Close Encounters

9

Close Encounters

    “Stop trying to run my life!” said Mirry fiercely.

    Hamish gaped at her. The colour ran up his muscular neck and flooded his pale face. “I—”

    “Yes, you were!” said Mirry fiercely before he could say he wasn’t.

    “But—”

    “Look, I told you! I’ve already made my arrangements; I can’t change all my plans now!”

    “But it’d work out so well,” he said weakly.

    “You should’ve thought of that before!” cried Mirry, glaring.

    It was the last week of the winter term. Sylvie and Elspeth were going to spend two weeks of the August school holidays down on his parents’ farm in Taranaki, but Hamish was going only for the first week, since he had a lot of work to do, and Peter Riabouchinsky, who might have done some of it for him, had perversely decided to take the whole three weeks of the University vacation as his honeymoon—which, of course, he was perfectly entitled to do.

    Mirry had made arrangements quite some time earlier to go on a dig with some of her archaeological friends for the second week of the holidays, and after that to go down to the South Island with one of these friends for the third week. What made it worse was that this friend was male. She had already objected strenuously to Hamish’s criticism of this plan: two other friends, one male and one female, were accompanying them on this trip to Phil’s parents’ place in Marlborough, so she couldn’t see what the Hell the fuss was about. Hamish had unwisely tried to persuade her that it would be much better to cancel her plans for the second week of the holidays in order to spend time with him while his wife was away. Mirry was all the more incensed because she realized how marvellous this would be—only, as she’d just said, she’d made all her arrangements well in advance, and here was Hamish expecting her to change them at the last moment! Because she was shy about her financial position and Hamish refused to let her pay a cent towards the rent of the flat, she didn’t reveal that Professor Crichton and Dr Powell, more normally known as Geoff and Alice, paid their student labour—not much, admittedly, but you also got food and shelter. She was saving up madly in order to be able to support herself next year without her parents’ help: she’d decided not to go back to the hostel, whatever Mum and Dad said, and to pay the rent of the flat herself. She had not imparted any of this to Hamish, either.

    Hamish stared at her in baffled exasperation; Mirry glared in a mixture of defiance, misery, because she did so want to be able to spend that week with him, and feminist indignation, not realizing at all that she’d reacted so strongly to his attempt to direct her life in this quite minor matter because she wanted quite dreadfully for him to do so on a permanent basis—and he had so far shown no signs whatsoever of intending to leave his wife, or even of thinking about it.

    “Mirry—” he said weakly at last.

    “I don’t want to talk about it!” said Mirry loudly. Her voice cracked on the last word. She turned her head away from him and scowled furiously.

    They were having this conversation, like most of their conversations—long, comfortable, rambling ones, usually—in bed. The heater was on, so was the electric blanket, and they were deliciously warm under the big duvet that Hamish had insisted on buying over Mirry’s protestations that Basil and Gary had stacks of spare blankets they could borrow. Hamish, who had provisioned the flat not only with everything that he thought Mirry could conceivably need but also with several items for his own comfort, had a small malt at his left elbow. He was left-handed, a trait which Mirry found entrancingly sexy—especially when he forgot to take his watch off, and reached for her with his big, pale hand and his naked, golden-furred arm with the watch on his wrist. Mirry, who still had no taste for spirits, had a mug of herb tea at her right. Now she reached for the herb tea and drank it without noticing that it had got cold during their argument.

    Hamish looked doubtfully at her defiant little profile and said, in what in a cooler moment she would have recognized as a pathetic voice: “I don’t want to run your life; I only thought... it’d be nice.”

    “Huh!” She set the mug down sharply.

    Hamish failed to grasp what implications she was reading into this remark: he’d been living the last four months in a daze of sexual pleasure, and hadn’t thought at all about what he was doing, why he was doing it, or what its results might be. Somewhere at the back of his mind, however, he was uncomfortably aware of the age difference between them, and in his gloomier moments, which usually coincided with Mirry’s essays, would brood on the fact that some day, on some future date which he did not specify at all to himself, she would wake up to this awful gap, and leave him for a younger man.

    “I never meant to—to hurt your feelings,” he said feebly.

    “Huh!” She wriggled down under the duvet and hunched herself up.

    Hamish relapsed into miserable, baffled silence. His state was not improved by the realization that he wanted to do it again; he had discovered to his astonishment that he could not infrequently manage to do it twice between the hours of seven in the evening and one in the morning, which were the times he normally spent with Mirry, at least four nights out of seven, unless she had an essay. If Sylvie asked him where the Hell he was going—which she hardly ever did, being only too glad to have him out of the house—he replied: “To the office, where do you think?” Quite often he didn’t go home for dinner, but merely phoned to tell Sylvie he’d be working late. She would respond to this information with a grunt, or if she was in a worse mood than usual, with a snort.

    Since Mirry was, as she’d once said, “practically a vegetarian”, and provided him with meals of nutmeat, dried beans, or wholemeal pasta invariably accompanied by huge salads containing all sorts of vegetables which he would never have dreamed of eating raw (thinly sliced parsnip and turnip, for instance, both of which were quite delicious) Hamish’s health had improved greatly over the past four months: he had had no colds at all, and no longer suffered from either constipation or diarrhoea, both of which had plagued him in alternation for the last five years. His belly was flatter than ever, to Mirry’s satisfaction, and at the suggestion of Bill Michaels from the Engineering Department he had taken up both badminton (which he hadn’t played since his early twenties) and working out at the gym on a regular basis.

    After quite a period of silence he said miserably: “Mebbe I’d better go.”

    Instead of replying, as she was supposed to, that he should stay (and make love to her again), Mirry said grumpily: “Do that.”

    He got silently out of bed and climbed into his clothes. “E-er… Well, I’ll be away, then,” he said hesitantly.

    “Go ON, then!” shouted Mirry, suddenly sitting bolt upright and hurling a pillow across the room.

    Hamish went.

    Mirry cast herself face down on one of the remaining pillows and cried her eyes out.

    Next day a huge bunch of red roses arrived at the flat at ten in the morning while Mirry, after very little sleep, was still in bed. A very shy and squeaky little voice rang Hamish at work and said: “Thank you for the roses.”

    Fortunately he was alone in his office and the door was closed because of the awful draughts in the old wooden building, for he immediately got a tremendous erection. Huskily he said into the phone: “Will you be there this evening? Can I come round?”

    “Yes,” said Mirry in a squeaky little voice.

    Scarlet in the face, heart thumping madly, he said: “I’ll see you then, then; at—er—about four? Is that too early?”

    “No—I mean yes—I mean, that’s okay.”

    Since he wasn’t at all sure about the discretion of the University’s telephone operators he merely replied huskily: “Good. E-er, well—I’d better go.”

    “Yes,” said Mirry squeakily. She wanted to say she loved him but thought she’d better not, as he was always afraid that someone might be listening in. “Good-bye, then.”

    “Aye. Bye-bye.”

    They had a joyous reconciliation, but Hamish didn’t dare to re-introduce the topic of the holidays. And Mirry didn’t change her mind.

    Becky Rosen had successfully avoided meeting Hamish Macdonald four times: twice when she and Jim had been invited to her parents’ place to dine during her pregnancy and she had pleaded queasiness; once when Peter had invited them to his flat during Veronica’s May holidays and she had pleaded exhaustion, since her baby (another girl, to Sir Jerry’s gloom but not to his surprize—Sharon) was only two months old; and—to her mother’s hurt surprize and Sir Jerry’s considerable annoyance—on the occasion of Veronica’s engagement party itself. Now, in August, she had arrived at the Registry Office for the wedding, huddled in the dark mink that had once been Lady Cohen’s against the freezing wind, without the slightest suspicion that the father of her eldest daughter would be present.

    But Peter by now liked Hamish as well as respecting him, not to say feeling sorry for him because of his dreadful wife, whom he had eventually been privileged to meet, and although he had many other friends whom he could have invited to the ceremony, he had decided to ask the Macdonalds as well as the Carranos (of whom, at Veronica’s instigation, they had seen rather a lot over the May holidays and during Veronica’s mid-term break in July), besides his very old friend Erik Nilsson from the English Department as his best man.

