33
We return to the bed and breakfast to change into warmer clothes for the evening, because even though the day was scorching, it is supposed to get chilly down by the sea at night. Plus, as Kit explains to me and Tui as we share a pizza in a restaurant near the town centre, there is a lot of waiting around when it comes to the art of penguin spotting, and you must stay as quiet and still as possible, so as not to startle them.
We arrive at the colony just before the doors open at eight p.m., then make our way along a winding boardwalk path to a small grandstand. Kit has splashed out and bought the best seats in the house, which will give us a front-row view of all the blue penguins as they waddle up from the water. What began as just a few nests amongst the rocks here has expanded into a thriving blue penguin community, with the petite sea birds free to come, go and breed as they please.
Such is the anticipation of the crowd that there is a collective intake of keyed-up breath as the first cluster of penguins comes into view, each one padding with quiet stoicism from one flat foot to another with their pointed little flippers held out behind them. As they pass by right below us, Tui gasps out loud with awe, and Kit and I exchange a smile over her head.
Some of the birds hurry straight under the protective cover of the wooden walkway, while others stand in groups, squawking away as if they’re having a good old gossip about their day out fishing. It is not just Tui who is gazing down at them adoringly now, all three of us are, and when the first batch have all scuttled into their nests, another group comes ashore, and then another, and before long there are hundreds of penguins just distinguishable in the dusk. The racket they are making, as well as the smell coming off them, is quite something, and Tui pointedly holds her nose.
‘They’re so noisy,’ I whisper to Kit, and he chuckles.
‘I might start calling Tui a penguin from now on,’ he replies, prompting an indignant and clearly audible, ‘Hey!’ from the girl in question.
‘Shhh,’ hisses a woman sitting behind us, and Kit rolls amused eyes to the sky.
Looking down, I notice that Tui is holding Kit’s hand as well as mine, but the next moment she almost pulls the two of us over as she shoots up from her seat, leaning right over me so she can see the newest arrival of penguins more easily.
‘Sit down!’ demands the angry woman, and I tap Tui gently on the leg.
‘Jeez!’ she complains, her shrill voice echoing around the silent grandstand. At first I think Kit is going to tell her off, but instead he shifts round in his seat.
‘Chill out, would ya?’ he says to the woman, his voice low. Then, reaching across me, he grabs the waistband of Tui’s leggings.
‘Bottom down, bouncy pants,’ he instructs. Tui sits, landing not on the bench but on my lap, causing her to lurch sideways, blocking the view yet again. There is another snort of annoyance from the row behind, and I scoot quickly out of Tui’s way, my thigh ending up rammed against Kit’s. I assume that he will move, but he doesn’t, and I can’t, squashed in as I am by a grumbling Tui. The longer I sit here, the more I become aware of Kit, and how being this close to him is making the murmur of something close to pleasure creep through me. It has been so long now since I have experienced even an inkling of desire. I thought that feeling had been cauterised by Anna’s death, and until this moment, I hadn’t dwelled on it very much. It didn’t seem important enough. Trust me to have my desire reawakened by a man who not only lives on the opposite side of the world to me, but is also very much involved with another girl. I shouldn’t even be thinking these things – it’s not fair on Allie.
More penguins arrive, and my nose begins to tickle from the cloying aroma of fish.
‘Yuck!’ declares Tui loudly, as yet again she makes a big show of holding her nose. Next to me, I feel Kit’s shoulders beginning to shake with suppressed laughter.
‘I think we had better get going before someone gets us booted out,’ he murmurs, and I nod in agreement, reaching for Tui’s hand.
‘Come on,’ I tell her. ‘We’ll be able to see the penguins going into their nests from the walkway.’
In the end, we get a better view than we could ever have hoped for, because halfway back along the coastal path towards town, a single rogue penguin appears without warning from the long grass beside the shoreline and flatfoots it across the road less than a metre from our feet.
‘PENGUIN!’ screams Tui, hurling herself towards it at speed, both her arms outstretched.
