One Heartbeat

by Bowes, K T

  “Unless she died of hysteria,” Tama added unwisely. He felt Logan’s eyes boring into the side of his face and cringed.

  Hana grew silent as despite her bravado, her mind flipped elsewhere, to an old fashioned living room in a mock Tudor house and a mixed up, psychotic man with a grudge against her husband’s family. She glanced at the red mark on her wrist where the crystal glass shattered and its ragged shard penetrated her vein. The surgical wound rose pink against her pale, delicate skin. “A woman at the baby clinic thought I’d tried to kill myself.” Hana’s voice was low and her brow furrowed in a mix of emotions. “She handed me a leaflet and said I was selfish.”

  Hana started, her eyes wide as Logan dumped his burping daughter on Tama in punishment and dragged out the chair next to her. He settled into it and put his arm around her shoulders.

  “Why are you thinking about that?” he asked, his eyes the colour of grit, wiser than his years.

  “The court case is coming up,” she replied. “The detective inspector said I have to give evidence.”

  Logan squeezed her and kissed the side of her face, unable to argue with fact. Tama played with Phoenix and couldn’t look at the results of his tactlessness. “But we’ve been here before,” Logan said, his lips against her hair. “And after what his son did, the old guy pleaded guilty. You didn’t have to give evidence and you never know, Laval might do the same. You pray about stuff, so it’s up to your God. We all know you’re a praying woman, so if He can’t sort it, it sucks to be Him, aye?”

  Hana smiled at her husband’s simplistic way of viewing her faith. Logan’s philosophies were refreshing, if sometimes a little skewed. She laid her head against him and relaxed, thinking of the exhilaration of the bike ride and watching her nephew with her daughter. Tama sat the baby’s butt on the table edge and supported her with his big hands. He played a stupid game considering she’d just fed, putting his head into her tummy and wiggling it around, his hair flopping in her face. She squealed and laughed, wrapping her keen fingers in his black mop and tugging.

  “Oh,” he said helplessly, unable to extract his hair as she leaned forward and sicked over the back of his head.

  Logan laughed and delayed rescue, wanting his nephew to suffer. “That’s for the ice cream she’s not supposed to have,” he said with a smirk. “And for bringing up stuff we want to forget.”

  Hana kicked him under the table and he reluctantly stood, dumping a tea towel on the back of Tama’s hair and removing the child who kept handfuls of his black hair in her tiny fists. She pulled faces of disgust and made sad squeaking noises of misery. Logan managed to get a napkin to her face as she barfed up more. “Bloody hell!” he exclaimed.

  Tama headed from the kitchen with the tea towel around his face, cradling his stained hair. Logan jerked his head towards the teen’s back. “It’s Mary, mother of God,” he said sarcastically. Tama frowned and a few seconds later, Hana heard the shower running. “Two showers in one day,” Logan said, grinning at her. “Do you think he’s growing up?”

  Hana shook her head. “Na, he just knows he stinks for a change. Phoe should puke on him more often.” She relaxed, feeling grateful for the two entertaining males in her house. “Don’t be so hard on him,” she said to her husband softly, “he’s still a child. He opens his mouth without thinking and it’s not his fault I’m such a big baby about things.” Logan raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment. “He’s trying, Loge, give him a chance,” Hana implored. “He’s desperate to please you.”

  “He’s very trying!” her husband commented under his breath and Hana sighed. Logan took the child to their bedroom to wash and change her, an unexpectedly hands-on-father much to Hana’s early surprise. He returned with a clean daughter, ready for bed in a sleep suit adorned with monkeys. She beamed at Hana and waved her arms happily.

  “I’m not sure I should feed her again,” Hana muttered, worried about the state of the child’s stomach. But Phoenix seemed keen to replace what she lost on the back of her cousin’s head and fed greedily. Logan picked up the guitar and strummed long, dark fingers over its strings, producing a low note. He fiddled with the tuning pegs to tighten the strings, dissatisfied with the sound. Hana watched in silence. Apart from Reuben’s striking looks and the ability to play, the instrument was his only legacy to his son.

