The Best of Fiona Kidman's Short Stories

by Fiona Kidman

  ‘Oh him, that’s Cam McGuire,’ Veronica said. ‘Trust Colin to show off to the newcomer. He’s been quite taken up with him.’

  ‘You should take a firm stand,’ Lewis said violently.

  Veronica was surprised at his vehemence. Hers was a passing remark. Perhaps Lewis really was jealous. She remembers the tremor of shock she felt, the way something was being said, and not said.

  ‘It’s the artist’s life, I guess,’ Veronica sighed, pushing aside her discomfort. ‘He’s doing so well, what am I supposed to say? Well, you can’t expect him to live just like you, Lewis.’ If there was something prissy about the way she said this, she didn’t care. Lewis didn’t have the right.

  Chalk and cheese the two men used to boast. But the elements were falling apart.

  ‘I get tired of the chip on his shoulder. It’s time he grew up.’

  Cam stood up on a signal from Colin. He had brought his bagpipes with him.

  ‘You’re not going without saying hullo, are you?’

  ‘You tell him from me,’ Lewis said, as he left, the opening strains of ‘Amazing Grace’ in his wake.

  Veronica and Colin were invited to visit Cam and Morag. They had begun to think they might not be asked, although it didn’t bother Veronica. Now that she had Katie, visiting was like an interruption to the daily flow of happiness she felt. Katie preoccupied her night and day. Every fold of her dimpled skin, the beginnings of a smile, the extraordinary scent of her, like ripe pears, absorbed her. Her secret little thought: I don’t need history, I’ve made it. There was nothing she would not do for this miracle.

  The invitation was for Sunday lunch, although Cam called it their ‘dinner’. Their flat was a square one-bedroom box with blankets thrown over the chairs. There was no sign of Morag. ‘She’s late back from her shift at the hospital,’ Cam said. ‘I don’t expect her to be long.’

  Cam produced some beer. Veronica, who was breastfeeding, drank tap water. He put on a record, Brailowsky playing Chopin’s ‘Polonaises’ plink plink plink, on and on as the afternoon wore on.

  ‘We wouldn’t have come if we’d known Morag was working,’ Veronica told Cam, sitting and rocking Katie.

  And, later still: ‘We would have brought something to eat, something to help out, perhaps we should go now?’

  Morag appeared sometime after two, not in her nurse’s uniform at all. She wore one of the floral print dresses with puffed sleeves on a band that her mother had made for her trousseau, and a blue cardigan.

  As soon as Morag 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.

  Morag refused to be helped. ‘You could feed your bairn,’ she said, when Veronica offered. Her accent was broader than Cam’s, he used his for effect in the classroom, to make his students laugh; hers slipped through, strong in bad moments, of which there seemed to be many.

  The meal was served late in the afternoon, a chicken like Morag herself, pale skinned and scrawny, with blood leaking into the pan juices.

  For, Cam 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 Morag’s unhappiness away like this? Probably for inviting them at all). But she was too tired and 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 Cam 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, she didn’t think it was proper, him being a friend, but he fussed over her as if he was.

  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 surgical 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 said, 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 Katie’s godfather.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe in that. Religion and superstition, you’ve said it often enough.’

  ‘Well, this is different. Katie 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 round 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 Cam chose to arrive for an unexpected visit, bringing Morag in tow. Veronica was stirring a sauce with her free hand, Katie over her shoulder, when they walked in. Morag was gaunt, her permed hair slicked in greasy ringlets against her head.

  ‘She’s missing her mother,’ Cam said, as if Morag 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. Cam 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 (Lewis was totally silent), Veronica sat on the sofa and fed Katie. ‘D’you want to wind her, Morag? She’s been a bit grizzly all day,’ Veronica asked, thinking Morag 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 Katie instead.

  ‘I’m surprised you got pregnant when you were feeding,’ Morag said, in a small mean voice the others weren’t meant to hear.

  ‘It seems to be a contraceptive myth,’ Veronica said.

  Morag started to cry. She got up from the sofa and went to the bathroom, from where they could hear her sobbing through the wall.

  ‘What did I say, Cam?’

  ‘Just homesickness. I tell her she should forget about her mother.’ Cam poured more drinks as if he were the host, wanting to hold his place at the centre of things. Lewis covered his glass.

  ‘You can’t just forget about your mother,’ remonstrated Veronica, who talked to hers on the phone every day. Morag 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 around here,’ Colin said, casting around. ‘We could do with a bit of boogie.’ He dropped a record on, something slow and sentimental.

