5
High Society. Part 2
Phoebe showed the first of her remaining two guests in just as Polly was convincing Jim she was really was a statistical linguist by telling him, at Sol’s suggestion, the difference between permutations and combinations.
It was pretty much the last person Sol would have expected. He got up, though his knees had gone weak. Though not at the sight of Michaela’s garments, which were reasonably restrained: very old but very clean jeans, a sagging but very clean plain grey knit vee-necked sweater, which all of the New Zealanders recognized it instantly as a boy’s school jumper—Michaela must have got it second-hand—and a whiteish tee-shirt. “Hullo, Michaela,” he said. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“Hullo,” said Michaela, smiling shyly. She didn’t address him by his name but Sol had begun to notice that Kiwis didn’t—he didn’t guess it was bad manners, just different customs from ours. The smile indicated that she did recognize him.
Phoebe introduced Michaela to everybody else. Or rather, she just ran through their names for her, working her way round the room in a circle starting with Laura, over on the divan to her left, and passing to David, on the opposite side of the gas fire, and so on. This meant that Polly was last. “Polly Carrano,” finished Phoebe.
Polly looked doubtfully at Michaela. Michaela looked doubtfully at Polly.
“Michaela Daniels, did Phoebe say?” said Polly.
“Yes,” replied Michaela simply in an even deeper contralto than hers or Phoebe’s.
“I’m Polly Mitchell. I mean I was. Maureen’s daughter.”
“I thought so,” said Michaela feebly.
Polly beamed at her. “I never knew you were living up here!”
“Yes, for ages.”
“I’m astounded Aunty Vi didn’t mention it!”
A grin broke over Michaela’s wide, frank face. “She doesn’t know, I don’t think. I’ve been hiding from her!”
They laughed.
Phoebe held on very tightly to the back of the couch and moaned: “Don’t tell me you two are related!”
“Yes. Our mothers are cousins,” said Polly simply.
“Why on earth didn’t you tell me?” she demanded wildly.
Staring, Polly said: “You never said you knew Michaela.”
“Anyway, we haven’t seen each other since, um... ages,” said Michaela.
“That foul birthday party: one of Aunty Kay’s kids, I forget which—Karen, I think,” agreed Polly. “We went and hid up the big macrocarpa tree: you carved a little bird with your Swiss army knife and I read Andy’s old Eagle Annuals.”
“I remember!” she cried. They grinned at each other.
“How old would you have been?” asked Sol with interest.
“Oh—about thirteen, I suppose,” said Polly vaguely. “Thirteen or fourteen?”
“Yes,” agreed Michaela. “I must have been fourteen, Dad gave me that knife for my fourteenth birthday—it was all I wanted, Mum was furious.”
“Two naughty little tomboys,” murmured David.
“Absolutely!” agreed Polly, laughing.
“The awed silence you are now hearing,” pointed out Phoebe, grinning: “is the result of the assembled company trying to imagine Polly as a naughty little tomboy.”
“She was,” said Michaela.
“Of course I was!” cried Polly indignantly.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t spend your entire teenage years talking, breathing and dreaming boys and nail-polish!” said Sol sadly.
“What? No! Horses and books!”
“What was yours?” Jim asked Michaela with interest. “Horses and books, too?”
“No. Carving and rocks. I had a rock collection.”
“I had a shell collection,” said Laura, smiling.
“‘Had’!” cried Jim scornfully.
“Some of us retain the boundless curiosity of a child whilst developing the aesthetic appreciation of an adult,” she retorted immediately. “Come and sit down over here, Michaela.”
“Look out, she’s gonna stare at your face,” warned Jim.
“Is it dirty?” asked Michaela uncertainly, rubbing her straight nose. Which was, Sol noted, if you came to look at ’em closely—not that anybody was doing that—very like Polly’s straight nose.
“No; it’s interesting,” said Laura.
Obediently Michaela came and sat down on the end of the divan, what time Laura curled up against the cushions and stared at her.
Polly perched on the big pouffe. “Paint her instead,” she suggested.
“Do you paint?” asked Michaela.
“Mm. Portraits, mostly.”
“Flahs, sometimes,” murmured Jim.
“The Right-handed Columbine and the Left-handed Bindweed,” murmured Polly.
Laura flushed. “That was ages ago. And it’s an awfully silly title.”
“Yep: she’s much more up-market these days: she’d call it—um—Flah Study Number 3,” drawled Jim, grinning.
“I saw that exhibition,” said Michaela. It was not clear to Sol which exhibition she meant but on reflection he didn’t think it was to anybody else, either. They waited for her to say she’d enjoyed it, but she didn’t.
“Have a drink, Michaela. What would you like?” said Phoebe kindly.
“I don’t really know. I don’t know much about drinks.”
“Try her on a dry vermouth. With a bit of lemon,” suggested David.
Phoebe did so, warning her as she handed it to her: “It’s not sweet.”
Michaela tasted it gingerly. “It’s nice. Nicer than that sherry Meg has.”
Phoebe shuddered slightly. “I can well believe it!”
“Is this Meg O’Connell?” asked Polly cautiously.
“Mm,” agreed her relative.
“I know her!” she cried.
Michaela looked dubiously at her. “I don’t go round there much,” she murmured.
“She’s never mentioned you,” admitted Polly.
“No,” said Phoebe acidly. “Meg’s pin-like yellow head would never have conceived the notion that the two of you could possibly have a thing in common!” She got up. “Now, if my dratted nephew’d turn up, we might have dinner!” she said loudly. She marched out.
“Well, little ole Meg’s put her foot in there,” noted Sol.
“Up to the neck,” agreed Jim.
“Why?” asked Michaela blankly.
“God knows,” said Jim, shrugging.
“Don’t you like representational stuff?” said Laura abruptly to Michaela.
“Not much,” she replied simply. “I liked that one of the cold blue lady.”
“Lady Westby!” cried Polly. “Isn’t it good? It’s just like her, too—like she really is, I mean!”
Suddenly the name clicked with Sol. “Would this be Sir John Westby’s wife?”