    To Veronica’s astonishment, her niece Pauline Weintraub, who had indeed been pregnant last year, and whom, once she’d plucked up the courage to ask her, Veronica had very competently taken care of in Sydney without finding it necessary to breathe a word of the matter to anyone, including Peter—had said to her in a very gruff, off-hand voice: “Don’t suppose you need a bridesmaid or anything, do you?”

    Veronica had experienced a little shock of recognition at the gruffness, and, although she hadn’t intended to have a bridesmaid at all, had replied that she supposed she’d need one, and Pauline could be it, if she liked; she wouldn’t have to get all gussied up, it was only a Registry Office do.

    So to the amazement of the entire family, sulky Pauline was the bridesmaid. As her dark olive complexion had cleared up quite amazingly after she’d found the courage to ditch her very married Catholic lover, and—at Veronica’s instigation—chuck in her very boring job and find herself a much better one, they made a very striking pair. Pauline’s normally rather greasy dark hair had been well shampooed, expertly cut, and set into a very smart, short style, on top of which her little brown pillbox with its perky burnt-orange bow and merest suggestion of a tiny burnt-orange veil looked charming; she wore a burnt-orange suede coat, with moderate but nonetheless sufficient shoulder pads, over a matching woollen dress. Her earrings were large baroque pearls surrounded by tiny diamonds (a present from her grandfather, at her grandmother’s instigation; she’d had to have her ears pierced for them, never having bothered about earrings before) and she wore a bunch of creamy, golden-throated freesias on her lapel. Her very nice legs were much enhanced by a pair of sheer tights and her Aunt Veronica’s laughing rebuttal of the idea that shaving your lower limbs was giving in to anti-feminist propaganda; and her shoes and small handbag, in a smart, dark brown leather, were an expensive present from her grandmother.

    Erik Nilsson, who was emerging from the trauma of a very messy divorce and a custody battle with his wife, who’d gone home to England two years earlier with their two little daughters, looked at her with great interest. Because he had dull, receding brown hair and a rather crumpled, ugly face, Pauline did not return his interest immediately, not having yet grown out of the idea that men had to be conventionally handsome—like her black-haired, no-hoper of a lover—to be interesting. Her grandmother observed both Erik’s interest and Pauline’s lack of it, and quietly made up her mind to get them together at the reception.

   The bride herself was strikingly handsome in her very own full-length chinchilla coat and its matching tiny puff of a hat: Sir Jerry had gone right overboard on the announcement of the engagement and not only presented his daughter with this staggering outfit (vetted by Lady Cohen during the shopping trip to Sydney which she had insisted on shortly after the great news) but also given the pair of them a huge canteen of amazingly elaborate silver. Peter had said placidly to his dumbfounded fiancée after, beaming and huffing and puffing, Sir Jerry had taken himself off: “It is a very pretty pattern, don’t you think, moy darling?” To which the expert had returned faintly, goggling at it in horror: “It’ll be the Devil to polish.” Peter had put his arm round her. “Bien sûr; but very pretty, I think?” and she’d conceded weakly: “I suppose it is pretty, really.”

    On the lapel of the chinchilla she was wearing a large bunch of violets—Peter’s favourite flower. After some intense discussion with her oldest sister Helen, who in spite of her rather stolid appearance, even more Prussian than Veronica, was an expert on perfumes, she had changed her scent to one more compatible with this taste. Peter had never mentioned her scent before; now he frequently told her that she smelled wonderful. Veronica, feeling shy about it for some extraordinary reason that she couldn’t fathom, hadn’t yet told him why.

    Under the little puff of a hat her thick blond hair was swept back into a French pleat, exposing her neat ears adorned with little heart-shaped, antique amethyst earrings. And her high-necked dress was a deep violet velvet which somehow made her eyes look bluer than ever. Over it she wore Peter’s pearls—“I can’t take these! They musta cost you a fortune!”—“I h’wish moy woife to have a decent string of pearls.” Peter’s taste in interior decoration might run to the fawnish, but he knew what decorations expensive women should wear.

    They’d had a row over the earrings.

    “Peter, you can’t give me these; you’ve already spent far too much on those pearls.”

    An awful scowl. “What I spend on you is moy business.°

    Veronica got very agitated. “That’s ridiculous! Look—this is the nineteen-eighties, for God’s sake! If we’re getting married we oughta be—uh—opening a joint bank account or something—pooling our resources! Not wasting money on—on that sorta stuff!”

    Peter replied in a rigid voice: “You do not loike the earrings?”

    “Of course I like them! That’s not the point!”

    “That is very much the point, it seems to me. If I wish to give moy woife jewellery then that seems to me to be the only point. Please troy the earrings on, Veronica.”

    “No; look, this is stupid.”

    Peter flushed. “Please do not tell me I y’am stupid, Veronica.”

    “I didn’t say— Oh, the Hell with it! It is bloody stupid! It’s a waste of money! Look, I thought we were supposed to be saving up for a house to put your bloody babies in, for God’s sake?”

    Peter shot to his feet. “So! Now we come to it! You do not h’wish to have moy babies, that is it! You desoire only the good sex from this stupid old Jew! Good! Very well! Then I h’will—” He grabbed up the little jeweller’s box and made to fling it out of the window, but Veronica seized his arm.

    “No! Stop!” She glared into his face. “Don’t be such an idiot!”

    “So now I am an idiot as well as stupid!” he yelled, trying to wrench his arm away.

    Veronica held on grimly.

    “Let—go—of—me!” he panted.

    “No, I won’t!” retorted Veronica, trying not to pant. “Stop being such a blithering idiot and calm d—”

    Peter smacked her—not very hard—on the mouth with his free hand.

    “HOW—DARE—YOU!” She released his arm as if it had stung her and backed away, face crimsoning with shock and outrage.

    “I dare very well!” yelled Peter. “I think it is about toime someone dared, no? About toime someone told you what a—a pig-headed virago you are! You will not rule the roost with me, Veronica Cohen, and the sooner you come to realoize it the better it h’will be for you!”

    Veronica had never heard anyone actually use the word “virago” before, and she was a bit stunned to hear it now, angry though she was. “Is that so?” she retorted ineffectually.

    “Yes, that is so!” he hissed. “Moy woife will not tell me how to spend moy money, she will not tell me I am stupid, and she will not attempt to control moy actions boy physical force!”

    “Don’t speak to me like that, you macho twit!” yelled Veronica, going even redder than he was.

    Peter grabbed her upper arms. “Unless you treat me with respect I h’will speak to you exactly loike that!” He shook her violently.

    Veronica experienced a moment of delicious, swooning weakness, and became all the more angry because of it. “Let me go, you bloody bully! I’m not one of that string of bloody harem women you’ve had trailing at your coat-tails for the last umpteen bloody years, you—you—male whore!”

    Peter released her abruptly and slapped her on the cheek.

    Veronica gasped, clutched her face, and burst into tears of pain and shock.

    Peter was very blue around the mouth. “You will never speak to me again loike this, Veronica.”

    Veronica gave a wrenching sob and stepped backwards.

    Peter clenched his fists and said through his teeth: “I h’will go now. I do not wish to hear from you again unless it is with an apology for every word you have said to me today.”

    Veronica mumbled something that sounded like: “Pig!”

    Bluer than ever around the mouth, Peter marched out of her flat, giving the front door an almighty slam.

    Veronica looked round her wildly. Then she hurled the little jeweller’s case across the room. Then she picked up a big blue glass vase which she had always quite liked, and hurled it with all her strength at the neon wall-sculpture. The vase broke with a crash and the sculpture cracked, and went out. Veronica gave a huge sob and rushed into her bedroom, where she threw herself down on the forget-me-not and navy duvet and sobbed and sobbed.

    Peter went straight out to the airport and got onto the first available plane to New Zealand, ending up at the wrong end of the country and having to trail home in a very bumpy domestic jet in the middle of the night. He held out for two nights and a day before rushing round to the Cohens’ place and pouring out the whole story to Belinda Cohen at half-past nine in the morning.

