Party Games

22

Party Games

    In pursuance of the real object of the evening’s exercise—rearrangement of Hamish and Mirry and of Caro and Charlie being only a sort of garnish to the main dish of discovering whether Hamish was the parent of Becky’s eldest child—Peter turned off the pleasant Mozart that had been playing gently throughout the meal and put on an ancient Beatles record during the dessert course. Pauline, Caro and Mirry looked surprized. Erik and Hamish smiled, and began to hum at intervals.

    Magda, who’d known Peter for many years, gave him a sharp look. Peter smiled blandly at her. “My goodness!” she said. “What is that tune?”

    “Norwegian Wood,” said Hamish.

    “Mein Gott, that takes me back!” She looked at Peter out of the corner of her eye.

    “Does it indeed, moy dear Magda?” he said smoothly. “Now where to, I wonder?”

    “Oh, somevhere in my misspent youth,” said Magda vaguely.

    When he got up to make the coffee she followed him into the kitchen. “So! You play one of your deep games, my friend?”

    “I cannot imagine what you mean, moy dear; would you pass me the coffee beans, please? –Danke.”

    When he’d finished making a great noise with the grinder she said abruptly: “Tell me what to do.”

    “We-ell, it would perhaps help,” said Peter in a vague voice, “if, when I introduce a little game of `Where were you way back when’ you were to join in enthusiastically, moy dear Magda.”

    “Oh, would it, perhaps!” said Magda sardonically. She came up very close, so that Peter breathed in her French perfume and her green-gold silk sleeve brushed the sleeve of his dinner jacket. “Listen, Peter, if this is some liddle trick you have dreamed up to catch your wife out—”

    “You misjudge me, moy dear,” said Peter calmly. “It has nothing to do with Veronica; besoides, we have an agreement, she and I, that what is past in our loives is past.”

    Magda replied grimly: “Just as well.”

    “Da,” he agreed tranquilly.

    “So who are you out to get?”

    “Not exactly out to get... I need to foind out somethink about Hamish Macdonald.”

    “So-o... Not something that will hurt that little girl who is very much in love with him?”

    “I do not think so; it’s another matter entoirely.”

    “You are not after his job?”

    Peter looked pained. “Moy dear Magda! You watch too much Dallas, I think! I am not J.R. Ewing.”

    “You’re as cunning as J.R.,” returned Magda calmly. “And much more intelligent—which makes you so much more dangerous.”

    Peter gave a little chuckle and replied: “Well, I can assure you that I don’t wish to  discredit Hamish in order to take his job! No, this is quite another matter; a family matter…” He hesitated.

    “Ja?”

    He looked at the familiar tanned and expertly made-up face, the shrewd but kind brown eyes which he’d always privately thought extremely simian, and the dark curls which he knew she tinted—she was nearly his own age. He lowered his voice and began to speak in German.

    When he’d finished—meanwhile taking the coffee-pot off the heat—Magda told him roundly that he was a fool, and that those who played with fire got their fingers burnt.

    Peter laughed, kissed her cheek and thanked her for the warning. He gave her a tray of coffee cups to carry through to the drawing-room.

    “All right,” said Magda resignedly. “I will help you with your little plan—but I still think it would be much better to let sleeping dogs lie!”

    “I h’yave never much loiked dogs—sleepink or otherwoise,” said Peter calmly, waving her to the door.

    When they went into the drawing-room Hamish scooped up Mirry, and bore her off to sit beside him on a two-person sofa. Erik did the same to Pauline, only with a three-person sofa, and Bruno, politely seeing his hostess into a large armchair, drew up a smaller chair beside her and chatted amiably. So that left Caro and Charlie. Charlie sat down on another two-person sofa and leaned back with one long arm sprawled along its back. Apart from the armchair opposite Veronica’s, and a space on Erik and Pauline’s sofa, there was nowhere left to sit in the circle round the big heater. Caro wandered over to the bay window and pretended to be admiring the spring flowers in the big blue bowl on the round table there.

    There was a pause in the conversation. Into it Charlie said clearly: “Sit here, Caro.” He patted the sofa next to him. Not unnaturally, everyone else looked expectantly at Caro. Face aflame, she went and sat silently beside him.

    When Peter came in bearing his coffee-pot, a milk jug and a sugar bowl on a tray, he nearly dropped the lot.

    Charlie was looking extremely bland. Caro was very flushed.

    Peter was too busy with his Hamish scheme to register the full implications of this situation, which were, not necessarily in this order, that Charlie had made up his mind (a) not to take any more nonsense from her and (b) to give that architect guy a run for his money. Charlie, once he got moving, didn’t actually need anyone’s help to redecorate his life. Caro, on the other hand, rather obviously did—and Charlie was gonna be the one to do it for her. How he’d decided all this he couldn’t have said—or even exactly when. Certainly none of it had been consciously in his mind when they sat down to dinner. By the time they came in here, however, he was quite sure about it.

    After serving the coffee Peter went over to his electronic gear and put on a special tape: ninety minutes, prepared by himself, of more ancient pop songs.

