See You In September

Rolling over to peer out of her window, Cassy made out the faintest glow in the sky. A floorboard creaked in Suva’s room.

Get going, Cassy scolded herself. You’re a guest. You can’t loll around in bed! Yet she felt mired in sleep. She closed her eyes for one last moment.

No. Not now! Nausea gripped her with an iron hand. She slid from the bunk and pelted to the outdoor toilet, where she was violently sick. Exhausted, she shivered on the wooden floor. This was a disaster. She had to take control. She needed to return to civilisation. Right now.

The bell fell silent, and she heard singing. She imagined all those people gathered in the meeting house and felt oddly comforted. By the time she’d brushed her teeth and stepped out onto the wet grass, it was growing light. Her anxiety felt less sharp now, despite the terrifying sickness. The contentment of Gethsemane seemed to wash right through her. She could smell bracken, wood smoke and … coffee!

Aden was tending the stove when she looked in from the porch. She’d thrown on some clothes and plaited her hair. For a moment they faced each another. It was as though they had an understanding; they knew where this was leading. But it can’t be leading anywhere. We come from different worlds, and I’m leaving today.

Well, no. She’d just brought up most of last night’s supper, and she fervently hoped he hadn’t heard her. Not dignified. Not sexy.

He seemed to accept this, and lifted an enamel pot from the stove. ‘D’you like coffee at this time of day?’

‘Sorry—maybe it’s an English expression. It means yes, I’d love some coffee. Where’s Suva?’

‘Helping to make breakfast in the whare kai,’ he said, handing Cassy a mug. ‘The community kitchen. I thought you might like to come out to the jetty for a while. And I’ve got something for you. The knitting team asked me to give you this.’ He laid a navy blue cable-knit jersey around her shoulders. She could smell the lanolin.

So she stopped fussing and pulled the jersey over her head as they stepped onto the porch. A single bird called in the trees. It sounded like a football rattle, with a whistling finish. Another answered, then another, and another, serenading the morning with trills and clicks and notes as pure and fluid as those of a piccolo. Aden knew their voices: That’s a tui—hear his creaking and all the whistles? That flute is him, as well. There’s a bellbird, the korimako.

The two of them wandered along the pumice sand, crunching around kayaks and a red motorboat with Ikaroa painted on her hull. This, Aden explained, was the fastest way to get about the lake. ‘Goes like a rocket,’ he said. ‘Great fun.’

Cassy pointed to a long white boat lying at anchor in the bay. ‘She’s beautiful. I didn’t notice her last night.’

‘Matariki. Pride of our fleet. That grand lady started out as a sailing boat back in 1920. She’s made of kauri.’

Matariki was elegant and old-fashioned, with a boxy cabin roof and four portholes up the sides.

Aden nodded as they began to walk along the jetty. ‘She does. She’s got a shallow draft, so we can moor just about anywhere. She can carry a lot of us, at a pinch—gets a bit low in the water though! We’ll take her out on Suva’s birthday.’

‘Suva’s chosen Kereru Cove. Hot springs, even a hot beach. It’s something tourists don’t get to see.’ An idea seemed to strike him. ‘Hey, why don’t you stay till then? It’s on Wednesday. Less than a week away.’

Cassy narrowed her eyes, calculating, longing to say yes. ‘I’d love that, but …’

‘Look, Cassy, I’ll drive you to the main road any time you say the word. But you’re a big hit here, and I’ve got an offer for you: bed and board in return for four hours’ work a day. The rest of the time you can explore, take a kayak, go for walks.’

They sat down side by side at the end of the jetty, letting their boots break the rippled satin of the water. From there the island looked like a turtle. It seemed to have a head and a body, and was swimming through gossamer skeins of mist.

‘Since I was fourteen. My parents came for a permaculture course. They had a smallholding and wanted to run it sustainably. They came for a week with me and Julia, my sister. We never left.’

Aden leaned back on his hands. ‘They found what they were looking for: people who cared, a community, a way of life that was clean. Dad’s a mechanic—and boy, did they need a mechanic! He keeps the machinery going. The sawmill, the tractor, the van, the boats. He likes a challenge.’

‘Does the Gethsemane accounts. We’re running a business here, even if we wish we weren’t.’

