Waiting For The Other Shoe

37

Waiting For The Other Shoe

    Phoebe had enjoyed herself in Tasmania, inasmuch as the weather had been decent, and not too hot, unlike most of Australia during the Christmas holidays, and Joan had been very glad to see her and had driven her round to all the sights and seen to it that she sampled all the gourmet delights of the place. Nevertheless Phoebe had been gradually overcome by a sour feeling that she had now been definitely relegated to the ranks of the middle-aged and manless. She’d been what you could fairly have called verging on middle-aged for a while, now, and certainly officially manless all her life. Only somehow seeing Joan again, who was her age and her year at Training Coll, but who was not only much greyer than her but didn’t bother to do anything about it, and didn’t even bother with much of a hairdo, but just wore it short, cropped and obviously grey, and didn’t bother with make-up either except a smear of lipstick, and definitely didn’t do anything about her eyebrows, which always had been rather untidy, let alone about her skin, which was now looking distinctly weather-beaten, and who was very evidently perfectly happy with her circle of like-minded middle-aged spinsters and her little house and her little car and her—God help us—two cats— Seeing Joan again had brought it home to Phoebe that she definitely was.

    And touring round Tazzie in Joan’s little car with Joan had offered no opportunities whatsoever for picking up any eligibles that might have appeared on the horizon. Though admittedly Phoebe had known that there would be remarkably few of these in any case and that, given that it was the holiday period, those who might have looked as if they wouldn’t mind it if the opportunity arose would be firmly in the bosoms of their families. Not to mention those, far more common on both sides of the Tasman, who would look as if they definitely wouldn’t mind it but then run a mile if you gave them even the mildest hint of a come-on. The male equivalent of cock-teasers, you could fairly have said: yeah.

    Phoebe came back Business Class, but that didn’t produce anything, either: she was stuck next to a very young yuppie who spent most of the trip importantly playing with his laptop.

    Back home, the flat looked as pleasantly welcoming as ever but instead of the usual feeling of relief she experienced at being able to crawl back into her own hole after visits with well-meaning female friends, she found herself experiencing a feeling of loathing. Hell. Well, maybe she should look around for something different? Larger: perhaps with a spare bedroom and a garden? …Only if she had a spare bedroom female friends would inevitably foist themselves on her. It was bad enough having the occasional one who didn’t mind the divan, but— Ugh. No. Well, a garden? She didn’t know anything about gardening: even pot-plants died for her; in fact even the indefatigable Louise had given up foisting pot-plants on her for birthdays and Christmas. …Could redecorate? It had been enough of a struggle getting the place the way she wanted it—or the way she’d thought she wanted it. Phoebe looked bitterly at her sofa and divan and thought of what it had cost to have them re-covered, and glanced at her big burnt-orange chair and winced and tried not to think of what it had cost have that re-covered in that. Then she glared at the not-Persian rugs and found herself remembering what bloody Ralph had said about that one that she would have sworn—indeed, if her memory served her correctly, had sworn—was gen-yew-wine... Bugger.

    A house? Nice little villa in a nice GZ suburb? –Grow up, Phoebe, and stop fucking well nesting, she told herself sourly, mooching over to the picture window and glaring at the grey view of the harbour on a humid, muggy day. What the fuck would she do with a three-bedroomed wooden villa in a Grammar Zone suburb? Besides, GZ-suburb villas were at a premium these days, probably have to pay something like $600,000 for it. And she’d have to get someone in to do the garden and the someone would undoubtedly be unreliable—and would her Mrs Mop, that it had taken her two and a half years to find, want to travel as far as a GZ suburb—well, a different GZ suburb to the one the flat was actually in and where Phoebe could definitely not afford to buy a house? No, she wouldn’t: she had her little group of customers all within a certain radius... Bum.

    … She would not ring Ralph. Definitely not. No. Sod him.

    Phoebe picked up the phone and rang Ralph. The phone informed her that she could leave a message after the tone. Well, sod him, anyway! She hung up without leaving a message.

    Next day she went into Remmers and defiantly looked in land agents’ windows. God! Then she drove over to Mount Eden and looked in land agents’ windows there. God, again. Well, not quite so much, but— WHAT? For that? Weakly Phoebe went inside and asked to look at that.

    The land agent, after the manner of his kind, showed her three architectural horrors before taking her to that. The owners were out, which was just as well, because they might not have liked the look on Phoebe’s face at the spectacle of the pale puce and pale lilac Nineties Dinky they’d done it out in.

    “You could redecorate,” said the land agent helpfully.

    “Yes, after spending ten years of my life researching the original mouldings and doors—what in Christ have they done to the doors?” she croaked.

    He thought they’d replaced them with modern doors—laminated.

    “Haven’t you got any villas on your books that haven’t been done out in Nineties Dinky?” croaked Phoebe.

    He blinked. “Restored villas, you mean, Mrs Fothergill?”

    “‘Miss’,” said Phoebe heavily, though recognizing that his eagerness to show her anything would immediately evaporate like the dew: unwed females definitely didn’t have the money for up-market GZ-suburb properties. And not even for properties just on the wrong side of the tracks from the Grammar Zone, which was what half of his properties were.

    Sure enough, he drove her to the wrong side of the tracks and showed her a scungy flat. Or tried to. “I’m not interested in scunge,” said Phoebe, not getting out of the car. “Would you take me back to my car, please? I think I might go back to Remuera.”

    She went on back to Remmers and, to spite the Mount Eden idiot, allowed herself to be shown in the most avuncular manner imaginable by a blue-haired dead ringer for John Westby around several mansions that she couldn’t have afforded without robbing a bank. They ended up at The Pines. Not a million miles from Mount Eden shops, so sucks.

    “No, I get vertigo,” said Phoebe regretfully, after goggling at the view from fairly high up in The Pines.

