VANISHING ACT
A Novel

DAVID MACGREGOR

For Tangaroa - who doesn’t exist and my 

children Taylor and Zoë - who do.
 

Any dialogue or behavior ascribed to the characters in this book - those who are real people as well as the characters who are imagined - is entirely fictitious. 

This is a novel.

First published 2007

Copyright © 2007 by David MacGregor

The moral right of the author is asserted.

All rights reserved.

Behold the Sea
The opaline, the plentiful and strong,
Yet beautiful as is the rose in June,
Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July;
Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds,
Purger of earth, and medicine of men;
Creating a sweet climate by my breath,
Washing out harms and griefs from memory,
And, in my mathematic ebb and flow,
Giving a hint of that which changes not.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, 

“Coming up on One News tonight - International scientific and media interest as New Zealand born marine biologist and celebrity Dr. Hinemoa O’Reilly makes an incredible discovery: a subspecies of endangered Maui dolphin off the west coast of the North Island. There are thought to be just one hundred Maui Dolphin left in the world. It is sub-species of the Hector’s dolphin. The new discovery puts conservation advocates and the fishing industry at loggerheads once again. Conservationists are calling for a complete ban of net fishing along the coast from Taranaki to Cape Reinga. Some Maori are claiming the new species is the spirit of Panereira the dolphin that brought their tupuna or ancestor from Hawiiki to the Aotea harbour near where the new discovery was made. More later in the bulletin.”

To say that the people of Kawhiamatu don’t like change would be wrong. They live with the ebb and flow of the tides and the coming and going of the seasons. That’s how they like it. Regular. Even when there are irregularities.         

When you fish for a living you understand that your fortunes will rise and sink with the catch. Some seasons are better than others. Don’t get too excited about a bumper year. Next year might be the worst in living memory. It seemed most of the years in living memory had been worse than the one before.  Even so, the people of the small town, huddling alongside the mouth of the Aotea Harbour like a cold sore, had adapted to the cycles and the rhythms of a life dependent on the sea.

From the deck of the KaiMoana Jimi Tamaki watched the town shrink as he and his father set out again to ply the waters of the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island. He laughed quietly to himself. Strange, to think the place he had grown up could possibly get any smaller.  When he was a child there were fewer children at his school every year. The haul of gifts at his birthday parties became increasingly less. Local families drifted away to Auckland, Hamilton and Sydney in search of work and a life with more variety and a less predictable rhythm.  In time some returned to buy farms, holiday homes and ‘lifestyle blocks’. Children of local folk who had left in the 1970s were now accountants or lawyers working to negotiate claims over the Treaty of Waitangi - some of them represented the Crown.  

Fishing and farming had always been the backbone of the town’s economy. Fishing quotas and the arrival of big fishing companies, many of them owned by Maori tribes, meant the town’s problems got bigger while the town got smaller. 

As the KaiMoana lurched across the gaping mouth of the estuary, heading towards the sand bar Jimi could see the cemetery on the point, where his family’s remains were finally laid to rest. He remembered his grandmother’s funeral. The tangi had brought friends and family – whanau – from far and wide.  For a week the town swelled. The old lady had been highly respected. No one knew her exact age. She proudly wore a moko, a traditional chin tattoo that folded into the creases of her skin. It darkened so much with age that it would surprise people who were unfamiliar with the ancient practice. It looked as though she had been in a frenzy of licorice eating and the juice had covered her mouth and cascaded down her chin. She seemed ferocious - and she could be.  To be scolded by the old lady was something dreaded by children and adults alike. In full flight she would double in size - from four foot three. Black thunderclouds would form over her head; she would take a lightening bolt from the cloud and hurl it at your backside. You would never take crayfish when they were spawning again. The old lady had ties to the Maori Kingi movement. She had spurred local folk to join the great march on Parliament to demand fair treatment of Maori under the terms of  The Treaty or Tiriti as she called it.  The slow, solemn walk from the town to Wellington was a distance of several hundred kilometres. Though she had complained of sore feet for most of her adult life, she said that it felt as though they had not touched the ground for the duration of the march. Her ancestors had carried her the entire distance. The holes in her shoes told a different story. Everybody called the old lady ‘Mum’ – even though she had only borne one child in her life – Jimi’s father – who joked that he was destined to be a loner because he was the only Maori boy without brothers or sisters in the whole of the North Island. There seemed to be so many people at the funeral that Jimi imagined Auckland and Sydney as ghost towns - instead of the other way round - for a change

Crossing the bar could be treacherous if you were unsure.  Worse if you were.  Taking the Kawhiamatu bar for granted, no matter how many times you had crossed it safely before was never a good idea.  For more than two hundred years the turbulent current had fooled many skippers, fisher folk and traders who chanced the journey. 

