The Goddesses From The Machine

44

The Goddesses From The Machine

    Hunched on his own divan in his own living-room at seven-forty of a dank July Monday morning, Sol admitted: “Yeah, yeah: sure I’ve seen her since then, Gracie. Uh—last Sunday, if you must have it.”

    “And?” said his mother grimly.

    He met her cold grey eye. “She wasn’t overjoyed to see me.”

    Gracie merely looked at him.

    “Yeah, well, she didn’t tell me to pack my bags and git in so many words, either, I guess that’s progress of a sort,” he said with a sigh.

    “What did she say?”

    “Gracie, I’ve tried to explain, she’s the most inarticulate creature that ever walked, she don’t express herself in wor— Okay,” he said dully. “She said: ‘I haven’t done any pots lately.’ And I said I knew that, or words to that effect, only Bob and June told me she was working on new glazes. And she said: ‘Grey and fawn,’ and I said: ‘I guess.’”

    Gracie glared and he added hurriedly: “And then I said, well, would she consider letting me have a sight of them when she’d done some, and she—uh—well, she hesitated,” he said, flushing a little, “and then she said: ‘If you like.’ So—uh—I said could I ring her at June’s, or get in touch with her through old Mrs Morton—that’s her neighb— Uh, yeah, you know that,” he recognized limply. Jeez, Abe had been busy, all right! Wal, it sure as Hell hadn’t been him! “Uh—and she said: ‘All right.’ And maybe I mighta said something more,” he said, getting rather loud, “only I could see she’d started to twist her hands together, and she only does that when she’s real upset, so I didn’t, see?” He swallowed. “Anyroad, June came hurrying up the next minute and dragged me off of her—well, dragged me down to the house for a cup of tea, same difference.”

    Gracie thought it over. Sol watched her nervously.

    Finally she said: “You could hardly expect her to forgive you all at once.”

    “Mom, I wasn’t exp— No,” he said dully. “You’re right.’

    “But I’d say that was progress. Leastways, she didn’t tell you she’d found another outlet, or that she didn’t want to make for you any more,”

    “Uh—no,” he said weakly. “Gracie, I don’t think you understand how she is: no matter how mad she might be at me, the first thing she’d do wouldn’t be to rush off and find herself a new place to show her work—”

    His mother got up. “Don’t be silly. I can see that,” she said mildly. “I think I might take a walk. Where did you say that new golf course is?”

    “Uh—up beyond— Mom, it’s blowing a howling gale and the temperature’s around five degrees Celsius, you don’t wanna—”

    “I guess it’ll warm up, this isn’t the South Pole,” replied Gracie calmly. “I brought my wet-weather gear.” She proceeded to shroud her diminutive form in her wet-weather gear. Olive-green pants with elasticized ankles, heavy olive-green windcheater, mountaineering quality, looked like, with a fake-fur-lined hood that she could pull up over the cheery candy-pink and cherry-red striped fuzzy hat that matched the ski mittens.

    Sol watched her limply. “Up behind them Pink and White Manuka Motels: you go up that side road and then when you get to the top of that rise— Gracie, you ain’t serious?”

    Adjuring her adult son to grow up, Gracie departed. Sol leaned limply in his doorway and watched as the diminutive figure, bent nigh double against the howling gale, trotted down to the corner and turned for Manuka Grove. Five-two, and every inch of it tempered steel, that was Gracie Rosenberg.

    He closed the door and tottered back inside. Well, that was the first hurdle over. Next thing he had to face was the meeting between Gracie and Ida Butler—no, Ida Grey, now, of course. Gracie, although she had only arrived Saturday afternoon, had already told him how the crafts boutique should be run. Ida was due to turn up for her first day as official manageress this morning, around ten. Wal, he guessed it served him out for being a bad boy and not goin’ to Temple all these— Uh-huh.

    Ida wasn’t much more than five-two, either, and the garments she considered suitable for her first morning as manageress of Galerie 2—Sol had had second thoughts about that name ever since him, Akiko and Polly had written all their possibles on bits of paper and in desperation shoved ’em into a hat and let Katie Maureen draw one—Ida’s garments were, like starting from the floor up, lowish-heeled tan shoes with a nice bit of hand-stitching on them, heavy ribbed fawn woollen tights because it sure was draughty in the boutique, a nice camel-hair wool skirt, straight but not too tight and covering up them nice little knees she still had, and a nice moss-green twinset with the sweater part all fancy and lacy but the cardigan part real neat and kinda Chanel-ish, he guessed, with just a tiny edging to it that picked up the look of the lacy sweater. Plus a single string of cultured pearls, plain pearl earrings to match, the little robin-face neatly made up with the lipstick a nice coral, and the hair up in a French roll with a nice fresh fawn wash in it. Some real smart silver streaks in the short, curly bits at the front, an’ all. –Had it done for the wedding: right. Real nice, and real conservative, you could say. Uh-huh.

    Gracie, by contrast, was in kinda little flat black ballet slippers she always wore round the house, plus what she’d been wearing under the wet-weather gear, to wit, tight black stretch pants and a big fuzzy mohair and wool mix sweater in candy pink and cherry red over a high-necked tee-shirt in the candy pink. Currently she was wearing her hair very short at the back and sides and terrifically curly on top and at the front, in a kind of pulled-taffy shade with just a hint of pink to it. The earrings were the gold ones in the shape of a decent-sized leaf with a decent-sized diamond at the tip like a dewdrop: she’d gotten them off of Pop when he was still crazy on her. On one shoulder she was sporting the matching ring-brooch that contained ten similar diamonds and that she'd gotten off of Pop when he decided it was a mistake and he wanted to go back to Momma Winkelmann. There never had been no flies on Gracie. The bracelets were just Florida plain and simple—that was, neither plain nor simple, but Florida: costume jewellery in fake gold, pink glass and pink plastic, but there was enough of ’em. The watch was another souvenir of Pop. Cartier.

    Added to which, Gracie was skinny as a rake—nothing to her, it was all that swimming, tennis and golf—not to mention she was made up like a model and pushing sixty-eight, whereas Ida had a figure like a little plump bird and was a good ten years Gracie’s junior, but they hit it off first thing, and ten minutes after his tremblin’ voice had performed introductions were gettin’ on like a house on fire and didn’t need his presence no more, nossir! Sol crept back to the store, shaking.

    “I told you it’d be all right!” said Susan Harding with a laugh. The Shapiro sisters had turned up mid-morning (for lunch) and Sol had reported that last time he’d peeked in, the pair of ’em was in huge aprons and rubber gloves, a-scrubbin’ up a storm. Far’s as he could see, Gracie was still in the earrings, the brooch and the bracelets, though, and Ida was still in the pearls.

    “Yes,” agreed Allyson, bouncing little William on her knee: “they’re both practical people.”

    “Yeah. Not talkin’ of which, you girls heard from Pat lately?” –Allyson had had her second child back in April: a girl. Christine Patricia. Pat hadn’t come over for the birth, she’d been busy dragging Abe off to Paris in the Springtime. He’d reported it had been colder than charity and rained the whole time and don’t nobody talk to him ’bout no Singing In The Rain. Susan had finished her law degree at last and given in and gotten pregnant, it was due in September. Whether Pat actually knew this was difficult to ascertain. Though, true, Susan and Allyson had both written her about it.

    “I had a postcard from her in April,” said Allyson.

    “Mm-hm.”

    “Haven’t heard from her for ages,” said Susan vaguely. “Think Phyllis had a postcard from Paris. Yeah, musta been, it had Notre Dame on it.”

    “That woulda been April, too,” he allowed.

    “I had a letter from Abe a couple of weeks ago!” offered Allyson, beaming.

    “I don’t think that’s his point,” murmured Susan. “Though if it is, Ruthie wrote to me last week,” she said, twinkling at him.

    “Nup you’re right, it ain’t!” he admitted with a laugh. “Gracie tells me your mom’s dragging Abe off to Scandinavia this August.”

    “That’s what Ruthie said,” agreed Susan calmly

    Used though he was to his half-brother’s second wife, Sol took a deep breath. “Yeah.” He got up. “Wal, who votes for pancakes for lunch and who votes for something real high-fibre and nutritive that tastes like sawdust?”

    “Do we have to choose?” said Susan weakly. Allyson just looked at him numbly.

    “Put it like this, Susan: iffen I do pancakes Gracie won’t never let me hear the last of it.”

    “I’m not sticking my neck out!” said Susan hurriedly.

    “Me neither!” decided Allyson, giggling. –She was a little plump thing. After them two kids she hadn’t got no thinner, neither. Sol didn’t mind, though, it was real cute. And if she was his daughter—if either of them was his daughter—he would not be off on the other side of the globe while— Yeah. Well.

    “Uh—well, how’s this? Tomato soup made with some of them frozen tomatoes Tom gave me, followed by wholemeal bread sandwiches with chicken and avocado. –Heavy on the mayo,” he added with a wink at Susan.

    “Ooh, remember Jasmine’s turkey sandwiches?” she said with a groan.

    “I sure do,” he said sadly. “I sure do.”

    “Turkey?” said Allyson blankly.

    “When Alan and me were over there that Christmas, ya nana!” replied her sibling scornfully.

    “Oh, yes,” agreed Allyson placidly.

    The human gene pool sure was a mystery, mused Sol as he got on with the soup. Well, sure it was on the cards that Pat Cohen Shapiro Winkelmann hadn’t been born with a figure like a crow and that discontented-model’s pout of hers; both of them had taken some workin’ on, he guessed. Though the flatness of the ass might be mainly Nature’s work. But the temperament sure ’nuff musta come naturally, no-one would voluntarily turn themselves into that! And that Micky Shapiro: tongue like a razor, didn’t care who he used it on, neither, far’s Sol could see. How the pair of them could have produced the placid, plump little Allyson…

    “Penny for ’em,” said Susan with a grin, edging into the kitchenette between the stove and the divider.

    Sol looked at the bulge and sighed. “Wal, I guess I was just wishing to Hell that Allyson was my little girl and not Micky’s and Pat’s, Susan, to tell you the unvarnished truth.”

    Susan’s jaw sagged.

    Allyson had now turned his TV on and was loudly explaining the finer points of Play School to William, so he added under cover of the noise: “I know she ain’t the world’s greatest brain, honey, and I guess she ain’t never had an original thought in her life, but right now I sure would settle for that. –Well, that less about fifteen years or so, in a little gymslip and one of them funny panama hats your schoolkids wear, with the belt slippin’ down over her fat little tummy and her lunchbox in her hand.”

    Susan gulped.

    “Gracie would tell me if that’s how I feel I oughta have some of my own,” he added glumly.

    “Well, yeah,” she croaked. She swallowed, and added, rallying slightly: “That and an income of about ninety thou’ a year, minimum: only private schools have uniforms for kids of that age.”

    “Mm-hm. –Hand me the dried basil, Susan, honey? –Thanks. That little Mason of Bob and June’s, now, he’s cute as a bug, too.”

    “Yeah, he’s not bad,” admitted Susan, smiling.

    Sol thereupon burst out with the story of the soaking-wet Mason and the hot shower and the not having fallen in. Not to mention the wrastlin’ with the pipis.

    Susan chuckled, but said: “You really ought to have some of your own, ya know.”

    “Mm. Don’t seem to fall for the right kind of lady.”

    She looked at him uneasily.

    “I guess Michaela ’ud be—thirty-eightish?”

    “Probably. That’s not too late to start,”

    “Biologically, no,” he said heavily.

    “Be more of a risk, of course,” she said detachedly.

    “I know that, thanks.”

    “She’s got her career,” said Susan thoughtfully, leaning on the divider.

    “Uh-huh.”

    “We-ell… You could probably work it out between you. Your hours at the shop don’t have to be that regular, and you’ve got Jimmy to fill in for you. And she’s used to working odd hours. Only child care is—well, a fulltime responsibility.”

    “Mm.”

