26
Relationships, Like Pots
Once they’d finished helping with the washing up, Ginny had gone upstairs to use the bog in Tom and Jemima’s ensuite. She’d come downstairs in time to see Mrs Weintraub’s reaction in the passage to what Sir Ralph and some lady were saying in that room where she’d seen him kiss Polly—and had overheard most of it herself. She had retreated, very shaken, to the landing, whence she’d observed Helen’s departure supported by her relatives. From the landing window she’d seen Veronica’s subsequent actions in the road. At first she thought Mrs Weintraub’s sister had done it out of spite, and that it served him right: he must be as beastly as Ralph Overdale; and then it had gradually dawned that maybe she’d done it to stop him chasing after them... Ginny stayed upstairs for quite some time, feeling very hot and sick and trembly. And incidentally not giving Charles Brownloe a single, passing thought the entire time.
When she finally crept downstairs again most of the guests had gone and those that were left seemed to be outside. Looking for something in the grass near Mr Weintraub’s car. Her face flushed a bit as she watched them from the front door. because she knew where it was that Mrs Weintraub’s sister had thrown the thing from his car and she also knew she wasn’t about to let on.
When the phone rang in the passage just behind her she jumped a foot. There was no-one else to answer it so she had to.
“Hullo?” she said timidly, knowing she ought to say “Overdale residence” but also knowing she couldn’t bring it off .
“Ah, hullo, is that Tom and Jemoima Overdale’s residence?” said a very foreign male voice. The H in particular had sounded very odd.
“Yes,” said Ginny cautiously. “Um, they’ve just gone on their honeymoon. This is Ginny Austin speaking. Um, I’m sort of a neighbour.”
“Ah: da, da: I know, moy dear, you are Polly’s cousin, no?” said the voice pleasedly. “This is Peter Riabouchinsky: I am a friend of Tom’s. I also was at the wedding reception. I wonder if I could speak to Nat Weintraub? Do you know him? He is the father of Jemoima’s friend Pauline,” he explained.
“Yes. Um, he’s out by his car, he’s very angry,” said Ginny in a tiny voice,
“Ah. Yes. That is what I would h’wish to speak to him about. Do you feel you could fetch him, moy dear?” he said in a very kind voice.
“Yes; I’ll get him,” said Ginny faintly.
“No: wait: is Damian there?”
“No, him and Roger went over to Roger’s place.”
“Oh, dear; I had thought that perhaps maybe he could do it for you.”
“Your wife did something to his engine, didn’t she?” said Ginny very faintly.
“That is correct. I think if you saw that, moy dear, I h’will not ask you to speak to him, I will ring Damian at Roger Coggins’s place,” he decided.
“It’s all right,” she protested weakly.
Peter Riabouchinsky overbore her firmly, thanked her profusely, and hung up.
Ginny looked at the receiver dazedly and slowly put it down.
Ralph came strolling in from the back regions with a cigar in his mouth. He took it out and said: “Who was it, Red Fed?”
“It was that Russian man: he wanted to speak to Mr Weintraub.”
“Ah,” he said, putting the cigar back.
“His wife made his car break down,” she said dazedly.
“So I observed,” he agreed blandly. He blew a smoke-ring.
“It’s all your FAULT!” shouted Ginny.
“Am I responsible for the vagaries of mad Russians and their even madder Valkyries of wives?”
Ginny had already had the thought that Veronica Riabouchinsky was very like a Valkyrie, so at this she felt terribly muddled as well as very upset. She gaped at him.
“Forget it, Red. Fed. Come for a drive with me, I’ll show you my embryo new flat,” he suggested in an off-hand voice.
“I WILL NOT! You’re horrible!” shouted Ginny.
Ralph raised his eyebrows very high.
“I heard you! You and that lady!” shouted Ginny.
Ralph evinced no surprize whatsoever. “You do know her, I believe. In fact I’m reliably informed you have taken tea with her. –It was Phoebe Fothergill; isn’t her boring clot of a nephew some sort of hanger-on of yours?” he added impatiently.
“I don’t care who it was! She’s horrible and you’re horrible and that poor lady HEARD you!” shouted Ginny.
Ralph had been puffing on his cigar with enjoyment. At this he removed it and said: “That poor lady? Weintraub’s wife?”
“YES!” shouted Pinny.
“Oh, dear. Well, that does explain the Valkyrie’s assault on poor old Weintraub’s Jag.”
“I hope she’s ruined it for ever!” cried Ginny.
“Do you know, so do I?” discovered Ralph.
“SHUT UP!” she shouted.
Ralph blew a smoke ring. “When you’re thirty years older, Red Fed, and have—er—discovered all the tortures of sexual jealousy, then you may tell me to shut up, and not before,” he said without emphasis.
To his enjoyment she retorted fiercely: “Jealousy! You couldn’t experience an emotion as normal as that if you tried with both hands for fifty years!”
“Which is about as long as I’ve been trying—quite,” he murmured, lips twitching. “But I assure you at the time it felt as if I was experiencing it.” He shrugged lightly. “Well, the delightful Phoebe preferring the clod-hopping Weintraub to oneself: can you imagine it?”
