Memory of Love (9781101603024) (18 page)

She laughs, but this time it takes an effort.

‘Now, tell me three things that you like,' he says, changing the subject. ‘I need to know a little about you before we take off tomorrow.'

She thinks for a moment.

‘I like blood oranges. And the smell of mimosa. The sound of blackbirds singing in the spring. Not very useful information, I suppose.'

Now she smiles easily. ‘You?'

‘Well, I like my mother's pancakes.' He smiles and looks at her. ‘And my job. But that's bordering on love. And I like lying here looking at you.'

She smiles.

‘But I think that's getting borderline too.'

‘We'd better call it quits then,' she says. ‘It's really late.'

When he asks if she would like him to sleep in the front, she asks if he would be more comfortable in the back.

He looks at her for a moment, considering her question.

‘You know, I could say that I would, just because I want to stay here and look at you.'

She tells him that will be just fine, and she listens to her own words and marvels.

She lies awake well after he has gone to sleep. Now it is she watching him, not the other way around.

And she loves it.

In the morning he is gone when she wakes. Stiffly she climbs out of the car and walks over to the communal showers. When she returns he has cleared the back of the car and laid out takeaway coffee and scones on a towel. The sun has just risen, but it hasn't yet appeared over the hills and the cool of the night still lingers in the air.

They sit down cross-legged and have their breakfast.

‘It would be easier to catch the boat across, but I think we should drive,' he says. ‘I have asked permission to drive out onto the peninsula, just to be sure. It's Maori land and I always make a point of respecting local interests and traditions wherever I go. I am aware of the fact that I am a guest here.'

The coffee is hot and strong, the scones fresh. It is a superb breakfast.

‘We'll need to stock up a little before we leave Kawhia,' he says. ‘I have plenty of food of the standard of last night's dinner, but I thought we should add some fresh stuff. Particularly since it's my birthday tomorrow. I expect a great celebration.'

He laughs.

‘Let's get going!'

They finish breakfast and pack up and take off.

Kawhia lies sleepy in the early morning light. The sea is calm and a little further out the sun reaches the surface, sending playful flashes of light in all directions. Michael has made arrangements with a local farmer, and when they stop in Kawhia he is already waiting. He comes over, carrying a box with milk and eggs, fruit and vegetables.

‘How do you know all these people? How do you know who to contact?' she asks as they head out of town.

He grins, his eyes on the road.

‘I don't know, really, but it's a very hospitable place, this country. I always talk to the locals everywhere I go. I guess it's small enough for people to know each other, have connections around the country. So each place I go, I arrive with referrals from the previous place. It's like a chain reaction. And I have only ever met generosity and kindness. Extraordinarily so, sometimes. I've had problems with my car, and I've always found someone to help me, usually refusing to take any money. I had a break-in once. It was stressful because they took my camera. But the people of the town where it happened sort of gathered together and found all my stuff and brought it back. I have no idea how, but I guess that's the sign of a small place. People know each other. I've had a lot of help. In my experience, most people are kind and helpful if you are respectful. More so than in other parts of the world, I reckon.'

He has warned her it will be a rough journey, particularly beyond the Taharoa settlement. From there on, there are no proper roads.

I don't know what's involved. I'm so ignorant I can't even worry. I just have to trust him, she thinks and looks at his hands on the steering wheel. He seems very comfortable, whistling softly.

It's early afternoon by the time they reach Taharoa. For most of the way they have had the road to themselves. Here, too, it's very quiet. They drive past vast areas of black sand. The whole landscape looks like a gigantic moon crater.

‘Don't look,' he says as he skilfully navigates the car off the road to make way for an enormous transport truck, loaded with a bulldozer. She realises the truck would not have been able to stop, or give way. Black dust lingers in the air as it passes.

‘It's an open mine where they extract iron from ironsand. Controversial, like most mining in this country.'

From Taharoa there is no road really. They drive along little more than a dirt track. She is sitting upright, trying to follow the snaking track with her eyes and anticipate each bump and turn, conscious of a tightness in her stomach. She is not anxious about his driving, she is just worried she will not be able to control her mounting nausea.

