Rhys was the first one to step back. Afterwards, she remembered that, and burned with shame. He handed her a wodge of tissues, smiled a bit, and said, “Clean. I brought them in case somebody cried.”
“Not . . . you?”
“I don’t cry in front of other people.”
“I was just thinking that,” she said, doing her best to mop up, aware of her swollen face, her streaming nose. “That I’ll never be . . .” Her voice wobbled, and the tears threatened again. “Maori. Good at expressing myself. I’m Pakeha all the way.”
“Oh, I dunno,” he said. “I thought you did all right just then. And it’s not that I never cry. I just do it alone. Our secret, eh.”
“Our secret,” she repeated, and something passed between them and tried to take her with it, strong as a rip that caught you in the sea and pulled you out, away from safety.
His face solidified again. That was the only way to describe it. His features would soften for a moment, then harden once more, as if you’d only imagined the softness. She didn’t even know anymore. She was hallucinating from lack of sleep, probably. She was empty, except for that spark of life when he’d pulled her into his arms, and she’d felt . . . held. Protected, for the first time in so much longer than a year.
Wanted.
Female.
He said, “How are you and Isaiah getting back to the house?”
“I should . . . I should stay. Say the goodbyes.” The house would be full of aunties and uncles and endless cousins, of more talking and laughter and tears. And she couldn’t. She couldn’t.
He said, “Grab Isaiah, and come on. I’ll drive you.”
He hadn’t taken them to his Auntie Rose’s, but to the blessedly anonymous white-and-glass elegance of The Sails in Nelson instead. He went in to register them, then walked them upstairs and through the door of the apartment, done up with the kind of austere simplicity she needed now. Black couches, white linens on the bed, and the sea beyond the green grass of the Domain, everything outside vibrant with life, because the rest of the world went on, no matter how your own world had shattered. Rhys set a plastic carrier bag on the kitchen bench. “Roast,” he said. “Meat and kumara and veg left over from the hangi, in case you get hungry again, Isaiah. You could watch some TV, eh. They have DVDs, too.” He crouched down by the TV cabinet and asked, “Toy Story? Or Shrek?”
“Shrek,” Isaiah said instantly.
Rhys smiled. “Good choice. That would’ve been mine, too.” He put the DVD into the player, found the right button on the remote, and got it queued up. After that, he paused the film, handed the remote to Isaiah, rested his hand on his nephew’s dark head, and said, “It’s ready when you are. Keep the sound down, though, so your mum can sleep if she needs to, OK?”
Isaiah said, “OK.” His face was closed down. He was six years old, and done in. He needed time to be quiet, too. At least, Zora hoped so, because she had to shut down. She had nothing left to give, not even to her son. It was a frightening thought.
She told Rhys, “I’ll have to ring up and tell them I’ve come to stay here for tonight. Not sure how to say it, though. I don’t even have a change of clothes, and I don’t care.”
“I’ve already told them. They’ll know that everybody handles things differently. Or if they don’t—” He grinned. “Bugger ’em. There’ll be a dressing gown in the closet in there. A tub with jets as well. You should use it.” He hesitated. “And I asked them to send up a bottle of wine. You could have a bath. Get a little pissed. Order up some chocolate cake for the two of you. Let it all go for a night. Time enough to pick it up again tomorrow. I’ll get your car here for you in the morning, and leave the keys in the office.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Though I do wonder how you know, about the dressing gown and the spa tub and all.” She was nearly rocking in her heels now, she was so tired.
“Stayed here when the All Blacks played a test once.” She thought he was going to put his arms around her again. Instead, he said, his voice nearly harsh, “And don’t thank me. He was my brother.”
She hadn’t seen him again for six months.
He couldn’t really see the house, not through the storm. He could see enough to know it was a move down—way down—the property ladder, though, and it was making him furious.
Get it under control. Not something he had to tell himself often. Other than when he saw Zora.
