Settlers' Creek by Nixon Carl

Author:Nixon, Carl [Carl Nixon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781869794033
Publisher: Random House New Zealand
Published: 2010-11-23T16:00:00+00:00

Twelve

Box woke up confused and dry mouthed with voices in his head. He’d been dreaming about his mother. It was the same dream that he used to have all the time as a kid, but it had been a long time since it had last crept up on him.

In the dream they were at an airport, in a big terminal, near the departure gates. People bustled past carrying suitcases, bags strung over their shoulders. Everyone seemed to be moving. It was noisy and crowded in the terminal but Box was perfectly still.

His mother was hugging him goodbye. He couldn’t see her face. She was just a warm body, a pair of arms wrapped tightly around him, and a mixture of smells like crushed pot-pourri held close to his nose.

Box knew that behind him his father and Paul were waiting for him to finish saying goodbye. His mother had to go away for a while. That had been explained to him several times and now his father was angry with Box’s protests. Box didn’t know where his mother was going. She just had to go, somewhere, on a plane. Normally they all went together. Box was as familiar with planes as most kids were with buses. But his mother had explained to him that this time she had to go alone. She would see them in a few days.

He could feel that she was getting ready to let him go. He hung onto her harder and made himself heavy. Over her shoulder Box watched one of those old-fashioned departure boards with its large white letters that could be rolled into place. The letters fluttered and blurred and changed. And then his mother stood, peeling him off her. She touched the top of his head with her hand before walking quickly away. In the dream he still hadn’t seen her face. He watched her back until she was soaked up by the crowd.

Box opened his eyes.

His head was full of that disorientating fuzz that he was always left with after sleeping during the day. The low autumn sun had worked its way under the overhang of the veranda and was shining in through the window so that most of his body was lying in a pool of pale white light. He’d been sweating in his sleep as though he had a fever. His shirt stuck to the arch of his lower back. There was a wet patch on the pillow where drool had leaked from the corner of his mouth.

Mark, he thought.

And then the dream was gone as his son’s death came charging back at him, black faced and red eyed. Box’s mind grasped and scrabbled, trying to get away, to at least gain a handhold on something that would carry him through this. Failed. Tried again. No. An accident would have been bad enough — a car crash, a drowning, even something like that poor kid who got so pissed that he fell asleep on the train tracks. All of those deaths were stupid and pointless and a waste.

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