‘Fuck you, Jack.’
‘Is that the best you can do?’
Caroline pulled a dictionary from the middle of a line of books and hurled it at me, missing by a metre. ‘Get out.’
‘Ding, ding, round one, it’s Caroline Mitchell in the blue corner. She’s coming out fighting, ladies and gentlemen—first the dictionary, now Michener and Mailer, all the heavy volumes. Shit, Caroline.’ A book landed on my leg, the hard corner stabbing my thigh. I stood up, but before I could get my balance she charged, knocking me into and over a chair. I got up, but was knocked down again. In our grapple two more chairs went over. Once on my feet I gathered some strength. She held a footstool which I battled from her grip, smashing the glass top of the coffee table. Then she was at me again, clawing at my face as I swung a fist, hitting her so hard on the back it sounded like a sandbag dropped on a wooden floor. She groaned and withdrew, but only as far as the bottles and glasses left on the table. One at a time she threw them at me, each missed as I dodged, smashing against the wall. I reached the stairs, crouched almost to the floor and took the steps two at a time before running into the night. I waited an hour. By the time I returned Caroline was in the spare room at the bottom of the stairs. I crept past and went up to the now empty bedroom beside the ghoulish scene of our fight and slept until four o’clock this morning.
There will be no work today. The tequila tastes too good, its bite too satisfying, and so I pour my third; and I sit, waiting for the dawn, for the disconnection from the world to end and for Caroline to wake up. I know I’m a vandal, gratuitously smashing our marriage. Now for the day of reconstruction, the long slow job of finding all the pieces and fathoming how to put them back together. It takes longer every time. One day the pieces will be scattered so wide that some will be lost and we’ll never be able to fit them all together. The thought of a solitary life made me shiver: all the empty time, all the drink to fill it with and all those ugly thoughts to keep at bay. So why hasten what I fear most? If I knew that perhaps we might avoid nights like last night. I long to hold her, to nuzzle in her hair and feel the balm of an embrace. It is an ache not even drink can soothe.
The arm of land on the opposite side of the bay was just visible; the first sign that the long slog of night was ending. In half an hour it would be light enough to launch the boat. If I prepared slowly I could fill the time. I set about this task with evangelical enthusiasm.
The Winston is stored in a shed that always smells of diesel and rubber. A single naked electric bulb hanging from the central beam lit the top cabin of the motorboat while leaving its hull and the shed deep in shadow. When I pulled back the tarpaulin, dust flickered in the bright light. Fuel, electrics and engine checked out. Two wetsuits and a wooden box full of pots, with a red nylon rope on top, had been dumped on one of the rear seats. I hung up the wetsuits and took the box into the house, leaving it next to the door of the spare room where Caroline slept. She had been up after I’d come back to the house last night because the downstairs phone had been taken from the bottom step into the room; the lead snaked across the tiles and under the closed door.
Contact now could be fatal; I’ve made this error countless times. But I opened the door slowly and whispered, ‘Are you awake, Caroline?’
She had left the blinds up and the room was lighter than I’d expected. She turned in bed, her back a solid wall to me. ‘Not much chance of that with you banging around out there.’ She was hoarse from last night’s shouting.
‘Sorry.’
‘I doubt it.’
Turn away, I implored myself. Turn away now and leave the questions till later. ‘Who did you ring?’
‘Mary.’
This was a finger in the electric socket moment. ‘Mary?’
‘Precious sister Mary, that’s right.’
‘Why?’
‘That’s what you want, isn’t it? As you keep saying, that’s why we came back so we can kiss and make up.’
‘What did she say?’
She half turned, but not far enough to see me. ‘What are you so nervous about?’
‘Nothing. What did she say?’
‘My, oh my, you’re a curious rabbit this morning.’
‘Caroline.’
‘She didn’t say anything. She wasn’t there. Perhaps I should just drive over and see her.’ She pulled the covers high up to her chin. ‘Now you run along and take the boat out.’
