40
Sol And The Morning After
Sol had woken up on the morning after the Carranos’ Latin-American barbie with a terrific hangover. However, he’d expected that, so he went on downstairs scratching the whiskers and got on with it. At first he made a real effort to conceal the way he felt from Jimmy but as the kid didn’t even notice there was an effort there... Sol gave up on making the effort and admitted frankly to himself that he felt Goddawful. And that it was all entirely his own fault, he was more than old enough to know when he’d had enough to drink. More than. And the rest of it: yeah. Thank Christ Akiko seemed to have gotten the point. Well, after a couple of dances with Euan she’d disappeared, so he guessed she had.
By around noon he and Jimmy had hired out all the boats, some of ’em twice over, and he was seriously considering, in between the thumping noises of the pile-driver in his head, whether he oughta buy a few more for the business. Only thing was, there he’d be all winter with a shed full of boats nobody wanted. Yeah, well...
Jimmy volunteered to make franks for lunch but funnily enough Sol didn’t fancy ’em. He only fancied tea. Without milk. Black tea? Yeah, black tea, Jimmy.
Also around noon it finally dawned, as bewildered-lookin’ would-be customers milled outside the crafts boutique, that Milly Watson hadn’t turned up for work. Jee-sus! Sol took himself and his black tea off to the boutique. They all wanted coffee mugs. WHY? Don’t ask...
Some time later that afternoon Akiko turned up, but not to work, she had that fat movie director guy in tow. Limply Sol let her show Derry Dawlish Michaela’s pots. What there was left of ’em after the big rush back at Christmas. She hadn’t produced all that much, since. Well, if she had, she hadn’t let on about it to him. Dawlish wanted to buy the real big one with the flax-head in it but Sol refused point-blank. The more Dawlish upped his offer the more point-blank Sol got, so it finally sank in, and he settled for the other one, the one with the branch in it. Even though Sol didn’t all that much want to sell that one, either, he let himself be persuaded.
Dawlish then urged Akiko to ring Michaela but after certain immediate communication problems had been gotten over he grasped the point that there were certain communication problems in ringing potters that didn’t have the phone on, and let Akiko ring June instead. They had just ascertained that apparently June and Bob were out when Ida Butler with the three Butler boys in tow appeared at the door of the boutique and informed them brightly that Bob and June would still be at the Carranos’. Akiko rang her employers. For a while no-one answered. Then apparently one of the twins answered. By the time Sol had decided it woulda been better if little Katie Maureen hadda answered, at least she spoke a few words of Japanese, Akiko was hanging up and reporting that Davey said that Polly and Jake were in the pool and that Bob-uh and Ur-June had gone home. Dawlish decided they’d drive on down, then. Sol didn’t try to dissuade him. The two of ’em disappeared, just as three nice ladies in flowery summer frocks came in and asked for— You guessed it, coffee mugs.
When the three Butler boys and their grandmother, all agog, had come in from watching the spectacle of little Akiko driving a humungous great pale blue Rolls Royce Ida volunteered to pop upstairs and make some afternoon tea. Sol let her, because for one thing he didn’t have the strength to stop her and for another he didn’t have the strength to support the whingeing that would inevitably ensue from her three grandsons if he didn’t let her.
Jimmy then rushed in from next-door to report they were all out of fishing line. Starsky volunteered eagerly to roll some more off of the big reel and Ivan, the same Ivan that according to his parents had never been known to do a hand’s turn at anything even when yelled at, volunteered eagerly to help, but Jimmy pointed out—avoiding Sol’s eye—that he didn’t mean that: he meant they’d used the last of the big reel. Um—gulping—sorry, Sol, I forgot to tell you a man came in last week and bought—
“Put it on the list for the wholesalers,” said Sol grimly.
Jimmy slunk out, humbly agreeing to do that.
Starsky, eyes narrowed, then advanced a fearfully cunning ploy whereby Sol would drive fifty-odd K to that other boating-supplies store near the jumping-off place for Kawau Island and buy up all their— Sol sent him next-door to fetch the milk out of his fridge. There was tea and coffee here in the boutique, but no milk. Why was there no milk? Wal, gee, folks, there was no milk, see, because one of Milly Watson’s little tasks was to pick up the milk for the boutique first thing from Swadlings’ shop before she came into work in the morning! Oh, gee!
Milly finally did ring—just when they’d settled down to afternoon tea, but judging by the way the day had gone so far it had hadda be then. The daughter who lived in Whangarei had gone into early labour last night and— Yeah, yeah. A girl? That was nice, Milly. Oh, three girls already? Uh—well, guess you couldn’t have too much of a good thing, huh? He let Milly explain that she’d be up there for a while looking after the three granddaughters without makin’ not one single remark about this here paternity leave that certain people had explained to him was legally a right of any that liked to claim it in New Zealand these days, and rang off.
After half a dozen nice ladies had come in in quest of You-Know-Whats and Sol had failed dismally to explain to another nice lady the precise derivation of the yarns in one of the afghans Miriam Austin had made for him on trial and Ida had bounced up and competently done it for him, plus to boot explainin’ about dyes and tea-tree bark and like that as well, he acceded weakly to her suggestion that perhaps she could fill in for Milly while she was away? Even although the three boys apparently interpreted this to mean they would come up with her—well, in the weekends and after school, Grandma!—and have a free-for-all in his, Sol’s, boating-supplies store and/or boat-repair yard.
Ida then took over competently in the crafts boutique. Permitting Starsky and Ivan to go on over to the boatyard but ONLY if Starsky kept an eye on Ivan, but not—in a steely voice that brooked no argument—permitting Mason to accompany them. Mason burst into tears. His brothers exited, with the expected sneers along the lines of “sissy” and “cry-baby”, and Sol slunk out in their wake…
He peeked in on the pair of ’em twenty minutes later. Ida had spread out the half dozen beautiful hand-woven silk stoles that a very up-market artistic lady who usually sold through a boutique in Parnell had offered them at considerably less than Sol’s usual commission and was earnestly comparing their merits with three fiercely hair-sprayed American ladies of around her own age from the Royal K. There was no possibility she wouldn’t make a sale, two of the ladies had their travellers’ cheques out already. The other one had her Gold Card out and a grip on the most outrageously priced of the hand-woven silk stoles. As for Mason: off in a discreet corner of the boutique he was a-settin’ on the floor with a drawing pad (undoubtedly Michaela’s, but never mind, after all she was practically their relation), and a pencil in his fist and the corner of his tongue stickin’ out his mouth. Sol crept over to him.
“Wow,” he said limply. “That’s great, Mason.”
“Yes, he’s inherited all of Bob’s talent,” said his grandmother without looking up from the stoles.
As Sol was just leaving, after further admiring Mason’s work and listenin’ with due- appreciation to Ida sellin’ four out of six of them stoles, two of the American ladies went over to coo at Mason. There was a chorus of appreciation, accompanied by the artist’s attempts (a) to tell them it was the Great Western and (b) to tell the one whose grandson was real keen on toy trains that she couldn’t have his picture, it was for Grandma, and (c) to tell her he didn’t want dollars, he had six dollars in his money-box!
“No commercial acumen,” he murmured to Ida as he exited.
She looked up and smiled and the third American lady, the one with the Gold Card, also looked up and said with a smile: “Yes! It sure is sweet, huh? But can it last?”
Sol winked at her. “Back home, I’d say the odds were against it. But down here in the Antipodes, he’s got a fightin’ chance!”
She gave a startled laugh, and he went on back to the store, grinning.
There he found that Jimmy had sold the last chillybin. Only last week there had been six out in back, what the—? Oh, a man had come in last Friday, had he? Sol waited until the store was empty and then he took a deep breath.
“Now, listen, Jimmy. Serving in a store doesn’t just entail—”
At the end of it the ears were bright red but Sol wouldn’t have taken a bet that anythin’ much had penetrated between ’em.
“Just don’t make me remind you of this here recession we’re having, and of the half-million kids that wouldn’t half mind that job of yours,” he said grimly.
Poor Jimmy gulped, looking as if he was about to burst into tears. “No,” he muttered. “Um—yes. I mean, no.”
