by Fiona Kidman
Maura appeared some time after two, not in her nurse’s uniform at all. She wore a floral-print dress, which her mother had made her, and a blue cardigan.
As soon as Maura arrived, Veronica saw how she hated them being there. She guessed she was terrified of cooking them a meal. But they were caught, like fish in aspic, until something happened.
Maura refused to be helped. ‘You could feed your bairn,’ she said when Veronica offered. Her accent was broader than Drew’s, he used his for effect in the classroom, she’d heard, to make his students laugh; Maura’s slipped through, strong in bad moments, of which there seemed to be many.
The meal was served in the late afternoon, a chicken like Maura herself, pale-skinned and scrawny, blood leaking into the pan juices.
For, Drew said awkwardly farewelling Veronica and Colin at the gate: ‘She’s wearing her rags today. Sorry.’
Veronica wanted to slap him (for what? Not starting the meal himself? For trying to explain Maura’s unhappiness away like this? Probably for inviting them at all). But she was too tired by then, and beginning to feel unwell, to say anything much. The chicken and hard potatoes hadn’t agreed with her and, although she didn’t know it for another week or so, she was already pregnant with Sam.
‘Thank you,’ she said instead.
When they were settled in the car and the motor running, she said, ‘That was a disaster.’
‘You would say that, wouldn’t you?’
‘Well, they’re hard work, those two.’
‘I guess he can be a bit of a prick,’ Colin said. ‘I might have known.’ It sounded like her fault, but it wasn’t worth an argument. All the same, he seemed to go off Drew for a while.
‘Are you getting enough iron?’ Lewis asked in a worried way the next time he visited. He wasn’t Veronica’s doctor, but he fussed over her as if he were. Veronica was already showing her second pregnancy.
Lewis sat at the end of the kitchen table, topping and tailing beans, a tea towel spread over his front to protect his cashmere sweater, his slim hands working with methodical precision at his task.
Colin had rung him. ‘Where the hell have you been, mate? C’mon over, we’ve been missing you.’ As he had predicted, Lewis couldn’t stay away for long. They had drunk their first bottle of wine; Lewis would stay over for the night. It was impossible to imagine that their friendship would ever be disturbed in any serious way.
Colin said: ‘Lewis, you’re elected to be Freya’s godfather.’
‘I thought you didn’t believe in that. Religion and superstition, you’ve said it often enough.’
‘Well, this is different. Freya needs a godfather. She needs you.’
Veronica could see the way Colin was casting around for something to give Lewis, an affirmation of their old friendship, a sign that said ‘forgive me’. She held her breath, willing Lewis to accept, the old tenderness for them both closing around her heart. She saw them as she did when she first knew them: Lewis, the young doctor, Colin, the scholarship boy still making up his mind what he’d do with his life, two merry, devoted friends.
Lewis gave one of his serious, affable smiles. ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘if it’s okay with Veronica.’
None of it would last. This was the evening Drew chose to arrive unannounced, bringing Maura in tow. Veronica was stirring a sauce with her free hand, Freya over her shoulder, when they walked in. Maura was gaunt, her permed hair slicked in greasy ringlets around her head.
‘She’s missing her mother,’ Drew said, as if Maura wasn’t there. ‘She needs a bit of family life, that’s what I told her.
‘But this is just wonderful,’ Colin cried. ‘At last, my two best friends in the world get to meet each other. They must stay for dinner, mustn’t they?’
Veronica saw the way Lewis flinched. Drew had brought a bottle of whisky, which he placed on the table between them.
‘Glasses, Vronnie, there’s a good lass.’ He poured drinks all round, even though the others were drinking wine.
When they had eaten, another difficult meal full of artificial conversation and hesitations, Veronica sat on the sofa and fed Freya, ‘D’you want to wind her, Maura? She’s been a bit grizzly all day,’ Veronica asked, thinking Maura would like that; she nursed children, after all.
‘I need a rest from work when I go visiting, thanks very much.’ The way she said it offended Veronica. Lewis took the baby instead.
‘I’m surprised you’re having children so close together, are you just careless?’ Maura said, in a small, mean voice that the others weren’t meant to hear.