“Yes; Jake and him were at school together, so unfortunately we see a bit of them,” said Polly, pulling a face. “Have you met him, Sol?”
“Yes. He was down at the mountain with a party of friends, but they seemed quite happy for him to desert them and join our party.”
“Oh, dear,” said Polly, smiling.
“Uh-huh. His poker’s real bad, too. Abe was real disappointed.”
“I can imagine!” she gasped.
Sol got up, grinning. “And come to think of it, I’m not that surprized to hear he’s got a cold blue wife.”
“Was she with him?” asked Polly.
“Nope.” He went over to the door.
“That’d be right: you might risk enjoying yourself, going skiing!”
“Yo, boy,” he noted, going out.
“What’s up?” he said mildly in the kitchen.
“Apart from the fact that dratted Dickon’s late—well, he did say he had some work to finish off, but— No, well, it’s all right, really, the roast’s fine,” said Phoebe, straightening from the oven, very flushed.
“So what is up?”
Phoebe grimaced. “Dratted Laura. I could kick her.”
“I got that,” he murmured. “But why?”
“Well, there’s poor Michaela struggling to make ends meet, meanwhile doing really excellent work— Have you ever seen her stuff?”
“One. First-class.”
“Yes. Well, for Heaven’s sake! There she is, struggling to make ends meet, and there’s Polly living in the lap of luxury only five miles or so away at Pohutukawa Bay”—this geographical reference made no sense to Sol but he didn’t point this out—“and it never occurs to Meg to so much as mention them to each other! She could have got them together— Well, of course she’s only known Polly for about a year, but that could have meant one year less poverty for poor Michaela!”
Sol replied uneasily: “She don’t strike me as the kind to accept hand-outs, honey. Cousins or not.”
“What? Don’t be an idiot! She could have been her patron!” she hollered.
Yo, boy. Sol hurriedly shut the kitchen door. “I guess you got a point,” he said cautiously. “But if Polly’s all for this representational portrait stuff—” He broke off. The reason for part of Phoebe’s disturbance was now clear to him.
“I should never have asked Laura at the same time as Michaela.”
“Nope,” he agreed.
“That’s a fat lot of help!” said Phoebe witheringly.
Sol rubbed his nose. “Polly might like modern pottery, too.”
Phoebe sighed. “Yes. But can’t you see how it’d look? I mean, Polly isn’t entirely insensitive, you know! I’ve never asked her to dinner before, and the first time I do ask her I produce an artist who’s gonna charge her ten thousand or so—and it’ll be all of that—to paint her portrait that she never asked her to paint in the first place, and an impoverished potter who just happens to be in desperate need of a patron!”
“Mm-hm. It wouldn’t look good,” he acknowledged.
Phoebe scowled.
“Well, you have at least got ’em together. And they are related. I mean, that’s a step in the right direction, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so,” she said unwillingly.
“If they go on seeing each other, and Polly discovers that Michaela needs some clients...”
“I suppose it might work out,” said Phoebe grudgingly.
Sol smiled a little. “But you’d just like it to work out right here and now, huh? Just the way you planned it?”
Phoebe made an awful face. “I always was a Mr Fix-it, mm. My besetting sin. The managing type, you know?”
“Well fitted to be the headmistress of a large girls’ school,” he noted.
“Yeah,” she said, grinning reluctantly.
“This nephew,” he said nervously. “He’s not gonna turn out to be an impoverished musician just waiting for a patron to take him up and get his symphony published, is he?”
Phoebe had taken a deep breath. It wasn’t that bad, actually. “No!”
“What does he do?”
“He’s a marine biologist: he specializes in the ecology of mangrove swamps, and if you can make anything out of that, I’d like to hear it!”
“Nup. Well, not directly. Is he hetero?”
“What?” she said faintly.
“Well, is he? Because anything between the ages of about seventeen and—uh, well, judging by old David, seventy-five—”
“Bullshit!”
“Is he?”
“Yes, but— He’s twenty-six, for Heaven’s sake, he only finished his Ph.D. last year!”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
Sol laughed hoarsely.
“She is very lovely,” said Phoebe dubiously.
He made a rude noise. She looked at him incredulously. “That ain’t the point,” he said, loudly and clearly. “The woman’s got It. I,T, It. Not to mention them tits in that sweater.”
“Crude beast. –Is she really that attractive? I mean, it’s a bit hard to tell, being the same sex. I know she’s got strings of admirers, but…”
“The queue. Yeah, she is. Quite something. Something I never expected to meet out in this neck of the Antipodean woods. Not considering you’ve only got a population of three and a half million.”
“Oh.”
“No wonder that millionaire developer guy snapped her up, huh? Unto them that hath, it shall be given, the lucky— What in God’s name’s up now?”
“I’ve just remembered,” said Phoebe in a hollow voice. “It was one of Jake Carrano’s companies that drained that mangrove swamp that Dickon was—”
Sol staggered round Phoebe’s neat little kitchen laughing till he cried.
Dickon Fothergill arrived about ten minutes later, full of apologies. He was a thin, dark, nervy-looking young man. Not unattractive, Sol guessed, in a wiry, nervy way. He went kinda puce-coloured when Polly smiled at him. Then he went kinda green when her name sunk in. Kinda sick-looking, ya know?
“Carrano?” he croaked.
“Yes, but we could still shake hands,” she said, smiling again.
He shook hands limply. “Was it—then it was your husband that drained my mangroves at Carter’s Inlet?” he croaked.
“Yes. I’m afraid that he belongs to the great majority, that only think of them as ‘the mangroves, ugh, yuck’,” she admitted, making the appropriate grimace.
Dickon came to with a start and noticed he was still holding the hand. “Um, yes,” he said, letting go.
“I did try to indicate gently that even mangroves have some ecological value, especially on the coastlines of inlets, but by then he had the bit between his teeth,” she said, making a face. “And he doesn’t tell me how to organize my lectures, so I try not to tell him how to run his business.”
“Um—yes. Um—lectures?”
“I’m with the Linguistics Department. You’re in Sherry Colegate’s department, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” the poor jerk said numbly.
“I thought so; I’ve seen you with him in the S.C.R.”
He just looked numbly at her.
