"Our Attitude's Queer And Quaint"

45

“Our Attitude’s Queer And Quaint”

    Sammi had got into the habit of going to the Chez Basil in Puriri about once a fortnight. She liked it: its prices were moderate, especially compared to Revill’s, its décor was very smart and up with the times, and it had a nice wide choice of dishes, with an interesting variety. Sammi also liked Basil’s impersonation of a grovellingly servile maître d’, though naturally she had not so phrased it to herself. She was, of course, blissfully unaware either that Basil had spotted this fact, or that he, Gary, and Trevor, their head waiter, now habitually all referred to her as “the female yuppie.” True, other female yuppies also patronised the Chez Basil. Nevertheless.

    “It’s the female yuppie, dear,” reported Basil faithfully to his business partner, chef, and life-partner. “Table three.”

    “Trot out the prawns and chilli,” noted Gary resignedly.

    “Not tonight, dear. And guess what: she’s got a wee male yuppie with her!” he said brightly.

    “Oh?”

    “No, dear: hetero,” said Basil, pulling an awful face.

    “You mean straight, Baz: you’re behind the times,” replied Gary, poker-face. “What are they having, then?”

    “Let me see… One grovelled in person, dear,” he explained redundantly. “Not depriving Trevor of a tip by so doing, one assures you! Um, she’ll have the slightly minceur carrot gâteau.”

    “Slightly’s right: nothing with cheese and egg in it can be called low-fat, Michel Guérard or not,” he noted arcanely. “It’s cheap, though. Um, she didn’t mention the dread word ‘chervil’, did she?”

    “Like Polly Carrano, you mean? No, one is quite, quite sure that she hasn’t read the Book, dear. And would not know chervil if she fell over it, so just as well one didn’t go to the expense, isn’t it? Added to which, can female yuppies read, as opposed to using their wee computers?” he asked sweetly.

    “Get on with it, Baz, we haven’t got all night, even if it is a pouring wet Wednesday in ruddy July with three tables filled.”

    “Four, dear. Poor Dr Keith Nicholls has just come in: alone. One gathers he’s had a barney with Dr Ariadne. Anyway, she’ll have that for a starter. Make sure it looks pretty, dear.”

    “I always do,” he grunted, setting a quarter of the small carrot cake upon a frilly lettuce leaf on a giant white plate, and rapidly adding a carrot flower, a sprig of parsley and an artistic twist of chives to it.

    “A swirl, lover,” prompted Basil. “Yuppies always want those.”

    “Oh, all right.” Rapidly Gary drew a swirl of tomato puree on the exposed portion of the plate—of which there was plenty. “That do?”

    “Very pretty.”

    “Mm. It’ll swear at the carrot, mind you. But then, she won’t eat it, they never do. Don’t ask me to pretty it up further with olive oil, Baz: the overheads won’t take it, and she definitely wouldn’t eat that!”

    “Wouldn’t dream, dear! He wants pâté for his starter,” said Basil on an uncertain note.

    Missing the uncertain note, Gary slapped a portion of bought pâté onto a frilly lettuce leaf, dressing it up with a carrot flower, a sprig of parsley and an artistic twist of chives. The whole on a giant white plate. “Basket: wholemeal bread roll!” he shouted at the trainee sous-chef.

    “Er—mm,” said Basil dubiously, clearing his throat. “She’ll have the curried poisson Tahitian, dear, for her main.”

    “With the banana?” said Gary, staring.

    “Five million calories, yes, but yuppies think its exoteek.”

    Shrugging, Gary agreed: “Righto. What about him?”

    “Er… darling, I never suggested it, but he plumped for the pork!” he said, a trifle wildly.

    “Not the bonne femme? Did he read the menu?”

    “Yes. Um, well, dear, one hates to mention it," said Basil, looking sideways at the pâté, “but this teeny-weeny male yuppie is, or my ears have deceived me, which after all of the custom we get from the varsity—and of course darling Polly’s friends, not that half of them aren’t from the varsity, of course—”

    “Baz,” said Gary on a dangerous note: “what are you babbling about?”

    “Um, it’s a French male yuppie, dear.”

    “What?” screamed Gary, turning purple. He seized the plate of shop-bought pâté and before Basil’s horrified eyes hurled it into the bin. “Don’t you dare put out that damned gritty ROLL!” he shouted at the trainee. “Where’s my French bread?”

    “Um, the stuff what we bought in from The Deli, Gary?” he quavered.

    “NO! Cretin! MY French bread!”

    “It’s all right, dear,” said Basil hurriedly to the petrified trainee. “I’ll get it. Get Gary’s real pâté out, that’s a good boy. Not in the fridge,” he said heavily. “The pantry. The—pan-try. THAT CUPBOARD!” he shouted.

    “I thought that was meatloaf,” he said feebly.

    Basil and Gary ignored that. The Chez Basil had been going for some fourteen years, now, and this was about the twentieth trainee they’d had through their kitchen. The ones that thought they’d done a cookery course were always the worst.

    Once the real pâté de campagne had been set out on a real plate, minus any suggestion of lettuce leaves or other excrescences, and Gary’s French bread was ready, and Basil, who had shot out to the restaurant again to attend to Dr Keith Nicholls in person, had shot back to collect it and the despised carrot cake, Gary admitted: “The pork really is bonne femme, tonight, Baz.”

    “Thank God for that, dear!”

    “He may be the one Frenchman in the world to have no taste-buds,” he said, grinning. “If he’s with her.”

    “Yes, but would you bet on it?” replied Basil with a shudder.

    “No. Tell him he can have salade de romaine or salade de frisée, and then cheese after that, Baz.”

    “Eh?”

    “Like Polly and Jake,” said the chef very slowly and clearly.

    “Oh, of course, dear!” Basil hurried out with Sammi’s and Armand’s firsts, his lips moving silently.

