Etiquette for a Dinner Party (8 page)

Ten years today. In our thoughts always. Rose, Jim, Katie and Sarah.

He picked up the flowers and the little glass vase and threw everything as hard as he could against the cemetery stone wall. The glass shattered and the flowers landed at the base of the wall. He kicked the shit out of them. Stomped them hard into the ground. The pulse in his head became a drum. He went back to his father's grave and ripped his mother's card into bits.

He sat next to his father and cried. For the first time, he had forgotten the anniversary of his father's death. His mother hadn't. Jim knew that she never would.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with Mum getting together with Roger Greerson. Years ago the family — Jim and his sisters — agreed they wanted her to meet someone new, someone who would look after her. And Roger Greerson was a decent guy. Old Tauranga family, nice people.

As he cleaned up the mess in the cemetery, Jim decided to get a grip. He said it to himself over and over as he jogged back down the hill towards home.

Get a grip two . . . three . . . four . . .

Get a grip . . .

His mother turned up late in the afternoon and suggested fish and chips for dinner. Easier, she said, and less washing up. Absolutely, Jim said. Then she disappeared off somewhere else.

Jim decided to work on the franchising brochure. It was gone off the table again, back among the
New Idea
s. At least he knew where to look for it.

He was just getting busy with the editing when she arrived home with the takeaways. She had two bottles tucked under her other arm — tomato sauce and an expensive looking sauvignon blanc. She put the tomato sauce bottle on top of the brochure.

'Roger thought we might like a nice bottle of wine, to go with dinner,' she said. 'He's going to come and join us.'

'Excellent.' Jim realised he said
excellent
in situations where he really meant
shit.
This was something else that needed adjusting.

'That was nice of him,' he added, in case his mother was on to him.

The-being-mature-about-Roger thing was going okay, Jim thought. It would have been nicer to have a Saturday night meal of beef casserole. No one did beef casserole like his mother. He had always assumed she enjoyed the rare opportunity to cook a meal for more than one person. With a Pimms for her, and a beer for him. That's how it used to be. Then it occurred to him that she probably cooked quite a bit for Roger. And that was fine too, of course it was.

'Mum. I'm really happy for you. Roger Greerson is a good guy.' He made the words come out. He knew he sounded like a bad actor in a daytime soap opera but he was doing his best.

'Thank you, love. I knew you'd be alright about it all. It was ten years yesterday, did you realise? A long time now.'

'Yep, a long time alright, Mum.'

A late model station wagon turned into the driveway. It was clean enough to have come straight off a car yard. The hubcaps shone and the tyres were fat and liquorice black. A man got out of the driver's seat and let himself into the house. No knocking. He had a key.

Jesus Christ,
Jim thought.
Vince Martin.

Roger Greerson offered his hand to Jim.

'G'day Jim — nice to see you. It's been a long time.'

Roger was taller than Jim, in his late sixties, but with a shock of straight blond hair parted down one side. He had a wide smile, a direct gaze and the clear, tanned complexion of a man who worked outdoors. A handsome bloke, in an Australian sort of a way.

Jim waited for Roger to say it; he wanted the moment over with: I'm Vince Martin, and this is a bald tyre . . . Roger didn't though. He kissed Rose while Jim looked out the window at Roger's car.

Roger sat down. Jim waited for him to start being annoying. Roger did so immediately, by pouring each of them a glass of wine, and saying 'Good health'.

Roger was completely at home.

Then Roger compounded the annoyance by asking a question.

'What exactly do you do in Wellington, Jim? Rose has told me but . . .'

Jim started to tell Roger about the business, but his mother cut in.

'Did I mention I'm doing a wine appreciation course Jim?' And off she went. 'Roger put me on to the lessons, and has been invited to speak to the class . . .'

Jim had known it would be difficult, but he found that the effort required to like Roger was exhausting. He wondered whether Roger got to sell his wine to the class. Petty, he knew. He stopped himself asking.

After dinner, they cleaned up together. Jim didn't say a word and his mother asked whether he was coming down with something. Jim told her it had been a big week.

'Bigger than usual,' he said, with a sigh. 'Huge, actually.'

She didn't ask.

As Jim threw away the leftovers, he saw the franchising brochure in the rubbish bin, underneath the newspaper from the fish and chips. He pulled it out. A big greasy mark on the front had soaked through to the inside, onto his photo on page two. The stain made Jim look untrustworthy and anxious.

He put the brochure back in the bin. There was no point working on it, he realised. It was old, out of date. His thinking had moved on.

'Big drive back tomorrow morning,' he said. 'Might make it an early night, if you don't mind.'

Roger stepped forward, held out his hand once more. Jim took it. Shook it hard.

'It's been great seeing you again Roger, and it's lovely to see Mum happy. Good stuff, mate.' The handshake went on and on.

Jim could do it. He was pretty sure he could do it. 'Geez . . . you know . . . I can't help thinking that you remind me of someone . . .'