    “Goes on for eighteen years, too,” said Susan, looking athim  sideways.

    “Yeah. Well, more. That Roger of Bill’s, he was up here with Jake and the kids that time.” He shook his head, smiling. “In some ways he’s quite an adult kid, I guess you’d say, but in others— Boy, is he naïve! And knows from nothing—from nothing. Never read a word of Hemingway till he got let loose in my bookstacks and ain’t never even heard of Kerouac. Boy, guess I was pretty bad at that age, but—” He shook his head again.

    “Mm. Well, he’s lived at home all his life.”

    Sol wrinkled his nose and replied to the sub-text: “Yeah: never took it into his dumb head to hitch all across America a-lookin’ for trouble in his black leather jacket and tapered Levi’s and Beatles haircut at the age of nineteen—right. Abe walloped the tar out of me,” he said reminiscently, “but I went regardless. What a dumb kid. Never got near to halfway across Texas before I had that haircut removed forcibly. Wal,” he conceded, grinning at her, “lucky it wasn’t my scalp, huh?”

    “Yeah. You and Easy Rider both,” said Susan drily,

    “At least I wasn’t dumb enough to do it high as a kite on LSD on a huge great Harley Davidson I couldn’t hardly handle even when I was down!”

    “No, that takes real stupidity,” she recognized.

    “Wal, made a better movie plot. Predisposed the dumb-teen audience and the pinko-liberal, twenny-to-thirty lot what only imagined they was darin’ enough to try the stuff in its favour, too.”

    “Ya don’t say.”

    Sol grinned, and desisted.

    By the end of the working day Ida and Gracie had apparently decided on strategies for the boutique. They’d redone its front window, too. Looked real good; only trouble was, now it had all its goods in its shop window. Well, all the really good pieces. Never mind, they was getting’ right onto their suppliers.

    Gracie wanted to know why he didn’t have all the names and addresses of the craftspeople in the computer instead of on this silly rolodex thing, that Milly hadn’t updated properly, but Sol pointed out he didn’t own no computer. Gracie decided he’d better buy one. Sol pointed out they was ten times dearer here than what they was in the States, Mom! Gracie decided Abe better send him one over. Sol retorted he better not. Gracie told him not to be silly. Sol was just gonna shout at her, only Ida said mildly that Bob was getting Starsky a second-hand one through Computer Club, she’d see if he could get one for Sol. too. Weakly the parasite agreed—only his price limit was— Gracie said that was far too much but Sol pointed out wearily that that was New Zealand dollars, not ours, Mom, and that in any case they was ten times dearer out here! She then told him briskly it was time to get washed up for dinner, adding by the by that the boutique would be closed tomorrow, she and Ida were taking Ida’s car to go visit the local craftspeople in person.

    Sol just tottered meekly upstairs and got washed up for dinner. Reflecting silently that at least there was no place in Carter’s Bay and environs Gracie could possibly buy nutmeat cutlets.

    ... “Where did these come from?” he croaked, staring glazedly at the nutmeat cutlets.

    “I brought some cans with me. That Jimmy can get on down to the supermarkets and get in some supplies tomorrow,” she said firmly. “I’ll write him a list. Eat it up before it gets cold, Sol.”

    Sol ate nutmeat cutlets with microwaved sweet potatoes and a mess of tomatoes and greens—some more of Tom’s frozen tomatoes but so far as he was aware there hadn’t been no greens in his apartment. Nor no sweet potatoes, neither. Finally he gave in and croaked: “Mom, where did these vegetables come from?”

    “Ida brought them on up for you. These native sweet potatoes are firmer than ours. Though I have eaten very similar ones in South America. They’re all Ipomoea, of course.”

    Of course. Numbly Sol ate up his nice vegetarian dinner.

    Dessert was some of the preserved strawberries Susan had made as an experiment when their crop did better last season than they’d expected. Bein’ as this here was Gracie Rosenberg, they was served up with some of the high-fibre muesli that had been sitting there at the back of his cupboard because for he’d been feelin’ brave at the time he bought it and hadn’t felt too brave since. True, he only had himself to blame for the home-made yoghurt that went with ’em. Gracie congratulated him on it. Gee, thanks, Mom.

    Gracie and Ida spent a very busy week indeed, doing the rounds of the local craftspeople who supplied the boutique. As some of them lived in far-flung nooks and crannies of Puriri County or right over on the west coast or even as far south as Clevedon, it took longer than anticipated, and it wasn’t until the Friday afternoon that they managed to catch up with Michaela. It was cold and drizzly, but that didn’t deter either of them. Failing to find her at home, they rang June from Mrs Morton’s. She wasn’t there, but June gave them Sean Stacey’s number. Ida rang there. The voice that answered the phone said Sean was at Willow Grove and wasn’t sure if Michaela was helping him or not today, but thought she might be. Undeterred, the two ladies drove on down to Willow Grove,

    There Gracie approved loudly of its white-painted concrete hutches, its neat concrete driveway, and the tidy little patches of cemented-in crazy-paving that Sean and Michaela had put in at the base of each unit’s front steps. Ida agreed that they could look round if Gracie would like to. Gracie looked with interest at the way each owner or tenant had dealt with the front porches as they went on up the drive. Some had cute little cypresses, she guessed they were, in white tubs, either side of the front door. Gave it an English touch, didn’t Ida agree? Ida agreed. Gracie didn’t care much for cacti: she guessed that was a cactus, huh, at Number 3? Ida didn’t like Number 3’s cactus, either. On the other side, Number 16 was training a vine over the porch railing. That sure could give a pretty effect but it ruined your paintwork. Ida agreed with this sentiment, too. Number 14 had big terracotta pots of—was that herbs? Rosemary and lavender, Ida thought, Gracie approved loudly of that. She didn’t think much of Number 9’s rubber plant, well-polished though its leaves were. At the top of the drive she approved loudly of Number 11’s black front door flanked by its two well-sized kumquats. Panting a little, Ida agreed it looked smart. Very English—yes.

    Gracie then noted that that apartment was for sale. Ida could not but agree, since it had a large notice outside it to that effect. As they stood there looking at it there was a panting noise from behind them and a lady in intimidatingly diamantéed spectacles and an over-smart suit in bright orange wool asked if she could help them. Before Ida could get out a word Gracie agreed they would like to look at the apartment. Ida herself wouldn’t have had the cheek but she was very glad Gracie had.

    So they had a nice look round Ralph Overdale’s former home—he had, of course, removed all his belongings from it—and Gracie interrogated the lady with the spectacles narrowly as to its price and the form of tenure and the drainage and the local taxes—Ida figured out what she was talking about and murmured: “Rates,” as the lady with the spectacles was starting to look bewildered—and so forth.

    “You’re not really interested in it, are you?” said Ida weakly as Gracie dismissed Willow Plains’ lady realtor firmly at the foot of the steps.

    Of course not, but it didn’t hurt to find out about prices. Ida agreed somewhat limply to this. She then said she thought they might find Michaela if they want round the back: through here. She led the way across the patch of grass between Numbers 10 and 9, and through the gate in the fence at the back of it, and sure enough, just down the service path a little way, they found Michaela and a tall, ginger-haired young man in the garden of Number 8. Planting citrus trees and laying terracotta paving round the narrow pool they’d installed during the summer. Although the front of Number 8 was, of course, painted white like all the rest, this being written into the strata agreement as Gracie had just ascertained, the owner of Number 8 had had the back of his or her apartment and all its inside garden walls painted a pale terracotta. –Sol would have been able to tell his mother which Australian magazine that idea had come out of.

    “Italian look,” said Sean Stacey to Gracie, with a wink.

    “I’d say that colour’ll fade real quick if you get anything like our summer sun,” she returned.

    “Yeah, have to repaint it in a year or two.”

    “Unless they like the faded look,” said Michaela with a lurking twinkle.

    “It’ll go with the burnt citrus trees,” he owned.

    “Burnt, Sean, dear?” faltered Ida.

    “All this tiling. It’ll be a heat trap in summer: this side of Willow Grove faces north-west.”

    “Yes; we’ll probably have to plant new trees every year!” said Michaela with a snort of laughter.

    “Oh, dear,” said Ida weakly.

    “Well, now,” said Gracie briskly, “you’re plumbing in the water to this little fountain, here, so—”

    Sean agreed it would be sensible to put in a sprinkler system at the same time, yes. “Did you want Michaela?” he added, poker-face.

    The two middle-aged ladles immediately seized on their cue.

    Sean Stacey was perfectly well aware both that Ida was now managing the boutique and of who Gracie Rosenberg was. Since he’d known Michaela as long as Bob and June had, and had met and very much liked Sol, he was pretty well aware of what their fell intent must be. He didn’t know what had gone wrong between Michaela and Sol but he was aware that something must have. She hadn’t been near the boutique for months and what was more hadn’t done any pots for months. Although he was grateful to have her help with his landscaping business, he would greatly have preferred, having trained as an artist himself, to see her spending her time on her real work. And naturally he was keen to see her happy. So, far from protesting that the job was only half done, he informed her cheerfully that of course she could push off, and watched with a grin as the two of them led her away. They each came to just about her shoulders. Looked like the QEII being shepherded along by two neat little tugboats! Sean went back to his tiling, whistling.

    Michaela was silent in the back of the car. Whether the two in the front seat noticed this was not apparent: Gracie chatted cheerfully about how she would do up that garden if was hers and Ida agreed mildly with her from time to time.

    Finally Michaela said desperately: “Ida, I really haven’t done much stuff lately.”

    “I know, dear, but Gracie would like to see your studio. And June was telling me you did a batch of pots just the other day!” she said brightly.

    “Um—yes. It was only a trial run.”

    “Well, never mind, dear: it’ll give Gracie an idea of what you’re thinking about!”

    “Um—yes,” said Michaela uneasily.

    In the shed Gracie inspected all Michaela’s seconds and discards narrowly. Sorting out about seventy percent of them for sale as she did so. And deciding that, as Michaela didn’t seem to think they would sell, Galerie 2 would take them off her hands for a lump sum. This would work out at less than she would get if they sold them on a commission basis, of course, so was she sure—

    Very red, Michaela burst out that she didn’t want to sell them at all! Firmly Gracie rubbished that, ably seconded by Ida. Michaela reiterated her point that she didn’t think they’d sell. Gracie reiterated her point that in that case they would give her a lump sum. Ida supported this stand, not because she didn’t think the pots would sell, but because she thought it would be nice for Michaela to have a lump sum, instead of waiting for the money to come in in dribs and drabs. Gracie then decided it was all decided, then, and Michaela could pack these up for them, and she would get a proper bill of sale drawn up. Adding by the by that she and Ida had been talking it over, and though of course Michaela could trust Sol and Ida, it wasn’t sensible not to have a proper form of agreement each time she let the boutique have a new batch. It would be protection for all of them, she explained firmly. Ida nodded firmly.

    Michaela didn’t understand exactly what they meant. Finally she said: “I don’t understand...”

    Gracie immediately told her a long, involved story about how an artist she knew had been cheated out of the money for her work by a gallery in Miami. “Oh,” said Michaela at the end of it. Ida pointed out that Michaela did see what Gracie meant, didn’t she? And it was for her protection as much as the boutique’s. Limply Michaela agreed, not revealing that she still didn’t understand what sort of an agreement they meant.

    As she told Michaela the long and involved story Gracie had been looking through Michaela’s notebook. She then pronounced it very interesting, noted approvingly that Michaela took a real professional attitude to her work, and demanded to see the pots these notes were about.

    They were still up at the kiln. Um—yes, they would be cool by now…

    Forthwith the two ladies headed for the kiln with her. It was drizzling again but as Ida had her fawn gabardine raincoat on with the hood up and Gracie had her wet-weather gear on they were both all right. And Michaela had her large oilskin coat.

    “Well, now!” said Gracie approvingly as Michaela, with some hindrance from Ivan, who had turned up out of the blue, began to unload the kiln.

