by Bowes, K T
“Mum,” began the lecture, “you need to learn to lock doors, especially out here. I could have been anybody.” He saw she understood and let it drop for now. “Anyway, I wanted to see your new place. Izzie saw it on the Internet, but it had gone by the time I got to look.” Bodie wandered over to the bay window, dusty and uncurtained and looked across the water towards the lights of Ngaruawahia. Turning towards Hana, he smiled. “It’s beautiful up here. Good on you.”
Hana was relieved at his approval. “I’m glad you like it. It is going to be amazing when I’m done,” she indicated the sander and the mess, “I just have a bit more to do.”
Bodie laughed, that same head-thrown-back laugh she recognised from his father. It was genuine and and Hana felt comforted. “A bit! I would say a fair bit, Mum! Good job I took a week off to help.”
Hana was elated at the thought of spending some time with her son. He was always so busy with work and she rarely got to see him. Bodie was different to Izzie, so closed and unreadable. Hana found him hard as a teenager, especially after his dad was taken from them. He cruised through school despite being a clever boy and Hana feared he was destined to cruise through life also. Until the police bug bit him and he hadn’t looked back.
“Oh,” he said suddenly, moving back from the window, “I got something for you.” Off he went down the stairs and returned quickly with a bottle of champagne, a new box of wine glasses and a steaming packet of chips. Hana laughed,
“Tea for two, how quaint and English!”
They sat in the back room to eat because the window seat offered the only place to sit down. Being the furthest from the living room, it was also the least covered in sanding dust. They sat companionably close to each other, their backs facing out over the slope to the garage, the darkness gathering behind them. The truck was parked awkwardly, but Bodie managed to expertly sneak his car down the side of it. After they ate the chips, which were still reasonably hot, they leaned back against the window despite the sharpness of the frame against their backs and chatted.
As Hana looked more closely at her son, she noticed the small cuts healing on the side of his face and more of the same on his hands. She took his hand in hers and looked quizzically at him, but he shook his head and asked her with his eyes, not to press him for answers. They drank the champagne slowly and Bodie’s tongue loosened enough to tell her how they dived a lake north of Auckland for a teenage boy. “We found him but only after he’d been in the water for two days. He had gotten caught on barbed wire that some clown dumped. He was with his family on a day out.” Bodie looked tired. “I got snagged trying to free him.”
He didn’t give more details and Hana wisely didn’t ask but she did wonder not for the first time, what possessed her son to do such a job. She lightened the mood by changing the subject and telling him about Brian and her new car. “I bumped my nose on the window and when he brought it round for a test drive, he had shined the mark off the window.”
Bodie hooted with laughter and, after clinking glasses with her, kissed her on the cheek. “Mum, you’re awesome,” he stated, leaning back and sipping his champagne. “Maybe I can suss this Brian out tomorrow for you.”
Hana sighed, the mother of a policeman with a suspicious mind.
Chapter 37
The climb to the house was steep and unforgiving. The unexpected visitor left his bike at the bottom, fearful it would skid and slide on the loose gravel and tip him over the edge of one of the sharper faces of the hillside. The darkness grew around him without the soft haze of streetlights to break its impact and he stuck to the ridge of grass at the side of the driveway. He needed to talk.
Finding Hana absent from her house on Achilles Rise and only Tiger sat smugly in the first floor window, Logan drove out to Ngaruawahia in pursuit of her, confused and dismayed by her sudden animosity towards him. The house looked dark from the front but on the driveway was his old truck, parked askew. The back seats were down and it looked as though something heavy had rested in the gravel next to the boot. Tucked neatly at back of the old house, he was surprised to discover a smart silver BMW parked close to the wonky doors.
