Not Very Satisfactory

8

Not Very Satisfactory

    Nat Weintraub glanced uneasily at Phoebe and cleared his throat. Phoebe went on slicing steak for Boeuf Stroganoff. Well, that was what she called it: sliced it up, threw a few mushies and a bit of chopped onion at it, cooked it all up in her big pan and shoved in a good dollop of sour cream. Not bad. Million calories, mind you. Well, million and two. Sometimes did it with noodles. They were full of calories, too. Didn’t usually bother much with veges, not much of a cook—not like good old Helen—but at least she had ’er priorities straight! Sometimes did a bit of broccoli, or else they had a salad. At one stage a bit back she’d been going on about this David type that made really good salad dressing, and he’d wondered— Well, there’d been that creep down Dunedin or somewhere, that Catholic tit that had kept threatening to leave his wife and then never did; it had taken her ages to bust up with him... Only then it turned out that this David type was Micky Shapiro’s old dad! Shit, he was a hundred and two if he was a day! Well, hundred and three, actually. Nothing to worry about there. Not that he had any right, he supposed glumly.

    Shoving his hands in his trouser pockets, he rocked back and forth a bit on his heels. Phoebe went on slicing steak.

    “Uh—what about this American type, then?” he said at last as she finished slicing steak and began slicing mushies.

    “What about him?” Phoebe returned in a tone of extraordinary mildness.

    Nat’s wide, florid face flushed. “Look, I know I’ve got a cheek asking you—all right! Only I reckon I’ve at least got a right to know!” Phoebe did not react in any way. “Don’tcha reckon?” he added on a plaintive note.

    Phoebe straightened, and turned from the bench. “Since you ask, no,” she said, still mild. “But I don’t mind telling you: he’s gone back to America. I’m surprised your spies haven’t told you that.”

    Redder than ever, Nat stuttered: “It was only—I mean... Well, bugger me, can I help it if bloody Micky Shapiro shoots his mouth off at golf? I never asked ’im a thing! I mean, there I was— It was on the fifteenth: ya know that tricky dog-leg?” he interrupted himself.

    “Is this going to turn into a golfing story?” enquired Phoebe, very dry.

    “No!” he said angrily, turning maroon. “I was only— Well, anyway, Micky was going on about Marianne doing the house up and—uh—pots, or— No, wait on, was it Susan’s new place? Uh—no; it wasn’t: it was theirs, because he reckoned she’d got these bloody great pots for that patio with the cabbage tree that drops its flaming lea... Um, something to do with pots,” he floundered. Phoebe eyed him coldly. “Look, don’t ask me the ins and outs of it!” said Nat loudly, beginning to sweat in his navy pin-striping. He tugged at his tie.

    “Go on: pots and cabbage trees,” said Phoebe neutrally.

    “Cut it out!” he roared.

    She looked at him blandly, eyebrows slightly raised.

    Purpling, Nat roared: “And you can cut that right out!”

    Phoebe relented. “Sorry,” she said. “Go on: Micky was telling you a long, boring story at golf about Marianne buying pots from Michaela Daniels and Sol’s name cropped up—is that it?”

    “Look, if you knew all that already, why the fuck didja let me carry on?” he choked.

    “I was enjoying it. I always enjoy hearing you open your mouth and trip over your tongue: words aren’t exactly your forte, Nat, are they?” she said kindly.

    Nat’s flush had faded. He was now a sort of blueish round the lips. “Look,” he said hoarsely: “do you want to break it off? Is that what this is about?”

    Serenely Phoebe replied: “No; I thought I’d told you that if I ever decide to break it off, I’ll come right out and say so.”

    “Yes,” he croaked.

    Phoebe turned back to her mushrooms.

    “Well, what about him?” croaked Nat.

    She looked thoughtfully at her chopping-board. “Well, you don’t have any right to ask me, you know.”

    “All right, be like that!” he shouted.

    “I’m sorry,” she said, turning round again. “Only you do rather set yourself up for these things, Nat.” Nat glared sulkily. “Look, all I can tell you at this stage is pretty much what you know already: we had a short fling, and he’s gone back to Florida.”

    Silence fell in Phoebe’s neat kitchen.

    “Is that it?” he said eventually.

