33
The Institute Entertains
Veronica was standing by the open front door, hugging Sharon. Peter’s steps faltered on the stairs. Then his curly mouth firmed, and he came down rather faster than he’d started.
Sure enough, she glared at him and said: “What the Hell are ya wearing those for? It’s a barbie, not a bloody garden party!”
He looked down at his grey cotton slacks and said in a voice that to his annoyance sounded guilty even to himself: “But it is at work; one must look respectable.”
Veronica sighed. “Go and put your shorts on,” she said heavily. “It’s a barbie; everyone else’ll be wearing shorts or jeans.”
“But—”
“Go on; it’s Saturday, for God’s sake: no-one’ll be dressed up.”
“If you are sure...”
Veronica rolled her eyes up to High Heaven. “For God’s sake, Peter, it’s my country, isn’t it? I ought to know!”
Acidly Peter replied: “I do not feel that anyone who has just spent twelve years in Sydney and says ‘Eet’s a ba-ah-bee-ee’ has any great claim to expertise on the New Zealand way of loife.”
Veronica’s mouth quivered, but she refused to laugh. “All right, then; ring up Hamish and ask him what he’s wearing.”
Reddening, her foreign husband replied stiffly: “I could not do that.”
Veronica took a deep breath. “Look, everybody’ll be wearing shorts; look, for God’s sake, Sharon’s wearing shorts!” She set Sharon down. Sharon was wearing shorts: little pale yellow ones.
“I am not a week off moy second birthday,” he said.
“Vron-nee!” said Sharon, holding out her arms. “Up, up!”
Veronica picked her up again. “All right,” she said with a sigh, “I’ll give Hamish a ring.” She marched over to the phone.
“Veronica, this is ridiculous,” said Peter uneasily.
“I’ll say,” she agreed, pushing buttons with one hand while holding Sharon balanced on her hip with the other. “Hi, is that Elspeth?” she said. “This is Veronica; is Hamish there?” To Peter she said: “She’s getting him.”
“Veronica—” he said faintly.
“Hi, Hamish; this is Veronica,” she said. “Yeah, so’re we. Listen: what are you wearing to it?”
Hamish had already sustained a phone call from Marianne, reminding him that today was the day of the barbecue. He was surprised that Veronica, of all people, seemed to have taken it upon herself to remind him, too. “Just what I’ve got on,” he said blankly.
Veronica chuckled richly. “Yeah, but what’ve you got on?”
“Me!” said Sharon, making a grab for the phone.
“No,” said Veronica firmly. “Eh? No, sorry, Hamish, not you.” She listened, and reported to Peter: “He says it’s too hot for jeans, and he’s wearing shorts.”
At the other end of the phone Hamish said: “Why on earth do you want to know?”
Veronica replied with a grin in her voice. “Peter’s having one of his European gentleman fits: he reckons he’s gotta wear his slacks because the barbie’s at work; so I said I’d ring you up and find out what you’re wearing.”
“Shorts,” repeated Hamish weakly.
Peter’s face was very red as his wife hung up. “That was quoite unnecessary!”
“No, it wasn’t. Found out whatcha wanted to know, didn’tcha?”
Mouth tight, Peter retreated upstairs without replying. Veronica shook with silent chuckles.
When he came down again in his shorts Veronica, still hugging Sharon, raised a flushed face to him and said: “Peter! She said ‘yellow’!”
“She is too young to understand colours,” he replied repressively.
“No, she isn’t! Listen! –Sharon,” she said to the little girl: “whatcha got on, eh? What colour are these, eh?” She plucked at Sharon’s tiny yellow shorts. “What colour are these?”
“Lalla,” said Sharon.
“See!” said Veronica in triumph. She kissed Sharon’s soft cheek. “Clever girl! That’s right: lalla; lalla shorts!”
Peter’s mouth twitched. “Sharon, moy precious, what is Pee-Pee wearing?” He held a pinch of his navy-blue shorts delicately between finger and thumb. “What are these?” he said. Veronica glared at him.
Sharon looked at him dubiously. “Pee-Pee,” she said.
“Da; that is roight: Pee-Pee,” he agreed. “And what has Pee-Pee got on? What are these?”
“That’s—” began Veronica.
“Ssh!” he hissed imperatively.
“—not fair,” she muttered.
“Come on, Sharon; good girl; you have on lalla shorts, have you not?” He touched her shorts. “Lalla.”
“Lalla,” agreed Sharon.
“Good! Very good! Now, what has Pee-Pee got on?” He held out his pinch of shorts again. “What are these?”
“Lalla,” said Sharon. “Pee-Pee; lalla.” She beamed. “Lalla!”
“Oh, bum!” said Veronica.
“Good girl, Sharon!” gasped Peter. “Da, da; lalla!”
“Now she thinks shorts are called ‘lalla’!” groaned Veronica. “You idiot!”
“No, no; it was not I who told her her shorts were yellow!” he replied, still laughing.
“Lalla,” said Sharon happily. “Lalla, lalla!”
“Yeah,” said Veronica, sighing, and kissing her cheek. “Good girl, Sharon; lalla.” She glared at Peter. “Lalla shorts,” she said defiantly.
Peter collapsed in sniggers.
If Peter couldn’t help reflecting that in a civilized country holding an alfresco luncheon on a wide lawn at twelve noon of a blazing summer’s day was one of the last activities that would have been considered desirable, no-one else appeared to be struck by this peculiarity of the Antipodean life-style. They all seemed to be having a whale of a time. Most of them were wearing sunglasses but many hadn’t bothered with hats. The lawn at the rear of the prefab where the barbecue was held did have several large trees on it, but relatively few people seemed to deem it necessary to seek their shade. Peter sought it immediately. He was very glad they had left baby James with their neighbour.
At one side of the lawn John Blewitt and Charlie Roddenberry had taken charge of the barbecue proper. Fortunately this was downwind: the ranked jungle of ironmongery seemed to billow smoke almost continuously. Peter eyed it with dislike and kept well away from it.
“I have never seen so much barbecue equipment in moy loife,” he said to Polly Carrano. “I think we could feed the whole university, not just our staff and students.”
Polly laughed. “Most of it’s Jake’s. I think that’s why Hamish invited me!”
“Jake is not with you?” he said cautiously.
She sighed. “No; he had to go on a business trip to Thailand. It’s just for a week.”
“And you do not care to go with him?”
“No. I couldn’t face the heat; it’s bad enough here, isn’t it?”
“In any case, it would be awkward, travelling with a baby,” he murmured tactfully. “How is Katie Maureen?”
“She’s fine,” said Polly. “I didn’t bring her: I thought it’d be too hot for her.”
Peter agreed enthusiastically to this and was explaining he had thought precisely the same thing in relation to James, when Hamish appeared.
“I’m afraid those sausages’ll be some time, yet,” he said apologetically to his second cousin. “They don’t seem to have got the charcoal—e-er—settled down, yet.”
“Mm; it has to glow, or something,” agreed Polly. She gave the two men a naughty look. “I always leave that end of the operation strictly to Jake!”
Hamish grinned. Peter chuckled, but said: “Is it not fascinating how in Anglo-Saxon society it’s the men who establish themselves as the barbecue chef? Even men who would not normally go near a kitchen—Veronica’s brother-in-law, Nat Weintraub, for instance: I do not think he can boil an egg, but he will not let his woife touch the barbecue!”
“She’s probably got too much sense to,” said Hamish drily.
Polly gave her charming choke of laughter, and tucked her hand in his arm. “Yes; but Peter’s right, isn’t he? It is interesting.”
Hamish wasn’t a student of human nature; he smiled at her and said vaguely: “Some sort of atavism, I suppose.” Before Peter could add: “Yes, but what sort of atavism?” he turned to him and said with a teasing grin: “I see you’re wearing your shorts.”
Peter flushed a little. “Da; you convince me, between the pair of you.”
“You’re wearing shorts, too, Hamish,” Polly pointed out.
Hamish chuckled. “Aye.” He told her about Peter’s “European gentleman fit”. Polly collapsed in giggles. Peter smiled sheepishly…
“Hullo, Elspeth,” said Judith Woods. She wasn’t quite sure that Elspeth would remember her, but Elspeth—to whom all her father’s workmates were of vital interest—replied immediately: “Hullo, Judith!”—with a beaming smile.
“Are these your brothers?” asked Judith uncertainly, looking at the two little boys whose hands Elspeth was clutching.
Elspeth giggled. “No; they’re the Twinnies! I haven’t got any brothers!”
