28
“Through Bush, Through Brake, Through Brier”
Headmistresses of course didn’t get free periods but Phoebe had awarded herself one anyway. Largely in order to get away from Yvonne’s and Ellen’s Nth re-telling of the Opening Night of A Midsummer Night’s Nightmare saga. And how Pete Chong had got tickets for that Phoebe would like to know: as far as she was aware the entire audience had been composed of, on the one hand, the student actors’ mums and dads, and, on the other, wealthy bigwigs such as the Carranos and that bloody film director who’d come out here some time after Adam (Legs) McIntyre, whether in pursuit of the actor to do some bloody film rôle or not no-one seemed to know, the which didn’t stop Metro and the Listener for one instant. Meg had reported that Whatsername from Puriri who babysat the twins and Connie sometimes after school reported that it didn’t stop The New Zealand Woman’s Weekly, either, but Phoebe had informed her that that was definitely not a Need To Know.
She had then compounded the crime by reminding Meg tactfully of the very much reduced fees at St Ursie’s Junior School for offspring of teachers and had duly been informed bitterly that that still wasn’t gonna pay for the twins’ shoes, and Meg had made up her mind that she’d send Connie to Maungakiekie Street with Bill for a couple of years and then Puriri Primary like all the rest of the local kids. She had got rather loud, so Phoebe hadn’t pointed out she’d only said it as part of her headmistressly duty: if Meg couldn’t see that by this time there was no hope for her. And Heaven help her if she ever applied for any sort of post involving administrative responsibilities and asked her, Phoebe, for a reference! She hadn’t pointed that out either, Meg would put it down to spite instead of headmistressly duty. And they wondered why there were so few women in the upper echelons of anything you cared to name! Well, some of ‘em wondered, Phoebe no longer did.
Phoebe hadn’t yet seen the play, but she was due to this week. Although, as Yvonne and Ellen had not forborne to remind her, this week it wasn’t the well-known Overseas actress Miss Livia Wentworth as Titania, it was an understudy. Apparently they had never seized the significance of the term of address “Miss” as applied to ageing has-beens and never-wases d’un certain âge—no matter how curved the bod or rouged the tits. The which Phoebe’s spies reliably informed her that Miss Wentworth’s had been in that English soapie that apparently the entire country bar Phoebe Fothergill had been glued to last year. Or possibly the year before.
Well, she could chalk that one right up in her hall of fame: yes, sir, right next to never having seen The Sound of Music. Uh-uh. Never. Laura maintained it was worth seeing for the expression of exquisite discomfort worn by Christopher Plummer throughout, which Jim maintained was due to the cripplingly short-in-the-crotch Austrian country gent’s trou he’d had to wear throughout, apart from one brief, glorious scene where he’d had to wear even more crippling Austrian leather strudel-whatsits with googelflaps. The scene where he’d had to stand on a box to bring him up to Julie Andrews’s height even in flats was good, too, Jim maintained.
Phoebe didn’t take the car for her “free period,” it was a bore looking for a park: she hopped on a bus and was born away to Remmers shops.
Remmers shops, though nayce, were not anything like as good as the downtown Sydney shops, where Phoebe had shopped quite recently, nor anything like the Double Bay shops where Phoebe had merely rubbernecked, not being under the illusion that she was in the same class as such as Polly Carrano, quite recently. The trip to Sydney had been occasioned by an educationists’ conference and yes, she had asked S. Winkelmann to accompany her thither, but amazingly, he had refused. True, it was his store’s busy time of year and true, Phoebe had made the mistake of insulting his manhood, or whatever it was that ladies insulted when they offered to pay a bloke’s fare under the illusion that this was a relationship of equals, but— Well, never mind. Forget it. Let’s concentrate on Remmers shops. And too bad if Louise is expecting the boss to reappear before the Bell for End of School!
