Blood Roots: Are the roots strong enough to save the pandemic survivors? (3 page)

Mark wrapped the remains in bedding and carried the bundle up the companionway. They said the Lord’s Prayer together as Mark knelt down on the boarding platform and placed the bundle in the water. They watched as it floated slowly upstream, settling as it went.

‘Will
AWOL
take us to England?’ Zach asked.

‘I think so,’ Mark, replied thoughtfully. ‘At first glance she looks ideal. We’ll check her out properly tomorrow.’

In the morning they found the pump for the dinghy and managed to inflate it enough for Zach to row ashore and tend the horses. As Nicole baled water from the yacht’s bilges, Mark inspected its batteries. They were dead, despite the wind generator still operating. He wasn’t worried; he had plenty of battery cases and carboys of battery acid in his storehouses at Gulf Harbour.

The passports in the chart table showed the yacht’s owner had been a Commander Ball. The log confirmed not only the route
AWOL
had sailed but also detailed the storms she had survived; Commander Ball knew his stuff. Everything on the sturdy steel yacht had been built over-strength: the chainplates holding the mast stays were massive; there were no significant leaks, no worrying clunk from the rudder stock, no rust on the keel bolts, no fraying on the oversize standing rigging. The scrapes on the hull were superficial, and the pulpit could be straightened out. There was a sturdy steel shutter that slid across the walk-through transom; that and the large drain holes promised safety in a storm.

‘She’s just the ticket,’ Mark announced as Zach returned. It had started to rain and the boy was wet through.

Nicole poked her head through the forward hatch. ‘Providing we can get her under the harbour bridge,’ she reminded them.

Her words spurred them on. They spent a further hour searching
AWOL
’s lockers. The only food aboard was a single tin of spaghetti, which they ate cold as their brunch. Far more important to Mark than tinned food was the impressive supply of spares and tools he found in the lockers of
AWOL
’s forward cabin. ‘She’s just the ticket,’ he said for the umpteenth time.

All hopes of reaching Auckland city that day were dashed when they discovered that the section of the Northwestern Motorway that joined the Te Atatu Peninsula with the suburb of Point Chevalier had been swept away by the tsunami. They camped the night at a house in Te Atatu South before continuing their journey the following day.

Numerous barricades, fallen trees and collapsed buildings hampered their progress. Lashing rain didn’t improve their spirits. Neither did it help their view of the harbour bridge as they arrived in what had once been downtown Auckland as darkness descended. Exhausted, and unable to inspect the bridge properly because of the poor visibility, they bunked down in the old Ferry Building, one of the few buildings on the waterfront that had survived reasonably intact.

At daybreak Zach and Nicole found their grandfather standing on the remains of Princes Wharf, peering through his binoculars at the
harbour bridge. The scene of devastation was even more bizarre than Steven had described. The bridge was bent and twisted, in parts lying almost flat to the water. One of the New Zealand Navy’s frigates had been swept up the harbour and was wedged broadside on, blocking the centre span.

‘Will we get
AWOL
through?’ Zach asked.

Finally Mark lowered his binoculars. ‘I think we’ll get through under the span on the far side of the harbour.’

‘So can we go to Epsom now?’ Nicole asked impatiently.

Mark hesitated. He really wanted to build a raft to paddle out and check the clearance. But Nicole was standing, hands on hips, demanding an answer.

‘Of course.’

The feeling of excitement grew as Zach and Nicole urged their horses up Queen Street, towards Karangahape Road. It was five years since Mark had last travelled through Auckland’s main shopping precinct. On his previous visit he had been surprised at how quickly nature was claiming back the street. Now he could hardly believe his eyes. The roadway was barely visible. Long stretches were completely covered with undergrowth, where drains had become blocked by soil swept down from nearby parks. Buildings were festooned with creepers, their tentacles reaching through shop fronts which had been smashed by looters. He wondered how long it would be before the city would crumble and disappear altogether.

Two hours later, as they made their way through the similarly overgrown Newmarket shopping centre, he wondered how his grandchildren would handle seeing their former home in Epsom. He worried too that it might be hard to find their father’s grave in the overgrown garden.

As the horses turned into Ragmot Street, Zach and Nicole could contain themselves no longer. They cast adrift their packhorses, dug in their heels and raced their horses down the street.

‘Your father’s grave is underneath the old plum tree,’ Mark yelled after them.

The ruins of Zach and Nicole’s former home, which had burned to the ground following the pandemic, were covered in weeds. Mark found his grandchildren crying beneath the plum tree at the bottom of the garden. They were staring down at an immaculately kept grave. Attached beneath the cross which read ‘In memory of Bruce Owen’ had been screwed a neatly painted plaque. It read, ‘and of his children’.

