“If I need to, I’ll take her to a female doctor. It’s … culture shock. More than you can imagine.” I still had that tremble inside. This was so much more naked than taking my shirt off in front of Gray. This was exposure.
“I can imagine enough,” Matiu said. “How can I help?”
I didn’t have emotion at work. You couldn’t, in Emergency. You’d burn out so fast if you did. We’d all seen it happen. I wasn’t at work, though, not quite, and I said, “We’re OK. We’ll be OK. You can spread the news around here, though, if you like. So it’s not hanging over my head anymore like some dark secret. Tell somebody. Tell anybody.”
He nodded. “If you’re concerned for her safety, though, Poppy’s lawyer, the one who did her dissolution, is good at this. Can I text you her number? The petition could be tricky, I’m thinking, if you need to keep Fruitful’s location secret, and I don’t know what other issues there may be.”
“Yeh,” I said. “That’d be good, because my lawyer’s retired now. Except—I lost my phone. I … my car went into the river. The Clutha. On my way up there. I lost my phone. And the car. Same night. Rough night.” I tried to laugh. It didn’t come off.
Matiu never lost his cool, and he didn’t do it now. He digested that, then said, “Sounds like a story. You can tell me during our next run. But you need help now, surely, if they’re living with you. No car, and all this? You need help.” When I didn’t answer straight away, he added, “You came to talk to me for a reason. Because you trusted me, I hope. Well—trust me with this.”
“No,” I said. “I—that is, we got help. I went into the river because somebody pushed me in. By accident,” I hurried to add. “And he’s been helping me. And the girls. All of us. Helped me get them out, loaned me a car, and we’re staying out at his place, because—because of Fruitful’s ankle. Stairs, eh. And a few other things. But thanks. I appreciate it.”
Matiu had turned all the way to face me. Blue scrubs. Perfectly cut dark hair. Cheekbones. Concerned frown. He really did look like a TV doctor. “You and your sisters are living with some bloke,” he said. “Who you just met. Who pushed you into the river, but that’s OK, because he rescued you? Daise. You’ve got to know how that sounds. You’ve got to know it isn’t safe.”
“No,” I said. “His mum was there, at first—well, in Wanaka—and he’s … kind. Older. He is safe.”
“Older fella who lives with his mum? That could be even worse. Ever seen Psycho?”
“No,” I said, “he’s not older older. Well, yeh, he’s older, but not that much. Heaps younger than you, for instance.”
Matiu smiled fleetingly, but said, “Give me a name. An address. I’ll feel better.”
“His name’s Gray,” I said. “Grayson Tamatoa. He’s a builder. Houses, I guess. He has a place beyond Corstorphine, down toward Brighton. Lifestyle block, on the sea. I don’t have the address, actually. I should do. If I had a phone, I’d have got it and put it in. How did people survive without phones?”
Matiu wasn’t listening. He said, “Your kind, older, safe fella is Gray Tamatoa?”
I said, “What? Is he a serial killer or something? I have gaps. You know now that I have gaps. As in—no frame of reference before twelve years ago.”
“Daise,” Matiu said, “Gray Tamatoa is an All Black. A very well-known All Black.”
“No, he isn’t. He’s a builder. I told you.”
“Good-looking bloke?” Matiu asked. “Big? Late thirties? Samoan tattoo? General air of extreme fitness?”
Wait. The offseason, Gray had said. The … rugby offseason?
Oh. The houses. The flash car. I said, “But he’s not. He’s been a builder for years.”
“Had to retire earlier than he’d have liked,” Matiu said. “Too many concussions. Made a bit of a stir, because it was around the time when they first started looking seriously at the effects of multiple TBIs in rugby, and at the possibility of CTE later on. The talk was that he’d had some pretty worrisome issues, and no choice but to quit. He played for the Highlanders, and his firm’s doing some new buildings for the University. He doesn’t do houses. He does commercial. Big contracts. Local boy made good twice over, eh. Of course, those contracts may have had something to do with his investors, too. Drew Callahan, for