Foreign Relations

12

Foreign Relations

    Charlie Roddenberry, normally a mild-mannered man, was not in the best of tempers. He had conscientiously visited all the best-known tourist sights of both the North and South Islands during December and the earlier part of January—only slightly disconcerted to find the hotels his L.A. travel agent had booked him into exorbitantly expensive and often lacking in both air conditioning and anything approximating good service—and was now, midway through January, conscientiously reporting himself at the Pacific Institute of Political Studies quite six weeks before he was expected to do so.

    He had lost his way twice: once when trying to get onto the northern motorway from his hotel—he had got onto the southern motorway instead and driven for half an hour before realizing that by now he should have encountered the bridge that, according to his map and previous observation spanned the glorious blue harbour; and once, when he’d got himself onto the right motorway, crossed the bridge and driven rather carefully (still not being used to driving on the wrong side of the road) for about an hour, at Puriri township itself, which, since it had no signs whatsoever welcoming you to it, he had assumed was not the town for which he was looking, but only a little seaside resort—which, by and large, it was.

    He had driven straight on through Puriri and out the far side of it—five minutes—casting admiring glances to his right at the sparkling water and the lovely beach, and trying to repress an élitist wince at the blare of transistor radios, cassette players and portable TVs coming from the trailer park (or what Puriri called the caravan camp), for he was conscientiously democratic (not the same as being a Democrat, though he was, more or less).

    He’d continued on north up the hill where Basil and Gary’s house and Mirry’s granny flat were, over the rise, along the further mile or so to the turnoff to Kowhai Bay, which was actually marked “Kowhai Bay”, but Charlie was still at the stage where all these Maori names looked the same to him, and he’d assumed it was Pohutukawa Bay—the turnoff to which, as Hamish Macdonald had discovered nearly two years before, was not marked. After another stretch of not very interesting farmland on his left and incredibly blue sea on his right, he’d come to an intersection. One arm of the signpost pointed down a side road to his left, running back to the southwest: it said “Puriri Golf Course 5km”. Another arm pointed back the way he had come: it said: “Puriri 6 1/2km”. The third arm, which was broken, said “Whang”.

    It was a very, very hot day, Charlie had got a nasty dose of sunburn when sightseeing at Rotorua the previous weekend—not realizing that, whatever might have been the case in Los Angeles, in Rotorua when the day was hot, grey and gritty with a strong smell of sulphur you still got sunburnt—and the exorbitantly expensive hire-car he was driving, besides having a suspicious rattle, was not air-conditioned. He said very loudly: “Well, fuck you, Whang!” and turned the car laboriously on the main highway which had, for no good reason that he could see, suddenly gotten rather narrow about two miles back.

    In Puriri he’d been misdirected twice. The first time was when he’d drawn in to the side of the main road and said to a very correct-looking elderly man in grey shorts, brown sandals and a pink tee-shirt: “Pardon me, sir; can you direct me to the campus?”

    The elderly man was old Mr Potter from Hinemoa Street who, as anyone in Hinemoa Street or at the Puriri Bowling Club or the Puriri and Kowhai Bay Bridge Club could have told you, was rather deaf but wouldn’t admit it. Not recognizing the word “campus” for what it was—everybody in Puriri said “Up the varsity”, not “On campus”, so there was some excuse for him—he courteously directed Charlie to the camping ground.

    Charlie had gotten that sorted out by asking another elderly man. The little town was swarming with elderly men, with casually-dressed couples with cameras whom Charlie correctly diagnosed as tourists who wouldn’t know where anything was, and with yelling kids on skateboards, none of whom looked as if they’d know the multiplication table, let alone the way to anywhere, so he didn’t have much choice. This second elderly man was, as almost anyone from Puriri, Pohutukawa Bay or Kowhai Bay could have told him, Cyril Blake, the Secretary of the Puriri & District Lawn Tennis Club, a retired land agent (what Charlie called a realtor), and a County Councillor. He wasn’t deaf and had all his wits very much about him: he gave Charlie very clear and correct directions.

    Once he was off the main drag, Charlie saw very few people: several elderly men all heading west, one elderly lady with a shopping trundler, also heading west, two boys with skateboards and a black and tan dog, not apparently heading anywhere, and a black-haired girl on a bike, heading west (Mirry Field, going up to the Undergraduate Reading Room in order to get away from Basil’s tactful probing as to where her ginger lover was). Two cars occupied by elderly couples, and eight cars occupied by elderly men overtook him, heading west. One police car occupied by a plump policeman came out of a cross-road and went south (Sergeant Jim Baxter, going home for lunch). Where the Hell were all the old ladies? Charlie wondered. As it was ten to twelve, they were all, of course, at home, getting the lunch for their husbands who had been out on mild constitutionals, or to the Bowling Club or the Public Library, or on imaginary errands invented by their wives to get them out from under their feet.

    On campus he floundered for quite a while. The buildings were labelled very clearly with large signs saying “A Block”, “B Block”, and so on. On Charlie’s own campus there were helpful maps outside every block, with “YOU ARE HERE” marked on them. None of the buildings in sight looked in the least like an Administration Block—and, indeed, none of them were, for that was all done back at the City Campus. Puriri Campus existed for the purpose of getting the huge undergraduate First and Second Year classes in such subjects as Business Studies, Computer Science, English, Mathematics, French and Maori out of the drastically cramped City Campus. There were one or two offices for part-time typists, and the Branch Librarian had an office, of sorts (at the moment occupied by boxes and boxes of books belonging to the new Institute). Naturally the janitor had an office, but he was rarely in it.

    Charlie tried several entrances, all locked because Term didn’t start till March, before he found one which was open. Inside he had a choice between two large glass doors, closed, under a sign that said “Undergraduate Reading Room”, and an ordinary door, slightly ajar, with a very small sign that said “D102”. Since it is human nature to avoid practically blank wooden doors that say only “D102” Charlie wouldn’t have tried it, only that the double glass doors to the Undergraduate Reading Room were completely blanked out with heavy brown paper, and it is even more human nature to avoid doors that someone has deliberately blanked out with brown paper. He tapped hesitantly at the slightly ajar “D102”.

    “Yeah?” said a rather hot and cross male voice.

    Charlie pushed the door open and said: “Pardon me; I’m sorry to trouble you, but could you direct me to the Pacific Institute of Political Studies?”

    Stan Coates, who’d only been with the Computer Science Department for a year, and hadn’t yet grasped that the Long Vacation was for doing your own thing, not for being on campus preparing for next year’s courses, looked up crossly from his terminal at the fifteenth tit in the last two weeks who couldn’t see the bloody Political Institute or Whatever-the-Hell-it-Was when it was under his nose, and directed him, clearly and concisely, to the building site. Poor Stan had been plagued by a stream of such tits (well, three) because D Block was the only block that was open, and his hot little furnace of an office was nearest to the front door.

    At the building site a confused Charlie began to wonder if the native with the terminal (Stan, who came from Lower Hutt, had a very strong Kiwi accent) had been deliberately making a monkey out of a lost American—for, amongst other things, he had gathered during his tourist activities that Americans weren’t much loved here, though their dollars were. Then he saw the very large, very clear sign which explained exactly what the building site was and who was building it—and felt a little better.

    Fortunately the sandy-haired young man at the building site whom he asked for further directions was Tim Green. Tim was an electrician from Pohutukawa Bay, and the husband of Daphne Green who did housework for the Carranos and of course gave Polly a hand with the babies, and by rights he shouldn’t have been anywhere near the site, as the first sod had only been turned at the beginning of December and, since almost everything in New Zealand stopped from about the 20th of December to about the 15th of January, not much had happened there since. The blokes were only just back on the job today, in fact. Tim was there taking a sneaky look at the size of the place and trying to figure out if he could afford to tender for the electrical work against the big boys, and deciding reluctantly that he probably couldn’t.

    As he’d done all the wiring on the prefabs that were now housing the embryo Institute, he knew exactly where it was, and in fact walked over there with Charlie, chatting to him amiably. Charlie, having hitherto dealt mainly with hotel and restaurant personnel and unhelpful bus drivers (he tended to avoid guided tours), wondered whether this pleasant man of around his own age was an exception to the usual rule, or whether there actually were some Kiwis who didn’t regard Americans as their natural prey or as unwanted hiccups in their bus schedule.