It had eventually dawned on the simple Yankee boy that in Phoebe’s, Jim’s and Laura’s circle—and come to think of it in Tom and Jemima’s, too—you didn’t set round making polite conversation about what everybody “did”. This was rather confusing, in some ways. Well, totally confusing, actually. Only it sure did let people kinda—be themselves? Not be themselves? Escape facile labelling? Give a completely false impression? Make fools of those they were meeting for the first time? Engage in exchanges that for once were truly meaningful? Well, some of those. Possibly.
But by and by Dickon actually got round to saying: “What do you do, Michaela?” Musta been because he was young, hadn’t quite latched onto the style.
“I’m a potter,” said Michaela in that abrupt, deep voice.
“What style do you favour?” he said.
Michaela ruffled her dark auburn waves. For a bit she didn’t say anything. Then she said: “I don’t think I can answer that.”
Dickon ran through a long list of names. With technical bits thrown in. About the only thing Sol recognized was “raku”. Just.
“I have done some raku work,” she said slowly. “I did a bit when I was in Japan.”
Dickon questioned her narrowly. Michaela responded reluctantly. She seemed a lot more interested in the Turkish delight Phoebe had served with the coffee—it was the first time she’d ever had it—than she was in talking about pottery. Well, in talking to Dickon about it.
“I bought one of your pots once,” said Polly.
“Out of family solidarity?” drawled David.
“No; because I liked it. It’s sort of green. It always makes me think of seaweed. Not the dead sort on the beaches but the sort that grows in the sea, waving about.”
“Ah! David Brokenshire influence?” said Dickon keenly.
“No,” said Polly simply.
“Who?” asked Michaela.
Dickon went a funny colour, and gulped.
“I did a lot of green stuff before I went to Japan,” Michaela said to Polly.
“This would have been... about ten years ago, I think. I looked for you at the exhibition, but you weren’t there.”
“No.”
“I’ve still got it: it’s in our front hall; Jake loves it, too.” Polly smiled at her. Michaela went very red but smiled shyly back.
“That’s one of hers,” said Phoebe casually, avoiding Sol’s eye.
“I thought that was a Doreen Blumhardt,” said Polly.
“It is,” said Michaela.
“Not that one; this one!” said Phoebe. She went over to the brown pot that Sol had been secretly coveting for some time. It stood on a little low wooden table in front of the long sweep of fawn curtains, all by itself.
“Oh,” said Polly in a sheepish voice. “I’ve been coveting that for hours; I thought it must be Japanese, I’ve only seen glazes like that...” She got up and went over to it.
“I thought so, too.” Dickon got up and went over to it.
“It’s Old Brown Blobby,” Laura noted mournfully.
“Huh! They can admire it all they like, she’d sooner sell her soul!” Jim returned scornfully. “Mush shooner,” he added through a slice of halva.
David Shapiro was in the big orange armchair again. He looked across at Michaela, now perched on the pouffe, and asked courteously: “Were you in Japan long, Michaela?”
“A year.”
“And do you keep up with your contacts over there?”
“Yes... Sort of,” she said. The old man looked at her with an expression of mild enquiry on his thin, intelligent face. “I’ve got a camera,” she said. “Sometimes I send them a photo of my stuff, if something’s come out okay. Only the films are awfully expensive.”
“I see; and do they reciprocate?”
“Yes. Quite often. Only they don’t speak any English, you see. And I don’t know how to write any of the words. I mean, I only know a few words but I can’t write in Japanese at all.”
“They sometimes write to you, then?”
“Yes. Not real letters, usually. Usually it’s something on the back of the photo. Or just a note—you know.”
David hesitated. Then he said: “And do you know anyone who can translate for you?”
“No,” said Michaela simply.
There was a little silence. Sol got up and wandered over to the bookshelves. But he could still hear their conversation.
David said hesitantly: “I lived in Japan for some years; quite a long time ago, now: I was with the Embassy.”
“In Tokyo?” asked Michaela.
“Yes; although I spent quite a lot of time with friends near Kyoto.”
“Kyoto’s nice,” she said.
“Mm. I think I could find someone to translate your friends’ notes, if you’d like me to.”
Reddening, Michaela replied: “Wouldn’t it be too much trouble?”
“Not at all,” the old gentleman returned courteously, as Sol came back slowly to the couch with a book in his hand.
“Can you read Japanese, David?” asked Laura.
“Not very well, and I find handwriting difficult. But I do have several Japanese friends who’d be happy to do it.”
After a moment Michaela said: “Thank you. Only I’m not sure if— Don’t you live down here? How would I get them to you?”
Jim said mildly: “Catch a bus. Catch two buses. Can I have that last bit of Turkish delight?”
“No,” said Laura firmly.
“Don’t take any notice of her,” he advised.
Glancing dubiously at Laura, Michaela passed him the box of Turkish delight. “The buses cost too much,” she said. “The round trip to town costs nearly fifteen dollars, now.”
“What?” said Jim. “Where in God’s name do you live?”
“Puriri.”
“It’s a fair way...” he admitted. “Shit, is it that much?”
“Yes. It went up again a little while ago.”
“Everybody up there’s got cars. Retirement belt,” said Laura, wrinkling her nose.
“Could you post the notes to David, Michaela?” asked Sol.
Smiling a little, David said: “That might work. Or I could take a bus up to your place—I get pensioners’ rates, you know.”
“Yes. Only I’m not usually at home during the day,” she said seriously. “I’m either doing my gardening jobs”—David took this without a blink but Laura and Jim both swallowed—“or down at the Butlers’, working.”
“That’s at Waikaukau Junction. Where she has her kiln,” explained Sol.
David looked at him in some surprize but said mildly to Michaela: “Could I drop in on you there?”
Michaela replied dubiously that the nearest bus stop was up on the main highway, and that was about two miles. And it was an awful road, with no footpath. And when you got to Waikaukau Junction you’d still have to go all the way up Blossom Avenue to June and Bob’s.
David appeared unphased by this. He said calmly that that they’d work something out. Was she on the phone? Not seeming surprised when she said she wasn’t, he wrote down the Butlers’ and her neighbour’s numbers.
