The Day Before

Peter Drake came off duty from the maintenance shed at the Christchurch Adventure Park where he worked after school.

The bike trails had been in perfect condition. Peter had taken one last run and it had been brilliant, he loved the track conditions in spring. He railed his turns — roosters spun off on the tighter berms. At the second to last jump, Peter whipped the rear out, and stuck the landing on the tabletop before pumping hard for the final gap jump.

‘Awesome!’ Peter whooped as he parked up under a pine tree. But no one saw how he had shredded his ride.

He slipped into a low gear and pumped his way back to the chair lift. He tapped his pass to enter through the gate, and caught the eye of the attendant.

‘Hey there,’ she said. ‘Good run?’

‘Yeah!’ Peter smiled at Vanessa who had duty that day. ‘I’m getting the hang of Oberon now. Pinned that last run.’ Peter wheeled forward to wait for the chair lift’s next bike rack to swing past.

‘Magic!’ Vanessa said. ‘Want to session Oberon this weekend.’

Peter opened his mouth to reply…

‘But um…’ Vanessa said. ‘I’m just about to close the lift. It’s getting too dark for a run. Even for staff.’ She smiled and he felt butterflies for a moment.

‘I know,’ Peter said. ‘I’m off home… but couldn’t resist one last ride. I live over in Lyttleton. I’ll just run out the top of the lift, then down to home.’

‘I guess that’s okay.’ She waved him on. ‘Won’t see you ’til the weekend then?’

Peter pushed his bike into the lift’s bike rack.

‘Sure. I’m servicing bikes all Sunday.’ The chair lift carried him up and away.

‘Bye Vanessa.’

Only when his feet swung ten meters in the air over the bracken and broom vegetation of the hillside did he think perhaps she had wanted him to hang with her now the work day had ended. But she had to be at least sixteen to run the lift. While he was just fourteen. Well — nearly fifteen. But had that been an invitation to run Oberon together?

Peter sighed and looked down the hill to the view over Otautahi Christchurch.

Working in the park’s cafe and bike repair shop after school meant extra cash, and more important — a free pass for the chair lift to make getting home over the hill easier.

‘Better that than the bus. Trust Uncle Jeff to live on the opposite side of the hill from school.’

He lived at his uncle’s house, sort of. A caravan parked in the backyard at least. In winter it smelled of burning dust from the fan heater, mixed with mildew and damp, and it never warmed up. He knew the caravan had not been his mother’s idea when she had pleaded with her brother to take him in. She had stayed in Canada after the COVID lockdowns.

Why had she not returned to her life in New Zealand?

The separation would not have been too bad since Peter had been living with his grandfather. But then Granbam had taken a bad turn and had moved into a retirement home.

Uncle Jeff had seemed cool… at first. A couple of seasons ago he had even set Peter up with a small Starling class sailboat at the Corsair Bay Boat Club in Lyttleton harbour.

‘A set-up. Exactly.’

The Jupiter had not ‘quite’ been in sailing condition. Peter could use it if he repaired it, and Uncle Jeff had both challenged him, then ignored him. So all the work of sanding, painting and finishing had been done by Peter alone. Well mostly. Some of the adult R-Class sailors had given a bit of assistance, even if that helped get the old Starling class boat out of their shed so they could use the space.

He smiled at that. One of the old R-Class skippers, Tyler Orr, had found him a set of racing rigging and helped him tune it. Sometimes Peter figured his Uncle Jeff had set them all up — the old R-Class sailors, as well as Peter. It solved Jeff’s problems by shoving them onto someone else. Peter knew that was something Jeff and his mother shared as siblings — running from responsibility.

Peter’s father was long gone. Someone else his mother had run from. He was meant to be in France somewhere, or Tunisia. Peter had got his dark hair and eyes from that North African heritage. He had not met his father, but dreamed of him as being some cool French Arab guy, sometimes a spy, or a football player… or… Peter really had no idea. He didn’t even have his father’s last name. Drake was his mum’s family name.

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Drake. That’s where he got his love of sailing — a descendent of Sir Francis Drake, sea captain and privateer. Or that’s what Uncle Jeff said. But sailing was in Peter’s blood now. He loved his sailboat The Jupiter.

‘The SailGP training program is going to be so great. Imagine it. I’ll be sailing a foiling Waszp and really fly over the water!’

The SailGP Inspire program provided training for teens on the Waszp foiling sailboat. They could go so fast they rose out of the water on foils. Get good in the Waszp and someday he might get to crew on the SailGP foiling F50 catamarans.

‘Man I so want to sail a Waszp, so much better than one of those two person Feva sailboats. Dealing with someone else on my boat? No way. Not going to happen.’

He clipped on a bike lamp and pumped along the crater rim trail. The darkening harbour, nestled in the old volcano crater, sparkled with navigation lights for the port. Tomorrow he would be out there, racing. He couldn’t wait.

