April Showers

Part II. Set-Up Period

13

April Showers

    The rain streamed down the windows of the S.C.R. Polly Carrano, who was present in her working, or Dr P.M. Mitchell persona, cowered into her armchair as Dr Davis and Professor Michaels sat down very, very close and proceeded to put her under interrogation.

    When all the details had been dragged out of her the interrogators just looked at each other numbly for some time.

    The Carranos had recently held a dinner party to which several Sir George Grey personalities had been invited, together with a selection of other persons whom Lady Carrano had described grimly as “his corporate mates, and don’t blame me.”

    During this dinner Akiko Takagaki had got off with a silver-haired, smooth corporate gent in, at a conservative estimate, his late fifties, who was an old friend of Jake’s. The gentleman’s permanent mistress being at the moment overseas with her husband. And there was—very feebly—nothing it. At this point Jill had still been capable of snorting, and Bill had sniffed.

    Dorothy had attended the dinner in a bright pink suit, as Hilary Takagaki had already told Jill. And if Hilary had claimed that it had cost a month’s miserable academic salary from a boutique in Remmers then no doubt she was right. But Dorothy’s having been in the company of a hairy male marine geologist was nothing to do with her, Polly, and—defiantly—good on her! Jill was expecting this, but nevertheless asked weakly: “Has she gone completely over to the other side?”

    Also at this dinner, and this was not Polly’s fault, Sammi Wolfe had got off with Inoue Takagaki. And Polly had invited Inoue’s wife, Masako, but she’d insisted on baby-sitting Ken and Hilary’s kids. Bill’s eyes stood on stalks. Jill merely swallowed.

    The Iceman had come to the dinner unaccompanied. No, he hadn’t brought either of his Ornithological Fellows, and actually Polly hadn’t realised they’d started, Alan hadn’t mentioned it. No-o… actually Alan hadn’t mentioned his Systems Manager at all. His wife had been out for how long? But Alan spoke perfect French: they could have had her over when he was coming, they could have helped her settle in! And if they wanted to know, Polly’s actual words to him had been: “Alan, is there anyone you’d like to bring? Would your cousin care to come?” And he had said: “No, thanks all the same, Polly. We don’t socialise together, really.”

    Gretchen came up with a cup of tea while the interrogators were still looking at her numbly, so, as Bill had a meeting and Jill had a Master’s tutorial, they tottered off and left her to finish the interrogation for them.

    “I apologise for Jill,” she said grimly as Polly leaned back in her armchair and closed her eyes.

    “That’s all right,” she said limply, opening her eyes and trying to smile. “I must say, I can’t understand why on earth she’s so stirred up about it all, Gretchen.”

    “I think she feels responsible, in some strange vay, because she knows off Alan Kincaid before ve do. And the Wendy Briggs episode, vhich off course happened vhen she vas very young, vas a great shock to her.”

    Polly nodded.

    “And also, I think she’s very disappointed in Dorothy, for she said to me,” said Gretchen in a cautious voice, “that she had alvays thought off her as one off the race that knows Joseph.”

    Polly gulped. “My God, and now she thinks she isn’t? That’s about the worst Jill can say of another human being!”

    “Ja. She said she regretted the day she let her come to our barbie and drink our not-champagne,” she added glumly.

    Polly nodded numbly. “I see.”

    “Er—so Sir G.G. goes ahead qvite smoothly?” she said cautiously. “It appears Alan Kincaid vas the right choice?”

    “Yes,” Polly replied mournfully, staring at the rain pouring down the windows. “I’ve read his work, of course…” she said in a vague voice. Gretchen nodded silently, and drank tea. “You know,” said Polly crossly, “I really thought that coming to Carter’s Bay and living with that lovely Catherine might have been the making of him! I mean, of course Jill’s right about him, in a way… But Inoue says he thinks he’s a very fair man, with a strong sense of honour.”

    “That is praise indeed,” said Gretchen seriously.

    “Yes.”

    “It’s early days yet for the Iceman to change, if he hass been this vay all his adult life,” she said cautiously. “And I think you admit yourself that he’s very attractive to women, yes? Ja,” she said as Polly nodded. “No doubt he has been used to having any attractive one he vanted. If vhat you vant is to see him settled in happy domesticity vith the pink woman, I think it vill take some considerable time for him to admit to himself, if he does vant it, that that is vhat he wants.”

    “Mm.”

    “Iss that vhat you vant?” said Gretchen cautiously.

    “I don’t know! Can he make a woman like that happy?”

    Gretchen did not indulge in the Aryan analysis of which her housemate was always accusing her. She just said calmly: “I don’t know, Polly.”

    Polly stared out at the rain, and sighed. “No.”

    It rained and it rained and it rained. You expected to see Pooh and Piglet, perched up a pine tree with a row of honey pots. Jack Perkins had forgotten how very wet it was in the land of his birth. And it was bloody cold, too—for God’s sake, it was only April! He hadn’t forgotten that the whole of Godzone shut down over Easter, which was fortunate. He was driving a hire car, and it was a piece of Japanese junk. However, by the time he was halfway to Puriri he had had ample time to reflect grimly that it was just as well he hadn’t had any of his cars sent out ahead of him, because in this sort of weather they’d have rusted away before he found a place to live and got so much as a carport up, let alone a decent triple garage.

    At Dot’s place an elderly man in a dim fawn sweater opened the door and said, once Jack had explained he was looking for Miss Perkins: “Eh?” After some shouting on Jack’s part an elderly woman in a floral plastic apron over a pink sweater and black tracksuit pants appeared and explained that they’d bought the unit from Miss Perkins. A forwarding address? Not really. Well, they did have but it was a box number. Jack thanked them and retreated. Mentally cursing his sister to Hell and gone. He tried the neighbour’s apartment. After he’d knocked for some time the elderly man in the fawn sweater appeared again—still clutching the newspaper he’d been clutching when he’d opened the door to Jack—and shouted: “He’s not there!”

    Jack retreated. Mentally cursing his sister again. Why the Hell couldn’t she have faxed him in Hawaii care of good old Hal Gorman? It wasn’t the end of the earth, for God’s sake. Come to that, she could have sent him an email— Oh, forget it. Jack drove on uncertainly for a while in the rain, cursing Dot with half his mind and with the other half scheming out an infallible plan to get good old Hal appointed as his Deputy. Well, Hell, his brain was rusting away in Honolulu, that was for sure! Not to mention the rest of him: as far as Jack could see, since the divorce he’d done nothing but console himself with a succession of part-Hawaiian lovelies all young enough to be his daughters and a succession of Hal’s Special Orbiting Russian Juliuses. Like, you took your basic Orange Julius which in case Hal Gorman wasn’t looking was stuffed with calories of its own, being composed of fifty percent coconut cream alongside all that vitamin C, and then you added an equal measure of vodka plus, for the taste, half as much again of bourbon. Yeah, well.

    Jack Perkins was aware that Hal was the type that lapsed when under stress into letting Hawaiian Lolitas throw themselves at him in the intervals of, or even at the same time as, making himself blenderfuls of Hal’s Special Orbiting Russian Juliuses and slopping round the apartment in nothing but an abbreviated Hawaiian sarong. Whereas he himself was the type that threw himself into frantic activity, like doing up the house on top of the three veteran cars he was already doing up plus into the bargain buying a very decrepit ’54 Caddy what there was a point one percent chance he would find a single part for in the whole of the Continental United States, plus into the bargain writing three papers for scholarly journals in the intervals of publishing copiously on the Internet plus into the bargain revamping his entire lecture schedule for the entire year. Masters and undergraduate. Jack had been a hyperactive child and many of those who knew him well claimed he still was. However, hyperactivity being a lot, lot more common in the Continental U.S. than it was in the land of his birth, his had gone relatively unremarked by the society in which he had worked for the last twenty-odd years.

    However, his first wife—Jack had been divorced twice—had informed him roundly that he was unbearable, that he was neglecting her, and that he didn’t appreciate all those years she’d put into supporting him through his B.E., M.E. and Ph.D., and she was leaving him. Jack didn’t point out that at the same time she had done a New Zealand B.A. and an American Diploma in Social Work and an extended correspondence course in crystal-whatever crap, because he was fed up with living with someone who in the year of grace 1981 was still draping herself in Indian printed muslins and tarnished silver chains and waistcoats with bits of mirror in them and spending most of her waking hours attempting to make tofu instead of buying it from the health food store like anybody else and doing whatever it was that the crystal nuts did with the crystals; even though she was making almost a living out of the latter activity, off of the like-minded nuts with the dirty fingernails and Indian draperies and bad complexions that regularly infested his sitting-room at all hours of the day and night with their goddamned stinking incense sticks and their equally stinking pot. Added to which, though her given name was Nancy she had re-christened herself Indira and named their two kids Shiva and Rabindranath. So Nancy-Indira went off to live with a like-minded nut with a beard who ran a weirdo bookshop that also served vegan meals, and Jack heaved a sigh of relief that he was rid of the incense and the woolly-mindedness consequent upon concentrating what was left of the brain after the pot on small geological specimens for hours on end. And, for there was no sentimentality at all in his nature, thankfully sold the house for a reasonable sum and made quite sure that Nancy-Indira got no more than her community-property share of it. Simultaneously throwing himself energetically into looking for a much better job, getting it, and shaking the dust of California for good.

