by Bowes, K T
“Get an ambulance,” someone shouted. “But get him off the pitch first so we can carry on.”
“Can’t move him, don’t be stupid!” someone else rebuked.
Angus knelt next to his sports teacher, slapping the florid face with enthusiasm. His girlfriend Heather, looked horrified. “Ooh, that’s a bit hard, love,” she reprimanded.
“Just a few more taps,” Angus replied, clearly enjoying himself as he slapped Pete again.
The players tapped their feet impatiently on the grass as the referee went over to see if the body could be moved across the back line. “Is he unconscious?” he asked with concern.
“No!” Logan bellowed. “He isn’t!” Upon reaching his friend, Logan grabbed Pete’s nose in his fingers and gave it a sharp twist.
“Ow!” Pete squealed and the retraction of his knobbly legs freed up the white line for the game to continue as Logan used his foot to move the odious little man away. The whistle blew and the comedy sketch continued. Logan made some decent clearances from his half of the pitch, planting the ball at Tama’s feet with perfect aim. Tama’s opponent was not averse to repeated fouls involving the boy’s legs more than the ball and as he went down for the fourth time, the teenager lost patience.
“You go up front!” Tama shouted at Logan, stomping over and taking his place during a restart of play. Logan shrugged and jogged up to the other end, playing a forward. He stood next to his new opponent, looking down on him and smiling viciously while raising one eyebrow in expectation. The defender looked around at his team members for someone else to swap with, but they mercilessly avoided his eye. As the ball came towards him, Logan didn’t need to jump to contact it with his head and his opponent bounced off him like a rubber ball.
“Goal!” the team screamed, celebrating and dancing at the equaliser as the ball shot into the net. They ran to Logan, pounding his back with elation. The whistle blew for a foul and all hell broke loose.
“You fouled the defender!” the referee shouted, posturing and pointing his whistle at Logan.
“He bounced off my chest,” Logan replied, sounding hurt.
The referee shook his head. “Goal disallowed.”
From then on the game degenerated into a violent mud bath and the ball was no longer the primary focus. Had poor Larry Collins not already been in another life, he would have beamed himself there. He wouldn’t have stomached the complete desecration of his sacred turf as the players charged back and forth, chasing each other rather than the round, white object in the fray. Amidst it all, Logan put in a wonderful cross which found the science teacher’s head and the back of the goal. When the referee put the whistle to his lips to challenge it, angry Presbyterian Boys’ players surrounded him.
Logan jogged to see his wife and stepson in the goal mouth and Tama joined them. “This is a complete joke,” the teen complained and Logan shrugged.
“It’s just a good excuse for a run around for me,” he replied nonchalantly, squatting down to smile at his daughter. Swaddled up in her pram, Phoenix giggled and burbled baby talk. Her mud covered daddy kissed her on the nose as she beamed up at him.
“You alright, babe?” Logan asked Hana, whose body quivered under her clothing.
She nodded and pulled her coat around her. “Yeah, it’s just cold.”
“No, you’re just losing weight, Ma,” Tama said, still sulking about the goal.
“Shut up!” Logan told him, warning the boy with fiery grey eyes. Rising to his full height, Logan looked towards the knot of bodies around the referee whose head was level with the players’ shoulders. He inhaled as the whistle blew frantically from inside the circle. Logan shook his head. “I’m done here. It’s a farce.” He turned towards Bodie. “You played good, man. Wanna come back to ours for a shower? There’ll be a queue, but you’re welcome.”
Bodie’s face frowned with mistrust and he saw Hana roll her eyes in his peripheral vision. As she set off walking he nodded. “Thanks. It’ll save me time as I’m due on duty at two o’clock. Odering told me to wear mufti as we’re mainly clearing up here.”
“Promotion?” Logan asked, an odd look in his eye.
“Maybe.” Bodie looked at him with curiosity. “What’ve you heard?”
“Me?” Logan snorted and touched his chest. “From who?”
They caught up to Hana and she threw a comment over her shoulder. “You know the game’s not over, don’t you?”
