Spatial Concepts

6

Spatial Concepts

    “Mirry!”

    Mirry stopped in her tracks with a gasp.

    “I thought it was you!” Panting, flushed and grinning, Hamish skidded to a halt by her side.

    Since they were right outside the University Library, and there was a continual stream of people coming and going, Mirry couldn’t very well do what she felt like doing—which was burst into hysterical tears and scream at him to leave her in peace.

    The euphoria of his adrenalized dash up the street was rapidly vanishing. Hamish looked at her lamely, wondering what to say next. Since they were right outside the University Library, he couldn’t do what he wanted to do, which was sweep her into his arms, kiss her until she was breathless, and tell her he was missing her like crazy. “E-er—what about a coffee, or something?”

    “Not in the Caff,” she mumbled.

    “No; er... Come on, there’s a coffee-bar up the road.” He held out his arm. Mutely Mirry tucked her hand into it.

    On the way Hamish attempted to draw her out on the subject of her studies; she must, of course, be in her third year, now. Mirry responded monosyllabically, but he gathered that she was majoring in history and was thinking of going on to do a Master’s next year; and yes, it was a two years’ course.

    “If Mum and Dad’ll wear it,” she added gloomily.

    “Oh?”

    She embarked on a rather tangled explanation, from which Hamish gathered that her father was perfectly happy to support her at university, but her mother thought it was a waste of money, and she should be doing something more practical.

    “Anyway,” she ended defiantly, “I’ve got a part-time job.”

    “Oh?”

    Mirry revealed she was working as a waitress three nights a week at the Chez Basil restaurant in Puriri.

    “Oh, aye; you’re still at the hostel, then?” His long, narrow mouth twitched, as he recalled the bitter diatribe she’d delivered on this subject the previous year. Living at the hostel, which housed mainly First-Years and a few extra-earnest Second-Years, was her mother’s precondition to allowing her to attend university at all.

    “Yes,” said Mirry sourly, reddening: he must think she was an absolute kid! She wasn’t at all comforted when he immediately asked her, in a vague voice, how old she was now.

    “I’ll be twenty-one in May,” she responded grimly.

    “Oh, aye?” Was there still a fuss made here over twenty-first birthdays? “E-er—will you be having a party?”

    “Mum’s arranging some awful shindig down there. –I told her I didn’t want a rotten party!”

    With a vivid recollection of his Aunty Kay Field’s loud, unsubtle and domineering personality, Hamish looked at her sympathetically. The heart-shaped face was flushed and cross. Suddenly he reached across and laid his left hand on her little paw where it clutched his right arm. Quite distinctly he felt her body jerk. He tightened his hand. The blood danced crazily in his veins...

    “Just a coffee?” he said at the coffee bar.

    “Um...” It was already half-past eleven, and she’d been up at crack of dawn, practically, to catch the early bus into the city and get into the library as soon as it opened: the iron régime established by Sir Maurice Black lived on, and Third-Year History was no sinecure. “I’m quite hungry, actually,” she said weakly.

    Hamish himself couldn’t have forced down a crumb to save his life; he sipped black coffee and watched dubiously as Mirry engulfed a large cheese-topped vegetable pie, a hunk of French bread, a mound of salad, a pickled onion and a hard-boiled egg.

    “Aren’t you hungry?” she said indistinctly through the pie.

    “E-er... no; what is that?”

    Swallowing it, she informed him the was potato, mostly, with a bit of onion and silverbeet.

    “Don’t they feed you at that hostel place?” he said weakly.

    Mirry engulfed salad, made a face, and informed him that the food there was pig-swill.

    “Oh.” Hamish sat back, and watched her. She was once again wearing the long, straight black hair pulled high on her head; today not in a plait, but in a sort of horse-tail thing, secured by a fuzzy lilac band, into which she’d tucked a few artificial violets. Like most of the population she appeared to consider that, since they were well into April, summer was over: she was in a thin, loose yellow sweater, with the sleeves pushed up to expose her rounded brown forearms. The sweater drooped off one shoulder, revealing the fact that she was wearing a deep violet singlet under it. A large bunch of artificial violets was pinned to the opposite shoulder of the sweater. Lower down, the front of the sweater protruded in two entrancing lemon shapes; Hamish tried, but not very hard, not to let his eyes linger on them. He’d already registered that below the sweater—which unfortunately was so long that it concealed that delightful pear-shaped bum—she had on a pair of very shabby jeans, luminous green socks and lilac and grey sneakers.

    He himself, considering that the weather was just about bearable now, was in his shirt-sleeves; after a while he said cautiously: “Aren’t you a wee bit hot in that jumper?”

    Mirry swallowed the last of her pickled onion, grinned, and said: “I was just wondering if you were cold without your coat!”

