‘But they patch them up a lot better these days,’ I pointed out.
‘There’s still not much you can do about having no cartilage left in any of your joints.’
‘They can replace knees and hips.’
‘Not shoulders. Or fingers. How many of them has he dislocated?’
‘I don’t know. A few.’
‘There you go. Those’ll all be buggered in another ten years. You would have ended up wiping his bum for him.’
‘I wouldn’t have minded,’ I muttered.
He passed me out a handful of bolts and shuffled along to the next corner. ‘You’re pathetic. And there’s another reason you should have been heading for the hills.’
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Do you know what the All Blacks’ motto is?’
‘“Feed your backs”?’
‘Nope. It is – and I kid you not – “Subdue and penetrate”.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Google it then.’
‘Maybe it didn’t sound so dodgy a hundred years ago when they came up with it,’ I said weakly.
‘Of course it did. It’s not like human biology’s changed since then. Very shady people, rugby players. Can you move along a bit?’
Turning to drop the handful of bolts on the floor behind me I glimpsed two large bare feet crossed one over the other in the bedroom doorway. Mark was leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded, and as my startled gaze lifted to his face he looked at me with a mixture of uncertainty and amusement and love that nearly stopped my heart.
As I got shakily to my feet, Lance said, ‘Hold the thing steady, would you?’
Mark pushed himself away from the door and held his arms out, and I hurled myself across the room at him and clung like a limpet. He wrapped his arms hard around me, dropping his face into my hair.
‘Nell!’ said Lance, but I barely even heard his voice.
The baby, compressed in a feverish embrace, began to drum its heels against my abdominal wall in protest. Mark took half a step back and moved his hands to my stomach.
‘He doesn’t like being squished,’ I whispered.
‘Sorry.’
‘I like it.’
‘Good,’ he said, and kissed me.
From somewhere far, far away came a muffled shout. Mark pulled his mouth away from mine and went across the room to lift the collapsed bed frame off poor Lance, who didn’t, it seemed, like being squished any more than the baby did. He crawled out of the wreckage and scrambled to his feet, looking both angry and embarrassed.
‘Are you okay?’ Mark asked him.
‘Fine.’
The tumult of joy receded a little – only a little, but enough to let in a touch of remorse. Being rescued from underneath a bed by a man six inches taller and forty kilograms heavier than you are can’t be good for a chap’s self-respect.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
‘Just dandy,’ said Lance.
‘Mark, Lance,’ I said. ‘Lance, Mark.’
‘Hi,’ said Mark with an almost complete lack of enthusiasm.
‘Hi.’
‘I’m really sorry,’ I said humbly.
‘It’s fine,’ said Lance, massaging his elbow. ‘It looks like you’re all sorted here – I’ll be off.’
I caught up with him at the kitchen door. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome. You can just call the kid after me or something.’
‘I’ll take that on board,’ I said. ‘And, hey, cool sideburns.’
‘You reckon?’ asked Mark, coming to the door behind me as Lance turned his car.
I waved and shut the door. ‘Reckon what?’
‘That his sideburns are cool. I thought they made him look like a total dick.’
‘Total dick’ was a bit harsh – Lance’s sideburns were really no worse than mildly silly. With an old-fashioned cravat around his neck he would have made a lovely Regency dandy. ‘I was just trying to say something nice,’ I said. ‘It seemed the least I could do, after dropping a bed on him.’
‘Ah,’ said Mark. ‘Right.’
There were tired creases at the corners of his eyes, and the knuckles of his right hand were grazed and swollen. He looked tough and sexy and grown-up. ‘Is your shoulder okay?’ I asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘What happened to your hand?’
‘Stomped on in a ruck.’
‘Is it very sore?’
‘It’s alright. It’ll just mean the arthritis sets in a bit quicker, I suppose. A few less years of being able to wipe my own bum.’
I smiled. ‘How long were you there before I saw you?’