He got out of the car and ran to the front door. No choice. He was committed. The door opened straight into a kitchen. A bit of an . . . odd one. The backsplash was huge red tiles, the attached seating at the breakfast bar was red plastic, the floor was gray lino meant to look like tile, and the cabinets were some kind of glossy black metal.
It smelled fantastic, though, like an Indian restaurant. Whatever that smell was, he wanted it.
He got his shoes off and put them on the rubber tray, then unzipped his anorak and hung it on a hook beside the other two, and everything dripped. Zora stood in the middle of the tiny square of work space, smoothed her hair, and told Isaiah, “Let’s see your chest, darling.”
Isaiah put his arm across his skinny body and said, “I’m good.” He slid his eyes across to Rhys, though, and something in them tugged at Rhys hard.
It was the look Dylan had given him when they were kids. Part apprehensive, part worshipful, and part waiting to hear what to do next. It had exasperated Rhys no end at the time, because so often, he hadn’t known what to do next. He’d had to make it up.
This time, he knew. “Let’s have a look, mate,” he told his nephew. “You did well being brave about it, but injuries need to be looked after. We’ll get some ice on it. Sure to be a good bruise.”
Isaiah set his teeth into his lower lip, but he let his mum lift his shirt and expose the angry line of red on his upper chest. Rhys said, “Ice, definitely. And a paracetamol tablet as well, if you were one of my players.”
Zora got the tablet from a bottle in a cupboard and said, “Go change out of your wet jeans and socks, love. Or better yet—go have your bath and warm up. You’re shivering. Dinner’s in twenty minutes. We’ll strap the ice to you then. If I do it now, you’ll turn into an ice block yourself.”
She smiled and pushed back his hair with a gentle hand, and he fidgeted under the caress, glanced at Rhys again, said, “OK,” and headed off.
Zora told Rhys, “You’re in shorts, but I can’t do anything about that, except that I’m going to start the fire, February or not.” The storm was still raging outside, the raindrops spattering against the kitchen window like they were trying to get in.
Rhys said, “I’ll do it,” and followed her through an archway and into a tiny dining nook.
Just enough space for a table and four chairs, and a little black cast-iron stove on a brick hearth. Half the wall was brick, and the other half was red. Somebody had really liked red. She flipped a rocker switch, yellow flame appeared behind the stove’s glass wall, and her eyes were laughing as she told him, “That’s it, I’m afraid. No manly skills required. Sorry.”
He had to laugh. She’d never seemed scared of him. Always a little saucy, a little challenging. And if that heated his blood, no matter how hard he worked to cool it down . . . that was his problem.
It would have helped if she hadn’t been wearing snug jeans and a slim-fitting long-sleeved T-shirt printed with delicate wildflowers on stems, both items clearly showing that, as she’d told him the first night she’d met him, she was five foot two and forty-nine Kg’s, and she was never going to get any bigger. If she hadn’t been so . . . pocket-sized, like you could carry her around with you, could hold her up with one arm while you kissed her breathless. Up against the wall.
He didn’t need the picture that conjured up. It would be there anyway tonight, imprinted on his mind when he closed his eyes. He knew it. He’d had experience.
That first night, after he’d left and gone to meet some of the boys from his own squad for a final beer, he’d wanted to go home with
the blonde who’d come over to chat, and stayed to put her hand on his arm, to look at him, then look away, and lean forward just enough to let you look down her shirt. He’d wanted to shut it all out, to sink into the blissful oblivion of her willing body.
He could say he’d gone to bed alone instead because easy sex, the kind that had nothing to do with the person he was and everything to do with the person he appeared to be, didn’t hold the appeal it once had, but it wouldn’t have been true. That night, it had held every bit of appeal it possibly could.
No, the problem had been knowing that, when his body was heading over the edge into the dark abyss of that orgasm, where he couldn’t control anything anymore, it would have been Zora’s face underneath him. It would have been her dark eyes he’d watched closing, her soft mouth he’d seen opening. It would have been his beard burn on her neck, her hands clutching his shoulders, her legs wrapped around his waist. It would have been unacceptable.
