At the Lake Read online

  To Laura and Martin

  Contents

  ‘There you are. There’s your lake’

  Whatever it took, he’d stop it

  Yep, it was cold! Always was

  Here goes, he thought

  Simon felt a jolt of fear

  ‘But why all that security?’

  ‘My name’s Rose!’

  ‘Hang on to the anchor rope!’

  ‘That’s private stuff!’

  ‘Jem!’ he shouted. The dinghy was gone

  The sort of bag you carried cricket gear in

  Fingers and teeth tied the blood knots

  ‘How do we cross it?’

  It was as though they had floated into a bubble of green-blue light

  There was no hiding now as he approached the gate

  The cold gripped him like a huge hand

  ‘I have this terrible feeling that we’re on the edge of something awful’

  He was almost certain there was nobody inside

  Gone looking for Simon

  The chase was on!

  ‘We’ve got a situation here, Barney’

  A roaring darkness took him over

  ‘We’ll be out again at first light with the dogs’

  ‘He may be lying quite close to the lake edge’

  ‘Let’s get things straight’

  ‘Oh-oh, Ah wanna cross the bridge to someplace else’

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  1

  ‘There you are. There’s your lake’

  ‘Get it yourself,’ said Simon curtly.

  ‘But I can’t reach it, and Mum said not to drop it.’

  ‘Stand on the seat. You’re not paralysed.’

  Jem climbed onto the seat and leant against the back to steady himself. He braced his thin legs against the swaying of the bus as he reached up towards the bag.

  ‘Sit down, back there!’ called the driver. ‘Wait until we stop!’

  Jem slid back into his seat, face hot with embarrassment.

  ‘What an idiot,’ sneered Simon. ‘I didn’t say to get it now.’

  Jem looked out of the window. Sometimes he hated Simon. Why had he asked him to get the bag down? It just gave him a chance to be mean. And why was Simon so mean to him? He hadn’t always been like that. Sure, they had their fights, but most of the time they got on OK. ‘You boys look out for each other,’ their father had said at the airport, ‘and make sure you give Mum a hand.’ That was nearly a year ago, and since then Simon never lost a chance to give him a thump or put him down. ‘STOP IT!’ their mother would yell. ‘STOP FIGHTING!’ It wasn’t fair — he never started it, but he got the blame the same as Simon. They were both sent to their rooms, they both lost their pocket money, they were both banned from using the computer.

  Simon looked away: a whole month with his brother in the way all the time. Well, he wouldn’t let Jem spoil things. He, Simon, was the one who went fishing with Barney. He would be in control of the boat. He would swim out off the rock, and Jem would have to keep out of his way. His mouth turned down sourly.

  The bus slowed to turn in to the bus station. Immediately the music started up — that stupid song they had heard every time the bus stopped: What’s the ma-a-atter with ma-a-ay? sang the croaky voice. The way you sing, thought Simon. By the time they had climbed down the steps the song was up to Oh-oh, Ah wanna cross the bridge to someplace else.

  Their grandfather was waiting at the bus station, smiling at them as they jumped down the steps. Jem felt the old breathless feeling. He loved Barney and the holidays they spent with him every summer. He rushed towards him and flung his arms around him.

  ‘Jemmy,’ said Barney. ‘Good to see you, boy.’

  Simon held back. He noticed his grandfather’s old clothes and tousled hair. He remembered the sharp words from last summer.

  But Barney turned to him with a warm smile and hugged him, then held him at arm’s length. ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘You’re shaping up to be as tall as your dad.’

  Simon’s eyes pricked. He knew he was a lot taller than last Christmas, but he didn’t know how his height compared with his father’s because he hadn’t seen his dad since last January.

  They picked up their bags, and Jem handed Barney the package from his mother.

  ‘Mum sent some food,’ he explained.

  The car was a year more battered. Simon sat in the front seat, Jem climbed in the back with the bags, and they pulled out of the car park towards the junction. They knew every bend in the road, every patch of bush, every stand of trees.

  ‘There are your “flavourite” trees, Si,’ said his grandfather as they passed the larches on the right. ‘You called them that for years.’ He made the same remark every time.