It is only Kit’s rapid-action reflexes that prevent her from scooping the little thing up into her arms and bringing it back to the B&B with us.
‘I still can’t believe she tried to pick up a bloody penguin.’
I have just returned from helping an exhausted Tui into bed in our shared room, and find Kit sitting at the kitchen table. The bottle of whisky he bought earlier is open and partially decanted, and there is an empty glass beside his own, which he lifts as I approach.
‘You mean p-p-p-pick up a penguin,’ I correct, nodding to accept his offer of a drink.
‘What was that?’ Kit looks confused.
‘It’s from an advert that used to be on for Penguin chocolate biscuits,’ I say, pulling out the chair next to his. ‘I keep forgetting you’re not British.’
Before I can sit down, however, Kit nods towards the open balcony door.
‘We could go and drink these outside? It shouldn’t be too cold now that we’re up here.’
‘Sounds good,’ I agree, and Kit pushes back his chair. Pouring several fingers of whisky into my glass, he slides it towards me.
‘You might need a splash of water in there,’ he warns. ‘It’s right strong enough to leave scorch marks on your tongue, this stuff.’
Reluctant for him to think I’m a lightweight, but also not keen on the idea of passing out drunk anytime soon, I take my glass over to the cold tap, before joining Kit and his bottle out on the balcony. The owner has left a few beanbags out here in lieu of furniture, and I collapse gratefully into one with a contented sigh.
‘Long day.’ Kit holds up his glass.
‘Great day,’ I reply, clinking my own against it.
The diluted whisky burns a fierce trail down my throat, and almost as soon as I have swallowed it, I begin coughing violently.
‘Oops.’ Kit pats me on the back. ‘I should have grabbed us some beers instead. I can go out to the liquor store now, if you want? It’d be no bother.’
He is already halfway to being on his feet again, but I stop him with a raised hand.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say, coughing again. ‘This is honestly nice – I just haven’t drunk whisky for a while – I forgot how strong it is.’
He doesn’t need to know that by ‘a while’, what I actually mean is ‘ever’.
‘Tui behave OK?’ he asks.
‘Out like a light. I didn’t even get to finish her bedtime story.’
‘I could tell she was bushed.’ Kit tips back his glass. ‘She gets all worked up when she’s tired – Bonnie warned me of that before she left.’
‘And you don’t mind looking after her?’ I ask, already predicting his answer.
‘Not at all.’ Kit takes another sip. ‘I feel a bit sorry for the kid, you know? Not because of her issues so much as her olds being separated. That can’t be easy on her – it wouldn’t be easy on any of us.’
‘Was Tui a planned baby?’ I ask, and Kit frowns.
‘I’ve never asked Bon that – doesn’t seem like my place, you know? But I do know that she and Simon were never married or anything like that. My mum told me that Simon was torn up when they split – he was bats about Bon, but I guess she felt differently.’
‘That’s sad,’ I say, thinking back to what Simon had said to me at the barbecue, about Bonnie being reluctant to let anyone in.
‘I guess.’ Kit is more pragmatic. ‘But it can’t have been easy on either of them to deal with Tui’s prognosis. It’s still not easy now.’
He shifts into a m
ore comfortable position on his beanbag, his eyes black pools in the darkness.
‘Tui is amazing. We all love her. But she can never be left completely alone. There are things that she just can’t seem to learn, and unfortunately, many of them are things that could land her in trouble, so we have to keep on watching her.’
He stops, looking at me for a reaction.
‘She can learn a bit,’ I say hesitantly. ‘She’s improved her riding loads recently.’
‘Perhaps you have the magic touch?’ he says, but I am already shaking my head.
‘I just made a few lucky guesses.’
‘Why do you keep doing this, woman?’ Kit implores. ‘Why do you put yourself down all the bloody time?’
‘I don’t mean to,’ I insist, taking such a fortifying glug of whisky that I almost choke again.