“YES! All I’m surprized is she ever touched you with a bargepole!” shouted Ginny.
Ralph blew another smoke ring. “That is not English, dear Red Fed.”
“Stop calling me that!” screamed Ginny.
“Very well, Virginia. Shut up and stop being such a boring little middle-class prude, you’re disappointing me terribly. Isn’t it about time you woke up to the fact that those over the age of twenty-five can and do have sex lives? Not to say emotions?”
“I don’t care if I am a prude, I’d rather be a prude than a rotten old LECHER!” screamed Ginny, bursting into tears.
At that Ralph chucked his cigar stub into the large salt-glazed pot that now stood proudly beside Tom’s glowing newel post, and came to put an arm round her heaving shoulders.
“Come on, silly one,” he said, pulling her against his chest. “The poor lady wasn’t meant to hear it, you know. And nor were you.”—Ginny sobbed.—“You’re going to have to start growing up some time, Red Fed,” he said into the red-gold curls that today were pulled up in a ridiculous Grecian knot.
Ginny sobbed harder and tried to push him away.
“Don’t cry,” he said, sighing. “So what, if Phoebe and I did have a wee fling? No skin off anybody’s nose, she’s a free agent. And bloody Weintraub certainly didn’t have any rights in the matter, he’s a heavily married man.”
“So are—you!” sobbed Ginny, pushing at his chest.
Ralph held her a little more tightly. “Not for much longer, though. Audrey and I are no longer together.”
“What?” she said faintly, looking up at him.
“Mm. In the wake of the excellence of my services being advertised on TVNZ by the loquacious Sylvia; did you—?” She was very pink, obviously she had seen it. “Audrey doesn’t like me any more. And I never did like her much, so I decided it was about time to—er—give up the bourgeois hypocrisy?” he suggested on a sly note, raising his eyebrows.
“That’s no excuse, you were married at the time.”
“Ooh, what a little bourgeois prude it is!” squeaked Ralph. “Give us a kiss, little bourgeois prude?”
“NO!” shouted Ginny, wrenching herself away. “You’re a PIG! And what’s more I saw you kiss Polly in that room, you needn’t think I don’t know exactly what you’re like, because I DO!”
“Ouch. That embryo breakfast-or-TV-or-family-room has a lot to answer for,” murmured Ralph.
They stared at each other for a moment.
“Darling Ginny, one is human,” he said with a twitch of the lips.
“HUMAN!” shouted Ginny. She took a deep breath. “You’re—”
What she was about to say was destined never to be revealed, for at that moment Nat Weintraub burst through the half-open front door.
“YOU BASTARD!” he bellowed, swinging wildly at Ralph’s jaw.
Ralph dodged and Nat promptly floored him with a terrific punch in the midriff from the other fist.
“Don’t!” screamed Ginny, covering her eyes.
“Get up and I’ll kill you, you bastard!” shouted Nat.
Ralph wheezed, clutching his middle. “...not getting up,” he said indistinctly.
Nat panted and glared. Ralph wheezed and winced. Ginny took her hands away from her face very cautiously and goggled.
In the dining-room Phoebe took a deep breath. “We’d better get out there, that kid sounds a bit shell-shocked,” she said, regretting the day she’d ever agreed to come to this bloody do, let alone the moment at which she’d dragged Sol into the deserted dining-room to show him what Tom had done with that old sideboard and which he, Sol, might with a bit of elbow grease do with the decrepit sideboard that an earlier inhabitant had left behind in his boating-supplies store.
“Yeah,” Sol agreed neutrally.
They walked cautiously into the passage.
Alec Overdale had just come in from the back garden and was looking thoughtfully at his prone nephew.
“He asked for it,” said Ginny in a trembling voice.
“Ya don’t say,” agreed Alec.
“Get up and I’ll give ya some more!” offered Nat, breathing heavily.
“Not in front of the kid, ya won’t,” said Alec mildly.
At that moment Nat caught sight of Phoebe and yelled: “As for you, you two-timing bitch!”
“The least to blame of all of us, surely?” said Ralph faintly, cautiously feeling the back of his head, which had connected with Tom’s smart black and white tiling.
Nat opened his mouth but before he could utter Sol said in a very cold voice: “I guess she was, at that. Are you okay, Ginny?”
Ginny nodded numbly.
“In that case, we’ll get going,” he said. “Come on, Phoebe,” he added, taking her elbow.
They exited, watched numbly by the company.
Alec scratched his head a bit. After a moment he said on a hopeful note to his nephew: “Anything broken?”
“Dunno.” Ralph felt his lower ribs and winced. “Hugh still here?”
“No, went a good bit back.”
“Blast,” he said, wincing.
“I’d push off, if I was you,” said Alec unemotionally to Nat.
“Uh—yeah,” he agreed uncertainly.
Ginny looked down at the wincing Ralph. “Will he be all right?” she asked in a trembling voice,
“Yeah. You know the local doc?” asked Alec.
“Um—yes! Bruce Smith!” she gasped.