    Fortunately it was a week day and Sir Jerry was in at the office, so he was spared this further confirmation of his youngest daughter’s pig-headed obstinacy.

    “She is droiving me mad!” Peter ended, dropping his head into his hands, and writhing his fingers in his short, greying dark curls.

    Belinda Cohen, who had none of her granddaughter Pauline’s fixed ideas of what constituted male attractiveness, looked with pleasure at the charming bald spot on the top of his head and reflected dispassionately and simultaneously that Veronica was a very lucky woman, and that Veronica was a complete idiot.

    “You did quite the right thing, Peter,” she said firmly. “It’s no use giving in to Veronica: she despises people she thinks are weaker than she is.”

    “I know,” he said faintly. “Only… I struck her, Belinda!”

    “Good!” said Veronica’s mother, sounding as if she meant it.

    Peter looked up in surprize.

    “Jerry’s always spoilt her dreadfully,” said Lady Cohen, a trifle obliquely. “She was our last, you see; we couldn’t have any more.”

    He looked at her hopefully, and swallowed hard.

    “She’s been used to having her own way for most of her life, and of course, with this job in Sydney—supporting herself... She won’t take a thing from Jerry, you know.” Peter nodded: Lady Cohen had already told him this, with mild approbation, and so had Sir Jerry, with a lot of “Hmfs!” and throat-clearing which had failed to conceal his enormous pride in his independent offspring. Veronica herself had never thought the point worth mentioning.

    “But it won’t do to give in to her!” Lady Cohen finished brightly.

    Peter swallowed again and said shakily: “I am afraid she will never forgive me. She—she is a modern feminist, Belinda, and…” His voice trailed off.

    Lady Cohen put her head on one side and looked at him rather like a plump, fluffy bird. He was silent, so she said brightly: “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that, Peter, dear! It’s not that sort of thing that counts in a marriage, you know!”

    Peter looked at her doubtfully.

    “Veronica needs a man who can manage her,” said her mother firmly, getting up. “Someone who won’t give in to her tantrums.” Peter got up, too. She put a small, plump hand on his arm and said: “No, sit down, Peter, dear; I’m only going to make a cup of tea; would you like Russian?”

    “Yes, please, Belinda,” said Peter weakly.

    “Would you like it with jam or honey?” said Belinda Cohen, going over to the doorway of the boudoir. No-one had offered Peter this choice since the deaths of his elderly Russian grandparents, who had brought him up. He sat down rather abruptly. “I h’would very much loike jam, please, Belinda,” he said in a muffled voice, burying his head in his hands again.

    Lady Cohen drifted out gently, leaving him to have his cry out in peace.

    Since the advent of Peter Sir Jerry had excavated the samovar, the teapot that went with it, and his Grandfather Cohen’s charming set of tea-glasses from the basement—at first getting very grumpy because they weren’t in the attic, and he thought Belinda must have thrown them out. Now, to his children’s confusion, he used them rather often.

    When Peter had stirred the jam into his tea-glass, sipped cautiously, sighed, and sipped again, Lady Cohen said carefully: “I don’t know whether Veronica has told you much about her first marriage...”

    He went very red, and said abruptly: “No. I could not bear to know.”

    “Very natural, dear,” murmured Lady Cohen, sounding as if she really meant it. She hesitated. “Only, I think, if you don’t mind, there is something I should tell you about it, Peter.”

    “Please go on, Belinda,” replied Peter politely, not looking at her.

    Belinda drank some of her own ordinary tea with milk, and said: “We-ell… They had dreadful quarrels, Tony and Veronica.”

    “Oh,” said Peter hoarsely, picking up his spoon and beginning to stir his tea again.

    “Where Tony went wrong was that he always gave in to her. They’d have a fight, you see—I dare say it was just as much his fault as hers, most of the time,” she added dubiously—“but it always ended with Tony saying that he’d been wrong, even if he hadn’t, and apologizing to Veronica.”

    “Oh,” said Peter thoughtfully. He drank his tea.

    “Yes,” said Lady Cohen in a rather satisfied voice. She drank some more tea, and ate a very thin biscuit from a rose-patterned Wedgwood plate that was part of her normal tea-service.

    Peter looked up suddenly from his tea-glass, blinked at the plate of biscuits, and took one too. When he’d eaten it he said in a thoughtful voice: “This is delicious; did you bake these yourself, Belinda?”

    “Yes; I like baking,” said Lady Cohen.

    “Delicious,” said Peter again, in a very vague tone. “Veronica does not cook,” he added, even more vaguely.

    “No,” agreed Veronica’s mother comfortably. She offered him more tea. He accepted, politely but vaguely.

    When he’d drunk his second lot of tea and finished off the jam from the bottom of his glass with a spoon—which didn’t startle Belinda Cohen, because she’d got used to the idea when Jerry’s grandfather was alive—he said: “You do not think I should ring Veronica, then?”

    “Definitely not,” she replied firmly.

    Peter gave a tiny sigh. “No; you are quoite roight.”

    Belinda refrained from offering to have a word with Veronica; she was quite aware that Peter would reject the offer, for of course Veronica’s capitulation must come from her alone. This did not mean, of course, that she did not privately determine to do so if Veronica hadn’t contacted Peter within the week.

    Veronica held out for two nights and almost two whole days before ringing her mother at ten o’clock in the evening, forgetting, as usual, that they were two hours ahead of her over there.

    Sir Jerry was asleep; he turned over and grunted crossly as Belinda swept up the receiver.

    “Just a minute, Veronica, dear, I’ll take the call in the boudoir.”

    Veronica started out by being very haughty and indignant, rapidly deteriorated into gruffness, and ended up sobbing into the phone.

    “You’ve been very silly, Veronica,” said Lady Cohen calmly when the storm of sobs was more or less over.

    “I know,” said Veronica hoarsely.

    “Peter isn’t the sort of man to put up with that sort of childish behaviour.”

    Veronica started to say that she’d been in the right, and then thought better of it. “What’ll I do?”

    “You’ll have to apologize to him, of course.”

    “What if—what if he won’t listen? I said something absolutely awful to him!”

    Peter hadn’t actually repeated what she had said, but Lady Cohen replied composedly: “So I gather.”

    “He was so angry.”

    Lady Cohen debated whether to reveal that she’d talked to Peter this morning, and decided against it. “Was he angry, or very hurt, Veronica?”

    There was an ashamed silence from the Sydney end of the phone. Finally Veronica mumbled: “Both, I s’pose. Awfully hurt.”

    “Mm.”

    Another silence.

    “He’ll— I don’t see how he can possibly forgive what I said!”

    Her mother suppressed a very natural desire to ask her just what she did say, and replied calmly: “I think he will, dear. But if I was you I’d apologize to him as soon as possible. Why don’t you fly over tomorrow?”

    “Uh—I’ve got a lecture...”

    Tranquilly Belinda Cohen replied: “Cancel it.”

    “I couldn’t do that! ...Maybe I could postpone it.”

    “That’s a good idea. And Veronica—”

    “Mm?”

    Lady Cohen hesitated. “Veronica—remember Peter isn’t a young man.”

    “You mean he’s old-fashioned?” asked Veronica in a puzzled voice.

    Her mother sighed. “No, dear. I mean... well, I don’t think this sort of upset can be doing him very much good.”

    This time there was a very frightened silence from the Sydney end of the phone.

    At last Veronica said in such low voice her mother could hardly hear it: “Mum, he—he is all right, isn’t he?”

    “As far as I know, dear,” replied Belinda Cohen carefully. “But he’s not far off fifty, isn’t he? And you have to remember…”

    “What?” said Veronica hoarsely.

    “He hasn’t had a very easy life, has he?”

    It took Veronica a moment to work this one out. “You mean his childhood traumas? But, um, well, his grandparents got him out of Russia when he was only tiny; he hardly remembers it.”

    Tranquilly Lady Cohen reminded her that Peter’s parents had both disappeared under Stalin. The grandparents had taken him to France, but this had been the post-War period, and life there had been far from easy.

