Shadow of the Mountain Read online

  ‘Our contribution,’ Dayna said. ‘Dad manages the council recycling centre so he gets it at cost.’

  By the time Julia arrived laden with date scones and the twins, who promptly began throwing crumbling clods of earth at one another, the plants were set out ready for planting.

  ‘I know it’s supposed to be a surprise, but in a way I wish your mother was here,’ she said.

  ‘She’ll be home next month,’ Geneva said. ‘In time for Christmas, she said.’

  ‘And you’re okay?’

  Geneva nodded. Much as she’d dreaded this day, now that it was here it felt as if she’d already passed it, or what it represented — and maybe she had. Her aunt was watching her, one eyebrow up, the other down, in an exaggerated copy of the quizzical look her father sometimes wore. She smiled. ‘Let’s put the kettle on,’ she said. ‘I’m sure they’ll be ready for a smoko break by now.’

  By the end of the day, the view of the mountain wore a flimsy fringe of greenery. ‘It’ll fill out quick enough,’ Geneva’s father announced, testing the stake that supported one of the two-metre eucalypts that had gone into the back row. ‘Dalziell wouldn’t think much of it.’

  ‘Who cares,’ Geneva answered, remembering the architect’s insistence on maximising the view. ‘Dad, can we get one of those boulders from the river — from where we used to camp — and set it up over there?’ She pointed to a cluster of natives at the far end of the new garden.

  Her father nodded. ‘You make a good director of operations,’ he said. ‘Especially with the marshalling baton,’ he added, leaning to tap the crutch.

  Geneva scowled. ‘The sooner I can ditch it the better,’ she said. The physio had said it might be another week or two, and not to push it. ‘I can’t wait to get back on the bike.’ She felt sluggish and unfit after the weeks of inactivity.

  ‘You’ll need to pace yourself,’ Angus said.

  ‘I could start off riding with you,’ she said. ‘That should keep it low key.’

  He grinned. ‘I’ve been training,’ he said. ‘You might be in for a surprise.’

  Her father left them to join Julia and Dan on the terrace.

  ‘Are you going to take up climbing again?’ Dayna asked.

  Geneva glanced towards the adults. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I’d like to — indoor walls at least. But …’

  ‘He’ll understand, I reckon,’ Dayna said. ‘He’s nice, your dad.’

  ‘We can just play it by ear,’ Angus suggested.

  Geneva smiled at the ‘we’, as if it was a decision about them both. Maybe it was. She wondered, briefly, how Miriam would feel about that.

  On the morning of her birthday, Geneva received a barrage of phone calls. Julia, Angus, Dayna. She was halfway through breakfast when the phone rang for a fourth time.

  ‘Happy birthday, darling.’

  ‘Hey, Mum.’

  ‘I know I’ll be seeing you later but I wanted to wish you happy birthday first thing.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It won’t be long and I’ll be home.’

  ‘Yeah, that’ll be great.’ She hoped it was true. The mother she visited every few days still felt like a stranger — but a stranger she could get to know rather than one who had chosen to shut herself off from their lives. ‘Do you want to talk to Dad?’ she asked. ‘He’s right here. We’re having breakfast: berry smoothie and Danish pastries.’ It had been her birthday breakfast all through her childhood. She’d been chuffed that her father had remembered.

  ‘Don’t eat too much or you’ll spoil your appetite for lunch,’ her mother said.

  Geneva grinned: maybe things could return to normal — or some close enough approximation. ‘I’ll try to hold myself back.’ She hesitated. ‘Love you, Mum.’

  ‘I love you too, Gen.’

  As she handed the phone to her father, Geneva reached for the last pastry.

  Her mother’s homecoming later that month was determinedly low key, her husband driving into town to collect her while Geneva stilled her nerves wiping already spotless benches and plumping cushions that hadn’t been sat on.

  At the sound of the car, she hurried outside.

  There was something hesitant about her mother’s movements. ‘Here we are then,’ her father said, as they came up the steps. ‘Welcome home, love.’

  Geneva hugged her mother, gently, as if she might break. ‘Cup of tea?’

  They sat in the kitchen, surreptitiously eyeing one another. We’re still like strangers, Geneva thought — no, not strangers: friends who haven’t seen one another for so long that we’ve lost our common ground. ‘I’m doing grilled salmon for dinner,’ she said, ‘and there’s panna cotta for dessert.’

