Bugs

by Whiti Hereaka

  We strip the bed. ‘Just bedrooms and bathrooms here, so that’s good. Kitchenettes are terrible to clean, take up so much time. People just leave their dishes, stink out the fridge … Bub? Straighten your turn down.’ Trace has already moved on to the pillows; the down in them fluffs up as she gives them two good shakes into their pillowslips. She holds the pillow from two corners as she lowers it down to its position on the bed. ‘You want to make sure they’re evenly spaced apart, opening facing out – can you remember that?’ I nod. ‘Good. How do we clean a room?’

  ‘Clean to dirty, top to bottom.’

  ‘In the bathroom?’

  ‘Vanity, sink, shower, toilet.’

  ‘And the floor?’

  ‘Floors are last: vacuum in the bedroom, mop in the bathroom.’

  ‘Good, good.’ Trace smiles at me. I am a star pupil. At least in theory. ‘I’ll finish up in here. You get started on the next room.’

  I forget to knock on the door before I swipe in, but luckily for me the guests are long gone. The bed is messed up, the duvet is half on the floor and the sheets are screwed up like when Kēhua makes a nest out of the clean laundry. Every single towel seems to be on the floor. You’d think this is the kind of room that would make a cleaner sigh, make her heart drop, but Trace told me that this is the best way to find a room, because at least you know what they’ve used. The worst rooms, she reckons, are the ones where people try to help – making up the beds and folding towels. Did they sleep in this bed or that bed? Who knows? So you have to strip the whole room.

  I start at the bed, stripping the sheets off carefully in case a surprise is waiting for me. At home, when I take my sheets off I carry them in a big bundle close to me, the fabric rubbing against my cheek, my nose, sometimes still warm from the bed. Here, I carry them away from my face, away from my body, because the worst stuff you can’t see. Here, if the sheets are still warm to the touch it is just another thing that they’ve left behind, another invisible mess – it is revolting. Thanks to Trace, the whole world is tainted with body fluid and pubic hair. They’re on holiday; who knows what they get up to in here.

  If these walls could talk. In Trace’s world the walls listen and gossip with each other.

  It’s hard to make the bed by yourself. My corners are not the crisp origami that Trace makes. I think about asking Trace to help, but I know I’ve slowed her down all morning. She’s probably cleaned two rooms as I’ve stripped the bed. I hope that it is good enough. That when she comes in here later she doesn’t sigh and pull the covers back and make it again. I try to trace Trace, following her lines exactly, but I wobble a bit; my hands are slow and nervous. The pillows aren’t exactly the same width apart, the mirror is streaky and the cushions slouch on the chair.

  We dust every day, so it doesn’t gather.

  It seems a waste of time to me, cleaning something that doesn’t need cleaning.

  On the bedside table sits a twenty-dollar note. I think it might be for me, but I don’t know. I think about picking it up but then I think that maybe they’ve booby-trapped it like you see in spy movies – a single hair across the doorjamb that if broken will alert our hero to the enemy in the wardrobe. At first I clean around it; I put my finger in the middle of it so it doesn’t move and wipe the table. The note is now surrounded by a glistening frame of Spray n’ Wipe. I leave it where it is and check the wardrobe, under the bed. They’ve definitely checked out; there are no bags or anything. I should just take it. But what if it is a trap? What if Mum and Trace set this up as a test, to see if I’m honest; to see if I’m worthy for a job that I don’t even want? I don’t know what to do, so I just do my job and start on the bathroom: vanity, sink, shower, toilet. Clean to dirty, top to bottom.

  Trace pokes her head around the door as I’m flushing the last of the toilet cleaner away. ‘How’s it going, Bub?’

  ‘Good, just the floors to go.’ I’ve been wiping around the back of the toilet, so I need to stretch as I stand. Trace could totally do a Tom Sawyer and make the rich women around here pay her to do this job. She just needs to call it ‘bathroom yoga’. I chuck my cloth into the rag laundry bag and wipe my hands on my pants. ‘Do you want to have a look?’

  I show her the room, feeling nervous, like it’s a big exam or something. She looks around the room, nodding.