Sol debated relenting a bit, but what with the hammer strokes that were still going on in his head and the fact that the summer season, even though the weather was undoubtedly glorious at the moment, was relentlessly drawing to an end, and what with Milly’s dilatoriness in letting him know of the event in her family, and the fact that he hadn’t managed to track down Michaela last night, and the fact that Polly had had to speak to him about speaking to Michaela last night, and the fact that last night Phoebe had as usual—well, as usual over the past twelve-fifteen months, all rightee—made him feel about knee-high and thick with it… So instead he said grimly: “I mean it. And if there’s anything else we’ve run out of or are about to run out of, I’d like to hear it. Now!”
After considerable feet-shuffling Jimmy admitted that he knew Sol had told him to pick up more teabags last week, only—
Teabags? Ye gods! “Uh—yeah. I meant serious stuff, Jimmy.”
He thought they were low on rope.
Sol inspected the rope supply. Yeah, well, supposin’ pigs flew and something the size of the Americas Cup contenders came in needin’ every sheet replaced— Though it could happen.
“Good, we’ll add it to the list. And Monday morning I’ll drive in myself and get the stuff. Okay?”
Jimmy agreed it was okay.
Sol sighed, the kid hadn’t gotten the point. “Jimmy, can you be here by eight to open up for all them early-morning customers that are sure to happen by if I’m not here?”
Jimmy agreed eagerly he could be.
Sol forbore to say he better be. But it kinda musta been there in his eye or somethin’, because Jimmy gave him a cowed look and slunk behind the counter and got very busy stocktaking them boxes of small sinkers what Sol had told him off to stocktake last week. Yeah, well.
The day didn’t noticeably improve. By the time he’d sold antifouling compound to three separate guys that didn’t know the Puriri County Council regulations wouldn’t let ’em use it in the Inlet, he was beginning to reconsider his position on antifouling compound entirely. Well, did he want to be responsible all on his ownsome for ruining the Environment here’bouts? Added to which, the prevalence of guys wanting antifouling compound was a sure indication that the summer season was drawing to a close, all rightee. He also sold a pile of expensive fishing gear to two guys in blue and white striped tee-shirts and yachting caps that didn’t know beans about fishing gear—or fishing—and that looked vaguely familiar… Oh, of course! Garry and—uh—was it Bob? Yeah, well, the two guys that him and Michaela had broken the bad news about the dearth of dairies to, Christmas Eve. Seemed a lifetime ago, yeah. What with Abe and Junior and Little Abe, and then two weeks of desperately tryin’ to keep Little Abe out of mischief not to say stir Junior into doin’ something—anything!—to celebrate the fact he was on vacation—yeah, well. Not to say what with being busy at the store, after all it was his busiest season: he’d hardly managed to set eyes on Michaela since Christmas. And now here it was March and the summer season was drawing to a close— Was he stuck in a groove, or was it just the hangover?
God knew why, but he’d kinda expected that Akiko would look in and report on whether she’d found Michaela or not, but she didn’t. Around four-thirty, just about when Sol was watchin’ Jimmy lookin’ at his watch every five seconds and forcibly preventin’ himself from jumpin’ down the kid’s throat on account of it—Jimmy had already told him the family was having a backyard barbecue tonight—Vicki and Scott dropped in. Had Sol seen Michaela and Ginny, because they’d looked for them everywhere!
Before Sol could speak Jimmy pointed out eagerly that they might be digging clay: ya went up the Inlet road to just past that ole totara and then ya went across that field with all the blackberries in it— Vicki had done that. Sol could see she musta done, yeah: Scott was wearing white cotton pants and not only was there a nasty snag on one leg where the blackberries must have caught it, there were several nasty large splodges of reddish-purple on both legs. Vicki was in jeans. ’Nuff said.
Sol suggested meekly they might be over to Polly and Jake’s but Vicki had rung them. Twice. Jimmy suggested they might be up at the Carranos’ bach, then, but Vicki had tried there first—that was, before trying the clay deposit. Jimmy then suggested that maybe they were over at the boatyard. Sol already knew he was a simple-minded kid so he managed not to stagger at this one. This was just as well, because Vicki countered it with the calm report that they’d tried there on their way down from the bach and there was only Euan and two of the Butler boys there.
Scott began to say that maybe Michaela and Ginny had just gone for a swim somewhere but she shut him up before the words weren’t hardly out of his mouth. Then he tried to say it was getting on for teatime and maybe they could try that fish and chips shop at Carter’s Bay but she shut him up on that one by pointing out that today was Sunday, it wasn’t open on Sundays in the summer.
“Didn’t collect no blackberries while you was up the Inlet road, did you?” asked Sol on a hopeful note.
Vicki withered him with the information that they hadn’t come up here to go blackberrying, they were looking for Twin!
With a great, in fact a gigantic effort Sol refrained from asking why. Well, coulda had sumpin’ to do with the fact that Scott was giving him a sort of agonized male-to-male look that seemed to be trying to say “Don’t ask.”
Vicki then dragged her escort firmly away before Sol could decide whether remindin’ her the highway would be bumper-to-bumper with Sunday drivers from now on in till around eight would be more enjoyable than not remindin’ her the highway would be bumper-to-bumper with Sunday drivers from now on in till around eight.
In their wake Jimmy wondered where Michaela and Ginny could be.
With a great effort, in fact a truly tremendous effort, Sol refrained from pointing out that they had the whole of the greater metropolitan area to get themselves lost in, not to say the whole of Puriri County, or gee, they might even have gotten the early bus up to Whangarei!—and instead said: “You wanna get off home to that barbecue, Jimmy? I guess I can cope from now on in.”
Jimmy departed gratefully.
Sol sighed, and sagged on the counter.
Then two guys came in wantin’ antifouling compound. No, OF COURSE they hadn’t heard that you couldn’t use it in the Inlet! Sheesh!
Round five-fifteen Ida popped in, all smiles, and offered to get tea. In spite of the smiles and in spite of the fact that he was genuinely grateful to her for looking after the boutique, Sol would have turned the offer down, only she had Mason hangin’ onto her hand and he jumped a bit and squeaked: “C’n we have flounder for tea, Sol?” And even though the freezer was a bit low because for he had been MORE THAN SLIGHTLY BUSY lately, Sol agreed weakly that it sure would be great if Ida made tea: thanks, Ida. Wal, he hadn’t even known the little guy knew the word “flounder.”
He sure as Hell hadn’t breathed a word to her about the hangover, but before she got tea Ida brought him down a nice cup of coffee and two Panadol tablets. There sure as Hell hadn’t been any left in his bathroom cabinet, so they musta been her own. Sol just accepted meekly.
Ida turned out to be the sort of grandmother that makes chips for Sunday tea. Sol was aware, having been informed of the fact by Starsky on a previous occasion, that June never made chips. So there could have been slightly mixed motives for Ida’s making chips on this occasion, but he didn’t breathe a word. Nor did he breathe a word on the subject of her having made the chips in his hugely expensive olive oil (there being no other oil in the place: he didn’t make chips, either). The potatoes she used were the large ones Sol had gotten in special for making baked potatoes in his new cooker and besides usin’ every last one of ’em she had peeled ’em into the bargain, but what the Hell, it wasn’t every Sunday evening someone made dinner for him. Well, never, these days, actually.
There was only the one flounder left in the freezer and it was large enough for Mason and Ivan, as the two youngest, to share. Ida competently chopped the large trevally that was the rest of the freezer’s contents apart from the bait into big steaks, and crumbed ’em and fried ’em. In spite of the coffee and the Panadol Sol hadn’t really believed he’d be able to face fish but after he’d eaten a few mouthfuls of chips he suddenly got his appetite back. The trevally steaks sure were good. Never mind that he’d been savin’ up that there ole fish to do a real fancy recipe out of one of his new recipe books that entailed white wine and a large baking dish and bay leaves and stuff. On a night when he would actually have managed to corner Michaela and force her into agreeing to eat dinner with him...
Uh, yeah, Ida, the stove was new, actually: he’d given Euan the old bench-top griller and that two-element thing. Yeah, them ceramic tops sure cooked fast, uh-huh.
