Slade laughed self-consciously.
‘You’ve lost your American accent,’ he remarked when they’d managed to settle themselves down again.
Lisa shrugged. ‘Lost the memory, lost the accent, I think it’d be safe to say I’ve lost it.’
He nodded. ‘I meant it when I said I’d help you with the washing if you want.’
‘That’s nice of you, but I have to get the hang of doing things on my own. You could carry the basket back inside for me when I’m done if you wouldn’t mind?’ ‘OK.’
Lisa hung up the last of Dan’s shirts, feeling very housewifely. His shirts were a real challenge considering they were the size of small sails.
Slade carried the basket back inside for her and accepted her offer of tea.
Lisa discovered he was actually nineteen and suffered badly from asthma. He was studying at Auckland University and lived next door with his grandparents. Lisa got the impression that Slade was a loner. His passion was motorbikes and he owned a small Honda. In Lisa’s experience, there was a Slade in every class—the clever, weird kid always on the fringes, never quite one of the in-crowd. The more she listened to him, the more she liked him, and when they discovered they were both left-handed they indulged in a bitching session about the difficulties and irritations of living in a right-handed world before Slade returned to the subject of motorbikes.
‘I’d like a Ducati, but they’re really expensive,’ he explained. ‘I work at the garden centre in Browns Bay on the weekends sometimes. I’m saving up to buy one.’
Lisa went on full alert. Her father managed the garden centre in Browns Bay. ‘So you know Brian Jackson then?’ she asked slowly.
‘Mr Jackson?’ Slade nodded. ‘Yeah, he’s a nice old guy. Do you know him?’
Lisa nodded and tried not to smile as she imagined how her father would react to being called an old guy. He was only fifty-five.
‘He’s really good to me,’ Slade continued. ‘Makes sure I work with the succulents and trees in case the pollen upsets me.’ He frowned. ‘Not everybody is that thoughtful.’
Lisa pursed her lips. ‘You mean Ray Tanner?’
‘Yeah.’ He was surprised. ‘Do you know him?’
She nodded again and changed the subject.
Ray Tanner was supposed to be the assistant manager, but he was a lazy, arrogant pig of a man who had caused her placid, gentle father one headache after another. He’d had the cheek to ask Sherry if she wanted to go out with him the same day their father had almost come to blows with Ray over his treatment of some of the junior staff. Sherry had replied she’d rather become a lesbian.
Lisa had been alarmed when Ray then turned his attentions her way. She’d never been able to be blunt like Sherry, and so she made it a habit to visit the shop when she knew he wasn’t working. In the meantime Brian was going through the laborious process of verbal and written warnings, with the hope that eventually he could fire Ray without being landed with a personal grievance claim. Ray was canny enough to know just how far he could push before Lisa’s father could sack him.
Slade got to his feet reluctantly. He’d been sitting at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, drinking herbal tea. ‘I have to go down to Browns Bay and do some things for my grandmother.’
Lisa had done a double take when she offered him a drink and he’d asked for chamomile tea. She wondered what other teenagers made of him. He was either incredibly thick-skinned or incredibly brave.
‘I’m going to call a taxi and go down there myself. I wanted to go for a walk on the beach,’ Lisa explained. ‘Or at least a hop on the beach.’
He nodded, looking out the window at the blue skies and sunshine. ‘The tide’s out, so you’ll be OK. If it weren’t for your leg, I’d offer you a lift. I’m a very safe driver.’
After the chamomile tea, Lisa didn’t doubt it.
She really shouldn’t even contemplate it.
Dan would be right to go apeshit.
But she was feeling lonely and it would be hours before he came home. The thought of getting into a car without Dan at the wheel made her extremely nervous. ‘Do you want to catch a ride with me in the taxi?’ she asked hopefully.
Slade shook his head. ‘Thanks, that’s nice of you, but I like getting out when the weather’s so nice.’
Lisa looked out at the sunshine and couldn’t help but agree. She also wondered if Slade wasn’t really ninety instead of nineteen.
She sighed. ‘Anyway, I’d have nowhere to put my crutches.’
‘Oh, they’d be alright,’ he assured her. ‘You can click them right down. They might even fit in the panniers.’
