‘So that’s all right,’ Emmie told Rob beneath the duvet which was getting too hot now it was summer. He moved his legs slightly. They still had not discussed things properly. Had not had the flamer to clear the air. He had not even discovered why she had bounced at Wil, except for vague mutterings about exhaustion, and she was never exhausted. She did not know how to be exhausted, but certainly things had caught up with them. Emmeline had a part in a children’s play called Manu and the Kelpie and his own life had gone mad with food and faces in endless combinations. People pecking at food, stuffing themselves with food, swigging and eating, eating, eating. Eating on the move like ruminants or squeezed onto narrow chairs or queuing at the buffet with already laden plates for just a touch more. A sliver of torte perhaps. A smidgen of pastrami. A bean.
They set off at daybreak in the Dionysus van to pick up the team, Emmie and Calvin in the front because of the hills. Murray sat in the back among the spare seats and the five thousand pieces. The marquee was upright, the power on, utensils at the ready, all the gear and tackle and trim of their trade was waiting in the Wairarapa.
Murray, having chosen the best seat before the other clowns arrived, had time to tell them that he’d never seen much point in all this fussing about food. Give him a good steak any day. He patted Calvin on the head. ‘Comfy, son?’ Calvin did not reply.
Wanda, as usual on Sundays, was unavailable. Her place had been taken by an unknown quantity called Serena, a tall rangy blonde who looked anything but. She laughed a lot as she told them in a high thready voice about some of the more gracious functions she had helped out at—the Yacht Club stayed in her mind, as did Government House. The kitchens, she told them, were out of sight. Scott, who Robin had moved from sandwiches of necessity, stared at her in silence. The rest, both regulars and casuals, nodded politely. The regulars had been forged in the heat; Merle who could do anything, Ron who was a tower of strength and Jayne who was quick off the mark.
Robin drove slowly over the long curving bends of the Rimutaka Hill. He had travelled in the back of the van many times and knew its reluctant sway, the sickening lurch of its rear end towards the edge and the cliffs of scrub and ragged bush below. No one must be sick, especially Calvin.
Serena became silent as climb and bend followed descent and sweep and the van churned upwards once again. Hadn’t Dionysus got a minibus, she asked faintly.
‘No,’ said Scott.
They made it all in one piece.
The Wine Festival was in full swing and Dionysus was on top of things but only just.
As usual at this stage a routine had not been completely established. Things were both fluid and disorganised and would soon become hectic. People were shouting, falling over each other’s feet; the vineyard owner’s dog had discovered the rabbit fricassees waiting for more secure storage. They had been saved from destruction by a quick kick in the haunch from Scott who was immediately abused by Serena, Merle and an apoplectic passer-by who asked Scott what he thought we were here for if not to love those weaker than ourselves and she was going to report him to the SPCA immediately. Robin, who shared her sympathies but was glad the rabbit fricassees were safe, tried to keep out of it but failed. A full-scale row developed; the team were at each other’s throats.
Robin exercised crowd control, his palms raised to restrain the mob. Scott, his face expressionless, dropped a carton. Black plastic plates skidded across the trestle table onto beaten grass to lie in shuddering piles around the ankles of his detractors.
‘Wash them,’ said Robin. ‘And that’s it. All of you. Now get on with it.’
Murray departed hand-in-hand with Calvin in his Foreign Legion hat, his mini-Total Block in his pocket. They would take the courtesy bus, explained Murray, just get on and off where they liked, case the joint, go where the spirit moved them, wouldn’t they, Cal?
‘Yeah,’ said Calvin inspecting a thread of grated raw carrot left over from Emmie’s farewelling hands.
Serena took over front of house. Out of the corner of his eye as he assembled for presentation, which is all, he watched her transforming the trestle tables behind which the hordes would jostle as they ordered rabbit fricassee or lamb fillet with polenta or maybe just a simple but nice blini or two with spinach and walnut salad. Serena seemed efficient as she anchored the cloths with clips, rerolled some of the hundreds of knife/fork/napkins-to-go which had slipped a bit, dealt with plates and studied the flow. ‘Hey, Rob, this OK?’