    Hamish had gone down to Taranaki to collect Elspeth, Peter wasn’t in today, and Marianne, who hadn’t actually had all that much leave due her, having only started the job in April, had shyly asked a rather surprized Hamish if she could possibly anticipate some leave, Dr Macdonald, and was at this very moment lying under a sun umbrella on a large rug on a tiny, obscure beach down on the East Coast with Maurice Black, whose wife was under the impression that he’d gone on a fishing trip with an old mate. Marianne had a bikini bottom on, which Maurice was trying to persuade her to take off. Maurice didn’t have anything on.

    Caro, still fuming after last week’s fight with Donald Freeman—she’d told him the heating couldn’t possibly be ducted up that wall, the cataloguer’s computer workstation was going to be right up against it, but the bloody fuckwit had gone and decided to do it all the same—was alone in the office.

    “Pardon me, Miss,” said poor, hot, sweating, sunburnt Charlie, faint but pursuing: “is this the Pacific Institute of Political Studies?”

    Caro looked up from her one millionth perusal of the fuckwitted architect’s drawings and scowled horribly. The prefab was hot, she’d had to leave Danny at home all by himself as there were no child-care facilities available in New Zealand over the summer holidays—or certainly none within fifty kilometres of Puriri, where they were now living—and she didn’t like Americans, she particularly didn’t like Americans who said “institoot”, she loathed being called “Miss”, and she was still off men.

    “Yeah,” she said shortly. “There’s nobody here,” she added after a second.

    Charlie looked at the short, very tanned, curly-headed figure that was sitting cross-legged on top of a large desk—Caro was an inveterate sitter on desks—wearing a bright yellow halter top over her too-generous bosom and a pair of very shabby, baggy brown shorts on her rather generous bum, and decided that she was one of those untidy little round brown girls that he never had been able to stand. –Actually he’d once stood them rather well, but Ellie Greenaway had dumped him in Junior High for a yellow-haired footballer who didn’t have braces on his teeth: after that he’d never been able to stand them. Mentally comparing her unfavourably with the lady whom his ex had accurately described as “that Goddawful Christabel”—tall, blonde, svelte, California-elegant from the top of her streaked, moussed and styled-weekly head down to the tips of her gigantic magenta claws—Charlie scowled right back, let his beautiful manners go by the board, and pointed out: “There’s you, isn’t there?”

    She looked at her watch—Charlie registering with disgust that it was a man’s watch (Christabel had several watches, which matched her different outfits, most of them “musts de Cartier”)—and said: “Not any more there isn’t; it’s lunchtime.”

    “Now, look!” said Charlie.

    Caro slid off the desk untidily and he involuntarily noticed that under the baggy shorts she had on pale blue panties; oddly, this made him crosser than ever. She picked up a bulging, battered navy-blue shoulder bag and slung the strap over her shoulder.

    “Sorry, I’m locking up now,” she said—not sounding in the least sorry, or even interested.

    “Now, look!” said Charlie again. “I’ve had about enough of this, Miss!”

    “Ms,” said Caro, going over to the windows and beginning to shut them. As Caro was only five-foot-three and the window catches were rather high up, she had to stretch to do this and Charlie got a good view of the way her wide bum tightened under the awful shorts as she did so. He also got a good view of her waist, which was quite a deal smaller than her hips and bust, and in fact a very nice waist indeed, and of her trim, well-muscled calves, which were—if you had a taste for such things—rather a nice contrast to her somewhat heavy but very brown thighs.

    “Well, just you listen here, Ms!” said Charlie—varying his theme somewhat. “I dunno who the Hell you are, but—”

    Caro swung round, and, a bright pink flush mounting to the brown cheeks and the full bosom heaving attractively—if, that is, you had a taste for such things (Donald Freeman’s best mate Larry McGrath would definitely have appreciated it)—said: “And I don’t know who the Hell you are; and what the Hell makes you think you can march in here and talk to me like that?”

    With a sickening jolt Charlie remembered that he hadn’t, in fact, said who he was. He went bright crimson—which did not consort well with the scarlet patches of sunburn on his long nose and high cheekbones—and stammered: “I’m sorry, Miss—Ms, I mean. I’m Charlie Roddenberry; I—uh—I’m supposed to be working here.”

    This inept effort was well below Charlie’s usual standard, but as has been seen, he’d already had a Helluva day.

    Caro frowned. “But... Oh; you must be the American!”

    “I guess,” said Charlie unhappily.

    “But...”

    “I guess nobody expected me just yet,” said Charlie, even more unhappily.

    “What did you say your name was, again?” said Caro.

    “Charlie Roddenberry.”

    Caro looked at him dubiously. Charlie went crimson again, and fumbled for his wallet. “Look: here; here’s my driver’s licence; and—and I’ve got a letter from Dr Macdonald, somewhere...”

    “Jesus: put it away,” said Caro weakly.

    Charlie did so, giving her an uncertain look.

    Caro ran her hand through her untidy brown curls—they were of an extraordinary light brown shade which looked almost bronze, indeed almost green, in certain lights—and said weakly: “I believe you—nobody could possibly make up a name like Charlie Roddenberry.”

    Charlie’s mouth fell open. It was rather a nice mouth, being wide but not at all coarse, and when he was his usual self-possessed self had quite a humorous look to it.

    Caro didn’t notice this; she ran her hand through her curls again and Charlie re-confirmed his first shocked impression that she didn’t shave her underarm hair.

    “Look—nobody expected you; we’re in a Helluva mess; I mean, most of the offices haven’t even got any furniture in them, yet.”

    “Oh. We-ell—maybe I could work in the library?”

    Naturally he said “libe-brerry”—accent on the first syllable but a strong secondary accent on the second syllable. Caro, who of course said “libry”, registered this with dislike, and said cautiously: “Which library?”

    “The Institoot’s libe-brerry,” said Charlie.

    “Hollow laugh,” replied Caro with deep gloom.

    “Pardon me?” said Charlie, startled.

    “Come on,” she said grimly, “I’ll show you the Institute’s library;”—refraining with great difficulty from saying “the Institoot’s libe-brerry”.

    Limply he followed her.

    “Jesus!” he said, looking at the office that was so full of brown cardboard cartons you could only just get into it.

    “That’s part of it,” said Caro grimly. “There’s more in the Branch Librarian’s office—over in D Block.”

    Charlie looked around dazedly at the towers of cartons, which reached nearly to the ceiling, and said: “Shee-ut!”

    Caro registered with unwilling interest that Americans actually did say that.

    He then gave her a wide grin, which creased his thin cheeks in quite a pleasant way and showed his perfect American teeth, and said: “Someone’s gonna have their work cut out for them, huh?”

    “Me,” said Caro grimly. “I’m the Librarian.”

    He was six-three. He looked down at her five-three and said weakly: “How the Hell are you gonna get up there?”

    “With a ladder, I suppose,” said Caro gloomily—she wasn’t much good at heights.

    Charlie, who was actually not at all given to sexist comments, then said unwisely: “You don’t wanna tackle a job like that by yourself; hasn’t the Institute got a super or someone who could give you a hand?”

    “What on earth’s a super?” said Caro weakly.

    “Uh—a building superintendent, I guess,” replied Charlie, also weakly, wondering what he’d struck.

    “A b— Good grief! Ya mean the bloody janitor? That useless tit! He’d be about as much use as a—” Realizing that the American was gawping at her, Caro broke off abruptly.

    Charlie was not used to women who said “bloody” so casually or called men “tits”.—Mary Ann’s “Goddawful” had been a very strong expression indeed; but then Christabel thoroughly merited it.—He went on gawping at her.

    “Listen!” said Caro fiercely. “Anything that macho moron can do I can do better—ten times better, and in half the time!”

    Even more unwisely, Charlie said: “But these boxes must weigh a ton; and you’re so little.”

