Tui is transfixed by the yards of flapping bunting draped between the buildings, while I’m charmed by a minuscule lending library that someone has thoughtfully set up on a small wooden shelf. Peering along the row, I’m jolted by the sight of a familiar book, but before I have time to react, Tui is stretching out a hand to pick it up.
‘Evangeline And … The Angry Queen,’ she reads aloud in her careful, low voice. Then, looking from the drawing on the cover of the book to me, then back again, she says, ‘Evangeline looks like you, that’s all.’
‘How funny,’ I say, attempting to take the book from her so I can have a closer look. But Tui does not want to let it go.
‘Can I have it?’ she asks doubtfully, scanning the instructions pinned to the shelf.
‘I think you have to swap it for another book,’ I point out.
‘Hmmph,’ grumbles Tui, nodding her head and clasping the book tight to her chest. She really must love Evangeline – apparently much more so than I ever have.
‘Is it a good one?’ I ask, and after eyeing me cautiously for a few moments, Tui hands it over. It’s the second in the series, set when Evangeline is nine years old, and follows her back to the Victorian era on her time-travelling train. I finger the lettering on the cover, tracing a path over the pleasant swoop of David’s ‘D’, before stroking the ‘N’ of Nash.
Why shouldn’t Tui have a book that she wants – especially a book that I know is full of adventure and learning?
‘I say we take it,’ I whisper, smiling as Tui starts clapping in earnest. ‘Shall I carry it in my bag for you?’
I have just zipped it away out of sight when Kit reappears, a clanking carrier bag in one of his vast hands.
‘For later,’ he tells me, holding it up.
Having exhausted Oamaru’s town centre, the three of us take our hokey-pokey ice creams – a New Zealand speciality of vanilla with butterscotch toffee pieces – down to the seafront and sit for while on a low wall, dangling our legs and ducking to avoid the huge gulls that hang like puppets on strings above us, waiting to gobble up any leftover crumbs of wafer. The water in the bay is the bright turquoise of a swimming pool in a glossy holiday brochure, the pale gold rocks and shingle beach warmed by a high, ferocious sun. Kit points out what he calls ‘shags’ paddling through murky patches of seaweed, and while I tell him that we find the same birds along the coast at home, I choose not to mention the alternative meaning for the word shag, which he might not be familiar with.
Tui finishes her ice cream first and bounds off towards a park, which is set on a grassy lawn not far from the wall on which Kit and I are still sitting. Once satisfied that she is staying within range, Kit starts to relax, swinging his legs round to face inland and crossing his feet over at the ankle.
‘She’s in her element, that little monkey,’ he remarks, watching as Tui clambers untidily up a slide that has been built over the structure of an elephant. The park has been designed with the Victoriana steampunk theme in mind, and as well as the strange elephant slide, there’s a vast penny-farthing swing set and a roundabout adorned with disembodied horse heads. Oamaru has a very different feel to Queenstown, which is all bustle and noise. With the exception of the sea and the vibrant purple lupins sitting in clusters along the shore, the palette here is mostly greys, greens and muted variations of beige.
‘She’s an amazing girl,’ I say, not for the first time, and Kit smiles.
‘Yeah, she certainly is. And she really likes you, you know? I meant what I said about you being good with her. It usually takes Tui time to trust new people, but there’s a bond between the two of you – I reckon it’s been there right from the start.’
I don’t trust my voice not to wobble, so instead I simply nod.
‘Maybe it’s an only-child thing,’ he muses. ‘You, me and Tui all have that in common, hey?’
Not any more, I think.
‘Do you want children?’ I’m amazed to hear myself ask. ‘Sorry, I mean – that’s probably none of my business.’
‘That’s all right,’ he says easily, popping the last piece of his ice cream cone into his mouth and allowing himself a moment to chew. ‘I guess the honest answer is that I don’t know. I know I should – I’m gonna be thirty-five next year, and I know Allie is pretty keen on the idea of having a few ankle-biters about the place one day, but I’m not sure if that’s the next step for me just yet, you know?’