They worked it out together. If they come this way?—yeah but what if they …? He had done it dozens of times, worked it out as Spiro had taught him. ‘A caterer is only as good as his flow.’ No jams. The effort is no use if they can’t get at it.
And paying on the spot would take time even with token money.
‘And what about the posies?’ said Serena. ‘Where’s the posies?’
‘Oh Emmie’s done pumpkins and stuff. Look.’
The first of the bell peppers, the last of the pumpkins gleamed together on straw platters. Pink potatoes shone beside ruby tamarillos and crisp apples from the cool store. Emmie’s mounds of polished fruit and vegetables were cornucopias in the round; symbols, if you could stand it, of glowing abundance and plenty. A harvest festival in spring when every leaf was sharp and green and still unfurling.
The music was blaring and thumping alongside. A band he didn’t know—Sinking Lid. Rock and roll meets country. Not bad. He would have a look later. The wine buffs and bibbers were already in action in the marquee alongside. The experts sampled, tasted with discern-ment. The more enthusiastic bibbers did not bother. They were into it.
The tents, the noise, the streaming crowds trekking across flattened paddocks and dusty paths reminded him. Miss Bowman had once taken Emmie and him to an A and P Show in the Wairarapa; a long haul by train and bus to every wonder in the world and a Mermaid in a Bottle. There had been no vineyards then, no heady decisions required as to nose or body or aftertaste. There had been meat pies and candyfloss and picnics and hot water from the stand behind the Women’s Rest and a beer cavern beneath the Grandstand labelled Gentlemen Only where, Miss Bowman told him, he would be fortunate enough to be admitted in due course providing he behaved always in a gentlemanly and chivalrous manner.
Emmie was polishing her final pumpkin; she could make even a Green Triumble shine.
‘Not the asparagus,’ he yelled. ‘Rebekkah’s bringing the kids.’ She turned to laugh, waved a hand. ‘Love yah,’ she yelled back.
‘Hi, Rob!’
He glanced up. Rebekkah was followed by a man with a child clamped to each hand—a man so neat, so struc-tured as to appear slightly surreal. Threads of hair were plastered across his scalp, the middle button of his blazer was buttoned. Even his blond beard was a production; bits had been left out, shaved where beards normally are not. A man, it was clear, who spent time on his image.
‘And this is Wes,’ said Rebekkah fondly. ‘We finally got it all together, didn’t we, love?’
Wes agreed. It had been and still was part of an ongoing process but he and Bekk were finally learning to communicate. They had both taken counselling for dialogue skills and empathic listening between partners. The thing was to be pro-active.
‘Great,’ said Rob. ‘Great,’
‘Hey,’ roared Wes grabbing Haden and Shelley whose outstretched hands were about to deconstruct Emmeline’s pumpkins. ‘Watch it, you lot.’
‘I bet his other dame shot through,’ muttered Emmie above swirling cream and the roar of the hand beater. ‘Why’d she take the creep back? Kids, I suppose. I dunno …’ The rest was drowned as she switched to High.
Queues were forming; there was no time for words. There was heat, sun, grass, dust and action. They were, as Spiro would have told them, flat out like a lizard drinking. Chaos was contained, panic averted, the five thousand pieces were diminishing by the minute.
‘We’re out of tapenade!’
‘Here.’
‘Profiteroles!’
Merle and Rob were now side by side at the table. Emmie was in charge behind the chest-high structure dividing the cooking area. He glanced at her occasionally; was greeted by a grin, a wink, a snarl. He was ready to understand, even to accept her rejection of poor old Wil. He would accept anything. His heart melted through the soles of his Reeboks as his hands and the rest of his mind ticked steadily and he nodded, smiled, took tokens and nodded again at the orderly crowd which was becoming less so. Undoubtedly there would be some fat on the arse for Robin and he would give them all a bonus and have a party. He paused, his splayed fingers momentarily steady on token money. He and Emmie would have a party. A minor orgy. Jesus.