    His second wife, Randi, was an American. Afterwards, Jack supposed the name should have warned him but at the time he had merely assumed it was her parents’ fault. She was one of those tall, blonde, evenly tanned American girls with beautiful teeth that most innocent Kiwi boys of Jack’s generation had sort of mentally envisaged as the All-American girl, not to say the norm. Whereas actually the place was even fuller of pale, spotty-faced, pudgy or scrawny figures unsuitably draped in Indian scarves and rolling joints with their dirty fingernails than home had been. Perhaps it wasn’t entirely surprising that Jack had fallen for Randi with a thump. Even though, as he was thirty-two by that time, he was old enough to have known better. He was, at least, old enough to think it all over carefully before agreeing to her suggestion that as they had so much in common, wouldn’t it be sensible to get married. They had a lot in common in that Randi was almost as hyperactive as he was and even keener on owning a conventional, pretty house with a sitting-room full of comfortable, clean, conventional furniture and not filled with the acrid odour of joss sticks. Or pot. Added to which they had in common the fact that Randi King’s father was an engineer, in fact he was Jack’s then HOD, and a good guy, plus into the bargain very eminent in his field. The fact that Pete King spent almost all of his waking hours at his place of employment rather than at his pretty, conventional, and indeed quite gracious, two-storeyed suburban home didn’t strike Jack as significant: engineers were all workaholics.

    Randi herself had been to an excellent American women’s college and had a circle of friends all over at least the eastern seaboard and even as far inland as Illinois who were alumnae of the same college, and she lectured in English literature at Jack’s and Pete’s own place of employment, and really, she could hardly have been more suitable. Added to which her attitude to having kids was also eminently suitable: she did want kids, she thought two was a nice number, and she thought she would take a year’s study leave for the first year and then— Randi, in short, had the whole child-care situation in their pretty little university town completely sussed out. Jack thought this was very sensible. And he agreed that kids needed both parents, sure. Actually believing this as he said it, though when they’d been infants he’d been too busy finishing his Ph.D. and getting his first job and working at his first job to take much notice of Shiva and Rabindranath. And hadn’t taken any notice of them since the divorce except to send plane tickets for them to come visit over the first long vacation, which Nancy-Indira had sent back. They were too little to travel alone. She hadn’t suggested Jack fly out to California and Jack, who had been immersed in a research project that summer, hadn’t suggested it either.

    So Jack and Randi got married. It was a real college wedding, at the pretty little church in “the village” which Merri King (and nominally Pete King) attended, with the church choir supported by some of the college choristers and a guard of honour of Randi’s students and friends and a scattering of Pete’s and Jack’s colleagues, dragooned by their wives, all in their academic gowns. The church being decorated for the occasion with boughs of artificial cherry blossom, as it was spring. They had the Easter break for a short honeymoon and then went for a real honeymoon during the long vacation: Hawaii, Randi had never been there. And came back and settled into a gracious two-storeyed suburban house with immaculate all-new Early American furniture and Randi’s one genuine Early American rocker which even to Jack’s untutored eye looked bloody silly next to it.

    Around five years later Nancy-Indira and the beard upped stakes for India and an ashram complete with Shiva and Rabindranath but by the time Jack found out about it it was too late to try to stop them. Randi got her lawyer onto it but the cost of getting Jack’s kids back would have been extortionate. So they didn’t try.

    Jack stuck it out with the managing Randi and her immaculate house and her perfect little dinner parties for influential college personalities and influential alumni (of his place of employment) and alumnae (of her Alma Mater) for almost ten years. By that time Randi had competently produced Sarah-Ann and Harriet (a year apart) and their teeth had already cost Jack enormous sums. Those perfect, straight, All-American choppers of Randi’s, it turned out, were no more natural than his own. And the girls had inherited the worst of both of ’em. Jack by this time had discovered that Randi bored him almost to screaming point. Never mind that excellent college and the English teaching, behind that smoothly tanned face there was no actual brain at all! He was, of course, doing her an injustice. There was quite a reasonable brain but it was not the sort of brain that was either capable of original thought or desired to indulge in original thought. Some young women could have emerged from the same environment with at least the ability to, say, form their own political judgements, but Randi King Perkins (she called herself that) was not one of them. Mom’s beliefs were her beliefs. Well, not in the matter of making your own preserves, it was not efficient to spend all that time and money on producing something that full of refined sugar. But certainly in the matter of who should be president of the country. Pete King, Jack discovered after he’d been his son-in-law for something like seven years, was quietly pro-civil rights, pro-women’s lib and pretty much of a radical: but this had apparently never percolated to the consciousnesses of Merri King and Randi King Perkins. Jack began to spend longer and longer evenings at work, closeted in the Engineering Department with Pete.

    This behaviour did not pass unnoticed but it did take Randi about three years to get to the point of deciding that it was not working out: Jack was not prepared to put enough of himself into their marriage to make it work. Jack agreed with what some would have said was unseemly haste, didn’t tell her that he’d just been appointed to the chair (Pete having just retired) and moved himself, his old cars and all his electronic gear out of the gracious two-storeyed suburban home.

    This all had been some three years back. Jack was by no means sick of the bachelor life, per se. He had even more young lovelies ready, willing and able than did his friend Hal Gorman. One or two of them could actually cook a decent meal, so occasionally he let them. But he ate out quite a lot: there were plenty of reasonable restaurants in their nice little university town. Jack had only recently admitted to himself that he was bored senseless by the town, by all but one or two of the people in it, by the college curriculum, by the way he had to teach, by the brainless dollybirds, college girls or not, that he took to bed so regularly, by— Well, in short, by America. The only thing he wasn’t bored with was his own work. But it had begun to seem not enough. He was not in the least starry-eyed about the land of his birth but at least this new job would pose a different sort of challenge: he would be able to create the curriculum and appoint his staff, and he would not have to attend boring alumni dinners or run the risk of losing sixty percent of his departmental funding. Likewise the goddamned college football games. Most forms of spectator sport bored Jack silly but American football was right up there as favoured contender for Most Ultimately Boring, and Silliest In The Known Universe.

    By the time he had driven round to the Puriri County Library, discovered that of course it was closed, and had reminded himself sourly that everything closed down in Godzone for Easter, Jack was ready to strangle his goddamned sister. Since she’d had the whole of the metropolitan area in which to find herself a new apartment, it would have been bloody silly to start in looking for her. So he didn’t. Nor did he make the mistake of trying to find a phone box and ringing Directory Enquiries for her new number. He had a very vivid recollection of the eight months’ wait he and Nancy had had that time they decided they really did need a phone because Shiva was on the way. Shiva had been four months old by the time the New Zealand Post Office deigned to send a man, and as they’d managed without a phone all that time, Jack told the man where to put it. Adding that they were emigrating to America and if New Zealand had a brain drain, it could ask the EnZed Post Office why.

    Jack was vaguely aware that it wasn’t the Post Office any more but he was under no illusion that in the Land of the Long White Cloud it would have turned into anything resembling a phone company. Uh-uh. No way. If Dot had just moved house, they could expect to see her with a phone—well, at a conservative estimate, round about August 1. If the local exchange could handle another number.

    What was the name of that skinny dame that lived up Kowhai Bay? Dot had dragged him to dinner there one night. He couldn’t remember. After some head scratching, he decided that as he could pretty well remember that skinny dame’s house, he’d get on round there and try asking her for Dot’s new address. He navigated his way easily enough to Kowhai Bay: you just drove on north out of Puriri on the main road and after you’d gone up the hill, took the first turning on your right, which was the side the sea was on: that was Kowhai Bay Road. Then—uh—yeah, along here. He found Jill’s side street without difficulty, refrained from trying to take the Japanese car up her short but very steep drive, and hurried up it on foot in the rain. Wishing to God he’d remembered about the rain and brought an umbrella out with him.

    The door was opened by a skinny black-haired teenage girl. She was chewing.

    “Hi,” he said weakly. “You live here, do ya?”

    “No,” she said, chewing juicily. “I live in Kowhai Bay Road.”

    Jack was about to ask if anyone was home, when she saved him by adding: “Did you want Jill or Gretchen?”