    Sammi had taken her courage in both hands and asked Armand to dinner. Rejecting the notion of asking him home for a meal: she was aware that the whole of the street would have avidly watched him arrive, and watched for him to depart. The Chez Basil was the obvious choice: The Blue Heron wasn’t smart enough, and Revill’s prices were outrageous. While she wasn’t mean, she didn’t see any sense in paying that sort of money for something that you just ate. And too many of their colleagues ate in The Quays’ other restaurant, not to mention the chance of Martin’s being put on to wait that very night.

    Armand declared the pâté de campagne to be excellent. The innocent Sammi, taking the compliment unto herself, agreed smugly that it always was, here. Basil, who was hovering just behind them, at this had to dash out to the kitchen, in spite of all his years in the business.

    Armand declared the porc bonne femme to be really excellent—as good as his Mémé Gautier’s! Sammi wasn’t sure who this person might be, but again, smirked and thanked him. Basil, once again hovering, at this tottered out weakly and reported to Gary that it was a real Frenchman, dear, and thank God they hadn’t tried to fob anything off on him.

    Armand having ordered the salade de frisée, Sammi joined him in it. She thought, once Armand had been seen to consume it with gusto, that it was very good!

    “Eugh—oui. Yes, vairy nice,” he said cautiously. “They use the good olive oil, I think? Yes,” he said as she obligingly smiled and nodded. Behind them, Basil was wondering what in God’s name was wrong with it: that was Polly Carrano’s infallible vinaigrette dressing that Gary only did for their most favoured customers—and themselves, when at home—containing nothing, absolutely nothing, but best Dijon mustard, wine vinegar, excellent olive oil, not de-this- or de-thatified, and salt.

    “The frisée, it was just a leetle coarse, I think?” said Armand, smiling anxiously.

    “Was it?” said Sammi feebly. “Um—it was a bit bitter, I suppose.”

    “But no, the taste is excellent: merely, the texture of the leaves—you know? I think they do not blanch it enough.”

    Feebly Sammi agreed with him. Mentally storing all those phrases away for future use. She was, of course, an extremely self-confident person, and had her companion been anyone but a Frenchman, would unhesitatingly have rubbished the salad dressing as boring and too oily, and the taste of the curly endive as far too bitter. She had already ventured that the pork on top of the pâté might be a bit rich, only to have Armand tell her very nicely that the vegetables and then the salad would counterbalance the richness. Also, the pork would not, of course, be fatty, in a good restaurant! he had added with a tiny laugh. Sammi had stored that away, too.

    Basil tottered into the kitchen. “Lover,” he said on an anxious note, “the Frenchman says the thingy salad should have been blanched more. I thought it was fresh thingy?”

    “Y— Um, not blanched in the sense of dropping it into boiling water, Baz. He means when they grow it. In France they tie them up—each one, by hand,” he said drily, “so that the leaves stay pale and tender.”

    Basil’s jaw had dropped. “Dear, there is no way—”

    “Not unless we grow them ourselves, no,” he agreed mildly. “And for Polly and Jake and their guests, say, three times a year, and one Frenchman once, would it be worth it?”

    “Not in this neck of the woods,” agreed Basil: “no. One must be realistic.”

    … “I don’t really like wine,” admitted Sammi as Armand asked her if she would like her glass refilled. “And I am driving.”

    “Yes. I think I will not, either. I do not really care for it meuch,” he admitted with some relief. Certainly he was no wine-drinker: he and Simone in their student days had never risen above Algerian plonk. He had tried better wines, or at least, more expensive wines, very cautiously, since, but Simone had no palate at all, so it was impossible to discuss them with her. And wine-drinking was an expensive habit and bad for the liver. So the Gautiers, very frugally, had only had wine once or twice a week. Armand, of course, had never known what Simone drank during those delicious lunches with the Pics. This New Zealand white stuff to him tasted almost as bad as anything he had ever tossed down his throat in his youth. The which opinion, given that it claimed to be a “blended Sauvignon blanc” from Hawke’s Bay, and had cost Basil and Gary, on one of their holiday forays through the wine-growing areas, twenty-five dollars a dozen, was possibly justified.

    “Something light, madam?” suggested Basil servilely when they were ready for their desserts.

    Sammi had refused cheese, not revealing that Armand’s choosing to eat it before the dessert had struck her as really peculiar. The maître d’ had seemed to accept it as totally natural. Maybe French people did? Help, if she said something and then was wrong, he’d think she was awfully ignorant! Might there be a book she could read? Sammi mentally reviewed her array of smart, modern, illustrated cookery books and rapidly dismissed them. None of them told you anything useful. As a matter of fact she wished she hadn’t bought that hugely expensive one on Asian food. It was nearly all coloured pictures, and when you came right down to it, there was only one recipe: chop everything up small and stir-fry it in hot oil with chilli. She would ask Dorothy’s advice: Dorothy would be sure to know the right sort of book to look for.

    She admitted that she would like something light. Basil assured her the Oranges à la kiwi were very light: very light. A minceur dish, madam. Happily Sammi agreed that she’d like that. Basil did not reveal that Gary had perverted M. Guérard’s original dish by using real sugar to caramelise the strips of orange zest (his efforts with a sugar substitute having resulted in a burnt pan and a very frayed temper) or that the sauce de cassis on which the fruit would sit was actually Ribena, thickened with arrowroot. Gary had originally used it full strength, but local opinion had either declared it to be too strong, or left it untouched. So, muttering “Sod the buggers,” he had decreed that it would be henceforth be thinned. One-third strength.

    Nor, very naturally, did Basil reveal to his yuppie European customers that, as usual in midwinter, the price of kiwifruit in the supermarkets had come down to almost nothing, though not yet bottoming out to the point where Woolie’s let them go for two dollars for a plastic bucketful and you kept the bucket. Foreigners always thought anything with kiwifruit was bound to be up-market. Possibly this was because they never used the local supermarkets, went about with their heads in the sand, and never asked themselves where the things came from? God knew. Certainly they could never have been exposed to old Mrs Tonks’s kiwifruit chutney, of which Basil and Gary had incautiously bought a jar at the last Puriri Primary School fair. Odd, dears, was all that could be said of it. Very odd. Almost a sicky aftertaste, you know? Not exactly sweet, no. Odd.

