by Bowes, K T
Hana realised she was sailing too close to the wind and as she needed her husband to drive her to work, wisely kept any more comments to herself. Anyway, he was right. Cartoon pirates didn’t have flapping sleeves; it was wooden legs and she was sincerely grateful not to have one of those as well. Hana sipped her tea while Logan got showered and dressed for work. She openly ogled his muscular body as he dressed. “Maybe we should both stay home,” she said, smiling coyly at his naked body. Logan narrowed his eyes at her and flicked his boxers into her face, pulling them deftly back at the last minute. Hana jumped in expectation of the painful contact and wailed in misery and anger.
“You did that yourself!” Logan laughed, relenting as Hana sulked. He squatted down in front of her and let her play injured, resting her forehead on his bare shoulder and sighing. “Can I get ready now?” he whispered into her hair, smiling at her reluctant nod.
The country had done its winter penance and the shortest day passed weeks before. Yet August could be the coldest month in New Zealand if it really put its mind to it. Dawn filtered gently through the bedroom curtains and despite the frost, Hana was pleased to see the sun push through as Logan slid the curtains fully aside. She made the bed one handed, ignoring Logan’s grunt of annoyance at her refusal to let him do it. “I’m doing it this way,” she grumbled and he grimaced sarcastically behind her back.
As Hana turned, the jacket’s hanging sleeve swiped a bottle of nail polish off the bedside table and her husband gave her ‘the look’ which meant he was rapidly losing patience. She fled to the kitchen and rejecting the idea of one-handed-toast buttering, settled for one-handed-cereal making instead. Spooning food into her mouth left handed was harder than she thought it would be. It didn’t feel like a natural action and proved messy. In the end, Hana picked out the nuts and sultanas and ditched the rest in the dustbin. Tiger wound himself round and round her legs and complicating matters, but when Hana found he was due a new tin of cat meat, the prospect of wielding the tin opener meant she left it to Logan to feed him.
By the time they got to work, having taken a circuitous route through back streets and supermarket car parks, they both felt rung out and exhausted and each thought separately they could do with going back to bed again. Logan went off to the staff briefing and Hana attacked her desk. Her email inbox was full to bursting with companies and organisations desperate to get in on the Expo. The annual careers expo in town proved so expensive the previous year for presenters, the school’s free one suddenly became the better option. “I only want forty,” Sheila decided at the start of the year. “Otherwise the training organisations and local colleges get pushed out by the big players.”
But the word spread like a bush fire and other businesses and organisations clamoured to be there. Traditionally the Expo was only for boys and families of the school but last year, Sheila issued a blanket invitation to the girls’ school and over two thousand people tramped through that night.
It hadn’t seemed to make any difference it was the coldest night of the year, the sky was an angry, threatening black and the attendees had to pick their way from building to building by floodlight. They kept pouring in. Hana sighed. She made a list of the begging emails, printed them off and put them on Sheila’s desk. Overall, it would be her decision who could come and who couldn’t, thank goodness.
The school bell sounded and the office was consumed by the deafening din of six hundred boys and fifty teaching staff moving around the building. There were shouts and laughter, the sound of things being thrown, numerous squeals and yells and the odd adult voice calling order in the melee. An eerie silence followed the slam of the final classroom door. Hana sighed. In an hour it would all begin again and the hour after that and after that. “I’m getting too old for all this.” Suddenly it jarred and irritated her senses, where it hadn’t before.
Sheila bustled into the room, all business-like and oozing importance. The Expo had been mentioned at briefing and she swelled and glowed with pleasure at her event being front lined. Staff were encouraged to volunteer for the night and a few had come forward. “You have no idea how pleased I am to see you!” Sheila hugged her administrative assistant with genuine pleasure but after a few sympathetic words, issued orders like a sergeant-major-first-class.
Hana struggled through. “Oh, this is so frustrating!” she complained. “One handed typing is rubbish.”
By the time two lesson periods had elapsed and the bell for interval sounded, Hana was ready to throw most of the contents of her desk out of the window.
