See You In September

Suva’s birthday. Sickness wrenched Cassy out of bed again, but it didn’t bring the same terror. She no longer carried the secret alone. People knew, and they didn’t despise her. When the bell tolled for Early Call, she and Aden crunched across the frosty grass towards the wharenui.

‘Where does that trail go?’ Cassy asked, pointing out a path marked by two large rocks that began behind the school.

‘To the top paddocks. I’ve already been up this morning. We’ve got three more lambs.’

Cassy looked back at the trail. It turned sharply uphill before disappearing into the dense shadows of the bush.

‘It’s not even light yet, and you’ve already hiked up to the top of a massive hill and … done whatever you did?’

‘Yep. There’s a vehicle track too, if I need to take the tractor. This one’s the shortcut.’

Cassy felt acutely aware of the man who loped along beside her, his hand sometimes brushing the back of hers. She wasn’t sure what it was he made her feel. Lust, for sure, but that wasn’t all. She caught herself wondering how it might be if they walked side by side every day; if they were together every night.

The song that morning was sung especially for Suva, though the words didn’t make a lot of sense to Cassy.

We celebrate your precious daughter

Born beside these sacred waters

May she dance in love and light

And keep the watches of the night!

A sense of expectation followed the song: a ripple of pleasure, like a breath of wind on the lake. Cassy felt it herself, though she didn’t know why.

Then Justin was among them. He seemed to bring his own gravitational pull. Everything was drawn to him; even the air folded around him. He moved unhurriedly, touching people on the shoulder, speaking to one or two before moving on. When he came to Suva, he knelt down and they talked. Cassy saw Suva giggle and throw her arms around his neck.

His face was as she remembered it: thin, ascetic, with the narrow mouth and pale green eyes. For some reason, she desperately wanted him to like her.

‘Really?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Then why are Suva and Aden happy again? No ordinary woman could have done that. Have you thought about my suggestion? Will you stay with us a bit longer?’

Twenty picnickers set out in the old launch, Matariki. Aden explained that it was possible to walk to Kereru Cove, but with Netta and other elderly people in the group it was easier to take everyone along the lake.

Justin didn’t come. They saw him in the red speedboat, travelling very fast in the other direction. Cassy felt a bewildering sense of loss.

‘He collects people in trouble. He meets members of Gethsemane who can’t live with us.’

Bali looked amused. ‘Gaza. He’ll be running riot in the garden right now. She dotes on that dog!’

Aden was teaching Rome to drive Matariki. The teenager held both hands on the wheel, craning his neck to see past the cabin roof. There was a definite look of Justin about him: he’d inherited his father’s sandy hair and green eyes, and some of his effortless authority. Malindi was hanging around the cockpit, looking nonchalant. She had round cheeks, a wide smile and long eyelashes, which she tended to flutter at Rome. He treated her like a little sister.

‘Long time ago.’ Bali was holding a finger to her lips, so Cassy dropped the subject.

They were approaching a narrow inlet with its own beach. Tendrils of steam rose from the shallows, and Cassy spotted a cabin peeking out through ponga and vines. It looked ludicrously picturesque.

‘Kereru whare,’ said Bali. ‘One of Gethsemane’s bush huts. For people on spiritual retreat.’

Bali chuckled. ‘Well, it’s meant to be for meditation and regeneration. But yes, it can be romantic too.’

The expedition force moved out, heading along a path into the bush. Someone had brought a wheelchair for Netta. Four men picked it up and carried her aloft while she smiled impishly from her litter.

It takes courage to be led with your eyes shut, especially along an uneven path by an overexcited child. They climbed steeply uphill, and Cassy could hear the rushing of a stream very close by. She moved slowly, shuffling over tree roots, puzzled by a feeling of heat through the soles of her sandals and whiffs of the sulphurous smell she’d noticed in Rotorua.

‘Have faith,’ said Suva. ‘I won’t lead you anywhere dangerous. Another minute … okay, now you can look.’

It was a dream world. Forest gloom. Giant ferns and moss and glittering jewels of sunlight. A stream cascaded over rocks, forming a series of pools—some wide and deep enough to swim, some the size of a bath. The water was green glass, shot through by clouds of tiny bubbles, half hidden by billowing clouds of steam.

‘Yes!’ Suva was stumbling over her own words, desperate to point everything out. ‘That little pool’s the hottest, too hot for me. See the rock slide? Malindi’s already sliding down it! And look—’ pointing into the lush undergrowth ‘—a mud monster!’

Cassy stared at the patch of grey mud. It swelled and dimpled as though some weird creature was writhing beneath the surface. Then—gloop!—a miniature eruption. The effect was unearthly.

