It's a Bit More Complicated Than That, page 1
First published in 2025
Copyright © Hannah Marshall 2025
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Allen & Unwin Aotearoa New Zealand
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Auckland 1011, New Zealand
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auckland@allenandunwin.com
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.
ISBN 978 1 991006 94 3
eISBN 978 1 76150 636 9
Cover design by Christa Moffitt, Christabella Designs
Text design by Kate Barraclough
For my friends
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE: ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
ZELLE
CALLUM
ZELLE
CALLUM
EPILOGUE: CALLUM
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
ZELLE
Cold pavement.
Hot cheek.
Need air.
Need water.
I open my eyes and the light is too much. Animal noises in my throat. Body on fire. Limbs twitching. Bad smell beneath me. A hand on my back — Luka?
Try to speak. No words. No air.
Standing on the edge of an infinitude. I let it swallow me whole.
It burns.
It burns.
It burns.
When I wake up the world rushes in. The fire in my body has dulled to a low flicker, the final embers from a bonfire. But, God, I feel hollow. I’m a shell of a girl. My head spins and my vision’s glittery. I realise I must still be slightly drunk.
‘Welcome back, Giselle,’ a voice says, soft and slightly nasally. Scottish, maybe. Not a voice I know. ‘My name’s Dr Burns. You’re in Wellington Hospital.’
I sit up a little, staring at the IV snaking out of my arm. A mid-thirties woman with slick black hair and thick winged eyeliner is standing at the edge of my bed. I run a shaking hand under my eyes. Silver eyeshadow and smears of mascara stain my fingers.
‘Water?’ I croak, and Dr Burns reaches over to a glass jug on a small white table. She fills a plastic cup with water, and I down it like it’s liquid gold. It’s frigid, clinking with ice, exactly what I need right now. I hold my cup out for a refill.
Dr Burns obliges. ‘Do you remember what happened tonight, Giselle?’ she says, while I scull the second cup. Cold water to soothe hot flames.
A few hours too late for that, I think.
‘Zelle,’ I say. ‘Everyone calls me Zelle.’
‘Do you remember what happened, Zelle?’
The night is fractured into shards of memory, pockets of sense. We started with margaritas and tequila shots at Tabitha’s before hitting up town. A round of Tennessee Fire at the bar, maybe two. Dancing. Back to the bar for more shots. A Macca’s stop at some point, though I didn’t want to eat. Staggering out for fresh air onto Courtenay Place.
Things get blurry after that.
More bars, I think. Definitely more drinks. I don’t remember the details, obviously. I do remember feeling elated, though. On an entirely different planet. Like nothing could bring me back down to earth.
I have no idea how I ended up here.
‘Alcohol poisoning,’ Dr Burns fills in for me. ‘You fell unconscious and couldn’t be roused. Luka called an ambulance for you.’
‘Luka’s here?’ I say.
Dr Burns frowns. ‘He only called the ambulance. He didn’t come in.’ Quickly, she says, ‘Do you know how much you had to drink tonight, Zelle?’
I pick up a lock of my hair. It’s sticky, and it smells. Jesus. I try to comb out whatever’s tangled through it, my fingers tugging out clumps of blue. The dye’s starting to fade, and my bleached blonde is showing through.
I eye Dr Burns. What a stupid question. As if I was keeping count.
‘Do you really want an answer to that?’ I say.
Dr Burns ignores the snark and sits down on the bed, which feels overly familiar for someone I met only five minutes ago. I’m half-expecting her to grab my hand.
‘How often do you drink?’ she says, trying on a soft voice.
‘God, I don’t know. No more than anyone else,’ I say. It’s not like I keep tabs on that, either. Weekends are a given, of course, but we’ll do any day depending on who’s busy and who’s doing what. It’s not like school is a priority for me, and Tabitha and Lucy and Anahera and Luka are at uni so their schedules are flexible.
Dr Burns gives me the Suspicious Glare.
‘You’re still seventeen,’ she says.
Big deal. Fake IDs can get you anywhere when you know the right places.
‘I’m eighteen in three months,’ I say.
‘You were lucky your friends called for help when they did,’ she says. She enunciates every word, making sure my alcohol-addled brain absorbs it all. ‘You had a close call, Zelle. Very close.’
I don’t ask her, Close to what? It’ll be textbook scaremongering for every underager who ends up here on a Saturday night. I don’t indulge her.
I think I can guess what she’d tell me anyway.
A new panic seizes me, and I sit up taller. ‘You didn’t call Mum, did you?’
Dr Burns smiles in a way that I think is supposed to be sympathetic but looks more like a shark getting ready to feast. ‘I’m sorry, Zelle,’ she says. ‘Because you’re still a minor, I had no choice. She should be here any minute.’
Oh, fuck me sideways. I lean back on the pillow and close my eyes.
