by Bowes, K T
“No! Of course not! Sorry, it was a stupid thing to say. I’m tired. I shouldn’t have said it. I just wanted you to answer me.” Logan sighed and rubbed his eyes.
Hana still hadn’t spoken by the time they reached the school and Logan wasn’t sure how to go about breaking the heavy sense of foreboding. He turned off the ignition and fingered the keys between his fingers looking sideways at her. Hana kept her head down, occasionally pressing her fingers into the top of her stomach. Logan was alarmed to see her mitten unpicked, the coloured strands stretching across Hana’s lap like spaghetti. He reached across and grabbed her hand, a look of surprise and dismay on his face. Hana jumped as he pulled the mangled mitten-encased hand and wrenched it back from him, her eyes flaming in some awful hidden emotion. “I bought you those!” Logan said. There was no temper in his voice, but Hana couldn’t deal with the look of accusation she fancied she saw in his grey eyes.
“Leave me alone!” Hana moved quickly for a woman who couldn’t even get her own socks on. She was out of the car before Logan could collect his thoughts. He narrowed his eyes as he watched his wife stalk off towards the front of the school. She looked stiff and wooden and from behind he saw her elbow move as she repeatedly clutched at an invisible point on her chest.
In desperation, Logan rang Liza. She answered the phone in her usual clipped fashion. “What bro? I’m due in court, be quick.”
Logan sighed. He felt drained. “The meeting with the lawyer at the pub last night was informative,” he told his sister. “Thanks for recommending him. He’s a high calibre professional who’s cut straight to it. He’s issued Reuben with a writ, ordering him to return the stolen land and also a demand for full payment of the loan.”
“Ah yep,” Liza replied. “You had proof of the loan did you?”
“Yeah. Even though it was family, I’m glad I thought to do it all properly. The developers have also been issued with a writ, ordering them to cease using the driveway onto my land. They’ve been served with a trespass notice.”
“Nice. So what’s wrong? You don’t usually ring me with progress reports. You’re ugly enough to take care of your own mess.”
“I’m worried about Mum and Dad,” he said honestly, watching a group of boys pass the car bouncing a rugby ball. It hit the art teacher’s car and set the alarm off and they laughed until they noticed Logan’s raised eyebrow. Then they moved quickly away. “The cousins keep getting drunk - well Kane and his mates. They’ve been paying drunken visits to the hotel since they got the documents. Dad reckons the developers are leaning on them with threats. Apparently they paid Reuben a fortune up front and nobody knows where it is. He’s denying all knowledge. Someone broke a window last night just after I arrived and it took hours to clear up. Mum was upset and Dad argued about calling the cops. He wouldn’t let me.”
“Probably doesn’t want his brother in jail,” Liza said harshly. “You started this. I warned you what would happen.” She sounded haughty.
“Fine! Sorry to have bothered you. Go hand out some life sentences, why don’t you?” Logan replied sarcastically as he disconnected the call and shoved his phone into his inside pocket. Logan grew more and more irritated with his father. Alfred promised to back him up and yet when the brown stuff inevitably hit the fan, Alfred started trying to placate and peace-make.
But I don’t have to live there, Logan conceded. Then again, he chastised himself harshly, if I lived at the hotel, the land would never have been lost.
The look on his uncle’s face when Logan had raced out of the side door to confront him was priceless. Distaste mixed with fear was a heady combination, especially when Reuben didn’t expect to see the object of it. Not right then anyway, just as he had broken the glass in an old sash window. The usual insults and threats were hurled by Kane Du Rose who was held back by his older brother, Nev, but Logan stood his ground in front of Reuben, arms neatly crossed in front of him. “You’re a bastard!” Kana laughed, clinking his beer bottle against the wall and cackling when it broke. “Cheers!” he slurred as beer ran down the brickwork.
“Stop!” Nev implored his brother. “It doesn’t have to be like this. Come back to the house.”
“Take him away,” Logan said to his cousin, as the rant really got going and ridiculous, slurred rubbish propelled from Kane’s mouth.
