Du Rose Sons Page 4

  The pregnant woman stood frozen in place as the tonnage of horseflesh bore down on her, the mare hardly breaking stride as she transitioned into a smooth canter. Terrified, Hana closed her eyes and held her breath, powerless against the oncoming collision and the surety that she would come off worse. The clatter of hooves came closer across the wide yard, seeming to double in intensity and noise. It was a snapshot in time, just seconds of her life, but Hana had no time to react. The sound of skidding hooves on the slippery surface was followed by a breath of warm air and then the sense of a huge, sweating body close to Hana’s face. She smelled paddock grass and hay, horseflesh and...Sacha.

  Her eyes snapped open to find Logan’s mare in front of her. Sacha was side on, her ears bent so far back into her head that she could have been born without any. She snaked her neck viciously at the Appaloosa and snorted quick, angry threats. The Appaloosa backed away, her moment spoiled and allowed herself to be caught by the embarrassed Rawhiti. Hana lay her forehead against Sacha’s neck and let out a moan of relief. “Thank you, Sacha!” She pushed her face into the dappled furry coat and tried to catch her breath. Her legs seemed wobbly and pathetic.

  The mare turned a kinder face on her master’s loved one and snuffed at her hand affectionately. Hana put her shaking fingers up to the mare’s withers and seized a reassuring chunk of mane in her fingers, steadying herself against the surge of shock that claimed her body as adrenaline fought for exit.

  “Are you all right, Mrs Du Rose?” Rawhiti’s voice sounded shaken as he called from the other side of the mare. Hana nodded, realising he couldn’t see her.

  “Just give me a minute,” she answered. “I’m just a bit shaken.”

  She felt Sacha’s body shudder and pulled her face away from the comforting fur, seeing the mare snake her neck angrily at Rawhiti’s approach, baring her teeth and threatening. “Stop it now, Sacha,” she said with a waver in her voice. “I’m really fine.” Hana moved to the mare’s head and stroked her forelock lovingly, kissing her on the pure white, regal forehead. Sacha rubbed her poll against Hana’s shoulder and snuffed in her ear, snorting when Hana giggled. Hana placed her hand on the horse’s halter and led her back to the farrier, who dusted the front of his leather apron with quick movements.

  “No way!” he commented, throwing his tools into his bag and making a clanging din in his haste. “Now I know why you lot do your own smithying. Your stock’s out of control!” He rushed from the stable yard still wearing his leather tool belt and hopped over the gate to the hotel without opening it.

  Jack looked at Rawhiti and Hana caught sight of a flicker of victory in his smirk.

  “I’m so sorry, Miss,” the younger man began and Hana shook her head in confusion.

  “Why is it your fault?”

  “I met that guy in the township and he said he could do a reduced rate on the shoeing. I thought we could give him a go. Jack’s...” He turned his face away to stop the old man lip-reading. “Jack’s looking a bit infirm sometimes and I know he finds it hard to bend for long with his back. That guy was going to teach me how to trim properly.”

  “Why didn’t you just ask Jack?” Hana asked, perplexed.

  Rawhiti shrugged and it contained all Hana needed to know. The men weren’t getting on. Jack turned and walked away, his shoulders hunched in irritation. He hadn’t needed to read the young man’s lips to understand what he had just said.

  “Get Logan to teach you,” Hana said quietly. “He can show you how to shoe as well.” Then she set off quickly after the old man, following him into the messy office in the far stable.

  Jack pulled a half-full bottle of whiskey from the top drawer of an old green filing cabinet, waving it in Hana’s direction as he set two dirty mugs down on the paper saturated desk. She shook her head and signed clearly twice, ‘not for me,’ but he ignored her and poured her one anyway. He took a long slug of the nectar and smacked his lips loudly before signing words about the young upstart in the stable yard, which Hana pretended not to understand.

  “He’s just young,” she mouthed, urging him to have patience. The old man sighed and shook his head, while Hana sat and pretended to drink the whiskey. Even the taste of it against the rim of the mug made nausea rear its ugly head. Jack eyed her with amusement until, to Hana’s horror he pointed directly at her stomach.

  ‘How long?’ he signed.