    The coffee-bar, now almost full of loudly talking lunchers, was really very warm; Hamish replied: “No, I’m quite hot, really.” She looked at him doubtfully; smiling, he added: “In Scotland you’d call this a pleasant summer’s day!”

    “Oh,” said Mirry in a small voice, looking quickly down at her plate, as her body filled with a trembling sensation. It had been a mistake to look into his eyes. She ate her hard-boiled egg blindly.

    “Don’t you want any salt on that?” he asked, trying to ignore the pounding in his veins.

    “No: too much salt isn’t good for you.”

    Hamish’s mother was a Scotswoman, and he’d been brought up in the salted parritch tradition; dubiously he replied: “Is that so?”

    Not quite looking him in the eye, she told him just why too much salt wasn’t good for you.

    “Oh. E-er, do you want anything more?”

    “Their carrot cake’s awfully good. It’s got a kind of cream-cheese topping; you oughta try it.”

    He got up abruptly. “I’ll get you some.”

    Mirry looked wistfully after the tall figure as it went to join the queue, and tried to tell herself that it was only a lunch, it didn’t mean that he... If only she could stop thinking about— Only every time she looked at his mouth, or his hands... Suddenly she found she was blinking back tears. Idiot! Nit! Snivelling drip! She searched the pockets of her jeans. Damn! Sniffing, she scrabbled in her bulging satchel. Damn and bugger! Fiercely she blew her nose on her crumpled-up paper serviette.

    They didn’t have carrot cake today, but they had banana cake and ginger cake. Hamish had never tasted banana cake and thought the whole concept was even more revolting than that of carrot cake: would a person who was self-declaredly “practically a vegetarian” like it? His mouth twitched in a little tender smile of reminiscence. Er—no, better safe than sorry.

    “What? Er—yes, two slices of the ginger cake, thanks.”

    Mirry had made up her mind to be perfectly calm and sensible with him. Cheerfully she said that ginger cake was fine. As too much coffee wasn’t good for you any more than too much salt was she sipped once, politely, at the second cup that she hadn’t asked for, and then abandoned it.

    Hamish had made up his mind in the queue that he didn’t give a damn, he couldn’t bloody well stand it! It wasn’t his fault if he had a wife who, in addition to being a sexual iceberg, seemed determined to spend the rest of her life lying in a darkened bedroom in someone else’s house with a damp cloth on her head. He looked at Mirry with his blood fizzing, and ignored his ginger cake. “Mirry—” he said huskily.

    “What?” she said brightly, disconcertingly not quite catching his eye.

    “Are those wee feathers in your ears?” He leaned forward and gingerly touched one with his forefinger; his hand just brushed her neck.

    Mirry went scarlet and looked helplessly into his grey-green eyes.

    Gently he cupped the heart-shaped face in his hand.

    “Don’t!” she said in a strangled voice. “I can’t bear it!”

    He released her reluctantly. “Look, we can’t talk in here; shall we—shall we take a wee stroll in the park?”

    “All right,” said Mirry in an almost inaudible voice.

    During the short walk to the park, Mirry said: “Thank you very much for the lunch;” and Hamish said: “What? Oh. It was nothing.”

    The nearest entrance to the park took them almost immediately past some large trees with low, leafy branches. Wordlessly Hamish turned off the path and walked onto the grass under the trees.

    Mirry stared fixedly at the middle of his chest and waited for him to speak. Over on the band rotunda two little boys squealed, and chased each other round and round; a jet roared overhead and the city traffic grumbled continuously in the background.

    “Mirry—” he said at last, swallowing painfully.

    Mirry looked up.

    He wrenched her against him and kissed her frantically, trembling. After some time he loosened his hold and said shakily: “Where the Hell can we go?”

    “There isn’t anywhere,” said Mirry glumly.

    “A hotel?”

    “I don’t think they’d take us without luggage. Anyway, they’re always booked out: they’re notorious for it. What about a motel?” she suggested uncertainly.

    “I haven’t got a car,” he admitted, flushing; they were still with the Carranos, and Jake always dropped him off at the university.

    “Oh.” They could always get a taxi, but the thing was, they probably wouldn’t take them at a motel without luggage or a car; one or the other, yes; but not both.

    Hamish sat down limply on the grass. Mirry sat down, too. He put his arm around her and leaned on her heavily. After a few startled seconds, Mirry decided she rather liked it.

    “What shall we do?” he said miserably.

    A glum silence fell. Mirry thought furiously. “I think I’ve got it,” she said at last.

    “What?” said Hamish eagerly.

    She pinkened and looked away from him. “It depends... How much money have you got on you?”

    “I could go to the bank,” he replied cautiously.

    “It might cost quite a bit... Maybe you could hire a car; and then we could go to a motel.”

    “Why didn’t I think of that!” He sprang up and held out his hands to her. “Come on!”