    They drove back sadly to Remmers and on the way Phoebe made the awful mistake of mentioning where her flat was and that she was thinking of— That much? she croaked. Could she really? Of course: an excellent location and in fact he had had an enquiry not long ago from someone who was very interested in that block! Phoebe hadn’t realized that Someones went round coveting her block: after all, it was a pretty old block. She had to swallow. After a minute she said: “Of course, it’s terribly handy to School, for me.”

    “Of course, Miss Fothergill!” he beamed.

    Chalk one up to Remmers Blue-Rinse, he obviously knew who she was, thought Phoebe, refraining with an effort from preening.

    Blue-Rinse then took her for a lovely drive round the suburbs nearest School. Some of the houses they looked at were bloody ordinary and although with the sale of the flat she could have afforded them, Phoebe found she hated them all. The ones she really liked, with lovely old trees and well-established gardens, were not for sale. And mostly had at least four bedrooms, by the look of them. True, as Blue-Rinse had already pointed out, she’d need a study; but… She thanked him fervently as he took her back to her car. He assured her they’d be delighted to put her flat on their books. Phoebe was sure they would. She said she’d think seriously about it, and tottered off to Mecca’s air conditioning.

    ... Cor: that much? Strewth. The trouble was, it was so bloody handy to School, though.

    Phoebe ate quiche with mushroom salad in Mecca’s air conditioning, avoiding the potato salad and the gateaux alike in the wake of the gourmet delights of Tazzie, frowning to herself and wondering whether she should, really. Only, if she sold the place and then couldn’t find another that she liked half as well...

    She was unaware that at a table by the window, Helen Weintraub had turned first very red and then rather pale and had quietly gathered up her new Gucci handbag (Nat’s Christmas present, he was still in the throes of guilt after more than a year) and departed with it, leaving most of her cappuccino and a whole asparagus roll. Helen had, after six very painful weeks, forgiven Nat, but that didn’t mean she could bear to stay in the same room with that husband-stealer! And it had been a very long time before she could bring herself to go over to Jemima’s and Tom’s place again. Though it would be true to say that with the arrival of Baby Dirk that feeling had evaporated completely.

    After three more unsettled days, Phoebe got a letter from a professional acquaintance in Sydney asking her to contribute a chapter to a book he was editing. Something on all-girls schools and female stereotyping: something along the lines of that paper she’d read at the conference last year...? The whole book, judging by its working title, would be sheer tripe. Phoebe made a horrible face. Then she wandered about the flat fiddling with things. Odd phrases flitted through her mind...

    Then she sat down at her computer and began eagerly to write.

    “How is she, Louise?” asked Meg cautiously. She’d given in and gone over to School even though the academic year wasn’t due to start for just over a week, yet, in order to see if the timetables were available—or, as it were, to get away from Bill’s interminable whingeing about the imminence of the new academic year and the fact that his summer sports timetables were all buggered up because Sue McFarlane was insisting on coaching boys’ basketball as well as girls’ netball and apart from the fact that she couldn’t be out on the single netball court and in the hall at the same time, the boys would inevitably refuse to sign up for basketball if a female was going to be coaching it. Meg had made the mistake of pointing out that in her day basketball had been a girls’ game and adding she didn’t see what the fuss was about: couldn’t they all play together?

    Louise’s first loyalty, of course, was to her Headmistress, and gossip with staff came a long way after it, but— After all, Meg was all right! She glanced cautiously at Phoebe’s closed door and murmured: “She’s writing a new thing. For some Australian book, or something.”

    “Oh,” said Meg blankly.

    “She’s all fired up about it. And now she’s talking about doing that Ph.D. that she was thinking about yonks back,” confided Louise.

    “Oh,” said Meg blankly.

    “She’s got all her notes out and everything, and she rang up the Education Department at the university the other day, only of course there was no-one there except the office staff.”

    “Oh,” said Meg blankly. “Um—what about Enrolment Week?”

    “Dunno,” admitted Louise cheerfully. “Anyway, she left a message for the professor.”

    “She must know him, surely?” said Meg limply.

    “Yeah, that’s why she reckons he’ll let her do it part-time.”

    “Oh,” said Meg blankly.

    “Mm.”

    There was a pause.

    Meg swallowed. “Well, how was the trip?” she hissed.

    Louise scratched her head with a pencil. “Hard to say. Well, she said the weather was good and she ate far too much and she’s going on a diet.”

    “Lumme,” said Meg blankly.

    “I did warn her Sir John Westby wouldn’t approve!” added Louise with a sudden giggle.

    “Eh? Oh—yeah,” recognized Meg, smiling weakly.

    Another short pause.

    “I don’t think she met anyone,” Louise admitted cautiously.

    Meg glanced at Phoebe’s closed door. “Uh—no,” she muttered.

    “I suppose it is all off, still, is it? S-you-know-who hasn’t rung her—well, not while I’ve been here,” she revealed gloomily.

    Meg made a face. “Mm. As far as we know he’s given her up as a bad job.”

    Louise sighed heavily. “Yeah. Well, it’s her own fault.”

    Meg felt so, too, but she wasn’t going to go that far. “Their lifestyles are very different,” she murmured temperately.

    Louise made a rude noise. “She wouldn’t give an inch, ya mean!” she hissed. “Don’t tell me, I know her from way back!”

    “Yes,” admitted Meg limply.

    “Anyhow, if ya hear the magic words ‘Ph.D.’, agree it’s a Good Thing,” advised Louise glumly.

    Meg goggled at her. “I always agree, Louise, whaddaya think I am? Barmy?”

    Phoebe’s Loyal Secretary gave an anguished squawk of laughter and clapped her hand over her mouth.

    The intercom then made a scratchy noise and said in Phoebe’s voice, and in very preoccupied tones: “Louise, have you got that correspondence with John Goodenough and Paula Berendsen on file?”

