by JP Pomare
‘Love you,’ he says, stepping closer now, placing a kiss on my forehead.
‘Quick,’ I say. ‘We’ve got to go.’
Everyone has secrets, I tell myself. Or is that just one of those things people, bad people, tell themselves? Whispering little lies to get through the days. Just how my mother had done. A secret like mine is a snake in a box – so long as it’s trapped inside, it can’t hurt. He goes to the bathroom and a small surge of relief floods through me. But this night is far from over.
•
I watch him get dressed, his body mapped with pale scars up his left side, concentrated between his knee and hip, with slashes reaching up to his shoulder. Surgeons managed to cut out most of the shrapnel and his body has since squeezed out more, but there are still scraps encased in knots of scar tissue that’ll be there until he dies.
He pulls his shirt on, climbs the buttons with his fingers. I adjust his collar, find it still warm from the iron. A smile now. Pale brown eyes that catch the light. And those dimples bracketing his mouth deepen, almost too charming for his weathered, rugged face. I think about the app again. Stay the course, I tell myself.
‘You set for work later?’ he asks.
‘Yep, I’ve got my uniform in the car.’ Nerves crest beneath my sternum; I push back against the feeling. He can’t complain about me picking up shifts, his recklessness is partly to blame for putting us in a financial hole. Our monthly repayments on the credit card barely cover the interest, let alone pay off the debt.
We are heading about twenty-five minutes south-east of the CBD, an area full of big two-storey places whose residents all work in the city and whose yards are full of harmless dogs: labradors or collies.
Cain steers through the streets to the motorway heading south and soon we are rolling along the tree-lined streets. I’m grateful he’s driving; I spend half my day behind the wheel – people think an ambulance officer’s job is performing CPR and administering EpiPens when really we spend much more time navigating traffic and waiting in car parks for our next call.
I should have taken something, a Valium maybe. For the first time in months, I crave a drink. It’s like I can taste an earthy red on my tongue.
‘Knock, knock,’ I call through the screen door when we arrive. ‘Hello.’
‘Come in,’ Axel’s deep voice calls. ‘It’s unlocked.’ We walk through to the living room, white walls, pale timber floorboards. They bought this place a few years ago and it’s much bigger than our rental. A show home; it barely looks lived in at all.
‘Hello, lovelies,’ Claire says, striding to Cain first for a hug. ‘Jesus, you need to chill on the bench press.’
‘Tell me about it,’ I say.
Taj, their twelve-year-old beagle, is at her heels.
Claire hugs me, kisses the air beside my cheek. She calls herself the yogoth – she has bottle-black hair, shellacked nails and tattoos, and owns her own yoga studio in the city. I’ve gone along once or twice; I always feel good afterwards but horribly inflexible during.
‘I love your hair,’ she says. ‘Very short, very chic.’ She might as well be complimenting her own hair, which is shorter, darker and undeniably more chic. But I appreciate it. Claire is one of the good ones. We’d caught up for wine a few times when the boys were away. We’d joked about getting matching tattoos: WW, war wives. It was nice to have a confidante, someone I could talk to about what Cain did, other than the dismissive, ‘He’s in the army.’
Axel comes over in an apron with Michelangelo’s David on the front. He’s not quite as tall as Cain but otherwise they could be twins. Maori boys with perennial tans, and salt and pepper hair, although where Cain’s is receding and clipped short, Axel’s is long and slicked back. Both gym junkies and still built like rugby players. Their hands clap together, palms thump backs. The alpha of alphas, Cain had once said, but I love him for it.
Axel steps back now, gives me that grin that belongs on a salesman, or a politician. Dentist-white teeth. He’s not vain but he looks after himself; looks good in designer jeans tight around his muscled thighs and a loose linen shirt. Hard to imagine him as an elite soldier nowadays.
‘You’re a fine wine, Lina. Better every year.’
‘Eventually wine turns rancid,’ I joke.
‘That’s true. You’re not there yet though. Speaking of which. Wine, beer?’