    With the coffee they were offered brandy or liqueurs. Caro, who fancied herself a purist about after-dinner drinks, repressed a shudder at Mirry’s request for Crème de Menthe. She’d come in a taxi; since she hardly ever went to fancy dinner parties she’d decided to do her hosts’ booze justice. She accepted a large brandy. Charlie firmly refused a drink: he was driving. A tiny frown flickered on Peter’s forehead; for a moment Charlie wondered if he’d insulted his host.

    When Peter had moved away he said to Caro in a low voice: “Should you be drinking that?”

    She glared at him.

    “I mean, aren’t you driving, too?”

    “Oh! No—came in a taxi.

    “That so?” He watched her take a sip of brandy. “I’ll drive you home, in that case.”

    “You don’t have to,” she said, not looking at him.

    Charlie hadn’t moved his arm from the back of the sofa. He debated touching her shoulder and decided it was too soon. “I know I don’t have to; I’d like to,” he replied mildly.

    “We-ell… Has that damned passion-waggon of yours got a heater?” she demanded gruffly.

    “Sure it has!” replied Charlie, astonished.

    “Oh. Well, in that case, thanks.” She could feel him staring at her. Crossly she added: “I’ve only got a short jacket with me,”

    “Gee, that wasn’t very sensible, Caro; it’s still very chilly at night.”

    Scowling horribly, Caro replied: “I haven’t got a decent coat.”

    It had been many years—since his freshman days, in fact—since Charlie Roddenberry had encountered a person of either sex with no decent winter coat; and those persons, of course, had been working their way through college and were now extremely gainfully employed. Colour flooded up his muscular neck. “I’m sorry, Caro; I didn’t mean to pry.”

    “That’s all right,” growled Caro.

    Awkwardly he said: “Well, you’ll be warm in the Mustang.” He looked at her doubtfully. Her head was bent and she was staring into her lap. The round curve of her cheek was very flushed; a little gold earring danced entrancingly against her neck. He touched the shoulder of her dress cautiously. Caro jumped. Charlie gave a tiny smile and withdrew his hand to the back of the sofa. “What was that you called it, again?”

    “What?”

    “The Mustang.”

    “Uh—oh!” Caro swallowed a slug of Cognac and said, not looking at him: “A passion-waggon. I didn’t mean—” She broke off abruptly.

    Charlie chuckled. “No. Not that it hasn’t seen a bit of that in its time, mind!”

    “Oh,” said Caro hoarsely. She sought frantically for something else to say. “You never call it ‘she’,” she said finally.

    “Nope; to me an automobile’s a machine.” He looked at the pink curve of cheek again and added: “I never could figure out why some men speak of their cars like women; to me a woman’s all soft and cuddly, and a hunk of machinery sure ain’t that!” He laughed.

    Caro made a strangled noise and drank more brandy. After a bit she said in a would-be sophisticated voice: “Maybe it’s got something to do with the way they hurl themselves into the damned things.”

     Charlie flung back his head and laughed. “Jesus! I pity their poor wives!”

    Caro gave a cautious smile. “Me, too.”

    His hand came firmly down on her shoulder—not on the padded dress so much, but more on the tanned skin next to the dress. Caro’s bosom rose and fell rapidly, and he smiled. She didn’t say anything, so he left his hand there.

    Further round the semicircle of seats in front of the big heater Hamish murmured: “Are you enjoying that?”

    Mirry looked up from her Crème de Menthe and smiled. “Mm!”

   “I remember—that first day—you had that.”

    She nodding hard, still smiling.

    He smiled intimately into her eyes, and she blushed. He felt very pleased, all of a sudden: sometimes he had a feeling that he took him for granted; and sometimes, too, a feeling that she and Elspeth were somehow in league against him, and that to Mirry he seemed as old and boring as he did to his daughter. His left hand tightened on her upper-arm.

    After a while she said dreamily: “Isn’t this a lovely room?”

    “Oh—aye—I suppose it is.”

    There were a lot of dark rugs on the polished wooden floor, mostly in shades of crimson and dark blue. The woodwork had the soft golden glow of clear varnish on kauri, and the walls were papered in cream with a tiny crimson motif which, if you got very close, you could see was a fleur-de-lis. The curtains in the bay at the far end of the room and down most of one wall were a dusky grey-blue.

    “Veronica likes blue; she wears it a lot,” said Mirry with a sigh. “I wish I could wear it.”

    “Can’t you?” he replied doubtfully.

    “No; it makes me look awfully yellow.” Mirry sipped Crème de Menthe. “The furniture’s a real mixture, isn’t it?”

    “Aye; a bit like the mixture Margaret Prior’s got in their place.”

    “Mm. I like it,” she ventured, not daring to say that they could try for that sort of look.

    Over on their sofa Erik and Pauline were laughing loudly at something Bruno had just said. When the laughter died away Veronica looked hard at the liqueurs on the coffee table and said: “Just a sip of Grand Marnier wouldn’t do me any harm.”

    Peter drank Cognac. “No, but it moight well turn James into an alcoholic.”

    “Aw, come on, Peter!”

    “One tiny sip, then.” He got up and poured a minute portion into a glass for her. “There—now you will shut up about it, perhaps?”

    Veronica grinned. “Ta. –What is that tune?” she added abruptly.

