Getting On With It

13

Getting On With It

    “What’s the total?” asked Hamish, with a sort of grim commitment that couldn’t have been called enthusiasm.

    Peter opened his manila folder and took out the list of this year’s students. His Department had been officially wound up at the end of last year; his lackadaisical junior lecturer, who hadn’t had tenure, had departed, injudiciously telling Peter what he thought of him; how did he hope to get a reference for a new job? wondered Peter sardonically. The dreadful Departmental Secretary, who on hearing where the site of the new Institute was, had treated Peter to an impassioned monologue on how she couldn’t possibly drive all the way up to the Hibiscus Coast to work every day, had also departed, stunned not to have actually been offered a job up the Hibiscus Coast. The adenoidal Beryl had also disappeared God knew where, with a reference from Peter that was really far too kind; and the new Institute, which had planned only to have another setting-up year, had reluctantly opened its doors to the new intake of students.

    It was the Senate’s doing, of course: they thought they had discovered a loophole in the Agreement between the University and the Institute; and although Sir Jerry’s lawyers didn’t agree that there was a loophole, they said it would be very costly indeed to take it to court, which the hotter heads in the Senate were threatening to do. The Senate said that according to Paragraph 134, Clause (b), the Institute was obligated to provide undergraduate courses immediately the University’s own department ceased doing so. Sir Jerry’s lawyers said that that had to be read in conjunction with Paragraph 46, and with Paragraphs 370-372, which in their opinion clearly gave the Director and Deputy Director the authority to decide when to start providing undergraduate courses. Since the amount of autonomy the Institute had was a very sore point with the Senate, Hamish and Peter had gone back to their little wooden house in a very thoughtful mood indeed after the meeting in the stifling glossiness of the lawyers’ downtown offices. They had discussed the pros and cons for some time, and had forgotten all about afternoon tea, so Marianne had brought it in on her own initiative—simultaneously preventing Dr Cohen almost forcibly from interrupting them. –The which had given Veronica a bit of a shock: she had not, as yet, quite got a clear picture in her head of Peter in his official rôle.

    Finally Hamish had said cautiously: “What would be the total new intake if we did decide to accept students?” and Peter had replied cautiously: “We could probably keep it down to about half a dozen.”—“Mm; and the Second- and Third-Years?”—“Eight Seconds, if they all pass, and if they do not change their Course Plans—which is quoite on the cards, of course!”—twinkling at Hamish.—“Aye; and the Thirds?”—“I do not think there will be more than three.” Hamish had nobly refrained from expressing his horror at this last figure, and had said: “Do you think we can cope?”—“I think so, da.”

    So it had been decided; with the result that they were now, more or less, a working Institute.

    Hamish looked rapidly through the undergraduate enrolments, grunted noncommittally (noticing that the figures were all within a digit either way of Peter’s predictions), and turned to the Masters enrolments.

    “I h’yave divided them into two lists—those holding our first Student Assistantships, and the rest,” Peter explained.

    “Aye…” His eye wandered over the two short lists of names and academic particulars; with great interest Peter saw the colour flame up his neck. Student Assistantships could be approved by either the Director or the Deputy Director, for they were awarded largely on the basis of a recommendation by the Dean of the Faculty within which the students had done their majors. Peter hadn’t been able to think of a reasonable excuse for consulting Hamish about Mirry’s application: Dean Corey had given her a glowing recommendation. The presence of her name on this list was therefore a complete surprize to Hamish: they hadn’t spoken since the time Mirry slammed the phone down in his ear.

    “See, I h’yave indicated which of us should supervoise their work, according to the subjects they have chosen for their theses.” Masters students had to sit a certain number of exam papers in their first year, and also present a short thesis, preferably in their second year, although there was provision for them to present it in their first year if certain stringent conditions had been met.

    “Aye,” said Hamish weakly. Peter had awarded himself Mirry and two other students, Hamish two (both with Assistantships) and Charlie Roddenberry one.

    “I have spoken to Charlie,” said Peter tranquilly. “He is quoite happy to do some teaching this year, even though he h’would be quoite justified in refusing, in terms of his contract.”

    “Oh, good; thank you,” said Hamish, a trifle listlessly. He hesitated, then said: “How is he settling in, do you think?”

    Peter twinkled at him. “Well, as you know, I foind it very difficult to establish any rapport with Americans; they talk so much without saying anything—don’t you foind?”

    “Yes,” said Hamish weakly, a bit dumbfounded.

    “However,” said Peter, with a tiny sigh: “I think, reading between the loines, that though he is very—eugh, dépaysé?”

    “Aye.”

    “Yes,” said Peter in some relief, recalling that, after all, Hamish had spent a year studying in Paris. “Although he is very dépaysé and has not yet found his feet on a more personal or social level, he is settling down well to his work; in fact he is working very hard.”

    “They always do,” said Hamish unguardedly.

    Peter chuckled. “Da; and not always with readable results—no? But I think Charlie is not one of those, from what I have read of his work.”

    “No,” agreed Hamish. “He’s very intelligent.”

    “En effect. I think the problem will be,” added Peter thoughtfully, “to stop him from working too hard—from burying himself in his work. We must keep an eye on him.”

    “E-er—yes,” agreed Hamish, a trifle shaken.

    Peter smiled, and added: “Veronica and I have invoited him to a noice family barbecue next h’weekend at her sister Helen’s place.”

    Hamish looked at him with such undisguised horror that Peter gave a snort of laughter and said: “Moy dear Hamish! If you could see your face! It has ‘God help him’ written all over it!”

    Hamish flushed and ran his hand through his red curls. “I’m sorry; I—”

    “No, no! I quoite agree; please don’t apologize!” said Peter, laughing again. “But you see,” he explained, “that is the sort of thing that Americans enjoy; and it is, I think, the sort of thing he would expect us to ask him to.”

    “I see,” said Hamish slowly.

    There was a pause, during which Peter looked hard at the remaining chocolate biscuit and reminded himself silently that he’d promised his wife to watch his calorie intake.

    “Do you think that that dinner Polly and Jake gave was a mistake?” said Hamish abruptly.

    Peter replied quite seriously: “Not insofar as it showed Charlie we were thinking about him—no. But in itself—yes. I think the poor man was rather at sea—no?”

    “Aye,” agreed Hamish gloomily.

   Peter’s curly mouth twitched, and he added: “I am afraid he was a little overwhelmed by the stoyle in which the Carranos entertain when they are putting their best feet forward—n’est-ce pas?”

    “Yes,” agreed Hamish, wondering idly if that “best feet” was correct; it sounded a bit odd. “They only meant to be kind, of course.”

    “Bien sûr; but, you know, I do not think the poor man had the sloightest oidea of what he was eatink, all noight!”

    “No; and then when Polly and that friend of hers from the French Department—uh—Jean-Paul?”

    “Yes: Jean-Paul Lavallière.”

    “Aye; when they started talking French and you joined in!”

    “I had had too much of Jake’s excellent woine,” said Peter, grinning.

    “Mm; wasn’t that hock wonderful?” said Hamish reminiscently.

    “Absolutely.”

    If the hock had been wonderful—and also the burgundy which followed it—nothing much else about that party had been, in the opinion of several of those who had attended it.

    Charlie, for a start, found himself wondering what he’d struck: he hadn’t expected to find a Beverly Hills lifestyle in tiny, suburbanite Pohutukawa Bay. On driving, as directed, the whole length of Pohutukawa Bay Road up to the turning area on the cliff top, he had found to his right not the side road he had expected, but a pair of huge wrought-iron gates in a high iron fence. When he got out and tried these gates, they were locked. He could see a small bungalow a little way down the drive on the right—at least he supposed it was a drive, it didn’t go anywhere that he could see except into a clump of the dark-leaved, red-flowered trees that he now knew were pohutukawas. He turned round and looked about him uncertainly. Over on the far side of the turning area there was only a cluster of smallish wooden houses in unattractive shades of greyish-green; they couldn’t possibly be the Carrano residence. He inspected the gates for any sign of a bell—there was none—or any nameplate—there was none, because it was still being constructed by the artist in wrought-iron whom Polly had commissioned to do the gates, which were, to Charlie’s eye, very odd indeed. If he’d been presented with these same gates as an exhibit—“Free Form 3”, or something—in a museum of modern art, he would have enjoyed them very much, but to his very orderly mind they did not look in the least like gates. After looking hopefully down the road to see if any of his fellow guests were in sight—they weren’t: having been invited for “some time between seven-thirty and eight” none of them would arrive until a quarter to eight—Charlie at last got back into his rental car and honked his horn. Nothing happened. He waited a bit, then honked it again.