The moon began to wake and although it was not going to show its full self, it smiled its white glow enough to make the silver paint on the car glimmer and sparkle. Logan was momentarily alarmed, remembering the other unsolved business and contemplated calling out Hana’s name. The back room above the garage was lit, light spilling out warmly over the balcony and down onto the driveway. Two silhouettes showed, clearly backlit by a single bulb. One was definitely Hana, but the other was unknown to Logan. Male, taller than Hana, his head was higher than hers even though Logan deduced they must be sitting on the window seat. The man looked slender but had a hard outline like someone who worked out at the gym.
Logan watched, his heart pounding in his chest. He climbed under the garage door hanging askew on its hinges and quietly tried the side door up to the house, finding it locked. He stepped back outside trying not to scrunch the gravel, watching the back of their two heads as they sat on the seat together. They looked companionable enough; Hana’s body language didn’t look as though she felt in danger.
The darkness was disturbed by the sound of muted laughter and Logan was confused. Then came the clink of glasses and the male shape leaned in towards Hana and kissed her. The kiss may have been on her cheek or her lips, it was hard to tell from the silhouette but Logan let out an audible sigh, closed his eyes and his head fell back onto his shoulders. He stayed in that position for a minute before rubbing his tired eyes and returning back the way he came. He slipped and slid in the gravel going down but didn’t care anymore. Caroline’s arrival had wrecked his life. Again. He felt sure Hana’s sudden cooling was something to do with her, but she had moved on terribly quickly. Why shouldn’t she? She was beautiful.
Logan unlocked his bike, fixed his helmet onto his head and started his expensive machine. Going left out of the driveway instead of right, he headed up the Hakarimata Road towards Huntly. There was no point going straight home. He needed to think about how the hell to sort this out.
Chapter 38
Hana and Bodie picked up the Honda after she finished work the next day. They went in Bodie’s car and Brian looked a little crestfallen at the sight of Hana’s handsome companion striding across to examine the new car. Bodie peered in the side window and successfully hid his smirk at the flowers and chocolates adorning the passenger seat. “I’ll leave you to it,” he announced, kissing Hana on the cheek. “See you at home.”
Hana went the long way home to Achilles Rise, thrilled with her new purchase and not disappointed by its performance. Bodie was already home and she bustled about trying to plan an evening meal from the sparse contents of the fridge. Staring out of the sunroom window at the truck on the driveway, Bodie asked, “Whose is the truck?”
Hana remembered her mental promise to clean and fill it and looked guilty. “A friend’s. I borrowed it after the Serena was stolen.” She omitted to add damaged as well. “I’m supposed to clean and return it.”
Bodie turned back towards her, disconcerted by his mother’s sudden thoughtfulness. He knew something bothered her but thought maybe it was the weight of trying to run two houses as well as everything else. “Tell you what,” he said with a smile, “I’ll give it a quick wash down at the garage and a vacuum out and if you tell me where to take it, I’ll do it while you get tea.” He saw the relief on her face and then it clouded over again.
“I was going to fill it with gas and I should probably take it, only…” Hana’s voice tailed off. How could she explain to her son how humiliated she felt? Bodie saw her indecision and made a plan for her.
“I’ll do all that at the BP garage and then drive it round. You come and get me in the Honda. Actually, I tell you what, we’ll be decadent and buy tea out. How about that little place near the garage?”
Hana brightened instantly. She was desperate to get back out into the Honda for a spin on some ope
n road and tea out with Bodie would be fantastic. “It’s a date,” she agreed, “but I should help you clean the car. You do outside, I’ll do inside.”
They locked up after feeding Tiger and went to the garage in convoy, Hana driving the truck and Bodie the Honda. She bought them a Wild Bean coffee each while he washed the outside in the car wash and then she set to work on the inside. Finished, Bodie sat in the passenger seat while Hana worked away in the back with the autovac. Once a policeman, always a policeman and he couldn’t help snooping around. He was curious about the owner of the truck but not surprised when he found a crumpled letter from the IRD addressed to Mr Logan Du Rose in the glove box. It merely advised the recipient of the correct tax code for his new employer, Waikato Presbyterian School for Boys, Hamilton and was dated way back in February. Bodie was shocked when Izzie told him about his mother’s new beau and he very much looked forward to returning the truck and maybe getting to meet him. Even just to weigh him up.