    “Oh, sure! And I suppose you’re offering to give me a hand, Big Man?” retorted Caro furiously.

    “Sure; why not?” replied Charlie simply.

    She gaped at him.

    He grinned. “Well, there’s not much else I can do, is there? I mean, if the offices aren’t furnished yet, and there’s no library—” He shrugged, and grinned again.

    “Don’t you mind ladders?” said Caro, so taken aback by his offer that she didn’t pause to think.

    Charlie, who had caught that dose of pneumonia last February by doing too many ski jumps in an icy wind, said simply: “No.”

    Caro went very red and glared at the floor.

    Charlie looked down at the bent curly head a foot below him and said: “Heights aren’t one of your favourite things, huh?”

    “Not exactly,” she growled.

    “It’s spiders with me,” he said simply.

    Caro looked up at him in astonishment.

    “I come over real queer when I see one of them: kinda start to sweat, y’know? And—uh—well, I guess I kinda go sorta trembly and—uh—well, I feel a bit nauseous, I guess. Can’t bear to touch ’em.”

    “I’m like that on ladders!”

    “Then you don’t wanna go up ’em,” said Charlie logically.

    Caro looked at him gratefully. “No.”

    “We’ll work out a system, huh? I’ll go up the ladder and open the boxes, and pass the books down to you; how’s that sound?”

    “All right,” said Caro faintly.

    “Great!” He looked at his watch and added: “Didn’t you say it was lunchtime?”

    Caro gave a gasp. “Danny! He’ll be expecting me— Heck, I’ve gotta go!”

    Realizing with a slight sinking in the pit of his very flat belly that this round, brown, untidy girl who was not at all his type had a date for lunch, Charlie said with an attempt at dry humour: “Won’t he wait?”

    “Eh?” said Caro, hurrying down the corridor.

    “Your date; won’t he wait?” said Charlie, striding easily in her wake.

    “I haven’t got a date: Danny’s my son.”

    “That so?” said Charlie interestedly.

    “Yes; he’s only ten; he’s all right on his own, really, but he panics a bit if I’m late.” She fished in her purse and produced her keys.

    “His dad’s at work, I guess?” said Charlie casually, watching her struggle with the lock on the prefab’s front door.

    “No,” said Caro, with a grunt. “Ow! Bugger! –I’m a solo mum.”

    “Lemme do that,” said Charlie, putting his long, strong hand over her little hot brown one.

    “You can try, but It’s an absolute sod!” said Caro, letting go of the key.

    Charlie wasn’t used to women who said “bugger” and “sod” so casually, either. He went slightly pink and wrestled with the lock in silence. When he’d beaten it he said: “There!” and handed her back the keys.

    Caro went over to her ancient car. Charlie followed her automatically. “Say, listen—uh...”

    She looked at him enquiringly.

    Charlie went a little pink again, gave a tiny laugh, and said: “Say, what is your name?”

    “Oh, didn’t I— Caro Webber!” gasped Caro.

    Charlie held out his long, pale hand. “Charlie Roddenberry.”

    “Yes—you said,” said Caro weakly, putting her small brown hand in it.

    Charlie grinned at her; Caro smiled shakily at him.

    “Say, listen, Caro—say, did I hurt you, there?” he said in horror—Caro was unconsciously cradling her hand.

    She went scarlet, “No, it wasn’t you, really—I strained it last week opening some of those bloody cartons; it’s still a bit tender.”

    “Jesus, I’m sorry!”

    “It’s okay—what were you going to say?”

    Probably Kiwi girls whose hands you’d just brutalized didn’t accept invitations to lunch. Charlie replied gloomily: “I just wondered—maybe you and Danny’d like to come eat with me?”

    “Come to lunch?”

    “Yeah, sure,” he, said, more hopefully.

    Caro scowled at the pitted asphalt of Puriri Campus. “Not a date.”

    “Uh—”

    “I don’t go on dates.”

    “Not a date,” said Charlie firmly. “Just the three of us having a bite to eat—okay?”

    “Yeah—okay—thanks.”

    She began to unlock the battered car. He said gently: “With that hand, and all—would you rather go in my car?”

    “Uh—yeah, all right; if you like.”

    Gravely he offered her his arm. Caro gawped at him. Charlie, who didn’t know he was being very foreign and peculiar, not to say totally M.C.P., went on offering her his arm.

    Caro took it.

    Without a word to her husband on the subject, Veronica Sarah Riabouchinska rang up her mother and said abruptly: “Mum, I’ll take the baby.”

    Lady Cohen had been praying that this would happen—not because she didn’t adore baby Sharon herself. But she hadn’t really expected it would. In a voice that shook a little she replied: “That would be lovely, dear. Would you like to come over now and collect her?”

    “Righto,” said Veronica, ringing off abruptly.

    Peter, in the face of his wife’s continued grimness, implacable refusal to cry, and apparent determination to lose herself in her work, had again betaken himself to his office in an abortive effort to bury himself in his own work. When he came back late that afternoon the dining table, which should have been occupied by a scowling, silent Veronica, was deserted, apart from an untidy pile of books and Veronica’s expensive electric typewriter, which was emitting a faint purring sound. Peter switched the typewriter off, looking in mild surprise at the last sentence on the sheet of paper in it, which read: “Thus we can see that this IS ALL BALDERDASH!!!” and tiptoed towards the bedroom, hoping to find that Veronica had at last given in to his mild suggestion that she should take afternoon naps.

    On his king-size bed with the fawn candlewick bedspread—which Veronica, suddenly realizing why he was getting so upset about it, had gruffly agreed not to replace with the blue and navy duvet from her Sydney flat—lay his wife, fast asleep, with tear stains on her face and swollen eyelids, curled on her side in nothing but a pale blue slip. Tucked into her midriff lay baby Sharon, clad in nothing but a pair of Treasures waterproof nappies, also fast asleep. The bed and the room were strewn with a litter of baby paraphernalia and what Peter dimly recognized as the clothes his wife had had on when he’d left the flat that morning.

    It was a very humid afternoon. Peter opened the windows as far as they would go, lowered the Holland blinds to about an inch above the sills, and took off all his clothes. Then he removed a very small koala bear, a rattle, and Veronica’s panties from his half of the bed, lay down on his side facing his wife and the baby, and went to sleep, too.

    Sharon woke up first, because she was wet and hungry, and started to cry. Peter woke up with a start, blinked, grinned, sat up and picked her up.

    Veronica woke up slowly, looked groggily at her naked, hairy husband cuddling a grizzling baby which wasn’t his own, went scarlet, and sat up, too.

    “I’ve brought her home,” she said in a growly voice.

    “So I see—da,” said Peter calmly. He kissed the baby’s head and said to her: “Is it all wet—” and a Russian word, at least she thought it was Russian, which Veronica didn’t understand. “Now Uncle Peter will take this horrid wet nappy off for you, moy precious—da?” He balanced her on his hairy thighs and pulled open the tabs of the nappy.

    Rather shaken to hear him call anyone else “moy precious”, Veronica said weakly, reverting to the language of her own childhood: “Be careful—she mighta done a poo.”

    “That’s what you call it, le caca?” said Peter with interest; the last baby he’d had much to do with had been the one belonging to his grandparents’ neighbours in France, when he was in his teens. “I mean, when a baby has shit in its nappy,” he explained.

    “Yeah,” said Veronica weakly, wondering if he’d got the past participle right.

    Peter investigated tranquilly, told Sharon—on discovering that she had—what a good, clever girl she was, and said: “Is there a clean nappy, Veronica?”

    “Oh! Yeah; I got quite a few packets.” She got up and retrieved a packet. “You have to wipe her, first, and put some stuff on her; and then you put one of those thingy-whatsits in the nappy—nappy-liners—at least that’s what Becky always did,” she explained, quite overlooking the fact that this was the first time she’d mentioned her dead sister’s name since the news of the crash.

    Peter didn’t overlook it; but he didn’t say anything, just did what Veronica told him to, quite handily for someone who hadn’t done it since he was about fifteen. –Mme La Plante, quite unable to see any reason why teenage boys should be embarrassed by these things, had ordered both her own Pierre-Xavier and his friend Pierre-Moïse from next-door impartially to change the baby whenever it needed doing, depending on whoever was nearest at the moment.