The route back down into Lyttleton was steep, but easy to run, and soon Peter rolled down the road to Uncle Jeff’s. He wondered if he would have to cook noodles again, or if Jeff would spring for fish and chips. But he craved an apple. In late summer there were whole trees of them at the bottom of the garden and he wished he had thought to pick them and store them over winter. Uncle Jeff had just let most of them rot on the ground.

His aunt had visited him the day before and didn’t even think to ask how Peter was. Probably never knew he lived in his uncle’s old caravan.

His grandfather had died.

She had only come to give him Granbam’s niho o te taniwha pendant. The old man had worn the Maori jade carving since forever. It had been a part of him. Like his wicked grin.

‘He wanted you to have it,’ his aunt had said. ‘Carry his mana well.’

Peter had cried then. His Granbam had really gone.

Now, as he turned into the driveway, he touched the niho carving, traced the tooth shape against his chest, and imagined his grandfather wearing it. That some of its warmth came from Granbam’s body. Now his grandfather’s mana — his spiritual essence now rested next to his own. Peter felt a moment of peace.

From the corner of his eye he saw a blinking spot of light, not a navigation marker this time, but instead from a house on a promontory across from Uncle Jeff’s. He had seen the light before. It gave a series of irregular flashes and then repeated.

‘Weird.’

Peter rounded the side of the caravan and stared at the flashing light a moment. Somehow it seemed more insistent than usual, and he couldn’t look away.

A deep voice called out, ‘Peter. That you?’

Uncle Jeff sat on the verandah of the small house.

’Yeah,’ Peter took the steps up to the verandah two at a time.

‘I’m heading out.’ Jeff said. ‘Night works at the port. I left some beans on the stove.’

‘Okay. Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’

Jeff finished off his meal. He took a last swig from his beer can.

‘Sorry about the Waszp sail program.’

‘What about it?’

‘There’s always next year.’

‘What did you hear?’

‘Got an email. Said you’d missed out. Something about focus on demonstrating leadership…’

‘What the heck? How come you saw an email for me?’ Peter pulled out his phone and checked. And there it was.

‘We regret…’ Peter stopped reading. ‘Oh no.’ His heart lurched. He would not get to race the foiling sailboats.

But then he realized.

‘Jeff? That email was addressed to me. Just me. So what? You’re spying on my messages?’

‘You’re better off not getting involved with all that elitist BS anyway. Better to stick to what you know and do that well. Rely on yourself and not on others. You’ll just be disappointed. I’ve always told you. It’s pointless to think anyone else has your back.’

‘Tell me!’ Peter’s voice rose as he glared at his uncle. ‘Now! How did you get to see that email?’

‘Clean up the kitchen when you’re done. And pop this into recycling.’ Jeff held a crumpled can out to Peter.

‘Do you get to see all my email?’

‘I delete it…’

‘You what? You mean my email forwards to you? All of it?’

‘Must be something your Mum set up…’ Jeff trailed off.

‘No way!’ Peter took the beer can. ‘Don’t read my emails!’ And threw the can at the trash bin. He missed.

‘Recycling!’ Jeff said.

But Peter ignored him and shouldered into the kitchen. A scrape of beans in a frying pan lay cold on the stove.

‘If there’s not enough in the pan, toast some bread,’ Jeff called out from the hall. ‘I’m off.’

‘I’m not a kid. Where’s my privacy? I want my own life,’ Peter shouted and kicked at a kitchen cupboard. The door bounced back open and hit his leg. Peter swore, hopped and rubbed at his knee. He kicked the cupboard door closed again with a bang.

‘See you in the morning,’ Jeff jangled his keys as he left.

Peter knew he wouldn’t.

The front door slammed shut.

Wouldn’t see him that is. Peter would have to sort his own breakfast out and get himself to the sailing club on his bike.

‘Gotta change my email setup. Damn it!’ He roared in frustration. ‘Mum probably gets all my email too? This sucks.’

Then the reality of not getting into the Waszp sail program sunk in, and his anger fell away.

‘Why? I’m a good sailor. Don’t they know that? I did well in the Canterbury Sailing Champs this year… not my fault I couldn’t make it up north for the ranking regatta… Now I’ll never get to sail a super fast foiling boat.’

Peter ate his cold beans on toast in the caravan as the warmth of the day fled with the setting of the sun. Out the window the blinking light at the neighbor’s drew his attention. It flashed for a good twenty minutes until full dark before stopping. By then Peter couldn’t see more than shadows in the caravan, except for the black skull and cross bones flag he had won at the sailing club Halloween party.

Peter didn’t notice when the light started flashing again. But in his dreams he saw spies, and Corsair pirates fighting on azure blue seas… gentlemen pirates in service to a beautiful Queen. All the while a lighthouse beamed messages to him - messages that spoke of life or death…

But he could never quite understand what it all meant.