by Bowes, K T
Du Rose Legacy
Chapter 21
Hana drove to work on autopilot. She covered half the journey without realising. It bothered her that something may have happened on the road and she wouldn’t have coped. “Snap out of it!” she pleaded with herself, pinching her thigh to try and break out of the miserable fog.
Driving down the final tree-lined avenue to school, Hana felt her heart constrict and her blood pressure rise. It’s just work, you’ll be fine. You can do this. It’s almost the holidays, not long now. It’s just a day, just an ordinary day. None of it’s your fault. You can’t control everything and that’s ok. Hana bullied and cajoled herself, using the phrases a counsellor taught her after Vik’s death. They fitted around her tongue like tasteless food and a wail of hopelessness began to form in the base of her chest. “You should have told her the truth!” Hana’s breath came in heaves as she relived the never ending nightmare. “How can they help you if you don’t tell the truth?” The wail emerged and Hana bit down on her fingers, trying to stop the emotional eruption. Her mind raced in terrible directions, dragging her back down the funnel of history and ramming the bitter memories down her throat.
A bus pulled out in front of her as the traffic slowed and irrational thoughts pressed into Hana’s brain. As boys poured across the road, not waiting for the pedestrian lights in Fairview Downs, the car in front of her was forced to stop suddenly. The teacher on duty waved at the boys in the road and shouted, “Get back on the pavement!”
The boys delayed, blocking the lane and watching him get his detention slips out of his pocket, before backing up and heading down to the lights in a slow, reluctant shuffle. The teacher, a member of the elderly physics teaching stock saw Hana waiting in the traffic and shrugged, raising his brown bushy eyebrows at her. Hana gave a small wave as she battled the emotions raging inside her. It’s just like any other day. Don’t let it get a hold of you. Just think of Logan, think of your husband.
The boys shifted back onto the pavement and the car in front of Hana moved on. Thoughts of Logan came with the memory of his foolish comment and his hasty words slapped Hana in the face. ‘Obviously I’m not on business at all. I’m actually whoring my way up and down the country and enjoying every second of it, not that you’re interested!’ The car behind honked, reminding Hana to drive. Her body felt frozen in the seat. The school gate beckoned to her from across the road and she ran through the movements she made every day in her head. Indicate-drive-turn. That’s all it will take and you’ll be safe.
But it was as though the black cloud of depression sat in the gateway, blocking her path and daring her to pretend that today was normal. It morphed into an animal with bottomless eyes and its mouth opened in a dreadful liquid drool, reminding Hana that today was definitely not normal.
She took her foot off the brake and the car rolled forward. The vehicle behind honked again and the teacher on bus duty looked at her with curiosity. Something clicked inside Hana’s head and the routine and constriction of work was suddenly replaced by the possibility of being somewhere, anywhere else.
Cancelling her indicator, Hana floored the gas and moved past the gates. Her wheels made a tiny screech as she took off. She didn’t know where she was going but the sudden rush of freedom was exhilarating. Hana had a revelation of the need the boys felt, to just duck out of life and wander the streets instead of being in school. It never ended well, but the thrill of it was addictive. “Woo!” she whooped with a rush of emotion feeling instantly foolish.
Hana drove south with the traffic, trying not to panic as the vehicles in front of her peeled off left and right onto different routes. She scrambled through her mind for places to go, discounting anywhere involving contact with other people. Small talk and explanation were the last things she needed. Raglan on the west coast was an hour away and the east coast a little further. But the weather was cool even though the sun was up and Hana didn’t feel like being frozen at the seaside all alone.
Further and further west she drove until she could go no further without negotiating the big roundabout at the junction with Cobham Drive and Galloway Street. Panicking, Hana pulled into the left hand lane and spotted the upright stones and woven rugs marking the entrance to Hamilton Gardens. She stayed left at the roundabout, indicating and pulling into the lane leading down to the green oasis. Her knees felt weak and her legs shook in her boots.