“That potty old dame? I wouldn’t trust her to hand on anything except a bad cold, she sounded gaga to me,” objected Phoebe.
Seriously Michaela replied: “She only sounds gaga. She isn’t really, she just hates talking on the phone.”
Sol, Phoebe, Jim and Laura chuckled at this, but neither Polly nor David did, Sol was very interested to see.
Phoebe sat down on the end of the divan nearest Michaela and said: “Did you ever visit the Idemitsu Museum when you were in Japan? I saw a marvellous travelling exhibition from it in Sydney recently.”
“Yes.” Michaela hesitated, then added: “Did it have the big prehistoric pot with the antlers?”
Phoebe gave a little pleased gurgle of laughter. “Yes! They are like that, aren’t they?
“I think they’re more like roots,” said Polly firmly. She came and sat on the couch next to Sol. Thank You, God. “Brown tangled roots,” she explained. “It’s one of my favourite things in the world, that pot. I always go and see it when we’re in Tokyo.”
“That museum’s got good tea bowls, too,” said Michaela in that deep, abrupt voice.
“‘Good’ is one word for them,” murmured David.
“They’re way over my head, I’m afraid,” said Polly frankly. “So understated that my crude mind can’t see what the aficionados see in them.”
Grimacing, Phoebe admitted: “I’d have to agree with you there, Polly. They left me panting about a million miles in their wake—a million miles filled with Western aesthetic assumptions, I suppose!”
“Even the orange one?” asked Polly.
“Especially the orange one,” replied Phoebe firmly.
They all smiled, but David said curiously: “Did you like that one, Polly?”
Frowning, she replied slowly: “I couldn’t honestly say... I’ve never been able to get it out of my mind since the first time I saw it. I usually go and have another look at it after I’ve said hullo to the twisted roots pot.”
“She does mean Shuten-doji, doesn’t she?” Michaela asked David.
“Yes. By Donju, isn’t it?”
By this time some of the simple-minded Yankees present, Sol noted drily, were panting about a million miles in their cultural wake. “I guess the consensus is, Polly,” he drawled, “that you’re not totally a cultural write-off.”
“Not quite,” she said, grinning.
“Does your husband accompany you on these trips to say hullo to your twisted roots pot, Polly?” asked Laura curiously.
“Yes. He loves their collection of Old Green Kutani ware.”
“Does he collect it, himself?” asked Phoebe.
“He’d like to, but he’s only got a couple of 19th-century pieces; I shudder to think what he’d do to get his hands on a piece of the 17th-century stuff.”
Certain dumb Yankees were emanating total incomprehension by this time. Sol had an idea Dickon was, too: he came back over to them. “Kutani ware?” he said.
“Mm. Or Gudani. I’ve seen it written both ways,” replied Polly.
“Would that be similar to a Celadon glaze?”
“No, it’s a very dark green.”
“Sort of an emerald green,” said Michaela dubiously.
“Oh, yes! I remember those plates!” cried Phoebe.
“It’s got a lot of black in it,” said Michaela.
“Oh,” said Dickon.
“In the ware, or in the green?” murmured David.
“Both. But I meant the green,” she said.
The old man smiled that little smile of his. Yo, boy. We’re in deep cultural waters now, folks!
… Much later that night Phoebe conceded: “I suppose it wasn’t all bad.”
“Gee, thanks!” returned her lover.
Sniggering, Phoebe gave him a matey thump on the thigh. Ouch. “Not that, you clot! No, Polly and Michaela. Turning out to be second cousins, or whatever it is.”
“Mm-hm,” Sol agreed.
“And her turning out to like Michaela’s pots... I suppose I could hardly have asked for more.”
“Nope.”
After a moment Phoebe said loudly: “Are these cryptic replies indicative of anything more than a desire to go to sleep, or is it just my febrile little female mind imagining things?”
“Uh-huh.”
“SO-OL!”
Sol smiled slowly, but said cautiously: “I think Polly liked Michaela—sure. And I guess she will buy a couple of her pots, and, uh, maybe introduce her around to her rich friends. If she’s got any that like decent pottery. But… Well, I’d say that the most you could hope for would be that she might introduce her to a gallery that’d handle her stuff. If you’ve got any out here that would.”
After a moment Phoebe conceded: “One or two, I suppose. If they’re not mates with Ken Priestly and Co., that is.”—Sol didn’t ask.—“Well, that wouldn’t be bad. In fact it’d be good. But I don’t see why she shouldn’t—well, set her up properly. Get her a reliable agent.”
“Someone who’ll really market her stuff for her?”
“Yes,” she said defiantly, sticking out that firm chin.
“Are there such people out here?”
After a moment Phoebe admitted: “I don’t think so.”
“No. Not with your population base. Of course, maybe Polly knows one that’s a real altruist and what’s more can live on air until he gets Michaela established.”
“Go on, rub it in,” she said sourly.
“Or were you envisaging that Polly’d pay this agent guy until Michaela’s stuff started to sell?”
There was no reply. He glanced at her and saw that she’d gone very red. “All right, I’m a fool,” she growled.
Sol replied cautiously: “Honey, I’d say Michaela had far too much pride for that sort of arrangement. Cousins or not. And I’d guess that Polly would have too much tact to suggest it, even. Besides which…”
“Well, go on!” said Phoebe crossly after a certain period of nothing had elapsed.
Grimacing, Sol said: “Polly Carrano struck me as the sort of lady that don’t care all that much for women, honey.”
“‘A man’s woman,’” said Phoebe, very sourly indeed.
“Uh-huh. I’d say she was quite a sweet person, and very good-natured; and I’m sure she will buy some of Michaela’s stuff; only for her to take a real interest, I’d think Michaela would have to be the opposite sex.”
“That’s a really rotten thing to say!” said Phoebe angrily, very flushed.
“No, it isn’t, it’s just an observation. I’d say it was her nature.”
“Because she encouraged Dickon to go on about his bloody mangroves?”
“That amongst other things. Yeah.”
“Bugger,” she said, scowling.
Sol yawned. “Come on, Phoebe, admit it turned out better than anyone could possibly have expected.”