    “Yes. Well, he did say he was going to investigate the possibility of moving out here. And before you ask,” she added hastily: “I was not mentioned in that context, and nor was living with him! Satisfied?”

    Nat glared in a baffled way, reminding her irresistibly of a particularly stupid bull that sees its intended victim ensconced safely on the other side of the electric fence. He wasn’t terribly bright, if you came right down to it; and probably would never have got as high in CohenCorp as he had if he hadn’t been Sir Jerry Cohen’s son-in-law. But he was—unless you were applying standard middle-class moral values, which Phoebe recognised drily she had no right whatsoever to do—a thoroughly nice man, and a good husband and father. In his way.

    He was also—at least to Phoebe Fothergill—an extremely attractive man: one of those solid, squarish, very physical men who radiate (when not glaring like baffled bulls) good humour and an earthy sort of sexuality which Phoebe had long since given up trying to pretend to herself wasn’t just her cup of tea. The sort of earthy sexuality that knows damn well what it’s all about and doesn’t mind letting this be apparent. Often on rather short acquaintance. In their case, it had taken some time: Phoebe had seen him as off-limits during most of the time his girls had been pupils at St Ursie’s—though judging by the look in his eye on the infrequent occasions when they had met, no such scruple had occurred to Nat. Then they’d been thrown together: he and Helen had had an orphaned niece living with them who had started behaving somewhat erratically and even the robustly competent Helen Weintraub had recognised she couldn’t cope. So Miss Fothergill, in her capacity as Carol’s headmistress, had been roped in to give advice. With results that neither Phoebe nor Nat had actually anticipated.

    After quite a period of baffled glaring, Nat muttered: “You’d think he’da given you some idea!”

    To which Phoebe replied affably: “Yes, wouldn’t you? Could you get the sour cream out of the fridge, please?”

    Nat perceived very clearly that he wasn’t gonna get any more out of her on the subject. Had a will of iron. Not that he hadn’t always known that; but… Sighing, he got the sour cream out of the fridge. When he gave it to her he didn’t neglect to pat her bum, since he had a hand free. Nat was that kind of man.

    Had anyone interrogated Nat Weintraub as to his own intentions towards Phoebe Fothergill, he would have been unable to tell them very much, except that he just wanted it to go on as it was. Every Wednesday. And sometimes in between, if he could find an excuse to get away, and she was free. The fact that he did Phoebe very thoroughly (and often twice) every Wednesday did not mean that he did not also pay considerable attention to his own hefty Helen. And if a little something cropped up on the side, he wasn’t totally averse to that—though Phoebe was so bloody demanding, much more than Brenda had ever been, half the time he was too shagged out to bother. As he put it to himself when the odd particularly desirable type floated past his field of vision; not so much at the office, he didn’t go for the dolly type—too much sense, for a start, that sort’d start squawking about a divorce after a few months of it; either that or they’d tell their best friend, also at the office, and then it’d be all over the Cohen Building before the cat could lick its bloody arse. No, other dames, in other places.

    Nat recognized all this in himself quite clearly, even if he couldn’t have expressed it. He wasn’t in the least ashamed of it, that was how he was made. Always had been like that. Liked women. Well, found ’em irresistible, more like: a harem woulda just suited him, he’d often thought. He had no intention of divorcing his Helen. Nor did Phoebe have any desire that he do so—he knew that perfectly well. No, all Nat wanted was for it to go on the same as it had been these past few years. If Phoebe wanted the odd fling with the odd American—well, all right, let her. He’d rather not know, actually. Only…

    He watched glumly as Phoebe tipped the steak and onion into the big pan and stirred briskly. How serious was this bloody Yank, that was what he’d like to know. And was he coming back, or not? And if he came back, would Phoebe drop him, Nat, in favour of a permanent thing with the Yank? From what he’d got out of Micky Shapiro—who thought it all a great joke: he would, sarcastic git—the bloke was around her own age. Nat, who was a good ten years her elder, watched Phoebe glumly and did depressing sums in his head. He was so glum that he missed a positively ideal opportunity when she bent down to get out a pot for the broccoli. He just stared moodily at the splendid posterior thus displayed and didn’t do a thing about it.