Hana reached the large car park at the bottom of a steep hill, managing to park the Honda without dinging it despite her crumbling resolve. She rested her face in her arms on the steering wheel, nausea making her feel out of control. The car seemed unexpectedly restrictive. “Oh damn,” Hana groaned. “Now I need the toilet.”
She emerged from the Honda on shaking legs and made her way to the public toilets in the entrance to the gardens. There she threw up spectacularly into the basin. The toilet was automatic and Hana washed her face, wary of all the buttons and lights. A warning light came on and a clipped voice sounded from a speaker high up on the metal wall, intoning, ‘The facility will be automatically cleaned in five minutes.’
Hana shot out like a cork out of the bottle, dragging a piece of toilet roll on the bottom of her boot and wiping her mouth with a baby wipe. She once read a story about a woman having her insides sucked out when she got caught on an automatic toilet during its wash cycle. And someone else, who ended up with an unwanted shower. She hurried away from the toilet, pattering up the path. “Oh for goodness sake!” she moaned. “Why am I so afraid of everything? I didn’t even pee!”
Once at the fountain, there was nothing for it but to go into the gardens. Hana dipped her fingers in the cold water, closing her eyes and sensing the ripples crossing her skin like a sensual massage. Hana wandered into the first themed garden, trying to force down the isolation and fear which repeatedly threatened to overwhelm her. She had never played hooky from anything in her whole life. It felt at the same time, exhilarating and terrifying. Hana walked slowly through the different gardens. Each of them contained a seating area and she wasted the entire morning sitting on every single one. The sun came up and warmed her as she walked through the American Garden, English Garden and finally sat in the shade in the Indian Garden overlooking the mighty Waikato River.
Around lunchtime, she ran out of gardens to look at having savoured them all, including the newer sustainable Māori Garden. Hana climbed up to a familiar patch of grass above the lake, realising as she sat down on the damp ground that it was the place of her dream. “Oh, why here?” She closed her eyes and ran her hand across the soft grass, feeling the water droplets on her palm. This place had special memories for her. She and Vik brought the children to listen to ‘Shakespeare in the Park’ during Arts Festival Week most years when he was alive. They brought food and deckchairs, insect repellent and blankets for when the summer sun sank low into the lake. The children loved staying up late, listening to ancient words spoken under flickering lamps.
Hana sighed and felt for her emotions, letting them back out bit by bit, praying they didn’t overwhelm her. Her mobile phone called out at regular intervals from her handbag and she turned it off, not wanting the pressure of the outside world.
Hana sat on the hill for a long time, hours in fact. The damp earth encroached further and further into her clothes until an uncomfortable wetness leeched through to her skin, making her shiver. Still she sat there, cross-legged like a school child on the carpet in front of the teacher, her rounded belly balancing on her thighs under her coat. She picked absentmindedly at blades of grass and ran her life through her mind like a timeline from birth, right up to that moment.
Last year she ran to the care home, to the old priest when she felt overwhelmed by the anniversary of Vik’s death and the year before that, to Anka. They both offered comfort without the burden of advice and friendship without limits and for that, Hana was grateful. Today felt different. “It’s not meant to be like this,” she whispered to the mottled sky. “I’ve got Logan. I tho
ught I’d be fine.”
Hana wondered if her children remembered the date and chided herself for thinking they could ever forget the horror of that day nine years ago. Because in a few hours, it would be nine years. Eight and a bit of them done completely on her own. The date was burned into Hana’s memory. When she hung a new calendar in the office every year, her first reaction was to turn to this date and see which day of the week it fell on. Somehow it determined how she would approach it when it loomed. When the children were younger, weekdays were best because they kept busy. This day rarely fell in the holidays, but it had once, hanging over them all like a black cloud of misery, waiting to rain on their party. For the first few years Hana relived the whole damn day, second by painful second, from the moment they all got up, to the knock on the door and then the bleakness which followed. The mantra going around and around inside her head would drive her crazy. ‘At this time one year ago, this happened...’ then as time went on, ‘two years ago,’ then three and now nine and she actually didn’t know if she had the energy anymore.