“I admit it turned out better than anyone could possibly have expected,” she said sourly.
“There, now, that was real easy, wasn’t it? Now admit you can’t run the world exactly to suit.”
“I couldn’t possibly. –It’s not the sentiment, it’s the mode of expression,” she said, grinning.
“Uh-huh.” Sol kissed her. “Go to sleep.”
“Don’t tell me you’re not dashing back so as to show your face bright and early at the Queen Mother’s breakfast table!”
“Sure, I’m gonna get up at five o’clock in order to do that.”
“Mm. Night-night.” She switched the lamp off. After a few moments she said into the dark: “If I wasn’t so busy myself...”
Sol sighed. “You can’t run other people’s lives for ‘em, hon’, do I have to spell it out? Y,O,U—”
“All right, I think it’s sunk in,” she said sheepishly.
“Michaela isn’t your responsibility. It isn’t even your fault that your stupid school board decided to hire that other potter guy.”
“No,” said Phoebe. In the dark, her face burned. She was glad he couldn’t see it. But she had a fair idea he’d guessed it was doing it.
“I thought we’d have cocktails here, and then toddle off to L’Oie Qui Rit,” said Ralph Overdale genially, pouring. “Rather than expose you to Audrey’s cooking.”
“Good,” said Tom Overdale simply.
“Where?” asked his girlfriend blankly.
Tom, Ralph, and Ralph’s friends James Blaney and Hugh Morton all explained eagerly to Jemima what and where this restaurant was. From which it was pretty clear, thought Sol drily—not that it hadn’t been, in any case—that none of ’em was gay.
The opulence of the Ralph Overdales’ house—even closer to the Cohens’ place than Phoebe’s apartment was—had been a pretty fair indication to Sol that they were in real High Society, now. True, the décor was hideous, but Ralph had explained, with an airy wave, that he let “poor old Audrey” have her head with it, except for his study. Nevertheless it was obvious that no expense had been spared. So when they got to the restaurant Sol got a bit of a shock.
“Fawn, isn’t it?” said Tom, grinning.
“Help, yes,” agreed Jemima.
“I guess you could say,” agreed Sol, looking round it in horror. “Fawn. Yup, that’s what it is, all right.”
Ralph was greeting the little old waiter genially and saying he hoped the lamb was on. The little old man had a French accent. Well, that was something, Sol guessed.
“I’ve been here before. Well, once: after Ralph snatched out the Crown Prince of Tonga’s tonsils,” Tom explained. “The meal cost what it’d take me two months to earn, but it was worth every last red cent of Ralph’s dough.”
“I thought it was his appendix?” said Jemima doubtfully.
“Something like that,” he agreed mildly, squeezing her waist. James, who was an anaesthetist, and Hugh, who was also something medical, chuckled fulsomely. Oddly, their wives didn’t look all that amused.
“Come on!” Ralph said loudly. He led the way. As they followed Sol’s attention was drawn irresistibly to a far corner of the fawn room. It could have had something to do with the fact that the brown-haired lady at it was waving at him energetically.
“There’s Polly,” said Jemima. “I think they often come here.”
Sol ceased waving to Polly Carrano—the handsome, dark, middle-aged escort with the proprietorial air must be the husband—and replied in some surprise: “Do you know them?”
“Yes; we’re in the same department,” said Jemima, pinkening.
“Oh, right,” he recognised weakly. “She’s a statistical linguist, huh?”
“Of course. I’d have thought anyone could tell that just by looking,” said Tom mildly.
Sol had such a sniggering fit that he let Tom beat him to holding Jemima’s chair for her.
… “Nice?” said Ralph, smiling at Jemima.
Jemima was having the Poularde vert pré. She had been entranced to discover when the dish was presented that it really was. “Mm, it’s lovely,” she said. “Very delicate. I think the sauce has got cream in it.”
“A million calories,” said Hugh’s wife discontentedly. She was the Pat sort, Sol had seen that at a glance.
James’s wife, Pammy, was the hearty sort, and not to Sol’s surprise a close friend of Audrey Overdale’s. She gave a hearty chuckle and said: “Never mind! Count them in the morning, if you must, Caroline; let’s just enjoy them tonight!”
“Yes, the chicken does look nice,” Audrey said kindly to Jemima. “The lamb’s all right, too.”
“All right?” echoed Ralph faintly.
“Yes, they always do it nicely here,” she replied composedly.
Ralph closed his eyes for a moment.
“The wine’s all right, too,” said Tom mildly.
“Cut that out!” his brother replied, grinning.
Tom sipped genuine French burgundy with the name and date on the label to prove it, smirking.
Ralph stuffed his mouth with lamb. “Thing iszh—” he began thickly, waving his fork.
“You’ll have to excuse him, Sol,” said Hugh. “Can’t help himself.”
“Gets carried away at the sight of real food,” added James kindly.
Ignoring them, Ralph chewed noisily, swallowed and finished loudly: “Thing is, old Madame doesn’t cook muck.”
“No,” agreed his brother very, very faintly.
“Now,” said Ralph, ignoring him, “you compare that delicate spring poem Jemima’s eating with that appalling chook disaster they served us in that place in Paris—remember, Audrey? Mucked about within an inch of its life.”
“Um—which place was that?”
Ralph named the place in question. You might have heard of it if you were alive and marginally literate. Hugh winked at James.
“Um—no, I forget,” said Audrey indifferently.
Ralph took a deep breath. “Well, whether or not it penetrated to her consciousness at the time, what we had—I grant you it was a mistake, we should never have chosen the bloody thing in the first place—”
“This is that story he always tells,” noted Hugh.
“What, with the—?” James waggled his fingers over his balding pate.
“Yeah.”
“Yuck, let’s not listen.”
“Go on, Ralph!” said Sol, grinning.
“Ignore them: no shenshe of the finer thingzsh of life,” replied Ralph through another mouthful of lamb. “Where waszh I? Oh, yes: the thing was called Poularde Reine Anne, which one or two of us were silly enough to believe sounded like a pretty name. Well, I was younger then, of course. Anyway, when it came it was stuffed with boiled macaroni mushed up with pâté and specks that might have been truffles if one’s imagination were inordinately stretched. –Wait. And smothered in a cheese sauce; the whole surrounded with dainty little tartlets filled with, I kid you not, diced kidneys and cockscombs.”
