As It Is On Telly (17 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

‘I don’t know how you do it,’ said Bunty to Cally as they slurped coffee out of pudding bowls at a cafe in Mission Bay. The water lapped at the edge of the beach about a hundred yards away across the road, the sun dappling one slope of the volcano that stuck out of the sea a few miles out. Charlotte, sniggering at the next table with Paige, had already decided they would do a day trip out to Rangitoto. Not every day she got to stare down a volcano.

‘What?’ Cally’s face disappeared momentarily behind her coffee cup. Bowl. ‘Live here? I know, it’s awful, isn’t it?’

Bunty grinned. ‘I don’t mean that. I mean keeping up with appearances. You’ve just had a baby and look better than you have in years. Mind you, everyone around here looks sickeningly healthy. And gorgeous.’ Verity Reynolds and Susie Williams would fit right in, it appeared.

‘That’s how I do it,’ said Cally, nodding at two jogging mothers as she hauled David onto her lap and fed him her biscotti. ‘Nothing like a bit of competition to stimulate the ‘let’s get moving’ gene. Although to be honest, I’m not very good at it. It’s just life keeping me thin at the moment.’ In addition to being a new mum to David, an old mum to Paige and a partner to Pete, Cally had managed to score herself a rather plum job as events co-ordinator for the city’s arts foundation. She didn’t seem to take it too seriously, though, and still found time to stick around to keep Bunty company, and organise day trips for the days she and Pete wouldn’t be around.

Bunty breathed in, a heady concoction of excellent coffee, brine and relaxation. This had been a good choice, she thought, watching the pert behinds of the mother-joggers fade into the distance. Charlotte was having an amazing time catching up with Paige, and loved the house, the pool, the city, the scenery and everything else around with unprecedented hyperbole. ‘Wicked!’ was definitely her word of the week, closely followed by ‘awesome’. Bunty, too, once the jetlag had subsided and she felt as though her legs were her own once more, was beginning to feel the tension slide from her shoulders as the sun played on her skin. It was a therapeutic place, and she was loving it.

Nonetheless, the aim of her mad mission played on her mind, and she dared to raise it again at dinner that evening, when Kat and Simon finally reappeared and they could all crowd around Pete and Cally’s pitted pine table.

‘Cally, that was fantastic,’ she said, pushing her plate away.

‘All Pete’s doing.’ Cally bumped hips with Pete in the open-plan kitchen where they were starting to load the dishwasher. ‘His pasta is always amazing.’

Pete smiled evenly. ‘After thirty years of feeding myself I know what to do with a handful of spaghetti and a bit of sauce.’

‘I bet you do,’ growled Kat in her sleaziest voice. Bunty watched over her glass as Simon laughed, shaking his head, and squeezed Kat’s fingers across the table. They were very different in so many ways, but for now it seemed to work.

‘Talking of which, well, not what you do with spaghetti, but you know, um …’ Bunty ran out of ways to introduce the topic she most wanted to discuss. ‘Ben,’ she said simply, having first checked that Charlotte and Paige were well out of the way, and not on a computer.

Cally wiped her hands on a tea towel and filled all their glasses, raising her eyebrows at Kat. ‘Yes. Ben. Tell us what you know about him and we’ll see how you can track him down.’

‘I know it sounds ridiculous,’ said Bunty, ‘but I did feel such a connection. He’s got issues and baggage and everything, but then haven’t we all? You guys all did, and look how it’s worked out for you.’ There were so many triangles in the relationships of Pete, Cally, Simon and Kat that it was practically a Toblerone. ‘I just want to find him. Show him that I can be there for him. Let him feel loved and wanted.’

‘And how do you find him?’ asked Pete.

‘I’ve got this number for him,’ she said, showing him her mobile. ‘I’ve tried calling but there’s no reply. I think it may be turned off or run out of power or something. Is that a local number?’

Pete angled his reading glasses and read the little screen on the phone. ‘That’s a mobile. Could be anywhere. Sorry, Bunty. Do have his surname?’

‘He did tell me his surname, but it was so long and complicated that I didn’t get it, and I didn’t want to ask him again.’

‘Maori?’ said Cally.

‘Or Polynesian,’ suggested Simon.

‘That’s more likely if it was very long,’ said Pete. ‘But that’s not much to go on either.’

