Stone Cold Kiwi (New Zealand Ever After Book 2)

by Rosalind James

  Larnach Road

  Matiu

  Everything happened fast, and it happened much too slowly.

  I handed Isobel off to Poppy and told Hamish, “Show me where she was.” I took his hand, and it was exactly like that first day, when we’d run down the pavement together, after he’d gone for help. Same worry on his freckled face. Same little hand, tugging me along.

  Behind me, Max was running as well. Below me, I could hear a faint voice. Violet, I thought, calling for Olivia.

  Nobody in the kitchen, the family room, the enormous dining room, I saw at a glance. Nobody on the terrace outside. The huge outdoor gas fireplace was unlit, and I could see a padlock on the spa tub cover. The front door was locked, too.

  I asked Hamish, “Where’s her bedroom?”

  “Downstairs,” he said, “with mine. And our playroom, too, and Daddy’s office. But I looked all those places. I looked everywhere she hides.” His face was white now, the freckles standing out in stark relief. Buddy was beside him, whining.

  I could hear Violet now, coming up the stairs. When she saw Max, she ran to him and said, “I was playing with the dog with Hamish, and ...”

  Halfway through that, I was running out toward the terrace again. I didn’t check downstairs, to see if she was hiding somewhere in all those rooms after all. In a cupboard. In the laundry room. In the bath. I didn’t check around the back of the house. Somebody else could do that. I went straight for the stairs that led down the hill, past the flat, terraced lawns one level down. A gate was open down there. A latch that had been half-closed, probably, now blown open by the wind. A gate that should have been blocking the path to Larnach Road. And to the sea.

  Hamish was calling something after me. I turned back and shouted, “Stay there! Stay with your Mum!” And ran.

  My feet were bare. My clothes were wet. The wind was cold. I barely noticed. I took the stairs two at a time until I got to the road.

  Busy, cars going both ways, around a curve here that I couldn’t see past. Not up, and not down.

  Up, or down?

  Uphill would be the kindy with its playground. Hamish’s school. The route Olivia would walk twice a day with her mum.

  Which way would you run, though, if your legs were short? If you wanted adventure?

  You’d run downhill. You’d run to the sea.

  The decision hadn’t taken me a second. I turned left, and I ran. Sharp stones under bare feet. Heart racing. Legs pumping as fast as I could move them, and then faster. Around the curve.

  The shining blue of the sea below me, so close. Too close. Wheeling white forms above it, diving down.

  Seabirds.

  She went to see the ducks. She loved those ducks.

  Somewhere in the back of my brain, I was thinking, No. It can’t be. Not again. And, What if she went the other way after all? What if she’s in the roundabout? Saturday morning, cars on the road, going too fast? In the front of my brain, I was thinking, Run, you bastard. Run.

  I ran. She hadn’t gone off the pavement, that was sure. A stone wall bordered it, blocking her access. If she’d gone this way, she had to be ahead of me.

  All the way around the curve at last, and she was there. Running as fast as her three-year-old legs could carry her, her arms held high and out to the side. Laughing, certainly. Clever. Escaping. Having an adventure.

  Running down Larnach Road, which ended at Marne Street. And across it, at the sea.

  Running toward the cars.

  So many cars. Going down past us and coming up the other way. More cars on Marne Street, on their way to everywhere. Saturday morning. Grocery shopping and errands and soccer games.

  I heard the screech of brakes as one of them stopped in a hurry. Facing me, coming up from Marne. Somebody who’d come around the corner to see Olivia running downhill, alone. The driver, a woman, leaped from the car just as another car came around the corner and hit hers, driving it forward with a jarring blow. The woman lost her footing at the jolt, then fell. More brakes. Shouting.

  I was shouting, too. I’d been shouting. “Olivia!” I yelled again. “Olivia!”

  She half-turned, stumbled, and I thought, Good. Fall down. Scrape your knee. I shouted, “Olivia! STOP!” at the top of my lungs. And ran like I was flying. I ran like it was life and death.

  She’d slowed down, but she was still going. Almost at the intersection. Somebody else was running toward us. A man. Too far away.