Logan’s Uncle Reuben stood frozen in place, his arm raised with another stone in it. His lips parted over and over like a goldfish sucking water and Logan’s presence seemed to floor him. Logan pointed to the stone in the old man’s hand. “Don’t do it, uncle,” he said, keeping his voice light. “I don’t need this right now, thanks.”
Rueben gaped and shook his head as though trying to clear some inner fog. He held his hand out to Logan and the younger man put his arms up to his face, protecting himself from the impact of the stone still held in the fleshy palm. Reuben looked in confusion at Logan and a strange expression rode over his features like a stampede. “No!” he bellowed. “No!” The stone dropped loudly onto the gravel and Logan lowered his arms.
The early morning air was cold and the school busy as Logan exhaled slowly and locked the car. He pushed away the unsettling memory of his uncle crying real tears and sobbing without dignity as Nev led him away. “Son, don’t,” he had cried over and over again.
Logan yawned and set off for his tutor group feeling like the bad guy and genuinely sorry that somehow, he also managed to upset his wife. “It’s the bloody late nights,” he muttered to himself. “And now she thinks I’m cheating. Geez, why did I say that?”
Pete and Sheila trod carefully around Hana. She was volatile and unhappiness radiated off her like pulsing airwaves. Rory stayed out of the office, for once correctly reading Sheila’s frantic eye movements properly. “Why don’t you take the afternoon off?” Sheila asked kindly after lunch. Hana shook her head sadly and kept punching letters and numbers into her spreadsheet.
Hana met her husband at the car that night and they travelled home, again in silence. Hana seemed even worse than she had that morning, even more morose and withdrawn. Logan felt shut out and confused. It was as though she had receded into an untouchable room in her head and he couldn’t get through. “You know I didn’t mean what I said earlier?” Logan said, pulling Hana into his arms as she tried to undress.
“About what?” she asked. “Whoring yourself? Do what you bloody like, Logan. You will anyway.” Hana shrugged free, declined food and climbed into bed.
Logan hung around in the bedroom doorway, moving awkwardly. “You sure you don’t want anything?’ he asked, trying to sound kind. Hana shook her head and snuggled down into the blankets with her novel. “Hana we need to talk. Remember the promise we made to each other?”
She focussed in on the hard knot in her gut as Logan’s defeated footsteps pattered down the hallway. Hana put her hand over her mouth and a tear trickled down to smack on the pillowcase. She heard her husband clattering around in the kitchen and felt bad for him making toast alone. She wanted to get up and help, to soothe him and reassure him all was well, but the black cloud of grief and depression had caught up to her sometime in the night and lodged in her chest in those moments before dawn. “I can’t do this anymore,” she sobbed into the sheets.
Hana heard Logan’s phone chirp on the hall table and his curt answer. His voice sounded aggravated as he said, “You what?” rudely to the caller and then swear. She tried to care who was on the other end, but the usual feelings of concern wouldn’t come. The black cloud lay on her chest and impaired her breathing. It was familiar and comforting. It came only once a year, sometimes less ravaging than others and lasted as long as it felt like it. Hana only knew that if she kept still and tried not to think too hard about its presence, it would go, washing out suddenly with the turn of the calendar, just like it always did.
Hana dozed fitfully after she stopped reading her book. She wished she hadn’t read it. The heroine’s lover died a few chapters from the end. Hana felt the lead weigh
t increase as she let the novel fall to the floor with a thud. She wouldn’t read the rest. It had become pointless. She wondered if there was any hope left in the world anymore, knowing she was wallowing and it wouldn’t help. It never did. She also knew she should focus on the God of Hope, but it was like seeing him through net curtains. She knew he was still there, but the details were clouded and obscured.
Hana tried not to panic these days when the knot began in her chest. She just had to ride it out and the thought of trying to explain to Logan what was wrong, filled her with guilt and despair.
Logan stayed in the kitchen, making calls that would wind up more than twenty years work, for a woman who had seemingly shut down on him. He watched some TV, marked senior assessments and fell asleep with the cat sprawled on his knee. Logan woke up cold and stiff sometime after midnight. He was reluctant to disturb Hana, suspecting he woke her the night before and wondering if loneliness and tiredness were part of her problem. He was sick of the sound of his own voice, lamely promising, “It’s not for long. It’ll all be over soon.”