Before it was cleared to make way for farms the Waikato province had been a densely forested wilderness. There were few roads. Trade by sea was an essential lifeline around the entire coast. Growing populations had to be fed and the ocean filled the bellies of Maori and Pakeha alike.  Many of the bar’s victims knew the waters so well they fooled themselves and lowered their guard. A decent storm could change the channel’s shape and treacherous waters. Over the years the harbour was peppered with wrecked hulks that were broken apart by the tides or gingerly salvaged for timbers and equipment. 

Once through the bar Jimi could make out the gentle curve of the earth and the dark pallor of a squall being drawn across the horizon like a blackout curtain. If his father turned to the north beyond the mouth of the harbour, just as he usually did. The bleak weather would pass safely behind them.  Amidst the oily, rusty equipment of the KaiMoana old man Tamaki took great pride in his gleaming electronic weather radar though he resisted satellite location equipment. Paddy Tamaki possessed an uncanny ability to navigate at sea; like a gannet he knew where hunt and how to bring his catch home, regurgitating it from the belly of the boat in ice-packed plastic tubs, then onto the wharf to be taken to Auckland for sale in the fish markets.  

After more than fifty years it was second nature to him. His life at sea began as a deck hand on fishing boats owned by Pakeha skippers. When his father died Paddy inherited the family farm.  When his mother died he sold the farm to buy the KaiMoana.  He would have received a lightening bolt up the backside for sure but the cost of fertilizer and feed overtook the income from milking his ragtag herd. Trying to keep pace with broken fences and pastures swept away by erosion wore him down.  The tug of the sea was always great - always there,  it taunted him from every one of the farm’s paddocks.  At night the sound of the waves carried up the valley to the rickety house, badly in need of repair. A landlocked life felt like a prison sentence to Paddy who thought often of Maui - the great explorer - who left Hawiiki aboard the great fleet of waka in search of whatever lay over the edge of the same horizon.

The Tasman Sea is unpredictable and, sometimes, malevolent. Swells from the Southern Ocean and icy blasts from Antarctica could sweep up as far north as Tasmania, often raging through like wind in a tunnel. Cold currents meeting warm flows surging down from the Pacific Ocean brewed the wildly changeable weather patterns that gave both Auckland to the east and Melbourne to the west an equal claim to ‘four seasons in one day’. 

Today the swell was constant. Rising and falling rhythmically.  Jimi guessed a metre.  He paused from his work checking the nets, which they would soon set for the day’s catch, to watch a small boat on the starboard bow appearing then disappearing. The intervals between were a little under a second. It was hypnotic. The diesel engine of the KaiMoana throbbed. Jimi could feel it pulsate through the soles of his scuffed white gumboots. He remembered his father telling him to kick off his boots if he ever had the misfortune of going over the side. “They fill with water - then you’re fish food son. ”

Jimi waved to the crew of the other boat, a large inflatable tender, painted with markings that resembled the grey and white flashing of a Hectors Dolphin. He admired the sleek craft. Its equipment was pristine, catching and reflecting in the intermittent sunlight. His father’s rust bucket seemed to absorb light by comparison - like the black holes in space Jimi had read about in the National Geographic magazines - the only reading material in the KaiMoana’s toilet, ‘the library’, for as long as he could remember. He could easily make out the name Gaia Project and the garish logos of a giant media company, an oil company, sports apparel maker and a brand of cosmetics all emblazoned on the bulging thighs of the inflatable’s hull. The crew didn’t wave back. Three figures, dressed in wet suits, watched the fishing boat plod past but made no sign; no customary acknowledgement to a fellow sailor.  They hadn’t since they arrived. 

The rise and fall of the swell made the boiling wake from the KaiMoana’s propeller look like a dotted line, mapping their progress before merging back into the grey green sea as though they were never there.