“Abe bought it!” squeaked Mason.
“That’s nice, dear,” she beamed, addressing the remark, far’s Sol could see, impartially to both him and her grandson.
Weakly the parasite agreed it was nice. Wal, he had managed to stop Abe from buying him a king-size bed. Just. And a brand-new SUV—but he’d been prepared for that one.
The kids were quite happy to watch Sol’s TV while Sol and Ida washed the dishes. Abe would have forced a dishwasher on him, of course, only even he had been able to see that once the new cooker was in, there was nowhere in Sol’s tiny kitchenette that a dishwasher could go.
Euan offered to help but Ida laughed merrily and told him he could have the night off. He settled down to watch TV with the kids but as it was some American cops-and-robbers thing Sol wasn’t at all surprized, when he stuck his head round the divider ten minutes down the track, to see he had quietly picked up one of them New Statesman and Society magazines that Polly Carrano got airmail from England and somehow, Sol wasn’t sure exactly how, had found out he would quite like to have passed on to him, iffen there was no-one else who— Together with the odd English Country Life magazine and them English Observer newspapers that Polly didn’t know anybody else that wanted ’em. Sol wouldn’t have believed this last for an instant, only she had followed it up by explaining that everyone she knew who liked The Observer had their own subscription or read the English Department’s copy at work, and though he realized she could well have been lying it had just struck such a note of verisimilitude, somehow! She hadn’t needed to pass on her Atlantic Monthly magazines: oddly enough the parasite did have his own subscription to that.
Ida departed with her grandsons as soon as they’d finished, assuring Sol she’d be up here in plenty of time to open the boutique. Half-past eight? Hurriedly he assured her nine-thirty was more than early enough, especially on a Monday. And was she quite sure, because it sure was a drive from Puriri—? Ida was quite sure.
Limply he staggered back indoors. Limply he let Euan make coffee. Limply he accepted a cookie. He hadn’t been aware there were any cookies in the place. Euan pointed out that his big American cookie jar was full of them. Jesus, Ida musta made ’em while she was whippin’ up the dinner! ...Yup, sure ’nuff: they was stoneground wholemeal flour cookies. Good, though.
After some time of meditating he asked: “Euan, do cookies have egg in ’em?”
Euan thought they always did, if he meant biscuits!
Sol caught the twinkle in his eye just in time. “Yeah, well,” he whispered: “please could you look in the refrigerator for me, Euan, and tell me if she used up them last two eggs I was savin’ for tomorrow’s breakf—” She had, yes, of course she had.
“Don’t think it dawned on her there aren’t any shops round here,” said Euan cheerfully through another cookie.
It couldn’ta done, no.
“You’ll have to nip into Swadlings’ first thing!” he said cheerfully.
“Yeah, would this be before or after I nip in all the way to the city to the wholesalers, Euan?”
Euan thought this over. “Depends whether you want any breakfast, really.”
Sol’s place didn’t feature large numbers of cushions or he woulda heaved one at him. So he heaved the review section of an Observer instead, but it missed.
Euan picked it up and glanced through it with interest.
“Wal?”
“Effete,” he said, wrinkling his straight nose.
Sol just about refrained from choking.
Euan then looked at his watch.
“Wal?”
“It’s just about time for The Camomile Lawn,” he said with a slow smile.
“Wal, quick, turn it on, we wouldn’t want to miss sumpin’ as effete as that, Euan!”
Grinning, Euan turned it on. A rapt silence fell...
“Not as good as last week’s episode,” decided Sol, though with a sigh of repletion.
Euan replied on a hopeful note: “’Ve you got the book?”
“Yeah, but the serial ain’t as good as the book, Euan.”
Euan scratched his head. “Okay, I’ll wait until the serial’s over.”
“I would!” he choked, suddenly going into a paroxysm.
Euan watched him tolerantly and said mildly when he was over it: “What’s the joke?”
“Nothin’!” he gasped. “You’da had to been there!”
Euan got up, stretching. “I’m off. –Listen, did Lame Higgins mention he can get us a load of pink batts wholesale?”
“Uh—no.” Sol looked uneasily at his gabled ceiling.
“It’d be worth it, Sol, we could get enough to insulate your roof and the loft at the same time.”
And spend the autumn months tearin’ his ceiling out and replacing it, yeah, because there ain’t no crawl-space in them kitschy gabled fake-pioneer roofs, kid.
“Ye-ah... Dunno that I want to put all that money and effort into this place.”
Euan looked at him in alarm.
“No, I ain’t thinkin’ of givin’ up on it, Euan,” he said wearily.
“Oh,” the kid said, going very red and smiling a relieved smile. “Good.”
Sol sighed. “It’s just that I was hopin’ to bring Gracie out some time this year. And then—uh—well, the Puriri Council’s subdividing all the land along the Inlet now, Jake Carrano was telling me.”
“Hell’s teeth!” said Euan in horror.
“Calm down, we’ve got an iron-clad lease on the boatyard.”
“Yeah; only, miles of yuppie second homes up the Inlet—!”
“Only ten-acre and a few five-acre lots at the moment, is what I was trying to say.”
“In that case they’ll be millionaires’ second homes, like those ones down at Lake Tarawera,” he said grimly.
Sol didn’t ask, the more so as it suddenly conjured up a vision of him and Phoebe driving round in the mist and rain of the thermal area in August, before giving up on the mist and rain of the thermal area in August and retreating to a nice, clean, naturally steam-heated motel.
“Yeah, well: be that as it may, I thought I better put a deposit on Sol’s Cove, if I really want it.”
“Oh!” said Euan, beaming at him. “I geddit! Great idea! Yeah, if you’re gonna build up there, you won’t want to chuck any more money away on this dump.”
“Mm. You got any idea how much your basic A-frame kitset costs, Euan?”
“Uh—no.”
Sol told him.
“Heck,” he said faintly.
“Wal, I could go for an A-frame garage kitset, only I’d have to add on so much in the way of bathrooms and so forth…”
“Yeah, not worth it. Mind you, you could have a chemical toilet for a while.”
“Not at my age,” said Sol grimly.
“They’re perfectly hygienic and everything!”
“Yeah, and I could wash standin’ over a basin of hot water that I’d boiled up on my camping-gas burner, only I’m too old for that, too!” he said with feeling.
This was normally how Euan washed, on the occasions when he didn’t simply leap into the Inlet: he grinned.
“Wait until winter,” predicted Sol grimly.
Euan rubbed his nose. “Might’ve got my shower in by then.”
“Yeah: if neither of us has any customers until then, I guess we might, at that!”
Euan looked at him uneasily. “Well, can’t Jimmy cope on his own the odd day or two?”
“Not on current showin’, no,” said Sol heavily, laying a hand on his shoulder and steering him towards the stairs. “We’ll work something out.” At the front door he sighed, and admitted: “I just wish Gabe was here, to tell you the truth. Did I tell you that young cretin, Jimmy, has let us run right out of fishing line—all weights but that very heavy line that’s only suitable for big-game fishing, since you’re not asking—and chillybins?”
“Comes of hiring cretins,” said Euan drily.
“Thanks a bunch!”
“I could drive into the wholesalers for you, if you like,” he offered cautiously.
Sol sighed. “Thanks. But I can’t afford to pay you for helping out with the store as well as for the boat repairs, Euan.”
“I don’t mi—”
“I know you don’t mind, that ain’t the POINT!”
There was a tingling silence outside the three little stores on the waterfront at Kingfisher Bay.
Finally Euan said uneasily: “Wish I could think of some way of drumming up more business.”
Sol sighed. “Yeah. Well, maybe dozens of millionaires will come and build yuppie second homes all up along the Inlet.”
Euan rubbed his nose.
“What?” said Sol sharply.
“Well,” he said reluctantly, “they won’t be able to get their boats up there unless the place is dredged. And I know the environmentalists didn’t manage to stop Jake Carrano from dredging out the marina, but that was a good while back, now.”
“Don’t spell it out,” said Sol glumly.
A glum silence fell.
“There’s still plenty of berths left at the marina, though!” recognized Euan with a sudden laugh.
