Labour Weekend. Part 2

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Labour Weekend. Part 2

Monday

    Darryl Tuwhare mooched crossly over the lawn outside Puriri Campus’s D Block. She mighta known the Reading Room’d be closed on Labour Day. She looked at the squat, ugly prefab that housed the Institute without hope. That’d be locked up tight as a drum, too... She mooched over to it.

    Darryl’s flatmates—or rather, the group that had been sharing an old house—had deserted her, and she was at a loose end. Not to say, in a filthy mood. Barbara and her illegitimate infant had gone off with a man—not the baby’s father, just like Barbara, she couldn’t resist anything that pissed standing up, and it was perfectly obvious she was only going to come another cropper with this new bloke. Susie and Velma had suddenly gone off to Wellington because the firm had offered Velma a promotion down there and she’d taken it—after all she’d always said about not knuckling under to male power structures, too!

    That had left her and Marguerita. Darryl couldn’t stand Marguerita, so she’d told her (since the place was in her name) that she was thinking of getting some Maori blokes in from the marae. That got rid of Marguerita: you couldn’t see her for dust!

    Unfortunately it also left Darryl with a four-bedroomed house on her hands. Even though, being right out at Waikaukau Junction, the rent was very cheap, still she’d rather be paying a quarter of it than the lot. Not to mention the chook run full of banties that were actually Susie and Velma’s, but they’d lost interest in them, and a goat that Barbara had sworn she was going to collect... Darryl had told herself crossly that she had a good mind to eat the banties, and the bloody goat into the bargain. Unfortunately she didn’t manage to convince herself. She did know some people on the marae who’d cheerfully have eaten the bantams and the goat without a second thought, but oddly it didn’t occur to her to offer them. She had actually gone out to the chook-house once with a chopper, but that fat bantie, the one Susie had called Gottfried—God knew why, it was a female, of course—had looked at her out of its friendly brown face and she’d gone back inside and made lentil curry.

    Scowling, she rounded the corner of the prefab. A large male figure was bent over at the front door, fiddling at the lock!

    Darryl went rigid. She took a deep breath, carefully relaxing her muscles. Flexing her biceps slightly, she crept up on the burglar. She pounced, wrenching his right arm up behind his back. He gave a cry of pain, and straightened. She got a knee into his kidneys and gripped his left wrist in an iron hand.

    “Don’t move or I’ll break your bloody arm,” she said into his neck. She jerked at his right arm. The burglar gave a cry of pain.

    “What the fuck do you think you’re up to?” she snarled.

    “I work here,” said the burglar, in a voice high with pain.

    “Yeah, an’ I’m the King of Siam!” snarled Darryl. She dug her knee into him.

    “Please!” he bleated. “I really do work here—please—who are you?”

    “I’m someone who’s gonna run you into the cop shop before you’re much older, matey,” growled Darryl, wondering how the Hell she was going to get him down there; he was a Helluva lot heavier than her, now she came to look at him. Maybe she better break his bloody arm? But this was sheer bravado, and she knew it. She could take her belt off— No; she could make him take his belt off and tie his hands with it!

    “Take your belt off,” she said.

    “What?” said John Aitken faintly. Oh, God, he thought, it’s some kind of a pervert, why on earth did I think that was a woman’s contralto, oh God...

    “I’m gonna let go of your hand,” said Darryl, cautiously taking her knee out of his kidneys, because it was actually quite tricky, standing on one leg. “Just take your belt off nice and easy; and don’t try any funny business or I’ll break your bloody arm for you.” She released his left hand.

    “Do it!” she said, giving his right arm a bit of a tug.

    John moaned, and unbuckled his belt, slowly and fumblingly, with his left hand. Absurdly he found himself worrying that his ancient jeans, which he’d worn today because the weather was so mild and he couldn’t go on wearing those grey flannels day in, day out, might descend ignominiously round his ankles.

    “Right, now give it here!”

    “What?” he said faintly.

    “Gimme ya belt, ya jerk, I’m gonna tie you up with it,” gritted Darryl. She jammed her knee back into his kidneys and gave him a good shove so that his head connected violently with the front door.

    Dizzily John passed the belt back.

    At this point anyone with a knowledge of self-defence could probably have thrown Darryl halfway down the pitted asphalt drive. She realized this but John, who had no knowledge at all of self-defence, didn’t. Sweating, hoping to God he couldn’t smell the fear on her, she said: “Bring your hand up behind your back—slowly.”

    “Like this?” quavered John.

    “Yeah—and no funny business.”

    He groped behind him. Darryl had shoved the belt in her mouth; she caught his left hand and brought it urgently into the small of his back. Gingerly she lowered his right arm.

    The relief was immense: John could have cried. He stood quite passive, letting his hands be strapped viciously together with his own belt.

    “All right; now listen!” snarled Darryl. “You can turn round very slowly—okay? And the minute I don’t like any move ya make I’m gonna kick you in the balls—geddit?”

    “Please—you’re making a mistake; please...” he whispered huskily.

    “Turn round, ya shit!” she hissed.’

    The cruel hands released him. John turned very slowly…

    “SHIT! You’re the English joker!” cried Darryl.

    “Yes—John Aitken,” said John hoarsely, recognizing with a mixture of tremendous relief and huge astonishment the regular bronze features of Hamish’s pet doctoral student.

    “Christ, I’m sorry, Dr Aitken! I thought you were a burglar!”

    “I gathered that,” said John unsteadily. “I thought you were a pervert.”

    “What?” said Darryl blankly.

    John looked at the full breasts in Darryl’s black tee-shirt and said drily: “When you told me to take my belt off I thought you were a pervert—a male pervert.”

    “A male—” Her eyes met his.

    John began to laugh helplessly.

    “Fuck!” said Darryl weakly. She began to laugh helplessly, too.

    “Untie me?” said John weakly at last.

