Chapter Seven
Henry
I’m just getting out of the shower when my phone vibrates on the sink, announcing the arrival of a text. My heart leaps with the thought that it might be Juliette, but when I glance at the screen, it states my nephew’s name, Rangi.
I pull up the text. Hey, Unc, are you busy atm?
I text back. Just having a shower. What’s up, you okay?
He comes back, Dont spose youve got time for brekky?
I see him a lot, but it’s unusual for him to contact me this early in the morning. I’m tired and grumpy and have a hangover, but Rangi is more important than my own comfort, so I reply, Sure. The Flying Saucer, fifteen minutes?
See you there,he says.
I go into the bedroom, stop, and glance at the bed. It’s impossible not to think about what happened there last night and again early this morning. I stare at the pillow, thinking about the way I moved Juliette’s long brown hair aside to reveal the soft skin of her neck. I recall the light-red bruise of the hickey and feel a mixture of emotions—shame, guilt, and smugness. I shouldn’t have done it. But I’m glad I did. I want Cam to see it. I don’t want to make her miserable, but the only way I’m going to get her is for her to end her present relationship, and if that helps… well, I’m not going to regret it.
She won’t go back to him, surely? Not after what we had?
You’re mine now. Say it.
I’m yours.
My heart was thrilled at the time. Now, the words sound hollow.
I need time.
Time to what?
Decide what I’m going to do.
I told her back in March that I’d broken up with Shaz. If she had feelings for me, surely she’d have made them obvious to me over the last nine months? Maybe it was just physical for her. One night, born out of misery and unhappiness, and she’s intending to stay with Cam and continue to sit next to me in the boardroom as if nothing’s happened?
Ah, shit. Henry, you fucking idiot. And if you refuse to accept it, it’s going to be your fault that your working relationship is ruined.
I’m not going to think about it now. I’ll have to wait and see what happens after she’s spoken to Cam.
Even though this isn’t a business breakfast, I decide to go straight to the office afterward, so I don a navy suit, put on my Apple watch, pocket my phone and wallet, and glance one last time at the bed.
I walk the short distance to the café, trying to put Juliette to the back of my mind.
The Flying Saucer is one of my favorite places to have breakfast. Posters hang on the walls of famous movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and models of UFOs and little green men adorn the counter and tables. They do a fantastic coffee and a terrific cooked breakfast, and I come here a lot.
Rangi is already outside when I walk up, and we exchange a bearhug. He’s nowhere near as big as me, but he’s tall for sixteen, and on the way to developing an impressive build. His black curly hair needs a cut, and his jeans are ripped in a couple of places, but maybe that’s just fashionable, I don’t know.
Christ, I sound old.
“Come on,” I say to him gruffly, “what are you going to have? Full English?”
He nods eagerly, and we order two breakfasts, coffee for me, and a Coke Zero for him. Then we find a table near the window and sit opposite each other.
“You look great, bruh,” he says, gesturing at my suit. “Smart as.”
I smile. “Thanks.”
“And you paid using your watch!”
I show him my Apple Watch, and how I can change the face to match the color of my tie.
“That’s so dope,” he says, impressed.
“I could get you one for Christmas,” I suggest casually. “Be a good excuse.”
But he shakes his head, the shutters coming down over his eyes, as they always do. “Nah, I’m good.”
I don’t say anything, leaning back as the waiter brings over my coffee and his Coke. I have a big mouthful, enjoying the rich, creamy taste of the latte.
“So,” I say, “what’s this about then? I was surprised to see you before midday.”
Usually that would have earned me the finger, but he just leans on the table and fiddles with the top of the can. “I got a problem.”
“Okay…”
He chews his bottom lip. Then, eventually, he says, “Ellie thinks she’s pregnant.”
I stare at him, frustration and exasperation sweeping over me. “You fucking idiot.”
His shoulders droop. “I know,” he mumbles. “I’m sorry.”
His apology dissipates my anger. Ah, the poor kid called me because he needed to talk, and he thought I wouldn’t pass judgment on him.
I sigh, thinking how young he looks, with his bum-fluff facial hair. Technically, he’s old enough to have sex, and sixteen-year-olds can get married in New Zealand with consent from a Family Court Judge. But he’s still a child really, too young to vote or buy cigarettes or alcohol.
