All Saints: Love and Intrigue in the Stunning New Zealand Wilderness (The New Zealand Soccer Referee Series Book 1)

by K T Bowes

  “Dad’s over there,” I said, pointing a shaking finger and Terry nodded.

  “Where’s Mark?”

  “Haven’t seen him,” I said, realising how odd the sentence sounded. “That’s weird. He must still be hung-over. His car’s in the carpark over there.” I pointed and Terry raised a grey eyebrow and pulled a face.

  “Better bloody not be! Not on game day. We’re paying that joker to see it through. Twat!”

  I kept my face neutral, studying the flaccid chins which hung from Terry’s jawline. Pete might have developed the wobbling flesh if he hadn’t finished life with his body splayed over his car bonnet, covered in shards of windscreen. Lucky escape. For both of us. The chins would have embarrassed him and irritated me.

  “How are you keeping? Job going well?” Terry’s question oozed politeness and we both played the game like professionals.

  “Fine thanks.” I smiled with genuine pleasure at the thought of my class of five and six-year-olds. They were all someone’s babies, entrusted into my care for six precious hours a day and I loved each one of them. “I enjoy my job.”

  “Margaret wishes you’d visit,” Terry said, lighting up a cigarette and blowing the smoke away from my face. He pulled a wisp of tobacco from his lip and ground his heels into the grass. “She misses you.”

  “Yeah. Sorry.” I didn’t sound it and couldn’t elaborate, unable to explain I no longer wished to worship at the shrine of Peter Saint with his mother. I didn’t want to light candles and cry over his baby photos. We’d married under duress, pushed into it by Terry and my father in an attempt to tame the free range team captain and produce other little Saints. Eleven of them; enough for a home grown football team. Twenty-five, single and jaded, they’d marched me down the aisle on a carpet of promises and five years later I felt jaded and used. No security, no babies and no happy ever after materialised after the flamboyant ceremony and requisite after match bash at the soccer club. It took everything I owned to pay off the debts Pete left me in his last will and testament, selling the flash house in Devonport to pay the biggest of the bills and settling the rest with my car and a personal loan I’d still be paying for another six months. I stared at the man in front of me, a man I used to respect and felt the hatred rise up like bile. “Actually, I’m not sorry,” I said, my eyes blazing.

  Terry took a drag on his cigarette and stopped mid pull, staring at me. “What?”

  “You heard!” I snapped. “I’m not sorry I don’t visit Aunty Margaret. Why don’t you both drive across the bridge and visit me in my tiny apartment? Are you afraid it might invoke guilt at the state your son left me in?”

  Terry rounded on me with the eyes of a madman. “Don’t you dare speak ill of my Pete!”

  “Your Pete was a waster!” I spat. I took a step forward, the rage breaking through the veneer of pretence and spewing over into my mouth. My romp with Teina infused me with courage at the realisation someone on the planet desired me. Desired me enough to spend most of the night repeating the conscience pricking error. “Why will you not open your bloody eyes?” My voice rose to a wail and people turned from the side lines to stare.

  Terry shook his head and reached out to grab me by the shoulders but the monster broke free from my chest and I opened my mouth to say it, announcing to the world the horror of my life married to Peter Saint. “He was a...” The words gained no traction as Terry Saint’s hand came down across my face, the slap ringing out across the soccer ground. A collective gasp rippled along the spectators and a few of the women headed towards us as a brave mob of female solidarity. My cheek and mouth stung with the impact and I tasted metallic blood when I swallowed. I put my hand up to my face and sensed the flesh already swelling into a welt. As the first of the women reached us I turned and ran, sprinting to the car park and nipping through a divide into the bushes onto the main road.

  “Ursula, come back!” My cousin Alysha clacked across the car park in her platform shoes and I knew she wouldn’t run after me.

  “Just leave me alone!” I cried, waving my hand at her as I dodged traffic and crossed two lanes to the centre island. The bus stop loomed on the other side and I cringed, abandoning my father in his wheelchair to the mercy of passers-by, yet again. Someone would drive him back to the rest home, just like they had last night; the night I’d discovered the off field talents of the referee and quashed the sexual ineptitude of my dead husband.

