Just for Fun (41 page)

When the knock finally came, she was sitting on the bed with
Zack, reading to him as he held Raffo tight. She jumped at the sound, then
dashed to the door and was with him at last. She hadn’t realized how much she’d
missed the security of his arms until they were around her again and he was holding
her tight, kissing her as if he couldn’t bear to let her go.

Nic reached out for Zack, standing behind his mother and
clutching Raffo. “Come here, mate. Come have a cuddle as well.” He pulled Zack
into his arms, felt himself tearing up at the feeling of the small body pressed
against his own. Stood back, finally, to look at the boy.

“You’re all ready for bed, I see. What did you think of your
first flight to the Northern Hemisphere?”

“Long,” Zack said.

“Yeh,” Nic had to laugh a bit at that. “Still want to be an
All Black? I should warn you, you’d end up doing a fair few of those journeys
in the course of a year.”

Zack nodded. Still shy with him despite everything, Nic saw.
“Come have a chat with me,” he told his son. He looked at Emma, saw the
agreement on her face. “Show me where your bed is.”

“Another big bed with heaps of pillows, eh,” he said, taking
a seat on the edge of the bed and waiting while Zack climbed up to sit beside
him. Then paused, not sure how to begin.

“You’ve heard some things about me, I know, while I’ve been
gone,” he told Zack at last. “And I know it’s got you a bit confused. That’s
why I’m so glad you’re here with me now, so I can talk it over with you face to
face, put things right.”

Zack looked up at him doubtfully, held Raffo a bit closer.
Nic saw his hands running over the giraffe’s little horns, pulling at the ears,
and his heart twisted with pain for his boy.

“For example,” he went on, “I know you heard somebody say
that I didn’t want you. That I didn’t want you for my son.”

Zack had his head bent now. Nic had to lean close to hear
the words, spoken so softly. “You prob’ly wanted a different boy. Somebody who
didn’t cry. Somebody brave, like you.”

“Nah, mate,” Nic said around the constriction in his throat.
“I wanted somebody exactly like you. Somebody who loves footy as much as I do.
Somebody who loves his mum enough to ask me for a cricket bat so he can protect
her from a Bad Guy. That’s the kind of brave boy I want. And that’s the kind
I’ve got. Because you’re
my
boy. You’re my son, and you always will be.
And dads always love their sons. That’s forever.”

Zack turned to him, looked up at him. Tears were streaming
down the little face, the eyes, so like Nic’s own, staring beseechingly into
his. And then Nic was crying too, and pulling Zack to him, holding him close, the
way he’d always wanted to.

Emma looked cautiously in at the door. Nic looked up,
laughed through the tears that were spilling down his own cheeks now. “Come on
in,” he told her. “Come join this party. We’re just in here having a regular
old father-son weepfest.”

She came to sit on the other side of Zack, reached out to
stroke his head. The boy’s sobs eased at last, and Emma got up and went into
the bathroom, came out with a handful of tissues. She handed a batch to Nic
with a smile, then cleaned Zack up, gave him a hug and kiss.

“OK,” she told him gently. “Bedtime. You and Raffo get
snuggled down here. Because your dad and I need to have a talk ourselves.”

Zack got under the covers obediently, his eyes still red and
swollen. He accepted his mother’s goodnight kiss, then turned to Nic again.

“Can you kiss me too?” he asked. “Dad?”

“Aw, geez,” Nic said, taking a shuddering breath on the bed
in Emma’s room five minutes later. He’d really let go after that. He’d known it
felt good to hold her while she cried. He’d never have guessed that the roles
could be reversed. Or that he’d be all right with that.

Emma held him to her, rubbed her hand over his back. “The
thing about kids is,” she said, “they take your heart. And it’s never entirely
your own again. A piece of it is always with them, forever.”

“Yeh.” He blew his nose again. “Yeh. Between you and Zack,”
he smiled crookedly, “reckon my heart’s pretty well parceled out by now.
Because I need you both so much. I need you to help me become the man I want to
be. The man I ought to be.”

“Oh, Nic,” she said softly. “Don’t you know? You already
are.”

