Oh God, no. Not again.
The nausea must have come upon her as she slept. Cassy slid off the bunk, grabbed her new jersey—no time to put it on—and raced outside. Retched, retched, retched again under a stand of cabbage trees. It went on too long. She felt too weak.
Who was she kidding? This was no false alarm. She was the proud owner of an unwanted gift, like the novelty ties and fitness videos that ended up on eBay after Christmas. Unopened, still in original packaging. Her hands crept across her still-flat stomach, cradling the tiny mistake. For a few moments she allowed herself to wonder who this person might be.
As the sky paled, the bell began to toll. She’d been crying, her nose was running and the smell of vomit in her hair appalled her. Her mouth felt revolting. She didn’t want anyone to see her in this state. Pulling the jersey over her knickers and t-shirt, she hurried towards the beach. She needed to wash. She needed to think. She needed solitude.
Lake and sky were mirrored immaculately, as though the two were identical twins. The water’s embrace was brutally, numbingly cold. She stood thigh-deep, teeth chattering, splashing icy purity over her face and hair. It felt penitential.
What am I going to do?
The way she saw it, she had two options.
Option one: Go home. Have the baby. Be a single parent living on benefits in a grotty flat. Be despised by her dad, patronised by her mum, pitied by everyone else.
Option two: Find a clinic, hand over a credit card and try not to think or feel or care. Get a job, buy a house, start a pension fund. Be a successful citizen of this ridiculous world. Make her father proud.
‘Oh God, oh God, oh God,’ she moaned aloud, as her tears dripped into the water. ‘Help me.’
A voice in the stillness. ‘Hello, Cassy.’
She swung around, peering towards the shore. Whoever had spoken was male, his accent New Zealand—but that didn’t narrow the field very much. She was pretty sure it wasn’t Aden or Liam. Kyoto the carpenter, maybe? How did he get so close without her hearing him?
‘Hi!’ she said, with a self-conscious little laugh. ‘The water looked inviting.’
‘I often do the same thing. Bet it’s cold.’
She could just make him out now: a tall figure on the beach, a wraith in the morning twilight. Flustered and embarrassed, she began to wade towards him on her numbed feet. In her haste, she stubbed her toe against an underwater rock—now that she certainly did feel—and hopped in agony, swearing under her breath.
‘All right?’ he asked.
She was in danger of falling over, arms windmilling. The next moment he’d walked into the water, his trousers soaked to the knees, and reached out a steadying hand to take hers.
That was when she recognised the man she’d seen on the island. He seemed somehow aristocratic: a long nose and broad forehead, framed by thinning, sandy hair. Pale green eyes with a fan of smile lines. A cable-knit jersey very like her own. Bare feet.
Once they were on the beach, he stooped to look at the gash on her big toe. Blood was trickling onto the sand.
‘Ouch!’ he said, wincing. ‘Quite a war wound.’
‘Can’t feel a thing.’ She tugged her jersey as far down her bare thighs as it would go. ‘I’ll stick a plaster on it when I get back to my cabin. Thank you so much. You’ve got wet! I’m sorry.’
‘Sit down,’ he insisted, pointing towards a natural ledge, formed where the grassland fell away to the beach.
She sat, because it would seem rude to refuse.
‘I think I saw you on the island,’ she said.
‘You did.’
‘Are you Justin?’
‘For my sins.’ He’d taken a handkerchief from his pocket and was dipping it into the lake. His dog came trotting along the beach, with waving tail and massive paws. ‘Peter, meet Cassy. Keep her company.’
The grey wolf lay down with his chin on Cassy’s lap, letting her warm her hands in his coat. Justin knelt at her feet and began to clean the laceration on her toe. She protested—‘It’s okay, honestly, I’m fine’—but he ignored her.
‘Would your parents like it here?’ he asked.
‘Um … my father would last five minutes. Mum might manage ten.’
‘Why would that be?’
‘The idea of sharing everything, of not owning things. They’d hate it. They like to stay in their own box. They don’t believe people can be unselfish.’
As she talked, she noticed a long, white scar on the palm of his right hand. She wondered about it, but didn’t ask. He tore a strip from the handkerchief and wrapped it around the toe. His strategy worked. The bleeding stopped, the pain calmed to a dull ache.
