Aunt Dimity Down Under (11 page)

I returned to my suite with a profound sense of accomplishment and a bone-deep craving for sleep. The jet lag that had left me alone for most of the day had returned with a vengeance. Unfortunately, I couldn’t close my eyes until I’d spoken with my nearest and dearest.

I called Bill, to bring him up to speed on my revised itinerary, to find out how the boys’ day had gone, and to get an update on Ruth and Louise, who were still alive, if not completely well. Then I settled onto the sofa, opened the blue journal, and tried not to sound as drowsy as I felt.

“Dimity?” I said. “I’m back from Aubrey Pym, Junior’s apartment. Things didn’t exactly go as planned.”

I described our encounters with Jessie the landlady and Bridgette the critical care nurse, and summarized what Cameron and I had learned about A. J., Edmund, and Bree Pym.

“In Ed’s case, it was a matter of hours,” I reminded her. “If I’d come one day sooner . . .” I finished the thought with a deep sigh.

“True,” I said. “And you have to admit that A. J. and Edmund didn’t live up to the Pym sisters’ standards, in terms of life expectancy. A. J. was only in his late eighties when he died, and Edmund didn’t make it to fifty. It’s hard to believe they were related to Ruth and Louise.”

“We’ll leave for the Hokianga as soon as Cameron gets back to the hotel,” I informed her.

I instantly vowed to study my new guidebook assiduously before I spoke with Aunt Dimity again, then asked, “How in heaven’s name do you know about the Hokianga? ”

“Why would an eighteen-year-old girl with a good education take a waitressing job in a quiet backwater? ” I asked. “Do you think Bree went there because she needed to put some distance between herself and her father?”

“A boyfriend?” I guessed.

I frowned down at the journal until an unlikely answer popped into my weary mind.

“Are you talking about her
mother
?” I said skeptically. “I don’t think Bree knows where her mother is, Dimity. Ed told Nurse Bridgette that he lost track of his ex-wife after the divorce.”

“You may be right,” I said, yawning. Dimity hadn’t convinced me, but I was too tired to argue with her. “I guess we’ll find out when we get there.”

“Is he related to the Lord of the Rings? ” I asked.

“Talk to you later.” I waited until Aunt Dimity’s words had faded from the page, then closed the journal, rested my head against the back of the sofa, and let jet lag have its way with me.

 

 

Cameron met me in the lobby at four o’clock, as planned. Though he said nothing about my reduced baggage, his smirk spoke volumes. He had, of course, managed to pack everything he needed into a duffel bag smaller than the one I’d bought at Kathmandu.

“Here,” I said, handing him the cash I’d withdrawn from the ATM. “I can’t let you pay the Pyms’ rent. Ruth and Louise wouldn’t approve of you throwing your hard-earned money at their problem.”

“If you insist, he said.

“I do,” I said firmly, and led the way to the car.

After we left the Spencer, I expected to head north, but Cameron confounded me by heading south instead.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Back to the airport,” he replied.

“Are we flying to the Hokianga?” I asked.

“We’ll fly to Dargaville and drive north from there,” he answered.

“Excellent,” I said, foolishly anticipating a quick and easy journey.

When we reached the Auckland Airport, Cameron bypassed the international and domestic terminals and parked in a lot reserved for private pilots. Ten minutes later, I found myself strapped into the copilot’s seat of a tiny propellor plane, wearing a headset and a worried expression.

“Do you know how to fly this thing? ” I said into the little microphone that curved from the headphones to my lips.

Cameron’s confident voice came crackling through the headset: “No, but I’m a fast learner.” As I started to sputter, he held up a pacifying hand. “Relax, Lori. I’ve been flying since I was sixteen.”

I glanced anxiously at the sky. It looked to me as though New Zealand was about to demonstrate how changeable its spring weather could be.

“Have you noticed the black clouds building up in the west?” I asked.

“A snarky low’s coming in off the Tassie,” he replied incomprehensibly. Sensing my bewilderment, he said slowly and distinctly, “A low front is moving in from the Tasman Sea. Should make for a lively flight. We have clearance from the tower. Here we go!”

I was glad that I’d taken a nap before leaving the hotel because I couldn’t have slept during the journey if I’d been drugged. Gusting winds from the “snarky low” buffeted our tiny plane like a cat toying with a Ping-Pong ball, and sheets of rain obliterated the view. I’d never been airsick in my entire life, but by the time we reached Dargaville, I was cursing the impulse that had prompted me to eat lunch.

Cameron tried to lift my spirits by telling me that we would land on the Dargaville Aerodrome’s limestone runway rather than its grass strip, but the news that we would be landing at an airport that still
had
a grass strip failed signally to boost my morale. I gripped the edge of my seat and apologized mutely for every sin I’d ever committed as he zeroed in on the rain-washed runway, but after a few heart-stopping bounces, we were safely on the ground and taxiing toward a small hangar.

My hands shook as I removed the headset and it took me three tries to undo the restraining straps, but I managed to keep my trembling knees from buckling when my feet finally hit solid ground. I pulled up the hood on my rain jacket and let Cameron retrieve all of the luggage. I felt he deserved to be punished for predicting that the flight from hell would be “lively.”

