Page 51 of Catch a Kiwi
“No,” I said, “because you could pick them up in Dunedin yourself. Well, if you had a ute, you could. If you hadn’t stupidly sold it to some random woman for a third of its value.”
“Collect them yourself, then, if you owe me,” he said. “And come out to dinner with me in Dunedin on Friday night, after your appointment.”
“Can’t,” I said. “Job.”
He frowned. When I didn’t respond, he said, “Fine. Friday night back here, then. And when you’re done with your breakfast, let’s go for that walk on the beach. I could use the peace.”
“Which means I should shut up,” I said.
He grinned again. “Well, that’s one idea.”
Roman
It was Friday again, and even though I never spent consecutive weekends at the Catlins house, the car had got on the road as if it were driving itself. Down the motorway and then finally off it and on the winding road through the hills and, sometimes, looking down on a curving bay and the sea, and I was thinking about the rest of that Sunday with Summer. The images were right there, as they had been all week. When I was busy, I could shut them out. When I was falling asleep, though, or having my senses lulled by the green of the bush and the blue of the sea and the smooth motion of the car, they crowded in uninvited.
Walking on the firm sands along the wide beach with Summer under the endless early-morning sky with its slanting rays of dawn light and its wisps of cloud, an older couple and a runner with his big black dog the only other souls to be seen before seven in the morning, all of uswatching the tide come in with its lapping tongues of foam-edged surf. Susurration, that was the word for the sound the quiet sea made. A whisper. A murmur. How could the sea always calm me, even when it was wild and rough? I didn’t know, but as always, it was as if the sound and the vibrations were in my very bones, especially down here where the wind and water were an elemental force, not the tamed beast that was a city harbour. If you were trying to live in the moment—well, the sea helped you do that, that was all. The salt breeze ruffled our hair, seabirds wheeled and called overhead, and I felt the morning tilt me onto my axis again.
Summer walked beside me, quiet now, and I found myself wondering what she was thinking, something I never did, because it was pointless. Whether she wanted to be here with me, or had thought I needed company after the events of last night. There was an idea to make me squirm, but Summer was a helper. A comforter. She was trying not to be, but you couldn’t change your nature. What she didn’t realize was that I didn’t need any help. I was over it already.
Walking down toward the end of the curving slice of shoreline, then, and spotting the humped brown shapes lying lumpily on the sand. I stopped and said, “We won’t go closer.”
“What are they?” she asked. Not looking like she wished I’d hold her hand, but seeming content.
“Kekeno. New Zealand fur seal. There, the one that’s sitting up. See her fur cape? And hear that yipping?”
“I do,” she said. “They’re beautiful, but they sound like dogs. And how do you know she’s a female?”
“The males want nothing to do with the pups,” I said, “and that’s what’s yipping. Or with the females, either, once the mating’s over. Men, eh.”
“A little like your possible father,” I said. “Or mine, come to that. Whoever he is or was. That never occurred to me, that we’re the same that way.”
“It’s a pretty big club,” I said. “On the other hand, fur seals are good mums. Like yours. And I’m not so sure they’re beautiful. Like giant garden slugs, really.”
“You have no soul,” she said.
I laughed. “You should go to Nugget Point this week. That’s a good view, and you may see elephant seals out there. If you’d been here in November, you could’ve seen the old elephant seal bulls defending their breeding rights. If you thinkI’mpossessive …”
She said, “And, see, that’s not even a sexy topic, because it’s elephant seals.” Still watching the fur seals, one of them waddling out into the sea now with nothing like grace.
“Oh, I dunno,” I said. “The males are about ten times heavier than the females. If that’s not a sexy topic, it may be an interesting physics problem. And they fight for dominance. That could be sexy.”
She said, “Another fail. Let’s walk back.”
Really? She didn’t like that? And yet I’d swear she’d liked it last night, when I’d been fighting for dominance all the way. I looked at the wisps of hair escaping her ponytail, the pink in her cheeks as we turned into the wind, and said, “So. The show.”
She tensed, and I felt it. “I knew this was coming. Better than talking about my marriage, anyway, but wait—I already did that, didn’t I?”
“Barely. I looked at some video on him. Felipe. Show pony, celebrating everything he does, beating his chest. He’d be run straight out of rugby. Footballer all the way.”
“You think?” she said. “You could ask me what possessed me, but you’ve been married twice, so …”
“And I told you about Wife Number One,” I said. “What’s this show all about? Did you star in a porno? Hope you used a different name.”
She stopped and stared at me in astonishment. “Do I seem like the kind of woman who’d be in a porno?”
“No,” I said. “Which is why I wondered about the shame.”
“I’m not ashamed,” she said, walking again. “I’m just embarrassed.”
