Weeping Waters

by Nicholson, Anne Maria

  So as a 25-year-old who could have passed for someone ten years older, Miss Beverley Corbett successfully applied for a transfer to another branch of the bank in Taumarunui, a comfortable distance away to the north. And here she found a safe haven without questions or demands or a past. The years drifted by and Beverley finds it hard to believe that she has passed three score and ten and is starting to worry about the spiritual void she sees ahead.

  That’s what’s bringing her here today, to the pretty wooden church. She props herself on the raised stool at the organ and plays a few notes of the opening hymn as the faithful and the doubting file in.

  On a good day, about a dozen other elderly women, three or four families and one man in a wheelchair will gather to hear the word from Pastor Warwick Fowler. Today he preaches on the evil of coveting one’s neighbour’s wife or goods, gazing down from the pulpit, hawklike, trying unsuccessfully to catch the eye of anyone in his tiny congregation. It even brings a smile to Beverley’s stern mouth that hasn’t been kissed by a man since David disappeared; adultery was never an option, let alone a desire.

  The minister nods at Beverley.

  O God our help in ages past

  Our hope for years to come

  Our shelter from the stormy blast

  And our eternal home.

  She plays without thinking as the singing fills the church. Her mind drifts. For once she doesn’t feel angry with God—if indeed there’s a God out there who cares anyway. She finds herself in a rare state of curiosity.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  And what do you fear most, Frances?’

  ‘Snakes and rats,’ she had trilled back instantly as the teacher had probed the phobias of his ten-year-old charges.

  Such simple fears, Frances thinks as she lies in bed, not able to summon the energy to get up. She has spent most of the day there, her strength sapped.

  ‘Betrayal and abandonment,’ that’s what I would answer today, she thinks as she pulls the sheet over her head and cuddles a spare pillow.

  Since her return from Tangiwai, she has dwelt on her sister’s death. She knows it is completely unreasonable to think Valerie abandoned her and yet Frances feels the pain of loss keenly. Her thoughts turn back to Damon and she toys with the idea of replying to his growing number of emails. Out of habit, she wants to share her experiences with him.

  So many nights in Seattle they’d link arms through the streets towards the university district to 9th Avenue and share their day over a pizza at an Italian trattoria that traded twenty-four hours a day. Then they would return to bed, wrapped around each other so tightly they became as one. For the first time in her life, Frances had felt safe, protected and contented. She thought they would always be together.

  A part of her wants his reassurance and to hear what he’s doing. She knows returning to Tangiwai has made her vulnerable. But she resists the urge. It was too easy for him to skip over the hurt he caused her, to pretend it hadn’t happened. While she suffered, he seemed untouched.

  Although they hadn’t spoken for three months, the longest gap she can recall in their long partnership, he rang her the week she was leaving and suggested they should get back together. She rejected the notion, but the emails showed he wasn’t going to let her rest.

  She remembers when everything between them began to unravel. It was after the massive earthquake that shook Seattle to its bootstraps. The city convened a conference of scientists, planners, architects and environmentalists in the mop-up to analyse how they had weathered the tremor and what they could do better to prepare for the next one, which would inevitably arrive.

  As she walked into the room her eyes were immediately drawn across to the other side where she saw Damon talking to a dark-haired young woman in a tight-fitting black trouser suit. It hit her immediately, their familiarity. They stood close together, the gap between them narrower than it would have been if they were strangers. He hadn’t seen her and when she walked up to them, he stepped away from the woman, startled.

  ‘Frances, I didn’t expect to see you here.’

  ‘All of our team is here,’ she said, looking from her lover to the other woman with a question in her eyes.

  ‘Ah, this is Joanna,’ he said, looking embarrassed. ‘She works in our firm as an intern. Joanna, Frances.’ He paused. ‘I’ve just got to catch up with someone from the university—I’ll see you later.’ He turned abruptly on his heel, fumbling a folder in his hand as he escaped, leaving the two women standing together.

