Deleilah

by Bowes, K T

  “What does he mean?” Seline pleaded, reduced from the capable young woman to a hysterical child. “Was Dante my father?” Her voice raised to a squeak and Leilah stayed silent, her heart thudding in her chest. “Mummy, please. Tell me!”

  “I’m sorry, baby,” Leilah breathed, ending her sentence with a guttural cough as her throat dried out from shock and blood loss. She put everything into the apology, meaning all three words with heartfelt regret. Tane swore next to her, spitting out words he’d only heard from drunks. “It hurts at the back,” Leilah gasped, feeling pain drilling through from chest to spine.

  Tane took her body weight and tipped her forward, peering over Leilah’s head to see her back. The blood stain reached from shoulder blade to waist, her shirt sticky and rucked. Beneath her a pool of blood soaked her jeans crimson and she sat in the vibrant puddle like a guilty child with a leaking bladder. As Leilah slumped towards Tane’s chest, Seline let out a scream of horror. She screamed and screamed, holding the note like an opera singer, her hands clasped over her open mouth at the sight of Leilah’s true plight.

  In the remains of her peripheral vision before darkness descended, Leilah saw a dark figure enter from the kitchen. It moved with silence and precision, focussing like a heat-seeking missile and unfazed by the gun. She heard the thwack of bone on bone and saw Michael fall, the weapon skittering from his hand and sliding across the floorboards. It hit the skirting and stopped, the barrel facing towards her like an empty threat. Leilah moved her gaze to the left and met the lifeless eyes of the blonde haired beau, pleading with her from death. He seemed less vibrant lying down, his buoyancy and natural flair sucked from him, leaving an empty shell in its place.

  “Bastard!” Seline’s father shouted and the agony in his voice brought a shiver of fear to Leilah’s fractured consciousness. She groaned as Tane’s support disappeared from under her. She sank face first onto the floorboards with Dante’s blue eyes staring at her in blank adoration, just like he always had.

  Chapter 51

  A Friendly Face

  When she woke from surgery, Leilah refused to see anyone except Seline. Medication kept the pain of the sutures and powder burns at bay, but her mind couldn’t banish the vision of Dante’s death. In her dreams he stared at her with those puppy dog eyes, always there by her side, always waiting for an opportunity. In her dreams he moved around, danced with her at parties and visited her at home but when he turned to face her, his blue eyes were dead and sightless.

  “I can’t help you unless you’re candid with me.” The surgeon rested his clipboard on Leilah’s knees and pushed his bottom onto the bed, turning his spine at a practiced but awkward angle. She felt the pressure of his hand on her shin and fought not to recoil. Leilah swallowed and watched his dark eyelashes blink once, twice and then cease as he locked his gaze on her face. “You’re not improving enough, Mrs Hanover. Your body’s going through the motions like bodies do but I can’t let you go home in your current state of mind.” He fingered the clipboard. “I see in your records you spent time in the Kingston Centre after your daughter’s birth.”

  Leilah sighed and turned her face away. Back to that.

  “No,” he snapped.

  Leilah turned back at the sharp rebuke, her eyes narrowed with fear and her body stiffening. A bolt of pain shot through her shoulder and she groaned. The doctor seemed unrepentant, his brown eyes channelling kindness heavily laced with determination. “Don’t mess with me, Mrs Hanover,” he said. “I don’t want to call the psychologist, but I’m this far away from doing it.” He raised finger and thumb, the digits almost touching. “Talk to me or talk to him, it’s your choice. Now, what do you want from me?”

  Leilah swallowed and opened her mouth to speak. Her throat felt dry and cracked, the sensation of the breathing pipe still in her gullet from the operation. Her words sounded stilted, out there in the open. “Stop calling me, Mrs Hanover,” she demanded. “My name’s Deleilah Dereham.”

  The doctor smiled and lifted his clipboard. With a biro he put loud and scratchy crosses through the name at the top and then stood. He licked his finger and splurged out the words on the white board above her bed, expunging the Dee Hanover and replacing it with what she’d said. He spelt Deleilah wrong but Leilah released her breath with relief. She didn’t care as long as her other self was no longer staring down at her like a curse.

  “Easy enough,” the doctor said, sitting on the bed again. “What’s next?”