“Pretty flash, eh!” shouted Paddy to his son. “Too flash to say g’day anyway,” Followed by his comical laugh, which reminded people of the comedian Billy T. James. Nothing seemed to bother the old man. When Jimi had been upset by some childish sleight or hurt inflicted by another thoughtless kid his father would say: “Live and let live son... Live and let live.”  That was about as philosophical as the old man ever got. To Jimi it had always seemed like good advice.

The morning passed. By lunchtime the swell had settled to an eerie dead calm. Sitting on the roof of the wheelhouse eating a sandwich - two crudely cut pieces of white, crusty bread with a slab of tasteless cheese and a dollop of piccalilli gluing it all together - Jimi scanned the surface of the sea.  A flock of terns had gathered. They swooped and dove. The surface boiled with fish. A pod of common dolphin had corralled a school of mackerel. They herded them from deeper water. Swimming around the school, the noose grew tighter as the dolphins closed in. When the teeming, whirling, ball of life reached the top there was nowhere else to go.  Voracious dolphin below, above a frenzy of seabirds, wheeling, screaming and diving into their midst.  Dolphin and birds alike gorged themselves on the terrified fish. Miles away sharks would sense the action. Thrashing, pulsating vibrations, blood and oil seeping into the water advertising the event as efficiently as any man-made medium. But sharks know that gate-crashing a dolphin party isn’t a good idea - they are the ocean’s pragmatists. Dolphin can inflict serious injuries on the soft belly of a shark using speed, maneuverability and bony snout like a ram.  The sharks would pick up the pieces as they floated to the bottom or snare the groper and kingfish that also sensed easy pickings.

The commotion didn’t last long. Five minutes and it was over.  A family of dolphins makes short work of a compacted school. The herd swam beneath the boat through the clear, calm water. One after another. Jimi counted. Fifteen, some in pairs, breeding mates, parent and child or juvenile buddies. Who could really tell?  The sleek grey mammals seemed mildly curious, rolling slightly for a better view of the surface without having to breach the comfortable buoyancy of the sea. Jimi knew what it was like after a good feed. He’d often feel too lazy to move as his body set to work digesting a big meal. Dolphin made an appearance most days. Nothing to be too excited about. Sometimes they surfed the bow-wave of the KaiMoana. Less often these days. The old tub was too slow to amuse them and she was getting slower. Once they had the measure of the familiar intruder they would be gone - in search of better sport or more food. 

As the afternoon wore on Paddy and Jimi passed the time checking their gear. Soon they would head back to where they had set their nets. Returning to the nets held a strange dread. If they were empty the day was wasted.  If they were full it was a backbreaking job to haul them out of the water. The fishing regulations imposed after the rape of fish stocks in the greedy 70s, when everything was thought to be in infinite supply, banned winches. In heavy seas dragging the gill nets back on board was much worse. Today would be a breeze. 

A fluorescent orange buoy marked the spot that Paddy had decided to lay his trap. Hopefully it would be heavy with snapper and terakihi. The season was right for snapper.  Last week had been good for the KaiMoana. She had lived up to her name ‘Food from the Sea’. They nudged alongside the marker. Paddy could see his name on the buoy, crudely inscribed with an indelible marker pen in the kind of block lettering a child might scratch on an exercise book. The strictly policed fisheries laws required each net be clearly identified.  

The engine idled to maintain a steady position against the incoming current. Jimi leaned over the side to begin the task of bringing the catch aboard - or an empty net. 

“Ka Pai eh son? Not too shabby” shouted Paddy when he saw the net was alive with silvery snapper thrashing hopelessly. Jimi grinned back at his father, flashing the same broad smile he shared with the older man – though the younger man still had a full array of healthy white teeth. 

Jimi separated the undersized fish from the catch and the species for which there was no market. He returned them to their home. It had been a good day, the buckets were full – a layer of ice, a brace of fish then more ice – ground to a size that filled the spaces between to keep them fresh and glassy-eyed for the market.  The Tamakis were happy to be filling their share of the quota today. No more, no less.  On the return trip they stopped to pull up crayfish pots filled with stinking fish heads and scraps of oily mullet and, hopefully a few crayfish or rock lobster as they were known on international restaurant menus. The pots had been dropped over the side earlier in the day.  Paddy had a knack for knowing the best places. They changed from day to day as the crays roamed their reef domains in search of food. Paddy’s reputation was such that other fishermen would sometimes tail the KaiMoana. On those days Paddy would choose a less productive spot. He wasn’t born yesterday. 

