Du Rose Sons

Chapter 1-2

“YOU SAW AND HEARD NOTHING, Mrs Du Rose? You didn’t hear anyone run up to the doors and throw the brick, or see movement through the corner of your eye? You were sitting side-on to the doors, you said, which is why the cuts are all on the right side of your body?”

Hana sighed audibly. She felt under interrogation. The South Auckland policemen were battle weary, suspicious of everyone and everything and she began to think they didn’t believe her. “I sat down with the book and got distracted. I think I nodded off,” she began, interrupted instantly by the jaded blond cop.

“You nodded off! But the call came at just after ten o’clock this morning.”

Hana glanced fearfully across at Leslie, whom Logan drafted in to sit with his wife during her statement taking. His head stockman had called him with another problem and he left with an apology, nominating the housekeeper as his replacement. The wise old lady’s eyes bore knowingly into Hana’s and she quailed and heard herself gulp. “I didn’t sleep too well last night,” she ventured, watching Leslie out of the corner of her eye. “I think I’m probably still out of sync after our trip home from Europe. With all the worry about what’s been happening around the property lately, it’s affected my sleep patterns.”

Hana picked at a knot on the massive wooden dining table, which generations of Du Roses had eaten over, argued over and smacked the snot out of each other over. It had probably seen its fair share of the other kind of passion too and Hana put her cut hands back underneath the table. She heard the clank of metal pans in the kitchen next door. Phoenix sat in her high chair, still eating and learning to make an art form out of it. Her father’s grey eyes fixed on her mother’s face and twinkled as she beamed, displaying her tiny, pearly teeth. The little girl waved her third piece of Marmite splattered toast at her mother and giggled. Hana focussed on the brown streaks on the child’s lips and face and felt bile rising up into her gullet, accompanied by the familiar surge in her stomach. Phoenix’s teeth look like marbled stalagmites. Hana kept her breathing shallow and smiled back at her daughter, whilst deliberately distracting herself with the sound of cars crunching in the gravel at the front of the hotel as guests came and went. The policeman’s eyes were on her and she blanched. “Sorry, was there another question?”

Hana glanced across at Leslie, finding the older woman studying her, much as a butterfly collector inspects his pinned bugs. Leslie’s once black hair was white at the front, receding into grey towards the tight bun which she restrained her long tresses in. Her olive skin had wrinkled over time and her body spread into an A-line shape like a Christmas tree. But her hazel eyes held all the sparkle of youth, revived through her recent marriage to Logan’s elderly father, Alfred. Hana smirked at the memory of Logan’s disgusted face when the old folk’s coupling was mentioned. She wiped it quickly off when Leslie narrowed her eyes and jerked her head towards the policeman. “Sorry, what did you say?” Hana struggled to recover and turned her body towards the policeman’s growing annoyance.

“I asked if you thought whoever threw the brick, knew you were in the room.”

Marmite. Brown, streaky Marmite.

“I honestly don’t know.”

Bored with her late snack, Phoenix entertained herself making finger pictures on the surface of the high chair. Hana’s senses went on red alert as the scent of the awful brown stuff invaded her nostrils and Leslie watched with curiosity, as Hana’s face went from white to pink and back to white again.

Hana just made it to the dustbin in the corner, ripping the lid off and sticking her face into the massive black bin bag inside. The remnants of the stockmen’s breakfast; bacon, eggs and fried bread, stared back at her and finished the last of her resolve. She threw up spectacularly - mimicked by her daughter who copied the noise - and watched by two policemen and her mother-in-law.