Fraternal, not identical, registered Judith. She hadn’t really thought that any woman would be capable of walking off and leaving two very small boys as well as a girl of ten or so with the absent-minded and not very domestic Hamish Macdonald; but from what Marianne had said about Sylvie Macdonald it had just been on the cards. It was obvious that in Elspeth’s circle one was expected to grasp immediately the reference of the term “Twinnies”; weakly she asked: “Whose kids are they?”
Elspeth stared at her. “Aunty Polly’s, of course.”
“Oh; so they’re your cousins?”
Elspeth beamed; no-one had actually assumed this to be their relationship until now; her father, relentlessly pressed on the subject, had said reluctantly: “Aye; I suppose they are sort of cousins; distant cousins;” and Mirry, even more disappointingly, had said: “Well, not real cousins.”
“Yes!” she said fervently.
“And—uh—is Aunty Polly here, too?” –The woman must be mad to entrust two such tiny tots to Elspeth Macdonald!
“Yes; she’s sitting under that tree,” said Elspeth, releasing a twin, and pointing. “With Uncle Peter,” she added, grabbing the twin again.
Judith goggled at Peter Riabouchinsky, chatting animatedly to a beautiful, brown-haired woman who was very definitely not their Senior Research Fellow. “But I thought... Isn’t he married to Veronica? Veronica Cohen?”
“Aunty Veronica: yes,” agreed Elspeth. –Her father had forbidden her to call ladies by their Christian names, so Peter had forbidden Veronica to point out to her that the term of address was quite unnecessary. Besides, he liked being called Uncle Peter.
“So—so he’s not their father?” said Judith weakly.
“’Course not! Uncle Jake’s their father!” replied Elspeth with scorn.
“I see. Uh—is he here, too?”
“Nah, he’s in Thailand,” said Elspeth simply.
Judith’s knees felt quite weak. It didn’t so much as cross her mind to ask “Permanently or temporarily?”
“Don’t you want to know their names?” asked Elspeth, half reproachful, half disappointed.
Weakly Judith Woods, who didn’t care for children, allowed herself to be introduced to tiny Davey and tiny Johnny as “Aunty Judith”.
“Is this your little girl?” said Darryl to Veronica.
Veronica was carrying Sharon, who had been overcome with shyness at the sight of the large gathering on the lawn at Puriri Campus. “Yeah; haven’t you met her before?”
“No.”
“Oh, well! This is Sharon; Sharon, this nice lady is Darryl; say ‘Hullo’.”
“Hullo, Sharon,” said Darryl.
Sharon looked timidly at her.
Veronica kissed her curls. “She’s having a shy fit,” she explained. “She doesn’t like crowds. It’s all right, Sharon; Vronny’s here.” She kissed her cheek. Sharon buried her face in her neck.
“I know exactly how she feels,” acknowledged Darryl, making a face.
Veronica grinned. “’Tis a bit much, eh?” She looked round the crowded lawn. “I reckon everyone’s turned up—and most of ’em have brought five friends and relations with ’em!”
“Yes; well, they did tell us to,” said Darryl weakly.
“You with anyone?”
“No,” growled Darryl, poking at the grass with one Roman-sandalled foot. “I told you about Barbara, didn’t I?”
“Aw—going off with that bloke, yeah. What about the rest of ’em?”
Not looking at her, Darryl growled: “The flat’s broken up; they’ve all pushed off.”
Not pointing out that technically it was a house, not a flat, Veronica replied calmly: “That right? Look—you wanna sit down?”
“Might as well.”
Veronica in a pale blue sunfrock and no hat, and Darryl in old denim shorts, a faded black singlet, and no hat sat down on the lawn in the sunshine. Veronica set Sharon down cautiously. Sharon’s lip trembled. “Vronny!” she gulped.
“All right, Sharon; come to Vronny,” said Veronica, picking her up and setting her on her pale blue knee. “Ssh, darling; it’s okay.”
Darryl couldn’t help staring. She had never before heard Veronica address anyone as “darling”—not even her husband. She had met her out shopping with James, once; Veronica had addressed her baby as “Rabbit.”
“Did you say they’ve all pushed off?”
“Yeah.” Darryl told Veronica all about the flat’s breaking up and, for good measure, all about Carmel and Margarita; and about how she hadn’t been able to get anyone in to share the place. Oddly, she didn’t mention that she’d offered John a room and he’d turned it down.
“Do you think this’ll be enough salad?” asked Pam Anderson anxiously, looking at the bowls covering every available surface of their staffroom.
“I think so,” Marianne replied on a weak note.
“We should of asked them to bring their own salad: that’s what they did when Bri’s work had their barbecue,” said Noelene.
“No,” said Marianne firmly: “I always think that’s mean. Anyway, with Hamish paying for all the meat himself we collected more than enough to pay for the salads.”
“It was very generous of him,” agreed Pam.
Noelene had it in for Hamish because he’d made her redo his Third-Year Reading List, just because he didn’t like the spacing on it. “Huh!” she said. “He can afford it!”
“Yes, but he didn’t have to do it,” said Irene, their junior cataloguer. She peered out of the window. “There’s still an awful lot of smoke,” she reported. Noelene scowled at her, but Irene didn’t see this, as she was still peering out of the window. “Someone else is helping them,” she said. “I can’t see— Oh, it’s the Japanese one.”
“Fred,” said Marianne.
“Yes: the Japanese one.”
Marianne gave a tiny sigh. She refrained from pointing out that Fred was American, not Japanese. She looked at blondeish, fluffy-haired and rather sulky Noelene in her neat blue and white sunfrock, at nice, plump, grey-haired Pam in her neat orange and yellow flowery blouse and matching orange slacks; at nice, plumpish Irene with her mop of fawnish curls and her neat flowery lilac sunfrock; and felt totally alienated from the lot of them.
“Three of them ought to be able to manage it,” said Pam without conviction.
“Huh! Too many cooks!” snorted Noelene.
“I think the smoke’s dying down a bit,” said Irene doubtfully.
“Shall we start taking the salads out?” suggested Pam.
Marianne hesitated. “We don’t want the lettuce to wilt... I’ll just pop out and ask them how they’re getting on,” she decided.
The other three watched as the charming dark-haired figure in its well-cut dark green shorts and bright yellow halter top that, though it had a very smart collar, was actually little more than a bikini top, trotted out on its high-heeled yellow sandals.
“Doesn’t she look lovely?” said Pam.
“She always does,” said charitable Irene.
“Yes, but it’s nice to see her in leisure clothes, isn’t it?”
Noelene sniffed. “Leisure clothes! Do you know what she paid for those sandals?”
“What?” they asked with interest.
With relish Marianne’s office assistant told them what Marianne (in a fit of reaction at losing her short lover) had paid for her very high-heeled, bright yellow Italian sandals that exactly matched her top.
“What?” they cried.
Kind-hearted Pam added: “Well, she is a single girl, on a good salary.”
Irene sighed. “I wish I could afford to spend a quarter of that on shoes! Did I tell you what we had to shell out for school uniforms this year?”
After Irene had told them this, and they had expressed suitable horror at it, Noelene said casually: “Marianne hasn’t brought anyone, has she?”
“No,” said Pam definitely. “She came with Judith Woods.”
“Aw, her,” said Noelene. –Judith had just given her a five-page reading list to type.
Irene sighed. “It’s such a pity; such a waste.”
“What is?” said Noelene, staring at her.
“Marianne,” said Irene. She pinkened. “Not having a boyfriend, I mean.”
“But that’s what I was just going to tell you!” cried Noelene. “She has!”
“What?” they gasped, faces lighting up.
“Well, sort of,” admitted Noelene. “I think. Well, it sounded like it... “
“Noel-lene!” they cried.
Noelene looked sulky.
“Go on, tell us; quick, before she comes back,” urged Pam.
Noelene told them all about what Elspeth had told her about seeing Marianne go off in a boat with a man. Naturally the story was somewhat spoiled by the revelation that the man’s daughter and Dr Woods had also been present; nevertheless, the three heads were very close together when Marianne returned.
It was perfectly obvious they’d been talking about her. Marianne said in a very cool voice: “They’re putting the sausages on; I think we can take the salads out.”
When the bowls of salad had been set out on the row of tables on the lawn she just looked at them limply. Certainly there must be about a hundred people present; but there was mountains of salad! Lettuce salads, bean salads, coleslaws, potato salads; there were two enormous platters of avocado salad, courtesy of Polly Carrano; there were beetroot salads, rice salads, macaroni salads, grated carrot salad with alfalfa sprouts, grated carrot salad with sultanas, grated carrot salad with pineapple...
“If it isn’t enough,” said Pam anxiously, “I could always pop home and get a couple of lettuces out of the garden; and the supermarkets are open till five.”
“I think it’ll be enough,” said Marianne weakly.
