CONTENTS

2. Chapter 1

3. Chapter 2

4. Chapter 3

5. Chapter 4

6. Chapter 5

7. Chapter 6

8. Chapter 7

9. Chapter 8

10. Chapter 9

11. Chapter 10

12. Chapter 11

13. Chapter 12

14. Chapter 13

15. Chapter 14

16. Chapter 15

17. Chapter 16

18. Chapter 17

19. Chapter 18

20. Chapter 19

21. Chapter 20

22. Chapter 21

23. Chapter 22

24. Chapter 23

25. Chapter 24

26. Chapter 25

27. Chapter 26

28. Chapter 27

29. Chapter 28

30. Chapter 29

31. Chapter 30

32. Chapter 31

33. Epilogue

34. Pretty Delicious Recipes

1. Strawberry Ice-Cream Cake

2. Chocolate Brownie

3. Boysenberry Cheesecake

4. Bread Dough

5. Cinnamon Buns

35. Acknowledgements

36. About the Author

37. Praise

38. Back Ad

39. Copyright

Chapter 1

One Wednesday in October I spoilt a perfectly good spring evening by going to bed with a book called Run, Bobby, Run. Hugh at the deli had lent it to me that afternoon when I dropped in for twenty kilos of coffee beans, promising a gripping, fiendishly clever read, and after a solid fortnight of my late Great-Aunty Sheila’s Anne Hepple novels I thought that sounded like just the thing.

It wasn’t. Two weeks of Anne Hepple does, it’s true, leave you with the feeling that you’re sinking into a bath of warm pink syrup, but there are much worse things. Such as fiendishly clever thrillers about psychopaths who abduct and torture teenage girls, eventually mincing them up to feed to the next victim.

I read that horrible bloody book until eleven, and then I lay awake thinking about psychopaths, and how easy my bedroom would be to break into, and whether I’d make it across the road to Monty’s on foot without being caught if I heard someone at the window. And then it occurred to me that Monty wasn’t home; he was fishing up the Ninety Mile Beach.

And then I heard footsteps on the gravel outside.

When you live four kilometres out of town, three-quarters of the way up a steep hill, visitors tend to drive, not walk. And very few of them arrive at – I looked at the digital alarm clock on my bedside table – eleven fifty-seven pm. My heart gave a great, sickening thump, and began to beat so fast and so hard I felt the blood thrumming in my ears.

Someone knocked on the back door and, sitting straight up in bed, I screamed like a banshee. The sound shocked me back into silence, and from outside came the rustle of breaking greenery and a dull thump.

‘Shit,’ someone said. ‘Hey, sorry, it’s okay . . .’

Hand to throat like the heroine of a melodrama, I got out of bed and tottered across to the open window. It was the old-fashioned hinged sort, held open by a brass bar with holes along its length that could be dropped over a peg on the window frame. Good for stopping the window from banging shut in the wind, but completely useless as a barrier to passing murderers.

Outside in the moonlight a slim young man in jeans and T-shirt was picking himself up out of the flax bush beside the back steps. He didn’t look like a murdering psychopath – although, presumably, the most successful ones don’t.

‘I’m really sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you. I got a flat tyre at your gate, and there’s no jack in my van.’

I looked at him dumbly, unable, between ebbing terror and rising shame, to say anything at all.

‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘I’ll go. Sorry.’

‘I’ve got one,’ I whispered. ‘A jack.’

There was a pause.

‘Can I borrow it?’ he asked at last.

‘Oh. Um, okay. Of course.’

The house had been built before the era of internal garaging and my car lived in a shed thirty metres from the back door, across a stretch of very sharp gravel. Switching on the porch light I let myself out, squinting in the sudden brightness. In Elmo pyjamas and bare feet I picked my way across the stones to the shed, reached the car and realised I hadn’t brought my keys.

‘Sorry, forgot the key,’ I said, turning and starting painfully back.

‘It’s fine,’ said my midnight caller. ‘I’m sorry about this . . .’ He stopped, perhaps feeling that all these apologies were becoming a mite repetitive.

I had retrieved my keys and was tackling the gravel for a third time when a vehicle on the road below slowed and then turned up the driveway. It took the slope with a roar, dark shadows racing before the glare of its headlights.

It’s his accomplice, I thought wildly, fumbling with a handful of keys in an attempt to grip one between my knuckles as a weapon.

A ute swept around the corner of the house and stopped just two metres in front of me. Through the dazzle of headlights I saw a figure leap out, rifle in hand, and I shot towards the back door like a bolting hare.

‘Stop right there, arsehole!’ cried the gun-wielding maniac. ‘Lia, call the police! You, lie down, or I swear I’ll shoot you.’

‘Rob,’ I croaked, sagging back against the doorframe as the other man dropped smartly to his stomach on the gravel.

‘Did he hurt you?’ my brother demanded.

‘No! Let him up! He just came to borrow a jack – he’s got a flat tyre.’

There was a short, charged silence before Rob said, ‘So what the hell was your problem?’

‘I’m sorry! I was reading a book about a serial killer who kidnapped girls and tortured them, and then this poor guy wandered up and knocked on the door and scared me half to death.’ I started towards the prone figure in front of Rob’s ute. ‘Please get up. Look, I’m really sorry, we’re not insane, honestly; it’s a – a twin thing. Sometimes you know when the other one’s in trouble, or at least when the other one thinks they’re in trouble . . .’ I trailed off, feeling like a complete idiot.

‘Lia, you moron, shut up,’ Rob snapped, reaching into his ute to switch off the headlights. Now that he was no longer obscured by their glare I saw that he was wearing only a pair of pink satin pyjama shorts, which must have been the closest thing to hand when he leapt out of bed. They were very short and very tight on him, and the effect was truly horrific.

Puncture Man was getting to his feet.

‘I’m really sorry, mate,’ Rob said, putting down his rifle. ‘I’ll come and give you a hand with your tyre – is that your van just down the road?’

‘Er, yes,’ said Puncture Man. He sounded somewhat wary, as well he might.

‘I’ll get the jack,’ I said.

‘I’ve got one,’ said Rob. ‘Go to bed.’ Happening just then to look down he noticed the satin shorts, and his expression went from irritated to appalled.

‘Pair of shorts to cover them up?’ I offered.

Ignoring this, he laid the rifle across the back seat of his ute and climbed stiffly behind the wheel. The other man got in beside him, Rob executed a rapid three-point turn, and they vanished down the driveway.

I let out a long, shaky breath and began once more to pick my way across the stones to the back door. Rob and I had always had a nebulous and ill-defined awareness of the other one’s state of mind – I believe quite a few twins do – but dragging him from sleep to rush to my rescue was a first.

I was at the door when the phone began to ring. Running down the hall to the kitchen, I picked it up just before the answer phone cut in. ‘It’s okay! Don’t worry.’

‘What happened?’ cried Rob’s fiancée.

‘Nothing. Only that I’m an idiot. I scared myself stiff reading that book Hugh lent me, and then some poor guy with a flat tyre came and knocked on the door and I thought he was a serial killer. Rob must’ve picked up on how scared I was. I’m really sorry.’

There was a long, blank silence down the phone. ‘Shit, Lia,’ she said at last. ‘Honestly? You’re not standing there at gunpoint?’

‘No, I’m not. Promise. Rob’ll be home in ten minutes; he’s just helping the guy change his tyre.’

‘Okay,’ said Anna slowly. ‘See you tomorrow, then.’

Today, actually, according to the microwave clock on the other side of the big industrial kitchen. (Anna – who was my friend before she was Rob’s girlfriend – and I owned and ran a café, and I lived there.) I toured the premises, locking every door and window as I went, returned to my bedroom, kicked Run, Bobby, Run, hit the end of my middle toe squarely on its spine, swore for a while and hobbled back to bed.

* * *

I dreamt of home invasions and minced teenagers, which made waking up in the morning much more pleasant than usual. Getting up with unprecedented relief, I went along the hall to the kitchen, made myself a coffee with two shots of espresso and took it outside to sit on the porch steps.

Our café is called Pretty Delicious (modesty is overrated), and it sits on a hill above a small coastal town in Northland called Ratai. It started life as a rather pretentious villa, built after the Second World War by a local farmer and his wealthy American wife. They retired to California in the seventies and the house, rented by a series of increasingly dodgy tenants, fell into disrepair. When Anna and I bought it there was a good-sized inkweed bush growing up through the porch and someone whose religious convictions were stronger than their grasp of punctuation had painted JESUS DIED FOR YOU’RE SINS across the dining room wall. Which was lucky, because over the last twenty years Ratai has turned from a sleepy seaside village full of ageing hippies and single mothers into a trendy holiday destination, and if the house had been anywhere approaching liveable we’d never have been able to afford it.

Our combined savings and some significant parental investment got us a bank loan, and we gutted most of the inside of the house, leaving two small bedrooms and a seriously nasty black marble and faux crystal bathroom at the back. We took out every bit of internal wall that we could at the front without collapsing the roof, and created an open-plan kitchen and seating area with high ceilings and polished wooden floors. We furnished it with mismatched second-hand chairs and tables and shelves full of books, partly for a cool retro look but mostly because it cost less than buying new stuff, and we were inordinately proud of it.

It was a wonderful morning, very clear and still. The lawn was silver with dew, the growing tips of the kauri trees on the ridge shone coppery pink in the early sunlight and two quail were pacing self-importantly along the top of the hedge. They and the coffee dissolved the last traces of nightmare, and when Anna arrived at seven thirty I had a lemon yoghurt cake in the oven and was chopping onions. She ran up the porch steps and let herself into the kitchen, taking an apron from the hook behind the door.

‘Morning,’ I said, blinking away onion tears.

‘Morning.’ She switched on the kettle and took a camomile teabag from her personal tin.

‘Freaked out?’ I asked, after the silence had stretched long enough to become uncomfortable.

‘Little bit,’ said Anna.

‘Me too.’

There was another pause.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘Rob was beside himself.’

I winced. ‘On the way out or when he got back?’

‘Both.’

‘Reckon he’ll ever talk to me again?’

‘I expect so,’ she said dryly.

The dryness annoyed me. Serves me right for apologising, I thought, slicing the top off my next onion with more force than strictly necessary. Saying you’re sorry for things you couldn’t help just implies that you could have helped but decided not to.

Anna and I had been friends, minor frictions notwithstanding, since sharing a dogfish preserved in formalin in a first year university Animal Biology lab. We spent every Thursday afternoon of one semester dissecting him, after which we would adjourn, with the scents of formalin and decomposing dogfish lingering in our nostrils, to the campus dining room for fish and chips. I was always sorry about that, because fish and chips should have been the best meal of the week.

Post graduation, she went to work for the Auckland Regional Council as a water-quality consultant and I moved to the bottom of the South Island to trap stoats. We stayed in touch, though, and two years previously, when she’d just left both her job and her investment banker boyfriend and I was wondering if my father had a point and I really was incapable of settling down and behaving like a grownup, we’d decided to bite the bullet and start a café. We both loved food and cooking, and we both felt it was time we did something constructive with our lives.

When we first opened for business my brother Rob was living in Tauranga, a four hour drive away. He designed our outdoor seating area during a visit home and came back the next three weekends running to build it, motivated not by devotion to his twin but by the burning desire to impress her beautiful friend. Three months later he moved home and started his own business, and Anna, who only weeks beforehand had declared herself to be off men, probably for good, packed up her belongings and moved in with him.

It proved to be an excellent idea, although it had seemed a trifle rash at the time. They were very good for each other – he shook her up and she settled him down – and I was honestly delighted that they were getting married. I’d have been even more delighted if they’d just eloped, though – Anna, foodie though she was, had always had a slightly odd attitude towards actually eating the stuff, and the stress of planning a wedding seemed to be making her worse.

* * *

Business that day was brisker than usual for the time of year, and at ten to two I had just farewelled a group of middle-aged ladies and was wiping down their table when someone behind me said, ‘Hey, trouble.’

I spun around to see a man in his forties, with greying fair hair and good-natured crinkles at the corners of his eyes. ‘Mike!’

‘How’s it going?’ said my half-brother.

‘Good. Great.’ I dropped my dishcloth and hugged him. ‘You?’

‘Oh, fine.’

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.

‘Buying a second-hand baler in Pukekohe,’ he said. ‘So I thought I might as well come and see you lot, since I was most of the way here.’

‘Can you stay for the weekend?’

He shook his head. ‘No, I need to be home by tomorrow afternoon.’

‘Bummer,’ I said. ‘Have you seen Mum yet?’ (My mum; his ex-stepmother. Our family tree is a little involved.)

‘I dropped in, but she wasn’t home.’

‘No, that’s right, she’s at her friend Carole’s place, tying herself in knots.’

‘Why? What’s wrong?’ Mike asked, looking mildly alarmed.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Actual knots. They’re doing some sort of advanced yoga workshop.’

‘Ah. Right.’

‘Carole’s befriended this strange little man who wanders around in a loincloth telling people they need to live their lives on a spiritual plane. Which means they should give all their worldly goods to him, so he can distribute them to the poor.’

‘Or keep them, presumably.’

‘I’m exaggerating,’ I admitted. ‘I think he’s harmless.’

‘You, exaggerate?’ said Mike. ‘Surely not.’

Anna, approaching across the polished wooden floor, laughed.

My family has long accused me of a certain carelessness with the truth, and I have long been wounded by the injustice of their allegations. Surely exaggeration is a perfectly legitimate way of improving the story. If I say there were seventeen million mosquitoes in my bedroom last night, it doesn’t occur to me that anyone would think I mean it literally. ‘You sound just like Dad,’ I said.

‘Low blow, Lia,’ said Mike. ‘Hi, Anna, how are you?’

He hadn’t eaten, being one of those strange and unfathomable people who think missing a meal is no big deal. We plied him with bacon sandwiches and cream sponge and sent him off to find Rob, who was building designer stone walls around a wealthy businessman’s cliff top section ten minutes up the coast.

‘He’s such a sweetie,’ said Anna. ‘Why hasn’t he got a wife and kids?’

I pulled a hairclip from the knot of hair at the back of my head and skewered a curl that had made a break for freedom. ‘Pass. He’s had girlfriends, but they never seem to last longer than a few months.’

‘Oh well, maybe he just likes his space,’ she said.

‘Maybe,’ I said doubtfully.

The phone rang, and she raised an enquiring eyebrow at me.

‘Mum,’ I said, picking up the portable phone. I’m not infallible, but I’m usually right. It’s not actually all that useful a talent – caller ID is more accurate – and it’s certainly not one I advertise. People are either far too impressed or they think I’m making it up, and neither is good. ‘Hey.’

‘Hi, love,’ said Mum. ‘Having a good day?’

‘Yes, fine. How was yoga?’

‘Hideous,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I very much doubt I’ll be able to get out of bed tomorrow.’

‘Hot bath?’ I suggested.

‘I’m having one now.’

‘For goodness’ sake, don’t drop the phone.’ My mother has left phones outside in the rain, dropped them into the sea, buried them in the compost heap . . . Her personal best, I think, was losing one into the hopper of a garden mulcher.

‘No, dear,’ she said patiently.

‘Mike’s here,’ I said.

‘Our Mike?’

‘Yep.’

‘How lovely!’ said Mum. ‘I haven’t seen him for ages. Is he staying?’

‘Just for tonight.’

‘I’ll go and make up a bed now. And you’ll all come for tea?’

‘I expect so. He’s just gone off to see Rob.’

‘I’ll ring Robin and invite them both. About seven?’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘What d’you want us to bring?’

‘Not a thing,’ said Mum nobly. ‘You spend more than enough time chained to an oven as it is. Oh, unless . . . You don’t have any pizza bases, do you, love?’

‘Of course.’ We made and froze them by the score.

‘Maybe just a couple of them, with that lovely garlic and parmesan topping. And perhaps a green salad – no. No, forget it . . . Ooh, but how about that beautiful cheesecake slice?’

I started to laugh.

‘Oh, darling, don’t bother. I’ll fling something together. You just turn up.’

‘No, it’s fine, Mum. See you at seven.’

‘You’re wonderful,’ said Mum, and hung up.

‘Pushover,’ Anna remarked.

I sighed. ‘Yeah, I know.’

Chapter 2

Rob and I were christened Robin and Aurelia but staged a joint rebellion at about the age of five, and these days most people assume that I’m called Leah and Rob is short for Robert. We don’t look much alike, although we’re both smallish and slimmish – due, Rob claims, to too many mung beans and not enough steak in our formative years. Rob inherited Mum’s blond hair and skin that tans to a smooth bronze after about half an hour of sunlight, and I got reddish-brown curls, hazel eyes and Dad’s tendency to freckle. I’m quite pretty, in an unremarkable sort of way, but Rob’s gorgeous. He actually gets approached in supermarkets by modelling scouts.

Our father, Grayson Leslie, owns a scenic but remote sheep farm in the middle of New Zealand’s North Island, halfway between Taumarunui and Whangamomona. He and Mum were married when she was twenty and he was thirty-six, thanks to extreme youth on her side and extreme loneliness on his. Dad’s first wife had absconded with a florist and left him with two teenage children; Mum was the neighbours’ au pair. The marriage lasted about as long as you’d expect, and Rob and I were eighteen months old when they separated and Mum moved us to Ratai, a place locally famous for its high concentration of flaky single mothers.

And my mother, bless her, was the quintessential flaky single mother. She wore her hair in a long plait down her back, practised yoga, made her own candles, dabbled in veganism and studied iridology by correspondence. (Neither of her children can now stomach chickpeas, tofu or any form of alternative medicine.)

* * *

At six that evening Anna left, firstly for home and thence to the House of Flake, with two uncooked pizza breads, one salad and a tray of boysenberry cheesecake. I drifted around the empty kitchen for a while, polishing the coffee machine and aimlessly rearranging the fruit bowl, until I managed to work up sufficient self-reproach to put on my running gear and let myself out into the evening sunlight.

Wonderful sport, running, I thought as I jogged down the driveway. Makes you look and feel better, and it’s free. I crossed the road and headed up a steep clay track winding uphill through the scrub, and my self-satisfaction dwindled, replaced by the conviction that since I ran up this hill twice a week it really shouldn’t hurt this much.

I paused at the top to stretch the knee I’d had surgery on several years previously, looking down over the wide, tree-fringed curve of Ratai Beach. The sea this evening was a deep, clear green, edged by a crisp frill of foam, and a lone oystercatcher trotted to and fro along the smooth pale sand. The track turned left and continued over a headland to the next bay, but leaving it I slithered down a bank, came to rest against the trunk of a huge half-dead puriri tree and climbed down its exposed roots to the top of a sand dune at the north end of the beach. From there it was three kilometres back along the sand, sharp right at the mouth of the estuary and another hundred metres along the riverbank to the bottom of Mum’s garden.

I dropped to a walk, wiping my hot face on the hem of my singlet, and let myself in through a gate in the camellia hedge. Mum’s garden covered nearly an acre, running down from the house at the top of the section to the river path at the bottom, and it seemed bigger. Paths wound through the trees between sunlit pools of lawn and garden, drawing the eye around the next corner with that deceptive skill that manages to give the impression the whole thing is completely natural and was never designed at all. It was always lovely, and now, in mid-spring, with six inches of fresh new growth on every shrub and the borders blazing with colour, it was breathtaking.

Her house was much less lovely; a sprawling, rundown place previously owned by a retired farmer. Uninterested in fishing or golf, he had occupied his twilight years with DIY building projects. He was a much keener starter than finisher and he never altered anything that was already there, so the house was full of random steps, unnecessary bits of hall and electrical cables that ran around the edges of the skirting boards rather than being hidden tidily inside the walls. Mum had bought it with her divorce settlement, but, as her income came solely from cleaning holiday homes and any (rare) spare cash was automatically diverted towards the garden, she’d never been able to afford any further alterations.

I found her in the kitchen, standing on the table and reaching for a large pottery jug that was kept at the top of the hot-water cupboard. In a green silk wraparound skirt and a lacy yellow blouse, with her hair loose down her back, she looked like a more colourful version of Stevie Nicks.

‘You look nice,’ I said, crossing the room to run myself a glass of water from the tap. ‘Like a daffodil.’

‘Thank you, darling,’ said Mum. She handed me the jug and climbed stiffly down off the tabletop. ‘I feel about a thousand years old after that yoga class. Come and help me pick some flowers for the table.’

She rummaged in a drawer for her secateurs, and led the way outside to the big apple tree, frothy with pink-tipped blossom and knee deep in bearded irises, white and powder blue and deep, shadowy purple.

‘Gorgeous,’ I said, throwing myself down full-length on the lawn to admire them.

‘They only last a fortnight,’ Mum said. ‘But what a fortnight.’

‘What’s for tea? I’m starving.’

‘Roast lamb,’ she said, felling irises.

‘Mum, you legend.’

‘Peter Marshall gave me a lovely shoulder roast, bless him. I’ve got it all ready; I just need to pop it in the oven.’

I looked at my watch. It was five to seven. ‘Awesome. It’ll be ready by about eleven.’

‘You do exaggerate, Aurelia,’ said Mum. ‘It will be ready in an hour and a half, and in the meantime we’ll have something to drink and a few nibbles.’

She led the way back into the kitchen and lifted the lid of the roasting pan on the bench to peer at the large, raw, semi-frozen joint inside. It was studded with rosemary sprigs and garlic cloves, smeared with mustard and dusted with salt and pepper, and it would, if roasted very slowly for most of a day, undoubtedly be delicious.

‘Mum, for goodness’ sake,’ I said.

She sighed. ‘It won’t be ready, will it? Oh well, we’ll proceed to plan B.’

‘What’s plan B?’

‘It will come to me, I’m sure,’ said Mum vaguely.

‘Steak? Fish? What veggies are we having?’

‘I hadn’t decided. Let’s go out now and raid the veggie garden – we might be able to find a few new potatoes. I’ll just put the flowers in water first.’

Before I could wring her neck the others arrived in a body, and she hastened to the door.

‘Mike, how nice to see you!’ she said. ‘Come in – Lia and I were just conferring about dinner.’

‘There isn’t any,’ I said through the kitchen window.

‘Of course there will be. We’ll pop the pizza bread into the oven now, for a start. Rob, my love, how about taking a bowl and digging some new potatoes?’

Ten minutes later Rob was scraping potatoes in the sink and I was seasoning frozen chicken drumsticks. Mum had bundled the irises into a glazed earthenware pot, where they looked like props in a photo shoot for House and Garden, and was sitting at the kitchen table in a pool of evening sunlight, her silken skirts shimmering in a most beguilingly Oriental fashion. My mother is a peerless delegator, and she’s so damned charming that it hardly ever occurs to you to mind.

‘Mike, it’s far too long since we saw you,’ she said. ‘Have you been doing anything exciting?’

Mike considered. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he said.

‘It’s a dreadful question, isn’t it? Guaranteed to make your mind go instantly blank. How’s the farm?’

‘Good.’

‘And your father?’

‘Pretty much back to his old self,’ said Mike.

‘When wasn’t he his old self?’ Mum asked.

‘Well, that heart attack slowed him down for a month or two.’

‘What?’ we all cried.

‘He’s fine. Honestly. They put in a couple of stents, and he’s a box of fluffy ducks.’

‘And when was this?’

‘June, I think. Yeah, must have been. We were fencing in the cabbage tree paddock.’

‘You’d think he might have mentioned it in passing, wouldn’t you?’ Rob said.

‘Oh well, you know Dad,’ said Mike.

‘Has it at least made him slow down a bit and look after himself?’ Mum asked.

‘Not that you’d notice, no.’

She sighed. ‘Heart attacks run in that family, too. Gray’s father and one of his uncles both died in their fifties.’

‘Thanks for that happy thought, Mum,’ I said, hunting through her pantry for likely-looking herbs and spices.

‘Darling, a history of heart problems in the family isn’t a death sentence, it’s just a reminder to take care of yourself.’

‘True. Have you got any paprika?’

‘Almost certainly,’ said Mum, tweaking a fold of her skirt straight. ‘It’s just a question of finding it.’ It didn’t seem, however, that there was any question of her finding it.

‘Your garden’s looking very nice,’ Mike told her.

‘Thank you! Robin and Anna are going to be married in it, you know. Come on out and have a quick look around before dinner.’ She stood up, wincing. ‘Good gracious, I’ve strained muscles I didn’t know I had.’

As she and Mike crossed the lawn, Rob set the potato pot on the stove to boil and turned to open the fridge door. He took out a big glass jug of dark brown liquid, sniffed the contents and took a cautious sip from the side. Rob always has been brave to the point of recklessness.

‘God, that’s foul. Must be the newest health kick,’ he said, putting it back and continuing the search.

‘I think it’s worm tea,’ I said.

‘Mum wouldn’t kill a worm.’

‘Worm urine. No worms harmed in the making of.’

‘Excellent. Aha!’ He extracted a bottle of wine and closed the fridge door.

‘Better ask first, in case your mother’s saving it,’ said Anna, exiting the pantry with a box of paprika and passing it to me.

‘I think we’ll just consider it payment for making dinner. You having one, Lia?’

‘Hell yes,’ I said.

‘Not that you deserve it, after last night,’ he added.

‘True,’ I said, mixing paprika, garlic salt and oil in the bottom of a cup. ‘But on the bright side, if you’re going to make a total dick of yourself it’s nice to do it in front of someone you’ll never see again.’

‘Hmmph,’ said Rob. He handed Anna a glass of wine and put one down at my elbow.

‘Thank you, by the way,’ I said, kissing his cheek.

‘Just don’t say anything to Mum, for Christ’s sake.’

I would no sooner have encouraged our mother’s belief in the psychic powers of her offspring than I would have taken to speaking in tongues, but I felt he had earnt – temporarily – the right to be superior and condescending, so I said meekly, ‘I won’t.’

* * *

We had a particularly nice evening, and it was after ten when Rob and Anna dropped me at the café on their way home. I unlocked the back door, waved goodnight and went inside, and as I shut the door behind me my heart sank like a stone.

I stood still in the hall, wondering why, and then the phone began to ring and it all became clear. Isaac. Bugger.

Isaac was my most recent ex-boyfriend, a stocky young man with soulful brown eyes like a spaniel. I tried quite hard to repress the memory of our time together, and might have succeeded had he not called several times a week. I was seriously tempted to ignore the phone – after all, if I’d come home thirty seconds later I’d have missed it quite legitimately – but I would only be delaying the inevitable. Might as well get it over with. Be firm, I told myself as I went into the dark kitchen to answer it.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi, Lia,’ Isaac said. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m good, thanks.’

‘That’s good to hear.’

There was a pause, while he waited for me to ask after his health in return. I didn’t.

‘Café going well?’ he asked at last.

‘Not too badly at all,’ I said briskly, feeling my way along the wall for the light switch. ‘What’s up?’

‘I miss you.’

I said nothing. Firmly.

‘All the time,’ he added.

I slid down the wall to sit on the kitchen floor. ‘Isaac, don’t.’ Melodrama is contagious, and I very nearly added, ‘Don’t do this.’ But this was bad enough without both of us talking like a soap opera, so I bit my lip instead.

‘I can’t help it. I can’t think about anything but you.’

‘It’ll get better,’ I said. ‘Things do.’

‘I’m sorry, Lia; I know you just want me to go jump off a cliff . . .’ He paused again, in an expectant sort of way.

‘Of course I don’t,’ I said weakly.

‘I just don’t know how I’m ever going to get over you.’

I took a deep breath. ‘Look, I’m really sorry you’re unhappy. But ringing me doesn’t help.’

‘I can change. I can be whoever you want me to be, I’ll do anything, I –’

‘Stop it!’ I said sharply.

He began to cry.

‘Stop it!’

‘God, you’re such a bitch.’

Well, at least that was progress.

‘No, you’re not. You’re perfect. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry . . .’

‘Isaac,’ I said, ‘listen to me. We are not going to get back together. It’s not going to happen. Don’t ring me any more; it just makes you miserable and I’m not going to change my mind. I’m sorry. Goodnight.’

I hung up the phone, and unplugged it for good measure. Then I went to bed to stare at the ceiling and feel bad. Less bad, however, than I would have felt if Isaac had been there too. It’s always good to keep these things in perspective.

Chapter 3

Cutting a thin slice of the warm Dutch apple cake on the butcher’s block the next morning, I divided it precisely into two. ‘Right,’ I said, passing one half to Anna on the point of the knife. ‘The moment of truth.’

She took a very small bite. ‘Not bad.’

‘For six eggs and three hundred grams of butter it should be spectacular.’

‘It’s not.’

‘I agree,’ I said, finishing my bit. ‘Pleasant, but dull.’

‘It’ll be alright with cream and lemon honey,’ said Anna, although she undermined this endorsement somewhat by tossing the rest of her cake into the compost bucket as she spoke.

I was finding this new one-bite-only method of dieting reasonably hard to watch, but I knew better than to say anything. Getting out a bowl I silently started to make a marinade. Soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, tomato sauce, crushed garlic . . . Serious foodies will tell you that you lose ‘those lovely top notes’ when you cook with pre-crushed garlic, but unless you’re in the habit of taking your garlic neat I find it hard to believe you’d tell the difference.

‘We should put another recipe on Facebook,’ Anna said after a few minutes.

‘Okay.’

‘I was thinking custard squares. They photograph well.’

‘Our recipe’s the one out of the Edmonds cookbook,’ I said. ‘They’ll sue us.’

‘They will not. Anyway, our icing’s different.’

‘Fine. Whatever.’

‘What’s up?’ she asked, pouring coffee beans into the side of the machine. ‘You’re not your normal chirpy self.’

‘Isaac rang last night as soon as I got in and sobbed down the phone at me,’ I said.

‘Ah. That’d do it.’

‘It was awful.’

‘What did you say to him?’

I added a spoonful of plum jam to my marinade. ‘I told him not to ring me again.’

‘Did he listen?’

‘Probably not. I just won’t answer the phone.’

‘Oh, really?’ she said.

‘Really.’

She snorted.

‘I’ll use you as my role model, and be cruel and heartless.’

‘Yeah, you do that,’ she said, picking up the phone. Anna may not be cruel and heartless, but she’s very good at mocking disbelief. She pressed a button and frowned. ‘There’s no dial tone.’

‘I unplugged it last night in case Isaac rang back. Sorry.’

‘Now that’s a marvellous way to run a business.’ She reinserted the plug into its socket.

‘I thought it would make us seem more exclusive if no-one could get hold of us. It’s my cunning new marketing plan.’

‘Brilliant,’ she said.

‘Or we could go completely the other way and dress in fishnets and suspenders.’

‘You don’t think that might give the wrong impression of just what it is we’re selling?’

‘Possibly,’ I admitted.

‘Sounds like a great idea to me,’ said Monty, suddenly putting his head around the kitchen door. Monty lived over the road and had a disconcerting habit of wandering over and appearing in the kitchen without warning – but then he also had a habit of bringing fresh crayfish with him, so it seemed petty to object. He owned the garage in town, which he ran in a haphazard fashion, not bothering to open if the fishing looked promising. He was large and cheerful, with wispy grey hair and a face as round as the moon, and once you managed to track him down he could fix almost anything.

‘Hi, Monty,’ I said. ‘How was your fishing competition?’

‘So-so. Bit of an onshore wind.’ He opened the door wider, and there behind him stood Puncture Man.

I recognised him with acute embarrassment but only mild surprise. There is, after all, nothing like making a fool of yourself in front of a stranger for ensuring you’ll see them again. He was older than he’d seemed when climbing out of a flax bush – mid-to late twenties, probably – with short fair hair and really lovely dark grey eyes. He looked amused, which is a good sign in a new acquaintance unless it happens to be you they’re laughing at.

‘Girls, this is Jed Dixon,’ said Monty. ‘He’s going to be giving me a hand in the workshop. Jed, this is Anna, and Lia. They make a bloody good roast beef sandwich.’

‘Nice to meet you, Jed,’ Anna said.

‘You too,’ he said, and then turned to me. ‘Hi – Lee, was it?’

‘Lia,’ I said.

‘Lia. Sorry.’

‘You should be,’ I said. ‘My only consolation for the other night was that at least I’d never see you again.’

He grinned. ‘Yeah, I hear that a lot.’

‘What happened the other night?’ Monty asked, and I looked at Jed in startled gratitude. Had I been held at gunpoint by a man in pink satin hotpants, it would have been my primary topic of conversation for weeks.

‘I got a flat tyre just down the road from here,’ he explained. ‘I came up to see if I could borrow a jack and scared the poor girl stiff.’

‘He turned up on foot at midnight, and I thought he was a serial killer and screamed the house down,’ I said. ‘Would you guys like a piece of apple cake?’ It’s worth trying to get on the good side of a man who can, if he chooses, spread reports of being assaulted by a telepathic cross-dresser.

* * *

‘He didn’t tell Monty about Rob threatening him with a rifle,’ I said, watching the two of them cross the lawn ten minutes later. ‘I wonder why not.’

‘No idea,’ said Anna. ‘Hey, can you smell something?’

‘What sort of something?’

‘Something rotten,’ she said, sniffing the air like a bloodhound casting for a scent. Anna has very high standards of hygiene – an excellent trait in someone who works with food, if at times a little wearing to those of us with a more relaxed attitude to dirt.

I sniffed in turn, and then shrugged. ‘I can’t smell anything. Is it the trap in the bottom of the fridge?’

She glided fridgewards, inhaling deeply as she went. ‘No.’ She began to work her way around the kitchen, opening cupboards.

‘Oi,’ I said. ‘Less sniffing, more cooking of quiche. We’ve got a business to run here.’

‘Says the woman who gives away cake!’

‘I was trying to buy his silence. And it wasn’t great cake.’

‘McDonald’s don’t make great hamburgers, but they sure as hell don’t give them away,’ said Anna.

Chapter 4

Sylvia was an elfin, quicksilver creature, with an impudent little nose and a mouth too wide for beauty. She –

I closed the book and tossed it across the kitchen onto the window seat. They all had mouths too wide for beauty – apart from those whose noses departed from the classical by tilting up at the tip, or whose cheeks were lightly dusted with golden freckles. It seemed to be romance novel law that every heroine must have a flaw, so as not to be sickeningly perfect, but never one that might actually diminish her good looks. I had yet to encounter a heroine with a receding chin.

In the fortnight since Hugh’s psychological thriller I had divided my reading time between The Patetonga Rural Women’s Institute Cookbook (which included several recipes for roasted wood pigeon but advised that kaka was better stewed) and a selection of Great-Aunty Sheila’s elderly cloth-bound novels, free from serial killers but bristling with dainty heroines and square-jawed, strong-and-silent older men with mysterious pasts. What is the appeal of the strong and silent older man? My father’s one, so I’ve had ample opportunity to observe the type, and personally I’d prefer a bloke who wanted to talk to me from time to time. Resolving to visit the library before the day was out, I slid off my stool and went down the hall to get dressed.

It was Monday morning (we closed the café on Mondays, apart from in summer, when we barely closed to sleep), and Anna, our mothers and I were going bridesmaid’s dress shopping. I got to Mum’s on the dot of eight and had her out the door a mere twenty-three minutes later, which was a promising start. Pausing only to collect the bride, we reached Newmarket by ten, met Anna’s mother, Deidre, at a café, agreed smugly that their coffee wasn’t a patch on ours and went forth to shop.

Over the next two hours I tried on about thirty dresses, and each was rejected with loathing by at least one of my panel of stylists. I learnt that I must never wear a halter-neck, a V-neck, anything teal, pink, grey or burgundy, a skirt that finished on the knee or a top with spaghetti straps, and by dress number thirty any positive feelings I might once have had about my appearance had vanished entirely.

‘We could try Silverdale,’ Deidre suggested.

‘No more,’ I said, sagging. ‘Please. Or I’ll cry.’

‘Why don’t we just choose some nice fabric and have something made?’ said Mum.

I sagged further. I have no faith in dressmakers, an attitude that dates from my Year 12 school ball. The family friend who made my dress decided against the pattern I had chosen, producing instead a replica of her daughter’s frock from 1987. I looked like an extra out of Dallas.

‘Or what about my green organza?’ Mum continued. ‘It wouldn’t take much to alter it to fit you, and it’s such a pretty thing. You’d look like a wood sprite.’

‘I’m not sure that’s quite the look we’re after for a wedding,’ said Deidre.

‘It is a garden wedding,’ Mum said.

‘Yes, well, that’s certainly an option.’

Mum, who had spent most of the winter transplanting perennials to ensure a riotous display of colour come March, stiffened.

‘I thought it was all settled,’ she said.

‘Ian and I are more than happy to pay for a venue.’

‘Mum . . .’ Anna said unhappily.

‘It’s not every day our little girl gets married, after all.’

Anna and I looked at each other in alarm. ‘Meet back here in an hour?’ she said.

‘Okay.’

And taking a mother apiece by the elbow we went rapidly in opposite directions.

‘Who does that woman think she is?’ Mum hissed.

‘Don’t worry about it. She’s just asserting her authority as mother of the bride.’

‘Well, she can jolly well un-assert it. I’d like to see the place she’d choose as a wedding venue. Probably a conference room at the airport motel. Come on, let’s look in here.’ Veering suddenly, she pulled me through a shop doorway.

A tall, very thin woman with bright red lipstick and a platinum blonde chignon looked up from behind the counter. ‘Can I help you ladies with anything, or are you happy just looking?’ she asked.

‘We’re looking for a dress for my daughter,’ said Mum. ‘A bridesmaid’s dress. For’ – grimly – ‘a garden wedding.’

The woman approached and examined me critically. Having inspected me from all angles she turned away, flicked through a rack of dresses, took one out, looked at me again, replaced it and selected the one beside it instead. ‘This one,’ she said.

Much impressed by this cool authority, I followed her to a cubicle at the back of the shop and climbed out of my clothes for the thirty-first time that day. The dress was made of dusky blue chiffon and lined with satin, and it whispered seductively as I slipped it over my head.

I looked in the changing room mirror, and a vision of loveliness looked back. The dress fitted close around the bust and skimmed over my hips, making a pleasing contrast to the shoulder-sagging, thigh-clinging horrors of the morning. Against its slate-blue fabric my hair was dark blonde with coppery highlights, not light brown with a red tinge, and my skin was pale gold rather than merely pale. It probably costs seven thousand dollars and your first-born child, I thought, staring at my reflection. It’s probably worth it.

‘Are you decent, love?’ Mum called.

I pulled back the curtain.

‘Oh, Lia. It’s beautiful.’

The platinum lady allowed herself a small, prim smile, without teeth.

‘What does it cost?’ I asked.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Mum recklessly.

‘Two hundred and fifty-four ninety.’

‘We’ll take it.’

‘I’d better just call Anna to come and see it,’ I said, searching the changing room floor for my cell phone.

‘It’s gorgeous,’ Anna said when she got there. ‘I’m not sure I should allow it; you’ll look better than I will.’

‘I hardly think so, darling,’ said Deidre.

This was true, Anna’s looks being of the fairy princess variety, but it did nothing to placate my mother.

* * *

I was in the kitchen later that evening, looking at half a dozen overripe bananas and wondering whether to make them into banana ripple cake or just add them to the overripe banana collection in the freezer (I’d never yet retrieved a frozen banana, but storing them rather than throwing them away made me feel pleasantly frugal), when a ute with R Leslie, Landscaping on the side came up the driveway and stopped on the other side of the hibiscus hedge.

Rob ran up the steps, kicked off his boots and came in. His shorts and shirt were white with clay and his hair stood up on end, stiff with dust and sweat.

‘Big day?’ I asked.

‘Mm. Shifting rocks – and you can’t get a digger to the corner of the site, so we had to use crowbars. Got anything to eat?’

‘Banana? You can have as many as you like.’

‘Yeah, but nah,’ said Rob.

I opened the big fridge. ‘Potato salad? Silk cake?’

‘Cake, please.’

I put the plate down on the butcher’s block. ‘I guess you’ll have heard that that guy you held up at gunpoint is working for Monty?’

‘Mm-hmm,’ he said serenely, fishing in a drawer for a spoon.

‘Has anyone said anything to you about it?’

‘Nope.’ He pulled a stool up to sit at the butcher’s block.

I considered trying to talk to him about twin telepathy, and decided there was no point. ‘You can have as much of that cake as you like; it’ll be soggy on the bottom by tomorrow.’

‘Thanks. How was the shopping trip?’

‘Excellent. Want to see my amazing bridesmaid’s dress?’

‘Why not?’ he said, with the placid good humour of a man with half a silk cake in front of him.

I had put it on and was hunting in the bottom of my wardrobe for the high heels I’d bought on sale and never yet found the opportunity to wear when the phone rang.

‘Don’t answer it!’ I called.

‘Who is it?’

‘Isaac.’ Finding the shoes, I carried them back down the hall to the kitchen.

The answering machine clicked on, and Anna’s voice said brightly, ‘Hi, you’ve reached Pretty Delicious. We’re open Tuesday to Sunday, from eight thirty to five. Leave us a message and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.’

‘Hi, Lia. Just wondering how you’re doing. I’m – I’m kind of struggling. It’d be good to talk, if you’ve got a minute.’ There was a sorrowful pause. ‘Oh well, might catch you later. Take care.’ The machine beeped.

‘Drip,’ said Rob through a mouthful of cake.

‘I hate being guilted.’

‘Just ignore him.’

‘I wish he’d stop this. I told him not to ring me any more.’

‘Good. You can ignore him with a clear conscience, then.’

I sighed.

‘Don’t let it get to you,’ said Rob, who had never let anything get to him in his life. ‘Nice dress.’

‘I’ll just put the shoes on, so you get the full effect.’ I did, and twirled shakily.

‘Very sexy,’ he said. ‘But you’d better practise walking in those shoes or you’ll do yourself an injury.’

‘Brothers aren’t supposed to think their sisters are sexy.’

‘It’s fine to think your sister looks sexy. It’s wanting to have sex with her that’s less cool.’

‘Ugh,’ I said. ‘Like in Flowers in the Attic. That book blighted my teenage years.’

‘Well, you’ll be pleased to know I’m not even faintly attracted to you.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Any time.’

‘Things were a bit tense between Mum and Deidre today,’ I said. ‘They seem to be having some sort of mother of the bride versus mother of the groom power struggle.’

‘Oh, Deidre’s harmless,’ said Rob. ‘You just nod and smile, and ignore pretty much everything she says.’

I laughed. ‘You ignore pretty much everything everyone says.’

‘Yeah, it works well. Keeps things simple. You should try it.’ He smiled at me and shovelled the last of the silk cake into his mouth. ‘Right, I’m off. Thanks for the cake.’

Chapter 5

A week or two later, Mum arrived at the café at eight fifteen in the morning with a box of basil seedlings under her arm, wearing purple board shorts and a man’s dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Neither garment looked familiar, from which I surmised that she must recently have visited the Salvation Army thrift shop.

‘Good morning,’ I said, unlocking the front door for her. ‘Are those for us?’

‘If you’d like them.’

‘Yes, please.’ I kissed her cheek. ‘Coffee?’

‘No thanks, love, I just had a carrot juice.’

‘Why?’ I asked, relieving her of the box.

‘Because it’s full of antioxidants and phyto-thingummies.’

‘You need to be careful with carrot juice,’ said Anna, glazing cinnamon buns at the butcher’s block. ‘It turns you orange if you overdo it.’

‘That could be quite handy,’ Mum said. ‘Just think of the saving in fake tan.’

‘It turns the whites of your eyes orange too. A friend of mine used to work in a juice bar.’

‘Really? Gosh. Girls, there’s a funny smell in here. Does your compost bucket need emptying?’

‘No,’ said Anna sadly, putting down her pastry brush. ‘I’ve been trying to track that smell for days. Any idea where it’s coming from?’

‘There . . . no – that way.’ Mum turned slowly in a circle. ‘Drat, now I’ve lost it . . . There! It’s somewhere over there.’

Anna advanced across the dining area in the direction Mum was pointing. ‘It must be out here; I’ve turned the kitchen inside out.’ She reached a long sofa tucked between two bookcases, sniffed, lay down flat to peer under it, got up again and began pulling off cushions. ‘It’s around here somewhere,’ she muttered.

‘I heard of a woman who put prawns in the ends of the curtain rods in her ex-husband’s house,’ Mum said, following Anna. ‘Apparently they ransacked the place trying to find the smell – they took the carpets up and everything.’

‘I don’t think we’ve annoyed anyone that much,’ I said.

‘What about Isaac?’ said Mum. She kicked off her sandals and climbed onto the back of the sofa, from where she could just reach the curtain rod.

‘Not his style. Get down, you’ll frighten the customers,’ I said, hearing a vehicle pull up outside.

‘Nonsense, I’m adding local colour. Anna, love, have you got a screwdriver?’

‘You shouldn’t need one, the ends just pull off,’ Anna said.

Monty’s new assistant came up the front steps and stopped in the doorway.

‘Don’t worry,’ I called. ‘She’s just checking the curtain rods for rotten prawns.’

‘As you do,’ he said.

‘Hello,’ Mum trilled from atop the sofa, with a friendly wave.

‘Hi, Jed,’ said Anna.

‘Hi.’ He crossed the room to the counter.

‘It’s stuck,’ Mum said. ‘Pass me up a shoe, would you, and I’ll give it a whack.

‘That’s my mother; so as you can see, the entire family is insane,’ I told him as Mum beat the curtain rod with a Roman sandal. She was doing it on purpose, to flesh out her chosen part of colourful local.

‘Careful,’ said Anna, ‘you’ll break it.’

‘What can we get you, Jed?’ I asked. ‘Coffee?’

He dragged his gaze from my mother. ‘Uh, yes, please. Flat white.’

‘Mum, get down and come and meet Jed. He’s just started working for Monty at the garage.’

‘Nice to meet you, Jed,’ said Mum, giving the end of the curtain rod a final tug and very nearly overbalancing as it came out. Grabbing the curtain to save herself, she stood up on tiptoe and sniffed. ‘No, it’s fine.’ She replaced the end and climbed down. ‘I’m Margaret Leslie.’

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Jed Dixon.’

‘Short for Gerald?’

He smiled. ‘No. Worse.’

‘Jeremiah?’ Anna suggested, rearranging cushions.

‘Even worse. It’s a deathly secret.’

‘I know how you feel,’ I said. ‘The crazy lady there christened me Aurelia. Do you want your coffee here or to take away?’

‘Take away, thanks.’

‘Aurelia is a lovely name. You should try living up to it,’ said Mum. ‘And you weren’t christened.’ Having thus disposed of me, she turned back to Jed. ‘Are you enjoying your new job?’

‘Yeah, it’s great.’

‘That’s good to hear.’ Going into the kitchen she broke off a cinnamon bun, handing it to him as I gave him his coffee. ‘Here. You can’t do a morning’s work without breakfast.’

‘Oh. Thanks.’ He put them both down again to get out his wallet.

‘Four dollars,’ I said.

‘What about the bun?’

‘You didn’t want it; it was forced upon you.’

‘I do want it.’ He dropped a handful of gold coins on the counter, picked up his coffee and bun and retreated at speed. ‘Catch you later,’ he called back. ‘Thanks.’

* * *

It was a trying day, involving a vaguely threatening letter from the Ministry for Primary Industries regarding our upcoming Food Safety Programme audit, me dropping a chocolate cake on the floor icing-side down and Anna spending an hour and a half on the phone with her mother, debating the merits of calla lilies versus rosebuds for the bridal bouquet.

‘I need a drink,’ she said at ten to six. ‘Let’s go to the surf club.’

‘We’re too poor,’ I said, scrubbing the food processor blade with a dish brush. I was tired and my bad knee hurt, and letters from government departments tend to spoil my day.

‘For one beer? Bloody hell, that’s grim.’

I rinsed the blade and put it down on the bench. ‘Do you know how close we are to the overdraft limit?’

‘Stop it,’ said Anna. ‘We knew this year was going to be tight. It’s nearly holiday season, it’ll be fine.’

I made an effort to pull myself together. ‘Yeah, okay. Can you settle up the EFTPOS machine?’

* * *

The surf club was a long, low building with an enormous porch roofed in clear PVC, perched above the mouth of the estuary. It was open between five and eight-ish in the evenings and sold beer, cheap wine and prawn crackers, although the casual passer-by would never have known it. Unlike in the Ratai Hotel at the other end of the main street, there was no music, live sports coverage or Guinness on tap – but you got a nicer view and a superior, backstage-pass sort of feeling from drinking where the tourists weren’t.

‘Did you sort out the flower crisis?’ I asked as we crossed the car park. The tide was right in and little waves slapped lazily against the side of the boat ramp.

‘Chocolate-coloured calla lilies for me and lemon for you,’ said Anna. ‘With ribbons to match our dresses.’

‘Classy.’

‘Indeed.’

There were a dozen or so people sitting around the plastic picnic tables inside. The bar manager, a weathered little woman in a hot pink singlet and a denim miniskirt, was on the phone, and she gestured for us to get our own drinks. We took a bottle of beer apiece from the fridge behind the bar and went out onto the deck, where Hugh from the deli was leaning against the balcony. Hugh was American, tall and thin with a greying ponytail and very bright blue eyes, and he was one of my favourite people.

‘Evening, girls,’ he said. ‘How’s business?’

‘Slow,’ I said. I put my beer down on the balcony railing and jumped up to sit beside it. ‘You?’

‘Same. I’ve been playing around with some new sausage recipes; you’ll have to come and test them.’

‘Good,’ said Anna. ‘There’s a sausage tart recipe I want to try.’

Hugh fixed her with a stern blue gaze. ‘My sausages, young lady, are carefully crafted taste sensations. I don’t make them for you to add curry powder and minced cucumber and whatever the hell else you add in the name of fine dining.’

‘I promise this tart is all about the sausage,’ said Anna. ‘It showcases the sausage, if you will.’

‘The tart is really just a vehicle for the sausage,’ I added.

‘Is that so?’ said Hugh dryly. ‘How did you like that book, Lia?’

‘It scared me stiff,’ I said. ‘Did you get it back alright?’

He nodded. ‘I’ve got a couple more of that series, if you want them.’

‘God, no! I’m still not over that one.’

‘What puzzles me is why you tried it in the first place,’ Anna said. To Hugh she added, ‘She usually reads the ends of books first to make sure they finish happily.’

‘Why shouldn’t I? Life’s miserable enough without adding more unhappiness on purpose.’

‘What do you know about life’s miseries?’ said Hugh. ‘How’s your mother, by the way?’

‘Very well.’

‘Delightful woman. I’ve got some geranium cuttings potted up for her. I must drop them around. Who’s that fella over there who’s just about to burst into tears?’

I looked, saw Isaac watching me through a window with the wistful patience of a kicked spaniel, and inhaled a mouthful of beer.

‘Friend of yours?’ Hugh asked.

Anna giggled. ‘No,’ she said. ‘One of life’s miseries.’

Spluttering, I put down my beer bottle and slid to my feet. ‘Right, that’s it.’

‘You tell him,’ said Hugh, patting me encouragingly on the back. Then, to Anna, ‘Kind of like watching a little fluffy kitten go for the jugular, ain’t it?’

I left them sniggering and marched through the club room, through the far door and down the steps to the car park. There I stopped and turned.

‘Hi,’ said Isaac with a small, tremulous smile, coming downstairs behind me.

‘What do you want?’ I asked.

‘To talk to you.’

‘Oh, for Pete’s sake.’

‘Look, it’s obvious that I’ve offended you in some way,’ he said in that measured, highly irritating voice people use for trying to reason with the unreasonable. ‘But if you’ll just talk to me and tell me what’s wrong, maybe we can fix things between us.’

‘You know what, Isaac?’ I said. ‘It’s really offensive having the same conversation over and over again with someone who doesn’t listen to a word you say.’

He bit his lip. ‘Funny you should say that, because from where I’m standing it kind of feels like you’re the one who won’t listen.’

I opened my mouth to reply, and then had a small epiphany and shut it again. Nothing I said was going to make any difference to this conversation, because its sole aim was to keep me talking for as long as possible. Presumably he felt that the more he nagged me the more likely I was to give in. Any attempt to reason with him or to defend my position would just prolong the whole miserable experience – the only way to make it stop was to refuse to engage with him in the first place.

‘You’re right, I won’t,’ I said. ‘Bye.’ I turned and started back across the gravel, feeling quite lightheaded with relief.

He lunged after me and caught my arm. ‘Lia, wait!’

‘I am not doing this any more,’ I snapped, wrenching my arm free. ‘I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to talk to you, and if you don’t stop this crap I – I’ll get a restraining order!’

‘That was quick,’ said Anna when I returned, passing me my beer.

‘What did you do with the body?’ Hugh asked.

‘Left it in the car park,’ I said shortly.

‘Untidy,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘There’s probably a bylaw against that kind of thing.’

I swallowed the remaining half of my beer in a single, medicinal gulp. ‘If he’s still there when we leave I’ll roll him off the end of the boat ramp.’

* * *

He wasn’t, to my great relief. I had come to town with Anna, as an incentive to walk back home, but instead of turning right up the hill I went left along the esplanade beneath a row of enormous palm trees that housed about four thousand sparrows apiece, and then left again down Green Street to Mum’s.

Mum was sitting on the lawn with the phone to her ear when I rounded the corner of the house, pinching the growing tips off a daisy bush at the edge of the border to thicken it up. She blew me a kiss.

‘Sit him down and talk to him,’ she said into the phone. ‘Yes, alright, I know it never worked for me, but you’re older and wiser than I was . . .’ She laughed. ‘Never. Okay, then. Bye.’ She turned off the phone and tossed it down on the grass.

‘Who was that?’ I asked.

‘Mike,’ she said.

‘Mike Leslie?’

‘Yes. Why on earth not?’

‘No reason at all,’ I said. ‘I just didn’t realise you guys chatted on the phone.’ I sat down beside her and hugged my knees. ‘Is he having issues with Dad?’

‘Of course. The man’s impossible. How was your day?’

‘Average. At best. You?’

‘Oh, fine. D’you like my new nail polish?’ She held up a lavender-toenailed foot.

I wrinkled my nose. ‘I think I preferred the peach. That one makes it look like you haven’t got very good circulation.’

‘That’s probably why it was in the bargain bin,’ said Mum. ‘What’s wrong, love?’

‘I just told Isaac that if he didn’t leave me alone I’d get a restraining order.’

‘Goodness. What brought that on?’

‘Just the usual. Following me around and telling me I don’t understand him.’

She smiled at me and reached out to tuck an escaping curl behind my ear. ‘I’m not sure that’s quite enough for a restraining order.’

‘I know. I got a bit carried away. I’m just so sick of him.’

‘Oh well, maybe now he’ll finally get the message.’

‘Maybe. I never should have gone out with him in the first place.’

‘When you’re looking for a prince, my darling, you have to expect to kiss a few frogs,’ said Mum wisely.

I gave a little snort of laughter.

‘People break off relationships all the time. You spend some time together, and you either grow fonder of each other or you decide you’re not compatible.’

‘It’s just a bugger that he went one way and I went the other.’