    “These are good, these modern nappies, n’est-ce pas? No horrid—eugh—pins? Is that what you call them?”—“Safety pins.”—“Ah: safety pins? No horrid safety pins to stick into its poor little tummy, hein?” He kissed Sharon’s tummy and fastened the clean nappy.

    “You are such a pretty little girl, moy precious!” He held her up. “Qu’elle est belle, la petite. Petit chou! Hein, mon petit chou? T’es jolie, non?”

    “Shouldn’t it be ‘ma petite’ chou?” said Veronica weakly. “She’s a girl.”

    “We know that! We know that!” said Peter in a squeaky voice. He held Sharon against his face and whispered loudly: “We know that—we have just seen its pretty little bum—hein, ma belle?”

    “Honestly, Peter,” said Veronica in a sort of weak horror.

    “The noun will always take its own gender, not that of the person to whom it is apploied,” said Peter tranquilly. “Chou is a masculine noun.”

    “Oh.”

    Finding herself warm and dry again, Sharon remembered she was hungry, and began to whimper. Peter kissed her gently, cuddled her against his shoulder and said: “Hush, moy precious. Now it will have its noice dinner, and then it will have another noice nap, da? And when it’s having its noice nap Uncle Peter will give Aunty Veronica a noice fuck—very slow and gentle, I think?”

    Veronica opened her mouth to reprove him for speaking like that in front of the baby, even if, being just ten months old, Sharon couldn’t understand him, shut it abruptly, went very red and suddenly said: “Bum! I’m gonna bawl again!” and threw herself face downwards on the awful fawn bedspread.

    Peter tranquilly laid the baby down on her far side, ignored the fact that Sharon immediately started to bawl, too, half covered Veronica’s sobbing form with his own body and, putting his arm right across both her and the baby, said softly: “Moy precious angel; moy precious girl; that’s roight; you croy very much. Soon it feels a little better; mm?”

    Sobbing, Veronica replied: “Yes! Sorry!”

    “There is nothing to be sorry for,” said Peter, kissing the nape of her neck. “One cannot help these things.”

    “Been a bitch to you!” she sobbed.

    “Yes; but that you could not help, either, moy dearest one.”

    Veronica sobbed a lot more, until she became conscious of the fact that Sharon’s wails were getting louder and louder. Then, with a lot of gulping and sniffing, she stopped, and mumbling gruffly: “Making the baby cry,” attempted to sit up.

    Peter prevented her, turned her face gently to his, and mopped her tears with a clean nappy liner, as the box of tissues was on the other side of the bed.

    “So, moy darling; now I think perhaps maybe you h’want this funny old Jew again?”

    “Don’t call yourself that,” said Veronica huskily. “You’re not funny, and you’re not old!”

    “I’m very glad that that is what you think," he said, and kissed her gently. "Now, I will feed the baby; and you, I think, will have a nice cool shower—yes?”

    “Okay.” She sat up. “Uh—Mum’s written it all down. What she has to have, and all that.” She waved vaguely towards the dressing-table.

    “Foine; I h’will cope.”

    When Veronica came back from her shower he was sitting up on the bed, giving Sharon her bottle. An open tin of baby food with a sticky spoon in it sat on the bedside table. Veronica perceived dazedly that her rather finicky and obsessively neat husband had no fixed ideas about where babies should be fed—or in what manner: he was still naked.

    “Peter, don’tcha think—well, shouldn’t you put some clothes on?”

    He smiled. “Why? You think I shock the baby with moy big prick?”

    Veronica swallowed.

    Peter said soppily to Sharon: “You do not moind Uncle Peter’s noice big prick, do you, pretty baby?” Sharon stopped sucking and made a vague but happy noise. “So!” said Peter merrily, lifting her to his shoulder and gently patting her back.

    “Jesus, Peter,” protested Veronica feebly, sitting down limply on the dressing-table stool.

    Peter merely looked at her with an expression of mild surprize.

    Silence, except for the sucking sounds of Sharon absorbing the rest of her milk, and the snorting sounds of Sharon breathing as she did so.

    After a while Veronica came and sat on the bed. In a careless voice she said: “She is quite pretty, I suppose.”

    “Mm-hm,” murmured Peter, waggling his eyebrows at Sharon.

    Sharon stopped drinking, produced what was unmistakably a giggle, and grabbed at his nose.

    He put her against his shoulder and patted her back again. Obligingly Sharon gave a huge belch. He beamed and said: “There! That is it! Good girl, Sharon! What does one call that, Veronica? Not a belch, I think, when it is a baby; there is a nursery word, no?”

    “Uh—a burp.”

    “Ah! A burp! –That was a very good burp, precious little Sharon; and now I think you go to your little bed, da?” He kissed the baby’s cheek enthusiastically, held her out to Veronica, who kissed her automatically, and scrambled off the bed to put her in her carrycot beside it.

    “And there is a verb?”

    “Eh?”

    “A verb! From ‘burp’—there is a verb?” He held his head on one side and looked at Sharon dubiously. “I do not see what it could be, though.”

    “‘To burp, of course.”

    “Ah! So I can say ‘She has burp— burp-èd?”—making two syllables of it.

    “Burped.”

    He came back to the bed and sat on the edge at his side. “That is hard, for a poor foreigner: ‘burped’.” He spluttered, and laughed.

    “Bullshit! Your English is bloody good!”

    “Da; but sometimes I h’yave trouble with moy diphthongs,” said Peter sedately, swinging his legs slowly up onto the bed.

    Veronica looked determinedly away during this operation, which in the little Veronica of thirty years ago would undoubtedly have been stigmatized by the rest of her family as “showing everything you’ve got.” Until meeting Peter she had never realized what a prude she was. “Yeah, I’ve noticed,” she replied.

    He seemed to be stuck in a linguistic groove, for he returned: “That is charming, you know? That intervocalic R.”

    “Eh?”

    “The intervocalic R which you interpolate, moy dear; when you say. ‘Yeah, I’ve noticed.’“

    “Eh?”

    “‘Yeah Roi’ve noticed’,” pronounced Peter laboriously.

    “God, I don’t, do I?”

    “Yeah, Roi’ve noticed that you do,” he replied, chuckling.

    “Shit,” mumbled Veronica.

    “Most New Zealanders do; only the very well-spoken like your mother, for example, or Sir Maurice Black, do not do it.”

    “Old Maurie?” exclaimed Veronica incredulously. “But he—”

    “He takes care to use the vernacular, does he not? The—eugh—vocabulary and—eugh—façon de parler of the common man. Unless he is speaking on an academic subject, of course. But all the same his diction is excellent: one would never be deceived into thinking that he is—uh—”

    “Common.”

    “Say, rather, one of the proletariat,” said Peter smoothly.

    Veronica gave a horrified choke of laughter. “My God, he’d kill you if he heard you say that! He’s a rabid Red, ya know!”

    “No, he only thinks he is,” said Peter tranquilly. “Whoy are you wearing that silly dressing-gown? And whoy are you taking care not to look at moy prick? Do you not want him in you?”—getting his English genders mixed, but fortunately not mixed with French’s verge, feminine.

    “Yes, um, but don’t you think we ought to put the baby in the other room?”

    “But she would be lonely.” He kissed Veronica’s neck and added: “This is your Anglo-Saxon upbringink; me, I do not think it h’will do her any harm if she does wake up, which is doubtful, I think, her little belly is so full.” He bit her neck, and Veronica squeaked. “What was I sayink? –Da; she will not understand; and it h’will do her no harm to hear the rhythms of loife, I think.”

    “Go on, then,” said Veronica huskily.

    The curly mouth quivered in amusement; he kissed her lips gently, and obeyed.

    Because they’d had such a long period of abstinence, they both came very quickly; and after about an hour or so, Peter got very excited all over again, and did it much more slowly and thoroughly; and Veronica woke the baby.

    Peter got out of bed, laughing, changed her, and cuddled her. Then he got back into bed with her, and put her between them.

