The Best of Fiona Kidman's Short Stories (33 page)

‘An omelette?' says Michelle.

‘I am trying to separate an egg,' says Francis, spacing his words.

‘An egg, eh?' When Francis came home this evening, she had been on the point of asking him if he was thinking of leaving her. Now she suspects that nothing is further from his mind, as he settles into what he will one day call his middle years. She pinches the flesh in her arm. Michelle is ready and she is not. She walks to the bench, and picks an egg from the tray. Quickly, she taps the egg against the edge of the only remaining empty bowl. Neatly, gently, her thumbs close over its fractured centre. She draws it apart with a deft tilt, allowing the viscous primrose liquid to slide into the bowl, leaving one half empty. Silently, she hands him the full half, the yolk sitting in its perfect unruptured sac.

‘How many more?'

‘No,' he says, ‘no, I'll do it.'

Michelle drops the eggshells into the waste disposal and turns it on.
Sometimes
she thinks of putting her hand down inside it and testing the strength of her bones against the blades. She picks up the car keys. ‘Tomatoes,' she says.

‘Tomatoes,' says Francis.

Outside, it is a clear night, the telephone lines already tightening with frost. A new moon busks along the sky and over the tops of the hills. Michelle is light-headed with champagne and anyway it is too good a night to get the car out and drive the length of the block. The streets may be unsafe, but she also has a dangerous edge.

Pocketing the keys, she sets out. There is a lick of salt from the sea in the air, the pohutukawa trees mutter and rustle in winter sleep, the silvery leaves moving as if they are turning their money over under the moon. The choir practises in the church, crotchets and quavers hover around the door. Soon she, too, will have to think about the next stage of her life, like getting a job or having a baby, or simply accepting her lot in life. But she would like to create something, another child, a picture; perhaps she will learn to paint. After tonight, she will begin again.

At the fruitshop, she dawdles over the displays, admiring the green froth of silverbeet with its stern white spines, the huddled pumpkins, the soft pale ruche of mushrooms in their wooden box. What couldn't I do with you lot, she says, and buys four tomatoes and a winter apple to eat on the way home. The greengrocer gives her a bunch of pink carnations which you have to look at closely to see the brown spots at the base of the petals. She decides to take the shortcut home, through the school.

As she enters the playground she hears a sound. At first the noise is muffled but in a moment she distinguishes a human voice. ‘Hey, hey, hey,' it says. Michelle feels a dog's-breath of fear along the back of her neck. Her legs have become leaden.

‘Hey, hey,' says the voice, like someone who has been saying the same thing over and again for a long time and doesn't expect to be heard.

Michelle knows the playground like the back of her hand; it is part of Jeremy's school. At the far end stand two head-high recycling bins. On the left hand is plastics, and on the other side clothing, inside which are some of her own and Jeremy's clothes and, unbeknown to him, some of Francis's too. His monogrammed hockey blazer lives for the moment inside this bin. It has been troubling her for some days that, in a fit of efficiency, she has taken this garment, lurking, because of its rancid and old-sweat smell, at the back of the wardrobe, and thrown it out. In the moonlight a white hand floats in front of the bin like a surgical glove filled with helium. The fingers are splayed and jiggling.

‘Let me outta here, hey you out there.'

Now is the moment for Michelle to run. But this is a cry for help and in the moment that she hesitates she is lost. The bin is talking to her.

‘Hey hey he-ey,' it says.

‘Hi,' says Michelle. Her voice sticks in the back of her throat.

‘Oh boy, is there really someone out there?'

Michelle approaches the bin, and the hand clutches air. It is attached to an arm that pokes from under the bin's flap.

‘Who are you?' she calls.

‘Stan,' says the bin.

‘Why are you in the bin?'

‘My wife threw my football jersey out.'

‘Stan,' she says, and her heart is wrung with guilt, ‘were you looking for the jersey?'

‘Yeah. And it stinks in here.'