Sol clapped him on the back. “Yeah, you’re right! Wal, good: we’ll look forward to scores of yuppie second homes goin’ in all up the Inlet, huh? The Mediterranean-style ones they have over in Australia ’ud be good: all functionless rounded arches and blinding white concrete.”
“Are they?” said Euan weakly.
“Yeah; Polly passed on an Australian House & Garden magazine by accident in that last heap of Obs—” He stopped, Euan was laughing already.
“Mind you,” he added, “the latest seems to be—”
“Don’t!” gasped Euan.
Smiling in the warm night, Sol continued relentlessly: “The latest seems to be kind of a washed-out pink: the pink side of terracotta, maybe? With functionless pillars, and garden statuary and cypresses: the Italian Renaissance look, I think.”
“The Italian Renaissance look up Carter’s Inlet. That’ll go good with the toetoe and the manuka scrub, all right.”
“’Bout as good as it goes with them Australian eucalypts: yeah!” gasped Sol, suddenly giving in entirely.
“Right. American ranch-style’d be far more appropriate, of course,” said Euan, hurriedly departing. “—In Canadian cedarwood!” he shouted from several yards down the road.
Sol went back indoors, laughing.
Nevertheless, by the time he was climbing into his hammock he didn’t feel all that good. Well, better than he had for most of the day, that was for sure, but...
He got up early on the Monday and went down and rescued the runabouts he’d somehow overlooked bringin’ on up from his marina slot the previous evening. Jimmy turned up relatively early, it wasn’t even eight, yet, and gave him a hand, but that didn’t cheer Sol up all that much, to tell the truth. The more so as the kid didn’t get the “Left hand down a bit” bit. Not that Sol had expected him to, really.
He drove on in to Carter’s Bay with nothing inside of him but a cup of black coffee because for Euan had had the last of the milk in his coffee last night, what Mason hadn’t drunk with his dinner, that was, and a stoneground wholemeal cookie. Outside Swadlings’ he hesitated. But Hell, it seemed pointless to turn round and drive back to Kingfisher Bay just in order to consume cholesterol and protein he didn’t need. So he drove on into the city with nothing inside of him but a cup of black coffee and a stoneground wholemeal cookie.
The wholesalers were real surprized to see him and said he could have rung through that order for fishing line. Wearily Sol explained that he was completely out of— Oh. Well, they could let him have some of that weight, and—uh—probably some of— Jee-sus!
The rest of March was pretty much the same, really. Give or take. Well, one bright spot was the fact that under Ida’s management the crafts boutique did brilliantly. Its front window got mysteriously cleaned, too, without Sol’s having to get up at half six on a Monday morning and do it himself. Inside and out—yep.
On the other hand Milly would be back come April 1 (don’t laugh) and then they could expect the profits to resume the even tenor of their ways.
Another bright spot was that Euan was working extra-hard at the boat repairs but Sol had an uneasy feeling that this was partly because he’d thrown a scare into the poor kid by refusing to put any more money into his apartment over the store and partly because Euan had it in mind that if he got all these jobs tidied away during March, then come April him and Sol could really get goin’ on puttin’ a bathroom into the boatshed loft. Sol at this point was driven to retrieve the long-ago bill from Lame Higgins for plumbing in his upstairs toilet and look at it moodily. Add inflation and the fact that Mrs Higgins had declared her intention of taking a vacation in Queensland this year to that—
The weather remained good but what with all school and university holidays having come to an end, so that Kingfisher Marina was remarkably quiet during the week, and the fact that the leaves were startin’ to turn on them two stunted plane trees outside the closed Carter’s Bay Post Office and the fact that it was noticeably no longer humid, and the further fact that ever more guys in quest of antifouling compound came into the store with each passing weekend...
Added to which there was no sign of Michaela! He finally managed to get June on the phone and was told, vaguely, that she thought Michaela was experimenting with her new clay. And different colours.
“Yeah, but June, she said for sure she’d do some more of that brown stuff!”
“Oh,” said June vaguely.
There was a short silence, during which Sol had to tell himself very firmly that June was a real pleasant young woman, and the fact that he had scarcely laid eyes on Michaela these last three months was not her fault.
“You workin’, June?” he ventured.
There was another silence in answer to this and Sol looked at his receiver uncertainly.
“Ye-es... You wouldn’t be interested in teapots, would you, Sol?” she said cautiously.
Sol had to swallow. “Uh—now, if these are bright pink teapots with big blue daisies on ’em, June—”
“No!” said June with a choke of laughter. “Um... It’s silly, really.”
“Yeah?” he croaked.
June muttered something.
“Huh?” he said.
“Um—cottage teapots,” said June, clearing her throat. “I don’t know why: I just suddenly had an idea…”
“They’re in the shape of cottages?” said Sol, smiling.
“Yes. Well, we went for a drive out Howick way and I actually persuaded Bob to stop at the pioneer village. Usually he just gets in the car and goes. I thought it was just him, only Meg reckons they all do it: she reckons it’s a male... hormone,” finished June, gulping.
“So they tell me,” he said, grinning.
“Um—yes!” said June with a giggle. “Um—well, I suppose it was those cottages that gave me the idea. I don’t know why teapots, though!” she admitted.
“Real New Zealand pioneer-type cottage teapots, huh?”
“You do think it’s silly,” she said sadly.
“Hell, no, June!” –No, what he thought was, they’d sell like hot cakes—better ’n hot cakes—to all them American tourist ladies from up the Royal K that were looking for something typically Noo Zealand and could see right through them ersatz Maori carvings that that tourist-junk place in the Royal K’s lobby had. Glued-on paua shell eyes or not. “I think it’s a real great idea!”
“Oh—good,” said June weakly. “Um—it’s taken me ages to work out the basic design. Well, it’s slab work, I suppose, but I don’t mean that. Making them so as they pour without dribbling,” she explained.
Sol swallowed. Arty-crafty cottage teapots that poured without dribbling? These were unique in the known universe!’
“I’ll come down and look at ’em!” he said fervently.
“Um—righto. Art For Art’s Sake in Puriri said they’d take some, but—”
“Don’t you dare to let that Nerida and Kamala have the monopoly on ’em, June!” he warned.
“No, well, I said I thought you’d probably be interested. –Ida likes them,” she revealed.
If Ida liked them, they would undoubtedly sell better ’n hot cakes. Every single item Ida had thought would sell at the boutique had sold, that was how tuned-in Ida was to the boutique’s customer-demand.
“Great. Well, I’ll come on down. Would this evening be okay?”
June agreed this evening would be okay. Adding as an afterthought that Michaela wouldn’t be there: she was babysitting tonight for some people in Puriri.
Sol hung up rather red in the face. Though Jesus, he didn’t mind nice June knowing how he felt about—
Well, how the Hell did he feel about Michaela, come to think of it? He hadn’t laid eyes on her since... Shit, that Goddamn barbecue at the Carranos’, right. And hardly laid eyes on her for two months before that.
After a certain period of scowling reflection Sol admitted to himself that how he felt about Michaela at the moment was real mean and grudging because she’d been deliberately avoiding him for months. Which was dumb, real dumb, because of course she hadn’t: she was just absorbed in her new clay and her new colour schemes... Yeah, she just found her work more interesting than she did S. Winkelmann, and where had we heard that one before?
Yo, boy. Sol got up from behind the counter, sighing, and went and leaned in the doorway of the store, sighing. Yeah, well, he’d always known he’d have to give her time, and he guessed it wasn’t— Well, given that he and Phoebe had kind of officially bust up towards the beginning of December, it was very nearly four months since the bust-up. He guessed that wasn’t real long. It only felt like it.
“Huh?” he said, jumping.
Jimmy said anxiously: “I could hold the fort, Sol, if you want to go over to the boatyard.”
Sol made a face. “Thanks, Jimmy. Dunno that I do, really: every time I lay eyes on Euan these days he nags me about buying timber, or insulation, or some such.”
“Uncle Sid reckons there’s a new place up U-rong-goo-poi Road that sells great recycled stuff,” he offered. “You know: not just window frames and fireplaces and stuff, but timber and that as well.”
“Uh—ye ah...”