‘I think I’m lucky,’ Veronica said. ‘I like being a mother.’
Maura started to cry. She got up from her chair and went to the bathroom, from where they could hear her sobbing through the wall.
‘What did I say, Drew?’
‘Just homesickness. I’ve told her to get over it; she’s here now. I tell her she should forget about her mother.’ Drew poured more drinks as if he were the host, wanting to hold his place at the centre. Lewis covered his glass.
‘You can’t just forget about your mother,’ remonstrated Veronica, who talked to hers on the phone every day. Maura emerged from the bathroom and sat in the corner of the sitting room, pretending to read Veronica’s magazines, but she kept weeping in a noiseless disconcerting way.
‘Music, we need some music,’ Colin said, casting around. ‘We could do with a bit of boogie.’ Instead, he dropped on a record that was slow and sentimental.
‘Shall we dance?’ he asked Veronica.
‘I’m tired,’ she said, feeling that they were all behaving foolishly and hating the stony-faced way Lewis was looking at Colin.
‘I’ll dance with you, laddie,’ said Drew. ‘If our wives won’t dance with us, we’ll have to make our own fun.’
She could see how truly drunk they both were. Colin never could drink spirits. The two men weren’t just jiggling around in the room, they were slow waltzing, Drew taking the lead, even though he was the shorter.
‘Perhaps you could think about bringing your mother out for a visit,’ Veronica said, trying to ignore the men’s antics. What she said seemed kind and reasonable.
But Maura began to wail again, a clear piercing cry that rose to a shriek.
‘She needs some treats to look forward to, doesn’t she, Lewis?’ Veronica plunged on wildly.
‘I think Maura needs to go home,’ Lewis said, addressing Drew. ‘I’m off to bed,’ he said turning away.
Before they left, Drew kissed Colin goodbye, lip to lip as if he were a girl. Veronica had never seen two men kissing before, Colin’s long blue-ish chin resting in against Drew’s white bony one.
Lewis, who had learned to kiss on each cheek when he was in Europe, turned at the door and froze.
‘What an exhibitionist,’ he said when Drew and Maura were gone.
‘It’s just acting,’ Colin said. His best friend was looking at him with distaste. ‘I’ll kiss you if you like.’
‘Oh, forget it,’ Lewis said.
But it shook Colin.
‘I’m sorry,’ he told them both at breakfast the next morning. ‘I’m giving up booze. I need to do some work.’ Veronica invited Lewis over mid-week for his birthday, a celebration they always shared. She didn’t think he would come. It’ll just be us, she told him, not mentioning Drew and Maura. He said he’d think about it.
He arrived, though, walking in as if nothing had happened. It occurred to Veronica that she and Lewis might be united in an unspoken resolve to keep the friendship alive while the worst passed over. Perhaps, even now, they could all survive.
‘Where’s Colin?’ he asked, picking his way through the kitchen.
‘He said he had something to drop off in town. At the radio station, I think.’ Colin had given up truck driving. He was on compo because he’d strained his back, and he’d told her it was a great opportunity to focus on his real work, and he wouldn’t be going back to that stupid job. Lewis didn’t seem su
rprised when she told him this. She didn’t say how beside herself she was, because Colin hadn’t mentioned any plans for work that would pay the bills.
Although it was his own birthday they were celebrating, Lewis had brought Colin a present, a book of Auden’s poems. He wanted to open it straight away. ‘I can slip it back inside the wrapping,’ he said, impatient as a boy. He was wearing a tweed jacket and a polo-neck sweater. Leaning against the doorway, he looked himself like a poet escaped from the thirties rather than a doctor.
‘Where did you say Colin was?’ he asked again, holding the book a little away from him. Soon he would need glasses.
‘He shouldn’t be long.’ She slid the oven tray out and peered at the lasagne.
‘Will it come when it’s picking its nose? What d’you think, Veronica.’ She liked the way he called her by her proper name.
‘What are you on about, Lewis?’
‘Love. Don’t you know that poem? “Oh tell me the truth about love.” It’s a song too.’ And then he sang a few lines, his voice musical and lovely. She thought, I could love him.
