by Bowes, K T
Logan seemed so pleased with himself Hana chose not to tell him about her stupid agreement. Besides which, she was hatching a plan for Pete to take her on the way home. That would be tonight taken care of. She went to the staff toilets and then back to work, feeling as though she had been given a small reprieve.
Pete was not happy about going to the Achilles Rise house and wanted to text Logan. He and Hana got into a row on the way up there, with Hana indignant at him for treating her like a child. But for once, Pete was right. She was being foolish. “He’s going to kill me and feed my body to the dogs.” Pete complained.
“He doesn’t have any dogs. You’re being ridiculous,” Hana chastised as they pulled into Achilles Rise.
“He’ll get some specially!” Pete whined.
Hana no longer owned the remote control for the garage, having handed both of them over to the family renting the house. She gave over all the keys too, although the letting agent kept a spare, with which he was meant to do regular inspections and maintenance visits.
The revenue from the house rent covered most of the mortgage on Culver’s Cottage, although the agent took a handsome slice for repairs and the ever famous ‘administration costs.’ Hana walked up the front steps feeling hugely nostalgic. Inside, where the stairs wound down to the huge garage below, the stairwell was over eight metres high. Amazingly the biology teacher managed to hang a picture of a mountain scene, right in the middle of the wall. He must have practically stood on the banister top with someone holding onto his feet to get it up there. Apparently they were planning to stay for a while. Or else donate the picture when they left.
It seemed odd to be here again, staring down at the same carpets Hana chose with her first husband. It felt like a different life, as though it belonged to someone else and she had merely been a passive observer. Hana moved onto the landing at the top of the stairs, glancing back down at the front door as she reached the summit. She left it unlocked. Pete was sulking outside on the driveway, still inside the car. He might change his mind, she reasoned.
Moving down the passageway into the kitchen, Hana realised now she was here, she really wanted to go and say ‘Hi’ to her neighbours, but didn’t think Pete would tolerate that. He wanted to drop her home and then go up to the airport. Hana felt a stab of conviction. She was being selfish. And yet it was like picking a scab, the discomfort and pain with the innate desire to remove a blemish. She knew, even as she picked up the warm ball of brown fur nestling in a chair in the fading sunshine, she was going to look around the whole house, every room, every corner, summoning up good memories and happier times.
The kitten slept as she walked around, flopped over her left shoulder. “It’s clear the family children carry you about,” Hana crooned to it as it snuggled into her neck. It showed no fear or concern at being paraded slowly from room to room. “Ooh, nice furniture,” Hana noted. “It fits well with the house.” Some of the rooms were arranged differently to offer more room, or a cosier feel. Vik and Hana merely plonked their furniture down, much the same as the previous owners had, never really experimenting with it. The little sunroom at the front had been made into the dining room and the former dining room was now a family area with a TV and sofa. Hana thought it was an ingenious use of space. “I wish I’d thought of that,” she told the sleepy kitten.
The ball of fur snoozed over her neck, its little nose pushed into her hair. She could feel his warm breath on her skin and it felt lovely. It made her feel almost guilty as she nosed around the house, peeking into rooms that were once hers. Still were hers actually, in name at least.
The front bedroom had a wooden cot in it and the new baby was obviously a boy and part of the family by now. Hana felt sorry she hadn’t put in more effort to get to know them more. She chastised herself and promised she would do better once they got back. Finding out their names would be a start, she supposed. The main bedroom, which she once shared with Vik and then spent a lifetime in alone, had been changed completely around. Hana stood for a moment, wondering how she never thought of doing all this. The family got permission from the agent to paint the room. It was a delicate turquoise with brown accents, rather like the colour of the kitten.
Hana smirked as she remembered an old advert for Dulux. People stealing things with particular colours they wanted, serviettes, a bit of a friend’s coat material and taking them to the Dulux shop to get tints. She amused herself, imagining the biology teacher marching the kitten down to the shop and pointing to it dramatically, to get the curtain colouring and the flat paint on the feature wall. “Did he say he wanted paint the same colour as you?” she asked the furry ball with amusement in her voice.
