All Saints: Love and Intrigue in the Stunning New Zealand Wilderness (The New Zealand Soccer Referee Series Book 1) (22 page)

The nurse smiled and nodded. I
heard her leave and paced my breathing to Lawrie’s, feeling the soporific
effects of nurturing as we both drifted off to sleep. I woke as the orderly took
the brake off the bed, ready to move Lawrie to pediatrics. The child slumbered
on and I laid him on the pillows with care as the nurse smiled with
appreciation. “His aunty’s here now,” she whispered. “She’s waiting in the
children’s ward. It’s appendicitis and he’s next on the list for surgery.”

“I should probably leave then,” I
said, reaching for my bag.

The nurse shrugged and they waited
long enough for me to kiss Lawrie’s forehead, before winding him away through
the corridors to the children’s ward.

The world
outside the hospital seemed dark and empty as I sat on a bench with nowhere to
go. School ended two hours ago and the world had slipped into its usual routine
without caring about the fate of one more small child in agony. I’d wrestled
with Lawrie since the beginning of the school year, knowing something didn’t
add up but powerless to help him. He wasn’t willful or disruptive as the notes
from his kindy claimed, once they eventually turned up. I’d looked into his
wide blue eyes and seen a private hell, made up of sentences he didn’t
understand but repeated as though he did. Lawrie Hopu was afraid and I
regretted my inability to help him. He’d spent ten weeks in my class being
shepherded from activity to activity by Helen or me, perhaps even seen the
inward sighs we took to master control of our irritation with the system which
failed him and felt the sting of our combined dejection. Guilt pricked at my
soul and I felt the urge to run. Nowhere. Anywhere. I resented the
heartlessness of this big city with its shiny buildings and no compassion.

The taxi dropped me near the
cemetery and I risked my credit card in his portable machine for the sake of a
ride across the harbour bridge. I wondered about my car, resting in the parking
garage at the apartment and wondered how long before the police detective
confiscated it. The excitement of ownership paled against the guilt of knowing
how Terry paid for it. I wondered if it made me complicit, the energy to deal
with the mental logistics defeating me in my weakened state.

“Hi, Mum.” I scooped a dandelion
from the grass next to her grave and laid it where I figured her head would be
if she were still inside. The alternatives filled me with misery and I shook
them away. “I’ve stuffed up big time,” I confessed, leaning my back against the
corner of her headstone and crossing my legs. “How do I come back from this?
It’s a worse mess than a gay husband leaving me with a lorry load of debt.” I
spotted a daisy in the glow from the setting sun and picked it, leaving the
stem as long as I could. Another and another blinked at me with upturned faces
and I snagged them all, piercing their green spokes and threading one through
another. “I met this guy,” I said, concentrating on my task. “He’s everything I
ever wanted; strong, silent, wise and good looking. You’d like him. I wish I’d
met him ten years ago because my life might’ve been real different.” I snuffed
out a laugh of regret. “Na, I probably would’ve messed it up somehow and I’d be
sitting here divorced instead of just widowed and single.”

Jack’s face wafted across my
inner vision and I cringed. “You’ll never guess what,” I added, fixing the
daisies together in a continuous line. “Jack loved me; seems he always did. He
said Dad threatened him but I guess you knew about that.” I pursed my lips,
wondering if she had, or whether she’d been as clueless as me when he chose
Lacey as his ball partner. I preferred to believe the latter.

“I wish you could see me now,
Mum. I’ve lost so much weight in the last five years, Aunty Pam says I look
like you when you were thirty. In ten more years I’ll be forty and it’s gonna
be weird because you never went there ahead of me, did you? I’ll be something
you never were.” It made my heart ache that she didn’t get to see the last of
my teen years, fading out before I’d finished growing my breasts or learned to
let my dark curls do what they wanted instead of taming them beneath clips and
ponytails. I imagined her wandering the halls of heaven, searching for a fat
girl with curly bunches and the sob caught in my throat. “Don’t look for me
anymore, Mum,” I begged. “I don’t think I’ll be coming. I had sex with a
stranger an hour after meeting him and knew nothing about him. I don’t know
where he lives or what his hobbies are.” Foolishness enveloped me. Nothing I’d
said mattered against the thought of Teina’s arms enfolding me and the feel of
his lips on my cheek. I sniffed. “I’m nothing special, Mum. You thought I was but
I’m the same as all the other girls in this world. I know you’d be ashamed of
me. I kinda wish you were here so you could tell me off and show me how
disappointed you are. I feel like I need to be punished by someone who cares.
The cops will be doing it soon enough.”

I completed my daisy chain and
hung it on the headstone. With the waning of the sun, the tiny buds closed
their faces against my cruelty and hid their yellow beneath the tight, white
petals. “Dad’s up shit creek without a paddle, Mum. He won’t be in heaven
either at this rate.” I worried at my lower lip as I contemplated his many
misdeeds and sighed, unable to confess to my mother about his indiscretion with
May-Ling or his possible involvement in the gambling scam. She’d loved my
foolish old man and part of me wanted to leave her with the illusion of his
invincibility. He’d cross the finish line soon enough and by then she’d know
the sum of his life by his destination.

