Kiwi Strong (New Zealand Ever After Book 3)

by Rosalind James

  I didn’t do that sort of thing. That was letting down your guard, and I did not let down my guard. But somehow, I was. I told the girls, “But you should. Go to University, I mean. You’re going to finish high school, at least. There’ll be heaps to learn, all the things you didn’t know about before. You’ll see.”

  “Maybe you’ll be able to tell us, next time you come to visit,” Honor said, “what the food of the gods is. And you can make that slump thing for me, teach me how,” she told Obedience. “I’ll enjoy that.”

  “I’d love to do that,” Obedience said. “It tastes so much better than alcohol. Truly.”

  “But,” Gray said, “does it taste better than tiramisu?”

  Yes. He’d bought five servings.

  It was a good thing I was wearing a dressing gown.

  18

  Revelation

  Gray

  I shouldn’t have been relaxed. All my problems were still waiting for me back in Dunedin. I was relaxed anyway. How could you not be? They were all just so … funny, and Daisy was so bloody cute in that enormous dressing gown. She ate every bite of her tiramisu, and she sighed over it, too. A woman born for pleasure, if she’d allow herself to drop the discipline and let a man help her feel it.

  I was mulling over that delightful possibility when my mum got up and began gathering pizza boxes, and the girls jumped up with her. And Fruitful choked off a cry and grabbed for the table.

  “What’s wrong?” Daisy asked. “Your ankle?”

  “Yes,” Fruitful said, clearly mortified. “It’s fine. It’ll be fine. I just wrenched it more, maybe, running. To spit out the alcohol.”

  I would’ve taken a look at it, but Daisy was the professional, so I left her to unwrap the bandage and feel around the swollen, bruised flesh, which had turned purple. She said, “You need to be in bed, love, with this elevated, and some more ice on it. Let’s get you up there.”

  She hauled Fruitful to her feet, and I said, “I’ll carry her up.”

  “No,” Fruitful said. “I can walk, with Daisy helping. I can hop.”

  I shouldn’t push it. I knew it. I pushed it anyway. It felt important. “I carried you to the fence just this morning, remember? I can carry you upstairs now, too, save you the pain of hopping with it. That’ll hurt, because you’ll be jarring it, and put more strain on it, too, for no reason.”

  Fruitful didn’t say anything, and Daisy told me, “Your husband’s the only man who’s supposed to touch you.”

  “Oh, for …” I started to say, then stopped myself and asked Daisy instead, “How about you, then? You were married. Has your husband been the only man who’s touched you? Tell them.”

  The color was rising in her cheeks, and both her sisters were looking at her. Mum said, “Gray …” in the sort of despairing tone that means, This is how I raised you? I thought I was right, though, so I ignored Mum and focused on Daisy.

  “No,” she said, “but it’s … sexually …” And then didn’t go on.

  “So tell your sister,” I said, “that a man can touch a woman for a non-sexual purpose, and it’s all right. You know the difference, so tell her that I can carry her upstairs for no reason but to help her, and that a man over thirty-five isn’t attracted to a seventeen-year-old girl anyway, unless there’s something wrong with him. I’m going to have to carry her downstairs in the morning, and lift her into the ute, too, so let’s get it sorted now.”

  Daisy didn’t answer me. Fruitful did. She said, “But a man who’s over thirty-five is attracted to a seventeen-year-old girl. Of course he is. Daisy knows that, because she was sixteen when he married her, too.”

  “When who married her?” I asked.

  “My husband,” Fruitful said. “Daisy’s husband. Gilead.”

  Daisy

  I wanted the tiramisu-eating back, please.

  I was used to being calm under stress. That was my job. That was my life. I’d been calm, or something close to it, escaping from my car. When I’d almost drowned. Why couldn’t I be calm now? Instead, the skin on my arms was tingling, and I was much too hot inside the borrowed dressing gown. I said, “Never mind that. Fruitful, he’s right. Let him carry you upstairs. He did already carry you to the fence, and Dad saw him do it. It’s done.”

  “But if Uncle Aaron tells him where we are,” Fruitful said, “Gilead will … It’ll be worse. You know it’ll be worse.”