‘Couldn’t believe my good luck. It was a lot more social than our little farm in the middle of nowhere. So many playmates. We ran around in a gang, playing on the best rope swing I’d ever seen, swimming, fishing, putting on shows, hunting in the bush, kayaking … it was a perfect adolescence. There’s no stranger danger here. No drugs, no bullying, no terrorism. Complete freedom.’

Aden hesitated, looking down into the shadows below the jetty. A small swell washed around the posts. ‘Julia didn’t like it so much. She was seventeen, maybe a trickier age. She left.’

‘In Australia. She’s a nurse, she’s got her own family. We’ve lost touch.’

At one side of the bay, the beach ended in a grassy promontory. Cassy was startled to notice a number of white crosses dotted across the headland. They looked like stickmen, marching through the tussocks, luminous in the half-dark.

‘No. The law says we can’t do that. When someone dies, we have them cremated in town and scatter their ashes on the lake. The crosses are memorials.’

Sunrise wasn’t far away. All along the eastern horizon, primrose yellow merged into whitewashed blue. Brilliance sprayed from behind the volcano.

At least it’s stopped raining in time for Hamish’s skydive, thought Cassy. Then it struck her that she really didn’t care. She was in a fairytale valley, watching the dawn with a man who intrigued her. What more could she possibly want? It was tempting to stay—just for a day or two, just while she rested and made decisions. She couldn’t imagine anywhere more healing than this place.

She was still undecided when the rim of the sun gleamed over the volcano. Seconds later, fire seemed to tear across the lake.

They sat in companionable silence, watching the day begin, listening to a cacophony of birdsong.

‘We don’t go in for that. Possessions aren’t important. The picnic’s her gift from the community.’

Cassy laughed. ‘I’d like to see my sister’s face if someone told her she wasn’t getting anything for her birthday. Heads would roll.’

‘Well, for her last birthday …’ Cassy checked herself, embarrassed at the sheer opulence of her family’s life. ‘Let’s just say she didn’t go without. Then again, where we live is basically one giant shopping centre. Our local park is festooned with broken bottles and graffiti. There’s an oily kind of drain they call the stream, but you’d want your stomach pumped out if you drank from it. So I think Suva has the better deal.’

A breeze sprang from nowhere, shattering the water into thousands of shards. Cassy heard the clanging of a gong.

‘That’s for us,’ said Aden. He swung his legs back onto the jetty, stood up and held out his hand for hers. ‘We don’t always share breakfast, but this is a special occasion.’

He laughed, holding on to her hand a second longer than he should. ‘I never lie.’

The whare kai turned out to be a bustling kitchen and dining hall with long refectory tables. A brick bread oven was being used outside, and the comforting smell of freshly baked bread pervaded the scene. Everyone in sight was wearing navy blue or beige. At one end of the hall, a crowd of children were playing blind man’s buff. Two older boys had hold of Monty’s hands and were helping him to dodge.

Bali was waiting for them. A shawl was draped around her shoulders. ‘Cassy!’ she cried. ‘You’re famous! Everyone wants to meet you.’

As she spoke, a middle-aged couple bounced up to introduce themselves as Berlin and Kazan, Aden’s parents. Both were sturdy and fair-haired, like their son. Berlin had what looked like engine oil under his fingernails, and Cassy remembered that he was the mechanic. Next came Seoul—Bali’s older brother, the chef. He and Bali were very alike: deep brown eyes under heavy brows. He had intricate tattoos up his arms and the physique of a rugby player.

‘My poor brother’s in love with Paris,’ whispered Bali. ‘But she’s refusing to be anyone’s partner at the moment.’

Others followed: too many to remember, but every one of them welcoming. An elderly woman sat peaceably at the head of a table. Her face reminded Cassy of a walnut, because of its colour and the incredible profusion of wrinkles. A walking stick rested across her knees.

‘Netta,’ said Bali, leaning close to the old lady, ‘this is Cassy. Cassy, this is my kuia—my grandmother.’