  Too shocked to talk, Frances muttered that she too had to meet somebody, and retreated to the foyer.

  She had scaled the world’s most dangerous volcanoes, but Frances had never felt as insecure as she did at that moment. Stunned, she made her way to a bathroom. As she sponged her face with cold water, searching her face in the mirror, she asked herself whether she was simply imagining a betrayal.

  She always thought she would marry Damon, perhaps have children with him. But somehow, like so many other twenty- and thirty-somethings they knew, they didn’t get around to it, not seeing any need to hurry. They were a close couple and the years just passed by as they happily pursued their careers.

  Damon was working his way up through a large city architectural firm. Competitive and testing, it was a long haul, but with Seattle embracing the push for post-modern buildings, his experience and ideas were highly valued. Their professional paths crossed occasionally: with Seattle on a fault line, an architect and a seismologist made comfortable bedfellows. Certainly, Damon often consulted Frances about the ongoing seismic monitoring and predictions, knowledge that undoubtedly won him more than a few points when he was discussing earthquake proofing of buildings with prospective new clients.

  Frances returned to the conference where she sat with Olivia and another researcher. Her eyes searched the room until she saw Damon, staring intently at a folder on his lap. The woman was seated several rows away from him.

  The speakers came and went but Frances may as well have been sitting alone in an empty room: she heard nothing of what they had to say. At the end of the session, she followed Damon out and, brushing his arm gently, asked if he had time for a coffee before returning to work.

  ‘I’d love to, babe, but I’ve got a lot to do,’ he said, avoiding her eyes. ‘Have to run. See you at home tonight.’

  It was at that moment she recognised the change in him. She had failed to notice the first time he did not look her in the eye, failed to connect with her. The way he had become evasive, secretive.

  Her work filled the gaps, taking her away frequently, both around Washington State but also south to California and occasionally much further afield to Hawaii and the Philippines. For a scientist with her talent, there were plenty of opportunities.

  No longer able to concentrate, she left work early that afternoon, picked up some fresh salmon and greens and a bottle of her favourite Australian fruity white wine with a name she liked, Madfish, and returned home to prepare dinner. As their careers had flourished, they’d moved away from their basic student digs and rented an attractive apartment with views over Puget Sound.

  Dialling Damon’s direct line, she went cold when it clicked over to voicemail. She didn’t leave a message. She tried his mobile number. It too switched to the message bank. She pretended to herself nothing was amiss and started preparing dinner, anticipating he would be back around six-thirty as usual. It was not until nine that she heard the door click and Damon walked in, looking flushed. She could see he had been drinking.

  ‘Don’t ask me where I’ve been.’ He pre-empted any questioning. ‘I’m not in the mood.’

  ‘I was trying to ring you…’ Her voice faltered. ‘Have you eaten?’

  He said he was hungry so they sat at the table and ate together, not far apart but separated by an unbridgeable abyss.

  ‘That woman today?’

  ‘What woman?’

  ‘The one you were talking to at the conference when I arrived.’

&n
bsp; ‘She’s just someone from work. No one important.’

  ‘It’s just that it looked more than that…’ Unused to the role of the victim, Frances heard her voice trail away.

  ‘Well, it’s not. You’re imagining things.’

  Later they lay side by side in the bed they had shared for at least a thousand nights, not touching, not daring to speak. Frances had experienced loneliness as an only child, but that night was the loneliest of her life.

  They both left for work at eight next morning, planning to meet for dinner downtown. Around three o’clock in the afternoon as Frances was sorting through the monitoring schedules for the coming quarter, her phone rang.

  ‘I’ve left home,’ he told her in a strangely cold voice. ‘I’ve been back to pack my things. I need some space.’

  Gripped by nausea, Frances struggled for words. ‘What’s happened?’ was all she could muster. He mumbled that he’d be in touch and hung up.

