Chapter 7
SWEARING IN MY HEAD
Zane was on the bench in the sheds, waiting for everyone to finish their preparation before they ran out for their warmups.
More tape going onto shoulders and ankles, and Iain McCormick getting his knee strapped after an unlucky collision earlier today.
A good half of the boys still with their headphones on, getting their minds right, and his brothers faffing about, Jack imagining he was funny to hide the nerves.
He was starting at fullback tonight, a much-wished-for promotion off the bench for the twenty-one-year-old.
Zane would have to pull him aside out there and have a word.
Gordon wouldn’t do it, that was sure. Gordon never even seemed aware of the need.
He danced through his charmed life the same way he danced between tacklers, eluding capture, evading consequences.
It might be nice to be Gordon. Zane would never know, though, because he hadn’t been born that way.
He wasn’t taping or retaping anything himself, because he never did.
He was a bit of a genetic freak, maybe, or just a bit of a Maori, with the kind of solid bones that didn’t break easily and the kind of musculature that protected your tendons.
He ran to tough and hard, not to light and fragile, so he just sat there, centered himself with a few slow, deep breaths, looked around at his squad, and focused on the match ahead and how he’d manage it.
They’d trained for a high-pressure, physical match, something that would disrupt the Chiefs’ rhythm.
Catch them early in the tackle and shut down their running game.
Dominate the set piece. And above all, keep their discipline.
If anybody looked like losing it, he’d have to haul them back over the line again straight away, because this match was too important to lose over a stupid penalty.
The last outing of the season, and the knockout rounds coming up.
Position yourself right for those, get on the right track tonight, and the team could ramp up, smooth as you like, into the playoffs.
He thought about all that, visualized himself tackling, running, and passing, and didn’t think about anything else. Not, for example, his Nan, whom he’d somehow thought about too much on the bus down to Hamilton. His mind had wandered, you could say.
When she’d told him that she wanted to introduce her new fella to the whanau, he’d spent about ten seconds wondering the things one did wonder about one’s elderly grandparent, and then done his best to dismiss it.
So he’d stay over in Hamilton and drive home with them in the morning.
That was all good, and fun for the kids, too.
Besides, Nan had been walking around lately with a brightness in her eyes and some spring in her step, and surely that was better.
Somebody should be getting lucky, and since he seemed to have entered a dry spell …
Nobody quite appealed lately, that was the problem.
Was he getting old? That had better not be it.
He was only thirty-three. Scarlett was getting in his head, maybe.
But it seemed that when your daughter was twelve, a woman had to have thirty somewhere in the viewfinder, or sex felt odd.
Especially when they started talking about music you hadn’t even heard of, unless one of your kids had been playing it and you’d thought, “God, that’s awful. ”
So not too young, then. And possibly with pretty eyes, a soft mouth, and the kind of body that made you want to cuddle her and see how the various parts of her fit in your hands. He had big hands, so …
It would help if she had some personality, too: a little tease in those eyes, a little sauciness in her talk, and a little huskiness in her voice.
Maybe a sidelong look or two. Flirting, and not quite realizing she was doing it, as if she were carried away despite herself.
Falling into lust, all unawares. Yeh, that’d be good.
Needless to say, that didn’t tend to be the approach—or the appearance—of the average woman in the average bar after the average match.
He’d got more choosy, that was all. After Samantha had died, he may have dived in there, doing his best to lose himself in some willing body.
He didn’t want to think about those days, but here he was anyway, thinking about them.
Sam had been gone four years now, though, and the thrill of easy sex hadn’t lasted in the way it might have if he’d first experienced it at, say, twenty.
When he’d already been settled, and had felt that way.
Signed with the Blues, then a dad at twenty-one, which they hadn’t planned for.
After that had come marriage, the All Blacks, more kids, the captaincy, his younger brothers joining the team …
he’d aged too much too soon, and it seemed you couldn’t reverse a thing like that.
Nan’s “dating” was probably just that—dating—even if she was already introducing the bloke to the whanau. She was enjoying his company, and that was fine. Surely nothing more serious would happen for some time yet, if ever. If it did happen, he’d address it. No need to think about it now.
