Modified Rapture

15

Modified Rapture

    A huge American car, pink, with its top down, was parked outside the little dairy. There was no-one in sight, in fact the whole of Carter’s Bay, on a sunny but very windy day in late June, seemed to be asleep, so Beth Martin went over to the car and gawped avidly at it. It looked like something out of the Fifties. In fact, it looked like something out of 1954, because she had seen a film made in 1954 which had had an identical car in it. Well, certainly the same shade of pink—was it candy pink? Beth had no idea what make it was but it definitely looked like a 1954 American car to her. It was, of course, tasteless and vulgar, but in its way, quite perfect. Perfect. She sighed deeply.

    As she was standing there admiring it, the front door of the old post office over the road opened and someone came out, crossed the road, and said, smiling, to the dazed Beth: “Hullo again, Miss Martin. Admiring the car? Quite unique, isn’t it?”

    Beth had met the beautiful and terrifyingly competent Ms Coffi on the occasion of her recent job interview, but the reason she now goggled helplessly at her and croaked feebly “Hullo,” was not so much that she was immaculate and terrifying, but because it was Saturday. Working on a Saturday? Maybe it’d be a good thing if she didn’t get that job after all.

    Ms Coffi went on smiling at her so after a moment she blinked and said: “Oh—yes; it is.”

    They both stood there for a moment admiring it. During this period Beth reflected she’d never be able to ask her why she was working on a Saturday and whether they made her do it a lot, and that that coat she was wearing was the most gorgeous thing: a bright fire-engine red. Beth could never have worn red, she had red hair. And while the coat was gorgeous, it was not perhaps quite suitable for Carter’s Bay on a Saturday morning. Though if she was officially at work… Beth’s mum would have said it was entirely unsuitable for Carter’s Bay and in fact much too smart to wear to work, too. But suddenly Beth, without really meaning to, decided happily that she was never going to judge anybody or anything again in her whole life by what Jan Martin said and she’d start by taking Michaela’s and Sol’s advice and going into the Art Gallery in town and looking at the modern sculpture display. Sol had said it was derivative but interesting and Michaela had said: “It’s not very original. I like their Barbara Hepworth. They’ve had it for ages.”

    Suddenly a man’s voice with a strong American accent said from behind them: “Hi, Michaela, Mayli. Admiring the car? Isn’t she great?”

    And Beth jumped a foot and gasped: “I’m not Michaela!”

    Jack had been in Swadlings’, unavailingly trying to buy something along the lines of fresh vegetable. This woman’s back view had sure looked like Michaela’s: tallish; grungy olive-green windcheater; old jeans; old sneakers; and that glorious auburn hair peeping out from under a disastrous grey woolly hat. He went rather red and said: “Nor you are. I’m sorry. I guess it was the hair; it sure is an unusual shade.”

    “Yes. It runs in the family,” she said.

    “I get it: you must be Michaela’s cousin from Christchurch!” said Jack with some relief, holding out his hand. “I guess we’re going to be neighbours, huh? –Jack Perkins.”

    “Hullo,” she said shyly, shaking hands. “I’m Beth Martin.”

    “Glad to know you, Beth.” She was, he now saw, quite a lot younger than Michaela, who must be in her late thirties. Beth was… late twenties? He wouldn’t have said more than thirty. She was very like her cousin, but prettier: same wide forehead, big clear grey-green eyes, wide mouth, but her face was not characterised by the, let’s face it, folks, thought Jack, unaware that he was looking at her critically, square-jawed determination and right-down pig-headedness that characterised Michaela Winkelmann’s, under that mild and generally unfocussed surface of hers. “You two know each other, do you?” he added kindly.

    “Um—sort of!” gasped Beth.

    “Yes, we met when Miss Martin came for her interview,” said the ever-cool Ms Coffi.

    “Oh? You coming to work for us at Sir G.G., Beth?” he said to her with a smile.

    “Probably not,” admitted Beth. “I don’t think Dr Baranski liked me.”

    Jack gulped. The mere idea of anything that looked that much like Michaela standing up to Baranski—!

    “That was the PA job: Miss Martin’s got a scientific background,” said Mayli in a brightly encouraging tone, smiling kindly at her.

    “Yes. –Beth,” she said hoarsely, blushing.

    Very like Michaela, decided Jack. He came to with a jump and realised that an awkward pause was on the way to developing. “Uh—marine geology, is it, Beth?”

    “No. Marine zoology. He said he hasn’t got one of those, yet,” she reported dubiously.

    “A marine zoologist? No, we gather that the applications from inland Indian universities are now creating a Leaning Tower of Pisa in his outer office, but he hasn’t managed to find anyone suitable. Though God knows, the salaries are decent enough. And they get a real generous relocation allowance.”

    “Maybe they think New Zealand’s the back of beyond,” said Beth on a dry note. And Jack, who had just decided there was nothing much to her—that hair, and the pale, pearly-pink sheen of the skin that Michaela had, but a typical scientist with it—blinked, and looked again.

    “It could be a good stepping-stone,” said Mayli dispassionately. “There were some excellent American and Canadian applicants. Of course, I didn’t have very much time to look through the letters, and it isn’t my area of responsibility, but I did mention to him that some of them would be worth considering.”

    “He’d have hated that: (a) he hates being told what to do, and (b) he can’t stand anything from North America,” said Jack with a wink.

    Surprisingly, Ms Coffi actually gave a startled laugh.

    “His ex was an American,” Jack then admitted. “Sounds just like my second, actually. Very, very clean and efficient.”

    “Help,” said Beth in awe.

    Jack grinned at her. “Was he wearing the honourable ancestral corduroys, with the denim workman’s shirt and the English school blazer with the transparent elbows?”

    “No!” she said with a laugh that was very like Michaela’s.—She had that lovely contralto voice, too, noted Jack with pleasure.—“No, he had on a tweed jacket with leather patches—um, quite old; and a yellow jumper, and—um—jeans, I think.”

    “The antique country gent’s tweed and the canary yellow sweater, uh-huh: we know that outfit, too,” agreed Jack. “They the faded droopy jeans, or the brand new Levi’s, that day?”

    “They looked new,” she said limply.

    “Uh-huh. He was asked very, very tactfully not to wear the other pair to the office, because it was setting a bad example to the junior staff. Not to say giving some of the older female workers conniptions. The Levi’s are his answer to that, ya see. And in case you were wondering, that canary yellow sweater is not a lady’s sweater, though it looks like it. It cost the earth from the sort of place that supplies exclusive gents’ golfing wear. His clothes are all like that, we’ve discovered, haven’t we, Mayli? Either second-hand and antique with it, or very, very expensive. You may not have noticed the watch, Beth, but me and the rest of his colleagues can tell you that it is a Rolex—yep.”

    “I see. So he’s the sort of academic that’s a fake slob. I thought he must be. They’re quite common. We had several like that at Canterbury,” agreed Beth comfortably.

    Jack went into a terrific wheezing fit, nodding helplessly. Tears oozed out of the corners of his eyes. “Yeah!” he gasped when he could speak.

    Beth watched him with a little smile. “Is he a fake slob in the weekends, too?”

    “No,” he said feebly, hauling out his handkerchief. He blew his nose and mopped his eyes. “No, he’s not that bad. Gets round in genuine grunge; doesn’t shave, neither.” He winked at Mayli. “Most especially not when he’s ordered in to the office for urgent high-level conferences in the weekends. Are you working, Mayli?”

    “Yes. It is in my contract, Dr Perkins.”

    Jack sighed. “Yeah.” It was probably in her contract, come to think of it, that she had to call him ”Dr Perkins”, too. Only as to whether she or Kincaid had inserted that clause you could pay your money and take your choice! They were, when you came right down to it, a matched pair. His and Hers. Cool as two cucumbers. “So what’s so urgent? Though if it’s highly confidential, don’t tell us.”

    “It’s not confidential. We’re interviewing another lot of applicants for the job in our office on Monday, and we didn’t have time to review the CVs. So we’re just getting that out of the way, and then Dr Kincaid wants to go over the plans for the interiors of the administration block in detail. The architect and the interior designer are coming up at eleven.”

    “Thought the design was finished?”

    “The design as such is, of course. But Dr Kincaid wants to finalise certain details. We decided that rather than building in any fixtures, we’d prefer a modular approach.”

    “I see,” said Beth with interest. “So you can shift it round.”

    “Exactly. It isn’t possible to anticipate everything, of course, and while we’ve gone into such matters as the way the sun will strike the building in summer and winter in some detail, we may find that the planned arrangement of the rooms is not the most convenient, after we’ve been in the building for a year.”

    “Right,” agreed Jack limply. Jesus God, for a minute or two, there, the girl had sounded like Randi King Perkins in person! “Well, we better not hold you up; came over to get him a beetroot filled roll for his morning tea, did you?”

    “No!” she said with another startled laugh. Gee, two in one morning. Was it because it was a Saturday, or what? “He hates them, he’s long since asked Mrs Swadling not to put beetroot in his. No, we thought we might have some nice biscuits.”

    “Shortbread?”

    The whole of Sir G.G. knew that Dr Kincaid liked real Scotch shortbread and somehow, Jack couldn’t tell how, because Mayli was most certainly not a gossip, it had gotten around what he paid for it from The Deli in Puriri, the which had been asked to get it in specially for him.

    “No,” she said in a strangled voice.

    Jack felt a sudden pity for her: poor girl, wasn’t her fault either that she looked like a Black Madonna as Botticelli might have portrayed her or that she had no sense of humour. He smiled and said: “If he takes you all to the Royal K for lunch, just avoid the pizzas with the green capsicum on them, unless you’ve got a digestion like an ostrich.”

    “I know: they are rather awful, aren’t they?” She looked at the car again and said: “It is a lovely car, Dr Perkins. I’m so glad it arrived safely. –Bye-bye, Beth. Nice to see you again.”

    “Yes. Bye-bye!” gasped Beth.

    “See ya, Mayli,” said Jack limply, as she smiled nicely, nodded, and hurried on into the dairy.

    A short silence fell.

    “Don’t you think she’s beautiful?” said Beth timidly.

    “Mm. A Black Madonna by Botticelli?”

    “I’d have said by Fra Lippo Lippi. She has that fragile quality, as well as the suggestion of untouchableness, doesn’t she?”

