Death Actually Read online

  Then he felt it. A hand, cold and listless, floating in the water beside him. Grabbing it, he followed it up the arm to the shoulder and the rest of the man, floating head down in the current. He pulled, but nothing happened. Tim was trapped upside down – his foot probably caught behind the steering wheel.

  Feeling his way to Tim’s legs, Nick realised the culprit wasn’t the steering wheel, but the throttle lever. He reached Tim’s boot, untied the laces and tugged as hard as he could. His foot came free and Tim slithered into his arms. Supporting his head, Nick clutched him against his body and squeezed his chest with all his might, over and over again. Tim’s head lolled forwards, and Nick grabbed his hair with his mouth and pulled his head back. It was the only way he could think of to straighten Tim’s airway.

  “Hold the boat still!” he screamed to the people above. “I’ve got him. He’s not good.” He took another mouthful of hair and pulled, silencing the rebellion from his tongue. The water was cold and relentless as it tugged against the boat, pulling it downriver. He could feel the temperature in his body dropping, draining the feeling from his limbs, but still he hugged Tim against him, squeezing his chest, mentally counting out the beat from Staying Alive with each compression, his CPR training from school playing back in his head. If he hadn’t been able to hear people shouting above and around him, he would have given up. The cold was rapidly draining energy from his body, but knowing help was here kept him going.

  He heard hands on the hull, feet in the gravel around the boat, and then a count. One. Two. Three. He shut his eyes against the sudden daylight. The boat was up and carried away and dropped unceremoniously on the bank. People splashed towards them, prised Tim out of his arms and carried him to the bank, where a blanket was thrown over him and someone carried on the chest compressions. One of the sound techs started mouth to mouth. Three of the crew walked-carried Nick out of the water where he collapsed, spitting hair and water from his mouth. Blankets and people crowded him, rubbing his arms and legs in silence, fear etched on their faces.

  Nick was shivering violently. He was alive, but was Tim?

  After a few minutes Nick sat up, but couldn’t stop the shivering. He pulled the blanket tight over his head and body. He didn’t feel one of the grips rubbing his back, while another pulled off his socks and jeans and rubbed his legs. He couldn’t hear his own teeth chattering loudly in his head. It was if he was behind a darkened window from where he could only survey the devastation scattered across this idyllic landscape. Like his mother, he was used to death – but dying was different. He could feel death stealing towards them, swirling around the scene playing out on the gravel bank in the middle of the river. He opened his mouth to warn them, but no sound came. A hand appeared in front of him, holding a cup of hot sugared tea. He took it, but was shaking so much the hot liquid slopped onto the blanket, which he registered was red.

  The minutes stretched. Word came to them … Bill was going to make it. No one said anything about Mike, and no one stopped working on Tim, even though there had been no response. For all intents and purposes, the star was dead. Nick shut his eyes and slumped into the blanket.

  A low murmur followed by a triumphant yell split the air. Tim James had coughed. He was rolled onto his side, and Nick, alert now, watched as brackish river water streamed from his nose and mouth. Just for a moment, Tim opened his eyes. Someone reported a neck pulse. He was alive – just.

  “Keep still, Tim,” said one of the crew. “Help’s coming. You’re gonna make it buddy.” Tim lapsed back into unconsciousness, but now he was breathing on his own, his colour still awful but improving.

  The thud-thud of a helicopter coming up the lake was the best sound Nick had heard all day. Tucking his head into the blanket against the whirlwind of dust as it landed, he heard footsteps running towards him. A paramedic in a high vis vest gave him a quick once over, left some instructions and then ran over to join Ben Goodman, who was working on Tim. Another team was working on Bill. Within ten minutes, Tim and Bill had been stabilised and loaded into the machine. The second-best sound Nick heard that day was the thud-thud of the helicopter flying down the lake, ferrying the two injured men to hospital.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  “It’s about time you showed up, mate,” said Lizzie a few days later, when Nick appeared in her doorway with her order.

