Three Times Dead Page 8

  I was on first-name terms with everyone at the limb centre, but that was the case with most of the people I saw in the waiting room at each visit. You could spot the newbies first off, looking apprehensive and scared, but I watched as they too got their limbs and started calling everyone by their first names.

  My socket had to be remade after two months as my stump shrunk, and they told me that it was possible that this process would be repeated many times for the rest of my life. I also got another model that gave me a bit more flexibility in the ankle, so that I was able to walk with less of a limp. I was starting to feel normal.

  Chapter 21

  The car spun around on the rain-soaked road at speed as Mitch worked both the accelerator and the clutch while pulling on the handbrake. Clouds of acrid smoke filled the interior of the car while I hung my arm outside the open passenger window and banged against the side of the passenger door, egging Mitch on as the car roared. We were in the middle of a residential street, late at night, disturbing the peace. It felt good.

  Abruptly Mitch lost control, sliding on the rain-soaked road, and the car slid over the pavement and smashed a post box off its stand. The impact brought the car to a stop.

  “Yeah!” I said as I high fived Mitch. In the distance we could hear sirens. “Let’s get out of here!”

  As we exited the side road, we could see the cop car approaching, the red and blue lights creating a strobe effect on the buildings as it raced towards us. Mitch shifted down and the car jumped forward, sliding and skidding on the slick road surface, but gaining traction in the end and taking off down the road at speed.

  I swore we weren’t going to make the next corner, but we did, heading down the straight piece of road at over 100km an hour. The police car’s sirens faded in the distance. We reached the end of the road, and Mitch threw us around the next corner. The sirens were lost in the screech of the tyres and when we straightened out, we couldn’t hear them any more.

  “Abandoned pursuit,” Scott said in glee from the back seat. He had an open bottle of beer in his hand. He hadn’t spilt a drop.

  “Time to dump the car,” Mitch said from the driver’s seat.

  We agreed. It wasn’t his car anyway. I’d been at Scott’s place drinking when Mitch pulled up in the car. He’d “borrowed” it, he said. I took one look at the bare wires hanging down from the steering column and knew that he’d stolen it. That didn’t stop me from getting in.

  We parked the car in a deserted reserve and cut through the bush, splashing through a creek in the gully and climbing the bank on the other side. The cold winter wind cut through us, but we were warmed by adrenaline. We made a decision to split up and go off in opposite directions, agreeing to meet up at Scott’s place unless we got caught. I wondered if they wanted to split because they knew that I would slow them down. I couldn’t run – the best I could do was a fast hobble, and I’d soon be brought down in a foot chase if there was one. There wasn’t.

  Later we kicked back at Scott’s place, drank beer and smoked pot, laughing at the way we had hooned around in a stolen car and got away with it. Lately the other two had been getting into heavier stuff than cannabis but I decided to stay away from that shit as I was still on prescription medication and I didn’t think it was a good mix. Besides I didn’t like what happened to them when they took it and resolved that it wasn’t for me.

  I stumbled into my house at four in the morning. My bedroom was still downstairs so I didn’t have to worrying about creeping around upstairs, which was good, because with the booze and dope, plus a wonky leg, I was fairly clumsy. I slipped off the shoe from my good foot, eased my leg out of the prosthesis and collapsed onto my bed. But I couldn’t sleep.

  I didn’t know if it was having died twice, or the fact that I had suffered major trauma, but I was no longer the old Bevan; the one who would have done the things we did that night and not thought twice about it. Now I lay awake, reliving the evening’s events, and regretting them. I wasn’t comfortable with this new Bevan, the one with a conscience; neither was I comfortable with the old Bevan. Neither seemed right – I didn’t even know if there was a right, although I knew deep down that what I had done that night was wrong, as were all the other things we had done.

