Trilemma (17 page)

He runs his eyes over me. “Very nice,” he says approvingly, and for the first time in a long while I feel like an attractive woman rather than a public image.

Ben has never wooed me with beautiful words so “very nice” is as good as it gets. Ben is not the romantic type. He was more likely to prepare a beautiful meal, or fix something broken, or make me a CD of music he likes. I remember him picking me a handful of wildflowers once. Those fast-wilting flowers were more special than a dozen of the florist's best red roses.

When I felt romantic, I would run my hand up his back, feeling the firmness and the warmth of his flesh, the intimacy of the touch you can only give a lover. When I wanted to show how I felt, I bought him things he couldn't afford; clothes, expensive restaurant meals, good wine, airfares. When I spend money, I feel in control.

I don't know why I could never tell him that I loved him.

“I could cook,” he says.

“No,” I say. “Let's go out to dinner.”

I take him to Floraditas, my favorite restaurant on Cuba Street.

“Expensive,” he says. His eyes flicker and the tiny crease in his forehead deepens.

“I'm paying,” I say.

“Hmmm,” he replies, noncommittal.

Ben can be so irritating. I can far more easily afford to pay for the meal than he can, he knows that. Why doesn't he just shut up and enjoy it?

We eat fried stuffed zucchini flowers and risotto balls, and then I have the fish and Ben the steak. I order a second bottle of wine.

Conversation is ragged. I ask questions, trying to keep the talking going, but Ben is quiet tonight. His brow keeps slipping back into that furrow. I don't know if he's worried about money or about his sister.

“Is Cheryl going to leave this guy who is hitting her?”

“She won't leave the children.”

I would have liked a child, but, well, you keep putting it off, thinking there'll be time and then suddenly you're looking down the barrel of middle age and it's too late. I don't have a mate, I certainly don't have any spare energy, and I don't have anyone to help me raise a child properly. Better to leave it to the experts.

“Can't she take the children with her? I thought there were safe homes for battered families.”

“They're not her kids. She won't be allowed to keep them.”

I snort. “God, she could still try, couldn't she?”

“Cheryl's not like you.”

I'm sick of hearing about how tough I am, compared to poor little Cheryl and dear little Emmy. Everyone could be tough if they tried.

“How come you're leaving Emmy for a whole week? That's not like you.”

“Her mother wanted extra time since she's going to be in South Africa for the next six months.”

“What's she doing over there?”

“A sabbatical or something. Anyway, it means I'll have Emmy to myself.”

Ben didn't have quite the same problems as me regarding family and career. He had his beloved daughter with him at least half the time, almost joined at the hip, and his mother nearby, and cousins in Invercargill, old school friends all about. He had his clientele in Queenstown and the wealthy farm areas around the Lake District.

He didn't have to cross the world like I had to, looking for someone to love me.

I stop talking and finish the creamy Parmesan polenta. Ben chomps on the last of his steak.

“Dessert?” I ask.

“Not for me.”

“There's still wine left.”

“Not for me.”

Outside the streets are busy with people coming and going and talking and laughing. Ben walks silently beside me to the taxi stand. He's pleased because he can afford the fare. I watch him counting out the coins and wish he would just let me pay, but men have to do the macho breadwinner thing one way or another.

When we get inside, I walk around the living room, rearranging the cushions, putting away the towel Ben has left sprawled over the floor, putting the dishes he has left out into the dishwasher.

Ben is silent. He has already made up his bed on the sofa. His pack lies in front of the bedding like a barricade.

I glance at him standing by the window, looking out over the city. The wine has me in its urgent grasp. I want to go and hold him, bring him to my bed, have my way with him. I step toward him.

He ducks around me and sits on the sofa to pull off his shoes. “Good night, Lin.”

I lie in my bed and wonder what the hell I should do. Well, there's always tomorrow night, although I guess he may want separate rooms. Damn.

And then I let myself finally think about meeting my sisters. Oh, God, it's nearly happening. Tomorrow is going to be the big day.

When I wake in the morning, the sun is shining in through the crack in the curtain, but all is silent. So I close my eyes again and snooze until I can hear him moving about in the kitchen.

I pull on my robe and pad out into the living room where Ben has laid out the coffee and the newspaper. He is reading the World section. I take up the Business pages.

When the knock sounds, I assume it must be Sally, come to check Ben out again. But it is not Sally.

“These are for you,” says Nicholas, thrusting a bunch of tired mauve chrysanthemums in my face. “Women like flowers, eh?”

I put one hand to the wrap over of my robe to make sure the material covers me, and I push the flowers away with the other.

“No thanks, Nicholas.”

His eyes slither over my shoulder. Ben is standing behind me. Nicholas stares at Ben's black eye and then at the strong forearms that rest lightly by his side. There is a moment's silence while some kind of thought process goes on behind his squinting eyes. Then he turns away without saying another word and goes back down the stairs.

At the front door I see him stop, then step over to Sally's door. I turn back into the penthouse and close my door.

“Who was that?”

“The property agent.”

“Bearing flowers?”

