by Bowes, K T
Hana didn’t want to hear him say the words, surprised with the violence of her emotional sickness. In a fit of cowardice she rolled over towards the fire again. “I’ve worked it all out for myself, thanks. Just leave things the way they are. It’s awkward enough at work as it is. I don’t need you to make it worse.”
Logan tried to pull her towards him but Hana resisted, childishly putting her fingers in her ears and snuggling deep into her bag until her head was entirely inside. She felt drained and sad and angry tears dripped with muted plops into the fabric. Hana muffled her undignified sniffs but Logan must have heard, cuddling up behind her and reaching into her sleeping bag. With gentle hands he stroked her hair back from her face, snuggling her tightly into his chest from behind. Hana fell asleep with his arms around her, feeling unutterably miserable and more alone than ever.
The next morning was grey and cold, but the wind appeared to have relented a little in the night. Hana felt shattered and every bone in her body ached from sleeping on a thin mat on the floor. A cold draught slipped through the rimu boards from underneath the house and she resolved that the next purchase would be under floor insulation. The loft was insulated at the same time as the roof was fixed and already made a big difference to the house’s ability to maintain some of its heat. The fire had gone out and lay cold and dead in the grate. Logan slept wrapped around Hana and his face was pressed tightly into the back of her neck. As Hana began to turn he inhaled deeply as he roused himself from sleep, aware Hana was shifting next to him. He yawned loudly but didn’t relinquish his grasp on her, holding more tightly if anything.
Hana wriggled as she tried to get free, but Logan seemed determined not to let her go. His muscular arms held her in an insurmountable grip and his question came out of the half-light, making her struggle even harder. “Hana, why won’t you deal with things?”
“What, like you do, you mean?” she retorted nastily, managing to get herself up onto her bottom and push herself out of the sleeping bag.
Logan sighed, rolled onto his stomach facing her as she stood up and shook his head in irritation and disbelief. He looked at his watch and saw it was six thirty. He too climbed out of his sleeping bag, disappearing into the bathroom as he got ready for work. When he emerged again, something in his attitude seemed different. The awkwardness was gone and he appeared hard and unreachable. Hana tried to be pleasant, aware of his reduced status to being nothing more than a colleague and she brewed coffee for him. He made no attempt to drink it, shaking his head and adding an awkward thanks. He rolled up his sleeping bag and left it neatly in the living room. Then he put his boots on and gathered up his jacket and car keys. Hana heard him clanking around as he got ready to go to work.
He strutted back into the kitchen where Hana leaned against the sink, drinking a cup of strong tea. Walking straight up to her, he removed the drink from her hand and dumped it on the draining board. Then he settled his soft lips over hers. The kiss was passionate and determined, rattling Hana’s sense of self-preservation and rekindling the fire in her belly she worked so hard to extinguish. His stubble rasped her skin and his cologne tasted acidic on her tongue. Desire forced indignation out of the picture and Logan’s fingers at the back of her neck, softly caressing her skin, sent Hana’s dignity with it. He withdrew his kiss and rested his forehead against hers, his fringe tickling the top of her nose. His grey eyes studied her with such intensity, she couldn’t look away, falling into the stormy depths with abandon.
Logan let his hand fall, his fingers stroking the side of Hana’s neck and tracing a line across her shoulder in retreat. An electric current passed through her, earthing itself to the floor through her sensitive navel. Logan reached the front door and unlocking it, he turned back to her. “When you do want to talk, you know where to find me. I love you and I’ve spent the last twenty-six years in love with you, but I don’t think that’s enough for you right now. I won’t bother protesting my innocence because you wouldn’t listen. You know what you know; but you’re wrong.” His grey eyes bore into Hana’s across the distance between them. “I know what past hurts do, Hana. They cloud your judgement and make you run. You should have come to me, talked about it. This...” Logan waved his hand in her direction, taking in her rigid stance and flashing green eyes. “This is you running away. And whatever you saw is a handy excuse for you; because this is about something else entirely.”
