Chapter Five
Joel
“Congratulations, Joel,” Alethea says as she hands me the award. “Or should I say Aquaman?” Her eyes twinkle as a ripple of laughter spreads through the crowd.
“For those of you who don’t know,” she continues, stopping me moving on to Richard with a hand on my arm, “As well as being an amazing archaeologist, Joel currently holds the National Record for all of the following: Static Apnea Freediving, the Deepest Free Dive, Dynamic with Fins, Dynamic Without Fins…” She continues to name the other records I hold while I stand there, studying my feet, feeling a tad awkward.
“That’s a crazy list,” she says when she gets to the end. “What’s your secret, Joel?”
“Great lungs,” I reply. “I’d love to write a book about lungs. It’s my aspiration.”
The crowd gives a collective groan, then starts laughing and clapping. I grin and look across the room to our table. Zoe’s face is flushed, possibly from the kiss I gave her. I couldn’t help myself.
I glance at Manu, and I can’t help feeling a touch of pleasure that I won. I’m sure he felt the same way when he received his award. We’re competitive, and it pushes us both to work harder. But, hot on its heels, I feel a flicker of guilt as I hear my father’s voice in my head, summarizing Corinthians, “We don’t boast, Joel, and we’re not proud in this house.”
Anger pools in my stomach. I can’t even enjoy this small accomplishment without my own head bollocking me for it.
I shake hands with Richard, then, carrying the trophy, step down from the stage and head back to my seat. Manu and I exchange another bearhug, and he says, “Congratulations, bro. I’m thrilled for you.”
Alethea begins reading out the nominees for the Public Archaeology Award, so there’s no opportunity yet to talk to the others.
I look at Zoe, surprised to find her studying me, a curious look on her face. But she doesn’t say anything. I wink at her, and she gives me a sarcastic glance in return and looks back at the stage.
Alethea announces the last two awards—both of which go to older, eminent archaeologists who’ve devoted their lives to the discipline—and then she announces that the party is going to continue next door where there will be music and dancing, with the final boat leaving to go back to the mainland at midnight.
Two members of staff open the doors to the next room, and music begins playing, while colored lights flash and cut through the semi-darkness in there. Some people start drifting through, while others stay at the tables, clearly interested in continuing their conversation.
“So,” Zoe says, turning to Hōri on her other side, “you work at the Bay of Islands branch of MOANA? And you’ve been working on the Relentless too?”
Hōri starts telling her about the work we’ve done so far. I listen, sipping my champagne. It’s clear that he finds her attractive. I’m not surprised. I don’t know if she’s aware how beautiful she looks tonight. There’s something exotic about her, with her dark hair and bright-green eyes, and the cinnamon-colored satin dress. She’s like the bird of paradise flowers that grow freely up here in the Northland. I wish I could photograph her and capture that beauty. It might end up being the only way I can keep her to myself, judging by Hōri’s attentiveness.
“Would you like to dance?” he asks.
I feel an uncharacteristic flare of jealousy. “Do you normally ask other men’s girlfriends to dance?”
“Oh, sorry, are you dating?” he asks awkwardly.
“No,” she says. Hōri’s lips twitch.
“She’s hurt her ankle,” I state, “so she can’t dance.”
She glares at me. “Joel…”
“I’ll hold her tightly,” Hōri says. “Make sure she doesn’t fall over.”
“I’m sitting right here,” she says hotly. “Stop talking about me as if I’m an object. I’ll decide who I dance with, if I dance at all.”
I grit my teeth and turn my attention to my phone, which has just buzzed in my pocket. I take it out and see a text from Fraser. How did it go?
I text him back. I won the Archaeological Fieldwork Award . I add a smiley face and hit send.
He comes straight back: That’s amazing, bro. Couldn’t happen to a nicer and more deserving guy. Well done!
I’m touched by his response. Oddly, despite how competitive I am with Manu and most other men, there’s never been an ounce of rivalry between me and Fraser. Most of that is due to him being older and always willing to pretend to let the younger brother win at a race or a board game. But it’s also down to his generous nature and the fact that the guy doesn’t really possess an ounce of aggression. I think I got his share.
