All Saints: Love and Intrigue in the Stunning New Zealand Wilderness (The New Zealand Soccer Referee Series Book 1) (4 page)

“I hate that twat!”
Paulie Saint spat, watching Teina stride across the pitch. I followed his gaze
and ogled the neat buttocks encased in tight black skins beneath the referee
shorts and remembered the sight of him naked, each muscle defined with hard
lines.

“Don’t you start!”
I warned the man next to me in the wheelchair. “If you’re gonna carry on the
whole time I’ll stand somewhere else.”

“Please yourself,”
Dad said, catching Paulie’s eye and they both chuckled. “He doesn’t normally do
our games. He’s a national referee, not premier.”

“They must be short
this week,” I mused.

“You’ll be bloody
short if you dump me again like you did last night,” Dad grunted. “Making me
beg for a ride home.”

“You would’ve been
doing that, anyway!” I snapped. “We got a ride there with Mark, remember?”

“Yeah, well, what
the hell was he playing at, going off with you?” The bushy eyebrows narrowed in
suspicion and I snorted with disgust and walked away. I didn’t want to follow
my father’s dirty implication but used his filthy comment to avoid admitting we
weren’t alone.

Dad watched me
leave but the irresistible pull of the black strip claimed his attention as he
launched into a tirade of abuse towards Teina, who thankfully didn’t hear. His
lack of parentage would make little difference to his ability to control
twenty-two tantruming, bratty adults as they brawled over a round sack of air
in a muddy field. Bagging the referee took on a whole new meaning as Teina
finished conferring with his assistant referees and strode back to collect the
players waiting with impatience on the side line. My father’s volley of abuse
almost tipped him out of his wheelchair in the passionate delivery. Teina
eyeballed him and lifted his index finger in warning, drawing a number one in
the air. Dad got the message and whispered his bile to Paulie instead.

“Captains!” Teina’s
voice carried on the wind and I turned to watch as he beckoned to the team
captains and gathered them for the coin toss. The object looked invisible from
the technical area as all eyes followed something into the air and back to
earth. The All Saints captain nodded and pointed away from the club house. I
shielded my eyes and worked out the sun’s position, knowing the home team
wanted to run with the sun behind them for the first half, giving them an
advantage in the second. At half time the sun would pitch behind the buildings
opposite. Crafty. I eyed the opposition and hoped they prepared to spend
forty-five minutes blind. My eyes strayed to Teina, realising they’d condemned
him as well.

Teina’s eyes
flicked to me for a fraction of a second and I watched as his lips raised in a
smile. Misinterpreting it, My father launched into another ready stream of
rubbish. “Look, Paulie. Bloody ref’s smiling at me!” he yelled and I cringed,
wishing the ground could swallow me whole.

I backed away from
the line of spectators as the teams got into position, finding a space over
near the railings separating the car park from the grounds. My brain ran
through a list of places I’d rather be right then; anywhere but there.

“Hey sweetheart,
how are ya?” Terry Saint approached me, striding from the car park pressing the
remote in his hand to lock the expensive BMW. My body stiffened, adding his
presence to the list of bad things about the soccer club, but I forced a
dutiful smile onto my lips to greet my father-in-law.

“Hi, Uncle Terry,
I’m good thanks. You?” He nodded and his eyes strayed to the number one pitch
as the whistle blew for kick off.

“How did the
reserves do?” he asked, searching the field and spotting Paulie and my father.

“Lost,” I answered,
praying he made a beeline for them and released me. “It was close but Mount
Albert scored in the dying minutes. The final score was 3:2 to them.”

Terry Saint hissed
through his teeth, brow knitted. “My Pete would’ve dug them out of the crap!”
he spat. “That boy could kick from anywhere.”

My chest tensed and
I held my self upright, forcing my head to nod in agreement while my heart
demanded I run away screaming. Since his death, Peter Saint had somehow become
Saint Peter, a hero of renown instead of a bad tempered player, scorned by the
referees and cringed at by his wife. I said nothing and my father’s cousin
stared at me, his jaw grinding almost audibly. He looked for affirmation but
after my romp with Teina, I no longer felt able to give it.

“Dad’s over there,”
I said, pointing a shaking finger and Terry nodded.

“Where’s Mark?”

