The Austin Twins

PART II. FLOWERS OF THE SPRING

12

The Austin Twins

    “You can stay in that nice student hostel where your cousin Mirry stayed,” said Miriam Austin firmly.

    “Aw, Mu-um!” protested Vicki.

    Miriam gave her a hard look. “Or you can give up the whole idea, of course.”

    Victoria, even though she was the dominant twin, subsided. Miriam Austin in her day had been one of the Macdonald girls, and the Macdonald girls were a byword round their part of Taranaki—and not only because of their striking good looks.

    Ginny said nervously: “Mirry said it was all right.” Her twin gave her a sulky glare. “Um—well, not too bad,” she amended, even more nervously.

    “And there’s Mirry and Hamish just up the hill a bit at Kowhai Bay—and of course your cousin Polly round at Pohutukawa Bay!” said Miriam brightly.

    “MU-UM!” cried the twins in horror.

    Bridling, Miriam replied aggressively: “Well?”

    Vicki merely sniffed. Mum knew as well as they did what they meant. But foolish Ginny tried to explain: “We can’t just go round there! I mean... Maybe her husband wouldn’t like it,” she finished in a very small voice.

    “WHAT?” cried Miriam. She went into the standard Macdonald-girls diatribe about Polly Mitchell Carrano: just an ordinary person like you or me—no reason being married to That Man should—blah-blah—even if she does write books (sniff)—don’t see why having all that money should make them special—blah-blah—her mother’s my own sister and if ever there was anything special about Maureen I’d like to—blah-blah... Winding up: “I’ve written to her, and I’m quite sure she’ll say you’re welcome any time!”

    “MU-UM!” screamed the twins, turning bright puce.

    “And if either of you envisage actually getting to these polytech or university courses or whatever you like to call them this year, you’d better go and start sorting out that mess in your room,” finished Miriam on a grim note.

    The twins went. They didn’t even bother to point out that (a) it wasn’t a mess, (b) most of it was Ginny’s and (c) anyway, they knew where everything was.

    Once in their room Vicki just sat on her bed and began carefully removing the bright orange nail polish from her toenails, which was what she’d intended to do this afternoon. But Ginny looked dubiously at the mess and then said: “I think I’ll pack my books first.”

    “You can’t take all of them,” said Vicki, not looking up.

    “Why not?”

    “They weigh a ton, ya dick-head.”

    “So?”

    Vicki didn’t look up but she knew her sister’s lower lip was sticking out. “Who—is going—to carry—them?” she said loudly and heavily. Ginny didn’t reply. “Jake Carrano, I suppose?” said Vicki, with huge sarcasm.

    Caught unawares, her twin gave an explosive giggle.

    Smirking, Vicki said: “Anyway, there’s too many of them.”

    “But if I leave them here, Mum might throw them out!” cried Ginny.

    Vicki would have rubbished this, only she knew it was true. Mum had thrown out half of Ginny’s old children’s books when they’d been away at boarding school. “Hide them in the basement,” she suggested.

    “Don’t be stupid! They’d get damp. And anyway, she’d find them there! And anyway, I need them!”

    “No, ya don’t, you said yourself that the Second-Year varsity course is completely different from that extra-mural garbage you did from Massey last year.”

    “I still need them,” said Ginny stubbornly. “And you needn’t take that tone: if I hadn’t passed all my Massey units Mum’d never be letting us go at all.”

    “If you hadn’t passed all your Massey units I, personally, would have torn you limb from limb very slowly and chopped up the pieces into mincemeat,” replied Vicki, very mildly.

    “Hah, hah.” Ginny looked despondently at her books.

    Vicki went on doing her toenails but after a while she said: “Hey, I’ve got an idea!”

    Ginny had found a very interesting book and was immersed in it. “Mm?” she said vaguely.

    “Yeah: we could— HEY!”

    “I’m listening!” replied Ginny crossly.

    “Liar.” Vicki hurled a pillow at her. It hit her on the head: Vicki was a very good shot, and good at all games. She’d been a prefect at school.

    Ginny was hopeless at games, she hadn’t been anything at school, except Classics Scholar, whatever that was. As it turned out it had entailed a scholarship of a thousand dollars a year for three years, should she wish to attend university; Ginny, who hadn’t been at all sure, in spite of the Careers mistress’s efforts, of what university was and what you did there, had decided she might as well. Vicki only knew that university was even worse than school, they made you write loads of essays and it was all swot. And anyway she’d always wanted to be a nurse—the swot bits of that were pretty bad but not as boring as the garbage they did at university—but she’d supported Ginny, because it would have been an awful waste of money to have turned it down and besides, anything that helped get them to the big city and off the farm and out of Mum’s orbit had to be a good thing—y’know?

    So after a ghastly year of almost ceaseless nagging from Miriam, during which the twins had struggled with further studies at home, Ginny with the aforesaid Massey University units (since she’d passed everything including Bursary in the Seventh Form) and Vicki with Sixth-Form Maths and Biology (since she’d managed to fail them twice in her two last years at school), they had finally, and only because they had both passed everything, won Miriam’s consent to leave home and go to the big city.

    Vicki was going to do the new nursing course: the first part you did from the Polytech, y’know? Only there was practical, too, and if you lived up the Hibiscus Coast—like at Puriri or round there, y’know?—you could do some of it at that private hospital in Puriri with the big paediatric wing, and Vicki thought she’d like that. And it was quite good she was starting this year, because it would be the first year that the Nursing School would be up at Puriri Campus, so her and Ginny would be able to be together. Puriri Campus, rationalisation of educational resources being currently politically expedient, had just become a joint campus of the University and the Polytech (the latter having had no room at all on its city campus and the former being desperate to get some return out of the vast acreage it had foolishly invested in when rates in Puriri County were minimal and the baby-boomers looked as if they and their offspring would need a huge new university. The advent of the Pill at more or less the same point in time had not suggested anything to the elderly men who ran the University’s affairs.