    Oh, boy! An articulate, educated scientist with artistic leanings that had Michaela’s skin and hair? Jack was conscious of a strong wish to see what was under that grungy green padded windcheater, and also of a hope that it wasn’t as muscle-bound as the sturdy Mrs Winkelmann, whose shoulders were not only strong as an all-in wrestler’s, they were about as wide.

    “You’re right!” he said, beaming at her.

    There was a short pause.

    “So, you admire Mayli and you admire my Caddy, huh?” said Jack, rather wishing that she was even more articulate, even if it was at the expense of being even less like Michaela.

    “Eclectic tastes,” said Beth, smiling slowly.

    “Yeah, quite!” he agreed with a laugh. “Got her several years back; she was in a mess. Rusty, bits falling off of her. Hadda replace all the upholstery.”

    It was a rich cream. “Lovely,” said Beth admiringly. “It makes you think of… stiff petticoats and full skirts. And super-smart short hair or pony tails, and those very firm, pointy bras. Bowling along to the air force base in Arizona with the top down, in 1954!” she finished with a laugh.

    “She is a 1954 model, yeah,” croaked Jack. “Fancy a ride?”

    “Thank you, but I have to do some shopping,” admitted Beth reluctantly. “I haven’t got anything to eat in the flat. I don’t want to batten off Michaela and Sol all the time.”

    “No, of course. Uh—what were you gonna buy, if it’s not a rude question, Beth?”

    “No, of course it’s not rude. Well, basics, I suppose. You know. Potatoes and—um—bread, milk, marg. And I thought I might see if they’ve got a frozen steak and kidney pie.”

    “Nope. All they got in that freezer of theirs is giant bags of frozen peas, medium-size bags of frozen peas, and miniature bags of frozen peas, plus and medium-size bags of mixed sweetcorn kernels, diced carrot and frozen peas.” Beth’s face had fallen. “Didn’t the Winkelmanns warn you?”

    “I thought Sol was joking.”

    “That’s understandable,” Jack admitted with a smile. “Hard case, isn’t he? We-ell… I’m desperately seeking vegetable, myself. Even a potato would do, and Swadlings don’t keep those. Fancy a run down to the supermarkets in Puriri?”

    “In your car?” she gasped, face lighting up.

    Gee, that was flattering. “Yeah.”

    “Thanks!” she gasped, very pink.

    With rather a dry look on his face, Jack got into the car—the driver’s seat was, of course, on the wrong side for New Zealand roads, and thus at the kerbside—and opened the passenger’s door for her. Beth came round and got in eagerly. “Ooh, it’s lovely!” she said fervently.

    “Well, she ain’t bad. Now, you tell me if it gets too cold for you, okay?”

    “I’m all right, I’ve got my Christchurch hat,” she said, smiling at him. Lovely teeth. Very like Michaela’s: straight, even, not too large. Jack disliked large teeth in a woman—call him sexist and prejudiced, not to say brainwashed: right. He set off for Puriri, wondering (a) whether he should suggest lunch after the marketing, (b) if she’d let him take her somewhere decent, like, The Blue Heron, and (c) if she’d remove that awful windcheater when they got there? Not to say, (d) would what was under it be worth all the effort?

    The northern New Zealand winter rarely put on a day like this: cold but blue and clear. Jack was extremely pleased: not only could he show off the car at her best, but it gave Beth a real nice trip: good view of the countryside from the freeway.

    “I didn’t realise the motorway came all the way up to Carter’s Bay,” she said as he and a dozen other cars took the Puriri off-ramp and were immediately engulfed in a huge snarl of traffic on Riverside Drive. All those idiots what came up from the city’s northern suburbs in the belief that vegetables were actually gonna be less bruised at the Puriri supermarkets and that they might get two cents off of the price of a packet of washing powder. Whereas according to Dot the Puriri supermarkets were about the most expensive in the conurbation. Puriri itself was retirement country, very largely, and its citizens were in the reasonably affluent to very affluent demographic group. You coulda said, made it real homogeneous—and very, very boring.

    Jack conveyed these thoughts to Beth and she responded appreciatively and intelligently. Lovely smile, too. Jack began to feel as if all his Christmases had come at once. Well, she wasn’t the type of with-it, spirited young lady that had graced his bed any time these last three years, but face it: they might have been lively but there had been nothing but expensively altered teeth behind those glowing bright faces.

    The snarl of traffic finally crept its way to the supermarket carparks and after driving round for fifteen minutes he finally located a spot as far as was possible within the Newtonian laws from the actual supermarkets, and, first making sure that neither of the two vehicles that would be next his precious Caddy had suspiciously crumpled fenders, drew in, glanced cautiously at Beth and said: “Mind if I ask you a real odd question?”

    “Ask away!” she replied with her pleasant laugh.

    “Yanks are all odd, anyway, huh?” said Jack meanly. “I’m actually a New Zealander, but after twenty years of living over there, it’ll take me some time to become normal again. Uh, the real odd question is, Are those teeth of yours natural?”

    Beth licked her top teeth nervously. Quite a turn-on, truth to tell. “Do you mean, not false?”

    “No! –Jesus, that took me back thirty-odd years! Our Uncle Dick had false teeth: he used to do this revolting thing with ’em, made all the kids roar with laughter. Well, made our little cousin Timmy collapse in screams of terror.” Jack made yawing motions with his jaw.

    “Oh!” said Beth with a laugh. “Yes, Grandpa used to do that! Isn’t it horrible?”

    “Yeah. Too right,” said Jack in the vernacular. “No, I meant, have you had them straightened or anything like that? Wore braces when you were a kid, that sort of thing?”

    “No,” she said, staring at him. “Why?”

    “I guess it’s my generation. Last of the pre-fluoriders. Some sort of hang-up. Or fetish, maybe, if you like. Well,” he said, as he saw she was looking at his teeth, “I had all of mine fixed: straightened and/or capped, very, very expensively in California. My ex, she was furious: said I was throwing my money away. But I was on a real good salary and she only spent it on lengths of Indian muslin and goddamned pieces of quartz—crystal gazing; geology would have been a lot easier to take,” he ended with a sigh.

    “I see. You’d always wanted to have straight teeth, had you?” she said seriously.

    “Yeah. Dunno why. Never was much of a beauty, and the teeth, objectively speaking, didn’t make any difference, either way. But I just hadda have ’em done—y’know?”

    “Yes. I was like that about my Master’s,” said Beth, pinkening. “Mum was furious, she said I’d wasted enough time doing my B.Sc. and I ought to start earning money. But she couldn’t stop me, because I wasn’t living at home.”

    Jack was acquainted with the syndrome that didn’t want its kids to go to college—yeah. But it sure was over twenty years since he’d come across it! “Flatting, were you?” he said cautiously.

    “Yes. I had some part-time jobs. The Master’s took me four years, but I got through. We had to do some papers and a short thesis.”

    Jack asked what the thesis had been on as they strolled across to Cohen Cash ’n Carry. Sea-eggs, huh? He smiled a little, wondering what term she’d used in her paper, apart from the scientific one: all New Zealanders called ’em that, though he guessed a few ethnically-conscious Maoris would say kina instead, when they remembered to; it hadn’t been until Jack himself was well into his twenties and living in California that it had dawned that the rest of the world more commonly said “sea urchins.” He asked why she wasn’t working for the EnZed Fisheries Department and Beth revealed with a smile that they’d had a lot of cut-backs, and there were always lots of applicants with Ph.D.s for any job with them.

    “Ever eaten them as apart from tagging them?”

    “Yes: they’re delicious. I suppose it wasn’t very environmentally correct, though!” she said with a laugh. “We went on lots of field trips, right from my first year, and we used to eat whatever was available. Andy—Prof. Grahame—used to say we might as well learn first-hand about economic zoology, while we still could!”

    Jack nodded, and grinned. “So, do you sail, Beth?” he said as they plunged into the humidity of the supermarket. Created largely by the press of bodies, Jack didn’t kid himself that EnZed supermarkets bothered all that much about the comfort-level provided for their customers and employees.

    “No, I was one of the ones that just let Andy scream at them to pull that rope or turn that thingy when we were on the boat!” she said with a laugh.

    “Yeah. But—uh—you’re a good sailor, I guess?”

    “Yes, you have to be, in marine zoology. –It’s awfully crowded, isn’t it?”

    “Yeah. Dot—that’s my sister, Dorothy, she lived in Puriri for years—she says it always is, but Saturday mornings are worst. Now, I’m told that if you want good quality fruit and vegetables, you don’t buy them here, but at the greengrocer’s. So maybe we should look for basics, okay?”

    “Okay.” Rather limply, Beth Martin let Jack Perkins lead her off and manage her competently round the supermarket. He might claim to be a New Zealander but she could see that he was horribly Americanised. Was all that sort of… unflagging super-energy native to him, or had he acquired it over there? Over the washing powders he gave her a dissertation on enzymes, about which she of course knew far more than he, but didn’t like to point it out. At the gigantic bread display he led her past all those nice sliced ones, especially the white ones, and made her buy an unsliced wholegrain, he himself buying an unsliced wholegrain and a small, dark, damp rye. Then he led her to the dairy section where he bought some Philadelphia Light, explaining kindly what it was, decided upon the most appropriate brand of marg for her, and dragged her off to the milk. Lots and lots of big plastic bottles. Selling like hot cakes, there was a big notice saying it was a group special. Jack told her how unfriendly to the environment they were and bought two cardboard cartons of skimmer for himself, explaining as he did so that Swadlings’ frequently ran out of it. Resignedly Beth bought two cartons of skimmer, not letting on that she was the most hopeless carton opener in the country, the world, the universe: if they yielded up their contents to her at all, at best a gamble, they shot half of them all over her and the floor.

    Since it was winter Jack then led her down to the cartons of orange juice, telling her firmly she needed the vitamin C. (Which he pronounced “vittamin”, evidently unaware that his countrymen didn’t.) Beth’s flat in Christchurch had long since determined that orange juice was too expensive, blow what brand it might call itself, and so was that stuff the DSIR had zapped with their ray-guns and that was apple juice pretending to be mango or something. To Beth it tasted like apple juice pretending to be something else, but she already knew she was alone in the universe in this opinion, so she didn’t say anything as he examined those cartons with interest, deciding that it wasn’t adulterated and contained no chemical additives or preservatives, so he’d try it, forthwith putting a carton into his trolley (which he confusingly called a cart) next to his two large cartons of the most expensive brand of orange juice. What on earth did he do? wondered Beth dazedly. Mayli had called him “Doctor”: he must he an H.O.D. But even Andy Grahame’s wife hadn’t shopped that extravagantly and he’d been H.O.D. for years and they only had the one teenager at home, now.