    “What if we squash her? I don’t think it’s safe!” said Veronica in horror.

    Peter didn’t attempt to argue. “She will be all roight for a little, I think; then I put her back into her little wee bed—okay?”

    “Okay,” said Veronica, yawning widely.

    After a while she dropped off to sleep. Peter forgot about the baby, and dropped off, too.

    Sharon had already dropped off, and slept like a log until about half past five, when the birds in Peter’s spouting started twittering. Then she woke with a lusty roar.

    Veronica woke up in fright. “Jesus—”

    Peter opened his eyes, smiled, and yawned. “We did not squash her, I think?”

    “No,” agreed Veronica, looking at Sharon with a fascinated eye. “Must be a bloody atavism, or something,” she mumbled. “Don’t think I’ve moved a muscle all night.”

    Peter, who was pretty sure it was an atavism, allowed himself a tiny smile, but considerately didn’t say anything except: “I think she has—what is the expression? Done poo?”

    “Done a poo.”

    “Ah: yes; what is to urinate?”

    Veronica picked Sharon up cautiously and looked at him uneasily. “Uh…”

    “To urinate,” he repeated. “The nursery word: it is not to piss? To pee?”

    Looking even more uneasy, Veronica mumbled: “To do wee-wees.”

    “Wee-wees!” said Peter pleasedly. “That is charming!”

    Veronica thought it was Goddawful. She looked at him weakly, and got out of bed.

    “That is plural, da?”

    “Uh—I don’t think so... Ugh, she has done a poo, a real squashy one!”

     Peter began to laugh.

    “Don’t laugh, ya clown! Chuck us that toilet roll, for God’s sake!”

    The blue toilet roll, which had mysteriously found its way into the bedroom and not been returned to the bathroom, was duly chucked over to her.

    Sharon began to bellow again, and Peter said: “Now I think we give this one her breakfast.”

    Veronica goggled at him. “But it’s miles too early!”

    “But the little one is hungry,” returned Peter logically.

    “Okay,” she agreed limply.

    Giving baby Sharon her breakfast at something before six in the morning, Veronica began to get some idea of just why her husband had said, on her reporting that she was pregnant—well, the day after—that it was just as well she wasn’t lecturing for the next few year, babies had such odd schedules.

    Peter, watching tranquilly, sent up an unconscious prayer of gratitude for the curative powers of baby Sharon to the Supreme Being whom he had long since consciously renounced. It was not that he had missed the sex; it was that he had had a terrible sick, chilled fear that, since it was beyond his powers as a mere man—whom she had accused, before the icy grimness had set in, of being a sex maniac and only having one thing on his mind—to cuddle, comfort or cajole her into lowering her barrier of silence, Veronica was lost to him forever. It had occurred to him forcibly that, being Veronica, she would undoubtedly see it as her duty to bear the child she was carrying for him, and would presumably go through pregnancy, labour and several years of conjugal life thereafter in the same state of grim uncommunicativeness. It had not been a happy thought.

    Where simple Nat and Helen had consoled themselves in the most natural way in the world, and Veronica had hidden herself in her shell of coldness and indifference, Peter’s reaction to the accumulated stresses of the past several weeks was quite different. When Sharon had been fed and, showing no disposition to go to sleep again, was playing with her toys and Peter’s socks on his yellowish bedroom rug, he abruptly said: “Veronica: I have been thinking.”

    “Yeah?”

    “I think perhaps maybe I accept your father’s offer to boy us a house up at Puriri, after all.”

    Veronica goggled at him. In spite of the fact that Peter was, incomprehensibly, genuinely fond of old Sir Jerry, the two of them had very nearly had a row on this subject. Peter had said things like didn’t Sir Jerry think he could support his own wife, and what sort of a lap-dog did he take him for; and Sir Jerry had said things like stubborn fool, and got more pride than was good for ya, and didn’t ya know when ya were well off, and—pathetically—only trying to do something for Veronica and the kid. Unfortunately this last had provoked the retort that Peter—very red and almost stammering—could look after his own wife and child and had every intention of doing so without interference from anyone, and a slammed door.

    She swallowed. “That’s up to you.”

    “Good. Then I tell him today.”

    “Okay.”

    Peter was looking at the baby with a tender smile on his curly mouth, and didn’t register the fact that his wife was gawping at him.

     After a while Veronica said feebly: “Um, it’s fine by me, but why?”

    “Hein? Oh. I just suddenly think that proide is stupid and that he is a poor old man who does not need to be made unhappy.”

    Veronica nodded limply. “Goddit.”

    “I make us some more coffee, I think.”

    “Yeah, great; I could go another round of toast, too,” she admitted.

    About twenty minutes later Peter had just decided that a third coffee would not be good for Veronica and as they were out of milk she had better have a glass of orange juice, when they became aware that Sharon was bashing Peter’s shoe joyously against his old-fashioned oak dressing-table.

    “Hell’s teeth!” said Veronica, bounding up and grabbing her.

    Peter began to laugh.

    “God, she’s really marked it!” said Veronica in horror, peering at the scars on the rather nice old dressing-table’s bottom drawer.

    “Never moind!” said Peter, still laughing.

    Veronica leaned her cheek on Sharon’s tiny dark curls and said, with her back to him, glaring at his Holland blinds: “Peter, we can keep her, can’t we?”

    “Of course, moy dearest,” replied Peter sedately.

    “Good!” said Caro happily. “That’s settled, then; she’ll be damn good. Bob’ll be pleased, too; he reckons she’s been in that dead-end job too long and it’ll do her good to come out of her shell a bit—take some responsibility.”

    “Foine,” agreed Peter. “If you are satisfoied, Caro, that is what matters.” They had just agreed to appoint Val Shipley, one of the cataloguers from the University Library, as the Nathaniel Cohen Memorial Library’s Head of Technical Services: she would be in charge of all the cataloguing and acquisitions work. Val was a slim, quiet dark girl whose shy manner belied her capabilities; Bob, the Librarian, while thoroughly appreciating the excellent job she’d done for him, would, as Caro had indicated, be only too glad to see her do better for herself.

    “Now,” said Peter, “the applications for the Deputy’s position, I think.”

    Caro groaned. “Well, I’ve sorted them out into possibles and no-noes; you wanna look at the no-noes?”

    Peter shook his curly head and smiled his nice smile. “No, moy dear Caro, I have great faith in your judgement; if you say they are no-noes, we’ll discard them, da?”

    Caro beamed. “Okay!” What a nice man he was—even if he was quite old, and a bit fat, and a bit bald; Veronica Cohen was a lucky woman. Caro was at last beginning to get over being absolutely off all men, and Peter Riabouchinsky’s niceness had been a not insignificant factor in this development. Not that Caro was in the least in love with him, he was much too old, and not her type, and sometimes she wondered how Veronica, who wasn’t really all that much older than her, could. But he was nice, and he sometimes made her think that maybe not all men were absolute rats and/or wash-outs.

    “So; we look at the possibles,” said Peter. “And unless they become probables, we do not bother Hamish with any of them, I think.”

    ”Right,” agreed Caro; all the more quickly because Hamish’s temper had seemed to deteriorate almost visibly over the last couple of weeks, as Term approached. Not that he’d been rude, or anything, to her; but he’d got shorter and shorter with people like the Puriri Campus janitor who never did what they were asked to—in fact he’d put in a written report on the man to the Registrar, and hired the Institute its own part-time janitor, a much nicer, older man who seemed to be a hard and conscientious worker—though everybody was reserving judgement for a bit. Term was due to start next week, so Caro and Marianne, who’d decided between themselves that Hamish must be a bit nervous about the Institute, as such, really starting up, were hoping he’d get over his first-night nerves, and calm down a bit.

    She produced a manila folder and they proceeded to examine its contents.

    “This lady?” said Peter. “She is very h’well qualifoied, no?”

    “Ye-ah; I’ve met her,” replied Caro uneasily.

    Peter held his head on one side like a bright-eyed bird. “But?”

    Caro went red. “There’s two things, really...”

    “Yes?”

    “Well, in the first place, she’s the sort of person who goes round back-biting her bosses behind their backs.”