    “Yeah,” said Veronica thoughtfully.

    Her mother added hesitantly: “I didn’t just mean his childhood; has he said anything about when he was a young man in Israel?”

    “Um, not really. Just that he was in the army, and that. Uh—do you mean he had some bad experiences when he was in the army? Having to kill people, or something?”

    “Not exactly... It was more than just his military service experiences, dear.”

    “Well, what, Mum?” demanded Veronica irritably.

    “I can’t tell you, dear—not if he hasn’t mentioned it,” replied her mother in an infuriatingly vague voice.

    “Well, if he’s told you all about it, why hasn’t he told me?” she demanded crossly.

    Belinda Cohen had to exercise tremendous restraint. Finally she said, in a voice which was quite audibly exercising restraint: “Perhaps you haven’t seemed quite ready to listen to him, Veronica.”

    Veronica drew a sharp breath. “That’s a horrible thing to say, Mum!”

    “Is it?” she returned, the steel beneath the fluff showing quite plainly.

    Silence. Then Veronica said with a gulp: “I’m sorry, Mum.”

    “That’s all right, dear. But I do think you should think about just how much of yourself you’re willing to put into this marriage.”

    “Yes,” said Veronica, very quietly.

    She didn’t manage to get a flight until mid-afternoon, so with the time difference it was already evening when she panted up the stairs to Peter’s third-floor flat.

    When he opened the door it was quite apparent that he’d been crying, but the light in the passage was not very good and in any case Veronica was so worked up that she would have hardly noticed anything less than his painting himself all over with woad.

    “I’ve come to apologize.”

    Peter just looked at her.

    “For all those things I said.”

    He went on just looking at her.

    “I’m sorry, Peter!” she said hoarsely. “I’ll never say anything like that again as long as I live!”

    Peter swallowed, but still didn’t speak.

    “I’ll let you handle the money and everything!” said Veronica, a trifle wildly. “Anyway, I’m hopeless with money—I was never any good at sums. Have a look at the mess in my chequebook if you don’t believe me!” She scrabbled in her clutch bag and waved her chequebook at him.

    “I do not h’wish to look at your chequebook, Veronica.”

    Veronica stared at him desperately. “I’ll never say that that thing to you again; I promise!”

    “You had better not.”

    She hung her head and croaked: “Please forgive me, Peter.”

    “You h’yad better come in,” he responded grimly, standing aside.

    Inside the fawn flat Veronica gripped her clutch-bag very tightly. Peter noticed with satisfaction that it was the green and turquoise one, which didn’t match her navy raincoat at all. Underneath the coat she appeared to be wearing her tracksuit. She had no make-up on and her hair was not only untidy but looked in need of a wash. Her eyes were very red and there were deep shadows under them. He was suffering quite as much as she from her agony, but he was quite determined that her capitulation must be complete.

    She looked at him helplessly. Peter clenched his fists very tightly.

    “I’m wearing the earrings,” she said huskily: “look!”

    He looked but didn’t say anything.

    “I do like them—really!”

    “The foight was not about the earrings, Veronica: I think you know that.’

    Veronica turned scarlet. “I know I’m too bossy!” she cried desperately. “I didn’t mean to—to tell you what to do: I only meant to make a suggestion! I’m no good at—at the non-aggressive stuff: you know: self-assertiveness techniques, and all that.”

    “You do not need to be self-assertive with me, Veronica,” he said, quite gently.

    Veronica gave a strangled sob.

    “Hush!” said Peter sternly, putting his right arm round her and removing the clutch-bag from her grasp with his left hand. He dropped the bag on the floor and got both arms around her.

    Veronica sobbed into his comfortably broad shoulder for quite some time.

    “Hush, moy darling; that is enough, hein?”

    Veronica gulped and sniffed. “Do you forgive me?” she said at last.

    “Yes; but there must be no more of this silliness, please! As I h’yave said, you do not need to feel you h’yave to be assertive with me; you only h’yave to trust me, Veronica.”

    “Trust you?” said Veronica groggily. “Oh... Yes, I see.”

    “I am not a fool; and I do not need to be told what I should or should not do, at moy age.”

    “No. Peter—do you feel all right?” she asked in a trembling voice.

    Peter began to lead her over to the fawn sofa. “All roight? –Sit down, Veronica. Yes, I am all roight.” He gave a small cynical smile. “Naturally, I have not been quoite happy, but I am quoite well, if that is what you mean.”

    “Yes: you are well, aren’t you?” she insisted, voice still trembling.

    Peter took both her hands gently in his. “Da, da, I am well; but I do not think I can take much more of this sort of thing.”

    Veronica burst into tears again.

    A trifle puzzled, but nonetheless pleased, Peter held her tightly, and murmured quite a lot of things that she only half heard, and mostly didn’t understand anyway, as half of them were in Russian and most of the rest were in French.

    “I really do love the earrings, Peter,” she said in a tiny voice.

    Peter bit one of the neat ears very gently, just by the little amethyst heart. “I am glad.”

    “Peter?”

    “Yes, moy precious one?”

    “If—if you’re not too tired, could we go to bed?”

    In spite of the fact that he had scarcely slept for three nights, Peter wasn’t that tired. But when they got to bed, he did it very, very simply, and didn’t wait for her, and fell asleep straight afterwards.

    A very shaken Veronica stayed awake for quite a long time, making lots of good resolutions.

    In the morning, over breakfast—in the kitchen, at the table, because he had a nine-o’clock class—she said hesitantly: “Peter?”

    “Mm?”

    “I—I really am no good at sums. My chequebook really is in an awful mess!” She gave an off-hand laugh that didn’t come off.

    Peter swallowed toast and marmalade, and replied composedly: “I, on the other hand, am very good at sums. Would you loike me to see if I can balance it for you?”

    Veronica went very red and nodded emphatically.

    “I shall do it this morning, after moy class,” said Peter serenely.

    When he handed it back to her Veronica looked at the final balance, turned scarlet, and said: “Crikey!”

    “I am surproized you have not had a very nasty letter from your bank manager.”

    In a strangled voice Veronica replied: “I think I have had: it musta been that letter I got last week.”

    “Da?”

    “I put it in the bin!” she gasped. “I mean, they’re always writing to you about one thing or another, these days, aren’t they? l never thought—”

    Peter flung back his head and roared with laughter. Which was, in its way, just as salutary as his earlier sternness.

    So she wore the dear little amethyst earrings at her wedding. And if Allyson Shapiro, Carol and Rosemary Rosen, and Melanie Weintraub, painting in their sartorial wake, said amongst themselves that they were awfully old-fashioned, and they wouldn’t have been seen dead in them, Susan Shapiro, who was now nineteen and almost approaching years of discretion, thought silently that they were very pretty, and wondered what it would be like to be quite old, and married. And at the reception Polly Carrano looked at them with simple envy and cried: “Ooh, Veronica, what lovely earrings! Where did you get them?”

    “They’re antique; Peter gave them to me,” said the bride, blushing.

    “Oh!” said Polly with her charming little choke of laughter. “Jake gave me these when we were married, didn’t you, Jake?’

    Jake put his arm around her (to the silent disgust of Rosemary and Melanie, standing nearby) and agreed, chuckling: “That’s right! She said I could be as extravagant as I liked, for once, so I decided these’d just hit the spot!”

    And Veronica looked at sturdy Jake Carrano, and beautiful Polly, blushing within his arm, with her shiny, sun-streaked brown hair, her dark green dress that had come straight from Paris, and her emerald earrings that matched her huge engagement ring, and didn’t experience the slightest envy.

    Over in a remote corner of the sitting-room, Becky cowered in an armchair. She had sat through the ceremony in silent agony. Fortunately she and Jim had been a bit late, they’d had awful trouble finding a park, so there hadn’t been time to introduce any of the groom’s guests before the ceremony. But after agonising months of telling herself it couldn’t be the same man, and not believing herself, she’d recognized Hamish instantly: he’d hardly changed at all; his face was thinner, but he was as handsome as ever. He was wearing his hair a lot shorter, but his curls were as pretty as ever. In the midst of her terror Becky experienced all over again that little trembly, excited feeling his curls had always given her, almost exactly seventeen years ago, now.

