The Last Guests

by J. P. Pomare

  ‘When summer comes around, I’ll be fully booked with work, but until then …’

  Just a touch optimistic. Last summer, he raced to get the business started in time for all the ‘resolutionists’ who sign up for boot camps after Christmas. ‘Then,’ he had told me, ‘it’s just a matter of locking them into contracts.’ If only it had been that simple. His point of sale system malfunctioned, the website had the wrong phone number and for myriad other invisible reasons it never took off like he anticipated. I’d even helped him with his emails and booking in clients.

  In the months after he returned from Afghanistan, Cain had occasional speaking gigs for office workers, politicians, sports teams and schools. He had been in the newspapers, on the morning shows. Still walking with a crutch, bruised and bandaged, but alive. A survivor. This was before the war had soured like old milk in the public’s mouth. Before the inquest. Cain and Axel had been there when Skelton slaughtered that family. I’d never got the full story from Cain – he closed up whenever I tried to talk about it – but the media stories made it clear what had happened.

  Axel had said with Cain’s profile and experience he would have clients on a waiting list. He’d said Cain could take large classes. Given the fact he’d basically talked Cain into starting the business, it’s no wonder he props Commando Fitness up financially now.

  ‘Remember our promise, Cain. No new secrets?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Why do you mention that now?’

  I pause, swallow. ‘I think you’ve kept a couple of things from me. I’ve never asked about your nightmares, about your time in the unit, but I know you’re not yourself lately. I need you to tell me if your business is struggling.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean you’ve stopped paying Axel rent. I mean you never seem to be training anyone and Claire told me Axel wants to give you money to help us out.’

  A flash of anger sweeps across his face. ‘Axel insisted I use his space rent free until I’m turning a profit. If he had an issue, he would mention it.’

  Maybe, I realise now, it’s Claire who has the issue. Maybe Claire thinks Cain is taking Axel for a ride. ‘Sounds like he’s doing us a favour.’

  ‘It costs him nothing.’

  ‘Except it’s costing him customers. Why did you snap at someone there? That’s not you, Cain.’

  He clicks his tongue, his cheeks have a hint of colour. He’s keeping secrets from me. ‘Claire shouldn’t have said anything. I feel like a leech. Of course I’m going to pay Axel, when things pick up. That’s all it is.’ He heaves out a sigh.

  ‘And the nightmares?’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘It’s not, you’re not yourself.’

  He swallows. ‘It happens sometimes. I remember things from over there. Same old crap.’

  I can’t say why, but I’m not sure if I believe him entirely. I need him to talk about it, to squeeze out the poison so he can move on, so he can get his business on track and start to feel good about himself again.

  ‘I’m always here to talk about it with you.’

  He shakes his head.

  I step closer now, rest a hand on his shoulder. Even seated in his office chair, he’s almost as tall as me. ‘Alright. Show me the listing.’ Maybe it will be good for him, good for us. Maybe by giving him this, it will take some of the guilt from last night away. ‘I’m not saying yes yet, I just want to see it.’

  ‘If we try it just once or twice and you’re uncomfortable, we can take it down. No questions asked.’

  ‘Sure.’

  He swivels back to look at the screen and brings up the browser. There are photos, a long description of the house with a set of rules, a check-in time, amenities.

  ‘Sleeps seven?’ I say.

  ‘Two queens, the bunks and the couch.’

  ‘The couch?’ I ask. ‘No one wants to sleep on that old thing. Change it to six. The bunkroom gets a cool draught from the ladder too.’ Grandpa had built the ladder so I could rush up and down between my room and the rumpus room but it always let the cool air in over winter.

  His head tilts. ‘Okay.’

  ‘You did all this yourself today?’

  ‘I managed to figure it out. Used old photos,’ he says. ‘I’m thinking two-fifty a night, plus cleaning. It’s cheaper than most of the other places in the area.’