“Better give him a ring. See if we can bring ’im over to the surgery straight away. Coulda busted a rib, I s’pose. Better get him to take a look at the back of his head, too.”
Nat shrugged his heavy shoulders and went out.
... “He said to bring him in straight away,” reported Ginny.
“Right. Can you drive?” asked Alec.
“Um—not very well,” she admitted. “Um—I could get Darryl.”
“No,” said Ralph faintly.
“Shuddup,” returned his uncle. “Everybody else pushed off?” he asked Ginny, as a car engine roared in the road.
“Um, I think so. I saw most of them go when I was upstairs. I’ll have a look, shall I?”
He nodded, and Ginny rushed off on a tour of the house.
“They’ve all gone, thank goodness,” she reported.
“Good. Shut that blimmin’ door,” recommended Alec, squatting by his nephew.
Thankfully Ginny shut the front door.
“I’m not gonna pass out,” said Ralph faintly. He felt the back of his head and bit his lip.
“No. Audrey’s probably home by now, want us to ring her?”
“No. We’ve split up,” he said sourly.
There was a short pause.
“Don’t expect me to be a bloody ministering angel at yer flaming bedside,” said Alec grimly.
“I don’t, Nunky.”
“Well, no-one else will.”
“I will,” said Ginny in a small voice.
“No, ya won’t,” said Alec grimly. “Don’t start feeling sorry for him, anything rotten that’s happened to him, you can bet ya boots he’s asked for it. –Begged for it,” he corrected.
“Yes,” agreed Ralph, shutting his eyes.
Alec straightened, grunting. “I’ll drive. Where are your keys?”
Ralph opened his eyes. “Drive my car?”
“You heard.”
Sighing, he produced the keys from his trouser pocket. “You’ll have to haul me up.”
“Yeah.” Alec grabbed his elbow and hauled. Ralph rose to his feet, swaying.
“Be that knock on the head,” Alec said to Ginny.
“Yes. Is he going to faint?” she asked, hovering.
“Better ruddy well not, I’m past lugging his weight around,” Ralph’s uncle replied grimly.
“No,” said Ralph faintly. “I’m okay. –God, my head’s thumping.”
“Might have a bit of concussion,” Alec remarked.
“Should he be moved, then?” gasped Ginny.
“Too late now,” he said simply. “Can you check the back door’s locked? And if that ruddy animal’s still in the front room, chuck ’im out.”
“Ooh! The Fiend! Yes, he is!” gasped Ginny.
She inspected the back door, turned the key in the lock, and went into the front room. The Fiend was lying on the Chinese rug at full length. He looked up at Ginny with meek doggy eyes.
“None of that,” she said grimly, grabbing his collar and heaving. “OUT!”
In the passage Ralph, leaning heavily on his uncle, murmured: “Five’ll get you ten she can’t manage that brute.”
“Shuddup,” he replied predictably.
Sure enough, after a bit more shouting and then some audible panting, Ginny came out into the hall, looking very flurried, and said: “He’s just lying there, he won’t get up!”
“Right,” said Alec grimly. He led Ralph to the staircase and propped him against the newel post. “Hang on,” he said. He marched into the sitting-room.
They heard a few pithy words and then The Fiend slunk out, huge hairy tail between huge camel-like legs.
“And stay out!” said Alec irritably, opening the front door. The Fiend slunk out.
“Marvellous. Good Keen Man personified,” murmured Ralph.
Ginny bit her lip but said fairly: “Dad can do it, too.”
“I’m sure he can,” he sighed.
“Stop talking, probably bad for yer bloody head,” said Alec. “Come on.” He put an arm round his waist.
“Can you manage?” asked Ginny, hovering.
“Yeah.”
“Shall I come?” she asked timidly.
“Someone’ll have to show me where the local doc’s is,” replied Alec without emotion, assisting Ralph down the steps.
“Ooh! Yes!” Ginny shut the front door and pattered after them.
Halfway down the path Ralph said irritably: “I can walk, dammit,” and his uncle replied: “Bullshit.”
In the car Ralph said irritably: “For Christ’s sakes watch my bloody gears, this isn’t that clapped-out heap of yours, ya know,” and Alec replied: “Shuddup.”
That was all anybody said until they got to Puriri and Ginny directed Alec to the Medical Centre in Seddon Street.
… “No cracks in the head, and no concussion,” said the lanky, amiable Bruce Smith cheerfully. “That rib’ll heal, no need to strap it up; don’t do that, much, these days,” he added cheerfully.
“Thanks, Smith,” said Ralph sourly, feeling his midriff cautiously.
“You’ll have a blinding headache for a bit, probably, and a ruddy great lump on the back of your head for a couple of days.”
“Fancy,” said Ralph caustically, feeling it.
“I’ll prescribe you some free codeine,” said Bruce Smith with a laugh in his voice.
“Ta,” he replied sourly.
… “He’ll be okay,” Bruce reported cheerfully to Alec and Ginny in the Puriri Medical Centre’s pleasant waiting area. “Better go to bed with a couple of codeine until the headache wears off.”