    Suddenly a figure appeared on the porch of the little bungalow and waved at him. Charlie thought it called something about “horses”. It seemed to be draped in a blanket. Then it dodged back inside. Charlie began to wonder if he’d taken a wrong turn somewhere and had struck the local funny farm.

    The figure was only Rod Jablonski, the “beautiful” graduate student whom Elspeth and Polly had once encountered at the site of the new house; he was staying in the little guest house (which he quite often did) because at the moment, while waiting for his viva in the new term, he was working for his pal Steve, the builder, on the new Senior Citizen’s Village in Puriri. Rod had been draped in a blanket because, not expecting any guests to arrive yet, he’d still been in bed with his girlfriend. A young man of outstanding good looks will rarely have difficulty in finding consolation for a broken romance; and after he’d got over his first misery, Rod hadn’t. The odd call he’d given had, of course, only been: “Hold your horses, mate!”

    After Charlie had waited a bit more the figure—or a figure, Charlie couldn’t have said if it was the same one—appeared again, struggling into its shirt. (Rod being extra-formal in his capacity as gate-keeper.)

    “Sorry about that, mate!” he said, grinning, unlocking the gates.

    “Uh—this is the Carrano place, is it?” said Charlie.

    “Yeah, ’course!” responded Rod in surprize. “Just drive right through. And watch out for horses!” he added with a laugh, as Charlie drove carefully past him.

    Charlie decided maybe the poor guy was a bit simple, and had a horse fixation; maybe the Carranos employed him out of sympathy. He drove very carefully, watching out for horses, nevertheless.

    The sea was on his left, and on the right he passed the little bungalow that had disgorged the simpleton. The drive dipped and went slightly inland through the grove of trees; two more pretty little bungalows appeared on the right. There had been no horses. Now he could see beyond a field a big house on the crest of the low rise: it must have a superb view over the sea. There were still no horses, but he had to stop and open a second gate, so maybe there were some around, somewhere.

    All of the vegetation through which Charlie had passed had been distinctly unkempt; it didn’t seem to go with the gatehouse, somehow. Nor did it go with the house.

    The huge cream-paved sweep was empty: Charlie parked and sat there looking at the house. The gates should have warned him, he supposed; nevertheless he felt considerably aggrieved with his new boss. Why hadn’t Hamish said? “Come to dinner at my cousin Polly’s—oh, by the way, it’ll be black tie,”—that had been more or less it. Then Mrs Carrano had sent him a nice note— But why hadn’t Hamish warned him? British reserve, he thought bitterly. The house was very big, and seemed to be made mostly of an attractive creamy stone. Sure, there were bigger mansions in Beverly Hills, but this was certainly the biggest private home he had ever been invited to. It wasn’t that tall, only two floors, he guessed, but it sure seemed to spread out a fair ways. A heavy square-pillared affair that looked like marble and probably was, he thought gloomily, must be the front porch.

    Charlie Roddenberry was not at all given to talking to himself, but on this occasion he made an exception. “Get on with it!” he told himself irritably, and got firmly out of the car, trying not to wonder where the Hell else everybody else was.

    He was a trifle staggered to find when he got into the porch that the front door appeared to rise nigh on two floors. He looked for a bell, and this time there was one, so he ignored the huge brass knocker, and rang it.

    When the door was opened to him he kinda got the feeling of being in a church, just for a minute, because he was in a huge high-ceilinged front hall, at the far end of which was an enormous stained-glass window in shades of green, with the occasional bit of white.

    The Carranos, Charlie saw gloomily, had a maid—which he had, indeed, expected from the size of the house. The “maid” led Charlie into the biggest living-room he’d ever been in in his life. It faced the sea, and that wall appeared to be solid glass. He was too dazed to register the huge marble pillars holding up the upper storey of the house which interrupted the glass. The green glass motif appeared to be discontinued. There was a lot of off-white, quite a lot of a reddish timber that Charlie didn’t recognize as rimu, and a fair amount of dark navy, with touches of very bright pink. –Polly had had an awful time finding a colour scheme that wouldn’t clash with the view, wouldn’t clash with her greenish eyes and the greens she often wore, and yet would be elegant and fairly unobtrusive without being boring. The bright pink touches were her friend Magda von Trotte’s idea, and Polly was still getting used to them. Everything to Charlie’s eye looked a bit too plain.

    The maid hadn’t asked him to sit down, so he wandered uncertainly over to the window and looked at the view, which, as they were still on Summer Time, was still spectacularly clear.

    After a few minutes his host came in, introduced himself cheerfully, said No, Charlie wasn’t early, he himself was running a bit late, sorry about that, and how about a drink? He led Charlie over to a far corner of the room and pressed a button on the wall of reddish timber. A section of wall slid smoothly up and disappeared into the ceiling, disclosing a walk-in bar. Charlie looked at the array of bottles displayed and when Jake told him to name his poison, asked confidently for bourbon and was offered the choice of several brands.

    “Found the place all right, didja?” said Jake cheerily, pouring.

    “Yeah, sure, Jake, once I got myself to that little—uh—gatehouse affair,” said Charlie, ending on an uncertain note.

    Jake gave a rich chuckle. “Aw, yeah—the ‘lodge’!”

    Charlie was too flummoxed by it all to catch the tone—and he still wasn’t used to the local accent; and Jake, who got on very well with the cheerful, back-slapping, hearty type of American that he normally met in business, began to wonder about the varsity-lecturer type of American.

    When Polly came in Charlie began to feel a lot more at ease, although her beauty was not at all the slick, California style that he was used to, and he was a little disconcerted by her hairdo: the luxuriant sun-streaked brown tresses were brushed back severely from her face and then just allowed to flow down her back without, as far as he could see, any bows, ribbons, ties or pins of any kind. And certainly no hairspray, gel or mousse. Where Christabel would have worn a very bright lipstick Polly seemed only to have on a touch of pale peach gloss; the big greenish eyes sported none of Christabel’s meticulous painting, just a bit of bronzy eyeshadow. And Charlie could have sworn she wasn’t wearing any foundation: you could actually see a few freckles on her nose. Christabel’s nose in its natural state had also had freckles but these were never exposed to the public gaze.

    However, Polly was smoothly tanned, which Charlie was used to, and she had on a strapless white dress, with a very wide belt of the same material, and a very tight, long skirt, split in front to her knees, which was the kind of thing that Charlie was quite used to; in fact Christabel had a white dress very like it.

    He responded happily to her gentle questioning—Polly, unlike her second cousin Hamish, knew that Americans liked you to ask them questions about themselves, and she didn’t mind listening to their over-long, factual replies. But at the back of his mind Charlie kept puzzling over why, though she sure seemed like a real nice person and the dress was just like that one of Christabel’s, Polly still seemed somehow oddly different.

    When the other guests arrived it might have dawned, except that several came in, in a bunch, all talking, and he had to concentrate, what with the accents—varied, now. However, the women guests immediately perceived that Polly’s simple pearl studs with her severely cut white dress had the effect of making all the other women look fussily overdressed. Even Veronica, also strapless and tight-skirted, but in blackberry taffeta, with a huge sash swathed around the hips and bursting into a tremendous bow over the bum, decided crossly that she shouldn’t have worn the ornate modern necklace of violet and white enamel, gold wire, white baroque pearls and amethyst chips that had cost her a fortune in Double Bay just before she left Sidders—it was too much.

