Chapter Twenty-Nine: Me ‘U’ ‘A’, You Two ‘L’s
“Tahiti often provides a stopping off point between North America and Australasia.”
• • •
Tahiti had not seemed as far removed as Stuart had hoped. In fact, it was full of memories of his first meetings with Jan. With Courtney. With Stefan.
It had taken most of the hours of daylight for the ferry boat to complete its uncomfortable passage between Huahine and the main island, but Stuart was only too aware that an airplane could cover the same distance in a fraction of the time, and there was no doubt in his mind that that would be the means by which the Swiss couple would pursue him. Standing on deck, watching the large ocean waves pass endlessly before him, Stuart had had plenty of time to reflect upon his situation, and he had identified that it was Norbert and Corrie who were still the source of his disquiet. The episode with Jan was over. He would hear no more from him. The albino man? He had been more fantasy than reality in Stuart’s world. Guilt for Stefan’s death? That most uninvidious of emotions would be his companion, wherever he travelled, for some time yet, but no doubt it would ease with time. Most things did. But Norbert and Corrie. Stuart realised that he had no hard evidence to feel mistrustful of them. They could be running scared in the same way that he was. But, he could not forget what Jan had said, “That man will stop at nothing to make sure that his name is kept in the clear.” The implication was clear, Jan believed that foul play had overtaken Ian, Mike and Jenny. And that left only Stuart.
It had been a simple task to change his airline ticket. The more miles he could put between himself and these paradise islands, the safer he would feel. He had considered altering his itinerary completely, missing out New Zealand, and flying directly to Australia, and visiting friends he had in Brisbane: he knew it would be a safe haven there. It seemed a shame, though, to miss out on so many of the places that he had read about before he began his journey; places he was looking forward to having the opportunity of visiting. He had wanted to go whale-watching in Kaikoura, see the bubbling mud at Rotorua, the Deco architecture in Napier, the beautiful fjords of Milford Sound. New Zealand: it would be far enough.
The flight to Auckland took six hours. Stuart arrived, as he had done in Tahiti seemingly a lifetime earlier, with the search for a bed as his number one priority, but this time he took the advice of a uniformed official in an accommodation kiosk, rather than take his chance again with the recommendation of a passing stranger. Outside, it was cold and it was raining. North Island was in the grip of winter. The windows of the bus were fogged and streaming with water and it was not possible to make out any landmarks during the ride from the airport to the town centre. The sky was dark and overcast, and the bus terminal and stone bricks of the port authority buildings looked oppressive after the vibrant colours he had begun to accept as the norm in Polynesia. There was traffic too. The constant roar of motor engines and the noisy bustle of everyday life in a big city. Under different circumstances, Stuart could imagine being depressed by his first impressions of the new country, it was too much like a step towards home, towards familiarity - familiar language, familiar brands, familiar culture. Too much like the end of a journey, rather than a beginning. For the time being, though, Stuart was just happy to recognise that in amongst the one million anonymous inhabitants, he had discovered an Antipodean hiding place.
It was a new day in all senses: having crossed the international date line during the flight, a day of Stuart’s life had vanished in an instant. Missing days: he was in danger of allowing this to become a habit. Stuart smiled at the thought, and realised that that single smile indicated the sense of relief he felt at being away from the islands and the threat they offered. Farewell Tahiti, welcome back reality. Whatever that was?
• • •
Blood splattered across the white canvas screen and the doctor’s silhouette was subsumed into that of the larger shadow cast by the monstrous creature. There was no scream, there was simply no time for that. The movement was so swift, there was no opportunity to escape: the great alien head appeared directly next to that of the woman, so close that their two foreheads almost touched; its reptilian jaws gaping, saliva and blood dripping from between the rows of sharp teeth, forming long drools of slime, hanging down to the floor. The creature moved still closer, and the woman braced herself, her eyes closed, prepared for death. There was a powerful blast of acrid breath as the jaws opened wide, and...
Bang! Stuart jumped in his seat. There was a disturbance at the back of the cinema. Disturbance was perhaps the wrong word to describe the arrival of a new movie-goer, but since the number of customers in the whole cinema totalled only four, Stuart included, the newcomer’s presence did seem something of an unwelcome invasion. The door at the top of the large auditorium had closed with a large bang and the latecomer was making his - no, he could see more clearly now, her - way down the long row of steps. Stuart watched as the small, shadowy figure stopped at the aisle in front of him, hesitated, and then purposefully began to make her way along the line of seats. She couldn’t possibly be? I mean, with all the seats to choose from in the whole theatre. She couldn’t possibly be? For a split second, he did a double-take of the woman, fear momentarily gripping him, wondering if it might possibly be Corrie, tracked him down and determined to sit close to him. But even in the comparative darkness of the cinema, it was obvious that this was not the tall, slender figure of the elegant Swiss woman.