The sound of the front door clicking shut broke her train of thought and Hana came guiltily out of the bedroom. Of course, Pete would be cross now, she told herself. She hadn’t even fed the kitty or sorted out his litter tray. She dashed down the hall clinging onto the floppy cat, deliberately not glancing down at the front doorway on the lower level as she bolted into the family room and through to the kitchen. The kitten was awake now and wriggled until she put him down.
Seizing the bag of kibbles, Hana sprinkled them into a bowl on the floor and the kitten dashed at them impatiently. She watched momentarily as he chewed the tiny pieces of biscuit, which made Tiger’s look like boulders. The litter tray was decently clean and she heaved a sigh of relief. She heard Pete come into the family area.
“Ready!” she said triumphantly and then stopped as Pete came round the corner. His forehead was bleeding and he was not alone.
Hana Du Rose
Chapter 30
North was out cold. He sat on the hard ground, his body still bleeding from a cut on his head. His thin dusting of hair seemed almost non-existent in the disappearing light and his head resembled a smooth, round, pale ball, leaking sporadically onto the unforgiving concrete. It had stopped flowing quite so hard and for that Hana was grateful.
Her brain felt addled and she couldn’t seem to fit the pieces together. Stupid, harmless Pete. He certainly didn’t deserve the second crack over the head with a block of wood which the bigger of the two men carried.
The floor of the garage was cold against Hana’s legs and the dress she wore was not substantial enough to prevent its iciness seeping through her body and chilling her to the bone. The sun dipped down behind the mountains and from the fading light in the side window, Hana could guess the time was around five. She knew the house well and recognised each creak and grind of the footsteps moving over the floors above and occasionally the crash of another drawer being emptied out unceremoniously onto the floor. Hana comforted herself with the fact that the family would be away for a few more days and she could put it reasonably straight again if need be. But the smash of glass and crockery dispelled any notions of just putting things away.
Pete stirred and groaned and Hana called out to him to stay still, while she made her way painfully across to him. “Keep still, love. Try to stay quiet and I’ll work out how to get us out of this. It’s all my fault. I’m so sorry.”
Hana knew without looking her right arm was broken just above the elbow. When she touched it with her left hand, it felt rubbery and unreal, like touching someone else’s limb. The pain was intermittent, veering between a dull, almost unbearable ache to the spasming, breath-taking throb which came like labour pains and made her feel sick and heady. Halfway across the floor towards Pete it came again, leaving her panting for breath and praying for it to end. He woke fully and shuffled about, leaving a trail of blood on the concrete underneath him.
Hana wanted to call out to him again, to make him stay still, but her own agonies kept her pinned down, clutching her arm tightly to her body, rocking and waiting and hoping it was nearly over. It subsided again and Hana slid over to him on her knees, trying desperately not to move her own splintered bone, gasping and stifling a cry when the movement jolted her.
While Pete’s injury was intentional, Hana’s had been accidental. The two
men who appeared in the kitchen with Pete were strangers to Hana and despite wracking her brain since, she knew she had never seen them before. They asked no questions whatsoever and were eerily silent. Hana had no time to react. The kitten sped away from his bowl and bolted under the sofa in the family room and the smaller man grabbed Hana by the arm in a grip which bruised and numbed her flesh.
He was blonde and good looking and if he hadn’t been manhandling her, Hana would have been happy to purchase an insurance policy or bank account from him. He looked plausible and clean cut. His clothes were smart and fresh, nothing like the rough pair with whom she was familiar. Hana and Pete were taken down to the garage. Pete’s head dripped blood all the way down the stairs and Hana followed, like Gretel following Hansel’s trail of crumbs down into the bowels of the house. As she reached the bottom of the first flight of steps, she fumbled her footing and slipped. In an attempt to save her from a nastier fall, the grip on her arm was tightened and yanked upwards, rather like a parent would counteract the tumble of a small child.
