Maria’s new flatmates were always doing it. Certainly every night but often after work as well. Such joie de vivre rather irritated her. She would shut her studio door and abandon nudes for still life.

In the evening she could not avoid it. The bedrooms were next door. Maria would be reading when they’d begin. She wouldn’t picture the act itself, she couldn’t, but she pictured the climax as she had painted it once,- a woman in shining white holding her arms open to a wide blue sky. The soundtrack next door didn’t fit. She would frown at the wall and listen until it was quiet again. Then the house could sleep and Maria would dream.

Usually the dream was about babies.

The babies were lovely but the fathers were a pain. In one dream the father (balding, sweaty, nylon suit) arrived shortly after the birth, looked at the baby, a girl, and declared to all, “The infant shall be named after myself, Howard”. The nurses scrambled to fill in the forms as Howard senior stood there beaming and grew larger and when Maria looked over at the baby again it had grown a ZZ Top beard and handlebar moustache.

She had read that when a baby is trying to come to earth its spirit form will come to the mother in her dreams. Well, they were queuing up for Maria.

…And Kelvin and Lisa always threw their condoms in the rubbish bin in the kitchen. Sure they sort of covered them up with another bit of rubbish but it seemed a strange thing to do. People usually flushed them down the toilet didn’t they? It wasn’t the kind of thing you could ask your new flatmates about. Still, it was funny for her, making toast in the morning and it seemed as if a perfectly good baby was there, knotted up in a condom behind her. She imagined their little muted cries and heard them call her name. She was quite tender with the rubbish as she tied the tops of the bags down.

Sperm. Lisa obviously didn’t want it and Kelvin could do very little with it again. It wasn’t a bad idea.

Maria went to the chemist and bought herself a plastic needleless syringe.

Ejaculation. Insemination. Conception. Gestation. Birth.

Maria bit her nails. She paced. She poked into the rubbish bin with a pencil and kept a journal of frequency of sheathed ejaculations but she didn’t write that on the cover.

She felt she knew Kelvin better when she started handling the condoms, first with gloves on, then without, and then came the day when she snipped the top off one with the kitchen scissors.

After all she was going to have to practise getting it inside the syringe.

She discovered that Monday to Friday mornings there were on average eight and a half condoms in the rubbish bin. They were cold. There were usually two on Saturday mornings, one from Friday evening before they went out and one from Saturday morning itself, deposited into the bin after they showered and before they breakfasted and went off to tennis. That one was always warm.

She got friendlier with Kelvin over meals. What did his parents do? Did he have brothers and sisters and what were they like? Was there a history of spina bifida or mental illness in the family?

Kelvin and Lisa meanwhile had decided to get married and since they’d been together so long they thought they wouldn’t bother about an engagement. They set the date for six weeks time. It was to be a garden wedding. Maria was invited. She had been a really friendly and interested flatmate they said.

Lisa became clucky and wifely. She was always on the phone arranging things and subscribed to Bride and Parenting. She handmade invitations sampled fabrics. She asked Maria’s opinion of tiaras.

Ask the queen, Maria thought.

And we’re going to start a family straight away, Lisa told her one breakfast and kindly patted her on the back as Maria choked on her eggs.

They strolled off to tennis. It was a Saturday.

My parole officer came to the funeral. Aside from me, the funeral director and the electrician working on the alarm system, there were only eleven other people there. The anxious spring wind buffeted the doors and whistled, gathering leaves and dust in piles along the porch, and splinters of sunlight struck the airless foyer in strange places, casting shadows where there should have been light.

My gran planned the whole thing herself. It was in a building near the airport. There was a huge concrete fountain in the courtyard, which, on the day, was switched off due to wind. A couple of ducks paddled around in the shallow chlorinated water. The roses that lined the path had been pruned back until they were just knots of leafless thorny branches. Bright flowers trembled on fragile stems.

My parole officer, Julie, sat in the second row on the left hand side. Broad shouldered in her black suit jacket, her large body seemed to take up more space than just one person. She held the program in both hands, opening it, turning it over, examining the photographs of my grandmother and me. Her moko, which curled around her chin like unfurling leaves, enhanced the serious expression on her face.