    Mirry experienced the delicious sensation of being pulled to her feet by Hamish. “It might cost quite a bit,” she repeated uncertainly.

    “Never mind! I’ll put it on ma credit card!” He set off with huge strides.

    “Wait for me!” she panted.

    He stopped, laughed suddenly, and took her hand.

    They went downtown, hired a car, and drove sedately out to the airport road, where there were rows of motels, all used to short-term guests and entirely uninterested in the fact that there was no luggage in the boot of the ugly red Toyota.

    On the way Mirry made him stop at a chemist’s.

    ... “We’ve got to get things sorted out,” he said, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling.

    “Aye!” Mirry quoted with a giggle. She fingered the hair on his chest and looked at him admiringly. His skin was so white; his belly was so flat; and there was the most entrancing little line of hair that started at his navel and went down to his pubic bush, which was the most glorious colour, a lot darker than the hair an his head: a really dark, dark auburn—almost a mahogany colour, actually. “Gee, your pubic hair’s beautiful!”

    Hamish started violently, and blushed.

    Mirry looked earnestly into his face and said: “It is!”

   “Don’t be silly,” he said weakly. “How can a—a man’s... Don’t be silly!”

    Mirry sighed deeply. “I think you’re beautiful all over,” she said dreamily, snuggling against him.

    He put his arms tightly round her, and said into her neck: “You don’t think ma body’s like a—like piece of deid white fush, then?”

    It had been very Scotch. “What? Oh—no, of course not!”

    “What was I saying?” he murmured after a period of not thinking at all.

    “Um, something about sorting things out or something?”

    “Oh, yes!” He released her abruptly, and sat up, frowning. “We can hardly go on meeting in motels, like this.”

    “Why not?” said Mirry simply.

    “Well, I—well, for one thing, we should both be doing our work, at this time of day!”

    “Don’t you like afternoon sex?” she said with a giggle.

    “How would you like to be put over ma knee?” he threatened, grinning.

    “Yes, please!”

    Hamish gave a snort of laughter. “No, listen, we must sort it out,” he said weakly. “Could you get a flat somewhere? Of course, I’d help pay for it,” he added quickly.

    But apparently they were like bloody prison warders at the hostel; if Mirry left, they’d write to Mum and Dad.

    “Oh,” said Hamish, dashed. Surely, at her age... Only, he supposed, if her father was supporting her through university...

    “What if—” she ventured.

    “Yes?”

    Unexpectedly she was swept by a wave of tenderness at the pathetically hopeful tone. She put her hand gently on the golden hair of his thigh and said: “What if we rent a flat together, but I stay on at the hostel officially? I could always say I was staying the night at Polly’s, or somewhere.”

    “That’s a wonderful idea!” he beamed.

    Mirry’s face, which had been beaming too, fell ludicrously. “Only I haven’t got much money, actually.”

    “Darling!” said Hamish in a shaken voice. He gathered her into his arms and said into the long, straight black hair, now rather tangled and damp: “Ma wee pet! Ma wee hinny! I’ll pay for the damned flat—don’t fret yourself.”

    Mirry hugged him back tightly, registering a bewildering mixture of huge relief, intellectual interest in these strange Scotch endearments, and a sort of flooding, delicious weakness at having a great big man take charge of her in this way—a weakness which she knew she ought to resist, but couldn’t. The thought that in fact he was merely falling in with her suggestion didn’t occur.

    “Ooh!” she cried suddenly, sitting bolt upright. “I’ve got it!” She poured out an excited description of Basil and Gary’s flat—a Granny flat, actually; it’d be perfect!

    “Slow down!” he said, laughing.

    It turned out, when she’d calmed down enough to be reasonably coherent, that Basil Keating and Gary McNeish were her employers at the Chez Basil restaurant in Puriri, and that they’d recently bought a large house with a “granny flat” attached, and were in need of a tenant to help pay off the mortgage. They had offered it to Mirry, only she hadn’t been able to afford it. Apparently this desirable residence was on the northern outskirts of Puriri township, perched on a hill with a lovely view. It’d be damned handy, Hamish reflected, but Puriri was such a small place…

    “E-er; won’t they... I mean, if they see me coming and going?”

    “Heck, no!” Mirry cried enthusiastically. “That’s just what’s so good about it!” Breathlessly she revealed that Basil and Gary were quite worried about her because she didn’t have a boyfriend, and were always asking her if she’d found anybody, yet!

    “Is that so?” said Hamish grimly.

    Mirry looked at his face in surprise and giggled suddenly. “It’s not like that! They’re gay. They’re just—well, taking a—a sort of motherly interest—you know! And Basil’s quite—” She stopped, reddening.

    “Quite what?”

    She’d been about to say “quite old, actually.” Basil was younger than Hamish. “Uh—well, you know: kind of an old mother hen!”

