Belonging: Two hearts, two continents, one all-consuming passion. (Victoria in Love Book 1)

by Isabella Wiles

  Once there, Dean asks again, “So come on, spill. Is she really fit?” the background volume having reduced to a level where we can at least now converse more comfortably. “What’s she like in the sack?” he says putting his bottle to his lips taking a drink, his eyebrows raised as he questions me cheekily.

  I hear him crystal clear this time. “Fuck off, Dean. I’m not answering that... but yes, she is really fit. I can’t wait for you to meet her one day. I’m sure you’ll love her - just like everyone else does.” I can’t help but smile broadly when I talk about her.

  “Judging by that goofy grin plastered all over your face, you’ve got it bad, Chris. Jeez … does this mean my little brother is in luurve?” He’s teasing me, exaggerating the annunciation as if I am still ten years old and Vicky is my first playground crush. That’s the problem with older siblings, it’s part of the family dynamic to wind each other up, and being the youngest, I am always on the receiving end of much of the banter. I don’t mind, I’m used to it.

  “You could say that,” I reply honestly. “It feels fucking fantastic though, Dean. Some days I wake up next to her and can’t believe she’s mine or what I did to deserve her. Me, the one-eyed goon from the other side of the world, who skipped out on most of his education but who has managed to pull this absolutely gorgeous girl.”

  My smile drops slightly as I add, “But it’s not all been all plain sailing, we’ve had our hiccups along the way and being this far apart is so so hard. We know we want to be together, but the logistics feel impossible at the moment. If she comes to live here, she wouldn’t be able to work and would need to fly in and out of the country and back at least every 90 days to get her passport stamped before her tourist visa would run out, and although I can stay in the UK on my British passport for as long as I want, all my business contacts and earning potential is based here. I’m qualified for nothing and I’ve never had a job, as you know, so me getting any sort of employment in the UK is also out of the question, other than a dead-end job on a basic wage which I wouldn’t be able to live off. It’s just so damn hard. It feels like we’re in permanent limbo at the moment. I’m sorry, Dean,” I say, taking a swig from my bottle, “you didn’t ask me to unload all of my woes onto you. I didn’t mean to bring down the mood,” I add, turning away from him.

  “There is a simple answer, Chris,” Dean replies, and I have a feeling I know what he’s going to say. “Marry the girl. That’s if you really do love her. Then you’ll have no problem bringing her here permanently.”

  “Don’t think I haven’t thought about that Dean, but it’s just not that simple.” My mind flashes back to that hideous first night when I’d returned to Vicky and we’d had to confront what had happened when I’d been away from her. “Apart from anything else, she’s an only child and I know it would be a real wrench for her mum if she were to move to the other side of the world. In fact, I think her mum would properly hire a hitman and hunt me down.” I watch Dean’s shoulders shake up and down as he laughs out loud.

  What I don’t share with him is my deeper-rooted fear - the true belief that I don’t deserve her. How can I possibly be good enough? She’s so amazing and deserves so much more, what if I did ask her to make the ultimate sacrifice, drag her away from her homeland, from her family and from everyone she knows and then I couldn’t make her happy, couldn’t give her the life she deserves? No, I could never do that to her, yet I simply can’t imagine my life without her in it - it doesn’t bare thinking about. I need her but feel powerless to overcome the obstacles that stand in our way. If we’re going to be together in the long-run, one of us is going to have to make a major sacrifice. A sacrifice that although would make one of us ecstatic could potentially make the other permanently miserable.

  “Hm.” Dean takes a sip from his drink. “I’m sure you’ll work it out,” he offers as way of condolence, affectionately slapping me on my back in a show of shared comradeship, knowing that there is no easy solution to our predicament.

  We arrive back at Mum’s in the early hours, mildly drunk, clattering around in the kitchen like two possums that have broken into a bach as we attempt to ‘quietly’ fill glasses with water and ice before noticing a handwritten note by the telephone which reads;

  Vicky called

  please call her back

  no matter what time

  It’s URGENT.

