by Bowes, K T
Vaughan wrenched open the rear door and pushed Leilah into the seat, climbing in after her. Corey took furtive peeks in the rear-view mirror at the ashen couple behind him, saying nothing as he drove at speed back to the farm. The seatbelt light flashed on the dashboard and Leilah cast around her for the clip, panicking without it. “It’s ok,” Vaughan whispered, fixing the lap belt into its catch. He secured his and then leaned across, gripping her hand in both his.
“What the hell happened?” Corey helped Leilah from the ute and searched Vaughan’s face for answers.
“Gilroy found her!” his boss replied through gritted teeth. “Get her inside.”
Leilah took shallow breaths through her sore throat, feeling better with each lungful of oxygen. She shrugged off the male hands either side of her, feeling tainted by Harvey’s touch. The men’s voices joined in a hiss of muted conversation behind her as Leilah trod the wooden boards to the bathroom, locking the door, stripping her clothes off and dropping them onto the bathmat. The shower spat cold water over her head and neck, shocking her and releasing sobs of powerlessness and anger. She stood there with her head bowed and her hands pressed against the tiles, staring at her feet in the scarred enamel bath. When she raised her face against the pounding spray the torrent worked its way into her mouth and eyes, washing away the hot tears and soothing her painful throat. Harvey’s fury morphed into Michael’s face as her former husband cut off her windpipe in one of his drunken rages and Leilah’s soul bled in misery at the consistency of her heart’s mistakes.
“Leilah?” Vaughan’s voice at the door drew her away from hideous memories and back to her miserable present. “Are you ok?”
Leilah nodded and then forced out her reply. “I’m fine. Just leave me, please.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
“I am!” She stepped over the side of the bath and reached for her towel on the back of the door. It stuck momentarily on the hook and Leilah screamed as the locking mechanism popped out of the centre of the door handle and turned. She leapt back as the door opened, revealing Vaughan’s concerned face.
“What can I do?” He stepped over the towel as it slithered to the ground and strode towards her, taking her soaked shoulders in his coarse hands. His dark eyes raked her face, not realising he was the monster.
Leilah batted at his chest with her good hand. “You! You can’t just walk in here when I’m...” She looked down at her naked body dripping water onto the floorboards and embarrassment began a flush which started at her chest. The chipped polish of her toenails peeked out from between her breasts, surprising her that she no longer saw stomach in the way.
Vaughan ignored her protests, crushing her soaked body into his chest, his arms strong around her as rough palms caressed her back. “Don’t be an egg, girly,” he soothed, his voice light.
“Leave me alone, Vaughan, please.” Leilah gave him a hard shove and he rocked back on his heels, his face filled with hurt. His shoulder bumped the wood as he turned away and Leilah heard his boots clumping along the hallway. She peered through the window and saw him stride towards Corey, who leaned against the ute with his legs crossed. Vaughan waved his arms and the young man piled into the driver’s seat and started the engine. With a last look back at the house, he shook his head and settled into the passenger seat just as Corey took off in a hail of grit and dust.
Chapter 37
Escape
“I can’t do this anymore.” Leilah wound herself tighter and tighter with her defeatism as she flung her possessions into the suitcase. “I shouldn’t be here. Someone always ruins it for me.” The expensive stilettos looked incongruous against the chequered shirts and jeans in the case, highlighting the disparity between her old life and new. “They don’t fit!” she cried in exasperation. “Nothing fits!” The eight hundred dollar shoes mocked her, refusing to blend and reminding her how impossible it proved to meld Dee Hanover with Leilah Dereham. Harvey’s presence in town reminded her of her old self, forcing her to acknowledge a life she’d happily stepped out of. Something had to give.
In confusion, Leilah snatched up the sandals and stomped down the hallway to the kitchen, wrenching open the cupboard under the sink and shoving them into the bin. The toes poked out over the lip of the bucket in horror, eyeing her crime with something like surprise. Leilah slammed the door on them and swished back down the hallway to her room, damp hair creating an uncomfortable dark patch on the back of Vaughan’s borrowed denim shirt. She dragged dusty boots over bare feet and seized the handle of the suitcase, dragging it noisily into the hallway. Her phone rang and she pulled it from her jeans pocket, watching the screen stutter in complaint at the limited reception despite the new sim card. Seline’s image showed on the screen along with her name and phone number.
