Leslie headed up the mountain in the old red Jeep which Jack ran on the farm for over twenty years. She waved her wrinkled hand at Hana as she met them at the front door. “I know, I know,” she soothed. “I didn’t wanna bring it up here and upset youse but Alfie took ours out to the reserve with that brother of yours.” She opened the rear door and Phoenix and Wiremu spilled out of the same seat.
Hana cringed and bit her lip at the realisation they shared a seat belt past washouts and sheer cliffs. “You should have called,” she said, cradling Mac. “I would’ve come for them.”
“Look what I did, Ma,” Wiri said, waving a picture at her stomach. “It’s our fambly.”
“Beautiful,” Hana intoned, biting back the cringe of dismay at how the child’s drawing depicted him at the centre of her family.
Leslie rolled her eyes, sharing Hana’s concerns. The children pattered towards the house and kicked their shoes off under the porch. Hana spun round but was too late to warn them. “What’s up?” the elderly woman asked, puffing up the porch steps into the hall.
“I wanted to ask them to be quiet because Caleb’s gone for a sleep in Mark’s room. I didn’t say it fast enough.”
“Hmmmn!” Leslie humphed. “Least said about that, the better.”
“Not you too,” Hana sighed. “I’ve already had David’s opinion on the matter. He’s just a homeless kid, Leslie. What else could I do?”
“And that’s why we loves ya,” the old woman said with a smile. She hefted the gurgling baby from Hana’s arms and pushed the front door closed with her foot. “What’s happening with the other wee cuckoo? I hear you’re heading back to Hamilton in a few weeks.” Leslie’s smile lost its sheen. “I’m gonna miss youse.”
“It’s only for a term,” Hana said, flicking the switch on the kettle. “Logan wants to re-register for teaching and I’ve good reasons for needing to be in town for a little while.” She glanced across at her son as he lurched for the jade necklace around Leslie’s neck, staring at it before pressing it between his lips.
“So, will Wiremu go home to Nev then?” Leslie asked, jerking her head towards the lounge and the sound of Lego being tipped onto the floorboards.
“I don’t know what to do.” Hana slumped into a kitchen chair and put her head in her hands. “He came to us because Nev couldn’t cope and it’s meant to be temporary. I saw what he drew on his picture and his attachment to us gets harder to break the longer this goes on. What should I do, Leslie?”
“Well, this is one calamity youse didn’t put yerself in, kōtiro. Nev don’t talk about Anahera much but I heard him tell Logan she wasn’t improving. Can’t be much fun being sent to the mental hospital. Nev said them clever doctors diagnosed her with a mate hinengaro.” She put a gnarled hand up to her mouth and covered it when she said the Māori word, leaving Hana sighing in frustration.
“What’s that?”
Leslie flapped her hand and then used it to cover Mac’s ear. Hana tried not to dwell on the irony. “She’s a porowairangi, a lunatic. She’s not coming out soon.”
“Mama! Peese m’av bissit?” Phoenix stood in the doorway, extracting her thumb long enough to utter the request. The fingers of her other hand writhed through her cousin’s and Wiri pursed his lips, attempting an angelic face.
“Playing’s quite tiring,” he said, affecting a perfect yawn and rubbing his stomach with his free hand to add to the prompt.
Hana stood. “Wash your hands in the bathroom first and you may have a drink and one biscuit each. It’ll be dinner time soon.” The children turned to leave and Hana halted them. “Guys, I need you to be quiet. There’s a poorly person in Uncle Mark’s room.”
“Tama’s room!” Wiri insisted with a frown. “Not Uncle Mark’s.” Hana saw a flash of jealousy cross the sparkling grey eyes. The little boy floundered in a sea of adult mistakes and had thrown his energies into anchoring himself in this branch of the Du Roses. Wiri lessened the impact of his statement with an endearing smile and led Phoenix along the hallway towards the family bathroom. Hana heard him telling her to be quiet as she chattered away.
“He’s becoming very emotionally involved,” Hana mused, frowning as Leslie remained quiet while dandling Mac on her knee and bouncing him until he burped. “Help me out here,” Hana demanded. “What can I do? He’s stopped asking for his parents and calls me Ma. I’ve told him to call me Aunty Hana or just Hana but he slips it in there when he thinks I don’t notice. Give me a clue, please?”
“Tama calls you Ma and he’s not your boy,” Leslie said, raising a dark eyebrow.
“That’s different,” Hana protested. “His parents abandoned him; he has no relationship with Michael and doesn’t want one.”