    Peter had been waiting for someone to say something of the sort. He managed not to sag slightly, though it was an effort. He sat down beside her and kissed her cheek lightly. “That is a very famous Buddy Holly song which a young person loike you would scarcely remember, moy dearest.”

    Over the rim of her coffee cup Magda watched this performance with narrowed eyes, but said nothing.

    Erik laughed. “Peggy Sue! I remember when that first came out—I must have been... um, at Intermediate School, I suppose!” With relish he told them how the boys in his class at Intermediate School had been wild over rock ’n’ roll but the girls, who were mostly into musicals that year, had affected to despise it, and their teacher had them get up a concert on the strength of it. He did a very comic imitation of a twelve-year-old boy with an uncertain soprano attempting to sing like Buddy Holly, and an even funnier one of a twelve-year-old girl with braces on her teeth attempting to sing something from South Pacific.

    By this time everyone’s attention was, more or less, on Erik and on Peter’s tape. Mirry said eagerly: “Has anyone seen La Bamba?”

    Erik and Pauline had, so Magda admitted with a shamefaced laugh—carefully not looking at Peter—that so had she. Veronica made a face at her husband and said: “He dragged me to it.” At that Caro admitted that she’d taken Danny to it. And Charlie had seen it back in the States quite a while before it had made its way to New Zealand. So they all talked about it for a while, and then Charlie mentioned Don McLean’s American Pie. Peter let him go on about this for a while and then led the conversation gently back to the late Fifties.

    Maeda had been doing her sums, and recognized with sardonic amusement that Peter was leading up to his point chronologically. By her reckoning they had about twelve years to go and she wondered whether Peter would make it before people started to leave. She was dying to talk it over with Bruno, for although they didn’t share a bed they shared most other things, and in fact had a very comfortable relationship. But to her annoyance she couldn’t think of a way to get him out of the room without drawing attention to themselves. She was very tempted to spike Peter’s guns for him; but since she’d promised to help decided ruefully that she might as well get on with it.

    By the time Yesterday was playing Hamish had almost forgotten an earlier desire to get away home as soon as possible, and was thoroughly enjoying himself. “I think that’s my favourite Beatles song!” he exclaimed as it came to an end.

    “I thought Michelle was your favourite,” said Mirry.

    Hamish and Charlie both laughed.

    Peter held his head on side and said: “There is a joke here that we miss?”

    “Not a joke, exactly,” said Mirry, rather pink to find herself holding the floor. She told everyone how nicely Charlie and Hamish had sung Michelle together.

    Peter bounced up, turned off the tape, and went to the baby grand which stood near the bay window, but well back where the sun wouldn’t get at it. “Come! I play for you!”

    Hamish flushed a little and looked sheepish, but Charlie laughed and got up, saying: “Sure; why not?”

    As Hamish walked over to the piano Magda quietly rose and picked up the Cognac bottle. She drifted round the circle of chairs and sofas, offering it. Bruno watched this behaviour in his etiquette-conscious wife with astonishment. When she refilled Hamish’s glass he positively goggled. No-one else, however, noticed a thing, including their hostess, who had turned her big armchair round in order to watch the performance.

    Caro allowed Magda to refill her brandy glass, because she felt quite limp. Part of this was the result of the terrific effort she’d made to convince herself that the touch of Charlie’s long hand—not cold tonight—on her shoulder meant absolutely nothing to her. Most of the rest of it was due to the discovery that Charlie apparently sang, and that that funny little girlfriend of Hamish’s, in whom she’d been astounded to recognize one of the Institute’s M.A. students (Charlie having imparted that piece of gossip to his academic colleagues but not to the rest of the staff) seemed to know ail about this. When he and Hamish actually sang, she was even more astounded.

    After they’d sung a couple more songs Hamish said firmly that he was very rusty, and his voice needed a rest—much to Peter’s relief, for Charlie, no doubt inspired by the concert the other night, had been making noises about madrigals, and Bruno had mentioned the duet from the Pearl Fishers, and it was all getting too far removed from the songs of the late Sixties and early Seventies that his tape had been working its way up to.

    So when Magda said in a voice that—in Peter’s ears anyway—sounded casually malicious: “Why don’t you play something for us, Peter?” he beamed, and played a selection of tunes from The Big Chill. Everyone had seen that, and some had seen it twice. In fact Veronica got up and danced to I Heard It Through The Grapevine. Erik and Pauline got up and danced, too. “Come on!” said Hamish, hauling Mirry to her feet. Magda was now leaning on the piano, so Bruno got up and danced with his hostess.

    After a little Magda gave Peter a tiny malicious smile and said: “I refill the glasses again—ja?”

    “Viel dank’,” he replied, putting in a few twiddly bits of his own,

    “Come on, Caro,” said Charlie, grinning. He got up and held out his hand to her.

    Caro stood up uncertainly. “I’m not much of a dancer.”

    “Neither are they!” said Charlie, laughing. He put his arm round her shoulders, laughed again and said: “Gee, I forget how short you are, until you stand up!”

     Caro went very red and replied crossly: “That’s a bloody heightist thing to say!”

    He steered her to a clear piece of floor. “No, I like short people.”