‘Well, that happens,’ she said. ‘It’s not much fun for the one who cares, but that’s life. I know you feel guilty, but you didn’t set out to make him miserable. And what can you do about it? Marry him to keep him happy?’

‘Now there’s a horrible thought,’ I said.

‘There you go, then. Are you staying for tea?’

‘Yes, please.’

We got up, and I retrieved the phone.

‘What’s Dad done?’ I asked.

‘Hmm?’ said Mum. ‘Oh, just throwing his weight around. You know how he does. Poached egg?’

Chapter 6

I was reclining, one lovely November evening, in the springy grass beside the cliff path, recovering from the run uphill from the beach and looking out to sea. The air was warm and golden and one small pink cloud hung motionless above the horizon. It didn’t, here, seem all that important that most of this month’s income had come from last month’s GST refund, or that some loathsome person had written a Trip Advisor review that described Pretty Delicious as having ‘tolerable food, served in pretentiously rustic surroundings’. There was a shining cuckoo somewhere in the bush above the path – and, less idyllically, something prickly digging into the side of my right breast.

I peered down the front of my top and discovered a large praying mantis clinging to my bra strap, looking back at me with alien, wicked-looking black eyes. I flicked at it in mild panic and it vanished, biting me vindictively in the armpit as it went. Leaping up I whipped off my shirt, and of course it was then that Jed Dixon came around the corner of the path.

That was bad, but to make it worse I squealed in shock. Squealing is only acceptable for those under eight, and even then it’s not all that cool.

‘It’s okay,’ he said hastily.

I clutched my T-shirt to my chest like a frightened virgin, and the praying mantis, lurking in its folds, bit me again. ‘Shit!’ I shook my shirt vigorously, and it fell into the grass beside me. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry. Praying mantis down my shirt.’ I dragged the shirt back on, inevitably both inside out and back to front.

‘Your brother’s not going to turn up with a gun, is he?’ Jed asked.

‘What? No. No. Only for suspected serial killers, I promise.’

‘That’s a relief,’ he said.

‘Why is it,’ I said bitterly, ‘that every time you show up I manage to make a total fool of myself?’

‘That’s not true. Last time you just made me a cup of coffee. Good coffee, too.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘But you did see my mother sniffing the curtain rods.’

He smiled. ‘Yeah, that explained a lot.’

It’s nice when people assume you have enough of a sense of humour to be laughed at.

‘Hey, thanks for not telling anyone about Rob holding you up,’ I said, smiling back.

‘How do you know I didn’t?’ he asked.

‘Well, I don’t, but if you’d told anyone from around here I’d have heard by now.’

‘Do you and your brother always know when the other one’s in trouble?’

I made a face. ‘Sometimes. Sort of. It’s pretty hit and miss.’

‘And you’d rather not talk about it,’ he said.

‘No, it’s just – you sound like such a prat if you go around telling people you have a mysterious psychic link to your twin.’

Jed laughed. ‘This track goes to Stony Bay, doesn’t it?’ he asked.

I nodded. ‘It’s about three-quarters of an hour’s walk from here, up over the headland. Or you can go around the rocks at low tide.’

He looked at his watch, then at me. ‘Heaps of time before dark. Feel like a walk to Stony Bay?’

‘Sure,’ I said, pleased and flattered. (It occurred to me that I’d have been less pleased and flattered if he’d been less good-looking – but only fleetingly, since I prefer to pretend I’m not that shallow.)

The path led up and over a ridge through waist-high gorse and long grass, and then turned downhill through a little grove of nikau palms. ‘This hillside was only fenced off about five years ago,’ I said, assuming the role of tour guide. ‘It was always grazed before that – Gary Austin used to chuck thirty steers out here for the winter and round up the ones that hadn’t fallen into the sea in spring.’

‘Did many fall into the sea?’

‘Only one, actually, as far as I remember. I tend to exaggerate; it pays not to believe anything I say.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ said Jed.

‘How’s the new job going?’ I asked.

‘Really good.’

‘Monty’s nice, isn’t he?’

‘Very nice,’ he said – and then added cautiously, ‘not the most organised bloke in the world.’

‘No,’ I said, smiling.

‘How long have you had the café?’

‘Nearly two years.’

‘Monty was saying the place was in pretty bad shape when you girls bought it. You must have done a lot of work on it.’

‘We did,’ I said. ‘But luckily Rob was trying hard to impress Anna just then, so we had an excellent source of free labour.’

‘They’re engaged, aren’t they?’

‘Yes. They’re getting married in March.’

‘Good on them,’ he said.

‘Where were you before you moved here?’ I asked.

‘Thames,’ said Jed. ‘Look, dolphins!’ And he pointed out to sea, where in the distance a patch of apricot sky was alive with wheeling gulls, harrying a school of little fish from the air while the dolphins and bigger fish harried them from below.

* * *

The tide was on its way out when we got to Stony Bay, a narrow, grey-pebbled cleft in the headland. With the sun down behind the hills it was a dark and rather forbidding place, and we didn’t linger. We came back around the shore in the fading light, jumping from rock to rock, moving quickly and not talking much.

Jed, twenty metres ahead of me, stopped at the mouth of a cave in the cliff face to let me catch up. ‘Cosy-looking spot,’ he said, peering in. It was pitch-dark inside, and the steady drip of water echoed hollowly off the wet stone walls.

‘If you wade into that cave for about ten metres and then dive under a ledge, you come out on the other side of these rocks, at the end of the surf beach.’

‘You might,’ he said, looking at the cave with distaste. ‘I don’t do small dark spaces.’

‘It’s pretty cool diving under the rocks, though.’

‘I’d rather – what’s something really bad?’

‘Red-hot needles in your eyes?’ I suggested. ‘Bamboo slivers under your fingernails?’

‘Going to Mariah Carey concerts . . . yeah, that type of thing.’

‘I thought mechanics spent most of their time lurking in pits underneath cars.’

‘If I’m in a pit, it’s lit up like the sun,’ he said firmly.

* * *

It was seven thirty when we reached the north end of the surf beach and the car park was empty, apart from a battered white van with tinted windows.

‘Can I give you a lift home?’ he asked, starting up the wooden steps that led from the beach to the car park.

‘Is this your van?’ I asked, surprised. It was a particularly seedy-looking vehicle – the kind whose owner has tight black jeans and tattooed knuckles, and supplements his income by liberating things off the backs of trucks.

‘This van is an example of Japanese engineering at its finest.’ Pulling a set of keys out of his pocket he wrestled briefly and unsuccessfully with the passenger-side lock, while I maintained a tactful silence.

‘Be quiet, or you can walk,’ he said.

‘I didn’t say a word!’

‘I could hear you thinking.’ He went around to the driver’s door, opened it and leant across to unlock the passenger side.

‘Thank you,’ I said, climbing in. There was a bare single foam mattress with an orange, floral-patterned cover in the back, along with a sleeping bag and pillow, a battered paperback copy of The Power of One, a big blue chilly bin and a gas camping stove in a box.

‘Mint, isn’t it?’ said Jed.

‘Charming. Absolutely charming. I love what you’ve done with it.’

‘Really impresses the ladies.’

‘I bet,’ I said.

‘It’s only temporary,’ he said, starting the van. ‘I’m moving into a place on Green Street at the end of the week. I’m just waiting for the guy who’s in there now to move out.’

‘Coles’ sleep-out?’ I asked.

‘That’s the one.’

‘That’ll be cosy.’ I knew that sleep-out well – Toby Coles was friends with Rob at high school – and it was a tiny place: one room, with the toilet and shower in a lean-to cupboard outside the door.

‘Less cosy than this,’ said Jed. He sighed. ‘I’m not actually a bum. I do have a house.’

‘In Thames?’

‘Mm. My ex lives in it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said uncomfortably.

We drove up the hill in silence, and he pulled up in front of the dark café. ‘Do you want to come in and have some tea?’ I asked, imagining him crouching over his camping stove, reconstituting instant pasta sachets.

He hesitated for a moment, and then smiled at me and shook his head. ‘No, I’ve got a few phone calls to make,’ he said. ‘But thanks for the offer.’

I smiled back. ‘You’re welcome. Thanks for the walk.’

‘Night, Lia.’

‘Night,’ I said.

Chapter 7

I try, mostly, to work on the assumption that people are nice. Not all of them are, but it’s a nice cheerful assumption, and it disarms the odd one who could have gone either way. You do, however, have to draw a line somewhere – at dictators, for example, and child molesters. And people who ring you to tell you your computer has been infected with a terrible virus, but if you’ll just give them remote access and your credit card details they’ll sort it right out. And Isaac’s mother.

Eileen Harper, mother of Isaac, was a tall, large-bottomed woman with a loud voice. She didn’t much like me when I was going out with her son – I never knew whether it was me personally or if no girl would have been good enough, and I didn’t really care – but when I broke up with him her dislike hardened into irrevocable hatred. She would never have patronised Pretty Delicious by choice, but one afternoon a fortnight before Christmas she came in with the rest of the Ratai Business Association committee. She did not look pleased to be there.

‘Hi, Gail,’ I said as the first lady reached the counter.

Gail Rogers, who sold real estate and knew everything about everyone in the lower Northland region, smiled at me. ‘Hello, Lia dear. I’ll have a latte, if I may. Just a small one.’

‘And something to eat?’

‘I shouldn’t,’ she said, eyeing the display cabinet. ‘But I will. A piece of your lovely lemon cake. Leonie,’ she said, turning to the woman behind her, ‘what are you having?’

‘I’ll get this, Gail.’

‘You will not! You got coffee last week in Albany.’

‘Well, you got lunch.’

‘But it was so disappointing. That salad . . .’

‘That was hardly your fault, Gail! No, I insist. Put your purse away.’

‘Stop it, Leonie, you’re holding everyone up. Now, what are you having?’

Eileen Harper was still hanging back near the door, determined that not one cent should pass from her keeping to ours, and I looked her up and down with a certain malicious enjoyment as I made Gail’s coffee. She had inserted two-thirds of her bottom into a pair of jeans, leaving the rest to billow out over the waistband. Even, I thought, if her house contained no mirrors, and even if she had a strict policy of never looking down while dressing, it was amazing that the discomfort of losing all circulation below the waist hadn’t stopped her leaving the house in those pants.

When all the ladies but Eileen had placed their orders, they arranged themselves around our biggest table and Gail, pulling a notebook from her handbag, called the meeting to order.

The purpose of today’s meeting was to plan the annual Christmas parade. As we served the committee members with coffee and cake, Anna and I learnt that this year’s parade consisted, at this stage, of the preschool in Halloween costumes on the deck of someone’s ute, the bowls club in dress uniform on foot, Coastal Suzuki on a selection of motorbikes and the Lions Club on the back of Murray Thompson’s vintage Bedford truck. If it started. At this point our eyes met and we retreated hurriedly into the kitchen before we offended them by laughing.

Somebody had just suggested a children’s colouring competition, to be judged on parade night, when Eileen Harper said sharply, ‘What is that revolting smell?’

Several people looked nervous, as if it might be them.

‘What smell?’ asked Gail.

‘Something dead. A rat?’

Everyone sniffed, then shrugged and shook their heads.

Nostrils aquiver like one of Roald Dahl’s witches, Eileen turned in her chair. There was a bookcase behind her, painted white and housing Dickens’ complete works. She pulled a couple of volumes out to look behind them, recoiled and dropped them on the floor. ‘Oh my God,’ she said.

‘What is it?’ someone asked.

‘It’s a poo,’ said Eileen with deep revulsion.

I started, horrified, across the dining room, but Anna was three paces in front of me. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ve been trying to find that smell for weeks, it’s been driving me insane.’ She peered at the gap between Bleak House and Great Expectations. ‘Ugh. A decomposing sausage. Some child must have hidden it there, I suppose. Eileen, thanks so much for tracking it down.’

Scooping it up in the tea towel that had been draped over her shoulder, she beamed at the ladies and whisked back into the kitchen.

* * *

As Christmas got closer, business picked up and my recurrent nightmare of having to ask Dad for a loan to pay the mortgage receded. We catered several Christmas functions and the weekend brunch customers increased from a trickle to a steady stream. The relief was enormous.

Rob started a new job, landscaping a subdivision an hour’s drive away on the outskirts of Whangarei. Anna, already as slim as a chopstick, started a new pre-wedding diet of rice, lettuce and sweet chilli sauce. Mum allowed Caroline Marshall, who was in her first year of hairdressing, to dye her hair, and ended up with alternating white and orange stripes. Monty caught a twenty-five-pound John Dory surf-casting off the beach, celebrated excessively even by his standards and spent the night on the surf club floor, covered with a blanket. Isaac sent me a text message so long it was delivered in three parts, saying that he was completely over me, that he had actually never been as keen on me as I was on him and that his new girlfriend was superior to me in every way. Particularly, he wrote coyly, in ‘the bedroom department’. I shared this literary gem with Rob, who happened to be there when it arrived, and was quite touched when he said, ‘Fucking loser. Want me to beat him up?’

The Christmas parade (which I attend religiously, though I sneer at it for fun) was on Thursday the twenty-third of December, leaving from the wharf promptly at six. Anna and I left work at five forty-five and drove down the hill into town. There were no parking spaces free along the esplanade or in the surf club car park, and the road in front of the wharf was seething with floats and people in fancy dress.

‘Watch it!’ Anna cried as I backed the car around. ‘You’re going to hit that tractor!’

I stamped on the brakes. ‘What tractor?’

‘That one! Behind you!’

‘Where did that come from?’

Anna merely shuddered and hid her face in her hands – a hypocritical gesture from a woman who once did a U-turn on a motorway off-ramp.

Managing eventually to extricate the car without damaging it or a single bystander, I edged back down the esplanade, turned down a side street and parked behind Monty’s workshop. Monty and Jed were both outside when we pulled up, looking under the bonnet of a small blue Mazda. Monty looked hot and rumpled, but Jed, wearing a tight grey singlet and with his overalls tied around his waist, just looked hot. Like a model from a Men at Work calendar – one of those ones where the models have well-defined biceps and sexy scowls, and carry big spanners.

‘Phwoah,’ said Anna, almost under her breath.

‘Mm.’

‘You like him, don’t you?’ she said, smiling.

Um. Yes. Possibly. But it was all much too embryonic for discussion. ‘I don’t know him,’ I said.

She opened her door. ‘So get to know him.’

‘Evening, girls,’ said Monty. ‘What can we do for you?’

‘Can we leave the car here while we go to the parade?’ I asked, getting out of the car.

‘Of course you can.’

‘Are you guys going?’ asked Anna.

‘Be rude not to,’ said Monty, closing the Mazda’s bonnet and wiping his hands on a bit of rag. ‘What time is it?’

‘Five to six.’

‘Already? Right, then. Come on, Jed, I’ll close up later.’

No doubt by design, Anna hurried to catch up with him as he set off around the side of the building, leaving Jed and me to follow. ‘Evening, Aurelia,’ he said.

‘Jebediah,’ I replied.

‘Nope.’

‘Jethro?’

‘I’d give up, if I were you. Been doing anything interesting?’

‘Um. I think this week’s highlight has been trying a new recipe for aioli. I really need to get out more. How about you?’

He thought for a moment. ‘Well, I’ve moved into the sleep-out. I’ve got electricity and running water, now.’

‘Nice,’ I said.

‘You have no idea. I don’t have to wear a headlamp when it gets dark, I can just turn on a light. It’s like magic.’

I laughed. ‘Maybe you need to get out more, too.’

‘You could be right,’ he said. ‘What are you doing for Christmas?’

‘Staying here. You?’

‘I’m going to Thames. You don’t open the café on Christmas Day, do you?’

‘No. We did the first year, but we’ve calmed down a bit now.’

We reached an intersection and turned towards the main street, which was lined with people five deep.

‘Where have they all come from?’ asked Jed.

‘I’ve never understood it.’ I waved to a girl I’d gone to school with, who had a baby in a front pack and was pushing a toddler in a stroller. ‘I only ever recognise a fraction of the crowd, and I’ve lived here most of my life. You wouldn’t think people would travel vast distances for the Ratai Christmas parade, would you?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said, skirting a large woman in an orange sarong. ‘I heard there was going to be a lolly scramble.’

I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry, mate, but you heard wrong. Lolly scrambles have been outlawed for years. They’re very dangerous, you know.’

‘Just how many lolly-related fatalities have you heard of?’

‘Well, none, but that just proves how effective the ban has been.’

On reaching the main street I saw Mum, who stood out nicely with her new stripy hair, standing with Hugh in the doorway of the deli twenty metres away. She smiled and waved, and we threaded our way through the crush to join them.

‘Hello, Monty!’ said Mum. ‘Hello, Jed.’ She kissed Anna’s cheek, since she was the closest. ‘I was wondering where you girls were.’

‘We would have been quicker, but Lia took us on a little backstage drive-by of the floats,’ said Anna. ‘Have you seen Rob yet?’

‘No, is he coming?’

‘He’s over there,’ I said, pointing across the street, and Anna stood up on tiptoe to wave as he made his way towards us.

The parade was led by the Orewa pipe band, playing ‘Wi’ a Hundred Pipers’ and headed by a most distinguished-looking drum major with a luxuriant silver moustache. Next came half a dozen shiny new cars from Bill White Mitsubishi, and then the rest home’s mobility van, filled with residents in Santa hats. Ratai Primary were dressed mostly in egg cartons, apparently showcasing recycled fashion, and the Mainly Music preschoolers were nursery rhyme characters. One tiny boy, dressed only in a sagging disposable nappy and a tinsel halo, refused to be carried, and toddled the entire length of the main street.

‘Look at him,’ Mum said, smiling mistily. ‘Little mister independent. You were just like that little boy, Robin.’

‘I hope my nose was in a better state,’ said Rob.

‘It would have been. You couldn’t bear having a runny nose; you used to wipe it on Lia’s shirt.’

‘Excellent plan,’ he said.

‘You could have wiped it on your own shirt!’ I protested.

‘Well, you could see his point,’ said Mum. ‘You were always grubby anyway, and he was such a clean little boy.’

‘Of course I was grubby, if he was using me as a cleaning rag!’

‘Speaking of hygiene, I hear someone found a turd on your premises the other day,’ said Rob.

‘What?’ Anna said.

‘Hidden in a bookcase.’

‘It was a sausage!’

‘I hope it wasn’t one of my sausages,’ said Hugh.

‘Sure to have been,’ I said. ‘You’re our sole sausage supplier. Some child must have hidden it there. That revolting woman!’

‘What revolting woman?’ Hugh asked.

‘Eileen Harper. How dare she go around accusing us of hiding turds in the bookcases?’

‘You have only yourself to blame,’ said Rob. ‘You shouldn’t have gone and broken her little boy’s heart.’

‘Hush, here comes Santa!’ said Mum, with the reverence you’d expect from someone announcing the arrival of the Second Coming. My mother takes Christmas seriously.

This year’s Santa had style and panache. He drove a ride-on lawn mower and flung handfuls of sweets at the crowd in blatant defiance of the lolly scramble laws.

‘Told you there was going to be a lolly scramble,’ Jed said, and was immediately hit by a flying Mintie.

‘It’s drawn blood,’ I said, smiling widely.

He put his hand to his cheek bone. ‘You don’t have to look so happy about it.’

‘Wipe it on Lia’s shirt,’ Rob suggested.

‘Well, folks,’ said Monty, as Santa disappeared down the street, ‘that would appear to be that. Drink, anyone?’

‘Let’s have it at my place,’ said Mum. ‘It’s such a lovely evening. We can sit in the garden.’

I walked back to get the car alone. Anna had gone with Rob, Monty had gone to buy a box of beer and Jed, apparently feeling he’d had enough company for a while, had disappeared. He was lifting the battery out of the little Mazda when I rounded the corner of the workshop.

‘I take it you’re not coming for a drink?’ I said, trying and failing not to feel snubbed.

He shook his head. ‘Thanks for the offer, but I’d better finish this. The owner’s pretty keen to get it back.’ He smiled at me. ‘Merry Christmas.’

‘You too.’

* * *

I’d just got to Mum’s place when another car came down the driveway and parked under the flame tree by the fence.

‘Hey, blister,’ said Mike, opening his door. He stood up and stretched, and I crossed the gravel to hug him.

‘Mike! How are you?’

‘Oh, fine,’ he said tiredly.

It was fairly obvious that he wasn’t, but since it seemed that I wasn’t supposed to notice I said merely, ‘I didn’t think you’d be here until tomorrow.’

‘I came early.’

‘Very cool.’ I was particularly fond of Mike, and we hadn’t spent Christmas with him for years. ‘You’re just in time for a drink. Want a hand with your bags?’

‘No, I’ll get them later.’

We found Mum and Hugh drinking red wine at the outdoor table under a pergola draped in pink mandevilla vine.

‘Mike!’ said Mum. ‘How lovely! This is Hugh Wheeler, who owns the deli here in town. Hugh, this is my stepson Mike. Or is it ex-stepson?’

Mike smiled tightly and nodded to Hugh as he sat down.

‘Lia, my love, get yourself and Mike a glass each,’ said Mum. ‘And could you bring the Christmas cake out with you?’

I excavated the cake from beneath a pile of clean washing and an heirloom vegetable seed catalogue on the kitchen table. Evening sun filtered through the passionfruit vine that was trying to invade the west window and scraps of light danced and shivered across the far wall. The room smelt of cinnamon and Christmas lilies. And for some reason, although everything was warm and safe and familiar, an icy little trickle of fear ran down my spine.

I frowned and shook my head, both upset and annoyed. What use is it to get a feeling that something bad is going to happen, with no clue as to what it might be and how you might prevent it? All it does is encourage you to look for potential disasters, which is not an uplifting occupation.

I picked up the cake tin, a handful of wineglasses, a block of cheese and the breadknife, and went back out to find Monty, Rob and Anna rounding the corner of the house.

Greetings and introductions over, Monty sank into a canvas chair, took a can of beer from the box in front of him and beamed around the table. Then he frowned. ‘Where’s Jed?’

‘I saw him at the garage,’ I said. ‘He was working on that blue car.’

‘He doesn’t need to be doing that at this time of night! You should have brought him along, Lia.’

‘I did ask him.’

‘Should have fluttered your eyelashes, or something. The boy needs to get out more.’

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘You’ll have to try harder next time,’ said Rob, attacking the Christmas cake with the breadknife. ‘Less laughing when he gets hurt, more cleavage – that kind of thing.’ He shot me a quick, amused glance that made it abundantly clear he knew I was interested in Jed, and I thought, not for the first time, that twin intuition really was a bastard.

‘I’ll work on it,’ I said wryly. ‘Thanks for the tip.’

‘Any time. Cake, Monty?’

‘Go on, then.’

‘Try some cheese with it,’ I said. ‘An Englishman I met the other day told me that you haven’t lived until you’ve had cheese with fruitcake.’

Rob cut a slice of cheddar and held it out to Monty on the tip of the breadknife.

‘What am I supposed to do?’ he asked, looking a little alarmed by this foray into experimental cuisine.

‘Just try a bite of one and then a bite of the other,’ I said.

He did. ‘Huh. Not bad at all.’

Rob cut another slice of cake and one of cheese, and offered them to Mike.

‘Thanks,’ Mike said.

Rob smiled. ‘Bro . . .’

‘What do you want?’ Mike asked suspiciously.

‘Any chance you might have half an hour spare tomorrow?’

‘For what?’

‘I’ve just got a gate to hang for a woman up the coast. Big cast-iron thing. I need someone to hold an end, and Ed’s on holiday.’

‘Not that woman with the Dobermans that are trained to kill on sight?’ said Mike.

‘That dog hardly touched you! But no, it’s not her. This one’s a nice old bird; she’ll probably give us tea and cake.’

Mike sighed.

‘Margaret, I’ve got tickets for Bon Jovi in Auckland next month,’ said Hugh at the other end of the table. ‘Would you like to come?’

Mum clasped her hands. ‘Jon Bon Jovi,’ she said solemnly, ‘was my first true love. Hugh, you’re a wonderful man.’

‘I thought MacGyver was your first true love,’ I said.

‘No, no. He was merely a passing fancy.’

‘Do you think Hugh likes Bon Jovi, or does he just know your mum does?’ Anna asked Rob softly.

‘I’d say he knows Mum does,’ my brother said.

‘That’s so sweet.’

Mike pushed back his chair abruptly, got up and went inside.

Chapter 8

At three o’clock the next afternoon I crossed the café dining room with a coffee in each hand. ‘One flat white, and one moccachino,’ I said, putting them down on the table in front of their respective owners. ‘Can I get you ladies anything else?’

‘Artificial sweetener, please,’ said one.

‘I’m sorry, we haven’t got any. Sugar?’ I slid the bowl towards her across the table, and she eyed it as if it were filled with earwigs.

‘No, thank you.’ She sighed and took another forkful of caramel cheesecake, and I mused, as I retreated towards the kitchen, on the reasoning behind forgoing fifteen calories of sugar in your coffee while consuming three hundred and fifty in your cheesecake.

‘Did you make the mustard sauce?’ Anna asked, lifting her head for a second from the chocolate scrolls she was piping onto a baking sheet.

‘Yes. It’s in the little fridge. What else have we got to do?’

‘Baked feta’s done, pavlova roll’s done, we can’t glaze the ham till tomorrow, the chicken wings are marinating in the fridge . . . Jersey caramels.’

‘Right,’ I said wearily, getting out the recipe and a glass mixing bowl. ‘What time are you due at your parents’?’

‘Six thirty.’

* * *

We closed at four. Anna went home and I began, with minimal enthusiasm, to mow the lawn. I had fertilised it the previous autumn, on the advice of the gardening column on the back page of the local paper, and regretted it ever since. Cutting an acre of lush dense grass once a week may be just what you want if you’ve got nothing else to do, or if you’re struggling to find enough work for that second under-gardener, but I felt I could have done without it.

Still, it was exercise, and it was a nice afternoon. And it was summer, so the lawn would become a desert wasteland soon enough. I had just finished and was pushing the mower back uphill to the garage when Rob’s ute came around the corner of the house and stopped on the gravel outside the kitchen door. He and Mike got out, rather stiffly.

‘Rob, what are you doing here?’ I said, wiping my hot face on my sleeve. ‘You’re supposed to be in Browns Bay!’

Rob frowned.

‘For Christmas Eve dinner. At half past six.’

‘Oh shit,’ he said.

‘What’s the time?’

He looked at his watch. ‘Five thirty.’

‘Where’s your phone?’

‘Flat.’ The phone in the kitchen began to ring. ‘Is that her?’

I nodded.

‘Aren’t you going to get it?’ Mike asked me.

‘No!’ If I answered that phone and admitted Rob was here, Anna would be even madder at him than she was already, and also I would become an accessory after the fact. I made shooing motions. ‘Go, go!’

Rob sighed and got back into his ute.

‘Poor sod,’ Mike said, shaking his head as the ute vanished around the bend.

‘Poor Anna,’ I said firmly. ‘The man would try the patience of a saint. What took you guys so long?’

‘Digging post holes through a metre and a half of rock. And then we hit a water pipe, just for fun.’

‘Beer?’ I offered.

‘God, yes.’

I pushed the lawnmower into the garage beside my car, and started back towards the house. ‘We’ll need it. Next we have to go and put up Mum’s Christmas tree.’

‘Well, that shouldn’t be too hard,’ said Mike. Poor fool.

* * *

Mum met us at the door of her house, stripy hair piled atop her head, pruning saw in one hand and loppers in the other. ‘I’ve found the perfect tree,’ she announced. ‘It’s just up Gresham Road, on the left. I’ve had my eye on it for weeks.’

‘Mum, we can’t cut down a tree in the forestry in full daylight.’

‘It’s not in the forestry, Aurelia,’ she said, sounding as hurt as if that would have stopped her for a second. ‘It’s a seedling on the side of the road.’

Her pine tree of choice was indeed on the side of the road. It was also in the middle of a blackberry bush and up a four-metre bank.

‘Isn’t it a lovely shape?’ Mum said, shading her eyes with her hand and gazing up at it admiringly.

I leant back against the car. ‘Gorgeous. Just how do you propose we get it?’

‘Lia, I wish you wouldn’t use that sarcastic tone of voice.’

Oh. ‘Sorry, Mum,’ I said.

‘That’s alright, darling. Now, I think the best approach will be from behind.’ And holding up her skirts she began to pick her way through the gorse twenty metres down the road, where the bank tapered to knee height.

‘I’ll do it, Maggie; you’re not really dressed for the job,’ said Mike.

Mum smiled at him graciously and withdrew to the side of the road, from where she could supervise his progress.

He did reach the tree eventually, although a lesser man would have turned back. I lobbed up the pruning saw and he cut the tree down, then pushed it trunk-first down the bank.

‘Lovely!’ said Mum. ‘We’ll put it on the roof and, Mike, if you drive, Lia and I will hold it.’

‘We can’t put that on the roof,’ Mike protested, staunching the blood trickling from one of his deeper scratches with a handkerchief. ‘It’s bigger than the car. And it’ll scratch the paint.’

‘Of course we can! We do it every year. We’ll just take it nice and slowly.’

‘Come on,’ I said, hoisting the three-metre-high tree. ‘There’s no point in arguing with her; she’s an unstoppable force. We’ll go home around the back roads. We probably won’t be arrested.’

Mike sighed.

Twenty minutes later Mum’s little car, almost invisible beneath its load, crept down her driveway and stopped. ‘There,’ she said happily. ‘Now, if you two bring the tree along I’ll run and get a bucket to stand it in.’

It took us another half hour to place the tree according to her minute but contradictory directions, by which time both Mike and I were losing the will to live.

‘I think you need to pull it another inch to the right, Lia,’ said Mum.

‘I can’t,’ I said from the mantelpiece. ‘It’s tied both ways.’

‘We-e-ll . . .’ She stepped back and looked at it through narrowed eyes. ‘I suppose it will have to do. Let’s have some dinner before we start decorating.’

Expecting to be the one cooking it, I slid down and followed her into the kitchen. But she took a salad and a pile of snapper fillets out of the fridge and waved me away. ‘Sit down, I’ve got it all under control. Now, what would you both like to drink? There’s half a bottle of that rather gorgeous merlot Hugh brought last night in the pantry. It doesn’t go with fish, but who cares?’

‘Hugh would care,’ I said, sitting down on the window seat and prodding my bad knee. It ached, and the joint was fat and puffy. I would have to dig out my knee brace.

Mum smiled as she divided the rest of the bottle between three wineglasses. ‘He’d be appalled, wouldn’t he? Never mind, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Mike, I’ve been meaning to ask you how Gina is.’

Gina is Mike’s older sister. She had left home by the time Rob and I were born, so we never knew her very well, and the little we knew we didn’t much like. She viewed us as the embarrassing result of a paternal lapse in judgment, and it’s hard to warm to someone who wishes you’d never been born.

‘Fine,’ Mike said. ‘Unfortunately.’ He took two wineglasses, passed one to me and sat down sideways on a kitchen chair.

I looked up from my sore knee in mild shock. Mike is ridiculously nice; if he can’t say anything pleasant he says nothing. It makes him a very poor source of malicious gossip, but nobody’s perfect.

‘Why unfortunately?’ Mum asked.

Mike looked moodily into his wineglass. ‘She’s been pointing out to Dad that I’m forty-four, I’m single, I’ve got no children and at this late date I’m not likely to have any. So if he wants to found a dynasty, he’d better leave the farm to her and her kids.’

‘What?’ Mum cried. ‘And what about the twenty years – no, it’s longer than that, the twins were just crawling when you came to help on the farm . . .’ She paused to count on her fingers. ‘The twenty-seven years of work you’ve put into the place?’

‘I’ve been paid wages.’

She pointed a fish slice at him like a weapon. ‘You’ve been paid a pittance!’

He smiled crookedly. ‘More fool me.’

‘I’ve never heard anything so unfair!’

‘Well, the old will wasn’t fair either,’ he said. ‘It meant I got a three-million-dollar farm and everyone else got five-eighths of bugger all.’

Mum cast aside her fish slice and sat down at the table. ‘You can’t do fair with family farms, if you want them to stay in the family,’ she said firmly. ‘Either one person inherits, or you sell up and split the money. And it’s not as if you’re being given a cheque for three million dollars. You get a lot of hard work for a very modest return.’

‘And Gina and Rob and I have all had help with loans and house deposits and stuff,’ I said. ‘And you’ve had to stay home and put up with Dad. I’m not sure a three-million-dollar farm is enough.’

‘Neither am I,’ said Mike grimly, taking a swig of merlot.

‘Has Gray actually changed his will?’ Mum asked.

Mike shrugged. ‘You know what he’s like. He likes to keep everyone guessing. But even if he doesn’t, I’ve been the boy since I was seventeen, and I’m not all that excited at the thought of being the boy when I’m sixty. I should have left twenty years ago.’

He should have, of course. But as lovely as Mike is – and he’s quite lovely – he does tend to follow the path of least resistance. He’s just not the line-in-the-sand, courage-of-your-convictions type. Mum smiled at him a bit sadly, leant across the table and covered his hand with hers.

Chapter 9

I had excellent intentions for Christmas morning. I would start with a couple of painkillers and a run, and then a bracing early-morning dip in the sea. Then home to call Dad, glaze the ham and make fruit salad. It was a virtuous little plan and, had I carried it out, would have given me a pleasant glow of self-satisfaction. But alas, it came to nothing.

Instead of getting up when I woke up, I lay in bed feeling guilty, which is a terrible waste of a sleep-in. And when at length I did prise myself out from under the covers, I drifted around in my pyjamas drinking coffee and leafing through a murder mystery a backpacker had left behind the week before. It was about a gorgeous, brilliant, crime-solving arts student with the libido of a cat on heat, which prompted her to ignore leads in order to have improbable sex with strangers in restaurant toilets, and it irritated me intensely. Just what, exactly, is so cool about letting the murderer slip out a back window while someone bends you over a wash basin?

‘Good for you, sweet pea,’ I said aloud, closing the book with a snap. Then, as I looked up at the clock, ‘Crap!’

I scored the fat on the ham too deeply in my haste, and had to pin it back on with cloves. Once it was in the oven I squared my shoulders, took a deep breath and rang my father.

‘Yes?’ he said, picking up the phone.

‘Hi, Dad. Merry Christmas.’

‘Lia.’

‘How are you going?’ I asked.

‘Could be worse.’

Talking to my father on the phone is a bit like playing tennis with someone who catches the ball and stuffs it into his pocket rather than hitting it back to your end of the court.

‘How’s Nana?’

‘Senile,’ he said flatly. ‘You get that with dementia.’

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘We’ve been really busy at the café these last few weeks.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Are Gina and Nigel and the kids up for Christmas?’ I asked.

‘No, they’re with Nigel’s family this year.’

I pictured him eating tinned spaghetti for Christmas lunch with the National Programme on the radio for company, and, despite his treatment of his eldest son, felt a small twinge of pity. ‘Are you going out for lunch?’ I asked.

‘Merv and Gillian Copland have asked me up there,’ he said.

‘Oh, that’s nice.’

Dad snorted. ‘She’s not much of a cook.’

All in all, it was not an inspiring conversation, and I was further depressed after searching high and low for my favourite white singlet top and eventually finding it scrunched into a musty-smelling wad in the bottom of the washing machine. I was feeling a little frayed when I let myself into Mum’s kitchen just before twelve, fruit salad bowl balanced precariously on top of the ham.

The place was a hive of industry. Mike was arranging strawberries on top of a trifle and Anna was icing chocolate éclairs. Mum sat cross-legged on the window seat polishing the family silver (six teaspoons and a cream jug) and Rob, who prefers whenever possible to adopt a supervisory role, was leaning against the bench eating scraps of stuffing off the bottom of the roasting pan.

‘Yo, sis,’ he said, relieving me of the fruit salad.

I put the ham down beside him. ‘Hey, guys. Merry Christmas.’

‘Merry Christmas, love,’ said Mum. ‘Robin, leave that ham alone.’

Rob had lifted a corner of the tin foil covering the ham, and he smiled at her with great charm as he broke off a crispy bit of glazed fat. ‘Quality control,’ he said.

Mum gave him a Stern Look (her preferred method of discipline for about the last fifteen years, despite very mediocre results). ‘I’ve just had an idea,’ she said. ‘If Mike can possibly stay till Wednesday the shops will be open again, and you can both go to the suit hire place and be fitted. It’s much better to go in person than just give them your measurements.’

Mike looked bemused. ‘What?’ he said.

‘For the wedding,’ said Mum.

‘But I’ve got a suit.’

‘Yes, but you’ll want to be matching.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, it’s – it’s customary, isn’t it?’

‘Um, yeah, I may not actually have asked him, yet,’ said Rob, taking another bit of ham.

‘Robin Leslie,’ Anna said, more in sorrow than in anger, ‘you are, without a doubt, the most useless individual I’ve ever met.’

‘Asked me what?’ Mike asked.

‘To be best man,’ said Rob.

‘At your wedding?’

‘That’s the one. Assuming she’s still going to marry me, that is.’

‘But what about your friend Eddie?’

‘What about him?’

‘Rob, would you just ask him properly?’ I said, tiring of a flippancy that seemed excessive even by my twin’s standards.

Rob made a face at me, but said obediently, ‘Please, Mike, would you be best man at our wedding?’

Mike looked more appalled than gratified by this request. ‘Would I have to make a speech?’ he asked.

‘The speech’ll be a piece of piss,’ said Rob. ‘Just tell a couple of grubby jokes and say the bridesmaids look lovely.’

‘Anna, love,’ said Mum, screwing the lid back on the jar of silver polish and getting to her feet, ‘if you decide not to marry my idiot son I assure you I’ll understand.’

* * *

We had lunch in the sunny kitchen, with all the windows open and the air fragrant with Christmas lilies and good things to eat. Then we retired to the sitting room for present opening and tree appreciation before drifting outside to doze and eat cherries and Jersey caramels in the dappled sunlight of the top lawn.

It was a truly excellent afternoon. No stress, no rushing up and down the country to spend time with relatives you’d prefer not to have to see, good food, nice company, beautiful surroundings . . .

Sometime around three, Rob, who had been sleeping peacefully with his head in the shade of the apple tree and his feet in the sun, yawned and sat up. ‘Ready to go, love?’ he asked.

‘Mm-hmm,’ said Anna, removing one of Mum’s straw gardening hats from over her nose and stretching like a cat. ‘Thank you, Maggie, it’s been a gorgeous day.’

‘Beautiful, aren’t they?’ Mike said, watching them wander off hand in hand.

‘And deliriously happy,’ said Mum as she struggled out of her new Christmas hammock. ‘Although I wish Anna would eat more. Would you two like a cold drink?’

‘Sounds good,’ Mike said.

I put down Daddy-Long-Legs, with which I had spent a pleasant hour, and stood up. ‘No thanks, I think I’ll go down to the beach. Anyone want to come?’

They didn’t, and I went down the garden, let myself through the gate in the camellia hedge and turned up the estuary path towards the coast. People lay in deckchairs on the lawns of the houses I passed and the McKinnon extended family was playing rounders on the smooth hard sand at the mouth of the estuary.

I skirted the rounders game and walked along the edge of the sea, little waves foaming and hissing around my ankles. It was a lovely day, I didn’t have to be anywhere but here, and I was the proud new owner of a state-of-the-art running top, a sleek chrome iPod docking station and Jill Dupleix’s latest cookbook. Life was good.

The south end of the beach was crowded but, since ninety-five per cent of beachgoers never go further than fifty metres from the car park steps, I had a good two-kilometre stretch to myself. Selecting a promising bit of sea, I checked my underwear to make sure it wasn’t the see-through-when-wet kind, left my skirt and top in a little heap on the sand and ran out into the surf.

I swam straight out past the breakers, turned over onto my back and floated there with my eyes closed, thinking of nothing in particular. At length I paddled lazily back towards the beach and stood up in waist-deep water beside a half-submerged boulder, which stirred, flexed its wings and swam away.

I like stingrays, in theory, but in practice I like them much better from a distance, and I reached dry land in about a second and a half. Drawing a long, shaky breath, I wrung out my wet hair and dried myself with my skirt to get most of the salt off, then stood up straight and saw someone sitting just along the beach at the base of a sand dune. I recognised Jed beneath a baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses, and my black cotton bra and knickers seemed suddenly a whole lot less tog-like and a whole lot more like undies. Why, I thought crossly, did the man have to appear out of the undergrowth every time I took my clothes off? (Although, if we were going to be all pedantic about it, it could be argued that if I refrained from taking my clothes off in public the problem wouldn’t arise.)

Waving with what was meant to look like cheerful unconcern, I started to get dressed. It didn’t go well. I was damp and sandy, my skirt clung lovingly to my thighs and my top rolled itself up at the back. Wrestling it grimly back down I turned and called, ‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ said Jed, breaking inch-long sections off a dried grass straw.

‘How long have you been there?’

‘Longer than you.’ He finished his straw and plucked another with a vicious little jerk, and I realised belatedly that something was wrong.

‘Didn’t you go to Thames after all?’ I asked.

‘Yep.’

I could see perfectly clearly that he wished I’d bugger off so he could be unhappy in peace, but it was Christmas Day, epicentre of the season of peace and goodwill, and it seemed better to be seen as a rampant busybody than not to at least try to help. ‘Jed, are you okay?’

‘No.’

I went towards him across the hot sand. ‘What’s up?’

He dealt with his second straw in silence, and then said tightly, not looking up, ‘I was supposed to spend the day with my son.’

I felt quite breathless with shock. He was a parent. A grown-up. I’d always had a vague but deep-seated conviction that people with children are wiser and more adult than those without – although, considering that the only prerequisite for having children is unprotected sex, this theory was not entirely watertight. ‘Why didn’t you?’ I asked at last.

‘No-one home. The house was locked, my ex won’t answer her cell phone, I can’t get hold of her parents . . .’

‘Did – did she know you were coming?’

‘Yep.’

I sat down, because standing over someone while you ask them questions is too much like an inquisition. ‘How old’s your son?’

‘Nearly four.’

There was a short silence.

‘Can she do that?’ I asked. ‘I mean, I know she can, but does she have the right to vanish when she knows you’re coming? Has she got sole custody?’

‘No. For the first couple of months after we separated I had Craig half the time, but then she decided she needed some time to get her head around things without having to see me. So I came up here.’ He began to dismember another hapless grass stem.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘God knows,’ he said tiredly. ‘Go home and get a lawyer, I suppose. I don’t want to put Craig through this crap, but I’m not going to just disappear out of his life because she feels she needs to punish me.’

It must, I thought, be truly hideous when love and kids and a shared life descend to that. I know it’s hardly unusual – it happened to my own parents, for a start – but I’m sure that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

‘Surely she’s not really going to try to keep you away from your son,’ I said. ‘She probably had a – a minor brain explosion this morning and ran away because it was all too hard. She’s probably feeling really bad about it.’

‘They went on Thursday,’ he said. ‘The next-door neighbour told me.’

‘Oh.’

He sighed. ‘For all you know she might be completely justified in running away from me.’

‘Nah,’ I said, wrapping my arms around my bent knees. ‘You’re nice.’

‘How do you know?’ he asked, turning his head to look at me.

‘Well, Monty thinks you’re wonderful, for a start.’

‘Monty thinks everyone is wonderful.’

‘And,’ I continued, as if he hadn’t spoken, ‘it seems to me that only a nice person would leave town to make things easier for his ex.’

He reached out for another grass straw, and my cell phone buzzed in my skirt pocket. I pulled it out and looked at it; it was a text message from Isaac, and it read, U hav ruined my life hope it makes u hapy.

‘Here,’ I said, passing the phone across. Sometimes someone else’s troubles make you feel just a little bit better about your own. ‘That’s from my ex.’

Jed looked at the screen. ‘Does it make you happy?’

‘Not particularly,’ I said, putting the phone back in my pocket.

We sat there for a while without talking, and then I said, ‘Will you come and have tea at Mum’s tonight? It’ll be very low-key, just leftovers.’

‘That’s very kind . . .’ he started.

‘I know it’s the last thing on earth you feel like doing, but at least it’d take your mind off things. It’ll just be me and Mum and my big brother Mike – it’s the yellow house with the funny roofline across the road from you.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ he said. ‘Your mum brought me a cake when I moved in.’

‘If you say yes, I’ll go away and stop harassing you.’

He smiled, then. ‘Yes.’

‘About six,’ I said, getting up and brushing off sand.

I was five metres away when he said, ‘Hey, Lia? Thanks.’

Chapter 10

I only half expected him to come, but just after six he appeared around the corner of the house, wearing jeans, a dark green polo shirt with Coromandel Auto Spares across the front and a slightly wary expression.

I was feeling a little wary myself, having spent most of the time since our earlier meeting wondering just why it had seemed like such a good idea to force dinner onto someone who only wanted to be left alone. However, here he was, so I smiled at him through the open kitchen window and said, ‘Hi. Come on in.’

‘Jed,’ said Mum warmly as he paused in the kitchen doorway. She put a big cut-glass bowl half full of trifle down on the table and advanced to meet him. ‘Lovely to see you. This is Mike, Robin and Lia’s half-brother.’

The two men nodded to one another, and Mike, opening the fridge door, asked, ‘Beer?’

‘No thanks,’ said Jed.

‘Juice?’ Mike took a bottle out of the fridge and held it up to the light. ‘What’s this, Maggie? Apple juice?’

‘Onion juice,’ said Mum. ‘Carole gave it to me. Bit of an acquired taste, but it’s very good for you.’

Mike opened the bottle, sniffed cautiously and made a face. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

‘It really is,’ Mum said. ‘Apparently it aids digestion, lowers blood sugar, it’s good for all sorts of allergies . . . I’ve got a fact sheet somewhere. And you can rub it into your scalp to reverse hair loss.’

Mike, whose hair was indeed wearing a little thin on top, gave her a pained look as he replaced the bottle.

‘It’s usually best to stick to water in this house,’ I told Jed. ‘Or bought drinks, as long as the seal’s unbroken.’

‘Don’t listen to her, Jed,’ said Mum. ‘Mike, if you’ll just get the potato salad out of the fridge I think we’re ready to eat.’

Dinner went off much better than I had feared. This was almost entirely thanks to Mum, who can maintain a pleasant, lighthearted conversation with anyone from hostile teenagers to religious fanatics.

‘Please have some more trifle, Jed,’ she said, spoon poised over the bowl.

He held out his plate. ‘Thank you.’

‘Good man,’ she said. ‘Come on, everyone, tuck in. I don’t want to have to put all this food back in the fridge. Mike?’

‘Couldn’t possibly.’

‘You’re a great disappointment.’

‘So I’m told,’ he said serenely, and she smiled at him across the table.

‘Are you opening the café tomorrow, darling?’ she asked me.

‘No. We’re going to bake like demons and fill the freezers. And then we’re open every day till the end of February.’ I rested my elbows on the table and my chin on my hands.

‘It seems a bit ironic,’ said Mike. ‘You live at the beach, and you miss most of summer.’

‘Well, you spend most of summer dagging lambs,’ I pointed out.

He made a face and turned to Jed. ‘I suppose this is your busy time at the garage, too?’

Jed nodded. ‘The last couple of weeks have been crazy,’ he said.

‘There may be something to be said for Monty’s approach to the busy season,’ I said, taking a sip of Mike’s beer. ‘He just closes up and goes fishing if he feels like it, and the customers can get stuffed.’

‘I’m surprised he has any customers,’ said Mike.

‘He has more now that Jed’s working for him,’ Mum said. ‘But Lia tells us you’re moving, Jed, to be closer to your little boy.’

‘Yes,’ said Jed. ‘Working for Monty’s only a short-term arrangement. He just wanted a hand for a few months – he’s a good friend of my boss in Thames.’

And that, I thought, would explain why the man was happy to live in a sleep-out the approximate size of a toilet cubicle. You can put up with anything when it’s only temporary.

‘You’ll be missed,’ said Mum. ‘It’s been a novel experience to take the car in for a warrant and get it back the same day.’

The conversation drifted on, touching lightly on the chances of getting Nana to Rob’s wedding (nil) and more heavily on Mum’s proposed grey-water veggie garden sprinkler system (tricky, but doable), until eventually it reached the subject of wedding marquee placement.

‘There’s more space on the top lawn,’ said Mum. ‘It’s just that the nicest vista in the garden is the start of the path between the perennial borders, and nobody will be able to see it with a great big tent in the way.’

‘Would a marquee fit on the bottom lawn?’ Mike asked.

‘Well, it might. Although the ground does slope away quite sharply at the edge, there.’

‘Should we go and measure it, or just sit here and speculate?’

‘It’s so much easier sitting here and speculating.’ But she got up and opened the drawer under the microwave. ‘I thought there was a measuring tape in here somewhere . . . Have you seen it, Lia?’

After some time, the tape was run to ground in the fruit bowl, and they headed purposefully for the bottom lawn.

‘Any plans for tomorrow?’ I asked Jed, getting up to start clearing the dishes. ‘Don’t worry, that was just idle conversation; I’m not going to invite you to a family picnic or anything.’

He smiled and pushed back his chair. ‘Fine. Don’t, then. See if I care. I thought I’d go in to the workshop and start clearing the backlog.’

‘On Boxing Day? Monty will be horrified.’

‘Monty might not mind having days’ worth of work backed up and people getting pissed off, but I do,’ he said, beginning to collect glasses.

‘You do realise it’ll be back to that as soon as you leave?’ I said.

‘I know, but at least I won’t be there to see it. Is that you and your brother?’

He was looking at the framed school photo of Rob and me, aged seven, which stood on the dresser. Rob was smiling cherubically at the camera, but I looked mildly apprehensive. Both of us were missing our two front teeth.

‘Yep,’ I said. ‘That was my all-time favourite T-shirt.’ Bright pink, with a My Little Pony (Wind Dancer, if memory serves) outlined in glitter on the front. It had clashed badly with ginger hair and freckles.

‘Craig has a pair of Transformers pyjamas that you’ve got to remove by force to wash,’ Jed said.

‘And then does he stand by the washing machine and sob?’

‘He did the first time.’ He looked at the next photo along. ‘You and Mike?’

‘Rob and Mike.’ It was a lovely picture – Mike, aged about eighteen, on a farm bike with a fat curly-haired toddler straddling the petrol tank in front of him. They were both laughing. ‘Mike was such a cool big brother. We used to go down on the bus in the school holidays to stay with him and Dad. Dad’s got a sheep farm down Taumarunui way.’ Paternal visits would have been pretty bloody grim, actually, if not for Mike. Dad didn’t bother much about us, but Mike blew turkey eggs for Rob’s and my collections and took us swimming in the river and taught us to drive the motorbike.

‘How old were you when your parents split up?’ Jed asked.

‘Eighteen months. That picture must have been taken just beforehand.’ I put down a pile of crockery on the sink bench and began to scrape the plates into the compost bucket. ‘Goodness knows why my parents ever got married. They must have been a terrible couple. You could scour the earth and not find another two people with less in common. What about your family?’

‘My parents live on a small block just north of Taupo,’ said Jed, putting a handful of dirty glasses down at my elbow. ‘And I’ve got one sister – she’s been in London for the last two or three years.’

‘You guys don’t do the family Christmas thing?’

‘Mostly we do,’ he said. ‘But this year Mum and Dad are in the Marlborough Sounds on a friend’s boat.’

‘Nice.’ If perhaps a little offhand, when their son’s life had just turned to custard.

‘Mm. Do you want this stuff covered before it goes back in the fridge?’

‘Yes, thanks. Just with a plate – they’re in that cupboard over there. Mum thinks using cling wrap is blatant eco-terrorism.’

There was a small silence while I filled the sink with hot water and Jed covered the ham and leftover trifle. He wedged both dishes into the fridge and picked up a tea towel.

‘So, what did you do before you bought a café?’ he asked, coming to stand beside me at the sink.

‘All sorts of random things,’ I said. ‘I studied ecology at university, then went trapping stoats and possums in Fiordland.’

‘Really?’

‘It was very cool. It’s the most amazing bit of country. But I tore all the ligaments in my knee and couldn’t walk up hills, so that was the end of that. Then I tried teaching and hated it, then went overseas for a bit, then worked in a nursery, then did a bit of rousying for a shearing gang – and then Anna and I started a café.’

‘What gave you the idea?’ he asked.

‘Um,’ I said. ‘We both like food and cooking, and we both had a feeling that it was about time we did something productive with our lives. We were just playing with the idea, really, and then the place came up for sale, and we borrowed every cent we could get our hands on and bought it. I can’t quite believe we had the guts to do it.’ I slid a stack of plates into the sink. ‘I’m still not sure we’ll pull it off, to be honest.’

‘You have pulled it off. It’s a great café.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But we’ve got a really big mortgage.’

He smiled. ‘Me too. That’s why I live in a cupboard.’

‘It’s a bummer being grown-up and responsible, isn’t it?’

‘Sure is,’ he said.

‘So what did you do, before coming here?’

‘Left school, did an apprenticeship as an auto mechanic, got a job, bought a house, got married, had a baby . . . All very predictable.’ He picked up a plate I’d just washed, looked at it and slid it back into the sink.

‘What’s wrong with it?’ I asked. Married? Crikey, he really was a grown-up.

‘You’re supposed to get the food off.’

‘That’s what the tea towel’s for.’

‘And you work in the food industry,’ he said. ‘Frightening.’

I like this guy, I thought, applying myself to the next plate. And he’s married, and he’s in the middle of a custody battle, and he’s leaving the district. Oh, well done, Aurelia.

Chapter 11

‘Who’s this for, darling?’ Mum asked, holding up a pizza. She had dropped into the café before eight on New Year’s Eve morning bearing a bunch of dog daisies, been pressed into service and was still, bless her heart, there waitressing at quarter to one.

‘The girl in green sitting outside under the shade sail,’ I said, feverishly slicing sourdough bread for garlic toast. ‘And then could you grab any empty water jugs and refill them?’

‘Lia, two pieces of ice-cream cake,’ Anna called from behind the coffee machine.

‘Okay!’ I spread my slices of bread with garlic butter, put them on a tray and slung them under the grill. Took the ice-cream cake out of the freezer, cut two slices and topped each one with a handful of raspberries and a chocolate curl. Carried them to the counter, smiled at a waiting customer, returned to take another pizza out of the oven. Turned the garlic bread, burning my knuckle on an oven rack, and dressed a green salad to go with the pizza. Dusted a plum tart with icing sugar, sliced it and put it in the display cabinet to fill a gap where the last piece of ginger crunch had just been taken. Refilled the coffee beans, fetched another bottle of trim milk, rescued the garlic bread from under the grill before it burst into flame, made a chocolate milkshake, plated up another wedge of ice-cream cake, arranged the garlic bread in a basket – ‘That’s for Chelsea Stewart,’ I told Mum, shoving it towards her as she reappeared around the end of the counter.

‘Someone was just sick in the loo,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve cleaned it up.’

‘You’re wonderful.’

‘I know.’ She picked up the garlic bread and swept back out of the kitchen, and Anna, liberated from the coffee machine for the first time in an hour, dashed after her to clear the dishes off a departing family’s table.

