by Bowes, K T
Jas skipped down the corridor, his eyes wide with awe at the huge boys he passed. He clutched Logan’s hand tightly and stared at them with open curiosity. Amy raised her eyebrows at Hana and they shared a quiet laugh at his innocent wonder. Logan took them to the front of the queue and the boys stood back without question. Jas wasn’t big enough to see the delights on offer, so Logan hoisted him in his arms and explained what each item was.
The dark haired kitchen supervisor materialised from thin air and shoved the servers out of the way to get to Logan. Hana’s heart sank. She looked sideways at her husband, noticing with relief he seemed impassive to the girl’s charms. Jas deliberated too long over his choice and Logan pointed to the queue behind them. “Choose quickly, mate, or I’ll do it for you.”
“He’s gorgeous,” the supervisor simpered and Hana gritted her teeth and cuddled Phoenix into her shoulder.
Jas pouted and chose steak and cheese pie with mashed potatoes. Logan praised him. “Good man, that’ll be tasty.”
“Awwww!” The supervisor screwed her face up at their cuteness and Hana suppressed the angry growl in her throat.
The queue shifted along quickly and Hana glanced at the menu on the serving hatch. Amy chose a salad dish with quiche and then Hana noticed an item at the bottom of the list. “Mmmm, cabbage pie please,” she said to the young woman with the serving spoon in her hand.
“Sorry, Miss,” the girl said sullenly, “none left.”
Logan caught Hana’s eye, warning her with a slight shake of his head to stop. Confused, Hana dropped her act. “It’s ok,” she said, brushing the moment off. “Quiche and salad, please. It looks yummy.”
“Cabbage is good when you’re breastfeeding,” Amy said helpfully, turning back to Hana. “But I can’t stand it.”
“Thanks, love,” Hana said, grateful as Amy grabbed both plates and set off after Logan. They sat side by side along a table for twenty. The boys avoided them until the room filled, not wanting to sit near their boarding house master. Except James.
“Miss, hello Miss,” he said, hurling himself onto the bench next to Hana and looking with longing at Phoenix, balanced over her shoulder. Hana smiled sweetly at the young Korean, fascinated by the fluffy turquoise slippers on his feet.
Jas sat between his mother and Logan, his curly head popping round to look at James and the other boys who gathered at the table. Intermittently he looked up at Logan’s towering figure with abject adoration. Logan smiled indulgently. “Get on with your dinner, mate. The next sitting will be here in fifteen minutes.”
Jas nodded and piled food into his mouth and Hana wondered if the boy needed less coddling and more of a firm male hand.
James inhaled his food and held his arms out for the baby. “I take baby now.”
Hana handed Phoenix over, used to James’ natural skill with her child. Jas ate his dinner without fuss and asked Logan if he could move seats to be with Hana. Logan gave him permission, watching as the boy climbed from his place on the bench and pushed his way in to sit on Hana’s knee. He cuddled into her, watching James winding the baby gently over his shoulder. “How do you know what to do?” he asked the teenager and Hana wondered why she’d never asked.
“I have much brother and sister in Korea,” James stated. “My mother work hard to feed children, so we take care of each other.” James smiled. “I miss family. It’s expensive to go home at holiday time, so I not see them long time.”
Jas looked sad and reached in the pocket of his shorts, pulling out a ball of fluff, a paperclip and a golden dollar coin. He held the dollar out to James. “You have it.” He placed it gently in front of the older boy. “Now you can go home.”
James looked at the five-year-old’s earnest face. Hana held her breath, feeling tension in the moment as the boy fought not to decline the child’s kindness and cause offence. James reached out and took the dollar carefully in his fingers. “Thank you, Logan-son,” he said, effecting a regal bow. Jas smiled back, importance in his serious expression.
James looked up, acknowledging another Asian boy with a sharp incline of his head as greeting. As Jas copied James’ gesture, the teenager played a clever sleight of hand and dropped the coin into Hana’s plate. It made a slight ting as it landed. She put her fingers over it and slipped it into her pocket, having found out more about the young man in five minutes, than in the previous five years. Hana sighed with sadness, guilt pricking her heart for never realising his private isolation. His joviality and desire to be the centre of attention was a front. The boy was lonely.
