Dinner at Rose's (38 page)

‘Thank you,’ Aunty Rose murmured.

Hazel and Kim had gone home to watch the Living Channel and phone Andy respectively. With any luck Matt was in bed rather than calving a cow, and Dad was sitting in front of the kitchen stove with a pile of local newspapers beside him and Spud asleep on his feet. The sequins on the bedspread gleamed in the light of Aunty Rose’s bedside lamp and a mouse skittered about in the ceiling.

Mum sank into the armchair and I sat cross-legged on the edge of Rose's big bed. A companionable sort of silence fell.

‘Josephine,’ said Aunty Rose suddenly.

‘Yes?’

‘Make sure Matthew has a colonoscopy in the next twelve months, will you?’

I smiled at this unromantic request, and then sobered. When your aunt and your father have both succumbed to cancer you’d be an idiot not to have yourself checked over every few years. ‘I will. Kim too.’

‘Every five years after the age of twenty-five.’

‘It shall be done,’ I promised, lying back beside her and looking up at the India-shaped watermark on the ceiling.

‘You might persuade him to shave and cut his hair while you’re at it,’ Mum put in. ‘The boy has such a nice face – it’s a shame not to be able to see it.’

‘I think there’s a sort of default period before you’re supposed to start trying to change them,’ I said.

‘Nonsense,’ Mum said briskly. ‘Start as you mean to go on.’ Then, ‘I could always give him a bit of a trim myself. You’ve still got those clippers, haven’t you, Rose?’

‘No!’ Aunty Rose and I said at the same time.

Mum laughed.

‘I mean it, Edith,’ Aunty Rose continued. ‘I’m not having a nephew who looks like he had his hair cut in prison standing up at my funeral to read my eulogy.’

Mum’s eyes filled. ‘Alright, alright,’ she said. ‘Keep your hair on.’ And we all three giggled weakly at the utter inappropriateness of the words.

‘THAT’S A GORGEOUS
piece of clothing,’ Dad remarked, coming into the bathroom behind me half an hour later.

I spat out my toothpaste and pulled the hood of my onesie up to give him the full effect. ‘Did you notice the tail?’

He looked at it with a sort of horrified fascination, but words failed him and he merely shook his head.

‘You scoff now,’ I said, ‘but we’ll see who’s laughing in the morning when I’m toasty warm and you’ve got frostbite.’

He shook his head again. ‘I think I’d go for the frostbite.’

‘Be nice, or I’ll confiscate your heater,’ I said sternly.

Dad smiled and reached out for the toothpaste. ‘Sold that house yet?’ he asked.

‘No. I think I’ll have to go over and throw my toys for a while.’

‘He really is a first-class waste of space, isn’t he?’

‘Thank you,’ I said. It’s nice when the people you love share your opinions.

‘You’re welcome,’ Dad said. ‘And the cartwheels would seem to imply that the new model’s a good thing?’

I looked at him with something close to shock. My father and I have a very satisfactory system in place, based on the unspoken agreement that I won’t tell him about my love life and he won’t ask. All that sort of carry-on is Mum’s department, and she advises Dad on a need-to-know basis. ‘Um, yes,’ I said.

‘Very good,’ said Dad and, clearly appalled at having strayed so far into this emotional minefield, he began to brush his teeth with most unnecessary vigour.

Chapter 33

A
T SIX O’CLOCK
on Friday night Kim came up the driveway in her mother’s car and dragged at the handbrake to spin around and shower the lawn in gravel.

‘Very cool,’ I remarked, picking up the washing basket and propping it on my hip. Especially if you’re not the one who mows the lawn.

‘I know,’ said Kim. ‘Matt taught me. How’s Aunty Rose?’

‘Just the same.’ We started back towards the house. ‘Are you staying for dinner?’

She shook her head. ‘Andy’s cooking for me,’ she said proudly. ‘I’m going to his place.’

‘That sounds really nice,’ I said.

‘Is he a good cook?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘when I lived with him he alternated between tins of Just Add Mince and Just Add Sausages. But I expect he’ll lift his game a little bit for you.’

AUNTY ROSE WAS
very tired by dinner time, and as she took her seat at the table I saw that her mouth was tight with pain. I dished her up a spoonful of risotto and she looked at it unhappily for a moment before pushing the plate away.

Matt, cleanshaven this evening although still shaggy as to hair, got up silently and went to the fridge for the vanilla custard. He poured some into a cup and microwaved it for twenty seconds, stirred it with a teaspoon and handed it to his aunt.

‘I can’t,’ she whispered.

‘Three spoonfuls,’ he said matter-of-factly, taking the cup back and offering spoonful number one.

‘Horrible boy,’ Aunty Rose murmured, but she opened her mouth.

She managed four teaspoonfuls of custard in total, before pushing herself up to stand with an effort that hurt to watch. ‘Don’t
fuss
, Edith,’ she said between her teeth as Mum got up too.

‘I’m not fussing,’ said Mum serenely. ‘I’m trying to get out of doing the dishes.’ She handed Rose the stick that had slid under her chair.

‘Well, I must be off,’ said Hazel, kissing her sister’s cheek. She had dined with us so as not to miss anything, but she preferred to exit gracefully before the clean-up began. ‘Goodnight, everyone. Sleep well, Rosie. Matthew, my love, why don’t you have an early night seeing as Eric and Edith are here to hold the fort?’