There was never a moment’s pause at this time of year – any lull between customers was taken up with cleaning or starting another batch of dough or refilling the biscuit canisters or making aioli. Mostly we were busy and efficient, which was fun, and occasionally we were frenetic and swamped, which wasn’t.

We didn’t descend into frenzy that day, thanks to Mum, and by three o’clock the only customers were a couple in their sixties, lingering over coffee, and a lean, hungry-looking fellow attacking his steak sandwich as if he feared it might be wrested from him at any moment.

Cutting myself a thick slice of cheese, I folded it in a thicker slice of bread and leant back wearily against the butcher’s block to eat it. ‘Mum, come and have something to eat. There’s bacon and egg pie left, or roast veggie salad.’

‘Lovely.’ She dropped a handful of used cutlery into the sink and straightened up, both hands on the small of her back. ‘Anna, what are you having?’

‘Hmm?’ said Anna, who was frowning at the shopping list on the fridge door. We tried to plan ahead and buy most of our groceries in bulk from a wholesale warehouse in Auckland, but at this time of year ingredients vanished at unprecedented speed. ‘Tomato paste, prawns, wholegrain mustard – how much butter have we got left?’

‘Heaps, in the big freezer. Oh, but we need crystallised ginger,’ I said.

‘Bacon and egg pie, Anna love?’ Mum asked.

‘No thanks,’ she said absently. ‘The coffee cake went by lunchtime. Let’s make two for tomorrow.’

‘There’s another one in the freezer. I’ll ice it now for this afternoon,’ I said. Sandwich in hand, I crossed the kitchen to get it out. ‘Mum, thanks so much for helping today.’

‘Not a problem,’ she said. ‘I’d come in tomorrow, but I promised Carole I’d go with her to see her cousin in Kamo. Is that veggie salad really going begging?’

‘All yours,’ Anna said.

‘What are you going to have?’

‘I’ll grab something in a minute,’ said Anna, beginning to separate eggs into a bowl.

Mum looked at me worriedly, and I shook my head. Rob could get her to eat, but any comment from me led only to tight-lipped silence.

‘Are you doing anything tonight, Mum?’ I asked.

‘Yes, as a matter of fact. Hugh’s having a few people over for a barbecue.’

‘I think he likes you,’ I said.

Mum sighed. ‘Yes, I know, but what can I do? He’s an old friend; I can’t keep him at arm’s length.’

‘Why not reel him in instead?’ Anna asked, tipping her egg yolks into the food processor.

‘I don’t like him like that,’ said Mum in a small unhappy voice.

‘You might, if you tried it,’ I said.

‘No, thank you,’ she said coldly. ‘Now, if you girls can do without me, I’ll go home and do my breakfast dishes.’ And off she went.

Anna and I looked at one another blankly. ‘That struck a nerve,’ she said.

‘Didn’t it, just?’

‘She’s only forty-nine.’

‘And she has gone out with people, since Dad.’

But just then a bevy of ladies came in, and we had no time to pursue the subject.

* * *

It was seven thirty-eight when I sat down at the butcher’s block with a bowlful of reheated potato wedges and a bottle of tomato sauce. Microwaved potato wedges are neither delicious nor packed with health-giving nutrients, but after twelve straight hours of food preparation I was in no mood to make myself a tasty stir-fry. Anyway, they say tomato sauce counts as a vegetable.

Anna had left an hour before to get the extra groceries we needed for the next day en route to a party in Devonport. The day’s takings were locked in the little safe in the vacuum cleaner cupboard. The kitchen surfaces gleamed, the windows were smear-free and the toilet was pristine. A shoulder of pork and three chickens were slow-roasting in the oven. I had made vinaigrette and white chocolate cheesecake and quiche, written up tomorrow’s specials and peeled red onions until my eyes streamed. My feet hurt, my knee hurt and I had to meet Philippa Earle at the pub in twenty minutes. I spent five minutes eating limp wedges and feeling sorry for myself, then sighed, got up and went to have a shower.

Philippa and I had lived on the same floor of the student village in first-year university. We hadn’t made any particular effort since to keep in touch, but she was a prolific Facebook updater, so I was well abreast of her children’s development, husband’s DIY skills and recent enthusiasm for Amish friendship loaves. She was in Ratai for a few days, staying with her husband’s parents.

It was ten past eight when I got to the pub, and the car park was full. I left my car around the corner behind Ratai Plumbing and Gas and made my way across a stretch of rough gravel and over a low wall to the back of the building. I often do seem to end up approaching my destination by some unorthodox route, a habit that will come in handy if ever I decide to take to breaking and entering.

The front door was manned by two professional-looking bouncers, neither of whom I recognised. The band inside was so loud that I could feel the bass through the soles of my feet, and a pudgy youth was being sick into a nearby agapanthus bed. This is fun, I told myself as I went up the shallow concrete steps, but I wasn’t all that convinced.

The Ratai Hotel was over a hundred years old, a two-storey kauri building with twelve-feet high ceilings and old-fashioned sash windows. The ground floor was divided into a series of smallish panelled rooms that opened one into another, with a closed-in veranda wrapped around the whole lot. The main bar was at the back, and although it was the largest and lightest room in the building, it was no place, when filled with five hundred people and a live band, for the claustrophobic.

Looking around for Philippa without much hope, I actually spotted her among the crowd, sitting with another woman at a high table not far from the bar.

I set off towards them, pausing to shout greetings at acquaintances I passed along the way. (The band, as bands do, had turned up their amplifiers to a volume that would have been absolutely spot on if they’d been playing to an audience five hundred metres away across a busy airfield.) Reaching the table at last, I tapped Philippa on the shoulder, and she turned and threw her arms around me.

‘Lia!’

‘Hi!’

‘You look amazing!’

‘Thanks! You too.’

‘You’ve lost weight, haven’t you?’ she bawled. Philippa, I remembered, always used to tell people they’d lost weight – not because she thought they had, but because it was the nicest compliment she could think of and she liked to say nice things to people.

‘How are you?’ I shouted back.

‘Great! This is my friend Debbie.’

Debbie and I smiled at one another across the table.

‘What would you guys like to drink?’ I yelled.

‘Vodka and lemonade,’ shouted Philippa. ‘Deb?’

‘Same.’

I turned, and Jed, passing with a beer in each hand, raised his eyebrows in greeting. ‘Aurelia,’ he said.

‘Hi,’ I said, unable, on the spur of the moment, to think of a suitably nasty name starting with J. ‘Happy New Year.’

‘You too.’ He smiled at me and disappeared into the crush.

Philippa dug me in the ribs and shouted, ‘Who’s the hottie?’

‘He’s a mechanic in town,’ I answered.

‘Good with his hands,’ she said, waggling her eyebrows suggestively, and as I headed for the bar I put up a short, heartfelt prayer that the two of them not come face to face during the course of the evening.

‘– soon as I got my period back,’ Philippa was shouting when I returned with the drinks. ‘That was it. She didn’t want a bar of me.’

‘I’m still breastfeeding Morgan,’ Debbie yelled in response.

I was not, it seemed, going to be able to add a lot to this conversation.

‘How old is she now?’

‘Fifteen months.’

‘Good for you. You do get to the stage where you want your body back, though, don’t you?’

‘No, I think it’s a really precious experience,’ roared Debbie. ‘It’s not for long, in the scheme of things.’ She accepted her drink, turning to me. ‘Thanks. Do you live here full time?’

I nodded.

‘Oh, you’re so lucky. I’d love to get out of the city. This would be such a wonderful place to bring up children.’

‘You’re in Auckland?’ I shouted, leaning across the table to make myself heard.

‘Yes. In Ellerslie.’

‘How many children do you have?’

‘Two little girls. They’re full on.’

‘I bet.’

She shook her head. ‘You think you know what being busy is, and then you have kids. It’s crazy.’

‘It never stops,’ Philippa agreed. ‘On call twenty-four hours a day. Enjoy having time for yourself while you can, Lia.’

My time to myself, at this time of year, was restricted to time spent asleep. But then my sleep was unbroken by small children, so no doubt I had much to be thankful for.

‘Are you going to Pilates next term?’ Debbie asked her friend.

‘Definitely. Mum has Travis on Wednesdays, so it will work well. There’s another girl from coffee group who’s keen to come too. But I’m going to miss the first two weeks – we’re going to the lakes.’

‘Which lakes?’

‘Kai Iwi. We go every year with Campbell’s family. Lia, you should come over for a few days.’

‘I’d love to, but I have to work,’ I said.

‘Just come for a day on the weekend.’

‘We’re open every day.’

‘Really? Come after work, then, for a barbie.’

I smiled vaguely. If I were to drive to the Kai Iwi Lakes after work, I would arrive at about nine p.m.

‘How do the kids sleep, camping?’ Debbie asked.

‘Amazing,’ said Philippa proudly. ‘Seven till seven.’

My admiration for her fortitude in coping with the demands of a hectic, child-riddled life vanished completely.

After another half hour of shouted conversation the band took a break. They were replaced by a sound system, and as the opening bars of that medley from Grease beloved by DJs nationwide rose above the noise of the crowd, Philippa slid off her stool to her feet. ‘We have to dance to this,’ she declared. ‘Come on, girls.’

She’d only gone a few metres when she ran up against Jed. He was talking to Stefan Boyd, a pleasant fellow in his forties who reared calves and wrote bits of computer software on a small block ten kilometres inland.

‘Hi, hot mechanic!’ she yelled. Nobody would have described Philippa as reticent at the best of times, but four vodkas and lemonade had raised her to new heights of self-assurance.

‘Um, hi,’ said Jed, looking both amused and embarrassed.

‘You know my friend Lia, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

Catching up, I took her by the arm. ‘Come on, let’s dance.’

‘She’s lovely,’ shouted Philippa earnestly, shaking me off.

‘I know,’ he said, which was nice of him, although he really couldn’t have said anything else.

‘And she’s really pretty.’

‘She is,’ he agreed.

‘Come on, leave the man alone,’ I said. ‘You’re pissed as a newt.’

‘Irrelevant,’ said Philippa, with a toss of her head. ‘Hey, I said irreve – irrelevant. I can’t be that pissed.’

‘Well done,’ Jed told her, grinning.

‘Thank you.’

‘We’re missing the song,’ I said desperately. ‘We’d better go and dance.’

‘Oh, yeah. Bye, hot mechanic.’ She smiled at him radiantly as I towed her away.

* * *

My sore knee didn’t much care for dancing, and after about three songs its low-grade ache had blossomed into a high-level throb. Drawing back from the circle of random strangers we’d joined, I edged through the crush to the door leading out to the covered veranda. I sat down on a wooden bench and cautiously straightened my leg, resting my head back against the wall. It helped a bit, and it was nice to be away from the crush and heat and noise. I must be getting old, I thought. I’m sure I used to enjoy this sort of thing.

I looked at my watch – it was nine forty-five: far too early for any self-respecting New Year’s reveller to pack it in and go to bed.

I was just deciding that if I wanted to go home to bed before ten o’clock on New Year’s Eve I jolly well would, and to hell with self-respect, when a knot of teenage girls burst through the door of the public bar and skipped past, giggling, into the toilets. Behind them came a stocky, dark-haired young man with damp circles under his arms and an ominously determined expression.

‘Lia,’ he said, in throbbing tones.

I closed my eyes. Who’d have thought it; this evening might just edge past New Year’s Eve 2004, when Rob passed out in a car park in West Auckland after drinking about a litre of very cheap rum, to become the Worst New Year’s Ever.

‘Why don’t you answer my texts?’ said Isaac.

I said nothing.

‘It’s just so rude,’ he said sadly.

In my opinion, if you’re going to send people nasty text messages you forfeit the right to a civil reply. But, holding firmly to my policy of any-comment-will-just-prolong-this-hideosity, I neither spoke nor moved.

He grabbed me by the shoulders, and my eyes flew open. ‘Let me go!’

‘I just want to talk to you!’

‘No! Isaac, piss off!’

And then, as if any more high drama were needed, someone said, ‘Hey! Leave her alone!’

Isaac released me and turned around.

‘Is this dickhead bothering you?’ Jed asked.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Who the hell are you?’ Isaac said.

‘Who the hell cares? She doesn’t want to talk to you, so leave her alone.’

Isaac swung back to me. ‘You’re fucking him, aren’t you?’ he spat. ‘You little slut.’

I was still gaping at him when Jed hit him, hard, on the angle of his jaw. The blow knocked him down and he sprawled backwards in a heap. The giggling girls, exiting the toilets as he fell, gave a collective gasp of delight.

Isaac struggled to his feet, panting. His bottom lip was smeared with blood.

I jumped up and got between the two men, and Jed snapped, ‘Get out of the way.’

‘Look, just stop it, both of you!’ I said.

Isaac staggered forwards, and Jed pulled me roughly to the side. About a quarter of a second later Isaac hit him, knocking him off balance so he was driven back against the wall.

In theory, being the cause of a fight seems quite exciting. Romantic, even. In practice it’s horrible. The two of them struggled and grunted, and blood dripped from Jed’s right hand onto the polished wooden floor. Spectators were gathering and the cry of ‘Fight!’ rose above the music coming from the bar. ‘Come On Eileen’ – which to be honest never did that much for me anyway – will forever be associated in my mind with Isaac’s thick, breathless cursing, cut off in a horrible wheezing gasp as Jed hit him in the solar plexus.

It was nothing like a fair fight. Jed was taller and fitter, and had besides gained a fairly major advantage by cracking his opponent on the jaw to start with. That second blow at the base of Isaac’s ribcage finished him entirely, and he crumpled to the floor, sobbing for breath.

That was when the bouncers arrived. Since one of the fighters was clearly in no shape to cause any further trouble, they advanced implacably on Jed and hauled him, one on each side, along the length of the veranda and down the steps leading outside.

‘Lia! My God, what happened?’ Philippa cried, elbowing her way towards me through the crush. ‘Are you alright?’

‘Yes, fine,’ I said, realising as I said it that I was crying. I looked at Isaac, whom someone was helping to his feet. ‘Look, I’ve got to go, Philippa – I’ll call you tomorrow – Happy New Year . . .’ And I ran down the veranda and outside, leaving her standing with her mouth open.

Chapter 12

‘I’m sorry,’ I said breathlessly, catching up to Jed halfway across the stretch of gravel in front of the tavern.

‘For?’ he asked, not stopping.

I fell into step beside him. ‘Ruining your New Year’s.’

‘And just how, exactly, was any of that your fault?’

It wasn’t, and I was annoyed both with myself for being unnecessarily apologetic and with him for pulling me up on it. I shrugged and swiped the back of a hand across my wet face.

‘Hey, don’t cry,’ he said more gently.

‘I’m not,’ I snapped. ‘It’s just – reaction, or something.’

He stopped walking. ‘Lia, I’m really sorry.’

‘For?’

‘Creating a nuisance. Disturbing the peace.’

‘’S okay,’ I said.

‘So, that must have been your ex-boyfriend,’ he said, after a small pause.

‘Yep.’

‘What in God’s name were you thinking, to go out with that sack of snot?’

I smiled. ‘He wasn’t acting like that at the time. Give me some credit.’

‘He’s got some serious issues. Maybe you should talk to the police.’

‘And tell them my ex-boyfriend said mean things to me so you beat him up?’

‘Nobody likes a smartarse, Aurelia,’ he said austerely.

We started walking again. ‘How’s your hand?’ I asked.

He held it up to the dull orange glow of the nearest streetlamp. In its light the blood looked black, just like they say it does in thrillers. ‘Must have just split the skin. It doesn’t hurt enough to be broken.’

‘How many broken knuckles have you had?’ I asked.

‘One. And it wasn’t from hitting anyone, I’ll have you know. I dropped a flywheel on it.’

‘Ouch,’ I said. ‘Have you got anything to patch that up with at home?’

‘I’ll find something. It’ll be fine.’

‘Look, we’ve got a first-aid kit at the café. Why don’t you come and do it properly? My car’s just around the corner.’

‘Hadn’t you better go back in and see your friends?’

This continued refusal of my hospitality was getting depressing. ‘I’m going home,’ I said. ‘You do what you like – it’s your hand.’

Jed looked at me sideways. ‘Actually, the first-aid kit sounds good,’ he said.

We cut diagonally across the car park, rounded the corner of Ratai Plumbing and Gas and got into my dusty, middle-aged Toyota Corolla, Jed wrapping the bottom of his shirt around his hand to stop it bleeding on the upholstery.

‘Are you opening the café tomorrow?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I said, backing the car around.

‘Busy?’ he asked at the same time as I said, ‘Have –?’

We both paused, and then I said, ‘Yes,’ as he said, ‘What was that?’

There was another pause.

‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Can’t remember.’ And we lapsed into slightly uncomfortable silence.

The police had set up a roadblock just before the town boundary. They were helping an impeccably tailored and highly indignant older woman out of her car when I pulled up, which was lucky for me, because the officer with the breathalyser was distracted by her shrill complaints from checking my car’s warrant of fitness.

‘Phew,’ I said as he waved me forwards.

‘Why, how much have you had to drink?’

‘Hardly anything, but my warrant’s two months overdue.’

‘Your service is four months overdue,’ he said.

‘How do you know?’

‘I looked at the sticker on your windscreen.’

‘Do you always do that when you get into someone’s car?’

Jed smiled. ‘Only if it makes a noise like yours,’ he said.

‘Is it a terminal noise?’ I asked anxiously.

‘No, it’s just a loose fan belt.’ This was encouraging, until he spoilt it by adding, ‘I wonder if you’ve got vacuum issues too. The throttle’s a bit slow responding when you put your foot down.’

‘Is that terminal?’

‘Nah. It’ll probably get worse, though. Better bring it in some time.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring it down one night after work.’

We managed to reach the café without the car’s engine falling out onto the road. I parked by the back door, since I would have to take Jed home again, and limped up the kitchen steps to retrieve the key from underneath a terracotta pot of oregano.

‘Does your ex know where you keep that key?’ he asked.

I bit my lip. ‘Yes. I’ll move it.’

I unlocked the door and went in, turning on the lights. Putting my bag down on the butcher’s block, I kicked my shoes off and climbed onto the bench to retrieve the first-aid kit from its high shelf.

‘Something smells good,’ Jed said, going to the sink to wash the blood off his hands.

‘Slow-roasted pork for tomorrow’s sandwiches.’

Holding the first-aid kit, I sat down on the bench and slid awkwardly to my feet, landing with all my weight on the good knee.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

‘My knee just didn’t like dancing much. You know, you look like an axe murderer.’

He looked down at his blood-smeared shirt and made a face. ‘It’s amazing how far blood goes.’

‘Like milk. You spill a litre on the floor and it covers about half an acre,’ I said, handing him a paper towel.

‘Thanks.’ He wet it under the tap and scrubbed a trickle of dried blood off the inside of his right forearm. ‘Would you mind putting a couple of plasters across this thing?’

‘This thing’ was a cut an inch long, gaping open to show a gleam of white underneath and bleeding freely again after being washed.

‘Shit, is that bone?’ I said.

‘I think it’s only the tendon that runs down the back of your finger. It’s just under the skin – it’s no big deal.’

‘Oh, stop being so staunch and manly. It must be really sore.’

‘Yeah, it’s awful,’ he said. ‘A lesser man would have passed out.’

I attempted my mother’s Stern Look – with, judging from the reaction, about her level of success – and began to dry his hand with another paper towel. The oven’s fan hummed in the background and I could hear the soft, persistent thud of a moth hurling itself against the nearest window. I was very much aware of how close Jed was, and of the warmth of his hand in mine.

‘Have you talked to your son?’ I asked, gently blotting the wound.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Finally. I’m having him for the day tomorrow.’

‘Jed, that’s great. I hope you guys can sort something out.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Me too.’

‘When d’you think you’ll move back to Thames?’ I asked, keeping my voice carefully light and unconcerned.

‘I told Monty I’d stay till the end of January,’ he said. ‘He’s got a fishing trip planned.’

‘Of course he does.’ I found a little packet of Steri-Strips in the first-aid kit and used them to tack the edges of the wound together, then covered it with a gauze pad. ‘That actually looks quite professional,’ I said, taking the cellophane wrapper off a roll of bandage. ‘It’s kind of fun getting to use something out of the first-aid kit other than a plaster.’

‘I’m glad you’re enjoying it.’

‘You should probably go to A and E on the way to Thames tomorrow and get it stitched up properly.’

‘Mm-hmm.’

‘You’re not going to, are you?’

‘Probably not,’ he said, smiling.

‘Men. My dad poked himself in the eye with a piece of wire once, and he wouldn’t even go to the doctor for that.’

‘I think I’d go if I got a bit of wire in my eye.’

‘You think?’ I finished wrapping his hand and stuck down the end of the bandage with elastoplast. ‘Is that too tight? It’d be a shame to cut off the circulation completely.’

‘It’s just right,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’ And he bent and kissed my cheek.

We stood and looked at one another for a long moment. He does like me, I thought, and smiled at him in quick unthinking delight. At which he kissed me again.

It was an excellent kiss, breathless and urgent, and it lasted a long time.

Eventually we broke apart, and my common sense, temporarily detained by a pink haze of lust, caught up with me. ‘But you’re leaving,’ I said.

He took a long, slightly shaky breath. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Bugger it.’

I rested my forehead against his shoulder, and he put his arms around me. It felt very, very nice.

‘There are always weekends,’ he said at last.

‘I work weekends.’

‘What about in winter?’

‘All weekends, all year round, for the foreseeable future.’

He sighed. ‘Well, that sucks.’

‘Good kiss, though,’ I said into his shirt.

‘I thought so,’ he said, tightening his arms.

‘Jed? What’s your real name?’

He gave a little snort of laughter. ‘Jessamy.’

I looked up. ‘Really?’

‘Old family name.’

‘Does anyone call you by it?’

‘Only my mother, when she’s telling me off.’

‘Jessamy,’ I said thoughtfully, trying it out.

‘Please don’t.’

‘I will take your secret to the grave,’ I said, reaching up to kiss him again. Of course it wasn’t any better an idea than it had been two minutes ago, but it’s hard to focus properly on the future drawbacks of something so enjoyable in the present.

I enjoyed it for about three seconds, and then pulled back with a jerk. Something’s wrong, something’s going to happen . . . I felt suddenly taut and brittle, as if I’d been stretched too tight and was fraying at the edges.

Jed looked at me in surprise. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

His cell phone started to ring, and as he reached into the hip pocket of his jeans and silenced it my unease sharpened into panic.

‘You need to get that,’ I said tightly.

‘What?’

‘Answer it! Something’s wrong!’

Eyeing me with a certain amount of wariness, he took the phone out of his pocket. He glanced at it and his eyebrows snapped together. Half turning away from me, he pushed a button and held the phone to his ear.

‘What’s up?’ he asked, and the feeling of panic vanished in a flood of relief. Crisis averted, whatever the crisis was.

I leant back shakily against the bench.

The voice on the other end of the phone was female, shrill and excited, and I couldn’t hear the individual words.

‘Hey!’ said Jed. ‘Tracey! Slow down!’

There was another high-pitched barrage of words, of which I caught only, ‘– fucking amazing! Baby, you’ve got to try it, it’s –’

‘Where’s Craig? Tracey! Is he okay? Trace!’ He took a deep breath, and lowered his voice with an effort. ‘Are you at home? No, I’m – Yeah, okay. Yes. Is Craig still up? Okay, fair enough. Can your mum –?’

She must have hung up on him then – he swore softly and scrolled through the menu on his phone. I withdrew to the other side of the kitchen and rummaged unnecessarily in a drawer as he put the phone back to his ear, trying to give him at least the illusion of privacy.

‘Hi, it’s Jed, here,’ he said. Then, ‘Yeah, fine. Look, Rochelle, where are you? Can you go over to stay with Tracey and Craig? Just for a couple of hours. She just rang – she’s up. Bouncing off the walls. And I’m in Ratai, it’ll take me a while to get there . . . Thank you. You’re a lifesaver. I’m sorry about your party . . . Okay, see you soon.’ He ended the call and shoved his phone back in his pocket. ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go. Would you mind running me back down to the van?’

‘Take my car, if you like,’ I said. ‘It’ll be quicker. Unless you think it won’t make it that far?’

He bit his lip, thinking. ‘You don’t need it tomorrow?’

‘No, but – are you alright to drive? It’s New Year’s Eve; the roads’ll be crawling with cops.’

‘Shit,’ he said. ‘What time is it?’

‘Ten forty.’

‘Five or six beers since seven . . .’

‘You’re probably over the limit. I’ll drive you.’ He frowned, and I added, ‘I won’t come in. I’ll wait in the car – or just drop you off, if you like, and leave you to it.’

‘Lia, it’s nearly three hours each way, and you’ve got to work tomorrow.’

‘That’s okay. I’m sorry, I know I keep shoving my nose into your life, but you’ll be really screwed if you’re arrested for driving drunk.’

Jed looked at me with a small, crooked smile. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Thank you. Again.’

Chapter 13

I only had a quarter of a tank of petrol, so I pulled in at the first petrol station we passed, just south of the Ratai turn-off on State Highway One. Jed got out and began filling the car.

‘I’ll get it,’ he said as I started towards the shop.

I looked at his bloodstained shirt. ‘Perhaps you’d better not, looking like that. You’ll scare the person behind the counter.’

‘They’ll have seen it all before,’ he said. ‘Here, you finish this.’ And abandoning the pump he strode purposefully across the brightly lit forecourt.

I filled the car and got back behind the wheel. Jed followed a minute later, clamping two cans of energy drink under his right arm so he could open the door with his uninjured left hand. He got into the car and offered one of the drinks to me.

‘Not just now, thanks,’ I said.

He put both cans by his feet and did up his seatbelt, wincing as he pushed it home with the bandaged hand.

‘Do you want a couple of Panadol?’ I asked, starting the car. ‘There are some in my bag.’

‘No thanks.’ And the silence settled back over us, as heavy and uncomfortable as a horse blanket.

‘Don’t worry too much,’ I said at last. ‘It’s – I’m sure everything’s going to be okay.’

‘Are you?’ he said with grim amusement.

‘Before you answered the phone I was . . . worried. Like something bad was going to happen. But now I’m not. I know that sounds like complete New Age hippy crap.’

‘You knew my phone was going to ring, didn’t you?’

‘No, but – something felt wrong. I didn’t know what; just that something was going to happen.’

Jed reached out and extracted a dead leaf from the air vent in front of him. ‘Before I met you, I thought anyone who talked about being psychic was a total fraud,’ he said.

‘I don’t talk about it, if I can help it.’

‘I know you don’t,’ he said. ‘It’s like getting blood out of a stone.’

I laughed. ‘Now that’s ironic, coming from you.’

He looked at me. ‘Why?’

‘Well, you’re not exactly free with details about your personal life.’

‘Because sitting the girl you like down and telling her all about your train wreck of a marriage is such a great way to impress her,’ he said dryly.

I smiled, both touched and reassured. ‘A bit like telling the boy you like about your psychic powers.’ I said ‘psychic powers’ in an inverted comma–implying voice, so as not to sound as if I took myself quite that seriously.

‘Which are?’

‘You’re very persistent, aren’t you?’

Jed said nothing, pointedly.

‘They’re really not all that impressive,’ I said. ‘I can often tell what sort of mood Rob’s in, and vice versa. As you know. It’s mostly just a vague impression, though; having him turn up with a rifle was a first . . . I usually know who’s on the other end of the phone before I answer it, as long as it’s someone I’ve met before. And sometimes I’ll suddenly feel happy or worried or excited for no obvious reason, and then a few seconds later something’ll happen that fits the emotion.’

‘And your brother’s the same?’

‘He says he’s not, but I think he just refuses to pay any attention to his hunches on principle. Rob doesn’t like weird shit. That’s a direct quote.’

‘Do you?’ he asked.

‘I – I don’t dislike it, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to take it all too seriously,’ I said slowly. ‘I used to think it must all mean something, and I was probably going to save the world some day. You know – go on a quest for the Grail, or rid the world of an evil overlord, or something. But eventually it occurred to me that being a little bit psychic isn’t all that impressive, and if I didn’t get over myself I was going to turn into the type of person who wants some sort of sign before deciding what to have for breakfast.’

Jed laughed.

‘Your turn,’ I said.

‘My turn?’

‘Why are you rushing off to see your ex-wife in the middle of the night? Actually, why would she ring you, if she was running away from you last week?’

He sighed and leant his head back against his seat. ‘Because she’s as high as a kite.’

‘Oh,’ I said blankly.

‘She’s not on drugs. Well, she might be, anything’s possible . . . Tracey’s bipolar. She’ll have stopped taking her medication. As she does.’ By now I had a reasonable handle on Jed’s less-is-more approach to the disclosure of personal information, so I was quite surprised when, after a moment, he continued, ‘We got together when we were seventeen. We flatted together when I moved to Thames, and then when I finished my apprenticeship we decided to get our own place and start a family. It was a bloody stupid idea, but when you’re twenty you think you know everything. And Trace had had a pretty crappy childhood, in and out of foster homes. She wanted to feel settled and have a family of her own. So we got married –’

‘At twenty?’

‘Mm. Went down like a lead balloon with our parents.’

‘Funny, that,’ I said.

‘Then she had a couple of miscarriages . . . Anyway, eventually we had Craig. And when he was two weeks old she was diagnosed with postnatal psychosis.’

‘That’s not the same as postnatal depression, is it?’

‘No. Not sleeping, overexcitement, talking flat out but not making any sense, delusions . . . It was pretty scary.’

‘I bet,’ I said softly.

‘Our parents were great. My mum and Tracey’s foster mum took turns to come and stay when I was at work, and Trace responded quite well to the medication, for a while. And then – she pretty much lost the plot. In the end they diagnosed rapidly cycling bipolar disorder. I don’t know how much you know about it . . . ?’

‘Almost nothing.’

‘Lucky you,’ he said. ‘Mostly it was severe depression, but every few months she’d have a couple of weeks of mania. She’d be over-the-top excited, deciding she didn’t need her medication, buying stuff we couldn’t afford . . . I bailed out six months ago.’ His voice was flat and tired. ‘She’s having a manic episode at the moment, by the sound of it. She’s not fit to look after herself, let alone Craig. And her foster mum can’t go over at this time of night; her dad’s not well. I called one of her friends – she’s there now, but –’ He bent and picked up a can of energy drink, holding it between his knees and opening it with his left hand.

‘Craig’s nearly four, isn’t he?’ I asked.

‘He’s four in February.’

‘Staying for over three years with someone who isn’t the person you married any more doesn’t really sound like bailing out to me.’

‘You’re very good at making people feel better about themselves, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘I don’t know. I felt like I’d tried everything and nothing had worked. I thought maybe she’d take a bit more responsibility for getting better if I wasn’t there. But maybe it’s made things worse.’ Evidently feeling that enough feelings had been shared for one evening he leant forwards and turned on the radio, and Taylor Swift assured us loudly that she wasn’t a princess.

I winced. It’s so uncool to be discovered listening to girly pop music; almost as bad as being caught reading Mills and Boon. Although of course someone really cool wouldn’t care.

‘The radio’s broken,’ I said. ‘I can only listen to CDs. But if Taylor Swift isn’t your cup of tea you’ll find Mariah Carey in the glove box.’

‘Please tell me you’re kidding,’ he said.

‘I’m kidding,’ I admitted. ‘Pass me a drink?’

* * *

It was quarter past one in the morning when we got to Thames. Jed directed me through the quiet streets to a small, rectangular weatherboard house with the kitchen and living room lights on, set close to the road behind a low brick wall.

‘Thank you,’ he said as I pulled up beneath a streetlight in front of the house. ‘Will you be okay driving back?’

‘Yes, fine. Would you like me to wait for ten minutes in case you need the car for something, or just leave you to it?’

‘Could you wait just a minute? I’ll go in and see what’s happening, and give you a wave if everything’s alright.’

‘Okay,’ I said.

‘Hey, I’m sorry for stuffing up your New Year’s.’

‘There were some pretty nice bits,’ I said softly.

‘Yes. Yes, there were.’ He smiled at me, got out of the car and went quickly up the path. I climbed out more slowly, carefully straightening my sore knee, and watched him knock on the sliding door leading to the living room.

After a few seconds a round-faced girl with dark hair drew back the curtain.

‘Jesus, Jed,’ she said, sliding the door open. ‘What have you done to yourself?’

He looked down at his blood-smeared shirt. ‘Nothing. I cut my hand. Sorry, it looks a bit gory.’

‘Baby, what happened? Are you okay?’ cried a second woman, hurtling through the doorway to throw her arms around his neck. She was nearly as tall as he was, with long blonde hair pulled back untidily into a ponytail. She was fairly overweight, and she wore sagging track pants and a thin cotton T-shirt that would have looked better with a bra underneath it, but she was still very pretty. No, I corrected myself. Beautiful. Anyone who’s recognisably lovely without making any effort whatsoever is beautiful.

‘I’m fine,’ Jed said. ‘How are you?’

She pulled back to look at him. ‘Freaking amazing. Jess, my head’s so clear, it’s like the clouds have lifted, and all that shit that stops you seeing your way’s just gone, and you know what you’re meant to do, it’s fucking brilliant!’ She was talking very fast, her hands on Jed’s shoulders and her lovely face ablaze with excitement. If that was mania, I thought it would almost be worth the depression.

With a lightning change from hyperactive to sultry she moved closer to him and slid her hands down his arms. ‘Baby, it’s good to see you . . .’

Jed caught her hands as they reached the front of his jeans. ‘Come inside,’ he said, leading her in. Turning to close the door behind them, he lifted a hand to me, then slid the door shut and pulled the curtain across.

I was limping slowly along the pavement in a fruitless effort to ease the ache in my knee, which would have much preferred a Voltarin and a lie-down to a short walk and a few more hours of driving, when the door reopened and the dark-haired girl came down the path, handbag under her arm.

‘Hi,’ I said as she drew level with me.

She stopped, looking at me curiously. ‘Hi. I’m Rochelle.’

‘I’m Lia. I’m just the chauffeur – Jed had had a few drinks, so I drove him down.’

‘And you’re going to wait out here?’

I shook my head. ‘No, I’m heading back up north. I’ve got to work tomorrow.’

‘You live in Ratai? That’s a long drive.’

‘At least there’s not much traffic at this time of night,’ I said. She yawned and, taking my cue, I added, ‘I’d better get going. Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight.’

We climbed into our respective cars and drove away. The only thing that was even slightly good about the trip home was that, between my knee and the evening’s many and startling revelations, I was in no danger of falling asleep at the wheel.

Chapter 14

I was woken from near coma the next morning by Anna saying sharply, ‘Lia! Are you alright? Lia!’

‘Ugghhh,’ I said, and buried my face in the pillow.

‘It’s quarter to seven! And why is there blood all over the kitchen?’

I sat up and squinted at her through eyelashes stiff with mascara. Waking up in last night’s makeup makes you feel like such a grub.

‘’S not mine, it’s Jed’s,’ I said thickly.

‘Jed’s? You brought Jed home?’

‘No! Well, yes, but . . .’

She looked at me suspiciously. ‘How much did you drink last night?’

‘Stuff all. I’ve just had two hours sleep.’ I rolled out of bed onto my hands and knees and crawled across the floor to my chest of drawers, that being less of a shock to the system than standing. ‘Be there in five minutes.’

I was eight minutes, but considering I showered, dressed, did my hair and donned an elastic knee brace in that time, I felt quite proud of myself. As I entered the kitchen Anna, looking sickeningly fresh and well-groomed as she measured flour into the bowl of the big mixer, nodded towards a mug of coffee on the end of the bench.

I took a sip. ‘You’re wonderful.’

‘Now tell me why Jed’s been bleeding all over the kitchen.’

‘It wasn’t that much of a mess, was it? I would’ve cleaned up, but we had to go in a rush, and then it was four when I got home and I forgot.’ I put my coffee down on the bench and began shredding a roast chicken, dropping the meat into a stainless-steel bowl.

‘Go where in a rush?’ Anna asked.

‘Thames.’

‘What? Lia, would you just start at the beginning?’

‘Sorry.’ I took a steadying mouthful of coffee. ‘Right. So, Isaac cornered me at the pub last night, as he does, and Jed came past and told him to bugger off. So then Isaac told me I was a slut, and Jed knocked him down.’

‘What?’ Anna said, abandoning her bread dough and turning to face me.

‘I know. All very dramatic. That’s where the blood came from: Jed split his hand open on Isaac’s jawbone. I brought him back here to bandage it up – it seemed the least I could do.’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But why did you go to Thames?’

I sighed and pulled a leg off my chicken. ‘Because Jed’s wife is bipolar, and she rang him up on a high. He thought she must have stopped taking her medication, and he was worried about their little boy.’

‘Jed’s married?’ said Anna.

‘Separated.’

‘And he’s got a kid.’

‘Mm.’

‘And he just left them to it and moved up here? What a guy.’

‘He stayed for three years with someone with serious mental health issues who won’t take her medication!’ I said hotly. Anna had no idea of what Jed had had to deal with. How dare she go all pious and judgmental? You’ve got no idea either, whispered the voice of reason. You just want him to be a hero because you’ve got a crush on him.

Her eyebrows went up. ‘Okay, okay! Sorry!’

‘Anyway, he’s moving back to Thames at the end of the month. Maybe he’ll go earlier, now.’ And maybe the lovely Tracey would start taking her pills, and they’d work things out and live happily ever after. A nice person would hope so. ‘How was your night?’ I asked, relaxing my shoulders with an effort.

‘Fine. Good,’ said Anna. ‘We had drinks and a barbecue at Melody’s place – you’ve been there, haven’t you?’

‘Yeah. She’s got a big soft-focus photo of herself on the sitting room wall.’

‘It’s her wall.’

‘True,’ I said. ‘Although I think I’d have toned down the airbrushing a bit, if I were her. It’s fairly obvious you don’t actually look like a model when you’re standing there right beside the picture.’

‘Man, Lia, you can be harsh when you want to be.’

‘Well, the last time I saw Melody she told me she’d seen a pair of shoes just like mine in a shop, and she’d wondered who would actually pay money for anything so ugly. I went off her at that point.’

Anna looked sceptical. ‘Did she honestly say that?’

‘Words to that effect,’ I said darkly.

She gave a small, incredulous smile, and my shoulders stiffened again. Repressing the urge to cry ‘She did!’, I said instead, ‘Did you go into the city?’

‘Yeah, we went to the Viaduct. It was amazing.’

‘Many people there?’

‘Thousands. It was heaving.’

‘Huh. I thought they were all up here.’ I started on the second chicken, looking out the big west window at the early sunlight on the bush-clad ridge above the café. It was a beautiful day, the kind it’s a crime not to be out in. Imagine if I didn’t have to be here right now – if I could get outside, all by myself, and have the space and quiet to talk myself into a better frame of mind, I thought. The next twelve hours, full of people and noise and cooking and relentless niceness, stretched before me like a sentence.

‘Why did you have to go to Thames?’ Anna asked suddenly.

‘Chauffeur,’ I said. ‘Jed had drunk too much to drive. I just dropped him off at the house and came home.’

‘Did you see the crazy wife?’

‘Nope,’ I said shortly, downing the rest of my coffee in one gulp.

* * *

The day was busy right from the start, with a flock of ladies in trendy jewel-toned sports clothes arriving on foot at eight thirty. They were followed by two fragile, hungover young couples wanting coffee and fried food, and another two men who looked even more fragile and had four unrestrained small children between them.

‘Hey, guys,’ Anna said to the two biggest children as they hurtled past the coffee machine into the kitchen and ran in circles around the butcher’s block. ‘You need to stay on that side of the counter, away from all the hot things and sharp knives. Okay?’

They ignored her completely. ‘You’re it!’ shouted one little boy, slapping the other one on the chest and leaping onto the window seat.

‘Oi!’ I said. ‘Outside! You can go out this door and play tag on the lawn, if your dads say it’s okay.’

‘Dad!’ the other boy shouted. ‘Can we play outside?’

‘No,’ one of the men called back. ‘Come here, your breakfast will be ready in a minute.’

The two boys trailed unwillingly back into the dining room, where they expressed their disappointment by scattering the contents of the toy box across the floor and singing ‘What Does the Fox Say?’ in shrill incessant voices. I hoped the hungover couples didn’t make a habit of rating their dining experiences on the internet.

‘Jed has one of those,’ Anna said softly, passing me on her way to the fridge.

I smiled, probably a little wanly, and she gave my shoulder a quick sympathetic squeeze.

Just after eleven Rob let himself in the kitchen door. ‘Morning,’ he said, kissing the back of Anna’s neck. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Busy. Could you clear some tables, love?’ said Anna. She slid the cheesecake she was carrying into the display cabinet and tossed him a damp cloth. Rob caught it and went out into the dining room, where instead of clearing tables he fell into conversation with Maggot Robinson, who completely deserved his nickname.

‘This is fabulous,’ Philippa cried from the front door, a toddler on her hip and husband and older child in tow.

I looked up and waved, poured the milkshake I was making into a tall glass and delivered it to a boy of about twelve who was so intent on his phone that he failed entirely to notice.

‘Luke!’ said his mother sharply. ‘Thank the lady!’

‘Thanks,’ the boy said, not looking up.

‘Luke Jonathon Shepherd! When you thank someone you make eye contact, and you smile. Go on!’

Luke eyed his mother with resentment, flicked a glance in my direction and muttered, ‘Thanks for the milkshake.’

‘Lia, this place is amazing!’ Philippa said, advancing across the dining room.

‘Thank you!’ I recognised her husband from Facebook and smiled at him. ‘You must be Campbell. Nice to meet you.’

‘Hi,’ said Campbell, crouching down to wipe his small son’s nose.

‘And that’s Travis, and this is Olive, our baby,’ Philippa said.

‘Good morning, Olive,’ I said. Olive turned her face into her mother’s shirt and whimpered. ‘She looks just like you, Philippa.’

‘Now there’s a scary thought, princess,’ said Philippa fondly, looking down at her daughter.

‘I’m sorry for rushing off last night,’ I said. ‘It was all a bit fraught.’

‘Pretty sexy, having two guys fighting over you,’ she said, at a volume that would have done nicely for hailing a passing ship. Rob, talking to Maggot two metres away, looked at me with one eyebrow raised. ‘Did you score with the hot mechanic?’

‘Philippa! No!’ I said.

Rob’s other eyebrow went up.

‘You did!’ she cried. ‘Go, Lia!’

‘Would you like a table, or did you just drop in to heckle?’ I asked.

Philippa giggled. ‘Table, please. Can he –’ she nodded towards Rob, ‘be our waiter?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Have you not met my brother Rob?’

‘If I knew you had a brother who looked like Brad Pitt I’d have spent a lot more time at your place in the holidays!’

Rob, meeting my eye with barely concealed horror, retreated at speed to clear a table on the far side of the room.

‘Who is that woman?’ he muttered ten minutes later, passing the coffee machine with a stack of dirty plates.

‘Philippa Earle. She was my neighbour in the student village. She’s very nice.’

‘She’s as dumb as a sack full of hammers,’ he said, depositing his plates in the sink.

I smiled and handed him two cups of coffee. ‘Take these to table twelve? And d’you want to ask if they’d like something sweet? He looks hungry.’

Rob looked around for number twelve, found it on the table next to Philippa’s and gave me a dirty look as he went past.

* * *

There was a lull around two thirty, and scraping the last of the pasta salad into a bowl I retired to the window seat to eat it.

‘Has anyone got their name on this quiche thing?’ Rob asked, holding up a roasting pan with one square of sausage tart in the corner.

‘All yours,’ I said. ‘There’s tomato sauce in the little fridge.’

‘Should I make you a sandwich, my sweet?’ he asked Anna, who was spreading whipped cream on a sponge cake.

‘I’ll do it, I’m nearly finished,’ she said.

‘So what’s this about people fighting over you?’ Rob said, looking at me over his shoulder as he opened the fridge.

‘They weren’t. Isaac was just being his normal special self at the pub, and Jed wandered past and told him to get a grip, and that made him worse, so Jed knocked him down.’

‘Good on him. I’m sorry I missed it.’

‘But hey, you got to hang out with Melody,’ I said.

‘The woman’s got a big picture of herself on the living room wall,’ he said disgustedly. ‘It’s like a shrine to herself.’

I laughed. Anna did not.

‘Do you want these pickle things on your sandwich?’ Rob asked her, holding up a jar.

‘No,’ she snapped, dropping the top half of her sponge cake onto its bed of whipped cream. ‘I said I’d do it!’

Rob, who is the hardest person to pick a fight with I’ve ever met, merely shrugged and applied himself to coating his sausage tart with sauce. ‘I had a text from Brendon Lynch last night,’ he told me. ‘He’s home for the next two weeks, and he’s keen to catch up.’

‘Awesome,’ I said. Brendon was a high school friend and a particularly nice bloke. ‘We’ll have to have a barbecue one night. Who else is around?’

‘Lily and Adam Smith, Toby, Brent Hemingway . . .’

‘Crystal McMahon,’ I suggested.

‘Or not,’ said Rob.

‘Well, we can’t leave her out!’

‘Watch me,’ he said.

‘Crystal had a major crush on him at high school,’ I told Anna.

‘So you’ve told me,’ she said. ‘Several times.’

‘Come and sit down for a minute,’ said Rob.

‘I’m getting there.’

She would recover better without me there competing for Rob’s attention. She might even eat something, which could only improve her mood. Getting up, I took the compost bucket and slipped out the kitchen door to empty it.

Chapter 15

On Monday evening, two days later, Anna and I had a world-class screaming match. It was our first – petty sniping had, until then, been our limit – and I sincerely hope it will be our last. I’m not sure either of us could take another one.

The weekend had been frantic. Some twerp flushed a disposable nappy down the toilet on Sunday morning, and while Rob spent an unhappy two hours retrieving it the café customers were diverted down the hall to my bathroom. At nine that night I discovered that my toiletries were gone, down to the half-empty box of sanitary pads in the cupboard under the bathroom sink. Anna burnt her hand on a scorching-hot pizza stone and somebody spilt a large iced coffee across the big sofa. None of these things were disastrous, but when you’re tired every little setback erodes your sense of humour a bit further, until you reach the point where you take a tight jar lid as a personal insult.

Monday was hot and airless and felt at least forty hours long. We closed at last, and Anna wearily got out the vacuum cleaner while I measured flour for pizza bases into the bowl of the big industrial mixer. I clicked the head of the mixer into place and turned it on, and it started to turn with its customary groan of effort. Cheesecake next, I decided, so it could chill overnight. I was halfway to the fridge for the cream cheese when the slow grinding of the mixer rose to a shrill metallic scream.

I flew back across the kitchen and turned it off. Dark smoke rose from the mixer head and a drop of dirty oil fell into the dough. I lifted up the mixer head, yanked the bowl free and put it down on the bench, and scooped out the oil with a spoon.

‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ wailed Anna, arriving at a run.

‘It’ll be alright,’ I said, turning the dough over in search of further traces of oil. ‘It just needs to cool down. It’s done it before.’

‘When?’

‘A few months ago,’ I said.

‘Did it not occur to you that maybe we should get it serviced?’

‘Anna, I’m not a complete moron! Monty had a look at it. He said it’s just getting old and tired, and to keep it oiled.’

‘Since when you’ve oiled it how many times?’

I took a deep breath. ‘None. I forgot all about it. I’m sorry, I’ll do it now; there’s some oil under the sink.’

‘Shit, Lia.’ She looked into the mixer bowl. ‘No wonder it blew up. Is that supposed to be pizza dough?’

Tight-lipped, I tipped the dough (which was indeed as dry as the Sahara and as stiff as a corpse) out onto the bench top, made a well in the middle and poured in half a cup of water.

Anna was evidently even crankier than I was, because she added, ‘I don’t know why you seem to feel that actually measuring the ingredients instead of taking a wild guess is an admission of defeat.’

‘Look, it doesn’t matter! I’ll fix it!’ Folding the dough around the extra water, I began to knead it with the heels of my hands. The water turned the dough from stiff and dry to stiff and slimy, and the thought that I’d just potentially killed our most useful appliance did nothing to improve my mood.

‘If you’d just take that extra three seconds and do things properly in the first place you wouldn’t need to spend all your time fixing them!’

There is nothing more annoying than having someone take you to task for a character flaw you’re already well aware of. ‘Would you please stop implying that everything I touch turns to shit?’ I snapped. I kneaded too vigorously in my anger, and a jet of water escaped the ball of dough to hit me in the face.

‘If the shoe fits . . .’ murmured Anna, turning away.

At that point I lost my temper entirely. ‘For Christ’s sake, would you just eat something? No wonder you’re such a bitch, living on water crackers and lettuce! I don’t know how Rob puts up with it!’

Anna’s face went white, and I was filled with a mixture of horror at having Crossed a Line and exhilaration at not, for once, having turned the other cheek to keep the peace.

‘Rob and I are none of your business!’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘You keep the hell out of our relationship!’

‘I have bent over backwards to keep out of your relationship!’

She gave an angry, incredulous snort.

‘It might come as a shock, Princess, but you’re actually not entitled to all of Rob’s attention all of the time,’ I said savagely.

‘You are such a parasite!’ she shouted. ‘You can’t bear the thought of Rob wanting to be with anyone except you! How about you grow up and get your own life rather than trying to ruin mine?’

I lifted that two-kilogram ball of dense, slimy dough and threw it, overarm, straight at her head. It missed, but only because she ducked. Then I whirled around and ran down the porch steps.

* * *

Sore knee or no sore knee, I went up the steep dirt track that led to the beach as if a swarm of killer bees was on my heels. Reaching the top of the hill, I plunged down the bank, ricocheted off the old puriri tree below and came to rest on the side of a sand dune. Then I buried my head in my arms and cried.

Abandoned weeping isn’t a bad way of putting off the moment when you’re going to have to think about whatever it was that made you cry, but you can’t keep it up indefinitely, and when you stop, your problems are all lined up waiting for you and your eyes feel like they’ve been sandpapered. Sitting up, I sighed, dried my face on the apron I was still wearing and stared miserably out to sea. The sun was behind me now, reflecting off the waves with a glare that hurt my eyes, and although it was nearly six the air had lost none of its heat.

Parasite my arse, I thought with a little rush of anger. It’s difficult to keep right out of a relationship between your twin and your best friend, but I did my best. I didn’t comment on their relationship and I didn’t drop in to their house uninvited. I never forgot that fiancée outranks sister – although I couldn’t really take credit for that; heaven knew I was reminded often enough. Anna bossed me around, she patronised me, she acted like she was the one who held the place together when I did all the accounts and two-thirds of the cooking, she resented every minute Rob spent with me or his friends, she was high-maintenance and self-obsessed and thought people like Melody the Hosebeast were worth cultivating merely because they wore designer clothes paid for with Daddy’s credit card . . .

Slanderous rage is almost as good a delaying tactic as abandoned weeping, but it’s even harder to maintain, and eventually I lapsed into gloom instead. My throat hurt, my knee ached and my sense of perspective had vanished entirely. You can’t work with someone who thinks you’re a life-ruining parasite, and you certainly can’t socialise with them. Pretty Delicious would have to be sold – neither of us could afford to buy the other out – and it would all be horribly awkward for Mum and Rob. Oh, God, I thought, it’ll be like a divorce.

On this cheerful conclusion I blew my nose on my apron, stuffed it into my shorts pocket and got to my feet. Then I picked my way slowly down the side of the sand dune onto the beach and headed towards Mum’s place.

It took me half an hour to reach the south end of the beach. The sun was down behind the hills by then, and there weren’t many people around. I passed a trim-looking couple in their fifties going for their evening run, rounded a low sandhill at the mouth of the estuary and saw Jed twenty metres ahead. He was on his hands and knees building a sandcastle, wearing a pair of lime green board shorts and accessorised by a small blond child. They looked absorbed, happy and as wholesome as a Disney movie.

I, on the other hand, looked like someone who had slept poorly, cooked for ten hours, run up a hill and finished off with a good cry. I stopped walking, wondering with something close to panic if I could slink back around the corner unseen.

I couldn’t. Jed looked up and saw me, and got to his feet. With the option of escape gone I went forwards to meet him, painfully aware of red eyes and an unsightly apron-sized bulge in my shorts pocket.

‘Hi,’ he said.

‘Hi.’

He had such a nice body. Muscular but not bulky, the kind you get from real work rather than in a gym. And he’d noticed me looking . . .

‘Is this Craig?’ I asked hastily, turning to watch the little boy slap handfuls of wet sand onto a lopsided sandcastle.

‘Sure is. Hey, mate, come and say hello to Lia.’

Craig glanced up, fixed me with a brief grey-eyed stare and went back to his work.

His father sighed but didn’t insist.

‘He’s very like you,’ I said.

‘Yeah, so people say. How’s your knee?’

‘Oh – fine. How’s your hand?’ The bandage I had put on his split knuckle was gone and his two middle fingers were taped together with sticking plaster.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Heard any more from your loser ex-boyfriend?’

I shook my head.

‘Have you moved that key, yet?’

‘Yes.’

He smiled at me. ‘Good girl.’

‘How – how are things in Thames?’ I asked.

Jed looked at Craig to see if he was listening. He wasn’t; he was busily pushing his sandcastle back into the crater beside it. ‘Reasonably shit,’ he said softly. ‘But the mental health crisis team came and did an assessment on Saturday, and they’ve set up an appointment at Waikato Hospital for the end of the week. With any luck they’ll admit her for a few weeks and try to rejig her medication.’

‘That’s good. I thought maybe at this time of year it’d be difficult to get an appointment.’

‘No. Full credit to them, they’re taking it pretty seriously.’ He picked at a corner of the tape on his hand. ‘I’m, um, not really flavour of the month, so she’s with her parents until then, and Craig and I are having a few days’ holiday at the beach.’

‘You were flavour of the month the other night,’ I said, and immediately wished I hadn’t.

He looked up, at that. ‘Not for long. I was going to ring, to say thank you for –’

‘Dad!’ Craig called. ‘I broked it all down! Build it again!’

‘You miserable little hound,’ said Jed, turning to look.

Craig giggled. ‘Come on, Dad. Build it again!’

‘Well, bye,’ I said. There’s only so long you can stand around looking wistful and exchanging stilted small talk before it stops being touching and starts being kind of lame. ‘Good luck.’

‘Bye,’ he said.

We looked at one another for a moment, and then he turned back to Craig and his sandcastle and I continued up the beach. Good on us, I thought drearily. No dragging it out; say goodbye and walk away. Stiff upper lip and all that. Jolly good show.

‘Hey, Lia,’ he called.

I looked back, spirits soaring. Excellent. Stiff upper lips were for losers.

‘Do you need your car tomorrow?’

Oh. ‘Um, no,’ I said. ‘Do you want to borrow it?’

‘No, I thought maybe I could have a look at that fanbelt.’

‘You’re on holiday!’

‘That’s alright. It’s a quick job. And I’ve got a good helper.’

‘I’m a good helper,’ Craig said, getting to his feet.

‘I know. I meant you,’ said Jed.

‘We’ll fix your car,’ Craig told me.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But –’

‘My dad’s really good at fixing things. I am, too. I’ve got a big hammer.’

