by Bowes, K T
Hana pattered quietly into the room in her socks, nervousness robbing her of confidence.
“Hana!” She was greeted by the shapely form of Henrietta Dawlish snipping up rashers of bacon which flopped obligingly into an electric frying pan. Hana was a little lost for words, but Henrietta seemed thrilled and gushed an automatic welcome. “Darling, how wonderful to see you again,” she cooed.
Moments later, Peter North burst in from outside, brandishing a dirty pumpkin as though it was a trophy and dripping rainwater the rimu floor. “Got one!” he cried.
Henrietta chortled with encouragement and bustled over, brandishing a tea towel that she used to mop North’s brow. She relieved him of his prize and took it over to the sink while he removed his shoes and coat.
“Hana, welcome to our humble bachelor pad,” North smiled. Spying the subtle stiffening of Henrietta’s back, he added, “Obviously some of us won’t be bachelors for much longer. Logan probably will though.”
“Thanks,” Logan retorted, visibly insulted. He narrowed his eyes and mouthed something in Pete’s direction. The skinny man’s eyes widened and he dashed to stand next to Henrietta. Once in the safety of her voluptuous vicinity, his nerve returned and he gave Logan a rude finger gesture.
Hana was curious about their living arrangements but wisely decided not to ask. A clothes airer in the corner had an All-blacks shirt draped over it, alongside a particularly nasty pair of purple Y-fronts. The red trainers on the floor next to it, looked remarkably like…
“Hey Hana!” cried Boris Lomax, a physical education teacher on a one year contract from Germany. Tall and carrot orange haired, the boys called him ‘Red’ and loved his no-nonsense style of teaching. He was a bit of a ‘ladies’ man’ and had sent hearts thumping excitedly in the staff room, especially amongst the newly qualified female teachers. He wrapped long arms around Hana and planted a kiss on her cheek. Hana was surprised when she looked at Logan to see a flash of jealousy in his grey eyes.
The kitchen was open plan and encompassed a dining table and seating area. A 1900s bay window surveyed the garden through the rain-streaked, misted glass. Remembering his manners, Logan offered Hana a drink and a look around the old building; both of which she accepted. “I think it’s 1900s,” he said, handing her a glass of red wine, “but I’m not completely sure.”
The house was spacious and had retained a certain cosiness, helped by the striking autumn colours of the walls. Aged tongue and groove decorated each room to shoulder height, original rimu lovingly restored. The furniture appeared to be antique which fascinated Hana, not least because the tenants seemed to be more in the beer-and-Formica category. There were four roomy bedrooms, three of them plainly inhabited by males. The fourth smelled of female deodorant and one of Henrietta’s voluminous dresses peeked out from an overnight case on the bedside table. The rooms each contained a large double bed and some were tidier than others.
North’s room looked much like his desk at work, full of stuff with pieces missing, aesthetically chaotic. It was hard to see where his unmade bed ended and the clothes on the floor began. Boris owned little and lived out of an open suitcase. A guitar leaned against the wall next to the bed and chord music was scattered on the floor next to it. Logan’s room was a complete surprise. Always dressed smartly, he gave the appearance of having been dressed by a designer. He was good looking in an unassuming way, ‘nicely presented’ her mother would have said, which actually made him devastatingly handsome. His dark hair had a windswept look that didn’t seem tried. His room was spotless. Breathtakingly immaculate actually. In contrast to his, North’s room looked positively burgled.
For a reason she couldn’t fathom, Hana felt extraordinarily pleased at Logan’s neat room. From a dresser drawer revealing neatly rolled garments, Logan pulled out a sweater and offered it to her. She hadn’t realised how cold she was, or that she shivered slightly in the old house. “Thank you.” Hana pulled it on over her tee shirt. It smelled of lavender fabric softener and outdoors and was vaguely comforting. The arms were way too long and she giggled as she flapped them around in front of her. Logan smiled and bit his bottom lip, not sure whether to laugh at her or not. He reached behind Hana and pulled her long red hair from inside the collar of the jumper. His hands touched the back of her neck and her eyes flared wide in embarrassment at the pleasure it gave her. Logan straightened it with care and smoothed the tresses down her back with gentle fingers, stroking out the static. Hana gulped and moved away.