After some time of concentrating on Remmers shops, during which period she bought a bottle of French scent that was far too richly suggestive for day wear, not to say most evening occasions of the sort the headmistress of St Ursula’s got invited to, a tablet of very nayce English soap that was going to live in her purse for the horrible occasions on which she found herself stranded up at Kingfisher Marina having to use the stuff he had in his staff bog, and a hand-plaited leather belt which there was little hope of his wearing in his jeans even though the salesperson assured her it was suitable for jeans, Phoebe decided that the real reason she was feeling so ratty had nothing to do with Midsummer Nights’ Nightmares even as recounted by Yvonne and Ellen (that was, interminably), and everything to do with the fact that she’d only grabbed a sandwich for lunch, and was damned hungry. So she plunged down an arcade, trying not to breathe in its sweltering humidity, dodged round several corners into even more sweltering humidity and finally, at the end of the arcade, sighted it: Mecca! It wasn’t called Mecca, but something much more Up-Market and Today, but Phoebe always thought of it as Mecca, it was air-conditioned. She plunged into it and allowed herself to breathe…
It featured a lot of palm trees (well, suitable), though also a lot of functionless trellising and palest pinkish-grey walls and carpets. And a lot of glass which gave you an uninterrupted view of a high brick wall and people hurrying up and down the short-cut to the carpark. However, they were learning, they were learning: Phoebe knew of only two other coffee bars in the entire metropolitan sprawl which were air-conditioned. And she had investigated everything above the level of the milk-bar, in her time. Desperately seeking air conditioning: quite.
Once she’d queued for her food, had had the tray taken off her by a middle-aged waitress in a garment which rivalled the lady customers’ for flashy style, if slightly veiled by a minute pinkish-grey scalloped apron, had sunk onto a small round-bottomed pinkish-grey chair with black wrought-iron legs of incredible spindliness, had downed her chilled orange juice and was at the point of cautiously tasting the cappuccino, though not in the hope that it wouldn’t be dreadful, Phoebe at last found the strength to look about her.
At this point she realised that the eyes of the entire clientèle, of the middle-aged waitress when not actually leading someone to a table in the opposite direction, of the two pinkish-greyish-clad women at the gâteau counter when not actually slicing and helping, and of the girl at the cash register when not actually counting someone’s money, were rivetted on a table beyond that large palm over there. Phoebe could see a portion of a male back with black hair atop it, and a sort of shadowy something in the shadow of the palm, that was his table companion. A male back in a pale blue shirt didn’t seem all that exciting to her; now, if you wanted male exciting, the legs of Legs McIntyre would— Oh. Of course! Silly her. Must be. According to Metro the actor had black hair which was entirely natural in colour in spite of the fact that he was well into his thirties. Well into. (Phoebe’s stress.) Entirely natural like Ronnie Reagan’s, she presumed.
Phoebe didn’t stare; for one thing she couldn’t see much, and for another she, apparently alone of those present, had been brung up nayce. Instead she concentrated on guessing which of the clients would be first to get up and ask for his autograph. Finally she settled for the most excited looker, nudger and whisperer, an ageing at a guess ex-Revlon demonstrator, in a wide-shouldered floral orange draped thing of surpassing hideousness. Which clashed with the gelled mahogany quiff in a surpassingly hideous way. So much so that you barely noticed that the earrings were almost the size of the head. To her tremendous gratification this female did totter excitedly to her inhumanly high heels before she, Phoebe, was even halfway through her quiche and salad. (Never mind that it was afternoon tea-time: one of the nicest features of Mecca was that they didn’t blink if you had lunch at afternoon tea-time, or vice versa, come to that.)
Adam McIntyre responded to the breathless, giggling, gasping request with a low-pitched but extremely audible: “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t give autographs in my private life.”
Phoebe Fothergill gulped. And not merely because his deep voice went right through yer average red-blooded female of that gender. Besides, she knew about the voice, she’d seen him in one or two not-too-bad BBC serial things on the box.
The ex-Revlon demonstrator retired, red and discomforted, collected her blue-and-puce-garbed table companion, and they both disappeared. The assembled company continued to rubberneck, but they did appear marginally discomforted and most of ’em did appear to be trying to do it unobtrusively. Adam McIntyre fifty, local rubberneckers nil, thought Phoebe, eating salad with a pleased expression.
She had just about finished the salad when the deep voice said with a laugh in it: “No, let me! I know the difference between dollars and sixpences, now!” And a tenor voice that Phoebe knew only too well replied: “Nonsense, dear soul, one must spend it, in one’s tax bracket, or risk having it gather taxable interest.” And Ralph Overdale emerged from behind the palm tree and went over to the counter and asked for two more cappuccinos.