  ‘Looks good. You’re a bit slow, but it’s better to get it right –’ she punches the cushion – ‘than to be fast … what’s that?’ She points at the bed.

  Man, can she see that my corners aren’t sharp through the duvet? That the pillows are a little off? ‘I couldn’t get the turn down as tight by myself …’

  ‘No. That.’ She points again. ‘The money.’

  ‘God, you’ve got good eyes, Trace.’

  ‘When you’re on the lookout for the next dollar, Bub, you can spot that green a mile away. Why is it there?’

  This is it then, the test. I’ve prepared for this, thought about the answer as I wiped away the soap scum and toothpaste. ‘Oh. They left it here. I was going to take it to Reception, to lost and found.’

  Trace laughs. ‘The first honest lawyer in the world, eh? We take shoes or clothes or jewellery to lost and found. Money? Money’s different.’ She picks it up from the bedside, swiping where it lay with a cloth. ‘The Yanks and the Asians leave out tips for us.’ Trace holds the money out to me. ‘Take it; it’s for you. It’s a gift.’

  But I remember how spare Mum went last time I brought home an unexpected ‘gift’, and right now that’s all I need: for her to think I’m taking money from guests like a dirty junkie. No, I don’t want it. I don’t need it; not as much as Trace, so I shake my head.

  ‘Are you sure you’re cut out to be a lawyer?’ she says as she folds the money into her pocket. ‘Refusing free money?’ She puts her arm around my shoulder and gives me a squeeze. ‘You’re a good kid, y’know, a good kid. C’mon, Bub. Let’s finish the floors and you can call it a day, eh?’

  The vacuum drones, and I think again about how a simple word like ‘good’ can be seen so differently.

  I smell like sweat and cleaning products. The steam from the shower heads as I turned them on full to wash away the Jif has made my hair go frizzy in its ponytail. My hands are dry and sore, and I feel like I’m in slow-mo walking out. Trace – quick, efficient, Racy Tracey – pats my shoulder. ‘Good work, Bub.’ She’s already changed into the uniform for her next job, waitressing at a family restaurant. I couldn’t be arsed changing, so I just chucked my hoodie over top of the hotel polo shirt.

  ‘See you tomorrow.’ And Trace is off before I can say goodbye; before I’ve even thought to raise my hand and wave.

  Uncle is leaning against his truck outside the hotel. Some of the guests who walk by look him up and down. Memorising what he’s wearing for the police report. Not bothering to look at his face though, because really, who can tell the difference?

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Hello, my niece. It’s so nice to see you today.’ He’s such a sarky dick.

  ‘Hi Uncle. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Picking you up.’

  ‘I don’t need a ride.’

  ‘You want to walk, Bugs? All the way into town?’

  I stand there with my arms folded. I really don’t want to walk into town, but I know he’s not here just to give me a lift home.

  ‘You came all the way from the farm to save me a half an hour walk? You think I’m that soft?’

  ‘Fine, you’ve rumbled me, Sherlock. Your mum’s still working: no half day like you for her. I’m baby-sitting. Get in.’

  I climb into the front seat and rest my feet against the dash. ‘I don’t need a babysitter.’

  ‘I’m not stoked about this either. Get your feet down.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’ll mess up my truck,’ he says, like the empty pie wrappers and drink bottles aren’t there. I drag my feet down the dash, wiping the residue of today’s cleaning on it, clearin
g a couple of paths through the dust and grime. Because I’m the messy one.

  He starts up the truck and the whole thing rumbles. You can’t just talk in my uncle’s truck; it demands that you raise your voice. It’s combative in that way, kinda like Uncle.

  ‘So, Uncle. Why are you here if you don’t want to be?’

  ‘You’re my niece. She’s my sister.’ It must be awesome to be Uncle: the whole world can be explained in six words.

  ‘But you don’t even like me.’

  ‘I don’t have to like you. You’re family.’

  ‘Great. So you’re stuck with me.’

  ‘Yup. Anyway, where did you get that stupid idea?’ He snorts like a geek. ‘I don’t like you. We get on fine.’

  ‘We argue all the time.’

