Deleilah

by Bowes, K T

  Despite their nights of incredible passion, past hurts kept Leilah’s guard firmly fixed in place and it created an intangible barrier. Vaughan never mentioned his wife or the circumstances of her death but it hung over him like a dark shroud, banding together with the spectres of Michael and Harvey to haunt them both. Leilah banged the steering wheel in temper and pointed the ute towards town and Mari’s cafe.

  “Hey, kōtiro.” The old woman looked tired, her face grey and drawn.

  “What’s wrong? Are you sick?” Leilah’s concern narrowed her eyes in a frown.

  “Just the pain from my bones.” Mari brushed off Leilah’s gaze with a wave of her hand. “You gonna stay for your coffee today or shall I make one for you to run with?”

  Leilah laughed and rolled her eyes. “What time does this builder come in?”

  “Already here.” Mari jerked her head towards a man at the corner table. He sipped a cup of strong, brown liquid and read the newspaper, hair spiked over his large head like a hedgehog.

  “Is that his lunch or afternoon tea?”

  Mari raised an eyebrow. “If you don’t know then I’m not gonna tell youse.” She waved away Leilah’s coins and beamed when asked to brew the coffee herself.

  “I only like yours,” Leilah stressed, pulling a face and fancying Mari looked proud to bursting with the compliment.

  “Excuse me, are you Claus?” Leilah felt ridiculous, approaching a male stranger on a forgetful old woman’s dubious say-so.

  “Yes, miss,” he said, half rising to greet her.

  “Do you have a minute to talk?” Leilah fingered the ute keys and chewed the inside of her lip.

  “Sure.” He waved her towards the seat opposite and cast an eye around the cafe. “But if it’s private, this ain’t the best place.”

  The surrounding tables were empty for the moment but a group of the town’s retired ladies kept their radar spinning in Leilah’s direction from the other side of the room. She leaned forward. “How about we speak in code for a while,” she whispered.

  Claus laughed, displaying a ready smile and gentle eyes. “Righty oh,” he agreed with a wink.

  Leilah explained about Hector’s house in hypothetical questions delivered in undertones and Claus quickly picked up her requirements. “Best I take a look,” he agreed and Leilah slipped him the keys to the house and barn, sliding them beneath his newspaper.

  “I want a written quote,” she stressed. “I know it’s a mess without seeing inside but I don’t need any nasty surprises half way through.”

  Claus nodded and asked for the address, providing a battered ball-point pen from one of the many pockets on his trousers. Leilah wrote it on a corner of the newspaper and tore it off, pushing it across the table. It disappeared into his pocket with the returned pen. “I don’t talk about my jobs,” Claus promised and Leilah nodded in relief. His brows knitted together. “But the man I work for is selling up and a Hamilton group bought his gear and customer list. My quote will stand but I don’t know the gang he uses.” His face creased in concern. “I don’t wanna let you down.”

  “When does the sale happen?” Leilah asked, dread in her heart at hitting a snag already. “I contacted a few local builders but they didn’t even call me back.” She sighed. “One offered to meet for a discussion and then when I said I wasn’t sure what my long-term plans were, said he wasn’t interested in fluffing up local properties for rich bitch Aucklanders.” Her lips curled back in distaste, remembering the heated exchange. She rested her eyes on the man’s kind face. “Mari recommended you.”

  Claus glanced at the old woman as she heated milk and deafened nearby customers with the sound of the ancient machine. He gave a fond smile. “She’s a good woman.”

  Leilah detected the twang of a South African accent hidden beneath the colloquialism but didn’t ask. “Take a look and do the maths. I’ve put my cell phone number under the address so get in touch. I’d like to move quickly and get the project sorted.”

  Claus left with the promise to inspect Hector’s house that afternoon and provide a written quote the next morning. Leilah cheered and enjoyed her coffee, gratified when Mari sat with her for a while. The nosey women from the corner walked back and forth for magazines, glasses of water and the toilet, attempting to tap into the whispered conversation and Leilah gave up as the fifth one bumped her arm on a tiki tour of the cafe to reach the toilet on the other side. “It never bloody changes, does it?” Leilah snorted in anger as her coffee spilled. “This town can’t keep secrets!”