    By this time she wasn’t at all surprised when he bought the fluffiest and most expensive brand of toilet paper. Beth bought the cheapest. Jack Perkins did not give her the spiel about the environment and unbleached toilet paper with mention of the Franklin River and/or rainforests thrown in, so Beth, who’d heard more than enough about that from her erstwhile flatmate, Sally (who couldn’t afford environmentally friendly bog-paper either), meanly retailed it to him.

    “Well, the spirit’s willing, Beth, only when it comes to the ass, the flesh takes over and points out in no uncertain terms that we only got one lifetime and there are some kinds of suffering that are unnecessary, if not pure masochism!” he said with a laugh.

    And Beth decided, provisionally, that he wasn’t too bad after all, and he probably couldn’t help it if he was Americanised.

    The hyperactive Jack, blissfully unaware (a) that his hyperactivity was off-putting to a somewhat introverted New Zealand girl who had grown up in a determinedly nice family in Christchurch, that nicest of all New Zealand cities, and (b) that his hormonal reaction to her was making him even more energetic, over-eager and just generally hard-sell than he normally was, went on dragging her round the supermarket and telling her what to buy and what not to buy.

    It was just as well that Beth wasn’t dazzled by him, because she could drastically have over-spent her budget. She refused firmly to buy any meat but soup bones (group special), and in the teeth of his opposition stocked up on own-brand pasta (as she thought pasta was only water and flour anyway, Jack’s objections made no sense to her) and own-brand rolled oats. “Partly for porridge, partly for muesli,” she said as he asked why on earth? Unfortunately this got him all keen and he dragged her off to the honeys. But Beth didn’t even look: she knew already that, desirable natural product though it was, honey was way beyond her budget. She ignored Jack’s cries of surprise and encouragement as he discovered little gift-size pots of this, that, and the other made from native flowers. The rata was lovely, but gritty, not everybody liked it; but Beth let him put some in his “cart” without saying so. Instead she said firmly: “I think I’ll see if they’ve got bananas on special, I like them on my muesli.”

    After that they got somewhat side-tracked in the by-ways beyond the spices but Beth let him put tins of coconut cream and Indian pickles and packets of other Indian thingies and enormously expensive tinned lychees into his cart without saying anything. It was his money. Not to mention his stomach.

    This section led on to the tinned fruits and Jack exclaimed over the Canadian blueberries and cherries, but was incensed by the prices. Then he decided to look for Mexican food. Did Beth like tacos? Beth thought she had had one once at a vegetarian place where Sally sometimes went for lunch, for a treat. Jack led her off eagerly, and gave her a great dissertation on Mexican food which according to himself was the only thing he missed about the States in general and about California in particular. He then piled his cart with stuff in packets and tins and jars but Beth didn’t take much notice, really. She was sure she’d forgotten something…

    “Cheese!” she remembered with relief.

    “They never heard of jack cheese,” said Jack sourly.

    “Sol said that last night,” said Beth, staring at him.

    “Well?”

    “I’ve never heard of it!” she said with a sudden laugh.

    “Right. Well, the cheese is back thisaway, I guess. Come on!” He forged ahead eagerly. Beth followed slowly, as best she could for the press of bodies and trolleys. Why did so many people bring their kids with them on a Saturday? They couldn’t all be one-parent families, surely? In fact, manifestly they weren’t: lots of the groups consisted of two sullenly cross and suddenly snapping parents plus the kids. Well, people were odd, that was all you could say.

    He tried to stop her buying a huge block of mild, pointing out that the tasty was a lot nicer. Beth replied that the mild was on special. And she didn’t think it would go hard before she could get through it, she ate a lot of cheese. Jack looked worried and told her a lot about her cholesterol level but Beth put the cheese in her trolley, not looking at him.

    Suddenly he came up very close to her and said in her ear: “Sorry. Am I being a pain in the ass?”

    “I suppose you can’t help it,” said Beth faintly, not looking at him.

    As she wasn’t looking at him she didn’t see that Jack Perkins went very red and suddenly looked rather as if he was two years old and about to cry. “I guess not. Right,” he said with an effort. “Just tell me to shut it, okay? You got everything now?”

    “I don’t know,” she said lamely. “I can’t think. Are the supermarkets up here always so noisy?”

    Jack winced as the loudspeaker, which had merely been broadcasting, very loud and tinny, some local radio station playing American pop music, suddenly burst into grating speech about a very special offer, Shoppers. He nodded through it. “I guess they are,” he said when it had finished and the music came on again. “You wanna go, huh?”

    “If you’ve finished?” she said, looking at him timidly.

    “Yeah. Well, bought too much, most probably. I’m not much of a cook,” he said, looking lamely at his piled trolley.

    Beth looked at him dubiously and suddenly wished that she hadn’t said that about him not being able to help it. “Well,” she said, smiling at him, “all that Mexican stuff doesn’t look to me as if needs to be actually cooked!”

    “It sure doesn’t!” he said, laughing. “Your genuine Old El Paso ready-packaged, this here is! Shall we go, then?”

    “Y—  Um—” Beth suddenly went very red.

    “Something you forgot?” said Jack kindly.

    “Yes. You go ahead,” she said in a strangled voice.

    “No, that’s okay. I’ll come with you.”

    Limply Beth went back to the toiletries area which she had stupidly by-passed earlier, and found the Tampax. “I know it’s dear, don’t tell me,” she said grimly. “I like this brand. It’s my one big extravagance.”

    “In my opinion, they ought to supply tampons free, it’s a goddamned shame and disgrace women have to pay for something they need as much as they do the air they breathe,” replied Jack militantly.

    “Yes!” gasped Beth, very startled. “I think so, too! –I never heard a man say that before.”

    “Well, my sister claims I’m as much a hidebound macho pig at heart as any of ’em, but I have thought about a few issues off and on, over the last forty-odd years,” he replied mildly.

    “Yes!” she said, laughing weakly. And wondering, as he led the way to the check-outs, how old he was. With that silver hair… Well, maybe he’d gone grey early. But he must be at least forty, clearly.

    Beth herself was a bit older than she looked: thirty-one. It had taken her some years, in the teeth of Jan Martin’s determined opposition, to get to university, get through her B.Sc., and then do her Master’s. For the last two years she had done a bit of illicit teaching at a private girls’ school which had been very glad to get a part-time lady science teacher, and hadn’t cared that she didn’t have the teaching qualifications which the New Zealand government declared she did ought to. Beth was aware she hadn’t made a very good fist of the teaching, but fortunately they’d only given her the highly motivated Sixth and Seventh Formers who were swotting for Bursary and Schol respectively, and didn’t need disciplining, only help with the work, and the very ignorant, rather timid Third Formers, who hadn’t yet got to the stroppy stage and were content to call her “Miss Martin” in tiny, awed voices and compete to see who could cut up a worm nicely, that kind of stuff. Beth could not have coped at all with the ghastly Fourth and Fifth Formers. As well as this part-time teaching she had continued with the sort of part-time dish-washing, commercial cleaning and waitressing jobs that she’d done in order to get herself through university. Mrs Martin, though disapproving loudly of the way Beth was living, did not enquire how she was managing to support herself financially.

    Perhaps Beth would never have stirred her stumps at all and got right out of Christchurch and away from Mum if it had not been for two factors. No, three, but the third had, or so Beth believed, been less significant.

    The first factor was her flatmate Sally’s brother, Ian Godber, with whom Beth had been desperately in love for years in a humble, slavish, there-when-he-needed-her way. Around the time Sally and Beth were embarking on their Masters degrees Ian, who was a couple of years older than Sally, had finished the history degree on which he’d been working, more or less, for years and years, in the intervals of being a leading light in student politics and, as he got older and student politics proved not enough of an outlet, in the radical left of the Labour Party. Everybody had expected he’d become a union administrator or something of that sort: since enterprise bargaining had been introduced it was not the sinecure it had been in New Zealand for the previous fifty years, but as Ian had bags of energy no-one thought this would matter to him. And if he didn’t do that his friends had assumed vaguely that he might go into teaching. But Ian didn’t take up either of these careers. Nor did he go into politics full-time, as some of his female admirers had fervently declared he should. Instead, he finished the law degree which he had started off doing in combination with the B.A. in history about a decade back. This took three years, during which most of his friends and certainly Sally and Beth kept expecting him to give it up. The fact that he dropped the student politics almost entirely during this period didn’t suggest anything to anybody, except that Ian was finding law a lot tougher going than history with a bit of sociology and pol. sci. thrown in had been. Simultaneously with graduating he published a paper in New Zealand’s law journal, cut his hair, shaved off his beard, bought a couple of smart suits and accepted a job with one of Christchurch’s stuffiest legal firms. His old friends went around in a daze, unable to decide whether Ian had really gone over to the other side or was joining them in order to beat them.

    Some people actually went on believing for almost a year that Ian had a hidden agenda. Then his engagement to the daughter of one of the senior partners in the firm was announced. Complete with giant party, dinner jackets, pastel satin dresses, orchid corsages, hot oyster patties and an enormous ice swan. Sally went, but very sourly. Beth didn’t go, partly because she hadn’t been invited and partly because, even though Ian hadn’t come near her, let alone near her bed, for the last six months, her eyes were so swollen from crying that she could hardly see out of them.

    “Let’s face it, Beth,” Sally had said when the dust had settled a bit: “he was never in love with you, really. He was only using you. He was like that when we were little,” he added sourly. “I’d sort of forgotten.” Beth had listened gloomily as Sally told her a long and involved story about Ian, the small figures from Sally’s and Jenny’s doll’s house, and Ian’s hidden agenda, aged nine. And agreed gloomily—because even heartbreak hadn’t seemed to stop her brain from functioning—that she was better off without him, yes.

    Ian had been taller than Jack Perkins and better looking, even with the beard, but his personality had been almost as frenetic, though it had not expressed itself in quite the same way. Beth looked sideways at Jack telling the supermarket check-out lady that in the States they had boys that packed and carried for you, and felt considerable reservations about letting herself get mixed up in any way with one of those, again.

