by Bowes, K T
Hana sobbed under the cruelty of the words. Somewhere deep inside, a voice called out to her, telling her she had failed to acknowledge the reality of her loss. But it was over-ridden by a louder voice that she recognised as her own, crying softly, “No, no, no.”
Father Sinbad held her hands until she ceased crying, cooing and whispering words over her that she knew were prayers. His love for her and his overwhelming care filled her with unreadable emotion and she cried for longer because of it. When the awful feeling of loss had subsided slightly she fidgeted, wiping her nose on her sleeve and blotting her eyes with her hands. The old man let go of her but leaned forward in his chair until his shaking hand rested on her forehead and then he spoke over her in Latin, words of old that she would never remember or understand. It was comforting and calming as he ended with a benediction.
Hana was suddenly embarrassed and tried to make a joke, “Were those my last rites?”
He threw back his head and laughed, “Ye’ll never know, Hana Johal, never know. No, truly, t’was a blessing of peace. Now go home and ring dat young man. Give him a chance my dear, give him a chance. Because dat’s what’s holding ye back and we both know it. Love is a risk my dear and nobody likes pain.”
Red shoes swinging from her hand, Hana padded down the long corridor, Father Sinbad’s jolly laughter ringing in her ears and her heart light. Before she left, he had uttered his last gem of wisdom, “And while you’re at it, get rid of dat car and dat ole house. Get something your own size and take me somewhere nice in de new car. Something yellow or purple. Your Lord God is purple, ye know.”
As the idea settled, it didn’t seem such a bad one. If the car was the cause of the problem, changing the car was a good plan. If the two men knew where she lived, then they wouldn’t be able to find her if she moved, not if she was careful about where she went. Hana nodded to the Matron as she passed. The calm and stability of the rest home was due in part to the rule of her iron fist. It was Matron who had interviewed the wide eyed Bodie all those years ago and assigned him Father Sinbad Maloney to read for. In exchange, she had stamped his little attendance book, written nice things about the boy and made sure he got his service award certificate in each prize-giving ceremony for the next four years. It began as an exercise to gather brownie points in a callous one liner:
1. Read to an elderly person once a week.
It ended in a lifetime of friendship. Bodie always called to see the old priest each time he was in Hamilton and regularly sent him hilarious jokes and captions via the matron’s email address. Hana used to drop Bodie off at the home and go for a walk or coffee in nearby Hamilton East with the much younger Izzie but after Vik died, she accompanied the distraught boy inside the building to the sunny room to support her broken child. After an absence during the anger part of Bodie’s grief, Hana visited and began by making excuses for her son’s neglect. The need for apologies was futile. She discovered for herself a man whose miseries equalled her own, but who had learned like the Apostle Paul that whether in abundance or in hardship, pain or joy, the grace of Christ was enough. Hana desired what the old priest possessed and in glimpses and snatches over the years, had shared the peace that is beyond human understanding.
When Bodie returned to visiting the priest, he found his mother sitting in the visitors’ chair and they shared the solace he gave them both. Father Sinbad had been grafted onto their family vine as though he belonged.
Donning the shoes once again to meet the heartless breeze which had increased it’s battering of the city, Hana came out of the manicured gardens and back onto Powell Street. School had tipped out some half an hour beforehand and the buses enjoyed the lull before work traffic began. Crossing the road, Hana pressed the button on the solar powered timetable indicator and an automated voice informed her that she could expect an Orbiter to arrive in the next five minutes. A light drizzle began and the traffic got perceptibly busier but she didn’t notice. Tapping the heel of her right shoe lightly against the pavement, Hana mentally ran through her conversation with Father Sinbad, coming to some long overdue resolutions about her life. Beginning with the Jingle Bells tie.
The bus was empty but late. Hana arrived home clip clopping from the bus stop half a kilometre away, puffed and flustered, having remembered that the cops were due round to carry out their belated forensic tests on her vehicle. A plain-clothed policeman came down the front stairs having been unable to get an answer and Hana apologised profusely, offering him a cup of tea while he made his examination of the vehicle. He was abrupt and business like, but accepted the tea.
