Page 58 of Kiwi Sin
He was still the boss, and yet I was asking, maybe because he was about as worldly a man as I was ever likely to know, other than Drew. “How does it work Outside, then, finding a woman? Is it that? Picnics and all?”
He laughed. “You’re asking the wrong bloke. I was a sportsman. How dating works for a sportsman, when he’s young and stupid, is: ‘easily.’ You meet her in a bar, and you go home with her. Sad to say. And then I met Daisy, of course, and nothing was easy. Hang on, though. I know who we can ask.”
He took off toward the yurt, and I thought,No,and also,You gohomewith her? When you’ve just met her?Unfortunately, I was trapped here by my steaks, because Gray was coming across the grass now with his mum, Honor, who was smiling as if she were looking forward to this.
She said, “Gray says you have a question about dating. And you’re not burning up my lovely steaks, are you?”
“No,” I said.
“To which?” she asked. “Dating, or the steaks?”
“Uh … both.” I could have thrown down the meat fork and run, I guessed, except that I couldn’t. Rude, humiliating, and pointless.
She wasn’t smiling when she said, “You know that it doesn’t work the same out here. That girls get to choose for themselves.”
“Yeh,” I said. “Better, I think.”
Her eyes searched mine. “You do, eh.”
“Yeh,” I said again, then couldn’t think what else to throw in there.
“So this would be,” she said, “getting to know a girl. One you liked. Or one whose knickers you wanted to get into, maybe.”
“No!” The second time I’d answered too loudly. “No,” I said more quietly. “I don’t, uh … want … plan … to do that.”
More searching gaze. So far, this was about the worst barbecue I’d ever been to. “You don’t want to,” she said flatly.
“Mum,” Gray said. “I think what Gabriel’s trying to say is that he wants to do the, ah, knickers bit later. Once they’re …” He glanced at me. “Fill in the blank here, mate.”
“Married,” I said desperately. “Once we’re married. How do you—well, get to know a girl enough for that, though? To ask her and all, and for her to say yes?”
“In the old days, you mean,” she said. “When some peopledidwait for the knickers bit.” She laughed. “I like that. The knickers bit. Seems to me you probably met her family, and invited her to meet yours. When you go to see her with her family, they know you’re serious, and so does she. And after you have dinner with them, maybe you invite her for a walk. It’s a start, eh. Lets you see whether she likes you, too. And you do little things for her to show her you’re thinking of her. Bring her something you made for her, maybe, or fix something she’s having trouble with. That’s good. You think of what a good husband would do, and you do those things. Like a male bird showing the female he knows how to build a nest, eh.”
“Knew you’d have the answer, Mum,” Gray said. “I wouldn’t have thought of making her something.”
“No?” his mum said. “And yet there you were after you met Daisy, spending your entire day off putting up alarms and cameras and a gate to keep her safe. Funny you don’t realize that counted.”
“Loaned her my car, too, though,” he said. “And it’s a pretty nice car. Also the yurt.”
“Yeh,” she said, “and yet I reckon it was taking the time on that gate that did the business. A man can say anything. Can buy anything, too. When he spends his time and his sweat—that means more. Making briquettes out of those steaks, are we, Gabriel?”
I jumped, checked them, and started piling them onto the platter. “Just done,” I said. “Just now.” I put them onto a platter, scraped the grill, and picked up the rack with the fish fillets. Fresh-caught wild king salmon, flaky and buttery as you like. I needed to focus this time, because fish was tricky that way.
I put the racks in place, and then I looked at Oriana again. I couldn’t help it. She was bowling to the little kids now, her movements graceful, assured. She looked … happy. I watched her applaud as a little boy with red hair hit the ball and ran, and then I realized somebody was watching me watch. Daisy, up on the terrace, and she wasn’t smiling. I turned my attention to my fish again.
My dad had told me not to think about it. Gray seemed to be saying something different, but as for what Daisy would say …
My heart? My heart knew what it wanted, and so did my body. Was that just lust, then?
Where does a man’s loyalty lie? With his family? What part of his family? With his employer? Or with that one woman?
It’s your job to lead,my father had said,and you led her astray.I’d assumed he was right. He was my father.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
That was God. Not the Prophet; from the Bible itself. Genesis, which was the first book, and the foundation.
She’s still seventeen,I reminded myself, or, possibly, the angel on my shoulder reminded me.She has plans. She has a life to live.
