‘What is going on?’ said Stella, quite calmly for her. Was it my imagination or had she put on weight? Her face had lost its hollowed look; it had filled out slightly, attractively.
‘I’ve got work to do,’ I said, pulling some books out of my bag, busying myself with them.
‘Stop that!’ shouted Stella, giving me a fright. ‘Don’t give me that freezing, haughty bullshit, Cat. Let me paint the picture for you. You have lost an unhealthy amount of weight — don’t imagine I haven’t noticed. You look exhausted and anaemic. Your life outside this house is a complete mystery to me — a dangerous signal for any parent — oh, yes, don’t imagine I haven’t been absolutely aware of that as well. I am your mother. I give you a long leash, I don’t ask questions, I don’t require you to tell me anything. But what’s happening? I ask myself. Is she anorexic? Is she taking drugs? Is she finally, finally suffering all the grief she so skilfully buried two years ago, and falling apart? Is she angry with—’
I stood up abruptly. ‘Shut up, Stella!’ I shouted back. ‘Stop the counsellor crap!’
I turned to leave the room, but she pushed past me and slammed the door, leaned up against it.
‘No!’ she said. ‘I mean it. This is where it ends! You will damn well talk to me.’
‘Well, Stella, you know the old saying,’ I said, dropping my voice, trying to decrease the octane level. ‘You can lead a horse to water—’
‘No, sorry, Cat,’ she said, her voice dangerously low. ‘Mum and Toni have both been on to me, worried out of their brains about you, Freddy rings me — and you can imagine how he enjoyed that — and today I get a call from your form teacher who says, among other things, that you’re almost certain to fail Bursary.’
‘Not a very big deal in the scheme of things.’
‘I want some answers,’ said Stella, in her new authoritarian-mother-from-hell act. On the whole I didn’t think it suited her. ‘For a start—’ Her face started to do the same receding trick that Freddy’s had done at the restaurant. I seemed to be seeing it from a long way off, the mouth working overtime, the eyes pinpoints of rage. It was strangely pleasant. ‘Answer me!’ I could make out the word shapes the mouth was making. Gee whizz, now I could lip-read. ‘Answer me,’ the mouth shaped again.
‘Who is Jem?’ said Stella’s voice, blasting into earshot.
That traitor Freddy, I thought.
‘So, I had to tell her,’ I said to Penny.
‘About time. What did she say?’
‘Not much.’
I thought of Stella, slumping slightly against the door, her face blank, but an unmistakable hurt in her eyes. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, after a long while. ‘Why did you have to keep it secret? You know I wouldn’t have disapproved.’
I said nothing, pleased that I didn’t care about her feeling hurt, glad that she’d stopped raging.
‘What have I done wrong?’ said Stella. ‘I’ve always encouraged you to tell me anything, I know I have, I’ve—’
‘What does it matter, Stella,’ I said, irritated. ‘You know now. And since you don’t disapprove, I’m going to go and stay at the Sanctuary with him during the holidays, starting tonight.’
She hardly seemed to hear me, lost now, totally puzzled, trying to figure it out. I felt perversely pleased to be such an unfathomable riddle.
Enigma.
‘She was talking to Toni when I left,’ I told Jem. ‘Moaning on about the perversity of teenagers. But it’s just that the notion of privacy is completely alien to Stella. She never kept a secret about herself in her life. She doesn’t have a clue.’
‘This mean I can meet her now?’ said Jem.
I was sitting on his lap, my head on his shoulder. I stroked the bristly shadow on his chin. ‘If you think it’s absolutely necessary,’ I said, grudgingly.
He made a biting gesture at my face. My stomach turned over in a sudden moment of hopeless love. I started kissing him.
‘Just think,’ said Jem, indistinctly. ‘Two whole weeks of this. Interspersed with a modicum of work around the place. I suspect our animal family is going to get minimum care.’
‘Hey, Jem, I think you should go tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I’ll do everything here, you can have a little holiday.’
‘With Simeon?’ said Jem. ‘Hard labour, more like it. No, you do it, you’re the expert on panther habitat.’
‘I don’t get it,’ I said. ‘You laugh at him, you think he’s funny.’