    Armand thought he would try the millefeuilles à la kiwi. With real cream? Yes, he thought perhaps madame would permit him to have that! Jumping, Sammi realised she meant her and conceded weakly that after all that salad it probably wouldn’t hurt. Just for once. Basil bustled out to the kitchen, beaming. Kiwifruit at fifty-nine cents a kilo, mandarines off their own tree— Well, work it out!

    Two minutes later he was back. “The chef asked me to tell you, sir, that the millefeuilles is actually pavlova,” he said, swallowing in spite of himself.

    “Yes?” said Armand gaily. “This is a local meringue dish, I theenk? Yes, my good friend Yvonne from the university has made this dish for me. Excellent; I would vairy meuch like to try it with the kiwis.”

    Smiling palely, Basil tottered back to the kitchen.

    “Poor ignorant foreigners!” concluded Gary with a laugh.

    “Lover, it’s not a bought one, is it?” said Basil very, very faintly with his eyes closed.

    “No! What do you think I am? They make those out of horse serum! No, genuine Kiwi pavlova: Mum’s recipe. Kiwi pavlova à la kiwi,” he said slyly. The trainee at this collapsed in agonised splutters and even Trevor, who had come in with the dessert orders for Table Two, allowed himself to smile slightly.

    “I didn’t know you knew Yvonne that well,” said Sammi somewhat disjointedly to her dinner companion.

    “Why, yes: she vairy kindly invites me to dinner at least twice a month. Because I am a helpless single male, you know?” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

    “It’s that sort of attitude which keeps women chained to the kitchen and turns men into useless wimps!” retorted Sammi fiercely.

    “But yes, I entirely agree,” he said mildly. “But I am not in fact helpless, you know, Sammi. Since I leave Simone I discover that in fact I enjoy to cook. When I was married,” he said with a moue, “I was content to let her take the traditional female rôle, even though she is a tairrible cook. Now I theenk it was stupid, no? But it is too late, we are not in love with each other any more, and I theenk, if I am to be vairy honest, it was more a marriage of convenience on her side, you know?”

    “Um—yes. I see. What was it on yours?” demanded Sammi baldly, forgetting a previous vow not to get him started on the topic of his marriage. Because it only made you look like a scheming bitch: however much they hated her when they were married to her, they always took her side against another woman!

    He shrugged. “I theenk, mainly conformism, you know? After one’s degree it is time to look for a job, marry and settle down. I was a fool: she was the wrong woman entirely for me. I do not deny that I found her attractive: I prefer a small, neat figure. Not that Simone was ever neat in her dress: not that. But I thought I could mould her…” He sighed. “I was wrong. She is the sort of person who is adept at passive resistance: you know?”

    Sammi nodded mutely.

    “It was vairy…” Armand sought mutely for the word. Sammi just looked at him weakly as he did so. “Vairy debilitating,” he said at last.

    “Um—yes,” agreed the self-centred Sammi Wolfe, having to swallow hard. “Very depressing. I see. It would be.”

    “Yes. It was the sort of relationship where one drags the other down—you know? But at least it is ended, now,” he said with a sigh.

    “Mm.” It would have been true to say that in all her relationships so far, Sammi had always been in charge. Even during the involvement with Inoue she had believed herself to be in charge, up until the very last. And even then, it was she who had declared they must break it off. Strangely, she found that, much though she desired to have a relationship with Armand, she didn’t feel in charge at all, at this moment. What she did feel was very, very weak—sort of shaky, in fact; and very, very sorry for him. And… It was a new sensation for Sammi: she examined it carefully. Maternal, was the only word, she concluded, trying not to gulp. Maternal towards him.

    “And you?” asked Armand.

    “What? Oh. Um… Well, I suppose there hasn’t been anyone serious since London. Tony Bentine. He was a banker. But I don’t know that I was ready to commit to him. Maybe if I’d got the German appointment, it would have been different… No, I don’t think so. We had a lot in common, but there was always something missing. Um—I suppose since I’ve been out here the most serious involvement I’ve had was the thing with Inoue, but it was never going to go anywhere; we both recognised that.” Armand nodded silently. After a moment Sammi admitted with a silly laugh: “I suppose he is the general type I admire. Not too tall, slim and neat—y’know? Tony was the same general type, too.”

    Armand nodded seriously, and there was a pause as their desserts were presented to them. Sammi exclaimed admiringly over the pattern of orange-petalled flowers, green-centred, with green leaves, the whole set in an artistic swirl of deep crimson, and topped with a delicate spray of darker orange peel. And Armand smiled and nodded approvingly at his pavlova, the generous whipped cream topping almost invisible under the ranked masses of kiwifruit slices. Set on a small swirl of pale green purée.

    “Good?” he said to her with a smile as they tasted them.

    “Mm, lovely, deliciously light! I’m sure I could do this, it looks easy, doesn’t it? I’m not sure about the sauce, though.”

    “It is a currant,” he said carefully. “One would—eugh—pass through a sieve, yes?”

    “Oh. Blackcurrant, I suppose. It’s an unusual combination,” she said with satisfaction. “How’s yours?”

    “Excellent. Fully as good as Yvonne’s. She puts strawberries or peaches, but the peaches are en boîte… eugh, tinned, and too sweet, I find. Also, between you and me, she does not think to drain them enough; and then, you see here, they have used vairy meuch fruit, though chopped theen: that goes vairy well!” He beamed at her.

    “Good,” said Sammi a trifle shakily. “I’m glad you like it.”

    “So!” he said with a coy laugh. “Madame, she will permit me to eat all this sugar and cream, for the once?”

    “Yes,” agreed Sammi with a silly smile. “Well, I wouldn’t want you to make a habit of it, of course.”

    “No, indeed,” he agreed happily, spooning up Gary’s mum’s easy standby for special occasions. “Eugh—Sammi, there is something I mean to ask you for some time.”

    Sammi’s heart hammered very hard. Which was stupid: they weren’t nearly at that stage, yet! “Yes?” she said hoarsely.