‘Well, you shouldn’t,’ he persists. ‘You’re a choice girl, Genie – and I’m not the only one who thinks it. Tui downright idolises you, and Allie and Griff both reckon you’re great.’
I’m about to ask him how he’s feeling about moving away to Wellington, only for the question to stall like a knackered car. It is none of my business, but there is also a part of me that doesn’t want the news confirmed.
Feeling horribly disloyal towards Allie, I force down yet more of the whisky. If only Kit wasn’t always so kind to me, if only he hadn’t kissed me that day at the stables. I know he only meant it in a platonic way, but I can’t help reliving it in my head, over and over.
‘Griff is brilliant,’ I say, settling on a safe topic. ‘He looked after us so well on that Milford Sound trip.’
‘Well, yeah, of course he did.’ Kit is smirking.
‘Why do you say it like that?’
‘No reason.’ Kit stirs the ice around in his glass with a finger. ‘Just that it’s been a while since Griff talked about a girl, and he’s been yacking about you something chronic.’
For a brief second, I try to imagine myself in the arms of Griff, with his curls of blond beard and his large broken nose.
‘That’s very flattering,’ I concede. ‘But he’s not my type.’
‘Poor old Griffster,’ Kit laments, sounding in no way sad for his friend whatsoever.
‘What is your type then?’ he asks.
‘Oh, you know, the usual,’ I say, pausing to take another sip. ‘Tall.’ I raise my eyes to his. ‘Dark.’ I take in the sweep of his hair. ‘Handsome.’ I let my gaze linger a dangerously long time on his face, before trailing my eyes deliberately down across his broad chest.
What the hell has got into me? I wonder, too light-headed to realise that the answer is, in fact, swilling around in the bottom of my glass.
Kit looks away first, using the excuse of refilling our tumblers to break eye contact. I can hear the muted chirp of crickets coming from the garden below us, while high above the balcony, stars lie like ribbons of tinsel across an indigo sky. The air is still now, this afternoon’s breeze hushed by the night, and I can hear the distant swoosh of the waves as they buffet the rocks, displacing pebbles and carrying debris back to shore. If only a force as great as an ocean could scoop up the debris of my life and put it back where it’s supposed to be.
‘I’ll have to buy Griff some dye for his hair,’ Kit says into the silence. ‘But there isn’t much even I can do about his face.’
‘It took you all that time to come up with that?’ I exclaim, and Kit laughs.
The whisky continues to go down as we talk, trading stories about our childhoods and coming back time and time again to Tui. The more time I spend with Kit, the more carefree I feel with him, although I know the alcohol probably has something to do with it, too. He is just so easy to talk to, and before long, I find myself opening up in ways I haven’t for a very long time. Without giving away the truth about my adoption or my connection to Evangeline in Tui’s favourite books, I do confess that I struggled with my own identity, and that I went from being loud and outgoing to more of a mousy introvert as I grew up.
Kit puts his head on one side.
‘I knew there was a lively spirit lurking under your surface,’ he remarks. ‘I see flashes of it from time to time.’
‘Alcohol clearly unleashes it,’ I joke, holding up my glass.
‘I figured it was losing your mum that made you retreat into yourself,’ he adds, and I slump back into the beanbag as if I’ve been punctured.
‘It did,’ I admit, my voice low. ‘But I can’t blame that entirely. Truth is, I used to be a person who liked being looked at and noticed, but now … Now I’m the opposite.’
‘I notice you.’
It’s too dark now for me to read Kit’s expression, but I am aware of the tremble I felt earlier at the penguin colony returning. He is sitting so close to me; it would be so easy to lean forwards and kiss him.
‘I noticed you today,’ he says. ‘I saw how brave you were being.’
‘I’m not brave,’ I counter automatically, but he hushes me with a look.
‘I have a confession to make,’ he says, his gaze so intense now that I feel compelled to stare down at the floor. ‘I invited you out to Oamaru with us partly because I thought it would help. There is something about this place – I felt it when I came here after my dad died, and I wanted you to feel it too.’
