by Nicky Webber
Hawke nodded. ‘Sure, besides it’s no one’s business but our own.’
As the summer days shortened, leaning into Autumn, the forest and surrounding hills burst into vibrant color. Leaves of gold, red and brown littered the walking tracks to the wooden bach and along their daily hiking trail into the native bush-clad hills.
March 21st
We’ve had such a fantastic time, talking, eating, laughing, swimming. A magical place to be. I could have imagined no one more perfect. I find it all so unbelievable. Baby Hawke, I remember his first day at school and telling me all about it when I was almost twelve. And here he is, living with me as a lover, a grown man. I feel like the younger person. He has such confidence, direction with a focus on the future. Even after this short time, I feel myself falling for him. I don’t want it to end.
Sacha was alone in the cottage in the early evening when Suzie phoned from LA. The online call kept intermittently breaking up, and the old cold reboot solution had to be used twice to reconnect with the patchy internet signal.
The sisters laughed and gossiped about their lives. Sacha had thought several times over recent months about telling her younger sister about Hawke and how serious their relationship had become. Was this the right time, maybe? Hawke was in town so she could speak openly and also deal with Suzie’s response, causing no upset for Hawke.
‘I better get going,’ Suzie said after the 40-minute online video conversation, pulling her long blonde hair back behind her left ear. ‘Work awaits,’ she half groaned and chuckled at her sister.
‘There’s just one other thing I wanted to tell you,’ Sacha interrupted.
‘Shoot,’ said Suzie, distracted by getting off the call.
‘I know this is going to sound weird,’ Sacha said.
Suzie frowned, watching her sister’s whole demeanor shift.
‘What? What’s the deal?’
‘Well,’ Sacha said, biting her bottom lip, trying to think of the least emotive words she could say.
‘It’s like, Hawke and I are in a relationship,’ Sacha slowly paced her words.
Suzie frowned, not sure what she had heard. She leaned closer to the computer screen. ‘Come again?’ Suzie asked with focused concentration on her older sister.
‘I don’t know how it happened, really. But we’re in a relationship, we’re involved and want to stay together. When we get back home, we want to carry on living together.’ Sacha drew in her breath, not breathing out, as she waited. It was real. Suzie heard it all. She could tell as Suzie’s eyes widened in shock. Or was it complete disbelief? Probably a bit of both.
‘You’re not serious Sacha? Please tell me this is not a thing between you and Hawke.’
‘It is a thing, as you say,’ Sacha responded, steeling herself for an argument. But it was stillborn. There would be no arguing. ‘Well?’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Suzie replied.
‘PLEASE don’t tell anyone. Especially not Dad and the Davis'. Just keep it to yourself. It’s our secret. I just had to tell someone, and I trust you as my sister.’
‘Sure,’ was all Suzie could manage.
CHAPTER 11
Local Strangers
Sacha passed over the salad as Hawke continued talking about his parents. ‘They’re old school,’ he said, lifting a large spoonful of lettuce and swamping his plate in vinaigrette dressing.
‘Hardly,’ snorted Sacha. ‘I mean, look at the way they live.’
‘Well, I’ve always thought it’s eccentric. It’s not the lifestyle I see myself living.’
‘Why?’ she asked, slicing through a piece of lean beef and dragging it with her fork through the gravy.
‘It’s odd. I mean three adults living together like that.’
Sacha shrugged. ‘They seem happy. It works… for them.’
‘I sometimes wonder if it was just a fall-back position, and they hadn’t really thought it through,’ he said.
‘What makes you say that?’ she asked, looking up from her plate.
Hawke was silent for a moment, chewing his food. He swallowed before launching into his view of the world. ‘After Mila died. Well, without your mother, Logan was lost.’
‘Sure, it was a dreadful, dark time. Dad was so depressed at one point I was terrified he might off himself too,’ she said. ‘I sort of blamed myself for him ending up living with your parents.’
‘How come? That’s not your fault,’ smiled Hawke.
‘It kinda is, and I always worried about your dad and how he copes with another man in their home. Fred’s quite flat-lined, if you know what I mean,’ she tried to explain.