  Safely out of reach, Jem sniggered. Simon scowled.

  But he couldn’t stay annoyed for long. This was the road he drove along in his imagination whenever he needed to escape, and the lake was his real home. The landmarks rolled towards them — the start of the track to the old kauri, the Andrews’ front paddock with its sagging fence furred with lichen, the bank overhung with ferns where the glow-worms were brightest. All would lead to the best sight of all: after the final climb to the summit, there would be the lake through the bush, a shallow V of deep, glassy green, framed with ferns in the foreground and with a backdrop of dark, looming hills. They always stopped, climbed out of the car, and feasted their eyes. That was when the holiday really began.

  Simon silently ticked off the markers as his grandfather drove carefully along the narrow, winding road and Jem chattered from the back seat.

  ‘Oh, look at that!’ Barney clicked his tongue in annoyance as they rounded a bend. Ahead was a massive yellow lorry with a long, wide trailer. ‘Darned thing!’ He slowed to a crawl behind the trailer with its zebra-painted end-board and wheel flaps.

  ‘It’s the house-movers,’ he explained. ‘Andrews sold them some land last year and they’ve set up a yard for old houses in transit. Absolutely stupid place for something like that — they must have got the land dirt-cheap. They’re supposed to use the other road, but it’s twice the distance from town so sometimes they take the short cut when they haven’t got a house on board. It’s darned dangerous on a road like this, but they’re getting away with it. Drives us all nuts! You can’t pass on a road like this.’

  He pulled over and stopped. ‘We can do without the fumes once they start to climb. We’ll let them get ahead a bit — they turn off at the two-mile.’

  ‘Where exactly is the yard?’ asked Simon.

  ‘Where the old woolshed is. There are usually a couple of dozen houses at least sitting up on wooden pallets. People buy them for baches. They seem to move about two a week.’

  ‘We can bike around and explore,’ said Jem enthusiastically.

  ‘Not with me,’ replied Simon sullenly. ‘You’ll be doing that on your own.’

  ‘I’d be surprised if you were allowed in,’ said Barney. ‘I suppose it could be risky — a house could slip off its piles, or you might get stuck somewhere. There’s a high fence around it and a gate with a serious-looking padlock. We call the place Guantanamo Bay.’

  ‘What’s that mean?’ asked Jem.

  ‘Don’t you even know that?’ said Simon scornfully.

  ‘Guantanamo Bay’s a big prison in Cuba,’ explained his grandfather. ‘This isn’t a prison, but it sure looks like it. It’s even got a guard on the gate and a guard dog.’

  ‘Where’s—?’ Jem started to ask, but stopped. Instead he asked, ‘What sort of a dog?’

  ‘A German shepherd — big, dark brute.’

  ‘Who’s the guard?’ asked Simon.

  ‘A rough sort of fellow, name of Squint Lewis. No idea where he’s come from, but h
e’s living in the cottage on the farm with his family. The cottage is in bad shape, so it can’t be much fun for his wife. I’m surprised the Andrews even let them have it.’

  Why all that security in the middle of nowhere? thought Simon. I’m going to get in there and look around. On my own.

  I’ll make friends with that dog, Jem promised himself. It would make up a bit for having to leave Drongo in the kennels.

  ‘So keep away,’ continued Barney, ‘and stay out of trouble.’

  He started the car and moved out onto the road. At the top of the hill they pulled over into the lookout.

  Despite the cloudless deep blue of the sky, the lake was dark green from that distance. The hills beyond were in full sunlight, draped in golden afternoon apparel. All around them the bush, warmed by the sun, was alive with insects and birds and gave off a slightly sweet, spicy aroma.

  Jem sniffed. ‘Manuka,’ he said. ‘I bet the bees are having a feast.’

  Barney put his hand on Simon’s shoulder. ‘There you are,’ he said, ‘there’s your lake. The level’s well up from last week’s rain. And the trout are there.’