Hana looked at her watch. Three o’clock in the afternoon. What was she doing at that time nine years ago? She started to send her thoughts back in time and found them blocked by some obstacle that wouldn’t allow past. It was a blackness she could no longer see through and Hana wrestled with it for a time, trying to go around, through it, over it. Nothing. And then the child in her womb kicked hard, upset by the constriction of Hana’s position, causing her to gasp and snap her legs apart. Hana rubbed her hand over her belly and breathed out slowly through half-closed lips, to get through the sharp pains that sliced into her like a knife into her guts.
The temperature dropped steadily, warning of the plummet coming as soon as the sun went down. It wouldn’t go below zero anymore, but it could be unpleasant outside in the dark. Hana brought her knees up and tried to stand, finding that one of her arms and both legs had gone to sleep. Her arm was sore and weak, but the loss of the cast was a welcome relief. The baby kicked harder, straight into her bladder, causing her to let out a low moan and clutch her stomach, willing herself not to have an accident right there on the grass. “Should have gone pee earlier,” she groaned. It felt like an iron bar was wedged too hard sideways inside her stomach, which seemed stretched to its very limit.
Hana gave in and lay flat on her back, rubbing her right arm. She shouldn’t have leaned on it; she kept forgetting how fragile it still was. Her foot banged against her handbag as she moved and Hana heard it fall over. The contents clattered out noisily and slid down the incline. “Damn it!” she exhaled.
“Are you ok?” The question came from just to the left of Hana, the questioner silhouetted by the watery sunshine behind him. Hana struggled to sit up, flailing like an upturned tortoise. She admitted defeat and lay there, embarrassment flushing over her face the longer the questioner stared down at her.
“Dead legs,” she said, wishing he would just leave. Eventually, he held out his hand. Hana reluctantly seized it, hauling herself awkwardly to the uncomfortable sitting position. She didn’t know if she trusted her legs enough to stand yet.
“Sorry,” she muttered to him, “I sat too long. It’s painful.” She tried to look up, but her eyes watered in the direct sunlight and she shaded them with her hand and turned away.
“Ooh, blinded,” the man chuckled and moved downhill from her, his own face looking into the sunshine, shielded by the brim of a khaki hat. Mid-twenties, fair-haired and brown skinned, he wore the green polo shirt and shorts of a council groundsman. He smiled down at her, rugged and good looking. “Hey Miss.”
Hana felt pleased and mortified at the same time. It was just her luck to be found beached like a whale by an ex-student. “Hey yourself.” She tried to sound pleasant as he looked at her with concern.
“Don’t get many women flailing around on their backs up here,” he said factually, “get a few down in the bushes though!” He gave a stilted laugh at his own smutty joke and then had the decency to look a bit sorry. Hana remembered him well. His name temporarily escaped her as he looked down hopefully at her, expecting her to remember every little fact of his childhood by right. Surely that was the role of school adults wasn’t it? She recalled his very blonde hair against the school jersey, John, Jack, Jason.
“Paul isn’t it?” It came to her in a rush and didn’t even begin with ‘J.’ He looked pleased and his face crinkled into a wide smile.
“You’ve got a good memory, I never expected you to remember my name,” he lied. “I work here.” He waved his arm expansively. “It was that horticulture course you put me on at Wintec. I loved it.”
Hana felt warm inside. It was nice to momentarily take the credit for someone else’s success.
“How’s Bodie?” he asked, changing tack.
“He’s good thanks,” Hana replied, “taken his son for a trip up north for a wee while.” She tried not to tell people he was a cop. If he wanted them to know, he could tell them himself.
“Awesome,” the young man replied, “He’s got a kid? Good on him. Always was a bit of a one with the la...” he left the sentence unfinished, reaching down with his teeth to chew his bottom lip. He still had that same habit then.
He peered at her bulging stomach, clearly wanting to comment. But somebody wise had drilled into him that it was a very dangerous subject. A woman might not be pregnant, she might just be fat. He gulped the question away and looked back down the hill, pushing his wide-brimmed hat backwards onto his head. He spotted Hana’s paraphernalia spread out over the hill and stepped towards it. To Hana’s horror, he dropped to his haunches and started shoving it back into the open bag. Oh no! “It’s fine, I’ll get it later,” Hana said, hearing the pathos in her voice.