  I felt empty inside, like there was a hollow space in my chest where my heart should have been. I was like a funnel where stuff went in at the top and just drained out the other end. “Garbage in, garbage out,” as my brother Rhys would say. I was getting tired of the antics of Mitch and Scott and their drug taking, but I couldn’t stop hanging out with them. I was addicted to the adrenaline rush. It proved I was living instead of just existing. Mark tried to talk to me, but I stopped him by shutting him out of my life. I knew I was on the steep downward slope that was going to take me nowhere, but I couldn’t help myself. I needed to be jolted out of it. And what a jolt I got.

  “I’m late,” Gina said to me as we lay in her bed. Her flatmates were out so we had the place to ourselves.

  “Late?” I was in that dreamy afterwards state and I was wondering why she was telling me she was late for work, when it was obviously night-time and she didn’t need to be there until the morning.

  “You know – late.”

  I was missing something here. Late? What was she on about?

  She sat up and sighed. You know that when a girl sighs like that, you’re in big trouble. I pushed myself up, knowing that some response was required of me, but not what that it should be.

  “You really don’t get it – my period is late,” she said. "Like - I could be pregnant - late!"

  “Ah,” was all I could say.

  I tried to think. She couldn't be pregnant, her period was late – so what? It would come: it was just taking its time. I really didn’t want to think about it. It was girls’ business.

  “I’m never late,” she said as she sank back on the pillow.

  “You taken a test or something?” I asked after a pause.

  “I’m scared to. I mean, I bought one at the chemist but I’ve hidden it in my drawer. What am I going to do if it’s positive? My mum will kill me for a start, and I’ll have to leave my job – and where am I going to stay? How will I be able to look after it? I’m too young to have a child.”

  From the way she was speaking I knew that she had been holding onto this for a while and chasing the thoughts around in her head. No wonder she’d been a bit distant when I had first come in through the door. I needed to calm her down. I put my hand on her stomach and was instantly reminded of my dream and of how proud Haki had been when he felt the baby kick under his hand. For a second I imagined that I felt that kick myself, but if there was a baby in Gina’s tummy then it would be too small for me to feel any movement. Looking at Gina, I thought that Reka had to be about the same age as her … and yet she was not too young to have a baby.

  “It’s all right, Gina. We’ll handle this together. You need to take that test though, or else you’re just going to get yourself worked up for nothing.”

  She opened up the drawer beside her bed and took out a rectangular box. She sat in bed, turning it over and over in her hand.

  “If I am pregnant, would you leave me?”

  “No, never.” I remembered Haki promising to protect his wife and his baby. I would do the same. “I will keep you safe.” I kissed her shoulder. “Go on, take the test. What do you need to do?”

  “I have to pee on it,” she said, and laughed.

  “Yuck!”

  “Wait here,” she said, jumping out of bed. I heard her in the bathroom next to her room. She seemed to take ages, then I heard her swear loudly. I grabbed my boxers and reached for my foot, but decided that there wasn’t enough time to put it on, so I crawled along the floor. I made my way out of the bedroom and knocked on the closed bathroom door. I heard Gina crying on the other side. I turned the handle, the door opened and Gina was sitting there, looking at the white stick thing in her hand and crying.

  “It turned blue,” she s
aid.

  “Does that mean it’s a boy?”

  “No, it means I am pregnant!”

  I crawled into the bathroom and over to the vanity, using it to pull myself up. Leaning against it, I looked down at the plastic stick she held in her hand.

  “Is this thing reliable?”

  “I hope it isn’t.”

  I continued to stare at the plastic, my thoughts and feelings muddled up. Like her, I thought of the implications of that thin blue strip, but at the same time I couldn’t help but feel joy because I remembered the joy that Haki had felt when he held his son for the first time. I pulled her up and took her in my arms, running my hands through her hair and placing my lips against her forehead.

  “It’s ok, Gina, it really is. We’ll get married. I’ll get a job. We’ll have this kid. It’ll be all right.”

