Shadow of the Mountain (16 page)

‘T
oes 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 past 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.

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
.

High Tide,
2003

Out on the Edge,
2005

The Sea-wreck Stranger,
2007