    Charlie was not unused to finding himself among Europeans; but he was unused to socializing with them in a private home. He was disconcerted to find that apart from his hosts nearly all of the other couples included a European: there were Peter and Veronica, of course; two plainish women in perhaps their mid-thirties, one with what after a bit he realised was an English accent and the other a solid-looking blonde German (Polly’s friends Jill Davis and Gretchen Sachs from the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, of course); there was a handsome dark-haired woman in perhaps her mid-forties whose name was Magda and who certainly had an accent to match it, accompanied by a good-looking silver-haired man whose name was Ken Armitage and who turned out not to be Magda von Trotte’s husband; there was a cheerful, rubicund German with a tall pretty, dark woman who was his wife but had a different surname (Hans Schenke and Babs Awatere, respectively from the university’s German Department and Maori Department); there were two slim young men, one of them French (Jean-Paul Lavallière from the French Department and his friend Terry); and, finally, rather late and breathless, there was the simpleton from the lodge, breathtakingly beautiful—only Charlie wasn’t liberated enough to appreciate the fact—in a white tuxedo and soft pleated dress shirt, and accompanied by a pretty brown-haired Danish girl whose name, according to her escort, was Trine.

    The accents, however, weren’t the half of it. Trine’s English wasn’t very good, but her French was excellent, so Rod kindly interpreted for her—at first. Round about the main course Jean-Paul got tired of this and addressed her directly in French. Peter joined in, and made a joke. Several people laughed. After that it seemed to be a linguistic free-for-all, with some of ’em understanding the German bits, and some of ’em understanding the French bits, and several of them understanding both.

    What with that and the food, the expression that Peter would later use, dépaysé, probably was the best word to describe poor Charlie’s state that evening. That or Jake’s “discombobulated.”

    As the dinner wore on it became apparent to the unfortunate hostess that, although the amiable Ken Armitage and most of her university friends were enjoying themselves, Charlie Roddenberry wasn’t, and nor was Hamish, though they were both eating and drinking with a will. Veronica was unwontedly quiet—though also eating a lot—and Polly, with a sinking feeling in her midriff, decided that it was too soon after Becky’s death, after all, and she shouldn’t have asked her. Magda von Trotte had such beautiful manners—there, she was talking nicely to Charlie, now—that you could never tell if she was enjoying herself or not, but Polly would have taken a bet that she wasn’t. Rod Jablonski had a flush on his handsome cheekbones and was laughing and talking a lot—but Polly, who knew him very well, could see that he was unhappy underneath—and no wonder: now that awful Danish girl, after flirting blatantly with Peter and Hans (both of whom you would have thought were old enough to know better than to encourage her, thought Polly acidly), was trying her tricks on Hamish! Peter, like Magda, had beautiful manners and also appeared to be enjoying himself; Polly was damned sure he wasn’t really, either.

    When her husband suddenly disappeared while people were drinking coffee and liqueurs she felt it was the last straw. She seized the coffee-pot, muttered an apology to Peter, who was talking nicely to her at the time, and shot out. Peter’s eyes followed her sympathetically. He also was aware that the party wasn’t going very well.

    “Jake! What on earth are you doing?” she cried, discovering him and Daph Green in the kitchen with Gary McNeish, the chef from Puriri’s Chez Basil.

    Jake looked guilty, but brazened it out. “Just thanking Gary and Daph for the great dinner.”

    Polly looked at him suspiciously, but made no comment.

    “How was the trout?” asked Gary, grinning at her.

    Reddening, Polly replied: “It was really lovely, thanks, Gary.” Unfortunately she was unable to banish a vivid vision of Charlie Roddenberry’s face at being presented with a plate containing a piece of warm fish, a spray of fennel, a thin twist of lemon, a spoonful of sauce—and nothing else. She’d recognized immediately what the trouble was, having been brought up in a home not dissimilar to his: he was wondering where the vegetables were. She didn’t think he’d been much comforted by the civet de lièvre and its vegetables that followed: Magda—thank goodness she’d put her beside him—had had to explain to him what it was. “So was the civet,” she added quickly.

    “Yum, yum!” agreed Jake, grinning, and patting his flat belly. His wife looked at him gratefully and forgave him for escaping to the kitchen. “Don’t suppose there’s any left, is there?” he added.

    “No, that tall lady—in the purple dress—she had the last of it,” said Daphne.

    “Veronica—you’ve met her before, Daph. She’s pregnant,” explained Polly.

    Daphne’s eyes lit up.

    Jake said quickly: “How about the fish—any of that left?”

    “You’ve had enough,” replied his brutal wife.

    Gary then made his farewells and took himself home to Basil—it being a Tuesday, the Chez Basil was closed, which was why he’d had been free to come and do Polly’s dinner.

    “Go on, Jake,” Polly said grimly, having refilled the coffee-pot. She gave him a hard look.

    He mooched back to the living-room.

    “It’s all those people from varsity—I should never have invited them,” Polly said gloomily to her housekeeper and friend.

    “No,” Daphne agreed. “They give him an inferiority complex—especially when they start talking French, or something.” She paused. “Um, who is that girl that came with Rod? Is she French?”

    Polly’s nostrils flared. “Danish. Drat her! And did you see ruddy Hamish flirting with her? I could strangle him!”

    “Poor Rod,” agreed Daphne. “If only he could find a really nice girl and settle down...”

    Polly wished that, too. She sighed.

    “Um, does Dr Macdonald usually, um…”

    “He never used to,” replied his relation grimly.

    Daphne gulped, and fell silent.

    “What the fuck was up with bloody Hamish?” said Jake abruptly to his wife that night.

    Polly was sitting up in bed, watching him as he pottered from bathroom to bedroom. She had discovered, greatly to her entertainment, that although before they were married he’d just rip off all his clothes and jump into bed with her as fast as possible, her husband was by nature a potterer before bed.

    “I don’t know; he’s been like a bear with a sore head ever since Christmas.”

    Jake grunted. He pottered into the ensuite.

    When he came back Polly said: “Peter hasn’t said anything to you, has he?”

    “’Bout what?”

    “Hamish,” said Polly cautiously, watching his face. It was blank. Men, however, stuck together; so, watching him harder than ever she elaborated: “Having a girlfriend.”

    “Eh?” He gave a crack of laughter. When he’d recovered he said: “Mind you, might put him in a better mood if ’e did have.”

    “Mm... “

    “Don’t tell me Peter reckons he has!” He sat on her dressing-table stool and removed his slippers.

    “We-ell… Veronica did say Peter told her there was a girl last year.”

    “Geddaway! That Scotch stick?”

    “No—honestly, Jake.”

    Jake snorted. “She say who it was?” he said, not as if he believed a word of it.

    “No,” Polly admitted. “She said Peter didn’t know her name.” –Peter had tactfully refrained from telling his wife that Hamish and one of their new M.A. students had had an affaire—besides, he wasn’t absolutely sure of it all himself, yet. He was unaware that Mirry Field was Polly’s cousin, or he would have been even more interested in the whole thing than he already was.

    “I’ll just take a peek—” Jake vanished into the adjoining nursery.

    Polly waited. Beaming, he reappeared. “Sleeping like a pair of logs!”

    She smiled. “Good. –Basil reckons Hamish has got a girlfriend,” she said, as Jake removed his navy silk dressing-gown.

    “Who does?” he said without interest.

    “Jake! Basil Keating from the Chez Basil!”

    Jake made a rude noise. “What the Hell’d that old faggot know about it?” he said rudely.

    “Don’t call him that!” said Polly spiritedly. “And he isn’t old: he’s not that much older than me!”

    “Balls,” said Jake, sitting heavily on his side of the bed. He picked up the watch that he had earlier deposited on his bedside table and looked at it narrowly.

    “Has that thing stopped again?” said his wife.

    “No-o... I reckon it does need a new battery, that joker in the shop was wrong.”

    “Mm.”

    Jake got into bed.

    Polly said: “Anyway, Basil says he’s seen Hamish with a girl.” –Poor Basil had almost burst with the effort not to tell Polly the whole story, when his tactful initial probes had revealed that she didn’t have an inkling as to what was going on in his basement granny flat between her two relatives.