‘I’ll be your kuia too,’ said Netta, smiling in Cassy’s direction. She wore hearing aids in both ears. ‘Sit down next to me, pour yourself some tea. I don’t see very well nowadays.’ Her gnarled fingers reached carefully for her own cup. ‘But I know what you look like. You’re a pretty lass, with a smile that melts everyone’s hearts. They’ve been telling me how you’ve brought our Suva out of herself.’

Cassy looked around for Suva, and spotted her stacking plates. When Cassy caught her eye, she waved.

‘See how she lit up?’ said Bali. ‘That’s a breakthrough—a real breakthrough. It’s lovely to see. She’s been hurt.’

Aha, thought Cassy. So there is a story. She was about to demand details when a hush fell on the room. A man was standing up on a chair. He was fiftyish. Roundish. Balding. A double chin, cheerful grin and a squint—or was it a glass eye?

‘For this feast, we thank you!’ bellowed Liam, with all the gusto of a rabble-rouser.

‘And for our beautiful visitor Cassy, who’s already brought us joy, we thank you three times!’

And that was it. People applauded. Liam winked at Cassy before jumping off his chair. The whole thing was very good-humoured.

Bali offered Cassy some oven-warm bread. ‘We didn’t embarrass you, did we?’

‘No! But …’ Cassy wasn’t sure how to frame her next question. ‘That was a prayer, wasn’t it? I mean … nobody said the word God, but it sounded like a prayer to me.’

‘It did? Try this honey, it’s still in the comb, see? Skye is our beekeeper.’ Bali nodded towards a thin, laughing girl who sat at the other end of the table. ‘There’s nothing Skye doesn’t know about bees.’

‘Clever,’ said Cassy, spreading a dollop on her bread. ‘So are you … um, Christians?’

‘Yes and no.’ Bali grimaced ruefully as she touched Cassy’s arm. ‘Sorry, I’m not trying to talk in riddles! Depends what you call a Christian, I guess. We don’t take the Bible literally. We reject the hateful things in Christianity. We hate intolerance. Our way of life is based on compassion and common sense. We don’t judge anyone.’

‘No. We never judge. We never call anyone a sinner. God—or what people call God—made people who are gay and people who are straight; people who’re drawn to drugs, people who go tramping in the hills, people who steal, people with mental health problems, people who’ve committed violent crimes. They’re all welcome. No negativity here! Our way of life is based on love. Simple as that. Love. We’re a family. We don’t look for faults.’

This didn’t sound like a complete answer, but it didn’t seem polite to press the point. Never discuss politics or religion with your host—that’s what Mike had drummed into Cassy when she was fourteen and going on an exchange trip to France.

More food arrived: bacon and mushrooms, and fruit preserved in glass jars. Cassy tried some kind of curds and whey; Bali claimed it would cure any ills. It tasted suspect—pretty much like sour milk, if she was honest—but it seemed to get on top of her nausea.

‘Our rotas for the week,’ explained Bali, when she saw Cassy trying to read them. ‘Otto does all that. He’s our manager.’

Towards the end of the meal, Bali excused herself and went to help with the washing-up. She’d only just left when her mother took her place.

‘Now,’ began Hana, ‘the children would love you to visit the school. They’ve been pestering me already.’

Hana clapped. ‘Yes! Thank you! After Meridian Call? That’ll give us time to get out the flags and bunting.’

A stooping figure had wandered up while they talked and was standing close by, obviously waiting to be introduced. Hana beckoned him closer.

‘Sorry, Kyoto—I mustn’t monopolise Cassy. Take my seat. Cassy, this is Kyoto, our chief carpenter. He built most of this place. He’s one of the Companions.’

The carpenter had a head of grey wire, like a pot scrub. Cassy was fascinated to see a pencil stub stuck into it, presumably for safekeeping. His fingers were yellowed, his teeth in pretty bad shape. He set his teacup onto the table with a clatter.

‘London!’ He slapped his knee. ‘I was born there. Came over here as a kid with my parents. I’ve buried them now, and both my sisters. But I’ll tell you what …’ He leaned closer. ‘These people saved my life.’

‘Spent half of it in prison. Nobody would give me the time of day, and fair enough because I’ve done things that should’ve disqualified me from the human race. Fifteen years ago, Justin came and got me from Mount Eden jail.’

