Amber (39 page)

She dug about in Amber’s pockets until she found the compass, then set it on a rock, opened the lid and stamped on it as hard as she could. Pieces of compass flew everywhere, but all Kitty wanted was the glass. She retrieved the largest shard and placed it carefully between her teeth, then lifted Amber into the waka, pushed off and jumped in herself. The waka was immediately caught by the current and began to move downstream. Behind them, from the depths of the bush, came a series of angry shouts.

Kitty took the piece of glass in one hand and started to saw at the ropes around her wrists, but knew almost immediately that the angle was wrong and it would never work.

‘Mama?’

Amber extended her hand and Kitty, trying not to think about what might happen if Amber cut herself, reluctantly gave her the piece of glass. With the shard held delicately between thumb and forefinger and her tongue poking out in concentration, Amber carefully sliced each strand until the ropes fell away and Kitty’s hands were free. Kitty gave her a delighted squeeze, then quickly cut the rope at Amber’s waist and snatched up a paddle: the waka was being swept along side-on to the current now, and was in
real danger of capsizing. She plunged the paddle deep into the water and brought the waka around so that the prow was facing downstream again, then settled into a rhythm, changing sides with each stroke. Only then did she allow herself a small sigh of relief.

The cries had faded behind them, but they were still a long way from safety. Kitty noticed with alarm that the Kawakawa had breached its banks as far as the eye could see, the thick brown water eddying into the very bush itself. Logs, small trees and, at one point, a dead pig swirled about in the shallows, and the surface of the river was littered with branches and clods of earth. There was no hope of dodging anything, so Kitty resolutely paddled straight through the debris, her head up and her eyes fixed on what lay ahead.

They went on that way for almost an hour, paddling past great gouges where angry waters had taken huge bites out of the banks and flooded the new, raw contours. The sky was a curious yellow colour, bordered by yet more rain clouds gathering in great phalanxes of grey and white, and they saw absolutely no one, Maori or Pakeha, friend or foe.

Then Amber’s head lifted. She sat very still, then turned to Kitty and frowned.

‘What is it, sweetheart?’

‘Turituri nui!’ Amber exclaimed, and flung her arms wide.

Kitty listened, and now she could hear it, too—a deep, dull, roaring sound that seemed to be coming from the river itself.

When they rounded the next bend they discovered the cause. Here, the river narrowed and entered a gorge. Between the elevated banks of volcanic rock there was nowhere for the floodwaters to go, so the river simply picked up speed, carrying the debris along at a breakneck pace and sending spray high into the air.

Kitty’s shrieked warning to Amber to hold on was torn from her mouth as they were plunged into the torrent. The paddle was
instantly ripped from Kitty’s hands, and the waka spun sideways, then straightened, turned again and finally flipped over, spilling both of them into the murky, tumultuous waters. Amber went under immediately, disappearing from sight before Kitty was sucked down herself, her legs tangling in a mass of submerged branches.

The light beneath the churning water was very dim, and the rush of air bubbles past Kitty’s head seemed extraordinarily loud. Struggling violently, and feeling a painful band begin to tighten around her lungs, she kicked free of the branches and struck out for the surface. She broke through, treading water and coughing, and staring wildly around for Amber. Grabbing hold of a log hurtling past her head, she shrieked her daughter’s name over and over, unable to see her anywhere as the madly bobbing detritus shot through the gorge, then gradually began to slow as the river widened once more.

At last she caught a glimpse of something that could be a small, pale face. She pushed off from the log and swam with the current, gritting her teeth as she was jostled and scraped by the rubbish sweeping past. But when she blinked, she lost sight of the little scrap that might have been her daughter, and let out such a shriek of frustration and dismay that she felt the back of her throat tear and tasted blood.

Then she saw it again, bobbing a few yards ahead, half-submerged and caught in the fork of a large branch. Still coughing, Kitty fought her way towards it, not daring to let the branch out of her sight, chanting to herself over and over, ‘
Hold
on, love,
hold
on, love,
hold
on, love’, until finally her hand closed on Amber’s hair and she hauled her head up and out of the water.

