by Bowes, K T
Caroline’s face paled, her hand shaking as she tucked a lock of short blonde hair behind her ear. Something left her demeanour and she looked utterly lost. Hana felt pity, but not enough to sympathise. The dragon’s tail could administer a nasty injury with one, unexpected movement as it turned. Caroline meandered down the hallway, her heels losing their confident click. She ignored Hana as she passed, edging by as though she was contaminated.
Caroline reached the lobby before Hana spoke, her voice filled with authority. “Caroline?”
The blonde turned slowly and Hana waited for eye contact. “Stay away from us, do you understand?”
Defeated by a force she couldn’t comprehend, Caroline nodded. The tall, blonde silhouette of Flick appeared in the doorway, menacing and immovable. Back lit by the last vestiges of sunset, he held his hand out to Caroline, indicating the driveway and sweeping his arm towards it like a gallant gentleman. But his voice held a veiled threat, “This is the last time I ask you to leave nicely, Miss. The next time won’t be pleasant.”
Caroline shuffled down the steps, her fight gone. Flick looked back at Hana, searching her face. “Thank you, Flick,” she responded, masking the wobble in her voice with a smile. The light streamed in, lighting her in beams of yellow, orange and red, turning her hair to burnished gold. Lithe and pretty, the glow of motherhood rested on her like a gentle blush.
Flick nodded and smiled back, the huge weight dropping from his shoulders. He shook his head and followed the unwanted guest to the car park, ensuring she left properly this time. He marvelled at Hana’s courage. The woman he hounded and harassed, held by the throat and choked, selected him for this personal task and it gave him a sense of restitution.
Flick stepped back as Caroline’s vehicle roared past him in a hail of grit. He brushed the dust from his shirt and glanced up at the front door of the hotel. Hana stood in the open doorway watching Caroline leave. Flick felt unnerved as she stared after the departing dust cloud, something powerful in her stance. Hana turned just as Flick worked out what she bestowed upon him with her choice of bodyguard. Forgiveness.
Hana didn’t see Logan as she skirted the seating area and walked down the corridor to the kitchen. The fire door banged shut behind her. Hana’s husband stood in the shadows, his muscular frame leaning against the wall and his hands in his pockets. He shook his head. “Bloody hell!” he marvelled. Seeing Caroline stride up the steps filled the pit of his stomach with anxiety and he left the baby with Alfred and ran. He was tired to the bone with the whole seething family mess, but followed Hana, prepared to wade in and despatch Caroline. Hana didn’t need him.
She was on fire and never looked more beautiful to Logan than at that moment, dealing with Caroline as though unafraid. Hana radiated calm and confidence and without a single Māori bone in her English body, Logan recognised she had mana, seeing it as a twisting silver thread of light above her. She exuded all that was good and kind and gracious, but it never occurred to Logan Du Rose until then; she was also powerful.
Chapter 15
In the kitchen, Hana sank into a chair at the worn wooden table and put her head in her hands. Leslie wiped the sink with a cloth and cleaner until the aluminium shone, jerking her head back towards Hana. “Tea, miss?” Her gnarled brown hands gripped the cloth in arthritic fingers.
Hana nodded and muttered grateful thanks, wondering if she would ever get them to stop calling her that. She felt trapped in a Jane Austen novel every time the staff rushed to do something she could do herself. She noticed over the summer even the house staff called Logan ‘Sir,’ as though in deference to his status as owner, now Miriam was gone. He’d owned the hotel for years so it seemed incongruous. Sharing the ownership title irked her. “Why’s the table over here?” Hana asked. “Wasn’t it in the middle of the kitchen before when...well, before.”
“Health inspectors came, miss,” Leslie answered, filling the teapot from a new zip heater on the wall. “Just their yearly visit, but this time the usual one brought his boss. He said we shouldn’t be cooking for the dining room while family sat here in their farm clothes and he’d told Mrs Du Rose that but she ignored him.” Leslie’s lips pursed in accusation. “I did always know that. It’s not healthy having muck near food for the public but she wouldn’t listen.” Leslie made the sign of the cross on her chest and finished with a prod to her forehead.
Hana nodded. “I never thought about it before. But yeah, it’s a fair point. What will you do?”