Jas beamed across at Logan, who observed the antics of some younger boys in the far corner who were getting rowdy. One of them noticed and a hush fell on the crowd like an automatic volume control. The boys at Logan’s table watched him with covert skill. They appeared to behave like a herd of cows, munching, masticating, turning their heads to watch the action and always aware of what was going on. Occasionally they mooed to one another, but maintained the same level of watchfulness. Boys missed nothing.
Jas pointed at the long scar on Logan’s face and spoke to the teenager opposite. “My poppa’s like Action Man,” Jas told the boy loudly and the table occupants sniggered and humoured him. Irritated by their unbelief, Jas whipped out his Action Man from his position head down in his shorts pocket. He narrowly avoided Hana’s right eye with the doll’s legs which bent at jaunty angles, making it resemble a crazy gymnast.
“Jas, no!” Amy reached out foreseeing disaster and missed, lurching without precision. Jas pointed to a scar on his doll’s face, carefully accentuated with red biro and gaudy penned stitches.
Logan stopped eating, his fork halfway to his mouth. “You’re kidding me,” Hana heard him say under his breath. “Geez I’m ugly.”
The audience at the table chewed a bit, mooed a bit and decided maybe the kid’s doll could be their head of English.
And then it happened. Jas flipped the doll the right way up so they could enjoy a better look and a trail of rancid, slimy liquid shot from Action Man’s groin, landing in blobs like snot around the table. “Oh no, not again!” Jas cried, peering into the gaps of the legs, “I thought he was cured.”
The smell was ghastly and dinner over as the boys high tailed it from the dining room. It smelled like a bad stink bomb. A Year 12 hovered over his plate in a standing position, trying to stuff the last of his pie into his mouth as his friends abandoned him.
“What is that?” Hana asked, mystified as the white, jellified mess slipped down Action Man’s legs. Jas dangled him over her plate, ending any hope of finishing her dinner.
“It’s glue!” He tipped the doll and more oozed out. “Flour and water like we maked at school. I thought it would bung up his holes, but it didn’t.”
Amy kept apologising. She looked as though she wished the ground would open up and swallow her. James rubbed the baby’s back as Phoenix leaned over his shoulder and watched the unfocused shapes moving around the dining room. Her little eyebrows moved up and down comically.
The snotty stuff covered Hana’s jeans and Jas became distressed as he shook his doll and more stuff slid out. He began to sniff, signifying an approaching meltdown. Logan looked at him sideways and shook his head in warning and Jas got the message, doing incredibly loud deep breathing and struggling to regain his composure. Hana’s bandage glued itself to the table and she wanted to leave.
James saved the day, leaning across to Jas. “Wrap him in a napkin and I’ll fix him.”
“Ohhh,” Jas whined, screwing his face up. “But he doesn’t know you. He might not want to go.” He looked at the leaking toy in his hands, desperately conflicted.
“Please, Loge. My legs have gone to sleep,” Hana hissed with a grimace. “We should probably go.”
Logan unwound his tall frame from the seat and disappeared, returning with a roll of industrial blue kitchen paper. He lay some on the table and rolled the doll inside a huge wedge. Jas flapped and panicked, demanding Logan make holes in the pape
r. “He can’t breathe!” he insisted.
A vein twitched in Logan’s neck, warning of a rapid loss of patience. Hana unstuck herself from the table and grabbed Jas’s hand. “Leave him with James,” she said firmly. “He’s offered to fix him.” She pulled the child towards the door, leaving Logan to collect the baby from James. “I’ve no bloody idea how though,” she whispered.
“No, Hanny, no!” Jas dug his heels in as Logan relieved James of the baby, letting go of Hana’s hand to run back. He put one hand on the mummified doll and leaned in to whisper something to the teenager. James listened grimly, bowing his head and closing his eyes. He looked like a benevolent king humouring a courtier. Jas nodded his fluffy dark head emphatically and threw his arms around James’s neck. He returned to Hana and took her hand, looking happier. “Just some last minute destructions.”
