Chapter 31 #2
“Yes,” Georgia said. “Baths feel very nice when you’re cold and tired. I’m glad I don’t have to be in my bedroom alone. It’s good to have one more person, and it’s even more good to have two more people, so it’s more friendly and not scary.”
“Yeh,” Forrest said, his voice still a little timid, but stronger. “I was a bit scared in the earthquake. Because I didn’t know where Fiona was, and I didn’t know where to go. But then your mum told me to come with you. I was still a bit scared then, but not as much.”
“She’s George’s mum,” Georgia said, “but not my mum. She’s only some of our mum.”
“Oh,” Forrest said. “I thought you were all in one family.”
“No,” Olive said. “We probably just seemed like that because it was an emergency. People get closer together in emergencies. That’s in heaps of books.”
“It’s probably a good thing you were with the All Blacks, Dad,” Duncan said. “You always say that’s kind of like a family too. You guys probably weren’t scared at all, though.”
“Nah, mate,” Zane said, “we were scared. Scared for our families, and scared for the people around us, too.”
“Everybody’s scared during a quake,” his mum said. “Course they are. Only natural. Who expects to feel the ground shaking under their feet? Let alone a wall of water coming at them. Where were you when it happened, Zane?”
This was telling stories, he guessed. Processing, or something like that.
Making sense of it. Probably good for the kids, so he said, keeping it calm, “On the coast road, on the bus. Nothing too bad for us, because that bus is big, eh. But some cars turned over and so forth, and we knew we needed to get up the hill straight away, of course, and take the other people around along with us. It was a bit of a puff, climbing that hill, but not as much as a test match. All good.”
“How come you were with the All Blacks?” Forrest asked. “Do you know the All Blacks?”
“He is an All Black, silly,” Scarlett said.
“Oh,” Forrest said. “I never met an All Black before.”
That was a good topic of conversation, Zane guessed.
Normal. Not scary. But still, there was that processing, right?
He said, “Yeh, scary knowing there could be a tsunami coming, and seeing it. Did you lot see it coming, up there in Te Papa?” He only hoped they hadn’t seen anybody washed away.
That they’d been facing the other way or something.
“If I’d known you were up there, I wouldn’t have been as scared. ”
“We sort of saw it,” Finlay said. “Even though it was almost dark. That was the scariest part. I wasn’t that scared of the earthquake. I was only really scared when I saw Mum running out there.”
“Running out where?” Jade asked before Zane could.
“Out onto the pavement,” Finlay said. “To get people.”
A moment of stunned silence, and then Scarlett said, “She was very brave, I think. She gave me her phone before she left and told me to keep everybody together. Like in a film, where the person volunteers for the mission, and they tell somebody else to take care of everyone in case they don’t make it back. ”
“It was very dramatic,” Olive said. “But dramatic isn’t as nice in real life. I didn’t know why she was leaving, so I wasn’t scared right then. I was only scared later.”
“Wait,” Zane said. “What?” The skin was prickling on his scalp, and he had that cold thing again. Fear, was what that thing was. Nobody else was saying anything. Shocked, he thought. And Skylar’s grandfather? He was probably more than shocked.
“I showed her that the water was going out,” Finlay said, “because we learned about tsunamis in school, of course. But there were heaps of people down there who hadn’t learned, I guess, because they were just standing there.”
“Oh, my God,” Jade said quietly.
“So Mum ran down there,” Finlay said. “I didn’t know why she left until I saw her outside.
She got all the people who were close to Te Papa, and they started running inside, and she was at the back, like tonight, making sure everybody was coming.
Then I couldn’t see them anymore, except the people she didn’t get, and then the wave came. I wasn’t sure where Mum was, though.”
Murmurs from around the table, but Skylar didn’t address them. She got up, went around the table to where Finlay sat, put an arm around his shoulder, and said, “Well done, darling, spotting the water going out. I wouldn’t have been in time otherwise.”
“Very well done indeed,” Zane’s dad said. “Both of you.” His eyes met Zane’s across the candlelit table, and Zane thought he knew what that look said. Some guts, it was. Some ticker.
Zane couldn’t say anything. That was because he could see it.
The same thing he and the boys had done, hauling those people up the slope, but they’d done it straight after the quake, and they’d gone fast. He knew how scared he’d been, though.
How it had felt like that wave was right behind him.
How long after the quake had Finlay seen that water going out?
How long had it taken Skylar to run down there?
And, worse: how long had it taken her to run up again? He’d seen the images on TV. Te Papa with the gaping holes where the glass had been, where the water had rushed in. And out again. He could see it right now, and it was making his blood run cold.
That was what he was thinking about now, on the couch, trying to sleep in the absolutely dark house. About that wave coming. About her running. About her courage.
About her fear.
He turned over again, restless. If he’d been at home, he’d have got up and made a cup of tea.
Skylar should’ve had a cup of tea after all that, too.
Tea with sugar, the best thing for shock.
How many cups had he drunk, there in that house on the hill, trying not to fear the worst?
How much harder for her? But the electric was out, so there was no tea.
A stirring in the dark. He couldn’t see anybody; he just knew they were there. He sat up. One of the kids, probably, waking with bad dreams. “Who’s there?” he called softly.
“Me,” a voice said. “Skylar. Groping along here. Sorry to wake you. No phone, and no light. Can you point me to the kitchen?”