The House Guest

by Barbara Anderson

  The relief. So simple, so tidy, so wise. Spiro embraced his cousin and kissed Emmeline on both cheeks. She had helped out occasionally at Dionysus when he was short-staffed and he liked her; her cheerful speed pleased him. He shook her hand in final farewell, embraced Andoni once more and waved at Calvin’s back now disappearing safely up the steps.

  Robin watched her face. She seemed cheerful but then she also liked the fish, was happy for her son and had gone off her lover. He swung Spiro’s suitcase into the boot and slammed hard.

  She waved as they left but he was not reassured.

  They could walk around holes, avoid the ruined mine shafts of too much Alice and too little Candida, fuck themselves silly and count the world well lost for love, but nature, he remembered from primary, abhors a vacuum. Things grow over holes and disguise them, branches are laid above sharpened spears. Things change. Emmie seemed more ready to leap to her son’s defence than formerly as though to demonstrate something. That Robin must learn the ropes. That there are different forms of passion.

  Spiro was not going to waste a moment of the journey. He dragged a new recipe for sun-dried tomato pesto out of his pocket. He had found it beneath power bills when he was tidying his desk in case the aircraft fell from the sky. It would be very useful indeed for Robin. He was to keep it with care and feel free to use it while he was away. Feel free, said Spiro again.

  ‘I’ve got a good one, Spiro.’

  ‘This is better.’

  ‘Shove it in the glove box.’

  ‘But will you remember it?’

  Probably not, but I don’t need it and won’t use it and when you ask for it on your return as you undoubtedly will, all will flood back and I can get shot of the thing. It occurred to him, not for the first time, that discussions about even the simplest arrangements with Spiro were invariably lengthy. Spiro liked to explore alternatives—to pontificate, to unbutton and have his talk out like Dr Johnson.

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  Spiro looked at the glove box and pressed the button. It opened with a slow yawn to reveal a half-eaten piece of cake, a video of a Russian Lear where the treatment of the Fool was particularly interesting, a plastic bottle, a dead banana and a sun hat.

  ‘I can’t put it there!’

  ‘Try the dashboard.’

  More doubt, more anxious hesitancy as to safety, procedure, access. And this was the man who, on his own ground and untormented by helpers other than his own team could feed five hundred with a flick of his wrist and time to spare.

  He was now on to the catering for the Wine Festival. Rob did realise the size of the operation, the meticulous planning required, the work? Days, days they would be working, the whole team. Rob had been there last year, he reminded him. He remembered, did he not, the size of the task, the enormity?

  Yes, he did.

  Not only the food, food they knew, food came last, on the day itself, five thousand individual pieces and all had gone last time. Robin must remember that people eat all day. They graze, the public, graze like cattle from morning till night. And it was not only the food. Its preparation they knew. But the planning, the transport. Robin had considered had he not, the equipment? Now was not too early, not too early at all, to plan the transport, to arrange the details for the erection of the marquee. All, all must be in its place for the arrival of the five thousand pieces which was just the start.

  ‘And of course the problem of not knowing. Never to know how many. Thousands there maybe. Fourteen, fifteen vineyards, maybe more this year, who knows how many will come to Dionysus? It is not only for us, for the food. It is the wine they are coming for, and for some the screaming music which luckily I don’t hear and nor will you this time because of being flat out and the Boss also.’ Spiro gave him a comradely thump on the shoulder. ‘Boss,’ he said again and leaned back to chew his moustache. ‘Simple but nice. Now is the time when they are right. But simple to eat on plastic plates does not mean simple to make ahead and simple to keep coming and coming all day while the wine flows and the crowd gets happy and the noise more.’ He paused. ‘You have the menu from last year safe?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m going to alter it a bit.’

  Disbelief flooded Spiro’s eyes, dropped his mouth. Disbelief and anger ticking. ‘It is not to be altered. I spend days, weeks, with the balance, the subtle, the goodness. For days I was working to bring it all together and easy to eat as well.’

  ‘We can’t do exactly the same again every year, Spiro.’

  ‘We haven’t. Second time only is this one.’

