Enrolment

15

Enrolment

    Ginny had been enrolling for hours. Literally hours. She couldn’t believe the time when she looked at her watch. She was terribly hot and thirsty, but… The university’s city campus was huge, there were millions of students, and if she could find the cafeteria at all—highly unlikely, it didn’t seem to be on her map—it would be full of students. Proper ones, ones who weren’t enrolling for the first time. And who knew what to do. And probably she wouldn’t be allowed to eat anything anyway, she hadn’t had her photo taken yet for her identification card, and probably they didn’t let you buy anything at student facilities unless you had your ID card.

    She retired to a quiet spot under a tree—there were some other people under the tree but they were round its other side—and looked hard at the map. The map was very small and very detailed. There were lots of numbered buildings on it, but the key to this system, in tiny weeny print, said confusing things like “C’servtrm”, “Y.B. Feathers Mem Thtre” and “Stud Union”. Or even “Smudge-ry”, for building 3. It had taken Ginny ages and ages to figure out that that was the Registry, which was where the lady at the desk in the big hall (“Old Block”—building 1) had said Ginny had to go to get her Massey Latin credits accredited.

    Actually it had taken Ginny ages and ages even to get to the head of the queue in the big hall to be told that by this lady. And when she’d found where the Smudge-ry was on the map, she’d then taken the wrong direction and emerged at the end of a drive onto the wrong street entirely. When she finally got to the Smudge-ry a harassed young man had revealed with some annoyance—after first trying to tell her she couldn’t enrol here, this was the Registry—that they couldn’t do anything about her Latin credits, she had to have her Pink Approval Card signed by the Head of the Department.

    “Oh. Um—which department is that?” Ginny had said weakly. The young man had looked at her as if she was not only nutty but a beetle to boot, and had said to the nutty beetle: “The Classics Department, of course!”

    “Oh. Um—I don’t think I’ve got one of those pink cards. I’m sorry.”

    He had then, in a terribly superior way, taken possession of her fistful of bumf (green, white and yellow, but definitely no pink) and proved to his own satisfaction that she didn’t have one of those pink cards, no. He had then issued her—giving the impression that he was doing her a terrific favour by so doing—with the appropriate card. Possibly this was what the lady in the hall had intended in the first place, but Ginny was never to discover if this was so.

    Now she stood under the tree and looked in despair at the map. If only it would suddenly say “Caff” she thought madly, I’ll never sneer at Vicki for saying it as long as I breathe! Not even in my head!

    “Penny for ’em,” said a voice.

    Ginny was so startled that she replied literally: “Caff.”

    Col Michaels put his finger on building 4. (Stud Union). “Here. Also Bog, Phone, and Bookshop.”

    “I was wondering where they were!” she cried.

    “I bet you were. Are you bursting?”

    “Yes,” said Ginny, going very red but meeting his sardonic grey eye. “I don’t know which I want most, a pee or a cold drink.”

    Grinning, Col stuffed his handful of bumf into his canvas satchel and slung this over his shoulder. He took her arm. “I’d recommend the pee, first. Then the drink. Come on, I’m gasping, too.”

    “Here,” he said, after they’d wound their way through a very confusing series of meandering paths past the back of a huge, ugly steel and glass building, several old corrugated iron sheds and a very old wooden house newly painted in shiny white hi-gloss, and crossed a very busy but very short and very narrow street that was lined with cars parked between trees growing out of the road. Not out of the footpath, out of the road.

    The Stud Union complex all looked quite new but nevertheless was heavily defaced with—well, not graffiti, really. There was a lot of work in them. Murals?

    “See that door?” said Col. “The one that says ‘Women’ and all that stuff about it locking behind you.”

    “Yes; how do I get out?”

    “I’ve no idea, I’ve never been in there. –No,” he said, laughing, “it’s a safety feature: they had some muggings on campus a few years back and a girl was attacked in there.”—Ginny looked at the door and then at Col in horror.—“You can open it from the inside, obviously.”

    “Yes, but if a mugger or a rapist went in there—!” she gasped.

    “And lurked? Quite. Apparently they haven’t thought of that. You’re all right at this time of day, there’s loads of girls using it,” he pointed out.

    “Yes.”

    “I’ll wait; Go on.”

    … “Feel better?” he said, grinning, as she rejoined him.

    “Yes; miles, thanks,” she admitted, pinkening.

    “Good; well, the caff’s over here; come on.”

    Ginny didn’t quite dare to comment on his use of the abbreviation. She accompanied him feeling slightly annoyed at her own cowardice. And also more than slightly apprehensive because what if they demanded to see your ID card?

    They didn’t. However, the food cost an enormous sum and she was horrified when Col said seriously: “This is subsidized, of course. A percentage comes off your Student Union Fees.”

    She gaped at him.

    “You’re in the big city now, kid,” he said drily.

    “Yes! Help, how do people manage to live?”

    He shrugged. “Dunno. I mostly graft off Mum and Dad, meself. I do know one bloke that earns a sort of a living as a male model.”

    Ginny gulped, and failed to raise a smile.

    Col took a huge mouthful of filled roll. More or less through it he added: “Plays a lot of cricket and squash.” He swallowed. “Got the body for it. He does those ads on TV for those yuppie leather jackets—you know: soft focus, pipe smoke, autumn leaves, and suddenly close-up of old Gwillim fluttering his eyelashes in his Max Factor, and then really sharp focus on the sharp gear.” He grinned.

    “Oh,” said Ginny blankly.

    “Then a sultry male voice,” said Col in a sultry male voice, “says: ‘Rawhide Rendezvous. Leather gear—for him.’ –Don’t tell me you haven’t seen it!” He took another huge bite of filled roll and grinned round it.

    “I don’t think so... Maybe we don’t have it down in Taranaki.”

    Col chewed vigorously. “Uhy-hung—” He swallowed. “Anything is possible in the wop-wops!”

    “Backblocks,” corrected Ginny sternly.—He choked, grinning.—“Do you actually like beetroot?”

    His filled roll contained huge slabs of it. “No,” said Col simply. “I look on it as fuel. You will, too, after you’ve been studying for a few months.” He leered at her. “Or do you intend to go on living high off the hog chez Carrano?”

    “No!” said Ginny crossly. “We’re only staying there until the Puriri hostel starts serving proper meals.”

    “Oh: forever,” he acknowledged.

    “No! Idiot! No, evidently they don’t really open until the first of March. Vicki said the lady in charge of the nursing course, I forget what she’s called, well, she apologized to their First-year Polytech students that were staying there. She said the Combined Student Unions had made a formal protest.”

    “What Combined Student Unions?” He took a huge swig of bright orange fluid—the cheapest drink on offer. “There isn’t any University Student Union at the moment, they haven’t had the elections. Unless some of last years’ lot are still hanging on. But I know for a fact the President’s gone, he’s got a job in Wellington.” He took another swig. “He had to leave, anyway: he failed all his subjects for the third year running.”

    Ginny, at Vicki’s urging, had read the regulations in the University Calendar. “I thought you got chucked out if you failed them all two years running?”

    “Not if you’re something very high up in the Student Union,” replied Col drily. “Not to say aged twenty-six and holding.”

    “Cripes, was he?”

    He shrugged. “Something like that. Been round campus as long as anyone can remember. He was at school with Mark: in the Seventh Form when Mark was a new boy.”

    “Help!” squeaked Ginny.

    Col sniffed. He chewed filled roll, and swallowed. “Almost as ancient as Doc-tor Fother-gill,” he pointed out.

    Going very red and not looking at him, Ginny replied: “I can’t help it if he— Anyway, Barbara says he hasn’t got many friends, she said he needed, um, taking out of himself.”

    Col bit back a very, very rude remark. He sniffed instead and engulfed more orange fluid. Then, since Ginny was looking dubiously inside her pickle and luncheon sausage sandwich, he offered to eat it for her.

    “No,” she said, hurriedly closing the sandwich and taking a bite of it.

    “What does it taste of?” he drawled

    “Pickle. I never knew you could get totally tasteless luncheon sausage: it must be the big city!”

    They laughed.

    She drank some of her Coke. Col eyed it glumly. He tried not to think of Dad’s hard remarks last night on the subjects of Board and Self-Respect, and Pulling ya finger out, Matey. Not to mention Your mother’s not a household slave, and Why should she cook gigantic meals for a lazy sod that never does a hand’s turn, etcetera. He had said it all in front of bloody Barbara, what was more. –Bill Michaels was as free of inhibitions as it was possible for a human being to be. That didn’t make being his son any easier, actually.

    “What are you living on, anyway?” he said eventually.

    Blushing, Ginny said: “Um, well, I sat Bursary, of course.”