The swell had calmed and the sun was still hot though it was lowering towards the west. Jimi thought it would be a good day for a dive. He kept his gear on board. The tanks were full and the kina were good at this time of year. During spawning season the kina roe made them milky and unpalatable. For some the tongues of the spiny black delicacy were always unpalatable but Jimi loved the concentrated taste of the ocean and never more than when they were coupled with the more subtle flavor and fleshy texture of a cray, fresh from the sea, seared on the barbecue seasoned simply with sizzling garlic and  butter.  

The oxygen tanks had seen better days.  Yellow paint had chipped, making the tanks look like the back of a whale, covered in barnacles and scarred from contact with ships propellers and occasional opportunist assaults from sharks and orca.  The webbing of the harness would soon have to be replaced. But the gear was sound. Like the KaiMoana they didn’t look like much but did the job.  Jimi was cautious and methodical. He checked and double-checked to satisfy himself in any situation where there was risk. It had saved him from harm in the past.  Every fragment of information from his dive instruction course had been absorbed and filed away for the day he would need it.  He had been diving for years but Jimi still needed to be certified to work as diver on oil rigs or to be an instructor at tourist resorts. That was his dream before the accident that meant he would have to join his father on the boat. It took at least two to fish.  

 Jimi’s older brother had been Paddy’s shipmate on the KaiMoana.  The two were inseparable, working together, drinking jugs of sweet brown draught beer at the local tavern; leaning against high tables, one foot resting on a cross spar; laughing, telling working men’s lies to mates who had known each other all of their lives. Never more than two jugs apiece. Setting out at five-thirty am every day required self-discipline.  “You can’t drink if you can’t eat.” said Paddy. For all his easy-going nature and love of a pint and a yarn Paddy didn’t like drunkenness. He tolerated it in others and no one ever called him a wowser.  But he didn’t encourage it and avoided nasty drunks. 

The night of Rangi’s death Paddy had walked home to the house he shared with his sons. The journey was less than a kilometre. The house was a simple cottage. From the decks Paddy had built in front on the steep, elevated property you could survey the entire harbour mouth and estuary - from the abandoned cement hopper right out to the sea. Paddy had turned down many inflated offers from greedy city people to buy the house. They were hungry for a place by the water.  There was no chance of a sale though. With KaiMoana berthed 200 metres away, the pub only a little further than that. What more could a man hope for? The holy trinity of work, home and play? 

Rangi had stayed on in the pub that night, watching the Waikato rugby team take on Taranaki for the much-prized Ranfurly Shield, ‘The Log of Wood’ as the trophy was reverently known.  The mood in the pub was upbeat and, even though the home team lost for want of a penalty kick, the night turned into a party.  Guitars had come out - the local version of karaoke.  Once the doors had shut behind the last of the happy crowd, Rangi walked towards home. He didn’t get that far.  

It wasn’t like his boy to stay out all night but Paddy hadn’t worried. He could be a lady’s man and there had been some weekenders in the bar, attracted by the surf. Paddy half expected to see his son at the KaiMoana, faking the enthusiasm of someone nursing a sore head.  

In the morning no amount of nursing would help his sore head. Rangi floated face down next to a wharf piling.  Crabs and eels had feasted on his eyes, nose and ears.  His skin was wrinkled and had turned an obscene bluish white as if a fluorescent tube lighted him from within.  His skull grinned broadly through a split in his scalp, red flesh like lips. In the purple haze of the dawn waking from behind the hills Paddy saw the unmistakable outline of his oldest son in the water. He felt a part of his life sucked out of his body with the force of an undertow on a spring tide.   

The coroner pronounced it an accident. Rangi had, it seemed, tripped on a loose board. As he fell his head struck the wharf’s edge before toppling into the oily water.  A tuft of hair and skin had lodged in the boards.

“Let’s get the pots on board then head back. There’s a nor’wester on its way I can feel the pressure dropping.”