When they left the room he placed his hand in the small of Hana’s back to guide her towards the smell of food and she felt it again; that curious electricity.
The tour of the house included the bathroom, living room and laundry and Hana absolutely loved every part, except maybe North’s, which she found visually appalling and was glad once the door was closed again. “It’s amazing!” she exclaimed, pressing her hands together and smiling at Logan. “I love period houses.”
The house had been renovated to perfection and was simply stunning, right down to the architrave and coving. A plaster ceiling rose in each room, dangled crystal light fittings, sprinkling rainbow reflections around the place. “Who owns this?” Hana asked in hushed reverence. “Surely not Pete. He can’t afford to pay his tuck shop bill from last year.”
She hadn’t expected the answer Logan gave. “Angus.”
Abruptly it flooded back to her, that awful afternoon on which they drank a bottle of wine and Angus commiserated with her about Vik’s untimely death; if death can ever be called untimely. When is a good time to die, for a dad with a wife and children who still need and love him?
Angus had been married for many years when his wife succumbed to the bowel cancer that she bravely fought for some time. “I can’t face it,” Angus wept. “Iris loved to renovate everything. It was our dream home.”
He moved out of the marital home a year to the day after her death. Being in his late fifties, he bought a two-bedroom unit in one of the residential estates for older folk. It had seemed like a bizarre thing to do, but the organised activities and community spirit of the place proved to be a tonic for the grieving widower. “This is the house,” Hana whispered, sadness washing over her. “Iris’ house.”
The mess of North’s bedroom seemed more offensive, for the lack of sensitivity it displayed in the abandonment of order there. But it was his room, to do what he wanted in it. It was his home now and not hers. Iris was gone. Vik was gone. They sat together at a Christmas dinner the year before they died, laughing and being silly with Christmas paper hats. Nobody could have guessed what was coming. Hana contemplated the void at her feet, the ugliness of grief threatening to suck her back in. She sighed and closed her eyes.
Logan watched as the emotions flicked visibly across Hana’s face, poorly masked in her confusion. Her green eyes filled with pain and her guard dropped for long enough for him to see inside.
Realising too late, Hana forced a smile onto her lips and turned to go, but Logan reached for her. “Tell me?” he asked, a hint of pleading underneath the surface. Time whipped cruelly underneath him as he lost seconds of opportunity, days, weeks, years, decades. His other hand touched her cheek, soft fingers caressing and coasting over her flushed skin. It felt good to be touched.
With a snap of reality, it felt like too much and Hana jumped back. She wished she had gone home to her clinical empty house on the hill. So many emotions reared up in her, surprising her with their intensity, not least because she liked the feel of his fingers and his gentle touch.
Logan watched the roiling conflict in her as he reluctantly released his hold. He indicated towards the soothing light of the kitchen. “Don’t run away. Stay for dinner,” he invited, struggling to lighten the mood. “Henrietta does the meanest pumpkin and bacon soup and she cooks for a small army.” He stood in front of Hana, his body rigid. Fear enlarged his pupils until his eyes looked black and Hana wondered why on earth it was so important to him.
With a small n
od of her head, Hana relented. The tense moment was over as quickly as it had come and Hana worked hard to regulate her breathing again. Is this how it’s always going to be for me? Hana wondered. That grief, like some silent shadow would sneak up on her, biting her cruelly when she least expected it and reminding her she was half of a pair, less than whole.