    The second factor in Beth’s deciding to up stakes and try her luck in a different city was the fact that she turned thirty-one.

    And the third was a letter from Michaela. Jan Martin came from a large family, with most of whose members she corresponded regularly, but Michaela, who was a cousin’s daughter, was not one of the ones with whom she had kept in touch. Jan Macdonald Martin did know, however, where Michaela was living and whom she had married, because her sister, Maureen Macdonald Mitchell, was the mother of Polly Mitchell Carrano. And what Maureen knew the whole of her extended family very soon knew. So Mrs Martin had heard a great deal, firstly about poor Michaela struggling to sell her lovely pots, then about Michaela’s having married that lovely Sol, and then about their little house and darling little baby girl. Jan’s nature was not as sweet as Maureen’s so what she had conveyed to Beth, who hadn’t listened much, was that Michaela, after pigging it in a horrid little flat by herself for years, had married a weird American and was pigging it with him in a hut up Carter’s Inlet and what on earth they were living on, she, Jan Martin, would like to know!

    When Sally had incautiously let it out to Mrs Martin that Beth was thinking of looking for a job in Auckland, Jan had immediately rung Maureen and then written to Polly. Polly had then written Beth a lovely letter, inviting her warmly to come and stay while she looked around for a job and a place to live, but this had not been a deciding factor in Beth’s move. For one thing, the letter was written on incredibly thick, creamy notepaper, the like of which Beth had never laid eyes on before but instantly recognised as rich paper, to boot headed in small, chaste gold lettering “Polly Carrano” with the address in Pohutukawa Bay. Added to this were such points as social justice, the erosion of the welfare state, and the exploitation of the workers by Sir Jake Carrano and his fellow capitalist entrepreneurs. So, take it for all in all, Beth would rather have put her head in a snake pit than accepted Polly’s kind invitation.

    Michaela’s invitation was very different. Beth hadn’t seen Michaela since she herself was about eight and Michaela about seventeen: Mum had dragged them all off to stay with the Danielses on their farm in Taranaki one August holidays. She and Mrs Daniels had spent the entire holiday gossiping spitefully about the other members of their extended family. Even though it poured the entire two weeks, Beth’s brothers had escaped outdoors with the harried-looking, meek, almost entirely silent Mr Daniels. Beth’s older sister, Katrina, had spent the fortnight sulking because there were no boys available on an obscure Taranaki backblocks farm and “skulking in her room” (Jan Martin) trying out lipsticks and nail polish. Michaela must have been in her last year at school, but she did not share Katrina’s interests. She explained, after it dawned that Beth didn’t share them either and that Beth’s brothers were victimising her because she was a girl, that in the August holidays she usually went to the hut up near the boundary unless Mum stopped her, and Beth could come with her if she liked. Beth got up behind Michaela on a shaggy old brown horse, not admitting that she was terrified of the animal and had never been on a horse before, and off they went. Michaela’s hut was positively miraculous. She had clay and rocks and paintbrushes and wood and stuff in there and did carving or painting or drawing or made clay statues, and she had some lovely books about rocks and three art book that were a bit torn because they were second-hand but had lovely pictures. And she let you do whatever you wanted to and didn’t talk at you! Beth did lots of drawings and used Michaela’s watercolours. Michaela put the ones that Beth thought were best on the walls of the hut next to her own good ones and some pictures she’d cut out of old magazines. Beth had never been so happy in her whole life. Before or since, actually. But she had never seen Michaela since. So she had been a bit stunned to receive Michaela’s letter.

    The letter was not written on rich paper. It was on ordinary writing paper. Airmail paper. (It was Sol’s writing paper but Beth of course did not know this.) It said:

Dear Beth,

    You probably won’t remember me. Michaela Daniels. I’m Michaela Winkelmann now. You came to stay with us in Taranaki when you were about eight, maybe you remember that.

    Polly says you’re thinking of coming up here. You could stay with us for a bit if you like. We know of a flat you might like. It’s not really a flat because it hasn’t got a proper bathroom but there is a toilet downstairs. It would be very cheap, about $50.00 a week, but maybe that isn’t cheap in Christchurch terms.

    When I say with us I mean me and Sol and Grace. The house is an A-frame and open plan. Sol and Grace both snore a bit.

    Do you still draw? I’m a potter. There’s some good clay up the Inlet not too far from us.

With love from

Michaela.

PS. Sol says to say when I say Grace snores I mean our baby not his mother but I think that’s obvious. Her name is Grace too, but she lives in Florida.

    “I’m going,” said Beth, on receipt of this letter.

    Sally, to whom this remark was addressed, had agreed that Michaela sounded all right. But what was he like? After some thought Beth had said he must be all right if Michaela had married him. Sally, though citing several instances of friends who had married, variously, stuffed shirts, real weirdoes, or hopeless wimps, had to agree that Beth was probably right.

    Beth had decided that the flat sounded all right and, if she accepted their local dairy owner’s kind offer of a lift to Picton and thence the Cook Strait ferry with his brother who drove a truck, she’d save quite a bit and that would help with rent while she looked for a job. And that while there was no saying she’d get the job, at least getting an interview for the PA job with the new university was, as Sally had said, a start. Sally herself, now well on the way in her carefully planned career in a pathology lab, and the proud possessor of a tiny home unit with a huge mortgage and an almost-new Toyota with giant loan repayments at an enormous rate of interest, agreed wholeheartedly and urged Beth to go. Saying later on to her own mother, who was very unlike Jan Martin: “Well, I’ll miss her, of course. But heck, she hadda make a move or stagnate forever, Mum!”

    So Beth had made the move.

    The Winkelmanns had evinced no surprise at seeing her arrive with only one small suitcase and a battered pack. Their spare bed was a divan which had once been Michaela’s in her old flat and to give Beth a bit of privacy they had put up a couple of wobbly Chinese bamboo screens which they explained they’d borrowed from a friend who ran a recycling place. Even although she was a very shy person and no good with strangers and terrified of Americans Beth felt immediately at home with them and slept like a log for the three nights she spent with them, never in fact discovering if it was true that Sol snored. She knew Grace did, though: she often snored during her daytime naps.

    Sol had had no idea what this cousin might turn out to be: Michaela’s cousins featured, like for example, Lady Carrano, the most gorgeous thing on two legs and into the bargain an extremely clever statistical linguist plus and the sort of tempestuous lady who not only was more than enough to keep Sir Jacob’s eye from roving over the last ten years, but also did not hesitate to hurl a rock onto the lawn of her gracious residence at three a.m. to see if it would set the elaborate space-age alarm system off. (Yes, being the answer.) But equally related was a lady called Janet who was bit like Janet Wilson from the Puriri Library, if you could imagine her married with a couple of hulking, red-headed monsters of teenage boys. The sort of lady who wept copiously at weddings—y’know? So this Beth who was coming up to Auckland in the hopes of getting a job doing something scientific at Sir G.G. coulda been anything at all, really. But it had been a very, very good sign when Michaela had said, on hearing she might be coming: “I remember her. She used my watercolours as if they were acrylics. She was all right.” Even though it was possible that a person who was all right at the age of eight or nine might have lost it, since, Sol had agreed mildly when Polly had said very casually, why didn’t Michaela write to her. Subsequently holding himself back like nobody’s business when he saw the actual letter. Because for one thing, if this Beth was still keen after she’d read it, she was almost undoubtedly okay. And because for another if she was the sort of person who let it put her off, it would be a good riddance. And because for another he had taken a vow—remember that vow? Yup, uh-huh, sure do—that he would not attempt to correct, change, or interpret Michaela. Because by the time he was seventy and little Grace might be having a little Grace of her own, he intended to be still married to Michaela. Yup.

    Of course, when he met her it took Sol Winkelmann about two minutes to realise that Beth was more than okay, she was the sort of person of whom Michaela might make a friend. Which would not be a bad thing, because so far Michaela’s friends—real ones, to whom she would speak and who were happy when she did not speak—numbered precisely five. There were Bob and June Butler, who lived in Puriri and who had been her friends since their art school days, plus Pauline Wilson, an artist and teacher of illustration, who lived in the city and didn’t get up all that much to Carter’s Bay, plus Jane Vincent and Sol himself. There was also a small handful, such as Euan Knox, and Ida Grey who ran Galerie 2, with whom she got on real well but with whom she had very little truly in common. She knew lots of folks and by now most of Carter’s Bay knew her; but though not a few pleasant people such as May Swadling and Penny Bergen would have been happy to see more of her, Michaela wasn’t interested. Sol didn’t think this was all that much of a pity: although he was the gregarious type himself, he didn’t think there was any essential merit in being so. But one more couldn’t hurt.

    Beth had been thrilled with the flat above Shop 3, and so Sol had forced their spare bed on her, ignoring her protests that they used it as their sofa, and pointing out that they had a sofa, it was a real genuine one and to ignore Michaela when she said it had come outa her shed, because for that gaping hole in between its good spring and that other gaping hole was gonna be fixed any day, now! Somehow, after she’d recovered from the helpless giggling fit, Beth had found she’d accepted the loan of the bed. She didn’t mind in the least that there was no bathroom in the flat and you had to go downstairs to use the little toilet behind the empty shop. And retailed these facts happily to Jack Perkins, since he’d asked, as they walked slowly back to the carpark with their shopping.

    “You got the best of the bargain, then,” said Jack on a sour note. “I got the middle one, I have to share the john with the lady that works in the crafts boutique. And don’t tell me I’m out, week-days, because the goddamned store’s open weekends!”

    “Yes. Um—that’s Ida Grey, isn’t it?“ said Beth shyly. “I thought she was very nice.”

    Jack sighed. “Yeah. So’s the john. Her husband’s a bit of a handyman, she’s made him do it out entirely. Pale pink Formica walls to about shoulder height, then pale pink semi-gloss paint above that. The floor’s pale pink vinyl: fake Spanish tile pattern. Not that I haven’t seen worse, Stateside. She has left the original pedestal and hand-basin, I’ll give ya that. But she’s put one of them fluffy pink doormats on the lid of the john. And there’s a dead pink fluffy dog lying at its feet.”

    Beth by now had dissolved in giggles.

    Jack watched her with a little smile, and admitted: “She’s put two kinds of pink soap in there, too. One’s a real nice English soap, cake soap, y’know? And the other’s a liquid soap. And there is certainly nothing objectionable about having to share it with the sort of nice lady what uses pink soap, y’know?”