    “Ah. So she works at…? –Oh.”

    “Yeah; it’s one of the best research libraries in the country; most people’d give their eye-teeth to work there.”

    “Da; I have used it; it is a splendid loibrary.”

    “Yeah; so, well, that makes her a bit iffy,” said Caro, hoping he’d forgotten that she’d mentioned there were two points.

    “And the second thing?”

    She might’ve known! He was one of the sharpest blokes she’d ever met. Going very red, she admitted: “Well, she’s a bit of a man-eater. Specializes in breaking up the happy home, and that sort of thing.”

    “This is not just rumour, Caro? Or spoiteful gossip you h’yave heard? She is an attractive woman, da?” He looked at the photo.

    “She’s absolutely beautiful,” said Caro frankly. “I dunno why she even feels she had to go for other women’s men! I mean, the blokes are usually just lining up for her—you know!”

    Peter did not take this last phrase, a commonplace of the New Zealand vernacular, as a reference to his personal life. He replied tranquilly: “Yes; I know the toype; some quoite deep insecurity there, I should say.”

    “Mm.”

    “So-o; and the stories are more than rumours?” He gave her a very sharp look.

    Caro went rather red, got up and closed Peter’s door—which they’d left open, because the whole prefab was like an oven in the late February heat—came back, sat down, leaned over towards him, and told him in a very low voice what she knew about this lady.

    Peter looked at her full breasts in their low-cut cotton dress with enjoyment as she did this, even though he was a very satisfied and extremely happy married man, and wondered if he had only imagined that gleam in Charlie Roddenberry’s eye the other day—it was a bit hard to tell, with the big round spectacles that Dr Roddenberry hid himself behind.

    He picked up the well-qualified lady’s application at the end of the story, tore it ruthlessly across, and threw it into his wastepaper bin.

    “I wanted to do that,” said Caro with a grin.

    “You should have,” he replied, getting up and opening his door.

    “I wasn’t quite sure if I had the authority,” said Caro frankly. “I mean, she is very well qualified.”

    “We forget about her; and yes, moy dear Caro, you have the authority to do precoisely that. So that leaves?”

    “These ones.”

    “Mm-m. Let me see… Ah. He is a little old, perhaps?”

    “Can’t discriminate against him because of that,” said Caro uncomfortably: the man was about Peter’s own age.

    “No; but would he be quoite comfortable working for a much younger woman? That sort of thing can cause a lot of friction.”

    “Mm. I rang his boss, actually, because I thought it was a bit odd that he’d want to shift up here; I mean, the job he’s got’s a lot more challenging, really, and there isn’t much difference in the pay.”

    “And?” said Peter, raising his eyebrows.

    “We-ell, she was pretty cagey; but reading between the lines, I’d say the pair of them have had one Helluva bust-up; and I can’t imagine it was her fault; I don’t know her that well, but she’s got the reputation of being very fair.”

    “A tricky one, no?”

    “Mm.”

    “Perhaps we interview him: spring it on him has he had a row with her?”

    “Yeah, might be the best idea.”

    Peter put the application aside as a probable. “So—that leaves these two.”

    “Mm . Nothing much wrong with her; I know her slightly.”

    “You do not sound very enthusiastic?”

    “Well… She’s a bit wishy-washy; and a bit old-fashioned. I mean, it may sound a bit trendy, and that, but I would like all the senior staff to have computer skills.”

    “Yes, I think it is not a very good oidea if the Deputy Loibrarian does not understand how the catalogue works,” agreed Peter, putting the wishy-washy lady with the no-noes.

    Caro sighed. “Well, that leaves us with the Japanese-American one!”

    “The sister of Fred Nakamura,” agreed Peter. “This is a very good resumé: very business-loike.”

    “Yeah; they teach them how to write them at the American library schools,” said Caro drily.

    Peter’s curly mouth twitched. “Now, be serious, Ms Webber!”

    Caro grinned. “Sorry about that, Dr Riabouchinsky!”

    “What do you really think, Caro?”

    “We-ell… I don’t usually go for pigs in pokes, and I’d rather be able to interview her first. But I think she sounds our best bet, quite honestly, Peter. She’s got miles better skills than any of the rest of them.”

    “She has a bibliography, here; you have read any of these?”

    “Most of them are in small local publications; I’d have to send overseas to get them; but I’ve got copies of the two longer ones—here.” She handed him a sheaf of photocopied pages.

    “This is very abstruse,” murmured Peter, glancing through one. “It is good?”

    “Oh—the one on PRECIS? Yes, it’s very sound, I thought; but then, I’m anti-PRECIS, anyway: it’s one of these indexing systems where you have to practically  have a Ph.D. to operate it, and then everyone’s indexing comes out different anyway—that’s more or less what she says, there. Hopeless for any sort of computerised searching; and it’s no use blinking at facts, that’s the way catalogues are going, these days.”

    “Da,” murmured Peter, reading the concluding paragraph.

    “The other one’s bloody good; it’s one of a series that journal ran on problems in personnel management; they published the best solutions people sent in.”

    “So; you excuse me, please, whoile I read?”

    “Sure—go ahead.” She sat quietly while Peter read it.

    “This is really excellent—very level-headed—no?”

    “I thought you’d like it.”

    “Da: she sounds both sensible and—what would one say? A caring person, da?”

    “Yes,” agreed Caro, very pleased. “That’s exactly what I thought!”

    “One cannot fake this sort of thing,” murmured Peter, re-reading a section of the article. “See—what she says here of how she would deal with the little assistant who is rude to the old lady: that is very good, that!”

    “Yes.”

    Peter looked through Jo-Beth’s résumé again. “You know, Caro, if you would be happy with this, I think we recommend to Hamish to appoint this one, so long as her references check out; we forget about the gentleman who maybe has a big foight with his boss; okay?”

    Caro replied slowly: “Ye-es; I don’t think we can do better.”

    “We offer her a provisional appointment—two years, da? That is fair, I think?”

    “Very fair; can we do that?”

    Peter gave a tiny chuckle but did not explain that in this sort of matter he and Hamish could do anything they pleased. “Yes, we can do that.”

    So, her referees having duly provided glowing reports, Jo-Beth Nakamura got the job of Deputy Librarian.

    Jo-Beth herself was thrilled, Fred was very pleased, and Missy was thrilled, too, not least because she wouldn’t have to face the prospect of being a stranger alone in a strange land—because she knew her Fred: once he got immersed in a research project the sky could fall, and he wouldn’t notice it.

    Hannah Nakamura kissed her daughter enthusiastically and told her that she’d be over herself for their very first Christmas. And to Missy she said privately—for Missy was very sensible, although she was only twenty-three: “You will keep an eye on her, won’t you, Missy?”

    Perfectly understanding her, Missy replied: “Don’t worry, Hannah.” She giggled. “Like Fred says: I find her nice Nisei boy who make velly good hus-band!”

    Hannah grinned. “You do that, Missy, honey; it’d be a real load off my mind!”

    Neither of them mentioned Hank Cunninghame, because it isn’t nice to think of your own daughter or your sister-in-law who’s like your own sister being asked by a creep to share him with another woman—in the same house. But they were both very, very relieved to think that the wide Pacific would shortly be between him and their Jo-Beth.

    Veronica looked at her husband and realized all over again just how hopelessly foreign he was. “But it’s hideous! Honestly, Peter—I really couldn’t bear to live in it! All that dark panelling—it gives me the creeps!”

    “I thought it was quoite homey,” he replied doubtfully. “But if you disloike it, moy dearest, of course I would not dream of boyink it.”

    Veronica sighed. They must have looked at all the suitably priced houses up the Hibiscus Coast in the past couple of weeks, and at not a few that Sir Jerry would have considered unsuitably priced—far too small and poky, not far too big and expensive. Although Peter’s tastes were so dissimilar to hers he was quite prepared to like anything she wanted—so that wasn’t the problem. The problem was finding one that she could even stand—she’d long since dropped the idea of finding one that she actually liked, because she hadn’t liked any of them.

