CHAPTER TWELVE: The Tide
Mark sat back on his couch.
The evening was still light outside. Sparrows were chirping. A few clouds hovered over Lower Hutt, beyond the windows, and the Harbour was quite still.
He put his feet up, and closed his eyes momentarily. Selena was in her room, no doubt studying. They had eaten dinner quietly together. Now was the time to finally, finally relax.
Mark reached at once for the remote, the paper, and his cup of tea.
The News was on Channel One. Fleetingly Mark glanced at it, and then at the paper in his hands: more bad news of attacks in the streets – this time two more in Lower Hutt, and five in Upper Hutt, not to mention the nine in the city centre.
“Crazy,” Mark muttered to himself.
“…and in Kaitaia,” the woman’s voice drifted over him, from the TV, “a different kind of story. Campers had all their Christmases come at once, when they awoke last Sunday to a feast. A mysterious man invited all the campers of Kaitaia Kauri Camping Ground to indulge in brunch: many there had not eaten so well in years.”
Mark glanced up at the TV, to see an old man in a singlet with a grey beard sidling up to the young reporter.
“Best grog I’ve ever tasted!” he said. “And it didn’t even make me drunk! That’s saying something…”
“The news,” Mark grumbled to himself. “Where’s the decent reporting these days?”
“Not to mention the biggest snapper we’ve ever seen,” a young man said into the microphone, “right, Reverend Rau?”
Now a Maori minister was stepping rather reluctantly into view. Mark frowned. He recognised him: Reverend Rau Petera! Mark never forgot a face. He had met him at the national AGM.
“What is this?” Mark muttered. “Some kind of church initiative up north?”
“Not my doing,” Rau said directly to the audience. “The man beat my record.”
“Sure did,” the young man said, and Mark rolled his eyes.
“But who is this man?” The reporter asked, and now the young man was looking straight into the camera – as if looking straight at Mark.
“I don’t know,” he said, smirking slightly. “God knows we need help: maybe he’s the Messiah!”
Mark stared at him – and promptly dropped his cup.
“My God,” he whispered, rising to his feet, “Tristan!”
Vaguely he heard the cup shatter on the floor as he rose to his feet and went to the TV screen. Tristan! He was a man! How old would he be now: twenty-six? Yes – twenty-six.
Mark dropped the paper, and hastily reached around for a pen and paper. Where? Where…Kaitaia! He was in Kaitaia – in the campground. Which one? Kauri Campground.
He grabbed the laptop, sitting on the table, and dragged it open – searched for the campground, found the number, grabbed his cell-phone, went to call…
His phone was dead.
“Damn!” he said. He reached for the charger, watched the TV – made a mental note to find Rau Petera’s cell-phone number. Selena had emerged. Mark could hear her rummaging in the kitchen.
“There was steak, and bread, and cheese,” Tristan continued happily to the reporter.
“But where is the man?” The reporter asked, turning back to Rau.
Rau hesitated. He glanced around the campground. And then he spoke.
“I don’t know,” he said. “He has a habit of suddenly disappearing.”
Now the reporter looked directly at the camera.
“And so,” she said, “mystery man, or guardian angel? Either way, the people of Kaitaia Kauri Campground are feeling pretty good partying tonight. Think I’ll try some of that steak! Ka kite ano!”
“Thanks, Julia,” the anchor woman said, though the article was actually a few days old. “Ka kite.”
“What a load of crap.” It was Selena’s voice, from behind him. Mark was still staring at the screen.
“Well,” he muttered. “Reporting’s not what it used to be.”
“Not the reporting!” Selena said. “A guardian angel! Like shit!”
Like shit? Mark turned to her. “Young lady, we don’t…”
But her expression stopped him cold.
Her face was white. There were dark shadows around her eyes. The eyes themselves almost seemed a different colour from her usual blue – darker, almost black, as though…
Mark stared at her. “What happened to you?”
“Like you care.”
“I’m asking you a question.”
“And I’m not answering it.”
Mark cast his eyes over her – and then spotted something new on her hand: a tattoo.
He grasped her arm, and looked at it. It was the symbol of an eye, and the number 666.
“Shit!” he said, staring at her. “That’s not funny, Selena!”
“Who’s laughing?” she rasped.
“Quit it with the demonic act! What is it with you? You’re a good girl!”
“See where that got me!”
“What do you mean?”
Her eyes were fixed on his, now: empty – her soul chilling him, a pit of darkness.
“My God,” he whispered. “What I have done?”
“Bugger all,” she said. “You’ve done bugger all.”
“It’s that Alex, isn’t it?” he cried. “That damned boy in the car-park.”
“And why not?” she asked. “It sure as hell was never going to be you.”
Mark stared at her, dismayed – and then mechanically let go of her arm.
“What have you done?” he asked, forcefully controlling the shaking of his body: his tone unnaturally calm.
“You know what I’ve done.”
