Kaimoana Tales, Riley 15

He walked into the kitchen and his mother looked around and smiled. “Ah, good, here you are. About time too. They’re out the front, table three. Go and see what they want.”

“Haven’t you even asked them?” he grumbled as he went through to the shop.

There were two guys sitting at table three, with their backs to him. He stopped and stared. They both had medium-length, dark-red hair! It couldn’t be, could it? He walked over to the table and they both looked up and grinned at him. Two big identical smiles, 4 icy-blue/grey eyes. It was them!

“Colin! Jacob! Wow. What are you doing here?”

“Everyone’s got to be somewhere,” one of them grinned. He didn’t have a clue which one was which. They looked exactly the same.

“But. But . . why aren’t you in the hospital?”

“Oh, we got sick of that,” the other one said. “We’re all patched-up and cleaned-out now, so we left.”

“But. But, did you just walk out?”

“Sure did.”

“But, how did you get here from Christchurch?”

“Hitch-hiked.” One of them, it had to be Jacob, held up a crutch. “You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to hitch a ride when you’re on crutches. People feel sorry for you.”

“We left the hospital at lunchtime, got a bus to the city limits and here we are.”

“That’s – well – it’s really great to see you. But, what are you going to do now? Where are you going to live?”

“We thought we’d live with you, if you want us.”

“Well of course I do! But I don’t know if we could arrange that. Anyway, it’s not my house, it’s Mum’s.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Colin said. “It was her idea.”

“It was??”

“It was,” said a voice behind him.

He swung around. “Mum!”

“Surprised? I thought it was a good idea. These boys need somewhere to live and we’ve got room for them, haven’t we?”

“We have! But why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted to see the look on your face. I’ve been working on it, I didn’t think it would be so fast, but they’re here now. We’re keeping them.”

“We are? Oh, shit, Mum! Thank you.” He hugged her and sobbed over her shoulder.

She hugged him back, and then pushed him off. “That’s what I like to see – happy tears. You are happy, aren’t you?”

“Very much! Thanks, Mum. But what about the legal stuff? You’ll need a fostercare licence, won’t you?”

“Oh, Riley! Give me some credit. That’s all been dealt with.”

“It has? Wow. You’re incredible. Colin, Jacob, welcome to our family.”

“Thanks, Rye. It’s good to be here.”

“Okay. Well, seeing as you’re not paying customers, you can all clear-off out of my café. Riley, you can take your new brothers out to the kitchen, give them something to eat, and then you can all go up to the house and sort-out where they’re going to be sleeping.

Tomorrow, I’ll take Jacob up to see Dr. Stevens, and we’ll see about that new leg for him. Can you manage the stairs up to the house, Jacob?”

“Yes, I can do it. I won’t be running, but we’ll get there.”

“That’s good. Off you go then, Boys. I’ll be up when we’ve closed-up here, and then we’ll talk.”

After the café was closed at 7 pm, she came up to the house and settled down on a lounge chair with the laptop. She kicked her shoes off, stretched and sighed. “Oh, that’s better. So good to get off my feet. Riley, Honey, get me a coffee, would you? You can get cokes for yourself and the boys, and then all come in here and sit down.

When they were all there, she put on her reading-glasses and looked at the laptop.

“Right then, here we are. Colin James Carver-Richardson and Jacob James Carver-Richardson, born 1 May 1994, Balclutha Public Hospital. Right so far?”

“Yes!” Colin replied. “How do you know all that?”

“You’d be surprised. The records are all there if you know how to access them. Prosthetics are all branded and numbered and the manufacturers keep very good records of when they were made and who they were issued to. Besides, there’s not that many 15 year old twin boys named Colin and Jacob.

Simple really. I can’t believe how slow those welfare people are. Nevermind, I’ll fill them in on what they need to know and nothing else.

Now, Boys, do you want to fill-in the blanks up to when we found you? Remember, we’re all your friends here.”

The twins looked at each other, Colin was shaking his head. Jacob said, “No, Coll. It’s time we opened-up. Dianne needs to know and Riley should know too.”

“Well,” Colin looked around the earnest faces. “Okay then. You tell them, Jake.”

“Once upon a time, long, long ago and far, far away,” Jacob began with a grin.

“Stop mucking around, Jake. Just tell them.”

“Our parents were not married. They didn’t even live together until we were due to be born. Our loving mother was going to abort us, until they realised that we were twins. Dad was insistent that he wanted us, so they came to an arrangement. He supported her until we were born, paid her a large sum of money, and she’s never been seen since. We think that she went to Europe, but what happened then, we don’t know.

Dad kept us and he raised us. He was a good father, when he wasn’t drinking. We had no other family; no grandparents or anything. Maybe there’s some on our mother’s side, but we don’t know, we never knew her and we never found out.

Dad had no family at all, he was raised in an orphanage, which is why it was so important to him to keep us. So we grew up with just the three of us.

