The War of Immensities by Barry Klemm Page A

could not
comprehend what had happened, but the water was bloody freezing and
the panic came with saltiness that attempted to flood her nostrils
and throat as she sank. No bloody doubt about it. She’d fallen
in!
    Reflexes took
over, her body remembering the innumerable times she had dived into
the ocean and rivers and swimming pools. At least she had gasped a
full quota of air before she hit and forced it out now, trying to
keep the water out of her lungs. It helped when she closed her
mouth, which had been wide open with amazement as her whole world
suddenly turned aquatic. Maybe the office had been hit by a tidal
wave! Then her body automatically righted itself, lighter water
above, murkier stuff below. Her dress was up around her ears as she
sank—she hoped there weren’t any scuba divers around to see this.
Kick! Kick! she told herself. When she kicked, she fretted as one
of her shoes came off. This was unbelievable. She was going to
drown. What on earth was happening?
    The kick
carried her neatly to the surface. She bobbed up, spluttering
water, her hair pasted all over her face like a sea anemone. She
rubbed the fluid from her eyes, coughed and spluttered a few times,
and then trod water, looking around. There was a big pier right by
her that she had obviously fallen off—this was ridiculous. Up on
the pier, the fishermen had gathered at the spot where plainly she
went in, and one young bloke was stripping off his shirt to come to
the rescue.
    “It’s okay,”
she blubbered. “I can swim.”
    Her
handbag—miraculously still over her shoulder—bumped against her
belly as she did the necessary three strokes to reach the low
boarding platform. She got hold of the rough timber and hauled
herself up and one of the older fishermen, a Maori who had lapsed
completely into his native language, took her hand and hauled her
up onto the platform.
    She sat on the
edge of the platform, dragging her dress down to some level of
decency, and smiled weakly at the old Maori. “I’m okay. Just give
me a minute to gather my wits, okay?”
    It was going to
take more than a minute.
    She had been in
the office, and it was lunchtime—was that really the last thing she
remembered? She gazed at the more distant surroundings to get her
bearings. She had been here before, lots of times, on sunny
afternoons. This was one of those spots on the inner harbour—Herne
Bay by the look of it—miles from the office. How the hell did she
get here? And why? The sun was still high. It was still lunchtime,
but she had never come anywhere like this for lunch before. It made
no sense. Get a grip, Lorna! Try and remember!
    Lunchtime. She
recalled that the sense of agitation that had been growing in her
since yesterday was slowly overwhelming her—it was like constantly
wanting to go to the loo except in her brain rather than her
bladder. It was Wednesday when she usually had lunch with Chrissie
but she had rung and Chrissie wasn’t at work—that was no
surprise.
    At eleven, she
had rung Chrissie at home and shouted at the answering machine
until Chrissie finally answered. “I feel terrible. I can’t
cope.”
    “Come to
lunch.”
    “No. I just
can’t. I want to go away somewhere. I want to go now.”
    “Okay. We’ll go
away at the weekend. Over to Whakatane. Been planning to for
ages.”
    “No. I have to
go now!”
    “I’ll come over
straight after work and we’ll plan the trip.”
    “It’s the wrong
way!”
    “What do you
mean, wrong way?”
    “Don’t know. It
just is.”
    “Oh come on.
You’ll love it. Just think about it and have a sleep and I’ll be
there in no time.”
    “I can’t
sleep.”
    She went on for
some time, whimpering pathetically but Lorna hardly heard any of
it. The words Chrissie had spoken stuck in her brain and she
couldn’t clear them. It’s the wrong way! It was too. There wasn’t
any possible reason why it should be the wrong way but it was.
Ridiculous.
    So, no lunch
with Chrissie. What then? It had