  I’m not sure if I was really thinking straight, but I wanted to ease her sadness. Like Haki, I was going to be a father and I wanted to do the right thing. She howled into my shoulder. Great, I thought. Is the rest of the nine months going to be like this?

  Once she had calmed down a little, she helped me back into her room where we lay down on her bed. She snuggled into my arms, shuddering now and then as a sob escaped her throat.

  “We’ll see a doctor in the morning,” I said when she had stopped crying. “Then we’ll know for sure. We can take it from there.”

  She nodded into my shoulder and, with a sigh, fell asleep. I lay awake for a while, thinking, planning, with my hand on the flat of her tummy, imagining it swollen and mobile as Reka’s had been. Maybe this was why I’d been having the dreams – so that I’d welcome this new life instead of rejecting it. The old Bevan would have run for the hills; the new Bevan looked forward to the arrival of a baby.

  I fell asleep with a smile on my face.

  Chapter 22

  Haki wiped away the tear that slid down Reka’s face.

  “I’ll come back to you,” he promised. He looked down at the sleeping child in her arms and bent down to kiss his forehead. The baby stirred but didn’t wake.

  “Are you sure you are healed?” she asked.

  “You cannot keep me another day,” he said. “I have lain here for two months now and it is time that I go to Paterangi and defend it against the soldiers. They are coming closer now and we must stop them from reaching this village.”

  “Are you sure that you are able to fight?” Reka said.

  “Don’t twist my words, woman. I am no longer the baby I was when I arrived here. I have all I need to fight.”

  “No, you don’t,” said a strong male voice. Haki looked up to see Piripi, Reka’s grandfather, walking towards him, a feather cloak over his shoulders. “You are missing a mere.”

  “I don’t have a mere,” Haki said. “I lost my patu at Meremere. I will have to do without.”

  “You can have mine,” Piripi said as he slid his arm out from beneath his cloak to reveal the greenstone mere.

  Haki gasped and shook his head. “No, sir, I cannot take it – it is sacred.”

  Piripi whirled the mere in front of him as though he were a young warrior preparing for battle. “This mere has killed many enemies and now we face the strongest enemy of all. It wants to fight but I cannot carry it to the battle. You, Haki, must carry it there so it can once again kill many of our enemies. It would be an honour if you did so.” He held it out to Haki, the mere resting on both his outstretched palms.

  Haki stepped forward and picked it up reverently, feeling the warmth and strength of it in his hands.

  “Thank you, Piripi, I am honoured to carry this mere and I will recount to you the lives that it has taken when I return.”

  “I expect no less,” Piripi said, then turned and walked back to his whare.

  Haki tucked the mere into his belt and took Reka in his arms, crushing the baby between them. He kissed her first and then the child, while behind them he heard the women begin a waiatia, wishing him well for his journey and success in battle.

  He kissed Reka again then turned to jog towards Matiu who waited in the trees. Haki turned back to look once more at the village with Reka standing outside the wooden church, the village of Rangiaowhia lying in the hollow behind her, and then, together with Matiu, took off towards the north, towards Paterangi.

  Chapter 23

  The waiatia dissolved into a melodic electronic sound. I struggled to recognize it, aware that I should be able to – but the knowledge escaped me. The sound was foreign to my ears.

  I opened my eyes – darkness, except for a pulsating light to my left: my phone. I reached over, picked it up and looked at the screen. It was Mum.

  “Hello?” I said quietly so as not to wake Gina, who appeared to be asleep.

  “Bevan, where are you? It’s after one o’clock. I’ve been worried about you.”

  Gina stirred beside me.

  “I’m at Gina’s. She’s … er … not feeling well. I’m going to stay here tonight and take her to the doctor’s first thing in the morning.”

  “Oh dear, I hope it’s nothing serious.”

  “We’ll know tomorrow,” I said.

  “Well, as long as you’re safe. Let me know how you get on at the doctor’s.”

