Deleilah Read online

  Vaughan snorted. “Yeah, all the above.”

  “Ok, well this time’s different,” Leilah said, injecting decisiveness into her voice. “I don’t want to share air space with a drunk.” She stopped herself in time; prevented the calamity of the words, another drunk.

  “Fair enough. Are you dressing these, or what?”

  “That’s what I asked you!” Leilah slapped Vaughan’s thigh and watched the coiled muscles on his abdomen tense. “Sorry,” she conceded. “What did the doctor tell you to do? Is there an information sheet?”

  Vaughan sighed and hauled himself to a sitting position. “Probably back in Feilding. Harvey’s wrapping it round his voodoo doll as we speak.”

  Leilah shuddered and Vaughan’s face expression softened. He chucked her under the chin as though she was a child. “Not really. Don’t worry. He won’t do anything to me. Last time the surgeon told me to keep it covered and not get it wet for three weeks. I can shower with the hospital packs over it. The Waikato hospital should send me an outpatient appointment to get the staples removed. Apart from that, it’s business as usual.”

  “Why are some stapled and the smaller ones left open?” Leilah asked, eyeing the wounds with dread. “Couldn’t they mend them all under anaesthetic?”

  “Laparoscopy scars heal better if they’re left open. The big one won’t heal by itself.”

  “So, I dress it?” Leilah asked, frowning. “I’ve never done that before.”

  “Just open the packets and slap the plasters over.” Vaughan lay back down on the sofa. “There’re small ones for the side cuts and decent sized ones for the big bugger.”

  “It’s ok. I bought better ones at the supermarket.” Leilah set to work with the gauze and plastic covers, finding it easier to put the plasters on than remove them. She remained on her knees next to Vaughan’s prone body after she finished, her palms resting on his thigh. “When did you discover you had this disease thing?” she asked, her tone serious.

  Vaughan shrugged. “Just after my twentieth birthday; not the nicest present I ever got.”

  “You said it was an emergency? You didn’t know it was that serious?”

  Vaughan shook his head. “I’d been ignoring it. Ended up with a resection of my small bowel but it only worked for a few years. The other two operations were planned, but this last one took me by surprise.”

  “You had no symptoms?” Leilah asked, seeing the flash of irritation pass across Vaughan’s rugged face.

  “There’s always symptoms, Leilah. The difficulty’s in knowing which ones are just the usual and which ones are major. Pain is pain, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. “Guess so. I’m sorry, Vaughan.”

  “Don’t be.” His fingers strayed to a lock of her chestnut hair and he let it slither over his flesh, waiting until it curled as far as it could and then redirecting it to the knuckle and beginning again. “I’m ok, life’s ok. I don’t ask for anything more.”

  Leilah’s blue eyes studied the man with intensity, picturing him as the child she grew up with. She watched him transform before her eyes from boy to man and a smile played across her lips. Catching him looking, she shook her head to dispel the image. “Could this happen again?” Leilah smoothed a creased edge on the nearest plaster and Vaughan sighed.

  “It will happen again, Leilah. Then I’ll get to crap in a bag on the outside and never wear my bikini again.” Bitterness laced the deceptive jokiness of his answer and Leilah heard his pain.

  “Can you help yourself by watching your diet and controlling your stress levels?” she asked, curiosity turning to interest.

  Vaughan nodded. “Apparently so. Diet’s easy; I grow a lot of my own food but stress is another matter.” He pushed the knuckles of his right hand into a headache spot above his eyes. “Who the hell controls stress?”

  Leilah shrugged. “Lots of people.”

  “You?” Vaughan reached for the curl again and twirled it as he watched her lips move in reply.

  “No. I wish I could.” Leilah’s accompanying smile seemed wistful. “Might’ve made life much easier if I could.”

  “Marriage?” Vaughan’s tone lowered and Leilah cringed, hating herself for the betrayal.

  “Kind of. What about you? I noticed photos of a woman when I cleaned. Where is she?”

  The dark eyes lowered, shrouded from scrutiny by the enviable lashes. “Maybe mind your own business.”