Beside the grave, in a bed of roses, were set two further painted plaques. The first read ‘In memory of Christopher Chatfield, his daughters Katie and Sarah, and their children Gina, Holly and Zoë’. The other plaque read ‘In memory of Mark Chatfield and his son Steven, presumed lost at sea’.

Mark wept tears of joy. Jane had survived the tsunami.

‘Mum, Mum!’ Zach and Nicole were shouting at the tops of their voices.

By the time Mark had gained control of himself, his grandchildren
were peering anxiously down Ragmot Street, continuing to call their mother. He joined in. After ten minutes’ shouting without reply, he took his rifle and fired off two shots.

‘Let’s make a bonfire,’ Zach suggested as he began collecting twigs and branches.

An hour later, with smoke spiralling heavenwards and still no sign of Jane, Mark fired a further shot.

Their initial elation, replaced by impatience, had turned to concern. It was clear from the shortness of the grass that the grave had been tended recently. Surely something terrible couldn’t have happened to Jane in the last few days? As the children continued to stoke the fire and call their mother, Mark’s logical mind grappled with the problem.

The ground around the grave, and between the grave and the street, had been trampled by the three of them, so it was impossible to see any other possible tracks. Instructing Zach and Nicole to remain close to the fire, he carefully moved around the perimeter of the garden. The wooden fences, once carefully maintained by Bruce, had blown down in several places. As he completed his circuit he noticed the faintest trace of a path leading through a gap in the fence. He said nothing to the children. He knew the track could easily be a rabbit run.

As the track turned towards the back door of the adjacent bungalow, both his pace and heart rate quickened. Entering the house answered some of his questions, but posed others. He found a pair of garden shears with fresh grass clippings on the blades, inside the back porch. The lack of dust on the bedside cabinet and the bed turned back to air suggested the room had been slept in recently. Paint brushes and small tins of paint on a shelf in the kitchen indicated the plaques had been painted in the house. But the absence of food in the cupboards showed it was not where Jane was living. The fact she had apparently slept the night there, however, suggested she was living some distance away. But where? The plaques had not been painted recently, but the grave was obviously visited regularly. But how often?

As he walked from the house, something white in the undergrowth
caught his eye. He bent down and smiled. Of course; Jane had done what the Maori had done before her.

Zach and Nicole were visibly dejected as he returned to the bonfire alone.

‘Can we fire more shots?’ Nicole asked. Her voice was hoarse.

Mark shook his head. ‘No, we’re short of ammunition. If your mother was anywhere in earshot she would have been here by now.’

Zach started to cry.

‘I think,’ Mark said, cradling the children in his arms, ‘your mum’s living somewhere on the coast. I’ve found fresh pipi shells in the garden next door. And I’m sure she comes to the grave regularly — there are a lot of shells.’

The children’s eyes lit up. ‘Where do you think she’s living?’ they asked.

‘I’m not sure, but we will find her.’

They found paper and pens in a nearby house and wrote letters, which they crammed into a jar and placed on top of the grave. In them, they all told her how much they loved and missed her. Aware Jane might well have lost track of time, Mark’s letter promised that they would return to the grave every month at full moon.

Mark wondered what had happened. Why hadn’t Jane stayed at Gulf Harbour? Why hadn’t she tried to find her children? Where was she living now? Was she living on the shores of Manukau Harbour, the Waitemata Harbour, or somewhere further afield?

Once they had eaten lunch they mounted their horses and headed southwest towards the Manukau. Mark’s decision to search there first was based on the fact Jane had spent her childhood living in Lynfield on the cliffs overlooking the harbour. She knew of the huge Maori shell middens at Cornwallis Beach, and it was possible she may have headed in that direction. As the journey progressed, he also felt a similar calling to that experienced earlier by his grandchildren. He wanted to visit his previous home at Lynfield on their way to Cornwallis.

Almost two years earlier, Jane had been working in the gardens at the edge of the canal in Gulf Harbour, absorbed in her own thoughts. After the noise and chatter of the communal breakfast she was enjoying the solitude. The children were at their lessons with her Uncle Christopher. She was glad he had sent his daughters Sarah and Katie out in
Raconteur
at first light to chase the shoals of fish that had been sighted off the peninsula. In particular she was pleased to be away from Katie.

