Joe shrugs. ‘Do you know in some parts of Syria there’s only one doctor for every three thousand six hundred people?’
‘Meanwhile, in our country we have some of the highest youth suicide rates in the world.’ Molly flips a bottle cap at him. ‘Maybe you should report on that.’
‘Our country? Hang on, are we still talking about New Zealand here, Miss Australia?’
‘Yeah, fuck you.’
Joe lowers his voice. ‘How’re things with Richard?’ he asks, for the second time. The first time he’d asked, down at the beach, Molly had escaped into the water.
She almost says they’re fine, but then Joe gives her that look. Joe is the last person she’d ever lie to.
‘Tolerable,’ she says, elongating the four syllables, as they used to do with chewing gum.
‘He just needs to get that stick out of his arse.’
‘Joe.’
Joe drains his beer and sets it down beside him. ‘Just saying.’
Later that evening, the adults gather in the lounge, while the teens play table tennis in the garage. The air smells of overcooked steaks and beer, intermingled with pine. Sully suggests a game of cards. Richard, sitting beside Molly, lets out a muffled groan. He hates games, hates this yearly ritual.
‘You don’t have to play,’ Molly says, tapping Richard’s arm, and, so released, he retires to the balcony with his laptop. They partner up to play Five Hundred, her mother and Ants, Sully and Kiri, Molly and Joe.
‘Ten no trumps,’ their mother says, as usual.
Ants tosses his cards down on the table. ‘Mum.’
‘I’m good for it,’ their mother says, her lips pursed in concentration.
Molly scratches her nose to tell Joe her cards are good, but not that good, and he wrinkles his nose back at her. Me too. Next time, maybe.
Molly and Joe win anyway, because Hazel loses her ten no trumps bid, and Molly and Joe win the next three hands in a row.
‘Jesus,’ Sully says, going outside to have a smoke, which drives Richard back inside.
‘I’m going to bed,’ Richard says, squeezing Molly’s shoulder.
‘Sure. I’ll join you in a bit.’
‘OK.’ Richard’s hand drops to his side. ‘I’ll leave your nightie outside the door.’
She should have gone to bed with Richard. Her mother is winding up for the evening, even as the cicadas wind down.
‘I think it’s time for some music,’ Hazel says. ‘Molly, why don’t you play us something?’
‘I’m out of practice,’ Molly says, but her family jollies her down the stairs and into the music room. There’s a pair of Steinways down there — the pianos her mother uses for teaching; the pianos Molly used to spend hours at every morning. None of them could escape the piano, but it was Molly her mother had, wrongly, pinned her hopes on.
‘Play “Für Elise”,’ Ants says, collapsing into the remains of an armchair.
‘Ah, that’s such a cliché,’ Joe says. ‘Play some Chopin, Lolly.’
Molly frowns at him. ‘Mum can play us something.’
Shaking her head, Hazel sits on the couch. Her flowery apron drapes across her legs, still shapely even at seventy. ‘Chopin, yes,’ she says, as Joe sits next to her. ‘“Fantaisie Impromptu”.’
Molly plays a few scales. Her fingers feel stiff at first, these days more used to holding a pipette than stroking piano keys, but it doesn’t take long for their disjointed movements to turn into a fluid motion that spreads throughout her body. She hears her mother’s murmur of appreciation from behind her. The rest of the family have fallen silent, even the kids, who have drifted in and are sitting on the floor and the arms of the couches.
When she sits back from the keyboard, there is a whistle from Joe and clapping from the others.
‘You were always my best student,’ her mother murmurs. ‘Such a waste.’
Molly stiffens. The silence turns into something crystalline, brittle.
‘That was wonderful, Sis,’ Sully says, stepping forward to kiss her on the forehead.
‘Awesome,’ Austin says from his spot on the floor, beside Lola and Noah.
McKenzie yawns. ‘I’m going to bed.’
‘Yes, I’m quite weary.’ Hazel stands up. ‘See you all in the morning.’
‘Ah,’ Sully says. ‘Who’s up for a whisky?’
‘Don’t let Sully drink too much,’ their mother murmurs to Molly, once the others have left the room.
‘For God’s sake, Mum, he’s old enough to look after himself.’
