Just Not Mine (Escape to New Zealand)

by Rosalind James

  Of course she did. Damn. He looked around. “Where is he, then?”

  “Oh, not here,” she said. “He’s in Aussie, working over there.”

  “So d’you have anyone here to help you, or not?”

  “Not.”

  “Then …” He shrugged. “You’ve still got the offer of my hand, for what it’s worth.”

  “Good,” she said. “Fantastic. Thanks. Come over once you’ve had breakfast, see what your one hand can bring to the party.”

  * * *

  Well, that was disappointing, he thought as he headed back to the house. He couldn’t really have backed out of it, though. And anyway, he couldn’t have listened to her building a brick patio all weekend, known she was tackling that massive project on her own without offering to help. Not possible.

  She didn’t hear him when he returned an hour later, because she had her headphones in, was singing along to more bad pop, of which she seemed to have a limitless supply, as she crouched and hacked open a bag at her feet. He touched her elbow, and she jumped and whirled on her toes, not losing her balance, he noticed.

  “Oh. Hi,” she said, and smiled at the kids with none of the distance she kept from Hugh, and her smile was like the sun coming out.

  “Thought you could be right about the one hand,” he told her. “So I brought five.” He looked at the work she’d been doing, and rapidly reassessed. “Did you do all this?” he asked.

  The amused look was back. “I did. Surprised?”

  He laughed. “Yeh. I’ll admit, I am.” She had dug out and leveled the dirt foundation for her new patio, he could see, and had about half of the space covered by a lumpy layer of sand in which to set the brick, had been in the middle of opening another sandbag when he’d interrupted her. What was more, the perimeter of the prospective patio was marked by stakes and string, and he could tell at a glance that the string was level, too.

  “You know what you’re doing,” he said.

  “Yeh. I do.” The look she sent him was challenging. “Glad of the help, though.”

  “Help, not advice,” he said with a rueful smile. “Got it. You open the bags, I’ll dump them for now, how’s that?”

  “With one hand?”

  “I can’t open bags so well with one, but I can carry and dump with one. And you two can do a bag together,” he told the kids.

  “Here.” Josie finished opening her bag, indicated it to the kids. “Drag it over there between you, and then tip it over, pull it along so the sand pours out.”

  It was a bit awkward, Hugh found, handling fifteen-kilo bags with one hand, but he was determined to manage it. There might have been a bit of showing off there, too. Just a bit.

  And there was definitely some showing off after all the sand was poured and raked smooth, and she dragged over the heavy tamper and started pounding away. He watched her for a couple minutes, but when she paused to give her muscles a rest, he took it from her with his good right hand.

  “I’ll have a go,” he said.

  He could see her opening her mouth to say the one-handed thing again, but he hadn’t spent his life in the gym for nothing. Up in the air, down with a bang to compress the sand, over and over, and she was laughing a little.

  “I’m dead impressed,” she said, and he grinned at her and kept tamping.

  “Here, Amelia.” She handed Amelia a pair of heavy kitchen shears. “You and Charlie go out to the driveway and cut the plastic off the bricks, shove it in the bin for me, OK? Because once your brother gets done showing me his muscles, we get to start the fun bit.”

  Hugh looked at Josie and laughed himself. “Building the patio is the fun bit?”

  “Of course it is. That’s when the magic happens, when you see that your construction mess is turning into something.”

  They worked through the morning, loading up, hauling brick barrowload by barrowload to the back garden, Hugh taking one handle, one of the kids on the other side. After the first couple rounds, Hugh sent Amelia back to their own shed for another wheelbarrow and they went a bit faster, Josie deputizing Charlie to help her unload the wheelbarrow and place the bricks in the neat parquet pattern she had designed. She must have measured, because they fit perfectly in the space she’d laid out, with a couple of centimeters of space between each brick.

  “I’ll put mortar in between here,” she explained to Hugh, “so I don’t get weeds growing up under,” and he nodded.

  “You’ve got the knack of it, Charlie,” Josie told the boy as he laid each brick with care, and Hugh smiled to see him puffing up at the praise. Well, there wasn’t much a man wouldn’t do for a beautiful woman, and he wasn’t too surprised that his brother was as susceptible as he was himself.