“No trouble,” the man replied, grunting as he leaned over to reach a roll of sticky tape covered in fluff and grass.
“I need to clear it out,” she said, frantically watching his fingers recover the myriad objects. “It’s not had an on-purpose clear out since...” Since I whacked Tama with it actually. Hana bit her lip. She heard the lipstick clink on the buckle of her wallet as Paul chucked it back into the bag and then the clatter of her keys followed it.
Hana put her hand up over her mouth, not sure whether to laugh or cry as the helpful young man waved her phone at her. He looked amused at the sanitary towel which was stuck to the front of the screen. It was a disgustingly old and fortunately unused sanitary towel, which had been floating around in the bottom of the bag forever. Dusty from the crap in there, bits of goodness-knows-what had glittered its originally pristine white face. At some point, it must have had an individual wrapper, but that was long gone. “Oh, sorry...please, just shove it back in,” Hana’s voice wavered weakly.
The man waggled the phone from side to side, making the pad do a little slap-slap dance, although it didn’t come off. He shrugged and popped it into the bag with all the other stuff. With careful movements he picked up the empty chewing gum wrappers and used tissues between finger and thumb and dumped those in there too. “Littering’s an offence in the gardens,” he said with gravity.
Hana felt humiliated, but at the same time resisted the urge to laugh hysterically and complete the crazy-lady picture. She flapped her left arm at him, silently entreating him to help her all the way up. All it needed for the full effect was to pee her pants on the way to upright. That would be a perfect end to a strange day.
“Here you go then.” Paul helped her up and there was fortunately no leakage. Hana daren’t let out a sigh because it wasn’t over until she got to the toilet block in the pavilion. No way would she venture into the automatic loo again.
“Thank you so much for your help. All the best,” she managed in a strangled voice as Paul waved and trotted off back to his flowerbeds at the bottom of the hill. Hana walked down to the boardwalk around the lake and headed for the toilets. She sorted herself out inside them and tried not to be too cross at the state of the back of her coat and the horrid damp feeling aro
und her bottom from the ground. In a wide hallway, between the toilets and the numerous rooms of the magnificent pavilion stood a glass cabinet filled with the most beautiful carving.
From a distance, it was a myriad of individual characters, fairies, gnomes, birds and butterflies, all making up a wider scene. It was an incredible piece of work. Up close she could see it had been done in sections and joined together in the cabinet, so perfectly formed each part fit with only the smallest gap to betray its secret. Hana didn’t need to read the blurb underneath to know it was created by two separate artists, each putting in hundreds and hundreds of hours of work to produce this faultless piece of art. Their magnificent effort was joined as one huge carved mural, taller than a man and as wide as a room. The trees were intricate and finely worked and some had little faces on them. So much thought and planning had gone into the big picture, ensuring it all fitted together in the end, yet each artist claimed free reign within his or her own parts.
Hana went to pee again and returned to the long row of chairs opposite the mural, filling her eyes with the scene. Maybe the carving offered her the secret to life. She should take all the mixed up, individual parts and fix them together, trusting when she viewed it all from a longer perspective, it might actually look all right. “Don’t worry about where you end up, because someone will be sure to enjoy you,” Hana mused to herself in the empty corridor. She looked at one of the trees which had been given a wise, all-knowing face. Hana loved her first husband with all her heart and never imagined him doing anything to harm her. The frustration was not knowing if he did betray her as he was posthumously accused. She couldn’t ask him. Three hundred and sixty-five days in an average year, Hana allowed Vikram Johal to be entirely sainted, doubting him only once, on the anniversary of his death.
But that one day in which she allowed her fears to burst through did enough damage to last her a lifetime and coloured and jaded all her other relationships. Maybe I need to ignore the cracks, Hana thought to herself. Perhaps I need to stand back so I can’t see them, instead of driving myself insane with prying them open and ruining a perfectly good picture.