    “Yes! Stop!” squeaked Beth in agony.

    Jack grinned. “Well, it’s the kind of bathroom I’ve gotten used to, though I admit I didn’t really expect to see it over here. Dot’s bathroom was more the utilitarian old, hard piece of green Palmolive and rough brown towel, with a freezing draught because the window was always open, y’know?”

    Beth nodded feelingly.

    “Yeah. Remember Solvol? Our grandparents always used to have that in their laundry.”

    “Ooh, yes!” she gasped. “So did Grandma and Grandpa!”

    “Right. Where ya hadda wash up after ya came in from the yard.” Jack sighed. “Oh, well. Times have changed, huh?”

    “Yes. So what is bad about having to share Ida’s toilet?”

    “Huh? Oh!” he said, abruptly recalled to the actual subject of the conversation. Jesus, he must be getting old. Wandering. Not to say reminiscing. “Nothing, in itself. But she keeps popping out and asking me in for coffee or a chat. It doesn’t seem to have penetrated that when I say I’ve got work to do, I mean it. Sunday or not.”

    “I see,” said Beth, twinkling at him. “It’s harder to put the nice ones off, isn’t it?”

    “Say what!” agreed Jack with a laugh.

    Beth smiled a little uncertainly. She thought she had heard that on TV. –Sally, Beth and their flatmate, Pete, hadn’t watched all that much TV, their old set didn’t have very good reception. Then Pete had inherited his mother’s old video recorder and though it had lost its remote control they had taken to watching tapes on that. Beth didn’t much like science fiction but Pete was a fan, so they all watched his tapes of that.

    “I can’t afford it,” she said bluntly as Jack urged her to come and have lunch.

    “No—on me!” he gasped, very startled.

    “No. I mean, thanks, only you can’t pay for me,” said Beth, going very red.

    Jack laughed, and protested and, really, an objective observer would have had to admit that he put on a very charming performance. But Beth wasn’t impressed by it.

    “Look, I’ve got to eat, anyway. And I really cannot stand another meal of May Swadling’s beetroot filled rolls. Which in case your cousins haven’t explained, is all what can be bought, up their way!”

    “Sol did say something about the filled rolls. I thought you didn’t have them in America?”

    “No, we do not have them in America,” said Jack acidly. “We don’t have anything as good as The Blue Heron, either: not at less than fifty times their prices, that is. If you’re not actually indecent under that windcheater, they’ll let us in, so why are you standing here letting me starve to death?”

    Beth was now redder than ever, but she said with an attempt at dignity: “I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you were starving. Um—well, I will come, but I’ll pay you back.”

    “Yeah,” said Jack on a tired note, wondering what in Hell was wrong with him, for God’s sakes! Or didn’t she like men in general? Or Americans? Well, she seemed to like goddamned Sol Winkelmann, all right. Maybe that ran in the family. Looking grim, he headed for the car.

    “Hullo, Jack, how are you?” said Mike Collingwood very politely as they entered the—oh, dear—very crowded restaurant.

    “Hi, Mike. I’m great, thanks. Uh—didn’t realise you’d be so busy this time of year.”

    “Yes, this is the day one of the foodie groups from town come up for lunch. They’ve got a regular booking, every two months. Usually drink our cellar dry, too. We-ell… Could squeeze you in, maybe, if you don’t mind sharing a table. Let’s see… Do you know Jill Davis?”

    “Uh—yeah. Slightly.” Jack peered, but most unfortunately Jill Davis didn’t seem to be with the curvaceous Lady Carrano, she seemed to be with her square blonde German friend.

    “I’ll just see if it’s all right to inflict you, then,” said Mike, concealing his immense curiosity about the young woman who looked so much like Michaela. He went over to Jill and Gretchen’s table.

    Gretchen greeted him with: “Is that Michaela, or haff my eyes gone funny?”

    “I dunno about your eyes, Gretchen, but it’s definitely not Michaela. Dead ringer for her, though, eh?” said Mike meanly in the vernacular.

    Gretchen replied simply: “She is a dead ringer for her, ja.”

    “Look, she’s compiling a dictionary of the Antipodean vernacular, youse Good Keen Men cannot phase her,” said Jill heavily. “We’re not ready for pudding yet, thanks, but we’ll have some of that really decent Riesling you keep under your counter for Jake Carrano.”

    “Didn’t come about that. Do you know Jack Perkins?”

    “Yes. Why?” said Jill blandly.

    “He vill vish to know if Jack and the Michaela dead ringer may share our table. The answer is, trot them over immediately, before Jill bursts off curiosity.”

    Mike winked solemnly at Jill. “Aryan side forty, Poms naff all. I’ll do that, then.” And wandered off.

    “If he wasn’t six-foot-two with eyes of blue you wouldn’t play up to him like you do,” said Jill evilly to her housemate.

    “Very likely. You are a poet and you don’t know it.”

    “I do hope that’s in your dictionary of Antipodean vernacular usage.”

    “Hah, hah. –I bet that Riesling hass all gone.”

    “Yes. In fact last weekend very probably saw the last of it: I heard Jake had a crowd of mates in here.”

    “The vay I heard it, Ken Armitage vas amongst them vith Magda von Trotte, so it must be on again, and the thing with Akiko must be off. –Hullo, Jack,” she said placidly.

    … “Blimey,” concluded Jill, quite some time later, as, having forced a last Cognac on her of course unwilling self, and a coffee on Gretchen who was—hah, hah—driving—Jack Perkins carted Michaela’s cousin away.

    “Ja, the resemblance is astounding.”

    “Not that, you Aryan imbecile,” she groaned.

    “His reaction to the revelation off the pale blue tee-shirt?”

    “You mean what was in it,” she noted drily.

    “Yes. Seldom haff I ever seen a man’s eyes stand on such stalks.”

    “Yes, he did make it pretty evident. Though it seemed to me that Beth didn’t reciprocate, not all that much.”

    Gretchen looked judicious. “I would say that she fully recognises vhat an attractive male animal he is.”

    “Eh?” Jill grabbed her housemate’s empty coffee-cup and sniffed it suspiciously but it only smelled of coffee. “Was there a but?” she sighed.

    “Ja. Although she recognises vhat an attractive male animal he is, she doesn’t really like him.” She raised her eyebrows. “Ja?”

    Jill smiled weakly. “For once, I’m in complete agreement with you. Thems was my impressions, too.”

    “Too bloody Yankified,” she concluded happily in the vernacular.

    Taken unawares, Jill collapsed in splutters over her empty Cognac glass.

    Slightly drunk though the Kowhai Bay housemates were, Beth Martin, who was very far from stupid, would have had to admit that they were more or less right about her reactions to Jack Perkins. She finally shook him off (not until he’d helped her carry her groceries upstairs, though) with a very curious sensation of mixed relief and disappointment. The relief was at not having to try to talk to a super-energetic male Americanised person with lovely clothes, even if he did own a great car. This at least what was Beth, who had decided not to think about Ian ever again, told herself.

    As for the disappointment, it was very mixed indeed. She was disappointed because on first laying eyes on him she’d thought how attractive he was, and had now had time to find out that the attractiveness went hand in hand with the super-energy and the American-ness. But on the other hand, part of her was disappointed to see him go, because she was still keenly aware of how very attractive he was!

    Beth went over to the huge uncurtained front window of her steeply gabled one-room flat and said sourly to the view of blue marina, wind-swept inlet, and low green rolling countryside with large concrete structures rising in the middle of it: “What a clot! Either like him or don’t like him! You can’t do both!”

    “Can you sing, Leigh?” asked Juliette brightly.

    Leigh eyed her warily. “Why, Juliette?”

    Giggling slightly, Juliette admitted: “Well, Penny Bergen from the saddlery, she’s starting a Gilbert and Sullivan group. I know you’re not living in Carter’s Bay yet, but if you’re interested, they’d love to have you.”

    “Are you in it?”

    “Well, Dave says I’m mad, of course. Well, yes,” she admitted: “I just thought, heck, why not! He’s got his stupid golf, he reckons he’s worked out it’s cheaper in the long run to pay for a membership at Sir Jake Carrano’s awful club up at Kingfisher Bay instead of going down the motorway to the one he used to play at, because of the petrol. Well, don’t look at me! But it’s made our Visa account look pretty sick, I can tell you! And the boys have got their stupid football and basketball—and Guess Who’s the mug that has to spend half her blimmin’ weekends driving them there!” she noted bitterly.

    Leigh nodded sympathetically: he was familiar with this syndrome, it had been pretty common at home, too. Apparently it was why families bought cars, these days.

    “And Patti’s got her ballet. Though goodness knows, she’s a hopeless lump at it, only I wouldn’t let on for the world, poor lamb!” she admitted with a laugh. “I usually just drop her off at that, I can’t stand those ballet mums, y’know?”

    Leigh shuddered slightly and nodded: Belinda had been a ballet mum, until it finally dawned that the fruit of his loins had inherited his two left feet and was therefore never going to be this generation’s Margot Fonteyn.

    “And all I’ve got’s my sewing, really. So I just thought: Blow the lot of them! I’ll do something for me!”

    “Good for you,” said Leigh, smiling at her.

    Juliette produced a crumpled photocopy. “It’s tonight, after tea: seven o’clock.”

    Leigh took it cautiously. “My mum and dad used to be mad keen on G&S,” he admitted with a sigh. The original of the photocopied notice had been hand-written, by some artistic person who had added a picture of the Mikado. “Dad had generations of records: the original D’Oyly Carte ones, and so forth. They both sang in the local society: Dad wasn’t much of a singer, but he adored it: mainstay of the chorus. And Mum wasn’t bad, in her day. She did Yum-Yum, when I was about… nine, I think. I can remember wondering how on earth a handsome young man like Nanki Poo could possibly fake being interested in my elderly mum so convincingly! Well, my parents were both about thirty when they married, so Mum would have been pushing forty. I suppose that was old, in those days.”

    Juliette twinkled at him. “Especially to a nine-year-old boy, yes! How old was the Nanki Poo?”

    “I subsequently found out,” said Leigh primly, “though mind you it was a norful shock, that he was the elderly Mr Henderson who worked in the bookshop.” He shook his head, sighing. “Fattish, balding, all of thirty-three.”

    Juliette gave little startled yelp of laughter.