“Talk to Mr Du Rose,” Leslie said, fiddling with her apron pocket and shifting her feet nervously. “He’ll get angry and shout. This kitchen’s been that way since the kuia Phoenix’s time and it’s too soon to go changing things. The missus ain’t been dead more than a few weeks. But the inspector said it must be done before he comes again. He’s making an extra visit in a month. He don’t want the family eatin’ in here and he gave me an infringement notice.” Leslie wrung her hands in the apron pocket.
“Logan’s a businessman,” Hana said, her brain already working, “I’m happy to talk to him, if you’d rather.” She examined a wall to the left of the heavy fire door. The welcome distraction helped her calm down and the involuntary shake left her slender fingers. The wall’s length was interrupted half way along, forming a bend into a huge walk-in pantry. Dry ingredients were stacked on shelves in sealed containers, neatly labelled and accessible. Hana stroked the wall with her hand. “What’s next door to here?”
Leslie waved her arm expansively. “Just a storeroom, Miss. You get in from a door in the hallway. We used part of the room to make the pantry back in 1995 when Mr Du Rose took over because...” She halted, not wanting to trespass. “It’s got tables and stuff in, the overspill from the cupboard in the ballroom.”
“Can you open it?” Hana said and Leslie nodded, taking a set of keys from her apron pocket.
The service corridor was dark and quiet, dinner finished and cleared away. Through the open dining room door, Hana watched two hotel staff setting the tables for breakfast near the guest entrance. An elderly couple shuffled past in the hallway between the dining room and the courtyard and she saw the old man shake his head at the state of the shrubs. “Why does the garden in the courtyard looks so dead?” Hana asked, seeing the old lady point towards a mildewed rose bush.
“Alfred Du Rose kept it nice for Miriam. He doesn’t care no more,” Leslie said, shaking her head and fitting the ornate key into a keyhole surrounded by brass.
Hana touched the brass room number with an index finger. “The number made me assume this was a bedroom,” she said. “Perhaps it was once.”
“No.” Leslie opened the door. “It was the morning room when the house was built because it gets the sunshine early.” Drawn roman blinds covered the huge sash windows, hiding the room from outside. A veneer of grey dust covered everything. Furniture littered it haphazardly in no order.
“Did the inspectors see this?”
“No, miss,” said Leslie, her eyes widening in horror.
“Just as well,” Hana replied, relieved. “It’s a fire hazard next to the kitchen. I’m amazed they didn’t ask to see.”
“They wanted the food preparation and serving areas, miss. And the main bathrooms on all floors.” Leslie’s face blanched. Hana recognised her deep insecurity as Miriam’s replacement and although she could do the job in her sleep, she didn’t have Logan’s favour and it made the new housekeeper nervous.
Hana patted her hand and gave her a confidential smile. “If we put a doorway in here,” she said, thinking aloud and indicating the wall covered in round tables resting on their sides, “this could be a family dining area. Then nobody would need to go into the kitchen to sit and eat. We could make the room nice and have an archway or a door; whatever fits the rules.”
Hana’s excitement caused Leslie to beam with appreciation. “It’s a great idea. It’ll stop Mr Alfred getting under my feet,” she said and then reddened.
“What do you mean?” Hana asked.
“He sits at the table in the middle of things and he watches me do his wife’s job. When I got the boys to move the table to the side he came and sat there instead. He doesn’t wash or shave and the girls hate it.”
Hana nodded. “Poor man. I’ll talk to Logan and see what he thinks.” Her smile faded at the thought of telling her husband how to run his hotel, but it was too late. She’d offered.
Leslie smiled and locked the door. “Thanks, miss,” she said and hugged Hana, drawing her into her copious bosom with genuine relief. “I wasn’t lookin’ forward to talking to your husband.”
Upstairs, Hana let herself into the bedroom and found Logan lying on the bed reading a book he’d set for his English class. Alfred had gone. “All quiet on the Western Front?” she asked and he smiled and patted the bed next to him.
“You tell me,” he said, raising a dark eyebrow as his lips quirked.