Somehow, Kitty managed to struggle to the bank and drag Amber onto dry land, where she sat, cradling the child and keening with despair. Around her a small group of people had
begun to gather, but Kitty ignored them because she thought they were ghosts, and she didn’t have time for ghosts—not now, not while her precious little girl needed her and had to be kept warm in case she had decided to stay after all.

A hand settled on Kitty’s trembling shoulder and a familiar voice said, ‘Kitty,
mo ghrá
, it’s me.’

Kitty raised her eyes, and there he was. ‘Oh God, Rian, help her!’ she cried, holding Amber up to him. ‘
Please help her!
’

But Rian, staring in mute horror now at the small, limp form cradled in his wife’s arms, was paralysed and unable to move.

It was Hawk, moving quickly, who plucked Amber from Kitty’s grasp, laid her on the ground and felt in her neck for a pulse. Grimly he noted the way her limbs flopped lifelessly, and how her eyes had rolled up into her head, and feared that they were too late.

Simon had been distraught when he’d discovered that Kitty and Amber had apparently vanished into thin air. He’d searched the area around their campsite and shouted himself hoarse for over an hour before he’d finally succumbed to despair and collapsed in a heap with his head in his hands. That was how Rian had found him—babbling repeatedly that it was all his fault for not looking after them.

Rian and the crew were heading overland back to Paihia, dirty, tired and deeply disillusioned by the shambles they’d witnessed at the Kapotai pa. Major Cyprian Bridge had proved himself completely incompetent, Tamati Waka Nene’s two most trusted lieutenants had performed almost as poorly, and, worst of all, the Kapotai themselves had behaved no better than children. Rian’s mood, therefore, was already fairly dire, and the discovery that Kitty had taken it upon herself to return to the Bay of Islands and had now gone missing made him white with fear and anger.

As soon as Simon had managed to relate what had happened,
giving only a very garbled explanation of why Kitty had a child with her, Rian ordered Daniel to return to Paihia with the horses, and Hawk to begin tracking. Hawk had picked up Kitty’s trail fairly quickly, despite the wet conditions, and had tracked her back to the Kawakawa, where he’d found a small amount of blood near the river’s edge. Keeping the unpleasant discovery to himself, he advised Rian that it looked as though several people had gone onto the river at that point, although he couldn’t say whether they’d travelled upstream or downstream. Rian, convinced that Kitty had been taken captive by either Heke’s or Kawiti’s people, guessed that they had gone inland, heading for the new pa at Ohaeawai.

It had taken them all that night to walk upriver, never daring to leave the riverbank in case Kitty and her captors had come ashore again somewhere and they missed the signs. The sun had been up for several hours and they were almost asleep on their feet and beginning to fear that Kitty had been lost, when she had crawled out of the swollen river only yards in front of them. Later, Rian told everyone it had been extreme good luck, but Hawk thought it far more likely to be the work of some benevolent god.

Now they were crossing the wide mouth of the Kawakawa and heading back to Paihia in a waka ‘borrowed’ from a landing place near the ruins of Pomare’s pa at the southern end of the harbour. Rian had said very little to either Kitty or Amber, although Kitty noticed him glancing at Amber frequently, as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Amber was pale and clearly exhausted, but she was all right: Hawk had held her upside-down and whacked her across the back until she’d given an enormous start and vomited up what had seemed like several pints of river water. Then she’d cried for a few minutes, sat up, pointed at Gideon’s bald head and smiled.

Kitty had no idea what Rian was thinking because he’d been so reticent, and it was hardly the sort of thing she could discuss with him here, jammed between the crew in a waka in the middle
of the harbour. He was very angry, though, she could see that—especially with her.

Haunui greeted them as they landed at Paihia, eager to know whether the stories of the shambles at Waikare were true.

‘Yes,’ Rian said shortly, then stomped off across the sand.

Unfortunately, he had to stomp back a minute later to ask Kitty whether she was staying with Sarah and was it still acceptable if he stayed there too.

‘Of course it is,’ she replied tersely, unable to decide whether she was feeling anger, frustration or disappointment. She stayed on the beach, talking to Haunui about what had happened, and of her deep shock at the ease with which she had despatched Amy when she’d believed Amber’s life to be at stake, hoping to give Rian enough time to settle down. Then, when Amber started to yawn hugely, she realised she couldn’t delay the confrontation any longer.