But Hana’s elbow contacted with the end of the banister rail, getting caught underneath the wood. It was an awkward knock and a hard one, the metal bracket popping out of the wall in protest. Hana heard the bone snap, an awful sound which made her feel sick to her stomach. The man tightened his grip, making her feel faint as the bone ground under his thumb. Hana was aware had she slipped completely, she would have pulled the man onto her, crushing her down onto the landing and probably falling down the next flight of steps. She regretfully concluded a broken bone was possibly better than the alternative.
Still no conversation, no explanation of their treatment. Hana and Pete were dumped down in the garage and the internal door locked. Pete sunk straight to the floor cradling his head and Hana did likewise, willing the sickness and pain to subside. It hadn’t. It took an alarmingly long moment to rouse Pete enough to get him to speak to her. He was groggy and uncoordinated, asking her continually where they were and what she was doing there. “Where’s Henri?” he asked for the eighth time
Hana gave up, instead deciding to find something to wrap his head with. The shelves were empty. Clearly the biology teacher was not a hoarder of any predilection. A pair of pliers sat alone on the bottom shelf and as Hana grabbed them, she recognised them as Vik’s anyway, left behind in the move. She lifted the top layer of her dress above the knee, turning modestly away from Pete, who didn’t seem to care much anyhow and inspected the underskirt beneath. “This is going to be a bit Little House on the Prairie,” she told her companion, who made no reply. “I once saw Laura Ingalls’ mother do this.”
Hana used the pliers to tear at the underskirt, struggling with having to use her left hand to rip and pull. Hana had every sympathy for her husband’s recent arm injury and his joy at being released from the cumbersome cast. She made a mental note to show more understanding in the future.
A couple of times she needed to sit down and take a break, while the pain above her elbow reached a pitch where she thought she might scream. Eventually, she produced this ragged, horribly ripped piece of elasticated underskirt and she made her way back over to where Pete was slumped. The blood ran a little slower and started to clot, but the site of the cut shone horrifically with the pressure under the skin and a horrid blueness began to emerge with tiny thread veins around it. Hana tried using her left hand to wrap the cream coloured bandage around his head, but it kept slipping away before she managed to do a complete revolution. “If I can just get it around once, it will hold, I’m sure of it.”
After the third failure, Hana stood up and leaned her head against the cold wall. It was no good. She needed to use both hands.
Standing to Pete’s left, wedged between the back of his shoulder and the wall, Hana found she was the right height to give it another go, this time keeping her right arm straight down and not bending it. It meant she could use her right hand to hold the cloth against Pete’s head, whilst doing the winding with her left. It worked a bit better on that last attempt although the movement jolted the broken bone and caused her to gasp in agony, trying not to let go of the makeshift bandage lest she have to start all over again. Finally, it was on and on tight, the elasticity helping to keep the pressure on. She fixed it by pulling out the last layer and tucking the end in, letting it ping back a little too hard and hearing Pete let out a slow groan. “Sorry, sorry,” she whispered to him.
The poor woman felt exhausted with the effort of keeping her arm still and hadn’t noticed how dark it had become in the garage. All light from the side window which faced out onto the slope at the side of the house faded, leaving night both outside and in. Hana moved across the empty room to the window, careful not to jolt herself. Peering out into the darkness she could see the road outside if she pressed her nose against the glass, but the angle was wrong to attract any attention. She could see the neighbour’s roof but none of their windows, which were obscured by the solid, high fence and the ivy which had gone wild over its height and breadth in the few months since Hana left.
Hana fiddled with the security clasp, remembering when Vik screwed them onto the metal frames, the mechanism could be unhooked to give exit in a fire. The clasp was very mouldy and also rusty. Hana cranked it, trying to unhook it over the metal rod that held it in place. But somehow over time, the gap through which the rod should have easily exited had been banged shut and wouldn’t move, no matter how hard she worked it with her left hand. Determined, Hana fully undid both of the openers with one hand and pushed the window open. With the security device still in place, there was barely enough room for her to get her wrist out of the small space. Hana peeped through the opening and tried to see left. The tail end of the hosepipe could be seen snaking across the pathway towards the gate, its end having lost the piece which directed the water. Hana sighed audibly, “I’m so thirsty.”