“Haven’t seen him,”
I said, realising how odd the sentence sounded. “That’s weird. He must still be
hung-over. His car’s in the carpark over there.” I pointed and Terry raised a
grey eyebrow and pulled a face.

“Better bloody not
be! Not on game day. We’re paying that joker to see it through. Twat!”

I kept my face
neutral, studying the flaccid chins which hung from Terry’s jawline. Pete might
have developed the wobbling flesh if he hadn’t finished life with his body
splayed over his car bonnet, covered in shards of windscreen. Lucky escape. For
both of us. The chins would have embarrassed him and irritated me.

“How are you
keeping? Job going well?” Terry’s question oozed politeness and we both played
the game like professionals.

“Fine thanks.” I
smiled with genuine pleasure at the thought of my class of five and
six-year-olds. They were all someone’s babies, entrusted into my care for six
precious hours a day and I loved each one of them. “I enjoy my job.”

“Margaret wishes
you’d visit,” Terry said, lighting up a cigarette and blowing the smoke away
from my face. He pulled a wisp of tobacco from his lip and ground his heels
into the grass. “She misses you.”

“Yeah. Sorry.” I
didn’t sound it and couldn’t elaborate, unable to explain I no longer wished to
worship at the shrine of Peter Saint with his mother. I didn’t want to light
candles and cry over his baby photos. We’d married under duress, pushed into it
by Terry and my father in an attempt to tame the free range team captain and
produce other little Saints. Eleven of them; enough for a home grown football
team. Twenty-five, single and jaded, they’d marched me down the aisle on a
carpet of promises and five years later I felt jaded and used. No security, no
babies and no happy ever after materialised after the flamboyant ceremony and
requisite after match bash at the soccer club. It took everything I owned to
pay off the debts Pete left me in his last will and testament, selling the
flash house in Devonport to pay the biggest of the bills and settling the rest
with my car and a personal loan I’d still be paying for another six months. I
stared at the man in front of me, a man I used to respect and felt the hatred
rise up like bile.  “Actually, I’m not sorry,” I said, my eyes blazing.

Terry took a drag
on his cigarette and stopped mid pull, staring at me. “What?”

“You heard!” I
snapped. “I’m not sorry I don’t visit Aunty Margaret. Why don’t you both drive
across the bridge and visit me in my tiny apartment? Are you afraid it might
invoke guilt at the state your son left me in?”

Terry rounded on me
with the eyes of a madman. “Don’t you dare speak ill of my Pete!”

“Your Pete was a
waster!” I spat. I took a step forward, the rage breaking through the veneer of
pretence and spewing over into my mouth. My romp with Teina infused me with
courage at the realisation someone on the planet desired me. Desired me enough
to spend most of the night repeating the conscience pricking error. “Why will
you not open your bloody eyes?” My voice rose to a wail and people turned from
the side lines to stare.

Terry shook his
head and reached out to grab me by the shoulders but the monster broke free
from my chest and I opened my mouth to say it, announcing to the world the
horror of my life married to Peter Saint. “He was a...” The words gained no
traction as Terry Saint’s hand came down across my face, the slap ringing out
across the soccer ground. A collective gasp rippled along the spectators and a
few of the women headed towards us as a brave mob of female solidarity. My
cheek and mouth stung with the impact and I tasted metallic blood when I
swallowed. I put my hand up to my face and sensed the flesh already swelling
into a welt. As the first of the women reached us I turned and ran, sprinting
to the car park and nipping through a divide into the bushes onto the main
road.

“Ursula, come
back!” My cousin Alysha clacked across the car park in her platform shoes and I
knew she wouldn’t run after me.

“Just leave me
alone!” I cried, waving my hand at her as I dodged traffic and crossed two
lanes to the centre island. The bus stop loomed on the other side and I
cringed, abandoning my father in his wheelchair to the mercy of passers-by, yet
again. Someone would drive him back to the rest home, just like they had last
night; the night I’d discovered the off field talents of the referee and
quashed the sexual ineptitude of my dead husband.

A bus arrived with
a hiss of gas from its exhaust, waiting the few seconds for me to run to its
open doors. The ride took half an hour through the suburbs of Auckland and my
face smarted by the time I let myself into the apartment block, using the lift
to get to the third floor. Four flats occupied each level in what used to be
the billets for nurses working at the main hospital and despite being crammed
in, I hardly ever saw my neighbours. Loud music issued from the apartment
nearest the lift and the heady scent of curry wafted around the lobby, so thick
I could have taken a bite out of the air. I let myself into my soulless
apartment and closed the door, resting my back against it while I caught my
breath.