    “Aye, well... It does sound ideal.”

    Mirry shot out of bed. “I’ll ring them up straight away!”

    Hamish just lay back weakly against the pillows, and watched her.

    … “That’s settled, then!” she reported, beaming.

    “Aye,” he agreed weakly. “Good.”

    The proprietors of the Chez Basil were terribly pleased to get a suitable tenant. As they necessarily kept rather odd hours themselves, it was some time before it dawned on them that Mirry only slept in the flat about half the week, and that her friend never spent the whole night there. They concluded, quite correctly, that “He” must be married. Basil worried over whether he should have a talk to Mirry about it—not on moral grounds, but because he didn’t want her to get hurt. Gary, less sentimental, said gloomily there wasn’t any point in that: Baz knew what they were like, at that age; and Basil, giggling, said he knew what Gary had been like, lover!

    After not very long, Mirry found herself taking an interest in the big vege garden that Basil was trying to get established; they soon fell into the habit of spending healthy, happy hours out there together—often in the rain: after the relatively dry April they got their usual wet autumn and winter. Basil told Mirry about that ghastly time a couple of years back when darling Gary had had that thing for young Jack, not to mention the frightful to-do at about the same time with the restaurant’s awful landlord—now mercifully passed on; and Mirry poured out the details of the relationship with Hamish into Basil’s interested but dismayed ear.

    “He is married,” he reported gloomily to Gary, quite forgetting his usual affected, over-emphatic manner.

    Gary wasn’t surprised.

    Basil added glumly that she’d fallen for him in a big way.

    Gary wasn’t terribly surprised at that, either.

    A little shyly, Marianne went over to the University Library to find Caro Webber. It wasn’t that she was shy of Caro, at all: in fact they were fast friends by now; it was just that all the library staff, apart from the students on the issue desk, had degrees, and she felt a bit like a fish out of water over there.

    Friendly Ron, who ran the Serials Department, looked up from his computer with a smile and said Caro wasn’t here today, she’d finished off her periodicals work, she was through in Cataloguing, now. Pinkening a little, Marianne murmured thanks, and withdrew. The pink cheeks had nothing to do with Ron’s good looks: Caro had told her that he was gay. There’d been no-one in the Carrano Group at managerial level who was gay. There’d been that boy down in Packing, of course; but Ron wasn’t in the least like him: he spoke just like everybody else, and he wore beautiful suits. She wasn’t prejudiced, just unused to the whole idea, and still a little shy of Ron; thus the pink cheeks.

    Caro was, indeed, in Cataloguing, sitting at a desk in front of a computer. Marianne looked at her with some awe: she herself was used to a word-processor, of course, but Caro handled with off-hand ease not only the university’s own brand-new automated cataloguing system, but any number of other networks and databases and the accompanying hardware that gave access to them either in New Zealand or overseas. “Don’t you have to put a disk in the drive?” she’d asked; and Caro had explained, in a voice which Marianne, a little crestfallen, had realized was trying hard not to sound too patronizing or over-simplified, what a network was, and what a modem did. The office staff at the Carrano Group had considered that the Group’s hard-working, quiet, bespectacled Information Officer was vastly overpaid for just looking after a few books and magazines. Marianne had often had to call on Wesley’s expertise for Mr Carrano, but until coming within Caro’s orbit she hadn’t realized just what unreasonable demands Mr Carrano had made on the poor man. He deserved every cent of his salary!

    “Excuse me, Caro...” she murmured

    “Hang on a tick,” said Caro, tapping furiously at the keyboard. The printer began to chatter madly. Caro tapped again, sighed, and sat back. “Sorry! I was tracking down a reference, and they charge by the minute on that database!”

    “How much?” asked Marianne with interest.

    “Dollar twenty,” said Caro, grinning.

    “A dollar twenty a minute!”

    “That’s a cheap one,” said Caro, grinning even more broadly.

    Plump, blonde Joanie, who was second-in-charge in Cataloguing, and whom Marianne of course knew, because she’d been Polly’s matron of honour, came fussing over and said: “You did use the Institute’s sign-on, did you, Caro?”

    Caro’s eyes twinkled. “Nah, ’course not: I ran up five hundred dollars’ worth on the library’s sign-on.”

    Joanie blinked, and laughed weakly.

    Young Dr Henson, who was a lecturer in the History Department, and a friend of Polly’s, was over by the end wall, looking at a magazine. He looked up; Marianne smiled at him, though she didn't really know him, she’d just met him the once, when her and Polly had been having lunch together downtown. He came over, looking hopeful.

    “Hullo, Dr Henson,” she said nicely, smiling again.

    “Hi! It’s Marianne, isn’t it? What are you doing here?”

    Marianne explained and he wished her luck in the new job.