‘K-Y man was just going to put my boxers on Trade Me.’
‘Poor Lance. He’ll probably never get over it.’
‘Good,’ said Mark grimly.
‘He was only trying to make me feel better.’
‘He wasn’t. He was trying to weasel his way back into your knickers.’
‘Of course he wasn’t,’ I said.
‘I know weaselling when I see it.’
‘Well, I suppose you’ve done plenty of it yourself over the years.’
‘Almost none,’ he said haughtily.
‘Liar,’ I said, and hugged him.
He hugged me back, dropping his chin onto the top of my head. ‘I love you.’
And only five minutes before, the years were stretching grey and bleak before me, to be spent watching Mark’s expressions on his child’s face and furtively tracking his love life via the internet. ‘Same,’ I whispered.
His arms tightened. ‘Well, that’s a good start,’ he said, and taking half a step backwards he picked me up.
‘Mark, don’t! You’ll hurt your shoulder.’
‘It’s fine.’ He carried me across the kitchen and up the hall.
I kissed his ear. ‘My bed’s all in pieces.’
He stopped in my bedroom doorway and let me slide to my feet. ‘I’m pretty confident we’ll figure something out,’ he said.
31
MY ROOM WAS HOT AND STILL, AND THROUGH THE OPEN window came the soft tearing sound of Rex’s big white-faced steer pulling up grass on the other side of the fence. Mark was asleep in a broad stripe of sunlight, lying on his side with his arm heavy across my chest. The skin under his eyes looked grey and papery with exhaustion. Normally his ability to sleep anywhere, at any time, was legendary, but perhaps he too had spent the nights of the last fortnight staring at the ceiling.
It was very warm, especially underneath a large hot arm. I began to edge out from underneath it, and Mark stirred, frowning, and pulled me closer. I smiled to myself, threaded my fingers down between his and closed my eyes.
When, blearily, I opened them again, the light had changed. It slanted across the far wall, the dull warm gold of evening, and gleamed on the battered varnish of the chest of drawers in the corner. The wrong corner, now that I came to think of it, and the window was in the wrong place too. It was too high and too far away, and I was drowsily wondering why when the hand cupping my left breast moved down to rest on my stomach instead.
I had, until then, failed entirely to notice that hand. It was big and very brown against my skin, crisscrossed with the faint silvery lines of old scars. I looked at it wonderingly for a few seconds, and then covered it with mine.
‘Hey,’ said Mark.
Tears rose, stinging, behind my eyelids. ‘Hey.’
‘Nice bump.’
I moved his hand sideways. ‘Feel there. You have to press quite hard.’
He did. ‘Foot?’
‘No, I think it’s a bottom. There’s a foot over here somewhere.’ I felt for it in its normal spot, beneath my ribs. ‘There. He’s started getting the hiccups – it feels really weird.’
He prodded the little foot gently, and it withdrew. ‘I bet it does,’ he said. Then, almost under his breath, ‘In a couple of months we’re going to be parents.’
‘It’s t
errifying, isn’t it?’
‘Yep,’ he said.
I squirmed around in his arms to face him. ‘Em says I’ve been acting like the baby’s none of your business. Have I?’
There was a short silence, which effectively answered the question before he spoke. ‘Yeah. A bit.’
‘Mark, I’m so sorry,’ I said.
He smiled at me. ‘That’s okay.’
‘I just – I didn’t want to pressure you, when you’ve got the World Cup and your shoulder and everything else to worry about already. I didn’t want you staying just because I’d guilted you into it.’
‘I’m not that noble, McNeil. And I don’t think staying with someone you’re not happy with does your children any favours.’
‘Is that what your parents did?’ I asked.
He was silent for so long I thought he wasn’t going to reply at all. ‘Mum used to say that if it wasn’t for Rob and me she’d leave,’ he said finally. ‘But why the hell she thought having divorced parents would be worse for us than growing up with that shit is completely beyond me.’