    After the ceremony there still hadn’t been time for introductions: there’d been lots of laughing and excited congratulations. But there was another wedding party waiting to come in—the bride, rather pregnant, nevertheless in white satin, and the four bridesmaids, all large girls, in apple green satin, all five of them shivering but happy, casting superior glances at the previous wedding’s day clothes, and assuming that the chinchilla was possum. And it was too cold and windy to hang around the steps of the Registry Office for any longer than it took for the photographer to take a quick snap and for Damian to throw a lot of rice; so they’d all hustled off quickly back to their cars.

    Only, once they reached to the Cohens’ house, it had had to be gone through.

    “And you h’yave met Hamish and Sylvie Macdonald, I think?” said Peter, smiling his nice smile at Jim and the shrinking Becky.

    Jim grinned, and refrained from congratulating his new relation by marriage on not making his mate’s name sound horribly Russian. He liked weddings, liked his sister-in-law Veronica (though rather in awe of her) and very much liked what he’d seen so far of Peter—which wasn’t all that much, as Becky hadn’t been very well this past year. “No,” he admitted. “We haven’t actually met.”

    Peter, who had beautiful manners, apologised quickly and introduced them all properly.

    “How do you do?” said Becky faintly, going scarlet, and putting a tightly-gloved hand into Hamish’s large, pale one. She experienced a moment’s heartfelt relief that she did still have her gloves on, because she honestly couldn’t borne it, otherwise.

    Hamish, who didn’t like weddings and had had to force Sylvie into accompanying him to this one, barely looked at Veronica’s sallow, short, and greying sister as he shook her hand briefly. No recollection of that brief, long-ago idyll with dark, slim, vivacious Rebekah so much as flickered on the edge of his consciousness.

    Jim, who like most long-term husbands rarely noticed anything about his wife until she informed him of it, didn’t register Becky’s blush, but shook hands with both the Macdonalds and thought vaguely what a dried-up little stick of a woman Mrs Macdonald was, and why did she have a face like a fiddle? They were at a wedding, after all!

    Sylvie was in such a foul mood she wouldn’t have noticed much less than Becky’s standing on her head. Polly and Jake had insisted on giving them a lift, since it seemed pointless taking two cars in all the way from the Hibiscus Coast, and her temper, already ruffled at having to attend a wedding of people she scarcely knew and didn’t like anyway, had immediately deteriorated at the sight of Polly’s vulgarly ostentatious brown mink coat and huge green earrings. After trying for some time to persuade herself that they weren’t real she had said abruptly: “Are those emeralds, Polly?” To which Polly had tranquil replied: “Yes; aren’t they pretty? They’re my favourite earrings.” At this point the driver—they were on that straight bit at Dairy Flat—had picked up Polly’s right hand in his left and kissed it. A wave of mixed jealousy (because of the earrings) and sick revulsion (because of the public demonstration of affection) had swept through Sylvie and she had sunk back into the back seat of the silver Merc and not said a word for the rest of the journey.

    The temper had deteriorated still further at the Registry Office, where she had discovered that all the older Cohen women were also wearing vulgarly ostentatious furs: Lady Cohen in dark mink, with a rather Queen-Motherish hat of ruffly pale blue petals, a powder-blue dress, and very high-heeled powder-blue shoes that showed off her still pretty legs; the thin and acidulated Patricia Shapiro in black astrakhan of an extreme cut with huge square shoulders and an enormous silver buckle high on one shoulder; and the tall, blonde, square-ish Helen Weintraub in something silver and very fluffy that made her look the size of a house. Sylvie would neither have understood nor approved of the fact that Nat Weintraub, who in spite of his wandering eye still bedded his hefty Helen very regularly—and sometimes quite irregularly: hence Melanie—got very excited at the sight of his large wife in her fluffy fur coat. As Pauline now had her own flat, Lindy was going to stay the night at her grandparents’, and Melanie was planning to sleep over with Carol and Rosemary at the Rosens’, they were both looking forward to celebrating the fact the minute they got home.

    Peter, who took an enormous, if rather cynical interest in the behaviour patterns of his fellow human beings, wasn’t too euphoric to miss Becky’s painful blush, and wondered at it, a little. It seemed very unlike her.

    After that Becky retired to the obscure chair in a corner of the sitting-room as soon as she decently could. She couldn’t stop her eyes from following Hamish Macdonald, but as the sitting-room and the adjoining sun-room were all very full of excited, happily chatting guests, nobody noticed.

    Whether she was more terrified or fascinated Becky couldn’t have said. After the first year of her marriage she’d scarcely given a thought to her lost lover. Jim, although years older than she was, was genuinely in love with her, and a very gentle, considerate lover—in fact, very gentle and considerate in all his ways. And after Carol she’d very soon had his Rosemary, and then, of course, Damian. After which Sir John Westby—not Sir John back those days, of course—had firmly but kindly told her that she must give her body a rest, and had had both Jim and her along to his surgery and discussed contraceptive methods in a cool, calm way that made both of them feel like fools for even thinking of being embarrassed by the topic. And now there was their darling baby Sharon—after that slip-up when they were on holiday down in Rotorua. Jim, at pushing sixty, was nutty about his new baby girl and not in the least cross that she’d got her dates mixed up; and Becky, who had never expected to have another, adored her. So why, why, after all these years, was she excited and tingling all over just at the sight of tall Hamish Macdonald’s head and the sound of his soft Scotch voice?

    “Becky, are you okay?” The bride pulled up a chintz pouffe and sat down beside her.

    Becky flushed dully. “Yes; I’m okay.” She met her sister’s understanding eye, bent down and whispered huskily: “He’s here!”

    “Didn’t you know he—? Hell, Becky, I’m sorry!” replied Veronica, putting a hand on her sister’s brown wool knee and involuntarily thinking that Becky shouldn’t wear that dull brown, it didn’t do a thing for her.

    Becky clutched the hand convulsively but replied bravely: “It’s all right, Vronny, it had to happen some time; it’s better to get it over with, I suppose.”

    “Mm,” agreed Veronica dubiously; in Becky’s place she would certainly have got it over with long since.

    From the other side of the room Peter caught a glimpse of this sisterly interchange and wondered, rather; though he knew Veronica was very fond of Becky, of course.

    Over at the long table that was being used as a bar, the burly Nat Weintraub waved away the effete Jimmy’s offer to refill his champagne glass, and grabbed the bottle. Jimmy smiled weakly, failing to conceal his disapproval, but didn’t dare to say that Lady Cohen wouldn’t like that to Lady Cohen’s son-in-law. Nat went off with the bottle to find his wife: he knew that if he got some fizz into her Helen’d be more than ready, the minute he got her into their bedroom, to let him pull down her tights and panties, bite her gently all over her hefty pale buttocks and thighs, and then turn her over and do her—preferably with that big cuddly coat still on her, yum!

    Jim Rosen looked round vaguely for his son and heir, failed to spot him in the crowd, and decided that one more glass of champagne couldn’t hurt. He went off to the bar.

    Sir Jerry had buttonholed the groom and was telling him a long, complicated story about something that had happened at one of his distant cousins’ weddings umpteen years in the past. Peter smiled his nice smile, and let his eyes roam gently over the crowd. Where was Veronica? Ah! There she was, talking to Polly Carrano. His curly mouth twitched in amusement. The two had become fast friends.

    He had been very surprized when, at the beginning of the May holidays, Veronica had said gruffly: “You know those Carrano people? That we met at that French restaurant that time?”—“Yes, at L’Oie qui Rit, last Juloy.”—“Yeah, she was preggy.”—“Mm: she has twin boys, now, I believe.”—“Oh. Well, um, what about asking them to dinner, or something?”—going rather red. Peter had replied tranquilly that if it would please his darling Veronica he would be only too delighted to invite the Carranos to dinner, and should they go to a restaurant or would she prefer him to cook for them here, at the flat? Veronica had growled that it’d be nice at the flat, if wasn’t too much bother. The Carranos had been unable to get a baby-sitter for the night in question and an anxious Polly had rung in the afternoon to ask if they minded if they brought the babies: they’d be very good, they’d be in their carry-cots, they usually slept like logs. Peter had taken the call and replied cheerfully that of course she must bring the babies; Veronica had looked up at this remark, and gone very red.

