Page 51 of Kiwi Sin
“My grandad says it’s private,” Amira insisted. “When it’s on TV. He switches the TV off and says it’s private, and not for little girls to see.”
“I bet your mum and dad kissed all the time, though,” Olivia said. “When your dad wasn’t dead.”
“They didnot,”Amira said.
I had no idea what the rules really were, or if there were any at all. Kissing felt like itshouldbe private, to me. When I saw it, especially on TV, I got all hot and prickly, like that night with Gabriel. Daisy did more than kiss Gray, too. She sat in his lap and put her hands on his body in front of us, and she hugged him on the street and kissed him in front of total strangers in a way I’d never imagined a woman could do, unless shewasfallen.
Kissing, and relations, were things that happened in bed, under the blankets. I knew, because I’d grown up in that single room with my parents. Relations happened in the dark, and they were quiet, not with kissing in places besides your mouth, and definitely not with the noisesI’d heard in films.
Maybe it wasn’t real. Fairy tales weren’t real, and neither was magic. Why would noisy relations be? Surely people didn’t really do those things.
My mind tried to remember those sounds I’d heard from Gray and Daisy’s bedroom, but I wouldn’t let it. More of that hot, prickly feeling. Instead, I stood up. “I know one thing,” I told the girls. “And that’s that it’s long past bedtime. What are you two doing awake?”
“We want to make popcorn,” Olivia announced. “Because popcorn is for party nights, and this is a party night.”
Amira said, “And I need to know if pirates are real, please. Mummy says Long John Silver isn’t really real, except that he’s our dog, so he’s real that way, but Olivia says there are toopirates. If they’re really real, I have to be ready so they don’t get me if I go on a boat.”
“You can’t beready,”Olivia said. “Pirates haveswords.”
“But I could be very strong,” Amira said, “and use karate.”
“Do you know karate?” I asked, diverted in spite of myself.
“Not yet,” she said.“That’s why I have to be ready.”
“No pirates in New Zealand,” I said. “And what Iknowis that it’s bedtime, so let’s go.” With kids, at least, I knew what I was doing, and these were stalling tactics all the way. I got a hand behind each of their backs and was shepherding them up the stairs when the doorbell rang, a shockingly loud peal in the nighttime quiet.
I hesitated, half up and half down the stairs. It wasnight.Did you answer the door at night? I didn’t know the answer. Daisy and Gray had a locked gate and a system of cameras and alarms, because although they didn’t say much about it, I knew they were still worried about the Prophet coming after us. Also, Gray was famous, something else I’d never heard of before. You got famous when you were on TV or in films, and he’d been a rugby star, before, and on TV every week. When you were famous, people bothered you, so you took precautions. Nobody rang Gray’s doorbell unexpectedly.
The doorbell rang again, and I stared at Priya. Until Olivia said, “I’ll answer it!” and ran around me down the stairs with Amira following her.
“Grab them!” I said to Priya. She wasn’t quick enough, though, because Olivia had flung the door open.
It was Gabriel. In a blue work shirt, canvas trousers, and work boots, and with something that looked like a white singlet wrapped around his hand, which he was holding up above his head. Well, the singlet had been white once. Now, it was stained bright red.
He may have been looking at me. I couldn’t tell, because I wasn’t looking athim,other than at his hand.I knew I wasallowedto look, but I couldn’t, not after everything. I was grabbing the girls instead and telling Priya, “Go put them to bed.”
She said, “You shouldn’t …” and I knew why. Even her lust for this new life wasn’t up to inviting a man who wasn’t our brother into a house where we were the only adults at home, but she also didn’t know how to tell a man he wasn’t allowed to come inside. Neither did I.
I probably shouldn’t talk to him, not after what my uncle had said. But he was bleeding somuch.
I said, “What did you do?”
“Came to see Matiu,” he said. “I cut my hand a bit.” His voice came out quiet and deep from his broad chest, so I was clearly the only one bothered by this. He needed a haircut, I thought, with another peek. At Mount Zion, women cut their husbands’ hair, and mothers cut their unmarried sons’, but Aunt Constance must not have seen him for a while, because it was getting long.
“Oh, no,” I said. “How bad?”
“Dunno,” he said. “Cut it on a can. Cooking is, uh … still hard, but I’m trying to get better. I was trying to make sauce for noodles, like those meatballs you did, and I didn’t realize it would be so sharp. The lid, I mean. And it won’t stop bleeding.”
He had hair on his chest, too. I could see it, because he wasn’t wearing a singlet. It was probably what was wrapped around his hand. I was trying not to look at his face, but now I was seeing his bare chest!
“Shouldn’t you have gone to hospital?” I asked. “Oh. Come in.”
He didn’t. “Thought Matiu could stitch me.” There was a flush on his face, but I wasn’t sure why. “I don’t know how hospital, uh, works, quite. And I really am trying to learn, on the cooking. Buying takeaways gets too dear, and I’m a bit tired of those microwave things.”
“Matiu’s not here,” I said. Then I took a breath and took the leap. “But you need to have that stitched. I’ll drive you to hospital. How did you get here?”
“Drove,” he said. “Stick shift, though. I don’t think I can …”