My mother’s smile tightened with annoyance at this slur on her daughter’s fort-holding abilities. ‘What a good idea!’ she said brightly. ‘Go home, Matthew, and take Jo with you. Do you think you can put up with being nursed by a couple of amateurs for a night, Rose?’

‘I expect I shall muddle through,’ said Aunty Rose.

‘Very good. Run along, then, kids; we’ll see you tomorrow.’ And having trumped Hazel she smiled in exactly the same way as the picture of the Cheshire cat in my old copy of
Alice in Wonderland
.

I looked at Matt in mute apology for my parent and saw that he looked not embarrassed but frankly delighted. ‘Thanks!’ he said. ‘Goodnight, guys. Come on, Jose.’

I blushed hotly before two amused smiles and one frozen stare (Dad was carefully inspecting the bottom of the pepper grinder so as to avoid meeting anyone’s eye). It was like being a teenager again, and the first time had been bad enough. ‘’Night,’ I muttered, and fled outside without so much as pausing for my toothbrush.

Matt followed me onto the porch at a more leisurely pace, and bent to put on his boots. A morepork called through the dark from somewhere up the hill and the elderly plumbing gurgled as someone turned on the kitchen taps.

‘Smooth,’ he murmured.

‘Oh, shut up,’ I whispered back, picking up a gumboot and shaking it hard to dislodge potential wetas before putting it on. The other one had mysteriously vanished – after a brief search Matt discovered it under an ancient tweed coat that had fallen off its nail on the wall.

‘Never mind, Hazel,’ said Mum, her voice carrying beautifully from inside. ‘They’re big kids now.’ That woman is not above putting the boot in when her opponent is already down.

‘That’s all very well,’ replied Hazel bitterly. ‘But when Josie leaves I’m going to be the one picking up the pieces.’

Her son looked somewhat startled at this prediction, and I giggled as he handed me my second gumboot. He made a face at me.

‘Why on earth would she leave?’ Mum asked.

‘Of course she’ll leave! She’s used to life in a big city – eating in restaurants and going to nightclubs – she’s hardly going to settle down with Matthew on a little dairy farm in Waimanu.’

‘Oh yes she will,’ said Aunty Rose, her voice a little slurred with pain and tiredness. ‘She’s pining to.’

I closed my eyes in silent horror. Day five of the relationship is
not
the appropriate time for these revelations.

‘Are you?’ Matt asked quietly, and I opened my eyes again. He wasn’t looking at me but towards the ragged black outline of the woodshed roof against the sky, and he very nearly pulled off a tone of mere idle curiosity.

I started to say something light and dismissive, and then abruptly decided not to. If he’d asked, it was because he wanted to know. ‘Yes.’

He looked at me, then, and smiled crookedly. I would cross boundless wastes and scale cliffs for that smile – on reflection it was probably best that Matt didn’t know it. Although on further reflection I was pretty sure he did. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘God only knows what they’ll say next.’

We scrunched across the gravel to his ute, ignoring dogs and pig. There was a chainsaw and at least three jumpers in the passenger-side footwell, and an assortment of fencing tools on the seat. ‘Really should empty this stuff out, one day,’ he said. ‘Hang on, I’ll chuck it all on the back.’

‘It’d be easier to chuck me on the back,’ I suggested, picking up a set of wire strainers.

He grinned. ‘Tempting,’ he said. ‘Especially since our mothers’ll be watching out the kitchen window.’

We drove the short distance between Aunty Rose’s house and his without speaking, got out of the ute and went across the unkempt lawn. A little square of apricot light shone from the tiny washroom window where he had left a light on. We went silently up the back steps; once inside, Matt shut the door behind us and we fitted ourselves neatly together, mouth to mouth and arms tight round each other.

‘Twelve whole hours,’ I said when I could talk again. ‘All by ourselves.’

‘I love the way your voice goes all shaky when I kiss you,’ he said, resting his forehead against mine. ‘You sounded like that the very first time, and I couldn’t believe I could do that to you when I’d spent most of my life trying to impress you.’

I smiled, and kissed him again. ‘But you were so much cooler than me. Let’s face it, you still are.’

‘Rubbish,’ he said. ‘I’m a scruffy dairy cocky who tucks his jeans into his socks.’

‘Only slightly scruffy. You did shave.’

‘Only because I’m scared of your mother.’

‘Very wise,’ I said. ‘But don’t let her cut your hair, will you?’

‘God, no! You smell nice, Jose.’

‘Like peppermint?’ I asked.

He sniffed me. ‘No, just like you. Like – like sunshine or something.’

I tightened my arms around his waist. ‘What does sunshine smell like?’

‘You.
Do
pay attention, Josephine.’ He got Aunty Rose’s inflection perfectly.

I laughed and kissed him again. ‘Can we go to bed now, or do we need to check the cows?’

‘We’d better, but maybe we could put it off for a little while.’ He detached me and led the way into the kitchen, turning on a few more lights. The place felt chilly and unlived in, the mail was piling up on one side of the counter and the sink was half full of dishes. ‘Sorry about the mess,’ he said. ‘I’d have cleaned the place up a bit if I’d known you were coming.’

‘It’s fine.’

‘Cup of tea before I start taking off your clothes?’ he asked politely. ‘Except I think I’m out of milk.’ He opened the fridge and peered in – inside was the end of a block of cheese, half a pound of butter and the ubiquitous softening carrots that collect at the bottom of everyone’s fridge. You probably don’t even need to buy them; they just arrive by some mysterious process of inter-refrigerator travel. ‘That’s poor, for a dairy farmer.’