CHAPTER FIVE: A Storm on the Horizon
Tristan Blake stood on Ninety Mile Beach, at low tide.
It was just after lunch time. The sun was high in the sky, beating hard on Tristan’s face, but a light sea breeze eased the heat a little.
He took a deep breath. The breeze, yes: the breeze would keep the warring memories of heat at bay.
Rau’s rod was in his hand. Tristan pressed a worm onto the hook, and cast far into the ocean. It was low tide! Shallow water! Maybe a waste of time. But, even so, he was spurred on.
Joshua sat on the sand near him. He was sitting with Anahera and the others, but right then he was closest to Tristan. The others were eating lunch: fish, cooked over an open fire, but Joshua was not eating.
Tristan watched him, out of the corner of his eye. Who was this man? Why did Tristan feel so irked by him?
A few clouds were gathering on the horizon: dark clouds.
“Looks like a storm’s coming,” Joshua commented to him.
“Hmmm?” Tristan said, pretending not to be watching him.
“A storm.”
“Oh. Well a little storm never hurt anyone. Might bring in the fish!”
Now Joshua was playing with the sand. Tristan couldn’t help himself: he looked. Joshua smiled up at him. He was doodling: drawing figures.
“What’s all that?” Tristan said, and Joshua shrugged.
“My thoughts.”
“You think in stick figures?”
Joshua’s smile widened. “No,” he said. And then he rose to his feet, and stood next to Tristan, looking out to the horizon.
The grey clouds were deepening. “Thunder,” Joshua murmured.
“You reckon.”
“And heavy rain.”
“Let’s see if you’re more accurate than our weather gurus.”
Joshua smiled to him. “What would you say, Tristan?”
Tristan searched the clouds, took a deep breath, and sighed.
“Thunder and rain,” he said.
“You don’t like the rain?”
Tristan shrugged. “Too much of it in Wellington, I guess.”
“Some nice days too?”
“Yeah, some nice days. I remember…”
His mind suddenly, unexpectedly, went back. They were down the beach, at Days Bay! The sun was shining, bright and clear – it was his seventeenth birthday.
Did he want to remember? No! No. And yet his mind was betraying him.
His mother was there – green eyes, smiling. It was warm, but not too hot! The sea was sparkling…She reached for his surf board, ready to try it herself – laughing, splashing the water.
Selena was there, too! Seven years old, her long black curls jumping against her back as she ran around her huge sand castle adding shells – her wide blue eyes were looking at him, now: she was grinning!
And…and…his father…
No. Tristan blocked this memory decisively, before it could form. His father: he wouldn’t think of him.
Joshua’s eyes were on him. Tristan shook his head again, shaken. Why had he just thought of all that?
“What happened?” Joshua asked.
Tristan shuddered, and looked away again to the dark clouds on the horizon.
“What always happens,” he muttered. “Life intervenes.”
“You mean death,” Joshua murmured beside him. “Death intervenes.”
Tristan smiled sadly. “Yeah,” he said. “I mean death.”
Joshua was quiet for a moment. Surprised, Tristan glanced at him. A cloud had somehow crossed Joshua’s face, for a moment: the familiar smile was gone. His expression almost frightened Tristan in its sudden intensity.
“What is it?” Tristan breathed, before he could stop himself. Joshua seemed to be struggling, almost in a trance, as if seeing something else. And then his eyes found Tristan’s again.
For a moment, in those brown eyes, Tristan saw a sudden strange vast expanse: an ocean, and, in that ocean, in that moment, a strong swift current of grief.
“What do you see?” Tristan whispered.
Joshua’s eyes lowered from him, and then, momentarily, drifted closed. When they opened again, and lifted to Tristan, the grief had gone.
“I see many things,” Joshua said.
“What kind of things?”
Joshua smiled again. “Things that others are better off not knowing.”
Tristan searched his face. It was a gentle face, unassuming – thoroughly ordinary and, simultaneously, thoroughly strange.
“You like talking in riddles?” Tristan said.
“Sometimes,” Joshua said. “But with good reason.”
“Let me guess,” Tristan said. “Everything you do has good reason.”
Joshua tilted his head to him, with that same smile, and then backed away.
Tristan stayed at the water’s edge, with Rau’s line. The water was steadily rising – it wasn’t long until it was climbing to his knees, and starting to approach the edge of the shore again. He caught a light green-blue speckled kahawai, but nothing more.
