by PJ Vye
“It’s hard to say.”
“Your best guess.”
“No. He’ll never be welcome. But you’re our family now.”
Junior insisted he get off the stretcher and walk up the stairs himself. He needed to stop and rest a couple of times but made it on his own.
Sunny looked at the envelope in her hands. “I’ll open this, and whatever it says I’ll take as a sign. Whether I go with you to Samoa, or I go to my dad in the UK.”
Tulula clicked her tongue, then kissed Sunny on the cheek before climbing the stairs.
Sunny pulled back the seal then hesitated. Was there anything Mataio could say that would help her decide? Wasn’t this her choice, her life and her future?
She didn’t need a sign. Mataio couldn’t help her now.
Only she could decide.
She stuffed the unopened envelope in her bag and looked up at Tulula waiting at the top of the stairs.
Sunny handed her boarding pass to the flight attendant, smiled sweetly and asked, “I need to change my flight. Can you help me?”
THE END
Chapter 1
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Sunny bit back Mataio’s name as her body spasmed into another contraction. The pain seared through her, as hot and angry as her grief.
He should be beside her, witnessing the birth of his child, reassuring her that the women who clucked around her with towels and hot water knew what they were doing. He should be here so she could scream at him with all the fire in her belly and the terror of being in a foreign country, doing this alone.
He’d let her down in so many ways. His name sat in her mouth like a small stone she couldn’t spit out. Aunt Tulula held her hand and barked orders at the women. No-one must know this was Mataio’s child, for its own sake. Tulula had inferred her son was the father and Junior hadn’t denied it. Sunny suspected he enjoyed the notoriety.
“Nearly there, Agelu,” cooed Tulula.
The angel endearment was no comfort. Her adopted aunt couldn’t hide her joy, welcoming a child, giving her own life purpose again. Something to hold onto, cherish and love. La’ei was gone, and that was that. Mataio had killed her. His life sentence would be served in an Australian prison, while his child crowned in an inconvenient humpy, on a humid January day in Salatoga, Samoa.
The urge to push took her again and Sunny bared down, uncaring of the animal-like sounds escaping her throat. Every ounce of effort was fuelled by her hatred of the man who left her to do this alone. Mataio didn’t deserve to know his child. He couldn’t be trusted.
“One more, Agelu,” Tulula said. Her eyes radiated excitement as she let go of Sunny and prepared herself for the baby with a towel across her arms.
Sunny stopped fighting her anger as her body’s natural instincts took over. “I hate you,” she belted, causing the midwife to look up in surprise.
The release felt divine. Like the three words escaping her mouth made everything okay again.
“It’s a girl, Agelu,” said Tulula in a voice so low it made Sunny open her eyes to see if a man had entered the room without her knowing. “A daughter is a blessing from God.”
Tulula turned the infant over and then back again and the baby screamed in protest. Satisfied with the noise, Tulula wrapped the towel around its tiny body, and placed her in Sunny’s waiting arms.
“She looks white,” said Sunny, looking at Tulula for reassurance. “Her eyes are blue. I don’t understand.”
Tulula clicked her tongue and touched the baby’s nose, eyebrows and mouth. “She is Samoan.” The baby reacted to the touch, her face searching for something she didn’t yet know. “What is her name?”
“Fa’atali,” announced Sunny.
“Fa’atali?” Tulula’s lips flattened. “You know the translation?”
Sunny knew it meant ‘to wait’. She didn’t want to consider any secret meaning behind it. She’d heard the name in a market. The meaning was a coincidence, nothing more. “It’s pretty. Atali for short.”
“Mmm.” Tulula’s tongue clicked as she stared at the infant, her arms ready to take her back.
Sunny held her daughter tighter.
“There will be no waiting, Agelu. This child will wait for no man. Understood?”
Atali felt so light in her arms. Surprising considering how heavy she’d felt in Sunny’s belly these last few months. The room emptied of the other women and Sunny dared to ask. “Should I tell Mataio he has a daughter, Aunt?”
