The Last Guests Read online

  ‘Your fiancé was in the range of the blast and has sustained serious injuries. He is currently at the NATO Multinational Medical Unit in Kandahar Airfield undergoing treatment.’

  He’s alive, I thought. Thank God. The man was still speaking but I interrupted. ‘Is he … will he survive?’

  ‘His condition is serious but stable. He has sustained injuries to his left side with some glass fragments and shrapnel cutting through his protective gear, he also suffered a fracture to his left thumb and has sustained a ligament and bone injury to his right knee. Medical staff are working on him. We are hopeful that he will regain consciousness in the next twenty-four hours and be back home in the coming months, if not weeks.’

  ‘I …’ No words came, my head was swimming.

  ‘He’s lucky to be alive, but he is alive and that’s the most important thing. In the ensuing firefight he was pulled away to safety.’

  I knew two things then: one, Cain’s military career was over; and two, he would never be the same man again. I would later learn it was Axel who had dragged him to safety. An act that earned him the New Zealand Gallantry Star. How different things might have been if it was Axel riding in the front vehicle and Cain had saved his life.

  •

  ‘When you were young,’ Cain croons.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You were humming it, the song.’

  ‘I was,’ I say. Was I?

  He’s frowning again. ‘I might go see Wiremu and Melissa. Give them a heads-up that we will have people staying.’ He scratches a blade of grass from his stubble.

  I’d guess only about one in four houses around the lake are occupied year-round, the rest are holiday homes.

  ‘I’ll come,’ I say. The thought of being alone at the moment makes my stomach tighten. I have this feeling something is about to snap.

  We set off together up the driveway towards the road.

  Daniel is in Rotorua. He has my number and my wedding ring. I could always change my number, block him. I’ll have to explain the missing ring to Cain somehow though.

  Wiremu and Melissa’s place is a big wooden house, angled out from the hill towards the lake. It’s not changed since I was a kid. When Cain knocks, I can hear someone coming towards the door.

  ‘Hello,’ Melissa says, leaning her brown sun-creased face out. ‘Cain, Lina, how are you both?’

  Melissa has wild grey hair and a slightly lazy eye. ‘Hi, Melissa,’ Cain says. ‘We’re good, thanks. We just wanted to let you know that Lina and I are going to be renting our place out on WeStay, so you might see a few more strangers on the road.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says, frowning a little. ‘WeStay, right. Well, that’s fine. We’ll keep an eye out.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure there won’t be any issues but if you hear loud music or notice anything amiss, feel free to text or call us.’

  ‘No worries, Cain. I better make sure I have the right number for you both. Did you let anyone else in the community know?’

  Cain scratches his stubble. ‘To be honest, I think they’re all far enough away that they won’t notice.’

  She bites her lips. ‘Sure, well if anyone asks, we will let them know. It’s not like you’re the first around here to rent your place out to holidaymakers. Sue and Ian Cosgrove across the lake have their place listed while they’re in Greece.’

  ‘It’s good for the area. Brings tourists in,’ Cain says.

  ‘And we all know how much everyone loves tourists.’ A smile now to let us know there’s no meanness in it. ‘A bit more money pumping into the cafe and Buried Village doesn’t hurt I suppose. We don’t mind either way so long as they’re tidy and respectful.’

  The Buried Village is a tourist spot where a small village once existed. Tarawera was a mountain long before it was a lake. A volcanic eruption one hundred and thirty years ago changed that. The eruption destroyed the eighth wonder of the world – the pink and white terraces, natural hot pools cascading down – and buried a village that’s since been partially excavated. That’s why everything is so lush here; volcanic soil is fertile, producing a galaxy of greens and browns. Explosions of ferns from ponga trees, and native bush crowding the lake’s edge.

  Cain and I walk back down the road to our house. The leaves rotting in the shade on the gravel are treacherous slicks. I hide my hands in the pockets of my polar fleece as a southerly tears across the lake and tousles the ferns.

  ‘What should we do for dinner?’ he asks.

  ‘There’s no food in the house. But I’m not that hungry.’

  ‘I’m starving. Why don’t we go to the DT?’

