17. The Life We Planned
Roman
On Saturday morning, I was using a nail gun to attach a baseboard in a guest room while Summer held the board. She’d fought me about it, of course, saying, “At least let me do the nail gun.”
“If my hand gets tired,” I’d said, “we can switch off.”
“Ha,” she’d answered, because the woman had never heard of “discreetly going along with your white lie in order to preserve your male ego” in her life. Also, when I’d got home last night, she hadn’t decided to sit up with me and have a chat and possibly a glass of wine. She’d said, “I need a shower, and then bed. Goodnight,” and vanished.
It felt to me like the sparks all but leaped between us every time I was in her vicinity. Either I was delusional, she was scared of those sparks, or she didn’t want to get warm. Which was it? I had the feeling it was the “scared” option, but maybe because that was the one I wanted. Fire could burn. It could also melt you down, and I wanted to melt Summer down.
On the other hand, there was that ex of hers. Baggage, eh.
Now, Delilah said from across the room, where she was applying caulk to the baseboards we’d already nailed into place, “You realize that this job would be a whole lot easier and go a whole lot quicker if you had a normal-sized house, right? You have four bedrooms, an office, a gym, a wine cellar, two kitchens—who needs two kitchens? That’s just weird—and five bathrooms. For one person. Who doesn’t even live here during the week! When the proletariat finally rises up, you’re going to be swinging from a lamppost. Just saying.”
“No,” I said. “I’m a man of the people.”
In answer, she hummed the part of the Marseillaise where they sing about watering the fields with the blood of the oppressors, and I smiled, then asked Summer, “You have an opinion?”
“No,” she said. “Your house is your business.”
Because she hadn’t asked, I told her. “It’s a good investment, and we do executive retreats here sometimes.”
“And that’s totally cost-effective,” Delilah said. “Like you couldn’t just rent some rooms in, let’s see, a resort.”
“I could,” I said, “but it may not have a pizza oven and outdoor fireplace. Cozy. If Summer weren’t running off to work, I could make pizza tonight. Pity.”
Summer said, “You think that’s convincing me.”
“No,” I said. “I think it’s convincing Delilah. Maybe I’ll make pizza for her. You can have some when you get home. It won’t be as good then, of course, but?—”
“He built it for a wife,” Summer told Delilah. “Some wife. He doesn’t care about pizza ovens and two kitchens. Though that’s a butler’s pantry, where the main storage and cleanup is out of sight behind the ovens and stove and fridge. Because you’re supposed to have a butler to do the hard part.”
“Maybe they’ll use the guillotine,” Delilah said.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Do you see a butler?”
Delilah said, “And some wife? Dude …”
I told Summer, “I’m ignoring that. It’s beneath you. You’ve lost the moral high ground with strop like that.”
“I will endeavor to support myself through my disgrace,” she said, and I laughed. Which was when the phone rang.
“Shit,” I said, glancing at the phone I pulled from my shorts pocket. “Ah … bugger. I have to take this.”
“Fine,” Summer said. “Hand me the nail gun.”
As I was walking out of the room, Delilah said, “See? Roman can’t stop swearing, either. Because it’s normal, here in the twenty-first century.”
I punched the button and said, “Hi, Mum.”
“There you finally are, darling,” she said, as if I’d been ignoring her for a month, and I did not grit my teeth. “Going well? Lovely. I have such exciting news.”
I braced myself. Usually, that meant, “I have a wonderful opportunity to invest in a new marketing program, and before you say anything, no, it’s not dodgy. And doesn’t everybody need vitamins? My friend Samantha is already doing it. She says the money’s just pouring in, and the investment is only …” Or, possibly, “I’ve met a man.” My mum had always met a man. That was why I owned her car and the mortgage on her house and paid the utilities myself, too. I’d learned. My mum? Not so much.
I said, “I was in the midst of some cleanup on the Catlins place from the cyclone, so I only have a few minutes.”
“You’ll want to hear this,” she said. “I’ve found your dad.”
If she was expecting a thunderclap or my excited astonishment, she didn’t get it. “How, exactly?”
“Well, I was in the city,” she said, by which she meant central Auckland, as she lived in its western suburbs, “doing a bit of shopping—I’ve lost weight, and everything just hangs on me now, so lucky—and I saw a man on the street. Just glanced at him, as you do, but then I looked again and knew I couldn’t be mistaken. It was him. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather.”
