Down At The Mountain
“That one!” suggested Abe, digging his half-brother in the ribs and chuckling richly.
Sol replied austerely: “I didn’t come down to this here mountain to chase—uh—what’s that British expression?”
“Ass.”
“NO! –Gee, some people might just as well not have any ears at all,” he muttered. “Uh—Micky Shapiro says it all the time.”
“Oh—him.” His stepdaughters’ father was a bit too la-de-da, not to mention a bit too sarcastic, to appeal to the robust Abe. “Uh… nup.”
“Oh, yeah: I remember, it’s ‘birding’ that he says.”
“Is that so? Well, now, that’s real interesting, Sol, real interesting. Gee, I gotta admit it, boy, dunno when I’ve heard anything that interesting!”
Ignoring this crack, Sol continued: “He says ‘chase birds’, too, but more often he uses the verb, ‘to bird’; or—uh, now, I guess it would be the gerund, huh?—as in—”
“Is there gonna be much more of this?”
“—as in ‘go birding’,” finished Sol relentlessly.
“Boy, that sure was interesting. Gee,” said Abe to the hotel’s elaborate ceiling, “ain’t it just a good thing we got him that grammar book for his tenth birthday, huh? Gee, I dunno what he’d do if he couldn’t bore the pants offa you with all this grammar talk!”
“You didn’t have to come,” pointed out Sol mildly.
“Say, am I cramping your style, fella?”
“No,” sighed Sol. “I’ve been trying to tell you for the last hour and a half, feels like: I did not come down here to chase birds, ass, skirt, or—uh—crumpet.”
“I thought that was something they ate,” said Abe weakly.
“Uh-huh. That, too.”
Relative silence fell in their part of the hotel’s luxurious après-ski lounge.
“Boy, it sure is foreign, huh?” said Abe sadly.
“Yeah. Well, Susan did warn you.”
“I didn’t take her seriously. I mean, gee, they speak English, an’ all!”
“Of a sort; mm-hm.”
More relative silence.
“You noticed how cold the houses are?” said Abe cautiously.
“Yeah.”
“Boy, even that place of the Cohens’! I mean, sure they got central heating, but why don’t they turn it on?”
“It was on.”
“Yeah, you could tell. It was one degree colder if you opened the front door.”
“I didn’t think it was that bad. That place that Susan’s been living: now, that was bad,” Sol admitted with a shudder.
“That Wai—uh—Wai— Uh, that Wai-place?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Was it what!” Abe carried on at length. Sol didn’t listen. He was already convinced and in any case Abe had said it all before. Several times.
“Uh—yeah. Uh—who’s real weird?” he groped.
“That English guy!” said Abe crossly. “Susan’s landlord, the guy that lives in that Wai-dump!”
“Oh. Yeah.” Sol had liked Dr John Aitken very much. He wouldn’t have minded seeing more of him. Even if he was a political scientist. “Uh-huh. Weird—sure.”
Abe sighed. “That whole set-up was weird. Was it his house?”
“Uh—yeah. I think he’d just bought it. What’s weird about that?”
“Well, gee, apart from the fact it was falling down around his ears, it was full of college kids!”
“Not to mention Susan and Alan—quite.”
This had been intended as a diversionary tactic, to get Abe off of the extremely boring subject of Susan’s temporary accommodation at Waikaukau Junction and onto the very slightly less boring, or at least different subject of Alan’s and Susan’s refusal to let him give them a lot of money to buy acres more orchard than they wanted or could manage. But although this was one of Abe’s favourite topics, the tactic didn’t work.
“Yeah. Well, there you are! Susan’s still a college student, huh?”
Sol replied in a bored tone: “I guess John’s girl’s still in Europe. I guess he wants the company. Besides, maybe he needs the rent.”
Abe was marginally diverted. He discussed the putative financial status of the occupants of Number 3 Blossom Avenue, Waikaukau Junction, Puriri County, at length, ending up with the wistful remark that he sure wouldn’t mind getting his hands on some of the country round there, it was prime realty.
“Uh-huh.”
“What does that mean?” he asked, bristling up.
“You’ve been pre-empted,” Sol drawled. “All that land’s been bought up by that Carrano guy.”
Abe’s business was entirely home-based but he’d done his homework before coming out to his wife’s birthplace. “The guy that heads up the Carrano Group? Gee, that sure is a pity! You sure?”
“Yeah. Susan’s neighbour, that nice little Meg woman, she told me.”
“When was this?”
“Uh—I guess you’d gone for a walk with those twins of hers.”
“Oh—sure. Sharp little guys,” he said approvingly. “So Jake Carrano’s gonna develop that land, huh?”
Sol eyed him sardonically. This was gonna be good! “Not entirely. You know all that bit across from that dump where Susan lives?”
“Sure! That’s the best site! Now, listen, what I’d do—” He broke off, noticing the expression on his brother’s face. “What?”
“He’s turning that into a nature reserve.”
Abe went a strange colour and sat bolt upright. “What?” he gasped.
“Sure. Like a park, Abe.”
“Don’t give me that!” he roared.
Sol just looked bland.
“This is a leg-pull, right?” said Abe weakly after a certain period had elapsed.
“Uh-uh,” replied Sol in the negative. “That Meg, she explained it all. That big stretch of valley, that’s all gonna be the nature reserve, and the new development’ll be much further down the road.” He paused. “Next to the golf course.”
Abe choked. “That’s all swamp!”
Some of it was hill, but Sol didn’t bother to point this out. “He’s going to drain it.”
“He must be plumb crazy! Plumb crazy, that’s all I can say!” Abe elaborated on this theme, winding up with a very detailed explanation of how, he, Abe, would develop all that prime realty round that Wai-dump.
Sol had expected this, so he didn’t listen. He lay back in the chair that wasn’t soft enough for his ski-slope-tortured muscles nor deep enough for his long legs, and allowed his gaze to wander vaguely over the assembled ass, skirts, dames, sheilas or birds. Even though that wasn’t what he’d come for.
“That one?” suggested Abe.
Sol had given in. “Mm... No, flat-ass.”
“Oh—yeah. Well, I wouldn’t say that was too bad!”
No, he wouldn’t, because come to think of it, Pat’s was just as flat. “No, I guess you wouldn’t. Not my type, though.”
“Uh... That’s a pretty one!”
“Yup.”
Abe eyed him cautiously over the rim of his Scotch.
“Overlooking the fact that she’s young enough to be my daughter—uh-huh, yup, sure is pretty.”
“Never stopped you before,” Abe pointed out mildly. “What about that dumb little broad— Gee, now what was her name? Uh… Not the blonde…”
“Aprylle—the red-head?”
“That one you had two summers back? No, she wasn’t that young. Say, she wasn’t bad though, fella! No-o...”
“Jenny May?” suggested Sol mildly. “Brunette.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, no, you wouldn’t have met her, she was the one I picked up that time you and Pat were off in—uh—Europe, I guess.”
“England. Boy, was that—”
“Yeah.”
His brother glared.
Sol explained mildly: “You have told me a million times. I didn’t feel I could take number a million-one.”
“Witty,” said Abe sourly. “Uh... Look, that’s a real cute one!”
Sol looked. Uh-huh. Eighteen if a day, candy-pink shiny nylon tights, paler candy-pink fuzzy sweater drooping right off of a tanned shoulder, big candy-pink earrings, blonde mop tipped with candy-pink... “I guess she likes pink, huh?”
“Now, come on, fella!”
“Yeah. A piece of perfection,” murmured Sol.
“Uh—yeah,” said Abe weakly. He took a huge gulp of Scotch.
“I can’t stand the way they talk,” murmured Sol.
Abe spluttered into his Scotch. “Gee, now, come on, Sol! That’s just their accent, they can’t help that!”
“No, I didn’t mean that. I meant the puerility of their social interchanges,” he drawled.
Abe gave him a sharp look. “You’re getting old, fella,” he said drily.
“I did warn you the food’d be vile,” said Pat in a sort of resigned whine.
“It ain’t that bad,” protested Abe.
Sol was more than capable of living on a diet of hotdogs, hamburgers and potato chips, washed down by beer. And in fact had been known to do so for long periods at a time. This didn’t mean that he didn’t know really bad food when he got it, however. He pushed his “seafood cocktail” aside, not saying anything.
“Gee, don’t you like that, Sol?” said Abe sadly.
“I guess I’m not very hungry,” he murmured.
“You can’t say I didn’t warn you!” said Pat in a sort of discontented triumph. Very odd. Sol registered it with pleasure.
“No, I wouldn’t dream of saying that, Pat,” he agreed.
She sighed. “New Zealand hotel food’s always frightful.”
“Is that right?” said Sol with interest. “Now, I was assuming it was just because this hotel’s got the monopoly. So it isn’t that?”
“Well, you were there when Dad took us to the bloody Royal in town—”
“No, he wasn’t, honey, that was the night he went to that concert, remember? And that food wasn’t real bad. That Specialty Tahitian thing your dad recommended”—Patricia closed her eyes briefly—“uh—that wasn’t too bad,” Abe finished weakly. “Real tasty, I thought.”
“Fried banana in batter, fried pineapple in batter and fried bits of shark in batter in a curry sauce?” replied Patricia, her voice getting louder and louder.