Rose looked at Jim, her face pinched with worry. For just a moment, she looked like his mother again: ageing, lonely, alone. Roger's hardworking old shoulders pulled themselves back, and he seemed to grow taller. His eyebrows shot up, in a look that was quizzical, resigned and amused, all at the same time. The sort of look that would have to be practised in front of a mirror, Jim thought. Roger grinned a perfect twinkle smile.

'I know, I know mate,' Roger said, sighing, his voice dropping an octave. He put his hands on his hips and one leg in front of the other, like a model about to turn at the end of a catwalk. 'Hang on, I need something . . .' Roger lurched around Rose's lounge, frantic in his search for a tyre substitute. He picked up the black cane firewood basket from the hearth.

'I'm Vince Martin and this is a . . .'

'Bald tyre.' Jim said. 'Yes, that's the guy. Vince Martin. Crikey, Roger. It's uncanny. An amazing similarity.'

'The resemblance
is
amazing,' Rose said. 'Don't you think, Jim?'

'Isn't it,' said Jim. 'Isn't it just.'

Ruth has been out and about all day, making the most of it. This is what everyone at home said she must do, when she told them about the trip to Chicago. You deserve it, they said.

So today she did
Visual Arts and Museums
. She is exhausted, and blames it on the
Loop Sculptures Tour
which, she concedes, sits logically with
Visual Arts
but due to its two-mile distance might be more honestly categorised as
Sports, Health and Fitness
. Or maybe
City Walks.
However, she is reasonably sure the worst is over. By worst she doesn't mean bad, she means most tiring.

On the flight from Auckland to LA she read the guide book from cover to cover. It seemed sensible then to divide the sections of the book (ten) by the number of days (five) that they would be in Chicago. But now she is not so sure it is the right way of going about things.

She sits on the edge of the hotel bed and pulls sneakers and damp socks off her sore feet. These are her everyday gardening shoes back home, but unfamiliar pavements have rubbed them up the wrong way. The socks land in the corner of the room, where a pile of dirty clothing is accumulating.

The laundry service will take care of it all. Use it — it's paid for by the conference, Peter said. They iron everything! But Ruth doesn't want her bits and pieces mixed up with underwear and socks and tee-shirts from all over the world.

Day three, and she is yet to unpack her suitcase. Why don't you hang your clothes up? Use the drawers? Peter asked on the first day. Ruth thought she detected a hint of an American accent: why don't cha? but that was probably just her. She can't explain why she wants her things to remain tightly packed in the suitcase; staying together at all times, like children on a school trip.

His suits fit nicely over those strange coat hangers in the wardrobe, the ones attached to the rail so they can't be stolen. They slip on easily, as though hugging old friends. Peter goes to international conferences all the time, so of course his suits would know what to do.

It's okay, she said. You use the space. I'm fine. .

The weekend before she left, Ruth visited her parents. Her father was asleep on the old couch in the lounge when she arrived; she could hear the snores as she wandered into the house. He was stretched out long, the sport section of the newspaper opened out over him like a blanket. His head was tilted to one side, ruddy cheek marked with the diamond indentations of the pillow. Mouth open a little, just enough to let the big sounds escape.

He would have been up at five o'clock — milking cows, feeding calves. A day's work completed by eleven, a midday nap, then back into it in the early afternoon. This was how he had always been. Clamped to the land like a chattel. It was her earliest memory of him, coming in tired from morning milking.

Her mother appeared from somewhere outside, a bucket full of tiny mandarins in her arms. She was looking well — a few more lines on her face, but her quick step and big smile gave the years back to her. Ruth kissed her on the cheek.

'How's things?'

'Good love — I thought I'd pick these for you to take home. The tree's just about falling over, there's so many this year.'

They had cups of tea in the kitchen, around the old, lemon-coloured Formica table that had been there forever.

'Where are those biscuits, Trish?' her father said. No pleases or thank yous, as Ruth's mother got up from the table to search the pantry. She found the ones he liked and passed them to him.

'They're soft,' he said, pushing the packet away. 'How long have they been open?'

Her mother returned to the pantry. She came back with a new packet and opened them in front of him.

'There you go,' she said. 'Try those.'

Ruth said nothing. This was how love worked for them.

'So,' her father said. 'How's Peter? Working hard?' Ruth could see the smirk on his face, hear the sarcasm in his voice. 'All those business lunches . . . must take it out of him . . .'

'Stop it Geoff. You do this every time . . .' Trish's voice was quiet, anxious. 'Just stop it.'

'It's okay Mum. Don't worry about it.' Ruth was past caring about the goading. She just felt sorry for her mother, when he started.

He got up from the table. No time for pleasantries — he was a busy man.

'Bye love, have a good trip. Where are you going again?'

'Chicago, Dad. Good to see you . . .'

But he was already at the door, slippers off, gumboots in his sights. .