I smiled. ‘It sounds like you fix things the way I do.’

‘We’ll come and pick the car up tomorrow, then,’ Jed said.

‘I – look, only if you don’t get busy doing something else.’

‘Okay. Night, Lia.’

‘Goodnight.’

* * *

Mum wasn’t home, and for once in her life she’d locked every door and window before she left. I did a full circuit of the house, kicked a terracotta trough full of succulents that had done nothing to deserve it and sat down to sulk on the back step. Looking for a nice loving shoulder to cry on? I’m terribly sorry, madam, we’re all out. But can I interest you in a four-kilometre uphill walk on a sore knee? With, if you’re really lucky, a hostile ex-friend and business partner at the other end of it? Yippee. I got up again and limped morosely across the lawn.

I was just turning out of Green Street when Jed turned in off the esplanade in his disreputable white van. He pulled up beside me and said through the open window, ‘Want a lift home?’ Craig was buckled into a booster seat beside him, leaning sleepily against its padded side with his thumb in his mouth.

‘Yes, please.’

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to crouch in the back.’

‘That’s fine,’ I said, wrestling with the handle of the sliding door on the side of the van. I found a space between a Spiderman scooter and a large toolbox, and we drove up the hill. Anna’s car was gone when we reached the café, for which I offered up a little prayer of thanksgiving.

‘The door handle’s broken,’ said Jed as I tried and failed to disembark. ‘Hang on.’

Leaving the engine running, he came around the front of the van to let me out. ‘Why don’t I take your car now, since I’m here?’

‘You could always fix that door handle, if you’re looking for something to do,’ I suggested.

‘The part’s on back order, thank you very much.’

‘No need to get snippy,’ I said, smiling.

‘Is the van alright here, or do you want it over by the garage?’

‘Jed, it’s really kind of you, but I’d rather you didn’t spend your holiday fixing my car.’

He looked pained. ‘Haven’t we already had this conversation?’

‘It wasn’t a conversation; it was you bludgeoning me into submission.’

‘Rubbish. Now shut up and get me the car keys.’

I went up the steps laughing, which was unexpected, considering earlier events, and retrieved the spare key from its new home on top of the doorframe. The state of the kitchen, though, was no laughing matter. The ball of dough lay on the floor beside the butcher’s block and there was a head-high white smear on the cupboard door Anna had been standing in front of when I threw it. There were quite a few smears, in fact, crossing and recrossing the floor like giant snail trails. She must have kicked the dough across the kitchen a few times to relieve her feelings. The vacuum cleaner sat in the middle of the dining room, the tables were unwiped and the sink was full of dishes.

I fished my car keys out of a drawer and turned to see Jed in the doorway, silently surveying the mess. ‘It hasn’t been a good day,’ I said. ‘Don’t ask.’

‘Where’s . . . Anna, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know. At home, probably.’

‘And you get to clean this up by yourself?’

‘Well, I did throw a lump of dough at her head and run away.’

‘You did?’

‘Yep.’

He looked at the ball of dough on the floor and grinned. ‘She must’ve really pissed you off.’

‘It’s not funny!’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘She probably won’t turn up in the morning. I don’t know whether to hope she does or hope she doesn’t. And Rob’ll be furious with me, and there’s about another three hours of food prep to do tonight, and I’ve broken the mixer.’

‘That one?’ He started across the kitchen, and a howl of protest came from the van, still idling on the gravel outside. ‘Coming!’ he called, turning and waving to Craig through the window. He unplugged the mixer and picked it up. ‘I’d better go, Craig’s shattered. I’ll have a look at this tonight and bring it back first thing in the morning.’

‘No! Put that down!’

He didn’t. ‘Look, Craig will be in bed asleep in half an hour. It’s no trouble to pull the head off the thing and have a look; it’ll give me something to do. Car keys?’

I looked at him and sighed. ‘Fine. Knock yourself out,’ I said, lobbing them across the room.

‘Thank you,’ he said, turning to go.

‘There’s a leaky tap in the laundry,’ I called after him. ‘And the lawn needs mowing.’

‘Don’t push it,’ he called back.

‘Have you guys had tea?’

‘Not yet.’

I ran across the kitchen and rummaged in the big chest freezer. Carrying a plastic zip-lock bag in one hand and the last frozen pizza base in the other, I went outside to find Jed threading a seatbelt through the frame of the booster seat in the back of my car with a small drooping child clinging to his leg.

‘Tomato spaghetti,’ I said, holding up the bag. ‘There aren’t too many bits in it, so hopefully Craig’ll like it. It just needs reheating, and if you put grated cheese on the pizza base and grill it for ten minutes you’ll have cheesy pizza to go with it.’

Jed lifted Craig into his seat and buckled him in. ‘Sounds great,’ he said. ‘Hang in there, sausage, we’re going now.’ He straightened up again and closed the car door. ‘Thank you.’

Handing him the food, I reached up and kissed his cheek. ‘Goodnight.’

* * *

I cleaned the kitchen more cheerfully than would have seemed possible an hour ago. Still, by the time the last dish was washed and the last surface smear-free it was half past eight and I was very, very tired. I measured warm water, sugar and yeast into a bowl – pizza dough, mark two – and opened the fridge to find something to eat while I waited for it to froth up. I was considering a slice of yesterday’s pumpkin and feta quiche when the phone rang.

Rob. I shut the fridge door and crossed the kitchen to pick up the phone. ‘Hi. I’m really sorry.’ Not sorry for shouting at Anna – or not sorry enough to admit it just yet – but for putting him in such a lousy position.

‘What did you say to her?’ asked Rob, sounding tired rather than angry.

I frowned, trying to recall the details. ‘That, um, she’d be a lot nicer to be around if she ate something, and that she wasn’t entitled to all of your attention all the time.’

‘Shit.’

I sighed. ‘I’ll apologise. We were both exhausted and horrible.’

‘She’s gone,’ he said.

‘Gone where?’

‘I don’t know. Her parents’ place, probably.’

‘But – why? What happened?’

‘She came home and slammed around the place for a while without saying anything, and eventually I told her to stop being such a pain in the arse and eat something. And she said she couldn’t live like this any more, packed a bag and left. No discussion, no explanation, nothing.’

‘Are you going to go after her?’ I asked, frightened by the bleak, un-Rob-like note in his voice.

‘Is there any point?’

‘She didn’t mean she couldn’t live with you! She meant having me around all the time. Especially if she thinks you’re talking to me about her eating habits behind her back.’

‘For Christ’s sake,’ said Rob. ‘I don’t understand this thing she’s got about you.’

Thing? She had a thing? ‘What thing? Does she honestly believe that crap about me wanting to be the only woman in your life?’

‘Oh, settle down. She’s too tired and wound up to be reasonable, you know that.’

‘So am I,’ I muttered.

He didn’t bother to answer that.

‘You’d better go and find her,’ I said. ‘And talk to her about eating something.’

‘I was hoping that would sort itself out once we got past this bloody wedding.’

‘The wedding’s still two months away.’

‘Assuming it’s still on.’

‘Rob, don’t be an idiot. She loves you to bits. Now get off the phone and go sweep her off her feet.’

He made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a snort.

‘Don’t let her come in here tomorrow, will you?’

‘Can you manage?’

‘Yes,’ I said nobly.

‘Cool,’ said Rob, not noticing the nobility, and he hung up.

Chapter 16

I was going to need Mum the next day, but she’d ask why, and I’d tell her, and she’d sympathise, and I’d cry, so I thought I’d better get a bit more work done first. Twenty pizza bases, two cheesecakes and a batch of aioli later, I sat down to put in an online grocery order and dialled her number while I waited for the computer to start up.

‘’Lo?’ she said groggily, answering on the seventh ring.

I looked at my watch and discovered it was quarter to eleven. ‘Mum, I’m so sorry.’

‘Wha’s wrong?’

‘Can you come and help tomorrow at the café?’

‘I – well, yes, I suppose so. Couldn’t you have called earlier?’

‘Sorry. I didn’t realise –’

Mum sighed. ‘What time?’

‘Whenever you can get here. Eight?’

‘Alright. See you then.’ And she put the phone down.

Thus thwarted of cosy maternal sympathy, I ordered the groceries, limped down the hall to the bathroom, washed all over – hair included – with the lone bar of soap overlooked by yesterday’s toiletry thief and fell exhaustedly into bed.

* * *

I regretted the soap in the morning, when I woke with hair like matted hay. I tried for about thirty seconds to brush it out, decided I had neither the time nor the fortitude required to fix it and twisted the whole lot up into a bun.

Bending my attention to Rob’s state of mind as I mixed a batch of scones (a Pretty Delicious secret recipe, because admitting that the lightness and delectability of your scones is due to Edmonds’ Scone Mix does little to enhance your reputation as a baker), I decided he was reasonably cheerful. The wedding must still be on, then; it was just the bridesmaid that was getting the sack.

I was picking salad leaves from the narrow bed below the kitchen deck when Mum’s little car nosed around the corner of the house. I looked at my watch in panic, but it was only half past seven.

‘Morning, love,’ she called as she got out of the car. ‘Isn’t it a glorious day?’

‘Yes,’ I admitted, looking at it for the first time. Still and cloudless – it would be hot, later, but for now the air was still cool and the lawn starred with dew. Two rosellas bickered as they chased one another through a plum tree and the bougainvillea against the north wall of the garage was a blaze of scarlet. ‘Thank you so much for coming.’

‘Where’s Anna?’

‘Not coming in.’

‘Is she sick?’

‘We had a fight last night. And then she and Rob had another one when she got home, so she left.’

‘Left? Left Robin?’

‘I think it’s okay. He was going after her.’

‘Did he find her?’ Mum asked, horrified.

‘I assume he did; I haven’t heard.’

Leading the way up the steps, I put the basket of salad leaves down on the edge of the sink and peered through the oven door at the bread inside. ‘Could you wash those, Mum? Be anal about it; I plated up an earwig yesterday.’

‘I read something just the other day about eating insects. Much more environmentally friendly to farm than red meat or chicken or fish, if you could get past the thought of all those spiky little legs. Can I have an apron?’

I took one out of a drawer and passed it over, and began to make a lemon yoghurt cake. Then chocolate cake, rhubarb shortcake, bacon and egg pie, custard squares . . . Nothing fiddly; this was not the day for lemon meringue pie or choux pastry. The cheesecakes were already done and in the fridge, thank heaven, and there was a slab of emergency brownie in the freezer. There were sandwiches to cut, too; I’d forgotten to cook any meat, but there was still time, and I’d better hard-boil a dozen eggs . . . I flew across the kitchen, dragged two frozen chickens from the depths of the chest freezer, slung them into the microwave and returned to my lemon cake.

‘– in sometime?’ Mum asked.

I looked up blankly. Three eggs, four. What on earth had I done with the grater? ‘Hmm?’

‘You don’t think Anna will be in later?’ she repeated, dunking mesclun leaves into a bowl of water, examining them from all angles and laying them tenderly on the bench beside the sink. If the rate of progress was slower than I’d have liked, at least the bug screening was of an extremely high standard.

‘No, I told Rob not to let her come in.’ I found the grater lurking behind a knife block and began rapidly to zest lemons.

‘Well, it’ll be good for her to have a day off.’

‘Yes, let’s all make sure Anna isn’t overworked,’ I snapped.

‘I’m not saying that you should be overworked either, Aurelia.’

‘Mum, she thinks I’m jealous of her and Rob, and that I’m trying to ruin their relationship because I’ve got some sort of unhealthy fixation with my brother!’

‘Of course she doesn’t!’

‘That’s what she said! And then Rob said she’s got a thing about me, whatever the hell that means.’

‘Oh, sweetie,’ said Mum.

‘I try so hard to keep out of their relationship! I can’t help that she works eighty-hour weeks and doesn’t see Rob as much as she wants to! At least she’s got someone to go home to! At least she gets to leave at the end of the day! Shit!’ This last as, in my agitation, I grated my knuckle.

‘You’re both tired,’ said Mum soothingly.

Tearing a paper towel off the roll, I wrapped it around my bleeding knuckle and crossed the kitchen to rummage in the drawer beneath the microwave for a box of plasters. ‘I know, but –’

‘And she’s a deeply insecure girl, underneath it all. I think she worries that she cares more about Rob than he cares about her.’

‘There’s the dilemma,’ I said. ‘If she was perfectly sure of him, she’d walk all over him just because she could, and then she’d despise him.’

‘I can’t see your brother letting anyone walk all over him.’

‘Exactly. They’re both a little bit selfish; that’s why they’re so good together.’ I found a loose plaster at the bottom of the drawer and tore off the paper wrapping.

Mum smiled and took the plaster off me. ‘Whereas you and I, my darling, are doormats,’ she said, wrapping it around my finger.

‘Which is probably why we’re here and they’re not. What a depressing thought.’ I kissed her cheek and returned to my lemons.

‘That’s surely not a customer yet?’ asked Mum, dipping another salad leaf and shaking it dry.

I looked up as my car passed the kitchen window. ‘No, it’s Jed. He took the mixer away to see if he could fix it.’

‘Ah. I did see his van outside. I wondered if he was lurking in your bedroom.’

I couldn’t think of a properly scathing response to that, so I settled for ‘Oh, Mum’ in disappointed tones as I went out to meet him.

Jed got out of the car and came around to collect the mixer from the front passenger seat. Craig, buckled into the back, looked up briefly, responded to my wave with a small, regal nod and returned his attention to the Matchbox car on his lap.

‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘What’s the verdict?’

He smiled. He had a very nice smile, warm and sudden as sunlight through a chink between clouds. ‘Routine maintenance isn’t really your thing, is it?’

‘Was it awful?’ I asked, smiling back.

‘Yes.’

‘So I killed it?’

‘Nah,’ he said, handing the mixer over. ‘It’ll probably do another twenty years. I just pulled it apart and cleaned it.’

‘Thank you. You’re wonderful.’

‘I know. Everything okay in there?’

I wrinkled my nose, cradling the mixer in both arms. ‘Anna’s not here. Mum’s helping out today. Coffee?’

‘No, you’re busy. One thing – don’t crank that mixer up to full speed too quickly, okay? Just ease into it.’

‘Alright,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

‘We’ll bring the car back sometime later.’

‘Please don’t spend too much time on it. If any.’

He nodded, got back behind the wheel and drove away.

‘Why does Jed have your car?’ Mum asked as I lugged the mixer up the steps.

‘He’s going to replace the fanbelt.’

‘What a nice boy he is.’

‘Very nice,’ I said, putting the mixer down in its spot on the bench.

She twinkled at me.

‘Mum, please don’t.’

The twinkle grew to a smile. ‘Why not?

‘He’s leaving.’

She stopped twinkling and became soulful instead, which was worse. ‘If it’s meant to be . . .’

Oh, for Pete’s sake. If you live three hours’ drive apart and your days off never coincide, you’re just not going to get the chance to find out if it was meant to be or not. But it’s unwise to snarl at people you intend to work like slaves for the next nine hours, so I said merely, ‘Could you put a dozen eggs on to boil, and set the timer for fourteen minutes?’

* * *

It wasn’t a good day. Normally I quite enjoy pressure – I know I can cope, so I do – but that day I never quite got things under control. I had to remember the things Anna always dealt with as well as my own jobs, and although there were no major disasters (one pizza incineration, but Mum caught it before it set off the smoke alarm), it was both unenjoyable and exhausting.

By four thirty the only customers were Gail Rogers, real estate agent and fount of local gossip, with a middle-aged couple teetering on the brink of a house.

‘Should I take them some complimentary leftovers?’ Mum whispered.

I hesitated. Anna, who had taken to reading marketing books, said that by discounting food we devalued our skill and hard work. She would be appalled at the thought of giving it away outright. ‘Good idea,’ I said.

Mum arranged a selection of cakes which would otherwise have been destined either for Rob or the scrap bucket on a pale pink plate then carried it across the dining room to their table. ‘Here are a few things to nibble,’ she said. ‘On the house.’

She was received with a chorus of thanks and exclamations. This was a lovely café, and we were so kind; you just didn’t see this sort of hospitality in Auckland . . . Leaving them to enjoy their pleasant, if fictitious, mental picture of wholesome small town life, Mum retreated to the kitchen, where she kicked off her shoes and sat down cross-legged on the window seat to massage her right big toe. ‘I think I’m growing a bunion,’ she said morosely.

‘I think your shoes just weren’t made to fit human feet,’ I said, taking a potato from the bag in the pantry and starting to peel it. ‘They’re way too narrow.’

‘But they’re so pretty,’ she said plaintively.

‘Well, I suppose you’ll have to choose between style and comfort.’

‘You sound just like your father when you talk like that. Come and sit down for a minute, love.’

‘I will. I just have to feed the sourdough starter.’ I diced my potato, threw it into a glass measuring jug, covered it with water and put it in the microwave to cook. Then I sat down beside Mum and rested my head against the wall. ‘I wonder if Anna’s coming in tomorrow.’

‘Surely she will,’ said Mum.

‘Maybe I should text Rob.’

‘Give it a minute. Just sit still.’

‘It’s much harder to start again once you’ve stopped than it is to keep going.’ I heard a truck on the road slow – barely – and turn into the driveway. ‘That’ll be the groceries.’

It was. Ratai had no supermarket, but the big New World in Whangarei delivered twice a week. A brilliant service, although the man who drove the delivery truck had all the charm of a heavy cold. He came up the driveway at about eighty kilometres an hour, stopped in the middle of the car park, got out, heaved a dozen bags of groceries out of the truck and climbed back into the driver’s seat. I just had time to throw myself and the bags off the gravel into the garden before he reversed over the spot where I and the groceries had just been, lurched forwards and vanished in a cloud of dust. At least, I thought, retrieving a pound of butter from underneath a hydrangea, he didn’t waste your time with small talk.

The same could not be said for George the prospective homebuyer, who left his coffee to help me carry the groceries into the kitchen. He then lingered, chatting, while I put them away and fed the sourdough (it was called Fletcher; you develop a certain fondness for anything you feed every day, yeast colonies included).

I was beating strawberry ice-cream cake in a mixer that purred like an expensive sports car and George was leaning against the butcher’s block telling Mum how to cook steak when car tyres scrunched on the gravel outside. I looked up, expecting Jed, but it was Hugh Wheeler from the deli who came up the back steps, a ten-kilogram sack of coffee beans under his arm. ‘Howdy,’ he said.

‘Hugh, you legend,’ I said. Anna was the stock checker – I would have remembered that we needed coffee when the machine stopped, probably midway through tomorrow’s lunch rush. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome. Hello, Maggie.’

‘Hello, Hugh,’ said Mum, looking flustered. Distracted by fighting with my best friend, working fourteen-hour days and kissing unavailable men with bipolar wives, I hadn’t even thought to ask about Hugh’s barbecue on New Year’s Eve. An oversight, it seemed. ‘Lia, sweetheart, what do you need me to do?’

‘Um,’ I said, ‘peel that pumpkin and cut it into half-inch cubes, please. How are you, Hugh?’

He dropped the coffee beans beside the door and came to peer into the mixer bowl. ‘Oh, can’t complain. What’s that? Marshmallow?’

‘Strawberry ice-cream cake,’ I said, crouching to get a couple of round cake tins from a cupboard. The ones I wanted were at the back, underneath a pile of baking trays and flan dishes, and as I tried to extract them I pulled the whole lot out in a clattering heap. Hugh winced and clapped his hands to his ears.

‘Sorry!’ I said.

‘That’s a terrible thing to do to a man with hearing aids.’

‘Would you like a beer to make up?’ I asked, sliding trays back into the cupboard.

He looked at Mum, who was now, poor woman, being instructed by George on the best way to cut up a pumpkin, and sighed. ‘Another time,’ he said.

‘Darling!’ called Mrs George, crossing the dining room. ‘Time to go!’

She was ignored. ‘You really want a bigger knife for that,’ George told Mum.

Gail the real estate agent smiled at me and set a stack of used crockery down beside the coffee machine. ‘Delicious, as always, Lia,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry to have to tear you away, George, but we must go.’

But George wasn’t ready to be torn just yet. ‘Look at this, Cathy,’ he said to his wife, waving a hand at the shelf beneath the butcher’s block where we kept the serving platters. ‘What about this kind of setup under that corner table in the kitchen?’

‘And then where would I put my stools?’

‘In a hole somewhere would be my suggestion – horrible things,’ he told Mum. ‘Scrape on the tiles like fingernails down a damn blackboard.’

‘George, you are not throwing away my Herman Miller stools!’

‘We’ll get rid of that ottoman thing at the same time.’

It seemed that Mrs George recognised this as deliberate provocation, because instead of replying she turned to me and said, ‘That was real old-fashioned home baking. Just delicious.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘You don’t share your recipes, do you?’ she asked.

‘Absolutely. Which one would you like?’

‘That gorgeous lemon cake, if I may. So soft and moist.’

Moist. I hate that word. It even sounds sort of sticky and distasteful, and if you muttered it to yourself in public, people would suspect you of unspecified sexual crimes . . . I gave myself a brisk mental shake. ‘I’ll get the recipe book, and you can take a photo of the page with your phone.’

As I turned to fetch it, Rob and Anna, their approach unnoticed in the general confusion, came up the back porch steps. They were holding hands, unusually for them, and Anna’s body language suggested that Rob was both providing moral support and preventing escape.

Rob met my eye for just a fraction of a second. Just do a bit of smoothing over, the look said, and she’ll be right.

I will, but –

The look sharpened to a glare. But nothing.

‘Hi, guys.’ I attempted a normal, friendly smile, which didn’t feel from the inside as if it had come off very well, picked up a plastic folder of recipes and withdrew towards the counter.

‘Thank you so much,’ said Mrs George.

‘You’re welcome.’ I turned to the right page. ‘It’s one of those brilliant recipes where you throw everything in and stir, and it always works out.’

Both she and Gail bent over the page, cell phone cameras poised.

‘How long d’you want to beat this?’ Hugh asked, hanging over the pink fluff in the mixer bowl.

I looked. ‘It’s done. Could you turn it off?’

He did, and the noise level barely changed.

Anna looked at the mixer, eyebrows raised.

‘Jed fixed it,’ I said.

‘Wow.’ She took the baking paper from its drawer and began to line cake tins.

We’d spoken – civilly, if not with any particular warmth – and I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I was holding.

‘Robin, step away from that shortcake and find me a roasting dish for this pumpkin,’ said Mum.

‘Right,’ said Hugh. ‘I’m off. Rob, if you’ve got a day spare sometime how about knocking me up a couple of raised garden beds at the back of the deli?’

Rob chewed thoughtfully on a fragment of stolen shortcake. ‘I’ve got a solid month of work up in Whangarei,’ he said. ‘If you want it done now you could try Dan Collins.’

‘I’ll wait,’ said Hugh. Dan Collins, although a pleasant chap, had a near-enough-is-good-enough approach to his work that really just isn’t what you want in a builder.

‘Alright. I’ll let you know when I’ve finished this job,’ Rob said.

‘Cinnamon teacake,’ Mrs George was saying as she leafed through the recipe book. ‘My grandmother used to make that . . . my goodness, five hundred grams of butter!’

‘Nothing wrong with butter,’ George said. ‘Wonderful stuff.’

‘Yes, dear, but not with your cholesterol.’

‘Bye, Hugh,’ I called, seeing him retreat towards the door. ‘Thanks so much for the coffee.’

He smiled and raised a hand. Mum became entirely absorbed in piling pumpkin peel onto a plate.

‘We must go, too,’ said Gail firmly.

‘Lovely to meet you all,’ George said. ‘Who knows; we might just be spending a lot more time up in this neck of the woods.’ His voice implied that we had quite a treat in store, should this come to pass.

Eventually Gail prised him loose from Mum’s side and took him away. For about six seconds the resulting quiet was a huge improvement, and then it began to feel less like a welcome relief and more like an uncomfortable silence.

‘The breeze is picking up,’ said Mum, making a gallant attempt to fill it.

‘Maybe we’ll get some rain,’ I said.

‘Not enough to be useful, from the west.’

‘True.’ Having exhausted the weather as a topic I reached up to pull the tie out of my hair, and encountered the bird’s nest from hell. ‘Oh, crap.’

‘What’s wrong?’ Mum asked.

‘Hair’s turned into felt.’

She crossed the floor to inspect it. ‘What have you done to it?’

‘Washed it with soap. Some lowlife stole my shampoo.’ I tugged at the hair tie, with no effect whatsoever.

‘Why don’t you just cut it off?’ said Rob.

‘Because I’d look like one of the Jackson Five.’

‘You’re making it worse. Sit down and let me look at it,’ said Mum, chivvying me towards the window seat. I sat, watching Anna drizzle pumpkin cubes with oil and trying to think of a pleasant, innocuous, ice-breaking remark.

I hadn’t found one, and Mum had pulled quite a large amount of my hair out by the roots, when we heard yet another car turn up the café driveway.

‘Piss off, you tossers, we’re closed,’ said Rob.

‘That’s the attitude you want in a service industry,’ I remarked.

‘It’s Jed and his little boy,’ said Mum, waving as my car passed beneath the big kitchen window. ‘Sit down, Lia, I’ve almost got it. Robin, pass me your pocket knife.’

And thus it was that Jed came up the back steps to see my mother bent over my head like a chimpanzee looking for fleas, cutting something loose with the scissors from a Swiss army knife.

‘That’s not a prawn, is it?’ he said, and Anna laughed, which may or may not have been a good sign.

‘It’s a hair tie,’ I said, as Mum gave a final snip and dropped it into my lap. Suspecting that my look was more Afro from Hell than Textured Beachy Waves, I pulled my hair hastily back into a ponytail.

‘Brush it first!’ Mum protested.

‘Later,’ I said, and smiled at Craig, who was eyeing the strangers warily from behind his father’s leg.

‘Have you got any more pizzas with cheese on?’ he asked me, cutting across the polite greetings of his elders.

‘Craig,’ said Jed repressively.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘I like pizza with cheese on,’ Craig said, fixing enormous dark-lashed eyes on my face.

‘Me too.’

‘It’s my favourite food in the whole world.’

‘You can choose a pizza base out of the freezer, if your dad says it’s okay,’ I said, and my chest felt suddenly tight. Reaction, I assumed, to Anna’s annoyance at this casual handing out of merchandise – well, stuff her. I could give people pizza bases if I felt like it, especially people who’d just fixed the mixer.

Jed nodded, and I crossed the kitchen with Craig at my heels to open the big chest freezer. I lifted him up. ‘There, see? In that box.’

‘It hasn’t got cheese on.’

‘No, that’s your job. You put grated cheese on top, then bake it in the oven till it’s all nice and melted and golden on top.’

‘Oh,’ said Craig. He took a frozen pizza base from the cardboard box at the front where they were kept, wriggled to get down and retreated at speed. ‘Cold,’ he said, thrusting it towards his father. ‘You hold it.’

‘Did you say thank you?’

‘Thank you.’

‘Not to me, you turkey – to Lia.’

‘Thank you,’ said Craig offhandedly over his shoulder, in the manner of one who has learnt that it takes less effort to comply with stupid parental requests than to argue the point.

‘Revolting child,’ said Jed.

The tight, apprehensive feeling got worse. Anna was going to leave – Dad was right: what else could you expect from an enterprise that had been started with all the enthusiasm and business nous of a couple of kids playing house? And then somebody’s cell phone rang, and I realised that this latest bloody premonition of impending doom had nothing to do with me.

Chapter 17

The ringing phone was Jed’s. Again. He shot me a quizzical, half-amused glance as he took it out of his pocket, and his amusement died a rapid death when he saw my face. Turning away, he answered the phone with a sharp, ‘What’s up?’

There was an audible wail from the person on the other end, fading as Jed retreated to the far side of the dining room. Frightened by his father’s sudden desertion, Craig ran after him and clung to his leg.

‘What is it?’ Rob asked softly.

I shook my head, gripping the edge of the chest freezer with both hands. He’d answered the phone, but I didn’t feel any better. Too late, I thought. He can’t fix it . . .

Craig, either offended at being ignored or alarmed by Jed’s tone of voice, began to roar.

‘Craig!’ said Jed, taking the phone briefly from his ear. ‘Stop it, mate, it’s okay.’

He didn’t stop, but Rob strode across the room and scooped him up. He carried him kicking and screaming back through the kitchen and outside, with Mum hurrying behind.

‘We’re leaving now,’ Jed said, his voice overloud in the sudden quiet. He hung up and put the phone back in his pocket, and stood quite still for a second. Then he turned back towards the kitchen, with no particular expression on his face.

‘What is it?’ I asked hoarsely.

He looked through me for a moment before registering the question. ‘Tracey’s hurt,’ he said. ‘Can I have the keys?’

I looked blank, a specialty of mine in times of stress.

‘To the van.’

‘I – they’re still in it. Sorry.’

‘It’s fine.’ Reaching the door, he paused and said over his shoulder, ‘Oh, you need new brake pads. I’ve ordered them, but you’ll need to take your car down in a couple of days and get Monty to put them in.’ He ran down the porch steps. ‘Craig, my man, I think that’ll do.’

And with impressive speed he moved the booster seat from my car to his van, buckled Craig in and drove away.

‘What’s happened?’ Mum asked, staring after them from the porch. ‘Has there been an accident?’

‘I think his wife’s just killed herself,’ I said. And then, as if that statement wasn’t melodramatic enough all by itself, I bolted back inside and threw up in the sink.

* * *

Mum tried quite hard to make me go to bed – which had, ironically, been the height of all my dizziest ambitions only an hour earlier.

‘No,’ I said, scrubbing the side of the sink with the hot tap running. ‘Sorry – disgusting . . .’

‘Lia! Go and lie down!’ said Mum.

‘No!’ I wanted to be where other people were.

‘Then at least sit down, and I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

I retired to the window seat and sat, hugging my knees.

‘Hey,’ said Rob, sitting down beside me. ‘Not your fault. Nothing you could have done.’

No . . . but. But what if she’d hurt herself because Jed wasn’t there to keep an eye on her? And what if he wasn’t there because he’d turned her down on New Year’s Eve – which seemed the likeliest reason for him not to have stayed flavour of the month for long – and she’d thrown him out on the strength of it? And what if he’d turned her down because of me? Such trains of thought are really just an exercise in futile regret, of course; what if the Titanic hadn’t met thick fog on her third night out from Southampton, or if Hitler had choked to death on a fishbone when he was four? I leant my head against Rob’s shoulder, and then remembered Anna’s views on me and my parasitic ways and sat up straight.

‘It’s okay,’ she said dryly.

‘Thanks,’ I said, drier still.

‘Both of you stop it, or I’ll bang your heads together,’ said Rob.

There was a short pause.

I looked at Anna. ‘I’m sorry.’

She bit her lip. ‘Me too. Thank you for keeping things together today.’

‘Barely,’ I said. ‘Thank Mum.’

‘Thank you,’ Anna told her soberly.

‘A pleasure,’ said Mum, disposing herself gracefully on a high stool. She had evidently forgotten all about my cup of tea. ‘Now. Girls.’

‘This sounds ominous,’ I said.

‘I think –’ She stopped and looked at Rob. ‘We think it’s time you took a good hard look at the way you’re doing things. This just isn’t sustainable.’

‘It’ll only be like this for another six weeks,’ said Anna.

‘Another six weeks of this and you’ll both have nervous breakdowns,’ said Rob. ‘So will the rest of us, come to that.’

‘And you can’t provide the level of service you want to when you’re rushed off your feet,’ Mum added.

She was right. We couldn’t, and we weren’t. I rested my forehead tiredly on my knees. ‘I know.’

‘Hey,’ said Rob, elbowing me comfortingly. ‘Being busy is a good thing. You’re obviously doing something right.’

‘What about finding someone to man the coffee machine? Just from – oh, I don’t know – ten till three,’ said Mum.

‘We didn’t budget for employing anyone this year,’ I said.

‘Well, then, I’ll do it,’ said Mum.

‘Mum, no!’

‘Maggie, you do so much already,’ said Anna. ‘We’ll find someone.’

She looked at Rob, who continued, ‘The other thing you need to do is cut back to food that people can just take out of the cabinet and eat. Sandwiches and cake and stuff. Axe the pizzas and the brunch menu. Then, when it’s busy, one of you can serve and one can man the till.’

Something about his delivery of this little speech made me realise that it wasn’t a suggestion; it was a summary of conclusions reached during some earlier debate. All this had been thrashed out and agreed on already. I wondered briefly whether to be offended at being cast as the tricky one, the one who needed to have the news broken gradually and via committee, and decided I couldn’t be bothered. ‘Okay.’

‘Well, I guess we can try it for a few days and see how it goes,’ said Anna, with a nice little show of reluctance.

‘Okay,’ I said again. Not wanting to hear any more scripted misgivings, I stood up and crossed the room to open the vacuum cleaner cupboard.

‘Leave it,’ said Anna. ‘My turn.’

‘How about you go and have a bath, love? Put some conditioner in your hair and leave it to soak,’ Mum said.

‘I have to go and buy some first.’

‘Why don’t you take her back to your place?’ Rob said to Mum.

‘Would you all stop managing me?’ I snapped. ‘I’m actually quite reasonable; you don’t need to treat me like I’m mentally handicapped!’

‘You’re exhausted,’ said Rob. ‘Exhausted people aren’t as reasonable as they think they are. Now go on, piss off.’ He smiled at me, and he must have been right about the exhaustion, because my eyes filled with tears.

* * *

Mum took me home with her and ran me a bath – a hot, deep bath, shockingly decadent for January in a household dependent on rainwater collected from the roof. I lay for a long time in the cooling water, letting my conditioner marinate and looking at the reflections of my toes on the surface of the water. It was surprisingly easy not to think about Jed.

At length I got out, leaving the water in for the garden, put on Mum’s blue satin dressing-gown, wound a towel around my head and went down the hall to the kitchen.

‘How do you feel?’ Mum asked, her reading glasses sliding down to the tip of her nose as she looked up from the paper. Her stripy hair was pulled up into a bun, coming down in little curling tendrils around the nape of her neck, and there were tired smudges under her eyes. You tend not really to look at people you know very well, but it occurred to me suddenly that she was beautiful.

‘Better. Mum, you’re so pretty.’

She lifted her eyebrows at me sceptically and pinched the sagging skin of her throat.

‘You are,’ I said. ‘You’re improving with age.’

She smiled. ‘Thank you. I think. Would you like me to comb your hair out?’

‘Yes please.’ I fetched a wide-toothed comb from the drawer under the microwave and sat down in the chair she had just vacated.

After a few minutes, during which I could almost feel her planning her line of attack as she combed, she said, ‘Poor Jed. Does he have much family support?’

‘I think so.’

‘Good.’ She worked in silence on a snarl at the back of my head for a while, and then continued, ‘You knew that phone call was bad news.’

‘Mm.’

‘And he knew that you knew.’

I said nothing.

‘Is he the first boyfriend you’ve told about your Sixth Sense?’ (The capital letters were audible.)

‘I don’t think he is a boyfriend. And no.’

‘Oh,’ said Mum, sounding a little deflated.

‘By the way, what happened with Hugh on New Year’s Eve?’ I asked. It’s no good being subtle if you want information from Mum; a direct assault works much better.

Her fingers stilled for a moment, and then she tugged the comb through a knot. ‘You do realise, Aurelia, that you’re in a very vulnerable position?’

‘Don’t change the subject.’

‘That’s your prerogative, is it?’

I tilted my face up and smiled at her. ‘Exactly.’

Mum sighed. ‘He wanted to – to take things to another level, and I didn’t. End of story.’

‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

‘Fine,’ she said sadly. ‘I feel like a rat, but I’ll get over it.’

‘You don’t think that maybe if you gave it a try . . .’ I started.

‘No.’ She didn’t say it loudly, but her voice was like a concrete wall.

‘Fair enough. Mum?’

‘Yes?’

‘Has anyone ever looked like a possibility, since Dad?’

She stopped combing again, and I twisted around to look at her. Something in her expression made me say, ‘Who?’

‘Nobody. Don’t be silly.’

‘Oh, come on. You can tell me.’

‘Nobody, Lia!’ she snapped.

‘Sorry,’ I said. I reached for her hand and squeezed it, and she squeezed back.

‘I like being by myself,’ she said. ‘I like my own company; I’m never lonely. I don’t want to reorganise my life around someone else.’

‘If you never do anything that scares you, you never grow,’ I said very quietly. You can overstep the mark with family every now and then, and they’re obliged to forgive you.

‘Yes, thank you, Aurelia; that’s very profound,’ said Mum crisply, handing me the comb.

* * *

She dropped me back at the café after dinner and a particularly exciting episode of Dancing with the Stars. Anna and Rob had gone and everything was clean and shining. The kitchen smelt of vanilla, orange rind, bleach and warm raw mutton from the joint that had just been put in the oven – not an entirely happy combination, but by morning the lovely rich smell of roast meat would have beaten the rest into submission. Anna had redone the big blackboard above the counter, replacing the list of cooked breakfast options with A little bit of what you fancy does you good! in flowing script, surrounded by multicoloured chalk butterflies. Ironic, I thought, considering she worked on the premise that anything you fancied should under no circumstances pass your lips. I sighed, feeling guilty for being such a bitch, turned off the lights and went down the hall to bed.

* * *

Anna and I were very polite the next morning. I complimented her on her blackboard refurbishment and she graciously approved the addition of bacon and fried potato breakfast wraps to the cabinet. It was more comfortable than the night before, but not by much.

Jed rang at nine thirty, and wiping a floury hand on my apron I lunged for the phone.

‘Jed.’ I heard him exhale, and realised that yet again I’d unnerved him. ‘How’s Tracey?’

‘Unconscious, with head wounds.’

‘Thank goodness,’ I said, and then realised how that might be interpreted. ‘That she’s alive, I mean . . .’

‘You don’t – any idea which way it’s going to go?’ he asked.

I closed my eyes. ‘No. No idea. Sorry.’

There was a pause, during which I watched Anna roll lamingtons in a bed of shredded coconut while trying hard to convey the impression that she wasn’t there and wouldn’t be listening if she was.

‘What happened?’ I asked at last.

‘She decided she could fly, and jumped off a bridge in the Karangahake Gorge,’ he said flatly. ‘She was off her face on P.’

‘Oh, Jed.’

‘I’d better go,’ he said.

‘Yeah. Um, thinking of you. Bye.’

‘Bye,’ he said, and hung up.

I put the phone back on the charger and sank onto a stool. Anna turned around and looked at me. ‘His wife’s unconscious with head wounds,’ I told her. ‘She jumped off a bridge thinking she could fly.’

‘God, that’s awful.’

‘Kind of puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?’

‘Yeah,’ she said with a small, twisted smile.

I pressed the heels of my floury hands to my eyes. ‘He thought maybe I could tell whether she’s going to be alright.’

‘But no?’ she asked.

‘No. Psychic enough to be weird, but never enough to be useful.’

She came across the kitchen and gave me a self-conscious, one armed hug.

‘How are things with you, anyway?’ I asked.

‘Things’ll be just dandy as long as I eat two thousand calories a day.’

I sat up straight and looked at her, frowning. ‘Did Rob say that?’

She nodded.

‘Did you kick him?’

‘No. He was right.’

Well, yes, but . . . crikey.

She retreated to her lamingtons on the far side of the room. ‘Just – don’t watch me to see what I eat, okay?’ she said with her back to me.

I bit my lip, and then said, ‘Anna, I’m not going to be able to help it. I’ve been really worried.’

‘Well, you don’t need to be,’ she said shortly.

‘Do you still want me to be your bridesmaid?’ I asked, standing up and returning to my cheese scones.

‘Yes,’ she said, even more shortly, and neither of us spoke again for some time.

Chapter 18

The rest of that week felt slow and grey and arduous, like a swim through cold porridge.

Mum produced a potential barista, the daughter of a friend of a neighbour’s aunt, who spent half a morning propped against the pantry door before saying she didn’t think she’d take the job. Hell would have frozen over before we’d have offered it to her, but we were so relieved not to have to say so (thus offending the neighbour, her aunt and her aunt’s friend) that we put on our very best devastated-yet-understanding expressions and paid her forty dollars for two hours of getting in the way.

Anna added raw almonds and the occasional slice of cheese to her diet, which was at least a step in the right direction.

We missed the deadline for putting an ad in that week’s local paper, but even without an extra person our workload, now we had become more of a bakery than a restaurant, had gone from insane to merely hectic.

On Friday night we had a barbecue in honour of Brendon Lynch, home briefly from London. It turned into one of those parties that are more amusing to reminisce over than they were to experience (the ‘Remember that night when Lily Smith threw up on the pavlova?’ ‘That was the same night you fell off the roof, wasn’t it?’ sort). I drank enough beer to spoil Saturday entirely, and to have a long and incoherent argument with Brendon about predestination versus free will, but I never got drunk enough to enjoy myself.

On Sunday morning Anna looked up from the carrot cake she was icing and said, ‘Lia, why don’t you text him?’

‘I can’t,’ I said, hunting through the big chest freezer.

‘Of course you can. Just ask how things are going. Or say you hope everything’s alright.’

‘I can’t. I don’t have his number.’ And also I’d rather have cut off my right arm and fed it to a shark than pestered the man with trite little bids for his attention. ‘This is bloody ridiculous; we’ve got kilos of blanched almonds.’

‘They’re on the second shelf down in the pantry. What do you mean you don’t have his number?’

‘I don’t mean anything. I just don’t have his number.’

Anna said nothing, with what I felt at the time to be most unnecessary emphasis. It’s just possible that I was being a tad hypersensitive.

* * *

On Monday night, six days after Tracey’s accident, I remembered the brake pads and took my car down to Monty’s workshop. It was nearly eight when I got there and I expected to leave a note on the dashboard and the keys on top of the driver’s-side sun visor, in accordance with tradition, but as I rounded the back of the building Monty peered, meerkat-like, over the roof of a gleaming black Range Rover.

I parked the car against the back fence and went to talk to him.

‘What can I do for you, Miss Lia?’ he asked.

‘Jed told me to bring the car down and get you to put in new brake pads. I think he’s ordered them.’

Monty looked harassed, most unusually for him. ‘They’ll be around somewhere, then. I haven’t got time to do it tomorrow; I’ve got this thing’s owner breathing down my neck. Can you leave your car here for a day or two? Or tell you what, Lia; leave it at my place and I’ll bring it down in the morning.’

I shook my head. They say exercise is good for improving your outlook on life, and heaven knew mine could do with an upgrade. ‘Thanks, but I think I’ll leave it now and walk home. Have you heard how Jed’s wife is?’

He looked at me curiously. ‘You know about that, do you?’

‘Mm. He was at the café when he got a call to say that she was hurt.’

‘And you know what happened?’

I nodded, and then added, when he looked doubtful, ‘That she jumped off a bridge under the influence of drugs and mania combined, you mean?’

Monty sighed the relieved sigh of a gossip authorised, after days of painful and unusual discretion, to discuss a truly first-rate story. ‘That’s the one,’ he said. ‘Terrible thing.’

‘I haven’t heard anything since – is she okay?’

‘They’ve had her in an induced coma for nearly a week, but she woke up today and said something,’ he said.

‘Oh, thank goodness.’

He made a face. ‘I suppose so. Although you can’t help thinking it would have solved a lot of problems if she’d picked something higher to jump off.’

I smiled, not because it was funny but from relief that such a horrible thought should have crossed someone else’s mind besides my own.

‘From what I hear, the woman’s a complete nightmare,’ he said.

‘She’s not well,’ I pointed out.

‘I know that. But not everyone with a mental illness is a nice person.’

This must be true, of course, but somehow it had never occurred to me. You feel sorry for people with disabilities; you don’t go around liking or disliking them as if they were normal. A position, now I came to think of it, as insulting as it was stupid. It’s always disconcerting to realise that you’re not as broad-minded and undiscriminating as you thought you were.

‘No,’ I said slowly. ‘But you sort of have to give her the benefit of the doubt, don’t you? You don’t know whether she’s a nightmare by nature or if she can’t help it.’

‘Blowed if I know,’ Monty said, polishing a smear on the Range Rover’s roof with the sleeve of his overalls. ‘I suspect it doesn’t make a lot of difference when you’re on the receiving end. I’d like to see Jed move up here permanently.’

‘He won’t,’ I said glumly.

He looked at me sideways. ‘You seem to know an awful lot about it.’

I felt my face get warm, and hoped it would pass unnoticed in the rosy sunset light. ‘I don’t, really,’ I said. ‘But Ratai’s too far away from Thames for them to share custody of Craig.’

‘There’s not going to be any sharing of custody for a while, I wouldn’t think.’

‘No, but even if the courts, or the mental health service, or whoever it is that makes these decisions, gave him sole custody, I just don’t think Jed’s the kind of bloke who’d take his mentally ill wife’s child to live somewhere three hours away from her.’

There was a short, depressed pause.

‘Who’s to say she can’t move away from Thames, too?’ said Monty.

‘Her parents are there.’

‘So’s her dealer,’ he said.

An excellent point. ‘Hey, that’s true,’ I said, smiling like a sunbeam.

* * *

That night the wind changed. We had three days of howling easterlies that turned the sea to a sort of mud-coloured jellyfish soup, and two inches of rain. The café was inundated with displaced beachgoers who wanted leisurely brunches over the paper but got high-speed coffee and sandwiches. Not the dining experience we were aiming to provide, but hey, it was lucrative.

Just before lunchtime on Thursday I was piling hot cheese scones into a basket beside the coffee machine with more haste than precision when someone on the other side of the counter said over the general racket, ‘You’re a mess, woman. You’re covered in flour.’

I looked up, saw Brendon Lynch and smiled. ‘I could be covered in much worse things.’

‘Hold still,’ he said, reaching across the counter to take a swipe at my cheek with the side of his thumb. ‘Better. Marginally.’

‘Thank you. Lovely to see you, but I can’t talk now.’

‘I can see that. What are you doing tonight?’

‘Cooking. Cleaning. Maybe some sleep if I’m lucky, but I’m not getting my hopes up. Tell you what; come back at six and hang out for a bit while we prep for tomorrow.’

‘Okay,’ he said, and I whirled away to fling my oven tray into the sink and get back to the till.

* * *

He returned that evening in the middle of a nasty little horizontal shower of rain, though he went unnoticed until he hammered on the locked French doors. I turned off the food processor and ran to let him in.

‘Yuck,’ he said, shaking himself like a dog. ‘It’s supposed to be summer. The weather’s better in London.’

‘When are you flying out?’ I asked.

‘Sunday morning. Back to work on Monday.’

‘That’ll be fun, with jet lag.’

Brendon grinned. He was a little guy, whippet-thin and tanned mahogany, with delicate, finely drawn features and a shaved head. ‘No worse than any other Monday, coming down from whatever I was on in the weekend.’

‘Isn’t it about time you knocked that sort of carry-on on the head?’ I said, frowning.

‘Square,’ said Brendon, waving at Anna, who had just answered the phone.

I led the way into the kitchen. ‘Beer? Coffee? Grab yourself something to eat out of the cabinet.’

‘Got any green tea? I’m off caffeine.’

I raised my eyebrows. ‘So recreational drugs are fine, but caffeine’s bad for your health?’

‘You’ve got to draw a line somewhere, Lia,’ he said.

‘Mum . . .’ Anna said tiredly into the phone. ‘No, I never said that, I just –’

‘What’s that?’ Brendon asked, wandering over to look into the food processor.

‘Shortbread,’ I said, dropping a teabag into a mug and flicking the kettle on.

‘Yum.’

‘I know. It always seems such a pity to cook it.’ I detached the food processor bowl from the machine and tipped the contents onto the butcher’s block.

‘Can I lick the bowl?’ asked Brendon.

I passed it over as Anna said, ‘Look, I haven’t got time for this right now. I’ll talk to you later . . . Yes. Okay. Goodnight.’ She put the phone down, hard. ‘Hi, Brendon.’

‘Bad day at the office?’ he asked.

‘Mothers,’ she said darkly.

‘Has she found another sixteen cousins that need inviting to the wedding?’ I asked.

‘She’s not sure there should be a wedding.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘That’s new.’

‘Apparently a bride-to-be should be more radiant. I’m not happy enough; she thinks it’s my subconscious telling me something’s wrong.’

‘Either that or your subconscious is telling you you’re tired and you won’t get a day off for another two months.’

Anna sat down on a stool and rested her forehead against the cool granite bench top. ‘Wine,’ she said. ‘I need wine.’

I felt this was a good sign – wine, after all, contains calories.

Legend that he was, Brendon cleaned the dining room while we cooked, and it was only five past seven when Anna slid tomorrow’s chickens into the oven and I flung my dishcloth into the sink. ‘Done,’ I said.

‘Pub?’ Brendon asked.

Anna shook her head, but I said recklessly, ‘Sounds good. Give me thirty seconds to get changed.’

The rain had stopped and scraps of blue and apricot-coloured sky were appearing between the clouds as we drove down the hill into town. The hawkweed and long grass on the roadside had been beaten flat by the weather, but the manuka sparkled, starred with tiny white flowers and glittering raindrops.

‘Hotel or surf club?’ I asked.

‘Surf club, I reckon,’ said Brendon, skirting a large puddle halfway along the esplanade. ‘Haven’t been there for years. Is Laurie King still the manager?’

‘No! He left his wife for Rae Needham about this time last year, and they moved to Hokitika.’

‘Why Hokitika?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe just because it’s a good long way away from Mrs King . . . Hey, would you mind if we went to the hotel after all?’

Brendon, who was just turning into the surf club car park, looked at me enquiringly.

‘That’s Isaac Harper’s car,’ I explained, pointing across the wet expanse of gravel.

‘Who’s he?’

‘Dark hair, olive skin, used to live at the top of North Street – remember? He was friends with Jonathon Bateup at school.’

‘Yeah, I remember. So what?’

‘I’d just rather not run into him. We went out for a little while six months ago, and it didn’t end all that well.’

Brendon pulled up right beside Isaac’s car. ‘Jeez, toughen up, woman,’ he said. ‘No relationship ends well.’

‘Yeah, well, the last time I saw him he called me a slut and someone knocked him down.’ And as he cut the engine, ‘I’m not going in there!’

Brendon looked at me, sighed and restarted his car. ‘Fine,’ he said, backing out of his parking space.

‘Thank you,’ I said meekly. You can afford to be meek when you’ve won your point.

‘Who knocked him down for you? His replacement?’

I tucked a loose curl behind my ear. ‘Maybe. Potentially.’

‘You’re a shocker,’ he said, turning out onto the main street.

‘This coming from you? Really?’ In high school Brendon’s love-life followed a cyclical pattern, like the march of the seasons. He’d have a girlfriend, and then get another one, and then they’d find out about each other and he’d be – temporarily – back to none.

‘Takes one to know one.’ He parked on the roadside fifty metres up from the hotel, and as we walked back along the pavement he said thoughtfully, ‘Wasn’t it Isaac Harper who shat himself on Rhys’s sofa after the Pearl Jam concert?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Yuck.’

‘You’re not wrong. Well, well. So you’ve been playing hide-the-salami with ol’ Zac the Shitter. Pickings must be slim.’

‘Brendon, shut up.’

‘Wow. Awesome comeback.’

I ignored that, since I couldn’t think of a crushing yet dignified retort.

‘Hey, I’m not judging, we all make the odd horrible mistake,’ he said. ‘How long did you go out with him for?’

‘A couple of months. Not long.’

‘A couple of months?’

‘Not long by normal people’s standards, I meant.’

‘Lia and Za-ac, up a tree –’

‘What are you, eight?’ I demanded.

‘K – I – S – S –’

I shoved him, and he shoved me back. It was only a gentle shove, Brendon being a chivalrous soul, but I tripped over the edge of a paving stone and fell sideways against a streetlamp.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You okay?’

‘Fine.’

‘Good. Lia and Za-ac –’

Pushing off the lamppost I made a flying tackle and got him in a headlock. He writhed and twisted with all the breath he had spare from laughing, but I fought Rob most days for the first sixteen or so years of my life, and I’m quite hard to detach. I was clinging to his back with one arm around his neck, beating him over the head with my handbag (which was made of nice soft suede and contained only a wallet and a cardigan, so wasn’t really as vicious as it sounds), when Jed drove past in a green Subaru station wagon.

Startled both by his presence in the district and the speed and certainty with which I’d recognised him, on a murky evening and in an unfamiliar car, I slid hastily to my feet. Having the man you like surprise you grappling with someone else is never ideal, but you just might brush through it if your instinctive reaction is a wide, happy smile of greeting. Mine was a shocked stare. I couldn’t have looked guiltier if I’d tried.

‘What’s wrong?’ Brendon asked as the station wagon disappeared around the corner.

I jumped, having forgotten all about him. ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Um, broke a nail.’

Chapter 19

We found Lily and Adam Smith at the hotel, and had mediocre hamburgers and excellent chips with them at a corner table overlooking the churning grey sea. It was a fine way to spend an evening, and it saddens me to recall that instead of enjoying the company of my friends I devoted about ninety per cent of my attention to worrying about that stupid episode on the pavement outside.

‘. . . Hello? Anyone home?’

I looked up from scratching patterns in a puddle of tomato sauce with a toothpick to find Brendon waving at me across the table. ‘Sorry, what was that?’

‘Do you want another drink?’

‘No thanks. Actually, I think I’d better call it a night. Busy day tomorrow and all that.’

‘Dessert?’ Adam suggested.

‘No, I’m good.’

‘Look, Lily, they’ve got pavlova,’ Brendon said brightly.

‘Shut up,’ she said.

I started to collect my things, and Brendon said, ‘I’ll give you a lift home.’

‘No. No, honestly, I’ve got to duck round to Mum’s for a minute and grab something. She’ll drop me home. Goodnight, guys, great to see you. Come home again soon, Brendon, won’t you?’

Five minutes later I was walking along the esplanade in the grey twilight, a couple of thousand sparrows squabbling above me as they settled down for the night. The further I went the more doubtful I felt about the wisdom of this little mission, and by the time I’d made my way along Green Street to Mum’s place most of my courage had oozed away.

I stood biting my lip and looking across the street at the dense oleander hedge that hid Jed’s sleep-out from the road. Supposing I did march across there and knock on the man’s door, what exactly was I going to say? Nothing sprang to mind, but presumably something would come to me, necessity being the mother of invention. (Meticulous planning never has been my strong point.) I took a deep breath and started across the street.

The sleep-out was separated from the Coles’ house behind by a belt of pittosporums, planted far too close together fifteen years ago and now grown into a towering thicket that, with the help of the oleanders in front, kept the little plywood box in permanent gloom. The lawn at the front was pale and spindly from lack of sun. Jed’s van wasn’t there, but the green station wagon was, and there was a light on inside the sleep-out.

I went across the thin wet grass and up two steps onto a narrow wooden deck, and tapped softly on the door.

After ten seconds or so Jed opened it. He was wearing rugby shorts and a grey singlet, and there were dark circles under his eyes. He looked very tired. The light came from a small reading lamp at one end of a battered sofa and there was a Craig-sized lump in the bed on the other side of the room.