Lisa brightened. ‘Really?’
He nodded.
Just before they left, Lisa saw Linda Brogan’s little silver phone vibrating across the tiled kitchen counter as if an unseen hand was guiding it.
‘Slade?’
He had just returned with a spare helmet for her to try on.
‘Yes?’
She pointed at the phone, which had stopped and then started to vibrate again. ‘Do you know how to drive one of those things?’
He gave her an odd look and picked up the tiny mobile phone. ‘You’ve missed several calls and there’s a message. He looked across at her, thumb hovering over the buttons. ‘Want me to check who they’re from?’
Lisa scowled. ‘Oh bum! It’ll be Dan checking I’m alright. Why didn’t the damned thing ring?’
‘Because it’s been set to vibrate,’ he replied calmly, his agile little thumb darting across the buttons at speed.
‘It’s supposed to be a mobile bloody phone not a vibrator!’ Lisa protested indignantly. She cringed when she saw Slade go scarlet and reminded herself he was only nineteen: she suspected the only physical relationship he was having was when he climbed aboard his motorbike.
‘There is a message from Mr Brogan: R U OK? Call me ASAP,’ he announced.
Lisa guessed Dan must have been desperate if he’d resorted to leaving her a message it was doubtful she’d be able to read. She peered over Slade’s shoulder, struggling to read the text in the little window. She doubted Linda Brogan’s dyslexia had anything to do with her inability to make sense of it. ‘What on earth does that mean? Doesn’t it speak English?’
Slade looked worried. ‘He sounds a bit annoyed.’
He showed Lisa how to find Dan’s mobile number and send a text message.
‘What do you want to say?’
‘I’m OK but I’m going down to Browns Bay with you and I don’t feel sleepy.’
‘OK.’ Slade began to text.
‘On second thoughts, just tell him I’m OK. There’s no need to tell him I’m going for a ride on your motorbike,’ she said casually.
Slade eyed her uneasily. ‘I don’t want to do anything that would upset Mr Brogan. He’s always been really decent to me. Perhaps it isn’t a good—’
Lisa reacted like a toddler denied her favourite toy. ‘No! You have to take me with you! Please!’ She was just an octave off whining.
He stared at her in astonishment. ‘Wow. You sure are different,’ he said at last.
Lisa smiled wryly. If only he knew. ‘What was I like before?’ she asked.
He hesitated.
‘You can be honest,’ she said flatly.
‘Well…sometimes you’d talk and sometimes you’d completely ignore me or look right through me as if I wasn’t there.’
Lisa squirmed. ‘I’m really sorry about that, Slade,’ she said, feeling deeply offended by Linda Brogan’s behaviour. Her brief exposure to the woman in the waiting room hadn’t been positive, and of course the fact she’d smashed into the side of Lisa’s car hadn’t exactly endeared her.
‘Once Nan and I heard you out in the garden telling Mr Brogan that we weren’t the sort of people you wanted to cultivate as friends.’
Lisa was appalled. ‘What did Dan say?’
Slade shrugged. ‘I couldn’t hear him properly, but he sounded angry and you both went inside.’
‘I am so sorry, Slade!’ Lisa murmured, wondering if there was a hole big enough that she could crawl into. The Grand Canyon should just about fit the bill. Lisa wondered if she would spend the rest of her life bumping into people Linda Brogan had treated badly. With her luck there was probably a hitman creeping about Auckland with a contract on her. Increasingly, Lisa wondered about Dan and Linda’s relationship.
‘Why on earth did you bother to help me in the garden? I would have completely ignored me if I’d been in your shoes.’
Slade shrugged one pink, paisley shoulder. ‘I like Mr Brogan. He’s a nice guy and…he’s not here.’
So he had helped her out of loyalty to Dan. Lisa could understand that.
‘You seem really different, Mrs Brogan.’ Slade repeated.
Lisa sighed. ‘You have no idea.’ She paused. ‘I feel ashamed to ask, but would you mind doing something for me?’
‘Mmm?’ He sounded cautious.
Lisa couldn’t blame him for being wary. ‘Could you not call me Mrs Brogan?’
‘Oh, OK. What do you want me to call you? Linda?’
