Dinner at Rose's (12 page)

We got home again just after five and Rose went straight to bed. I fed the dogs and Percy (he received three Tux biscuits every night to supplement his walnut and apple diet and carried them away carefully in his mouth to savour under his favourite shrub), emptied and rinsed the sick basin and made Rose a cup of tea that she couldn’t keep down.

Matt and Kim arrived at about seven-thirty, bickering gently about Kim’s driving skills as they came into the kitchen.

‘Where’s Aunty Rose?’ Kim asked.

I had been scrubbing the floor, partly because it needed it but mostly because it was a rotten job and it suited the general rottenness of the day, and I got up to empty my bowl of dirty water. ‘In bed. Asleep, I hope.’

‘I’ll check,’ said Kim.

‘Don’t wake her up!’ said Matt.

‘
Jeez
, Matt, I’m not
stupid
.’ She pattered down the hall.

‘How is she?’ he asked.

‘Awful.’

He ran a hand over his face.

‘I’ll stay the night,’ I offered.

‘Thank you.’

‘Could your mum sleep here until the chemo’s over?’ I asked.

‘Mum,’ said Matt tightly, ‘is going to Thailand tomorrow with Nan Gregory. She’ll be away for three weeks.’

‘Oh.’

‘She needs a break.’

‘From what?’ I asked. Sometimes my mouth runs along totally unconnected with my brain. I winced. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s a reasonable question. Fucked if I know.’ I looked at him, surprised at the heat in his voice. Matt doesn’t really do blazing mad; it’s not his style.

‘Maybe I should call Mum,’ I said. ‘The goats are dried off – she could probably come up for a week or two.’

‘That’d be really good,’ he said. ‘I keep offering to stay but Rose isn’t keen on the idea.’

‘She just can’t bear the thought of giving you any more work than you’ve already got.’

Aunty Rose believed that when a man came in from his day’s work he should be able to sit down with the paper, not empty the sick bowl before starting dinner. She also took it for granted that a woman with a full-time job should be perfectly capable of cooking and cleaning for her family too – and this although she wouldn’t hesitate to describe herself as a feminist. Bless her.

Kim came back down the hall. ‘She’s asleep,’ she reported. ‘Can we stay for a drink, Matt, or do you need to rush home and call Cilla?’

‘We’ll have a coffee, if Jo can put up with us,’ he said. ‘Watch it, Toad, or you’ll be sleeping in the shed.’

Kim grinned at him. ‘It wouldn’t be much different to your spare room. His house is
dire
, Josie. I’ll probably catch some horrible disease.’

‘I’m babysitting while Mum’s away,’ Matt explained with a notable lack of enthusiasm. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with my house. Compared to your bedroom it’s pristine.’

‘I like listening to you two,’ I observed. ‘It makes me so grateful I’m an only child.’

My mother, who I rang while we drank our coffee at the kitchen table, said, ‘Of
course
. I should have thought of it myself. I'll check the internet for flights and ring you back.’ She called back seven minutes later. ‘How about arriving in Hamilton at two o’clock tomorrow?’

‘Is there a later flight?’ I asked. ‘Then I could come and get you after work.’

‘I’ll just get a shuttle,’ said Mum. ‘Much easier all round.’

‘You’re wonderful,’ I told her. ‘Can you afford to fly up at such short notice?’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘That’s what credit cards are for. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

The King siblings departed soon afterwards. ‘Thanks, Jo,’ Matt said, gingerly shifting his bad arm in its sling as he stood up.

‘Do you want me to take a look at that shoulder?’ I asked.

‘What? Oh, yeah, the doctor told me to have some physio. I’ll make an appointment.’

‘Or I could just look at it now.’

He shook his head. ‘We’d better go. I’ll hit you up tomorrow – you’ll come up to see your mum, won’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Come on,’ said Kim from the doorstep, ‘or Cilla will throw a wobbly.’

‘And why on earth would Cilla throw a wobbly?’ Matt asked.

‘She’s that type,’ said Kim darkly.

Matt rolled his eyes. ‘Zip it, Toad,’ he said, following her out the door.

WHEN I GOT
to work the next morning I found that Amber had indeed made a praiseworthy effort to wash the windows. Whether they looked any better was, however, open to debate – instead of being fly-spotted and dusty they were streaky and smeared, as if she’d cleaned them with her tongue. Curious, I snatched twenty seconds to ask her just what she’d washed them with.

‘Soap and water,’ she said.

‘Not window cleaner?’

‘We didn’t have any.’

‘How about you take five dollars out of petty cash and grab a bottle at lunchtime?’ I suggested.

‘Oh,’ said Amber. ‘Well, if you want.’

‘I want,’ I said. ‘Mr Hopu, come on through.’

I DROVE STRAIGHT
up to Rose’s after work, and Mum came out to meet me as I waded through the canine reception committee. She wore a pair of faded jeans and one of Dad’s ancient bush shirts with her greying fair hair bundled up at the back of her head. My mother is quite startlingly beautiful but is happiest when dressed like a homeless person. ‘Josie, love,’ she said affectionately.