He needed a night, he’d thought then, and that was all. Some distance, and some discipline. He could find that. He always had. Tomorrow.
Now, he told himself the exact same thing, even as he said, “You didn’t tell me you were moving. If you have a pair of Dylan’s track pants, I could wear those. He always did wear them too long, and his jeans too short. He dressed like a back, no matter how well I educated him.”
She didn’t smile. “I don’t,” she said. “Have any. It’s been almost two years. I had to start over.”
That sounded defensive. He wanted to tell her that he always needed to remind himself of Dylan around her, but how could he say that? Instead, he said, “I should’ve known that, I guess, as you aren’t wearing your rings anymore. I could have come and helped you sort his things, anyway.”
“Never mind,” she said. “Hayden did it. And I took the rings off . . .” A sigh. “Oh, nearly a year ago. One day, I took them off to do some gardening, and I didn’t put them on again. Not an easy day, whatever you think.” Defensive again.
“I reckon it wasn’t. I took my own ring off faster than you did, and I’m still married. Technically. I remember the day I did it, too. How is Hayden? He always made me laugh.”
“Oh, you know. He’s Hayden.” A smile of her own, like the sun coming out. Not a blazing sun. A gentle one, like the view over the paddocks to the sea in the evening, the kind that set your heart at rest. “He said the same thing you did, about Dylan’s trousers. Still not settled down with somebody nice, but he said one of us jumping too early was enough.” Confusion crossed her face, and she stammered, “I—I mean—”
“Never mind,” he said. “Tell me what to do here, and I’ll do it. Your jeans are wet, and I think you fell, back there in the carpark. Hurt yourself, maybe. You could go take your own bath.” And I won’t think about you in it, he promised himself. I can’t live this close and think about that.
She hesitated, then shrugged and pulled a bag of something out of the freezer and tossed it onto the bench, got an onion and a red capsicum from the fridge and a knife from a magnetic strip on the wall, and started to cut the veggies into thin slices. “I have to wait for Isaiah to be done. We have one bath. You could look for candles in the closet for me, between the dining room and the lounge. We could have a power cut.” Even as she said it, the lights flickered. “I’ve got a gas cooker, but I’d rather not use it in the dark.”
He found the candles, noticed again how small this place was—he kept feeling that he needed to turn sideways to get through a room—then came back and said, “You brought a hungry man home, one who’s willing to work for it. Give me directions.”
Her mouth opened, then closed, and her color rose again. What? Why? That had been polite. He was her brother-in-law. She didn’t say anything, though, just fossicked about amongst the books on the bench top, pulled out a slim paperback, found a page, and said, “Do this, then, to fix the peas, and put the bag of rice into the microwave for a minute, shake it up, and then do a minute more. If the power goes out, cook it in a saucepan on the stove instead.” She walked out, and he didn’t look at how those jeans fit, at the curve of her waist and the still-bloody-wonderful swell of her backside.
Get a grip, he told himself, slicing onion with some savagery, and welcoming the sting in his eyes. Pull your head in. You’re too old for this.
Pity he didn’t feel that way.
Dinner was a relief. Isaiah made a pretty fair chaperone. And when Rhys tasted the first forkful of silken chicken in a luscious brown sauce, nutty basmati rice, and the spiced peas he’d made on the cooktop, his eyes opened wide. “Bloody hell,” he said, “that’s amazing.”
“That’s ten minutes at noon, then leaving it to cook all afternoon while I’m gone,” Zora said, “on my busy day.”
“That’s Monday and Friday,” Isaiah informed him. “Also Saturday, but I can help then.” He had an ice pack wrapped around his chest, secured with a sling fashioned by his mum, amidst a fair bit of laughter, from a couple of tea towels. “Mum does businesses on Monday, and houses on Friday. Our best day is Tuesday. Nobody has a funeral or a wedding or anything on Tuesday. That’s when we do walks and fun things.”
“What would that be on Mondays and Fridays, exactly? You’re not doing cleaning, are you?” Rhys asked Zora, his blood running cold at the thought.
