by Bowes, K T
“Ah, tricky,” Marcus replied with a hiss. Hana sensed his conflict. He’d been Bodie’s best friend since the Johals arrival in New Zealand almost two decades ago. It was a difficult transition for the boys, going from best mates to brothers-in-law, but they survived it. Added to being Bodie’s friend, Marcus’ role as a pastor made it unlikely he would break her son’s confidence.
Hana huffed. “I’m wasting my time asking you, aren’t I?”
“Pretty much,” Marcus replied. “I’m sorry.”
Hana knew from experience it was futile pushing him further and asked after Izzie and the children instead. Marcus told her they were fine but stopped her as she said goodbye. “Hey, love,” he said, his tone gentle. “You’ve found yourself a great husband and Izzie and I are standing with you in this. Bo might take a while but until he accepts Logan, it’s his loss, Hana. He’s missing out, not you. You live your life, ok?”
“Thanks,” Hana said, feeling tearful as she ended the call. She rattled around the unit, hating Logan’s night duties. After eight years of sleeping alone, it took only days to get used to having someone in her bed. Since he took the boarding house job, each enforced absence at night was a trial. Eventually, she went to bed, dragging her feet and digging out an unfinished novel. She fell asleep reading and didn’t hear Tama’s return just after midnight.
Amy dropped Jas off at ten o’clock, three hours before Hana expected him. The child was wired, dragging a tiny bicycle from the boot of his mother’s car and wobbling all over the small road outside Hana’s unit. Amy was apologetic and Hana felt frazzled within ten minutes as Jas refused to come indoors and she couldn’t stay outside while Phoenix slept in her cot. Tama was off somewhere in Hana’s car and her patience with the child grew thinner by the hour.
Hana texted Logan, receiving nothing in reply, despite checking her phone repeatedly. She couldn’t rid herself of the feeling she was being punished, but didn’t understand what she’d done. Bodie was at the root of it somewhere.
Standing in the freezing cold by the front door watching the frantic child on his bike, Hana heard her baby cry inside and uncharacteristically lost her temper. As Jas ignored her call for the tenth time, she left the front door step and alarmed him by running up behind and putting her hands on his handlebars. “Off!” she shouted.
“No!” he whined, avoiding her grasping hand and backing away.
“Fine,” Hana snapped as Phoenix’s wail cut through the air, distress making her louder as Hana failed to appear. “I’ll take you over to Poppa Logan and let him tell you off. He’ll be very disappointed.” She lifted the bike in the air and stamped towards the unit.
“Ok,” Jas said, sounding hopeful. “Take me to Poppa, then. I love Poppa.”
“Get inside!” Hana told him throwing his bike into the hallway with a clang and wincing at the fury in the child’s face.
“Don’t throw my bike, Hanny! It’s naughty!”
“Get inside!” she demanded, hearing the hitch as Phoenix became hysterical. She made a lurch for Jas’ hand and held it in a vice like grip when he threatened to run away.
Hana latched the front door so he couldn’t reach and took the mortice key with her in her pocket, not trusting him. “Sit on that sofa and don’t move!” she said, hearing the nastiness in her tone and seeing the open dismay on the boy’s face. It wasn’t like her and fury pressed at the edges of her psyche.
Jas curbed his attitude a little when Hana returned with the baby, waiting patiently while she fed her. “I haven’t had lunch,” he informed her crossly. Hana had the overwhelming feeling of being taken advantage of, but tried not to take it out on the child. She made him a sandwich, ignoring his protests. “I don’t like bread, margarine, cheese or ham. Or plates,” Jas declared.
“Fine!” Hana bit, dumping it in the dustbin and slamming the empty plate on the side. She gritted her teeth. “Don’t eat it then.”
By the time Tama appeared, wearing a strange look on his face which resembling guilt, Hana was ready to scream. “What’s up, Ma?” he asked, hissing her on the top of her head.
“You can’t touch her!” Jas shouted, making Phoenix squeak in alarm. “She’s not yours, she’s ours!” He slapped Tama on the ribs and the teenager winced in pain.
“Sod off, shorty!” he spat, taking himself to the bathroom.
“What’s wrong with you?” Hana demanded, staring at the boy through eyes filled with disappointment and disgust. “I thought you were a nice boy but your behaviour today is horrid.”
