by Fiona Kidman
‘So what’s she up to?’ asks Hester.
‘Some fool idea about putting their old stuff in the boat and pushing it out in the water. She’s put her wedding ring in.’
‘She can’t do that,’ Hester says, looking distressed. ‘I did her wedding.’
‘I know. But that was a long time ago,’
‘Well, I thought she and Geoff were doing all right.’
‘They are, she just gets ideas in her head sometimes, I don’t know where they come from.’ Belle’s hand hovers over the phone, her expression distracted.
A choral group of about ten or twelve sits at a long table next to theirs. They are practising a song they are to sing in a competition the following weekend. Jessie calls out and asks them to sing some more, because in this outdoor environment, the old etiquette doesn’t seem to apply. Or perhaps it was just a quaint notion that doesn’t apply any more. And because they have been asked and they are young and cheerful people, they practise a medieval tune that is a cross between keening and singing. John sits beside her, slightly aloof, as if he is remembering another time when they sat side by side and is afraid that something may be expected of him. Jessie feels him wishing that he hadn’t come, perhaps preferring his own company. The tension she sensed beside the lake hasn’t gone away. She can tell the music isn’t touching him, that he is focused more on his own unresolved discord.
‘Can you sing that song about even though it’s snowing, violets are still growing?’ asks Hester, who knows a couple of the group. One of them is booked in for a dress in February.
‘You were a February bride,’ says Jessie.
‘So I was. Not that I was much of a bride,’ Hester says, giving a small girlish hoot of mirth. She reddens and blinks away a sudden tear. ‘It’s the wine,’ she says.
The choral group don’t know the song, and, because the meals have been delivered at both tables, the singing ends, and conversation falls away.
As the darkness deepens, rockets start hurtling through the night sky. People emerge from the houses and move towards the lakefront. Out on the water, a trail of fire slinks across the water.
‘That looks like a boat burning out there now,’ Jessie remarks.
Belle looks as if she’s going to cry. Her cellphone rings again. ‘Shantee? What are you doing, baby? Are you coming over here? You’re what? Oh.’ Her face lights up with relief. ‘Never mind, another time, I’ll tell them you’ll see them next time they’re in town.’ As she switches off, Belle says: ‘Silly girl, she’s all wet, she’s been wading round in the water.’
‘Did she get the ring back?’
‘Yeah,’ says Belle, ‘it was all a joke.’
Marianne asks, ‘How did Lou get out of the forest, Belle?’
Jessie thinks, so that’s why she’s come all this way. After all these years. Marianne and Belle had embraced at the door of the chapel as if they were old friends, apparently without any traces of their old rivalry. But she sees it has not been forgotten.
Belle, who is eating scallops cooked in a Drambuie sauce, puts down her fork, and wipes her mouth, smiling in a dreamy sort of way.
‘Wallace and I went and got him,’ she says. ‘Of course.’
‘Wallace did that? I thought he beat you,’ says Marianne.
‘Well, that’s not the point, is it?’
‘What is the point, then?’
‘Wallace really loved me. He’d have done anything for me, you know. Poor guy.’
‘I don’t get it,’ Marianne says. ‘Sorry, I just don’t.’
‘The nature and meaning of love,’ says Jessie. ‘Well, it’s a bit late to be getting deep, isn’t it?’
There are general exclamations about the lateness of the hour and the early starts some of them will have to make in the morning. Under the slipstream of words, Jessie says to John, ‘I think you should take notice of that dream of yours.’
‘You know something about this, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I do.’
‘So if I knew Violet before, who was she?’
‘I think that’s something you need to find out. I should warn you though, that if you do, you’ll also have to find out who Hugo was, and who he wasn’t, and the complications will only have just begun.’ She fishes in her bag, and finds a business card. ‘Here’s my email address. Get in touch if you like, though I don’t know a fraction of the answers.’
He smiles slightly. ‘Long distance.’
‘That’s close enough,’ she says, and it’s amazing the way the past slips away, and it is possible suddenly to be free of it.
Between the mains and the desserts the choristers are humming, like an orchestra getting tuned, or a swarm of well-fed bees. A firework explodes near them.
Soon, in half an hour at most, they will give each other a hug for what will surely be the last time. Jessie anticipates the moment when John will hold her just a moment longer than the others, pressing his suit against her jacket and long skirt — or perhaps he will just slip away, the same elusive John. She smells gunpowder, so close that she could be out East again.
‘To us,’ Marianne says, and their hands touch in a final toast.
A Catherine wheel spins along the pavement. Out on the water, the ship of fire drifts on, collapsing inwards on itself as they watch, causing Belle to exclaim and clasp her hands together.
‘Thank you,’ says Hester. ‘Thank you all for coming.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Lois Daish, sublime cook, food writer, teacher and friend, has been extraordinarily generous with the amount of time and advice she has given me while I wrote this book. I thank her so much for that, and for reading my manuscript.
I owe Ian Kidman thanks, too, for his reading of my manuscript, as well as his love of Cambodia which he shares with me. And, thanks to the Cambodia Trust staff in Phnom Penh who have enabled me to make several safe journeys into the Cambodian countryside.
I am grateful to Emma Hart and Jude Walcott at Radio New Zealand, Jill Nicholas, Nancy and Jack Collins, Colin and Niyaz Wilson, Dame Kate Harcourt, Alice Morris (Pan Jiang Ping) and Zach Kidman for assisting me with research.
The following texts have provided source material: A Taste of France by Madeleine Hammond; The Black Truffle by Ian Hall and Gordon Brown; Oh, for a French Wife by Ted Moloney and Deke Coleman. Tim Page’s writing about Indochina has been inspirational.
My editors, Harriet Allan and Anna Rogers, continue to give me the patient support that every writer longs for. I can’t thank them enough.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for the following song extract:
‘Make Love to Me’ Leon Rapollo/Paul Mares/Benny Pollock/George Brunies/Mel Stitzel/Walter Melrose/Bill Norvas/Allan Copeland (Warner Chappell Music)
About the Author
Fiona Kidman has written more than 20 books, mainly novels and short stones. Her novel The Book of Secrets won the Fiction category of the New Zealand Book Awards, and several others have been short-listed. She has been awarded a number of prizes and fellowships, including the Mobil Short Story Award, the Victoria Writers Fellowship, and the OBE for services to literature. She is a Dame Commander of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
The author lives in Wellington with her husband, and enjoys travelling, the theatre, and reading.
Copyright
National Library of New Zealand Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Kidman, Fiona, 1940-
Songs from the Violet Café / Fiona Kidman.
ISBN 978–1–77553–029–9
I. Title.
NZ823.2—dc 21
A VINTAGE BOOK
published by
Random House New Zealand
18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland, New Zealand
www.randomhouse.co.nz
First published 2003
© 2003 Fiona Kidman
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
ISBN 978 1 77553 029 9
Text design: Elin Te
rmannsen and Janet Hunt
Cover photograph: Getty Images
Cover design: Matthew Trbuhovic, The Bureau
Author photograph: Rob Kitchin
Printed in Australia by Griffin Press