    Shivering slightly in the brisk November breeze, in spite of the fancy cream Aran-knit jumper he was wearing in order to impress Jemima should he happen upon her, not to mention the filthy old denim shirt that Michaela had forced him to put over it to protect it, Hugh waited breathlessly as Michaela opened the cold kiln.

    Carefully they began lifting out miraculous pots. His special pot was somewhere at the back, over near that corner...

    “Oh,” he said in awful disappointment.

    “It’s held its shape well,” said his teacher on a dubious note.

    “I like it,” contributed Dickon kindly.

    “Yuck,” replied Hugh sadly. “You can have it, then.”

    “What was the glaze supposed to do?” asked Michaela.

    “Um—well, see this bit here? It wasn’t supposed to spread. There was supposed to be a lot of pale green showing through under there, and a streak of the clay.”

    “You can’t control it down to the last millimetre,” said Dickon kindly.

    Hugh at this precise moment felt he couldn’t control it at all. “I know that, you twerp!” he replied heatedly.

    “You put too much on, I expect.” Michaela touched the huge brown blob on the side of Hugh’s ruined pot carefully. “What did you put in it?”

    “Um—I can’t quite remember.”

    “Did you write it down?”

    “No,” he admitted, reddening and shuffling his feet.

    “Well, if you can’t remember and you didn’t write it down, you might just as well give the pot to Dickon, if he wants it,” said Michaela callously. “Because it’s not going to teach you anything, is it?”

    “No,” muttered Hugh. “You don’t have to have it,” he said to Dickon.

    “I’d like it: really. I’ll put it by my back step and grow a geranium in it.”

    “Let’s hope it’s a spreading variety,” said Hugh sourly.

    “This plate of yours was a flop,” Michaela then discovered.

    Hugh looked at it. “Literally,” he agreed, wincing.

    “I told you you didn’t work the clay enough,” she said calmly.

    Hugh made a horrible face. “True, Oh Great Master.”

    “You can’t say ‘Great Mistress’, can you? It sounds terrible,” discovered Dickon.

    “How would you like your scrawny neck wrung for you, right now?” offered Hugh.

    Dickon only grinned.

    Over coffee a little later Michaela said: “Those ashtrays of yours turned out good.”

    “Ashtrays!” he said in despair.

    “Toshiro only lets his pupils—”

    “All right!”

    “For months,” murmured Dickon meanly.

    “Shut up, Small Change,” said Hugh nastily.

    Dickon grinned. He drank coffee from an effete or etiolated grey-blue mug that had mysteriously lost its handle after Starsky had very carefully carried a tray of them down to the house from the kiln.

    “You could sell those ashtrays,” said Hugh’s mentor keenly to him.

    “Eh? Oh. I suppose I could. Or I could give them away. Well, force them on me friends and relatives.”

    “Have one in your surgery: in the waiting-room,” suggested Dickon.

    Hugh eyed him narrowly but the young man’s face remained blank. “It’s non-smoking,” he replied briefly.

    “I don’t know anyone that smokes,” said Michaela reflectively. “Well, I think Tom smokes a cigar sometimes, if someone gives him one. And Bill has a pipe once in a blue moon, if he can be sure Meg won’t catch him at it.”

    “Good: I’ll give one to him,” said Hugh dully. “Come to think of it, I don’t know anyone who smokes, either. Well, apart from the dolly nurses at the bloody public hospitals. Not at The Mater, though. Be more than their lives were worth: Matron’s one of the old school. All starch and there’s a right way to do everything.”

    “Oh,” said Dickon blankly.

    Hugh sighed. Young, that’s what the twerp was. Young. And Michaela wasn’t exactly old, either, now he came to think of it... “Eh?”

    “I said,” repeated Dickon, grinning: “why did you make a load of ashtrays if you don’t know anyone who smokes?”

    “Practice with working the clay. And different glazes and stuff. She made me,” he summed up.

    “You could use them as little plates. If there was a set of five that matched,” said Michaela.

    “Five?” said Hugh faintly.

    “It’s traditional.”

    “Eh?”

    Michaela said something in Japanese. “I don’t know the English word,” she explained. “If you’d read that book I gave you you’d know what I was talking about,” she added severely to Hugh.

    He had read it. “Oh! Appetizer dishes!”

    “Oh, yes; that’s right, I’ve seen a set of them. –Not here,” Dickon explained. “I think it might have been in a museum in Australia.”