‘Good as new,’ said Cassy. She stood up, testing her weight. ‘Thanks. You’ve ruined your hanky!’
‘Plenty more where that came from.’
He wandered back to the water and stood with his hands in his pockets, gazing towards the mountain. Perhaps she should find this man creepy and stalkerish. After all, he’d appeared out of nowhere, he knew her name, and she wasn’t wearing very much. Yet she didn’t. He seemed fatherly rather than predatory. Peter had followed him and was splashing around in the shallows. She hobbled across the sand to join them.
‘I can hear your thoughts,’ said Justin.
‘My thoughts?’
‘Mm. Blaring at you like a radio. Constant noise. Constant worry. It must be exhausting.’ He stooped to pick up a flat stone and weighed it in his hand. ‘You can turn off that blaring radio. It takes practice, but you can. And when the white noise stops thundering away in your head … then you’ll hear the music.’
With a flick of his wrist, he sent the stone spinning. It kissed the water, bounced, bounced and bounced again.
‘Well done,’ said Cassy. ‘I counted five.’
‘I’m not a good skimmer. Suva puts me to shame.’
Cassy’s father had once tried to show her how to play ducks and drakes. He’d made a science of it. The secret’s in choosing the right stone, Cass … turn yourself to this angle … no, not like that! Tip your stone up twenty degrees … and spin!
She remembered trying to do exactly as he said, mirroring every movement; she remembered the inevitable, disappointed click of his tongue when her slate plopped into the pond.
‘Your turn.’ Justin handed her a stone. ‘Life isn’t always tidy, is it? Things can get messy. And that can disappoint the people we most want to please. Sometimes the person they want you to be isn’t the person you really are.’
Tears again. Why had she turned into such a crybaby all of a sudden? What was wrong with her? She lobbed the stone. Hopeless. Plop.
‘My dad thinks I shouldn’t be in New Zealand at all,’ she said. ‘He wanted me to do an internship to jack up my CV. He says it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and I’ve got to be the one doing the eating.’
‘Dog-eat-dog!’ Justin looked comically startled.
‘Maybe I do need to be a bit more … carnivorous.’
‘I don’t think you’re a carnivore, Cassy.’
‘I owe it to them. Mum and Dad invested all they had in our education. It came before holidays, before everything. They have a mantra: There is no more valuable investment than education.’
‘So that you would grow up to be a thoughtful, empathetic person?’
‘So that I’d have a good career. I’d be able to afford my own children’s education, give the next generation a leg-up onto the same treadmill. Gotta scramble onto that treadmill, even if it means standing on heads to get there. Then round and round you scamper, little rat! And on, and on, and on it goes.’ Cassy bent to stroke Peter’s ears. ‘I’m being a bitch.’
‘You’re being honest.’
‘They want me to be a success. In their worldview that means being stinking rich. They can’t imagine any other model for a successful life.’
‘Yes, I see.’ He nodded calmly. ‘What would they say if they knew you were pregnant?’
She stood blinking at him.
Did he just say what I think he said? How the bloody hell does he know? Even I don’t know for sure!
‘I’ve got no idea what you mean,’ she retorted, trying to sound haughty. She knew she was blushing.
He smiled, laying a hand on her shoulder. Then he searched along the beach, found another good skimming stone and gave it to her.
‘This time, leave your wrist behind.’ He demonstrated with his own hand. ‘Throw out and down.’
The stone bounced once. Just once. Justin punched the air.
‘Yes!’ he cried, and found her another. ‘Turn a bit more sideways, and flick.’
It was like a holiday from worry. For half an hour or more they didn’t talk about her troubles; in fact, they didn’t talk much at all. They simply combed the sand and pumice for the best stones and concentrated on making them dance across the ripples. Cassy managed two bounces, then three, and once—incredibly—eight. She felt her heavy heart being lifted up.
‘Stay here a little longer,’ said Justin, as they were walking back to the settlement together. ‘You make us so happy.’
She didn’t answer at first. She felt herself to be on the brink of something terrifying and wonderful. The person her parents thought they knew had been made of wax. She was melting. She was changing shape. A new Cassy was emerging.
‘Maybe just another couple of days,’ she said.