Tulula silenced her with a vicious frown.
The midwife returned with a silver tray and lifted the sheet around Sunny’s legs to prepare for the placenta. Tulula snatched Atali from her arms and carried her away. Sunny wasn’t sure she heard right, but it sounded very much like Tulula had said, “Never tell.”
Chapter 2
Two years later
Sunny straightened her uniform and checked for smears of food or snot before approaching the front desk of the Sheraton.
“Talofa, Carl,” she said, as she collected the key to the spa room from behind the counter. “How many today?”
“Talofa, Sunny. Just three today. One in-room and two later in the saloon. The guy in room 2420 asked for you personally. Said you were his regular masseuse in Melbourne.”
“Really? What’s his name?”
Carl checked his list on the computer. “Laurence Williams,” he answered, then pointed to a spot on the side of his mouth.
Sunny wiped a smear of pineapple puree from her face. “I don’t remember anyone called Laurence.”
Carl leaned against the desk as he described him. “Tall white guy. Tanned. Young. Nice arms.”
Sunny wasn’t surprised Carl noticed the arms. He noticed lots of arms. Usually on younger men. “Why’s he in Samoa?”
“Didn’t say. He just wanted you to be his masseuse. He asked several times.”
Carl’s lips pouted insinuatingly, and she wondered, not for the first time, how he managed to convince the general population he was a straight man.
She gave him a silencing look.
“What?” he replied innocently. “He’d make a lovely baby daddy.”
Sunny rolled her eyes as she collected the oils and fresh towels. Working three jobs and raising a two-year-old kept her busy enough without complicating her life further. Where would she find the time? She was too tired to be lonely, let alone deal with the effort required to have sex again.
She grabbed the portable massage table from the saloon and pushed it on unreliable wheels into the lift. Room 2420 was at the cheaper end of the hotel and she had to roll the rickety table a hundred metres down the open corridor, leaving the occasional scuff mark on the wall as she went. She tapped the door, exhausted and sweating. It opened on the third knock.
“Sunny?”
He looked at her name tag on her chest and then back to her face. “Yes, hello, Mr Williams. I’m here for your massage,” she breathed, still balancing the table.
“Yes, I know. I asked for you. You don’t remember me?” She wheeled past him and he quickly moved to help clear a path. “Here, let me.”
“No, thank you, sir. We’re not allowed to let the guests move the beds. Do you mind if I move this coffee table?”
“Please.”
He stood aside and watched her, dressed only in his hotel robe, and she hoped he wasn’t one of those exhibitionist types. The clients who asked for a massage in their room were the ones with whom you had to be the most careful, although this guy didn’t look like he’d ever have to pay for sex. He had a marine vibe—short buzz cut and dark broody eyes. She would have remembered him if he’d been a regular client.
Sunny set up the massage table with a towel and turned to see him still watching.
“You’ve ordered the relaxation massage. Are you happy for me to use oil?”
“Yes, that’s fine,” he said, still staring. “I’m Laurence. You don’t remember me?”
Sunny surreptitiously tidied a few strands of ha
ir around her face. He had a way of making her feel worth looking at. “Sorry, I don’t. I’ll wait in the bathroom. You go ahead and get ready. Lie on your stomach first and cover yourself with the towel.”
“Thanks, yeah, I remember.”
She stood in the bathroom and straightened the towels while she waited. A saggy toothbrush, a stick of deodorant and a department store cologne sat loosely on the basin. Why didn’t she remember this guy? Had her baby brain really deleted an entire person?
She used some toilet paper to clean off the excess toothpaste stuck to the sink and wiped it all down.
“Ready,” he yelled, before she had time to knock and re-enter.
“Sorry, sir,” she said, and fussed with the towel to make it straight. Maybe he was a secret reviewer. All the staff were tested from time to time and it wouldn’t surprise her. She needed this job to pay the rent, so this guy would get the best damn massage there ever was.
“How’s the pressure?” she asked as she slipped her hands over his back. His arms were tanned and smooth, just like Carl had said.
