Song of the Sound

by Jeff Gulvin

  ‘Tree avalanches,’ he said. ‘They happen all the time here. The growth becomes too much, too heavy, and then gravity takes over and there’s a slippage just like snow in the Alps. The vegetation peels off the rock and ends up in the water, where tannin from the soil and foliage gives it that tea colour you can see.’ He pointed to the fresh-water layer where the surface was sepia-coloured in places and darker brown in others. ‘The nutrients feed the world under the water — fish, plant life, etc. The fiords hold all kinds of wildlife: there are coral trees down there that are thousands of years old.

  ‘When the bare rock is exposed on the mountainside, the process of regeneration begins. It’s gradual: mosses and lichen form the first layers, and down in the estuarine places, toi toi and jointed spear grass grow. The wound begins to heal and slowly the land repairs itself. The birds and animals help.’ He looked at Bree again. ‘Bellbirds, Bree, are pollinators. Did you know that?’

  Bree shook her head.

  ‘Next time you’re in the garden, watch one eating an apple. They lick out the flesh with really long tongues. That’s how they pollinate plants, moving from one to another with pollen on their beaks and tongues. It’s all part of a very delicate ecosystem: life, death and rebirth makes Fiordland what it is, a regenerating rainforest.’

  They crossed the sound after lunch, weaving their way through the many islands where fur seals watched from the rocks and swam among the kelp. John-Cody steered with the wheel now, watching both sides of the boat through the open doors and keeping the bridge clear. He guided the Korimako into Luncheon Cove where the forest looked so primordial, so old and unspoiled, that Libby would not have been surprised to see dinosaurs wandering through the bush.

  The trees came right to the lip of the cove, which was circular and flat with rain sheeting in icy blasts across the surface of the water. It proved to be only a short shower though, before the sun came out and was reflected in the new and sudden stillness. Some of the tannin-stained rocks looked almost pink as the sun bounced over them and the water was tinted green and yellow in places where it was shallower. John-Cody dropped the anchor then walked on deck and gazed across the cove to a mound of rocks on the northern lip. Libby followed his eyes and saw movement.

  Picking up binoculars, she saw a group of fur seal pups watching them with interest, their eyes black and round like saucers.

  ‘This is where the first house I told you about was built,’ John-Cody said, ‘where the sealers had their station. Nobody knows the numbers of fur seals before they came, but it’s estimated that as many as two and a half million skins were taken. Captain Cook didn’t take seals for commercial purposes, but he was here in 1773 and was the first European to use them as a resource. Blubber for oil, skins to mend rigging and meat for eating, of course.’ He laid his hand on Bree’s shoulder. ‘Now there’s something like ten thousand seals in Fiordland and nobody hunts any of them.’ He looked down at her. ‘How would you like to swim with the pups?’

  He fished 7mm wetsuits out of the dive locker, found one that would fit Bree and Libby took her below decks to change. Libby had a drysuit with her for her research; the fiords were cold even in summer and she didn’t fancy hours underwater without one. For all the time Bree had spent with her mother in various parts of the world, she had never worn a wetsuit before and she had never used a snorkel.

  Dressed and ready, they went back on deck and John-Cody fixed Bree up with a pair of dive boots and a mask and snorkel. Carlos was going to swim with her and he was waiting in the dinghy. Libby joined them and John-Cody steered away from the Korimako, giving the rocks a wide berth. He eased off the throttle and they sat on the water, idling and watching as a young adolescent bull lifted his snout from the large rocks in the middle of the pile. ‘He might try to spoil things,’ John-Cody muttered, ‘but we’ll give it a shot.’

  Carlos eased over the side and floated off on his belly. No need for fins; the suits were so buoyant the fins would have done nothing but slap the surface and scare off the pups. Bree sat on one side of the boat and watched as two pups slipped off the rocks, escaping the watchful eye of the bull, and swam towards Carlos.

  John-Cody helped Bree into the water and she held on to the rope that he twisted round his fist. She gasped as the cold hit her, her breathing suddenly rushed. It steadied, though, and she trod water for a moment or two.

