Page 116 of Just One Look
When Our Ship Comes In
He didn’t wantto tell her, but here she was, beating herself up over this. He said, “Piper’s needy. Maybe I understand why she’s needy, and maybe you do, too, but that doesn’t change the fact that she is. Whereas you and I are un-needy. Anti-needy. We don’t get it.”
“Or we’re just afraid to need,” Elizabeth said. “Probably. People make adaptations to their environment. If a child learns its needs won’t be met, sometimes it stops looking for them to be. You see that in kids sometimes, in the hospital. The worst I saw was a kid who’d been conceived as a donor baby, whose parents had her just to be a match for their sick kid. Their whole life revolved around that other kid, and she was just … extra. Not that that’s me, but some elements of that, maybe.”
“Heaps of elements of that, for you,” Luka said. “Not for me.” This wasn’t about him.
“Oh,” she said, “I’m guessing that could be you, too. But Piper’s the opposite? All that pleasing she does? I always just thought she was socially gifted. Well, sheissocially gifted. I saw it enough, growing up.”
“She is,” Luka said. “She’s beautiful, and she’s sweet and charming and vulnerable and so bloody easy to love. At least she was when she was twenty. I don’t know now.”
“Still the same,” Elizabeth said. “And you still care about her. You don’t want to tell me about it, whatever it is.” She’d dropped his hand a long time ago and was sitting, upright and self-contained as always, in her white shirt, her black trousers, her pulled-back hair. Almost aggressively un-needy, even now.
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” He ran a hand through his hair and wished he couldmove.He couldn’t think sitting down. “D’you want to go outside?”
“You’re in the hospital. You don’t get to go outside. Also, it’s the middle of the night. You should really be asleep. Healing is hard work.”
“Surgery’s hard work, too, I’m guessing. When do you have to be back here in the morning?”
She shrugged, as he could have guessed she would. “I’m fine. I’ll take a shower here and sleep in the on-call room. I always have an extra shirt and clean underwear in my locker. And if you don’t want to tell me, don’t. If it feels like a betrayal. There’s no reason I need to know.”
There she was again, shutting down. She’d shown too much, so there she went, back into her burrow, pulling the trap door closed over her head. Not needing anybody or anything, because if she didn’t need anybody, it would be her choice, and she wouldn’t be left alone again when they were gone.
He had to say this. He had to tell her.
* * *
He’d been nearly twenty-one,and two years into his Physiotherapy diploma from the University of Auckland. Playing rugby for the provincial side, hoping against hope for that callup, even if it was just to the Blues’ development squad. If he got there, he could impress. He knew it.
At night, though, the niggling worries would set in and he’d be thinking about that tackle he’d missed in the Under 20s championship, the one that had led to a try for England and cost New Zealand the semifinal. Thinking about that ball he’d spilled last week. But the next morning, he’d be working to get better with a focus that was nearly desperation, because he was two years out from the Under 20s now, and he’d lost the spotlight. A new crop of young blokes was wearing the uniform, the next generation coming up already, and here he still was, fitting his studies around his training instead of the reverse. And working, working, working to be better. To be fitter. To be more.
And then there was Piper.
They’d shared a place with three other flatmates. It was more than a bit cheerless, and more grotty than that, and still, it took all the money they had. He was gone from seven in the morning until seven in the evening, and most of the weekend, too. He knew that he wasn’t spending enough time with her, that she needed more, but he wasn’t sure how to provide it. All the while telling himself, telling her that it would be better once they were done with university, once they were earning a better wage. There might still be no time, but there’d be more money.
“What’s the first thing we buy, when our ship comes in?” he asked her one early-summer night near the end of term, after a lovemaking session that should have lasted longer, but he’d been so tired. Stroking a hand over her bare shoulder, not feeling relaxation in her, and suddenly realizing, with the kind of cold you couldn’t warm up from, that she’d been faking it.
He needed to talk to her about that. He needed to tell her to ask him for more. He needed to give her more right now. He bent his head and kissed her, got his hand moving again, and she shifted away just that little bit and said, “A better car for you, obviously. You need it.”
“Thought you’d say a ring,” he said, trying to tease. “I’m going to buy you a flash one, no worries.”
“I don’t need a flash one,” she said. “Of course I don’t.” Still not looking at him.
“I’m buying it anyway,” he said. “We’re doing this.” He kissed her again, and this time, she kissed him back. Maybe he wasn’t too tired after all.
Summer holidays coming up, and he’d be up at the farm, harvesting, because that was part of the bargain with his family. They’d help pay for university, he’d help at home as much as he could, and when he was done, he’d bugger off. That last part wasn’t spoken, but he knew it was there.
Never mind. Piper was coming up for New Year’s, and that would be good. It would be awkward at home, but he’d take her to the beach. Out on the boat. Anything to get her away from his mum, with her silence and her disapproval. Of how pretty she was, and how useless. Scared of spiders, scared of being pecked by the chickens, rubbish at using a chainsaw.
That was all right, because they weren’t going to stay there. He was going to give her a different life. A better life. They were going to have a house, and kids. Not that he was sure about the kids, because he wasn’t, but she wanted them, and he was going to give her what she wanted.
He was working the trees, three days after Christmas and two days before she was due to come up, when his phone rang. He pulled it out of the pocket of his shorts and glanced at it, wiping his face with his T-shirt sleeve, and Lana snapped, “If you’re meant to be here to work, Luka,work.I need to be done with this in time to go out.”
He didn’t answer. He barely heard her. He was holding the phone to his ear, listening, then saying, “OK. Yeh. Right. I will. Cheers.” After that, he was dropping the pole and leaving it where it lay, with Lana calling after him. Running not to the house, but to his car, pulling out of the cinder track and onto the highway with a squeal of tires, driving south, because that callup had come through at last. Not just to the development squad. To theBlues.
The sun beating down, the windows wide open, the air rushing in, the music as loud as he could crank it. No air con, not in this thing, but he’d have a better car soon. Or a ute. He’d like a ute. Throw his fishing gear into the back and go. Scuba gear as well, because he was definitely going to get that.
Later, that is. The thought flashed through his mind that he might not last, and he dismissed it. He was going to last. He was going to be the best. You couldn’t want something this much and work for it this hard and not have it work out. He didn’t expect his destiny to be handed to him. He expected to earn it, and he was going to do it.