But soon they have left the settlement and the mining behind, and are out onto open land. The track straightens. It is windswept and wild and it looks deserted. He lowers the windows and the wind flows through. She feels better and relaxes in her seat.

They stop for lunch on a hill and they can see the sea in the distance.

Afterwards, she lies back on the grass. She has lost track of where she is, how she arrived here, even who she is. She no longer has any connection with anything else. Her previous life seems vague and distant. She is just here, and it feels as if it could last forever.

In the late afternoon they arrive at the coast. When they get out of the car they see a cluster of simple wooden houses with rusted iron roofs. They are small and seem vulnerable where they sit, set off against the endless sea behind. At the same time they exude an air of courage and resilience, as if they have managed to withstand the elements for a very long time. She can see no signs of civilisation, apart from the houses themselves – no poles indicating electricity supply or phone connection. She wonders if people actually live there. Then she spots someone walking between two of the houses, a silhouette against the sky.

The wind has picked up and sweeps across the grassy slopes ahead of them.

‘Almost there,' he says. ‘Just one more short leg, and then we'll stop and put up the tent.'

‘How can you be so sure where we're going?' she asks. ‘You've never been here before, have you?'

He grins.

‘Intuition. Male intuition,' he says. ‘Trust me.'

And she does, absolutely.

21.

It had turned rather cold, but strangely I still felt warm as I wandered back to the house from the beach. A few candles were still flickering and I left them to burn out. It had been a long day, and I was tired. But not sleepy. I lingered for a moment leaning on the kitchen bench and looking out. The sea had reverted to being just a sound in complete darkness, and as the candles went out, one after the other, there were no lights at all.

After a while I walked into the bedroom. Instead of lying down I opened one of the wardrobes. I pulled up a chair and climbed onto it. Even from the chair, I could only just reach the box.

It was smaller than Ika's box and I realised that he had more mementoes than I did. My box was the size of a large envelope. Inside was just one object.

A copy of
Time
magazine.

There is time for a walk before darkness falls. They stroll slowly; this is not a hike with a specific goal in mind. The landscape is barren, with softly rounded treeless hills. From a distance the grassy hills look like emerald velvet scrunched by a giant hand. Up close, the vegetation is much rougher though, the grass interspersed with thorny gorse and sharp flax. It feels as if she can see forever, and land and sea are equally endless.

Suddenly he points to the sky. They stop in their tracks and look up. High above, pencilled against the afternoon sky, a fragile veil undulates, constantly shifting its shape.

‘There they are, our godwits. Kuaka.'

The tiny black specks are birds. But from this distance they make up a wondrous drifting whole of strange beauty.

‘I wonder why they are called godwits,' he says. ‘Is it God and then wits like the Old English word for know? God knows? Is that what it means? If so, why?'

‘God knows,' she says and her new, easy laughter lifts towards the sky.

They sit on the grass and watch as the veil of birds gracefully sweeps and sways over them.

Then she feels his hand on her neck, lifting her hair. It runs over her shoulder and clasps it, pulling her close.

Has she expected this? Willed it, even?

She doesn't know.

Her body seems to know what her mind doesn't.

When he kisses her, it is the most natural thing in the world. In this magical world that she has entered this can happen. Perhaps this is the very purpose. There is no point trying to resist.

Nor does she.

She lifts her hands and holds his face, looking into his eyes. They are grey, and she thinks she can see herself reflected in them. Then she kisses him again.

He takes one of her hands and holds it. Opens it and kisses her palm.

‘God knows,' he says, smiling. ‘Magical things are put in our way. All we have to do is watch out for them. Take what is offered.' He kisses her hand again.

She laughs, lifts her face to the sky, exposing her throat. He kisses it.

Later, they walk back and begin to cook dinner. He gets his little barbecue going.

‘No open fires here – too dangerous,' he says.

Unpacking the farmer's box they had found meat, too. Two small lamb racks and a large chunk of bacon.

While the lamb racks cook he makes a salad and she opens them a beer each.

‘These are the last cold ones, so savour it,' he says. ‘From here on it's lukewarm beer or red wine.'