Wait. No. The pink van. It sounded—it looked—like massage. Surely she wasn’t an outcall massage therapist. She could get herself into too many dodgy situations that way, the size that she was. If that was it—or if it was the cleaning—he didn’t care whether it was appropriate, he was speaking up and stepping in.
He hadn’t said she shouldn’t have sold the house in the hills, had he? That she should have come to him first, because that house had to be appreciating at twenty percent a year? This place couldn’t be ninety square meters. It was smaller than his first apartment, the road was too busy, and it didn’t even have a heat pump. Yes, this little corner where they were sitting was cozy, with the brick wall and the fire and all, but she’d given up too much, selling that house on one of the best streets in Titirangi—what?—six years after they’d bought? Five? He hadn’t said anything about that. He was going to say something about this.
“Of course I’m not doing cleaning,” Zora said, and laughed. “Or whatever else you’re imagining. The look on your face, Rhys.” Isaiah was laughing, too, but Rhys was waiting to laugh himself until he heard what it actually was. “I’m doing flowers, of course, same as before.”
“Oh.” He felt stupid, as well as relieved. “Right. But not in the shop anymore? I thought the flowers were temporary. You got your diploma in architecture.”
“And it’s not worth much without some other things. Internships that you don’t wait years after your diploma to apply for, for one. I’ve got a gap in my CV so big, you could drive a truck through it. Never mind. I love doing flowers, they fit into my life better than architecture ever would, and I’m on my own now, doing them the way I like. Edgy. Modern. Zora’s Florals. Didn’t you see the van? Pink, with orange and purple flowers and all the greenery? Came out so well. I need a new van, and I think half the reason I’ve put it off is because I love the paint job. Plus, this one’s got me through heaps. We may have been stuck on the side of the motorway together a time or two, but she’s always carried me home, in the end.”
“Mum does subscriptions,” Isaiah fortunately said, before Rhys got himself stuck explaining how the pink van had definitely not looked, no, not at all, like it belonged to a massage therapist, or saying what he thought about her being stuck on the side of the motorway. The boy continued, “It’s businesses on Monday, so they have flowers during the week, and houses on Friday. It’s brilliant. She read about it in a magazine, and she was the first one to do it. Now, there’s more competition, so that’s harder, but she’s the best one.”
“Isaiah and I could be a wee bit prejudiced,” Zora put in.
“She gets up at five on Mondays and Fridays, though,” Isaiah said. “I
have to go to school those days, so I can’t help. But at the weekend, I do.”
“That’s right,” Zora said. “That’s the other best thing about our new house, is that we have such a good workroom.”
“Besides that it’s two hundred dollars a week cheaper.” Isaiah again, of course. The kid was obsessed with money. “That’s why we have two hundred forty-five dollars extra,” he told Rhys. “Because the other house was all in . . . in . . .”
“Equity,” Zora said. “Worth heaps, but not doing anything for us. So now we’re here, cozy as bugs, ten minutes’ walk to school and about two to the shop, and around the corner from the Waitakeres, if we want to have a walk and a chat after a hard day, or maybe invite a mate along. But besides that, I’ve got a shed somebody was using as a darkroom, with a sink and tap and electrics, room for all my gear and a fridge, and with a concrete pad underneath that stays cool. I’m ten steps from the back door and Isaiah, and that’s why we say we have a better house now.” Her eyes dared Rhys to contradict her. “Exactly the right size.”
“And the shed stays extra-cool in summer,” Isaiah said, “because we put Pink Batts up above the ceiling.”
“Insulation,” Rhys said.
“Yeh. I handed them, and Mum shoved them in. And now it’s cool enough for flowers. Afterwards, we did it in the whole house, because we’d learnt how. So it’s warmer and cooler. Depending. Also, I think the gas bill will be less.”
“Hayden could’ve helped with that, surely,” Rhys said.
“Hayden,” Zora said with another flash from those dark eyes, “has his own life. And Isaiah’s right. Insulation’s easy as to install. We did it ourselves.”
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