  I recall one of the last times we were down there. Cain had taken me to a spot near the lake house where teenagers jump from a tree hanging over the water. Despite all those years with Grandpa and Grandma on the lake, I’d never known of it. The tree looked half rotted, treacherous. Cain leapt first into the blue–green depths of Lake Tarawera, then I’d climbed up the ladder, out onto the branch. Every time I looked down, my legs began to tremble, my gut became an icy soup. It was ten metres but it felt like hundreds. I knew the easy thing was to jump, to let myself spear through the humid air into the water. It would be easier than climbing back down but instead I just squeezed that branch beneath me, my body tense. This feels a little like that now. I know it’s safe, I know it would only take a small commitment from me – acquiescence, a loosening of my grip. Cain would handle it all, but like that moment before my fingers came away from the soft bark and I plummeted, I draw a breath.

  ‘Alright.’ I exhale. ‘Let’s do it. Push it live.’

  He tilts his head back, looks up at me. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Go, before I change my mind.’

  I watch as he activates the listing, opens up all the dates on the calendar to ‘Available’ and clicks ‘Save’.

  ‘Done,’ he says, taking his hands from the mouse and keyboard, gripping my own where they sit on his shoulders.

  ‘You did good with the listing, Cain. Might have found your calling.’

  Casa Tarawera: Mid-century retreat on Lake Tarawera.

  Two hundred and fifty dollars a night and one hundred for cleaning.

  ‘Anyone can book it as early as next weekend.’

  ‘And what will we do if someone does?’

  ‘I will race down, get it all set up. We need a new lock, new sheet sets, a few other bits and pieces.’ He pauses, lets out a yawn. ‘Bit of paint, tidy the lawns up. Also, the old stereo could do with an update.’

  This all sounds like more money wasted.

  As if reading my mind, he adds, ‘We’ve got room on the credit card, and it will pay for itself after one booking.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘You win.’ My hand slides down his chest, and I place my lips on his neck, kissing softly. It has the desired effect. He turns, pulls me down, his hand working the buttons of my top. I slide onto him. It’s quick. Methodical, even. I do exactly what I know works for him. After last night with Daniel, I could almost cry but I want this. I want my husband.

  ‘You’re not into it,’ he breathes.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I am.’ I turn back to him, half-close my eyes and exhale, with the hint of a groan. ‘Keep going,’ I whisper. He’s right, I’m not into it. I’m somewhere else entirely but it has to be this way.

  I’m thinking about the lake house, about WeStay. I can’t take back my permission now and it does assuage a little of the guilt to do something that clearly means a lot to him. There’s so much history in that house, but its old closets have skeletons too. No one is perfect, least of all me. I’d said no new secrets, but sometimes we need to do things to keep each other safe, to keep the relationship well-greased. The tension in his body loosens beneath me, his hands slide down my back and he seems to fold against my body. He kisses the back of my neck.

  Some things we simply can’t share, address or talk about. They just happen and we move on. Silent but knowing. That’s the key, I think now, to a long and happy marriage.

  FOUR

  THE TRAILER WE hired rattles behind the car as Cain takes a bend. He’s the better driver. If better equals safer, not faster. Ambulance officers are all fast drivers; the best are very fast. Cain seems to enjoy it on the open road ou
t here. Never aggressive or racing to pass the handful of campervans we see on the trip down. He’s like me, made for small towns, a rural transplant in the city. He’s generous with a courtesy beep and a small wave when cars give way to him.

  As I watch the world passing by outside, I think about the last seven days. Slowly but surely, I’ve managed to enclose the memory of that night with Daniel in mental scar tissue, partitioned off from the rest of me like the shrapnel in Cain’s body. Now and then, the pain of the guilt returns, but it’s never as sharp as the last time and eventually it will blunt to a dull ache I can live with. There is just one bridge left to cross. My ring and my necklace. What if that man, Daniel, has them? The ring belonged to Cain’s mother – it’s one of a kind. I check the rattling trailer in the rear-view mirror, then scan the scene through the window.