    Jake grunted.

    Polly said triumphantly: “And Veronica says Peter reckons he’s broken off with her, and that’s why he’s in such a rotten mood!”

    Jake returned sourly: “That’s why he spent the whole bloody evening looking down your dress, ya mean.”

    “No, he didn’t, don’t be silly.”

    “That’s when bloody young Rod wasn’t looking down it!”

    “Rubbish!”

    Jake snorted crossly, and turned off his bedside light. Polly turned off hers. There was a silence.

    “It didn’t go too well, did it?” she admitted.

    “Ya could say that,” he agreed.

    “Veronica’s still upset about Becky, of course...”

    “Not to mention bored stiff by all those bloody foreigners you invited,” said her husband sourly. “Jabbering like a load of parrots, or something,” he added, even more sourly.

    “Yes,” Polly agreed mournfully. “I won’t invite a lot of people from varsity like that again. Um, I’ll mix them up a bit.”

    He grunted, but she thought it was a mollified sort of grunt. She touched his thigh cautiously. He rolled over and enveloped her in a bear-hug. Polly hugged him fiercely back.

    “That’s better!” he rumbled. “Here!” he said in horror. “You’re not crying, are you?”

    “Only a bit,” she admitted, sniffing.

    “Blast!” he muttered. He sat up, switched his light on, and grabbed a bunch of tissues from the box on the bedside table. “Cummere!” He pulled her into his arms again.

    Very squashed, Polly blew her nose and said: “I’m okay.”

    “Come on, Pol,” he said, snuggling down in the bed with her. “’Nother day tomorrow, eh?”

    “Mm,” agreed Polly, as he switched the light off.

    “Better luck next time, eh?” he said in a voice that was far too cheerful.

    “What next time, exactly?’

    “Uh—well, got a few people coming round next Saturday. Um, well, Ken’s coming. Business people, really. Anyway, sorry. Sooner it’s over, the—uh—well, the sooner it’s over,” he finished lamely.

    “Yeah. And it couldn’t be such a flop as tonight.”

    “Forget it. Price of being human or something. Ya done your best. Go to sleep.”

    “Mm. Night-night,” she said sleepily.

    He was almost off himself when she suddenly said: “More pepper in the soup!”

    “Eh?” he groped.

    The only answer was a light snore.

    Oh, boy. Dreaming about the flaming dinner? That’d be the last flaming party she gave for an unadulterated bunch of flaming varsity types, or his name wasn’t Jake Carrano!

    In Hamish’s stuffy little office on Puriri Campus Peter sighed reminiscently. “That vichyssoise—the best I ever taste. –Hamish,” he added suddenly: “please could you eat that chocolate biscuit?”

    Hamish gaped at him.

    “Veronica does not loike me to eat too much at morning tea,” explained Peter simply.

    Hamish grinned suddenly, and pressed his intercom button. “Marianne? Could you come in here and save Dr Riabouchinsky from a rogue chocolate biscuit, please?”

    Marianne appeared in short order with a cautious expression on her face, to find her two bosses giggling like schoolboys.

    Peter was glad to see that Hamish could still laugh, in spite of the general aura of grimness that hung round him; and in spite of the quite obvious shock he had had when Mirry Field’s name turned up on their M.A. list.

    Hamish was very glad to see that Peter was taking the sort of fatherly interest in their staff that he’d rather hoped he would. All the same—a barbecue with the Weintraubs? It almost took his mind off the shock he’d got seeing Mirry’s name on that damned list.

    Charlie enjoyed Nat and Helen’s barbecue very much: it was, just as Peter had assumed, a cosy family affair: the sort of entertainment he was used to in California. Most of his friends in L.A. were, like him, in their thirties, and so had family attachments of one sort or another—quite a few of them were in their second marriages already and had households not unlike that of Mary Ann and Sal DiNova. Very few people in New Zealand had a lifestyle anything like the Carranos’; most of them lived simple suburban lives not so unlike those of suburban California—even the Cohens, in spite of Sir Jerry’s electronic gate gear, lived very simply; it was only recently that Lady Cohen had consented to have a gardener to help with more than just the mowing and the edges; and Mrs Bond, though helping with things like beds, vacuuming and dusting, was usually out of the house by half-past eleven in the morning: Belinda Cohen normally cooked for her husband herself.

    Since it wasn’t yet three months since the family tragedy, the Weintraubs weren’t doing anything approaching entertaining (which would have necessitated a girdle and a very strong bra for Helen) and it really was more or less a family affair. Sir Jerry and Lady Cohen were there, and Charlie, who had never met a real “Lady” before, was a bit taken aback, but he soon found she was real sweet, in fact very like Mary Ann’s mother, whom he’d continued to see regularly after the divorce. Belinda listened with great interest as he told her about his old apartment in L.A. and his new apartment in Puriri, and his kids, and Mary Ann, and Mary Ann’s mother.

    Damian Rosen was there, on crutches, but more than ready to sneak beer or wine behind his Uncle Nat’s back, and repulsing with scorn his cousin Melanie Weintraub’s efforts to fuss over him. Melanie got sick of this fairly soon, and went into a huddle with her friend Tracy. Pauline Weintraub was there on Erik Nilsson’s arm, looking glowingly happy, to her grandmother’s and mother’s great relief. Pat’s two girls, Susan and Allyson, were there, with rather odd-looking young men in tow: hair very short at the back, though one of them had a tiny plait as well, and very thick and spiky over the forehead, one earring each, and baggy cotton trousers very much pleated at the waist. Even the acidulated Patricia herself was there, in a multicoloured, huge-shouldered blouse and tight black pedal-pushers, and accompanied by a rather doggy little man who, as late afternoon waned into evening, told some stories to the men that were even dirtier and considerably less funny than Nat’s.

    The Weintraubs’ neighbours were there: one elderly couple, he tall and craggy and given to fishing anecdotes, she short, plump and comfortable, and given to grandchildren anecdotes; and the couple from the other side, about Helen and Nat’s own age, a cheerful, hearty pair who ate and drank a lot and talked loudly about boats, dogs, and gardening. It was, in fact, just what Charlie had expected from a barbecue.

    Carol Rosen, incidentally, was supposed to be there, but she had immured herself in her bedroom with a book. Kindly Nat took her up a platter of charred beef sausage, foil-wrapped sweetcorn, and potato salad, but although she thanked him nicely he could tell she wasn’t going to eat much of it. Nat sighed, went gloomily out into the garden again, and said to Helen: “She’s still mooning in her room.”

    Helen sighed.

    Apart from Carol, then, who probably didn’t count as she wasn’t exactly there, everybody seemed to enjoy themselves very much; when it started to get dark Nat put the patio lights on, lit the coils of mosquito repellent and put some mood music on the big stereo just inside the open French doors, and really, if it hadn’t been for the accents Charlie would have thought he was at home.

    Actually not everybody enjoyed themselves: Peter, under his usual charm, was bored but concealed this totally from everyone including his wife; and Veronica, who had had a very queasy fit in the morning, just when she was thinking that she was past that stage, was bored and rather tired, and wouldn’t admit the latter—though she didn’t try very hard to conceal the former.

    Sharon, who was a week away from her first birthday, had looked very sweet in a little smocked yellow frock provided by Belinda Cohen, and had behaved angelically all day. When they got home, however, and Peter tried to put her into her carrycot, she started to yell furiously.

    Veronica, who’d just had a shower, appeared abruptly from the bathroom with nothing on and said crossly: “Have you changed her?”

    “Of course,” he returned tranquilly. “Shall we just ignore her and go to bed?”

    Veronica scowled. “Is that all you ever think of?”

    “At a moment loike this—da,” he returned, looking hard at her.

    She reddened, and retreated to the bathroom, closing the door.

    Peter smiled, and went over to the door. “Whoy are you hoidink in there?”

    “Piss off!” said Veronica crossly. “And for God’s sake do something about that kid!” she added loudly.

    He sighed, and picked Sharon up. She stopped howling. He beamed, and told her what a good little girl she was, and put her down again. Sharon started to howl again.

