What I should do is head back to Queenstown and let him get on with his day, but I’m aware of the fact that my time with Tui could be limited. There is a strong chance that these precious encounters will come to an abrupt end the moment Bonnie returns from England, and suddenly I know that all I want is to be here; I want to spend more time with my sister.
Reaching down, I twist Anna’s jade-stone ring around on my finger, torn between the ‘should’ and the ‘could’, and then I think of David, and of those four little words he’s been saying to me since I was a child.
What would Evangeline do?
I know what that Evangeline would do, and for once, I am happy to follow her lead.
17
Kit, Tui and I leave the stables and head along the same path that Allie and her group of tourists took, following a stony lane past several paddocks of grazing horses before banking left through a gap in the treeline. Tui is up on Keith the handsome chestnut’s back again, her face a mask of concentration and her hands balled into fists on the reins.
Kit, who has attached a lead rope to Keith’s bit, is strolling along on the pony’s near side, while I keep to the right. It feels safer with Tui positioned between the two of us, just in case something were to go awry. However, I do have to keep reminding myself that Suki was a flighty, spooky mare, liable to jump at her own shadow, whereas Keith is very much a riding-school plodder. Tui is probably safer up in his saddle than she would be walking next to him.
‘Don’t worry,’ says Kit, as he clocks my somewhat apprehensive expression. ‘He’s as soft as anything, this one – wouldn’t hurt a flea.’
He must assume that I am scared of Keith, rather than simply concerned about Tui.
‘I’m sure he is,’ I say quickly. ‘I just haven’t been around horses in a while, that’s all.’
‘So, you used to ride?’ he guesses, and I think for a moment before replying.
‘Yes … once upon a time.’
‘Let me guess,’ he says. ‘You had a fall?’
I shake my head, but Kit continues regardless.
‘You should get back in the saddle,’ he says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. ‘That’s what you’re supposed to do when you fall off – isn’t it?’
‘That’s what they say.’
If he can tell that I’m answering him through gritted teeth, Kit doesn’t show it. Stripping a nearby twig of its leaves, he sprinkles them on to the ground.
‘I don’t ride myself,’ he adds. ‘Never found a horse big enough for starters.’
He laughs as I pull a face at him.
‘I’m king of the odd jobs,’ he continues. ‘I don’t think Bon has ever given me an official job title, but I like to think of myself as the yard manager. I would argue that you don’t need to get on a horse’s back to understand it, just like you don’t need to ride a dog to be its best mate.’
‘Merlin is a good boy,’ pipes up Tui. ‘I rode on him when I was a baby and very small.’
‘My feet would touch the floor if I sat on him,’ I point out, and Tui chirps with amusement. Looking up, I notice that her hard hat has slipped down over her eyes.
‘Here.’ I beckon her downwards until her nose is beside her knee, then reach up and readjust her cap.
‘Thank you, Gee-nie. Oh Gee-nie, darling,’ she calls in her singsong voice, gathering her reins back up. She would find it much easier if someone simply knotted them together.
Kit has mercifully decided to drop the conversation about getting me on to a horse, and is instead talking me through the route we’re following. Koru Stables, he explains, is situated in the gateway to Mount Aspiring National Park and the famous Routeburn Track. The Dart River feeds its way across the area like a silver braid, its glacier-fed waters icy cold even during the summer months. The closest town to us is called Paradise, and it is here that Kit currently lives, although he confesses to spending most nights at Allie’s apartment just outside Queenstown.
‘I rent a room at Bonnie’s,’ he reveals, holding aside a low-hanging branch to make way for Keith and Tui. ‘It’s partly why I’m so close to this one.’
‘Kit is my roomie,’ Tui tells me proudly. ‘He lives in the big room, and I live in the tent.’
‘A tent?’ I query, glancing at Kit.
‘She means in the extension,’ he corrects, grinning up at Tui. ‘For some reason, we have a bit of trouble with that word, don’t we?’
Tui shakes her head. ‘Yes.’
‘Tui’s staying with her dad, Simon, while Bon’s away, and I don’t really like being at the house alone. It feels too big and too quiet.’