  Leilah squeezed her eyes closed and hot tears seeped from the corners and ran down her pale cheeks. “You can’t help me with anything else. Nobody can.” Hector’s face moved across the space behind her eyelids, his expression one of concern and understanding. “I want my dad.” Leilah’s voice broke and the first of the sobs escaped. “I want my dad. I need to tell him something.”

  She cried hard and long and in the end the doctor pushed a needle into the junction point of the drip and flushed sedatives into the fluid. The tears leaked out faster than her blood had and with far more vehemence. Once she started, she couldn’t stop. Leilah slept through the psychologist’s visit which was just as well. Seline gave him a wide-eyed look as a male built with Michael Hanover’s swagger searched for a woman with the name Dee Hanover, without success.

  Leilah woke to the sound of talking, Seline and another familiar voice. “She’s asking for her dad.” Seline’s voice broke, stress and sleeplessness in the anxious strains of sound. “I don’t think she remembers he’s dead.”

  Leilah heard fabric rustling and guessed the visitor worked to comfort her daughter. She pushed up from sleep like a free diver heading for the surface, pausing to decompress before hitting the storms above. Her eyes opened, blinking into bright sunlight pouring from a nearby window and saw the man’s bent outline, his bulky body silhouetted by the vibrant orb. “Now then, Sleeping Beauty,” he said with a chuckle. Leilah heard the sound of a chair dragging across the linoleum. “Girly says you’re asking for your pa?” He sat on the plastic, his body causing air to hiss from a hole in the surface. “Well, he’s not here, girly, but I am. Won’t I do?”

  Leilah nodded, the action easier than before. Her eyes sought his, a climber clinging to the last lifeline and she heard the painful hitch in her chest. Derek reached for the hand pitted by needle marks and bruising, clasping it palm to palm and avoiding the ugly cannula and trailing, liquid filled pipes. He jerked his head towards Seline, fluffy white hair moving with the motion. “Shift yer ass, girly,” he said to her. “Bloke’s had a long drive down here from the big smoke. What’s he gotta do to get a coffee?”

  Leilah heard Seline’s chair scrape back and her soft footsteps as she left the room. A sigh of relief escaped her battered chest. Derek leaned in close and she smelled coffee on his breath, something raw and strong from a motorway service station. “Talk fast,” he said, in his lilting, old town sing song voice. “If she makes coffee like her father, it’ll be shit.”

  Chapter 52

  Broken

  “You and Dante?” Vaughan kept his head low, staring at his dusty boots as they shuffled on the floor. He shook his head. “I never called that.”

  Leilah reached out her hand, the veins bold and blue against the sickly whiteness of her skin but the cannula gone. Vaughan looked up and saw, taking his time before accepting it. His big hands felt warm and full of life as he grasped the offering of contact.

  “I’m glad you’re ok,” he said, his voice husky. “I just needed to see.”

  “Thank you.” Leilah’s eyes stared out with a blank, drugged expression.

  Vaughan gave her fingers a squeeze and his lower lip trembled. “About the bloody horse,” he said, forcing the words out of a broken heart. “I couldn’t let you buy her because I already planned to give her to you.” He dipped his head and let go of Leilah’s hand as though her fingers were contaminated. He turned and strode from the hospital room and Leilah allowed the tears to fall. She marvelled at each plop of salt water on the
bedsheet, wondering where it all came from. Vaughan’s boots sounded dull as he left the ward, the noise of his absence quickly filled by the cacophony of hospital noises.

  Seline returned with Derek in tow, her blue eyes wide with apprehension.

  “You all done with yer making up?” Derek asked, his hair on end and another Styrofoam coffee cup in his fingers.

  “Yes,” Leilah replied, her voice flat.

  “Ah, that’s the spirit!” Derek replied, bouncing into the room on his orthopaedic shoes and creaking limbs. He waved the cup towards Leilah.

  “You called him?” Leilah’s heart sank. She tensed her body and put space between her and Derek, a world of distance in a few centimetres. “I thought he came because he wanted to.”

  “Oh, shut yer maudlin, girly!” Derek scoffed, squelching back into the hissing chair. “He’s been here the whole time, but you refused to see anyone.” He tilted the coffee cup back and slurped the last few dregs.

