by Jude Knight
A hint of the devastation he had felt as a young boy survived in the bleak even tones of his voice.
“Zee, that’s terrible,” Nikki objected. “How could your parents do that to you?”
“I imagine Mom meant it for the best,” Zee excused, “but at the time, I felt betrayed. I couldn’t even be angry, because she was dying. So, I was angry with him, instead.”
A herd of dairy cattle on their way back from milking filled the road, and Zee stopped to wait for them to trail their way through the gate to their field. He turned to look at Nikki.
“You know, I never talk about this. I’ve only just realized how horrible it must have been for my father. I found out later that he hadn’t seen her or spoken to her since she walked out on him three months after they married; didn’t even know I existed. But when she phoned, he dropped everything, crossed the entire country, and arrived within a day.”
“He still cared?” Nikki asked.
“I don’t know.” Zee shrugged. “He’s a great man for doing his duty. Maybe Mom and I were a duty. It can’t have been easy, though. She was dying; I was angry and plain nasty. I sulked because he paid for nurses to come and look after her, instead of doing it himself.”
Nikki put a comforting hand on his. “More strangers in your house. No wonder you were cross.”
He turned his hand over to squeeze her fingers. “You’re kind. I was also furious that he kept on running his business. He was always walking up the mountain to a spot where he could get cell phone reception. I hated that. I didn’t give him any credit for staying. It didn’t even occur to me that he could easily have whipped us both down into town, or even back to New York, to his own home. Or taken me and left Mom to the nurses. He’s—he’s a complicated man, but that was a good thing to do, letting Mom die in her own home, and letting me stay till the end.”
“It was a good thing. It would have broken her heart and yours to separate you too soon. And then he took you back to New York?”
“Yes. To the family I didn’t know I had. Three half-brothers and two half-sisters, from his first marriage and his third. They were nearly as disgusted at having to welcome me as I was to be there. I’d promised Mom I would try; that I wouldn’t fight my father and my brothers and sisters. I tried, but I just... I guess I was depressed. I wanted to sleep all the time, and since I couldn’t fight or yell, I just kept walking away, shutting myself in my room.”
The last of the cows lumbered through the gate, followed by several dogs and a man on a four-wheeler bike. Zee lifted Nikki’s hand to kiss it before turning back to the wheel and starting the ute again.
“Thank you for listening. I didn’t mean to get all maudlin on you. I’ve never talked about this.”
Nikki said what was in her heart. “I’m honoured, Zee. Truly. And I really want to know what happened to that poor grieving boy.” Or was she intruding? “Only if you want to say.”
“Grandma happened,” he was relaxed again, now, hands at ease on the wheel and whatever memories ran in his mind putting a gentle smile on his face. “My father’s mother. She used to live with us, and she wouldn’t let me keep her out. She said the same as you, Nikki. She told me I was grieving.”
“The one who said ‘You get one year off from caring about what anyone thinks’,” Nikki remembered.
Zee’s smile broadened. “Yes, that was Grandma. I don’t know what she said to the others, but even Pat stopped teasing me, and after a few months I realized New York wasn’t such a bad place, and living with my father was certainly preferable to a foster home.”
“Or more than one,” Nikki agreed. “Angry kids tend to be moved around a lot.”
“So that’s my long answer to the question.” Zee waved one hand in a circle, indicating the landscape. “Is this anything like where I came from? Not even a little bit. Not the mountains nor New York City.”
Nikki laughed. “Definitely not like New York City. The Big Apple was a real shock to this little Kiwi girl. I’d been to Wellington on a couple of school trips, but Barnsley was the biggest place I’d really known till I arrived at Columbia.”
They had come out of the coastal hills and were approaching the intersection with the main highway north through vineyards and olive groves interspersed with fields where animals grazed.
“This country is nothing like where I came from, but I love it. I envy you growing up here, Nikki.”