    The student hostels were all up at Puriri, now, and most of the First-Year university classes were held up at Puriri Campus, too: if they had to live away from home, their mother had decided heavily, you couldn’t get a better situation, really. Vicki tactfully hadn’t pointed out that Twin’s Latin stuff was still taught down in Auckland because the classes were so small. Anyway, the university had a shuttle-bus service and if Ginny insisted on taking really grungy stuff like Latin and Greek that hardly anybody took these days, she could catch it into the city campus, easy! Ginny herself was none too sure about this, but as usual, she hadn’t voiced her uncertainties in the face of her twin’s blithe conviction that it would all work out perfectly easily.

    Unmoved by being hit on the head by Vicki’s pillow, Ginny merely pushed it aside. “What idea?” she asked without interest. Vicki was always having bright ideas. Frequently they led to very hot water indeed.

    “Mirry’s okay: I bet if we rung her up she’d get Hamish to collect us from the bus stop!”

    Ginny merely gaped at her.

    “In his car, you moron! Then you could take all your books!” howled Vicki.

    “Oh. Isn’t Dad going to drive us up?” said Ginny uncertainly.

    “No. Mum won’t let him.”

    “Oh. Well, how are we going to get there?”

    “On the BUS!” howled Vicki.

    “Mum says it isn’t safe.”

    Vicki goggled at her.

    “Um—not the bus, I don’t think; the bus stop, I think she meant. In Auckland, I mean.”

    “We’ll just have to walk, then.”

    “Very funny,” said Ginny in a wobbly voice.

    “She can’t stop us now,” said Vicki with great determination. “We’re enrolled!”

    “You are; I’m only pre-enrolled,” said Ginny sadly.

    “Never mind that; we’re going.”

    “Yes; but how?”

    After a few moments’ scowling thought Vicki said: “We’ll have to fly from New Plymouth. Dad’ll have to cough up the dough.”

    “In one of those horrible little planes?” gasped Ginny.

    “It might be a jet. Anyway, you’ll be okay: you can take a Dramamine or something.”

    “They make me feel all funny,” said Ginny faintly.

    “All right: don’t take one. Be sick all the way there.”

    Ginny subsided.

    “Dad can drive us into New Plymouth; it’s not that far,” said Vicki with great determination. Ginny didn’t reply. “I’ll ask him!” decided Vicki. Ginny didn’t say anything. “When I’ve finished my nails,” decided Vicki in a firm voice.

    “Shall I pack my books, then?” said Ginny.

    Why not? thought Vicki. Twin’d only have to unpack them later, but if it took her mind off everything— “Yeah, go on. And don’t use the big suitcase, it’ll be too heavy. Use the little ones.”

    “All right,” said Ginny obediently. She began putting books into the small blue suitcase. By the time Vicki’s re-done nails were dry she’d stopped putting books into the case and was sitting on the floor, reading one. This was pretty much what Vicki had expected. She sighed, and went out.

    Vince Austin was discovered leaning on the rail of the empty sorting-yards. He listened unemotionally to his daughter’s report.

    “She’s hopeless, Dad!” she summed up explosively.

    “Mm. Well, we know that, eh?” he returned mildly.

    “How on earth is she going to cope up there? I mean, all those professors and that. They aren’t gonna give her the benefit of the doubt when she says she left her essay on the bus, are they?”

    “You’ll just have to keep an eye on her,” he said drily.

    Vicki didn’t notice the dryness. She sighed heavily. “Yeah.”

    After a moment Vince said cautiously: “She said anything to you about doing Japanese?”

    “Yes,” she admitted sadly. “She reckons she can fit it in as well as all those other subjects.”

    “Well, she is pretty good at the Latin and stuff,” he conceded.

    “I know, but— You should see her timetable, Dad!”

    Vince scratched his head. “Ye-ah... Doesn’t the university have regulations about that sorta thing, though? About how much ya can do in a year, and all that?”

    “How should I know?” replied Vicki glumly. “What if they’re all as mad as her?”

    “Ye-ah...”

    There was a short silence.

    “Your cousin Polly works there; she’s okay,” he pointed out mildly.

    “Don’t you start!”

    “Well, she’s not the absent-minded-professor type like poor ole Dim-Twin.”

    “Don’t call her that,” said Vicki in an unconvincing voice.

    Grinning, Vince Austin said: “Well, Polly is okay, anyway. Pretty sensible girl, I’ve always thought.”

    Vicki could clearly remember a time when he hadn’t thought so at all. That was ages ago, mind you—her and Twin had only been about fourteen. It was when Polly had first got mixed up with Jake Carrano, and Mum and the aunties had had a ghastly confab over it one Christmas. Her and Twin had heard some of it, they’d thought it was gonna be good because Mum had sent them outside, so they’d got up in the roof and listened. Only it hadn’t been—well, the first bit, about the nightclubs and all his mistresses and that, had been good—only then it had got dead boring, so they’d crawled out of the roof and gone down the creek after all. Well, anyway, back then, Dad hadn’t said anything about Polly being sensible!

    Now she only said: “Yeah. Anyway, she’s not working there this year, don’t you remember? Mum said.”

    “Oh. Musta missed it,” he replied cautiously.

    “Yeah, she’s gonna write another textbook or something. And Aunty Maureen reckons she wants to spend more time with the kids while they’re little.”

    Vince reflected that that was the sort of thing his sister-in-law would say; but as he was very fond of the gentle Maureen, didn’t say it. “That right?”

    “Yes; and she’ll be able to go with him on his Big-Business trips and that!” She snorted scornfully.

    Vince eyed her dubiously. “He’s all right,” he said mildly.

    Vicki was very red.

    “Never done you any harm,” he pointed out.

    “No-o... Twin reckons he’s a capitalist.”

    Vince refrained from asking her what either of them imagined a capitalist was. He looked down tolerantly at her coppery head. “He’s all right,” he repeated without emphasis.

    “Huh!” replied Vicki scathingly.

    Vince sniffed slightly.

    Silence again.

    “Just mind you don’t go and do what she did,” he said mildly.

    Vicki was about to wither him when she recollected she hadn’t yet asked him to drive them into the airport. Not to mention pay their air fares. She gulped a bit. “What?” she said finally. “Marry a millionaire?”

    “Yeah. Well, no. Can if ya like—might inject a bit of capital into this place.” He looked round his sun-dried fawn hills and sighed.