Logan turned off the lights and went to the kitchen to feed Tiger. The black and white cat purred and wrapped himself around Logan’s legs, almost tripping him up until his bowl reached the floor. Then it was as though the man no longer existed. Logan sighed and crept down to the bedroom in his socks. He heard the agonised sound of a woman crying as he reached the door, sobbing and pleading as though someone else was in the room. It was eerie. His heart pounded and he resisted the urge to bust the door off its hinges and charge in. Slowly, slowly, he stilled himself, pressing quietly into the room.
The bedside light glowed in the darkness and Logan saw Hana’s shape in the bed. He stealthily moved around the furniture to the window. There was nobody there. Just her. Hana’s hair was pulled back from her fevered head and tumbled across the pillow, suspended against the light coloured sheets like blood in the dim light. Logan leaned over his wife, dismayed at her damp forehead and seeing the dark stain on the soaked pillowcase. Hana cried in her sleep and it was distressing to watch the racking sobs jerk her body around. Logan tentatively reached out to touch her but stopped, not wanting to frighten her. He balled up his fists in confusion. He had spent his whole life knowing what to do in every situation, thinking on his feet and avoiding disaster. But this woman defeated his ability to do that. Fear crept into his decision-making and rendered him useless.
“Oh, babe,” Logan whispered sadly. He stripped down to his boxers and crawled carefully into bed. Once he was sure he had warmed up sufficiently not to shock Hana awake, he moved slowly across towards her. She muttered rubbish and put her hand on her upper abdomen, leaning forward into a ball. “Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong, Hana?” Logan whispered into her hair. “I’m sorry about what I said. I didn’t think you’d take me seriously.” Logan gently scooped her into his arms, rewarded by her stirring and pulling herself into him for safety, her nails grazing his skin as she clung to his body. Hana nuzzled down and the hitching in her chest eased.
“Stay,” Logan heard her whisper, her voice cracked and desperate. “Don’t go. Stay with me. Why do you want to hurt me?”
Logan let his breath out and pulled his wife closer, not bothering to answer her plea. He instinctively knew with a heady mix of sadness and jealousy; she didn’t mean him.
The next morning Hana woke, knowing before she opened them, her eyes would be puffy and sore. She had stayed in the same position all night and her nose felt squished in an upward crease from pressing against Logan’s chest. Her lips tasted salty when she licked them and her pillow damp against her cheek. Hana tried to pull away from Logan’s grasp, but his reaction was to grip her tighter. She eased herself gently away and slipped over to his phone, turning off the alarm. In the bathroom, she ran hot water over herself in the shower, letting it race over her head and face. Subconsciously she ran her hand over her stomach, caressing the baby who reacted excitedly to the change in body temperature by kicking and turning. Hana moved her fingers up to just under her ribs. The knot was still there, but its hold on her had diminished.
“Oh, Vik, you idiot,” she sighed. “Who was the bigger fool? You or me?” The dreadful dream about her late husband happened less frequently since Logan moved into her bed. It was as though his presence kept the ghouls at bay. His frequent absences of late had left Hana vulnerable, especially now and his foolish claim of infidelity had brought it all back home to her. The dreams that mimicked memories of her past life were the most distressing because when morning came, Hana had to face again the awful knowledge that a man was dead.
In last night’s dream, she sat with Vik at Hamilton Gardens on the wide grassy hill above the lake. It was a familiar dream and always ended the same way. They sat in the sunshine and talked about the children and it felt safe and companionable, like it was before she knew better. The light glinted off Vik’s black hair and Hana noticed salt and pepper greys around his ears and smiled to herself. Age suited him, although while hers had crept upon her, his was halted within time and he would not change further. Hana watched him through as he lay back in the grass, surprised she had forgotten how handsome he was. His long black lashes framed his dark brown eyes and when he smiled at her, she saw Bodie in him and it made her heart skip with happiness.