    “Um—who?” said Louise weakly.

    “The correspondence with the colleges I visited in America a few years back!” said Phoebe’s voice, sounding a lot less preoccupied and distinctly annoyed.

    “Um—oh! Those! –Universities, not colleges,” added Louise to herself. “Yes, I have; do you want it, Phoebe?”

    “No, of course not, that’s why I’m—”

    “I’ll get it,” said Louise hurriedly, leaping up.

    Meg pulled a face, and Louise raised her eyebrows terrifically high. Pulling another face, Meg exited hurriedly.

    Up behind the chook-house Bill explained mournfully as he poked a piece of bent wire into the nasty inside of the Hokum Pipe: “She’s been bending me ear about Phoebe being bound to be in a bloody mood ever since we got home from the bach. –Unceasingly,” he clarified.

    “Worse than actually being within Phoebe’s own orbit, in fact,” noted Tom.

    Alan Harding gulped.

    “Bloody near as bad, anyway!” said Bill with feeling. “Anyway, far’s I can make out from this arvo’s bloody bulletin, Phoebe isn’t in a bad mood at all, to speak of: she’s writing something for some Aussie book and she’s thinking of taking up her post-grad research again.”

    “A recognized alternative to being done by visiting Americans,” noted Tom.

    Alan grinned sheepishly, looking uneasily at Bill.

    “Well, yeah,” he acknowledged. “But who cares, if it keeps her busy and happy? –I mean Phoebe, of course, not Meg. But if it keeps Meg happy, the woman can paint herself blue and start a potty religious cult in St Ursie’s shrubbery, for all I care!”

    “We know that, Bill,” said Tom soothingly.

    His Headmaster glared. “Well? Whaddaya standing there for? Go and get ’em in!”

    “Not with that,” said Tom firmly, looking at the Hokum Pipe with revulsion.

    “Somehow it doesn’t seem to smell as bad as it used to,” noted Alan in a confused way.

    “No, because Connie washed it,” said Tom calmly. He retreated while Alan was still choking helplessly.

    When he’d brought a few over and they were starting on them, the Hokum Pipe being firmly O,U,T, out, he said reflectively: “Don’t suppose anybody knows if Phoebe knows that Ralphy’s up the Titty Twin, do they?”

    “We don’t know for sure that he is, Tom,” said Alan uneasily. He looked at Bill, but that gentleman merely shuddered all over.

    There was a short silence, apart from Bill first drinking and then yelling at a duck that had incautiously waddled up to the corner of the chook-house and was looking at him.

    “It might not be so bad, when Phoebe does find out,” ventured Alan.

     They goggled at him.

    “Well, I mean, she’s already dumped Ralph, hasn’t she? Ages ago, really, so—”

    “Look, Harding,” said Tom heavily, laying a fatherly hand on his shoulder: “Ginny Austin, as I think all here are agreed, is approx 14 out of 10.”

    “Too right!” agreed Bill, nodding feverishly.

    “Uh—yeah,” said Alan sheepishly, grinning.

    “Also, must I point out, half Phoebe’s age. –Less, actually, I think,” Tom discovered. “So whether or not Phoebe’s given Ralph the push for good an’ all, the moment she gets a dekko at him with that on his arm she’ll go as sour as Hell and be in a filthy mood for approximately—”

    “Five million years, interrupted Bill glumly. “GEDDOUDAVIT!”

    They jumped, but it was only another duck.

    “As my Headmaster so graciously informs us, five million years,” finished Tom. “Females are like that. Especially older females. Geddit?”

    “Got it,” said Alan, grinning.

    “It’ll be Hell on wheels,” Bill summed up.

    “Yeah.” Tom poured sympathetically, and forbore to add that he’d love to be a fly on the wall when it happened, though. Bill was quite obviously a man who’d suffered enough.

    The St Ursie’s Senior Staff meeting the Monday before the Junior School went back went off very well, really. Louise had made not only her special hard-boiled egg, chive and lettuce sandwiches on wholegrain bread but also her special small scones that normally only the Board of Governors’ meetings got favoured with, and Phoebe had provided a bought cake. As no-one was hungover everyone enjoyed these viands thoroughly.

    Given that everyone, even Betty, who was almost integrated into the mainstream of School staff gossip and School staff opinion by now, knew about what had happened shortly before Christmas over the Tasmanian trip, everyone had, very naturally, been considerably on edge. Meg, who was more aware than most of the ramifications of it all and was waiting for it to dawn on Phoebe (a) how serious Sol was about Michaela and (b) that Ralph, far from languishing in the outer darkness of Phoebe’s disregard, had apparently taken up with something red-haired, gorgeous, and less than half Phoebe’s age, was even more on edge than most. But the meeting went very smoothly and Phoebe was very clearly full of driving energy. Even without Meg’s specialist knowledge more than one of those present recognized that this was Compensation, but at least, they recognized thankfully, it was taking her that way and not others which would have been a lot harder to take.

    “Hang on a moment, Meg,” said Phoebe as Meg was about to escape thankfully with the others.

    “Um—yes?” said Meg in a high, nervous voice.

    Phoebe gave her a mildly surprized look. “Just thought you might be interested to know that Dickon’s got himself engaged.”

    “Oh,” said Meg weakly. “Your nephew? How nice. Er—who to?”

    Phoebe shrugged a little. “Her name’s Merrilee, believe it or not. Merrilee Johnson. He did his degree with her brother, so I suppose he’s known her on and off for a while. Anyway, the brother bought a place up at Pohutukawa Bay last year some time, and he seems to have had Dickon round for tea and so forth, and evidently he and the girl got together that way.”

    “Well, I’m very glad!” said Meg, smiling.

    Phoebe made a little face.

    “Aren’t you?” she said in astonishment.