    “Well, what?” pursued his nineteen-year-old daughter

    “Uh—I meant, don’t go off and marry a joker that’s twenty-two years older than you. ’Cos it’ll only lead to trouble.”

    Vicki goggled at him.

    Hastily he said: “Don’t you worry your head about that: they’re okay now. Just went through a wee bit of a rocky patch. Well, lots of marriages do, after the first couple of years.”

    Vicki just stared at him.

    “Well, I mean... Just watch it, that’s all,” he said feebly.

    “I don’t want to get married!” she retorted scornfully.

    Ugh, no, not married; how disgusting; how perverted; how highly unusual, thought Vince in great amusement. “Yeah. Well, plenty of time for all that. Anyhow,” he added with mild malice: “how ya gonna get up to the Big Smoke, ya thought of that?”

    “Um...”

    “Could drive you,” he said, rubbing his nose.

    “Mum says it’s too far,” said Vicki in a squashed voice.

    “Eh? Rats! Not in me dotage yet, ya know!”

    Vicki swallowed.

    “You got any better ideas?”

    “Um... Well, if you drove us into New Plymouth, Dad...” Vicki revealed her Master Plan. Vince pointed out mildly that her cousin Mirry, young kiddy and all, might not want to meet them at the airport. And Hamish would probably be at work. Vicki pointed out he wouldn’t, he was a professor or something, wasn’t he? Term didn’t start till March: his work would be closed!

    “Uh—yeah. Well, you wanna give Mirry a ring, then, Vick?”

    Vicki agreed ecstatically to this and shot into the house to do so.

    Vince went on leaning on the rail of the sorting-yards.

    … “I think they must be out,” she reported sadly, ten minutes later.

    “Oh. Um—could be over at Hamish’s dad’s place for the holidays.”

    “Or at Aunty Kay’s,” said Vicki in a hollow voice.

    Vince sniggered.

    Vicki took a deep breath. “I’ll try his father’s place first. And if they’re not there I’ll ring Aunty Kay!”

    “Have a medal, that Twin,” her father said mildly.

    Vicki withered him with a look, and strode off.

    Vince sagged on the rail of the sorting-yards, sighing. Going off to varsity and that... Shit, seemed only yesterday that they’d been about the length of his forearm and their proud mother, on discovering the hair growing in red—on both of ‘em, though they weren’t identical—had burst into tears and wailed: “They can’t be! Not both! It isn’t fair!” Vince had returned that it served her right for skiting about their Ted having missed out on the ginger that ran in her family. But he had put his arm round her while he’d said it.

    “Not ginger: auburn!” Miriam had said with great determination, bolt upright within the arm.

    The girls had been “auburn” to their mother ever since. But everyone else reckoned it was red. Well, Polly didn’t, she said her young cousins had “pale copper hair, the colour of new pennies”—only Polly was known for her sweet nature, got it off her mum, Maureen. Red was what it was.

    … “Didja get her?” he said finally.

    “Mm. She was at Aunty Kay’s.”

     Which explained why it took so long, thought Vince, not saying it. “Will they be able to meet ya?”

    “Um—yes. Well, it depends a bit what flight we can get, Dad.”

    “Thought there was only one a day, anyway? –No, all right, don’t get ya knickers in a knot, come on, we’ll sort it out.” He ambled indoors. Vicki skipped along breathlessly at his side, panting out instructions which Vince ignored.

    He got them booked, okay—though mind you, Miriam popped out of the kitchen to supervise him while he did it. Then he rang Mirry. But that day (there were confirmatory wails and so on in the background) turned out to be the very day on which Elspeth’s bloody school was having its bloody swimming sports and Mirry had promised she’d go, it was all planned.

    “Aw, well... Plan B, eh?” he said, hanging up and scratching his chin thoughtfully.

    “You’re not driving all the way up there in the February heat!” said Miriam strongly.

    “Crap. Do it easy in five hours. –All right, keep ya hair on, I’m not: got better ways to waste me time. –Now,” he said heavily to Twin: “the question is, who else do we know up there?”

    “Vi, of course,” said Miriam eagerly. “Give her a ring, dear, she’ll be—”

    “NO!” howled Vicki.

    “Here, hold on!” protested Vince, shocked.

    “Don’t, Dad, Aunty Vi’ll make us stay at her place and drink funny tea and stuff!”

    “A fate worse than death,” he noted over his daughter’s head.

    “Mm. Well, Vi’s tea is pretty bad, but I wouldn’t have said it was funny, exactly.”

    “Yes it is, Mum: you know, that herb stuff!”

    “Oh, that. That was supposed to be good for you.”

    Vicki made a retching noise.

    Since Miriam was a fair-minded woman, and the herb tea her sister Violet Macdonald had brought down with her on her last visit had been even worse than her ordinary tea, she said only: “Don’t make that disgusting noise, Victoria. I’m sure your Aunty Vi’ll be able to suggest someone who could pick you up.”

    “We’ll catch the bus, there must be an airport bus,” said Vicki quickly.

    “Yeah. Twenny mile into town, give or take; and then it’s another twenny mile on another bus up the Coast,” pointed out Vince laconically.

    “Well, that’s all right, Dad, we’ll just—”

    “Shuddup. –Yeah, gidday, Vi, Vince here,” he said.

    Vicki moaned slightly and sagged against the passage wall.

    “Stand up straight, Vicki!” hissed Miriam.

    “She can’t see me down the phone, Mum!” hissed Vicki.

    Miriam turned a strange colour and disappeared precipitately into the kitchen.

    Stunned to have broken Mum up, Vicki fell all over the passage having hysterics. So she missed the crucial moment at which her impossibly countrified and old-fashioned father and her hopelessly a-ancient and old-fashioned aunt, neither of whom knew where it was At, y’know? comfortably agreed that she and her sibling should be met at the airport by dear Polly.

    “WHAT?” she screamed when he’d revealed all.

    “Grow up, Vick,” her father returned mildly. He strolled into the kitchen to report.