  Long strides took me closer, and closer still.

  Not close enough.

  I hadn’t played rugby for thirty years. I’d have said I barely remembered how. Now, I drove off my planted foot and launched myself through the air like I was diving for the tryline. Like the hooter had gone and it was desperation time.

  Do or die.

  Time slowed down. I was flying forever, moving through treacle. Olivia took one step. Two. Three. Nearly at the curb. I was coming down. Too soon. Too soon.

  I landed with a sickening impact. Knees. Elbows. Forearms. My chin hit the edge of the curb. My hand grabbed. Caught. Held.

  I knocked her over, and she fell. Straight down onto her hands and knees. The horrible, metallic scream of cars braking hard. Emergency stop. A crashing crunch of metal that was another rear-end collision. And a wheel, a meter from my face.

  Centimeters from Olivia’s.

  I was rolling even as I hit. Scooping her up, scooping her back. She was silent. Had the car hit her after all? Had she hit her head?

  She hauled in a breath, and she screamed.

  I scrabbled back over the curb. I held her in my arms.

  I shook.

  Poppy

  I was the last one down the stairs. The dressing gown, making me slow. The baby in my arms.

  Where was Matiu? I’d seen him for a second, and then he’d been gone.

  Hamish was crying. Violet was saying something to Max, her voice high. Agitated. I asked Hamish, “What happened?”

  He said, “We were playing, and when I looked, Livvy wasn’t there. I thought she went to play in her room, so I went and looked for her, but she wasn’t. She wasn’t anywhere. I told the lady, but she couldn’t find her either.” He was sobbing now. “I wasn’t responsible. I tried to be, but I forgot.”

  Max was coming up the stairs again with Violet, both of them running. It shouldn’t have felt like an emergency. The front door was locked. It was always locked. She was somewhere. Hiding in a closet, or in the nursery. Somewhere.

  Why didn’t it feel that way?

  I asked, “Where’s Matiu?”

  Hamish pointed out onto the terrace. I ran, but there was nobody there. Not Matiu, and not Olivia. Nobody.

  I heard his voice, then. “In my mind, I run down the hill, and I run through the water. And I pull her out. I get her out in time.”

  The gate was open.

  No.

  I still had Isobel. I still had Hamish. I told him, “Stay here. Stay in the house. Stay in this spot. Do you understand me?”

  He was still crying, but he nodded. I hesitated for a second longer. Then I ran.

  I was holding an eight-week-old baby. I was barefoot. I was slow on the stairs, slow to the road.

  The road.

  I looked to my right, uphill. Nothing. Nothing downhill, either. But I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see. The road curved too much for that.

  I heard it, then. To the left. A screech of brakes, a smash of metal.

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t run fast, not with a baby in my arms, not with my dressing gown flapping around my legs. I ran fast anyway. Down the road, around the curve. More brakes. More metal tearing, ripping.

  Please. My mind was screaming the word. Please. Please. Oh, God. My baby.

  Around the curve, there were cars stopped on both sides of the road. Below me, too, on Marne. An entire intersection blocked, cars at crazy angles, people piling out.

  I couldn’t see.

  I ran all the way. Isobel was crying, and I was holding
her tight, making sure I kept her head against me, protecting her neck. By the time I got to the bottom, I was gasping. A knot of people stood between me and the intersection, and I shouted, “Let me through! Let me through! It’s my daughter!”

  The crowd parted at last, and I saw them. Matiu, sitting on the curb. Holding somebody in his arms.

  My vision had narrowed so much, it was like I was in a tunnel. I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t breathe. I dropped to my haunches beside Matiu, then onto my knees, jarring Isobel too much, and he turned his head to me.

  Blood on his mouth, his chin. Blood on his hands, too. They were shaking, but they were patting over Olivia. Head. Arms. Legs. He said, “She’s fine. She’s fine.”

  Olivia was wailing, and there was blood on her head. I wanted to hold her, but I had Isobel. I got close instead, got my hand on her, and said, “Darling. My darling, you’re all right. You’re all right, baby girl. Matiu’s got you, and Mummy’s right here.”

