Du Rose Sons

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1

Nothing rivalled the sight of breaking glass; a crashing, glittering parade of beautiful prisms; each one lethally charged with death. The transparent panes of the French doors were aged, placed into the wooden frames by hands long since dead by the time the rugged, red brick passed through their mottled surface. The clay missile fractured the wooden struts and caused two of the panes to hang like a torn curtain. The third shattered spectacularly, showering the room’s single occupant with spiteful shards of glass.

“What was that?” The first ear-splitting sound was followed by a deafening second as the hotel’s elderly housekeeper burst into the family room, her eyes wide and frightened and her ample breasts wobbling under her work shirt. “I was next door. What was that crash?”

The dark skinned Māori approached the woman on the sofa, who sat with her hands over her head as though pinned to the cushions. The housekeeper halted at the sight of the speckling of glass littered in the curly auburn hair and blood on the shaking hands. “Oh my goodness, oh no! Get Mr Logan,” she cried to a waitress who appeared at the heavy door and propped it open with her foot. “Tell him the missus is hurt!”

The face and the foot disappeared. “Hana?” The housekeeper, ngā hāwini, touched the redhead, disturbing the glass which tinkled down onto the sofa cushions and pinged off the wooden rimu floor. “Did you see who did it?”

Auburn hair bounced and the glittering glass shone like diamond dust, beautiful and deadly. “No, it happened too fast.”

The redhead put her right hand up to her face and winced as she contacted a series of tiny open wounds, bleeding steadily and dripping stains onto her white blouse. The elderly book on her knee fell to the floor with a clunk - yet another damaging moment in its long suffering existence. The cover fell over the pages of guilty secrets, hiding them from view.

Another face appeared at the door. “Sal says she’s radioed Mr Logan. He’s on his way. Shall we bring the vacuum cleaner to get up the small bits of glass? Or do you want us to call the cops again?”

The housekeeper pursed her brown lips and gave the matter much thought. “Wait for the boss to get here. He’ll decide. Find me a comb. There’s glass in the missus’ hair. You should bring me the first aid kit from the kitchen too; she’s bleeding.”

“Look, Leslie, I’m fine really. Let’s just clear it all up. There’s no need to bother Logan.” Hana attempted to stand and glass cascaded down like a snow storm. Some of the substantial pieces hit the floor with a tinkle.

The waitress arrived in the doorway with a comb and handed it over to her superior, who took it without thanks. Hana protested futilely as Leslie bustled around her, raking savagely through the coils and ringlets with a small black comb. “Whose comb is it?” Hana protested. “That’s gross!”

“Stop your complaining,” the old woman tutted as numerous tiny shards pierced her fingers in her efforts. Finally she stood back and admired her handiwork. “I think it’s all out,” she announced, her brow creased in concentration and annoyance. “But we’ll need to get your clothes off. Best do it here and we’ll clear up in one go, otherwise youse might track the glass all through the house and then my moko will cut her bare feet.”

Hana sighed and bit her pretty lip as she considered her daughter. At barely eighteen months old, Phoenix Du Rose refused to wear shoes and toddled around the hotel corridors with barefoot enthusiasm. “Fine!” Hana groaned. “But I’m only doing this for Phoe!” Her cheeks pinked with embarrassment as she stripped down to her bra and knickers in the middle of the family room, aware of the hotel full of people nearby.

Leslie slapped Hana’s bottom with a flat palm and chuckled. “Youse still a gorgeous girlie for your years. No wonder that boy can’t keep his hands off you. My Alfie would love me to look like that.”

Hana turned and screwed up her face. “That’s just weird,” she said. “You can’t say things like that about my father-in-law.” Knitted brows communicated Hana’s distaste and Leslie gave a belly laugh, her ample bosom wobbling with glee.

“Youse way too serious, girlie. Now, stop shifting yer feet or there’ll be more cuts to mop up.”