‘Hi,’ I whispered.

‘Hi.’

‘How’s Tracey?’

He shifted his shoulders as if they hurt him. ‘Pretty beaten up, but they think she’s going to be okay.’

‘That’s great.’

‘Mm,’ he said, and an uncomfortable silence fell.

Taking a deep breath, I said hurriedly, ‘That guy, before – when you went past . . . It looked – dodgy – but he’s just a friend. I wasn’t – I mean, I wouldn’t –’

Jed’s politely bemused expression hadn’t even twitched, and I petered miserably to a standstill. Perhaps I should have put a little more thought into this after all.

He came outside and closed the door behind him. It was nearly dark now, and I couldn’t see his face very well. ‘Lia,’ he said slowly, and then stopped, which was not encouraging.

‘Anyway, I just wanted to tell you . . . Um, right. Goodnight.’ Hot with shame, I turned away.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

I didn’t look around because I wasn’t at all sure I wasn’t going to cry, but I lifted a hand in acknowledgment as I went down the steps.

‘Shit. Lia, look, you’re lovely, it’s not –’

I turned to face him. ‘Please don’t say “it’s not you, it’s me”.’

‘Of course it’s me! For Christ’s sake, I’ve got a three-year-old, and a wife in a mental hospital!’ He ran both hands through his hair with a harried-looking gesture that made me feel like a complete worm for coming here and pressuring him.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said unhappily. ‘I didn’t mean to hassle you; I just wanted you to know I didn’t move on to the next one as soon as you left town. I – I really like you. And now I’ve made enough of a fool of myself for one night, so I’ll go. See you.’

Back on the pavement side of the hedge I hesitated, looking across the road at Mum’s lights. I’d far rather walk home than go in there and try to act normal – but home was four kilometres away, and I was wearing jandals, and there are all sorts of reasons why it’s not all that clever to wander along the edge of a road by yourself in the dark. Fuck, I thought, wiping my eyes with my knuckles. Just – fuck.

There was a rustling noise just behind me, and I turned to see Jed emerge through the gap in the hedge. ‘You know what?’ he said abruptly. ‘You’re pretty much the only good thing that’s happened to me for a really long time. And – and maybe when something good comes along you should enjoy it and be grateful, not worry about whether the timing’s right.’

I couldn’t speak, but I smiled, and he took my face in his hands and kissed me fiercely.

Jed was a spectacularly good kisser. He didn’t waste time on fancy tongue-swerving manoeuvres; he just covered my mouth with his and kissed me as if he’d been wanting to for a long time and meant to make a decent job of it. He hadn’t shaved that day and his skin was rough against mine, he tasted of toothpaste and his hands smelt very faintly of motor oil.

‘Nice,’ I said shakily, quite a long time later. A lone cricket was chirping somewhere nearby and a burst of muffled laughter came from a house further along the street.

‘Nice?’

The disgust in his voice made everything feel a lot less momentous and a lot more comfortable, and I laughed. ‘What’s wrong with nice? Nice is a good thing.’

‘Cups of tea are nice. And sweet little old ladies.’

‘Oh. Sorry.’

‘I should hope so.’ He bent his head to kiss me again.

A car roared up the street, doing at least eighty kilometres an hour with the stereo turned up to permanent-hearing-loss volume, and we both jumped backwards. A chinless youth stuck his head out of the back window as it passed us and bellowed, ‘Get a fucking room!’ over the pounding bass. I suppose you just have to expect that sort of thing if you’re going to indulge in public displays of affection.

Jed merely smiled and pulled me back towards him, but about a second later there was a panic-stricken wail from the sleep-out and he let me go again. ‘Sorry . . .’

I reached up to kiss his cheek. ‘Go. Goodnight.’

‘I’ll ring you tomorrow,’ he said, and he turned and vanished back through the gap in the hedge.

I stood for a while smiling mistily at nothing in particular, then pulled myself together and went slowly across the street. Light shone through the thin cotton of Mum’s sitting room curtains, and I could hear the murmur of the TV through an open window as I crossed the lawn. I pulled my shirt straight, knocked on the glass sliding door that led into the sitting room and called, ‘Hi, Mum. It’s just me.’

There was a little pause, and then she answered, ‘Coming!’

A few moments later she drew back the curtain and unlocked the door.

Judging from her face, which she was attempting with minimal success to hide beneath a screen of stripy hair, she’d been crying for a good long time. Mum cries often, at Joni Mitchell songs and beautiful sunsets and New Zealand Post ads about people reaching people, but not like that. ‘Mum! What’s wrong?’ I said, putting my arms around her.

‘Nothing. Nothing, I’m just being silly – why is it that you never have a hanky when you n-need one . . .’ She twisted away, wiping her eyes with her fingertips.

I fished in my skirt pocket and found, by some miracle, a clean tissue.

‘Thank you,’ she said, taking it and blowing her nose.

‘Do you want to tell me what’s up?’

‘Nothing’s up.’ She smiled in a somewhat watery fashion. ‘Let’s have a cup of tea.’

* * *

‘Good glazing,’ Anna remarked the next morning, dropping a half-full sack of coffee beans onto the floor beside the kitchen window seat with a thud. ‘Very thorough.’

I started and laid down my pastry brush. I’d been painting the tops of a sheet of cinnamon buns with lemon juice and icing sugar; a job that usually takes about seven seconds but can be extended indefinitely when fantasising about sexy grey-eyed mechanics. ‘Thanks. It’s important to get these things right.’

‘Big night, huh?’

I slid the buns onto a china cake stand, covered them with a little gauze tent and carried them over to the counter. ‘No, we just had tea with Lily and Adam at the pub.’

‘How was the food?’ she asked.

‘Average. And quite expensive. They do mean chips, but.’

‘I don’t get this “but” thing. But what?’

‘Dunno,’ I said, shrugging and beginning to slice a loaf of sourdough bread. ‘It’s just what we say in Northland, bro.’

She looked at me for a moment, and then grinned. ‘Jed rang, didn’t he?’

‘Nope.’

‘Did you hook up with Brendon?’ she asked, narrowing her eyes like a master sleuth.

‘No! Anna!’

She turned to fetch a bowl of shredded chicken from the fridge. ‘Fine. Don’t tell me. See if I care.’

‘Jed’s back,’ I said, relenting.

‘What, for good?’

‘No idea. I doubt it.’

‘So . . . ?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I guess we’ll see.’

‘Careful,’ she said softly.

I made a face. ‘I know . . . Did your mum call again last night?’

‘No,’ she said, sighing. ‘She prefers to wait for the lunch rush.’

‘It’ll be worth it. Your wedding, I mean. It’s going to be great.’

‘God, I hope so. It all seems to be such an – an epic undertaking. All I wanted was to look beautiful and give everyone a lovely meal and end up married to Rob by the end of it.’

‘You will,’ I said firmly. ‘Guaranteed.’ Then, as she raised an eyebrow, ‘I can sense these things, remember?’

* * *

The lunch rush went swimmingly that day. Nobody was kept waiting too long, the air was fresh after the rain and a delightful Englishwoman assured us that our strawberry ice-cream cake was the best thing she’d ever tasted. It wasn’t until nearly four that trouble descended in the shape of an expensive-looking woman in her forties, wearing a blue-and-white linen sundress and flawless makeup.

‘Good afternoon,’ she said, giving me a cool half-smile across the counter.

‘Hello,’ I said. Normally I say ‘hi’, but hauteur is terribly infectious. ‘What can I get you?’

‘I’m fine, thank you. Is the position here still available?’

‘Yes. It’s just a short-term job, over summer.’

‘I’m aware of that. Morgan has been thinking, and she’d like to accept your offer.’

Morgan, I recalled with dawning horror, was the name of last week’s gormless potential barista. ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Well, um –’

‘She can start on Monday,’ said the woman. ‘You’ll provide and wash her uniform, presumably?’

‘Actually, we didn’t feel that Morgan was quite the person for the job,’ I said. I’d like to think I didn’t cringe as I spoke, but I can’t guarantee it. She was the sort of woman who gives you the almost irresistible urge to tug your forelock.

‘Excuse me?’ she said.

Anna, coming in from delivering milkshakes to an outside table, heard the tone and hastened back across the dining room.

‘This is Morgan’s . . . mother, is it?’ I said. There was no response to the question. ‘Morgan was hoping the job was still available, but . . .’

‘No, it’s not, I’m sorry,’ said Anna, smiling with firmness and great charm as she skirted the edge of the counter. Customers were approaching; a middle-aged couple with a small blond child between them.

‘And may I ask why not?’

‘Morgan’s not quite the person we’re looking for.’

‘Yes, you’ve both said that, but I’ve yet to hear a reason.’

I opened my mouth, shut it again and looked at Anna, who is much better than me at mixing truth and diplomacy. I tend to try too hard not to hurt people’s feelings, and then, having lulled them into thinking I’m a doormat, get pissed off when they treat me like one and default to stark home truths.

‘We’re looking for someone with a bit more enthusiasm and initiative,’ Anna said, her smile unwavering.

‘Morgan has plenty of both. She’s a very bright young woman,’ the woman said. ‘But I see I’m wasting my time here.’ And turning on her heel she stalked from the premises.

Anna and I sagged a little, post-conflict, and the man who’d come in behind her remarked, ‘Happy-looking customer.’

‘Wasn’t she just?’ I said, realising as I looked properly that the small blond child was Craig. With, presumably, his grandparents. Jed’s parents, or Tracey’s? I felt a moment’s panic before deciding I was paranoid. Of course they weren’t here to inspect me. Jed, from what I knew of him, would sooner dress in a tutu and do the Dance of the Little Swans than discuss his love-life with his relations. They were taking their grandson out to a café; that was all.

‘What can we get you?’ asked Anna.

‘Oh, two coffees, please,’ said the woman. She was small and plump, with short fair hair going silver at her temples and bright, interested eyes like a sparrow. ‘Flat whites. Craig, would you like a cold drink?’

‘Pizza with cheese on,’ Craig whispered, looking up at me with those clear dark-fringed grey eyes that were so like his father’s. I smiled at him.

‘What was that? You need to speak up, sweetie,’ the woman said.

‘Pizza.’

‘Pizza? No, love, it’s not teatime yet. And they don’t have pizza here, anyway.’

Craig said nothing, but two great tears slid down his cheeks.

It wasn’t up to me, but he was so small, and the tears were so big, and his mother was in hospital with severe head wounds . . . ‘How about one to take home for dinner?’ I offered.

Craig detached his hand from the woman’s, trotted around the edge of the counter and across the kitchen to the chest freezer in the corner. He pushed up the lid, but he wasn’t tall enough to lift it far and it fell back. I was there by the time he heaved it up again and, catching it, I opened it wide and lifted him up to select the pizza base of his choice.

‘Craig, come out of the kitchen, the ladies are trying to work!’

‘He’s fine, honestly,’ I said, letting him slide to his feet and closing the freezer. ‘Can I cook it for him now, while you have your coffee, and he can take it home in a box?’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ the woman said. ‘My goodness, Craig, aren’t you a lucky boy?’

Craig said nothing, but turned to hand me his pizza base.

‘Thank you,’ I said, putting it down on the butcher’s block and turning the oven back on. ‘I’ll just get you a tray to put it on, and then we’ll cover it with cheese and cook it.’

‘Doesn’t that sound good?’ the woman said, following Craig into the kitchen as the man wandered across the dining room to look at the nearest bookcase. ‘I’m Michelle Dixon.’

Jed’s mother, then. Or possibly an aunt.

‘Nice to meet you,’ I said. ‘I’m Lia, and this is Anna.’

‘Craig knows his way around, I see,’ she said, smiling.

‘Just where the pizza bases live.’ I fetched him an oven tray and tipped a little heap of grated mozzarella onto the butcher’s block. ‘Do you want to climb up on the stool, Craig, so you can reach better? You need to spread the cheese out evenly on top.’

Craig nodded solemnly and clambered up to kneel on the stool. Anna brought his grandmother – or great-aunt – a cup of coffee, putting it down on the nearest bench top.

‘Oh, thank you!’ she said. ‘What a lovely place you have here.’

‘Thank you,’ said Anna. ‘Would you like something to go with your coffee?’

‘No thanks, dear, I’d better restrain myself, after Christmas.’ She looked hard at Anna’s engagement ring, and then turned back to me. ‘Have you lived here long – Leah, wasn’t it?’

Oh, good God, it was an inspection. Anna withdrew, sniggering, towards the coffee machine. ‘That’s right,’ I said, watching Craig transfer cheese to his pizza base. ‘Here, two years. Since we opened the café. But I’m from Ratai; my mum lives across the street from Jed.’

‘Does she?’

‘Hers is the yellow house with the big garden.’

‘I’ll look out for it. That place where Jed’s living . . .’ She closed her eyes and shuddered.

‘Well, it’s a step up from the back of his van,’ I said.

‘Back of his . . . ?’ she repeated.

‘He slept in the van for the first couple of months after he got here.’

‘Did he, now?’ she said grimly.

Bugger. And it had seemed such a harmless remark.

‘That looks good – let’s put it in the oven,’ I said to Craig, picking up the oven tray. He followed me across the kitchen, watching anxiously as I opened the oven door and slid his precious pizza inside. ‘I’ll set the timer for ten minutes, and when it beeps your pizza will be ready.’

He nodded and stationed himself squarely in front of the oven, hands on hips. Had that pizza attempted to escape, it wouldn’t have stood a chance.

On the grounds that it’s easier to look relaxed and carefree under interrogation with your hands occupied – and besides, tomorrow’s food wasn’t going to cook itself – I took the bowl off the food processor, set it on the electronic scales and opened the deep drawer that held the flour. ‘Pastry,’ I explained over my shoulder. ‘For tomorrow’s bacon and egg pies.’

‘You make your own?’

‘Yes,’ I said, measuring flour into the bowl. Seven hundred and eighty-seven grams . . . eight hundred and twelve. Near enough. I fetched a block of butter from the fridge. ‘Are you up here for long?’

‘Just two nights. We arrived this morning. We don’t often get the chance to see our grandson, these days.’

‘Mm,’ I said.

‘Well,’ she said, sighing, ‘all you can do is love your children and try to support their decisions.’

‘That sounds like a pretty good way to approach it,’ I agreed, cutting the butter into cubes and tipping them into the bowl.

‘It’s not easy, sometimes.’

My shoulders tightened. Not easy to watch your son leave his wife and take up with someone else? How about considering, for just a second, how hard the whole lousy situation might have been for him? I fitted the food processor bowl onto the base, threw in a teaspoonful of salt and put the lid on. ‘Sorry, it makes a bit of a noise.’

After a small hiatus while I processed flour and butter to a breadcrumb-like consistency, she said, ‘Anyway, it’s wonderful to see Jed finally moving on with his life.’

That threw me, and I turned to look at her, frowning in confusion.

‘Look, have I got the wrong end of the stick? I thought you and Jed were . . .’

‘Do you approve?’ I said blankly.

She smiled. ‘Shouldn’t I?’

I smiled back. ‘Yes, you should. I’m lovely.’

* * *

‘The parents, I presume?’ Anna murmured as they went down the kitchen steps, Craig proudly bearing a pizza box.

‘Indeed.’

‘Look at my pizza, Poppa,’ we heard Craig say as they passed the window.

‘Mm. Looks pretty good.’ Then, ‘Isn’t the dark girl a stunner?’

I smiled at Anna, and she made a face.

‘It’s the other one,’ Jed’s mother hissed.

‘What?’

‘The one Jed likes. The little one with curly hair. But she seems quite sweet.’

It would undoubtedly have been worse if she’d thought I seemed quite nasty, but I was still slightly crushed.

Chapter 20

It was twenty to six when Jed rang. My stomach gave a little lurch, but I continued calmly sweeping the deck. The careful observer, however, might have noticed that truly calm people don’t normally spread the crumbs they’ve just collected back across the section of floor they’ve just swept.

‘Lia! Phone!’ Anna called.

I leant the broom against the wall, from where it fell with a clatter behind a terracotta planter full of portulacas, and went across the dining room to take the phone Anna was holding out. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Good. You?’

‘Good. Um, would you like to go out for dinner tonight? My parents are up for the weekend, and they can look after Craig.’

‘I . . .’ Ratai had two restaurants, hotel included, and I knew almost everyone who worked at both. ‘That’d be lovely,’ I said. What else, after all, can one say? Couldn’t we do something more private? implies either that you’re ashamed to be seen with him in public or that you’re absolutely gagging for sex.

‘What time suits you?’ he asked.

‘Seven thirty?’

‘Sounds good. I’ll pick you up then.’

‘Okay. Cool.’

‘Right. See you soon,’ he said.

‘Okay. Cool. Bye.’ I put the phone down and laid my hot forehead against the cool granite bench top. ‘Oh, the awkwardness.’

Anna turned from the sink, smiling the amused, superior smile of a woman for whom the getting-to-know-you part of the relationship is but a dim memory. ‘What’s the plan?’ she asked.

‘We’re going out for dinner tonight.’

‘Just you two? Not his parents?’

‘How many men do you know who take their parents along on a first date?’

‘Rob did,’ she said, smiling.

‘Did you two have a first date? I thought you just looked at each other across a crowded room for about a second and then went to bed together.’

‘We went out for lunch, thank you very much,’ she said haughtily. ‘With your mother. Now, what are you going to wear?’

‘Long denim skirt?’

‘What about your black linen dress?’

I made a face. ‘That’s a bit over the top, isn’t it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t want to look like I’m trying too hard,’ I said.

She pointed a dripping spatula at me. ‘Neither do you want to look sweet.’

‘Ouch,’ I said.

‘Cruel to be kind. Lia, Jed is a boy.’

‘What? No! Surely not!’

‘Be quiet and listen to your Aunt Anna. Now, men are simple creatures. They like short skirts and high heels. He’ll be delighted if you wear something sexy.’

‘But – my knee,’ I said feebly.

‘What about it? You’re not self-conscious about your scar, are you?’

I looked down at the thick, shiny ridge of my cruciate surgery scar, and sighed. ‘No, not really. It just doesn’t go with a little black dress.’

‘It looks fine. You can hardly see it. Wear. The. Dress.’

* * *

When going through my wardrobe and trying on clothes (not a time-consuming exercise; my bridesmaid dress was the first garment in two years that I’d bought from somewhere other than Kmart), the black linen shift dress was my undisputed favourite. It made me feel like Audrey Hepburn, which is a rare feeling for a woman with red-tinged curly hair and freckles.

But that evening, as I scrutinised my reflection in the bathroom mirror, all I felt was that my skirt was four inches too short. Stuff it, I thought, I’m getting changed. Some of us just can’t pull off the Sex Kitten thing; we might as well accept it and move on.

It was seven twenty-six when I made this decision, and seven thirty-three when I located my denim skirt in the washing basket, unwashed, underneath a pile of tea towels. As I pulled it out a car came around the corner of the house and stopped outside the kitchen. I sighed, gave the hem of my dress a last, fruitless tug and went up the hall to the kitchen.

Jed, wearing jeans and a blue cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up and looking even better than usual, was getting out of my car.

‘Thank you,’ I said, going out onto the porch.

He shut the car door and turned to face me. ‘For?’

‘Bringing my car back.’

‘No worries,’ he said. ‘The brake pads are all sorted.’

‘You’ve charged me for all this, right?’

He smiled. ‘Like a wounded rhinoceros, mate.’

‘Good.’ I locked the kitchen door behind me, and then reached up to put the key on top of the doorframe. This, in that dress, was a mistake. ‘Stupid dress,’ I muttered, hurriedly dropping my arms.

‘I think it’s a great dress,’ said Jed.

We looked at each other, and my stomach gave a slow roll of pleasure and excitement. I don’t care if it’s a cliché, and the theme of every second pop song ever written; knowing that the boy you like likes you back really is the best feeling in the world.

‘How was Craig’s pizza?’ I asked, going carefully down the porch steps in my unfamiliar high heels.

‘Pizza?’

‘Your parents brought him in this afternoon. We made cheesy pizza.’

‘Oh, God, no,’ he said.

‘Your mum’s nice,’ I offered.

‘She’s a menace.’

Reaching him, I kissed his cheek. ‘Well, one can be both.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, putting his arms around my waist. He looked about five years younger than he had the night before – it took me a moment to realise it was because he was happy.

‘Jed, how old are you?’ I asked, suddenly apprehensive.

‘Twenty-six. Why?’

‘I’m twenty-eight.’

‘Older woman – mint,’ he said, and kissed me, and the twinge of alarm shrivelled up and died.

* * *

We went to Bob’s Bar and Grill; a nice, unpretentious place on the main street with red-and-white-checked tablecloths and a whole school of stuffed and mounted game fish on the back wall.

‘Hi,’ said Jed to the waitress who came forwards to meet us. (Nikita Ellis; I used to babysit her.) ‘Dixon, table for two.’

I smiled at Nikita, who looked firmly at the carpet and scurried in front of us to a table.

‘Thanks, Nikita,’ I said as we sat down.

There was no answer, as she was already retreating rapidly towards the kitchen. Mum’s friend Carole, however, waved and smiled from where she sat with three other ladies across the room.

‘Busy day?’ Jed asked.

‘Yes, but good busy, not insane. I even managed to reconcile some accounts. Thank you.’ This to Nikita, as she reappeared bearing a bottle of water and two glasses, put them down perilously close to the edge of the table and fled again.

‘How’s your mum?’ Carole mouthed at me.

‘Good,’ I mouthed back, which wasn’t true, but was all I was prepared to mouth across a restaurant.

‘Lovely dress.’

I smiled in thanks and looked away. Jed was pouring water, a strip of sticking plaster across the knuckle he’d split on Isaac’s jaw. ‘How’s your hand?’ I asked.

‘Good,’ he said, flexing his fingers. ‘Nearly healed.’

There was a pause while we both tried to think of potential topics for conversation.

‘What do you think of that picture?’ I asked at last, nodding towards a canvas on the wall above us. It depicted a lone surf caster, arms bent at frankly impossible angles, poised on a shiny grey boulder between shiny turquoise sea and shiny mustard-coloured sky.

‘I think it’s hideous.’ Then he looked wary. ‘You don’t know the person who painted it, do you?’

I squinted at the signature in the bottom corner, and smiled. ‘Yes, actually. He comes in for coffee sometimes. But don’t worry, I think it’s hideous too.’

‘Not only hideous, but it costs nineteen hundred dollars,’ he said, looking wonderingly at the price tag.

‘That’s probably quite a smart move. If he charged fifty dollars for it everyone would know it was a piece of crap.’

‘But for two grand people might think it’s serious art?’

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Did you go in to the garage today?’

‘Just for a couple of hours in the afternoon.’

‘Monty would have been pleased to see you.’

Jed smiled. ‘Yeah. He’s full of plans for –’ The rest of the sentence was drowned out as a group of about fifteen people surged through the restaurant door.

‘What was that?’ I asked when the noise subsided a little, leaning across the table.

‘He’s got a friend of a friend with –’ But a burst of laughter obscured whatever it was that Monty’s friend’s friend had.

Nikita emerged from the kitchen and seated the group at a long table in front of ours, and a woman began handing around party whistles and paper hats from a carrier bag. This seemed ominous.

‘A friend of a friend with . . . ?’ I shouted.

‘A house,’ Jed shouted back. ‘And –’

‘Do youse guys want a drink?’ Nikita asked from behind my left shoulder. Two small children belonging to the group had begun to do laps, and one of them, dressed in a Spiderman costume, ricocheted off the side of Jed’s chair.

I turned to reply and froze, appalled, as I saw Isaac’s parents standing just inside the door. Eileen Harper’s eyes slid over me as if I wasn’t there at all, but the deep unhappy lines on either side of her mouth grew deeper and unhappier. There was only one other table set for two, and it was much too close to this one . . . But no; a waitress was leading them to a bigger table across the room. Either they’d asked to sit as far away from me as possible, or someone else was joining them. If it’s Isaac, I thought, I’ll – I’ll –

‘Actually,’ said Jed, pushing back his chair, ‘we might pass. Thanks anyway.’

I stared at him in shock. We couldn’t just leave. We’d drunk from the water glasses – the group at the next table might think it was because of them – Eileen Harper would take it as further confirmation of my bad manners and poor upbringing . . . Little Spiderman went around again, stomping on my handbag as he passed, and I stood up.

Jed reached the door first and held it open for me before following me outside. We looked at each other for a moment without saying anything, and then he grinned.

I smiled back, giddy with relief. ‘I can’t believe you did that.’

‘We can go back in, if you like,’ he said.

‘Hell no.’

‘Kebab?’

‘Sounds great.’

‘Excellent,’ he said, and reached for my hand as we went up the street to get them.

* * *

Ratai’s kebabs were not, to be honest, bursting with flavour and delectability. They were light on meat and heavy on limp lettuce, but they had two excellent points in their favour: I didn’t have to cook them, and we wouldn’t be eating them anywhere near Eileen Harper.

The woman behind the counter was reading the paper when we went in. ‘You’re looking sharp, there, Lia,’ she said, looking at us over the tops of her reading glasses.

‘Thanks, Joy,’ I said. ‘How are you?’

‘Oh, could be worse. What can I get you people?’

We ordered a chicken kebab each, and as she began to assemble them I asked, ‘How’s your little grandson?’

She beamed. ‘Gorgeous. He’s an angel. I had him all day on Wednesday. Miriama’s new man’s dad has a yacht, and he invited them to go out for the day. I told her just to go and let her hair down for a change; I’d have wee Jacob.’

‘How old is he now – six months?’

‘Nearly eight. Crawling flat out.’ She looked Jed up and down with the practised eye of a woman on her fourth husband and added, just to see what sort of reaction she’d get, ‘About time you had one yourself, isn’t it?’

‘Definitely,’ I said. ‘But I was thinking I’d wait for the second date to bring it up.’

‘So this is your first date?’ She shook her head at Jed. ‘And you’re taking her out for a kebab? Jeez.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Nothing but the best. Drink?’ He opened the door of the drinks fridge.

‘Fanta, please,’ I said.

‘I hope at least you’re paying,’ Joy said as Jed put a can of Fanta and one of Sprite down on the counter.

He sighed deeply and took his wallet out of his pocket. ‘Yeah, alright.’

We took our kebabs and fizzy drinks to the beach and walked up the smooth hard sand from the surf club car park. I left my high heels in the car, delighted to have a legitimate excuse to ditch them.

‘Here?’ Jed asked when we’d gone a hundred metres, nodding at a sand dune.

‘Looks good,’ I said. I climbed the dune and sat down, knees together and legs folded demurely to one side. I was quite proud of myself for completing this operation without flashing so much as a hint of knicker.

Sitting down beside me, Jed handed me a kebab.

‘Thanks.’ There was still a big swell running, but yesterday’s churning grey water had been replaced by great green waves that rolled in, drew themselves up and hurled themselves at the beach in seething rushes of ice-white foam. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’

‘Yes,’ he said, not even glancing at the water.

I looked hurriedly down at my kebab. ‘You were saying in the restaurant that Monty knew someone with a house. For you and Craig?’

‘Yeah. The sleep-out’s less than ideal for two.’

‘Or, indeed, for one.’

‘It’s not that bad.’

‘Well, I suppose not, compared to the back of a van. Where’s the new place?’

‘On Harris Street,’ he said. ‘You probably know it; it’s a little blue house with a big pohutukawa tree out the front.’

‘I do know it. That’s a very cute house.’

‘The people who own it have gone to India for a year,’ Jed said. ‘Apparently Monty’s told them all sorts of lies about how clean and quiet and hard-working I am, and Craig and I can live there rent-free in return for fixing their boat trailer.’

‘Jed, that’s awesome.’ He’d hardly bother moving, after all, if he wasn’t planning to stay in town a while longer.

My bad knee was complaining about the position I’d bent it into; putting my still-untouched kebab down beside me, I carefully straightened my legs, pulled my skirt down and tucked it in beneath my thighs.

Smiling to himself, Jed opened his can of lemonade.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘I was just thinking that you’re being very careful not to let me see your knickers, all of a sudden.’

After a moment’s search for a witty and cutting retort, I said darkly, ‘Jessamy.’

‘Is that the worst insult you can think of?’

‘Something better’ll probably occur to me later. I’ll let you know.’

‘I can hardly wait,’ he said.

I picked my kebab back up. ‘You know, I’m pretty sure you should at least be pretending you think I’m amazing, at this early stage.’

He laughed, inhaled a mouthful of lemonade and began to splutter.

‘Smooth,’ I remarked.

Wiping his streaming eyes, he smiled at me. ‘Surely you know I think you’re amazing.’

That was smooth. Reddening, I applied myself to my kebab.

‘How are you and Anna getting on?’ he asked.

‘Fine,’ I said, hastily swallowing an under-chewed mouthful which hurt the whole way down. ‘Back to normal. Or nearly normal. We were just both tired and stressed.’

‘She looks like she’s no stranger to stress.’

‘It’s the wedding. Weddings seem to turn normally quite reasonable people into complete cot-cases.’

‘They sure do,’ he said with feeling.

‘Did Tracey turn into a bridezilla?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was your wedding like?’

‘It’s kind of a blur,’ he said. ‘It rained. Is it normal to ask someone about their wedding on a first date?’

‘It could be worse. I could try to convert you to some strange fundamentalist religion. Or talk about yeast infections.’

He smiled. ‘You’re right. That would be worse.’

In the next half hour, as the sun crept further down behind the hills and the waves turned from green to grey, I learnt that Jed had played rep cricket at high school, that he could recite the collected works of Dr Seuss from memory and that his younger sister Katrina did something nebulous in PR in an office in Marble Arch. He did not, however, tell me anything about his wife or her head wounds, and I didn’t ask.

As we pursued this slightly laborious conversation, he folded and refolded the paper napkin that had come with his kebab into a series of complex geometric shapes. Eventually it disintegrated, and he balled it up and shoved it into his pocket.

‘Want mine?’ I offered, holding it out.

He smiled at me ruefully in the fading light. ‘No, I’m good, thanks.’

‘It’s hard work, isn’t it, this getting-to-know-you stuff?’

‘It’s terrifying,’ he said.

I took his hand, and his fingers folded warmly around mine. They were very clean and pink, and I wondered how many layers of skin he’d scrubbed off in the effort to remove all traces of engine oil.

‘Cold?’ he asked.

‘A little bit.’

‘Coffee?’

‘Sounds good,’ I said. ‘My place or yours?’

‘The coffee’ll be better at your place, but mine’s closer. Up to you.’

‘I hate these decisions.’

‘My place, then,’ he said, standing up and pulling me to my feet.

Chapter 21

In almost complete silence, we walked back down the beach and climbed into my car. Jed drove the ninety-odd seconds to Green Street and parked on the sleep-out’s spindly lawn. He preceded me up the narrow porch steps, unlocked the door and reached around it to switch the light on.

The inside of the sleep-out was tidy, but otherwise utterly devoid of charm. There was a double bed in one corner, covered with a velour blanket featuring a sultry-eyed unicorn, and a sink and portable hotplate in another. The sofa stood against the far wall beneath the uncurtained window, a plastic toy bin at one end and one of those nasty, perennially unstable coffee tables made from a ring of pine tree with the bark still on at the other. The walls were painted acid yellow, the floor was covered with worn grey carpet tiles and the light came from a naked hundred-watt bulb hanging from a flex in the middle of the ceiling.

I put my handbag down on the end of the tiny sink bench and smoothed my damp palms down the front of my dress. I hadn’t thought to retrieve my shoes from the footwell of the car, and I wished I had. High heels might have lent me at least the illusion of poise and self-assurance.

‘What would you like to drink?’ Jed asked, coming to the sink beside me to fill the kettle. ‘I can do tea and coffee, hot chocolate, lemon and ginger herbal stuff . . .’ He switched the kettle on and rested his hands on the edge of the bench, looking as uncomfortable as I felt. I opened my mouth to say, ‘Tea, please,’ and was swamped by a random surge of happiness. With it came the conviction, clear and calm and simple, that for once in my life I was in the right place at the right time. Speechless with relief and delight, I pushed his shoulder gently to turn him towards me, reached up and kissed him.

The kiss I had in mind was of the sweet, poetic variety – the sort where you draw away after a while to stare wonderingly into one another’s eyes. But he pulled me tightly up against him and kissed me back almost savagely, and his approach was such an obvious improvement on mine that I abandoned all thoughts of softness and romance on the spot. I slid my hands up under his shirt against the smooth, warm skin of his back, and he slid his down my sides past the hem of my dress, then back up underneath it. It was lovely.

It was at this point that I became unwillingly aware of a niggling, persistent feeling of unease – the mental equivalent of a prickle in your sock. I stiffened, both puzzled and annoyed, and Jed let me go.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Shit. Sorry. Coffee?’

‘No!’ I said, catching his hands and replacing them firmly on my bottom.

He looked at me doubtfully, and then smiled. ‘Aurelia?’

‘Yes, Jessamy?’

‘You have a really nice arse.’

I laughed. ‘That’s so romantic.’

‘Yeah, it sounded better in my head,’ he said, and kissed me again, and that irritating tickle of disquiet grew and sharpened.

No! I thought. I would not live at the mercy of these imaginary bloody premonitions of trouble. But . . . ‘Jed,’ I whispered.

‘Hmm?’

‘Sorry – hang on . . .’ Twisting out of his arms I turned the light off, which plunged the room into near-total darkness. ‘Damn it,’ I said, flicking it hastily back on.

Jed crossed his arms and leant back against the end of the kitchen bench to await further developments.

‘I just – I suddenly felt like we were being watched,’ I said, turning to look out through the black, uncurtained window behind the sofa. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘I doubt it. There’s a dirty great hedge just out there.’

‘Right. Good.’ The prickling sensation at the back of my neck had vanished now – along with the mood. I sighed. ‘Any chance you could pretend I’m not acting like a crazy person and kiss me some more? Or have you gone off the whole idea?’

He put his hands on my hips and pulled me closer. ‘Lia, I don’t think you’ve quite grasped how much I like you,’ he said.

My previous first-time sexual experiences had ranged from pleasant-and-will-probably-improve-with-practice to – and I’m really not proud of this – how-the-hell-did-I-get-myself-into-this-and-how-soon-can-I-leave. This one was in a whole new league. We fell across that nasty unicorned blanket, kissing and laughing and touching each other with growing urgency, until finally Jed disentangled himself and reached for a condom. Putting it on, he turned back and kissed me again, rolling us both over so I was pinned beneath him.

‘Okay?’ he whispered.

‘Yes. Come here.’

‘Say please.’

‘Jed Dixon, if you don’t come here I’ll never speak to you again.’

He laughed and slid into me, and I nearly blacked out from the pleasure of it.

* * *

Afterwards, we lay curled together, his arm beneath my shoulders and mine across his chest.

‘You’re amazing,’ he said softly.

‘So are you,’ I said, and he kissed my hair.

It was all quite excellent, except that lying pressed against a hot-skinned man in a small, tin-roofed shack in midsummer is too much even for the seriously besotted. Getting up, Jed opened all the windows as wide as they would go, and I flung the covers off the end of the bed. He switched the little reading lamp on and the main light off, considerably enhancing the general ambience, and got back under the sheet beside me.

‘How long d’you think it’ll be before you move back to Thames?’ I asked.

‘A couple of months, anyway, I hope,’ he said, turning his head to look at me. His skin looked golden in the soft apricot lamplight, and his eyes very dark.

‘Will Tracey be in hospital that long?’

‘No. They’re thinking another week or so in hospital, and then they’ll move her to the Auckland mental health unit.’

‘Where’s that?’ I asked.

‘Central city. Just beside the hospital.’

‘That doesn’t sound like the most peaceful location.’

‘Actually, it’s not bad,’ he said. ‘It’s just beside the Domain. Lots of trees. But the unit’s for acute cases, so I don’t know if she’ll be there all that long. She’ll probably be transferred somewhere else; it’ll just depend on how she is and where there’s a bed available.’

I nodded, and after a little while he continued, taking my hand and running the side of his thumb to and fro across my knuckles. ‘I’ve had a talk to a lawyer, and I’m going to apply to be made Craig’s legal primary caregiver.’

‘So he’ll live with you full time?’

‘For now, anyway. Later – I don’t know. We’ll probably end up sharing custody.’

‘So,’ I said, ‘is it her responsibility to move to somewhere close to him, or your responsibility to live close to her?’

After a long pause he said, ‘She’s not well, and her parents are in Thames . . .’

‘Fair enough.’

‘I’m sorry.’

I squeezed his hand. ‘It’s not like I didn’t know you were leaving. I can hardly throw my toys about it now. And hey, who knows what’ll happen?’

‘Any hunches? Premonitions? That sort of thing?’

I made a face at him.

‘It was actually a serious question,’ he said. ‘God help me.’

‘Well,’ I said slowly. ‘Just before – before I started worrying about people looking in, I mean – you were standing there asking me what I wanted to drink, and everything suddenly felt perfect.’

‘I’ll take that.’

‘Of course, it may just have been a premonition that you were really good in bed.’

He rolled over and put his arms around me. ‘Or that.’

* * *

Next morning, I woke up filled with lazy contentment. I didn’t want to move or open my eyes, which was normal, and I felt not the slightest trace of guilt for wasting valuable time snoozing, which was so unusual that I’d forgotten what it felt like. I lay and enjoyed it for some time before stretching luxuriously, opening one eyelid and discovering that the sun hadn’t even risen yet. Better and better. Turning my head very slowly on the pillow, I spent another happy little while watching Jed sleep, then cautiously withdrew my left arm from beneath the covers to look at my watch. It was twenty to seven.

Ah. Right. The light was dim not because the sun hadn’t risen but because it couldn’t penetrate the gloom of a thousand pittosporums. Climbing out of bed I began to dress hastily.

‘Jed,’ I whispered as I twisted up my hair.

He opened his eyes and smiled at me drowsily. ‘Hi.’

‘I’ve got to go. It’s quarter to seven.’

‘Shit,’ he said, sitting up and rubbing his face with his hands. ‘Already?’

‘I know. It’s very depressing.’

‘What are you doing tonight?’ he asked.

‘I’m supposed to be going to a barbecue. And you’d better hang out with your parents, hadn’t you?’

‘Yeah, I suppose. Bugger.’ He leant over the edge of the bed and groped around, making his shoulder muscles bunch and shift. Retrieving a cell phone and a pair of pyjama bottoms, he sat up again and said, ‘Can I have your mobile number?’

I gave it to him, and he put it into his phone.

Moments later my handbag beeped. ‘Is that you?’ I asked, picking it up.

‘Yep.’ He pulled on his pyjama pants, got out of bed and came with me to the door. ‘Have a good day.’

‘You too. Oh, can I have your number?’

‘I just texted you,’ he said, smiling.

‘So you did. Ignore me, my brain’s turned to mush.’

He bent his head and kissed me, and I hugged him gratefully. ‘Stay a little bit longer,’ he said very quietly.

I felt the smooth, hot skin of his shoulder against my cheek, and his erection against my stomach, and I wanted to so badly that it hurt. ‘I can’t,’ I wailed. ‘I’m so late already . . .’ I pushed myself away from him and opened the door. Then I shut it again. ‘Two minutes.’

* * *

It was six fifty-three when I nosed the car out onto Green Street, looked right for oncoming traffic – and saw my mother. She was marching along the pavement, already level with the Martinovichs’ mailbox two houses along from Jed’s and closing fast. Smiling, she wiggled her fingers at me.

Tingling delight vanished as if with the touch of a button. What was the woman doing patrolling the street at this hour? Surely she should have been safely tucked up in her own kitchen, sipping her morning cup of cider vinegar or onion juice or whatever the hell she was drinking this week. Cheeks aflame, I wound down the window and waited for her to come alongside.

‘Morning, love,’ she said. ‘I’ve just been for a walk around the new subdivision.’

‘Morning,’ I muttered.

Her eyes danced. ‘Well, I mustn’t hold you up or you’ll be late for work.’

‘Bye.’ I started to let out the clutch.

‘Lia?’

Pausing mid take-off, I stalled the car, which did nothing for my poise. ‘What?’ I snapped.

‘If it’s the walk of shame when you’re on foot, is it the drive of shame when you’re in a car?’

‘You,’ I said, ‘are a horrible woman.’ And starting my car I drove away, leaving her laughing at the side of the road.

* * *

Anna’s car passed the window as I ran up the hall after a ninety-second shower, and I began hastily to measure flour into a mixing bowl, bracing myself for the imminent inquisition. She came up the kitchen steps two at a time, tried the door and, finding it still locked, rapped sharply.

‘Guess what?’ she demanded as I opened it.

‘What?’

‘One of Mum’s cousins rang her and suggested that her daughter should be flower girl at my wedding.’ She twitched an apron off the hook on the back of the door and tied it with a vicious, circulation-impeding jerk around her slim waist.

Mentally steeled for cross-examination, it took me a few seconds to change tack and process this. ‘What, did she say yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Without asking you?’

‘Yes.’

‘She can’t do that!’ I said.

‘But wait, there’s more. She also invited the cousin, her husband and their two other children to the wedding, since their little girl’s going to be in the bridal party.’

‘But –’ I started.

‘But wait,’ Anna continued, her voice rising. ‘There’s more! Mum forwarded me a picture of this child.’ Taking her cell phone from the back pocket of her denim shorts, she swiped the screen, jabbed it furiously a couple of times and thrust the phone at me.

I took it, and saw a photo of a plump, pallid girl with very round eyes, dressed in a tight purple T-shirt and leggings. She had bigger breasts than I did. ‘How – how old is she?’

‘Eleven.’

‘Surely that’s too old to be a flower girl.’

‘I was her mother’s flower girl when I was eleven.’

‘Will you really have to have her?’ I asked.

Anna took the phone back and sighed. ‘They just lost their house, they’re living in a shitty little flat in Manurewa and they couldn’t afford Christmas presents. But that’s okay, because apparently my wedding has given not just little Gabriella but the whole family something really nice to look forward to.’

‘Bugger,’ I said.

Picking up a loaf of ciabatta, she began to slice it for sandwiches. We’d worked silently for five minutes or so when she said suddenly, ‘The big date! How was it?’

‘Very nice.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘Bob’s. But only briefly. There was a table of about thirty yelling people just in front of us, and then Isaac’s parents came in, and it was all so awful that we ran away and had kebabs down on the beach.’

‘Good on you. And then?’

‘We went back to his place for coffee.’

‘And then?’

‘I stayed the night; I just got home,’ I said. I meant to say it matter-of-factly, but I have a nasty feeling that it came out somewhere between coy and smug. Ugh.

‘Did you?’ said Anna. ‘And you’re going to see him again?’

‘Um, yes,’ I said, taken aback. It wasn’t, after all, as if I made a habit of one-night stands.

She pulled her phone back out of her pocket. ‘Yes!’

‘What are you doing?

‘Texting Rob. He owes me ten dollars.’

‘You guys bet on whether I was going to sleep with Jed?’

‘No,’ she said, texting busily. ‘On whether you’d kick him to the kerb.’

‘I – what? Why would I do that?’

She shrugged. ‘Married man, small child, leaving town . . .’

Bristling with affront, I lifted the food processor off its shelf and dumped it on the bench.

‘Did you actually have sex with him?’ she asked.

‘Why would I tell you?’

‘Because I’m your best friend!’

‘Best friends don’t put money on each other’s love-lives!’

‘Lia, come on. It was a perfectly harmless little bet. I’d never say anything to anyone except Rob; you know that.’

I shrugged peevishly, unwilling to dismount from my high horse too quickly.

‘How was it?’ she said softly, after a few minutes of sandwich assembly.

‘Amazing,’ I muttered, hauling a bag of onions out from the basket beneath the butcher’s block.

‘Good for you.’

‘Thank you.’ Then, ‘Jeez, Anna, would you mind at least waiting till I’m not looking before you share that with my brother?’

Chapter 22

It was a hot day, and after lunch it grew steadily muggier. Escaping outside for a moment with the compost bucket, I lifted the hair off the back of my neck in the vain hope of a cooling breeze and looked up at the great bank of cloud massing and billowing above the ridge. There was a queasy, apprehensive feeling in the pit of my stomach – I spent three minutes that should have been dedicated to customer service gnawing my lip and wondering if Jed was having second thoughts before realising that, for probably the first time in my life, I’d forgotten both breakfast and lunch. That’s the thing with paying too much attention to your gut feelings; you lose sight of the fact that mostly they’re just telling you about your gut.

‘One mango milkshake and three strawberry,’ Anna called, throwing me a harassed and reproachful look from the till as I went back in.

I made them, cleared three tables, took a cheesecake out of the fridge, thought better of it, put it back and updated the blackboard at the end of the counter to read, Luscious COLD caramel cheesecake in fridge. Just ask us! instead. I made another brace of milkshakes and cleaned about a cupful of yoghurt from the crevices of a high chair while Anna served a gaggle of incoming ladies. There was a lull after that, and picking up a cinnamon bun I leant against the counter and tried to convince myself I’d feel less nauseous as soon as I took a bite.

‘My goodness, this heat,’ said Mum, appearing suddenly in the kitchen doorway. She was wearing a pink singlet and a pair of horrible floral Indian cotton trousers, pleated at the waist and tapering to the ankle. Mum’s normally very stylish, in her own flaky, thrift-shop way, but everyone has off days. Crossing the room, she filled a glass with water and pressed it to her cheek. ‘Anna love, I don’t know if you’re still considering chandeliers in the marquee, but . . .’

‘At the moment I’m considering elopement,’ said Anna. ‘And potentially murder.’

‘Whose murder?’

‘My mother’s.’

Mum beamed and, leaving them to it, I slipped out of the kitchen to retrieve my cell phone, left on my bed in this morning’s wild rush. I had four text messages: one from the dentist’s telling me it was twelve months since my visit and to please call them for an appointment to keep my smile beautiful; one from my friend Donna requesting a green salad for this evening’s barbecue; and two from the same unknown number.

The first one, sent at sixty forty-six am, read:

Best night ever

I gave a little skip of happiness and scrolled down to the next one.

Morning pretty good so far too

That one had been sent at six fifty-four.

Best 2 minutes of my life. Hope yr days going well, I sent back.

Dropping the phone into my shorts pocket, I went back up the hall.

‘I’ve never even met this child,’ Anna was saying as she poured coffee beans into the machine. ‘You wouldn’t think it was all that unreasonable to want to know the people in your own bridal party, would you? And she’ll be in all the photos! Even if she didn’t look like a troll, why should I have someone I’ve never even met featuring in my wedding photos?’

Mum made soothing noises. I ate my cinnamon bun and drifted into a golden, Jed-themed daydream, from which I was jerked some minutes later by Mum saying, ‘. . . but Jed’s mother says this wholesaler sells them for something ridiculous like nine dollars for a box of twelve.’

‘Jed’s mother says?’ I asked.

‘Yes, I met her this morning. Now, they’re very plain, she told me. Just simple glass bubbles. But if you hang them in clusters – say on different lengths of fishing line – they look like little minimalist chandeliers. But it’s only an idea, Anna love; it’s completely up to you.’ This last sentence was delivered with extreme sweetness and gentleness, in order to further underline Mum’s superiority to that provider of unwanted flower girls, the mother of the bride.

‘Could be pretty,’ said Anna slowly. ‘But what would we hang them from? A marquee doesn’t have a ceiling.’

‘That’s easy. We can just run lines across the top of the marquee, from pole to pole. And Michelle said that when she did it, she hung the tea-light holders from old wire coat hangers, in groups of five or six. Wouldn’t that look sweet?’

‘Mm,’ said Anna. ‘So you’d need – what – four or five boxes of twelve?’

‘Something like that. Say five – five nines are forty-five dollars. That’s hardly a big expense.’

I was diverted from wondering if the place Jed’s mother had decorated with coat hanger chandeliers was Jed and Tracey’s wedding venue by my cell phone beeping in my pocket.

Day good but would be better if seeing you later. Have moved to harris st. How are you?

I was smiling to myself and trying to compose a reply combining humour with complete adorability when Anna said, ‘I’d say that was from Jed, wouldn’t you?’

Damn. I’d thought they were fully occupied by rustic chandeliers.

‘I’d say so,’ said Mum.

I put my phone back into my pocket. Nobody can write adorable text messages under the amused gazes of their friends and relations.

‘He’s such a nice boy,’ Mum said. ‘And he’s had a pretty rough time these last couple of years, from what his mother told me today.’

‘What did she tell you?’ I asked.

‘Just that he’s held down a full-time job, he’s done all the housework and cooking, little Craig’s gone to day care every day because his mother couldn’t look after him – and in return she’s sat at home surfing the internet and telling anyone who’d listen how awful Jed is.’

‘The man must be a saint,’ said Anna, sounding underwhelmed. Anna doesn’t have a lot of patience for people who tolerate being put upon.

‘No. Just a normal, nice bloke trying to do his best in a lousy situation,’ Mum said.

‘So what made him finally leave?’

‘I think it was partly that he was sick of it, and partly that he’d tried everything else, and he thought that if he wasn’t there to pick up the pieces she might finally have to get her act together,’ I said.

‘Instead of which she went and threw herself off a cliff.’

‘Mm.’

‘Lia, I’m sure he’s a lovely guy, but do you really think it’s a good idea to get involved with someone who has that amount of baggage?’

‘Everyone has baggage,’ Mum said gently.

‘Not that much baggage,’ said Anna.

‘Look, I do realise that the long-term prognosis isn’t great,’ I said. ‘But he’s really nice, so I think I might just enjoy it for a while before I start worrying, if that’s okay.’

Apparently it wasn’t. ‘It’s going to rain; I’ll go and get your washing in,’ said Mum crisply, and stalked out.

Disconcerted by this sudden chill, I applied myself to a stack of dirty oven trays as Anna started the rinse cycle on the coffee machine. Mum hadn’t come back by the time I finished, so I slipped out and found her weeding the bed beneath the kitchen porch, laundry basket beside her.

‘What’s up?’ I asked, sitting down on the bottom step.

‘Nothing.’

‘Mum, what is it?’

She felled a grove of milkweed seedlings with one swipe. ‘Don’t be careless with someone else’s heart, Lia.’

‘What?’ I said blankly.

‘Don’t treat that boy as if he’s just a bit of fun. If you don’t think the relationship has any chance of a long-term future, don’t get into it in the first place.’

‘I am not treating him like a bit of fun!’ I said, stung. ‘But he’s been with the same woman since he was seventeen, and he’s only just picking himself up out of the wreckage now. So as much as I’d like to think I’m the love of his life, chances are I’m just the rebound girl. I’m trying not to get carried away.’

She didn’t reply.

‘Mum, what’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

It was almost like talking to Dad, I thought, leaning forwards to pull out a dock. It broke off at ground level, as docks do.

‘There’s no point in just pulling off the leaves,’ Mum said.

‘I know.’ I scrabbled in the dirt around the tap root.

‘Aurelia, don’t do that without gloves. You can’t serve people food with hands like a farm labourer.’

I took a firm grasp of the dock root and yanked, breaking off another centimetre. Giving up, I sat back and dusted off my hands. ‘Mum, why were you crying, the other night?’

‘Oh, the usual. Menopause, the rapid approach of my fiftieth birthday, finding cellulite behind my knees . . . Nothing very drastic.’ She stood up. ‘Right. I’d better get home and tidy myself up for dinner at the Marshalls’.’

‘That sounds nice.’

‘Yes. I’m sure it will be.’

I kissed her cheek and went slowly back inside. Perhaps I should get Rob to talk to her. Or perhaps not – he would take the ‘Lia says you’re depressed. Are you?’ approach, which was unlikely to be all that helpful. Mike, I thought, brightening. Of course.

* * *

It was five forty-eight when I discovered an imminent toilet paper crisis – we were down to the last half-roll in both my bathroom and the customer toilets.

‘We’re almost out of toilet paper,’ I told Anna, coming back into the kitchen. ‘I’ll whip down and grab some from the Four Square before it shuts. Anything else we need desperately?’

‘Don’t think so,’ she said, not looking up from the carrot cake she was icing.

‘Okay. Back in ten.’

Snatching up my car keys I drove rapidly down the hill, parked and ran into the Four Square, flinging a passing ‘Hi!’ at Mum’s friend Carole, who was taking the sandwich boards in off the pavement for the night. There were people waiting at both checkouts, so having got the toilet paper I wandered into the next aisle for a bottle of wine to take to tonight’s barbecue.

Returning to join a queue, I was struck by a further thought. I should buy some condoms, rather than just assuming that that was Jed’s department. And this was a golden opportunity – both checkouts, for once, were being manned by strangers. Veering left into the empty toiletries aisle I perused the extensive selection on the top shelf. Mutual Climax? Really? Pleasure Me, ribbed and dotted for extra stimulation? Perhaps not. Tropical fruit-flavoured . . . Where were the normal ones?

I was standing up on tiptoe to reach some down when someone said, ‘Boo!’ just behind my right shoulder. I leapt as if I’d been electrocuted.

‘Hugh!’

Hugh leant back against the feminine hygiene products and gave himself up to laughter.

‘Bastard,’ I said bitterly.

‘Oh, God,’ he gasped, wiping the tears from his eyes. ‘I needed that. You should have seen your face.’

‘I’m glad you enjoyed it.’ And gathering the shreds of my dignity around me, I headed for the checkout, just in time to be served by Carole, who had taken over to settle up for the night. She seemed oddly taken aback as she tallied up my purchases, which both embarrassed and irritated me. Surely, I thought snippily, it’s not that shocking to sell someone a box of condoms, even if it is someone you’ve known since childhood. It wasn’t until I had reached the car and was stowing them in my handbag that I realised I hadn’t bought condoms at all. I’d bought a Play Ultra, designed to deliver ‘thirty minutes of vibrating stimulation’. I buried my face in my hands and hyperventilated with shame.

* * *

My friend Donna’s barbecue that evening would have been more enjoyable had I not spent it having the benefits of the Paleo Diet explained to me by a very intense woman with lipstick on her teeth. I finally extricated myself from the sofa we were sharing at around ten, trying to look properly grateful at the prospect of being sent a selection of delectable gluten-, sugar- and dairy-free slice recipes.

Donna, her sister, her sister’s boyfriend and a big, shy man with a mullet who had been watching Donna with hopeless longing all evening were climbing into the spa pool on the deck with a bottle of bourbon as I passed. ‘Goodnight, guys,’ I called, waving my salad bowl in farewell.

‘Hey, where are you going?’ Donna said.

‘Bed.’

‘It’s early! Come on, hop in!’

I shook my head. ‘Nah, work tomorrow. Have fun, kids.’

It seemed they were, because there was a loud splash and then a shriek of laughter as I went down the path.

Right, I told myself firmly. Home. I was so tired my eyes ached. And it was too late to call Jed. And anyway, his parents were probably there. On which note I dug my phone out of my jeans pocket and sent him a text.

Is now a good time to visit?

I regretted it immediately. Sending men plaintive text messages is not generally considered a good way to impress them.

My phone buzzed in my hand.

Yes! 16 Harris St

Raised by that exclamation mark to giddy heights of happiness, I sped across town.