  Mum x

  Panicking slightly that something awful has happened. She’s had an accident. Someone in her family has become ill. Something awful has happened at work. I grab the handset and dial her number, fidgeting with the telephone cord, twisting it around my fingers, as I listen to the clicks on the line as the call connects and as the first few rings go unanswered. Eventually it’s picked up - by my sister!

  “Hello, Melanie speaking.”

  “Mellie, it’s Chris. Is Vicky there?” I pause, waiting for her to respond after the five second delay.

  “Oh, hey Chris, how’s it going? How’s Mum? What have you been up to? Is it warm there? It’s been bloody freezing over here this week.” She’s babbling, and I haven’t got the patience to listen to her endless questions, the alcohol in me making me more confrontational than I would be normally.

  “Mellie can you please shut the fuck up and get Vicky for me?”

  “Well that’s just charming - nice to talk to you too, bro.”

  “Sorry, I don’t want to be rude, Mellie, but Vicky called earlier and left a message asking me to call back, saying it was urgent. She’s got me worried.”

  “I know. I was here when she rang.” I sense a smile in her voice. “It’s nothing for you to worry about, Chook. I’ll get her for you now.” I hear her shout up the stairs for Vicky to come to the phone followed by footsteps on the stairs as Vicky comes down, I presume, from her bedroom.

  “Hey, Chris,” I hear Vicky’s voice - finally! “How have you been? Gosh what time is it there? You must be up late? Or have you been out? Is it warm? It’s been bloomin’ freezing over here this week. We’ve even had some snow, although it didn’t stick.”

  Bloody hell, what is it with the flipping weather, both girls seem to want to talk about the temperature!

  “Hey, you. What’s up? You’ve got me worried. I’ve been out with Dean and we’ve just come back in now. Mum left a note saying you rang earlier and to call you back urgently? Is everything OK?” I ask, my words coming thick and fast as I urgently want to find out what could be so urgent.

  “Yes, yes. Everything’s absolutely fine.” She sounds giddy like she’s building up to tell me something. “Are you sitting down, Chris? Sit down. I have something to tell you.”

  I pull up a chair from around the kitchen table, the legs scraping loudly on the kitchen floor like someone scraping their fingers down a blackboard. “I’m sitting down now, what is it?” I ask, my mind still full of worst-case scenarios.

  “OK,” she says, as I hear her take a deep breath in, “how would you like a visitor?”

  “What? What do you mean. I’m confused.”

  “I’m saying, how would you like a visitor? I’m going to come to Christchurch to visit you, Chris.” I can hear the excitement fizz in her voice.

  “Whaaaat?” I jump up out of the chair and fist pump the air. “How? When? Oh my God, Vicky.”

  “United Airlines released an AD75 to Sydney today,” she continues “and I jumped on it. They’re like gold dust on the Australasia routes but I’ve been checking the system every day at work on the off chance that any airline released one to Auckland or any of the eastern Aussie cities. So even though this only gets me as far as Sydney I can easily buy a normal airfare from there onto Christchurch. I’m pleased I nabbed it when I did because I checked again at the end of the day and it had disappeared again. Personally, I think someone’s made a mistake but I don’t care. I’ve bought it now. I’ve just put it on my American Express card.”

  “Oh, Vicky that’s absolutely brilliant news,” joy flowing through my veins like a st
rong, warm whiskey. “How did you get the time off work? Don’t tell me you’ve jacked your job in? How long can you stay? When do you arrive?” It’s my turn now to ask a tirade of questions.

  “Calm down, will you? One question at a time. I’ve managed to take three weeks leave. Normally you can only ever take two weeks holiday at any one time, but they’ve made an exception for me. Basically, I think I’ve been such a grump at work since you left, that Mark wangled it for me with head office. It does mean I’ve got virtually no holiday allowance left for the rest of the year, but I’ll worry about that later. So, if you take off the days lost for travelling, we should have a good 17 days together.” She continues, “I haven’t booked the exact flights yet, so can’t give you my confirmed arrival details, but it will be within the next two to three weeks. Oh Chris, I’m so excited. I can’t wait to see you.”