  She sobbed out the words. “I fell down. I wanted to run fast. I wanted to see the birds.”

  I asked Matiu, “Are you sure? There’s blood. Where is she hurt?”

  “My blood,” he said. “My hands. She’s bruised, that’s all. Scraped. But talking. We’ll test. Uh ...” His hands were shaking on her. “They’ll test, I mean.” He looked around and raised his voice. “Who’s dialed 111?”

  “About five of us have, mate,” a man said.

  “Come on,” a woman said, crouching down beside Matiu. “Give the little girl to me. I’m a nurse. Let me check her out.”

  “You don’t look too flash yourself, mate,” the same man said. “Thought I’d killed you. You and the little girl both.”

  “No,” Matiu said, and laughed. “I’m good. Both of us are. We’re all good.”

  “Adrenaline, that is,” the man said. “Better wait to see what the doctor says.”

  “I know what the doctor says,” Matiu said. “I’m the doctor.”

  50

  Not the Only Jaguar

  Poppy

  How do you make sense of all that to your kids? The one who did it, and the one who feels responsible for it? How do you make sense of it to yourself?

  How do you repay the man who saves your child?

  At the moment, I wasn’t doing any of it. Olivia was being lifted into the ambulance, and I was following her, still holding Isobel, who was still crying. Olivia was on a gurney. Matiu wasn’t. He was standing outside.

  “I’m good,” he told the ambos irritably, for once not sounding charming. “Contusions, that’s all. Abrasions. Nothing that’ll need stitching, and no TBI. The head’s fine. A bit of a sore mouth, and that’s all. Poppy needs to go with her daughter, and to get the baby checked out as well. You shouldn’t have run with her,” he told me.

  I tried to be upset about that, to ask him just what the hell he thought I should have done, under the circumstances, but I was narkier about something else. “You need to come, too,” I said. “You’re not qualified to diagnose yourself.”

  “I’m exactly qualified to do just that,” he said. “And to clean and dress my own scrapes. It’s mostly bruising, and there’s nothing for that but ice and time. If something needs stitching after all, I’ll go along and get it stitched. Besides, somebody has to go back and tell Max what’s happened.” Possibly because I appeared unmoved by that, he said, “And to tell Hamish.”

  I said, still with one hand on Olivia’s—actually, I probably shouted it, because both kids were still crying, and he hadn’t got in, “I’m not letting them take me anywhere unless you tell me you’re coming in, too. You’d better turn up, or I’m making a complaint to the Ethics Committee. Failure to ... to ensure fitness for duty.”

  He said, “I’ll be there. Try to keep me away.”

  “Make sure Hamish comes,” I shouted, as the doors started to close. “Hamish needs to come.”

  He didn’t say anything. He just raised a bloodied hand, and the doors slammed shut.

  Matiu

  The walk back up to the house took forever, and it took no time at all. Not compared to the eternity when I’d been running, thinking I’d got it wrong, that I’d be too late.

  On the other hand, my knees and the soles of my feet were so badly bruised that walking was painful, my hands were bleeding and so was my chin, and I was going to have to call in and say I couldn’t make my shift tonight, and probably the next night, too. My body was rubbished, and an Emergency doc who couldn’t use his hands well and looked like he needed a bed himself didn’t inspire confidence.

  I was thinking about that, because it was too hard to think about the rest of it. Too hard not to imagine the fender of that car making contact with Olivia’s little body, to see her flying through the air.

  And landing.

  I’d dream about that tonight, and on other nights, too. But maybe Poppy wouldn’t. Poppy hadn’t seen how close it had been, so she didn’t have to try to unsee it. For that, I was grateful.

  Most of all, though, I was grateful that I’d guessed right. That I hadn’t been too late. That I wasn’t fifteen anymore. That this time, I’d won that race.

  I saw Max and Violet as soon as I rounded that curve again. Standing on the pavement, looking both ways. Looking irresolute. The little figure of Hamish behind them, with Buddy. The moment when the adults saw me, came running toward me. The moment when they realized that four of us had left, and only one had come back.