    About ten minutes after the beaming Carranos had arrived with their twins it dawned on Peter that Veronica had spotted Polly as a kindred spirit: also a university-educated woman who had worked for some years in Academe before she had got married, and had published: she was the author of An Introduction to the Linguistic Analysis of Literary Texts, a popular First-Year text throughout the English-speaking world, and a much more up-market Analyse statistique et analyse littéraire which their own French Department and not a few others prescribed as a Master’s text. And, last but not least, married to an older man whom she obviously adored, and bringing up his babies. Peter considerately took Jake into the kitchen, leaving the two ladies to it. When they eventually emerged—Jake rather fortunately having proved to be as interested in good food as he was—Polly was sitting on the fawn sofa, looking amazingly decorative in a green and gold garment, and Veronica was hunting through Peter’s bookcase, saying crossly: “I know he's got it here, somewhere!”

    “What is that, moy dearest?”

    Looking up from her squatting position rather flushed, she explained: “That thing of Maurice Black’s: Development or Exploitation: Europe and the Pacific, or whatever it’s called.”

    That was precisely what it was called, except that she’d left off the dates: 1790-1970. “In the other bookcase, moy dear: you are looking at my political scoience books, not moy h’yistory books.” Peter’s books were as neatly sorted out as his chequebook.

    Veronica, who kept hers in bunches according to what she was working on at the moment, replied rather blankly: “Oh—right. I was just telling Polly about it.”

    Polly smiled and said that she’d read Maurice Black’s Pioneer Days, of course, but she’d never read this one, and Veronica had said it was a very fair and balanced account. Peter knew that Veronica and Sir Maurice shared the same political prejudices; he repressed a tiny smile and found Polly the book.

    After that the two women had got on famously and Peter had been hugely relieved on coming home after work one day—he and Hamish had worked steadily throughout most of their nominal May vacation—to find Polly ensconced in his big fawn armchair with one twin on her lap and Veronica on the sofa with the other twin on her lap. A thin, dark little girl whom he recognized with some surprize as Hamish’s young daughter was sitting on his mushroom rug, reading aloud from a book that Peter, not having had an Anglo-Saxon upbringing, didn’t recognize as Swallows and Amazons. Polly and Veronica had identical, dreamy, not quite-listening expressions on their faces. Peter was so relieved that he’d nearly burst into tears on the spot.

    For in spite of what Veronica had taken as his casual assumption that of course she must want children, and Belinda Cohen, who wasn’t used to ultra-sensitive male intellectuals with as many antennae as a sea urchin has spikes, had taken as a quite natural assumption about his wife-to-be, Peter was not at all sure that there was any “of course” about it. He had hoped, that was all; and the appearance of taking it all for granted had been partly because of his fear that Veronica would say no if they discussed it, and partly because of his realization that she might feel it incumbent upon her, as a modern, liberated working woman in her thirties to say no even if all her instincts were crying out to her to say yes.

    Now Peter looked at Veronica and Polly chatting and laughing animatedly together, and allowed the twitch of amusement on his nice, curly mouth to grow into a tender smile. And Sir Jerry, who’d come to the end of his story, and had said: “Eh? Eh? Didn’t ’e, eh?”, chuckling hugely, now realized his new son-in-law hadn’t been listening, followed the direction of his gaze, beamed all over his genial frog-like face, and slapped him heartily on the back. Peter gasped and staggered slightly. His father-in-law gave him what Peter realized dazedly was supposed to be a dirty wink, said: “Can’t take yer eyes off ’er, eh? That’s the stuff!” and toddled off to get himself another glass of champagne, wondering happily how soon he could tactfully broach the subject of a house up the Hibiscus Coast which he intended as their real wedding-present: the Royal Worcester dinner-set was all right, he supposed, but nothing much; a bit plain, too, if you asked him, but Belinda had said Veronica liked that plain dark green band with the gold edging on the white china, so he’d given in. Any day now, he thought contentedly, judging by the looks on their faces, any day now; and he’d lay odds it’d be a boy, Veronica was the spitting image of her Granny Goldberg!

    Young Damian Rosen had drunk his orange juice rather quickly and was now quietly going round gathering up the dregs from the adults’ glasses—mostly champagne, but some of the women had had a sherry, earlier (it had been a morning wedding and the wedding “breakfast” was lunch—a concept which Damian had found difficult to grasp), and one or two of the men were drinking spirits. He nipped in behind a tall joker who seemed to have abandoned his glass, and poured its contents quickly into his own glass. Then he retired to Grandpa`s study and drank his mixture with great satisfaction.

    Jake Carrano, who was driving, drank Perrier from a water tumbler without even trying to pretend it was gin and tonic, and chuckled obediently at the dirty story Nat Weintraub was telling him—Nat being the sort of man who inevitably does tell dirty stories at weddings. It wasn’t a particularly funny story, though it was quite dirty; but Jake, being a chunky, very obviously male individual, quite accepted it as his fate to have to laugh at macho males’ dirty stories at social functions—though he’d much rather have been with Polly: she’d gone into a huddle with Veronica and that sister of hers that had a young baby; he’d bet anything you liked that— There! Sure enough! There they went, all three of them, off to look at the baby, he’d bet his bottom dollar!

    Little Sharon was awake in her carry-cot on her grandparents’ big bed. There was no good reason why she shouldn’t have been deposited in the boudoir, which was just as warm and comfortable a room; but with a purely instinctive reflex, Jim and Becky had carried her up and put her on the bed in the master bedroom.

    “Isn’t she tiny!” exclaimed Polly softly, eyes shining. “I’d forgotten how small they still are at that age—heck, when you compare her to my big brutes—!”

    Veronica, who thought Polly’s “big brutes” were the most perfect specimens of human babyhood she’d ever seen, was not yet at the stage where she could confidently contradict this pronouncement; so she merely uttered a short laugh, which Polly and Becky both ignored.

    Becky picked the baby up and asked Polly if she’d like to— Polly seized the little bundle eagerly, and promptly indulged in a series of disgusting, sexist, rôle-reinforcing coos and murmurs which Veronica would not have believed her capable of if she hadn’t heard them with her own ears. And indeed, less than a year ago Polly wouldn’t have been capable of them; but having your own twins does make quite a difference to the attitudes and vocabulary of even a liberated linguistics lecturer.

    Then she handed the baby to Veronica. Veronica turned crimson, and smiled gingerly at her niece. Sharon made a face back which charitable persons might have interpreted as a smile: Polly and Becky certainly did, and remarked upon it with great approval.

    At that moment there was a soft bass chuckle from the doorway. “Mind if I come in?” Jake didn’t wait for a reply, but came in and peered admiringly at the baby. “What a little beauty, eh? Aren’t you a pretty little girl? Aren’t you the prettiest wee thing, eh?” He held out a finger, which Sharon promptly seized.

    His wife realized with a certain resignation that Jake had gone broody again, and maybe she’d better not aim at going back to work full-time next year, after all. She came and slipped a hand through his arm and said: “Isn’t she sweet?”

    And Jake, who was not a super-sensitive male intellectual at all, breathed: “Yeah! What say we try for a girl next, eh, Pol?”

    Polly squeezed his arm, smiling. “That’s not a bad idea.”

    “Lemme hold her for a bit, eh?” he suggested.

    Veronica handed her over with what at first she thought was relief, and then, as the sensation of warm little baby thing faded from her arms and bosom, she realized with a shock, wasn’t.

    Jake then said a whole lot of things to Sharon along the lines of what he’d said before, but as Becky then said she’d better change her and feed her, handed her over and politely retreated downstairs.

    “You’re still feeding her, then?” said Polly as Becky prepared to breast-feed her.