    “Yeah. Either. Just say it’s Jack Perkins, would you?” said Jack feebly.

    She eyed him narrowly. “Are you Dorothy’s brother?”

    Jack’s knees went all funny. At the same time he recognised that it was that goddamned new silver hairdo of Dot’s: made them look like twins. “Yeah, that’s right,” he said limply. –Oh, plus and the American accent, doubtless the whole of Puriri county knew that Dot’s brother Jack had been living in Yankland.

    “Come in,” she said, chewing juicily.

    Jill was working: she had papers strewn all over the sitting-room. Marking, identified Jack with a sympathetic shudder. She hadn’t been aware Dorothy had moved, but she suggested, scribbling rapidly and shoving a scrap of paper at him, that he could try Janet Wilson’s place.

    Jack took it numbly. It was part of a photocopy. An article in French on… Mme de Sévigné? Okay, Mme de Sévigné, he supposed it wasn’t impossible that somewhere, someone in the Known Universe was writing about her. Or that somewhere else in the Known Universe someone else should have defaced the article heavily with red ball-point, to wit: “Des conneries!!” He turned it over. An address in Carter’s Bay. Yo, boy.

    “She used to live in Puriri, only she’s moved to a dear little cottage,” said the teenage kid helpfully. “But she hasn’t got the phone on yet.”

    Jack thanked them limply, and retreated.

    He hadn’t remembered who Janet was but he did vaguely recognise her when she opened the door of her little cottage to him. “Hi; Jack Perkins,” he said.

    “Hullo, Jack!” she gasped, turning purple.

    Jack Perkins was pretty well used to the effect he had on spinsters of thirty-plus—though he would have denied it crossly. He would, however, have been startled and disconcerted if the usual reaction had not eventuated. He smiled easily and said: “I wonder if you could help me? I’m looking for Dot. I didn’t realise she’d already sold her apartment.”

    “Yes. Home units usually get snapped up pretty fast in Puriri,” said Janet faintly.

    “So I gather. You got her new address, Janet?”

    “Help, didn’t she tell you?” she gasped.

    “No. Uh—well, I was in Hawaii for several weeks, I guess I was out of touch,” he said easily. Not mentioning that that needn’t have stopped her either faxing him at Hal’s or emailing him at his IEEE address.

    “Um—well, she hasn’t actually bought anything yet,” said Janet limply. “Um, well, there’s a place that someone we know is doing up, she was thinking of taking one of the upstairs flats.”

    “Uh-huh. So where’s she staying?”

    “I’m not absolutely sure, but someone told me,” said Janet faintly, not revealing that it had been Jack Swadling from the dairy, let alone what Mr Swadling had actually said, “that she’s staying at the hotel.” –Not saying “The Royal Kingfisher” because she couldn’t bring herself to.

    “Oh, got herself a room there? Okay. Thanks very much, Janet,” said Jack, as a gust of freezing wind and rain blew right down the neck of his expensive American windcheater. “See ya!” he called, dashing back to the car.

    Janet replied in a very small voice indeed: “Bye-bye,” and closed the door slowly. He looked so smart. And he had a lovely shiny silver car, too. Probably a Mitsubishi.

    Jack got slightly lost trying to get himself back to Main Street. Eventually he managed it, but then he couldn’t remember where the Hell the pub was, though he and Dot had dropped in there for a beer, when she’d been driving him round showing him the delights of Carter’s Inlet. Main Street appeared to have completely closed down. Shit, even the dairy was closed! He couldn’t remember whether the local dairy in the days of his childhood used to close over Easter or not. He’d sort of had the impression that it was always open. Certainly it was open until all hours, because Dad used to send him down there to get his 8 O’Clock. Boy, was that the long ago. Shaking his head slightly, Jack drove carefully down Main Road, Carter’s Bay, looking for someone who could direct him to the pub. He was on the point of deciding he’d have to knock at a door, when a woman in a yellow slicker, carrying a great bunch of greenery, emerged from a side street. –Penny Bergen. She’d recently taken up dyeing and the greenery was basic ingredients.

    Now, whether the outcome of this encounter would have been different had Penny not been a relative newcomer to Carter’s Bay would have been very hard to say. As it was, on being asked if she could direct him to the old pub, she replied helpfully: “The old pub. Yes: you just go down here, this is the main road, and cross the highway. Then you turn left at the next intersection, that’s Orangapai Road, and go on down it as far as the waterfront, and the old pub’s just on your left, you can’t miss it.”

    The old pub appeared to be locked. So did even the pubs close on Good Friday? Jack couldn’t remember, but it seemed likely. There was a shiny brass bell, however, so he rang it.

    The door was answered by the young Mel Gibson. Wearing a white chef’s uniform and holding a wooden spoon. “Yeah?” he said without interest.

    The entrance lobby was pervaded with the most wonderful smell Jack Perkins had ever come across. “Hi: so you are open for lunch?” he said in huge relief.

    “No. We’re not open yet,” replied Mel Gibson.

    Jack was about to say then could he see Dot, when a skinny girl with short brown hair appeared. “Hullo,” she said.

    Jack had more or less forgotten the good ole EnZed “Hullo, I wouldn’t address you by your name if me life depended on it but I do recognize you” hullo, only now it came back to him in full force. “Hi—uh—Wallis, isn’t it?”

    Wallis nodded hard.

    “Uh—well, even if you’re closed to the public, I guess it’d be okay to come in and see my sister, huh?” he said with that easy smile. “She’s a resident, so maybe you could stretch a point and feed me, too?”

    “Heck, we’re not open for business! We won’t be open for yonks!” said Wallis.

    “But Janet told me that Dot’s staying here. You know: my sister, she used to be County Librarian?”

    Wallis nodded hard.

    “Who is he, Wallis?” said Mel Gibson in a very bored voice.

    “Oh! He’s Dorothy’s brother!” she gasped.

    “Jack Perkins,” said Jack very grimly indeed.

    “Would this be Janet Wilson, that told you that Dorothy was staying here?” asked Mel Gibson unemotionally.

    Jack dug the Mme de Sévigné scrap of paper out of his pocket. “Wilson. Yeah.”

    “She can’t of!” cried Wallis.

    “Not unless she thinks the flats are ready already,” said Mel Gibson unemotionally.

    Jack Perkins was now almost sure that the young jerk was taking the Mick. “She did mention something about flats. But she said Dot was staying at the pub.”

    There a short silence.

    “She can’t be,” said Wallis in a bewildered voice. “They don’t do rooms.”

    “No,” agreed Mel Gibson unemotionally.

    Yes, by God: he was taking the Mick, the up-himself little jerk! “Look, if you can’t help—”

    “Hang on,” said Mel Gibson unemotionally. “Did the word ‘pub’ actually cross Janet’s lips?”

    “Uh, I think she said ‘hotel’,” said Jack, giving him a look that was a mixture of suspicion, exasperation and, though he himself did not realise this last and would have disclaimed it crossly, a certain pathetic bewilderment.

    “I get it!” said Wallis loudly at this point. “She must of meant the Royal K!”

    “She would have if she said hotel, certainly,” agreed Mel Gibson smoothly. “Dorothy is staying there, according to Jack Swadling.”

    “You snot-nosed little JERK!” shouted Jack Perkins at the top of his lungs.

    “Ye-ah,” said Wallis in awe, her eyes going very round. “Heck, ya might of told him, Adrian! Heck, he’s come all this way in this weather!”

    “Without a raincoat, too,” agreed the Mel Gibson lookalike calmly.

    “Just tell me where this Royal K is,” said Jack grimly.

    “Kingfisher Bay. On the point: you can’t miss it. Though before you rush off into the rain, there are two points you might like to consider: firstly, it does the dearest pizzas in Federation Space, and secondly, Dorothy’s gone down to the thermal area for Easter.”

    “Ooh, yeah, that’s right,” said Wallis numbly. “With that Pom, eh?”

    “With Professor Baranski, yes,” agreed Mel Gibson, eyeing Jack thoughtfully.

    “Who the Hell is he, when he’s at home?”

    “He’s an English marine geologist who’s been appointed Dean of Environmental Resources at Sir George Grey.”

    “Dot’s gone to Rotorua with a guy?” he said numbly.

    “The mixture of vernaculars is fascinating. –I carefully said ‘thermal area’ for your benefit,” replied Mel Gibson politely.

    “Look, bud, I’ll wring your goddamned neck for you, vernaculars and all!” shouted Jack. “Who is this guy?”

    “Just what Adrian said,” said Wallis nervously. “Um—well, he’s all right.”

    Adrian looked down at her tolerantly. “Hearty type, burly good-looks, thinks he’s God’s gift to anything in skirts, and is fully convinced that no-one in Federation Space, make that the Known Universe, has brains at all, let alone half his brains.”