“My goodness! That sounds just like The Royal’s goddawful ‘Spécialité Tahitienne!’”said an amused contralto.
They’d all been immersed in the conversation—at least, Sol hadn’t, he’d been immersed in wondering if the wine, which wasn’t bad, was available for sale in the liquor stores back in the city and if he’d ever be able to pronounce its name (not French: Maori) in order to find out if it was and deciding probably not and for sure, not, in that order. So they all looked up with a start.
It was a lady accompanied by a waiter who asked if they’d mind if she shared their table. Beaming, Abe replied sure she could, and it sure was crowded, huh?
The tall, handsome lady—she was definitely a lady, both Sol and Abe, though not entirely alert to the local signals, had taken that in at a glance—said apologetically: “Are you quite sure I’m not intruding on your party?”
Abe assured her heartily that she wasn’t. Sol murmured: “Not at all,” not trying to make it sound British, as he sometimes did in order to annoy Pat. And Pat looked hard at the tall, handsome, mid-forties lady and said: “Aren’t you Phoebe Fothergill from St Ursie’s?”
“Yes,” said the lady, smiling at her.
“I’m Pat Cohen Winkelmann. We have met—my girls were at St Ursie’s.”
“Of course,” said Phoebe Fothergill, sinking onto the chair the waiter was holding for her. “–Thank you. –How are you, Pat?”
“Oh—not too bad,” replied Pat grudgingly. “Don’t have the avocado with shrimps, it’s smothered in commercial mayonnaise.”
“Thanks. Though I think I might have guessed,” murmured Phoebe.
Sol smothered a cough.
“Introduce us, honey,” prompted Abe.
“Oh—this is Phoebe Fothergill, she’s Susan and Allyson’s old headmistress.”—Sol looked with great interest at Phoebe’s wide, handsome face at this point, but its expression of polite expectation didn’t flicker.—“My husband, Abe Winkelmann. And his brother, Sol.”
When Abe had finished declaring how pleased they all were to meet her, and had finished urging a drink on her—looking somewhat stunned when she asked for a Scotch and water and told the waiter not to drown it—Phoebe enquired politely: “How are the girls, Pat? I believe Susan’s just got married?”
“Yes. To Alan Harding. God knows what he sees in her, mind you.”
“Honey!” protested Abe.
“I’d have said the boot was on the other foot,” murmured Sol. Phoebe flicked him an interested look but said to Pat: “Would that be John and Phyllis Harding’s son?”
“Yes. But he’s not in the family business—don’t ask me why,”—Pat took a gulp of her wine—“because I don’t know. He’s taken up orcharding, of all things!”
“Really? What about Susan’s LL.B.?”
Pat stared at her. “What about it?”
“Will she be able to continue it from the depths of orcharding country?”
Apparently unaware that her irritating brother-in-law at this swallowed a laugh, Pat replied: “They’re settling somewhere up in Puriri County. Not that far north, I suppose. Don’t ask me for details, nobody consulted me about any of it!”
Phoebe perceived that Patricia—though normally in a state of peevishness: she evidently hadn’t changed since the days when she’d been Pat Shapiro—was really peeved about this, so she said kindly: “It’s motorway most of the way from there, now, isn’t it? She should be able to drive in to the City Campus without much trouble, I imagine.”
“I dare say,” said Pat discontentedly. “Well, that’s what she says.”
“I’m sure she’ll cope,” murmured Phoebe.
“The boy’s an absolute dead loss, of course!” confided Pat abruptly. She poked discontentedly at her discarded avocado and said: “Weak as water.”
Sol held his breath; he didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed when Phoebe didn’t say “Like his father”, but murmured: “Susan’s a very capable girl; that sort of combination often works out very well.”
“There! What did I tell you, honey?” exclaimed Abe. He expanded on this theme at great and unnecessary length. Pat listened discontentedly, now and then contradicting him. Phoebe listened politely, occasionally murmuring agreement. Sol didn’t listen at all: he sipped his wine and studied Phoebe Fothergill’s broad forehead, wide mouth and firm chin with great enjoyment, now and then allowing his gaze to wander with interest lower down to what he could see of the outfit, which was firmly not après-ski, but a long, plain dress in a navy jersey-knit. Squareish shoulders, which Sol rather thought were mostly Phoebe, a draped bust which didn’t hide the fact of abundant Phoebe, and long sleeves, which were definitely a pity: what little he could see of the skin indicated the rest of it would probably look good under the dining-room’s more than adequate lighting. He had noticed before she sat down that the waist was defined by a wide pleated sash of the dress material and that the soft gathering of the straight skirt didn’t hide the fact of wide hips. He hadn’t seen the ass but he would have bet every cent he owned that it wasn’t flat.
… “I reckon that chicken’s winning, Phoebe: why don’t you leave it?” he drawled, some time later.
Phoebe replied with a breathless laugh: “Oh, I’m a chicken-beater from way back! Just give me time and I’ll have it licked!”
Sol laughed. He didn’t fail to register, with deep enjoyment, her use of the American vernacular in that last phrase.
“Gee, Phoebe, you shoulda said!” said Abe in concern. “Here, lemme order you something different!”
“The steak was vile,” noted Pat.
“Gee, no, honey! Mine was real good! Are you sure, Phoebe?”
Phoebe was sure. Sol, sighing slightly, allowed his gaze to wander round the crowded restaurant. John Aitken had told him that New Zealand puddings were often good—insofar as they were frequently composed of real ingredients, such as sugar, eggs and cream, rather than reconstituted polystyrene. However, they were noticeably—John’s word had been “gustatorily”: Sol wasn’t too sure it was a word, but it sure was a good one—noticeably going that way.
There was a dessert trolley. Pat, shuddering, turned away from it. Phoebe interrogated the waiter as to the composition and provenance of the large, fluffy, cream-laden white thing. His replies were unsatisfactory, so she had black-bottom pie. Sol had it, too, more on the score of its name than anything. Abe had a huge slice of chocolate gateau, plus a huge helping of fruit salad with whipped cream.
“This is real good!”
“Ugh,” said Pat faintly. She sipped black coffee.
“This is quite unbelievably rich, isn’t it?” said Sol faintly.
“Yeah,” replied Phoebe, grinning. She’d almost finished hers.
“Think of the calories,” said Pat faintly.
“Mm; but I calculate that a good hard day on the slopes tomorrow’ll work ’em off.” Phoebe paused, her eyes twinkling. “Well, most of them.”
“Do you ski?” asked Pat in horror.
“Well, I’m not here for the chicken fights,” replied Phoebe mildly. Obligingly Sol and Abe gave shouts of laughter.
“My God; nothing on God’s earth’d get me out there throwing myself down the mountain at ninety miles an hour!” said Pat, shuddering.
At least she was honest about it, reflected Sol, trying to catch Phoebe’s eye and failing, because she was determinedly trying to avoid his.
“It’s ruination to your skin and hair, you know; especially at our age,” Pat assured Phoebe.
“Now, your hair looks real pretty, honey,” said Abe quickly.
“Rubbish, Abe! It’s stiff with gel and muck! It feels disgusting!”
They all looked at Pat’s smart, glossy dark cap. Well, maybe she was right and it did feel disgusting.
“How on earth do you cope?” she said discontentedly to Phoebe.
Phoebe touched her shiny, light brown French pleat. “My hair? I suppose I’ve been doing it like this for so long that it just does what it’s told.”
“It’s very thick,” said Pat grumpily.
“Uh—yes,” admitted Phoebe, eyeing her with a certain awe. Sol could only conclude that back in the days when she’d been Pat Shapiro the true splendour of her exclusively self-centred personality hadn’t burst upon Phoebe Fothergill.
… “I wouldn’t,” he warned, some time later in the lounge.
“No, it’s okay, Sol, this is the colonies,” said Phoebe with a grin. “They haven’t latched onto the sophisticated tricks that all youse overseas jokers know about. Well, I have been served Portuguese—but that was in the Big Smoke. Go on, risk it.”
“Make that two Cognacs,” said Sol in tones of deep gloom to the waiter. The man agreed to this. Abe, meanwhile, was urging Pat to have a liqueur.
“Oh—all right. What’s that greenish thing I liked?”
“Crème de menthe—frappé,” said Sol instantly, his eyes on Phoebe’s face. It suddenly looked as if it was about to explode.
“No, that’s that frothy thing, I hate that, Sol, you know that perfectly well! No, that other thing, Abe!”
“Kiwifruit liqueur?” said the waiter helpfully.
“God, no!” replied Pat, shuddering. Phoebe’s face, noted Sol, now looked as if it take one more—just one more—and she’d be over the edge. Gee, this was good!
“Uh—when did you have it, honey?”
“How on earth do you expect me to remember a thing like that?” she retorted witheringly.
“You don’t mean that Hawaiian thing?” said Sol helpfully.
“No! That wasn’t a liqueur. Besides, it was disgusting!”
“No, it wasn’t, hon’. Only now I come to think of it, it wasn’t green,” Abe admitted.
Phoebe rolled her lips very tightly together. Her broad shoulders shook.
“Benedictine’s kinda green,” said Sol, taking pity on the stranger in their midst.