    “Oh—I suppose so. She’s a nice enough girl. Brainless type, though. Left school at sixteen, went into some bloody office where she learnt nothing but the routines peculiar to that office—you know the style. Three years down the track they’ll be staring at each other over the pots and pans and Napi-San, wondering why the Hell they did it.”

    “Um—yeah. I think it’s all those disposable naps these days,” said Meg weakly. “But I get the picture. Still—I suppose, if that’s what he wants...”

    “What he imagines he wants, at this precise moment, the idiot,” said Dickon’s aunt grimly. “God, why don’t these inane kids grasp that if they don’t choose someone who can grow with them, they’re on course for disaster!”

    “Ye-es...”

    “Look, she took one look at my place and squawked: ‘Have you read all these books, Phoebe?’ and every time he tried to mention his latest research she giggled and told him he was being boring again and nobody wanted to hear about all those silly scientific things,” said Phoebe grimly.

    Meg gave in. “Hell,” she said, grimacing.

    “Yeah. –Why in God’s name he couldn’t have settled for that pretty little Ginny Whatsername, at least she had a few brains to rub together!” said Phoebe sourly.

    Meg had leapt a foot. “Um—yes,” she croaked. “Um—I don’t think she fancied him all that much, Phoebe.”

    Phoebe sniffed. “No doubt.”

    “There—there does have to be that, too,” quavered Meg.

    “I’m not denying it. It’s when there’s only ‘that’,” said Phoebe grimly, “that marriages tend to come to a disastrous end sooner rather than later: that’s all I’m saying.”

    “Mm. Well, thanks for telling me,” said Meg weakly, making good her escape.

    Phoebe sighed. “You can leave these,” she noted as Louise bustled in looking busy and started to gather up the remaining plates. “I’ll have some for afternoon tea.”

    “I thought you were on a diet?” said Louise cautiously.

    “Yes. That’s why I’m not having any lunch.”

    “Righto. But I’d better put the sandwiches in the fridge,” she decided.

    There were only two sandwiches left. Phoebe sighed slightly. “Mm. Go on, then.”

    Louise bore the two sandwiches away, no doubt to smother them on their plate in a yard of Gladwrap.

    Phoebe wandered back to her desk, sat down heavily. “Blithering young idiot,” she said. “Ginny Thing would have been ideal for him. Oh, well.” She spread out her notes from the morning’s meeting, and got on with it.

    The following Sunday, Phoebe had an unpleasant duty to perform. In other words, Laura had asked her round to lunch and she thought she’d better go, she’d only seen them once since she got back from Tasmania. When she got there they had the larger car out in the drive, not unusual for a Sunday morning, Laura sometimes managed to nag him into washing it, and were shouting at each other over it—rather more unusual, for Laura and Jim.

    “Hullo, Phoebe. We’re having a shouting match,” Jim greeted her.

    “Yes, I can see that. What about, or don’t I dare ask?”

    “Whether or not to take this wreck or mine,” explained Laura.

    “Where to?” said Phoebe weakly.

    “That was gonna be the surprize,” said Jim, glaring at his helpmeet.

    “Well, if I’ve got a vote, and if it’s going to be further than the end of the street, I vote for Laura’s,” said Phoebe mildly.

    “It got you up there all right!” retorted Jim immediately, very injured.

    Phoebe goggled at him. She goggled even more when Laura said in a strangled voice: “Shut up, Jim,” and she observed that her old friend had turned puce.

    “Look, you’d better tell me what the Hell the pair of you are up to before it actually gets to the divorce court, hadn’t you?”

    “It’s all her idea,” said Jim immediately. “Ideas above her station. Been associating with the Carranos.”

    “We know that,” said Phoebe heavily. “What—are you two—up to?”

    “Laura’s got this daft idea that we mayght bay ay second hyume,” explained Jim daintily.

    “A BACH!” shouted Laura angrily.

    “Ya don’t get baches up Puriri County any more, your mate Sir Jacob’s bought it all up for second hyumes,” explained Jim patiently.

    “Look, just shut up! Um, well, we did think we might go for a drive up that way. Well, we have seen a nice old bach,” said Laura, glaring at him, “at Carter’s Bay: not in a trendy area or anything, so— Only if you don’t fancy it, it can wait,” she added hurriedly.

    “No, that’s all right,” said Phoebe weakly. “Which part of Carter’s Bay, Laura? –Not that any of it’s really trendy,” she added.

    “Yet,” interpolated Jim darkly.

    Laura gave him a quick glare and explained: “On the northern side of the—um—”

    “Bump,” said Jim.

    “Peninsula,” said Laura, glaring. “It’s on its northern side, but not on the bay proper,” she said to Phoebe.

    “I see. The Point, the locals call it, Laura,” she said, not mentioning that, though trendy wasn’t quite the word, it was the area of choice in Carter’s Bay, with some very nice homes.

    “That’s it: the Point,” agreed Laura, with a quick glare at Jim. “With a lovely view of the sea. And you can get down to a little beach from it.”

    “Vertically,” noted Jim.

    “I’d love to see it,” said Phoebe quickly. “And if I’ve still got a vote, let’s take your car, Laura.”

    “Righto. He can sit in the back,” decided Laura. “And get that heap out of the driveway!” she added viciously.

    Jim opened his car’s door but said to Phoebe: “It’s all the moolah she got for them chocolate-box tops she did for the Carranos. Burning a hole in her pocket.”

    “Real property is an excellent investment,” said Laura with her nose in the air.

    “She got that off her mate Sir Jacob,” noted Jim.

    “Yes,” said Phoebe with a sigh. “Do us a favour and just move the heap, eh, Jim?”

    Winking, Jim got into the heap and moved it.

    Up at Carter’s Bay the sun was shining in a cloudless sky. Even Jim was driven to remark: “Beautiful day. Pity we came up here, really: I could be cleaning the heap at this very moment.”