Kat sat up brightly. ‘He owns a yacht though. Let’s go to all the yachtie places.’

‘There are quite a few of those, though, Kat,’ said Cally.

Kat was not to be defeated, however. ‘Okay. We’ll start with the biggest and work our way down. It was a big yacht, wasn’t it, Bun?’

‘I never saw it.’ Bunty almost shuddered. She’d never seen it. What must they think of her, coming all this way with so little information? It was madness, but they were all helping her. ‘But I suppose so.’

Cally and Pete were looking at each other in a way that Bunty couldn’t quite understand, but then Pete said, ‘Right, then we start at the Viaduct. Tomorrow’s Sunday. It’ll be a good day to ask around.’

‘And we can fit in a trip from there for the girls,’ said Cally. ‘I’ll take them off to Rangitoto, if you like, while you go Ben-hunting.’

Bunty felt like crying, so grateful was she for all their help. For getting it so completely. For realising how unkind Graham had been, and how Ben could rectify things. She leaned over and gave Cally a hug. ‘Thank you for understanding.’

And Cally gave her a kiss on the cheek. ‘I’m not really understanding, Bun, if I’m honest, but I am supporting. Like you’ve done for me. That’s what friends are for.’

Kat’s eyes had misted over. ‘Friends,’ she said breathily, clunking her glass against Bunty’s then Cally’s. ‘The three musketeers.’

‘Friends,’ said Cally and Bunty together.

Bunty took a slug of her drink, playing over in her head what Cally had just said. ‘Supporting’ was different to ‘understanding’, it was true. It was what she and Kat had done when they turned up in Fiji for Cally’s wedding to Alan, Pete’s son, even though they both felt it was a mistake and he wouldn’t be right for Cally at all. Now, seeing her with Pete, it was completely evident that it would have been far from just ‘not right’. It would have been a disaster.

But that wasn’t the same in this case. They didn’t like Graham, for a start. Either of them. They’d always thought he was too dull for Bunty, too organised for Bunty, a bit too ‘steady Eddie’ for Bunty.

And they hadn’t even met Ben yet. They’d love him. Just as she could. Even their names went together better. Ben and Bun. Ben and Bun for dinner tonight, darling! Oh, great, they’re fun! Ben and Bun. Lots of fun. Ben and Bun on the sofa. Ben and Bun, and Charlotte plus one …

‘Bunty!’

‘Hmmm?’

‘You’d gone completely,’ said Cally with a grin. ‘Jet lag does that to you. Takes you by surprise.’

Kat faked an enormous yawn. ‘Oh, yes, it’s got me too. I think we should be heading home to bed, Si. Big day tomorrow.’

‘Your wish is my command.’ Simon pulled out her chair and slipped her shawl around her shoulders. Honestly, thought Bunty, the man was straight out of the eighteenth century. And Kat lapped it up.

A few minutes later she fell into Cally’s spare bed herself, barely seconds after making sure that Charlotte was tucked up in the spare single in Paige’s room. Both girls were fast asleep, all talked out. Bunty felt a little talked out herself. But it was a big day tomorrow. The day to find Ben. She sank into a deep sleep, at ease for the first time in months.

*

Sunday’s dawn heralded another bright morning, but even before breakfast was over a bank of ominous grey clouds had smothered the sun. ‘Four seasons in one day,’ quoted Pete, squinting at the sky. ‘We’d better take our raincoats down to the Viaduct.’

‘You’re coming with me, pal,’ said Cally quickly. ‘We can drop Bunty off and then you can come to Rangitoto. I’m not climbing a volcano with David on my back.’

‘Well, I can’t, I’m old,’ said Pete, a half-smile playing across his tanned face.

‘Nice try,’ said Cally. ‘We’ll take the buggy. Get you in training for your Zimmer Frame.’

Pete looked so far from a Zimmer Frame that they all laughed. Mallory. Now that was old. Bunty watched her friends with a peculiar pang of nostalgia. What was going on at home, she wondered. But then she cast the thought from her mind. This was an important day. A red letter day. And the letter was B.

Simon had opted out of Ben hunting, preferring to get some work done while Kat helped her friend on her sleuthing trip, so after lunch they met up at Viaduct Harbour, ignoring the occasional chilly spray that swept over them, and strode along the jetty checking out yachts.