  ‘But at least we’re talking, eh? It’s called communication, Bugs.’

  ‘Other people don’t argue …’

  ‘Other people ask each other “how are you” and don’t really care about the answer, eh? We care, Bugs. You think about that.’

  I’m picking at the cuff of my sleeve. ‘Mum doesn’t.’

  ‘If you don’t want to argue, why are you picking a fight?’

  ‘Because I care.’ Two can play the sarcastic game, Uncle.

  ‘If you did, you wouldn’t have put your mum through this.’ Like she’s the one being punished. ‘She wants better for you.’

  I put my feet back up on the dash. ‘Think about the future, blah blah, I know.’

  ‘You think you know, but you don’t.’

  I hate it when people pull this shit. Just because you’ve been on this planet longer than me doesn’t make you wise. I’m not gonna respect your opinion just because you’ve spun around the sun for a couple of decades before I was born. Because if you were a dumb-arse in the past you’re probably still a dumb-arse now. Here’s Exhibit A: proof that you don’t grow out of dumb-arse; it just settles on you like dust, sinking into your pores and wrinkles.

  ‘She’s always put you first, so you just think about that.’

  We’re quiet for a bit. There’s a couple of loose stitches between my cuff and my sleeve, and my picking is making it into a proper hole. A stitch in time, a stitch in time.

  ‘What did she want to be?’ I don’t look at Uncle, just face straight ahead. He doesn’t look at me; not because he’s grumpy – well, not just because he’s grumpy – but because he’s driving. ‘Before me, what did Mum want to be?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think she knew, because your mum, she could have done anything, eh? Me, it was always going to be the farm. Not just because I’m a man, but because what I’m good at has always been this.’ He moves his hands on the steering wheel so that they are close together, narrow. ‘One path, eh? But Nikki? She had a whole map; she’s good at so many things. She could have gone anywhere.’

  ‘And then I came along and ruined her life.’

  ‘No, not ruined.’ Uncle flicks the indicator and it goes blink blink blink. ‘Just changed it.’

  We turn down my street and I see what I’ve limited her to – the route from the hotel to our house and back again, day after day, for seventeen years. I’m worse than a prison sentence: I’m the one stupid decision that cost her the world. I don’t know if I’m angry at me or at her. Because she could have chosen differently; she should have had her life instead of mine.

  We pull up to the house and Jez is sitting on the front steps. He’s leaning back against the ranch slider like he’s been there a while. Uncle turns the key and the truck shudders to a standstill. He pulls the handbrake and it goes urrk as it clicks into place. Uncle raises his eyebrows at Jez and Jez flicks him one back. Jez waves at me with a DVD case in his hand.

  I don’t wave back. I look at Uncle, and in the odd quiet of the truck’s cab, I say, ‘I’m not allowed to have friends over.’

  ‘You’re not. But I can have my friends over. He’s here to see me, not you.’ Uncle gets out and walks over to Jez, and of course they do that lame handshake fist pump thing.

  Uncle taps on my window and shouts at the glass, ‘You can sit there if you want, but me and Jez are going to watch a movie.’

  Uncle and Jez walk to the back gate and just stand there for a while. And I’m laughing at Uncle for the first time in ages. He walks back to the truck and taps on my window again.

  ‘Can we borrow your keys?’

  12

  Good.

  Good.

  Good.

  I’m still thinking about that word: good job, good day, good girl. I know the theory of relativity is about time and physics and shit, but maybe it applies to language too. The meaning of the word depends on who’s using it. People think they’re so superior to animals because we have language, but maybe our words are as crude as the sharpened sticks that chimpanzees use to get termites out of their nest.

  Good.

  Good.

  Good.

  I’m walking home from work. Mum likes to make out like I’ve earned her trust back, but I reckon it’s because she’s working late and Uncle can’t be arsed. So I get to walk home unsupervised – big whoop – like I’m some seven-year-old. But it’s the only chunk of freedom I’ve been allowed these holidays, so I’ll take it. And it’s kind of nice to wander home; it’s warm in the afternoon but not too hot yet. It’s that funny time in spring when the world seems confused: daffodils and snap frosts, lambs born too early dying in the cold. That time when you can sit at the lakefront in a just a T-shirt and look at the mountains still frozen with snow and think that it’s like a painting, a postcard – but then the mountains remind you that they’re real: the wind changes and their cold breath chills you. Sometimes things are not as good as they seem.