His vision blurred. Suddenly sweating, he swayed – and then struggled to emerge again, as if through choking smoke.
“You know what I’ve done.”
Her voice was hard: set. Her hand came onto his shoulder – and now, suddenly, a creeping, drowning presence was upon him.
“Get away from me!” he cried, seizing his body away. Desperately he grasped for the cross hanging around his neck: his bishop’s cross. “Get away from me.”
Selena laughed. “Christ?” she said. “You are grasping to Christ now? You haven’t trusted in him for years!”
Mark stared at her – and shook his head, as if from a daze.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh yes I do.”
“I have more faith than you think.”
“No you don’t.”
“More than you think!”
“No. Not since her.” And she pointed.
Mark followed her point – to the photo of Teresa, and young Tristan, and young Selena herself. Pain engulfed him.
“Don’t,” he whispered, knowing what she sought: knowing what she was about to unleash – the very thing he had fled for nine years. “Don’t.”
But she did not obey his plea.
“You killed her,” she said. “You killed her.”
His body stiffened – at first numb at the words.
“It was an accident,” he said mechanically. “An accident.”
“You were at the wheel.”
The tsunami of his heart was threatening to break, now: so close! So very close…
“It wasn’t my fault!” he pleaded, his voice fading. “The brakes failed!”
“You were speeding.”
“A hundred and ten!”
“A hundred and twenty-four.”
The image was in front of his eyes, now – the image he had fled for nine years. 124 kilometres per hour, and then the car suddenly spun out of control…
“How the hell do you know that?” he whispered. “How do you know?”
“You were reckless, and you killed her.”
The tsunami reared up – and now it crashed, within his heart, sweeping all his defences away.
He cried out – and now his nails were pressing sharp into his palms, hurting his palms, while Selena’s torturous words cont
inued.
“You’re a shell of a man,” she said, “denying for so long your own responsibility! Hiding away! Forcing your children away! You stole their mother from them! You stole her away!”
“Shut up!” he cried out, shoving her back one step. “You’re not my daughter! Get the hell away!”
“You’re weak!” she continued. “Insipid! Full of deceit! You love the show, with your flowing robes: pretending to follow your God.”
Pretence? Was it all pretence? Agony consumed him, but somehow, somehow, he could still see: her words, so full of painful reality, were not actually fully true.
“You’re wrong,” he whispered. “I don’t like the show. I don’t like deceit. I follow because I still believe.”
“You may still believe,” she said, “but you no longer trust. Was it you who destroyed our family, or was it God?”
And now the most hidden part of him, the most concealed response, was unleashed.
“God!” he cried out. “God! How could you take my wife?”
“How dare he?” Selena said.
“How could you?” Mark cried out, clenching his fists. “How could you? For faithfulness you give a curse! A curse!”
He was a bishop! A bishop!
Hatred swelled in his heart. It frightened him: hatred for God? What kind of slippery slope was that? And yet it beckoned him. Selena’s face was before him – her dark eyes, fixed on him.
“He betrayed you,” she said, and Mark desperately, desperately fought the tide.
“No,” he said.
“You gave your life to him in service, and he betrayed you.”
“No!” he cried. She couldn’t say that! It couldn’t be true! “No.”
“He has abandoned you, Mark Blake – as surely as you have abandoned your own children.”
Her words were knives to his heart – and yet, in that moment, he could not deny them.
“No…” he whispered. But he felt himself suddenly, thoroughly, defeated.
Selena knew it: Mark could see it in her face. She had an eerie aura of satisfaction about her. She straightened, turned, and walked away. And he was alone.
In agony he slumped onto the floor. Just out of his reach was his cell-phone. The campground was written, there, on the table. Tristan! Tristan…
“Help,” he pleaded, into the air.
Every man needs a minister. The words returned to him. A minister? A minister? But who? Eun Ae Choo’s face appeared before him. Eun? Yes – yes, it could be her. She could help! She could understand.
He fumbled his way back to his cell-phone – there was some charge? He could call her! He went to dial, but then his eyes fell again on the photo of Teresa.
Agony had its way.
It’s your fault! A voice said inside his head. You killed her! And God stood back and let you do it.
“No!” he cried, and he threw his cell-phone to the ground, smashing it to pieces. “No!”
The cross was still around his neck. He dragged it off, and stared at it for a moment. What did it mean? What did it even mean? Nothing! Nothing, anymore. He threw it to the ground, after the cell-phone.
All that was left now was his wife.
In pain, Mark reached for the photo, in its frame, and enfolded it in his arms. He sank down against the wall, to the ground. He closed his eyes. And now he began to cry.
“Teresa!” he sobbed, desperately returning, in his mind, to a time past. “Teresa! I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry.”
And he pleaded with her, in his heart, for forgiveness, and forgiveness never came: and he was locked, in the past, without resolution – without reprieve.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, weeping. And night time fell, but no rest came.