    “Do you do the scuba diving?” said Armand with his polite smile.

    Sammi felt her jaw sag in spite of herself. “What?” she said numbly.

    “I am sure that is the English term. Weeth… eugh—fleeppairs, and the reubber suit,” he said carefully.

    “Fl— Oh! Flippers! Um, no. I mean, I tried it once when Tony and I went to the Bahamas. It was great fun, but the gear’s awfully expensive. And then, living in London, there wasn’t much opportunity; I suppose I never thought about it as a hobby.”

    “No? But here, it is quite popular, I theenk?” he said eagerly.

    “I suppose so,” said Sammi weakly. She looked at her half-finished dessert and experienced a surge of loathing for it. It and everything to do with bloody New Zealand; why in God’s name hadn’t she listened to Mum and Dad, and never come out to the place?

    “Yes. I ask Sol Winkelmann if there is a cleub, but he is vairy—eugh—dismissive.”

    “He would be!” said Sammi with vigorous loathing.

    “Yes; I do not find him a vairy helpful person.”

    “Me, neither! Um, so didn’t you find out if there is a club?”

    “I eventually find there is not, in Carter’s Bay. But then, I discover that Thomas is vairy keen and most experienced indeed: he has dived all over the Pacifique; and also, there are several people in Kingfisher Bay who enjoy it. One year they try to set up a cleub for the children, but that is not vairy successful. They are people who own boats, you know? In general they go as a small group and dive from the boat.”

    “Um—yes,” said Sammi uncertainly.

    “So I theenk, possibly one buys a boat, and then, also, why not start a cleub at the university?”

    “Ye-es… It’s a good idea, but it would have to be very carefully supervised. You know what students are.”

    “Of course! We would have the vairy strict rules. Scuba diving people, they are vairy serious people, they do not take it lightly.”

    “No. Good,” said Sammi lamely.

    “Also, I theenk if perhaps we make it open to the general peublic, the people from Kingfisher Bay, they weell laike to join. So pair’aps we make more friends, n’est-ce pas?”

    “Mm. Good idea.”

    “Do you not laike it?” he said anxiously.

    Sammi pushed her plate away with a pettish motion. “I can’t see what it’s got to do with me.”

    “Beut it has meuch! Do you not laike the idea to buy a boat?”

    “Y— Um, what do you mean?” she said, frowning.

    “To buy a boat!” he said, waving his hands.

    “If you think you need a boat to dive from, go ahead and buy one. Or maybe Thomas’d let you use one of his.”

    “Mais non! I do not make it clear,” he said with a frown. “To buy a boat together, Sammi. You and me, and to share the hobby?”

    “Oh,” said Sammi, very weakly indeed, feeling herself go red as fire. “I didn’t— Um, was that what you meant?”

    “Yes; I theenk of it for a vairy long time,” he said on anxious note.

    “Well, um— I grew up in Manchester: it’s miles inland, I don’t know anything about boats,” she said lamely.

    “No, but if you enjoy the scuba diving the once? You were not sick in the boat?”

    “No, well, I have been sailing a couple of times. And I’ve crossed the Channel in all weathers, on the ferries. I’m a good sailor.”

    “That is excellent!” he beamed. “So, what do you theenk? We share equally, non? Eugh—but of course you are right and the gear is vairy expensive.”

    “That’s all right!” she said eagerly. “Um, most of my capital’s sunk in the house, though,” she admitted, her face falling.

    “Ah. I, also, have a beeg commitment to that house in which I no longer live,” he said with a frown.

    “Yes.”

    “Well,” said Armand, taking a deep breath, “it sounds unkind to say so, but Simone has the raight to only half that house. I shall insist that she buy my half, or that we sell the whole and divide the monnay. It is time my affairs were in order.”

    “Yes. What about child support?” said Sammi, swallowing.

    “Naturally I both wish to support my children and am obliged to do so. That is not the same, you understand, as—eugh—to tie up one’s capital.”

    “No, of course not. And we’re both on good salaries!” said Sammi eagerly. “I’m sure we could swing a boat, Armand!”

    “Yes. I theenk it may be managed. A launch, yes? With a reliable motor.”

    Sammi saw nothing at which to cavil in this picture: she nodded.

    “Eugh, but there is also the question of,” he said carefully, “mooring expenses.”

    Sammi looked blank.

    “I ask several people. That is the expression. Mooring expenses.”

    “Oh, help: yes! Those marina slots cost the earth!”

    “En effet. Your house does not have a marina slot? –No,” he said as she shook her head. “My apartment does not, either.”

    “No. Damn, that is a problem.”

    “Yes.” Armand’s hands shook very slightly. “I theenk there is another possibilitay, but you might object. So please, allow me to put it forward without interrupting me?” Sammi nodded, looking puzzled, and he continued, abandoning his unfinished pavlova: “I know you are fond of your house, and I admire it, also, but that street does not have the happy memories, for me. What I theenk is, possibly we consider to buy a property along the Inlet road together. It will allow us to moor our boat. Also to have a pleasant lifestyle by the water. The house we might build might be vairy like the one you have, if—if that is the style which you prefer.” He looked at her hopefully, very flushed.

    Sammi was also very flushed. She felt she ought to say something light and sophisticated, but couldn’t for the life of her think of a thing.

    “It—it would be practical, non?” said Armand hoarsely.

    She swallowed. “Very practical. I—I’d have to think about it.”

    “Yes,” he said, nodding. “Of course you meust not make any precipitate decisions.”

    She grasped gratefully at this familiar phraseology. “No, of course not.”

    “But in principle, it does not displease you?”

    “No,” she agreed, smiling shakily. “Not in principle, no.”

    “Splendid!” said Armand, beaming. He seized his spoon and began hungrily to finish his pavlova.

    Sammi felt as if her heart was literally singing in her chest. Dazedly she pulled her plate towards her and finished her delicious Oranges à la kiwi.

    … “I don’t know what exactly happened, dear,” reported Basil in shaken tones after the two had left, “because I was serving those friends of Polly’s who came in late; but it must have been something pretty good: because guess what?”

