Page 19 of Kiwi Gold
Yes,I told it, and did it. Slowly. Without breathing.
“I’m going to … lie down for a minute,” I told the girls when I was done. “Then I’ll make you breakfast.”
“Auntie Poppy and Uncle Matiu had bacon,” Amira told me reproachfully. “And yum sausage. And pancakes. And eggs.”
“And maple syrup,” Yasmin said. “And the smelly kind of mushy bananas.”
The toilet lid slammed up again.
Yasmin said, when I’d clambered to my feet once more, “Bacon and sausage areharam,though, if it’s sausage with pork. That’s probably why it makes Mummy sick to think about it.”
“Let’s not say those words right now.” I was back with the cold cloth again.
“What words?” Amira asked. “Sausage?”
I used to love the smell of sausage. Guiltily, but still. It had nauseated me past bearing, though, whenever Kegan had cooked it when I was pregnant with the twins, and I’d never managed it since. When I’d been sick one night and had told him why, Kegan had said, “I have to eat something, and it’s not like you’re cooking. I’m not forcingyouto eat pork. You’re not Muslim anymore anyway, you said, so what do you care? And as for the smell—I’m not cooking brussels sprouts or fish or curry, am I? I gave up. I can’t give upeverything.”Which was true, so I’d had no answer. I’d just gone on being sick.
I did not need to be thinking about brussels sprouts.Orsausage. Or my marriage. I said, “Lying down. Breakfast later. Eat cereal.” After that, I staggered into my bedroom, laid myself gingerly on the bed, put the wet cloth over my aching eyes, and didn’t think much of anything.
A whispered conference outside my door.Stagewhispers. A hand on my forehead, after a minute. Yasmin, I could tell without looking. “Do you want me to sing to you?” she asked.
What could you say?No, please leave me alone?Obviously not. She started on the singing, the notes bouncing against my poor abused brain like blows from a hammer, and then Amira’s voice was in the room, too, saying, “Maybe you need to go to hospital,” in a hopeful sort of way. She’d seen one of those medical shows on TV a few times recently, when she hadn’t been able to sleep and had climbed up on the couch with me, and had become obsessed with the dangerous glamour. I’d caught her poking at her belly a time or two, and she’d told me, “This is where your appendix is. It can burst, and then you have poison all through your insides.” In an extremely hopeful sort of way.
“No,” I said. “No hospital. Go watch TV, please. Both of you.”
They hovered, still. I was almost never ill. Probably, I thought dimly, they were more fragile due to having only one parent. The fear of loss and so forth.
Too bad. They could wrestle with the idea of mortality on their own for anhour.
Amira’s next helpful comment was, “I could call Grandad on your phone, in case you do need to go to hospital. He could drive you. Except you may need to go in an ambulance if it’s an emergency. Does your tummy hurt very bad? Do you think your heart is having an attack?”
I opened one eye and looked at her. “No,” I said, as firmly as I could manage. “To all those things.” After that, I checked for my phone. Safely underneath me. Good.
More noise outside, eventually. The girls talking. For once, I was telling them to go ahead and eat sugary cereal and watch TV. This was their dream date! Why wouldn’t theydoit?
Silence, then. Finally. I’d just lie here and wait for the hammering in my head to stop. And be glad that the girlscouldn’tcall my dad. The one thing that could make this whole humiliating chain of events worse.
* * *
Lachlan
I woke up to slammed doors and more of those monkey-sounds. Skittering feet, squeals, and yelps. I turned over in bed and pulled the pillow over my head, but it was no good. It was … 9:21 on New Year’s Day, and I was awake.
Also alone. I should’ve stayed last night and found somebody else to dance with, and possibly got my year off to a ringing start, too. That had been the whole point of the evening. But somehow, I hadn’t.
More running feet, and then a sharp bark or two. Oh. The skittering was a dog, or possibly more than one, because that was heaps of skittering. Well, fine. I liked dogs. Better than monkeys, anyway. People thought monkeys were cute. They weren’t cute. They bit. Monkeys were like pickpockets, only with less redeeming social value.
That humidity in the jungle, the hairy, clutching vines and tripping hazards and biting insects, not to mention the bullets and snakes? Add monkeys to the list.
My phone said 9:28 now. I’d slept too long, because I hadn’t slept well. Last night, when I’d rejoined Jax and Karen,afterthey’d finished kissing their way into the New Year in a way that absolutely didn’t suggest, “We’ve been married for quite some time now and have a child at home,” Karen had asked me, “You lost her already?”
“Yeh,” I said. “Got her name, though. Laila.”
Arrested movement, I’d call that, and then Karen said, “Of course. Ofcoursethat was Laila. Thehair.I’ve never seen it down. Wow. Really, though? She came to this? I’m surprised.Morethan surprised.”
“What?” I asked. “You know her?”
Jax said, “Not well. Poppy’s friend.”