  “Yeah,” he mumbled. “Been a bit busy.”

  “Busy? I hear you’re a hero in this town. Tim James would have drowned if you hadn’t been there. I’ve never had a genuine hero deliver my food before. The nurses told me what you did. Now pull up that chair and tell me everything – and I mean everything.”

  Nick was getting tired of being called a hero when he couldn’t remember much of what had actually happened. Flashes of memory played back in front of him at the oddest times. For no obvious reason, he would suddenly be flooded with chilling memories of darkness, cold and the sensation that he was being held down by something or someone. His lack of memory was frustrating not only for him, but also for the police and the insurance assessors, but they reassured him his lapses were not uncommon and he should take his time.

  Strangers had seen his photo on the front page of newspapers in New Zealand and around the world, and were curious to find out more. They would stop him on the street to tell him how brave he’d been, before asking what they really wanted to know. What was it like in the river, holding Tim James’s head out of the water, not knowing if the boat was going to break free and drown them both?

  Such questions didn’t help his state of mind, so he stayed home for a few days, hoping interest would wane and he’d be left in peace. When he did go out he took to ducking into doorways each time someone approached him asking, “Aren’t you that guy who …?”

  “I came here to get away from the questions, Lizzie, not to answer more. It’s over. I want to get back to normal and talk about other people again. How about you tell me what it was like winning that world championship only to lose everything?”

  The distress in his voice triggered something inside Lizzie. Her own memories replayed in her mind’s eye, as they had every day since the accident. She sighed and sat back.

  “I was seventeen. After winning, I only had a short break before I had to start training again. I had a new coach. One of my sponsors found him and insisted I use him. Enzio. He was very good looking and very strict, except when we were off the field. Then he wasn’t strict at all. I was young and pretty, if I do say so myself. Next time you come, I’ll show you my photos and medal if you like. They’re here somewhere. Anyway, hindsight is a wonderful thing. I was also silly, and I let it all go to my head. He let me try all sorts of things I shouldn’t have, which is why my father came to get me. He was worried, and I was so mean to him, Nick. He was the one who really cared about me and had my best interests at heart, not Enzio, but I didn’t find that out till after the accident. You have to remember how different it was then. No internet, no mobile phones, no phone cameras and the press obeyed rules. Your life was your own and not something other people could sell without your permission.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Nick.

  “Most of the sports journalists were at the same parties. They couldn’t expose me, because they were just as bad as I was.

  “It changed after the accident. People love bad news, especially when it happens to someone else. I had been New Zealand’s golden girl before. Afterwards I felt as if people were hoping for the worst, to teach me a lesson for rising so high. It’s the most horrible feeling and l didn’t understand it. One of the journalists had bribed a nurse at the hospital. She told him I would never walk again, and certainly never ski again. Imagine seeing your life written out for you on the front page over breakfast, and so … look at me. I could have done it better. I know that now. Maybe it’s not too late? What do you think?”

  Nick reached over and took her hand, and she let him. He smiled at her and she smiled back.

  “I hear both Bill
and Tim will be OK,” said Lizzie. “People are saying that if Ben Goodman hadn’t got there so quickly, and if he hadn’t been really good at that sort of work, things would be different and all your efforts under the boat would have been wasted.”

  Nick shrugged. “The guys who gave him CPR for so long and who didn’t give up helped too. They were amazing.” He thought for a moment. “Life’s funny, isn’t it Lizzie? One minute humming along and then …”

  Lizzie laughed. They sat together in companionable silence for a few minutes, neither in a hurry to break the peace.

  Nick was the first to emerge from his thoughts. He looked Lizzie up and down. “Lizzie Martin, I think you’ve lost weight.”

  “Might have, but that’s my business, not yours,” she said defensively.

  Nick smiled. Life was getting back to normal when Lizzie went on the attack. “Keep it up, you look fabulous!” he teased as he got up to leave.