* * *

Jed opened number sixteen’s front door as I crossed the strip of sandy lawn between the house and the road, and we smiled at each other in the feeble light of a bulb in a frosted glass shade at the other end of the hall.

Shutting the door behind me, he led me down the hall to an open-plan living area at the back of the house. The decor was standard-issue beach house – varnished particle-board floor, mismatched sofas, a cork board covered in photos of people holding up fish on one wall and a selection of framed marine maps on another. Although the bookshelf across the room was too far away for me to read the titles, they almost certainly included a selection of Catherine Cookson novels, The Clan of the Cave Bear and Future Shock. There was a little heap of Matchbox cars on the rug and some piece of dismantled machinery – a winch, perhaps – was spread on newspaper across the dining room table.

‘Quite a step up, isn’t it?’ Jed said.

‘Very nice.’

‘I particularly like the whole more-than-one-room thing.’

And then we looked at one another, agreed wordlessly that that was enough chit-chat for now, and switched to kissing instead.

‘How was your barbecue?’ he asked some time later, wrapping his arms loosely around my waist.

His eyes were the colour of rain falling on open water. And one side of his mouth went up more than the other when he smiled. And – and it would probably be wiser not to gaze at him with quite such blatant adoration. I took a step backwards and sat down on the arm of the nearest sofa. ‘Oh. Um, pretty average. How was your day?’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Craig spent most of the afternoon charging up and down the beach, and fell asleep into his tea. And I believe my mother’s been visiting yours, doing a bit of background research.’

‘Yeah, Mum said they’d met. She was most impressed with what she’s heard about you.’

‘So was mine. First-class honours, huh?’

‘Awesome,’ I said. ‘I’m being pimped by my mother.’

He grinned. ‘Not as much as you’re being pimped by Monty.’

This was concerning. There’s nothing like too much praise for putting a person off the praisee. ‘You told Monty?’

‘No. My mother told him.’

‘Why did you tell her about me?’ I asked. ‘Not that I mind, but . . .’

‘I didn’t tell her,’ he said. ‘Well, only under extreme duress.’ He sat down beside me on the sofa and pulled me onto his lap. ‘She was trying to pressure me into having coffee with some daughter of a friend of hers. And finally in desperation I said I’d met someone.’

‘Ah,’ I said, leaning back against him. ‘Fatal mistake. Is Craig with your parents for the night?’

‘He’s asleep down the hall.’

‘What if he wakes up and comes out?’

‘He sleeps like a log,’ Jed said.

‘On his first night in a new house?’

‘I don’t see why not. He’s been sleeping in a corner of the workshop since he was about a month old.’ He kissed the side of my neck. ‘But we can go to my room if it makes you feel better.’

I stood up, and he led me into the first room off the hall, closing the door behind us and pulling a small chest of drawers sideways across it. ‘First you get the girl into your bedroom, and then you block the exits,’ he explained.

‘Unnecessary,’ I said, sitting down cross-legged on his unmade bed.

He sat down beside me. ‘Glad to hear it.’

‘Were you in bed when I texted?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Sorry.’

‘It’s all good. I’d rather see you than sleep.’

‘Jed, that’s beautiful,’ I said, smiling at him.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Apparently girls really go for all that mushy shit.’ And then he pushed me back across his bed and kissed me, thoroughly and with outstanding attention to detail.

We had breathless, silent, stunningly good sex, and when I could speak again I whispered, ‘My god.’

‘Yeah,’ he whispered back, finding my hand and squeezing it.

‘I should go,’ I said some time later.

‘Why?’

‘Craig.’

There was a short silence before he said, ‘You couldn’t sneak out in the morning?’

‘Well, yes, but I don’t want to emotionally scar your son.’

‘I think his mother and I have already done that,’ he said.

After another, longer silence I asked, ‘What time does he wake up?’

‘Usually about quarter to seven.’

‘So I could set the alarm on my phone for six.’

‘Sounds good,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

I sat up and felt around on the floor for my jeans. Finding them, I picked them up and retrieved my cell phone from a pocket. ‘What for?’

‘Dragging you into my sordid little domestic issues.’

‘You didn’t. I turned up on your doorstep and begged, remember?’

‘So you did,’ he said, sliding an arm around my waist and pulling me back against him.

Chapter 23

From then on, every night after work I packed my toothbrush and any particularly good leftovers and went to Jed’s place. Just after six in the morning I’d creep out again and drive back up the hill home. Craig was usually asleep by the time I got there, but occasionally he was still rampaging around the living room in his Transformer pyjamas, and Jed would let him stay up and play for half an hour before bed. He was cheerful and bouncy and loud, once he let his guard down, with the stamina of an Eveready battery and an impressive talent for getting what he wanted. I’d have tried hard to like Jed’s child anyway, but nobody could have helped liking Craig.

His favourite game was hide-and-seek. ‘You have to count to ten,’ he would tell me, speaking very slowly and carefully, as if I were none too bright. ‘Then come and find me in the wardrobe.’ On reaching the wardrobe, however, it was considered very poor form to find him. Correct procedure was to search energetically in the opposite corner, declare he couldn’t possibly be there and turn sadly away, at which point he would leap out and shout, ‘Here I am! I tricked you! I tricked you!’

Monty, who knew everyone in town (and indeed nearly everyone in the lower Northland region), produced a woman who looked after her small granddaughter and was happy to have Craig too, so Jed went back to work at the garage.

Anna had the first in what was meant to be a series of skin-brightening facials, designed to render the bridal face and décolletage flawless and radiant. It gave her quite a nasty rash, but since the wedding was still six weeks away, and her skin was flawless and radiant anyway, there was no real harm done.

The flower girl situation came to a head when the girl’s mother sent Anna a photo of Gabriella in her prospective dress, a long, tight, single-sleeved horror in slightly grubby-looking pale blue satin. Anna rang her mother and shouted for quite some time, with the result that Deidre first wept and then bought little Gabriella quite a nice dress. Although Anna still wasn’t happy, this did at least downgrade her appalled wrath to sullen resignation.

On the bright side, Mum’s garden looked wonderful, and the long-range weather forecast for early March was warm and settled. The tea-light holders arrived by courier and at night after work we made and froze six hundred parmesan wafers and four hundred miniature chocolate friands to serve with champagne after the ceremony.

All this time I was drifting in the happy little world you inhabit at the start of a new relationship, when you’re persistently high on oxytocin and getting by on about four hours of sleep a night. In this dazed state, it was a fortnight or so before I got my act together enough to initiate my Perk Mum Up campaign.

I called Mike one Sunday evening, and Dad answered the phone. In response to my cheery small talk he told me he’d put his back out, the lamb schedule at the works was plummeting to its doom and he hadn’t heard from Rob for months.

‘Why don’t you ring him, then?’ I suggested. I’m quite brave when there are four hundred or so kilometres between Dad and me; it’s just face to face that I shrivel. ‘Is Mike home?’

There was a grunt, a clatter, a muffled shout of ‘Michael!’ and then a long wait before Mike picked up the phone.

‘Hello?’ he said.

‘Hi, Mike, it’s Lia.’

‘Hey, blister. How’s things?’

‘Very good,’ I said. ‘How are you?’

‘Oh, fine. How’s the wedding planning going?’

‘Lurching from crisis to crisis,’ I said. ‘But I think that’s perfectly normal for weddings. Have you had any rain?’

We talked about the weather and the restaurant industry for a while, and then I said, ‘Mike, have you talked to Mum lately?’

‘Not for a couple of weeks, probably,’ he said. ‘Why?’

‘I’m a bit worried about her.’

‘Why? What’s wrong?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘She’s just . . . flat. She won’t tell me what the trouble is but I thought maybe she’d talk to you.’

‘To me?’ Mike said, sounding startled.

‘Well, I’m a mere daughter, but you’re a friend.’

‘What about what’s-his-face with the ponytail? That American bloke.’

‘Hugh? She wouldn’t talk to him.’

‘Wouldn’t she?’

‘No. Poor man, he thinks she’s lovely, and she won’t have a bar of it.’

‘Huh,’ said Mike. Then, ‘Lia, surely that’s her decision.’

‘I know it is,’ I said impatiently. ‘But I don’t think it’s that she doesn’t like him; she wouldn’t give anyone a chance. And – and I don’t want to sit by and watch her set herself up for a sad and lonely old age without trying to do something about it.’

The pause following this little speech stretched out long enough for me to reflect on the fact that my brother was not only single and in his forties, but that he lived with his father in a remote and sparsely populated valley an hour from the nearest town. ‘I don’t mean all single people are miserable or anything,’ I hurried on. ‘It’s a perfectly good lifestyle choice –’

‘Thank you,’ said Mike.

‘But –’

‘You don’t think you should be stopping before you dig yourself a deeper hole?’

‘Almost certainly. But what I was trying and failing to say is that I think Mum’s single because she’s scared of letting anyone close, not because she’s happier by herself.’

‘Well, maybe,’ he said.

‘I might have completely the wrong end of the stick. But – would you give her a ring some time?’

‘I don’t really think my input’s going to be very useful,’ he said. ‘But of course I’ll ring her. So, what’s that useless twin of yours up to?’

* * *

It was after eight by the time I got to Jed’s, where I found him lying underneath a boat trailer on the front lawn.

‘Evening,’ I said, nudging his bare foot with mine.

‘Hey. Won’t be a minute. Could you pass me that grease gun?’

I did, and then sat down on the grass beside him. It was a warm, sleepy sort of evening, the peace accentuated rather than broken by the noise of occasional passing cars and someone playing heavy metal way off down the street. The west-facing windows flanking the front door flashed gold in the evening sunlight and a lone seagull circled lazily overhead.

After a few minutes Jed wriggled out from under the trailer, sat up and kissed me. ‘Hello,’ he said.

Conscious of an itchy, uncomfortable sensation between my shoulder blades, I looked quickly around. A red car was vanishing down the street – Isaac’s, perhaps.

‘What is it?’ Jed asked.

‘Nothing. I think Isaac just went past, that’s all.’

He smiled. ‘Could you feel him giving us the stink eye?’

‘Yeah, I think so,’ I said, sighing.

‘Never mind,’ he said, giving my leg a comforting rub. ‘He’ll get over it. Have a good day?’

I shivered. ‘Yes, fine. How was Tracey?’ He and Craig had planned to visit her in hospital that afternoon.

‘Better. Her parents were there too, so that was nice for Craig.’

I nodded, leaning back on my wrists. Jed plucked a paspalum stalk and began folding it into a zigzag, and I watched him with growing concern, having learnt by now that he liked to worry with his hands occupied.

‘They’re thinking they’ll discharge her in another two weeks,’ he said eventually.

I frowned. ‘To where?’

‘She’s going to stay with her parents for a while.’

‘But her dad’s not very well, is he?’

‘No. He’s got kidney failure. He’s doing okay, but he needs dialysis three times a week.’

‘So you’re leaving in two weeks,’ I said blankly.

‘No,’ he said, not looking at me. He reached the tip of his grass stalk, dropped it and picked another one.

‘When, then?’

‘Lia, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Maybe not at all. Apparently it’s all going to be different this time.’

‘But you don’t think it will be.’

He sighed and moved onto grass stalk number three. ‘I’m slightly sceptical. I’ve heard all this before.’

‘Don’t they have any concerns about discharging her so soon, after what happened last time they decided she’d be okay with her parents?’

‘Well, in their defence, mania doesn’t normally escalate that fast,’ he said. ‘The main reason things turned to custard was that she smoked a whole lot of P. And she didn’t have any history of taking drugs.’

‘And now she does, and her dealer lives in Thames.’

He dropped his grass stalk, then, and looked at me. ‘If you’ve got some kind of bad feeling about it, now would be the time to say so.’

‘I haven’t got that kind of bad feeling,’ I snapped. ‘I just don’t want you to leave.’

There was a short silence.

‘I don’t want to leave either,’ he said quietly.

I bit my lip. ‘Sorry.’

He reached out a hand, and I took it. ‘Look, if we do go back to Thames, it won’t be forever,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to devote the rest of my life to helping Tracey get back on her feet.’

Maybe, I thought bleakly. He’d miss me, if he left, but you get over missing people. Time heals whether you want it to or not, and after a few months I doubted he’d be keen to uproot Craig yet again. And it wasn’t fair to expect him to – after all, I wasn’t considering moving across the country for him. Not really; the fantasies of leaving that develop on your thirty-second consecutive thirteen-hour working day don’t count.

I sighed and squeezed his hand. ‘I brought you some carrot cake.’

‘With cream cheese icing?’

‘Is the Pope a Catholic?’

He leant over and kissed me. ‘Go on in,’ he said. ‘I’ll just push this trailer into the garage.’

Letting myself in through the living room sliding door, I heard the breathless, gulping sobs of a child who’s been crying unheard for quite a long time. Horrified, I dropped my handbag on the table and ran down the hall to Craig’s bedroom. The curtains were drawn and the room looked very dark, coming in from the sunlight.

‘Hey,’ I said, going to the side of his bed. ‘Craig, sweetie, it’s okay. What’s wrong?’

Craig gasped something completely unintelligible, but my eyes had adjusted enough by then to see that he’d been profusely, impressively sick, all over himself and his bedclothes.

‘Oh, sausage. Hop up, and I’ll help you take off your PJs. Dad’s just coming.’

‘I frowed up,’ Craig wailed, swinging his feet out of bed.

I turned the light on and surveyed the scene with some dismay. ‘You sure did. It doesn’t matter, we’ll fix it.’

In response he convulsed and leant forwards over the carpet. I leapt towards him, hands cupped beneath his mouth in a heroic, though ill-considered, attempt at damage control.

‘That’s above and beyond the call of duty, isn’t it?’ said Jed from the doorway.

‘Yes,’ I said, hastening unhappily towards the bathroom with my hands full of warm sick.

While Jed stripped Craig and got him into the shower, I started changing the bed. ‘I’ll do that,’ he said, coming back in. ‘Go out into the lounge; I’ll be there soon.’

‘No, it’s fine.’

He’d probably have stayed to argue, but a cry of ‘Dad-deee!’ sent him hastening back down the hall.

It was half an hour before he reappeared.

‘Is he asleep?’ I asked, putting down my book.

‘Yep. Poor little guy. Cup of tea?’

‘Yes, please.’

He went around the corner into the kitchen, returning several minutes later with two mugs in one hand and a plate of carrot cake in the other. He handed me a mug, put the other down on the table, sat down beside me on the sofa, leant forwards to cut himself a generous wedge of cake – and stopped. He laid down the knife, got slowly and carefully to his feet and bolted back down the hall.

Throwing up isn’t the sort of thing someone else can help with, so I stayed where I was, sipping my tea. But after a little while I realised that the retching noises were punctuated by sobs. Getting up, I went down the hall to find Jed vomiting into the toilet with a force and intensity I had never seen paralleled, while Craig stood crying in his bedroom doorway.

Whatever bug the two of them had picked up, it was a cracker. Craig was sick twice more; once, when I was late with the bowl, across his bed. I changed it again and tucked him back in, stroking the damp hair back off his forehead.

‘Can you say me a poem?’ he asked.

‘Um,’ I said. ‘Okay. D’you know the one about peas?’

‘No.’

‘My granddad used to say it to my brother and me. “I eat my peas with honey; I’ve done it all my life. It makes the peas taste funny but it sticks them to the knife.”’

Craig smiled wanly. ‘Say another one.’

‘I can’t remember any more off by heart . . . Hang on.’ Aided by Google and my cell phone, I recited ‘My Shadow’, ‘The Man from Ironbark’ and, finally, ‘Not Understood’, which is about a mile above any preschooler’s head but has a lovely, stately rhythm that’s perfect for falling asleep to.

‘’Nother one,’ Craig whispered as I finished.

‘Not tonight. My phone’s almost out of battery. And you need to go to sleep now; it’s the middle of the night.’

‘Can you get Dad to come and snuggle me up?’

‘I’ll go and ask him,’ I said, standing up. ‘Goodnight, sausage.’

‘Come in,’ said Jed hoarsely when I tapped on the bathroom door. I opened it and saw him sitting on the floor beside the toilet with his back against the wall, knees up and forehead resting on his folded arms.

‘How’re you doing?’ I asked.

‘Mint,’ he said, not lifting his head.

‘Craig’s wondering if you can go and see him.’

‘I don’t think standing up’s a plan.’

‘I’ll tell him,’ I said, retreating.

Craig, however, had fallen asleep during my twenty-second absence.

I put my head back around the bathroom door. ‘Scrap that; he’s asleep.’

‘Good,’ said Jed, looking up. His face was grey, with a faint, unhealthy sheen. ‘Sorry. Not much of a night for you.’

‘Much worse for you,’ I pointed out. ‘Is it the bug from hell or something you ate, d’you reckon?’

‘Petrol station sushi, I think. Craig only had a little bit, thank Christ. Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?’

I shook my head. ‘Craig might be sick again, and you’re in no shape to look after him.’

‘I’ll be fine. Go on.’

‘Would you please stop being so bloody self-sufficient?’ I said, exasperated. ‘Of course I want to stay and help. That’s what girlfriends do.’

‘Is it? I’m out of the loop. But you should go; you’ve got work in the morning.’

‘Why the sudden concern? We’ve had barely any sleep for weeks.’

He smiled suddenly. ‘It’s just not that sexy listening to someone spew.’

‘You do realise it’d take quite a lot more than that to put me off, don’t you?’ I said, smiling back.

And then the next wave of nausea caught up with him and he bent hurriedly over the toilet bowl, cutting the subject abruptly and unromantically short.

Chapter 24

I spent the night on the sofa, thinking that if I slept in Jed’s bed he wouldn’t, for fear of disturbing me. Just before six, feeling both stiff and unrested, I got up and tiptoed down the hall to check on the sufferers. They were both asleep and it seemed criminal to wake them, so I collected my handbag from the table, wrote See you later x on the edge of a bit of newspaper with Craig’s orange crayon, and let myself quietly out of the house into the fresh light of early morning.

It was a glorious day. Half a dozen seagulls were applying themselves to next-door’s rubbish bag, left on the grass verge, the sky was a clear, pale blue and the air smelt of salt. I’d have liked an early-morning swim, but sadly I was wearing a black lace, boyfriend-impressing G-string that could not, under any circumstances, pass as a bikini bottom. With a small, regretful sigh I unlocked the car and drove home up the hill.

My mind, as I parked the car, closed the garage roller door and started for the house, was focused entirely on custard squares. I’d seen a picture in a cookbook of a round version, assembled in a ring tin and then served in wedges, like cake. But why stop there? You could do as many layers of pastry and custard as you liked – and you could alternate custard layers with cream – or lemon honey – or both . . .

Passionfruit would be nice, too, I thought, standing up on tiptoe to fetch the kitchen door key from the top of the doorframe. The kitchen smelt of cinnamon and lilies from a bunch Mum had brought us the day before. It was a lovely scent, if a trifle overpowering, and there was no obvious reason for it to trigger a creeping sensation of dread. I stopped just inside the door and bit my lip, wondering what was wrong.

There was a déjà vu flavour to the feeling – groping for it, I found an image of leaf shadows dancing on a sunlit wall. Mum’s kitchen – yes, that was it. Just before Christmas, with the smells of lilies and spice mingling in the warm air and that same irrational terror. But nothing scary happened, I thought, puzzled. Unless it’s going to happen now . . .

The dread rose and thickened as I stood there, and all at once, like a rabbit in a spotlight beam, I lost my nerve and bolted. I ran straight back out the kitchen door, down the porch steps and across the gravel to the garage. Grabbing the bottom of the roller door I heaved it back up. The metal screeched as it moved – it always screeched; it was old and rusty – but suddenly it sounded like something out of a horror movie. Get in the car. Go to Jed’s. No, Mum’s, he’s sick – it doesn’t matter, just GO . . . My hand was on the car door handle when someone grabbed me around the middle.

I screamed like a fire siren.

‘Shut the fuck up!’ Isaac spat into my ear.

I lashed out at him, crazy with fear, kicking his shins and twisting in his arms to scratch him, pull his hair, go for his eyes – anything. He recoiled slightly, disconcerted by the ferocity of my attack, and then shoved me back, hard, against the garage wall. The wall was unclad on the inside, and my head slammed back against a stud with a crack that left me dizzy with pain. I cried out again, and his hands came up around my throat.

‘Shut up, bitch.’

I felt his hands grating against the cartilage of my trachea and his fingertips digging agonisingly into the muscles below my ears. It hurt horribly, and I couldn’t breathe. My vision fizzed and wavered. Rob, I thought, frantic with terror. Rob! Help! Oh, God, please –

‘You disgusting little slut,’ Isaac was saying, shaking me by the throat. ‘You make me sick. I’ve seen you with him, like fucking animals, you filthy little –’ There was more, but the words were drowned out by the frantic pounding of blood in my ears. I remember watching him shout at me, like TV with the sound turned off, before his face slid away into the dark.

* * *

The smell was the first thing I noticed as I came around; musty, like damp, unaired washing. The second thing was the pain. I had a pounding headache and my throat was raw and swollen. It was pitch-dark and noisy, and we were moving. I pushed myself shakily up on one elbow, hit my head on something hard and subsided, gasping with pain. The hand I put to the back of my head met a mat of sticky, congealing blood and hair.

I’m in the boot of a car, I thought. Then, fear prickling through the pain and nausea, God, where’s he taking me? Slowly, grimly, I began to feel around in the dark, looking for something I could use as a weapon. A couple of reusable shopping bags, a set of jumper leads – a potential garrotte, if I could rip off the rubber covering the wires with my teeth? – an orphaned canvas sneaker I’d thought I’d lost about a year ago . . . This was the boot of my car. What the hell was he going to do? Drive it off a cliff with me inside it? Did he think he’d killed me? Would he kill me when he realised he hadn’t?

Spurred on by the beginnings of panic I reached out, groping for an internal catch to the door of the boot. I found the join where the boot closed easily enough, but it was a straight, continuous crack and I couldn’t get my fingertips underneath it. But perhaps if I had a screwdriver or something . . . What about the tyre-changing kit?

The kit lived underneath the spare tyre, which sat in a well beneath me, covered with nylon carpet and screwed down with two big wing nuts on long bolts that would be reasonable weapons in their own right if I could get them free.

It was a long, agonising job. The carpet was stiff; it wouldn’t roll back, and I had to try to shove it up with one hand while I worked. I managed the wing nuts eventually, but the tyre caught on something when I tried to lift it, and there was no light and no room to move, and the bloody thing seemed to weigh half a tonne. I managed finally to worm my arm beneath it, and then the back of the car swung sharply around a corner, sending me crashing into a wall of my metal prison. The tyre fell back across my wrist and I cried out in pain.

‘Ow! Shit! Rob!’ But even if he could hear me, or sense me, or whatever it was that we did, what could he do? I didn’t know where I was, so how was he supposed to? My breath came in shrill, panting sobs and hysteria rolled over me like a wave. Stop it! Stop wasting time! I thought frantically. Think!

Tyre kit, first. I shoved the wheel grimly back up to hunt for it. There – my fingertips found a limp vinyl envelope filled with tools. I dragged it towards me, scraping the skin off my knuckles, and dropped the tyre back with a painful grunt. Exploring the envelope’s contents by feel I found a wheel brace, too light to be of much use as a weapon, a tinny little jack and a pencil-thick length of metal thirty centimetres long with a hook on one end. In theory, you attached the hook to the jack and twisted to raise it – in practice it barely worked, being poorly designed and made of the cheapest and crappiest steel known to man, but a cheap and nasty metal rod is much better than no weapon at all.

I tried to force the end of the rod into the crack where the boot closed, but it was too thick. I hammered away doggedly anyway, not because I thought it could work but as a panic-diverting exercise. My head ached savagely and occasional stars burst in front of my eyes.

Then something I’d seen on the internet – probably one of those Every Woman Needs to Read This emails that well-meaning people forward – came back to me.

If you’re in the boot of a car, kick out a tail light, stick your arm out and wave. The driver won’t see it, but everyone else will.

Leaning up on one elbow, I groped for the nearest corner of the boot. Smooth, cold metal met my fingertips, curving seamlessly from the door to the car’s sides. Maybe in some cars the tail lights are get-at-able from the inside of the boot, but not in mine. I dropped back onto my side, grimly wrestling the panic back down. Shit. SHIT. Come on. Think. And then I remembered something else from that self-defence article.

If someone tries to get you into a car, fight like a wildcat. Your chances of survival decrease significantly once you’re in your attacker’s vehicle.

Somehow, for some reason, that steadied me. I found the metal rod, picked it up and pushed it down the back of my jeans, where people in movies carry handguns. Isaac wasn’t a professional; it wasn’t like he’d practised kidnapping people. And I’d heard, somewhere or other, that girls often fight ineffectually because subconsciously they don’t want to hurt anyone. Well, I’d hurt him. I’d explode out at him in a flurry of teeth and fingernails, armed with a length of steel. I’d bite bits out. I’d go for the eyes. I’d be like Lisbeth Salander. I was not going to die today.

* * *

After what seemed hours, although I had no way of judging, the road beneath the car turned from tarseal to gravel. This didn’t tell me much, since over half the roads in Northland are unsealed, but it did suggest we were going somewhere remote. Well, of course we were.

Unloading girls from car boots just isn’t the sort of thing you do in public.

Where, I wondered, was Isaac taking me? Did he have a destination in mind, or was he just driving randomly, looking for a suitably lonely patch of scrub where nobody would hear or see anything unusual? Surely he thought he’d killed me, he’d panicked, and he was trying to hide the evidence. Surely this wasn’t a premeditated plan of kidnap and murder. But what would he do when he discovered he hadn’t killed me? Would he panic again and decide he’d have to? Was he, in his current mental state, capable of realising that he couldn’t possibly get away with it, and that pleading guilty to beating someone up is a whole lot better than pleading guilty to murder?

The car slowed and then stopped, and I lay as tense as a coiled spring, half on my stomach with my head pillowed on one arm and my hair hiding the rest of my face. My plan, such as it was, was very simple. Pretend to be unconscious, wait for an opportune moment, attack like a maddened wasp, win, escape by car. Easy.

The car reversed, stopped again and turned sharp right. It drove on, slowly now, and I heard the scrape of vegetation underneath. We must be nearly there, wherever there was.

Deep breaths, I thought. Steady, now . . .

The car stopped, and the engine was cut. Eleven seconds passed – I counted them – and then I heard the driver’s door open. The car shifted as he climbed out. I waited for the slam of the door, but it didn’t come. There was no sound of footsteps, no movement, no tiny noise of someone feeling for the boot latch. Nothing.

Lying in the silent darkness I counted to a hundred, and then two hundred. Was he still here, or had he gone? Was he twenty metres off behind a tree, digging my grave? Was he standing silently, mere inches away, listening? The suspense was appalling, especially because if he was gone, I was wasting valuable seconds that could be used to try to break into the back seat of the car. But then if he wasn’t, he’d see me, and I’d have lost the advantage of surprise.

I’d count another hundred, I decided, and then move. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three . . . I made it to forty, and then I couldn’t bear it any longer. I rolled myself over and began trying to force my hand up between the car’s back seat and the roof of the boot. There was a catch somewhere, if I could reach it, and if I found it I could fold the back seat forwards and climb through.

I struggled and shoved and swore under my breath for what felt like a long time. I could, with considerable difficulty, worm my fingers up behind a seat back as far as the second knuckle. But not past the joint – the gap was too small . . .

Eventually I thought of pushing the seat forwards with my feet. It gave me another millimetre or so, and my knuckles grated through, leaving some skin behind – but where was the damn catch? Come on, I thought frantically. He’ll see, come on!

I couldn’t do it. I could just brush the edge of the catch with a fingertip, but I couldn’t get my hand any further through the gap.

Kick it! People kick in doors all the time. But he’ll hear . . . just do it. Go. Try. Bracing myself with my shoulders against the rear wall of the boot, I bent my knees and kicked forwards as hard as I could. There was a dull thump, and the car rocked.

He’ll hear it, he’ll come . . . Shut up. Again.

And finally, sobbing with pain and despair at being so bloody feeble and incompetent when my life might very well depend on doing this, I broke the catch. The back seat gave beneath my bruised heels, and there in front of me was a rectangle of light. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

I threw myself at that gap like a woman possessed. Please, God, let him have left the keys in the ignition . . .

He hadn’t. Eyes screwed into slits against the light, I pulled myself up to look out the car windows. Sunlight, head-high baby pines, a sandy clearing rutted and scored with the marks of bulldozer tracks – and Isaac watching me through the rear windscreen, both hands resting on the top of the boot. His face was utterly expressionless.

My heart gave a great, sickening bound of fear, and I felt it hammering frantically, nauseatingly, beneath my ribs. For a few awful seconds we just stared at one another, and then he moved, slowly and carefully, like a stalking cat. He came around the end of the car, never taking his eyes off me, and reached for the handle of the right back door. I hurled myself headlong at the other side of the car, wrenched the door open and launched myself out with a wild, flailing leap. I staggered as I landed and fell on my bad knee, but I was up again in half a second and running wildly through the pines, neither knowing nor caring where my feet fell, jumping fallen branches like an Olympic hurdler. I didn’t waste time looking back; I just ran, as fast as I could.

He caught me before I’d gone a hundred metres. Fear lends your feet wings, alright, but you need more than fear alone for any sort of sustained effort, and I’d been concussed and half strangled that morning already. He hit me from behind in a flying tackle and I fell headlong. I kicked free and lurched forwards again, but he threw himself after me, squashing me flat against the rocky, uneven ground. He lay panting for a few seconds, and then heaved himself up onto hands and knees, kneeling agonisingly on my thighs.

I started to cry, face down in the dirt.

‘Stupid bitch,’ he panted.

‘H-hurts. Please, Isaac –’

‘This is all your fault.’

‘Please,’ I sobbed. ‘Please.’

He slid his knees off me, one on each side, took me by the shoulders and rolled me onto my back. He held me there, pinned beneath him, and I stared up at him. So much for fighting like a maddened wasp; I was done. He was bigger and heavier and stronger than me, and if he wanted to strangle me right there and then, there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop him. My metal rod had slipped down the leg of my jeans; I could feel it against the back of my knee, but it may as well have been on the surface of the moon for all the good it could do me.

‘I’d have done anything for you, Lia. And now you’ve gone and fucked everything up.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. Keep him talking . . .

‘It’s too late for sorry,’ he said. There were great patches of sweat beneath his arms and around the neck of his T-shirt, and the muscles of his neck and arms were strained tight as wire ropes. His eyes were awful; the pupils dilated so widely they looked black.

Don’t disagree with him – don’t annoy him. ‘What – what should I have done?’

Isaac lowered his face towards mine, bearing his weight on the hands pinning my arms. There were three long scratches down his left cheek that I must have put there earlier that morning. ‘You should have treated me with some fucking respect!’

‘I – I did.’

‘You did not!’ he screamed, his breath hot and sour on my face. ‘You fucking cheated on me!’ He pushed himself back upright and pinned first one of my wrists and then the other beneath his knees. Then he sat back down, settling his weight across my hips, and slid sweaty hands up past my shoulders to circle my throat.

I was past terror now; past reason. Robin. I could feel him, somehow, not far away. It was nice, I thought confusedly, not to have to die alone. I shut my eyes. Love you.

‘Look at me,’ Isaac shouted, bearing down with both hands on my bruised windpipe. ‘Look at me!’

I opened my eyes again, although I couldn’t see him through the tears.

‘This is your fault, bitch. It’s all your fault.’ He was trying, I realised, to talk himself into it, or to provoke me into screaming and struggling. He couldn’t bring himself to strangle me in cold blood.

‘Please, Zac,’ I whispered.

The crushing weight on my throat eased just a fraction. And then came the noise of a vehicle, bounding along the rutted forestry track.

‘Help! Over here! Help!’ I shrieked, thrashing wildly with my legs. Isaac’s hands tightened convulsively, but only for a second. Then he stumbled to his feet, pushing himself up off my throat, and ran. His right foot caught me in the side of the head as he went.

I rolled over onto my side, desperately trying to breathe. Slowly and painfully I lifted myself onto one elbow, and then onto hands and knees. The approaching vehicle made a final, snarling rush, spluttered and died as the engine was cut. Doors slammed. Raising my head, I saw my careless, unflappable twin running at me full tilt, his face white and terrified. He fell to his knees beside me and hugged me fiercely. ‘Lia. Oh, God, Lia –’

‘Rob,’ I sobbed, clinging to him like a limpet. ‘You c-came.’ It was a good minute later that it occurred to me to ask, ‘Where’d he go?’

‘Shit,’ said Rob, looking up. Then, ‘It’s alright, Jed’s got him.’

Jed? I raised my head from his shoulder and followed his gaze. Away behind me through the young trees, Jed had tackled Isaac to the ground. He got up on his knees, pulled Isaac’s head back by the hair and hit him, so hard we heard the crack of bone on bone. I felt a savage thrill of exultation, followed immediately by fear that he might actually do the despicable little shit some serious damage. ‘Stop him!’ I gasped.

‘Why?’ said Rob. But he got up and ran towards the two men, while I climbed slowly to my feet and followed him. It took me a while to get there; by the time I arrived Rob had pulled Jed up and was holding him back by both arms. Isaac lay at their feet, spluttering and gurgling, with blood streaming from a broken nose. His left eyelid had split like the skin of a ripe plum and was swelling rapidly. He looked like he’d been hit with a mallet.

‘Jed,’ I said.

Jed turned to look at me, and Rob, either judging that the urge to beat Isaac to a pulp was going off him or not caring much one way or the other, let his arms go. His chest was rising and falling quickly and his face was tight with fury. He’d reopened the newly healed scar on his knuckle, and blood trickled from the ends of his fingertips.

‘Not again,’ I said.

He made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob, reached out with his left arm and pulled me tightly against him, dropping his face into my hair. I could feel his heart pounding, slowing gradually as he pulled himself back together, and it occurred to me that it didn’t matter that he had a bipolar wife in Thames and I had a café in Ratai – such things were minor details, not to be allowed to stand in the way of our future happiness. There’s nothing like a near-death experience for bringing the important things in life into focus.

These profound reflections were interrupted by my brother. ‘So,’ he said conversationally, ‘should we deliver fuckwit here to the nearest police station, or just do the world a favour and hit him on the head with a spade?’

There was a hysterical gobbling noise from the ground near our feet.

‘Shut up, arsewipe, no-one’s asking your opinion,’ said Jed, lifting his head but tightening his arm around me. ‘Is there any rope on the back of the ute?’

‘I’ve got a few tie-downs,’ Rob said.

‘Do we take him in, or ring the police and get them to come here? They’ll want to look at the scene, won’t they?’ I said.

Jed extracted his cell phone from his hip pocket and looked at it. ‘No reception,’ he said. ‘We’d better take him in.’

I stepped back and looked around. ‘Where is this, anyway?’

‘Somewhere out the back of Kaihu,’ said Rob.

‘Kaihu?’ It sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

‘North of Dargaville.’ He prodded Isaac with a booted foot. ‘Roll over, you. Face down.’

‘What are we going to say?’ I said suddenly.

‘About?’ Jed asked, busy wrapping his bleeding right hand in the bottom of his T-shirt.

‘About how you guys found me.’

Rob made a face. ‘“It’s a twin thing, Officer.”’

‘Yeah, they’ll love that,’ I said, crouching down to fish my metal rod from the end of my jeans leg, where it was digging into my ankle.

He shrugged. ‘If you’ve got a better idea I’d love to hear it. What is that?’

‘I got it out of the tyre-changing kit. I was going to whip it out and poke him in the eye . . .’ I shivered.

‘We’ll hold him down for you if you’d like to do it now.’

‘Rob,’ I said, shaking my head at him.

‘Yes, heaven forbid Tosser McGee here might feel scared or intimidated. Couldn’t have that. Kick him in the balls if he tries anything, Jed.’ And he stomped away to get the tie-downs from the back of his ute.

* * *

The two of them tied Isaac’s hands behind his back and his feet together, and bundled him into the boot of my car with Rob’s long crowbar wedged against the back seat in place of the catch I’d broken. I didn’t help; I sat down on a stump and concentrated on not going to pieces. My headache, temporarily forgotten in the joy of rescue, had come back with a vengeance, and I felt exceptionally fragile and weepy.

‘Do you want to come with me or Jed?’ Rob asked, squatting in front of me so our eyes were level.

‘I don’t – I –’

‘You’d better come with me; you’ll be further away from turd-face.’ He took my hands and pulled me up.

We headed south in convoy beneath the bright morning sun; Jed leading in my car, and Rob and I behind him in the ute. The dashboard clock read nine eighteen as we turned off the forestry track onto a narrow gravel road.

‘It’s so early, still,’ I said wonderingly. ‘D’you think the police’ll believe us? Isaac looks worse than I do.’

‘Like hell he does – look in the mirror,’ said Rob.

I pulled down the sun visor and looked in the mirror on its back. A white-faced, hollow-eyed girl looked back at me, dried blood in her tangled hair and a ring of livid red marks around her throat. One nostril was fetchingly outlined in blood and my pale blue T-shirt was stained and torn. ‘Oh. Good,’ I said, my mental image of Jed being convicted of assault receding slightly.

Rob grunted and handed me his cell phone. ‘Better ring Mum when we’ve got reception.’

‘She knows?’

‘Mm.’

‘How? What happened at your end?’ I asked, watching the little pine trees flicker past.

‘I got that you were afraid, so I rang you in case you were reading another scary book,’ he said, looking at me with a hint of a smile. ‘Then I went to the café to check. No car, so I went to Jed’s. He was asleep; said he hadn’t heard you leave. Then we found your note, so I decided that perhaps he had nothing to do with it after all.’

‘Of course he didn’t!’ I said indignantly.

‘Yeah, well, I wasn’t in the most coherent frame of mind.’

I thought about my recent terror and what being on the receiving end of it might have felt like, and shuddered. ‘No, I bet you weren’t. Then what?’

‘We went back up to the café for a better look around. Dipshit’s car was hidden round the back and we found some blood in the garage –’

‘What about Craig?’ I interrupted.

‘Hmm? Took him to Mum’s. Jed was quite –’ he paused to select a word – ‘forceful about coming with me.’

‘I expected you guys to hit it off better,’ I said, wistfully and irrelevantly.

Rob shrugged. ‘He’s alright. Takes himself a bit seriously, maybe, but you’ve brought home much worse blokes.’

‘He does not take himself seriously!’ I cried, before it occurred to me that my twin was merely fishing for a reaction.

‘Settle down. I’m sure that when I get to know him I’ll love him almost as much as you do.’

‘You’d better,’ I said. ‘Anyway, what happened after you found the – the blood?’

‘That wasn’t my finest hour,’ said Rob. ‘I kind of lost the plot, and Jed told me to shut up and get in the ute. He stopped at the end of the drive and said, “Left or right?” I must have just stared at him like a stunned mullet, because he started screaming at me.’ He rested his head back against his seat. ‘So we tracked you. Worst couple of hours of my life, trying to decide which turn-offs you’d taken . . .’

‘And you could actually tell,’ I said wonderingly. ‘Wow.’

‘It was hideous,’ he said. ‘Trying to make decisions on instinct, when I’ve spent my life thinking all that stuff is complete shit.’

‘Well, thank you. I think you two might have saved my life.’

‘Yeah. So do I.’ And taking my hand he laced his fingers through mine, a thing he hadn’t done for about the last twenty years.

Chapter 25

On the outskirts of Dargaville Jed pulled off the road, got out of the car and walked back to where Rob had pulled off behind him. ‘Do you know where we’re going?’ he asked.

‘More or less,’ said Rob through his open window. ‘You can follow us. Any noise from fuckface?’ He seemed to be making it a point of honour to neither call Isaac by name nor use the same insulting label twice.

‘A bit of thumping and crashing. Hey, I’ve been thinking. They’ll probably interview us separately when we get to the police station, so we’d better all say the same thing.’

‘Why wouldn’t we?’ I asked, startled. ‘Oh. You mean the freaky telepathic stuff.’

He smiled at me and nodded. ‘We can’t tell them the truth. They’ll never believe us.’

There was a short, pensive silence while all three of us tried and failed to think of a plausible alternative to ‘It’s a twin thing, Officer’.

‘Maybe if you’d seen Isaac go past in my car . . .’ I said doubtfully.

‘What, as we went for a pleasant country drive at quarter past six in the morning?’ said Rob.

‘Be nice. I’m not at my best right now.’

‘We’ll have to just tell it like it happened,’ said Jed, rubbing his eyes wearily with his uninjured left hand. ‘It’ll sound like complete drivel, but at least it’ll be consistent drivel.’ And straightening up he walked back along the side of the road to my car.

* * *

The initial reaction of the woman behind the front desk at the police station, on being approached by a group of bloodstained and dishevelled people claiming to have an offender in the boot of their car, was faintly weary distaste, as if it were most inconsiderate of us to interrupt her tea break with our sordid little story of assault. But she summoned a grey-haired sergeant from his office, and he radioed for extra officers. Putting the handset down he looked from me to Jed, whose T-shirt was liberally streaked with blood, and said, ‘Call St John’s, would you, Suzy? If you three would take a seat here in the watch house . . .’ Noticing our blank looks he broke off and gestured towards a row of plastic chairs against one wall of the reception area. ‘Over there. We’ll get you some medical attention in a minute or two. Please don’t discuss what’s happened between yourselves – it’s important that everybody’s version of events is their own, not affected by anyone else’s.’ He gave us a brief, distracted smile, relieved Jed of my car keys and hurried outside.

The woman picked up a phone, and the three of us sat down cautiously on a row of plastic chairs. I felt grimy and bruised all over, my eyes ached and I wanted a very long, very hot shower.

‘How’s your throat?’ Jed asked, touching my knee with his.

‘Sore. How’s your hand?’

‘It’s alright.’

He was holding his right hand across his body, and I picked it up carefully in both of mine. The bleeding had stopped, but his second and third fingers were fat and swollen. ‘They look broken,’ I said.

‘They feel it.’

‘So by “alright” you actually mean “extremely painful”?’

‘Only if I bend them.’

‘You may never play the violin again,’ said Rob. His cell phone beeped, and he pulled it out of his shorts pocket to look at it. ‘Mum. They’ve made pikelets, Craig’s having a nap and she loves us very much.’

‘Better ring her back and tell her where we’re up to,’ I said. We’d called her already, of course, as soon as Rob’s phone got reception, but the more frequently she was updated the happier she’d be.

He nodded, the phone already at his ear.

On arrival, the paramedics were ushered straight out the back of the building, presumably to see Isaac. It was quite a long time before the grey-haired sergeant returned, flanked by an officer who looked about sixteen. ‘I’m Senior Sergeant Waters, and this is Constable Martin,’ he said. ‘The paramedics will come and check you over shortly. In the meantime, ma’am, I’ll ask you to come with me. Constable Martin will stay with you gentlemen for now, and we’ll get your statements as soon as we can.’

He ushered me into a small, bland room, sat me down and fetched me a glass of water. The woman from behind the front counter came too, presumably for reasons of political correctness. But I’d only got as far as spelling out my name to him – ‘A-U-R – yes, that’s right – E-L-I-A, Jane’ – when the paramedics knocked on the door.

There were two of them; she was large and motherly, and he was small and dry. They felt the egg on the back of my head with gloved fingers, peered into my eyes and at the bruises on my throat, and left before I could so much as ask them for a couple of Panadol.

‘We’re sending you on to Whangarei Hospital in an ambulance,’ the sergeant informed me as he came back into the room, which he’d left during the medical exam.

‘An ambulance?’ I asked, slightly alarmed.

‘It’s just routine. There’s a special protocol for dealing with assault cases. They’ve got all the proper equipment at the hospital.’

This sounded even more alarming. ‘What sort of equipment?’

‘I haven’t seen it firsthand, so I can’t tell you all the details,’ he said. ‘They’ve got a special, er, kit . . . They get you to remove your clothing on a sheet . . . It’s all about preserving any DNA for evidence. And they’ll take photos of your injuries.’

‘He – he didn’t rape me,’ I said.

‘It’s just routine.’

‘Then will I come back here?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I expect a detective will come and interview you in hospital. In that case you’ll be released from there.’

* * *

Jed and I were sent to Whangarei Hospital in the same ambulance, unaccompanied by a police officer.

‘I thought they’d send someone with us,’ I said as it pulled out onto the street. ‘Weren’t they worried we’d change our stories if left unattended?’

He smiled and shrugged. ‘Maybe they think we look honest.’

I rested my head back tiredly against the seat. ‘Or maybe it’d just be too much of a hassle to retrieve the person who goes with us from Whangarei.’

‘Or that,’ he agreed. He reached across awkwardly with his left hand, the right being now in a sling, and took mine. We sat without talking as the ambulance made its way out of town and turned east alongside the wide, brown Wairoa River.

‘Thank you,’ I said suddenly.

‘You’re welcome.’ Taking his arm out of the sling he put it around me.

I closed my eyes and relaxed against him, but only for a few seconds. ‘I smell.’

‘That’s alright,’ he said, tightening his arm.

‘The correct response was: “Of course you don’t, my angel.”’

‘I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment to you,’ he said, and I heard the smile in his voice.

‘I’m getting used to it,’ I said. ‘Oh, how’s the food poisoning?’

‘Fine. Forgot all about it. There you go; a broken hand has its good points.’

‘I’m guessing that’ll be the only one.’

‘It was worth it,’ he said.

* * *

My assault exam wasn’t upsetting, or demeaning, or indeed anything bad except for slow to eventuate. Jed and I were sent in different directions at the hospital door, he to be X-rayed and I to spend a long period of quiet contemplation in a small exam room with a choice of reading material between Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes and a March 2006 Woman’s Day.

Eventually a doctor and a nurse arrived. They helped me out of my clothes – which they then bagged, labelled and took away with them – and into a green hospital gown. They took DNA samples from beneath my fingernails and inspected my various cuts and bruises. I would have dearly loved a shower, but I wasn’t allowed one until the police photographer had been. I did, however, eventually get some lunch on a tray. It consisted of staleish asparagus rolls, tinned fruit salad and virulent yellow custard, but it was after two when it arrived, and I’d never been happier to see food in my life. Having eaten it, I finished my Woman’s Day, inspected the bruises around my throat in the little mirror above the wash basin, lay down on the narrow bed and waited for something else to happen. It was all quite surreal, and I found myself oscillating between boredom, gratitude at being alive to be bored and regret that I was spending my first day off in a month shut in a small cream-coloured room overlooking the Whangarei Hospital car park.

At ten past three a police photographer and a female detective arrived. They took the pictures first, and then the photographer left. The detective was a crisp, business-like woman in her fifties, lean as a whippet and seemingly quite devoid of humour. I found her unexpectedly reassuring. You just can’t succumb to the horror of your experiences when the person taking down the story gives the impression that nothing you say is in any way remarkable or even interesting.

‘I think that’s all we need at this point,’ she said at last, removing her glasses and putting them into their case. ‘Someone may be in touch by phone if anything further arises in the next week or so.’

‘So I can go home now?’ I asked.

‘Yes, once you’ve been discharged.’

‘And do I need to go and get my car from Dargaville?’

‘Not at this stage. It’s been towed to a secure site for further testing. You’ll be informed when it’s released.’ She stood up. ‘Is there someone you can call to collect you from here?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘What – what will happen to Isaac now?’

‘He’ll appear in court and be charged in the next day or so. Then the judge will set a date for sentencing. You’ll be kept informed.’ She shook my hand, smiled in a perfunctory sort of way at a spot somewhere beyond my right shoulder and left.

Finding Jed seemed to be the next step, so I wandered out of my room and along the corridor, holding my gown closed at the back, until I met a nurse coming the other way. ‘I’m wondering how to get discharged,’ I said. ‘And I’d like to find the friend who came here with me. And I’d really love a shower.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Right. Come along to the nurses’ station, and I’ll look into it for you.’

I was waiting at the desk while she phoned when Mum rounded the corner at a canter, saw me and broke into a run. ‘Oh, my darling,’ she murmured, enfolding me in a fervent, patchouli-scented embrace. ‘My darling.’

I subsided against her shoulder and shed a few tears of weariness and relief. ‘Love you, Mum.’ And then, as her arms tightened to the point of discomfort, ‘Mum, it’s okay, I’m alright.’

Letting me go, she held me at arm’s length, looked me up and down and burst into tears, which seemed to suggest I didn’t look alright. She groped for my hands, found them and held them tight.

Behind her, to my surprise and delight, stood Mike. I smiled at him, and he smiled back. ‘Hey, little blister,’ he said.

‘Hey.’ I detached a hand from Mum’s and held it out to him, and we formed a three-way family hug, blocking up the hospital corridor.

Jed was waiting when we finally made it downstairs, still in his bloodstained T-shirt and shorts, with his hand bandaged and his arm in a sling. He had a battle-worn and faintly heroic air, which seemed unfair, when I was merely grubby and bedraggled. ‘Is your hand broken?’ I asked as we crossed the floor towards him.

‘Two bones cracked,’ he said, standing up.

‘Ouch.’

He gave a manly shrug, nicely in keeping with the hero-wounded-in-the-course-of-duty theme. ‘It’s fine. Three weeks in a splint, they reckon. Are you wearing that home?’

I looked down at my green cotton skirts. ‘Yep.’ It wasn’t hospital policy to discharge patients in hospital gowns, but the nurse who had suggested that some clothes for me should ideally be fetched from home had encountered a truly frightening display of righteous maternal wrath, and had decided quite quickly that returning the gown later would be fine.

We crossed the sunny car park and got into Mike’s car, Mum still clutching my hand in the back seat. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Let’s get you home. How are you feeling, love?’

‘Happy,’ I said softly, and regretted it instantly when she burst into tears again.

‘I’m sorry,’ she choked, mopping her eyes with a crumpled wad of tissue. ‘Just ignore me . . . Oh, Lia, if you’d – if Robin hadn’t –’

I squeezed her hand.

‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. You’re safe now; that’s all that matters.’

‘Is Rob home yet?’ I asked.

‘Yes. He got home just after one. And then Mike arrived soon after that.’

‘Thank you, Mike,’ I said soberly. It’s a bloody long way from the farm to Ratai.

‘I haven’t done anything,’ he said. ‘How’s the temperature back there?’

‘Fine.’

‘Your father sends his love,’ said Mum.

‘That’s nice.’ Wouldn’t have hurt him to come, though, whispered a small inner voice.

This was entirely unreasonable – I would have been much more put out by Dad’s arrival on the scene than I was by his absence. But my relationship with my father, sadly, was the sort where while you claim to love each other, neither of you passes up the smallest opportunity to take things the wrong way.

Shelving this unpalatable bit of self-knowledge, I asked, ‘Jed, how did your interview go?’

‘It was fine,’ he said, turning to look at me.

‘Really?’ I said, meaning, What, even the freaky psychic twin stuff?

He smiled at me and nodded.

‘Will you get in trouble for hitting him?’

‘In trouble for hitting someone who was trying to kill you?’ Mum cried.

‘Apparently you’re allowed to use – what was it? – “reasonable and proportionate force” to defend yourself or someone else,’ Jed said.

‘How do they define reasonable and proportionate?’ I asked uneasily, recalling Isaac’s face.

‘Lia, he had you on the ground with his hands around your throat.’ He looked apologetically at Mum. ‘They did say that he can lay charges if he wants to, but I got the impression they wouldn’t be all that impressed.’

‘I should hope not,’ said Mum grimly.

* * *

It was still bright and hot when Mike turned into Green Street, and there were four extra cars parked along the street outside Mum’s house. The welcoming committee advanced as soon as he turned into the driveway; as well as Rob, Anna and Craig, it included both Monty and Mum’s friend Carole. Lovely people, both of them, but neither discreet nor restful.

‘Oh, good God,’ I said.

‘It’s okay, sweetie,’ said Mum. ‘I’ll ask them to leave. They’ll understand.’

‘No! No, sorry, it’s all good.’ I opened my door.

There was a general hubbub of greetings, hugs and shocked exclamations, during which I was swept into the kitchen and settled on the window seat.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Carole asked me tenderly.

‘I’d really like a shower, and to get out of this,’ I said, plucking at a fold of hospital gown.

‘Of course you would; I’ll come and find you some clothes,’ Mum said. She and Carole took an arm each and helped me to my feet, which greatly impeded my attempts to hold the gown closed at the back.

That shower was heaven, and I’d have loved to stay there beneath the water for an hour or so, away from too many concerned and loving eyes. But it would have been both ungracious and a waste of water, so having scrubbed the dirt and blood off with a loofah I got out of the shower and began gingerly to towel my hair dry.

Mum had provided me with a pair of baggy linen trousers and a blouse with a little Chinese collar that did a reasonable job of hiding the bruises around my throat. Putting them on, I wrestled a comb through my wet hair, made a face at my pale, battered reflection in the mirror above the sink and went out into the hall.

Jed was leaning against the sitting room doorframe with Craig on his hip, admiring the yellowing extension cord that ran around the bottom edge of the sitting room door, along a skirting board, up the wall, across the ceiling and back down the other side to vanish through a hole into the conservatory.

‘Previous owner’s work,’ I said. ‘Who needs electricians?’

He stood up straight and smiled at me. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Much better. Are you guys off home?’

‘Yeah, Craig’s pretty shattered.’

Taking his thumb out of his mouth, Craig said indignantly, ‘I am not.’

‘Aren’t you?’ his father said. ‘I am.’

‘Would you like a lift?’ I asked.

‘No, it’s only just around the corner.’ He reached out with his bandaged right hand as if to touch my cheek, thought better of it and resettled Craig on his hip instead. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?’

The realisation that tonight, of all nights, I’d have to do without him was moderately crushing. ‘Okay,’ I said, smiling.

It mustn’t have been a very convincing smile, because he took two steps forwards and hugged me warmly with his spare arm. ‘I’ll come back and get you later,’ he said.

I leant against him gratefully, but said, ‘Mum’ll want me here.’

‘She’ll want you to be wherever you’re happiest.’

‘I know, but she’ll be hurt if that’s not here. Jed, where’s your sling?’

‘Don’t need it.’

‘Do you ever do what the doctor tells you?’

‘Occasionally,’ he said. ‘If it’s not too inconvenient.’

‘You’ve got a big sore,’ Craig remarked around his thumb, seemingly quite unconcerned by sharing his father’s hug with me. ‘There.’ He prodded the back of my upper arm.

I twisted my head to look at the row of purple, fingerprint-sized bruises below my shoulder.

‘She’s got lots of sores,’ said Jed grimly.

‘That sounds so attractive,’ I said. ‘As if I was covered with weeping pustules.’

‘I’ve got a sore,’ said Craig proudly. ‘There, on my knee. Look!’

‘Where?’ I asked, looking.

‘There!’

And indeed there was, on closer inspection, a minuscule scratch on his left kneecap.

‘Wow,’ I said.

The kitchen door at the far end of the hall opened and Mum put her head around it, then tactfully withdrew, closing it again.

‘I’d better put in an appearance,’ I said, stepping back.

