Song of the Sound

by Jeff Gulvin

  Libby laughed and the sound reverberated back at her. ‘I’ll bear it in mind for my thesis.’

  John-Cody hung up the handset and looked round at Jonah who was busy in the galley preparing pasties for lunch. ‘You hear that, Jonah? Quasi’s in Dusky Sound.’

  Jonah nodded. ‘You know what else I heard?’

  ‘What’s that?’ John-Cody leaned against the open port door of the wheelhouse feeling the warmth of the sun on his bare legs.

  ‘The first joke you cracked since Mahina died.’

  John-Cody thought about that and was quiet for a moment, gazing through the galley window at the estuarine green of Shoal Cove.

  She came to his crib that first night and they talked up the dawn when he was due back in Doubtful with Tom. Together they had taken the Southland Tours boat across Lake Manapouri and sat on deck with the sun on their backs as it rode the saddle of the Takitimu Mountains. Neither of them had had any sleep, but Mahina seemed to be wearing her fatigue better than he was. The thought of hauling crayfish pots was appalling and he had decided he would appeal to Tom’s generosity of spirit and suggest he trawl the deer traps for captured stock instead.

  Mahina sat close to him, her shoulder against his upper arm so he could feel the warmth in her through the wind. The lake was flat and the shadows of islands and mountains scurried past in turn. Shafts of sunlight buried rainbows in the surface where the engines churned spray in their wake. John-Cody could smell the scent of the girl alongside him and was filled with the desire to take her hand in his and feel the warmth of her skin. Later he would call it intuition, her uncanny ability to perceive certain thoughts or actions, her knack of locating the dolphins of Doubtful Sound, having them swim alongside the boat and talk to her, whether or not there was a bow wave for them to surf. But at that moment she didn’t look at him, just slipped her tiny brown hand under his where it lay on his thigh. She leaned her head on his shoulder and remained that way, John-Cody not daring to move, until they reached West Arm. That was before the power station was built and Tom kept a battered jeep so they could negotiate the pass.

  They took the jeep that morning and Mahina sat next to him, her hand resting on his thigh all the way up the pass. Tom was waiting at Deep Cove; he clicked his tongue at the lack of punctuality, then he saw Mahina and a spark lit in his eye.

  ‘G’day, young lady. How you going and how’s your old man?’

  ‘Just fine, Tom, Kobi’s great.’

  John-Cody stared at them both. ‘You two know each other?’

  ‘Course we bloody do.’ Tom wagged his head at him. ‘Kobi’s been running a crayfish boat up the coast for years.’

  ‘How come I don’t know him?’

  Tom shrugged. ‘A bloke can’t know everyone, Gib. Even a bloke like you.’ He cocked his head to one side and looked again at Mahina. ‘How’d you meet this joker anyway?’

  ‘He was at Yuvali Burn.’

  ‘There’s a hind in the trap there,’ John-Cody put in. ‘I told you yesterday. We need to get her aboard the boat today.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Tom scratched the hairs on his forearm. ‘You better get the other traps checked as well then. You want to take the dinghy?’

  ‘We can take mine,’ Mahina said.

  ‘OK. I’ll meet you off Seymour Island later.’ Tom winked at Mahina then went below deck and the two of them stepped into her dinghy.

  They checked the traps one by one: deer could survive in them for weeks, as they were placed strategically on trails where plenty of secondary vegetation was growing. If for some reason John-Cody or Tom didn’t check the traps for a while it didn’t matter. John-Cody had seen deer use their foreleg to push a small tree into a bend just so they could eat the juicier leaves higher up the trunk.

  They got to the Camelot River estuary at the head of Gaer Arm, where John-Cody had built a circular wire trap beyond a copse of kahikatea. Supplejack grew in dark vines from the floor and southern rata flowered red. Easter orchids clustered in vast numbers and when they bloomed they filled the air with a sweetness you could scent across the whole of Doubtful Sound.