    “And that’s heightist, too!” she retorted, very ruffled.

    Charlie began to do something that looked like the Twist, only less energetic. Caro still looked ruffled but she joined in.

    From the piano Peter observed this development with pleasure, while he continued playing variations on tunes from The Big Chill and several other favourites from his chosen period, modulating casually from one to the other with considerable skill. Magda came and leaned on the piano again, listening to this virtuoso performance with sardonic enjoyment.

    After a while Charlie put his hands on Caro’s waist. “Now I’m gonna say something that’s both sexist and heightist,” he warned, grinning.

    “What?” said Caro defiantly.

    He smiled. “I especially like short cuddly female people.”

    Caro went scarlet and stared fixedly at his shirt.

    Charlie gave a tiny chuckle. “’Specially when they’ve got real small waists—I should think my hands’d meet, if I squeezed a bit.” He squeezed her cautiously.

    “Don’t!” said Caro explosively.

    He stopped, looking extremely disconcerted.

    “Not with all that dinner inside me!” said Caro crossly.

    A pleased smile replaced Charlie’s disconcerted expression. He didn’t say anything, just held her gently and went on dancing.

    After a little Veronica took her forget-me-not blue sandals off. Mirry noticed this and made Hamish stop while she removed her very high-heeled red suede shoes. Erik laughed and said into Pauline’s ear, while Peter played something rather slow and syrupy: “Want to take your shoes off , too, darling?”

    “No; this is nice,” said Pauline in a dopey voice. Erik turned his head so this his lips were against her cheek.

    “Veronica and Mirry have taken their shoes off,” said Charlie. “You wanna take yours off, Caro?”

    Caro was wearing the not-very-high-heeled gold sandals that were the only shoes she had that would go with the dress; still, it would be easier to dance without them. “Okay—only no remarks about me being short,” she said in a threatening voice.

    Charlie grinned, and stopped dancing. Caro attempted to remove her sandals without clutching at him for balance and very nearly fell over. “Damn!” she said, grabbing wildly.

    “Here—lemme.” He knelt and removed her sandals. Caro was nearly as scarlet as Mirry’s dress; it was stupid, she told herself as the long hands touched her feet and ankles capably and not at all suggestively, and her heart raced. Stupid! He didn’t mean anything by it; he was just being... American, and helpful.

    “Ta,” she said gruffly, when he’d removed them.

    Charlie stood up, put his hands on her waist again, and pulled her firmly against him. He stooped—quite a lot—and put his cheek against hers. “Maybe you could—uh—hang onto me, or something?” he said, when Caro’s arms had dangled limply at her sides for a little. “Or don’t short Kiwi girls do that?”

    “It’s a great pity I’ve just taken off my shoes,” said Caro, putting her hands on his muscular arms, just above his elbows, “because I’ve suddenly got this strange urge to stamp on your foot. Really hard.”

    Charlie chuckled and said into her ear: “I’ve got this strange urge, too. Real hard, too.”

    There was a dazed moment in which Caro told herself that she couldn’t really have meant that. Then he gave another chuckle, more like a snigger, and pressed himself against her quite unmistakeably.

    “I suppose you think you’re irresistible!” she said crossly, not quite soon enough.

    Charlie gave a lugubrious sigh. “I know damn well I’m not; I was kinda hoping you hadn’t suspected it, though.”

    When she’d worked this one out Caro was quite silent.

    Peter finally wound up his performance with an abrupt return to the early Sixties: Twist and Shout. This had the desired effect of making everyone end up breathless and laughing; they all collapsed into their seats again and those who had drinks in front of them incautiously took gulps of them.

    Quietly Peter put the tape on again.

    “My goodness! Tvist and Shout!” said Magda, sitting down. “That took me back further than I think I wish to be taken!” She laughed throatily,

    “Mid-Sixties, would it be?” said Hamish, smiling.

    “Oh, ja: more than twenty years; Mein Gott, closer to twenty-five, now I come to think of it!” She laughed again. “Vhat on earth were we doing, way back then, Bruno, mein Lieber?”

    Bruno scratched his handsome head and replied thoughtfully: “That was before we were married; I must still have been in our European office...” He laughed suddenly. “Oh—ja! I remember now, quite clearly, being at a party where we played that, and we had a big argument about the words—because they were not very clear, and most of us did not speak very good English!” He laughed again; under cover of his laughter he looked speculatively at his wife, wondering if he’d picked up his cue correctly.

    Evidently he had done: Magda beamed and said; “Ja, ja; I was still living in Vienna, but I remember I have an exciting holiday, in swinging London—it must have been about that period... Yes! Carnaby Street!” She laughed throatily again.

    Erik said: “I remember the year the Beatles came out here; when would that have been—1964 or 5? Something like that. I was still at varsity.” He laughed suddenly. “Yes: the tickets cost an arm and a leg for those days; and a lot of kids missed out, even after queuing for a couple of days. I remember I was absolutely incensed, because my English tutor had tickets. I thought it was so unfair that an elderly person like him had taken the tickets that younger people should have got!”

    “How old was he?” said Veronica with a grin.

    “What—old Charles? Must’ve been at least thirty-seven or -eight!”