Caro peered at it. “”Beetroot? You don’t like beetroot! Why did you take it?”
Danny scowled, and didn’t reply.
“Just leave it,” said Caro.
“Can I get something else instead?” he asked hopefully.
“Yeah; in a minute. Eat up your meat, first.”
Danny reddened. “It’s a bit hard,” he mumbled.
“Is it?” said Caro in surprise. “Mine’s very tender.” It was nicer steak than she could afford; of course Charlie quite often bought them steak, now that they were... Only at the moment, they weren’t, exactly. She looked gloomily at her son’s plate. If the ungrateful little bugger wouldn’t eat it, she’d have it herself and he could jolly well push off home—
“No,” growled Danny. “Hard to eat, I mean.”
“Oh!” said Caro, trying not to laugh and suddenly feeling quite a lot more charitable towards her only offspring. “Look—let’s sit down. Come on, we’ll go under that tree.”
Danny hung back. “There’s people under that tree.”
“They won’t hurt you; come on!” She towed him off to the tree:
The “people” were a crowd of Second-Years, rather flown on beer or white wine and on knowing the ropes. “Hi, Ms Webber!” they chorused.
“Hi,” returned Caro, grinning at them. “This is Danny.”
“Hi, Danny!” they chorused. Danny shuffled his feet.
When they’d sat down a tall student with his fair hair very short at the sides, rather long and spiky in front, and with the sort of tiny plait that Danny’s mother wouldn’t let him have, said: “Hey, can I get you a drink, Ms Webber? You too, Danny.”
Caro grinned. “Yes; thanks, Evan. And for God’s sake drop the ‘Ms Webber’: it’s Caro.”
“Okay—Caro,” he agreed, smiling. “What’ll it be? White wine?”
“No, a beer, ta,” said Caro firmly.
“I’ll have a beer, too,” said Danny quickly.
“He’ll have a Coke,” said Caro firmly.
Evan laughed, collected more drinks orders, and ambled off.
Danny put his plate down on the ground, sawed at his meat, and ate it up hungrily—to Caro’s relief, because he’d done nothing but complain ever since they’d arrived: there were no other kids (Elspeth was less than nothing, being a girl, and naturally the Carrano twins didn’t count), it was too hot, he wasn’t allowed to help with the barbecues, he didn’t like lettuce...
“Can I go and help Charlie now?” he said.
Caro sighed. “Hinder him, you mean.” She ate a bit of avocado. Yum! It had fresh lime juice on it!
“I would not!”
Caro sighed again. “Well, just wait until Evan brings you your drink.”
“Then can I?”
Relations between Caro and Charlie, in the wake of the flats episode, were still distinctly cool. Caro glanced cautiously over at the barbecues, where a tall American figure was dishing out sausages. Charlie looked vaguely in her direction and she looked quickly away again.
“I suppose he’s old enough to look after himself... Yeah, okay,” she said.
“Mighty!” breathed Danny.
Caro sighed.
“Hullo, Aunty Veronica,” said a small voice.
“There you are!” returned Veronica. “I was wondering where you’d got to.”
Carol reddened. “The bus took ages.”
“Well, me an’ Peter’ll drive you back,” said Veronica determinedly.
“No! You mustn’t!” gasped Carol.
“Balls; ’s no trouble; or you could stay the night with us, if you like.”
“Oh,” said Carol. “I—well...”
Veronica regarded her with a kindly eye. “I can fix you up with anything you need: nightie, toothpaste, all that. –Tampons,” she added vaguely.
Carol jumped, and turned puce.
Darryl grinned. “We all get it,” she said.
“Yeah. Look, siddown, for God’s sake,” said Veronica. “You’re giving me a crick in the neck.”
Carol subsided onto the grass. She was very glad to see that Aunty Veronica was wearing a frock, because she was, too—she hadn’t liked to ring up and ask what Aunty Veronica was going to wear, she might’ve thought she was... pathetic, or something. “Hullo, Sharon,” she said in a small voice, wondering who the other lady was.
Sharon stared at her sister. “Callal!” she said.
“She remembers me!”
“’Course she does, she’s not stupid!” said Veronica indignantly. “You remember Callal, don’tcha?” she said to Sharon.
“Callal!” said Sharon again.
“See if she’ll go to ya,” said Veronica.
“Come on, Sharon: come to Carol,” said Carol timidly, holding out her arms.
“That’s right, Sharon; you know Carol, go to Carol!” encouraged Veronica, trying to hand her over.
“Vronny!” whimpered Sharon, clutching her.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s okay, darling; Vronny’s got ya,” said Veronica, cuddling her. Over the tiny black curls she said to Carol: “It’s nothing personal; she’s gone all Mumsy; it’s all these people.”
“She won’t come to me, either,” said Darryl consolingly.
Veronica grinned. “She wouldn’t even go to Peter, earlier; screamed blue murder and hung onto me like grim death!”
“Oh, dear,” said Carol, trying not to laugh.
Darryl threw back her head and laughed uninhibitedly. “Bet his nose was out of joint!”
“Too right; just when he was all set to do his paterfamilias act in front of his adoring lady students, too!” agreed Veronica. This time Carol couldn’t help laughing, too.
“Any of your lot succumbed to his charms, yet?” Veronica asked, grinning.
“We-ell; well, in my tutorial group—there’s six other girls, besides me.”
“Yeah?” prompted Darryl.
Carol giggled suddenly. “Three of them have fallen for Dr Macdonald, and three of them have fallen for Uncle Peter!”
Veronica and Darryl laughed heartily.
“What about the boys?” asked Darryl curiously.
“There’s four of them,” said Carol.
“And?” demanded her aunt, grinning.
“Well, one of them’s fallen for you, Aunty Veronica; he keeps asking me about you.”
Veronica choked; Darryl gave a yelp of laughter.
“And two of them are absolutely nuts about Miss Davies; most of the boys are, I think.”
“Naturally,” agreed Veronica. “Just like last year; you could hardly get near her office when term was in full swing.”
“That’s three; what about the fourth?” asked Darryl.
“Well, from something he said the other day, I think he’s fallen for Dr Macdonald!”
Darryl and Veronica roared with laughter. Sharon, encouraged, gave a cautious crow.
“That’s better, darling!” said Veronica. “Good girl!” She kissed her again.
“Feel braver now, eh?” said Darryl. She held out a finger. Sharon grabbed it, and smiled at her. Darryl beamed.
“That’s much better,” approved Veronica. “Darryl won’t hurt ya; Darryl’s a nice lady. –Fuck,” she said. “I haven’t introduced you, have I? Carol’s my niece.”
Darryl grinned. “I gathered that.”
“This is Darryl,” Veronica explained to Carol. “She’s one of our Ph.D. students.”
“Hi!” said Darryl, grinning.
“Hullo,” squeaked Carol, looking at the Ph.D. student in awe. At the same time—she’d noticed her awful clothes—she couldn’t help thinking that that explained it.
“Lalla,” said Sharon suddenly.
“Whassat, Sharon?” said Veronica.
“‘Carol’, I think,” said Darryl.
“I thought it was ‘Darryl’,” said Carol.
“Lalla; lalla,” said Sharon, looking at Darryl. She struggled to get off Veronica’s lap. Veronica released her and she tottered the few steps to Darryl, and grasped her bronze knee. “Lalla!” she said in satisfaction, looking at Darryl’s denim shorts.
“It was ‘Darryl’,” said Carol.
“No, it wasn’t,” said Veronica in a strangled voice. “It was ‘lalla’.”
“Yes, well,” said Carol uncertainly.
Darryl touched Sharon’s shoulder gingerly. “Hi, Sharon,” she said.
“Lalla,” Sharon said earnestly.
“It’s your shorts,” said Veronica sepulchrally to Darryl. “Tell her they’re lalla, for God’s sake, or she’ll go berserk.”
“My shorts?”
“Lalla! Lalla, lalla!” said Sharon crossly.
“Yes; nice shorts; nice lalla, Sharon,” said Darryl, feeling a complete idiot.
The puce shade that Sharon’s little round face had taken on faded. “Lalla!” she beamed.
“Why on earth does she call them that, Aunty Veronica?” asked Carol.
Veronica gave a deep groan, and explained.
Darryl stared; Carol giggled. “Clever girl, Sharon!” she said to her little sister. “That’s right; Darryl’s wearing lalla, isn’t she?”
“Lalla,” murmured Sharon, attempting to scale Darryl’s knee.
“Good; she wants to sit on your lap,” said Veronica.
Rather uncertainly Darryl, who had no young relatives and who, as Rod Jablonski had once pointed out to John Aitken, hadn’t even been on a marae until she was an adult, assisted Sharon onto her knee.