“It was pretty special,” Nikki agreed. “It’s like you said. At the time, it’s just the way you live. I wasn’t the only kid at school being raised by grandparents, and I took them pretty much for granted. They were the best, though. And it sounds like you had some pretty awesome grandparents, too. Is your Grandma still alive?”
Zee took the turn onto the main highway, heading south towards Barnsley. “She isn’t, no. She died two years ago.”
“Just before you left the United States.”
Nikki was right to make the connection, though Zee hadn’t done so himself. He’d been restless for a while, feeling increasingly alienated from the endless drive for more that motivated his father and siblings. He’d buried himself in his own projects, ignoring as best he could the occasional niggles when the board blocked or diverted budget for one of his proposals.
There was satisfaction in designing and building luxury hotels in exotic places. And it wasn’t just about wealthy tourists. Unlike Chow, O’Neals made a practice of hiring and training locals to staff their enterprises. Zee thought they could do more, and put together a proposal for investing in the local communities: in schools, infrastructure, health centres, and small enterprises. To his surprise, his father and eldest brother backed it, and now every O’Neal hotel in a developing nation put part of its profit into The O’Neal Development Foundation, to be dispersed in consultation with local leaders.
And the O’Neal women ran the foundation, leaving Zee to get back to making money for the business.
“I was in a job that meant I was travelling all the time. I was tired of it. The work had got to be pretty meaningless, and living out of a suitcase sucked. I needed to put down roots, I guess. Grandma—I guess she was the only thing holding me to New York and my father’s family. When she died, I was free.”
Nikki chuckled. “So, you went to sea to put down roots?”
When she said it like that, it was pretty funny. “A slight miscalculation. But it turned out well, because here I am.”
“What did they think of you leaving?” Nikki wondered. “Your father and your brothers and sisters?”
Zee slowed down as they crossed the bridge that marked the northern edge of Barnsley, to drive between a long ribbon of houses and businesses on the way to the commercial centre. Could he disclose just a bit more of his story, for her to remember when he finally admitted who he was?
“There’d been a blow up. One of my brothers had been involved in some shady dealings to win a court case. More. He’d taken money to manufacture evidence that absolved a guilty party and accused an innocent one. I found out, assumed my father was involved, and faced him with it at a family dinner.”
Nikki was silent, and he glanced sideways to see her face intent, her eyebrows raised.
“The whole family got in on the act,” he went on, “most of them—or so it seemed to me at the time—defending my brother. And his wife, who was in it up to her ears. I walked out. I haven’t spoken to any of them since.”
Nikki picked up on the doubts that had slowly seeped through his self-righteous judgment. “It seemed to you at the time?”
“My father didn’t say much, and my brother Brendan—he’s the eldest—just asked questions. Thinking back, cheating isn’t their style. They can be ruthless, and I don’t always agree with their priorities, but they’re honest men. I’d love to know what happened after I left.”
He took the turn for the district council buildings, and found a parking space nearby.
“So that’s my whole sorry story,” he finished. “Shall we go and char
m your permits out of the Council?” He armed himself with his briefcase and a roll of backup plans he could substitute to meet probable objections.
Zee had made an appointment with the chief planning officer, leaning on the number of dealings Masterton & Son had with the district council to go straight to the top. He and Nikki came out of the meeting after an hour of discussion and negotiation with the necessary permissions to begin the work, but without everything they wanted. Someone had put in an objection to the extensions to the veranda, complaining that it would change the skyline view from the two Valentine Bay beaches. They’d need to go through a review process on that part of the build.
“Thank goodness you made a separate application for the veranda,” Nikki said, as they moved down to the public workspace to look at the filed plans for the hotel project, the next job on their list. “We’d be stalled if you put the whole build under one permit.”
“We’ll get it through, Zee assured her. “We just have to prove that the new build is within the aesthetic of the village. You and I both know who the objection came from, don’t we?”
“Pokey. Or his father, maybe.”
Beyond a doubt, Zee thought as he nodded. The councillor probably had a tag to alert him about building projects in his son’s territory.