‘In small doses,’ said Jem. He toyed with my hair, thinking. ‘It’s like you and your mother — I don’t understand how you feel about her, really. But trust me, there’d be a homicide if Sim and I hung out together for too long.’ He stood up, lifting me with him, carrying me in his arms. ‘You’re the girl for the job.’
‘Woman, please,’ I said, throwing my head back. ‘Take me, Ivanhoe.’
‘Willingly,’ said Jem, heading for the bedroom. ‘Don’t let him give you any shit, though,’ he warned, almost as an afterthought.
‘What’s up?’ said Miriam.
I closed my eyes for a long time, shutting out the confused images: tussocky hillsides, snow, sheep with thick dead-white wool, Simeon’s square hands, his broad nose and smooth, newly shaven face.
‘I don’t think I can bear it,’ I said.
‘Be brave,’ said Miriam.
It was warm in The Bus, and Simeon’s neanderthal music had a kind of lulling quality. I felt soothed and full of hope. It was very strange to sit beside him in the familiar seat and not be nervous or guilty. I felt an unaccustomed peacefulness, knowing that everything was sanctioned, as it were. Jem had given me a long kiss before I got into the van, saluted Simeon briefly.
‘Don’t drive like a hoon,’ he said to his brother. ‘She’s too young to die.’
‘Yes, Grandad.’
‘Up yours.’
‘Jaffa or Snifter?’ inquired Simeon politely, on the outskirts of the city. The sky was light blue and the air very hot through the open window. ‘I do believe it’s a nor’wester,’ he said. ‘Is the young lady comfortable?’
‘Totally cosy,’ I said, enjoying the furry white of the Jaffa shell, the soft chocolate underneath it, the flooding sweetness when I bit.
What with sleepless nights and the hassling I’d had from everyone in my life over twenty I was soon overwhelmed by tiredness, and after ten minutes of the straight West Coast road I fell asleep. I didn’t wake until we started the climb to Porters Pass. I looked across at Simeon, wondering if I’d snuffled or dribbled or anything, feeling somehow as if he’d seen me without clothes on. He lifted his dark glasses and gave me a knowing grin.
I flicked through his CDs, tidily alphabetised in two boxes under the dashboard, though I knew perfectly well there was nothing I liked there, nothing contemporary, nor anything before 1965. Simeon’s taste in music resided in one genre and one decade.
‘Present for you,’ said Simeon, brandishing a small flat package. I looked suspiciously at him. ‘I got it specially for today. C’mon.’ He shook it at me, watching the road.
‘Very funny,’ I said, when I opened it. It was a Beatles CD — Magical Mystery Tour. ‘But there’s no mystery about today. I know exactly where we’re going. And after that we can go straight home.’
‘Home to the Old Man.’
‘No, he’s in Blenheim.’
‘Hah.’
There was snow on Porters Pass, melting fast in the warm wind. I had been up this road often with Freddy and Stella and Tiggie all that time ago when we were a nice little well-off family. Freddy had taught us how to ski — even Tigs. I could remember her clearly, on the learners’ slope, serious and concentrated, proud of her designer ski jacket, her Rossignol poles, her small, altered boots. Our ski gear had gone in the fire, along with everything else.
‘Okay,’ I said abruptly, ‘since it’s mine, I’ll play it. Anything’s better than this noise.’
‘Ignorant bitch,’ said Simeon. ‘This is the Dead. This is a
whole culture, this is a million-dollar industry, this is history.’
‘Call me fussy,’ I said, ‘but I prefer melody lines, intelligent lyrics, that sort of thing.’
‘Course your old lady’s a chanteuse—’
But I didn’t want to think about Stella just now.
Roll up, roll up for the Magical Mystery Tour, step right this way.
‘Fantastic arrangements,’ I said.
‘Punishing lyrics,’ said Simeon.
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ I said, wittily.
We both started laughing, and the crackle and spit between us seemed to evaporate. I watched the landscape moving by, thought about Jem doing the rounds of the cages, chatting to the animals, keeping Peppy in line. I thought about Cleo mid-way through her day’s confined journey.
‘I think we should do the real thing soon,’ I said.
‘What?’ said Simeon.
‘Springing Cleo,’ I said. ‘As soon as we’ve found the right place today. I think we should get Cleo up here tomorrow, or the day after. Depending on the weather, of course. No point in waiting around.’