    He eyed her knowingly: “Scholarship?”

    “Yes,” she admitted, going redder than ever. But Col was looking sympathetic, not despising, or— So she told him about the extra thousand dollars a year for being school Classics Scholar and explained: “I mean, they said I didn’t have to take them up last year, and it would be all right if I was starting this year.”

    Col scratched his head. “What in God’s name did you do last year, if you weren’t taking up your scholarships?” He made a face and added before Ginny could begin to explain: “World trip at Daddy’s expense?”

    “No! Just because he’s a farmer—! Actually one of the girls in our class at school did go on a world trip last year,” she admitted.—He sniggered.—“No, I did a lot of extra-mural credits from Massey, and Vicki did some Sixth and Seventh Form stuff by correspondence. –I know it’s stupid. It was Mum’s idea. She went all maternal, or something.”

    “It’s like something out of the ark!” said Col in fascination. “The gels at home... White lace, picture hats and débuts, I suppose?”

    “NO!” There was a short pause. “Vicki really wanted to,” she admitted. “Aunty Vi’s an Anglican, she lives up here: she said we could be presented to the Bishop. Or was it the Archbishop? One of those, anyway.”

    “What stopped you?”

    “Dad did, thank goodness. He put his foot down. Vicki howled for a week.”

    “And only recovered when a new boy moved into the neighbourhood with a bright red Honda sports job,” suggested Col.

    “Um—it was something like that, actually!”

    She had gone very red but she was smiling, too, Col saw with some relief. He had passed some injudicious remarks at teatime last night on the subject of non-identical twins and Mum had said— Well, never mind. But insulting one twin not being the way to her sister’s heart had certainly been in there somewhere. But could he afford to go flatting? No, he could not.

    Ginny finished her sandwich. She smiled at him. “I suppose Dad is subsidizing us, really. My scholarships wouldn’t cover the hostel fees.”

    “Pocket money?” he said, raising his eyebrows.

    “No, I am paying half my boarding fees.”

    “Sorry. Mum says I’m incapable of seeing other people as human beings. It isn’t that, really: I just get interested in how things tick.”

    Ginny drained her Coke. “Yes, and forget that human beings are involved.”

    Col was about to say something very cutting indeed but before he could open his big mouth and put his foot in it she added: “I’m like that, too. It drives Mum mad. Dad doesn’t really mind, he’s a bit like me.”

    “He sounds okay.”

    “Mm. He is, mostly. Only he teases us. Sometimes he says we ought to be his grandkids.”

    Col goggled at her.

    “He was pretty old when we were born. In his fifties. Mum was forty.”

    “Hadn’t they ever heard of birth control, down in those Taranaki backblocks?”

    Ginny was very pleased to be able to reply: “Yes, but Dad reckons Mum can’t count!”

    To her delight he gave a yelp of laughter..

    After that, when Ginny said she thought she’d better get on with it, she wasn’t nearly finished yet, Col had no trouble in suggesting he come up to Pohutukawa Bay later in the week. They might go to the beach or something?

    Ginny went very red.

    “That wasn’t an improper advance,” he pointed out laconically.

    “No!” she gasped. “But what about Jenny Wiseman?”

    “We’re not involved. I might bring old Gwillim and his girlfriend along, too. I’ll ring you and fix a time, okay?”

    “Okay, then. Um—I have to be very careful in the sun, because of my skin!” confided Ginny in a rush, turning puce.

    “Yes, of course. Tell you what, we’ve got a whacking great beach umbrella. I’ll bring that, eh?” He got up, smiling.

    “Yes—thanks!” gasped Ginny.

    “Where do you have to go next?”

    She scrambled up. “To see the Classics professor. He has to sign my pink card.”

    “Pink, eh? I’ve never had one of those!”

    Giggling, Ginny told him all about the potty beetle episode. Col countered with a much worse story about his own ineptitude when he’d stupidly pre-enrolled for First-Year Maori and had decided to get out of it on discovering that most of the course was actually on Taha Maori and not the basics of grammar, which was what interested him. He’d wandered round the “Lang & Ling” building searching in vain for a door with “Maori” on it for hours, until a sympathetic lady in the Faculty Office finally told him that although Maori Language was officially part of the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, it was actually housed in another building, with Taha Maori proper. The “Anthrop, Maori & Archl” building, actually.

    While Ginny was still standing on the kerbside laughing like a drain a tall girl with her black hair in two plaits, so that she looked remarkably like a Red Indian princess, came up to them and said in a sour voice to Col: “Hullo.”

    He replied without much enthusiasm: “Oh—hi, Roberta. What are you doing in these realms of real academic study?”

    She replied in a very sour voice indeed: “Not all Med. students are thickos like your brother, you know! If you must know, I’m doing Latin Two as a C.O.P., and if you must know why, it’s because I’m interested in it! See?”

    “Not being a thicko like Mark: right,” he agreed. “Uh—this is Ginny. Ginny—Roberta.”

    “Hullo,” said Ginny shyly. “I’m hoping to do Latin Two, too.”

    “Hoping?” she replied blankly. “Aren’t they crying out for students?”

    “Even Med. School ones,” muttered Col. Roberta ignored him.

    “Um—I don’t know. I don’t know if they’ll let me credit my Massey course!” gasped Ginny.

    “I get it. Shouldn’t think they will, old Brownloe’s a real stickler for doing things the right way. Read his way. See ya!” She darted across the busy road. Ginny gasped and shut her eyes.

    “See you under a bus,” muttered Col. “Got a death-wish,” he added. “Bloody Mark’s dumped her.”

    Ginny opened her eyes cautiously and he added: “For your sister.”

    “What?” she gasped.

    He shrugged. “Well, it wasn’t ever gonna to go anywhere anyway, I don’t think. She’s far too bright for him. Mind you, she might have coped with that; but once it dawned on him, Mark sure as Hell wouldn’t have.”

    Ginny goggled at him.

    “Thick,” he explained, shrugging. “And macho with it. She’s well out of it.”

    “Yes, but— How do you know he dumped her because of Vicki?” gasped Ginny.

    Col shrugged again. “He never said so, if that’s what you mean. But on Sunday he was supposed to take Roberta out. I know this for a fact because she rang up home on Sunday afternoon wanting to know if they knew where the Hell he was and  Barbara took the call. You wouldn’t expect her to keep something like that to herself, would you?”

    “He took Vicki out on Sunday afternoon,” said Ginny weakly.

    “Yeah. He came over for tea yesterday—he doesn’t live at home—and spent the entire meal earbashing us about her. And when Barbara asked him—with malice aforethought, I have to admit—whether he’d given poor old Roberta the push, he said ‘Roberta Who?’“

    She licked her lips uneasily. “Oh.”

    “Whereupon Dad told him he was a selfish little shit,” finished Col with great satisfaction.

    “I suppose he can’t help his feelings,” she said dubiously.

    “Mm: that’s what he thinks, too. It was a joy hearing him try and explain that to Dad, though.”

    Ginny bit her lip.

    Grinning, Col said: “That’s the Lang & Ling building. Quick, before the lights change again!”

    “Oh—yes! Bye-bye!” gasped Ginny, dashing onto the crossing before the lights could change. She was at the other side before she remembered she’d never said thank you for showing her where the toilets and the caff were, or anything.

    Col didn’t notice her lapse of manners. He strolled off towards the long, long queue for ID photographs, whistling.

    Charles Brownloe had had a very annoying day. His numbers were down again; in fact it looked as if the entire Classics Department would have not one doctoral student left if the dreaded Ms Wilson actually finished her thesis this year, which she seemed set to do, having drained the intellectual resources of the Department dry for the last three years by repeated picking of their brains, followed by earnest and interminable dissection of the pickings (meagre in some cases, Charles had to admit). And if Second-Year numbers went on dropping at this rate, then it could only be a matter of time before they lost their junior lecturer. On top of losing a tutor last year. Yes, well.

    He glared at the tall, sulky-looking dark girl who’d had the temerity to sign on for a C.O.P. in Second-Year Latin—fat lot of good that’d do them: (a) C.O.P.s never lasted the course, (b) they never went on to Third-Year and (c)—

    “How do you imagine you’re going to cope with this on top of...” He examined her Course Card narrowly. Why did Med. students have green ones, while Arts students had buff? Some extraordinary quirk on the part of the powers in the Registry, no doubt. “How do you imagine you’re going to cope with this on top of Fourth-Year medicine?”

    “I hadn’t thought about it.”

    “Then suppose you think about it now, Ms—er—Nicholls,” said Charles in a bored voice, handing her back the green card.