  They broke for lunch in her kitchen, ham and tomato sandwiches and apples,

  “You don’t have to fix us lunch,” Hugh said. “I can take them home to eat.”

  “Nah,” Josie said. “If you’re working for me, I’m at least going to feed you. This would’ve taken me all weekend. Instead, we’ll be done today.”

  Hugh looked around the old-fashioned kitchen. Spotlessly clean, but he’d bet it hadn’t been updated in forty years. Cheap cabinetry, laminated countertops, brown vinyl flooring peeling a bit around the bottoms of the cabinets. “I’m surprised you didn’t want to fix the kitchen first thing.”

  She shrugged and smiled. “I’m Maori. Outside’s important. Nothing wrong with the stove, anyway, and the whole thing no worse than what my mum’s been feeding a family in for thirty years or so. I can wait for a flash kitchen, but I can’t wait to have someplace to sit and look at the trees and the sky, listen to the birds.”

  “Your own patch of paradise,” he said.

  “That’s it. I was in a flat before. No garden, and I was pining. So that’s first. And besides,” she said practically, “it’s the cheapest. That and painting. That comes next, because you should see the rest of the house.”

  “I noticed that your bathroom was pink,” he said with another grin.

  She laughed. “Bright pink, and look at that godawful bright blue in my lounge.”

  “Noticed that too,” he admitted.

  “Somebody must’ve told Mrs. Alberts that blue would be restful. Not that color, it isn’t. I told you I got this place cheaper than I should’ve, just because of the wallpaper and the paint. No worries, that’s all just sweat equity and a bit of paint. Easily fixed. I’ve already done my bedroom.”

  And he’d like to see it. But he moved on. “Yeh. My mum’s a decorator. The color on the paper isn’t what turns up on your wall. She spends a fair bit of time explaining that.”

  She looked surprised, and he hurried to explain. “Different mums. Mine’s in Wellington. Where I grew up.”

  “Except when you came to be with us, in the summer,” Amelia said.

  He smiled at her. “Yeh. Except when I came to be with you.” He could see the questions hovering on Josie’s lips, could see the moment when she decided not to ask them, because it wasn’t the time.

  “Well,” she told them, rising and gathering up plates, it’s back to work for me. Sorry I don’t have any biscuits.”

  “No worries,” Hugh said. “Charlie, run over and get some, why don’t you? Keep us going. I thought I was in condition, but if I’m going to work for Josie, more fuel is definitely required.”

  She didn’t eat any biscuits herself, he noticed, just kept working steadily until the brick was laid, then said briskly, “Right. Time for the mortar.”

  “Where is it?” Hugh asked. “Tell me, and I’ll get it.”

  “The shed,” she said. He went back to her pre-fab shed, which was as neatly organized as any Kiwi bloke’s, and pretty well-equipped for somebody who’d only just got her own house, too. He found the heavy bags of mortar and carried them out to her in his good arm.

  “Hugh,” Amelia told him, “I need to go to ballet. Did you forget?”

  “Oh. Right.” He had forgotten.

  “And it’s y
our turn to drive us,” she reminded him, not for the first time. “All three of us. So we need to leave in time.”

  Her and her two friends, and in case he needed to feel any more middle-aged, driving the carpool would do it.

  “Right,” he said again. “You could take a break too,” he suggested to Josie as Amelia shifted from foot to foot beside him. “I could help you finish up when I’m back. At least a couple hours, though.”

  “Nah,” she said. “Only a few more steps to go. Another hour or so, and I’m done. Can’t stop now.”

  He wanted to tell her again to wait for him, because she’d been working as hard as any man would’ve, all day long, and she had to be tired. But it was her project, not his, and Amelia was making impatient noises now, so he just said, “Come on, then, Charlie.”

  “I could stay and help Josie,” Charlie said.

  “That’d be awesome,” she said. “Get us through even faster. We could be the first to have a cup of tea on my new patio, Charlie, you and me.” And his brother looked blissful at the prospect, so that was that plan sorted.