“You know where the ole bus depot used to be?”
Definitely not: no. Sol shook his head.
“Oh. Um—well, ya know the main road, eh?”
“Uh—oh. In Carter’s Bay, Jimmy?”
Of course Jimmy had meant in Carter’s Bay: what other main road was there? He endeavoured to explain where the ole bus depot was in relation to Main Road. Sol kind of got it that it was the other end of town from the Kingfisher Bay turn-off. Jimmy explained laboriously that the ole bus depot had been turned into a place that sold recycled stuff, they did that stripping, too, he thought vaguely.
Sol sighed: boy, if the strippin’ joints (no pun intended) had reached Carter’s Bay, the place sure was goin’ up-market, all rightee.
Jimmy was explaining carefully that the recycling place didn’t take up the whole of the old bus depot, the rest of it was gonna be used for that Sunday market there’d been that fuss about in the paper. He meant, of course, the Puriri Advertiser. Carter’s Bay was too small to have a paper of its own: it occasionally got a mention in this publication. The Puriri Advertiser was pretty much what its name indicated, its main function was to tell you what specials were on at the Puriri supermarkets this week. Occasionally it managed to squeeze in a bit of County news.
Sol said weakly: “You mean the County Council agreed to let that Sunday market go ahead? Even though it’ll bring trade to Carter’s Bay?”
“Uh—yeah,” he said with an uncertain grin.
Boy, it was the march of progress, all right. Sol sighed. “Well, I would say that now would be the time to buy up the lease of Shop 3 and open a dairy, wouldn’t you?”
“Um—yeah,” the kid said blankly.
“Boy, oh boy,” said Sol numbly. “A Sunday market, huh?” He went over to the counter and withdrew his map from under it.
“The roundabout’s not on—”
“I know that, Jimmy.” He searched in vain for some time. Well, sure he found Main Road, that was easy enough. On the back of the map was a list of Puriri County road names, only that was no help. He went back to the front of it. Finally Jimmy, breathing heavily, came and put a grimy finger on it. Sol had thought he’d gotten used to the strange way that pakeha tongues mangled Maori words by now, but he couldn’t have: U-rong-goo-poi Road turned out not to be “Urongupoi”, as he had thought, but “Orangapai”.
“I guess they’re only open between nine and five, working days?” he said.
Jimmy thought they were open on Saturdays: he could ask Dad!
Sol let him call his dad, why not, they weren’t besieged with customers. Mr Burton confirmed the recycling place was open Saturdays. Gee, goody: Saturdays were only Sol’s busiest day.
Jimmy was looking at him anxiously. “Uh—yeah. Well, I’ll certainly take a look at it,” he said, smiling at him. ‘
“Yeah: Uncle Sid reckons ya can pick up some rilly good bargains there!”
Sol managed to nod. It had just occurred to him forcibly that if this recycling joint really wanted to make money (though this was a big if out here in Wonderland), then it should be opening not only Saturdays, to take advantage of all the do-it-yourselfers that had to work in paid employment during the week, but also Sundays, to take advantage of all the further do-it-yourselfers that would flock to the Sunday market in search of second-hand bargains on the Sunday. Sheesh!
“Are you going over to the boatyard?” said Jimmy as he tottered numbly over to the door again.
“Huh? Oh—no, thought I’d just go check on Ida.” He tottered next-door.
As he had thought, Ida fully shared his sentiments. Fully. In fact she cried: “That’s ridiculous!”
“Yeah,” said Sol, saggin’ all over her counter—looked strange, what had she— Oh. Polish. “I thought you’d see it like that, Ida.”
They looked at each other limply. Finally Ida said: “Maybe they’re waiting till the Sunday market starts up to open on Sundays.”
Sol swallowed.
“I wouldn’t bet on it, though!” she said with a loud giggle.
“Nup. Me neither,” he said, looking at the perky, robin-like figure with great affection.
Ida then showed him some dried flower pictures a lady had brought in on spec. They were not your usual dried flower pictures at all. There were two sorts: native grasses and leaves and so forth, and garden flowers. The latter were all sort of plump and Victorian-ish, mostly in velvet frames, and mostly in shades of blue and mauve, or gold and apricot; while the former were just—
“I just love these!” said Ida fervently.
Sol nodded mutely. “This hand-made paper she’s put ’em on?”
“Yes. She makes it herself. She uses flax. –Native flax, I mean.”
They looked in awe at the subtle shades and textures of the grasses and leaves on the hand-made paper.
“Yes,” said Ida with a sigh. “Lovely. –The others’ll sell better, of course.”
“Yeah. But would you do me a favour, Ida, and put ’em down in back somewheres? Next to them pottery spotted thrush things, huh?”
Smiling, Ida did so. The hand-made paper pictures with the native grasses she placed carefully in the window next to two pots of Michaela’s and a piece of very special driftwood that Sol had found over to Carter’s Bay itself one windy day last winter.
Sol went outside and just looked.
“All right?” she said, as he came back in.
“More than all right, Ida: if I was ten years older or had the sense I was born with, I’d beg you to marry me!” he said fervently.
Ida just chuckled complacently.
All right for some. She had her cosy townhouse and her nice Bob Grey a-waiting for her back home. Oh, well. Sol went on back to the boating-supplies store, trying not to think about April 1 coming up all too soon.
That evening, coming back from the Butlers’ with the three finished teapot cottages he’d managed to get out of June packed carefully in crumpled newspaper in cartons in back, he found himself detouring up Riverside Drive and along Pukeko Drive. At the top of Coronation Road he paused, biting his lip. Then he turned down Coronation Road and turned right, into Kapenga Avenue. Even though it was far too early for her to be back from a babysitting job.
Of course Michaela wasn’t back. In fact Ginny was out, too, but he got the official word Michaela wasn’t back, because the old lady from next-door popped out and told him so. And it was one of Ginny’s evenings for helping at the Puriri Public Library, she explained. Sol didn’t think he’d known she did help out there, but he just nodded limply. Could she take a message? she added hopefully.
“No—uh—” He couldn’t for the life of him remember her name! “Uh—thanks,” he fumbled. “Just that Sol Winkelmann called in, huh? And—uh—if she’s got any pots ready for me, I’d like to know.”
The old lady explained kindly that Michaela was experimenting with new clay and different colours. Jesus! How come she seemed to have told everybody but him? Gritting his teeth some, he told her thanks again, and drove away.
He was well up on the highway past Kowhai Bay, in fact nearly in sight of the turnoff to Susan and Alan’s orchard, when he remembered her name. Mrs Morton. Yeah, well.
Should he drop in on Susan and Alan? It was gone half nine: they kept early hours, he guessed they might already be in bed... No, he guessed he wouldn’t. Sol drove on past the turnoff to the Hardings’ orchard, not quite admitting to himself that the reason he didn’t want to call in on them was that he was already in the bad mood to end all bad moods and he had the feeling that the sight of the two of them in their cosy nest, happy as all get out with each other and their life together, would only make it worse.
He was still in the bad mood he’d been in—well, ever since the Carranos’ barbecue party, really—by the time he got round to going to the new recycling place to look for cheap lumber. He had picked up a few lengths from a timberyard down south of Puriri somewheres, but though he guessed they’d help some with the mezzanine floor for Euan’s loft, they sure wouldn’t go anywheres near starting on a house—or even an outhouse—at Sol’s Cove.
He had put a deposit on Sol’s Cove, so he really ought to be feeling a lot better about it all. Only the amount of the mortgage he’d had to get had really rocked him. Well, not so much the amount of the mortgage itself, but the amount he worked out he’d have paid in interest by the time it was paid off. The sensible thing to do, he guessed, might be to camp out at the Cove, maybe just buy an A-frame garage, and let the apartment over the store. Trouble was, there weren’t that many would-be tenants queuing up to rent apartments at Kingfisher Bay in the off-season, nearly two hours’ drive from the city. Well, none.
He parked on the vast expanses of pitted asphalt that were presumably the remains of the bus depot, and got out slowly. The place had a very new sign in kind of ye-olde fake pioneer style, that said: “Goode As Olde”. Ouch. Wal, someone else had already used “Strip Joint”, I kid you not, he reflected glumly. There was a big old black shed there, maybe it had been a bus barn? He mooched inside.