Logan appeared half way through interval, carrying a take-out cup of steaming coffee and a shop bought sandwich for her. Hana was grateful to the point of tears and accepted his help peeling off the wrapper. Surely even she could manage to eat a sandwich one handed and drink from a sippy cup! “I feel like a damned invalid,” she protested.
Logan sat on the corner of her desk in a space he had to clear for himself and chatted to Hana while she ate and drank. Such easy company, she was aware of how incredibly lucky she was and a low blush rose into her cheeks at the memory of his rapt attentions earlier. Hana laid her cup down on the desk and stood up, pushing herself into her husband’s body for comfort. He slid his arm around her left side and nuzzled in her hair. “If someone comes in, you’re gonna jump like a filly and hurt yourself,” he whispered.
“Trust a rancher to use a horse analogy,” Hana smiled and cuddled in harder. “I love you.”
“I’m glad.” Logan’s voice on her neck was husky and muffled but Hana enjoyed his proximity and hoped nobody did come in. Fortunately, she heard Pete’s distinguishable screech aimed at some unfortunate boy, long before he reached the office. By the time the door smashed back onto the radiator, Hana had extracted herself from her husband’s grasp and sat in her chair, drinking her coffee. Logan sported a particularly pained and irritated expression but apart from that, all was normal.
Pete greeted his friend enthusiastically and high fived him. Logan almost wasn’t quick enough and narrowly avoided it being a smack around the head. Something about Pete’s wary expression betrayed he actually wouldn’t have dared follow through. Pete seemed extremely chipper and bouncy. His wispy hair was parted at the back in an odd quiff and his head near the crown was blue. A large white bandage hid the cut, which had bled so profusely onto the garage floor a few days ago. From the front he looked like he had two wispy straw-coloured horns, like a mad professor. Obviously it was testament to Henrietta’s wound dressing, extreme and over the top like everything else she did.
“Should you be here?” Logan asked him casually. “Concussion’s quite serious.” Something in Logan’s voice and the way Pete halted made Hana look up. She sensed static electricity in the atmosphere and turned her attention to Logan. He stood up. “Do you remember what I asked you to do?”
Pete looked decidedly shifty, stuttering, “No. I don’t remember much actually…” He collected himself with a big swallow, “In fact, it’s really odd, but I can’t remember anything of that day…before the smack on the head.”
Logan rested his pert buttocks back on the corner of Hana’s desk. “How convenient. Then you don’t recall me asking you to take my wife straight home and not to go anywhere else?” He spoke through gritted teeth. Hana hadn’t known about that. She cringed visibly. Undoubtedly she put Pete in a bad position making him go to Achilles Rise.
“Actually, Logan,” she tried to interject but her husband shook his head at her.
“I asked him, Hana. He knows what he did.”
Pete unexpectedly changed tack, smiling sweetly at Logan with the vaguest hint of defiance. “No, I don’t remember. Otherwise you’d have given me another smack on the head, I guess!”
Logan glared at him, his eyes as black as coals. He leaned in to kiss Hana gently and then walked towards the door, turning only to say to Pete, “You guessed right, buddy.”
Then he was gone as the bell sounded again for the end of interval and boys filed back to
classrooms. Pete sank into his chair and swivelled it around to face Hana. “I told Henrietta he’d be really mad at me!” he squeaked. He pushed his chin up towards the ceiling, with an odd sense of pride, “She said she would sort him out!”
Hana smiled lamely and turned back to her computer monitor. She tried to quickly dispel the recurring image of Pete cowering behind an enraged Henrietta, peeping out with a look of glee. But the image wouldn’t go and plagued her.