Me: Thanks! I appreciate it.
Fraser: You’ve earned it, Joel, and it’s okay to enjoy your success when you’ve worked as hard as you have.
My lips twist. He knows what our father’s response would be, and he understands how I’m feeling.
Me: Yeah, will do.
Fraser: Is Zoe enjoying the dinner?
Me: I think so.
Fraser: Has she succumbed to your ineffable charms yet?
It’s such a Fraser comment that it makes me laugh.
Me: I’m working on it. Night.
Fraser: Night.
I slide my phone back into my pocket. Immediately, though, it buzzes again, this time repeatedly, announcing a phone call.
I take it out again, wondering if Fraser wanted to add something, and then I read the word on the screen: Dad . I frown. There hasn’t been enough time for Fraser to text or call Dad and for him to respond. But he knew I was coming here tonight. Maybe he’s calling to see whether I won.
“Excuse me,” I say to the table in general, but they’re all talking, and nobody pays me any attention. I rise and walk across the room and go outside into the lobby. It’s still busy there, but I find a quiet corner and answer the call. “Hello?”
“Hey,” my father says. “Do you have a moment?”
I glance through the open doors to our table. Zoe is listening to Hōri, but she’s watching me. She looks away when she sees me glance at her, though.
“Sort of,” I say.
“Elora called me this morning. I wondered whether she’d talked to you at all.”
I slide my left hand into my trouser pocket and look out of the window at the moon reflected on the inky black sea. He hasn’t called about the award. He doesn’t even seem to have remembered I’m here today.
“About what?” I ask, my tone clipped.
He hesitates. “About Linc Green. He revealed that I sent him away from Greenfield.”
Greenfield is the name of the school for troubled youths that my parents help run. My father—Atticus Bell—is a deacon and the school chaplain. He holds what he calls adventure therapy, which means he takes groups of students out into the forests and mountains for team-building exercises, and also encourages them to talk to him and each other around the campfire at night. It’s a clever and successful strategy. Fraser, Elora, and I have joined him on many occasions. He was always keen to have us mix with the students as a kind of civilizing influence, I guess.
Lincoln Green—who insists he wasn’t named after the color of Robin Hood’s tights—was one of these students who came to the school at the age of fourteen. Linc and I became close friends, and with Fraser and another boy called Henry, we formed a close-knit group. Linc and Henry often came to our house on the school grounds, and after four years, my father treated both of them, and Linc especially, as his own sons.
And then, when Linc and I turned eighteen, it all went horribly wrong. I knew he was fond of Elora, who was four years younger, but I have to admit I assumed he thought of her as a sister, and I was shocked when I discovered he’d kissed her. Unfortunately, my father saw the kiss. I was present when Dad sent Elora off to her room and yelled at Linc, accusing him of taking advantage of his daughter.
We were all sent to our rooms while Dad sorted it out. And next morning, we discovered that Linc had left.
Dad told us that Linc had packed his bags, walked out, and thumbed a lift to Christchurch. Dad has already been in contact with The Archaeology Group for students with the intention of finding a place for Linc on an excavation, and he told us he’d put Linc in touch with one of the organizers, and they were placing Linc on a plane to Sydney, where he’d then be sent probably to a country in the northern hemisphere, where excavations were more prevalent.
It was 2010, and although most of us had a mobile phone, they were old-fashioned Nokias, and the phone culture was a lot different from how it is now. We didn’t use them much because we all lived close to each other. Fraser and I listened to music on iPod shuffles, and if we wanted to go on the internet, we used a PC. Linc did have a phone—an old one of mine—but although I called him, it went to voicemail, and eventually I realized he must have ditched the SIM card.
So I lost touch with him for a few years. That was hard. We’d been close, maybe even closer than I was to Fraser, as Linc and I were nearer in age, and it was a wrench to have my best friend just vanish like that. Knowing that he’d kissed Elora had also been hard to stomach, and I’d also seen it as an abuse of his position at Greenfield.