She was becoming increasingly alienated from her youngest cousin, who she felt didn’t pull her weight in the community. And she was particularly bitter about Katie’s oft-repeated contention that the noonday radio schedule, during which Jane attempted to raise her father and brother aboard
Archangel
, was a waste of time. Jane resented the suggestion, even though she was beginning to admit to herself that the transmission was probably futile. It was more than eighteen months since her father and brother had sailed
off to England. They should have returned by now. She was fearful
Archangel
had been wrecked.

As she weeded the vegetable bed, an argument raged in her head. One voice reprimanded her, telling her she should have agreed to sail with her father. Had she not been so obstinate everyone else would have gone too, meaning her father and brother would not have been forced to sail short-handed. Then a second voice reminded her that it was precisely the risk of shipwreck that had made her so adamant her children’s lives wouldn’t be risked on a hare-brained scheme to sail to the other end of the earth — searching for relatives who might or might not have survived.

She turned to pick up her trowel. As she did so a strange creaking noise caught her attention. She looked up and saw one of the yachts moored in the canal leaning over at an alarming angle. As she jumped to her feet, the mooring lines snapped and the yacht crashed onto its side. The canal was empty.

She began running down the walkway towards the house where the children were attending their lessons. As she fought to climb through the rigging of a mast that had fallen over the walkway she saw a wall of water sweeping up the canal towards her. The noise was deafening. Terrified, she turned and ran into the passageway between two blocks of houses and on across the parking areas to the foot of Marina Hill. Water surged around her legs and knocked her off her feet. She was swept along and sucked into a whirlpool. As she was dragged down, she thought she could see her brother Steven. She held out her hand and called his name.

After what seemed an age, the whirlpool released its grip. Coughing and spluttering, she found herself being swept further up the canal, through the town centre and towards the school buildings at Wentworth College. Weak and exhausted, buffeted by the debris that swirled in the water beside her, she fought to stay afloat as she hurtled towards the wall of the college gymnasium.

Lying on her back, staring up through branches, Jane noticed the sun was low in the sky and realised she must have been unconscious for
several hours. Her muscles ached and her head throbbed. Her whole body hurt. Slowly she moved her limbs, commanding each in turn to obey her brain; reluctantly they complied. At least she appeared not to have broken anything. She felt her face and the huge bump on her forehead and noticed blood and mud on her fingers.

Eventually she managed to roll over and pull herself to her knees. She wanted desperately to find her children. Despite her best efforts, she could not stand and was forced to kneel and peer through the bushes, surveying the scene below. She had come to rest on the hillside between Wentworth College and the former golf course. Undoubtedly the bushes she now looked through had saved her life, snagging her clothing and preventing her being swept back down the canal.

A tangle of rubble and wreckage lay at the top of the canal where the motel and shopping centre had once stood. She was surprised to see the clock tower still standing. The water must have swirled between its spindly legs without bringing it down. By contrast, some of the pre-cast concrete apartment blocks and townhouses had collapsed. Surely no one could have survived such destruction?

Then she told herself Christopher would have realised what was happening and ordered the children upstairs to the bedrooms. The thought spurred her on. Summoning all her mental and physical strength she at last managed to stand, and with the aid of a broken branch stumbled slowly down the hillside.

As she staggered past the rubble where the town centre had once stood, fresh concerns threatened to overwhelm her. Even had the children got up the stairs, would their home further along the canal have survived the tsunami?

A journey that should have taken five minutes took her almost half an hour. The pain in her joints was aggravated by the thick, sticky mud that covered the roadway. It gripped her feet, slowing her progress. She had to continually pause for breath. The area of mud was vast; it covered not only the roadway, but the area where garages, walls, fences and gardens had once stood.

As she turned a bend in the road she saw with relief that the block
of three townhouses that contained the classroom was still standing.

‘Zach, Nicole, Audrey,’ she called. But there was no strength in her voice. Her aching ribcage allowed only a mere whisper to escape.

It seemed an age before she reached the gap where the back door of number thirty-eight Harbour Village Drive had once stood. The door had been ripped off its hinges and all the furniture in the classroom had gone too. It was clear the children would have been lost with their desks had they still been in the room when the wave swept through.

Climbing the stairs to the bedrooms, she called their names again. Her calls went unanswered. She was relieved that the tide mark on the stairs indicated the water had not reached the top of the stairwell, but her heart sank as she searched the bedrooms. There was no sign of the children. Plaster had broken loose and crashed onto the beds as the pre-cast concrete slab structure had twisted and moved with the force of the water. Sobbing, she climbed the stairwells of the two adjoining properties, even though she knew there was no reason why the children would be in either.