    “Dot’s gone off with that?”

    “Approximately ninety-nine point nine repeating percent of females in the Known Universe appear to share his opinion of himself,” said Adrian politely.

    “Yeah, but Dot ain’t like that!” he cried.

    “Those of us who’ve known her for more than five minutes would once have agreed with you.”

    “Bill reckons she was rilly keen, only then she bleached her hair and started buying those suits,” contributed Wallis glumly.

    Jack ran his hand through his own silver hair. “Jesus,” he muttered.

    “Sorry,” said Mel Gibson with manifest untruth. “I think you’ll find there are plenty of rooms available at the Royal K: it’s their off-season.”

    “Uh—yeah. Thanks,” he said numbly.

    Adrian watched unemotionally as he retreated.

    “That was a bit mean,” said Wallis uncertainly.

    “Yeah, well, do you want to give him your share of the venison stew?”

    “No,” she admitted.

    “No, me neither. Come on.” They went back to the huge and echoing room which must once have been the lounge bar, where Martin, Sim and old Jacko Te Hana were huddled in front of a roaring open fire drinking home brew out of dark brown quart beer bottles and watching the episode of Star Trek where Kirk had the fight with the cross between a dragon and a dinosaur. No-one looked up. They all watched in silence until the tape finished.

    “Get rid of ’im?” grunted Jacko.

    “Eh? Oh: yeah,” replied Adrian. “Oh, I forgot; do you know a bloke called Steve Tamehana?”

    “Might do. Why?”

    “He reckons his grandfather can let me have some manuka stumps.”

    Jacko sucked his teeth reflectively. “Prolly right,” he conceded. “They’ll be wet, mind you. He’s got macrocarpa, too.”

    “Spits like crazy,” said Adrian, grinning. He put another log on the fire. They watched thoughtfully as it hissed and spat sparks.

    “Yeah. Remind me to bring you a fireguard,” he grunted.

    “Uh—ta, Jacko,” said Adrian in some surprise.

    Sim put on another tape. The Next Generation. They watched silently. After a while Jacko blabbed out the pontificating Captain Picard.

    “Who was it?” asked Sim hoarsely.

    “Eh?” replied Adrian.

    “The man who came to the door.”

    “Oh—Dorothy’s brother. Jack Perkins. He does electronic engineering.”

    There was a short silence.

    “You could do that, Sim,” said Adrian kindly. “That is, if you ever managed to pass pathetic Bursary.”

    Turning crimson, Sim shouted: “All right! But school’s a waste of time, it’s pathetic!”

    “Yeah.” Adrian got up. He went out.

    There was silence in the huge former lounge bar of the old Carter’s Bay waterfront pub. Apart from Jacko experimenting with the remote during a scene between two of the lady officers of the Starship Enterprise in pastel aerobics gear and grunting to himself: “Still cretins.”

    Adrian returned with a huge pile of bumf. “It’s never too late to sign up. Only I’d do it now, if I was you: you’ve already missed the best part of a term,” he said mildly.

    Martin and Sim looked numbly through the papers. “We never knew you could do it by correspondence,” Martin admitted numbly.

    “Yeah. They probably won’t offer all the subjects you want, but after all it’s only for a year, and the point of the exercise is to get the bit of paper that says you can go to varsity, isn’t it?”

    This had apparently not struck them. “Yeah!” they gasped.

    “We can just do the exercises!” said Martin, his eyes shining.

    “They have got Latin,” discovered Sim.

    “At least it’s a written language,” noted Jacko.

    Adrian collapsed in splutters. Wallis grinned tolerantly and explained to the puzzled boys: “Maori’s not a written language.”

    “It must be,” said Sim in bewilderment, looking at the Correspondence School curriculum.

    “No, ya cretin,” said Wallis firmly. “The Europeans wrote it down. –Sort of.”

    The boys looked at Jacko. He sniffed, very slightly, and blabbed out a scene with Wesley Crusher. No-one remarked on this: in the first place the old man always blabbed out every scene in which the unfortunate Master Crusher appeared, and in the second place they all shared his opinion of Master Crusher. “You seriously planning to take Latin?”

    “Who, me?” said Sim, very startled. “Um—yes. I was quite good at it at school.”

    “Well, it might be of some use to ya if ya wanna go in for law, or medicine.”

    There was a short silence.

    “Yes, but if it’s all about getting the piece of paper, Jacko—” began Martin.

    “Some if it’s about doing some subjects that’ll give ya some sort of grounding if ya wanna do them at varsity.”

    There was another short silence. Two pairs of ears were very red.

    “If it’s engineering you’re interested in,” said Jacko neutrally, “they tell me that maths and physics are the two ya gotta do.”

    “What about computer science?” asked Martin.

    Jacko shrugged blankly.

    “Maths might help. But according to Bill Michaels, computer science isn’t a subject let alone a discipline,” noted Adrian.

    “He says that about anything smacking faintly of modernity: ignore it,” advised Wallis. “Hey, is that stew nilly ready, Adrian?” He admitted it needed to simmer a bit longer so Wallis unwrapped a large piece of blue bubble-gum. Chewing juicily, she objected: “Hey, Jacko! Ya missed a bit of Data!”

    Obligingly Jacko pressed rewind.

    “Um—can’t you do it at university, here?” faltered Martin.

    “Yeah!” said Wallis scornfully, not taking her eyes from Data.

    “You’ll certainly be able to do it at Sir G.G., it’ll be part of Jack Perkins’s vast empire,” said Adrian drily.

    Martin and Sim conferred in lowered voices over the papers. Wallis, Jacko and Adrian watched a smudgy, home-recorded tape of Star Trek The Next Generation in rapt silence.

    “I’m hopeless at physics,” admitted Martin gloomily at last.

    “You’re not shit-hot at maths, either,” noted Sim.

    “Shut up, we can’t hear Geordi!” complained Wallis.

    “We were deciding,” said Sim sulkily. “Martin’s maths is putrid.”

    Sighing, Wallis took the remote off Jacko and paused the tape. “You two are blimmin’ hopeless!”

    They looked at her sulkily.

    “Crikey, anyone can do maths Bursary!”

    “Did you?” said Martin crossly.

    “Not officially, no. Ole Spock teaches at the rate of the average cretin, I couldn’t hack the boredom.”—The boys already knew that one of Wallis’s teachers had been dubbed “Mr Spock” and hence “Ole Spock” on account of the shape of his ears, so they didn’t comment on this. And that she had been to a mixed school that was not a comprehensive (which they didn’t have, here) but a grammar school, so they didn’t comment on that, either.—”I had a go at Jenny Wong’s paper, after. Feeble. Took less than forty min’.” She shrugged.

    “Did you get any right, though?” he asked crossly.

    “Yeah. Bill marked it for me. –Took him twenny min’,” she noted. “Hundred per cent. Ask him if ya don’t believe me.”

    “What I’ll believe,” said Martin, very red, “is if you sit maths this year and beat us both!”

    “All right, why not?” she said mildly.

    “You’ll have to sign on for the course,” warned Sim.

    “No, I won’t, ya moron, anyone can apply to sit Bursary and Schol! –Schol’s harder. I’ll beat you at that, too,” she noted.

    “All right!” cried Martin furiously. “Come on, Sim, we’ll go and fill in the papers!”

    “Do ’em in pencil first, in case ya spoil ’em,” said Jacko mildly.

    “I got several sets,” said Adrian. “Well, I got one and photocopied it on that old machine that Euan Knox fixed for Kev.”

    “Shit, is it working?” asked Jacko.

    “Yeah. There’s six copies.”

    “Gimme a set,” decided Wallis. “I’ll do the maths course, and I’ll get better marks than both of you with me hands tied behind me.”

    Glaring, Martin gave her a set of papers and the boys went over to the door.

    Jacko, Adrian and Wallis watched the rest of the episode in silence. Then Adrian said mildly: “Never knew you were good at maths.”

    “Yeah,” said Wallis stolidly, chewing.

    “Uh-huh. You volunteer for this pour encourager les autres, or because you’re fed up with the snot-nosed little Pommy bastards, or because you’ve decided you wanna take maths at varsity, or what?”

    Wallis was rather red. She gave him an evil glare.

    “Could be all of the above,” noted Jacko calmly.

    “Yeah: why not?” she said pugnaciously.

    “No reason why not. Good on ya, in fact.” Adrian wandered over to the sophisticated baked beans carton in which he kept his tapes. “There’s a really blurred copy of Animal House, here. I got it off some friends: they’re friends of Bill Michaels’s, too. It’s a pirate he made for them off a pirate.”

    “Good; we’ll have it,” said Wallis.

    Adrian put it in the player.

    “They’re missing it, eh?” noted Jacko neutrally.

    “Yeah. Hah-hah,” he said unemotionally.