    When the laughter had died down Magda leaned back, shot Peter a malicious glance, and said: “What is the furthest back you can remember, Erik?”

    “The furthest? Heck!” Erik thought he could remember falling out of his cot when he wasn’t quite two; he still had the scar on his forehead. Magda encouraged this vein of reminiscence; Peter got up and went quietly out to the kitchen.

    When he came back after an interval with two bottles of champagne and some glasses—having nipped upstairs to check on the babies, who were both fast asleep—Charlie was talking nostalgically about the first moon walk. Magda gave Peter a mocking look; this was almost exactly the period in which he was interested. Peter smiled blandly at her.

    Everyone accepted at least a little champagne, including those who were driving, and Peter had to open the second bottle. As he was pouring Magda said lazily: ‘‘Now—who can remember what they were actually doing during the moon walk? Charlie?”

    Obligingly Charlie remembered what he was doing; Magda then got Erik to recall what he’d been doing; unexpectedly Veronica, who’d been at St Ursie’s, laughed and recounted how they’d been supposed to be doing a History test but the teacher had brought in her transistor radio and said that the first man on the moon was a much more important piece of history. After that Hamish could hardly refuse to try to remember when Magda urged him to.

    “E-er... I must have been doing my degree, I suppose; so I’d have been in Edinburgh, of course... Oh, yes! I remember now! I listened to it on my landlady’s radio; one of the other lodgers, Bill Stuart—Lord, I’d forgotten all about him: very thin; he was doing law—he had a bottle of malt that his uncle had given him for his birthday and we all got as drunk as skunks! Including Mrs Stark! We had to put her to bed, I remember—she was a very respectable widow, and we hardly dared even to take her shoes off!” Everybody laughed; Hamish added: “Bill never let her forget it, poor woman; whenever she was telling him off about not wiping his boots, or not eating proper meals or something, he’d say: ‘Neil Armstrong, Mrs Stark,’ and the poor old thing’d turn purple!”

    Charlie had his arm round Caro’s shoulders again; he drained his champagne, tightened his arm on her, and sang the line “Saw a man named Armstrong walk upon the Moon.” The soft baritone seemed to vibrate right through Caro.

    “Ooh, I know that!” cried Mirry.

    Charlie smiled. “It was recorded by an Australian singer, never reached the charts in the US, but I knew a guy who had a tape of it. We had a kind of informal group who used to sing it.”

    “I don’t know it: I’d rather like to learn it, Charlie,” said Hamish. He kissed Mirry gently, where the black hair was pulled back tightly from her temple.

    Peter observed this evidence of relaxation in his victim with satisfaction. “I suppose you must have felt rather isolated in Scotland, Hamish, with your parents back here in New Zealand,” he said casually. He drank some champagne.

    “Oh, aye,” returned Hamish, slightly puzzled. “I had plenty of friends at university, though; and my mother’s relatives all live in or near Edinburgh.”

    Magda shot Peter a mocking look and before he could speak said: “And you are the typical poor student; so I suppose you never manage to get back here for a holiday while you are an undergrad?”

    “Not then, no; I got over to Europe once or twice—mostly camping holidays, or tramping, with friends; and we used to go over to the Isles, too; I had a friend who came from Skye.”

    “What a pity; your poor mother, she must have missed you—or perhaps you have many brothers and sisters?”

    Bruno was very far from drunk and although he was enjoying the evening he wasn’t as flown on excitement as most of the others because of course he wasn’t heterosexual, and there was no-one there with whom he wished to dance; so he choked on his champagne at this prying question from his smoothly sophisticated spouse. Kindly Veronica banged him on the back.

    “Danke!” he gasped, wondering not for the first time how Peter stood the woman.

    Hamish was very warm and happy, having absorbed three times as much brandy as he’d intended, and he was very much looking forward to getting Mirry home and out of that tight scarlet dress; so he didn’t register Magda’s question as rather odd, but replied happily: “No, I’m an only. I did make it home once, when I’d just about finished my thesis. It was after I’d had a bout of pleurisy; my mother was frantic and made Dad send me the fare—not that Mrs Stark hadn’t looked after me like a mother, anyway!”

    “That did not set you back with your Ph.D., I hope?” said Peter, assuming a tone of scholarly concern.

    “We-ell—I suppose it was a hiccup; but there were only the finishing touches left, by then.” He laughed. “God—ancient history!”

    “Ja; it is funny the things that the mind can dredge up that one would have said it had forgotten!” said Magda, chuckling. “Yet one has such gaps, too—or at least I do!”

    Bruno, who knew she had a mind like a steel trap, set down his champagne glass and prepared to take up another cue. “What sort of gaps, darling?”

    “Actual dates!” said Magda, laughing throatily again. “l remember so and so—but neffer can I put date to it! Now, my visit to England when I go to Carnaby Street, for instance: I can remember every garment I bought—but can I remember the year?”

    “I’m like that, too!” said Veronica, chuckling. “Someone asked me only the other day what year it was first went over to Oz—buggered if I could remember!”

    “What about you, Hamish?” said Peter in an idle voice. “Can you remember—well, say, the actual year that you came home to recuperate from your pleurisy?”