  ‘Remember, Bree, you can’t sink. That suit will keep you afloat better than a life jacket. So relax.’ His voice was gentle and soft and Libby sat with one hand fisted to her mouth, watching her daughter’s eyes focused on his through the mask. She was pumping air up and down the snorkel though her face was still out of the water.

  ‘Listen to your body,’ John-Cody was saying, ‘feel what it’s saying to you. Just relax and go with it. Listen to your breathing. You can’t sink. If you want to have a break then just roll on your back and crab your hands and feet. Let go: look at the sky. It’s beautiful from that angle. Remember, you can’t sink.’ He showed her how to clear her mask then she rolled over, put her face in the water, tried to breathe and lifted her head again, spluttering.

  ‘It’s OK, Bree,’ he said. ‘Just relax. You can do it. Gently put your face in the water. Do it little by little. Ease your face under and hold on to the boat.’

  Bree did as he told her and she breathed, jagged little gasps at first then slower and deeper. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Gently does it. Good. You’re doing just fine.’

  She lifted her face again, spat out the snorkel and beamed at her mother.

  ‘Now listen,’ John-Cody said. ‘We’ll be right here. Stick close to Carlos and if you don’t want the pups swimming up to your face just hold your hands out in front of you. They’ll come that far and no further. OK?’

  Bree nodded, put her snorkel back in her mouth and let go the rope. She rolled on her belly and paddled her way over to where Carlos was surrounded by seal pups. John-Cody sat back and nodded. ‘She’s a natural,’ he said, watching her.

  ‘You’re the natural.’ Libby smiled. ‘A natural-born teacher.’

  He laughed. ‘I’d last five minutes in a classroom.’

  ‘Who said anything about classrooms? That was brilliant, John-Cody. Bree’s got great confidence in her academic ability but not much else. She’s never had a mask anywhere near her face and look at her, swimming with seals in New Zealand.’

  ‘We’ll just keep an eye on that bull.’ John-Cody was standing up in the boat once more, watching the beach-master on his promontory. ‘Bree’s a good kid,’ he said, ‘plucky and very bright. She’ll do all right.’

  The rain came sheeting down again and Libby lifted the hood on her waterproofs. John-Cody stood with his hair getting wetter, monitoring the bull every time he went into the water.

  Bree was squealing, pups coming at her from all sides with wide black eyes and whiskers twitching, so graceful underwater, almost as if they were flying. Libby looked to the tree line and heard the high-pitched screech of a weka. Last night John-Cody had told them the difference between a weka and a kiwi, which a lot of people mixed up. The weka started each cry from roughly the same note, whereas the pitch of the kiwi kept rising. She thought about being here with the Tuheru and Maeroero, having the wild people for company in the dead of night. Jonah and his stories: never mind scaring Bree, she was the one who would be sleeping alone in the bush.

  ‘This is a wonderfully atmospheric place,’ she said, as John-Cody sat down again.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘When did you first come here?’

  ‘1974. I was on a fishing boat. We landed a catch at Bluff Cove.’

  ‘From the US?’

  ‘Hawaii.’

  ‘Like the Maori.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Landing from Hawaii.’

  He smiled. ‘I guess. I never thought of it that way.’ He watched the bull again as he hauled himself out of the water, then turned to Libby once more. ‘Waitaha, Jonah’s tribe: they
were the first Polynesians to colonize the South Island. Mahina and Jonah were half Waitaha and half Hungarian. Mahina looked full-blood Maori to me though.’

  ‘Like Jonah?’

  ‘Just like Jonah, only with a henna tint in her hair. You saw her picture yesterday.’

  They sat in silence, watching Bree and Carlos slapping about in the shallows. John-Cody looked beyond them and all at once he was aware of Mahina’s presence, in the rain and in the mist that had settled like woodsmoke over the massed ranks of beech trees crowding the edge of the water.

  SIX

  BREE WAS COLD BUT full of it when she came out of the water, shivering in her wetsuit. John-Cody held the dinghy steady against the dive platform while she clambered out and climbed the steps to the deck of the Korimako. Libby helped her up and Jonah was waiting on deck with a kettle full of warm water. Libby held the neck of Bree’s suit open while Jonah poured the warm water inside. Bree squealed with delight as the warmth dribbled down her back and into the legs of the suit.