  It’s on the east side of town. The chance of bumping into Daniel in a town the size of Rotorua is extremely unlikely. I’ll keep my head down, be quick.

  ‘Sure, okay.’

  ‘Let me put a coat of stain on the deck then we can head off.’

  We don’t often cook when we are in Tarawera. The DT, or the Downtown, is fifty percent restaurant, forty-five percent bar and five percent casino. The backroom houses three poker machines that are occupied all night and most of the day. There are signs that warn of the dangers of problem gambling, and a much bigger display with the current jackpot.

  Cain has spent time there. Time and hundreds of dollars. He brought home more than scars and a stiff knee from Afghanistan. He still has his own old bank account, but I monitor the business account and our joint accounts closely. It doesn’t look like he’s been gambling lately.

  Soon enough he’s finished with the deck. When he comes inside a dark patch of stain sits near his elbow like a birthmark, and blood trickles from above his left eye.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The old scar above my eye, just takes a small bump to open it up again.’ He cleans it with a warm flannel, holds a folded paper towel to it until the bleeding stops.

  ‘I’d be a hopeless boxer,’ he says.

  It’s a twenty-minute drive back into town. We pass through the east-side stretch of shops. The service station is open, the forecourt brightly lit but the bakery is shut up, the cabinets empty. Taua’s Hardware is closed for good, but the sign is still there, the logo a ghost on the fading white paint. Some of the windows are smashed, others covered with graffiti-scrawled plywood. At the DT there’s a row of parked cars, a couple of blokes smoking in the fenced-in outdoor section. They’re staring at whatever is on the screen inside. I pull up and they glance over, regarding us. Words and smirks pass between them when we climb out of the car, then they turn back. One of the two wears crocs and tattered shorts. On his stained t-shirt I read, I don’t need Google, My wife knows everything. The other wears a t-shirt that simply displays the label for Waikato Draught.

  •

  We eat on the bar side, it’s cheaper and the food comes out faster. I am a spider caught outside of her lair, shifty, cautious and watching everyone moving around me. If we bump into Daniel, what would I do? Pretend I’ve never seen him? And if he produces my wedding ring?

  I order a salad and Cain opts for the fish and chips. When the door opens, I swivel my head back. It’s a couple of old boys. As they pass us one of them pauses, openly staring at Cain. My entire body tenses.

  ‘Cleaver,’ he exclaims. ‘That you?’

  Cain’s eyes simply rise from his meal. Then slowly he swings his head towards the man.

  The man looks uncertain, then speaks again. ‘Coach Ruatara.’

  ‘Oh right,’ Cain says, stretching his hand out. ‘Been a long time.’

  Coach Ruatara turns to his friend. ‘Had him as a teenager at Sunnybrook High,’ he says. ‘Could have been an All Black.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘No,’ Cain speaks on an exhale. ‘Never had it in me.’

  ‘Chose the army instead,’ Coach Ruatara says it like it’s the highest praise, a man giving up the glory of professional sport to serve his country. Cain squirms in the heat lamp of public admiration. ‘Still got the one hundred metre record at school, most of th
e athletic records actually. Pretty clever too,’ he says. ‘You still playing?’

  ‘No.’ Cain thumps his knee with his palm. ‘Picked up an injury.’

  The man looks grave. ‘Right,’ he says. ‘Of course. Tough going over there in Iraq.’

  Afghanistan. Cain doesn’t correct him, he simply raises his eyebrows in agreement.

  ‘You must be proud.’

  It takes me a moment to realise he’s talking to me. ‘Yep,’ I say. ‘Very proud.’

  ‘I’m still coaching at school there, always looking for more help with some of the younger teams. And you’ll probably have kids of your own coming through soon.’

  Cain glances towards me, I try to keep my face neutral but even this innocuous comment feels like a splinter. ‘No,’ he responds. ‘No kids.’

  ‘Plenty of time for that,’ the man says. ‘Wouldn’t mind you coming and having a chat with the current team though.’

  ‘I’m just down for the weekend,’ he says, dismissing the idea. ‘This is my wife, Lina.’