Behind my grandmother’s coffin, a window looked out over an indoor fern garden. Jars of spring flowers I’d cut that morning stood around the bier and on the tables lining the walls. Now, in the afternoon, as Mrs Phelps, Gran’s tone deaf friend from bingo, led us stumbling through the hymns, the daffodils nodded their heavy heads and the tulips seemed to open their lips in silent surprise. In all the years she’d raised me, since I was five years old, we’d never talked about what would happen when she died. I’d never thought about it. I had just assumed she would live on forever or perhaps at least until I was ready to let her go.

Afterwards Julie was waiting for me in the lobby.

‘David’ she hurried forward and put her big padded hand on my forearm ‘how are you doing love?’

‘Pretty shit I guess. How’s work?’

‘We don’t have to talk about that now love. Not at a time like this.’

‘How are your kids?’

‘David.’ Julie lowered her voice, ‘you’ve done a wonderful job here. Quite an achievement for someone your age.’

I shrugged, trying to ignore how terrible Julie being nice to me was making me feel.

‘People didn’t come’ I said, fighting down a lump in my throat.

‘You forgot to put it in the paper love.’ Julie patted my arm ‘They probably just didn’t know.’

We stared out the huge windows past the fountain and into the parking lot.

‘I don’t think she had many friends, in the end anyway,’ I said. ‘It’s not like we ever had anyone round.’

‘Looking after you would’ve kept her busy though.’ Julie pulled me into a sideways hug. The soft folds of her body pressed into me, keeping me at an awkward distance. ‘I saw you whispered some parting words to her back there. I was thinking I might go and ask her how she felt about an old Maori lady coming to her funeral.’ She chuckled and nudged my shoulder with hers. ‘I bet she wasn’t expecting that aye?’

I laughed in spite of myself, sniffing back some barely suppressed tears. ‘She liked you in the end though’ I said, wiping my cheek with the back of my hand.

‘I know love. It’s a generational thing. I liked her too, the cheeky old battle axe.’

I remembered back to when Julie showed up at my house for the very first home visit after I got early release. I remembered walking into the kitchen to find my gran peering peevishly through the lace net curtains.

‘David’ she whispered to me, ‘there’s a lady in the driveway. Looks like she’s from some kind of gang.’

I looked out the window. It was Julie, standing in the driveway with a folder open in her hands. I knocked on the window and waved her towards the door.

‘Round the back,’ my gran hissed at me. Then she’d hurried down the hall, locked the wire screen door and refused to let Julie inside until she’d made a fuss about checking her credentials. Once satisfied, she bustled Julie inside and showed her to the table. Julie sat down on one of our dainty dining chairs, trying to adjust her position so that both butt cheeks could fit on the chair at once. She looked around the room. I imagined her mentally noting down the presence of Gran’s white plastic pill bottles lined up on the microwave, the wire stand in the kitchen overflowing with onions and garlic and home-grown potatoes, the hand operated beef grinder bolted to the kitchen bench and all Gran’s tiny porcelain figurines lined up on the window sills, the bookcase and the top of the television.

My grandmother eyeballed Julie from the kitchen while she made whole-leaf tea in her most ornate teapot.

‘Well I never thought I’d see the day when one of your sort was working on the side of the law’ she said finally, placing the tea tray on the table with a flourish. ‘You’ve taken it upon yourself to supervise my grandson have you?’

I held my breath. Julie looked my gran right in the eye, her hand tightened on the tiny teacup she was holding, then, her whole face burst into a stunning smile.

I used to watch nature documentaries with my grandmother, ones about flowers, the seasons and plants all over the world. I loved it how they would film rare flowers in the jungle for days on end and then, in the final cut, play all the frames back at speed so that the flower bloomed open right before your eyes, like an open hand reaching out across time and space. Julie’s smile reminded me of those flowers. It was so open and offered so unselfconsciously that my gran was taken aback.