I stroked the dry earth and felt
the heat of the day leave the crumbly soil as evening descended around me. “I
don’t think I want to be a teacher anymore,” I whispered. “The joy went out of
it today when I realised I couldn’t help this little boy with his behaviour and
he deserves so much better. What’s the point of being on the front line when
you can’t help anyone?” I shook my head and prayed Lawrie’s pain would
disappear and someone far better than me would dish out a fairer education in
future. “I’ll quit and then pay for him to see an educational psychologist,” I
promised, as much to myself as to my mother.

I glanced around me, surprised at
the passage of time. “I should go.” Like everything else in New Zealand, the
day winked out like the switching off of a light. The tides worked the same
way, snapping open and closed like a mouse trap. The sunny resting place
lengthened its shadows and began to resemble a scene ruined by horror movies
and I clambered to my feet, feeling the blood surge behind my knees with
agonising slowness. My ribs and back ached and I contemplated Peter Saint’s
empty grave a few hundred metres away. I couldn’t be bothered to walk there and
shuddered at the thought of how he might look with his flesh gone and his white
bones exposed. His strong soccer playing legs would be wasted and empty, no
longer skilled and trained to perfection; scoring goals which old men still
talked about over pint glasses filled with hope. “I did love him, Mum,” I said
with a sigh. “I pretend I didn’t because it makes me feel less of a fool, but I
did. My greatest failure in life is seeing how broken Pete was and being unable
to fix him. I’m surrounded by my own failure. I need to go away.” I
contemplated the irony. If the cops linked my new car and paid off loan to the
dodgy club finances, I might be going away somewhere anyway.

My heels dragged as I turned away
from Mum’s grave; the only reminder to the world that she ever existed. Apart
from me, I realised with a small smile. My long curled hair, soft brown eyes
and bigger than average breasts pointed to her influence. I carried her with
me, looped through my DNA. I half turned as I delivered the real reason for my
visit and hoped she’d understand. “I haven’t been to church for a few weeks,
Mum. I’m not sure they’d want me anymore, not just because of the sex but
because...” I remembered a girl at the club who everyone shunned, staring at
her as she walked by with her sin on the outside. I’d admired her courage
twenty years ago and wondered if I had what I needed to carry it off. I pursed
my lips and gazed at the sandstone with the inscription of Mum’s name turning
grey in the darkness; Karen Landsdown-Saint. She’d loved me and from now on, I
promised myself I’d do better and try to love myself.

“I think I’m pregnant, Mum. I’m
fairly sure I fell in love with the stranger the first time he kissed me.
Trouble is, he’s a referee and a cop. I didn’t just blow one rule, Mum. I blew
the worst two.”

Lawrence
Drive felt eerie and quiet as I walked along it, acutely aware of my isolation.
Turning away from the sign for Hillcrest Road, I remembered my marital home,
just a stone’s throw away. It tugged at me but I resisted, locking that life in
a box and throwing away the key. Coles Beach Road cried out with the amplified
slap of the sea against rocks and I dreamed of a different time, turning to
face the motorway and an impossibly long tramp home.

Traffic from State Highway One
pounded the overpass as I tracked along the B19 in a world of my own. When the
sleek car pulled up alongside me I had a moment of panic at my stupidity, casting
around for assistance. “Easy.” Teina held out his hand, palm upwards to still
my fear and offer reassurance and my first reaction was, as always, foolish.

“Why are you here?” I scoffed,
looking around the deserted road.

He smiled with his eyes, the
stubble pricking through his dark skin and covering the lower half of his face
in shadow. “Your cousin, Alysha said this is where you’d be.”

“Oh.” I swallowed. Damn traitor.
I struck her off my Christmas card list with an imaginary pen. “What do you
want?”

Teina got out and leaned his bum
against the rear wing, folding his arms. The engine rumbled in the darkness.
His dark jeans cast shadows which outlined his physique and the white tee shirt
glowed with an odd luminescence in the inadequate street lights. “Thought I’d
cruise by and have that chat now,” he said, sounding casual as he added a yawn
into the mix. “But if you’d rather walk back to your place; I’ll drive behind
you with my four ways on to warn passing traffic. It’s your call.”

I stared down at my feet, seeing
the brown soil stains on my cream sandals and grimacing. The urge to take my
shoes off and run through the grass like a child percolated into my brain and I
craved the exhilaration of youth and innocence. My ribs jarred, reminding me it
wouldn’t happen. “I only make bad calls,” I sighed and heard Teina’s shoes
grate against the loose gravel.

“I don’t,” he said. “I’m happy
with mine so far.”

I sniggered at his confidence.
“Spoken like a true referee.” I put my hand over my mouth and added, “A blind
one,” just for effect.

“Get in the bloody car, Ms
Saint,” he said with authority and I fixed him with a steely, determined gaze.

“I can’t. My life is shit. Toxic
shit. You can’t be near me.”