    “Shut up,” said Laura. “Um...”

    “LEFT!” shouted Jim.

    Scowling, Laura turned left. “Oh, yes: just along here,” she admitted to Phoebe.

    “RIGHT! RIGHT, Woman!” shouted Jim.

    “I know!” Hurriedly Laura turned right into a little crooked street that led down towards the water past a row of what even the prejudiced mind would have had to admit must have been built as baches. In the Forties and Fifties. In fact Phoebe could remember her father in the Fifties happily tacking Fibrolite onto uprights in very much the same style as that one there, happily unaware, as of course had been the rest of the country, that the stuff was full of asbestos.

    The car slid down past a few more baches and quite a lot of grassy paddocks. The road took a left turn and came to a dead end. “This is it, on the right,” said Laura in a defiant voice.

    Phoebe bit her lip. True, it wasn’t Fibrolite, but ordinary weatherboards. But it was very small and box-like and totally lacking in anything that could have been called grace or style or even deliberate design, really.

    “It’s genuine,” ventured Jim.

    “Yeah—um—it’s a bit small, isn’t it?” said Phoebe weakly.

    “Yeah, but ya don’t imagine the puddings are gonna be allowed inside, do ya?” said Laura viciously.

    “Laura—” said Phoebe faintly.

    “The two youngest have blotted their copybooks again,” explained Jim mildly, opening his door. “Took Robbie’s motorbike to bits on the front lawn—that wasn’t too bad, she’s got used to that sort of male peer group ritual by now—and then brought a piece of it into the sitting-room. Oil and all.”

    “Oh,” said Phoebe weakly.

    “So at that point,” said Jim, getting out but bending down and inserting his head back into the car: “she decided we’d move out and leave the little buggers to it.”

    Laura had already got out. “Rubbish!” she said, bending down at her door. “Come on, Phoebe!”

    Inside it was pretty much what anyone who’d ever been inside a New Zealand bach of the late Fifties might have expected and what Phoebe did in fact expect. Spartan, was one word for it. Hideous was another, of course.

    “Laid-back,” noted Jim.

    “Um—yes. Is there any cupboard space at all?” asked Phoebe weakly, looking round the rudimentary kitchen area. The entire bach, bar the minute bathroom, which appeared to have been done up some time in the Seventies with leftovers, of course consisted of one room.

    “Well, yeah: under the sink: see? Behind the genuine antique gingham curtain,” explained Jim. “But there’s definitely no wardrobe space!” he added happily.

    “I can see that.”

    “Look, we don’t want gracious living! And we’re going to rip that wall out and put in a window, so as we can see the sea. And a verandah,” added Laura, glaring at Jim.

    “That’s if we buy it,” he explained to Phoebe.

    “It’s my money!” cried Laura angrily.

    “Look, hold on, old girl,” said Jim weakly.

    “I think I’ll go out and look at the view,” said Phoebe neutrally.

    “No, ya can’t do that, we brought you here to arbitrate!” said Jim quickly.

    Phoebe bit her lip. “Uh—well, how much is it?”

    Laura cried: “It’s only—”

    Simultaneously, Jim groaned: “Wouldja believe—”

    When Phoebe had sorted that out, she admitted weakly: “It’s an absolute bargain. The land alone should be worth fifteen times that in a couple of years’ time. I know the locals are resisting it like mad, but Carter’s Bay is really starting to go up-market, you know, now that Kingfisher Marina’s going ahead. And Kingfisher Bay’s minute, it’s almost built out now. And a place like this, with a sea view—!”

    “A sea view if we knock that wall out,” noted Jim with a little smile.

    “Yes. Isn’t it—well, totally perverse?” said Phoebe weakly. “I mean, building on a site like this and not putting any windows in that end wall!”

    “Haveta build facing the road, ya see, it’s a Rool,” Jim explained.

    Laura made a rude noise.

    “All right: you explain it,” he said mildly.

    “Um—well, you’re probably right,” she admitted.

    Jim staggered, and sat down heavily on the creaky reddish sofa that at the moment was the bach’s sole item of furniture. Uncut moquette, between the large holes.

    “But my theory is they were boaties, and didn’t give a damn about the view,” Laura added firmly.

    “That seems all too likely,” Phoebe agreed. “Well, if it was me, I’d snap it up.”

    Laura looked hopefully at Jim.

    “Ya don’t need my permission: what are ya, Liberated Capitalist Woman, or Donna Reed?” he groaned.

    Phoebe walked out at that point.

    When she at last dared to go back Laura was sitting on Jim’s knee, so that was all right, thank God!

    “Of course, there aren’t any shops for miles,” explained Laura comfortably as they all strolled out to look at the view.

    Phoebe looked at the view northward to, presumably, the Aleutians. And the immediate view below, which was a steep slope of grass with a few clumps of low, windblown bushes on it, and a very small beach at the foot of it. “No.”

    “Clot! In the settlement!” said Laura, giggling.

    “No. Well, Swadlings’ dairy. But I agree you can’t count that.”

    “Is it open on Sundays?” asked Jim hopefully.

    “Nominally—yes,” replied Phoebe grimly.

    After some thought Jim produced: “Isn’t there a fish and chips shop?”

    “Yes, but it’s not open at lunchtime on— Haven’t you two idiots brought a picnic?” groaned Phoebe.

    “Um—no,” admitted Laura. “We didn’t think—”

    “We didn’t think,” clarified Jim.

    Phoebe sighed. “Well, white bread and mousetrap cheese in a plastic packet from Swadlings’, or gold-plated pizzas at the Hongi Heke Room at the Royal Kingfisher?”

    “Given that Jim won’t have brought his pocketknife, so we won’t be able to break our way into the cheese packet—” began Laura.

    “I thought they’d be solid gold?” he said.

