Written in Blood

It was the story of a journey, and she wasn’t at all sure she liked it. It certainly became very messy in places, and seemed to lack symmetry. She couldn’t help wondering what it was driving at.

So it was just the three of them, and they got in a car and drove. There was Sarah, who was too skinny, and James, who was too beautiful, and Byron, who just never left, after she had made James turn around and go back. Byron wasn’t a hitch-hiker in the sense that he wanted to be picked up, he didn’t stick out his thumb or anything; just walked down the Desert Road in a storm. But he was happy enough to take the ride and, although he dripped over everything, she thought, Good, maybe he’ll help things, we can’t argue any more. He didn’t seem to notice the silence between the two of them, just told them about the town he came from with three petrol stations and one pub and no women.

She could remember the time James too had stood waiting for her, through rain and wind and timid sunshine. She emerged at five o’clock, squinting in the light, and drank in the sight of him, a Greek god of the elements, indifferent to nature, shedding the weather from his broad shoulders. She watched his lips move and never heard a word.

She went home and looked him up in a Dictionary of Saints. Saint James, also called James the Greater, also called ‘son of thunder’. Noted for his impetuous character and fiery temper. She wondered what he was like in bed.

After they turned right at Waiouru, the conversation lagged. She offered to take the wheel, as they sped past the tour buses at Tangiwai, but James ignored her. Byron was staring out the window, searching for a glimpse of mountain amidst all the cloud. She found herself biting her nails, chewing her cuticles in a desperate attempt to occupy the space. James once told her she looked like a stick insect, all eyes and no substance and no fingernails either, for God’s sake. She had replied in kind, telling him she was more like a weta, the female weta whose bite is poisonous only in mating season, and fuck her bloody fingernails.

Then Byron spoke. He wanted to know if the two of them were married.

After the first year, she had noticed a change in his eyes. They moved

– 124 –

slowly, no longer followed her around the room, no longer lingered when no one was looking. She wrote him a poem

For you are rooted deep inside me
as deep as the teeth within my gums
grooved within my skull.

and he smiled so sweetly that she felt her stomach leave her body and writhe on the floor in ecstasy and they made love all night. And she averted her eyes when he looked over her shoulder at other women. And she failed to notice the desperation in his voice when he tried to stop her leaving early, as if he knew he could not help but be unfaithful without her in his field of vision. And she had left. Once, she dreamed that James was standing before her and she reached out to stroke his hair and his skull was so soft that it crumpled like an eggshell.

Byron raised his eyebrows at her as she glanced at him, curled up in the back seat, as she willed James to answer. They were strangely arched, kinking into a bow between his eyes, almost too contrived for a man. The Byronic hero, she thought, oh you are so witty Sarah, all thundering brows and tormented gazes. Thunder and lightning and hail and blizzard and climactic fury. Disorder is in the air and the winds scream in victory.

She went shopping and bought tampons and chocolate and Panadol. She lay on the bed and bled blood into the white cotton sheets. She dreamt of giving birth to a grown man and of screaming a scream that no one could hear. She lay awake at night and cried crocodile tears and thought of the rivers of Africa.

Byron asked to keep going straight ahead at Raetihi. He said he wanted to drive down by the Wanganui River. He said he was spiritually joined to all water, and to this stretch in particular. He said it was in the nature of a homecoming. James didn’t argue. The road became skinnier and the day grew black. Sarah folded her arms across her chest and hugged herself. It was very cold.

When she saw the river, murky in the rain, she thought, I have never seen this river before in my life. And she thought, Isn’t it odd how we define a river by its banks rather than by the water that is in it. Maybe I have seen the Wanganui River before, floating around Wellington Harbour, maybe I have swallowed mouthfuls of the stuff. Maybe seventy percent of me is the Wanganui River.

– 125 –

At Jerusalem, James stopped the car. The windscreen became a sheet of solid water. Jerusalem became invisible. Byron spoke and told them he was the son of James K Baxter. James laughed. Byron said nothing. James said that Baxter was a saint among men. Byron said he wouldn’t know, he’d never met the man. James said it was probably time to be going. Byron said nothing. Sarah thought about silence as a weapon.

As they joined State Highway 4, Byron told them that he was the great great great great grandson of Captain James Cook. Sarah remarked that the weather certainly was deteriorating. James pointed out that Byron was in fact black. Another silence descended over the car. They bypassed the city and headed for home.

As a child she had a bird that repeated everything she said. As a woman she dreamed of her child-self holding a golden birdcage with a cat inside, his eyes as green as grass. The cat had eaten her bird. She said to the cat, I love you. The cat replied, I love you too.

Folktale

There was once a woman and a man. The woman
dressed as a man and became the man’s
friend. The man did not realise that the woman-dressed-as-a-man
was really a woman, so he was able to
relate to her simply as a friend. Together
they had many good conversations, and they often went out, to
have dinner or to have a beer or to pick up women. The woman-dressed-
as-a-man
was particularly good at the latter, perhaps because
she knew just what a lonely woman wanted to hear. The day came, however,
when the woman-dressed-as-a man was forced
to reveal herself. She said to the man, I am a woman. Oh,
said the man, Oh boy.