Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
It was a rainy weekday in Wellington, and everyone was busy except Dan.
He looked out the huge window, the largest feature in the apartment he’d been renting.
In front of him two blue-tinted glass towers stood, the space between them showing a peek of a muted greeny-blue harbour.
Below him the central city traffic flowed along busy Lambton Quay.
People scurried back and forth like ants along the pedestrian areas.
He felt like an unmoving stone in the flow of life. But he didn’t want to be unmoving anymore. Didn’t want to be misplaced. He knew now where his place was, and it wasn’t here.
There was nothing wrong with the life of those people moving back and forth, flowing as if on the whims of a current he didn’t understand and couldn’t detect. It just wasn’t one he wanted anymore. No more hurrying, no more rushing so fast that you failed to see what was right in front of you.
But he’d stopped, and he had seen, and there was no going back now. He knew his future was half-an-hour north of here, in a quaint seaside village in which he’d grown up with people who cared for each other. But it might not be with the person he’d begun to care for.
He’d thought he’d ‘got’ Augi. Thought he could trust that upright figure — a woman who even his family seemed to believe in.
But it seemed she was as secretive as everyone else.
And, in his experience, people only ever kept secrets which reflected badly on themselves.
And he couldn’t go down that route again.
But, still, a niggling thought wouldn’t go away.
Could he really bracket Augi and his ex together, joined because they both led a double life with secrets which they didn’t want discovered?
One part of his mind — the part that wanted to protect him — told him that absolutely he should do this.
The other part, the part he couldn’t budge with reason alone, stoically refused to allow the feelings he had for Augi to disappear.
It sent a flow of unending arguments to rebut the logical part of his brain.
He shook his head in confusion and turned away from the busyness of the city centre, glancing around the small space which had been home for the past few months.
His suitcases were packed and ready to go.
And he’d finally sent the MacLeod’s Cottage address to the storage facility in Washington DC.
As he picked up his suitcases and walked out the door for the last time, he knew that, whatever happened between him and Augi, his future lay in MacLeod’s Cove.
He still might be intrigued by her but, for his own sanity, he knew he had to avoid her.
His future could only include people he trusted.
As soon as Dan drove bumpily over the level crossing and entered MacLeod’s Cove the cheerful sign of the parrots on Lucy’s café building made him stop.
He slid in a parallel park directly in front of the café.
One of the few spaces left. At that hour of the morning, the sun shone directly onto the café, warming those patrons who sat on the outside tables, some with dogs slumped, their noses next to the water bowl, tired after a run on the beach.
In the years since Covid, more people were working from home and there certainly seemed to be a few people needing to be around others even as they studied their laptops with a concentration social media didn’t induce.
They sat alongside tired mothers, with their baby finally asleep in a pushchair, and retirees and creative types.
All sorts of ages and types. He liked that.
He slammed the car door shut and entered the café to pick up a cake Kate had ordered for tonight’s family dinner.
‘Hey, Dan!’ Lucy beckoned him over and he went, his eyes lingering on a particularly luscious looking savoury pie.
‘Luce,’ he greeted her, standing to one side of the queue of people who were waiting to place their orders with the other waitress. ‘What’s up?’
‘I saw Moana this morning.’
He scrunched his eyes up in puzzlement. He’d expected something pleasant and meaningless. Had he missed something? ‘Who?’
‘Moana Potare. Our cousin’—she waved her hand around—‘two or three times removed, or halved, or something. Anyway the details don’t matter, just that we’re related.’
‘First I’ve heard.’
‘Well, that’s hardly surprising, is it? When you spend half your life away from home.’
He ignored that because she was correct. There were only so many occasions when he admitted his sisters were right. ‘How are we related?’
‘I don’t know! Through Tamati, our great-grandfather I’m guessing. I remember Mum saying that he was part of a huge family. Anyway, just take it from me that we are related.’
He shrugged. ‘Fine.’ He began eyeing up the savouries again. The sausage roll looked particularly tasty. He slid open the cabinet and lowered his head to get a better look.
Lucy closed it with a slam. ‘For goodness sake, will you listen to me? I’ll get you some food in a minute.’
Dan held up his hands in surrender. ‘I’m listening, I’m listening!’ He’d forgotten how his sisters could cut up rough. He perched on a stool and folded his arms. ‘See, this is me listening.’
He was rewarded with a black look. ‘Moana Potare. She works for an employment agency in Wellington, so I told her about you.’