  A bus arrived with a hiss of gas from its exhaust, waiting the few seconds for me to run to its open doors. The ride took half an hour through the suburbs of Auckland and my face smarted by the time I let myself into the apartment block, using the lift to get to the third floor. Four flats occupied each level in what used to be the billets for nurses working at the main hospital and despite being crammed in, I hardly ever saw my neighbours. Loud music issued from the apartment nearest the lift and the heady scent of curry wafted around the lobby, so thick I could have taken a bite out of the air. I let myself into my soulless apartment and closed the door, resting my back against it while I caught my breath.

  “You nearly said it,” I breathed. A hysterical laugh bubbled up inside my chest and I put my hand over my mouth as I gulped curried air. “Five years of pretending and you almost said it out loud.” My chest hitched and misery followed daring as I remembered Uncle Terry’s ashen face as he administered the slap. It told me more than years of his placatory words ever had. He knew.

  Bile coursed into my throat and I struggled not to retch onto the floorboards in my tiny hallway. I hated Terry and Margaret Saint with a passion which felled me, dropping me to my knees with the strength of it. Did my father know too? Had he any idea what his incestuous plan committed me to? I prayed not, with all the remains of my fractured heart.

  Chapter 7

  I stood in the bathroom holding a wad of damp cotton wool over the bleeding cut inside my mouth. A red, man sized handprint covered the left side of my face and the ice pack held in my other hand did little to reduce the swelling. “Great!” I hissed at my reflection in the mirror. “Foundation won’t cover that up on Monday.”

  My cell phone buzzed on the lid of the toilet, dancing itself onto the floor with a dull thunk. I ignored it as I had the other multiple times. I lost count after twelve. I lifted the lid of the toilet and flushed the blood stained balls of cotton wool, watching them swirl away like little red ballerinas. I bent and picked my phone off the bathmat where it vibrated itself, contemplating flushing it too. Not one name in my contacts list inspired me with the urge to call them back; not even my father.

  I dropped the lid and shoved the phone into my jeans. In the kitchen I grappled another ice pack from the freezer and pushed the limp one in to chill. Perhaps if I iced my face for the next twenty-four hours, I might make it to work on Monday without the endless childish questions about what happened. My eyes teared up at the thought of the hundreds of tender kisses any kind of hurt induced in my captive audience and I loved them for their genuine concern. Every one of the children in my care possessed more worth than any of the adults charged with the unenviable task of loving me for myself.

  Nosing in the fridge produced nothing of interest. I fancied crusty bread and cheese but knew the chewing motion would open up the cut inside my mouth and closed the fridge against the prospect of more cotton wool dabbing.

  The cell phone buzzed again with a text and feeling I could deal with that, I clicked buttons and read the message. Dad’s number gave way to a list of badly spelled swear words and I swallowed, looking for the point of the text. He must have heard about Terry’s slap and yet his text contained nothing about my public humiliation. Only complaints.

  ‘Stop bluddy leaving me places!’ he grumbled, the message ending with three more unrepeatable swear words.

  I closed the message and saw four other flashing envelopes, reading them one at a time.

  ‘What the hell happened?’

  ‘Are you ok?’

  ‘What’s going on?’


  ‘I called the cops.’

  I groaned in dismay. The four texts came from Alysha and I heard the anxiety in her tone when she got no response. With great reluctance I messaged her back.

  ‘You shouldn’t have. I’m fine.’

  Her response beamed onto my screen, her shock evident.

  ‘I saw him hit you. He’s not getting away with it.’

  I rang her, finding the prospect of a lengthy text argument unpleasant. “Why’d you call the cops, Alysha? If I wanted them involved, I’d do it myself.”

  “No, you wouldn’t!” Alysha exclaimed. “The Saint men have been shoving you around your whole life and it’s time for it to stop.”

  “You don’t understand,” I began and her shrill voice stopped me.

  “Like hell I don’t understand!” she snapped. “They married you off like they were donating an organ and you’ve lived with the consequences. I’m sick of watching them treat you like dirt. For goodness sake speak to the cops when they come looking for you.”

