by K T Bowes
Ivan and Anka sat together in the pews and Hana slid in next to them. Ivan stuck close to his wife, but Hana sensed the vibes of his animosity across the short distance. He still held her culpable and it stank of unfairness.
“How’s that grandson of yours?” Pastor Allen asked after the service and Hana cringed.
“Sorry for the vomit on the carpet.” She glanced around, trying to locate the offending patch.
“Don’t worry about it.” Allen waved an arm. “Five minutes of work.” He jerked his head towards Ivan’s back. “You okay? That looked uncomfortable.”
Hana sighed. “If you noticed it from the pulpit, it must be obvious. He blames me for not telling him, which is unfair as I only found out the day before she left.”
Allen squeezed her shoulder. “We often look for others to blame when we don’t wish to look in the mirror.”
Hana gaped, the parallel with her own marriage striking. She swallowed and closed her mouth with a snap. Allen slipped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close, a smirk playing on his lips.
At Culver’s Cottage, Logan finished the skirting board and stood back to admire his work. He heard Hana in the garage and walked down the stairs to meet her. “Come and see,” he said, excitement budding in his chest. He glowed with satisfaction and exuded an infectious enthusiasm, dragging her to the bedroom by the hand.
“It looks perfect.” Hana’s hand strayed to her abdomen and she allowed herself a flicker of optimism.
“Please can I borrow the car?” Logan asked. “The shop owner is holding a blind for the window. I needed to measure it first. I’ll nip and pick it up.”
Hana nodded and continued to look around the room. She allowed herself to imagine it containing a cot and rocking chair, creating an idyllic nursery in her mind. Reality crowded in and she shook the image away. “That’s fine,” she said. “Want me to come?”
“Na, I won’t take long.” Logan kissed her forehead and borrowed the car keys, setting off for Huntly with a grin on his face.
He returned from the hardware store with a set of wooden slatted window blinds, a large rectangular cream rug and a chandelier style shade for the central bulb. Despite the dullness of the winter’s day, the room glittered and sparkled with texture and light by the time he finished. Hope dared to burgeon in Hana’s heart and she went to bed that night with an easier spirit.
As they left for work the next morning, Logan’s mobile phone trilled. He stopped half way down the back steps to the garage and swore. “I’ll come,” he said, dragging on his wellingtons instead of his cowboy boots. His face creased with concern and he pressed the button on the wall to raise the garage door. “Stay here,” he told Hana, his tone firm. “Don’t come outside.”
“Why?” she demanded, curiosity flourishing in place of fear. As the garage door finished rising, the house filled with the sound of a commotion.
Hana ignored Logan’s instruction, rebelling against him telling her what to do. She edged up the slope and followed him around the side of the house. The noise grew louder, dividing into individual sounds of distress. A drum tattoo began in her heart and she should have returned to the safety of the house. Instead, she pressed on.
Logan ran up the slope and vaulted the post and rail fence, pausing long enough to get his balance on the top rail. Following it, he found a corner post and stood on it, waving his arms to someone further off. Hana gasped at the sight of over a hundred milling, distressed Friesian cows. They pushed and shoved in their efforts to escape a giant, hairy bull. It clambered up the side of the gully, snorting and lowing as it nosed the back fence out of its way. Hana heard the twang of barbed wire under tension as it snapped and rolled free. The bull kicked and bucked, its legs pinioned by the wire.
A few hefty stamps and the boundary posts collapsed, giving a dull thud as powerful horns knocked them asunder. A post on the bush line stuck up like a broken finger. The cows increased their panicked lowing and barged the back fence to the house. Logan wobbled on his post and shouted at them, waving his arms and seeing them veer away like a tidal wave.
Hana heard the quad and the motorbike before she saw them. Maihi rode the quad in a standing position, a shotgun waving in her hand. Supporting its weight involved the whole of her left arm and concentration darkened her expression. Hemi tore ahead on the motorbike, negotiating his way through broken wire and shattered wood. He made a beeline for Logan, navigating the cows which dived aside.