    “What? Christ, yes; turn round.” She fumbled at the belt.

    “Where on earth did you learn to—to—all that?” asked John over his shoulder.

    “Sue-Lytollis-Self-Defence,” said Darryl in a rapid mumble that made no sense to him. “Most of it, anyway. –There ya go. Jesus, Dr Aitken,” she added as he turned round and accepted his belt, “I’m awfully sorry!”

    “Not at all,” said John politely. “It was most efficient. I’m sure it would have settled a real burglar’s hash for him once and for all,” he added mildly.

    “I coulda broken your arm!” said Darryl. Her handsome bronze face took on a greenish tinge. She swayed.

    “I think you’d better sit down,” said John. Gingerly he took her arm.

    Darryl allowed herself to be sat down on the front steps.

    “Shit, I feel sick!” she said. She shoved her head between her knees.

    John sat down, too; his legs felt weak. He felt his right shoulder cautiously with his left hand. It wasn’t actually dislocated, thank God, but it was bloody painful.

    “All right?” he said after a while.

    “I think so,” she said in a muffled voice.

    “Too much adrenalin.”

    “Yeah.” She sat up cautiously.

    “I’ve got a master key—I’ll go and raid Hamish’s whisky,” said John. He hesitated. “If I can get the front door open,” he added, with a twinkle.

    “Gee, I’m sorry, Dr Aitken,” said Darryl, in a small, sheepish voice. She eyed his baggy jeans and shabby jersey and thought gloomily of the utter impossibility of explaining that he’d looked—from behind, anyway—like a—a vagrant, or something.

    “John,” he replied firmly, getting up.

    “Eh?” said Darryl, peering at him.

    “John,” repeated John with a grin. “I don’t think we need stand on ceremony, do you?”

    “No,” said Darryl weakly.

    He wrestled with the front door, opening it at last with a triumphant grunt. “It always sticks,” he said.

    “Why don’t they get the bloody thing fixed?” asked Darryl, beginning to recover herself.

    “Not worth it, we’ll be out of here in a month or two,” said John, faithfully repeating Hamish’s over-optimistic prediction. He disappeared.

    The following five minutes were possibly the worst of Darryl’s entire not-quite-twenty-three years.

    John must have been fairly adrenalized himself: he actually remembered to collect Jo-Beth’s watch before he looked for the whisky, and didn’t forget two cups to drink the whisky from.

    They sipped it in silence.

    “What on earth are you doing up here on Labour Day, anyway?” croaked Darryl, when the silence eventually got too much for her.

     “Oh— It’s rather a long story,” he said weakly.

    “Go on; I got nothing better to do,” said Darryl morosely.

    Awkwardly he explained about Jo-Beth’s watch.

    “Aw, yeah, the little Japanese girl from the library,” agreed Darryl. She was several years younger than Jo-Beth but, at John’s own height, ten inches taller, and a lot bigger all over.

    “Yes; she—she’s like a fragile little doll,” said John softly.

    “Yeah?” returned Darryl drily. “She strikes me as about as fragile as a tank—knows her job Helluva well, and no nonsense about her. You hung up on gender stereotypes, or what?”

    “What? No!” said John crossly.

    Darryl sipped more whisky. “Shouldn’t think she’d thank you for being pigeon-holed like that; seems like a sensible woman; she can’t help it if her genes dictated a small frame.”

    “You’re the one who called her a little Japanese girl!” returned John sharply.

    “Yeah—shouldn’ta said that,” agreed Darryl.

    There was a short silence.

    “I’m pretty big myself, ya see.”

    “Yes,” agreed John.

    Another silence.

    “It is pretty difficult, isn’t it?” said Darryl thoughtfully. “Not patronising small people, I mean.”

    “Yes,” agreed John, looking at her in some surprize.

    Darryl grinned at him. He smiled back. After a while he said slowly: “I think you’re right about Jo-Beth; she is very capable and efficient, I’ve noticed that. Only— It’s silly. Even knowing that, I still can’t help seeing her as little and... fragile, I suppose. l just feel hopelessly muddled about her.”

    Darryl wasn’t looking at him, she was staring out at the pitted drive. “Yeah...” she said slowly. “Funny, eh?”

    There was a pause. The mild morning sun of October warmed the two dark heads.

    “She’s nice, though.” Darryl swallowed. “There was a girl a bit like that in our flat—only she wasn’t nice.” John was silent. “She looked sweet and all that,” she explained, “but underneath she was really tough—ya know?”

    “Mm,” said John.

    Darryl began to tell him about the loathsome Marguerita, dainty and fragile as a primrose with her little pale face and spun-gold hair. “You ever see that plait of kauri gum up the Museum?” she interrupted herself.

    “No. I haven’t been to the Museum.”

    “Oh. Well, anyway, her hair was just like that.” She went on telling him about Marguerita’s constant lies and betrayals, her shameless using of other people, her bottomless vanity and endless self-seeking, her total and unbelievable insensitivity to other people’s needs, emotions, and beliefs.

    “Ye-es,” said John slowly.

    Darryl poured herself another slug. “Don’tcha believe me?” she said abruptly.

    “Oh, I believe you,” he replied with a depth of bitterness in his voice that jolted her. “She sounds exactly like my ex-wife.”

    “Go on! I thought there could only be one like her.”

    “No.”

    “Well, she couldn’ta been worse than Marguerita, however bad she was.”

    “I think she was; as bad, anyway. She—she didn’t seem to—to really believe that other people existed.”

    “Jesus, that’s just like Marguerita! Was she little and blonde, too, Whatsername, your ex?”

    “Felicity. Yes, that’s what’s so extraordinary about it; you could have been describing her, just now.”

    Darryl shuddered and finished her whisky. “What was the worst thing she ever did?”

    “Apart from marrying me, you mean?” said John, trying to sound dry but only succeeding in sounding dreadfully hurt.