‘I think I do know,’ I say, watching Tui emerge from the bottom of another slide. This one is higher and curled around some sort of pyramid-shaped structure made from scaffold poles. ‘I’m not sure if I want any either.’
‘Is that because you lost your mum?’ he guesses, only to quickly apologise when he takes in the expression on my face.
‘Don’t worry,’ I assure him, chewing my lip. ‘It’s not that. I don’t think I have ever really wanted kids, but I never haven’t wanted them, if that makes any sense? Maybe I’m just not the maternal type.’
‘Tui would disagree,’ he says, and it’s ridiculous how happy his words make me feel. My half-sister has definitely brought out a protective side of me. Tui just has a way to her that is irresistibly uncomplicated and easy to love – there is no pretence to her, no games, no real Tui lurking underneath. What she puts out into the world is who she is, and she makes no apologies for the fact. I love her because of her free spirit, and her big open heart. If only I had inherited those same traits from our mother, but in contrast to Tui, I have always kept my guard right up to my hairline. Most people have to earn my trust, and my love, but not Tui – she has both.
‘Do you think she would like a brother or a sister one day?’ I ask Kit.
‘Oh yeah, I reckon so,’ he says. ‘A playmate is what she craves the most. Bonnie is always so busy – that’s why Tui started hanging out with me all the time, and why she was allowed to have a puppy. There’s so much affection in that girl – I think she would love the whole world, given half the chance.’
‘She’s amazing,’ I say again, and this time Kit touches a hand briefly to my arm.
‘I think she would say the same about you.’
32
Steampunk HQ is without a doubt one of the most bizarre yet brilliant places I have ever been in my life. From the enormous steam engine crashing through the ground by the entrance to the gloomy, cavernous room full of artefacts and oddities inside, the whole place is deliriously inventive and brilliantly entertaining.
‘I feel like I’ve walked on to the set of Mad Max,’ I remark to Kit, my mouth falling open as I spy an enormous metal beetle mounted against a wall. Tui runs off ahead to bash the keys of a makeshift organ, shrieking with amusement as each key plays a different creepy note or sound effect. There are ghoulish heads, a gorilla and frog made from the scraps of old cars, a fossilised wheelchair with a cracked leather seat and TV screens that have been tuned in to static fixed high on the walls. It is difficult to know whether all the flashing lights and strings of tinsel are part of the decor, or simply there for Christmas, but it is all completely bonkers in the best way.
After exploring a backyard area full of even bigger and weirder creations, Kit beckons Tui and me towards a doorway with ‘The Portal’ written in lights above it.
‘You have gotta see this,’ he says, looking more animated than I have ever seen him, and after pressing a large red button on the wall, he quickly ushers us inside.
Almost immediately, the dark chamber is illuminated by hundreds of strings of flashing lights. Eerie singing begins, low and soothing at first, but then, as the lights begin to change from red to blue to green to yellow to pink and back to white, the pitch of the woman’s lilting voice goes up. The three of us are standing one behind the other on a metal platform caged in by two horizontal bars, and the walls, floor and ceiling around us are mirrored, creating the impression of a much larger, higher and deeper space. Upon closer inspection, I see that many of the lights are encased in plastic skulls, the effect hauntingly be
autiful.
Tui has fallen silent ahead of me, her gaze on the lights and her hands raised as she twists her fingers together, utterly enthralled. I wish we could stay here in this magical portal, the three of us. Perhaps if we did, it would whisk us away to another time, like Evangeline’s train, a time where there were no lies and no secrets, where I had not lost so much, nor had so much to lose.
I don’t want to lose Tui, not now that I have found her. With a deep sigh, I take a step backwards, only to tumble against Kit. Instead of righting me, however, he simply puts a hand on my waist, steadying me but making no move to distance himself. It’s such a simple gesture, but it almost brings me to my knees.
The music stops.
‘Again, again!’ says Tui, turning to face us as the overhead lights go up. She is unwilling for the show to end quite so soon. For Kit and me, though, the moment has passed.