She sits on the grass sipping the beer, watching his hands chopping and mixing the salad, turning the meat. She remembers the initial moment, when she first found him. How she had seen him as an object. As perfect as a smooth pebble or a polished piece of driftwood. Something she instinctively felt an urge to run her hand over.

So this is what she does. She bends forwards and runs her hand over his back. His hands are busy tossing the salad and there is nothing he can do but let her have her way. The skin on his back is warm, and along the spine there are tiny beads of sweat. She kisses him between the shoulderblades.

Then he drops what he is doing, turns and kisses her.

I sat on the bed with the magazine on my lap. I had turned off the ceiling light and I had not bothered turning on the one on the bedside table. I didn't really need any light. This, I could read with my hands. I had not opened the magazine, and I sat with my palm resting on the cover. I knew what the picture looked like. I could sense every detail through my hand.

It was a picture of me. Yet it wasn't me, not me at all. It was a picture of a woman who trusted her feelings and her instincts. Someone who believed that miraculously, life could take a sharp turn and open a new world. A world where godwits drifted above and laughter lifted effortlessly from her lips.

An absolutely unsustainable world.

She gets used to the camera. It becomes an extension of him and she is relaxed. She feels that she is beginning to see what he sees. His lens and her eyes seem to focus on the same spots. Except when the lens is pointed at her of course. But she gets used to that too. She begins to think she can see herself through his eyes. The camera becomes a vital part of their communication. He lets her use it too, but more and more it is enough for her just to let her eyes follow the camera. She can see what it sees. Not once is she tempted to take out her own camera.

After dinner they sit outside the tent as a full moon slowly rises beyond hills that are a black horizon. It emerges in the east, initially very large and a deep orange yellow. He pulls her close and she sits between his legs, resting her head against his chest. He puts his arms around her. Asks her if she is cold. How could she be? She thinks she will never be cold again.

Later, when the moon is high in the sky, shining with a clear white light, they climb into the tent.

Next morning he is gone when she wakes up, but she can hear him moving around outside the tent. Lighting the barbecue. She listens; there is no part of her body that is not involved. She has never been this alert. This alive. Eventually, when she smells coffee, she disentangles herself from the sleeping bag and joins him outside. He is sitting by the barbecue, hands around his knees and eyes on the sea. It must have rained overnight, though she had not noticed. The grass is wet and there are small pools of water trapped in the pockets of tent canvas along the ground. It is clear now, though, not a cloud in the newly washed sky where the veil of godwits again floats gracefully. As she sits down beside him, he points to it.

‘I wonder if they are practising. Preparing for the long journey,' he says.

They drink coffee, then set off for a walk down to the sea. The hike is longer than she has anticipated but she doesn't mind. She walks behind him, watching his body as he moves at an easy, comfortable pace. She falls into the same rhythm, effortlessly following in his footsteps.

They stop when they reach the sea. They stand looking down on it, and the swell is majestic, overwhelming.

‘We'll find a good spot to get into the water,' he says, scanning the shore below. ‘Over there.' He points to a cluster of black rocks covered in sharp mussel shells. The rocks shelter a small lagoon of clear water. The waves break violently against the outside of the rocks, and fill the air with a spray of salt water, but the pool is calm and protected.

‘You go,' he says, nodding to the water. ‘I'll guard you from up here.'

And she does. This new woman undresses, climbs down and slides into the water. It is cool but she lets herself sink down, emerging out of breath. She holds on to a rock and shakes the water out of her hair. The air is filled with drops of water glistening in the sun.

When she looks up he has the camera pointed at her. She lets go of the rock and floats. Smiling.

In my dark bedroom I was there again. I licked my lips, and I was surprised when they didn't taste of salt. Suddenly I knew that it was possible to remember this isolated moment and cherish it. This one, shimmering moment belonged to me.

I had accepted that all the dark memories were mine. But I had never realised that the beautiful ones were mine too. I had a right to them. And the right to embrace them, regardless of what happened before and after. I had a right to my happiness, as well as my grief.

I stretched out my hand and turned on the bedside lamp.