Katherine looked out the window as the train passed through Port Chalmers and left the harbour. Gulls disappeared as they climbed the hills; through the trees glimpses of blue water. Edie sat making notes from some thick medical text. Perhaps it’s easier like this, Katherine thought, the rock and jerk of the carriage over rails, drumming in the ears. Easier than fractured conversation.
The carriage filled with smoke in the tunnels and the lighting was too dim for reading. Even without looking, Katherine sensed the stillness of Edie’s pencil – as if caught in photographic plates – then pressed to paper again as they were thrown into daylight, as they rattled down along the cliffs above Waitati.
Katherine gazed at the beaches, the seaside cottages. She remembered laughter at Island Bay, Edie collecting shells and stones, molluscs, small marine animals, Robbie kicking a ball over sand. They passed through rolling sheep country, and before she realised it the porter was calling, ‘Seacliff! Seacliff!’ and the train lurched to a halt.
Edie packed her books into her bag and they disembarked.
We don’t know how to be together, Katherine thought. We don’t even know how to be silent. She glanced at Edie, bag swinging heavy in her hand; looked at the road ahead of them. Ten minutes, Edie had said. Ten minutes’ walk.
‘Does he speak?’ she asked at last.
‘No,’ Edie said. Softly. Like a sigh.
The sound of their shoes on gravel.
‘Does he know you?’
‘Mum, are you sure you . . .’
‘Does he recognise you, anyone?’
‘I . . . I don’t know.’
‘What do they say about his . . . prospects?’
‘I think it’s too early . . .’
Edie kicked stones along the road. Kicked again and again. Don’t. Don’t, Katherine wanted to say.
‘Why is it so hard?’ Edie asked.
What are you asking me? Katherine wondered. What can I say to make any of this easier? She gazed at her daughter, all of her life ahead of her. ‘There’s so much we don’t understand,’ she said at last.
Sunlight fell warm on their skin. They walked listening to birdsong, everywhere lush green, flowers blooming, the sky too blue. Why is it so beautiful? Is this supposed to make it bearable?
‘Why didn’t you tell me, Mum?’
‘What, Edie? What didn’t I tell you?’
‘About Mr Wong.’
Katherine took a sharp breath. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Why didn’t you tell me about you and Mr Wong?’
She knew. All these years she knew . . .
‘I . . . I didn’t think you’d understand . . . didn’t think you’d approve . . .’ She stopped and looked into her daughter’s eyes. ‘I didn’t want to have to choose between you.’
‘But wasn’t that choosing?’ Edie kicked a stone ferociously into the grass. A bird flew up across their path, a flurry of brown wings.
‘I’m sorry, Edie . . . I . . .’
Edie stared at the road ahead of them. ‘You loved him, didn’t you?’
Katherine blinked. They walked in silence.
‘We’re here,’ Edie said at last. They turned through the hospital gates, up the twisting driveway, past the orchards and raspberry beds to the huge greystone building.
Katherine took his hand, squeezed it, and he turned. She took him in her arms and held him, his cool face against her throat. She could feel his bones, the thin strips of his ribs, his shoulder blades like wings. ‘Robbie,’ she said, a whisper into his hair. ‘My son.’ She felt the slight weight of him, the subtraction of what she had known. She kissed him lightly, afraid if she pressed too hard he might dissolve.
He leaned into her, held onto her, and she felt him begin to shake, small sobs wracking his thin body.
Afterwards Katherine could not return to her rooms. Edie gave her a hug – how long had it been since Edie embraced her – and then went back to Medical School, leaving her to wander the city. She walked up Lower Stuart Street into the Octagon, stared at the statue of Robbie Burns sitting on his tree stump, quill in hand, scroll at his feet. As she watched, a seagull flew down and settled on his head. It looked so ludicrous, Katherine almost laughed. It could happen to anyone, even the high and mighty. Life could come out of the blue – and crap on your head. She started to shake but it was not laughter that came, that wrenched itself in waves from her body.
She fled, trying to control her weeping, trying to control the shaking. She heard horns, the screech of brakes, almost collided with someone whose face she did not see. She tried to slow down her breathing, tried to slow down.
Wiped her face with a handkerchief. Opened her eyes.
The building represented everything she did not believe in, its spire reaching into the sky as if to strike the fear of God into the city. First Church. The One and Only unyielding God.
She walked through the iron gates, passed the manicured lawn, the quiet trees, up the bluestone steps, let the limestone swallow her.
In the foyer, she walked through the open door, into the belly of God.
The church was empty. Late afternoon sun fell through the rose windows, leaving highlights on the western pews and across the straight-backed seats of the choir. She sat in the last row, looking over lines of wooden pews to the front of the church where pipes like silent cannons reached upwards. Two British flags hung from the wooden archway, one on the east, the other on the west, overhanging the altar. She sat alone, fragments of pink light streaking across the ivory walls.
In the silence words resonated, words like forgiveness. Redemption. But she had no words to speak, no words to share. She looked down. On the back of the pew in front of her someone had scratched in angular letters, GOD IS. What? she wondered. She had heard many words. Righteousness. Justice. A consuming fire. And words like love, which could slip off the tongue too easily. A word spoken with the mouth or eyes, with small acts of sacrifice or large. A word with many facets, capable of great clarity and great misunderstanding.
What would she have done differently if she had known? What would she have chosen?
She buried her face in her hands.