Dinner at Rose's (2 page)

‘It’s the singing. He’s completely tone deaf, bless him.’

‘Your parents are marvellous people,’ said Rose. ‘Mad, both of them.’

The piglet climbed up onto the deck and collapsed beside her chair, and she picked up a fork from the table by her elbow and scratched his stomach.

‘Do you keep that fork especially for pig-scratching?’ I enquired.

‘I do. You don’t need to point out that I’m mad as well. You really should consider becoming an eccentric yourself, young Josephine; it makes life so much more interesting.’

‘I will,’ I said, then took another mouthful of neat gin, enjoying the way it evaporated on my tongue before reaching the back of my throat.

After several drinks I suggested we make tea.

‘Dinner, Josephine, please,’ said Rose reprovingly as we made our way, weaving slightly, to the kitchen. (My parents have never given me a satisfactory answer to the question of why they thought ‘Josephine’ was a good name. It’s not; it sounds like a nineteenth-century governess. Nobody else was allowed to use it, but somehow I rather liked it from Aunty Rose.) ‘It’s not tea, it’s dinner.’

‘I’m a beastly colonial, Rose, and you’re just going to have to come to terms with it,’ I said.

‘You’re as bad as Matthew,’ she said, removing a somewhat limp carrot from the pantry and pointing it at me for emphasis. ‘Years of nagging, and he still says “New Zullind” and “moolk”.’ Matt was Rose’s proper legitimate nephew – Rose being his mother’s elder sister – whereas I was only an honorary niece. Rose came out from England in the seventies as a freshly qualified nurse, taking advantage of a bonding scheme the New Zealand government was running to get staff for small rural hospitals. She promptly (and some would say inexplicably) decided Waimanu was the best place in the world and stayed. Her sister came out to visit her a few years later, married a local dairy farmer after a whirlwind courtship lasting about three weeks, and then spent the next twenty-five years lamenting his lack of polish and refinement.

I grinned. ‘How is Matt?’

‘He’s well. Working far too hard, but he seems quite happy. That reminds me, he’s coming for dinner.’

‘Very cool,’ I said. Although slightly scary. ‘Now, are you going to cook that carrot or just wave it about?’

‘Go away and stop distracting me,’ said Aunty Rose. ‘In fact, why don’t you unpack and freshen up?’

When I re-entered the kitchen half an hour later Rose was grating cheese with such reckless abandon that I feared she might lose a finger.

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘There you are. Now, how about pouring us a glass of that lovely wine you brought with you?’

‘A week of this and I’ll develop cirrhosis of the liver,’ I remarked.

‘Nonsense,’ she said. ‘The liver requires exercise, like all muscles.’

‘I’m almost certain the liver isn’t a muscle.’

She waved her hand airily. ‘The principle, Josephine, is the same. I hear a vehicle – that must be Matthew. Why don’t you trot out and say hello?’

That sounded like a fine idea, and besides I was keen to put off the pouring of any more drinks until tea (or dinner) was served. Aunty Rose was a somewhat erratic cook at the best of times, and when half-cut she was liable to decide that prunes would make a delightful addition to the risotto. I wandered out the kitchen door in time to see Matt climb out of a battered red ute, fend off the dogs with the skill of long practice, and walk across the gravel. The piglet flopped onto its back in front of him and he paused to scratch its stomach with his foot.

‘Hey, Matt,’ I said. He hadn’t changed much to look at – he was still tall and lean and brown-haired and slightly scruffy – but four years of farming had made him tougher-looking. The last time I’d seen him was at his father’s funeral, dazed with grief and jet lag and pale from the British winter. Now he was sunburnt and cheerful, and had that classic dairy farmer’s tan: brown legs that turned lily-white below the gumboot line.

He looked up and grinned at me. ‘Hey, Jo.’ The piglet grunted indignantly as he stopped scratching and he prodded it with his toe. ‘That’s enough now, Percy, bugger off. You look good.’

I assumed the last sentence was meant for me rather than the pig. ‘So do you. How are things?’

‘Good. And you?’

‘Fine.’ This was followed by a slightly uncomfortable silence, and I tried hard to think of something witty and casual and friendly to say. ‘How’s the farm?’ I asked at last, coinciding with his, ‘How are your parents?’

‘Good,’ we said together, and smiled at one another ruefully.

‘It’s good to see you,’ he said, and put an arm around me in a friendly hug. ‘Do you think you’ll be able to handle the hustle and bustle of Waimanu?’

‘I hope so.’ Three weeks ago I had been living in inner-city Melbourne; Waimanu has a population of four thousand. ‘It was a bit of a shock to see you’ve got a McDonald’s.’

‘I know,’ said Matt. ‘We’re practically a metropolis.’

