Wake (37 page)

‘Let's get you lying down,' Belle said.

They helped her upstairs and put her to bed. On the way up she managed to ask whether Oscar was all right, then once she was lying down she asked after William.

‘I still have to check everyone's hearts,' Jacob said. He produced the tea-light holder.

Sam looked at it in great puzzlement, which cleared when Jacob rolled her splattered shirt up over her head. He placed the wide end of the tea-light between her breasts and listened. He was still, listening. But, after a moment, his stillness altered in quality. His gaze drifted up to meet Belle's. He straightened. ‘Sam, what have you had to eat?'

‘That's why we should check the kitchen,' Bub said. ‘There's no telling where else Holly planted her poison.'

Sam gritted her teeth and moaned. When the spasm passed she scanned their faces. She wasn't looking for help. She seemed reassured. ‘You all came through.'

Belle said, ‘Give me that top and I'll find you a fresh one.'

Sam sat up and pulled off her shirt and camisole. She said, ‘So it's treatable?'

‘What did you eat?' Jacob asked, more urgent. ‘Was there any orciprenaline left over? Where is it? I hope there's some left, Sam, because you'll need it.'

Sam had flopped down and was trying to cover herself. Her movements were weak and uncoordinated and she was very pale. ‘The bread tasted funny. I dissolved mine in the casserole.'

‘There was some of Holly's bread left over? Why on earth did you eat it?'

Sam made a strangled noise; she was in pain, but laughing.

‘The poison was in the bread!' Jacob shouted. ‘I'd have thought even you would have sense enough not to eat anything unless it was out of a packet or tin!'

‘Let me be,' Sam said. She pushed weakly at Jacob.

He gripped her and shouted again. ‘Your heartbeat is too slow! Where did you put the orciprenaline—the second lot of pills I asked you to pass around? Where are they?'

Sam was still. ‘Oh,' she said. ‘I don't know. Why don't you look?'

‘Try to remember.'

‘This is the other Sam,' Bub said. ‘She doesn't remember. Maybe the vomiting was psychosomatic. You know—they both have to have a turn at being poisoned?'

Belle poked Bub and shook her head. He should remember that Sam hadn't been ill. She had carried on and cared for them all.

‘Get away from me,' Sam said. ‘Go find the pills.'

Jacob told her that she had to snap out of it now. Her life depended on her putting herself back together this minute. ‘Just step up,' he said. ‘Right now you've got more to be scared of than whatever happened to you in the past to make you this way.'

‘Shut the fuck up!' Sam yelled. ‘Just fix me.'

Belle reflected that being furious was probably stimulating Sam's heart as effectively as Jacob's heart drug—albeit temporarily.

Sam reared up, leaned across Belle and vomited on the carpet—this time only thin bile. Belle put her arms around her. ‘She is mentally ill,' Belle said. ‘Shouting at her about what she can and can't remember is about as effective as telling an anorexic to eat. She is not going to suddenly stop being crazy, even to save her own life.'

*

Sam was weak and chilled. She wanted to be left in peace to sink back into the bed. She wanted to fall through the mattress, bed base, floor, through the whole building, and on through the earth itself. She wanted to lay down her flesh and bones and melt away; to be still, where she was; to stop, where she was. But she heard what Belle said, and knew that Belle was absolutely right.

Sam may have played games with people, hinting at her true predicament, but she wouldn't
tell
. She would rather die than tell. She was sick and cold and sluggish, she had sunk as low physically as she'd ever been; her heart was beating slower and slower; her cells were starved of oxygen; her consciousness had been hunted into a corner, and it seemed the last thing keeping her company was that old, powerful compulsion to keep their secret—her and Fa's.

For the first time in her life Sam turned to regard that compulsion. ‘This isn't rational,' she thought. ‘Why would I rather die than tell?' And then she thought, ‘Why did Sam keep bringing us back to Kahukura, no matter what I did to punish her?'

Belle was still holding her, and Sam took hold too, as a way of remaining conscious. She gripped Belle's arms and dug her fingers in. Belle gasped as Sam's fingernails pierced her skin. Sam held on and pursued her thought, plunging like a freediver following the rope that measures her depth.

There are understandings that are summations of many experiences—the grass, rags, threads, and moss that magically shape themselves into a nest, into something for the future. Sam suddenly understood the only thing she had ever needed to understand.