‘Sorry … it still gets to me. I promise you, Chris, he said—that was my name then—I promise your life is going to be worthwhile from now on. He trusted me when nobody else did. I’d done a joinery apprenticeship, so he set up the carpentry workshop just for me. And look at me now, I’ve turned my life around. I’ve got myself a beautiful lady—Athens, you’ll meet her, she runs the woollen mill.’ Kyoto tapped the table, fixing Cassy with a bird-bright gaze. ‘If it wasn’t for Justin, I’d be dead by now. No ifs or buts. Dead. Plenty of us here could tell the same story.’

‘You will.’ He picked up his teacup, took a noisy sip. ‘And once you’ve met him, you’ll never worry about anything ever again.’

‘Our phone’s down at the moment,’ said Aden, as he unlocked the office. ‘Sorry about that. We’ve got satellite internet. I think it’s a miracle, but visitors complain that it’s slow and it cuts out a lot.’

The office was a standalone cabin. There were filing cabinets and a desktop computer, coffee rings and piles of paper clips. Cassy half expected a bouncy secretary to pop out and start doing her nails.

‘So who works in here?’ she asked, as they waited for the computer to start up. ‘Your mum, I guess, doing the accounts?’

‘A few people. We trade produce and buy in stock. I use the internet to find breeding rams. People do distance learning: Paris is studying midwifery, Rome’s doing computing. We run residential courses, like the permaculture one my parents came for. There’s a bunkhouse up at the back.’

‘Sustainable living—things like beekeeping and weaving. And retreats for recovering addicts. Rome runs our website. He’s very good.’

Cassy’s curiosity had got the better of her. ‘Doesn’t Rome have any parents?’

Cassy had only just opened her email account when Suva’s head appeared around the door, offering a guided tour.

She could have taken hours to find the right words for Hamish. She could have typed, edited, cried and typed again—it wasn’t much fun to be pronouncing their relationship officially dead.

Hi Hamish,

I hope you got to Taupo ok and you’re skydiving right now. I haven’t been able to text because there’s no phone coverage here. Dodgy internet too.

I think we should call it a day. We can call it mutual agreement, can’t we? I don’t regret the time we’ve had, it’s been wonderful. But your reaction to you-know-what proved what we both already knew, that we don’t have a future together. I’m pretty sure you’ve come to the same conclusion.

Good luck with the million pounds before you’re thirty! I promise I won’t come asking for any of it ;)

And thanks for all the fun we had.

I’m at a sort of farm called Gethsemane. They’ve offered me bed and board in return for work. I haven’t decided yet, but I might stay for a few days. Save me a fortune.

If we don’t meet up before, I’ll see you in Christchurch when we fly out.

Hope the skydiving was fun.

Take care.

Love,

Cassy xxx

The rest of the day passed in a blur. She was shown greenhouses and beehives, worm farms and composting systems. The gardens were vast and apparently chaotic: a baffling riot of winter vegetables grew among herbs, soft fruit and a hundred other plants she didn’t recognise, all under a canopy of nut and fruit trees, alive with birds and insects. It looked more like a jungle than anything else. Cassy thought of her father’s military rows of carrots, and smiled.

She met brown hens, dust-bathing in their mobile run; she patted goats, and ewes with teddy-bear lambs. She had a whistle-stop tour of the workshops. And all day long she saw contented people.

Gaza, the permaculture expert, took time out from pruning fruit trees to talk. ‘It’s all about the soil,’ she said, while Cassy nodded and tried to think of intelligent questions. The gardener was perhaps forty or fifty—it was difficult to tell—and dauntingly vigorous. She reminded Cassy of a white falcon she’d once seen in a wildlife park, tearing at a bloodied chunk of meat. Beautiful, for sure, but her eyes were an unsettling ice blue, her nose slightly hooked, white-blonde hair cropped and spiky. Cassy had the feeling she was wondering which bit of her to eat first.

Cassy was surprised. ‘Malindi, your lovely friend? Well … they both have that Nordic colouring.’

‘Yeah, but Malindi’s much jollier and fatter!’ chuckled Suva, before whispering, ‘Gaza is very, very pure, that’s why they made her a Companion, but she can be a bit scary. She came to Gethsemane when Malindi was a tiny little girl.’