‘That’s real poetry,’ he said with a note of satisfaction. ‘Didn’t you read Auden at university?’
‘I must have,’ she said, flustered. Perhaps it was Lewis she was meant to love all along.
They were interrupted by a knock at the door, the imperious rap of someone in a hurry.
The caller was a very young woman called Georgie, whom Veronica recognised as a hairdresser at Fishtails, the salon where she had her hair cut. Veronica had seen her at work, a luscious barley-sugar blonde girl with tanned skin and huge grey eyes. When they opened the door to her, she was full of righteous anger, hands on hips. Her jeans were as tight as a chrysalis skin, a packet of Marlboros stuck out of her black leather coat.
‘That friend of yours,’ she said, speaking directly to Veronica. ‘You’d better come.’
‘Who are you talking about?
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, you know. The Scotch one.’
‘Maura?’ Veronica vaguely recalled recommending the salon to Maura when she first arrived. ‘Well, I don’t know,’ Veronica began.
‘She’s in a daze,’ Georgie said. Then her self-confidence deserted her, as if struck by the unlikeliness of what she had done, barging into the house and yelling at two grown-up, serious people. Georgie looked about nineteen. Veronica herself was only twenty-six, but Lewis was older again by some years, as was Colin. The astonishing thing that Veronica would learn about Georgie was that she could touch the end of her nose with the tip of her tongue. Not many people could do that. ‘You can’t really talk to her,’ Georgie was saying. ‘I told her not to have another perm, but there it is, her hair’ll probably fall out, and she’ll blame me. Anyway, there’s nothing I can do about that now, I just need to get her out of the salon.
‘She’s there now?’
‘Won’t budge. I took a taxi here. My boss is hopping mad.’
‘What actually seems to be the matter?’ asked Lewis, using a professional voice. ‘What’s happened to Maura?’
‘She says she’s going to kill herself if somebody doesn’t come. Her bloke’s seeing someone else.’
‘Who’s her husband seeing?’ Lewis’s voice was corrosive.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t know. We’re told not to ask things like that, y’know, just listen to the client, what they want to tell you, nothing more.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ Veronica said, ‘they’ve hardly been married five minutes.’ When she saw Georgie’s raised eyebrows, she said lamely, ‘Oh, the pig.’ Her mind was racing. All those girls on the lawn. They’d stopped coming lately. Had Drew hit on one of them?
‘Perhaps you can’t blame him, not really. Well, the way things are between them,’ Georgie said.
‘What things?’
‘They don’t do it. She’s never done it. She’s a virgin. Look, she says she can’t go back to their flat on her own.’
‘I can’t leave Freya,’ Veronica said.
‘Can you look after her?’ Lewis asked Georgie.
‘I’ve got my train to catch. I live in the Hutt.’
‘I can run you home later,’ Lewis said.
But the problem was resolved by Colin’s appearance, although he was wild-eyed and glowering.
‘Where are you all going?’
‘Out,’ said Lewis, throwing him a look of distaste.
Colin’s hands fluttered in odd uncertain little movements of assent as he turned away.
‘Are you all right, Colin?’ Veronica asked, hesitating.
‘I’m fine,’ he said.
‘Come on,’ said Lewis, his voice impatient. ‘Are we going or not?’ He didn’t look at Colin. Georgie was looking anxious again.
Veronica sighed as she settled herself into the car. ‘One of his moods. Are you sure about Maura and Drew?’ she asked Georgie. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Surely they’ve tried … you know, to have sex.’
‘She says she can’t screw,’ Georgie said. She sat in the front with Lewis, where she had taken her place without deferring to Veronica.
Veronica was taken aback, not so much by the language but the image of violence that screwing Maura evoked. Wasn’t desire what kept her and Colin going? She thought so, they’d done a great deal of what Georgie referred to as ‘it’ (well, how did one quantify the acts of love in a busy marriage?) But she was tired and pregnant, and when she thought about love then, she felt as if she were walking through flannel. She could see that Maura might not be cut out for sex. She leaned her face against the cool glass of the car window and said nothing.