‘Why?’ he asked coolly.
‘Because you need a job.’
‘Says who?’
‘Says me.’
Jen poked her head around the door. ‘You sound like a couple of eight-year-olds. And, by the way, Dan, there’s nothing you can do about this. Lucy did the same with me and had me working here within days of my arrival.’
‘And it worked out, didn’t it?’ said Lucy defensively.
Jen grinned. ‘Yes, it did. I’m still here, aren’t I? Even though the writing is going well enough for me not to be.’
Dan sighed. ‘You both seem to have missed the important point that I’m not looking for a job.’
‘Well you should be.’
‘Lucy’s right,’ added Jen. ‘Aside from our selfish reasons that it would mean you stay here, I think you’d find it helpful.’
‘Helpful?’ he said, watchful now. ‘In what way?’
‘In the usual way,’ said Jen evasively.
He narrowed his eyes and his more sensitive sister responded with a shrug.
‘We all need to work, Dan,’ said Lucy. ‘You can’t spend all your time mooning over the local librarian—’
‘I’m not—’
‘Or hanging out with Mum’ — interrupted Jen as if he hadn’t tried to speak — ‘and researching Lucy’s boyfriend and the history of MacLeod’s Cottage. It’s just not enough.’
‘He’s not my boyfriend!’
Jen and Dan ignored Lucy.
He blinked, stung by the truthful summation. He opened his mouth to protest but realised he couldn’t, not without lying. And he didn’t want to go there. ‘I don’t intend to go back to my previous kind of work.’
‘Then tell Moana that. See if there’s anything else around that might suit.’ Lucy slid out a sausage roll and a pie, strangely decorated with pastry parrots, obviously rewarding her brother for listening to her. ‘It wouldn’t hurt,’ she said, popping it into a paper bag for him.
From the smug looks on his sisters’ faces, he knew he’d been out-manoeuvred.
‘OK,’ said Dan, needing to be on his way. ‘Give me her number and I’ll get in touch.’
Lucy rummaged in her apron pocket, tapped her phone, and then slipped it back into her apron. ‘You’ve got it. But you don’t have to use it.’
‘I thought you wanted me to see her.’
‘I do,’ she said, as if speaking to a child. ‘And that’s why I’ve made an appointment for you to visit her this morning. She’s working from home. Here. Just down the road.’
Jen burst out laughing. ‘She’s got you, Dan.’
‘Don’t I know it.’
‘I laid a bet with her that she wouldn’t get you. What was it? What tipped the balance?’
‘Hm?’ he grunted, knowing full well what the question was about.
‘What was it that swayed you? Lucy’s insistence, or my truthfulness?’
‘Her sausage rolls,’ he said, without turning around, just waving. He walked outside the café and into the sunshine. He stood for a few moments, grinding his teeth, frustrated, and proceeded to his car.
Sisters!
Once in his car, he glanced at the time.
He’d have to go home to MacLeod’s Cottage and change into something a bit smarter — maybe not the full suit and tie, but not the jeans and ‘I’m with Stupid’ t-shirt he was wearing.
He’d have to hurry up. He didn’t want to miss seeing this cousin he couldn’t remember because, as it happened, his sisters were correct. He did need a job.
Moana was standing outside her house which formed part of a cluster of ten or so on Māori land at the northern-most part of MacLeod’s Cove.
Dan was glad she was because, while you could see the cluster of houses from the main highway going north, he hadn’t actually visited the place since he was a boy when he’d had friends living there. And, without house numbers, he wouldn’t have known which one she lived in.
‘Cuz!’ exclaimed Moana, a tall woman dressed professionally on the top half, leggings on the bottom.
It seemed odd to realise that they really were related.
It was even odder that, after he’d embraced her, she pressed her nose to his for a moment in a hongi.
Another thing he’d forgotten. He had a lot to catch up on.
‘Good to meet you,’ he said, sounding formal.
She laughed. ‘We’ve met before! Don’t you remember?’
He shot another glance at her and shook his head. ‘Sorry. I’ve been away a long time.’
She indicated he should precede her up the steps of the traditional wooden bungalow.
‘You’re all dressed up. Cool. You scrub up good.
This is my “working from home” gear. Smart on the top for zoom meetings, and comfy on the bottom.
’ She slapped her thighs and laughed — an irrepressible giggle which had him smiling back.