Where Sea Meets Sky: A Novel

by Karina Halle

  I need to escape.

  I walk past him but he grabs me and hauls me to him. “Don’t run,” he says, holding me by the shoulders in place. “Not from this, not from me.”

  “Let me go,” I say.

  “You could make me,” he says, his grip not loosening. “I know you can.”

  He’s right. But the truth is, I think his arms are the only thing keeping me upright.

  “It’s done,” I say, my chin dipped low, staring at the floor between us. “It happened. I can’t get those paintings back. I was a different person before and I’m a different person now.”

  The child is grown, the dream is gone. “Comfortably Numb” plays in my head and I close my eyes.

  “But would you do it again?” he asks. His voice sounds larger than life in here. “Or will you destroy something before you have a chance to lose it?”

  He’s in my head, he’s in my heart. How did he get in here? There’s an edge to his words, like he knows, like he knows me.

  I’m numb, I’m numb, I’m numb.

  “Gemma,” he says in a hushed tone and plants a hard kiss on the top of my head. He wraps his arms around me. “I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to lose your father. If I lost my sister, I don’t know what I’d do. And if I lost the ability to create, the one thing that makes me happy, that would almost be worse. But . . . you have to understand . . . or maybe not . . . but your father won’t stop being your father. And you won’t stop being an artist. You just have to let it out. Don’t think that because time has passed you’re not allowed to grieve anymore.” He pulls back and cups my face in his large hands, peering down at me. “And don’t think that because you can’t paint the way you used to, in the way you deemed as good—the only way—that you can’t create. You’re a different person now, as you say. Your art will be different. You don’t have to stick to the only path you thought possible. There are others. Believe me.”

  I stare up at him, letting his words sink in. They’re starting to stick.

  Maybe I’m thawing.

  I rub my lips together. “What did you want to get from here?”

  His brows knit together but he nods, knowing I’m done talking about it. He doesn’t have to know that he’s gotten to me. He pulls away and looks around him. “Well, I was hoping to pick up something other than my watercolor pencils.”

  I tap my fingers to my chin, glad to have something else to think about. I walk over to the shelves and bring out a box full of supplies. My hand is shaking a bit but I decide that’s okay. I’m still a bit shaken up over Josh’s words, at the hope in them, at the way he managed to see inside me.

  Will you destroy something before you have a chance to lose it?

  I rummage through it and bring out black, green, and yellow oil paints. Their caps seem stuck on but they should be all right. I wave them at him. “How about oils? Only three colors, though.”

  “Nah,” he says, coming over. “Too serious.” He puts his hand in and pulls out a box of chunky pastels. “Bingo.”

  I eye him curiously. “Pastels? You don’t strike me as a pastel kinda guy.”

  “I can’t always be emo, can I?” he says with a wink and I laugh. “These are perfect.”

  I shrug. “Whatever floats your boat.”

  “You float my boat,” he says seductively, and I know we have to get out of here before the air of respect totally disappears.

  We go and pack up Mr. Orange. It’s tougher than normal to say goodbye to my mother and Auntie Jolinda. Actually, it’s never been tough before. I would just give them a wave and tell them I’d call them and maybe see them in a few months, and that would be that. I would leave without a second thought. I would feel no loss.

  But something is different now. I feel this great link to the land here, to them, to their lives. I don’t want to say goodbye. I’ve grown accustomed to having them around me, having them take care of me, and I’ve never liked or wanted that before.

  Being home felt nice. Being home felt like . . . home.

  It doesn’t help that my mother has somewhat opened up to me. Or maybe, maybe, it’s that I’ve opened up to her. Maybe we’re meeting halfway now. Either way, I climb into the passenger seat with heavy shoulders. I roll down the window and wave to them as they stand in the driveway. They wave back and I think to myself, I love them.

  Then I shake it off and slap the outside of the van door through the rolled-down window, signaling for Josh to drive on. We motor down the road, ready to resume our adventure, just the two of us.