  ‘Every view is a postcard,’ my grandpa used to say of this country. Beneath an unblemished sky, it’s all rich New Zealand green fields and name-on-a-map towns. Each with a corner pub, a bakery and a cafe. Some towns have gimmicks – sheets of corrugated iron bent and bolted to form gumboots or farm animals, a fence of jandals, or murals painted on every wall. This nation has always been obsessed with character and without something to distinguish it, a town out here might simply cease to exist. Every view is a postcard, and Grandpa chose one of the best views to set up his life. The picture-perfect isolation of Lake Tarawera.

  After a couple of hours driving, we begin to see the steam of Rotorua. It crawls out of drains and sweeps across the roads. It rises up out of the muddy pits of Kuirau park. Rotorua’s appeal can’t be simply replicated with a few sheets of iron or by tethering jandals, bras, hats or beer bottles to an otherwise naked fence. It’s geothermal. It’s volcanic. The tourists say the smell is rotten eggs, but to me it’s richer than that, earthy with an ammoniac sting. Cain steers us the long way around Lake Rotorua out near where he grew up as a kid. The sun is high, and the lake is flat, jewelled with sunlight. I spy that knuckle of land, Mokoia Island, at the centre of the lake as Cain slows down to pass over a narrow bridge where a river feeds the lake. Boys are lined up in the sun, looking down at the water, their brown skin glistening.

  Cain indicates, pulls over into the gravel at the road’s edge.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Quick dip,’ he says, reaching for his towel on the back seat.

  He peels his t-shirt off, places his hei matau, an intricate fishhook of Pounamu greenstone he wears around his neck, on the dashboard and climbs out of the car. He starts back towards the bridge, leaving his towel on the boot. I move my thumb to roll my wedding ring around my finger and remember it’s missing.

  I watch the boys. One turns, nudges the others then they’re all watching Cain, grins lighting up their faces, eyebrows rising. The constellation of scars, the coils of traditional tattoos spilling down over his shoulder to his forearm, his Tā moko, it’s all on display.

  I quickly download the dating app again and sign in with my fake credentials.

  Looking up, I see Cain climbing the rail of the bridge with the ease of a professional wrestler preparing for an aerial manoeuvre. He leaps as best he can with his knee, takes flight for a moment, suspended at the peak of his arc then he’s falling. The splash reaches up over the rail and the boys collectively hunch away from the spray.

  Right then my phone chimes. It’s a message on the app. A bubble rises up from my chest and settles in my throat.

  I’ve got something for you.

  I knew it. Dread washes over me as my eyes dart back up to the bridge, searching for Cain. The message is oddly cold. He has my ring and my necklace. I must have left them at the house.

  Cain emerges at the river’s edge, starts back towards the car. Walking just a hint taller now. The kids adequately impressed.

  I delete my photo from the profile, but I can’t close the account yet – I will need to contact him to get my ring back. Cain approaches. I delete the app and lock the phone, shoving it in the glove box. It was supposed to be one night. Traceless and perfect. I could always take down the profile and sever the tie. As soon as the thought comes, I realise how heedless it is. It was Cain’s mother’s ring; I can’t just lose it. But the idea of having to see Daniel again twists my stomach.

  Cain towels off and climbs back in.

  ‘They’re happy,’ I say, nodding towards the boys.

  He turns to me with that crooked smile. ‘Just needed to cool down.’ He screws a corner of the towel into his ear. One eye is closed, the other is watching me. ‘Are you alright?’ he says. ‘You look pale.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Just exhausted.’ I try to smile, but my cheeks ache.

  He drives again, now with his shirt off, the towel around his waist. Soon enough, we’re rolling past the other smaller lakes until we reach Lake Tarawera. I look out at the cliff over the water where all of the trees have grown back over the years, a steel rail has been installed.

  I know we are close as we pass the blue letterbox at the end of the road on the eastern side. When I used to run these roads, I always knew I was about five hundred metres from home here and, if I had the energy, I’d pick up the pace. We come to the opening of our driveway, pulling in between the trees down the familiar gravel track to the house. It’s always the same when we arrive these days. Silence, climbing from the car gingerly as if stepping into a graveyard. We were here the day we lost the baby. The blood. The pain. Knowing. All that trying, all that money, then emptiness. The trees all around, as green as a rainforest and as wet and thick. That’s the thing with this country – even the best photos of the view miss the smell, the air. Even here, only twenty kilometres out of Rotorua in the middle of native bush, far from the beaches, glaciers and southern mountain ranges, the air has such a distinct feel in your mouth, clean and wet. Like a palate cleanser.