Jed made a face, nodded, kissed me swiftly and left.

‘Daddy?’ I heard Craig ask as the front door closed behind them.

‘Yes, Craig?’

‘Why did you kiss Lia?’

‘Because she’s amazing,’ Jed said.

I smiled as I went down the hall to the kitchen.

Chapter 26

The crowd in the kitchen had shrunk, in my absence, to family members only. ‘You didn’t send Monty and Carole away, did you?’ I asked, slipping into the chair beside Mike’s.

‘Of course not,’ said Mum.

‘Of course she did,’ said Rob, stretching his arms above his head and yawning. ‘But so tactfully that they didn’t notice. It was beautiful to watch.’

‘Did you open the café today?’ I asked Anna.

‘No,’ she said. ‘But I did some extra baking after you called this morning.’

‘You legend. That’ll make tomorrow a bit easier.’

‘You are not opening that café tomorrow,’ said Mum, stiffening in her chair. ‘You’re not even to think of it, do you hear me?’

Anna and I looked at each other.

‘A day off sounds great to me,’ I said.

She sighed tiredly. ‘Me too.’

‘It’s a fairly extreme way to get a day off,’ I said. ‘Hardly worth it, really.’ I looked at Mum’s face. ‘Too soon?’

‘Yeah, but only by a year or two,’ said Rob. He pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘Ready to go?’ he asked Anna.

She nodded and reached across the table to squeeze my hand. ‘Goodnight, everyone. Will we see you tomorrow, Mike?’

‘No, I’d better head back first thing,’ he said. ‘Lambs to shear and all that.’ Standing up, he kissed her cheek and exchanged a brisk handshake with Rob.

‘Night, chaps,’ Rob said, hugging Mum as he passed her. His eyes met mine for a second. All good?

All good. Love you.

He raised his eyebrows and smiled, and then turned to follow Anna out of the kitchen.

For a little while nobody said anything, and then Mum got to her feet and began shuffling together a pile of newspapers at one end of the table. ‘Right, dinner,’ she said wearily.

‘Eggs on toast,’ I said.

Abandoning the newspapers, she crossed the kitchen to open the fridge door. ‘No, Monty brought us some fresh trevally, bless him. And I can make a nice salad . . .’ She took a small squashy parcel out of the fridge, and Mike relieved her of it.

‘How about you sit down and let me make dinner?’ he said.

‘Of course not! But you can get me a few lemons off the tree, if you like.’

‘I’ll go,’ I said, pushing back my chair.

‘Aurelia, sit down.’

I sat.

* * *

‘Mike, this is a feast,’ I said forty minutes later, when he put my plate down in front of me. ‘You can have a job at the café any time you like.’

‘Always nice to have options,’ he said.

‘The only minor hitch is that we can’t actually afford to pay you anything.’

‘Just like farming. I’ll feel right at home.’

‘How are things going on the farm?’ Mum asked.

Mike sat down at the table. ‘Dad’s putting it on the market,’ he said, picking up the pepper grinder.

Mum and I laid down our forks and stared at him.

‘Seriously, or just fishing?’ I asked.

‘Fishing, I think. Although I suppose someone might make him an offer he can’t refuse.’

‘And how does Gina feel about that?’ Mum asked.

‘She’s, ah, not happy,’ said Mike. ‘There’s been a bit of a falling-out.’ Which meant, I imagined, that there had been an almighty screaming match.

‘How do you feel?’ I asked him.

He finished his mouthful, shrugged and said, ‘Over it. I’m leaving.’

I choked on a bit of new potato and fell into a fit of coughing that did nothing for my bruised throat. Holding my neck with both hands I sat back gasping, mentally kicking myself for drawing Mum’s attention back to my injuries.

I needn’t have worried; she didn’t even glance at me. ‘Leaving?’ she repeated.

‘Mm.’ Spurred on to further detail by our blank astonishment, he added, ‘A friend of mine’s offered me a few months’ tractor work, for a start. And then . . .’ He shrugged and smiled.

‘Glen Jackson’s looking for drivers to cart maize,’ said Mum suddenly. ‘He asked me just the other day if I knew of anyone.’

‘That’s a brilliant idea,’ I cried, forgetting all about my sore throat. ‘Come up here, Mike. It’d be so cool to have you around. You can have the spare room at the café. Or live here. Couldn’t he, Mum?’

‘Er – yes,’ said Mum, sounding unexpectedly taken aback. ‘Yes, of course.’

I looked at her in surprise, but she was pushing back her chair and standing up, and I failed to catch her eye.

‘Who’d like a glass of wine?’ she said brightly. ‘Actually, Lia, perhaps you’d better not. It might clash with your painkillers.’

‘What painkillers?’ I said.

She turned and frowned at me. ‘Haven’t you had anything? What about in hospital?’

I shook my head.

‘What?’ Now I had her attention. Damn.

‘Well, I’m only bruised,’ I said soothingly.

‘I don’t believe it,’ she cried. ‘You’ve had no pain relief. They didn’t even let you wash. They’ve confiscated your car and your clothes, they’ve released that psychopath on bail after what he did to you, and if we hadn’t come to collect you from hospital they’d probably just have kicked you out to hitchhike home. Naked, no doubt, since heaven forbid anyone might be allowed to take one of those revolting gowns off the premises!’

Mike and I started to smile and then simultaneously thought better of it.

‘They haven’t even offered you any counselling, after what you’ve been through!’

‘They did, actually,’ I admitted. ‘I didn’t want it. Mum, they were pretty nice, honestly. And the detective asked if I had someone to come and get me; I’m sure she’d have sorted something out if I hadn’t. But I guess the police see this kind of thing all the time, and one beaten-up girl doesn’t seem as big a deal to them as it does to us.’

Thin-lipped, Mum opened the fridge door.

‘It’s all going to be pretty awful for Isaac’s family,’ I said, spearing another new potato and looking at it without enthusiasm.

‘Yes, well, I’m not feeling the need to burden myself with pity for them just at the moment,’ she snapped, extracting a wine bottle from behind a large cabbage.

‘I need to take a little bit of responsibility, at least.’

She closed the fridge door. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, love. Nothing about this is your fault in any way.’

‘Mum, I know that strangling someone and stuffing them into a car boot’s not ever an appropriate response to a situation, but – I wish I’d been kinder. I knew he was miserable, and I didn’t care.’

‘Hang on just a minute,’ said Mike. ‘When did you break up with the guy? July?’

‘June.’

‘And then he rang you up every day for months and cried on your shoulder –’

‘Not every day,’ I murmured.

‘Well, I’d say you gave being kind a pretty good go.’

‘Maybe I gave it too good a go. I shouldn’t have given him false hope.’

‘Which way do you want it?’ Mike asked crisply. ‘Were you too mean, or too nice?’

‘Both. Neither. Oh, I don’t know.’

‘I don’t think it would have mattered what you’d done,’ said Mum. ‘He’s obviously very, very disturbed. You can’t reason with someone in that state, love. Their reactions aren’t normal.’

‘He said he’s been watching me. Us. Me and Jed. He must have been sneaking around looking in the windows.’ I shivered, and the potato I still hadn’t got around to eating fell off my fork and rolled under the table.

‘Did you tell the police that?’ said Mum.

‘Yes. I don’t know if they’ll believe it.’

‘Why wouldn’t they?’

‘Well, I have a feeling that claiming your brother tracked you across the countryside by telepathy isn’t all that good for your credibility.’

‘Who cares?’ said Mike suddenly. ‘Who cares if the police think you’re a – a New Age fruit loop? It doesn’t change the fact that the guy’s a nutter and he tried to kill you.’ He reached across the table and took my hand in his big rough one. ‘It’s not a crime to be a bit weird.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, laughing.

‘No,’ said Mum shakily, putting the wine bottle down on the bench. ‘It’s a blessing.’

It was a blessing. It was unpredictable and frustrating, it had embarrassing lunatic-fringe overtones and it would have saved considerable stress all round if this morning’s premonition had arrived a little earlier, but being weird had probably saved my life. ‘Yes, I know,’ I said, and the tears brimmed up and overflowed.

That started Mum off, and we cried for some time. Mike looked at us doubtfully and then carried on with his fish. When the storm had passed, however, and we were smiling damply and mopping our eyes, he got up and poured three glasses of chardonnay.

‘Oh, thank you,’ Mum said, sinking back into her chair with a sigh.

As I picked up my glass I felt a tingle of pleased anticipation. It didn’t seem to match the wine, which smelt just slightly of rancid butter, but all was made clear when the phone rang from the far end of the table.

‘It’s Jed,’ I said, as Mum and I reached for it together, and unearthing it from beneath a cardigan she handed it over.

‘Thanks,’ I said, standing up as I answered it. ‘Hi, Lia speaking.’

‘Didn’t you know it was me?’ he asked.

‘Yes, but I thought you might think I was Mum,’ I said, edging around the table and going out into the hall to lean against the bookcase that housed the gardening books.

‘Ah. How are you doing?’

‘Pretty good, actually.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘So, um, are you happy where you are, or should I come and get you?’

I smiled, touched that he’d called to check, and then sighed. ‘I’d love you to. But I’d better stay here. Anyway, you’ll sleep better without me.’

‘No, I’ll sleep better if you’re here where I can keep an eye on you.’

‘How were you planning to keep an eye on me and sleep at the same time?’

‘Always the sarcastic comment,’ he said sadly.

‘Sorry. It was a lovely thing to say. It makes me feel all cherished.’

‘Patronising wench,’ he remarked.

‘Can I come over?’ I asked abruptly. ‘Or is the offer withdrawn?’

He laughed. ‘You can come over.’

‘Thank you. I’ll get Mike to drop me off in a bit.’

‘The minutes will seem like hours, my sweet.’

‘Always the sarcastic comment,’ I said, smiling.

‘That,’ said Jed, ‘was the truth.’ And he hung up.

* * *

‘They just got back last week,’ Mike was saying as I went back into the kitchen.

‘Did they enjoy the trip?’ Mum asked.

‘Yeah, I think so. Apparently the baby’s doing all the things it’s supposed to, and Kathleen’s taken to motherhood like a duck to water.’

‘I’m glad,’ said Mum. ‘She’s a lovely girl.’

‘Kathleen Leslie?’ I asked, sitting back down and picking up my wineglass. She was a second cousin – a pleasant girl, in an anaemic sort of way.

‘Yes. You remember that she and her husband moved to Singapore?’ Mum said.

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Hey, guys . . .’

‘What is it, love?’

‘Um, would you mind taking me round to Jed’s after tea?’ I meant to say it perfectly offhandedly, but it came out in a sort of embarrassed mutter.

‘Of course not,’ said Mum kindly.

‘It’s not that it’s not lovely being here with you . . .’

‘But neither of us is a hot mechanic who just broke his hand hitting your crazy ex-boyfriend for you,’ finished Mike.

I smiled. ‘That’s the one.’

And so, post-dinner but pre-dishes, Mike delivered me to Harris Street. He parked on the worn grass in front of number sixteen and got out to see me to the door.

‘Hey, thanks, Mike,’ I said as we crossed the lawn. ‘It’s so good of you to have come.’

‘Pleasure,’ he said.

‘Please come and live here. Mum was right about Glen Jackson; he’d give you a job in a heartbeat. He told me that last year one of the little toe rags he hired in desperation to drive a truck was so busy Instagramming that he drove into someone’s hay barn.’

‘I –’ Mike began.

‘And if you decide that constant contact with us is too much of a good thing, you’ll have the perfect excuse to leave when the maize is finished.’

He said nothing, but rubbed a hand over the top of his head in a worried sort of way.

‘Don’t think about it,’ I said. ‘Just do it. You know you want to.’

‘Lia?’ he said as we reached the front steps.

‘Yes?’

‘Shut up.’

I smiled at him. ‘It’s a wonder no-one’s ever tried to strangle me. Oh no, that’s right, they have.’

‘That’s not funny,’ said Mike sharply.

I reached up and kissed his cheek. ‘Sorry.’

Just then Jed, freshly showered and actually wearing his sling, opened his front door.

‘Evening,’ he said.

‘Evening,’ said Mike. He hugged me. ‘Take care. See you soon. Love you.’

‘He’s the nicest person I know,’ I said, closing the door as Mike went back across the lawn towards his car. ‘I wish he was happy.’

‘Isn’t he?’

I’d surprised myself with that statement. ‘I don’t . . .’ I said slowly, feeling it out. ‘No. Not very.’

‘Why not?’

‘Lonely, I think.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I suppose that’s mostly what makes people miserable.’

‘Were you? Lonely, I mean.’

‘Shit, yes,’ he said lightly as we went down the hall. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’

‘Yes please.’ I followed him to the kitchen and rested my elbows on the counter. ‘Did Craig have a good day?’

‘Apparently he had pikelets and macaroni cheese and ice cream and sandwiches cut into shapes. It sounded like a pretty good day to me.’

‘That’s an impressive effort, after spending the night throwing up.’

‘Huh,’ said Jed. ‘That was only last night.’ He unhooked two lumpy glazed mugs from a dinky little wooden stand and turned to get the milk out of the fridge. ‘You’re not going to open the café tomorrow, are you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘But we’ll have to on Wednesday, so there’ll be a certain amount of prep to be done.’

He nodded and put the milk down on the bench. ‘I’m not going to move back to Thames,’ he said.

Startled, I stood up straight. ‘Because of this?’ I touched the side of my neck. ‘Jed . . .’

‘Because it occurred to me today that if I stuff things up with you while I’m running around trying to fix someone unfixable, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘It’s time I stopped making Tracey my number-one priority. It doesn’t matter what I do for her; it’ll never be enough.’

‘But – if you make me your number-one priority instead I’m just as bad.’

He looked at me, frowning.

‘I mean, it’s not fair for you to have to live here just because that’s what suits me.’

‘But it suits me too,’ he said.

‘Really?’

‘I like it here. Craig likes it here. You’re here. Monty wants me to buy into the garage. I’d quite like to learn to surf.’

For a moment I felt breathless with delight, followed swiftly by feeling breathless with fear at how badly I wanted it to happen, and therefore how crushed I was going to be if it didn’t.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘I just – I’m not sure you should tie yourself down again for a while. You mightn’t feel like this in six months. You might start wishing you’d had a break and – and sowed some wild oats, rather than jumping straight into another big serious relationship.’

Jed’s eyebrows rose. ‘Sowed some wild oats?’ he said.

‘Yeah, okay, it’s a particularly lame phrase. But you know what I mean.’

‘To be honest, the idea of breaking it off with you and finding some random woman to shag instead doesn’t really do a lot for me.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ I muttered.

‘Lia, I wasn’t actually going to rush out tomorrow and buy half the garage.’

I went around the end of the counter and put my arms around him. ‘I’m being an egg. I want you to stay more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.’

‘Sure?’ he said, running his good hand gently up and down my back.

‘Yes.’

‘Because you did tell me once that you exaggerate, and I shouldn’t believe anything you say.’

‘Did I? I was probably exaggerating.’

‘Muppet,’ he said, and kissed me.

* * *

There’s something very soporific about happiness, especially at the far end of a day that began with blind terror. Letting my cup of tea go cold, I went to sleep on the couch against Jed’s shoulder. I woke up, sort of, when he eased himself out from under me to stand up. The living room curtains hadn’t been drawn, and outside I could see a sliver of moon above the high wooden fence at the back of the section.

‘We should shut the curtains,’ I said drowsily. ‘Remember that first night when I thought someone was watching us? He was.’

Jed’s shoulders went rigid, but all he said was, ‘Come on, let’s go to bed.’ He reached down and pulled me to my feet.

He closed his bedroom curtains with meticulous care before going to brush his teeth. I undressed and climbed into bed – awkwardly, my bad knee having gone stiff – pulling the sheet up under my chin to hide the bruises.

Coming back, he shut the door behind him, shed his clothes, turned the light off and got into bed beside me with a sigh. ‘Lying down is good,’ he said.

‘Yes, yes it is,’ I said, slipping my hand into his. His unbroken hand, luckily; I’d forgotten to check.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

‘Bit sore . . . Grateful, mostly.’

His fingers tightened painfully around mine. ‘Did you get any warning?’

‘Yes. Nothing specific, but when I went into the kitchen at home this morning I was suddenly really scared. It was like – like watching a horror movie. You know, when the creepy music starts, and the suspense is building, and you know something awful’s going to happen. So I turned around and ran back out to the car, but he got me as I was getting in.’

‘Fucking little arsehole,’ said Jed savagely.

‘Jed, he honestly wasn’t in his right mind.’

‘Don’t you dare feel sorry for him.’

I did. I always will, and I’ll always feel partly responsible, and I’ll always wonder what I should have done differently. But saying so didn’t seem particularly helpful, so I just squeezed his hand.

There was a long silence, and I was nearly asleep when he said softly, ‘Love you.’

‘You too,’ I whispered, and sleep rolled over me like a warm, dark wave.

Chapter 27

‘Dad!’ Craig shouted. ‘I’m hungry!’

The shock woke me instantly and completely, and I jumped as though I’d been spiked with a pin. The sun was shining through the curtains, bathing the room in sickly mustard-coloured light. For the second before I recalled the events of the previous day, horror at being late for work mingled with horror at the psychological damage my presence in his father’s bed was going to inflict on Craig. Then I remembered, and my entire horror quota veered Craigwards.

‘Get yourself a yoghurt!’ Jed called back. Brushing my shoulder as he sat up, he said, ‘Morning.’ Followed, as he looked at me, by, ‘Jesus Christ.’

‘Well, go and see him!’ I hissed, retreating rapidly beneath the sheet. ‘I’ll climb out the window.’

‘What?’

‘So he doesn’t find me here!’

There was a patter of footsteps as Craig galloped along the hall – they went straight past the door and dwindled off into the distance. I stuck my head out from under the covers to see Jed roll out of bed and pull his shorts on, wincing as he tried to use his broken hand.

‘Or how about you just get dressed and come and have breakfast?’ he said.

‘Then why were you so horrified that I’m still here?’

‘I wasn’t.’ He leant down and kissed me very softly. ‘It was your neck. It’s quite special.’

I found, on getting up, that I ached all over, and when I examined it in the bathroom mirror my neck did indeed look quite special. There was a wide band of bruising running ear to ear, ranging in colour from pink to red to deep purple-black. Wishing I had a scarf, I pulled the collar of Mum’s blouse up as far as it would go, left my hair down and went slowly up the hall.

‘Why?’ I heard Craig ask as I came into the living room.

‘So we can look after her,’ said Jed, pouring milk left-handed into a bowl of Rice Bubbles. ‘She got hurt yesterday.’

‘What happened to her?’

Jed put the Rice Bubbles down in front of him. ‘A man hit her.’

‘A baddie?’ Craig demanded.

‘Yeah,’ said Jed, meeting my eyes over his head.

‘Did Batman come and smash him?’

‘No, your dad did,’ I said.

Craig twisted to stare at me from his high stool. ‘Like – pow?’ He did an air-punch to demonstrate, nearly knocking his Rice Bubbles to the floor. Jed moved the bowl away from the edge of the bench.

‘Yep. Just like that.’ I looked at Jed. ‘Sorry. Was that endorsing violence?’

He shrugged and smiled. ‘What would you like for breakfast?’

‘Toast and coffee, please,’ I said, getting myself a plate out of the cupboard.

‘It’s only instant.’

‘As long as it’s got caffeine in it, it’s all good.’

‘Then what happened to the baddie?’ Craig asked.

‘We took him to the police station and the police locked him up,’ said Jed.

‘Oh. Why did he hit Lia?’

Jed didn’t reply, so I said, ‘He wasn’t thinking right. He was all mixed up.’

‘Like Mummy?’

Yikes, I thought.

‘That’s right,’ said Jed evenly, putting two slices of bread into the toaster on the corner of the bench top. ‘It happens. Sometimes people’s brains get a little bit broken, and they do silly things.’

‘But Mummy’s not a baddie.’

‘No,’ he said.

‘But was the man who hit Lia a baddie?’

‘Yes.’

I looked at him quizzically.

‘Just trying to keep things simple,’ he said.

Craig bent over his Rice Bubbles, deep in thought.

‘How’s your throat?’ Jed asked.

‘A bit sore,’ I said. ‘Not as sore as it looks. How’s your hand?’

‘Okay.’

‘The other day,’ said Craig, ‘I hit a baddie. Like this.’ He did another air-punch, which made him wobble precariously on his stool. ‘Smash. And then I took him to the police station, and they locked him up in a dudgeon, and some rats bited his feet.’

* * *

They dropped me off at Mum’s just before eight, en route to day care and work respectively. Letting myself in the back door I found Mum in the kitchen, sipping something lemon-scented that steamed gently.

‘Morning, love,’ she said, and her hand went involuntarily to her mouth as she saw my neck.

‘Have you got a scarf I could borrow?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’ She stood up. ‘Come and choose one. How do you feel, my darling?’

‘Stiff and sore, but honestly not too bad. It looks much more dramatic than it feels.’

‘Thank goodness for that,’ she said, leading the way along the hall to her bedroom. ‘Right. Scarves.’ She opened a drawer in her bedside table and began pulling them out, rather like a magician from a top hat.

I sat down on her faded green velvet bedspread and breathed in the familiar scent of her bedroom. Incense, old wood, clean washing, lavender-scented hand cream – smell is so much more evocative than the other senses, and this one transported me instantly back to the world of my childhood; a small, safe, happy world, where Rob and I were quite sure that we looked after our mother rather than the other way around. That, of course, is a big part of Mum’s charm – the ability to make people feel that she couldn’t possibly manage without them. Everyone loves to feel needed.

‘When did Mike head off?’ I asked.

‘Hmm? Oh – seven thirty or so. He wanted to be back by lunchtime.’ She handed me a strip of turquoise gauze and a paisley silk horror in shades of olive and tangerine. ‘One of these? You’ll want something reasonably lightweight, or you’ll overheat in this weather.’

‘What about that white one?’

‘Not your colour,’ she said firmly, passing me one made of buttercup yellow polyester instead.

I looked at it doubtfully before wrapping it around my neck.

‘Very nice,’ she said. She adjusted it to drape better, and then took my face in her hands and looked at me searchingly.

I smiled at her. ‘Alright? No obvious signs of psychological damage?’

‘No obvious signs,’ Mum said, kissing my forehead and letting me go. ‘Although I suppose they might take a while to develop.’

She read the paper while she finished her morning tea, and I read the recipe section of an old gardening magazine. ‘Would violets in the middle of your ice cubes be cute or revoltingly twee?’ I asked.

‘Cute, I think,’ said Mum. ‘Bit hard on the violets, though. Come on, let’s go out.’

We drifted out across the top lawn and paused at the edge of the rockery, where a creeping phlox had formed a solid mat of hot pink flowers a metre across.

‘Wouldn’t it be nice if Mike did come up here?’ I said, bending down to pull out a milkweed seedling, tweaking a whole range of muscles I hadn’t realised I’d strained and straightening again with a grunt.

‘Very nice,’ said Mum. ‘Sit down and rest, love.’

I subsided onto a handy rock. ‘Do you think he will?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, starting to deadhead a carpet rose. ‘Gray’s a fool.’

This was unusually harsh, for Mum, and I blinked. ‘For taking Mike for granted?’

‘Among other things. He’s got this grand vision of himself as some sort of patriarch, creating an empire for future generations, and yet he’s spared no effort to alienate his entire family. It’s a bit hard to be a patriarch when none of your children want anything to do with you.’

‘True,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Poor old Dad.’

‘Well, yes, but –’ She broke off, sighed, tossed a handful of withered flowers under a shrub and sat down beside me. ‘Craig’s a nice little boy, isn’t he?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is he going to be living with Jed permanently, now?’

‘Probably not,’ I said. ‘I’m sure that’s what Jed would like, but he wouldn’t ever try to stop Tracey from seeing him. They’ll probably share custody once she’s well enough to look after him again.’

‘Hmm,’ said Mum. ‘I have my doubts about her parenting skills.’

‘Have you been talking to Monty?’ I asked suspiciously.

‘No, I’ve been talking to Craig.’

‘Mum!’ I protested.

‘He says he likes living with Dad, because Dad talks to him. Mummy doesn’t talk; she’s always busy looking at her phone. Mummy doesn’t like it when he makes a noise. Mummy always gives him Weetbix for tea.’

‘Mum! You can’t go around asking small children leading questions about the standard of care their parents provide!’

‘And why not?’ she said, drawing herself up. ‘If there are any concerns about whether a child’s being properly cared for, I’d much rather be the busybody who stuck her nose in than the person who didn’t like to ask for fear of causing offence.’

A good point. ‘Still, I don’t think Weetbix for tea is grounds for child neglect,’ I said weakly.

‘Hmm.’

‘Now if it was chickpeas . . .’ I added.

She gave me a mechanical, I’m-only-humouring-you-because-someone-tried-to-strangle-you-yesterday sort of smile, and said, ‘Heaven knows I’m no advocate for staying in a loveless marriage, but it’s hard on a child being shuffled backwards and forwards between his parents.’

I sighed. ‘Yeah. It is. But then it’s not fair on Tracey not to let her see him, either. She sounds spectacularly useless, as far as I can tell, but she does love him. And I’m sure it wouldn’t help her mental state to take her child away. I suppose the best thing for her would be if Jed moved back in; then Craig’d have a nice stable home again. But . . .’

‘I wasn’t suggesting that for a moment,’ said Mum.

‘I know you weren’t. And I’ll fight to the death before I see Jed sacrifice himself – and me – to someone who’s made his life miserable for the last four years. But it does feel a bit like being happy at Craig’s expense.’

‘Well,’ said Mum, and this time her smile was real, ‘you’ll just have to be a fabulous stepmother to make up for it.’ She dusted her hands on her skirt and held them out to me. ‘Come down to the bottom lawn and admire my flowering gum. It’s stunning.’

* * *

The flowering gum was a vision in traffic-cone orange, which looks much better than it sounds. Having admired it, I spent the rest of the morning reclining in the hammock, with I Capture the Castle on my stomach, a plate of ginger biscuits at one elbow and a water bottle at the other. I dozed off, dreamt of being chased through a pine forest and woke with a gasp of fright as Mum crossed the lawn with the portable phone in her hand.

‘It’s Anna,’ she said.

I took the phone, still struggling free of the last cobweb strands of panic. ‘Hello?’

‘Hey. How are you feeling?’ Anna asked.

‘Okay,’ I said, with a small, residual shiver. ‘Shall we do some cooking after lunch?’

‘Actually, I think you should stay where you are and let me handle it.’

I didn’t want to stay where I was; I wanted to be busy and thus unable to dwell on unpleasant things. ‘Thanks, but I need to get some clothes and things. Would you mind picking me up on your way there?’

‘I’m there now,’ she said. ‘I can easily pack you a bag and drop it off at your mum’s place on the way home. What d’you need?’

‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘No, I’d honestly rather come up. I’ll get Mum to bring me in a bit.’

* * *

Mum drove me home up the hill after lunch. There was a blackboard propped up against the base of the sign at the bottom of the driveway which read: Sorry, we’re closed today. Normal service will resume tomorrow!

The phone rang as we pulled up behind the café, but Anna didn’t answer it, although I could see her through the kitchen window. She came to the door drying her hands on a tea towel, looking as pretty and delicate as a porcelain figurine in denim shorts and an eggshell-blue hooded T-shirt – the kind sold as sportswear, although it seems a crime to sweat in anything so pretty.

Behind her the answer phone picked up and a woman’s voice said, ‘Hello, it’s Maureen Miller here. I’m just ringing to see how Lia is. Hope all’s well. Okay, then, bye-bye.’

‘That’s very kind of her,’ I said, following Mum up the porch steps. I only knew Maureen Miller by sight, to smile at in passing.

‘The phone’s been ringing solidly all day. I’ve had to stop answering it or I’d never have got anything done,’ said Anna. Then, looking at my neck, ‘Oh my god, Lia.’

I’d tired swiftly of the yellow polyester scarf, which was hot, scratchy and far too like something off the set of George and Mildred, but at this I pulled it out of my pocket and wound it hastily back around my throat.

‘Isaac will appear in court to be charged on Thursday,’ Mum told me, evidently just remembering. ‘The police rang this morning while you were asleep.’

‘Will Lia have to be there?’ Anna asked.

‘No. No, not at all. Unless you want to be, love?’

‘No.’ And changing the subject much too abruptly, I said, ‘Anna, I had an idea about ice-cream sandwiches. Don’t you think they’d sell well?’

‘What, those ice-cream slices between two pink wafers?’ she said.

‘No, an upmarket homemade version. We could put the ice cream between two big flat chocolate biscuits – maybe peanut brownie mixture without the peanuts.’

She considered briefly. ‘We’d need a biscuit that didn’t go hard as a rock in the freezer. What about those gluten-free peanut butter ones?’

‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘Maybe. I’ll freeze one and see what happens to it.’

‘Yes, but not today,’ said Mum. ‘You need to rest and recuperate.’

‘I’ve got this,’ Anna said, smiling at me. ‘I owe you a day, anyway.’

‘I’d rather be busy,’ I said.

Mum looked stricken. ‘Oh, sweetie,’ she murmured.

‘Mum, don’t look like that. I’m okay, I just don’t want to sit around and think about it.’

She blinked hard, smiled shakily and said, ‘Okay, love. Well, then, I’ll head off. I’ve got a house on Harbour View Drive to clean. Just give me a ring when you’re ready to come home; I’ve got my phone.’

She kissed us both and left, and I sat down on the window seat and rummaged through my handbag for my cell phone. It was dead flat, and I plugged it into the charger on the windowsill.

‘Coffee?’ Anna asked, crossing the kitchen to turn on the machine.

‘Yes, please. I think we should ask Mum to help out tomorrow, don’t you? Then I can lurk in the background and try not to scare the customers. The bruising’ll probably look worse tomorrow, if anything.’

‘Yeah, good idea,’ she said, turning back to face me. ‘Lia . . .’

‘Mm?’

She took a deep breath and gripped the edge of the bench behind her with both hands. ‘I owe you an apology. I’ve been a real bitch about your, um, connection with Rob.’

‘Hey, Anna, no –’ I started.

But having screwed herself up to the point, she was determined to say her piece. Holding up a hand to stop me, she continued doggedly, ‘I felt like I had to fight you for him. I – I wanted him to say that I was more important to him than you were – that he loved me more, and – and I’m an idiot, because if he ever did have to choose between us, he’d choose you!’ She finished on a little wail of misery, and burst into tears.

So did I. Partly in sympathy, and partly from exhaustion. I didn’t want another deep-and-meaningful conversation just now; I wanted to chat about pleasant, undemanding things like cake. But there didn’t seem to be any way of avoiding it, so I took a deep breath, wiped my eyes on an end of the buttercup-yellow scarf and said, ‘Of course he wouldn’t choose me.’

She cried harder.

‘Anna! Do you honestly not realise how much he loves you?’

‘I don’t kn-know – I –’

‘Hey!’ I said. ‘Come on. You don’t have to choose between the people you love; it doesn’t work like that. It’s not like you only get a certain quota of love and you have to ration it out.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Anna gasped. ‘After what you’ve just b-been through, and I –’

I looked at her helplessly for a moment, and then got up and went across the room to put my arms around her. ‘Stop it. Listen. You are the person Rob wants to come home to. I know he and I have this funny twin-intuition thing, but it doesn’t worry either of us if we don’t see each other for a few months. It’d worry the hell out of him if he didn’t see you.’

She gulped, twisted away from me and went to splash cold water on her face. Turning off the tap again she dried herself with a tea towel and said bitterly, ‘I hate being like this. All needy and insecure.’

‘Everyone’s needy and insecure. It’s just harder to hide when you’re exhausted.’

‘You’re not.’

‘Bollocks!’ I cried. ‘Where should I start? My boyfriend’s married. His wife’s better looking than I am. So are you. I have weird psychic tendencies. My father’s never approved of a single thing I’ve ever done. I’ve got horrible frizzy hair . . . Should I keep going?’

Anna smiled, albeit a little damply. ‘You have not got horrible frizzy hair,’ she said. ‘It’s gorgeous. I found the most amazing hairstyle on Pinterest the other night that I think would look perfect on you for the wedding – I’ll show it to you. It was pinned up, but quite loosely, with ringlets sort of tumbling down the back . . .’

She went across the kitchen to open the laptop, and we abandoned soul-baring for hairdos with mutual relief.

Chapter 28

I was so lucky. My bruises faded in a week or two. Isaac left the district to stay with an uncle in New Plymouth until his sentencing date in April, so there was no chance of running into him. People found new things to talk about, as people always do, I was loved and supported, business was good, the ice-cream sandwiches were a wild success . . .

And yet.

I was jumpy, fragile and depressingly prone to dissolving into tears. The thought of being alone scared me, although I’d always liked it before, and Anna picked me up from Jed’s place on the way to work in the mornings and returned me there every night. I worried a lot, going over and over the same weary little litany without resolving anything. How much of what had happened was my fault? What should I have done differently? When was I going to pull myself together and get over it? Why hadn’t I already? How long was Jed, who was quite obviously the best thing that had ever happened to me, going to put up with it? It was a bit rough on the man, after all, to have his nice rational girlfriend transform before his eyes into a quivering bundle of insecurities. He could well start getting a nasty feeling of déjà vu.

I wasn’t unhappy all the time, or even close to it. But lifting myself out of that pointless round of fears felt like the mental equivalent of walking up a down escalator – you make quite reasonable progress if you work at it, but as soon as you stop, you slide backwards. I’d never realised before how bloody exhausting depression must be. Perhaps, I told myself in high-minded moments, that was a useful insight. I don’t believe that trouble necessarily makes you any tougher or stronger, but it should at least make you kinder.

* * *

‘These things take time,’ Mum said, when I complained to her about my new and alarming glass-half-empty tendencies one afternoon. Anna had gone to a dress fitting and we were alone in the café kitchen. ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself, love. If you had a broken leg you’d expect it to be sore; you wouldn’t keep on jabbing it and being annoyed when it hurt.’ She was arranging fat, denim-blue hydrangeas in a pottery jug, where they looked the last word in French farmhouse chic.

‘How much time?’ I said plaintively.

‘Goodness knows. Six months? A year? You’ll just gradually recover, without even realising it, until one day it’ll occur to you that you haven’t thought about it for months.’ She carried the flowers to the counter and set them down beside the coffee machine. ‘The thing is to be kind to yourself. You’re the only person who seems to think you’ve no right to be upset about what’s happened to you.’

I smiled, sighed, and slid a dirty sponge roll tin into the sink. ‘You’re very wise, did you know that?’

‘Absolutely,’ she said, donning a welcoming smile as a young couple came in through the front doors. ‘A shining example of how to live your life, that’s me. Good afternoon!’

* * *

And so February went by, hot and dry and filled with wedding plans. Mum had a minor brain malfunction and let Caroline Marshall redo the ginger and white stripes in her hair, and I had another, so that the first attempt at the wedding cake contained a kilogram of expensive Belgian chocolate but no baking powder. Anna showed alarming signs of relapsing onto her lettuce and water cracker diet, especially after being informed, on ringing Whangarei Party Hire to double-check the size of the marquee, that they had no record of the order.

The Thursday before the wedding dawned muggy and overcast. Jed was in the shower and I was leaning against the kitchen bench eating yoghurt and reading the tide tables in the local paper when Craig came down the hall. He was dressed for the day in his favourite SpongeBob undies and a pair of swimming goggles.

‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘You’re looking smooth.’

He looked at me sternly through his goggles. ‘I don’t want yoghurt,’ he said.

‘That’s okay, you don’t have to eat it.’ I smiled at him and had another spoonful.

‘But I’m hungry,’ he said.

‘Well, what would you like?’

‘I don’t want Weetbix.’

‘How about toast?’

‘I don’t like peanut butter,’ he said, folding his arms across his chest.

‘Don’t you?’ I said, surprised. ‘Since when?’

‘Since now.’

‘Fair enough. Vegemite?’

‘No.’

‘Jam? Just butter? Pickled eels’ feet?’

‘I can’t talk right now,’ he said, and marched across the living room to his toy box, narrowly missing his father.

‘Morning,’ Jed said, sidestepping him, but Craig gave no sign of having heard.

‘He’s on a mission,’ I said, flicking the kettle on. ‘No time for frivolous small talk.’

‘Obviously not. Should I be worried that you’ve packed up all your face cream and whatnot?’

I smiled. ‘I love the way you imply that I’ve completely filled your bathroom with beauty products.’ I had, in fact, removed a toothbrush and a tube of moisturiser from the edge of the bathroom sink. ‘Dad and Mike are arriving this evening, so I thought I’d better stay home and be a good hostess.’

‘Ah,’ he said, opening the fridge door. ‘Is your dad allowed to know that you usually sleep here?’

‘I guess so. Not that it’s anything to do with him.’

Jed raised his eyebrows ever so slightly as he put the milk down on the bench beside me.

‘Yes, I know, I’m snarky and childish,’ I said.

‘I still like you,’ he said, kissing the back of my neck.

‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome. Hey, I just got a text from Tracey, wanting Craig this weekend.’

‘What did you say?’ I asked.

‘Nothing, yet. But she hasn’t seen him for a few weeks. I was thinking I could take him down tomorrow night after work – maybe meet Tracey’s mum halfway.’

‘Good idea,’ I said. ‘Oh. Damn.’

‘What?’

‘Friday night – that means you won’t make it to the Leslie extended-family pre-wedding barbecue.’

‘Oh, what a shame,’ he said. ‘Bugger. Can’t imagine anything I’d have enjoyed more.’

‘Watch it,’ I said, laughing.

‘Want me to call in tonight instead?’

‘Would you? Only I don’t know what time they’ll get here – it might be past Craig’s bedtime. Shall I text you about six and let you know?’

He added instant coffee and milk to a mug and stirred it thoughtfully. ‘Why don’t we just wander up anyway after work?’ he said. ‘Keep you company, in case they’re late. Then Anna can go home.’

I hadn’t considered that, and I sighed. ‘Or I could just get a grip and hang out by myself for a little while.’

‘Lia, it’s only been three weeks.’

‘Three and a half, actually.’

He didn’t say anything, but reached out and gave my shoulder a little squeeze.

‘Sorry,’ I muttered, swiping a hand across my eyes.

He abandoned his coffee and put his arms around me, and I rested my head against his shoulder.

‘Thank you. I’ll get there. Honest.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘It’s all good. Yo, Craig! What d’you want for breakfast?’

‘Weetbix!’ Craig called back.

‘Weetbix what?’

Craig looked up, frowning. ‘Weetbix and milk and sugar?’

‘Weetbix please, you turnip!’ Jed said, and Craig giggled.

* * *

We opened the café that day, since we’d be closed for the next three. As summer drew nearer to autumn the workload had eased from frenetic to merely brisk, and by four we’d cleaned the windows, restocked all the biscuit canisters and prepared a dinner guaranteed to impress the most critical of fathers. The day had grown steadily hotter and more airless, and the great glossy leaves of the ligularia at the edge of the lawn drooped wearily in the heat.

Anna’s mother, Deidre, who’d arrived half an hour beforehand with The Dress, was sitting at the butcher’s block with an untouched latte in front of her, conning a list.

‘Darling?’ she said suddenly. ‘What’s your celebrant wearing?’

Anna slid a glass bowl of prawns in sweet chilli and ginger marinade into the fridge and closed the door, pushing her fringe back off her forehead. ‘No idea,’ she said. ‘Couldn’t care less.’

‘Well, you don’t want her to clash. Perhaps I should give her a ring.’

‘No, don’t. Nothing clashes with cream or blue; it’ll be fine.’

‘It never hurts to check,’ said Deidre, writing busily. ‘Now. The champagne.’

‘Rob’s picking up all the alcohol tomorrow, and we’ve hired a refrigerated trailer.’

‘And plenty of glasses?’

‘Of course,’ said Anna.

‘And you’re sure the tables and chairs will be delivered tomorrow?’

‘They’re not going to be delivered,’ she said patiently. ‘But we can collect them as soon as the boys have put the marquee up.’

‘I’ve got all the table linen . . . Maggie wanted to do something with tea lights, didn’t she?’

‘Yes. She’s got that all organised.’

‘Hmm,’ said Deidre, apparently imagining that she was tactfully concealing her doubts about Mum’s abilities to organise anything at all. ‘Oh, now, Chris and Jeanette are coming up tomorrow, and they’d love to spend a bit of time with you before the wedding. Shall we ask them to join us for dinner tomorrow night?’

‘Our family dinner?’ said Anna dryly. Her tentative plan to spend the evening before her wedding with a few university girlfriends had been overruled by her mother’s plaintive appeal for one last family meal.

‘Well, it’s up to you, darling, but they’re such dear friends, and it would mean so much to them.’

‘Fine,’ said Anna. ‘Why not?’

I shot her a sympathetic grimace behind her mother’s back. ‘I think I might go and mow a bit of lawn.’

‘What a good idea,’ she said, with feeling.

‘It’s so hot, Lia dear,’ Deidre protested.

‘I’ll see how I go, anyway,’ I said, and stripping off my apron I made good my escape.

I started mowing at the far side of the lawn, where gaunt manuka scrub cast dappled shadows across the grass. Having assured myself that I was in line of sight of the kitchen windows and therefore perfectly safe, I was contemplating the relative merits of cinnamon and lemon zest in an apple custard tart when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

‘Aarghh!’ I yelped, whipping around at high speed.

‘Crap,’ said Mike. ‘Sorry.’

I exhaled shakily and hugged him. ‘Sorry. Just being a dick. Hey, Mike.’

‘Hey.’ He reached around me to turn off the mower. ‘How’re you doing?’

‘Good,’ I said, stepping back. ‘Is Dad here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right. Better go and be sociable, then.’

‘How’s your mum?’ he asked, detaching the catcher from the back of the mower and emptying the grass clippings into the long grass at the edge of the lawn.

‘Okay. A bit stressed, with all this wedding malarkey.’

He fitted the catcher back onto the mower. ‘Do you want to leave this thing here or put it away?’

‘Just leave it there for now,’ I said.

We started to walk slowly back towards the house. ‘So, is the boyfriend still a good thing?’ Mike asked after a few moments.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Very.’

‘Good,’ he said, smiling at me.

‘Still going to leave the farm?’ I asked, as we passed the bougainvillea on the north wall of the garage.

‘Yep.’

‘Have you told Dad?’

‘Yep.’

‘How did that go?’

‘Oh, about how you’d expect,’ he said, standing aside for me to precede him up the porch steps.

Inside, Dad was leaning against the counter with his arms folded and his legs crossed at the ankle. He wore khaki shorts and a white polo shirt, with his wavy pepper-and-salt hair nicely cut, his skin nicely tanned and his forearms nicely muscled. Dad always looks just right – partly because he’s attractive and good at clothes, and partly because he’s so completely, serenely self-assured that if he turned up at a barbecue on the beach in a tuxedo, everyone else would start to feel uneasy and underdressed.

He nodded to me as I paused in the doorway to kick off my sneakers. ‘Lia.’

‘Hi, Dad,’ I said.

‘We had half an inch of rain on Monday, but it’s still very dry,’ he said, resuming his conversation with Deidre.

I went across the kitchen to kiss his cheek, and he rested a hand briefly on my shoulder. ‘Keeping well?’ he asked.

‘Um, yes,’ I said, slightly nonplussed. ‘You?’

‘Very good, thanks. Yes, we’ll want a week of decent, steady rain before it really looks like growing.’

‘Tea, Lia?’ Anna asked, busy with cups.

‘Yes please.’ I went to the sink to run myself a glass of water, and retired with it to the window seat. ‘How’s the speech coming along, Mike?’

‘I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t possibly be funny, but I can at least be brief,’ he said, sitting down beside me.

‘Excellent. It’s a shame more people don’t reach that conclusion.’

‘So, what’s the schedule for tomorrow?’ Dad asked. He spoke to Anna, but her mother answered.

‘Marquee to go up, tables and chairs to be set out, sound system, lighting . . .’ She turned a page of her list. ‘Flowers on the tables will be Saturday morning . . . Maggie’s got some sort of rustic chandelier arrangement planned . . .’

‘Oh, good God,’ said Dad.

Deidre laughed, Mike and I inhaled in unison and Anna closed her eyes tiredly. Looking at her, I decided, not without regret, that taking offence at such comments was an indulgence I was just going to have to resist.

‘Wedding cake offcut, anyone?’ I said, getting back up. ‘It’s delicious.’

* * *

The conversation, once Anna and Deidre had gone, limped through current lamb prices (dreadful), interest rates (fairly good, I’d thought, but apparently I was wrong), the Northern Gateway Toll Road (a waste of taxpayers’ money) and the alarming dearth of paying customers on the premises.

‘But you got here at ten to five,’ I pointed out. ‘And things are quieting down a bit, now. We’re thirty per cent up on last summer’s income, though.’ It’s amazing what being appallingly understaffed does for your profit margin. It’s neither sustainable nor fun, but it sure is great for the overdraft.

‘Gross income doesn’t mean anything,’ Dad said. ‘It’s net profit that’s important.’

‘We’re twenty-eight point four per cent up on net profit for January and February,’ I corrected, and my tone may, I admit, have been slightly curt.

‘Are you? Not bad at all.’

‘Bloody marvellous, I’d have thought,’ said Mike.

Jed’s seedy van (Tracey’s mother, apparently, needed the more respectable green Subaru) came up the drive and stopped beside Dad’s car.

‘Who’s this?’ Dad asked, eyeing the van with pardonable suspicion.

‘My boyfriend,’ I said, as Jed got out and opened the side door of the van to unbuckle Craig from his booster seat. ‘And his son.’

I was more than half expecting some disparaging comment about either the van, the child or both, but Dad surpassed all my expectations by saying, ‘What, the bloke who roughed you up?’

‘No! Bloody hell, Dad!’ I said, stamping across the kitchen and wrenching the door open.

Jed looked at me enquiringly as he and Craig came up the back steps, and I took a deep breath. ‘Hi, guys. Dad, this is Jed, and Craig. Jed, this is my father, Grayson.’

‘Good evening,’ said Dad, nodding stiffly.

‘Nice to meet you,’ Jed said. He turned to Mike. ‘Hi. How’s it going?’

‘Good, thanks,’ said Mike, standing up. ‘How’s the hand?’

Jed flexed his fingers, which, probably because he removed his splint every time it restricted his range of motion, were still giving him a certain amount of trouble. ‘Getting there,’ he said.

‘He broked it,’ said Craig.

‘I know,’ Mike told him.

‘He hit a bad guy. Like this. Smash.’

‘Zip it, small fry,’ said Jed, scooping him up mid-demonstration.

‘Like Batman,’ Craig continued, slightly muffled. ‘My dad’s really tough.’

‘Drink, anyone?’ I asked hastily. ‘Would you like a beer, Dad?’

He ignored me, so as to put me in my place. ‘So you’re a mechanic, I hear?’

Having handed out drinks, I sat back down on the window seat, and Craig came and stood hopefully in front of me. I smiled and passed him my beer. ‘Just a sip. No glugging.’

‘Lia, I’m hungry,’ he whispered hoarsely, passing the bottle back. ‘What should we do about that?’

‘Sandwich?’ I offered.

‘Cheesy pizza?’

I shook my head. ‘It’s too hot for melted cheese.’

‘I’m not too hot.’

‘I am,’ I said, getting up. ‘Sorry, sausage. What would you like on your sandwich?’

Craig sighed. ‘Peanut butter,’ he said sadly.

While I made it, Dad told Jed how to recondition a diesel engine and Craig told Mike how to wash his hands after going to the toilet. Both took it well, I thought.

‘Here you go,’ I said, handing Craig his sandwich. ‘What do you say?’

‘Please,’ he said offhandedly. ‘Hey, Lia, I’m going to stay at my nana’s house in one more sleep.’

‘Awesome.’

He turned to Mike. ‘My mummy’s going to be there, too. She’s got a sore head.’

‘That’s no good,’ Mike said.

‘I’ve got a sore arm.’ He peered at one forearm, and then the other.

‘There?’ I asked, pointing at a faint pink spot.

‘No – yes! See?’

Mike looked obediently. ‘Ye-es. What happened?’

‘Mrs Smith’s cat scratchered me.’

‘Cats do that sometimes,’ said Mike.

‘I kicked it,’ Craig said.

‘Before or after it scratched you?’ I asked.

‘Before. Then it scratchered me.’

‘Well, no wonder. I’d have scratchered you, too. Do you want to get out the toy box in the dining room?’

For the next twenty minutes Craig made block towers and knocked them down, and the rest of us listened to Dad’s thoughts on the Resource Management Act. They were not particularly inspiring.

‘Staying for tea?’ I asked Jed when at length there was a pause.

He shook his head, the traitor. ‘Thanks, but I think Craig could do with an early night. Craig! Toys away now, please.’

‘We’ll see you on Saturday, I suppose, if not before,’ said Dad.

‘Yes,’ Jed said, retrieving a lone block from beneath the front counter. He pushed the toy box back into its corner, came back and pecked my cheek. ‘Good luck for tomorrow. Give us a yell if you need a hand with anything.’

‘Will do,’ I said, trying hard not to look bereft. ‘Goodnight, Craig!’

Craig had reached the bottom of the porch steps, but he stopped and turned around. ‘Are you not coming to our house, Lia?’

‘Not tonight,’ I said.

He frowned. ‘But we need to look after you.’

‘These guys will look after me.’

‘Forever?’ he demanded.

‘No, just for tonight.’

‘And then will you come back to our house?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘And say me the poem about Brian the Lion?’

‘Yes. Definitely.’

‘Come on, horror,’ Jed said, going down the steps and picking him up. ‘Goodnight, everyone.’

Craig twisted around to look over his father’s shoulder. ‘Will you come tomorrow night?’

‘You’re going to your nana’s tomorrow night, remember?’

‘Oh,’ he said.

I went down the steps and kissed his small hot cheek. ‘I’ll come as soon as you get back. Okay?’

He considered that for a moment and then threw his arms around me. ‘Okay,’ he said into the side of my neck.

‘Night, sausage.’

‘Come with us,’ Jed whispered. ‘We’ll make a run for it.’

‘I wish,’ I said, detaching Craig and going reluctantly back up the steps.

Chapter 29

We ate outside on the porch, looking over the lawn to the little kauri trees running up the ridge, each one rimmed with gold by the sun that was low enough now to sneak in beneath the clouds. Dinner was a prawn, vegetable and cashew nut stir-fry, delicately flavoured with ginger and sweet chilli and served with sticky coconut rice. It was, though I say it myself, delicious.

Dad speared a prawn, examined it suspiciously, put it in his mouth, chewed bravely and said, ‘I don’t actually mind this sort of stuff, every now and then.’

Mike’s and my eyes met, and we both laughed.

‘You want to watch these fulsome compliments, Dad,’ I said.

There was a small, frozen pause before he asked, ‘How’s this landscaping thing of your brother’s going?’

‘Very well. He was really pleased to get that big subdivision contract up in Whangarei. He’s working pretty hard, though.’

‘Good on him. Won’t do him any harm at all.’

Surely, I thought, not everything my father said should offend me. I needed to stop taking things so relentlessly the wrong way. ‘Isn’t this light beautiful?’ I said.

‘Very nice. I suppose you’ve heard that Michael’s had enough of farming and he’s throwing in the towel?’

No, I decided, it wasn’t just me. Everything he said was offensive. Cheered by this conclusion, I raised my eyebrows and said, ‘What on earth was he supposed to do when you put the farm on the market?’

This comment did nothing to improve the meal’s tone. When we’d finished it and Dad had retired briefly down the hall, I said repentantly, ‘Sorry, Mike.’

He shook his head at me and smiled.

‘Every time,’ I said. ‘I promise myself I won’t bite; I’ll just let it all pass me by. And then every time, I fail.’

‘Just tell yourself it’s character-building,’ he said, standing up and starting to clear the table.

‘Hmm. Coffee?’

‘No, I thought I might go down and see Maggie. Unless she’s got a houseful?’

‘No, not until tomorrow. But you can’t leave me here with him, you rat!’

Mike laughed. ‘It’s good for you,’ he said.

Doubtful, but it would at least give me a nice opportunity for feeling selfless and noble. I sighed. ‘Fine. Desert me, then. Could you get Mum to give you the ribbon to go around the cake? I want to ice it first thing tomorrow.’

He did desert me, but he helped with the dishes before he went. As the car disappeared down the driveway, I opened the big chest freezer and took out the three tiers of wedding cake so they could thaw overnight. ‘Would you like an ice-cream sandwich, Dad?’ I asked.

‘Hmm?’ he said, looking up from the paper he’d been sitting with at the butcher’s block. ‘Go on, then.’

Anna and I had, after a bit of trial and error, settled on storing and serving the ice-cream sandwiches in little baking paper envelopes. I brought him one, and as he unwrapped it he actually said, ‘That looks smart.’

‘Thanks!’ I said, touched. ‘They’re quite popular – we’ve been selling them in boxes of five or six for people to take home, too. I’d like to do a bit more of that sort of thing; it’s so much less labour intensive than seating people here.’

‘Probably quite a good idea to have a few strings to your bow,’ he said. ‘What’s that you’re making?’

‘Ganache – icing – for the wedding cake. If I make it now it can cool overnight.’

He nodded, took a bite of ice-cream sandwich and remarked, ‘Place is looking pretty good.’

‘Thanks, Dad.’

‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘d’you think Robin would be interested in going farming?’

I stopped chopping chocolate and looked at him in surprise. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think he’s ever really thought about it. Why?’

‘No need to spread this around, but I was wondering if he’d like to take over the farm one day.’

‘But – what about Mike?’

‘Well, he’s leaving, isn’t he?’

‘Because you’re selling,’ I said, at the risk of labouring the point.

‘You don’t have to sell just because you put something on the market, Lia.’

‘No, you don’t, but the whole process does sort of undermine people’s sense of security about the future. And weren’t you talking recently about letting Gina take over?’

‘I’ve been considering a few different options,’ he said cagily.

I took a deep breath and put down my knife. It would, after all, cast a pall over the wedding if I stabbed my father in a fit of rage. ‘Dad, if you’re thinking of handing over the reins, don’t you think Mike’s kind of earned right of first refusal?’

Dad looked entirely blank – so blank that it was obvious he’d never even considered such a thing. It was his farm, and therefore his to do whatever he liked with. I think it was then that, for the first time, hurt anger at my father’s relentlessly negative, self-absorbed outlook took second place to pity. If you never consider anyone else’s point of view – if it doesn’t even occur to you that anyone else might have a different point of view to yours – everyone in your life will let you down, and you’ll never understand why. That’s actually quite sad.

‘I don’t think Rob and Anna would be keen, anyway,’ I said more gently.

‘Well, farming’s not a forty-hour-a-week job, that’s for sure. Weekends, late nights, early starts – if there’s work to be done, you just get on with it. You kids all talk a lot of guff about work–life balance these days – you seem to expect the rewards before you put the work in. I had to work my way up from the bottom.’

