Du Rose Sons

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“It’s fine now, I often puke when I’m stressed.” Hana continued to slot Phoenix into the car seat, ignoring the scent of Marmite still on her breath. It was surprisingly easier than pretending Leslie wasn’t standing over her, watching her every move. “Does Logan know you’re ‘stressed’ enough to vomit in front of two cops?”

“We’re all stressed, Leslie. Someone’s damaging our property and trying to cause us expense and misery and it’s working!” Hana’s patience diminished as another wave of nausea threatened. “I just need to go home and put Phoe to bed. I’ll be ok.”

“Stay here,” Leslie urged. “Logan’s room is always free and you’ve got clothes there. I’ve told the girls to put your other clothes in a bin bag and they’ve managed to get all the glass out of the shower. I’ll look after my mokopuna and you can rest for a little while. Seeing as you’re not sleeping so good...” The old lady narrowed her eyes at Hana, keen to play along with the charade for now.

Hana felt tears brimming again, joining with the sickness to make her utterly miserable. She raised her eyes up to the clear blue, winter sky to stop the leakage and found Leslie’s strong brown arm around her shoulders. Sniffing, Hana placed the keys into Leslie’s outstretched palm and went to the passenger side, climbing into the high utility vehicle and struggling to close the door. By the time Leslie had launched her elderly body into the driver’s seat, Hana’s cheeks were already wet.

“Mum, mum, mum,” came Phoenix’s tired voice as the engine started and her eyes closed as if by magic.

Leslie spun the big vehicle round with skill, pointing it towards the sweeping drive but hanging a precarious left onto a small road that wound up through the colourful New Zealand bush. Despite the winter, hues of natural green dominated the native growth which seemed unperturbed by the cold temperatures. The road was sound, tar covered and metalled with the familiar grey chips. Logan had made sure that access from the house deep in the bush would be easy.

“Christian conference.” Leslie’s gentle voice cut across Hana’s rambling thoughts. Her hazel eyes locked onto Hana’s deep green ones with a knowing look. “Last night’s guests. They used the ball room for a Christian conference. They were nice people. None of them would have aimed a brick at a glass door with someone sat right behind it. Hell, they wouldn’t have known where to find a brick!”

“We know it wasn’t them.” Hana’s comment had an edge of exhaustion to it, causing Leslie to raise her eyebrows in concern.

“Promise me it’s not your heart again?” the old lady begged, referring to the massive heart attack Hana had suffered almost a year ago. The vehicle swerved as Leslie looked pointedly at Hana and took her eyes off the road too long.

“Careful!” Hana grew annoyed. “It’s not my heart, at least, it wasn’t!” She bit her lip and looked out of the window at the passing bush, the weight of the world pressing down on her shoulders.

Leslie drove up the mountain road in silence and Hana used the welcome relief to try and process her own thoughts. But ten minutes was not long enough to even get beyond planning that night’s dinner and they arrived at the metal farm gate far too quickly. Leslie hauled her body out of the ute to open the gate and then drove the vehicle through, leaving it open behind them.

Hana’s home was new and stylishly constructed. Logan had designed it in his head throughout his childhood and commissioned the build after their wedding. It was completed whilst the couple travelled in Europe on a belated honeymoon and Hana returned to New Zealand and moved in, enjoying the newness of the house amidst its ancient surroundings. Leslie rolled the truck under the covered porch adjoining the hardwood front doors and Hana hopped out and walked back along the drive to close the gate. She lingered for a moment by the old kauri tree which stood guard over the land, studying the list of Du Rose names inscribed in its elderly bark.

From this angle the house looked stunning. Long and low, it occupied a third of a green paddock covered in lush, sweet grass. Logan intended to landscape it into gardens but since they had been home, work on the hotel and farm, in addition to the merging of their property with his half-brother’s, had demanded all his time. Hana quite liked it as it was, natural and unspoiled by human hands. Behind the house, a railed metal fence prevented their baby daughter falling over the sheer cliff which faced west, the wide expanse of the Tasman Sea and Port Waikato below. Hana closed her eyes and remembered her first visit here. Logan had carried an entire picnic in his saddle blanket and shyly showed her this land, left to him by his paternal grandmother. In her will, she told him to ‘build a house’ and he had. But the physical structure was only a representation of the strong family and subsequent legacy that he struggled to birth, from the ruins of the Du Rose name.

The roof of the house was constructed from dark brown concrete tile which muffled the sound of the driving rain that often came at night. Dark brick and tinted windows protected the interior from the baking sun, although Hana had missed this year’s New Zealand summer, swapping it for an English winter. Inside, the house was full of wide open spaces and skylights which allowed plenty of light in. Hana loved it.

In the noisy bushland outside the gate, an old tui bird cackled and trilled high up in the branches of the kauri. Hana shielded her eyes with her hand and stared up through the canopy, blinded by sunlight as the winter clouds parted and dazzling rays peeked through. Hana’s eyes watered and she stepped back involuntarily, staggering over a tree root. Strong hands gripped her upper arms and through her sun-induced-tears, Hana saw Leslie’s hazy silhouette.

“Careful girl!” she exclaimed, supporting Hana’s slight frame as the younger woman mopped at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. “Please tell me what’s wrong?” The old lady’s voice sounded agonised as she shook Hana slightly, her fingers digging into the delicate flesh and feeling bone.

Hana exhaled heavily. “I’m pregnant!”

Leslie’s mouth dropped, giving her the appearance of a gaping trout and she let go of Hana abruptly. “Pregnant, again?”