  Hana’s heart sank and she rolled her eyes, laying the whiskey laden mug on the paperwork with trembling fingers. She shrugged and put a finger to her lips, imploring him with her eyes to say nothing. He made a zipping motion with his finger and thumb and beamed at her. She gave him a grateful thumbs up, but still looked immensely discomfited.

  Hunting around in the desk-mess, Jack retrieved a stained refill pad and pen. He scribbled something on it and then pushed it across towards Hana. She noticed his large fingers bore no signs of blood or graze and it occurred to her that he had deliberately sent Sacha to head off the other mare.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ the words on the page asked in cursive, old-fashioned script.

  ‘Just stuff,’ she replied. ‘Mainly Du Rose family stuff.’

  He read it and cocked his head on one side like an eagle, the tufty hair growing from his useless ears making the effect more real.

  ‘What family stuff?’

  Jack’s family had been with the Du Roses for centuries. He was in his early nineties although nobody was entirely sure of his age. Jack taught Phoenix Du Rose to read and write English, although Hana often wondered how they managed without the spoken word. There was no doubt he had kept an extremely watchful eye over the young Logan Du Rose and showed him everything about horses he could possibly teach, much to the jealousy of the other Du Rose children. He and Logan communicated in an odd way, few words or signs; just a knowing borne of hours spent together.

  Still weighed down by the knowledge contained in the diary, Hana wrote a question on the paper. With hindsight, it was foolish and she never should have done it. But often the best lessons are learned from mighty mistakes.

  ‘What happened to Caroline Marsh’s father? The blonde drover.’

  Jack’s tanned face paled to a sickening hue. His countenance became hard and angry, his brown eyes flashing in his head with a fury that Hana had never seen in him. Her brow knitted and she remained fixed in place in the uncomfortable chair. Jack leaned over and snatched the pen violently from her hand. He wrote so hard on the pad that the sharp point of the pen went through several pages. Then he flung the pad back so hard, it missed the edge of the desk and landed at Hana’s feet. She picked it up gingerly, a tremor reigniting in her fingers.

  ‘Stay out of things you don’t understand.’

  Hana dropped the pad onto the desk as though it was contaminated. She stood up to leave, eyeing the old man with trepidation and jumping as he lurched across the desk and seized the incriminating pad. To her horror he threw the whole thing onto the fireplace, pen as well. With a hiss and a roar, the objects were devoured by the orange guards flickering in their lair. Hana backed out of the office with her heart beating a tattoo in her chest.

  She hurried back to the house with the words of the diaries running uncontrollably around her brain. The blonde drover hadn’t just disappeared. Phoenix was right. They killed him. The Du Roses killed him.

  Chapter 7

  “Get your own house in order, girlie!” Will had said, calling the words as Hana high-tailed it out of the museum door. He was right. She had problems of her own right now.

  Hana finally located Leslie in her upstairs apartment, teaching Phoenix Māori words and drawing pictures for her on a scrap of paper with ancient crayons. “She’s quick!” the old lady beamed at Hana. “She might be just a babe, but she knows what’s what, my moko.”

  Phoenix appeared to be pushing the crayons around the paper, producing random squiggles and lines, but obviously Leslie saw some hidden meaning in it all. “Te ngeru,” Phoenix said with confidence, jabbing at the pape
r with her stubby brown crayon. She did a funny victory dance on feet which were clad in blue woolly tights and then she settled again. She stood on her chair, her elbows on the dining table and carried on colouring.

  “That’s a beautiful cat, moko,” Leslie said, smiling warmly at the child.

  Hana tried not to feel left out. Often Logan would speak to his daughter in the old language and she would jabber happily back. Hana knew she could try harder to learn but something stopped her, some intrinsic self-alienation that she couldn’t seem to get past. “I’m going to tell Logan tonight,” Hana interrupted, placing the English words between them like a wall. Her symbolism was wasted. Leslie smiled and looked relieved.

  “Well, thank the good Lord for that,” she commented. “It’s been real hard to keep your secret this last day or so. I’m glad youse gonna get it out in the open. He’ll be thrilled with you. He loves his family.”

  Hana nodded. “I thought I’d cook him a special dinner, something he really likes and dress up nicely and then just come out with it.”