Carol bent towards them. “Sharon’s got lalla, too, today,” she said to the little girl.
“Yes,” agreed Darryl, putting a cautious arm around her. She chuckled. “Yellow lalla!”
Carol gave a delighted giggle.
“Christ; don’t!” groaned Veronica. “You’ve got lalla shorts, Sharon. Lalla shorts.”
“Lalla,” said Sharon. She looked at Carol. “Callal.”
“That was ‘Carol’,” said Darryl.
“Well, at least we’re off the subject of shorts,” said Veronica with a sigh. “Go on, Darryl.”
“What?” asked Darryl in surprise.
“Ya gotta reinforce it, or she won’t learn,” explained Veronica. “That’s right, Sharon: that’s Carol,” she said, pointing at Carol.
“Callal,” repeated Sharon pleasedly.
“Yes, ‘Callal’,” agreed Carol. “Good girl, Sharon!”
“See?” said Veronica to Darryl. “Like giving a biscuit to a little dog: Pavlovian stuff. She looks really chuffed, doesn’t she?”
“Oh,” said Darryl weakly. “Clever girl,” she said hesitantly to Sharon. “Yes, that’s Carol.”
Sharon looked up at her expectantly.
Darryl looked helplessly at Veronica. “What does she want?”
“A kiss, I should think,” said Veronica, examining Sharon critically.
“Iss!” said Sharon, looking at Darryl. “Shallon! Iss!”
“Yes, she does,” agreed Carol.
Gingerly Darryl kissed Sharon’s cheek. Sharon put her arms round Darryl’s neck. Suddenly Darryl hugged her back, hiding her face against the little shoulder. “She’s lovely!” she said in a muffled, shaken voice.
“Yes,” agreed Carol, smiling rather tremulously.
“’Course she is,” said Veronica with satisfaction.
Missy and Hannah peered and tiptoed for some time. They were rather late, because Harry had been taking a nap after a broken night, and they’d let him have his sleep out.
“There’s Fred!” discovered Missy at last. Her smile faded. “Over at the barbecues.”
“Playing ‘Kitchen’,” agreed Hannah grimly.
“Well, it’s better than just talking shop with the rest of the faculty,” said Missy weakly.
“Or just eating,” agreed Fred’s mother, still grim.
“Where is Hamish, moy dear?” Peter asked Elspeth.
“Over there, under that tree, with Aunty Polly and the Twinnies.”
Peter was considerably relieved: he wouldn’t have put it past Hamish, having dragged Polly to the Institute’s barbecue for inscrutable reasons, there to have abandoned her to her own devices. “Do you care for some of this?” he asked kindly.
Elspeth went very red. “No, thank you, Uncle Peter,” she said in a squeaky voice.
“It is—it is—merde, j’ai oublié le mot,” he muttered to himself. “Bett—eugh, non...”
“Beetroot,” said Elspeth in a squeaky voice.
“Da, da; beetroot; do you not like it?”
“No. I don’t have to have it, do I?” she said desperately.
“No, no, of course not, moy dear.” He shot her a sharp glance. “This is loike a big party. You must choose whatever you loike.”
Elspeth’s face had lit up. “Ooh, good! Like at the Twinnies’ party!”
“Da,” he agreed, helping himself generously to beetroot salad.
“Do you like beetroot, Uncle Peter?”
Peter laughed. “Yes, of course! I am a Russian; all Russians loike beetroot!”
“A Russian?” squeaked Elspeth, turning about the same shade as the beetroot.
“Yes; did you not know?”
Eyes bulging, she shook her head. “I thought the Russians were our enemies!”
Peter hid his horror at this evidence of media brainwashing of the underdeveloped mind rather well. He replied with a nice smile: “No; in New Zealand we do not have any enemies; and I am not your enemy, am I?”
“No,” she muttered.
Peter twinkled at her. “You do not think I am about to shoot you with a gun, or drop a bomb on you, do you?”
“No,” said Elspeth, looking at him doubtfully. She smiled reluctantly. “That’s silly!”
“Da, very silly. For anyone to drop bombs is very silly, I think.”
“Yes; because if they drop nuclear bombs everyone in the whole world’ll eventually die from the fallout,” she agreed.
Peter nearly dropped his plate of lunch. “Did you—did you learn that at school?”
“Yes, we did a project.” She looked at him wistfully. “If only I’d known you were a Russian last year, I could’ve brought you to school; we didn’t have a real Russian. Andy Sinclair had to pretend to be a Russian.”
Peter gulped. “Did you—did you have other nationalities?”
“Yes, loads: Danny Webber, he’s an Australian; and he brought Charlie: he’s an American. And Karen Armstrong: she’s English; and I’m Scottish, of course; and Ranjit Singh, he’s an Indian—he’s a New Zealander really, but his ancestors came from India; and Helena Wong—she’s not in our class, but Miss Stanley let her come for the project—she’s Chinese; and Mr White brought a lady who was French. That was because the French are always testing bombs in the Pacific; and the lady said it was a good thing, and then we had a debate about it.”
“Oh—a debate? That is excellent,” he said feebly.
“I don’t think it’s a good thing, do you?”
“No, no; a very bad thing.”
“Yes, because it’s polluting our ocean, and the whole world. Mr White says it’s the worst sort of pollution there is.”
“Good for Mr Whoite,” said Peter weakly.
“Do you think I could have some of that?”
“What? Oh! Certainement, moy dear.” He gave her some egg salad, and went off with her to join Hamish and Polly under their tree. It wasn’t until that evening, when he was having a quiet brandy and listening to Mozart, that he began to wonder how on earth Elspeth’s childish but quite intelligent brain managed to reconcile the pacifist world view of Mr White with the simplistic goodies and baddies stuff of popular culture. Finally he decided that she didn’t: the two opinions evidently co-existed in her without conflict. Uneasily he avoided examining the wider implications of this discovery.
“Quite a crowd,” said Rod.
“Yes; I didn’t think we’d get this many,” agreed Jo-Beth.
“Hope there’s some grub left.” He looked at her apologetically. “I’m Helluva sorry about the damn car breaking down.”
Jo-Beth smiled. “Don’t keep on apologizing, Rod; it’s okay.”
He scowled. “She’s never let me down like that before; have to trade the old girl in.”
Jo-Beth now knew how he felt about his “Trusty Triumph”. “You could keep it as a second car,” she suggested. “It’s practically a collector’s item, isn’t it? In a few more years it’ll be a real antique—a whaddayacall’em—vintage.”
Rod looked at her suspiciously but she wasn’t taking the Mick. “Yeah; that’s an idea; I could really do her up: get her back into original condition!”
“Yes,” agreed Jo-Beth, blissfully unaware of the vista of totally preoccupied weekends, stretching far into the distant future, that this notion foreboded.
“Come on,” he said, taking her hand. “Let’s see if this lot have left us any crumbs.” He towed her over to the barbecues, not noticing that pleasure was struggling with embarrassment in her delicate heart-shaped face as she submitted to this proprietorial gesture.
“Good,” he said. “There’s plenty of sausages left.”
“Hey, Fred,” said Jo-Beth in a strangled voice.
“Hi, Jo-Beth,” he responded placidly. “Shall I do you a steak? It’s real good.”
“No, I’ll just have a sausage, I think; you remember Rod Jablonski, don’t you?”
“Sure; how are you, Rod?” said Fred calmly.
“Gidday, Fred!” grinned Rod. “You can do me a steak!”
“Okay,” said Fred amiably, putting a large piece of meat on the barbecue.
“You doing all the cooking?” said Rod with a grin. He picked up a long fork and poked a sausage with it.
“No,” said Fred. “Charlie was here a minute ago...” He looked round vaguely. “And John; well, I guess he was in charge, really.”
“John Aitken?” said Jo-Beth incredulously.
“No, John Blewitt; he went off somewhere with Hannah and Missy. Mom was telling him about that Christmas tree of hers that shorted all the wiring.”
Rod poked the sausage again. “Probably the wrong voltage.”
“That’s what he said,” agreed Fred vaguely. He poked at the steak. “I think.”
“I hope Mom isn’t boring the pants off of him,” said Jo-Beth uneasily.
“Do you wanna go rescue him?” said Fred pointedly.
“No,” she admitted sheepishly.
“Nor do I.”
Rod chuckled. “I think your mother’s a real character; I like her.”
Fred replied gloomily: “You’ve never had to live with her.”
“She’s probably telling him about Aunty Kate’s wiring by now,” said Jo-Beth heavily.
Rod grinned. “I think this is done,” he said, forking the sausage neatly onto a plate. “You want it, Jo-Beth?”
“No, you have it, Rod; you must be real hungry, after fixing the car.”