What she’d give to have a job like this guy, travelling from one hotel to the next, ordering room service and in-room massages, and all he had to do was give feedback. What a life.
“Fine,” came the muffled response.
She worked for thirty minutes on his back and legs, trying to remember the procedures she’d learned back in Melbourne. She’d not had any formal training as a masseuse—when she moved to Melbourne from England and couldn’t find any work as a musician, she’d taken the first job she could get. Prima Massage hadn’t been too worried about her lack of qualifications—as a professional violinist she had strong hands and that seemed enough to satisfy her desperate employer. He’d spent an afternoon showing her a basic full body routine, then left her to it.
Four years later she still felt like an imposter, but the boss at the Samoan Sheraton seemed more impressed by her English than her massage skills, so her lack of qualifications hadn’t been a problem.
What if this Laurence guy was a qualified masseuse? She’d lose her job, for sure. He was probably formulating his report right now.
“Roll over please,” she said, in the quiet, dreamy voice she used for clients. She held up the towel and averted her eyes. Often, they fell asleep and she’d have to ask twice. Sometimes she even had to give them a little shake. This guy turned immediately—and quite effortlessly. Some clients found it a struggle to swap from their back to their front on the hard table—huffing and puffing with the odd bone crack and grunt.
Sunny repositioned the larger towel over his middle section and folded a small towel over his eyes. She remained professional, not daring to enjoy this particular client. Which was a shame, because nice chiseled bodies like this one didn’t arrive on her table very often. She always got the relaxation clients—usually the sportier bodies went to Kekepovi who gave hard-core therapeutic massages.
“What brought you to Samoa?” he asked, the towel moving on his face as he spoke.
Now he was testing her capacity for small talk. She used her calm, dreamy voice again. “My family are here.”
He took the towel from his face with the arm she wasn’t massaging. “In Samoa? How’s that?”
Sunny continued to work the muscles, gently running the full length of his fingers. “Is the pressure okay? Are you comfortable?”
“I remember back at Prima Massage, you once said you were living with a Samoan family. There was a Mike or Mat or Mitch, I think?”
Sunny tried hard not to alter the rhythm of her fingers, even though her heart skipped and her mind raced. “Mat.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Mat. How did that work out?”
“Excuse me.” Sunny took the discarded towel to the bathroom and ran it under the hot water tap until it heated through. It gave her time to think.
What did this guy want? She now knew without a doubt he’d not been a client of hers. She’d quit her massage job and planned to eat and drink herself into oblivion before she met Mataio and his family. There was no way she would have mentioned him to a client.
So, what did he want?
She squeezed out the towel and returned to the room, but he was already up, his robe back on. “Sir, would you like me to wipe the oil from you?” He couldn’t be a reviewer, so it shouldn’t matter if she confronted him with his lies. Still, she couldn’t manage to speak up.
She must have looked worried because he asked, “Did I say something wrong?”
“Not at all, sir. I’ll just collect my things and leave you.”
“Would you have a cup of coffee with me later?”
Her heart raced. “Why?”
He spoke gently, and she wondered if he was a psychopath. Apparently, psychopaths were charming. This guy oozed charm. The white robe against his tanned face, the close beard, the manicured eyebrows and chocolate-brown eyes filled with questions. “I’m sorry, I lied. I’ve never met you before. I think you guessed.”
You think? “Who are you? What do you want?”
“Laurence Williams.”
“Yes? And?”
“I’ll tell you if you have a coffee with me—in the hotel restaurant. Completely safe and public. What time do you finish?”
She wanted to tell him to sod off. But he’d mentioned Mat.
“Three. But I have to catch the bus in time to get to my other job. You’ll have ten minutes. That’s it.”
“I’ll take it.”
She let him help her close up the massage bed and wheel it into the corridor. As she pressed the service elevator button, she wondered what the hell she was doing.
Strange men doing strange things had never gone well for her in the past.