    The militant Darryl looked at him. She forgot he was A Man, and thus the natural enemy, and saw only his pain. She put her long brown hand on the large, sweaty, hairy ones that were clasping each other tightly between his knees and said: “Yeah, apart from that. You can tell me, ya know; I’ve been there.” John said nothing. Darryl heard him swallow. She squeezed his hand and said: “It’ll really help to talk it out, ya know.”

    John didn’t subscribe to this tenet of pop psychology, but he found himself saying: “I don’t know about the worst thing... God,” he said, “I suppose if I tell you that the worst thing was the sexual betrayal you’ll say that—that I expected our marriage to—to run on stereotyped lines, and never saw her as a person, or something!”

    “Not necessarily; it depends what sort of marriage it was. Was it an open marriage?’

    “What?” he said blankly.

    “You know!” said Darryl on an impatient note. “An open marriage—where you both agree you can have other sexual partners.”

    “Good God, no; it was a Church wedding. Felicity was a virgin. At least, she said she was, she wouldn’t let me...”

    “Fuck,” prompted Darryl helpfully, as his voice trailed off.

    Suddenly it popped into John’s head that she was as outspoken as his mother: Marla knew and cheerfully used all the words—well, certainly all that John knew—in both English and Italian.

    “Yes,” he agreed calmly, “she wouldn’t let me fuck her before marriage—and not much after it, to tell you the truth—but looking back I’m pretty damned sure she wasn’t a virgin.”

    “Mm,” said Darryl. “What about the betrayal?”

    “It was the old cliché,” he said with a sour shrug. “You know: best friend, behind the husband’s back—all that.”

    “Mm; but it isn’t a cliché when it’s you it’s happening to, eh?”

    “No. It was just so humiliating,” he said in a low voice.

    Darryl shivered. “Yeah—I’ve been there.”

    “And at the same time I was so angry—I frightened myself, I didn’t know I could feel such rage.”

    “Too right.” She shivered again.

    John was silent.

    “How did you find out?” said Darryl abruptly.

    John told her; he told her all about it; he said things he’d thought he could never say to a living soul. Darryl’s hefty shoulder was warm and comforting against his. The sun shone steadily and if he’d closed his eyes he could almost have believed himself to be sitting in the courtyard of Gianni’s old father’s battered palazzo near Siena on a mild spring day.

    Darryl listened in almost total silence, only putting in a sympathetic murmur here and there. It was a cliché, all right, and she was positive he must’ve been a rotten lover, poor old sod, probably didn’t have a clue about women’s sexuality; but all the same that didn’t excuse Felicity, who certainly seemed to have behaved like a Grade A, Number 1 bitch throughout.

    When he’d run down she said thoughtfully: “Mm. Helluva pity she’s bringing up the kids with that sort of female rôle model in front of ’em.”

    “Er—yes,” agreed John, a little taken aback.

    “She sounds just like Marguerita, all right... Did I tell you about Carmel and her?”

    “No,” said John cautiously.

    Darryl told him about Marguerita and Carmel. That was pretty much of a cliché, too; in fact if you cast Carmel as Felicity and Darryl as John, with Marguerita as the best friend, it was practically the same story—except that in Darryl’s version it was Marguerita who had been the prime mover, whereas in John’s, he was pretty certain it had been Felicity. His best friend, however, had needed no urging.

    John was silent at the end of the story.

    The long brown hands, that were now clasped on Darryl’s knees, clenched until the knuckles showed pale. “I suppose you think that’s ridiculous!” she said loudly. “Just another Lesbian spat! I suppose you think the whole thing’s ridiculous!”

    “No,” said John honestly. “I think it’s very sad.”

    Darryl’s lips trembled.

    “What happened in the end?” he asked.

    “Carmel left; she said she was sick of being the meat in the sandwich,” she said tiredly.

    “Oh,” he said cautiously.

    “And then we had a group therapy session, y’know?”

    John didn’t, but he said “Oh,” again.

    “The whole flat,” explained Darryl. “Barbara, Sybil—she was there, then—and Susie and Velma, and Marguerita and me, of course. We took a whole day and talked it over: got in touch with our feelings—you know.”

    “No, I don’t, really,” he admitted. “What was it supposed to accomplish?”

    Darryl was astounded. “I just said! It was to help us get in touch with our feelings!”

    “Oh,” said John blankly. “Did it—did it make you feel better?”

    Darryl swallowed. “After the first burst of euphoria had worn off; after the first great rush of cathartic release,” she said with great precision, “no, it did not actually make me feel better.” John was silent. “In fact I felt bloody awful!” she said violently. “The more so since that whoring, conniving little bitch was still in my flat!”

    “Yes,” he agreed simply.

    They sat on peacefully in the sun for some time.

    “Did I tell you how I finally got rid of her?” said Darryl at last.

    “No; how?” he asked with interest.

    She told him how she’d got rid of Marguerita. John shouted with laughter.

    Darryl laughed, too, but after a moment she said uncertainly: “I suppose I shouldn’t have done it; it was trading on my ethnic origins; I suppose it was betraying my tangata whenua, in a way.”

    “Betraying your what?”

    “My tangata whenua—the people of the land—betraying my own people.”

    “I see.”

    “Don’t you think?” said Darryl. The contralto was so soft he could hardly hear it.

    “No,” said John, trying not to laugh again.

    “But it—it was degrading them—and me, I suppose. Don’t you think?”

    “No!” said John, giving in and laughing. “It was inspired! God, I can just see what she must have imagined! Poor li’l white virgin, faced with all dem husky big niggers from de plantation—priceless!” He laughed helplessly.

    “Don’t,” said Darryl uncertainly.

    “Price-less!” gasped John again through his laughter.

    Suddenly Darryl burst into laughter, too. They laughed together for some time in the kind Labour Day sun on the steps of the dingy prefab.