He spotted Phoebe when he turned round with the coffees in his fists. “Darling! What a surprize!” he cooed, swanning over to her. Grey silk, impeccably draped and cut, very pale grey silk shirt to toh-yern, exquisite dark maroonish Paisley tie and tiny, very dark red rose in the buttonhole to toh-yern, noted Phoebe grimly. The socks would be either grey or very dark maroon but she for one wasn’t gonna give him the pleasure of looking to see.
“So this is one of your haunts, then?” he added, leering, while the assembled multitude watched and listened avidly.
“Not haunt: Mecca,” said Phoebe shortly.
“Ah! Egg-nishning,” he recognized.
Phoebe didn’t reply, even though that bloody book had been her bloody generation, and in fact she could have quoted just about its every syllable, from Gloria Soames to— Never mind.
“Come and say hullo to my exotic new friend,” he suggested.
Phoebe was quite aware he was waiting for her to comment on the “exotic”, at which point, she had no doubt whatsoever, he would explain he was applying it in the botanical sense only.
“Go away, Ralph, you’re making me conspicuous,” she returned grimly.
“No, no! I wish to make you conspicuous by introducing you to my new friend, true; but at the moment I am merely making you remarked.”
“Shove off.”
Ralph looked hard at her plate, on which the remaining radicchio lettuce leaf in no wise either compensated for or indeed hid the smears of potato salad, and said: “Afternoon tea, I see.”
“Lunch. Shove off.”
“Phoebe, this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance!” he said urgently.
“Where have I heard that before?” she wondered grimly.
Ralph’s shoulders shook infinitesimally. “No, do come, he’ll think you think he’s not nice to be seen with if you don’t,” he murmured.
“Rats.”
“True: he’s like that,” he murmured with a little smile.
Phoebe took a deep, grim breath. She could sit here arguing with him about Adam McIntyre’s sensibilities for some appreciable time, or she could give in. And under the gaze of the assembled multitude— Besides, she wasn’t actually averse to meeting an Overseas Fillum Star In Person—even if, as Metro earnestly assured her, he was “New Zealand born” and his parents were an ordinary couple who lived at “Kohwai Bay”. –The glossy rag’s spelling tended to be like that: reminded one irresistibly of The Grauniad in its heyday, but unfortunately its level of English composition didn’t. Nor did its record in journalistic accuracy: Phoebe’s more academic spies reliably informed her that his father was a retired Cambridge physicist of extreme eminence.
She got up and said: “All right.”
“So gracious!” he sighed. He led her behind the palm and said with a smile: “Phoebe, may I present Adam McIntyre? Adam, this is Phoebe Fothergill, an ancienne amie.”
Adam McIntyre got up. Unfortunately he was wearing white cotton slacks, rather loose over the hips and gathered in tightly at the waist and loose-ish in the leg, not tights. He smiled the famous slightly lop-sided, slightly elfin smile that still managed to be in-cred-ib-ly male—Phoebe was fascinated to find it really was, in the flesh—and said: “How do you do, Phoebe? Lovely to meet you. Do solace my soul by telling me Ralph’s French is better than I thought it was and assuring me he really means ancienne copine, won’t you?”
To her fury Phoebe Fothergill felt herself blush like one of her own gels. Although her spoken French was quite creditable—well, enough to get her through the odd multilingual educationists’ conference—she found she didn’t have the guts to produce it at this moment. She merely replied: “It’s nice to meet you, Adam,”—registering that he’d used her first name a-purpose, to give her a hint it was okay to use his, which made two of ’em in the room that had been brung up nayce, and added on a sour note: “I wish I could solace your soul but at least I can assure you it’s very ancient history.” –With a savage look at Ralph.
Ralph, as she might have expected, sniggered and said coolly, dumping the coffees: “I’ll fetch your lovely gâteau, shall I, darling? Can’t let her eat alone in a joint like this, can we, Adam? Oh, by the way, do ask her why she calls it Mecca,” and swanned off.
“Would it be better or worse if I joined you?” said Phoebe grimly to the famous film star.
He smiled the smile again and said: “Better for me, I do assure you. But can you bear it? We’re waiting for Georgy, and Ralph’s terribly peeved because I’ve refused to let him drive all the way into town from Willow Grove to collect us after the show tonight.”
Very nearly half of this speech was Greek to Phoebe. Most certainly the key words. “Oh,” she said limply, sinking onto the chair he was holding for her. –God, if only someone would video this, bloody Simpkins and Chong were never gonna believe it!
“What is it?” he said with a quizzical look.