His curly hair wobbled in the breeze from the doorway and his enormous brown eyes stared up at Hana. “You’re adorable, but I’m not fooled for a second,” Hana whispered. She smiled and looked back towards the kitchen, her heart sinking in misery. The kitchen supervisor stared at Logan without shame and Hana’s quiche lurched in her stomach, knowing she would spend her whole life chasing off Carolines.
Jas yanked on her hand, his face filled with childish concern. “All right, Hanny?”
She wrapped her fingers around his small hand and nodded. “I’m fine, baby; thanks for asking though.”
“Ready?” Logan raised his eyebrows, oblivious to the lecherous glances from the kitchen supervisor.
“I’m so embarrassed!” Amy hissed, her face ashen. She chewed her lip and eyed her son like he was a feral bear.
Hana pursed her lips. “Don’t be. You two go back to the unit. We’re going for a wee walk.”
As Logan walked away with Amy and Phoenix, Hana took Jas onto the soccer field where a group of students worked at an energetic soccer training. One boy rolled a ball to Jas and he shyly kicked it back and then hid behind Hana. The boy laughed and ran to his teammates, passing the ball like an expert. Jas watched in fascination, still holding Hana’s hand. “Do you think you’ll come to this school?” she asked him lazily.
“Dunno,” he replied. “I’d like to, but Mummy and Daddy might not ford it.”
That’s odd, Hana thought to herself. He was five and worried about money. She changed the subject. “Are you excited about Mum and Dad getting married?”
“Not really.” Jas scuffed at the dirt with his sandal. “I like when Mummy and me is together and I like when Daddy and me is together, but I don’t like us all together.”
“Oh, that’s a shame.” Hana couldn’t think of a suitable retort.
“Yeah,” continued Jas, sadness creeping into his voice. “They’s arguing and complaining about dollars all the time. Mummy wants to do a party like you and Poppa Logan did and Daddy wants to do church and a party. And Mummy doesn’t want to live at our house no more and Daddy does. What will happen to me?” he asked, his concerned face turned upwards towards Hana. “Where will I go?”
Hana’s heart clenched in sadness. We make our adult plans, she thought, and decide the future of our children without bothering to find out what they want or if they understand our plans for them. She pulled his little head into her hip and cuddled him close while the soccer team ran around the field at a steady pace, their coach calling instructions from a distance. Hana bent down, sitting on her haunches so she was at eye level with Jas. “Jas whatever happens in your life and hopefully it will be good things, you’ll always have me, Poppa and Phoenix. Do you understand?”
He nodded, leaning into her and wrapping his little arms around her neck. Hana thought about the promises Vik made to her children and how death broke them for him. She cringed at how she nearly didn’t return to her own child and hoped God would help her keep her pact with the boy. She kissed the side of his face and stood up. “Why do you insist on being a bridesmaid?”
“Well,” Jas said, opening his hand in front of him as though giving a lecture. “My friend, Jacinder was a bridesmaid last year, so she has a dress. I knowed they’s worrying about dollars so I’ll borrow hers.”
“Ok,” Hana answered as the clues dropped into place. “But why won’t you take your uniform off?”
Jas looked around him carefully, making sure nobody could see. He lifted his polo shirt and revealed the waistband of his shorts, hanging by a thread. Reaching into his pockets, he almost detached them. “I’m a bit hard on my clothes,” he said with regret. “I’ve stopped playing tag rugby now, but I know they can’t ford me new ones and Mum’s gonna kill me. So if I keep them on, she can’t see what I did to my pants.”
Hana sighed. Poor Amy would be heartbroken if she knew. The best Hana could hope for was to mend what she could of the little boy’s life, one knotty issue at a time.
Back at the unit, Hana persuaded Logan to make Amy a drink while she fed Phoenix in the bedroom. On the pretence of Jas reading a story from his library bag, she darned his shorts. “That’s not bad, Hanny,” the little boy said, his voice going up at the end of his sentence in surprise, “Them’s real neat now!” He sat cross-legged on her bed in his briefs and Hana flapped the shorts at him.
“You must let Mum wash these tonight, Jas; they stink!”
He smiled and pointed to her jeans. “You got sticky on you.”