    “Are you refusing me permission to enrol, Professor Brownloe?” asked Roberta in a hard voice.

    “Uh—no,” said Charles, considerably taken aback.

    “Then as I’ve fulfilled the prerequisites for Second-Year Latin, would you sign my Course Card, please?” said Roberta, holding it out again.

    “Look,” said Charles irritably: “far be it from me to discourage anyone who actually wants to do Classics; but in the first place it’s about four years since you did First-Year Latin and you don’t seem to have done spectacularly well at it, and in the second place— Well, have you spoken to your Med. School lecturers about taking on extra work?”

    “No. It’s none of their business. I’m within the regulations.”

    Charles raised his eyebrows. “A barrack room lawyer?”

    Roberta went very red. “Does sitting behind that desk entitle you to harass me?”

    “No,” he sighed. “But possibly being twice your age entitles me at least to point out to you when you’re overloading yourself with work.”

    There was a short silence. Roberta’s face was very red and sulky. Charles just waited. Finally she said: “Med. School’s a breeze, if you want to know. Both my parents are doctors and—” She stopped, and shrugged. “It’s my business.”

    Charles looked at her results slip again. It had been printed by the Registry computer so her results weren’t lined up enough for him to see at a glance what she’d got for each subject last year, but apart from one B+ she’d got straight As.

    “Well, as you’ve so correctly pointed out, I can’t stop you.” He signed her card, but held on to it. “However,” he said, very drily: “when you drop out of my classes round about the beginning of next August, don’t be surprised if I say ‘I told you so,’ will you?”

    “No,” said Roberta, not smiling.

    He sighed, and gave her back the card. “And now, prerequisites or not, please go and sit over there and read that book until I tell you to stop.” He nodded at a small table in the corner of his office. “I’m not victimising you in particular, I ask all prospective Second-Years to do it.”

    “Why?” said Roberta suspiciously, not moving.

    “To let me work out which tutorial group to put you in: slow, or extra-slow,” he replied heavily. “There are only two.”

    Shrugging, Roberta replied: “All right,” and sat down at the little table. A deathly hush fell in Charles’s office.

    Ginny perched nervously on the edge of a hard plastic chair in the Classics Secretary’s office. From time to time she glanced nervously at the secretary, who was very busy typing things and putting papers in filing cabinets and stuff.

    After a considerable wait the door to the inner sanctum opened. The tall, dark Roberta who’d been ditched by Mark Michaels came out, looking sulky. She shut the door behind her and said sourly to Ginny: “If I was you I’d change my mind about Second-Year Latin. Especially if you’ve only done that extra-mural course. He’s dead set against extra-mural work anyway. And he’s in a filthy mood, quite apart from being the Little Hitler type. But if you do go ahead with it, stand up to him. Don’t let him give you any shit—and he will, believe you me, he’s one of their top experts.” She cast a disparaging look around the secretary’s office and added: “And this dump’s full of experts in handing out shit.”

    Ginny went very red: Roberta hadn’t lowered her voice in the slightest. But the secretary only said mildly: “If Professor Brownloe’s okayed your course, you’ll need the supplementary reading list.”

    “What supplementary reading list?” asked Roberta suspiciously.

    “The one that wasn’t in the Calendar,” replied the Secretary very smoothly. She went over to a filing cabinet and opened a drawer. “You can go in now, Miss Austin.”

    “Remember: don’t take any shit!” said Roberta loudly, as Ginny knocked at the professor’s door.

    “Come in, for God’s sake!” said a cross voice.

    About five minutes later Ginny was saying weakly: “But I got good marks for my extra-mural credits.” And Charles Brownloe was wincing and saying: “My dear good girl, that proves nothing! Those extra-mural courses are virtually worthless. God knows what standard they mark to—or if they have a standard.”

    “But I’ve done a lot of reading,” said Ginny in the strangled voice of a very young female student who’s about to bawl.

    Sighing, Charles used the Ultimate Deterrent. It hadn’t deterred the fearsome Ms Nicholls, mind you: thank Christ she was only signing on for a C.O.P., what if she’d been intending to major with them? What a truly frightful thought: another Ms Wilson in the making, it didn’t bear thinking— No, quite. “We’ll see what you can do. Go and sit over there and read that book until I tell you to stop.”

    Ginny went and sat at a small table. She picked up the little brown book. A deathly hush fell in Charles Brownloe’s office...

    Ginny gave a pleased gurgle. Charles had been reading a truly fatuous article in Romania: he dabbled a bit in Mediaeval church Latin, it was rather fun, and he’d been immersed in this thing by an utter idiot who absolutely had to be a German American: the style displayed the worst features of both— He jumped about a foot.

    “Are you still there?” he said weakly.

    She looked up, smiling. “You didn’t tell me to stop.”

    “No,” he said weakly. “Well, bring it here.”

    Ginny brought the little book. Charles opened it at page six. “Did you get this far?”

    Ginny goggled at him.

    “Did you get—”

    “Yes, of course.”

    He took a deep breath. “Okay: read me page six.”

    Ginny began to read.

    “In English, girl!” he howled.

    “In English?” she said blankly.

    “Trans-late,” he said laboriously.

    “It spoils it, though. Oh, all right, then. ‘Descend from heaven, divine Calliope, and sing a long, solemn song to the accompaniment of the flute, or of Phoebus’s lyre, or in your own clear voice—’”

    Charles bounded up and snatched it off her. He read it over feverishly, flapped the pages back and forth, and finally stared at her.

    “Phoebus Apollo, I suppose,” said Ginny.

    “Go on,” he said neutrally, handing it back to her.

    Ginny read on: “Hark! Or does a friendly hallucination deceive me? I seem to hear her as I roam through hallowed groves—’”

    “‘Hallowed groves’,” groaned Charles. “All right, that’ll do.”

    “It does sound awful in English.”

    “Yes; hark’s a bit off, too, isn’t it?” he said, grinning.

    “I thought it was very poetic!” choked Ginny.

    “Poor old Q. Horatius Flaccus wouldn’t have agreed with you, I don’t think,” said Charles.

    “No. Auditis is nice, isn’t it? Not harkish.”

    “No. Look, just to—to convince me that I haven’t picked the one poem you’ve learnt off by heart—” He took his little old Carminum Liber Tertius off her and shut it. Then he opened it at random. “Translate a bit of Nine.”

    “‘When—’ I love this one!” said Ginny happily. “‘When I was your beloved, and your white arms were not for the necks of other young men, oh, then I was as happy as the King of Persia!’” She beamed at him.

    Smiling, Charles took the book back and read the first stanza in Latin. “Go on, read the appropriate response: not in English.”

    Ginny read the Latin. She didn’t read well, but she read with rhythm and feeling: it was a start, thought Charles, duly thanking the gods. They finished the poem in turn: Charles didn’t bother to look at the book again and he noticed that little Miss Whoever-she-was only glanced at it. When she’d finished, on a triumphant note and throwing back her head with a little laugh, half amused, half passionate, he managed to say—though he was trifle shaken—“I think you’re in. In fact you can skip Second Year, if you like.”

    “No, I thought the course looked really interesting,” said Ginny in an abstracted voice, turning pages. “My favourite one’s in here somewhere... Ooh, yes! This one! Do you like this one? ‘O fons B—’”

    Charles had a choking fit.

    “What?” said Ginny, going very red. “Have I said something stu—”

    “No!” he gasped. “It’s probably the best known thing he ever wrote, generations of poets after him have written versions— Don’t tell me you didn’t know?”

    “No. Well, no-one ever told me.”

    “No,” said Charles weakly. “Well, you’ve certainly got the ability, if not the background, Miss—uh—” He peered at her card. “Austin. Not to say natural good taste—did you find that one all by yourself?”

    “Yes. We didn’t have Horace in the extra-mural course. I found a copy in a second-hand bookshop.”

    “Mm...” he said, wandering along his shelves. He got down a few volumes. “Try these.”

    “Thanks!” gasped Ginny, her face lighting up. “I’ve been staying with my cousin, they’ve got lots of books but Latin’s not her subject; and her husband only buys them as an investment, so his are a real mish-mash.”

    “Uh—I see,” said Charles numbly, staring at her. Who the Hell bought books as an investment in New Zealand?

    “He hasn’t got much Latin stuff. I found a few, but he said he bought them at an auction because he liked the bindings, and no-one else bid for them.”

    “What is he, a moron?” said Charles in a hollow voice.

    “No,” replied Ginny, reddening. “He’s very nice—and very intelligent, in his way. But he doesn’t really read.”

    “That is pretty much what I’d define as a moron.”

    “A lot of people would; I think a lot of Polly’s friends do.”

    “Polly?” said Charles faintly.

