Under The Mountain (2 page)

‘Rachel, are you asleep?’

‘I was. I’m not now.’

‘Sorry,’ Theo said. ‘Close your eyes.’ He turned on the light. ‘I’ve been exploring and I found this book. It’s about Auckland’s volcanoes. And listen to what it says about the lake. “Lake Pupuke is an explosion crater, containing a fresh water lake. The name for basins of this sort is maar. The lake itself is of extraordinary depth. It lies some 200 metres from the sea and twenty metres above it. An underground drainage system extends through the lava and fresh-water can sometimes be seen bubbling through the rocks at Thornes Bay north of Takapuna beach.”’

‘But it’s flat here,’ Rachel said.

‘Well, evidently you can have flat volcanoes. And we’re sitting right on the edge of one. Doesn’t it make you feel funny?’

2

THE OLD MAN ON THE MOUNTAIN

At breakfast they both felt heavy and cross. Theo had slept with his windows closed too. Uncle Clarry tried to joke them into a better humour.

‘Real little lighthouses, aren’t they. And both their parents with brown hair. How about that, Noeline? You think there was a red-headed milkman in the street?’

The twins went pale. ‘Haven’t you ever heard of recessive genes?’ Theo asked.

‘Blue jeans I’ve heard of. Not recessive. And I’ll tell you something, professor, you use too many big words and your brains’ll start coming out your ears.’ He gave them ten dollars each ‘to paint the town red with’.

They went to their rooms to get ready for the beach. Rachel pulled on her bathing suit in a bad-tempered way. Her aunt and uncle were all right, she decided, but they talked too much. Two weeks of it were going to be hard to take. And ten dollars was far too much money, it seemed like a bribe, even though it was very nice to have. She got her towel and went to Theo’s room. He was still in his dressing-gown, standing by his window with a pair of binoculars.

‘Where did you get those?’

‘They’re Uncle Clarry’s. Quiet. He’s coming out.’

‘Who?’

‘Mr Wilberforce.’

Rachel looked along the lake shore at the old tree-shaded house. She could see the back porch and steps. Standing there was a man dressed in brown clothes: Mr Wilberforce. As she watched he walked down the steps and vanished behind some trees.

‘He looks normal enough,’ Theo said. ‘Big, that’s all.’

‘Let me see.’

‘Just a minute.’

The man had come into sight again, walking down to the shore. He stood there and stared at the water.

‘Theo, can I have a look?’

He handed her the binoculars. She pointed them at Mr Wilberforce, turning the focusing wheel, and the man’s face sprang at her. She almost cried out. But it was, as Theo had said, quite a normal face. It was craggy and square. The eyes were set in deep caves, and the hair round the whitish-yellow bald head was grey and spiky.

‘What’s he doing?’ Theo said.

‘Reaching into that tree. Theo, he’s pulling something off.’ She could not see it. The man had something in his hand and was examining it, but his back was towards her. Slowly he turned. She caught a faint gleam of something red-gold against the skin of his palm. She knew at once what it was.

‘Theo,’ she whispered, ‘it’s one of my hairs. Remember I got my hair caught in that tree.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘What else could it be?’

‘Here, give me those.’ He took the binoculars. ‘It’s too far to see properly.’

She saw the man’s hand move up to his face. ‘What’s he doing?’

‘He seems to be smelling it!’

They watched for a moment longer. Then Rachel said, ‘Theo, I think …’ She stopped. It seemed foolish.

‘What?’

‘Suppose the smell in the lake comes from them. And they can smell us …’

‘How could it come from them?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘If you’re right I hope we smell a bit better.’ He grinned at her but she was too worried to laugh. She took the binoculars back. Yes, the man was sniffing, there was no mistake about that. Suddenly he looked up. He looked straight at her. His eyes fastened on hers down the binoculars. They were still as puddles, a grey stony colour. She gave a cry and jumped behind the curtain.

‘Theo, he saw me.’

Theo was hiding too, peering out. ‘It’s all right, he’s going.’

The man walked up the lawn, vanished behind the trees, reappeared and climbed the steps. Mrs Wilberforce met him on the porch. He showed her Rachel’s hair, held it close to her nose. They both stared at Uncle Clarry’s house. The twins hid. When they looked out again the old people had gone.

‘Theo, we’ll have to tell someone.’

‘Tell them what? It’s too crazy.’

‘Who do you think they are?’

‘Just looneys.’

‘It’s more than that.’

He said nothing; but she saw he agreed.

‘The woman, she was so tiny. She only came to his chest.’