    By the time the phone rang late Monday afternoon Rod Jablonski was just about out of his skull with boredom. He couldn’t do much, because of his damned broken arm. If only the bloody landlord hadn’t sold his flat out from under him… If only he hadn’t decided to come back home to the Old Man in Brown’s Bay for a bit: all he did was nag; and Rod was sure he was on the sauce again, the old bastard. God knew where he was hiding it, either: he’d looked bloody well everywhere...

    If only he’d never met flaming Helen Michaels! No, well, if only she’d never dumped him. He was over her, really, but why did he have to keep falling for tall females with great tits that only gave him the old heave-ho? Helen had been the zenith, if ya liked to put it like that, but by far from the only statuesque female in the “Drop Jablonski like a hot potato, girls” stakes.

    He went and got the Saturday paper, took it to his room, and turned to the cars for sale. Wonder what sort of prices clapped-out twenty-plus-year-old Triumphs were getting these days... Ugh. Not that he wanted to sell her, really, she was a trusty old girl, been with him through thick and thin... Surprizing what a turn of speed she had, too, on the open road; last English car that was a car, ask him... What would he have to pay for a new job? Meanly he thought, Of course if I stayed here at Dad’s for a bit: no rent... But he knew he couldn’t stand it.

    Then the phone rang. Rod didn’t answer it, the Old Man did his Polish nut if you answered the phone in his house. His bedroom door was ajar; he listened.

    The Old Man let it ring six times—he always did that, he reckoned it got rid of the crank callers and the telephone survey lot. “Yess, who hiss it?” he hissed.

    The caller musta said something because then he snarled: “No, this iss not Mr Jablonski, this iss Count Jablonski, who are you, vhy are you callink me if you cannot address me properly?”

    Oh, yeah, here we go, thought Rod, who took the “Count” business with a huge helping of salt.

    “Vhat?” said his father. “Spik up, pliss. –Vhat? No, you mistake, there iss no Marama here.”

    Rod made a face. Marama was an ex-girlfriend of his. “Hey, DAD! Is that for me?”

    “Silence, Roderick! Do not interrupt me! Where are your manners?”

    Rod groaned.

    “Vhat? Vhat? Say again, pliss!”

    “Oh, God,” muttered Rod. He got up and went out to the passage.

    Old Jerzy Jablonski laid the receiver down carefully on its side. To his son he said in Polish: “It’s some stupid woman. She wants to speak to a cousin of some person called Marama. I’ve told her we don’t know a Marama but she won’t listen—you’d better speak to her.”

    “Speak English!” replied Rod with a scowl, not bothering to point out that the silly old bastard could speak perfect Oxbridge when he wanted to. “It’ll be for me—God, you’re hopeless.” He strode over to the phone and picked up the receiver. “Gidday! Rod here.”

    His father stayed where he was, listening. Rod began to get an itch between his shoulder blades.

    “Who was it; what did they want?” the Count demanded—still in Polish—as his son hung up.

    “If you really want to know, it was Darryl Tuwhare, she’s a distant cousin of Marama’s, she’s got a house she thinks I might be interested in sharing.” He headed for the front door.

    “Wait!” cried the Old Man frantically in Polish. “Who is this person? Why have you never spoken of her before? Where is this house, anyway?”

    Rod didn’t bother to tell him to speak English again. He said: “I told you: she’s Marama’s cousin; and the house is over at Waikaukau Junction, if ya must know.” He opened the front door.

    “Wait!” cried his father in Polish. “You shouldn’t drive with that arm! Roderick!”

    But Rod was halfway down the garden path.

    His father stared after him resentfully. To himself he muttered—in excellent English—“I don’t know any Marama.”

    When the old white Triumph had shot off up the road the old man closed the front door—not without difficulty, it was slightly warped—and went down the passage. He got the kitchen steps, went into Rod’s room and positioned them under the hatch that gave access to the roof. Grunting a little—it had been much easier with the ladder, but the stupid boy had broken the ladder painting the roof—what did he want to paint the roof for, it was all right as it was, a roof was a roof, wasn’t it?—he eased open the hatch and retrieved a bottle of vodka from the case of a dozen that stood just inside it, carefully balanced on the rafters. He descended the steps and laid the bottle carefully on Rod’s bed. He re-ascended the steps and closed the hatch. He descended again and took the steps back into the kitchen. He came back into Rod’s room and retrieved the bottle.

    “So!” he said in triumph. He took a good swig. He glanced through some papers on Rod’s desk, and sniffed. Some sort of student exercise—university education, indeed! His French had been better than that when he was twelve years old; how could Roderick bear to mark such trash? Still, what could you expect of this damned country... He mooched back to the front room with the bottle, and got a cut-glass tumbler out of the dusty chiffonier. He filled it to the brim.

    A-ah! That was better!

    The Carranos’ hideous modern wrought-iron gates were slightly ajar. Sylvie dismissed her taxi with a grim feeling of triumph, and headed determinedly up the long drive on foot. As this was spring, she was wearing her spring clothes: a tweed suit with a light-weight pale green cashmere jumper. The jumper did nothing for her sallow complexion, but Sylvie was very pleased with it: it had been rather expensive and she’d bought it out of the money that Hamish had been sending her all year for her support and for her share of the household expenses at her father’s. As John Mackay refused to accept any contribution towards the housekeeping, Sylvie had simply kept the lot, without telling Hamish.

    Had there been a wind no doubt the tweed suit would have been quite suitable wear, as the Carranos’ broad drive was quite exposed for its first five hundred yards or so along the cliff top. But there was only a slight breeze. By the time she’d got about halfway, where the drive dipped down through a grove of old pohutukawas, Sylvie was very hot. She stopped in the shade of the dark old trees, panting.