‘He didn’t seem to mind Logan moving in with all of them together. But I was the one that told Maddy how scared I was about Dad. He went for weeks without getting out of bed. He seemed to be a shadow of himself, even when your Mom visited. Maddy used to light up his day, but there was a patch there where I was too scared to phone him in case he didn’t answer.’
‘Nah, it’s not your fault. Mom was over there every day. She organized his life for him. It was as if she were channeling Mila and smoothing out his domestic life like she always used to do,’ reassured Hawke. ‘But look at them now. It’s only been a few years, and the three of them have never been happier.’
‘I know we’ve all talked about it before. But do you think they’re just perfect friends?’ asked Sacha. ‘I mean, they’ve known each other since school, so it stands to reason. Do you think they’re actually lovers?’
Hawke heaved a sigh and fixed his eyes on Sacha. He gradually stirred his fork amongst the remaining food on his plate.
‘Well? What’s said in New Zealand, between us, of course, stays in New Zealand. Seriously,’ she asked, ‘what do you think?’
‘You can’t repeat this to your sister,’ Hawke said and looked around the room, half expecting Suzie and Bruno to spring from the woodwork. ‘In the beginning, I saw it as an empathy thing. Both my parents wanted to help Logan, and I just assumed it was a temporary measure to get him over the initial shock and grief. I thought little about it. Hell, these four adults have been part of our lives, and their own lives for all of our lives.’
Sacha laughed. ‘Impressive. After the second glass of vino too.’ She took a sip from her glass and looked steadily at Hawke sitting opposite, struggling to find a reasonable way to avoid the conversation. ‘Come on. No one’s judging here. It’s just you and me and if you tell, I will too, and then we'll both know what we really think. I’ll tell you, and it’s a little more than just odd.’
‘Okay. Yup. I think they’ve been lovers for years. Probably most of their lives too!’ He said triumphantly at having finally spat it out.
Sacha squealed in delight, clapping her hands together. ‘I knew it! I knew it all along,’ she repeated.
‘Hey, but what does it matter? They’re happy and, I for one, don’t care and don’t want to know,’ he stated, defying her to continue with her line of questioning.
‘Hasn’t it bothered you? Nah, maybe that’s too strong a word. Haven’t you wondered if all three of them sleep together or not?’
‘No!’ He was emphatic. The immediate image of Logan sleeping between his two parents in their marital bed made him more than a little uncomfortable. ‘Let’s not go there.’
‘Don’t be like that,’ she pleaded.
‘No,’ he repeated.
‘This is just our secret squirrel conversation. Come on, Hawke. No one else will ever get to hear this.’
‘You know what,’ he said with authority. ‘I honestly think Maddy loves both Fred and Logan.’
‘But…’ interrupted Sacha.
Hawke held up the flat palm of his right hand in Barbara Woodhouse dog training style, stopping Sacha in her tracks. ‘I believe my mother sleeps with them both, but in their own bedrooms. There are three double beds in their house, and one is obviously Logan’s room. You must’ve seen that?’
Sacha shrugged, waiting to hear the full revelat
ion of Hawke’s take on her father, his parent’s permanent house-mate.
‘It’s kinda civilized, really,’ Hawke said. ‘Think about it. They’re old now. All over fifty, so they aren’t teenagers anymore. We all know Maddy and Logan used to be lovers back in the day. But she married Fred in the end. My parents married but were lovers. All three of them have that connectedness about them. That ESP type of understanding.’ He paused. ‘Don’t you think?’
Sacha leaned back in her chair and regarded Hawke carefully. ‘Yeah, they all seem very close. All three of them.’
‘So who cares? In the end, I don’t care if they sleep with a nest of snakes as long as they’re happy and enjoying life,’ Hawke said. ‘At their age, I bet there’s not much going on, anyway.’
They drove into Whangamata on Saturday night and sat in the local bar chatting to a couple they had met on the beach a week ago. They joked and laughed, hitting it off with Trader and Shannon.
‘How did you come by that name?’ Hawke asked, gulping down his second cold beer.
