With m.u.f.fin panting beside us, we ambled in the gathering heat across shrivelled pasture and down a steep hillside to our favourite bend of the river. There was n.o.body there, of course. No sign that there ever had or ever would be. That was the extraordinary thing, that's what you couldn't get your head around if you were brought up in suburban Britain.

Our stretch of river was a beauty spot on a world-cla.s.s scale. Cool water flowed across its shingle bed with the clarity of a glacier mint, pooling under little limestone cliffs where swallows flickered with impossible speed in and out of their burrows. There were swirling eddies and waterfalls and trout pools so pure that their depths looked like blue gla.s.s, all beneath a flawless mauve sky. The Colberts' vineyard swathed the far bank, adding a touch of the Mediterranean. I wished Lou could see it. I was sure she'd forgive me then.

The grey river stones scorched our feet. m.u.f.fin plodded straight in, grunting with pleasure as the exquisite chill streamed through her coat. The boys were next: sleek wet otters in orange water wings. m.u.f.fin circled happily around them, her ears flat on the water. Sacha plunged, grabbing Charlie's ankle and making him shriek with nervous delight. Weeks of sunshine had bleached his corkscrew curls.

Cooled by the ma.s.sage of the current, Kit and I sipped New Zealand bubbly out of plastic gla.s.ses while the riverbed rang with laughter. 'Good decision?' asked Kit, prodding my cheek with his toe.

I didn't answer. I was looking at Sacha in her bikini top and board shorts, a fountain of diamonds spraying around her shoulders. It was some time since I'd seen her in a bikini. A worm of anxiety stirred in my gut.

Kit's foot again, nudging insistently against my cheekbone. Sometimes he could be as demanding as his sons. 'Hey. Calling all Marthas, come in please!'

'Don't you think she's getting much too thin?' I asked.

'Who? Sacha? No.'

'I can see her ribs.'

'She doesn't have an eating disorder-really, Martha, she doesn't, she's just trying to stay in shape like every other teenage girl. You've yo-yo dieted yourself for most of your life.'

I grimaced. 'I've never been as thin as that.'

'Martha. Relax. Everything's good.' He raised his gla.s.s. 'Happy Christmas, Ms Pioneer.'

Twenty.

I think I've been in this hospital all my life, but it is still the first day.

I fall asleep after talking to Charlie, kneeling on the floor with my face near Finn. I don't know how long it is before I feel a hand on my upper arm. Kura Pohatu is crouched beside me.

'h.e.l.lo, Kura.' We try to be polite and controlled, even when everything is imploding. Will the human race exercise self-restraint when Armageddon comes? Will we make small talk as the lights go out? Yes, I think we might.

'You all right, Martha?' she asks.

'Mm?' I struggle upright, pummelling my face. 'Yes, yes.'

Her gaze takes in my bleary eyes and the marks of the sheet etched into my cheeks. 'Come to a family room,' she says, and steers me out of the ward, down a corridor and into a small room with a couple of armchairs. A television is jammed into one corner, and there's a pile of old magazines on a round table.

'The sun's still up,' I say in dull surprise, standing at the window. A blue and grey sky stretches above the city of Hastings. Light blasts off the windscreens of cars and the clouds have pale undersides, like sharks. Until now I couldn't have told you whether it was day or night. I could scarcely have told you who I was.

'It's only four o'clock,' says Kura. 'Like some tea?'

My phone rings. I pull it out of my pocket.

'Mum?' Sacha's words tumble and tangle. 'What's going on? What's happening? Oh my G.o.d, Finn.'

'Finn's all right.'

'Just woken up . . . I've got to come to the hospital. Bianka's here, she says she'll drive me.'

Quietly, Kura lays a mug and two biscuits beside me. I raise my eyebrows in thanks. 'No, don't come today.'

'I've got to!'

'Sacha, they don't need fluey girls in ICU! They've enough illness in there as it is-your virus could kill people. Anyway, there's no point. They're keeping him unconscious.'

She's skidding into hysteria. 'Why didn't you wake me?'

'There was nothing you could have done.'

'I can't believe I didn't hear anything. He must have been right outside my door! Why did he have to climb on that stupid rail?'

A tide of rage smashes into me. I almost tell her, here and now. If Kura Pohatu wasn't sitting nearby, nonchalantly pretending to turn the pages of a magazine, I swear I would spew out the whole story.

'Sacha,' I say firmly. 'I'm really sorry, doll, but I have to go now. I'll call again soon. Finn's doing well, just hold onto that.'

She's sobbing. 'Give him a million, trillion kisses. Tell him I love him.'

'Finn's sister,' I explain, as I end the call.

The social worker smiles and closes her magazine. 'I thought we should talk again, because I'm not sure we really covered everything last time.'

'So you've come back for round two?'

'This isn't a boxing match. I'm here to work with you. If you need help, you only have to ask.'

'Thank you. I appreciate your offer, but all I need is for Finn to come back to us.'

'There are other children in your family,' she says, with heavy meaning.

'And they're quite safe. Scared, upset, but safe. My neighbour is taking good care of them.'

