Chapter 19 #2
“Could we talk about this later, please?” she asked, since subtlety hadn’t worked.
“No,” he said, “because it depends on Zane as well, and as you go skittering away anytime you get close to the man, I’d better seize my chance.”
“I do not—” she began.
“Now, see, I thought so,” Jade said.
“Zane doesn’t want to hear this either,” Skylar said, somewhat desperate now.
“Zane’s intrigued,” the man himself said. “Go on and give us the plan. We can always say no.”
“True,” Skylar said. “And the brilliant plan is …”
“I understand you’re taking a house in Wellington for the school holidays, Zane,” Granddad said. “As you’ll be training down there with the All Blacks.”
Gordon sighed. “Rub it in, why don’t you. I’m only named as injury cover for this series. The lot of a midfielder. Why is En Zed rugby so lousy with midfielders? Of course, there are enough matches coming up that they may need me. I’m clinging to that cheering thought.”
Granddad ignored him. “So we thought,” he went on, “that as I’m keen to join Maureen there and she’s keen to have me—it’s too much anyway, a woman of her age coping with three kids for weeks without any help—we could get Skylar and the kids down for a week or two as well.
That’d help Maureen and me slip away from time to time, for one thing. ”
“So your plan,” Zane said, still calmly, “is to have Skylar care for all the kids while you and Nan ‘slip away.’ Not sure that’s much of a holiday for her. Year One teacher,” he told his siblings.
“We know,” Jade said. “Georgia’s teacher. Intriguing.”
“Who gets enough chance to practice her child-wrangling during term time, I’d have thought,” Zane said. “Why would this plan appeal?”
“I can’t imagine,” Jade said. “Unless …”
“It doesn’t,” Scarlett said.
Zane fixed her with a hard look. “I’ve heard enough of that from you. I’ve thought it would pass, but it’s not passing, and I’m tired of it. It’s not funny, and it’s rude.”
Scarlett opened her mouth, then closed it. Her cheeks turned dark, and she looked miserable. Finlay piped up, and Skylar tensed, but all he said was, “Scarlett hasn’t said any more about me than I’ve said about her, though, so that’s not fair. If she’s rude, we’re probably both rude.”
“Probably so,” Zane said. “And I’d like it to stop.” His gimlet eye was on Scarlett again. “Understood?”
She nodded once, a jerk of her head, and looked down at her pudding.
“Good,” Zane said. “You two can keep track of my list instead. You’re both systematic enough for that. Ready to begin?”
“Uh … yes,” Finlay said. “Sir,” he added belatedly.
Scarlett said, “Suckup.” Out of the side of her mouth, but Finlay heard her. “What?” he said. “He’s scary.”
Zane said, “Now that we’ve got that sorted, here’s how I see it. It’s a pretty good house, because I’ve let it before. Six bedrooms, heated swimming pool that’s bigger than ours—”
“With a diving board,” Duncan said. “I’m getting better at diving, Dad. I want to learn trick dives now off the board.”
“Then you’ll be happy,” Zane said. “Climbing structure, too. Swing set. And then there’s Wellington.”
“Te Papa,” Duncan said. “That’s a museum,” he told the others.
“I know,” Finlay said. “Just because we haven’t been doesn’t mean we don’t know.”
“Oh,” Duncan said. “Well, it’s cool. And there are huge playgrounds. And Zealandia. That’s birds,” he told Olive, who was next to him. “If you sit very still and don’t scare them, you can see heaps of interesting birds.”
“I’d like to do that,” she said. “Can we, Mum?”
“Have you been to the Quake House at Te Papa?” Finlay asked Duncan.
“I’ve only been to the volcano exhibit at the War Memorial Museum here, where they make you feel what it’d be like if a volcano erupted.
You wouldn’t have enough time to get away, and most people would die.
I wonder what the earthquake exhibit says about that. ”
“You have a lively interest in death,” Gordon said.
“It’s interesting,” Finlay said, “because people are so afraid of it, but it happens all the time. Which makes it more interesting than things like spiders and snakes.”
“Fair point,” Gordon said. “Excellent pudding, Skylar. If I’m called up as replacement cover while the ABs are down there, I could come by on those days off myself. In the evenings, for example. Around dinnertime.”