    “They’re only experiments,” said Michaela.

    “Honey, this is more than an experiment!” returned Gracie firmly, seizing a large round vase.

    “I need that, I’ve got notes about it,” said Michaela.

    “Well, you can just write in your book it turned out real great and you made a sale,” replied Gracie on a grim note.

    “Yeah: sell it, Michaela!” urged Ivan, beaming,

    “Shut up,” she said weakly. “If you’re gonna help, help.”

    Ivan got out three sets of hors-d’oeuvre dishes. Five per set: they were, of course, Japanese hors-d’oeuvre dishes.

    “Ashtrays?” said Gracie dubiously. “My, I like this, here!”

    “Nah! ’Course not! They’re little dishes!” said Ivan scornfully.

    “I’ve forgotten the English word,” said Michaela apologetically.

    Ivan had, too. He recalled the Japanese.

    “Yes,” said Michaela, looking hopefully at Gracie and Ida.

    “Oh! I know, dear!” beamed Ida. “We had five in the window last March, those blue and brown ones, and of course I thought they were ashtrays, too, and a lovely little Japanese man came in and told me they weren’t, and bought them all!”

    Michaela turned purple. “You sold them to a Japanese man?”

    “Yes, of course dear. Why not?”

    “They weren’t good enough!” she cried in anguish.

    “They must of been, if he bought them,” spotted Ivan,

    “Yes—quite right, dear,” approved his grandmother. “Of course they were good enough, Michaela, dear. You underrate yourself.”

    “I should never have let you have them,” she said numbly.

    “Hey: I bet he wouldn’ta bought Hugh’s, though!” choked Ivan, suddenly falling all over the place laughing himself sick.

    Michaela smiled slowly. “No; they were all pretty bad, eh?”

    “Yeah! –Hey, c’n I get that big one?” He darted forward.

    Michaela prevented him forcibly from getting the big one, and got it out herself. There was an awed silence. Not only because it was at least half Ivan’s height.

    Finally Gracie said complacently: “I think we can ask seven hundred fifty for this, Ida.”

    “That’s too much!” gasped Michaela.

    Gracie immediately told her at length the sorts of prices that were being asked in the Miami galleries these days, completing the peroration by congratulating her on starting to work with these glossy glazes, the glossier look was real popular at the moment.

    “I got sick of those unglazed brown things,” replied Michaela.

    “They sold very well, dear,” murmured Ida.

    “Well, maybe you should do some more, then,” said Gracie.

    Michaela looked at her helplessly.

    “She doesn’t work like that!” said Ivan scornfully. “Hey, c’n I have this?”

    She took it off him. “No, ya nerd, that’s one of my samples.”

    —Meanwhile Ida was explaining to Gracie in an undertone that Michaela couldn’t work to order, she had to do what she felt like.

    Ivan claimed the sample when Michaela should have finished with it, and she agreed to this.

    “But what do you want it for, dear?” asked his grandmother limply.

    Scowling terrifically, Ivan replied that he was a making a collection.

    “Yes,” agreed Michaela tranquilly.

    “Of—of little sample strips, dear?” faltered Ida.

    Ivan just scowled.

    “He likes them,” said Michaela placidly. “Ivan, can you grab that tall vase at the back?”

    Ivan scrambled into the kiln immediately”

    —Meanwhile Gracie was explaining placidly to Ida that boys of that age often got the collecting bug; Sol had made a collection of bits of wood at around that age. He used to hang round all the lumberyards, y’know? Collecting... offcuts, was it? –Yes. He did each one up the same, just the one side all sanded and polished.

    Ivan and Michaela hadn’t appeared to be listening but at this point Ivan interpolated: “Yeah; he’s still got them, eh, Michaela?”

    Blushing, she agreed that he had. In a box. Ivan explained that he’d shown them to them one day. Michaela objected that Ivan and Mason had made him, and Ivan retorted indignantly that she’d been interested, too! Blushing again, Michaela agreed she had.

    Ida and Gracie exchanged glances at this point. But neither of them commented. and Gracie continued with her narrative, explaining that Abe and his father had thought it meant Sol was getting interested in woodworking and Abe had bought him a whole set of carpenter’s tools, but it hadn’t been that, at all. Though the tools had come in real useful later on, when he did start to do carpentry. –No, not in his teens: when he was in his twenties and sharing a big apartment with some other college students. What was that, honey? Sure: what you called university students, Ida. What was that, honey? Oh: he was an English major, Ida, honey. His brother had said no-one had ever gotten rich out of English literature, but she, Gracie, had been quite pleased, really, because she’d interrupted her own college studies to have him! –By this time all Ida was capable of was a numb nod.

    “He’s got lotsa books,” contributed Ivan, panting slightly.

    “Yes,” said Ida weakly. “Don’t drop that, dear,” she added feebly.

    “You can drop it if ya like, it looks horrible,” said Michaela detachedly,

    “No, dear!” cried Ida, recovering herself.

    “No, it looks great, Michaela!” cried Gracie.

    “No it’s just an experiment. It’s got a different type of glaze on each face,” said Michaela as Ivan, panting, set the tall slab vase in the padded wheelbarrow.

    “Yeah; see?” said Ivan, pointing with a grimy finger. He proceeded to explain what the distinguishing features of each face were.

    Michaela corrected him once or twice but as he finished she said: “Yes. If you read those books of mine you’d understand something about the chemistry of it.”

    “They’re too hard,” he said, pouting. “They don’t let us do chemistry or anything at rotten school!”

    “They didn’t let me, either. –It was a dumb girls’ school,” she explained to Gracie’s horrified face.

    “Didn’t they teach science at all?”

    “Um—botany and stuff, I think,” said Michaela vaguely. “Nothing on anatomy. That might have been interesting.”

    “Plant or human anatomy, Michaela?” asked Gracie drily, sounding for an instant very like her son.

    “Well, either,” said Michaela thoughtfully. “They’re both interesting. Ivan’s got a good book on plants, eh, Ivan?”

    “Yeah: it goes right back to the dinosaurs. –Hey, didja know that the ginkgo tree’s the oldest tree on earth? It’s got ace illustrations, eh, Michaela?”

    Michaela agreed mildly that it had.

    “Greg’s got some ace books on bird skeletons and that,” he added wistfully.

    “Those weren’t his, ya birk, he got them out of the university library,” she returned placidly, not explaining who this personality was.

    “Oh. Well, they were ace, eh?”

    Michaela nodded, and got on with retrieving the last few samples from the kiln.

    “Who’s Greg, dear?” asked Ida weakly.

    Ivan, although he had not been addressed, answered this in a torrent of speech. None of it particularly comprehensible.

    Michaela explained placidly that he was one of Pauline’s students. Pauline was a friend of hers who taught at the Art School.

    “She’s okay, eh?” offered Ivan. “The rest of them are nongs, though, eh?”

    “Yes.” Michaela grasped the handles of the barrow,

    “Michaela, I didn’t know you were friends with anyone from the Art School,” faltered Ida as they began to make their way slowly down the crude path to the shed.

    “Yeah. She teaches illustration, mostly,” she grunted, braking the barrow strongly.

    At great speed Ivan described Pauline’s studio at the Art School. The two ladies listened numbly.

    “Does she—does she produce work of her own, dear?” asked Ida at last.

    “Yeah. She’s into collage an’ stuff. Victorian: Dad says it’s tacky,” revealed Ivan.

    “She’s gone off that, now. She’s gone back to watercolours,” Michaela explained. “A man asked her to do some illustrations for the book he was writing, and she got interested in plants again.”

    “Not a man!” said Ivan scornfully. “Dickon!”

    “Yes. Only I don’t think Ida knows him.”

    “Yes, ya do, Grandma, don’tcha?” he cried.

    “Um—oh! Dickon Fothergill?” said Ida weakly. “Yes, I have met him a couple of times, Ivan, dear. –He’s working on a book, is he, Michaela?’

    “Yes. About mangrove swamps. And Pauline’s doing the illustrations.”

    “Of mangroves?” faltered Ida.

    “Mangroves are interesting, Grandma! See—”

    The two ladies listened numbly to Ivan’s exposition of the life cycle of the mangrove. Michaela, however, appeared to be already aware of these facts, for she said pleasedly as he stopped, panting: “Yes. That’s in your book, too, isn’t it?”

    Ida swallowed. “Yes. Very interesting, dear,” she said kindly.

    Gracie might have been feeling numb but she hadn’t lost sight of the main point—well, one of the main points—at issue. “So this friend of yours has gone back to watercolours, then, Michaela?”

    “Yes. She’s done some landscapes for the book, he wanted some general views of the environment, but she’s mainly doing plants. Some are botanical drawings, but he wants some ecological studies, as well.” Michaela paused. “The Small Clump of Grass sort of thing, if you know what I mean,” she said on an uneasy note,

    “Uh-huh. Dürer,” said Gracie simply.

    “Dad’s got that!” cried Ivan, jumping.

    “Yes. –Can you help brake, Ivan?”

    Proudly Ivan applied his skinny form to the laden barrow.

    “I think that sounds real interesting, Michaela,” said Gracie firmly. “Even if this Pauline isn’t the Dürer of the South Seas!” she added with a sudden laugh.

    Michaela grinned. “She’s not that. But they are quite good.”

    “Native plants, dear?” asked Ida on a hopeful note.

    Michaela thought this over. “I don’t think they all are, Ida. She has to paint what’s there, you see.”

    “Yeah. Otherwise it wouldn’t be real. –Dickon says our swamps are vanishing under the developers’ bulldozers,” Ivan informed the company. “He says people like Jake Carrano are the plague of the country. An’ if ya get rid of the mangroves, the fish’ll die off, ’cos they’re like, their nursery, see? All the birds’ll go, too. All the waders and the stilts and everything. –Hey, he’s seen the godwits!” he added to Michaela.

    “I know,” she agreed.

    —Meanwhile Gracie was saying firmly to Ida that it sounded like this Pauline would be really worth investigating, especially if they wanted to increase the boutique’s credibility as a source of first-class New Zealand art and artefacts, and Ida was agreeing.

    At the shed Ida discovered that Michaela had no tea or coffee and Ivan recollected Mum had said to come down to the house for afternoon tea. He added that they better watch out for Dad: he was in a rotten mood ’cos his new lithographs had gone wrong, but none of them made the mistake of thinking that this was part of the message from June.

    Afternoon tea got somewhat mixed up with a discussion between Bob and Ivan as to whether Bob could, should or would drive several hundred K in the hopes of seeing the godwits. The fact that Ivan confessedly didn’t know the season at which they might expect the godwits to be there (wherever it was) didn’t actually help his case.

    Any two ladies less determined than Gracie and Ida might have lost sight of the main points at issue but of course neither of them did. Gracie even wrenched two lithographs off Bob while Ida was wrenching a teapot cottage off June that June had sort of promised to Art For Art’s Sake. Well, not really promised…

    Gracie then attempted to wrench a cottage off Mason, who had been sitting there quietly working on it when the ladies came in, but was flattened by the remark: “It isn’t fired yet!”

    She began weakly: “But honey, it looks—”

    “I gotta finish painting it and then it’s gotta be fired: don’t you know anything?” said Mason heatedly.

    “Here, that’ll do,” croaked Bob, trying not to laugh.

    “Those glazes’ll change colour in the firing, Mason,” noted June detachedly.

    “I KNOW THAT, MUM!”

    “See: he knows that,” said Bob, grinning,

    Gracie was inspecting it narrowly. “You made it all yourself, did you, honey?”

    “Yeah,” he said tersely,

    “It’s primitive, of course, but he has real talent,” she remarked to the company. “Say, it’s got wheels. Is it a trailer, Mason?”

    “Look out,” muttered Bob, sotto voce, as his mother translated kindly: “Caravan, she means, Mason.”

    Sure enough, Mason screamed: “NO! It’s a COTTAGE!”