“I’m sorry,” I say gently, “I shouldn’t have said that. You shocked me, that’s all. I still think of you as the kid I used to let win at Mario Kart. I can’t believe you’re old enough to make a girl pregnant.”
He gives a short laugh and rubs his nose.
“All right,” I say. “Give me the details. How far gone is she?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, what makes her think she’s pregnant? Has she taken a test?”
“I don’t think so.”
“How late is her period, then?”
He looks embarrassed. “I dunno.”
I survey him with a frown. “Bro, you do know how babies are made, right?”
“Yeah.” He fidgets. “Sort of. We did all the sperm and egg thing in Health class.”
“Well, that’s something. You know about ovulation and periods?”
Another blank, embarrassed look.
I grit my teeth. My fucking brother should have explained this to him.
“Did you use a condom?” I ask.
“She said it was okay if I pulled out.”
“Jesus, only if you’ve got a superhero’s reflexes. That’s really dangerous, because if you mistime it, the first fraction of ejaculate contains the most sperm.” I roll my eyes at his baffled look. “The first spurt of cum has the Olympic medalists doing the crawl to the finish line.”
He looks appropriately embarrassed. “Oh.”
“And if a girl ever says she’s using the rhythm method, which means she’s calculating when she ovulates—when the egg leaves the ovary—just remember that sperm can live inside a woman’s body for five days.”
“Fuck.”
“I know. That’s why it’s best to use a condom every time you have sex.”
“Okay.”
“Look, she needs to take a test. You can buy one in the pharmacy. I’ll take you there after breakfast and get you a couple, and you can give them to her, just in case she can’t get one herself.” God help me if she hasn’t told her parents and they find out I’m involved.
He frowns at me. “How do you know so much about all this?”
I lean back as the waitress arrives with our breakfasts. Once she’s left, I add salt and pepper, then say, “Just because we’re not the ones having the babies, we should still know how it all works. But in answer to your question, when I was with Shaz, we tried to have a baby for a few years. When it didn’t happen, we had to work out the best time to have sex to make sure we did it in the fertile window—the time around ovulation. But it turned out I can’t have kids.”
He stares at me. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.” I stare at the plate for a moment, trying not to think about the doctor’s meetings, the monthly disappointments, the arguments, and the tears. Feeling tired, and very hungover, I stab the fried egg with my fork.
“I’m sorry, bro,” he says. “I didn’t know.”
I shrug and cut into the sausage. “It was a long time ago now.”
“Is that why you got divorced?”
“Partly, yeah.”
“Couldn’t you have, you know, adopted or something?”
“She wanted her own kids.” I gesture at his plate. “Tuck in.”
He cuts up his sausage, obviously still thinking. “How do you know you can’t have kids?”
“The fertility clinic tests both of you, and they discovered I have a low sperm count.”
“How do they do that? Do they inject your balls or something?” He winces.
“No. They test your cum.”
“How?”
Jesus, it’s too early in the day for this conversation. I hope nobody’s listening. “You have to jerk off into a cup.”
“Oh dude, seriously?”
“Yeah.” I try not to laugh at his obvious dismay. “You can do it at home on your own. It’s not like a doctor is standing there watching with a clipboard. You just have to take it to the clinic within sixty minutes. It’s a bit embarrassing handing it over, but they’re all very professional about it.” I smile as he continues to look horror struck. “If you’ve made a girl pregnant, hopefully it means you won’t have to do it.”
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know you had to go through all that.”
I shrug. “Anyway. Let’s say Ellie does the test and she is pregnant. First of all, you should know that up to forty percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage, so even if the test is positive, it’s possible that might happen.”
He stops with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Forty percent?”
“Yeah. But let’s assume that doesn’t happen, and she stays pregnant. Have you talked about what she’ll do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Whether she’ll have the baby, Rangi. Or whether she’d want to terminate the pregnancy.”
His eyes widen. “She wouldn’t do that.”
“She’s sixteen. She has her whole life ahead of her, as do you. A baby is a huge tie. And even if she doesn’t want one, her parents might pressure her to have an abortion because of that.”