“It’s an excellent liqueur,” said the waiter helpfully.
Pat ignored him. “What does it taste like?” she asked Sol.
Faintly he replied: “Its taste is truly undefinable, I’ve always thought.”
“I know someone who says it’s like the distilled essence of young, tender pine needles,” murmured Phoebe.
Sol’s jaw dropped. He goggled at her.
“You do like it, hon’, I remember now!” urged Abe. –Mendaciously or not, even in his normal state his half-brother wouldn’t have been able to tell.
“Oh—all right. I suppose I could try some.”
Abe ordered it briskly, decided he’d have a Scotch, and told the waiter to bring some of those little stick things.
“Yes, um, stick things?”
“They call ’em pretzels, only they sure as Hell ain’t! Say, you ever seen a straight pretzel?” Abe chuckled richly.
The waiter, Sol had recovered enough to notice, was convinced this was an indelicate joke at the expense of his sexuality. He turned a sort of puce and tottered off, muttering: “Pretzel sticks.”
“He thought that was an indelicate joke at the expense of his sexuality!” Sol pointed out brightly to Phoebe.
“I—noticed—that! It’s us ignorant colonials!” she gasped, breaking out into a roar of laughter.
When he’d finished watching Phoebe’s tits shake Abe said worriedly: “Say, I never meant to hurt the poor little guy’s feelings. Say, you think I oughta apologize?”
“No!” howled Phoebe, breaking down again.
“It’d make it worse, ya jerk,” said Sol, grinning all over his face.
“Ye-ah... Well, I guess you’re right. What do you think, Pat, honey?”
“He’s a waiter. I suppose he’s used to it,” said Pat with complete indifference. “Look: that woman in the fur jacket—no, over there! Isn’t that that Carrano woman?”
“No,” said Phoebe, recovering herself and wiping her eyes. “She’s having a quiet break at home.”
Pat’s attention was momentarily caught. “Do you know her?”
“Slightly, yes.”
“She’s a friend of my sister Veronica’s,” said Pat discontentedly. “They say she’s got a fabulous house, but you know what Veronica is! Every time I ask her about it she just says ‘Quite big’, or something equally illuminating!”
“Oh,” said Phoebe faintly. “I’m afraid I’ve never been to the Carranos’, Pat.”
“Why didja want to know about it, honey?” asked Abe kindly. –To Sol’s relief: he’d been wondering if he could get away with asking it himself.
“Because I thought it might give me some ideas about what to do with that monstrosity of yours!” she replied loudly.
“It’s not that bad, Pat, honey,” he replied sadly and without conviction.
“It’s quite a handsome house,” Sol admitted.
“Yes, if you like fake-Tudor manors sitting in the middle of Florida!” retorted Patricia acidly.—Phoebe gulped.—“But the inside!” She shuddered.
“That was Edie,” said Abe on a certain resigned note. “Well, guess no-one ever claimed she had any taste, poor Edie.”
“That was his first wife, Phoebe,” Sol explained kindly, as Pat extrapolated on the theme of Edie’s lack of taste.
“So I gather.”
“Now passed over,” he said in a totally neutral voice.
“That would make it more difficult,” murmured Phoebe.
“For some,” murmured Sol.
Phoebe choked.
… “Do you play bridge, Phoebe?” asked Pat, some time later.
“Not when I’m on holiday,” replied Phoebe firmly.
Sol’s shoulders quivered.
“Blow. Well, I think those Mortimer people do.”
“Don’t expect me to make a fourth,” warned Sol.
“I could always make up your table, Pat, hon—”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Abe! I’ll just go and see if that Mortimer woman wants to play. What is her name, anyway?”
“Uh—Doris?” suggested Abe helpfully, if foggily.
“No!”
“Dulcie?” suggested Sol with malice aforethought.
Pat withered him with a Look. “They’re from... Where was it, again? Somewhere in Texas.”
Wincing, Abe said: “Phoenix, Arizona. –He’s real keen on winter sports,” he explained kindly to Phoebe.
“And she’s real keen on fur-trimmed ski apparel,” added Sol kindly.
“Yes, that was a lovely parka she had on yesterday—mind you, that look’s really Out.” Pat got up. “Maybe they’ll know of a fourth.” She went off without more ado.
Abe immediately looked round for the waiter.
“What indoor games do you play, Phoebe?” murmured Sol, with malice aforethought.
“Oh—the usual ones—you know,” Phoebe replied blandly.
“Uh-huh.”
“And one or two less usual ones,” Phoebe added blandly.
Sol gulped.
Whether Abe had been conscious of this exchange or not it would have been hard to say. He had at last, by dint of much furious waving, attracted the waiter’s attention. Now he firmly ordered another round.
“Some of us were intending to get out onto the slopes at crack of dawn tomorrow,” murmured Phoebe.
“Yeah, some of us were,” Sol agreed. “Alternatively some of us were intending to sit here getting pie-eyed at our brother’s expense.”
“Pie-eyed: that’s a good one,” she said admiringly.
“Yup: it’s one of my favourites. What’s its derivation, do you think?”
“Middle English: pied. As in magpies, or Pied Piper,” said Phoebe instantly. “You end up feeling as if one eye’s gone black and one white and you can’t see out of either of ’em.”
Sol laughed until the tears oozed down his cheeks.
“I deduce they don’t play fake derivations much in your part of Fort Lauderdale,” she murmured.
“Nope; we’re not that highly interlekshual in them parts,” he drawled.
“Except for him, of course,” put in his brother, grinning broadly. “We’d keep him locked up, but most of our friends have known him so long, they can make allowances.”
“Abe three, Sol nil,” noted Phoebe.
The Winkelmann brothers beamed.
… “If Pat hadn’ta dragged that Mason guy off to play bridge, we coulda got up a game of poker,” grumbled Abe, some time later.
Sol looked round wildly at the crowded après-ski lounge. “What’s stopping us? There must be one other guy here besides us that plays poker. Just stand up and yell: ‘Hey, anyone fancy a hand of poker?’”
“See that fellow over there in the green jumper?” said Phoebe kindly to the scowling Abe.
“Jumper?” echoed Sol faintly.
“Sweater, on your side of the Pacific,” she explained. “I know him. He could give us a game. Only he’s a rotten player.”
“Good,” said Sol simply.
“Do you know the guy he’s with?” asked Abe keenly.
“Er—yes. I don’t know if he plays, the subject’s never come up between us.”
“I bet,” muttered Sol.
“Look, there’s another guy talking to ’em: go get ‘em, Phoebe!” urged Abe.
Grinning, Phoebe got up. “If I do, will I get a reward?”
“Sure ya will, honey!” said Abe, suddenly dropping the polite-address-to-ladies bit and grinning all over his amiable, ugly face. “If it’s legal, sure!”
“I don’t know that it is,” said Phoebe. “One of those,” she explained, nodding at his cigar.
It fell out of his slackened jaw. He only just caught in it time. “One of these?” he choked.
“Mm—rowed themselves over from Havana on a raft, did they?”
Grinning broadly, Abe said: “Yup, they sure did!”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Phoebe mildly. “One of those’ll do, then.”
“You’re on! –Say, what a woman!” he said to his brother, as she strolled off towards the middle-aged gentlemen at the bar. “Say, you reckon ya might be in there with a chance, fella?”
“How crude,” he murmured.
“Yeah!” agreed Abe enthusiastically, watching Phoebe’s back view.
“I thought you only liked ’em flat?”
“I can make an exception.”
“Well, can I be there when Pat finds out?” pleaded Sol.
“Watch it, fella! –Here she comes, she’s got ’em.”
They rose as Phoebe introduced a smooth, greying Owen Bligh, who was “Something in Treasury”, a very smooth, silvered John Westby, who was a gynaecologist and chairman of Phoebe’s school board, and—
“Ralph Overdale,” said the super-smooth, balding, plumpish gent, shaking hands genially all round. He turned out to be, as John Westby put it—in tones of rather forced bonhomie which Sol gathered weren’t native to him—”one of those butchers from The Mater.” Sol had heard of that medical establishment: old Sir Jerry Cohen, Pat’s father, had described its virtues at some length. People such as Rothschilds crossed the world to have their heart operations done there. Lady Cohen had verified this placidly so Sol, who had conceived a due respect for that gentle-mannered, steel-willed little lady, knew it must be true. Boy, they were in High Society now!
Abe promptly moved them upstairs into the suite. Owen Bligh and John Westby accepted Scotch; Ralph Overdale placidly asked for mineral water. Watch it! thought Sol. Abe played his usual canny game. Sol played with his usual flashes of brilliance and after an hour decided he’d just watch, it was safer.
John Westby looked highly embarrassed as he said this, which confirmed Sal’s impression that he was what Micky Shapiro, Pat’s ex, would have called “a tit”, and what his father, old David Shapiro, who on very short acquaintance had struck him as a guy after his own heart, would undoubtedly have amended to: “a greater spotted blue-tit.” Westby managed to put his arm round Phoebe five times, and Phoebe managed to walk away from it, wriggle out from under it or just plain remove it a total of five times—so Sol gathered he thought he had territorial rights there, and Phoebe thought he didn’t. Thank Christ. He was a rotten poker player, but he didn’t seem to care that he was losing a lot of money. Presumably gynaecology and being chairman of Phoebe’s school board gained him a decent income.