Phoebe had seen him do that in one of those BBC efforts and try as she might to stop them, every fibre of her being vibrated as he did it. “Uh—I was just wishing someone would videotape this, no-one at School’s going to believe a word of it; two of them went to your Opening Night,” she explained lamely.
“You teach, do you?” he said politely, crinkling the eyes.
Honestly, she might just as well holler “Stop, stop!” now, or else go off in a swoon where she sat, because it was obviously not gonna get better. To put it entirely infelicitously.
“My dear fellow, she’s a headmistress!” said Ralph in shocked tones, setting Phoebe’s chunk of cream-and-passionfruit-laden gâteau down before them.—McIntyre looked at it with interest, whilst Phoebe cringed.—“I do admit it scarcely shows, especially not today: darling, you smell scrumplicious!” he added, inserting his horrible form onto the chair at her other, or McIntyre-less, side.
“What? Oh! I’ve been buying scent.”
“Ooh, let me guess!”
“Joy de Jean Patou,” said McIntyre.
Ralph pouted. “No, no!”
“Close,” replied Phoebe temperately.
“Something classic,” pronounced Ralph after Deep Thort.
“Not Chanel Numéro Cinq?” said McIntyre to Phoebe.
“NO!” cried Ralph scornfully.
“Just leave me out of it,” Phoebe advised the actor.
He grinned in what was apparently an unaffected manner, but Phoebe couldn’t help wondering if it was his unaffected grin to assorted obscure colonials.
“Not Arpège, at all events,” he decided.
“‘Promettez-lui n’importe quoi, mais—’” Ralph gave Phoebe a mocking look. “No, goes sour on her skin.”
“He offrayed it to me once,” she explained grimly.
“Silly fellow,” drawled the actor, shooting Ralph a malicious look from under drooping lids. Not to say from under the thick, curled black lashes. Phoebe’s spies—well, extensive reading of the smaller but still glossy ads in the glossy mags in her G.P.’s waiting room—informed her that you could actually buy things for curling the lashes, and she couldn’t help wondering... And well, well, well: the famous Adam McIntyre, new friend or not, didn’t appear actually to be all that enamoured of Sir R., if that look was any indication!
They went on arguing, too loudly for Phoebe’s comfort, about the scent she’d sprayed herself with, and one reason at least for the film star’s lack of keenness in re R. Overdale, F.R.C.S., Kindly Call Me God, was pretty soon elucidated, because suddenly a soprano voice said loudly and crossly: “You’re not arguing about scent again, are you?”
And they both immediately shot to their feet as if galvanized and began competing terrifically over a pretty, slim, red-haired girl of... not quite as young as her clothes indicated, was Phoebe’s guess. The clothes indicated about twenty, being comprised of tight stretch jeans and a pretty pale green broderie Anglaise blouse, but Phoebe’s guess was... mid-twenties? This girl was, of course, the “Georgy” to whom Adam had earlier referred.
Once Phoebe had fought her way through the male courting displays she gathered that Georgy Harris, besides being Adam’s girlfriend, lectured in Anglo-Saxon at the university and was the understudy who was playing Titania this week. And they were living in one of the units at ruddy Willow Grove, that explained it! Jesus, they’d never hear the last— Well, fortunately she wouldn’t be in Ralph’s vicinity to never hear the last of it, Phoebe reminded herself with a sort of grim pleasure.
Georgy, besides being very pretty, was manifestly very shy and very incapable of handling jerks like Ralph Overdale, so Phoebe was hardly surprized to see McIntyre’s courting display take on a distinctly uxorious and protective shade. Ralph’s remained leeringly flattering combined with jolly-chummish combined with wistful-longing-of-older-man, in short it made Phoebe want to spew violently. She barely managed to get through her gâteau.
Georgy must genuinely have been a nice person, not to say genuine: she wasn’t on a diet and happily ate up an even huger helping of gâteau, explaining cheerfully to Phoebe that she’d get butterflies later on, so she’d decided to have a nice afternoon tea. Then after the show they usually had supper, didn’t they, Adam? He agreed, adding if it was of their making it was usually bread and cheese, or, if they’d got very daring, cheese on toast. Not done under the grill, but in Mrs Mayhew’s sandwich griller.
“Mrs Mayhew is their landlady. At present in the great Offshore. I explained what it was,” explained Ralph with a sort of horrible unctuous chumminess.
