by Bowes, K T
A noise in the doorway caused Hana to open her eyes and lift her head. Logan balanced a cup of hot liquid which dribbled down the side with the awkward tilt of his cast. He held it out to her like a small boy offering a special toy, craving her approval. His grey eyes were the colour of smoke and his fringe fell over his eyes, bouncing sexily as he blinked. Hana sat up and reached out for the mug, wiping the drips away with her index finger and taking a long swallow of the tea. “Nice, thanks.”
Logan sat on the bed next to her, causing the mattress to tip Hana towards him. They sat in silence for a while, Hana drinking and Logan wondering what to say to her. “I’m sorry,” he began finally. “That was a stinking way for it to end, him turning up like that.”
“Is Tama your son?” Hana asked it casually, voicing the concern which occurred to her as she watched the men square up to each other. “You’re very alike.”
Logan looked carefully at her, his eyes narrowed. “No.”
A silence descended. It seemed Logan was only going to tell her his history if she asked for it directly. She tested the water. “Why are you so close to him…sorry, were so close to him?” Hana eyed Logan’s cast assuming the relationship would be over.
Logan watched Hana with an intensity that unnerved her. “Michael’s his father. We used to look more alike - before he got fat and started behaving like a douche.”
“Oh!” Hana bit her lip, remembering how Tama looked Michael in the eye and told him he hated him. That, at least made sense. “So where does Kane, the alcoholic dad fit in?” she asked.
If Logan resented the questions fired at him he didn’t show it, responding patiently at first, knowing Hana wanted to understand. Yet she implicitly knew she walked a tightrope. One question too many and he would shut down and leave her outside the Du Rose circle to flounder alone. “Kane was with Tama’s mum but she and Mike…well, you know. They always liked each other, but nobody realised it progressed into anything. Mike was at medical school. It got messy and complicated and she stayed with Kane. Everyone knew, including Kane. He bought Tama up all wrong, deliberately. I tried to mentor the kid a bit when I was around, but Kane beat the crap out of Tama about five years ago and threw that little gem at him in the process. I paid for him to go to school in Hamilton then. My Uncle Reuben never let Tama’s mother back onto the property. I don’t really know why. After Tama ran off with with that stupid typist, I tracked him down and he told me some stuff I probably didn’t want to hear. I spoke to Michael last night and he doesn’t care. He’s an ass hole. He always knew.” Logan shook his head and finished his sentence with a worse swear word, indicating he didn’t approve of his brother’s carelessness towards his son.
Nice, Hana thought, but she was on a roll and didn’t plan to stop asking questions all the while her husband was willing to answer them. “What’s the story with that big scar on your side? How did you get so hurt?”
Logan ran his hands over his face and through his hair before answering. His voice was calm but cold. He provided only sparse details, his tone and face impassive and devoid of emotion. Hana kissed the ugly welt from the bottom to the top in bed that morning, demonstrating it didn’t bother her or affect how much she desired her husband. Logan was tense and afraid of being rejected because of it and Hana could tell the ragged area had no feeling. Something about Logan’s reaction to her gaze on it, made her wonder if it was yet another dirty family secret.
“We were playing a game. It was a stupid game and always led to something bad. Kane’s foster-sister was there and she won a dare. She told Kane to stab me. He and Barry chased me through the bush until they caught me. Barry split me open with a machete and Mike carried me home. Kane thought it was real funny when he shined the torch on me and saw my guts spilling out. I was eleven.”
“Barry?” whispered Hana, “your own brother?”
Logan turned to sit sideways on the bed so he could face her fully. “Barry was like Kane, do you get it? He was one of them…” his voice tapered off and he chewed his lip. Hana felt a wave of guilt for pushing him.
“It’s fine, you don’t have to tell me.” Hana reached out and put her hand over Logan’s writhing fingers. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
Logan lay back on the bed, shifting his body so his head reached the pillows. The sling around his neck rubbed an uncomfortable red line which became evident as the tension in it relaxed. His left foot touched the floor, his right leg bent and Hana leaned in and laid her hand on his thigh. She was dazed and confused, feeling as though she had married a total stranger.