    “My cousin.”

    “Stop me if I’m  wrong,” said Charles faintly, “but would this be Polly Mitchell from the Linguistics Department?”

    “Yes.”

    “You look a bit like her,” he said weakly.

    “Do I?” said Ginny doubtfully. She touched her hair. “She hasn’t got red hair, though.”

    Charles Brownloe, who was old enough to be her father, looked at her in some amusement. He refrained from saying something about a net of gold—you didn’t say that sort of thing to female students, they might take you seriously and go off the deep end. Even if you were old enough to be their fathers and—at least according to your wife—as ugly as sin. Charles didn’t think he was that bad: it wasn’t his fault if the beard grew in blue about five minutes after he’d shaved. And he had kept his hair. And the cheekbones were definitely not something he could help—besides which he didn’t think they did make him look like Abe Lincoln. For one thing, he wasn’t tall enough. And at least he didn’t have sideburns. Moira remained unconvinced.

    In fact, after twenty-four years of marriage during which Moira had pursued her career to the exclusion of almost all other considerations, and certainly of Charles’s career, it was beginning to dawn on Charles that possibly Moira was unconvinced about the whole bit. She seemed to spend most of her time these days either actually closeted with bloody Ralph Thing cutting people up, in the gallery watching bloody Ralph Thing cut people up, or going to conferences at which Ralph Thing was also a delegate and usually a speaker. Charles had now got to the point—after several years in which the choler rose in him every time Ralph Thing’s name was mentioned, followed by a couple of years’ pretended indifference to the whole subject, followed more lately by several years’ genuine indifference—of wishing to God she’d make a clean break and go off with Ralph Thing for good and all. Not understanding that Moira wasn’t interested in Ralph Thing in that way—or, indeed, in any man any more in that way. Including Charles, of course. What she was interested in was her career. And, Charles had lately begun to suspect—for the subject of Ralph Thing’s bloody knighthood had cropped up with uncommon persistence at breakfast and dinner for the last two months until even he had become aware of it—in becoming the first New Zealand woman surgeon to be damed. Or whatever the Hell you called it.

    Charles, who was only living up here in these humid northern climes because Moira’s career had demanded they move here from Dunedin, where Charles had been born and knew everybody and might not have been about to rise any further in the Classics Department but had been happy—it was a good department and he’d liked his colleagues and had had no administrative responsibilities. He was quite sure Moira would achieve her ambition. If he died in the attempt.

    During the course of their married life one cat and two budgies had died on the altar of Moira’s career: the cat had been too much bother to look after when her career had taken a sudden jump (that had been when they were still in Dunedin: she had ignored Charles’s protest that he was perfectly capable of looking after the cat), and the budgies had been too much bother to cart all the way up here and/or have looked after while they looked for a house. Not just any house, a suitable house in a suitable area. One child had almost died on the altar of the career, because Charles had been too ignorant to realize it was coming down with pneumonia and Moira had been too busy to notice until it was almost too late.

    Apart from that episode, which Moira seemed to have buried completely—Charles sometimes wondered if she had forgotten it, or if it was only a front—Moira had treated their two offspring with the ruthless efficiency she applied in every sphere of life. Good schools, proper food, music lessons, gym lessons, coaching for School Cert., coaching for Bursary. Dougal, the elder, was now doing her credit at Med. School. Probably Ms Nicholls knew him, in fact, though she hadn’t mentioned it.

    Honesty, the younger, who was about pretty little Miss Austin’s age, had duly got excellent marks in Bursary. She’d then turned eighteen, informed her startled mother that she’d had it living Moira’s way, thanks, and was going home to Dunedin. To marry Jock Macdonald, if they were interested. As they weren’t aware that Honesty had even set eyes on him for the last ten years, Moira had been startled, to say the least. Naturally she hadn’t said the least. Honesty hadn’t listened to a word: she’d packed one bag, leaving behind almost all of the Moira-approved garments she owned, and had gone. Since then she and Jock had had two kids in extremely rapid succession and were apparently happy as Larry. Charles had worked out that at the time she’d walked out she must already have been pregnant. But he wouldn’t have been altogether surprized if it turned out that Moira had never bothered to.

    Charles looked at pretty little Miss Austin’s Course Card again. “Greek Prelim.?”

    “Um, yes. I’ve never really done any. Well, only some extra-mural stuff.”

    “Huh!” he snorted automatically. “Uh, you don’t want to waste a year, though... Look, you’re more than capable. I’ll get Pete Wilkins to give you some extra coaching—it looks as if it’ll only be you and, uh, Whatsisface...” He scrabbled on his desk. “Oh, yes: Mr Abel. Let’s hope he is. You and Mr Abel and Miss—no, Mrs—Mrs Patel in First-Year Greek, anyway.”

    “Three people?” said Ginny faintly.

    “We had two last year,” replied Charles simply. “Pete will have plenty of time on his hands; you might as well get the benefit of it.”

    “Um, thank you,” said Ginny uncertainly.

    Briskly Charles reminded her to get a Supplementary Reading List on her way out, signed her Course Card, signed her pink card, reminded her to take the pink card back to the Registry, threatened her with sudden and violent death if she lost his books, and showed her out, grinning.

    He returned to his chair and sat down, rubbing his hands. Polly Mitchell’s cousin! A student with Real Brains! Which reminded him— He picked up the phone and addressed a few pithy words to a startled Pete Wilkins. Then he sat back in his chair, and mused. Did she perhaps have some hopeful brothers and sisters coming along, also with brains? Who might be persuaded to go in for Classics, too? ...On a more practical level, at least it made one more Definite for Latin Two this year and one more almost-definite for Latin Three next year—and by God if she didn’t major with them it wasn’t going to be his, Charles’s, fault! ...His eye fell on the Romania. Ugh. Graceless tit. It fell on the little old Horace...

    In Charles Brownloe’s obscure office off an obscure corridor on an obscure floor of the Languages and Linguistics building that was otherwise only adorned by the offices of such obscure persons as Jemima Anderson, junior lecturer in the Department of Linguistics, total silence fell. Before Charles lay a pile of administrative bumf he hadn’t yet touched, and a pile of tutorial exercises which he was supposed to be proof-reading and returning to his secretary this very afternoon. He ignored them. His earlier ill humour had totally vanished. Since—unlike Ralph Thing—he wasn’t at all a dirty old man, his good mood had nothing to do with Ginny Austin’s hair and tits. Or even with Roberta Nicholls’s pitch black locks and flashing dark eyes which had—just for a moment, there—given Charles quite a turn. Before he realized she was another Militant Med. Woman.

    Charles sat back and, oblivious to the swaddling humidity of these northern climes, read on peacefully through the afternoon.

    “Hullo,” said a hoarse voice behind Ginny as she joined one of the long, long queues in the hall to pay her money.

    She jumped, and turned round. It was one of the boys who been at Polly’s luau. “Oh—hullo, Damian. Are you enrolling, too?”

    “Yeah, it’s First-Year Engineering students today.” He paused. “Are you supposed to be here? I thought it was First-Year B.A.s yesterday?”

    “Yes, it was, I think. I’m a Second-Year, really.” Ginny paused in horror. “I’m doing Second-Year courses, but it’s my first year actually here—do you think that counts as Second-Year?”

    Damian shrugged. “Dunno. Soon find out, eh?” He looked at her face and added: “I wouldn’t worry. I said to Grandpa, what would happen if I did turn up on the wrong day? and he said, you could bet your boots that whatever else happened, they wouldn’t turn my money down!” He chuckled.

    “No,” agreed Ginny, smiling slowly. “I don’t suppose they would.”

    Silence fell. Damian’s heart beat very fast, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say to her, shit! Now she’d think he was a gormless drip, she’d never taken any notice of him at that dumb party, and then he’d got shut in the swimming-pool for hours and she seemed to have taken up with that creep Dickon Fothergill...

    A nasty gleam appeared in his eye. Could he? He looked down uncertainly at her.

    Ginny had decided without really thinking about it that he was just a boy; she smiled kindly at him.

    Damian said hoarsely: “Hey, you know that Dickon Fothergill?”

    “Yes, the mangroves man,” she agreed with no evidence of enthusiasm.

    “Yeah!” Damian sniggered. “Jake Carrano dug up his swamp to build Kingfisher Bay, did you know that?”

    Since Dickon had told her this—once when they were sitting on the slope of the west lawn in the moonlight, when she had felt it was interesting but not exactly appropriate, and again, more bitterly and at much greater length, at the Puriri Tennis Club on the Sunday, while Col and Jenny had been slugging it out in a singles match, Ginny was able to reply: “Yes.” She didn’t reveal that, not being a local, she didn’t have the faintest idea where Kingfisher Bay was.