Owen Bligh, as promised, was also a rotten card player, but he seemed to be doing it for the heck of it. Maybe he got a kick out of losing money? Sol understood—though he rather thought Abe didn’t—that “Something in Treasury” meant a high-up civil servant, but he doubted that even high-up civil servants in New Zealand earned enough to allow them to go on throwing their money away for the heck of it. The guy must have investments. He looked the sort of guy that did, green knit “jumper” or not. He also looked the sort of guy that really fancied Phoebe Fothergill. And that could talk on her wavelength, in the right dialect. Oh, shee-ut.
Ralph Overdale turned out to be practically professional and Sol was hugely relieved he’d had the sense to drop out when he did. He was gonna take Abe for a bundle, that was clear. Oh, well, Abe could stand it. It was also clear to Sol that Ralph Overdale admired Phoebe Fothergill very much, but he wasn’t the sort of guy to let that distract him from poker. Unfortunately Sol couldn’t convince himself that Phoebe was the sort of gal that’d let that put her off. Rather the reverse, actually.
Phoebe Fothergill turned out to be a steady player with flashes of meanness. She also had the sense to know when to drop out, and at the point where Abe and Ralph were eyeing each other blandly through the cigar smoke and there was ten big ones on the table she threw in her hand, and retired to a sofa.
Sol wandered over to the drinks trolley and got her a Scotch before John Westby could. As she was at one end of the sofa, he quickly sat down beside her—pre-emptive strike, yeah. “This Owen guy,” he murmured in her ear.
“Mm?”
And what a very well-shaped ear it was, too! Very creamy above, nice pink lobe, little drop earring of lapis-lazuli, real cute... “Huh? Oh. He got plenty of the stuff?” he said quietly.
“Family money,” murmured Phoebe, her eyes on the table. “Plus a big killing on the Stock Exchange a few years back, just before the big crash.”
“I get it. –So your Stock Exchange was affected, too?”
“The global village,” murmured Phoebe drily.
“Yeah,” muttered Sol.
John Westby bustled over to them and Phoebe immediately said: “Anyone fancy a side bet?”
“My dear Phoebe!”—with an embarrassed laugh. Didn’t stop him having a hard-on, though. How old was he? Only mid-fifties, decided Sol glumly, in spite of the head of silver hair. And well-preserved with it. Sorta guy that took care of himself. And that could afford to. Steam baths, gymnasiums... that kinda stuff.
“Have a drink, John,” she said kindly.
“Oh—well—yes, one for the road, eh?” Fuss, fuss. No, she couldn’t fall for a greater spotted blue-tit! –Could she? No... Could she?
“This is a bit of a change from St Ursie’s boardroom, isn’t it?” he said, coming back and leaning against her end of the sofa. –The confidential old chums bit: yeah, yeah, rub it in, fella.
“Mm,” Phoebe agreed with a little smile.
“I never knew you were a poker player!” –Flattering little laugh.
“I’m not much of a one,” returned Phoebe mildly.
Another laugh. This one could only have been described as fulsome, oh, God. “You could beat me hands down any time you liked!”
“Yeah,” agreed Sol sourly: “you could beat the pants offa me any day of the week, too.” He walked away from them without waiting for her reaction. If any.
… “Say, what’s wrong with you, fella?” said his brother sorrowfully as Phoebe allowed Owen and John—jointly—to escort her to her room.
“Well, in view of the fact that my room’s right next-door,” drawled Sol, “I thought it might look too particular—not if I insisted—but if the lady accepted my offer to escort her. Geddit?”
Abe merely replied: “Too particular! You’re losing your touch, ya mean!”
“Or you could say I’m losing my touch,” Sol allowed sourly, going off to his room.
“Yuck,” she said, walking up to him with a grin next morning. “Never knew the human physiognomy could attain that particular shade: you ought to distil that and bottle it for Pat. You could call it, um… Chartreuse!”
Sol choked. “How come you don’t look like death warmed up, after all that Scotch you put away last night?” he managed to ask feebly.
“It’s the pure life I lead,” said Phoebe, sitting down at his table and smiling at him.
“Don’t blame me for that,” grumbled Sol.
“I don’t, entirely. Though I do think it was rather unkind of you to leave me to John Westby’s tender mercies twice in one evening. I get enough of that during the term.”
“Is that my cue for asking in my dumb-Yank way what a term is?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t think so,” replied Phoebe mildly, scanning the breakfast menu. “Your brother informs me that you’re quite an intellectual type and that your apartment’s lined with books.”
Sol went very red but managed to croak: “Oh, good: he’s learnt to follow instructions, then!”
Phoebe smiled but said only: “Are you eating?”
“No,” he whispered.
“Oh. Well, I’m sorry, but I’m hungry.”
“Compensation,” he whispered.
Grinning, Phoebe said to the waiter: “I’ll have scrambled eggs with ham, toast and marmalade, and coffee. And an orange juice to start with, thanks.”
Sol shut his eyes. “You’re doing this deliberately.”
“Yes.”
Opening his eyes, he said glumly: “Well, at least you’re honest.”
“Mm. Are your relatives still prostrate?”
“Yeah. And in case you were wondering, I’m the walking dead.”
“I wasn’t wondering. Why in God’s name did you get up at all?”
“I had a feeling that if I didn’t Overdale or Bligh might beat me to something. Besides, after a while I found that the more I didn’t get up the more I—”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Phoebe, grinning.
“—kept getting up,” finished Sol inexorably, if glumly.
“They say that wears off after a few years.”
“Yeah. I did once hear rumours of a cure, too,” he said glumly, sipping his coffee and trying to ignore the entrancing way in which little smiles kept popping in and out round that generous mouth.
When Phoebe’s orange juice arrived she drank some and then said: “Owen’s here with his wife.”
“Gee, that’s good news,” he replied dully.
“Besides, he has a certain position to maintain—very cautious bloke, Owen. Typical public servant.”
“Uh-huh.”
Little smiles came and went at Phoebe’s mouth but she said: “Ay also have ay certain position to maintain.”
“Don’t tempt me,” he sighed.
“All of which is why Owen won’t actually try anything—this time round.”
“Uh-huh.”
Phoebe twinkled at him over her juice. “Now shall I explain about Westby?”
“Yeah. No, hang on: first, would you say the expression ‘greater spotted blue-tit’ defined him, or not?”
Phoebe’s jaw dropped. After a discernible pause she said: “Don’t tell me that that’s a choice piece of the Florida vernacular!”
“Sure, the woods around Fort Lauderd— No,” he said, when she’d finished spluttering, “I got it off of an old guy called David Shapiro.”
“Really?” she cried.
“Yeah,” said Sol, staring at her.
“Evidently he’s a friend of an acquaintance of mine; I don’t know if you recall I mentioned someone who can define the taste of Benedictine?”—Sol nodded numbly.—”A friend of hers.”
After a moment he said: “Well, given David Shapiro, and given that definition, I’d sure like to meet her.”
To this Phoebe replied with a strange little smile: “I expect you would. But I’m afraid you’d be at the end of a very, very long queue.”
“Even if I did meet her?”
“That was what I meant,” she replied sedately.
“Yo, boy.” After a moment he added with an effort: “Well, am I right?”
“Wha— Oh, John Westby! Oh, absolutely! You’d never think—” She broke off.
“What?” he said mildly.
“I was going to say that he’s only in his mid-fifties, about the same age as my lover, only then I thought better of it.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Because I think you might have met him,” said Phoebe, twinkling over her glass.
“Nope. Couldn’ta done. Haven’t met any guys lately that looked completely shagged out but very, very happy.”
Twinkling, Phoebe said: “Well, he’s got used to it by now, you see.”
“What is he, Superman?” said Sol faintly.
“No. Only he—he rations himself!” She laughed all over the breakfast table.
“Gee, is this supposed to make me feel better?” he complained faintly.
“No,” said Phoebe, giving him a straight look. “I just thought you’d like to know.”
“Thanks,” said Sol after a moment, going very red.
“It’s permanent but casual; and in no way exclusive, on either side.”
“In plain American, is that the green light?”
“I’m not quite sure. That’s why I didn’t put it in plain American.”
“I was afraid of that,” he admitted, grimacing.
The waiter then brought Phoebe’s food. When she’d engulfed a huge amount of ham and egg she looked up at him and said: “I quite fancy Ralph Overdale, too.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Only as both of our faces are rather well known on our home turf, I don’t know that it would be altogether wise. And I rather think he’s far too canny to risk anything.”
“I would have said so,” he allowed cautiously.
“Mm.”
“Is he with his wife?”
“No, he isn’t, actually. I gather she loathes the snow. He’s with some friends—a married couple. But they were playing bridge last night.”
“I guess this here mountain is littered with other friends and acquaintances off of your home turf, too?”
“One or two.”
“Would they notice you rollin’ in the hay with an obscure Yankee boy?”
“Apart from the fact that there’s no hay, only snow as far as the eye can see, yes.”
“That puts it very clearly,” he said sourly.