At the same time, Hana acknowledged she was fatally attracted to her new husband in a way that ripped out her insides every time she looked at his strong profile or stared into his bottomless grey eyes. Logan used his good hand to squeeze the point at the bridge of his nose and Hana saw how much pain he was in. “How they behaved this morning…it was a shock, that’s all. They just didn’t seem to care, going back to their breakfast like nothing happened.” Hana stroked Logan’s jeans and snuffed. “I’m also privately amazed you’re not more messed up than you seem.”
Logan squinted against the sunshine filtering through the dirty window and smiled. “I’m guessing that’s a compliment. It just doesn’t sound like it.”
“Sorry. Come on,” Hana said softly, “I’ll help you get into bed, you look shattered.”
Hana placed her empty cup outside the room on the hall floor and held Logan’s hand as though he was a small child, leading him into the bedroom with the beautiful four-poster bed. She intended to settle him down and leave him to sleep while the strong painkillers did their job, but hadn’t figured he could still undress her so skilfully; using only one hand.
Hana Du Rose
Chapter 4
Hana sat at the kitchen table watching through the window as hawks soared above the trees, hunting. They seemed tireless, hovering and waiting. Their delicate, fluttering feathers resembled fingers at the end of their wings as they rode the up draught from the canopy, waiting with absurd patience for their dinner. Then they plunged through the fauna like missiles, one after the other and didn’t reappear.
Hana’s eyes strayed to a wooden ornament sitting on the windowsill impeding her view. Bodie plonked it there before he left. It was a word cut out in calligraphy script, the arching shapes spelling the word, ‘Home.’ She sighed and picked at a knot in the wood. “I’m a walking disaster,” she whispered. “What am I doing?”
Hana thought back over the last few months as she cupped her hands around her mug. Her common sense berated her for jumping too quickly into something dangerous. The relationship with Logan had been volatile all along and the morning’s events showed her there were huge parts of him and his life she knew poorly, if at all. Tiger plonked himself on the windowsill eyeing the sparrows on the fronds of a Nikau palm near the house. He glanced at Hana as she sipped her drink. “You’re not meant to be up there.” The cat licked the delicate pads of a paw, his claws extended to form a furry fist, knowing his mistress had no intention of forcibly removing him. “Logan’s a man of many personas,” she whispered to her bored audience. Tiger yawned rudely. “He’s the English teacher, pleasant, affable, loved and respected by the boys and swooned over by the mothers, good at his job and capable of leading a department. Then there’s the man I watched from the front steps. He wasn’t afraid of Tama despite the strength and sheer angry power of the kid. Tama seemed scared and came at him from behind to make his point. Even then, Logan pretended he was fine. And his family…his mother even, they just watched and wouldn’t help him!” Hana peered inside her cup and exhaled. “It’s like he’s in charge. It’s weird. All the way home I thought, I can’t do this, I can’t do this and then I get home and he touches me and…”
Tiger narrowed his eyes in a glare of rebuke and Hana bit her lip. “Yeah, sorry old man. You probably heard. I don’t know what to do next. I love Logan and feel like I’m in this too deep, too quickly. What shall I do?”
Michael was on the steps for longer than Hana realised, only intervening after Tama whacked Logan with the metal bar. Until then, he was a casual observer. “But that’s not right.” Hana slurped her cooling tea. “Because Tama’s his problem and Michael’s the oldest son. What’s going on, cat? What have I gotten into?”
The refusal to call the police smacked of this being ‘usual’ behaviour within the family dynamic and Hana closed her eyes at the thought of what Bodie might say. “I can’t believe that damn lawyer took my phone off me. You should have seen her, Tiger. She was mean right from the start. I just don’t understand why. Logan’s a different man at the hotel and it bothers me. You don’t think I’ve unwittingly married into some kind of mafia family do you? Do you think Logan’s The Godfather?”. Hana snickered and the cat jumped in fright, almost pitching into the sink. “Serves you right,” Hana told him. “You shouldn’t be up there.”