They looked at each other uncertainly.
“Thanks for the offers of care and support,” said Ralph sourly.
“Don’t drive, by the way,” added Bruce cheerfully, preparing to depart. “I think I’ll have that cuppa now, Trudy, if there’s one going,” he added to one of the nurses behind the desk.
“Righto, Bruce,” she replied amiably, vanishing.
“Thanks, Smith,” said Ralph grudgingly.
“Any time,” he replied with a grin, going back to his office.
“You’d better stay with me at Tom’s,” said Alec heavily.
“Well, you’re not gonna drive my BMW over the flaming Bridge and through the city traffic, so I’d better, yeah.”
Alec gave a sour sniff.
The twins, of course, were planning to move out of their rooms at Number 3 that afternoon, and over to Michaela’s, since Bryn’s room was now available. As Ginny reported, a medical gleam lit up in Vicki’s eye. “I’ll just pop over the road and see if he’s all right. –You can get changed, Twin, I’ve left a pair of jeans and a top on the bed in your old room.”
“Is he all right?” asked Ginny nervously when she came back.
“Yeah. He took two codeine and then he asked for brandy but that old Uncle Alec wouldn’t give him any: he’s got some sense, eh?”
“Yes,” said Ginny faintly.
“What happened, anyway? I mean, why did Mr Weintraub hit him?” asked Vicki avidly.
Ginny abruptly burst into tears.
Vicki looked at the hovering Anderson brothers who’d volunteered to move them with their Bedford van, and merely said, putting an arm round her: “Never mind, you can tell me later, once we’ve moved our stuff.”
Later, at Michaela’s, she said: “Crikey.”
“He’s a pig,” said Ginny sulkily.
“True,” agreed Hugh smoothly, trying not to laugh.
Vicki took the last spoonful of prune and apple crumble. Neither of the twins liked prunes, much, but Michaela had said unemotionally that she'd got them on special and apples were dear at the moment and anyway that was all there was. And Roberta had added that they were lucky it wasn't burnt. And besides, Roberta, Michaela and Hugh were eating it. And besides, the twins were very hungry after shifting flat and then unpacking all Ginny's books. Naturally Michaela didn’t have any bookcases but Darryl had graciously allowed Ginny to borrow the old planks and bricks she’d used at Blossom Avenue.
Ginny got up. “I’ll make the coffee, if you like,” she said to Michaela.
“There isn’t any.”
“Yes, there is, we brought our brown dust, John won’t have it in the house,” said Vicki, not smiling. “Use that, Twin.”
“Righto.” Ginny went out to the kitchen.
In the sitting-room—where they were eating off their knees, as Michaela didn't have a dining table—there was a short silence. Then Vicki said in a grumpy voice: “I don't know what’s wrong with her. She’s hung up on all these old men!”
“There's a name for that. –I think,” said Michaela doubtfully.
“Oedipus complex?” replied Vicki, even more doubtfully.
“Not unless both Ginny and Ralph have changed their sex recently,” said Hugh drily. He was amused, but also somewhat bored. This mixture of emotions had become rather more frequent in him lately in the flat in Kapenga Avenue off Coronation Road, Puriri, and he was somewhat uneasily aware of it. There was no denying his Pink Pearl still turned him on like crazy—but if only she could talk to him!
“Elektra,” said Roberta shortly.
“Mm,” he murmured.
“No, father-fixation,” decided Vicki.
Hugh sighed slightly and so, he was rather pleased to note, did Roberta.
“Anyway, she’s got it,” said Vicki sourly, scraping out the crumble dish. “I mean, why should she care whether that ole Ralph creep has affaires with Miss Fothergill or not? And it isn’t only him, it’s that creepy Latin professor as well, she's been going on about him all year, even John said it had got boring!”
“What, both at once?” said Hugh faintly.
“Very funny,” said Roberta shortly. She got up. “I’ve got some swot to do, I think I’ll get on with it.” She went out.
“She likes him, too. That Latin man,” Michaela reminded Vicki calmly.
“Yeah. I was forgetting,” she said, making a face.
“Surely— Well, good God, Charles Brownloe must be older than her father!” said Hugh.
“No, Dad’s in his seventies,” replied Vicki.
“Uh—no, I meant Roberta’s father: Keith. He’s only in his late forties, I think.”
“Oh. Well, that isn’t young.”
“Nor is Charles Brownloe,” agreed Hugh on a grim note.
“I told her that,” said Michaela unexpectedly.
“Did you?” Hugh managed to reply. “What did she say?”
“Um... I can’t remember. It didn’t put her off, though. Not that I thought it would.”
“They’re both mad,” said Vicki definitely.
Neither Hugh nor Michaela agreed aloud but they both sighed.
Michaela then asked dubiously: “Is he as old as you? –The Latin man, I mean. I think Roberta said he wasn’t.”
Hugh shrugged. “He’d be about her father’s age.”
“See, it is a father-fixation,” said Vicki earnestly. “They’ve both got it.”
“Yes,” agreed Michaela.
Hugh sighed.