‘Come on,’ said Suva, tearing off her clothes to reveal a swimming costume. ‘It’s the best feeling ever. Even Netta’s going in.’

By early afternoon, the lavish picnic was over. Adults were luxuriating in the pools or taking naps on sun-warmed rocks; children played Kick the Shoe among the trees. Aden and Rome had walked into the bush to check possum bait stations.

Cassy, Paris and Bali stood under a waterfall so clear and smooth that it could have been an ice sculpture. Hot water cascaded onto their necks, spraying off their shoulders. Cassy was fascinated by her friends’ casual attitude to all this geothermal activity. She’d never before seen the earth so fiery and dynamic, a pressure cooker ready to blow. She tipped back her head, looking through the canopy to the delicate blue of the sky.

‘In 1886,’ said Bali, promptly. ‘When Netta wakes up, ask her to tell you the story.’

The grandmother had been dozing in her wheelchair, with a blanket around her shoulders. Her eyes snapped open.

‘You’ve got big ears!’ Bali laughed. ‘We’re talking about the eruption, Nana.’

Cassy kept out of the conversation. She suspected there were all sorts of cultural minefields around her feet, and she didn’t want to step on one.

Bali rolled her eyes. ‘Nothing comes for free, does it?’ She hauled herself out of the pool—steaming in the cold air—scurried across to a basket and scurried back.

‘Here we are,’ she said, placing a clay cup in her grandmother’s hands. ‘Got it?’

Cassy moved closer, the better to hear Netta’s voice above the gushing of the falls. For a long time the old woman sat with the cup on her lap, lips moving silently as though gathering history around her.

‘You have to understand how it all began,’ she said. ‘The Te Arawa tribes have lived under the mountain for centuries. They used the boiling springs for cooking, and their whares were warmed by the hot ground. The peak was a burial ground. They left the bones of their ancestors up there, but they knew the rules. The mountain is tapu—sacred. It has to be treated with respect. Then Europeans came, and things changed.’

‘Missionaries and explorers at first, but word spread, and in came the tourists. They travelled from all over the world to visit the pink and white terraces at Lake Rotomahana.’

‘Like giant flights of stairs,’ said Bali. ‘Made of silica. You haven’t heard of the pink and white terraces? They were called the eighth wonder of the world! Even royalty came to see them.’

‘We’ve got pictures in the school library. Old-fashioned English ladies with lace parasols. The local Maori became guides and boatmen, you see. They made a lot of money.’

‘Yes. The tourists. Well, one of the most famous guides was a very clever woman called Sophia. Once day she was guiding a party across Lake Tarawera—they were in a whaleboat, just like ours—when they saw something that froze the blood in their veins.’

‘A war canoe,’ she said at last. ‘It appeared out of the morning mist and began to race silently alongside Sophia’s boat. There were two rows of men in this waka—one row sitting and one standing. Imagine it! Those standing were wearing flax robes and their heads were plumed as if for burial. Sophia hailed it … and hailed it … but there was no reply. It was as though they were the souls of the dead being ferried to the sacred mountain. And then—’ Netta reached out a hand, grasping at a ghost ‘—the waka disappeared.’

‘Yes, yes, yes.’ Netta closed her eyes, tutting. ‘But you see … no such canoe existed on Tarawera. No such canoe has ever existed on Tarawera. No. That waka was a phantom. They asked the old tohunga what it meant, and he said, It is an omen, a warning that all this region will be overwhelmed. And eleven days later, his prophecy came true.’

‘My grandmother’s family lived in a village right under the mountain, but that winter she went to stay with cousins at Lake Rotoiti. On the night of the tenth of June they were woken by an earthquake. Everyone rushed outside and—oh! Such a terrible sight. The sky above Tarawera was on fire, with a giant column of black smoke, and lightning flashing, and explosions. Then half the earth was hurled into the sky. My grandmother knew that was the end of her family.’

‘Little. About seven or eight. The stars went out, and ash began to fall. They huddled in the whare and stayed there all night, listening to ash pattering on the roof like rain, watching the roof bending under its weight. My nana was sure she’d be buried alive. The family said prayers while they waited for their end.’

Cassy was transfixed by the story. She saw frightened eyes in the darkness, a thatched roof bulging, a whole family expecting to die.

‘When they looked out in the morning …’ Netta shook her head. ‘There was no morning. The sun had gone out. And the landscape around Tarawera was gone. Villages were buried under fifty feet of mud and ash. They’re still under there.’