‘Not for me,’ I say. ‘I got called in. Shift starts at eleven.’ Again, the nerves rise all the way to the base of my throat. I feel like I could be sick.
‘You’re joking,’ Claire says now. ‘It’s been so long since we got drunk together.’
‘I wish I was,’ I say, exhaling.
‘You work too hard. Unlike this one.’ Axel gently jabs Cain’s shoulder.
I could blurt out, We’re broke, but it’s hardly what they want to hear.
‘Do you want a glass of juice then, or we’ve got ginger beer?’ Claire offers.
‘I’m fine really,’ I say. I’d tried so often to cut back on my drinking. It wasn’t until we began trying for a kid that I really got on top of it. And now I barely touch alcohol at all. The only people I seem to drink around are these two. Black belts in peer pressure, both of them.
When we sit down to dinner a little while later, Claire has set the table with placemats and coasters.
‘Really?’ Axel says, grinning. ‘Do we need these old things?’
‘We do,’ Claire says. ‘I just want to keep it tidy.’
Axel clicks his tongue, then explains, ‘We’ve got guests staying this weekend.’
‘Guests?’
‘We’re going to head down to Raglan,’ Claire says. ‘We’re renting our place out again on WeStay.’
‘It’s a pain but it’s worth it. You’d do well out of the lake house,’ Axel says to me, spearing a piece of grilled broccolini on his plate. These two are born hustlers.
‘How do you know?’ I say. ‘You’ve never been there. Could be a dump.’
‘I’m sure it’s not, based on the location alone.’
Claire tips a little wine into her mouth, her black fringe falling to one side. She’s exquisite. Small and strong. When we’d holidayed together in Bali a few years ago, Axel and Claire drew stares everywhere we went. Skin as tight as stretched rubber, hard-edged muscles stencilled just below the surface. After a boozy day poolside, I had let my eyes linger on Axel in the water for just a heartbeat too long, more fascinated than anything else, but Cain had noticed.
‘I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you took a picture,’ he’d said with a tone.
‘No,’ I’d replied quickly. ‘They’re just both so bloody fit.’
He’d raised his eyebrows.
‘Like you,’ I’d added a second too late. ‘All three of you are ripped and here I sit, a doughy profiterole.’
The memory reminds me of the app, Cain in the kitchen earlier. His voice. What are you doing? Had he seen it? I touch my upper lip and find it’s a little damp, not with drink but with sweat. It’s not too late to change my mind. Or is it? I realise they’re all waiting for me to speak again.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I mean maybe we could make a bit of money but it needs a lot of work.’
‘So anyone can book this place at any time?’ Cain asks, changing the subject.
‘Only on the weekends that we make it available,’ Axel says. ‘We get three hundred a night for it.’
‘Three hundred dollars?’ I ask, blinking. Their place is modern and well styled, I guess. More comfortable than a hotel room. ‘You could stay in a penthouse in SkyCity for that.’
‘Not quite, but it means we can have our own holiday down the coast,’ Claire says.
It’s not like you need the money, I think.
‘I’ve been telling Cain you should do something with that lake house for years,’ Axel says.
Cain gives me a look. He knows that the lake house is more than a house to me. It’s there for when we start our own family.
‘How
many times have you rented this place out?’ I ask, to continue the conversation and keep me from focusing on the other thoughts in my head, the images of what I’m going to do later.
‘Loads,’ Claire says. ‘We just go away when they’re here. We set our price quite high. We’ve made thousands.’
‘I don’t know if I could do it,’ I say. ‘Anyone could stay. Remember that time someone squatted at the house for months, Cain? The neighbours called us and we had to get the police to go kick them out.’
‘WeStay guests are a bit different to squatters, Lina,’ Axel says and I detect a note of condescension in his voice.
‘Well, you never really know who these people are, right?’
Axel swallows a mouthful of wine and drags his smile up on one side. ‘This is the twenty-first century, Lina, you can’t cash a cheque or rent a pushbike without a retina scan, a blood bond to hand over your firstborn and nine different forms of ID.’