She returned to number thirty-eight and searched the bedrooms again, looking under the beds, before staring forlornly out the cracked back window. A line of debris indicated where the water had reached up the side of Marina Hill directly opposite. Renewed hope swept over her. She told herself that the children might have made it up the stairwell when the wave struck, then escaped up Marina Hill when the water retreated. Then she noticed her deep footprints in the thick mud leading to the house. There were no others. She slumped onto a bed and cried herself to sleep.

The barking of dogs woke her at first light. She surmised that the same pack of dogs that had been troubling the community in recent days was attacking the livestock again. Her body ached even more than it had done the previous day. She was hungry and thirsty. She noticed the mixture of blood and mud that caked her limbs and made her way to the en suite, but the taps were dry.

As she reached the foot of the stairs, light streaming through the
gap where the breakfast room patio doors had once stood, glinted on metal. The sight of the corpse of her crippled Uncle Christopher trapped in his upturned wheelchair, pinned against the kitchen wall, brought fresh tears to her eyes. She tried to drag him clear, but was too weak and realised she would need to first find water and food and regain her strength before burying him.

Driven by thirst, she made her way slowly along the roadway, heading towards the stream that fed the lake in the valley that led to Fisherman’s Cove. She had travelled less than a hundred metres when she spotted the pack of dogs lolloping across the brow of Marina Hill. They saw her too and bounded, barking and yelping, down the hill towards her. Unarmed and terrified, she headed towards the closest building, but it had no doors and offered no refuge.

The pack cornered her on the edge of the canal. She felt teeth dig into her leg. The noise was deafening. As she backed away she fell, toppling three metres down into the water. The dogs stood above her, snarling and barking. Some rushed backwards and forwards searching for a way down, but the walls were sheer. Others were leaning forward, clearly considering whether to jump in after her. Taking care not to splash and excite them further, she swam to the other side of the canal. The walls on that side were also too steep to allow her to climb out. Helped by the ebbing tide she swam slowly down the canal. The pack followed her on the opposite bank, watching her intently, snarling and whining.

When she reached the end of the canal and turned away into the area that had once been the marina, she found a slope and hauled herself up onto the spit of land known as Cap D’Amarres. The luxury houses had all been swept away. Only foundations and rubble remained. She hid behind a collapsed wall until she could hear the dogs no more. Her swim had cleaned the mud from her limbs and she discovered her body was covered in cuts and bruises. The salt water she had swallowed when she fell into the canal had increased her thirst, so she set off in search of fresh water once more, this time heading for the stream that ran beside Hobbs Road. She moved as fast as she could, terrified the dogs would skirt round
the top of the canal and attack her again.

It was her dread of the dogs that drove her, as soon as she had quenched her thirst, to haul herself up the steep flight of steps that climbed up to the promontory above the western shore of Hobbs Bay. The large telescope standing in the lounge of the house she entered provided a spectacular view not only over the canal, Marina Hill and beyond, but also over the Hauraki Gulf. She searched the horizon, hoping to sight
Raconteur
’s sails. She felt sure that if her cousins Sarah and Katie had been well clear of land when the tsunami struck, the yacht would have ridden out the wave. But she also knew that had her cousins survived, they should have returned by now.

She consoled herself with the thought that perhaps the yacht had been beached and would be floated off on the next high tide. Then she swung the telescope to the south and focused on the huge jumble of debris trapped between Kotanui Island and the western shore of Hobbs Bay. Not a single vessel moored in Gulf Harbour had survived. Everything had been destroyed or swept away — the workshops, the painting sheds, the floating pontoons and every single mooring pile. She was clutching at straws.

Despondent, she focused the telescope on the canal-side, searching the ruins — there was no movement. She turned her attention to their farm on the former golf course — the dogs were chasing a sheep, which they caught and ripped to pieces. Fresh fears enveloped her; even if the children had survived the tsunami, could they have survived the dogs?

Despite knowing that the only footprints across the strip of mud were her own, she kept searching the hillside opposite for her family. She wanted to go back and bury Christopher but was terrified the dogs would attack her again — it was too risky. Eventually, three days later, she accepted that her children must have been swept away. She felt an invisible force drawing her to the grave of her husband Bruce, and left her sanctuary.

It took her a month to reach Epsom. After struggling to survive for six weeks with only fruit and vegetables to sustain her, she became thin and weak and realised she needed to move back to the coast. She
recalled wading out as a child from Cornwallis Beach on the shores of the Manukau Harbour at low tide, her fingers searching in the sand for pipis to cook on the barbecue. She also remembered the fishermen setting their nets in the shallows, and decided Cornwallis was where she should head.

She searched for materials and painted and erected the plaques in remembrance of her lost family. Then, having promised Bruce she would return every second month to tend his grave, she began her journey.