The other Sam had kept them in Kahukura. She and the other Sam had concealed their nature, kept it a strict secret though it had been a tormenting nonsense to both of them. They had rules they'd rather die than break—because the rules had been
given to them
with what was done to them. The rules, simply stated, were: ‘Stay in Kahukura' and ‘Stay hidden'. (Wait here.
Lie
in wait here. Lie in wait for what will come. For what will, one day,
come back
.)

Sam clutched Belle and swam up again so she could see them—Belle, Bub, Jacob—with the darkness bleeding in around their worried faces. ‘Jacob,' she whispered. ‘Either she'll know where the pills are, or you'll have time to search the pharmacy again.'

And she went away.

Belle snatched her arm out of Sam's grasp as soon as Sam relaxed. Frigid, astringent air blew up into Belle's face, and she closed her eyes for a moment, so was first alerted to the change by the silent flurry as Jacob and Bub leapt back from the young woman on the bed.

Belle opened her eyes.

The young woman on the bed looked surprised, then tearful, and very, very tired.

The young woman on the bed had a clenched, raw-looking scar where her left nipple should be.

Part Seven

A
late equinoctial gale had swept into Tasman Bay and was blustering about, surging in short gusts from every point of the compass, like an attack dog looking for an opening. Those survivors who were fit for strenuous work were out in the weather, either rigging lights or painting the supermarket carpark. They had scavenged three long-handled paint rollers and a collection of paints—only pale colours. They were making a bull's-eye, its rings brightening towards a reflective centre.

First Oscar drew three concentric circles. Theresa stood still, holding one end of a piece of string, while Oscar circled her with a pencil tied to the string's other end. Then they began to paint. First they made a bright bull's-eye using spray cans of silver rust-preventer from the petrol station's shop. Then they picked up their paint rollers and filled in the next ring, using the contents of scavenged tins of ceiling-white. They rinsed their rollers and started the outer ring. They painted it with all the other whites they'd gathered; the yellow, pink, green, and blue-shaded whites. They didn't combine the colours, and the outer ring ended up a pleasing patchwork of pastels.

While the painting was in progress, Jacob and Bub were rigging lights and putting up reflectors—sheets of cardboard wrapped in aluminium foil. Only the supermarket and spa had power boards robust enough to handle the required wattage, and the repeated switching on and off of many lights.

The day turned dark early. The wind settled in one quarter, a rare easterly, and pushed a cloud bank across the hills. Most of the rain was already spent inland, but the cloud flowed out across Kahukura and filled Tasman Bay, dense and damp and accompanied by a surprisingly strong wind. The riggers and painters packed up and went back to the spa.

William and Warren had been allowed downstairs. Jacob was being careful about their convalescence. Warren was improving, but William was still pale and tired. He was permitted to go a little further every day and, that morning, had been as far as the gate and back.

He was now in the atrium, in his pyjamas, up only so long as he showed no sign of fatigue. He was helping Theresa compose a first, exploratory message in their improvised code, while Bub made a rocker switch for the lights.

Sam sat beside William, her mouth and nose pressed against his shoulder. This was the first Sam—Samantha. When she'd appeared, Bub, Belle, and Jacob had finally understood that the reason Myr had been so puzzled by their insisting that he'd cured Sam was because he'd done no such thing. There were in fact
two
young women, one who worked as a caregiver in Mary Whitaker, and was a bit slow, having never recovered from a brain injury caused by traumatic blood loss, and who had been in Kahukura when the Wake first arrived, and who had gone mad and attacked her charges and herself with kitchen scissors, harvesting nipples and frying them up till something—perhaps pain—made her go, and leave everything in the hands of the
other
Sam, her whole and competent twin sister Samara.

Bub caught on very quickly, because he'd seen the birth certificates. He was able to explain to Belle and Jacob—though he did it in a torrent of ungrammatical babble—that Samara and Samantha could of course have been born in 1967 and not be in their mid-forties, because they were sharing a life, and whenever one of them went
away
she wasn't present in the world where time was passing, so that Samantha was in her mid-twenties and Samara a little younger because Samara had spent more time
there
than here.

Bub paced back and forth thinking it all through aloud, while Jacob kept saying, ‘Where, Bub? Where is
there
?' And Belle kept trying to question Sam herself, who stayed motionless as they flung themselves about the room raving at one another, her knees drawn up to cover her lopsided chest. She trembled and sobbed soundlessly, tears shining on her face. Belle fired questions at her and she flinched, but didn't answer, only asked one herself: ‘Why didn't she stay?'