We grab a very late lunch at a steampunk-style café constructed from rust-coloured sheets of corrugated iron, then make our way back down to the water. In the same way that I can never resist the gently lapping shallows of Lake Wakatipu, Kit appears to be drawn to the sea, and now that Tui is full of burger, fries and an extra-large chocolate milkshake, she’s very happy to skip along beside us, picking up stones and great slimy lumps of seaweed, which she uses to chase Kit around in circles.
Following the curve of the bay, we pause to admire a large stone statue of a penguin, which Kit insists that Tui and I pose beside for a photo. Another yellow sign further along warns us to go slow, because we have entered a Penguin Crossing zone – a fact that prompts a clumsy cartwheel of joy from my sister.
‘The colony is up ahead,’ Kit explains, pointing towards a red-roofed building. ‘The ticket says we should turn up around eight, though, so we’ve got a while to wait yet.’
‘Oh.’ Tui pouts, but Kit simply laughs at her.
‘Put a boot in it, you cheeky wotsit,’ he says, and Tui blows a raspberry at him before haring off along the stony path ahead of us.
‘Don’t go too far,’ he calls after her in exasperation. ‘Wait by the pier!’
I assume that he’s worried about Tui falling into the sea, but when we reach the long stone jetty, it becomes clear that there is a different and unexpected danger.
‘Seals!’ cries Tui, grasping my arm.
Unlike those we saw from the boat in Milford Sound, which were a good fifty feet away, these whiskery creatures are lazing only a few metres from where Kit, Tui and I are standing. The nearest is lying prone on its back, with its eyes closed and its mouth slightly ajar. We are close enough that I can see the pattern of wet fur across its head, and a jagged scar running across one of its hind flippers.
‘What do you have to remember about seals?’ Kit asks Tui, putting a calming hand on her shoulder.
‘No touching,’ she replies.
‘And?’ prompts Kit.
‘No running.’
‘That’s right.’ He pats her on the top of her head. ‘Just walk past slowly and don’t make any noises that might scare them.’
The three of us make our way stealthily past the first seal, which opens one eye to stare at us but doesn’t move. I’m watching it so intently that I don’t see one that has just lumbered up over an outcrop of rocks behind us, and yelp in fright as it barks loudly. Kit, who now has one arm around Tui and the other wrapped around me, pulls both of us against him.
‘Strewth!’ he exclaims. ‘This one’s a big fella.’
The seals are about the same size as the soppy black Labradors back at Mill House Stables – albeit without legs – and look faintly ridiculous as they roll and heave themselves into comfortable positions on the stone walkway. There’s a dicey moment when two begin to jostle for position on the same ledge, each one rearing up and grunting aggressively at the other, but Tui thinks they’re hilarious, and cackles so loudly that she distracts them. By the time we reach the far end of the T-shaped stone pier, most of the younger seals have slithered down into the sea, miraculously transforming from helpless lumps into graceful dancers as they do so.
Taking out my phone, I start filming a pair that are swimming together in a neat loop, mesmerised by the way they turn over and over, letting the water skim gently over their glossy brown bellies. I have seen seals in a zoo before, but never out in the wild like this, enjoying the freedom that all this space allows. Aside from the occasional trampling feet of a tourist or two, they must have a pretty relaxed existence, and it is a satisfying notion. It’s nice to know that my grief has receded enough to allow me to feel happy on behalf of others again, because for a while, I seemed to lose that ability altogether. Anything and anyone who was not me, I resented. I wanted to portion away my pain, while at the same time I did whatever I could to load more of it on to myself. I clung to it, using it as an anchor to halt the progression of my life.
I lift my chin and close my eyes for a moment while I bask, seal-like, in the heat of the sun. How astonishing that I should be here, on the edge of one of the furthest tips of the world, where the days begin and end before so many others. How can it be fair that I get to feel the rough surface of the concrete beneath my feet, smell the salt in the air, and have the ripple of the wind lift the hair from my cheeks? Why me, when it could just as easily have been her?
‘Pretty bloody nice here, right?’ says Kit at my side. Tui is sitting down on the edge of the pier a few feet away, carefully taking photos of a sunbathing seal with Kit’s phone.