‘Well I guess the fellas upstairs thought maybe an old timer like you might need a bit of a hand keeping an eye on him. I’ve got plenty of experience in keeping track of cheeky wee buggers like him.’ Julie waved her hand in my direction. ‘Get him back on the straight and narrow.’

My gran very slowly placed her tea cup and saucer down on the table, her lips pursed and sharp like the mouth of a tulip.

‘Got four brothers,’ Julie said, picking up her brown folder listing all my crimes and opening it up with a bang on the table.

My gran fixed her beady eyes on Julie. Without breaking her friendly smile, Julie clicked her department-of-corrections biro open on her chin, right on the point where her dark green moko began spiralling down her face. ‘Right,’ she said, draining her teacup in one swig, ‘shall we get started on his action plan then.’

After Julie left, my gran gathered up the teapot, cups and saucers and began vigorously scrubbing them out over the sink. I went to help her, but she pushed me away. ‘You listen to that Maori lady,’ she told me as she ground the Brillo pad around the inside of the teapot, her arthritic fingers trembling. ‘She’s got your best interests at heart. I can always tell.’

Julie did have my best interests at heart, I thought as I stared out over the car park, watching the flustered ducks dip themselves in the water to settle their wind ruffled feathers.
‘I think I won her over in the end,’ Julie said, tucking her hands into her pockets and looking around the hunched up crowd in the lobby. ‘Seriously though David, do you have anybody you can call? Anyone you can rely on?’
‘Nah,’ I said, looking out across the foyer at Mrs Phelps, the only other person there I knew. She was nodding off in a chair, her frail figure seemed somehow dwarfed by it, as if any minute she could be swallowed up and disappear.

‘Any mates from school?’

‘I think hanging out with any of them violates my parole.’

Julie nodded. ‘I was afraid of that.’

‘Look, Jules, thanks for coming and everything but I…’

She interrupted me. ‘David, before I get going I’d better tell you, I thought you might need some support. Now you’re 18 you’re too old for child services and… Don’t look at me like that,’ she warned me as I scowled at her. ‘You’re not in trouble. I talked to my boss and he says it’s ok if we keep meeting up, unofficially extend our meetings a bit. You’ll have a few more chances at life-skills courses and I’ll be able to keep an eye on you, give you a good reference. What do you reckon?’

She handed me one of her dog-eared cards with the department of corrections logo on it. A date and time was smeared across the front in black ink.

‘I’ve already made you one appointment. Just pop in next week. It’s up to you after that.’

I put the card in my pocket. ‘Thanks Jules.’

‘You keep being my success story aye?’ She glanced toward the door. ‘Got to go get going, parked in one of those sixty minute zones up the road. Can’t afford another ticket.’

I nodded, suddenly finding myself wanting to grab onto her and not let go.

‘I left you some kai there on the side there by the door, remember to take it home and bring the tupperware back when you come for your visit. Okay?’

I nodded. ‘Okay.’

Julie gave me one last pat on the back, then, with a burst of fresh air blasting into the airless lobby and a small tornado of dry leaves blowing in from the porch, she was gone.

After Julie left, I got the awkward feeling that Gran’s friends, most of whom I hadn’t even met, were waiting for something. I went over and stood near Mrs Phelps, in case she would invite me into the group or at the very least tell me what I was expected to do.

‘Do you have any biscuits dear?’ An old lady I didn’t recognise with wrinkled orange lips like the mouth of a daffodil was the first to speak to me.

‘Usually there’s a little luncheon after funerals, will there be any tea do you know?’

‘Oh yes.’ Mrs Phelps from bingo looked up at me from her chair ‘Would be lovely to have a little tea and biscuits.’ She fiddled with her hearing aid, which then started to let out a high pitched whistling tone that nobody else seemed to notice.

‘I’ve got some biscuits in my bag if you want.’ I swung my backpack off my shoulder. I had a couple of bags of animal biscuits I bought for old-times sake. I hadn’t meant to share them, they were private, something I’d bought to comfort myself because that’s what she used to buy me when she was alive. I ripped open the foil and held them out.

‘Oh dear’ said the woman in the green cardigan, ‘not even on a plate.’