“I am a nice boy,” Jas muttered. “But that Du Rose boy’s not a nice boy. He’s a passassite.”
“A what?” Hana leaned forward and asked Jas to repeat it, no nearer to understanding as he said the word over and over to the point of hysteria. She sighed and prayed for three o’clock to come quickly, saddened at a relationship which formerly sweet, was now soiled.
Hana let Jas draw on scrap paper while she occupied herself next to him, sorting through a biscuit tin containing photos and dividing them between Izzie and Bodie. Phoenix kicked her bare legs on the rug underneath Millie’s old baby gym. She couldn’t reach any of the objects but was willing to die trying. “I’m bored,” Jas declared, throwing the pencil across the room.
“Such a good job smacking is illegal in this country,” Hana muttered, maintaining a stony, impassive face as Jas wailed for the TV on and she refused. “Pick the pencil up, right now,” she told him and he reluctantly obeyed.
“Mummy says, or else,” he jibed and Hana narrowed her eyes and gave a twisted smile.
“I don’t have to make empty promises, Jas,” she said. “I’m so disgusted at your behaviour right now, I’m contemplating ringing your father.”
“But you said I could see Poppa Logan for a telling off.” The child’s face dropped into an ugly frown and his dark eyes clouded as a temper tantrum brewed.
“I don’t want my lovely husband to see you like this,” she replied. “It’d make him very sad and he’s got enough to worry about at the moment.”
“Are you gonna ring Daddy then?” Jas taunted and pushed to her natural limit. Hana nodded and pulled out her phone.
“Yep.” She unlocked the keypad and searched for Bodie’s number as his son became apoplectic.
“No, no!” he wailed. “Please don’t do it. I wanted Poppa, not Daddy. I’ll be good, I promise.”
Hana watched the devious child through narrowed eyes, seeing more of her son in him than she cared for. She stared at him while he begged and cried, real tears running down his olive face. Hana leaned forward. “Last chance,” she warned him. “Because I’m telling you, I’ve had enough!”
Jas decided to sit on Hana’s knee and ‘help’ her sort the photos. It meant she sorted them and he mixed them up even faster. “Please leave them alone, Jas. Look at them without touching,” she said, sounding tired. A nice snapshot of Vik holding a baby Izzie was blighted by a greasy thumb print and a blob of bogey.
Tama shuffled through to the lounge, his hair sticking up from an impromptu sleep on Hana’s bed. He glared at the boy sideways. Oblivious, Jas pointed for the hundredth time to a photo of Vik. “Who’s that?”
“Your granddad,” Hana replied, almost at exploding point.
Jas cocked his head, considering something before letting loose with an episode of whinging. “Nooooooo, Poppa Logan’s my granddad! This one must be the spare one.”
Hana’s head whipped round so hard she heard her neck click. “What did you say?” Something Logan said the night before resonated in Hana’s brain. He referred to himself as, ‘the spare.’ Hana took a deep breath and calmed herself, knowing from experience Jas wouldn’t tell her anything if she probed openly. “What’s a ‘spare’?” she asked softly, putting emphasis on the final word.
“It’s when,” Jas began, settling himself in for a lengthy description like an old man telling a tale. “It’s when you’ve already got a daddy and someone gives you another one you don’t want. Like
my Dad had one and then he got another one. But he doesn’t want it.” He looked Hana square in the eye with a sad look in his face. “But I like Poppa Logan bestest. I don’t know this other one and I don’t want him.” Jas picked up the spoiled photo and put it face down on the table. Then he chuckled and looked happier. “See, he’s gone now. Bye bye spare granddad.”
Hana put both hands over her face, her son’s utter cruelty revealed. Logan was right; the truce for her sake was one-sided. She felt devastated. Peeping through her fingers at Tama, she saw his teeth gritted in the characteristic Du Rose-pissed-off-face and couldn’t blame him. She felt overwhelmingly ashamed of her son and no words could excuse the damage he’d done. Hana was careful not to blame the child for repeating his father’s words but he obviously used the phrase liberally enough at home and worse, had explained it to the child.
“Why don’t we go out in the car somewhere, anywhere?” Tama suggested, seeing Hana’s faint nod of acquiescence. “Get your coat on,” he said to Jas, his authoritative tone rewarded by immediate obedience.