‘Nobody knows. The Europeans estimated around a hundred and twenty, but my grandmother said it was far more, perhaps even thousands. And the pink and white terraces were lost forever.’

Cassy splashed hot water over her shoulders, doing calculations in her head. Netta’s grandmother must have been born about 1879. She’d lived through the complete obliteration of her family, and both world wars, and reached the age of ninety-two. Quite an innings.

‘She never forgot,’ said Netta. ‘Even when she could no longer remember the names of her own daughters. She never forgot the night the sacred mountain tore itself apart. She never forgot the day the sun went out. Everyone thought it was the end of the world. And for many of them, it was the end of the world.’

A sunset cruise in the winter evening. Slanting light. Mist lay upon the water in an opalescent veil, but no ghostly waka appeared.

Rome and Aden were boatmen again. Cassy and Paris sat on the white roof of the cabin. They could hear talk and laughter from below, where people were making hot drinks on a propane stove. Monty was curled up beside Sydney. Other children were playing a hand-clapping game, merry silhouettes in all that beauty.

They’re not worried, thought Cassy. They’re not stressed. They’ve got the answers.

‘Well …’ Paris narrowed her eyes, considering the question. ‘They saw something, all right. The four tourists described it in their letters home, and others saw it at around the same time. Someone even sketched it.’

‘Perhaps it was exactly what the tohunga said: a warning. This is a very spiritual place.’ Paris lay down flat, copper hair gleaming. ‘It feels a very, very long way from Edinburgh.’

‘God, no!’ Paris looked sickened. ‘I’ve nothing in common with anyone there.’

The story emerged, as Matariki slid across the glassy water. Paris’s father and mother had been fighting ever since she could remember. They’d both remarried, both begun new families, and neither had much time for the daughter they’d created together.

‘My name was Rachel,’ said Paris. ‘I felt like an outsider in both households. I finally left because … okay, I’ll tell you. I killed my best friend.’

‘Isla,’ said Paris. ‘Isla Wallace. We’d been to a party to celebrate our exam results, and I was driving us home. We were so happy, we were singing. I stopped to text my boyfriend, then pulled back onto the road—and this lorry slammed into us. To this day I don’t know where it came from, I just remember the headlights. We rolled down a bank, landed upside down. Pitch black.’ Paris shut her eyes. ‘Isla was killed outright.’

Otto’s voice boomed from the cabin below, followed by hoots of laughter from his appreciative audience.

‘There was gossip,’ said Paris. ‘That I was drunk, that I was texting. I got away with a fine, not that I cared. I wouldn’t have cared if they’d strung me up. It felt like I was carrying this lead weight, every minute of every day. I tried to escape, working my way around the world. I worked in bars, I cleaned rooms in hotels. I drank, I smoked God-knows-what, I slept with more guys than I can remember. But it didn’t matter how far I ran, how wasted I got, I couldn’t put down the weight I was carrying. I was working in a café on the ski fields at Ruapehu when I met Sydney.’

‘Mm. There wasn’t anything going on between us, but when the ski season ended we hitched together. One day we got picked up by the Gethsemane van. And … long story short, I met Justin. He saw I was in trouble. He always knows. He invited me to his island, and he just listened. I talked all day. All night. All the next day. He listened like nobody had ever listened to me before.’ Paris’s eyes were overflowing; she wiped them with her sleeve, and took a moment to steady her voice. ‘He heard everything I said. He heard the things I didn’t say. And all of a sudden … it was amazing … I felt as though he’d picked up that weight in his own arms. I felt as though maybe—just maybe—it was okay for me to be alive. For the first time, I slept without hearing Isla screaming.’

Cassy felt flattered that Paris had confided in her. ‘Is that why you’ve stayed here?’

‘Otto sorted that out for me. I had to pretend I was in a permanent relationship with Seoul!’

The engine note changed. Matariki was turning in a wide arc, heading back towards Gethsemane. Cassy caught Aden’s eye, and they both smiled.

Cassy made her way down to the cockpit. Rome cheerfully relinquished the wheel and went to hang out with the other youngsters.

‘Good day?’ asked Aden, once he’d shown her what to do, and she was steering in a more or less straight line.

‘One of the best in my whole life,’ she said. ‘You’re so lucky to live like this.’

‘No. No, I really can’t. I have to go back and finish my degree, and pretend that easements and covenants and the registration of titles are of existential importance to me.’

She tried to keep her voice light. ‘Because then I can get a posh job, and a smart car, and a foot on the bottom rung of the property ladder.’

The past days had been magical, intriguing, unsettling; like falling in love. Little by little, moment by moment, Gethsemane and its people were becoming her own.