  Robin waited at the roundabout and explained carefully. ‘Spiro, if you give me the responsibility of Dionysus you have to give me some freedom with the menus.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m in charge. I don’t mean I’ll change anything unnecessarily, hell no, it’s the last thing any sane man would do. Your menus work. We all know that. But I must be free to make minor alterations if I want to.’

  More chewing, an angry huff. ‘Why?’

  Because responsibility is power? Bugger that. Because I get bored making crostine for thousands. Because Emmie makes the best blini in the world and she’s said she’ll help.

  He tried another line often mentioned by Spiro. ‘Because cooking is a creative art.’

  ‘Which is it you change?’

  ‘Blini instead of crostine.’

  ‘Your Emmeline’s speciality. She is helping then, she and her blini. Now you are talking. No more the agenda fish hide.’

  They stopped at the airport, Spiro’s shoulders still heaving at his wit. He embraced him, dropped one eyelid.

  ‘The blini for this time,’ he said. ‘Go with God, you and your angel fish.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Emmeline flaked out in a bikini trying for a mini-tan. ‘I said I would if we can find a sitter. But what I’d really like of course is to take him too.’

  She sat up to anoint herself with the Cancer Society large economy-size sunscreen. It was, she explained, the only one where you could combine protection with donation to a good cause and wasn’t it a clever shape. You could get drunk with power pumping the stuff, like striped toothpaste when it started and every kid in town was squeezing.

  ‘Although of course,’ she said lying down again beside Misha’s semi-clotted milk saucer, ‘nothing really works with redheads. Don’t worry,’ she yawned, covering her face with Aunt’s old straw hat which was etched at the rim with something black and suspect that looked like ergot but presumably was not. ‘I said I would and I will.’ She lifted the hat slightly to glance through chequered sunlight at his face. ‘But he would so enjoy it.’

  She could not mean it. He loved the thug too but this was ridiculous. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No.’

  The hat was back in place. ‘Oh, we’d have to find someone to mind him all day. I realise that, but someone’d jump at the day out. I’ll ask Thea.’

  But Thea and Ruby were going to Eketahuna that weekend to see Gran who had been a bit off for some time and didn’t seem to be picking up as quick as Mum and the rest of them had hoped. Thea was sorry but there it was.

  Other sitters also declined. Maybe if it’d been next year. But no. They were tied up this time.

  Calvin was into finger food and Emmeline gave up fighting about vegetables in the weekend. She slapped the meat in the sesame bun, neat as a pin and ready to go. ‘It would have to be someone he knows well, of course. Murray, for instance,’ she said licking her thumb.

  Robin gave a short squirt of the Cancer Society can. It was a good shape, a miniature white plastic petrol container destined to save the day. He rubbed the stuff into his palms, sniffed. Lisa had had aloe-scented hand lotion. He had never smelled an aloe but then who had in Seatoun and you have to believe something. ‘Calvin,’ he said, ‘doesn’t like Murray.’

  She was watching him. ‘How do you know?’

  He was silent. He didn’t even know whether Calvin liked him, though he had hopes.

  At homey sir,
he is all my exercise, my mirth, my matter.

  Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy, my parasite, my soldier, statesman, all.

  And Hamnet had died and here he was still hunting for clues in the text and Emmeline waiting hamburger in hand.

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘You’d think they’d work out some way to make the sesame seeds stick on,’ she said licking again. ‘And who else is there?’

  He could see Calvin having fun, belting around the beaten grass with his water bottle, his pumpkin smile wide beneath his dumb French Foreign Legion sun hat, his arms covered with Total Block. He would certainly enjoy it. Kids should enjoy things, they should learn to enjoy things early as Calvin had done. Robin’s Inner Child kicked. His mother had not taught him early enough, possibly because she had not had much to enjoy herself at the time, but what excuse was that.

  ‘I could ask Maureen,’ he said to Emmie’s shoulder.

  ‘Isn’t she a bit old?’

  ‘I’ll ask.’