  But don’t tell the tourists that. They expect picture-perfect; they expect absolutely pure fantasy. The tourists who visit here are the kind of people in search of adventure. But not the real kind – they want the type of adventure with safety guarantees and souvenir photos at the end. People like that crave drama because their lives are so perfect, so good. Good. Good.

  Bugs.

  If I don’t look at a text straight away, my phone just keeps nagging me and nagging me.

  Bugs.

  I set dogs barking as my alert, so it’s like I’m being hunted – duck on a maimai, pig in the bush, rabbit in a hole. I’m not supposed to have contact with her: that’s what the parents decided; that was the deal, the Treaty of Versailles.

  Bugs.

  And I don’t want to have contact with her, anyway. I’m still pissed. How could she call herself a mate and just let me take the fall? All she needed to do was say it was my idea and it would have been sweet. Like her dad would’ve threatened to go to the cops then.

  Bugs.

  Bugs.

  What?

  Please come around.

  I can’t.

  Please.

  I can’t.

  I need you.

  Bugs.

  Bugs.

  Bugs.

  It’s not far from here, so I could just pop around, wave to Shelley as she tries to sic Duke on me, and wait for the cops that Mr Fox called.

  And the little rabbit in my brain is thumping its hind foot: it’s a trap, it’s a trap, it’s a trap …

  I can’t.

  I think I’m dying.

  That’s not funny.

  I think I am.

  The whole bottle is gone.

  Bottle of what?

  …

  Bottle of what?

  That’s a shitty thing to do. Now I have to go. And if she’s ‘dying’ just because she’s fucked up her manicure or whatever I’m gonna punch her. I pick up my pace but try to keep it as a fast walk. A sixteen-year-old Māori running in this neighbourhood? Probably not out for a jog. Why make the cops pick me up here, when they can have a nice cup of tea and an organic, gluten-free scone while they wait for me at Stone Cold’s? I feel the thump, thump, thump again, but this time it’s in my chest. I can�
�t be that unfit; I must be freaked. And it gets worse as I get closer to Stone Cold’s place, as I see the red of their hedge – stop-light red, warning warning, the red of Mr Fox’s face as his spittle foams with rage like a rabid dog. I press my back against the hedge and inch along to the driveway. Only Stone Cold’s little car is there – Shelley’s big-arse four-wheel drive is gone – so I relax a bit, but still duck down past the big picture windows. Duke is gone too. The back garden seems empty without him, but there are lemons dotted everywhere that he’s left around. The door to the sleep-out is open, but it feels weird to be here now, so I knock on the door.

  ‘Hello?’

  I rush in when she doesn’t answer, hoping that she’s still breathing. She’s sitting on the floor of the empty room, phone in one hand and a bottle of whisky in the other. She’s all skinny jeans and Ugg boots, T-shirt and merino. And I could slap her.

  ‘Bugs. You came. I didn’t think you would.’

  ‘What happened? Where’s your stuff?’

  ‘Gone.’ She waves her arm towards the house like it is too heavy to lift. ‘I’m learning a lesson.’

  The bottle in her hand is empty, and the glass is clean of marks. I thought Shelley marked these, with a Vivid? ‘It’s one you watered down, eh? Weak as?’

  Stone Cold shakes the bottle. ‘Brand new. Duty free. Saving it for Gran. For Christmas.’

  ‘How much did you drink?’

  ‘Just all of it.’

  ‘You need to puke then.’

  ‘Have.’ Stone Cold taps the wall behind her and I notice that the window is open. I look out the window, and her vomit is still dripping off the weatherboards and pooling in the garden. It stinks, so I cover my nose and mouth with my hand.

  ‘Better in then out, Bugs.’

  ‘I think you mean …’

  ‘I know what I said.’ She looks at the empty bottle in her hand. ‘Gone, all gone.’