  “Good on ya!” Leslie concluded cheerfully.

  Hana helped herself to some large, prime cuts of steak from the hotel freezer under Leslie’s watchful eye. “That’s it, girl. Soften him up with his own produce...no, get a bigger cut than that! You want him full of kai and then he won’t have the energy to get mad!”

  Leslie seemed to be finding the whole thing hugely hilarious. Hana, in contrast, was nervous and afraid. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to tell Logan about the baby but she was afraid of the whole process of pregnancy. The pacemaker beneath her left collarbone reminded her she was no longer youthful, or particularly healthy and Phoenix’s birth had been sudden, early and unexpectedly traumatic. Bodie and Izzie had been born in a white, sanitised hospital in mid-Wales, but the Māori baby had come into the world outside, surrounded by native bush into the bosom of her ancestors.

  “I don’t know if I can do this again,” Hana’s voice sounded sad in the depths of the freezer and Leslie’s arm snaked around her shoulders. The old lady carried Phoenix, who joined in for a cuddle and they stood clasped together, growing quickly chilly.

  “Pēpe,” Phoenix said into the silence and Hana smiled. Leslie didn’t, biting her lip and giving Hana a warning look.

  “What does that mean?” Hana asked, sensing the awful exclusion again.

  “Baby,” Leslie answered. “You need to get that husband told, before this’un does it for youse.”

  Hana sat up on the mountain as dusk claimed the land early, bowing to the winter shroud with respect. Logan had promised to be home for seven o’clock and everything was ready. His steak rested in the oven covered in the juices of a marinade his mother showed Hana how to make. Miriam had promised her the recipe but died that night without imparting the precious family knowledge. Hana had done all the chopping and fetching of herbs under Miriam’s tutelage. She made a decent attempt at producing the same, convinced as she spent the afternoon peering in the fridge, that there was still some secret ingredient her mother-in-law had sneakily added. Hana’s marinade had a greenish hue, when Miriam’s had definitely been brown. Roasted pumpkin and kumara sat keeping hot and a bowl of mashed potatoes nestled close by.

  Hana’s dress looked glued to her body and showed her four-month pregnancy as it blossomed under her ribs. She felt more rotund than she had with Phoenix and the dress insisted on riding up over her belly in awkward ridges. When seven o’clock turned into eight, then nine and Hana’s texts were unreturned, she used the wireless intercom to rouse Leslie. “Sorry darlin’, he’s delayed,” the old lady’s voice crackled through the phone. She sounded tired and heavy.

  “Sorry, did I wake you?” Hana’s voice bore its own natural droop of disappointment as the steak hardened off to a leathery strip and the vegetables sat in their cold dressing on the kitchen counter.

  “No, love. Not at all. He’s just dealin’ with somethin’. He’ll be home soon.”

  “Dinner’s ruined,” Hana sighed, yanking the dress back down over her knees for the millionth time.

  “He won’t care,” Leslie reassured her, “but Hana...maybe keep your news for another night.”

  “What? Why?” Hana’s frayed nerves went on red alert. “What’s going on down there?”

  “Talk to Logan.” Leslie’s voice sounded ominous and Hana spent the next two hours alternately worrying and dozing off. When she heard Logan’s heavy tread on the hall floorboards she got up from the sofa and went to greet him.

  “I made dinner,” she said, rubbing her eyes and forgetting she had makeup on. Mascara spread along the bridge of her nose. Her hair had fallen out of its clip, sprawling across her shoulders in a riot of untidiness and her dress had rucked itself up like a set of tyres over her stomach.

  Logan stood where she intercepted him, watching her with an unreadable expression. His jaw worked furiously and he was shrouded in a forbidding silence that made the air around him crackle. Fear blossomed in Hana’s chest and she instinctively touched the space on her collarbone where the pacemaker lay just underneath the skin, sensing the rhythm of her heartbeat change with the prolonged atmosphere. “I’m not hungry.” Logan’s statement came out so forcefully, his face displayed surprise at his own vehemence.