  “I will. Goodnight, Mum. Don’t worry.”

  I ended the call.

  “Who was it?’ Gina asked.

  “My mum.”

  “I wish my mum would worry about me like your mum does.”

  “She’s a bit over the top sometimes, especially since the accident.”

  “Better than nothing at all.”

  I kissed the top of her head. “Go back to sleep.”

  She did, but I didn’t. I was disturbed by the dream – the old man that Haki knew as Piripi had been the old man that had appeared to me at the crash site. The knowledge unnerved me. When I had seen him in the hospital – whether he was a vision or a ghost, I didn’t know – he had said his name was Piripi and that he was my grandfather. But he was also Reka’s grandfather. It didn’t make sense.

  I looked down at Gina. If she was pregnant, I would have to clean up my act – cut out the dope and the booze, and the cruising. For a moment I felt resentment: I had got used to that kind of life and I couldn’t imagine being clean. But I’d do it for Gina, and for our child, just like Haki had gone to war for Reka and Toa. I’d get a job and support her. Maybe we could get our own place so we didn’t have to bunk with her flatmates, or stay at my place. I knew it was going to be tough, but we’d be ok, or so I thought.

  Eventually I drifted back into a dreamless sleep.

  The first ominous signs occurred in the morning. Gina had no sooner opened her eyes than she was out of bed in a flash and vomiting in the toilet next door. She sounded terrible. I sat up in bed and leaned over for my foot, fitting it on as quickly as I could before getting up to knock on the bathroom door.

  “Are you ok?” I shouted.

  “Go away,” was the only reply I got. I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Mum always used to make tea when someone was sick. I don’t know why she did that, but I thought I had to do something so that’s exactly what I did. Gina eventually came out and sat down heavily at the table.

  “Here,” I said, pushing the cup of tea towards her. She took one look at it and headed for the bathroom.

  It was a while before we could get out of the house, into the car and down to the A&E. Gina took a plastic container with her but she didn’t throw up any more while we waited.

  “You’ll need to go for a blood test,” the doctor said when we explained why we were there. He started to fill out a form.

  “Can’t you tell us now?” I asked

  “Sorry, only a blood test will confirm.”

  “But the stick turned blue,” Gina said.

  “It has been known for them to return false positive, so it’s best to check.”

  “How long before we know for sure?”

  “About two or three days, depending on how busy
the lab is. It’s early, so if you go right now, you might get the results tomorrow.”

  “Can you give her anything for the nausea?” I asked.

  “It’s best not to take anything, just in case. The best thing she can do is eat something. A dry biscuit works best, I believe.”

  The lab was in the same building, so we took in the form and I sat with Gina while they took the blood, then we went in search of food. Funnily enough Gina came right after a few hotcakes from the nearest takeaway, and even started to smile.

  We spent the day together. It made a change from sitting in front of the Playstation or cruising around with Mitch and Scott looking for trouble.

  “Just a stomach bug,” I said to Mum as we sat at the dinner table that night. Mum looked over at Gina who was eagerly eating all that was on her plate.

  “Well, it looks like it’s over now, whatever it was,” Mum said.

  “Yes, she’s better now.” I didn’t know what she would be like in the morning though. I drove Gina home and we kissed in the car.

  “Do you love me?” she asked.

  “Course I do.”

  She seemed satisfied with the answer.

  “Are you going to work tomorrow?” I asked.

  “I’d better or else I won’t have anything to pay the rent with. I’ll phone you from work if I hear anything.”

  “Ok, let me know.”

  We kissed again and then she got out of the car and walked towards the front door. Before she put her key in the lock, she turned and blew me a kiss.

  She phoned the next day, late in the afternoon, in tears.

  “It’s positive – I’m pregnant!”

  “I’ll come pick you up,” I said.

  We told my parents first. They were a bit stunned but Mum recovered quickly, trying to make a joke of it. “So it wasn’t a stomach bug.”