  It’s so still, it’s like a painting, thought Simon, wondering how an artist would capture the gleam of the water. On the right-hand edge of the painting, the end of the point jutted into the lake. Barney’s house and boatshed at the beginning of the point didn’t make it into the frame. At that moment, though, a boat appeared, moving from left to right, etching lines on the glassy surface. The sound of its motor reached them faintly. Barney narrowed his eyes. ‘There go the Martins,’ he said, ‘off to the store. That’s their motor.’

  It sounds like any old boat to me, thought Jem, but he knew his grandfather could pick the sound of every boat on the lake.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Barney. ‘I’ve got to cook a decent meal tonight for a couple of hungry young fellas.’

  They helped their grandfather carry in the shopping.

  ‘Right,’ said Barney, ‘who’s sleeping in the bedroom and who’s in the sun porch?’

  ‘I’m taking the sun porch,’ stated Simon.

  ‘I want the sun porch!’ said Jem. ‘Why should you decide?’

  ‘Because I’m older than you and that’s what I want.’

  ‘Reading light’s better in the bedroom,’ said Barney.

  Simon hesitated. ‘He doesn’t need a reading light — he’s a useless reader.’

  ‘Am not! I read at night just like you!’

  ‘OK: Simon in the sun porch first fortnight; Jem, second fortnight. Now get busy and unpack your stuff. Dinner in about an hour.’

  Jem tipped his bag upside down on the bedroom floor and picked out a jersey. It got cold around here once the sun had gone. He went outside.

  Simon carried his bag into the sun porch. He sat on the edge of the bed, with its faded, striped cover and the ink stain which his mother had put there when she was a kid. He looked at the lake. The hills were still golden in the late sunlight, and the sky carried a hint of pink. The colours were reflected in the lake. A single trout ring fractured the reflections, then another, and another, as trout rose to the surface to feed on the nymphs.

  Yes, it was exactly as it always was, the place he felt happiest in the whole world. And yet the hollow restlessness he had felt all year — since his father had left, in fact — still nagged at him, even here where he had expected it to fade into the background. He understood why his father had gone, but nobody could fill the gap he had left, and Simon wondered if the money was worth it. Worst of all, both his parents seemed to expect him to fill the gap for Jem. It was unfair, he knew, but it made him angry with Jem.

  Simon brought his mind back to the trout rings which lay overlapping and ever-widening on the gleaming surface. He was determined they would be out there tomorrow evening, sitting in the middle of that pink-gold light, trying to persuade the hungry trout that the flies on their lines were real insects.

  Jem ran down through the rhododendrons to the jetty. The dinghy nudged against it in the gentle swell. He climbed in and slipped the oars into the rowlocks. As he began to untie the painter, his grandfather appeared at the door.

  ‘You’ve forgotten something!’ He strode down to the jetty and tossed Jem a life-jacket. ‘You know the drill; I don’t want to remind you again. And stay in the inlet — the wind’ll pick up soon further out.’

  ‘Yeah. Sorry. I forgot.’ He slipped his arms into the jacket and reached for the straps.

  Jem used one oar to push the boat away from the jetty, and pulled on the other to bring the bow around. The boat glided away. The coarse white pumice sand on the lake bed gave way to weed. He rowed slowly past the reeds. The dumpy little scaups with their rich brown plumage put more distance between themselves and the dinghy as the yellow-eyed males sent out their high warning whistle. Safely removed, they resumed their high-energy diving.

  Grey teals, thought Jem, watching some shy, delicate ducks with pearly-grey cheeks and necks glide deeper into the rustling archipelago of reeds. He was pleased with himself for remembering what Barney had told him last summer.

  Beyond the reeds was Shallow Cove, where the boys usually swam. It was a safe place to swim, not like the rock which jutted out into deep water at the bottom of the Masons’ place. This summer Jem was determined to swim as far out from the rock as Simon.

  He rounded the reed beds and was surprised to see somebody else on the beach. This was their beach. He rested on the oars and let the dinghy drift forward. Two kids stood watching him: a girl about fourteen, he reckoned, and a boy younger than he was. Rough kids, he thought; the sort of kids who snatched your pack at lunchtime and threw it around. But as he got closer, he wasn’t sure — something about the way they stood, something almost wary, like a stray dog, he decided. Then the girl pulled her head back slightly and walked up the beach, followed by the boy. They didn’t look back.