    “PE-TER!” roared Veronica from the bathroom.

    Peter picked Sharon up again. Sharon stopped howling again.

    When Veronica finally came out, face and neck well creamed—Peter looked at this sadly: it was a little job that he adored doing for her, and Veronica knew perfectly well he did—and body discreetly garbed in the loose, sleeveless blue lawn nightshirt she reserved for the hottest months of the year, Peter, still fully clothed, was sitting on the bed cradling the baby.

    She looked at him in surprize. “Why don’t you put her to bed?”

    “She will not go,” he said sadly.

    “Balls! Come on, for God’s sake; you know those bloody church bells’ll start ringing at crack of dawn tomorrow.” This was the one big disadvantage of Peter’s very central urban flat: it was too near half a dozen city churches.

    “You take her,” said Peter, handing her the baby and heading for the bathroom. “See if she will go down for you.”

     She wouldn’t.

    “It can’t be another tooth!” said Veronica in despair about half an hour later.

    “I would not h’yave thought so; what does the book say?” He fumbled in the bedside cabinet for the book.

    “Oh, for Chrissakes!” snapped Veronica. “What the Hell does it matter what the bloody book says? It’s not gonna stop her crying, is it?”

    Peter attempted to insert his finger gently into Sharon’s mouth. Sharon bit him. Peter said something very loudly that neither Sharon nor Veronica understood.

    “Only a complete nong would’ve done that!” said Veronica with satisfaction.

    “Thank you!” he replied bitterly.

    Sharon took a deep breath and bawled louder than ever.

    After an argument over the teething mixture—“Turning the kid into a drug addict”—and the teaspoonful of brandy—“Now you’re trying to turn her into a bloody piss-head, for God’s sake!”—that Peter suggested, Veronica finally consented to Sharon’s being given a small portion of rosehip syrup. Sharon drank this thirstily, and wet her nappy.

    Peter changed her, and put her cautiously in her carrycot. Sharon roared again.

    “JEE-SUS!” said Veronica, throwing herself on her front and putting her head under the pillow.

    “Shut up, Veronica: you do not help!” said Peter crossly. He rocked the carrycot for a while. This had no effect.

    Veronica, hauling the pillow down over her ears with both hands, bellowed in a muffled voice: “Pick her up again, for God’s sake!”

    Peter picked her up and cuddled her. After a while he lay down cautiously with her against his chest. Sharon remained quiescent. “Put the loights out, please, Veronica,” he said cautiously.

    Very carefully Veronica got out of bed, crept round to his side, turned out his lamp, crept back to her own, got into bed, and turned out her own lamp. She wriggled down gently and closed her eyes. Soon she was asleep. Sharon was soon asleep, too. Peter stayed awake for quite some time: he was far too hot—Sharon’s small body seemed to be radiating heat, but he didn’t dare move for fear she’d wake up again.

    At about four in the morning Sharon woke up and started to cry again.

    “Oh, NO!” wailed Veronica, burying her head under her pillow again.

    “I think she only needs changing,” said Peter, inspecting her nappy.

    “God—the bloody kid must have something wrong with her bloody bladder!”

    “No; I think it is just the drink she had,” said Peter, in a vague voice, changing Sharon.

    “Oh, thanks very much!” said Veronica crossly from under her pillow. Peter hadn’t meant anything by the remark. Belatedly he remembered that the drink had been Veronica’s idea, and concluded that his wife thought he was getting at her.

    The birds started chirping in Peter’s spouting at about a quarter to five; Peter, who’d just got off to sleep again, woke up. Veronica snored; Sharon snuffled. Peter looked at them both with dislike. He turned on his side with his back to the pair of them.

    He’d only just got off again when the bells woke him.

    Veronica moaned, with her eyes shut, and said: “Fuck!”

    “That is a good oidea,” said Peter hopefully; since he was awake anyway—

    “That’s what you think!” Veronica hurled herself out of bed and made a dash for the bathroom.

    Peter swore very artistically in Russian. Then he swore even more artistically in French.

    Sharon was still asleep.

    The Riabouchinsky family did not have a very happy Sunday. Veronica threw her coffee up, and felt queasy until well into the afternoon, but refused to stay in bed after eight o’clock. Peter felt both tired and randy, not a very pleasant mixture, and vacuumed fiercely in an effort to work off the randiness. Sharon, worn out by her exertions of the previous night, had ingested a huge breakfast and gone to sleep again.

    Peter’s vacuuming caused Veronica severe guilt feelings, as she was by now sitting staring at her typewriter. Knowing that the feelings were irrational—she did lots of things in the flat, too—didn’t make any difference.

    In the afternoon Peter suggested a walk down to the park. Veronica replied grumpily that it was too hot.

    “Do you feel sick, still, moy precious?”

    “No!”

    “Come for a walk, then; it will be cooler under the trees in the Park.”

    Scowling, Veronica accompanied Peter and Sharon downstairs, where they put Sharon into her pushchair.

    Mrs Perkins appeared from nowhere: “Good afternoon, Dr Riabouchinsky—Mrs Riabouchinsky. Are you going out?”

    “Good afternoon, Mrs Perkins. Yes, we are goink to the park,” replied Peter politely.

    “Really?” said Mrs Perkins pleasedly. “I’m going there myself.” And, indeed, she had a very old-ladyish straw hat on, and her handbag looped over her wrist.

    Peter invited her to accompany them and Mrs Perkins accepted with pleasure.

    “And how’s Sharon today?” she asked, without cooing—Mrs Perkins didn’t coo over babies, and Veronica approved a lot of Mrs Perkins.

    “I hope she didn’t wake you up in the night?” Veronica began to tell Mrs Perkins all about Sharon’s performance last night. Mrs Perkins replied calmly that they were horrible at that age, weren’t they?

    “Ghastly!” agreed Veronica, with a snort of laughter.

    Silently Peter thanked God for Mrs Perkins; by the time they got to the park Veronica was in almost a good mood, and didn’t even point out that, as there wasn’t a breath of wind and it was terribly humid, it wasn’t noticeably cooler under the trees.

    Unfortunately, however, Peter and Mrs Perkins shortly got into a discussion about the latest Booker Prize winner, and the rivals it had beaten; as only one of these was by a feminist writer of whom Veronica approved, she had only read it, and was rather left out. Then a band started up in the band rotunda with a blare of brass and Sharon woke up and started to cry. After she’d been changed into the clean nappy that Peter had put into the pushchair’s carry-bag for this purpose, and had been jiggled by Peter, and jiggled by Veronica, and jiggled by Peter again, and put down on the grass to crawl (she wasn’t walking yet but she was a good crawler) and had flopped on her tummy and refused to crawl, and was still crying, Mrs Perkins said tranquilly that she had some letters to write, and escaped.

    Veronica looked after her resentfully. “Cunning old bat!”

    “She is a very sensible woman,” said Peter, looking after her with some envy. “I think we troy walking Sharon in her pushchair, da?”

    “Yeah,” agreed Veronica with a sigh, hauling herself up.

    They promenaded for some time, because Sharon enjoyed the motion of the pushchair, and dropped off.

    Then Veronica said in a growly voice: “Peter, I’ve got a Helluva headache; can we go home?”

    At home she threw up again, and allowed herself, with very little argument, to be put to bed with an icepack on her head. Peter took Sharon into the sitting-room, played with her for some time, and gave her her tea. After that she played in her playpen while he made a light repast for himself and consumed it on the sofa, talking gently to her in between bites.

    Then they listened to some very quiet Mozart, for fear of waking Little Mother, and Sharon went to sleep. Peter crept into the bedroom. Veronica was snoring. He put Sharon very cautiously into her carrycot; she slept on.

    He returned to the sitting-room and tried without success to do a little work, interrupting himself twice to see if Veronica was awake and hungry, or, even better, awake and randy. She wasn’t. Finally he gave up and went to bed, too.

    “What the Hell are ya doing?” said Veronica crossly, coming into the kitchen next morning with her hair all ruffled and her old pale blue candlewick dressing-gown on.