    “No. Gold-plated on solid raw onions and raw capsicums,” explained Phoebe kindly.

    “Christ. Hang on, isn’t there another dining-room at this Royal King—” He broke off. They were looking hard at his best jeans. “No,” he said sadly.

    “Well, come on, pizzas it is,” decided Phoebe. “I suppose we can always leave the raw bits on the side of our plates.”

    “Yeah: and just eat the white bread and the cheese,” noted Jim, leading the way back to the car.

    Phoebe’s shoulders shook silently all the way back to the car. Not that it mattered, Laura’s were doing the same.

    The lobby of the Royal Kingfisher, even though the school holidays were now over and most of the motellers must have gone home, was crammed with a pushing, bellowing, excited crowd.

    “What’s going on?” panted Jim. “Sir Jake giving a Press reception?”

    “Shut up!” hissed Laura, doing her best to peer round the lobby.

    Phoebe, being taller than Laura, could see a bit more. It apparently was a Press reception, Jim was quite correct. Well, a goodly portion of the shoving crowd were draped in cameras and waving fuzzy mikes, so— “Oh,” she said.

    “What?” asked Laura crossly, grabbing her arm and standing on tottering tip-toe.

    “The film crowd,” reported Phoebe.

    “Good, you can introduce us to ya mate Ad-dumm Mac-Un-toi-yuh,” said Jim with relish.

    “Shut up!” hissed Phoebe, turning puce. “I only met him the once, and it was the most casual—”

    “Ooh, it is!” gulped Laura, also turning puce, as the crowd parted for an infinitesimal, split second and they saw it was.

    Jim was taller than both Phoebe and Laura, so he could see a little bit more. “Oy, isn’t that bloody Sir R with ’em?” he said in a puzzled voice.

    Laura kicked his ankle.

    “Ow!” he gasped, hopping and all but overbalancing onto a Press-person.

    “Be thankful I’m only wearing sneakers, not hobnailed boots, you wanker,” said Laura evilly. “And come on! –Um, Phoebe, which way is this Hongi Hika room?” she added lamely.

    “This way, I think. –Hongi Heke, not Hongi Hika.”

    Laura gulped: “But he was the one that—”

    “—chopped down the flagpole at Kororareka: yes,” agreed Phoebe, forcing a way diagonally through the crowd of Press-persons as the rumpus died down somewhat and a pompous bass voice that most definitely was not Adam McIntyre’s voice began pontificating. “I don’t know any more than you, Laura, why a monument to white Anglocentric cultural domination should choose to name its second dining-room after the second most famous Maori rebel in our history.”

    Jim joined them, panting. “I’da said ’e was the most famous!” he panted.

    “Te Kooti, you twit,” returned Phoebe witheringly. “Come on. And don’t be surprized if we have to queue for a table.”

    “Is there a bar?” asked Jim hopefully.

    “There are about fifteen bars, but if you mean in the Hongi Heke room, no. But they do serve alcohol once you’re seated.” She led the way down the dim turquoise and purple passage that led to the second dining-room.

    Jim followed in their wake, looking glum, while Laura began to argue that Te Rauparaha was far more famous than Hongi Heke. Phoebe returned witheringly that he’d done far more but was his the name that sprang most readily to mind? Laura objected that all right, neither did Te Kooti’s. Jim caught them up again—he’d been walking backwards looking hopefully for signs pointing to bars—and began to point out that no-one could help what they’d been brainwashed into learning by heart at the age of seven in Social Studies...

    The Hongi Heke room of course did not have the “splendid” view directly over the Inlet that did the main dining-room. The Royal Kingfisher’s publicity called it that, Phoebe had long since decided, because not even publicists who dreamt up brochures for poncy hotels dared to categorize the view of flat stretch of pale greenish-turquoise inlet backed by flat dull-green mangroves backed by flattish dull-green scrub and fields as “magnificent.”

    The Hongi Heke Room did, however, have a pleasant enough view of the artificial curve of the bay and the settlement of Kingfisher Bay, with the block of three little shops dominating the middle distance past a stretch of hotel carpark. As Phoebe appeared unaffected by the sight Laura didn’t feel she needed to say anything, which was just as well, because what the Hell was there to say? Even Jim blenched as the strangely-garbed hostess led them up to the centre of the picture window.

    He opened the giant turquoise and royal-blue menu. “Christ!” he choked.

    “Ooh, help,” said Laura numbly, opening hers.

    “On me,” said Phoebe firmly.

    “No—” began Laura.

    “Yes, I should have warned you there’s nowhere else to eat up here.”

    “She should have, ya know,” recognized Jim.

    “No! We invited her!” said Laura crossly.

    “Well—all right, then,” said Phoebe hurriedly. “Let me pay for the drinks, though.”

    “Yeah!” cried Jim.

    “Oh—go on, then,” said Laura weakly.

    Jim picked up the wine list. “Yeah: go on,” he agreed in a hollow voice. “Blimey O’Reilly!”

    “Have anything, Jim,” said Phoebe firmly. “Well, not Bollinger,” she amended hastily. “I do need to eat for the next six months.”

    “Quite,” said Jim in a shaken voice, putting the wine list down. “Actually, think I’ll just have a beer, don’t much fancy cocktails or wine on an empty stomach.”

    “I had a sensible breakfast, so I think I’ll have a margarita,” said Phoebe smugly.

    “Not a whisky?” said Jim feebly.

    “No: I feel like something exotic.” She took a breadstick from the glass of them on the table between the gilt holder of spare woolly turquoise paper napkins and the vase containing one pale turquoise carnation and one piece of plastic fern. “Have a breadstick, Laura: get your money’s worth.”

    Laura took a breadstick, looking determined. “It says here,” she discovered: ‘Water. Mineral water. Sparkling mineral water.’”

    “Mm?”