    “How’s the baby?” She twisted to look at her in the back seat. Sharon, who would have her first birthday next month, was drooping in her sheepskin-padded child restraint.

    Peter looked, too, and chuckled softly. “She is asleep.”

    “She sleeps an awful lot,” said Veronica dubiously.

    “That is natural, at that age,” said Peter tranquilly; he was now used to the idea that his tall, handsome and apparently common-sensical wife had bouts of irrational fears about those she loved.

    “Yeah; I suppose so.” Veronica did up her seatbelt.

    Peter put his hand gently on her still unswollen belly and said: “And how is this baby?”

    “Okay.”

    “And Mamma does not feel icky any more?”

    “No—I’m fine.”

    Peter’s hand came up gently to cup her chin. “Kiss me, Little Mamma.” He leant across; Veronica looked at his curly mouth, went scarlet, and said in a shaken voice: “Peter—the land agent—”

    The agent had pulled in to the curb in front of theirs and spread out his map on the roof of his shiny silver Subaru.

    “He is looking at his silly map; kiss me?”

    The curly mouth touched hers and Veronica shuddered, and clasped his back.

    “So-o,” said Peter softly.

    She swallowed. “Boy, it’s agony being cooped up in the car with you for hours!”

    “For me, too!” he admitted with a laugh, taking her hand and putting it on his genitals. “Mm-m.”

    “Shit—here he comes!” She snatched her hand back. Peter laughed.

    As the big pale yellow Mercedes followed the silver Subaru up to Kowhai Bay, he made several suggestive remarks, to which his wife replied, in order: “Shut up!”—“God, you’re crude!”—“Jesus, so do l!”—“All right; as soon as we get home;”—and “For Chrissakes don’t go on about it!” Peter merely laughed again.

    Completely unruffled, he got out of the car at the bottom of a very steep driveway right at the north-eastern edge of Kowhai Bay and said to the agent: “This is it? I think I do not risk the car up that, no?”

    Veronica herself felt considerably hot and ruffled and had to cover this by a flurry of taking Sharon out of her fluffy nest and soothing her whimpers.

    They clambered up the steep drive with the land agent, who was not a young man, trying not to puff and telling Peter how of course it would be perfectly possible to get the bulldozers in and have the drive improved.

    When Veronica saw the house, which was hidden from the road by the winding drive and the old pine trees which bordered it, she stopped in her tracks, and said: “Ooh, look, Peter!”

    Resignedly Peter realized that—whether or not it was her Anglo-Saxon upbringing—Veronica had lost the bargaining instincts of their Semitic ancestors which were still very strong in him, and Sir Jerry was going to have to cough up the full asking price for this desirable residence.

    “It’s perfect!” she breathed.

    “We h’yave not yet seen the insoide,” he replied gloomily.

    “I love it anyway!”

    The land agent, looking as if all his Christmases had come at once—he was an Indian, but everybody in New Zealand celebrated Christmas, regardless of creed or colour—said in a voice which trembled in its effort to be casual: “It is rather nice, isn’t it, Mrs Riabouchinsky?”

    “Mmm!”

    “Six bedrooms, of course,” he murmured.

    “That’s not too big; we’ll be needing a nanny for a while; and then there’ll be the kids’ rooms, of course!”

    Peter put his arm around her and said to the land agent: “She is pregnant, you see, Mr Mookerjee.”

    Mr Mookerjee, who was a grandfather several times over, looked at tall, blonde, blushing Veronica—who hadn’t yet got used to the fact that Peter imparted this news to all and sundry—and at the little dark-haired baby in her arms, and said: “That’s nice; it’s a good idea to have them close together, isn’t it? They’re more company for each other, that way.”

    Veronica leaned her cheek on Sharon’s head and said simply: “Yes.”

    Mr Mookerjee unlocked the front door happily without noticing that his clients both had tears in their eyes.

    The big two-storeyed house had quite a few disadvantages—which the real estate agent, in the manner of his kind, refrained from pointing out to his clients. It was old, the oldest house in Kowhai Bay apart from the original farmhouse on the opposite arm of the little bay, with an exterior cladding on its upper storey of ageing wooden shingles which might have weathered to a charming silver-grey, but for which it would be both expensive and difficult to obtain replacements. It had a slate roof, which might have driven Veronica into ecstasies but which would be even more expensive and difficult to repair; and, judging by the patches of mould on the upstairs ceilings, this would have to be done immediately if not sooner. Its kitchen was an antique—“We’ll rip all that out!” said Veronica cheerfully; it had only one bathroom—“Never mind; we’ll rip out some of these Goddawful linen cupboards or whatever they are, and put in a couple of ensuites!”

    The staircase, which, Mr Mookerjee assured them, was genuine kauri throughout, had been painted a particularly depressing shade of dull green: balusters, handrail, treads and risers, and all the panelling up the staircase wall.

    Veronica looked at the graceful way it curved up from the big (and very draughty) entrance hall, and said, caressing the smooth curve of the handrail above the newel post: “This’ll all have to be stripped, of course.”

    The fact that there was only a septic tank she blithely ignored; Peter, starting to look annoyed, cross-examined the agent on the subject of sewerage, and prised out the reluctant information that it had come up on the Puriri County Council’s agenda but they had decided to delay the project, since there was only the north-eastern corner of Kowhai Bay left. Such minor matters as the fact that the original marble tiles from the front hall, the original kauri fireplaces from the downstairs rooms, and all the dining-room panelling had been ripped out were scarcely worth bothering about—they could all be replaced from the second-hand yards which now abounded.

    The drawing-room was damp. “No, but look, Peter: it’s that bloody great tree; I reckon if we cut it down this room’d get the sun all afternoon, practically; and we’d have a view of the sea, too!” She handed him the baby and rushed outside to see if they’d have a view of the sea, returning ecstatically to report that they would, they were right on the edge of the cliff—Peter winced—and there was a dear little path going down the cliff to their own tiny beach!

    While she was outside Peter asked the agent, without much hope, what the owners wanted for it. Mr Mookerjee, not revealing that the house was his firm’s white elephant and had been on his books for four years now, did a rapid calculation in his head, added an adjustment for the rate of inflation onto the then-optimistic owners’ original asking price, and told him.

    “I see.”

    “I’d have to confirm that with my clients; but I really don’t think they’d be willing to see it go for less.”

    “No,” agreed Peter glumly. “We take an option, yes?”

    The agent, who had taken one look at Peter’s nice but Jewish features and thought gloomily that this’d be a tough nut, now realized, as if a burst of sunshine had broken into the damp, dark drawing-room, that the bloke was besotted about his obviously much younger wife, and began happily to calculate his adjusted commission.

    “No!” said Sylvie.

    The line to Scotland was very clear, as it always was; disconcertingly, however, Hamish’s voice echoed in his ears after he’d spoken and there was an appreciable delay before one heard one’s interlocutor’s response.

    The Beckinsales had decided to sell their modern house in Kowhai Bay Road, for although the Japan posting wasn’t yet over, Mr Beckinsale had just been offered San Francisco as his next posting and had no intention of passing it up. Of course the Macdonalds had a three-year lease, but the Beckinsales had written to suggest that they might like first refusal? Unfurnished, of course; Liz was determined to take all her beloved furniture and rugs, not to mention her books, with her to San Francisco, where they would have a real house, not a box like they were living in at the moment.

    “But it would be the sensible thing to do; there’s no point in paying out rent if we don’t have t—”

    “No!”

    “But look, Sylvie: we’d only have to look round for a house when the lease runs out, in any case; and it’s so handy to the Institute.”

    This time the delay was longer than that necessitated by the technology.

    “I thought you said your appointment was only for three years?”

    “Initially, yes; after that they’ll offer me permanent tenure, of course.”

    “You bluidy, lying sod!” spat Sylvie halfway across the world. “You told me three years! I won’t be stuck out there in that bluidy awful place for the rest of my life, and the sooner you realize that the better!”

    The silence emanated from Hamish’s end this time. “I see,” he said at last.

    Sylvie embarked on a tangled and hugely expensive diatribe, long-distance.