“You saw him after nearly forty years and decided he could be my dad,” I said. “Well-dressed, was he?”
“Of course not. He was your dad. I knew I couldn’t be mistaken, and I wasn’t.”
“You had one name,” I said. “Daniel. How many Daniels are there?”
“Not many Daniels with that tattoo, though,” she said. “I wouldn’t have known him, he’s changed that much—he was twice my age, because as you know, I was very nearly a child—but so exciting, such fun. He’s an old man now. Life’s been hard, he says, and I said, don’t I know it. Not well dressed, and doesn’t even have all his teeth, so whatever you’re thinking, it’s not that. I couldn’t mistake the tattoo, though, or his beautiful brown eyes. Soulful, you’d call them. That sadness in them, even when he was charming your knickers off. You could tell he knew what suffering was, even though he’d put it behind him and was determined to go on. When I first met him, in that bar—well, I told you, I fell head over heels. His eyes and the tattoo, though—that was why I stopped him and asked. Just stopped there, bang in the middle of the pavement, and said, ‘Daniel?’ And I was right, it was him. He remembered me as well.” She paused, and when I didn’t say anything, because I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to want to know any more about this, she added, “And when we started talking, he was lovely. So regretful. I told him we’d had a son, and he couldn’t have been more gobsmacked. Said he couldn’t believe he’d missed all that time with you. ‘My son,’ he kept saying, and that he’d never got over me, either, that he still thinks of me after all this time.”
“Pity he ran off and left you, then,” I said.
“I never thought he really could’ve done that,” she said happily. “I always thought there must’ve been an accident. Something. And I was right, because he explained it all. He’d heard his ex and daughter were having trouble in Aussie, couldn’t even afford to come home, and he decided he needed to put aside his own happiness and help them, even take her back if that was what needed to happen. ‘It was my whanau,’ he said. ‘My duty. No choice.’ He couldn’t bear to tell me, couldn’t even bear to say goodbye, it hurt him so much to leave me, and when he realized what he’d done, how he’d thrown away our happiness, he was too ashamed to come back again, because of course it didn’t work out with her, not when she’d left him for another man in the first place. He was sure then that he’d lost any chance he’d had with me, ‘young and beautiful as you were, and too good for me’—that’s what he said—but if he’d known about you, he’d have been back like a shot. He said, ‘All this time lost. I wish I could have it back.’ He was so glad to hear that I’m doing well, and he was so proud to hear about you, too. Isn’t that lovely?”
I said, “I think I preferred my illusions.”
She said, “If you’re thinking I want him—well, I don’t. He was a wonderful-looking man then, so tall and strong, so manly, but now, like I said, he’s old and he looks it. I’ve been luckier there, but then, I’ve always had good skin and watched my figure, and, of course, I’m still young”—my mum was sixty-three—“but honestly, I could only feel sorry for him. We did drink a bit in those days, I’ve never hidden that from you, and I think he went on doing it, because he’s had to give up now. It was just a whirlwind, though, that courtship. People nowadays say ‘hookup.’ So nasty, when that wasn’t it at all. It was all so exciting and so romantic, and you know, I wasn’t always as careful in my younger days.” She wasn’t all that careful now, if you asked me. “We caught up over coffee,” she went on, “and this is the really exciting bit. You have that sister, like I said. I never knew. She’s in Aussie and doesn’t sound like she’s amounted to much, but you have a brother, too, and d’you know who he is?”
“Half-brother,” I said. “And he can’t be all that flash, with a dad like that.” Wait. If she was right, he was my dad, too.
I definitely preferred my illusions.
“You’d be wrong, then,” she said in triumph. “Hemi Te Mana, that’s who. You know. The fashion designer, lives over in the States now. The billionaire. I never dreamt! Just imagine what Hemi Te Mana could do for you.”
“Imagine,” I said, “what he wants to do for me. Which is nothing, and why should he? Luckily, I’m doing OK for myself. And what’s he going to do, dress my windmills?”
“You don’t have more than two billion American dollars, though, do you?” she asked. “If he gave you a loan, you could expand. He has enough to do it, because I looked him up, and that’s what they said. He’s on that list of billionaires, that famous one.”
“Forbes.”
“That’s the one. He’s only number one thousand something, which is a pity, but still.”