They settled on Hamilton Gardens so Jas could ride his little bike while Hana pushed Phoenix in the pram. Tama agreed to come. A group of police officers stopped traffic on the gate again, this time asking drivers and passengers to account for their whereabouts over the weekend and if they’d seen anything suspicious. As Tama drew up to the gate, he was confronted by the female police officer. He blushed to a heated shade of red.
Jas sat on a booster seat in the front next to Tama, with Hana in the back by her baby. Tama buzzed the driver’s window and tried to keep calm as his hormones raged. Hana permitted herself a small smirk and a wink at her baby, who smiled sweetly back at her.
“Hello!” Jas piped up loudly and the police woman smiled indulgently at him. “Tama likes you,” he started, glancing back at Hana as she said his name in warning, wondering how the child seemed to know this stuff. The cop looked embarrassed, but Jas hadn’t finished disgracing himself. “I’m gonna be a pimp when I grow up.” The police lady looked shocked, gulping as Tama groaned. “Yes, like on Miami Vice. I’m gonna have a really big gold med-lion round my neck and lots of girls. You can call me Poof Daddy.” Jas made his eyes bug wide and looked like a maniac.
Tama looked to at Hana for help and she intervened from the back seat. “We were up at our other house near Huntly for the weekend,” she said. “My husband wasn’t rostered on so we left the site.”
“Ah, Du Rose.” The cop made the connection and looked at Tama with renewed interest.
“Do you want addresses and phone numbers?” Hana asked, “in case you need to check?”
The woman nodded and jotted down their details. “So you live here during the week?”
“Yeah, unfortunately,” Hana breathed, covering her mutterings with a nod and a smile. “We get away as often as we can. There was a soccer game here on Saturday morning but most of the team arrived as a group so I guess we all alibi each other.”
“Do you think you need an alibi?” the cop allegedly named Lucy asked.
Tama’s blush reached the backs of his ears and he shook his head, very much out of his depth. “Er...I don’t think so,” he said, a falter in his speech.
“Cool then, thanks.” Lucy waved them on and Tama clumped on the gas, causing the wheels to screech in his haste to get away. Hana put her head back against her seat and wondered if the day could get any worse.
At the gardens, Jas belted around on the two-wheeled bike, getting underfoot with tourists and gardeners alike. “At least I’m burning calories,” Hana puffed, trying to look on the bright side.
“You don’t need to,” Tama reassured her. “If you get any thinner you’ll drop down storm drains.”
Hana paused, nodding and holding her chest. Tama took his eyes off the two-wheeled maniac and caught hold of the pram handle. “You ok?”
She nodded and glanced up at Jas as he wobbled around the side of Turtle Lake. “Just catching my breath,” she gasped. “I’m unfit.” She pointed her index finger as the child wavered far too close to the edge. “Just grab that boy for me, please.”
“You nearly fell in, kid!” Tama said, hauling Jas back to Hana by the arm. The small bike dangled from his hand, making the veins in his biceps stand out.
“I need a coffee,” Hana conceded. “And a sit down.”
In the cafe, Jas whined for chips, pie and ice cream, which he didn’t get. Tama dealt with him to Hana’s relief. “Muffin or nothing,” he told the boy, his voice emotionless and not caring either way. Hana gave Phoenix a covert feed under her fleece.
“Did you ever behave like that?” Hana asked as Tama sat Jas on a seat and told him not to move. The child eyed him sideways and capitulated, knowing he meant it.
“Not if I still wanted skin on my backside,” Tama said, sitting next to Jas and trapping the child between the adults. “I just made up for it when I was older because by then nobody cared.”
Arriving back at the school site, it was a relief to find the cops gone from the gate but Bodie waited outside the front door in his car. Jas kicked up a fuss when Tama transferred the bicycle from the Honda’s boot to Bodie’s. “Tama,” Hana whispered, “please would you mind taking Jas to the swings with Phoenix for a little while?” She jerked her head towards Bodie and Tama nodded. He loaded the sleeping baby from the car seat into the pram and strode towards the playground, shooting a withering look in Bodie’s direction.