“Do you normally give up this easily, Winkelmann? Or is it because my ageing charms pale into insignificance beside those of the wall-to-wall skirt you’ve got lining that apartment of yours back in Fort Lauderdale?”
“Uh—yeah. And no. In that order.”
Phoebe crunched toast thoughtfully. “Am I coming on too strong? –I’m not sure if you can say that in American.”
“Don’t be an idiot!” said Sol roughly, very red. “You couldn’t possibly— Shit, isn’t obvious I’m crazy for you?”
Phoebe flushed a little but said: “Well, then...?” She looked at him doubtfully.
“Haven’t you just pointed out a stop light? Or don’t you have them in New Zealand?” he said irritably.
She looked at him thoughtfully. Sol squirmed. At the same time his heart raced frantically and he had one of the greatest hard-ons of his adult life. Her close-fitting fawn angora sweater did nothing to mitigate these physiological symptoms.
“I want to get in a few decent runs today,” she said.
“Yeah—sure,” he croaked.
“But if you like, we could have dinner in my room and spend the evening together.”
“Yes,” he croaked. He swallowed. “And the night?”
Phoebe smiled a little. “If you still feel like it—mm.”
“I’ll feel like it!” he assured her fervently.
She sipped coffee. “I have been called a ball-breaker,” she said without emphasis.
“Hey, great!”
Phoebe threw back her head and laughed. Ooh, gee, an expanse of luscious cream—mm-mmm!
“It’s a deal, then?” he said, holding out his hand to her across the table.
The wide hazel eyes met his. “Yes. It’s a deal.” She put her hand in his and held it tightly.
Ralph Overdale had just come into the dining-room. His well-shaped mouth tightened a little but his smooth, professional-man’s face remained otherwise expressionless. “A table by the window, if that’s possible—for one,” he said to the maître d’.
“I suppose I don’t need to ask what that brother of yours is up to!” said Pat acidly.
“Nope,” returned Abe genially.
“Well, let’s just hope this one is over the age of consent and knows better than to turn up in shorts and a halter to a formal dinner-party!”
The goggling Abe—ignoring this reference, which he’d heard many times before, it was one of Pat’s favourites—realized that it hadn’t dawned on his self-centred beloved who it was that his indefatigable brother had gotten off with.
“Uh—yeah,” he said weakly. Well, maybe it was just as well, at that. Wasn’t Pat’s mother on that school board, too, now he came to think about it? Ye-ah... Actually, now he came to think about it, it’d be just as well if it hadn’ta sunk into that Westby guy’s blue-rinsed head, neither.
“Anyway, I’m giving you due warning, I’ll want him to make up a bridge table on Friday,” said Pat grumpily. “We’re having a mini-tournament.”
Abe didn’t point out that most of these people hadn’t come to the mountain for bridge. They hadn’t come actually to go skiing, either, The Chateau wasn’t quite that sort of hotel. It was a rich persons’ hotel, all right, but skiing wasn’t a rich persons’ sport in New Zealand, it had gradually dawned on Abe as he fell over contingent after contingent of breathless, laughing college students in far from trendy gear on the nursery slops. No, most of their fellow guests had come to show off their après-ski gear, the expensive and very In ski-gear that they didn’t actually do much skiing in, and, as far as Abe could see—which was pretty far, there were no flies on Abe—get clobbered out of their minds in the evenings. Boy, these Kiwis could sure put the stuff away! Now, he liked a drink occasionally, himself, but—
“Uh—we can’t force Sol to play, honey, if he doesn’t feel like it,” he warned uneasily.
“Rubbish! We’re paying for him, aren’t we?”
Abe turned a deep maroon.
“It wouldn’t hurt him,” said Patricia sulkily.
“Honey,” said Abe with commendable self-restraint: “there were no strings on this vacation—geddit? Sol can do what he likes. If he wants to—uh—spend his evenings doing what comes naturally, it ain’t up to us to tell him to play bridge instead.”
Patricia pouted.
“Uh—have you asked Ralph Overdale, Pat, honey? I think he—”
“WHO?” screamed Pat.
“Ralph Overdale: he was playing poker with us. He’s a surgeon, I thi—”
“I know who he is!” screamed Pat. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d met him?”
“Uh— Well, you said you didn’t wanna hear—”
“That’ll do!” screamed Pat. “He is still here, is he?”
“Uh—sure. I think he’s staying to the end of the week.’
“You can introduce me to him tonight!”
“Sure. Uh, why are you so keen to meet him, hon’?”
Pat took a deep breath. Words like “New Year’s Honours List”, “friend of the Carranos”—Abe was beginning to feel sick of that name—”his wife was a—” and that kinda crap flew thick and fast.
When she got to the “Phyllis says” bit he stood up. “Yeah. Okay, if you wanna meet this Ralph guy, I’ll introduce ya. But I tell ya what:”—he went over to the door of the suite—“I wouldn’t play cards with that guy lessen my life depended on it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Abe! Phyllis says he’s a marvellous bridge player!”
Abe just betted he was. He opened the door.
“Where are you off to NOW?” she screamed.
“The bar. You can meet me down there.” He walked off before his startled wife could even scream: “Which bar?”
That Owen guy was propping up the bar. That small dark one where they gave you a decent-sized drink.
“You play bridge?” Abe inquired moodily.
“Only when forced,” Owen replied sourly.
Abe eyed him cautiously. Even though he didn’t know what a “Something in Treasury” was, he’d taken Owen’s measure, and he now confirmed his immediate suspicion that Owen was well on the way. Else he would never have said it.
“Me, too,” he agreed. “That Ralph guy—he play?”
Owen snorted.
“That a ‘yup’ or a ‘nup’?” said Abe mildly.
“He plays every card game ever invented by man,” said Owen, with great precision, “and for all I know, a few Martian ones, too”—yup, he was well on the way—“and I have never seen him lose at any of them.” He paused. “Any—of—them,” he repeated impressively.
“Uh-huh. –Triple Scotch. On the rocks,” he said to the barman.
“Wilson’s?”
Owen was well on the way but he wasn’t that far gone. He looked up sharply. “Black Label—and none of your ruddy tricks!” he said irritably.
“Yessir.” The barman retreated, and poured whisky from something that certainly had a black label on it. Owen reflected he’d done all he could.
Abe sipped. “That all right?” said Owen.
“Uh-huh.”
Well, either the Yank couldn’t tell the difference, or else that bottle really did have Black Label inside it. Owen breathed a stealthy sigh of relief.
Abe swallowed noisily. “He take ya to the cleaners?”
“What? Oh—Ralph. Well, yes, but that’s not it. He always does.”
Abe eyed him speculatively, but said nothing.
Owen took a huge gulp of whatever colourless fluid it was—straight vodka, Abe rather thought—and said in a vicious voice: “This morning my wife sprained her ankle on the beginner’s run. Very badly.”
“Say, I’m sorry to hear that,” said Abe easily.
“Don’t be a ruddy idiot!” returned Owen irritably. Abe eyed him dubiously. Owen drained his glass and shoved it across the bar. “Fill that up again.”
“Ice?” the barman offered helpfully.
“NO!” said Owen, very loudly.
The man got out a bottle with Russian writing all over it—uh-huh. Abe watched with interest as Owen gulped. It wasn’t exactly colourless, if you looked closely, it was kinda oily. Very faintly oily.
“You drink this stuff?” said Owen, seeing he was being watched.
“Nope.”
“Oughta try it. I know a bloke who can get it for you wholesale. I mean, really wholesale.” He winked laboriously.
“From Russia?” said Abe, rather faintly.
“Why not? Swaps it for television parts or something.”
Uh-huh.
“Anyway,” said Owen, suddenly lapsing into gloom and drooping all over the bar, “she’s laid up for the rest of the week.”
“Huh? Oh, your wife! Say, that really is bad luck, fella!”
“Don’t be a fool,” replied Owen crossly. “What’s really bad luck is, your ruddy brother’s got off with Phoebe Fothergill!”
Abe choked slightly. “I geddit,” he said weakly.
“Congratulations,” replied Owen sourly, draining his glass. “Fill ’er up,” he said to the barman.
“On me,” said Abe quickly.
When Owen’s refilled glass was in his fist—even though this was a real high-class joint the barman did actually refill the glass, he didn’t give him a clean one—Abe pointed out tactfully: “This place is lousy with skirt. What’s one more or less?”
“Huh!”
“You could take your pick. Good-looking guy like you.”
“I dare say. –Would you believe, the first time I met her she was teaching English in some dump? Masterton, I think—God! She was three stone overweight and had horn-rimmed specs that hid most of her fat, spotty face, and needed to!”
“Sure, sure,” he replied soothingly.
“I never saw the potential,” explained Owen sulkily.
“Uh-huh,” he replied soothingly.
“Now I’ve got three totally mindless teenagers, a draughty mausoleum on a hill in Khandallah that’s costing me a fortune to heat, the BMW I used to think ’ud make my fucking dreams come true or some such puerile shit, a boat I never have time to go out on, an up-market Oldee English sheepdog that piddles on my wife’s fucking up-market Persian rugs, a bach at Taupo that I never get time to spend any time at, and what the fuck’s it all FOR?” ended Owen loudly.
Abe slung his arm round his shoulders. “Have another drink, fella.”