She tipped the mug up and drank the last few drips, peering into the bottom in disappointment. “Bodie will have checked him out,” she reassured herself. “He’ll have found some way of flying under the radar of protocols and systems. Oh no! What if that’s one of the things he wants to talk to me about?” Hana laid her head on her forearms, shoving her empty mug out of the way and worrying to herself, what have I done?
A sound from behind caused Hana to whip round. Logan stood in the doorway rubbing his eyes with his good hand, in between struggling with the sling which wouldn’t go over his head. His chest was bare and he had wrestled into a pair of navy cotton pyjama bottoms pulled up further on one side than the other. He looked cute and adorable, juxtaposed to the memory of the man who held another’s avid attention, stemming violence without using any. Hana went to him, helping slip his head through the small space in the stretchy sling. His presence was intoxicating and as her fingers lingered on his bare skin, she found her mind wandering. Logan put his good arm around her shoulder and pulled her into him, smoothing the back of her neck and kissing her temple gently. “Hey,” he whispered into the silence.
“Hey,” Hana replied and despite herself, responded to her husband’s addictive kisses.
As they stood in the doorway holding each other, Hana had a sudden insight into Caroline’s confusion with Logan. Perhaps it was the farm-boy Caroline loved, the-tough-man-ranch-hand with the imposing presence, the strong, silent type. If it were this exciting yet hard existence she favoured, dirt, sweat and impulse, then she would always struggle with the English teacher side of Logan, gentle, considered and arty. Hana moved her cheek gently against Logan’s dusting of dark chest hair, understanding she would somehow have to love both sides of her husband’s nature, if her marriage was going to stand any chance at all of surviving.
They spent a quiet Sunday evening together. Tea for Logan wasn’t until late. “I’m not hungry,” he maintained, until Hana broke out the toaster. He slept a lot on the codeine, napping on the sofa next to Hana as she sat and read a book. The TV played on in the background. Hana would mute it as Logan slept and then he would turn up the sound when he woke, thinking he had been continuously watching it. “I was watching that!” he complained as he woke to the muted screen. “Oh, what?” The All Blacks stood on the podium collecting their medals and hoisting the coveted trophy. Logan rubbed his eyes looking disoriented. “But it only just started.”
The signal was still fuzzy, making concentration on anything hard with the picture jerking and occasionally moving up like an out of control fruit machine. But there was a reassuring timelessness about the scene. The cat lay stretched out in front of the blazing fire Hana lit under Logan’s careful direction. The lamp next to Hana illuminated the room as she read and the house felt warm and cosy with the shadows driven back against the walls and into the corners. Hana tried to fix it hard in her memory, perhaps supernaturally aware a storm approached; not of the meteorological kind. The next day she would be forced to leave this safe haven; where her husband breathed softly next to her on the sofa. She would be forced to do battle again in a world in which someone wanted to harm her. “Hana Du Rose,” she whispered to the crackling fire. “What have you got yourself into?”
Hana awoke the next day, reluctant to climb out of the covers into the cold of the bedroom. She felt grumpy and irritable, especially when she reached onto her husband’s side of the bed and found it cold and empty. She heard him in the bathroom shaving and battled the urge to rush in and stop him, make him keep the stubbly growth so the routine would be broken and they wouldn’t have to go to work. They moved around separately in their quest to get ready, Hana feeling more and more despondent as the moment for leaving came. “Do we have to go?” she asked, dragging her feet and delaying. “Can’t we just stay here?”
Last to leave the house and attempting to herd Tiger into the living room, Hana failed miserably. As she bent down to grab her handbag, she saw a black and white shape charge past her, squeezing through the narrow gap between the door and frame. Tiger shot away down the steps and into the bushes. Hana deliberated furiously with herself while Logan leaned against the car. “Fine then!” she shouted to the retreating fluffy tail. “I was only trying to be nice to you.” She scowled at the amber eyes peering from behind a kaka beak bush. “If you get squished on the road, don’t come crying to me!”