  “It’s none of your business you nosy hero,” she yelled.

  Nick reached up, catching the empty coke bottle thrown at his head with surprising accuracy, but when he shook it, he noticed only water in the bottom.

  “Aha!” he said, waggling the bottle at Lizzie. “I was right. Stop wasting your money on the real thing and drink water, Lizzie – it’s free!” he called as he stepped onto the stairs, shutting the door just in time to avoid being hit by the next bottle. This one, he could tell by the thump on the door, was full. “I’ll cancel your coke order,” he yelled. “Tomorrow you can show me your medal.”

  Nick caught his foot on the lifted tread on the second step and nearly fell, saving himself just in time.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  “Are you sure you can do this, Elka?” asked Maggie. “There’s no rush.”

  “I need to get out of the house and get some exercise or I’ll go mad. Come with me round the block a couple of times. I’m sure I can manage that, but I don’t want to go alone, just in case.”

  It was seven o’clock in the morning, and Maggie had driven over to Elka’s house so they could resume their morning walks. Elka met her at the gate already dressed in the brightly coloured clothes she loved, and Maggie didn’t have the heart not to go with her. They walked slowly together for the first few hundred metres before Elka seemed to find her stride and the pace picked up. Thank God, thought Maggie selfishly.

  “So, have you heard from Dunedin? Do you need to go back? With all the fuss from up the lake your problems have taken a back seat,” said Maggie.

  “Sally – that’s my surgeon, remember? – she rang me while I was still at your place. Everything is sorted out. I’m supposed to go back to see one more doctor and then that’s it. I don’t understand why he can’t talk to me on the phone, but there you go. Doctors! God knows what I would have done without Kate. The restaurant is humming along so well without me, I almost feel redundant in my own business. And you too, of course, you’ve been great.”

  “It’s good news then?” said Maggie, looking carefully at Elka for her reaction.

  “Yes. Couldn’t be better. I knew it would be,” said Elka definitely.

  “Nothing to tell me then,” said Maggie, still uneasy.

  “Nope. Done and cleaned.”

  “Dusted.”

  “Sorry?”

  “We say done and dusted, not done and cleaned.”

  “Of course, that’s what I meant.”

  Maggie had a feeling Elka was not being completely honest with her, but she knew Elka could be stubborn. She was a private woman who brooked no interference in her life, not even from Maggie. She would have to wait for Elka to tell her whatever needed to be said in her own time, because without resorting to truth drugs or physical torture, if Elka didn’t want to tell her something, Maggie couldn’t force her.

  “How’s Nick?” asked Elka. They were walking on a track that skirted the lake and took them around a headland amongst tall trees creaking in the soft breeze. The smell of pine needles, warm in the spring sunshine, was delicious, and Elka stopped to take a deep breath. “He was quiet the last time I saw him. Pre-occupied. Kate tells me he’s starting to come out of his shell, now the press have stopped hounding him.”

  “He’ll be fine. Takes a bit to process, though. It’s Mike’s family I feel sorry for. Susie took his body up north when the coroner was finished, for the tangi on his home marae. Their son came back from Australia to be with his family, but they’re struggling.”

  “Does anyone know what caused the accident yet?” asked Elka.

  “Nothing official. The investigation will take months, but there’s been talk Mike might have had a brain haemorrhage. He’s such a good pilot, only something like that could explain it.”

  Maggie noticed that Elka had gone very pale and had slowed right down. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine. But let’s stop for a minute – I need to catch my breath. And then, I think, my fit friend, I’d better go home. Don’t look so worried, I think I’ve done well on my first morning out. Nothing a hot shower and some more painkillers won’t fix. And before you say anything, I do not need any help.”

  “I didn’t say a word,” said Maggie. “As long as you’re sure. I need to get home anyway, because I’m suddenly busy. The flu is starting to take its toll at the rest homes and I’m full up.”

  Maggie saw Elka to her door, relieved to see some of the colour returning to her face. “What time would you like me to pick you up tonight?