“Hey, baby.” Leilah made her voice sound bright. “How are you?” The connection disappeared as the reception fluctuated and Leilah felt her tenuous hold on reality wane. She dialled Seline’s number, watching the icon flicker as technology tried to link her with her child and then loudly beeped its failure. “Oh, bloody hell!” Leilah stuffed her phone into her pocket, feeling the looseness of her clothing and realising how much weight she’d lost in the last few months. Her routine at the Auckland gym proved lacking against fresh air, running around the farm and working with horses.
‘Horses keep yer well.’ Her father’s voice growled back at her from the past as he flexed enormous biceps in her memory to make her giggle. Her hero worship of Hector came back to bite her, bringing with it the fresh-blood-scent of having disappointed him. ‘Youse don’t need flash equipment, just chase a colt on a lunge rope and you’ll be perfect, girly.’
Girly. Hector called her girly and Vaughan’s use of the word took her back into her past, rewinding until the memories bit at her soul. She inhaled and closed her eyes, using oxygen to draw strength and finding it lacking. Girly. Vaughan’s marriage proposal took Leilah’s breath away, hearing those words for the third time in her life. Michael’s plea for marriage was heartfelt and saved her from single motherhood and Leilah accepted with eagerness.
But even Michael didn’t know about the first and she kept the memory secret in her breast. She remembered her lover’s brawny arms as he picked her up in the paddock down by the stream and married her in the summer and in the sight of God. He put flowers in her hair and acted as both vicar and groom, saying the words as his eyes shone with naked hunger. Deleilah Dereham giggled as he said her full name and pronounced them man and wife. He removed every stitch of her clothing and they consummated their fake marriage with eagerness and excitement. ‘I love being married to you,’ he said, his eyes bright with the illusion as he rolled her on top of him on the flowery marriage bed of clover and buttercups. ‘Promise me you’ll stay with me? No matter what your dad thinks.’ His eyes begged her and Leilah brushed his fringe from his eyes, kissing his soft lips and moaning as his fingers explored.
Leilah grabbed at the doorframe, wishing with all her heart she could go back to that day and stay there. Stay there making love over and over again, bathing in the stream and doing it again, returning home exhausted with an ache between her legs and a full heart after stolen kisses at the bottom of the driveway.
Passing Vaughan’s open door, Leilah paused. The unmade double bed taunted her, infusing her with memories of his sex appeal and betrayal as he abandoned his marital bed for hers. Leilah balled her fists and approached the bed, her fingers stroking the dented pillow nearest the door. She lifted it and pressed it to her face, his masculine smell mingling with the scent of stale male deodorant. She felt her heart soften and her resolve weaken until she caught sight of his wife’s photo propped up on the dresser. The blonde woman’s eyes looked accusingly from the wooden frame, clutching Vaughan’s arm with fearful possession. Leilah tilted her chin upwards. “You can keep your husband,” she said. “He didn’t mean it.”
Laying the pillow gently on the bed, Leilah turned and left the house, dragging her su
itcase behind her down the rugged steps, the shoes and the remains of Dee Hanover in the dustbin of the rickety cottage.
Chapter 38
Disaster
Leilah parked Hector’s truck on the rutted driveway, nosing the bonnet towards the post and rail which had somehow become more post than rail in the intervening years since his death. She pulled her suitcase from the flat-bed and hauled it onto the gravel, seeing the orange earth showing through the stones. The suitcase ground against the smattering of gravel as Leilah yanked on the handle. It hadn’t been easy driving the truck through Vaughan’s barn and she shivered, wondering how she hadn’t done more damage. It started first time with the keys in the ignition and Leilah shed more tears at the familiar sound.
“What the hell’s going on?” Leilah’s footsteps ground to a halt on the porch, staring through the open French doors into her former home. The builders lay sprawled over her lounge floor drinking beer.