The policeman dusted around the area where Hana recalled the Asian man touching the bodywork of the car. He also dusted the door where the other man leaned across her. Hana visibly shuddered as she remembered the man’s taut body forcing her into the metal and the look of malice in his eyes. “You shouldn’t have moved the vehicle,” the cop chastised her. “And that other guy’s fingerprints will be all over the underneath where he searched. I’ll probably need to get him to come down to the station so I can eliminate his prints.”
“Oh,” Hana looked guilty. “My neighbour Paul also drove it off the pavement. You’ll probably have to get his too.”
The cop looked cross and Hana left him to his drink and found an excuse to look at something on one of the untidy shelves. Opening the garage door and flooding the area with light, he photographed the broken bumper shell which had slipped off the vehicle and was on the floor.
Hana glanced around the garage suddenly aware of all the detritus scattered around the place. Over in the corner were a matching set of adults’ and children’s golf clubs, both dusty and unused. There was an old school bag hanging on a nail under some shelving, bulging at the seams with something that hadn’t seen the light of day for a fair old while. A pink eeling net, a broken tennis racquet, an Ab King Pro exercise machine, ideal for those hard to tone abdominal muscles and absolutely excellent for drying washing on. Father Sinbad was right, Hana concluded. This old place needed a clean and a new owner. The fact she was even contemplating leaving her marital home shocked Hana but pleased her at the same time. She felt less fragile and a little excited. Where would she go? Would she buy or rent somewhere? How easy would the house be to sell in the current market? How would she tell Bodie and Izzie?
The last question knocked the excitement out of her musings. What would they think of her, leaving the house that she and Vik had shared? Would they be cross or would they give her their blessing? Abruptly, Hana felt her life venture into the great and frightening unknown, where the thoughts and needs of others fenced off her journey and contained her within their comfort zones, instead of letting her walk free.
The policeman finished his tea after taking Hana’s prints on a mobile fingerprinting unit to rule out hers from her attackers. Then he left. Hana abandoned the messy garage, determined to tackle it at the weekend while the mood for change was still on her. As she waved the policeman off along the street, another vehicle pulled into the driveway, this time a motorbike.
The rider dismounted and pulled off the black, tinted helmet. Logan’s hair was tousled and flat and he looked absolutely shattered. He had dark circles around his eyes and a shadow of stubble widening around the lower half of his face. He smiled weakly and after locking up the bike, came up the front steps slowly and deliberately. “I was just passing,” he began, stopping as he realised the lameness of what he was about to say.
Hana smiled and invited him in. “I must have known you were almost here, the kettle’s just boiled.”
Chapter 19
Logan stayed for dinner and left shortly after eight to get an early night. He accidentally let slip how spooky the street was at night and finding it a curious thing to say, Hana managed to get out of him that he, Boris and Pete had spent the night patrolling the area and keeping watch in Logan’s truck. They had also been shinning over the side gate into her garden to check for intruders. There was no wonder they were all wasted. �
�Oh my goodness. If I had woken up and spotted a person moving around in my enclosed garden in the middle of the night, I would have freaked out!” Hana looked horrified, her green eyes wide and she bit her lip. “Thank you though,” she smiled at Logan and he flushed with pleasure. “Those sleeping tablets zonked me out. I don’t think there was much danger of me waking up.”
They sat companionably in Hana’s living room underneath the photo of a youthful Vik and Hana on their wedding day. It felt odd for her to sit under a photo of her dead husband with her thigh lightly touching the muscular legs of another man. Armed with the assurances of Father Sinbad, Hana started opening up to Logan and talking about her husband and her life before his death. It was surprisingly easy and something of a relief, as though a taboo had been removed. Logan was great company and an astute listener. He sat quietly, sipping his coffee while Hana trotted through a quick life history up to the present day. Emboldened, she got out her scrapbooks of Bodie and Izzie and they smiled and laughed over the funny, childish photos that Hana had decorated over long and lonely evenings in the last eight years as a mental distraction.