    There was a most peculiar smell under the trees—merely the waxy, dusty smell endemic to pohutukawa groves, but to Sylvie it was both unpleasant and alien. In spite of the shade she found she had no wish to remain there. She walked on quickly. To her right there was some rough land and then two charming little wooden bungalows. Sylvie knew, thanks to Elspeth’s babbling about “Aunty Polly,” that before her marriage Polly had rented the first of them. She took her tweed jacket off, gave the little bungalow a jaundiced look, and stomped on grimly, sweating.

    As she followed the drive over the final stretch before the lawn proper she heard an ominous whinnying noise. She looked nervously over her right shoulder. A large brown horse was forcing its way through a hedge further down the slope. It started to walk up towards her. Sylvie increased her pace. The horse increased its pace. It whinnied anxiously. “Sss! Scat!” she hissed.

    The horse stopped. It tossed its head uncertainly. Sylvie hurried on. The horse hurried after her.

    People didn’t normally approach the Carranos’ new house on foot: it was too isolated, right at the far end of Pohutukawa Bay Road on the cliff top. Those pedestrians the horse normally saw were therefore the people who lived in the big house, or their guests. Such people frequently gave it an apple or a carrot. This particular pedestrian was nearing the wide gate in the white fence that enclosed the lawn. Anxiously the horse hurried after her.

    Sylvie cast one last look over her shoulder, and ran. She hurled herself at the gate, fumbling frantically at its  latch.

    “Ow!” she cried, as she caught her fingers. “Go away, you horrible creature!”

    The horse stuck his meek brown nose out and made a hopeful whuffling noise. Sylvie wrenched the gate open, and slammed it after her. She headed up to the house, panting. When she’d got her breath she lifted the knocker and hammered viciously on the big front door.

    “Gidday!” said Rod, ambling into Darryl’s kitchen. “You the cook?” He grinned, and held out his hand. “Rod Jablonski.”

    “Oh—yes,” said John vaguely. “I’m John Aitken.” He looked at his hand, and wiped it down the capacious apron Darryl had given him. He shook hands. “I don’t think either of the girls knows what to do with a freshly slaughtered hen,” he explained.

    Rod looked at the corpse with interest. “You kill it yourself?”

    “Yes,” said John. He got on with dismembering the bantam.

    “They watch?” asked Rod, jerking his head the direction of the big, shabby dining-room, where Darryl and Jo-Beth were deep in their second round of herb tea and a discussion of the work of Georgia O’Keefe.

    John smiled slowly. “No; they went inside.” He laughed. “Complete with Gottfried!”

    “Who the Hell’s Gottfried? One of the cats?” asked Rod.

    “No,” said John. “That’s Gottfried.” He waved towards a large brown cardboard box that stood on the floor near the antiquated stove. Rod looked at the box doubtfully. “Harding’s Spaghetti” it said. Suddenly a small brown head with a wise eye popped up over the edge of the box.

    “Shit!” he gasped. He went closer, grinning. “It’s a hen.”

    “A bantam,” corrected John. “It is a female,” he added.

    “Why Gottfried?” asked Rod, goggling at the bantam.

    “Darryl doesn’t seem to know,” said John. He picked up the cleaver. “It’s some kind of a pet,” he said. He rinsed the cleaver under the cold tap. “Only Darryl won’t quite admit it,” he said in a neutral voice. He looked sideways at Rod.

    Rod met his eye. He gave a shout of laughter. “No; she wouldn’t!” he gasped.

    John grinned happily. He decided he liked this young man, even if he did have the sort of physical beauty that made one feel immensely inferior, and even if—what with the blond beauty, and being a friend of Darryl’s—he was almost undoubtedly gay. He whacked the sections of chicken into bite-size pieces.

    “Crikey,” said Rod weakly.

    “What?” said John, looking round in surprize.

    “Only person I ever saw chop up a chook like that was an old Chinese lady that used to live next-door to us; you a professional cook, or something?”

    “No,” said John. He looked at Rod’s handsome, tanned, regular features, which at the moment were expressing an avid interest in his operations at the bench, and suddenly confided: “I learned how to do it from an old Italian lady—my grandmother.”

    “That so?” said Rod with interest.

    “Yes; I spent most of my school holidays in Italy, when I was a teenager.”

    “Ya lucky sod!” said Rod, with frank envy.

    John patted the chicken pieces dry with a tea-towel. He dropped them into the hot oil in Darryl’s big black cast-iron pan to brown them.

    “Yes; it was wonderful,” he admitted. He began to tell Rod about his grandmother’s house, and Gianni’s house, and Gianni’s brother-in-law’s villa...

    Rod listened with envious interest. He asked intelligent questions. He watched with interest as John put the sautéed pieces of chicken in a casserole and added sliced lemon, green olives, and sautéed onion.

    “Never had chook done like that before,” he said.

    “It’s a recipe of my grandmother’s,” said John. He didn’t add that it had had to be that recipe because Darryl’s kitchen was remarkably free of basic ingredients—after all, so was his own. “It needs some herbs, really; could you ask Darryl if she’s got any sage in the garden? Or thyme; thyme would do.”

    Nothing loath to get another squint at that little Japanese doll—not that there was any point, if she was a pal of Darryl’s—Rod ambled through to the sitting-room. “Hey, Darryl, John wants to know if you’ve got any sage or thyme in the garden.”

    “I dunno,” said Darryl vaguely. “There might be—Sybil was into all that.”

    Grinning, Rod ambled back and reported what Darryl had said.

    “Oh,” said John, disconcerted. “I thought—well, I mean, with the way she talks about the marae—” He paused. “That is the right word, isn’t it? Er—from what Darryl said I gather it more or less means the central gathering-place for traditional Maori community life.”

    “Yeah,” said Rod. “Chook, chook!” he said to Gottfried, bending down.