James waggled his fingers over his head again.
“Quite,” said Ralph with a shudder.
“Ugh!” cried Jemima in horror. “Not really?”
“Yes, it was ghastly,” agreed Audrey. “He ate it, of course.”
“On the ‘try anything once’ principle,” agreed his brother. “Shall we change the subject? Mima Puddle-Duck has turned an interesting shade of avocado.”
“Musta been the cheese sauce,” muttered Sol.
“Yes, that really finished it off,” Ralph agreed.
“Putrid,” agreed Pammy Blaney mildly. “This lamb is good, Ralph; we ought to come here regularly, James.”
James replied agreeably: “We will. You can go out tomorrow and start scrubbing floors to pay for it.”
“By the time you’ve scrubbed a million and two, you might be able to afford the hors d’oeuvres. For one,” Tom pointed out.
“Yeah,” said James, forking in lamb.
They all, of course, were eating British-fashion. Sol was starting to feel quite self-conscious because he was the only person in the restaurant that wasn’t. He was, however, not the only person in the restaurant that had lain their napkin on their lap instead of tucking it under the chin. Jemima, Audrey Overdale, and Caroline Morton had done likewise. Polly Carrano and her husband seemed to have, too. Not that Polly could have tucked it under her chin, it would have been a physical impossibility with that dress.
“It’s not that expensive, is it?” said Pammy.
“Yeah,” replied her husband. “Ralph can only afford it because he is, as Metro so gracefully puts it, Thee most highly paid surgeon in Thee country.”
“Bar none,” agreed Ralph’s brother mildly.
“We thank you for these kind tributes, souls,” said Ralph placidly, refilling his own glass.
“You can thank us in a more tangible way,” said Tom instantly, holding out his.
Grinning, Ralph refilled his glass.
“Anyway, the French’ll eat anything,” said Pammy definitively.
“Eh?” said Tom, beating Sol to it by a whisker.
“Co— Well, all parts of the animal,” amended Pammy, glancing nervously at Jemima.
Jemima seemed to have recovered from the cockscombs, however, for she agreed tranquilly: “Yes; Polly said she ate spinal cord in France.”
Several people looked as sick as Sol felt.
“Spinal cord of what?” asked Ralph with interest.
“I don’t know; sheep or—or beef, I suppose.”
“What was it like?”
“Stop it, Ralph!” said Audrey crossly.
Jemima ate an asparagus tip. “She didn’t say,” she said composedly, “because Madame Defarge came into the staffroom just then, and Polly can’t stand her, so she went away.”
“‘Madame Defarge’,” Tom explained kindly to Sol: “is what one might call a nickname, soubriquet, or pseudonym of this personage.”
“Or indeed an alter-ego,” murmured Ralph.
“Could one even say, a Doppelganger?” ventured Hugh, twinkling at Jemima. Hugh, though about Ralph’s age and therefore not young, was darkly handsome, some might have said in a saturnine way but Sol was not one of them. His thin, elegant wife shot him an annoyed glance.
“No,” said Jemima composedly. “It’s a nom de guerre by which her colleagues designate the personage in question.”
“Nyergh, nyergh,” said her lover mildly to Hugh.
“That takes me off with a hiss and a roar,” he agreed, grinning.
“Polly’s just over there; you could ask her, Ralph,” Sol pointed out mildly.
Ralph looked round eagerly. He waved. Polly smiled, and waved back. He got up. “Excuse me, souls; one must elucidate this mystery, striking while the iron is hot and before old Julien comes to see about the next course.” He hurried off. Maybe, thought Sol dubiously, if he hadn’ta just finished his lamb he might not’ve. Maybe.
… “Well?” said Tom.
Ralph sat down. “Very well. Especially in that dress. When standing over her in a casual fashion one can see—”
“That’ll DO!” said Audrey loudly.
“Anyway, what does it taste like?” asked Hugh.
“Eh?”
“He’s forgotten,” James pointed out.
“I’m told you tend to forget things in the company of Mrs Jake Carrano,” Hugh agreed. “Down to and including the day of the week and your own name. Or so they say.”
“It tastes, oh ignorant ones—as those with the slightest knowledge of anatomy or physiology might perhaps have deduced,” drawled Ralph, raising his glass, “like brains.”
James and Hugh replied as one man: “Well, you never!”
Ralph drained his glass. “Or, as Jake Carrano so succinctly put it, like cat-spew. Now, let’s order salad, dear souls.”
Sol just looked on numbly, feeling real shattered, because—even though Phoebe had served old David Shapiro’s salad all by itself, so he might have expected it—the salad came all by itself. Jemima was assuring them happily that the thing of diced beets and some small-leaved kinda lettuce thing that Ralph said was lamb’s lettuce was ambrosial. He looked at his in a lacklustre way.
“Go on, Sol: tuck in,” said Tom, grinning.
Sol looked dubiously at Hugh’s, James’s, Audrey’s and Caroline’s plates. They were having the other salad. It had lettuce in it that was lettuce. Leastways it was a lettuce that Sol had seen in American restaurants, put it like that. Dear souls.
“’S delicioush,” said Pammy thickly.
“Mm,” agreed Ralph through his. “Alwayszh iszh.”
“This has got an awful lot of garlic in it,” said Caroline Morton, pouting.
“Don’t eat it,” said her husband mildly. He reached over, grabbed her plate, and tipped the salad from it onto his own.
“Hugh!” she hissed. “Not in a place like this!”
“I wouldn’t worry,” he replied. “Jake Carrano did the same with his wife’s hors-d’oeuvre, didn’t you notice?”
Caroline merely glared.
“Yeah, and that fat old guy over there—” began Sol.
“Stop procrastinating, Sol,” said Tom severely.
“You’d better eat it up before Tom does!” added Jemima with a giggle.