“Camo! Over here, bro!” called a voice.

A stocky man with light brown skin waved to us from the shelter of the hangar. He was dressed in a knee-length slicker, shorts, and flip-flops, and his coal-black hair was clipped close to his skull. Around his neck dangled a curiously carved pendant of highly polished, dark green stone, and his bare legs were covered from ankle to thigh with an elegant, curving pattern of intertwined tattoos.

“Toko!” called Cameron. “Good to see you, man!”

During the introductions that followed, I learned that Toko Baker was a Maori—the first I’d met—and one of Cameron’s oldest friends. The two men chatted briefly in Toko’s native tongue before reverting to English.

“Flight all right?” Toko asked me, winking at Cameron.

“Piece of cake,” I lied, with a carefree shrug.

“Jean Batten would be proud of you, Lori.” Cameron dropped his bag and clapped me on the back. “She was New Zealand’s Amelia Earhart, and as fearless as they come, but compared to you, she was a quaking blancmange.”

“Thanks, Camo,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Car’s waiting for you outside,” said Toko. “I’ll look after the kite.”

“Ta, Toko,” said Cameron.

“Hei aha,”
Toko replied, adding for my benefit, “No worries, mate.”

“We’re borrowing one of Toko’s vehicles,” Cameron said as his friend headed for the plane. “He takes a laissez-faire approach to maintenance, so we won’t be breaking any land-speed records, but we’ll get where we need to go. Only sixty-three kilometers left—round about forty miles.”

“Why didn’t we fly to an airport closer to the hotel?” I asked.

“There isn’t one,” he replied. “And I didn’t think you’d enjoy a paddock landing.”

I didn’t know what a paddock landing was, but if it was more lively than the landing we’d just made, I was quite sure that I would have hated it.

 

 

It rained so hard for the next sixty-three kilometers that we might as well have driven through a tunnel. The scenery Aunt Dimity had praised so highly flashed past in a misty blur. The two-lane road was narrow, hilly, winding, and punctuated by a series of orange signs that featured nothing but a black exclamation point. I soon learned that the exclamation point was a general warning to slow down for a variety of reasons, ranging from road repairs to minor landslides to gaping craters in the middle of our lane. Thankfully, there was little traffic, and Toko’s car was so grossly underpowered that we didn’t really need to slow down to avoid anything.

Cameron insisted that we make one stop along the way, in a place called Waipoua Forest. I began to suspect that Aunt Dimity had somehow influenced his decision when a five-minute hike along a boardwalk snaking through a sodden jungle took us to the base of a gigantic tree known as Tane Mahuta, or the Lord of the Forest.

The tree’s massive trunk soared upward to a crown of stumpy branches covered with mosses, ferns, and vines, as though it were presenting its own miniature rain forest to the sky. Tane Mahuta’s girth, Cameron proclaimed, was just over forty-five feet, and it was nearly 170 feet tall.

“It’s a kauri,” he said proudly. “One hundred percent native to New Zealand. The logging industry took a bite out of our kauri forests in the late 1800s, but Tane Mahuta and some of his cousins were spared. They’re the oldest living things in the Southern Hemisphere.” Rain pelted his face as he tilted his head back to savor the tree’s magnificence. “I know you’re pressed for time, Lori, but we couldn’t pass by without saying hello.”

I didn’t debate the point. I felt such reverence for the ancient tree that I forgot about the rotten weather, the terrifying flight, and the hazardous drive, and wanted only to linger awhile in Tane Mahuta’s majestic presence. When Cameron mentioned that it would soon be dark, however, I came to my senses and galloped back to the car. Nothing short of a medical emergency could have induced me to travel on that road at night.

 

 

Darkness had fallen by the time we reached the Copthorne Hotel and Resort. The graveled parking lot was dimly lit, but the hotel appeared to be a sprawling British Colonial house to which a modern, two-story wing had been added. Palm trees, ferns, and tropical flowers grew in small beds on either side of the entrance, and the muted boom of the surf suggested that we weren’t too far from the sea.

The modest lobby was paneled in dark wood and decorated with Maori artifacts. A printed sign on one wall told the story of Kupe, the great Polynesian navigator. I had time to read most of it, because Ms. Campbell, the middle-aged receptionist, had to finish what sounded like a complicated phone call before she could attend to us.

After verifying the reservations Cameron had made, Ms. Campbell told us that the hotel’s restaurant was still serving dinner and that we would be in the first and second rooms on the upper floor of the modern wing.

“There’s no direct connection between the buildings, I’m afraid,” she said apologetically. “You’ll have to go outside again to reach your rooms. It’s only a few steps away, though, and I think the rain’s let up a bit. Will you be dining with us this evening?”

“Yes,” Cameron and I chorused.

The receptionist smiled. “I’ll reserve a table for you. Come down when you’re ready.” She gestured to a hallway that led off of the lobby. “The dining room is through there.”

“Is Bree Pym on the dinner shift? ” I asked hopefully.

Ms. Campbell’s warm smile wilted and her gaze became guarded. “Miss Bree Pym is no longer employed by the Copthorne.”

“She’s not?” I said, blinking in disbelief. “But we’ve come so far. . . .” My words trailed off into a faintly pathetic whine.