    “Well,” pursued John, “I thought that—that she’d know all about gardening, and...” He broke off. Then he added: “She didn’t want to kill the bantam; or help pluck it and draw it.”

    Rod winked at Gottfried. He straightened.

    “And I don’t think she’s feeding the bantams properly,” said John worriedly.

    Rod gave a choke of laughter. “Ya know what her dad does, don’tcha?”

    “No; what?” –She must come from an urban family: perhaps her father... was a bus driver? A dustman? He couldn’t think of any other occupation in which he’d observed middle-aged Maori men.

    Rod was grinning from ear to ear. “He’s a Supreme Court judge! I don’t reckon Darryl ever set foot on a marae till she was twenty-one!”

    John gaped at him. Rod raised his eyebrows, looking dry. Suddenly they both shouted with laughter.

    “Come on!” gasped Rod eventually. “Let’s take a look in the garden.” He opened the back door. He looked back over his shoulder. “Wanna come, Gottfried?” he said in a squeaky voice. “Come on, then; chook, chook, chook!”

    Gottfried peered over the edge of her box at him.

    John said dubiously: “I think it likes it there; Darryl says it stays in the box for hours, usually. –She, I mean,” he amended.

    “I don’t reckon she can get out of the bloody box!” returned Rod with feeling. He went over to Gottfried.

    “Be careful: it pecks!” warned John.

    “Come on, Gottfried,” said Rod. He knelt and very gently turned the box on its side with the bantam still in it. Gottfried fluffed around a bit. She regained her composure. She looked at the open door and the big, untidy overgrown back garden beyond it. She gave a glad squawk—at least, John and Rod were both sure it was a glad one—and dashed madly outside.

    Rod grunted, and got up. “Thought so,” he said.

    In the garden he said: “You know sage or thyme when you see them?”

    “Yes,” said John, looking around him. “Nice dandelions,” he said.

    Rod looked at him out of the corner of his eye.

    John bent and carefully picked some young, tender dandelion leaves.

    “Those are weeds,” said Rod weakly.

    “They’re nice in a salad,” returned John.

    “Salade de pissenlits—of course!” cried Rod. He looked sheepish. “I’ve had that in France. Are those the same?”

    “I should think so,” said John. He ate one. “Yes,” he said.

    They wandered down what had once been a garden path. Rod sighed. “Lovely day, eh? Be a nice day for a swim—first swim of the new season, eh?” He sighed again. “Can’t go swimming with this bloody thing,” he said, glaring at the cast that covered his right arm from knuckles to elbow.

    “How did you do it?” asked John politely.

    “Fell off the ladder painting Dad’s roof,” he said gloomily. “No: to be correct,” he added acidly, “the bloody ladder broke under me when I was painting Dad’s roof. Just as well it was only the fourth rung, or I’d’ve broken me bloody neck, not just me bloody arm!”

    “Yes,” agreed John. He grunted, and squatted.

    “That parsley?” said Rod doubtfully.

    “No; I think it’s carrots,” said John. He pulled. “Yes; good,” he said. He began to pull baby carrots.

    After the affaire pissenlits Rod didn’t dare say they were too young to eat. He said in a grumbling tone: “Mighta known anything at Dad’s place’d be falling to bits; should never’ve gone up the bloody ladder in the first place.”

    “Mm,” said John. “Hold these.” He handed Rod a bunch of baby carrots.

    They didn’t find any thyme—John asked whether it was too early in the New Zealand season, but Rod didn’t know—but they did, eventually, find a stunted sage bush with some new leaves on it. John grunted in triumph, and carefully picked them.

    Strolling back to the house he said: “Do you think you might share the house with Darryl, then?”

    Rod rubbed his straight nose. “Dunno. It’s a nice old house—well, it would be, if it was done up.” John didn’t reply; he was used to ancient stone houses that were in a state of far more advanced decay than Darryl’s tumbledown old wooden villa on five acres of wilderness in Blossom Avenue. Rod gave a tiny sigh. “And Darryl’s okay,” he said. “It’s just that... Well, I dunno if I’m still into the grungy student thing, ya know?”

    “Yes,” said John. He looked at him cautiously. He seemed very young; more than young enough to still be a student. “What do you do?”

    Rod gave a laugh that attempted to be off-hand but to John, who was no stranger himself to that sort of laugh, clearly wasn’t. “I’m a lecturer. –Varsity.”

    “Oh; so am I,” said John. He smiled. “At least, I’m with the Pacific Institute of Political Studies,” he explained.

    “Oh, yeah: you lot are up at Puriri Campus, aren’t you?” said Rod.

    John was now washing the carrots at the sink-bench. “Yes. It’s a very pleasant district, but a little... narrow.”

    “Narrow!” said Rod. He laughed shortly. “I should koko!”

    “Yes,” John agreed weakly.

    “You wanna try getting into town a bit,” said Rod kindly.

    “Yes, I suppose I should.”

    Over dinner Rod revealed to John that his subject was French. John remembered the salade de pissenlits remark, and wasn’t really surprized. Rod praised his chicken casserole uninhibitedly, and ate a lot of it and the rice which accompanied it, also uninhibitedly, rather like John’s Italian relations. He told them all quite a lot about what it was like, teaching at varsity—this was only his second term—how it really took it out of ya, fifty minutes’ lecturing was like three hours’ hard yacker on the roads. John knew this; he listened sympathetically. Darryl normally worked at least twelve hours a day. She snorted scornfully. Jo-Beth listened sympathetically, if in a rather dazed fashion.

    Rod had evidently come prepared to stay for dinner: he’d brought a bottle of white wine. Jo-Beth, like many middle-class Americans, normally drank very little alcohol, but the wine was very nice, and she drank her share. It made her feel warm and happy, but if anything even more stunned. It had been that sort of day.