    Hamish interrupted it ruthlessly: “Look— SHUT UP! You’d better think over what you want to do. Ring me if there’s any change—otherwise I’ll ring you next week as usual.”

    It was now the third week of February and Sylvie’s mother was still in hospital, showing no improvement. John Mackay, who had never had to do a hand’s turn for himself, was relying on Sylvie utterly. At first Hamish had telephoned Sylvie or John every day—down in Taranaki Ian Macdonald, who was just as stubborn as his son but of a much more placid disposition, had refused with a laugh to let him pay for the calls from the farm; when Hamish had got heated about it he had merely clapped him on the shoulder and said: “Whaddabout giving us a hand with the dipping today, eh?”—They were having a bad bout of blowfly strike.—When it became apparent that there was going to be little change in Mrs Mackay’s condition, unless she had another stroke, the calls had tapered off to once every two days and then once a week.

    Hamish hung up before his voice had stopped echoing on the line.

    In her father’s freezing cold front hall Sylvie slammed the receiver down, shuddering with cold and fury. She marched into the sitting-room and treated John Mackay to a furious diatribe.

    At the end of it John, who had none of his daughter’s temper and, as his wife didn’t either, often wondered where she got it from, said thoughtfully: “Aye, well; you’ll have to make up your mind, Sylvie. You can’t ask Hamish to give up that position if it’s what he wants.”

    Sylvie, who was quite sure she could, scowled sulkily.

    John said thoughtfully: “Of course, he spent most of his adolescence out there; and Ian’s a New Zealander...”

    “What the Hell’s that got to do with it? It’s a dump!”

    “Aye…” agreed John slowly.

    Sylvie’s jaw sagged.

    John began to stuff his pipe. Sylvie, who disapproved strongly of pipe smoking but hadn’t yet worked up the cheek to ask her father not to do it in his own house, glared.

    “The thing is, Sylvie, he’s got a real opportunity there; a chance to build up something decent from scratch; to put his mark on it, if you see what I mean.”

    Sylvie snorted.

    “Aye, well,” said John, lighting up and sucking scientifically. He shook the match out. “You’d better—” he blew out a cloud of smoke and sucked scientifically again—“you’d better have a wee think about it. You know you’re welcome to stay here for as long as you like, even if your mother recovers.” He blew out some more smoke and added calmly: “Not that it looks as if she will, poor old girl.” He was over his initial shock and was now reconciled to the fact that his wife was not going to recover but, at some time which the doctors couldn’t predict accurately, get worse.

    Sylvie, who was not reconciled at all, glared at him with tears in her eyes and said in a furious, shaking voice: “How can you, Dad!”

    John sucked at his pipe, blew out smoke, and said: “It’s just one of those things you have to learn to accept, Sylvie.”

    Sylvie, who had sat down, bounced up again and said: “That’s a filthy habit! I’m surprized Mum ever let you get away with it!”

    “Aye, well; mebbe she cared about me a wee bit more than you do about your husband.”

    Sylvie opened her mouth to say something pretty cutting, and instead said in a choking voice: “I hate him!”

    “Aye, I know; why the Hell don’t you divorce him and stop ruining both your lives?” replied John Mackay calmly.

    She gave a shattering sob and ran out of the room.

    John Mackay went on smoking peacefully, but his extremely active brain was busy—and not with his subject, either. When he heard Sylvie start to run herself a bath he went over to his desk, and began to write a long and detailed letter to Hamish.

    The letter was very clear and well argued, for John Mackay was a very intelligent man. It was also extremely non-judgemental, for John, quite apart from the considerable sympathy he felt for his daughter’s husband, would not have dreamed of appearing to criticize the way anyone else conducted their private lives (though his criticisms of his students’ academic ineptitudes had always been swingeing and merciless). In it he made several points, which he only just stopped himself labelling (a), (b) and so on, the way he had always done when preparing his lecture notes.

    The first point was that as Hamish and Sylvie were obviously only tearing each other to pieces by remaining together, it would be far better for both of them and for Elspeth to get a divorce.

    The second point was that Sylvie had a home with him for as long as she needed it.

    The third point was much more involved, and although John had a very clear mind, necessitated a rough draft and a re-writing before he was satisfied with it. The third point was that John himself was now retired and had been thinking for some time about leaving Edinburgh for a warmer climate; Mrs Mackay’s refusal to leave her house and garden had been the only stumbling-block. John’s proposal was that when his wife died—which the doctors, he wrote calmly, had said would almost certainly happen within the year—he himself should move to New Zealand, lock, stock and barrel, to be near Elspeth, who was his only grandchild and apart from Sylvia and a cousin in Aberdeen whom he hadn’t seen for years, his only living relative. This of course would be contingent upon Hamish’s deciding to stay there permanently himself—which, wrote John Mackay drily, he rather gathered he had decided. John did not think, from Hamish’s letters over the past year, that it would be at all a sensible move for Elspeth to return to Edinburgh; he had gathered that her health and behaviour had both improved enormously and that she was happy in her school and had made lots of friends of her own age, which Sylvie’s over-protectiveness had prevented her doing in Edinburgh.

    He had noticed, too, with dismay but not altogether with surprize, that Sylvie had scarcely mentioned her only offspring since her return, had spoken on the phone to her only half a dozen times, and had not written to her, as far as he could tell, at all. She had, however, spoken at great length about her golf, and the Puriri Golf Club and its accounts and the incompetence of its Secretary, and about Margaret Prior’s Baptist Women’s group’s newsletter and the typing she did for it, and the combined inefficiencies and idiocies of all the Baptist Women, and of her plan that they should buy themselves a personal computer with a word-processing program on which to produce the newsletter. –This from Sylvie, who in Edinburgh had polished her wooden floors on her hands and knees and refused to have a dishwasher in the house! It was obvious to John that Sylvie’s own health had improved enormously—from the diet, the climate, or the exercise, or more likely from a combination of all three. And although her temper hadn’t visibly improved it seemed to John that she only needed to be free of her unfortunate marriage for it to do so: in his opinion the only thing that Sylvie really had against New Zealand was that she had a husband there. He didn’t say so in so many words to Hamish, but he let it be understood.

    His proposal was that Hamish should divorce Sylvie; that Elspeth should stay with her father; that Sylvie should stay on with him, and that on Mrs Mackay’s death Hamish should start looking for a suitable house not too far away from his own for them. Naturally John would go on with his research out there; and, having said what needed to be said, he then indulged himself in two pages about the book he was currently researching.

    He was a bit stunned by Hamish’s reply. Hamish spent five pages telling him in great detail all about the facilities for historical research in New Zealand, or perhaps about their limitations would be a more accurate way of putting it; and about the horrifying lacunae in the University’s own history collection—naturally it specialized in New Zealand and Pacific history, but John Mackay’s subject was relations between Scotland and Europe in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance; and warning him to bring all of his books, and just how long it would take them to come, and the sort of price he’d have to pay to have them shipped, and the sort of firm it was advisable to get to pack them, and the dangers of storing valuable books in a warm, humid climate... At the end of which he told him a great deal about Sir Maurice Black and said he was putting Maurice in touch with him, and Maurice would write to him—which Maurice, having long since come back from his “fishing trip”, promptly did.

    Only after all that did Hamish say, in half a page, that he was very grateful for John’s advice, and he’d seen his lawyer about starting divorce proceedings, and he quite agreed that Elspeth should stay with him, and so did Elspeth, because he’d asked her. He remained his very cordially, Hamish Macdonald. He always signed himself like this, and John Mackay, who had some old-fashioned ways himself, was always very tickled by it. P.S. He was buying the Beckinsales’ house.

    Elspeth also wrote Grandpa John a letter, in which she told him that Puppy was living in their house now, and Daddy had said she could have new bunks of her own, and she’d ridden the horse at Grandpa Ian’s farm, and she was in Form One this year and was going to play Netball this winter. They had been to the beach and had a picnic with Aunty Polly and Aunty Margaret, and Aunty Polly was going to have another baby. With love from Elspeth. XXX. P.S. Love to Mummy.

Next chapter:

https://themembersoftheinstitute.blogspot.com/2023/01/getting-on-with-it.html