Chapter 16
YOUR ANIMAL MAGNETISM
She stood up, and after a minute, her granddad did too. Of course, they now had to go someplace to talk, and she couldn’t even remember how they’d got in the door. She asked Zane, “Is there a more private spot?”
Granddad said, “Wait until we get home, and you’ll have all the privacy you need.”
“Yes,” she said, “but that’s not happening.”
Zane said, “Follow me.” He didn’t sound fussed, so there was that. But then, you probably didn’t build a decade-long rugby career by being quick to panic, just like you didn’t succumb to the vapors in the classroom.
She said, following him around corners and down stairs, “This is a very large and confusing house. Aren’t people forever losing their way?”
“Probably. It’s big enough for everyone, though.” He waved them to a seat on the sectional couch. “Talk here, and when you’re done, come find me if you still want a chat.”
He headed up the stairs again, so she sat down, and her granddad sat beside her and asked, “What?”
“Granddad.” She turned to face him and took a breath. “You can’t invite yourself—and the kids—into another man’s home. I can’t believe I’m having to tell you that.”
He folded his arms and jutted out his chin. Wonderful. This was going to be such a good talk. “I’m not inviting myself,” he said, “not that it’s any of your concern. Last I checked, I was a grown man. This was Maureen’s suggestion, if you must know. She invited me.”
“But why?”
“We just told you why. If we don’t spend time together here, we won’t see each other enough. Mahuta’s away half the year, you realize.”
“It’s not half—” she began, but he put up a hand and said, “Close enough. The Super season’s bad enough, but then there are five weeks in August and September with the All Blacks in South Africa and London, and then another four weeks in Europe in November, and that’s not to speak of the Bledisloe Cup in Aussie.
January to November, and unless Maureen and I make some changes, where’s the time for us? ”
“Couldn’t you just spend the days, when the kids are in school?” she asked. “And, all right, the nights as well? Although I’m not sure about that. You don’t think it’s a bad example for the kids? His and mine?”
He scoffed. “A bad example. Yeh, right. Because we love each other and want to be together? You sound about ninety. It’d do you no harm to spend a few nights away yourself, if we’re on to home truths. Might loosen you up a bit.”
“Loosen … me … up.” She could hardly get the words out. “There’s something wrong with me because I’m not having sex? People live just fine without sex!”
“They may live,” he said, “but they don’t live just fine. I should know. I’ve had six years to find out.”
“Well, I hope you’re using protection,” she said, possibly as a last-ditch effort. “I’ve read about the incidence of STI’s amongst the senior population, and it’s not a pretty picture.”
She’d said it grumpily, she knew, and unfairly, too. She was afraid he’d explode. Instead, he laughed. “Just how randy a fella do you imagine I am? I’m seventy-seven, and I’ve got my hands full with one woman, no worries. In fact, I need a wee pill to—”
“All right,” she said hastily. “That was unfair. It’s just—” She shoved a hand into her hair. “It feels awkward. The kids don’t get along. Surely you’ve noticed that. And it’s Zane’s house. Whatever you say, it’s his house.”
“And Maureen’s the only reason he can do the job he’s got,” Granddad said, not sounding quite calm himself.
“You can’t expect old people to slot into the jobs you need them for and let everything else fall by the wayside.
We’re people. We need things too, and we don’t have the luxury of waiting for them.
I’ve found another woman to love when I didn’t think that could happen, and I want to spend time with her.
If you want to hire somebody to look after the kids at home instead of having me bring them here, though, you can go ahead and do that. ”
She had both hands on the sides of her head now, rubbing her temples as if that would help. “I can’t afford it. You know I can’t. And I wouldn’t want somebody else anyway. The kids love you. They know you. You’re their security.”
“I’m a bit of their security. You’re their security, and they’ve still got you.
It’s a change, that’s all. When did you get so stuck?
I’m seventy-seven, and I’m not stuck. What kind of life is that for a young woman, pouring yourself into your job and your kids and telling yourself that’s enough?
Never buying a new dress just because it’s pretty, never going out for so much as a drink with a man?
What did Peter do to sour you like this? ”
She couldn’t say anything. The blood that had rushed to her face earlier drained from it, and she actually felt sick. “I’m—” she began. “I’m—” Then didn’t know how to go on.