    The male friend of Polly’s wanted the pork and Gary was anxiously inspecting it in case it might have got over-cooked. “What?” he said without interest.

    “The female yuppie, dear,” said Basil impressively, “left a tip!”

    The premiere of the Carter’s Bay & District Gilbert and Sullivan Society’s production of The Mikado took place on a freezing cold, wintry August night. The venue was the brand-new Carter’s Bay Primary School gymnasium. Erected with the aid of a generous donation from, not a cigarette company, surprisingly enough, but Carrano Development. Possibly not unconnected with the compete takeover of Carter’s Bay, as some had pointed out. Nevertheless the offer hadn’t been refused. Shane Pyke had proposed calling it the Sir Jacob Carrano Gymnasium, his reasoning being that it would have taken them four hundred years of school fairs to raise the money by themselves, but this had been vetoed by, or so word had it, Sir Jake himself. So it was just called “the gym”. Not that it wouldn’t have been anyway. There was, however, a large plaque affixed to the exterior of the structure commemorating the generous gesture in bronze. For all time—quite.

    “Have a Jaffa,” said Bill Michaels blandly, passing the packet along the front row in the first interval. “It’s funny, ya know, I’d have thought Jack would’ve gone for the other one,” he said blandly to his neighbour on his right.

    “The other what, Bill?” replied Lady Carrano coldly.

    “The other cousin,” said Bill calmly.

    His neighbour on his left leant forward earnestly. “Why, no, Bill! I guess you don’t know Jack all that well, do you? Clara’s a very pretty girl, of course, but not his type. Far too conventional, y’know?”

    “Yes,” said Bill limply. “I suppose you’re right, Randi.”

    Randi King Perkins nodded her perfectly waved, immaculate red-gold head at him. “Why, yes! Jack doesn’t need a woman who wants a conventional suburban lifestyle.”

    “No, um, that house of his is conventional enough, if huge,” muttered the engineer feebly, aware that on his right, Polly was gleefully drinking in every syllable of this exchange.

    “Oh, sure, but that’s just trimmings; I guess you can see that as well as me, huh?” she said kindly, with her bright smile. “No, well, I’d say Beth isn’t the sort to mind if he suddenly loses interest in the house—because I guess she isn’t all that domesticated at heart, herself, is she? And that placid temperament of hers is what he needs—counterbalances his, you see?”

    “Yes, you’re right,” he muttered, giving in entirely.

    Randi smiled and nodded brightly. “It’s just so good to see him settled! The girls and I, we’ve been real worried about him, poor Jack!”

    “So have we,” agreed Polly, smiling at her across the chastened Professor Michaels. “We think Beth’s right for him, too. She’s very like our other cousin, Michaela; her husband’s an American, actually, and very much the same type as Jack: their marriage is working out very well.”

    Randi nodded and beamed, showing all the perfectly corrected teeth.

    Bill just hunched into himself, smiling palely. Why in God’s name he hadn’t made some excuse to stay on in Hawaii with Hal’s engineering mates until Angie’s bloody show was over— “Eh?” he said, jumping.

    Polly had risen. “Change places, Bill. You and Jake can go into a nice male huddle while Randi and I talk intelligently.”

    Randi of course laughed obligingly—in Bill’s opinion once she’d twigged how much Polly’s husband was worth, she’d have laughed at anything at all Polly liked to say, it coulda been in Dutch—Double Dutch—and she’d have laughed. He got up and changed places. Even though that would probably mean that Jake would eat all of his Jaffas.

    “Gi’s a Jaffa,” he said immediately, grinning.

    Sighing, Bill held out the packet. “Didn’t W.S. Gilbert write this thing in two acts, not three? Or was that only the version I was exposed to in me youth, five hundred years ago?”

    “It does feel like that, eh?” he agreed mildly. “Well, I dunno: I was never exposed to Gilbert and Sullivan at all. –Jack’s lovely, isn’t he?”

    Bill gulped. “Um, yeah. Ya mean his voice? Yeah, I suppose so.”

    “They’re thinking of doing Amahl and the Night Visitors next year,” he said mildly.

    Bill eyed him frantically.

    “Using young Mason Butler. Boy soprano. Perfect pitch.”

    Bill eyed him frantically.

    “Be at Christmas, I suppose. And Penny’ll have a bit much on her plate, this coming year, to want to put it on next winter, with this riding-stables idea her and Alan have got.”

    “What?” he croaked.

    “Oh, haven’t ya heard that one?” he said happily. “Yeah. Well, you could always make plans to take Angie somewhere expensive and exotic coincidentally the very Christmas in question.”

    Bill nodded frantically.

    Jake’s shoulders shook slightly. “Yeah. –I like it,” he revealed placidly. “Pretty, y’know? Not great music, would never claim that, but pretty. Think it might be quite good.”

    Bill smiled palely.

    “Alan’ll tell you all about the stables,” said Jake comfortably. “Hey, Catherine, if you and Alan change places, he can tell Bill about the stables, okay?”

    Obediently Catherine and Alan changed places.

    “We were under the impression,” said Alan solemnly across Jake, “that The Mikado had only two acts.”

    “Yeah: me, too,” admitted Bill.

    “Catherine maintains it’s something to do with changing out of those misguided school uniforms,” he said calmly.

    Catherine leaned forward. “It is!” she said earnestly. “And don’t call them misguided: that’s mean.”

    “On eighteen-stone middle-aged women, blue and white checked school uniforms, even vaguely Edwardian ones, are misguided,” replied Alan calmly.

    Bill grinned. “Yeah,” he said to Catherine.

    “Not checked; gingham!” she replied witheringly, turning away from them.

    “Gingham,” said Bill with a wink, nodding.

    The three males immediately collapsed in male sniggers.

    “I think it’s very good,” said Catherine firmly to her new neighbour.

    Jane Vincent eyed her drily. “I’d say it was pretty average. It’s certainly not Japanese, I’m told.”