“What are we looking for?” Nikki asked.
Zee pulled some pages from his briefcase. “Anything on the plans that isn’t in the specifications and vice versa. I’ve written a list of the most likely things to watch for. Here. You take these, and nudge me if you think you’ve found something.”
Another hour passed, as they went carefully over the plans, zooming in on the touch screens to examine the detail, murmuring to one another as they discussed anomalies. Drainage far larger than needed for the proposed buildings and running under the protected reserve area. Visuals that showed the view from the hotel with no pohutukawas (also protected) between the hotel swimming pool and the beach. Several parking areas that extended beyond the land the developers owned, into the surrounding bush.
“Do we have them?” Nikki asked, but Zee shook his head. “It’s indicative, but not conclusive. If we raise these things now, they’ll just claim the draughtsman got it wrong and change the plans. If they were building these things—but by then it would be too late.” He took a deep breath and sighed it out. “The undisclosed ownership relationship with Chow is still our best bet, if we can prove it. I think we’ve done what we can here, Nikki. Come on. I’ll buy you lunch.”
Nikki put her tablet back into her handbag, along with the notebook and pen she’d also been using. “Let’s eat at the Event Centre. They have a good cafe, and these shows usually have food stalls, too.”
The Event Centre was a public building that provided a range of different-sized meeting and exhibition spaces, currently completely given over to displays by suppliers of building materials, home appliances and construction services.
They bought a hamburger each, and wandered around looking at the exhibits as they ate, circling all the rooms and deciding on which products and services to investigate further once they’d finished their lunch.
Kenworth Real Estate had a booth, with photos of houses for sale in Valentine Bay and a three D model and visuals of the proposed hotel. “No pohutukawas,” Zee murmured in Nikki’s ear.
Nikki took the last mouthful of her burger and wiped her fingers on a paper napkin before dropping it in a bin. “Let’s take a closer look,” she suggested, entering the booth. A rack of colourful brochures extolled the virtues of the development. “Loving a Holiday in Valentine Bay” said one. “Tourist Boost to Local Economy” claimed another. Zee snorted, then jumped when a voice shouted in his ear.
“Who asked you? You Americans. Coming in where you aren’t wanted. Think you own the world.”
Pokey Kenworth, attempting to loom over him and failing because Zee was taller. His father stood at his shoulder, glaring at Zee.
“He and Ms Watson were over at the Council, looking at your plans,” the older Kenworth said, and Pokey sneered. “Maybe you want to invest? Of course not. A bit rich for a two-bit drifter. Why don’t you go back where you came from?”
“That’s a bit rude, Pokey,” Nikki scolded. “Hardly what one expects of a man who intends to bring tourists into Valentine Bay.”
Pokey ignored her, turning instead to listen to his father, who asked, “How did a washed-up sailor get a work visa? A man has to wonder.”
“Good point, Dad,” Pokey agreed. “We don’t like people coming here taking jobs from genuine New Zealanders.”
Zee winked at Nikki. He’d easily met the New Zealand Immigration Service’s points system, with qualifications and experience in a needed skills area, a job to go to and a place to live, good health, and funds he was more than happy to bring to New Zealand—his own savings from his salary, not O’Neal family money.
Pokey caught the exchange and reddened still further. “You stay out of my business, Henderson, and I’ll stay out of yours.”
Zee spread his hands and smiled. “I’m an open book, Kenworth. Come on, Nikki. Let’s go look at bathroom fittings.
4
The next few days, Nikki had no time to think; no time to do anything but pack up the house and have all the furniture and other belongings she wanted to keep moved to a storage facility. By Sunday afternoon, when she arrived at Becky’s place with two suitcases, she was exhausted.
“Come on through,” Beks said, trying to take one of the cases.
“Not in your condition,” Nikki scolded, as she pushed her friend’s hand away and grabbed the handle of the case herself. “Lead on to this granny flat, Beks.”