‘It’s just that he’s so big,’ Theo said. ‘We’d better keep well away from there.’

They spent the rest of the morning on the beach. The noise of motor-boats heading out of the ski-lane made it difficult for them to hear each other. But soon they forgot the Wilberforces. Theo watched the boats with fascination. Some of them went so fast they bounced on the surface. Their engines sounded like aeroplanes. Rachel spent most of her time in the water. She floated and practised her backstroke and watched ships go by in the channel. They looked like toys outlined against Rangitoto. She wondered why she had found the island frightening. Today, in sunlight, it was a colour between blue and green and it almost seemed to float. Its peaks, 200 metres above the sea, were so neat and even they might have been modelled by a sculptor.

Lunch-time came. They started for home round the reef. ‘We can look for the fresh-water springs at Thornes Bay,’ Theo said.

They hunted in the broken rocks on the water-line, climbing into crevices and under ledges. Several times Theo tasted water lying in rock pools, but it was always salt. ‘Maybe the fresh stuff only comes in winter.’ They climbed up to the road and set off for home.

As they climbed, an old man who had been sitting on the sand at the end of the beach rose to his feet and watched them. He was a thin old man, with skin browned by the sun and eyes of unfaded blue. He was dressed in sandals and shorts and a red shirt and an orange hat made of towelling. Most old men would have looked odd in such clothes, but they suited him. He looked as if he had spent his life in the sun.

He had been close to the children all through the morning. He had watched them swimming and sunbathing, followed them round the reef, listened to their talk, often from no more than a few metres away. But they had not seen him. He was clever at not being seen. When they had climbed the steps at Thornes Bay and gone out of sight up the road, he turned and made his way back round the reef to Takapuna. He smiled as he walked – a smile more sad than happy.

‘Yes,’ he murmured, ‘Rachel and Theo Matheson.’

He walked through the streets of the town and came to a little house behind a high hedge. In the kitchen he crossed to the window, where two white objects lay on the sill. They were not what they seemed. Only he knew what they were. He laid his hands on them, felt their warmth.

‘I must get you ready,’ he whispered. ‘The ones who can use you have come.’

In the afternoon Aunt Noeline took Rachel and Theo on a sight-seeing tour. Ricky, grumbling, acted as chauffeur. They were in his mother’s Mini and she would not let him drive fast. They went over the bridge, round the waterfront drive, through the Domain. But when they stopped outside the Museum, Theo said, ‘If you don’t mind, Aunt Noeline, I’d rather go to the top of Mount Eden.’

‘Me too,’ Rachel said.

‘That’s an idea,’ Ricky said. ‘Who wants to look at stuffed fish?’

Aunt Noeline gave a sigh, but agreed. So they drove to Mount Eden and Ricky enjoyed himself scooting the Mini up the hillside road. Standing on the summit was like standing on the edge of a cliff. The whole of western and southern Auckland lay at their feet. They saw streets with tiny cars on them; and parks, race-courses, hospitals, schools. The Manukau Harbour was like a lake inside the coastal hills. Here and there volcanic cones broke above the trees and the roofs of houses.

‘That’s One Tree Hill,’ Ricky said, pointing to a steep cone with a single tree and a monument on top. ‘And that big one over there is Mount Wellington.’

They climbed to the viewing platform below the trig point and the other half of the city came into sight. ‘There are the wharves and the bridge and Rangitoto. You can’t see our place.’

‘I can see the lake,’ Rachel said. ‘See, Theo. It’s just a tiny silver line.’

But both children were more interested in the crater. It was a hundred metres across and perfectly shaped as a porridge bowl. Grass grew down its sides and over the bottom. It was hard to imagine it blowing out lava. But Rachel wondered how scientists really knew when a volcano was extinct. Perhaps this one was just sleeping – having a sleep of a hundred thousand years. One day it would wake up and destroy the city. She was going to ask Theo what he thought of that, though she supposed he would make fun of her, when a strange prickling feeling came in her head. It was like pins-and-needles. She gave a little cry; then was quiet, for a voice had begun to say words. At first they were furry, coming through a sound like radio static, coming it seemed from a very long way off. Then they grew stronger, and she made them out. It was someone saying deep inside her head, ‘Rachel, Theo, do not be afraid.’

‘I’m not afraid,’ she whispered.

Theo’s voice came from her left, ‘Rachel?’

‘Yes, I heard it.’

‘Look, Rachel.’ He was pointing over the crater. An old man was standing in the pine trees on the rim. His red shirt showed like fire. Even from this distance they felt his eyes looking into them.