Teina’s eyes narrowed and he
shrugged. “That’s why you should get in, Ursula. For once, do as you’re told.
And I make my own decisions about who I want to be near. Don’t you think they
tried to warn me off before? I’m a traffic cop, Ursula, not a detective. They
heavied me and I ignored them.” He opened his arms out wide as though to make
his point. “I’m still here and they’re not.”

I gritted my teeth and paced
across to the vehicle, allowing Teina to open the passenger door and close it
behind me. “I don’t see why that means I have to get in the car,” I grumbled. I
lowered my tone in a poor impression of him. “Your life’s shit so get in the
car.”

He ignored me but although I
wouldn’t admit it, his presence in the driver’s seat added to the feeling of
safety and I breathed a sigh of relief as he set off and the central locking
activated itself. He didn’t ask where I wanted to go and the energy to question
him evaded me. I closed my eyes and prayed for Lawrie, hoping I’d get the
chance to make amends for my inadequacy.

Teina stopped in downtown
Auckland and parked his car in a spot near the Sky Tower. I wrinkled my nose,
knowing even when I prayed for a parking space I rarely got one. He reached for
me with one hand whilst feeding coins into the meter with the other and I
crumbled into his embrace like a landslide, feeling pathetic and fortunate.
“You ready to talk?” he demanded, kissing my temple and tilting my chin with
his index finger.

“I don’t know.” I gave a wary
shrug and he smiled, drawing me into his side as he led me to a bar near the
waterfront. I gave up fighting and it felt natural to hang on to the back
pocket of his jeans with my arm stretched around him. His scent intoxicated me
and craving comfort, I nestled closer, feeling safe and wanted. Teina ordered
me an orange juice without discussion and settled into a lemonade as we perched
on stools around a high table. His hand rested on my thigh, his warmth through
my trousers giving me courage.

“Please will you give me a
chance?” he asked, his eyes dark with anxiety and his pupils obscuring the
brown irises. He reached for my hand under the table. “I don’t make a habit of
falling into bed with strangers and it was never casual for me. Stuff got in
the way but my intentions have remained the same. I couldn’t tell you what was
going on with All Saints because I blundered in there by accident and the
detectives warned me off. I knew you weren’t involved, for what it’s worth.”

“But I am involved,” I sighed,
seeing his eyes widen even more. I let go of his hand to reach for my drink.
“Terry paid money into my bank account and bought me a car with cash. If he was
part of the scam, then that money was acquired illegally.”

Teina screwed up his face. “There’s
no record of it; I’ve seen the evidence. It’s a big mess though. It would’ve
been genius if they hadn’t got greedy.” He stopped and chewed his lip. “The
captains of the top two teams were involved. You do know that, don’t you?”

I closed my eyes and resisted the
urge to run out into the street and keep going. Teina touched my hand. “What
are you thinking?”

“Why does it matter?” I asked
with a sigh.

“Because I care, woman!” I heard
the hurt in his voice.

“I’m thinking it never ends. The
gift that was Peter Saint just keeps on giving and it doesn’t matter what I do;
I can’t crawl out from under it all.”

“What do you mean, babe? He
wasn’t the only one cheating. They’ve caught four of the twelve teams in the
premier league all fixing matches. It’s bigger than you think. There was a
massive fraud going on and the bookies are mad as hell. This bust might
actually shut down the league for the rest of the season.”

I nodded and swallowed,
remembering the kindness of the coroner six months ago as he called me into a private
room. Pete’s homosexuality and the lie he lived under had blighted the
remainder of my twenties and I made a mental decision to leave it out of my
relationship with Teina. He didn’t need to know. I felt relieved, realising the
prospect of telling him I’d been in a fake marriage had hung over me like an
albatross. I looked at him from under my eyelashes and saw the natural grace in
his bearing and the way he fiddled when nervous. He turned his glass in a
continuous arc as his eyes darted around the bar, ever watchful. “What else is
there?” he asked, fixing me in his perceptive brown eyed stare.

“He left me with a lot of debt,”
I confessed. “That’s why Terry and Margaret helped me recently because after
Pete died, I needed to sell the house, car and anything else I could to raise
cash. I put them in a position where they felt guilty and Terry bought the car
and cleared the loan.”

Teina nodded. “The lead
detective’s been watching your bank account. They know you’ve got nothing.”

“But what about the loan being
paid off?” I said, descending back into panic. “It’s all hanging over me and
it’s best you’re not involved.”

“You’re in the clear.” Teina
chewed his lip. “I shouldn’t tell you this but Terry and Margaret Saint didn’t
pay off your loan or buy that car. It’s what you were meant to think. Your
husband’s goal in the dying minutes of that cup game wiped them all out; they
had nothing.”

“Then who?” I demanded and Teina
blanched.

“I’ll tell you, Ursula but if you
repeat it; I’ll be in more trouble than you can imagine. I’m not risking my
career for you to go charging off half-cocked.” The seriousness in his
expression brought me up short and I nodded in acceptance of his terms. He
threaded his fingers through mine under the table. “But first, I need to know
where I stand with you.”