  “Tonight?” queried Elka.

  “Estelle’s drinks,” Maggie reminded her. “Tonight. But we don’t have to go. I’m quite happy with pizza and Coronation Street.”

  “I suppose if I sleep now it’ll be OK.” She paused. “No, we are going. What do we wear?”

  “Smart casual, it said on the invitation.”

  “How about I lend you a dress? Something with colour, just for me. Since Kate mentioned you only ever wear black, I’ve been thinking of seeing you in colour, and I like the idea.”

  Maggie looked hurt. “Et tu, Elka. Really? I’ll think about it. But I don’t need a hand me down. Contrary to what Kate’s been telling everyone, I do own non-black clothes.

  A chill wind blew off the lake and up the street, making both women shiver. “Inside and hot shower, now. I’ll be here at five-thirty. No need for us to be the first there, and we don’t have to stay too long. Not on your first night out.”

  When Maggie arrived home she couldn’t miss the red stiletto designer shoes sitting on the bench with a note: These will fit you Mum– wear them tonight. MakeMr Chooproud.

  Maggie thought about this less-than-subtle hint from her daughter. On the one hand it was lovely to be in her daughter’s thoughts, but on the other, she didn’t like being treated like a child. But thirdly … she smiled gleefully. Jimmy Choo! Sex and the City! What red-blooded woman under the age of seventy would say no to the chance to wear such beautiful shoes?

  Maggie kicked off her sensible walking shoes and had just slipped the first shoe on when the phone rang. Hobbling over to the bench to answer it, she noticed straight away how comfortable the shoe was, and how absolutely gorgeous it looked on her foot. Holding her foot up in front of her, twisting it this way and that, she wasn’t paying proper attention to the caller.

  “No, this isn’t Kate. This is her mother, Maggie … No, Kate’s at work. I can give you her work number if you like … No, she won’t be home until much later tonight. What did you say your name was again? … Eric. Eric? The Eric? I’ve heard about you. You worked my poor daughter to exhaustion and then you don’t sponsor her to stay in the UK. Why don’t you stay away? She doesn’t want anything to do with you … You’re coming to Queenstown? … You’re already on your way? Is Kate expecting you, because I’m not sure … She is expecting you. Well, OK then. Look, call me when you get here and we can go from there. Kate is really busy today and tonight there’s a function …”

  Maggie gave him her number and hung up. She hobbled back to the counter and put on
the other shoe, then paraded up and down the living room, holding her baggy track pants up over her knees and out of the way. The shoes looked fabulous, and it suddenly occurred to her she had the perfect dress to go with them, still with the Dunedin label attached and stuffed in a bag in the back corner of her wardrobe.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  There was something holding him in place. It was a feeling, connecting him to the present; a feeling of restraint keeping him from going somewhere serene, a place where he knew he would feel at peace. Sensations poured around him. All he could see was light. He could taste it, too, and with the taste came with a wonderful perfume that brushed him lightly as it swirled around him. Warm presences wrapped around in an all-forgiving wisdom, layered with time. Voices came and went, some kind, some he knew and preferred to forget, but now was the counting time – when he faced his past and it was absorbed. For a moment he saw Mike ahead of him, silhouetted against the brightness, getting smaller and smaller until he was taken up and into the light.

  The feeling pulled at him, insisting he turn away. He could see Nick in his red blanket on the riverbank, ashen faced, watching. He remembered the river gurgling past him and the splashing of people bringing help. The feeling was all powerful and he couldn’t escape it. He searched the light, but didn’t find what he was looking for and turned back. As he did so he knew everything would be as it was supposed to be.

  Tim James woke from his dream with a jolt. This wonderfully serene dream, which had haunted his sleep for the past week, was gone, but the feeling stayed – he was the most content he had ever been. He looked past the end of his hospital bed, past the flowers choking floor and shelf space, and past the open door to the sterile hospital corridor. Something had woken him, and there she was.