    Hamish laughed and ran his hand through his curls. “Now you’ve put me on the spot! E-er—well, it’d be getting on for twenty years, ago, I suppose.”

    “Musta been after the moon walk,” said Charlie, who liked to get things straight. “I mean, if you and this landlady character got drunk to celebrate it?”

    “Aye...”

    Mirry giggled suddenly. “You can’t remember, can you?”

    “What would you bet, Magda, he cannot remember?” said Peter, chuckling.

    At this Erik, who knew that Peter never gambled, even for fun, goggled at him, and sat up straight.

    “I bet you fife dollars he remembers the actual year—and another fife for the month!” said Magda instantly.

    “Done!”

    Hamish grinned. “Well, you’ve lost the five for the month, Peter; it was August when I got here: lambing had started, and Mum wouldn’t let me go out and give Dad a hand, because of my chest!”

    Unnoticed by anyone except Erik and Magda, Veronica, too, suddenly sat up very straight. The colour drained from her face, leaving her rather green and strained. She got up and went out very quietly. Peter noticed her go, but assumed she had gone to see if James wanted his supper.

    “So now you must earn Magda her other five dollars, Hamish,” urged Bruno. “Think!” He grinned.

    Hamish ran his hand through his curls again. “E-er… Wait a minute; if I count backwards from the year I got my first lecturing appointment...” He began to count on his fingers.

    Mirry gave a crow of laughter. “The great statistician!”

    “Och, haud your whisht, wumman; there’s money involved here!”

    Peter, pretty sure now, watched him liked a hawk as he moved his lips and counted on his fingers again. Erik, now thoroughly alerted, watched Peter like a hawk. Magda lay back in her corner of the big sofa and watched sardonically as Hamish remembered the year, and Peter’s nostrils flared with triumph.

    Everybody else laughed and clapped and congratulated Magda noisily on her win; under cover of the hubbub Erik said in Pauline’s ear: “Pop out and see if Veronica’s okay, darling.”

    She shot him a startled look and hurried out.

    Upstairs Veronica hugged Baby James to her bosom and wept quietly, sitting on the big bed that now had a new duvet, with an old-rose silk brocade cover that might not have been exactly practical or washable, but that exactly matched the old-rose curtains that were a happy compromise between Peter’s wish for something fawnish and her own wish for something slightly more feminine, but not blue, because that would remind Peter too much of the flat in Sydney and of all the other men that he presumed (not incorrectly) to have been in the blue bedroom of the flat in Sydney.

    “Veronica?” said Pauline carefully—her aunt had forbidden her to call her “Aunty Veronica” but she still sometimes forgot. “What’s the matter?”

    Veronica snuffled and didn’t reply.

    Pauline came in and sat shyly beside her. “Is it post-natal depression?” She knew a bit about this: Helen had suffered from it after Melanie, and she could recall quite clearly the paddling Dad had given her on her own ten-year-old bottom for getting Mum upset and making her cry—though actually the shock of seeing Mum cry would have been quite sufficient punishment on its own.

    “Not exactly,” said Veronica soggily.

    “What, then? Is James okay?”

    “Yes,” said Veronica, sniffing. “He’s good.”

    As if to give her the lie, James whimpered.

    “He wants tit,” said Veronica simply, dumping him in Pauline’s arms. “Here; you hold him while I get out of this thing.” She sniffed again, but looked much more cheerful as she took off her loose, forget-me-not blue satin coat and prepared to undo the matching satin dress she was wearing under it. Its bodice was strapless, with a zip down the back; she fiddled at the zip, grunting crossly. “Unzip me, wouldja?”

    Obligingly Pauline unzipped her.

    Veronica sighed with relief, and stepped out of her expensive satin dress to reveal to her interested niece that under it she was wearing long warm bloomers over stockings and suspenders, and nothing else.

    When Veronica was feeding the baby Pauline said cautiously: “What were you crying for, then?

    She sighed. “All that talk about dates and everything. Made me think—” She hesitated.

    “What?”

    Veronica wasn’t going to tell her Becky’s secret; not that she didn’t trust Pauline, but she’d promised Becky not to tell anyone. So she only said: “Aw… musta been about that time that poor Becky had Carol, that’s all.”

    “Oh, yes, of course,” said Pauline sympathetically. “How old would Carol be, now? Seventeen or eighteen, I suppose?”

    “About that: yeah.”

    “I suppose it would all have happened round about that time. Poor Aunty Becky, it must have been awful. I mean—back then!”

    “Bullshit!” said Veronica, scowling. “It wasn’t the goddamn Dark Ages, ya know; any other family would’ve just let her have the baby in peace—or let her get rid of it; but Dad had to go all feudal, of course, and marry her off.”

    “It worked out all right, though, didn’t it?” said Pauline hesitantly; not unnaturally, she’d never given much thought to the relationships of her parents’ generation.

    “Yeah—luckily.”

    Pauline was silent, watching the baby feed.

    After a while she cautiously touched his downy head and said: “He’s nice, isn’t he?”

    “Pretty nice,” agreed his mother, with a grin.

    Pauline gave a long sigh.

    Reddening, Veronica muttered: “Not regretting it, are ya?”