“You nearly said
it,” I breathed. A hysterical laugh bubbled up inside my chest and I put my
hand over my mouth as I gulped curried air. “Five years of pretending and you
almost said it out loud.” My chest hitched and misery followed daring as I
remembered Uncle Terry’s ashen face as he administered the slap. It told me
more than years of his placatory words ever had. He knew.

Bile coursed into my
throat and I struggled not to retch onto the floorboards in my tiny hallway. I
hated Terry and Margaret Saint with a passion which felled me, dropping me to
my knees with the strength of it. Did my father know too? Had he any idea what
his incestuous plan committed me to? I prayed not, with all the remains of my
fractured heart.

I stood in the bathroom holding a wad of damp cotton wool over the
bleeding cut inside my mouth. A red, man sized handprint covered the left side
of my face and the ice pack held in my other hand did little to reduce the
swelling. “Great!” I hissed at my reflection in the mirror. “Foundation won’t
cover that up on Monday.”

My cell phone
buzzed on the lid of the toilet, dancing itself onto the floor with a dull
thunk. I ignored it as I had the other multiple times. I lost count after
twelve. I lifted the lid of the toilet and flushed the blood stained balls of
cotton wool, watching them swirl away like little red ballerinas. I bent and
picked my phone off the bathmat where it vibrated itself, contemplating
flushing it too. Not one name in my contacts list inspired me with the urge to
call them back; not even my father.

I dropped the lid
and shoved the phone into my jeans. In the kitchen I grappled another ice pack
from the freezer and pushed the limp one in to chill. Perhaps if I iced my face
for the next twenty-four hours, I might make it to work on Monday without the
endless childish questions about what happened. My eyes teared up at the
thought of the hundreds of tender kisses any kind of hurt induced in my captive
audience and I loved them for their genuine concern. Every one of the children
in my care possessed more worth than any of the adults charged with the
unenviable task of loving me for myself.

Nosing in the
fridge produced nothing of interest. I fancied crusty bread and cheese but knew
the chewing motion would open up the cut inside my mouth and closed the fridge
against the prospect of more cotton wool dabbing.

The cell phone
buzzed again with a text and feeling I could deal with that, I clicked buttons
and read the message. Dad’s number gave way to a list of badly spelled swear
words and I swallowed, looking for the point of the text. He must have heard
about Terry’s slap and yet his text contained nothing about my public
humiliation. Only complaints.

‘Stop bluddy
leaving me places!
’ he grumbled, the
message ending with three more unrepeatable swear words.

I closed the
message and saw four other flashing envelopes, reading them one at a time.

‘What the hell
happened?’

‘Are you ok?’

‘What’s going
on?’

‘I called the
cops.’

I groaned in
dismay. The four texts came from Alysha and I heard the anxiety in her tone
when she got no response. With great reluctance I messaged her back.

‘You shouldn’t
have. I’m fine
.’

Her response beamed
onto my screen, her shock evident.

‘I saw him hit you.
He’s not getting away with it.’

I rang her, finding
the prospect of a lengthy text argument unpleasant. “Why’d you call the cops,
Alysha? If I wanted them involved, I’d do it myself.”

“No, you wouldn’t!”
Alysha exclaimed. “The Saint men have been shoving you around your whole life
and it’s time for it to stop.”

“You don’t
understand,” I began and her shrill voice stopped me.

“Like hell I don’t
understand!” she snapped. “They married you off like they were donating an
organ and you’ve lived with the consequences. I’m sick of watching them treat
you like dirt. For goodness sake speak to the cops when they come looking for
you.”

“What do you mean?”
My voice rose to a shriek. “You didn’t give them my address?”

“Of course I did.
Make sure you tell them everything.”

I slid down the
fridge until my bum hit the floor tiles, squeezing the bridge of my nose
between thumb and forefinger. “What a mess!”

“A mess they made,
Ursula, not you.”

“I take it Dad got
home.” I sighed, wrinkling my nose at his tactless message. “He’s not happy;
I’m sure I’ll never hear the last of that.”

“He’s a selfish old
man. None of them deserve you, babe. You speak to those cops when they show
up.”