Jacob finally calmed down enough to tell her what had happened and to ask was there any heart medicine left? ‘The—other Sam—needs it,' he said, and nearly lost his mind in the middle of his sentence.

Sam's face crumpled. ‘When you said “give them another pill” I kept giving out pills until they were all gone.'

The three of them stood still and considered this. Then Bub said, ‘Am I right about you?'

Sam tucked her chin behind her knees and squeezed her eyes shut.

Bub changed tack. ‘Will—the other Sam—be okay while she's—not here?'

Sam nodded.

Jacob sat down on the end of her bed. He made an effort to collect himself. ‘I think I can manage a single patient with bradycardia if I can find some more atropine eye drops. I used what I found in the pharmacy on Warren, but there might be some at Mary Whitaker. Atropine is used to dry up excess saliva.' He touched Sam's hand. ‘Did any of your old people have a problem with saliva?'

‘Annie had motor neurone disease,' Sam said. ‘She had drops and a patch.'

Jacob considered. ‘And I believe there are asthma inhalers with orciprenaline.'

‘Sam didn't leave me a note,' Sam said. ‘She was going to stay here for a long time, I think. She'd talked to the man in black.'

‘We know that,' Bub said. ‘How come there are two of you? Like—
how
?'

Sam shook her head.

‘Does the other Sam know?'

‘We don't know what they did or why they did it.'

‘Who?'

‘Uncle and the visitor.'

Belle, Bub, and Jacob exchanged looks.

‘Visitor?' Bub said.

‘The woman. She was very black, like the man.'

‘Myr?'

Sam nodded.

‘So your uncle and this woman who looked like Myr did something to you?'

‘Before the visitor came we were sleeping in the same bedroom. Wa was in her cot and I was in mine. When I woke up Wa was gone. My cot was gone too and I was in hers. I never saw Wa after that. We only wrote each other notes.'

‘Sam is Wa? The other Sam?' Belle said.

‘I was little. I couldn't say “Samara”, and she couldn't say “Samantha”. I called her “Wa” and she called me “Fa”. Once Wa was gone Uncle said it was better if we were both just “Sam”.'

‘Jesus Christ,' said Bub.

Jacob plundered the pharmacy again for alupent, the asthma drug. And, once Sam had rested, they went together to Mary Whitaker, unsealed the doors, and walked along a corridor carpeted with dead flies to Annie's room. The atropine solution was in the bedside cabinet.

Jacob made ready for the other Sam, but William talked Jacob out of asking his own Sam to let the other return.

*

William was the first person to whom Jacob explained what he and Bub and Belle now knew—William first, because he was involved with Sam, and because Jacob wasn't feeling strong enough to face a bombardment of questions he couldn't answer. He told William what had happened then said, ‘Sam has explained as much as she is able to, I think. And I've told you everything we know. I'm making ready for the other Sam. I want to be sure she'll be okay.'

‘Because if you lose one of them, you lose both.' William looked thoughtful. ‘Do you think Myr knows that there really are two of her?'

‘I don't think so. He was confused when we mentioned his having healed her. And William—there aren't two of her, there are two of
them.
Twins, separate people, Samantha and Samara.'

William was pale—too pale—and Jacob had a dark suspicion that, if they ever did get out of Kahukura, William might need a heart valve replacement, or a pacemaker. Jacob put his tea-light holder to William's chest and listened to his heart.

William said, ‘Perhaps it would be better to demonstrate Sam to Myr. We want him to think through any significance, and the other Sam isn't going to reveal herself willingly.'

‘Shhh,' said Jacob.

William kept quiet while Jacob listened. When Jacob straightened, turned away and began fussing with his first-aid bag, William went on. ‘She knows more than we do,' he said. ‘Can I get up and see her?'

Jacob shook his head. He wasn't going to let William get excited or argumentative till he had him well-established on some drug for arrhythmia. Treating William required research. He didn't say this to William. Bad news was of no benefit to him—and Jacob hated to be the one to tell this fit, cared for, spectacularly handsome man that he had a damaged heart. He only said, ‘You're on bed rest till I tell you otherwise.'

William's scrutiny was exacting. Jacob began gathering up his pills and his contrived stethoscope. Then he thought of a distraction. ‘If this Sam stays here for the next little while, that gives you a chance to—'

‘Make things square with her.'

