Page 65 of Kiwi Sin
“He’ll be doing this for Daisy,” Dad had told me again when he’d handed off the responsibility. “That means he’ll care more. Don’t let them cut any corners, however close that deadline comes, and don’t be tempted yourself. A man who doesn’t give his best isn’t much of a man.”
“I won’t let you down,” I’d repeated, and so far, I was pretty sure I hadn’t, but it wasn’t easy. I wasn’t the oldest man there by a long chalk, and they all knew it. The crew was my brothers, two of our other cousins, a couple of unrelated blokes, and me. All of them from Mount Zion, and a motivated lot, as most of them had families to support, and everyone had come out the same way I had: with nothing. We’d all been put to work by Gray, but for the first time in our lives, we were earning a pay packet for it.
Tomorrow, I’d be setting my alarm for five-thirty, as usual, so I’d be sure to be on the job before seven. The foreman should turn up first. The others wouldn’t be far behind, though. Saturday meant overtime, and every man here wanted overtime.
We had the bones of the interior in place now, and I had half the crew putting up drywall, refinishing the wood floors, and laying down underfloor heating in the bathrooms. As for me, I was doing the new wiring with frequent detours to check in with my brothers on the cabinetry. There was nothing as satisfying as finish carpentry, working with the grain of the wood to create something both functional and—well, beautiful, because surely there was nothing sinful about using your God-given skill to craft something beautiful, whatever the Prophet had said about vanity. Pity that Uriel was having to do too much of it this week, after I’d hurt my hand. I’d wanted it to be me. More vanity, maybe. I did as much as I could anyway. If you want men to follow you, you’d better be going in the right direction.
I’d learnt something else, too, talking through what Gray wanted with my dad. I’d learnt how people used a kitchen, and a bath, too, and what all those drawers were for. Where Daisy and Gray needed more room to move about, and where they wanted everything within an arm’s length. Where we could create a higher benchtop workspace in the kitchen to suit Gray’s height, because Daisy worked all shifts as a nurse in Emergency, and they took the cooking in turns.
I might not know how to cook many things, but I knew streets more than I ever had before about how families lived.
But—there you were. Grayhadworked out the design of the house to suit Daisy. When the house was done, the three girls would surely stay in the yurt, because Daisy and Gray were wrapped up in each other, and couples Outside wanted to be alone. How long would Gray keep wanting all that extra family around? There was still another sister, Dove, in Mount Zion, and all the brothers, too. Brothers with families of their own, and Gray hadn’t been raised this way. How long before they were spilling out of the yurt and the caravan and moving into the house?
Frankie wouldn’t stay long, I suspected. Whenever I’d seen her, she’d seemed confined by her ever-present family, by her past. Restless, needing to spread her wings after having them so ruthlessly clipped by her father and her husband. Frankie wore the clothes Oriana didn’t: the tight jeans, the short skirts, the little shirts with scoop necks, and she wore them with defiance, like she was daring anybody to make a comment. She didn’t talk much to men, but not in the way Oriana didn’t. Oriana still looked down. Frankie looked straight through them. But they looked at her.
I wasn’t easy in my mind about Frankie, but I knew it wasn’t my business, even if I was her cousin. Not anymore. She might be Daisy’s business. She wasn’t mine.
Frankie would be moving in with flatmates as soon as she finished school, I was sure, and blazing a path through university, because she was clever, and as driven as her elder sister Daisy. She’d get a scholarship, and she’d leave. Fierce, I’d call the two of them, as if they burned to make up for the time they’d lost, the … thepersonhoodthey’d lost, and nobody was going to tell them what to do ever again. The desire all but pulsed out of them. You could see it. You couldfeelit.
But for now, it was home life for the other two girls. At night, anyway, because they were both working. I’d see Oriana out the window from time to time all the same, coming and going in the dawn light before she left for the day or, sometimes, after she came back from her job, carrying a bucket or a trug or a basket of eggs, doing her chores. This morning, I’d seen her again. She’d been headed for the garden in overalls, but she was so obviously Oriana, whose backside would never look like a man’s.