“No worries” 

Today’s dive was off but ‘there’s always tomorrow.’ thought Jimi to himself.

The nets were securely stowed and a dozen good-sized crayfish or koura scuffled in a large plastic bin filled with briny water. Dazzled by the bright sunlight after being hauled up a hundred metres from the dark reef they scratched and thumped around the tub like drunks noisily trying to get the key into the lock without making a sound - and failing - then stumbling through the obstacle course of their home in darkness without ‘waking the missus’.  The sound always disturbed Jimi as if the giant sea bugs would escape and exact a terrible revenge.  

With a rev of black diesel exhaust Paddy set his course for home, spinning the old wheel, clattering, hard to port.  As she hove about the hull of the KaiMoana caught a swell. The surge picked the ship the up like a bath toy and carried her forward like a body surfer catching a wave. The momentum of the wave exerted more force than the propeller. Paddy wasn’t in control. For a moment he felt like one of the dolphin who patrolled these waters. Over the years his physique had changed from lean and muscular, like his sons, to something more like the net marker buoys – nearly as round as he was tall. It had been a long time since he had body surfed at a beach. He let loose another of his irrepressible giggles. “Simple pleasures, Son. Simple pleasures.”

There were only moments of daylight left as Mike Van Heering steered the tender into position alongside the Gaia. The Sun had broken free of cloud. In sixty seconds it would be gone again. It reminded him of the conversation he’d had the night before at the tavern on the estuary. A surfer who had smoked too much of the local weed was philosophizing about ‘the Green Flash’. Muscular and tan it was obvious he had spent a lot of time in the water. He insisted he had seen the phenomenon many times. According to popular myth the top edge of the sun will momentarily turn green as it sinks below the horizon. This wasn’t the first barroom argument on the topic. More than likely it wouldn’t be the last. Mike knew the green flash was real. He’d filmed it. Twenty years of filming marine wildlife in virtually every ocean, sea or large lake on the planet had given him a keen eye for phenomena. The green flash is rarely seen by the naked eye, not only because it requires specific conditions to occur, but also because the observer needs to know what to look for.  Despite the name, there is no ‘flash’; the event lasts just a fraction of a second as refraction bends the light of the sun.  The atmosphere acts like a prism, separating the light into different colors. Blue light bends more than red light. The flash had fascinated Mike. The effect of light on film was, after all, his stock in trade.  He told the surfer that the green flash was a myth with absolute self-assured authority. He preferred to keep his knowledge to himself. He’d had enough of the stoner.  

He remembered his comment to the 60 Minutes interviewer when he won his first of many Emmy awards and lost his anonymity: “I’ve spent my life revealing the astonishing secrets of this planet in places people can’t go. I think we need to keep some secrets - especially when they are out of this world.” 

Surfer dude ambled unsteadily towards a tall, strangely familiar girl dressed in a sarong and bikini top with a navel ring that looked like a medieval torture device. Mike was disappointed. He had fancied his chances with her but the girl’s body language suggested she’d just made other plans.

“Prick.” Mike muttered, drawing down the last of his beer, then leaving the bar.

The bump of the rubber boat against the Gaia brought Mike back to job at hand. The Gaia towered overhead, blocking out what would have been Mike’s view of the Green Flash.  

In minutes the tender had been winched on board.  The gear was transferred to the aft deck of the Gaia.  

“How was it today?”

Hinemoa O’Reilly cut an impressive figure. Tall. Smart. Maori. The camera loved her. Every man with a pulse and a single platelet of red blood loved her.

“Great footage - if you want more shots of common dolphin...We’ll sell it but...”

“Mike, I know how you feel, but this is the big one.  This is the trip that will make us. Hang in there”

“Hine, take a look around. We’re aboard a 30 million dollar boat.  Your show plays in 25 countries Your Gaia Project merchandise was bigger than Star Wars last year and the Gaia Foundation has benefactors queuing to contribute and bask in the glory of your crusade to save the oceans. Let me know when you think you’ve ‘made it’.”

For all the world it seemed as though Hinemoa O’Reilly led a charmed life. She was born 29 years ago, in Auckland, New Zealand to Elizabeth and Donald O’Reilly.  

