Witi Ihimaera - The Thrill of Falling - Stories

Hey, Whero’s about to begin. The warm-up act has left the stage. The audience is screaming her name: ‘Whero! Whero! Whero!’ The strobe lights are going crazy in the sky.

Whero strides into the light, into the huge engulfing roar. And she smiles at everybody and opens her arms to them as she introduces her first song:

‘This one’s for Red.’

Water promises to be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th century: the precious commodity that determines the wealth of nations — Fortune

He was asleep, dreaming of a hotel, like a mirage, on a tropical island in a beautiful azure sea. The sun was shining in a clear blue sky change that, move a cloud over the sun to cut down the glare, ah, that’s good and the wind was coming cool across the waves.

Where the tropical island came from, he didn’t know. Maybe he’d seen it in some ancient fantasy film shown by Bazza to tease him, yeah, that’s it: South Pacific . He frowned, didn’t want to think of Bazza right now where the hell has that island got to ? Bring it back!

Ah, there it was again. Most people long for another island … a voice sang, teasing, haunting. And there he was lying on a lounger on the beach right in the front of the hotel, where he would like to be. Only a few other people around. Smiling, smelling rich, privileged. Tropical breezes were coming off the shore, bending the palm trees along the golden strand of beach. A special place where sun met the sea.

Aha! The waiter in the white suit had returned, bringing his mai tai in a tall glass with pure ice on top. ‘Just as you ordered, sir.’ The drink was so cool, delicious, oh oh oh, hitting the back of his throat and shivering through his dream.

Now bring on the dancing girls .

At his bidding seven dusky maidens came surfing across the lagoon, all dressed in grass skirts and holding leis out to him sweet leilani, heavenly flower , beaching prettily in front of the hotel. They waved and began to dance a hula just for me ? Their hips swayed to a jaunty ukulele as they came up the beach towards him, onto the hotel terrace and, when they arrived, they took him by the hand and led him to the pool.

But what was this? Freeze frame? Nononono . Another woman was coming out of the waves. Short spiky red hair. Skinny ass. Colby, get outta my dream. This ain’t your party .

Too late. He felt a shivering blast of cold. Somebody shook him awake. When he opened his eyes it was Colby all right, holding a cup of coffee. She was dressed in tracksuit and sneakers.

He was back in his bunk, freezing his butt off in the helicopter base deep in the fiords.

Colby rolled her eyes. ‘Dreaming of hula girls again, are we?’

‘What else am I to do on these cold lonely nights?’

‘It’s a wonder you’re not braindead. Try something warm that moves,’ she said.

‘What about you?’ he asked, reaching up to grab her.

She evaded his arms. ‘The last time, you farted in bed.’ She handed him the cup. ‘Okay Maori boy, I’ll give you five minutes to drink your coffee, and then up and at ’em.’

Drake scratched himself, yawned, put on some music and, sitting up, sipped his coffee. ‘All right, all right,’ he said finally to the clock on the wall.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and slipped on T-shirt, pants and running shoes. He wondered if he was losing his touch with Colby, but his confidence was restored when, towelling himself, he looked at his reflection in the mirror.

‘Still a good-looking sonofabitch at thirty,’ he said to himself. Black curly hair. Caramel complexion and, most interesting, eyes that were different colours: one ice blue, the other light brown. This often caused people to do a double take but, hey, not his fault if mixed Maori and Pakeha ancestry resulted in such an ocular oddity. A good physique — tall and muscular — that he owed to his father, Hemi. And, in homage to his father’s warlike ancestors, a body tattoo of a taniwha, head resting on his left pectoral and scaly carapace hugging his back as if protecting him, the tail wrapping around his right calf.

Drake stretched, and made for the door. As always, he did a check of his room before he left. He took great pride in it, and his eyes lingered on a new acquisition in his bookshelf: beside The Worst Journey in the World , the copy of Moby Dick which he’d bought from an antiquarian bookshop during a recent trip to Wellington. In a world where novels were now available online, it had been aberrant behaviour to buy the book.

But ever since his grandfather had read it to him as a boy he’d loved it.

Call me Ishmael … Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet … then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

As for his tidiness, Drake owed that to his mother, Phyllis. She had been a small, no-nonsense woman. You should always leave your room the way you want to come back to it , she used to say. And she was right: how great it was to be able to return and wrap the cocoon of familiarity around you and let the day drain away.

They were both dead now, Mum and Dad. They’d been in what qualified as an essential industry: a dairy farm in the Waikato. China had replaced the US as the world’s leading economy, with Japan in third place, so most of the milk products went to Asia. Drake had expected to take over the dairy farm but, instead, ten years ago during compulsory military service — he’d chosen the air force and, in particular, helicopter pilot training — he’d gone to the top of his flight class. That had meant a diversion to ‘military operations’ and immediate assignment to what was known as the Hot Zone — the area straddling the equator — to help with the evacuation of VIP civilians.

Hemi and Phyllis hadn’t seemed to mind that, from now on, he wasn’t going to be close to home. Thinking that eventually he would return to the farm, they’d waved him goodbye at Auckland airport, saying, ‘We’ll see you when you get back.’ They’d looked like your regular cow cocky and his missus, dressed up in their Sunday best to farewell him. Drake hadn’t expected to be away for six years and, when he had returned to New Zealand, he assumed they’d be there to greet him, Mum in her blue jersey top, skirt and sensible low-heeled shoes and Dad in his ill-fitting suit and crumpled hat.

They weren’t.

‘We can’t keep meeting like this,’ Colby said when Drake came out of his room. She had already stretched and warmed up. ‘Shall we run this morning or do you want to lift weights?’

Drake squinted into the pearl-grey light. ‘What’s the weather like?’

‘Another beautiful day in Costa Del Fiord-ay,’ she answered. Actually, though, you could never tell from inside the complex; inside was nice and warm all the time, and sealed against cold and rain.

At that moment, Starbuck, Flask, Samurai Sam, Czar and Hari, who was a Parsee, came loping along the hallway. ‘Don’t be a pussy, sir!’ Starbuck yelled. ‘The squadron that runs together …’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ Drake nodded. ‘Okay, Colby,’ he said as the boys joined him at the end of the corridor, where they were all getting into cold weather gear, thermals, hoodies, gloves and eye goggles, ‘lead on. Let’s do the whole circuit.’