‘Wow. There is quite a lot of them, isn’t there?’ said Kat, leaning over the balustrade to stare in at one particularly gleaming example. ‘Excuse me,’ she called to the man clad in shorts and flip-flops who appeared out of the cabin. ‘Are you Ben?’

Bunty shoved her to one side. ‘Of course he’s not Ben. I can tell you if it’s Ben or not. Sorry,’ she called, pointing to Kat’s head. ‘Sunstroke.’

‘You have to wear your hat here, love,’ the man shouted back. ‘There’s a big hole in the ozone layer right over your head.’

‘Thank you.’ Kat rolled her eyes at Bunty. ‘Maybe he knows Ben. Ask him. Ask him!’

‘I can’t!’

‘But how else are you going to find him?’

It did seem pretty hopeless. Bunty didn’t even know what Ben’s yacht was called. ‘We’re …. we’re looking for Ben who owns a yacht,’ she called feebly, her words seeming to take ages to float down to the man on the boat. ‘Which ones are yachts?’

The man’s face split into a grin. ‘Ninety percent of these are yachts, love. Sail or engine?’

‘I … I don’t know.’

‘Let me guess. Ben – he’s youngish, good-looking, broad-shoulders?’

‘Yes!’ yelled Bunty. ‘That’s him.’

‘It’s half the blokes here, you mean. Sorry, love. Why don’t you try the Americas Cup guys?’

He pointed back along the wharf to the restaurant where they’d met for lunch. A pair of musicians were unloading electric acoustic guitars and amplifiers from the back of an SUV. ‘The guitar guys?’

At this the man on the boat threw his head back and laughed uproariously. ‘The yachties. Out the front. NZL 40 and 41.’

‘I don’t like him, he’s rude,’ said Kat. ‘How are we supposed to know what he’s blathering about?’

Bunty sighed. ‘I suppose I should have had a better idea. I didn’t really talk to Ben about his yacht. We discussed his children and his ex more, really.’

‘Fun.’ Kat peered down the wharf. ‘Look, there are some people on that boat, and it says NZL 40 on the sail thingy. That must be what he meant.’

They hurried back towards the restaurant, Bunty peeking over the railings at intervals to see if she could spot Ben. There was no way down to the men beavering away on the deck of the yacht, so they raced around the corner to the woman decked out in sailing gear at the top of the steps.

‘Are you on this next trip, ladies?’ The chipper young woman pointed down the stairs to NZL 40.

‘We just want to talk to those men,’ said Bunty, suddenly aware that she was ten years older than this woman, and possibly fifteen years older than the crew. ‘I don’t mean …’

‘Yes, we’re going on,’ said Kat firmly. ‘Put it on my credit card.’ They waited while the woman swiped Kat’s card, then slithered down the metal steps to the boat. ‘Sorry, Bunty, but she was rude too. Did you see the way she was looking at us, like we were some … some sad old clichés or something. Pumas. Eugh! Well, we are not explaining ourselves to her. And this way we have …’ Kat checked her itinerary. ‘We have two whole hours to interrogate these guys.’

‘Good thinking.’ Bunty steadied herself as they climbed aboard the yacht just as a squall sent a swell under it. ‘And anyway, it’s, like, a touristy thing. And we’re tourists, aren’t we?’

‘Too right,’ said Kat. She certainly looked like one, in her Auckland Sky Tower cap, Maori design t-shirt, white linen trousers and strappy wedges.

Bunty caught one of the sailors giving Kat the once-over, and not in a positive way. At least dressed in jeans and boots and the raincoat Pete had suggested, she looked the part. Marginally, at least. The man waved them forward. ‘Bags and wallets and anything that might get in the way up at the front here, ladies.’

Kat clutched her bag to her. ‘It’s got my camera in it.’

‘You can keep your camera with you, just no handles and things to snag on the equipment. Do you have a camera in yours, ma’am?’ he continued to Bunty.

‘Just my phone,’ she said. ‘I’ll turn it off.’

As Kat scrabbled around beneath the front mast trying to find the best place for her bag, Bunty paused. One last time, she decided, and she pressed the ‘call’ button on the New Zealand number that Ben had last called on. There was a loud crackling as usual, and she was about to switch it off when a man’s voice said, ‘Hello.’

‘Ben? Ben, it’s …’

Whoever it was, and it didn’t sound like Ben, carried straight on. ‘Hello, Bin’s … Sitting …’