The door shut and Hana saw Logan pass the hall window, striding down the stairs two at a time. She heard the truck start, recognising its grunty roar from all the weeks she drove it and then it crunched away down the hillside. The silence Logan left behind him throbbed and hummed in the empty house and Hana remained standing where he left her. Suspicion crowded out Logan’s declaration of love in Hana’s heart and she heard only the echo of her own jaded inner voice, proving him right, he’s a liar. They’re all liars.
Chapter 43
Hana’s phone chirruped from next to the sink, where she plugged it in to charge in the shiny new white double-socket. The charger was one of the few things she grabbed from the house along with the vacuum.
“Hey Mum, how are you? Have Logan and Pete already left?” Bodie asked.
Opting not to explain anything, Hana changed the subject and asked after him and Marcus. Her lips felt bruised from Logan’s kiss and she pressed her fingers to them, filled with confusion and desperately wanting what she couldn’t have. Her heart was at war with her head.
“Look Mum, I need to send Marcus home tomorrow. He’s struggling with his diabetes. Meal times have been a bit all over the place and he needed to get up and inject in the night. Besides which, Izzie is threatening to fly up tomorrow with Elizabeth and we can’t seem to make her understand there’s nowhere to sleep!”
Hana put her hand up her forehead and let out a huge sigh. Poor Marcus, she had forgotten. Bodie’s next statement sent her reaching for the bench top in alarm. “I’ve changed the moving day. The removers were free today so they arrive here in half an hour. They should be with you by about eleven...” his voice trailed off and he waited for a response, but Hana was oddly silent. “Mum? You still there?”
She certainly was still there, rigidly clutching the phone in dismay. As the situation settled in her brain, Hana saw the benefits of the plan change as the welcome distraction blocked out thoughts of Logan, but Bodie continued, trying to cajole her. “I know you don’t like changes once things are fixed, but you seem ready up there and I need a good night’s sleep tonight. I have some stuff to do tomorrow. For work.”
He added the last sentence carefully, not wanting to arouse his mother’s curiosity. It worked, but only because she busy with her own thoughts. “Ok,” Hana said with a sigh. “Should I come back and help pack up? There must still be heaps to do, Dad’s tools and stuff...”
“Nope,” Bodie interrupted, “that other family won’t be coming until the weekend so we can pop back as often as you want. Just stay there. Decide where you want things so it’s easier when the lorry comes. Logan’s relieving today at first period and Angus has let him off the classes after that, so he’ll be back up to you by the time the lorry arrives. Oh and Mum...”
Tension in Bodie’s voice snapped Hana out of her stupor and she became alert. “What, Bo?”
“It’s fine. Nothing important. I’ll tell ya later. You’re amazing, Mum. You’re taking this so well!”
Bodie lost his nerve. The enormous stack of black bin bags sat on next-door’s trailer, attached to the tow bar of his BMW. The expensive car purred softly outside the city dump down on Lincoln Road. It contained a lot of things Hana would be livid to lose. Bodie’s packing was not as haphazard as his mother believed, but selective and careful. It was ok to be sentimental, but his dismantling of the family home uncovered morbid stacks of memorabilia; the newspaper clippings about the freak accident which killed his father, cards of sympathy fading and yellowing with age and stacks of letters from home, all stuffed into the old Welsh dresser in the livi
ng room.
Hana’s reaction to the little dog the intruder crushed underfoot alerted him to the fragility of her peace. The dog was a present; he couldn’t even remember if it was Christmas or birthday, but he remembered getting it from the $2 Shop. His father gave them $5 each, which for Izzie meant a $5 gift but for Bodie, meant sweets and a panic when he looked at the change in his hand. Knick-knacks his mother called them and the place was stuffed full of them. Not nice enough to be on show, but too sentimental to throw away.
Bodie retained a pot he was proud of in Year 6 and a plate Izzie still talked about, made on a potter’s wheel in Year 8. The rest went higgledy piggledy into black bin bags and sat with Marcus down at the dump, waiting for the huge gates to open wide, shivering as though with trepidation at their forthcoming disposal.