Why had he ever let himself be talked into— Was they all gettin’ at a simple Yankee boy? Gingerly Sol took a mouthful.
“See!” cried Jemima.
Sol’s eyes had gone very round. He chewed slowly, and swallowed.
“Ambrosial; eh?” said Tom, raising his eyebrows over his gold-rimmed eye-glasses.
“Yeah, you’re right, Tom: this salad’s ambrosial.” Sol ate mixed beets and real weird little bits of soft lettuce that kinda melted in your mouth. It was ambrosia. Genuine ambrosia.
… “Roquefort,” decided Ralph firmly. “That’s what I feel like next. Now, souls, just pray she’s flown some in.”
“Ugh!” said Audrey, shuddering.
“Why didn’t I leave it in its cage?” he sighed.
The sweet-natured Jemima at this went very red and said loudly: “Not everybody likes blue-vein cheese, you know!”
“I’ve been training her,” Tom explained kindly to Sol. “Now she knows that Roquefort and Stilton come into the category of blue-vein.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Have they got Stilton?” interrupted Hugh eagerly.
“No. Old Madame’s a Frog. Well, Russky or something: half and half, I think,” explained Ralph.
The little old waiter told them severely that there was a choice of cheeses tonight: Roquefort, Camembert or a fresh goat’s cheese. Jemima looked slightly sick. Caroline looked disgusted. Audrey said frankly: “They’re all the sort that walk off the plate, by the sounds of them. I think I’ll pass this course up.”
Ralph of course chose the Roquefort. After a little indecision Sol followed his lead: might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. Tom and Pammy bravely chose the goat’s cheese. Jemima, Hugh and James played it safe with Camembert, Jemima declaring she’d just have a wee bit.
When the goat’s cheese came it was a little white mound each. Looked like cottage cheese. It was, Tom replied mildly to Sol’s enquiry. That took him off with a hiss and a roar, he guessed.
“Pudding as well?” squeaked Jemima, as Ralph urged the dear souls to think about it. “Help! Well, just something light, Ralph—I’m sure it’ll all be delicious,” she assured him hurriedly.
Ralph beamed. Sol would have taken a bet that if Pammy Blaney and he, Sol, hadn’ta been sitting between him and her, he’da pinched her chin. He had the look of an older man that could just pinch the chin of a lovely young thing. Fulsome, you coulda called it. –The chin in question was eminently pinchable, should an older man be that way inclined: pointed, but the jaw wide and shallow. With the high cheekbones and the huge slanted dark eyes she had rather the look of a cheetah. If you were getting real fanciful. Which of course none of us was. Dear souls.
“Would there be anything with crystallized violets, Julien?” Ralph asked with a twinkle.
“Certainly, Monsieur Overdale: tonight Madame offers des Baisers de vierge.”
“She’ll definitely have those,” murmured Tom, smirking.
“What are they like?” asked Jemima shyly.
Smiling, the old man—Jesus, he couldn’t be gay, either!—replied: “Meringues filled with a mixture of crystallized violets and rose petals in whipped cream, mademoiselle. Veiled with spun sugar and finished with more violets.”
“They sound wonderful,” said Jemima faintly.
“A classic dessert, mademoiselle,” he replied, bowing slightly.
“What else is there?” asked Ralph, rubbing his hands.
“Isn’t that enough?” said Caroline faintly.
“Madame will usually offer three or four desserts, madame,” the old man reproved her. “Tonight we have also le pudding Nesselrode,”—“Ah-hah!” said Ralph gleefully—“des crêpes Georgette, and a coupe andalouse.”
“That’s nice and light; why don’t you have that, Caroline?” said Ralph. Caroline agreed to this, on being told it was only orange quarters with a lemon sorbet.
“Uh—these crêpes; you did say Georgette, and not Suzette?” asked Sol diffidently. He hadn’t meant to be diffident, it just came out that way.
“Certainement, monsieur. Stuffed with a dice of pineapple soaked in kirsch.”
Sol was very torn. The virginal meringues sounded wonderful, but then...
“I’ve had ’em: they’re good,” Ralph assured him.
“I could do those for you, Sol,” said Tom with a grin. “Have the virgin’s kisses, they sound beyond me.”
“I bet,” muttered his brother.
“Tom does nice pancakes,” said Jemima. “Not Namesake ones,” she assured Sol, twinkling.
Sol gave in.
… “Whew!” said Tom, leaning back with a grin. He unbuckled the belt across his flat middle.
“Tom!” hissed Jemima, going very pink.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, Ralph’s already undone his. And Jake Carrano undid his quite some time ago.”
“What a lie: you can’t even see his belt from there!”
“No, but I could see what he was doing.”
“So could I,” agreed Hugh with a twisted little smile on that saturnine face. As some mighta called it.
Flushing a little, Jemima said: “Oh. Well, that doesn’t excuse you, Tom.”
“Logical,” he drawled.
“Drop it, Tom,” said his brother in a drawl that was even more languid.
To Sol Winkelmann’s utter astonishment Tom Overdale turned very red and said to his girlfriend in a strangled voice: “I’m sorry, darling. Was I doing it again?”
“Only slightly,” said Jemima with a little smile.
He put his arm across her shoulders and squeezed the top of one arm gently. Lucky swine.
… “Was that It?” said Phoebe, some hours later.
“Yup. Well, more or less. Say, it was a real pity you hadda go to that parents’ meeting tonight, honey.”
Ignoring this, Phoebe said with a scowl: “When did this shindig break up, then?”
“Uh—well, a while back, I guess. We all went back to Ralph’s and—uh—danced, I guess,” he muttered.
“What?” she hollered.
“Danced,” Sol said sheepishly. “Ralph seemed real keen, so—”
“Ralph Overdale? Didn’t you see him down at The Chateau? He’s got about as much sense of rhythm as—as a one-armed paperhanger with a gouty foot and the other leg in a tin of his own wallpaper paste! This man danced?”
“Y— No, well, he held Jemima real tight and—uh—kinda shuffled.”
“I see,” said Phoebe, eyeing him evilly.
“When I wasn’t holding her real tight and kinda shuffling,” he admitted, grinning.
“Don’t go on,” she said grimly.