  No longer feeling the music, Logan put the guitar against the pantry door and sat next to his wife. Phoenix saw him from an upside down position and smiled, a cheeky, conspiratorial beam. He grinned back and stroked her downy head. The baby head-butted Hana’s breast and carried on feeding, her lids growing heavy with sleep.

  “Can I use the car for church in the morning?” Hana asked. “Or do you need it?”

  Logan pulled a face. “I need to go out with Tama. Can I drop you off and fetch you afterwards?”

  Hana nodded. “Yep. I’ll keep Phoenix with me. The older ladies adore her; I hardly see her for the entire service.”

  Logan exhaled as though relieved. Hana eyed him sideways with suspicion but had learned not to ask. Occasionally she hadn’t liked the answer.

  Hana tidied the kitchen while Logan put his daughter to bed. She fingered the phone directory on the kitchen table, her eyes narrowed with curiosity. “What’s that doing here?” she asked the empty room. With a shrug, she put it back in the hall cupboard.

  Tama appeared from the shower grumpy and uncommunicative. His wet hair stuck up at odd angles as he stalked into the living room, his track pants riding low over his boxer shorts. He slumped on the sofa and turned the TV on, losing himself in a mindless movie with the volume up loud.

  “Bedtime,” Logan growled in Hana’s ear, slapping her bum and pushing her towards the bedroom with a wink. “We’ve got unfinished business, wahine.” He locked the bedroom door and unbuttoned his shirt with slow, calculating movements, his eyes dark and sultry.

  Hana stirred around midnight in the throes of another awful dream.

  Laval stood over her holding Phoenix in his arms and laughing. Hana’s wrist spurted a rainbow of crimson shades but she had to get her baby back. She took the whisky glass and smashed it repeatedly into his face, feeling relief as he bled and let go of the child. Reaching out to catch her, Hana discovered she wasn’t there. Her baby was gone.

  She woke sweating and distressed. Logan was no longer there and she’d tangled herself in the covers with her thrashing. She felt the underside of her left wrist, brushing her other hand over the scar and wincing at the tenderness still there. But there was no sticky, spraying blood. It was just a nightmare.

  Hana left the bed and padded across the room; the floor boards cold under her bare feet. She checked on Phoenix, putting her head inside the bedroom door and listening for her comforting snuffles. Nothing. Her heart rate hiking again, Hana walked over to the travel cot, pressing her hands over the sides. Her fingers touched the cold empty mattress and she panicked. She ran, drawn by the light of the living room and the dull hum of male voices. The fire gave an eerie glow as the men chatted, sharing the sofa with their backs to the door and the TV muted.

  “She’s gone!” Hana heard the terror in her voice as she blasted into the room, making both men jump. Tama got to his feet and Logan turned, the baby asleep on his chest. Hana put her hands up to her face and tried to breathe as light-headedness overwhelmed her. Her brain told her body all was well, but it struggled to understand as her heart pounded in her chest and blood rushed in and out of her ears. Tama put his arms around Hana, stroking her hair and soothing her.

  “Take the baby!” Logan snapped, pushing Phoenix into his nephew’s arms and taking over with his wife. “Put her back in her cot.”

  Tama took the child, resisting the urge to face the unspoken challenge. He caught the look of mistrust in his uncle’s eyes and shook his head, knowing he’d never shake the stigma of his past crimes. He took the sleeping child back to her room and lay her gently on the mattress. “When you grow up, sis,” he told her. “Don’t shag everyon
e you meet; you’ll get a bad reputation and have only yourself to blame.” He covered her up with blankets, hearing her contented sigh. “It’ll be different for youse,” he whispered. “There’s people what care about you enough to help you make good choices. You won’t be like me, looking for love in all the wrong places.”

  Hana wore an old shirt of Logan’s from the hotel. It hung to her thighs leaving her shapely legs exposed. “Bed, Hana. Everything’s ok,” Logan soothed. “All’s as it should be.” He shivered in the cool hallway in a tee shirt and boxer shorts, pushing Hana gently down towards the bedroom with his strong hands on her shoulders. “Phoe woke around eleven with stomach ache but she’s fine now.” He missed out his argument with Tama over the ice cream and tactless reminder of Laval, shaking his head and wondering if he could ever straighten the boy out.