  The drive up the East Cape is easy for the first part. We pass through farms and orchards and sunny fields, the highway skirting the endless blue ocean. Just outside of the Mahia Peninsula, we pull off the highway and have lunch sitting by a river. We devour a baguette sliced open and topped with brie and fresh tomatoes sprinkled with sea salt. It’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten, the sun beating on our backs, cool water at our feet.

  We laze about, lying in the grass at the river’s edge, kissing sweetly and passionately. Sometimes we are full on making out and other times just staring at each other. His hands and eyes are always on me, touching me, roving over me, and I succumb each time, feeling prized and wanted in a way I haven’t before.

  This is so physical that it’s beyond the physical.

  Somewhere before the town of Gisborne, we fill up with petrol at a small, down-at-its-heels station, complete with rusted pumps. Josh goes inside to pay and when he comes back out, he’s grinning, waving something in his hand.

  “What?” I ask as he hops in the driver’s seat.

  He proudly displays it in his palm. It’s a cassette tape of the best of Free.

  “They had cassettes?” I ask.

  “It was either this or Maori chants or Reba McEntire, so I picked this. Who doesn’t love Paul Rodgers and Free? Now we can have new music for this part of the trip.”

  “The Josh and Gemma journey?”

  “That has a very nice ring to it,” he says. “In fact, it’s all right now.” He slides in the cassette and stares at it expectantly, figuring the song will start playing.

  Of course “All Right Now” isn’t the first song that plays, it’s the Hendrix-like “I’m a Mover,” but we’re happy to have something new to listen to.

  Later we stop to have dinner in Gisborne, which is a sort of smaller, quainter version of Napier, then keep chugging on. I’m thinking that we’ll find a holiday park soon but Josh scares the shit out of me by suddenly slamming on the brakes and taking Mr. Orange off the highway and onto a corridor of grass bordering the long but isolated Makorori Beach.

  We bounce along over the uneven ground and just before he reaches the sand and I’m about to cry out, he turns to the right and takes the bus along the grass until we reach a long patch of trees and shrub. Once Mr. Orange is hidden from the road by all the brush, he puts it into park and switches off the engine.

  He turns to look at me triumphantly. “Voilà, we have a whole beach to ourselves.”

  I give him a wry look and push back the swoop of hair that has fallen across his forehead from the bumpy voyage. “You know, you can’t just camp wherever you like.”

  “Sure we can,” he says with a grin and tries to fake-bite my hand. “No one is here, no one can see our car.”

  I sigh and point behind me. “Sure, no one coming down the hill over there can see this giant orange bus.”

  “Live a little,” he says.

  “Fine,” I tell him, pointing a threatening finger at him. “But if we get busted by the Department of Conservation, you’re getting us out of it.”

  We get out of the bus and I’m immediately glad he was so impulsive. Makorori Beach is a long sweeping expanse of off-white sand, bordered by sand and shrub along the highway and bookended by two green hills that jut out into the ocean. At this time of day the
re’s no one around, there are barely any cars on the highway, and there are only a few baches in the area, hidden from sight. The air smells salty and sunbaked.

  While Josh gets the camping stove and chairs set up for dinner, I decide to go for a barefoot run. I scurry down to the soft white sand and go slow but steady from one end of the beach to the other, just as the sun dips behind the low hills. When I get back, Free is blaring from the speakers and Josh has gone through a beer or two.

  “There you are,” he says, getting to his feet. “Daughter of Fire and Water.”

  “Huh?” I ask, wiping away the sweat from my brow. He comes over to me and puts his arms around me. “What are you doing? I’m all gross.”

  He grins and kisses my neck. “I like it. You’re perfect.” He starts to move back and forth, dancing with me, and it’s only then that I realize the song playing is called “Fire and Water.”

  I try to pull away to towel off but he holds me in place, still swaying, rocking back and forth. The ocean breeze is stronger now, cooling the sweat on my skin, but inside I’m heating up.