During lunch, Hana took a walk down to the photocopying room to check on the printing of the Expo flyers and posters. It was housed in a building separate from any other, to minimise the disturbance of the constant whirring as paper flew in and out of the copiers and shook the plywood floors. Hana knocked on the heavy wooden door, which was often ajar even in the winter to let out the heat of the big machines. Finding it tightly shut, Hana groaned at her wasted trip. “Because that’s all I needed,” she commiserated to herself, self-pity dripping from her words. But as she turned to go back down the steps to the courtyard, the door opened a crack and Annabel’s face peeked out. She beckoned to Hana to come in and quickly shut the door behind her after scouring the empty courtyard. Annabel looked crazed and her blonde, curly hair stuck up around her face like candy floss. “It’s Watson! I can’t cope with him today. He’s changed the programme four times, just as I was about to print it and it’s needed for assembly tomorrow. I wanted…oooh, how did you do that?”
After glossing over her accident, Hana checked the prints, taking a copy of each for Sheila to make the decision on. Sheila was excited about the glossy brochures and by the end of the day, any organisations wanting late entry had been notified whether they were coming or not. The floor plan of the areas being used was unceremoniously dragged from its cupboard over by the door. A pile of white squares, each labelled with the name of the exhibitor, sat in an envelope ready to be stuck onto the plan and then switched around again and again until Sheila was satisfied. Little red dots on the plan designated plug sockets, for those exhibitors requiring power. As Hana shut down her computer for the day, Sheila gave her a gentle but loving hug. “Thank you for coming in when you should be resting at home. I really appreciate it.”
Hana turned to leave, fighting to get the jacket over her shoulder one-handed, when the phone rang. She debated for a moment before picking it up, hoping fervently it wasn’t an angry exhibitor complaining they hadn’t been able to get a pitch.
“Hello, Ma’am,” Odering began politely, “I wonder if you have a moment?”
Expecting trouble, Hana sat down. He continued, “I’ve been trying to get your husband on his mobile and came across this number in the file. I hope it’s ok to ring you at work?” As he didn’t pause for an answer, Hana presumed it didn’t actually matter if it wasn’t. “The thing is…” The suspense was almost killing Hana, not helped by the baby dancing a jig and making her need the toilet for the millionth time that afternoon. “We believe we’ve found your vehicle.”
Hana was confused. They came to work in the Honda. Or did they? She and Logan switched and changed so often, she rarely knew which car in the car park to head for half the time. Logan also organised the odd switcheroo-parking-slot with other members of staff periodically, so occasionally Hana had to wait for him at the front doors, safely inside. “Isn’t it on the road at the other side of the gully? I’m sure we parked there this morning.” She wracked her tired brain. She was sure they came in the Honda. Or maybe the Hilux. No, definitely the Honda. The detective grew impatient, judging by the heavy sighs emanating from the phone. Hana felt an idiot. “Sorry, which vehicle are we talking about?”
A bigger sigh. Plainly he was not having a good day. “Nissan Serena, eight seater, Registration number…”
“Oh gosh!” Hana interrupted him, “You found it! How wonderful!”
Well initially it was wonderful, but seeing as she already replaced it, also a little inconvenient. At least she could sell it now. “Fantastic. I can get someone to fetch it. How does that work, I mean, what do I have to do?”
“I’m sorry Ma’am,” came the reply, “it’s been burnt out. It was found in thick bush over near the Karangahake Gorge. It was pushed over the cliff. There were signs of fire in the surrounding area but the bad weather contained it. Fortunately! It could have created an awful bush fire in summer!” Odering said the last part vehemently; as though holding Hana personally responsible and she should be grateful for the fact rain averted a near disaster. She felt grumpy. It had been a long day, her arm hurt and she wanted to go home. The detective seemed to have forgotten that it was stolen in the first place, not just carelessly left lying around. Hana leaned forward onto the desk so she could prop her cast on its surface and take the weight off her neck. The sling had bitten deeply into it all day. “So there’s nothing left then?” she asked sadly.
The detective moderated his tone. “No, sorry.”
A thought occurred to Hana. “How did you find it?”
There was a long pause, followed by an awkward, “Ah…” then another silence. “Well, actually, we…er…found it some weeks ago.” He went on quickly, perhaps pretending he hadn’t heard Hana’s sharp intake of breath, “It seems because it was registered in the name of Johal, we didn’t pick it up straight away. The occupants of the address it was registered to didn’t seem to know where you were.”