Since it was around two-thirty on a Thursday the place wasn’t that busy. A young couple was looking at window frames—why weren’t they at work? Over the other side a boy with a short braid and an earring was slowly sorting his way through a heap of wooden chairs. Not genuine bentwood, Sol could see from here. In fact he himself wouldn’t even have dignified one by painting it turquoise and sticking a potted plant on it.
He went and looked dispiritedly at a large wardrobe. Not pioneer work, that was for sure. Not even earlier twentieth century. Not even Fifties. Late Sixties, by his reckoning, and real cheap and hideous with it. Plywood over chipboard? Something like that. The plywood had buckled, looked as if it had been left out in the rain.
A period passed during which Sol looked around dispiritedly. There was nothing there he’d give houseroom to. He guessed he should really go outside and look at the lumber...
Then a young guy with a shortish golden beard came up to him. This young guy looked okay in that the beard was relatively untidy, the hair, though also untidy, was relatively short and did not feature a braid of any variety, and the earring was real small. “Need any help?” he said.
“Nope. Not unless you got a hundred thousand dollars or so that’s lookin’ for a good home,” returned Sol morosely.
“Hah, hah,” he replied in an understanding voice.
“Yeah. –You the proprietor?” asked Sol.
“Yes. Kevin Goode,” he said. “With an E.” Very white, even teeth flashed as he grinned.
Sol held out a palsied hand. “Nice to meet you, Kevin. I’m Sol Winkelmann, from Sol ‘s Boating & Marine Supplies, over to Kingfisher Bay.”
Kevin Goode shook hands, still grinning.
“The name’s a double pun, huh?” said Sol feebly.
“Something like that: yeah,” he said, still grinning.
“I’m really looking for timber,” Sol then admitted in the local vernacular.
Kevin Goode replied, completely poker-face: “The lumber’s all outside.”
Sol went out, grinning. Only thing was, he reflected as he slowly inspected Kevin Goode’s piles of lumber, even though Kevin was obviously an okay guy and obviously had a smattering of intelligence, he was very young. Very, very, very young. How come anyone that young got to own a large recycling yard? Gee, guys that owned recycling yards were all at least in their forties and usually pretty hefty with it and if they had beards they was longish Flower Power beards that matched their flares and their Flower Power tie-dyed tee-shirts and their beads! Well, Hell, you didn’t never see no recycling yard owner that was under thirty in his, Sol’s, day! Yeah, quite.
After a while Kevin Goode wandered out into the sunshine and they consulted at length over the lumber and Sol eventually bought a good deal of it, since the price was okay.
Back inside the guy with the braid came over and said: “Are those school chairs?” and Kevin Goode nodded. “Got any school desks?” asked Braid Guy. Kevin Goode shook his head. Looking sad, Braid Guy wandered off down the far end of the barn.
“School desks at a premium these days?” said Sol idly.
“Yeah. He means the all-in-one sort: you know, with the seat attached and a flip-up lid. And a hole for the inkwell.”
“Uh—yeah. You had those out here in New Zealand?”
“Yeah. My mum can remember having them in her first year at secondary school. She said they began phasing them in her second year.” He filled out Sol’s docket. “She’s forty-four,” he said, looking up with a smile. “It was an old school, though.”
“Guess that makes me veteran, if not vintage,” he said morosely.
Kevin Goode just grinned happily and told him the damage. Yes, of course he took Visa, he said in mild surprize.
Sol drove off with his lumber feeling very, very old indeed. A recycled lumberyard guy that wore an earring and took Visa and had a mom that was forty-four? Sheesh!
Whether it was because of this encounter or because of several months of not being able to get near Michaela or because Monday morning Milly Watson was due back on the job, or just because of that dull, kinda morning-after-the-night-before feeling he just couldn’t seem to shake off, God only knew. But that Sunday he then went and did something that was pretty near the most dad-blamed stupid thing he’d ever done in his life. And he’d done a few, in his time.
Sunday started out okay. Well, he managed to get downstairs and stand on the doorstep scratchin’ the whiskers okay. Then a frantic-looking guy in designer jeans came up and said his boat was stuck on a sandbank up the Inlet and was there anywhere that he could get a tow? Sol didn’t obligingly go right down and get into the runabout: he told him what it would cost. There was a nasty silence. Then Designer-Jeans croaked: “How much?”
“This here is a working day for me,” replied Sol mildly.
“Yes, but—” He looked round frantically.
“You could try knocking up one of them fancy houses up to Tui Grove or like there. Or there might even be one or two guys sleeping on their boats down in the bay, I guess there are one or two marina slots that don’t belong to them second homes. Why don’t you try that big white job, twin-diesels, near as big as a houseboat: Saucy Sal,” he said meanly: “I think the guy that owns it, he’s aboard this morning. Sir Ralph Something, I think it is: top-flight surgeon at The Mater Hospital: I’m sure he’d be real glad to get up at six-ten of a Sunday morning to tow you off of the sandbanks.” He eyed him blandly.
Designer-Jeans went very red and said: “Well, all right, then! Only I still think it’s too much!”
“In advance,” said Sol blandly.
“Now, look!”
“You get it back if I don’t get you off: okay?”
Sulkily he agreed.
They got in the Land Rover and towed the runabout, complete with boathooks and towing ropes, not to say the heaviest outboard that a runabout of that size would take without actually taking off like the Challenger, down to the launching ramp. There was only a queue of three seasoned boaties already there, not bad for this time on a Sunday. Designer-Jeans looked at them in a wistful sorta way but none of them wore labels on their foreheads saying “I’m a generous guy that’ll give up my fishin’ trip to tow a fucktwit not fit to be in charge of a kiddies’ plastic duck off of a sandbank”, funnily enough, so he didn’t say anything. Sol knew two of the guys vaguely: they exchanged greetings. The third one asked him if he was after snapper but Sol explained carefully he was after towing this guy off of a sandbank and the three seasoned boaties collapsed in sniggers.
He got him off of the sandbank in no time at all and, deaf to his protests that he could take her now, towed him down to the deeper water just off the marina.
“The Inlet ain’t deep enough for a boat of your draft,” he said mildly.
“But they told me—”
“Son, I don’t care what they told you, ain’t you just PROVEN,” said Sol, getting rather loud, “that the Inlet ain’t deep enough for her draft! –And I’d have her bottom looked at before I take her out again, if I was you,” he added helpfully.
Looking sulky, Designer-Jeans conceded he might and grudgingly thanked Sol. Sol didn’t go back to shore once he’d cast off the tow-rope, he just sat there, waiting. Designer-Jeans gunned his Marlina’s engine horribly and shot past him in a great curve of spray. Didn’t dare to go on back up the Inlet, though.
Sol went back to the store and got on with it.
Around nine-twenty, just when he was starting to get good and mad because Jimmy hadn’t turned up, Mrs Burton ran to say Jimmy wouldn’t be in to work today, he had a bit of a tummy upset. Sol interpreted this without no trouble whatsoever to mean he’d been drinking beer last night with them feeble-minded guys he was at high school with, but didn’t say nothing, he was a pretty good kid on the whole.
Around ten-thirty things looked up somewhat: Jemima called up to invite him to dinner next Saturday. Would that be a convenient day for him? Sol agreed eagerly it would. Jemima explained it was just a few friends: she’d asked Susan and Alan, and Darryl and John. Then she said hesitantly: “Would you like to bring someone?”
“Yeah, I sure would, Jemima, only Someone ain’t on the phone,” he said with a sigh. “I been down to her place three times this last month in the hopes of catching her, but she ain’t never home, either. I guess I could leave a message with June,” he admitted, “only when she ain’t actually firing things Michaela don’t seem to be there, either!”
“No. I think she’s helping her friend Sean Stacey with another big gardening project,” said Jemima.
“What?” he said limply.
“Um—you know: he did the gardens at Willow Grove. Um—he does—um—landscaping, I think they call it.”
“Uh—yeah,” he said limply.
“June said that Michaela said they’re trying to get it finished before the weather breaks.”