Emma’s memories of that World Cup final were, forever
afterwards, a mixture of impressions colored by emotion. The monstrous stadium
at Twickenham, filled to its capacity of 82,000 with supporters from all
nations, but especially, of course, those from South Africa and New Zealand. Singing
along to the familiar strains of Aotearoa during the anthems, seeing the
commitment on the faces of the men in black jerseys, the silver fern blazing
over their hearts as they represented their country tonight. Watching them
perform the spectacular Kapa o Pango haka reserved for the most important
occasions, their ferocity seeming, as always, completely genuine. The tense battle
of the first half, the lead shifting back and forth, hinging on the penalty
kicks. And Nic, putting on a complete show under the high ball, pushing the
attack, making his lightning decisions before the ball even reached him,
seeming as always to be able to see three plays ahead. Spectacular as the last
line of All Black defense. Making it all look so easy.

The lessons of the previous week hadn’t gone unlearnt, it
was clear. Nobody was taking victory for granted tonight. But that didn’t mean
it was going to come easily for either squad. When the teams trotted into the
sheds at the halftime break, the score was a bare 9 to 6 in favor of the All
Blacks, and several players on each team had already retired to the blood bin.
Whoever won, as Nic had said about that earlier game against the Springboks,
the All Blacks would know they’d played a match tomorrow.

The second half was shaping up as more of the same, a tough
defensive struggle, the flashes of offensive brilliance limited by the grim
determination of both forward packs. And then there were a bare nine minutes to
play, and the score was 9 to 11, with the Springboks leading. And, worse, in
possession of the ball near the All Black 22, attempting a short kick and
recovery that would all but put the game away, if they scored. After all this,
Emma thought with her heart in her mouth, all the sweat and pain, all the hours
and kilometers in the air, were they going to lose now?

The kick, though, misdelivered in the heat of the moment,
going out of touch near the All Black 5, and a lineout awarded to the New
Zealand side. The hooker throwing the ball in, the jumpers on both sides being
lifted by their teammates to swat at it. The expectancy in the stadium like a
physical thing. A hand on the ball, and it was on its way back to Nic, standing
far behind the tryline. Three Springboks coming for him. If one of them got the
ball and went to ground with it, the game would be won, the deficit nearly impossible
to make up.

Nic, catching the ball in those sure hands and somehow sending
it instantly off his right boot again. Low and hard, to the right of the
surging Springboks. Not just kicked out of danger. Kicked with pinpoint
accuracy to an All Black wing who took it and ran.

Down the pitch, hand to hand, closer and closer to their opponents’
tryline. A punishing Springbok tackle 40 meters out. Too punishing, as it
turned out. A high tackle, and the All Black fans in the stadium emitting a
cheer in unison at the awarding of the penalty kick. So far out, and the angle
made it worse, but Hemi had made more difficult kicks, even this night.

 The crowd on its feet now. Kiwi hands clasped to mouths,
hoping, praying for the kick to go through, fans in green roaring their support
for their team. Hemi setting up, his expression intense. Calculating angles. And
then running to the ball, kicking it away. The cheer that began as the ball
seemed certain to sail through, turning to a groan when it bounced off the crossbar
and back out onto the field. Drew Callahan, the captain somehow, always, just
that fraction more alert than anyone else, catching it on the bounce, less than
ten meters out. Charging straight through the defenders, caught by surprise,
and across the line. Touching down to score the try, to win the match.

A half second to grasp what had happened, and the stadium
erupted. Emma was crying, pulling Zack to her, as, around her, the rest of the
players’ friends and families did the same. Jenna, holding her sleeping baby,
was weeping as well. The two women turned to each other, laughed at each
others’ tears, then watched as Hemi slotted the conversion through. The score was
16 to 11, the game was over, and the World Cup was somehow, impossibly,
miraculously in All Black hands once again.

They stayed for the awarding of the trophy, of course, and the
sight of the team standing on the risers, medals around their necks. The
speeches and the confetti, the celebration in the stands. Jenna’s baby woke in
the middle of it all and began to cry, and the two women looked at each other
and smiled.

“Finn would say, that’s a reminder of what’s really
important,” Jenna said, pulling out a receiving blanket and preparing to feed
Lily. “And that we need to get these kids back to the hotel pretty soon.”

