by Jeff Gulvin
New Orleans baked with the heat of summer and most of the tourists had given up and gone home. The French Quarter sweated day and night and the only relief was the frequency of the rainstorms that swept in from the gulf. He sat on the steps of the park now, guitar across his knees, picking at the strings, one of his own compositions that he hadn’t played in a while. He was waiting on a call from Libby and he was thinking about Dusky Sound. There was nothing he could do now and he probably wouldn’t see it again, but that didn’t make it any easier. If he closed his eyes he was on the bridge of the Korimako, sails up, weaving between the islands with the wind blowing across Five Fingers Peninsula.
He played with a bent head, glancing up every now and again to watch the human statues and the artists and tarot readers in Jackson Square. Some of them he knew to talk to now, sitting here as he did on his days off, an upturned hat at his feet. He chewed an unlit cigarette and played and thought back to the days gone by when he and the band headlined at Big Daddy’s.
Libby pushed open the door to the restaurant on Decatur Street and glanced at the waiters, white aprons tied about their waists, waiting for the lunchtime rush that wouldn’t come. One of them picked up a towel and walked over, a broad smile on his face.
‘Lunch for one, mam?’
Libby smiled and shook her head. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I was looking for John-Cody Gibbs.’
‘He’s not working today.’
Libby’s face fell. ‘Do you know where I could find him?’
‘Well, he might be at home. But you know what — you might want to look in Jackson Square. He sometimes plays guitar down there when he’s not working.’
Libby thanked him and left the restaurant, walked a couple of blocks to Royal Street and headed for Jackson Square. She had never been to New Orleans before but the hotel had provided her with a little street map outlining the grid that was the French Quarter.
She came to the square and a clown on stilts walked around her in circles till she fished in her bag and handed him a couple of dollars. He made a great show of bowing to her and Libby moved between the rows of portrait artists and fortune-tellers and hobos lying against the railings. She walked right round the enclosed patch of grass but couldn’t see John-Cody anywhere. She crossed back to Decatur Street and could smell the boiled mud of the Mississippi River just across the train tracks. She looked towards the old Jax Brewery and back towards her hotel, then across the street where concrete steps rose to a pair of cannons. She saw him sitting there with a guitar across his knees.
She watched for a long time, aware of butterflies in her stomach: his hair hung long and ragged still at the ends where he had cut it nine months previously. Two mule-drawn carts rolled past in front of her and she crossed the road to the steps.
John-Cody played softly to himself, not looking up, not looking for any custom, just lost in memories that were private and special and old. He picked at the strings, voice very low, and a shadow fell across him as someone blocked out the sun. Still he didn’t look up. Behind him one of the riverboats blew its whistle, long and loud and edged with the heat of the day.
‘How about some South Island blues?’
He stopped playing.
‘Something from Aotearoa maybe.’
He shaded his eyes and looked into Libby’s face. For a moment he just stared then he stood up and reached for her. They kissed for a long time, lightly first then more deeply till they broke. Libby sat down on the step next to him and he gazed at her, still not quite believing that she was there. She pointed to the guitar.
‘You could make a living with that.’
‘I might have to. Unless you brought me some money.’
‘I brought you something else.’
From her purse she took the sliver of green stone and placed it in his palm. John-Cody stared at it and his mind rolled back to Fraser’s Beach and Mahina and the blue gum tree. He closed his fingers over the stone and it bit into his flesh. Then he took Libby’s hand and placed it in her palm. ‘It belongs to you now,’ he said.
She looked in his eyes and looked at the stone and then she kissed him again. Across the road two of the clowns were clapping and John-Cody lifted a finger to his temple in mock salute. Libby sat and held his hand: she laid her head on his shoulder, closed her eyes and knew that she was home.
‘What happened in Dusky?’
‘That’s partly why I’m here.’ And then she smiled. ‘Ned Pole withdrew his application.’
‘He did what?’ John-Cody stared at her.
‘He withdrew his application. I have no idea why, but he withdrew and the whole thing folded. He took off somewhere, the bank foreclosed on his house and his wife is coming back to the States.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Libby moved her shoulders. ‘Neither do I, John-Cody. Jonah took Kobi over to see him and the next thing I knew the council was phoning the office to tell us the application had been withdrawn. I immediately stuck in a request for a five-year moratorium.’
‘Five years?’
She nodded. ‘That’s how long it will take for me to complete my research.’
He furrowed his brow. ‘To prove there’s a resident pod?’
‘No, to create an acoustic model.’ Again she took his hand. ‘You see, John-Cody, you’re looking at the new head of cetacean research at the University of Otago. I’ve sold the film we made in the Aucklands and the money is more than enough to fund the research. It’s enough for me to charter a boat full time.’
‘That’s terrific, Lib. So you’re staying in New Zealand. Bree must be over the moon.’
‘Bree misses you badly. She’s not the same without you.’
John-Cody bit his lip and gazed across the square where the sun reflected off the white stone of the cathedral.
