Dinner at Rose's

by Danielle Hawkins

  ‘No idea,’ I said cheerfully. ‘I’ve decided not to think about it for another six months.’ All my life I had carefully weighed up every decision. Lamb or calf for Pet Day? Public or private practice? Come home for Christmas or pay off my credit card? Rent a house or get a mortgage? I wrote lists of pros and cons and spent weeks in painstaking research – it once took me a week to decide between a navy and a beige pair of three-quarter pants to wear to work. And my meticulous planning had led to a temporary job in a one-woman physio practice where my constant companion was a girl with the brains of a goldfish and sinuses like Niagara Falls, a flat where someone banged on the bathroom door if I showered for more than two and a half minutes and most of my income going to pay a mortgage on a house in Australia that I was never going to live in. A little bit of spontaneity seemed like a good idea.

  Matt, accompanied by his pretty blonde girlfriend, arrived late and with his arm in a sling. We had all migrated out to the garage to eat burnt sausages and doubtful bean salad, and Scott called, ‘Bloody hell, King, what’ve you done to yourself now?’

  ‘Flattened by a cow,’ said Matt serenely, accepting a beer with his slow smile. ‘Could have happened to anyone.’

  ‘It usually happens to you, though. Did you break it?’

  ‘No, just dislocated my shoulder.’ He wandered up beside me. ‘So it looks like you’ll be taking Rose to chemo on Tuesday, if that’s still okay.’

  ‘No problem,’ I said. ‘Hi, Cilla.’

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘If I were you I’d grab a sausage,’ I advised her. ‘Just avoid those funny purplish ones – they taste like warm dead pig.’

  ‘How delightful,’ she said. ‘What would you like, hon?’

  ‘I’ll finish my beer first,’ said Matt. ‘I’ve only got one hand.’

  ‘I could feed you if you like,’ Cilla suggested.

  ‘That’s a very kind offer, but think of the damage to my manly reputation.’

  ‘Have you got a reputation for manliness?’ I enquired as Cilla made her way towards the food table.

  ‘Well, I’d like to think so. Did you know you’ve got baby spew on your shoulder?’

  ‘Hey, Matt, are you still interested in that V6 engine?’ asked a large hairy man I didn’t recognise. The two of them embarked on a long and involved conversation about split diffs and automatic chokes, and I drifted off to chat to Scotty.

  By around ten I was sitting with Clare on the bottom step of Scott’s deck. She was cuddling Lucy, who was fast asleep with her thumb in her mouth, and Charlie was leaning against me sleepily and playing with my mobile phone. I had to admit that the child was reasonably cute, and seeing that his parents were excellent people he would probably become quite nice, eventually.

  ‘Matt!’ I called as he went past, Cilla attached to his side with limpet-like devotion. I didn’t think I’d seen her more than two feet away from him all evening.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Could you grab me a beer? I’m a bit stuck here.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, and passed me his, which was very nearly full.

  ‘You’re a legend,’ I told him.

  ‘I know.’ He sat down on the edge of the deck and Cilla sat beside him, so close their thighs touched. Kim was wrong: he wasn’t just a suitably tall and good-looking accessory; Cilla was well and truly smitten.

  ‘Your parents bought Reynolds’ farm, didn’t they?’ I asked her.

  ‘That’s right,’ she said proudly. ‘We’re Mountain View Angus. And Dad runs fifteen hundred Perendale ewes.’

  ‘Psychotic animals,’ Matt remarked.

  ‘Matt, don’t be rude,’ his girlfriend said, placing a slim hand on his leg.

  ‘He’s very disparaging about sheep,’ I said. ‘Dairy farmers mostly are.’

  ‘I spent far too much of my youth catching the bloody things for your father to dag,’ said Matt. ‘It put me off.’

  ‘Have your parents retired now?’ Cilla asked.

  ‘No. They’re milking dairy goats in Nelson.’

  ‘Nice place, Nelson,’ Clare put in.

  ‘Mm,’ I agreed.

  Matt held out a hand for his beer. ‘But not as nice as here?’ he prompted, taking a mouthful and passing it back.

  ‘Nowhere’s as nice as here,’ I said firmly.

  He grinned. ‘Here in particular?’

  I ran a thoughtful eye from the rusting corrugated-iron fence around Scotty’s section, past the disintegrating cars on the lawn and on to the verdant bed of thistles beside the steps. ‘Yep.’

  ‘Honey,’ said Cilla, ‘are you ready to go?’ She slid a hand into Matt’s and stroked the back of his hand with her thumb. ‘I’m helping Dad pick lambs in the morning.’

  ‘Can do,’ he said. ‘Want a lift, Jo? You probably shouldn’t wander around town by yourself in the dark.’

  NOT LONG AFTER, I clambered down from the back seat of Cilla’s great silver ute and went wearily up the front steps of the house. I was tired and lonely and I’d had enough to drink to become a little bit maudlin. I could hear the TV inside but I didn’t go in; instead I sank down on the top step and rested my forehead on my jean-clad knees.