“It is for us,” Tama said like a sulky child and the three players walked casually around the edge of the pitch, unnoticed by the arguing throng surrounding the referee.
While Hana created a sandwich mountain, the men showered and changed into clean clothes. First out of the bathroom, Tama buttered bread and grated cheese while Hana quizzed him about his interview. “I’m so sorry, love. Last night should have been about celebrating you and instead...” Her brow knitted and Tama looked at her with curiosity in his face.
“Are you upset or in pain?” he asked. “Because it looks like pain to me.” He placed the cheese grater on the counter and took Hana in his arms, pushing his face into her red hair and holding her tightly. “I love you, Ma,” he whispered. “You’d tell me if there was something wrong, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course I would, silly boy. I’m still shaken after yesterday is all.” She patted his back like she did the baby’s and Tama sniggered.
Bodie walked in and cleared his throat awkwardly, his face a badly veiled mask of jealousy. Tama ignored him, releasing Hana and resuming his grating. “I felt the interview went well at the time but I’m less confident after a night’s sleep. I keep going over my answers in my head and wishing I’d said different things.”
Hana smoothed a hand across his shoulders. “Sorry, I won’t make you go over it again then. You can’t change anything. But I bet you were amazing and they saw that. They wanted you anyway.”
Bodie sat on a sofa and put his socks on, listening to the conversation without interjecting. He nodded to Hana’s offer of coffee and she smiled and turned to pour some, whilst reassuring Tama and praying God would give the teenager a break. “Lucy was kind last night in the interview,” she whispered, seeing how his cheeks pinked under the olive hue and he looked away embarrassed. Hana nudged him with her elbow and when he smiled back at her, they laughed. “Tama’s got it bad,” she joked.
Bodie sat at the table and ate sandwiches with Tama. Phoenix joined them in her high chair and sucked on a strip of cheese.
“Is Logan cleaning the bathroom?” Hana asked and the men shrugged. “He’s been a long time,” she mused, realising no sound came from behind the closed door.
“He might be taking a dump,” Tama suggested and Hana tutted and shook her head.
“You coming for some lunch, Logan?” she asked, knocking on the bathroom door. When her husband opened it with a towel around his middle, he looked ashen and ruffled and Hana pushed her way through the gap and closed it behind her. “Logan, what’s wrong?”
He faltered and Hana watched Logan’s face as he floundered. She knew instinctively he was tempted to lie, to utter something that would placate her and soothe her worries whilst he internalised his own. “Truth, Logan,” she said, her voice soothing. “Don’t make something up.”
Logan looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath. “I keep thinking about yesterday and can’t get it out of my head. I’ve spent years searching for you and now I’ve found you, feel powerless to hold on tight enough. Every time I look up, someone else is trying to hurt you and I feel a failure.”
“You’re certainly not that!” Hana exclaimed. “You were there when I needed you.”
Logan shook his head. “I’ve operated in an emotionless world, controlled and cold for so long. My decisions were calculated and weighed against practical outcomes and there were very few surprises.” He ran his hands through dark, tumbling curls. “Then along comes Hana Du Rose and unleashes these feelings of insecurity which hurt so much. I’ve realised how inadequate
I am; I can’t control anything or keep you safe. It’s a physical ache, this fear that at any point it could all be over. My happiness hangs by a fragile thread, blowing in the winds of fate.”
Logan’s honesty stunned Hana as he laid his soul uncharacteristically bare. She saw that nothing in the world scared Logan Du Rose but that one tiny detail - the things which made his life worth living were the ones he had no human way of keeping.
She stood in front of Logan with her hands on his strong chest, looking up with genuine concern. “I know, babe, believe me I know. I’m not Nancy Drew; I can’t laugh and shake it off while moving on to the next adventure in a week’s time. These things take their toll and leave an aftertaste that doesn’t disappear overnight.” Hana saw her own fears reflected in her husband’s eyes. “All I can do is keep giving you and my children into God’s care because He can see what I can’t. Life is fragile; Vik’s tragic death taught me that.” Hana ached for Logan, forced to agonise and worry without the ability to hand it over to a higher power and let it go. “It’s ok,” she said, resting her forehead against the downy, dark skin of his chest and feeling the dusting of hair move underneath her breath. She ran her hands up and around his shoulders and smiled as she felt her strong husband sigh. He started to kiss her, crushing her to him and Hana pushed him away giggling, knowing where it led. He smiled and the haunted look receded inside for the moment.