  “No,” Gray said, and however relaxed he’d looked earlier, he wasn’t looking that way now. He looked scary again, in fact. “Whatever you’re thinking he’ll do, he won’t. I told your dad to bring it on. I meant it, and he knew it. If this wanker turns up here, I’ll tell him the same thing. And if he does bring it on? I’ll make him sorry.”

  “Which would be wonderful,” I said, “if you were going to be there. Of course he won’t come here. He’d have no idea where we were.”

  “Number plate?” Gray asked.

  I said, “What, they’ve got someone to trace it? All right, not beyond the realm of possibility. But you notice, he hasn’t turned up. And tomorrow, in Dunedin, I’ll be with you, Fruitful. I don’t have a number plate anymore, because I don’t have a car anymore. Silver lining, eh. I have a new name that nobody knows, and so will both of you. I’m untraceable, and Uncle Aaron isn’t going to tell anyway. Why would he? Why would anybody ask him?”

  Fruitful looked down, and I said, “Oh, wait. You said. Somebody said. What exactly did you—they—say?” I had those prickles on my arms again, and I couldn’t get a deep enough breath.

  Gilead had no power over me. He had no power over Fruitful. Not anymore, not unless we gave it to him. A separation, a dissolution two years later, and it would be done, same as it had been for me. He wasn’t living rent-free in my head for one more day. I’d evicted him.

  Gray said, “Whatever she said, whatever Uncle Whoever said, whatever anybody did, just now, Fruitful needs to go upstairs, put her ankle up higher than her heart, take a couple of anti-inflammatories, and get some ice on that bruising. You know that, Daisy, and so do I. These girls are done in, and so are you. The dramas can wait until tomorrow. Now, everybody needs to go to bed.”

  I said, “I so want to say that I’m the nurse here, but as it happens, you’re right. But I’m still not loving your high-handedness.”

  Did he respond gracefully? Of course not. He said, “I know I’m right. I’ve strained and sprained and torn about everything possible in my body about as many times as it’s possible to do it, that’s why. I know what it’s like to have taken all you can take, too. And I’m still not going to pick you up without your permission, Fruitful. I’m going to ask you instead. May I take you upstairs and set you down on the bed so your sister can treat your ankle?”

  Fruitful looked between Gray and me. Obedience had her hand over her mouth. Honor was just looking interested, and possibly pleased. I was opening my mouth to ask how he’d strained and sprained and torn all those bits of him, and then I was closing it again, because now wasn’t the time. Also because if I did, he’d be asking me questions, and he still looked too angry, under the surface. I didn’t trust angry men.

  Going to bed. That was it. Going to bed sounded brilliant.

  When nobody said anything, Honor said, “I can come up along with you, Fruitful, and get you settled. Gray can be a bit hasty, swearing in front of his mum and all, but he’s not going to hurt you. He’s a pretty good fella, take him all in all.”

  “Cheers for the ringing endorsement,” Gray muttered, but she just laughed.

  “OK,” Fruitful said. “But only because I feel stupid now.”

  Gray smiled at her with heaps more sweetness than he’d shown me. “That’s my girl. And no worries about telling the truth. Always better to tell the truth, eh. If a man can’t cope with that, it’s his problem, not yours. Keep that in mind. New rules.” After that, he crouched down, got one arm behind her shoulders and the other under her knees, and told me, “Mum will show you where the icepacks are. Got a
freezer full of them, haven’t I,” and headed up the stairs holding my sister.

  Gently. Carefully.

  If I wasn’t careful, Fruitful was going to fall in love with him.

  If I wasn’t careful, so was I.

  Good thing there was that high-handedness.

  19

  Sparklers

  Gray

  I wanted Daisy to come back downstairs after taking care of Fruitful, so of course she didn’t. Instead, Mum came down alone. I heard her shut the bedroom door behind her, and then her tread on the stairs.

  She didn’t look fussed, but then, I hadn’t expected it. Instead, she asked, “Cup of tea, darling?” As if I brought refugees home with me every day. Weirdly married refugees.