Chapter 3
Mataio closed the newspapers and folded them under his arm to take to the mess room for the others to fight over. Inmates had to buy their own reading material at Huenty Fall Prison and most felt the cost of newspapers were a waste of their hard-earned prison dollars. They were always happy to read Mataio’s copy, though.
With three months to the release of the drug, the papers still struggled to find the line between reporting Mataio as a saint or a sinner. His obesity cure was still hailed as a miracle, and his selfless act to release the patent to the world for free made him a hero—yet killing his cousin as a fifteen-year-old in cold-blood created too much grey area for people to grasp.
Mataio wondered why there was no sign of his interview with The Conservator’s reporter from two weeks ago. Why was the man holding back the story? The whole world wanted to know why he’d killed his cousin, and until now there’d been no good reason to tell. It wouldn’t bring her back.
Mataio cared little for how the world perceived him. It was completely out of his hands. The drug belonged to the world and they could deal with it. His actions as a teenager would always be his true legacy.
Mataio crossed the quadrangle of his new home—he’d been moved to medium security just that month, given the over-crowding of the maximum security at Barwon. Here at Huenty he had a private room and bathroom, and more freedom to work and study. His ten years’ service as an ER doctor with no previous criminal record had gone in his favour with his transfer, and he was grateful to be in the countryside, where the days were sunnier and the mood a little less intense.
“Hey Doc. You mind having a look at my foot? It hurts like all fuck,” said Pete as they passed each other in the yard. Mataio had shared a cell with him the night he arrived, and considered Pete one of the good guys.
Here for a life sentence as well, Pete’s time was almost up. At seventy-nine, he knew a lot about the way the prison worked and he had a strange acceptance of it all. He meditated like a Buddhist monk and swore like a school boy.
“You know I can’t help you, Pete. Make an appointment with the medic.”
“Eh, but he’s not here until Frid’y, and how would I know, eh, if I should fuckin’ make an appointment or not?”
Mataio checked
over his shoulder for prison guards, then down at the man’s foot. “Take off your shoe, but make it look like you’ve got a stone in it.”
Not only had they taken away Mataio’s medical licence, but he wasn’t even allowed to give medical advice. Last year, a prison guard died of a burst appendix on the job. They were giving him CPR thinking it was a heart attack while they waited for the paramedics, and when Mataio tried to intervene he was dragged away by guards to his cell and reprimanded.
When inmates asked him medical advice now, he had to be very careful.
“Is it itchy?”
“Mate, my toes are so itchy I want to scratch them clear up to my arsehole, eh.”
“Any pain?” Even without looking, Mataio could tell Pete’s feet were bare. The stench was worse than the prison cafeteria.
“Yeh. Burn like.”
“Do they hurt all the time or just when they’re touched?” Mataio bent down and pretended to look at the rocks while he pressed against one of the man’s toes.
“Fuck you, you fucking sadist. What you do that for, eh? Yeh, it hurts when touched. Jesus, eh. What kind of doctor are you? No wonder you’re in prison for life. What kind of bedside fuckin’ manner is that, eh?”
Mataio wiped his hands on the rocks in his hands, then tossed them casually aside so an onlooker might think they were just chatting. “Chilblains.”
“They gonna have to take my toes, eh?”
Mataio nodded, seriously. “I expect so.”
Pete had been joking, but Mataio’s response clearly panicked him. “You serious?”
“No.” Mataio winked. “Cut a potato in half. Scoop out a teaspoon of the inside. Put a spoon of salt in the hole. Leave it overnight on a plate. In the morning, tap the juice on the ends of your toes.”
“Fuck you, eh. If you can’t help me, just say, eh? I’ll make an appointment with the fuckin’ medic.”
“While you wait, try the potato thing.”
“Potato, my fucking arse. Have a great fuckin’ day.” Pete headed off, his shoes still in his hand, trying not to let the gravel cut his feet. He turned as if he’d just remembered something. “Mat, Kimbo Morrison was looking for you. Something about you owing him something. Why the fuck are you owing that man something? For a doctor, you’re pretty stupid, you know, eh?”