  The day was hotter than the previous one and no clouds blocked the sun from the trees. John-Cody paused to listen to a helicopter in the distance, then walked barefoot up the little beach and into the cool of the trees with Mahina at his side. A large male tui watched them from the branch of a silver beech, his white breast feathers curled like bells on his chest. Two mating scaup scampered in slapping footsteps across the flattened water of the estuary, before taking to the air with a screech. John-Cody stood for a moment, aware of the crash of the waterfall fifty yards into the bush, splintered by the sound of birdsong. He could recognize a few of them now, having been here a couple of years. Tom had taught him to pick them out, and he had also been harried and hassled from above when he stepped too close to a nesting karearea or falcon; they were known to dive-bomb people who strayed too far from the path.

  Mahina told him that the amount of birdsong one heard was indicative of the health of the forest. Stoats attacked birds, eating their eggs and their young and sometimes the adults too if hunger was driving them hard. Not only stoats; possums ate the eggs and over the years the bird population had steadily declined. The flightless takahe, discovered high in the Murchison Mountains back in 1948, was now found only in the alpine grassland zones. The trail-finding kakapo of old was restricted to the handful of conservation areas where it had been systematically reintroduced.

  Mahina moved ahead of him, picking her way silently through the tangled Camelot bush: she was small and lithe and as quiet as her Waitaha ancestors. She knew where the trap was. She knew where all John-Cody’s traps were, having watched him for over six months. He had never known she was there. No-one ever knew she was there, fading as she did into the mystery of the forest where she was hidden by Tane Mahuta. She heard the Tuheru talking about John-Cody, watching him from inside the trunks of trees or etched into rocks. They let him be, content to observe how he moved, how he hunted, the respect he paid to their garden when he was shooting deer, the particular reverence with which he treated any fallen animal. His presence was acceptable to them. It was acceptable to her.

  She turned now as the sound of falling water grew louder, and looked into the sea-grey of his eyes. She held out a hand for him and he took it and his flesh was warm against hers. She worked tiny fingers over the calluses at the base of his fingers, hard mounds of yellowed skin where hours of work on fishing boats had taken their toll. She had noted the indentation marks from a year with the scallop knife off Hawaii. He had told her everything last night; she witnessed the pain standing like a livid scar in his face, the light of fear in the deepest part of his eyes. She had not said it to him then, but the peace she sensed in him echoed the peace of Waitaha, her ancestors from Hawaiki: they, unlike any other ocean traveller who strode the shores of Aotearoa, had never taken up arms.

  She held his hand as they approached the deer trap and before John-Cody could see it he heard the deer move. He slowed and glanced at Mahina and then he eased aside the stems of supplejack and gazed through the tangled foliage. He glimpsed the tan colour of her hide, greying to buff at throat and tail.

  ‘Wapiti,’ he whispered.

  They stood together and watched the animal for a while, John-Cody trying to work out exactly how they would get her and the red deer hind at Yuvali Burn onto Tom’s boat. If there were any more in the other traps he would have to leave them till later, because two live deer were enough for the small crayfish vessel. Two breeding age females: he was looking at three thousand dollars.

  The sun beat on their heads through the treetops and John-Cody could feel the sweat in his hairline. It rained most days in Fiordland, but when it was hot it was blistering. He stood there, perspiring, with the sound of falling water in his ears and then Mahina lifted her hands to his face, cupped his cheeks and tilted his head to meet hers. He kissed her and closed his eyes and felt his heart in his chest and a sudden quiveri
ng in his limbs. Lips against lips, slightly apart, breathing each other in, he took her in his arms and held her, aware of her warmth, the slight damp of her skin under his fingers. Her arms were bare, just the singlet and shorts of yesterday. He drew her closer to him, eyes closed and strands of wild hair against his cheek. She led him further into the bush and the sound of the water grew louder and he could see it now, cascading in broken ribbons of white over the sudden sharpness of the cliff, like in a wound of black rock against the bottle green of the forest. The water tumbled into a shallow pool, before forming a stream or burn that ran to the Camelot estuary. Mahina stood in the shallows now, feet lost in silted vegetation, and she pulled her singlet over her head.