I’d watched her for a moment, then turned to see my dad’s brother’s eldest, Valor, staring as well. And I didn’t care for the look on his face.
I asked, “Getting that drywall up?”
He didn’t jump. He held my gaze a moment too long, then said, “Yeh.” With a smile at the corner of his mouth that I didn’t like at all.
Who was she making that hat for? I hoped it wasn’t for him, but I’d seen him talking to her twice before, and her looking flushed and uncertain, or maybe just excited. Both times, I’d gone over and pulled him back to the job. Maybe that was wrong, but I’d done it anyway. I was in charge, and we didn’t have time to stand about and chat. That was my excuse, though I wouldn’t be examining it too closely.
I didn’t know why Valor had left Mount Zion, but whatever the reason was, it probably wasn’t entirely good. He was as eager as any of us to earn money, but as for what he spent it on, I wouldn’t have liked to guess. Almost the only man on this job besides me who wasn’t married, he was good-looking in a dangerous sort of way that could be attractive to a girl who’d been brought up the way Oriana had. A gentle girl who expected a man to order her about. A girl named Obedience.
Thinking about it as I trudged along with the bag of groceries I’d bought on the way home—I was back to the microwaved packets again, thanks to the hand—I ran said hand through my hair, wished I had time to get it cut before dinner tomorrow night, wondered why Gray had invited me, got a good throb from my stitched palm, and sidestepped to avoid a woman who was looking down at her phone.
She looked up, laughed, and said, “Whoops!” and I recognized her as a girl who lived in the same block of flats I did. The next flat down, in fact, with a couple of flatmates of her own. They tended to be loud, like most uni students. I hadn’t worked out yet why young people were so loud Outside. Must be some combination of the freedom and the drink, plus the influence of the music, which they played so loudly, you had to scream over it.
“Sorry,” I said, even though she’d been the one nearly running into me. I said it because she’d stopped.
“Katie,” she told me, taking the earbuds out of her ears. They were tidy ears, with long, swinging earrings hanging from them, fully visible beneath the ragged edges of her haircut, as short as a man’s. She was pretty, too. A student, maybe, a few years younger than me and looking not one bit like Mount Zion.
“Gabriel,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “I looked at your post on the table, sorry. Wanting to know your story, or at least your name. Your post isn’t all that interesting. That’s all I know so far.” She laughed again. “Saturday night, eh. Coming back from your night out?”
“Yeh.” I added, because I wasn’t sure of the etiquette here, “You?”
“Going for more beer for the party.” She waved the fabric bags she was carrying. “Come give me a hand, carrying it home? You could come to ours, afterward. We’ll have to stand up in the crush, the greedy bastards will probably have scoffed all the pizza, and the music could be a bit rubbish, but we can pretend to dance anyway. Bounce up and down, more like.”
She was looking at me. At my face, but mostly at my body. I felt the tingling rush of that look, and then, as usual, confusion. I’d grown up careful not to stare lustfully at girls. Outside, the girls seemed to be the ones staring lustfully. Saying hello. Introducing themselves. Even women well over thirty, who must have kids by now. What was I meant to do about that, except pretend I didn’t notice?
“Cheers,” I said, knowing I should help her and wondering why one of the “bastards” from the party hadn’t, “but it’s been a long day. And I …” I stopped.
“Ah,” she said. “Partner?” Her head on one side now, studying me, not one bit afraid to ask.
“No,” I said, feeling tongue-tied. “Not, uh … not yet.”
“Well, I didn’t think so,” she said, “because I’ve never seen you with anyone. Want to hand me your phone? I could put my number in, in case the not-yet-partner doesn’t work out, or in case you want to wind down after one of those long days. We could get a beer without the noise. Sit down for it, maybe. You could tell me why you work so hard, and I could tell you why I don’t work hard enough. Shameful, eh.”
I could feel my face getting hot, even though her tone was still cheerful, and nothing like any of the Prophet’s warnings about Scarlet Women who lured men onto the rocks. “Uh, I don’t …” I said, and then had no idea whatsoever how to go on. “Thanks,” I decided to say, “but I think I’m good.”