    Miriam wasn’t nearly as blasé about her niece’s husband’s wealth and position as she would have liked her daughters to believe. “Vince: you didn’t!” she gasped, sagging against the bench.

    “Can only say ‘No’,” he pointed out mildly.

    “I’m sure they won’t... Oh, dear,” said Miriam in a hollow voice. “They’ll think we’re imposing!”

    “S’pose we are. Whaddelse are relations for? S’pose Polly’s flamin’ brother Bob wasn’t imposing when he come down here in the middle of lambing that time and had the flu all over our best spare room when ’e was s’posed to be off round the backblocks doing ’is Farm Advisor thing!”

    “That’s different. He’s not married to a multi-millionaire,” said Miriam weakly, failing to point out for once that Bob Mitchell had been no bother at all.

    “Nah, well: be a bit queer if ’e was, wouldn’t it?” said Vince, with heavy emphasis on the “queer” and waggling his eyebrows madly at her.

    Miriam smiled weakly. “Don’t say that, Vince.”

    “Don’t suppose a bloke could get a cup of tea round these here parts?” he asked pointedly.

    “What’s the— Good Heavens, is that the time?” she squawked. She began rushing round madly getting afternoon tea.

    Vince just sat down at the kitchen table and let her get on with it. He was very good at that.

    Vicki reported in breathless horror to her twin.

    “Huh! If you imagine they’ll trail out to the airport to meet us you must be even dumber than Aunty Vi!”

    Vicki gaped at her.

    “I expect they’ll send the chauffeur. You’ll like that: you can pretend you’re Lady Muck,” said Ginny. “Play your cards right and you’ll get your picture in that stupid Metro rag, like her.”

    Vicki collapsed onto her bed. “Polly’s nice! I thought you liked her!”

    “So what? Does that mean I have to approve of that sort of garbage?”

    “It’s the best magazine in the country!” cried Vicki. “It has serious articles and everything!”

    “If that’s what the country calls serious articles then I pity the country!” shouted Ginny, turning bright red.

    “Oh, yeah? I suppose you reckon they oughta be written in LATIN, or something!”

    The twins had a loud and acrimonious argument over the country’s newest glossy. Until Vince came in and settled their hash for them.

    “And if that’s the way you’re gonna behave maybe we better think again about letting you go off by yourselves to the city,” he ended with satisfaction.

    Ginny burst into loud tears and threw herself face down on the rug. Vicki screamed: “You’re a mean, rotten PIG, Dad!” and threw herself face down on her bed, bursting into tears.

    Vince didn’t allow the grin to show till he was outside in the passage with their door shut. Then he staggered into the kitchen and laughed himself silly.

    Miriam eyed him cautiously. “What was all that about?”

    “Don’t—ask—me! Some stupid magazine!” he gasped.

    “It isn’t really funny. They’re old enough to know better than to carry on like that.”

    “Told ’em—that!” he gasped.

    Miriam replied in some annoyance: “They are your daughters, Vince. They’re not some comedy show put on for your benefit, you know!”

    Vince wiped his streaming eyes. “No. Had ’em too late, that’s my trouble.”

    She’d been forty when they’d had their little mid-life twin accidents; Vince had been (pace the admonitions to his daughter on the subject of older men) fifty-two. Miriam went very red.

    “Not you: ME, ya nana!”

    Miriam was still very red.

    “Half the time I feel as if they’re me grandkids; at least, I reckon that’s what it is. Well, can’t take that sort of carry-on seriously, at any rate.”

    “No,” said Miriam weakly. “We should never have had them; you’re right.”

    “Hey—hang ON!” he cried in horror.

    “Well, look how they’ve turned out: Ginny lives in a world of her own all the time; and Vicki—um...”

    “Tries to force the world in the way she wants it to go?” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Just like ruddy Vi, come to think of it.”

    “Nuh— Um, well, something like that. I mean, she’s worse than Ginny, in a way! Neither of them’s got the slightest idea of what life’s really like! Honestly, Vince, can you see either of them coping in the city all by themselves?”

    “Nope. But kids do, ya know.”

    Miriam sighed.

    “Gotta let go the old apron strings some ti—”

    “All RIGHT! Don’t keep on about it!”

    “Well, ya had ’em home for an extra year like ya wanted, and what was the result of that? The three of ya were at each other’s throats non-stop.”

     Miriam pouted.

    “They’ll be all right. That hostel sounds okay, from what Kay was telling us.”

    “Mm... It didn’t stop Mirry going off the rails.”

     Vince eyed her nervously.

    “Not only is Hamish her cousin—well, second cousin, but it’s the same principle! Um—what was I? Oh, yes: a married man twice her age! I mean—really, Vince!”

    “Seems to’ve worked out okay. Got a nice little baby,” he grunted. “And as far as I can see young Elspeth’s fonder of Mirry than she is of her own mother.”

    “I dare say it might be all right now, but it wasn’t very nice when it was happening, was it?” she said darkly.

    “Uh—no. Well, if you say so,” he ended weakly.

    “Vince Austin! Have you forgotten That Awful Summer—” She went on and on about that awful summer. Yeah, the bloody phone bills had been awful all right: she’d been on the blower to Kay at least twice a day getting progress reports—and then relaying ’em coast-to-coast! Correction, the length and breadth of the bloody country, one of her bloody sisters lived down in Christchurch. And all for what? Nothing any of them had said or done had made a blind bit of difference, in the end. Hamish and Mirry had gone right ahead and done what they wanted to do. Which anybody but a Macdonald sister would have expected in the first place.

    “Uh—yeah. Well, Mirry’s a different type from the twins,” he said uncomfortably, when she’d run down.

    “You Never Know,” replied Miriam darkly.

    Well, that was true, yeah. S’pose ya didn’t, no.

    “Especially with Girls,” added Miriam darkly.

    “Uh—no. Well, I’m sorry, old girl; apart from selling up the farm and moving up there to keep an eye on them, I don’t see what we can do about it.”

    “It’s about time you were thinking of retiring.”

    “What, to a bloody dinky suburb in bloody North Auckland? Ya gotta be joking!”

    “Loads of people do it,” said Miriam weakly. “You are seventy-two, dear.”