Dad always had lots of girlfriends. He said it was easy to pick-up women when you’re a solo father with 2 cute little kids. They never lasted long though. I guess the reality of someone else’s kids is not as good as the idea of them is. Also, as we got older, we weren’t so cute, so the women got rougher and more desperate, sort-of.”

(Riley kept quiet but he was thinking that he could argue with the not-so-cute bit.)

“Anyway, the last one was the worst of all and she moved in with us. I think it’s your turn to tell the story, Coll.”

“Ah, yeah,” Colin cleared his throat. “Anyway, we’d moved around a few times, then we settled down and Dad bought a house in Ashburton, just south of Christchurch. His new girlfriend, Janice Lawrence, moved in with us and that was the worst day of our lives. She was a bitch. Sorry, but that’s what she was.

She had 3 kids of her own, a 12 year old boy and girls aged 8 and 2. She had 5 kids really, but only 3 of them lived with her.

She was a two-faced cow. She made an effort to be nice when Dad was around, but when he wasn’t she didn’t bother. She didn’t like us and especially didn’t like Jake because he’s gay. Oops, sorry. Did we tell you that?”

“That Jacob is gay?” Mrs. Sullivan said. “No, you didn’t, but you have now.”

“Is that going to be a problem?” Jacob asked.

“A problem for me? No, why should it? I have no problems with your having red hair and you can’t help that either,” she smiled.

Both of the twins smiled widely. Colin said, “Thanks, Dianne. Riley’s right, you’re an incredible lady.”

“I’m not you know. I’m just who I am, like you boys are who you are and Riley is too.”

She looked at Riley and he blushed. (‘She must know!’) “Thanks, Mum.”

“Anyway, continue the story. The wicked step-mother and her brats moved in with you, then what?”

“That’s about what they were like. She wasn’t really a step-mother though, they weren’t married or anything. They just lived together like they were. She was always horrible to Jake and called him a queer, a freak, a cripple and a peg-leg and stuff. She called me his girlfriend, and that’s just rubbish. I love my brother but it’s not like that. I’m not gay.”

Jacob said, “I think she thought I was going to make a move on her darling son – not that that was going to happen! He was just a kid, and he was horrible. I had a boyfriend anyway. I thought I did, turns out he was horrible too. Sorry, Coll. Finish the story.”

“So, Dad died. He was on a fishing trip, at the mouth of the Rakaia River. The dinghy was swamped and he got washed overboard. He had gumboots and wet-weather gear on and no lifejacket. He had no chance and he was drowned.

After the funeral and everything was out of the way, she kicked us out. She said that it was her house now and we couldn’t stay there. She was going to put us in welfare care, but we weren’t having that. Dad grew up in an orphanage and he’d told us stories, his life was hell there. They don’t call them orphanages anymore, they’re Family Homes or Welfare Homes now, but nothing else has changed.

So, we walked out and we went to live with Jake’s boyfriend. We were 14, he was 25, but he said that he’d look after us. We only stayed there for 2 days.”

“Because?”

“Because he was a prick,” Jacob said. “He never loved anyone but himself. He wasn’t happy with just me in his bed, he wanted Coll there as well. Coll would’ve done it too, for me, but I didn’t see why he should, he’s not gay.

So we left. We got on a bus, and then we got on the train and we came here, to Kaimoana. We walked back to Geese Bay.”

Colin continued. “We camped there once, with Dad, when we were about 10 or 11. We’d found an old derelict hut, in the bush, up on the hill. It was probably left over from when there was a railway construction camp there. It was old and rough, but it was empty and there was an old garden gone wild and fruit trees and bushes everywhere. We thought we’d live there and trap possums and catch fish and shellfish.

When we got there, the hut was gone. It’d been burnt down, so we had nowhere to live, again Jake found the cave and we decided, okay, we’d live in there, like the cavemen did. It was good, for a while, like a holiday. We were together, we were having fun and no-one was bothering us.

But then winter came and it was awful. We were always cold and wet and it was hard finding stuff to eat. We’d stored a lot of crab-apples and pears, we buried them in sand, but it didn’t work. They went rotten.

We stayed in the cave, ate what we could and tried to keep warm. We got sick, slower and weaker, and cuts and scrapes just wouldn’t heal-up. The hospital people said it was malnutrition – whatever. Jake got really, really sick, with the pneumonia. I tried to look after him but he was getting worse. I thought he was going to die and I didn’t know what to do.

Then, Riley showed up, looking so healthy and happy. I wanted to ask him for help, for Jake, but I couldn’t. I was scared and I didn’t know what was going to happen to us, so I ran away and the car hit me.

Next thing I knew, I woke up in the hospital. I didn’t know where I was or what had happened to my brother. All of these people were poking and prodding and asking me questions. I just wanted them to go away and leave me alone.

Riley walked in and he talked and talked and he wouldn’t shut up! I wanted to tell him and ask him about Jacob, but I just couldn’t. Then he was going to leave me alone, I had to do something, so I talked. That’s it, you know the rest. Thank you, Riley.”