“He's ever hopeful.”

“I suppose you get a good few men chasing you, huh?”

I pause with my back to him, and then I smile and turn.

“A few.”

An hour later I am downloading some of the week's reports, but there is a problem with the Internet and I can't get the last three.

“I'll take the bags,” says Ben. “Have you got the keys?”

“The garage door remote is on the dresser. The car's not locked. I'll be down in a minute.”

Ben frowns when he sees my laptop bag. “Do you have to take your computer, Lin? Can't you take the weekend off?”

“I need to pull together a report for the Board.” Hobb has asked for a more formal suite of reports as per the Ozcom project office standard.

“Can't you write it up when we get back? You're about to meet your family for the first time and you want to sit at your computer instead.”

“I guess I can do it tomorrow night.”

Sally emerges as we pass. Her sharp eyes scan our faces.

“Going somewhere?”

Ben gives her a wide grin. “We're visiting Lin's sisters in Hawke's Bay.”

Sally's eyebrows rise. “Sisters?”

“I'll tell you about it another time,” I say.

“You'd better,” she says and watches us go down the path.

“She's a character,” says Ben. “She asked me if I wanted to audition for something. I wasn't sure what she meant.”

“Huh.”

“Did you tell her I played guitar?”

“Can't remember.”

“That'll be it, then.”

“Yeah, right.”

Today, the sun shines and New Zealand does indeed look very beautiful. I let Ben drive. Driving is a man thing—they like to
do it and I don't mind. It means I can see the countryside properly instead of focusing on the road.

Will they look like me? Not very like, of course that's not possible with my Chinese blood. Will they like me? How will they explain their rejection of past attempts to contact them? Was their mother's hatred so strong that they couldn't—wouldn't—think about me in a kindly way?

Eventually I put on a CD and try to drown out the questions.

“This car is a dog,” Ben says when we reach the zigzag hill and the car chokes and gasps as we climb the first zig.

“I think it's pretty. And a beautiful shade of orange, don't you think?”

“I thought you preferred yellow?”

“That was last year.”

“The oil light is on. Have you checked the oil?”

“Not recently.”
Not ever.

“You can ruin the engine if you don't.”

“Mm.”

“And it's a junk heap! Don't you ever clean out the rubbish?”

“If I get home in the daylight, I do. We're getting close. Keep an eye out for a very large mailbox on the left-hand side.”

The weather is warmer and the skies are brighter than when I drove this way two months before. It feels natural to be sitting in a car beside Ben. I glance sideways at his face. His eyes are focused on the road and his mouth is curved into that familiar half smile. I remember how I used to kiss that mouth. I let my eyes slide down his neck and shoulder to his sinewy tanned arm and his long-fingered hand. I remember what he can do with his hands.

He glances across at me and I look away quickly. I keep my head still and move my eyes to the right so I can see his tanned thigh emerging from the khaki shorts. I can remember embracing
his thighs with mine. My eyes slide up, but his groin, of course, is hidden behind the folds of cloth.

I remember what lies within the khaki.

“Do you want to go down?”

“What?”

“Isn't this the driveway?”

We have reached the turnoff with the sheep-size mailbox.

“This is it.”

“Ready?”

My heart increases its beat. I can stand in front of an audience of hundreds with far less trepidation than sitting here now in the car, about to meet my father's first family.

The hot sun of Hawke's Bay heats the back of my head. I close my eyes for a moment, and breathe in the scent of grass and of livestock, with a hint of some blossom, perhaps honeysuckle, perhaps wild rose. I hear the faint baa of a lamb seeking its mother and birds twittering amongst high-up branches. When I open my eyes, the image of the entrance to Ngatirua etches itself on my brain. Grass dancing on the hillside, blue sky above, an avenue of tall trees pointing us toward the farm.

I smile my careful smile. “Of course.”

Ben turns into Alison's driveway and parks behind the SUV. The dogs start barking. I get out of the car.

The door opens and a woman comes out, wiping her hands on the legs of her jeans, and shushing the dogs. She is taller and wider than me, and her hair is short and sandy colored. But you can see the family resemblance in the shape of the cheekbones and the tilt of her chin. Her eyes are hazel like our father's.

Her face breaks into a smile like the sun, and she holds out her hand.

“Come in and meet the family!” Alison says, even her voice sounding a little like mine, but with a Kiwi accent not mid-Atlantic.

We enter a living room where a thickset man greets us with a wide white smile.

“This is my husband, Walter,” she says.

He envelops me in a bearlike hug. “Look at you, just like your sister!”

“My friend, Ben,” I say.

He leans over to Ben and grabs his hand, shaking it. “Nice eye you've got there.”

“Wal,” says my sister, “leave the poor man alone.”

Ben explains he got the black eye protecting his sister from her drunken partner.

Wal nods approvingly. “Good on you, mate.”

I'm not used to this. I'm not quite sure how to act. I look around the living room in my sister's house. Papers are scattered over most surfaces and books bulge from the shelves lining one wall.

Alison looks at me and smiles again. She turns to the open doorway and calls, “Jess!”