  “Oh Vicky, darling.” I take a spontaneous deep breath in, filling my lungs to capacity, my eyes prickling with tears of joy at the shock of knowing that we’re to be reunited again and in only a matter of days when we had been stoically holding on indefinitely. The release feels amazing.

  “Good news?” Dean mouths from the other side of the kitchen where he’s been hovering, pretending not to listen into our conversation when he’s obviously been ear-wigging. I suspect he was hovering in case it was bad news and he may have needed to pick up the pieces, but I give him a thumbs-up as Vicky and I continue to chat. He nods his acknowledgement before sloping off to bed, his glass of iced water in his hand.

  Vicky and I carry on our conversation for around ten minutes catching up on each other’s news, before reluctantly hanging up. We could talk for days, but the cost of making international phone calls is stupidly expensive, so we restrict ourselves to one ten-minute phone call a week, disciplining ourselves to airmail letters instead. Still this was by far the best phone call I could have ever hoped for. I head to bed, satiated by Vicky’s news, before completing my now ingrained routine of re-reading all of her letters and tucking them safely back under my pillow.

  For the first time in what seems like ages, I fall into a deep and peaceful slumber.

  Chapter 16

  Victoria

  Three weeks later

  Chris reaches across for my hand, lifting it to his lips and kissing it lightly, as the stunning vista opens up in front of us. I smile across in his direction leaning my head back against the car headrest, my eyes shaded by Ray-Bans and half closed against the strong Kiwi sun. He turns fleetingly to look over at me, one eye (literally) still on the road ahead as he returns my smile. The old Hebrew saying, ‘my cup runneth over’ is the closest I can come to describing how I feel in this moment, I am so full of love and so so very happy.

  “What an absolutely glorious day… and yet another breath-taking view,” I say across in his direction, inhaling sharply as we turn yet another corner and yet another spectacular view literally takes my breath away. Across the bay, multiple headlands jut out from the landscape like knobbly fingers reaching down to dip their nails into the turquoise waters below, all framed by a backdrop of perfect symmetrical peaks and valleys that curve around and hug the glinting waters of the inlet, as if protecting the sacred water.

  “Wow!” I say quietly, feeling a solemn reverence for the magnificence of the stunning vista laid out in front of us. “Can we stop the car please? Take a closer look.”

  “Of course, sweetheart,” Chris says pulling the black Merc over onto the verge, the tyres crunching on the loose gravel at the side of the tarmac.

  Behind us the uniform patchwork of the vibrant greens and bright yellows of the Canterbury plains, their rich fertile soil long carved up for arable land by the early European settlers, has been replaced by the undulating peaks smattered with the darker browns, deeper greens and scorched yellows of the rough scrub, grass and woodland of the Banks Peninsula. Chris walks round to my side of the vehicle, holding my door open for me as I step out.

  We’ve parked up just outside Charteris Bay. Our vantage point, looking northwards across Whakarupo, past Quail Island and over to the dramatic Port Hills on the opposite side of the inlet, the Christchurch gondola just visible in the distance behind Lyttelton harbour. We drink in the view together as I lean into Chris, my head on his shoulder, his arm behind me, wrapped around my waist. He kisses the top of my head and everything feels so right.

  “I’ve been very lucky to have travelled to some amazing places all around the world, Chris,” I say, “but already in the short time I’ve been here, your homeland has captured my heart.” I gesture towards the magnificent view before placing my hand on my chest. Chris remains quiet, allowing me to soak up the jaw-dropping scene and sensing I have more to say. “It’s not just the beauty of the place,” I continue, “which although I’ve seen plenty of pictures from you and Mellie and Mich, which you’d think would have prepared me for seeing your country with my own eyes, but no photograph could have ever prepared me for how this beautiful country has made me feel in here.” I say, tapping the hand that is over my heart. “It’s like the land gives off a physical vibration that resonates with me. I feel its energy. I’ve never felt a connection or a pulse like it. The North East of England is the only other place in the world where I get this same feeling and I’ve always assumed that’s just because it’s where I grew up.”

