said to Denny, ‘except I discovered a letter from a solicitor that said my mother had passed away two years ago.’ She paused, shaking her head. ‘All those years I mourned her – but she was alive. And my dad knew.’
When Lana finished talking, her mouth was dry and the muscles in her legs were beginning to ache.
Denny was watching her closely, his expression fixed on her face. ‘I’m so sorry, Lana,’ he said, and she could hear the earnestness in his voice.
The only other person Lana had told the story to was Kitty, and she felt oddly exposed for talking like that in front of Denny. She pulled her gaze away, staring upwards. The sky was an ocean of stars and she felt the inconsequential nature of her existence – just a speck, floating. She allowed herself to be calmed by the idea that all the thoughts that consumed her, looming large in her mind, were – in the end – really nothing.
Gradually her breathing began to settle and she felt the water rise and fall over her chest with each exhalation. She wondered how far down the seabed lay – 100 feet, 200 perhaps? Seaweed and soft corals swaying below in the dark, fish feeding and resting, shells closing for the night.
When her gaze returned to Denny, he was still watching her, his hair flattened to his head. Moonlight glistened on his arms as they stirred the surface, his eyes on her.
‘Well, that’s my story,’ she said with a forced brightness. ‘What’s yours?’
A fleeting tightness passed over his face. Then he rolled onto his back, spread his arms at his sides, and let the sea bear his weight. ‘I don’t have one,’ he said to the sky, matching the brightness of her tone.
Lana pressed her lips together as she watched him, a strange feeling ebbing through her as if she’d just lost something that she hadn’t quite found.
The Maritime Rescue Centre is set at the edge of a commercial port, and Lana drives in behind a container lorry. She parks in front of a squat, flat-roofed building, but doesn’t get out immediately. Her wrists ache from where she’s been gripping the steering wheel too tightly.
She’s not sure what she’s doing here – what she expects to happen next. All she knew was that she couldn’t wait in the apartment any longer. So she scribbled a quick note of apology to her boss, which she left downstairs in the gallery, and then drove with the radio on hoping for a further update.
As she sits in the car now, she thinks there’s something soothing about a stationary vehicle, the wind locked out, the warm air trapped inside, and the feeling of being sealed off from the rest of the world. Being on the yacht was different; you felt the world and the elements in all their rawness – each gust of wind hitting your face, the roll and rise of swell surging beneath you, the heat of the sun searing across your skin. The sea demanded your constant attention.
Beside her on the passenger seat are a stack of old sketchbooks and three blunt pencils. Sometimes at weekends, Lana will get in the car and drive along the coast without a plan or a specific destination, simply pulling over whenever the desire to do so takes hold. Then she’ll climb into the passenger seat, prop a sketchbook on her knees, and draw for hours and hours.
It takes her back to the long afternoons in the school art room where she would sit with her elbow on the paint-stained desk, her hair falling down one side of her face, the sun slanting in through tall sash windows. The art room was a refuge from the rest of school life, which seemed drab and predictable. Apart from Kitty, Lana struggled to make friends. The other girls teased her for her quirky shoes, her thick amber hair, and the bright woollen tights she wore on home-clothes day. Her father had little money, so Lana’s wardrobe was comprised of odds and ends she’d pick up from charity shops on their monthly visit to town.
In the art room Lana felt comfortable. It was a place of colour and noise and warmth, where the radio played constantly in the background, and the air smelt of turpentine, coffee and the chalky scent of cheap paint. She sat next to Kitty on a high wooden stool, enjoying her constant chatter as Kitty made swirling patterns with a palette of pinks and purples.
Lana was fourteen when her art teacher, Mrs Dano, called her back after class. She’d spent the lesson scrawling a stub of charcoal across an A3 page and ignoring the still-life display of weighing scales she was meant to be drawing. She screwed up each piece of work, lobbing them all in the bin and, when the bell went, she’d slung her bag over her shoulder and started lumbering from the room.
‘Lana?’ Mrs Dano had called as she stood at the sink washing up paint-streaked jam jars. ‘A word, please.’
Lana had rolled her eyes at Kitty, then hung back, leaning a hip against the wall.
Once the room had emptied, Mrs Dano set aside the jam jars and wiped her hands on her apron, then went to the corner of the room, returning with three balls of screwed-up paper. She placed them on the desk in front of Lana. ‘Please would you open these?’
Lana’s jaw tightened as she picked up the first ball. The paper felt as crisp as dried leaves as she unscrewed the picture. It was a drawing of the windows of the art room, with an angry slash of charcoal across the centre that had torn the page.
Mrs Dano placed a finger in the left-hand corner, her amethyst ring catching in the sun. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘The light. You’ve got it just right as it cuts through the glass. And here, too,’ she said, sliding her finger lower. ‘Hmm, no, this bit isn’t quite right. The perspective is off, but if you just—’ Mrs Dano pulled a piece of charcoal from the pocket of her apron – ‘put the line this way,’ she said, dusting the charcoal across the page, ‘and applied a lighter pressure to shade it, you’d be there.’
With a change of stroke, the drawing had been transformed.
Mrs Dano rested her hands on the edge of the table. ‘I don’t want any more work going in the bin, Lana. There is beauty in imperfection. Remember that.’
Lana nodded. Then the wooden legs of her stool scraped across the floor as she stood.
‘And Lana?’
She turned.
‘If you ever want to use the art room in your lunch breaks, I’m usually in here.’ Mrs Dano held her gaze. ‘You’ve got talent. I’d like to see it grow.’
Lana had left the room, pleasure blooming hot in her cheeks. Outside the door, Kitty had been waiting, listening. She reached for Lana’s hand, their fingers threading together. ‘I knew it!’ she whispered. ‘I knew someone would notice your talent.’
*
Lana cannot delay going inside any longer. She takes a deep breath and opens the car door, stepping out onto concrete that shimmers with spilt diesel. The wind teases her dress around her thighs, making it seem as though the white sparrows of the pattern are fluttering and flying across the powder-green fabric.
The air is tinged with fumes and the scent of brine washing in from the water as she walks towards the main building. She comes to a reception desk that is unmanned and waits for a moment, peering into the back office – but the place is empty, computer screens off.
She moves beyond it, following a long corridor of rooms, all with their doors shut. She pauses outside a door that reads ‘Operations Room’ – then knocks.
The door is opened abruptly by a tall man with a thick black moustache, who introduces himself as Paul Carter, the man she spoke to on the phone. He wears hiking boots with brown socks pulled halfway up his calves. He strikes her as the sort of bloke who probably likes to spend his Friday evenings at one of the municipal beach-barbecue areas that are popular in New Zealand,