    “Well, what’s ‘Water’?” said Laura weakly.

    “Tap,” said Jim.

    “Yes,” agreed Phoebe,

    “You mean they make you pay for tap water?” she gasped.

    “Yes. It’ll have an ice-block in it, though.”

    Laura took a deep breath.

    “Have a margarita with me!” said Phoebe with a laugh.

    “Um, no, I think I’ll just have a sherry. I didn’t have any breakfast, either,” she admitted.

    Phoebe raised her eyebrows and got up. “I see. I’m going to the bog. If anyone comes to take any orders in my absence, order everything at once, understand?”—They nodded numbly.—“I’ll have the La Scala pizza, a margarita before it, and a light beer with it, okay?” They nodded numbly. Phoebe went off to the bog..

    After quite some time, during which Jim studied the menu assiduously and Laura stared numbly at the square purple paper tablecloth which was on top of the circular turquoise fabric tablecloth, Laura noted dully: “I suppose it can’t get worse.”

    Jim gave a long, lugubrious sniff.

    “Well, can it?” she said fiercely.

    “Yeah: Sir R could walk in here with that ginger-haired bit of fluff on his arm that Meg reckons he’s been up this summer, closely followed by Sol with Michaela on his arm.”

    Laura glared.

    “You did ask,” he said mildly.

    Laura sighed. “Yes. Well, for God’s sake behave yourself and don’t mention either of them!”

    Jim scratched his pepper-and-salt curls. “Actually there is another option: Sir R and the red-haired bit could stroll in closely followed by Sol and Michaela closely followed by Weintraub and his wife.”

    Laura took a deep breath. “All I can say is, thank God we were never invited to that bloody wedding reception!”

    “Aw, I reckon it woulda been good,” he whinged.

    Laura withered him with a mere fleeting glance.

    Phoebe had come back and the cocktails had just come when they were edified by the spectacle in the near foreground of the film people plus Sir Ralph, in fact apparently shepherded by Sir Ralph, flooding out onto the forecourt and—apparently—arguing over cars.

    “You missed the Press lot: they pushed off a bit back,” said Jim.

    “I see,” replied Phoebe calmly, sipping her margarita.

    There was a goodly crowd down there, milling about and arguing, and you couldn’t make out exactly who was with whom, but Jim found he was sweating, in spite of the air conditioning. Both he and Laura had become keenly aware during the period when Phoebe had been involved with. Ralph Overdale that she seemed to see the bloke as a sort of a permanent fixture in her life—on tap, as it were. Phoebe had not of course said anything of the sort or even implied it, but it had certainly been there in her tone and her whole attitude to him. When the Sol thing had been at its height Laura, who loathed Ralph, had noted that now Phoebe was rid of Sir R for good an’ all, but Jim, though he also loathed Ralph, had merely looked down his nose and said bullshit, she’d fall back on him if the Sol thing fell through, mark his words.

    Phoebe sipped her margarita placidly, reflecting that she was well out of that one: Ralph sucking up to the overseas film crowd was a spectacle best kept at a good deal more than arm’s length. She didn’t bother to look to see which of the nubile lovelies was clinging to his arm: she was sure one of them must be his, but it was immaterial which.

    When it was all over at last and Phoebe had collected her car and gone home to what she declared would be a light tea and spreadsheets, Jim collapsed onto his Seventies Habitat-mod sofa with a deep groan.

    “It was pretty bad,” allowed Laura.

    “Pretty bad!” he groaned. “Talk about waiting for the other shoe to drop!”

    “Well, you have to admit, Jim, she didn’t seem to give a damn.”

    “They all went down to flaming Sir R’s boat, didja notice?” he groaned.

    “And disported themselves on deck, yeah. –I wonder if it can actually move from its mooring?”

    “Nope: legs on the sea floor, like the oil rigs.”

    There was a pause.

    Jim sighed. “Did you see Sol come out of his place and start shifting boats?”

    Laura swallowed. “Mm.”

    “She just sat there, airily drinking her coffee as if nothing was happening at all!”

    Laura sat down heavily in an armchair. “Whose idea was it, anyway, to go to the bloody place?”

    “Yours, of course,” he said, staring at her.

    “NO! To go to the bloody Royal KINGFISHER!” she shouted.

    Jim held his ears. “Ow. Um... Blimey O’Reilly: hers, I think.”

    “Crikey,” discovered Laura.

    “There you are,” he said.

    “There I am what?” she demanded crossly.

    “Um... Dunno, really,” he muttered.

    Laura glared.

    “Well, she’s tougher than what we thunk,” he said weakly.

    “Pooh! Testing herself, more like,” said Laura sourly.

    “Why’d she have to use us as the control group, then?” he demanded bitterly.

     Laura had to gulp. “Um—yes. Oh, well, it can’t happen again.”

    Jim gaped at her. “Can’t happen— Not if she comes-out of this state of sheer masochism she’s apparently gone into, it can’t, no: true.”

    Laura scowled. “I mean that was the first time—it’s the worst of it over!”

    “Very clear.”

     Instead of shouting at him, Laura said sadly: “Well, don’t you think, Jim?”

    Jim rubbed his moustache vigorously and sniffed. “Actually, I don’t know what to think. Is she deliberately torturing herself? Or deliberately kidding herself she doesn’t feel anything about busting up with Sol? –Well, for God’s sake, there’s his shop staring us in the face all through bloody lunch: she must have remembered what outlook that dump has!” There was a short silence. “Or is she genuinely getting over him in double-quick time?” he said, screwing up his face horribly and scratching the curls.

    “Dunno,” said Laura glumly. “But I do know that she—she must have seen him as—as sort of a last chance. Well, at her age, Jim!”

    Jim just nodded glumly.

    After a moment Laura said: “It made it a Helluva lot worse that bloody Sir R hadda be there, though—didn’t you think?”