  Leilah leapt backwards at the bile in his voice and inhaled, frightened by the fury she saw as he raised his eyes to look at her face. She stood, gathering the discarded rubbish from the plasters and threw them in the bin in the kitchen. There was a moment of hesitation as she debated throwing her gear into the open suitcase and bolting, but night closed around the mountain making any lonely dash into a risky venture.

  “Sorry.” Vaughan moved with care, placing each foot so as not to hurt himself. Splayed fingers rested against his lower abdomen as he walked into the kitchen. Leilah cowed and pressed herself against the cooker and Vaughan looked unsure of himself, stopping a few metres away and running his other hand through his dark hair. “I don’t want to talk about my wife; not to you of all people.”

  Leilah nodded, her heart pounding as Vaughan lingered before her, shifting his weight from foot to foot and wincing as the action pulled at his wounds. “Just leave it,” she said, her eyes darting towards the door as a nervous reaction. Her suitcase would take a minute to pack if she needed to run.

  “Ok.” Vaughan turned and lumbered towards the hallway. “I’m going to bed. Pick whichever bedroom you want.”

  Leilah remained silent, watching the tall man move along the hallway, reaching out to stabilise himself on the wall as he listed with pain and exhaustion. She exhaled when she heard the click of Vaughan’s bedroom door, gripping the work surface in white-knuckled fingers. “I can’t do this!” she groaned, squeezing the bridge of her nose between shaking finger and thumb.

  Her suitcase mocked her, the lipstick and mascara tubes creating weird shadows on the floorboards beneath the dull bulb. “I’m not running,” she said with determination. “I’ll see something out to the end for once.” With her pulse still racing, Leilah shoved her belongings into the case and wheeled it down the hallway to the first bedroom she’d cleaned. The airing cupboard where she found the vacuum cleaner disgorged fresh sheets for the empty double bed and Leilah made it, recognising the tasteful floral pattern as something a woman would buy; not a man who trained horses.

  Vaughan hadn’t mentioned her hair or the spontaneous return to her former self, absorbed in his own tumult and Leilah acknowledged her relief as she snuggled into the squashy bed. The balmy night kept sleep at bay, despite her long drive north and subsequent adventures. The open sash window channelled night noises and she listened to the familiar sounds. Hector’s house lay one kilometre to the south, a turn of the century villa which his grandfather built from local rimu after settling with the English travellers. Leilah’s birth in the double bedroom of the ornate structure marked the third generation of New Zealand Derehams to enter the world, leaving a mark on the timeline of history. But as the fragile baby girl drew her first breath, her mother exhaled her last.

  “Sorry, Hector,” she whispered, rolling onto her side. “All that history and I let it go because I was too weak to fight for what you believed. Please forgive me, Daddy.”

  Chapter 19

  Missing

  “A large latte to take away, please,” Leilah told the barista, swiping her visa card through the machine and pressing her pin number in. She pushed the pretty card into its slot in her purse, the silver fern image more vibrant than any of the other plastic she owned.

  “Nice picture on that,” Mari said, watching Leilah’s action as she wiped tables. “That new?”

  Leilah nodded. “Yeah. I opened new accounts after Michael left and moved my money around to stop him taking it all. I sometimes forget my new pin numbers.”

  “Bah!” Mari waved her hand. �
��Youse don’t need to pay in here anyways. It’s free to family.”

  Acceptance tugged at Leilah’s heart strings and she gulped. “Thanks Aunty,” she said to the old lady, grateful for the lifelong strength of her father’s friend. “You’ve always been there for me.”

  “Yup, sure have.” Mari wiped another table and flicked the crumbs onto the floor. “There for you and there for Hector, God rest his soul.” She crossed herself with a touch of drama. “Pity you never made the funeral.”

  Leilah’s back stiffened at the rebuke and she swallowed her biting reply.

  “Well?” Mari faced her with a look of pique, the showdown a long time coming. “What do youse have to say for yerself?”

  The grown woman became a child again, facing her father’s friend with her hands behind her back, protecting her bum from the promised slap. “I don’t need a mother now, thanks,” Leilah said. “It’s history; let’s leave it there!”

  “But it was hurtful!” Mari said, waving her arms and showering nearby customers with loose crumbs. “Not comin’ back for your own papa’s tangi. I needed youse and yer weren’t here.”