    Hugh drained his coffee. He got up. “All right, I’ll go and sort out five that look good together,” he said on a defiant note.

    Michaela’s expression didn’t change.

    “And then I’ll have to figure out who the Hell to foist ’em onto that’ll know what the fuck they’re meant to be!” ended Hugh loudly. He marched out.

    “Boy, he’s in a bad mood,” noted Dickon.

    “He wouldn’t let me help with the glaze for that big pot,” replied Michaela calmly.

    “I see! And now he’s regretting it, hah, hah.”

    “The pot is a nice shape, he’s got quite a good eye,” she said fairly. “But he’s too impatient.”

    “Expects to be an instant genius, eh?” he said, grinning.

    “Yes. And look out.”

    “What?” said Dickon feebly.

    “He’ll foist those ashtrays on you if you’re not careful.”

    “They’re not bad,” he murmured. “If they aren’t real appetizer dishes.”

    “Is that the same as hors d’oeuvres?”

    “Yes,” he replied weakly.

    “I thought it was. –Have you ever had real homemade Japanese noodles?”

    “No,” he said weakly.

    “I miss them,” said Michaela, sighing.

    Dickon swallowed. “Mm. Um well, what would you like me to do now? Price those new pots?”

    “You can if you like,” replied Michaela dubiously. “There isn’t any hurry, though.”

    “Yes, there is,” said Dickon, smiling. “Thousands of customers may be beating a path to your door at this very minute.”

    “Mm; or Polly might decide to build on another room,” conceded Michaela with a grin.

    “Yeah,” he said, flushing a little. He went out.

    Michaela went on sitting at the table, thinking about clay. If she went up... It would have to be at night, there were developers’ notices all over that land now, damn it. She didn’t think Dickon would help: he was extremely law-abiding. And Hugh was far too respectable. Tom would, like a shot. Only it wouldn’t be fair to ask him, he might lose his job if they got caught... Bob would come like a shot, too, only she definitely wasn’t going to ask him, he’d done far too much for her already. And her boarder, Bryn, was obliging but he was in the middle of his end-of-year exams, he couldn’t afford to be out at night.

    Blow, she’d have to find another student as well next year, she was never going to manage the rent with just Bryn. And he’d be going home over the Christmas holidays, that meant—um—December, January, February: blast: three months with no extra cash coming in! And unless they had a very wet January people’s lawns would start drying out, they wouldn’t need her nearly as much in summer...

    Say she went up there tonight, got one load and went back tomorrow night? Good, yes: then if the developers spotted it on Monday it wouldn’t matter! Possibly make a couple of trips? Mm... Yes, a couple each night ’ud be easier in the long run than taking the barrow. And she could fit a lot into her pack. Good!

    Art For Art’s Sake in Puriri had put in a huge order for mugs for the Christmas season. Sighing, Michaela got up and went outside.

    “Come on, you can have a go at mugs on the wheel,” she said to Hugh.

    His face lit up. “Really?” he cried.

    “Yes.” Well, they’d said they wanted a lot of one-offs, something a bit unusual. They’d be that, all right. Resignedly she led him inside and got him started.

    “You oughta make your mind up, fella!” said Abe in a nasty voice.

    “I know I ought to, but can I?” drawled Sol.

    “Will ya cut the crap, Sol!” he yelled.

    Sol replied with a certain remorse—but not total remorse, Abe lately had waxed very boring indeed on the subject: “I’m sorry. Only how can I tell you anything definite when I haven’t decided whether I want to settle over there or not?”

    Abe glared.

    “Are you gonna take that reel, or not?” added Sol.

    “Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. You sure it’ll be right for that new line of mine?”

    Sol sighed. If he did pack up and leave the country, who was going to keep track of Abe’s roomful of fishing gear and its various brands, weights, compatibilities and tolerances? Not Abe, clearly. “Yes,” he said wearily.

    Abe allowed him to wrap it for him. He looked approvingly round the store, which was now pretty well into its pre-Christmas rush. “Say, ya doin’ pretty good business here, fella!”

    “Buy me out,” responded Sol sourly.

    “Now, Sol—!”

    Sol sighed again. “Well, we always do pretty good round Christmas, yeah,” he conceded.