    “Yeah, yeah; and it was my fault we had ’em in the first place: go on, rub it in.”

    Miriam was about to squash him good and proper but a surprised twin’s voice said with great interest: “Was it, Dad?”

    Miriam gulped.

    “Yeah, ’course it was, don’t they teach ya human biology at those ruddy poncy girls’ boarding schools?” Vince retorted with immense pleasure.

    “Yes; but didn’t you take precautions, Dad?” asked Ginny with clinical interest, coming into the kitchen and taking the last biscuit off the afternoon-tea plate without asking.

    “Obviously not!” retorted Vince scathingly.

    Ginny chewed biscuit thoughtfully. “Didn’t they have condoms back then?”

    Miriam, now an interesting shade of maroon, gasped: “That’ll do, Virginia!”

    “Didn’t they, Dad?”

    “Back in the Dark Ages, ya mean? Yeah, we did; we had the Pill, too—musta done, eh?” he said to his empurpled wife. “Yeah, only be twenny years back, eh? Yeah, musta done. No, thing is, ya mother can’t count. She reckoned it was all right.”

    “Oh,” said Ginny, losing interest. “Is there any tea left?’

    “It’s stewed, dear,” said Miriam faintly.

    “I don’t mind.” Ginny poured herself half a cup of stewed tea, and filled the cup up with milk. Her parents winced as she gulped the resulting orange fluid down noisily.

    “Reminds me of Vi’s brew,” said Vince reminiscently.

    “Don’t start that again,” said Miriam, rather faintly.

    “How close together can you have kids?” asked Ginny abruptly.

    “Why? You thinkin’ of havin’ a few?” he asked, leering at her.

    “No. Vicki said Aunty Kay said Karen’s pregnant again; only I wouldn’t of thought she could be, yet.”

    “Don’t say ‘wouldn’t of’, for Heaven’s sake, I don’t know what the university people are going to think of you, Ginny!” exclaimed her mother.

    “How close, Dad?” persisted Ginny, ignoring her.

    Vince rubbed his nose. “Aw, well... Closest I ever heard of was ten months.”

    “Ten months?” gasped Miriam in horror.

    “Yeah. Couple o’ boys Ted was at school with. You remember, love, they were in the same class, and you thought they must be twins, only Ted swore blind they weren’t.”

    “Oh, yes. –Ten months? Are you sure, dear?”

    “Yeah. Met their mum at one of those bloody awful Parents’ Days—you musta been there!”

    “I’m sure I never met h— Vince Austin!” she screamed. “Did you ask her?”

    “Yeah. Why not? She didn’t mind telling me. Struck me as a decent sort.”

    Miriam goggled at him, dumbfounded.

    “Anyway, that’s the closest I ever heard of,” he said to Ginny.

    “Maybe it’s true, then. Ugh, another little Karen-clone on the way, how foul.” She took the last banana out of the fruit bowl and wandered out eating it.

    “Ten months?” said Miriam incredulously.

    Vince sniffed. “’S true as I sit here.”

    “The poor woman!”

    “Yeah. Musta felt like a ruddy brood mare, eh? Literally. Get shut of one, a couple of weeks’ breather, and—”

    “All right! Don’t go on about it, for Heaven’s sake! ...Ten months! The second one must have been premature, Vince!”

    “Nope. Asked her that.”

    “Well, all I can say is,” said Miriam weakly after quite some time, “thank God you never told me at the time. Or I’d never have dared show my face round that school again!”

    “Wonder why I didn’t? Oh, Christ, yes, that was the Parents’ Day the senior boys put the woodwork teacher’s van in the swimming-pool, remember?”

    “Oh, yes,” said Miriam, smiling weakly.

    Vince expatiated at length on this exploit. He could see she wasn’t listening, but he ignored this. However, the gathering frown on her wide brow caused him considerable unease. Which, being Vince, he didn’t allow to show.

    “Never mind all that!” she said with great determination, getting up. “I wonder if it’s true? –I’ll just give Kay a ring!” She trotted out briskly.

    “Phew!” said Vince aloud, sagging in his chair. Bloody Karen could produce as many—what was it the kid had called ’em? “Karen-clones”: that was a good one, heh, heh. She could produce as many of ’em as she liked, as close together as she liked, for his, if it took Miriam’s mind off the girls leaving home. In fact she could produce sky-blue-pink ones with little green antennae— Which reminded him. Grunting, he got up, went into the sitting-room and retrieved the Listener from that bloody stupid shelf under the TV where she always put it. Ooh, yeah. Heh, heh. Now the only problem was being allowed to stay up to watch it! Could tape it...? No, give it a burl! He went along to the girls’ room and went in, forgetting to knock.

    “DAD!” screamed Vicki, covering her scrawny tits with her scrawny arms.

    “All right; keep ya hair on, I’ve seen ’em before. Not to mention the rest of ya freckles.”

    After a bit it sank in. “They are NOT!”

    “Smallest pair I’ve ever seen,” said Vince with satisfaction. “On a human being, that is.”

    “Shut up, Dad, she’s sensitive about them,” said Ginny, looking up briefly from her book.

    Vince went over and switched her desk lamp on. Ginny promptly switched it off again, pointing out it was broad daylight.

    “Listen, talking about the half-human, you wanna watch the SF film tonight?” he said to her.

    “What is it?” replied Ginny cautiously.

    “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”

    “Ooh, really? The real one?” She tore the Listener out of his palsied hand.

    “Yeah.”

    Ginny ignored him: the Old Man couldn’t be right, he was pretty well past it, ya see. She verified it for herself.

    “Mum won’t let you; it’s on too late,” said Vicki with satisfaction.

    “Just because your idea of enjoyment’s Mary Poppins!” replied her twin scornfully.

    “Or The Sound of Music,” suggested Vince.

    “Aren’t they the same?” asked Ginny mildly.

    Vince fell around the girls’ room, laughing.

    “I like The Sound of Music! And GET OUT OF OUR ROOM!” screeched Vicki.

    Miriam came in, frowning. “What on earth is all that noise about? I’m trying to talk on the phone! And put some clothes on, Victoria—standing round half-naked!” She went out again, sure that her injunctions would be obeyed. Or acting as if she was, which in Vince’s considered opinion (well, they had been married for nearly forty years, he’d had plenty of time to work it out) was ninety percent of the battle.