Hana’s gaze moved to a single cow leaning against the garden fence. The rails shook with the trembling of its body. It stood prone and rigid, its eyes staring and black. Instinct told Hana why it strained, the muscles along its spine tense and bunched. Liquid dribbled from its snout like a line of wallpaper paste. “No!” Her shriek made Logan turn. His expression clouded with anger and he opened his mouth to rebuke her.
Hana’s heels dug into the soft grass as she pointed towards the cow. Her finger shook. Logan’s swearwords reached her ears like nails on a blackboard. The tiny, breathless body of a calf slipped to the ground with a small thud. Dead before its furry body slid into the grass, it represented the most hopeless thing Hana had ever seen and her heart broke. Its dam moved towards it and licked the lifeless body without effect. The baby would never raise its wobbling, oversized head or feed from the milk flowing into her udders. She nudged and lowed while the other cows milled behind, transfixed by her confusion.
Hana used her scarf to cover her eyes. She pressed her hands against it and constricted her breathing. The previous night’s optimism dissipated in the face of nature’s tragedy and she heard her own sobs.
“Sort out your wahine matua,” Hemi shouted and Hana heard the thud of Logan landing on the grass.
His arms enfolded her and he led her away in her blindness. “It’s natural, Hana. It’s Papatuanuku’s way. The animals don’t see things like we do.”
“They must do!” Hana sobbed, jabbing a finger back at the scene. The cow licked the dead body, bowing to maternal instinct while all hell broke out around her.
Logan bundled her away. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, sounding irritated. “I told you to stay indoors. Now they must manage alone.”
“I’m sorry!” Hana’s breath hitched in her chest and Logan pushed her into the passenger seat of the car.
“Stay there this time!” he demanded, returning to the paddock.
Hana sat in the car with her scarf over her face. She projected the cow’s fate onto herself and sagged under the weight of responsibility. She cried until her makeup ran, leaving herself in a blotchy mess. Logan returned, brushing mud from his work trousers and changing his footwear. When he climbed into the driver’s seat, he leaned across and wiped tears from Hana’s chin. “It seems harsh, but you get used to it,” he said, his voice soft. “Hemi shot another of the dams who broke her leg in the gully. She left a calf. He wanted you to know he’ll try to give it to the one who just miscarried.”
Hana sniffed, the sound ugly and undignified. “Is that what you’ll do with me?” she bit. “Give me a consolation prize?”
“Hana!” Logan sounded exasperated and withdrew his sympathy. “You over think everything.” He tried to take her hand later in the journey, but found it cold and still beneath his fingers. Hana sat in silence, leaving the car and walking towards the office in a daze. Logan shook his head and slammed the door after him. His work on the baby’s room and the optimism it fostered, disappeared beneath the filth of circumstance.
“I can’t bloody win!” he hissed.
Hana worked like an automaton, communicating little and achieving even less. Logan tried to speak to her during each of his breaks but she sent him away, knowing her ignorance infuriated him. At the end of the fourth period, she allowed herself a bathroom break. Looking at her face in the mirror, she recalled the tiny, defenseless body slipping to the floor amidst grass seed and flowery heads of common weeds. The closed eyes in its furry, mucus soaked
head appealed to her morbid sense of fatalism. The mother’s pathetic licks resonated with her efforts to shelter a child in her geriatric body. She dared to lay her hands over her belly and felt the nakedness of terror.
Sheila found her hiding in the bathroom and sent a boy to fetch Pete. “You poor girl. Whatever is wrong?” She tried to mop up Hana’s tears, but wasted her time as more replaced them.
“I’m not coming in there!” Pete shouted from the doorway. “It’s a girly room. It’s not in my job description.”
Sheila groaned and put her head outside. “Text Logan then!” she hissed. “You useless little man!”
“No!” Hana drew her legs up to her chest on the small chair and wrapped her arms around them. “He’s cross with me.”
“Why, Hana?” Sheila pressed, crouching down to look into her face. “What’s happened?” Hana buried her face and didn’t answer.
“Hana?” Logan barged through the door, banging it against the sink unit in his haste. His jaw worked in his face and Hana recognised fear. He pulled her feet off the seat and crouched in front of her, resting his arms along her thighs to prevent her blocking him.