  Logan helped Hana into the wide bed, recognising the veiled terror in her face as she struggled at the surface of consciousness, not fully awake. “I’ll get you a drink of water,” he whispered, kissing her forehead and pulling her right hand away from its death grip on her wrist.

  Logan passed Tama in the hallway and the younger man indicated the baby’s room with his head and put his thumbs up. Logan narrowed his eyes and nodded. “Thanks.”

  Tama returned to the living room and a mindless documentary about penguins. His hormones raged at the sight of Hana’s slender legs and he tried to block all inappropriate thoughts from his mind. Anka’s face swam in front of his vision, late forties, his friend’s mother but supple and athletic. Tama smiled at the memories of Anka hiding the stretch marks on her stomach and inner thighs as she sat astride him. “I don’t care,” he’d stressed, thrilled with the eagerness of the older woman to fulfil his needs. She became his drug of choice; more wanting more and then more still until more was never enough.

  One accidental fumble became a full blown affair, a broken marriage, myriad destroyed friendships and a furious Logan. Anka lost her job at the school and was fortunate to avoid prosecution for fraternising with a student, while Tama found himself expelled. “Trust me to bed Hana’s best friend,” he growled, shifting on the sofa in discomfort. He struggled to banish the image of Anka’s rounded breasts and the way she spoke his name, knowing the difference between love and lust but sensing them blend into one. He touched the hard corners of the phone in his pocket and groaned. “No! I won’t text her.” His fingers fluttered in disobedience, drawing out the device and seeking her name. Even reading it on the screen heightened his sexual tension.

  Hearing Logan’s movements in the kitchen as he ran cold water into a glass, brought Tama to his senses. He’d promised himself a new start with the acquisition of the Du Rose name, knowing Logan hadn’t given it easily. Tama’s birth certificate still said ‘father unknown,’ the herald to his unwanted status. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and focus his mind on the TV, involving himself in the plight of the penguins and calming the loneliness in his soul.

  “Lay down, babe.” Back in the bedroom Logan patted his chest and Hana snuggled in, holding onto a clump of his shorts material like a lifeline. It bunched the garment uncomfortably around his hip but Hana stilled.

  Logan stayed awake until he felt her dive off the cliff into sleep again although she was fitful and unsettled for hours. He mulled over how to handle the difficult meeting while his wife was at church. The tourist sounded keen to meet. The old man showed a hunger in his face as he raked the car park with frantic eyes and it pricked Logan’s curiosity.

  “Are you sure this is what she wants?” Tama had asked, handing him the telephone directory.

  “I can’t take the risk of him turning up without warning,” Logan replied. “It’ll be easy for him to find Hana now. We wore a distinctive soccer strip with the school name emblazoned on the back, so he just needs to turn up at the school or go to next week’s game. He’ll find her within a few days if he’s determined. I want to know what the man’s angle is. He’s looking for her; I saw it in his face. The question is why? Especially as she seems terrified of him.”

  Logan needed answers before he contemplated letting the old man near his hard-won family. He easily found the car hire company, quoting the registration number and claiming he found a wallet next to it in a McDonald’s car park that afternoon and wished to return it. After a few dead ends a company in Hamilton claimed ownership of the rental, traced the driver via their Auckland Airport depot and rang him back.

  “Why did you leave your number?” Tama asked, running a hand over his confused face. “Don’t you want his?”

  Logan shook his head. “Never become a detective, Tama. You’ll be crap.” He rolled his eyes. “They won’t give me his number because of privacy laws. They’ll give him mine and then it’s up to him. He’ll know who I am if he’s intelligent.”

  “How?”

  Logan bit back the sarcastic retort and focussed on his inner calm. “Because his wallet is still in his pocket.”

  “Ohhhh.” Tama gave a knowing smile before his face clouded over. “I still don’t get it. So, what wallet did you find then?”

  Logan laid in bed and cuddled Hana closer. The tourist rang within minutes on a landline from his motel. He desperately wanted to see his daughter and wouldn’t be happy when the two intimidating Māori men turned up alone. Logan didn’t care.

  Hana’s natural instinct was to run but Logan recognised regret in her eyes afterwards. She had questions which burned in her soul. He knew because he wrestled with his own each day, the need to ask Reuben why? Why didn’t you fight for me? Why did you allow your brother to raise me for forty years? Why did you allow your inheritance to pass into another’s incompetent hands? And how? How could you stand on the other side of the fence and watch, without going mad?

