Chapter 41 #2
“I read about it,” Olive said, and reached for a piece of chocolate croissant. “Thank you for the treats, Mr. Mahuta. They’re very good. I think they’re probably expensive, too. Mum doesn’t normally buy things that don’t come from the supermarket, because we can’t afford them.”
“But my dad can afford them,” Scarlett said. “Hmm, what a coincidence.”
Zane stood up. His fists were on the table, and he was holding onto his temper with a major effort. “That’s enough,” he said. “If you can’t be polite, you can go to your room.”
“I’m eating,” Scarlett said.
“Take your plate, then.”
“You don’t even care!” she burst out, throwing down her bit of scone in dramatic fashion.
“You don’t care that your kids are here, and we only get to have you here for four days, and next week you’re going to South Africa for weeks and weeks!
You just want to be with her! And to have her kids here like they’re your kids!
” Shouting now, the tears standing in her eyes.
Zane was about to say something he might regret, but Finlay spoke first. “Like we even want to be here! We want to be at our own house. Don’t put this on us.”
“I don’t want to be at our house,” George said. “I like it here, because Georgia likes to play the things I like, and there’s a swimming pool.”
“Also, the TV is much bigger,” Olive said. “I like both places, though, especially the cozy spot in our storage cupboard at home where I read. That’s one thing that’s better than here.”
“You read in a cupboard?” Scarlett asked. “Why?”
Zane sat down. Seemed like the wisest choice. He should at least hear what the kids had to say, since he wasn’t much chop at deciphering unspoken resentments.
“Because it’s small and dark and secret and my special place,” Olive said, “since I have to share a bedroom with George. You have to climb up on a chair and then sort of crawl in, but Mum made me a little mattress thing that goes all across and got me a lamp, so I can close the door and be hidden if I want to.”
“Weird,” Scarlett said.
“I’d like a cupboard like that,” Duncan said. “It would feel cozy, I think. I can’t read as long of books as you can, but maybe if we were at your house, I could sit at the other end of the mattress and read too. If you could tell me a good book to read.”
“That would be OK,” Olive said. “If you really wanted to be quiet and read. Except that we’d need another lamp.
You could read The Chronicles of Narnia.
I could lend it to you. It’s about kids who find a secret land on the other side of a wardrobe, and it’s got heaps of books so you can keep reading the adventures.
There’s fighting, and boys like fighting in books, but it’s also very good for imagining.
Imagining is better than reading sometimes, because you can imagine even when you can’t read, so it’s not so boring when your mum drags you on errands.
When Granddad’s over at your house, we have to go with Mum every time she goes to the supermarket or the pharmacy or anywhere. ”
“Us too,” Duncan said. “We always used to have to go with Nan, because Dad usually isn’t home until dinnertime, even when he’s in Auckland. Errands are boring. When Mr. Bulstrode is here, sometimes only one of them does the errand and we get to stay home, so that’s better.”
“Can I go in the secret cupboard too?” Georgia asked.
“When you can read enough, I guess,” Olive said. “It’s a reading cupboard. But maybe it could be a talking cupboard sometimes, too.”
“We could make secret plans!” George said. “If you let me come into it. We could have a secret club and be spies and sneak around to see what people are doing.”
Finlay said, “Not me. Scarlett and I are too old for secret clubs.”
“Thank you,” Scarlett said.
“That’s OK,” George said. “We can spy on you instead.” Scarlett rolled her eyes.
“Nobody asked you to be in it, Finlay,” Olive said. “I like my cupboard the way it is, but maybe I’d like having other people in it sometimes, if they wanted to come.”
“Excuse me,” Scarlett said. “This isn’t the point?”
“Oh,” Olive said. “I thought it was, though. We were talking about whose house we like better, and I like both houses.”
“I like both houses too,” George said.
“I do too,” Georgia said.
“You’ve been in their house once,” Scarlett said. “For about fifteen minutes. How do you even know?”
“It has a cat in it,” Georgia said, “and I like cats.”