  ‘Enforced inactivity has done wonders for Genna’s cooking skills,’ her father said.

  ‘She always had a knack,’ her mother offered.

  Geneva smiled. She felt as if she was swimming, as if they all were, out of their depth and uncertain in case the familiar rips and reefs had shifted. ‘Too much cooking and too little exercise is a bit of a bummer,’ she said. ‘I need to get back on the bike.’

  ‘Can you manage, with your leg?’

  It was as near as her mother had yet come to mentioning Geneva’s accident. ‘I’ve got a programme of stretching and strengthening exercises. It’ll be another few weeks before I can start cycling again.’

  ‘I’ve roped Genna into helping me with the vegetable garden on the pretext the exercise is good for her,’ her father said. ‘Our tomatoes are coming on nicely and we’ve already had courgettes. Beans too.’

  They ate on the terrace, home-grown beans with the salmon and the last of the strawberries with the panna cotta, their backs turned to the mountain. Her mother went to bed soon after dessert. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s been lovely, but I get very tired.’

  Geneva was loading the dishwasher when Dayna rang.

  ‘How’d the dinner go?’

  ‘Great. That recipe you gave me for dessert is a winner.’

  ‘I didn’t mean the food.’

  ‘I know. I think it’s fine. It’s kind of weird.’

  ‘Life is. How’s Angus? Still grounded?’

  ‘Not officially, but he’s chained to his desk till after exams: no socialising, no climbing. His mother’s even monitoring his phone time. If I was the neurotic type I’d assume she’s really got it in for me.’

  ‘If Angus was the neurotic type, it might matter,’ Dayna answered, ‘but I think you’re safe there. When are you going to see him?’

  ‘Not for ten days. His last exam’s the middle of next week.’

  ‘Don’t remind me! Only two days till ours start. I feel like my brain might explode if I try to stuff any more into it.’

  ‘Warn me if I need to put on my waterproofs.’

  ‘Your sympathy knows no bounds. See you tomorrow.’

  Dayna’s father had offered to drive her out so they could spend the day revising. Geneva wasn’t planning to beat herself up over exams — the year had already held more than her quota of stress — but with Dayna’s help, she’d likely do better than she could otherwise have expected.

  As she passed the door of her parents’ room she heard the low rumble of voices.

  She and her father had agreed that they shouldn’t make a big deal of her mother’s return, but it still felt like a milestone. It was a milestone: everything was. Milestones, metre stones, inch stones. All of them mattered. Everything that happened was part of who you were.

  32.

  ‘Toes up, toes down, bend the knee. Straighten. Yep, everything seems to be in working order.’

  Angus placed Geneva’s foot, bony and pale, carefully back onto the sun-warmed stones of Kincaid Beach. Geneva wriggled her toes and settled an arm across her face to shield it from the sun.

  With the end of exams, Miriam had deigned to lend Angus the car for the afternoon. Geneva hoped it meant the woman no longer felt quite so frosty about their relationship. The pa
st month must surely have eased her concerns that her son had got himself entangled with a total nutter.

  The stones shuffled noisily as Angus adjusted his position and slid a hand under her T-shirt. She shivered at the delicate brush of his fingers. ‘Those ribs seem to have healed up nicely,’ he murmured. ‘You must have an excellent constitution, Ms Knowles.’

  Geneva smiled as his fingertips traced the outline of each rib. ‘Is this your usual bedside manner?’ she asked.

  ‘Mmm-hm.’ He laid his hand flat on her belly and kissed her. ‘You like it?’

  ‘Might be a bit full-on for some,’ she suggested. ‘But it seems to work for me.’

  Angus stayed for dinner. Geneva offered to cook, but her mother shook her head. ‘You look after your guest and I’ll look after dinner.’

  They were still tiptoeing around one another but the signs were promising.

  Angus talked Geneva into a swim then they stretched themselves on the loungers to catch the last of the sun. At the bottom of the garden, the newly planted trees were forging upwards, the river boulder Geneva and her father had chosen looking completely at home amidst the golden tussock and the glossy foliage of karaka. There was no inscription. Stephen already had a gravestone as well as a cairn. This was a commemoration of the rest of his life; the unremarkable, everyday parts of his life. It didn’t need words.

