Billie's Kiss Read online

  Meela said, ‘Andrew would say, “We must have him here.” But I don’t think that’s quite right.’

  ‘I want you to write to Minnie,’ Billie said to Murdo, ‘and tell her to go to Alan. Just go and find him.’

  Murdo nodded.

  Billie remembered Henry telling her that, in the end, he had been very glad to stop spending his summers on Kissack. He’d begun to sympathise with the ancient people who, living with all those long horizons, were hungry for verticals, so set up tall stones to stand in for groves of trees they’d never seen. Billie imagined Alan Skilling as a standing stone, still there on an island that, for her, was washed clean of people.

  On the beach at Menton Billie began turning over the stones, to find those underneath, whose heat she released – warm round stones, like freshly boiled eggs.

  ALSO BY ELIZABETH KNOX

  After Z-Hour

  Treasure

  Glamour and the Sea

  The High Jump: A New Zealand Childhood

  Pomare

  Paremata

  Tawa

  The Vintner’s Luck

  Black Oxen

  Copyright

  VICTORIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

  Victoria University of Wellington

  PO Box 600 Wellington

  © Elizabeth Knox 2002

  ISBN 978-0-86-473426-6 (print)

  ISBN 978-0-86-473727-4 (epub)

  ISBN 978-0-86-473859-2 (mobi)

  First published 2002

  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without the permission of the publishers