Emma laughed, still lightheaded with relief and happiness.
“You’re right. It’s after ten, and Lily’s not going to be the only one crying,
any time now.”

Waiting, back at the hotel, for Nic. Putting Zack to bed,
then unable to sit still. Turning the TV on, then off again. It was after three
by the time she heard the knock, and by then, she had at last fallen asleep.
She didn’t bother with a dressing gown, just ran to the door and pulled him
inside.

She laughed as his arms came around her, as he lifted her
off her feet and kissed her, his mouth still tasting of champagne, as he walked
her backward toward the bed. He was laughing too, laughing and pulling his
shoes off at the same time. And she was pulling off his warmup jacket, his
T-shirt, as heedless for once of the bruises and scrapes beneath as he was
himself. Falling backward with him on top of her, feeling him pushing up the
pink nightdress, for once not managing to take it off her. One more
affirmation. One final celebration. One last World Cup victory.

“Where are we going?” Emma asked as the taxi pulled up
outside Paddington Station the next morning. “I thought you said lunch.”

“We
are
having lunch. And then we’re taking a rail
journey.”

“What? Why? Zack . . .”

“Is safe with Jenna and Finn,” Nic said firmly. “And they
know we’ll be gone for a bit.”

“This is us,” he said as the announcement for Bath came over
the loudspeaker and the train pulled slowly into the station. He got up from
the seat in the first-class compartment and took her hand.

“Bath? That’s the mystery destination?” she asked, her
confusion now complete. “Why?”

“It’s a surprise,” he said. “A good one.”

“I’ve heard of going to Disneyland when you win,” she said,
stepping down onto the platform. “But Bath is a new one. Are we revisiting your
old haunts? Is that it? You want to show me where you played, when you lived in
England?” A bit insensitive, but she couldn’t really be upset with him. Not any
more.

“Yeh,” he said. “Less than a kilometer to walk, and it’s
quite pretty. Ten minutes or so. Want to do that, or get a taxi?”

“Walk,” she said immediately, looking at the graceful buildings
that prevailed here in the center of the ancient city. “I can do ten minutes,
even in heels.” And besides, she wanted to walk with him. To hold his hand,
hear him talk about the evening before, or be quiet. Either way. Just to be
with him.

“So we really
are
revisiting your past,” she said at
the end of their short journey. “That has to be the stadium.”

“Yeh,” Nic said. “The Rec.”

“I guess it’s good to see it, but it’s not my favorite thing
to remember, you know, that time when you were here.”

“And that’s exactly why we’re doing it,” he explained. “It’s
because this is where I came, after I left you. Where I was while you were
pregnant with Zack, and while he was a baby too. That’s why it seemed like a good
idea to bring you here now, today, the way I wish I’d done back then. Full
circle, or something like that.”

She still didn’t understand, but it was obviously important
to him. “So what was it like for you?” she asked, walking with him along the
long pathway towards a side gate.

“Exciting,” he admitted. “Terrifying, sometimes. Lonely.
Another Kiwi overseas.”

“Not that lonely, I’ll bet,” she said with a sidelong glance
at him. “I remember what you said. You didn’t want to be safe. You wanted to
have every adventure.”

He laughed. “You could be right, at that. Not very delicate
of you, referring to my wild younger days. We’re meant to just draw a blank
over that bit. I
did
settle down, like I told you, once I was back home
again. I was just young, and thoughtless, and stupid. As we both know.”

They had reached the gate now, and it was being pulled open
by a lean older man in coveralls, who greeted Nic with a friendly handshake,
and offered the same to Emma on Nic’s introduction.

“Cheers, mate,” Nic told him. “Frank here was kind enough to
agree to let us in today,” he told Emma. “He hasn’t quite forgotten me, it
seems, though it’s been a wee while. Course, he won some money on the boys and
me, back in the day.”

“And this time as well,” Frank agreed. “I had a bit on, on
the All Blacks that is. Don’t tell them down the pub, but I did at that. You
had me worried a couple times, but you won me a bit of beer money in the end,
didn’t you? Course, the odds weren’t good,” he acknowledged. “But you can’t
have everything.”