    “Yup!” his brother agreed, cheering up. “Say, Sol: you ever thought of expanding into—uh—well, now, other sports areas? Golf, say?”

    “No,” returned Sol simply.

    Abe’s broad, genial face took on a cunning look. “Now, if ya get in with the right crowd ya can do real good with golfing supplies. That Micky was telling me—”

    Sol allowed Abe to tell him what Micky Shapiro had told him about the price of decent clubs, not to say accessories, out there in little ole New Zealand, wondering idly if (a) this was a delicate hint that he might do rather well out there with a golfing-supplies business, since Micky Shapiro and his ex-brother-in-law Nat Weintraub were very much the right New Zealand crowd, (b) if Abe realized that Micky Shapiro was the sort that always insisted on buying the best on principle and then complained for ever after of the price of it, and (c) whether Abe himself was thinking of trying golf again. And answered himself, sequentially: possibly, pretty well for sure not, and, finally, who cared?

    Abe accepted his wrapped package and paid for it but didn’t go away. Sol didn’t have much of an excuse for getting rid of him, since the pre-Christmas rush had thinned slightly: Jerry had served two of ’em, the browser had gone away, Gabe had served two of the other three and was now helping the third choose a rod for snook, and young Hank who only worked after school and was more trouble than he was worth was still struggling with the lady who wanted something for her husband for Christmas. Actually now he looked at her Sol could see it was May-Beth Meyer who lived in his apartment block and was as Jewish as him and Abe; but that didn’t make any difference, the Meyers would celebrate Christmas just as he and Abe did—well, Abe did and Sol was dragged into it. Only thing was, Sol had a fair idea that—in spite of the existence of Olly Meyer, or maybe because of it—May-Beth had her eye on him, Sol. So that was maybe why she was taking her time to make up her mind about the gift. Hell.

    “Huh?” he said vaguely.

    Flushing, his brother replied: “I said, Do ya reckon you might have made your mind up over this New Zealand thing by Christmas, at least?”

    Sol shrugged.

    “Well, are ya gonna be here over Christmas, or not?” hollered Abe. Startled, May-Beth Meyer turned and goggled.

    “Oh!” said Sol, trying not to grin. “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?” He added kindly to his purpling brother: “It takes one Helluva long time to get visas and that, ya know. Even if it looks pretty much like they’re gonna approve your application.”

    Abe returned weakly: “So you’ve gone into that, huh?”

    “Uh-huh.”

    Abe glared. After a while he said weakly: “You written to Phoebe about all this?”

    “Nope.”

    “WELL, WHY IN CHRIST ARE YA GOING, FELLA?” his brother roared at the top of his voice. May-Beth had given up all pretence of being a customer and was listening avidly. Gabe and his customer were also listening avidly. Jerry had been listening avidly for some time.

    Sol replied mildly: “I’ve told you, I don’t know that I am. And it wouldn’t be Phoebe that’d make up my mind, one way or the other, so just drop that, huh? Anyroad, I’d have to sell this place; and I’d have to see what business opportunities would be available up Puriri way.”

    “Up there? You thinking of settling up there?” said Abe weakly.

    “Sure. It’s real nice.”

    “Yeah, but that Carrano guy—”

    “I’m not thinking of going in for realty, Abe,” his brother said kindly. “Or any kind of property deal; it ain’t my scene, y’know?”

    After a moment Abe croaked: “What about your apartment?”

    “May not apartments be bought and sold, yea, even in the depths of—”

    “Cut the CRAP, Sol!” his brother hollered.

    Sol replied with a sigh: “It’s not getting rid of my assets here that’s the real problem, it’s persuading the New Zealand authorities that I’m not gonna end up a liability over there.”

    Very red, Abe spluttered something about them Kiwis not knowin’ from nowhere and any time Sol needed an advance, fella—punch in the arm.

    Wincing, Sol replied: “Thanks, Abe. I’ll bear it in mind.”

    “Da nada,” he returned sourly. –Pat was insisting on a trip to Mexico fairly soon. Abe had tried to explain that they all spoke English, leastways the waiters did, who cared about the rest, but nevertheless she’d bought this little phrasebook and was making him learn up stuff. Because she fully intended going round the native markets and buying up stuff for the house.

    Sol’s Spanish was quite good and he returned in that language: “Congratulations, you’re improving.”