I’m screwed.
I’m completely, totally screwed.
CALLUM
I wake up on The Day with a weight on my stomach.
It’s just Descartes, of course: not even deep sleep can avoid feeling that monster of a cat. Lately he’s taken to sleeping on my bed, which Mum thinks is cute and I think is irritating. God knows how many sleep-ins I’ve lost after Descartes has decided to start clawing at my face at six in the morning.
Sitting up, I push him away, and he lands on the floor with a thump. He’s fifteen now and has arthritis, and his front legs buckle as his body makes impact. He hobbles off and gives me an indignant meow.
‘Piss off,’ I say.
I’m gifted with a prime view of his arse as he saunters away.
I reach for my phone on the bedside table and check the time. It’s 7.15: just under four hours until the interview.
I feel sick.
A careful hand knocks on the door, then Mum walks in. Badger-eyed and bed-headed, she looks like a sad excuse for a zombie in a B-grade sci-fi movie.
‘You awake?’ she says.
‘Unfortunately,’ I say.
Descartes walks a lazy circle around her dressing gown. She scoops him up and cradles him. He wriggles in protest.
‘Did Descartes wake you up?’
I nod.
‘He must know it’s a special day.’
‘Descartes is a cat, Mum.’
‘You could at least humour me, Cal.’ Mum plonks him back on the bed. ‘Get up,’ she says. ‘You’ll want to leave by nine if you don’t want to be late.’
‘I know.’
‘You’ll do great.’
‘Uh huh.’
(I don’t believe her.)
Mum rips the bedsheets off me. ‘Go on. Get ready. I won’t feel relaxed until you do.’
‘Is that an order?’
‘That’s an order.’
‘Roger that, captain.’
Mum grins, reaches out to pat my shoulder. ‘You’ve worked hard for this,’ she says. ‘You deserve it.’
‘Don’t get soppy.’
‘Don’t get snarky or I’ll tell you who your real mother is.’ She grins at me and leaves the room. I reach forward and rub Descartes behind
‘I’ll be okay, won’t I?’ I say, nuzzling my face into his.
He swipes a paw across my cheek in response.
Just over half an hour later I’m showered, dressed, and no more ready for today than when I first woke up. Mum’s already left for work — I heard her scrabbling for her car keys while I was still in the shower, the harried ‘Goodbye, Cal, and good luck!’ echoing down the hall. For a clinical psychologist who spends all day helping people achieve calmness, clarity and wellbeing (as her website says), my mother lives in a perpetual state of chaos.
Kate’s in the kitchen already, splashing milk into two mugs of coffee. This is progress: for the past week and a half, since she moved back home, she hasn’t got up before midday.
‘Morning,’ she says, her voice a singsong. ‘I made you breakfast.’
My sister Kate is twenty-two. Until the start of this month she was living a three-hour drive away in Dunedin, doing her Master’s (microbiology; she inherited the science gene from Mum) and sharing a loft apartment with Dermott, her Irish boyfriend (also doing his Master’s). Everything going swimmingly.
Until they both graduated. And Dermott’s visa ran out. Which he decided not to renew. Which made him decide that Kilkenny was a bit far to pull off a long-distance relationship. Which prompted Kate — single, heartbroken and newly an expert in flesh-eating organisms — to enter her quarter-life crisis, leave Dunedin and move back home.
‘You’re up early,’ I say, taking a seat at the table, where Kate presents me with one of the coffee mugs and a plate with two pieces of thickly buttered toast.
‘I wanted to see you off before your interview,’ she says.
I take a tentative sip of the coffee. I’m all for early-morning caffeine, but right now I feel like a fizzing, wired mess. I push the mug and the plate of toast away.
‘I’m not sure I can stomach this.’
‘Go on, Cal. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and all that. And I got out of bed at seven-thirty for this, so at least make me feel like my efforts were worthwhile.’
I have what my mother calls a ‘delicate stomach’. To paraphrase: I throw up when I’m nervous. Combine that with an aching shyness and a dose of social anxiety, and cue the montage of embarrassing moments where my grand gestures have taken over the show. Aged nine, about to give a speech in front of my class. Aged thirteen, when I was a groomsman at my cousin Darren’s wedding. Last year, just before my final exams. And the year before that.
I take a small bite of toast to appease Kate. It tastes like fireplace ash in my mouth. ‘I’ll never be accepted if I throw up.’
‘First of all, that won’t happen. And, if it does, at least give your projectile vomit some substance. Nothing says prospective journalist better than chundering all over your interviewers. That’ll give you a point of difference.’
I don’t laugh.
‘I’m joking, Callum.’ Kate pulls me into a headlock. ‘You’re going to be great today,’ she says. ‘That spot is yours.’