    “Having moy breakfast,” replied Peter calmly. “It’s Monday, you know; I must go to work.”

    She scowled at Sharon in her high-chair. “Have you given her hers?”

    “Yes.”

    “I coulda done that!” she said crossly. Peter said nothing. “What’s that in her fist?”

    “A rusk.”

    Veronica sniffed noncommittally and went over to the stove. “Is there any coffee left?”

    “Yes; but do you think you should drink it? Yesterday it has made you sick.”

    “‘Yesterday it made’,” said Veronica firmly. “I don’t care; I’ve got an absolute craving for it.”

    Peter laughed.

    “What the Hell’s the joke?” she said crossly, investigating the packet of sliced bread.

    “Who was it who said that pregnant women’s cravings were all bullshit and trace element deficiencies?”

    Veronica went bright red. “I didn’t mean that! Don’tcha know a caffeine addiction when ya see it?”

    Peter laughed again.

    “You oughta try having this baby for a change,” she said gloomily, opening the fridge and wincing at the sight of a row of eggs. “Is there any orange juice?”

    “No, but I can make you some, okay?” He came up behind her as she was putting her bread in the toaster and said, slipping his arms around her and holding her gently to him: “I wish I could h’yave the baby for you, too, moy darling, believe me.”

    “Womanly little feller, aren’t ya?” said Veronica sourly, poking crossly at the bread, which refused to go in straight.

    Peter gave a little laugh. “Do you think so?” He pressed himself into her.

    “Cut that out!” said Veronica, twitching crossly. “Thought you said you had to go to work?”

    “I could be late; I do not h’yave a lecture,” he said hopefully.

    She glared at the toaster. “No!”

    Peter sighed into her neck, and released her. He began to squeeze oranges for her.

    Veronica went on glaring at the toaster. After a moment—whether or not she had recalled Lady Cohen’s strictures on the point not even she herself could have said—she growled: “Sorry. You know it made me spew my heart out the other day.”

    “Yes.”

    “It was the motion, I think.”

    “Yes,” he agreed gloomily.

    They both sighed.

    Practically the minute Peter had closed the front door of the flat behind him Sharon threw her rusk onto the floor. Veronica picked it up, disposed of it, and offered her a fresh one. Sharon threw it on the floor.

    “Right!” said Veronica grimly, picking it up and hurling it into the sink. “It’s gonna be one of those days, is it?”

    It was.

    Mirry looked at Dr Riabouchinsky with a mixture of nervous defiance and hope. He seemed a very nice man; she always enjoyed his lectures, and she’d enjoyed the tutorials the M.A. group had had so far with him; but it was always a Bad Sign when They asked you to come and see them in their office, wasn’t it? Only she’d thought that that first paper she’d written for him hadn’t been that bad, actually...

    Peter opened the manila folder that was labelled “M.A. Essays” and said: “Da...,” looking down at the paper. He looked up suddenly and smiled. “I enjoy this very much; one can tell that you have majored in History; this is a very well structured essay.

    Very relieved, she beamed at him. “Three years’ trial by fire! I’m glad it’s starting to pay off!”

    Peter chuckled, pleased to see that the little thing was beginning to relax, and chatted happily for a while about the essay’s merits. Then he said: “Now...” and went through it paragraph by paragraph, tearing it to shreds.

    “Oh,” said Mirry at the end of this destruction, very red and crestfallen.

    “I pay you the compliment,” said Peter smoothly, “of assuming that you h’wish me to take your work seriously—da?”

    “Yes,” said Mirry, still red, but nodding firmly.

    He smiled, and gave her back the paper.

    “You’ve given me an A!” she gulped.

    “Certainly; it is very much an A at this stage of the year; perhaps in the Third Term I give it a B; but for now it is an A.”

    “Oh.”

    “And now we talk a little about your next paper, eh? You tell me a little of how you are thinking of going about it—okay?”

    Shyly at first, and then losing herself in her enthusiasm, Mirry told him all about the statistical approach she was planning to take in her next paper for him.

    Peter made a few helpful suggestions; when she’d finished he said cautiously: “You know, moy dear, statistics are not really what you would call, I think, ‘moy bag’.”

    Mirry looked at him doubtfully.

    Peter put his head on one side and said: “Perhaps maybe it would be better for our resident expert to supervoise this paper for you?”

    Mirry went very red and looked fixedly into her lap.

    “You have read Dr Macdonald’s Statistics in Political Science?” he said mildly.

    “Yes,” she replied hoarsely, still not looking at him.

    “Then do you not think that he would be the person to—”

    “No!” said Mirry vehemently, going redder than ever and looking desperately into his face. “Please, Dr Riabouchinsky: I’d rather you did it!”

    Since Peter had observed none of the usual signs of the student crush in her—arriving early for tutorials; lingering behind after the rest of the tutorial group had left; sighing heavily in class; bringing little bunches of flowers to put on his desk; and blushing every time he looked at her or spoke to her—he knew that this insistence was not on account of his own charms. His suspicions, which had solidified after seeing Hamish’s reaction to the presence of her name on the M.A. list, were now pretty well confirmed.

    “Very well, moy dear; if you trust moy poor talents in this area?”

    “Yes! Thank you!” gasped Mirry.

    “But you will not object if I consult with Hamish, if I am stuck?”

    “No!” she gasped, turning puce.

    “Good; then it is a bargain,” said Peter tranquilly, observing with immense interest and sympathy the pretty little dark-haired girl’s reaction to his deliberate introduction of Macdonald’s Christian name.

    Darryl Tuwhare looked at Dr Cohen with a mixture of nervous defiance and hope. Dr Macdonald, who was supervising her very embryo Ph.D., had said thoughtfully, after reading some of her sketchy first notes: “Ye-es; you know, it might be as well if you discussed this aspect of it with Veronica Cohen. It’s her field rather than mine. I’ll ask her, shall I?” Darryl had rather doubtfully agreed to this. She’d seen Dr Cohen around the place, and she was highly suspicious of anyone who wore bodices that low-cut and skirts that tight—not to mention the earrings!

    Today she observed sourly that Dr Cohen was wearing a tight pale blue linen skirt, matching pale blue high-heeled sandals, and a white blouse that was practically not there at all—just a boob-tube, really—God knew what was keeping it up over those huge tits, either! The blue short-sleeved, square-shouldered bolero jacket that went with the skirt was slung over the back of Veronica’s chair: it was far too hot in the Institute’s prefab to wear it, and in fact both Darryl and Veronica had sweat on their upper lips.

    Dr Cohen’s ears were weighed down today by huge triangles that reached almost to her shoulders: pale blue and white enamel with pearl bobbles at the lower corners—Veronica had rather let herself go in the modern jewellery boutique before she left Sydney.

    Darryl said in a voice that, to cover her nervousness, was very aggressive: “Whaddaya think, Dr Cohen?”

    “Jesus, call me Veronica,” responded Veronica.

    “Okay; Veronica,” agreed Darryl hoarsely.

    Veronica grinned at her. “You’re on the right track, I think; only had you thought of...”

    They talked for about an hour, during which the little office got more and more Hellishly hot, in spite of the large fan that necessitated a heavy object’s being placed on every loose paper in the room.

    “Well, that’s about it, I think,” said Veronica.

    Darryl said happily: “Thanks, Veronica! By the way, I was thinking of reading...”

    After they’d discussed that, Veronica, to Darryl’s alarm, suddenly turned sort of bluish, jumped up and, gasping: “Sorry! Gonna throw up!” dashed down the corridor to the Ladies’.

    Being into female solidarity, Darryl followed her. She ran a basin of cold water while Veronica was vomiting in one of the cubicles, and grabbed a handful of paper towels. “Here: have a bit of a wash.”

    Veronica gasped “Ta!” and splashed her face for quite a while.

    “Is it summer sickness?” asked Darryl sympathetically. “Have you had the trots?”

    “No,” said Veronica tersely, letting the water out of the basin, and stretching out her left hand for the paper towels: “preggy.”