“Oh,” said Phoebe weakly, since Georgy was looking at her with an expectant smile. “Did you?”
“And of course,” finished McIntyre with the lovely smile, “if we’re lucky enough to be invited to Ralph’s, we have something both exquisite and sustaining!”
“Honey and condensed milk on toast,” noted Phoebe drily.
Georgy gave an ecstatic squeak and Adam grinned. Ralph had just opened his mouth pleasedly, quite undoubtedly in order to describe what gourmet delights he fed them on. He shut it again, looking foolish. Phoebe awarded him a sneering smile.
McIntyre then said thoughtfully, returning to the last subject but fourteen: “Le Dix de Balenciaga,”
“Not exactly,” replied Phoebe smoothly.
“Damn, I thought I—” The look on her face registered. “What?”
“You’re nearly right, Adam—I mean, you’ve been right twice. I tried two, it’s a mixture of Joy and Le Dix!” she choked.
“That’s cheating!” cried Ralph crossly.
“Only if you’d told her what the rules were before you started, Ralph!” squeaked Georgy ecstatically.
Ralph made a face. “No. –Never had to do that, did I, Phoebe?” he added casually.
“Shut up.” She looked at her watch and admitted: “I’ve got to get back to School, or Louise—that’s my secretary,” she explained to the other two—“will be sending out a posse.”
Georgy asked politely which school and was duly impressed, and added she knew a Dickon Fothergill at the university who did marine biology. Phoebe admitted it was her relation, and mentioned she never saw Georgy at the University Women’s Association. Georgy got very red and flustered and admitted she didn’t belong.
“Not interested in belonging to a thing full of University Women, gets enough of that in her working day,” explained Ralph. He gave the unfortunate girl a horrible leer and added: “Too femmy-nine.”
Adam looked furious and Georgy went very red.
“Shut up,” said Phoebe, glaring. “It’s been lovely meeting you both, but I really must—”
“Wait,” sighed Ralph. “Tickets for the show?” he said to McIntyre, raising his eyebrows.
“Of course! We can—”
“No, I’m going tomorrow,” said Phoebe hurriedly.
“Good, you’ll see Georgy,” said the actor, handsome face all simple pleasure. Phoebe was pretty bloody sure it was simple pleasure, too. Shit. How was that gonna work out: unworldly little Anglo-Saxon lecturer from Godzone, and Famous Overseas Fillum Star? “New Zealand born” or not.
Ralph then ascertained that Phoebe didn’t have her car and dragged himself away from Georgy’s vicinity in order to force her to accept a lift.
Phoebe gratified his expectations by not saying a word until she was in the car. Then she fastened her seatbelt carefully and said, not looking at him: “Another Schwärm, Ralph? Red-headed again, I see.”
“Darling! The very word! I shall adopt it instantly!”
“Just drive,” said Phoebe tiredly.
Ralph drove. He pulled up near the bottom of the school drive and said: “Are you going to the Dream with the Yank?”
“Yes.”
“Ah; well, you at least will appreciate little Georgy. Not only is she delicious: she really can act. And she and Adam, dare I say it, strike sparks off each other.”
“Go up to the front door,” returned Phoebe in a grumpy voice.
“I may attend, myself,” he said airily.
“Go up to the front door!”
“I have already seen Georgy’s performance—though please don’t mention that to Polly Carrano, should you happen to bump into her, she’s invited me, under the impression that I haven’t—but—”
“Go up to the front DOOR, RALPH!” howled Phoebe.
Ralph let the clutch in. “It’s later than we thunk, isn’t it?” he observed, looking airily at the empty drive.
At this Phoebe so far lowered herself, what with incredibly luscious and tantalisingly out-of-reach overseas fillum stars and not being in her mid-twenties just finished her degree with clouds of dark auburn hair and a figure like a sylph and an incredibly luscious boyfriend, not to mention all the calories in that bloody cream-laden gâteau, as to say through her teeth: “It certainly is for you, mate.”
Ralph drove gently on up to the front door, shoulders shaking.
The morrow was the Friday, and dawned sparklingly clear. Even the humidity had dropped noticeably, as they were now well into March. Take it for all in all, it was a splendid day on which to be planning to attend a student outdoor Shakespeare production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream featuring Adam (Legs) McIntyre in tights.