    “Okay, you can watch The Sound of Music on the little set in our room with ya mother, and me and Gin’ll watch SF in the living-room,” he said to his just-older daughter.

    “All right, I will! I’ve got it on tape, see!”

    Vince hadn’t known this, but he wasn’t surprized.

    “‘The hills are alive—and it’s very frightening’,” sang Ginny.

    “Oh, hah, hah! You think you’re smart!” returned her twin furiously. “Well, just wait until ya get to university, then we’ll see if you’re smart or not! I bet all those student-types’ll just think you’re pathetic, see? Pathetic!”

    “Probably,” said Ginny, lapsing into gloom.

    “Bullshit!” said Vince sturdily. “You’ll be okay!”

    “No, I won’t: they’ll all hate me.”

    Vicki and Vince eyed her uneasily. Ginny glared at her book.

    “Don’t see why they should do that,” he said at last.

    “Ignore her, Dad: she won’t listen to reason. She’s been going on about it for months.”

    “Why?” he said blankly.

    “Don’t ask me.” Vicki turned her back—evidently under the impression that this would render her father instantly blind—and inserted her tiny form into a totally purposeless bra. If you could call it that: more like a pair of mosquito’s suspenders.

    “What’s she got that’s so hateable?” he said blankly.

    “Don’t ask me.”

    “Nothing wrong with ’er. Looks quite normal, and all that.”

    “Shut up, Dad! And GET OUT OF OUR ROOM!” screeched Ginny.

    Vince ambled off. God Almighty, why should they hate her? Girls!

    He went outside, whistled up the dog, and pushed off down the creek. Too hot to do much today, not that much needed to be done. Have to do something about that bunch up on the western boundary soon, though: practically no pasture left. Silly bloody creatures, sheep...

    “All bloody dumb, the lot of them, eh?” he said to Chum. “You and me are the only smart ones round here, eh, boy?”

    Chum just looked up at him mildly. He was getting on, too. ...Retire up to bloody la-de-da Puriri? Not a flaming chance! He was gonna drop in his tracks, that was how he was gonna go! Christ, place like that you’d be dead of boredom in a week. Less than a week. Ugh. From what Mirry had said— Well, their bit of it wasn’t bad, Kowhai Bay was quite pretty, not so many pensioners there—mainly because it cost an arm and a leg, and how ruddy Hamish afforded that plus supporting the ex—well, almost-ex—he, Vince Austin, would like to know... Where was he? Oh, yeah: Kowhai Bay wasn’t bad but most of Puriri was wall-to-wall wrinklies. Yuck. All swapping notes on the price of hearing-aids and the latest in electric lawnmowers, no doubt. No—give that one away.

    Vince squatted by the creek, staring into the trickle of water without seeing it for quite some time. When Ted turned up with young Tip and said “Hullo, Dad: what are you doing here?” he just about jumped out of his skin.

    “Uh—brooding. About retiring and that.”

    “Eh?” said Ted, his eyes starting out of his head.

     Vince made a face. “Your mother’s been making noises about Puriri—you know, the Hibiscus Coast. Because the girls are going up there.”

    “You’re mad!” said Ted with conviction.

    “Well, I don’t wanna go... You reckon your mother’d like it up there?”

    “No. How could she do her dyeing and weaving and that? What I mean is, where’d she get all the, um, bits of plant and muck she uses?”

    “Yeah,” said Vince in relief, sagging all over the creek bank. “Never thought of that.”

    “Anyway, she hates town. Can’t get back home fast enough, every time she goes.”

    “That’s true,” Vince conceded.

    “I reckon this retirement business is overrated,” said Ted firmly. “Well, might be all right if you’d been shut up in an office for forty years, I s’pose,” he added dubiously.

    “Yeah,” said Vince, heaving himself up. “Come on—you coming home for tea?”

    Ted was thirty-seven. His two boys, away at boarding school during the term, of course, were currently staying down in Wellington with their mother and that stuffed-shirt she’d married after she’d decided she couldn’t stand country life and walked out on Ted leaving a note plus the then six-year-old Sean and seven-year-old Damian. Lovely, that had been. Miriam had inevitably pointed out that she had Always Said—and that Ted had got married far too young, twenty-one was far too young! None of which had helped, actually. That had been eight years ago but boy, it had been good while it lasted.

    Ted hadn’t re-married: after an experience like that, could ya blame him? So there was no-one but him to get his tea in the neat little modern house that was the farm manager’s house. Which didn’t mean he always fancied coming home for one of Miriam’s harangues over the dining table.

    “Might as well,” he agreed. “Whaddis there?”

    His father replied with considerable satisfaction: “The next helping in the twins-off-to-the-big-city saga, served up with the sauce of ya bloody cousin Karen producing yet another sprog.”

    “Aw, is thaddall?”

    “Uh—Dim-Twin’s in a gloom because it reckons all the varsity types are gonna hate it, and Skinny-Twinny’s got the pip because I told ’er ’er tits were like freckles.”

    “Honestly, Dad!”

    “Well, they aren’t much bigger.”

    “No, but girls get all worked up over that sort of thing.”

    “How the Christ would you know?”

    Winking, Ted replied slowly: “A-aw... Read it in a book Ginny lent me.”

    Vince shuddered all over.

    Grinning, his son said: “Well, what is for tea?”

    “Eh? Oh! Cold roast lamb with mint sauce and that special cold potato stuff she makes.”

    “Good, I’m coming.”

    They ambled slowly down towards the homestead.

    Eventually Ted murmured: “You wanna go up there and see the girls every so often. Take Mum. Stay in a decent motel.”

    “Yeah; or with ya ruddy Aunt Violet!”

    Unperturbed, Ted continued: “There must be some decent motels up Puriri way... Hang on, doesn’t Polly know a bloke that runs a really nice one?”

    Could do. Knew far too many blokes for her own good. Not to mention her husband’s peace of mind. Mind you, they were okay now, far as you could tell. Vince didn’t retail any of this to Ted. “Yeah, could ask her, I s’pose,” he said mildly.