Someone was shoving, yelling, elbowing his way to the front through mutters and stirs of dissent. ‘Piss off,’ said a blonde in a floral hat guarding her polenta.
Nothing stopped Murray. He stood before them, his face grey and oiled with sweat. ‘I’ve lost him,’ he said.
He should have fought her. Insisted. Not that shit. Don’t come. Stay home.
‘Merle. Get Ron to help you till we get back, OK?’
‘Sure,’ said the startled face.
He would find him. Find him first, bring him back and tell her then. No. He grabbed the keys of the van. ‘Emmie,’ he yelled.
The three of them squeezed in the front and shot off down the road.
‘Someone’ll have seen him,’ he said. ‘Those announcements at shows. Kids get separated all the time, remember?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘I just turned round,’ said Murray, ‘and he’d gone.’
‘Yes. He is quick.’
He couldn’t even drive fast. Calvin could be anywhere; alone on the tracks beaten on the verges, outside paddocks, lost in the dust of the vineyards. Found. Found by someone decent. Someone responsible. Or otherwise. The etched image of a child walking away hand in hand.
She clutched his arm as they swung a corner.
‘Christ!’ yelled Murray two vineyards later. ‘Look.’
Robin pulled onto the verge.
She was scrabbling over Murray’s knees, her hands on the door handle.
‘No!’ yelled Robin.
He grabbed her back, slammed her against the seat.
She was fighting, clawing, teeth bared. She was getting out. Going to join the child and the man walking beside him.
Her nails were biting his arm.
‘Listen. I’ll park the van behind that shed. You stroll back. Casual. Easy. “Hi.” Murray and I’ll come back otherwise we’ll lose him. Get it?’
‘What if the guy’s, you know, helping?’ said Murray.
‘Then we won’t thump him, fuckwit.’
‘And don’t look as we pass,’ he told her.
She clenched her eyes.
Robin signalled, turned slowly in behind the shed. It was bigger than a garage, a large barn backed by hawthorn.
She was out running before he seized her arm. ‘Walk. Just walk. And go round the other side of the shed.’
She was distracted, whimpering. He held her arms tight. ‘Calm down.’
‘Hh.’
‘Calm down. Now!’
‘Yes.’ She strolled away.
‘We’ll give her a minute or two,’ said Rob.
Murray, his mouth hanging, was silent. ‘And you drive,’ said Rob.
‘Why?’
‘Just do it for Chrissake. Pull over beside them. Calm, slow, we’re looking at the view.’
Murray swung the van onto the road by the laughing crowd waiting for the courtesy bus at the gates of the vineyard and the group of three further along the verge. Emmie was on her knees, her face hidden.
‘Now!’ he said and jumped from the van as the guy took off. Robin had one glimpse of tight-faced terror and the man was away, wide shorts flapping as he sprinted down the road.
He was going to lose him. Pop music was belting above Calvin’s wails, his glasses were fogged, his breath rasping as he threw himself at the slight figure and flattened him. He had hold of one foot only, its trainer slipping from his grasp, when Murray arrived, climbed into the shallow ditch and sat on the guy.
‘Take him away,’ he hissed over his shoulder.
‘Come on, Cal,’ said Emmie, tugging her reluctant child.
Robin climbed up from the spreadeagled figure, moved to the head and began thumping it on the ground. Thumping from rage, from despair, from loss of innocence.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ said Murray, ‘you’ll kill the poor sod.’
A guy in a passing truck went for the cops. They handed the captive over, stared at the stained face, the T-shirt labelled Instant Arsehole, the tick of fear beneath the eye, the ordinariness. The dreadful pitiful ordinariness. For the first time in his life Robin was glad of Murray’s presence. He might indeed have killed the guy. Left him to die face down in docks and plantain and crushed grass.
Emmeline and Calvin appeared. She was talking talking talking, explaining that when people love people they have to know where people are and people must stay with the people who are minding them and ask them for an icecream if they want one, not just go off with someone else without telling.
They climbed into the van, Murray in the back.