    June put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s a railway cottage. We had a book about some people who lived in a house made out of an old railway carriage, didn’t we, Mason?”

    “Yeah. Great Western,” he grunted. Tongue protruding from the corner of bis mouth, he dipped his brush in a jar of dark, blue-black slip. Bob shut his eyes.

    Gracie and Ida gave horrified gasps as Mason smothered the outer integument of his cute little railway-carriage cottage in dark, blue-black slip,

    “That’ll dry to a sort of chocolate colour,” said Michaela detachedly.

    “Yeah. Great Western,” agreed Mason pleasedly.

    “Their colours are brown and cream,” explained Bob on a weak note..

    “Yeah,” said the artist. “It’s a present for Dirk,” he explained.

    “Why?” asked Michaela.

    “Because he’s gonna be ONE soon!” shouted Mason furiously, turning bright red.

    “Yes. Ssh, don’t shout,” said June. “It’s a present for little Dirk Overdale, to put on the mantelpiece of his bedroom, isn’t it, Mason? For his first birthday. –When he has it, fools,” she added grimly, as certain people opened their mouths.

    “We get it,” said Bob hurriedly.

    “Yes: what a lovely idea, dear!” cooed Ida. Mason gave her a suspicious look.

    “I’ve forgotten,” admitted Michaela. “When is his birthday?”

    “The twenny-sixth of September,” said Mason suspiciously.

    “Help: that’s quite soon, eh?”

    “Yeah,” he said pleasedly. “It is quite soon.”

    Ivan opened his mouth but Bob stopped him by the simple expedient of clapping a hand over it. Ivan made furious noises. Bob didn’t let go. They fell to the floor, writhing. Pretty soon Ivan was giggling helplessly and Bob was laughing helplessly and June was shouting: “Bob! Stop it! He’ll be sick with all that afternoon tea inside him!”

    Even after all that Gracie and Ida were not side-tracked and emerged onto the Butlers’ new front path with two lithographs, the promise of a whole set of lithographs, a teapot cottage, the promise of all the future teapot cottages, and Michaela.

    If Michaela had been under the impression that the two ladies were going to drop her off at home she was pretty soon disabused of it.

    “Where are we going?” she said numbly as Ida turned left, not right, where Elizabeth Road joined the highway north of Kowhai Bay.

    “Up to the boutique, of course. dear. We need to list those things you’re selling to us and get everything signed and settled,” said Ida brightly.

    “You didn’t have anything else planned for this afternoon, did you, Michaela?” added Gracie cunningly.

    “Um—no,” said Michaela weakly.

    Well, there you were! they both declared brightly.

    Michaela sank back into her seat. She wasn’t sure exactly what was going on but she could feel something was. Dully she hoped, looking out at miles of wet green fields without seeing them, that it wouldn’t be something that entailed her having to talk to Sol.

    At Kingfisher Bay it soon became apparent that Ida and Gracie had been very busy indeed. For one thing, the boutique looked... sort of brighter and... Michaela couldn’t put her finger on it, but it looked a lot better. For another thing, Ida hauled out a document for her to sign.

    Meanwhile Gracie was serving the three hopeful-looking ladies, one in a camel-hair car coat and two in expensive pastel padded parkas, who had had their noses pressed to the boutique’s display window when they got there. Listening with quite unfeigned interest to their explanation that it was Mum’s birthday next week and of course she had everything, and they’d been arguing for weeks what to get her, but Wendy had spotted the set of the plate and the two vases earlier in the week, and—

    Gracie sold them the big dark blue glass platter and the two blue glass vases without ever revealing that not only was it not a set, one of the vases had been made by a different hand entirely and in fact came from the other end of the country.

    “Oh,” said Michaela as Ida led her and the document out to the back. “It’s all different.”

    Ida nodded pleasedly. Gracie had got Sol to partition off a little section at the back and she and Ida had bought a small modern desk, an ergonomic desk chair, and a small armchair to put in this little hutch. The handwoven rug before the desk belonged to the stock.

    “This will be a solid wall, eventually. But a glass door,” she explained briskly. Michaela just looked at her limply. “So as we can talk to our suppliers and special clients in privacy, dear.”

    “Oh.”

    “Now, let’s see... Yes. Now, we’ll go over this carefully, Michaela, and then we’ll list all the things we brought down from your studio,”—Ida was carefully calling it that, now—“and then we’ll both sign both documents, you see. –Sit down, dear.”—Michaela sank onto the armchair.—“Now you do understand, dear, that this is an agreement to sell, and it’s quite different from the sort of thing you’ll be signing for your major works.”

    “Um—no.”

    Ida explained.

    “Oh.”

    Ida looked dubious but went over the document with her.

    At the end of it Michaela said: “Where did you get it?”

    “Wha— Oh! Susan drew it up for us. She’s drawn up two, of course; this is the sort where the artists actually sell us their wares for a lump sum, and the other sort is where you agree that we can sell on commission. We’ll look at that in a minute.”

    Michaela fingered the agreement uncertainly and Ida said briskly: “Susan’s got a computer, dear. She printed it out for us. When we’ve got our own computer we’ll do our own.”

    “Um—yes,” said Michaela limply.

    “Now, if you’re sure you understand, dear, we’ll pop out and bring those pots in.”

    There was a short silence.

    Then Michaela said: “Couldn’t you just give me a receipt, Ida?”

    Not everybody would have been satisfied with this reply, perhaps: but Ida had known Michaela for a long time, of course, so she perceived that she had understood the implications of what she’d been saying, and replied in a pleased but firm voice: “No, dear. We’re doing things properly now. On a proper business footing. Come on.” And led her out to the car.

    The crafts boutique, of course, was not really open today but nevertheless Ida and Gracie left it open as Michaela and Ida listed the items Gracie had selected from Michaela’s seconds and rejects to their mutual satisfaction (or at least, to Ida’s: Michaela didn’t care how the pots were described). Gracie went out back and made tea but kept an ear open for customers.

    “Do you want more stuff?” asked Michaela vaguely over the tea.

    “Michaela!” gasped Ida in horror. “Of course we do!”

    “Honey, that’s what this whole afternoon has been about,” said Gracie in a steely voice.

    “Oh. Um—would you be interested in Tom Wilson’s stuff?”

    Ida gasped, turned a very strange colour, and hurriedly set down the mug of tea she’d just picked up.

    “Go on,” said Gracie grimly.

    Michaela looked bewildered but Ida took a deep breath and said: “Tom Wilson’s one of New Zealand’s best known potters. He only sells through one or two outlets and it’s impossible to get hold of any of his earlier pieces for love or money.”

    “That place in Wellington’s closed down,” said Michaela.

    “What?” gasped Ida.

    “He was pissed off about it, he said you can waste a lot of time trying to find a good gallery. –I think they retired or something,” she added vaguely.

    “Michaela, honey, can you call him?” said Gracie tensely, ignoring inessentials.

    “No. He’s not on the phone. He lives up the Hokianga somewhere. I went there once with Pauline. It’s nice. He’s got an orchard.”

    Ida swallowed. “Pauline Who? Not Mrs Weintraub’s daughter—Pauline Nilsson?”

    Michaela looked at her in mild surprize. “No, she’s a friend of Jemima’s. Pauline Wilson, of course. –I was telling you about her,” she reminded her in mild surprize.

    “Your friend from the Art School?” said Gracie.

    “Yes. Pauline Wilson.”

    “Michaela, is she a relation?” asked Ida tensely.

    “What? Oh: of Tom Wilson’s? Yes, of course: she’s his sister,” said Michaela calmly.

    “Michaela!” cried Ida. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

    “I guess she is telling us,” said Gracie drily.

    “Yes. –I sort of remembered because those two ladies were sisters,” said Michaela in a very vague voice.

    Ida took a deep and trembling breath. Gracie took a deep, grim breath.

    From the direction of the doorway a very dry American voice said: “Driving you crazy, is she?”

    Sol strolled in, looking very dry indeed. “I did warn you,” he said to his mother. “Hey, Michaela, how’s it going?” he added mildly.

    “Ail right. –Ida made me sell her a lot of seconds and stuff,” she added on an anxious note.

    “Good,” said Sol mildly.

    “I mean for money. What if she can’t sell them?” said Michaela worriedly.

    “I’ll take it out of her wages. –No: of course she’ll sell ’em! Sell anything! Sell eskies to Inuits,” he said, grinning. “Hey, you super saleswomen wouldn’t have noticed, but it’s long past closing,” he added.

    “Oh, goodness!” gasped Ida, looking at her watch. “I’d better go, Bob’ll be wondering what’s happened to me!”

    “Not to mention what’s happened to his dinner,” agreed Sol, very mildly.

    “Well, he’s not helpless!” she said with a laugh. “Only there’s nothing much in the fridge. Oh, well: I can always rustle up a quiche!”

    “Sure, you do that, Ida. –I’ll lock up, you just get on home, mm?” he said, smiling at her.

    Ida grabbed up her coat and purse and rushed out, bidding them all a breathless goodnight.

    At least one of the three left in the little shop was aware that all that breathless rushin’ had not been entirely innocent. And Sol would have taken a hefty bet that Gracie had spotted it, too. All he said was, however, as he closed and locked the front door: “Rustle up a quiche, huh? Boy, oh, boy. –Remember Mona?” he said to his mother.

    Gracie sniffed. “I remember the mess she used to make in your kitchen, if that’s what you mean.”

    “I sure do. What a production.” Sol shook his head. “Rustle up a quiche? Boy, Mona’d take three hours over it, not countin’ bakin’ time, and then she’d expect slavish gratitude for the next three weeks on account of it.”

    “Not to mention expecting you to clean up the mess,” added his mother drily.

    “Uh-huh. Sure!”

    “Was she one of your girlfriends?” demanded Michaela abruptly.

    “Yeah.”

    “Yeah, Mona was a live-in one. She lasted a while. Don’t ask me why: it wasn’t on account of her cooking, I can tell you,” said Gracie acidly. This statement might not have been as innocent as it sounded. Sol was aware of this. He avoided Gracie’s eye.

    There was a short pause.

    “You’ve had a lot of girlfriends, haven’t you?” said Michaela.

    “Yeah. I guess I’m used to—well, having a woman around the place,” he said with a little shrug. “In the habit of it.” This statement was not, of course, innocent at all. He went on avoiding Gracie’s eye.

    “I see,” said Michaela slowly.

    Sol sure hoped so.

    “Most of ’em couldn’t cook at all,” noted Gracie drily.

    “That Katrina, she was a cordon bleu cook,” he objected mildly.

    Gracie snorted.

    Sol would have been quite willing to elaborate without any encouragement and he was pretty sure Gracie would have, too, but there was no need to: Michaela said in a vaguely puzzled voice: “What was wrong with that?”

    “Well, aside from the fact that I put on around three stone while we were livin’ together, she wanted me to marry her and live off of her Daddy’s money, Michaela.”

    “Oh.”

    “Become a kept man,” he elaborated drily.

    “That’d be pretty boring,” she decided.

    “Sure: pretty boring spending three months out of the year in Nassau—was it Nassau her father had that holiday place, Sol?” asked his mother; Sol nodded. “And pretty boring spending a month skiing every winter, and real boring going on up to New York whenever there was a nice opera playing at the Met!”

    There was a short silence.

    “He likes opera,” said Michaela in a bewildered voice.

    “Yeah,” agreed Gracie drily.

    “At the time, though to hear her talk you may not believe it, Michaela,” explained Sol, “Gracie told me she’d disown me if I ever sunk so low as to become Mr Katrina Nussbaum.”

    Michaela looked at him helplessly.

    “That was her name,” explained Gracie: “Katrina Nussbaum. And you’re right, of course, Michaela: he would have been bored out of his skull. Only back then he was teaching English to a load of red-necked idiots at some high-school in the boondocks, and earning about as much in a month as the store takes in a week. A bad week. And old Nussbaum could have set him up in a decent business, if he’d had the backbone to insist.”