Suddenly I felt too hot. I couldn’t bear to look at any of them, so instead I turned away and studied the tips of my shoes.

‘There’s a good boy,’ said Mrs Phelps, taking my hand and squeezing it. ‘I think they have plates in that room over there,’ she whispered, pointing vaguely in the direction of the room where my grandmother was lying dead. ‘Go on dear,’ she encouraged me, you don’t want to keep them waiting any longer.’

I forced myself to smile at them all. The woman in the green cardigan smiled back thinly and touched the rose in her button hole with her withered fingers.

I went into the big room where we’d had the service. I could see the outline of my grandmother’s face lying dark against the back lighting of the fern garden. Mrs Phelps had been wrong. There were no serving plates. I opened some cupboards in the back of the room, but they were just filled with cardboard boxes full of identical books in plastic sheaths. I shut the cupboards, stepped back and closed my eyes. Why wouldn’t her friends just take the biscuits out of the packet. What difference would it make? I struggled to put my thoughts in some kind of order. I could hear the spring wind tumbling over tin roof and I felt as though it was ripping through me, separating who I had been before from the orphan I had now become. It occurred to me that now that I was alone, I was entirely in control. I could walk out into the reception area and tell all those prissy old people to fuck off out the door if I wanted to. I could empty the animal biscuits out onto the floor and grind them into the carpet with my polished leather shoes. Instead I opened my eyes and looked around. On the wall, amongst the bad art and the fire drill instructions there was decorative plate commemorating the 1997 Rotary Club. I went over, took it down and poured the biscuits onto it and strode out into the lobby.

‘Biscuits. Jolly good’ the funeral director said, taking a green hippopotamus and putting the whole thing in his mouth at once. ‘Let me help you with those.’ He took the plate of biscuits off me and began offering them around. As the old people talked and ate, I gathered up the jars of flowers and assembled them on a table near the door. I had been meaning to take them with me, but now the hooting orange mouths of the daffodils seemed unbearable to look at. I waved the funeral director over.

‘People can take these home if they want,’ I said, pointing at the flowers ‘I’m leaving now.’

The funeral director nodded. ‘Drive safe,’ he said gently. ‘I’ll take care of everything. You can pick up your grandmother’s ashes any time after next week.’

I was about to leave when I stopped. A thought was tugging at me, holding me in place. I turned back. ‘Will they be heavy’ I asked.

‘The ashes?’ The funeral director shook his head. ‘We’ll put them in a nice wooden box.’ He held out his hands to show me the size. ‘They’ll weigh a little more than a normal brick. They won’t smell. You can take them home and keep them safe or scatter them somewhere special. That’s up to you.’

I nodded. The funeral director busied himself with the flowers, giving me the chance to leave. I wanted to crack some joke, make an offhand remark to show him and myself that I was coping, that everything would be ok, but nothing came to mind. I saw the boxes of food Julie had left me on the side board and picked them up. There was one box of sausage rolls and a tray of lasagne. I carried them out into the garden. The spring wind was still blowing hard, whipping dust and twigs into the air, stinging my face. I imagined opening up the box of my grandmother’s ashes and holding them out. The wind would lift them up, burnt grey flecks like tiny wings, and carry them away from me.

‘The Glenmore pub?’ Lois O’Donnell repeated, as soon as Lennie had finished explaining. ‘You can’t stay there. Not by yourself. I’ll come and get you.’

‘Grandma,’ Lennie said patiently, ‘you can’t. I’ve got your car, remember?’

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. Lennie imagined her grandmother standing at the console table in her shiny new townhouse out on the coast, the shiny new phone to her ear, Lois’s determined mouth pursing. ‘Well, I’ll go and hire another one,’ Lois said.

‘The rental car companies will be shut by now,’ Lennie told her. ‘And besides, I don’t want you driving all this way tonight. I’ll be fine here till the morning.’

Lois made a humphing noise. ‘Why isn’t your grandfather coming to pick you up?’

‘I don’t want him driving here either. Anyway, if I go back to Kimpton tonight I’ll never make my flight tomorrow.’

‘Len…’ Lois sounded unconvinced.