    Damian chuckled nastily. “Yeah. So long mangroves, eh?”

    “Yes!” agreed Ginny, giggling.

    Damian felt a lot better. In fact he was emboldened to add: “Roger reckons that Bill and Meg and Tom and them call him the Acolyte!” He grinned, and waited.

    “Why?” said Ginny blankly.

    “Because he’s always hanging round Michaela, admiring her pots and that!” said Damian crossly, very disappointed that his terrifically good joke had fallen so flat. “I thought you knew her?”

    “No. Well, our mothers are cousins. Only I hardly know her, really.”

    “Oh,” he said glumly.

    “Polly said she’d take us over to look at her pots some time this week.”

    He hesitated. Then he said cautiously: “I could take you.”

    “How?” replied Ginny simply.

    Damian turned very red and said crossly: “I’m gonna get a car! I can, I’ve got lots of money!”

    “Hooray for the plutocrat,” replied Ginny mildly.

    Damian looked sulky.

    Ginny was supremely uninterested in cars. But she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, really, he was quite a nice boy. So she said kindly, but not without a certain note of resignation that Damian of course failed to register: “What sort of car are you getting?”

    Damian’s frog-like young face lit up. Eagerly he told her about all the models he’d thought of—omitting Sir Jerry’s comments on some of the proposals and Lady Cohen’s entire commentary—and their relative merits and probable prices and— It went on and on and on. Ginny didn’t listen much, she soon discovered that you only had to make a sort of interested noise if he paused (infrequent, this) or flagged (even less frequent) and he was off again, all lit up. She was able to think about more important things such as: Would those books that Professor Brownloe had lent her be hard? and: Could she start them this evening or would Vicki insist on talking? and: Would Polly let her use another bedroom or would it be too much trouble? and: Was she going to make a fool of herself in First-Year Greek, with or without Dr Wilkins’s coaching? and: How many buses to the Coast had she missed by now, she betted it was millions; and: Would she have the guts to ring up Jake at work like Polly had said to, and ask him for a lift? The answer to that was definitely No.

    … At long, long last the two of them emerged onto the old stone steps of the Old Block, blinking in the westering sun.

    “Thank goodness that’s over!” said Ginny fervently. “I’ve been enrolling all day!”

    “Have you?” Damian replied in amazement. “Crikey. I only started at two o’clock.”

    There was a short pause.

    “Um—I go this way,” he said.

    “I think I do, too... Um, where is the bus station from here, Damian?”

    “I’ll show you! Come on!” He set off with great strides. It was much worse than walking over the paddocks with Dad and Chum. In fact it suddenly dawned on Ginny that maybe Dad kind of walked smaller or slower or something when he was with her or Vicki. Going very red, partly at the discovery that her parent was a patronising male chauvinist that had never let on he was doing it, partly at the discovery that Dad cared enough about them (a) to have done it in the first place and (b) never to have let on about it, and partly because she was having the greatest difficulty in keeping up, Ginny panted: “Slow down!”

    “Oh.” Damian stopped. He smiled awkwardly. “Sorry.”

    “Your legs are miles longer than mine!” panted Ginny.

    Unfeeling females of his acquaintance—his cousin Melanie Weintraub being definitely a case in point—referred to him as “Daddy Long-legs” or ”Spider-Man” or sometimes “Spider monkey”. When in their company Damian had certainly never felt anything like the surge of male superiority that now filled him. He looked down at little panting Ginny and said: “I could carry that bag, if you like.”

    “It’s a bit heavy, it’s full of books. And you’ve got your own bag.”

    “Aw, it’s half empty. Give it here.”

     Weakly Ginny surrendered the canvas satchel. She looked sideways at him as he slung it over his bony shoulder. Well, he didn’t look as if it was too heavy for him.

    “Come on,” he said hoarsely.

     They proceeded down the street. Funnily enough Damian didn’t go too fast. In fact he walked quite slowly, all the way to the big downtown bus terminal.

    Roberta came up to them slowly. “What are you doing here?”

    “Waiting for the Hibiscus Coast bus,” replied Ginny simply.

    “Do you live up there, too?”

    “Sort of. I’m staying with my cousin Polly at the moment.”

    “Polly and Jake live up at Pohutukawa Bay,” agreed Damian.

    Ginny cringed, but perhaps Roberta didn’t recognise the names; at any rate, she only replied gloomily: “Blast. I thought you might be flatting. You don’t know of anyone up there that needs a flatmate, do you?”

    “No.”

    “I do!” said Damian hoarsely.

    “Ooh, good: who?”

    “Her name’s Darryl. I’ve forgotten her surname. His name’s John. Um… I can’t remember his surname, either. But I could give you their address, you could go round there!”

    Roberta agreed to this. But when he said “Waikaukau Junction” her face fell. “Bugger! I haven’t got transport, I can’t afford a car. I suppose I can’t afford to go flatting, really... Only I’m fed up living at home, Mum and Dad criticize me all the time.”

    “So does Mum,” agreed Ginny. “She’s down in Taranaki, though.”

    “I bet she isn’t as bad as Grandma,” said Damian gloomily. “She makes me go to bed at ten o’clock.” They goggled at him. “Well, she tries to,” he amended. “Only Grandpa sticks up for me—he’s okay.”

    “I suppose he lets you stay up till half-past ten,” sneered Roberta.

    “No, eleven o’clock. Then we lock up. Well, sometimes I lock up for him, only Grandma doesn’t know that: she always goes to bed at ten o’clock!” He grinned.

    Ginny chuckled suddenly, and Roberta smiled reluctantly. Damian beamed at them.

    “Are you boarding with them?” Roberta then asked him in an indifferent voice.

    “No, my parents are dead,” he replied simply.

    Ginny’s eyes filled abruptly with tears. She glared at the footpath, blinking. But Roberta only said mildly: “I get it.”

    “I do know of someone in Puriri, come to think of it,” said Damian slowly. “I think Michaela’s looking for another boarder. She’s got one student already: Bryn. He’s okay. He’s doing Pol. Sci.: that’s why he lives up there, because the Institute’s at Puriri Campus.”

    Roberta asked for her phone number but Damian reported she wasn’t on the phone. “Well, do you know her address?” she demanded.

    Damian didn’t. Nor did Ginny. Roberta looked exasperated.

    But then a gentle voice said from behind them: “I do, if it’s Michaela Daniels you mean.”

    “Hi, Jemima,” said Damian in relief. “Yeah, it is Michaela. I don’t really know her, but she’s okay, isn’t she?”

    “Yes, she is. I can’t imagine anyone that’d be better to live with: she’s the sort of person that’d leave you entirely alone,” she said to Roberta.

    “Bryn’s okay, too, eh?” added Damian eagerly.

    “Yes, he’s nice. They sometimes do things together—you know, have tea or that—if they both happen to feel like it, but most of the time he just goes his own way,” she said to Roberta.

    After a moment’s stunned silence Roberta said feebly: “You mean she doesn’t—doesn’t do regular meals or—or that sort of thing?”

    “Help, no!” said Jemima in astonishment.

    “So it’s more like a shared flat?”

    “Yes. Well, better, really: it’s like a very easy-going flat!” She gave her Michaela’s address and explained that she wasn’t on the phone but her neighbour always let them use hers, and she’d take a message.

    “It sounds great!” beamed Roberta happily. “Eh, Ginny?”

    Smiling weakly, Ginny agreed, trying not to think what Mum and Dad would say if she lived somewhere without a phone.

    “Hey, did Professor Brownloe make you read something hard?” Roberta then asked. “Q. Something Liber Tertius?”

    “I didn’t think it was hard, I love Horace,” said Ginny in surprize.

    “God. Well, you’re gonna be teacher’s pet this year! Don’t suppose you’d give me a hand with the translations and stuff when I get stuck, would you?”

    “If you like,” Ginny agreed, pinkening.

    “Oh, ta!” said Roberta, sagging all over the bus-stop. “I was beginning to think I’d bitten off more than I could chew. I mean, I knew he was a hard man from Latin One. Only I never expected the course to be at that level!”

    “Horace isn’t hard, really. You just have to get to know the way he puts things.”

    “Yeah? Well, he’s not like Cicero!” returned Roberta with feeling.

    “No. Do you like Cicero?”

    “Yeah. That’s why I want to go on with Latin, really.”

    “I like him, too.” They smiled at each other.

    Damian was starting to look a bit out of it, so Jemima was glad to be able to say: “Here’s the Puriri bus.”

    “Oh,” he said sadly. “Well, I’d better go.”

    “Thanks for staying, Damian,” said Ginny nicely.