  “Mum?” Seline said, staring at Derek through a suspicious, slitted glare. “You ok?”

  Derek leaned forward. “She’s fine, Sel. Get her some of that shitty coffee will ya? And me and you too, please?”

  Seline’s shoulders slumped and Leilah heard her cursing as she slouched along the corridor. Her heart tensed at the thought of the conversation they would need to have.

  Leilah glanced sideways at Derek. “You knew, didn’t you?” she asked, sounding tired. “Not sure how, but you did.”

  Derek threw his head back and laughed. “Anyone with eyes could tell.” He slapped the bed and sent a ricochet through Leilah’s delicate frame. She pinned the groan between her teeth. Derek smirked. “I know family when I see it.”

  Leilah’s lips parted in surprise. “What? You never said.”

  “Not your business, girly,” Derek said with a wink. “But I kept an eye out for my niece, just like I promised your pa I would.”

  Leilah pushed herself upright. “What? Dad never knew. His last letter to me made that clear.”

  “I never said he knew, Deleilah! But he did ask me to keep an eye out, so that’s what I did. Who do ya think paid for that flash mother and baby unit? Ya don’t get that on the state.”

  Leilah put a hand over her mouth. “I can’t do this. Seline’s gonna think I’m a total slapper. I need to get out of here.” Her last sentence emerged as a wail before Derek tightened his grip around her wrist. Leilah fought to kick the sheets away from her legs and he reached forward to pat them back down.

  “Quit it!” he told her, taking her back to her childhood. Quit it. “You gonna tell that girly of yours?” he asked, his tone lighter.

  Leilah shrugged. “Have to now.”

  Derek rubbed his palm across his shaven chin. “Want me to see the boy about his property or you gonna do it yerself?” He looked worried then, his bushy eyebrows knitting in two diagonal white hedgehogs which conversed in the middle.

  “You do it,” Leilah said with a deep sigh which hurt her sore breathing muscles. “I’ve brought enough misery to his door for this lifetime. I’m going back to my apartment. Seline extended the lease for me this morning.”

  “Ok, sweetie,” Derek said. He stood and kissed her on the forehead, accepting the cup of coffee from a confused Seline as she returned. He dabbed her cheek with his lips and patted her shoulder as he headed for the door. “Your mama’s got stuff to tell ya,” he said with gentleness.

  Seline’s eyes were wide as she perched on the bed next to Leilah, her face screwed up as though it helped her understand better. Between harrowed, ragged breaths, Leilah told her daughter the truth. Not all of the truth but damn near most of it. She told her about her childhood in the tiny town and her first French kiss with a boy named Dante. But she couldn’t tell Seline why he died, because it wasn’t her business to tell.

  Chapter 53

  With Hindsight

  Hamilton wasn’t such a bad place. Leilah relaxed on her veranda overlooking the lake and admired her suntan. Nothing could remove the bullet wound which went from front to back, fracturing ribs and leaving a fairly messy hole, but sunshine helped it heal, kissing the damaged flesh with ultra violet rays and a sense of well-being which medication couldn’t offer.

  The hospital psychologist prescribed anti-depressants and Leilah chose to play the role of grateful victim, dumping them in the toilet as soon as she reached the apartment. Seline stayed with her for two weeks before heading back to university, late but with a good excuse. Leaning back in her recliner, Leilah closed her eyes and slammed the gate on her wandering brain, refusing to visit Dante’s death or the look of betrayal in Vaughan’s eyes. The knock on her front door disturbed her, but she ignored it, hoping the visitor went away.

  “Police! Open up!”

  Leilah sat up, swivelling her head to face the apartment, the sunshine creating a trail like the yellow brick road from the ranch slider to the front door. She winced at the pain the sudden movement caused and relied on her good arm to hoist her up. “Not funny, Tane!” she hissed through the door, yanking a towel around her body to cover her bikini and the naked space between. “I know it’s you.”

  Tane’s smile greeted her at the door, dipping his head to clear the lintel and adding a kiss to her cheek. His eyes strayed to the bullet wound and away again, not wanting to show he’d noticed. “I need coffee,” he said, loosening his tie and undoing the top button of his blue shirt. “Get me some, woman.”