  “Oh.” Hana felt mortified, biting her trembling bottom lip in confusion at her husband’s attitude. Her raw, painful emotions were barely concealed within her chest, her eyelashes flickering nervously, fingers hovering at the throat of her dress. The stalemate continued until Logan broke it, smashing the atmosphere with a nonchalant shrug and turning on his heel. To Hana’s dismay he left without explanation, striding purposefully down to the master bedroom and closing the door behind him.

  Logan’s wife stood poleaxed in the cavernous hall. A large pot plant near the front door swayed in a hidden draught and the rimu grandfather clock which had belonged to his grandmother, continued its relentless slow tick-tock as the pendulum danced to the beat of an endless drum. Hana’s feelings came in waves, tossing her from desperation to anger in seconds and then pitching her back again. “What the hell did I do?” Hana’s words echoed back to her in the empty space.

  The lovingly prepared dinner made a sorry sight in the fridge, untouched. The roast vegetables congealed on the bottom of the dish and the plastic wrap made them look like something in a mortuary as condensation bubbled along their surface in the cold atmosphere. Hana cried a little as she carefully placed the dried out steak on a dinner plate and stowed its wrapped shape in the top of the fridge. During the cooking process, her marinade had browned to match Miriam’s perfect, legendary recipe.

  The spectacular dining room seemed sad and depressed without its expected occupants. The long, wooden table still wore its candles and special platters that hardly ever got used. Hana couldn’t face disrobing it and blew out the tea lights, padding down to her bedroom with trepidation. She hadn’t felt this emotionally low since her pregnancy with Phoenix.

  Logan’s shower had been quick and purposeful and he was in the process of climbing into bed in his boxer shorts. The long, ugly scars on his torso looked raised and angry in the lamp light, agitated by the hot water and his face wore a veiled look through which nothing could penetrate.

  “Did I do something wrong?” Hana stood next to his side of the bed, twisting the bottom of her dress in agonised movements.

  “Just leave it,” Logan’s voice held warning as he lay his damp head on the pillow and stares at a fixed point on the ceiling.

  “No, you can tell me. If I’ve messed up or caused a problem, I don’t mind if you say. Then I can put it right.”

  The awful fear burgeoned in her heart that perhaps someone had blabbed about her pregnancy and he was angry at being the last to know. But then Leslie had said not to tell him tonight - so it had to be something else. “So, can you tell me?” Hana pushed and Logan exploded.

  “Why does everything always have to come down to you?” he snapped. “Why do you assume
that my business has anything to do with you?”

  Logan had referred to her as his business partner often. Didn’t that mean she was involved? Hana stood bemused on the rug, the toes of one stockinged foot resting awkwardly on the other like a schoolgirl about to be growled at by the principal. Logan’s eyes bore cruelly into her soul as he pulled a face filled with agitation. “Either come to bed or sod off, Hana. It’s been a really hard day and I’m knackered!”

  Hana jumped as though struck. She backed away from the stranger in her bed, jabbing her elbow on the door handle as she struggled to turn without taking her eyes off him. Her heart felt crushed and it was painful to breathe. A familiar voice began in her head, reassuring her, this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening.

  The lounge fire exuded a leftover warmth and Hana worked with shaking fingers to restore its blaze, placing more logs in the wood burner and stoking it until finally, they caught light. Their glow was deceptively cheery and contrasted with Hana’s devastation. A few short hours ago her life had been orderly and controlled, jogging along nicely with the odd curl thrown in for good measure. Now it felt as though one of Logan’s purebred Charolaise herds had stampeded their white bodies through her house and wreaked havoc. Hana didn’t know how to start fixing it, because she didn’t know what was wrong. Perhaps Logan was right and she did make things all about her. In which case, that made her extremely self-centred and shallow. Hana accepted the mantle of blame and rebuked herself for crimes both terrifying and unknown.

  The thought of climbing into bed with her husband’s rigid back facing her was an unpleasant one. Hana resigned herself to the four seater sofa and snuggled down with a blanket. The television played quietly to itself for most of the night as she dozed fitfully, waking and sleeping in equal measure. The comforting sound of a horse moved around outside, grazing vigorously near the windows at that end of the house. Hana recognised Sacha’s contented sigh and relaxed. Logan sometimes rode her home and allowed her to feast on the un-landscaped garden. The presence of the white beast offered a sense of alliance in the chill of the early hours.