    First there had been the knock on her door, just when she was about to sit down to tuna fish sandwiches. There they had stood, two big, olive-skinned, dark-haired people in the sun, grinning down at her, apparently quite at ease with each other. Why they were together she hadn’t discovered. John had handed her her watch. Darryl had invited her to lunch, followed by a trip to the Museum. Limply Jo-Beth had invited them to lunch with her, instead. They had happily accepted, and she used the rest of her tin of tuna fish and the whole of another: they had huge appetites, both of them. Darryl had told her exactly why she shouldn’t eat commercial mayonnaise and had given her a recipe for homemade mayonnaise that included yoghurt and honey—but that hadn’t stopped her from eating great quantities of Jo-Beth’s commercial mayonnaise on her tuna fish sandwiches.

    Then they had gone to the Museum, which was down in the city. All the way there Darryl and John, in the front of Darryl’s ancient purple Volkswagen, had chatted and made jokes which Jo-Beth—in the back, by virtue of being the smallest—had felt she never quite grasped, even when she actually got the point! It was most confusing.

    At the Museum Darryl had at first been very gruff and shy when Jo-Beth had asked her about the Maori exhibits. Then she’d suddenly gotten very loquacious. Most of what she said had disagreed with the helpful notices the Museum had provided by the exhibits. Jo-Beth hadn’t known what to believe.

    They’d gone to Darryl’s for dinner, and there had been the episode of the bantam. Darryl had shown them the hen run, grumbling about the bantams that didn’t lay. John had said—actually said, quiet John Aitken who looked as if he wouldn’t hurt a fly: “They’re only good for the pot if they won’t lay. Shall I kill one for you now?”

    Jo-Beth had seen her great-aunt in Japan kill, draw and pluck a chicken, but that didn’t mean she liked watching it. She’d gone inside. Pretty soon Darryl joined her. She was carrying a small brown chicken—alive.

    “He’s killing one now,” she said.

    “Oh,” Jo-Beth replied, looking warily at the chicken.

    Darryl sat down, still holding the chicken, and said: “I couldn’t face it, either!”—laughing shamefacedly.

    At this point Jo-Beth, though still feeling rather stunned, decided that she really liked Darryl. “Shall I make us a pot of tea?” she offered shyly.

    “Good idea!”

    They went into the kitchen and made herb tea together, and Darryl put the chicken into a big cardboard carton near the stove. When John came in they’d taken their tea into the dining-room.

    Then Darryl had decided to ring someone who, she heard, might be needing accommodation. Shortly after that she decided to take a bath. Jo-Beth had never before encountered a hostess who suddenly decided to take a bath at five-thirty in the afternoon whilst she had guests in the house that she hardly knew. The stunned feeling had come back in full force.

    Then the doorbell rang. Darryl was still in the bathroom and John was in the kitchen. Jo-Beth went to the door, to be faced with the handsomest young man—no, the most beautiful person—she’d ever seen in her life. He appeared totally unaware of his own beauty. He was dressed in a grubby blue and black checked woollen shirt and torn jeans. In fact he looked—and, indeed, sounded, although he was a lot more articulate—rather like Pam Anderson’s huge boys. She was more confused than ever when she found he was a university lecturer.

    The stunned feeling persisted over dinner: she hadn’t known John could cook; and she hadn’t known he was part Italian, either, but both Darryl and Rod seemed to know. She still couldn’t correlate Rod’s unassuming manner with his astonishing blond good-looks. Like John, she thought he must be gay; and was very confused indeed when something deep inside her refused to believe this.

    Rod felt stunned, too. The last thing he’d expected to answer Darryl’s door was this dainty little Japanese flower! Real almond eyes, lips like cherries, and the sweetest little heart-shaped face he’d ever seen. And about knee-high to a grasshopper; he’d never fallen for small women! At the door he’d looked hungrily at Jo-Beth’s floppy pink sweater with its pattern of green and white bobbles, and wondered what she was like, underneath it. She appeared to stick out in exactly the right places. As she turned to show him down the passage he registered appreciatively the way her neat butt filled her tight jeans. Nothing wrong at that end!

    Over dinner he decided she was really sweet. He’d now discovered that she wasn’t one of Darryl’s pals from the Movement. S’pose he’s the boyfriend, then? he thought glumly. Suddenly his sweet mouth firmed. All right, Pom, he decided grimly, if ya wanna hang on to her ya better do something about it—and quick!

    John was telling a funny story about his stepfather. Darryl laughed uproariously. Jo-Beth smiled uncertainly. Rod winked at her. Suddenly she smiled right into his eyes. Rod’s heart jolted in his breast. He felt he must be gawping at her like a right nana, he felt so... She was looking at him with those delirious almond eyes. The little pink tongue came out and licked nervously at that cherry-sweet mouth; don’t do that to me, little darling, oh Christ... It was agony; it was wonderful.

    Jo-Beth couldn’t understand why she felt so... peculiar. Just because he was very handsome. She’d met handsome men before; handsome is as handsome does, as Mom would say... It must be the wine, she decided shakily. If only he wouldn’t keep looking at her! What was the matter with her, she was behaving like a schoolkid—anyroad, she was sure he must be gay; anyroad, he was far too young...

    Neither John nor Darryl felt in the least stunned. John was happy and stimulated after his culinary efforts. He chatted cheerfully and laughed rather a lot. Darryl was good company; more than ever she reminded him of Maria: a big, cheerful, easy-going woman. He wasn’t repelled by the dusty, rather grubby dining-room with its grimy paint and peeling wallpaper; nor had he been repelled by the glimpse he’d caught from the passage of what must be Darryl’s bedroom: a big mattress on the floor, covered with books, newspapers, discarded garments, and several cats. The walls appeared to be papered edge to edge with posters—real ones, not the sort you could buy in silly boutiques; John would have liked to go in and look at them, but his English inhibited self prevented this. It was a pity, he thought vaguely, that she was a Lesbian.