Whisky tears well up in my throat.
‘Did it work?’ he asks, and I manage to nod.
‘I thought it had, at least a bit. You always look so haunted usually, as if you carry the dead with you everywhere you go. Today you seemed more, I dunno, alive, I guess, as if you were living properly in the moment, rather than hovering on the outside looking in.’
‘Are you some sort of magician?’ I say, desperate to lighten the mood. I cannot believe how much of a measure he has of me, or how closely he has been paying attention.
‘Nah.’ Kit levers the bottle of whisky down, but I put a hand over the top of my glass.
‘Any more of that and I’ll end up sleeping out here.’
‘Wouldn’t be so bad.’ Kit stretches his long legs out and knits his hands together behind his head. I am curled up like a hedgehog on my beanbag now, chilly despite the musty old blanket I found in the bedroom wardrobe.
I am still unsure how pleased Anna would be about the idea of me meeting my birth mother, but I know without question that she would have adored Kit – and Tui, for that matter. All this time, I have felt traitorous to my adoptive mum, but perhaps I have been doing her memory a disservice by ever doubting her capacity for forgiveness, understanding and love. Because the truth is, Anna was full of love, and if she were here, she would urge me to follow my heart no matter what.
34
Bonnie
The day I found out that Seth was cheating on me was also the day I told him I loved him.
We had woken up at his place, all limbs entwined and sheets tangled up, and I was feeling woozy with happiness. He had a lecture to go to, but I remember that he missed it. He told me that I was teaching him more about love than anything Shakespeare had written could possibly hope to, and I thought that was so romantic.
I had never told anyone that I loved them before except for my folks – and it wasn’t even something that I said to them all that often. So, when I blurted out those three words to Seth that morning, it was a big deal.
A really big deal.
The rest of that day, I floated around London. I felt invincible, you know? Like I had worked out the entire meaning of life, and wanted everyone else to feel as good as I did. Hell, I probably even sang, I was that happy.
After I’d finished work that evening, I got on the bus and went straight to Camden Town. I had arranged to meet Seth in the World’s End pub – an ironic choice of venue, as it turned out – but bumped into Lavender on the way in. I knew something was up right away. She seemed so twitchy, like she had a whole nest of ants in her smalls, and she couldn’t look me in the eye. We got ourselves a couple of ciders and went to the table where Seth and his
other mates were, and right away Lavender starts goading him, making all these snide little remarks under her breath, saying stuff about all the lies he told, and that he owed her because of the trouble he’d got her into with her parents.
It was so weird, because the two of them usually got on great. I mean, she often teased him and told him off, but it was always in good humour. I became aware very quickly that she was right raging angry with Seth for some reason. And I wasn’t the only one who noticed – everyone was looking at each other as if to say, ‘What the bloody hell is her problem?’, and I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know how to handle it. I just knew that something was wrong, really wrong – I could feel it in my gut.
After this had been going on a while, Lavender got up and went to the toilet, so I followed her. I thought I’d try to cheer her up, you know? Snap her out of it. I was still trying my best to hang on to the happy mood I’d been in all day, but as soon as I asked her what was up, Lavender started going in on me, saying how stupid I was, and how Seth was making a laughing stock out of me.
Well, that really wound me up, and I’d had a few drinks by this point, so I argued back for once. I told her that Seth would never do that to me because he loved me, and that he’d told me as much that very morning. When I said that, her face seemed to crumple in on itself. I had uncovered – and shredded – her last straw. From the look of her, I thought she was going to start crying, but instead she just laughed, and it was this really cruel and hard laugh.
I went cold all over. I’m cold all over now just remembering it. Her reaction had scared me, and so when she tried to keep on talking, I ran right out of there. I went back to Seth and told him that we had to go, that I needed to leave. I just wanted to get him away from Lavender before she said anything else, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He was drunk, and showing off as he always did when he’d had a few too many jars. Talking rubbish while all his so-called friends rolled their bloody eyes at him.
One Winter Morning Page 19