‘Was it him talking to us?’

‘It must have been.’

‘How did he do it?’

‘I don’t know. Rachel – it must be
him
.’

‘Yes. Yes. Of course.’

They had not forgotten. Now they lived it again. They knew the terror of being lost; they lay in the damp icy ferns; they slept, and had wonderful dreams, and woke warm, and an old man smiled down at them, and told them to remember. They remembered. For eight years it had lain in their minds, and though they had given up speaking of it – people only laughed – they had always known the man, their friend, would come back. He had said one day they would know who he was. Now, though they could not see his face, they knew that this was him.

‘He must have brought us up here.’

‘Yes, I didn’t want to come, did you? I just heard myself saying it.’

‘Come on.’

Ricky was back at the viewing platform and Aunt Noeline in the car reading a magazine. The twins glanced at them, then set off for the other side of the crater. They went along the rim, clambering like goats. The old man watched them coming. For a moment they lost sight of him as they went through a clump of pine trees. Then they ran along a grassy flat to the place where they had seen him. But when they arrived they gave a cry of disappointment. The old man was gone. They peered into the trees and down the grassy slopes that fell to the city. Nowhere. He was gone. And again the pins-and-needles came in their minds. The voice said, ‘Look at this mountain. Look at it well. And at Rangitoto.’

‘Why?’ Theo whispered.

‘They are the poles.’

‘Did you bring us here?’

‘Yes. But look at them.’

‘What do you mean, poles?’

‘Look at them. You must come here again.’

So they looked across the city and the sea at Rangitoto, and looked into the crater at Mount Eden. The places were ordinary enough, perhaps a little dark, a little threatening, but that, they thought, was because clouds had come up from the south and hidden the sun. After a while Theo said, ‘Are you still there?’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you do this?’

‘I’ll tell you one day.’

‘Will we meet you?’

‘Soon.’

There was quiet. ‘Thank you for saving us,’ Rachel said.

‘Thank you for being what you are. And now, children, go back to your car. Your aunt will start to worry soon.’

They turned to go back. And they saw the old man on the rim they had come from, standing against the sky. They ran again, through the trees, over the flat, along the broken ground on the crater rim. When they reached the cars he had vanished again. They ran across the parking lot and looked down the mountain side, but saw only grazing cattle. ‘How does he do it?’ They clambered into the Mini, red-faced and breathless. Aunt Noeline put down her magazine.

‘What energetic children.’

‘Did you see him?’

‘Who?’

‘That old man.’

‘My dears, I’ve been reading …’

Ricky got in the car.

‘Did you see him, Ricky?’

‘An old man in a red shirt.’

‘He was over the other side and then he came round here.’

‘I saw him,’ Ricky said. ‘That was old Jonesy.’

‘Who?’

‘Old Jonesy. Mr Jones. The bloke I was telling you about. He hangs around the Wilberforces’ place. Wonder what he was doing over here.’

‘He was the one who saved us when we were lost.’

‘Now, children,’ Aunt Noeline said, ‘that was just fantasy.’

They said no more, were sorry in fact that they had said so much. Ricky drove down the winding road on the side of the mountain. Aunt Noeline smiled. ‘I wouldn’t worry, dears. Mr Jones may be a bit odd but he’s very kind. Ricky, keep your speed down … And I’ve got just a tiny suspicion this is one of your games.’

‘What games?’

‘Those ones you used to play when you were smaller. Finding things.’

They blushed. There had been a time when they had been able to send messages to each other – telepathy, their father had called it. Their favourite trick had been for one of them to hide something in a room and then with closed eyes concentrate on the object, sending its picture to the other, who would walk in and go straight to it – an ear-ring or marble or paper-weight in some unlikely place. But they had given that up. It was part of their ‘twinship’, which they were anxious to drop. They wanted to be themselves. So they sat quiet on the drive home. The old man – Mr Jones – was not a game. They were certain of that. He was the one who had saved them. And turning their minds back to that time, to their night in the bush, their dreaming comfortable sleep, and their happy waking, they remembered, for the first time in eight years, that he had spoken of a task he would call them to do. Now he had shown them the mountains – Rangitoto, Mount Eden. So the task was there. At the poles. Theo puzzled about the word. Poles were things that were opposite, but joined. He could not work it out. At the other end of the seat, Rachel watched Rangitoto. As they drove up the harbour bridge the island seemed to climb up from the sea. She felt cold.

In Takapuna she asked to be let down. She made the excuse of wanting to go to the library. The truth was she wanted to be by herself to think things out.