    “Thanks, Dr Henson.”

    For some reason he went red. “Call me Nicky.”

    When he’d gone Joanie explained kindly that he was quite young, and you didn’t have to stand on ceremony with the academic staff—except some of the old fogies, of course.

    “Oh,” said Marianne doubtfully; Dr Macdonald hadn’t asked her not to call him Dr Macdonald.

    “No need to kowtow to any of ’em: don’t want ’em to start thinking they’re God, just because they’ve got a few pieces of paper!” said Caro briskly.

    Joanie, who was a Baptist, and Marianne, who hadn’t been to university, both looked a trifle startled at this statement. Smothering a grin, Caro added: “Is there something I can do you for, Marianne?”

    Marianne jumped. “Yes: I’ve made an appointment for you to see the architect tomorrow. Here; I’ve written it down for you.” She handed Caro a neatly-typed piece of paper which contained not only Donald Freeman’s name, his office address, and a note of the time of their appointment, but also, since she was accustomed to dealing with Jake Carrano’s business set, a brief description of how to get to Donald Freeman’s obscure address on the fringe of the business area. “Shall I order you a taxi? He said they haven’t got any visitors’ parking.”

    Caro agreed that that’d be lovely; and Marianne smiled, said good-bye to them both, and went back to her makeshift quarters in the run-down old wooden building which now housed the beginnings of the new Institute as well as Peter Riabouchinsky’s Department.

    Caro looked at approvingly at her piece of paper and said: “Gosh, she’s efficient!” And Joanie looked approvingly at Marianne’s disappearing back and said wistfully: “What a lovely suit!”

    “Mm,” agreed Caro with a tiny smile. It was lovely: dark green linen, the shoulder pads not too extreme, and she had on a very pale green blouse with a large green and gold enamel brooch at the neck which matched her large green and gold earrings. In fact it was the outfit she'd worn on her first day in her new job: Caro, arriving at nine o’clock, had been a little startled to find her already there, conferring with Dr Macdonald. She’d looked at the ultra-smart suit, the jewellery, the perfectly matching high-heeled green shoes, the perfect make-up and the perfectly cut neat cap of wavy dark hair with some dismay; when Marianne had held out a hand tipped with long magenta claws, the dismay had increased. Shit, she’d thought: the Perfect Secretary type; how the Hell are we gonna work with that?

    Marianne had concealed her own dismay rather better. Oh, dear, she’d thought, looking at Caro’s mop of brown curls that couldn’t have been called a hairdo, her floppy, off-the-shoulder orange cotton-knit top, tied at the hip in a careless knot, her baggy navy cotton pants, rather worn sneakers, and tanned, unmade-up face. She was too nice to actually label Caro, but she instantly recognized in her the sort of girl who’d been to varsity and never quite grown out of the casual, student look; and her heart had sunk: she’d been hoping to have someone compatible to talk to, amongst all those academics.

    Dr Macdonald, Caro had registered with some irritation, seemed to be all over this Davies female. Wonder how long it’ll take him to find out she’s too proud to make the tea? she’d thought sourly.

    Dr Macdonald, Marianne had noticed uneasily, seemed to think that Ms Webber was wonderful; they probably talked about—about varsity things. Wait until he needs something really practical, she thought, like say I’m out on an errand, will she think of bringing in some afternoon tea when he’s got unexpected important guests?

    It had taken just under four days for the atmosphere of armed neutrality to wear off and for the two young women to recognize each other’s efficiency, expertise and good nature.

    Caro didn’t have quite the same prejudice as Marianne did against obscure edge-of-town business addresses, since she’d worked in a variety of scientific and technical libraries in her time; nevertheless she looked with some misgivings at the battered old concrete structure that housed the Institute’s architect. However, when she got upstairs she was quite glad, after all, that she’d worn her good grey jacket, best black skirt and shoes, and her new emerald-green blouse. She’d been a bit doubtful about the matching green earrings, which were tiny glass beads and dangled halfway down her neck; but Marianne, looking at her with obvious approval written all over her face, had said: “Ooh! I love the earrings; where did you get them?”—and looked very disappointed when Caro had said “Melbourne.”

    Donald Freeman’s reception area was quite smart—trezz moh-derne, thought Caro on an ironic note—with lots of unnecessary and totally non-functional trelliswork in lime green and that awful colour that was neither pale blue nor a true lilac, miles of pale grey leather upholstery, acres of paler grey carpet, and a Goddawful coffee table. It looked as if it had been made out of an ancient colander and was painted a screaming apple green that didn’t match the trelliswork.

    The receptionist was sitting at a pale grey metal desk that for some reason had a diagonal blue neon tube across its front; she was chatting to a shortish, reddish-faced young bloke who gawped at Caro.