Her hair is pale blonde, a few shades lighter than mine. Wayward strands tickle against my shoulder. I reach around and ruffle her head, sending hair flying. It’s been a couple of years now since she swapped her waist-length locks for a short bob crop, but the novelty hasn’t worn off.
‘Thanks,’ I say as she lets me go. We lock eyes and grin. When Kate smiles, it’s like a bad case of cold: infectious, annoying, and unavoidably going to spread to you too. I down my coffee in four quick mouthfuls and get up from the table, taking the plate of toast with me. ‘I gotta go,’ I say. I make my retreat down the hallway.
‘You better eat that,’ Kate calls after me. ‘Oh, and good luck, of course. And don’t crash my car.’
(Advantage of Kate moving home: I get to use her car.)
From the safety of my bedroom, I throw the toast into the rose bushes below my open window.
It’s just past nine by the time I leave the house. The interview isn’t until 10.30, but it’s being held in Queenstown, an hour and a half’s drive away from here. Welcome to Mistakesville, Central Otago: the absolute middle of nowhere.
Here’s everything you need to know about Mistakesville:
Okay, so it’s not officially called Mistakesville. It’s Stakesville, named after the gold miner who established this town in the 1860s, William Stakes. (Creativity evidently wasn’t his strong suit.) But Stakes’s surveying error led to the town being established 10 kilometres south of where it was supposed to be, and there’s no good reason why anyone would voluntarily live here.
We’ve clung on to the ‘Mistakesville’ brand to attract visitors to the town, since nothing else will. We’ve got enough amenities to be useful — one café, one hotel, one petrol station and one medical centre. Beyond that, all we offer is a meagre smattering of sad shops masquerading as a main street. Our tourist brochures claim that we’re an essential stop on the journey through tracing the history of the Otago gold rush. In reality, we’re a toilet-stop town.
The population is 723.
I’ve lived here my entire life. Unfortunately.
The road is winding and empty and I’m grateful for the quiet. The plus side of living in a dead-end town: there’s enough solitude for me to freak out in peace.
Eventually I pull up outside the run-down Queenstown Events Centre and, when I’ve triple-checked that no one’s around, close my eyes and take the deepest breath I can. This is one of Mum’s many mindfulness techniques. It works. Sometimes.
Today, though, deep breathing doesn’t even touch the nervousness that’s been growing inside me for months, ever since I first filled out the application forms. A Bachelor of Broadcasting Communications, majoring in journalism. It’s been my dream for years, but I applied assuming I’d get nothing more than a polite rejection letter, a brush-off to a deluded dreamer amongst hundreds of others. Then came the congratulations email just over three weeks ago, right when I’d begun to lose hope.
The broadcasting school carries out interviews for shortlisted candidates all around the country. A lot of people try out for this thing — including, it seems, enough kids from Central Otago for them to be holding interviews here.
I still can’t believe I’m one of them.
When I finally get out of the car and into the waiting room, I’ve barely got ten minutes before the interview starts. There’s a string of messages on my phone: several from the group chat with Fox and Mac, all variations on good luck you’ll do great, which I swipe away and make a mental reminder to deal with later. I don’t have room in my brain for niceties right now.
And then I see the latest notification, a text from an unknown number sent two minutes ago.
My heart freezes.
hey, callum. it’s zelle. i know it’s been a long time, but i thought you should know that i’m moving back to stakesville. i arrive tonight.
i hope we can talk.
Zelle. Zelle Bachmann.
This can’t be happening. This really, really can’t be happening.
Zelle Bachmann is back.
Zelle Bachmann is back.
Zelle Bachmann is back?
My heart is thundering so hard it feels like a cardiac arrest waiting to happen. My ears ring and my hands shake. Why now? Why, after three years of radio silence?
Why the hell is Zelle Bachmann coming back to our town?
My panic is interrupted by the sound of throat-clearing. I switch off my phone and force myself to look up.
A man is standing in the doorway, looking unimpressed.
‘Callum Rig?’ he says. ‘We’re ready for you.’
Oh, God, not now. My breathing’s getting heavy. Stomach heaving. All too familiar.
The man’s eyebrows furrow.
‘You okay, Callum?’ he asks.
I lean against the wall, trying to curb the nausea that’s creeping up my throat. ‘I … I just—’ I stammer, but before I’ve formed a proper sentence, this morning’s coffee and meagre bites of toast make their grand exit from my stomach to my mouth.
Kate was right. It could’ve done with some more substance.
The interviewer doesn’t react. His eyes slide from my face to the patch of sick on the floor and to the bits of vomit that have sprayed the tips of his shiny black shoes.
I’m beyond embarrassed. I can already feel round two coming on.
‘Oh, shit. God. I’m so sorry—’
And I run straight out of the building.
My interview: over. My chance at journalism school: over.
I’m screwed.
I’m completely, totally screwed.