‘Pull a right, Lew,’ Georgie said.
Veronica cringed in the back seat. Lew. How embarrassing. Glancing sideways at him, Georgie looked as if she were discovering the surface of the moon. She stroked the leather upholstery of her seat.
The woman who cut Veronica’s hair was pacing up and down outside Fishtails, waiting for their arrival. The lights inside the shop were turned off, except for a night light. Maura sat alone in a chair, looking straight ahead at her shadow reflected in the mirror, as if there were someone on the other side.
Lewis rolled another chair over and sat down beside her. He spoke to her in a gentle voice. ‘It’s time to go home, Maura, home to your mum.’
A grief that is past, let it pass
Like a leaf in the grass
Colin left these lines, like a message, on a sheet of paper propped against the coffee pot.
‘Isn’t the rhyme a bit symmetrical?’ Veronica asked, when he came up from his study.
‘I didn’t write it.’
She hadn’t supposed so.
‘A Persian poet. Eleventh century. It’s straightforward though. Wouldn’t you say it was straightforward, Vron?’
Their baby stirred beneath her hand. She was sure it would be a boy this time. Colin wasn’t making sense. Whatever this was about, she suddenly didn’t want to know, things were messy enough.
When she didn’t reply, he said: ‘I’ve got a job at the newspaper. Starting Monday, you can stop worrying.’
Veronica never did find out who Drew was seeing.
Perhaps she could ask him now. But she wouldn’t.
Those blank light eyes.
2
When Lewis’s BMW rolls peacefully down her driveway, Veronica is as pleased to see him as always. She doesn’t chide him about his extravagance. It is such a pleasure just to have someone drive up on a Friday afternoon.
She kneels at the edge of the verandah, nipping tiny spent heads from a patch of sea daisies, hoping to convey that she is not over-eager, that she goes away for weekends in the country quite often. Sitting back on her heels, secateurs in hand, part of her is glad that Lewis knows so little of her movements. It makes her feel independent and slightly mysterious. Another part of her wishes that a man drove up and parked outside her house more often.
‘I suppose it’s something I miss,’ she muses aloud to her women friends. ‘It�
�s an effort, though, meeting someone new and interesting.’ She knows women who go to singles groups. ‘They’re just not me,’ she says. ‘I mean, look, I see all those hairy men’s ears in the staffroom. Imagine, well, I can’t help it, you see, but fancy getting one’s nose caught in all that fuzz.’ And she chuckles. She’s turning into a character.
When she looks in the mirror, the possibilities are still reflected there, but they are getting clouded in an image of a woman who wears careless make-up and chunky sweaters, and gives papers at in-service training days. ‘Kia ora tātou,’ she says, ‘this afternoon I have a new reading list on the impact of sealers and whalers on the shores of our country.’ She will be wearing sensible sneakers.
‘The house looks lovely,’ Lewis says, bending down to kiss her cheek. How well preserved he looks. His wide shoulders taper down to a firm waistline, his hair is grey and springy. There is something boyishly rumpled about Lewis, in spite of the deepening folds in his cheeks.
‘All my own work,’ she says. The kitchen is freshly painted, Spanish white walls with dark-green trim around the windows. Early hyacinths bloom in containers on the sills.
He picks around her china, holding up a Clarice Cliff jug.
‘Nice. What did it cost?’
They can do this, it’s almost like a marriage, the way they talk to each other, even now. China doesn’t fascinate him the way it does her, but he knows quality, and he likes the way things are grouped, how they are put together. And where they come from.
‘Three hundred at auction.’
‘A bargain. Have you packed your toothbrush, then?’ Meaning, is she ready to leave.
‘Yes, and my hot-water bottle.’
‘We do have electric blankets, Veronica.’
‘I just like a hot-water bottle on my tummy,’
He groans. ‘You’ve got your cystitis back again.’
‘It’s better now. You’d think there’d be some rewards for clean living, wouldn’t you? I caught a chill when I was on playground duty. Anyway, I’m not coming for a free consultation.’
‘Lots of fresh water. No alcohol. No spices.’
‘Is it worth coming at all?’