Hazel glares at her. ‘I mean it. I worry about him, you know.’
Molly just shakes her head. Her mother huffs through her nose and bustles out of the room. Molly exhales. Maybe Richard’s right. It could be a long seven days.
An hour later, it’s only Sully, Joe and Molly left on the balcony, everyone else long in bed. Sully and Joe are drinking Laphroaig Single Malt and talking about authoritarian regimes. Molly, her head buzzing, leans over the railing, letting the sound of the waves roll into her ears. She thinks of the cochlea, and its resemblance to a seashell. Lowering her head, she runs her tongue along her arm, still salty from her swim earlier in the day.
‘Coming kayaking tomorrow, Lolly?’
Molly turns, squints at Joe. ‘I don’t know. How long will you be?’
Sully swirls his whisky around his glass. ‘Molly-Lolly, always in such a hurry. No wonder Mum couldn’t get you to the concert halls in Vienna.’
‘Oh, fuck off, Simon.’ Molly pushes away from the railing and stomps to the stairs at the end of the balcony.
‘Have a sense of humour, huh?’ Sully calls after her.
Ignoring him, Molly walks down the driveway and past the rusting letterbox, the gravel biting into the soft soles of her feet. It’s so quiet here, but so loud at the same time, every little noise exploding into her head — a door slamming, a child crying, the relentless scraping of the cicadas. If only she weren’t so on edge every time she came here, then maybe she could relax and enjoy it more.
After cutting between a pair of houses across the road, she crosses the powdery sand to the tideline, lets the water wash over her feet.
‘Must be at least twenty-three degrees, that water,’ a voice says behind her.
‘Must be.’ The breeze percolates through her hair, bringing scents of sun-baked seaweed and frangipani.
Joe folds his arms around her, his chin slotting into the curve of her neck. Two pieces of a puzzle, Molly thinks, a feeling of tranquillity spreading through her.
‘Two years ago, I told myself I’d never come back,’ she says.
‘I’m glad you did.’ He turns his head, his lips resting on her pulse.
‘Joe.’
He releases her. ‘Come for a swim.’
‘I don’t have my togs on.’
‘Since when did you need your togs?’ He’s stripping off, his butt cheeks glowing in the light of the half-moon. ‘Since when did you get so shy?’ He runs into the water and dives beneath a wave.
Joe, Joe, you never grew up, she thinks, but she leaves her clothes in an untidy pile in the sand and follows him into the deep. They bob out behind the breakers, staring up at the night sky.
‘I forgot how many stars you can see out here.’ Joe waves his fingers back and forth. ‘It’s so clear.’
‘Don’t you miss New Zealand when you’re away?’ Molly flutters her feet, turns a slow circle.
‘Of course. Don’t you?’ Joe extends a hand, brushing past her as she revolves around him, a moon to his Earth.
‘All the time,’ she echoes. The vacuum-like feeling is back in her chest, threatening to swallow her whole.
Joe says, ‘It makes me appreciate it even more, when I come back.’
‘You’ll get yourself killed one day.’
‘Could stay here and die, too.’ Joe stops gesturing. ‘Look at Dad, he never went south of the Bombay Hills and he was dead at sixty-one.’
‘You’re only forty-sev
en.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘You’ll never settle down, will you?’
‘If that means shacking up with a stuffy academic and moving to a white, middle-class suburb—’
Her anger is quick, a lightning flash in her head. ‘I’m going in.’
‘No.’ He grabs her arm. ‘Don’t.’ They face each other, treading water.
‘Stop it, then.’ She stares into his eyes. Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the most stubborn of them all?
‘You started it.’
‘You finished it.’
‘You always have to have the last word, don’t you?’ Joe reaches for her and spouts a mouthful of water at her. Shrieking, Molly pushes his head beneath the water, and they both go under, arms and legs tangling around each other.
Her head breaks through the inky surface before his. She fills her mouth with water and sprays him as soon as he bobs up. Then he chases her, and they laugh and frolic, like a pair of dolphins, all the way to shore.
‘What time is it?’
‘I dunno. Midnight?’
‘Huh.’ Molly has put her underwear and bra back on, has draped her t-shirt around her shoulders. They are sitting in the overhang of a bank, beneath the massive roots of a pohutukawa tree.