‘How big is it?’ I enquire.
‘It’s only a bungalow,’ Kit tells me. ‘Bonnie’s parents left it to her, but she’s made some modifications over the years, added a few rooms here and there, you know.’
Bonnie’s parents, echoes my brain. My grandparents.
‘Did they move away?’ I ask hopefully, dreading the answer.
‘They went to the next place,’ Tui says happily. ‘Where Kit’s daddy went, that’s all.’
Kit doesn’t say anything, but his expression is tinged with sadness. So, he has lost a parent, too, but unlike me, Kit doesn’t seem to wear his sorrow like a second skin.
For a moment, neither of us says anything, Kit unwilling or unable to meet my eye. Even Tui is quiet, distracted by a bird that is hopping from branch to shrub behind us, its tiny head cocked to one side. There is barely any wind, and the only sound is the gentle tread of Keith’s hooves across the dry ground. It is so peaceful here, and so still. It should be soothing, but instead I feel stirred. Not for the first time, I wish that I was able to extract my emotions, take them out and examine them objectively. And what would I find, in amongst the hurt and the pain? There would be anger, shame and foreboding, but there would also be the murmur of something else – something less abrasive. I’m finding it hard to work out where one feeling ends and another begins, but maybe that is my problem. There are no single emotions inside me, just mashed-up scraps, left over from that initial outpouring of grief.
Lost in my own thoughts, I don’t see the rotting clump of nettles until I stumble right through it, almost slipping over in the process. It is the solid bulk of Keith that keeps me upright, and I lean unthinkingly against his warm flank for a moment. Horses and ponies, even relatively small ones like Keith, are such noble and powerful creatures. I can still remember the first time I went riding, how I felt a head and shoulders taller than everyone else, not just literally but figuratively, too. Nothing and nobody could hurt me up there, and I drew such strength from that feeling.
The path has grown so narrow now that Kit has no choice but to walk ahead, and before long we are heading down a small hill towards a glittering ribbon of water. The muddy earth is littered with white pebbles that crunch pleasantly underfoot, and Keith’s red-gold ears stand to excited attention as we arrive at the river’s edge.
‘Can I go in – please, please, please?’ Tui asks Kit, bouncing up and down in the saddle.
‘Only as far as the lead rope will stretch,’ he replies, giving Keith’s rump a gentle tap to encourage him forwards. The pony walks boldly into the shallows, lifting his hooves like a Lipizzaner and snorting with pleasure. Tui, who has now abandoned her reins completely, begins clapping her hands in delight as the pony lifts a front leg and begins splashing water all over her and himself.
‘Keeeeeeith,’ she croons, between her giggles. ‘You’re getting me all wet!’
Kit matches my enchanted expression with one of his own, his pale-green eyes alight beneath his tight black curls. I notice for the first time how small and neat his ears are, and how thick his neck. Just like a horse, he exudes power and strength through his size, but there is also a softness to this man, an innate sense of safety and of care. Everything about him says that he is a good person.
‘It’s so beautiful here,’ I remark, looking around as Tui and Keith continue to splash about in the river. �
�The space and the scope of the place – and the colours.’
‘Glad you like it,’ Kit replies, squinting at me as shafts of sunlight hit the surface of the water. ‘I’ve never been to England, but I’ve heard it’s not that different to here.’
‘From what I can tell, New Zealand is a lot like England …’ I pause. ‘If you fed England a hefty dose of steroids. We have all the same ingredients as you guys, just on a far smaller scale.’
‘New Zealand is one of the safest countries in the world, you know,’ he says, with patent pride. ‘You could go and live in the woods if you wanted to and nothing would eat you. We don’t have wild lions, bears or wolves – and none of those big ugly crocs that the Aussies have to put up with.’
‘What about poisonous plants?’ I ask, and he shakes his head triumphantly.
‘Nah, and the water is safe to drink, too. Help yourself to any river or stream you like.’
Keith lifts his hoof and makes an almighty splash of approval, causing Tui to laugh even louder.
‘Is that why you have so many extreme sports on offer here?’ I joke, stepping backwards to avoid getting soaked. ‘To redress the balance a bit?’