‘Right, Puss-cat,’ said Simeon.
‘I know you don’t really care, one way or another,’ I said. ‘But I forgive you. Have you got the rope and everything?’
‘I have the rope and the dope,’ he said.
A bit later, we came in sight of Castle Hill. Paul was singing ‘Fool on the Hill’.
‘Synchronicity!’ Simeon laughed. ‘Dead fans are into synchronicity.’
‘You are deeply weird,’ I said. Then, risking it, ‘But I quite like you.’
‘That’s got to be a declaration of love,’ said Simeon, having the last word as usual.
‘Stop,’ I said on Candy’s Bend.
‘Shit, I think we’re going to have to,’ said Simeon, frowning at the dials. ‘That zig-zag killed the radiator, it’s overheating.’
He pulled into a passing bay and we got out, stared down at the steep, gaping gorge, the fierce river with its undulating banks of cold stone.
‘I always imagine releasing her here,’ I said to Simeon. ‘Her sort of clambering down the gorge.’ In my mind’s eye this place had always seemed appropriately dramatic and cavernous, exactly right for Cleo’s sprint to freedom.
‘Way too exposed,’ said Simeon, ‘you need some bush shelter.’
‘I know,’ I said, finding the sheer rocky mountainsides and the depth of the gorge suddenly inhospitable and alarming, despite the blue sky and warm wind.
‘We need to get to some water,’ said Simeon, back in the van. ‘The Bus won’t make that hill back to Arthur’s otherwise.’
‘There’s a stream further on,’ I said. ‘Just past Otira.’ And bush, I thought, smaller mountainsides covered in bush, where deer and chamois and possums hid out. I readjusted my interior pictures, saw Cleo picking her way gracefully through the moist, warm growth at the side of the road, moving further and further in and up until she was lost from sight.
The van crawled along, sluggish now, the acrid smell of the overheating engine invading the cab. Every time we came to a slight rise in the road Simeon swore and changed down.
‘Shit, shit, shit,’ he cursed. ‘She better not seize.’
‘I think I see steam,’ I said as we passed, funeral pace, through Otira.
‘Charrrrist! Keep it together, keep it together,’ he muttered.
‘Definitely steam,’ I said, two minutes later.
‘Arseholes!’
‘Shall I put on some nice Grateful Dead to distract you?’ I said, helpfully. I tried not to laugh at his face which was uncharacteristically taut and anxious. ‘Is it my imagination or is it getting hotter in here?’
‘Arsehole engine,’ said Simeon. ‘Shit! We’ll have to stop.’
‘Hey, but we’re nearly there,’ I said, suddenly recognising the area. ‘It’s coming up soon, on the left, there’s a sort of opening in the bush, and a clearing a little way in, you can camp there. We nearly did once. There, there, there,’ I said, grabbing his arm, laughing at the stream of blasphemies that poured out of his mouth.
Simeon pulled onto the shoulder of the road and jumped out of the cab, leaving the door swinging. I got out and watched him gingerly pushing up the bonnet with the tip of his finger.
‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!’ he yelled, licking his finger. I burst out laughing and turned away. ‘Christ! I can’t even get the frigging cap off! Ouch! Fuck!’
I fell against the side of the van, spluttering into my hands, vastly entertained by the sight and sound of this uncool Simeon, shouting, swearing, kicking the fender of his cherished Bus, knocking the air with clenched fists and, finally, subsiding in furious frustration against the front wheel of the van, frowning angrily at me.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘You,’ I said, trying to compose my face. ‘You look like a mad goblin — Rumpelstiltskin.’ I started laughing again and after a while so did Simeon, his shoulders up around his ears, his head helpless in his hands.
‘Okay, you useless slag,’ he said, ‘you can get the frigging water since you know where the frigging river is.’
‘Stream,’ I said, leaning my head back against the van, enjoying the lovely after-laughter weariness.
‘On your feet,’ Simeon ordered, pulling me up. He gave me a container from the back of the van, kept there no doubt for just such emergencies.
‘You think of everything,’ I said, giggling.
‘Bugger off.’
‘And may I inquire what you are going to do?’