  Mari studied her with sympathy and another emotion which closed her eyes in something like regret. “It keeps some,” she said, her voice soft. Leilah swallowed, reminded of her letters and their damaging revelation.

  “Sorry,” she whispered.

  Mari patted her hand. “Come and wash up for me?” she asked, her eyes watery. “We can talk out back and I can sit down more.”

  Leilah donned an apron and rubber gloves and rinsed plates and mugs, loading them into the industrial dishwasher and getting into a satisfying rhythm. The thrum of the machine and the swish of water provided enough background distraction to free up her mind. Mari mixed a batch of scones on the work space in the centre of the kitchen, smiling as Leilah reached across and snagged the occasional sultana.

  “What’s with you and the foster boy?” Mari’s comment made Leilah wince at her tactlessness.

  “You mean Vaughan?”

  “You know who I mean.” Mari chopped cucumber on a board, the regular cuts echoing around the space. “What’s with you?”

  “I don’t know.” Leilah shrugged and used a brush to scrub pumpkin soup from the inside of a pan. “I’m helping him with the horse he brought back from Feilding.”

  “Why were you there?”

  Leilah heaved out a sigh. “I met what I thought was a nice guy at a wedding up north. He visited a few times and we seemed to get along. When Seline blew me out during the holidays I accepted a few days at his place and he turned out to be a psycho.”

  “Geez!” Mari’s knife stilled. “You told Tane?”

  “Yes. He took a statement, but it’s my word against the man’s. I’d rather forget about it.”

  “Does this guy know where you live?”

  Leilah swallowed and dipped her head. “Yeah. It’s another reason I’m not in a hurry to go back to Hamilton. The apartment is on a three-month lease and there’s not much there. I might quit and shift my stuff elsewhere.”

  “What was his name?”

  “You won’t know him.”

  “Foster boy knew him; I might.”

  Leilah tutted. “Harvey Gilroy. You won’t know him.”

  Mari’s knife clattered to the floor and the barista put her head around the doorframe. “All right, Mari?”

  The old woman nodded and bent to retrieve the knife with difficulty, walking up behind Leilah and plonking it into the washing up water. To Leilah’s surprise Mari spun her around, looking up at her with angst in her face. “You stay away from Harvey Gilroy!” she snapped, her eyes blazing. “His pa came from round here a long time ago. He killed a woman. Nasty, evil man!” Mari’s saliva sprayed from her lips and landed on Leilah’s apron. A gnarled finger prodded the space between Leilah’s breasts. “His son’s no better. The foster boy’s wife came from that place.”

  “Vaughan’s wife?” Leilah sounded disbelieving and Mari administered another prod.

  “Aye! She came to Aotearoa on holiday and met up with Gilroy. Thought he was sincere and made the mistake of going back to his farm. I don’t know how she came to be with Horse’s boy but she ended up here, broken and silent. The cops got involved but she wouldn’t testify. She married and stayed up at Horse’s place until she died. Immigration showed an interest but the marriage certificate sent them packing which is probably why she did it. I think she was German.” Mari’s eyes narrowed and she prodded Leilah hard. “You should stay away from Harvey Gilroy and that Vaughan boy.” She added a slap to Leilah
’s upper arm. “Don’t you know trouble when you see it, girl?”

  Leilah sighed. “Obviously not.” She shook her head. “How did the woman get from Harvey to Vaughan?”

  “Buggered if I know.” Mari humphed and narrowed her eyes. “Their lives are intertwined like supplejack vine. One day they’ll strangle each other. Stay away!”

  Leilah turned back to the sink and hung her head. Mari tapped her on the back. “It’s too late, isn’t it? You’re involved?”

  Leilah closed her eyes and remembered their non-argument on the deck. She wished they could find a way of communicating as well in the daylight as they did in the darkness. A sensation began in the pit of her stomach as though she’d dropped from a great height and Leilah groaned out loud with the pleasure and pain of it. “Yes! I got involved,” she moaned. “Can’t remember the last time I felt so wanted, but it’s like gathering barbed wire. I know it’s gonna hurt but I need it.”

  “Is it just te mahimahi?”