  Over the tops of the eucalyptus trees, the mountain was etched sharply against the sky. Geneva didn’t mind that they could still see it, despite her father’s efforts. Stephen’s place in their lives wasn’t defined by his death.

  ‘Do you think you’ll come back to the club?’ Angus asked.

  She turned to look at him. ‘Maybe,’ she said cautiously. ‘Dad’s okay with it, as long as I promise not to repeat certain foolhardy behaviour, but he’s worried about how Mum’ll react. She’s more fragile than she used to be.’

  Angus nodded, watching her.

  ‘Stephen’s death changed a lot of things,’ she said. ‘At first you think it’s just about how bad you feel. But something like that creates ripples that run all the way through into the future, and part of you knows that, and that you can’t ever get away from it, even when you want to.’

  ‘Do you want to?’ Angus asked.

  She glanced up. ‘Sometimes,’ she said. ‘Sometimes you want to and can’t, and sometimes you don’t want to but then you find you have anyway.’ She moved restlessly, the chair creaking beneath her. ‘I’m not making much sense,’ she said, apologetically. The last thing she wanted was to confirm his mother’s prejudices.

  ‘Most things don’t,’ he said. ‘Stephen’s death didn’t.’

  She nodded. ‘You know, we never talked about it, Mum and Dad and I, not after the first few days. It was like it shut us off from each other, when it should have brought us together. No one ever acknowledged that we were all feeling it, differently, but the same too. That’s probably why I found it so hard to tell you about Stephen — it wasn’t that I didn’t want to; I just didn’t know how. And Kaitiaki …’ Geneva paused.

  ‘You had to find a way into your grief before you could find your way out.’

  She stared.

  ‘Miriam’s line, not mine. She might be a control freak but she has her uses.’

  ‘Does she still think I’m a nutcase?’

  ‘I don’t think she ever thought that exactly. But your stocks are riding at middling at present.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s not an issue.’

  A breath of wind carrying the scent of fresh-mown grass laced with jasmine blossom reached them. Geneva watched the newly planted trees ruffle and sway. In a few weeks it’d be Christmas.

  ‘Angus?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You’re not going to become obsessed with climbing are you?’

  He grinned and shook his head. ‘I’ve got better things to be obsessed with.’

  Later, as night settled thickly across the paddocks, absorbing everything beyond the radius of light from the open door, Geneva stood with her parents on the front steps. Angus’s headlights lit the drive as the car turned with a soft rasping, like the sound of waves on a shingle beach.

  Geneva hitched an arm around both her parents’ waists, her mother standing taut in her embrace while her father settled his arm easily across her shoulders, his hand curving protectively around her upper arm. We all change, she thought. It’s impossible to predict how, or when, or how fast, but it happens, mostly when you’re not watching. Even if you want to, you can’t make things stand still.

  Turning her face to the darkness that lay densely piled beyond the shadows of the garden, Geneva raised her chin in tribute, to Stephen, to the mountain, to everything yet to come.

  About the Author

  ANNA MACKENZIE is a full-time writer and editor. She lives on a farm in Hawke’s Bay with her husband and two children. Her first novel, High Tide, was featured in the Children’s Literature Foundation List of Notable Books of 2003. Her second novel, Out on the Edge, for young adults, was published by Longacre Press in 2005.

  Her third novel, The Sea-wreck Stranger, is a finalist for the 2008 New Zealand Post Children’s and Young Adults’ Book Awards, is joint winner of the 2008 Sir Julius Vogel Award, and has been awarded a prestigious White Raven Award for outstanding children’s literature. Shadow of the Mountain is Anna’s fourth novel; she is working on her fifth — and the sequel to the acclaimed The Sea-wreck Stranger.

  Also by Anna Mackenzie:

  High Tide, 2003

  Out on the Edge, 2005

  The Sea-wreck Stranger, 2007

  Copyright

  First published with the assistance of

  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior permission of Longacre Press and the author.

  Anna Mackenzie asserts her moral right to be identified

  as the author of this work.

  © Anna Mackenzie

  ISBN 978 1 775531 30 2

  A catalogue record for this book is available from

  the National Library of New Zealand.

  First published by Longacre Press, 2008

  30 Moray Place, Dunedin, New Zealand.

  Book and cover design: Christine Buess

  Cover image: Jimmy Chin/National Geographic/Getty Images

  Printed by Griffin Press, Australia

  www.longacre.co.nz