  Making an excuse to leave the office early, she ran to her car and drove over to the office block in the city where Damon worked, needing to see him, not believing what he had just told her, hoping to change his mind. She chanced parking her car illegally on the opposite side of the street. Then she saw him: he was sitting in an outdoor café with the woman. The space he craved had a name—Joanna Bishop, trainee architect, fully qualified cuckoo.

  Frances felt her gut tighten and wrench. Resisting the urge to confront them, she returned home. There she paced the floor of the apartment, then lay sobbing on the bed until waves of nausea overtook her and she crawled to the toilet and vomited.

  Hours later she awoke, her head on the bathroom floor, her cheek strangely comforted by the cold. For a while she lay there, mentally counting the number of tiles—anything to block out unwanted thoughts. She crawled to her bed and lay there staring uncomprehendingly at the ceiling in that half-world before dawn. Sleep finally claimed her again and she awoke with a start, later than usual at eight o’clock, to a new world, a new reality.

  Looking at herself in the bathroom mirror, she saw a face she found it hard to recognise: swollen, reddened eyes, a sad mouth and a pallor of grief so marked that she reached out to trace her hand over her reflection. Then she switched into automatic. Cleaned her teeth, showered and washed her hair, dressed in a warm red suit, applied her make-up and blow-dried her shoulder-length hair, wearing it loose to cover as much of her face as she could.

  Mumbling a few words to her co-workers, she sat at her desk, switched on her computer and then sat staring at the lab’s home page. She was amazed nobody had noticed that a different Frances had entered the room. Her mind was screaming in pain, yet she remained silent.

  For the next six months, Frances threw herself into new projects. Single again, she renewed lapsed friendships but there was no space in her life for romance. Damon had rung her a few times after his new relationship faltered. They met a few times for a drink or two. He suggested reconciliation.

  ‘You’re really the one I love, Frances,’ he said, matter-of-factly, as though nothing had happened, nothing had changed between them. She was tempted, frightened of letting go of her partner forever, but she decided to let things drift for a while.

  One morning she arrived in the office to hear a buzz of excitement. Olivia called her over. ‘My God, Frankie, look what’s happening in New Zealand!’ They gathered around her Internet page, staring at the images of Mount Ruapehu, hissing steam and smoke. ‘They might need some help down there!’

  Frances gazed at the screen for a long time without speaking. In that instant, she knew she had to return.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  They want to bomb the crater.’ Theo has edged his way through the crowded hall to where Frances and Sam are sitting. ‘One of the local mayors is itching for a fight over this. And he’s got the backing of that former bigwig in the government who’s stirring things up. We’re in for a top night,’ he grimaces as he moves back towards the podium where he’s part of a panel that will be fielding questions throughout the evening.

  ‘The odd bomb mightn’t be a bad idea. Short and sweet. Save a few lives.’ Sam nudges Frances and grins as he sees her wince. ‘See that group of Maoris over there. They represent the local iwi. Trouble, if you ask me. Don’t be surprised by anything you see tonight.’

  ‘I’d like everyone to take their seats, please.’ A grey-haired woman calls the meeting to order. She is a manager of one of the government branch offices in the area. Frances met her earlier that evening and doesn’t envy her the job of moderating such a disparate group.

  About three hundred people are squeezing into the hall. Many huddle in groups until gradually they take their seats.

  Wearing a pair of metal-rimmed glasses Frances hasn’t seen before, Theo is sitting on the stage poring over his notes. He removes his glasses as he stands and walks to the microphone, then puts them on again as he shuffles his notes and starts to speak. He looks awkward and nervous.

  ‘When you live around a volcano the first thing you learn is that you can’t control its behaviour, you can only try to predict what it might do so you can prevent anybody getting hurt,’ he tells the crowd. ‘I and a team of scientists have detected a significant danger at the moment with the Crater Lake and tonight I want to tell you about the action we’ve proposed.’