“They can’t! You can’t kill a baby just because you don’t want it!”
“Ah, Rangi, come on, man. Don’t go down that road. You have absolutely no say in it, so you need to keep those thoughts to yourself, do you hear me?”
He stares at me, breathing heavily. “It’s my baby, too.”
“It’s not a baby, it’s an embryo, and then at nine weeks it’ll be a fetus, and it stays that way until it’s born. Then it’ll be your baby, and you’ll get to do all the fun stuff like change nappies and pay child support. That’s how it works.”
He glares at me. “I don’t care what you call it. It’s alive. It’s still murder.”
Irritated now, I point my fork at him. “Stop it, and grow up. It doesn’t matter what you or I think.”
“Do you agree with abortion?”
“Our personal thoughts are irrelevant. We don’t get to have an opinion on this.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s her body. She’s the one who’d have to go through nine months of pregnancy. Who’d have to breastfeed it, care for it, and have her life turned upside down for it. Whatever happens to you, the effect it would have on her would be tenfold. So you don’t get to influence her. It might feel unfair, but your role in it is over. It’s the way it is, and part of being a man is learning to deal with it. Do you understand?”
He stares at his breakfast, chest heaving. Then, gradually, the fight goes out of him, and he flops back in the chair, covering his face.
“This fucking sucks,” he says from behind his hands.
“Yeah.” I pile the sausage, bacon, and a fried egg onto the toast, slap another bit on top, then bite into it like a sandwich. “Welcome to adulthood.”
He lowers his hands and stares moodily at his Coke, then eventually sits up and continues eating his breakfast, copying me and making a bacon and egg sandwich.
“Are you going to tell your dad?” I ask.
“I might as well wait if she’s going to get rid of it,” he grumbles. Then he sighs. “He’s going to fucking kill me.”
I nod sadly.
“Will you be there?” he asks. “When I tell him?”
“Ah, bro. It’ll just make it worse if he knows you told me before you told him.”
“I guess.” He picks at the bacon. “I hate that he’s like that with you.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Was he like it when you were kids?”
“Not so much. He was just your typical bossy older brother. He thought I was a pain in the arse. It was when I went to Greenfield that he really found it hard.”
“You don’t talk much about that,” Rangi says.
“It makes your dad angry, so I don’t tend to speak about it.”
“You went there when you were fourteen, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What made you go?”
“I was in trouble a lot at school. I’d been suspended three times for smoking weed, and then I fell in with a bad crowd, and got into trouble with the police. I had to attend a meeting with the school board who were going to decide whether to expel me. Grandpa died when I was twelve, so Grandma had to take me on her own. She was terrified, so our school counselor asked if there were any teachers I got on with who might attend with us. Well, I hardly ever went to school, but I did like my computer teacher, and he agreed to come.”
Rangi’s eyes are wide—I’ve never told him about this. “What did he say?”
“He stood up for me—the first time in my life anyone had done that. He said I was a good kid at heart and just needed positive role models and the opportunity to shine. He suggested they put in an application to a residential specialist school he knew of called Greenfield, and they agreed. It was the best thing he could have done. It turned my life around.”
“What was it like?”
“It’s up near Hanmer Springs, close to the mountains. It was run by a few people, but I mostly dealt with a deacon called Atticus.”
“It was a church school?”
“No, but he believed that if we give boys strong guidance and positive role models, they’ll grow up to be good men. He believed in developing kids’ self-belief and sense of worth, and concentrating on their wellbeing through these creative, recreational, and social programs. I thought it was either going to be a military-style camp or some religious school that I knew I’d hate. But it wasn’t anything like that. We went on something called adventure therapy, like a wilderness program in the mountains. We had team-building exercises, and a lot of group therapy. It sounds like bullshit, I know. We didn’t—don’t—talk in our family, and Atticus said that men should be encouraged to talk about their feelings, and our fears, hopes, and dreams.”
“You liked it there?”