There is a tiny Belgian chocolate, wrapped in gold foil, on Ruth's pillow and another on Peter's — the calling cards of proud and adept Hotel Adagio housemaids. Ruth unwraps hers and lets the chocolate dissolve slowly in her mouth. Then she reaches across the bed and takes Peter's. The richness of the taste overwhelms her; it is almost too much. Almost.

On the first morning, Ruth made the bed to the best of her ability. Starched heavy sheets smoothed, then pulled up tight and tucked in around the long edges. Two black wool blankets, with little hotel motifs embroidered on the top right corners. Then the enormous white counterpane, manoeuvred and tugged from one side of the bed to the other, until it sat just so. Mountains of pillows, stacked evenly on his side and hers. When she got back late in the day from doing
Lake Michigan:The Waterfront
, she saw that it had been stripped back, remade. She was insulted; it was only after two days that she understood someone's livelihood depended on her laziness.

She keeps finding other gifts in surprising places — potpourri sachets on the dresser, manicure kits in the tiled bathroom, a lovely thin silver pen and stationery at the work desk. All marked clearly With Our Compliments. She puts them all in her bag, discovering to her delight that they are replaced each day with new goodies. .

Ruth was fourteen when they'd planned the big holiday. The middle of winter, 1977. Europe. Five weeks of no school, no teachers, no wind and rain.

Trish had returned to teaching to pay for the trip. Three years, that's how long it had taken her to save the money. Three years of preparing and freezing a week's meals on a Sunday night, three years of late-night lesson preparation and farm work before dawn, before the school day began.

But it would all be worth it, Ruth heard her mother say a million times. A wonderful experience, something they would share, remember, laugh about for the rest of their lives. The departure date — July the fifth — had a big red circle around it on the Wrightson's calendar in the kitchen. On the page with
High Country: Cecil Peak Farm
and a photo of hills and snow that Ruth found boring. Underneath the 5, in her mother's neat round school-teacher writing, LEAVE FOR LONDON.

At first, Ruth had resisted the idea of the family holiday — lobbied hard, even, to stay behind. I can't be away from school that long, she claimed, I'll miss too much important stuff. That, of course, was not true, and eventually Ruth had come around to the idea. There'd be shopping — loads of it. And it would be summer over there, she would come back with a tan.

Then one night, not long before they were due to leave, she'd come into the kitchen. It was after dinner and her mother was washing dishes, stacking them on the yellow plastic rack. It was Ruth's turn to dry.

Her mother was staring downwards, not moving, as though she was searching the soapy suds for something lost. Her hair — longer then, only just starting to turn grey — hung forward across her face.

Her father was sitting at the table, his arms folded across his chest. His face looked as hard as a shiny rock: muscles tense around his jaw, eyes squinting with the effort of not looking at anyone.

'What's up?' Ruth took a tea towel from the top drawer under the bench.

'We're not going, that's what's up.' Apart from the barest movement of his lips, nothing about her father shifted.

'What?'

Ruth's mother drew her hands out of the soapy water and let them rest on the side of the sink. They had been in the water too long and were bright pink. Ruth saw little bubbles sliding slowly off the side of them and popping away to nothing.

'We can't go, love. The trip is off.' Trish looked at Ruth. Her eyes were red and ugly. Ruth had never seen her mother cry before.

'Why's it off? Why can't we go?'

'Because the relief milker has pulled out, that's why. There's no one to look after the farm.' Her mother's voice was as flat as a plain.

'That's not fair,' Ruth shouted. 'That's just stupid. Why can't we get another milker?' She stormed around the kitchen, slamming cupboard doors shut.

'Your father says there's no one else. No one good enough to look after things properly.' Ruth's mother turned back to the sink and put her hands back in the water. The bubbles were gone now, the water a dull brown with a film of grease across the top. The grease formed bracelets around her wrists.

'Dad. Come on.' Ruth turned to her father. He hadn't moved. Not one muscle.

'Dad, there must be someone. Come on. You know what this means to Mum.'

'Sorry love.' That's all he would say. And he still wouldn't look at her.

It blew over quickly, really, the whole business about the trip. A few weeks on, and it was as though it had never even been discussed. Ruth figured her mother must have cancelled all the arrangements. Sometime near the end of July Ruth noticed that the bright red ring around the number 5 had a thick black diagonal line through it, like one of those No Smoking posters. No 5ing, Ruth thought. How dumb.

Entertainment
is seen to in the evenings, when Peter is free. The night before they did
Dining Out
, gorging on fat, bloody slabs of meat at a steakhouse made famous by an overweight American actor; Ruth has forgotten his name. Tonight they will do
Comedy Clubs.

Ruth lies on the perfect smooth bed and listens to the city outside. It never stops: horns, engines, whistles and beeps. If she closes her eyes she can see the millions of people living in layers, one on top of each other, like lasagne. It is like this all the time: active, exhausting, even in the dead of night.