Donald. Electrician and volunteer lifeguard living in the new suburb of Mairangi Bay on Auckland’s North Shore.  Tall and lean. A man whose Irish ancestry made cameo appearances with flashes of wit, a ribald laugh and deep red hair. 

His pairing with Elizabeth was all but a foregone conclusion. Liz was an outstanding athlete in her own right. She excelled in the beach sports that Surf Club members play when not patrolling or partying in the clubhouse bar.  At Mairangi Bay there was no surf to speak of. The Surf Club was an anomaly. But members took partying seriously and dealt professionally with at least 40 cases of sunburn a week at the height of summer. 

Liz was gutsy, the undisputed champion of beach flags - a game played by sticking a series of short lengths of hose pipe into the sand in a row - these are the flags. Competitors lie facing away (and face down) about 20 metres away from the flags. On the signal, the competitors stand, turn and sprint to grab a flag. Easier said than done. There is always one less flag than there are competitors. The competitor who fails to capture a flag is eliminated, the flags are reset (removing one more), finally there is one flag and two competitors and a winner is decided in a final showdown – the contest could have been called beach musical chairs without raising too many eyebrows. Liz had an explosive power, fierce determination and a naturally competitive spirit. 

Tradition demanded that clubbies had nicknames. Donald was The Don and Elizabeth was Legend in honor of her complete dominance of beach sports. When she began to date Donald her status was upgraded to The Legend. Singular together. The Alpha male and Alpha female pairing made the young couple centre of attention. Expectations were high.  

Liz was 18 when Don asked her to marry him. He was 24.  The older man. Liz agreed without any more thought or hesitation than if Don had asked her to walk with him along the beach. In a way that was exactly what he had asked her to do.

Within a year Hinemoa was born. The blending of her parent’s genes gave Hine the best of everything. Liz’s father was Maori and her mother Greek - a woman he had met in Melbourne,  Australia. Hine was astonishing to look at - even as a baby. Her skin had a luminous bronze sheen. She looked as though carefully cast, then buffed. She had large, almond shaped, emerald green eyes.  From the day she was born she brandished a head of thick black hair with a natural henna colored highlight. 

Don and Liz parted when Hine was three - though it would be more accurate to say Liz departed. Don struggled with the responsibilities of married life.  They fought over money. One income was never enough for a family of three. 

Liz felt trapped by the responsibilities of motherhood. She had given up almost everything that had formed her identity: friends, the surf club, kayaking, - she would have made the Olympic team had Don not insisted she give up training to get a job. On the water she had stamina, strength and cunning. She was a wily competitor. Her strategy was to trail her opponents until the final markers were tantalizingly close.  Liz  would  then unleash a tornado of power that took the field utterly by surprise. It was never clear why though. Every race ended the same way.  Liz earned her nickname fair and square – she was a legend. Pregnant Liz sliced ham in the delicatessen of the local supermarket. She felt humiliated by her loss of  status, when friends shopped she gave them extra coleslaw after she had printed the price ticket. She dreamed of becoming a chiropractor, but Don seemed threatened by the prospect of allowing his wife to have more education than him.  She became her own shadow.

Don would roll home drunk three or four times almost every week. He would force himself on Liz, then fall asleep, sometimes while still inside her. She felt used and degraded. In the morning he would be filled with remorse and promise it would never happen again. Liz stopped counting the times he had made hollow promises. Then she stopped counting on him at all.  

Her grandfather died and left Liz five thousand dollars. She didn’t tell Don. On Christmas Eve 1975 she packed a suitcase for herself and another for Hine. They arrived in Los Angeles a week later with a student visa and thirteen hundred dollars.  The bus traveled south along the Pacific Coast Highway to San Diego where Liz had enrolled in a preliminary course to qualify her for admission to Chiropractic College.  

On the flight across the Pacific Hine was transfixed by the view of the ocean from 30,000 feet.  

“What’s that?” she said. 

“It’s the sea, Hine, isn’t it beautiful?” 

“Who owns the sea?”

”Nobody owns the ocean,” laughed her mother “it’s just there.” 

“I’m going to own the ocean” said the three year old with absolute certainty. 

Liz didn’t contradict the child. There didn’t seem any point. At three Hine showed the kind of tenacity and determination that offered no doubt that she would accomplish anything.