Taukiri

The surf had been amazing and being alone with Megan was more amazing. No one would find us here, where we were. She used her credit card, bought me a ferry ticket, and we got my car. The surfboard was nicked and I was sad for that. But we were alone in my car in the place I’d once parked, where I’d once lived. Between the abandoned house and the sea. And we were so safe. No one would find us here.

I was sitting in the driver’s seat and she was in the passenger’s seat, and she wanted us to call the cops.

‘We should. It’s safest. Tell them. Stay with them, then you get on the ferry and you go.’

‘No,’ I said.

‘I’m calling, Tauk.’

‘We’re okay here, no one’ll find us,’ I said.

She picked up her phone.

‘Please don’t, not yet.’

‘When?’

Then I kissed her, kissed her hard, so hard, so deep. Tasted her. And she kissed me back. Had my hands in her hair, then up her shirt, then held her chin. Everywhere, wanted to be everywhere. I took the hem of her T-shirt in my hand, said: ‘Taking this off,’ and she bit my lip until I did.

Unbuttoned her jeans and pulled them off and kicked away my shoes and my worry and all logic. Just wanted to feel her, because she was a sea, a rising swelling ocean. I kissed her freckle and she moaned. Just could’ve died like that, with that sound. Just could’ve died then when she moaned because it struck me as the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. Could’ve died because, well, fuck. What I saw was the skin I hadn’t seen, and oh my god was she beautiful. Was she what.

The water under the full moon is black.

Wind scatters everything. Everything, and everyone, and without hands, it is all so very hard to regather. Without a voice to call them home, herd them, warn them, tell them where they will be safe. The good seeds are scattered amongst the bad now, and only with the first unfolding of their leaves can anyone see their worth. Or worthlessness.

It is painful to only see through these watery sea-eyes of mine and hear what the wind – what I pull towards myself – will bring. The songs, the tiring words, which have begun to escape me. The jewels, the truest treasures: the lyrics, the poems, the ballads. The stories. They are the reddest, bluest, greenest jewels.

The real treasure at the bottom of the sea.

Not my bones, but what I did, and the aftermath of that, and how it will go, on and on and on.

Give me my mouth, give me my fingers and hands, so I might make something right.

I took him. I whipped him away, like the wind I am now, and told her I would take care.

She couldn’t, people said. I should.

And I did. I watched her go, and I was glad, to see her back turned, her head down. I was glad to take him, and let her walk away with a child in her belly.

Taukiri’s first day at school is the week the children are making Mother’s Day cards. He comes home and puts his bag on the floor, and looks up at me and says: ‘Hi, Mum.’

And I say ‘Hi, son.’

And that is that. What’s done is done.

Give me my mouth, give me my fingers. Let me fix this.

I am tired of toothing at the grey grit. At ghost sand. Biting and biting, saying nothing. Let me have one last, useless word.