  Logan knew the answer to that last question because Reuben did succumb to madness, disappearing inside himself with grief and loss and frustration, sent there with the help of alcohol and rage. Logan pulled his wife closer, brushing the damp curls away from her face and shielding her from whatever was to come.

  Chapter 4

  Hana arrived at church late, panicking about the time. “I should have driven myself,” she complained, lifting Phoenix out of the car. “This is ridiculous!”

  “I’m sorry,” Logan said, sounding sincere as he kissed her soft forehead.

  “Try not to be late fetching us!” Hana bit, feeling second rate and unimportant. “The car actually belongs to me in case you’ve forgotten that small fact.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Logan called after her as she headed towards the main doors. He turned to Tama, his grey eyes flashing. “Why do you always let me down?” he blasted the teen.

  “I didn’t wake up,” Tama griped and Logan shook his head, starting the engine and gritting his teeth.

  “I woke you twice! Then when I decided to go by myself, you stumbled out of your pit wanting breakfast. I ask so little of you, boy!” Sometimes Logan wondered why he invested so much in the ungrateful child. Thankless was the word which sprang to mind.

  Hana watched the vehicle drive away, her suspicions raised by the men’s neat attire. As the Honda made the turn back onto the main road, Hana stared at the child in her arms and realised she’d let them go off with the car seat, leaving her to carry the growing baby around all morning. “What are you two up to?” she raged, trying to calm herself enough to enter the church late, flustered, fed up but wearing a suitably holy smile.

  Logan and Tama sped into Hamilton, to the motels nestled side by side on Te Rapa Straight. Hana said her mother was from Irish stock, a McGillivray by birth, but she never mentioned her father’s Scots origins and his accent surprised Logan on the phone.

  Logan didn’t speak to Tama, ostracising him with his stony silence. Tama meant ‘son’ in Māori but he was nobody’s precious son. “I’m sorry,” Tama said, his voice low and wracked with guilt.

  “Yeah, whatever,” Logan replied ungraciously. They were late to meet Hana’s father and Logan
detested lateness. He glared sideways at his nephew, who wisely looked out of the window, wondering what strange impulse inside made him want to push people to their limit.

  Logan cruised into the motel car park, getting out and slamming his door. Tama followed at a safe distance, stopping as Logan turned towards him at the front door and put his finger to his lips. He leaned into the teen with a threatening stance. “You keep that waha papā of yours shut! I want you there, but not shooting your mouth off and giving information that’s not yours to give. Get it?”

  Tama nodded once to show he understood, even though Logan just insulted him. Inside the lobby, they approached a woman behind the reception desk. Middle aged with a large nose, she had mousy hair streaked with blonde and bulging eyes like a frog. Logan didn’t bother asking for the tourist’s room number; he knew she wouldn’t give it. “Logan Du Rose. I’m meeting Robert McIntyre.”

  The woman was pakeha, a white New Zealander and tried not to let racism show in her behaviour. But she was wary of the imposing Māori men and it came across loud and clear. She pointed them towards a door marked ‘Residents’ Lounge’ with a forced smile and Logan thanked her and walked towards it. The receptionist exhaled slowly and turned in her seat, finding Tama still leaning on the counter. He studied her without shame, smiling seductively and drawing a reluctant smile in return. It was a victory of sorts and made up for Logan’s current dislike as he winked and sauntered after his uncle. “Not everyone hates me,” he muttered at Logan’s rigid back.

  Hana’s father and his companion were already in a corner of the lounge. Logan watched as the man checked and rechecked his watch. The Māori strode over and stilled in front of the couple, seeing the Scotsman haul himself to his feet with a great effort to meet the stalemate. “Hello, I’m Robert McIntyre,” he stuttered and held out a crinkled hand. His eyes raked Logan’s appearance, taking in the smart shirt and trousers, the cowboy boots and cufflinks at his wrists. A set of eyebrows dusted with grey knitted at the sight of Logan’s olive skin, dark features and piercing grey eyes. Robert McIntyre’s bowed spine straightened as he attempted to match Logan’s intimidating height, which once he might have managed.