“Which everybody usually does anyway at some point,” Jade said. “Mum and Dad are coming to both matches, France and Ireland. Won’t that be interesting.”
“They’ll only be in Wellington for the match against Ireland,” Zane said.
“Where they’ll sleep in my room. I’ll be in the team hotel most of the time,” he told Skylar.
“This way, though, I get to see the kids when I do have any time off, and getting away is a treat for them, too. That’s why we do it. ”
“I don’t remember what’s there,” Georgia said.
“The Fairy Garden at the Botanical Gardens,” Scarlett said. “That’s your favorite. My favorite is the planetarium.”
“Oh,” Georgia said. “I remember the fairy garden. I just didn’t remember where it was. If you came,” she told George, “we could play in it.”
“OK,” George said. Finlay sighed and shook his head, and Skylar fixed him with a look that meant, Boys can play imaginary games too, and they don’t have to be about war and killing and dying.
If he was unclear, she’d give him a refresher course later, because she was tired of this.
Zane was right. Men could be nurturing too.
Men should be nurturing too, and she was cutting this Kiwi-hard-man nonsense off at the knees.
“But where would they sleep?” Scarlett asked. “We use all the rooms.”
“Well,” Granddad said, “I plan to share with Maureen, personally.”
“Yes, thanks, Granddad,” Skylar said. “I think we all got that.” Zane’s brothers looked at each other and grinned. Honestly, did men really think about sex this much, that the two of them found that titillating? Maureen and Granddad were nearly eighty!
“You can share with me, George,” Georgia said. “My room there has bunk beds and is very nice.”
“OK,” he said again. “It would be fun to have somebody to play with who likes to play the things I like. And to swim in the swimming pool every day and climb on the structure.”
“I am not sharing my room with a boy,” Scarlett announced. “It’s completely inappropriate, even if it’s Duncan.”
Olive said, “I imagine you’d be sharing with me. I share with George, so I’m used to sharing, but I don’t really care. I’d like to go to the museum and learn things, but Wellington probably costs heaps of money, and Mum doesn’t have heaps of money.”
“Oh, I imagine Zane has that covered,” Jade said. “The white knight rides again.”
That’s what Zane had said before, wasn’t it? He looked more like a dark knight, though. Which was he? Neither? Both? And this was getting away from her, but she couldn’t think how to put an end to it.
“I guess that leaves you and me,” Finlay told Duncan. “I don’t hate you, so it’s OK with me.”
“Except you’re not the host,” Scarlett said, “which means you aren’t the one doing the inviting.”
“Scarlett.” Zane’s voice was so sharp, even Skylar jumped.
Duncan said, “I like having somebody to play with who likes to do boy things and not boring things, so it’s OK with me, too.”
“We could practice our kicking,” Finlay said. “Even though there are only two of us.”
Scarlett said, “Excuse me? You realize that girls play rugby too?”
“Oh,” Finlay said. “Well, you could play too, then, as long as you aren’t bossing us.”
“That’s told you, Scarlett,” Jade said. “Boys, eh. As soon as you’re strong, you’re bossing. Tell me about it.”
“You’re not helping,” Zane said.
“Oh,” she said. “I thought this was a free-for-all. Pardon me.”
Skylar said, as briskly as she knew how, “Well. Lots of points to consider. I’ll have to discuss it with Zane.”
“Mum,” Finlay said. “It’s a chance to go on holiday. We never go on holiday, and this is to someplace exciting for almost no money, because they’ll probably pay!”
“Finlay,” she said, in the same tone in which Zane had said, “Scarlett.” He shut up the same way Scarlett had, too.
“Oh, I imagine he will,” Gordon said. “What d’you say, Zazza? Happy for a bit of company down there, are you?”
“He probably wants Mum to come anyway,” Finlay said. “Since they were kissing before. I’m not sure if he wants us to come, though. People usually don’t invite extra kids along on their holidays. One extra kid, maybe, but not three. And she can’t exactly leave us alone.”
“They were kissing?” Scarlett asked. “Dad! You told us that—”
“I think,” Zane said firmly, “that I’ll discuss it with Skylar. And that we’ll decide together.”