Page 54 of Kiwi Sin
Oriana
I delivered Gabriel to his flat after a long wait in Emergency, during which I helped him hold up his hand and ignored how my own arm was aching. He’d gone mostly quiet again, so I had, too, until I’d given him a lift home close to midnight, his hand stitched up and wrapped in a white bandage.
I was driving carefully past a group of laughing, shouting students, some of them waving bottles around and all of them stumbling off the pavement and into the roadway, and thinking,I can’t imagine that being me. I need to imagine it, though, if I want to live here, if I want to have more friends, because it’s what people do.I asked, maybe in order not to think about that, “Do you need me to come back and take you to Matiu’s for your ute tomorrow? And when do you get the stitches out?”
“I’ll walk,” he said. “And not for ten days or so. I won’t be really fit to work until then, either. Cutting my palm … it couldn’t be worse. I’m useless.”
He sounded so bothered that I wanted to put my hand on his, but I didn’t, of course.
“Won’t Gray understand?” I asked, a little timidly. This was men’s business, but who else was he going to talk to? He could ask his dad about it, but not tonight, because it was late. Wouldn’t he lie in bed and worry? I was here, and it was too sad and too lonely not to have anybody to share your fears with.
He didn’t answer, so hedidn’twant to talk about it, and I tried not to be bothered by that and found a carpark outside the block of flats he directed me to. At least two kilometers from Matiu’s grand house on the hill, and nothing like it. Even in the dark, I could tell it was pretty shonky, or maybe I was just comparing it to Gray’s houses, which were so beautiful, you barely wanted to leave them.
He didn’t move to get out. He said, “Yeh, Gray’s a good boss. But I don’t like to leave him shorthanded.”
“It was an accident,” I said.
“It was careless.” He sounded so angry, I flinched.
“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry.” He ran his uninjured hand over his face, and I thought that he wouldn’t say more, that he’d climb down and go inside. Instead, he said, “I need him to think I’m reliable.”
“Gabriel.” He was the one who jumped this time, hearing his name. He looked so tired, and so … bothered, and I missed the sweetness of that day when we’d cared for Drew’s kids together, and the way he’d smiled when he’d given me my sewing machine.
He felt stupid, I suddenly realized. Just like I did, so often. I said, “He knows you’re reliable. He said so.”
He dropped his hand. “He did?”
“Yes.He says you’re an awesome worker. I should know,” I added when he still looked dubious. “I live with him. Anyway, how could you not be? You were always the best. Everybody knew that.” I was glad it was dark in the car, so he couldn’t see me turn red. I went on, though, because he needed to know this. “You should hear how kind he is to us, and especially how kind he is to Daisy if she’s tired or has had a bad day. He knows how hard she works, that’s why. So I’m sure he’ll be kind about you as well.”
He said, “It’s not the same.”
“What isn’t?”
“It’s different, with your wife. Or it should be. Your wife isn’t—” He broke off. “I don’t know. She’s not one of your workers. He should notice, and help. Dad noticed, with Mum, and she did with him as well. Wasn’t your dad like that with your mum?”
“No,” I said, and felt a pang of longing for my mum that was like a blow to the chest. Small and brown and gentle and quiet, she’d never walk out the gate of Mount Zion, even if five of her children had. She’d been in there too long. And I’d never see her again.
Gabriel asked, more quietly still, “Was he cruel?”
My breath caught. I could tell he was looking at me, even though it was dark. I said, “I don’t … know. I don’t know how men are supposed to … be.”
He said, “Not like that.” After that, he stirred, said, “I should go in,” and opened the car door. “Thank you for driving me. And for the, uh, talking.”
Was that sarcastic? I couldn’t tell. I said, “I was glad to drive you. Glad to help. And I know I … that I talked. But women are meant to talk, Outside, and I’m trying to … to fit. To learn how to fit.”
He said, “I was glad you talked.” And just sat there, which made a glow start up low in my belly and travel up my throat. I was so agitated, I was nearly trembling, and I didn’t know what to do. It was like that night with the sewing machine, but it was even worse.
Finally, he said, “Well, goodnight, then.” He got out and went to slam the door, then caught it, stuck his head inside the car, and said, “Drive safely. It’ll be even madder out on the roads going home, I reckon. Alcohol and all. And Oriana?”
“Yes?” I could barely get the word out.
“Thank you for taking me,” he said. “And holding my hand up and all. I liked it.” And slammed the door.
* * *
Gabriel
Two things happened the next day. Well, two things other than my thinking for much too long about how I’d said, “I liked it.” What? I’d liked her holding up my hand and getting blood on her shirt? Probably losing the circulation in her arm? I needed to learn how to talk to girls. It should be easier the better you liked somebody. Instead, it was harder.