“I can’t do this!” she hissed. “It’s too hard.”
“It’s different!” Logan took her writhing fingers in his and squeezed until she winced. “Listen to me.”
“You should drive her home,” Sheila whispered, sending away another member of staff needing the toilet. “It’s flooded,” she lied. “Use the one downstairs.” She shrugged as Logan caught her eye and jerked her head towards Hana’s tears. “It kinda is,” she said. She reached a hand through the gap and a resounding slap filled the space. “Get Hana’s bag!” she instructed someone and Pete’s grumbling split the air molecules.
“Why do you always hit me?” he demanded.
“Because you don’t listen otherwise!”
Logan led Hana down the back steps and through Q Block to the car. Pete scurried behind carrying her handbag across his forearm like a woman. “I’ll take you home,” Logan said, pushing Hana into the passenger seat. He leaned across to fasten her seatbelt and she smelled his aftershave. He seated himself next to her and started the engine. The car braked hard and Hana heard a click. “What are you doing?”
“I’m coming with you,” Pete grumbled. “I want to see your place.”
Logan swore and sped off, turning left after the imposing school gates. “You tell anyone where we live and I’ll break your legs,” he growled. “And get my wife’s handbag off your arm, ya weirdo!”
“No. I need it.” Hana heard her keys shift around in her bag as Pete clutched it closer. “I don’t trust you not to throw me out in the middle of nowhere. You can’t if I’m holding her bag.”
Logan exhaled, the sound loud and filled with exasperation. Hana covered her face with the scarf to avoid his sideways looks of concern.
While Logan led his fragile wife up the steps and into the hallway of Culver’s Cottage, Pete scouted around the property with Hana’s handbag still over his arm. Logan helped remove her shoes and led her to the bedroom. “I don’t want to leave you.” His jaw ground beneath his cheek and conflict warred in his eyes. “But I abandoned an English class. I left them watching a video.”
Hana shook her head. “I’m okay now I’m home.” Her eyes widened. “Is it gone?”
“I’ll check.” Logan wandered across to a bush-facing bedroom and returned with a nod. “Yeah. Hemi moved it. I can see him and Maihi in the top corner repairing the fence.” He chewed the inside of his cheek. “Tell me what to do, Hana.”
“Go back to work.” She inhaled and looked around her. “Please take Pete with you.”
“Okay. Need anything before I go?”
“Just my handbag.” Hana shed her coat and dropped it on the floor next to the bed. She pushed her feet beneath the sheets. “Sorry for my meltdown.”
“It’s okay.” Logan’s brow knitted as though he didn’t mean it. He picked her coat off the floor and Hana heard him load it onto a hanger and put it in the cupboard in the lobby.
He returned to press a kiss to her forehead, hanging around in the doorway as though wanting to ask her a question. Hana closed her eyes against his probing and heard him shut the front door. “Put the bloody axe down!” he shouted at Pete outside the bedroom window. “And bring that handbag here!” Hana heard his footsteps as he laid it on the lobby floor and the door closed again, accompanied by the jangle of keys.
She turned on her side in the empty bed and closed her eyes against the internal agonies flushing through her brain. Her hand strayed to her stomach and she prayed against her fears until the sleep of the exhausted claimed her.
Logan arrived home early and found Hana sipping herbal tea at the kitchen window. She wore the faded monkey pyjamas and looked skinny and pale. Her curls coiled down her back in a waterfall of chestnut and blonde. “You’re right.” She didn’t turn to greet him. “They don’t care.” He kicked off his boots and joined her at the window, seeing the small herd moving around in an easy arc.
His hands felt strong on Hana’s shoulders, kneading away the tension. “Hemi took her back to their place. She won’t accept the orphan but she’s okay. The vet looked at her.”
Hana sighed. “I wish you’d lied to me,” she said, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. “At least I could sleep thinking it was happy ever after.”
“I told you I wouldn’t lie.” Logan kissed the back of her head. “You read far too much into ordinary events. We face our own mortality every day, especially in farming. This has no bearing on you or our baby.”