  The coach offers his hand and I take it.

  ‘Come down and say hi at school anytime you’re back in town, the boys would love to meet an army hero.’

  ‘Army hero.’ Cain scoffs.

  They move deeper into the bar, the man’s jandals clap as he goes. They find a table to lean on near the screens showing horse racing. Cain lets his eyes linger for a moment on the man’s back.

  ‘Cleaver Phillips, quite a ring to it,’ I tease, breaking the tension.

  He turns to me and smiles, gives his head a small shake. ‘It’s a stupid high school nickname.’

  ‘Can you at least tell me why?’

  ‘I was good at tackling,’ he says. ‘At cutting people down.’

  ‘Ah,’ I say. ‘Makes perfect sense. Pretty clever too, huh?’

  He winces.

  There’s a loud noise. I drop my knife in response and it clatters against my plate. It’s just a staccato blast of rugby commentary from the TV above the barman. I turn my head towards the sound. There’s a murmur of appreciation from the three men huddled down the other end of the bar, nursing beers.

  ‘After our first booking we’re going out for a nice dinner,’ he says. ‘That’s what we will spend the money on.’

  ‘Won’t find much nicer than this around here,’ I say, spearing a flaccid prawn on my fork, and scraping it off on the side plate.

  ‘No, back home. Amano, or the Millhouse. Somewhere expensive.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ I say. We’ve got better things to spend the money on, including the eight thousand dollars in credit card debt, but I’m not about to remind him of that.

  •

  I’m still a little on edge when we get back that night. If I ignore Daniel, he will get the message and leave me alone. If only men were that predictable. If only he didn’t have my ring. Moths are beating themselves to death against the security light we stand under as Cain makes a show of punching the code into his new lock, on the freshly painted black door. The lock grinds open, he holds the door for me.

  ‘Seamless,’ he says. ‘Thought for a moment we might have locked ourselves out.’

  ‘Quite loud,’ I tease.

  Inside I go to turn the back porch lights off. The light casts a glow out over the lawn, to the water. The stars are out, funnelling down in the negative space between the mountains. It’s a magic night, silent and still. My eyes track along the lake then right before I hit the lights, I see something. Someone. My heart ceases for a second. Heat on my neck. A prickle at my hairline.

  A shape, down near the water’s edge. I draw a sharp breath. It looks like a man. It feels like my heartbeat is bruising my ribs. He must have come through the bush, the trees, or by the lake.

  ‘Cain,’ I say. ‘Cain, come here please.’ He doesn’t respond. I turn back, searching for him in the house. ‘Cain!’ I call, louder now, stepping away from the door.

  ‘What’s up?’ he emerges from the bathroom at the top of the stairs, his toothbrush hanging from his mouth.

  I turn back to the window, pointing. ‘Someone was there.’ But I can’t see them now. The shape was right down by the lake, just beyond the reach of the light. Could it have been a trick? Moonlight shimmering on the water? Are my eyes deceiving me?

  Cain comes downstairs. He peers out through the back door.

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘I don’t know, maybe nothing.’ Doubt coagulates in my mind, blocking my thoughts.

  He reaches for the door handle, unlocks it. I clutch him hard. ‘No, wait.’

  ‘It’s fine, look.’ He steps out the door, the cool air rushes into the house. That graceless asymmetrical gait. ‘Hello,’ he calls. ‘Anybody out here?’ He turns back to me with a smile. ‘Where did he go?’

  Where did he go? He may have stayed along the lake edge and kept walking around through the bush. It’s happened before. People get lost and end up emerging on the property. But at this time of night?

  Cain continues further across the back lawn towards the lake’s edge. Then he’s gone. I squint into the darkness, my heart racing.

  ‘Cain!’ I call.

  I see him again; he stands up tall and in his hand he has a log he’s fished out of the water. He holds it above his head in two hands, then tosses it back into the water.

  Cain steps back through the door and slides it closed once more. Locking it.

  ‘I think I found your man,’ he says.