‘No!’ Lisa shouted. Slade’s hazel eyes went wide with shock and she struggled to modify her response. ‘Er…no, not Linda. I’d prefer it if you called me Lisa.’
Slade shrugged his shoulders as if to say whatever. Lisa suspected he didn’t think she had both oars in the water, but there wasn’t much she could do about it apart from be on her best and sanest behaviour from now on. He finished sending the text to Dan and waited patiently while Lisa locked up.
A gold-coloured Honda motorcycle was parked in the driveway next door. Lisa eyed it nervously. ‘You will be careful, won’t you? I don’t want to have another accident.’
14
Lisa loved the motorbike.
She couldn’t explain that she felt more comfortable at the thought of riding the motorbike than getting in a car. Cars brought back the memory of the accident. She’d managed to keep it together when Dan was driving, but she doubted she could get in a car with a stranger at the wheel.
True to his word, Slade drove very carefully. They’d solved the problem of her crutches by placing them along the vinyl seat and sitting on top of them.
Wearing the bright-red helmet and Linda Brogan’s sleek, black Ray Bans, Lisa buzzed off down the hill behind Slade, a big smile on her face.
Slade managed to park in the main street. Lisa was touched at the way he carefully helped her off the back of the bike and then clicked her crutches back to exactly the right setting. She smiled when he admitted he’d made a note of the length before they set off.
‘I have to go to the drycleaners and the bank for my nan,’ he said.
Lisa nodded back happily and announced, ‘I have to buy some new knickers.’
Slade reddened. Clearly, he had reached the limits of his comfort zone. There was no way he was hanging around while Lisa bought underwear. ‘I’ll see you back here in about half an hour,’ he said and beat a hasty retreat.
Lisa spent twenty minutes in Farmers picking herself out some new underwear, and then bought a leg of lamb at the butcher’s for dinner. She was back waiting for Slade well before the appointed time.
Sitting outside the shop on one of the metal benches, she watched the traffic and people going by and suddenly spied Ben’s girlfriend, Brenda, disappearing into the two-dollar shop with her younger sister, Christine, in tow.
Lisa’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of somebody else she knew from her old life. She stared wide-eyed at the shop, her heart thumping with emotion.
Suddenly she frowned.
The two-dollar shop.
Slade appeared at her side carrying a kilt in a garish red, white and black plaid, draped in plastic.
‘Sorry, I took so—’ he began.
‘Slade, what’s the date today?’ Lisa interrupted, her eyes glued to the shop across the road.
He frowned. ‘Um…April 29.’
Lisa scowled. ‘The slapper!’ Grabbing her crutches, she struggled to her feet.
Slade squinted across the road and back at Lisa. ‘Who?’ he asked in bewilderment.
‘My brother’s girlfriend, that’s who!’ she snapped. ‘I’m going to kill her!
It was Ben’s birthday on 1 May and Brenda was shopping for his present. Her teenaged sister, Christine, had decided to keep her company and was dawdling along behind Brenda making smart remarks about everything she picked up. The sisters weren’t close. Christine thought Brenda was a tightwad and Brenda thought Christine was a tart.
‘You’re not buying a present for Ben’s birthday, are you?’ Christine asked suspiciously.
Brenda ignored her.
She had an unpleasant memory from this time last year when Ben’s sister Lisa had discovered her in this very same shop buying his presents. Brenda still shuddered when she remembered how Lisa had escorted her outside and told her that if she bought Ben so much as a key-ring from the shop, Lisa was going to tell him.
Brenda was deeply humiliated at being caught, and denied she was buying for Ben. She’d tried to trot out the old favourite about it being the thought that counts, but it had fallen on deaf ears; everybody knew Brenda was tight as arseholes when it came to money. Brenda had once overheard Sherry Jackson say Ben’s girlfriend was so mean that if she saw a fly land in the sugar bowl she’d shake it before she killed it.
It was all very well for Sherry and Lisa. They were single and commitment-free. But she and Ben were saving for a deposit on a house and a wedding and they had to be careful with their money. Brenda conveniently forgot that Sherry was already saddled with a mortgage she was paying on her own and that Lisa’s income was unreliable due to her health. Anyway, Ben wasn’t the slightest bit interested in expensive presents, she thought defensively. He would have been happy with a card.