Later, when the twins were doing the dishes—Vicki had immediately instituted a roster—he said cautiously to Michaela as they sat on the sagging divan: “Where is Roberta doing her swot, if I may ask?”
“In my old room.”
There was a short pause.
“Old room?”
“I thought we’d better swap, she needs to be able to do her swot in peace, and we use this room for sitting in.”
Hugh drew a deep breath. “Have I got this straight? Roberta’s sleeping in your bedroom, the twins are sleeping in Bryn’s old room, and you’re sleeping in here?”
“Yes.”
“I see,” he said grimly.
Michaela looked at him uncertainly. “It seemed more sensible.”
“Yes.” said Hugh, getting up. “It also seems as if the opportunity for us to have a bit of privacy was the last thing on your mind.”
“Um... Well, there’s the shed.”
“True. There are also hoards of Butlers infesting the environs of the shed. Not to mention the fact that whenever you’re there you’re too busy working to even notice my existence. Not to mention the fact that that old sofa you’ve got in there has springs which hit one in uncomfortable places and a tendency to bring on galloping sciatica.”
“Well, you are getting your flat soon.”
“Not until the New Year. And if it isn’t too much to ask, was that a consideration when you took this decision?”
“Um... I’m not sure,” said Michaela honestly.
Hugh’s mouth tightened. After a moment he said: “I think I might go before I really lose my temper.”
“I’m sorry, Hugh. Only, um, well, I don’t know... Um, life has to go on, or something.”
“What?”
“I’m no good at explaining things. Only... I just can’t—can’t put you first, because you’re not here all that much,” said Michaela, looking at him anxiously.
“I might be if there was a spot here where we could go to be by ourselves!” he said loudly.
“We can go to your flat when it’s ready.”
“YES!” he shouted. He marched out, muttering furiously: “Next year! Christ!”
... “Where’s Hugh?” asked Vicki blankly, coming in with a second round of coffee.
“Gone home,” said Michaela dully.
“Oh,” she said cautiously. “Um—here.”
“I can’t drink up your coffee,” objected Michaela, going red.
“That’s okay. Anyway, I’ve made it, now.”
Michaela took it gratefully. “Thanks. –Hugh says it’s bad for your insides, he only likes real coffee.”
Vicki sniffed. “Bad as John.”
“Mm.”
There was a short silence.
“Say he asked you to marry him,” said Vicki thoughtfully: “would you?”
Michaela went very red. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh,” she said sadly.
Michaela looked at her dubiously. “Well, you didn’t want to marry Mark Michaels.”
“No, but I’m younger than you.”
“Mm. Not everybody wants to get married, though... I don’t think it would work. I’m driving him mad as it is, I can see that, only I can’t seem to—um—not to do it.”
“Ye-ah... Felicity—that’s Ted’s girlfriend, you’ve met her,” she encouraged her, “anyway, she’s got grown-up kids and everything, she knows a lot about relationships, and she reckons that sometimes people get like that: you know, edgy, when—um—their relationship’s at a turning point. Like if he really wants to get married and he’s making up his mind!” she added eagerly.
Ginny came in with her second mug of coffee and a refill for Roberta. “Yeah, or like if he wants to break it off,” she said sourly.
“No!” cried Vicki angrily.
“Yes,” said Michaela glumly. “He likes the physical side, all right, and he likes my pots, but I don’t think he really likes me.”
Ginny turned scarlet. “He must be mad, then!” she cried loyally.
“Yeah,” agreed Vicki loyally, though with rather less conviction.
“Has he gone?” Ginny added uncertainly to her twin.
“Yeah. That was him shouting,” confirmed Vicki. “You can have his coffee as well,” she said to Michaela.
“Don’t you want it?”
“No,” lied Vicki.
Michaela seized Hugh’s mug eagerly. “I like coffee, we hardly ever have it.”
The twins knew that. Vicki was silently determined that that would change. She just nodded. After a moment she said: “I reckon I’m right.”
Ginny had taken Roberta her coffee but had returned in time to hear this. “I reckon you’re wrong. Anyway, he’d be all wrong for Michaela. Well, look at the way he keeps trying to make her do dumb conformist things!”
“Yes,” said Michaela glumly.
“Pooh, there’s nothing in that. Anyway, it wouldn’t hurt you to wear that stuff he gives you, those pants are ace,” Vicki declared.
Michaela went rather red. After a moment she said: “It’s not the things, so much.”
“No, it’s his attitude,” agreed Ginny. “He can’t accept her for who she is.”
“He could learn,” said Vicki stubbornly. “Anyway, I reckon he is working himself up to propose.”
“‘Propose’!” cried Ginny scornfully. “Ignore her,” she said to Michaela. “She just wants to be a bridesmaid in pale green silk with a bouquet of those little green orchids, she’s got it all planned. She was really dished when Jemima didn’t ask her to deck herself out in pale green silk.”
“I WAS NOT!” shouted Vicki, turning scarlet.
“Darryl’ll be next, I can see her asking you to be a bridesmaid with pale green orchids in your hair!” said Ginny nastily.