  The house needed painting, the downpipe on the south side was green with mould. Perhaps he could steamblast it some time but that would remove more paint and he was damned if he was going to paint it while Murray lay around like a Palatine, a word he had been meaning to check for some time to see if it meant what he thought.

  He turned his attention to the fence which was more satisfying; a good fence, a strong fence, a fence of class. He laid his palm against it as you might on the neck of a promising colt from the home farm.

  ‘Hello Robbie!’ called Maureen, shoving the casement window open beside him with a small explosive puff. ‘It sticks,’ she explained.

  Nobody else called him Robbie now. He had never liked the Bobbie/Robbie stuff. But the connotations, ah, the connotations. Those he had loved and still did. Charles Lamb had been sorry when there was no one left to call him Charlie. ‘Hi,’ he called loudly.

  ‘Come in dear, come in.’

  Murray, fortunately, was not at home. His exams were over and, as he told them, he was quietly confident, though of course you can never trust the sods. As usual he had taken a week off study immediately prior to the first paper. He found it invaluable.

  Rob looked at Maureen’s smiling face. How could he have been so idiotic as to have thought for one possible moment he could have asked her. Excuse me Maureen. Could you see your way to minding the child of my de facto, my lover, the light of my life, while she and I work side by side as we were destined to do from earliest childhood but unfortunately I did not have the wit to notice at the time. Though you do realise Maureen, even though it doesn’t look like it, that I loved your daughter dearly.

  Maureen tugged open the back door which also had a tendency to stick and waded towards him.

  He took her arm, held her firm. ‘What on earth’s happened?’

  ‘Oh, it’s my silly knees. Come and I’ll tell you. No no no. I don’t want an arm.’

  They progressed slowly into the ziggurat room. Maureen crashed straight legged onto the sofa; the over-stuffed cushion on which Betty sat bounced slightly, upending her into Maureen’s lap. She took the battered doll and kissed her, her hands busy fluffing out the few inches of skirt with practised hands. ‘Silly old me,’ she murmured.

  Why do they do it? he wondered. Old men never do. They have more sense. Their ailments or accidents—self-inflicted or otherwise, are never silly. Their backs, if and when they go on them, may be cursed but never belittled. No one tells an old man that he must be furious with himself for having hit a head, twisted an arm or thrown his back out yet again. Such trials descend on old men, are inflicted from on high and must be born with courage.

  ‘It’s my own silly fault,’ said Maureen yet again. ‘I told you I’d been biking again. Well, I overdid it. You see these things you know. In the hairshop. When I go for a cut I see them, those little papers Eileen used to hand over the fence and I miss them my word, but it was a lovely wedding wasn’t it. Every time you pick up a paper now they’re at it, old as you like, all busting themselves getting fit. Men and women. There was a man last week, eighty-seven, he said, and fitter than he’d ever been in his life. Works out three times a week, runs all over and his wife as well, though she’s only seventy-nine but trim as you like. They all say it makes them happy, gives them a ‘positive attitude to life through exercise,’ they say, and I thought that’s you my girl, that’s what you need. Mind you I couldn’t afford the gym and that, but I doubled up on the biking and then trebled and pretty soon I was going for miles and I did feel better, that’s the sad thing. And then blow me down I woke up one morning and there’s my knees up like balloons and painful as all get out. It doesn’t seem fair somehow.’ Maureen stretched out her legs and tucked back her skirt in demonstration of her stupidity.

  Her knees were certainly enormous. Swollen and shiny, the fat jowls and bulging foreheads of truculent politicians and bald babies stared back at him. ‘I’ve always been wide behind the caps,’ she said, ‘but look at the fronts.’

  Yes, she did have pills. The doctor said they would go down in time and to keep them up. Frankly Maureen couldn’t wait to get shot of the silly things.

  They sat contemplating the affected areas for a few moments while he murmured his sympathy. He could not ask if Murray had taken over the cooking. He could only hope.

  She bounced Betty on her thigh a couple of times. ‘Robin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You and Emmie.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If you would like me to have it …’ She brushed his wedding ring, her fingers snatching away as though singed. ‘… Any time. Not now, I don’t mean. But if you would like me to later I would be very happy. Rather than just, well, put away somewhere, you know what I mean?’