Dad’s father bought him that farm. And if ever Rob or Anna or I had talked about work–life balance, it would have been with the wistful hope that we might just possibly get a little bit one day, in some dim and distant future. My newborn pity and understanding slunk away with its head down, and incredulous wrath settled itself firmly back into the driving seat.

* * *

I spent the night on the dining room sofa, having won an argument with Mike over which of us would have my bed on the grounds that he was too tall to stretch out full length on the sofa, and we needed him uncrippled for heavy lifting in the morning. It was comfortable enough, but the dining room had too many doors and windows, and the coffee machine, so stylish and gleaming by day, looked alarmingly sinister, like a malevolent thing crouching on the end of the counter.

Idiot, I told myself crossly. You don’t have to lie here turning yourself into a gibbering wreck. You could just go to sleep like a normal person. Rolling over I closed my eyes.

Man, Dad was a prick. I’d have bet the thought behind this sudden interest in his younger son was that of a retirement spent being waited on by a beautiful daughter-in-law, while a cluster of adoring grandchildren gathered around his knee, eagerly gathering up the pearls of wisdom that fell from Granddad’s lips. Family, in theory, was important to my father – suitably attractive, successful, neighbour-impressing family, anyway.

Sighing, I turned over again. I missed Jed, and going to sleep without him felt wrong.

Although it was certainly roomier. Whenever I shifted in the night he would instantly advance, so that every morning I woke balanced precariously on the edge of the mattress while he lay like a starfish in the middle. It was like sleeping with a cat. He’s worth it, I thought, smiling sleepily. And he comes with a bonus Craig . . .

* * *

‘Hey,’ someone said. ‘Wake up, little blister, you’re alright.’

I sat up gasping, collided at high speed with Mike’s face and fell back against the pillow.

‘Ow,’ he said mildly.

‘S-sorry.’

‘My fault.’ He sat down beside me on the edge of the sofa and gingerly felt his nose. He hadn’t turned a light on, and I could see him only as a dark shape against the paler grey oblong of a window. ‘Nightmare?’

I breathed out on a long shudder. ‘Being chased. It’s always just being chased, not caught, or . . . Is your nose alright?’

‘Fine. You okay?’

‘Yeah,’ I said.

‘Liar.’

I smiled. ‘Mostly okay. Just a bit fragile around the edges. It’ll come right.’

He stroked the hair gently back off my face, and my eyes filled, as they did these days at the slightest provocation. ‘You’re a bit of a legend, you know,’ he said.

‘No, I’m not,’ I said, sitting up and hugging him. ‘But what a nice thing to say.’

* * *

I was icing the wedding cake when Mike came into the kitchen at six thirty the next morning. It was a simple enough design – three tiers of decreasing size, each to be covered evenly with chocolate ganache and circled with a wide lemon-coloured satin ribbon, and then topped at the last minute with yellow and cream roses – but I was feeling somewhat stressed about the whole thing, knowing that Anna’s idea of a smooth and professional finish would almost certainly be smoother and more professional than mine.

‘Morning,’ he said.

I looked up and smiled at him. ‘Coffee?’

‘No, I’ll make a cup of tea.’ He yawned and ruffled up his sandy hair. ‘What did that cake ever do to you?’

I pulled the dowelling rod I had just sunk through the glossy chocolate coating of the biggest tier back out and cut it carefully to length with a pair of secateurs. ‘It’s for extra support. Otherwise the top tiers might crush the bottom one.’

‘Right,’ he said, crossing the kitchen to switch on the kettle. ‘It’s going to be a beautiful day.’

I looked out the window and discovered that, indeed, it was. The sun wasn’t up yet, and the sky was a cool, pearly blue, with one little pink-flushed cloud above the ridge. ‘Thank goodness. Imagine trying to put up a marquee in the rain.’

My cell phone beeped from my handbag, sitting on the window seat.

‘D’you want that?’ he asked.

‘Yes, please,’ I said, pushing the cut dowelling rod back into the cake, level with the top. ‘I think it’s Rob.’

Mike rummaged in my handbag, pulled something out, raised his eyebrows and put it back again. Looking up, I realised he’d found the Play Ultra, which I’d stuffed into my bag a good six weeks ago and forgotten all about.

‘I bought that by mistake,’ I said hastily.

He smiled. ‘Of course you did.’

‘I did, actually. From Mum’s friend Carole, just to make it even worse. It was all hideously embarrassing.’

‘What was?’ Dad asked, wandering in.

‘Oh, nothing. Morning, Dad. Did you sleep alright?’

‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Does your hair always look like that first thing in the morning?’

And so it begins, I thought sourly, settling the cake’s middle tier on top of the bottom one.

Rob’s text message, bless him, read: Want me to take the old boy to Whangarei this morning?

Oh hell yes, I wrote back, so he came past at about eight and took Dad away with him to pick up the marquee.

That certainly helped, but it was still a reasonably horrendous morning. Tensions were running high, with a general readiness to take umbrage anywhere it could be found – and indeed, if no umbrage was to hand, to make it from scratch. Anna was exhausted, and so was Mum. Deidre, who had never become reconciled to the idea of the wedding being held on Mum’s turf instead of hers, niggled and questioned and changed everything she possibly could. Dad was inclined to resent his offspring’s focus on wedding-related issues rather than on his entertainment and amusement, thought the marquee site was poorly chosen and muttered audibly, ‘What in God’s name has your mother done to her hair?’ as she hurried past with a box full of tea-light holders.

We had the marquee up by lunchtime. Nobody had had the time or energy to make anything to eat, so Mike and I dashed to the Four Square for a jumbo-sized bag of slightly stale bread rolls, two wheels of camembert and a packet of processed ham. After spending ten minutes watching Anna pick bits out of the middle of a roll and crumble them between her fingers, Rob took her away, murmuring something about checking the order of service with the celebrant.

‘Take hours,’ I mouthed at him, and he raised his eyebrows in agreement.

There were chairs and tables to set out, and then move in accordance with Deidre’s instructions. The lights and sound system had to be connected up, the lawns mowed and about a mile of fairy lights strung along the paths. We cleaned a large green stain off one wall of the marquee, ran nylon lines spider-web fashion across the roof as a framework for tea-light chandeliers, picked up the alcohol and three hundred glasses and set the tables.

‘Where are we up to?’ said Mum distractedly, turning on the spot. She’d piled up her hair and skewered the knot with a ballpoint pen, her reading glasses had slipped down her nose and she looked like a mildly demented librarian. ‘Oh, what is the woman doing?’

Deidre was decorating a standard maple near the entrance to the marquee with fat blue satin bows.

‘Interesting,’ I said.

‘It’s ghastly!’

‘But look how happy it’s making her. Should we start hanging tea lights?’

Mum dropped her head onto my shoulder. ‘Why did I think this was a good idea?’ she said.

‘The tea lights?’ I asked, rubbing her back.

‘No. Having a wedding in my garden.’

‘It does all look amazing,’ I pointed out.

‘Hmm,’ she said, giving the beribboned maple a dirty look.

It did look amazing, though, and when Rob brought Anna back, looking considerably more cheerful than she had when she left, she stopped in the marquee doorway and said shakily, ‘Oh, wow.’

* * *

I left at four to start barbecue preparations, taking Dad with me for the sake of my mother’s mental health.

‘Lia!’ Anna called, leaning out Mum’s kitchen window as we crossed the lawn towards the car. ‘Call in to the garage and just make sure Monty knows it’s two thirty, and that he’s to come to the café!’

‘Okay!’ I called back. ‘Only a small detour, Dad, it won’t take long.’

I directed him across town to the garage, and he parked behind the workshop. ‘Won’t be a minute,’ I said, opening my door and getting out to cross the dusty gravel.

Monty was peering into the innards of a grey sedan, but he straightened as I approached, wiping his hands on a bit of rag. ‘Afternoon, Miss Lia,’ he said. ‘All organised for the big day?’

‘Getting there, I think.’

‘Good on you. Jed’s back there in the office somewhere.’

‘Actually, I’m here to see you,’ I said. ‘Anna was wondering if you could be at the café at half past two tomorrow afternoon.’

‘I thought the wedding was at three,’ he said.

‘It is.’

‘How long’s it going to take to drive down that hill? And isn’t the bride supposed to be fashionably late?’

‘Well, she said two thirty, and I’m not brave enough to argue with her. I just do as I’m told.’

‘Do you just?’ said Monty. ‘That’s not what I hear.’ Turning, he bellowed, ‘Jed!’ in the direction of the office.

Jed put his head around the office door with a clipboard in one hand and a portable phone in the other, saw me and smiled. ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ he said, coming across the workshop.

‘It all seems to be falling into place,’ I said. ‘Hopefully. Maybe.’ I hugged him, breathing in the sharp, metallic smell of his overalls.

‘Steady on there, you’ll embarrass Monty,’ he said.

‘I wasn’t actually planning to stick my tongue down your throat,’ I protested.

‘Go right ahead,’ said Monty. ‘Don’t mind me.’

Jed grinned, put his phone and clipboard down on the roof of a handy car, took my face between two slightly oily hands and kissed me comprehensively.

‘Ah, young love,’ Monty said soulfully as we broke apart.

I squeezed Jed’s hand – choosing, unfortunately, the broken one. He breathed in with a faint hiss.

‘Sorry!’ I said, letting go. ‘Damn. Sorry. See you tomorrow, guys.’

‘Two thirty,’ called Monty, waving his rag as I ran back across the gravel to the car.

* * *

Back at home, I was measuring yeast for a batch of focaccia into the bowl of the big mixer when Dad, who had withdrawn down the hall, came back into the kitchen carrying his chequebook.

‘Cup of tea?’ I offered.

‘Good idea. Got a pen? Better do something for the happy couple, I suppose.’

‘There should be one floating around by the phone,’ I said, filling the kettle. My cell phone buzzed, and I took it out of my shorts pocket. The message was from Anna.

Flower girl and family arrived. May shoot myself. Actually no, will shoot Mum. And them.

After a moment’s thought I sent back, Breathe. Good air in, bad air out. Will all be funny in 10 years. Then I made a mental note to live in sin for the rest of my life rather than contemplating anything as wearing as a wedding, switched the kettle on and started to make potato salad dressing.

Finding that his pen wouldn’t write, Dad discarded it and rummaged through my handbag in search of another one. At which point, inevitably, he found that bloody vibrator. He turned it over, read the packet, recoiled and dropped it back into my bag.

I couldn’t think of any comment that would make things better, so I just said, ‘Here,’ fished another pen out of the fruit bowl and handed it over.

* * *

That evening’s Leslie family pre-wedding barbecue was not a particularly scintillating occasion, owing both to a scarcity of relatives and a general feeling of exhaustion. It consisted of Mum, Rob, Mike, Dad, Dad’s elderly Uncle Neville and Aunty Freda from Morrinsville, and me. Gina’s lot, as well as Mum’s parents and brother, were arriving the next day.

‘Have you got room for some prawn kebabs, or should I grill them in the oven?’ I asked, taking a bowl of meat patties out to Rob on the kitchen porch, where he was barbecuing sausages under Dad’s expert supervision.

‘Bring them out,’ he said, slapping patties onto the hotplate. ‘We’ll find them a spot.’

‘How was the flower girl?’

‘Fairly special. Not as special as the rest of her family, but.’

‘Speaking of special,’ I said, ‘are Deidre and Ian staying at your place tonight?’

‘Yes.’

‘Lucky you.’

‘Sarcasm, Lia, is the lowest form of wit,’ said Dad, turning and going back inside.

Rob grinned at my expression. ‘That put you in your place,’ he said. ‘Hey. Cheer up. Who cares?’

‘Me, a bit.’

‘Well, stop. Miserable old coot.’

* * *

Dinner, which we ate at the biggest outside table, was memorable mostly for Uncle Neville’s hearing aid. He took it out to change the battery and lost it through a crack between two boards of decking. Rob had to pry several boards off the side of the porch to make a hole to climb through and retrieve it, armed with the flashlight on his mobile phone. He found it eventually, although he found a patch of stinging nettles and a mummified hedgehog first.

This excitement over, a lethargy fell over the party. Dad took Uncle Neville and Aunty Freda back to their motel, and Rob went home to put Anna to bed, by force if necessary. The rest of us retired to the kitchen to clean up.

Mum filled the kettle and switched it on, yawning. ‘What a day,’ she said. ‘I feel like I’ve been run over by a steamroller.’ She looked at herself in the polished metal side of the kettle and made a face. ‘Damn. I look like it, too.’

‘You do not,’ I said. ‘Does she, Mike?’

Mike was scraping plates into the compost bucket. Not looking up, he said evenly, ‘No. She looks very beautiful. As always.’

Mum whipped around and stared at him, her face turning first pink and then white.

Oh my god, I thought blankly, opening the fridge and rummaging through it at random to hide my face. Holy shit. Mum and Mike. She – he – Oh my god!

* * *

Long after everyone else in the house was asleep I lay awake and astonished on my sofa. Mum and Mike. Crikey. How long had he been in love with her? Years, probably. Thirty years, as likely as not.

My right hip met something small and hard, and I fished a plastic Minion out of the crack between two squabs and dropped it on the floor. What about Mum? Was she in love with him? Yes, I thought, remembering her face. Yes, she was. No wonder she wouldn’t go out with poor Hugh. No wonder she’d been so unhappy. She’d been labouring under a hopeless passion, poor petal.

I sat up, turned my hot pillow over and lay down again, gnawing the side of a fingernail. Well, for goodness’ sake, what a miserable waste of time. Why didn’t they stop fannying about and get on with it? It wasn’t, after all, as if they were actually related. I didn’t care, and Rob wouldn’t either – would he? No, I decided, he wouldn’t. And the general public wouldn’t be all horrified and disapproving, would it? Not in the circumstances. It wasn’t as if we were talking raddled-old-cougar-leaves-husband-for-teenage-stepson, here. Giving up on sleep, I threw back the cotton blanket, got up and padded across the shadowy dining room to sit down cross-legged on the kitchen window seat in the pale grey moonlight and open the laptop.

Can you marry your stepmother? I typed into Google.

My first hit was a discussion forum, whose participants had supplied various discouraging comments along the line of, I guess, you sad freak, and U need therapy.

Hmm. What sensitive and charming people.

Eventually, however, I tracked down an official-looking document on the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs website, headed Prohibited Degrees of Marriage and Civil Union.

Legislation specifies, it informed me, that a person may not marry or enter into a civil union with a person with whom they have a certain relationship. A person may not marry or enter into a civil union with their . . .

A long list followed. It started with parents, grandparents and children, which you’d hope wouldn’t come as too much of a nasty shock to anyone, and moved on to more convoluted and obscure relationships. Near the bottom we reached: parent’s spouse or civil union partner, and spouse’s or civil union partner’s child. A note at the end added: This list applies whether the relationships described are by the whole blood or by the half blood. In this list, a spouse and civil union partner include a former spouse or former civil union partner, whether alive or deceased, and whether the marriage or civil union was terminated by death, dissolution, or otherwise.

What? I thought indignantly once I’d translated this into everyday English. Well, it didn’t matter anyway; they could live together, if they felt like it. It wasn’t as if someone from the Department of Internal Affairs was going to come around and cast aspersions on their morals. On this thought I closed the laptop with a defiant sniff, retreated to my sofa and went straight to sleep.

Chapter 30

The wedding morning was warm, cloudy and moderately chaotic. Even Rob was affected by the general panic, and rang at quarter to seven sounding most uncharacteristically flustered, wanting a pair of black dress socks.

‘I’ll ask if Dad or Mike has a pair,’ I said, noticing for the first time a long red scratch along my left arm that was unlikely to please the bride. ‘And if they don’t, you could wear navy ones or something, couldn’t you? Nobody’ll see your socks.’

‘I haven’t got navy ones,’ Rob snapped.

‘I’ll find out and ring you back,’ I said soothingly. ‘And I’m sure the Four Square will have some if –’ At that point I realised I was talking to the dial tone, sighed and put the phone down.

After breakfast I transported the cake down to Mum’s, a nerve-racking manoeuvre during which I smudged a ribbon with chocolate ganache.

‘It won’t matter,’ Mum said, examining the damage. ‘We’ll just put a rose over it.’

‘But it’s on the wrong side! The roses are only supposed to hide the joins in the ribbons!’

‘It will look charmingly informal.’

‘It’ll look like someone’s emptied a bucket of flowers randomly over the cake.’

Mum looked at me over the tops of her glasses, which had slipped to the very tip of her nose. ‘Lia, there are over six million homeless people in Syria. That is a disaster. This is not.’

I smiled at her sheepishly, but said, ‘It was a disaster yesterday when Rob stood on your apple-blossom penstemon.’

‘That,’ said Mum, pushing her glasses back up, ‘was completely different.’

I went from her house to the Four Square, which was a sockless wasteland. Rob was in my bedroom when I got home, rummaging through my underwear drawer and swearing under his breath. He pulled out a pair of purple Merino bed socks, looked at them for a moment and then threw them at the wall.

Managing – just – not to laugh, I tossed him a packet of black opaque knee-high woman’s stockings. ‘Here.’

‘Fuck off,’ he said.

‘Just try them. It was all they had at the Four Square.’

Rob sighed, sat down on the edge of my bed and ripped the cellophane off the packet.

The stockings looked distinctly odd with rugby shorts, but they covered his ankles perfectly well. ‘Near enough?’ he asked, holding up one foot.

‘Gorgeous,’ I said. ‘I never realised you had such shapely calves.’

‘Lia, where’s your iron?’ Dad called, coming down the hall and putting his head around my bedroom door. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Robin, you can’t wear those.’

‘Why not?’ said Rob, peeling off the stockings and stuffing them in his shorts pocket. ‘Right, let’s go. You can iron your shirt at our place. Mike!’ He stood up and smiled at me. ‘Thanks.’

I hugged him swiftly. ‘You’re welcome. See you in a few hours.’

* * *

It was ten minutes to ten when Gabriella and her mother arrived, despite all assurances that midday would be plenty early enough. Gabriella was no bother – she retreated to a corner and whipped out her cell phone – but her mother, Jan, was one of those disconcerting people who tell you, in graphic and unnecessary detail and after about seven minutes’ acquaintance, all about their marital problems, urinary tract infections and ongoing battles with the wankers at Child, Youth and Family.

‘And then I told her that she could just take her parenting course and shove it up her bum,’ she said, embarking on her third Chelsea bun. ‘What’s the red stuff?’

‘Freeze-dried raspberry powder.’ I was dusting friands with it, using a little cardboard stencil in the shape of a daisy. ‘It looks quite cute, doesn’t it?’

‘Mm. And then she had the nerve to say I might learn something! Gabby, put that down and come here, please.’

Gabriella neither moved nor spoke.

‘Gabby!’

Nothing.

‘Gabriella Lawson, you listen to me when I speak to you! Oh, God, I don’t know why I bother.’

Neither did I. ‘Look, here are Anna and Deidre,’ I said brightly.

Anna looked much less tired than she had the day before. She ran up the kitchen steps, smiled at her unwanted flower girl and turned on the kettle. ‘Morning,’ she said.

‘Here comes the bride,’ said Jan fatuously.

‘You’re very early, Jan,’ said Deidre, coming in with a dress bag over her arm.

‘Well, we didn’t want to miss anything. Bun?’

‘No, thank you,’ said Deidre coldly.

Anna and I looked at each other and smiled.

‘What do you think?’ I said, and she came across the kitchen to inspect the friands.

‘Serves her right,’ she said under her breath. Then, ‘They look amazing.’

‘And that’s it. They’re my last job. Now we just have to get pretty. How was last night?’

‘Fine,’ said Anna, breathing out on a long sigh. ‘I can’t believe we’re almost there. Champagne?’

‘Why not?’ We both looked at Jan, considered the probable effect of a couple of glasses of champagne on someone who was already as silly as a chook, decided it would be poor but that Deidre could deal with it, and opened a bottle.

The morning sped past in a whirl of hair and makeup and clothes. Mum arrived just before twelve looking pale and tired, with her dress in a plastic supermarket bag and dirt under her fingernails. Deidre, already gowned in hot pink shot silk and with a hot pink fascinator stuck to the side of her head, looked at her with tolerant scorn.

My mother, however, is not just your average long-haired, ageing hippy. By twelve fifteen she was wearing a long, tight, sleeveless black dress with a Chinese collar and heavy gold embroidery, dainty gold sandals (fourteen dollars from St Vincent de Paul) and chandelier earrings. Her hair was swept up into a carelessly elegant knot and pinned with a pair of black lacquer chopsticks, her eyes were expertly tinted in shades of purple and grey and her nails were fire engine red. She looked stunning.

Trapped in my seat by the hairdresser, I met her eyes in the mirror and grinned. She winked at me and poured herself a glass of champagne.

‘You look like a movie star,’ said Jan in awe. ‘Doesn’t she, Deidre?’

‘Very nice,’ said Deidre in a small, flat voice. It was lovely.

If Mum looked like a movie star, Anna was a dream princess in her wedding dress. She was tall, slim and flawless, her dark hair pinned loosely at the nape of her neck and her cream silk skirts falling in soft, graceful folds to her feet.

Deidre fastened her last button and stepped back, and Anna turned to face us. Nobody said anything, but Deidre, Mum, the photographer and I all started to cry.

‘What?’ cried Anna. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘You’re so beautiful,’ said Gabriella wonderingly.

‘Shit,’ said Deidre through her tears. ‘My mascara . . .’

* * *

Anna’s father and Monty both arrived promptly at two thirty. While Deidre adjusted her husband’s hair, tie, cuffs and expression – ‘Smile, Ian! It’s a wedding, not a funeral!’ – I went out to talk to Monty, who was polishing the roof of his vintage Rolls with his handkerchief.

Looking up, he smiled and gave a long, low whistle.

‘Wait till you see Anna and Mum,’ I said, reaching up to kiss his cheek. ‘Nice suit.’

He tugged at his tie. ‘Damn thing. What time are you wanting to leave?’

‘Five to three.’ Which should, factoring in driving time and final dress adjustments, bring the bride’s arrival on the scene to ten past. Fashionably, but not annoyingly, late. ‘Come on in.’

‘No, no!’ he said. ‘I’d only get underfoot.’

‘Lia, you’re wanted for more photos!’ Mum called, appearing at the kitchen door. ‘Hi, Monty, come in and have a cold drink.’

There was a last-minute flurry of pictures before the photographer, taking Mum to direct him (and, bless him, Jan to get her out of the way) and warning us to give him a good head start, drove off down the hill into town. The rest of us tucked Anna into the back of the Rolls, flanked by her parents and with me and Gabriella in the front, and followed. Then we were hurrying across the lawn to regroup around the corner of Mum’s house, out of sight of the wedding guests. Deidre brushed frantically at Anna’s skirt – Mum rushed out of the kitchen with our bouquets – Gabriella announced that she was going to throw up – the processional music, selected by Rob and swathed until now in deepest secrecy, started, and Anna dissolved into laughter as she realised he’d chosen ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 miles)’ by The Proclaimers.

Then Gabriella was setting off at a canter, and I followed. There was a great multicoloured host of friends and relations standing on the lawn (I couldn’t see Jed, but was that Gina in the puce jumpsuit? Christ, it was horrible) and there were Mike and Rob, impeccably suited, waiting beside the celebrant in front of the perennial border . . .

A collective sigh rippled through the guests as Anna came around the side of the house, and I felt Rob’s exultation like an electric shock. Delight at his delight mingled with a bleak little pang of loss. Once upon a time I was the most important person in Rob’s life. Oh, get a grip, I told myself fiercely. Mike winked at me, and I smiled back at him.

* * *

It was a nice service, I believe, although I can’t remember a word of it. It was followed by a clamour of hugs and congratulations, then by champagne, and finally by far, far more photographs than can possibly have been necessary.

It was while being assembled for a Leslie family portrait that I came face to face with my sister, Gina. Tall and very thin, with wraparound sunglasses, she looked like a large, puce-coloured praying mantis.

‘Hello, Maggie,’ she said, nodding to Mum. ‘Hi, Lia, how are you?’

‘Great! Hi! How lovely to see you!’ I’m always far too enthusiastic with Gina – a reaction to being uncomfortably aware that I don’t like her much.

‘Okay, let’s have the bride and groom, with Dad on one side and Mum on the other,’ the photographer called.

‘It’s a beautiful spot Maggie’s got here,’ Gina said, as they took up their places against a backdrop of dahlias and native grasses. ‘It must be worth a bomb.’

‘Yes, it’s lovely, isn’t it? So, what have you been up to? How’s the family?’

‘Oh, we’re all fine. Kane’s in Year 14, now – he’s right into archery – and Melissa’s doing really well with her languages. Are you still running your café?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s going well.’

‘That’s good. Dad was saying you’ve had a boyfriend recently who hit you. I’m really sorry to hear that.’

‘Thanks. It wasn’t quite like that – he was an ex-boyfriend, and his mental health wasn’t great . . .’

‘Remember, it’s much better to be by yourself than with someone who doesn’t treat you right,’ said Gina kindly.

‘Yep,’ I said shortly, somewhat ruffled by this vision of myself as someone who’d rather have an abusive boyfriend than none at all.

‘Okay, let’s have siblings too, now!’ said the photographer. ‘Mike, you stand beside Maggie – a bit closer, she won’t bite you. Put your arm around her. That’s it . . . And you, ma’am – what’s your name? Gina? Stand by your dad, please . . . Sunglasses off . . . And little Lia in front where we can see her. That’s it. Lovely.’

* * *

An hour and a half later, with cheeks that ached from smiling, I paused on the edge of the top lawn and scanned the crowd for Jed. He was talking to Hugh not far away, but it took me a good ten minutes to get there.

‘Hi!’ I said, reaching his side with a feeling of mild triumph. ‘How are you guys?’

‘Oh, we’re great,’ said Hugh. ‘That’s a nice dress.’

‘Thank you. How were the parmesan wafers?’

‘Don’t know. Haven’t come across one yet.’

‘You haven’t tasted one, or you haven’t seen any?’

‘Haven’t seen any.’

‘That’s funny,’ I said, looking around.

‘Lia!’ Mum hissed, appearing at my elbow. ‘They’ve forgotten to put the hors d’oeuvres out!’

‘Shit,’ I said.

‘Come on.’ And taking my arm she smiled distractedly at the two men, turned and rushed me across the lawn towards the house.

* * *

I made several more attempts to talk to my boyfriend over the next few hours, all of them unsuccessful. After handing round the nibbles and lighting a couple of hundred tea lights in the marquee it was time for dinner (the responsibility of a catering firm from Dairy Flat, thank heaven). There was no formal seating plan, but the bridal party sat on a raised platform at one end of the marquee. Then came the speeches – Anna’s father spoke long and inaudibly, and Mike spoke briefly and well. Rob, normally unfazed by public speaking or anything else, stood up, gulped, said hoarsely, ‘Thanks so much for coming, everyone, it’s wonderful to have you all here,’ and sat back down. On being kicked in the shin by his brother he got up again, said that Anna was the best thing that had ever happened to him and he couldn’t believe his luck, pushed his chair back too far as he sat down and went heels over head off the edge of the platform. His fall was nicely broken by the marquee wall, and he received a standing ovation from two hundred wedding guests.

* * *

Just before ten, carrying an envelope with the vital information of who had given what wedding present written on the back, I headed out of the marquee towards the house.

‘Yo, sis!’ said Rob.

I stopped and looked around, frowning.

‘Over here. On your left. Your other left.’

I located him eventually, sitting on a chilly bin in the shadows to one side of the marquee doorway, behind the ribbon-enhanced maple. He’d taken off his waistcoat and tie, his legs were stretched out in front of him and he had a beer bottle in one hand. Beside him, on another chilly bin, was Jed.

‘Hello, chaps!’ I said, surprised and pleased to see them together.

‘Beer?’ Jed asked, offering his.

‘No thanks.’ I skirted the maple and ducked under a guy rope. ‘What are you doing lurking out here when you should be socialising?’

‘Just taking a breather,’ said Rob. ‘Sit down; you’re making the place look untidy.’

I sat – on Jed’s knee, since I’d barely touched him for days. He slid an arm around my waist and I leant back against his shoulder with a sigh.

‘That’s some serious hairspray,’ he said, dropping his chin onto my crunchy hair.

‘Isn’t it, just? It did occur to me that if I got too close to a tea light I’d probably go up like a torch.’ I stretched out a foot and nudged Rob’s. ‘Good wedding, bro.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, and we lapsed into a weary and contented silence, listening to Fleetwood Mac mingling pleasantly with the buzz of conversation on the other side of the marquee wall. I slipped my hand into Jed’s, and he stroked the inside of my wrist with a forefinger.

‘Hey, Rob?’ I said after a while.

‘Hmm?’

‘How would you feel about Mum and Mike getting together?’

‘What?’ he said blankly.

‘I think he’s been in love with her for about thirty years,’ I said. ‘Imagine how awful it must be, being in love with your father’s wife.’

‘You sound like an episode of Days of Our Lives,’ Rob remarked, and I felt Jed smile against my hair.

‘Oh, be quiet,’ I said. ‘The thing is, Mum’s in love with him too, but they’re both too scared to do anything about it. I thought maybe if we sat them down and – oh, I don’t know – gave them our blessing, or something . . .’

‘That’s disgusting,’ said Dad suddenly from the doorway of the marquee two metres away, and I froze in horror. ‘They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with that kind of behaviour.’

‘Well, if that’s how they want to live their lives . . .’ Mum said vaguely. ‘It’s been a lovely day, hasn’t it?’

They hadn’t heard. They were talking about something else. I went limp with relief.

‘Yes, it’s gone off very well,’ Dad agreed, sounding, for once, quite pleasant.

Evidently encouraged by his tone, Mum said, ‘You know, Gray, we may have made our share of mistakes, but you can’t deny we have two great kids.’

‘They’re not too bad,’ said Dad, and Rob started in mock amazement. I grinned.

The grin vanished rapidly when Mum continued, ‘When I think of how easily we could have lost Lia last month . . . You do realise that Robin and Jed saved her life?’

‘Come on, now, Maggie,’ said Dad uncomfortably.

‘That madman had her on the ground with his hands around her throat. The bruising was horrendous.’

Jed’s arm tightened to the point of discomfort around my waist, and Rob shifted on his chilly bin.

‘Well, she’s fine now,’ Dad said. ‘Bright as a button.’

‘No, Gray, she pretends that she is. What she’s been through has really damaged her.’

What? I thought indignantly.

‘What d’you mean “damaged”?’ said Dad.

‘She’s – she’s lost her innocence. She doesn’t assume things are going to be alright any more.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought she had much innocence to lose, myself. The way she carries on with that boyfriend of hers.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Mum sharply.

But, thank goodness, just then someone behind her cried, ‘Maggie! What a gorgeous dress!’

‘What the hell?’ Jed said as their voices faded back into the general hubbub.

‘Damaged?’ I added.

‘You seem alright to me,’ said Rob, standing up. ‘No worse than usual, anyway. Well, so long, kids; I’m going to find my wife. No carrying on, alright?’ He ducked under the guy rope and went back into the marquee.

‘Your father’s a dickhead,’ said Jed.

‘Yep.’

‘Anyone would think he’d caught us having sex in a toilet.’

‘I suppose he did see you kissing me yesterday,’ I said. ‘And then he may or may not have found a vibrator in my handbag.’

‘Why is there a vibrator in your handbag?’ Jed asked.

‘I bought it by mistake, weeks ago. I thought it was a box of condoms.’

‘And why is this the first I’ve heard of it?’

‘I forgot about it. Anyway, I wouldn’t have wanted to imply I wasn’t happy with the status quo.’ I kissed him and stood up. ‘I’d better take this list up to the house before I lose it. Want to come?’

‘Can we have sex in a toilet while we’re there?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

He sighed. ‘It was worth a shot.’

We meandered up the path to the house, where I stuck the gift list to the fridge door and Jed evicted little Gabriella’s brothers, who had been sampling Mum’s collection of ancient and uniformly nasty liqueurs in the living room.

‘Coming home with me tonight?’ he asked, watching them slope off into the night.

‘Yes. I think Dad can make his own breakfast tomorrow morning.’ I yawned and looked at the clock; it was twenty past ten. ‘I wish we could leave now.’

‘Can’t we?’

‘I think we’d better hang around a bit longer. It’s poor form for the bridesmaid to slope off halfway through the party.’

We wandered back outside across the lawn, hand in hand. ‘It looked like you were getting on well with Anna’s Auckland friends,’ I said. It had been a great relief to see him talking and laughing through dinner – it’s horrible to take someone to a party where they know hardly anyone and watch them sit, bored, in a corner.

‘Yeah. That guy Nathan’s a good sort. Drives a Kingswood ute.’

‘Is that cool?’ I asked.

‘Extremely cool.’

‘Although not as cool as a 1990 Toyota HiAce with tinted windows.’

‘Well, no,’ he said. ‘Obviously not that cool.’

‘Jed?’ I said abruptly. ‘Do you think I’m damaged?’

‘No.’

‘Good.’

‘Perhaps just a few minor scuff marks,’ he amended, slinging an arm around my shoulders.

I smiled. ‘Your first answer was better.’

‘Lia,’ he said, stopping suddenly and turning me around to face him. ‘I think you’re the most wonderful girl I’ve ever met. I hate that that arsehole hurt you, but it doesn’t make you any less wonderful. Okay?’

I threw my arms around his neck. ‘I love you.’

‘I love you too. Let’s go home and have sex on the dining room table.’

I paused, torn between duty and inclination, at the head of the grass path that led to the marquee, and heard Mike’s voice somewhere below saying, ‘What was the name of that bloke who was looking for truck drivers to cart maize?’

‘Glen Jackson,’ said Mum. ‘His number’s in the book – I can look it up for you. But . . . but didn’t you have some tractor work lined up?’

‘Yes, if I want it.’

‘Not that it wouldn’t be lovely to have you up here,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Rob and Lia would be thrilled.’

‘Would you?’ Mike asked, his voice about two octaves lower than usual.

They’d be on us in seconds. Decisive action was clearly indicated. Grabbing Jed’s hand, I dragged him off the path into a patch of shadow behind a large rhododendron. It would have been a really good hiding place, I’m sure, had the ground just there not been thickly carpeted with dry, crackly leaves.

‘Who’s there?’ said Mum sharply, peering into the undergrowth. ‘Lia?’

‘Hi,’ I said in a small voice, emerging from behind the rhododendron.

‘What on earth are you doing?’

‘Um . . .’

Jed emerged behind me, thus providing a perfectly logical, although deeply humiliating, explanation.

There was a brief, toe-curling silence, and then Jed said, ‘Right. Well, goodnight, guys. Lovely wedding. Thank you so much for having me.’

Taking my hand, he pulled me out of the garden and across the lawn.

‘Oh, God,’ I wailed once we were out of earshot.

Jed laughed.

‘It’s not funny!’

‘Yeah, it is.’

‘Jed, we can’t just leave.’

‘Yes we can. We are.’

‘But . . .’

‘I want to go home,’ he said. ‘I’ve hardly seen you for days, I’ve spent an hour tonight listening to your father whingeing about the wool industry, I’ve been propositioned by a terrifying woman in a shiny yellow dress –’

‘Melody,’ I said. ‘Wow. That’s quite a compliment. She has very high standards.’

‘So have I. Don’t interrupt.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Where was I . . . And tomorrow morning I have to drive to Thames and listen to Tracey either scream at me, or cry, or both. Please can we go home?’

I reached up and kissed him. ‘Yes.’

Chapter 31

We slept late the next morning and then went to the beach, where Jed bodysurfed and I bobbed languidly on the far side of the cool green breakers. Back home we made French toast and ate it on the deck, putting off all thoughts of cleaning up after two hundred wedding guests or driving to Thames to be shouted at for as long as possible. We put them off so successfully that it was ten o’clock before guilt drove us to our feet and out of the house.

As Jed’s van pulled up at the back of the café, Dad glanced briefly up through the kitchen window, then back down at his newspaper.

‘Ominous,’ I remarked.

Jed smiled. ‘Good luck.’

‘You too,’ I said, leaning over to kiss him.

I waved as he backed the van around, then turned and ran up the steps. ‘Morning, Dad.’

‘Good morning,’ said Dad, not bothering, this time, to lift his eyes.

‘Did you find something for breakfast?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

I put the plastic bag containing my bridesmaid’s dress down on the window seat. ‘Coffee?’

‘No thanks.’

‘Is Mike around?’

‘No.’

‘Well,’ I said, determinedly cheerful, ‘I suppose we’d better get down to Mum’s and start cleaning up. I’ll just go and get changed.’ The shorts I’d borrowed from Jed were somewhat precarious, liable to fall down if not held up.

* * *

We met Rob and Anna, looking crumpled from lack of sleep but very cheerful, at Mum’s mailbox.

‘Good morning,’ said Anna, with a smile that turned into a yawn. ‘We’re late. Sorry.’ They had booked their honeymoon to start on Monday, so as to help with the clean-up.

‘So are we,’ said Dad dryly, as if he couldn’t have come at any time he chose.

We weren’t very late, as it happened. Convening at ten had been interpreted loosely by the entire cleaning committee; Ian and Deidre had beaten us by ten minutes and none of the other volunteers arrived at all.

Mum, her face pale grey, was in the marquee collecting empty bottles into a black plastic rubbish sack.

‘Sit down,’ Anna said, taking one side of the sack. ‘Or why not go for a walk on the beach for an hour?’

‘Of course not,’ said Mum, snatching back the sack as if it contained the One Ring.

Rob yawned, stretched and began stacking chairs. ‘Is Mike around?’ he asked.

Nothing.

‘Mum?’

‘Robin, I don’t know!’

Rob looked at her for a moment and then said, ‘Hey, Dad, how about backing that hire trailer across the top lawn so we can load up the chairs and tables?’

It was a good hour later when Anna and I, ferrying armloads of dirty table linen up to the house, found Mum weeping into a sink full of soapy water and wineglasses. As the screen door banged shut behind us, she jumped like a startled fawn.

‘Oh – girls,’ she said, with an absolutely pitiful attempt at a smile, wiping her eyes on a tea towel. ‘Ignore me, I’m just tired . . . It was worth it, though, wasn’t it? It was a beautiful wedding.’

‘It was perfect,’ said Anna gently, turning Mum from the sink and putting her arms around her. ‘Mostly thanks to you.’

The door banged again as Rob came in, carrying an empty mop bucket.

Mum disengaged herself hurriedly. ‘It’s alright, Rob love, I’m just being silly – such a lovely wedding . . .’

‘Absolutely. Best one I’ve ever had. Have you and Mike had a falling-out?’ Apparently Rob was going for the sledgehammer approach.

‘No! Why would we?’

‘Glad to hear it. Because it’s blindingly obvious that you’re perfect for each other.’

I stared at him – there are times, just occasionally, when I’m rendered speechless with wonder at the awesomeness of my twin.

Mum faltered backwards, collided with the edge of the sink bench and gripped it with both hands as a drowning man might grip a spar.

‘Perfect,’ Anna repeated firmly, and I blinked at her in turn. I’d have expected a certain amount of disapproval from Anna – not an open denunciation, she’s far too kind, but some degree of hesitation and misgiving.

‘Hear, hear,’ I said, finding my voice.

‘But – but –’

‘But what?’ said Rob.

‘What would people say?’ Mum whispered.

‘What people? Us? We say crack on.’

‘Your father . . .’

‘He’ll be awful,’ Rob admitted. ‘But then he’s awful anyway.’

Mum shivered.

‘Who would you rather upset, Dad or Mike?’ I asked, adding my mite to the interrogation.

She covered her face with her hands. ‘I’m his stepmother,’ she wailed.

‘Ex-stepmother,’ I said. ‘And – and you never actually mothered him.’

‘I’m older than he is,’ she continued, her voice muffled.

‘Five years. That’s nothing.’

‘It’s not nothing! It would mean not having children of his own, and he’d be a w-wonderful father . . .’

‘Isn’t that up to him?’ asked Anna.

‘Stop it!’ said Mum, lifting her head and glaring at us. ‘Stop – steamrolling me!’

Rob smiled at her. ‘We just want you to be happy,’ he said.

‘And Mike,’ I said. ‘You know; two birds, one stone.’

Rob picked up the portable phone and handed it to her. She took it gingerly, as if it might bite. ‘Ring him.’

‘Please, Mum?’ I said.

‘Go on, you know you want to.’

‘Chop chop. No time like the present.’

‘Be quiet!’ she said, laughing through her tears. ‘You’re horrible, all of you. Go away!’

I plucked the phone back out of her hand, dialled Mike’s cell phone number and handed it back.

‘Lia!’ Mum cried. ‘What are you –? Stop it!’

‘Hello,’ came Mike’s voice as he answered it.

Mum gave a little breathless sob, fumbled with the phone and dropped it into the sink among the wineglasses.

There was a brief, nonplussed silence, during which Anna fished it back out and dried it inadequately on a tea towel.

‘Here,’ said Rob, pulling his cell phone out of his back pocket and scrolling through the menu. ‘There’s his number – just press “talk” when you’re ready.’

‘And maybe step away from the sink,’ I said.

On which note we withdrew. When I looked back through the kitchen window, Mum had the phone to her ear.

Epilogue

Mum and Mike did eventually get their act together. He moved first into the spare room at the café and then, in a diffident, furtive sort of way, into Mum’s house. He drives trucks for Glen Jackson, shears sheep for lifestyle-blockers, moves rocks for Rob and is an excellent barista if Anna and I can get our hands on him. He and Mum are very, very happy.

Dad isn’t speaking to any family members except Gina. We’re bearing up quite well.

Hugh recently met a nice lady online; she lives north of Whangarei and makes goat’s cheese.

Anna and I have a full-time staff member, a pale, slender youth called Dwayne who eats like a whole pack of ravening wolves and makes absolutely stellar toasted sandwiches. We get two days off a week each, now. It’s lovely.

Isaac is currently in prison, although he comes up for parole in another few months. I try not to worry about that, and mostly I succeed.

Tracey is doing a media arts degree in Auckland, in a haphazard, two-steps-forwards-one-step-back sort of way. She’s taking her lithium and she has Craig every second weekend, although she’s quite prone to cancelling at four thirty on Friday afternoons. She dislikes me intensely. I wish she didn’t, and I really wish she wouldn’t tell Craig that, if it wasn’t for me, Mummy and Daddy would be living happily together in the same house, but life is seldom completely perfect.

It’s pretty close, though.

Pretty Delicious Recipes

Strawberry Ice-cream Cake

Looks almost unbearably classy, tastes wonderful and lasts weeks in the freezer. (NB: This last claim has never been personally tested, owing to deliciousness of ice-cream cake and lack of willpower.)

Heat the oven to 170°C. In a bowl, mix together:

1 cup of plain flour

¼ cup of brown sugar

100 grams of butter, melted

½ cup of hazelnuts, reasonably finely chopped

Spread the nut mixture out evenly in a shallow baking dish and bake for 10–15 minutes until lightly toasted, stirring every couple of minutes.

While the nut mixture is toasting, combine in a bowl:

2 cups of chopped strawberries

2 egg whites

1 cup of sugar

2 teaspoons of lemon juice

Beat hard for 10 minutes with an electric beater, until light and fluffy. (Don’t forget to keep stirring the nut mixture, which will be only too ready to burn to a cinder if given half a chance.)

Whip:

250 millilitres of cream

Fold the whipped cream into the fluffy strawberry mixture.

Line a round cake tin with baking paper and then spread two-thirds of the toasted nut mixture across the bottom. Spoon in the strawberry cream fluff, and sprinkle the rest of the nut mixture over the top. Freeze for at least a few hours, remove from the cake tin and serve in wedges.

Chocolate Brownie

This is a brilliant recipe – it always works, tastes great, keeps beautifully, freezes well, takes four minutes to assemble and twenty minutes to cook. (The amounts below make quite a small brownie; for thicker and more serious portions – more like a mud cake and less like a slice – double the recipe and bake it in a cake tin.)

Heat the oven to 160°C. In a medium-sized saucepan, melt together:

150 grams of butter

6 tablespoons of cocoa

Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in:

1 cup of white sugar

2 eggs (or, if you’re short of eggs, 1 egg and 1 egg-sized dollop of natural yoghurt – results identical)*

a pinch of salt

¾ cup of plain flour

½ cup of chocolate chips or chocolate buttons

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

Line a sponge roll tin with baking paper. Spread the mixture in the tin and bake for 20 minutes, until just set.

To serve the brownie as a dessert, warm each portion slightly in the microwave and top with whatever combination of whipped cream/ice cream/icing sugar/berry sauce you please.

* Be sure to stir the eggs into the hot mixture right away; if you leave them sitting on top and wander off to do something else, the whites start to cook.

Boysenberry Cheesecake

This isn’t actual cooking; it’s just assembly. Extremely delicious.

In a small bowl, mix together:

1 packet of crushed biscuits (e.g. arrowroots, gingernuts, chocolate chip biscuits if you’re feeling decadent . . . )

100 grams of butter, melted

Line a round cake tin with baking paper, cover the bottom with the crumb mixture, press it down and sling the tin into the freezer to set while you go on with the filling.

For the filling, mix together:

1 tin (395 grams) of sweetened condensed milk

250 grams of cream cheese

1 packet of boysenberry jelly crystals dissolved in ⅔ cup of boiling water

Once the mixture is smooth and pink and beautiful, fold in:

300 millilitres of cream, whipped

Retrieve the base from the freezer and pour the filling over the top. Return to the fridge for a couple of hours to set.

For extra impressiveness, mix in a small saucepan:

1 tin (425 grams, or thereabouts) of boysenberries

2 tablespoons of cornflour mixed to a paste with a little water

1 tablespoon of icing sugar

Bring to the boil on the stovetop and cook, stirring, for a few minutes until the mixture thickens to a custard-ish consistency. Cool to room temperature before spreading on top of the cheesecake.

NB: You can make endless variations of this cheesecake: different flavours of jelly – or ½ cup of lemon juice and 3 teaspoons of gelatine dissolved in a little boiling water instead of shop-bought jelly crystals (this is particularly good, if you have enough lemons); different sorts of biscuits for the base; chopped-up chocolate bars or broken biscuits stirred through the filling; chocolate shavings and fresh berries piled artistically on top . . .

Bread Dough

(which can be turned into a wide variety of seriously good things to eat)

Learn to make bread. Honestly. Not only is it about a hundred times better than the bought stuff, but people are impressed out of all proportion to the amount of effort required.

In a large bowl, mix together:

2 cups of warm water (warmer than tepid, cooler than a hot cup of tea)

1 tablespoon of sugar

1 tablespoon of yeast

Leave for 10 minutes or so, until it froths up, and then add:

4½–5 cups of plain flour

1 teaspoon of salt

a slop of oil

Knead to a smooth dough. (A breadmaker or a mixer with a dough hook makes this really easy, but if you don’t have either, mix the ingredients in the bowl until they stick together, tip the dough out onto a clean bench top dusted with flour and knead for a few minutes by hand.) Leave the dough to rise somewhere warm for about half an hour, then turn into one of the following:

Cottage loaf Put a greased casserole dish in the oven and then heat the oven to 200°C. Whip out the hot casserole dish, sling in the ball of dough, make a couple of artistic-looking slashes across the top, dust lightly with flour and bake for 40 minutes. Comes out with a lovely chewy crust.

Foccacia Roll the dough out to cover a greased baking tray, sprinkle with your choice of oil/crushed garlic/chopped rosemary leaves/grated parmesan/caramelised onion and cream cheese/sea salt/anything else you fancy and bake at 180°C for 30 minutes.

Pizza base Heat the oven to 200°C. Divide dough into 4 and roll each portion out thinly, to cover a greased oven tray. Cover – not too thickly; less is more with pizza toppings – with toppings of your choice and bake for 10 minutes.

Calzone Merely a fancy term for a pizza that you fold in half like an apple turnover before baking. Bake as for pizza.

Dinner rolls Divide dough into 12 portions and roll each into a ball. Place them on a greased baking dish, not quite touching, brush them with beaten egg for a high-gloss veneer and bake at 190°C for 30 minutes.

Bread sticks Divide dough into 12 portions and roll each into a long skinny tube. Brush each one with oil and roll in grated cheese for extra delectability. Arrange them 5 centimetres apart on 2 greased oven trays and bake at 190°C for 20–30 minutes.

Pita pockets Divide dough into 8 portions. Roll each portion out into a thin circle and dust with flour. Heat your oven as high as you possibly can and bake 2 pockets at a time for 3 minutes on an oven tray lined with baking paper, then flip them over and bake for another 3 minutes. They puff up beautifully.

Bagels Divide dough into 8 portions. Shape each one into a ring and leave to rise for half an hour or so. Toss 4 at a time into a pot of boiling water for 3 minutes, then fish them out, line them up on 2 greased baking trays, brush them with beaten egg and bake at 180°C for another 25 minutes. Dense and chewy and delicious.

Camping cheesy buns Take a small lump of dough, flatten it slightly, fold it around a smaller lump of cheese and cook it for 5 minutes a side on the hot plate of a barbecue. Very popular with children, and, for some reason, tastes 40 times better than it would if baked in the oven.

Cinnamon Buns

Very, very delicious. And they look awesome.

In a large bowl, mix:

1 cup of very hot water

1 cup of milk

100 grams of butter, roughly diced

⅓ cup of sugar

1 egg

1 heaped tablespoon of yeast

Leave for 10 minutes or so, until the yeast froths up, and then add:

5–6 cups of white flour

2 teaspoons of salt

Knead well to make a soft dough. (If you don’t have a breadmaker or a mixing machine with a dough hook to do the kneading for you, mix the ingredients until they stick together, tip the dough out of the bowl onto a flat surface dusted with flour and knead it by hand for a few minutes.) Leave the dough in a warm spot for about half an hour to rise a little.

While the dough does its thing, line a large round cake tin with non-stick baking paper.

In a small saucepan or microwave-proof bowl, melt together:

50 grams of butter

½ cup of brown sugar

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

Dust the bench top lightly with flour, and roll or press out the dough into a rough rectangle, about 40 centimetres long, 30 centimetres wide and 1 centimetre thick. Spread the melted cinnamon-sugar mixture evenly over the top (not quite to the edges; it will make a break for freedom) and roll up the dough rectangle from the longer side, as if you were rolling up a magazine.

Cut your Swiss roll–shaped tube of dough into 3-centimetre sections and pack them, cut side up and about 1 centimetre apart, in the paper-lined cake tin. Scrape up any little puddles of escaped cinnamon-sugar mixture and dribble over the top of the buns.

Leave the cake tin somewhere warm for half an hour or so to allow the buns to rise a little, and then fan bake at 170°C for 30–40 minutes, until golden brown. (If you’re in a hurry, you can skip this rising step – instead put the buns into a cold oven and then turn it on. They’ll rise pretty well as the oven heats up.) The buns will double in size and join at the edges as they cook.

While they’re baking, make a glaze by mixing:

1 tablespoon of icing sugar

juice of 1 lemon

As soon as the buns come out of the oven, brush them with the glaze.

Best pulled apart and eaten warm, but still very good the next day.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks so much to everyone at Paper Plus in Te Awamutu – especially Sharon and Rebecca, who are absolutely top ladies.

And thank you to Jarrod, who doesn’t read things I write but is still quite mint.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DANIELLE HAWKINS lives on a sheep and beef farm near Otorohanga in New Zealand with her husband and two children. She works part-time as a large animal vet, and writes when the kids are at school and she’s not required for farming purposes. She is a keen gardener, an intermittently keen cook and an avid reader. Her other talents include memorising poetry, making bread and zapping flies with an electric fly swat. She tends to exaggerate to improve the story, with the result that her husband believes almost nothing she says. The Pretty Delicious Café is Danielle’s third novel.

PRAISE FOR DANIELLE HAWKINS

Dinner at Rose’s

‘It’s so good that it’s hard to believe it’s a first novel. It had better not be her last. Please, Danielle’ – Lee Matthews, Manawatu Standard

‘What really carries it is the quality of the writing. The dialogue is absolutely spot on. You would almost believe the author wrote for TV or writes sitcoms. It’s very, very funny’ – Paper Plus, Winter Reads

‘A cross between All Creatures Great and Small, Bridget Jones’s Diary and something the Topp Twins would write if there was only one of them and she was straight, this is a very funny book’ – Next Book Club

‘It was page 4 when I saw this and knew it was going to be a good book: “You really should consider becoming an eccentric yourself. It makes life so much more interesting”’ – Jessica, GoodReads

‘This book grabbed me straight away, from the moment I opened the first page right up until the second I closed the book after finishing’ – Megan Readinginthesunshine, GoodReads

‘I LOVED this book and devoured it quickly’ – Georgia, GoodReads

‘This book . . . has to be the most satisfying in this genre that I’ve ever read’ – Kathleen Dixon, GoodReads

‘A beautifully written, funny, intelligent and heartwarming novel’ – Lisa, GoodReads

‘Absolutely loved it’ – Jessica Cutting, GoodReads

‘. . . am diving straight into the author’s next book!’ – Sallyann Van Leeuwen, GoodReads

Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

‘Another sweet, gently funny depiction of life in the back blocks of New Zealand’ – Next Book Club

‘This is a delightful, contemporary romance’ – Herald Sun

‘Helen is frankly delightful – intelligent but oh-so-human . . . a plausible, relatable storyline and hugely appealing characters. A charming summer read, and a giggling good time’ – Australian Women’s Weekly

‘This was an amusing read that felt much shorter than it was because I just couldn’t put it down’ – Wyrdness, GoodReads

‘I really, really enjoyed this one! The world-building and character-building were really exceptional’ – Molly, GoodReads

‘The only problem I could see in the book was the Wallabies did not win often enough’ – Jodie, GoodReads

‘Helen reminds me of a modern day James Herriot and her often hilarious adventures in this dairy country will have you laughing (although if you’re squeamish this may not be the book for you!)’ – Bec, GoodReads

‘This is pure escapism and I thoroughly enjoyed this read; it is written with a great sense of humour and the author’s passion for the care of animals is obvious’ – Carol, Reading Writing and Riesling

‘This book is like chocolate cake for breakfast: addictive’ – Bree T, GoodReads

BACK AD

Click here to read more titles from the Sisterhood of Reading

COPYRIGHT

HarperCollinsPublishers

First published in Australia in 2016

by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

ABN 36 009 913 517

harpercollins.com.au

Copyright © Danielle Hawkins 2016

The right of Danielle Hawkins to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

HarperCollinsPublishers

Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand

A 53, Sector 57, Noida, UP, India

1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF, United Kingdom

2 Bloor Street East, 20th floor, Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8, Canada

195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007, USA

ISBN: 978 1 4607 5258 6 (paperback)

ISBN: 978 1 4607 0739 5 (ebook)

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Hawkins, Danielle, author.

The pretty delicious café / Danielle Hawkins.

Coffee shops – New Zealand – Fiction.

Families – New Zealand – Fiction.

Twins – New Zealand – Fiction.

Interpersonal relations – Fiction.

NZ823.4

Cover design by HarperCollins Design Studio

Cover images: House by Hannah Johnston / Getty Images; all other images by shutterstock.com