“Very funny! Anyway, what’s wrong with wanting to be a bridesmaid?” cried Vicki. “Normal girls do it all the time! Just because you and your stupid stuck-up varsity mates think it’s clever to get married in jeans and tee-shirts!”
“Nothing’s wrong with it, so long as you don’t believe in it when you’re doing it,” said Ginny thoughtfully.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” cried her twin.
“Nothing.”
There was a short silence.
Michaela got up. “I think I’ll go up the kiln,” she said. She went out.
“I wish she had a TV,” muttered Vicki.
Ginny rather did, too, especially since it was Wednesday and there was a programme on that they often used to watch at Bill and Meg’s on Wednesdays. She didn’t reply.
“We could go next-door and watch Mrs Morton’s, she said we could!” Vicki reminded her eagerly.
“No, we couldn’t, not on our first night!” gasped Ginny in horror. She stood up.
“Where are you going?” asked Vicki crossly.
“I’m gonna do some reading for next term,” said Ginny firmly. “And don’t come and play dumb pop music while I’m doing it.”
“Twin! It’s the holidays! You don’t need to start next year’s swot yet!”
“Yes, I do. Anyway, I want to. And I won’t have much time during the day if we have to go to stupid rehearsals for the play and help Michaela and Roberta with that landscaping like we said we would,” Ginny reminded her, going out.
Alone in the sitting-room Vicki sat sulkily on the base of her spine, staring into space. Anyway, she betted Hugh would so ask Michaela to marry him! ...Well, he might.
After some time she got up very quietly and, letting herself out of the flat with extreme caution, went next-door.
Old Mrs Morton was thrilled to see her and fed her on cake and tea and chatted happily about all the details of the wedding. Since she’d been to the ceremony and Vicki hadn’t, she was able to give her a blow-by-blow account of that. Just fancy, dear, the Registry Office had had beautiful vases of flowers, and the Registrar had even said a little piece for them!
Vicki thoroughly enjoyed it. Every minute of it. Mrs Morton was—was normal, and ordinary, and interested in the sorts of things that normal people were! Unlike them.
Bob peered uneasily out of the back window at the light showing dimly from up the slope. “She’s not up there at this hour, is she?”
June came over to his side. “She might just have left the light on.”
“Ye-ah... I’ll take a look-see,” he decided, going out.
Michaela was just sitting in the shed with her hands dangling between her knees.
“What’s up?” said Bob cautiously.
“Nothing.”
There was a short pause.
“Um—the wedding wasn’t too bad, eh?” he ventured. “Food was corker, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Especially the puddings,” said Michaela seriously.
Bob swallowed a sigh. “Yeah.”
She just went on sitting there so he ventured: “Had a row with Hugh, have ya?”
“Not a row. He was cross because I gave Roberta my room. She needs it for her swot. And the twins had to have Bryn’s, it’s a bit bigger.”
“Uh—oh, cripes,” said Bob weakly.
“I couldn’t put him first,” said Michaela earnestly, “because he’s the one that’s not there as much. He wouldn’t listen. I did try to explain.”
“Yeah,” said Bob helplessly, patting her shoulder a bit.
Abruptly Michaela burst into snorting sobs.
“Oh, Hell,” he muttered, patting the shoulder again.
Michaela sobbed something about getting used to people and she’d warned Hugh, but Bob didn’t really listen. He just went on patting her a bit.
When the sobs had dried up he repeated what he’d said before about Hugh probably being all on edge at the moment because of splitting up with his wife, but he could see she wasn’t convinced.
“Yeah,” he said heavily. “Well, come on down to the house and have a cuppa, eh?”
“No,” said Michaela, sniffing. “Thanks, Bob, only I thought I’d tidy up in here. I want to try out a few ideas with glazes, but I want to get everything straight before I start “
Bob sighed. But as he knew that was how she worked, he just replied: “Righto, then. But there’ll be a cuppa going if ya feel like it.” And mooched slowly back to the house.
As he went he thought dubiously that maybe Michaela’s idea that relationships were like pots extended a bit further than he’d thought, and maybe she felt that she couldn’t really get started on establishing a solid relationship with Hugh unless all the extraneous muddle had been tidied up, or— Well, something like that.
Bob scratched his head and made a face. Well—knowing her, could be. Only unfortunately, in his experience, it didn’t work like that. You just got on with it from day to day, muddle and all. He decided not to purvey this theory to June, she’d only rubbish it.
Sol and Phoebe, having brought their separate vehicles to the wedding breakfast, perforce had driven off separately to their separate destinations.
The whole thing was not, of course, Phoebe’s fault. Sol recognized this quite clearly. He also recognized, though less clearly, that he felt sick and furious and eaten up with jealousy. Which was stupid and pointless: because, after all, she had been a free agent, and he had been dumb enough not to indicate—well, anything, Sol, boy, let’s face it, he thought grimly, staring at miles of unexciting highway flashing past under his wheels.
Perhaps fortunately the boating-supplies store in Kingfisher Bay was pretty busy that afternoon and so he didn’t really have time to think until closing time. Then he went slowly upstairs, sat down, and brooded.