‘Bloody beautiful,’ I agree, grinning at my own terrible attempt at a Kiwi accent, before turning my eyes back to gaze across the water.
‘I spent a few weeks here after my dad—’ he begins, stopping when I glance at him. ‘I needed to get away from all the reminders at home, and this felt like as good a place as any.’
‘There’s something very wild about it,’ I say, thinking how different the craggy rocks and crashing waves are to the placidity of Lake Wakatipu.
‘At the time, it matched my mood right about perfectly,’ he explains. ‘I was even angrier than one of these fellas.’
‘At least you still had your agility,’ I joke, as a particularly rotund seal tries and fails to lumber out of the water.
‘What did you do after?’ he asks, and a beat of silence stretches between us.
‘Nothing. Nothing at all for the longest time,’ I admit, not looking at him. ‘Then I came here.’
‘You know,’ he continues, ‘there’s a Maori proverb that my dad used to say to me, whenever I was feeling down about something. He would take me outside and make me look up at the sun, just like you’re doing here now, and he would say, Hurihia to aroaro ki te ra tukuna to atarangi kia taka ki muri i a koe – turn your face to the sun, and the shadows fall behind you.’
A small noise escapes from the back of my throat.
‘I always reckoned that it meant your sadness doesn’t always leave you, but that you can put it behind you. The sunshine represents the future, and all the pain of your past is in the shadows.’
Again, all I can do is nod.
‘Ah, shit.’ Kit notices the tears on my face. ‘Genie – I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I keep doing this, don’t I? I’m a flaming idiot.’
‘It’s OK,’ I mumble, forcing myself to laugh instead of sob. I know that he’s right, and that I should be trying my best to turn towards the sun, but there is so much shadow behind me. The space I’m in now is on the ledge between the two, and it feels precarious.
‘Hey,’ he says again, and this time he puts both arms around me and pulls me forwards a few steps until my cheek is on his chest. Kit is so tall that he can rest his chin on the top of my head, and I let myself relax into his embrace, feeling helpless as I weep more silent tears on to the front of his T-shirt.
‘You’re allowed to be sad,’ he says quietly, being careful not to alert Tui to my distress.
‘I know,’ I mutter. ‘I’m just so tired of it, that’s all. Sadness is so exhausting.’
‘You poor bloody thing,’ he soothes, stroking my hair. I can hear his heart beating, feel the warmth of his strong arms around my back, and the firmness of his stomach against my chest. I want to curl up inside his embrace. Hibernate here until the leaves darken and fall, until the peaks of Mount Aspiring are white with snow, and the plants down by the Dart River complete their cycle of decay and rot, and new buds spring up. I would be safe here, hidden away. I wouldn’t have to face Bonnie or see the deep lines that grief had dug around David’s eyes or the guilt in my own.
‘You know, I reckon that your mum would hate seeing you like this,’ Kit says then. ‘She would want you to be happy, right?’
If only it were that simple. Perhaps I could strive for something close to happiness again, if I wasn’t the one to blame for Anna’s death, if I had behaved better, pushed less and apologised more quickly. Anna loved me enough to forgive, but I don’t love myself in the way she did. I never have. That is at least one thing that Bonnie and I will have in common, I think dully – neither of us loving me.
Kit doesn’t let go of me until Tui begins to clamber back to her feet, and then he uses his thumbs to wipe any remaining tears from my cheeks. I rest my face gratefully against his hands, not caring what he thinks, or how it might look, just needing the comfort.
‘Penguins now?’ asks Tui hopefully, jiggling on the spot.
Kit drops his hands from my face to check his watch.
‘Not long now.’ He puts his head on one side and regards her for a moment or two. ‘But first, perhaps we should head back to the guesthouse and change?’
‘Hm-mm,’ giggles Tui, and shakes her head before grabbing for my hand.
‘No running!’ yells Kit, but his voice is carried away by the wind as Tui and I set off back along the pier, dodging lounging seals and squealing as one barks at our heels. By the time he catches up with us, my earlier sorrow has evaporated. I know a few near misses with some wild seals are not the reason I feel better, though – that has far more to do with the people standing here beside me.
One Winter Morning Page 18