I said, “I imagine he keeps a roof over his head with that, but if you ever see him, you can offer your condolences.”
“Don’t be silly, darling. A billion is a billion. And of course I’ll meet him, if you give it a teeny push and arrange for me to be invited once you’re inside their circle. Maybe he’d want to consult me about fashion for women who aren’t quite young anymore, but who still want to look gorgeous. I’m quite fashion-forward, you know. My friends always say that I wear the trend before it even happens. Anyway, they’ll want to know me as well, I’m sure.”
“Why?” I asked. “Sorry, but why would they want to meet me, let alone you? What am I to do with them?”
“Darling. They’re your family. And it’s not just me saying that. They’re Maori, and you know that matters. Daniel says he can’t wait to introduce you to all the whanau. There’s so much further you could go. So much more you could be, with a little help. That investment, and maybe politics, though there’s not much money in that. I always thought you were made for politics, so tall and good-looking. Just like your dad. I’m sure there are opportunities once you’re out of it, too, being on boards and so forth, and don’t we both deserve that? I tried my best to give you a good life, I sacrificed everything for you, but how could I do enough, all on my own? Whereas Hemi got the family, the love, the support. He owes it to you now, really. He is your brother, when all’s said and done, and, well, he’s Maori, and so are you, and that makes a difference.”
“I’m not Maori,” I said. “Blood doesn’t make you something you’ve never been.”
“Of course it does. Daniel says, ‘Whanau is whanau, and my son needs to have his place in it. He needs to know where he belongs.’ So deep. It’s not just your brother, either. Your cousins, and your grandfather, too, though he won’t be much use to you. Probably gaga, as he sounds to be about a hundred. Daniel says that’s why it needs to happen now, though. That it was meant to be, meeting me again while there’s still time. But most of all, he can’t wait to meet you. Did I say how proud he was to hear how well you’re doing? Even though it isn’t nearly as much as Hemi has, he never mentioned a thing about that. He never compared you at all. He said, ‘Both my sons, doing all that. Both my boys.” She sighed. “So touching.”
Summer
Roman came back into the room with that stillness of his. With that closed-down face of his, too. He squatted down beside me and said, “Give me the nail gun.” Barked it, really.
I said, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Give it to me.”
I said, “You know what? I think I’m done for today. I have a cramp in my back, and my stitches are bothering me. My knee doesn’t actually love this.”
“Thank you,” Delilah said. “Did you actually notice that it’s Saturday?”
“Fine,” Roman said. “I’ll finish up here.” And started to drive nails.
I said, “I’d like to go to the beach. I haven’t been yet, and it’s right there. I wanted to get most of this done for you before you saw it again and ease your mind, which is why I’ve pushed so hard this week. We’re moving along well, though. Maybe a break wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Shock,” Delilah said. “I’ve only mentioned that about six times.”
“Good as gold,” Roman said over the thwack, thwack, thwack of the nail gun. “Go.”
“I wish you’d come, too,” I said. “Lunch would taste even better afterwards. It can’t be pizza, I realize, but hot soup and maybe a panini after you’ve swum in the sea? That sounds great.”
“The sea’s freezing,” Roman said.
“I know it’s freezing. Also, OK, I’m not that strong a swimmer, so I don’t usually do more than wade here, especially since there are almost no lifeguards in New Zealand, and Delilah’s not that big, so it’s not like she can drag me out. I’d like to put my head under today and taste the salt, now that my cuts are healing, and if you came with us, I could. If you can swim. I hope you can.”
He still looked—something. Mutinous. And his problems weren’t my problems. Maybe I was actually feeling better, though, more confident, because I didn’t want to run from them. Whatever was wrong, I wanted to help if I could. After how much he’d helped me? Of course I did.
You always want to help, I reminded myself. How has that worked out for you?
It’s one trip to the beach.
That’s how it starts, yeah.
He’s the least needy guy in the world. He wants to help you. That’s obviously his happy place, and he looks like he needs to do it.
“Please,” I said.
“Thought you were all about finishing this job fast and getting out of here,” he said.
“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned,” I said, “so as to have the life that is waiting for us. Joseph Campbell.”
“I can’t stand it,” Delilah said.
“Fine,” Roman said, and set down the nail gun. “I’ll take you.”
“Getting into my suit!” Delilah sang out, and vanished.
“Great,” I said. “I really appreciate it.” And smiled.