    Larry McGrath looked with interest at the short, curly-haired young woman, noted with approval the nice legs, the wideish hips and the full tits; and with a stirring of lust the full, sensuous mouth—not unlike his own generous mouth; but Caro, who wasn’t into young blokes any more, ta, looked through him and informed the receptionist that she an appointment with Mr Freeman—Ms Webber.

    “Aw, yee-uss, Miss Webber...”

    “Ms,” said Caro firmly.

    Jesus! thought Larry irritably. They’d have to get rid of the idiot girl—what sort of impression was she giving the clients? He watched Caro’s retreating bum in its tight black skirt every inch of the way as it disappeared into Donald’s office.

    Donald, too, looked at his visitor with considerably more interest than he would have done if the Institute’s Librarian had been a man. “Oh, yes: Miss Webber, isn’t it?”

    “Ms,” said Caro firmly.

    His instinctive interest waned slightly; it vanished entirely when he made the humiliating discovery that the Institute’s Librarian knew far, far more about library architecture than he did himself; had all the available facts and figures at her fingertips, or at the least in her bulging briefcase, and was more than prepared to tell him exactly how and why his tentatively-prepared sketches were all completely wrong. Libraries, Donald learned, housed computers, photocopiers and journals as well as books; and computers and photocopiers needed dust-free, well ventilated, and preferably air-conditioned conditions; and journals needed storage space. Books, Donald learned, were heavy; and did he have any idea of the load-bearing capacity of this room on the top floor? Donald didn’t; hoping to catch her out he asked what load it should be able to take. Caro told him.

    Donald had no idea of study space, carrels, quiet areas, heavy-traffic areas, traffic flows, work-flow—God, what a nit! Grimly Caro enlightened him.

    “Where’s my office going to be?”

    “Uh...”

    “I’ll leave these with you, Mr Freeman,” she said grimly at the end of the meeting, handing him a sheaf of papers. “I’ll send you over some more information in a day or two.”

    Donald went home and told Heather that he’d met a ghastly woman today—“you know, one of those dreadful Women’s Libber types—calls herself ‘Ms’!” He gave a scornful laugh.

    “Did you?” Heather replied without interest. Nervously she wondered how she was going to break the news that she was giving up her job teaching nine-year-olds at the local primary school at the end of this term and taking up a job teaching new entrants, five-year-olds—which was what she’d always wanted to do—at another school that was so far away she’d need to have the car every day.

    Without consciously deciding on it as a tactic she let him make love to her that night—it was exceedingly uncomfortable for her, and not very satisfying for Donald, since as usual he was almost at bursting point from frustration. Then she told him about her new job. Then she wondered why he lost his temper, shouted that she was a conniving bitch, and took his pillow and the duvet, and slammed out to sleep on the couch.

    Caro picked up ten-year-old Danny from his horribly expensive after-school care, and after listening with interest to his account of his day during their drive home, told him, as she operated the microwave, that she’d met such a silly man today.

    Danny giggled. “Draw him, Mum?”

    And Caro, who had a talent for mean little pencil sketches, wiped her hands on her apron and drew a very mean little caricature of Donald Freeman.

    “Ooh, this is lovely, Sylvie—don’t you think?” said Polly.

    Under the combined pressure from her host and hostess and her husband Sylvie had at last reluctantly consented to let Polly take her out to look at houses. She made a dry Scottish noise. Quite apart from her natural reluctance to agree with anything Polly said, she thought the house was hideous: a tall, white structure that seemed to be made of some space-age shiny material. It had odd turrets here and there, several portholes, and at least fifteen different roof levels.

    “Ooh, look!” squeaked Elspeth. “It’s got a tower! Aunty Polly, look! Can we go up it?”

    “I expect so!” said Polly with a little laugh.

    The land agent, who was feeling rather dished because it wasn’t actually Mrs Carrano who was after a house, after all—he hadn’t known why he’d thought it would be, really, except that he’d heard a rumour that they were getting rid of that big place at Pohutukawa Bay: turning into a community centre or something—gave a little cough, and got out the keys. He began to explain all over again to Mrs Macdonald, as they walked up the steep, winding drive of the very modern house in Kowhai Bay, just why the Beckinsales were letting it furnished for three years.

    Polly looked round the white, very modern interior with enthusiasm; Sylvie barely looked at all; and Elspeth became practically ecstatic over the fact that there was “a wee bedroom—with bunks!” at the very top of the “tower.”

    Finally the agent said: “Of course, if you were thinking of buying rather than renting, Mrs Macdonald—”

    Before he could say that he had some very nice places on his books, and some excellent property buys, if they were thinking of building, Sylvie said hurriedly: “No. I suppose it’ll do: you’ll have to talk to ma husband.”

    “Uh—yes; of course; splendid,” he replied in a shaken voice.