    “What?” said Pauline blankly.

    “Your little mistake.”

    “Oh! That! Heck, no—I wouldn’t want to have his kid; gosh, it might’ve turned out like him!”

    “Ghastly thought,” agreed Veronica in relief.

    There was quite a long silence, except for the sounds James was making. Eventually it dawned on Veronica that Pauline was looking uncomfortable—as of one who wishes the conversation to be continued but doesn’t quite know how to go about it. “You wanting Erik’s?” she said abruptly.

    “Yes,” replied Pauline hoarsely.

    “Better tell him.”

    “I don’t know if he wants to.”

    Veronica unglued James, and held him up gently. “Looks kinda unformed, doesn’t he? Kinda like a rabbit, or something—not human.”

    “Aunty Veronica!” gasped Pauline in horror.

    Veronica kissed her baby’s forehead and said: “Come on, Rabbit: try the other side.”

    When James was sucking again she said: “He asked you to move into his flat, didn’t he?”

    “Yes,” Pauline admitted. There was another silence; then she added. “It’s a really grotty flat.”

    “Yeah, I know.”

    Pauline fidgeted. “I thought coming here tonight might—might give him a few ideas—you know, about maybe buying a house.”

    “Maybe it will. Can he afford it, though? Isn’t that bloody ex of his taking him for all she can get?”

    “She was; only he thinks she might be going to get married again; then there’d only be the maintenance for the kids.”

    “That’d be better!”

    “Yes; only I don’t know that he wants any more,” she said, sighing.

    “You’d better ask him; for God’s sake don’t do anything bloody silly like getting preggy and springing it on him, will ya?”

    “No,” said Pauline obediently. “I won’t.”

    “Good,” replied Veronica; “because I think Erik’s the sort that’d despise anyone who did that to him.”

    “Yes,” she agreed. “He’s—he’s got a very strong sense of—well, honour, I s’pose you’d say!” She laughed awkwardly.

    “Yeah,” agreed Veronica, blissfully unaware that she was very like that herself. “You need to watch it with those types: if they think you’ve deliberately put one over on them, they won’t forgive you very easily.”

    “I know,” agreed Pauline.

    This time the silence was much more comfortable and was broken only by James’s sucking, James’s heavy breathing, and finally, James’s loud burp and Veronica’s “Good on ya, Rabbit!”

    Charlie duly drove Caro home, very slowly and correctly, in the scarlet Mustang. Not only did he switch the heater on; he also retrieved a rug from the back seat and tucked it tightly round her legs.

    “Thanks,” said Caro, feeling almost mellow by now—apart from a stupid feeling of excited anticipation that she kept trying to convince herself wasn’t really there.

    “My pleasure,” said Charlie, poker-face. Caro couldn’t for the life of her tell whether or not he was teasing her.

    The drive from Kowhai Bay—even from its most north-easterly corner—to Caro’s flat in Puriri was not very far, and the roads were almost deserted. On the way she said: “It was a nice party, wasn’t it?” and he replied: “Sure was.”

    A little further on she sighed and said: “Gosh, I envy them that house! I wish I wasn’t so bloody broke!”

    To which he replied cautiously: “Yeah; it’s okay, l guess; must cost them a fortune to heat, though.”

    “God! Why the Hell do you have to be so—so bloody pragmatic, all the time?” she cried.

    After that there was silence.

    “Here you go,”‘ said Charlie, drawing up neatly behind the old Holden in Caro’s carport.

    “Thanks,” replied Caro dully.

    He unbuckled his seatbelt and turned slightly to his right—the Mustang’s steering wheel was of course on the wrong side for New Zealand—as she fumbled blindly at hers. “Here—lemme get that for you.”

    He was very close and very big and smelled faintly of aftershave and tweed overcoat; at the same time he seemed a million miles away. Caro suddenly felt very small and insignificant and wanted to bawl her eyes out.

    “I can do it!” she said crossly. She wrenched at the seatbelt.

    “You’re locking it,” said Charlie mildly.

    “No, I’m not—it’s stuck!” returned Caro crossly.

    “Gee, Caro, if you ever stopped contradicting me, I think I’d drop dead of the shock right in front of you,” he said mildly.

    “I do NOT contra— BUGGER you!” cried Caro.

    He tried unsuccessfully to repress a snort of laughter, as she wrenched silently at the seatbelt.

    When she’d it undone she said: “Well—thanks again;” and reached for the handle of her door.

    “Don’t Kiwi girls let their escorts help them out of the car?” said Charlie mildly.

    “You’re not my escort; and anyway I’m perfectly capable of opening a car door, thank you!”

    If she’d been looking at him, which she wasn’t, because of that stupid feeling that she was going to bawl, she would have seen a funny little smile twist Charlie’s mouth. The Mustang was in just about perfect condition—except for the front passenger door-handle. He waited.

    Caro wrestled with the handle. She began to sweat; her cheeks burned. She threw off the rug from her knees and wrestled with the door some more.

    “I guess it must be stuck,” said Charlie mildly.

    She stopped.

    “It sometimes does that; I’ll give it a go from outside.” He got out slowly and walked round the car. “Caro?” he said from outside, peering in at her.

