25
Land of light
I left Spain a different person. As though my polarities had switched. I had caught the tail end of another life. One that would never be mine. But still, if I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers into the sockets, it was almost possible to imagine.
I felt numb with the loss of my mother. And numb with sorrow for my sisters. They had lost everything. Donald, their father, had lost himself, his schemes and ideas half-formed and failing without Pamela. His heart was scooped out that day on the runway. Their wider family was mostly lost in the fallout from Donald’s affair with their cousin. And the house that held their dreams and plans was beginning to crumble under the Spanish sun.
Christine returned to Canada and I met up with J in London. He was filming in a manor house in the country. Donald, the man my mother had loved, invited us to dinner. They’d met in Sydney after she’d left New Zealand, recovering from a breakdown after my birth.
Donald was the kind of man who engaged with waiters. He discussed the intricacies of the wine and where the asparagus was grown. He told impossibly tall tales that may well have been true. And he spoke of his daughters in a way I’d never heard from a father. His words brimmed with love and pride.
When J went to the bathroom, Donald put his hand on my knee. ‘Leave him,’ he said. ‘He is not the man for you. Come back to Spain with me. Bring your children.’
‘Is it because I look like my mother?’ I asked.
His smile faded. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But yes. You do. And you sound like her.’ He wiped at his eyes as though he might be crying.
I could feel Donald’s emptiness. And I wondered how old Pamela was in his mind. Does the person you’ve loved and lost keep pace with you? When you mark their birthdays, have they aged? Or are they forever caught in the weeks and days and moments before dying?
That night I told J about the baby. He seemed pleased. ‘We’ll make it work,’ he said, acknowledging the rift that had grown between us.
I wanted to believe him. ‘I can’t parent alone again,’ I said.
Something about the apartment he was staying in felt off. I was on high alert, like a cat with whisker fatigue, sensing air currents as if a predator lurked nearby. The next day he drove me to Heathrow and dropped me off at the curb.
Through the long hours of flying, I quashed my suspicions. We were having a baby. I thought about names and knew that if this child were a girl I would call her Lilian. The name I’d always wanted. An offering or a vow. A name wrapped up in flowers, purity and beauty. The name my mother had given me.
I lifted the window shade onto absolute blackness. The man I thought of as my father was still a mystery, existing through articles in magazines and books. My mother’s footprints were all private, the echo of her life held by those who had loved her. I still knew so little about her. She was born in Stockport in the United Kingdom and grew up around Manchester. Her mother was taciturn, a woman who soldiered on, no matter what. Her father had come home from World War Two unable to speak of its horrors. I imagine that Ian, her older brother, had taken good care of his little sister. She’d had grandparents and cousins, too. And then they’d emigrated to New Zealand.
I took out the photograph Donald had given me. She is sitting on a stone wall in front of a country church. She is wearing slim pants. Her long legs are crossed at the ankle. She is stylish and young, gazing past the camera, just out of focus, past the unknown person taking the photo. Perhaps she is looking towards a graveyard or a wide-open field. According to Donald, she was newly pregnant with me. Maybe it was taken the day she boarded the ship for New Zealand.
After they took me, she tried to live in Australia and then back in London. Then she tried Spain. She found herself at home on the hill above the Mediterranean. In an ancient place once occupied by the Phoenicians and Carthaginians.
Out the window, a sliver of sun came over the horizon and the land emerged from the darkness. The captain announced our arrival. I thought about being a first-generation New Zealander and how the land has embraced me.
Mavis and Max would be at the airport. I decided I would try harder to understand them. My girls would be there, too, happy to be up so early. I could already feel the pleasure of their bare arms around my neck. Their cheeks against mine, their excitement for the gifts I’d brought home.
Home. This land of bright light, of intense blue and deep green, of beach and bush and rain. Of humour and manners and customs I understood. This is my home. And, for the first time, I felt I belonged.
26
All reasons, preferably special ones
I returned to New Zealand, and my daughter Lilian was born. The marriage ended badly, as these things do. The next five years were a blur of toddler and teenagers. And then Tom arrived on a spring wind. He brought his daughter Amelia and his enduring love that has embraced us all.
I began to write — columns, op-eds and feature articles. As time went on Tom and I made three award-winning documentaries. We infused them with issues of social justice, blood ties and duty.
Two decades had passed since
