamu and Porkus sat side by side next to a large netting sack full of life jackets and plastic bottles and flagons. The dogs were panting and eager, bursting with a desire to be useful and neither having a clue how to go about it. There wasn’t much Sean and Kevin could do either, so they hung onto the side of the wheelhouse, wet and warm in their swannies. Sean jammed his green cocky’s potae tightly on his head as the wind blew harder. The scow started a corkscrewing motion and Sean was reminded just how slowly they were moving by the chop and the swells hitting her starboard stern quarter.
But they were getting there. The breakwater and the calm seas behind it were only about two kilometres away. They’d be safe in its shelter in just a few minutes, with the worst of the storm behind them. The engine clanked as Geoff turned everything right up. Sean guessed they were probably doing about ten or twelve knots, helped by the turmoil at their rear. Suddenly there was a horrible graunching noise and a furious knocking that shook the whole scow. Geoff didn’t hesitate. He dropped his shovel-full of coal, slammed the firebox door, disengaged the crankshaft and blew all the steam. He cursed and grabbed Zed.
‘Give us a hand with the sail,’ he shouted as the scow started pitching and wallowing and a wave broke over the deck. It washed the goats up against the port rail and soaked everyone else. As the water drained away Sean saw their saddlebags and weapons in the scuppers. Pulling a life jacket from the sack, he dived across the deck and tied everything together, the last knot tightening just before the next wave washed the bundle overboard.
Things happened very quickly then. Sean sat on the deck slicing through his bootlaces. Bojay was down and so was Sofa. He couldn’t see Kevin anywhere. Fiona was helping Zed bowse a loose-footed mains’l, while Geoff grappled with the swinging boom. Richard was hanging on with one hand while he tried to hold two goats with the other. Sean kicked his boots off and cut the horses’ leads. As they struggled to their feet, Sean wrapped Bojay’s rope around one hand. The next wave hit — a wall of green water that picked them up like chaff and threw them overboard.
Do horses swim? The thought flashed through Sean’s mind as he struggled up through green water. To his vast relief, Bojay did. Both their heads emerged from the water at the same time. Bojay shook his and started dog-paddling. Sean pulled himself onto the horse’s back.
As they rose on a swell, he saw the breakwater about half a kilometre distant. There was no sign of either Kevin or Sofa, but Hamu was in view. He was swimming, his head and shoulders out of the water except when a breaking wave submerged him. Porkus was with him and several goats as well. Sean and Bojay followed them, slowly gaining on the bobbing heads, till they were opposite the end of the breakwater. Its tumbled rocks and blocks of concrete were awash with breaking waves, but it looked calm on the lee side.
Sean called out to Hamu. The dog turned towards him and he pulled Bojay’s head around so the horse was crabbing across the waves. Sean was lying on him, almost floating, holding onto his mane with one hand and pulling on the reins with the other. He didn’t know how long it took, but one minute they had waves breaking on them and the next everything was still and Bojay was paddling powerfully towards the sandy beach at the start of the breakwater. Sean looked around and saw Hamu scrambling up on the rocks. A few seconds later, he was barking encouragement.
He was barking at something behind them too. Sean turned his head, half expecting to see Kevin. The scow was just rounding the end of the breakwater, water pouring off the deck and the sail taut with the wind. Zed and Fiona were holding on in the bow and, when Sean looked again a few seconds later, he could see Geoff’s face in the wheelhouse.
There was still no sign of Kevin. He couldn’t see Richard and the goats either, just wild seas surging and breaking towards the southern shore of the big bay they were in. The scow passed them. Zed and Geoff called out something to Sean before they tied up at a tyre-hung concrete wall. A few seconds later Bojay’s feet touched the bottom. Hamu stood on the beach barking as they heaved themselves out of the water. Sean slipped off Bojay, led him through the shallows and up onto hard sand.
13
SEAN HAD MADE IT to the mainland, to Maui’s Waka. But where was Kevin? He mounted Bojay, turned the horse’s head and took off down the beach. Zed, Fiona and Geoff leapt off the end of the breakwater and started running in pursuit. Bojay’s hooves drummed on the hard sand. The surf thundered and the spray thickened. Sean’s heart sank as he thought of Kevin and Sofa trying to survive in the crashing seas. What hope would they have in the two-metre waves? He could see the sea churning with white water and the air swirling with windblown mist and spray. But as he galloped, crouched low over Bojay’s neck, peering between his ears, he saw a group of figures away in the distance, vanishing and reappearing in the mist. Somebody had survived. He urged Bojay to greater speed.
He drew closer and the figures became clearer. Sofa. Several goats. Richard, crouched over a figure lying on the sand. Sean jumped off Bojay, just as the body on the sand stirred, coughed, and puked up about a litre of sea water.