  John-Cody remained where he was, stunned by the suddenness of the movement. She stood holding the garment in one hand, the ends trailing in water that coursed around her feet. Her breasts were small and high and the flesh was mottled with goose pimples at the aureole of the nipple. She closed her eyes and tilted back her head and the spray from the waterfall licked her face like gossamer. She stepped back and the fine mist became a shower, which threaded her skin and ran in slivers off her neck and shoulders. She stepped closer still to the waterfall and then gazing into his eyes she unsnapped the button of her shorts. For a moment longer she stood, shorts unfastened, the waistband billowing to the sides so the shadows below her navel were visible. John-Cody worked the air from his throat in a long swallow. Mahina turned her back on him, eased her shorts over her hips and stepped out of them.

  She stood naked, the perfect line of her back narrowed to her waist and buttocks that shivered and clenched with the sudden chill of the water. Legs slim and dark, the muscles pronounced against the skin, arced into nothing where her feet were lost in the shallows. Still she did not face him, didn’t look back: it was as if she was alone with the forest and the silent ghosts of her ancestors. John-Cody remained where he was, his own feet rooted in the forest floor, the lump rising again in his throat. His stomach was a wreath of tangled knots, his palms moist, and he was aware of the sudden ache in his loins as desire rose hot from his belly.

  Then Mahina turned so their eyes met again and she stepped back under the water and her hair was plastered to her shoulders. The water shimmered off her skin like a curtain, flattening her breasts and tightening the nipples so they jutted taut and youthful and hard. His eyes roved the flat of her stomach where the water ran like oil and rushed between her legs where the mass of curling hair spread flat and wet and jet black.

  She held out a hand to beckon him. John-Cody peeled his own T-shirt over his head and he could smell the scent of Easter orchids, heady all at once in his nostrils. The bush came alive with the very tingling in his being: he gazed on Mahina’s nakedness and she gazed on his and the desire deep within him. He could smell the cast beech seed and the moss, the lichen that hugged tree trunks and covered bare rock like body hair. He sensed the scurry of insects and the flutter of tiny wings and, beneath it all, the very stillness of the forest.

  If the water was cold he didn’t notice. His eyes were on Mahina as she tipped her head back into the falling torrent then reached for him and he pressed himself against her.

  They made love standing up with the water chilling them, John-Cody rooted among the stones and Mahina climbing him till her head was close to his and her legs wrapped about him like twin constricting serpents. They moved to the bank and the carpet of fallen vegetation and made love again while the captured wapiti doe looked on from beyond the wire. Afterwards they lay on their backs, the sun on their skin warm and weary-making through the canopy of trees. The falling water seemed to still in their ears: Mahina half lifted her head and looked at him.

  ‘Can you hear them, John-Cody?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You’re pakeha.’ She lay down again, her palm on his breast. ‘How could you possibly hear them?’

  John-Cody eased damp hair behind her ear. ‘Hear who?’

  ‘Listen.’ She placed the line of her index finger against his lips to hush him and he listened, but all he could hear was the water and the slight breeze that luffed like a sail in the treetops.

  ‘If you listen you can hear their voices.’ Her face was solemn now and John-Cody listened hard: he heard the dull chimes of a male bellbird calling for its mate, but no more.

  ‘They can hear you.’ She sat up and looked into the green. ‘Don’t you know they watch you when you think you’re alone in the bush? I’ve seen them watching you. Perhaps they led me to you.’

  Now he sat up. ‘What are you talking about?’ He cupped her cheek in his palm. ‘What’re you saying, Mahina?’

  She kissed his fingers. ‘I think you’re the man of peace who came to the people of peace in the last garden of Tane.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who are they?’

  And then she smiled and her smile he would remember to his dying day. She entwined her fingers in his and drew him close again. ‘The Tuheru, of course, the Dimly Seen of the mountains.’

  They sailed back down Gaer Arm and John-Cody saw a couple of Pole’s crayfish boats beyond the reef in Precipice Cove. A long time ago Jonah had worked for Pole and some members of the crew were still his drinking pals. He came alongside John-Cody where he watched from the port doorway.

  ‘The fishing’s not been good. Not for a while now.’ John-Cody squinted at him. ‘I wondered why so many of his boats were tied up.’