Sol sighed. “Yeah. I see.”
“Roberta was helping them before, only now, um…” Jemima’s voice faltered.
“She’s found alternative means of support: yeah,” he agreed drily. “Okay, then, Jemima: let’s say provisionally I’ll bring Michaela, and I’ll leave a message for her with June.”
“Yes. There’s Mrs Morton, too.”
“Yeah. –Oh, of course, she’s an old friend of yours and Tom’s!” he remembered.
“Yes. Have you got her number?”
Sol thought he had. He read it out. Jemima confirmed it was Mrs Morton’s number.
“Yeah, well, thanks very much, Jemima,” he said.
“I can’t tell you what we’re having to eat, Tom says it’s going to be a surprize!” she said with a little laugh.
He smiled. “I’ll look forward to that.”
He went back to serving customers with lengths of rope and pots of paint and antifouling compound and the occasional fishing reel in a much better frame of mind.
Around lunchtime Euan turned up, and with a kind of cautious expression on his face told him he’d taken on a new job.
“Uh—fine,” replied Sol, somewhat surprized. “What sort of job, can I ask? Or is it a deep, dark secret?”
“Nice cabin-cruiser with a pale green superstructure. Custom-built. Pale green cushions to match. Flies a pale green pennant with a black marlin on it, don’ ask me why,” he said, looking at Sol out of the corner of his eye.
“Uh-huh.”
“Marlina, her name is.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Got a few scratches on her bottom.”
Sol had a coughing fit.
“I thought it musta been you,” he said, satisfied.
“Iffen you want lunch,” said Sol weakly, “just get on up them stairs and start makin’ it.”
“Where’s Jimmy?”
“His mom tells me he’s got a tummy upset.”
Euan sniffed, but made no comment. “What you want to eat?”
“Uh—hang on, you better go see if Ida’s already made some,” he said with a sheepish smile.
Grinning, Euan went next-door.
Ida had brought a thing with tomatoes and rice. And tinned shrimp. Only needed heating through. Didn’t bear no resemblance whatsoever to a paella, no sir. Nor to no Cajun nothin’, neither. Never mind, it was warm and there was plenty of it. Akiko turned up just in time to be offered some. She accepted politely but didn’t eat very much. She looked as if she’d been crying. Well, could just be that that fat bearded director guy had moved on to pastures new: he was known for it. Added to which he had a wife back home—in the South of France somewheres, according to Polly Carrano.
After the usual afternoon rush at the boutique had slackened off Akiko came into the boating-supplies store.
“I he’p you now-ah, Sol?”
“Uh—yeah, sure: thanks, Akiko. Um—I guess you could sort out the fishing gear, it’s gotten into kind of a mess, and—uh—then maybe check out the wet-weather gear, huh? We’ve had a few inquiries for that, lately. See what we’ve got—do a bit of a stocktake, mm?”
She agreed eagerly, and got on with it.
Sol served a guy who’d come in for camping-gas, and leaned on the counter.
Time wore on. Akiko offered to make coffee, so he let her. A guy came in in search of snorkelling gear. Snorkelling? In the Inlet? Sol looked at him weakly. Oh, they did it out the coast a ways, huh? Yeah. Well, he had a couple of harpoon guns, if the guy was after snapper or— No, he didn’t stock the suits. Or the oxygen, nup. Uh—could get it in regular, if the guy liked? The guy told him a lot very rapidly about the new club they’d formed: Sol gathered it was mainly people from the yuppie second homes here in the Bay. Yeah, well, he’d better get it all in regular, in that case. ...Underwater photography? Gee (gulp), that really was out of his league! Uh—ye-ah, he did have them flippers, sure, but— Kiddies’ sizes? (Gulp). By the time the guy had told him a lot about the kiddies’ division of the snorkelling club, he had just about pulled himself together enough to murmur that wasn’t the weather gonna be drawin’ in...? Okay: practising in Harry and Charlene’s heated pool, goddit. Yeah, that sure was a great idea, get the kids all trained up for the summer season, uh-huh. ...No, he didn’t know of anyone in these here parts that could supply a (gulp) glass-bottom boat. Could look into customizing something for you? Wal, okay: give you an estimate, sure.
The guy went off looking happy and Sol sagged all over the counter. While it was possibly true that if the adults were all into it the kids would want to do it, too—possibly: guessed that guy hadn’t never heard of sub-teen peer groups—where in God’s name did he imagine he was gonna go with his glass-bottomed boat?
“This ain’t the Great Barrier Reef, guy,” he muttered, leaning on the counter. “And not the Caribbean, neither: nossir!”
“I finish now, Sol,” said a small voice.
Sol jumped ten feet where he stood. “Uh—great, Akiko,” he said feebly. “Great. What’s the damage?”
“Please?”
Sol winced. Usually she wasn’t that bad. Whatever it was that was upsetting her, must be something pretty bad. “Uh—the total, Akiko.”
Akiko had written it all out. In funny foreign writing. Neat as Hell, but somehow looked all wrong. ...Ugh, was that the sum total of their wet-weather gear? Not that he was planning to rival them Para Rubber stores—no, sir. Now, they sure were great stores—for New Zealand.
“Ver-ree low in gum-ah-boot,” she said carefully.
Sol wrinkled his nose. “Yes. Only I can’t possibly afford to get all sizes in, Akiko. Not on the off-chance that people might decide to go wet-weather sailing and then find when they get here they got nothing on their feet.”
“People-uh is alluh-so gardening in King-ah-fisher Bay, Sol,” she pointed out.
Yeah, she had a point. “That Garden Centre over to Carter’s Bay, it don’t sell gumboots, do it?”
Akiko shook her head. “On-er-lee garden glove, Sol.”
He guessed it would, at that. “Wrightson’s?”
“No, is mainer-lee white-ware and motor mower-uhs, Sol.”
“Uh-huh. Right.”
“Not like ur-real-ah counter-ree,” she said carefully.
“Huh? Oh,” he said limply. “Guess not. Um—well, maybe I oughta stock up in gumboots. Only I think we’ll keep the yaller slickers down to just the three sizes, mm?”
“Yes. Ladies can wear small-ah man-ah size,” she decided.
Sol smiled. “Yeah. What I think. Well, thanks, Akiko, that’s great. I’ll add these to the lists for the wholesalers, then.”
“Is now much surf-ah-casting on coast-ah, Sol,” she informed him solemnly.
“Uh—ye-ah... You reckon we need more waders?”
Akiko nodded. “Alluh-so more ur-lines and rod-duhs, Sol.”
“Oh. Uh—okay, you wanna look through them catalogues?”
Akiko bustled off and got on with it. Didn’t look all that much more cheerful, though.
Around five Ida poked her head in to say she was off, now, if that was all right? Sol thanked her fervently for all she’d done over the past month and pecked her cheek, and she bustled off, looking pleased. What was more, there was no need at all to check up that she’d turned lights off and locked up. Uh-uh. Not with Ida. Sol sighed and leaned on the counter.
After ten minutes of this activity it became fairly evident he wasn’t going to get any custom in the next hour or so. Or most likely, the rest of the evening. The day had clouded over some, and he could already hear holiday-homers’ cars a-grindin’ up Kingfisher Parade towards the main road. Them that were staying on would only be getting their dinners in preparation for leaving later this evening. Down below in the bay, he could see the marina was filling up. And that there Urapukapuka Bird, belonged to some big-business guy that was a friend of Jake Carrano's, she was already headin’ out under her jib, with the boys starting to haul up the mainsail, towards her second home, down in that ultra-expensive, ultra-up-market marina in the city. ...Mind you, he could open up again later, catch the last of the in-comin' lot that had stayed out in the Gulf until the last minute. He went over to the door and hung up one of the signs that a friend of Michaela’s had painted for him at mates' rates. This one said “Ring For Service” with a pointing finger that indicated the doorbell. Jimmy had objected that not everyone might want service but once Sol had worked out he meant their boats’ servicin’, he’d been able to put him straight. And could Jimmy think of a better phrase? No. Right.
“Come on, Akiko, you want to eat— Oh, Hell,” he ended weakly. She was crouched over the catalogues, crying silently into them. “Come on, you come on upstairs and tell old Sol what it's all about, mm?”