“Okay.” He poured tomato sauce onto the sausage. “How was the trip to the South Island?” he asked Fred, grinning.
“Oh—okay, I guess.” Fred recollected that Rod was a local inhabitant. Hurriedly he said: “Lots of scenery—real pretty.” He remembered there’d been mountains. “Kinda spectacular, I guess,” he corrected himself quickly.
Rod wasn’t deceived for an instant. “‘All those veeds,’” he said disparagingly.
The brother and sister gaped at him. “What?” said Jo-Beth faintly.
Rod grinned. “I took my dad on a trip round the South Island once. Helluva mistake: his appreciation of the beauties of nature’s about on a par with yours, Fred.”—Jo-Beth gulped.—“We were driving through this lovely stretch of black beech forest: you know: great vistas of it, and the foothills stretching away for miles, all misty—really rugged country, but breathtakingly beautiful; and the Old Man looks out of the car window and says: ‘Vhat for you bring me here to this place, Roderick? For miles there is nothink to see; I am tired of lookink at all these veeds; let us go home!’” He grinned, and cut off a piece of his sausage.
Fred chuckled. “It was a bit like that!” He turned Rod’s steak.
“Fred!” said Jo-Beth.
“Well, I don’t go much on nature. You know that; why pretend?”
“Well... There’s no need to be rude,” said Jo-Beth uneasily.
Rod blew on his piece of sausage, and grinned. “Don’t worry: you can’t insult me; I’m immune—lived with the Old Man till I was old enough to leave home!”
“No, but—” murmured Jo-Beth.
“Takes all sorts,” he said. He smiled at her, and put the cut-off piece of sausage into his perfect mouth.
“Yes,” said Jo-Beth gratefully.
Rod laid his fork neatly on his plate and put his arm round her shoulders. Jo-Beth’s heart beat very fast. She was silent.
Rod chewed juicily, and swallowed. “Tell ya what,” he said to Fred. “If you and Missy and Hannah aren’t doing anything next Saturday, why not come down the Tennis Club? We’re having a mini-tournament—Jo-Beth’s coming.”
“Well, gee...” said Fred. “I dunno...”
Rod released Jo-Beth. He cut off another piece of sausage. “Just for the afternoon,” he said. He grinned. “See me and Richpal slaughter the opposition!” he said. He stuffed the piece of sausage into his mouth and grinned round it.
“Oh,” said Fred, realizing with relief that he wasn’t expected to play. “Yeah, that’d be great; I’ll ask ’em.”
“Good,” said Rod thickly through his sausage.
Jo-Beth beamed at her brother. Even Fred realized that he’d said the right thing. Missy and Hannah were right, he thought vaguely. They usually were...
“Hey, there,” said Charlie, dropping down beside Caro. “Any room for the cook?” He slung a long arm casually across her shoulders.
Caro’s heart beat very fast. She was annoyed to find herself blushing. “Haven’t you had anything to eat yet?” she said in a hoarse, accusing voice.
“Nope; too busy feeding everyone else.” His left arm remained around Caro; he forked in salad with his right. “Hi, Evan; how’s it going?” he said through the salad.
“Good!” replied the student, beaming.
“Where’s Danny? I thought he was with you,” Caro said, not looking at Charlie.
He shrugged. “Yeah, he was. He went off somewhere.”
Caro scowled. “Couldn’t you at least keep an eye on him?”
“He’s not a baby, honey,” said Charlie, forking in a piece of sausage.
Caro was silent. She looked at his plate, and saw he had already cut his sausage and his steak into bite-size pieces. He’d planned the whole move, quite obviously. She went very red.
Charlie chewed juicily. He laid down his fork and picked up his beer can. He drank thirstily.
“Aren’t you driving? Do you think you should be drinking?” said Caro hoarsely.
“It’s only a beer. Anyroad, Hamish has this theory that you sweat it all out of your system, in this sort of weather.”
“He would,” said Caro sourly.
Evan and the girls on either side of him giggled.
“Did you have a nice Christmas, Dr Roddenberry?” asked one of the girls.
“Yeah, sure,” said Charlie easily. “We went down to Rotorua; it’s a real interesting area, isn’t it?”
Caro observed sardonically that the poor girl had difficulty in formulating an adequate reply to this typically American remark. “Yes,” she finally agreed feebly.
Charlie and the students chatted amiably about Rotorua, its heat, and its interesting tourist attractions. Charlie told them about the waterfall. Caro fidgeted.
“Near the Buried Village?” said one of the girls. “I’ve been down that; it’s great, isn’t it?”
“Sure!” he replied enthusiastically. He smiled. “Couldn’t get Caro down it, though!”
“I can’t help it if I don’t like heights,” said Caro in a stifled voice.
Evan looked at her sympathetically and said that his mother wouldn’t go down it, either. Thus relegated to the ranks of the frailly feminine middle-aged, Caro went scarlet, and was silent.
Charlie chuckled amiably and retailed what Veronica had told him about Peter and that waterfall. Evan and one of the girls laughed, but the other girl cried: “Poor Dr Riabouchinsky! They should never have made him do it; gee, families can be cruel!”
“You said it!” said Caro fervently.
Charlie’s arm tightened on her shoulders. “I guess we all have our weaknesses. I thought I was only afraid of spiders until I came out to New Zealand.” The students looked at him expectantly. Charlie shuddered. “When we were down at Rotorua I met a weta. Gee, I was shit-scared!”
“Ugh!” they all cried, shuddering too.
Charlie smiled. “Caro here was real brave; you shoulda seen her.” He told them all about it. Caro went a dull scarlet. The students looked at her in awe. She smiled awkwardly.
“I’d’ve run screaming into the street,” said Evan frankly.
“Charlie just about did,” said Caro in a voice that didn’t know whether to be amused or not.
Charlie kissed the top of her head. “Would you like some dessert, honey?”
“I don’t think there’s any left,” she admitted sadly.
“No; those First-Years descended on it like a horde of locusts, or something!” said one of the girls.
“Yes, there is,” Charlie replied calmly: “Marianne’s hiding some for the workers in the fridge. I’ll go get it.”
In his absence Evan, the two girls and a tall, thin boy who joined the group told Caro enthusiastically how great Dr Roddenberry’s classes were, and how he really made you work, but it was worth it, you really got something out of it; y’know?”
“Yes,” said Caro weakly, “he really loves his subject.”
“He’s a born teacher,” said the tall, thin boy earnestly. The others agreed enthusiastically.
“I just hope he doesn’t go back to America before I’ve done my Master’s,” added Evan gloomily.
Caro said in a strangled voice: “I don’t think he’s got any plans to— What makes you think he might?” She felt as if the pit of her stomach had dropped out.
“The good ones always move on,” replied Evan mournfully. “My sister Jane, well, she was doing French a couple of years back, and she had a really good lecturer... Um, Dr Browne. that was it. Jane said he was really great; and then he went off to Oxford or something.”
“I see,” said Caro weakly. She felt sick and shaken, and tried to tell herself she was being ridiculous: Charlie wouldn’t— Anyway, he’d tell her.
One of the girls told her—in tones that implied it had been a deliberate personal insult—that Dr Browne hadn’t even finished out the year but had gone at the end of the second term!
“The academic year starts in September, in the northern hemisphere; I suppose that’s why,” said Caro limply.
“He might have waited,” said the girl sulkily, quite failing either to understand or to care about the point Caro thought she’d made.
Caro suddenly felt immensely old and tired. She was extremely glad when Charlie returned, and gave him a tremulous smile. Her heart thudded painfully.
Charlie’s long, lean face flushed a little. He sat down beside her. “Here’s Marianne,” he said unnecessarily, dumping a pile of plates on the grass.
Marianne was carrying a tray with a huge pavlova and a heap of spoons on it. “Hullo, Caro,” she said, smiling.
“Hi, Marianne; you haven’t been working all this time, have you?”
Marianne laughed a little. “I’ve been organizing things, mainly; someone had to!”
“Well, sit down now and have some dessert,” said Charlie firmly. Marianne sat down gracefully. The tall, thin student goggled at her, flushing.
“Now, let’s see, who do you know?” said Charlie. He introduced her competently to Tanya, Livvi, Evan, and Jeremy. Caro noticed with some amusement that Evan also flushed.
“I’m afraid there isn’t any ice cream left,” said Marianne, as Charlie dished out pavlova generously. “It vanished like dew in the morning!” She laughed a little.
Evan and Jeremy laughed eagerly. Jeremy assured her that he hated ice cream, anyway—a statement that his employers at the Chez Basil would have been very surprised to hear. Evan pointed out that it was full of calories, anyway.