‘Okay, okay, you live round here?' She is trying to fit a face to a man called Stan, a three o'clock father waiting after school for one of Jeremy's friends. She knows she is going to let the genie out of the bottle, but it alarms her what might escape.

‘Nah,' says Stan, on the other side of the tin wall. ‘She was making it hard for me, the cow. I've been looking in every bin in town. I thought I saw my jersey down the bottom of this one, but I couldn't reach it without getting in. Look, if you could just hold the flap up while I get my head through and give me a yank, I reckon I'd be right.'

‘I don't know,' Michelle says.

Deep in the heart of the bin, Stan sighs. ‘Don't tell me, you're five foot three and skinny?'

‘More or less. You'll pull me over. How about I call the police?'

‘Not the police, lady, please not the police.'

‘Are you a crim?'

‘The police bring me out in a rash. I've got a nervous disposition.'

‘I could call the fire brigade.'

He groans. ‘They'll charge me for a call-out.'

‘Maybe your wife?'

‘Call the fire brigade.' His tone is resigned.

‘Well then,' says Michelle, ‘I wonder if you'd be good enough to see if you can find a man's jacket in there? It shouldn't be hard to find. I'm sure there won't be many.'

‘There's a jacket all right,' says Stan. ‘I'm wearing it to keep me warm.'

‘Would you throw it out?'

‘Look, what are you? I thought you were helping me.'

‘No jacket, no fire brigade.'

‘How do I know I can trust you?'

‘You don't.' She begins to walk away.

‘Hey. You. Come back.'

She stops, turns, and after a short scuffle inside the bin, Francis's hockey jacket comes sailing through the air. As she picks it up, there is a sudden delighted yelp of surprise.

‘Wait,' says Stan, ‘I'm thin enough to get out, without that thing on.' In a moment, he has pulled himself up through the flap, and drops on the ground beside her. She discerns a balding middle-aged man with the beginnings of a paunch, clutching his spectacles. She knows she ought to run now, especially as the moon is slipping behind a cloud, and the frost is making his teeth chatter, but they are both laughing and cheering with relief.

‘I've got to go,' she says.

‘What's your name? I'll send you flowers tomorrow.'

‘Roxanne,' says Michelle, without a moment's hesitation, and gives him the address of Francis's work. ‘Will you write “Wildly met by moonlight” on the card?'

‘Well, sure,' says Stan, ‘if that's what you'd like.'

‘Oh, I would. And be sure to put your name.'

‘Right,' says Stan.

‘And tell them, no crystals, I've got plenty.'

‘Anything else?' says Stan.

‘This is no way to get revenge,' says Michelle, and laughs. Stan laughs in dutiful agreement, believing the advice is meant for him. ‘You won't tell my wife?' he says.

‘If you don't tell my husband,' says Michelle.

Goodnight, goodnight, they call to each other as she runs, still laughing, across the playground, and down the road.

Francis has tidied up when she returns. The candles are lit. ‘Ten minutes,' he says, taking the tomatoes from her. ‘Ten minutes until you eat.'

When dinner is served on their white plates with royal blue trim, it takes three minutes and twenty seconds by Michelle's digital Seiko to polish it off. The dish Francis has cooked is orange roughy nestling beside a parsley mousse clad in a delicate saffron sauce. She has never eaten better fish.

‘You didn't do it justice,' says Francis sadly. He is rather drunk.

‘Oh yes, yes I did,' says Michelle. ‘I assure you, justice is done.'

‘Come with me,' he says, taking her by the hand and leading her to the kitchen. ‘I've got something to show you.'

He opens the fridge and takes out the last three eggs. He taps the first one on the side of the bowl. It separates perfectly. He takes a second egg.

‘I can do it,' he says.

‘I believe you,' Michelle says. She has never loved him more. ‘Do another one.' Dinner, she calculates, would have cost them five hundred dollars, one way or another. But she is pleased for him, this new achievement; Francis can separate an egg.

