Page 64 of Kiwi Gold
Laila lay back, pressed the heels of her hands over her eyes, and said from behind them, “That went well.”
I was beside her now. How could I not be? For once, she was leaning into me, and when I put my arm around her, she rested her head against my shoulder as if she’d forgotten to be wary. I asked, “Where did she get all that? Amira?”
“Who knows,” Laila said, leaning her head back with a sigh. “She listens, obviously. Something Kegan said to me, or something he said about me. I don’t know, and what does it matter now? It’s funny, though, because …”
“Because,” I said, “you don’t want to be rich.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t. At least—I don’t think about it. I want not to worry. That’s rich enough.” She shook herself and sat up straighter, and I removed my arm. “Not that anybody’s asking me to tick a box for my preferred wealth level.”
I said, “What kind of man was he, really? Because I don’t think what he did that day was a one-time thing. I don’t see how it could be. Wouldn’t it be part of your nature?”
She stiffened, and I said, “Right. Wrong question. How much have you talked about this, though? Seems pretty … complicated.”
“What,” she said, “you mean you’re not the right person for my confidences? Yeh, I know, yet here we are. And I never talk about it, because if he had no mana, that means I had no sense. And because he’s my girls’ father. To answer your question … yes, it was probably part of him. The weakest part, or the flip side to his good side. He was determined, and he was focused. He had an iron will. I mean, really iron. He never gave up, and he never stopped pushing. The irony of it is—he was a good mate. A good climbing partner. Until he wasn’t.”
“A good husband?” I asked.
She sighed. “I’m not sure, now, what that even means. He loved me. He loved the girls.” She was looking off into the distance, or into the past. “But probably not enough. He wasn’t domesticated. I knew that. I signed up for it. No point complaining now.” She pressed her hands to her eyes again, then took them away. “And I should go talk to the girls. But I haven’t sorted out what to say, and I think they may need a little time. To cool off, or just to cry. I don’t know.”
I said, “You could get me started on that bath, then. By the time I’m ready to get stuck into that grout, I’m guessing you’ll have thought of something.”
* * *
Yasmin had climbedinto my lap back there, purely trusting in that way kids were who’d known nothing but love, or maybe just sensing a man with heaps of little girls in his life. Her mother was a much tougher proposition.
Laila came into the bath again twenty minutes after she’d left it to find me finished with the tarping and taping and starting to open the packages holding the safety goggles and the blade for the oscillating tool. She didn’t tell me what she’d said to the girls or how it had gone, but just said, “Thanks. I’ll take over now.”
“Nah,” I said. “Already got a plan made. I’ll work vertically, then horizontally. Call it a half meter square at a time. Done today. Easy-peasy.” And slotted the blade into the tool.
“Why?” she asked. “Why on earth would you want to do this? I don’t understand.”
“You don’t?” I asked. “Why not?”
“Why … not?” She raised her hands, then slapped them against her thighs in the same way Amira had done. In the way a woman said,I cannot believe you’re being so dense.“Because it’s a filthy job? Because it’s tedious? Because it’s not your flat?”
I said, “You know, normally a woman would just say, ‘Thanks,’ and possibly bat her eyes a bit and add something about how strong and capable I am.”
“Those would be women,” she said, “who’d at leastkissedyou.” But she was smiling, at least.
“Well,” I said, “there’s that.” I sat on the edge of the bath and motioned her to sit, too.
Did she sit beside me? No, she did not. She sat on the toilet seat.
It wasn’t exactly waltzing under the chandelier. It wasn’t even going out for a flash dinner. A dinner she hadn’t been able toafford.All of this was mad. And yet …“I think you should let me take care of this,” I told her. “You have a sprained foot, and anyway, two people working in a tiny bath with those chips of grout flying about at speed would be a bad idea. Clearly a bad idea,” I went on when she would have said something.“Evidentiallya bad idea. Can’t imagine a newborn photographer inspires heaps of confidence with plasters all over her, either. You’d have a not-so-secret cutting habit, maybe, or an abusive boyfriend hanging about the place. Either way, probably not the woman you want shoving your three-day-old baby into a flowerpot.”
“I do not shove,” she said. “Iplace.Gently. With Oriana’s hands on the baby the entire time, which I Photoshop out later. There you are. The trade secret. And instead, you’ll have plasters all overyou.”
“I could call them more bullet scars,” I said. “At least this time, I won’t have collected them whilst running away. Heroic deeds, eh. Heroic deeds with grout, but there you are. Indulge me. I’m working with what I’ve got.”
She said, “I haven’t even asked you to kiss me, though. And if it ever happens, I’m not sure you’ll be wowed. And, yes, I’m your half-sisters’ half-sister, but that doesn’t make me your obligation.Anotherobligation. I’m fine here. I’m coping. So why?”
I tried to think of how to explain. I couldn’t. “Because this is the sort of thing a man needs to do,” I said, and knew it wasn’t good enough. “Here you are, and here this project is, and …” I gave it up and asked, “Did your dad ever say why he dropped that note for your mum?”
She flushed. “That’s not funny.”
“I didn’t say it was funny. I asked if he told you.”
“It was what I said.” Her eyes were steady on mine as she sat on the toilet lid in her long, loose shorts, her T-shirt, her knot of gleaming dark hair with its flashes of red, and watched me fasten the blade onto the tool. “She was beautiful, and so elegant, and she was more than that. She was radiant even with her hair covered, in her tunics and trousers, and she shone like a lantern at home, or maybe like a … a lighthouse, especially to my dad. ‘Radiant’ is the word people used, though, and that’s what I remember.”