Her granddad stood up. “No point in talking about this more tonight. We’re both narky, and having a go at each other when we’re in that state solves nothing. Get yourself together, and let’s take the kids home. We’ll talk about it again tomorrow. After school, when there’s time.”
And how many more days will you be there to talk to me after school?
she wanted to say. When does Zane leave for the next round of finals footy?
Wednesday? Thursday? What happens then? She didn’t say it, because she wasn’t under control.
She was, in fact, panicked. Stupidly, unproductively panicked, like all the scaffolding she’d built around herself over the past five years was crumbling, and she couldn’t think how to keep herself from falling.
Granddad turned at the door. “D’you still want to talk to Zane?”
How could she avoid it? How could she let him think she was all right with this plan, or not leave the door open for him to say he wasn’t all right with it? Harden up, she told herself. It’s one conversation.
You can cry when you get home. How many times had she told herself that? She was so tired of this. Tired of trying to cope. Tired of trying to pretend.
She just had to do it for ten minutes more. Ten minutes, and she’d go home.
“Yes,” she managed to say, with only a bit of tremble in her voice. “I still want to talk to him. Can you ask him to come down, please?”
Her granddad didn’t even answer. He thought she was unfair. He’d probably been resenting her for years. How had she not known?
She put her hands between her knees and breathed.
Ten more minutes.
Zane did not have a good feeling about this.
About what, exactly? He couldn’t even have said. Well, that Skylar was so clearly unhappy about the situation, for one thing.
He ran down the steps and found her standing in the sitting room, her arms wrapped around her middle. He said, “I’m here. Go on and have your say. Sit down first, though, would you?”
She didn’t sit down. She wandered over to the folding glass doors that made up the wall and said, in a distracted tone, “That’s a pretty flash pool.
Granddad and Maureen could do their water aerobics in there.
” She smiled at what he was sure was the startled expression on his face, but the smile didn’t match her body language.
“Too much geriatric bliss in skimpy togs? Imagining Granddad in a budgie smuggler? No worries, his togs are perfectly normal. His legs are skinny, though. And white.”
“You’re worried,” he said. “You wanted to talk this over. Stop trying to lighten it up and say what you need to say.”
“And you’re not worried? Zane …”
He liked how she said his name. He couldn’t help it. “Well, I do think it’s a bit ironic that I’ve been so careful to keep any extracurricular activity well away from my kids, and here’s my grandmother talking about having her fella here for the night, as bold as brass.”
“Yes,” she said seriously. “I said that, too. That it’s not a good example for the kids.”
He had to smile at that. “Well, if Nan were entertaining a string of boyfriends, maybe. I don’t imagine it’ll be all that exciting, or that the kids will care much.
Sorry to be blunt, but I don’t think they’ll be having the kind of athletic sex that would get noisy, not at their ages.
Anyway, the kids’ bedrooms are nowhere close.
My bedroom is, but I’ll put a pillow over my head. ”
She said, “You’re trying to make this funny, but I can’t believe you feel that way. I’d tell you to let Granddad know if you don’t want him, but you’re clearly able to do that.”
“Clearly,” he agreed. “I’m not famous for my tact. So … what?”
“Uh … kids? In your house? Fighting with your kids? You can’t want that.”
“I won’t be here,” he pointed out. “What difference will it make to me? And I doubt it’ll scar them for life. Things change, and you change with them. No choice.”
“Oh.” She did sit down, then, so he could sit down, too. At right angles to her. Her hands were clasped between her legs, and then they went up and shoved into her hair in that way she did. In that way he wanted to do.
“Scarlett hasn’t been on her best behavior, eh,” he said. “Is that what you’re afraid to say?”
“I’d say that Finlay’s given her a run for her money,” Skylar said. “They’re feeling territorial, I think. How much more territorial if my kids are on your turf? I don’t want to make my kids unhappy, but I especially don’t want to make your kids unhappy.”
He shrugged. “Don’t remember my Mum and Dad tying themselves into knots when we had a cousin living with us, or whatever it was. Nobody gets everything they want, and they may as well get used to that. When we boys fought too much, they generally just turfed us outside.”
“To play rugby.”
“If we were done with our chores. Farm kids. You were right about that, by the way. They’ve been getting away with too much. Scarlett and Duncan are more than old enough to be of use.”
“So you really don’t mind this.”