A flicker of amusement crosses Kit’s face, and he folds his arms before replying.
‘Why sit at home growing your gut when you could be jumping off a bridge?’ he jokes. ‘You know, now that you’re here, you should do it.’
‘What – a bungee?’ I laugh with incredulity.
‘Why not?’ he says. ‘You don’t even have to jump – you can sit in a chair or be strapped to a tricycle. I even saw a dude leap off with a barrel over his head once.’
‘Utter lunacy!’ I exclaim, lifting a hand to wave back at a thoroughly overexcited Tui. Keith has stopped splashing now and has dropped his head to drink. The Dart River is so clear that I can see its stony bed, and the bubbles collecting around Keith’s fetlocks as the water rushes past his hooves. The shoreline is littered with the gnarly carcasses of rotting plants, but when I point them out in dismay to Kit, he merely shrugs.
‘I think there’s actually a huge amount of beauty in decay,’ he says. ‘I take comfort from it, I guess. Because as sure as you know these plants here –’ he aims a foot at a nearby husk – ‘will eventually die, you know another seedling is sprouting under the ground. Everything has its time; its own moment to be and to exist.’
‘Some things don’t get enough time,’ I mutter, feeling myself flush.
Kit waits for a moment before replying. I don’t dare look at him.
‘Who did you lose?’ he asks, so quietly that at first I am not sure if I heard him right.
I can’t tell him the truth – not yet. And not in front of Tui.
Aware of my discomfort, Kit allows the lead rein to go slack and moves towards me. For a fleeting moment, I think he might put his arm around me, but instead he raises a hand to rub across the stubble on his jaw.
‘How long ago?’ he asks, but all I can do is shake my head.
‘Ah, shit,’ he mutters. ‘Recently, then? I’m sorry. I lost my dad when I was eighteen. Sent me off the rails there for a while, but I pulled it back.’
I wish I could respond, but my desperate need not to cry in front of him and Tui has rendered me mute. No matter how kind Kit is, or how much he might well understand, my grief is private. I don’t want to share it with anyone yet.
‘Time is the only thing that really helps,’ he goes on. ‘I know that sounds like a bloody obvious thing to say, but it’s a fact that every single day that you get through is another day towards feeling less crook. In the beginning, all I did was rage and shout and drive my poor mum near crazy, but after some time had passed, that all receded, and I was left with a quieter kind of sadness, I guess. It’s not that I don’t feel sad any more, or don’t miss my dad every day, I’ve just learned how to carry it with me.’
I am still unable to do much more than nod and make sympathetic expressions. Thank goodness Tui has been distracted by a butterfly landing on Keith’s neck.
‘You should talk to Bonnie about it when she gets back,’ Kit adds then, and immediately I feel my chest constrict. ‘Her folks passed on not long after Tui was born, so she knows what it feels like to lose someone. Plus, she’s a great listener and—’
‘Didn’t you say we had to be back within the hour?’ I interrupt, and Kit looks at his watch.
‘I did – shit. We had better rattle our dags or Allie will string me up like cured meat.’
Thank God for Allie’s strict schedule, I think silently, as he tows Keith and Tui back to shore.
‘I want Genie to lead me!’ Tui cries, her legs flapping against Keith’s sides as she attempts to urge him forwards.
‘I don’t really think that she—’ begins Kit, but I am already reaching across to take the lead rope.
‘It’s OK,’ I say, surprised to discover that it genuinely is. ‘I’d like to.’
‘Only if you’re sure?’ he checks, and then, as we turn to head back up the hill, ‘I’m right here if you need me.’
I may not be able to talk openly about the fall that killed my mum, or how I feel so wretched about it that sometimes the guilt knocks me physically to the ground, and I might not be ready to envisage sharing anything meaningful at all with the woman who gave me up, but I am able to walk along this pathway leading a pony. What’s more, I want to, and that has everything to do with the girl up in the saddle.