    Darryl looked at the rings on the left hand, and gave her the paper towels, registering that the old-fashioned affair of little blue stones in the shape of a heart, with two larger supporting white leaf-shaped stones, must be an engagement ring and that those were undoubtedly real sapphires and therefore quite big, and real diamonds, very big, and the fancy yellow setting must be gold.

    “Are you married?”

    “Yeah,” said Veronica, in a muffled voice through the towels. She finished mopping her face and threw the towels into the bin with a sigh.

    Darryl got her a paper cup from the dispenser that Marianne had ordered and kept stocked, and filled it for her. “Here—drink this.”

    Veronica drank it and said: “Peter’s my husband—didn’t you know?”

    “Peter?” said Darryl blankly.

    “Peter Riabouchinsky,” said Veronica, refilling the cup and drinking thirstily.

    “Oh!” Darryl wasn’t  into university gossip; and besides, at the end of last year she had been totally immersed in her M.A. thesis. Recalling how she’d had to give Dr Riabouchinsky the brush-off towards the beginning of her first M.A. year, she said cautiously: “Been married long?”

    “Aw—I dunno,” said Veronica vaguely—arithmetic, of course, not being her strong suit. “Um… since last August. Bloody freezing day it was, too.”

    “Oh,” said Darryl in relief. She looked awkwardly at her and added: “Sorry—I didn’t know.”

    “Why should ya?” said Veronica simply, heading back to her office.

    Darryl followed automatically. “Feel better now?” she asked cautiously, as Veronica sank onto her chair with a sigh.

    She pulled a rueful face. “Yeah; sorry about that, Darryl.”

    “That’s okay,” said Darryl awkwardly. “A few years back one of my flatmates was carrying, too; I’m used to it.”

    “Solo, is she?” asked Veronica with interest.

    “Was. Went off with another bloke—five’ll get ya ten he’ll dump her, too.” Darryl told her all about the prick who’d dumped Roz Adams, and the solidarity of the “flat”—actually an old house at Waikaukau Junction—as then constituted.

    “Jesus!” said Veronica frankly at the end of the recital. “It’s bad enough being in the pudding club when you’ve got a husband; I’m damn sure I couldn’t face it if I was solo.”

    If Darryl hadn’t been so absorbed in the topic she would undoubtedly have said something militant in reply to this anti-feminist statement; as it was she instinctively agreed: “Hell, no!” Gruffly she added: “Would you like me to go and get him? –Dr Riabouchinsky.”

    Veronica sighed, and made a face. “No, he’d only fuss; can’t stand being fussed over.”

    “Can I get you another drink of water?” said Darryl doubtfully, not sure if that would rank as fussing.

    Veronica looked at her watch. “What’s the time? Don’t s’pose the Caff is still open?” There was a student cafeteria, of sorts; it closed at three o’clock, just when most of the students got out of their first afternoon classes and were dying for some afternoon tea.

    It was ten to. Darryl bounced up. “I’ll go! Whaddaya want?”

    “One of those fizzy apple things—ta,” said Veronica, producing a pale blue handbag that was several shades darker than the suit, and fumbling in it.

    Darryl grabbed the money and shot off at full speed across the campus.

    A couple of minutes later Peter stuck his head round Veronica’s door. “Do you want to join us for afternoon tea, moy dearest?”

    “No,” said Veronica: “Darryl’s getting me a cold drink.”

    “Darryl Tuwhare?” said Peter incredulously. He came in and perched on the edge of Veronica’s desk.

    “Yeah—watch out for those papers. Yeah; Hamish sent her along to talk about her thesis.”

    “Sans doute; but that does not mean she would get you cold drinks; she is developing a Schwärm for you, perhaps?”

    “Eh?”

    “A crush, would be the more modern slang expression, I think.”

    “Balls! I just fancied something cold, that’s all, and she said she’d nip over to the Caff.”

    Peter looked at her narrowly. “You have been sick again, Veronica?”

    “Only a bit,” said Veronica grumpily.

    Peter said nothing.

    After a moment she added: “Darryl mopped me up, and that. She’s okay.”

    In some surprize, Peter thought that she must be. He slid off the desk. “I shall join Hamish for afternoon tea, then.”

    “Yeah. Don’t eat too much,” said Veronica automatically, tidying the papers on the desk.

    “No,” agreed Peter meekly.

    Veronica looked up suddenly. He was standing there in his white shirt with his sleeves rolled up and his navy tie loosened, looking rather depressed.

    “Um—” She stood up. “We could have a hug, if ya like,” she said in a fearfully off-hand voice.

    Since Dr V.S. Cohen had given him firmly to understand that canoodling was something that she did not do in office hours, Peter looked at her doubtfully.

    “Not if you don’t want to,” said Veronica quickly.

    “Come out from behoind that verdammt desk, then,” he returned huskily.

    Veronica came out and hugged him tenderly. Peter responded strongly. “Kiss me?” he said.

    “I probably taste all sicky,” she said doubtfully.

    “I do not moind.”

    The embrace got rather passionate, and, as the door was ajar, Darryl walked in on it with Veronica’s bottle of Appletise and a non-fizzy fruit juice for herself.

    Since Darryl, being not quite half Maori (quite possible in New Zealand after something like eight generations of complex mixed marriages), was a very nice bronze colour all over, she didn’t exactly blush, but her cheeks got very hot.

    Veronica’s eyes were closed, but Peter sensed movement in the doorway, and gently released her.

    “What are ya stopping for?”

    Peter laughed softly. “I think we embarrass our graduate student—no?”

    “Shit!” said Veronica, opening her eyes and going scarlet. “Sorry, Darryl!”

    “That’s okay,” said Darryl gruffly. “Here’s your drink.”

    Peter put his arm around the scarlet-faced Dr Cohen’s waist and said to Darryl, twinkling: “You must excuse us, Darryl; but now that she is pregnant, I h’yave to grab her every toime she feels in the mood, otherwoise I miss out.”

    Darryl felt rather bewildered when Veronica, instead of looking more embarrassed at this indelicate and male chauvinist remark, gave a huge, pleased snort of laughter and dug her husband sharply in the ribs with her elbow. “Cut it out!” she said, but obviously not meaning it, because she was grinning all over her face.

    Peter grinned too, and said to Veronica: “Now I go to take tea with Hamish—da?”

    “Yeah. I think I might go and sit outside.”

    “That’s a good oidea, moy darlink: under a tree, yes? And in about an hour I will have finished moy work, and then I will take you home—okay?”

    “Yeah—all right,” said Veronica weakly. “And don’t stuff yourself on biscuits!” she added loudly as he departed.

    Darryl had stood by mumchance during this interchange.

    “Come on!” said Veronica. “Wanna come and sit under a tree?”

    “Okay,” she agreed limply.

    From the hot little office they were using as a staffroom Peter could see Veronica and Darryl under their tree. They had both taken their sandals off—Veronica’s pretty high-heeled blue ones and Darryl’s ancient brown Roman ones—and were chatting animatedly. He hoped gloomily that Darryl wasn’t developing a Schwärm: such things were, of course, one of the accepted complications of academic life; but in his opinion Veronica’s life was more than complicated enough as it was.

    Outside on the lawn Darryl told Veronica a lot about herbal remedies and homeopathy and Veronica told Darryl what a tit Sir John Westby, the family gynaecologist, was, and how he patronised you to death, only she’d pretty soon made him cut that out, and agreed that if she was feeling up to it she’d love to go to a meeting of Darryl’s Women’s Group next Tuesday evening. Cheerfully ignoring the fact that its meetings were held in Puriri, and they were still in Peter’s city flat.

    The following Tuesday evening, therefore, she got firmly into her Saab and said to Peter: “See; I toleja it was a good idea to bring the car over from Sydney.”

    “A very good oidea,” he said glumly. “Have you got your keys?”

    “Yeah; ’course.”

    “I h’will see you later, then.”

    “Yeah, and for God’s sake don’t let Dad fill ya full of vodka!”

    “No, no.”

    “See ya!” The little car shot off.