Unfortunately it was also a splendid day on which to plumb in the S. Winkelmann upstairs bog. He rang Phoebe at five-fifteen, just when she was at the point of wondering whether it was worthwhile panicking yet, as he’d been supposed to pick her up from School half an hour since.
“What?” she cried. “At this hour?”
Sol said weakly: “I’m real sorry, Phoebe, but Lame’s doing me a favour fitting me in today, and—”
“You have to be there to supervise, of course,” she said grimly.
“Nuh— Uh, well, I promised I’d give him a hand, see, and—uh—he hasn’t brought his boy, we kinda had an agreement he’d give me cut rates if I gave him a hand,” he said in a lowered voice.
“Why are you speaking in a lowered voice: afraid of shocking the male peer group by revealing that you have to explain yourself to a mere female?” said Phoebe coldly.
“You got it,” he said miserably.
There was a short pause.
“Well, if you can’t make it for dinner, can you make it in time for the show, at least? It doesn’t start until eight, that gives you—”
“I’d have to leave just after six,” he reminded her.
Oh, so he would, yes. “Forget it,” she said grimly.
“Phoebe, I’m real sorry, honey,” he said miserably—but in a lowered voice.
“Oh, of course!”
“Well, gee, you’re the one that’s so keen on having an upstairs toilet—”
“I’d advise you to think before you make statements like that, Winkelmann,” said Phoebe in a hard voice.
“Phoebe—”
“Look, if you can’t stand up to the male peer group and point out you’ve got a longstanding previous engagement, that’s your problem. Just don’t shove that load of unacknowledged guilt that you can’t cope with off onto ME!” said Phoebe loudly, hanging up. Loudly.
Sol muttered: “Shit,” and went off sadly to help Lame Higgins. It was gonna be a long job, all rightee, because like the position where Phoebe had wanted it didn’t have much load-bearin’ capacity, see, and— Oh, Jesus. No, He was a carpenter, He wouldn’t be of much help—well, might help strengthen that floor/ceiling some— Oh, Hell and damn!
He knew Phoebe was right in every word she’d uttered, but that didn’t make him feel any better. And he also knew that if he’d sent Lame Higgins away the plumber would have been mortally offended, for of course it was true his order book was full, every plumber in the country, no, what was he thinking, the entire civilized world, had a full order book, and Lame was most certainly doing Sol a great favour by fitting him in after-hours on a Friday evening. And what was more, he knew that Phoebe must know this, and know also that if she wanted an upstairs toilet put in any time this year, Sol had had to grab Lame Higgins while he could. But that didn’t make him feel any better, either. Gee, why couldn’t she... compromise, or something! Jesus!
Phoebe stomped around her study breathing fire and brimstone for a while. Then it occurred to her to look at her watch. If Sol had only just rung her up... Well, what time had the bloody plumber ARRIVED? Christ! At the back of her mind a small and sensible voice was pointing out that Sol had undoubtedly hoped at the time Lame Higgins had arrived that the job would be finished in time for him to hurry into town. But she wasn’t in any mood to listen to that sort of small, sensible voice. Damn the man!
... Sod it, that was a wasted ticket, then. Who the Hell could she ask? Yvonne and Ellen, of course, had seen the bloody thing, and she wouldn’t give either of them the pleasure of knowing she’d been stood up, in any case. Louise? Phoebe made a face. She supposed she ought to, Louise didn’t get out much, because Cliff Churton didn’t like going out in the evenings. He was only around fifty-five or so, but as Phoebe was very clearly aware, this was an extremely common syndrome amongst married Kiwi males. Giving into it was an extremely common syndrome amongst married Kiwi females, of course, and at the moment Phoebe somehow didn’t feel all that charitable towards Louise’s spinelessness in re Cliff Churton’s bloody selfish whims and fancies. Besides, she didn’t all that much want Louise to know she’d been stood up, either. Though Louise, having been more than thoroughly indoctrinated by Cliff, would of course recognize that macho plumbing sessions Must Come First... No.
Phoebe wandered down to the staffroom, though without hope: gone five on a Friday? No chance.
“Hullo, Meg!” she said with a startled laugh.
Meg had just put the phone down. “Hi,” she said glumly.
“What’s up?”