I threw myself at her with a spasm of the same kind of relief you experience when you’re four and lost in a department store, and then your mother finds you again. Mum would know exactly what to do to make everything better. ‘It’s
wonderful
to see you,’ I said against her comforting shoulder.

She patted me on the back. ‘I like your hair like that, sweetheart. And your father sends his love.’

‘He does?’ I asked sceptically. Dad, although a truly excellent person, is the kind of man whose idea of expressing affection is to pat my shoulder and say briskly, ‘Right, then, Jo.’

‘Well, he told me to make sure you’re not working too hard and that you should be sure to wring every cent possible out of that slimy prick Graeme.’

I smiled. ‘Is he still practising “Rhinestone Cowboy”?’

‘No, thank the Lord. He hasn’t touched the guitar in a couple of weeks; he’s training for a long-distance cycle race with Maurice from next door.’ We began to walk up the brick path to the kitchen. ‘It’s brilliant. His cholesterol’s down, he fits into his favourite pants again
and
I don’t have to put up with that godawful strumming.’

‘Great,’ I said. ‘How’s Rose today?’

‘She assures me she’s feeling better,’ said Mum. ‘I expect she’s lying, but you know Rose.’

Aunty Rose was dressed today, and busying herself around the kitchen. As Mum and I came back in she said, from the depths of the ancient fridge, ‘Josephine, are you planning to stay for dinner?’

‘What is it?’ I asked warily.

‘I’m making a quiche.’

‘Out of what?’

‘Edith, it’s a terrible shame you never managed to instil any manners in your daughter,’ Rose said. She emerged from the fridge holding a block of cheese in one hand and half a cabbage in the other.

‘I’m just remembering the Marmite omelette,’ I defended myself.

IT WAS SUCH
a nice meal. We drank ginger ale all round so as not to torment Aunty Rose (alcohol and chemo don’t mix, and she said not having wine in the evening was harder to bear than the nausea), and with profound relief I reverted from the role of anxious caregiver to child allowed to stay up and have tea with the grown-ups. After the quiche, which was happily devoid of Marmite or olives or any of the other peculiar things Aunty Rose is liable to add to her dishes, I washed up while the two of them sat at the kitchen table and gossiped.

Matt arrived just before the coffee stage.

‘Matthew,’ said Mum warmly. ‘I swear you’ve grown another foot. Come here and give me a kiss.’

He obeyed. ‘Thanks for coming up, Aunty Edith.’

‘Most unnecessary,’ said Rose, holding up her face to be kissed in turn. ‘Not that it isn’t nice to see you, Edie.’

‘Unnecessary to you,’ Matt told her, ‘but it makes Jo and me feel better, so you can just put up with it.’ He came over to the sink beside me and picked up a tea towel. ‘Hey, Jose.’

‘Hey, Matt,’ I said. ‘Where’s the toad?’

‘At home, texting some pimply youth.’

‘Ah.’ There’s no mobile phone coverage at Aunty Rose’s. ‘Aaron, or a new pimply youth?’

‘This one’s called Jonno. He works at the mill and has a car with lowered seats. Aaron’s been kicked to the kerb.’

‘A working man with a car,’ said Mum. ‘That sounds ominous.’

‘Doesn’t it just,’ said Matt grimly. Then to me, ‘What are
you
sniggering about?’

‘Matthew King, stern older brother. How ironic.’

‘Do tell, sweet pea,’ said Aunty Rose. ‘I always suspected that Matthew was not always the fine and upstanding member of society we see before us.’

The fine and upstanding member of society gave me a long, flat stare.

‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘He’ll break my arms.’

He grinned. ‘Watch it. I could tell the odd story about you, too.’

‘Please don’t,’ Mum said hastily. ‘I have absolutely no desire to know what you got up to in your misspent youth.’

‘Nothing very bad,’ I told her, setting the last pot on the draining board. ‘I was a geek, remember. Matt, if you sit down I’ll look at your shoulder for you.’

Chapter 12

T
WO WEEKS LATER
, in a masochistic sort of mood, I logged into Facebook. I used to be a very sporadic page with anxious regularity. Today it told me that Todd was sad because it was raining, Cath’s baby slept nine hours straight last night, Suzie’s had colic and didn’t . . . Ah, here was Chrissie’s daily gem.

How spoilt am I? A weekend away, flowers, long walks on the beach, a romantic candlelit dinner – is he wise to be setting a precedent like this for future anniversaries?

Anniversary?
Of
what
? Just how long did I spend in happy ignorance of the pair of them having sex in cupboards at parties? Something had been going on since September, Graeme had admitted on that last horrible evening. ‘It’s not like we meant for it to happen, Jo. Chrissie feels so awful about it.’ And then his eyes had gone misty at the thought of poor Chrissie’s suffering. I wish, in hindsight, that I’d thrown something at his head, but at the time I was dumb and passive with shock.