by K T Bowes
I closed the door and pressed my face against the cold wood as nausea pressed into my throat. The bathroom mirror offered no relief as the jagged shape of Terry’s ring showed as a welt under my eye and bruising spread outwards. The All Saints logo showed itself backwards in an ugly circle of red and black and I pressed it, watching the skin turn white and then back to purple as I let go. “What kind of moron wears a ring so the important bit’s on the inside?” I asked myself. Uncle Terry, that’s who. It was the reason he’d slapped instead of fisted me too. I stared at my reflection and considered the difference between yesterday and today. I looked altered, having leapt a giant moral chasm in less than twenty-four hours and gained the Saint insignia like a brand on my face.
Fornicator and blackmailer. I definitely couldn’t go back to church.
Chapter 8
‘They won. Ref was shite.’ Dad’s text disturbed my bath as I soaked in hot bubbles, balancing a book in my damp fingers. I dumped my phone on the bathmat and ignored the next two texts, no longer interested in Pete’s legacy. Next week would mark the first Saturday in my entire life when I didn’t watch All Saints play. No bus ride to my father’s apartment and no sitting in the back of some poor sucker’s car as they drew the short straw to take us to the game; my father complaining in the front and me sighing in the back. Freedom.
“Take that Daddio,” I murmured and punched the air with my fist, wafting the drifts of snowy bubbles and dropping the library book into the bath. The next half an hour involved lots of swearing, reasonable skill at fishing and then an admission of defeat, as I exited the bath and indulged in a frustrating pass time; patting slices of toilet paper in between each page.
“Just my bloody luck!” I complained, shoving the sodden book in the airing cupboard and praying it wouldn’t dry crinkly.
My phone beeped again as I closed the airing cupboard door and padded down the hallway stark naked. When a heavy bang sounded against my front door I screamed, all pretense at a newfound gangstership ruined.
“Ursula!” Teina’s deep voice sounded from the other side and I squeaked and wrapped my arms around myself. “Open it or I’ll stand here all night!” he shouted.
I weighed up my options, wondering why he’d say such a thing. “Wait!” I yelled, dashing into the bathroom for my warm towel, dragging it off the rail and swaddling myself.
Opening the door a crack, I peered through the gap, seeing his tall shape occupying most of the hallway. Dressed in dark trousers and a referee’s smart shirt, he stared at me and placed his hand against the door. “Let me in.” Authority oozed from his voice and I stepped back and let him enter.
Teina’s hair hung on his head in a damp tangle of waves, unbrushed after his shower in the dingy referees’ changing room. He smelled of deodorant and pinkness flushed his cheeks after running around for ninety minutes. Taking my jaw in his left hand he examined the marks on my face and hissed in sympathy. “I heard,” he said in explanation. His eyes narrowed and he spoke through gritted teeth. “Bastard. I hope you called the cops. How did he find out?”
I wriggled free of his grasp and hoisted my towel. “No, I haven’t called the cops.” I shook my head. “Aunty Margaret showed up and pleaded his cause. And no, it wasn’t about us, it was over something else.”
“You’re kidding!” The words exploded from Teina’s lips; more statement than exclamation. “What the hell justifies bashing a woman?”
“Just leave it.” I turned away and headed towards the bedroom, my wet curls sending icy drips down my spine. I pushed the door closed but Teina followed anyway, slumping on the bed, his olive fingers standing out against the white comforter.
“Talk to the cops,” he insisted and I pursed my lips into a rigid line. “There were witnesses.”
“No.”
He exhaled and ran his hands through his black hair, biceps bulging against the fabric of the short navy sleeves. I tried to dress beneath the damp towel, my underwear sticking to my skin. As I turned away to fasten my bra, the fluffy fabric dived south and displayed my nakedness. I fought the urge to stamp and scream in frustration, hauling the tired bra over my breasts as fast as I could.
“Stop.” Teina’s lips grazed my shoulder and he straightened the straps, his fingers sensuous against my back as he fastened the clasp. His hands warmed the points of my shoulders and he turned me, nestling my face against his chest.