“Too right!” agreed Owen with fervour.
Abe very kindly assisted the poor jerk to get bombed out of his tiny mind. Since he was both a practical man and an intelligent one, he didn’t even try to point out to him that if he hadda seen the potential in Phoebe Fothergill back whenever and had married her instead of whoever, there was no reason to suppose his life would have turned out any different. Well, possibly the teenagers might not have been totally mindless. But otherwise Abe couldn’t see that it woulda been much different. Life was like that. Guys that were (a) as sorry for themselves and (b) as bombed as Owen sure couldn’t see it, though.
At about the same point in time as Owen was pouring his third triple Russian vodka down, the fortunate Sol was saying to his beloved with a grimace: “Jesus Christ, I’m stiff!”
“Good,” replied Phoebe, grinning.
Stretching and grimacing, Sol said: “No, my back muscles. Shoulda got in training more. I guess I never really thought it it’d come off.”
“Mm,” she agreed drily.
“No! The trip!” said Sol, laughing like a drain.
“Mm. Do you want to join that interminable queue for one last run?”
“Uh—well, what do you think about the weather?”
“Snow tomorrow,” replied Phoebe, not even bothering to glance at the lowering sky.
“Yeah.”
“According to the Met. Office it’ll be rotten for the rest of the week, in case you were hoping it might blow over tonight.”
“I wasn’t hoping that,” he murmured.
“Well, then?”
“Uh—well, what would you like to do, honey?”
Phoebe, who wasn’t used to this mode of address, especially not in public, flushed a little. “One more run, then?”
“Okay,” he said amiably.
They joined the queue. But Phoebe couldn’t help wondering if it was what he really wanted to do, because, not for the first time, she had found herself quite baffled by that screen of American good manners. Certain people, notably his sister-in-law Patricia and his brother Abraham, might have scoffed at the notion that Sol Winkelmann had anything approaching manners. But of course he did: those typical middle-class American ones, which dictated, amongst other things, that a gentleman did not impose his will on a lady. Phoebe was used to the direct style. And she was a very direct person herself. So, much as she liked Sol Winkelmann—and she was beginning to have the feeling that it was a bit too much, so it was a good thing he was only out here on a short holiday—she wasn’t finding him easy to deal with.
Having finally struggled their way to the head of the queue they were duly borne aloft on the ski-lift and flew down to the bottom again. A mindless activity, not to say pointless, Sol reflected at the bottom. However, the exhilaration was worth it. Well, almost worth it. Well, not quite, when you considered the expense... The parasite-feeling came over him again.
“Wow!” said Phoebe, pulling up before him in a shower of snow. “That was good!”
“Yeah,” he agreed, grinning amiably. “Listen, I was thinking.”
“What?” Phoebe removed her skis and slung them over her shoulder. Sol didn’t offer to help, he wasn’t that dumb.
“Would a person that only has experience in running a boating-supplies store in Florida, U.S.A., be able to earn a living out here?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” replied Phoebe weakly, nobly hiding her immense shock.
“No, I didn’t guess so, really...”
“Are you serious?” she said, as they headed in a sheep-like way for the Top of the Bruce and its frightful cafeteria.
“Uh… Well, I’m thinking about it. I kind of like the Kiwi lifestyle...”
“It’s not all up-market chicken fights at The Chateau, you know,” said Phoebe weakly.
“No, I know. I was thinking more of...” He hesitated, then said awkwardly: “Those friends of Susan’s that live at that Wai-Cow place.”
Sol had previously said something about those friends, so she said feebly: “Waikaukau Junction, do you mean?”
“Uh-huh. I guess.”
Swallowing, Phoebe said: “Did you say you’d met Meg O’Connell?”
“That’s Susan’s neighbour with the twin boys, huh? Yeah: she’s real sweet.”
“Mm. She’s one of my senior mistresses at St Ursula’s.”
“Is that so? Yeah, she said she was a teacher. Would you call that a coincidence?”
“No, I’d call that a demonstration of how very, very small New Zealand is,” said Phoebe on a certain grim note. “We’ve got fifty million sheep and only three and a half million people, in case no-one’s mentioned it.”
“Yeah,” murmured Sol, eyeing her cautiously.
After a moment she said: “Does Meg’s lifestyle appeal to you?”
“Kids and ducks?” replied Sol with a little smile. “Yep, it sure does.”
“Kids and ducks and big draughty wooden houses in the middle of nowhere,” elaborated Phoebe in a neutral tone.
“Sure; that’s right,” he returned amiably. “It’s real pretty, where they are. Real green.”
Phoebe sighed.
“Well, I guess you could say, real muddy,” he conceded sheepishly.
“Yes,” said Phoebe with another sigh. “And do you know exactly why it’s still such a green, muddy, beckoning exemplar of the simple semi-rural life?”
“Uh—no,” Sol admitted, taken aback. “I guess not.”
“Well, let’s wait until I’ve had a shot of caffeine in brown dye and I might be able to tell you,” she said grimly.
When they’d finally fought their way to a couple of hugely uncomfortable seats in the hugely uncomfortable cafeteria and were drinking real bad coffee, Sol said cautiously: “Go on, Phoebe. Tell me the bad news about Wai-Cow Junction.”
“Two cows,” said Phoebe heavily.
“Huh?”
“Wai-kau-kau.”
“Oh—sorry. These Maori names sure are tricky.”
“Especially to the ignorant foreigner,” said Phoebe, giving him a hard look.
“I kind of thought that total ignorance might be more acceptable than giving it my best shot and getting it slightly wrong.”
“Or completely right,” agreed Phoebe grimly.
After a moment Sol said: “Yes. I’m sorry, Phoebe.”
“You don’t have to do the man-of-the-people act with me,” she said tiredly.
“No. I’m sorry, I guess it’s a habit.”
She sighed. After a moment she said: “If you did stay...”
“Yeah?”
Phoebe didn’t even try to interpret the background to that eagerness. “I could introduce you to one or two people who might help you to get out of the habit.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And about three and a half million who’d help you to reinforce it.”
Grinning, Sol said: “I thought it might be like that.”
Little smiles came and went round Phoebe’s wide mouth. “Mm.”
“Gee, I like it when you do that.”
“What?” she said, goggling at him over the soggy rim of her paper cup.
“When ya kinda can’t stop yourself from smiling and your mouth keeps—” He broke off, smiling and shrugging. “Little smiles keep coming and going; it’s real cute!”
“Cute?” said Phoebe in a hollow voice, ignoring the fact that she was very flushed.
“Mm-hm.”
Phoebe’s eyes flickered and fell. Sol reached to touch her hand gently. After a moment he said: “Go on. Tell me this bad news about Waikaukau Junction.”
“What? Oh!” she said, coming to with a start and a laugh. “Well, last year Meg met a woman who—who’s married to a very rich businessman.” She eyed him cautiously: Sol’s face remained expressionless. “I don’t know if you— Well, it’s not like America. There aren’t very many people here who are very rich. Less than half a dozen, I suppose. And a few more who’d be at about your brother’s level.”
“Go on,” he said neutrally.
“Uh—well, Meg got to know this woman quite well. And she found out that the woman’s husband was planning to buy up all the spare land round Blossom Avenue—you know, at Waikaukau Junction—and develop it. Build a yuppie subdivision on it.” She stopped. Sol’s face was perfectly blank. “I’m sorry; do you know what that means?”
“Subdivision or yuppie?” said Sol neutrally.
“Both,” replied Phoebe weakly.
“I guess I have just heard the terms. Both.”
Glaring, Phoebe said: “All RIGHT! …Bugger, where the Hell was I?”
“I think you were trying to tell me that that Carrano guy was gonna develop Waikaukau Junction.”
Choking, Phoebe cried: “If you knew all this, why didn’t you stop me?”
“Well, in the first place, you were going real good, it woulda been a pity. And in the second place, I don’t know it all. All I know is what Meg told me: that this Carrano guy has bought it up and he’s turning the bit opposite Meg’s and John Aitken’s houses into a nature reserve.”
“Yes.” She glared.
“Only me and Abe, in our simple-minded American entrepreneurial way, sure as Hell cain’t figure out why he’s chosen to turn the prime site into a nature reserve and develop the swamp.”
Phoebe looked hard at him. Sol’s long, ugly face remained totally expressionless. “Really?” she said weakly.
“Uh-huh. Gee, even I can see it’s nuts.”
“Oh. Well, that’s my point.”
“Go on, honey,” he said, smiling a little.
Phoebe went very red. “Are you humouring me?” she said in a dangerous voice.
“No. Well, sure I can figure out fifteen possible reasons why this Carrano guy ain’t developing the good site: starting with he’s flipped, and carrying on through it’s got nuclear wastes buried under it that Meg don’t know about,”—Phoebe gulped—“or that he’s fallen violently in love with little ole Meg,”—Phoebe gulped again—“etcetera and so forth. Only I’d quite like for you to tell me the real reason.”
Phoebe swallowed. After a minute she admitted: “Nuclear wastes or falling in love with Meg ’ud be more likely, really.”
“Go on,” he replied mildly.
“Uh—well, I think to understand it you’d have to understand he’s nuts about his wife. I mean, really nuts.”