By the time her husband arrived, the slender redhead was wrapped in a large black tablecloth from the dining room, mopping at painful cuts on her cheek and hands with a scratchy corner of the starched fabric. “Geez, Hana!” Logan said in dismay.

“Don’t come in!” Hana turned towards her husband, releasing one porcelain toned hand from the tablecloth to ward him off. “There’s glass everywhere. You’ll walk it out into the hall.”

Logan Du Rose shifted awkwardly in the doorway, the heels of his cowboy boots grinding the glass shards which had spread that far. His olive skinned face betrayed agony at not being able to reach his wife and Hana sensed him reading the distress in her face. She was coping just fine until she saw him, but fought the urge to cry as relief flooded over her. Logan’s six foot four inch frame tensed as he made his decision. “Sod it!” he exclaimed and strode over to his slender wife, bending at the knees as he scooped her up into his arms, tablecloth and all. “Take her socks off,” he ordered the housekeeper, who gently peeled them off Hana’s delicate toes. Glass tinkled everywhere and Hana giggled as Leslie patted gently at her bare feet.

“Where’s Phoe?” Logan asked and the housekeeper replied in Māori. Hana caught the word kai and realised her child was eating without her.

“You should have told me. I didn’t know she’d woken up.”

Leslie smiled. “Little moko is fine. Thank the good Lord you didn’t push her pram down here to choose your book. She would have been hurt.” Leslie formed the sign of the cross on her breast with great reverence.

“I was only going to be a minute.” Guilt flooded through Hana, compounded by maternalism. She left the baby with Leslie in the family dining room, next to the hotel’s enormous industrial kitchen. The wall clock told her it was over half an hour ago. Hana bit her lip, tears prickling behind her eyes. She hadn’t been choosing a book, but trying to find somewhere safe to read the old brown journal in peace. One minute she was engrossed in the crabbed handwriting and the next, woken by glass showering her face. Hana rubbed the back of her hand across her eye and felt the sting as small particles ground in the cuts. She hissed under her breath.

“Shower,” Logan spun on his heels and crunched across the floor with determined steps. He shouldered the fire door open and turned back to Leslie. “Leave the glass and lock the door. Get the cops again. My daughter could have been in here too.”

“My book!” Hana held her hand out, green eyes widening in her face. “I should probably read it after all this trouble.”

Leslie placed the worn journal into her palm, eyeing the tattered fabric cover with fleeting curiosity.

The shower in Logan’s childhood room took a while to warm up as the cold spring water surged through the pipes to the heating element. The hotel was full and the guests had used much of the copious supply earlier, not to mention the post-breakfast washing up in the kitchen. Logan balanced Hana one-armed on his hip in the ensuite, his biceps bulging through his shirt while he ran water over his hand and nodded once, satisfied. He flicked the handle and the water ceased so he could lower his wife and her shroud into the cubicle. Hana kept her arms wrapped tightly round his neck, resisting as Logan tried to release her onto her feet. She nuzzled at the skin under his jaw. “Mmnn, you smell of horse.”

Logan laughed, a deep, gorgeous sound that reminded Hana of the mountains and she sighed, noticing the tiny fragments of glass on his shirt. “You’re covered now!” She smiled with mischief in her eyes, putting her feet down and hauling her husband into the shower. “You have to get undressed in here too.”

Logan narrowed his grey eyes and gave his wife a sultry look. “I was actually in the middle of something important.”

“Drenching horses isn’t as important as me.” Hana bit her lip, tears of shock threatening again in her pretence at bravado. Logan saw and took his cowboy boots off in the wet shower tray, rubbing the soles on his jeans to release the clinging shards. Then he threw them out of the cubicle and closed the glass door, trapping his body close to Hana’s.

“Drenching’s important if you’re the horse.”

He peeled the tablecloth gently away from Hana’s body and let it drop, running his fingers over her cold shoulders and up underneath the fiery coils of hair at the back of her neck. Hana shuddered with relief as he bent to kiss her, tasting the remnants of chewing gum on his lips and allowing herself to feel safe.

****