“You give me to God?” Logan asked, coiling a strand of red hair through his fingers.
Hana smiled. “Of course I do. Sometimes when I’m most vulnerable, I remember a memory verse my father taught me. ‘The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.’ It’s from the book of Isaiah and I was six when I learned it. The Word represents Jesus. Yesterday as I ran from the biology teacher, I realised if Jesus, The Word really can stand forever, the best thing I could do was get a good, firm grip on Him and hold on for dear life.” Hana Du Rose looked at her husband through wise, green eyes. “Otherwise I’ll torture myself and go insane because I can’t do it in my own strength. None of it.”
She saw Logan bite the inside of his lower lip and knew she’d hit at the heart of his anxiety. He was like a superhero whose powers disappeared overnight and he’d leapt off a tall building, only to realise he could no longer fly. He’d reached the end of himself and had nowhere else to go. “Come and get some food,” she said gently, “our daughter’s sucking cheese and isn’t sure if she likes it. It’s hilarious, come and see.”
Logan nodded, his face filled with agony. “This is too hard,” he whispered, squeezing the bridge of his nose in scarred fingers. Hana pushed herself into his body and he crushed her in powerful arms. “I love you so much,” he whispered and his body trembled. “I don’t know what I’d do if...”
“Shh,” Hana told him. “It’d be awful but you would cope. It’s the most horrific experience but no less hideous because you imagined it a hundred times. I lived through it and so did my father and we survived, not always intact but we muddled through. Everything has a price, darling. The cost of me loving you and Phoe is opening myself up to the devastation which comes with loving and losing. But you know what? It’s worth it and I wouldn’t change anything just to spare myself misery.” Hana reached up and stroked her husband’s cheek. “It’s the choice we make, Loge.”
She released him, kissing the underside of his stubbly chin. Then she opened the door and walked away, knowing he needed to rationalise it for himself. Hana dug in the hall cupboard for her slippers, allowing the shoe rack the privilege of her words of wisdom. “Life is a private journey, walked out between a man and his maker.”
Chapter 24
In the lounge, Tama fed Phoenix crusts of bread, banging her on the back as she coughed on rogue crumbs. Bodie looked uncomfortable and Hana sensed Tama had been asking him about the case. “Is the biology teacher still in custody?” she asked, reaching for a sandwich and sitting in the seat next to her daughter. Phoenix waved the crust and jabbered something unintelligible and Hana smiled and nodded, satisfying the tiny desire to be understood. The little girl did a huge nod and snapped the crust in two with her forehead, looking at the pieces with a mystified glare. Hana laughed and Phoenix giggled, squeezing up her grey eyes and producing a cheesy grin which showed little white teeth cutting through her gums. Hana stroked her hair and kissed her face, avoiding the mushed up cheese and crumbs around most of it.
Bodie finished his mouthful and sighed. “Yeah, he’s still in the cells. They applied for an extension but Petersen’s lawyer requested a medical assessment. He’s a complete lunatic; raving on and making no sense. The drugs were definitely his - the first enclosure and the one he took you to. He and Larry Collins were in it together but it all went wrong a few weeks ago. Collins was a prolific user which explains his attitude and paranoia. The post-mortem showed he was as high as a kite on the morning he died. He was hit in the face with the spade from the trench and it broke his nose and caused a massive haemorrhage in his brain. Unfortunately, the forensics guys found so many fingerprints on the handle it’s impossible to prove Peterson caused the fatal injury. I think you, Tama and Logan were the only people on site who didn’t touch the murder weapon. It lived next to the trench so everyone passing picked it up, put it down or had a dig with it. Even Angus touched it. He fell over it the day before the murder and stood it up again although thirty teenage witnesses saw that happen. Where Petersen’s concerned, we can prove motive and opportunity so hopefully the rest will fall into place.”