    Abe glared. After a moment he said sulkily: “It sounds pretty damn certain to me.”

    “Well, it isn’t. I keep dithering. And in any case it’s still not sure that they’ll have me: now they’re making noises about a guarantor or some such—”

    “Hey!” Abe gave him a buffet on the shoulder. “Pat’s dad’ll do that for ya!”

    Very red, Sol replied hastily: “I couldn’t possibly ask h—”

    Abe rubbished that. He declared he’d ring Sir Jerry tonight Well, at a good time, their time, he amended—but as soon as possible! They’d fix it all up, Sol wasn’t to worry! And say, if there was any problems at all he’d just bet old Jerry’s lawyers—

    “Thanks,” Sol said finally on a dry note.

    Abe’s enthusiasm evaporated suddenly. He gulped, realising that, not for the first time—and oddly enough, not infrequently in his brother’s company—his genius for problem solving had run away with him.

    “I’ll leave my tiny fishing-supplies shack up Carter’s Inlet to you in my will on the strength of that,” Sol promised him.

    Abe returned weakly: “Now, say, ya can’t mean that dump, Sol!”

    “It is a bit far north. But with Jake Carrano’s marina up there I should think I could do quite well.”

    Abe rubbed his chin. “Uh-huh. Say, that Jake was telling me—” It was, Sol reflected, pretty inevitable that Jake Carrano and Abe Winkelmann should have got together. They had then immediately realised that they had met before: that guy had been the guy that they’d smoked the only decent cigar of the trip with at that goddamned fancy winter wedding in goddamn Oxford that their wives had dragged them to last January. Oxford, England. In January. Yo, boy.

    Sol agreed mildly that if Jake Carrano said a new freeway was gonna go in real soon linking the existing freeway with Carter’s Bay (read with Carrano’s Kingfisher Marina further up Carter’s Inlet) then it was pretty sure to be The Word. He didn’t point out—though it was an effort, a real effort—that over there they didn’t say “freeway”, they said “motorway”.

    After which he announced genially that he was closing up early tonight, it was Friday, hadn’t Abe noticed? While Abe, May-Beth Meyer and the assembled staff of Sol’s Fishing & Marine Supplies were still all standing there with their jaws sagging he added it was also Yom Kippur and he was taking his mother to Temple that night.

    At this Abe recovered himself, gave him a huge buffet on the shoulder, announced proudly he was a joker, and departed.

    “I am closing up,” Sol said mildly to his staff’s uncertain faces. “As of right now. Say, did you want something, May-Beth? Because I’m real sorry, you’ll have to come back Monday.”

    “Aren’t you opening tomorrow morning?” she replied faintly.

    “Gee, no!” returned Sol in horror. “Not on Yom Kippur!”

    May-Beth went very red and departed.

    “You guys better go, too, unless you fancy being locked in for the weekend: Well, there’s the frozen bait in back,” Sol said mildly to his staff.

    Jerry, Gabe and Hank hurried off before he could change his mind.

    Sol locked the shop slowly and departed. He did collect his mother and he did take her to Temple. But you’d never have gotten May-Beth, Jerry or Hank to believe it. Gabe, who knew him rather better, wouldn’t have been surprised, though.

    “Well?” demanded Pat over dinner that night.

    Abe sighed. He poked dispiritedly at a snail.

    “That thay-ah’s a snail, Mister Abe, honey!” Jasmine informed him brightly. “Mis’ Winkelmann, she done tell me they’re real good vittles!”

    When Jasmine got heavily Southern, Look Out.

    “I’m sure you’ve done ’em just right, Jasmine,” he said quickly.

    “Yes: they’re very nice, Jasmine,” approved Pat graciously.

    Blinking a bit, Jasmine retorted: “Not too much garlic?”

    “No, it’s just right,” replied Pat, unmoved.

    Gulping slightly, Jasmine tottered out, momentarily—but only momentarily, it was understood by all parties—vanquished.

    “Well, did he say anything?” pursued Pat impatiently.

    Abe ate a snail. Ugh, garlic, garlic, garlic. Maybe there was a snail in there somewheres but you sure couldn’t taste it. Still, likely that was the idea. “Nope,” he said through it. He began wrestling with another shell.