    “Yeah. Hah-hah!” agreed Wallis, chewing viciously.

    Jacko said nothing. But those who knew him well might have noticed that his lips twitched slightly. He grabbed the remote off Wallis and fast-forwarded some ads. Animal House came on. A rapt silence fell…

    “So, where’s your buddy today?” asked Sol Winkelmann cheerfully, pouring an enormous whisky for their new neighbour.

    Even though it was only half past eleven on the morning of Easter Sunday, Jane Vincent didn’t say no. She seized it gratefully.

    “I don’t think it’s Scotch whisky, Jane,” said Michaela Winkelmann anxiously.

    Too late, the fluid had touched Jane’s lips. “Whew! Uh—no, I don’t think it is.”

    “Rye. Sorry,” said Mr Winkelmann with manifest untruth.

    “It’ll do,” said Jane with a sigh. “What were you— Oh, yeah. Moana’s been invited to a trendy lunch with our Senior Administrator, Ms Wolfe.”

    “Huh?” he said.

    Mrs Winkelmann was cuddling little Grace. She merely leaned her chin on the little girl’s head and looked vague.

    “Sammi Wolfe,” said Jane.

    “Uh—oh! Right! The sister of that kid that’s foisted himself on Adrian Revill.”

    “Right. Him and his wee mate,” said Jane in the vernacular.

    “He didn’t have to let them,” said Michaela dreamily.

    “No,” agreed Jane. “I think he wanted the company, actually. I don’t think he’s ever lived alone.”

    Mr Winkelmann had a coughing fit.

    “Not that, you birk,” said Jane amiably.

    Sol scratched his narrow jaw. “Now, correct me if I’m wrong—”

    “He says that when he knows he’s right,” Michaela explained helpfully.

    Jane smiled. “Mm.” She became aware that Mr Winkelmann was now watching both of them—all three, if you counted little Grace—with a strange smile. “What?” she said nervously.

    “Michaela really likes you,” he explained simply. “Never thought it’d happen.”

    Michaela and Jane were now both rather red.

    “No! Gee, these Kiwis are slow on the uptake,” he grumbled. “No, never thought the miracle would occur that we’d have someone living next to us that she’d really take a shine to.”

    “Thanks!” said Jane with a laugh. “Though camping next-door to you and foisting myself on you every time it pours is more like it, I’m afraid.”

    “We don’t mind,” explained Michaela seriously.

    “Nope,” agreed Sol mildly. “But as I was saying before you two chatterboxes interrupted me,”—his wife here went into a giggling fit, but he pretended he hadn’t noticed—”correct me if I’m wrong, but I’d heard a rumour to the effect that Ms Wolfe’s spare time was entirely taken up by cultural exchange activities.” He eyed Jane blandly. “With our Japanese neighbours.”

    Jane went into a helpless spluttering fit from which she had to revive herself with a gulp of rye. “Whew! Good!” she gasped. “Yes, well, we gather that Mr Takagaki, Senior, is spending Easter respectably with his wife and his son’s family. And that next week he’s going home to Japan for a couple of weeks. In the company of said wife.”

    Mr Winkelmann pursed his lips in a silent whistle.

    “Yeah. Even Moana noticed that Ms Wolfe was really pissed off about it!” admitted Jane with a grin.

    “They’ll be having a merry weekend, then.”

    “They will, actually, in their terms. First Ms Wolfe is gonna show Moana every inch of that white wedding-cake she’s living in, she invited her early for the purpose; then they’re gonna have an executive-type lunch with a clutch of like-minded corporate ning-nongs—oh, plus poor little Simone Gautier—and then they’re gonna do a tour of possible flats for a person of Moana’s executive standing.”

    “That’ll be a short trip, then,” he noted.

    “That was what I was thinking,” agreed Michaela pleasedly.

    “No, well, I think it included possible sites for flats as well as possible flats.”

    “Why don’t she just settle for a guinea pig hutch in Casa Merry-Hell-With-Your-Arthritis?” he wondered.

    “He means that place that Carrano Development’s going to build down by the waterfront,” explained Michaela.

    “Yes. Well, I think she may do. She was very tempted by the brochure.”

    “Have they started them?” asked Michaela.

    “Yeah. Heavy trucks grinding up and down the waterfront with loads of land-fill six days out of seven, according to Adrian. Dust everywhere. He’s given up any idea of washing his windows. For the next year,” said Jane drily.

    “Nope, be quicker ’n that. Using them pre-cast concrete slabs that they just slot into place,” said Sol breezily.

    “Is that legal in New Zealand?” croaked Jane.

    He shrugged.

    “What about the earthquake regulations?” she croaked.

    He shrugged.

    “What about the foundations, Sol?” asked Michaela.

    “They’ve sunk ’em into twenny feet of mud, honey,” he replied. Jane had expected him to shrug again. She smiled at him. “You didn’t want ice in that there rye, did you?” he asked in alarm.

    “No!” said Jane with a choke of laughter. “Of course not!”

    “Good,” he said mildly.

    A comfortable silence fell...

    “If I was her,” said Michaela thoughtfully, “my feelings would be really hurt.”

    They jumped.

    “Uh—oh! Ms Wolfe!” said her husband. “Yeah, I guess yours would, honey. But she ain’t the type. Besides, she knowed he was married when she took up with him.”

    “Mm. According to Moana,” said Jane on a dry note, “she claims it’s convenient for both of them.”

    “Uh-huh. Don’t sound as if no feelings are involved,” he drawled. He heaved himself to his feet. “It’s franks and American mustard,” he warned Jane.

    “Super!” she said with a laugh.

    “Good, I’ll get on with ’em.” The Winkelmanns’ A-frame was entirely open-plan: he ambled towards the back of it where the kitchen area was, noting over his shoulder: “She sounds as hard as nails, Michaela, honey: don’t you lose any sleep over her.”

    After some time, Michaela said to Jane: “I think it sounds a bit sad.”

    Jane looked at her with immense liking. “So do I, actually, Michaela.”

    Moana’s report that Sammi claimed the relationship with Inoue was convenient for both of them was quite correct. Sammi was not in the least in love with him. She found him very attractive physically, he was very good in bed, and she was used to, and needed, a satisfying sexual relationship.

    However, so was Moana’s other report, that Sammi was pissed off with him. He had not let her know until just before Easter that he would be going back to Japan with Masako after the break. Sammi had said coldly: “I see. Thank you for telling me, Inoue. But perhaps I should warn you that European women don’t appreciate being treated like doormats or chattels. I would have appreciated a little more notice. I had assumed I’d be seeing you next Wednesday evening as usual. I had to refuse another engagement for that night.”

    Inoue had replied in his excellent Cambridge English: “I’m sorry. I did not realise that the arrangement was causing you any bother. Please do not hesitate to put me off, if you have other invitations for a Wednesday.”

    Sammi concluded grimly from this speech that he didn’t need her as much as she needed him. Which was more than likely: he was the sort of man who very obviously would only need to snap his fingers to have crumpet lining up for him. Whereas, as far as she could see, there was damned little else available in this neck of the woods for an unattached woman in her thirties. She meant, of course, an unattached woman with very definite standards in the matters of dress, personal hygiene, cars, music and food. It had not dawned on her that Inoue was entirely indifferent to all forms of Western music but that he did recognise that her Andrew Lloyd-Webber CDs were aural pabulum, and that his tastes in food and drink were far, far more refined than her own. And that he was also completely indifferent to anything pertaining to the automobile or any variation thereof, and drove a pleasant late-model fawn Jaguar merely because Jake Carrano had decided that good old Inoue had better have a decent car to drive while he was out here and told off young Bri from the Group to jack it up for him.

    Well, she would hang onto him while she needed him, Sammi had thought grimly. But she would very definitely look around for something more available, younger and more likely to want to enter into a permanent relationship. In the meantime…  First phoning to check that it would be open on the Thursday evening before the Easter weekend, Sammi had driven into Puriri and borrowed three books on Oriental cookery from the Puriri County Library. There was no sense in wilfully antagonising him: she might as well show him she was making an effort. Then, since there was no restaurant up at Kingfisher Bay except the outrageously priced Royal Kingfisher’s, she had gone to the Chez Basil in the Puriri Arcade for dinner.