Anger filled Hana’s throat as her long-buried redheaded temper flared unexpectedly at her mother-in-law’s reaction. “Yes, again! Pregnant at forty-seven. Don’t you think I know how disgusting everyone will find it? I’m a grandmother and I’m expecting a baby. It’s hideous, I’m hideous!”

Hana put both hands over her face and felt hot tears course down her cheeks. How could I say that? Is that really what I think? Guilt compounded her misery and she redirected her anger at herself. She had made it sound as though she didn’t want her baby, when in reality it was fear that consumed her. Hana had known for weeks what was wrong. Visiting her grown up son in Hamilton on her return from overseas, she called in on her old doctor on the off chance, hoping to find medication for the niggling stomach upset that didn’t seem to want to go away. “I think I caught something when we were in Paris,” she said, blissfully ignorant.

“You certainly did!” he laughed, holding up the vibrant yellow urine sample and waving the tell-tale stick at her.

Leslie’s arms were comfortingly strong as she wrapped them around Hana and the younger woman sighed and leaned into her. “Don’t you ever say that about yourself!” Leslie chided. “You’re beautiful and if I hear you call yourself hideous again, I will beat your ass all the way down that driveway to the bottom of the mountain and back up again!” The old lady sounded fierce and Hana didn’t doubt she meant every word. “Logan must be thrilled!” she said, adding another hefty squeeze. “No wonder he was so tender with youse this morning, carrying you up the stairs and all...” Her voice tailed off at the look on Hana’s face.

“Don’t start! I keep meaning to tell him and then something else happens. Why do you think I came down to the hotel this morning? He left so early and I thought I might catch him at morning tea and then the window broke.”

“He doesn’t know?” Leslie looked and sounded appalled. “Well you better get a move on girlie. He ain’t gonna be too happy when you’ve got a belly out here and...” Her jaw dropped again as she seized Hana’s over large sweater hem in both hands and pulled upwards, ignoring the hands that tried to slap hers. “Oh good Lord! You do have a belly out here! How pregnant are you girl?”

“Mind your own business!” Hana’s retort was sharp as she wrenched the material out of Leslie’s hands and hauled it back over her protruding stomach. Her stretching skin felt taut and paper thin under her shaking fingers.

“How does your husband not notice a belly like that? Him what’s all doey eyed over you.”

“Well you didn’t notice when I had to strip off to my underwear.” Hana stuck her nose in the air triumphantly.

“I was more worried about all the glass over you, girlie. I weren’t checking you out. But your husband can’t keep his eyes off you. I dunno how he’s missed that one right under his kanekane.”

“I distract him,” Hana admitted, the coyness of her face disappearing back under the mask of rage as Leslie chuckled wickedly.

“Obviously!”

Hana squared her shoulders and tried to regain her composure, strutting back up her driveway at speed. She could hear her mother-in-law wheezing as her blancmange body struggled to keep up. Back at the car, Hana rounded on her, “I’ll put Phoe to bed and then you can take the truck back down to the hotel. I’ll text Logan and ask him to bring it back up later on.”

“You ain’t getting rid of me that fast, young lady. Not unless you want me to get on the radio and send your husband straight up here. I’ll put my moko to bed and you put the jug on. I’m gonna need a strong coffee in front of me for the details of this one!”

Phoenix’s dark curls bobbed on her head as she lay sprawled over Leslie’s shoulder. The septuagenarian’s buttocks wobbled from side to side on her meaty legs as she negotiated the wide hallway down to the little girl’s room. Hana stood in the kitchen on the other side of the house and watched the aqua water moving around in the distant seascape. There wasn’t an ounce of blood between Leslie and Phoenix and yet the woman had adopted her as her own grandchild from the start, fiercely coveting time with the baby. Logan’s own mother had died the night before Phoenix made her traumatic entrance into the world, birthed under the old kauri tree at the top of the drive, early but determined to thrive. Miriam Du Rose had walked into a house fire deliberately, intending to die with her lover, Reuben Du Rose, Logan’s birth father. Her death was a terrible shock, not least to her husband of almost fifty years, Alfred, but also to Logan, who had no idea that his uncle was his father.

Leslie humphed as she came into the enormous room and bustled over to the kettle. “You didn’t even fill it up,” she chuntered at Hana but the other woman remained lost in her own thoughts.

“Sorry.”

Leslie fiddled around with the kettle and found some mugs, preparing the drinks wordlessly, perhaps understanding that Hana was miles away with her problems. Plonking the steaming drinks down on the centre island, she seized Hana’s arm and forced her to sit down on one of the fancy bar stools lined up underneath the counter. Hana sat obediently but pushed the coffee mug away from her, pulling a face. Leslie smirked. “So obviously, you must be just inside the first trimester, seeing as you threw up at the house and can’t drink coffee,” Leslie looked pleased with her deductions. “How come you’re showing so big though?”

Hana pulled a face and ran her hand over her eyes. Leslie sipped her drink and Hana could almost hear her brain calculating. “So when did you fall pregnant then? When you got home?”

Hana shook her head. “No. It happened in Paris. I know when it was.”

Leslie’s aged face appeared even more wrinkled as she screwed it up to concentrate. “But you were in Paris in April and it’s almost the end of July. That can’t be right. You’re not...three months gone, are you?”

“Worse,” Hana let out a huge sigh. “I’m getting on for four and I still haven’t told my husband.”

Leslie’s eyes bugged in her head and then she tried to disguise her misgivings, “Aw honey, what’s the worst he can say?”