“I stayed late to get that ruddy marking done because the twins have got a bloody school swimming pageant on Saturday and a bloody tennis tournament on Sunday and I promised I’d go,” she explained sourly. “And I’ve been ringing home for the last hour to try and get hold of Bill, and first no-one was home at all, and now Roger’s just informed me that the bugger’s taken them all down to the Brown’s Bay McDonald’s for a bloody nosh-up!”
“Why didn’t he go, too?” asked Phoebe in astonishment.
“Glued to that flaming computer of his.”
“I see. Well, you’re tied up to a nong that shoots off with assorted twins and Connies to chuck his moolah away on junk food, leaving you in the lurch miles from home on a Fridee night, and I’m mixed up with a macho twat that prefers plumbing in bloody upstairs toilets to civilized dinners in town followed by Adam McIntyre’s legs in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: you wanna use my spare ticket?”
Meg’s face lit up like Christmas, birthday and Guy Fawkes all rolled into one: poor little cow. “Could I really?” she cried. “Everyone’s been to it, except me!”
“Me and thee,” corrected Phoebe, grinning. “Yeah: come on.”
“Ooh, thanks, Phoebe!” she cried.
Then there was a short pause. They were both looking at the phone.
“I’d better,” decided Meg weakly.
“Well, I can’t take it: I’ll be in the car,” said Phoebe drily, going out.
In the car Meg said on a nervous note: “Um—Phoebe?”
“Mm?”
“Um—what about tea?” said Meg in a small voice.
“Females don’t need to eat, it’s a well-known fact of basic human biology that only macho males need regular feeding in order to maintain life.”
“Yes!” Meg agreed with a nervous giggle. “No, but, um, seriously?”
Phoebe glanced at her watch. “I have got a booking at The Golden Lamb—”
“Really?” she cried, all lit up again. “Oh, help, isn’t it awfully expensive, though?” she gasped, opening her handbag.
“Stop it, you fool, it’s on me. But first we’ll go home and have a civilized shower and a civilized gin and tonic, okay?”
“Lovely,” said Meg with a sigh, leaning back in her seat.
Of course Meg had never been to The Golden Lamb. She expressed a wistful wish that she had something clean to change into after the shower, but with the best will in the world her size 10 couldn’t look anything less than ridiculous inside any of Phoebe’s size 16s. Even the one or two loosely cut 14s in Phoebe’s wardrobe looked ridiculous on her. So she just wore her linen-look pale blue skirt and polyester modestly floral blue and white blouse with the lowish-heeled white sandals and white summer handbag she used on school days (and, Phoebe was under no illusion, undoubtedly on any other summer day, too).
And since tiered wooden benches, splintery and, in the upper tiers, bloody scary, were a feature of university outdoor Shakespeare productions, Phoebe wore a pair of tapered black cotton slacks and a simple silk blouse in a deep apricot. Adding a chunky gold necklet and matching chunky gold earrings as a concession to The Golden Lamb. She very kindly found Meg a smaller pair of earrings, so Meg felt quite dressed up after all, and informed her cheerfully of the fact.
Meg’s pleasure in The Golden Lamb’s tasteless décor and awful cocktails and third-rate wine and peculiar food was so evident and innocent and unaffected that by halfway through the main course Phoebe had cheered up a lot and was quite prepared to enjoy the evening after all.
Which they duly did. Adam McIntyre in spangled tights—first green, then gold, then black and silver, they noted with bolting eyes—was all that and indeed more than Phoebe had expected. Meg was so struck when he first came on that her mouth remained open throughout the rest of the scene, so there was need to worry whether she was enjoying herself. Georgy Harris as Titania was delightful, and the pair certainly struck sparks off each other; in fact both ladies were positively galvanized throughout their scenes, and judging by the breathless silences during and the thunderous applause after, so were the rest of the audience. The Bottom was one of the students, and he was very good. And the Puck was an overseas actor who was quite simply marvellous.
Take it for all in all, it was a perfectly splendid evening and little Meg, Phoebe noted tolerantly, was almost as thrilled by being ordered to stay over in town in Phoebe’s flat (on the divan in the sitting-room, there for that sort of purpose) as she had been by The Golden Lamb and the play itself. Oh, dear.
Phoebe went to bed feeling she ought to be bloody well counting her blessings. If Meg could get so much enjoyment out of… Instead, her main emotion was, she discovered uneasily, a feeling of guilty relief that she hadn’t had to sit through yet another evening of the S. Winkelmann chi-iking wisecracks. What the Hell was wrong with her? ...Pissed off because he’d stood her up, that was all. Yeah. Must be. Bruised little femmy-nine feelings. Phoebe made a face in the dark, turned over, and went resolutely to sleep.