Akiko got up, and burst into snorting sobs. Sol put an arm round her and led her upstairs. Silently hoping to God it wasn't going to have to be him that told the girl's employers she was pregnant.
She wasn’t, however. What he finally got out of her, after a lot more sobbing and a couple of belts of three-star brandy, all he had in the place, was that even all Sir Jake’s influence had not managed to prevail with the New Zealand immigration authorities to the extent of letting her stay on any longer.
“Oh, shit,” said Sol lamely.
“All-uh-so,” she said with another sob, “Polly and Jake is ver-ree kind, but do not rea-ree need-ah me!” She burst into a fresh bout of tears.
Sol had sat her down on the divan. He put his arm round her and gave her a bit of a hug. “Uh—well, Katie Maureen’ll be going to ‘big kindergarten’ this year, I guess?”—She nodded through the tears.—“Uh-huh. Is Nanny still with them, then?"
“Yes! She does not-ah teach-ah all-uh day at nanny schoo’!” she gulped. “And Polly has give-ah spare-uh cottage to Col-luh Michaerahs!”
Uh—oh, yeah. There was three little cottages along the Carranos’ long driveway. “I geddit. One of Bill and Angie’s kids: right. Oh, gee,” he realised: “was Nanny gonna have that cottage?”
“Hai. This-ah year,” said Akiko, sniffing.
“I getcha. So she’s staying on in the big house, and that means she can keep an eye on the kids real easy, mm?"
Akiko nodded, gulping.
Sol wrinkled his nose. “Mm.” Hadn't he once said to Phoebe that Polly Carrano struck him as the kind of nice lady that was more interested in men than she was in women? Words to that effect, he seemed to recall. Yeah, well, whatever the ins and outs of it might be, seemed she’d forgotten all about Nanny and Akiko, all rightee.
He hugged her rather more tightly. “It’s a mess, huh?”
Akiko sniffled. “Yes. I know all-uh time I must-ah go back, Sol. On-lee, I think in my head that maybe—maybe—”
“Yeah. Ssh,” he said.
She sniffled, and was silent. Sol couldn’t think of anything else to say or do, so he gave her another brandy and had one himself. On second thoughts he got up and fetched a bottle of ginger ale that was lurking right at the back of his fridge: Michaela had once said wistfully that she’d once had brandy and ginger ale and it was nice. The ginger ale sure helped take away the taste of the three-star brandy. They drank rather a lot of the combination, sitting silently on the divan.
After some time Sol became aware that Akiko’s head was on his shoulder and that she was a small, warm, feminine, cuddly thing and he was quite enjoying having her head on his shoulder. Hurriedly he drank off the last of his brandy and ginger in the hopes it might distract his mind. Akiko obligingly leaned forward and refilled his glass, then obligingly leaned back against his shoulder.
“Uh—say, what you wanna do,” he said with an uneasy laugh, “is find a New Zealander to marry!”
“No, is not-ah like American-ah regurationuhs,” she replied carefully.
“Oh? Cain’t marry a nice young boy like—uh—well, Euan, say, and stay on in the country on the strength of it?”
“No. I do not think-ah so, Sol. And-ah I do no’ rike young-ah boys.”
He guessed he’d noticed that.
“Uh—mm. Say, you still seein’ that film director guy?” he said uneasily.
“There is-ah nothing-ah in that-ah, Sol!” she replied in surprize . “On-lee sex!”
“Uh—yeah.”
“I must-ah go home to Japan,” she said, lip quivering again. “And Jake has said-ah I must come again on tourist-ah visa—but my father wirr not allow!” she gasped, suddenly bursting into sobs all over again.
“Uh—oh, Hell,” he muttered, hugging her. “Costs too much, mm?”
“Hai! And Jake has offer’ pay-ah fares, but my father is—is—I forget-ah word, Sol!” she sobbed.
“Uh... too proud?”
“Yes, but another word alluh-so!” she sobbed. “Because-uh!”
Sol thought it over. Oh, shee-ut. “Got it. You mean he’s offended because Jake offered to pay?”
“Hai!” she sobbed. “Offend!”
“Hell,” he said, hugging her tight. “Listen, Akiko, can’t we think of something? Well—uh—could we say the boutique needs you because of your Japanese?”
“Not-ah true!” she sobbed. “They find out! “
Yeah, well, maybe they would. Only if Jake stood guarantor? He, Sol, would have to guarantee the job, too. Fulltime. Ouch. Still, the Carrano boys’ company had money in the boutique…”
“And Jake suh-say Polly is ah-hen!” she sobbed.
Huh? –Oh. Said Polly was a hen. Right. “Ye-ah... Because of the cottage thing?” he said cautiously.
“Not-ah on-er-ree!” she sobbed.
Sol swallowed a sigh. Boy, this language thing sure was tedious. “Wish I spoke Japanese, Akiko,” he said sadly . “What else did Polly do, mm?”
“She suh-say…” She gulped. Sol just waited. “She suh-say I can muh-marry-ah you, Sol, and-ah manage boutique and-ah speak much Japanese to Japanese-ah customers and Jake suh-say shuh-she is-ah—”
“Got it,” he said, his ears going very red.
Akiko fumbled for her soaking handkerchief. Limply Sol gave her his. She blew her nose hard and said: “She is not mean-ah real-ah marriage, Sol. On-er-lee for Immigration men. But Jake say it not-ah work-uh like-ah that in New—”
“Yeah,” he said, cuddling her a bit.
Akiko sniffed hard. “Sorry,” she said meekly in the vernacular.
Sol gave a little startled laugh. “Gee, that’s okay, Akiko: I’m flattered! I’d offer if I thought it would help!”
“I would ah-rike to marry-ah you, Sol,” she said, looking up at him earnestly.
Sol went very red and gave a silly laugh. “Uh—yeah! Guess parts of it could be good, huh?”
“Ver-ree good,” she said earnestly. “You are not-ah fat, rike Der-ree.”
He blinked. “No. Well, you ain’t fat, neither!”
She smiled at him rather blearily and he kissed her very gently, just to comfort her, y’know: nothing in it.
Akiko pressed against him and kissed him back eagerly.
“Uh—Akiko—” he said weakly.
“Is just-ah nice, Sol,” she said, smiling muzzily. “Is nothing-ah in it.”
“Yeah.” Wal, there was somethin’, all rightee. Wouldn’t it never learn that there was appropriate times and times that was not appropriate?
There were about two inches of brandy left in the bottle. Sol poured about an inch of it into his glass and drank it straight off. Ignoring the fact that Akiko’s hand was on his thigh. As best he could.
“Now, look, Akiko, honey—”
She looked up at him all kind of obedient-like, smiling nicely, and though he knew it was her cultural brainwashing, not to say his cultural brainwashing, not to say dad-blamed stupid, he kissed her very gently and said in a very weak voice: “We’ll work something out, honey, I promise. I’ll take you on permanent at the boutique, get all the paperwork lookin’ right, huh? And swear we need you for your Japanese, okay?”
Akiko beamed at him and what with the brandy and the warm afternoon and the fact that she’d more or less been in his arms for the best part of forty minutes and the fact that she was wearing a very tight pale pink sweater with a cute little fuzzy white rabbit appliqued on it right on one of them, not to say the fact he hadn’t had it for over four months not to say the fact he was a dad-blamed idiot, he kissed her again. Very gently, only somehow his hand got onto that fuzzy rabbit. Then somehow Akiko’s hand got somewhere real interestin’, and before he scarcely knew what they was at they were both kind of lying on the divan and kissing like crazy and she had his zipper down and—
“Honey!” he gasped.
“Is good!” gasped Akiko. “Do more, Sol!”
It was good, all right. And if she wanted more, well—
She had his pants right off of him and he was right in her, pumping like crazy, and had just let out an almighty groan, when there was a rending crash from the direction of the staircase and he looked up to see that Michaela was standing at the top of the stairs and had just dropped a large pot right down them.
Next chapter:
https://theamericanrefugeeanovel.blogspot.com/2022/10/mixing-memory-and-desire.html
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