    Becky replied composedly: “Yes, but she has a bottle as well, now; don’t you, Mummy’s pretty?”

    Veronica gave an unconscious sigh. “S’pose I’d better get back to the scrum downstairs.”

    Abruptly recalled to herself, Polly remembered that she didn’t know Becky Rosen at all, really. “Oh! Yes; I’ll come with you.”

    On the half-landing Veronica said suddenly: “Your husband really likes babies, doesn’t he?”

    “Yes; he’s dotty about them. I’d better start thinking about having another, I suppose.”

    Veronica frowned. “Don’t you want to?”

    “Well, I was thinking of going back to work full-time next year. But we did say a while back that we’d think about it. And I’m not getting any younger.”

    “Ye-ah… But don’t you mind having to put off your career like that?’

    “Well, Jake can’t have it for me,” returned Polly logically.

    “Um, no…” Veronica agreed thoughtfully.

    Nat Weintraub found his solid wife and muttered in her ear: “How soon ya reckon we can ditch this lot and get off home, eh?” Helen’s bridling repulsion of this tasteless approach was, as they both realized, a mere form. She finished what she’d been saying to her acidulated sister Pat, and then said to Nat in a very casual voice: “The bride and groom should be taking off, soon.”

    “Good!” said Nat, putting his arm around her.

    “Don’t drink any more of that champagne!” said Helen severely. “You’re half-seas over, already!”

    Nat gave a dirty chuckle.

    Pat directed an acid look at him and said: “No; the road statistics are quite bad enough without you adding to them.”

    Nat gave an even dirtier chuckle, squeezed his solid wife, and said: “Aw, Helen’s driving, today.” He then muttered something into his wife’s ear at which Helen turned a dull beetroot, gave a gasp, and said: “Stop it, Nat: that’s enough!”

    Pat looked down her nose at him and walked away.

    “There—see what you’ve done!” said Helen.

    Nat replied mildly: “Always was a cold bitch, wasn’t she? Didn’t surprize me when poor old Micky ditched her—only wonder is ’e stuck it out so long. –Bag o’ bones,” he added thoughtfully, watching his sister-in-law’s elegant retreating form.

    Helen protested weakly: “Na-at!”

    Nat grinned hugely, and whispered something in her ear. Helen turned puce, gave an involuntary snort of laughter, and dug her elbow violently into his ribs.

    Nat shook all over with rich chuckles and tightened his arm on her.

    Lindy Weintraub observed this behaviour from a dim corner of the room and decided not for the first time that Dad was disgusting, absolutely disgusting, she didn’t know how Mum put up with him, it was awful... She’d take that transfer to Wellington, she decided abruptly; she’d never get anywhere in the Company, career-wise, if she turned it down—and it’d mean she could get away from all of them; she’d have a little flat of her own. She began to plan the little flat—one bedroom, then they couldn’t come and plant themselves on her... And none of that ghastly traditional furniture that Mum and Grandma went in for, either!

    Since nobody was bothering to ask them if they’d like another piece of wedding cake, Carol and Rosemary Rosen, who were still hungry, went over to the buffet and helped themselves. There seemed little point in moving away from the vicinity of the food, so they stayed there, munching, hoping that Aunty Pat or Aunty Helen wouldn’t spot them, and happily aware that Mum had disappeared and Dad wouldn’t notice if they ate the whole cake and the large silver stand on which it stood.

    Sylvie, under the misapprehension that it was all Jewish food, had hardly eaten a thing. Since she’d hardly spoken to a soul, either—the bride’s mother had, naturally, chatted to her kindly and Polly, to Sylvie’s resentment, had also spent quite some time with her—she was feeling extremely disgruntled, as well as hungry. She went and found her husband, and twitched angrily at his coat sleeve.

    Hamish had been enjoying a pleasant chat about cars with Jim Rosen, Erik Nilsson, and one of Peter’s male friends whose name he hadn’t caught. As Hamish himself knew very little about what went on under the bonnets of cars he hadn’t contributed very much to the more technical side of this discussion; but in his undergraduate days he’d been the proud owner of a battered M.G., and Jim Rosen (it was his one piece of self-indulgence) and Peter’s friend both belonged to the M.G. Car Club; and though Erik didn’t, he appeared to have the normal Kiwi male knowledge of, and keenness about anything that had wheels and an engine; so they were all getting on famously.

    He scowled, and looked round. “What?”

    “I said, will ye no’ go and get me a piece of cake, at least!” said Sylvie explosively, very Scots.

    Obediently Hamish went over to the buffet.

    Peter looked unobtrusively at his watch, and decided it was about time to collect up his new belonging and depart with her. After some discussion, which had bordered perilously on the acrimonious, about whether to go down to Queenstown for the honeymoon (Veronica skied: Peter didn’t), up to Hawaii (Veronica tanned to perfection: Peter burned), or somewhere else, Veronica had suddenly stopped arguing, turned scarlet, and growled: “Don’t give a damn where we go: just wanna be alone with you.” So they were going up to a quiet little motel in the Bay of Islands. It’d be practically deserted in the off-season and quite probably pouring with rain the whole time; which suited them both nicely. But it was a long drive; and unless they got started fairly soon...

    Belinda Cohen materialized at his elbow. “Peter, dear, time’s getting on.”

    “Da; I was just looking for Veronica.”

    Belinda slipped her hand under his arm and they both looked happily round the room for Veronica.

    Hamish, tall, red-haired, and slim, held a cake plate in his left hand and turned to his left, smiling, to reply to something another of Peter’s male friends had just said to him.

    Two inches away from him, Carol, tall, red-haired and slender, held a cake plate in her right hand and turned to her right, smiling, to reply to something Rosemary had just said to her.

    Mirror image.

    Peter started, and tried in vain to swallow a tiny gasp.

    Feeling the start and hearing the gasp, Belinda followed his gaze, hugged his arm rather tightly, and said in a voice that tried to be calm: “Yes, dear. I’ve wondered about that, too.”

    As Carol had had her red-gold curls trimmed for the wedding into one of those very modern styles that were as short at the back as a boy’s, and as she had a slender, elegant but definitely high-bridged nose, as well as her father’s chin, Peter found it quite impossible to offer a comfortable contradiction of the assumption that they were both making. Eventually he asked, rather weakly, how old she was now.

    Carol’s grandmother bit her lip but told him she was sixteen, adding that her birthday was at the beginning of June.

    “I see,” replied Peter, doing mental arithmetic.

    After a moment Lady Cohen added, very quietly: “Becky was between jobs, she’d been doing relieving teaching but the permanent teacher came back just before the August holidays, so she decided to go down to Taranaki on a working holiday.”

    “His family comes from Taranaki,” said Peter, even more quietly.

    “I know.”

    There was a moment’s silence. Then Peter murmured: “I think we do not mention this to anyone, da?”

    “Thank you, Peter, dear,” said Belinda, squeezing his arm very hard.

    Peter kissed her scented, powdery cheek gently. “Now I go to foind moy woife.”

    “Yes, dear.”

    Erik Nilsson took Pauline Weintraub to a Chinese restaurant and then to the pictures that evening. It was a French comedy which had been doing a literally roaring trade in the lone arts cinema for over a month now. Pauline, who normally patronized only gloomy and meaningful German modern films, or gloomy and grainy black-and-white classics, enjoyed it tremendously, and Erik, who since his divorce often went to the cinema in an unavailing effort to assuage his loneliness, concealed from her the fact that he’d already seen it, chuckled when he remembered to, and very much enjoyed her loud, unaffected laugh, which, when she forgot herself and let it rip, was very like her Aunt Veronica’s laugh.

    Afterwards they found a coffee bar that, for a miracle, was actually open, end drank coffee and talked about films and books—carefully avoiding more sensitive subjects. Then Erik took her home; Pauline, who was quite a good driver herself, registered that he was an excellent driver and that, in spite of his ugly, crumpled face, he had the most beautiful hands she’d ever seen on a man: long, slim and tanned, with, although hitherto she’d always thought that sort of thing a bit off-putting, just the right scattering of hair on them.