In her dream, she touched his arm gently. “Vik?” He turned towards her. “After the accident, a woman came to see me, she said...she said...that you and she...” Hana couldn’t finish the sentence. She never could. Vik turned towards her, his beautiful face ashen and sad, confusion written in his eyes and his head beginning to shake from side to side in denial. But Hana knew. The secret she kept for nine years lay buried deep within her. In the dream, Vik began to distort and fade, his head becoming transparent. Panicking, Hana tried to grab hold of his arm. Previously solid and firm, it dissipated under her grasp, disappearing and moving like fog. It always did. She never got any answers. He never told her the truth. Perhaps he never had. “No,” she cried out in frustration and anguish. “Stay! Don’t go again. Stay with me. Why do you want to hurt me?”
The dream-Hana stifled a sob with her hand as the old scars of grief rubbed at her soul. But this time it felt different. As Vik faded away and Hana felt consumed with the familiar empty pain, other strong arms gripped her, tying her down and making her believe that all was not lost. Underneath her shifting foundations, there was solidity and that had never happened before.
Hana reached for the shampoo. “I know you won’t behave if I do this,” she spoke to her unruly hair, “but I feel sweaty and disgusting.” Hana needed to wash the night away, her fingers itching to rinse the salt tears and sweat along with the torturous dream and watch it gush down the plughole. As she stepped out of the shower and towel dried her hair and body, Hana felt less insane than usual. The paralysing black cloud was uncharacteristically losing its hold and she felt grateful.
Hana was a little more communicative with her husband as he stumbled into the bathroom. He cleaned his teeth and waited for her to leave before using the toilet. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck,” he complained, chastened when Hana looked instantly sick.
“Don’t say things like that!” she snapped, her peace disappearing with the memory of Vik’s smashed sunglasses and crushed wallet, returned to her in a police evidence bag.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it!” Logan bit back, lifting the toilet seat and knowing she would leave. He spread his legs and gave Hana a look of defiance over his shoulder. She had already gone.
Logan showered and rubbed the cricks out of his neck from holding Hana so tightly all night. Then he towelled off and walked back to the bedroom to get dressed.
Hana sat on the edge of the bed in her bra and knickers. She expelled a lot of huffing and puffing as she contorted her body to try and reach her feet. “Here, I’ll do it.” Logan tried not to laugh as he took the sock from her flapping hand and fitted it gently over her foot. His eyes crinkled at the edges.
Hana breathed out slowly through pursed lips and thanked him as he put the other one on for her. Then he took the leggings from the bed next to her and put the ends over her feet, stepping back as she stood up and pulled them up over her bump.
Hana recognised the need in his grey eyes, to take hold of her and pull her towards him. Logan’s face showed confusion, unease and a sense of self-preservation working overtime. Hana felt sorry for him, especially when the baby squirmed inside her in silent protest at the neglect of its father’s feelings. The cloud of depression settled back over her head like a hat, shrouding her in confusion and reminding Hana it was all about her. She barely held herself together and selfishly kept her emotions numbed, focussing only on getting through the day still whole.
Once they were dressed and ready to leave, Logan handed her the Honda keys. “I need to use the bike again today. I’ve got to go up to the hotel after work to sort some stuff out. You ok to drive yourself?”
Hana nodded once and took the keys. Logan stood and watched her walk down the hallway to the garage steps. She appeared rigid and collected, bound up inside herself. Logan worried. He ran his hands through his hair and listened to her clumping heavily down the steps. He hated feeling like the connection between them was straining and pulling thin. It frightened him and made him behave like an idiot. It seemed so sudden and yet when he cast his mind back, he’d watched her withdraw over the last few days. He just hadn’t recognised the signs. “The constant nights away aren’t helping and the tiredness,” he complained to himself. “I need to finish this quicker.”
Logan heard Hana reverse up the slope to turn around at the top, cursing himself for not doing it for her last night. He saw the tail lights of the Honda disappear down the driveway, Hana’s face pinched and blank at the wheel.
Logan shook himself as a wave of foreboding crept over his soul like an internal shiver, leaving him afraid.