     “Well, will he be here for Christmas?” she said loudly.

    “Yup,” he grunted. “Hah! Gotcha, ya little—” He stopped, catching Pat’s eye.

    “Just pretend you’re a civilized being, Abe,” she said tiredly.

    “Me?” he returned in amazement. “Say, that’s nothin’! Say, you oughta get a look at ole Sol when he’s in there up to his elbows wrastlin’ with a chilli hotdog with everything on it!”

    “I have, thank you; and I’ll thank you not to refer to it at my dinner table!”

    Abe subsided.

    Pat ate three snails with easy grace. “And if he imagines he’s going to get that sort of food in New Zealand, he’s got another think coming!” she announced with satisfaction.

    “Huh? Oh, chilli hotdogs! No, he sure won’t get them! Say, did I tell you about that place out there that advertised hotdogs—”

    He had. Several times. Pat informed him of this. Nevertheless Abe persisted with the tale, it was one of his favourite horror stories.

    “—them English-type sausages on sticks! Dipped in this yaller batter stuff and deep fried! Hotdogs? Sheesh!”

    Pat had finished her snails, not listening. When the noise of his voice had well and truly died away she said coldly: “Disgusting. Are you ready for your soup?”

    “Yeah,” he owned glumly. He didn’t even like soup. But Pat thought it was the thing to do.

    Pat tinkled the little silver bell. Jasmine came. By now she’d realized she’d have to if she wanted to keep her very well paid and not too onerous job. There weren’t that many flies on Jasmine.

    “So, has Mister Sol decided he’s gonna emigrate to this here New Zealand, or not?” she enquired genially, gathering up plates.

    “Who knows?” replied Abe glumly.

    “Dad’ll guarantee him, if he does.”

    “We know that, honey,” he said dully.

    “Well?” Pat replied.

    “Well, how should I know? Jesus Christ, am I his keeper?” he roared.

    “Now you keep your hair on, Mister Abe, honey,” Jasmine recommended genially. “No-one ever could talk Mister Sol into or out of a thing!” She walked out on this note.

    “Gee, that’s real helpful,” noted Abe sourly.

    Pat frowned. “It’s not very satisfactory, I must say,” she announced.

    “In spades,” he agreed sourly.

    “If I’m going to order this roast beef and Yorkshire pudding nonsense that you’re insisting on, the caterers’ll want to know definitely how many there’ll be to sit down to it!” –Jasmine had Christmas off. It was written into her contract. There sure ’nuff were very few flies on Jasmine.

    After what was now more than a year of married bliss, Abe thought he knew Pat pretty well. Nevertheless he sagged in his seat as she came out with this. Not a comfortable position: the dining chairs were very ornate mock-something of which the late Edie Winkelmann had been extremely fond.

    “Oh—your table,” he said weakly. “No, I guess it isn’t very satisfactory... Well, like I said, he did say he’d be here over Christmas, hon’!”

    “Positively?” she said suspiciously.

    “Uh—yeah. Sure. Say, Pat, honey, is it Yom Kippur today?”

    Pat’s mouth opened slightly but no sound came out.

    “Well, is it?”

    “How in God’s name would I know?” returned Patricia Cohen Shapiro Winkelmann irritably.

    Jasmine came in with the soup at that moment, so Abe asked her, but she didn’t know, either. “Now this here is cold soup, Mister Abe,” she said impressively.

    “Uh-huh.”

    “Mm-hmm. It ain’t cold because the cooker’s bruk or anythin’, it’s cold because it’s meant to be cold, it’s one o’ these here fancy society soups; ain’t that right, Mis’ Winkelmann?”

    “Vichyssoise,” agreed Pat. “It’s a nouvelle cuisine recipe—no cream.”—Here Jasmine, to Abe’s bewilderment, turned towards him and winked at him.—Pat tasted her soup. “This is excellent, Jasmine,” she approved.

    Abe’s bewilderment increased. Pat could scent cream, butter, in fact anything real good and real fattening at twenty yards. So there sure as Hell couldn’t be any in it.

    “Well, it was easy enough,” returned Jasmine, rather pleased. “But are you sure you wanna eat it, Mis’ Pat?”