    “I never knew you were a teacher,” Michaela said to Sol.

    He moved his shoulders uneasily. “Not for long. Had a fight with the school board over the curriculum.”

    “Then he got blacklisted all over the state,” said his mother with relish. “So he signed on aboard a yacht as crew for five dollars a week plus his keep.”

    “Fifteen, Mom,” corrected Sol laconically.

    “Where did it sail to?” asked Michaela.

    Sol shot his mother a mocking look. “Well, that was the point, Michaela. It sailed all round the Caribbean and over to Central America, it was a big ocean-going yacht. Places it woulda cost me a small fortune to get to any other way. Not that any of ’em are that far from Florida as the crow flies, only the airlines have got the tourist trade sewn up but good.”

    “I see,” she said, nodding seriously.

    “Yeah, lovely. He was thirty-two at the time,” said Gracie grimly, “and all the rest of the crew were kids in their late teens or early twenties. –Not that he didn’t spend his late teens and early twenties bumming around the place, too, I might add!”

    “The captain was glad to get me. Added a mite of stability, ya see,” said Sol mildly to Michaela.

    “Stability!” snorted Gracie.

    “Sorry, Michaela: goin’ over old ground here,” he said with a grin.—Gracie gave him an ironic look but Sol avoided it.—“So did Ida get you all signed, sealed and delivered?”

    “Yes. Um—most craft people don’t... Well, I’m not sure. Only I never heard of all those agreements, before.”

    “No, that’s Gracie’s American paranoia speaking. Never to mind, it’s keepin’ ’em busy and happy. Now, what was that you was saying about Tom Wilson, Michaela?”

    “She was saying he don’t have no phone,” said Gracie grimly. “I never heard of such a thing! How does he keep in touch?”

    “He doesn’t want to,” said Michaela simply.

    Sol gave his mother a mocking look.

    Gracie ignored it. “Well, this Pauline Wilson, she must have a phone!”

    “Um—I suppose so. I don’t know her number.”

    “Shoot, that ain’t gonna stop Gracie, Michaela!” said Sol with a laugh. “Okay, then, Gracie, you take Michaela on up to the apartment and go through all the Wilsons in the phone book for the metropolitan area—lives in town, does she, Michaela?”—She nodded.—“Uh-huh; and I’ll lock up here.”

    “Yes, come on, Michaela, we better strike while the iron’s hot. We don’t want this Tom Wilson guy to start selling through another gallery,” agreed Gracie, marching off.

    Michaela followed her numbly.

    Sol made a wry face. He went round the place checking windows and locking up. Raising his eyebrows somewhat at the piles of pots that were now occupying the back regions.

    There were one or two P. Wilsons in the greater Auckland metropolitan area and Michaela couldn’t remember the name of Pauline’s street but that didn’t stop Gracie, nossiree. By the time Sol had dragged himself upstairs she’d gotten out of Michaela the fact that this Pauline lived in Ponsonby, and was going through the P. Wilsons. There were two in Ponsonby.

    “You sure it’s Ponsonby, Michaela?” drawled Sol.

    “That’ll do. Go make dinner, make yourself useful,” said his mother grimly.

    “Euan say he was coming?”

    “Uh-huh,” said Gracie, writing the two numbers out very large on his telephone pad.

    Sol went meekly into his kitchenette and got on with making dinner. He listened, though. Wouldn’t hardly have been human not to.

    “What’ll I say?” said Michaela blankly. –Gracie musta handed her the phone.

    “Ask for this Pauline and say you got her a gallery that’s interested in her watercolours,”—Sol here pursed his lips over the jacket potatoes he was oiling—“and tell her we’d like to get in touch with her brother as well.”

    Boy, that was telling her! Sol swallowed a sigh.

    Gracie then read out a phone number very slowly.

    “Hullo,” said Michaela’s voice, sounding very shy. “Is Pauline Wilson there, please? ...Um, no. I mean yes. Sorry.”

    “Okay, now try this one, honey!” said Gracie brightly.

    Sol took a deep breath.

    They went through the routine again. This time after the slight pause after she’d asked for Pauline, Michaela’s voice said: “Um—yes, it is Michaela. Um—who’s that? ...Oh, hullo, Greg. ...Um—have I?”

    Five’d get you ten that this Greg, whoever the Hell he was, had told her she had a very distinctive voice. Sol’s lips tightened. He went over to the corner of the divider with a sweet potato in one hand and a peeler in the other.

    “What are you doing with those sweet potatoes?” said Gracie immediately.

    “Uh—”

    “Just do ’em in the microwave, Sol. Like the ordinary jacket potatoes.”

    “In their jackets, too?” he said weakly.

    “Yes! –What was that, honey?”

    “I said Greg’s getting her,” repeated Michaela in a small voice.

    “Uh-huh. Is he an artist too, Michaela?”

    Sol crept back into the kitchenette. ...“Furniture art?” Gracie was saying dazedly when his ears stopped ringin’. Or burnin’, whichever. Served her right.

    “Is she?” Michaela then said. Sol didn’t scarcely have time to wonder what, because she said to Gracie: “Pauline’s coming. She’s having a bath. –Um, what? I’m fine, thanks. How are you? ... Are you? Have you finished your course, then? ...Oh. Um, well, you know Sean Stacey? ...Oh. Well, he was at Art School with me. Pauline knows him. He does landscaping. He needs people to help him. Can you lift rocks? –Yeah, it is different from soldering!” she said with a laugh.—Sol scowled.—“I don’t know. You could come with me on Monday. Can you get up to Puriri by quarter to eight? –Good.” She gave this Greg creep her address.

    Sol put the sweet potato in the microwave with the ordinary potatoes, too damn bad if they took different times to cook. They was all about the same size, anyroad. He went over to the corner of the divider, looking sulky.

    “Hullo, Pauline,” said Michaela. “Yes, I know: I’m sorry!” she gasped.—Sol glared at his mother but you’da sworn she hadn’t even noticed he was there.—“Yes. Grey and fawn. A bit more shiny than I’ve done before. I’ve only just started on them; they might not work out.” There was a pause. “Um—hang on, I’ve forgotten what I was supposed to say,” she said lamely. “What? Oh, well, a lady wanted me to ring you.”

    “Gimme that!” said Sol loudly and angrily.

    He strode across the room, wrenched the receiver off of her, said witheringly to his mother: “What are ya, Torquemada reincarnated?” and said to the phone: “Hi, I gather this is Pauline Wilson? My name’s Sol Winkelmann, I’m a friend of Michaela’s, and I’m half-owner of a small gallery in Kingfisher Bay.”

    When he finally rang off Gracie merely said drily: “So you can do it, if you try.”

    “Shut up,” he replied, trying not to laugh.

    “Is it all right?” asked Michaela anxiously.

    “Yeah. Well, Pauline can’t guarantee her brother, but she’s apparently overjoyed at us wanting to sell her watercolours on commission.”

    “I hope she didn’t think you meant that Victorian stuff.”

    Sol didn’t ask, he just said soothingly: “I didn’t gather she had that impression at all. She tells me her brother’s coming into town next week, she’ll bring him up.”

    “Which day?” said Gracie immediately.

    “Wednesday or Thursday, she’ll let us know.”

    “Well, why didn’t you give her the boutique’s number?” she said crossly.

    “I’m capable of taking a message, Mom.”

    “Maybe. But that Jimmy Burton sure ain’t!”

    “Gracie, just because Jimmy didn’t understand what May Swadling was talking about when she was talking about nutmeat cutlets that she didn’t have the slightest notion what she was talkin’ ’bout—”

    “That’ll do,” she said dangerously.

    “Nutmeat cutlets?” said Michaela faintly.

    “It’s nothing, Michaela. Some damn vegetarian thing Mom was trying to get hold of through Swadlings’.”

    “Their wholesaler only has ordinary things,” Michaela explained to Gracie.

    “Yeah. I tried telling her that. Forget it. Do you eat sweet potatoes, Michaela?”

    At this point it appeared to dawn on Michaela that she was stranded up Kingfisher Bay miles from nowhere with no transport lessen she threw herself on S. Winkelmann’s mercy. She turned a very strange colour, gasped: “I can’t stay for tea!” and jumped up, looking desperate.

    “Of course you can, Michaela, honey: there’s plenty,” said Gracie mildly. “Or there will be when he gets on with it,” she amended, looking hard at him.

    Was that his cue to creep back behind the divider, or merely to agree with her, or—or what? “Uh—yeah,” he agreed weakly.

    “One of us can run you on home, after,” said Gracie calmly and, it had to be admitted, without nothing that coulda been said to approach innocence at all. Sol looked at her drily. Gracie didn’t appear to notice.

    “No,” said Michaela faintly.

    “It’s no bother, honey!” Gracie got up. “I guess I’ll just get washed up. –The rest of them sweet potatoes are gonna jump right in that there microwave oven by themselves, are they?” she added pointedly.

    “Huh? Oh! Right,” Sol replied numbly.

     Gracie went out to the bathroom. That left Sol and Michaela.

    “Was that another cottage I saw out in back?” he said mildly.

    “Um—yes, they got it off June.”

    “Whether she wanted to sell it them or not, huh?”

    Michaela swallowed. “Um—yes, it was a bit like that.” she admitted with a shaky smile.

    “Yeah. –Look, I’m sorry about all this, Michaela.” Michaela looked at him doubtfully and he could see that she had on her mind what he’d expected her to have on her mind. Yeah, well. Quickly he added: “But I’m afraid Gracie’s unstoppable once she gets the bit between her teeth. She’s gotten real keen on the boutique.”

    She smiled slowly. “Mm. Watch out, she mentioned golfing supplies coming up here.”

    Sol nigh to dropped where he stood. Well, gee: (a) she’d made a joke, (b) she’d made a joke even though not ten seconds since she’d clearly had on her mind that Goddamn scene with Akiko, and (c) and not least, she’d apparently actually listened when he’d complained, admittedly more than once, and also admittedly not entirely seriously, about his entire extended family not to mention Jake Carrano nagging him about extending into golfing supplies!

    He smiled feebly. “She did, huh? Well, thanks for the warning.”

    “That’s okay,” she said shyly, pinkening, but still smiling. “Um—you don’t have to feed me.”

    “I do if I don’t want to be in Mom’s bad books for the next five hundred sixty years!” he said with feeling, going back to the kitchenette.

    He was about to call out to her to switch the TV on, or something, only suddenly she appeared at the end of the divider and said: “Sometimes you call her ‘Mom’ and sometimes you call her ‘Gracie.’”

    “Huh? Oh—yeah,” he said lamely. “I guess I do. Well, we’re on real good terms, Michaela.”

    “Yes. My mother hates me,” she said detachedly.

    Sol had just picked up the second sweet potato. He put it down on the bench. “I see,” he said limply.

    “She wanted a boy. And when I wasn’t a boy she wanted me to wear frilly dresses and stuff. Dad didn’t mind so much, he used to buy me rocks for my rock collection, only she stopped him.”

    “Gotcha,” he said grimly.

    “And then she wanted me to marry Clark Baker, they live on the next farm; only he was gay, and I didn’t want to. So she said she wouldn’t speak to me until I came to my senses. –I was quite old, then,” she explained.

    “Uh-huh.”

    “She has spoken to me, only she still hates me,” said Michaela detachedly.

    “I see. And you don’t like her, huh?”

    “No. I used to try to, only then I realized I couldn’t,” she said simply.

    “Mm,” said Sol, biting his lips.

    “I think you’re lucky. I like your mother,” she said shyly.

    “Mm. She’s pretty nice, I guess,” he croaked. He swallowed. “Iffen you don’t mind being railroaded into things for your own good, that is,”

    Michaela smiled. “Yes. Aunty Kay’s like that, too. I think your mother’s nicer than Aunty Kay, though.”

    “Uh-huh. And the other old aunty, the one that lives in the city?”