  I must have been mad to come back. Waimanu wasn’t home anymore with Mum and Dad gone and the farm sold. It was somewhat ironic that Matt was the one who’d had to come home and take over the family farm when I was the one who would have loved to. But I’d gone and attached myself to an Australian surgical intern who had to live in a city big enough to have a decent-sized hospital. And you can’t expect your father to keep wrestling with sheep indefinitely when he has two dodgy knees and a huge overdraft, just in case his offspring has some sort of epiphany and decides to give farming a crack.

  ‘Hey!’ somebody called from the street below. ‘Are you locked out?’ I looked up to see Cilla leaning out the window of her ute. She must have driven to the end of the road and done a U-turn. It just went to show that wallowing in self-pity only ever made you look like an idiot.

  ‘No,’ I called around the treacherous lump in my throat. My voice came out as a sort of strangled croak. ‘I’m good.’ I got to my feet and dug in the pocket of my jeans for the key to the door.

  ‘Goodnight!’ And off they went, the ute’s engine snarling impatiently.

  The door opened behind me to reveal Andy, clad in his good grey skinny jeans and with his hair artfully rumpled and stiff with wax. He must have only just beaten me home. ‘Jo?’ called Sara from the lounge. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  ‘Feeling sorry for myself,’ I called back.

  ‘Dude,’ said Andy gently, ‘you’ve got to stop looking up your ex on Facebook.’ And he put his arms around me in an awkward, Lynx-scented hug. I felt a little surge of gratitude for the sympathy – thank goodness I hadn’t gone and lived by myself in somebody’s farm cottage after all.

  I hugged him back for a second, then pushed myself away and smiled at him. ‘It’s a real bugger we finished that coconut liqueur the other week.’

  Sara appeared in the kitchen doorway. ‘My coconut liqueur?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll buy you some more,’ I said.

  ‘Buy me peach schnapps instead. I don’t like coconut.’

  Andy and I looked at one another and began to laugh helplessly.

  ‘What?’ asked Sara. ‘That’s fair!’

  Chapter 11

  ‘AMBER,’ I SAID, coming to stand behind her and putting on my best stern-employer voice, ‘I need you to chase up Craig from Waikato Medical Supplies tomorrow to make sure he’s put the ultrasound machine back on the courier.’ It was Monday evening and I wouldn’t be in on Tuesday.

  ‘Okay,’ said Amber. ‘I'll call him first thing.’

  ‘And please clean up the reception area – wash the windows and all that. It’s looking a bit dingy.’ She turned to look at me with a blank stare. It was like meeting the eye of a dead fish. ‘Cheryl promised she’d bring Max in to see us for morning tea, and it would be really
cool to impress her.’

  ‘I’ll do it if I’ve got time,’ she said.

  ‘If I come in on Wednesday and find it’s not done,’ I told her, ‘I will know you spent the entire day on the internet and I will hurt you in ways you cannot even begin to imagine. I used to do kickboxing in Melbourne.’

  In response to this dire threat Amber giggled. ‘Right,’ she said, and wiped her nose, just for a change, on the shoulder of her blouse. ‘Have a good day tomorrow.’ She stood up and gathered her possessions.

  ‘You too,’ I said, barely repressing a sigh. I had never worked with anyone like Amber before. I’d pulled up a couple of physio students in the past, and once a nurse with the most appalling phone manner in the world; I hated doing it but I could if I had to. Amber, on the other hand, had obviously been sent to me as a punishment for the sin of pride in my managerial skills. She drifted along in her own happy (albeit soggy) little world, utterly impervious to reprimand or threat or disappointment. The only thing on the positive side was that she never held a grudge. I’m not sure there was room for one in her head.

  AUNTY ROSE MET me at the kitchen door the next morning with a recyclable green shopping bag in her hand. As she climbed into the front of my car, Percy and the dogs watched mournfully, fearing that their goddess was leaving for good.

  ‘It must be nice to be loved like that,’ I remarked, looking at the little row of forlorn faces in my rear-view mirror.

  ‘It is. I shall get you a piglet for Christmas.’

  I grinned. ‘Sara would have hysterics. How are you feeling today?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Aunty Rose. ‘You know. Total poo.’ She looked at me sideways. ‘The phrase has grown on me – it rolls nicely off the tongue. Thank you, Josephine.’

  ‘You’re welcome. I have various other phrases if you ever need one. I’ve been compiling a list for cheating boyfriends.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I think,’ I said as I navigated potholes, ‘that “gimpy trouser-weasel” is my personal favourite. It’s not original, though; it’s my friend Stu’s.’ I turned north onto the main road.

  ‘Very good. And what do you use for the girl that he’s cheating with?’

  ‘Either “skank” or “hose-beast”.’

  ‘I see,’ said Aunty Rose, rummaging in the bag at her feet and pulling out a large basin. ‘Don’t be alarmed, Josephine, it is merely a precaution.’ She leant her head back against the seat and closed her eyes.

  IF EVER THERE was a place guaranteed to make you count your blessings, it’s the oncology ward of a hospital. While Aunty Rose received another intravenous dose of cancer-killing drugs that would make her feel even sicker than she already was, I fell into conversation with the woman in the next room. She looked about my age, although it was hard to tell because she wore a scarf over her bald scalp and had deep dark circles under her eyes. She told me she had two small children and that her husband had moved out the week before because he ‘needed space’. What a marvellous chap.

  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 ab
out 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?’