“Ouch,” I groaned as the bruise brushed against the hard muscle. He lifted my face with a finger under my chin and sighed. “No, I’m not calling the cops,” I asserted and he raised an eyebrow. “I dealt with it; he won’t touch me again.”
“And it wasn’t because of me?” The question hung between us like a match near a petrol bomb.
“No.” I smirked, the action tightening the skin under my eye. “That would be worth both cheeks.” The wide grin burst the cut in my mouth and wiped the smile from my face. I hissed and put my hand up to my mouth.
“Is that the bloody logo backwards?” Teina sounded amazed as he peered at the cut beneath my eye and I nodded.
“Yeah. Terry’s secret weapon.”
He looked away, his eyes narrowed and his mind wrestling with an internal thought which seemed to eat him from the inside out. “How’d he do it?” He studied the mark as I kept my fingers pressed against the cut to stem the blood which pooled its metallic taste in my mouth.
“He has a ring on his finger but he wears it with the pattern on the inside. Lifetime club members get them after they’ve played so many games.”
Teina nodded slowly, his brain working. “Right.” He noticed me staring and snapped his attention back to me. “You need ice on that.” He snatched my robe off the back of the bedroom door and wrapped me up, shoving my reluctant body ahead of him to the kitchen. Delving in the freezer produced a bag of frozen peas which he split into two separate bags, leaving one and pressing the other to my face. “Swap them over when that one defrosts,” he ordered, nosing in the fridge. “You hungry?”
I shook my head and pulled a face. “No. But help yourself. There’s stuff for sandwiches or some left over mince. I can make you dinner if you like?”
“Na, just keep the ice on your face. It’ll bring the swelling down.”
“Ok.” I admired his neat bum as he bent with his head in the fridge. The tight trousers accentuated the gentle curves and I closed my painful eye and squinted to get a better view. Teina glanced back at me and then stood up, reaching for the frozen peas in my hand and hoisting it higher to cover my eye.
“You’re gonna have a black eye,” he predicted, peering at it with his brow furrowed.
“I’m not going to the cops,” I asserted. “He’s family, much as I wish he wasn’t.”
“Hmmmn.” Teina wrinkled his nose and delved back into the fridge, emerging with bread, margarine and a pot of jam. He shot me a sideways look as he laid his haul out on the counter in precise order and studied the result. “You might not have much choice in the matter. The woman who serves behind the bar said she’d done it for you.”
I nodded. “Alysha. Yeah, she told me.” I wrinkled my nose. “They won’t come. I haven’t made a complaint myself and I won’t press charges.”
Teina raised one dark eyebrow. “You don’t have to. Assault is a criminal offence. If he’s got previous, the cops will press their own charges.” He widened his eyes with an I-told-you-so look. “Your face will be evidence.”
I blinked in horror and he shook his head. “I think you’ll end up talking to them whether you want to or not.”
“Not,” I answered and glanced at the front door, hindered by the packet of peas which obscured my vision. “Will you answer the door and say I’m out?”
Teina smirked. “Don’t get me lying for you.”
“Can we go to your place instead?” I panicked and dropped the hand holding the peas. “Where do you live? You can hide me.”
He stopped buttering the bread and laid the knife down, parallel to the slic
e. His hesitation strengthened my misgivings and I dumped the peas next to his hand. “It’s ok. I get it.” My heart fluttered with dread as I stalked to the bedroom and flung the wardrobe door open. The neck of the sweater caught my cheek as I shoved my head through, yanking my hair out of the hole and letting it tumble over my shoulders and back in damp tresses. I finished buttoning my jeans as Teina arrived in the doorway and leaned against the frame.
“I’m confused,” he said, spreading his hands and searching my thunderous face expression with wary eyes. “Yesterday you don’t want us to be seen together and today you don’t care. Which is it, Ursula?”
“You’re married!” I snorted, shoving my feet into socks and sitting on the bed to push them into cowboy boots. My jeans shuddered over the boots and nestled next to my ankles. “That’s why you won’t take me to your place. I’m such an idiot.”
