The Islands (55 page)

But then, as they skirted the main devastation, they came to the heiau area.

‘The parts that the bulldozers haven't moved don't look as thought they've been touched,' said Catherine in surprise.

‘They're stones, too damn heavy to move,' said Eleanor bitterly.

‘This one sacred place. Night marchers come through here, scare every ting away,' said Kane. ‘Powerful spirits here.'

Suddenly Catherine thought of Beatrice's warning. ‘Has anyone seen Abel John?'

Eleanor looked up. ‘He must be somewhere safe.'

All through the day the work to restore this section of the island to some normalcy continued. Although there was no electricity or phones, at least there had been sufficient time to evacuate people and there were no reports of casualties. Guests were moved to other hotels and guesthouses. It would be days before the water could be drained from the hotel grounds so a clean up could begin and Eleanor could start to assess what was salvageable.

Eleanor was grim. ‘I don't know how I'll be able to start over.'

Beatrice arrived and found Eleanor and Catherine trying to work out what could be saved and what could not.

‘We can stay with Beatrice I'm sure,' said Catherine to Eleanor.

‘I can't leave here. I have to be near here,' said Eleanor. Then as Beatrice got out of her car, Eleanor stopped and looked at Beatrice's solemn, sad face.

‘What has happened? What else could?' asked Eleanor.

‘It's Abel John.'

‘Where is he?' asked Catherine. ‘Is he back at his place?'

Beatrice shook her head. ‘Three bodies have been washed up.' She hesitated, then said, ‘Abel John is dead. It is thought that he tried to rescue some trapped kids. They have all died.'

Eleanor's cry and Catherine's shocked gasp stopped Beatrice from speaking.

‘Oh, no. No. His poor family,' said Catherine.

Beatrice looked sadly at Eleanor and Catherine. ‘I did not wish for this retribution. It is a great, great loss.'

There was too much sadness. Yet still the sun shone, the sky was angelic blue, the sea calm, the surf flattened, holiday-makers lounged by waving palms in this picture-postcard paradise. But on the other side of Kauai, tears still fell. The death of big, strong, affable Abel John, respected and liked by all, was difficult to accept and comprehend.

Mourners, friends and family began gathering in the afternoon at Abel John's favourite beach for his final journey. It was a surfing beach, there were no houses, no amenities. From early in the morning friends had helped clear the wild scrub and kiawe bushes and set up thatched shelters and spread kapa mats for seating and eating. Women prepared food, children played quietly, aware of the gravity of the day.

The kahuna arrived to conduct the ceremony. Musicians, all friends of Abel John, came to play. His surfer friends, his friends from
Nirvana,
arrived with boards and everywhere were flowers and leis. Helena, in a muted coloured muu-muu, sat silent and withdrawn, her youngest child in her lap, the others sitting quietly close by. A flatbed truck arrived with canoes stacked on it and when they were unloaded, the musicians used the flat bed as a stage. Beatrice and Lani and their families and a retinue of Abel John's friends settled themselves next to Helena. Hundreds of people lined the foreshore as the sun began to set and the kahuna gathered Abel John's family and friends in front of him. All fell silent.

The kahuna made a signal to start the ceremony and Abel John's elder son stepped forward. Dressed in his father's red lava lava, rolled over at the waist to shorten it, and wearing his father's kukui nut necklace, he carried the great conch shell his father had blown to begin the torch-lighting ceremony at the Palm Grove.

The kahuna gave the boy a nod and an encouraging smile. Everyone held their breath as if summoning their own lungs to give strength to the young boy so he could force air through the shell to give it voice. From somewhere deep inside his narrow chest, it was as if all the pain and sadness, the weight of being his father's son, exploded in a tremendous burst. His chest heaved, his cheeks filled, his face flushed and from the conch shell, held to the sky, there came a mighty, mournful cry that made the earth shudder and rose through the soles of feet to clench at the hearts of all there. For as long as he could, an impossible time it seemed, the boy held the note, until his breath escaped and was gone, like his father. He lowered the shell, bowed his head and waited for the final, final reverberation to drift away.

The silence was broken by the men, rising up and beginning their chant. It was a tribute to a great man, a good man, and they called to the chiefs and the gods to accept and honour Abel John. The drumming took over and then the women joined in, their voices harmonising with the resonant sound of the men.

To accompany the powerful yet lilting song, Kiann'e came forward to tell in dance the story of Abel John – his strength, his fishing and surfing prowess, his love of his wife, his gentleness with his children. And as they prayed, a flotilla of canoes and surfboards gathered at the water's edge. Solemnly, the kahuna led Helena, her daughter and baby son to a canoe being paddled by Kane. They all carried flowers. In a separate canoe Abel John's elder son sat holding a small open calabash containing his father's ashes.

The music on shore continued as everyone filed to the water's edge. They held flowers and watched the canoes, surrounded by the surfers paddling slowly on their boards, as they stroked towards the start of the wave break. The sun was sinking, throwing an embracing light across the sea to those on the beach.

The canoes stopped and drifted on the surface of the sea. The men sang quietly, the kahuna lifted his arms and prayed as Abel John's son slowly leant over the side of his canoe and set the koa wood calabash atop the water.

Crying gently, Helena took the lei from around her neck, kissed it and dropped it into the sea. Her daughter did the same. The baby was asleep, rocked by the canoe and unaware of the grief that surrounded him. The flowers floated towards the bobbing wooden bowl.

And as the sun sank below the horizon, a wave suddenly rose up and surged towards the group, lifting them as it rolled beneath the canoes, breaking after it passed. But the great breast of water carried with it the flowers and the calabash, upending Abel John's ashes and taking all beneath the sea.

‘He is gone. It is over,' said the kahuna and they turned for shore where the watchers waited.