‘Why are you wearing my jacket?' he asks. Michelle smiles. The endless variety of their lives pleases her. She could grow to like surprises. Like a rich egg sac she will yield up her contents when the moment is right.

N
ELLIE
'
S MOTHER SAW HERSELF
as wholly beautiful. ‘Am I pretty, Angelo?' she often asked her husband.

‘
Oraia
,' he told her, for he was a truthful man. Some might have described his wife as handsome rather than beautiful. She was a big-boned woman with an over-stated complexion which contrasted with her very light blue eyes and ginger-blonde hair. Her breasts were pendulous, their shape deftly defined by the V-necked silky pleated blouses she ran up for herself; by training she was a dressmaker. Angelo continued to think of her as beautiful long after he ceased to like her and even though his family thought she was ugly.

‘Those Greeks, they don't understand good looks,' she sniffed, to hide her hurt.

When Nellie crept out to the garden to sit beside Baba, he would straighten his back from weeding and hand her a fresh tomato. ‘Go wash under tap, mek you pretty girl when you go to Greece for a husband.'

‘Will I like him, Baba?'

‘Eh? Oh yes, you like. Girls always like nice Greek man.' He was old as fathers went, but that was what wars did to a man, he said. It took time to make a new life in another country, to settle down. Not that Mother was so young either, only her story was different — her first love had died in the war, of course. The old maid's tale, Angelo's brother and cousins said when they heard about it, but he never told Mother this.

On a morning in spring, Mother caught Angelo planning his daughter's future. She had walked across the garden with George on her hip, looking careless and almost happy. Then she had heard what her husband was saying. In an instant she had changed, advancing upon him, trampling garlic in her path. George was dumped amongst the beans as she began her tirade.

‘Where would you have been without a New Zealander for a wife?' she
shouted. ‘Down in the fish and chips with one of those fat women, cleaning out the vats.'

What hard work she had done, sewing her fingers to the bone, earning money at Mrs Millett's, slaving away day after day, saving her money, just for some man to spend it when she got married. And then, the trump card, the one that always won, the inheritance from her uncle which had paid for the house. It was all down to her, everything they had in the world. ‘And now you want to fill the child's head with rubbish about Greeks,' she stormed.

‘But Baba wants me to have a Greek husband, just like you,' Nellie said, with childish wonder.

Her mother turned away. When she did look back her eyes were fierce and glittering, her voice wild and bitter. ‘Just because you look like them, you don't have to marry them.'

Mother looked down at George. His hair was ash-blonde, a cloud of ringlets falling around his shoulders. George smiled up at her, opening his mouth as he always did when he smiled. It was like looking into the soft red flute of a tulip. ‘Look after your little brother, Nellie,' Mother said, preparing to leave, and Nellie, grateful to be spared more wrath, gathered the boy in her arms, pulling his head against hers. He clapped his hands, and in spite of the quarrel, everyone stopped and admired him. How clever he was.

It was only partly true about the money. In fact, Mother spent more than she brought to the marriage. Baba worked for a plumber and lived, most of his life, with his head down other people's drains. He worked harder and harder. One night Nellie saw him and Mother in the kitchen. His eyes were full of tears. None of them would ever go to Greece, he would never take his children there at the rate they were going.

‘A failed Greek is a failed man,' he said, then he caught sight of Nellie in the doorway. Mother regarded them both with eyes as cool and clean of regret as the grey formica on the bench top.

That would be how Nellie remembered her father, though years passed between that night and the day he died doing a perkie on a neighbour's drain.

‘He died of a broken heart,' said Sophia, her once best friend, on the day of the funeral.

‘You must look after me now,' Mother said to her on the same day.

Nellie was seventeen then. Nobody mentioned Costa, the fastest boy in the Greek Club, who all the girls were hot for.