“Mm-hm.”
“She’s more than twenty years younger than him. I know that isn’t unusual in America!” she added crossly.
“I never said a word.”
“No, you just sat there with that poker-face of yours! Why in Hell you aren’t a better player, I’m buggered if I know!”
“I get bored too fast. Go on, honey-pie.”
Phoebe went puce. “For Christ’s sake don’t say that, I’m not a bloody dessert!”
“Sugar and spice and all things—”
“Drop it!” she yelled.
Smiling, Sol said: “I think you are. Go on, Phoebe.”
Tall, big-boned, ebullient Phoebe Fothergill replied in a weak voice: “I’ve lost my thread.”
Smiling, Sol prompted: “This Carrano guy’s nutty about his wife—”
“Mm. Polly. She’s a very unusual woman, actually. She’s the Benedictine one.”
Sol was blank for a moment. Then his face lit up. “I think I get it!”
“Yes,” said Phoebe weakly. “I can see that. Meg seems to have got Polly on her side. And so she asked Jake to spare Blossom Avenue and its immediate environs and build his dratted yuppie subdivision further up the road—by the golf-course.”
“In the swamp,” he agreed.
“The point I’m trying to make, Sol, is that Blossom Avenue has preserved the appearance of a charming rural backwater where impoverished ageing hippies like Meg and her Bill can get out and do their kids-and-ducks thing only by the grace of God and Jake Bloody Carrano!”
“Semi-rural, ain’t it?”
Glaring, Phoebe said: “I’m trying to give you an awful warning! Jake Carrano and his ilk already own most of the bloody North Island, and their bloody yuppie town-houses are spreading faster than the Black Death—”
“Okay, I get it!” He paused. “Is it really that bad, Phoebe?”
“Put it like this: I wouldn’t buy anywhere within a radius of fifty miles of the city, if I wanted to hang on to a bit of semi-rural peace for the next fifteen years.”
Sol returned tranquilly: “Fifteen years’d just about see me out.”
“What? Crap!” she cried.
“I’m forty-five,” he pointed out mildly.
Phoebe returned heatedly: “I’m forty-seven, and I’ve got no bloody intention of dropping dead at sixty, what makes you so special?”
Sol smiled a little. “Nothing, I guess. Sometimes us parasite-types feel real tired, though.”
Phoebe swallowed convulsively. After some time she said faintly: “Parasite?”
Sol pulled an awful face. “Abe’s paying for this vacation, in case you hadn’t gathered it.”
“Oh, of course! I mean, he’s been going around saying at the top of his voice all over the bloody Chateau, ‘By the by, I paid for my parasitical brother’s trip!’” she retorted furiously.
Sol smiled a little. “No. But anyroad, that’s the way it is.”
After some minutes of scowling silence, Phoebe said very gruffly: “You’re not ill, are you, Sol?”
“Nope. But I just feel that fifteen years of semi-rural peace ’ud be all a man could reasonably ask for. –Would I be eligible for the pension here after fifteen years?” he added meekly.
“After twenty, I believe. But nobody’s eligible until they’re sixty-five, anyway.”
“Uh-huh. ...Susan tells me it’s real hard for an American to get permission to settle here, is that right?”
“I think so,” said Miss Fothergill feebly. “I don’t know the legal position... You’d have to ask her, she’d be able to find out the details. But I believe you have to have a job—of the approved sort, or something. Possibly they’d let you in if you had the capital to start a business... I’m sorry, Sol,” she said, looking into his face and smiling sheepishly. “I really don’t know.”
“Mm... The fishing’s good out in that there Gulf of yours, huh?”
“Uh—so I believe. I think people go surf-casting, too.”
“Whatever that is,” he returned on a dry note.
“Yes,” she admitted with a weak smile. “Fishing isn’t my sport, I’m afraid.”
“No.” He got up. “Shall we go back to the hotel and try one that is?”
“All right,” Miss Fothergill agreed weakly.
Abe and Ralph Overdale were relaxing in the après-ski lounge—Abe had merely fooled around with a sled for a bit and gone for a couple of rides on the chair-lifts but Ralph, who was a solid if not brilliant skier, had done a few runs and was feeling quite pleased with himself. They were playing Abe’s favourite game. Apart from poker. And apart from those games which he and Pat played in private. It was one of Ralph’s favourite games, too: he often played it with his brothers.
“That one,” he said.
“Statutory rape,” objected Abe mildly.
Ralph grinned. He didn’t reveal to his new American Friend that quite probably ninety-nine percent of his compatriots, though religiously glued to the most banal of those productions of Hollywood’s glittering talent that their conservative little country allowed to be shown on its media, would have no idea of what this phrase meant. Ralph was most unlike ninety-nine percent of his compatriots. So he merely said: “Quite probably. Wouldn’t that increase the enjoyment?”
Abe managed a dirty chuckle but he was clearly rather shocked. A familiar feeling of boredom began to invade Ralph Overdale. And to think that what he had to look forward to next weekend was helping his brother Tom re-roof his house! Ooh, goody. Mind you, Tom’s girl-friend had tits on ’er like—
“That one!” he gasped, bolt upright—in more ways than one. The girl had a flood of red hair to her narrow waist, sufficient hips and very sufficient tit. Mm-mmm!
“Not bad,” breathed Abe.
Ralph glanced at him and saw in some amusement that, even though Abe was undoubtedly in his sixties, the little red-head had had the same effect on him that she had had on his far from perfect self.
“Ooh, lemme at it,” he whispered.
“Yeah,” whispered Abe, licking his lips.
“Luverly titties,” breathed Ralph, momentarily forgetting his company and lapsing into the Overdale idiolect.
Strangely enough Abe Winkelmann appeared to understand, for he breathed in reply: “One for each hand, huh? Oh, boy... Them legs ain’t bad, neither.”
“No, indeed,” sighed Ralph. “Turn round, little darling,” he murmured.
She did, she turned right round several times, in fact she appeared to be looking for someone. Or possibly just turning round and round until she went slowly mad, who cared? The legs, which were very nice legs indeed, were clad in pale green tights, and the upper bod had a weeny, weeny pale green pleated skirt, maybe it was a skating skirt but who cared, and one of those jersey-knit cross-over tops that on tits like those, in Ralph Overdale’s considered opinion, were Earthly Paradise. The hair, which was the most glorious shade, new-minted copper, was a wavy mass held back with a wee strip of pale green fluff. Had a rabbit died to create that band of fluff round that perfect little head? Oh, honoured rabbit. She was very, very young. Talking of your statutory rape. Which, oddly enough, neither of them was doing, any more.
“Look!” croaked Abe after a bit.
“I am,” sighed Ralph. Ooh, if only she’d bend over, now that would be—
“’Nother one!” choked Abe.
Oh, glory, so it was! Skinnier, though. He glanced at Abe and saw with great delight that the American had gone a strange shade of puce. Well, of course, judging by that wife of his he liked ’em skinny. The legs weren’t bad, as good as the—sister’s? Must be, the hair was exactly the same colour. This one’s hair wasn’t quite as long, but it was very cute, she’d pulled the front part of it up on top with a big green clip. Her tights, also green, but a brighter shade, were those shiny nylon jobs that showed off the flatness of her bum—which Abe was now goggling at—to perfection. If you liked ’em that flat: Ralph preferred the fuller, or pear-like, variety. Her top was one of those little cotton-knit singlets the kids got round in these days: a soft lilac shade that showed very clearly she had those little wee pointy tits that some guys—Ralph glanced sideways again and decided Abe Winkelmann, for one—really went for. Little wee firm ones, they’d be… Ralph wriggled a bit.
“Isn’t it, though?” said Owen Bligh’s voice from behind them.
“Push off, you’ve got one,” replied Ralph, not taking his eyes off them.
“Not like those models: fresh off the assembly line, wouldn’t you say?”
“This breakfast-time,” sighed Ralph in agreement.
“Yeah,” sighed Abe.
“Twins?” murmured Owen.
“Gotta be,” decided Abe.
Ralph moaned slightly.
“The one with the skirt,” decided Owen.
“No,” said Abe faintly. “The one with them cute liddle tits.”
“No, no, dear lads,” purred Ralph, at his most urbane—or, as his brothers would have said, most bloody irritating: “be adventurous in your old age: both!”
Abe choked. Owen spluttered. Ralph merely went on looking…
After a while Owen said longingly: “Those wee earrings that the one with the juicy tits is wearing—”
“Mm?” replied Ralph dreamily.
“I’m just imagining—kinda nibbling’ em off...”
“Oh, I’ve got past that!” Ralph assured him.
Abe choked again.
The Austin twins went on waiting for the older cousin in whose charge they were and who’d said to meet her there, blissfully unaware of the goggling stares of the dirty old men in the après-ski lounge. They were far too inexperienced to be aware of such stares, and far, far too young to realize that men that a-a-ancient could possibly be interested in them. Because all of those men, they had noticed instinctively without noticing they were noticing, were practically as old as Dad! They adorned their bodies partly because they read the sort of magazine that told you to, partly because all their contemporaries did, only slightly to attract very young men, and mainly because they were young females whose scarce-awakened instincts told them to. But they certainly didn’t do it for the benefit of dirty old men in après-ski lounges.