    Peter waved. Then he got into his own car and drove himself and Sharon over to the Cohens’, where Lady Cohen and Damian had a lovely time (though Damian wouldn’t have admitted it) giving Sharon a bath and helping her play with her plastic duck and putting lots of Johnson’s Baby Powder on her, and Sir Jerry—embarrassingly, because he was hopeless at it and Peter was very good—insisted on playing chess.

    Veronica got back very late and, refusing to admit she was tired, nevertheless fell asleep about two seconds after she was in bed. Peter lay awake for some time thinking hard thoughts about Darryl Tuwhare’s Women’s Group that had used up his wife’s precious leisure time and her even more precious energy.

    In the morning Veronica was still asleep when he was ready for work. He wrote her a note, put Sharon in her carrycot, and crept out with her.

    Veronica woke up feeling very well at about eleven o’clock and was furious to find Peter had taken Sharon to her mother’s. She rang him up at work. “Why the Hell didja take Sharon to Mum’s?”

    “I thought you needed a rest.”

    “Bullshit! I’m as fit as a flea; why the Hell do ya have to keep patronising me?”

    “You were asleep; I just made the best decision I could under the circumstances.”

    He almost got away with that. Then he heard her draw a deep breath.

    “You couldn’t have woken me up, I suppose?” she said with huge irony.

    “I thought... You were so toired last noight,” he said apologetically.

    “That’s a reason for treating me like a bloody kid that has to be protected for its own good, I suppose?”

    “I’m sorry,” he said meekly, taking the wind out of her sails.

    Veronica made a “hmf”-ing noise that would have done credit to Sir Jerry himself.

    Peter said unwisely: “I thought you moight loike a day at home to do your work with no distractions.”

    Veronica replied furiously: “I’m going round to Mum’s to get her right now!”

    Peter responded politely: “That is your decision, of course.”

    “Hmf!” said Veronica, and hung up noisily.

    Peter looked at the bunch of flowers on his very neat desk (provided by Mrs Perkins, who had window boxes, not by a student with a crush) and said to it, quoting one of his wife’s own expressions: “Bum!”

    “We thought we’d go out for dinner,” said Polly on an apologetic note to Margaret Prior and Hamish, who’d driven over from Kowhai Bay together—Margaret’s husband was, yet again, away on a trip for the church foundation which employed him. “I was doing a bit of work and I forgot all about getting the dinner.”

    Margaret made fluttering, disclaiming noises.

    Jake put his arm around Polly and said proudly: “She’s been asked to present a paper at a conference next August; eh, sweetheart?”

    “Mm,” agreed Polly, smiling.

    Margaret made more polite noises; Hamish, who’d wandered over to the window and was idly admiring the view, said: “Where is the conference?”

    Polly and Jake had almost had a row over this, because he didn’t like the idea of her travelling when she was pregnant. For a moment there was the sort of silence that prevails when two married people have come perilously near to having a row.  Then Jake tightened his arm on her and said: “Cambridge; I’m going with her.”

    Polly smiled. “You’ll be bored stiff, you know!”

    “I’ll risk it.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead.

    Margaret went all pink and thought weren’t they lovely, it was so nice to see two dear people so happy together at last; and Hamish was attacked by a painful lump in the throat and had to stare very hard at the sea for a while. Why the Hell was everybody else so bloody happy, while he was so bloody miserable?

    What the Hell was wrong with him? He seemed to be the only person he knew who couldn’t handle his personal life! He knew, of course, nothing about Charlie’s Goddawful Christabel, or Caro’s last Australian disaster or what had caused the break-up of her marriage (though he did now know of the fact of Danny); or Marianne’s broken engagement—on the contrary, he was sure that she had a boyfriend: he’d caught her being very confidential on the phone a couple of times, and she’d turned down a casual invitation to dinner when they were both working late with a strangled: “I’m sorry; someone’s picking me up later.” As he didn’t notice cars much he hadn’t registered that the Jag that drew up a little later under a tree on the other side of the campus and hooted not only looked like Maurice Black’s Jag, it was.

    Nor did he know about the vagaries of Margaret’s Derek, known by young women the length and breadth of the Pacific (in the vernaculars concerned) as “that Kiwi creep with the wandering hands”. He did know, if he’d stopped to think about it, of the trials and tribulations Polly had gone through both before meeting Jake and after meeting him and falling head over heels in love with him and believing he didn’t want her permanently; but he was feeling far too sorry for himself to stop to think.

    When Jake said rather apologetically: “Thought we’d go to the Cheese Basil, if that suits you two?” there was no possible reason for not going; so they went, in Jake’s big silver Merc, with Hamish telling himself not to be bloody stupid, it was probably Mirry’s night off from her waitressing job.

    Only it wasn’t. She looked so adorable in her tight little violet miniskirt and little white blouse that, in place of the bitter indignation that he’d worked himself into over her daring to sign herself on as one of their M.A. students, Hamish felt a great wave of aching tenderness.

    The outfit had been Gary’s idea; until recently the Chez Basil had been all shades of pale blue, but they’d had it done over with a more hydrangea-ry look, introducing a lot of soft lilac and dusky pink. They had new curtains in a hydrangea pattern, and matching tablecloths—circular undercloths; the top cloths were smart white linen squares, which created a murderous laundry bill, but gave the place real chic. The serviettes were all plain, in a great variety of shades of dusky pink, lilac, and blue. The walls had been expensively repainted with a rag-rubbed effect in a blue that wasn’t quite a lilac. Gary had taken one look at Mirry’s colouring and vetoed blue for her. So sometimes Mirry wore a deep pink miniskirt, and sometimes the violet one. With a bunch of either deep pink or violet artificial flowers on the white blouse. Tonight’s posy was between her breasts, because the blouse was an off-the-shoulder affair.

    Hamish couldn’t have said afterwards what he ate or drank.

    Polly noticed he was rather distrait but decided it must be partly preoccupation with the new job and partly anxiety about Sylvie’s mother. Jake was very happy about his decision to accompany Polly to Cambridge and the fact that they hadn’t after all had a row, so he wasn’t in a mood to notice anything, and allowed Basil to give him a revolting fruit sauce, then eating it up without a murmur. Margaret noticed that Hamish seemed to have something on his mind, but also attributed it to the job and the worry about Sylvie’s mother.

    Mirry noticed that Hamish looked wonderful in a very smart suit and that his curls were prettier than ever and that he was the best-looking man in the room.

    She held out marvellously right through the meal; Basil offered to let Trevor, their head waiter who'd been with them for ages, do that table but Mirry said that as they were busy tonight that that wasn’t fair on Trevor, and bravely did it herself.

    When the Carrano party finally went, though, she shot into the kitchen and burst into tears, to Gary’s horror.

    Basil deserted his post as maître d’ and nipped in after her—he’d seen her mouth start to wobble as she dashed out—and put a comforting arm round her.

    “There, there, dear! You have a wee weep on old Basil; that’s right.” In answer to Gary’s startled look of enquiry, he mouthed over Mirry’s bent head: “Gin-ger.”

    “Oh,” said Gary in enlightenment.

    Basil got Mirry calmed down enough to go back into the restaurant and resume her duties. In the car going home he sat in the back with her and put his arm around her, while Gary drove.

    Mirry sighed. “Why is everything so difficult?”

    Basil sighed, too. He thought he’d noticed Gary taking more than a look of casual interest at that young man who’d brought them in some fresh snapper he’d caught. “That’s life, I suppose, darling; one just has to get on with it.”

    Mirry blew her nose and said crossly: “I don’t seem to be getting on with it very well!”

    “No,” agreed Basil, allowing himself to sink into gloom.

    “Come on, you two!” said Gary with a laugh. He didn’t feel in the least gloomy. That nice young man who’d come in the other day reckoned he could supply them with fresh fish on a regular basis (for cash, of course), and he had an idea for a totally new sauce that was ra-ather nouvelle, but with just a touch of the cordon blues. He began to whistle, and was quite offended when Basil said crossly: “Cut out that ghastly noise, lover!”

Next chapter:

https://themembersoftheinstitute.blogspot.com/2023/01/confessions.html