    “That explained it, of course,” said Leigh, twinkling like anything.

    “Yeah!” she gasped. “So ya will, Leigh?”

    Leigh seemed to have really let himself in for it, didn’t he? But Juliette was a nice woman, and though he’d barely said hullo to Penny Bergen she seemed thoroughly nice, too. And it was better than yet another night on his ownsome eating too much, be it Molly’s wonderful food at The Blue Heron or parsimonious fish and chips, and then spending the rest of the evening in front of the box thinking about his cholesterol count while he nodded off. “Why not?” he said with a laugh.

    “Oh, goody! What are you?”

    “What? Oh! My voice? Back row of the lighter baritone section of the chorus, Juliette.”

    “That’s what they all say! I’ll leave you this, then.”

    Leigh looked dubiously at the photocopy. Would there be Auditions? His childhood had been rendered vicariously hideous (Mavis Gore had not been the sort of woman to take her nerves out on her kids) by Mum’s stage-fright over Auditions. Which had been, apparently, even worse than First Nights.

    Martin and Sim having reported that Sprouts didn’t just do sandwiches, it sold health-food stuff and—um—seaweed (Sim) and—um—herbs and things (Martin), Adrian had wandered along to suss it out. It was a very damp afternoon, he’d discovered a new leak in the roof of the old pub just above his bed, and Barry Goode had recently wised him up about the cost of re-roofing a place that size. Yeah, colour-steel! If Adrian imagined (a) that he was gonna afford tiles before he turned eighty or won the Golden Kiwi, and (b) that those rafters, kauri or not, were gonna support tiles, he was cracked. Adrian had replied glumly that he wasn’t that cracked, and had retired to brood on the immense sums he was already in debt to Jake Carrano—well, to Inky & Sticky & Co., same difference, it was Jake’s kids’ company—and the cost of colour-steel. Even if the restaurant did really, really well, it was going to take him the next ten years—at least—to pay his share of the cost of firstly, buying the place and secondly, doing it up. Not counting the interest. As for ever owning the whole kit and caboodle outright… Dream on, Revill. The trip to Sprouts was intended to cheer himself up.

    Sprouts was occupied by one thin female, with straight brown hair, and one plump female, with long, curly fair hair in a plait, both behind the counter. And both bawling.

    They didn’t strike Adrian as much older than bloody Martin and Sim. Most New Zealand males at this point would have turned tail and walked out: Adrian fully recognised that. He also fully recognised that it might not be sensible to embroil himself in these girls’ problems. Especially since health-food shops tended to be run by weirdoes, anyway.

    “Hullo. Something up?” he said easily, strolling forward.

    “Yes,” said the plump, fair one, sniffing.

    “No!” snapped the dark, thin one, also sniffing. “Go away!”

    “It’s my fault,” admitted the plump one. “I let a lady buy some stuff on credit, and my brother-in-law’s given me the sack.”

    “It’s my money, and I say you’re staying!” said the dark one fiercely.

    “No. It’s no good, Jacki. I can’t do it,” she said, blowing her nose. “And Paul hates me, anyway. He always has. I’ll go. It’s not as if I wanted to work in the shop, it was his idea.”

    “The customers like you,” said Jacki, scowling.

    “’Specially the ones that you give credit to, eh?” said Adrian easily, coming up to the counter. “I must say it doesn’t sound entirely as if you’re cut out for the commercial world.”

    “Go away, you cretin!” snarled the sister angrily. “She has to stay on, she needs a job and she hasn’t got anywhere to live!”

    “He said to get right out,” explained the blonde one. “It’s all right, Jacki. I’ll go back to The Blue Heron.”

    “Anna, you can’t stay there, you haven’t got any money!” she cried.

    “Doesn’t your husband owe her something for the time she’s worked?” asked Adrian.

    “I don’t want it,” said the blonde, round-faced Anna immediately.

    “Don’t be silly, you’re owed it,” said Adrian mildly. “Well?” he said to the sister.

    “Um—yeah. He’ll be wild, but too bad,” she said, thin jaw firming. “I’ll pay you out of the till, Anna, that’ll be something, at least. But The Blue Heron’s far too dear. –We should never have stayed there, really,” she explained to Adrian. “But we thought just for once, for a treat, and there was a bit of spare cash, and we all shared the cabin.”

    “Yeah. You won’t get cheaper in Puriri, though,” he said to Anna. “And the Pink and White Manukas up at Kingfisher Bay are even dearer, and the Kingfisher Motel’s miles dearer. Reputed to have air-conditioning in at least two cabins,” he said with the glimmer of a smile.

    Anna blinked and gave a started laugh.

    “They’re looking for clerical staff at the Sir George Grey University offices,” Adrian added, as the sister began taking notes from the till. “Can you type, do word processing?”

    “No. I used to get in for trouble at varsity when I handed my essays in because I couldn’t type.”

    “Oh? What did you major in?”

    “English, and don’t tell me it’s no use, I know that, thanks.”

    “I wouldn’t dream of it,” replied Adrian mildly. “Teaching?”

    “The mere thought of standing up in front of a class of hooligans turns her rigid with terror,” said Jacki, counting notes out carefully. “Here you are, Anna, a week and three days.”

    “What did you think you were going to do after you’d finished your degree?” asked Adrian curiously.

    “She didn’t: she’s hopeless!” explained Jacki in loud exasperation.

    Adrian thought she was pretty hopeless, yeah. “If you believe the pop psychologists, everybody’s good at something,” he said to Anna without emphasis.

    “I wasn’t even good at English. The highest mark I ever got was a B+. I liked it, though. But that doesn’t count. And actually, I don’t believe the pop psychologists,” said Anna, blowing her nose.

    “Good on ya,” replied Adrian mildly. “Can you do housekeeping?”

    “Sort of. I can do vacuuming and making beds and stuff. I used to do housework for Mrs Young and old Miss Hallam. But I blew up the Youngs’ vacuum cleaner. She was wild. They’re very trendy, with a big fancy house full of glass objets and angles and tubular steel. Mr Young was wild, too, but mainly with her, because she’d bought it overseas and it was wrong for our electricity.”

    “It’s a wonder it didn’t kill you,” said Adrian feebly.

    “Yeah, he said that, too. He said they could have been liable for hundreds of thousands in damages. He’s a lawyer, so he’d know.”

    “Yeah. Apart from that, though, were you okay at it?”

    “Of course she was!” said Jacki loudly.

    Adrian looked at Anna.

    Anna went very pink. “Um… Mostly. Miss Hallam was very particular. She said my dusting was all right, but I was slapdash about how I replaced things. –The things were mostly porcelain dancing ladies with real lace dipped in china on their skirts, so I didn’t feel all that much affinity with them: that’s probably why I didn’t replace them right. But I did try, I knew she was particular.”

    “Could you go back to that, then?”

    “That was in Wellington,” said Anna simply.

    “I see.”

    “Do you know someone who needs housework done?” asked Jacki eagerly.

    “Not exactly. I believe there’s a group, or cabal, that have got that pretty well sewn up, in Puriri County. And there aren’t that many people up here who’d be willing to pay for housework. Look,” he said cautiously: “I will eventually need a housekeeper: at least, someone to look after things like the silver and the china and the table linen and so forth, and to see that the place is swept and dusted. –I’m opening a restaurant,” he explained.

    “I don’t think—” began Anna.

    “Shut up! Of course you could!” said her sister crossly. “She could, she used to give a complete housekeeping service. Miss Hallam had loads of stuff, Anna used to wash all the ornaments and polish all the silver and Miss Hallam showed her how to wash and iron real linen and stuff, too!”

    “Yeah. I won’t need that for several months, yet.”

    Their faces fell.

    “At the moment I can offer three meals a day and a roof over their head,” said Adrian firmly, “to someone who wants to pitch in and do some hard yacker. We’re sanding the staircase and re-plastering, that sort of stuff. There’s me and a couple of boys and a girl that board with me, they’d all be around eighteen. I’m an excellent cook, but we can’t afford to eat extravagantly.”

    “That sounds all right, Anna!” urged Jacki.

    Anna had gone very pink. “Yes, but I can’t do sanding and things!” she gasped.

    “Anyone can sand, it’s easy. Takes hard work and application. I’ll show you the technique, give you the proper grade sandpaper, and so forth. There’ll be a lot of painting to do, and before you say you can’t do that, anyone can, with a roller.”

    “There you are, Anna!” urged Jacki.

    “I’d like to accept, but I’m warning you, I’m hopeless,” said Anna. “Dad once said I was the most cack-handed human being that was ever born.”

    “Can’t be, I know the most cack-handed human being ever born, he lives up Blossom Av’ at Waikaukau Junction,” replied Adrian promptly. “Are you interested? Make it on a trial basis, you might find you hate the lot of us.”

    “Go on, Anna!” urged Jacki.

    “Buh-but— I mean, we don’t even know you!” she gasped.

    “Get on over and ask May Swadling about me, she’ll vouch for me. Adrian Revill. I’m doing up the old waterfront pub.”

    Anna edged out from behind the counter, looking defiant. “All right, I will!”

    “Go on, then,” he drawled.

    Anna shot out, very flushed.

    “It’s awfully good of you, Adrian,” said Jacki uncertainly. “Um—I’m Jacki Kent. Anna’s my sister. Anna Francis.”

    “Pleased to meet you, Jacki. –It’s not that awfully good of me, I’ll make her work like stink.”

    “Good,” said Jacki feebly.

    Silence fell. Adrian wandered over to inspect their shelves of herbs.

    Jacki cleared her throat. “She—um—she will do a conscientious job for you. She isn’t commercially minded, that’s all.”

    “Yeah, right,” acknowledged Adrian, bending and peering. Blow. Very average. He straightened. “Don’t stock lemongrass, do you?”

    “No-o… I don’t think so. I’ve never heard of it. Is it a kind of herbal tea?”

    “No. How about coriander?”

    “Oh, yes, we’ve got lots of that!” Jacki bustled out from behind her counter and showed him. “See, we’ve got the ground stuff, and two different brands of the seeds—”

    “No. The leaves.”

    “Um… Here!” she said proudly, holding up a small plastic pot.

    Adrian nobly concealed a wince. “No, I meant the fresh leaves.”

    “We don’t do fresh herbs. Paul said the logistics are too difficult.”

