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Her brow furrows. “Why?”
“Do you promise?”
“Of course.”
“I haven’t told anyone else this.”
She stares at me. “Not Shaz?”
“Nope. No one.”
“Okay. I promise. Of course I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to.”
Despite her vow, I’m loath to talk. It’s not a pretty story, and I’m not sure whether it’s going to make her question her promise not to say anything. But I’ve promised now, and I discover, with some surprise, that I want to confide in her.
“Do you need to rush off?” I ask.
“Not till ten. I’m meeting Gaby.”
It’s only seven thirty. “Come on,” I say. “Why don’t we finish getting ready, order some breakfast, and make a coffee, and then I’ll tell you everything?”
Leaving her to dry her hair, I go out and pull on a tee and a pair of track pants. Then, after checking what she’d like, I ring room service and order a continental breakfast for two, including two lattes from the barista. It’s going to be around thirty minutes before it arrives, though, so in the meantime I make us a couple of coffees with the machine in the room.
Just as I’m adding milk, she comes out, fresh-faced and beautiful. “I’ll have to go back to finish getting ready for the rehearsal,” she says. “Hopefully nobody will knock on either of our doors to check on us!”
She obviously doesn’t want anyone to know about us yet. Our relationship feels like newly wet cement. I want to write my name in it, so everyone can see at a glance that she’s mine now, but it’s not what she wants, and I’m just going to have to wait until she’s ready.
“Can I borrow a tee?” she asks after.
“Sure.” I watch her lift a couple out of my suitcase, and then she pulls on my black Alice in Chains shirt. It falls past her bottom, the sleeves coming to her elbows. I’ll never be able to wear it again without thinking of her.
She sits on the sofa, and I think I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as the sight of her, backlit by the rising sun, sitting in my tee shirt, with her gorgeous brown hair tumbling around her shoulders. She begins to braid it loosely into one plait, her fingers threading the strands automatically the way women do, and she secures the end with an elastic, then lets it fall over one shoulder.
I put our coffees on the table and sit opposite her, elbows on my knees, hands loosely linked, conscious that I’m about to open up to her, and a little nervous about it. She observes me and says, “You look younger today. Without your suit, all ruffled and baby-faced.”
I run a hand through my hair, then stroke my smooth jaw. “And I was thinking that I’ve never seen you without your bindi. You look like Hinemoa.”
“Haere mai,” she sings, which means ‘welcome’, widening her eyes and making the fluttering hand movement called wiri that Maori women do, which symbolizes shimmering waters or a breeze moving the leaves of a tree. It gives me goosebumps.
She smiles. Then she tips her head to the side. “Are you okay? I’m thrilled that you want to talk, but if you’re worried about it, you don’t have to tell me, you know.”
“I do want to talk. I’m not used to it, that’s all, and it doesn’t come naturally.” I have a sip of coffee. Where to start?
Chapter Eighteen
Juliette
I wait for Henry to start speaking. I’m still in shock. I can’t believe he’s choosing to tell me something that he didn’t tell Shaz. I have no idea what he’s going to say. I can see him picking through his words as if he’s choosing a chocolate out of a box—not that he eats chocolate. He’s always been like this—thoughtful, reticent, preferring to keep things to himself. That he’s chosen to confide in me touches my soul deeply.
“I guess the first thing I need to do is explain about my childhood,” Henry says slowly. “My parents’ relationship was not a good one. My father drank a lot, and he and Mum used to argue about it. Occasionally—not often, but I do remember it happening—he’d be violent. He’d hit her, and he beat both Philip and me a couple of times. Mum would get really upset, and then he’d regret it in the morning and be ravaged by guilt and self-loathing.”
I didn’t know any of this. I listen with wide eyes at this glimpse into his past.
“When he died,” he continues, “Mum told us he’d been drunk, and he’d drowned in a boating accident. She was resentful that he’d left her alone with three kids, and she refused to talk about it any further. As a result, I was a very angry young man. I got into a lot of trouble, and eventually I ended up going to Greenfield.”
My eyebrows rise even more. It’s a school for adolescents with problems, and I’m genuinely shocked that the rich, successful Henry comes from a background like that. “Oh, I didn’t know.”
“That’s a story for another time,” he tells me. “But anyway, Greenfield turned things around for me. I worked my socks off, ended up going to uni, met you and the guys, started Kia Kaha, and began to feel better about myself. So I decided to find out about my father. Mum still refuses to talk about him, so I had to do my own research. All I knew was that he’d drowned in a boating accident, so I decided to start with the coroner’s report. The immediate family of the person who died is allowed to ask for the medical reports, the post-mortem report, the coroner’s findings, witness statements, all that sort of thing.”
