Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
In the end, Dan didn’t have to worry about whether or not to tell his mother that evening as she was out, and stayed the night in Wellington with a friend. It was the first time he’d spent the night alone in MacLeod’s Cottage and it gave him time to think through what Augi had said.
By the following morning he’d come to the conclusion that he was right — Kate deserved to know the truth.
All of it. It wasn’t as if he were telling her that his father had been a liar and a cheat.
That his mother’s soulmate had gambled away the family house.
No, there were three generations between them. He had to tell her.
The opportunity arose the next morning when he returned from his swim in the sea. Kate was inside the house, reading the paper, and her expectant expression as she closed the paper cleared away any lingering doubt.
‘So? How did you get on yesterday?’
He poured himself a coffee and sat down opposite her, wanting to gauge how she’d take the news. He took a deep breath. ‘Ngaire’s father lost the house in a gambling session to some marine.’
Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. ‘What?’
‘Seems he was a gambler and went too far one night, staked the house and lost it. A marine won it.’
‘No! Not Johnnie!’
‘No, not Johnnie. It didn’t seem like Uncle Hemi knew exactly what happened beyond the gambling loss. Or, at any rate, he didn’t tell us everything. All he said was that, after the war ended, Ngaire and Tamati were able to move back into it again.’
‘In 1947,’ murmured Kate. ‘When Hope was about one.’
‘So the pieces are coming together a bit more.’
Kate looked up at Dan. ‘More than a bit. I’d have liked it more if the pieces had come together without painting Ngaire’s dad in such a bad light.
But’ — she shrugged — ‘there’s no helping that.
No painting it any colour other than what it was.
You and Augi have done well.’ She shook her head.
‘I should have gone to see Hemi and the others years ago. But I was too proud to let anyone know about the house. And Ngaire’s warning to stay away kept niggling me at the back of my mind. Silly.’
And in that moment Dan was glad that he’d decided to tell Kate. ‘It wasn’t silly, Mum. It was natural. Especially in a small village where everyone knows everyone else’s business. Of course you wanted to keep such a big secret to yourself.’
‘The irony is that the shameful bit was well known to everyone. Everyone, it seems, except me.’
‘Yeah, I know. I guess it’s hard to take and hard to understand why they never said anything.’
‘Probably because the elders who knew kept it to themselves, never telling anyone else, so that slowly the knowledge died out.’
‘Leaving only Hemi.’
She sighed. ‘It’s a lesson for us all to make sure we know about our history before the people with the knowledge are gone.’
They sat in silence for a few moments. Dan, contemplating the family history they had no knowledge of, and Kate looking as if she were on the verge of tears.
‘Aw, Mum. Come on.’ He reached across the table and took her hand. ‘It’s OK. At least we know now, which should make it easier to understand why the house is being left to someone else.’
‘But how come, if it wasn’t Johnnie Kowalski who was gambling with my great-grandfather, that he ended up owning the house?’
‘I don’t know. Hemi didn’t shed any light on that. But, do you remember when Oliver said that he found old receipts at the Old Colonial Hotel from John Kowalski, settling other people’s debts, which suggests he was well-off. Maybe he also settled a debt which affected the woman he loved — Ngaire.’
‘Hm,’ said Kate. ‘It certainly fits the evidence.’ She looked up at Dan and he was relieved to see a smile on her face for the first time. ‘He must have been a nice man. A good man.’
‘I guess he must have been. And I guess he didn’t envisage this situation eighty years on.’
Kate sighed.
‘Augustini said she’d contact the relative who appears to be the closest. See what that person knows.’
Kate nodded. ‘The end is drawing nearer.’ She looked around. ‘I’ll miss this place. But what I won’t miss is the uncertainty. The not knowing.’
‘At least we can give you that,’ he said, getting up and pocketing his phone.
‘Where are you off to?’
‘For my second breakfast with my sisters.’