    Rather shyly Catherine smiled across her at Hanae Armstrong. “I don’t suppose it is, no.”

    Hanae replied briskly: “Most of the men’s kimonos are quite-ah genuine. However, the costumes are a great mix-ah-ture of styles and periods.”

    “It’ll get worse in the next act; I’m reliably informed the women get into their kimonos for it,” noted Jane drily.

    “That’ll be pretty!” returned Catherine happily. “I thought Dorothy was in it?”

    “Yes, and Thomas also,” agreed Hanae, consulting her programme.

    “Um, yes, they come on later. They make a grand entrance,” Jane explained somewhat feebly.

    “I see,” said Catherine, apparently satisfied.

    Jane refrained from asking her if she had never been exposed to G&S in her youth. And from wondering aloud, in front of Alan’s wife, why in God’s name why the unfortunate Hanae and her humble self had been favoured with seats in the front row.

    “I thought,” said a sepulchral voice from behind them, “that the bloody thing only had two acts?”

    “Shut up, Jill,” said Jane limply.

    Dr Davis leaned forward. “Want a marshmallow?”

    Jane and Catherine both took marshmallows but Hanae refused: whether it was strength of mind or natural dislike of the things, Jane couldn’t have said.

    “We can’t understand,” said Jill affably, “why Gerhard wasn’t given a better part.”

    “They need somebody with an actual voice in the chorus?” suggested Jane sweetly.

    “No, he hangs back under the belief that that is correct behaviour in any Kiwi group. So Penny concludes he is just another wimpish male and puts him in the chorus,” said Gretchen calmly.

    “The female chorus is horrible, isn’t it?” said Jill affably.

    “Visually or audibly, Jill?” asked Jane drily.

    “Both. Except for the two dear little Japanese girls, of course, as far as appearance goes. Were they just opening and shutting their mouths or were my eyes and ears deceiving me?”

    “No,” confirmed Mayli calmly from Gretchen’s other side.

    Jill gulped.

    “Congratulations, Mayli,” said Gretchen, wresting the marshmallow packet off Jill. “These are my marshmallows,” she noted by the by. “–You haff succeeded in silencing her. For the moment, one understands. Haff a marshmallow.”

    “No, thanks, I don’t like squashy sweets,” said Mayli with a smile.

    “Jack’s good,” noted Gretchen detachedly.

    “Yeah. The difference is, that he can sing,” explained Jane grimly.

    “Gerhard and Jack are getting up a proper singing group, Jane,” said Mayli kindly. “Just for their own amusement, really, it’s not intended to be any sort of rival to the Society. They’re thinking of putting on some lunchtime concerts at work, later on.”

    “I’ll look forward to that!” said Jane with feeling.

    “Ja, qvite,” agreed Gretchen. “The Pooh Bah iss not bad. And the Yum Yum, she has a lovely voice, but qvite untrained.”

    “Look, go back to Bonn and your bloody opera house,” groaned Jill.

    “Certainly not,” said Gretchen with dignity. “One would not get to sit almost at the front eating marshmallows, at home.”

    “Don’t they have them in Germany?” asked Catherine uncertainly.

    “It’s not that. Although I have never seen them there, certainly. No, in a proper opera house one would not dare,” explained Gretchen calmly.

    Catherine collapsed in delighted giggles, nodding frantically, and Mayli choked. Even Hanae grinned, and Jane allowed herself to smile—although she had seen that one coming for some time. Jill merely seized the moment to grab the marshmallows off her Aryan friend and pass them round. Noting superfluously as she did so: “We’re going to need these, don’t kid yourselves, ladies.”

    Mrs Adler, Michaela Winkelmann and Col Michaels were seated further back. Placidly Mrs Adler offered barley sugars. Gratefully they each took one.

    “Sol’s very funny,” said the old lady kindly.

    “He’s getting carried away,” replied his wife detachedly.

    There was a twinkle in Mrs Adler’s shrewd little eye; she nodded, but merely noted calmly: “Well, it’s only an amateur show, dear. Akiko and Mitsuko look pretty, don’t they?”

    Michaela grinned. “They always do. But I thought they were going to wear kimonos?”

    “Yeah, and full meiko gear,” agreed Col. “Well, dunno if you know Gilbert and Sullivan, at all?”

    “Dad used to like it,” said Michaela in her detached way.

    “It used to be very popular,” explained Mrs Adler. “We hardly ever got the really good companies, of course. But I have seen the D’Oyly Carte company: they came out several times. Well, looking back, I suppose the last time would have been before you were born, Col,” she said kindly. “It’s all these silly modern versions with young pirate kings and all that jumping, these days, isn’t it?”

    “That puts it in a nutshell,” he agreed, grinning. “Well,” he said to Michaela, “W.S. Gilbert never put in this interval: it’s to give the girls time to get into the meiko gear, ya see.”

    “I see,” she said placidly. “Is Dorothy going to be in the next bit, then?”

    “Uh—yeah,” he said, somewhat weakly. “Her and Thomas, they make a grand entrance.”

    “When I saw the D’Oyly Cartes do it,” said the old lady reminiscently, “there was one scene—I’m not sure if it was Katisha’s first entrance or not, now: it was a long time ago—where they had a dear little red gate at the back of the stage: it looked as if it was just for decoration. She burst through it: it was very unexpected, and everybody gasped. We had our Susan with us: she was about eleven, and it was the first live show she’d seen. She let out a terrific scream. Bob was quite embarrassed. But then, men are like that: silly, isn’t it?”

    “Yes,” agreed Michaela seriously, nodding.

    “Yeah, absolutely,” agreed Col with a grin. “Hey, could I have another barley sugar, Mrs A.?”

    Placidly Mrs Adler passed the packet, though noting: “You shouldn’t crunch them like that, Col. They’re meant to be sucked.”

    Sammi, Armand and Moana were in the front row, though on the other side of the aisle from the Carranos’ party. Sammi had been quite pleased to have been offered tickets for the front. Now she wasn’t so sure.

    “Horrible, isn’t it?” said Moana with a grin.

    “I wouldn’t say that,” returned Sammi on a weak note.