‘I’m alright here, Grandma, really. It’s…’ Lennie glanced around the tiny unit again. ‘It’s nice.’

There was another pause. ‘So what did you tell him?’

‘Who?’ Lennie hedged.

‘Your grandfather.’

‘About the car breaking down?’

‘About the job,’ her grandmother said firmly.

Through the net curtain, Lennie watched the blurry shape of a ute crawl past the window.

‘Oh Len,’ Lois sighed. ‘You said yes, didn’t you?’

‘Let’s talk about it when I get there, okay?’ She checked her watch. ‘Look, I’d better go. The restaurant’s closing soon.’

Two hours later, turning the mound of coleslaw beside her still-partially-frozen chips, as she wondered whether offending the chef posed a greater risk to her health than his food, Lennie ventured a look around the bar. The place was turning out to be more popular than she’d expected. It filled and emptied in waves, forestry workers knocking off shift, carloads of kids on the crawl, a touch rugby team heading home from practice. She couldn’t resent all the looks coming her way. If the roles were reversed, she’d be looking herself. Sitting here alone, dressed as she was, she stuck out like a penguin in a henhouse.

Lennie pushed her hair away from her face. Doing what she could to soften her look before she hit the bar, she’d taken down her tightly twisted lady-means-business chignon, and in the humid hangover of the day’s rain her curls were running riot. For a moment, she ran a thick black hank around her finger, pulling it straight, before remembering what a bad habit it was to play with your hair.

In a corner by the window, somebody else was sitting alone. Lennie watched him, wondering what was making her do so when everything about the guy said that he wanted to be ignored. With enviable control, his attention seemed to move only between his beer and the newspaper that surrounded him like a wall. He was wearing the same uniform as pretty much everyone else in the bar, work boots and work shirt, jeans. His hands had the same weathered tan. But there was something about the easy way he was occupying that chair, the way you saw professional athletes occupying the bench, every muscle completely relaxed and at the same time ready for action. Below his dark hair, his face was hidden, leaving Lennie’s imagination to fill in the rest. She smiled at herself. Wishful thinking… The chances of her meeting a tall dark handsome stranger in Glenmore tonight were probably slim.

As she continued to study him, he pushed the plate carrying the remains of his burger a little further away. He didn’t look at her, but Lennie sensed her covert stare had been noted, and disapproved of. Getting up, she headed back to the bar. Jazzy gave her a kinder look as she paid for a second glass of pinot noir.

The guy remained where he was as the night wore on, his beer barely touched. The crowd had started thinning out, customers getting fewer and louder, jugs sinking faster, but the personal space he’d so clearly pegged out for himself remained unviolated. Struggling to find a reason for his continued presence in the bar, it occurred to Lennie that he might be her one fellow guest in the hotel, the body behind the slam of the door she’d heard at the other end of the accommodation block, the explanation for the flatdeck Land Cruiser that had appeared outside it. Perhaps, like her, he was waiting for the teenage swap-a-crate party that had overtaken the car park to take itself elsewhere before he went back to his thin-walled room.

‘Hey.’ A body thudded into the vinyl chair beside her. ‘You want to come to a party?’
Lennie drew back a little from the beer fumes. ‘Thanks,’ she smiled, sensing a dare, ‘but I’m kind of busy tonight.’ The boy didn’t look much over eighteen.

A second guy leaned over the opposite chair, adding a good portion of his drink to the upholstery stains. ‘She’s busy tonight,’ he mimicked, in a ridiculous falsetto. ‘She don’t want to come to your party, man.’

‘Aren’t you a bit old to be doing that?’ Lennie said mildly.

‘Aren’t you a bit old to be doing that?’

‘You too good to party with us?’ The first guy waved his empty glass in her face. ‘That it?’

‘We’re fucken rednecks, man,’ his friend chimed in. ‘She only parties with suits.’

‘No.’ Lennie kept her voice measured. ‘I just don’t feel like partying tonight.’

‘You know what that tight little arse of yours needs up it is my big redneck –’

‘Hey.’ A newspaper and a pint of beer arrived on the table beside her. ‘Sorry I was away so long.’ Casually, the guy she’d been watching settled into a chair. ‘I had to make a call.’ He gave her visitors a long, even stare.