Hana chewed her lip. “Oh for goodness sake! I rented the house out before I was married but the biology teacher was fully aware of who I am. He seems me most days!” She felt irritated. Although it was possible his wife didn’t know her last name. To be fair they really just dealt with the agent. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. “I suppose it’s my own fault. After the wedding I forgot to re-register the Serena in my married name. I did the paperwork for the Honda but the Serena was long gone by then.”
Hana’s musings were disturbed by the sound of the detective clearing his throat on the other end of the line. “Er, Mrs…er, Du Rose, if you notify your insurance company, they should already have the crime log number and we can talk to them. I’m sorry for the delay. I know it’s a pain when they make you wait three months before paying out. But at least now, you know where it is.”
Big deal! Hana thought to herself as she hung up. It was a good car. Hana knew it was only a hunk of metal but it was another part of her former life gone. She sat for a while, reminiscing and contemplating.
Logan came looking for her in the end. It was getting dark and the school lights shone out into the dusk, bright and twinkling. He pulled Pete’s chair out, looking down at the seat before he dared to plonk his backside down on it and then changed his mind. The seat cover, originally light blue was a filthy shade of various greys and huge grease spots decorated its surface, not to mention large crushed-in pie crumbs from lunchtime. Their flaky remains resembled a bad case of chair-dandruff and Logan pushed it back under the desk and wiped his hand on his trousers. He looked tired.
“What’s up?” Hana asked, reaching out her good hand towards him. He turned his hand so his palm met hers and then clasped his fingers through hers. It was an intimate movement and his face visibly relaxed. He concentrated on her nail varnish, a light shade of pink, before kissing her fingers slowly and releasing her hand.
“Well,” he started, “I wanna take my wife home and…”
“Yeah, ok,” Hana smiled. “we do need to go home. I need a nice cuddle.”
As she turned to lock up after them she heard her husband mutter quietly, “I’ll skip the cuddle!” and she laughed out loud, before agreeing with him.
Hana Du Rose
Chapter 35
It was hard to get comfy on Logan’s bare chest because the heavy cast on Hana’s right arm kept slipping back and yanking her shoulder painfully.
In the end, she sat up against the pillows and supported it with her left hand. Logan’s eyes were closed contentedly, but his right hand rested on Hana’s bare thigh under the covers. He was so still she wondered if he had dr
opped off to sleep. “Logan,” she whispered and saw him move his head towards her, “did you see Boris today?”
Logan scowled, ruining his handsome features with the brooding look. “From a distance. But no, I didn’t go near him.” He swore under his breath.
“Oh.” Hana considered asking why but the dark look on her husband’s face stopped her. She went for distraction instead. “The cops have found my old van.”
His eyes snapped open and Logan turned onto his right shoulder facing her. His skin was pulled taut over his muscles and Hana reached out and touched the dark fluff on his chest. “Where?” he asked and then followed that up with a barrage of other questions, few of which Hana could answer. “I can’t believe your bloody tenants sent the cops away from Achilles Rise and told them they didn’t know you!” Logan lay back down and shook his head in annoyance. “When’s the biology teacher back?” he asked eventually. “What is that guy’s name?”
Hana shrugged and settled back into her pillows, pulling the duvet up under her chin. She really needed to try harder to remember his name, it was pretty shabby just calling him ‘the biology teacher.’ Logan mused out loud to himself, “Idiots! They knew you well enough when they wanted you to feed the damn cat! They didn’t have a problem knowing where you were then!”
“Maybe it was an accident?” Hana said, “There could be any number of reasons, I guess.” Then she laughed and moved down the bed more, finding it cold sitting up, “I mean, we don’t even know what his name is and I rent a house to him. How can I expect him to know mine?”
Logan smiled and lay on his back, closing his eyes again and settling in to relax. Hana stroked his cheek with her left hand, careful to be gentle. A thought occurred to her. “Oh my gosh, the kitten!” She hurled herself into a sitting position, causing her arm to suffer an unnecessary jab of pain. Logan reached out and rubbed her back in concern.