Marcus, having grabbed a sneaky pie from the bakery, inspected Bodie’s expensive ride for tell-tale crumbs on the driver’s seat. Having re-tuned the radio to find the Christian music station, he sat outside the locked gates and belted out a Brooke Fraser number in a loud and entertaining baritone, to the amusement of the council workers. “There’s somethin’ in the water...” he bellowed and they looked at each other and sniggered.
“Yeah, you in a minute,” stated the grumpy site manager and the others laughed.
Hana was ready by eleven o’clock and had an excellent idea where everything would fit. Her only problem was wall space, seriously diminished by the huge windows taking up whole sides of the rooms and making it hard for her to put her knick-knacks anywhere, not that she wanted to put them anywhere, but she couldn’t bear to throw them away either. Hana heard the removal truck before she saw it, roaring and groaning, whining and complaining as it came up the driveway. Hana was understandably awestruck when she realised she was observing the back door of the huge lorry, as it rounded the last bend and strained up the hill. The ridge at the top was only flat for a car-sized vehicle and the van parked on a jaunty angle, with only just enough room to drop the loading ramp.
Bodie and Logan left their vehicles at the bottom and puffed their way to the top on foot. Marcus cunningly emerged from the middle seat of the removal van looking smug and self-satisfied, poking his tongue out at Bodie, who stood catching his breath at the top of the rise. The other removal man appeared from the passenger seat looking a little sick, but the driver was elated with his feat of driving skill and high-fived Marcus happily. “Oosh, backwards bro’! I nearly lost it on that last bend! Good job you’re a praying man.”
“Mate, I don’t think the handbrake’s on properly,” Bodie interjected with urgency in his voice.
The man dashed back into the cab and cranked the huge lorry into reverse as well as ratcheting the handbrake up a few notches. The lorry leaned at a dangerous angle pointing down the hill. Hana offered everyone a drink, but the removers wanted to get on with the job. “I have to be in Hamilton by three o’clock to take my youngest son to soccer training,” the driver smiled. “Otherwise the wife will kill me.”
The unloading began in earnest with Hana directing the furniture traffic to various different locations. Nobody stopped until two o’clock and the van was empty. The driver’s assistant proved entertaining in the slanted lorry, for as it got emptier and he was sent to fetch furniture and boxes from the back, he employed small wheels that popped out from under his trainers and had tremendous fun skating to the back of the sloped truck bed. At ten past two, the bright red brake lights of the lorry were visible through the trees as it made its terrifying descent down the slope to the road. At the first bend, the driver took both hands off the wheel to give a cheery two-handed wave and shout, “Invoice will be in the post!”
Hana felt her breath catch in her lungs as he lurched around the corner and continued his dreadfully unpredictable journey down.
The three boys returned to the rooms furthest away from the hall and Hana heard them banging and shouting to each other as they demanded help to reassemble the beds, fighting over the spanner and screwdriver. The dining table fitted perfectly in the centre of the kitchen, much to Hana’s delight, leaving what was supposed to be a dining room empty.
“I’ll put boxes in there,” Bodie suggested, “rather than in the garage where they may get damp.”
Marcus shot him an odd look, which he ignored. Bodie used the Honda to take Marcus to the dairy to get some lunch and fetch his BMW back up the hill. While they were gone, Logan helped Hana make up the beds and sort the rooms out. It involved considerable time in the dining room, opening boxes to find the sheets and pillowcases. Logan was competent at opening boxes with a screwdriver but discovered the kitchen utensils including scissors, which made life a whole lot easier. “Thank goodness for that,” he said, relieved. “I’m getting sick of stabbing myself with this darn thing.” He slid the screwdriver across the floor towards the skirting board.
The tension between them eased and Hana felt herself thawing, despite her efforts to maintain the necessary hatred which kept her safe from Logan’s powerful attraction. Every time they accidentally touched or she found his gaze on her, Hana’s resolve weakened a little further. An awkward moment occurred as they both tried to get out of the dining room door at the same time. They crashed into each other and Logan grabbed Hana’s shoulders in his strong hands to stop her falling sideways. His dark hair flopped into his eyes and moved with the motion of his eyelashes as he kept his hands on her longer than he needed. She reached up and stroked the fringe gently away, wincing as her wrist complained.