“Heeeey, tart’s here!” one of them exclaimed, hiccoughing as he took another swig of the dubious brown stuff from the bottle in his hand.
“I beg your pardon?” Leilah stepped into the room, mortified to see the lack of progress; the plaster still missing from two boards near the kitchen door and a hole in the floorboards. A space blinked back at her where the wood burner once sat, the brick fireplace blackened from the heat of winter fires. “Where’s Dad’s wood burner?”
“Takin it for scrap,” a large man slurred, grappling with the floor until he managed to stand. “It’s Friday after work beersies. Want one?”
“Where’s the wood burner?” She ground her teeth and put her hands on her hips. “Find it and put it back.”
“I’ll get it.” A dark-haired Māori boy stood and brushed his hands on his trousers. Pie crumbs littered the floorboards, blending into the dust and builders’ rubble. “Sorry, miss,” he muttered as he passed her.
“What else did you take?” Leilah fought the rage which lit her chest in a bone deep burn and threatened to ignite her temper. “Put everything back and get the hell off my property. You’re bloody fired!” She grappled in her pocket for her phone and dialled Tane’s mobile number, seeing the signal connect more strongly than at Vaughan’s. The screen displayed four missed calls from Seline and Leilah bit her lip. She put the phone to her ear and heard Tane’s sharp greeting.
“Yup.”
“You better not be callin’ the po-po.” The chunkiest of the builders stood over her and made a grab for her phone. “Stay and have a beer and some fun.” He leered at Leilah, blonde curly chest hair pushing its way over the collar of his vest, dampened by sweat and dusted with a layer of pie crumbs. The phone skittered to the floor and lay there.
“I don’t think so.” Leilah took a step backwards, feeling the threshold at the back of her heels and praying she didn’t fall backwards and end up with even more of a disadvantage.
“Come on, Greg. Let’s go. The lady asked us to leave.” The young man spoke from behind Leilah, his voice placatory. She half turned and saw him wave his arm towards the wood burner which stood on the driveway next to the builder's van. “I need help to put the burner back. It’s cast iron. I’ve got it off the truck but won’t be able to lift it by myself. Give us a hand bro.”
“No.” The older man stared at Leilah with predatory interest and a smirk lifted the corner of a stubble encrusted mouth. “I’m having fun here. Put it back; it’s mine now.”
There were four builders in total and Leilah’s heart beat a fearful tattoo as she saw two drunken faces appear behind the man blocking her way. Claus seemed absent. The stench of sweat and beer rose into her nostrils, accompanied by the grassy scent of marijuana. They were drunk and high and she had come alone. “Where’s Claus?” she demanded, her tone conveying dread. “He works for me. I don’t know who you are.” Her punctured tongue slurred her speech and the graze on her arm smarted.
The man in front of her smirked, sweat beading against a receding hairline as he enjoyed himself, pressing his body against hers. “Claus?” he grinned, showing even, white teeth behind the three-day moustache. “He don’t work for us no more. Thinks he’s too good for us.”
Leilah felt her spine press against the doorframe as the man touched beefy fingers along her jawline. The revulsion marched across her face like a digital display, invoking anger in her opponent. “What else did you take?” she bit, breathing through her mouth in a hiss to avoid smelling the man’s rancid scent. “I want everything back where you found it and I’d like you to leave. Now!”
“Give me a hand!” the young man insisted, crooking his fingers at the other two men. “We’re giving this lady her stuff back.”
“We just loaded it!” one of them complained, his scrawny arms poking out of a muscle top, the body it covered lacking in muscle of any description. “Them gates weighed a ton.”
“You stole the gates?” Leilah sounded appalled, her voice rising in disbelief.
“They were just in the barn behind the house,” the man said, whining his innocence. “Nobody wanted them.”
“I wanted them!” Leilah shouted. Her father’s hands restored the iron, lovingly sanding the fleur-de-lis and painting them matt black. He intended to hang them on the driveway nearest the road and it never occurred to Leilah that he hadn’t bothered after she left.