The tall, muscular, sandy-haired man had tattoos scrolling around both his arms, intricately intertwined. He explained his origins. ‘I worked in construction as a hammer-hand for a couple of years and, when I saved up enough, Shannon and I spent winter down here. Cheaper rent and a quieter life,’ Trader concluded.
‘Yup,’ said Shannon in her thick Alabama drawl. ‘We want quality, not quantity. Life’s a bitch, and then ya die.’
Trader interrupted. ‘We met a year ago and are still having a skirmish or two with immigration, but it’s looking more likely that Shannon can stay. Especially after I told them we’re getting married.’
‘That’s pretty extreme,’ Hawke said, grinning at them both from across the bar counter.
‘That’s me,’ laughed Trader. ‘Check out these tats,’ he said, showing his right arm. ‘Here’s my family history and where I belong in the world and what I stand for.’
‘What exactly do you stand for?’ Sacha asked, smiling disarmingly but still wary of the pair.
‘What cha mean?’ laughed Trader. ‘I just told ya. I stand for a good time, not a long time, but a bloody good time!’ Shannon giggled and pushed her hand against Trader’s chest.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Stop kidding around.’ She turned to Hawke and Sacha. ‘He works damn hard most of the year, but this is our place to unwind and spend a few months on holiday outside the season.’
‘No kids, no tourists. Well, excusing present company, of course,’ Trader chuckled.
The evening wore on, and the foursome consumed more than enough beer and wine for a small gathering. With a flourish of his beer jug, Trader magnanimously invited them all to their bach further along the coast. Sacha felt uneasy but didn’t have time to express her private concerns to Hawke, so reluctantly agreed.
‘Look, I’ve got a stash and a bong. We can chill and have a good feed,’ Trader said, grabbing his keys. ‘Follow us,’ he commanded, and the Californians complied, not wanting to seem rude.
After leaving the bar, a tense exchange between Hawke and Sacha bordered on explosive. They followed Trader’s old van in front of them along the meandering country road out of the small town.
‘This is nuts!’ Sacha pleaded, her voice rising to an anxious pitch. ‘We could be murdered in the forest, and how the hell would anybody know?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Hawke said. ‘That Trader guy is cool. He’s a Dude, that’s all. We’ll have a good time.’
Sacha’s apprehension ramped up a few more notches. ‘Don’t you think all that ink on his forearms is from criminal gang activity? It’s suspicious,’ she countered.
‘Nah,’ Hawke replied, swinging the old steering wheel to the left and up a low rise into the open countryside. He had dropped back, widening the distance between the two cars in a subconscious maneuver to avoid Trader glimpsing them arguing in his rear vision mirror.
Eventually, Hawke followed Trader’s car onto a narrow dirt road and left along a loose gravel driveway where an old 1930s shiplap timber farmhouse stood in front of them. The yard was unkempt, and the poorly maintained house had paint peeling from the front door and the window frames, feeding Sacha’s unease. As the headlights of Trader’s beat-up old wagon swung across the front porch, the full-blown down-home, beaten-up look of the place came into sharp focus.
Sacha grabbed Hawke’s forearm as he held onto the steering wheel and followed the car ahead, parking outside the house near the old single-wire washing line nailed between two ancient-looking timber fence posts.
‘It’s okay,’ he said, his voice slightly slurred. ‘I’m an excellent judge of character.’
‘Oh, really?’ Sacha said, her voice soaked in sarcasm. ‘So it’s all good turning up at this shack in the middle of nowhere to get stoned with two complete strangers, one of which could have gang connections. That’s OK?’
He turned the ignition off and watched the other two walk up the few wooden steps to the entry. Trader fumbled with the keys to open the front door in the darkness.
‘Look, I’ll make a deal. If things look too dodgy in the first ten minutes, I’ll say I feel sick, and you need to take me home. Okay?’
Hawke reached across and held her shoulder. ‘Life’s a circus. It’s an adventure, and this is one of those times that we will never forget.’
Sacha nodded, ‘I know, that’s what worries me!’
‘Ten minutes?’
‘Okay, but here’s our exit strategy. If I give you this signal, spring into the story to back us out of there.’ She raised her index finger to the side of her nose and dragged it slowly down towards her cheek.
‘What’s that?’ Hawke frowned.
