so that’s what I did. I’d have got out of the river anyway. I wasn’t going to drown after all that. The dog was a bonus. Like you.”
“Kind of you to say so.” Now, he sounded amused. “Your life philosophy’s a bit grim, possibly.”
“I don’t think so. I think it works.” I’d talked too much. Relief from stress, maybe, but I didn’t like to talk too much or get too personal. I definitely didn’t like to sound bitchy. Competent, cheerful Daisy, that was me. That was the whole reason for the name. I got out of the ute and opened the rear door, bracing myself to find that the dog was dead. It had been completely silent all this time, and it had been absolutely exhausted.
I’d be so sad if it was dead. I could be sad, though. That didn’t have to stop me from moving on.
5
How to Be a Hero
Gray
Fortunately, the dog wasn’t dead.
When I opened the door, he raised his head. It was Labrador-broad, the eyes wise and brown. He had a dusting of gray around his brown muzzle, but when I said, “Come on, boy. Jump down,” he did it without too much stiffness.
That was when I realized that it wasn’t a he. It was a she. A chocolate Lab of the stocky English variety, without much stockiness. I fondled her ears, she leaned against my knees, and I said, “Let’s go in and get something down you, girl. Reckon you’ve earned a feed.”
When I turned around, the girl—woman—Daisy—had gathered up my wet clothes and her own and was standing there, blanket and oversized jacket and bare feet and all, looking the last thing from defeated, and not a bit like a woman who’d just escaped certain death. She looked, in fact, like a woman who was waiting for me to get on with it, so she could go do the next thing on her list.
It’s pretty bloody hard to be a hero if a woman won’t let you do it.
I’d started out from Dunedin as a determinedly single man with a work problem, and arrived in Wanaka with a woman and a dog and heaps of further complication in my very near future. And, possibly, with a chance to be that hero after all, so I grabbed my boots and led Daisy up the steps to the house, with the dog padding along beside her like a guardian. Just the three of us, calmly moving ahead, doing what we had to do.
Seriously, though? Mount Zion? The weird, secretive compound on the side of the mountain, where hundreds of people dressed like it was 1850 and thought like it, too? Where they oppressed their women, didn’t allow contact with the outside world, and bred kids by the dozen? I hadn’t realized anybody ever left that place.
And, yeh, I was all about getting those sisters out of there.
By the time I made it into the lounge, my mum was coming down the stairs, her graying dark hair in a plait, pulling her dressing gown closed around her. I said, “Mum. You didn’t have to get up,” like always, and she said, “Of course I did,” also like always.
Then she took in Daisy, the dog, and our blanket-intensive attire, and said, “What’s happened? Sit down while I make a cup of tea. Turn the fire on, Gray. You both look half frozen.” My mum was all about getting on with things herself, which was why she headed into the kitchen at one end of the big room instead of coming over to give me a cuddle and kiss.
Daisy, who hadn’t sat down, said, “Oh. It’s your mother’s house. I suddenly feel much better about all this.”
“Yeh, nah,” I said, not correcting her, “you were always safe. Stay there. I’m getting the dog something to eat.”
“I need to change,” she said. “We need to go.” She fondled the dog’s ears and glanced at my mum. Possibly calculating their size differential, which was considerable. My mum, like most Samoans, enjoyed her food, and Daisy was definitely wondering about those clothes.
I said, “How about this? I’ll show you the bathroom and sort out something for you to wear after your shower.” When she would have argued, I took the wet clothes from her and went on. “Which you’ll be taking while I’m feeding the dog and finding that mysterious item in my wardrobe that isn’t a blanket, yet fits somebody who weighs a third of what I do.”
“I don’t weigh a third