She locked up, beeped the Honda key to unlock the doors and set off down the stairs. Logan struggled to hold the door open, stifling a smirk whilst inserting himself into the passenger seat. His right hand clutched his briefcase, balancing it on his leg. The case wasn’t completely closed and tipped as he leaned forward awkwardly and leaned across himself to shut the door. A sheaf of marking slid to the ground, luckily still within the vehicle and Logan started to undo the stretchy sling so he could bend forwards and grab it.
“Don’t be daft, leave it.” Hana leaned down, gathering the sheets together and trying not to bend them too much. If they were out of order, she couldn’t tell as she slipped them back into the case and zipped it up. She took the whole thing away from Logan and wedged it in the gap between the seats. She leaned across him, her breasts resting on his knees and as she came back up with her lips near his, the unstoppable electricity between them arced. Hana wondered how she would get through the whole day acting professionally, when she was liable to run across her husband a million times. She kissed him gently and felt the spark ignite, but as Logan reached for her she withdrew from the car and shut the door tightly behind her, controlling her breathing through her nose and making herself lightheaded. “Stop!” she told her husband as she clicked her seatbelt in and his puppy-dog eyes begged for attention.
“But I’m hurt,” he said, barely hiding his smirk.
“Tough!” Hana started the engine. “I wanted to stay home in bed but you made me get up. So now you have to suffer.”
Hana enjoyed driving the Honda. It seemed an age since she test drove it. She belted down River Road but was surprised when Logan stopped her indicating to turn left down Powell Street. “No,” he said quickly, “not that way. Go to the bottom and turn left. If we park off Frey Street, we can walk through the back of St Veronica’s School.”
Hana did as she was told, finally pulling up to the curb in a quiet street she didn’t recognise. Getting out, Hana looked around frantically. “Is there a parking restriction? The last thing I need is to have my car towed away and discover it gone when I come back to get it.”
There were no signs. It looked like a regular residential street. “It’ll be fine,” Logan promised.
Hana locked up the car and they headed off. Logan seemed to know where he was going so Hana followed obediently. She wanted to hold his hand, but the work case occupied his only free one and Hana needed to be satisfied with walking closely next to him. Coming to the end of a short alleyway, she was faced by the soil and gravel floor of the gully. She turned to Logan crossly. “Are you serious?”
He looked down at her feet, currently sporting a pair of high-heeled boots and smirked. Hana
was annoyed and stamped her foot angrily. “I’m going to get to work filthy,” she pouted, adding, “that’s if I can get there at all and don’t have to be carried!”
She looked pointedly at Logan, who lifted his broken arm and looked apologetic. “Sorry babe, can’t lift at the moment.”
As Hana glared alternately at the mud and her husband, a group of students approached them in the alley, talking and laughing. Their uniforms were all defective in some way, shirts rebelliously untucked, jumpers slung around necks and one boy wore the wrong socks. The boys looked warily at Logan as they advanced, the shirt slotted quickly into the shorts and the jumper yanked down hastily. Logan watched the socks shuffle past, eyeballing the wearer who scurried after his mates.
“Logan!” whined Hana softly as the boys were out of earshot, “You could have told me.”
Logan gave her one of his disarming smiles. “I didn’t know you were going to dress up like Cosmopolitan Barbie. Now get going.” He whacked her lightly on the backside with his case and set off down the track.
Hana was instantly annoyed. “There isn’t a Cosmopolitan Barbie!” she scoffed. “I’ve never heard of it anyway.”
“You should get out more,” her husband laughed over his shoulder and Hana stamped and eyed the slick mud underfoot. Then she remembered how Barbie was based on the ‘perfect woman’ and by the time she clip-clopped after him, had decided to take it as a compliment.
The track was surprisingly not too bad, although Hana made a mental note to wear flatter shoes the next day. It was a pleasant walk, making a refreshing change and the couple got to work reinvigorated, if a little windblown.
Hana missed the early staff briefing owing to the mysterious absence of Sheila, which was more than a little strange. Caroline came in, dumped her stuff and headed off to the staff room without even speaking, for which Hana was grateful. “Cause I don’t want to hear anything that comes out of your mouth, lady,” Hana said to the empty room.