Chapter Five
Cullen
Sunrise Bay is a gorgeous little cove, almost a lagoon, as a sand bank across part of it makes it shallow and not great for boats.
The beach is on the small side, too, and the road past it isn’t on the way to anywhere significant.
Tourists and other visitors to the Waitangi Treaty House tend to exit the Treaty Grounds and head south toward the pretty coastal town of Paihia, with its long, sandy, mainly empty beaches.
This means Sunrise Bay and its accompanying town is a hidden gem, frequented mostly by locals, and so far it’s remained quiet and beautiful.
The village consists mainly of one road called—somewhat unimaginatively—Beach Road, that runs from Waitangi and follows the curve of the bay before curling around to the golf club and then returning back to the main State Highway.
Sunrise Bay is so named, so legend has it, because Captain Cook moored just outside the bay when he first came to New Zealand, and when he awoke early, he declared the sunrise was the most beautiful he’d ever seen.
Now, it features a line of shops, cafés, and baches or beach houses, and is home to around five hundred people.
We visit the small café, Fush and Chups—which is how Kiwis tend to pronounce ‘fish and chips’—take our chips, battered sausages and snapper, and onion rings, all wrapped in newspaper, back to the bach, and dish it up onto plates.
Then we pour ourselves a glass of wine, take it all out onto the deck, and eat looking out at the view, watching the gentle waves rolling up the sand.
We don’t say anything for a while. Isla talks quietly to Max in between mouthfuls, but she seems content to enjoy the peace and quiet, which I like, as so many people seem to feel the need to fill a silence.
While I eat, I think over what Isla admitted on our way down the hill. Is it really true? I’m struggling to believe it, but the fact that she knew what Jack called her suggests it’s true.
“You don’t look like Jack,” I say.
“No, I’m like our mum. Jack looked like our dad.
Hold on.” She gets out her phone, presses a few buttons, then turns the screen around.
“Our parents,” she says. It’s a photo of a middle-aged couple, taken close up at a wedding or similar event, as they’re both in smart clothes.
Her mum is wearing makeup, and her hair is neatly styled.
Isla’s right—her mother has the same brown hair and distinctive turquoise eyes, whereas her father is like an older version of Jack, with his sandy hair, his brown eyes, and the same Roman nose.
“Wow,” I say, “he looks just like your dad.”
“Yeah.” She studies the photo and smiles, then turns the phone off and puts it on the table.
I no longer have any doubt that she’s telling the truth.
Jack had been my partner for nearly five years.
We were similar in many ways—quiet, practical Kiwi men who preferred not to talk about feelings and emotions.
Despite this, he mentioned his sister, Bonny, many times, and always talked fondly about her.
He also adored his nephew; I think he mentioned he was called Max, but I didn’t make the connection because it’s a relatively common name.
He did tell me that he didn’t like her husband.
He and Rob had known each other at school, and when I asked what he was like, he narrowed his eyes and called him the C word.
“She can do better,” he said. That was the extent of his description, but it summed up the situation for me, and I didn’t ask for more details.
So I’m not surprised now I’ve put two and two together, but I am sad. Jack would be incensed to discover that Rob has been violent toward both his beloved Bonny and her son. If he were here, I have no doubt that he’d have marched around to their house and knocked Rob’s teeth down his throat.
I watch Max biting into his battered sausage, then glance at Isla. “Does he know?” I mouth.
She nods. “I said it was best that he didn’t mention Jack until you knew.” Max looks at his mum, and she says, “I told Cullen that Jack was my brother.”
“He was your partner,” he says to me.
“Yes.”
“He was killed by an explosion.”
I nod, my throat tightening. “That’s right. I was there.”
“You weren’t hurt?”
“My shoulder was, a bit, but not too bad. Ghost was injured too, but he’s better now.”
“Is that why he doesn’t like people touching him?”
“Yes.”
He thinks about that. “I’m glad you weren’t hurt too much,” he says, and stuffs a few chips in his mouth. “Mum, I’ve had enough. Can I take Ghost on the sand?”
“Of course. Put your hat on. And be very careful on the crossing and look both ways.”
Obediently, he pulls his hat over his hair, then walks down to the zebra crossing. There’s no traffic at all, but he obediently waits and looks both ways, then continues to look while he walks across. Once he’s on the grassy verge, he runs onto the sand, Ghost at his feet.
I watch him go, feeling a strange lightness in my chest. “That was easier than I thought it was going to be.”