“I’m not married!” he objected, hurt making his eyes sparkle. “I told you I wasn’t and I’m not. I don’t have a girlfriend either.”
“It was too good to be true,” I muttered, more to myself than him. “Whoopdedoo, the fat girl got laid.”
Teina’s brow knitted in confusion. “You’re not fat, Ursula. What’re you talking about?”
My laugh sounded cruel and I bit my sore lip, tasting blood as the cut reopened. I was once.
‘Fat chicks don’t get boyfriends’ my dad told me as I sat at the dinner table and filled my face with donuts. At seventeen I decided I didn’t care but by twenty-five it was too late. The fat chick morphed into the obese chick and kept going until she was a morbidly obese chick. Dad married me off to Pete believing nobody else would have me, but he hadn’t banked on a sterile marriage leading to secret counselling. I learned about Chaotic Eating and recognised myself in the description. Only a few stretch marks bore testament to the old me; a silent reminder not to go back there. Hook’s Law threatened me every time I sought to overindulge, knowing physics didn’t lie. ‘The extension of an elastic object is directly proportional to the force applied to it: F = k × e.’ My skin tone recovered its elasticity once, but there was no guarantee it would again. I had no desire to wear my flesh around my ankles like a pair of wrinkly stockings.
“Sod off!” I snapped at Teina. “Why are you even here? You know everything about me but it’s one way. I don’t need any more parasites in my life, thanks. I’m not shagging you, so you might as well go.” I strode into the kitchen and snatched my keys off the counter, flinging the soggy peas into the dustbin. “Slam the door on your way out!” I called over my shoulder and left, ramming my phone into my jeans pocket.
Chapter 9
I skulked in the alleyway between streets until Alysha arrived, scraping her alloys along the curb as she pulled up. She gasped as I dashed out and climbed into the passenger seat, bobbing down beneath the window line. “Bloody hell! Your face is a right mess!”
“Thanks!” I pursed my lips. “Just drive.”
“Where?” Alysha checked her fringe in the rear-view mirror and primped it, fluttering her eyelashes at herself.
“Your house?” I asked, my tone pitiful.
She shook her head. “Craig’s home. He’ll tell your dad he’s seen you. I’m picking that’s who you’re hiding from.”
I thought for a minute. Who was I hiding from? “Yeah,” I decided out loud, the memory of Teina’s confusion causing an involuntary wince. “Take me to your mum’s.”
Alysha pulled away from the curb with a squeal of tyres and grinned at my apprehension. “This is exciting,” she confessed.
I rolled my eyes and lolled out of view, the seatbelt choking me as she shot around corners too fast. “If you’re trying to attract the attention of the cops to force me to give a statement, it won’t work,” I grumbled.
Alysha narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t think of that. Good idea.”
“Do it and we’re finished!” I threatened. “I’ll never speak to you again.”
She bit her lip and ignored me, our relationship degenerating into how it was as children, me the sensible cousin and her the tear away. The unfairness of life stung like a tick bite; she snagged the good marriage and I got dealt the fake.
“Craig did well as captain,” Alysha said, eyeing me sideways. “They held a minute’s silence before the game for Pete and one in the clubroom after.”
“He’d have loved that,” I breathed, managing to turn my sarcasm to gratitude in the nick of time. I struggled with the irony of the notion of silence in relation to my husband. He barely shut up when alive and I wondered if they’d been waiting for him to speak from the grave and give the other occupants of Hell a break. I turned the unfeeling snort into a cough.
“You should speak to the cops,” Alysha sighed as she slid between two cars on the motorway in a dangerous lane change and I closed my eyes and sank further into the seat. “Terry Saint can’t be allowed to get away with that kind of behaviour. It’s ugly and I’m tired of it.”
“Did they turn up?”
“Yeah. But you’d left so Craig gave them your address. How did you get home?”
“Hitchhiked.”
“What?” Alysha swerved as she turned to scrutinise me with disbelief in her eyes. “Liar!” she snapped, almost rear ending the car in front as it braked.