18
Bonnie
Jet lag had woken Bonnie in the early hours, her eyes scratchy and her throat parched from the two glasses of wine she had indulged in over yet another excellent dinner. Tracey had refused all Bonnie’s offers of help, or of money, insisting that it was a pleasure having someone to cook for again. Like Bonnie herself, Tracey had never married, but she’d had a number of live-in boyfriends over the years, the most recent of which, she told Bonnie, she’d had to boot out when he started seeing another woman behind her back.
‘The cheek of the fella,’ she fumed to Bonnie, as she tossed a handful of frozen peas into a pan of boiling water. ‘Leaves me at home, ironing his underpants, while he buggers off to swing jive classes at the town hall with her from number ten.’
‘Sounds like you’re better off without him,’ Bonnie had told her, then confessed that she, too, was now single, having been unable to make things work with Tui’s father Simon. Far from being hurt by their eventual break-up, though, Bonnie had felt relieved when he packed his things and moved out of the bungalow. That had been almost ten years ago, and she hadn’t felt the inclination to date anyone else since. She had learned from her very first relationship just how damaging it can be to have your trust abused, and it was a lesson Bonnie had been unable to forget. She and Simon had always made it work with Tui, right from the minute he left, and Bonnie still considered him a friend. He had cheated out of desperation, he told her – he thought that it might get her attention. If she had loved him in the way he wanted her to, then perhaps his ridiculous plan might have worked. But she didn’t – she never really had. Simon was better off with his new wife than he had been with Bonnie, and Tui was happy to spend time at both her homes, with both her families.
It was no good, Bonnie thought to herself – she was never going to get back to sleep – not now the cogs of her mind were whirring. Crossing the room to the desk and collecting her biro and paper, she folded herself back under the covers and began to write.
Seth did everything right in those first few weeks. He was the personification of charm, but he was such good fun, too, taking me out to parties all around London and introducing me to all his friends. One of them, a girl called Lavender, took me under her wing as soon as we met. She was one of those effortlessly cool girls – you know the ones I mean – all dyed hair, alternative fashion and scary-looking piercings in unexpected places.
She would tell me not to worry about other girls approaching Seth, because she would be there to keep an eye on him, and would report back if a
nything dodgy happened. There was this one girl, Cece, from his university. She made it pretty bloody clear that she had the hots for him, and I was so jealous of her. Cece was all the things that I wasn’t, you see: skinny, blonde, rich and so confident. I couldn’t work out why a boy like Seth would choose dumpy, lumpy little me over someone like her, but Lavender would laugh at that and tell me how pretty I was, and how Seth was lucky to have me. She very quickly became the person I confided in the most.
I thought that I trusted Seth, too, but looking back now, of course I didn’t. Jealousy and trust are like oil and water – they do not mix – and I was so scared of Seth getting bored of me, or finding someone better, that I would have done anything to keep him interested.
Of course, there were lots of happy moments in those heady first few weeks, too. When Seth walked me back to the hostel at night and kissed me under the streetlights, or when he turned up at the café with flowers, just because he thought I’d like them. At night, I would lie in bed and picture our wedding, right down to the dress and the speeches. I imagined my dad clapping him on the back, and my mother crying because she was so happy. Seth would write the novels he was always talking about and I would keep horses, and we would live happily ever after, back in New Zealand. It was all there in my head, the life I thought I wanted, and the focal point of it all was Seth Cooper.
As well as Tracey and Lavender, there was one other person that I confided in. Remember how I mentioned that Seth came into the café with his professor? Well, one evening he turned up at Sunrise as I was closing down, and he looked so sadly through the window that I let him in and made him a hot chocolate on the house.
At the time, I thought of him as being so much older than me, but actually, he was only in his early thirties. He had all this wild hair that stuck out at all angles, and his glasses were held together by Sellotape. He fitted my idea of a mad English professor perfectly, and I liked him not only because of his friendship with Seth, but also because of how much he made me laugh without really meaning to. The professor always had an anecdote, and usually it consisted of something funny that had happened to him. Once he told me that he’d driven halfway to work with his nosy neighbour’s cat clinging on to the roof of his car, and another time he had Tracey and me in stitches over a story involving his mother-in-law and some out-of-date prawns.
One Winter Morning Page 10