    “Yeah, we needed protecting!” sneered Roberta.

    “There’s some drunks round in the waiting-room,” Damian pointed out mildly.

    “There usually are,” retorted Roberta. “And down the far end”—she waved her hand towards the far end where most fortunately their bus stop was not located—“there’s usually some druggies. And probably pushers, too,” she added as the bus opened its doors and simultaneously revved its motor.

    “I hope I haven’t made you late for your tea, Damian,” said Ginny quickly.

    “Nah, I warned Grandma I’d probably be late tonight!” he replied, grinning. “See ya!”

    The young women cried “See ya!”—even Roberta—and he loped off.

    “He’s okay,” said Ginny as they sat down in the empty bus. “Just a boy, really.”

    “Just an unfledged male cretin, yeah,” conceded Roberta.

    Jemima smiled. “I think he’s terribly sweet.”—The two younger girls goggled at her.—“Unfledged and all. Do you think that’s an embryo moustache he’s growing?”

    “No, Coke smears from lunch,” said Roberta, grinning.

    “Maybe he isn’t allowed to borrow his Grandpa’s razor yet!” choked Ginny meanly.

    Roberta gave a yelp of laughter and added: “Or his Grandma’s: my Gran’s got a better moustache than that! She’s an old Greek lady: you know, the old school: black dress, black shawl, and the mo’s obligatory!”

    “That explains your looks. I’ve seen you on the bus before; I’ve often wondered if you were Greek,” said Jemima.

    Roberta grimaced. “Yeah.” She touched her long and beautiful nose. “One of the Wellington Greeks, that’s me. Boy, there was a row in the clan when Mum decided to marry Dad, I can tell ya!” She grinned.

    Jemima smiled but said: “You look just like Irene Papas when she was young. Have you ever seen Cacoyannis’s Elektra?”

    They both shook their heads.

    “Well, you look exactly like her in that,” said Jemima with a little sigh: “Beautiful.”

    “Hang on!” protested Roberta in horror. “With this schnozz?”

    “It isn’t. Most New Zealanders have totally closed minds about beauty—have you ever noticed?” she said to Ginny. Ginny, round-eyed, shook her head. “Well, they do. It’s beautiful, don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise,” she said firmly to Roberta.

    Chuckling, Roberta said: “I’ll tell Dad you said that, next time he calls me Ms Durante!”

    Ginny gasped. Roberta winked at her. She smiled palely.

    “He’s not too bad, most of the time,” Roberta conceded. “Only he always takes Mum’s side, of course. And when Mum was my age, she’d not only got me out of the way but decided on her specialty and everything!”

    Ginny felt awfully dumb, she didn’t understand what Roberta meant, but to her huge relief Jemima said: “Specialty? What does she do?”

    “She’s a doc. They both are. You might know them if you live up the Coast. She’s Doctor Ariadne Nicholls, she’s—”

    “Bruce Smith’s partner!” cried Jemima.

    “Yeah. You go to him, do you?” said Roberta, smiling.

    “Mm.”

    “Yeah; Mum does mostly geriatrics, so you wouldn’t be one of her patients,” she conceded, twinkling. “She’s studying Alzheimer’s at the moment; and before you say it’s a fashionable field, don’t I know it!” She laughed.

    “What about your father?” asked Ginny.

    “He’s Doctor Keith Nicholls, he’s an ENT man. There’s a group of them: it’s quite a big thing on the Hibiscus Coast. All the deaf wrinklies, of course.”

    Jemima said slowly: “I think I… Oh, yes,” she remembered: “Meg took Michael to him when he had that awful abscess in his ear just before Christmas.”

    “Would this be the child described as ‘a tiny clone, just bright enough to know that it’s bloody dumb to stick metal probes in the orifice but not bright enough to refrain from experimentation’?” asked Roberta keenly.

    Jemima reddened. “Well, I think he did get the infection because he and Andrew found some old dentist’s tools or something and the thing was dirty— Oh, yes,” she said weakly. “A clone. Yes: he is a twin.”

    Ginny choked.

    “Sorry, Ginny!” gasped Jemima, turning puce.

    “That’s okay!” choked Ginny. Tears of laughter oozed from the corners of her eyes.

    “She’s a twin, too!” Jemima said to Roberta, starting to smile. “Oh dear! Michael and Andrew aren’t identical, really, but they are awfully alike!” She then remembered she hadn’t introduced herself, and did so.

    Roberta replied composedly: “Roberta Nicholls. I don’t really know Ginny, we only met this arvo.” She grimaced. “In the proximity of Prof Brownloe’s lair.”

    “Oh: Charles. He only gives the impression it’s a lair, I don’t think he’s a very happy person,” replied Jemima. “He’s very nice when you get to know him.”

    “I liked him,” said Ginny on an uncertain note.

    “I like him, too,” agreed Jemima firmly. “So does Tom. We had him to dinner once. We asked his wife as well, of course, but she couldn’t come. She’s a surgeon: Charles said she had to prepare for an operation the next day. Only Tom said he betted it wasn’t that: Ralph reckons they don’t get on. –Ralph’s Tom’s brother,” she explained. “He’s a surgeon, too: he often works with Moira Brownloe, I think.”

    “Mum knows Moira Brownloe; shit, I’m dumb, I never made the connection!” cried Roberta. “Strewth, poor old Prof Brownloe, if she’s his wife: she’s as hard as nails!” She paused. “Worse than Mum,” she discovered in horror. “I mean, God knows she’s pretty hard, herself—and she’s bloody hard to take—but she does at least love Dad!”

    Jemima smiled at her. “That’s nice.” Roberta went very red and glared out of the window.

    Ginny blinked a bit. “Poor Professor Brownloe. I think it’s sad.”

    “Mm. Well, we gather he tends to bury himself in his work,” said Jemima.

    A somewhat uncertain silence fell. At last Ginny said uneasily: “Isn’t this bus ever going to go?”

    Roberta came to and glanced at her watch. “Got about another three minutes.”

    As the bus started up with a jerk—they were the only passengers apart from two boys in jeans with heavy bags right down the back who were probably students, too—Roberta’s face grew rather thoughtful. Then it grew rather red. Finally, as the bus lumbered into a main street and stopped at some traffic lights—somewhat unnecessary, since the rush-hour, which an hour ago had no doubt impeded the progress of the previous Hibiscus Coast bus, was well and truly over and the city was almost deserted, she said: “What did you say your cousin’s name was, again, Ginny?”

    “Polly. Um, her husband’s name is Jake,” admitted Ginny hoarsely.

    “You did say they live at Pohutukawa Bay, didn’t you?” pursued Roberta in a strangled voice.

    Ginny was now very red. Roberta was also distinctly flushed.

    Jemima took pity on the pair of them. “He is Jake Carrano, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

    An uncomfortable silence fell.

    “He’s only an ordinary person,” Jemima pointed out eventually.

    “Don’t be an idiot! How can he be?” cried Roberta angrily.

    “To meet, I think she means,” said Ginny in a stifled voice.

    “Yes,” said Jemima uncomfortably. “I know what you’re thinking... Well, he is a capitalist, of course. But he does employ a lot of people. And he’s done a lot of good with his money.” There was a short pause. “Well, to tell you the truth I think it’s mostly Polly that thinks up things to—to endow, and stuff. But he agrees, he’s a very generous person.”

    “He can afford to be! Have you seen those hideous units he’s built down the creek at Puriri?”

    “No,” they both said.

    “Well, they’re awful,” said Roberta crossly. “It used to be great down there: lots of pukekos and bulrushes and toetoe and stuff; a bit swampy—you know.” They nodded understandingly. “And now he’s put up this—this foul development. ‘Kowhai Grove Retirement Village’!” She made a rude noise. “There isn’t a ruddy kowhai within coo-ee, and if there had been, he’d’ve bulldozed it, too, believe you me!”

    After this speech there was a silence. Rather a tingling silence. The bus ground on past Farmers’ carpark building but nobody noticed it, hideous though it undoubtedly was.

    Eventually Jemima said uncertainly: “I suppose old people have to retire somewhere.”

    “Huh!” replied Roberta.

    Another silence; shorter, though. Then Jemima said: “My parents live in a much worse place. It’s like a whole suburb of retirement homes. It’s in Queensland. Their bit’s all white, um, concrete, I think. Little units, all funny shapes with sort of portholes everywhere and strange little garden walls... I think it’s supposed to be the Mediterranean look, or something.”

    The girls stared at her and Roberta said, somewhat weakly: “Doesn’t sound like the Mediterranean to me.”

    “No. Well, Jake’s development couldn’t be that bad, could it?”