“I caught the bus,” I said, my tone acerbic. “Not that anyone bothered to follow me and offer a lift or some sympathy.” I touched my cheek and felt the pain flare. “Just hurry up and get me to your mum’s place. Nobody will look for me there.”
Alysha rolled her eyes. “True dat!”
I relaxed and laid my head back against the leather seat as Alysha lurched her husband’s expensive car around Auckland, chattering away about her son, Mikey. I dozed off, scrunched up in the seat and woke to her ceaseless diatribe about Craig’s leadership of the first eleven All Saints. “You don’t mind, do you?” she asked and jabbed me with her finger to make sure I heard. “I know it was Pete’s role but Craig’s stoked your dad asked him to captain the squad. He couldn’t believe it.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “It’s fine. He’ll do a good job.”
“I’m so relieved,” Alysha gushed and it occurred to me she’d been jabbering about it the whole time I slept. Guilt pricked at my chest, knowing other people still wrangled over Pete’s death even though I’d let it go the second I stepped from the cemetery and dusted the soil from my black stilettos. “Life goes on,” I added, the callousness leaking through my voice.
“Don’t say that!” Alysha snapped. “Pete’s death was a tragedy. He’d done so much for you. Think of all the weight you lost while you were married to him and you started running with his help. You’ve coped with everything far better than we all imagined.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes, keeping my face turned towards the side window. I began running to get out of the house and once I started, discovered I liked it. I also enjoyed being thin and didn’t intend to get fat again, just in case my father decided to marry the obese chick off to another cousin. Paulie’s face wafted across my vision and I shivered. The way he looked at me of late made me wonder if they were cooking up another sham wedding in my honour.
“Wasn’t he?” Alysha demanded and I jumped and turned to face her.
“What?”
“Wasn’t he good for you?”
“Who?”
“Pete! He was good for you.”
I groaned out loud and contemplated jumping from the moving vehicle. “I’m not talking about Pete, ok?” My voice became a squeak at the end of the sentence and Alysha frowned.
“You never talk about him, Urs. It’s not healthy.”
“You just said how well I’d done! Make your bloody mind up!”
Alysha tutted and pursed her lips. I knew that look. “It wouldn’t be too soon to start dating again,” she said, her voice soft. “It’s been over six months.”
I swivelled my head at speed, wondering what she knew about Teina Fox. “What’re you talking about?”
“Paulie!” Alysha smirked. “He said you looked gorgeous last night. We didn’t realise you’d left until he searched for you to ask for a dance.”
“He’s Pete’s brother.” I spat the words through half-closed lips as my stomach roiled in distaste. Margaret’s pudgy face swam past my inner vision and I wound the window down so as not to puke in Craig’s work car.
“He’s loaded,” Alysha commented, an unwitting salesgirl for my father.
“Shut up!” The words spun from my mouth in the wind and I dry retched over the sill. “Bloody shut up!”
Alysha’s complexion held a sickening whiteness as she pulled up on my Aunty Pam’s driveway. She dived from the car and hammered on her mother’s door. “Mum! Please be home! Mum!”
I staggered from the passenger seat, my mind consumed by the thought of Paulie’s flaccid lips making a beeline for my face. I hurled in a rose bush on the edge of the driveway and felt the thorns scratch my face in vengeance. The experience seemed freaky enough to be comical. I blew out through tight lips and tried to catch my breath before remembering Paulie’s big toes with their painful, oozing in-growing toenails. I hated feet; anyone’s feet including my own. The next heave sent me face planting into the rose bushes with abandon.
Chapter 10
Alysha’s mother scooped me up, taking my meltdown as yet another stepping stone in her busy day as a nurse at the general hospital. She seated me in her kitchen with an ice pack on my face and a drink of warm lemonade sizzling in a glass next to my hand. Alysha twittered around until Pam got fed up and sent her home.
“Did you put ice on that at home?” Pam asked and I shrugged.
“I only had peas.”
“Well, I trust they were frozen and not tinned,” she said, shifting the ice pack to one side to examine my bruised cheek. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”