  “You’ve got what it takes to make a poor man’s heart break,” he sings in my ear, his voice low and melodic enough to send shivers down my spine. I take in a deep breath and rest my head on his shoulder and we just dance in the purple dusk.

  After dinner is over—lamb kebabs—and the world grows dark, we retire inside to the bus. I’ve barely unfolded the bed before he’s stripped naked and on me. Our soundtrack is the occasional passing car in the distance, the choir of crickets, the pounding surf and our hushed and ragged breathing as we thoroughly explore each other’s bodies with hands, lips, and tongues.

  He goes down on me and just before I’m about to come, he pulls up his head and slides his cock inside me with a low groan.

  “I think I found a new calling in life,” he says, his voice husky with desire. He places slow wet kisses along my jawline that shoot sparks down my body.

  “What?” I whisper back, all my thoughts diverted to the languorous, steady way he’s driving himself in and out of me.

  “Fucking you,” he says, his tongue snaking down my neck. “Fucking you in the morning, fucking you at night. Fucking you in a bed, fucking you in the ocean. Fucking you slow, like this,” he withdraws his cock with deliberation before thrusting it back in, “fucking you raw. I would like to fuck you forever.”

  I close my eyes and groan at the way he’s filling me up inside, the way his hands move over my hips and breasts like he’s laying claim to different parts of me. “You like to say fuck.”

  “I like to fuck,” he says, picking up speed. “And it takes on a whole new meaning when I’m with you.” He licks a path to my nipples and sucks on them hard enough to make me gasp. “You,” he whispers against them. “Everything has a new meaning with you.”

  I close my eyes and let the sensations take over. I can feel every inch of him. Inside me, around me, in the air I breathe, in the empty parts of my soul.

  Even after we come and I’m snuggled into his chest, feeling his heart slowing beneath my fingers, I can still feel him.

  He’s buried in deep.

  Chapter Twenty

  JOSH

  This woman is going to break my heart.

  I knew it the moment she told me she destroyed all her paintings, all her memories. I knew she was going to destroy me, too.

  I saw it in her eyes, in the dust of her father’s studio: the fear that I had found her out.

  I just wanted her to know, that’s all. I wanted her to know that she didn’t have to do this to us.

  I can only hope she heard me. In some ways, I think she did. When we screw, I can feel her winding down while I’m winding in. The wall she has around her is coming down brick by brick. She’s opening up. She’s letting me in, even if she doesn’t realize it.

  I think she’s starting to really like me.

  I think I’m starting to fall in love with her.

  I don’t want to, of course. I don’t want to fall because she’s not someone I can trust with my heart. But if I could trust her to handle it with care, with understanding, with respect, then it might be worth everything. It might be the best thing on earth.

  Or she might just toss it in a fire and watch it burn.

  I may have to take my chances.

  I get up in the morning before she does and take care not to disturb her. The inside of the van is a little damp, the way it normally is when you first wake and the sun hasn’t had a chance to start kicking your ass.

  Gemma moves a bit, pulling the sleeping bag up to her chin, her dark hair spilling around her like waves of black oil. She is so gorgeous, so perfect, that I can’t help but stare at her. I love to do it when she’s sleeping. Not because I’m trying to tip the creep scales here (I think I already did that when I followed her to New Zealand in the first place) but because she’s finally at peace. Her face looks like a clean slate, with no anger or sadness or hollowness hidden in the corners.

  I go outside to piss and contemplate going for a morning dip in the surf in lieu of a shower when I hear the crunch of tires going off road. I look over to see a policelike vehicle pulling onto the grass and head toward the beach. It doesn’t seem like he’s seen us yet but considering the bus looks like a giant orange Jolly Rancher, it’s only a matter of time.

  Shit.

  I jump in the passenger seat, start the engine, and slam on the gas, peeling out of there.

  “What the hell?” Gemma cries out, bouncing around in the back, her hair flying as I eye her in the rearview mirror.

  “Stay down!” I yell at her. “I think the cops are onto us.”

  “What?” she says and looks behind her out the window.