Then, three or four years ago, I got a friend request from him on Facebook. After some debate, I accepted it, and spent a while looking through his feed. He was in England by then, although he’d worked in various countries before moving there, going from excavation to excavation—Egypt, Germany, Scandinavia.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about him, and we didn’t talk for a while, but eventually he messaged me, chatting about some dig he was on, and I replied, and we continued to communicate, right up to the moment when he said he was returning to New Zealand for his father’s funeral.
But we didn’t talk about the past. And we didn’t talk about Elora.
And then, just two days ago, we all met at Elora and Zoe’s place for a dinner party. Afterward, Fraser and I went for a drink with Linc. And I finally discovered that Linc didn’t walk out that night after he kissed Elora. My father sent him away.
At first I didn’t believe Linc. He’s smooth-tongued and persuasive, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he made up a story like that to try to get us to like him again. But even as the thought went through my head, I knew I was kidding myself. Linc loved Greenfield, and we’d been like brothers. Of course he hadn’t just walked out. It made perfect sense that Dad had been so furious that he’d expelled the boy he’d felt had betrayed his trust.
Linc had then admitted he’d liked Elora a lot, and that he still has feelings for her. I knew she liked him. She cried for weeks when he left and pined for months afterward. And it was clear from watching her at the dinner party that she feels the same way about him.
So I’m not surprised my father is now calling. I’m sure he’s furious that Linc has come within a mile of Elora.
“Yeah,” I say, “I heard that you sent him away.” The resentment I felt at the time comes back now, making me stiffen. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“I caught him kissing your sister. She was fourteen.”
“I know, Dad. But he insists it was innocent. That he’d never have taken it further.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Then he says, “I know she saw him today, and they’re meeting up again tomorrow. I’m worried about her. After everything she’s been through, she doesn’t need this.”
He’s referring to the fact that, at eighteen, Elora attended an after-ball party at someone’s house. Her drink was spiked with flunitrazepam, and a group of boys took her upstairs and raped her. It was an event that had a profound effect on the whole family and has dominated our lives ever since, even though we don’t talk about it the way we used to.
At the time, I’d just finished my university degree, but obviously the event overshadowed any celebration I might have had. My parents didn’t come to my graduation because they were busy caring for Elora. I understood—of course I did. I hated that Elora had suffered in that way. I wanted to kill the guys who’d done that to her. But that was just the culmination of a long line of similar stories. I’m the middle child, the second born, but somehow constantly in third place behind the oldest and the baby. Forgotten and insignificant.
Self-pity isn’t an attractive trait, Joel . I push it away and concentrate on the conversation. “Elora’s old enough now to make her own decisions about her life,” I say to Dad.
“She’s still vulnerable,” he says. “And you know what Linc’s like. He could sell salt to a slug.”
I bristle. “That’s unfair. He genuinely likes her. He took great pains to explain that he would never have done anything other than kiss her. Fraser and I told him what happened to her. He knows she’s vulnerable. But don’t you think it would be good for her to have some fun while he’s here? She knows him and she trusts him. Don’t you think that’s just what she needs?”
“I can’t believe you’re saying that,” he snaps. “The absolutely last thing she needs is some wide boy seducing her and making her fall in love with him, then abandoning her without a glance back.”
All of a sudden, I’m incredibly tired. “It’s nothing to do with either of us,” I point out. “I’m busy, and I have to go.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at the ANZAS awards dinner.”
“Oh, I forgot you were going. How did it go?”
“I won the Archaeological Fieldwork Award,” I say flatly.
“That’s great, Joel. Well done.” He sounds distracted. He’s probably on his computer, Googling ways to get Linc extradited.
“Thanks. Speak to you later.”
I end the call, feeling frustrated and upset. I slide my phone into my top pocket and stand there for a moment, looking out at the view. The lights of Paihia and Waitangi twinkle in the distance, but the sea in front of me is like a yawning chasm. I wish I could dive into it and descend into the other, mysterious world that exists beneath the surface. I’m at home there, in the quiet and the dark. I don’t belong here.
“Hey.”
I turn to see Zoe standing next to me. She slides her hand into the crook of my elbow and tips her head to the side. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Who was on the phone?”