They spent a peaceful evening in their room, chilling out and enjoying the peace and quiet. Logan went downstairs and returned with a bottle of red wine under his shirt and they drank, giggling like naughty teenagers. “I think I enjoy being in bed with the boss,” Hana whispered, undoing her husband’s jeans buttons with uncooperative fingers.
Logan sniggered and pushed her hands away, pulling his tee shirt off over his head and undoing his own trousers. “Bloody drunk staff!” he snorted. “You’re fired!”
Hana woke with a pounder of a headache at six o’clock the next morning, to the grumbling of her daughter needing a feed. Phoenix fed herself back to sleep after a nappy change and Hana settled down again. Logan lay on his front, his head resting on his forearms next to her and his wife traced the tattoo on his shoulder and wondered if there was any way for him to put it right. She traced the line of a koru arcing around his arm, admiring the detail in the coil of the baby silver fern. Feeling Logan’s eyes fixed on her face, Hana looked up and smiled with hesitation, relieved when his eyes softened their glare. “Is this a real ta moko?” she asked, maintaining the soft movement across his skin.
Logan shook his head without breaking eye contact. “Not really,” he replied. “True ta moko is done the traditional way, chiselling out the skin with a sharp bone and inserting the ink. Mine is kirituhi, which is more like writing on skin. It’s unique to each person. Nobody else could have the same as me because...” he trailed off, not sure how to finish the sentence anymore.
Because it’s wrong, his soul screamed. He used to be happy naked in front of Hana although his livid scars made him too self-conscious to remove his shirt in front of anyone else. But she noticed he rarely stripped off anymore even though he knew how much she loved his muscular physique.
“I love it,” she said, keeping her voice a whisper. “It’s part of you. My favourite piece is the way the koru wraps around your arm. It means ‘beginnings,’ doesn’t it?”
Logan nodded and rested his forehead on his arm, breaking contact with her. Hana kept her hand on him but after spending the last year trying to learn when to shut her mouth, she figured now was a good time to practice.
Phoenix laid in her cot grunting with colic and Hana wondered if it was the second-hand wine as she got up and stared at her writhing infant. “Don’t make me feel guilty for a little pleasure, please baby,” she complained. The child went back to sleep murmuring and groaning and her mother rebuked herself.
“Don’t,” Logan told her, surrounding her with his strong arms as Hana stared into the cot. “You’re a good mum. Don’t doubt yourself all the time.”
“Yeah, but...” Hana began. Logan silenced her with his lips.
“Don’t!” he told her, leading her back to the wide bed and smoothing his fingers down her back as she climbed in.
They enjoyed showering and dressing later, savouring the time to go at their own pace. The industrial kitchen buzzed with the activity of late breakfast orders and they huddled at the table in the corner while Hana dodged the women to grab slices of toast and a pot of tea. They ate, taking it in turns to hold the baby. “Why’s the bloody table over here?” Logan said in irritation as he banged his elbow on the wall shifting Phoenix into his other arm. “There’s no room.”
The women looked straight at Leslie, who grabbed a tray and fled to the dining room. Hana swallowed her mouthful and seized the moment. “About that,” she began.
“Sounds like a good plan,” Logan said after a while, indicating the blank wall with a wave of his toast. “It came up in the inspection report last year, but Mum...oh, it doesn’t matter. Now would be a good time to sort it out.”
Hana smiled and left the subject. She saw her husband planning in his head and didn’t want to distract him. So much in this place threatened to defeat him with memories, leaving him haggard and diminished as he fought each one. She let him to scheme and plot, enjoying the temporary relief it offered. Hana set off upstairs with Phoenix to change her nappy, leaving Logan in the kitchen, scribbling with a pen on a napkin.
He turned up an hour later, brandishing a dusty old Spanish guitar and strumming it with his long fingers. Hana smirked. “Where did you get that, Casanova?” she joked.
“It was in the room next to the kitchen,” Logan said, his voice full of enthusiasm. “It’s my old guitar; I don’t know why it was in there.” His eyes narrowed and his brow knitted in concentration. “I got good at playing and then it disappeared. I came home from school one holiday and it was gone.” He pulled a face and thrummed his fingers across the strings. There was an almighty twang as one snapped and curled around either end of the bridge like spaghetti. “Oh,” he said disappointed, “the strings are brittle. I’ll get it restrung in town.” He propped it up against the wall and bounced on the bed next to the baby, firing her upwards and making her giggle. She lay on a plastic change-mat with her bottom out, a natural exhibitionist, kicking her legs and singing. Logan blew a raspberry on her tummy and she opened her mouth wide in a smile.