    “Uh-huh.” They had a section of more medicinal-type things. Adrian wandered over and began to examine them. Partly for their horror value and partly because you never knew, he’d once found some really excellent olive oil buried amongst the herbal remedies.

    Anna shot in again, panting. “This is him! Is it him, Mrs Swadling?”

    May had followed her, also panting. “Hullo, Adrian, dear!” she gasped. “Yes, of course it is, dear,” she said to Anna. “You didn’t really think it wasn’t really Adrian, did you? This is Carter’s Bay, you know!”

    “Not exactly. Um, I mean I thought it might be some sort of confidence trick,” she said, very red.

    “Actually I’m a white slaver: I’m gonna throw a sack over your head, bundle you into a launch, and rush you off to a fate worse than death amongst the evil inhabitants of Great Barrier Island,” said Adrian in a bored voice.

    May gave a loud giggle. “Stop that! –Isn’t he silly?” she said proudly to Anna. “I must rush back, Jack doesn’t like me to leave the shop. –He’s a lovely cook, dear!” she assured Anna, rushing out again.

    There was a short silence.

    “Your greatest fan,” said Anna on a sour note. “I bet she saw every one of those stupid Mad Max films. Five times.”

    “Anna!” gasped Jacki in horror.

    “I’m sorry, it sort of slipped out. But it’s impossible to ignore it, really,” said Anna to Adrian.

    “Yeah. Well, do you want to come and see the pub? I’ve got to get back.”

    “Um—do you really mean it?” said Anna in a tiny voice.

    “Yes. Didn’t May vouch for me?”

    “Mm,” she said, swallowing.

    Deciding firmly not to wonder exactly what May had said, because it was bloody obvious bloody Mel Gibson had crept into it somehow, Adrian said: “Get your coat, then.”

    “Okay,” said Anna, rushing out to the back regions.

    “Here’s the address,” said Adrian, writing it down on a scrap of paper for Jacki. “I was gonna say come and see us after work, but I might be out. Come round before half past six, okay?”

    “Yeah, okay. And thanks,” she said awkwardly as Anna reappeared in her raincoat.

    “That’s okay. –Come on, white slave.”

    Anna reddened and gave an awkward laugh, but came.

    They walked silently down the main road in the drizzle.

    Eventually Anna said on a desperate note, as the devastatingly good-looking Adrian hadn’t uttered: “I’m sorry! Mrs Swadling mentioned Mel Gibson and then I—I couldn’t stop myself!”

    “That’s all right. Usually it’s the first thing people say to me,” he said mildly.

    She gulped. “Yes. I’d sort of sworn I wouldn’t.”

    “I see,” said Adrian, smiling suddenly. “Well, we can’t all live up to our best intentions all the time, eh?”

    “No,” she said gratefully.

    They walked on.

    “Adrian,” said Anna hoarsely, “I really am a hopeless person, you know. I haven’t got any talents and I—I’m not very practical.”

    “You’re certainly no good at selling yourself. But I don’t think we want one of those round the place.”

    “Um—no,” she said uncertainly.

    Adrian looked down at her and smiled. “Someone must have talent: who did the embroidery on your smocks?”

    “Help, I forgot to take it off!” she gasped. “They belong to the shop.”

    They would do: they were a brightish light green, embroidered on the yoke with the flowing legend “Sprouts” in pale yellow.

    “Um—I did the embroidery. Paul said it wasn’t cost-effective to have it done professionally, on a machine. But I’m not artistic, at all: Jacki did the writing, and I just filled it in.” She hesitated. “You must have awfully sharp eyes, no-one else but Mrs Swadling has spotted that it’s hand-done,” she added feebly.

    “Mm. I think I might be able to find you an outlet for embroidered things,” said Adrian thoughtfully.

    “But I said: I’m not artistic!” she gasped.

    “No. I know a lady who’s started making children’s frocks for one of those exclusive granny-type boutiques in Puriri. She’d do the designs, all you’d have to do would be fill them in. Choose the stitches, that sort of thing.”

    “I can do that.”

    “Good. It won’t pay much, mind.”

    “No. Um—thank you,” said Anna in a bewildered voice.

    “That’s okay.”

    They walked on in silence,

    “Why—why are you doing all this for me?” said Anna in a trembling voice.

    Adrian was about to say something airy. He found he couldn’t. “Isn’t it obvious?” he said, swallowing.

    “No,” replied Anna simply.

    Most young woman, of course, by this time would have been all over him. Certainly an unattached young woman of Anna’s age. One of the reasons that Adrian had let Wallis come and live at the pub was that she didn’t do it. He was aware she had a mild crush on him, but she treated him, thank God, no differently from the way she treated Jacko, and not much differently from the way she treated Martin and Sim—cheerful scorn, was about it. It was very, very restful. Which didn’t mean that Adrian particularly wanted Anna Francis to be indifferent to him, or treat him as Wallis did. “It’s partly that hair. I’ve never seen real fair hair like that, except on Scandinavian girls.” Involuntarily he thought of Ingrid and repressed a wince.

    “Um—it is Scandinavian. Our mother was Danish,” said Anna feebly, touching her scalp, just where the hood of her raincoat met the tiny fair curly wisps at the forehead.

    “That explains it.”

    They walked on.

    “That was a joke, wasn’t it?” said Anna in a shaking voice.

    “No.” Adrian suddenly took her hand firmly in his. Hers was small, and icy cold. “Shit, your hand’s cold!” he said, squeezing it.

    “Che gelida manina,” replied Anna limply.

    “Mm.” Adrian looked down at her, and smiled into her eyes. “Let me warm it into life. Along with the rest of you,” he said lightly.

    She went very red and wrenched the hand out of his. “That isn’t funny!”

    “It wasn’t meant to be,” he said feebly.

    “Yes, it was. You’re the most beautiful—no, the second most beautiful person,” said Anna conscientiously, thinking of the Black lady from Sir George Grey, “that I’ve ever laid eyes on. People like you never notice people like me. And I can see you’re clever and Mrs Swadling says you’re very talented, and you’ve obviously got bags of energy and commercial acumen and all that stuff, so you can drop it right now!”

    After a moment Adrian said uncertainly: “Don’t you like me?”

    “I don’t even know you!” shouted Anna.

    “That isn’t the same thing. Look, I’m not forcing myself on you, and the offer I made back in the shop still stands. But at the moment we’re short of rooms, because the roof sprang a leak right over my bed last night, and I’ve moved into the room I would have offered you. So I sort of thought we could share it. But if you don’t want to, I’ll kip with the boys.”

    Anna replied shakily: “I think you must be mad!

    He looked at her thoughtfully. “I see. Hasn’t anyone ever made a pass at you, before?”

    “Andy Garner. He was horrid, I don’t know why I did it with him, really. I think it was because I wanted to know what it was like. And then there was Mr Parkinson, only I didn’t realise it was a pass at the time, but Jacki said it was and he was a dirty old man.”

    “Is that all?”

    “Yes. I’m not like you, I’m not a beautiful person.”

    “I think you mean you’re not as skinny as a rake with a head full of women’s magazine crap,” replied Adrian. “How old are you?”

    “Twenty-one, nearly twenty-two. I’ve just finished my degree.”

    “I see.”

    “See what?” demanded Anna, scowling.

    Adrian took her hand again. “That you’ve got plenty of time to learn. What about it?”

    Anna looked up into his face and her heart pounded furiously. Nevertheless, if he’d smiled in a sure-of-himself, beautiful-person way at that moment, she would have told him where to get off and gone right back to Jacki and Sprouts and the frightful Paul. But Adrian didn’t smile: he looked at her anxiously. He had very light brown eyes with just a few flecks of green in them. “I will if you like,” she said in a trembling voice.

    Modified rapture, thought Adrian in some amusement, not allowing it to show. He squeezed her hand gently and said: “Good, I’m glad. We’ll try that bed out for size, there’ll be no-one home.”

    “Yes.” Anna licked her lips. “I hated it with Andy Garner.”

    Adrian had enough experience to recognise that that was probably due to lack of technical expertise on the part of Mr Garner. “Mm. I’m quite into doing nice things that my partner enjoys. If you hate it, I’ll stop.”

    “I see,” she said blankly.

    He squeezed her hand hard. “Come on.”

    They turned into Orangapai Road and headed for the old pub.

    “Where are you going?” asked Simone as, having bolted down the dinner he had ordered her to have ready early for him, Armand got up, declaring his intention of having a shower.

    “Mais je te l’ai dit!” he shouted. “I’m going to this local choral society’s meeting!”

    “Oh, yes,” remembered Simone limply. “Won’t it all be in English, though?”

    “Sammi Wolfe thinks”—Simone swallowed a sigh, she had learned to dread that phrase—“that it will do no harm for us to be seen to participate in the social amusements of the community. And this is completely non-controversial. And I have sung in English before.”

    “Ouais… Armand, Carter’s Bay probably won’t want you to sing—eugh—those Bachy things, and so forth, that you did at home.”

    “Ne dis PAS ‘ces trucs de Bach et tout et tout’!” he shouted, rushing out to the bathroom.

    “Well, they won’t,” said Simone sourly, gathering up his dishes. “And it will all be in English, so there!”

    As he was going out the door she asked: “Is Sammi going?”

    “Of course not: she can’t sing. I may be late, so don’t wait up for me. And don’t lock me out.”

    “Très bien, Armand,” said Simone dully.

    “It’s really lovely, Janet,” admitted Dorothy over lunch at Janet’s place. She was referring not to the lunch, which was the sort of lunch she had expected Janet to produce as a treat on a freezing cold winter’s day, but to the cottage.

    “Me and Bobby like it,” she conceded pleasedly. “He loves the orchard: he goes right up in the big old apple tree, don’t you, Bobby?”

    Bobby had had a share of the roast chicken and was asleep in front of Janet’s big electric heater, snoring slightly. Those who knew him well might have discerned that one grey ear flickered very slightly at this remark.

    “So, tell me about these auditions,” said Dorothy with a twinkle in her eye. Janet seemed far, far more interested in the ruddy local G&S society which had just started up than she was in the fact that her new boss had started at the library—a young man, considerably younger than she was, and no, she had not applied for the job, just as Dorothy had expected.

    “Well, I was awfully nervous, of course! I mean, we all were,” Janet assured her solemnly.

    Dorothy could not imagine, to name only three, Avon Goode, Barry Goode, or Akiko Takagaki being nervous about anything, but she nodded kindly.