Cain laughs. They all do. I push a smile to my lips. ‘I know but –’
‘It’s not so simple as just whipping up a profile and making the booking.’ He gestures with his wineglass as he speaks. ‘We’ve never had a problem. Hell, I’d even set it all up for you if you wanted.’
I turn to Cain, hoping for backup. ‘Would you do it?’
Cain sucks his lips for a moment. ‘You know I don’t trust strangers,’ he says at last. ‘But it sounds like good money, and we could do with a little more.’ The understatement of the year.
‘If you’re worried about people going through your stuff, lock it away,’ Axel says. ‘You could make a fortune. Market it as an artist’s retreat, or a quiet family weekend away, then sit back and count the money.’
‘I don’t know, it needs a bit of work.’
‘Cain could do it.’
‘Don’t pressure them, honey. It’s not for everyone,’ Claire says.
‘What if someone decided to cook P in your house?’
Axel takes a sip of his wine, pauses with the glass close to his lips. ‘This isn’t Breaking Bad,’ he says. ‘It’s the burbs in Auckland city.’
‘Or what if they go through your things and steal your passports? What if they cut your keys?’
‘And come back to murder us?’ His bark of laughter grates.
I want to remind them all about the news story from a few months ago. The murder, somewhere in the States. That was a WeStay, wasn’t it? But by the time I’ve ordered my thoughts, the conversation is moving again and it would seem petty to bring it up.
‘Tell them about the knickers,’ Claire speaks with laughter in her voice.
Axel covers his eyes with his palm. ‘Don’t scare them off, Claire, we can get a referral fee if they do it.’
Referral fee. Is that the agenda here? ‘I love a knickers story,’ I say.
‘It’s not much of a story. Just something we found,’ Claire says, one elegant hand flicking out, dismissing her own story.
‘They were tiny, lacy knickers,’ Axel says. ‘We found them scrunched up down the side of the bed when we were cleaning after someone left.’
‘No,’ I say, slowly, my hand coming to my mouth.
‘We were tempted to contact the guests to return them for a laugh,’ he adds. ‘Since then, we just pay a cleaner to come so we don’t have to imagine what took place in our home.’
‘People have sex in your bed and leave their knickers behind?’ Cain says. ‘And pay you for the privilege.’ He glances across the table to me, a question on his face. He turns back to the others. ‘Do you change your pillowcases and everything?’ he asks.
Am I doing the right thing?
‘Oh yeah, we keep the spares locked in the cupboard beneath the stairs.’
‘Sounds foolproof.’
I try to bring up the incident in the US. ‘What about those rumours, people stealing art and replacing it with replicas, or… you know. The other thing?’ I say.
‘What thing?’ Axel says, hunching over the table, resting on his forearms, which are covered in black hair.
‘A man was killed in a WeStay. Remember? The killer recorded it and shared the footage.’
‘Oh that?’ Axel blows air dismissively. ‘That wasn’t WeStay’s fault. Some psychopath just wanted to kill someone.’
Cain is looking down at his phone. ‘Lina,’ he says, pausing the conversation. ‘There’s a three-bedroom place on the lake for three hundred a night. We’ve got more bedrooms. And,’ he says scrolling with his thumb, ‘we’re much closer to the lake.’
I hold out my hand. ‘Let me see.’ It’s the big house, with the steep driveway, up on the hill. Walking distance from the Landing Cafe but not on the water like ours.
‘It’s nicer inside but we could easily tidy our place up to the same level,’ Cain says.
I see all the other listings dotted around the lakes area. Lots of people are doing it apparently.
Claire interrupts. ‘Lina, you’ve not seen the terrace!’
‘It’s finished?’
‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Let’s have a look.’ She leads me outside on to their deck, up a set of steps. The city emerges from beyond the rooftops, an entire landscape before us. All those lights, embers in the darkness. The terrace is on the roof of their house. It’s fake grass and deck chairs. Is this new addition in the tens or hundreds of thousands? It’s hard not to feel jealous of their lives.
‘God, look at that,’ I say.
‘It’s nice, right?’ she says. ‘Good night for it too.’