  I said, “You could be tired yourself. Long day, eh.”

  She flapped a hand at me and filled the jug. “Nah. I’ve been working long days for more years than those girls have. Or than you have, for that matter.” Which was true. My mum had raised me by being a cleaner for a Wanaka luxury-holiday-home firm, and working harder than any other cleaner. Now, she organized a whole team of cleaners, and she still got stuck in herself with the hoover and toilet brush when they were shorthanded. Some of my earliest memories were of trailing around after her with a lambswool duster, when she hadn’t been able to afford childcare. Unlike Daisy’s brother, I’d learned early how to clean a house, and what’s more, I’d learned to do it to my mum’s standard.

  If you wouldn’t have wanted your shed full of tracked-in mud and your tools encrusted with dirt and tossed anywhere, why would you want your kitchen that way? No difference.

  Mum handed me the mug of tea and said, “Let’s sit on the couch for a bit. There’ll be a good one tonight, clouds over the mountains and all.”

  I didn’t have to ask what she meant. I knew. The sunset and the dawn—they were my mother’s favorite nature programs. The world’s best entertainment, she’d say, free for the viewing.

  People thought I’d built this house for myself. In reality, I’d probably built it for my mum. She wouldn’t take one from me, or take an easier job, either, but she’d live in this one and tell herself she was caring for it while I was gone, which was close enough. I’d picked a parcel where she could see the mountains and the sky, and I’d built as much glass into it as the framing would bear. No matter where I’d been in the world, I’d known she’d be here watching the dawns, watching the sunsets.

  Comfortable and secure. That was how I’d felt at home as a kid, and it was the least I could do for the person who’d helped me feel that way.

  She wouldn’t take the master bedroom, though, which meant I had a silly bath. Oh, well.

  Beyond us, the light slowly mellowed over the hills and the mountains. The rich blue of the sky morphed into a shade so deep, it was nearly purple, and the rocky peaks began to glow with reflected pink. The colors strengthened, the pink deepened to rose, and my mother sighed.

  Alpenglühen, it was called. Alpenglow. I said, “Your favorite thing. Other than the Southern Lights, maybe.”

  “No, darling,” she said. “Not my favorite thing. That would be you.”

  I put my arm around her and gave her a squeeze, and asked, after a minute, “Were you sorry, when you were younger, about how your life had turned out, the way Daisy is?”

  She didn’t say, “Never,” the way you might expect. The way somebody else’s mum would’ve done. Instead, she said, “At times. Hard days. Hard months, when I had to decide which bill to pay, or when I’d wonder where my youth had disappeared to. I’d have a sulk for a while, a bout of poor-me, then get laughed out of it, I guess. Daisy, though—she didn’t want to be married, and I’m thinking she had a hard time after she left, too. Worked too hard. Worried too much. Me—I had your nan and grandad, the aunties and uncles, and my sisters, too, when I got to see them. Had them on the phone, anyway, didn’t I, to have that laugh with, and I had our survivors’ benefit. I loved your dad, too, as much as I knew what that meant. That made a difference.”

  “My dad was older,” I said. “I didn’t think of that when I said it.”

  She smiled. “Twenty-four and seventeen isn’t so bad, at least it didn’t seem like it to me. Just thought he was exciting, didn’t I. Big and strong, and I liked that. Young girls, eh, but he was more than exciting. He had a kindness to him, underneath. Not in what he said, because God knows he wasn’t much for the cards and flowers. Rough as guts, and didn’t talk much, but he was a worker. Loved his mates, of course, and loved a pint at the end of the day, but he loved a joke, too. I imagine we’d have rubbed along together pretty well, in the end.”

  I’d never known him. He’d died before I was born, before he and Mum had even talked about getting married, as far as I knew. He’d been working as a firie, battling a bad bushfire in South Australia, the Kiwis called in to help their neighbors across the Tasman. He’d been caught, along with three others, by a fire that had jumped the control line. My dad, the biggest of them, had been in the rear, carrying the mate who’d been overcome.

  The other two got out. He didn’t. But when they found the bodies, he was still hanging on to his mate.