She looks surprised. “You thought he’d be angry at you?”
“I was convinced all Jack’s family would blame me.”
“Aw,” she says. “I wish you’d reached out to us. My parents would love to meet you.”
“Really?” My voice is little more than a whisper.
“Of course. He talked a lot about you. They knew you must have been terribly affected by his death, and they heard you’d gone traveling. They did try to get in contact, but I think your number was out of use.”
“I ditched my phone,” I admit. “I walked away from my old life afterward. I’ve been wandering ever since.”
“Wandering?” she asks. “Or running away?” I meet her eyes, but don’t answer. Eventually her brows draw together. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s none of my business.”
“It’s okay. You’re absolutely right. I have been running. I suppose I’ve been afraid that if I stop, everything will catch up with me.” I clear my throat and look into my wine glass. “I’m not used to talking about my feelings,” I admit gruffly.
“I’m guessing you haven’t seen a therapist?”
“I did, when it first happened. The department tried to get me to stay and insisted that talking about it would help. But I just clammed up in front of a stranger. I was convinced that nobody could make me feel better about what I’d done.
I was determined to suffer.” I blow out a long breath. “I feel like a drama queen now.”
“Not at all. It’s called survivor’s guilt for a reason.” Her beautiful turquoise eyes are very gentle and astute. “He was your partner and your friend. He died, and you didn’t. It would have been weird if it hadn’t affected you deeply.”
I stretch out my legs, exhaling, fully emptying my lungs for what feels like the first time since the incident occurred.
“If you don’t want to talk about it now, that’s okay,” she says.
“I don’t mind, if you don’t.”
“No, I like talking about him. It keeps his memory alive.” She smiles.
“What was he like as a boy?” I ask.
She talks for a while about their childhood, standard stuff, holidays at the beach, swimming in the sea together, tales of dares to jump off rocks and races along the sand. It sounds as if he teased her a lot, but he was also protective of his baby sister. That doesn’t surprise me.
“Did he ever have a serious girlfriend?” I ask. “He never mentioned one.”
She tips her head from side to side. “He had a couple of relationships, but his work always came first, and I don’t think he met anyone who was prepared to take second place.”
“Yeah, I get that. The job was all-consuming. His death wasn’t the only reason I left.”
“You found it intense?”
“Yeah. It was great when we were in our twenties, but I’m thirty-two now.”
“Experience must count for a lot in the profession, though?”
“Yes. But your priorities change.”
“You’re looking for different things from life?”
I hesitate, watching Max throwing sticks for Ghost. “I don’t know. I’ve tried not to think about it too hard. I knew I couldn’t stay in the force. Ghost couldn’t carry on, and I didn’t have it in me to train another dog.”
“But you don’t mind training them at the Ark?”
“Ah, it’s completely different teaching dogs to sit and stay, and watching them go on to new forever homes, than it is training a dog to sniff out explosives and firearms.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
We eat our fish quietly for a while.
“He talked about you a lot,” I say eventually.
Her eyebrows rise. “Really?”
“Yeah. And Max. He loved being an uncle. He took him to school on his first day, didn’t he?”
She laughs. “That’s right. Rob was working in Wellington, and I had an appointment I couldn’t miss, so Jack said he’d take him.”
“He loved that. He said he wished he could do it every day.”
“Aw.” Thoughtfully, she gathers up a couple of chips. “It’s a shame he never got to have his own children. He’d have made a great dad.”
“He would.”
She studies me while she eats the chips. “Would you like to have children?”
I put down my empty plate, pick up my wine glass, and let out a long sigh, sliding down a little in my chair. “I didn’t think I had any kind of future to speak of.”
The warm summer breeze blows across my face.
I can smell the sea, and the scent of the jasmine that grows around the side of the bach.
Further down the beach, a group of older kids are playing cricket, laughing as they whack the ball up the sand.
Max is at the water’s edge, encouraging Ghost, who’s swum out to get a stick.
The dog comes back onto the sand and drops the stick at Max’s feet, and he bends and gives the dog a hug. It brings tears to my eyes.
“What do you mean?” Isla asks softly.
I scratch at a mark on my shorts. “It’s easy to think the world would be a better place if you weren’t in it.”
“You considered taking your own life?”
“Yeah. I’ve been to the edge a few times. But I didn’t want to leave Ghost alone.”
We sit quietly for a while. She sips her wine and looks out to sea.