‘Stunning.’ I can barely keep the note of envy out of my voice. I can’t imagine where all the money comes from. There’s Claire’s yoga studio and Axel has one of those gyms that’s full of ropes, boxes and tractor tyres. It must be doing well because he wants to open a chain of them, an empire. Axel was the one that put the idea in Cain’s head to start his own personal training business. He even suggested the name, Commando Fitness. Cain cringed when he told me. ‘I like it,’ I’d lied.
He trains people out of Axel’s gym. Despite his injuries, the scars and a knee that barely bends, he still manages to keep strong. Suits and yuppies like the idea of training the way the SAS do; they’ll pay extra to know they’re in the hands of a trained killer – that’s the gimmick, but Cain’s had a hard time gaining the sort of early traction Axel experienced. He doesn’t have the same gameshow-host charisma. He couldn’t get a business loan, so he put most of the set-up costs on the credit card, and he was still gambling back then. The debts piled up. And then there were the medical bills.
‘The guests must love this?’
‘This is the first booking we’ve taken since the renovation,’ Claire says. It’s clear from the way she oscillates her wineglass, almost spilling the chardonnay, that she’s at least halfway drunk. I had always assumed cool girls like Claire would drink negronis or craft beer, not the wine I associate with middle-aged housewives.
‘Have you guys had any bad reviews?’
A long silence, she takes a sip and the air becomes thick and cool.
‘Not yet,’ she says. Then she turns away from the skyline, facing me. ‘How are you guys going?’
‘Us? We’re good,’ I say, guarded. There is something off in her tone. Did she notice I’ve been preoccupied tonight? She continues watching me until I feel the urge to speak again. ‘Cain’s good. He seems to enjoy working and it’s getting him out of the house. Business seems to be picking up for him.’
Her eyes don’t leave mine as she takes another gulp of wine. ‘Can I talk to you about something that might seem a little…’ Her free hand dances in the air between us. ‘What’s the word… gauche?’ she says. ‘Is that it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say, a feeling of alarm resonating inside me. ‘It depends.’
A moment passes, I see her uncertainty.
‘What is it?’
‘Look, this is a little awkward but I know you guys are struggling. Axel won’t bring it up directly with Cain.’ A pause. ‘It’s just A
xel’s gym is at capacity, and he’s giving up some of his own clients for Cain.’ I can see the colour in her cheeks. She’s holding her glass in two hands but takes one off to twist a finger at the corner of her eye. ‘Axel told me Cain has had a couple of arguments with people at the gym, he snapped at one of the regulars. I guess I’m wondering if everything is okay with him?’
I think of the broken handle on the cutlery drawer at home, a stray spoon was lodged and it wouldn’t open, he’d ripped it off in frustration. The year he returned from Afghanistan he was going to physio three times a week, a therapist once and taking handfuls of painkillers and antidepressants. Are those old demons from the war back? Has he been going through hell again right under my nose?
‘He’s doing okay,’ I say. ‘He might have been a little bit off the last few weeks but he’s been training hard and getting in the right head space.’
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Well, Axel wants to open a second gym and after this renovation, money has become really tight for us. I’m sure it took a bit of pressure off when he stopped charging Cain for the use of the gym but now he wants to give Cain a loan, to help him get things moving.’
I can feel blood rushing to my own cheeks now. Axel isn’t charging Cain anymore? How are we still going backwards when my income is enough to cover the bills? ‘But Cain’s business is doing okay,’ I say. ‘What do you mean get things moving?’
She doesn’t say the word ‘Oh’, but her mouth forms the shape, those perfect eyebrows lift a fraction.
‘Claire,’ I say, my voice firm.
‘Shit, I’ve put my foot in it.’ She clamps a hand to her forehead, swings her head away then back to me. ‘Pretend I never said anything. Please?’ She tosses her free hand as if dismissing the entire conversation. ‘Let the boys figure it out, I don’t know why I brought it up.’
‘I mean, yeah, I knew the business was struggling,’ I say, ‘but he doesn’t need a loan.’ I feel sick thinking about it. We’ve wasted so much money the last couple of years. No secrets, he promised.