“You don’t even know any cats,” Scarlett said.
“I do too,” Georgia said. “Because I know Snowball, and he likes to get pats. Real animals are better than stuffies, because they sit in your lap and are alive.”
“I like cats too,” Duncan said. “Even though I’d like to have a dog better. And I’d like to read in the cupboard sometimes. So I think I’d like to be at their house.”
Finlay said, “So only Scarlett and I are mature enough to even care whether we’re in our own house or not? And with our own parents?”
“But Granddad’s always here when we’re here,” George said. “So that’s the same.”
“Yes,” Scarlett said. “You’re all here. Don’t you see that that’s the problem?”
Her words hung there, and everybody at the table seemed to be holding their breath. Except the grandparents, because as usual, they were sitting at the end of the table and saying nothing. Like two people who wanted to distance themselves.
Zane looked at Skylar. She looked back at him and said, “Tackle this separately, or together?”
“I think together,” he said. “And then separately, as often as we need to.”
“Fine,” she said. “Want me to start?”
“How I wish you would,” he said, and she smiled.
“See?” Scarlett said. “We’re all upset, and you guys are talking to each other instead of to us! We’re your kids!”
“Yes,” Skylar said. “You are. And this is a pretty common problem when single parents start dating for the first time. At least the first time their kids know about, because normally, parents manage to be a little sneakier about it at first. They don’t introduce a new partner to their kids until they’re sure it’s serious, because it’s confusing to feel like …
like somebody’s almost in your whanau now, when they weren’t before.
Your dad and I can’t be sneaky, though, because as you’ve noticed, my Granddad is here with your Nan, so that’s brought our whanau closer to yours. ”
“Too right,” Granddad said.
“Geoffrey and I’ve been talking about getting our own place, in fact,” Nan said. “A little flat nearby.”
“Our own secret cupboard, eh,” Geoffrey said. “Our bolthole.”
“Wait,” Skylar said. “What?” Zane could only agree with her. What the hell? And why would they bring this up now? Didn’t they have enough complication here?
Because they want their time alone together, he was forced to answer, just like you do.
“But you can’t live someplace else,” Scarlett said. “Who’s going to look after us when Dad’s not here? I could be in charge, I guess, but I don’t know how to cook, and how would I do my after-school activities?”
“You couldn’t be in charge,” Duncan said. “Georgia and I would run away from home.”
“We’d still be here when your dad was gone, of course,” Nan said. “Just as Geoffrey’s still helping Skylar with the school pickups and so forth. But we’d like some space and privacy of our own.”
“I can’t believe it,” Scarlett said. “Doesn’t anybody care at all about our, like, security? This is just the worst.”
“No, it’s not,” Finlay said. “Nobody died. If your Nan or your dad died, that would be the worst.”
Another girl would have burst into tears. Scarlett, though, turned a furious face on Finlay. “Do you think I don’t know that?”
“Yes,” Finlay said, “because you said it would be the worst, and it isn’t. Obviously.”
“I cannot,” Scarlett said. “I absolutely cannot.”
Skylar said, “I have a suggestion.”
“Good,” Zane said. “Because I don’t have a clue.”
“We both need to go to the supermarket,” she said.
“How about doing that together right now, just the two of us, so we can discuss this? We hear everybody’s concerns,” she told the little group.
“We want to address them, but we need to work out how. If you give Zane your shopping list,” she told Nan, “he’ll buy what you need for that family tea tonight.
We’ll have a little conference once we’re back. ”
“But—” Scarlett began.
“And you and Finlay,” Zane said, “can do the washing-up. Since you’re both mature and capable.
You showed that during the earthquake, and I know you can show it again.
This is a change, not a crisis, and our whanau’s been through changes before and come out the other side.
You’ve still got me, and I’ve still got you.
The rest is just listening and logistics.
” He pushed his chair back and stood. “Give me that list, Nan, and don’t forget the eggs. Skylar says we ate all of them.”