  “You wouldn’t understand!” Leilah spat. “It’s pointless explaining.” Whirling round, she fled from the shop, hearing the bell clang behind her and the girl shouting that her coffee was ready.

  Vaughan’s ute keys dug into her groin through the jeans pocket and she stopped to adjust them, turning the keyring round the other way. Her abrupt halt caused someone to run into the back of her. She swore and turned as her phone leapt from her other hand and parted company with its battery on the pavement.

  “Sorry, man.” Dante bent and picked it up, putting the bits back together with a look of concentration on his face. The smart work clothes were replaced with jeans and a figure hugging tee shirt which still managed to make him resemble a male supermodel. He handed the phone back in one piece and smiled, his expression wary. “About yesterday,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  Leilah swallowed and gave a curt nod. “Thanks.” She set off in an attempt to sidestep him and he reached out a manicured hand.

  “Don’t go. You’re the last person in this place I want to be offside with, Leilah. Come for a drink with me.”

  “I tried that.” She sounded sulky. “Mari’s on a mission to make me repent of my sins and I’m not in the mood.”

  “Ah yeah, I can imagine. Come for a drink.”

  Leilah considered her wasted coffee and nodded, allowing Vaughan to lead her towards a boutique coffee shop along the road. The theme inside represented shabby chic, selling home decor and souvenirs of New Zealand to tourists, overlaid by the unmistakable aroma of good coffee. Vaughan ordered for both of them and picked a table away from the large windows. “We’re already behaving like traitors; no point getting caught as well,” he said with a smile.

  Leilah nodded and lowered her voice as they sat. “Someone will tell Mari we patronised the opposition. She looked like she wanted to slap my ass back there so now she’ll really have an excuse.” Her eyes wandered to the shelves. Decked with objects which could have come from her huge Auckland home overlooking the harbour at Devonport, she sighed and looked away.

  “I didn’t mean what I said yesterday.” Dante reached for Leilah’s hand and smoothed the pad of his thumb along her index finger. The action touched something inside her, the first real show of male affection for far too long and it released a flood of emotion. Leilah swallowed and said nothing.

  “It’s hard coming back, isn’t it?” Dante said, watching Ted walk past on the other side of the road, scratching his bum through his loose pants.

  “Yeah.” Leilah smiled her thanks at the waitress who delivered steaming coffees and two muffins filled with oozing chocolate.

  Dante let go of Leilah’s hand and tapped a sachet of sugar into his drink. “What’s up with Mari? She seemed fine yesterday.”

  Leilah sighed. “I pressed the wrong button. I thanked her for being there for me and she pointed out how I didn’t return the favour.”

  Dante cocked his head in an unspoken question and Leilah ran her spoon around the rim of her cup. “She pointed out my absence at Hector’s funeral.”

  “Oh.” Dante scratched the stubble pressing through his chin and wrinkled his nose, adding to his sex appeal. “Sorry. But you’ve stayed in contact with her, haven’t you? She told me recently you’ve written to her every year for the last twenty years. That’s an achievement, especially with everything you’ve been through.”

  “Shut up!” Leilah glanced at the barista and returned her gaze to Dante’s face, her pretty eyes fixed in a glare. “If you betray me, we’re done!”

  “I won’t,” Dante promised, the latent mischief fading from his eyes. “It’s ok, Leilah. You’ve had a hard time and I’m here for you.”

  Leilah’s hand shook as she lifted the coffee to her lips. She winced as it burned. “I’ve wanted to tell Mari the truth a million times but I can’t. It’s too embarrassing.”

  Dante’s head nodded from side to side. “Don’t be an egg. Lots of women get postnatal depression, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Really?” Leilah’s tone dripped sarcasm. “I hadn’t heard that before. Do you know other women who’ve been institutionalised after giving birth?”

  “Yes!” Dante hissed, glancing around him. “Yes, I do. It’s painful and life changing and many don’t get over it. You did.”

  “Did I?” For a moment Leilah’s eyes flashed with a peculiar blackness which faded as she sighed and looked away.

  “Yeah, you did.” Dante gripped her fingers in his. “I’m proud of you, babe. Tell Mari why you weren’t at your dad’s funeral, or I will.”

  Leilah shook her head. “No, you won’t. Otherwise you’d have done it years ago. I bet she complained to you every time you saw her, didn’t she?”