‘I have a boat in mind that I’d like to charter,’ Libby went on, ‘but at the moment it doesn’t have a skipper. You don’t happen to know anyone, do you?’
He sat back and smiled. ‘Lib, it’s a wonderful thought but I can’t go back to New Zealand.’
‘Can’t you? Your slate is clean, John-Cody. You can prove good character.’
‘I wish it were that simple.’
Libby took his hand between both of hers. ‘John-Cody, listen, the job at the university is permanent. It means I can apply for residency and in time New Zealand citizenship.’ She paused then, trembling slightly, and cupped his face with a palm. ‘So can my husband.’
For a long time John-Cody stared at her, the breath caught in his chest. He could hear the clopping of mule hoofs and the rattle of engines, the laughter of clowns and the slap of the river on the boardwalk at their backs. The sun beat on his head and the breeze was hot and humid. Libby touched his hair, fanning the tattered ends between her fingers. ‘Don’t you think it’s time I fixed this?’ she said.
John-Cody stood on the open deck of the boat that took them across Lake Manapouri with Bree beside him, her hand in his. They crossed the mountains in the bus and at Wilmot Pass he looked out on Deep Cove as if for the first time. The driver pulled over and he climbed out with the tourists then crouched with his arm resting on his thigh and looked at the silence of the sound, snaking towards the sea. Libby moved next to him and Bree and Hunter and they all stood together and gazed into the stillness. John-Cody thought of Mahina and Tom Blanch and all the years he had fought for this place. He looked at the wedding band in gold on the third finger of his left hand and caught sight of Libby’s glinting in the sun.
He saw glimpses of the Korimako through the bus window as they pulled up at the wharf. The breath was tight in his chest and his heart jumped as he stood looking down on his boat. Libby picked up the bags while Hunter and Bree unloaded the food boxes and John-Cody left them to it. Slowly he walked down the iron steps to where she lay against the wharf in brilliant white, the sun reflecting off the scrubbed steel of her deck. The port door was open and he could hear music playing softly, then Jonah appeared, wit
h a smile splitting his features.
‘Good to see you, boss. Welcome aboard.’
They shook hands then embraced and Jonah almost crushed him. He indicated the gleaming windows with brand new perspex covering them. John-Cody stepped onto the bridge, ran his fingers over the polished wood of the dash and smelled the smells he had thought would be nothing now but memory.
Jonah cast off for’ard and Hunter astern then Libby threw off the spring. Bree stood next to John-Cody hauling the wheel to starboard: she gave three blasts on the horn and they backed away from the wharf.
They steamed up the sound where Commander Peak dominated the entrance to the narrows with no waterfall brushing its flanks. John-Cody stood at the wheel and steered by hand till they entered the Malaspina Reach and then he switched on the pilot and joined Libby on deck. North of Seymour Island Bree yelled from the port bow, and they saw dolphins blowing close to the wall: moments later they were surfing the bow wave led by Quasimodo. They rode the wave all the way up Bradshaw Sound, leaving the boat only as it entered Gaer Arm. John-Cody took the Korimako in close to the estuary at Shoal Cove, where the Camelot River swept down from the mountains. He checked the depth and dropped the anchor, backed up slightly till the boat was secure and then cut the engine. As the shadows lengthened he stood on deck and Libby took his hand: together they leaned on the pulpit rail and listened to the song of the sound rising from the stands of kahikatea.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A SPECIAL THANKS TO Greg ‘Gib’ Gibson, my friend — who said he wouldn’t go.
My thanks also to Lance Shaw, Ruth Dalley, Jimmy Sheard, Andy Williams, Essie, Pam, Liz, Stoney Burke, the Marine Studies Centre at the University of Otago, Southland District Council and Fiordland Travel. The extracts from Thomas Musgrave’s diary which appear on pp. 117 and 277–8 are reproduced by kind permission of the Southland Museum, Invercargill. The Wake of the Invercauld by Madeleine Ferguson Allen, referred to on p. 277, is published by Exisle Publishing Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand.
A Biography of Jeff Gulvin
Jeff Gulvin is the author of nine novels and is currently producing a new series set in the American West. His previous titles include three books starring maverick detective Aden Vanner and another three featuring FBI agent Harrison, as well as two novels originally published under the pseudonym Adam Armstrong, his great-grandfather’s name. He received acclaim for ghostwriting Long Way Down, the prize-winning account of a motorcycle trip from Scotland to the southern tip of Africa by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman. The breadth of Gulvin’s fiction is vast, and his style has been described as commercial with just the right amount of literary polish. His stories range from hard-boiled crime to big-picture thriller to sweeping romance.
Half English and half Scottish, Gulvin has always held a deep affection for the United States. He and his wife spend as much time in America as possible, particularly southern Idaho, their starting point for road-trip research missions to Nevada, Texas, or Louisiana, depending on where the next story takes them.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2001 by Jeff Gulvin
Cover design by Barbara Brown
978-1-4804-1840-0
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media
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