  We stand in silence for a long while, totally comfortable in the peace and tranquility of the view and in each other’s company. We’re en route to Akaroa, choosing to follow the northern coastal route rather than the more direct and faster Highway 75 to the south. Instead we’re travelling around the north side of the peninsula through Governors Bay, to Charteris Bay where we stand now, then onto Diamond Harbour, Port Levy and Pigeon Bay, eventually arriving in the small original French settlement of Akaroa in an hour or so. When we set off from Christchurch earlier, the journey should have only taken around two hours, but now it looks like it may take double that, based on the frequent ‘view stops’ I keep requesting!

  The Banks Peninsula to the south east of Christchurch was formed by two large, now dormant, volcanos which have shaped the peninsula’s topography, their craters forming the harbours of Lyttelton on the north of the peninsula and Akaroa on the south. Like much of this fascinating country, I’m fast learning from the guide book that accompanies me everywhere, the area is blessed with dual labels. An original Māori name, shrouded in mythology and meaning and a more recent European name, so designated when the country was settled. The whole peninsula is named after Joseph Banks, the botanist who sailed with Captain James Cook on the Endeavour, whereas the headland of Lyttelton harbour which stretches out in front of us now is known by the Māori as Ōhinetahi, after the only daughter of Manuhiri who although he fathered many sons, had only one daughter. Literally translated, Ōhinetahi means ‘The Place of One Daughter’ and I wonder if that is why I feel my spirit in tune with very this spot. I know what it feels like to be an only daughter. The responsibility and expectation that such a role carries. Perhaps the original Ōhinetahi who gave her name to this beautiful place, also wanted to live up to her father’s expectations. The fear of losing Chris, just like I lost my own father, ever present causing me to want to avoid a repeat of the vivid moments of desperate loneliness that have peppered my life; when I’d changed schools for example, or when I lost contact with my own father, crying to myself in the privacy of my bedroom, the nagging emptiness caused by the void constantly in my heart exaggerated and magnified whenever Chris and I are forced to part. I wonder if it is the energy of this mythical Māori daughter that speaks to me now?

  The last two weeks before I finally boarded the plane in London to begin the long journey to travel here I’d been hopping about like an excitable child counting down the days leading up to Christmas. My long-suffering work colleagues having first become accustomed to my intolerable grumpiness, now had to tolerate my now uncontrollable giddiness as my countdown to D-Day ensued. Poor Melanie had to deal with the br
unt of my pendulum mood swings. Joyous elation after every phone call with her brother or on receipt of a precious blue airmail letter with my name on it, before my mood would swing back the other way and the deep dark cloud of depression would engulf me once again. The distance between Chris and I seemingly impossible to bridge. She tried her best to coax me out of my depression; inviting me to join her at The Marriott, to soak an hour or two away in the jacuzzi, or out to the Route 66 nightclub in town for a few drinks after work. Even our once fun-filled weekends up to town to see Tim or Michelle, whose pregnant belly seems to be growing by the day, seemed also to have lost their edge, based on my lacklustre enthusiasm for life generally.

  When the darkness would descend I struggled to engage with life, instead spending hours (sometimes days) sulking in my own company, crying buckets of tears as the loneliness washed over me. If only I could reach out and touch him, I’d think to myself in those long dark lonely moments. If only for a fleeting second. Feel his body close to mine, hear the sound of his voice whispering in my ear, smell his distinct musky scent. What I would have done to be able to have him near me in those dark moments. My only comfort his t-shirt wrapped around my pillow (his distinct smell fading with every passing day) or the cards and letters I’d received since he left which I would spend hours poring over, attempting to suck every last ounce of him from his poorly scrawled words.

  During the long months apart, our only consolation was our brief and strictly timed weekly phone calls. It’s not easy to talk on the telephone over a crackly line with an annoying time-delay, making it difficult for conversation to flow. Still our weekly calls have become our lifeline and we’ve taken it in turn each week to call each other. Even though we’re not able to share much real news on each other’s day to day life in those calls, just hearing his voice and him telling me how much he loves me, makes our ridiculously expensive phone bills all worthwhile.