As Tom expected, Brandon arrived well after five o’clock that evening, although this time he hadn’t minded waiting around. They’d fed Buffy at lunchtime, and again at four o’clock. Both times Tom had needed to support her as she still couldn’t stand. Then, while he was sitting beside her waiting for Brandon, she staggered to her feet, and turned two circles before flopping down in a more comfortable position.
“Yesss,” he whispered, stroking her head. “You’re getting much better, aren’t you? Soon you’ll be able to come running with me.”
When Brandon did turn up he seemed happier than usual, as if he’d had a pay rise or something. He even crouched down to stroke Buffy, while he listened to Tom’s account of the day’s events as if he was truly interested. Afterwards he told Tom to go home ahead of him while he had a chat to Dave about something.
Tom had to wait until after dinner before he was let into the secret. When the TV programme they were watching finished, Brandon picked up the remote and muted the sound.
“We need to have a discussion,” he said.
“Yeah, okay.”
“I’ve got a date tomorrow night.”
That made Tom take more interest. “What sort of date? A date date?”
Brandon gave a stupid grin. “Yeah.”
“Who with?”
“You’ve met her.”
“When?”
“Recently. End of last week.”
Tom thought back. The only new woman he’d met was … “That reporter? Marika somebody?”
“Yeah, Marika Greenwell.” Brandon was still grinning.
“But … but … you were shouting at each other.”
Brandon shrugged. “Sometimes it happens like that. At least she noticed me. Enough to come up and talk to me after work today. So I asked her out to dinner, and she said yes.”
This was all too new for Tom. While his mother had found another partner and even had a baby, he’d not expected his father to be looking for someone. He asked, “Does that mean you’ve decided to stay in Kerikeri?”
“Aw, it’s a bit early to say that. When the picking season finishes I don’t know what I’ll be doing.”
This was the chance Tom had been waiting for. “Dad, I like it here,” he began. “This school’s the best I’ve been to. I want to stay here. They’ve got a great sports programme. And there’s some triathlons I want to enter later in the year, but I’ve got to let them know when school goes back.”
Brandon was shaking his head. “You can’t make that sort of commitment, Tom. Your mum still has the final say. If she wants you back, there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
“She’d be okay if we stayed in one place.”
“She might be and then she might not be.”
Tom thought of saying more, before deciding against it. If he went on they’d end up having an argument. He returned to the original topic.
“So, you’ve got a date tomorrow night. What happens to me?”
“Dave’s agreed to feed you dinner and put you up for the night. He says you can sleep on the sofa.”
Tom almost cheered. That was the answer he’d wanted, because the sofa was right beside Buffy.
* * *
Next morning, Tom went over to Dave’s straight after breakfast, keen to see how Buffy was getting on.
“She’s much better,” said Dave when Tom walked in the door. “I think we should take the bandage off and see if she can do without it.”
Buffy managed to support herself while the crepe bandage was unwound. She cringed a little when the gauze was first touched, but allowed Dave to soak it off without complaint. The wound looked pink and healthy.
“I’ll give it another dusting with antiseptic, but leave it uncovered. It’ll heal up quicker that way.” As he was doing that he asked, “What have you got in mind for today?”
“A bike ride,” replied Tom without hesitation.
“In the forest?”
“No. I need to do some training on sealed roads. I thought I’d go to the end of Inlet Road. Can I get down to the sea there?”
“You’d need to turn onto Wharau Road. That gets you down to the mouth of the inlet. You planning to have a swim?”
“Yeah.” Tom told him about his hopes to compete in the triathlon.
“Won’t the water be a bit cold from now on?” asked Dave.
“The competition’s not until the end of the year. If I get into the team we’ll have two sessions a week in the heated pool at Kawakawa. I thought I’d get a head start.”
* * *
After making some lunch and saying goodbye to Buffy, Tom was on his way.
At the intersection of their track with Inlet Road he had to wait for a stream of traffic to pass before making a right turn. This gave him a chance to study the entrance to the subdivision opposite. A man standing on scaffolding with his back to him, was laying the top row of blocks onto a high wall, the last part of a fence that enclosed the whole subdivision. The people who lived there, clearly liked privacy.
When a gap in the traffic came, Tom accelerated across the road. At the same time a dog rushed out through the gate barking. A black Labrador.
“Get out of it!” yelled Tom, kicking out his leg, turning the wheel sharply.
Unfortunately the entranceway hadn’t been sealed and the bike skidded causing Tom to fall. The dog stood over him, barking loudly into his face.
“Get off! Get off!” screamed Tom.
Then came another voice louder and deeper. “Harvey! Get back!” This came from the block-layer.
The dog stopped barking, but didn’t back away.
“Get out of it Harvey!” yelled the block-layer.
This time the dog obeyed, slinking off behind the wall.