Somehow, he thought about it anyway. Nan moving out of the house would be tricky, but he’d just …
get a nanny, presumably. No other choice for a sportsman.
Finn Douglas, the Blues’ assistant coach, had been a widower during his own playing days, and he’d got a nanny.
Rumor had it that he’d married the nanny, but that would just be efficient, Zane supposed, and Finn was nothing if not direct.
He probably hadn’t sidestepped once in his life.
Straight up the guts and over the line, that was Finn.
And at least he’d known the woman liked his kids, presumably.
Didn’t matter to Zane, though, because he wasn’t planning on marriage.
Just thinking about the nanny idea in case it came up.
Skylar Fairburn, now. Somebody like her. She’d be a brilliant nanny. Funny. Positive. Good with kids. And, of course, pretty. Easy to look at across the table. Or on the couch. Or wherever.
Wait. You couldn’t actually sleep with the nanny, could you?
Obviously not. That would be workplace harassment.
And having somebody with that juicy bum and those thighs in your house all day and night, somebody you couldn’t touch and couldn’t even think about without feeling like some advert for ‘Men Behaving Badly’?
That was a hard no, however much the kids would like her. Much too frustrating.
Oh. Wait. She’d said she had three kids herself.
Well, obviously that wouldn’t work. Never mind.
He didn’t need to think about this anyway.
He needed to set it aside and focus on the match.
The Chiefs topped the Blues on the ladder, but only just, and what he’d told his son was true: whatever the punters thought, nobody could predict the outcome of a match, because it was all about what happened on the night.
On this particular night, the rivalry with the Blues’ closest neighbors would bring that extra bit of niggle.
Discipline, definitely. Discipline and a game plan and the overpowering will to win.
He stood up and got ready to do it.
Skylar stood in front of five empty plastic seats and offered her best cheery smile. The location was shockingly good—bang on halfway, and only a few rows above the Blues’ bench. How much money had Granddad spent? Or had he spent it? Had these seats actually come from Zane?
Please, no.
She didn’t look at the players on the field, mostly because Zane was about thirty meters from her and doing groin stretches, his torso bent low over his left knee, the other muscular leg stretched out to the right.
Impossibly flexible, was what he was, and never mind how Skylar herself looked getting up from the floor after the ab track on her workout.
Zane’s shorts were indeed short, and that was a lot of thigh.
He left his socks down rather than pulling them up, but she’d already noticed that on TV.
He had a lot of calf, too. And, yes, dark hair on his legs.
Not a pelt or anything, but definite hair.
He was also frowning. Or concentrating. He always looked so intense, it was hard to tell which.
She wasn’t looking, though. Definitely not.
Such a bad idea, unless it meant that she was noticing men again, because that would be a good idea.
Of course, she should almost certainly focus on noticing men other than Zane.
Heaps of other men here, and not just rugby players.
She’d cast her eye over the crowd instead.
Who knew? Maybe she’d meet the love of her life as he squeezed past her legs to get to his seat.
She’d be in the queue for the toilets later with George, and he’d stop in his tracks and say, “I think we’re sharing a row. How ya goin’?” And she’d say …
She’d say, “I’m helping my son go to the toilet,” and he’d say, “Well, see ya,” and walk away to get his beer. What, he’d join them in the queue for a chat? He’d have to be the most secure man on earth.
Right. Manners. Granddad. She pasted on that smile for all she was worth, put out her hand, and said, “You’re Maureen.
Lovely to meet you under more personal circumstances, after all Granddad’s told us about you.
These are my kids, Finlay and Olive and—” She stopped, confused.
“But you may know them already, from school? School dropoffs and all? Granddad didn’t tell me you were—that you were that Maureen.
That it was Zane’s kids we were talking about.
That you were their great-grandmother. His grandmother, I mean.
Zane’s. Hello, Scarlett. Hi, Georgia. And I’m sorry, but I didn’t have you in class, so I don’t know—”