... Nope, he sure didn’t have any reason to feel jealous of Ralph Overdale. Ralph had been on the spot and had offered, whilst he— Yeah. Yup. Uh-huh.
Only Hell, he’d really thought that Phoebe— Well, gee, wouldn’t you have thought she mighta... well, waited, or something! Sol found he was wondering just how long it had been after his departure until she’d leapt into bed with Ralph. Then he found he was wondering just when, exactly, she had given Ralph the old heave-ho... Yo, boy.
... Maybe he should call her? Or wait to see if she called him and if so what she would— No point in that, Sol, guy, he told himself sourly. Lessen you actually want to force the both of you into a situation where you heap a load of guilt on her so as you won’t have to face your own load of guilt, and— Ugh. Yeah, quite.
He got up and began to pace round his attic room. Okay, he should have kept in touch over all those months: he should have, well, at least written instead of only sending that dad-blamed Christmas card which, he was now glumly sure, she hadn’t thought was funny after all, leastways she’d never mentioned it. Gee, talk about dumb! It didn’t exactly help that he recognized glumly that what he’d been doing over that reasonably extensive period—like besides procrastinating, yeah—what he’d been doing, besides procrastinating, and besides being scared of sticking his neck out and saying anything definite lessen he got a rebuff, a trait not hitherto unobserved in S. Winkelmann, neither—
Here Sol took a deep breath and strode over to the window to stare unseeingly at the regimented marina below in Kingfisher Bay. What he had been doing had been testing Phoebe’s feelings. Oh, yes. If she’d remained faithful to him all those months then surely she’da been worthy of the bestowal of the gracious S. Winkelmann favours—wasn’t that it? Yeah, pretty near. Well, very near. Well, yeah, it was it, actually. Jesus, what a jerk he was! What a brainwashed, narrow-minded, culturally-stereotyped, hidebound, macho— Some of them, yeah.
Sol stood at the window gnawing on his lip, glaring at the bay.
Phoebe had driven back to St Ursie’s angrily telling herself that it wasn’t her fault. Not to say, in a rage with Ralph. If Nat hadn’t floored him she could cheerfully have done it herself, and in fact she hoped he died of it! The rage maintained itself for the whole drive; in fact, so enraged was she that she barely gave Sol a thought until very much later in the day.
In fact not until around dinner-time, when, as she was hacking up a piece of steak for Boeuf Stroganoff, pretending it was Ralph Overdale that she was chopping up, it suddenly dawned on her with a jolt that Sol hadn’t rung and that she ought to—
And say what, precisely? That she was sorry for being a naughty girl while he’d been overseas and that she realized that whereas he, as A Man, had been perfectly free to run round fucking whatever he felt like, she, being a little feminine thing and fully aware of the rightness of the double standard, had of course had no right to do anything but sit back hoping and praying that he might eventually remember her existence? Not Pygmalion likely!
Phoebe stared thoughtfully at the mangled steak on her chopping board and admitted to herself, taking a deep breath and cooling down somewhat, that regardless of the rightness or wrongness of the moral position—make that ethical position—she was incapable of sustaining a relationship where the double standard did pertain. If she did crawl to him, she’d very quickly end up despising herself for having done it and him for having made it necessary...
At the back of her mind she recognized that she did feel guilty about the thing with Ralph—well, not about the thing, so much, as about having done it while she’d still been secretly hoping that Sol would come back. She refused, however, to examine the implications of this feeling. Or to examine the implications of this refusal.
She’d better ring him, though. Only that would be a tacit admission that she was in the wrong, wouldn’t it? Um... Well, she could just say she was sorry for the bloody row. No, why should she apologize at all? The rumpus hadn’t been her fault, it had been bloody Ralph Overdale’s! Prick that he was. Phoebe got out the mushrooms and reduced them to a mangled pulp on the chopping board.
All right, then, she could ring Sol and say— Well, just say that it had been a right old do, or something of the sort.
… How serious had that bang on the head been? He’d looked bloody green— No, sod him; let’s hope it killed him! ...Um, where was she?
Phoebe looked in a startled way at the mess on the chopping board. Never mind, bung it in the pan with the oni— Where the Devil was the onion? Biting her lip, she got out an onion.
When the onion was sizzling in the pan she’d almost decided she’d better ring poor old Sol—well, after all, he must be feeling a bit blue, it had all been a bit all-at-once-ish, even though he’d known about her and Nat—when the phone rang.
She shot out to the passage to answer it, heart hammering wildly.
“Uh—gidday, ’sme,” said a sheepish male voice that definitely wasn’t Sol’s. And definitely wasn’t Ralph ringing to apologize, the—
“Hullo, Nat,” said Phoebe cautiously. “Ringing from the doghouse, are you?”
“Eh? Aw—yeah, something like that,” he said sheepishly. “From Pauline’s place. They’ve pushed off to get fish and chips.”
“Mm.”
“Uh—sorry about that do this arvo. Lost me temper,” he said sheepishly.
“Don’t apologize. I’d have hit him myself if I’d thought it would have any effect.”