Kate laughed and Dan was reassured by that. There was a hint of relief in it. ‘Well at least I can rely on Lucy to try to sneak some healthy dishes into your diet.’
‘Diet? What’s that?’ He shrugged. ‘She can try,’ he said placing the cup and plate into the dishwasher. ‘I’ll see you later, Mum.’
He dropped a kiss on her head and she tapped his arm. ‘And thanks, Daniel.’
’Happy to help. Even if some of the stuff we’re finding out is a bit… unsettling.’
A few hours later, Dan still found it hard to focus on the documents the consultancy firm he now worked for had sent through.
As he sat by the window in the café trying to concentrate on his tablet, his gaze kept turning towards the old hotel opposite.
It was no longer a cause of friction between its owner — Oliver — and the family, thank goodness.
He didn’t think there was anyone else in the world who could have affected such a change as his little sister, Lucy.
But now it had scaffolding around it and a stream of tradesmen coming and going as it underwent a major renovation.
But it wasn’t the hotel which he was looking at, but the roof of the tennis club rooms, just visible through the trees. Augustini would be there right now. He smiled to himself at the thought. They hadn’t made a time or place to see each other again, but now he knew they would.
‘You must be having some good thoughts to be smiling to yourself like that.’ Lucy offered him a refill.
‘Great!’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘The thoughts or a refill?’
He widened his smile. ‘Both.’
‘Good to see you looking happier. Amazing what good loving will do.’
He nearly spluttered over his coffee. ‘Good loving? Sounds like a pop song.’
She scoffed. ‘Pop song? What are you? A hundred?’
He wasn’t perturbed. He didn’t think anything could upset his equilibrium these days. ‘Only in terms of experience,’ he said.
He turned to talk to a man who sat at the table beside him, who commiserated on the teasing of sisters, before he was joined by a friend.
Dan sat back to finish his coffee and watched his two sisters who now stood at the counter.
‘Goodness,’ said Jen, bringing the Property Press closer to her. She closed it again, and slid it back onto the rack for customers to take. She glanced up at Lucy. ‘A property in MacLeod’s Cove has come up for sale.’
‘Oh, wow!’ said Lucy, handing an order to the chef. ‘There will be a scramble for that. Which one?’
‘Page four,’ said Jen, as Lucy retrieved the Property Press.
Lucy let out a slow whistle. ‘About time, that’s all I can say. Might bring in some interest from outside the region. It’s a great position.’
‘What about for you and Oliver?’ asked Jen. ‘It’s only around the corner from the café and the hotel. It would be very convenient for you both.’
‘Nah. I think I’ve pushed my luck far enough with Oliver on old houses.
Besides, we both like new. We’ve decided to keep his Wellington apartment because, well, we both love it.
And we’re going to build on the sea front.
There’s an old asbestos-clad 20s house which is on its last legs but has a brilliant section.
We’ll bowl that and build something. Oliver’s having plans drawn up.
Do you think Sam would be interested in project managing? ’
‘I can ask. Now he’s finished building our house.’
Lucy nudged her with her shoulder. ‘I love how you say “our”. It’s like you’re finally putting down roots.’
‘Honestly? I don’t think my roots were ever broken. Just stretched and a bit tatty round the edges. But,’ she said placing her head beside Lucy’s so it was touching, ‘they’re mending now.’
Dan rose and went to pay his bill. ‘Good to hear it,’ he said.
‘And what about you, Dan?’ said Lucy, turning to him with a look which made his heart sink. He’d have been best off remaining seated until their conversation had finished and Lucy had moved on. ‘You can’t stay at Mum’s forever.’
‘I’ve only just moved in!’ he said, focusing on paying as quickly as he could.
‘Yeah, but I’m just saying you need to look to your future.’ She leaned in so only he could hear. ‘Yours and Augi’s.’
She laughed and walked away before he could respond.
After they had both disappeared into the back kitchen, Dan glanced around to make sure no one was looking — he’d had sufficient sisterly teasing for one morning — and took the Property Press and left the café.