    “It did for me,” he said grimly.

    “Mm.”

    Jim sighed. “Shall I make a nice, comforting pot of stereotypical plebeian stewed camellia leaves to serve as a universal panacea?”

    For once Laura didn’t rubbish this typical piece of verbal idiocy, she just looked at him with pathetic gratitude and said: “Yes, lovely. Thanks, dear.”

    “Jim said it was like waiting for the other shoe to drop,” she reported dully to Meg on the following Saturday.

    Meg poured tea, shuddering. “The whole thing’s like waiting for the other shoe to drop, Laura! I can hardly bring myself to walk into School in the mornings in case it’s happened.”

    Laura propped her elbows on Meg’s kitchen table. “Does she really not know about Sol and Michaela?” she asked dully.

    “We don’t think so. She hasn’t said anything to you about Michaela, then?”

    “No. Nor about him, except to say that he’d refused to go to Tas— Well, I told you all that.”

    Meg sighed. “Yes. I still can’t see why… Oh, well. Maybe it was an insult to his manhood, in his clean-cut American mind.”

    Laura made a rude noise. “Maybe he couldn’t wait to be shut of her, ya mean!”

    Meg pinkened. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

    “Oh? Over our way we had the impression that you Waikaukau Junction types were pretty well solidly pro-Michaela and contra-Phoebe,” noted Laura dully.

    “No! Well, I’d like both of them to be happy!” said Meg, very red and glary.

    Laura sighed. “Yeah.”

    Meg drank tea gloomily.

    “It could be that the worst is already over,” hazarded Laura.

    Meg goggled at her.

    “Well, you know: she has actually broken up with Sol; and whatever we think she may be thinking about Sir R, she’s apparently given him the old heave-ho for good an’ all, too.”

    “Yes, but in her mind—”

    Laura added a lot of milk to her tea and drank it off noisily. “I’m awfully sick of what might or might not be going on in the depths of Phoebe’s mind, actually, Meg. Are we going on this down-market picnic or not?”

    Meg drained her tea. “Yes. Well, if someone’ll wake Bill up.”

    Laura got up. “I can do that, I’ve had plenty of practice with mine. –Where are we going, exactly?”

    Meg got up. “Up the old Waikaukau road. You turn off just by—” Her voice faltered. “Willow Plains,” she said uncomfortably.

    Laura merely made a rude noise and strode out.

    Back at school the following Monday Meg registered that Phoebe was still full of driving energy and still, at least according to Louise, in a terrifyingly good mood. So whatever might or might not be going on in the depths of her mind, she presumably hadn’t yet found out about Sol and Michaela or Ralph and Ginny. Or if she had she didn’t care. Or if she did care she was hiding it bloody well—

    God, when would it end, this suspense was killing her! She rang up Laura that evening and Laura informed her it was killing her and Jim, too, and to just shut up about it unless she heard something definite, because she couldn’t take any more.

    Meg went back into the sitting-room and tried to report this to Bill, but in spite of the fact that Roger and the twins were watching a blurred re-run of Cheers turned up very loud Bill put a cushion over his face and pulled it down with both hands. So presumably he felt the same.

    Phoebe at this stage hadn’t really examined her feelings about either Sol or Ralph. She had earlier decided that since it was all over between her and Sol she wouldn’t think about it any more: no use crying over spilt milk, and since they were obviously totally unsuited temperamentally, not to say in their expectations from life and from one’s life-partner, she’d better bloody well stop thinking about it as a possibility. Or thinking that he could or would change, as it was very obvious he wasn’t going to. She hadn’t got much further on the Ralph front than reflecting he was a spiteful shit but at least a spiteful shit with a few penn’orth of brain to rub together.

    She was very far from realizing that Sol was in the least bit serious about Michaela, having long since dismissed last year’s jealousy over the time he seemed to be spending with her as just one aspect of the kiddies and potters and stooges thing—or, if you cared to put it another way, of her femme jalouse de l’oeuvre stage.

    The “last chance” bit had of course occurred to her: she was neither stupid nor totally blind to her own motivations, not to say to her cultural brainwashing. But she had no intention of collapsing in a heap over it. Okay: they might have made a go of it: they’d tried, and it hadn’t worked out. She’d manage the rest of her life alone just as well as she’d managed it pre-Sol, thanks.

    Of course she didn’t know that Ralph had spent the last month in hot pursuit of his luscious twin. And very possibly, if she’d sat down and looked at her own behaviour over the last eighteen months or so, she would have conceded that there was no rational reason why she should even be interested in this fact. This May, in fact, it would be two years since Sol had emigrated to New Zealand and Phoebe had given Ralph the push.

    Someone of a less analytical, rational tendency—Louise, for instance—might have been able to point out to Phoebe that there was a bit more to it than reason, and that in fact the heart had its reasons. Louise actually had said that, though not, of course. to Phoebe, but to Meg, in a moment of despair back in December when Phoebe had announced to her Loyal Secretary in a very casual voice that she could make that Qantas booking for Hobart—no, for one.

    Phoebe did admit to herself, with a grimace, that one of the things she most missed about the relationship with Sol was not having anybody to tell things to. Not that there’d been much of that, this last year! Well, bloody difficult to have a cosy evening casually chatting about everything and nothing when one of you was incarcerated at bloody Carter’s Inlet and the other— Yes, quite.

    Occasionally it crossed her mind that she might ring Ralph—when he’d had plenty of time to stew in his own juice. But she didn’t consciously make the connection between this occasional reflection and the empty, let-down feeling she kept getting whenever anything particularly interesting, typical, bloody pathetic, or irritating had happened and she had automatically formulated a telling phrase in her mind with which to relate it—and it had then dawned that there was no-one to relate it to.

Next chapter:

https://theamericanrefugeeanovel.blogspot.com/2022/10/la-meme-chose.html