It is 1992, another spring morning. When Nellie woke, her neck hurt, as if she had slept on it at an odd angle, although she knew that that was not the explanation because it was often sore. She lay for a while and stared at the
tangled roses and love knots in the carrara ceiling, and considered whether Hedges, her boss, could do without her for the day. Alexander, her cat, squawked at the door for his breakfast and she knew that once she was up that would be it. Anyway, Hedges couldn't manage without her, it being Friday. With heavy sighs and exhortations to Alexander to be quiet, to be a good boy, won't you, she sat up and pulled on her dressing gown.

And once she was up, it wasn't so bad. When Alexander had finished his mince he trotted out to the balcony, inviting her to follow. It was a day to revel in, and she stood with her hand on the rail and lifted her face to the morning, sniffing the air, listening for a voice. At that very moment the phone rang.

Nobody rang Nellie Pagonis at seven thirty on a Friday morning as a rule, and the phone's shrill clamour nearly caused her to knock over a pot of petunias that she had been sheltering from the wind. On the seventh ring she reached it, panicking that the caller would have hung up.

But, there at the other end, was the miracle of George's voice, unusually tentative, as if she might not want him to bother her so early in the morning.

Agape,
she wanted to say, but didn't. ‘George,' she said, instead. ‘
Pos
eese
?'

But that was a mistake too. Straight away she wanted to bite out her tongue. Which reminded her of a woman in South America who bit off her lover's tongue when they were kissing because he'd betrayed her. And then she'd swallowed it.

‘Speak English, Nellie,' George snapped. Then he said, ‘I'm very well, thank you.'

‘Nothing the matter?'

‘Of course not. What are you doing?'

‘I was watching a butterfly, maybe a Red Admiral. Is it too early for them, do you think?' As he didn't reply, she rushed on. ‘The sea's so blue this morning. Once we'd have gone for a swim, you and me, on a day like this. Not that you can find room to swim at the bay these days, it's all so crowded since they built the bathing sheds.' She wanted to describe to him what she saw, although it was a scene they both knew by heart. The little houses that looked as if they had lids on them the higher up the hill you went, the boats drawn up on the hard, the pohutukawa with their silver fists of bud, the wild white daisies that had taken over the hillside and the fanciful wicked breeze that strayed amongst them. A plane rose from the airport almost straight above the breakwater into the enamelled sky.

‘Yes. I wouldn't mind a swim,' he said.

‘Come over, George. Why don't we play hookey from work?'

‘Ah Nellie. That's not the real world.'

‘I know.' She hesitated. ‘To tell the truth, I was thinking of Baba.'

‘Nellie.' His tone sharpened. ‘It's been over twenty years.'

As if she didn't know. But she wasn't going to let her brother's irritation spoil this unexpected and delightful conversation. She could see him on the other end of the phone, beautiful fair-skinned George who seemed to have almost skipped his father's race. Only his eyes were darker than one might expect, gleaming in a molten Greek way. The golden curls had given way to a thick honey-brown thatch with an almost imperceptible kink. Lovely George.

‘How time flies,' she said. ‘I'll have to go and get a husband soon, won't I?'

‘What are you doing in your lunch hour?' he asked briskly. ‘I thought we could catch a bite together.'

She stifled a giggle. Catch a bite. Hmmm. But when his invitation had sunk in she was overwhelmed, scarcely believing she had got it right. ‘Oh yes, I'd like that. I have twelve to one as a rule, is that all right? I mean, I could change, well no, I couldn't, it's Friday, and Mr Hedges leaves early for the coast, he likes to get his dictation done early in the afternoon, so I can't but … oh George, is twelve o'clock all right?'

‘It'll be fine, I can go when I like.'

‘Of course. You accountants, you're so rich. So independent. Where will we meet?'

‘Kirk's okay? In their new tearooms.'

‘Kirkcaldie and Stains.' She said it a shade too carefully. ‘That'll be nice. Twelve o'clock then.'