  He starts to describe the options, explaining why he doesn’t want to bulldoze or bring other heavy machinery into the crater but to install a sophisticated new warning system instead. ‘I believe this system will give everybody enough time to get out of the way if a lahar does eventuate. The bottom line is you can’t control nature, you just have to learn to live with it.’

  He singles out Frances, inviting the audience to ask her questions about the system after the addresses. Sitting next to her, Sam squeezes her arm and whispers, ‘Are you brave enough to disagree with the boss?’ Frances jabs him with her elbow and avoids looking at him. He has a disturbing effect on her. She finds him physically attractive—the first man she has felt like this since her relationship with Damon foundered—but there’s also something threatening about his manner that makes her very cautious.

  A beefy, middle-aged man dressed like a gentleman farmer in a checked sports coat, cream chinos and leather riding boots rises to his feet, indicating he wants the microphone.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Frances whispers to Sam.

  ‘Ian Carmody: loves the limelight.’ Frances feels his hot breath on her cheek. ‘Some think he’s the bully boy in the opposition party. But he’s effective. Watch him wind people up.’

  Carmody now draws himself up to his full height, his double chin pointing upwards in a peculiar angle. Something about him is very familiar, but Frances can’t place where she has seen him.

  ‘This government is guilty of neglect. Those buggers in their ivory towers in Wellington are risking your life and mine.’ His voice booms across the room as though he is in Parliament rather than a country hall. But he knows how to win a crowd’s attention and he is rewarded for each gem of rhetoric with a smattering of applause.

  ‘I believe what we have here is an administration that is a slave to political correctness. Too frightened to upset the greenies, the ferals, the anti-this and the anti-that groups. And let’s call a spade a spade here, to upset the Maori. A lahar could wreck this place. It could do millions of dollars worth of damage to the roads, the houses and shops and, let’s not forget, the railway. They would rather all of us got killed than offend their namby-pamby friends.’

  ‘Order, order,’ the chairwoman calls as half the audience cheer and the other half start yelling abuse. ‘Mr Carmody,’ she says with pursed lips, ‘it might be helpful to all of us if you could be a little less emotive and more objective in your language.’

  Frances can hear Sam snigger beside her. He leans over to her again. ‘Carmody learned his bullying tactics in the front row of a first fifteen rugby team. He loves this and he’s not about to let her deprive him of his few minutes o
f glory. He’s just warming up.’

  ‘What we’re talking about here is the choice between common sense to fix a problem with a few bulldozers or, better still, a few very safe bombs dropped into the crater, and a gutless group of pathetic arselickers who are trying to tell us we should just stand here and wait to be drowned like all those poor buggers at Tangiwai.

  ‘I have it on good authority the military could easily drop in around thirty high-precision laser-guided bombs and they would instantly excavate the crater and we could all sleep easier in our beds.’

  The hall erupts as Carmody’s supporters cheer him on and his opponents shout at him to sit down.

  Frances sees Theo struggling to control his temper, putting his glasses on and off. His face is drained of blood and she detects a slight trembling of his hands. He calls for the microphone and rises to meet a mixed reception of applause and interjectors.

  ‘I’d like to address Mr Carmody’s plan to bomb the crater,’ he says. ‘It’s true this has been looked at but it would be a very dangerous course and it’s culturally abhorrent. If you dropped explosives into the crater it would create shock waves that would weaken all the rock beneath the crater rim. This could have a catastrophic effect of making the whole summit collapse. Also all the natural material up there would be contaminated by chemicals and fragments from the missiles. It would be a disaster.’

  ‘What about bulldozers or teams of men digging it up?’ Carmody yells from the floor.

  ‘My reasons for opposing bulldozers up there are the same as for bombing. It’s too risky and anyway if the mountain blows, it would be pointless. As for digging by hand, we’ve looked at that too and it’s totally impractical. You’d need hundreds of people working up there for more than a year to do it. We think that’s impossible.’