‘Well, are you?’ Christine insisted.
Brenda determinedly ignored her. She’d just picked up a keyring to go with the plastic CD holder and adhesive ballpoint for the car when she felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning, she found herself looking up into the fierce blue eyes of a beautiful, black-haired woman on crutches. Behind her a thin, fair-haired youth wearing skinny leather trousers was watching with an anxious expression on his narrow face. ‘Yes?’ Brenda quavered, taken aback by the intensity of the woman’s gaze.
‘Brenda, that had better not be a present for Ben’s birthday,’ the woman hissed in a furious voice.
‘Wha…What?’ Brenda squeaked while Christine goggled at the stranger from behind her sister’s shoulder.
‘You heard me!’ the tall woman snapped. ‘What did I tell you last year?’
‘What…Who are you?’ Brenda babbled, backing away from the strange woman and straight into Christine, who shouted, ‘Ow!’ and shoved her in the back.
‘Never mind who I am! Stop being such a miserly cow and put that lot back!’ the beauty queen glared at Brenda. ‘I told you last year this wasn’t on. Didn’t I, Brenda?’
The skinny boy spoke up tentatively. ‘Um…Lisa?’
Brenda’s eyes almost popped out of her head. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. ‘Lisa?’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘Lisa?’
The air seemed to whoosh from Brenda’s lungs. More frightened than she’d ever been in her life, she dropped the basket in her hands and ran from the shop, almost knocking over a display stand in her haste.
Christine Buckner didn’t immediately follow her sister. She was fascinated by the beautiful nutcase who had upset Brenda. That geek Simon Cruickshank who used to go to her school had called the woman ‘Lisa’. It was radical. ‘Is your name really Lisa?’ she demanded.
‘Go away, Christine,’ the woman snarled, as if she knew Christine too.
Christine felt goosebumps break out all over her body. The way the stranger spoke and screwed up her nose reminded Christine spookily of Lisa Jackson. But Lisa was dead. Christine had gone to the funeral and seen them put the coffin in the grave.
; She fled in the same direction as her sister.
Lisa was suddenly aware she had the attention of the entire shop, including the owner, who was glowering at her from behind the counter. ‘I…let’s get out of here.’
There was no sign of Brenda or her sister in the main street of Browns Bay. Slade helped Lisa to the metal seat next to where he had parked his bike. After downsizing her crutches again, he silently handed her the red helmet.
Lisa took it but made no attempt to put it on. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me who that was?’ she finally asked in a tight voice.
Slade shook his head in his shiny black helmet. ‘No.’
Lisa stared at him. ‘You’re not?’
‘No,’ he shrugged. ‘Anyway, I know who the younger one was. Her name’s Christine Buckner. I used to go to the same high school.’
‘Oh.’
That took the wind out of her sails. But then he probably thought she was completely off her rocker. Lisa peered up at Slade curiously where he stood waiting patiently beside the gold Honda. ‘Aren’t you the slightest bit curious? I mean I would be if a person I had just met harassed somebody while they were out shopping.’
Slade regarded her cautiously with his pixie eyes and shrugged again. ‘Most families have weird people in them.’ He slipped on his black wraparound sunglasses and muttered, ‘I should know.’
Lisa was deeply impressed. For such a nerdy-looking individual he showed a remarkably mature attitude to life. She bit her lips to hide a smile. With the shiny, black helmet, sunglasses and black leather trousers, he resembled a stick insect.
‘Is it OK if we go?’ he asked politely, climbing onto the bike. ‘I have to get my grandad’s kilt back—he has his Scottish-dancing class tonight.’
‘Oh! Of course!’ Lisa slid a leg over the seat behind him, while Slade clasped one of her hands to steady her. In her other hand, Lisa held her Farmers carrier bag and the bag containing the leg of lamb. ‘Slade?’
‘Yes?’
‘Is there somewhere I can put my knickers?’
He blushed scarlet from his neck to his sunglasses.
When they returned home Lisa went inside to meet his grandparents, Edie and Norm. Lisa had the feeling from Edie’s lukewarm greeting that Linda Brogan wasn’t one of her favourite people, but her face lit up at the mention of Dan.
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