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leaving just before the holiday. Maybe just after that. I don’t have room for the kids here, as you know, but you all could do a hotel. Or you could come after Cora got back, give us a real chance to catch up.”
    Without the kids, he didn’t need to hear. He couldn’t imagine them on her pristine white couches and cream carpets anyway. Every silk-covered cushion in its place, a disaster waiting to happen. The décor had been a bit more child-friendly when he’d been growing up, but the posh new City pied-a-terre she’d bought once her career had blossomed was anything but.
    “All right, then,” he said. “We’ll plan on catching up after the holiday.”
    “Call me if you need advice, though,” she hastened to say. “I’m always here for you.”
    “Yeh,” he said. “Thanks. Talk to you soon.”
     

The Backside of a Bus
    He was hearing music in his dream. A beautiful Maori woman wearing a flax dress was singing a waiata, bare shoulders and a delicious swell of breasts above the low neckline, appearing and disappearing coyly through the waves of rich, dark hair as she went through the movements of the dance. Her hips were swaying, her rounded arms were swinging the poi, making intricate patterns in the air to accompany her song. She was looking at him, lips curving, eyes beckoning him as she sang and moved so gracefully, yet with so much seductive purpose. It was a good dream.
    And then the music changed, and she was singing, for some bizarre reason, “I’m Your Man,” by Wham!, and it jarred him out of sleep.
    There really was a woman singing, he realized, and, yes, she was singing “I’m Your Man.” Why? His window was open, and it sounded like she was singing it in his ear. He struggled up in bed, shut the window, tried to go back to sleep and failed, because he could still hear her, and she wouldn’t shut up.
    Bloody hell. Devonport, at—he glanced at the clock— five o’clock Monday morning. Of all the boring, decorous, ridiculously charming villages in New Zealand, he lived in the most boring, decorous, ridiculously charming one, and yet some drunken woman was singing in the street.
    When it didn’t stop, when she went straight into “Waterloo,” a song he loathed with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns, and that he knew would now be stuck in his head all day, he swore aloud, threw the sheet back and swung his legs out of bed. He’d been sleeping in his boxer briefs, as usual, and he struggled to pull a gray T-shirt over his head with one hand, grabbed a pair of navy-blue rugby shorts and yanked them up, thought about jandals and his sling but decided not to bother, and left the room.
    No sound from th e kids. They were asleep in their lovely quiet rooms at the back of the house. Lucky them. He opened the front door, looked out. The street was empty, the dairy across the road still dark as well. But the singing was still going on, although fainter here, and he realized it was coming from the house next door. Mrs. Alberts’ house. Since when did Mrs. Alberts belt out bad eighties pop at five o’clock in the morning?
    He hesitated, but he was annoyed now. The jet lag had got him again, that and the ache from his hand. He’d tossed and turned half th e night, started worrying, despite his words to his mother, about how he was meant to cope with the kids until Aunt Cora came back, especially if Charlie was going to be so withdrawn and Amelia so downright snotty. Then he’d got onto what Luke Hoeata was going to be doing to contest the starting No. 7 spot while Hugh was out of it, and that had chased the sleep away for good, the troubles, as always, seeming insurmountable in the dark of night. He’d finally fallen into a deep sleep only what had felt like twenty minutes ago, and now he was awake because Mrs. Alberts had to sing?
    He debated waiting until later, having a civil chat, but she wasn’t singing later, she was singing now, and he didn’t appreciate it. He made up his