EVENSONG

Sunday was a good day. A day of celebration. Rebecca stayed over in the guest room, and Tane’s mum made French toast for breakfast.

They didn’t mention the Lotto win to her, even though to keep it inside when it kept trying to burst out was like trying to hold in an enormous belch after drinking a whole can of Coca-Cola. Tane wasn’t quite sure why they kept it a secret. “Don’t tell anyone,” the message had said. But did that include his own mum?

Tane had tossed and turned during the night, dreaming of Greek monsters with teeth of fire, but even so, he was up at six, before the sun, and Rebecca was already awake when he got up. It felt a bit like the day after Christmas when all the excitement is over and done with, but the real fun of playing with all your presents is about to begin.

They just talked until his mum got up and made the French toast. They talked about the money mainly. What to do with it. What to spend it on.

There were some dark thoughts lurking, but those didn’t get a mention in the early light of Sunday.

By nine o’clock, they had solved most of the second message. Professor Vic Green turned out to be a woman, Professor Victoria Green, a highly respected geneticist. According to the Auckland University Web site, she was currently heading a private research laboratory on Motukiekie Island in the Bay of Islands.

But SUB EON TLS turned out to be the biggest surprise: SUBEO NTLS.

“It’s a submarine!” Tane’s eyes were wide. “We’re supposed to buy a submarine! Cool!”

“I wonder why?” Rebecca said curiously.

Subeo was a British company. They had achieved international fame a few years earlier when they had produced what they called the world’s first underwater sports car: the Subeo Gemini, a two-man submarine, designed mainly for recreational purposes.

The Subeo Aquarius had followed, a three-man version that also proved quite popular for commercial operators. But the latest model, not yet released, according to their Web site, was the Subeo Nautilus. If the Gemini was a sports car and the Aquarius a sedan, then the Nautilus was an underwater motor home. It was large enough for six people, an entire family, and could stay underwater for months on end. It was the first of the Subeo products to incorporate a diesel engine as a generator, to charge the banks of sealed-cell batteries that were the power source for the submarine.

Tane ran through three sheets of specifications that he downloaded as a PDF file before he came to the price.

“Holy cow!” he said.

“Where? Let me see.” Rebecca grabbed the piece of paper off him.

“One and a half million pounds! What’s that in New Zealand dollars?” She found a currency converter on the Internet. “That’s over four million dollars!”

“We’ll only just have enough, after Fatboy takes his share,” Tane said grimly, the thoughts of riches vanishing before his eyes. “Are you sure we have to buy this thing?”

Rebecca nodded. “I wish I wasn’t. There is a reason they, we, went to so much trouble to send this message back through time. I don’t know what it is, but I know that we have to buy a Subeo Nautilus, and if they’re in England, then we’d better get started.”

Tane looked carefully at her. If they spent all their money on a submarine, then how would they afford to buy a new house for Rebecca? He opened his mouth to say so, but decided against it. Instead he just sighed and composed a quick inquiry e-mail to Subeo. He hesitated before clicking the SEND button but eventually sent the message on its way through cyberspace.

“Where the heck is Fatboy?” he wondered aloud.

         

That evening, after Rebecca had gone home and there was still no sign of his brother, Tane went for a walk out amongst the treetops. His dad had built the ropewalk himself, off the end of the deck, but it was sure and safe, if a little wobbly in places. There was a heavy rope for a base, like that of an anchor rope from a sailing ship. On each side, at about shoulder height and just in arm’s reach, two more slender ropes gave you something to hold on to.

Tane didn’t bother to open the safety gate; he just swung his legs over it and walked the first few steps without even holding on to the handrails, balancing like a tightrope walker.

He came out here often. Some days because he wanted to, and other days the evensong of the native birds seemed to call to him.

The breeze had come up with the closing of the day, but the sun had yet to disappear behind the mountainside, so it was pleasantly warm. The leaves on the trees that surrounded him ruffled softly, but the branches and the rope were still. All around him, birds sang joyfully in an enveloping chorus.

His dad came out here a lot also. He said it beat the hell out of watching television in the evening, and Tane supposed he was right.

The last time he had seen his dad was a couple of weeks ago, just before he had gone bush on another painting project. Fatboy had come around that day to show off his moko, which he had somehow managed to persuade their mum to keep a secret.

Fatboy had walked in and taken off his helmet, and after an initial look of surprise, their father’s face had cracked slowly into a smile, and his eyes had sparkled with pride. His dad had embraced Fatboy and pressed their foreheads and noses together in a hongi, the traditional Maori greeting. Then he had hugged his eldest son, and Fatboy, the cool, leather-clad, rock-star-in-the-making that he was, had hugged him back without embarrassment or backslapping.

Tane thought back on that now and shook his head. He and his brother couldn’t be more different. He was getting messages from the future, but Fatboy was still stuck in the past.

Where the heck was Fatboy anyway? He had not called, and when they tried his mobile phone, it went straight to voice mail. Had he even watched the Lotto draw? Did he know? Maybe he did, and that was why he hadn’t called.

A tui landed on the rail just in front of Tane’s left hand. The distinctive white feather under the bird’s chin looked like a miniature clerical collar. The parson bird, the early European settlers had called it, because it looked like a churchman. Tane didn’t move. The tui looked at him suspiciously for a moment, then fluffed up its feathers and began to sing. The call of the tui was legendary, and they seemed to sing a different song every time you heard them. This bird, this day, had a slow, sad, rhythmical pattern that sounded like a lullaby.

After a while, the bird stopped and looked back at Tane, turning its head from side to side in small darting movements.

Tane raised a hand slowly toward the tui, inviting it to perch on his finger. The tui took a step backward on the rope. I’m not scared, it seemed to be saying, but I’m not stupid. Then it was gone in a whirling dash around and through the branches of a nearby macrocarpa.

Tane stayed put for a while, looking out across the valley toward the concrete spires of the city.

It would be a shame when this was all gone. He knew it was coming. The subdevelopers with their tractors and bulldozers would be here one day. Already, across the ridge in the next valley, he could see the brown scar where a construction crew had felled the trees and cleared the bush, preparing the foundations for a new lodge and conference center.

One day, this ropewalk would be something he would tell his grandkids about, and they’d laugh, he thought, unsure whether to believe him.

He walked on to where he knew there was a new nest of young fantails. The mother was busy feeding them worms and didn’t notice him.

Where the heck was Fatboy?