Dinner was as promised, superb. The pumpkin soup was exquisitely done as only New Zealanders know how, despite the noble attempts of others to better it. The fact that Henrietta was a lecturer at a hospitality college had much to do with it. North seemed utterly besotted with her, oblivious to the veiled snorts of laughter that his flatmates barely suppressed when she referred to him as ‘Peteepoos’ and even weirder, ‘Glove Puppet.’
At one point Boris raised his eyebrows in such a look of intrigue when Henrietta asked her ‘Glove Puppet’ for the salt, Hana dropped her spoon into the soup. A glob of it ricocheted onto Logan’s chin. He wrinkled his nose with indignation as he wiped it off, but she saw the amusement in his face and that set her off giggling, trying to disguise it as a cough.
Pudding was a huge pink blancmange which Henrietta set on the table with such a flourish, that it wibbled and wobbled and greatly resembled its maker. That set Hana giggling again and she found it difficult to regain control, especially with the men eating so passively and behaving as though it was all normal.
“That looks exceptionally…pink and vobbly,” Boris concluded and it was all that Hana could do not to explode.
She buried her face into her favourite handkerchief with a long and pretentious nose blowing that was entirely fake, but allowed her time to recover and wipe the tears away. She pitied the little kiwi birds, hand stitched around the edges of the hanky, for their part in her subterfuge. Logan looked at her oddly as she raised the hanky to her face and his brow knitted when he saw the kiwi bird pattern. His lips parted in shock and it was a curious moment with seemingly no explanation.
Odd, Hana thought, as Logan’s eyes widened and he looked rapidly away. He stayed silent as dinner conversation centred around school and what beer North liked best, although the latter topic died a little prematurely with an affronted look from Henrietta. “No, Peteepoos,” she said, looking hurt. “I thought we were going to be wine connoisseurs from now on.”
With the final clatter of spoons and satisfied sighs from appetites sated, the mood around the rimu dining table became laced with sadness and a finality that Hana could not understand. Logan stood and cleared away the bowls and cutlery while Boris loaded the dishwasher and ran water into the sunken Belfast sink. Unsure what to do, Hana sat for a moment, but Henrietta took North’s hand in her large paw and began a private and hushed conversation. Feeling in the way, Hana excused herself and went to help the men. They worked quietly and without fuss. Soon the dishwasher hummed to itself in the corner of the kitchen, making hungry sloshing sounds as it gulped water from the system.
Logan made coffee and led Hana into the living room, which overlooked the darkening driveway and paddocks beyond. Boris sauntered off to his room, intending to Skype with his brother. As New Zealand got ready for its Saturday night, Dieter in Germany was going to have his Saturday morning lie in disturbed.
“Pete’s been dreading it all day,” Logan explained. “Henrietta could only stay for a few days as she’s touring the area advertising her college. Her next port of call is in Hastings.” He tapped nervously on his jeans and fidgeted long fingers, more covered in healed cuts and scars than Hana had realised.
Henrietta had been staying periodically for the last few weeks, ever since her talk at school and parting was always the same wrenching affair. Logan and Hana sat amicably on the sofa, conspiratorially close. She felt the roughness of Logan’s jeans through her track pants and resisted the urge to rest her hand on his thigh, chiding herself harshly for her inappropriate forwardness to a comparative stranger and colleague. She wondered what on earth was wrong with her.
Whilst she struggled to control her blood pressure, they chatted about minor things and Hana was grateful that Logan didn’t return to the subject of Vik or press her for information about her life. He did however, prove surprisingly candid about his life in Auckland and his former fiancé. “I guess she was the girl-next-door. We went to uni together, eventually working at Auckland Grammar in different departments, me in the English faculty and her in physical education.”
Hana didn’t ask what had happened and Logan became quiet and subdued. “It was for the best,” he said quietly and Hana looked at him in confusion. “Her calling it off,” he said, his voice low and his face painful. “It was for the best.”
Hana wasn’t sure what to say. Logan Du Rose was a man who shared little but seemed to be genuinely reaching out to her. It seemed out of character and it was absolutely none of her business, but she was spared the dilemma of answering by North putting his head around the door and announcing, “Henrietta’s about to leave.”
