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In Paris, I’ve got two days until my flight to Honolulu. The acute loneliness of my previous visit is replaced by a numb emptiness. I speak to Dad, who assures me that after surgery he’ll be good as new and there’s no need for me to fly back. I don’t tell him about the dream. Any mention of my mother’s wandering spirit could give him a relapse.
I send Keith a message about Gaston’s death, then I call Fabienne for a final goodbye. She met up with Fous de Foudre after their gig and she tells me something strange.
“They all drink from the bowl of wood at your party. It is like tasting the earth, I think. After, they play the music they never play before. At St Malo they all know the rhythm, they play like fous. But when they try to play it again last night at the guinguette, no-one can remember how to play.”
Because of the kava itself, conjuring up a rhythm from a far-away shore? Or because there was a powerful person dancing her heart out in the shadows?
***
Davina surprises me at Honolulu airport. I hide my tears of relief with a joke.
“Your invisibility cloak isn’t working. I can see you.”
She laughs. “It’s working fine. So far. I’m still here.”
Thank God.
We walk to her car.
“I was pretty pissed off when you left, Davina. Thanks for the note, but it didn’t answer any of my questions.”
“I know. I owe you an explanation, girl. But now’s not the time.”
“About why you changed your name? Fabienne told me.”
She flashes her green eyes. “She had no business telling you that. She knows nothing about it.”
“She just said it was something to know, but to trust my intuition about you.”
“That’s not so bad then.”
We get onto the freeway and off again, then up the mountain to Makiki Heights where Derek is expecting me.
“When will you move back to Wanda’s?” she asks.
“Soon. Her cousin will be out in a couple of weeks.”
“So you’re still looking for home.”
I nod and fight back sudden tears. The rush of emotions I was expecting when the plane landed – a coup de foudre that this is where I belong – hasn’t happened. It’s a blow. After everything I’ve been through, I’m back where I started. Homeless and confused.
“I’ve been around the world, Davina, and I’m no closer to finding it.”
“Don’t be so sure about that.”
I need to unload about Gaston.
“Well, well, well,” she says. “It’s not every day you get to dance at a euthanasia party.”
“How did you know I danced?”
“In my mind you’re always dancing. What happened?”
I tell her about waking up in the crack in the wall, about running across the sand as the tide rushed in.
“What do you think it means?” she asks.
“Means? While Gaston was dying, I was hallucinating. After the kava, I danced like a wild exhibitionist, then I crawled into a hole to hide. Then the sea nearly claimed me. It’s a metaphor for my life, Davina.”
“I wouldn’t dismiss it like that. In vino veritas est. Kava’s like wine – it brings out the truth.”
Derek’s been waiting at the window. He’s walking with a stick when he comes out to the car.
“Aloha, Selkie. It’s been too long”
We hug.
“You’re back on your feet,” I say.
“Yeah. I was almost sorry to lose the mo’o boot.”
“Mo’o boot? Isn’t it a moon boot?” Not that I need any moon metaphors.
“It’s that lizard I told you about, Mo’o. I got reading about his legendary exploits: He connects heaven and earth with his crystal eye. The boot was keeping me off my feet and horizontal like a lizard, so I renamed it a mo’o boot. It made my accident feel more...spiritual.”
Good grief. I don’t want to get into lizards. And is he still harbouring a grudge about the bowl?
We carry my things inside and Derek brings out homemade lemonade. As we sit at the kitchen counter, he shows Davina the wooden bowl. It’s cracked where it hit the floor.
“You were both injured,” Davina says. “Your toe and the bowl.”
“Both cracked,” he says. “My toe in four places, but it’s healed. The bowl’s worse off. It’ll never make kava again.”
“Kava?” I almost choke on my lemonade and avoid eye contact with Davina.
“We used to do kava with our kirtan group. To put us in the mood to chant.”
A kava bowl. I didn’t know that when I collected it. Or my conscious mind didn’t. My subconscious knows way too much.
Davina leaves, and I eat some leftovers. Then I go to the boys’ spare room and sleep for twelve hours.
When I wake up Alister is in the kitchen. Along with Derek and Nigel. The old team back together. The new-age tragic, the dementia nurse and the seminar tycoon. An unlikely trio. All devoted to me in their own ways. Devoted and overprotective.
Being on my own pushed me to navigate my own path, haphazard as it was. But being back feels important. And scary. How will the journey end?
We catch up over coffee and I present Nigel with the French cutlery rests.
“Mutton-birds,” I say.
He laughs. “Yeah, they could be mutton-birds. They’re perfect, Selkie. Just right for my brocante collection. I’ll keep them with that spoon.” He winks.
Then Nigel nudges Derek and they make a discreet exit. Alister and I have got things to tell each other. Alister can’t take his eyes off me, but his body language indicates his state of mind: depressed. I was right about his son. The DNA test showed that the latest candidate isn’t Deshi.
“How do the investigators choose who to test?” I ask.
“Date of birth. Fleur’s parents probably re-registered his birth in China. They wouldn’t have used his real birthday in case I tracked him down that way, but they couldn’t have fudged his age very much. Deshi’s birthday was very close to Fleur’s, so I’ve been betting that’s the date they used. It’s what they’d do – remember Fleur and claim Deshi all in the one action.”
I think about the number of people in China. “A needle in a haystack.”
“Better odds than that. We advertise in every Chinese newspaper worldwide and investigate everyone who replies. There’s a reward for information. This guy ticked the extra boxes – he looks part-Caucasian and his parents recently admitted he’s adopted.”
“He’s looking for his parents too.”
Alister nods. “If he was telling the truth. The reward also attracts fortune-hunters, but the DNA test frightens them off. This guy even had a birthmark on the back of his thigh like Deshi. A clue we don’t advertise. That’s why the PI got in touch and I flew back. If this was Deshi, I didn’t want to delay our reunion.”
Reunion. A big word. Genevieve and Gaston had a reunion. Then Gaston had a reunion with the hereafter. And I had one of sorts, with my mother in my dream.
There’s nothing more to say about Alister’s long-lost son, so I tell him that Gaston’s dead. As soon as I describe the events at St Malo, he guesses what happened. But he makes no judgements. He saw Gaston’s physical condition, and now Gaston’s at peace. It’s hard to argue with that outcome.
I don’t reveal my suspicions about Genevieve’s role, but he wonders how she’s taking it and when she’ll return to the twins. Perhaps he’s realised he misjudged her. Then it’s back to me and my issues.
“Has the trip answered your question about where home is?” he asks. “Forgive my hidden agenda.”
“Still looking. I became a little bit French, but...”
“Perhaps you’ve been looking in all the wrong places.”
“Story of my life. But where’s the right place?”
“Here.”
“Your hidden agenda is showing.”
“Here meaning ‘where you are’. Home is more than a location, Selkie, it’s a sense you can carry with you.”