  She and Carlos took hot showers while they got under way: John-Cody had promised to show Libby the Supper Cove hut, which meant steaming the length of the sound before turning round and heading for Preservation Inlet. Jonah was busy with food, so Libby flaked the chain and signalled to John-Cody in the wheelhouse when the anchor showed at the waterline. Back on the bridge, she thanked him.

  ‘That was wonderful for Bree, John-Cody. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her quite so excited.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ He stood at the wheel, guiding the boat out of the confines of Luncheon Cove and back to the Many Islands. He had considered leaving Supper Cove till the way back, but decided that once they were finished at Preservation Inlet he would sail straight up the coast to Doubtful. The weather outlook was pretty good for the next few days, so he hoped they would make the passage without incident.

  As he steered between the Many Islands he heard the whine of a floatplane overhead. He went on deck and shaded his eyes where the sun was trying to break through. He picked up the plane flying in from the east, following the line of Cook Channel; it arced above them, dipping low, and then made a series of circles. He bunched his eyes, aware of the direction of the wind on his face and wondering if they would land.

  Libby moved next to him, her scent in his nostrils. He glanced at her as the floatplane made a pass right above the boat and a face pressed against the passenger window.

  ‘Do you know them?’

  John-Cody nodded grimly. ‘Nehemiah Pole.’ He pointed to Heron Island. ‘That’s one of his proposed sites.’

  Libby watched as the floatplane circled once more then headed north-east. ‘They mean business then.’

  ‘Oh, definitely. There’s millions of dollars involved.’ John-Cody squatted on the corner of the vegetable locker. ‘Pole’s married to an American lawyer, Lib. She’s a tough woman and she’s got access to a large clientele in the United States, rich folks, the hunting and fishing fraternity. With her contacts and Pole’s reputation down here, they’re offering the ultimate wilderness experience in one of the last unspoilt places on earth.’ He shook his head. ‘It sounds great in the brochure, but if it happens they’re going to change that wilderness experience for ever.’

  ‘Five floating hotels,’ Libby said.

  John-Cody nodded.

  ‘That’s not so many. Dusky’s a big place.’

  He frowned at her. ‘It’s only the beginning though, isn’t it? Think how many people will be watching the outcome of this application. If Pole gets his surface water activity permit then a whole stack of other people will be slapping in applications, Southland Tours at the head of the queue.’ He got up from the locker. ‘Dusky, Breaksea, Bradshaw, Thompson, Doubtful — the list goes on and on, Libby. We give one inch here and they’ll take every mile of fiord they can get.’

  Libby watched him go back into the wheelhouse, the wind on her face now, rain again in the air. Bree was sitting at the saloon table, hair still wet and hanging to her shoulders, drawing a picture of the seals she had been swimming with. John-Cody picked up the radio and called Alex at base to check in. Everything was fine and he hung up the handset, leaned back against the wood of the bench and folded his arms. Libby was in the prow, her elbows on the pulpit rail looking down at the cut glass of the water.

  Supper Cove was situated on the banks of the estuary at the very head of the sound, which comprised two arms. Shark Cove was to the south, slimmer and narrower than Supper Cove, which was wide and flat-bottomed and heavily silted close to the shore. Rimu grew on the edge of the beech forest, thick and tightly woven, penetrated only by deer trails and twin footpaths that led north to West Arm and south to Lake Hauroko. The hut itself was set on the northern bank of the cove, visible from both the water and the air. John-Cody took Libby across in the dinghy and they picked their way up the shingle beach to the first line of trees. Inside, the hut was spacious, with an open fireplace in one wall and dry logs laid out in readiness for a fire. A notice confirming Libby’s usage was pasted on the door and on the table, which pleased her. She should not be receiving any unwelcome visitors. Maori bunks that could sleep three or four were fastened to one wall with a smaller single bunk against the other. There was a pot-bellied stove and a water pump, its source one of the many streams that gushed out from the bush.