The remainder of the film was lost to Stuart in his seething rage of disbelief. He had to bite his tongue to prevent himself saying something. But he knew that he never would. He should have moved, he realised, and he cursed his own good manners which prevented him from so doing and which, instead, meant that he had to endure watching the second half of the movie, his view partially blocked by the latecomer who had chosen to plant herself directly in front of him.
The film was nearing its end. Sigourney Weaver was standing on the edge of a fiery precipice from which there could be no return (unless the cash offer proved to be good enough four years later), and Stuart had decided to leave before the final reel. As a cinematic experience the whole evening had been slightly bizarre. It had started with the glass ceiling, which offered a view of the twinkling stars of the southern night sky above, it had continued with the sparsity of people in the massive auditorium - the dry ice fog and sculptured lions standing guard at either side of the stage were commonplace in comparison to that - and it had ended with the intervention of the inconsiderate interloper. Although, that was not actually quite the end. The cinema had one further surprise that evening. Stuart had just gathered up his jacket from where he had left it, draped over the seat beside him, and had one arm in a sleeve, in preparation for departure, when there was a whirr, a click, a powering down and then silence from the projection box behind and above him, and at the same time the image on the massive screen vanished completely and the cinema was plunged into complete and absolute blackness. Stuart sat in silence waiting for something to happen. It was pleasantly restful; like being inside a warm, dark womb, wrapped up and safe from the problems of the outside world. He felt no great curiosity as to why the lights had gone out; no annoyance at the film being so abruptly truncated; no anxiety that there could be something seriously wrong in the theatre, or in the world outside as a whole. If this was the end - of it all - it was surprisingly peaceful. Stuart recalled an incident a couple of months before he left England: he had been watching TV when the programme cut out unexpectedly, leaving him staring at a blank screen. He had changed channels, the same thing: nothing. He had pressed each button on the remote control: zilch. He had been with Tessa at the time, he recalled. She had looked outside the window. The street lights were on, it was not a power cut. The TV was working, there were just no programmes, and more strangely, no announcements to explain the mysterious interruption, and no captions on the screen promising that normal service would
be resumed as soon as possible. It had only been a little thing, a nothing incident, but it had been strangely disquieting. Stuart remembered thinking at the time that life was not an endless, cosy sitting room, all comfortable and meticulously planned, without jinks and surprise blips. The unexpected could happen at any time: could upset your routine; could alter your perceived future, change the path you imagined yourself following. The holes in his relationship with Tessa had begun to show up quite shortly afterwards. Stuart did not specifically blame the TV breakdown for this. It was just one of those things.
This time, in the cinema, it was different. For the first time, his life was not mapped out ahead of him. He had no idea where he was going. Not tomorrow, not in a year’s time. Stuart could embrace the unexpected. It was quite liberating. His earlier annoyance had been displaced by a sense of calm. If it had not been so dark, it might have been possible to see that he was smiling.
The motion was meant to be a tap on the shoulder, but in the blackness it turned into something closer to a punch in the face. It was enough to bring Stuart around from his reverie.
“What?”
“Sorry, I cannot see.” It was the woman sitting in front.
“What?”
“Do you know what is happening?”
Stuart peered ahead, but the darkness was so complete that he could not even make out the outline of the young woman, who he knew, from bitter experience, was only sitting four feet directly in front of him.
The disembodied female voice continued, “The screen it just went blank. Do you know when the film will come back? That was not the end, was it? Should we go, do you think?”
Stuart had tried to interject an “I don’t know” at several points in the monologue, but had found it impossible to get a word in. Now, suddenly aware that the rapid questions had ceased, and that the auditorium was silent again, Stuart said, “I don’t know.”
The woman, up to now the questioning innocent, suddenly switched to being the informed expert, “I expect it is a power cut. There has been a problem in New Zealand this winter. My friends told me. No heating, power shortages, it is not a good situation. It could be like this for several hours. I think that we should go, don’t you? Here give me your hand and we will try to find the door together.”
Stuart felt himself smacked in the face once again as the young woman reached across to find his hand. “Sorry, I cannot see,” she explained again, unnecessarily.
Embrace the unexpected, that was what he had been thinking before. What the hell! New Zealand, it was a new beginning. Stuart caught hold of his companion’s arm and worked his way down until they were able to link hands. “Lead on,” he said, adding, “I don’t know your name.”
“Michelle. That’s Michelle with two ‘l’s”