“If they show up.”
I comforted myself with the thought that Auckland cops had better things to do
than arrest a spiteful old man for slapping a relative. 

I settled on a tin
of tomato soup and regretted it as the vinegar stung my lip. The buzzing of the
intercom drove me to the handset and I lifted it, expecting the dulcet tones of
a police officer. Instead I got Margaret Saint, her voice wavering in distress.
“I need to talk to you,” she said and I imagined her standing on the front step
wringing her hands.

“I’m not up to
visitors,” I replied and hung up. Peter’s mother epitomised everything involved
in the words ‘helicopter’ and ‘mother.’ She’d blown his nose until the day of
his wedding, loaned him cash on demand and probably breast fed him up until his
death. I closed my eyes and prayed she went away, otherwise I’d be forced to
call the cops myself.

She rang again and
again and during a momentary pause, I disconnected the handset and left it
dangling from the unit.

I groaned in misery
as the hammering began on my front door, suspecting she’d persuaded one of my
neighbours to give her entry. I looked through the peep hole and sure enough,
Aunty Margaret bounced on the balls of her feet to bang on my door, her thin
lips pursed into a straight line and her face set in a look of determination.
As I heard other doors on my level bang, I pitied my neighbours enough to swing
open the door and face the angry woman on the other side. “Come in!” I said
with a decent injection of sarcasm as Margaret pushed past me. The Indian man
across the hall shot me a look of consternation and I saw his eyes move across
my face to the swollen lip and the bright red hand mark across my cheek. I gave
him a smile which didn’t reach my eyes and closed the door.

“You set the cops
on Terry!” Her voice rose as she faced me, her piggy eyes larger than usual
behind the milk bottle bottomed glasses.

I shook my head,
wondering if she’d missed the slap mark and faced her down. “No, I didn’t. I
haven’t spoken to the cops. Please leave.”

“I’m your
mother-in-law!” she barked, putting her pudgy hands on her ample waist and
rocking backwards and forwards on her sensible shoes. “You can’t throw me out.
And you did ring them. They showed up at the club and spoke to Terry.”

“Well, they haven’t
spoken to me!”

Margaret lowered
her voice and moderated her tone, wheedling me back into line. “Don’t be like
this with me, Ursula. We can sort this out between ourselves.”

“You knew, didn’t
you?” I asked, dread creeping up the back of my neck in a slow, prickling line.
“Is that why you cooked up a marriage of convenience? It’s not a crime to be
gay anymore, or didn’t you realise?”

Margaret took a
step backwards, her face pale with shock. “Gay!” Her eyes bugged and her breath
came in snatches, the wind knocked right out of her. “My Pete wasn’t gay!”

Tiredness enveloped
my whole body and I turned and strode into my kitchen, slumping in a rickety
chair. I rubbed my eyes with my fingers and caught the painful welt on my
cheek. “Please don’t tell me you really believed he went out drinking on
Saturday nights and slept with women.” The sadness in my own voice seemed to
strip away the last of my resolve. “He kept it secret for the first few years
but it ate him up. He picked the wrong guy to bend over to in a toilet near
Eden Park and they raped him and took his wallet and phone.”

Margaret’s hand
slipped up to her mouth, her eyes squeezed shut tight, defending herself
against my words. I didn’t have the energy to spare her anymore. “The debts he
left me were from drinking and borrowing money to pay for rent boys. Pete ran
through cash like there was no tomorrow and it caught up with him. The house
sale cleared most of it but I’ve still got six months left of a year’s loan to
finish. I asked you for help and you refused. I owe you nothing so get out of
my home.”

My mother-in-law
gaped and her hands flapped in front of her face. “You’re a liar!” she wailed.
“He was fine until he met you.”

I laughed, the
sound low and cruel. “He slept with me twice, Margaret, once on our honeymoon
night, probably on your instructions so I couldn’t undo the marriage when I
found out and once when he was very drunk and you wouldn’t shut up about
grandchildren. When he called me after the rent boys beat him up, I had myself
tested for all the nasties he might have been carrying and I never went near
him again.” I fixed my dark eyes on her face, animosity for her gone in the
relief of my cathartic confession. “It was all about him, Aunty Margaret. He
couldn’t cope with who he was because you wouldn’t let him. If you’d just
accepted him when he tried to tell you, he might still be here.” I felt
sickness rise into my gullet and remembered her spiteful accusation after
Pete’s funeral. The words felt like acid on my flesh as she’d blamed me for her
son’s death, stalking after his casket with a belly full of righteous
indignation and stonewalling my pleas for help as I sold everything to rid
myself of his debt.