“Obviously Wiri feels the same way.” Leslie grinned at Mac and delighted in his beamed response.
Hana shook her head. “It’s completely different! Anahera’s suffered a breakdown and Nev works full time. I offered to take Wiri to school and then it was, ‘Could you have him overnight while I help with the foaling?’ Then it was, ‘Can he stay with you a bit longer while I go to the cattle market because I’ll be late home?’ That was months ago and Nev shows no signs of wanting his son back.”
“Get Logan to talk to him,” Leslie suggested, a smirk lifting a corner of her mouth.
“Been there; done that!” Hana grumbled. “His honest opinion was that Wiri wouldn’t be taken care of properly if Nev took him home. He’s got massive concerns, which is why Wiri’s still here.” Hana chewed her lip and shrugged. “I’ll talk to Logan again tonight but I’m assuming nothing’s changed.”
“That settles it then.” Leslie pressed her lips against Mac’s crown as he sat facing the table, patting the scarred wood with his hands. “Youse got seven children.” She chuckled. “You taking Ryan to Hamilton with yas? Youse got one of Michael’s meamea, youse might as well have the other.”
Hana’s eyes widened in horror at Leslie’s tactless use of the expletive. Logan’s status within the Du Rose family as Reuben’s bastard made her sensitive to such slurs on his behalf. She glanced around nervously, relaxing at the sound of Phoenix singing amidst running water.
“I left her there,” Wiremu announced, flouncing into the kitchen. “She won’t turn it off.”
“Oh.” Hana eyed the empty table which should have contained warm milk and biscuits. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
She reappeared with her two-year-old under her arm, Phoenix giggling as she hung like a limp rag doll. “She turned it off,” Hana told Wiri in response to the worried look on his face. “I checked.”
Phoenix clambered onto the seat next to her cousin and poked her face into his. “I gettin’ paint off,” she said, her voice insistent as she jabbed at her stained palm with an olive finger. “It dirty wiv Nonie’s paintin’.” She kissed Wiri in the eye and sat on her seat, only her eyes and forehead visible over the table top.
All eyes turned to Hana as she heated milk in a saucepan and she felt the pressure of provision like a weight around her shoulders. Phoenix’s clear voice cut through the leaden atmosphere like a knife. “I ‘ave brandy in mine, fanks,” she said.
Hana’s jaw dropped and she narrowed her eyes at Leslie. “I don’t think so,” she said, keeping her voice light.
Leslie rolled her eyes. “Poppa Alfie has brandy with his milk, don’t he mokopuna?”
“Yes,” the children agreed in a well-rehearsed chorus.
“We never has brandy in it does we Nonie? Nope, never, we don’t.” Wiremu’s insistence only strengthened Hana’s concerns. She shook her head and poured the milk into two mugs and two beakers. “Is that with his wacky baccy or instead?”
“Shhhh!” Leslie flapped her arms in horror and the children laughed at her duck impression.
Hana’s eyes widened. “Please tell me he’s not driving my brother round the property unlicensed?”
Leslie shook her head. “Na, kōtiro! He’s got my licence with him, just in case.”
“It doesn’t work like that and you know it. I hope they don’t go on public roads or the cops will throw the book at him.”
Wiri sniggered. “Throw the book at him,” he repeated. “How big’s the book?”
“Very big.” Hana glared at Leslie and laid tea plates on the table and gave each child two biscuits each. Leslie looked at the packet with the hopefulness of a Labrador and Hana gave in and put two on a plate for her, rolling her eyes and wondering which of them was meant to be the adult.
“I saw somebody’s dad who we can’t mention right now, but were talking about before.” Leslie shoved a cookie into her mouth whole, widening her eyes at Hana’s lack of comprehension and jerked her head towards Wiri.
Hana nodded in recognition. She’d seen Nev. “Ah yeah?”
“He’s heard from his brother. Kane’s making good money building in Christchurch. There’s lots to repair after the earthquake. He mentioned something about that blonde woman whose name I won’t mention either.”
Hana winced, not wanting to hear news of Caroline Marsh, her rival for Logan’s affections. Something told her the woman would never give up and even thinking her name felt like poking a wasps’ nest and anticipating trouble. “I don’t want to know,” Hana sighed with sincerity but Leslie never kept gossip to herself. She told Hana the latest news and left her poleaxed.
“You’re not serious?” Hana said, her porcelain skin paling further and her red hair standing out like a fiery halo. “It’s not true.”
“Is true,” Leslie said, reaching for another biscuit, unaware of the devastation those two small words had wrought.