    “Mm.”

    They ambled into the house in a state of perfect understanding.

    The flight from New Plymouth didn’t take long, but Vicki had made the most of it, going to the toilet three times, ordering an extra drink on top of the orange juice with biscuits and cheese that Air New Zealand’s internal flights normally forced on you, and keeping up a running commentary on what she could see from the window, which wasn’t much, most of the flight was over the sea. Or, more exactly, over the cloud cover over the sea. Ginny had ignored all of this, though she had drunk her free orange juice and eaten her free biscuit and cheese. She had read all the literature from the seat pocket before the plane had even taken off, and then rejected the hostess’s offer of a nice New Zealand Woman’s Weekly in favour of The Bulletin (thereby doing the gentlemen further down the plane out of it, though she hadn’t done it on purpose). She had immersed herself in this for most of the flight.

    On finishing it she offered it to her twin but Vicki rejected it on the joint grounds of (a) boring and (b) Australian. Ginny unwisely tried to tell her what it said about the Hawke government’s policy on Chinese students, not failing to note that as Bob Hawke had just lost office maybe it would all change, so Vicki got up and went to the toilet (that was the third trip).

    At this the dark young man on the aisle seat, who’d spent most of the trip trying (a) not to stare at the girls because they were both so pretty, (b) not to groan at the inanity of Vicki’s running commentary, (c) not to laugh at the inanity of Vicki’s running commentary, (d) not to sympathize verbally with the one next to him over the inanity of her sister’s running commentary and (e) not to get a hard-on because they were both so pretty, said weakly: “Um—excuse me: I’d quite like to read that Bulletin if you’ve finished with it.”

    “Oh—righto,” said Ginny amiably, passing it to him.

    “Thank you. Um—would you like to read this?” He offered her this morning’s Herald.

    “Righto—thanks,” said Ginny, pinkening slightly. Not because she found him attractive but because he was a young man who was (necessarily) sitting very close to her and, at this precise moment, smiling right into her face. She took the Herald and, not noticing that the smile had been a very nervous one or that the young man had gone much redder than she had, buried herself in it.

    With pounding blood and a whirling head Dickon Fothergill buried himself in The Bulletin, quite unable to do a thing about his now quite monstrous hard-on.

    Vicki came back from the toilet with a fresh layer of make-up on, plus lashings more scent that Miriam would immediately have made her wash off, and excused herself loudly as she squeezed past Dickon’s legs. She sat down again and began an extremely vivacious conversation with her twin on the subject of their being almost there, had Ginny heard the announcement? And you couldn’t see much: it looked like farm land, did Ginny think the pilot could have made a mistake, where was the city? And similar inanities to which Ginny did not reply. The innocent Dickon listened while pretending to be buried in his magazine, alternately mentally groaning and mentally laughing, without its ever dawning on him that this extreme vivacity was aimed at him. Not because Vicki consciously found him attractive, but because he was a young man in her immediate vicinity.

    “There! Fasten your seatbelt, Twin!” said Vicki excitedly at last as the intercom told them to fasten their seat-belts.

    “What?”

    “Fasten your seatbelt: we’re landing!”

    “It is fastened. ...I don’t think we’re landing.”

    Vicki peered out of the window. “No-o... Yes, we are!” she squeaked as the plane tilted at an alarming angle.

    “What can you see?” asked Ginny without much interest.

    “The sea. It’s awfully close!” gulped Vicki.

    At this Dickon gave up all pretence at reading The Bulletin, shoved it in the seat pocket in front of him and said kindly across Ginny: “They usually come in over the sea: the airport’s right on an inlet of the Manukau, you see.”

    “I get it,” said Vicki, rather faintly, but nevertheless smiling at him.

    “It’s all right, we won’t crash: these pilots throw these things around like this every day of their lives: like driving a bus,” he said.

    Vicki immediately reminded him of Those Awful Bus Crashes In Australia: it was now crystal-clear to Dickon, not that it hadn’t been pretty clear already, what quality of mind the thinner one had.

    “Um—yes,” he agreed weakly. “Terrible.” He glanced sideways at the quiet one but she was reading the Herald again.

    Vicki began to tell him how the pilots must have to concentrate and what a responsible job it was with so many people’s lives in their hands but fortunately the plane then tilted at an even more alarming angle, the engines roared deafeningly, tinny music tried to drown the engines, unsuccessfully, and Dickon was able to yell over this cacophony: “We are landing, now!”

    And, with a series of bumps, jolts and rattles, and a deafening blast as the pilot applied reverse thrust, they did, braking so savagely that they were all thrown hard against the seatbelts stretched across their tummies.

    “Well, he may have all our lives in his hands but I reckon that one’s a rotten driver,” said Ginny sourly, folding up the Herald and shoving it into the seat-pocket in front of her.

    “Ginny!” protested her twin. Ginny looked blankly at her. Giggling a bit, Vicki said across her: “I’m sorry, my sister’s an awful dreamer! Wasn’t this your paper?” She handed it to Dickon before he could say that although it had been he didn’t particularly wish to treasure it for the rest of the day.

    “Look, we’re driving up to the building!” she then squeaked.

    Dickon opened his mouth to say they couldn’t possibly be, this was New Zealand, not Overseas: the planes always stopped out on the tarmac to give you the benefit of the endemic howling gale, frequently accompanied by blasts of rain, but before he could they stopped and Vicki said sadly: “Oh.” Then she said excitedly: “We’re here! Come on, Twin, where’s your stuff?”

    “Um—up there.”

    Persons better prepared than they for Air New Zealand’s usual landing procedures were already cramming the aisle. Dickon struggled to his feet with great difficulty and said politely: “Please—let me.”

    “Thanks. It’s the khaki one,” said Ginny, blushing.

    “And mine’s the pale green one!” added Vicki, smiling eagerly. “Be careful, that thing’s heavy!” she squeaked.

    “It’s not that heavy—thanks,” said Ginny, not meeting his eye as, repressing a grunt, he handed her the khaki knapsack.

    “It is so! –it’s full of books,” Vicki apologized to Dickon.