  ‘Shall we dance?’ he asked Veronica.

  ‘I’m tired,’ she said, feeling that they were all behaving foolishly, and hating the way Lewis was looking at Colin.

  ‘I’ll dance with you, laddie,’ said Cam.
‘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 the room, they were slow waltzing, Cam taking the lead, even though he was the shorter.

  ‘Perhaps you could think about bringing your mother out for a visit,’ Veronica said to Morag, trying to ignore the men’s antics.

  Lewis stood up. ‘I’m going to bed.’

  ‘She needs some treats to look forward to, doesn’t she, Lewis?’ Veronica plunged on wildly, not wanting to be left on her own. Besides, what she said seemed kind and reasonable.

  But Morag began to wail, a clear piercing cry that rose to a shriek, and Cam had to take her away home.

  Before they left, Cam kissed Colin goodbye, lip to lip, as if he were a girl. Veronica had never seen two men kissing before, Colins long blue-ish chin leaning in against Cam’s white bony one.

  Lewis, who had learned to kiss on each cheek when he was in Europe, froze beside Veronica.

  ‘What an exhibitionist,’ he said, when Cam and Veronica had gone.

  ‘It’s just acting,’ Colin said. His best friend was looking at him as if he had made a curious error of taste. ‘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 Cam and Morag. 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 around the kitchen.

  ‘He said he had something to drop off down town. At the radio station, I think.’

  Although it was his own birthday, 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, a polo-neck sweater. Leaning against the doorway, he looked, himself, like a poet escaped from the thirties rather than a doctor.

  ‘Where is Colin?’ he said 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? “O tell me the truth about love.” It’s a song too.’ And then he sang the line “o tell me the truth about love,” his voice musical and lovely. She thought, I could love him.

  ‘This is 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 Gina 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 the pocket 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.’

  ‘Morag?’ Veronica vaguely recalled recommending the salon to Morag when she first arrived.

  ‘She says you’re her only friend.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ Veronica began.

  ‘She’s in a dream,’ said Gina. 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. Gina looked about nineteen, a dozen or more years younger than Lewis, although Veronica was only twenty-six at the time. The astonishing thing Veronica would learn about Gina was that she could touch the end of her nose with the tip of her tongue. ‘You can’t really talk to her. 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.’

  ‘What actually seems to be the matter?’ asked Lewis, in his professional voice. ‘What’s happened to Morag?’

  ‘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 is 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. Oh, the pig,’ she said lamely, when she saw Gina’s contempt.

  ‘Perhaps you can’t blame him, not really. Well, the way things are between them.’

  ‘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 her flat on her own.’

  ‘I can’t leave Katie,’ Veronica said, perplexed.

  ‘Can you look after her?’ Lewis asked Gina.

  ‘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 dishevelled and wild-eyed.

  ‘Where are you all going?’

  ‘Out,’ said Lewis, throwing him a look of contempt.

  Colin’s hands fluttered in odd uncertain little movements of assent, as he turned away.

  ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Veronica said, in the car. ‘Have they tried, I wonder?’

  ‘She says she can’t screw,’ Gina said. She sat in 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 Morag evoked. Wasn’t desire what kept her and Colin going? Well she thought so, they’d done a great deal of what Gina 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 was walking through flannel. She could see that Morag 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,’ said Gina.

  Veronica cringed in the back seat. Lew. How embarrassing. Glancing sideways at him, Gina looked as if she was discovering the surface of the moon.

  The woman who cut Veronicas hair paced up and down outside Fishtails, waiting for their arrival. The lights were turned off, except for a night light over the door. Morag sat alone in a chair, looking straight ahead at her shadow in the mirror, as if there was someone on the other side.

  Lewis rolled another chair over and sat down beside her. He spoke to her gently. ‘It’s time to go home, Morag.’

  A grief that is past, let it pass

  Like a leaf of 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?’

  Veronica never did find out who Cam was seeing.

  Perhaps she could ask him now. But she wouldn’t.

  Those blank light eyes.

  2

  When Lewis’s latest 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 tatou,’ she says, ‘this afternoon I have a new reading list on the New Zealand Wars and the role of the missionaries.’ Her best shoes are black courts and they pinch.

  ‘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 grey hair is springy. There is something boyishly rumpled about Lewis, in spite of the deepening folds in his cheeks.