‘
WHAT WOULD THIS
be, Aunty Rose?’ Matt asked, poking at an unidentified wedge of orange stuff on one side of his plate.

‘It’s a carrot and apple bake,’ she said, adding quite unnecessarily, ‘My own recipe. How about another drop of wine, Josephine?’

‘Better pour me some too, to wash it down,’ Matt said, and I had to disguise a laugh with a cough.

‘You used to be such a nice boy,’ said Rose plaintively.

‘When?’ I asked, and Matt threw a pea at me, hitting me on the nose.

‘Children!’ said Rose. ‘Behave yourselves!’

‘Isn’t it nice being called “children”?’ I said dreamily. ‘It makes me feel young again.’

‘I didn’t realise you were teetering on the brink of the grave,’ Rose remarked.

‘I’m going to be thirty in two months.’

‘I’m alright,’ said Matt. ‘I’ve got another whole year. Don’t worry, Jose, you’re not looking all that bad for your age.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, and poured the wine.

‘HE’S A DEAR
boy,’ said Rose, letting herself back in the kitchen door after waving Matt off.

I was washing the dishes – she appeared to have used every pot in the house in the preparation of this evening’s meal – and as I scrubbed grimly at the roasting dish I agreed, ‘He is. He’s one of my very favourite people.’

‘He’s seeing a girl who sells fertiliser, I believe,’ she said.

‘Good on him,’ I said. And though I meant it, a small cold weight settled in the pit of my stomach at this further piece of evidence that everybody in the entire world had somebody – except me. By the time I was thirty, you see, I was supposed to be happily married and thinking about babies. I was
not
meant to be emerging from the wreckage of the relationship I’d thought would be providing said babies. A poor attitude for a girl who grew up with Rose Thornton as a shining example of making singleness into an art form, but there you go.

‘Leave that to soak, sweet pea,’ said Rose. ‘I’ll wash it in the morning.’

I WOKE UP
ridiculously early, mostly due to having spent the night bent like a staple. The bed in the Pink Room was about sixty years old, with a kapok mattress on a wire-woven base. Outside the sky was pale lemon and green, and I could hear a disconcerting snuffling sound that I hoped was being made by the piglet. I got up and went to look – it was, and the mist wreathing up off the bush-clad hills behind the house was so lovely that I threw on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and went out to commune with nature.

When I came back down the hill, accompanied by a retinue of four dogs and one pig, Aunty Rose was breakfasting on the veranda in a crimson satin dressing-gown with her long grey hair loose down her back. As I came through the little wooden gate under the walnut tree she waved the butter knife at me and called, ‘The toast is hot, sweet pea, and I’ve just refreshed the teapot.’

‘This is all very civilised,’ I said, sitting down and reaching for the marmalade.

‘I suppose you’ve fallen into the modern habit of breakfasting on black coffee and eating a lettuce leaf for lunch?’

‘Do I
look
as if I live on lettuce leaves and black coffee?’ I asked.

Aunty Rose looked me up and down. ‘You look very nice,’ she said firmly. ‘You’ve inherited your mother’s legs, lucky girl. When do you start this new job of yours?’

‘I’m going into town this morning for Cheryl to take me through the computer system, then starting properly on Monday. Lovely marmalade.’

‘The secret is to slice the oranges finely. Some people –’ her tone implied that these were not the type of people she wanted anything to do with – ‘actually use one of those food-processor things.’

‘Does it matter?’ I asked.

Rose sighed. ‘Sometimes, Josephine, I despair of you.’

I had a leisurely breakfast, followed by an invigorating run around the back lawn after a brace of escaped chickens and a very quick wash under the world’s most pathetic and under-pressured shower. Then I got dressed in a selection of what I hoped were professional yet flattering clothes, left Rose heaving marrows over the back fence and set off into town.

Chapter 2

W
AIMANU IS IN
the middle of the King Country, about halfway down the western side of New Zealand’s North Island. It’s only a little place, run-down and distinctly lacking in cafe culture, but it services a large area of farmland. Consequently, although you can’t buy a pair of shoes any self-respecting woman under a hundred and ten would even
consider
wearing, it has a base hospital, a decent-sized supermarket, an enormous Farmlands store and a freezing works.

I parked about halfway along the main street in front of Heather Anne’s Fashions (where you could find any number of blouses made of peach-coloured polyester but almost nothing else), and opened the door of the physiotherapy clinic next door.

Behind the counter a girl in her early twenties with very prominent pale-blue eyes and no chin looked up, sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I’m Jo. You must be Amber.’

‘Oh,’ said Amber, with only mild interest. ‘You’re going to work here. Cheryl’s in the loo.’

After a few minutes there was a gurgle of plumbing and Cheryl appeared in the doorway. She was looking hugely pregnant. A small woman, she looked like a beach ball balanced on a pair of toothpicks.