‘That’s got him,’ said Richard, as Kevin drew in a shuddering breath and opened his eyes. It took him a few seconds to realise where he was.
‘I thought I was drowning,’ he said. ‘Is all this for real?’
Richard looked like he’d just run a marathon.
‘For sure, mate. Bad enough giving you the kiss of life. At least I didn’t have to revive your horse.’
Kevin hacked up another litre of sea water and hauled in more air.
‘Thanks,’ he
said. He noticed Sean for the first time, the relief on his face growing. He smiled when he saw Sofa.
‘Didn’t know you could swim that well,’ he said to the horse. Kevin had pulled himself onto Sofa’s back, but they’d followed the goats into the heavy surf and been rolled and tumbled by a wave that broke right on them. Kevin didn’t remember any more, but somehow he’d retained his grip on Sofa’s reins. The horse pulled him ashore as he made his way through the breakers into shallow water.
Ten goats stood around Richard. One of them was wearing an orange life jacket. The goats had amazed him with the way they’d handled the heavy seas.
‘They listened to their mother,’ said Sean. ‘They didn’t go swimming in jeans.’
He looked at Kevin and Richard’s sodden clothing and laughed.
‘Thought we’d had it that time,’ he said.
Before long they were all sitting together on the beach, Zed, Fiona and Geoff as pleased as anyone to have survived. Sean remembered Zed telling Fiona a sea voyage was just the thing to put the colour back in her cheeks, and wondering at the time what piece of overwrought melodrama had produced that insight. What was she thinking now? He was still wearing his hat and his eyepatch. It was crooked. Fiona leaned over and straightened it.
‘Now I know pirates can swim,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t ever sure about people walking the plank.’
‘What about our gear?’ Kevin said. ‘Wonder if that’s been washed up?’ Sean suddenly thought of his weapons. He didn’t care about his saddlebags and their meagre contents, except for Pablo Neruda in a plastic bag, but he didn’t want to lose his sawn-off and the home-made crossbow. He knew how much Kevin valued the chisels he’d been collecting and the set of wooden bowls he’d been working on. He heaved himself to his feet. Up the beach, Bojay and Sofa were already busy munching on a patch of pingao.
‘Come on then,’ he said to Kevin. ‘If you’re up to it we’ll take a look.’
They found their gear high and dry on rocks at the southernmost point of the bay, about a metre away from being swept past and lost somewhere down the coast. By the time Sean and Kevin caught up to the others they were limping and hobbling along, helping Richard drove the surviving goats towards Richard’s farm.
‘Fuck this for a laugh,’ said Zed. Crumbling bits of highway dug into his unaccustomed bare feet. ‘Best we get something to wear.’
They stopped at the first farmhouse they passed. The hedge at the end of the drive was wild and the front lawn looked like a hay paddock. A rural delivery flag, on the mailbox by the road, stood upright as it had for a year and a half. The front door was shut and as they approached, after closing the main gate on Bojay, Sofa and the goats, they hesitated. The mix of respect and sadness that struck them surprised everyone. They knew what they’d find, but for Sean anyway things were different. Growing in him, minute by minute, was the feeling that the country they were in now was new and clean. Any action could have a million consequences, spreading out like echoes. Maui’s Waka was different to the North Island.
Richard opened the door and they stepped inside. The house smelt musty, unused. Everything was covered with dust. It was an expensive home, brick and tile, with lots of aluminium joinery, and good quality carpets and drapes. Through the open lounge door they could see leather furniture, coloured rugs, white shag-pile carpet and a heavily varnished, hewn-timber coffee table with cups and a pot on it.
They moved down the hallway and past the main bedroom. Through the open door was one of the saddest sights Sean had ever seen. It looked like a bundle of clothes at first tossed in a heap on the bed. There was no smell and everything was tidy, except for a jug knocked over on a bedside table and some clothes scattered on the floor by a walk-in wardrobe. But when he looked a little closer, in the dim light he could make out two bodies, parchment skin and hanks of hair, one dressed in the remnants of a print dress and the other wearing a corduroy shirt and moleskin trousers. They were in each other’s arms. There was no way of telling who’d died first.
The sight stopped everyone. Fiona and Kevin were both outside the door, their eyes wide. When Sean caught his reflection in a mirror across the room, he was weeping. Nothing he’d seen yet in his travels had brought home to him so powerfully, so poignantly, the human face of the Fever and its awful aftermath. This wasn’t a crumbling institution, a cold TV or a disintegrating road. This was two people, clinging to one another, all hope gone and nothing left but love.
‘We’d better bury them.’ Richard’s voice was loud and shocking.