The housemates were expected to line the steps like a scene from Victorian England where the servants stood in line to farewell the landowner as he climbed into his carriage. Henrietta’s carriage was a little white Suzuki Swift, emblazoned with the logo of her college and she poured herself generously into it, having squeezed and kissed each member of the assembled group with genuine fondness. North fetched the car round from the garage and finally Henrietta bumped and shook along the dreadful track. She beeped her horn as she turned right onto the main road in the distance.
North took on the appearance of a broken man instantly. The rain had stemmed to a light drizzle and he announced bravely, “I’m going for a run.”
Hana was concerned. The main road had no streetlights and visibility was now non-existent. He also seemed so sad.
“Sokay,” Boris reassured her. “He go tavern viz friend, Foggy. He only jog a few metres. See da lights on left through trees. Henrietta, not like zat!” Having punctuated the final words with a fist to the air, Boris went back inside, calling over his shoulder, “I Skype my sister in Berlin and Mutter in Gutersloh.”
North made a show of tying his trainers extra tight and set off down the track. Logan snorted.
“He should have asked Henrietta for a lift there. He won’t be back before work on Monday now.”
Hana looked at her trainers snuggled on the rimu boards next to Logan’s much larger cowboy boots and decided it was an appropriate time to leave. She grabbed her coat from the newel post of the banister and slipped on her trainers. Logan seemed saddened as they ventured off the veranda and back into the Hilux. He drove her back to town but kept turning towards her as though there was something he wished to say. Courage failed him and they rode alone in silence.
Passing the tavern in Gordonton, a sweaty, pink-faced Peter North could just be seen through the window, ordering something from the barman.
Chapter 14
For some reason which escaped her, Hana agreed to lead Sunday school for those aged five to twelve for a week, whilst the leader was overseas. The problem was that Hana didn’t actually like children. It was different with her own, but other people’s filled her with dismay. They seemed to be mainly snot and bad manners, crying over silly things and having disagreements that the adults knew were happening, but could never catch them at.
“It will be easy,” the pastor informed her in his best, ‘I’m–so–desperate–please–say–yes voice.’ “All the stuff is there in the book, you just have to get it together and teach it on the day. You’ll be perfect. Thanks so much.” And off he fled on his next mission to coerce someone else for into doing another job.
“I hate you,” Hana called to his retreating back in a sing-song voice. She heard Pastor Allen laugh and he waved a hand in the air.
Hana spent the previous week getting to grips with the lesson plan and finally produced a cut out Goliath and a smaller David for the children to colour in. Anka’s children were bullied into posing for the cut-outs, which meant laying on the concrete garage floor and being dr
awn round with felt tip. Charlotte was particularly disobliging, dissolving into chronic giggles every time Hana tried to draw round her bare legs and arms. Gareth, providing the template for Goliath, lay passively on the ground and fell asleep.
Hana struggled into Oadby church early to set up before the children arrived. It was a bright, clear day which held little evidence of yesterday’s endless rain. The sun had chased the puddles into the lower patches of ground, leaving mush in places where it hung around in the soil. Mount Ruapehu was visible from the Sunday school room, rising above the view and showing only a tiny speckling of snow at its tips. The little community church was about ten minutes out of town, surrounded by fields and hills, untouched by the growing suburbia which extended its fingers outwards at a determined rate. Once, it was separate from Hamilton, reached on gravel roads and inhabited by farming families, who pulled together in times of hardship or joy. In the old days they met once a week at the tiny church or sporadically at the old village store, long since made into a house.
There was some difficulty unrolling David and Goliath and a moment of despair when their arms and legs proved almost impossible to separate. Finally Hana laid them out on the rickety paste tables, side by side. She had the story straight in her head and her notes on the chair. It was only an hour session with the little darlings. What could possibly go wrong?