  “Tell you what,” Josie said just before Hugh and Amelia took themselves off. “Why don’t we all have dinner out here tonight? We built it, we should christen it, don’t you think?”

  Hugh could think of a better way, but he went with what was on offer. “You don’t want to cook dinner after all this,” he objected. “We could go out.” Not quite the double date of his dreams, the two of them and the kids, not to mention the absent partner, but he’d take it.

  “The idea is dinner on the new patio, remember?”

  “Well, then, we could get pizza. Amelia and I could even get it on the way back from ballet. Easy as.”

  “I don’t eat pizza,” she said. “Alas.”

  “Not even after laying brick all day?”

  “Not even then. The sacrifices we make, eh,” she said with another laugh. “But just come on over when Amelia’s done with her dancing, and we can have a feed. The least I can do to pay you back, isn’t it. If Charlie and I aren’t here, we’ll have gone to the supermarket. Maybe even for a swim first, hey?” she asked Charlie. “Sounds good about now.”

  Did she have unlimited energy? He guessed so. And he wanted to come for the swim. Seeing her in her togs would be a fair reward for his work, better than any dinner, especially if it were a bikini.

  But his job right now was to drive three twelve-year-old girls to ballet, so that was what he did.

  Not Romantic

  “Hugh’s nice, isn’t he,” Charlie offered when Hugh and Amelia had left.

  “Yeh, he is.” Josie smiled at him, looked at the bags of mortar and allowed herself a moment of fatigue at the thought of this final stage of her project. For a cowardly minute, she thought about accepting Hugh’s offer, taking Charlie off for a swim and a shop and finishing the job with Hugh’s help when he returned. How easy it was, after all, to look to a man for help, even when that help wasn’t one bit his job, or his concern.

  Finish it now, she told herself. Sooner you start, sooner it’s done. Besides, even though she’d been honest with him, this was cutting the grass, and she knew it. And she’d never been one of those women who put off breaking up with a man until after he’d helped her shift house. She’d told Clive the truth. She didn’t like manipulative women, and she wasn’t going to be one, so she grabbed her scissors and cut open the first bag of mortar, hefted it and began sprinkling its contents over the bricks.

  “Cut open the next one for me, will you, love?” she asked Charlie. “And then we just sweep the mortar with this metal broom so it falls between the bricks, see?”

  “Hugh’s strong, too,” Charlie said, reaching for the broom and sweeping with a willing if inexpert hand. “If he was here, he could lift up those bags by himself. He could do it with one hand.”

  “Mmm. Does he always live with you?” she asked, onto the second bag by now. She was just making conversation, keeping Charlie from noticing how tired he was. Or she was shamelessly pumping an eight-year-old child for information. She’d go with Option A. Sounded much better.

  “Just since my mum and dad died,” Charlie said. “And only when he’s at home. Not when he’s away.” He laughed a little. “I mean, he couldn’t live with us when he’s away, could he? But he can’t go away now, because he broke his thumb.”

  “Does he go away for work?” she asked.

  “Yeh. But he got an injury, this last time, so he can’t go.” He opened his mouth, shut it again.

  A ship, she thought suddenly. That would explain it. He wasn’t a dole bludger after all, she could see that after today. He was a worker, just like her.

  “What does he do for work?” she asked, and all right, it was true, she was shamelessly pumping a child. She might as well get her money’s worth.

  Charlie looked a bit scared. “I’m not meant to talk about his work. If people ask me about him.”

  “Oh. OK.” What? She finished emptying her bags, took over on the sweeping from Charlie.

  So, all right. Something secret. Either he was an undercover cop, or a drug dealer. Or an assassin, her overactive imagination suggested, and she had to laugh a little inside at the thought. He didn’t seem much like a drug dealer, or an assassin either. Though drug dealers probably had families. Assassins, she wasn’t so sure about.

