Dinner at Rose's (30 page)

‘JOSEPHINE?’ AUNTY ROSE
called as I went down the hall towards bed later that evening. I continued past the door of the Pink Room to look round her door. She was propped on her pillows with
The Sentimental Bloke
and
Persuasion
beside her on the covers and a torrid bodice-ripper in her hands. Nice Marty Holden from the Book Exchange had been bringing romance novels by the boxful and she was getting through two a day, switching to Jane Austen when her brain needed decontaminating.

‘What’s that one about?’ I asked.

‘Beautiful orphan cheated out of inheritance and raped by wicked uncle,’ said Aunty Rose succinctly.

‘But rescued by disturbingly attractive stable hand who turns out to be laird of the neighbouring castle?’

‘No doubt,’ she said. ‘I’ve only just started it. I’m sorry – what I said was completely uncalled for.’

‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘Hazel’s just been letting me down gently by telling me how much in love Matt and Cilla are.’

‘I expect you enjoyed that.’

‘Very much.’ I leant against the doorframe and said, That’s the first time you’ve ever been mean to me.’

‘I fear, Josephine, that it may not be the last.’

‘Bitterness and rage kicking in, huh?’

‘Indeed,’ said Aunty Rose. ‘Goodnight, sweet pea.’ And as I turned to go she began to laugh weakly.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘The ghastly thing’s got a
tail
. Please get it out of my sight.’

I looked back over my shoulder – she was quite right: the onesie did indeed have a little white bunny tail sewn onto the back. I don’t know how I’d overlooked it.

‘Bloody marvellous,’ I said, and closed the door softly behind me.

WHEN I GOT
to work the next morning at ten to eight Amber’s red car was already there. Normally she drifts in at five past – this was not, I felt, a good sign. Perhaps she’d come in early to hand in her notice, and I was about to be sued for abuse in the workplace. I went up the hall somewhat apprehensively and found her swabbing the front desk with a damp cloth, which was another first.

‘Good morning,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I vacuumed.’

I was bemused. ‘Who are you?’ I asked. ‘And what did you do with Amber?’

This weak sally was greeted by a merry peal of laughter. ‘You’re so funny,’ she said.

I opened my mouth to apologise for shouting at her the previous evening, suddenly thought better of it and closed it again. This new Amber was a vast improvement on the old one; there was no telling how long the transformation would last, and it would be foolish to say anything that might shorten its duration. Amber paused in her cleaning to wipe her nose on the shoulder of her cardigan and I was unexpectedly relieved. She had not, after all, been replaced by a robot whose programming might at any time default to Massacre Mode.

The new and improved Amber lasted all through the morning. She inputted files and phoned tomorrow’s clients to remind them of their appointments and didn’t once remove her nail polish, and I wondered if I had perchance slipped through the fabric of my life into some parallel universe.

Andy came in at midday, the epitome of the rural young professional in his beige moleskin trousers and glossy chestnut leather boots, with his shirt collar standing up almost as crisply as the gelled spikes of his hair. You wouldn’t have wanted to snuggle up to that hairdo; you might have lost an eye.

‘Hi,’ breathed Amber, opening her eyes very wide and sucking on the end of a pen. Unfortunately this didn’t make her look alluring, but merely as if there was a very real risk that her eyes might fall out of her head. ‘Hello, Andy.’

‘Oh, hi, Amber,’ he replied, and then lifted his chin about five degrees in my direction. ‘Jo.’

‘G’day,’ I said.

‘I’ve got some pork for you in the freezer at home,’ he informed me.

‘You keep it,’ I said. ‘You’re the one who’s done all the work.’

‘I thought maybe you guys might like some chops and a couple of little roasts. I’ll bring it up after work, if you’re going to be around.’

‘About seven-thirty’s usually a good time,’ I suggested. ‘Matt and Kim come over after dinner most nights.’

‘Right,’ said Andy uncomfortably. ‘Look, Jo, could I have a word?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Amber, you must be due for a lunch break about now.’

Amber looked somewhat crushed, but she pushed back her chair and ferreted under the desk for her handbag. ‘Can I get you guys anything?’ she asked.

‘No, thanks,’ said Andy. He smiled at her fleetingly and she went pink. It occurred to me that we might well be on the verge of another outbreak of unrequited love, and that I’d better lay in some extra chocolate biscuits. Not Tim Tams, though; something less complicated to eat.

Amber pulled on a pink nylon coat with grubby faux fur around the sleeves, picked up her bag and let herself out into the wintry sunlight. We watched her drift up the street towards the Bake House, and Andy shuffled his feet and looked unhappy.

I waited for a little while, and when there were no signs of imminent speech said, ‘It’s lovely up the back of the Kings’ place, isn’t it?’

‘Mm.’

After another pause I tried again. ‘I hear you met Kim’s mother the other day.’

‘Mm,’ said Andy again, carefully examining the nails of his left hand. Evidently satisfied with their appearance he shoved the hand into his trouser pocket and began to whistle tunelessly through his teeth.

I laughed – I couldn’t help it – and he jumped like a startled rabbit. ‘Andy! I’ve got a client in ten minutes.’

‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Um, Jo . . .’

There was another, even longer pause, and I sat down in Amber’s chair and rested my elbows on the desk and my chin in my hands. ‘Whenever you’re ready,’ I remarked. ‘Just in your own time.’