The truck, filled to the brim with gas and shining inside and out, bumped along the driveway to the little villa in Gordonton where it belonged. Hana’s nerve began to leave her with every tilt and bump of the vehicle through the potholes and she felt sorry for her new car bumping and crashing along behind it. Pulling up outside the house, Hana sat in the driver’s seat gathering her courage for so long that eventually Bodie got out and came to see what she was doing. Feeling pathetic, she turned her agonised face towards him. “Could you give the keys back? Please? It’s complicated.”
Locking the truck quickly, she thrust the keys into her son’s hand, ignored his bewilderment and ran over to the Honda throwing herself into the passenger seat. Bodie gave a sigh, summed up the situation and then strode over to the front door. He looked back for a second at Hana as he waited after knocking and saw she looked decidedly ill. Hana childishly lay down in the passenger seat so she was invisible from the house, not sitting back up even when Bodie returned to the Honda.
Refusing to wear a seatbelt as she didn’t want to sit up yet, Hana bounced and shook back up the drive most uncomfortably until they reached the Gordonton Road. She snapped on her seatbelt and pointed out to the country. “Go out that way, then we can swap.”
She ignored Bodie’s protestations and questions and refused to discuss the matter any further. Two could play at that game, she decided, paying him back for his teenage years of sullen silences. “I really don’t want to talk about it, Bo. It’s messy and...I thought someone else might be at the house with him and when it came to it, I couldn’t go through with it.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Hana saw her son shake his head slightly and try to hide a smirk. The guy who answered the door seemed taken aback at the sight of the truck parked on the driveway looking waxed and clean. He was confused when Bodie handed him the keys with a polite, “Thanks for that then,” but said nothing, offering the slightest of nods.
Bodie summed him up in an instant. He was nice looking – if one guy could describe another bloke that way – older than him by a good decade or more, but fit, possibly part Māori, no…definitely part Māori. The man had an awkward charm and a sense of alertness which hinted at past danger. He hadn’t looked like a Logan Du Rose, but what did one look like anyway? In Bodie’s experience, some people didn’t look like their names while others did. The teenager in the water hadn’t looked like a Brad, but then he hadn’t looked much like a human being after two days in a muddy lake. Bodie put that thought out of his head. It was the road to bad places. He had no idea what was going on with his mother and this guy but he planned to find out. He just didn’t intend to do it by asking her.
The week sped by. Tea turned into dinner at Casabella’s and Bodie insisted on paying. Thankfully he didn’t mention the visit to the Gordonton house and Hana hoped he had forgotten, although knowing her son’s detecting abilities and refusal to let anything go, she very much doubted he had. It was the first time they had spoken about the Serena’s colourful last months; the broken bumper and the theft. Bodie tied it all together in his quick brain while Hana prattled along. “A...friend, found scratches underneath the truck, from what he...they thought was a magnetic box stuck to the chassis. I haven’t seen anything like that, so it must have fallen off.”
Bodie asked pointed questions about the two men and then let it drop as Hana dwelled on her run of bad luck.
The weekend dawned bright and clear. Bodie was not due to leave until late Sunday evening for a Monday night shift back up north and both he and Hana worked hard on Culver’s Cottage. The place positively sparkled with the attention lavished on it. Bodie battled on with the floors for a couple of days, varnishing them late on Thursday night. Hana helped after work but discovered herself trapped in the back corner of one of the bedrooms. “Bo, can you help me? I’ve varnished myself in!”
Bodie nearly collapsed with laughter at her plight, crouched in the corner, stuck there for over an hour and a half, desperate for the toilet. “What do you expect me to do,” he groaned, tears rolling down his dark cheeks. “You never taught me to fly.”
“You wait till I get out of here!” Hana threatened, maintaining her painful crouch until it was tacky enough to run around the edges and escape.