    They weren’t doing a very brisk trade on the Thursday before the Easter break, and Basil, the maître d’ and part-owner, was very glad to see her and gave her a nice table. Sammi was very tempted by the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding that, now the colder weather had come, Basil had decided they could start doing as a special. It was really easy, took up almost none of Gary’s preparation time—though it did require a considerable amount of power, which was a consideration—and had proved very popular with their male clients in the past. And any left over could be used for rissoles. After some hesitation, Sammi decided against it. Too fattening, really, and after all, she hadn’t come all the way to New Zealand just to eat the sort of thing she could have at home. She didn’t know enough to ask Basil what wasn’t on the menu and as she wasn’t a regular or in the company of Sir Jake Carrano Basil didn’t ask if she’d fancy a grilled crayfish or a nice piece of really tender rump steak with fresh oysters? –Carpetbag. It wasn’t on the menu but whenever oysters were available they’d do it. He let her choose the “Thai prawns in garlic” without telling her that the dish consisted of frozen Thai prawns, and toddled back happily to the kitchen to pass the order on to Gary.

    “Yuppie,” the handsome blond chef and co-partner in the Chez Basil discerned immediately.

    “Yes. Well, female yuppie, dear!” said Basil with a smothered giggle.

    “Oh, well, it’s easy,” said Gary on a resigned note, attacking a bright red chilli briskly with his big chopper.

    “Proper shaved coconut, dear?” said Basil, peering into the fridge,

    “Eh? No! Put that back!”—Basil put the coconut back.—”Not for a female yuppie,” said Gary firmly. “I’m saving that coconut for Jake and Polly’s party of eight on Saturday. She’s ordered a rijstafel.”

    “Ooh! Fun!”

    “Get out of the kitchen,” said Gary with a sigh. Baz always made a pest of himself when they had a slow night—got bored, ya see. That was his trouble, low boredom threshold. “Go and offer the female yuppie a nice sweet white to go with the prawns. Um—some of that muck you got at that sale down in Hawke’s Bay’ll do. The so-called Riesling that’s so sweet they coulda just labelled it ‘dessert wine’ and been done with it.”

    Giggling, Basil got.

    “I can recommend this, madam,” he said smoothly, showing Sammi a bottle.

    Sammi let him give it to her and happily drank two glasses of it—no more, because she was driving—blissfully unaware that apart from the fact that it was alcoholic and white it bore no resemblance whatsoever to a Riesling or that in combination with the prawns in garlic, coconut cream and chilli it was really rather revolting. And, pointing out grimly to the fat maître d’ that she’d paid for the bottle, took the remains away with her.

    Basil shrugged slightly and wandered back to the kitchen. “The female yuppie took the rest of that bottle, dear.”

    “More fool her,” said the chef comfortably.

    Down in the thermal area it was not actually raining. Just very misty, which, added to the steam arising from the ground, meant that not all that much of the thermal area was visible. After attempting unsuccessfully on the Good Friday to get Dorothy (a) into a natural mineral-spring-fed hot pool without her bathers and (b) into his motel cabin and into his bed in it, Thomas the Tank Engine took her out to dinner with a pretty good grace, and only had his arm walloped once in the car afterwards. He made one more attempt to get her into his cabin that evening but it was a pretty half-hearted one. Next morning he attempted again to get her into the private hot pool their two cabins shared minus her bathers but again, didn’t succeed. So they went to look at mist-shrouded geysers, instead. Then they had lunch at a strange little restaurant which produced marvellous chicken soup but less than ordinary everything else, and went to look at blue and green lakes in the mist. On the way back they stopped off at Mrs Ngapuhi’s and had afternoon tea with her, her daughter, her daughter-in-law, and a clutch of the grandkids. The men were not in evidence and when Thomas wondered why, as they drove back to their motel, Dorothy explained that they’d either be at the footy or in the pub watching the footy or the races, and was it any different in Blighty?—No.—No, she hadn’t thought so.

    “These ones are brown, though. What about these extended Polynesian families?” he whined.

    “Shuddup. Anyway,” said Dorothy, who strangely enough over the last couple of days had begun to feel slightly fed up, and had come to the conclusion that this was why, “I’m slightly brown myself.”

    At this point some remark she’d passed about some of her ancestors having been here for only a hundred years came back forcibly to Thomas the Tank Engine. “Oh,” he said feebly.

    This should have made Dorothy feel a lot, lot better but oddly enough, it didn’t. He put a stealthy hand on her thigh as they pulled in at their motel but she merely sighed and said: “That is not gonna work. And if that’s what you came for, you might as well go home now.”

    “No!” There was a short silence. “A chap’d be unnatural not to try,” he said sulkily.

    “Yeah.”

    “I really came because you promised me Orakei Korako the Thermal Wonderland,”—he had learnt the phrase off by heart—”and—um—that other place. Think it starts with W.”

    “Ninety-nine percent of New Zealand place names start with W,” said Dorothy heavily.

    “I’ve noticed that!” he replied eagerly. “Like—um—Rotorua, and Rotoiti, and Roto-ira, and—”

    “Go on,” said Dorothy unkindly.

    “Rotomahana!” he said proudly.

    She gulped. “You’ve been reading the index in your Shell map.”

    “Yes. –That place where they have genuine geothermal steam that comes up hot out of the ground, Dorothy,” he said plaintively.

    Dorothy stared hard at the genuine geothermal steam rising from a pipe just outside their cabin.

    “Aw, be a sport.”

    “I don’t know if they’ll let you look round the actual geothermal power station, Thomas, I’ve never been there,” she said weakly.

    “Well, they may not this weekend, unless they do guided tours, but they definitely will on Tuesday, because they’ve written me a letter confirming an appointment there,” he said happily.

    “WHAT?” she shouted. “I’ve got to be back at work on Tuesday! What’s the Iceman gonna say if I’m AWOL?”

    “You are an exec,” he said meekly.

    Dorothy opened her door. “Yeah, a responsible one. I’m driving back on Monday like one of us planned. You can do what you like.”

    Thomas got out hurriedly. “Aw, be a sport, Dorothy,” he whinged.

    “No. And don’t follow me in, thanks, I’m exhausted by all those geysers in the mist and Shrewsbury biscuits.”

    Thomas felt so pissed off with her that it wasn’t until he was back in his own cabin knocking back a slug of whisky that it dawned: “Geysers in the Mist.” Hah, hah.

    They had a reasonable dinner at a pleasant enough modern hotel that evening and, there being manifestly nothing else to do in Rotorua on a Saturday evening, went to a horror movie. Thomas attempted stealthily to put his hand on Dorothy’s thigh during it but got his arm walloped for his pains. So he didn’t try anything as they returned to the motel, just said sadly: “You’d enjoy sex with me. I’m good at it.”

    “Men always think that being capable of an orgasm correlates with ‘good at it.’ Funny, that,” said Dorothy, getting out of the car.

    Thomas rushed round to her side and panted into her ear: “Cunnilingus!”

    “Good for you,” said Dorothy cordially, going inside and shutting the door in his face.

    “I’m very good at that,” he said sadly through the keyhole.

    “Well, go and practise it,” said Dorothy unkindly, heading for the bathroom.

    When she came back he’d disappeared, but she wasn’t altogether surprised: Rotorua was most definitely not warm at night in April and the misguided Thomas, being under the impression it was early autumn in a mild climate, had only the lightest of jackets with him.

    Dorothy didn’t sleep very well that night but she wouldn’t have admitted it to him for all the tea in China. They spent the Sunday going to Orakei Korako the Thermal Wonderland, exploring Orakei Korako the Thermal Wonderland, and having a late lunch at Orakei Korako the Thermal Wonderland. There was a night-time bus tour advertised, to such sights as blow-holes, so they went on it. It was a very strange experience: Dorothy had to admit Thomas was correct in saying so. The tour was possibly intended to show them glow-worms, but they didn’t see any of those. Maybe it was the wrong time of year.

    Back at the motel, very late, Thomas sighed and said: “I suppose it’s no use my suggesting I come into your cabin and then come in?”

    “No,” said Dorothy briskly, getting out. “It’s far too late in the season for that. Like the glow-worms.”

    He turned up for breakfast at her cabin around ten the next morning, looking sad. “Me little light’s gone all dim. Like the glow-worms.”

    “So it ought to, at your age. Now, this morning we could look at trout pools,” said Dorothy briskly, “or have one more go at seeing a geyser actually display.”

    “No, I don’t think my little glow-worm could take that.”

    “Okay: trout pools.”

    “I don’t like TROUT!” he shouted.

    There was a short silence.

    “Or only to eat,” he said glumly.

    “These are pet trout. We feed them, they don’t feed us.”

    “It sounds like a pointless activity.”

    “It is. Very typical and pointless.”

    “I thought it’d be fun, coming back here with you,” said Thomas mournfully.

    “Silly you.” Dorothy got up. “If you only intend to sulk, I’ll set off for home. It’s a long drive.”

    Thomas just sat there looking sulky so she picked up her bag, put it in the car, and drove off. Only remembering round about Hamilton that she hadn’t paid her share of the motel! Hell’s teeth! Oh, well, she could always give him a cheque.

    It poured all the way through the Waikato, but on the whole Dorothy was fully in sympathy with it.