  “Get your own,” Leilah replied, pointing her left hand towards the percolator and the dark, treacly mixture.

  Tane made a bee-line for it, helping himself to a mug from the draining board and sourcing milk in the fridge. “Nice place,” he said, his head jerk intended to encompass the whole apartment. “When are you coming home?”

  Leilah’s brow knitted. “I’m not.”

  Tane turned, his expression one of surprise and dismay. “You have to, Lei. The kids wanna see you again.” He swallowed. “Miriama didn’t mean to be so difficult; she’s sorry now. Come back, it’ll be fine.”

  “No, thanks.” Leilah fitted the towel more snugly and leaned her bum against the counter. “I’m good here.”

  Tane sank into the rented sofa, his long legs stretching out as far as the hearth rug in the tiny space. “You wanna know what happened in court?”

  Leilah shook her head. “No. Not really. I’m guessing the magistrates sent the case to the crown court and the whole thing will take years to sort out. By which time he’ll have spent so long on remand that the judge will knock it off his sentence and he’ll be out in the blink of an eye. Then he can buy another dodgy gun and come after me again.”

  “Cynic,” Tane said. “You make my job feel so worthwhile.”

  Leilah lifted her shoulders in a shrug, remembering at the last minute it wasn’t a good idea. She gritted her teeth in pain, managing to turn the expression into a flat smile to reassure her friend.

  “About what happened,” Tane said. He sat up and placed his mug on the coffee table with care. “About what Dante did...”

  “No.” Leilah held her hand up in front of her face. “Let’s not do this.”

  “But I need to.” Tane stood and his steps seemed heavier as he placed his feet one in front of the other on the expensive carpet. “I have nobody else to tell.”

  “Find a counsellor,” Leilah bit. “I’ve got problems of my own.”

  “Did you?” Tane asked, his face growing pale. “Did you tell a counsellor?”

  “I don’t have one,” Leilah sighed. “Just pills and they’re in the sewerage plant by now. Everyone in Hamilton will get happy by drinking tap water and never know why.”

  Tane nodded, seeming satisfied. Leilah’s neck flushed with anger. “I’ve never told anyone!” she snapped. “As long as you die first, you’ll be fine. By the time the dementia makes me ramble, nobody will believe me. They’ll think I’m a crazy old woman making stuff up and maybe I’ll add bits to the story; make it sound worse.”

&nbs
p; “Did you mean what you said about having sex with Dante that night?” Tane stood next to her and leaned his bum against the counter, mirroring her posture. Interrogation training.

  Leilah stared at him for a long while, her blue eyes barely blinking. She watched until Tane looked away first, his cheeks flushed and a vein ticking in his neck. “What does it matter to you?” she asked. “You’re married with children, remember?”

  “I know,” he whispered. “But it still hurts.”

  “What are you gonna do?” Leilah asked, sounding kinder than before.

  Tane shrugged. “The right thing, I suppose.”

  “I’ve never told anyone,” Leilah promised, the old secret burning a brand into her chest and adding to the weight of her pain. “I don’t intend to.”

  “Thanks.” Tane swilled the coffee down his throat and put the mug in the stainless steel sink. He ran the cold tap to fill it and dried his hands on his smart trousers.

  “We played a dangerous game back then, Tane,” Leilah said with the wisdom of hindsight. “Letting people believe we were in a relationship. I think that somehow, it led to all of this.”

  “I love you, Deleilah Dereham,” Tane said, his tone tender. “Always have, always will.”

  “Love you too, I suppose.” She smiled, the sunlight dancing off her hair through the open doors.

  Tane turned and strode towards the door, snatching up his jacket on his way past the sofa. He stopped with his hand on the door handle and faced her, his eyes filled with confusion. “It was about his dad,” he said. “At first. His dad was gay and it made him wonder. He was my mate, so we tried some stuff. That’s what you saw.”

  “He wasn’t gay, was he?” Leilah said, remembering Dante’s final words. “He offered to marry me when I discovered I was pregnant but I couldn’t do it. I knew he loved me but I couldn’t love him back. I couldn’t trust him.”

  “Because of us?” Tane asked, his eyes heavy with sorrow. “Because of what you saw on the riverbank?”