“He was fine until
he met you,” she repeated. “You killed him. His suicide note broke my heart.”
Her voice rose to a squeak and I stood, pointing towards the tiny corridor
leading to my front door.

“I need you to
leave. I haven’t spoken to the cops and I don’t know if I will. Just get out
and leave me alone. I’m done with the Saints and everything you stand for.”

Margaret rallied as
the tears pricked behind her glassy eyes. She stared at my raised finger and
fixed me with an icy stare. “You were born a Saint and you’ll die one,” she
spat.

I shook my head and
pitied her, reminding me of my maiden name, the label they sullied with their
interference. I daily asked myself why I did it; why I put on a wedding band in
good faith and hitched myself into an impossible yolk. Because I was too
trusting and already heartbroken; that’s why. Peter Saint caught me on the raw
and I believed his proclamations of enduring love and the promise of children.
Even after I found out about his homosexuality there’d been understanding, or
so I thought. Until the suicide note the cops found in the glove box of his
wrecked car. ‘
I can’t do this anymore.
’ More fool me.

“I’ll speak to your
father!” she declared, drawing herself up to her full height and almost
eclipsing her face with her ample breasts in the process.

“You do that.” I
heard the exhaustion in my voice. “I’m finding the burden of Pete’s secret hard
to bear right now. It’d be best if I told the truth. I can’t have everyone
thinking his life revolved around the club and bringing on the fresh young
players of tomorrow, when really he’d gravitated towards them for entirely
different reasons.” Even the thought made me sick and guilt flared in my chest
at the implied lie. Pete loved his job and it felt cruel to sully his good work
that way.

But it worked.
Margaret Saint took a step back and lowered her armoured chest. “You wouldn’t?”
She didn’t sound sure. Her eyes widened and filled with tears and the gentle
side of me ached to reassure her I’d exaggerated. My bitch-self pushed to the
fore, needing to hurt her for five wasted years of my life; my childbearing
years.

“I dunno, Aunty.” I
shook my head and faked uncertainty for something I’d never do; not in a
million years. “Catching the bus to work every day because I sold a nice car to
pay your son’s debts can make a girl mighty miserable. Living in a shoebox when
I owned a perfectly nice house once; that can take its toll too. Then there’s
that debt I’m still paying which makes me count my outgoings hard enough to
stop me living my life; yeah, that makes me so depressed. I’ve been approached
by a magazine wanting an interview. Pete was a real celebrity, especially after
being called up to the nationals last year.” I sighed. “The fee would wipe out
the debt and give me enough for a car, according to what the journo said.” I
pointed at the door. “Goodbye, Aunty Margaret. Don’t come back.”

“You’re
blackmailing me.” She said the words in a reverend hush, as though her husband
was the only one allowed to box people into nasty corners. My eyes narrowed as
I applied the label to myself and took a step into criminality. That’s exactly
what I’d done; without realising.

I bit my lip and
then smiled, wondering why I’d never thought of it before. “I’d like to think
of it more as a parting gift from generous in-laws,” I said, feeling
invincible. I took a step towards her, pointing again at the door and ushering
her out of my safe place. She went, looking at me over her shoulder with a
newfound respect in her expression. “Oh, by the way.” I pointed to my swollen
cheek. “I’ve taken photos of this, should I ever need to use them.”

I closed the door
and pressed my face against the cold wood as nausea pressed into my throat. The
bathroom mirror offered no relief as the jagged shape of Terry’s ring showed as
a welt under my eye and bruising spread outwards. The All Saints logo showed
itself backwards in an ugly circle of red and black and I pressed it, watching
the skin turn white and then back to purple as I let go. “What kind of moron
wears a ring so the important bit’s on the inside?” I asked myself. Uncle
Terry, that’s who. It was the reason he’d slapped instead of fisted me too. I
stared at my reflection and considered the difference between yesterday and
today. I looked altered, having leapt a giant moral chasm in less than
twenty-four hours and gained the Saint insignia like a brand on my face.