“Yeah, I loved it. Atticus had a knack of helping kids discover what they were good at. When he found out I loved computers, he asked the guy who taught our IT lessons to give me extra tuition in the evenings. I just took to it and flourished. I stayed until I was eighteen, and then they encouraged me to go to university. Nobody in my family had ever gone before, and of course we had no money, but they showed me how to apply for grants and loans, and explained that I’d have to work in the evenings. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to pay all the loans back. But I studied all day and worked in a bar every evening, all the way through uni. And I met Alex and the others, and… well, you know the rest.”
“And that’s why Dad resents you?”
I nod. “I hadn’t accounted for Tall Poppy Syndrome.”
“Huh, yeah,” he says.
In New Zealand and Australia, it’s the name given to a tendency to criticize and resent those people who are successful, and it hit my family big time. Both my siblings are jealous that I had the opportunity to better myself. It doesn’t matter that I’ve worked incredibly hard to get where I am. They see it as pure luck, and even though I’ve offered to share my success with them and help them financially, both of them have refused, saying they don’t want charity, and don’t need my help.
My brother, Philip, is especially resentful. Older than me by four years, he has four children, all by different women, and he struggles to support them with the money he earns from his job driving delivery trucks around the South Island. I want to help, but you can’t force people to accept money or advice, so even though it grieves me to see him and his kids living on the edge of poverty, there’s not much I can do about it.
I do try to help Rangi where I can. We have to be careful, because if Philip discovers I’ve bought Rangi anything or given him money, he hits the roof, and Rangi’s the one who pays the price for his father’s temper. But, unknown to my siblings, I’ve opened trust funds for all my nieces and nephews for when they come of age, so I’m hopeful that Rangi will at least have some money to set himself up with whatever he wants to do once he turns eighteen.
And he’ll certainly need it if Ellie decides to keep the baby.
“Come on,” I say, “eat up, and we’ll go and get the pregnancy tests.”
Rangi sighs and tucks into his sandwich. “I wish I could have gone to somewhere like Greenfield.”
I finish my coffee, watching as he mops up some ketchup with the toast. It’s not the first time I’ve had that thought. I broached the subject with Philip once, but he soon shot me down in flames, saying his boy was doing fine and didn’t need some specialist school giving him ideas above his station. But Rangi reminds me of me at that age—he has a smart brain, but he’s caught in a never-ending cycle where he feels he has few positive options, coming from an area of high unemployment, high crime, poverty, poor health, and a less-than-great education. I’d hoped I’d be a good role model for him, but Philip is determined that Rangi won’t follow in my footsteps, and as the boy isn’t mine, there’s not much I can do, until Rangi comes of age, anyway.
This might be a turning point, though. Philip’s going to be furious that Rangi has knocked a girl up, and it might be the one thing that convinces him that Rangi might make better life choices if he went away.
First things first, though. We need to work out whether Ellie is pregnant, and if she is, what she’s going to do about it. Then we can start making decisions about their future.
As we leave the café and go out into the bright sunlight, I think about that young girl, whose whole future now rests on whether a line appears in a box on the test. I doubt that her parents are rolling in it. It’s possible that they might agree to look after the baby while Ellie goes to university and finds a career, but I very much doubt that’s going to happen.
As we walk down to the pharmacy, I think of Juliette, who did everything ‘right’—she’s smart and resourceful, she found a boyfriend with a successful job and stuck by him, she went to university and got herself a great job, and she’s done exceptionally well for herself. And yet she’s still unhappy. Life is always a struggle, but having a baby at such a young age will make it so much harder for Ellie, and not much fun for Rangi either.
The light’s too bright and it’s making my head ache. Relieved when we get to the pharmacy, I steer Rangi over to the right aisle, buy him two pregnancy tests and several packs of condoms.
“You pee on the stick and a line shows in that box if you’re pregnant,” I tell him.
“I pee on the stick?”
I think my head is going to explode. “No, I meant…” I sigh. “She does,” I say as patiently as I can, telling myself that you’re not born knowing these things. Was I ever that clueless, though? “Now fuck off and get it done. Call me when you have a result.”
We have a final bearhug and I watch him go, then turn and head toward the car park. The last thing I feel like doing is working. Was Cam there when Juliette went home? Has she spoken to him yet? What decision has she made? My heart begins racing, and my mouth goes dry. Please God, don’t let her have gone back to him. Don’t let me get so close, and then make me lose her again.