  Jem took up the oars again and rowed on towards the point. His grandfather was right: the water was turning dark grey and choppy beyond the inlet. The sunlight was rapidly retreating up the steep flanks of the hills and the wind was cool at his back. He headed back, pulling strongly on the oars and enjoying the speed of the dinghy through the water.

  2

  Whatever it took, he’d stop it

  ‘Just going out on the bike,’ Simon said to Barney as he left the house and headed for the garage. The bikes were ready to go. Thanks, Barney, he thought as he pulled on his helmet and wheeled his bike onto the rutted driveway. He would just have enough time before tea to see where the house-yard was, then tomorrow he would explore it properly.

  He headed up the hill to the two-mile and took the left fork. Bush lined the road to just beyond the junction; there, it thinned and gave way to scrubby pasture dotted with old tree stumps. The old woolshed would be around the next bend. Riding into the curve he felt the grip of his tyres slipping slightly — oil on the road. He concentrated on navigating through it, and when he looked up again he was shocked.

  He got off his bike and stared. Gone was the paddock with the sagging fence. Instead, a high wire-mesh fence ran along the road frontage on his right as far as the next bend and beyond. On top were three strands of barbed wire sloping outwards, making it almost impossible to climb. HARDINGS HOUSE-MOVERS LTD proclaimed a large sign to one side of a high gate. Behind the fence were the houses.

  Sitting in crooked rows, they looked like a ghost town. Some stood well off the ground on wooden pallets, others were propped up on low wooden blocks, and a couple were sitting on the trays of long trailers.

  Simon rode closer and leant his bike against the fence. Most of the houses closest to the road looked pretty good, he thought, with unbroken windows, OK paintwork and no rust on the roofs. Some even had curtains, and one on a trailer had a blue-and-white striped awning over the front door. I‘M SOLD was scrawled on a window. Maybe it was about to be moved to its new location.

  He pushed his bike towards the gate, continuing to peer through
the heavy mesh. As he moved along the fence, the rusted remains of the woolshed came into view, hemmed in by several houses. He felt curiously comforted that they hadn’t knocked it down. Last summer he had helped out at shearing time, sweeping the dirty wool scraps to one side and into bags. He had snatched moments to watch the shearers creating furrows in the crinkly, greasy wool and peeling the fleeces off almost in one piece. He had helped Mrs Andrews to carry out the trays of food at smoko. He liked sitting with the shearing gang while they gulped down mugs of tea and ate their way through a mountain of scones. It had made up — a bit — for the fact that his dad was about to ‘bugger off across the ditch to Australia’, as he had heard Mrs Andrews telling someone when she thought he wasn’t listening. And he had bought his mobile phone with his earnings.

  He reached the gate and looked at it closely. Although it was closed, the padlock wasn’t fastened. He leant his bike against the fence, pushed the gate open enough to squeeze through, then pulled it shut after him.

  He was standing on a large tarsealed area. On the left was an ordinary-looking house. OFFICE said a notice. Underneath were the office hours:

  MONDAY – FRIDAY: 9 – 5

  SATURDAY: 9 – 2

  SUNDAY: CLOSED.

  NO ENTRY WITHOUT PERMISSION.

  NO UNAUTHORIZED VEHICLES.

  BEWARE OF THE DOG.

  A large kennel stood by the front deck, but there was no sign of a dog. A chain attached to the kennel lay on the gravel. He could hear a dog barking in the distance. One of the farm dogs, he thought.

  Simon looked around. Off the tarseal to his left a gravel road ran towards the back of the yard. A slight rise in the road prevented him from seeing how far it went. Maybe as far as the bush, he thought. Beyond the office was a large shed with two yellow trucks in it. On the right side of the road were the rows of houses. Simon glanced at his watch and realized he would have to head for home. He turned towards the gate, but a noise behind him stopped him in his tracks. He whipped around.