  “What do you mean?” My voice rose to a shriek. “You didn’t give them my address?”

  “Of course I did. Make sure you tell them everything.”

  I slid down the fridge until my bum hit the floor tiles, squeezing the bridge of my nose between thumb and forefinger. “What a mess!”

  “A mess they made, Ursula, not you.”

  “I take it Dad got home.” I sighed, wrinkling my nose at his tactless message. “He’s not happy; I’m sure I’ll never hear the last of that.”

  “He’s a selfish old man. None of them deserve you, babe. You speak to those cops when they show up.”

  “If they show up.” I comforted myself with the thought that Auckland cops had better things to do than arrest a spiteful old man for slapping a relative.

  I settled on a tin of tomato soup and regretted it as the vinegar stung my lip. The buzzing of the intercom drove me to the handset and I lifted it, expecting the dulcet tones of a police officer. Instead I got Margaret Saint, her voice wavering in distress. “I need to talk to you,” she said and I imagined her standing on the front step wringing her hands.

  “I’m not up to visitors,” I replied and hung up. Peter’s mother epitomised everything involved in the words ‘helicopter’ and ‘mother.’ She’d blown his nose until the day of his wedding, loaned him cash on demand and probably breast fed him up until his death. I closed my eyes and prayed she went away, otherwise I’d be forced to call the cops myself.

  She rang again and again and during a momentary pause, I disconnected the handset and left it dangling from the unit.

  I groaned in misery as the hammering began on my front door, suspecting she’d persuaded one of my neighbours to give her entry. I looked through the peep hole and sure enough, Aunty Margaret bounced on the balls of her feet to bang on my door, her thin lips pursed into a straight line and her face set in a look of determination. As I heard other doors on my level bang, I pitied my neighbours enough to swing open the door and face the angry woman on the other side. “Come in!” I said with a decent injection of sarcasm as Margaret pushed past me. The Indian man across the hall shot me a look of consternation and I saw his eyes move across my face to the swollen lip and the bright red hand mark across my cheek. I gave him a smile which didn’t reach my eyes and closed the door.

  “You set the cops on Terry!” Her voice rose as she faced me, her piggy eyes larger than usual behind the milk bottle bottomed glasses.

  I shook my head, wondering if she’d missed the slap mark and faced her down. “No, I didn’t. I haven’t spoken to the cops. Please leave.”

  “I’m your mother-in-law!” she barked, putting her pudgy hands on her ample waist and rocking backwards and forwards on her sensible shoes. “You can’t throw me out. And you did ring them. They showed up at the club and spoke to Terry.”

  “Well, they haven’t spoken to me!”

  Margaret lowered her voice and moderated her tone, wheedling me back into line. “Don’t be like this with me, Ursula. We can sort this out between ourselves.”

  “You knew, didn’t you?” I asked, dread creeping up the back of my neck in a slow, prickling line. “Is that why you cooked up a marriage of convenience? It’s not a crime to be gay anymore, or didn’t you realise?”

  Margaret took a step backwards, her face pale with shock. “Gay!” Her eyes bugged and her breath came in snatches, the wind knocked right out of her. “My Pete wasn’t gay!”

  Tiredness enveloped my whole body and I turned and strode into my kitchen, slumping in a rickety chair. I rubbed my eyes with my fingers and caught the painful welt on my cheek. “Please don’t tell me you really believed he went out drinking on Saturday nights and slept with women.” The sadness in my own voice seemed to strip away the last of my resolve. “He kept it secret for the first few years but it ate him up. He picked the wrong guy to bend over to in a toilet near Eden Park and they raped him and took his wallet and phone.”

  Margaret’s hand slipped up to her mouth, her eyes squeezed shut tight, defending herself against my words. I didn’t have the energy to spare her anymore. “The debts he left me were from drinking and borrowing money to pay for rent boys. Pete ran through cash like there was no tomorrow and it caught up with him. The house sale cleared most of it but I’ve still got six months left of a year’s loan to finish. I asked you for help and you refused. I owe you nothing so get out of my home.”