  Leilah’s jaw dropped at Mari’s directness. “No! It’s more than sex.” Her eyes grew dull. “It is for me, anyway.”

  “What about him?”

  “I don’t know.” Leilah turned back to the dirty pots in the sink. “It’s complicated.”

  Mari nodded and went back to her muffins, turning the mixture into tall cases laid in a cake tray. “Always is kōtiro. Always is.”

  The barista poked her head around the kitchen door two hours later as the cafe finished serving before closing its doors. Leilah pushed the last washed tray onto the draining board and flexed her painful shoulders. “Sweet!” the teenager remarked. “Thanks gee. You did my job.”

  “Didn’t I just?” Leilah sighed and pulled the plug from the bottom of the sink. The water gurgled out.

  “There’s a man here wanting you.”

  When Mari didn’t answer, Leilah looked round. “Me?”

  “Yeah. I’ll send him in.” The pretty dark face disappeared and Claus took her place, looking nervously through the gap.

  “Oh, hey.” Leilah stripped the gloves from her fingers and laid them to dry over the edge of a drawer. “How did you get on?”

  Claus held the keys out to her and dropped them into her palm. “It’s a massive job.” He shrugged. “I can quote you for it stage by stage but it won’t be cheap. I don’t want to quote for the whole job at this stage because too much can go wrong. The plasterboard needs to come off inside so we can look at the structure. The building itself looks sound and I didn’t see signs of borer beetle.” Claus scratched his head and shuffled. “Needs a new roof. The place isn’t watertight.”

  Leilah covered her face with her hands and sighed, the breath whooshing through her fingers.

  “What did you expect?” Mari kneaded dough for bread rolls and shrugged. “Baxter did nothing to the place after Hector died. I haven’t been up there for almost twenty years.” She looked up from her work and caught Leilah’s eyes, sizing up her agonised face. “I’m glad you bought it, girl. I’m good with a paintbrush.”

  Leilah nodded and after the cafe closed for the day, made the journey up to her father’s old house with Mari and the builder. It proved a sobering experience as she explored the wreckage of her childhood, walking through the dilapidated, rain ruined bedrooms where she’d once played. Mari kept a tight grip on her fingers and together they discussed the renovations and how the place might one day look.

  “Don’t I need an architect?” Leilah asked, poking her finger through a panel of sodden wall board.

  “I’ll get the guy from my last job. Is it ok to give him your number?”

  Leilah nodded. “I only need to know the structure is sound enough to renovate. I don’t want to change it.” The words caught in her throat as she brushed her fingers over the wood burner in the corner. She remembered pushing her small metal cars around the hearth and the sound the wheels made against the tiles.

  Mari squeezed her forearm, offering comfort and solidarity. The visit affected her too. A constant presence in Hector’s home, Mari became mother, aunty and nursemaid to the motherless baby girl, always around when needed. Leilah watched as Mari gulped air and struggled to control her emotions. “Carpet’s screwed.” Mari toed the thin, patterned fabric with her shoe and wrinkled her nose, hiding her misery behind practicality.

  “We’ll rip it out.” Leilah sounded decisive. “Strip back the floorboards and varnish them.” She glanced upwards at the heavy wooden struts, the boards which once covered them lying soggy on the floor. “We’ll expose the overhead beams too and open it right up.” Leilah looked across at Claus. “Is that possible?”

  “Yes, miss.” He smiled, showing a missing tooth. “That’s usual with these old villas. I’ll bring the architect up tomorrow and he can say what needs doing first. How would that be? He worked on the police sergeant’s house with me if you want references.”

  “Awesome.” Leilah released a breath as she closed and locked the front door behind her. She wrapped an arm around Mari’s bent shoulders and dropped the keys back into Claus’ open palm. “Fresh start, whaea,” she whispered into the old lady’s ear, referring to her as ‘aunty’ and cementing their bond. “Let’s begin again and do better this time.”