Next morning Meg informed her ecstatically as they sat down to breakfast at the glass table before the full-length windows with their view of the harbour that it had been the most wonderful evening she’d ever spent. Phoebe smiled nicely and said she was very glad. And did Meg fancy pawpaw before her scrambled eggs and bacon?
Meg sighed deeply and said she could just fancy it, actually. Over the pawpaw she told Phoebe a long, maundering story about some bloody breakfast she’d had at the Carrano mansion—which Phoebe had a vague recollection of having heard before, it was all mixed up with Hawaiian luaus—but she just let her chatter on, smiling vaguely. And thinking guilty thoughts along the lines of: well, almost any sort of relationship with a male, no matter how rocky the rocky bits might be, was better than these bloody all-girls-together evenings, not to say breakfasts— God. And: poor old Sol, she had been a bit hard on him—and she shouldn’t really have given Meg his pawpaw—well, the pawpaw she’d bought for him. Still, it was very ripe, it wouldn’t have kept... She’d better give him a ring and say she was sorry about bawling him out yesterday...
“What?” she said, jumping,
Meg was rather pink. “I said, would it be all right if I phone Bill? Um—I mean, time’s getting on, and—um—I never rang him last night to explain that I was going to spend the night.”
Nor she had. “Ring away,” said Phoebe in amusement. “There’s the extension.”
Meg picked it up, looking awed, and rang.
… “He wasn’t worried,” she reported sourly. “He said he knew I’d be here.”
“Oh.”
They looked at each other.
“The bloody swimming thing starts at eleven,” said Meg weakly. “Only the twins have to be there before then, of course, to get ready.”
“And Bill has to take ’em. Yeah. Come on,” said Phoebe, grinning: “I’ll drive you up there.”
“You don’t have to,” said Meg weakly.
“Of course I have to, you clot! –And by the way, that was Sol’s pawpaw we just ate.”
There was a short pause. They looked at each other warily.
“I thought it might be,” admitted Meg, swallowing.
There was another pause.
“They’re buggers, aren’t they?” ventured Meg in a timid voice.
Phoebe grinned. “They are, an’ all. Did I tell you why he stood me up?”
“Um, something about the upstairs toilet?”
“Oh, well, that’s not the half of it! Not the bloody sixteenth, actually. Grab your things and I’ll tell you all about Mister Lame Higgins!” said Phoebe cordially.
In the car going up to Puriri she duly did. Plus a lot about the general macho iniquities of S. Winkelmann. Indeed, she told her a lot more than she thought she was doing, both about herself and the relationship—for Meg, of course, though slightly in awe of Phoebe, was not at all stupid.
“They’re all like that, Phoebe,” she said at the conclusion of the narrative. “You start off thinking yours is different, only after a bit you find out that was just, um, courting behaviour, or something.”
“Uh—yeah.”
“Unfortunately, it’s them or nothing,” noted Meg sourly.
Phoebe jumped slightly, “Uh—yeah!”
They looked at each other and laughed.
Phoebe duly dropped her off, and drove on steadily north towards Carter’s Bay. As she drove she was conscious of a very peculiar feeling indeed. Phoebe didn’t like peculiar feelings that she was unacquainted with; so she analysed it relentlessly. ...Good grief. She and Meg had been indulging in some sort of married-girls-together, female-peer-group thing, hadn’t they? ...Christ, yes. It only lacked the teacups and the bloody knitting, in fact. All the buggers were like that, were they? And we went all Mumsy and—blast it, yes—Parent-figure to their fucking adolescent half-arsed Child, did we? And enjoyed our flaming female superiority while we did it! Well, thanks but no thanks!
Phoebe drove on up to Kingfisher Bay with a crease in her wide forehead and her firm mouth a thin line. All soft thoughts of poor old Sol, eating his pawpaw and maybe she ought to apologize first, and such like, had been driven quite away. She didn’t pause to wonder why this should be so, or why she should be so annoyed at having discovered herself to have fallen into the standard Kiwi-female Mumsy trap, or why, apart from the obvious social conditioning, she had so fallen. Or, indeed, whether it mattered that she had.
Next chapter:
https://theamericanrefugeeanovel.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-cruellist-month.html
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