    Polly looked at him sympathetically, and under cover of having another look at the kitchen, took him away and explained quietly about Sylvie’s culture shock. The land agent, who had never experienced any culture other than his own and in any case was unfamiliar with the term, looked at her gratefully without understanding most of what she actually said, and thought what a nice lady Mrs Carrano was, and since the Macdonalds were friends of the Carranos they’d probably pay the rent the Beckinsales were hoping for without even trying to haggle.

    When they came back into the large family-room on the ground floor—or rather, at front-door level: disconcertingly there was a whole lower floor, with a formal dining-room and a formal sitting-room, down a short flight of stairs behind the family-room—Sylvie was looking out of the front windows with a discontented expression on her face.

    “That’s a much nicer house, down there,” she said grumpily.

    Polly looked at this structure in cedar weatherboards, warm brickwork and soft brown tiling, and said: “That’s Margaret Prior’s place. It is lovely, isn’t it?”

    With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach Sylvie realized that she’d just reminded her of her earlier suggestion of maybe popping in on this friend for afternoon tea. If she said her headache had come back Polly wouldn’t believe her, because only ten minutes since she’d said it had gone. There didn’t seem to be any other possible excuse... Listlessly she allowed Polly to thank the land agent effusively, collect up Elspeth, and drag the pair of them off to drop in on her friend Margaret.

    Mrs Prior was a tall, thin, sallow Englishwoman of about Sylvie’s own age. She seemed a most unlikely friend for Polly, thought Sylvie, mild surprise momentarily overcoming her apathy. She greeted the news that Daphne Green was looking after the babies this afternoon with cries of disappointment.

    Polly explained, smiling, that they hadn’t known how long they might have to trail round looking at houses.

    “No, of course not!” agreed Margaret sympathetically, leading the way into her sitting-room. “Do sit down, Mrs Macdonald, won’t you?”

    “Aye; thank you, Mrs Prior,” returned Sylvie dully.

    “No, please—call me Margaret,” said Margaret in her gentle voice.

    Scowling, Sylvie returned gruffly: “Sylvie,” and sat down.

    Looking round her listlessly as Polly and Margaret chattered on, she registered that Margaret’s house, while still modern, was much nicer than the Beckinsales’: the sitting-room had walls of varnished knotty pine, with the entire fireplace wall all in soft old bricks. The floor was dark polished wood, with lots of beautiful old rugs in soft, muted tones; the large one that her feet was on looked like a genuine Persian, thought Sylvie, who’d once been quite interested in Persian rugs herself. Margaret’s furniture was a mixture of old and new that should have been awful, only wasn’t: Sylvie herself was on an oatmeal linen, very plain sofa, Margaret was on another, and Polly was relaxing in an old, much polished, intricately-carved rocking chair, that was piled with a variety of cushions in muted colours that matched the Persian rug. Over by the fireplace stood a big, buttoned-back Victorian armchair that should have been all wrong in its blackberry velvet but maddeningly, wasn’t. The hearth was occupied by a huge arrangement of dried foliage in shades ranging from blond through fawns and tans and yellows to dark brown, in a big modern pottery vase that should have been all wrong with the rugs and the Victorian chair but wasn’t.

    “And what did you think of the Beckinsales’ place, Sylvie?” asked Margaret.

    “It’ll do, I suppose,” said Sylvie grudgingly. She looked into Margaret’s sympathetic, very plain face and for some reason she couldn’t have explained to herself, added: “It’s very modern.”

    “Yes, it is a very modern design, isn’t it?” agreed Margaret nicely. “But I believe it’s surprisingly comfortable to live in—Liz Beckinsale was very fond of it. Mind you, that modern style was all his idea...” She began to chat gently about the Beckinsales. Sylvie gradually relaxed in the comfort of the very modern sofa, and didn’t listen.

    As soon as Mrs Prior had finished, Elspeth, who was perched next to Polly on a big tan velvet buttoned pouffe, said quickly: “It’s got a wee tower, Mrs Prior! And a wee bedroom, with bunks!”

    “Has it, dear?” replied Margaret kindly; she had no children of her own and consequently was inclined to dote on them. “That must be the boys’ room.”

    “Not the girls’?” said Elspeth in a squeaky voice.

    Quickly Margaret told her that the Beckinsales didn’t have any girls, but that the turret room would make a lovely bedroom for any child.

    “Aye,” agreed Elspeth gratefully: “it would that!”

    By the time they’d had their afternoon tea Elspeth, who in any case would have been inclined to adore anyone who provided her with jammy scones and let her have two pieces of cake, had decided that Mrs Prior was a nice lady, and had ventured out onto Mrs Prior’s sheltered sundeck to stroke Mrs Prior’s big ginger cat; and Sylvie, who’d been a bit shattered to be offered a choice of Indian or China, and milk or lemon, followed by real homemade scones which were as good as her own mother’s, had decided grudgingly that maybe Margaret Prior wasn’t that bad, and was wondering once again how the Hell she ever came to be a friend of Polly’s.