‘No! He was a horrible man. He used to bash Gaza. Some Gethsemane people were running a stall and they saw her with a broken jaw and blood everywhere. So they brought her and Malindi here. Malindi says that was the best day of their lives.’

Next stop was a sewing workshop, where people were stuffing sheep’s wool into pillows. Cassy was hailed by a plump, comfortably smiling couple. They introduced themselves as Breda and Chernobyl.

‘I hear you met our sons in the van,’ said Breda, patting a chair so that Cassy would sit down.

‘Otto and Monika are my parents. Washington and Riyadh are our sons. They came home raving about this fascinating hitchhiker.’

Finally Cassy visited Hana’s school, which housed about thirty pupils between the ages of four and seventeen. As she arrived they broke into a welcome song, waving banners. It’s like being a film star, she thought, as excited children lined up to present her with pictures they’d drawn for her. The building consisted of two classrooms, a well-stocked library and a small kitchen that was also used for science lessons. A couple of parents were acting as teacher’s aides.

After Cassy’s royal tour of the school, she and Hana shared a pot of tea on the porch. The children made dens in the trees, or charged around with a rugby ball, or took turns on a rope swing that hung from a branch. Some were playing a version of hide- and-seek that Cassy recognised as Kick the Can but which Hana called Kick the Shoe.

‘It’s okay.’ Cassy shrugged. ‘We moved all the time because my dad was in the army, so there would have been no continuity in my education. Boarding school’s really common for military families. The government even helps to pay for it.’

‘Weren’t you homesick?’ Hana was leaning forwards, kindly brown eyes focused on Cassy’s face. It was such a mellow afternoon, and the teacher was so very sympathetic. Cassy found herself telling the truth.

‘I hated that place from the first day to the last. At the end of every holidays I used to chew around my nails until the skin was sore.’

‘But I came home for sixth form. Dad had retired and they’d bought our house, so it was all change. In a way we all left the army and finally had a home of our own—a home in one place! I went to a local school. That was a lot more fun.’

‘She didn’t go.’ Cassy saw Hana’s surprise and hastily explained, ‘Tara’s six years younger than me—Dad was retiring at about the time she’d have gone away to school. He was forty-five, he’d earned the full pension and still had time for another career. So there was no point in her boarding. She had a very different kind of childhood to mine.’

‘Well … different. More relaxed, maybe? Dad was in civvy street for most of it.’

‘You’re a magnet to children,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘You have a natural gift.’

‘And they like you.’ Hana seemed to be weighing her next words. ‘Cassy, we desperately need another teacher. I’d train you. I think you would be the most amazing asset. We lost our last one three years ago, and I’ve been struggling.’

‘Sorry!’ cried Cassy, flushing with both embarrassment and pleasure. ‘I love your school, but I’m definitely no teacher.’

‘Kerala.’ Hana laid down her teacup. ‘A tragedy. She seemed a deeply spiritual person.’

Cassy braced herself for a sad story. It sounded as though this Kerala woman had died.

‘As it turned out,’ said Hana, ‘she wasn’t spiritual at all. She met a man when she was out recruiting, and—’

Hana blinked, but continued smoothly: ‘For our courses. We run stands at agricultural shows, things like that. She met this fellow. She sneaked away in the night with her two boys, never said goodbye to anyone. Can you imagine? Poor Suva was broken-hearted.’

‘Hang on.’ Cassy’s jaw had dropped. ‘Don’t tell me this is Suva’s mother you’re talking about? Aden’s wife?’

‘Two of ’em. Perth and Medan. Never seen again. We hear they’ve got into drugs.’

Before Hana could answer, the building began to creak. The legs of Cassy’s chair turned into wobbling jelly. Her cup rattled on its saucer, the tea rippling in concentric circles. At first she assumed a lorry must be passing by. Her student flat always shook when a juggernaut went up the road.

‘The earth’s crust is thin here. We often feel the forces underneath. The planet has tantrums—like a teenager.’

Hana laughed, leaning down to pick up a ball that had just bounced onto the porch and lob it back to the children.

The world was still again, but Cassy was left disturbed by the experience. It had been eerie to feel the stirring of the earth. She looked across the lake and wondered whether its surface had rippled in giant concentric rings, like the tea in her cup.