But the men who'd surfed with Abel John caught the wave and rode it, calling and shouting in exhilaration. And as they rode they took off their leis and flung them into the water.

The feasting, the talk story, the music went till the moon rose and bright stars lit the night sky. Catherine was exhausted. She was worried about Eleanor. The fire and spirit seemed to have gone from her. The damage to the hotel complex was staggering, but where once she would have been determined to start over, the death of Abel John seemed to have diminished her. She blamed herself for his death because she hadn't stopped the destruction of the heiau and the removal of the sacred stones.

‘That wasn't you! It was your partner! He insisted on doing it. He brought over the workmen. It was not your fault,' said Catherine firmly.

But Eleanor was deeply depressed and wouldn't be comforted.

As Catherine helped Beatrice into her car while they waited for Kiann'e, she sighed. ‘Will things ever be the same again?'

The imposing older woman put an arm around her shoulders. ‘No. Times have changed. It is how it is. Your life is changing, too. It is time to move on. Your time here is over. Go home. It is best.'

Catherine was silent as they drove away with Beatrice's royal command ringing in her head.

Kiann'e reached over and touched her hand. ‘Don't be sad. Remember the happy times here.'

‘Oh, I will. I always will,' said Catherine, feeling a sudden rush of powerful emotions and memories. ‘Being in the Islands has changed me forever. Thanks for being my friend, Kiann'e.'

They smiled at each other in the dimness of the car, a wistful, sad, warm smile, each wondering when their paths in life would cross again.

16

S
WEAT WAS A WET
sheen on the horse's coat as Catherine rode to the top of the knoll where they stopped, the horse shaking its head from the exertion and exhilaration. She slid from the saddle and wiped her hand along its damp neck, fondling the horse she'd come to love as deeply as its sire, Parker.

‘Well done, Pani. Think we might have broken our record.'

She tied the reins loosely to a tree and sat on her favourite rock on the knoll as the horse began to forage. As it always had, this place gave her a sense of peace and calmness after the turbulent last few days when her memories of Hawaii had resurfaced after years of being tucked away in a special box in her mind.

She heard the steady rumble of the four-wheel drive coming up the slope behind her.

‘Were you two training for the Peel Cup? You bolted up here.' Rob got out and handed her a picnic basket. ‘The girls have the Esky and the food. Thought you'd have the billy boiling by now.'

‘I wanted to sit and enjoy the view. There's so much to think about.'

‘Are you getting excited about going back to Hawaii after all this time, Mum?' asked Emily, putting down the heavy food hamper.

‘Kind of. They say you shouldn't go back to places,' said Catherine. ‘And I'm sure it'll be very different. Except for Kiann'e and Aunty Lani, I'm not sure who's left from my time there.'

‘Your old newspaper pal, your boss, he's still around if he's involved with the book launch,' said Rob.

‘That's true. Vince must be pushing seventy.'

Catherine smiled at her younger daughter. ‘It's a shame you two can't come, Ellie, not very good timing for your end-of-semester exams or for Emily getting time off work.'

‘I know, it can't be helped. Anyway, this is a trip for you and Dad to enjoy.'

Rob dropped his arm around Catherine's shoulders. ‘I'm happy to tag along. When did we last have a holiday together, alone?'

‘Three years ago. New Zealand. And after a week you wanted the girls to come and join us,' said Catherine. ‘Was I such boring company?'

Rob kissed her cheek. ‘You're never boring, my love. But it was such a beautiful place and all that snow . . .'

The girls started setting up the picnic and gathering twigs to light a fire.

‘C'mon on, Mum, we're starving.'

‘We could be saving ourselves a lot of trouble and eating down there at the barbecue and gardens we built up for our guests,' said Rob. ‘And then Dave gets to do all the hard work.'

‘No, no way, Dad. This is our special place. That's for the visitors. This is for us,' chorused the girls.

As her husband and daughters got the lunch ready, Catherine lingered at the lookout. While the landscape hadn't changed since she first came up here as a child, she was, as always, amazed when she gazed down at the changes to
Heatherbrae
itself and how it had gone from carrying stud cattle to, as Rob put it, ‘feeding and watering holidaymakers'. How proud she was of what she and Rob had achieved, how they'd weathered tough and good times together.

‘You okay?' Rob sat beside her and handed her a glass of wine as the fire crackled behind them and the girls began frying onions.

‘I was thinking back to how it used to be. My twenty-first, when Dave fell in the pool and now he's working with us. What a shame your parents can't be here to enjoy this picnic with us.'

Rob's usually happy demeanor dropped for a moment. ‘I thought I'd never forgive my father for losing
Craigmore,
but now I'm sorry he didn't live to see what we've done here. And poor Mum, even though she seems calm and happy, she has no idea what's going on. Half the time she doesn't know who I am or where she is.'

Catherine knew that his mother had never really understood what Rob's father was doing when he lost all their money on racehorses and finally had to sell
Craigmore.
And the loss of the property was the last straw in Rob's marriage. Barbara had never liked the country life and she liked it even less when there was no money.

‘You know, I admire your dad so much,' Rob continued. ‘How fantastically well he's done, not just with his cattle but in his law firm, too. He's been so generous in the way he's helped set this all up,' said Rob.

‘He's thrilled you're here, running
Heatherbrae
. Mum's so happy the way things worked out.'

Rob leant against her. ‘And you? No regrets? Pleased with what we've done?'

‘Rob, I've been blissfully happy since the day I married you.' Catherine linked her arm through his.

‘I kick myself for not grabbing you before you went overseas after your twenty-first. But I guess we had to make mistakes, marry the wrong people, learn a few lessons. But now . . . this Hawaii thing, I can't help wondering if I'm second best,' said Rob jokingly.