    “Didja notice the very fat Maori lady in the second row of the chorus? Size of a house.”

    Sammi and Armand might have objected to this somewhat racist comment, but as Moana was one of the race in question, they couldn’t. They nodded limply.

    “That’s one of my aunties: Aunty Di. And the very thin Maori lady next to her, the one that’s black as your hat, that’s another aunty. Aunty Doreen: she doesn’t live up here, they’re down in Forrest Hill, but she’s nuts on these amateur singing groups.”

    “I see,” said Armand faintly, since his beloved seemed to be reduced to numbed silence. “So, eugh, is it very far?”

    “Eh? Oh; Forrest Hill? Nah, about an hour if ya take the motorway—bit more, maybe: just north of Taka’,” said Moana breezily.

    Armand had never heard of Taka, either: he smiled weakly.

    “Um, I think you mean Takapuna, Moana, is that right?” said Sammi cautiously.

    Moana was craning her neck. “Mm? Oh. Yeah. Sorry. –I can’t see May Swadling anywhere: I’m sure she said she was coming. I thought I might just mention to her that Aunty Doreen’s second, he’s interested in managing a dairy. –Yes,” she said, turning back to them and smiling a blinding smile: “Takapuna.”

    They gulped.

    “So that’s the right pronunciation!” discovered Sammi, very weakly indeed.

    “Yes. It’s rather a nice language, aurally,” said Moana calmly. “Funny that lots of Maoris really mangle English, isn’t it?”

    They nodded numbly.

    After several moments had passed in numb silence, Armand ventured: “I thought that you were in the show, Moana?”

    “I was, yes. Went through a horrible stretch of throwing up at unexpected moments: once we started rehearsing in here I got worse, and we decided that maybe I was allergic to the smell of varnish, so Leigh said I’d better stop. It was a relief, really: Penny Bergen’s a bit hard to take.”

    They nodded seriously, though Sammi did note: “You do need someone with a firm hand, though: otherwise the whole thing falls apart.”

    “Yeah; I’d tell myself that on those long winter evenings in front of the TV with the heater on full blast while poor old Leigh was out here shivering in three jumpers under his kimono!” said Moana with her cheerful laugh.

    They smiled weakly…

    May and Jack Swadling had come, but they were towards the back; just in case, Jack’s suggestion, the thing was so bloody rotten that they’d feel inspired to creep out. May had long since given up her attempt to be a chorus lady. There was too much in it, really, what with learning all the words and the tunes, and all the moving around on stage that you had to know backwards, or Penny shouted at you: she hadn’t expected that a singing chorus would have to do that, she’d sort of thought that they’d just stand there. And then having to sew two costumes—and really, what with the shop, and the planning for the new shop, she and Jack had enough on their plates!

    “It’s really very good,” she said placidly.

    Jack eyed her tolerantly. “Yeah.”

    “Sol’s good, isn’t he?” she said happily.

    Over the top and down the other side, more like. “Yeah,” he said tolerantly.

    “I thought Mr Takagaki was going to be in it.”

    Jack hadn’t thought that for a moment. Not a single, solitary. “Yeah,” he said tolerantly.

    “Maybe he can’t sing.”

    Most of them couldn’t sing. Not within the definition of the word. Jack Perkins was bloody good, though. Jack grunted.

    “Jack Perkins is excellent, isn’t he?”

    Jumping slightly, Jack agreed: “Yep, he can sing, all right.”

    Not noticing the slight emphasis on the “he”, May responded happily: “Yes, he sounds just like a real singer! His legs are a bit skinny, though.”

    At least they weren’t in plaster up to the hip, that hadda be a plus. “Thought you reckoned he was exactly the same sorta type as me?” he said tolerantly.

    May gave an unexpected giggle and dug her elbow into his ribs. Jack grinned.

    “Jack, I’ve been thinking…”

    Oops, here it came. “Yeah?” he grunted.

    “Don’t you think it’d be fun to run the new dairy ourselves?”

    Strewth, that had taken long a-bloody-nough, hadn’t it? “Yeah,” he said tolerantly. “Might be, at that.”

    “Kingfisher Bay’s lovely!” said May, beaming.

    Poncy, would be a better word. “Very pretty, yeah,” he managed.

    “Especially in the summer!” she beamed.

    It would be full—full—of bloody tourists and up-themselves second-homers in peculiar sunglasses designed to impede the vision to the Nth degree, or his name wasn’t Jack Swadling. Not to mention the said second-homers’ kids or grandkids all wanting ice creams at the exact same moment in time. All heading for the dairy—geddit?

    “May,” he said cautiously, “it’ll be pretty bloody busy come the school holidays, ya know.”

    “Yes,” said May with a happy sigh. “We’ll see a bit of life! Won’t it be a change?”

    A change and a flaming half, more like. Oh, well. He’d better plan to get someone in to help at the counter. Preferably someone that could do simple arithmetic. And these days, that only cut out about two hundred percent of the local school leavers! “Eh?” he said, jumping. “Oh! Uh—yeah, I’m pozz Dorothy’s in it. Must make her entrance a bit later on, eh?”

    “Yes. And Thomas,” she said with a scowl.

    “Now, don’t get started on that topic, May,” said Jack with a sigh.

    This, of course, was water off a duck’s back. So he put a listening expression on his face and settled back with his ears completely closed, ready to let it all flow over him.

    … “Good, it’s starting again,” noted Gretchen with the usual Aryan satisfaction at any manifestation, however sketchy, of Ordnung.

    Jill slumped in her seat, repressing the groan—after all, they were in the second bloody row, and that just over there with the unfortunate Polly was the shiny American Randi King Perkins in person, so possibly they should give at least the impression of being little ladies. Oh, God: please let it be over soon.

    Possibly because Jill Davis, M.A., Ph.D., had been an atheist since the age of about fourteen, this prayer was not answered.