    “Aunty Vi? She is a bit like your mother!” said Michaela with a laugh. “She’s not married, though.”

    Nor was Gracie. Sol looked at her blankly. “Uh... Oh! I getcha! This old Aunty Vi, she’s a spinster lady, huh?”

    Michaela nodded.

    “Mm.” He looked blankly at the sweet potato. “What was I—? Oh.” It was quite big: he cut it into pieces and put them in the microwave.

    “They’re kumaras, really,” said Michaela shyly.

    Sol smacked himself on the forehead. “That’s it!” He smiled sheepishly. “I couldn’t remember the name for the life of me. It’s been killing me, I been dyin’ to come out with it all casual-like and flatten Gracie where she stands!” He laughed shakily.

    Michaela laughed shakily, too—couldn’t be all bad, could it?

    They were looking shyly at each other and she was starting to blush and Sol was starting to feel more than a trifle excited, on top of the shaky feeling, when Euan came clattering up the stairs, calling out loudly: “Sorry I’m late!”

    He stuck his head round the divider. “Hullo, Michaela,” he said mildly. Apparently not surprized to see her at all. Though he knew all about why she hadn’t been round the place for months. Just in case he hadn’t heard the rumours, Sol had gotten good and drunk one night and made sure he got the story from the horse’s mouth.

    “Hullo,” said Michaela, smiling shyly at him.

    “Starsky tells me you’ve been working on some grey and fawn stuff: how’s it going?”

    “All right.”

    “Good,” he said, smiling at her. “Dunno why I expected to find the place filled with the smell of roasting meat or boiling stew by now,” he said to the ambient air.

    “Microwaving potatoes and kumaras,” replied Sol grimly.

    Euan peered into the microwave. “Look to me as if they’re just sitting there.”

    “Huh? Oh—Hell.” Sol switched the microwave on. Obediently the vegetables started to rotate.

     Euan leaned against the divider. “Ralph Overdale been in touch with you?”

    “No. Why?”

    “Saw him last weekend. He wants Saucy Sal’s bottom scraped this winter.”

    “Thought she had legs on the seabed? Them rigs don’t need scraping.”

    Euan grinned. “She’s been in and out a few times this year.”

    “Yeah. Well. I guess Phoebe likes sailing,” he admitted weakly, opening the fridge. “Jimmy say whether he was eatin’ dinner here?”

    “He muttered dire warnings about nutmeat, if that counts,” replied Euan neutrally.

    “Tell him it’s trevally steaks,” said Sol on a tired note.

    “He won’t recognize them unless you smother them in bright yellow batter,” warned Euan.

    “Good: I’ll have his.”

    “I’ll go and ask him!” volunteered Michaela with a laugh. “Is there any pudding?” she added, pausing at the end of the divider.

    “Huh? Oh—yeah. Tell him it’s vegetarian cheesecake,” said Sol weakly.

    Michaela chuckled, and disappeared.

    There was silence in Sol’s minute kitchenette. Euan went on leaning against the divider.

    “Go on: ask,” said Sol grimly.

    “What: whether you actually do need a Ph.D. in nuclear physics to work that new grill of yours, or whether it just looks like it?”

    Sol had switched on the broiler that was part of the ceramic-topped cooker Abe had forced on him. “No,” he said, peering at it.

    “All right, then: was that voluntary or was she dragged?”

    “Dragged. Took the both of ’em, too,” he said grimly, straightening.

    “Mm.”

    “She didn’t walk out of here when Gracie insisted she stay for dinner, but I’m not absolutely sure whether that was just down to good manners,” he admitted.

    “Looked all right,” he offered.

    “Yeah. –She ever said anything to you about her parents?”

    “Nope. But the Austin twins have. I gather the mother’s a bitch and the father’s a nonentity.”

    “There’s a fair bit of it about,” he allowed.

    Euan hesitated. “Did she mention them to you?”

    “Yeah. Thinks Gracie’s great, apparently.” He shrugged. “It may just be by contrast, of course.”

    “Or not,” said Euan with his slow smile. “That sounds all right.”

    “Yes,” said Sol, staring blindly out his porthole.

     After a moment Euan said: “Well, shall I tow the Saucy Sal round to the boatyard after I’ve finished Fred Dunbar’s Jacquie?”

    “Uh—oh. Depends whether he said definite he wanted us to do her, don’t it?”

    Euan scratched his head. “He definitely said he’d ring you.”

    Sol took a deep breath. “Guess we better check with Jimmy.”

    “You’ll have to: I’ve just remembered Overdale said they were off to Ruapehu for the whole of this week. Well, ya could make a toll-call to The Chateau, I suppose.”

    “Hah, hah,” he said sourly.

    “What on earth’s up?” said Euan, staring at him.

    “Nothing.” Boy, oh, boy, mid-winter skiing at The Chateau. Jesus, it seemed a li—no, two lifetimes. Two lifetimes away. Euan was still staring at him; weakly he said: “Uh—first time I ever came out here—that was for Susan and Alan’s wedding—we went on down to The Chateau for the skiing. Ralph was there... And Phoebe,” he admitted, grimacing.

    “Well, I suppose they both like skiing. –Oh: I get it,” he said sheepishly.

    Sol gave him a nasty look. “Yeah. This would be,” he said clearly, “over a year before you ever met Vicki, by my reckoning.”

    Euan looked at him blandly. “Yes. Well, we all make mistakes, don’t we?”

    “Mm. You seen anything of Ginny, at all?” he asked cautiously.

    “Not really.”

    Sol bit his lip. “I’m sorry, Euan.”

    “Don’t be,” he said grimly. “She spent over a year thinking of me as a brother. And anyway, she’s not at the stage of even thinking about settling down, yet.”

    “Uh-huh.”

    “We’ve been to a couple of early music concerts,” he admitted with a sigh.

    “Yeah. Well, at least you got some tastes in common.”

    “She’s got tastes in common with that sod Col Michaels, too,” he said grimly.

    “Is he a sod?”

    Euan shrugged. “Sarcastic type. Thinks he’s God’s gift, or something. –Give him a few more years and he’ll turn into another Ralph Overdale,” he added sourly.

    “Ouch.”

    “I don’t like him, either,” offered Michaela from the end of the divider.

    They both jumped ten feet where they stood,

    “Uh—which one?” said Sol limply.

    “Col. I don’t much like Ralph, either, but he did give me a lovely rock.”

     Sol’s jaw dropped.

    “Oh, yeah: the amethyst,” agreed Euan.

    “It was ages ago. He was drunk, really,” Michaela explained. “But Jemima said to keep it, he wasn’t too drunk to know what he was doing.”

    “Uh—good,” said Sol limply. “Jimmy decided whether he wants feeding?”

    “Yes: he does,” said Michaela. “He said to tell you that a lady’s bought the last of the children’s gumboots. For her grandchildren.”

    “Never took that one into account, didja?” drawled Euan.

    “Huh? Oh: that more’n half these second-homers ’ud be retirees with grandkids with mothers that send ’em up to inflict themselves on the grandparents over the freezin’ cold mid-year break without no gumboots to put on their feet? I sure didn’t, Euan.”

    Euan just laughed and said: “Shall I set the table?”

    “Tables,” corrected Sol glumly. Although his one little table was sufficient when he and his mother ate alone, it was not, of course, large enough for Euan and Jimmy too, or even for one extra body; so Gracie had made him buy another one. Matching. Plus two more matching chairs.

    Euan gathered up cutlery and went round the divider, chuckling.

    “Iffen your hands are clean, guess you could make the salad,” Sol said feebly to Michaela.

    “They aren’t, very.”

    “So wash, already,” he sighed.

    There was a piece of soap in a little dish by his sink. And a small hand-towel in a little towel-ring beside it. Michaela squeezed in beside him and silently washed her hands. Sol didn’t move aside much.

    What with this, that and the other he didn’t taste much of the eventual dinner.

    They usually stayed open, Friday evenings, but since Jimmy, according to his own report, hadn’t had a customer since that man that wanted the antifouling compound, he’d come in just after the lady that bought the gumboots, and that reminded him, Sol, they were almost out of meths, Sol put the “Please Ring For Service” notice on the door and locked up.

    Nobody rang while they were eating but as the rain was now lashing furiously against the gable, Sol wasn’t that surprized. Anything that was still left in the marina was well battened down and judging by the few lights that showed in the settlement, any of the holiday-homers that was up here for the mid-year break were battened down, too. Them plus the misguided retirees what had settled here permanent, must have looked round the place in summer, that was for sure.

    Sol let Jimmy get started on the cheesecake before he said: “Jimmy, did you take any phone message about the Saucy Sal? Sir Ralph Overdale’s boat? Any time this week?”

    Jimmy shook his head, swallowed and said: “No.”

    Euan began: “That big white job with the twin dies—”

    “I know!”

    “Size of a houseboat,” clarified Sol kindly.

    “I know! And there wasn’t a phone message: honest, Sol!”

    “Maybe he changed his mind,” said Euan.

    “Maybe Someone Else answered the phone, ya mean! –Not you, Gracie, honey, I oughta know by now you’re the most reliable critter that ever walked God’s earth,” he said with a sigh.

    Gracie subsided, with a loud sniff.

    “Jimmy!” said Sol loudly.

    Jimmy goggled at him, mouth full of cheesecake. –Gracie had slathered it with kiwifruit: she’d been stunned to find kiwis were so cheap out here. She’d be even more stunned when the season wore on a bit and the supermarkets started in to sell ’em at a two dollars a bucket and you got to keep the plastic bucket, handle an’ all.

    “Did you let anyone besides Gracie answer the store’s phone?” he said clearly.

    “Over the last ten days or so,” clarified Euan drily.

    “Right. –That,” Sol said to Jimmy.

    Gradually the ears turned very red.

    “You better ring June,” said Euan laconically.

    Sol looked at his watch. “I’ll do that. Before I make coffee, I guess.”

    “I would,” agreed Euan.

    Sol got up and went over to the phone.

    Oh, gee! Fancy that, now! Starsky had answered the store’s phone, Monday morning, because for.... Yeah, yeah. Well, lucky it hadn’ta been that Ivan, because for sure he woulda forgotten he’d ever taken a message at all, ten minutes after it passed through the skull. Sol thanked June profusely and hung up with a palsied hand.

    “Wal, gee, lucky me,” he said, sagging. “Didn’t have to make a long-distance call to The Chateau and drag Sir Ralph Overdale outa the dining-room and make a dad-blamed fool of myself asking him to confirm something he’d left a message confirming after all—did I?”

    “You were lucky, all right,” agreed Euan, poker-face.

    Abruptly Michaela collapsed in sniggers.

    “I’m sorry, Sol, I forgot to ask him who it was because I had a cust—”

    “Yeah: okay!” he gasped.

    “—customer,” finished Jimmy limply.

    “That’s enough, Sol,” said his mother, kindly helping Jimmy to the last piece of cheesecake.

    “June informs me,” Sol informed them kindly as he set the tray of coffee on the table. “that there was another message, as well. –For you, Mom,” he said kindly.

    Gracie’s hand hovered suspended over her non-caffeinated dandelion extract.

    “Don’t panic, it wasn’t long-distance from Fort Lauderdale. Not that that woulda stopped him. –I think you mighta been in the john that time, Jimmy,” he said kindly to him.

    “Go on,” said Gracie grimly.

    “It was Kevin Goode.—I know you don’t know him, Gracie.—Think this musta been the Wednesday: was that the Wednesday or the Tuesday, the second time Starsky was up here inflicting himself on you, Jimmy?”

    “Um...”

    “It must have been Wednesday. On Tuesday he inflicted himself on me all day,” noted Euan drily.

    “Wednesday, then.” Sol handed the remaining mugs and sat down. “Kevin runs Goode As Olde, the recycling yard over to Carter’s Bay, Gracie. Gets quite a lot of interesting lumber in. Borer-ridden, a lot of it,” he said thoughtfully.