A couple more coats on Friday and the floors were clean and protected, gleaming beautifully in the sunlight. The roofers had worked hard, jollied along by Bodie’s capable presence. Some panels were salvageable and were reshaped and re-cut but mostly the area required new sheets and flashing. When the parachute-like cover was fully removed and the entire roof spray painted, Hana was delighted with the final finish, struggling to stop herself clapping her hands and bouncing on the spot like a child. “It’s so gorgeous,” she breathed, her eyes sparkling. “I feel so lucky.”
On Saturday, Bodie replaced some of the ceiling plasterboards, which had become stained and dampened by successive roof leaks. An electrician came by and talked about the re-wire, agreeing to begin the following Monday. Bodie employed a carpenter to replace the few rotten weatherboards around the outside of the property and prep for the painter who was due to start quickly before the weather turned. A council inspector turned up unexpectedly for a spot check to make sure they weren’t extending the property without permission. He couldn’t find fault with the workmanship, although Bodie suspected he would dearly have liked to.
Hana spent the weekend stripping wallpaper, swapping the trusty sander for a wall steamer. It was quick work because most of the wallpaper was a thick flock which had been peeling itself off for some time; but it was also back breaking. Some of the walls were sound, but others were not good enough to be painted and Hana didn’t want the added cost of more internal plasterboard. She contented herself with filling holes using Bodie’s filler, infuriating him each time he went off to the toilet or to fetch something from downstairs by pinching his filler and his ladders.
Finally, on Sunday morning he threatened to down-tools in protest. “I can’t get anything done if you keep nicking my stuff. Why don’t you go back to Hamilton and pack up the house? Please Mum, you’re doing my head in! Once the electrician’s finished, there’s no reason for you not to clean up and move in permanently. The odd things that need doing can be done around you. So go home and pack!”
Halfway home, Hana’s mobile phone chirruped to itself in her pants pocket. She pulled over on River Road and answered it.
“I’m profusely sorry,” Angus began before Hana said anything. “But I mentioned Achilles Rise to someone at school and they phoned me about it only this morning, asking when it’s available for rent.” His apology sounded suspiciously half-hearted. “My friend tells me that his recommendation was for you to rent.”
“Yes but I...”
“I’ve left numerous messages on your answer machine, but realised you were possibly at the new house.”
The prospective tenant was the biology teacher engaged at the start of the year. The house he and his family rented was on the market and sold suddenly. They were
under pressure to move before the end of the month. Hana was flummoxed and didn’t know how to answer until Angus informed her, somewhat guiltily, “We’re outside your house now. They’ve had a look around the outside and think it’ll be perfect.”
Hana proceeded home with a tremulous heart. It seemed like a sudden rush and she didn’t feel ready. Her emotional self-wanted a foot in both camps while her rational mind reminded her, you were on your way home to pack!
Hana screeched to a halt outside Achilles Rise in her new Honda, greeting the small crowd on her doorstep. She unlocked the side gate. “Have a look around the garden while I just...” Hana waved her arms pathetically and bolted off to hide things in improbably strange places. The biology teacher smiled awkwardly and tried to keep his two small children off the flower beds. Tiger watched his mistress blatantly from her bed but made no move to help. Hana chuntered at him while she gathered up the last few days of laundry, full of sanding dust and lumps of plasterboard. “Damn!” she groaned, noticing a stain on her tee shirt where she used it to mop up a varnish spill. “You’ll be sorry in a minute,” she threatened Tiger, who blinked slowly. “When those two little kids get a look at you, it’ll be a different matter!”
The house was clean by most people’s standards. The messiest looking thing in it, was currently its owner with her hair hanging round her face having escaped its clip and her clothing covered in blobs of filler. By the time Hana finished fussing, the biology teacher’s heavily pregnant wife had managed to heave herself up the two levels of stairs from the driveway and stood catching her breath in the family room with Angus. Her children bounced on their portly father outside.