The man sitting on the felled pine tree on the shores of Lake Wanaka was enjoying the slow glow of late autumn sun on his face as the clouds lifted. The glass calm of the lake had not been reassuring enough for him to accept atrip in his host's speedboat, even if it was only going to be a quick battery charging burn around the neck and back. Aqua phobia had been a shadow ever since as a youngster he had been held under in the school baths by lumpish class bullies and nearly drowned. Entreaties by his teacher to at least open his eyes while trying to float face down had been fruitless thereafter. As had any attempts to get him to learn to swim.
- Fear does deprive you of many life experiences, he mused. Water was not the only one. There were also heights. Exhortations by the poet William Blake to be a yea sayer just didn't cut it if you started sweating and your gut churned and turned into little hard lumps. Just meant that you were left in your fifth decade being a survivor still in one piece. A consolation? Maybe.
- The roadside camping ground beside the lake became a focus as he shifted on the pine log, away from the accusing water, letting the sun warm his back. In front of him some distance away, he could see a young gazelle of a girl climbing through a number eight wire fence. Face tight, pony tail bobbing; she walked at a slightly awkward fast rate towards the closed-for-winter communal toilet and changing rooms block. Comfort stop the man assumed, noting the car pulled up on the road outside. Not going to have much joy there he thought, then wondered why she had not yet seen the padlocked doors and turned back.
- As she kept moving forward with her odd, quick gait, a man appeared near the fence, having got out of the driver's seat of the stationary car. He stood hands on hips, looking in her direction, and seemed to be glaring at her retreating form.
- "You're a mad woman, girl!" he yelled out to her. "A mad woman!"
- No response. The young woman reached the buildings and disappeared behind them, re emerging the other end, then appeared to be trying to hide in the side entrance. The driver looked across the fifty or sixty metres of grass to the man sitting on the pine log, as if assessing, then turned back and moved closer towards the woman.
- The man on the log waited to see what would happen next. The driver moved closer still and inaudible angry words were exchanged. The woman retreated, almost cowering, not noticing the man on the log watching, her attention focussed hypnotically on her pursuer, who again glanced at the watching man , checking to see if he had moved - defying him to move ? The man on the log averted his gaze.
- Suddenly the woman's pursuer turned and retreated back through the fence got in his car and drove back along the road and turned into the camping ground. The woman immediately headed for the wire fence, slipped through, stepped on to the road and started walking back towards the township some twelve kilometres
away. The car did a fast U-turn in the road and slowed to a crawling speed beside her. More angry words were hurled out of the down turned car window, a fist was shaken. Then the car stopped, the driver got out and a struggle developed as he tried to force the young woman back into the passenger seat.
- The man on the log continued to sit watching as once more the car driver looked over, checking. This is the point I'm supposed to do something, say something, he thought. Intervene. And then another memory from his youth suddenly came flashing out from wherever they were stored, propelled by the events in front of him. Three high schoolboys on their bikes in Christchurch. Him and two of his classmates. Across the road at a bus stop, a man belting a woman over the head, shoving her violently, then hitting her again. Three of them rushing to the woman's aid, Mikey giving the man a solid thump, and Alec grabbing him in a half Nelson wrestler's hold.
- "Leave my husband alone, you brutes," the woman had yelled at them, then began hitting them repeatedly with her handbag. The three musketeers retreated, bewildered. This was not in the movie script.
- Back on the road the young woman broke free and ran towards the corner ahead. The driver gave another look towards the lake, then leapt in his car and began following her again. They disappeared out of sight around the corner. The man on the log remained where he was, and then turned back towards the lake.