‘Still early.’ Joe, shirtless, lies back in the sand with his arms behind his head. Molly hesitates, then follows suit.
‘I’ll have to shower when I get home now.’
‘Why don’t you just crawl into bed and give Dick a big hug?’
‘He hates sand.’
‘Even if you’re naked?’
‘Hmm, not sure,’ she hedges.
Joe turns onto his side. ‘What, you don’t have sex anymore?’
‘None of your business.’
‘That sucks.’
‘Yeah, I’m sure you get it all the time. A girl in every port.’
Joe doesn’t take the bait. ‘Remember when we had that argument with Dad and he locked us out of the house?’
‘Yeah, we spent the night at the beach.’
‘We built that shelter of driftwood …’
‘And then the wind came up …’ Remembering how it fell on top of them, Molly laughs, and Joe joins in.
‘What was the argument about, Lolly?’
‘Oh, I can’t remember. Can you?’
‘Yeah.’ Joe deepens his voice. ‘Stop talking that nonsense, you sound like a pair of Chinks.’
‘Oh, the language.’ Molly lifts her eyes to the stars. ‘Pigeon English. Dad hated that, didn’t he?’ They were just talking backwards, but no one ever figured it out.
‘I think that’s why he got sick,’ Joe said. ‘Because he was continually angry.’
‘Maybe.’ She thinks of the cancer that killed him, turning his bones to the consistency of cheese. She thinks of the mutations in the cells that lead to that cancer.
‘You’re thinking some logical, sciency thing, aren’t you?’
‘I’m not.’
‘Yeah, right.’ Joe trails his finger in her hair. ‘Remember when we snuck out and hitched a ride to Auckland with Kat and Shane, so we could go to the Guns N’ Roses concert?’
Molly smiles. ‘Yeah, the driver let us smoke weed in the car, and we all got really stoned.’
‘Including the driver,’ Joe says, precipitating another fit of giggles. ‘I still listen to them sometimes,’ he says, once they can breathe again. ‘“November Rain”.’
‘Haven’t heard that in years.’ She scoots closer and rests her head on his chest. A forbidden evening, a piece of glass, a pinkie swear. No, no, she hasn’t forgotten.
He folds his fingers around her shoulder. ‘Why are you still with him?’
‘Are we back to this again?’
Joe doesn’t answer. She listens to his heart beating a tribal rhythm in her ear, their ancestral beat.
‘He’s a good father. To Noah.’
‘What about when Noah leaves home?’ His chest rises and falls, mirroring the swells in the sea. Sea-shells-cockle-shells-cochlea-swirl.
‘I don’t know.’ She inhales. ‘He rescued me.’
Joe snorts. ‘You don’t need rescuing.’
Molly sits up. ‘How would you know?’
‘Jesus, Molly, you’re forty-seven years old, an associate professor. How do you need rescuing?’ Joe sits up, too, his feet planted flat in the sand.
‘Look at you,’ Molly says, the lingering taste of sea-salt bitter on her tongue. ‘You’re still running.’
‘I’m a journalist. A foreign correspondent.’
‘You’re all the same.’ Molly shakes her still-damp hair, sand, sand, as though she were a crumbed fish fillet. ‘You’re all running from something. What normal person attempts to kill themselves trying to get the best photo, the best story?’
‘I never said I was normal, Loll.’ Something in his voice tugs at her core. He sounds old, all of a sudden, battle-weary.
‘I thought Mum would get better, after Dad died,’ she says. ‘But she never did.’
‘Too late, I guess.’
‘For both of them.’ She can’t keep the bitterness from her voice. Her mother had always played the victim in that marriage, but there were many times when Molly hadn’t been so sure about that. ‘I don’t know why they ever got back together.’
‘If they hadn’t, then we might never have seen each other again,’ Joe says, and they both stop talking for a moment, remembering the six years they’d had to spend apart as kids. Six years without her brothers, her father. Six years without her soul.
Her mother’s voice creeps into her head: I couldn’t afford to take more than one of you to Christchurch, Molly. There’s no way I could have held a teaching job down with four kids, and your father had Grandma to help him out with the boys. You understand, don’t you?