“What about the tennis guy?” Tama asked. “Is he involved?”
Hana felt her appetite leave and the sandwich in her mouth turn to brick dust as Bodie replied. “That’s the weird thing. Nobody else saw him on site, except Mum. Angus has no idea who he is and didn’t give anyone permission to use the courts.”
“Who told the biology teacher’s poor wife?” Hana asked sadly, trying to change the subject. Her memories flicked to two police officers a decade ago, walking sombrely up the steps of the Achilles Rise house to impart bad news to her. In the back of her mind lingered the disquieting thought she had imagined the tennis player all along. Hana began to doubt herself.
“I did,” Bodie spoke into the silence. “Poor bloody woman. She didn’t have a clue. She thought he was either working late or having an affair because he kept disappearing and not showing up at home. When she challenged him he denied it and said he was working to buy the house and found some shift work making deliveries. He seemed sincere and showed her the bank balance so she believed him. He started the marijuana plants off in a propagator on the laundry window sill. The wife assumed it was curriculum stuff and didn’t question it. She said their little girl knocked the tray off trying to open the window yesterday morning and he went absolutely mental. That was the last time they saw him. The wife put it all back together and stood the seedlings up. He told her they were maple saplings. She’s devastated.”
Hana covered her eyes with her hand, remembering the happy woman who bounced up two flights of stairs to the family room a year ago, heavily pregnant and begging Hana to let them rent the house.
“Mum?” Bodie was still speaking and Hana struggled to tune in. “Are you selling Achilles Rise?”
She sighed and nodded. “It’s listed with the agent who rents it out for me. I just haven’t managed to sign the paperwork yet.”
Hana smiled at her husband as he entered the room and vacated the chair for him, grabbing a plate of sandwiches she’d rescued from the younger men’s hungry hands. He thanked her and sat, not really hungry.
“I wondered if you’d let me buy it.” Bodie bit his lip.
“No.” Hana’s answer came swiftly and the men stared at her. She flicked her hair behind her shoulder in defiance and Bodie looked disappointed. “This family should let that house go. We all need to stop hankering after the past. But I do have another proposition if you’re interested. I’ve arranged to have Culver’s Cottage valued so I can sell
the land at the back to Maihi and Hemi. It will make the house less expensive and I’m willing to sell you that, if you want it.”
Logan’s mouth hung open, his sandwich suspended in mid-air. He shook his head in disbelief. Hana reached for his hand. “I love the house Logan’s building and I want to put everything into it,” she said. “I’m spread too thinly at the moment and need to cut down my responsibilities.” She got eye contact with Bodie. “Talk to Amy and get back to me. Three agents can value it and Logan and I will take an average, but it’s not a gift, Bodie. I’ll be looking for a fair price. I’ll give you first option but if we can’t agree, it goes on the open market.”
Bodie’s face lit up. “It would be perfect; Jas and Amy love Culver’s Cottage. Get the agents in and then we’ll talk. That’s awesome news.”
“I’m not arguing with my children about money though,” Hana reiterated. “Nothing’s worth that and I will sell it if we can’t agree.”
“Ok.” Bodie attacked another sandwich with gusto, a lightness in his heart not previously there.
Logan kept quiet, pleasure and hurt rivalling in his brain. Hana offered him security but hadn’t discussed it with him and Logan wasn’t used to being outmaneuvered. He narrowed his eyes at his daughter and pulled a face as she snatched a sandwich off his plate, dropping grated cheese onto the tray in front of her high chair and then flicking it around. She slapped her hands on it without coordination, flattening it into a yellow mess before rubbing her eyes and spreading it over her face. Hana dived in and pulled her arms up with one hand, deftly wiping the tiny face with a cloth in the other. “Mucky pup,” she crooned, undoing Phoenix’s straps and lifting her from the chair.
Hana sat on the sofa and got ready to feed the tired baby. Phoenix lay across her mother’s thighs and kicked her legs with impatience. “I’m visiting Da this afternoon,” Hana said conversationally, hoping Logan would offer to come.