‘Yeah, whatever, man,’ the boy beside her muttered, vacating the seat he’d taken. ‘Fuck you.’

As he and his mate moved off, Lennie got her first good look at her fellow hotel guest – if that’s what he was. He was bigger than he’d appeared from across the room, a weight to him that was about more than that lean mass of muscle. The angles of his face remained shadowed even in this light, as if he’d brought his own personal patch of darkness with him from the corner. Her imagination had short-changed him – it was a better-looking face than she’d given him credit for. A stronger face. He couldn’t be much older than she was, if at all. But something about him seemed ageless as a rock wall. The deep brown eyes following the boys’ retreat reminded her of a Great Dane she’d once known – astute, careful, contained. Old soul eyes.

‘Thank you,’ she said, when the boys had drifted back to the rest of their group at the pool table. She paused, taking in that face again while she waited for him to say something in return. ‘I’m Lennie, by the way.’

‘You don’t have to talk to me.’

‘Thanks,’ she said wryly. ‘I appreciate that.’

‘I didn’t come over to try and pick you up.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I get why you came over.’

Briefly, the brown eyes met hers. ‘It’d be better if I sit here till your little friends go home.’
Lennie nodded, oddly fascinated by the line the zygomaticus muscle cut down his cheek as it moved that commanding mouth, operating the deadpan delivery of his few flat words.

‘Hey mate,’ a voice said behind him.

The guy looked over his shoulder. The next thing Lennie knew, both he and his chair were on the floor, the back of his head hitting the boards with an ugly smack. The boy who’d first spoken to her stood over him. Lennie jumped up as a steel-capped boot aimed a kick at his head.

He rolled fast, his right hand moving to his chest, reaching for something that wasn’t there. Then, quick as a cat, he was back on his feet. She watched him breathe out slowly, spreading his hands. His voice, when he spoke, was almost apologetic.

‘Okay,’ he said to the boy. ‘You got me. You win.’

‘Watch out,’ Lennie warned him.

As his attention flickered to the bodies amassing behind him, the boy’s forehead smashed into his. He staggered back a step. Before he could straighten, the second boy had him in a choke hold, the base of a pool cue mashed into his throat. Seeing the first kid draw back his fist for a swing, Lennie rammed her chair into the boy as hard as she could, driving him into the floor, ducking an empty twelve-ounce glass as it flew past her head. Behind her, she heard a yowl of pain.

Lennie turned. The kid with the pool cue was on the ground, cradling his ribs.

‘Break it up!’ Jazzy parted the crowd, a softball bat in her hand. ‘That’s enough. Go on, you boys get out of here.’

‘Yeah, fuck you Jazzy.’

‘Now.’ She raised a pencilled brow. ‘Before I call your mother.’

Slowly, they picked up their fallen mates and slunk out, still muttering. With a quick glance at the clock, Jazzy locked the door behind them. Outside, a couple of engines coughed and roared, disappearing into the night with a final emphatic clatter of gravel.

In the middle of the scattered, empty tables, the guy whose name Lennie was really starting to feel she should know rubbed the back of his neck. He had blood pouring out of his forehead, the stream of it closing his left eye. Walking over to him, Lennie reached up, angling his head down towards her, assessing the damage.
‘Come on,’ she said gently, ‘we need to get that cleaned up. I’ve got a kit in my room.’

Behind him, Jazzy smirked. Lennie saw her slide a first aid kit back under the bar. Still trailing the bat from her left hand, Jazzy returned to the door, scanning the car park. ‘You’re all clear.’ She unlocked the door.

They crossed the shingle to the units without a word, the security lights harsh overhead, the dregs of the kids’ party all around them, the sound of their feet on the stones the only break in the silence.

‘Have a seat.’ Motioning him to the bed, Lennie extracted the emergency vet kit from her bag.

‘Do you always carry a first aid kit around in your handbag?’