A photo of Bodie as a small Year 9 boy in a familiar school uniform caught Logan’s eye, “He went to our school? I hadn’t realised,” he said. His brow creased. “I guess there’s a lot I don’t know.”
Yes, there is, thought Hana silently and the task of communicating forty-four years of her life and everyone involved in it, suddenly seemed daunting and impossible. She brought the covers of the scrapbook together and the large, heavy pages bent and flicked closed. Whump whump whump, they seemed to say as they landed in place, allowing themselves to once again be sealed to the world. Pages and pages of decorated memories of a life now gone. Oh well, Hana thought, I started well.
They sat companionably on the bottom step in the stairway while Logan did up his heavy motorbike boots, chatting easily about nothing in particular. The shiny little red shoes sat winking happily under the lighting in the hallway, half sticking out from under the hall table. Noticing them, Logan commented, “Ah, the weapons of mass destruction?” and Hana laughed, before enquiring after Peter North, whom she had last seen rolling around on the office carpet.
“He’ll live to fight another day,” Logan smiled and then added, “Boris had to drive us home. He was a bit put out you hadn’t rubbed it better for him.”
“I feel so bad,” Hana sighed, “about kicking him, not about refusing to...I can’t even say it actually.” She shuddered. “It really was one of those days today. Mind you, it seems to have been one of those years actually.”
Feeling the moment was about to get maudlin, Logan took a calculated risk and put his arm around Hana as she sat close to him on the step. His arm was heavy and padded in his motorbike jacket and smelled of leather and petrol. To anyone viewing this snapshot in time, it would have looked like a couple sat comfortably together on the stairs, the man with his arm around his companion and her, laying her head gently on his shoulder. But the reality was a hidden act of will and a battle of emotions. Hana wanted to be held, cosseted and made to feel safe, special and loved. But there was this guilt, this feeling of infidelity. It was as though at any moment Vik might appear and be hurt by what he saw. Hana needed to acknowledge to herself that she felt something for Logan. She had to go forwards, not back.
They sat together for a long while snuggled on the steps, Hana beginning to feel that there was something uncannily ‘right’ about being with him. Logan, feeling hopelessly tired and with a ten-minute bike ride still to get through, broke away gently before kissing Hana on the top of her head. “Sleep well,” he whispered, his breath soft against her hair and Hana felt her stomach plummet into her feet at the inappropriate thought that went through her pretty head. Waving him off the driveway, Hana felt deliriously happy for the first time in years and went inside to answer her ringing telephone.
Chapter 20
The grating voice of her sixty-six-year-old mother-in-law greeted her, when Hana finally made it to the phone. “I was about to ring off!” were the first words she spoke, the irritating shrill quality still present in her voice after nearly three years of no contact, not even so much as a Christmas or birthday card. “We’re coming out and we’re staying with you.”
The last was spoken with an edge of determination and challenge. Hana was temporarily lost for words. It was always like this and anger rose within her. She fought for control.
“We want to see Vikram’s children. We arrive on the Saturday after next. You can get us from the airport.”
Why did this always happen to her? Just as life seemed to be straightening out and hope of something different started to blossom, the old dragged Hana back down again into the pit of despair and a past, unwelcome part of life. Fantastic! After rattling out the flight times and reissuing her demand to see Vik’s children, (they had never been acknowledged as hers) Indra Johal rang off, leaving the air blue with annoyance. Hana had completely failed to stand up to her yet again, but then why change the habits of a lifetime? Hana went back to the kitchen depressed and put the kettle on to boil. As it hissed and bubbled she stood staring at it, completely changed her mind and poured red wine. Realising it was still early she picked up the phone and dialled Izzie’s number.
“Oh no, please don’t let them come down here,” wailed Izzie “I can’t face all the interrogation about my deepest, personal, secrets. And what will they say about Elizabeth? She’s enough of a ‘reject’ in society without her own grandparents passing verdict!” Then she added hopefully, “It’s starting to get cool down here. Perhaps they won’t come this far.”