    Second interval. W.S. Gilbert’s official first act had just ended to thunderous applause. Thomas’s threatening Mikado and Dorothy’s even more threatening Katisha had gone down really well. Once the curtain seemed to be staying closed—Sol had taken it upon himself to whisk it aside three times for the disconcerted cast to take extra bows—most of the audience headed thankfully for the great outdoors and a smoke, or, alternatively, the long, long tramp in guest of the school bogs.

    In the dressing-rooms, actually several classrooms separated from the brand-new gym by one long, narrow and totally inadequate passage, all was chaos. Dorothy allowed Akiko, tutting slightly, to repair her authentic Japanese horror-play make-up—or whatever, it had a Japanese name but Dorothy’s RAM didn’t have room for it—and escaped back to the stage. It was very peaceful there; the scenery didn’t need to be changed, which was just as well, none of the Carter’s Bay lot would have been capable of doing anything that complicated correctly. She peered round the edge of the curtain.

    “Penny’ll kill you,” predicted Sol with a laugh in his voice.

    “Only if she has time after killing you for assorted silly-ass carry-ons on stage in the middle of the show,” she noted pointedly.

    “Who are you looking for?”

    “Flaming Kathleen,” said Dorothy with a sigh.

    “Huh? Not your sister?”

    “Yes. She’s come up to inspect Beth,” she groaned. “Don’t ask me how, but she got it out of me that it had developed into something more than just—” She stopped, Sol was having hysterics.

    He then ventured: “Isn’t she sitting with Randi and Polly and Co.?”

    “No. Though she does approve of Randi, of course. No, I didn’t have sufficient advance warning to book a seat for her in the front row.” Dorothy peered. “Oh, God,” she ascertained.

    “Yeah?” he said eagerly.

    Dorothy retreated from the curtain. “I’ve just spotted her sitting down beside May Swadling.”

    Sol staggered all round the stage in hysterics.

    … Halfway down the hall, Adrian passed a packet of something.

    Euan investigated it. “Salt and vinegar reprocessed potato pulp? Bit down-market for you, isn’t it?”

    “Take some, or shut up,” he sighed.

    Grinning, Euan took a handful. “Bloody awful, isn’t it?” he said conversationally. “Anna’s all right, though. Lovely voice. And Thomas and Dorothy are good. Well, he can’t really sing, can he? Just booms. And she can’t sing at all. Sounds a bit like Rex Harrison, only deeper. But their acting’s good.”

    Adrian slumped right down in his seat and closed his eyes.

    “Jack Perkins can really sing, can’t he?”

    “You said that before, and I agreed with it,” he sighed.

    “Stop thinking about all the money you’re losing by closing the restaurants for one whole night, you Scrooge, and count your blessings!” he said with a laugh.

    “What blessings?” said Adrian very, very faintly with his eyes closed.

    “Well, One, that she didn’t make ya be in it.”

    Adrian’s beautiful face flickered slightly. “Mm,” he acknowledged.

    “Two, that your ma and pa have pushed off up the front and joined up with the Carranos.”

    “Grandchildren,” he said very, very faintly.

    “I’m coming to that. And Three, that for one brief, flashing instant in time, the show did actually distract your ma from the subject of grandchildren and why you and Anna aren’t producing any.”

    “Why in God’s name,” said Adrian with his eyes shut, “did you have to tell her that you and Simone are sprogging?”

    “She asked, old mate, weren’t you listening?” said Euan kindly.

    “Oh, shit: sorry!” he gulped, opening his eyes.

    “They’re all like that,” replied Euan placidly. “Mum and Dad were up last weekend—I think to make sure that I hadn’t strangled her or shut her in a cupboard or started starving her since we told them the good news—and since they turned up without warning and we’d invited Leigh and Moana to afternoon tea, it was the perfect opportunity, once Moana had turned a very funny colour—not green, more a sort of navy blue, under the brown—at the sight of Mum’s sponge cake with real cream, for Mum to ask her if she was.”

    “Christ.”

    “It’s all right: Leigh was thrilled to be given the opportunity to tell Mum all about it.”

    Adrian gulped. “Yeah.”

    “Dad’s been bloody decent about the house, you know.”

    “Mm? Oh: the loan to help you buy Armand out—yeah.”

    “Well, why don’t you think about it?” said Euan mildly.

    “We’re barely making ends meet. Our overheads are huge. Actually it’s only the grog we sell in the side bar and the tiny profit margin from The Quarter Deck that are keeping us afloat, at the moment,” he said with a grimace.

    “Shit.”

    “Everybody warned me that there would be no market in New Zealand for haute cuisine,” said Adrian grimly.

    “Yeah. Um, well, can you weather it, though?”

    “Yes,” he said with a sigh. “The population’s growing in leaps and bounds, and come summer, the bar trade’ll zoom and the courtyard lunches’ll take off. But we can’t think about starting a family yet. It’s not just the extra cost, it’s because we can’t afford to pay someone to do Anna’s work.”

    “Mm. –So, if The Quays is all closed up, why didn’t Jacko come with you?” he asked innocently.

    Adrian smiled reluctantly. “Hah, hah.”

    “He must,” said Euan slowly, “be the only person in the whole of the Bay that’s strong-minded enough, what am I saying, individualistic enough, not to be suckered into being in it, or into turning up to watch it.”

    Adrian thought about it, the beautiful brow wrinkling.

    “Well? Can ya think of anyone else?”

    “Uh—Annick did come, didn’t she?” he said weakly.

    “Yes,” said Euan unemotionally. “Sitting over there with Rhonda Semple’s mum.”

    “I see,” said Adrian weakly. “Um…”

    “Ya can’t, can ya?”

    “N— Um… we are talking about the Bay, are we? Including the whole of the Point? What about Kingfisher Bay?”

    “Excluding the retirees that don’t know they’re alive. Sub-human,” said Euan with a shrug.

    “Right.” Adrian thought. “No, you’re right, Euan,” he conceded at last: “I can’t think of a single, solitary adult except Jacko that’s strong-minded and individualistic enough to have kept right out of it!”

Next chapter:

https://conquestofcartersbay.blogspot.com/2023/05/ballads-songs-and-snatches.html