“What’s with the cuckoo?” Bodie asked as Hana unlocked the front door and gathered Jas’ stuff together. She couldn’t trust herself to speak until the brimming lahar of hot lava in her chest was under more control. “You trust that parasite with your kid?” he pressed and Hana bit hard on the inside of her mouth.
She handed her son the envelope of photographs and he peeked inside with an interested look on his face. Hana watched him but his face remained closed. Rage bubbled in her chest and she wrestled the urge to shout at him, knowing it would end in an argument.
“Has he been good?” Bodie asked conversationally, dropping the envelope as though it didn’t matter.
“Not really,” Hana replied. Bodie shrugged with disinterest, making Hana even crosser. “If you’re interested,” she said, a bite in her voice, “your son listens to everything you say, even when it’s not for his ears. This afternoon, we’ve been entertained by a complete repertoire of inappropriate action movies which he apparently watches with you.” Hana proceeded to reel off a list. “He informed a colleague of yours he’s going to be a pimp when he grows up, like on Miami Vice and he knows all the lingo.” Bodie swore, but Hana wasn’t finished. “Apparently you refer to my husband as ‘the spare,’ plus other derogatory terms which I have more dignity than to repeat. Your insults seem more cutting coming from the mouth of a baby.”
Bodie had the decency to look guilty and slumped down on a dining chair. He should have run away like he usually did; like she expected him to. “So,” she asked her son, “what’s your problem with my husband? And let’s not forget Tama - the cuckoo or is it the parasite?”
Bodie rubbed his hand over his eyes. Then he answered, “Logan’s not Dad.”
“No,” came Hana’s swift retort. “But we’ve had this conversation before and Logan’s faithful, for a start!”
Bodie gritted his teeth and bit back any answer which might have escaped his lips, choosing silence as the safer option. Angry, black bile leaked from Hana’s psyche and and wouldn’t be stopped. “How dare you?” she half-shouted. “You use me to child mind Jas - you even used Logan last week when I wasn’t here. He took your son to his senior English class to help you out and then you continue bad mouthing the man, using awful names which your son repeats to anyone who’ll listen. Who the hell do you think you are? He’s been nothing but kind and sweet to you and Izzie and this is how you repay him?” Hana felt the pounding of blood surging into her head and chest and ignored it, pacing the tiny lounge like a caged beast.
Bodie kept h
is head down but his jaw worked furiously. “He gave Izzie a fifty grand car. He likes her and Marcus.”
Hana tossed her red hair and it formed a livid haze around her head. “What car?” she spat. “And it’s beside the point. People don’t show their regard by giving you money or things. I didn’t bring you up to think that. Besides which, Logan booked your wedding reception and honeymoon at his hotel, free of charge! How mercenary and money grabbing can you get? I don’t think I’ve ever been more ashamed of you than I am right now! You’re nothing but a spoiled brat with an ungrateful streak which makes me feel physically sick!”
Hana picked up her cell phone and dialled the hotel reception and without giving her name, enquired about the cost of a wedding reception, including invited guests staying in the best hotel suites; the package Logan offered as a gift. Bodie watched his mother while she wrote down a figure and thanked the receptionist, hoping the woman hadn’t recognised her voice.
She threw the paper onto the table in front of her son. “There you go,” she said. “That was ‘the spare’s’ wedding gift to you.”
Bodie gulped and his face lost its spiteful edge. He pushed the paper back across the table towards her. “Sorry,” he said, biting his lip.
“You will be,” she said with steel in her voice, “because you’ll now be paying it. I won’t allow you to abuse my husband’s good nature anymore. Find the money or cancel the wedding reception. I’ll leave you to explain to your fiance and if I ever hear your son refer to ‘the spare’ again in any context, you and I are will seriously fall out.” Hana thumped the table between them with the flat of her hand, feeling her bones sting. “You might not like my life choices, Bodie Johal, but that’s exactly what they are, my life choices!” She stood upright and pointed at the door. “Oh and find another idiot to child mind for free in future because I’m sick and tired of getting nothing in return from you but misery. And just so you know, Logan knows what you call him and is hurt.” Her green eyes blazed like emeralds. “I guess Jas informed him when he babysat for you at short notice again last week. It was probably out loud during his Year 12 English class too, just to add to the humiliation. So if you want to continue having a relationship with me, I suggest you grow up!”