    Mike Collingwood tottered into the motel office of The Blue Heron on the Wednesday afternoon looking shattered, and clung on tightly to the counter.

    Julie Henare in person was on duty this afternoon. She was very like her sister Huia, just as pretty, but about ten years older. And at the moment a lot more pregnant. “‘Shup?” she said kindly through the bubble-gum.

    Interpreting this strange colloquialism with the ease of long practice, Mike replied in a hollow voice: “I’ve had a norful shock, Julie. Molly in the back?”

    Julie made a noise of agreement through the bubble-gum, nodding hard.

    Mike tottered through to the motel’s original little kitchen. Separate from the restaurant’s kitchen, they used it for the motel breakfasts. Molly was placidly making a batch of scones. “Baranski’s just got back,” he said in a hollow voice.

    “That was quick, dear. I hope he didn’t break the speed limit. I expect he didn’t stop for lunch. I wonder if he’d like some afternoon tea.”

    “Possibly they would,” said Mike in meaning tones.

    “Oh, is Dorothy with him?” she said brightly. “Good; I’ll just give them time to—”

    “No,” said Mike in a strange voice. “Not Dorothy.”

    Molly’s mouth opened and shut.

    Julie had followed Mike as a matter of course. “Help, has he got someone else with him?”

    “Yes. Legs up to here. Genuine—” He caught Molly’s eye. “Bird,” he finished feebly.

    “Shit,” said Julie.

    “That puts it rather well,” agreed Mike grimly.

    “Oh, dear,” murmured Molly.

    “Yes, don’t say it, Molly:” he said heavily: “you always did say he was that type.”

    “Well, yes,” she murmured.

    “I wouldn’t waste any of the scones on him, then!” said Julie with feeling.

    “No. We’ll just have them ourselves, shall we? And I’ll pop over to Number Three, I expect those nice young people would like a few!” she said brightly, putting the scones in the oven.

    “I wouldn’t call that Paul nice, exactly,” said Julie judiciously, chewing.

    “Mm, I got the impression that he bullies those two girls,” murmured Mike. “Which one’s his wife, again?”

    “Jacki. She can stand up to him okay. –It’s her money, ya know, that they’re putting into this health-food place he reckons he’s gonna run,” she informed them. “Anna’s her sister. Only she hasn’t got any money, either, their mad ole uncle, well, he left it all to Jacki, see?”

    They nodded.

    “Anna’s okay,” said Julie.

    “Yes, I thought she seemed very sweet!” agreed Molly, nodding pleasedly.

    Mike smiled. Molly was about five-foot two, plump, round-faced and ash-blonde. Anna was also five-two, plump, round-faced and blonde. And as far as could be told on short acquaintance, about as shy and unassuming as Molly had been when Mike first met her. In fact, since she was about twenty years Molly’s junior she could have passed for her daughter. “Yeah, okay, we’ll let Paul have a scone on the strength of having a sweet sister-in-law,” he agreed.

    Molly giggled obligingly, but once Julie, having peered into the oven possibly in order to ascertain that the scones hadn’t miraculously cooked in two minutes, had taken herself back to the office, she said: “I don’t like it.”

    “Mm? Oh, Baranski turning up with a dolly-bird? Me, neither.”

    “Mm… You know, dear, Dorothy really doesn’t know very much about men.”

    Mike eyed her cautiously. “And?”

    “Well, goodness, Mike, dear! Isn’t it obvious?”

    Mike scratched his chin. “I’m only a mere male, ya know. All that’s obvious to me is that either he didn’t get off with Dorothy like he thought he was going to, or they had a flaming row. And he’s picked up this bint to spite her.”

    Not reproving him for his language, Molly said: “Well, exactly, dear. It’s my guess that she wouldn’t—you know. Because she told me herself she didn’t want any entanglements.”

    Mike whistled.

    “Yes. But whatever she may have said to him before they left, of course he’ll have assumed that she did really want to!” she said brightly, nodding at him. “Men do.”

    “Oh, cripes,” said Mike limply. “Yeah, you’re right.”

    “And Dorothy wouldn’t realise it, but of course he’d turn to someone else.”

    “Sooner rather then later, yeah,” said Mike sourly.

    “Well, a really nice man wouldn’t have. But then, he’s the spoilt little boy type, Mike.”

    “Yeah.” Mike sagged on the bench. After some time he said: “What sort of jam shall we have on these scones?”

    “Well, what would you like, Mike, dear?”

    Mike got very close to her warm, flushed form—the kitchen was very small, and the oven was now giving out a lot of heat—and said something in her ear.

    Molly gave a loud giggle. “Apart from that, Mike!”

    Mike cleared his throat. “I know we said we’d keep it for the customers, but—”

    “Oh, the blackberry jelly! Would you like some, Mike?”

    Six-foot of ex-policeman looked at her plaintively and nodded.

    “Of course, Mike, dear! Blow the customers!” said Molly, bustling off to get it.

    Mike hoisted himself onto the sink bench—strictly forbidden by himself as being very unhygienic—and sighed deeply. Life, when ya got right down to it, could be pretty bloody simple. And pretty bloody good, if you’d happened across something like Molly at the right time. And known what it was when you found it. And had the sense to grab it and hang onto it like grim death when you had.

    When she came back clutching a jar of the home-made blackberry jelly he said: “I feel bloody sorry for poor old Dorothy. And actually, I feel rather sorry for him, poor stupid sod. She’s a very decent type: could be the making of him.”

    “Mm.”

    “Scones done yet?”

    “Just a few more minutes, dear.”

    Mike sat on the bench and swung his legs and waited for the scones in a state of perfect marital bliss. He was a highly intelligent man and he was fully aware that there was quite a lot he’d given up, when he’d thrown in his lot with Molly and The Blue Heron. But in his considered opinion, she was worth it.

    Sheryl had been waiting for Simone to get back from taking the kids to school. As soon as the car drew up she popped out eagerly. “Hi!” she beamed, bending down to the passenger-side window.

    Simone leaned over and let the window down.

    “Ya can do that automatically, ya know,” said Sheryl.

    “Yes. I keep forgetting. I weell get h’out.”

    “No! Take it into the garage!” ordered Sheryl in astonishment.

    “I ’ave forgotten the control mechanism.”

    “The remote,” said Sheryl helpfully. “How could ya forget it, it lives in the car!”

    “Yes? Oh! ‘It lives in the car’,” repeated Simone thoughtfully. “Of course, yes. But Pierre has took it to play and then I see h’it in his room. So I haide it from Armand.”

    “I geddit,” she said comfortably. “You wanna come over to my place? Shall we have a cuppa coffee?”

    “Yes, good-oh,” agreed Simone, getting out and locking the car.

    When the coffee was made—it having entailed Sheryl’s boiling her big jug and pouring the result on the brown dust—and Sheryl had checked that Billy was actually having a nap and not standing up in his cot peeling bits off the wallpaper, they sat down with it in Sheryl’s kitchen.

    The Carews had got back from their Easter holiday late on the Monday night, and to Sheryl’s horror Armand had been in evidence at Simone’s place all day Tuesday, so today was the first time she’d been able to talk to her. “How’d it go?” she asked eagerly.

    Simone had been expecting to hear all about Sheryl’s and Bryce’s visit to Bryce’s aunty’s place in Hawke’s Bay, so she gaped, rather. “Go? Eugh—Armand nags me all blimmin’ weekend,” she said blankly.

    “Yeah. Not that. The executive lunch with—” She jerked her head in the direction of Sammi’s house across the road.

    Simone smiled palely. “Vairy terrible, Sheryl.”

    “Ya don’t say. Well, go on! Who was there?”

    “Eugh…”

    “The boss?”

    “But yes, she is dhuh boss!”

    “Nah, not her. The bald man.”

    “Dr Kincaid,” said Simone faintly. “No, thank goodness.”

    “Nah, he’d be too high up,” said Sheryl thoughtfully. “Um—that nice old Jane lady we met at the supermarket that time?”

    “No. However, her boss was there. I theenk she is a Polynesian lady,” said Simone carefully.

    “Eh? Oh! The Maori lady! I’ve seen her going into the post office! I mean their offices.”

    Simone sighed. “Yes. Would it not be so convenient, to ’ave h’our own post office up here?”

    “Would it what!” she agreed with feeling. “So, go on. No, hang on,” she contradicted herself eagerly. “What was she wearing?”

    “The Maori lady? Her name is Moana. Is that a Maori name?”

    “Yeah, ’course.”

    “It’s vairy pretty.”

    “Yeah, it’s all right,” said Sheryl tolerantly. “But ya wouldn’t wanna call any of your kids that, ’cos only Maoris call their kids that,” she explained carefully. “Go on, what did she have on?”