Rau now stood alongside him. “Time to give it up, mate,” he said.
“Just give me a few more minutes.”
“You have a lifetime to beat him, you know.”
“Whatever.”
The clouds were approaching fast. The light had dimmed, and Tristan could hear rumbling in the distance. He frowned, and glanced at Rau’s brown face.
“You know,” he began, “your friend is…strange.”
“Strange?” Rau smiled. “Is that all you have?”
“He…he seems to know nothing, and then suddenly knows everything.”
“What do you mean?” Rau’s head tilted thoughtfully.
“I swear he just saw something: something important.”
“Saw?”
“In his mind’s eye: he saw it. It was bad.”
Tristan swallowed. Rau was frowning now, obviously trying to read his expression.
“What do you think he saw?”
“You…you don’t think he saw the end, do you?”
Rau seemed to laugh, but then quickly swallowed his reaction.
“The End of the World?” he said. “You believe in that?”
“Doesn’t take much to believe in that now, does it?”
“I guess not, but…we’ve been waiting for that for two thousand years.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Apocalypse, when Christ comes again. Our back is against the wall, and, hey, presto.”
Tristan stared at him. “You see what I mean?” he said. “You people are crazy. You’re actually looking forward to the End of the World.”
“Not exactly – it’s Christ we’re looking forward to.”
“Why?”
“Because he’ll make everything right again.”
Tristan frowned, studying him. “Everything right?”
“No more pain, or tears, or suffering, or death…”
A deep pain seized Tristan’s chest at the words. He turned quickly away, and stared hard at the horizon: fighting the sudden torrent.
“No more tears,” he whispered. “No more death. Wouldn’t that be nice to believe.”
Rau was silent beside him – he actually believed it! Tristan suddenly envied him. Oh, to have faith! Oh, to have hope, even in the face of utter disaster in this life.
“What did he see?” Tristan murmured to him. “Who knows? Maybe he saw his own death, his own mortality: his own destiny into nothingness, like the rest of us.”
“I don’t think so,” Rau said. “I don’t think he’s afraid of death.”
Tristan glanced up again at Joshua. He was smiling, joking with his friends, helping to gather up the remains of the fish.
“Maybe you’re right,” Tristan said.
Rau was tugging gently on his rod now, and Tristan surrendered it to him. So be it: they would be travelling on, with Joshua, for now. Yet curiosity still pulled at him.
He strode up to Joshua,
and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Hey,” he said. “What was that thing you saw?”
Joshua’s brown eyes were on him: Tristan made himself remain, as Joshua studied him.
“I saw many things,” Joshua finally replied. “Many things that hurt. But there is one thing I can tell you.”
“What?”
“I saw your mother.”
Tristan stared at him, and then tears suddenly came. He stood, flushing, in front of Joshua – and Joshua’s hand came to his arm.
“I’m sorry,” Joshua murmured.
Now Tristan’s eyes were blurring. “It’s not your fault,” he whispered, trying to blink – trying to see.
“I know,” Joshua said.
“I…” Tristan stuttered. “I…” Say it? Actually speak of love? No! He could not! He would not. Much easier to think the other! Much easier to say the other.
“I hate him,” he said. “I hate him.” The tears were clearing.
Joshua’s eyes were on him: quiet, gentle, walking amidst Tristan’s sudden searing pain. “I know,” he said, “but it wasn’t his fault, either.”
Tristan arched back, suddenly, terribly, wanting to hit him.
“What do you mean?” he cried. “What do you mean?”
The eyes were still on him! Kind, but firm. “You know what I mean,” he said.
Tristan stood, stiff, before him. The light now was growing dim: the dark clouds moving over his head. He felt a little rain falling on his face.
Joshua’s face darkened again, for a moment.
“I don’t understand you,” Tristan said. “What are you on about? But…but your words seem so real! And there’s more! Something you’re not telling me.”
“Some things are better not to know,” Joshua whispered. “Not until their right time.”
A burden was in his eyes – a frightening burden. But then it was gone again, as quickly as it had arrived.
He smiled, and turned, and joined the others – and Tristan’s gaze followed him.
“Well?” Rau asked, at his side.
“Strange…” Tristan murmured. Then he shrugged his shoulders, and turned away.
A New Kind of Zeal Page 5