“Uh—yeah. Uh—no, well, sorry for what I said,” he mumbled.
“Eh?” said Phoebe blankly. “Oh, good God, Nat, that’s all right! Perfectly understandable,” she added with a smile in her voice.
“Yeah,” he replied in undisguised relief. “Well—uh, well, it was good while it lasted, eh?”
“Yes,” said Phoebe, now frankly smiling. “It was damn good, Nat.”
“Yeah,” he said in a vague voice. “Pity things couldn’t’ve been... Oh, well.”
“Mm,” murmured Phoebe.
“You’d never have been able to stand me on a full-time basis, anyway!” he added cheerfully. “Too dumb for ya!”
Even though she knew him very well, Phoebe had to swallow. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said weakly.
“Yeah. You need— Well, I dunno. Someone that ya can talk to, eh? As well as do it with, o’ course,” he added hurriedly.
“Yes,” said Phoebe in a strangled voice.
Grinning, Nat said: “Go on, laugh! –No, well, I am sorry. Thank God little Jemima got away before it all blew up, eh?”
“Yes,” said Phoebe with the smile back in her voice. “Thank God.”
There was a short pause.
“Just thought I’d— Well, you know,” he said awkwardly.
“Yes. Thanks very much, Nat,” said Phoebe softly.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah.”
“Um—what about Helen?” she asked cautiously.
“Aw, she’ll be all right!” he said breezily.—Phoebe rolled her eyes madly at the passage wall.—“Take a while to calm down, I s’pose. Well, never actually been this bad before, ya know. Only ole Peter’s on the job,” he said confidently.
“What?” said Phoebe dazedly. “Um—your brother-in-law?”
“Yeah. He’ll calm her down. Expert at all that emotional stuff, ya know.”
“Mm,” Phoebe replied weakly.
“Well, I gotta go, Baby Belinda’s bawling. Too much excitement this arvo, eh?” he said cheerfully and without the slightest trace of awareness in his voice that this was an unfortunate choice of phrase, to say the least.
“Mm, I can hear her. Thanks for ringing, Nat.”
“Yeah—well—see ya!” he said awkwardly, with an uneasy laugh.
“Bye-bye, Nat,” said Phoebe softly, hanging up.
She looked dazedly at the phone for several minutes. Then she took a deep breath, picked it up and, making her mind a perfect blank, dialled the shop at Kingfisher Bay.
“Hi, Sol; how are you?” she said when he answered.
“I’m okay,” he said neutrally.
Phoebe found her choler rising: she fought it down and said: “Good. I’m afraid it was all a bit of a disaster, wasn’t it? Thank goodness Jemima and Tom got away before the storm broke.”
“Yeah: woulda spoilt Jemima’s day, some. Not that Mrs Anderson didn’t seem to have that well in hand,” he said, apparently cheerfully.
“Yes. Tom told me the bitch informed Jemima that a girl shouldn’t wear red on her wedding day.”
“Yeah. Well, hidebound thinkers, huh?” he said.
“Mm. Well, I’ll see you on Saturday, as planned!” said Phoebe brightly. She was damned if she was going to apologize! –If that was what he was waiting for.
“Yeah, fine, Phoebe!” he replied cheerfully. “See ya!”
“’Bye!” said Phoebe brightly.
She stomped back into the kitchen, threw the pan back on the heat, threw the mess of meat, mushrooms and onion into it and stirred furiously.
It wasn’t until she’d eaten three-quarters of the result that she remembered that this had been supposed to be Boeuf Stroganoff and that there would now be a lonely pot of sour cream sitting in the fridge. Too bad.
During the rest of the evening and over the next day and the next evening and the day that followed she concentrated rather hard on the thoughts that she was not going to so much as hint at an apology to Sol, and that if Ralph died of a cracked skull, so much the bloody better.
Ralph rang her on the Friday evening, just after she’d got in from a trip to the shops and was looking with loathing at her bags of groceries.
“What in Hell do you want?” she snarled, going bright red from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.
“Just to reassure you that I’m still in the land of the living, dear heart, and that you have absolutely nothing whatsoever to reproach yourself with!” he said gaily.
Phoebe very, very nearly crashed the receiver down at that point. She stopped herself in time and said sweetly: “Thank you so much, Ralph. Now, listen very carefully—‘I shall say thees onlee wance,’ she added in a moment of inspiration.
The sucker gave a matey chuckle: he thought he’d wound her round his disgusting little finger, of course! recognized Phoebe with glee.
She took a deep breath, as of one about to impart something very important onlee wance. Then she slammed the receiver down as hard as was humanly possible.
“Let’s see what THAT does for your cracked skull, Ralph Bleeding Overdale!” she bellowed to her front passage.
Even although her front passage did not respond, Phoebe felt much, much better for it. Much.
Some might have suspected that this feeling of betterness was due to relief that Ralph wasn’t after all dead of a cracked skull. But Phoebe was so wound up in her own triumph that this notion never so much as occurred to her for a single split second.
Next chapter:
https://theamericanrefugeeanovel.blogspot.com/2022/10/happy-new-year.html
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