Hana kept her silence. She understood the sting of mortality. Life hung by a delicate, tenuous thread, taken away to leave catastrophe in its wake. Her head shook from side to side. She sensed Logan couldn’t understand the depth of the mess Vik left behind for her to smooth beneath the carpet. She couldn’t tell him then.
Logan made dinner and cosseted Hana. His sideways glances proved irritating until she remembered Miriam’s confession. His mother’s reluctance to leave the hotel smacked of the kind of behaviour associated with mental illness. Hana channelled her annoyance into reassuring him instead. “I’m fine now,” she told him countless times. “Blame the pregnancy hormones.” Her wan smile didn’t fool him and he continued to watch her.
“I can’t work you out, Hana Du Rose,” he sighed, pulling her back against his chest in bed. “Sometimes you’re like one of the fillies at the farm, skittish and afraid, trusting nobody. At other times, you’re terrifying.”
Hana smiled. “Like Sacha?”
“Exactly like her.” Logan snorted.
“Are you admitting defeat?” Hana smirked, squealing as he flipped her beneath him. Strong fingers pulled her arms above her head and his pupils flared wide.
“No, Hana. I broke Sacha and I’ll rein you in too.” He planted a kiss on her ear as she shrieked and whipped her head sideways. His lips moved along her neck. “It might just take a while longer.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Hana minded her own business at work, avoiding the staffroom and enjoying the repetitiveness of her tasks. She found distraction in administration, making packs for boys and photocopying Sheila’s endless worksheets.
“Please, can you make twenty of these?” Sheila asked, dumping a pocket file on Hana’s desk. It obliterated her keyboard and prevented further typing. “Stuff them into wallets or the boys will lose the application form.” She stalked back into her office. “They always do.”
Hana sighed against the click of the door and examined the paperwork. She jumped as Sheila poked her head back out. “Oh, I need them for my next class.” Click.
Hana dragged herself to her feet and rubbed the small of her back. It ached and she winced as she moved. The photocopier churned out twenty collated copies and Hana thought for a moment before requesting ten more. “Better to be safe than sorry,” she mused. Her fingers worked at speed as she stapl
ed and stuffed papers into wallets, reaching eighteen before the speaker in the foyer boomed out between lessons.
Sheila’s head appeared from her office, looking disembodied. “What’s happening?”
Hana opened her mouth, beaten to a response by a voice coming through the speaker. “This is not a drill. This is an emergency. Close and lock all doors and remain in the classroom. Stay away from windows and do not emerge until told it is safe.”
Sheila ventured further from her office. “Are you sure it’s not a drill? I refuse to go out if it is. Darn thing went off twice while you were away and it’s freezing outside.”
“It sounds like Dobbs. He said it’s real.” Hana looked down at her paper stuffing and sighed. “Lock the door and at least I can keep doing this.”
The usual siren sounded, deafening and yet comforting in its familiarity. Hana relaxed. Sheila bounced across the room, making both doors secure. The empty common room seemed ominous. The voice began again, Angus replacing Dobbs. “This is not a drill. The school is in lockdown. Secure yourselves in classrooms, get under desks and stay away from windows and open areas. This is not a drill.”
Sheila’s eyes grew wide like oranges as the voice repeated the message at two-minute intervals. In between, the siren blocked out all other sound. Hana stuffed forms into wallets like a lunatic, relieved when she finished.
“There’s someone outside.” Sheila mouthed the words and stuck her eye against the keyhole facing the foyer.
“Where?” Hana demanded. “Come away from the door. We’re meant to hide under the desk. What are you doing?”
Sheila waggled her eyebrows. “I want to see what’s happening!” she hissed.
Hana rolled her eyes. “I’m blocking that up after you leave today,” she said. “I’m gonna stuff tack in it.”
“It’s my peep hole!” Sheila whirled around, glaring at her.
“There’s a window there!” Hana jabbed a hand at the long bank of glass facing the corridor.
“I won’t see anything through there,” Sheila grumbled. “It faces the wrong way. All the action happens out here.”