Hana picked at a crusty piece of glue, frowning as it crumbled under her fingernail. She lifted Phoenix over her shoulder, gratified when the baby burped quickly. “Perhaps you and I could go shopping for a smart groomsman’s outfit one day, with Logan?”
Jas’ eyes went big and wide. “Are you rich, Hanny?”
She shook her head. “No darling,” she whispered, “but I have made savings on food recently by not being at home, so I could raise enough for a suit. What do you think?”
Jas pondered for a long while, his brain ticking and his fingers smoothing the pages of his unread book. “I think that would be helpful,” he said, “but I’ll need to pay you back.”
Hana began to protest but thought about the boy’s integrity and agreed. “Ok, but pay me back in jobs then, yeah?”
They spent the next half an hour ironing out which jobs might qualify as payment. Jas had grand ideas of chauffeuring for Hana or getting up at the crack of dawn to wash her floors. She brought his grandiose plans back down to earth, making him understand that emptying the dishwasher or helping with small chores would suffice. “But how will you know when it’s all paid off?” Jas’ face was earnest. “How will I know when it’s paid? You could work me until I’m an old man. I don’t want that.”
Hana fought tiredness. The child made life more complicated by the minute. As soon as one problem was solved, he invented another. Hana laid Phoenix on the bed for a moment and searched in her dresser drawer for a small notebook. She found it, added a pen and filled in the first page, showing that each job added up to fifty cents.
Hana ran a bath for Phoenix and plonked Jas in too. She heard Logan and Amy chatting in the lounge, the steady hum of her husband’s voice inducing a feeling of safety. She kept the bathwater low and Jas climbed in by himself. It was a neat experience with him holding the baby while she kicked. “You’re surprisingly strong and trustworthy for such a small boy,” Hana complimented him. Sometimes the small boy seemed so adult.
Back in Hana’s room in his towel, Jas seized the notebook and pen, writing in it.
“What are you doing?”
“I held the baby in the baff.” Jas made an illegible scrawl. “That’s fifty cents.”
“Rip off!” Hana muttered, rolling her eyes at her opportunistic grandson.
Chapter 32
“I want to go to church.” Hana leaned her head on Logan’s chest. “I haven’t been for a while and I miss it.”
Logan kissed the top of her head, sighing happily. “I love this,” he said, sounding sleepy, “my wife in my arms and my daughter in the next room. I think I must be in heaven.” He stopped his b
rain straying towards what might have been, squeezing Hana tighter and banishing the haunting thoughts from his mind. “I’ll drop you up there,” he offered, “you can’t drive with your wrist still sore. I need to call at the Gordonton House and sort out the last of my stuff. Now Pete’s gone, Angus wants to rent the house. I should get rid of what’s left or sell it.”
Hana sighed, wishing he’d come to the little church with her but knowing he never would. You knew that when you married him, she reasoned. It’s too late to complain now.
Logan drove his wife to her church in Horsham Downs for the ten o’clock service. Oadby Church was a small affair in the middle of nowhere. It was a typical church building surrounded by green paddocks with an awesome view of Mount Ruapehu. The church was around eighty years old although the original congregation of farming families predated that by many decades. Logan changed Hana’s bandage before they left, horrified at the state of the wound. It looked manky and tinged with green pus, indicating infection under the stitches. “I mean it, Hana,” Logan warned as he dropped her off. “We’re getting that looked at. It’s been over a week and you still aren’t using it properly! I’ve watched you and it’s getting worse.”
“I don’t want to look at it, talk about it or think about it!” Hana snapped, dragging on her jacket and exiting the Honda before Logan could complain any further.
Hana struggled getting the car seat out of the vehicle one-handed and Logan intervened. “I’ll keep her if you want,” he said, kissing his wife’s lips. “She’ll be fine with me.”
“No!” Hana’s eyes widened and she shook her head vigorously. The thought of being separated from her baby seemed overwhelming and she couldn’t loose herself from the feelings of guilt. Laval managed to separate them by default – she wouldn’t do it voluntarily. “I’ll manage.” She shoved her phone into her jacket pocket and grappled with the car seat, change bag and bible. Logan watched as she lumbered over to the arched front doors, greeting people on the way with false bravado and a wooden smile.