“That was more or less what Tom said, too,” he admitted sadly.
Phoebe broke down, and had a sniggering fit.
“She sure is lovely,” he sighed. “Tom’s a lucky man: she’s real sweet-natured, too.”
“You’ve said that.”
“Have I? Gee, guess I’m getting repetitive in my old age, huh? Well, she is. Makes me wish I was ten years younger.”
“No!”
“Not to say one Helluva lot brighter and on her wavelength,” he admitted, grimacing.
Flushing, Phoebe protested gruffly: “Don’t be an idiot!”
“She’s read a Helluva lot of stuff I’ve never even heard of,” he confessed glumly. “We sat a couple out and just kinda talked... I guess she’s the sort that people tell their life stories to; I just hope I didn’t bore the pants offa her,” he said sadly.
Phoebe eyed him suspiciously but he appeared unaware of his own figure of speech. “I dare say you’ve read a lot of stuff she’s never even heard of.”
“Maybe.”
“Come on, buck up!”
Sol sighed. “I dunno... It was a real nice evening. Now I guess I feel kinda—uh—let down.”
“Thanks,” said Phoebe drily, getting up. “Well, I’m going to bed. You can go, or stay, just as you like. And if you don’t go, you won’t have to come, don’t worry.”
“I think I musta eaten too much, I don’t feel as if I could ever, ever do it again,” he sighed.
“Eaten! How much did you drink, more like?”
Sol shook his head sadly. “An awful, awful lot. Ain’t that what you Britishers say?”
“Possibly. We don’t usually pronounce it ‘offal’, however,” replied Phoebe coldly, going over to the door.
“Mind you, it was only wine. That ain’t real strong, huh?”
Phoebe snorted and went out.
Some time later he said into the dark: “Gee, that was a real surprize.”
“You and me both!”
“All of a sudden there it was.”
“Mm; and all of a sudden there it wasn’t,” she agreed with a smile in her voice.
“Boy, was it that bad? –No, don’t answer that!”
Phoebe snuggled up to him. After a while she murmured: “Was the food really that marvellous?”
“Yeah. I honestly can’t describe it. But to give you a vague idea, Ralph reckons he’s gonna emigrate to Paris, France, if the place ever closes.”
“Got it,” she sighed.
“Mind you, he was real rude about one of their best restaurants.”
“Eh?”
“Yup. Didn’t come up to his notion of hawt coo-sine, at all. –Boy, I’m gettin’ that used to High Society, they won’t know me when I’m back Stateside!”
When she’d finished choking, Phoebe said nervously: “Has it been that bad?”
“Only in parts,” he assured her.
“The L.G. Hayes and J. Fisher parts, to name a few,” she said in a hollow voice.
“No; I quite liked them, in the end,” he assured her. “Nope: it was more not being able to understand the waiter tonight—I won’t say the menu, there wasn’t a dad-blasted menu—let alone understand Ralph’s translations of what the waiter said, let alone appreciate the wine in the way he did—and his brother, too!”
“The primary-school teacher?”
“Sure. It’s a hobby of his.”
“Well, couldn’t it be a hobby of yours, too?” said Phoebe after a moment.
“Oh, sure!”
“Except that your brother’s convinced that really good champagne has to be pink, and vice versa, whereas Tom’s brother isn’t: quite. But can we blame you for this?”
“I’m sorry, Phoebe,” he said sheepishly. Boy, was he getting good at that!
“Don’t be an idiot! –Look, forget about the bloody place: it’s only the filthy rich that can afford to go there, anyway! Less than point zero, zero, zero one percent of the population!”
“It’s not that, exactly. I dunno… It’s a matter of excellence!” he said crossly. “It’s like Michaela’s pots: you don’t realize how—how third-rate everything else is until you come across something really outstanding, and then… Well!”
“Mm.” Even though as a headmistress she dealt, of course, most competently with many varieties of emotional state, Phoebe didn’t know how to deal with this one. Perhaps because she felt rather closely involved. Or perhaps because he was rather more intelligent, and considerably more disillusioned, than the gels with whom she had to deal. Or even a combination of these reasons.
Finally she said haltingly: “I do understand.”
Sol held her very tight. After quite an interval had passed he said into her neck: “Even if I came out here on a permanent basis, I couldn’t live like that.”
“No. Well, I don’t think anybody can, really, except perhaps the Carranos. I don’t imagine even Ralph Overdale goes to L’Oie Qui Rit every week.”
“No. He said about every six weeks,” Sol admitted.
“There you are, then.”
“Yes. ...It’s not just that,” he sighed.
Phoebe knew it wasn’t. She didn’t say anything, just hugged him.
Finally Sol said: “Maybe Tom could give me some cooking hints, huh? I’ve never really tried anything beyond varying the brand of ketchup I put on the franks. Only if he can do it, I guess I could learn, too.”
“Yes, I’m sure you could.”
“He’s invited us both over to their place for next Saturday. Will you come?” he said hoarsely.
“Me, too?” she returned in surprize.
“Yeah.”
“I’d love to. But won’t it cramp your style?” she asked with a smile in her voice. “Or am I supposed to drag Tom into a corner and indulge in literate conversation while you chat up the lovely Jemima?”
“That’s it,” he assured her. “You goddit!”
Phoebe chuckled drowsily. She drifted off to sleep.
Sol was too full of wine and food to sleep. Not to mention L’Oie Qui Rit’s wonderful coffee. He stared into the dark, brooding. It was, of course, Monday: L’Oie Qui Rit, so Ralph assured them, only offered the Selle d’agneau (whatever the Hell cut that was) on a Monday. Monday... Well, Tuesday morning. Which meant tomorrow would be Wednesday. The day Phoebe regularly saw the permanent but casual lover. She hadn’t said anything about putting him off this week... Should he ask her to? Could he ask her to? He guessed he didn’t have the right, really.
And did he really, deep down, want to ask her to put the guy off? Sol stared into the dark for a long time without coming to any conclusion at all on that one.
Next chapter:
https://theamericanrefugeeanovel.blogspot.com/2022/11/scores-of-unwanted-admirers.html
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