    “It isn’t white,” conceded Roberta grudgingly. “Dark brick, mostly. With grungy green and brown roofs—you know.”

    They did: the more expensive outer suburbs were filled with this style: you couldn’t miss it. They nodded, grimacing.

    “Well, there you are!” said Roberta crossly.

    After a moment Ginny admitted: “I’d rather have the swamp and the pukekos.”

    “So would I. –It’s still nice up the far end of Pukeko Drive, though,” Jemima pointed out. “Lots of bush.”

    Roberta sniffed faintly.

    Silence fell.

    After a bit Ginny, who was looking out of the window, cried: “There’s the Bridge!”

    The two native inhabitants looked at each other and smiled.

    “You’ll get used to that if you come in to varsity every day,” said Roberta kindly.

    “Mm.” Ginny stared avidly out of the window as the bus ground onto the Bridge Motorway. “Gosh, it’s pretty.”

    “Not the coat hanger?” said Jemima faintly. Roberta choked.

    “No: the view!” replied Ginny crossly.

    The other two smiled again. Ginny continue to stare avidly out of the window at the view of the harbour. It was indeed a lovely view, especially with the sun very low in the west, as it now was. Roberta did mutter something about the way it lit up the Carrano Building not being that pretty but she didn’t sound all that convinced about it.

    The bus crossed the Harbour Bridge. The tide was in, hiding most of the mangroves. Roberta and Ginny began to talk about the University Nature Conservation Society…

    Jemima stared out at the mildly pleasant northern suburbs through which they were now passing and forced herself to think about Tom and her. She didn’t want to think about at it all but she knew she ought to... Was it her that—that “tendait la joue?” Perhaps in a way it was. What had Hugh said about Tom? “Fervent nesting behaviour,” hadn’t it been? Oh, help. Poor darling Tom. Did he love her more than she loved him? Jemima couldn’t decide, exactly. She was very, very fond of him. She liked him more than almost anybody she knew. He had his bad points: he could be terribly sarcastic, of course: at first, when she’d started living with him, she’d been afraid she wouldn’t be able to stand that, because she couldn’t bear being picked on all the time, it was what had been so awful about living with Mum and Dad. Well, Mum, anyway. It made her want to go away and... hide under the bed, or something. She used to hide under the bed a lot when she was little. Of course she’d never even been supposed to be in her bedroom at all, during the day... Jemima could still remember the smell of under-the-bed. Faintly dusty, though Mrs Anderson was a spotless housekeeper, and faintly mattressy and woody and carpety... Just the smell of under-the-bed, really.

    Only fortunately Tom hadn’t been like that at all. In fact if anything he’d gone the other way. Over-protective, or something. Sometimes it was nice. Sometimes it was a bit irritating, like the business over her recorder lessons. Only on the whole it wasn’t too bad. Though it is me that usually gives in, Jemima recognized clearly, staring out at neat, well-manicured northern suburbia with unseeing eyes. Was it worth making a stand, though? ...No. Well, it wasn’t usually a matter of principle, was it? And it only made him dreadfully unhappy if she tried to stop him doing things for her. It was sexist, but did it matter in the long run? Jemima frowned. She couldn’t decide. She felt in her heart of hearts that it didn’t matter, but was that only social conditioning? If only there was someone she could really talk to! Meg would listen, only Meg was so fond of Tom and so keen to see him settled down at last... And very pro-marriage, of course. Well, no, that was silly: her and Bill weren’t actually married. But very pro-permanent relationships.

    What about Darryl? She was awfully tied up with her work, she was starting as a junior lecturer at the Institute of Political Studies on Puriri Campus this year, now that she’d finished her doctorate. And she hated giving advice, in fact not telling people what to do was one of her principles. Jemima knew she didn’t always stick by this principle, for one thing she had a very kind heart and for another thing she was naturally a rather... well, a rather didactic person. Ye-es... Yes, she could talk to Darryl. She might do that.

    Once upon a time she’d have talked to Susan Shapiro, Susan was the sort of person you could tell anything to. She probably would judge you, she was a forthright person; but you never minded when it was Susan, she was that sort of person. Only she was so involved with her Alan and their orchard and everything... In fact, after some considerable time of being anti-permanent relationships, Susan was now even more pro them than Meg. Well, it was natural in her situation, thought Jemima charitably, not drawing any parallel between her own situation and Susan’s.

    Pauline Nilsson would listen sympathetically: she was a very sweet person... Only she was even keener on permanent relationships than Susan, she was besotted about her Erik and their Baby Belinda. Jemima sighed a little. Belinda was a nice baby, as babies went, only she wasn’t that keen on them herself. Some people—well, Pauline’s younger sister, Melanie, for instance—were obviously cut out to produce babies, they went all soppy and cooed over them at the drop of a hat; but not only that, they seemed to know instinctively how to pick them up and hold them properly and change their naps and everything. Jemima didn’t know any of those things. And she couldn’t coo to save her life.

    The bus ground on. The sun remained low in the west but didn’t sink: it wouldn’t for a while yet. Tom would be out in the garden watering it madly: their garden was coming on at last…

    The bus ground on. Fields appeared. Jemima found to her horror that she was thinking she could talk it over with Hugh next time he turned up: help! She took a deep breath and turned determinedly to see what her companions were chatting about.

    “She’s nice,” said Ginny shyly as they waved goodbye to Jemima at the Waikaukau Junction stop.

    “Yes,” agreed Roberta. “Look: she is going to walk.”

    “Mm.”

    They watched as Jemima disappeared between two tall, untidy hedges covered with strands of blackberry and lots of dust.

    “She’s a lecturer,” murmured Ginny.

    “Yeah. Well, I didn’t think that a student’d be inviting old Brownloe to dinner, no.”

    “No,” said Ginny, going scarlet. “Um, he isn’t all that old, is he?”

    “Dunno. His son’s at Med. School, a year behind me, so he’d be about Dad’s age, I suppose. About forty-five? Though Mum and Dad got married pretty young.”

    “Forty-five isn’t that old. Dad’s seventy-two!” revealed Ginny in a rush.

    “Heck, that is old.”

    “Yes.” Ginny then found herself telling Roberta about Mum and Dad and their mid-life boo-boo—so much so that she nearly missed the stop for Pohutukawa Bay.

    “Look at that!” gasped Roberta, peering over at the other side of the road as the bus pulled in on the left.

    “It’s Polly; oh, dear, I did say she didn’t need to meet me— See ya!” gasped Ginny, scrambling up with her bag.

    “Yeah: see ya,” agreed Roberta feebly. She watched limply as Ginny, looking carefully to right and left along the perfectly empty highway, dashed over the road to where the fabulous low black Lamborghini was parked. Roberta knew it was a Lamborghini: for one thing she was interested in cars (one of the few things she and Mark Michaels had had in common apart from their career choices) and for another the whole of Puriri unless it was blind knew Polly Carrano’s new car. And in case they didn’t it had “POLLY 1” on its number plates. She was, however, unable to work up the requisite scorn for this piece of nouveau riche ostentation. So she sat there in rather a turmoil during the short drive down the hill and over the little bridge into Puriri township.

    It was only as they passed the caravan camp that it began to dawn on her that she hadn’t actually given Mark Michaels a thought since two o’clock this afternoon.

    “How was Enrolment?” asked Keith Nicholls kindly.

    His sole offspring shovelled in salad. “All ri’,” she said through it. She swallowed noisily. “Same as usual, I suppose.”

    “Have same more salad,” said Ariadne Nicholls in a very faint, faraway voice.

    Roberta glared.

    “Leave her alone, she’s a growing girl,” said Keith with a laugh in his voice.

    Roberta glared.

    “Outwards, at this rate,” noted Ariadne acidly as she passed Roberta the salad.

    Keith considerately cut another huge slice of ham for her and put it on her plate.

    “Ta,” said Roberta gruffly. She shovelled in nourishment.

    “Well, what did Don Hopwood say?” said Ariadne eventually.

    “Nuffin,” said Roberta thickly.

    “What?” cried her mother.

    Roberta swallowed noisily. “Nothing. What did you expect him to say?”

    “‘Good morning, Roberta, welcome to Geri One?’” suggested Keith airily.

    “Shut up, Keith!” said Ariadne crossly. “He must have said something, Roberta, you’re being absurd!”

    Roberta filled her mouth with a huge piece of ham. Keith winced ostentatiously and closed his eyes. Roberta glared at him over the ham. When she’d swallowed most of it she said sulkily to her mother: “All right, he said Was I Ariadne Nicholls’s daughter and I said Yes. So what?”

    “I hope you didn’t say ‘So what?’ to Don, he’s rather hot on manners in the young,” said Keith drily.