Once in his car he checked out page four.
He was right. It was the house he’d thought they were talking about.
He looked opposite, down onto the flat ground below it, where the library and tennis court were located.
And, for one moment, imagined a certain librarian gazing up at it, with a longing he’d never seen in her eyes before.
He got out his phone. Because he thought his little sister might, yet again, be right.
It hadn’t even taken a day before Augi received a reply to her email to John Kowalski’s great-niece in Australia.
But it wasn’t the prompt response that made Augi stare at the email in horror. And it wasn’t even the fact that the email had been sent from someone else. What caused Augi’s blood to freeze was the fact the email, while using her email address, was addressed to Eleni Makris.
She never used her real name.
She closed her eyes hard against the stark reality of the name she’d been given at birth and which she’d used until the day she’d arrived in New Zealand.
She’d thought she’d left that woman behind in the burnt-out, litter-filled city where her life had gone up in smoke, leaving nothing in its trace. Not even a name.
But there it was. In black and white.
How?
A thought suddenly sprang to mind. A rational thought.
She scrolled down to her original email, the one she’d sent after returning from an afternoon with Dan.
She’d felt on Cloud Nine, the happiest she’d been in years and had quickly shot off an email.
Now, as she looked at the signature line, she could hardly believe what she saw.
She’d used her full Greek name. Eleni A. Makris.
A wave of nausea filled her, and she sat back in her office chair as a film of clammy sweat settled on her face.
What on earth had possessed her? She’d never done that, not in the ten years since she’d arrived in New Zealand.
She’d never forgotten what she had to hide in all that time. Not, it seemed, until now.
But even as she asked herself the question, the answer presented itself. One word. Daniel. She’d opened up to him and she’d forgotten to close herself down again.
Without even knowing it, the connection she’d felt with him, had loosened the ties with which she’d bound herself.
Little by little, inch by inch, she’d allowed herself to become unravelled.
To reveal her old self. And she hadn’t even been aware of it happening.
Until now. When the stark consonants of her real Greek name were there before her.
Her identity. Out in the open. For anyone to find, to track down and to accuse.
She jumped up from the desk, filled with panic and began to pace around.
It’s OK, she reassured herself. It was just an email that had nothing to do with her.
It had been on behalf of Kate. She’d be fine.
It wouldn’t matter. She stopped pacing at the desk and looked down at the laptop again.
Her name — it was loaded with history and heartache. She scanned the text once more.
She’d sent the email to the next of kin of John Kowalski, but the reply was from a lawyer. And not only a lawyer, but a Greek lawyer, judging by the woman’s name. Sofia Papadopoulos.
There were plenty of Greeks in Melbourne, she told herself sternly. And many of them were lawyers. She flexed her hands and began trying to find out who this person was.
It took only a quarter of an hour to figure out that this Greek lawyer — whose surname she didn’t recognise — focused much of her work on helping people in her community.
In different Facebook groups it was clear that many people were grateful for her help in all sorts of areas — not all of them requiring her legal expertise.
She was clearly well-regarded in her community.
So, when Sofia Papadopoulos said that the person Augi had emailed had contacted her for advice, Augi believed her.
But Augi knew people with the name Sofia from her past. But, she also knew it was a common name. Should she reply confirming her original query? This Sofia had asked whereabouts in New Zealand she was. It could have been an innocent question but, then again, it might not be.
Her fingers hovered over the computer keys, poised to respond, confirming her earlier email, giving Sofia the details she asked for. But something held her back. And it was connected to the panic which still lurked in her system, and which was responsible for the rapid beating of her heart.
She pushed aside the laptop and closed it firmly.
No. She had to stop this now. She’d inform Kate of the email and Kate could contact the person if necessary. Maybe. Perhaps she’d wait. Maybe this was nothing. Yes, she’d wait. See how it played out first. No reason to be hasty.