    Darryl was pleased to have company. John was quite a good sort. She’d forgotten all about their encounter of that morning. Her eyes twinkled. She capped his story of his stepfather with one about one of her old aunties.

    After tea she said casually: “Whaddabout a game of Trivial Pursuit?” Before anyone could reply she added rapidly: “It’s the Aussie version; but we can skip all the Australian questions.”

    Rod gave her a mean grin. “Wouldn’ta thought Trivial Pursuit was your bag.”

    Darryl glared. Defensively she replied: “A mate of Sybil’s left it behind; we don’t have to play if you don’t want to.”

    John said thoughtfully: “I’ve never played; I’d quite like to.”

    Darryl looked at him gratefully.

    Rod laughed. “Whadda you reckon, Jo-Beth? Uh—think that’d be Trivia, to you.”

    They all looked at her. Jo-Beth was very good at Trivia. She loved it. She felt more confused than ever. Shyly she said: “I’d like to if—if it’s what everyone else wants to do.”

    “Have you played before?” asked Darryl.

    “Yes,” said Jo-Beth baldly.

    “How ’bout you, Rod?” said Darryl briskly.

    “Once or twice,” said Rod laconically.

    In her slightly euphoric state, Darryl didn’t recognize this as one of Rod’s habitual euphemisms. “Right, then,” she said determinedly. “I’m quite good at it; so you can play with Jo-Beth, Rod, against me and John—okay?”

    “Partners?” said Jo-Beth doubtfully.

    “We always play in pairs,” said Darryl firmly. She abandoned the dining table and led the way into the big, untidy sitting-room.

    Jo-Beth thought: Shouldn’t we wash those dishes?—but didn’t like to suggest it in someone else’s house. Rod hated doing the dishes. The first thing he’d bought himself on his new salary, after a decent fridge, was a dishwasher. He didn’t suggest it. John was in his Italian persona. He followed Darryl into the sitting-room without even noticing the littered dining table.

    The dining-room, though abandoned by the human occupants of the house, was far from deserted. Gottfried had come inside again. She came out from behind the sideboard where she’d been hiding, and jumped, with much fluttering, up onto Darryl’s chair. Then she fluttered up onto the table. She began to peck at spilled grains of rice, neither noticing nor caring that they were flavoured with her cooked relative. The three cats came out of Darryl’s room. They jumped up onto the table and began greedily to lick the casserole dish. They ignored Gottfried. Gottfried ignored them; she was more than capable of settling a cat with a swift peck to the nose, and she knew they knew it.

    “John Curtin!” said Darryl quickly, as Rod read out an Australian question by mistake. “I know that one; only bit of Australian history I do know; we’ll count that!”

    With varying degrees of amusement and resignation, her three guests realized that this game was going to be played exactly the way Darryl wanted it.

    “Damn!” said Hamish, as the phone rang on Monday evening.

    “Don’t answer it,” said Mirry, yawning. She knew he was constitutionally incapable of not answering the phone: sure enough, he dashed out into the passage and hurtled along to the extension in his study.

    “Who was it?” she asked, looking up from the Listener as he came back into the bedroom.

    Hamish sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. “Jake,” he said gloomily.

    “What did he want?” asked Mirry mildly.

    “What? Oh…” Hamish reddened, and glared at his feet.

    “Is Polly all right?” said Mirry in alarm. “Are the kids okay?”

    “What? Oh, yes: they’re fine—it’s nothing like that,” he replied heavily, getting up.

    “Hamish!” said Mirry loudly, turning very red.

    “I was just going to make a cup of tea,” he muttered.

    “If you don’t tell me this instant what Jake said I’ll crown you!”

    “Och, verra well, if you must have it! It was bluidy Sylvie. She’s been round there, making trouble.”

    “Oh, no!” cried Mirry in horror.

    “Aye...” He sat down again suddenly.

    “What—what did she say?” she asked in a small, scared voice.

    Hamish ran his hand over his curls in a distracted manner and said: “Och, don’t ask me—I don’t think she really said anything. Well, no, that’s silly, she said a lot, of course: you know what she’s like,”—Mirry shuddered sympathetically—“but I don’t think it amounted to anything; I think she was just—just having a go at them.” His voice ended up very low and miserable.

    Mirry stared in dismay. “At Polly, too?”

    “Aye... Jake was furious. Can you blame him?” he added bitterly.

    “No,” said Mirry in a tiny voice.

    Hamish was silent. After a while she ventured: “They’ve got Uncle Dave and Aunty Maureen staying with them. Did she say it all in front of them?”

    “No,” he said dully. “I suppose that’s something to be thankful for. They’d taken the twins to the zoo—that was how Sylvie got in, they hadn’t closed the gates.”

    “Do you mean that—that she just—just walked in on them?”

    “More or less,” he said dully.

    “Oh, heck! Poor Polly!”

    “Aye... Not what a nursing mother needs.”

    “Not just that; Jake told me that the doctor said she had to take it easy, she’s been sort of… over-anxious. Um, I don’t think that’s quite right… Stressed, I suppose.”

    “Then bluidy Sylvie must really have helped! –No, she is all right,” he added quickly. “Jake was there, remember; I gather he’s packed her off to bed for an early night.”

    “Oh, good.”

    There was a long silence.

    “It must have ruined their long weekend,” said Mirry at last.

    “I don’t know that it’s done all that much for mine, either!” said Hamish loudly and bitterly. He got up and strode over to the door.

    Mirry just sat there on the big bed. In her jeans, with her hair in a silly pigtail, she looked about Elspeth’s age, and Hamish was once again swamped with an overwhelming, painful guilt.

    “Why don’t you pop into bed?” he said hoarsely. “I’ll make us a cup of tea.” He went out before she could say anything.

Next chapter:

https://themembersoftheinstitute.blogspot.com/2023/01/november-blues.html