  Chapter 35

  Reminders

  The lights were on in Corey’s cottage by the road and Leilah drove past with butterflies in her stomach. His earlier threat about not hurting Vaughan stuck in her throat as hypocrisy as she’d done exactly that only minutes later. Confusion set her heart thudding as she pushed on the accelerator and the ute climbed the driveway, shuddering to a halt in front of the porch steps. Hinga called to Leilah as she slammed the driver’s door closed and she smiled, emboldened by the mare’s acknowledgement. The low whinny touched something in her soul and she moved across the darkened driveway and stroked the soft nostrils as they quested over her fingers. “Let’s get those back hooves taken care of tomorrow,” Leilah crooned and kissed the whiskery lips. “Then maybe we should go for a ride. What do you think?”

  Hinga snuffled and lowered her face to the ground, nipping at the last of the grass around the edges of the pen. Leilah turned and walked towards the house, sighing with dread at the darkened windows which showed no sign of life. She’d delayed her homecoming by dropping Mari off and then ringing Seline, smoothing over one relationship whilst wrangling over another.

  Leilah’s fingers connected with the handle of the French doors and she jumped with a squeak of terror as a voice came out of the darkness. “I didn’t think you’d come back.”

  She clutched her heart, irritation emerging as a self-defense reaction. “I had to come back. My sandals cost a fortune.”

  Vaughan laughed in the darkness, her answer unexpected. “At least I know where I sit in the pecking order.” He lounged in a battered armchair with his long legs stretched out before him. His tan cowboy boots rested on the balustrade. Leilah yearned to stretch out her fingers and touch him but stopped herself. She’d recognised the stirrings of attraction morphing into love and daren’t allow herself to be sucked further into the terrifying pit of disempowerment. “I’d like to buy Hinga,” she said, surprising herself with the request. “I’ll pay whatever you want for her.”

  Vaughan’s features were hidden in the darkness and Leilah held her breath as she waited, unable to read his expression. “She’s not for sale.” His answer contained a painful bite and Leilah stiffened.

  “To me, or to anyone?” she asked, her voice stiff.

  She heard Vaughan swallow. “To you.”

  “Fine.” Leilah pushed open the door and tripped over the threshold, banging her elbow on the glass. She kicked off her boots in temper, not sure where they landed and stamped to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. An array of vulgar words escaped her full lips and she cried hot tears of defeat, trapped behind a battle line drawn with her own hand.

  Vaughan didn’t climb into bed seeking forgiveness with his lips and fingers and Leilah slept fully dress
ed and uncomfortable. She woke early but found him already gone, the ute absent from where she’d left it. Leilah brewed tea and sulked, showering and cleaning her teeth with robotic fingers. The bin in the bathroom contained bloody wound pads and she cursed, remembering Vaughan’s appointment at the Waikato hospital to check his staples.

  Feeling guilty, she worked Hinga in the pen and rasped her back hooves. The mare didn’t enjoy the experience, but tolerated the rasp correcting her overgrown feet which looked painful and caused her to limp.

  “You’ve done a grand job with her.” Corey peered over the fence and admired the mare. “Thought she might have to be shot, but she’s coming good.”

  “Thanks.” Leilah crouched beneath the stamping legs and plastered the tar preparation over all four feet, standing back to look. Hinga shook her mane and showered the shiny hooves in dust and debris.

  “Is there another paddock we can put her in?” Leilah asked, brushing muck from her jeans. “There’s no grass left in here.” She shielded her eyes from the harsh sun. “I didn’t want to shove her in with those others. They might damage her and she’s had enough of being beaten up.”

  “Yeah. We’ll shove her behind the house,” Corey said, waiting until Leilah tied rope halters onto both mares before opening the gate. “Give her to me and you take the skitty one.”

  Hinga hung back, watching as Corey steered her companion past the tack shed and through another set of gates. Leilah clicked her tongue and urged her on, encouraging her to follow. She set off walking and the mare clattered behind on her shiny feet, accepting Leilah’s leadership as trustworthy so far. The new paddock looked lush and green and Corey turned the other mare loose, keeping her facing the gate while he undid the knot and took a step back. Leilah repeated the process with Hinga, moving away before the mare surged, kicking and bucking like a spring lamb. “I got kicked in the head doing that once,” Leilah mused. “Split my scalp open.”

  “Ouch!” Corey leaned against the gate with a blade of grass in his teeth and his hat pushed back on his head. “How’d that happen?”