'Your neighbour . . .' She inhales, and I see her nose tighten as though something doesn't smell right. 'Why did you come to New Zealand? What made you take that final plunge?'

'It isn't unusual. Immigrants are pouring into this country every day.'

'And each has their reason. What was yours? You had a job, a family, friends. You had a lot to lose.'

I'm tired, suddenly; tired to the very core of my being. I am tired of watching and of being watched. I'm tired of covering things up. 'Kit's business folded.'

She doesn't react, but she's listening.

'The downturn,' I say. 'Work dried up, clients stopped paying and he went under. He tried to go freelance but that was hopeless in the recession. Eventually it wore him down.'

'Tell me about how it wore him down.'

'Kit's such a vibrant person, always the life and soul. He . . .' I run out of words, but Kura waits for me to find more. 'Every morning he watched me get up and dressed and off to work. Every night we worried about money. He couldn't see a future.'

'I expect he was angry?'

'I didn't say that.'

'Well, anyone would be angry.'

'He was low. It was . . . destructive.' I clamp my mouth shut, determined not to say another word, but the patience of the woman is unsettling. 'He was only forty, far too young to retire. So it was a good time for an adventure.'

'And how is he now? Did your gamble pay off?'

'He's happier than he's ever been in his life before. He's painting. It's a dream come true.'

'Whose dream?'

'Mine, too.'

Outside, a hara.s.sed mother-or is she hara.s.sed? Actually, she looks rather cheerful-is loading her children into a car. The toddler cavorts around the pavement as though chasing an invisible b.u.t.terfly. They're a happy, hopeful family, like ours used to be. n.o.body has fallen.

'Martha?' Kura is peaceful yet persistent. 'When did things begin to go wrong for you?'

Someone is knocking at the door. Kura looks irritated, but she stands up and opens it. There's an urgent, whispered conversation. I think I hear my own name.

'I'll just be a moment, Martha,' she says, and steps outside.

I watch the mother drive away, with her children. Lucky things. They're going home to supper, and stories, and cuddles.

A series of choices, I think. A right turn, a left turn; inching through the maze. A left turn, a right turn, and a wrong turn.

Twenty-one.

Kit and I huddled on our verandah steps as a quavering disc of fire emerged over the edge of the world. The first dawn of the year.

The boys were fast asleep. Sacha had gone with Jani and Bianka to the midnight fireworks display in Napier. When I'd dropped her at the cinema the previous evening, Jani came over to wish me a happy New Year. He was wearing a collarless shirt with a green cloth knotted around his neck. The effect was very nearly camp, but not quite. As I drove off, I adjusted my rear-view mirror just in time to see Sacha's hand twining with his.

I told Kit about those twining hands, as the sun inched higher.

'You happened to adjust your rear-view mirror,' Kit chortled.

'He was definitely holding her hand.'

'Of course he was,' he murmured, then gathered my own fingers in his.

'She's sixteen. He's twenty-one.'

He kissed my knuckles, one after the other. I felt his breath on my palm.

'At twenty-one,' I fretted, 'he'll be wanting things that at sixteen she shouldn't be giving.' Kit's mouth ran up the inside of my arm while he adeptly untied the bow on my kimono. 'She's still my baby,' I said, but I was rapidly losing interest in the conversation. I began to undo the b.u.t.tons on his shirt, and had slipped it off one tanned shoulder when an unpleasant thought struck me. 'Finn and Charlie could appear at any minute, you know.'

'Too true.' He got to his feet and pulled me to mine. Giggling, half-dressed, we ran along the verandah in our bare feet and locked ourselves into the studio. Standing on the rug in the calico light, Kit bent to kiss my collarbone. 'I am a lucky man,' he said quietly.

An hour later, our house was calm. Kit and I dozed, tangled on the rug, my hand touching his face as the warmth of the sun found its way through the old windows and onto Sibella's portrait. For once, the twins slept in. But the snake was wide awake now, and beginning to throw its coils.

Sacha phoned after lunch.

'Where are you?' I had one eye on Finn, who was struggling manfully to load the dishwasher. He'd been bribed, of course.

She sounded slightly out of breath, as though she was walking fast. 'Marine Parade. You know that play park?'

'Aren't you a bit old for swings?' No reply. I had the impression she was having two conversations at once. 'Sacha?'

'Sorry. Just buying ice creams. They're amazing flavours. Mine's boysenberry and it's a taste sensation.'

'Have you had fun?'

'A blast. The fireworks were so cool.'

'Any sleep?'

'Sleep's for losers.'

'Aren't you tired?'

'h.e.l.l, no. Only old people need to laze around like cats, getting hours and hours of sleep. I've never felt more awake in my-whew!'

I heard m.u.f.fled thuds, and a squeal of laughter. 'Sacha? You still there?'

'Sorry. Someone pushed me really fast on the roundabout and my phone went flying off into orbit.'

'Who else is with you?'

'Sorry, Mum, I gotta go. Speak to you later. Um . . . I'll be back tomorrow, okay?'

'Tomorrow? I thought today-'

She'd gone.