‘You won’t go anywhere until I come back, will you?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be a good girl. I won’t do anything without you.’
I withdrew and stood outside the door for a moment. I had to go. If I stayed her curiosity would be aroused, turning the mocking to the seriously suspicious. I searched the house for the car keys and put them safely in my pocket. With no car there could be no escape. Taxi, what about a taxi? Her wallet was on the table. I took and hid it in the bathroom. There was no one she knew well enough to rescue her. Mary was too far away, and the chances of her dropping everything on a work day and coming to the bach were very remote. I took a bottle of whisky and left the house.
My parents bought the bach in Ohawini Bay in 1976 when I was six with money left to them by Dad’s mother when she died that year. I only ever saw her at Christmas when Dad drove her up from Cambridge where she lived on my uncle’s farm. I have no memory of her except for a picture Dad kept in his bedroom. She was a stern woman, her hair pulled into a bun and large brooch at her throat. The picture always reminded me of the suffragettes. The bach was a simple two-level structure. On the ground floor there were two bedrooms on either side of the stairs and a storage shed that could be reached only from the outside. Upstairs there was the main living room and kitchen with another bedroom off the side. The bach had been well looked after by the previous owners and although the decor was twenty years old it needed no repair.
When Mum and Dad bought it, there were just a handful of older basic wooden baches in the bay. The place swelled with tents and caravans in the summer holidays. A large pack of children played all day on the beach and on the grass paddock behind the beachfront homes. However, gradually most of the old baches disappeared, replaced by bigger, improved baches, or in some cases whole new homes.
Despite development the bay remains isolated in modern terms, any property growth prevented by the natural constraint of rock spits at either end of the beach and the hills behind. The only access is by road from Oakura Bay and then across the beach to the ramp leading up to the baches. Dad bought a little metal boat with an ancient outboard motor from Mr Cummings when he upgraded to a larger motorboat. I can’t remember what Dad enjoyed before the boat, but afterwards his life contracted to a solitary love of taking it fishing. Every holiday, and almost every weekend, was spent at the bach. We would drive up on the Friday night, a pillow and blanket for me on the back seat. We’d arrive at midnight and I’d get a soft shake to wake me. By the time I was ten it was just Dad and I who drove up. Mum stayed in Auckland.
We’d been to the bach in 1984 when we returned on the Sunday evening to find Mum gone. There was no note, nothing; I’ve never seen her since. Dad stopped going to the bach regularly after that. Even after he bought the Winston with his redundancy money to replace the old metal boat, he rarely came. All his passions died that day and he stayed at home as if that act alone might ease the guilt of not being there when she left. Perhaps he hoped to be there when she returned.
Launching a boat in Ohawini Bay follows a time-honoured tradition. Parked next to the Winston was a tractor. All residents with a boat have a tractor; some customise and paint them. One has flames painted from the engine and is named Hot Betty. Our tractor lacked such trimmings: it was old and grey. A blue belch of smoke coughed from the rusted stack on the third turn of the key. The smell of oil now mingled with the rubber and diesel of the shed. I reversed out, the engine chugging with a husky rev where the ride became bumpy. My bottom slammed into the metal seat when I rode a sunken trough in the grass between the shed and the bach. Once I’d turned, I reversed back and hitched the boat, then headed for the only access to the beach, a concrete ramp to the sand. I drove in a half circle through the gently lapping sea and reversed the trailer and boat back into the water. Unhitching the Winston was an effort and I quickly lost my breath, forcing me to rest several times before I was finished. After floating the boat I pulled it out to a safe distance, boarded and dropped anchor before wading back to shore. The exertion brought a taste of tequila riding a wave of bile and I spat half a cup of sick on the sand. I parked the tractor and trailer on the soft sand at the back of the beach, away from the greedy grasp of the morning tide. Three gulls squabbled over the meagre pickings of my vomit and grudgingly retreated when I disturbed them to return to the boat. The clear night had given way to a grey day, but as the cloud thickened, the wind remained calm. The waves were gentle and just kissed the boat’s hull.