    “Eugh… I theenk you call h’it a pants suit, non? For dhuh pants and dhuh coat, they—eugh— Are the same,” she finished weakly. “There is a word.”

    “They matched, ya mean. Wanna bikky?”

    “Yes, please.”

    Sheryl fetched an opened packet of Shrewsbury biscuits. “We got them on the way home. The shop didn’t have much. Bryce likes them,” she excused them. “But we better eat them up, they’ll go soft before ya can turn round, in this weather.”

    “Yes, it is vairy damp,” agreed Simone, taking a biscuit. “Ta.”

    “A pants suit. She’s tall, eh? Woulda looked good on her,” she said on a wistful note. “What colour?”

    The pants suit had been a bright jade green. Simone was incapable of explaining this. She looked at her helplessly. “Green.”

    “Grassy green?”

    “Eugh—non. Definitely not.”

    “Apple green?”

    “Eugh—I have never seen an apple of that shade.”

    “Right. Um… Olive— Hang on. Was it a sort of sicky dark colour, like with a lot of brown in it?”

    “I know olives vairy well. No, it was most unlike the green of olives.”

    Sheryl frowned over it. “Did it have more blue in it?”

    “Ye-es… That is correct. But it was not dark.”

    Sheryl nodded pleasedly. “Goddit. A nice bright jade green, it woulda been. Go on, Simone. What were the pants like? Wide legs?”

    “Ye-es… Yes. Waide legs. The leetle—eugh—pleats at the waist. The belt was wide, and it was of pretend snake.”

    “Fake snakeskin. Coulda looked good.”

    “The shades were white and grey. Weeth a leetle of pale yellow.”

    “Eh? Oh! The belt, ya mean! Ya musta got a good look at it,” she acknowledged.

    “Yes. They all talk vairy fast. But also about things I don’t know a blimmin’ thing about,” she said glumly.

    Sheryl nodded understandingly.

    “The top is white, un tricot. That is a jersey, I think. Vairy…” Simone waved her hands helplessly in front of her own slender person.

    “Tight?”

    “Yes. It was taight. Also—also—thin!” she produced with relief.

    “Yeah. Woulda looked good on her figure. Any jewellery?”

    “The quite large earrings of the coral!” said Simone eagerly. “Also the lipstick was—it matched!” she said proudly.

    Sheryl sighed deeply. “Yeah. Some Maori girls can look rilly good, ya know?”

    “The coral shade… I cannot describe the effect. Somehow her complexion shines.” Simone rubbed her own nose dubiously. “I theenk that’s the wrong word.”

    “Well, I know whatcha mean,” said Sheryl heavily.

    There was a short silence.

    “Janine—that’s Bryce’s cousin—she’s got this fabulous coat, she got it in Sydney.” Sheryl described the coat in detail but Simone did not make the mistake of assuming the interrogation was over. Sure enough, Sheryl returned abruptly to the previous topic. “Who else was there?”

    It was eventually established that Akiko Takagaki had been there (she was all right, according to Sheryl), in a bright red sheath frock under a black bolero jacket. And very high heels: black patents. Gold bangle and matching hoop earrings. Sheryl looked sour, but admitted that it sounded ace. There had been a young man who was one of the library staff but Simone thought he was gay, as he did not seem interested in Akiko. Sheryl agreed he must have been. And a young couple, he was with the Carrano Group but Simone had forgotten his name. No, his wife hadn’t been nice, she admitted glumly: she was an accountant and worked for a big firm in town and had understood all the things the others had talked about. And they had no children. Sheryl pulled a sour face and nodded sympathetically. The hostess had been in white. A fine wool pants suit over a skinny-rib jersey. Her jewellery consisted of a necklace of large amber beads and as Sheryl had seen her wearing this they were able to establish the fact with relatively little difficulty. Her shoes had been white also: brogues according to Simone, with large rubber soles which Sheryl on due consideration pronounced to have been those ridgy crêpe ones, they were rilly In, only she’d thought, scowling, it was mostly the kids that were wearing them.

    “And they all talked about work?” she said sympathetically.

    “Yes. Some Armand did not understand and after, he was so angry, he suh-said h’I ’ave been out here so much longer, I should ’ave ’elped ’im, and that I am not fit to be dhuh wife of an executive!” she gulped.

    “Heck, who wants to be a blimmin’ executive wife anyway!” said Sheryl robustly.

    “Not me,” admitted Simone, sniffling.

    “No. Don’t bawl, Simone.”

    “But now he says that we must return dhuh ’ospitalitay, and I can’t, for I can’t talk to them!” she wailed, bursting into tears.

    Sheryl got up and put a motherly arm round her. It was clad in an excruciatingly tight black skinny-rib jumper and wasn’t much plumper than Anne-Louise’s arm, but it was definitely a motherly arm. Tipped with magenta claws or not. “You won’t have to. Bryce’s mum says that’s the good thing about being the hostess, you can always concentrate on the food. Nobody’ll notice if ya can’t talk to them, Simone.”

    “Armand will notice.”

    Sheryl gulped. “Uh—yeah, he prolly will. But it won’t do any harm, that’s what I’m saying.”

    “Also I cannot cook weeth New Zealand foods,” she said dolefully.

    This was true: Sheryl concealed a wince. “Yeah. Well, I’ll give you a hand.”

    “Ta, Sheryl,” said Simone dolefully.

    “Blow ya nose,” said Sheryl kindly, fetching her a handful of tissues from the box that stood on the breakfast bar.

    Simone blew her nose but her lip wobbled and she confided: “I ’ad hoped that it would all be so much better in New Zealand, but Armand is worse. And—and I theenk that he is jealous because I understand the local accent and he finds it so difficult.”

    “Well, ya been here longer than him. He’ll settle down. And the kids have improved, eh?”

    “Mm,” she said dolefully.

    “Cheer up, ya don’t have to see that much of him!” she said bracingly. “After all, he’s out at work all day, eh? And then in the evenings doesn’t he usually go into his study and work, too?”

    “Yes. He says that… I am not sure of the English word. I think you would say, that this is a crucial period for the university?”

    Sheryl shrugged. “Yeah. Well, that sounds right. Who cares, it gets him out of your hair.”

    “Yes,” said Simone with a sigh.

    Sheryl went over to the jug and switched it on again. “We’ll have another coffee, and then we’ll get Billy up and go down to Puriri and show that lady in Tricksie’s that little frock you smocked for Anne-Louise.”

    “But Sheryl, I h’am merely an amateur of the sewing!” she gasped in horror. “My friend, Annick, is the professional at the sewing and she has shown me some theengs, but I can h’only sew little frocks!”

    “Good, that’s what they want at Tricksie’s. Unusual little frocks with real neat-oh smocking. Mum reckons your smocking’s as good as her gran’s, and that’s a compliment, I can tell ya!”

    Limply Simone let herself be organised into packing up a couple of little frocks, and changing her own garments for something Sheryl considered more suitable for the lady at Tricksie’s, and setting off for Puriri.

    “I miss Annick so vairy much,” she confided as they drove south.

    “Yeah, ’course ya do. You wanna encourage her to come out.”

    Simone tried to envisage the very French Annick in Kingfisher Bay, and gulped. “She would not laike to leave her home,” she said faintly.

    “You asked her?” replied Sheryl keenly.

    “Eugh—non.”

    “Ask her,” said Sheryl, taking one hand off the wheel to pat her knee.

    “Eugh—yes, I shall, but I theenk she weell not come. What could she do?”

    “She could do sewing for all those rich old ladies that live down Kahikatea Boulevard, for a start!” she said with feeling. “Me and Billy were in Swadlings’ the other day and that Mrs Gould came in—ya prolly don’t know her, she’s an ole bag,” she explained—“and she was saying, did May know of anybody that could do really good dressmaking, and May said there’s nobody in Carter’s Bay. And Mrs Gould, she was going on about how she can never get anything to fit. Mind you, she prolly could if she lost about four stone.”

    “Y— Eugh—but if she is an old lady, Sheryl—”

    “Yes, exactly!”

    Simone thought it over. “I do not theenk that the immigration regulations weell allow it, but I’ll give it a go. I shall write to Annick tonight.”

    “Good on ya.”

    “While Armand’s in his blimmin’ study!” concluded Simone on a vicious note.

    “Yeah. Good on ya.”

    The car sped on down the motorway. Simone looked dreamily at acres of lumpy wet green fields. “If Armand wasn’t here, I should be so happy in New Zealand; I’ve got used to it now.”

    Sheryl Carew was much too sensible to say anything to this: it was too soon. But she thought grimly to herself that starting to sell her exquisite wee frocks to Tricksie’s was most certainly a start in getting shut of blimming Armand, once and for all.

Next chapter:

https://conquestofcartersbay.blogspot.com/2023/05/settling-in.html