Time seemed to stop, neither wanting to break the moment. Hana felt Logan’s strong heart beating as she pressed up against him, the sharp doorframe at her back. In her mind, she went back to the green pasture on top of the mountain, safe and excited at her new future with him and it jarred spitefully with the reality of their fractured relationship. “Hana, please,” Logan spoke, his voice low and husky. He hesitated as though afraid and then bent to press his lips against hers. Hana felt the pilot light flare up behind her navel, immediately breathless at the flick of his tongue against hers.
She jumped at the sound of the front door slamming and banged her head on the doorframe. It destroyed the moment and she slipped quickly out into the hallway, still feeling the pressure of Logan’s lips on hers. She heard Logan exhale and clear his throat, a backwards glance finding him still in the doorway looking dark and sultry.
The others returned with some decent kai and a welcome stash of cold cola. Marcus drove the Honda back, dropping Bodie at the bottom of the hill to retrieve his car. The latter arrived at the top fuming. “Why does my car stink of meat pie, you git?” Bodie was furious. “There’s greasy marks on the leather and I was nearly propelled backwards out of the seat when I turned the engine on. If I wanted the Christian radio belting out of the CD player, I know how to find it myself!”
Marcus slanted his eyes at Bodie and in a spooky voice which wavered eerily from practice said, “God’s gonna getcha,” before flouncing off to fetch plates.
Logan left at six o’clock, going home to the Gordonton house, en route checking on Tiger, who ran onto the roof at the earliest sign of the cat box. Culver’s Cottage was already alarmingly straight with only ten boxes still sitting in the dining room. Bodie left the empty cardboard at the bottom of the driveway for the dustbin men, when he nipped Logan back down to the bottom for his car. “Does Mum seem a bit depressed to you?” Hana’s son asked the older man.
Logan shrugged and shook his head. “I’m not sure,” he answered truthfully, guilt kicking him in the guts.
There was no television aerial and so the TV in the living room wouldn’t work. Hana wasn’t awfully sorry and considered not bothering, but Bodie seemed horrified. “What about Police Ten Seven and Road Cops? Don’t you look for me on TV? What kind of mother are you?”
Hana laughed. “I’ve never seen a police diver on either of those programmes you silly boy! You need to pick a different role. Then I’ll get an aerial!”
The night was cold
again and Bodie went down to the stock of wood so they could light a fire. “I’ll find you a wood bucket in Hamilton tomorrow,” he promised Hana. “Then you can have a stock drying out ready, next to the fireplace.”
Having furniture in the rooms made an enormous difference to the cosiness of the house and they were able to leave the door open so the heat drifted down to the bedrooms. Marcus turned in early, exhausted from the lifting and the mobile earache Izzie gave him periodically throughout the day. Bodie suddenly clicked what was wrong with his usually even-tempered sister, but decided wisely not to let his mother know.
Hana rang Angus. “Stay away until next week, Hana,” he was firm. “Donald knows what’s happened, but the word is you’re still sick.”
Hana felt relieved. There was no mirror in the bathroom, but the one she brought with her from Achilles Rise leaned jauntily against the wall in the new living room. Even from its strange angle tilting upwards, Hana could see her neck looked pretty awful still. The blue bruising faded leaving yellows and greens that were bound to incite questions from other staff and she didn’t feel like explaining and starting the usual chain reaction of rumour and speculation.
There was a shower in the bathroom over the bath. Hana removed the disgusting shower curtain although she hadn’t yet replaced it, but when she experimentally tried the lever it made the most terrible clanking and banging sounds and only released a smattering of water. She quickly turned it off. Logan had found a plumber to check out all the fittings before the purchase and he declared it all sound, but their main concern was the sunken concrete water tank beyond the garage that served the house with its rainwater supply and the septic tank hidden out front. The plumber recommended a UV filter be installed in the garage connected to the tank, filtering the water in case it became contaminated and a lovely man from church did that for her. “I need to get the plumber back to look at the shower,” she complained to Bodie. “Especially before next week. I need to be up earlier as it’s further to work from here.”