  I’d been called brave for nothing more than putting my body on the line to make a tackle, or taking a hit I could see coming. That wasn’t brave. What I did was easy. Or, rather, what I’d done. I wasn’t doing it anymore.

  Mum said, “Daisy could be a bit like your dad, maybe, now I think of it. Got the courage, that’s certain. Protective. Stubborn, too.”

  “You think?” I asked, and Mum laughed.

  “Tell the truth,” I said. “What did you think when I brought her in?”

  “Thought she was about the most shut-down person I’d ever met,” Mum said. “I thought it was shock, nearly drowning, losing the car, which is enough to be going on with, but now, I’m not so sure. She’s bitten off more than she can chew with those girls, I’d say, but I’m guessing I’m wrong again there. She’ll do it right enough, and if anybody comes sniffing around, she’ll send him on his way pretty smartly, too. She’ll have a plan made already, and she’ll cope. She won’t have energy left over for much else.”

  I was quiet a minute, then said, “Warning me off?”

  “No, darling. You’ll choose for yourself, and I wish you would. I reckon there are easier women, though. Both ways around, maybe. Easier on you, and easier on her. Daisy’s going to be fireworks.”

  “I like fireworks.”

  “No,” she said. “You like sparklers. Light them up safely, wave them around a bit, and when they stop sparkling, you’re done. Easy-peasy, no danger of getting burnt. Fireworks? They take care.”

  That was a bit much. I opened my mouth, shut it again, and leaned down to pat the dog. My mum said, “There’s the dog, now. You haven’t even had a dog all this time. And when anybody’s asked, you’ve made a joke about how you weren’t ready.”

  “I’ve never said anything about a dog to anybody,” I said. “I’ve never thought about a dog. I haven’t even thought about this dog.”

  “No,” Mum said. “I meant not ready for the wife.”

  “I didn’t think you’d noticed what I said about the wife. You’ve never mentioned it.”

  She took another sip of tea. “You never asked.”

  I could have said, “I’m not asking now,” but I had, a bit. I’d asked her what she’d thought when she’d met Daisy. I’d opened the door, and Mum had walked straight through it as if she’d been standing out there for years, waiting for it to happen.

  Which, of course, she probably had.

  She said, “Is it the head?”

  It wouldn’t have made sense to anybody else. Unfortunately, it made sense to me. When I’d taken those three-too-many head knocks in a single season, when the symptoms had never cleared and I’d had to retire at thirty, well before I’d been ready to hang up my boots, I hadn’t coped well. You could call it depression, but it hadn’t felt like depression, because I’d done the last thin
g from lying on the couch and moping. I’d set about getting the firm off the ground instead, desperate for something to do, for my life to mean something still. Finding out who I was when I wasn’t an All Black.

  So, no, I hadn’t felt depressed. I’d felt irritated, constantly stuffing down my anger and frustration at every delay, every obstacle. Which was rich, since, first, being a builder is all about delays and obstacles, and second, I should’ve learned to cope with unanticipated roadblocks after ten years in rugby. Injuries and loss of form, coaching changes, and, always, the knowledge that if I didn’t perform, I wouldn’t be selected. That’s what motivates you. The purest meritocracy in the world, being an All Black, and if you don’t find a way to talk and train yourself through the rough spots, you’re not an All Black for long.

  It had been more than the mood, though, after that enforced retirement. There’d been the migraines that had attacked on too many days of the month, then hung around to stay. The vision problems. The vertigo, and more irritability that I’d had to pay attention to all of that, that it was still interfering with my life when all I wanted was to forget about it.

  And above all, the worry about what it could mean.

  Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, it was called. CTE. In other words, the kind of brain damage that didn’t heal. No way to know if you’d done that kind of long-term harm until they sliced your brain apart looking for it, after you’d died too young. Of depression and suicide, or of dementia. And most of all—of despair at hurting the people you loved most, because your inhibitions were gone. Hurting them with your anger, and your violence. The kind they’d never defend themselves against, because you were too big and too strong and too angry.

  No way of knowing, but the symptoms were vision problems. Headaches. Vertigo. Depression. And irritability.