‘It’s the signal to get me the hell out of there!’ A level of annoyance had crept into her strained voice. He knew not to contradict her.
‘Sure, sure,’ he said. ‘No problem. I promise.’ And he intently looked at Sacha, holding her gaze, as he dragged his index finger down the side of his nose. He chuckled as they stepped out of the car.
Within 30 minutes, the scruffy, sparsely furnished living room was awash with marijuana smoke. All four were giggling like schoolgirls and passing around a half-empty packet of stale chocolate biscuits. Hawke held three in his hand while taking a democratic bite out of each one in the interests of fairness and equality. Trader stumbled to his feet. He’d spent most of his time on the floor, passing the glass bong to his guests and girlfriend.
‘This beats working for the man!’ Trader announced. ‘What’s the point, bloody hard yards, taxes and mortgage repayments. Non-sensible,’ he slurred in his broad Kiwi accent.
Hawke, almost as stoned as his newfound friend, slowly rocked his head in time to the music hammering out in the background and contemplated Trader’s sock-covered feet through blurry eyes. Trader had already discarded his steel-toed leather boots by chucking them through the open living room window and then joking about the right going further than the left.
‘Yeah. Nothin’s working. Capitalism is bankrupting the world, and humanity and socialism suck,’ Hawke suggested.
‘Some big words there, Bud,’ said Sacha, slightly high but also maintaining a repressed level of alertness, based on her dissipating doubts about the pair.
They continued to laugh and joke; the men overindulging in the smoke zone of complete contentment, while the girls cautiously took part. Sacha caught Hawke’s eyes and tried to hold his concentration while she delivered a deliberate finger-to-nose signal to decamp.
Hawke smiled and leaned towards her on the worn beige sofa and smiled at her.
‘Ya know,’ he said. ‘I’ve always loved you.’ and he leaned forward to slap a sloppy wet, pungent smoke-flavored kiss on Sacha's lips. After clumsily missing her mouth, shrieks of laughter reverberated from the others in the room.
Sacha pulled away. His earthy, alcohol breath made her reel. ‘I dunno about going home now,’ Hawke stated.
Overhearing the pair, Trad
er lurched closer to Hawke and clasped his shoulder.
‘Nah! No one’s talking about going home,’ Trader interrupted.
‘Yeah, the party’s only getting started,’ said Shannon in her slow Alabama drawl as she concentrated on forming each word to make some drug-induced sense of the sentence.
‘Well, we’ve gotta get up early in the morning, Hawke,’ said Sacha, giving him an immediate out clause to escape back home.
‘Nah mate,’ said Trader, grabbing Hawke around the neck with a bottle of beer in one hand, his elbow pushing Hawke’s head backward as they both collapsed onto the filthy, threadbare carpet.
CHAPTER 12
Neighbors from Hell
Logan frowned, tilting his head towards Fred. ‘Well, he didn’t get it from me.’
Fred chuckled. ‘I’ve always thought Hawke’s mathematical genius came from Maddy. She’s pretty sharp with numbers.’
‘Sure, but we’re talking some serious stuff. Developing financial banking formulas and algorithms is no simple task,’ Logan responded.
‘Probably some of it comes from me, too,’ Fred added. ‘Programming code requires a mathematical brain with an obsession for detail.’ He snorted. ‘To be honest, I thought for a time there, while submerged in those tormented teenage years, that he would amount to nothing but a hedonistic drug addict.’
‘You and me too, Bud,’ Logan said.
Maddy was chopping onions for dinner as the chicken roasted in the oven. She interrupted the two men. ‘How about a drink for your domestic sex slave, boys?’ she joked.
They both swung around to look at her, Logan jumping up from the sofa, first to pour her a silky, smooth red wine. ‘Here you go,’ he said, kissing her on the cheek as he handed her the glass. ‘The very least we can do is keep the domestic help happy.’
‘So, did Hawke really say he intended to get a job in Auckland?’
Maddy pulled her mouth down and shrugged. ‘Well, yes. I guess he wants to stay there longer.’
‘But why? Working in the city defeats the purpose, or at least, his initial proposal to get fit and healthy again,’ said Fred.