  Dante wrinkled his nose. “Pretty much. But I don’t break confidences, Leilah. You know that.”

  Leilah’s smile seemed watery and she exhaled. “Hector didn’t know either. We had a blazing row a few weeks after Seline was born. He had this crazy idea...” She bit her lip. “Michael called a doctor when I couldn’t stop crying and I remember little after that. It seemed like weeks before the medication kicked in and I just concentrated on Seline. Michael didn’t tell me Hector had died until months later. I stayed in the mother and baby unit until Seline was three months old and didn’t come off the medication until just after her third birthday.”

  “I was there, remember?” Dante smoothed his thumb over Leilah’s soft skin and smiled. “You gave birth at eighteen, earned a first class degree and helped build a multi-million-dollar company. Hector would’ve come round, eventually.”

  “Do you think so?” The hunger in Leilah’s eyes caused Dante to wince. And lie.

  “Totally, babe. Sure he would.”

  Leilah glanced around her as though seeing the cafe for the first time. “Didn’t this used to be a sports bar?” She blew out through pursed lips, her mind moving into the past and back again with erratic, frightening speed, producing a dizziness that seemed impossible to shake. “He took it all,” she said, her eyes widening as she gripped Dante’s fingers. “Michael took everything.”

  “Took what?” Dante continued the gentle stroking motion, sensing Leilah’s struggle. “He took what, babe?”

  “Hector’s money.” Her brow furrowed. “My solicitor fought for it because Michael used it to fund the business without my permission. I didn’t know he invested it in developing software. The court ruled that I accepted through implication by remaining a director of the business and living off the profits.” Her face hardened. “So we got it back another way.”

  Dante cocked his head as his banker’s persona kicked in. “How? How’d you get it, Leilah? What did you do?”

  Leilah shook herself and the weight of the years fell away. “Doesn’t matter now. It’s nearly over.” She sat up straight and pushed the cooling coffee away. “I need to get
back to Horse’s place. Vaughan might need his bandages changing.”

  Dante dropped her hand. “Bit of a surprise you two cohabiting.” A trace of scorn crept into his voice. “Thought you hated each other.”

  Leilah’s expression changed to one of surprise. “We were friends. We were all friends; don’t you remember?”

  “Ah, yep.” Dante covered his emotion with the suave movements of one familiar with the art of deception. “That’s true.”

  Leilah stood. “Thanks for coffee. It’s been nice.” She leaned down and kissed him on the stubbly cheek and Dante turned his lips towards her in a moment of extreme awkwardness.

  “We’ll do it again sometime,” he said, his tone wistful.

  Leilah felt Dante’s eyes on her through the shop window as she wandered along the street towards Vaughan’s ute. Her old friend’s disappearance from the Auckland social scene was explained by his father’s illness, but a listlessness hung around him like a shroud, making Leilah uncomfortable. Next to Vaughan’s ute was an old electrical store, its frontage unchanged in the last twenty years. The flaking paint and chipped wood gave way to a few ancient TVs huddled in the window, their state of the art features reduced to antique interest and their black plastic faded by harsh rays of sunshine. Leilah squinted at a movement in the deeper recesses of the store and saw a hand waving from behind a desk. She smiled and waved back at the elderly proprietor before changing her mind and pushing the front door open. The sound of the bell jingling overhead brought back memories of happy times.

  “Deleilah Dereham!” Stanley Jackson shuffled forward, his grey slippers making a shushing sound on the tiled floor. Frail and bent, his emaciated body looked as though it would disappear in the first breeze but his embrace gripped Leilah as strongly as she remembered.

  “How are you, Uncle Stan?” she said, patting the slender back and feeling the man’s spine under her fingers.

  “All good, all good, wahine,” he beamed. “Still here where you left us.”

  Leilah swallowed and searched the wizened face for rebuke, finding none. “Where’s Lanie?” she asked, searching the shop for Stan’s younger, more agile wife. “Still ruling over you like a queen bee?” Lanie Jackson’s sunny nature dominated Leilah’s motherless years, offering advice and sugar fixes like a rebellious aunty. Leilah craved one of Lanie’s enthusiastic hugs, punishing herself for staying away from the town for so long.