Turning back into the room, the darkness began to get Hana down. She went over to the internal access door to the light switch, hoping to cheer up the situation with some light. Her heart leapt for joy as she spotted the switch underneath which would activate the lifting of the garage door. Hana held her breath and wondered how to do this. The temptation to push it and run was overwhelming but she needed to take care of Pete. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I won’t leave you, Pete, I promise,” she puffed, the exertion beginning to tax her. Hana resisted turning on the light. It was best not to attract attention. Another crash overhead helped to motivate her. Going over to Pete, Hana managed to rouse him again and dragged him with difficulty over to the door. “I’m so sorry, Pete,” she hissed as his head bumped on the concrete. Hana huffed and puffed, using her one, good arm, but it was easier than she expected. Pete wore a synthetic school tracksuit which bore the words ‘Coach’ emblazoned on the back and it slid over the concrete with a ‘shussshing’ sound. Fortunately, the man was also on the frail and gangly side. Dragging Logan would have been another matter.
Hana paused for a break, knowing she would have to be fast. She felt in Pete’s pockets for the car keys but found nothing. “Oh, Pete!” she hissed desperately. She could only hope as usual, they were in his ignition. She would have to run back, press the button and then get Pete out and into the car before the men intercepted them. It took a few moments to ready herself physically, mentally and emotionally. Hana prayed for divine help and inspiration and then delaying no longer, pushed Pete as near to the door as she dared without running the risk of it hitting him on the upward journey.
Moving as gently as she could despite the panic in her heart and head, Hana took a deep breath and went over to the switch. Her heart pounded in her chest as she took a moment to collect herself, knowing she was about to unleash a storm. “Come on, Hana. You can do this, girl,” she told herself. Hana reached up with her left hand and pressed the button. Nothing happened, but she wasn’t alarmed. From memory, she knew sometimes it could take a moment to kick in. She waited another second and then pressed it again. Harder. Still nothin
g.
No! Frustration consumed Hana from top to bottom and she stamped in anger. The jolt to her arm caused her to reach out to steady the broken bone and wait for a while, panting and sweating while the pain subsided. Again she pushed the button. Still nothing. Curiosity made her reach up to the switch above and flick the main light on. Not even a spark. Somehow they turned the power to the garage off. It would have been easy enough to do; the power box was in the laundry, upstairs at the other end of the house.
Pete moaned again from in front of the garage door and shifted slightly. Plainly the draught coming in underneath the door bothered him. Hana felt guilty for moving him into a yet worse situation. She made her way back over to him, kneeling down beside him and trying to rouse him. “Pete, please wake up. I need your help.”
It was no good. He was only partly conscious and trying to get him to understand what was happening was like speaking to someone who didn’t know English. The garage was completely dark now and Hana despaired. Surely someone would miss them. But Logan wouldn’t be home until late and even when he arrived at the dark, empty house in the hills, he wouldn’t know where to find her. Henrietta would arrive at the airport and perhaps simply be cross. Hana didn’t even know if she possessed contact numbers for any of them, because if she could at least alert Logan that Pete hadn’t shown up to fetch her, then he would guess something was amiss. Wouldn’t he? Hana fiddled around in Pete’s various pockets, willing there to be a mobile phone in one of them. She tried to ignore the frustration at discovering there wasn’t. It was probably in the car.
Hana looked up towards the ceiling. There used to be a red string dangling down from the mechanism for the garage door, so it could be opened manually in an emergency. She stood up again, reaching around underneath where she thought it should be. Nothing. She moved around the area, seeking with eyes that squinted in the darkness, looking for the glint of the red plastic toggle which hung from the string. Moving so she faced the window Hana finally caught sight of it, but it was high up on the metal runner. It had been thrown up there, out of reach. Hana didn’t remember that happening, but she was so wracked with pain, there was no surprise there.