    Margaret had nibbled at a piece of scone, drunk two cups of weak tea with lemon, and decided sympathetically that dear Polly had been perfectly right about Sylvie, and they must do something about the poor woman as soon as possible. And Polly had eaten most of the crackers with tomato slices on them, a large piece of ginger cake and five jammy scone halves and, observing Margaret and Sylvie narrowly while not appearing to, had decided that her scheme might just work, after all.

    When Sylvie had gone to the bathroom, Margaret shot a quick look at Elspeth, out on the deck, leaned forward, and said to Polly: “Shouldn’t that little girl be at school?”

    “I know!” said Polly in a sort of wail. “It’s been awful, Margaret! Sylvie’ll only say she hasn’t got the energy to be bothered; and Hamish says to leave it to Sylvie!”

    “What about Jake?” asked Margaret in some surprise.

    “That’s the worst thing of all! He won’t—he won’t—” She stopped, gulping and sniffing.

    “Polly, dear!” said Margaret in horrified sympathy.

    Polly scrabbled frantically for her hanky, blew her nose hard, and said: “He just laughs; I think he spent half his time at primary school wagging it!”

    Margaret evidently understood this somewhat Irish statement: she nodded sympathetically.

    Polly swallowed. “He liked secondary school, but he only had two years there; and he won’t tuh-take primary school seriously!” This ended in another wail; she gulped, and blew her nose again.

    “I’ll have a word with him,” said Margaret in a determined voice.

    “Would you?” said Polly gratefully. “It’s been two months, now; and it’s against the law!”

    Margaret had known Jake Carrano for some time, and was perfectly well aware that its being against the law wouldn’t weigh with him; but she was also well aware that she only had to tell him that the business was upsetting Polly and he’d immediately put his foot down. So she repeated comfortingly: “Don’t worry, dear: I’ll have a word with him. He’ll probably take more notice if it comes from someone outside the family.”

    “Yes,” Polly agreed, blowing her nose again and putting her hanky away. “Thanks, Margaret.”

    Margaret glanced out again at Elspeth and the cat, and said: “What about the little girl herself? Have you tried talking to her about it? I mean, surely she must be rather lonely with no other children—”

    But Polly said gloomily: “She puts her winter coat on whenever I mention it.”

    “Oh, dear.”

    Margaret rang up a very startled Jake Carrano that very evening and not mincing words, for her gentle nature had been thoroughly roused to see dear Polly so upset—when she was feeding her babies, too!—told him exactly what was what.

    So the very next morning, which was a Thursday, Jake bodily picked up a startled Elspeth after breakfast, said grimly: “Come on, Elspeth: you’re going to school,” and carried her kicking and screaming and then alarmingly rigid and purple-faced form out to his big silver car and buckled it in.

    “Ma coat! I want ma coat!” she screamed.

    “Get her bloody coat, for Chrissakes!” Jake ordered Hamish—who had followed their progress to the garage in a sort of limp surprise.

    Elspeth was then driven rapidly to Puriri Primary School, where mean, horrible Uncle Jake informed her now very red and pouty small person that Aunty Polly would collect her this afternoon, and after that she could come home on the bloody bus with the rest of the kids from Pohutukawa Bay.

    “I— Thank you, Jake,” said Hamish limply at last, as Jake headed the big silver Merc for town. “I’m Hellishly sorry.”

    Jake stared grimly ahead at the long stretch of road through Dairy Flat, drew right out onto the wrong side of the road, and passed four Mitsubishis, a Volkswagen van, two Subarus and a startled Jag.

    “The thing is,” said Hamish miserably, “it’s always been her mother who... She’s never let me have a thing to do with the kid’s bluidy education or—or anything,” he ended gloomily.

    “’Bout time you started, then.”

    “Aye, it is. I’ll see she gets to school in future, never you worry!”

    “Good,” grunted Jake. “Been upsetting Polly.”

    “I’m sorry, Jake. I—I thought she quite liked having Elspeth around the place.”

    “She does. Not the point. Against the law not to send kids to school.”—Margaret had made this point most forcibly.

    “Aye.”

    They were on the Harbour Bridge when Jake said explosively: “Why the Hell don’tcha divorce that bloody woman?” Hamish made a startled noise; sheepishly he added: “None of my business, I know; only—”

    “That’s all right.”

    Jake cleared his throat. “No sense trying to hang onto a marriage that’s turned sour,” he added awkwardly.

    Hamish’s lips tightened. “No.”

Next chapter:

https://themembersoftheinstitute.blogspot.com/2023/01/senior-appointments.html