She replaced the receiver and said, ‘Damn.' Had he suggested Kirk's to annoy her on purpose? There was that silly joke about getting a husband. He wouldn't have liked that. He would tell Susan she was unbalanced. That Nellie, that sister of mine, she could hear him saying right at this moment, as Susan poured coffee and passed it over the breakfast bar, she's a bit nuts you know, God knows what's going to become of her.

In her imagination, Nellie saw Susan, dressed in tight jeans with a colourful sweatshirt hugging her hips, lace-up sneakers with thick silent soles. She cursed herself for having forgotten to ask after her sister-in-law and at the same time a nasty thought crossed her mind. Why did George want to see her? He always said he had enough money, that he didn't need his share of the house. But maybe Susan had heard how prices were soaring in this suburb, you couldn't be sure with Susan.

God might strike her down, but Nellie would take a chance on Him knowing the truth — she hated Susan. How she hated her, her casual
prettiness
, her children, her certainty.

Nellie glanced sideways at herself in the hall mirror. She had been briefly handsome, with a slant to her heavy-lidded eyes, and a surprising throat that rose as tenderly as a gannet's from her Peter Pan collars. But those subtle tricks of youth had disappeared, giving way to sallowness and thickness, and an unmistakable dark shadow on her upper lip.

She moved quickly, the pattern of her morning altered from its routine. There was breakfast to down in a hurry, a carton of yoghurt and a banana, and the bed to make. Nellie had a habit of order in her life. Order made sense of things, kept dreams under control. It reassured the people next door that she was a harmless neighbour. More than that, it made it safe to come home. As she threw a dark patterned rug into place, she thought that perhaps she could look for a new pillow at Kirk's. One of those triangular pillows to support her neck. Deciding that she was finished with the one on the bed, she took it to store in the linen cupboard. Straight away, the scent of Blue Grass atomiser overpowered her. Mother's smell. It still clung in unexpected corners, in powder bowls with silver lids, in the writing bureau, or in drawers; you never knew where Mother's smell lurked, waiting to catch you by the throat.

She would rather not go to Kirk's. She didn't feel smart enough.

And also, that was where Mother went, every week, when she grew old.

A year passed after Angelo's death when Mother could hardly raise her head from the pillows each morning. ‘Look after me, Nellie,' she whispered.

Costa had begun to go around with Sophia. ‘Those Greeks stick together,' Mother said, quite civilly, one morning. It was almost enough to make you laugh, if that was how your sense of humour took you, that Mother might think Costa a problem.

But it was humour of the black and sombre kind. There were things that Baba had not told his wife before he died. Looking back, Nellie knows he would not have told her anyway. Death might have robbed him of the
opportunity
, but it was not one he would have taken.

Mother, soon after Costa's marriage to Sophia, rose from her bed, and did not grow old gracefully in black widow's weeds.

Instead, she sallied forth to town every day, dressed in a cinnamon suit with a cream lace blouse, ruffled at the throat. Her make-up was applied with a pancake stick, and finished with a dark slash of dahlia-red lipstick. On her head she placed a black fitting hat with a small froth of veil that came halfway down her forehead, before catching the No. 5 Hataitai bus. Everyone knew her, one of the regulars, those old women who talked loudly on the ride into town about the Royal family. Oh, the little Queen Mother, they said, she
looked so sweet on television last night. What they meant was, tough old turkey, just like us, a survivor. At Kirk's they mounted the stairs as if lifts had not been invented, and sat in the tearooms, eating cakes from a stand, and watching out for rich women.

When the developers decided to pull Kirk's apart and remodel it behind the old façade, it knocked the heart out of the old women. Mother was one of the first to go.

And now, here was Nellie, in the house which Mother long ago stripped bare of Baba, of the old photographs with the dark frames, the heavy hand-painted vases, the soft flokati. If it had not been for George and his phone call, she might have got through another entire day without thinking about Mother.