“So is this,” said Livvi. “I shouldn’t eat it; but I’m going to.” She ate pavlova greedily.
Caro had started hers. She waited for Charlie to point out that she shouldn’t be eating it, either. He didn’t. She relaxed a bit.
Charlie put his arm round her again. “Is that nice, honey?” he said softly.
“Yes,” said Caro cautiously.
Charlie’s arm tightened. He laid his cheek against her curls. “Good,” he said.
“I suppose I’d better not have any tea, after all this,” she murmured.
Charlie’s body was suddenly very tense beside hers. “I thought we’d just have a salad—something light—over at my place,” he said, too casually.
“That’d be nice,” she agreed huskily. “One of those American salads with grapes and things.”
“Uh-huh,” he agreed softly. His arm tightened again. “Did you bring the car?”
“No, we walked up.”
“Good; then we can all go home in the Mustang.”
“Yes,” said Caro.
After spending some time with Aunty Veronica and the Ph.D. student, Carol had seen Amy from her tutorial group and had gone and talked to her for a while. Marcus and Tony had joined them. Then Uncle Peter had come along. Amy had gone all silly. Carol had got a bit fed up with this, so she’d gone off to get a drink.
A tall boy was helping with the drinks. He was dark-haired and handsome, and Carol felt shy of him. He wasn’t a First-Year, she was sure. He tried to give her a beer but she explained that she didn’t drink beer, really, so he made her a shandy specially. It was lovely. Carol stood under a tree to drink it in the shade. Then the dark boy came over to her. He said his name was Timothy and he was doing an M.A.
Carol blushed, and felt like a twerp. “This is my first year,” she said.
“That right?”—and he asked her what subjects she was doing, and then, somehow, she found herself telling him all about Enrolment Day, and how ghastly it had been, and how scared she’d been of Professor Corey, and how nice Dr Macdonald had been.
“Dr Macdonald?” he said, laughing. “I kind of expected you to call him ‘Dad’!”
Carol laughed, too. “Lots of people think I look like him! It’s this awful red hair.”
Timothy was obviously very sophisticated, for instead of saying something rude, like Damian would have done, or silly, like—like Marcus, or—or Barry Robinson—he said: “I can’t say I’ve ever thought twice about Dr Macdonald’s, but now I’ve seen yours I’ve decided I like red hair.”
Carol blushed like an idiot, only perhaps he hadn’t noticed, because he said they might as well go and have lunch over there with some friends of his, if she liked.
Unfortunately the friends were sitting in the sun. Carol stuck it out until almost pudding time and then she went quietly off to the shade, feeling a bit sad, because Timothy was laughing and joking with two very clever, good-looking girls of his own age. Only then he came over to her with two plates of pudding! Carol was hardly able to eat hers, she felt all... funny.
Then he said: “The Varsity Tramping Club’s having a dance in the Student Union next Friday. I don’t suppose you’d like to come, would you?”
Going very red, Carol explained she didn’t belong to the Tramping Club.
“Nor do I. Anyone can go—they’re raising money to build a hut, or something; how about it?”
“I’d love to; but I’m not a very good dancer,” she whispered.
Timothy laughed. “Thank God for that: we can stumble about together, then!”
Carol would have bet anything he was a great dancer: he looked very athletic.
Timothy had promised Dr Roddenberry that he’d help with the clearing up, so after a bit he had to go away and do that. Carol looked round dopily. There was Aunty Veronica and Uncle Peter—oh. Dr Macdonald was with them. Well, he was nice, of course; only he was the Director... She looked at them uncertainly.
“I know that big girl!” said Elspeth excitedly. Her father was drinking beer. He ignored her. Aunty Polly was talking to Uncle Peter; they hadn’t heard her. “Aunty Veronica!” said Elspeth loudly. “I know that big girl!”
“Eh?” said Veronica. She looked in the direction in which Elspeth was pointing. “Yeah, so do I,” she said, grinning. “CAROL!” she bellowed, waving.
Smiling shyly, Carol joined them.
John Blewitt told Hannah Nakamura all about surfcasting. Hannah sighed enviously and expressed a wish to participate in this sport. Missy smiled uneasily. The Institute’s tall, broad-shouldered janitor looked at Hannah’s small, plump figure in its crisp, smart fawn and white American summer dress, and pointed out that it could be dangerous, you could get swept out to sea. Hannah sighed wistfully and said she wouldn't mind just watching. John immediately invited her to come up to Carter’s Bay with him next Saturday.
Missy’s jaw dropped. John Blewitt belonged to her mah-jong club and she knew that as he was an attractive widower in his early sixties he was chased relentlessly by Puriri’s large population of widows, could have eaten out every night of the week at a different lady’s table if he so chose, and considered his fishing trips an inviolate all-male affair.
Hannah accepted enthusiastically. They began to work out times... Missy felt quite stunned.
John Aitken was very late, because he’d overslept drastically. Mrs Hipgrave had insisted he watch TV with her last night: they were re-running Bodyline, and she thought he’d enjoy it because he was English and it was about cricket, and anyway, half the actors were English, weren’t they? Half the actors weren’t English, they were Australians whose English accents were entirely unconvincing and extremely embarrassing. John had been rather annoyed to find that he was actually looking forward to the next episode when the thing finished at half-past ten. Mrs Hipgrave, yawning, declared it was far too late for her, but she’d just had to stay up for it (Mr Hipgrave had firmly gone to bed at nine-thirty as usual). John had gone home and got on with the book he’d been intending to read that evening. He’d come to about one-thirty and guiltily gone to bed, reminding himself that it was the damned barbecue tomorrow, he must wake up in time—not that he’d sleep that late, of course. He had.
He looked around warily. He couldn’t see a soul he knew. He circled the lawn cautiously, feeling a familiar sensation of suffocation before a large gathering start to overtake him.
He negotiated several clumps of chattering young people. He didn’t recognize any of them. Then he saw Charlie, Caro and Marianne, with some students. They were all laughing. John edged away. He made his way to the tables, found a plate, and helped himself to salads. The lettuce looked a bit tired, so he left it. There didn’t seem to be any meat; never mind, he wasn’t very hungry. There was that little Whatsername from the library; good, she seemed to be bringing out a carton of beer. He hurried towards her.
“Hi, John!” panted Julia cheerfully, dumping the beer on a table. “Reinforcements!”
“Hullo,” said John, still unable to recall her name. Fortunately this didn’t dawn on Julia, who’d lived all her life in a country where people said “Hullo” without saying your name.
John wasn’t shy of the cheerful girl from the library. He wondered if he could join her, as he took a can of beer. Then a tall, tanned boy in a bright shirt open over a pair of faded jeans joined her. He put an arm around her waist. “You been brewing this beer, or what?” he asked.
“No,” said Julia calmly: “I went to the bog.” She took a beer.
“Lemme,” he said, taking it off her and opening it for her.
John moved on. He ate salad standing up, and drank some beer. It was cold, and very fizzy.
Wasn’t that—? Yes, it was: Jo-Beth under a big sunhat, talking to that Rod Whatsisname that was a friend of Darryl’s. Rod was wearing sunglasses and a faded pair of jeans. He looked more like Michelangelo’s David than ever, even sitting on the grass with a can of beer in his hand. As John watched he took his sunglasses off suddenly, leaned forward a little, and spoke earnestly.
“I think your mother would really like it,” he said huskily.
“Ye-es; Caro’s been there... Isn’t it very expensive, though?” said Jo-Beth in a small voice.
“Don’t worry about that; my treat,” said Rod, huskier than ever.
Gee, he sounds just like that British guy on that nature program last week at Mrs Hipgrave’s, thought Jo-Beth confusedly. “We couldn’t let you—”
“Look, if you wanna know, it’s my birthday—see?” he said; a dull flush rose up the perfect column of his neck under his honey tan.
“Oh, well—in that case,” said Jo-Beth weakly. “We’d love to, Rod.”
“Good,” he said, staring into the almond eyes. He swallowed convulsively. Jo-Beth’s eyes fell. Rod took a deep breath.
“I didn’t mean to tell you; don’t you dare go and buy me a birthday present!” This was meant to sound light but convincing. His voice cracked on the last word.
“Oh—” said Jo-Beth breathlessly. The tip of her tongue appeared and touched her lips nervously. She looked up into his face suddenly with a tiny laugh. “Prease, Rod-san, to permit us our tladitional Japanese cus-tom!” she said in a silly voice.
Rod’s big hands trembled. “Shit, Jo-Beth, I just about go crazy when you do that!”
Jo-Beth felt her cheeks go hot. She looked away, and gulped. “It’s silly,” she muttered. “Hannah hates it when Fred and me do it
“Yeah,” said Rod meaninglessly. She smiled tremulously. He smiled back...