Hana didn’t like to burst her bubble by pointing out that they were flying from freezing cold Britain, but thought there was very little hope of Izzie avoiding them. Indra and Deepak were like wasps when they got going. Hana decided a little selfishly that as Izzie was already reeling from the news of the impending rellies, she would tell her about Logan. She had begun to speak when it occurred to her that a double shock was probably cruel. “I’ve met this really lovely teacher at work,” Hana began, halting as she tried to formulate her thoughts into a coherent sentence. “We haven’t been on a date or anything, but I do like him. A lot.”
Izzie was silent while Hana talked and the mother grew concerned. But once she finished, her charitable daughter asked a few questions and seemed calm and rational. Towards the end of the conversation though, the effort was telling in the small voice that came across the miles as Izzie fought to control her feelings. Hana rang off with Izzie’s final sentence shocking her to her core. “I guess it has been a long time Mum. And Dad loved you so much, I know he would have wanted you to be happy and loved again.”
Hana kept hearing that sentence over and over as she tried desperately to settle down to sleep. Would Vik have wanted her to be loved by someone else? If it had been him left behind, would she have wanted him to find someone else and start again differently, maybe even happier? They always said it, but surely it had been platitudes, magnanimous things to say. Perhaps that was the root of her problem. She hadn’t meant a word of it. She couldn’t have considered being even slightly happy about her gorgeous husband setting up home with some other woman, even now after he was no longer around. She still couldn’t imagine ever having sanctioned it. Not with good grace. It made her feel threatened like she had after he died, when…no, she reprimanded herself. She wouldn’t go there again. If she never really intended for him to replace her, then perhaps she was living the life she had expected him to have in the event of her dying first.
She felt like an elephant, doomed after the death of her soul mate to wander the earth alone forever. The cruelty of it was poignant as once again Hana resorted to the sleeping tablets, only one this time, in order to shut out the world and her own confused thoughts.
Chapter 21
After a fortnight of fitful, sleepless nights, Hana found herself exactly where she had vowed she wouldn’t be; at the arrivals terminal of Auckland In
ternational Airport waiting for Indra and Deepak to appear through the doors. It was a hellish journey up, through rolling fog that drifted and collected over the Bombay Hills and cut down visibility to a few metres in places. It smacked of horror movies where drivers roamed endlessly without relief or hope of finding their destination. It was seven o’clock and Hana had climbed out of her warm bed at four to be ready to set off. Fortunately, she got away on time and used any spare minutes to inch through the fog and then do battle with the temperamental ticket machine in the airport car park.
The ticket machine was even more exasperating than the fog as it refused to clip and release the ticket for her. The previous car went through fine but when Hana pulled up next to the dispenser, it decided because Hana didn’t actually want to be there, it wasn’t going to let her in. She pressed the big green button and it thought for a moment or two and then ignored her. Hana could see the little cardboard ticket poking out of the slot, but it didn’t seem to be coming any further out. Hana hated situations with ticket machines or barriers, anything with the potential for what she saw as a disaster. Trouble was, it opened up a whole range of everyday things to dread and as she got older, the list got longer. She wouldn’t drive around a multi-storey car park, especially those where she had to go under barriers, avoided car parks with ticketing machines (usually) and wasn’t awfully keen on lifts. As she rarely ever ate fast food nowadays, she thankfully didn’t have to run the gauntlet with drive-throughs, yelling an order into a box with a voice in it, scraping around the tiny-concreted space - only to get something different out of the window.
Until this moment, Hana had not really wondered if there was a common denominator in her fears, but as she squeezed herself out of her driver’s door and tried to fit between her vehicle and the machine, it occurred to her she might know what it was. The warning signs on these items and the ‘what ifs’ they threatened were exactly what intimidated her; what if…the barrier came down on her car because the traffic had stopped, what if…the lift doors shut when she was half way through, what if…something of hers got caught in the escalator, what if…the ticket machine hated her and wouldn’t let her have a ticket?