    There was still a cold wind blowing; Pauline shivered on her doorstep in her smart burnt-orange outfit.

    “Pauline—” said Erik hesitantly.

    Pauline looked up. Erik forgot what he’d been going to say, and gently kissed her. Unmistakeably her body trembled against his.

    “Do you want to come in?” she said gruffly at last.

    Erik very much wanted to, in more than one sense; but he wasn’t a boy, and he had been very much hurt by the break-up of his marriage. So he said gently: “Not tonight, Pauline; I’ll ring you at work tomorrow, shall I? I’ve got your number.”

    Pauline gulped, said sulkily: “All right; good-night;” and shot inside, where she defiantly hung up her new outfit very carefully, cleansed her face meticulously, and made herself a cup of herb tea, before breaking down entirely, throwing herself on her bed, and howling her eyes out, quite convinced that he wouldn’t ring her at all She was, therefore, in for a very nice surprize the next day.

    That night Damian was very sick. Jim Rosen, who, although he was pushing sixty and a thin, nervous sort of man, could quite clearly remember having been a boy at his relations’ weddings himself, coped calmly and splendidly with this minor domestic crisis; but he was slightly shaken by his wife’s hysterical reaction. All he said, coming back after his extended foray to Damian’s room, was: “Too much wedding, the little devil; I reckon he’s been into your father’s champ—” and Becky laughed frantically, burst into hysterical sobs, and buried her face in her pillow, refusing to be comforted.

    Even Jim’s last-ditch: “Ssh: you’ll wake the baby!” didn’t work.

    Puzzled but resigned, Jim decided it must be one of those women’s things—all the excitement of the wedding, after the baby, probably. He let her have her cry out, mopped her up, and, turning out the bedside light, cuddled up to her back, spoon-fashion, and tried to put his arms around her.

    Becky gave an unmistakeable shudder of revulsion and squirmed away from him, which abruptly took poor Jim back more than sixteen years, to when they’d first been married. It was Nat Weintraub’s expressed opinion that little Sharon “musta been the last squirt poor old Jim had in ’im!” but this was not quite true, though they didn’t do it very often, these days. Jim lay there feeling very hurt and unwanted for about fifteen minutes, at the end of which time there was an unmistakeable burst of giggles and squeals from the girls’ room.

    Jim shot out of bed, and without pausing to reflect that it was only half-past eleven, pounded down the passage to his daughters’ room, flung open their door, and roared at the amazed Carol and Rosemary and their thunderstruck Cousin Melanie: “Shut up, the lot of you! If I hear another sound from this room tonight I’ll tan all your backsides for you! And GET BACK INTO BED, YOU!”

    Melanie shot back into bed like a rabbit scooting for its burrow. Jim switched their light out, closed their door with a slam that in a cooler moment he would have realized might well wake the baby, and stomped back to bed.

    After some time Melanie whispered shakily: “I thought you said your dad never loses his temper?”

    “Ssh!” responded Carol and Rosemary, not daring to say aloud that he normally didn’t.

    Melanie’s father quite often lost his. She subsided.

    Nat Weintraub, after some very satisfactory rum-tee-tum that night, allowed Helen to bring him a cup of tea in bed—she got very soppy after she’d had a really belting come, so Nat was careful to give them to her as often as he could. Sipping the tea in great comfort against his bank of pillows, he said: “Know what?”

    “What?” replied Helen comfortably, sipping her cup of tea, and thinking complacently that that wasn’t bad for a woman of going on forty-seven.

    “That Macdonald joker.”

    “Who?”

    “That Scotch bloke, friend of Peter’s—red-haired joker!”

    “Oh, yes, I know who you mean; what about him?”

    Nat’s post-coital glow was wearing off a bit, and he belatedly began to wonder whether he should have raised the subject at all: Helen had no tact, and with that bloody bitch, Pat, egging her on her tongue could be almost as unkind as Pat’s own. “Uh...”

    “What, Nat?

    Reluctantly Nat mumbled:  “Uh—well, I just thought...”

    “What?”

    “Well—he looks a bit like young Carol doesn’t ’e?” He gave a silly laugh.

    It was the laugh, not the suggestion itself, which made Helen sit up and take notice. It was the same laugh that Nat gave when he was lying to her, or trying to hide something, or when, on presenting her with a huge bouquet of expensive flowers, he tried to claim that there was no reason for his gift, he’d just felt like it. So instead of retorting strongly that that was nonsense, she actually paused and thought about it. “Ye-es; now I come to think about it…”

    Uneasily Nat rejoined: “Probably nothing in it; probably just my imagination.”

    Helen frowned thoughtfully,

    “Probably lots of Scotch jokers look like that!” Unwisely, he gave another silly laugh.

    Helen retorted sharply: “Lots of Jewish girls don’t, though!”

    “Aw, I dunno. Look at that pal of yours, Whatsername, Irene Thingummyjig: she’s got red hair; so’ve all her kids.”

    Grimly Helen replied: “They’re Polish Jews: it’s not unusual in Polish families.”

    Silence. Nat drank his tea and looked at her out of the corner of his eye; Helen drank hers and went on frowning thoughtfully.

    “Look, Helen—”

    “What?”

    Nat went crimson and said loudly: “Look, for God’s sake, old girl, don’t go spreading it around!”

    Helen turned puce and said in a shaking voice: “I wasn’t going to!”

    Nat looked at her uneasily. Cautiously he put his cup and saucer down and slipped an arm around her broad shoulders. With relief he realized that the aftereffects of the belting come hadn’t yet worn off: Helen relaxed against him and said: “Heck, Nat: if it’s true—! Poor Becky.”

    “Yeah.” After a while he added: “Poor old Jim, too.”

    “Mm. I wonder if she’s ever told him who—”

    “No,” said Nat definitely.

    Helen looked up at him in surprize. “How do you know?”

    “He told me,” said Nat briefly.

    “You never told me that!”

    “No,” he agreed simply.

    Helen, who allowed everyone, including herself, most of the time, to assume her florid, cheerful husband was well under her thumb, swallowed and reflected that there was more to Nat than people thought.

    Nat squeezed her a bit and said hopefully: “We won’t mention it to anybody, eh? Not even Pat.”

    “God, no, not Pat!” said Helen before he could stop herself.

    At this Nat, who for twenty-seven years had cheerfully ignored her frequent injunctions not to swear and not to blaspheme, grinned and awarded her a smacking kiss on her rather slab-like Prussian cheek.

    “I must cream my face, I suppose...”

    His grasp tightened. “Aw, give it a miss tonight, old girl, eh?”

   Helen looked at him in surprise. Nat grinned sheepishly, pushed his face into her Prussian neck, and mumbled: “Let’s just have googgy-cuddles, eh?”

    He hadn’t suggested that since... Helen couldn’t remember when, but it must have been when Melanie was a baby. Shaken, she turned out the light and said: “Come on, then.”

    Nat snuggled down with his broad back to her. Helen fitted herself against him, squashing her large boobs and ample belly into his back and bum. Nat gave a deep sigh.—This was not yet googgy-cuddles, however.—Helen reached over his broad hip and held his limp penis. Nat made a deep sound that was almost like a purr. This was googgy-cuddles.

    When Lindy came home from her grandparents’ place at around eleven o’clock the following morning she would be both astounded and disgusted to find both her parents still in bed, fast asleep and snoring.

    That night Hamish rang Mirry cautiously at the flat from the extension in his study, and got no reply, as she’d already gone down to her parents’ farm. He retired grumpily to his narrow single bed in the small, rather dark bedroom which Sylvie had allotted to him and for the first time since Jake had brought up the subject on Elspeth’s first day at Puriri Primary School, actually wondered about getting a divorce, and how one went about it, and what would happen to Elspeth if he did. Because he was terrified that she mightn’t, he didn’t let himself wonder if Mirry would marry him if he did get a divorce. But he did experience a warm sort of hopeful feeling as if, a long way off and in some unspecified future, there might actually be something rather nice waiting for him.

Next chapter:

https://themembersoftheinstitute.blogspot.com/2023/01/all-change.html