    “Penny’s going to be the producer, but she knows this lady who’s a real singing teacher.”—Ructions on the horizon, then, deduced Dorothy.—“And Deirdre Carpenter played the piano, she’s a beautiful player.”

    “Uh—yeah. Do I know her?” groped Dorothy.

    “Oh, probably not, no! She used to board with Mrs Adler, but she’s living in Victoria Avenue now, sharing a house with another teacher and a lady who tutors at the nursing school in Puriri.”

    “Y— Oh, Deirdre Carpenter’s one of the local teachers, is she?”

    “Yes, at the primary school. That’s how come we got the use of the school hall with the piano, you see.”

    Dorothy saw a bit more than Janet fancied she did. She eyed her drily, reflecting that Penny Bergen must have her head screwed on, then, not to say being a capable manager. “Mm. Now, answer the question on which most of Puriri County is breathlessly awaiting enlightenment, Janet: Can Akiko sing?”

    “Um, well, no, not really,” she admitted sadly. “She knows lots of pop songs, but—um—she doesn’t seem to understand about Western music, really.”

    Or not about G&S, at all events. “Well, that’s a pity.”

    “Yes. So Penny said she’d better be the first chorus lady, and that’d make it much more authentic! And she’s going to help us with the costumes, and everything!”

    “They really are gonna do The Mikado, then?” said Dorothy limply.

    “Yes, of course!”

    Of course, yeah. Right. “So who’ll do Yum-Yum, if not Akiko?”

    “We-ell… Penny says they’ll have a second round of auditions. But I’m Pitti Sing!” she burst out, very flushed.

    “Janet! Not really? Congratulations!” cried Dorothy.

    Beaming, Janet accepted the congratulations. “Of course it’ll be nerve-wracking, being on the stage, but then, everybody else’ll be up there, too, I won’t be alone.”

    “Yes. I think you’ll look very sweet in a kimono,” decided Dorothy, narrowing her eyes. “By the way,” she said in a frightfully airy voice, “Polly Carrano mentioned to me that she thinks pink would suit you.”

    “Really?” she squeaked, all flushed and pleased.

    “Yes, she said she thinks it’s really your colour.”

    “I’ve always worn blue… Mum always said it was my colour.”

    “Why not try pink? Wear a pink dress to this environmental hop, then if you’re happy with it, maybe you could have a pink kimono,” said Dorothy with terrific cunning.

    “I was thinking of my blue shift dress… It’s still good: that Thai silk lasts and lasts, you know.”

    “Janet, you had it for your cousin Moira’s wedding, and to my certain knowledge that was seven years ago, or were my eyes deceiving me and that wasn’t Moira Adams dragging a screeching, muddy-kneed six-year-old forcibly out of Sol’s Boating & Marine Supplies last Sunday as ever was?”

    “Ian. He wanted a fishing line. Um—yes, it was. Oh—all right, then. I’m really sick of the blue, to tell you the truth. I’ll look for— No, there’s stacks of time, they had to put the dance off because Kevin got that huge load of wood in. I’ll get a really nice length of pink material and run it up myself!” she decided happily.

    Dorothy couldn’t see how to stop her. Anything Janet ran up would be bound to have a neckline that was the purest of the pure, conceal the fact that she had a waist at all, be coyly loose over the hips and bottom—she actually had quite a neat little bottom, though it was only revealed to the world when she was in her bloody blue togs—and cover the knees. In fact, probably cover the knees down to the ankles, even though she had very nice legs. Wondering if she could perhaps put the hard word on Akiko to see that the dress produced was slightly more revealing than a Victorian nightgown or muumuu, Dorothy agreed feebly that that way Janet could afford a really nice piece of material, yes.

    “So, go on, who else did they cast?”

    Janet revealed that it had been really difficult, you see, because some of them had lovely voices—Dorothy accepted this without a blink—but couldn’t act! And quite a lot of them could act, but they couldn’t sing, and you really did have to be able to sing, when it was Gilbert and Sullivan, didn’t you? Dorothy agreed feebly with this proposition, and did not mention those goddawful modernised versions that had been all the rage in Aussie for the past few years, because she didn’t think Janet ever read The Bulletin. It was eventually revealed that Barry Goode had been cast as “you know: Koko’s friend.” Dorothy nodded, she couldn’t remember the character’s name, either: he was the one that backed up Koko and Pooh Bah in the occasional male trio. Well, the rôle of quietly in the background, supportively there when needed would suit Barry Goode, all right. She didn’t ask whether he had the right voice for the rôle because she didn’t think Janet would know. Mr Mulford was going to be Pooh Bah, he’d be wonderful.

    “Milford?”

    “No! You know, Mr Mulford! Mulford’s! Um, I mean, Mastercut,” said Janet limply.

    “Good grief, Ben Mulford the butcher? He’s got the figure for it. But I thought he lived in Puriri?”

    “No!” she said with tolerant scorn. “Honestly, Dorothy, you are out of touch!” Mr and Mrs Mulford, it transpired, had bought one of those lovely new houses in Karaka Grove, just a little house, their kids were all grown up, now. Dorothy did not bother to correct her terminology to “Ben and Evadne”, there was no point, they must be at least fifty-five.

    After some time and many circumlocutions, Dorothy worked out that that was that. Penny had cast Pitti Sing, Pooh Bah and Koko’s off-sider. Oh and the first (non-singing) lady of the chorus. All of the rest of the main parts were up for grabs. “Everybody” apparently thought that Sol Winkelmann should do Koko but he didn’t want to, he claimed he couldn’t sing and just wanted to be in the chorus. And “lots of people” thought that Adrian Revill (slight blush) should be Nanki Poo, but he wasn’t really a tenor—Dorothy winced—and just wanted to be in the chorus. And did Dorothy know he had a new girlfriend? she burst out.

    Dorothy hadn’t known that, no, and wasn’t particularly interested, and certainly wasn’t surprised, but she let Janet tell her.

    “You’d say she was too down-market for him!” she finished with a loud giggle.

    “Me?” croaked Dorothy.

    “Yes, she’s quite plump, and she was in old jeans and her jersey was all pilled!”

    “Unlike my jersey—right.”

    Janet just giggled.

    “Uh—can she sing?” groped Dorothy.

    “Ooh, yes! She’s got a lovely voice! Very rich!”

    Dorothy didn’t ask if this meant she was a contralto, Janet wouldn’t know. The girlfriend was apparently very shy and had only sung because Adrian had put his arm around her—enough to make any girl sing, conceded Dorothy silently—and helped her.

    And did Dorothy know of any tenors? Because Penny was desperate!

    Dorothy eyed her drily. They always were. “No.”

    “What about Dick White?” she piped hopefully.

    Dorothy took a deep breath. “Janet, even though Dick is gay he is not a tenor. Not a tenor. The two do not necessarily go together.”

    “I never thought they did! And don’t be horrid!”

    “I wouldn’t dream of being horrid, if you’ve done one of your blueberry cheesecakes,” said Dorothy mildly.

    Terrifically pleased, Janet admitted she had, though they were only those tinned Canadian ones at this season, of course, and shot out to get it.

    Dorothy didn’t leap up and join in Kitchen, she let the remaining dishes lie, leaned her elbows on the table, propped her chin in her hands, and sighed deeply. Gawdelpus. No tenor, no leading soprano… And she’d bet her huge Sir G.G. salary that they hadn’t found a contralto, either. They were even scarcer on the ground than tenors. Well, possibly not than good tenors, as far as she could see there were none of those left in the entire world. But scarce.

    Over the cheesecake she said: “Janet, have they found a contr— I mean, a Katisha?”

    Janet went very red.

    “What?” asked Dorothy in astonishment.

    “Dorothy, I know you’re busy but when we did that scene at the fund-raiser for—”

    “No! Good grief, woman, we did it in Children’s Corner, and it was all a spoof!”

    “I know, but you were good, Dorothy!” she wailed.

    “I’m not a flaming contralto.”

    “Oh, aren’t you?” she said blankly.

    “No. When I actually sing, I’m more of a broken reed. Sorry. Cracked mezzo. I did that damn thing in my drag voice. And I’m not going to stand up in front of the whole of Carter’s Bay with the Sir G.G. nobs and bloody Polly and Jake Carrano in the front row and do it for them! And I am, as you so correctly point out, very busy.”

    “Dr Gore was there, and he’s busy, too!” she burst out.

    “Leigh?” croaked Dorothy.

    “Yes. He knows lots about Gilbert and Sullivan. Penny’s said he can be assistant director.”

    “Can he sing?”

    “Well, not very well, I suppose. She said his voice was slight but—um—thingy,” finished Janet sheepishly. “Something technical.”

    “Why not cast him as Koko?” returned Dorothy mildly.

    “They tried, but he got the giggles in the middle of it. He said he’s no actor, and every time he hears that song he thinks of the man who did it in a production his mother was in, and he was very funny.”

    “Well, you don’t want a Koko with the giggles,” conceded Dorothy.

    “No. –Couldn’t you just come to the second audition?” she pleaded. “Penny said you can ham it up as much as you like for Katisha, she’s supposed to be over the top.”

    “Janet, I could never manage that bloody aria.”

    “Eh?”

    Dorothy had to bite her lip. “It’s kind of a set-piece. Sullivan used to give the contralto one really good song in each opera. They’re all bloody difficult.”

    “Penny’ll cut it!” she offered eagerly. “Dorothy, it’d be fun, and you can’t spend your whole life working!”

    Dorothy blinked slightly. “Er—you may have a point.”

    “You haven’t even got a garden, and that wee flat can’t take much looking after!”

    After some further argument, Dorothy gave in to the extent of agreeing that she’d come, and if Penny couldn’t find anybody else, she’d do it, but they mustn’t expect her to be able to sing. Janet was thrilled—thrilled. So it was pretty bloody obvious she’d promised bloody Penny Bergen, reflected Dorothy sourly, that she’d get her along by hook or by crook.

    When she got home she looked in the mirror of the upstairs bathroom that was the envy of her two neighbours, and intoned experimentally, in order to see if she could still manage a bass-baritone: “‘Alone, and yet alive! Oh, sepulchre! My soul is still my body’s prisoner!’”

    Yeah, well.

Next chapter:

https://conquestofcartersbay.blogspot.com/2023/05/second-auditions.html