  Luckily the cop or the D.O.C. or whoever it was doesn’t seem to have caught on that we were illegally camping there overnight, and soon we’re speeding up the highway and on our way north.

  Nothing like adrenaline to get your morning started on the right foot.

  At our next stop, Tolaga Bay, some place with a really long wharf, we fill up with gas and try and make ourselves presentable for the rest of the journey. I’ve been driving in just my boxer briefs for about an hour, getting really weird looks from the truck drivers who overtake us.

  The Maori presence on this part of the cape is really strong, and though at times I feel like I don’t really belong here, being the tatted white guy and all, there’s also something welcoming about it. It’s mysterious. I want to explore the hidden coves and talk to elders with tattoos on their faces—tā moko, as Gemma explains—to understand their connection to the land. I find myself touching the greenstone pendant often, as if it will anchor me here somehow.

  Gemma is behind the wheel now as we head toward our stop for the night, the East Cape Lighthouse, and I ask her about her heritage, if she feels more pākehā or Maori.

  She seems to consider that for a moment. “I guess I’d consider myself more pākehā just because of my upbringing. But I don’t really think about it. I can pass for either to everyone else, and no one really cares. I mean, I think one day everyone in New Zealand will have Maori blood in them, if they don’t already. It’s a good thing. I think it keeps people rooted, like they belong somewhere. The tribes, the iwi, around the country are all about family and your family beyond your family. I kind of like that.”

  I nod. I like that idea, too, it just doesn’t apply to my own life whatsoever. My family may be tied through blood but the ties are weak and constantly unravelling. Suddenly, I think of Vera and can’t blame her in the slightest for wanting to form her ties elsewhere.

  I look over at Gemma, studying her. Her eyes are focused on the road but are bright, clear, and sparkling. A few freckles have sprouted across her nose this last week. She looks healthy, content, happy. I wonder if I’m the reason. I wonder if she feels any ties to me. I wonder if she
’ll let me keep my ties to her.

  It’s a long, winding drive through tiny little settlements, overgrown forests, and encroaching bush, with clay cliffs rising up from the blue water. We take our time. I want to paint everything. I want to make a New Zealand superhero and call her Gemma, Daughter of Fire and Water. I’ll give her a heart of ice and loins of fire and she’ll sleep at the bottom of the ocean.

  When we finally reach the turnoff for the lighthouse, it’s growing dark. We drive along a narrow gravel road for what seems like for fucking ever, ocean on one side, a cliff on the other, and that terrible sense of loneliness hits me again. This is the easternmost point in the whole country. This is the edge of nothing. Out there, on the ocean, there’s nothing.

  There’s nothing but me and Gemma. It feels like we’re the only people left in the world. And it scares me, because she’s all I have to hold on to. I can’t be sure she won’t let go.

  There’s no official camping at the lighthouse, so Gemma takes the bus off-roading, much like we did yesterday, and we come to a stop in a small valley in the middle of a field of cows. They all swivel their heads to stare at us with dark, inquisitive eyes. There’s a small house up on the hill but we can barely see it. Horses graze on the hill’s terraced grooves.

  Beyond the hills, there’s nothing but ocean. I breathe in deep, feeling strangely nervous and shaky. I don’t think it’s just about being on the edge of nothing, though.

  I think it’s that I’m on the edge of something.

  We go to bed early, our alarms set for the early morning hour, predawn. Even though the ocean looks to be about a ten-minute walk, I pack a bag with my camera, my phone, my sketchbook, and the pastels.

  I can’t get enough of her. Our lovemaking is slow and lazy but necessary. Being inside her feels like being home, it feels like being in love, it feels like everything sweet and beautiful and nice in the world. Every time I come in her I hope I’m making a home for myself, a place where I belong.

  The alarm on my phone goes off way too early. In my sleepy stupor I nearly turn it off but Gemma is patting my arm, then punching my arm, telling me to get up. The world around us vibrates with the sound of mooing cows and I wonder how the hell I slept through them.