  My mother-in-law gaped and her hands flapped in front of her face. “You’re a liar!” she wailed. “He was fine until he met you.”

  I laughed, the sound low and cruel. “He slept with me twice, Margaret, once on our honeymoon night, probably on your instructions so I couldn’t undo the marriage when I found out and once when he was very drunk and you wouldn’t shut up about grandchildren. When he called me after the rent boys beat him up, I had myself tested for all the nasties he might have been carrying and I never went near him again.” I fixed my dark eyes on her face, animosity for her gone in the relief of my cathartic confession. “It was all about him, Aunty Margaret. He couldn’t cope with who he was because you wouldn’t let him. If you’d just accepted him when he tried to tell you, he might still be here.” I felt sickness rise into my gullet and remembered her spiteful accusation after Pete’s funeral. The words felt like acid on my flesh as she’d blamed me for her son’s death, stalking after his casket with a belly full of righteous indignation and stonewalling my pleas for help as I sold everything to rid myself of his debt.

  “He was fine until he met you,” she repeated. “You killed him. His suicide note broke my heart.” Her voice rose to a squeak and I stood, pointing towards the tiny corridor leading to my front door.

  “I need you to leave. I haven’t spoken to the cops and I don’t know if I will. Just get out and leave me alone. I’m done with the Saints and everything you stand for.”

  Margaret rallied as the tears pricked behind her glassy eyes. She stared at my raised finger and fixed me with an icy stare. “You were born a Saint and you’ll die one,” she spat.

  I shook my head and pitied her, reminding me of my maiden name, the label they sullied with their interference. I daily asked myself why I did it; why I put on a wedding band in good faith and hitched myself into an impossible yolk. Because I was too trusting and already heartbroken; that’s why. Peter Saint caught me on the raw and I believed his proclamations of enduring love and the promise of children. Even after I found out about his homosexuality there’d been understanding, or so I thought. Until the suicide note the cops found in the glove box of his wrecked car. ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ More fool me.

  “I’ll speak to your father!” she declared, drawing herself up to her full height and almost eclipsing her face with her ample breasts in the process.

  “You do that.” I heard the exhaustion in my voice. “I’m finding the burden of Pete’s secret hard to bear right now. It’d be best if I told the truth. I can’t have everyone thinking his life rev
olved around the club and bringing on the fresh young players of tomorrow, when really he’d gravitated towards them for entirely different reasons.” Even the thought made me sick and guilt flared in my chest at the implied lie. Pete loved his job and it felt cruel to sully his good work that way.

  But it worked. Margaret Saint took a step back and lowered her armoured chest. “You wouldn’t?” She didn’t sound sure. Her eyes widened and filled with tears and the gentle side of me ached to reassure her I’d exaggerated. My bitch-self pushed to the fore, needing to hurt her for five wasted years of my life; my childbearing years.

  “I dunno, Aunty.” I shook my head and faked uncertainty for something I’d never do; not in a million years. “Catching the bus to work every day because I sold a nice car to pay your son’s debts can make a girl mighty miserable. Living in a shoebox when I owned a perfectly nice house once; that can take its toll too. Then there’s that debt I’m still paying which makes me count my outgoings hard enough to stop me living my life; yeah, that makes me so depressed. I’ve been approached by a magazine wanting an interview. Pete was a real celebrity, especially after being called up to the nationals last year.” I sighed. “The fee would wipe out the debt and give me enough for a car, according to what the journo said.” I pointed at the door. “Goodbye, Aunty Margaret. Don’t come back.”

  “You’re blackmailing me.” She said the words in a reverend hush, as though her husband was the only one allowed to box people into nasty corners. My eyes narrowed as I applied the label to myself and took a step into criminality. That’s exactly what I’d done; without realising.

  I bit my lip and then smiled, wondering why I’d never thought of it before. “I’d like to think of it more as a parting gift from generous in-laws,” I said, feeling invincible. I took a step towards her, pointing again at the door and ushering her out of my safe place. She went, looking at me over her shoulder with a newfound respect in her expression. “Oh, by the way.” I pointed to my swollen cheek. “I’ve taken photos of this, should I ever need to use them.”