  I squeeze my lips closed. I was certain I saw someone, not just a piece of wood floating on the water. We go up the stairs together, I insist on being in front of him. I make him come in the bathroom with me when I brush my teeth. I imagine it really was a man out there. Your mind is your enemy. One of Cain’s tattoos. A mantra when he was training for the SAS and underwent the gruelling selection process. He’d trained almost half his life for selection, knowing the dropout rate was over ninety percent. He ended up with the emblem tattooed over his heart. The sword, the wings, the banner emblazoned with ‘Who Dares Wins’. My brave soldier. So why do I feel vulnerable now, even in my own house? I can’t tell Cain about Daniel, the texts. Maybe my eyes were playing a trick on me. Maybe there was nothing out there in the night but shadows shifting in the wind, driftwood on the black, moon-tinselled lake.

  SIX

  CAIN HAD ONE of his bad dreams last night, he was moist with sweat, tangled in the sheets, panting until I gently shook him awake. I’d wanted to go downstairs and get him a glass of water, or to at least turn the light on, but I couldn’t summon the courage to venture out of bed alone. This new fear has come on suddenly. My phone, as usual, was on flight mode while I slept, but still I kept thinking about what messages I might find in the morning, or Cain might find while I slept. Each time Cain jerked beside me and woke me, I turned my phone off flight mode to check if a new message had arrived, holding my breath in the dark, waiting. But there was nothing.

  Now the morning has come and Cain is already awake. He’s sitting there, looking at the curtains as if working out what time it might be by the intensity of the light passing beneath them. ‘What’s up?’ I say.

  He scratches his shoulder, turns back to me. ‘Oh, not much, I got up early and had a walk. Couldn’t sleep and now I’ve just come back to bed.’

  ‘Mm,’ I say. ‘I noticed you tossing and turning. You want to talk about it?’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘Not really. Same shitty nightmares. They all blend into one, only now sometimes the war is here, in this country in this house and it’s you I’m trying to protect.’

  I don’t know what to say, this is the most he’s revealed about his dreams in a long time. ‘You’re safe now, Cain. You can always wake me, and we can sit up together and talk.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I’ll keep that in mind. You sleep well?’

  ‘Fine,’ I lie. ‘But I actually feel hungover.’ I force a huff of laughter. ‘Despite not having anything to drink last night.’

  ‘May
be it was the dodgy prawns at DT?’

  Then we hear something we usually only hear in summer.

  ‘Fuck me,’ he says.

  I plug my ears with my fingers. A jet ski is ripping across the lake.

  ‘Summer has come.’ He feigns checking his watch. ‘A couple of months early.’

  ‘It must be cold out there.’

  He stands, peers through the gap in the curtains. ‘He’s got a wetsuit. Mind if I open these?’

  I squint in anticipation. ‘Sure.’

  The light floods the room.

  ‘I need water,’ I say, sitting up, turning so my feet find the cool carpet.

  ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

  He goes downstairs, I follow him.

  ‘Go lie down on the couch,’ he says. He’s got a grimace and I notice now his right leg won’t straighten fully.

  ‘You’re in pain.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘Take a tramadol?’

  ‘I already have,’ he says. ‘I’ll be right.’ That Kiwi hardman, stiff upper lip nonsense doesn’t help. He needs to get back to the physio or on stronger painkillers.

  I shower and Cain swims out a few hundred metres then back. Some Scandinavian cold-water therapy he heard about on a podcast to help with his pain. After he dries off he goes about readying the place for the first guests. He spreads one more layer of stain on the deck. He dusts every surface. He restacks the firewood beside the barbecue then deadbolts the back door and locks all of the windows. He lines the tiny boxes of milk up in the fridge, straightens the toaster and kettle. He drops the blinds so they are half down. He sets the fire ready to light. And finally places a single bottle of pinot on the table for the guests, a yellow Post-it note on the neck of the bottle screams ‘Drink me!’

  I use my iPhone camera to take new photos of the house, now that it’s ready for the guests. The mid-morning glow provides perfect lighting, pillars of sun passing through kitchen windows, burning bright squares on the floor tiles, illuminating the entire room.

  ‘Place has never looked so good,’ Cain says, watching me move about the room, trying my hand at photography.