‘Arrest my frustration,’ he said, reaching underneath the back of the van and pulling out a soft package. ‘Get happy quickly. Get quickly happy. Weed,’ he said, when I looked blank. ‘Happy baccy as they call it in this neck of the woods.’
‘Don’t mind me,’ I said.
‘Not a chance,’ said Simeon, sitting down on the grass behind The Bus, dismissing me with a wave of his hand.
There was a faint track leading into a grassy clearing and continuing down to a stream. I remembered this clearly from the time four years before when Freddy had suggested we pitch tent here; we were on the last leg home from a camping holiday in Karamea and Punakaiki. Stella had been singing at a music festival on the Nile River. I’d never felt the same about the West Coast since that holiday; I didn’t know it then, but it was at the Nile River that Stella had been smitten with Laurie Pennlington, the festival’s producer. Twelve months later: goodbye Happy Families. Though, naturally, Laurie Pennlington, smooth as oil, didn’t last five minutes after Freddy left.
‘I was wrong, okay?’ blubbed Stella after she’d said ta-ta to Laurie. ‘It was a huge mistake, I was in a bad space, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, please believe me, God, I’m sorry …’
Sure.
That afternoon with Freddy we’d only stayed for a picnic, because Stella said she needed her own bed after two weeks on an inflatable mattress. A weka had poked its head out of the bush, hopeful of scraps, but Tiggie had got all excited and chased it away; later when we were all lying around, sleepy and full, a wood pigeon had settled on a tree just above us, making its peculiar, throaty sound. Then Freddy and Stella fell asleep in the sun and I took Tiggie down the track to the river and she found me flat stones to practise scudding along the water.
Woolpishen, I remembered Tiggie saying. I tried to remember the sound of her voice, I tried to hear it in my head, but it was elusive, lurking on the edge of my memory, just out of earshot. Probably I’d squashed the memory too many times and now it was lost.
I followed the track down to the stream, wondering if it was going to rain. The air was thick now, heavy and hot, exactly the way it often was before rain. Lemonwood, I noted, mentally naming the trees as I passed: lancewood, rimu, manuka. I could hear Freddy’s voice all right, reciting the trees when we did bush walks. Even Tiggie knew the names of some of the pittosporums at the old house, saplings planted by Freddy and Stella when home and garden were still on the agenda.
The rain was beginning gently just as I reached the edge of the stream. The drops dented the surface of the water where it ran slow and smooth.
‘It’s raining, Cato,’ said Tiggie, holding her pudgy hands out, catching the drops.
I closed my eyes for a long moment and opened them again, looking at the raindrops on the water. That was right, I thought, my brain turning over slowly. It had rained then; it had. I’d taken Tiggie’s hand and run back down the track to Stella and Freddy who were gathering up the picnic, laughing, cursing the Wet Coast.
I bent down and filled Simeon’s container. The rain was getting heavier and the trees steamed a little where the drops fell on their leaves.
‘Why is there smoke, Cato?’ said Tiggie as we ran down the track. ‘Is there a fire?’
‘No, no,’ I said, reassuring, squeezing her hand.
I stood still in the middle of the track, flexing my empty fist. I can remember the feel of her hand, I thought, not breathing. I can remember the exact feel of her hand. I looked at my free hand and felt Tiggie’s hand in it, the soft flesh of her palm, the chubby fingers.
‘Hold my hand, Cato,’ she said, if she was nervous or tired. ‘Hold my hand, tight, Cato,’ she said in crowds.
I couldn’t breathe. I stared at my hand and tried to breathe in, but there was no breath in my lungs, an obstruction in my throat. The van, I thought, feeling the sweat on my face and legs. But I couldn’t move either, except to my knees. I crouched, gulping, clutching my middle, paralysed by a tidal wave of panic. Catriona Antonia Stuart, Catriona Antonia Stuart, I said in my mind, beginning the mantra. Catriona Antonia St—… ‘I’m going to die,’ I said aloud, ‘I can’t breathe, I’m going to die, now, in the bush, on this track.’ Catriona Antonia Stuart, CatrionaAntoniaStuart.
I lifted my hands quickly to my eyes and pressed them there, shutting everything out, the trees, the ferns, the track, knowing that if I looked around I wouldn’t be able to hold my mind and my body together, I would dissolve.
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