I lay very, very still, holding my breath lest he stop talking.
‘We spent our whole time creeping around trying not to make a noise,’ he said. ‘When they weren’t fighting you could feel the pressure building up until you almost wished they were. They’d get pissed and start shouting at each other – sometimes I think Mum did it on purpose. It was like if she could wind him up enough to make him lose it and thump her, she’d won.’ His voice was level and matter-of-fact, and he turned his head to rub his cheek against my hair. ‘Once Rob got in between them. I was about five, so he must have been seven or eight. Mum was screaming – he’d split her lip, I think; her face was covered in blood, anyway – and Rob ran in, and Dad picked him up and threw him against the wall.’
I buried my head in the hollow of his shoulder and hugged him tighter. His skin was hot and smooth, and he smelt faintly of Deep Heat. When I was five I was my mother’s best helper, and my father’s right-hand girl, and I had never seen either of them drink more than a glass or two of wine with a meal.
‘Broke his collarbone, poor little sod,’ he added.
‘What about you?’ I asked.
‘Me? I was fine. I probably ran away and hid. I wasn’t the bravest kid.’
‘You were five! Did it happen very often?’
‘Not really. I think the threat of violence was worse than the violence itself, if that makes sense.’
I nodded.
There was a short silence, and then he said quietly, ‘I wouldn’t ever hit you or the baby.’
I stiffened, horrified that he should think I needed reassurance. ‘Mark! I know that!’
‘Well, you know what they say about the cycle of domestic violence. And then rugby players are pretty dodgy. All that subduing and penetrating.’
I giggled, and then sobered abruptly. ‘That’s not funny.’
‘No,’ he agreed. ‘Would you sing something for me?’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘What?’
‘That thing you sang for Bel about closing your eyes.’
I sang it, and he lay and watched me in the fading light as though I was something rare and precious that he couldn’t quite believe was his.
I will never forget this, I told myself. I will never forget how this feels, right this moment.
He reached for my hand. ‘Thank you,’ he said. And then, in order to save us from being overwhelmed completely by the beauty and significance of the moment, he added, ‘You don’t know any Megadeth songs, do you, McNeil?’
‘How was your flight back from South Africa?’ I asked, reaching a tin of crushed pineapple down from the top shelf of the pantry.
Mark, who was buttering bread shirtless and with his hair standing up on end, yawned and scratched his stomach. ‘Long,’ he said. ‘We left Jo’burg at around six on Saturday evening and got in last night about ten.’
‘That’s hideous.’
‘Well, you lose half a day with the time difference.’ He put down his knife and turned to open the fridge. ‘What do you want on your toasted sandwich?’
‘Pineapple and cheese, please. Do you want bacon?’
‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Why not? The Hawaiian toastie.’
‘I only saw the highlights of your last game,’ I said, putting my tin of pineapple down on the bench beside him. ‘But that try off the end of the lineout was brilliant.’
‘Yeah, it worked out well. It always makes Bob happy when his set-piece moves come off. Do you want me to put the stove back?’
‘Yes, please.’
As he pushed the stove back into its corner, the phone began to ring, and I crossed the kitchen to retrieve it from the end of the table. ‘Hello?’
‘Hi, sweetie.’
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘How was the concert?’
‘It was fine,’ said Em. ‘Caitlin did very well. Now, how are you?’
‘Really good.’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes,’ I said, smiling. I went back across the kitchen to lean against Mark, because any moment not spent touching him was a moment wasted. He slid his arms around me and pulled me back against him. ‘Mark’s here.’
‘Oh, sweetie,’ Em cried. ‘That’s just wonderful.’
‘I know.’
‘So you’ve managed to sort yourselves out?’
‘Yeah, I think so,’ I said. I tilted my head back to look at him, and he kissed my nose.
‘Thank heavens for that. Well, I won’t hold you up – I’m sure you have far better things to do than talk to me.’ Her voice fairly oozed innuendo, and Mark grinned.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ I said.