    It was the very first time she’d broken down and called her employer’s second wife “Mis’ Pat”. Pat didn’t allow any of her inner triumph to show. “Yes: it’s extremely nutritious,” she replied firmly. “Try it, Abe.”

    Jasmine turned towards Abe again. She winked again. Then she went out quickly.

    Abe tasted his soup gingerly. Then he got the point. Whatever Pat’s might have been, his had a goodly dollop of cream in it. With some of them little chopped sweet dills Jasmine knew he was partial to.

    “Yup, real good!” he assured Pat.

    They ate “vichyssoise” in companionable silence. Well, Pat ate silently.

    “So I’ll include Sol definitely for Christmas dinner,” she said when she’d finished.

    “Yeah, I guess,” said Abe, staring glumly at his empty plate.

    “Of course, if you don’t fancy it, we could cancel the whole thing! Go somewhere decent—what about London? We could do the shows, have a decent dinner and fly back in time for New Year’s! Or Flora Belle was telling me some friends of theirs went to Bali last year. That’d be nice—warm. But if you don’t fancy going abroad, Elayne and Chuck’d make us welcome in San Francisco, you know they’re always urging us—” She broke off. “What are you looking like that for?”

    “Pat, honey, haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said to you all these months? This may be the last Christmas Sol has in the States, we can’t just fly off to—to Bali or some place!”

    Pat pouted. “He hates Christmas, anyway.”

    “Now, Pat, honey, don’t say that sort of thing!”

    Even though Pat hadn’t rung, Jasmine had come in again. The kingfish steaks were ready and she wasn’t one to let a good piece of fish get cold. She took their soup plates and said scornfully: “He don’t hate Christmas! He just hates all the drinkin’ and greed and that that goes on at it!”

    “Greed?” said Pat faintly. “I’ve seen him eat a whole—”

    “Not that! The gift-givin’ and such!” Jasmine informed her scornfully.

    “Oh,” said Pat, disconcerted. “Well, New Zealand’s just as bad.”

    “That ain’t the way Mister Sol tells it!” Jasmine marched out. She had the fish on a cart just outside the door so she returned with it before the Winkelmanns had barely had time to draw breath. –Pat had forbidden her on pain of death to bring the next course in before she’d cleared away. Jasmine had read this up on the sly and knew it was right, so she did it in an in effort to spite Ruby from the next house but three where that Mis’ MacDowell acted like she was a Duchess or something. Finger-bowls at every meal, yet!

    Pat, of course, rarely noticed much outside herself, her clothes, and her house unless it was rival ladies’ clothes, but after this she was driven to say faintly to her husband: “What on earth does Sol imagine New Zealand is? Shangri-La?”

    Abe was concentrating on his plate. “Yeah, plenty of whipped potato, thanks, Jasmine. Uh—well, he was right there with us, honey.”

    “He must have been wearing blinkers, then!” she retorted acidly.

    Abe embarked on his fish without replying. He just loved a good kingfish steak, and this sure was good, Jasmine was a wonder with fish. But as he chewed with enjoyment he pondered Pat’s remarks and though he wasn’t too sure what Shangri-La was—hadn’t there been a movie or something, way back?—wondered uneasily if she was right. He didn’t know whether it mighta been Phoebe Fothergill that had put the blinkers on poor old Sol, or that nice potter lady, or what. Mid-life crisis, maybe.—Abe was quite up with the play, if his vocabulary was a trifle restricted.—Well, whatever it was it sure looked like he was gonna rush off and do it. And for what? Search him. Shangri-La? How could selling fishing supplies in New Zealand be any better than selling ’em right here in good old Fort Lauderdale where at least all the fishing and boating crowd knew him, and he’d known most of them all his life? Well, it couldn’t. And he’d bet his last cent there wasn’t such a good living to be made over there, either! Gee, it was a pretty poor little country, really, you only had to look in what passed for their sporting-goods stores... And their liquor stores! None of ‘em had ever heard of Budweiser!

    Abe didn’t express it to himself in quite so many words but he felt uneasily that New Zealand was a country without anything of any very great quality, and of no great quantities of anything, its population being so tiny; and he just couldn’t see Sol being happy there. As Pat had put it, even if she hadn’t meant it that way, it wasn’t very satisfactory. At all.

Next chapter:

https://theamericanrefugeeanovel.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-festive-season-part-1.html