  He did look familiar. Maybe she’d seen him on some TV show about persons of interest? Hard to tell, under all that beard and hair. His disguise, maybe. But no, that was ridiculous. Cora Middleton had seemed thoroughly respectable, not somebody who’d leave these kids in the care of anybody that dodgy. In any case, Hugh seemed much too straightforward to be anything that complicated, and anyway, it wasn’t her business, not as long as he weren’t actually a criminal, and she sincerely doubted it. She gave a mental shrug and concentrated on finishing the job with Charlie’s help.

  “Here we are,” she said when he’d finished spraying the entire surface of the new patio with the hose, concentrating so fiercely on getting every square meter wetted down, his clever little face so intent that her heart went out to him. “Look at you. You helped build a whole patio today. You spread the sand, laid the brick, brushed the mortar. Bet you didn’t know you could do that.”

  He brightened, his chest swelling a bit, and she smiled at him. “Let’s put my table and chairs on,” she suggested. “And have a look.”

  He helped her carry them, and they stood together and admired their handiwork.

  “Calls for a cup of tea, don’t you think?” she asked him. “Lord and lady of the manor, surveying our domain?”

  “Yeh,” he said. “Except could I have cocoa instead? If you have it,” he added politely.

  She laughed, light with accomplishment and the satisfaction of a job done. “You could. You can have as much cocoa as you can drink. You earned it.”

  * * *

  She and Charlie had their swim, a quick one down the road at Torpedo Bay, because the water was still springtime-cold, but that and a shower renewed her energy for a visit to New World.

  “You’re a good shopper,” she told Charlie when he’d returned to the trolley with a bag of green beans.

  “That’s because I have to help Hugh,” he said.

  “Oh. Because of his hand.”

  “Not just his hand,” Charlie said. “It’s that he doesn’t know how to do things. The sorts of things grown-ups usually know. He forgets to buy stuff, like washing powder. He forgets to do the washing. He can’t cook too well either. We had pizza two times already this week, and hamburgers one time. Grownups usually cook more grown-up things, but he says he can’t. He can do hamburgers, though. And he can do eggs. I have to help him with that, too.”

  “Well, helping’s good,” she said cheerfully, selecting tomatoes, throwing in a couple avocados, some spinach and rocket. Salad, that was nice and easy. “I helped my mum and dad growing up, and that’s why I do know how to cook, and to do the washing, and all sorts of quite hand
y things. And I should get your brother some beer,” she realized as they left the veg aisle. “Bet he likes that.”

  “I think so,” Charlie said. “Not if he’s driving, but he hasn’t got to drive, because you live next door and we can walk. It isn’t good to drink beer if you’re driving.”

  “No, it isn’t, but he doesn’t have to drive tonight, so I think we’ll risk it. What kind’s his favorite?” she asked, stopping in front of the extensive selection.

  He considered. “Dunno. Maybe that green one. I think he’s had that.”

  “Monteith’s Original? Sounds reasonable. Not a big drinker, eh.” She pulled a six-pack down and set it in the trolley.

  “Nah. Because of work. He can’t.”

  Which made the drug dealer idea less likely, but then, it had never been likely. Still left assassin open, though. Assassins probably had to keep their wits about them.

  “Run get me two liters of trim milk, please,” she told Charlie, abandoning the question.

  He was back with it in a flash. “I think I used to help my mum, too,” he told her as he handed it to her. “I don’t remember too well, though.”

  Josie glanced down at him, steered the trolley into the housewares aisle, selected a packet of ivory candles, then wondered why she was doing it. It wasn’t a romantic dinner. Well, no. But it was a party on her new patio, with new friends. So, candles.

  “Bet you remember some things,” she said.

  He was quiet for a full minute as they rounded the corner towards the meat department, and she wondered what was going on in that dark head.

  “I remember her doing chicken,” he said suddenly. “She’d stand at the sink and reach her hand in the hole and pull the guts out of the inside. And then she’d cut it all up and smash it and cook it a special way that tasted good. It didn’t taste like chicken normally does, like Aunt Cora makes it. I remember that.”

  “Sounds like she was a good cook.”

  “Yeh. Because she was French. She said if you were French, you had to know how, because you couldn’t eat English food. She laughed when she said that.”