John turned away. Obviously he’d better not join them. He ate salad and drank more beer.
“Hullo,” said a very young voice.
John looked down. “Hullo,” he said to a skinny, brown-haired little boy who looked vaguely familiar.
“Is that beer?” asked the boy.
John looked at his can. “Uh—yes. Australian, or something. It’s very fizzy.”
“Foster’s,” ascertained the boy. “Where’dja get it from?”
“Over there,” said John, pointing.
“Right,” replied Danny Webber tersely. He made a bee-line for the carton of lager.
John ate the rest of his salad. He went back and got a bit more of the stuff with all the beans in it. It had a nice dressing. He wandered off, eating it. Looking vaguely round, he realized he’d wandered into the vicinity of that fluffy woman from the library, that awful female that helped Marianne and corrected your spelling incorrectly when you gave her anything to type, and some men and teenagers who must be their families. Fortunately they were all talking and laughing and didn’t notice him. He walked quickly away.
A female student buttonholed him. John couldn’t remember her name. She’d been a Third-Year last year. She was starting an M.A. this year. She told him about what she planned to write her thesis on. It didn’t sound very viable to him. “Uh—yes,” he said. He finished his beer. “Who’s supervising your thesis?”
“Dr Macdonald,” she replied.
Pleasedly John reflected that Hamish’d never let her get away with that sort of tripe. “Oh,” he said. “Where is he, by the way?”
“Over there.”
“Oh,” he said, looking at a long-legged, red-haired figure sprawled on the grass under a tree. “I’d better go and say hullo; I haven’t spoken to him, yet; I haven’t been here very long...” He turned away.
“Well, see ya round!” said the student cheerfully and energetically.
“Yes...” said John. Feeling her eyes on his back as he was, there didn’t seem to be any help for it. He walked reluctantly over to his boss. “Hullo, Hamish.”
“Hullo, John—sit down,” replied Hamish, looking up at him from the ground. John sat down beside him, and ate beans rather blindly. Now that he was in the shade, too, he could see that Hamish was with quite a lot of people, not all of whom he knew.
“Are you still eating?” demanded Veronica incredulously.
“I’ve only just got here,” John excused himself. He looked at the tow-headed child she was holding on her knee. He couldn’t remember the sex of her children. “Is that your—uh—baby?” he said politely.
“No, he’s hers,” said Veronica, grinning, and nodding at a very pretty woman whom John didn’t know, who was holding a dark-haired child on her knee. “That’s mine,” she said, nodding towards a dark-haired child being cuddled by a woman with a mop of black hair.
The black mop raised itself suddenly, to be revealed as Darryl’s cloud of shoulder-length curls. “Hi, John,” she said indifferently.
“Hullo, Darryl,” said John hoarsely. They’d bumped into each other once or twice on campus, but they’d hardly spoken since their stupid row over his fan.
“You look hot,” Veronica said to him.
“Yeah,” said Darryl, staring at him. “What the Hell are ya wearing that for?”
John looked down at his grey jersey in foolish confusion. “I don’t—” He couldn’t possibly say he didn’t know; gulping, he said: “I was running late. I just grabbed the first thing...”
“Take it off, for God’s sake,” said Darryl. “You’ll get heatstroke.”
John looked down at himself doubtfully.
“Yeah, go on,” agreed Veronica. “It’s giving me heatstroke, just looking at you.”
John mumbled: “I haven’t got anything on underneath.”
“So what?” said Veronica blankly.
Peter murmured from his recumbent position next to Polly: “Do not bully the poor man, Véronique.”
Veronica ignored him. “Go on, take it off,” she said to John. “Nobody’ll care—look at Hamish; he’s practically naked.”
John had noticed that. He glanced sideways at Hamish, and couldn’t help wishing that his own shoulders were like that, and his own belly so flat.
Hamish had closed his eyes. He muttered: “I had to take ma shirt off to wash it: Elspeth squirted mustard all over it.” He opened his eyes. “Where is it, anyway?”
“Elspeth took it,” said the pretty woman next to Peter. “She’s wearing it on her head.”
“What?” groaned Hamish. He closed his eyes again.
“Go on, John, for God’s sake,” prompted Veronica.
“Yeah: take it off before ya pass out,” agreed Darryl.
John removed his jersey.
“You have got a tan,” said Veronica admiringly.
“Yeah,” said Darryl, staring incredulously.
“I’ve been doing a bit of sunbathing,” John said in a defensive voice. “Mostly in my garden; Mrs Hipgrave doesn’t mind.”
“Who the Hell’s Mrs Hipgrave?” demanded Veronica.
“My landlady.”
“Why the fuck should she mind? She potty, or something?”
“No; she lives next-door,” he growled.
Veronica goggled at him.
Unexpectedly the pretty woman next to Peter put in: “Is she an elderly lady?”
“Yes,” said John.
“They can sometimes be funny about that sort of thing,” she said sympathetically. “I had an elderly landlady once who threw a fit when I tried sunbathing on my patio; her sitting-room overlooked it, you see.”
“Well, if what you were wearing was anything like that silver lurex thing you had on last time I was round at your place, I’m not surprised,” said Veronica sourly. “She’da had grounds for running you in for indecent exposure!”
John was horrified by this speech, but the pretty woman only laughed and said: “That was that French thing that Jake bought me. Serves you right for coming round uninvited!”
Peter murmured, with his eyes closed: “Remoind me to come round to your place uninvoited, Polly!”
Veronica threw a small stick at him; everybody laughed.
The pretty brown-haired woman put down the child that she’d been holding—revealing to John that the top that matched her long, flowered skirt was a sort of bra affair, knotted jauntily between her breasts—and said to him, smiling: “I don’t think Hamish is going to introduce us.”
Carol at this point decided, with a certain degree of embarrassment, that nobody was going to introduce her, either; of course, she knew who Dr Aitken was, but probably he didn’t remember her: they’d had a class with him on Wednesday, but it had been the whole of the First-Years... She looked wistfully over towards the drinks table, where Timothy was working busily, and wished she’d had the sense to say she’d help him.
“Sorry,” said Hamish, raising himself on an elbow. “I forgot; you haven’t met, have you?”
“No,” said John definitely. He’d have remembered her.
“This is John Aitken, one of our lecturers, Polly. –My cousin, Polly Carrano, John.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said, leaning forward to shake hands, laughing a little.
“Did you say ‘Carrano’?” asked Darryl.
“Yes,” Hamish replied blankly.
“Are you—you’re not Jake Carrano’s wife?” said Darryl.
John wasn’t particularly sensitive to atmosphere, but even he felt the tension in the air. Peter sat up slowly, and Hamish raised himself on his elbow again, as Polly said: “Yes.”
“We’ve seen your gates!” cried Darryl. “Haven’t we, John? They’re absolutely...” She took a deep breath. “Indescribable!” she said ecstatically.
Everybody relaxed quite visibly and Polly smiled pleasedly.
“Yes,” said John. “They’re a very interesting example of modern wrought-iron work.”
“Aren’t they?” Polly agreed. “I’m so glad you and Darryl like them.”
Darryl admitted: “I couldn’t see anything in them at first, but John showed me.”
John smiled.
“Johnny,” said the little dark-haired child whom Polly had released, putting a hand on his knee.
“‘John’,” corrected Polly: “not ‘Johnny’, Davey.” She smiled at John. “His brother’s called Johnny, you see.”
John smiled. “I see.” He looked down at the little dark boy who was wearing a white tee-shirt and a pair of red shorts. “Hullo, Davey,” he said.
Davey looked at him gravely. “Johnny,” he said again.
“‘John’,” said John. “I’m John.” He picked him up gently. “John,” he repeated, setting him on his knee.
Davey stared at his beard. He pulled it.
“Ow!” said John, laughing. He disentangled Davey’s hand from his beard.
“I’m sorry, John!” gasped Polly, reddening. “I don’t think he’s ever seen a beard before.”
John laughed. “That’s okay!” To Davey he said: “It’s funny, isn’t it? Funny hair.”
Davey reached for it. John grabbed his hand, but let him touch the beard again.
Polly leant forward. “Gently, Davey,” she said. “Be very gentle; like with Pussy.”—Veronica choked.—“Just stroke the man’s beard,” said Polly anxiously. “Very gently.”
The child on Veronica’s knee stirred. “Me stroke!”
Veronica chuckled. “Yeah, go on, Johnny,” she said. “You have a stroke of the nice man’s beard, too!”
“I’m so sorry, John!” said Polly in a strangled voice. “I shouldn’t have mentioned the p— C,A,T. Johnny’s besotted with it. He thinks he’s the only one allowed to S,T,R,O,K,E anything, I’m afraid.”