  ‘Some of the crew have been laid off.’ Jonah shrugged. ‘Whatever he does it never seems to work out. That gold mine in Victoria, I don’t know what he was thinking about. Probably started to believe his own publicity. You know he mortgaged his house? From what I hear, if the Dusky deal doesn’t go ahead he’ll lose it.’

  John-Cody made a face. ‘That’ll please his wife.’ It disturbed him though: it made the fight for Dusky Sound all the more desperate.

  The sky had been cloudless this morning, but now it was gradually choking with thunderheads. The boat was full, fourteen guests, and John-Cody was glad the rain had been only a light summer drizzle so far, enough to get the waterfalls going so they could see the sound in all its glory. But they could also see the tops of the mountains. He watched the guests now, milling about on deck, taking in the primordial, almost surreal atmosphere of Fiordland. They would spend the last night at the head of Hall’s Arm, where the entrance to the narrows was reflected with a glass-like stillness and the water could be the sky and sky could be the water.

  He realized he felt calmer than he had for a long time: when he woke in the mornings at the homestay the emptiness was still there but it no longer chewed at him like a canker. He could hear Libby and Bree moving about next door, and sometimes if one or other of them raised their voice he would hear them talking.

  Bree was forever in the garden and she did her homework at the desk in the hut with the sliding door open. John-Cody had rigged up a CD player for her and the garden beat time to Steps or B’Witched or one of the other bands he had never heard of. He had even picked up his twelve-string guitar, which for so long had gathered moths in the other hut. He had plugged in his portable amp and finger-picked some New Orleans blues, or some of the songs he had composed during his time in McCall.

  Jonah had noticed the difference in him and so had Tom and so had the women in Manapouri. They still fussed over him in the shop and when he picked up stores in Te Anau, but there was nothing like the level of concern in their eyes that there had been.

  They steamed back down Bradshaw Sound and one of the female guests screeched as a dolphin leaped right in front of the bows. ‘Your boat, Jonah.’ John-Cody stepped on deck. ‘Keep her as she goes. I’ll get the wetsuits ready.’

  Libby watched the sun disappear beyond the horizon and a half-darkness descended on Supper Cove. She had lit a small fire on the beach close to a good sitting stone and was warming a pot of coffee. Tom Blanch had given her the old tin pot and she set it now in the embers. She liked Tom, could see t
he years of wisdom in his eyes and the fatherly approach he had to John-Cody. They had had one brief conversation, where he told her it was good for the old sea dog to have them living next door. It stopped him disappearing up his own arse, as Tom liked to put it.

  Libby had her laptop open on her knees, the twin battery pack giving her at least six hours, and she was studying some of the data and photographs she had scanned into the system. Seventeen dolphins positively identified, their specific markings gleaned from hundreds of pictures. She had given them all a letter/number combination for ID, but also names like Old Nick, Fantail and Droopy. Sighting Quasimodo today had been a real rush: for a long time she had favoured the idea of interbreeding between various pods, and now she had fresh evidence. If some males roved in a bachelor pack to ensure the strength of the gene pool, this would have sound practical results, though whether it arose from instinct or intellect, nobody knew. The definition of intelligence was a relative term anyway: many people believed that the dolphin brain was more highly developed than that of man. Their system of communication was one of the most advanced on the planet, dolphins and other toothed whales being the only marine mammals who were known to echolocate. They emitted recycled air as sound pulses then drew it back as a series of vibrations received through the lower jaw. Each tooth vibrated in a perfectly unique way that enabled the animals to identify what they were looking at, how far away and in what direction it was, and whether they wanted to eat it or not. The closest land relative they had in terms of echo-location was the bat.

  And bats flew now, beyond the hut, dodging the line of the forest where the blackness was accentuated by the density of vegetation. John-Cody had told her there were two surviving species of peka peka, as the Maori called them, and both were endemic to the area. She looked over her shoulder and heard the flutter of leathery wings, grey against the lighter grey of the shadows that dominated the hillside. Somewhere far off a morepork called and she thought of the conversation she had had with John-Cody back in November.