‘Let’s get one now then,’ said Calvin.
*
Rob drove with one hand, hers clamped by his side, Calvin on her knee.
‘Did you see his T-shirt?’ she muttered behind Calvin’s back.
‘Yeah.’
‘He shouldn’t have had that T-shirt.’
‘Forget it. It’s just words. Letters.’ He thought quickly. ‘Like the ones Japanese wear. Boogie ladder. Hopper girl,’ he said making shut-up faces above Calvin’s head.
‘He wasn’t Japanese,’ she said bleakly.
Murray sat silent, his smirk unseen as Calvin handed his mother the raspberry ripple. ‘Want a bite?’
‘Thanks hon. Thanks a lot.’
They parked the van on the road and walked past milling crowds and safely grazing sheep to the vineyard and the Dionysus tent beyond.
The vines were in new leaf; pin-sized green grapes stood upright on stalks, like spores on the fruiting body of some particularly unattractive fungus. Straw surrounded the roots; they were cherished these vines, cherished and precious and time consuming for their owners.
Rob was looking for distraction, finding things to show her. Men in wide-brimmed Man from Snowy River hats new since last year; men in baseball caps, designer straws, panamas. Where were the hats of yesteryear—the towelling, the canvas, the floppies? Rob caught sight of a yellow towelling in the distance and was reassured.
The shimmering silver of the bands’ tent roof was glinting like a sunlit glacier above a middle-aged woman who swayed alone, arms high to snap the rhythm. Soon she must dance, join the kids, but not yet. The band had changed. A torch singer was belting out her somebody-done-somebody-wrong song, her hair grey beneath her black garden-party hat, her elegant twenties gown swinging, her voice deep and true. ‘Look at the bow on her behind, Em. Just on the curve. Any good?’
‘Yes.’
He got marks for trying. ‘Yes,’ she said again.
‘You’re so rich / that’s the answer,’ yelled the trouper. The applause was long and loud. The singer acknowledged it, bowed graciously beneath her feathered hat, swept her long skirt from side to side in recognition of their good taste and discernment.
‘I’ll go on,’ said Rob.
‘Just one more.’
The next song was unexpected. The husky contralto was deeper than ever, pregnant with warning above the tooty beat of the electric organ. The words were advice from a soul who had been there, had been down to the woods today and received a big surprise. It would have been safer, she confided, to have stayed at home.
Emmeline’s face was motionless, deadpan as a woman in a blue movie. ‘I should have killed that man,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t I kill him?’
T
he food had disappeared but the packing, the sorting, the cleaning up took time. Serena was declared a good find by Merle, Ron had taken a slice out of a finger but no worries. Murray and an unchastened Calvin jigged by the dying embers of the band. Murray, as he told them, felt it was the least he could do.
It was late when they set off and there was little sound in the van as they crawled over the Rimutakas. The hills were dark, the scrub deepening to black in the steep valleys below.
Calvin fell asleep as the van left Featherston and was not alone. As Serena explained, they were all pooped.
‘Rob,’ said Emmie.
He changed down, hugged the curve. ‘Nnn?’
‘The old man, Wil.’
He was concentrating, didn’t take it in. ‘Yeah?’
‘I’ll ring him shall I? When we get home?’
He was grinning his head off. He heard his voice still grinning at the tight bends, the sharp-angled curves of the road downhill.
‘It’ll be too late for him tonight. Tomorrow’ll do, hon.’
Thirteen
She explained her reasoning when they were in bed, made the situation clear. He lay prostrate beside her, his eyes staring through blurred gradations of light to the dark untidy corners of the room. He knew the tone in her voice, put a hand to the floor for his glasses. All senses were required. Concentration.
‘It’s not that I’ve changed my mind about her or anything.’
He would not have thought his body could have sagged further. Not in bed. ‘No,’ he said.
‘I just think I was a bit tough on the old guy.’
‘You do, huh.’
Her face was anxious. ‘You too?’
What the hell did she expect. ‘Yeah.’
The House Guest Page 28