‘Oh, stop it,’ said Andy crossly. ‘Look, if I ask the girl out are you going to think I’m a dirty old man and run me out of town?’

‘By “you” do you mean Matt?’

‘Mphmm.’

‘Well, he did send Kim off with you up the back of the farm, so I wouldn’t think so. And you’re employed and not in a rock band, so you’re already looking pretty good compared to the last one.’

‘I’m five years older than her,’ said Andy. ‘
She’ll
probably think I’m a dirty old man.’

Anything less like a dirty old man than Andy with his pink cheeks and sticking-up hair would have been hard to imagine. He looked about twelve. ‘That’d be why she wanted your phone number and bought you a stack of Picnic bars and offered to walk up a hill,’ I said. ‘And if you’d asked me I would have said Kim would rather put lemon juice on a paper cut than go walking through a patch of wet scrub.’

‘I don’t think her mother thought much of me,’ he said glumly.

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘She thought you were probably casing the joint. Aunty Rose told her your family own about half of Hawkes Bay, but I’m not sure she believed it.’

‘Only seven thousand acres,’ Andy corrected.

‘Near enough.’ Way to go, Aunty Rose. ‘Are you fifth generation?’

He looked at me in a perplexed sort of way. ‘We moved there from Feilding when I was six. Does it matter?’

‘It’s just that I told Hazel you were fifth generation. That kind of thing impresses her.’

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I suppose. Right, I’d better go and do some work.’

‘Andy?’ I asked.

‘Mm?’

‘Be careful with Kim, won’t you? She’s having a pretty rough time at the moment.’

‘I know,’ he said.

Chapter 27

T
HE PHONE RANG
, and I put down the bluntest vegetable knife in recorded history and crossed the kitchen to pick it up. ‘Hello, Jo speaking.’

‘Hello, love,’ said my mother. ‘How are things today?’

‘Awful,’ I said flatly.

‘Oh.’

I retreated to the chaise longue and curled up at one end, hugging my knees. ‘She won’t eat, Mum. I think she’s trying to starve herself to death.’

‘Oh, sweetie.’

‘She didn’t eat anything yesterday, and the day before she only had half a little pot of yoghurt when Matt stood over her and made her eat it. She snaps at us and then cries and apologises – and that’s a million times worse. Mum, can you come up for a bit? I know it’s a lousy time of year, but it might not be much longer and – and I’m not managing very well.’

‘I was planning to come for a few days next month,’ said Mum slowly. ‘I don’t like to leave your father when the goats are still kidding, but I’m sure he can cope if he has to.’

‘Sooner would be better. Mum, I’m sorry . . .’

‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘Take deep breaths. I’ll talk to your father and we’ll see what we can do.’

‘Thank you. I’ve been leaving work early when I can, and the others all drop in every day, but it would be such a relief if you were here too.’

‘Isn’t Hazel helping?’

‘She prefers just having hysterics,’ I said. ‘You’d think Aunty Rose was only dying to spite her.’

‘We can’t be doing with
that
,’ my mother declared. I expect Boadicea said something very much the same, in similarly ringing tones, when discussing the Roman occupation of Britain a couple of thousand years ago. ‘Now, is Rose awake, love?’

‘I’ll go and look.’ I got to my feet and went down the hall to peep through her bedroom door. She was lying back with her eyes closed, but she opened one at my approach. I covered the speaker of the phone and mouthed, ‘Mum?’

Aunty Rose nodded and held out her hand for the phone.

‘Here she is,’ I said into the receiver. ‘Love to Dad.’ And feeling somewhat invigorated after talking to Edith Donnelly, Woman of Action, I went down the hall and dug through the kitchen drawers for a sharpening stone with which to deal with that useless knife.

IT WAS NEARLY
dark when I turned into Aunty Rose’s driveway at half past five the following evening. The lights were on in the cowshed across the road, and little angry spats of rain hurled themselves at the windscreen. I dodged the pothole halfway up, swerving towards the orchard fence (in wet weather you had to take Aunty Rose’s driveway like a rally driver), and the headlights caught a small pale body lying between two plum trees.

If I’d stopped there I’d have had to let the car run back to the bottom of the hill before tackling it again, so I continued up the drive and parked on the gravel sweep outside the kitchen. Then I zipped my polar fleece vest right up under my chin, got out into the wet dusk and unwillingly went back down to investigate. Only three dogs appeared from under the house to accompany me – Spud had decided, after a taste of indoor life, that exposure to the elements really wasn’t his cup of tea.

I climbed the orchard fence, catching my jeans on the barbed wire and ripping a little triangular hole through both the denim and the tender skin of my inner thigh. A brand-new lamb lay stretched on its side under the Red Doris plum tree. I bent and prodded its little eye, but it didn’t blink. A nicer person would have mused sorrowfully on the futility of being born only to slip straight out of life again, but I was just relieved not to have to add lamb-rearing to my list of jobs for this evening.

Presumably the lamb belonged to Mildred, although its paternity was a mystery – Edwin lacked the necessary equipment. I stood up and peered through the gathering dusk, and at the far end of the orchard saw two sheep-sized glimmers of white. ‘Sit,’ I ordered without any real hope of being obeyed, and began to slither down the hill.