She smiled. ‘You’d be surprised how often it comes in useful.’ Placing her hands under his jaw, she tilted his forehead to the unit’s fluorescent light. ‘That’s a nasty cut you’ve got there.’

Those broad shoulders shrugged. ‘I’ve had worse.’

‘You get headbutted a lot?’

‘What can I tell you.’ His voice was dry. ‘I’m a people person.’

‘Yeah.’ Lennie angled his head a little more. ‘I’m getting that about you.’ She reached for another prep pad. ‘You know, you still haven’t told me your name.’

‘Mitch,’ he said. ‘Mitch Stuart.’

‘Mitch,’ she repeated, experimentally. ‘Can you lean back for me a little more?’

‘How’s that?’

‘Perfect.’ The cut was starting to clot. ‘I think you might be the best-behaved patient I’ve ever had.’

‘You’re a doctor?’

‘Yeah.’ She ripped open a packet of skin closures. ‘Something like that.’

‘So what brings you here?’

‘A job interview,’ Lennie admitted, grateful for a chance to explain what she was wearing. ‘I’m just on my way back.’

‘How’d it go?’

The only way it was ever going to. ‘It was kind of a foregone conclusion.’

‘Those are the best kind.’

‘They are,’ she said, placing the strips, ‘if you want the job.’

‘And you don’t?’

‘I don’t have a choice.’

‘Really?’

Lennie sighed. ‘No. That’s just what people tell themselves, isn’t it? I’ve got a choice. I just don’t want to make it. It’s hard.’ She paused as he frowned, waiting for him to relax his forehead again. ‘There’s always a choice, right?’

‘Almost always,’ he said.

She surveyed her handiwork, wondering if the adhesives would hold, debating the ethics of offering to suture it for real. ‘What about you? What brings you here?’

‘A forestry job.’

‘Permanent?’

‘Just a couple of days.’ He flexed his back. ‘I finish up tomorrow.’

‘There.’ She peeled off her disposable gloves. ‘All done.’

He sat up, his hand rising again to the back of his head.

‘Here, let me feel.’ Lennie slid her hands below his ears, gently checking the cervical vertebrae, her fingertips moving up and over the bones of his skull. ‘You know,’ she said, studying the shape of his pupils, ‘you should get yourself checked out for a concussion tomorrow before you –’

‘Ow.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Quickly, she relaxed her hands, soothing the way she always did when a patient gave her a pain response, her fingers, sunk in his hair, stroking automatically.

‘That’s okay,’ he said slowly.

She was still looking into his eyes. His own moved down, the back of his index finger brushing the cotton just below the tip of her collar. ‘I’ve got blood on your shirt,’ he said.

His eyes rose again. For a moment, everything in the valley seemed to stop. Then his mouth was on hers, the rough skin of his hand light below her jaw, in a soft, exploring kiss that travelled down her spine and back again, bringing with it a molten longing Lennie hadn’t felt for a stretch of time long enough to have begun to doubt its existence. His other hand in the small of her back pulled her close.

At the moment her breasts met the mass of his chest, Lennie felt his body change, the already hard muscles turning rigid. He drew back, his forearms locked, enforcing the small distance remaining between them. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

She wasn’t entirely sure which one of them had.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You don’t owe me anything.’

‘That’s not how I say thank you.’ Lennie tried to find his eyes again. ‘I’m pretty much a Hallmark girl. A muffin basket at most.’

He blinked. ‘I have to go.’

She was still close enough to feel his breath on her cheek, but she got the distinct feeling he was speaking to her from a very long way away. Another dimension. Reality, maybe. She smiled gently. ‘Was it something I said?’
‘It’s not you.’ Putting her aside, he got to his feet. ‘It’s… complicated.’

Complicated? Was there a person on earth who didn’t know what that meant? ‘There’s somebody else,’ she said, registering the guilt on his face as he turned away.

He didn’t look like he was listening. As he slid open the door, she wasn’t sure whether he’d heard her at all.
There was a rush of cold night air. One hand on the rickety aluminium, he looked back, for a second, at her sitting there on the bed. ‘Yeah,’ he said softly, ‘something like that.’ With a clatter, the door slid shut, and he was gone.