‘Yes, you do that. Have a lovely evening. Has he asked you to move in with him yet?’
I began profoundly to regret holding this conversation eight inches from the man’s left ear. ‘Um –’ I started.
‘Bring it up in bed,’ she said firmly. ‘Now’s the time, while you’re still on a high from making up. All those endorphins, or pheromones, or whatever they’re called, will be zinging around the place – give him a blow job and he’ll probably propose.’
I made a small strangled gulping noise, which she interpreted as embarrassment.
‘Good grief, sweetie,’ she said. ‘If you weren’t pregnant I would seriously question whether you understood the facts of life at all.’ And, with a parting snigger, she hung up.
‘I’d say anyone who’d spent more than half an hour with that woman would have a fairly good grasp of the facts of life,’ Mark said thoughtfully, resting his chin on the top of my head.
I put the phone down on the bench. ‘They sure would.’
‘Do you want to move in?’
‘Yes,’ I said recklessly.
‘Awesome. When?’
I twisted out of his arms and stared at him. ‘Really?’
He laughed. ‘Yes!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. I think it’s time we stopped mucking around and did this properly, don’t you?’
‘Um, yes,’ I said, slightly dazed.
‘Why don’t you come this weekend?’ he said. ‘Then you won’t have to move twice.’
I began to laugh helplessly. ‘I’m on call this weekend, for a start. And I can’t leave work with less than a week’s notice.’
‘A couple of weeks, then.’
‘The baby’s not due for nearly three months! I can’t just swan around on holiday at your place for three months.’
‘Why not?’ Mark said. ‘You can get things ready for the baby – make me nice things to eat . . . It’ll be great.’
It sounded wonderful. ‘I’ll talk to Nick,’ I said.
‘Thank you.’
I smiled. ‘How are we going to fit a baby into your place, by the way?’
Mark shrugged. ‘Babies are pretty small.’
‘Yeah, but they come with such a lot of equipment.’
‘We’ll empty ou
t a drawer or something. It’ll be fine. And we’ll move after the World Cup.’
‘You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?’ I said.
He took my face in his hands. ‘Yeah,’ he said softly. ‘I really have.’
32
MARK LEFT FOR TRAINING AT SEVEN THE NEXT MORNING with extreme reluctance. One day off seemed a little harsh after a fortnight overseas, but apparently a special lineout-overhauling session was needed before Saturday’s game. I spent from seven to seven-fifty drifting around the house in a pink-tinged sentimental daze, and then floated out to the ute and off to work.
‘Good morning, Thomas!’ I said as I passed his desk.
He was frowning at his computer screen, and didn’t look up. ‘Have you got any BVD vaccine in your ute?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘The computer says we’ve got two hundred doses in stock, and there’s fucking none in the fridge.’
‘Didn’t Keri use some last Friday on those calves at Townsend’s? That won’t have been charged yet.’
Thomas dropped his head into his hands. ‘Why can’t you lot let me know when you take the last bottle off the shelf? It’s not that fucking hard, is it?’
I thought it safest not to reply, and edged past him to look at the day sheet. At the top of my column were the words Pryor take parcel 8.30.
‘What am I taking out to Pryor’s?’ I asked.
‘Bag behind the counter.’
‘What’s the call for?’
‘Why don’t you go and find out?’ he snapped. ‘Where the hell is Keri?’
Thus I arrived at Kelvin Pryor’s cowshed with no idea of what I was there to do. Kelvin was a gnome-like fellow in his fifties who farmed ten minutes north of town. He walked like a pigeon, with his chest well forward and his bottom well back, and he had a touching faith in his own irresistibility to women.
As I pulled in he appeared in the milk room doorway and beamed at me across the gravel. ‘And how are we today, my dear?’ he asked.
‘Very well, thanks,’ I said. ‘How are you?’
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