“Dad.” I run a hand through my hair, forgetting that it’s full of product. The smooth strands separate and spring into their normal curls.
Zoe smiles and reaches up a hand to smooth them down. “You want to talk about it?”
I’d like to, but don’t know what to say that won’t come out petulant and self-pitying, so I say, “Not really.”
She scans my face. Then she says, “Come and dance with me.”
I glance at the room with the flashing lights. The DJ has just started playing the Bee Gees’ How Deep is Your Love . I look back at her. “Wouldn’t you rather dance with Hōri?”
She chuckles. “Come on.” Taking my hand, she leads me across the foyer and into the room.
It’s not as big as the restaurant, but tables and chairs line the edge, and couples are turning slowly on the square wooden dance floor. Zoe takes me across to one side, turns to face me, and rests her left hand on my shoulder. I slide my right onto her waist, still holding her other hand, and we begin moving.
We don’t speak. We’re about six inches apart, the way friends should be. I’d like to slip my hand around her back and pull her toward me so our bodies are flush, but I don’t.
I want to be more than friends. I want to date her, and kiss her properly, and make love to her, and let everyone know she’s my girl. I’ve been obsessed with her for a long time, and it’s not getting better. But I can’t force her to go out with me. I asked her up here this week to see whether, if we spent some serious time in close proximity, I might be able to persuade her that dating me would be a good thing. But if it doesn’t work, I’m going to have to let her go. I do know that. I’m just not very good at admitting defeat.
I look down at her dark hair that gleams in the flashing, colored lights. Her gaze is fixed on my bow tie, and I can’t see her eyes, just those long dark lashes that sweep up and down like fans. Her lipstick has worn off, and her mouth is back to looking pink and soft. My hand rests on the silky fabric of her dress, and it’s hard not to squeeze my fingers and feel her waist beneath it. Her other hand feels small in mine, reminding me of the hug I gave her only this morning, outside her parents’ house. Then, I just wanted to comfort her. Now, I want to kiss her.
The song changes to Eric Clapton’s Wonderful Tonight . It’s a bit of a cheesy playlist, but it is a romantic song, and I give an involuntary sigh.
She looks up at me, and for a long moment we just study each other. Once again, I think how exotic she is; she’s like the angelfish I saw when I went diving in the Great Barrier Reef, beautiful and elegant. I’m looking forward to taking her diving and sharing that experience with her. Plus I get to see her in a wetsuit. Not complaining about that.
She blinks slowly, her lashes sweeping down and up. We’ve both had a couple glasses of champagne, but I’ve seen her drink a lot more than that, and I know she’s far from drunk. Still, I think it’s having an effect. She seems mellower. Softer around the edges.
She swallows, and I watch her throat contract as the muscles move. Then, to my surprise, she closes the distance between us, sliding her hand up so her arm is almost around my neck, and pulling my other hand close to our chests.
In response, I slip my hand around her back and press my palm there, making sure to keep her tight against me. We dance like that for the next few songs, still not speaking.
I’m barely able to breathe. My lips are close to her temple, and I can smell the fresh strawberry scent of her shampoo and her flowery perfume. If I turned my head a fraction, I’d be able to kiss her cheek, and eventually her lips, if she tilted her head up. The kiss I snatched at the table was wicked but brief, barely a brush of our lips, and I long to give her soft, light kisses until she opens her mouth to me, allowing me to slide my tongue against hers. I want to be intimate with her. I want her to let me in.
But the song ends, and the DJ changes to a fast tune with the intention of getting everyone up dancing again.
Zoe moves back. “I wonder what the time is?” she asks, raising her voice.
I check my Apple watch. “Just gone nine.”
“I might get another drink.”
I nod, disappointed, but follow her across the dance floor and out into the restaurant.
I blink at the bright lights, feeling the way I do when I surface after the peace and quiet of a long dive and have to deal with sunlight and cars and people’s inane conversations. I want to stay on the dance floor with Zoe in my arms, as if we’re underwater in that silent world, feeling her soft body against mine, hearing her hum to the songs, and enjoy the hope that filled me for a moment that one day, maybe, there might be more between us.