When she’d told Becky of her need for accommodation, Becky had offered a one-bedroom apartment that Dave and Bruce had built for Jill’s mother. “It has never been used; not even quite finished, because she decided to go and stay with Jill’s sister first, and she died before she could move on to us.”
In the last few days, they’d painted the bedroom, put a door on the wardrobe, and made a trip to Barnsley to buy a dish drawer, which Dave had installed by one of his plumbers. With Nikki’s bench top cooking appliances, and a few pieces of her furniture, it would be a pleasant haven for the next three months.
“You have your own entrance,” Beks was explaining as she led the way through the house.
“Aunt Nikki!” That was Stacey, Beks oldest daughter, barrelling out of the playroom to give Nikki a huge hug, as if they hadn’t seen each other two hours before. “Aunt Nikki, now that you are living with us, will you hear my reading?”
“Aunt Nikki is living next door in the flat, Stacey Masterton,” Beks scolded. “And you will not scare her away her very first night.” She unlocked the door from the Mastertons’ living quarters to the living room of the flat. “Niks, here are the keys. I’ve given you both sets to the internal door, which I suggest you keep locked unless you want to invite my little monsters over.”
Nikki smiled at Stacey. “I expect I will want to do that sometimes. Where are the other two, Stace?”
“Having an afternoon sleep,” said the six-year-old with scorn, then excused them in a confidential whisper. “They’re just babies, you know.”
Becky had filled a vase with summer flowers and a basket with peaches and plums from her orchard, and the bed Nikki had had delivered yesterday afternoon was now made and ready to get into.
“Make yourself comfortable, sweetie,” Becky said, giving her a hug, “and don’t worry about a thing. You’ll have dinner with us tonight, and after that you have an open invitation, and no hurt feelings if you’d rather not.”
A shower dealt to the grime of the packing and moving, and an hour’s sleep—which might sink her forever in Stacey’s eyes if she found out—took the edge of her weariness and set her up to go looking for her friend.
Becky was sitting at the island between the kitchen and the family room, peeling vegetables while watching the children play. No. Not just the c
hildren, Nikki realized as she rounded the island. Dave and Zee were on the floor, too, surrounded by the largest wooden train set Zee had ever seen.
Four-year-old Will saw her first, and sent up a shout: “Aunt Nikki, Aunt Nikki,” which was echoed by his older and younger sisters. Nikki knelt to receive an enthusiastic hug from each of the children, who then dragged her over to admire the construction.
“Zee is helping me build the biggest, bestest railway ever,” Stacey explained.
“No, ours will be biggest and bestest,” argued Will. “Daddy is helping me and Emma, Aunt Nikki, and Daddy is a builder.”
“Zee is a builder, too,” Stacey retorted.
“It’s great to have builders helping,” Nikki said, pacifically. “But I have just had a wonderful idea.”
She sat herself down on the rug with the others, and waited to be asked to explain.
Sure enough, Will and Stacey both came and sat beside her, cuddling in. “What is your idea, Aunt Nikki?” Will asked.
“Aunt Nikki has good ideas,” Stacey informed him.
Nikki swept her gaze around from person to person, including the toddler Emma and the two men. “If we all built our own railways, but made them go over and under the other railways, wouldn’t that be the biggest and the best wooden model railway in the whole entire world?”
They thought about that for a moment, then Will got up and spread his arms to race around the room shouting, “In the whole entire universe!”
“Two railways that co-operate.” Zee nodded. “Team work!”
“Three,” Nikki suggested. “Will, how about you and I build one of the railways?”
Will stopped his plane imitations and looked at the two layouts already on the floor, and then at Nikki. He wanted to work with Nikki, his face said, but he didn’t want to start again.
Zee read the message as clearly as Nikki did. “Stacey, Dave, and Emma, I propose we all help start Will’s railway track. We will work for,” he narrowed his eyes as he thought, “seven minutes. That would be fair, wouldn’t it? Becky, will you keep the count once we start? Will, where do you want your train to run?”