John shook with laughter. “It’s all right; I’m used to little kids; my Italian relations have got tribes of them! –Come on, Johnny,” he said to the tow-headed little boy, “you can come and stroke my beard, too.”
Johnny got on John’s other knee and stroked his beard, too.
Darryl watched this scene in stupefaction, her mouth at half-cock over the sleeping Sharon’s head.
Hilary McLeod had thought the Institute might be open on a Saturday—and there’d been no answer when she’d rung Hamish Macdonald at home. Well, at least if he was up at work she’d be able to get it over with in relative privacy, she’d thought, feeling slightly sick. So she’d gone up there. She hadn’t realized what a walk it would be from her motel, down on the waterfront; or how hot New Zealand was in early March; it was incredible! The battered-looking building that housed the P.I.P.S. was open, but empty, and the offices were all locked. A noise of conviviality came from round the back. Hilary went round the back.
“My God!” she said. “It’s a bluidy Saturnalia!”
It was now four o’clock and, the beer having run out, the crowd had thinned considerably. Those that were left were sprawled on the grass in very relaxed attitudes. Hilary doubted very much that she was going to find the stiff-necked Dr H.G. Macdonald of Edinburgh in this lot. She looked round without much hope. “It can’t be,” she muttered, staring at the recumbent figure that lay sprawled in a dapple of sun near a big tree. “It is, you know,”‘ she muttered. “I never realized he had a body—wow!” She chuckled. The sick feeling in her stomach vanished. She walked over to her near-naked new boss, grinning broadly.
“Hullo, Hamish.”
Hamish looked up lazily into a round, freckled face and a blaze of curls a lot redder than his own. He blinked. His amiable, lazy expression, which was consequent on the amount of beer he’d drunk—partly in pursuance of the theory he’d purveyed to Charlie and rather more in order to forget his misery over Mirry—vanished. He sat up.
“You got here, then,” he said grimly. His nostrils flared. “You wouldn’t like to explain where you’ve been, I suppose?”
“Now, look, before you start,” said Hilary quickly, “I got snowed in, up in Kashmir. I sent you a telegram, but I suppose it didn’t— Anyway, I came as soon as I could,”
“Kashmir? What the Hell were you—” He broke off, and ran his hand through his curls. “Och, well,” he said weakly, “if it had to happen to anyone, it would be you, of course. Look, sit down, for God’s sake, and let me introduce you to everybody!”
Grinning, young Dr McLeod sat down and was introduced to the Deputy Director, the Senior Research Fellow (who didn’t look like any sort of a research fellow, more like a mum), one of her fellow lecturers (who, like the Director, was semi-naked: was it just the P.I.P.S., or New Zealand itself?), a Ph.D. student (who also looked more like a mum), and Hamish’s very pretty cousin (definitely a mum). That left a pretty little red-head who looked exactly like—
“Of course!” she said. “You must be Hamish’s daughter; I’ve forgotten your name, I’m afraid.”
Carol blushed, smiled, and disclaimed; Hamish chuckled and explained; Polly agreed that they did look a bit alike, didn’t they, only Carol was much prettier (Carol blushed again); John and Darryl didn’t notice a thing; Peter was overcome with confusion, turned on his stomach, and destroyed a fallen leaf with shaking fingers; and Veronica abruptly felt sick.
There was to be one more unexpected visitor that afternoon. It was after five, and almost everyone had gone, now. John Blewitt was dismantling the barbecues, helped by Fred Nakamura and the M.A. student, Timothy. Marianne, Charlie, Caro, and Pam Anderson were clearing away the last of the debris. Elspeth and Danny (none the worse for his Foster’s) were hindering them. Elspeth was still wearing her father’s shirt draped over her head but Danny hadn’t bothered to remark on this. Why should he? He had removed his own shirt and tied it round his waist; on his head he wore, backwards, a baseball cap of Charlie’s that was far too big for him.
Hamish had produced a bottle of whisky—presumably to celebrate the advent of Hilary. His group had been augmented by Judith Woods, who admitted frankly that she could scent a malt from five thousand yards away. She and Hilary were getting on famously. Peter, still shaken over the Carol business, had drunk too much whisky too fast and was lying in a torpid state with his head in Veronica’s lap. Darryl was again cuddling Sharon. John was cuddling Johnny, who had definitely fallen in love with his beard. Polly was sitting cross-legged with Davey, who’d stolen some of Hamish’s abandoned beer before anyone could stop him, asleep in her lap, wondering whether two-year-olds got hangovers.
“This is lovely whisky,” Darryl said dreamily to Hamish.
“Aye,” he replied pleasedly. “I hope you brought something decent out with you,” he said threateningly to Hilary.
Guiltily she replied: “Well, I was going to; only then I had a panic about coming through India with it; so I drank it on the plane.”
“What—a bottle?” he gasped.
“Aye; well—I had a wee bit of help from the fellows next to me.”
“I bet you did,” he said grimly, as the others chuckled.
“Can we ask what it was?” asked John, grinning.
“No!” howled Hamish.
All of the older persons laughed uproariously.
Carol wasn’t drinking. She didn’t care what Aunty Veronica and Uncle Peter said, she was going to drive them home to their house herself!
Darryl said something to Hilary about Kashmir; Hilary began to explain why on earth she’d been visiting Kashmir in February...
Veronica wasn’t normally interested in travellers’ tales and as she was still feeding James she hadn’t drunk enough to induce her to lend a charitable ear to this one. She looked round vaguely. Nearly everyone else had gone; John Blewitt was carting the last hunk of barbie off round the corner of the prefab... She stared. Round the corner of the prefab and onto the lawn came the handsomest man she’d ever seen in her life. He wasn’t young; in fact he was probably pushing sixty; but what a profile! Talk about your bronzed God! He was a Maori, but the fact wasn’t significant to her.
“Who the Hell’s that? Look at that head! He oughta be on a coin, or something!”
“It’s Dad!” exclaimed Darryl incredulously. “What on earth’s he doing here?” Suddenly her good-looking bronze face went a nasty greenish colour. “I hope there’s nothing wrong at home.”
“Here,” said Veronica. “Gimme Sharon.”
“Thanks,” said Darryl thickly, handing her over and scrambling up.
The tall, handsome man had strolled onto the lawn and was peering uncertainly at them.
“Dad!” said Darryl loudly.
He smiled, and walked towards them.
“What are you doing here?” said Darryl hoarsely.
He grinned, and put his hands on her shoulders. “We’ve been for a drive up to Carter’s Inlet: your mother wanted to see that new marina place. Thought I’d just pop in and see if you were still here; nothing wrong with that, is there?”
“No,” said Darryl hoarsely.
“Well?” he said, smiling.
“Sorry, Dad.” Those who thought they knew her stared as Darryl kissed her father’s cheek.
He kissed hers. “Introduce me to your friends,” he suggested mildly, putting his arm around her sturdy shoulders.
“They’re people from the Institute,” she growled.
“I gathered that,” he murmured.
In a dreadful growl, Darryl introduced “My father—Sir Alistair Tuwhare. Uh—this is Dr Macdonald: he’s—
Hamish had got up. “Yes, we’ve met; how are you, Sir Alistair?” He then took over the introductions: first his staff; and then—
“How are you, Alistair?” said Polly, twinkling at him.
Beaming all over his handsome bronze face, Sir Alistair Tuwhare assured her that he was fine, and it was lovely to see her again, and she must come and say hullo to Meriel, who’d stayed in the car—
“I feel quoite limp,” said Peter faintly as Polly and the Tuwhares disappeared. “I had no oidea that Darryl was one of that family.”
“Her father’s a judge,” said John, without any appearance of vital interest in the fact.
“So it would appear!” said Peter crossly. “They are a very distinguished family.”
“I thought you must surely have known,” said Hamish mildly.
Peter stared at him. “Did you know?”
“Yes, of course.”
“How did you know? And how long have you known?” he demanded aggrievedly.
Hamish’s mouth twitched. He should never have given Peter that third malt! “Ages; I first met Sir Alistair at a conference in Canberra—that’d be three years ago, now. I’ve known Darryl was his daughter as long as I’ve known her. She’s very like him, isn’t she?”
“And whoy did you not tell me?” he said in a very high voice.
Hamish began to laugh helplessly.
“Shut up, ya Russian nong; you’re pissed,” said Veronica to her husband.
“I am not p—”
“Yes, y’are. We’re going home. Come on. –You better drive, Carol.”
With terrific relief Carol accepted the car keys.
Next chapter:
https://themembersoftheinstitute.blogspot.com/2023/01/more-entertaining.html
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