As far as Ralph, Abe and Owen were concerned it could have gone on forever, only unfortunately a cross-looking older female came striding up to them and said: “Oh, there you are, Twins! For Heaven’s sake, I’ve been looking all over the place for you! Now, get a move on, we’ve got to—”
But the three men were no longer listening.
“They are twins!” breathed Owen.
“Yeah!” breathed Abe. His cigar had gone out. He took it out of his mouth and just held it numbly, staring at the disappearing back views. Of bouncy ass and flat ass, if you cared to put it that way.
Ralph wasn’t listening to them. He was concentrating on sending out Thought Rays: Drop something, Juicy Tits, bend over and show us ya bum; Drop something— But, alas, she didn’t, and they vanished from view.
“Oh, God, I need a drink!” he said weakly, sagging all over his armchair.
“Boy, I need a transfusion,” muttered Abe. He got out a flag-like handkerchief and mopped his brow.
Ralph was a bit peeved he hadn’t thought of that one. “Go on, you can get ’em in,” he said to Owen. “You haven’t had to stand it as long as us.”
“Stand it? Stand to it, don’tcha mean?” He went off, sniggering. Ralph grinned. Abe choked.
After a very, very long time Abe said weakly: “Boy, weren’t they just—!”
“Yes,” said Ralph faintly.
“Real twins. –That hair was genuine, huh?”
“Mm: I’d stake my very life on it.”
“So—so lower down...”
“Oo-ooh,” groaned Ralph.
“You’re a doctor, huh? So if you reckon—
“Mm. Definitely. Darker, but red. Auburn...”
An awed silence fell.
Pat was desperately seeking bridge players for tomorrow. Ralph would have been happy to take her money off her but he hadn’t booked for the Friday night. Besides, he’d promised Tom he’d be back to help him re-roof his blessed house. Not that he intended heaving sheets of colour steel about—no. But he was capable of steadying a ladder, or fetching more nails. He shrugged, and explained—not as if he thought Pat would either listen or understand, however.
Pat fell back, pouting, on Phoebe, but this didn’t work: she merely murmured that she was on holiday. Owen Bligh also proved to be a broken reed, admitting that he was hopeless, an opinion which Ralph kindly ratified. And Sir John Westby had already been roped in—he was a keen bridge player. Sol was out, as Pat knew he got bored, and cheated. Abe didn’t like bridge. Pouting, Pat decided he’d have to play, adding: “But I still can’t see why you can’t stay the extra night, Ralph!”
It was at this point that Sol felt forced to say: “This re-roofing: this wouldn’t be taking place not a million miles from Blossom Avenue, would it?”
“That’s right: do you know Tom and Jemima?” returned Ralph placidly.
“We sure do! Ain’t she just the sweetest thing, huh?” said Abe eagerly before Sol could open his mouth. “She was Susan’s bridesmaid, you know!”
“Really?” He smiled a little, and said: “Was it a church wedding?”
“Temple,” corrected Abe. “No, it wasn’t. Now, myself, I’da—” He explained what he thought about white weddings and registry offices but Pat rubbished him soundly.
When she paused to draw breath Sol, lips twitching, said kindly to Ralph: “Jemima wore a fuzzy white knit thing. Tight.”
“He’ll have chosen that.”
“What I thought.” Their eyes met. They sniggered.
Sol then poked at a sprout on his dinner plate, and left it. You’d never have known it even belonged to the same botanical family as Tom’s sprouts. “He known her long?”
“Uh—bit over a year, I think. Took him long enough to get round to it. In case you were wondering, everyone who knows him has now got their fingers crossed and their breaths held, hoping to God she’ll be stupid enough to marry the lucky sod.”
“Uh-huh.”
“—At the same time being fervently and unanimously of the opinion,” finished Ralph on a triumphant note: “that he is Not Good Enough For Her!”
“I think I got that.” They grinned at each other.
“She sure is a sweet little thing,” Abe summed up.
That seemed to put it real well. Yeah.
Some time later that evening Ralph said: “Have a gorilla,” and passed his cigar case.
Sol took one, wondering why he called them that. “Shouldn’t you be playing bridge with Pat and them High Society types?”
“Shouldn’t you be playing much nicer games with Phoebe?” he returned blandly.
Choking, Sol managed to say: “Plenty of time for that.”
“No stamina, these Yanks,” he muttered.
“One of these days,” said Sol dreamily, “I am just gonna have to tell these Kiwis that no-one from south of the good ole Mason-Dixon can possibly be described as a ‘Yank’. Not without starting another war, that is.”
“Will it be as interesting as that if you do? Because in that case I’ll certainly make a note in my diary to wait around for it.”
“Runs in the family, does it, Ralph?”
Ralph removed his cigar. “Something like that.” He replaced the cigar, looking bland.
Sol smoked peaceably for a bit. Then he said: “How does little Jemima cope with it?”
Ralph removed his cigar. He sniffed slightly. “Remarkably well, I’d say. To everyone’s surprise.” He paused, about to replace his cigar. “Including his. Of course, she’s very far from stupid.” He replaced the cigar.
“Mm-hm. Why is it that some guys have all the luck?”
“I find myself asking myself that from time to time,” conceded Ralph, his eyes on Phoebe making her way across the room towards them.
Sol sat there smirking. But he had the grace to say: “Oh, I’m just a visiting fireman.”
“That is helping to preserve my sanity,” acknowledged Ralph.
“Do you fancy the tourist delights of the thermal area tomorrow?” asked Phoebe, sitting down beside Sol on his couch.
“Huh?”
“Mud pools. Geysers.”
“This the local Yellowstone?”
“Jellystone,” corrected Ralph.
Gulping slightly, Phoebe said: “Yes. Don’t let me force you, if you’d rather not.”
“The weather’s really turned against us, huh?”
“It looks like it.”
Sol asked how far it was—in miles, remembering they used killer-metres here—to this Jellystone. Phoebe had no idea but declared it would be an easy morning’s run. Sol pointed out faintly that they drove on the wrong side of the road. Phoebe said briskly that she’d drive.
“It’s their off-season. Place’ll be full of empty motels,” murmured Ralph.
“Why don’t you push off and play a nice, quiet game suited to your age and position, Ralph?” Phoebe suggested amiably. “Whist, possibly. Or canasta.”
Groaning, he heaved himself up. “Never let it be said that an Overdale can’t take a subtle hint. –By the way, dear lad,” he added—Sol repressed a start—“when do you return to the Great Metropolis?”
“Uh—Wednesday, I guess,” he said limply. “Why?”
“Come to dinner,” sighed Ralph. He gave him a card. “Where are you staying?”
“Uh—at Pat’s parents’,” said Sol numbly.
“They’re not in the book,” said Phoebe.
“I have their number, dear souls,” he sighed.
“He plays canasta with Lady Cohen,” Phoebe informed Sol.
“Chess. With Sir Jerry. For my sins,” he sighed.
“Your brother summed up his appearance as ‘Jermit the Frog’,” remembered Sol.
“He has his uses,” noted Ralph, grinning. “Will you come? Audrey’s unbearable, of course, she’ll talk golf, dogs and horses all night, but I’ll ask Tom and Jemima for you.” He leered. “Or not for you.”
“Thanks very much,” said Sol, rather red. “I’d like that, Ralph.”
“Good!” said Ralph. He flipped a hand at them. “I go to meet my fate. In the shape of Pat Cohen Winkelmann with the worst hand known since bridge was invented and the unquenchable hope that I’ll make a grand slam on the strength of it.” He shuddered, and wandered off.
“He’s not so bad,” said Sol weakly.
“In patches,” agreed Phoebe drily. She hesitated. Then she said: “If you are back in town next week— I’m having a few friends round on the Thursday. Very informal. Would you fancy it?”
“Would these friends include this married lover of yours that you think I might have met?”
“No. We never socialize together.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Just as you please, of course.”
Sol said slowly: “I’d like to very much.”
“But?”
“There isn’t really a but...”
“If you’re trying to remind me nicely you’re a visiting fireman with a wife and seventeen kids back home in Tallahassee, I do realize that.”
“Yeah. Well, not the wife and the seventeen kids.”
“No,” said Phoebe, smiling at him.
Sol smiled back. After a moment he laughed.
“What?” she said.
“Oh—it’s just I’da taken a bet—a very large bet—that I wouldn’t meet a soul out here who’d even have heard of Tallahassee, let alone throwing into the conversation so casually.”
“Ah: it’s the global—"
“Don’t say it!”
Grinning, Phoebe stopped.
“Are you sure you want me to see you back in your hometown?” he said with an effort.
“Yes. If you’re sure you can trust me not to go all soppy when you have to go back to Tallahassee,” she returned drily.
“Yeah. Listen—”
“What?” said Phoebe with some foreboding.
“What are we wasting time down here for?”
“I was wondering that.”
“You could leave discreetly now,” Sol pointed out.
“With a headache,” she agreed.
“Yeah. And then I could leave discreetly about five seconds after you.”
“With a headache, too!”
Sniggering, they got up and departed arm-in-arm.
Next chapter:
https://theamericanrefugeeanovel.blogspot.com/2022/11/high-society-part-1.html
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