Sarah greeted Kitty and Amber warmly as they trudged in through the front door, clearly relieved that they had returned more or less unscathed, then warned them in a loud whisper that Rian was sitting on the bench in the back garden with a bottle of her best port and a face like thunder.

‘Have you had a tiff?’ she asked bluntly.

‘It seems so,’ Kitty replied.

‘About…?’ Sarah nodded her head at Amber, who was yawning
and
rubbing her eyes.

‘Yes,’ Kitty admitted, and related the events of the past few days to her appalled aunt, adding, ‘So, yes, I think it
has
come as a bit of a shock.’

‘Well, I’d be very surprised if it hadn’t,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s not just any man who’d be willing to take on another’s child, you know.’ She dampened the corner of her apron with spit and wiped a dirty mark off Amber’s face. ‘Still, you’re not married to just any man, are you?’ She laid a hand on Kitty’s cheek. ‘Don’t fret,
dear. God has a way of making sure these things work out.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ Kitty said.

She gave Amber a thorough wash with soap and hot water and made her something to eat. As the little girl’s eyes started to droop, she tucked her into bed and sat with her for the few minutes it took her to fall into a deep sleep. Then she went downstairs.

Rian was still slumped on the bench in the garden, his eyes closed and the half-empty bottle of port at his elbow. Ngahuia and Rangimarie were picking vegetables for supper, but after a glance from Kitty, which they returned with a sympathetic look of their own, they went inside.

Kitty moved the port and sat down on the bench.

‘Are you awake?’ she whispered.

‘Yes,’ Rian mumbled, although he didn’t open his eyes.

‘I’d like to talk to you. About Amber.’

Rian said nothing.

So Kitty told him exactly what had happened from the first moment she had encountered Amber in Shortland Street, and how she had been thinking and feeling, and how her love for the child had grown to the extent that she’d had no option but to take Amy’s life. It took her half an hour, during which Rian drank another quarter of the port.

When she had finished, he sat forward with his elbows on his knees and turned his head to Kitty. ‘Do you think it’s right to take a child away from everything she knows and push her into a life completely foreign to her?’

‘I think it’s right if all that child knows is hunger and loneliness and deprivation. She was wearing rags, Rian, and she was starving and someone had been beating her.’

Rian made a face, although whether it was at the thought of a small, defenceless child being battered or because he was finding this conversation so difficult, Kitty couldn’t tell.

‘How the hell are you going to look after her, though?’ he demanded. ‘Have you thought about that? Have you thought about the practicalities of it?’

‘I’ll look after her—
we’ll
look after her—the way any child would be looked after in a good home.’

‘But the
Katipo
isn’t a good home,’ Rian countered. ‘The
Katipo
’s a schooner and people can fall off schooners. People can fall off any sort of ship. Especially children.’

He sat back and contemplated the bottle on the grass at his feet, but didn’t reach for it. Instead, he rubbed his hands over his face and said something so unexpected and so profoundly moving that Kitty could barely swallow around the lump in her throat.

‘My son was so young when he died that we hadn’t even had time to name him. That was the worst thing of all, Kitty. I loved him so much, and he died without a name.’

Kitty slid her hand across the bench, took hold of Rian’s, and waited.

After a moment, he spoke again. ‘What if we took her in, Kitty, and somehow we lost—’ He stopped. ‘Christ, I can’t even say it.’

‘Rian,’ Kitty said quietly, without looking at him, ‘I’ve already taken her in. I can’t undo that. I’ve made my choice.’

She let the implication hang in the air between them, shocked by what she had just said, and even more shaken by the fact that she meant it.

Rian closed his eyes. ‘Then I don’t
have
a choice, do I?’

Kitty squeezed his hand. ‘This is…just how I feel about it, Rian. This isn’t blackmail.’

‘No, I know it isn’t,’ he said eventually. Then he sighed. ‘But you’re more important to me than anything else on this earth, Kitty, and I’m not willing to live my life without you.’ He opened one eye and asked, ‘Do you think she has the makings of a good sailor?’