  John-Cody looked at the stove, checking the chimney pipe for any sign of leakage, then he stood up and dusted his hands on his jeans. ‘This’ll be just fine,’ he said. ‘How long do you plan to be here?’

  ‘No more than a week at a time: I still haven’t worked out who is going to look after Bree.’ She shook her head. ‘The last thing I want to do is leave her when we’ve only just got here.’

  John-Cody could see the concern etched in her eyes. ‘You want somebody she knows at least, somebody she likes.’ His eyes brightened then. ‘You ought to ask Alex. She and Bree hit it off. Her place is big and she rattles around in there all by herself.’

  Libby looked up at him. ‘You think she might do it?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But it can’t hurt to ask.’

  Outside Libby heard a weka shriek and she started.

  ‘You’ll hear a lot of them at night,’ John-Cody told her. ‘And kiwi. There’s brown kiwi down here.’

  Libby moved to the door and gazed at the density of the bush, tangled and massed against the water like a wall of green darkness. ‘Along with the Maeroero no doubt,’ she said.

  They sailed for Preservation Inlet with the afternoon waning and darkness gathering in the west. John-Cody stood at the wheel and Jonah served an early dinner. They sailed with the wind from the north, down the West Cape towards Cape Providence and Chalky Inlet. Libby sat at the chart table and made some notes on what she had learned in Dusky, remarking on the fact that she had seen neither hide nor hair of any dolphins. The sea to the east was flat and grey with nothing to mark their distance from the land: clouds, thick and choked, lay against the horizon. Yet one look to leeward and the western cliffs rose black and treacherous all the way south. The Korimako pitched and rolled as three currents clashed beyond Cape Providence where the Tasman met the wash from Chalky Inlet and the Foveaux Strait.

  They moored that night in Useless Bay. The wind had moved nor’west and would be coming from the south in the morning. A gale had whipped the Tasman into a frenzy of broken waves, which chewed at the sound beyond Kisbee Bay. John-Cody listened to the forecast on Bluff Radio: the squall would blow itself out during the night and the sun would be shining tomorrow.

  Libby woke early with light streaming through her porthole. She heard movement in the galley and looked at her watch. Six thirty: the other guests would still be sleeping. She got up and slipped a sweatshirt over the long T-shirt she sometimes wore as a nightdress and climbed the wooden steps to the saloon. John-Cody was stirring sugar into a mug of coffee: there was no sign of Jonah, the only sounds the creaks and little groans the Korimako made continually. Libby smiled a
t John-Cody and he indicated coffee with a swirl of his finger. She nodded, bent to the for’ard steps and peeked down to where Bree lay sound asleep in the freezer bunk. She crouched for a few moments, just watching the peace on her daughter’s face, a peace she had not seen in a good couple of years. Maybe all that had gone wrong in France was actually a blessing for them; Bree looked as happy here as Libby had ever seen her. She felt John-Cody move behind her and he handed her a steaming mug of coffee.

  ‘Let’s go on deck,’ he said quietly. ‘We won’t disturb anyone out there.’

  Taking a bottle of washing-up liquid from under the sink, he spread some of it on the door runners and slid the starboard one back. ‘Keeps them smooth,’ he whispered and they stepped out on deck.

  Libby wore no shoes and the steel deck was surprisingly warm against the soles of her feet. John-Cody wore a T-shirt and jeans and he stood with one hand across his chest and looked the length of the bay. The water was flat and still, only the faintest ripple visible, not a breath of wind and already there was heat in the sun.

  Libby sipped coffee. ‘Have you got anything particular planned today?’

  ‘Bush walks.’ He pointed south-west. ‘The lighthouse at Puysegur Point gives you great views of the straits and halfway back is Sealers Beach, wild and wonderful in this weather.’ He stood and sipped coffee. Libby looked at his hair, silver and hanging to his shoulders where the ends were uneven and frayed. She’d had a great desire to do something about those broken ends from the moment she clapped eyes on him. Her own hair was loose today; when she was working she wore it in a French plait. She leaned on the rail next to him and breathed in the silence, aware of the smell of salt in the air, a dryness to it coming in off the Tasman. A mollymawk glided low over the entrance to Useless Bay before banking back in the wind ten feet above the waves.