    “Is there a message in all of this?” asked Gracie heavily.

    “Uh-huh. He reckons he can do picture-framing for the boutique. If we’re interested.”

    “I’d have to see his work.”

    “You sure would. In especial if he’s a-plannin’ to make ’em out of that stuff he keeps out in back.”

    “It’s not that bad,” said Euan.

    “Well, no, I’ll grant you that most of the lumber isn’t that bad. Them wardrobes and junk he’s got in the shed are bad, though.”

    “Are we talking about recycled frames?” demanded Gracie.

    “Uh—well, I wondered that, too, Gracie,” admitted Sol. “June and Bob couldn’t get any sense out of the kid on that one, I’m afraid.”

    “Was that Bob shouting at him?” asked Michaela.

    “Yeah—uh, well, first it was June and then it was Bob, yeah.”

    Euan broke down in a spluttering fit.

    “Is he open late Fridays?” demanded Gracie, ignoring inessentials.

    “Uh—oh: Kevin Goode, Mom? Uh, no, not Fridays, is he, Jimmy?”

    “No. He’s open on Saturdays, though, Gracie!” he volunteered eagerly.

    “Good. I’ll go see him tomorrow, then. –You needn’t come, you can mark the map for me, I’ll take the Land Rover,” she said to her son.

    Sol replied with considerable pleasure: “I’d be happy to mark the map for you, Mom. Though I can tell you here and now there ain’t but one Orangapai Road in Carter’s Bay. But are you allowed to drive out here?”

    “I’ve had my driver’s licence since—”

    “Yeah, yeah. –Since Adlai Stevenson was the great white hope of the country—wal, a certain section of it,” he explained. Euan choked.

    “What year was that, again, you had your hair shaved off of you in Mistake, Texas?” she asked evilly.

    “I cain’t remember, Gracie, but it sure ’nuff was the year they was a-playin’ Winchester Cathedral at the rodeo in Forth Worth in bright purple satin outfits and cowboy hats!” he choked, going into hysterics.

    “Get out of it,” said Euan weakly.

    “I—kid—you—not!” he gasped helplessly. “Global culture, Texas style!”

    “Yeah. Nobody but him noticed the anomaly,” admitted Gracie. “But then, nobody but him was wearing a Beatles haircut in the Southwest, neither.”

    Euan gave a yelp of laughter. “Was that why they shaved it?”

    “Yeah, sure it was, Euan,” said Gracie mildly.

    Euan collapsed in hysterics.

    What with this, that and the other it wasn’t all that early when Gracie, forbidding Michaela to touch a dish, ordered Sol to drive her home. And to take care on the roads. And never to mind if Jimmy had his bike, Sol would take him, too.

    Meekly they got into their rain gear and went and got in the Land Rover. Sol coulda had a wrastle with the pushbike and the roof rack in the driving rain and howling wind but decided he’d pick Jimmy up, Monday, instead.

    Mrs Burton thanked Sol profusely for bringing Jimmy back and invited them in for a cup of tea, but Sol explained nicely he hadda take Michaela all the way in to Puriri, and they escaped.

    “Cold?” he said as they drove slowly on south in the driving rain and howling wind.

    “Um—not really,” she lied.

    Sol swallowed a sigh. “I could put the heater on,”—Phoebe had made him put one in, strangely enough he hadn’t resisted her that hard—“only then I might get sleepy. I’d have to open my window and I guess”—he edged it down cautiously and hurriedly put it up again as a gust of howling sleet blew in—“that ain’t a good idea!”

    “No. –Do you mean you’d go to sleep while you were driving?”

    “Yeah. Not an uncommon cause of accidents. Well, maybe not quite so much out here, I guess you don’t have real long distances to drive, but back home, driving interstate, it’s a real risk. Especially on the long, flat stretches where there’s nothing to concentrate on. Susan tells me your Desert Road’s like that. Pretty straight and flat, and boring as all get out.”

    “Ye-es... You must have seen it if you’ve been to Ruapehu.”

    “Uh—some of it. Going there Abe hired a chauffeured limo and I was asleep by the time we hit Taupo—well, we was late starting, Pat couldn’t find her makeup case or some such—and coming back I—uh—” He broke off, grimacing.

    “What?”

    “I slept the entire way, I was that shagged out. Not just with the skiing, with doing Phoebe: that was where we met,” he said grimly.

    “I see... You said you were used to ladies,” she said slowly.

    “Uh—yeah. Well, used to having sex, I guess is what I meant, Michaela,” he said softly.

    “Yes.”

    Sol took a deep breath. “It’s not that I can’t do without it. It’s just— Look, I— Oh, Hell! Look, Michaela, please could we talk about the Akiko thing? I guess you don’t want to, and I can’t blame you—only Jesus, I just can’t cope with it hanging there between us!”

    For a few moments she said nothing. Then she said with difficulty: “June said it was only a physical thing.”

    “Yes,” he said with a sigh. “It meant less than nothing to the both of us. I know that doesn’t excuse me, especially after what I said to you back in December.”

    “About wanting to be mates?” she said in a confused voice.

    “No. Not wanting to, Michaela, agreeing to. I guess I was a damn fool not to have explained right there and then that I—that I wanted you very much physically and it wouldn’t be too easy for me, hanging on being just good mates. I—I guess I didn’t want to embarrass you. And I was scared of—of scaring you off by coming on too strong. Uh—do you understand?” he said awkwardly.

    “Yes,” she said in a low voice.

    “Yeah. Only at that stage,” he said bitterly, “I guess I didn’t know just how much of a weak, spineless, selfish shit I was.”

    “I’m not that used to it,” she said.

    “To getting it whenever you fancy it? No, I don’t guess you are. Besides which, you’re the type that would take a few moral points into consideration, like being in love with someone else, before you went ahead and grabbed whatever was on offer.”

    “I didn’t exactly mean... I meant to having it all the time.”

    “I know what you meant. Used to it to the extent a person can’t do without it—right?’’

    “Um—yes, I suppose so.”

    Sol was silent, staring out at the night.

    Finally he said: “Listen, Michaela, I know I behaved like an insensitive piece of macho crap, but can you forgive me for it?’

    “Um... June said you weren’t my boyfriend at the time.”

    “No.” he said weakly. “Honey, have you talked it over with June?”

    “No. I mean,” said Michaela, going very red, “she wanted to talk about it but I didn’t.”

    “I see.” He hesitated. “Well, did her argument seem valid to you?”

    She thought it over. “Um—no. Well. she didn’t convince me, if that’s what you mean.”

    “Uh-huh.” Sol gritted his teeth for a moment. “Michaela, why didn’t she convince you, can you tell me?”

    “Um... I don’t...”

    He glanced sideways at her. He could see she was twisting her hands together. He just waited, but it was one Hell of an effort.

    Finally she said; “I suppose I thought... Well, you did say you wanted— I mean, you said you’d agree to be mates.”

    “Mm?”

    “I thought you wanted me, instead of her,” she said flatly.

    Sol drew into the side of the road.

    “What have you stopped for?” she asked nervously.

    “Because I don’t want to cause an accident,” he said shakily. “Of course I wanted you instead of her. I wouldn’t have even looked at her if you’d agreed to be more than just mates, Michaela!”

    “Oh.”

    “I’m sorry if— Well, I had to make sure that was what you really thought,” he said lamely.

    “Oh,” she said dubiously.

    Sol swallowed hard. “Could we just forget it ever happened and go on from where we were before?” he said shakily.

    Michaela thought this over. Sol could hardly see her face in the glow from his headlamps: he peered at her uncertainly.

    “I know people say that sort of thing; but I don’t see how I could possibly forget,” she said.

    “Oh,” he said lamely.

    “I mean, you did it,” she pointed out.

    “I did it because I was a spineless idiot with no self-control and miserable as all get out, Michaela! Jesus, can’t you understand?” he cried.

    “Miserable?” she said blankly.

    “Yes! In the first place because you only wanted to be mates and I wanted a good deal more, and in the second place because what with Abe and them and being so busy over summer I hardly managed to get a glimpse of you, and in the third place,” he said, taking a deep breath, “because I felt you were far more interested in hunting up clay and working on pots than you were in spending any time with me!”

    This time there was a very long silence.

    “When I’m working,” said Michaela slowly, “I can’t think about anything else. It doesn’t mean I don’t care. Only I can’t concentrate on two things at once. Hugh used to get really angry: he couldn’t understand.”

    “Yeah,” he said glumly. “I get it. I tried telling myself that was it, but all I got myself to believe was that you really didn’t want more than just to be friends and I—well, I was miserable.”

    “Oh.”

    “Added to which, I tried to find you at that dad-blamed barbecue of Polly Carrano’s and you’d disappeared!”

    Michaela just stared at him.

    “I know it sounds ridiculous—Hell, it is ridiculous! Only I was just so let-down! –I guess you went home early, huh?”

    “Yes. I don’t like those parties. Jake said I didn’t have to come, any more.”

    “Well, he’s got some sense,” he muttered.

    “Yes.”

    Sol sighed. “Where have we gotten to?”

    “Nearly at the turnoff to the Hardings’ place.”

    “What?” he croaked.

    Michaela peered into the dark. “I think. Isn’t that their bobby-calf pen?”

    Since they’d apparently fallen down the rabbit hole, Sol joined in. “They haven’t got no bobby calf!”

    “No. It belongs to their property, though.”

    “Why would anyone want to put a bobby calf in a roadside pen miles from the farm gate, Michaela? And what the Hell is a bobby calf, anyroad?” he ended on a weak note.

    “A male calf, of course, that you don’t want to keep for milk. You put them in the pen when they’re ready to go to the works. The truck comes and collects them.”

    “To the— Oh, my land,” he said, wiping a hand across his forehead. “Ain’t country life brutally realist, huh?”

    “It has to be,” she said seriously.

    “Yeah.”

    After a moment Michaela said: “They don’t know what’s happening to them.”

    “No,” he muttered.

    “Can we go?” she said uneasily.

    Sol replied through his teeth: “Sure we can go.” He started up again.

    They were almost at the northern Elizabeth Road turnoff when she said: “Don’t be angry.”

    Sol took a deep breath. “I’m angry with myself, not with you, I guess.”

    “You were angry with me, too,” she said calmly.

    “Uh—yeah. This is a well-known psychological phenomenon, Michaela. When a person’s got a load of guilt weighing ’em down—I mean, uh, when they know they’re in the wrong. see?—they get angry with the other person. so as to—well, to hide from themselves it’s all their fault. Getting angry with the other person so as not to get angry with themselves—see?”

    She was silent.

    “Do you see?” he said limply.

    “Yes. It happens all the time, doesn’t it?”

    “It sure does.”

     Michaela was silent again. Sol glanced at her nervously. Finally she said: “A lot of the time Hugh was just angry with me, though.”

    “Uh huh.” He drove on in silence, hands clenched on the wheel.

    “There’s Elizabeth Road,” said Michaela in a voice of undisguised relief as they passed it.

    “Yeah, we’re nearly into Puriri and you’ll soon be rid of me: right.”

    “I’m not very good at talking about things,” she said apologetically.

    Sol sighed. “No. I do understand that, Michaela. I thought I was the only living American not to suffer from the American disease, only I guess I was wrong.”

    “What?” she said blankly.

    “Verbal diarrhoea,” he said sourly.

    Michaela swallowed loudly.

    “Go on: scream with laughter,” he invited her sourly.

    “No—um—you do talk a lot,” she said weakly.

    “Gotcha. Always the last to know, huh?”

    “I don’t mind,” said Michaela on a desperate note. “I understand most of what you say.”

    Sol’s jaw went all saggy. “Well—good,” he got out finally.

    “I’m never sure if the hard bits are just me, or the way you talk.

    He swallowed. “Yeah. I’m sorry, honey. I guess they’d be mainly the way I talk: I...” He glared into the night. “I’ve got a lot of stupid habits, Michaela, and I guess playing stupid verbal games is certainly one of them. I’m real sorry if it’s been driving you crazy.”