  She was smiling at him, smiling widely at the one she loved. ‘And it looks as though it’s all going to turn out all right with Murray and the loan and that, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ He couldn’t look at her. It was impossible and his eyes were wet. ‘Maureen,’ he mumbled. ‘I …’

  ‘I’m glad I mentioned it, then,’ she said quickly, bouncing Betty with renewed vigour. ‘And would you check the letterbox on your way out, dear. It’s never anything but long envelopes with bills but I’d like the Contact if it’s there.’

  *

  He had rung Wilfred and Shara several times. At first when Shara answered she was cautious, speaking in the guarded tones of doctors talking over their patients’ heads as they lie listening with polite interest trying to memorise phrases such as ‘unacceptable angulation’ and ‘external fixation’ so they can ask nurse after.

  ‘He’s fiiine,’ she said, drawing the word out so that Robin would get the picture. He was OK. Like fine-ish. He was getting there. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘It’s just like, you know, he’s got a way to go yet. Yeah. Yeah, OK. You hear that? That’s Wil, he says he’s fiiine.’

  But latterly her tone had changed. She was cheerful. Everything was good, good, great, yeah. When was he coming down? Tons of room. Yeah.

  Wil rang. ‘So when are you coming down? When’re you bringing Emmeline and the boy?’

  ‘Wil, I …’

  Emmeline paused beside him, the tissue half-way to Calvin’s leaking nose.

  ‘I’m a box of birds now. When are you coming?’

  ‘Wil, I told you. I said. I said I didn’t know how Emmie

  Emmeline took the receiver from his hand. She did not snatch or grab as he did in attempted retrieval. ‘Leave me alone,’ she hissed. Calvin, his nose still leaking, looked up, clung to her leg.

  ‘Mr Hughes?’ She was polite and crisp and devastating. She explained that she was sure that Mr Hughes had loved Alice O’Leary very much and she believed most sincerely that for some reason Alice had told him this odd story about herself and Miss Bowman. She continued calmly through the muffled contradicting exhortations from Central. She had never heard a word about Alice O’Leary being her mother, she did not believe it for a moment and as
far as she was concerned the matter was at an end. She had been loved by Miss Bowman and had loved her back, a woman who had devoted her life to her and although she hated to disappoint Mr Hughes, let alone hurt him in any way, she could not do it. Come and stay, she meant. No, she couldn’t.

  Calvin was clinging tighter. ‘Mum?’

  Robin tried to seize the telephone as she dropped her left hand on the burrowing head. Her voice was no longer calm. Yes, she had hoped they might have been able to come and see him but now, in the circumstances … Her voice caught, got stuck in her throat. ‘I, sorry, I …’ She handed the receiver to Rob and hid her head in her hands.

  So this was where it had got them, all the pussyfooting around mine shafts. They should have explored them, all of them, got to the bottom of the things, roared and screamed and let the echoes rage. What had they been afraid of? Why had they been so shy when every mound and crevice was known? And poor old Wil still clinging in silence to the other end of the line from Central.

  Calvin was now crying, his nose unchecked and streaming.

  ‘Wil,’ said Robin. ‘I’ll write. Yes. Yes. Bye then. Yeah. I’ll write. Bye.’

  He replaced the receiver, listened to the small sound. It’s the small sounds. Clicks, snapped twigs, boots on stone. ‘Why the hell did you do that?’ he said to the eyes above the hands.

  Calvin was now howling at the unknown, burrowing like a liane between them.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said finally. ‘It’s all right. Forget it. It’s all right.’

  He dropped on his knees to Calvin. ‘What’s up, matey?’

  Murray would be happy to come and mind Calvin for the day if it would be any help. He realised it would be a full-time job but if it would be any help at all he would be happy to. And he was not that struck on the wine aspect. Wine had never been one of his things. Nobody enjoyed a good Müller Thurgau more than he did, but in his opinion there was a lot of bull talked and written about the stuff, and he could take it or leave it. Besides he had always been very fond of Calvin, he said, bending to wipe the upturned nose with a decisive jerk.