Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance by Lloyd Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

devastating loneliness. It was the perfect place for fugitives. Whenever she’d been there with her father the tide drew all the way up to its mouth and cut you off from the world. She was about to talk up its features when Tom Williams cut her off, ‘I don’t want to hear it, Louise, and it’s not because I’m not interested. But should someone ask me where the dickens those boys are you know I won’t want to lie.’
    They arranged to leave that afternoon. Louise packed away flour and salt, some preservative, three lemons, bagged a number of apples and pulled up some young carrots from the garden. She stuffed everything into the basket strapped to her handlebars together with handy comforts such as old newspapers, soap, the last of the plum tart, and wheeled her bike out to the street.
    On the edge of town she stopped to pick some plums from the branch overhanging the fence round the Robertsons’ yard. Boyd’s mother saw her and put down her washing basket. She said, ‘Louise, let me get you a bag for those plums.’
    She didn’t see another soul until Lion’s Rock, and then it was Billy Pohl with his bag and fishing gear. She cycled up to him and told him to walk another two miles, until he found himself at the bluffs, near the nikaus, and to wait there.
    She climbed back on her bike and coming up to Jackson’s Crossing she saw Henry rise out of the tall roadside grass. Tom Williams was with him. Jackson’s was as far as Tom would allow himself to go.
    Louise dismounted and stood while the two men shook hands. ‘Louise will take you from here, Henry.’
    â€˜You’ll tell me mum and dad, won’tcha Tom? I don’t want them coming after me. Tell them I’m fine and not to worry.’
    â€˜I intend to tell them you are in the pink of health and in excellent company.’ That wink was for Louise. She smiled. A slow grin showed up on Henry’s face.
    â€˜In a cave.’
    â€˜I didn’t hear that, Henry. All I know is that you are going to a safe place.’
    â€˜So long as you tell them it’s nicer than whatever it really is.’ Then he asked, ‘What will you tell them, Tom. What, really? I’d like to know.’
    Louise watched the older man think for a moment. Henry had just alerted him to a problem he didn’t have an answer for yet. He tapped the side of his head—like it was all brilliantly stored upstairs—and placed a hand on Henry’s shoulder to point him north. ‘Come on, Henry. Louise won’t want to be cycling back in the dark.’
    They were some distance up the road before Henry said, ‘About the dark, Louise. I wouldn’t worry. Cycle slow, and steer the front wheel by the breath of the cows. Sometimes you can feel their heat.’
    She was so surprised to hear this she stopped wheeling the bike.
    â€˜When you think about it, Louise, it’s the difference between a stew just cooked and one left to cool a day later.’
    She wasn’t sure whether Henry had made a joke or whether she had just come into startling new knowledge.
    At the bluffs they had a thirty-minute wait until Billy caught up. They listened to the sea pounding on the rocks below and the noise sent Louise’s eyes to the long white band on the horizon.
    They were sitting on the very edge of the country. This was as far west as one could go.
    With her father they had always gone by boat and from the sea you saw a neat line ruled through the nikau trees. The cave, she recalled, was about an inch north of it.
    At the nikaus she wheeled her bike in far enough until she was sure it couldn’t be seen from the road and laid it down. A green filmy light hung in the treetops. The ground was damp, rich smelling. At first the sound of small twigs snapping marked their progress. But as they walked on the sea grew louder, to where eventually they could smell the salt spray in the trees. After ten more