    “What?” said Caro sulkily.

    “When I say ‘now’, could you bop the door with your fist—just above the handle?”

    “Here?” she said, touching the door and not looking at him.

    “Yeah. Okay—now!”

    Caro thumped the door; simultaneously Charlie manipulated the handle from the outside. There was a graunching sound from the lock and he opened the door.

    “Thanks,” said Caro, getting out and not looking at him. Her hand hurt like Hell and she felt strongly that she was going to cry. She shoved the hand into the pocket of her jacket and began to walk towards her front door, saying: “Well—g’night.”

    She heard the clunk as Charlie closed the car door and heaved a sigh of relief. Two seconds later she became aware that something tall, dark and American was walking beside her.

    “Don’t Kiwi girls ask their escorts in for a coffee after they’ve brought ’em home on a freezing cold night?”

    In a high, shaking voice she replied: “Look—let’s get a few things straight: I’m not a girl, and you’re not my escort—right?”

    “Okay,” he said amiably. “You’re a woman, and I’m a man—do I get a coffee?”

    There was a silence. Caro fished desperately in her handbag for her keys and wished—amongst other things—that her bloody hand would stop hurting. “Actually,” she said uncertainly: “I don’t think there is any coffee; I had to pay the rent this week, and Danny had to have a new raincoat; and I ran out of coffee last Fri—”

    Charlie took the bag out of her hand and got the keys out. He sorted them out briskly and inserted the correct one into the lock. “Get inside,” he said shortly, pushing the door open.

    She stepped inside and turned the light on.

    Charlie gaped at the blood trickling down her right hand. He stepped in and shoved the door shut behind him. “Show me that hand.”

    His voice was so grim that Caro mutely held her hand out.

    “Jesus,” he said. “How the Hell—”

    “I did it on your bloody car!”

    “I seem to make a habit of brutalising your hand, don’t I?” he said in a shaken voice.

    “What do you mean?” she replied blankly.

    He realised she didn’t remember how she’d cradled her hand when he’d shaken it, that first day, and turned an ugly red. “Uh—I’m real sorry…” he said lamely. “We better get this cleaned up.” He steered her towards the bathroom.

    When he’d competently bathed, dried and dressed her scratched and bruised hand he said: “Caro—”

    “What?” said Caro in a small voice.

    “I— Jesus! I can’t tell you how sorry I am about this.”

    “That’s all right: it was an accident.”

    “No,” said Charlie in a strangled voice. “It wasn’t. I knew you’d never get that goddamn door open with those tiny hands of yours; I let you fight it on purpose… Jesus!” He turned abruptly away from her and added: “God knows what I thought I was doing. Playing some goddamn stupid macho game or something—Jesus!” He hit the bathroom wall with his clenched fist.

    “Oh,” said Caro uncertainly.

    “I never meant for you to hurt yourself: you gotta believe me, honey!”

    Caro went bright red, which Charlie couldn’t see, as he still had his back to her in the tiny bathroom, and said: “I believe you. I think I did most of the damage when I, um, bopped the door like you told me to, actually.”

    “I should never have let you—”

    “It’s okay, honestly,” said Caro awkwardly. She looked doubtfully at his tall, straight back in its tweed overcoat and repeated: “It’s okay. It was an accident.” She touched his back timidly. Charlie jumped sharply.

    “Um, would you like a cup of tea? I know you don’t much like ordinary tea, but there’s some herb tea, it’s really nice.”

    Charlie hadn’t known whether the story about being out of coffee had been a line, in which case he’d have been furiously angry, or true, in which case he’d have felt dreadfully sorry for her. His emotions at the front door as she struggled with her purse had therefore been a mixture of sick doubt, rage, and wrenching pity. Plus a good deal of lust, which he’d long since given up pretending he didn’t experience in her company—or even when he thought about her, which he did almost every waking moment when he wasn’t actually working.

    Staring at the wall, he said: “Herb tea ’ud be just fine, thanks.”

    “Good,” said Caro uncertainly. “Well—come on, then.”

    “Uh—I guess I’ll use the john, first.”

    He must have been feeling shy about saying this; she said nicely: “Yes, of course; you go, then,” and went out.

    Charlie had a very strong bladder and in any case had been to the john at Peter’s after the champagne—the downstairs one, very pretty blue tiling with fluffy blue towels and a little imitation Wedgwood dish of tiny blue guest soaps, and a bunch of flowers on the vanity: it had made him very nostalgic for America—only there, of course, the flowers would most likely have been imitation and the window would not have been open, rendering the littlest room freezing cold.

    He sat down limply on Caro’s toilet seat lid, noticing dully that it did not have a fluffy covering and that the vinyl tiles on the floor were not only mismatched but very badly laid and starting to peel back here and there. He put his head in his hands and tried to make himself feel better by sheer force of will. Eventually he recognized that he didn’t have enough will, that he’d behaved like a jerk, and that his hostess would be perfectly justified in hating him like poison for as long as she lived—and that he’d been in here far too long. He got up hastily, flushed, and automatically washed and dried his hands, having been so well brought up that he had what amounted to a phobia, and went into the sitting-room.

Next chapter:

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