    Michaela replied in a voice of mild surprize: “It hasn’t been driving me crazy at all.”

    “That’s good,” he said limply. He could feel her glancing at him uncertainly but he didn’t have the faintest clue what he was meant to say now, so he didn’t say anything.

    They were descending The Hill into Puriri proper when it finally dawned on the feeble S. Winkelmann consciousness what she’d been trying to say back there, and he near as nothing drove off of the cliff.

    “Jesus, Michaela,” he said, pulling in and hauling out his handkerchief. “Jesus,” he said, wiping his forehead.

    “Are you okay?” she asked anxiously.

    “Yeah. Uh—listen: what you were saying back there. Uh... Were you trying to say you can actually stand me? Verbal diarrhoea and all? And—and the fact you’re no good at—at saying things... Jesus, am I reading too much into this? You mean that sort of difference between us doesn’t matter to you?”

    Michaela’s hands twisted together on her knees. “Yes. I mean, you’re right: that is what I meant.”

    “Jesus,” he said limply.

   There was a long silence.

    “Even though you can’t forget about the Akiko thing and—and you never said you could forgive me, either?”

    “Um—sort of.”

    “Sort of?” croaked Sol faintly.

    “Um—well, what I mean is, you’re just you. I was angry before, only... I can’t explain it.”

    “You mean you think you might be able to take me, warts and all? Supposing I was a real good boy with immense self-control for approximately the next fifteen years?”

    “Don’t,” said Michaela hoarsely.

    Sol chewed on his lip some. “I’m sorry.”

    “You are angry because I said I wanted to be mates,” she discovered.

    He sighed. “Yeah. I know it’s irrational and I know I had no right to expect anything else— Hell, at the time Phoebe and me had only just split up. Well, it had been going from bad to worse all year— No. No excuses, huh?”

    “I don’t think I can do it,” said Michaela faintly.

    “What?” he croaked.

    “Have a ruh-relationship. Is that what you want?”

    Sol’s eyes filled with tears. “Yeah.”

    “I get used to it and then it all goes wrong. I told Hugh that, only he wouldn’t listen. And I knew I shouldn’t have done it, but I did it anyway, and then it all went wrong.”

    “I’m not Hugh,” he said with difficulty. He swallowed. “I don’t wanna drive a shiny Jap leisure vehicle and I don’t want a big shiny Jaguar—well, wouldn’t refuse it if you gave me one on a plate, but it ain’t my life’s ambition to own one—and I don’t wanna live in one of them yuppie rabbit-hutches up to Willow Grove and I don’t wanna own a mansion in Remuera or wherever it is he’s planning to incarcerate Roberta next, and I don’t want a wife with pearls and high heels and whose father’s a doctor! Geddit?”

    “He is making her wear high heels,” agreed Michaela dazedly.

    “I noticed.”

    Michaela swallowed loudly.

    “Michaela,” said Sol on a tired note, “it’s up to you. I’m willing to go on trying to be just mates, if that’s what you want, only I don’t guarantee I’m gonna get any better at it. I do promise you I’ll try, but I can’t guarantee I’ll succeed. See?”

    “Mm,” she said, nodding.

    “Well. Hell, will you at least try that?” he cried.

    “Um... Well, what would I have to do?”

    “Do?” he said numbly.

    “Yes,” she said anxiously, swallowing.

    Sol began loudly; “Well, Hell, Michaela, the same as what you— No,” he said, gulping. “I get it. I’m sorry I shouted. Can you just agree to—well, to at least see me on a regular basis. Once a week, regular?”

    “I can’t,” she said, frowning. “It’s not like that. Sometimes I have to fire the pots, or... Pots aren’t regular,” she finished in a low voice.

    “No. Well, is there any time when you generally don’t do your pots? –Apart from all that gardening time,” he added with a sigh.

    “Not really.”

    He hadn’t really thought so, no.

    “I usually don’t work late at night, but sometimes there’s some I have to finish.”

    “No. Well, I generally don’t work late, neither—lessen Euan and me have to get a boat finished,” he ended sheepishly.

    Michaela thought it over. “I could come and see you when I’ve been digging clay. Only I don’t do that regularly.”

    “No, but it’s a start,” he said, as his heart thudded wildly. “And—uh—well, mid-week the store’s not that busy. Euan don’t generally inflict himself on me Wednesdays. Could I see you Wednesday evenings if neither of us has got an urgent job on hand?”

    “Um... Ginny works at the library on Wednesday nights.”

    Sol had forgotten Ginny was boarding with her. “Oh, right.”

    “Um... Well, what would you want me to do?” she said in a small voice.

    It was only at this moment that some recent words of Jake Carrano’s, not to say some very much earlier thoughts of his own on passivity and associated subjects, came back forcibly to Sol Winkelmann.

    “Well, how’s this?” he said carefully. “Now, you tell me if you don’t like the idea, Michaela. I could drive down to your place around dinnertime, and then we could have three options; we could eat at your place, or we could go out somewheres—The Blue Heron Restaurant’s real nice—or we could drive on back to my place and eat there and maybe listen to some music. Like, every week we’d have the choice, you see?’

    “Yes. –I haven’t got any nice clothes.”

    “Huh? Oh, for The Blue Heron? No, but I guess Mr and Mrs Collingwood would settle for neat and tidy, mm? And, well, The Tavern serves a nice steak or fish with chips and salad, they tell me.”

    “Yes. I went there once with Bob and June and the boys. It cost an awful lot but Bob said not to worry, it was just for once. It wasn’t steak, it was some other sort of meat. With crumbs on it. It’s clever how they make them stick, isn’t it?”

    “Uh—yeah,” he said groggily. “Wiener schnitzel, would it be?”

    “I can’t remember. June’ll know.”

    “Yeah. –Michaela, is this a yes or no?” he said groggily.

    “You mean to the Wednesday idea?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Um... What if I was up at the shed? You wouldn’t know.”

    “No. I’d arrive on your doorstep and find no-one in, right? In especial if Ginny had already gone off to the library.”

    “Yes.”

    “Would it be at that point that I’d be supposed to lose my temper and— What did Hugh do?” he asked in spite of himself.

    “Um—well, sometimes he shouted at Bryn. It wasn’t Wednesdays, it was Tuesdays.”—Sol gulped.—”Sometimes he came up to the kiln and, um—”

    “Shouted at you?”

    “Yes. Actually, I think it depended on whether he’d brought something to cook,” she revealed.

    “Ye-ah... Oh,” he said weakly. “I get it. No cooking facilities up at the kiln, right?”

    “Mm. –I couldn’t help it. Sometimes I had to be there. And originally he used to come straight there, because of his lessons.”

    “Uh—oh. Right; I get it,” said Sol feebly, wondering inn spite of himself when—and, indeed, how—the lessons had tapered off. Or did they just abruptly stop? “Okay, I’ll try not to shout at you if you ain’t at home on the very evening I’ve decided to break with established Kiwi tradition and actually cook for you.”

    “He said it was a waste of good meat. Only another time he said he had lots of money and what were a couple of steaks to him.”

    “Uh-huh. Poor guy,” said Sol, beginning to lose his gravity.

    “What’s the joke?”

    “Honey, the poor guy used to lose his temper because he was one Helluva disappointed and let down iffen you wasn’t at home for him—surely you can see that?” he gasped.

    “Yes. Wouldn’t you be, too, though?”

    “Well, given that I’d understand the reasons for it… Well, yeah, I probably would be: I’m only human too, ya know.”

    “Mm.”

    Sol chewed on his lip some. Then he said: “Listen, Michaela, I know your work’s very important to you and I know I’ll never get anywheres near being that important in your life. But the thing is, relationships have got to entail a certain amount of compromise on both sides—see? I’m not asking you to drop whatever it is you’re working on, Wednesdays. Only if you have got a job on hand that looks like it’s gonna take all night, could you go down to June’s and call me from there?”

    “I could try to remember. I might forget it was Wednesday.”

    He took a deep breath. “Yeah. Okay. You do see what I mean, though?”

    “Yes. Only I don’t see that you’re making any compromises.”

    “Not of the same kind, no,” he said grimly. “My big compromise is I agree not to get into your bed unless and until you say I can. Geddit?”

    “Um—yes,” she said in a bewildered voice. “Do you mean you still won’t, then?”

    “Jesus H. Christ, isn’t that what this is all about?” he cried.

    “I—I got mixed up,” said Michaela. “I’m sorry.”

    Sol became aware of the tears in her voice. “Oh, Hell. I guess I was talking too much again, or… Look, we’ll leave it at this, huh? You’ll drop in on me if you’re digging clay. And I’ll try not to go out of my skull in the meantime,” he ended grimly.

    “Ye-es... You mean you won’t come on Wednesdays after all?”

    “NO!” he shouted. “You don’t want me to: okay, I won’t!”

    “It isn’t that I don’t want you to. I just want you to see that—that I can’t agree to—to always be there,” she said in a voice that shook. “Not always.”

    Sol swallowed a few times. “So we could try out Wednesdays, then? Just for a meal and—and maybe some music?”

    “So long as you understand—”

    “Yeah. I understand. I’ll check with you beforehand well as I can, huh? I’ll call old Mrs Morton and if you’re not home I’ll call June.”

    “Yes.”

    “Is it okay?” he asked cautiously.

    “I’m not sure. Sometimes I think I hate you,” she said in a very low voice.

    Sol was very hurt. Even though he understood that she was trying to be honest with him, and that she certainly had good reason to hate him. And even though he also understood that hating him must mean she also felt more deeply for him than she was letting on.

    “Yeah. Thank you for being honest with me, Michaela,” he said with difficulty.

    He started up again and set off with a jerk that threw them both hard against their seatbelts. Neither of them spoke the rest of the way.

    Outside her little block in Kapenga Avenue he said hoarsely: “I just wanna say one thing. And I want you to promise me you’ll think about it.”

    “All right.”

    Sol chewed on his lip. “Sometimes thinking you hate a person who’s let you down is an indication that you love them a lot, Michaela. Just—just think about it, huh?”

    “Yes. Can I go now?”

    “Yeah. Goodnight, Michaela.”

    He guessed a gentleman woulda stayed to make sure she got safely inside—or even that she had her key. He found he wasn’t capable of that—one more of the things he shoulda been but he wasn’t. He drove off hurriedly, not looking back.

    Well, look forward to Wednesday? he thought, round about halfway between the Hardings’ turnoff and Carter’s Bay. Uh—well, no, actually; make it Tuesday, because during the week first Susan had called him to invite him to this year’s Christmas in July party, Tuesday, next Allyson had called him to make sure he was coming to the Christmas in July party, after her Jemima had called him to make sure he was coming to the Christmas in July party, and after her June had called him to make sure he was coming to the Christmas in July party, and last but not least John Aitken had called him to make sure he was coming to the Christmas in July party. After which, when first Ida and then Gracie had ascertained he hadn’t forgotten it was the Christmas in July party, Tuesday, he had kinda gotten the point, you could say, that it wasn’t so much that everybody wanted the pleasure of his company—though of course they must do; or that everybody wanted to cheer up S. Winkelmann in the middle of the store’s slow season—though of course they must do; or even that they was lookin’ forward to the American salad he’d promised Jemima he’d make—though of course they must be. Nup, it was more that they had an ulterior motive. And whether they was intendin’ to drag Michaela along to it handcuffed to just one of ’em, or hitched up to a pair of ’em, or jostle her along in the middle of the whole danged bunch of them, he didn’t know. But he wouldn’ta taken a bet she wouldn’t be there. The poor darling.

    Sol found he was laughing so much he had to pull in to the side of the highway. Then he found he had to blow his nose very hard.

    Oh, well, keep on pluggin’ on, huh?

Next chapter:

https://theamericanrefugeeanovel.blogspot.com/2022/10/further-bulletins-from-coal-face.html