    “Manners!” replied his daughter scornfully. She shovelled in salad. “Can he teach, that’sh the thing!” she announced thickly through it.

    Ariadne said weakly to her husband: “Well, at least he recognised her existence. I suppose that’s something.”

    “Is it?” he replied drily.

    Ariadne was about to blast him. She hesitated. They both stared at their daughter. Finally Keith said weakly: “Schnozz Durante crossed with Red Indian?”

    “The fringes on the knees would fit,” agreed Ariadne on an acid note.

    “‘Everybody’ wears torn jeans, dear, where are your eyes?” he replied.

    Roberta swallowed loudly. “All right, that settles it! I’m going flatting!” she declared.

    “What with?” retorted Keith instantly.

    “I’ve got money in the bank!”

    “Not enough to pay rent with, you haven’t.”

    “There’s my job!”

    “Making beds at crack of dawn at that silly motel for that funny little Molly woman?” said Ariadne, raising her eyebrows.

    “It is not silly! And Molly Collingwood’s a lovely person! And you wouldn’t even recognize a person of her quality if you fell over her!” shouted Roberta, turning scarlet.

    Before Ariadne could reply Keith pointed out mildly: “That was a bit uncalled for. The Collingwoods are okay. He’s quite intelligent.”

    “An ex-policeman?” cried Ariadne.

    “We can’t all live on the poncy Hill in poncy Pipiroa Place!” cried Roberta.

    “She’s got you there,” noted Keith. “’Specially with all that alliteration.”

    Roberta glared sulkily. Ariadne stood up and said definitely: “Well, if the conversation’s going to continue on this level, I’ve got work to do. There’s some stewed peaches in the fridge if you’re interested, Roberta.” And went out.

    “You rub your mother up the wrong way,” said Keith mildly.

    “She rubs me up the wrong way!” cried Roberta indignantly.

    Keith knew this was so. He didn’t think it would be altogether a bad thing for the pair of them if Roberta did go flatting. It would give her a breathing space and might bring Ariadne to her senses a bit over the question of Roberta’s specialty. The which topic was starting to get excessively boring.

    “Mm...” He watched while Roberta cleaned her plate. “Want a bit more ham?”

    “Can I?” she said eagerly.

    Keith began carving. “Ignore your mother, you’re not the type that puts on weight,” he said briefly.

    “No-o... Look at Great-Aunty Calliope, though.”

    “No, thanks!” They grinned at each other. Keith passed her a huge slice of ham. “You’re the spitting image of your Uncle Ari and your grandfather, hasn’t it ever dawned on you? And they’re both as skinny as rakes!”

    “Ooh, yeah, so they are!” discovered Roberta. She fell on the ham eagerly.

    Keith watched her with a little smile.

    “Hey, I met this girl on the bus,” she said a trifle thickly, swallowing the last mouthful. “Well, not a girl, really—”

    Keith listened to the somewhat muddled report of Jemima Anderson’s hair, style, and apparently entire conversation at the bus stop and during the ride up to the Coast in a sort of stunned way. “Oh. Well, I’m glad you’ve met someone you liked,” he said feebly.

    “Yeah.” Roberta looked sadly at the salt and pepper. “I wish we could have mustard!”

    “Well, we can’t, it’s one of the many bees in your mother’s bonnet,” replied Keith without emphasis. He gathered up her plate. “Want some pud?”

    “I’ll get it,” she said.

    “Stay there, you’ve had a long day.” He went through to the kitchen.

    “This other girl sounded nice: the one that said she’d help you with the Latin,” he said, as Roberta engulfed stewed peaches. Without cream or ice cream: too much cholesterol, according to Ariadne.

    “Ginny. Yeah, she’s okay. She’s just a kid.”

    “Mm?”

    Roberta told him a lot about Ginny. Ending with a fervent description of her nose and hair.

    “Uh—yeah,” said Keith, somewhat taken aback. “She sounds pretty, all right.”

    “Pretty!” retorted Roberta scornfully. “She’s got the right sort of looks, Dad, that’s the point!”

    Keith refrained from saying the right sort of looks for what, it would have been too cruel. “You’ll meet a bloke that’ll appreciate you one day, sweetheart. Don’t let your mother pressure you: she was one of those Greek girls that mature sexually very early, you know. You don’t have to be like her.”

    Roberta turned scarlet—Keith wasn’t sure whether it was because of the endearment, the reference to her mother as a sexual being, or the glancing reference to the fact that his daughter might possibly have an emotional life, not to mention a sex life, of her own; or because she thought it was an obscure dig over the Mark Michaels business.

    “No, I won’t, Dad,” she contradicted him in a horrible growl: “Jemima’s the only person in the whole world that ever said my nose was—” She stopped abruptly.

    “What?” he said mildly.

    “Beautiful!” shouted Roberta angrily. “Go on, laugh!”

    Keith wasn’t going to. He was about to say something to the poor child, however—though God knew what—when Ariadne came in again and said: “What in God’s name is all that shouting about? I’m trying to work. –You forgot to tell Roberta there’s some yoghurt, Keith, I knew you would.”

    “Roberta met a young woman on the bus—some sort of Arts lecturer, I think—who told her her nose was beautiful,” he said mildly.

    “Go on, laugh,” said Roberta sulkily, not meeting her eye.

    “Why on earth should I laugh?” retorted her mother scornfully. “You’re the spitting image of Dad, and I’ve always said he was the handsomest man I’ve ever set eyes on!” She stalked out.

    After a considerable period of numbed silence, Roberta said faintly: “Shit.”

    “Quite probably, with all those blasted cold lentils in that salad,” agreed Keith. “Do you want yoghurt, or not?”

    “Eh? Oh—no, thanks. Can I finish the peaches?”

    “Why not?”

    Roberta began eating stewed peaches out of the big glass bowl. There were probably enough there to last the average family of three for at least two more nights. Keith didn’t say anything.

    Finally she said: “Dad—”

    “Mm?” Keith pinched the third-to-last peach half.

    “Have you ever met Prof Brownloe?”

    “Uh—yeah. Think so. That Moira cow’s husband, isn’t he? Yeah, met him a couple of times. Saw him at a dinner just before Christmas, come to think of it. Forget exactly what it was: some medical do. Didn’t look as if he was enjoying it much. Why?”

    Roberta turned very red and not meeting his eye growled: “Jemima said she thought he was an unhappy person. Do you think he is?”

    “Anyone married to Moira Brownloe would have to be.” He eyed her cautiously.

    “Seriously!” she said crossly.

    “Uh—well, the circumstances weren’t exactly propitious,” said Keith weakly. “I mean, lot of medicos he didn’t know. Well, could hardly chat to all the other wives about dresses and recipes and such, could he?” His daughter glared, tight-mouthed. “Uh—well, he didn’t strike me as jumping for joy, sweetheart, I have to admit,” Keith ended feebly. “But I hardly know the man.”

    “Mm.” There was a thoughtful silence, broken only by Roberta’s scraping of the pudding bowl.

    “If you were an academic,” said Roberta thoughtfully, pointing her pudding spoon at him as if she was weighing him up, “would you be pretty glad to get a really bright student that—that looked like doing well in your subject?”

    “I suppose so,” said Keith blankly, staring at her.

    “I mean, suppose your department didn’t have many students?”

     “Oh!” It dawned on Keith that she wasn’t talking about the Med. School, for once. “Yes: definitely.”

    “Yeah; me, too.” She got up.

    Keith staggered weakly to his feet. “Roberta, we’re not talking about you, are we?”

    “Eh?”

    “I was under the impression that you could barely decline mensa, a table,” he said weakly. “You’re not telling me that you’ve conceived it as your mission in life to bring joy into Brownloe’s heart by excelling at his subject, are you?”

    “NO!” shouted Roberta, turning puce. “God, you’re as bad as Mum! No, not me: Ginny, you idiot! She’s some sort of Latin genius or something! Crikey, you’re impossible, Dad!” She stamped over to the door. “And I am going flatting, so there!”

    She stamped out.

    Keith sagged against the wall. He was wondering several things. But amongst them were certainly (a) would Ariadne notice if he got down on that leftover yoghurt, the answer to that being undoubtedly Yes; (b) how soon he could tactfully suggest he subsidize Roberta’s flatting venture to the tune of eighty dollars a week, thus letting her beat him down to around fifty; (c) whether Roberta had fallen for this bloody Brownloe; and (d) whether, if she had, she herself was aware of the fact: the which seemed, on the whole, rather unlikely.

Next chapter:

https://theamericanrefugeeanovel.blogspot.com/2022/11/an-inopportune-moment.html