In a shed out the back they found a spade and a shovel and several pairs of boots. They fitted Sean and Kevin perfectly but were too small for Richard. He had to make do with a pair of jandals from by the back door. Nobody spoke while they interred the couple. As Sean had done so often elsewhere, they laid them in the grave together, wrapped in a blanket and not weighing more than a bag of potatoes. Sean wanted to say something, some sort of prayer, but he didn’t find his voice till the last shovel full of dry Marlborough dirt went on the grave. What he finally managed to croak out probably wouldn’t have made the New Testament.
‘Goodbye, you guys,’ he said. ‘And thanks for the boots.’
The sun went down as he spoke. Once again they stopped and looked at each other, and this time it was Fiona who voiced what was suddenly in all their minds.
‘Where will we stay? What will we eat?’
Geoff said he had some rice on board. Sean volunteered to return for it while the others scouted out greens and whatever else was edible. They fired up the barbecue. When he returned with a ten-kilogram sack of unpolished rice, they’d found cooking oil that was only slightly rancid, puha, curry and salt. They found whisky too, and coffee that was stale but still drinkable. That night they bedded down on the shag-pile. The horses and goats happily munched away in the front yard, while Hamu and Porkus guarded them. Inside, everyone talked themselves through the day’s events.
Kevin saw two rifles on pegs on the wall.
‘Do you think they’ll mind if I take one?’ he said to Sean. Sean knew what he meant. He thought for a minute.
‘No, mate. We’ve said goodbye and buried them properly. They won’t mind.’
They breakfasted on rice and puha and started on the twenty-five-kilometre walk to Richard’s home. Thirty people lived there, he said, growing fruit and vegetables and raising cattle. Three of Richard’s people came in sight just before noon, riding up the road in the shimmering heat. Mountain peaks rose to the south of them and coastal hills to the east. Richard’s people left the food they were carrying — the wholemeal bread, smoked trout and fresh fruit filled Sean and Kevin’s saddlebags — and rode back for extra horses. By that night everyone was at home on Richard’s farm, the goats secure and everyone pleased to eat a good meal and sleep in a comfortable bed.
Geoff’s scow had a collapsed bearing on the crankshaft and, bemoaning the lack of oxyacetylene — ‘Can’t beat the old red spanner’ — he, Zed and Fiona, accompanied by two men from the community and a bag of metalworking tools, said their farewells and set off for the return voyage. Sean and Kevin left with them, except the pair would be continuing their southward journey.
Once again they’d be alone, a prospect that, for Sean at least, grew more and more attractive as they rode. Sean wanted to savour the freedom and expansiveness he could feel in the landscape. He sensed a depth to everything, a revelation of secrets and mysteries. Here was a place where answers were as clear as the wide blue skies, and answers were what he needed. What did the Maeroero want? What part did he play? Sean could feel the manaia, alive against his chest. He remembered the misshapen little creature in the piebald pelt that had laughed at him. He and his mates had caused the Fever? Get away.
They soon came to the main road, and a parting that surprised nobody with the lack of emotion involved. Zed and Fiona were well and truly united and Geoff had thoughts for little other than the repair of his scow.
‘The Force be with yo
u,’ said Zed to Sean and Kevin.
‘You too, bro,’ said Sean. ‘And thanks for the lift.’ Fiona and Geoff laughed.
Sean and Kevin were soon lost in the coastal hills, riding past the groves of willows, elderberries and tree lucernes popping up among the eucalypts. Blackberry climbed all over the ruined fences. Wild-looking cattle occasionally peered around trees and from within thickets, and insects whirred in the long grass. The storm that had almost drowned them had filled the dams and creeks. When they camped that night they lit the fire and tied the tarp to a chorus of frogs celebrating the wet.
Birds woke them in the morning, loud in the trees all around. Sean and Kevin lay under their saddle-blankets, their heads on their rolled-up swannies, and luxuriated. Sean drank in the day and the layers of sound all about. The sun would need to be higher and hotter before the traces of vegetation and cowshit in the summery air really hit their peak, but already he could smell the plains with their dry grass and wandering herds. He thought of the goats. He thought of Richard and his community too. But mostly he thought of what the day held for them. A young woman from Richard’s community had given Kevin an old AA accommodation guide. According to that, they’d be coming out on the coast soon, at Kekerengu, the gunwale of Maui’s Waka, under Te Tapuae o Uenuku, Footsteps of the Rainbow, the mountain they’d seen as they sailed out of Wellington harbour. Sean was looking forward to eating koura, the lobster for which the coast had always been renowned. Their saddlebags were packed with bread, made by Richard’s friends from wheat they grew and ground themselves, and he and Kevin had eaten their fill of rabbit stew, but Sean always had liked koura. He hadn’t tasted any for over two years, since he and Te Rina had stayed with friends on Whangape Harbour on the fabled west coast between Hokianga and Ninety Mile Beach. Sean really wanted to see a place named after the eating of lobster.