    “Yes, I thought so,” he said in a vague voice. “Here, is this yours?”

    “Thank you so much,” replied Vicki, beaming at him.

    Feeling extremely warm and flustered, most of which was not due to the fact that he was continually being pushed savagely against the seat end by fellow travellers forcing their way down the aisle in order to be first in the long, long wait for the luggage proper, Dickon replied: “That’s all right. Um—you couldn’t pass me my briefcase, could you?” he added in a strangled voice to Ginny, realizing he was never going to be able to bend down in the crush of passengers to get it.

    Ginny heaved it up from where it had sat coyly and uncomfortably behind Dickon’s knees for the trip. “Heavy!” she panted, taken unawares.

    “Yes; I’m sorry!” he gasped, grabbing it.

    Her eyes inadvertently met his: Dickon looked straight into them, laughed suddenly and explained: “Full of books!” Involuntarily Ginny laughed, too.

    His senses whirled; he would have said something, though he didn’t know what, indeed he’d opened his mouth to do so, but a fat woman said very loudly and crossly from behind him: “Excuse ME!” Gulping, he edged back in front of his seat.

    “That them?” Polly’s escort enquired.

    “No, they’ve both got red hair.”

    “They’re not on the plane,” he deduced immediately.

    “Don’t be silly, Uncle Vince rang up to say they were.”

    “No, ’e didn’t, ’e rung up to say he was putting ’em on it.”

    “Don’t split hairs,” said Polly sternly, but her mouth twitched.

    “Coulda got off it again after we’d set out. Coulda—um—thrown a fit or something,” he speculated.

    “Big plane!” cried Katie Maureen at this juncture.

    “Yes, that’s right, darling,” agreed her mother with some relief, kissing her curls. “A great big plane. You’re the only sensible one here, aren’t you?”

    “I’m a sensible one!” cried Johnny indignantly.

    “Yes, all right, Johnny, you and Davey are both sensible, too. Those under fifty are all sensible,” ended Polly evilly.

    Her escort only grinned.

    “Yes, our cousin’s meeting us,” said Vicki in answer to Dickon’s polite enquiry as they approached the door of the plane at last.

    Ginny snorted.

    “Um—well, maybe she’ll have—um—sent someone to meet us,” said Vicki in a less ebullient tone, not wanting to say “her chauffeur” and sound all stuck-up in front of the young man.

    “Oh, good: so you’ll have someone to help you with your luggage?”

    “Yes, thanks!” beamed Vicki.

    “I don’t reckon she’ll come herself, why should she?” said Ginny suddenly in a loud and sulky voice.

    Vicki was secretly as nervous as Ginny about the whole thing so she replied very loudly: “Shut up, Twin! Why shouldn’t she?”

    “What are we to Hecuba?” retorted Ginny very loudly and crossly indeed.

    Vicki would have told her to shut up and stop talking garbage only at that moment Dickon, who perforce had preceded them, reached the head of the gangway and the hostess simpered and cooed: “Thank you very much, sir.” –Apropos of nothing. To which Dickon, ears reddening, muttered: “Thank you. Good-bye.”

    “Thank you,” said Ginny in a squashed voice, but the hostess ignored her.

    Vicki looked the young woman firmly in the eye and said: “Thank you for the excellent service,” in the very voice of Miriam Macdonald Austin—though she did go a bit red as she said it.

    “You’re welcome; have a nice day!” fluted the hostess, taken unawares.

    Ignoring this, Vicki said anxiously: “Hang on tight, Twin!”

    Ginny clung grimly to the rail of the gangway with one hand, lugging her weighty knapsack along with the other. She was so overcome with embarrassment, what with the fear of tripping on the precipitous steps in the howling gale, and what with the young man’s having stopped at the foot of the steps to grasp her arm firmly as she stepped off, that she didn’t notice that over in the railed-off area which the Domestic Terminal provided for those who were meeting you, a tall, pretty, brown-haired woman was waving wildly and two little boys were jumping and up down with excitement.

    Vicki stepped off just behind her and said in a hollow voice that didn’t sound in the least vindicated: “She has come: see?”

    Ginny blinked and stared.

    “That’s him with her!” hissed Vicki, suddenly turning scarlet.

    “Where?” replied Ginny on a note of scornful bravado.

    “There! Next to her! See?”

    “Are you sure that’s him?”

    “YES!” cried Vicki furiously. “Are you blind?”

    Dickon couldn’t see who they meant: there were a lot of people in the railed-off enclosure, as it was a sparkling fine February day. “So your cousin is here?” he said kindly.

    “Yeah,” agreed Vicki glumly.

    They began to walk towards the railings. Ginny muttered: “Maybe it isn’t him,” but Vicki ignored her. So did Dickon: he wasn’t too sure what it was all about but he didn’t want to get involved in a quarrel between them. He would have liked to offer to help Ginny with her heavy bag, but didn’t quite dare to: for one thing it would have looked too pointed, offering to help one girl and not the other; and for another, Kiwi men didn’t do that sort of thing, much.

    “Well, well, well!” said Polly’s escort, grinning all over his face as the two slender red-heads approached. “Bit of a sight for sore eyes, eh?”

    “Shut up. And for Heaven’s sake don’t make any personal remarks to them, girls of that age are sensitive.”

    “How would you know?” he leered. “Lady Carrano!”

    “Just behave,” she said repressively, but her mouth twitched.

    “They’re coming, they’re coming!” cried Johnny and Davey, jumping up and down.

    “Ask me,” drawled Polly’s escort: “what’s coming is Trouble. With a capital T. More or less what your bloody Aunt Violet said, in fact. –Shit, isn’t that your latest camp-follower with ’em?”

    “Dickon. Yes, so it is. –And don’t call him that!”

    “Like I said: Trouble with a capital T,” he said, grinning all over his face as the Austin twins came up to them.

    Polly had time to give him a quick glare before she cried warmly: “Hi, Vicki! Hi, Ginny! It’s lovely to see you again! You remember Jake, don’t you?”

Next chapter:

https://theamericanrefugeeanovel.blogspot.com/2022/11/double-trouble-part-1.html