  Opening the door, the dusty house breathes. Memories flood me. My grandma making banana pancakes, getting to the end of a summer-long 5000-piece jigsaw puzzle to find it was actually only 4999 pieces. Grandpa’s laughter as we searched for that final piece and never found it. There’s a magic room hidden from view where all the lost socks, remotes, jigsaw pieces are tucked away. Somewhere in the house no one can find. For everything else you can check the basement, the shoebox of old keys, remotes and batteries under the workbench.

  ‘How long has it been?’ Cain says. ‘A couple of months?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Longer than that.’ I step inside and everything is preserved just how it was. No break-ins, no fruit left out rotting on the kitchen bench or trees fallen through the new tiled roof. I run my eyes up the dividing wall between the kitchen and the lounge, counting back the years marked by all those colourful notches.

  Cain returns to the car and backs the trailer up close to the house. I watch him from the kitchen window for a while as he crosses the yard carrying fallen tree limbs in his gloved hands to load up the trailer. He pulls a mossy car tyre attached to two feet of decomposing rope from shin-length grass. He looks up, sees the other end of the rope tied around a limb of the tree at the lake’s edge. He holds it up. ‘Do we still need this?’

  I smile, then he heaves it into the trailer.

  I step outside now. ‘Want help?’ I call.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘I’m basically done out here, just need to mow the lawn, but I might wait for the grass to dry fully.’

  The property is its own world. All you can see is the lake, the mountains across the other side and untamed native bush. So isolated, so private. Invisible to the rest of the world.

  Cain carries a box up the steps to the front door, with its faded red paint. He crouches down and removes the old lock and then sands the whole door down, wiping the wood smooth with a cloth after each stroke. He then retrieves a small tin of paint from the box and pops its lid open to reveal a dark liquid. I just lean against the balustrade and watch as he rolls the black gloss up the door. I’d resisted this but against the stained timber of the house, the r
esult is striking. He has a good eye, I’ll give him that much.

  ‘Is there a blow dryer here?’

  ‘In the bathroom.’

  He disappears to grab it, then dries the area around the lock before he installs the new one he’d picked up at the hardware store. We’ve changed the locks before. After the police had kicked the squatter out, we’d driven down and found food still in the fridge and one of the beds looked slept in. Cain took to calling the squatter Goldilocks. He changed the front door lock and installed deadbolts on the other doors. Now, just two years later, he’s installing another.

  The lock is a smart lock. We can change the passcode from anywhere in the world provided we have an internet connection. He’s also bought white paint from the hardware store to touch up the walls, and stain for the back deck that he’d built the summer he returned from Afghanistan, when we decided it was time to start a family and move down.

  He’s testing the new lock out now; it’s shiny black like a giant beetle halfway up the door.

  He doesn’t bother fixing the back door, a jammy old thing that scrapes when you close it. We need only one lock to get in, then guests can open the other doors from the inside, and with a digital lock we never need to worry about lost keys.

  I fill a teacup with hot water and watch him as the tea steeps. His shirt off again in the warmth of the early spring sun. He’s sweeping away woodchips from around the door.

  ‘It looks great,’ I say, outside. I step back and gaze out over the lake, take a mouthful of tea. ‘I was thinking about getting some wine to leave for guests, what do you think?’

  ‘As a gift?’

  ‘Yeah, a welcome package. Wine, a nice bar of soap and maybe a candle.’

  His dark eyebrows rise. ‘Sounds like a waste of money.’

  Unlike your fancy new lock.

  ‘I read online that it’ll help us to get good ratings and more bookings. So we could eventually charge more.’

  A short nod, a thoughtful hmm. ‘Okay. Good idea.’

  I tip the last of my tea back and set my cup down on the porch. ‘What can I help with?’