“You should keep your dog under better control,” said Tom, brushing himself off and climbing to his feet. “I could have got run over.”
“He’s not my dog, Tom.”
Tom looked up to see who knew his name. It was Mike Davidson again.
“So, whose is it?”
“Mrs Hopwood’s. She’s the developer of this place. Owns that big house down the end there. Climb up here and have a look.”
From the top of the scaffold, Tom could see the extent of the subdivision. There were nine houses altogether. Six still had builders all over them, only one was fully completed. That was the one Mike was indicating, a two-storey mansion.
“The dog was her husband’s, but he died. She’s taken over both the subdivision and the dog. She can’t control either properly. As far as I’m concerned the dog should be shot. It’s nothing but trouble. Thing never wears a collar. It’s always outside the gate. A couple of mornings I’ve seen it come back across the road from the forest. Makes me suspicious that does, what with all these kiwis being killed. I’ve already reported it to DoC.”
The dog began barking again, this time in a friendly, excited way.
“Uh oh,” said Mike. “Here comes the witch.” The dog was bounding towards a woman walking down the driveway. She didn’t look like a witch to Tom. In fact she looked quite pleasant in her colourful summer clothing.
“She’s seen what happened on the security camera,” continued Mike, pointing to a black box high on a post not far inside the gate. “She’ll be all apologetic. Say it won’t happen again. But it will.” He gave a snort. “Look at the dog, will you? Making out it’s the perfect pet. He’s got her sorted.”
Harvey was trotting obediently beside Mrs Hopwood, as if he was completely under her control.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Yeah, nothing broken,” said Tom.
“I’m sorry about that. He sneaks out of the house when I’m not looking. And I can’t close all the doors, it’s so hot.”
“Maybe you need a fence around your house,” said Tom.
She spread her arms wide. “The only fence we’re having is this one. It will do the job for all the residents.” She turned and glared at Mike. “That’s if it ever gets finished. It seems to be taking forever.”
Mike mumbled something under his breath.
“What was that?” she said, sharply. Now she sounded like a witch.
“I said it will be finished this week,” said Mike with a sigh. “That’s if you don’t change the plans again.”
She turned on him. “The plans only change because you say you can’t do things. Things other block-layers seem to be quite capable of doing.”
She swivelled around and marched back up the drive. When the dog didn’t follow straight away, she turned and called him. “Come on Harvey. Get back inside.”
Harvey lowered his head and followed.
Mike mumbled again. It sounded like ‘witch’, but it wasn’t quite that.
* * *
There was no missing the fact that the road to the end of the inlet passed through kiwi country. There were several signs warning drivers to beware of kiwis at night. In places white outlines of the birds were painted on the road. One sign had a photo of a dead kiwi looking much like the one Tom had seen in the forest, except this one had been killed by a car, not a dog. Waitangi Forest lined the right side of the road, farmland and lifestyle blocks filled the left. Many of the fences were made of scoria, suggesting there had once been a volcano nearby.
Although the road was narrow in places, Tom was able to set a good pace as all the traffic was heading the other way, into town. Side roads led off to the inlet where Tom could see beach houses, some of them as big as Mrs Hopwood’s mansion.
The forest was replaced by scrubland at the Wharau Road turnoff. From there on he had the road to himself and he forced out the last four kilometres as hard as he could. When he got to the beach, he threw his bike to the ground, stripped down to his shorts and dived into the sea, whooping with shock and joy at the coldness of the water.
Later, he sat on the tiny beach, drying in the sun, thinking how good life was. He was happier than he could remember. Being looked after by Dave Hughes was much better than he’d anticipated. His dad was showing signs of settling down. And, with any luck, he’d soon have a dog to keep him company. Everything was looking great.
On the return journey, mid-afternoon, he took a side road heading south which he thought might link up with the tracks in the forest. The seal ended after a hundred metres which was promising as all the forestry tracks were unsealed. The land on the left was still being farmed, but that on the right, closer to the forest, was quickly turning into wasteland. A few cattle were forcing their way through gorse searching for any remaining pasture.
Not far beyond was a house looking as neglected as the land around it. Past that the road came to a gate. Even though the road continued much the same as before, the gate was locked with a hand-painted board alongside saying:
KEEP OUT
PRIVATE PROPERTY
Tom could see in the distance that the road did go into the forest. He was tempted to lift his bike over the gate and keep going. But then dogs began barking from behind the house, loud and angry enough to put off any trespasser. He turned around.
Passing the house again, he noted the name on the letterbox was M J Davidson. Could that be Mike Davidson? The DoC lady had said Mike was a pig hunter. Maybe those were his dogs out the back. Then another thought came into his head. Had the DoC lady collected DNA samples from this far out? If not, then she should have. While it was a long way around by road, a shortcut through the forest would make it fairly close to where the dead kiwis had been found.