The man’s beefy hands felt heavy on her shoulders, moving towards her throat and for the second time that afternoon, Leilah found herself struggling to breathe. She kicked out with her foot and contacted his shin with the hard toe of her boot. As he dipped forwards she head butted him in the face, feeling her forehead contact the bridge of his nose. He roared, his eyes watering in pain but he didn’t fall and Leilah’s actions made him angrier. He seized her round the throat and squeezed, screaming obscenities and bleeding down the front of her blouse.
Alarmed, the other two men stepped back but to his credit, the youngest builder went to Leilah’s aid. “Get off her!” he shouted, his voice barely audible over the man’s angry bellows. Leilah saw bright spots in her vision as her lungs searched for oxygen. She felt the teenager’s weight over her left shoulder, leaning across to beat at the tall man’s head and face with his fists. His yells deafened her. “Let her go! Get off her, man! This ain’t right!”
The teenager disappeared backwards with such violence he took a lock of Laila’s hair with him. The pain was excruciating as it parted company with her scalp, leaving a hot, stinging ball of fire at the nape of her neck. Someone shoved her roughly to the side and the builder’s grip released with unexpected suddenness as he pitched backwards onto the floorboards.
Inhaling a breath too big for her lungs to cope with, Laila felt her chest lock. She stumbled over the man’s work boots which were attached to his flailing legs and ran for the door to the kitchen. She tripped over body parts in her effort to flee and made it to the hallway, her chest heaving and strange rasping sounds hissing from between her lips. As she put her hands up to her constricted throat, she saw her phone, the call to Tane leading him to her.
“Leilah!” A hand on her shoulder made her spin and kick out, causing her to overbalance. Tane caught her around the waist. “Hey, honey, sshhh, it’s ok. I’m here; you’re safe.”
Without shame, Leilah smushed her face into Tane’s chest and sobbed. “He wanted to hurt me and he knocked the phone out of my hand.” The end of her sentence emerged as a pitiful wail and Tane patted her back and kissed the top of her head. His big olive hands infused Leilah with a sense of safety and she sniffed and wiped her nose on his police issue shirt. The body armour encasing his torso dug into her chest as she wrapped her arms around his neck and cried with relief and gratitude.
“You’re ok now,” he whispered. “I was at the end of the drive anyway. I needed to see you, Lei. You have to make a statement about what happened with Gilroy.” His thumb brushed the corner of her lip.
“They were supposed to mend Hector’s place, but they wrecked it.” Leilah’s words were p
unctuated by a hiccough. “My life sucks,” she sniffed. “My ex-husband hates me, my daughter thinks I’m mean, the builders stole Hector’s special gates and Vaughan will never speak to me again. It’s ruined. My whole life’s ruined.”
“It’s not ruined, you egg!” Tane snorted. “You’re home now, Lei. It’s just starting over. I never knew you bought this place. I rang Mari when your call disconnected and made her tell me where you might be.”
Leilah shook her head. “It was a mistake, a big fat mistake. I should never have come back here.” She wiped her nose on the back of her hand and let her gaze wander into the nearest bedroom. Sleeping bags stretched over the floorboards and beer cans littered every available space. “They’ve been living here!” Indignation lit her blue eyes and she released herself from the safety of Tane’s embrace and strode back into the lounge.
Her attacker looked spent. His body trembled and vomit leaked from his lips along with a line of dribble which travelled down to the floor like a wet strand. His arms were handcuffed behind his back and a spotty teenager dressed as a cop was busy shoving a Taser back into his tool belt. Leilah rushed him and thumped him in the shoulder. “You bloody animals!” she screamed. “This is my father’s house and you’ve lived here and turned it into a pigsty!”
“Whoa, Lei, whoa.” Tane’s soothing voice broke through Leilah’s rage and his strong fingers gripped her forearms. “Give me a statement and hurt them properly by making sure him and his mates go to jail.”
“They stole stuff,” Leilah snapped, tears decorating her cheeks like glitter. “They stole Hector’s things.”