No, no, I’ll never understand.
‘I think we would have found each other,’ she says, pushing the ghost voices away. ‘Don’t you?’
‘I think we would have.’ He clears his throat. ‘Remember when Dad got so drunk he drove home from the pub with the door open, so he could look at the centre line? He kept saying, It’s awful foggy out.’
‘No, I don’t remember,’ Molly says. ‘Mum and I were still in Christchurch then.’
Joe sighs. ‘Let’s talk about something else, shall we?’ Draping his arm around her, he whispers in her ear, in their long-forgotten language.
Molly closes her eyes, and the years fall away. They fall, and fall, and fall.
Chapter 4:
NOAH
Noah wakes drenched in sweat, his tent illuminated with daffodil-yellow light. After peeling his sleeping bag open like a banana skin, he sits up, rubbing his face. Sea-salt crystals slide beneath his palms. He reaches for the door but pauses, listening to the cicadas, the faint thud of bass from the house next door, the distant hiss of the waves. Homesickness is a rising tide in the back of his throat; no, a storm surge.
I. Hate. Melbourne. Noah has been repeating those three words beneath his breath for the past year, every single day he has spent in Australia; alternating with I’ll. Never. Belong. Here. But now here is there, twenty-six hundred kilometres away, and there is here. New Zealand. The Far North. Uncle Joe. His cousins.
Lola, he thinks, hearing her lilting tones floating through the air. He can’t make out what Lola is saying, but it sounds like she’s talking to his mother. After pulling his t-shirt over his head, he unzips the tent fly and crawls out onto the sun-crisp lawn.
‘Dude.’ Tom wanders over from his tent, his arms stretched above his head.
‘Dude,’ Noah replies automatically, before looking down at his t-shirt, which says #Dude. ‘Oh, yeah. Got it in Sydney.’
‘In Syd-nee,’ Tom says in imitation of an Australian accent, and Noah cuffs him around the head. Glancing up, he sees Lola descending the stairs.
‘Are you coming for a kayak?’ Lola asks. Her dark hair is tied up in a ponytail, a couple of l
oose strands escaping around her ears.
‘Definitely,’ Tom says, before disappearing into the downstairs flat.
‘Sure,’ Noah says.
‘It can wait,’ his mother says from above them.
‘But you said—’ His father’s voice is rising. Noah’s stomach clenches like a fist.
Lola jumps over the last three steps and onto the lawn.
‘We could share one of the doubles,’ she says. ‘If you want.’
‘Sure,’ Noah repeats, trying to swallow past the sharp feeling he always gets in the back of his throat when his parents argue. He stalks towards the garage, Lola following him. The interior smells of petrol and glass clippings.
‘Or you can take a single,’ Lola says, watching Noah prod the dust coating one of the two double kayaks. ‘If you’d rather.’
Noah shakes his head and plucks a life jacket off the wall.
‘A double is good.’ He hesitates. ‘What was Dad saying up there?’
‘Nothing much,’ Lola says, and when he doesn’t look away, ‘OK, he said, Jesus, it’s always the same.’
‘Yeah,’ Noah says, trying to keep his voice even. ‘I thought it might be something like that.’
Lola bites her lower lip. ‘Why?’
‘Because,’ he says, ‘it is always the same.’ He’d heard his parents arguing the night before they flew back to New Zealand.
Dad: There’s no point me being there anyway. I always feel like a third wheel.
Mum: It’ll look odd if you don’t come. I don’t complain when we stay with your family.
Dad: My family doesn’t go in for your extremes of love and hate.
Mum: Well, you might as well be strangers in a waiting room, for all the emotion you show each other.
Grimacing, Lola says, ‘Ugh, I wish she’d just leave me alone’, and Noah hears it too — Aunt Kiri calling out Lola’s name.
‘At least she’s interested,’ he mumbles. ‘You’d better go and see what she wants, huh?’
It’s only once Lola has gone that Noah realises he’s busting for a piss. He dashes into the downstairs flat, but the bathroom door is closed, the shower running. Whoever is in there obviously really likes Sia, from the way they’re singing along to their phone at the top of their lungs. Austin, he’s guessing.
Moonlight Sonata Page 3