‘She
was
deceiving you, only not in the way you thought.'

‘Please send her in to me, Jacob,' William said.

‘Okay. But take it easy.'

‘On Sam?'

‘No,' Jacob blushed. ‘I'm sorry. I have to make this clear. I don't want you exerting yourself.'

‘Sure, whatever you say.'

Jacob went to call Sam to her long-awaited reconciliation.

Sam sat beside William, her nose pressed to his shoulder, and her eyes closed. She was in a trance of animal happiness. She didn't mind that he wasn't paying attention to her right that minute. He was busy helping Theresa with their made-up code. He had a job—the jobs were all cause for happiness. Nor did she mind that, when they were alone, he seemed content to just let her lie beside him. She did want him to touch her everywhere again, and to watch her face the way he did as she changed colour and forgot to cover her scar with her cupped hand. But she had faith that would all happen. Jacob had told her that William wasn't fully recovered. He'd said, ‘Don't worry. It's early days yet.' It was okay anyway, because William took a different kind of interest in her. He finally liked to talk to her, too. He asked her lots of questions, and she told him things that she'd never been able to tell before. She talked about those things the only way she was able to, from her point of view, and they seemed at last to make sense to someone.

For instance, she told him how she and Sam had contrived to
be
one another. She said that, for ages now, the other Sam hardly ever came out. That had helped. And they both knew it was sabotage to make any changes in their appearance. She never had—deliberately—and the other had stopped that nonsense years ago. If she—Samantha—had been gone, when she came back, she would make sure to loop her ponytail so no one would be able tell how long her hair was till she could figure out how long the other's was—she'd do that by pulling hairs out of the shower drain and measuring them against her own. And when she had got a little fat—because she was eating lunch and dinner at Mary Whitaker and only walking the short distance to work and back—the other Sam had taken to coming out on the weekends and leaving her miles and miles out along some local bush track so that she had to walk all the way home.

This was the sort of stuff William was interested in. Insights into her life, he said.

Theresa and William were still busy with their code when Warren stormed out of the kitchen swearing at Oscar. He and Oscar were supposed to be making dinner. ‘The kid can't follow simple instructions. Apparently he's above that.' Warren took off his apron and tossed it on the floor.

Oscar appeared, and tried to say something in his own defence.

‘Can't you be trusted to do the least little thing I ask?' Theresa sprang up out of her chair.

‘Are you talking to me or Warren?' Oscar asked. ‘And have you done the dishes even once since we've been here? Or don't
cops
do dishes?'

‘Stop being a smart arse.'

‘I've been helping in the kitchen for weeks and weeks. I'm not trying to get out of anything. But it's
my
kitchen now and I don't have to listen to
him
!'

Sam got up. ‘I'll help you, Warren.'

Behind Oscar, Warren started shaking his head furiously at Theresa.

Oscar caught this out of the corner of his eye and gave Warren a look of disgust. ‘If you're too nervous to share a kitchen with Sam, just bugger off.'

Oscar came and took Sam's hand in his own large one and led her off to the kitchen, saying, ‘Yes, you can help me. It's nice of you to offer.'

A few minutes later Theresa followed them and apologised to Oscar. ‘Warren is a grown-up so expects to be in charge. And, Oscar, I keep trying to limit your responsibilities. I know it aggravates you, but you must see why I do it.'

‘You have the job of feeding the cats now,' Sam reminded Oscar, to cheer him. To Theresa she said, ‘Everyone needs to feel they have a part to play.'

Theresa looked at Sam and did careful things with her expression.

‘Don't be scared of me,' Sam said. ‘I'm not dangerous.' She wished she knew what to do to make them all feel easier with her.

Theresa said, ‘You're just going to have to put up with our nerves.'

‘But I looked after you when you were all sick.'

‘I know, Sam. I'm trying, okay?'

‘When Jacob has his medicines worked out the other can come back. She'll help you. You'll see.'

Theresa patted the air between them—trying to push an invisible something back into its invisible box.

The kitchen door blew open as if another unseen entity had rushed to the aid of the one Theresa was trying to confine. Sam hurried to close it. She had been startled, but not spooked. The door had been caught by an easterly wind. Kahukura didn't get them very often. There was a porch at Mary Whitaker where they used to store stuff, and once or twice a year the rain would blow in and the manager would say, ‘We have to think of some more permanent arrangement.'