“So cute!” Hana breathed, feeling fortunate.
Responding to a knock on the door, Hana admitted Alfred. He shuffled in and sat on the bed, watching Logan play with his daughter for a while. He looked less unkempt and slightly saner. “Would you like to go for a walk with me later?” she asked, keeping her voice light. “Logan’s riding out to see the men and I’ve brought the baby sling so I can go for a tramp into the mountains.”
Alfred nodded, but without enthusiasm. “Ok.”
“That’s great, thanks. I’m scared of getting lost,” she admitted. “Probably not a good idea to go alone; I find the bush intimidating.”
Alfred agreed to meet Hana after lunch and stood to leave. His body froze as he noticed the guitar leaned up against the wall. Then he slumped like a balloon with the air let out, turning to Logan with pain in his grey eyes. “What’s that doing here?” he spat.
Logan stared at Alfred in confusion. “It’s mine,” he replied. “It disappeared years ago, but I found it this morning in that room next to the kitchen. Mum took me somewhere for lessons. We went for years until the guitar went missing. Nobody knew where it was. I meant to replace it but never did because the others I tried weren’t as good. I love the tone of mine.”
Alfred’s body was stiff and unyielding. Hana sensed danger but couldn’t get eye contact with her husband, who tickled the baby. “Logan,” she said, in warning.
“Didn’t you buy it?” Logan asked, his face innocent. “Yeah, I remember now. Mum said, ‘Your father got you this but don’t tell the others,’ oh no!” Colour drained from his face as Logan stopped himself. He gulped and watched Alfred’s ashen face. “It wasn’t from you?”
Alfred shook his head as though the action was slowed on a film reel. Logan’s handsome face seemed blank and empty. Alfred’s jaw worked as he looked at the guitar with hatred and for a moment, Hana thought he might seize it and smash it into smithereens. She tried to reach him, but Alfred flung the door open and moved so quickly she was left with a handful of air. As the men divided, Hana hovered in the
doorway not sure who to comfort, but one look at her husband made it clear where her loyalties lay.
“No, no, no!” The bed covers muffled Logan’s distress and Hana sat next to him, rubbing his back and stroking his hair.
“It’s ok,” she soothed, “it’s just a guitar. It’ll be ok.”
“No!” Logan snapped, his eyes flashing their angry granite, agony dripping from his face. “Nothing can never be ok again. You don’t understand. From the age of five or six until I went away to school, Mum took me for guitar lessons, Hana!” Logan punched the bed with his hand and Phoenix started and stuck her bottom lip out.
Hana picked her daughter up, swaddling her bare bottom in a towel and holding her tight, watching her husband with wariness. “So, Reuben got you the guitar,” she said, backing away.
Logan sat up in a fluid movement and ran a hand over his face. “I’m wasting my time!” he hissed. “You don’t understand!” He stood up, balling his fists by his side and took a stride towards the door.
Familiar with the warning signs, Hana got there first, blocking his exit with her body and clutching her baby. “No. No running off. You can jolly well explain what’s so wrong with the guitar, apart from the reminder of who bought it.”
Logan’s frustration built into a tornado of misery. “Just let me go - I’ll be ok after a good ride on my mare,” he begged.
“Don’t even think about it,” Hana threatened. “You’ve left me stuck here, waiting and wondering too many times now to get away with it again. You stay here and talk!”
Logan fumbled through his awful eureka moment, his body twitching with involuntary muscle reactions. The grey of his eyes resembled a stormy, turbulent sea, his face set in a mask of unreadable emotion. “He was the guitar teacher! She took me to my own bloody father for lessons. I just understood. That’s why every time I met him by accident, it was like I knew him. Not because he was family; because my own mother took me to meet him for years on a pretext. It’s sick! She was sick! I can’t get beyond her selfishness and she’s not even here to shout at!”