  I got a stab of fierce, hot anger. Why would you just stand there, all this time? How could you do that? And why wasn’t Max holding Hamish’s hand?

  This man didn’t deserve to be a father.

  When they got to me, I ignored Max. Unfair, you can think. Unprofessional. To hell with that. I went straight past them to Hamish. I didn’t crouch down, because my knees ached like the devil. I put my bruised, battered hand on his head instead and said, “Everybody’s fine, mate. Everybody’s fine. Olivia ran down to the bottom of the road, and she fell down, that’s all. Your mum ran after her. They’ve gone to hospital to make sure Olivia didn’t hurt herself too much when she fell, but I don’t think so. Maybe she’ll think twice before she runs off again, though. That’d be good.”

  Behind me, Max said, “Oh, thank God. Thank God.” Violet, who’d been crying this whole time, let out a sort of moan. I didn’t look at them. I didn’t care.

  Hamish was still white. His face upturned, his eyes searching mine. “I didn’t watch her,” he said, his chin wobbling. “Mummy said to watch her, and I forgot.”

  Bugger my bruised knees. I got down on my haunches anyway. You did what you had to do, and I had to do this. I put my two hands on his shoulders and said, “You did watch for her. You saw she wasn’t with you anymore, and you and Buddy went to look for her. And as soon as you couldn’t find her, you came and got your Mum. That’s why I was able to find her, because you were so fast. Because you cared so much, and you did the right things.”

  Hamish started to cry. Finally. “I thought she would be lost,” he got out through the sobs. “I was scared.”

  I gathered him into my arms and cuddled him close, and he gasped and shook against me. “I know, mate,” I said. “I know. It was scary, but you did just right.” And thought, Thank you, God, for not making him have to live through this. Thank you for sparing him this.

  Max was still talking behind me. Still asking questions, his tone sharpening. I ignored him a minute more, until Hamish had finally stepped back and squatted down on the pavement to cuddle Buddy, burying his face in the little dog’s fur. I said, “You could remind Olivia, mate, later on, when she’s being silly and wanting to run away. That’d be a good thing for a big brother to do.”

  “She doesn’t listen,” Hamish said. “That’s what Mummy says. ‘You need to listen, Olivia.’ But she doesn’t.”

  “No,” I said. “Good thing she’s got a good mum to remind her. And the best brother in the world.”

  Poppy

  My second time in
this hospital. My second time going through the doors into Emergency. I wished Matiu were here with me again. It would be easier having that totara tree, strong and solid, to lean against. Matiu was with Hamish, though, and I was glad. He’d say the right things, because he knew exactly how it felt.

  Oh, God. Matiu. It was his baby niece all over again. Running to find her, sure he’d be too late. How horrible must that have been, to do it all over again?

  This time, though, he hadn’t been too late. This time, he’d run to the water first. This time, he’d known.

  Isobel had stopped crying in the ambulance, once I’d begun to feed her. She was still attached, in fact, as we walked through Emergency beside Olivia’s gurney. Not just my second time here, but my second time coming in half-dressed. Bare feet that seemed to have stepped on every stone on that pavement, my baby at my breast, my dressing gown half open.

  Good thing Matiu had brought me those undies, that was all I could say.

  Olivia had cried in the ambulance, too, at least most of the way. Eventually, though, she’d started looking around and asking questions. Now, she was saying, “Where are we going?”

  “We’re going to have the doctor check you,” I said.

  “No jabs,” she said immediately. “I don’t like to have jabs.” Immunizations, she meant.

  “I don’t think they’ll do jabs,” I said. “They need to clean off where it hurts, though, and put Owie Juice on.”

  “Do they have Dory plasters?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Let’s see.”

  They didn’t have Dory plasters, which I’d swear Olivia was sadder about than anything else. She was excited, though, to have the doctor check her eyes and her head for concussion, even though he didn’t do it nearly as well as Matiu had done, and when she got to chew up the baby Nurofen for the bruises. She brightened some more when the nurse—who turned out to be Daisy, Matiu’s running and surfing partner—put huge squares of gauze on her scraped knees and wound tape around them, then did the same for her hands.