All the Nice Girls Read online

  She now sat cross-legged beside him, supple as a child gymnast.

  ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘The back door was open.’

  His eyes swam. He and Win had always been so careful. They had checked and double-checked, laughed at themselves, assured each other they were better to be sure than sorry. He mopped his face. ‘It’s still trespass.’

  ‘I had to go somewhere.’

  Arnie felt the sag of tiredness in his legs, the back of his neck. It was all going to take too long. He should have stoked his rage, kept his head of steam at the start. He began the long grind back to self-induced outrage, apoplexy and oblivion.

  ‘Why did you have to go anywhere?’

  ‘I had to get out. It’s one of my flatmates. A shocker,’ she touched her upper arms, her chest. ‘Quite violent.’

  Arnie looked at her with suspicion. He’d seen by the paper that violence in the home was on the increase. But she looked too relaxed, her eyes too calm beneath the jaunty cap. If it had been one of those other poor little things who sat about on the steps he would have been more concerned. The one with the mad hair, or the one seen in the dairy with a bandage on her arm. But he was a daft old man. He didn’t want to know about it. He didn’t believe her.

  ‘You can’t stay here,’ he said.

  The instantaneousness of youth, the sheer wanton waste of energy. Up, down, down, up. She was now in the fernery. ‘Nice,’ she said. ‘Or has been.’

  Dragging himself upright in his chair, Arnie lurched towards her.

  She patted his arm. ‘All right, all right.’

  He leaned against the door jamb. There was no sound but his breathing.

  The overgrown garden gleamed before them. Two sparrows were fighting, all beaks and outstretched wings. A gull swooped, stabbed and sailed upwards, the one dry crust hanging.

  ‘I told you,’ she said, turning back to the ferns. ‘You’ll drop dead if you go on like that.’

  The fernery had been Win’s idea. Arnie had built the slatted benches, arranged the rake of the shelves to her specifications, accepted her thanks and signed off. The final result, the green perfection of a place which had once been a passage to the bathroom, was her work. There had never been a brown frond in her day, let alone a dead one. Maidenhair shimmered beside hen and chicken, blechnum outgrew astelia. She borrowed books from the library, studied them, showed him the fertile fronds and was careful not to overwater. The small diamonds of black and white linoleum beneath reflected the greenness. It was now a shrine, a failed shrine. Something was killing them. In the past year the ferns had languished, faded away before his baffled eyes like a Victorian heroine in a decline. Fronds withered, were transformed to brown grasping claws. Big pinnules turned yellow, small pinnules sulked, the lino had ceased to shine. The shrine had gone wrong.

  Arnie moved a shaking hand. ‘Ashes,’ he muttered, ‘my wife’s ashes.’

  She was open-mouthed, staring at the serried pots. ‘Whaat?’

  Peace, unexpected as weather change, descended again. Why he had told her he didn’t know, couldn’t imagine. Arnie’s eyes closed in gratitude to something, anything, whatever it was that had quietened him. He heard her voice.

  ‘That’s probably what’s killing them.’

  His eyes snapped open. She peered at a drooping True Maidenhead in a cracked pot, put out a hand and touched it.

  He stumbled, clutched the architrave, shouting. ‘No! No!’

  She shrugged and moved out to the verandah. ‘Have it your way.’

  He sank down panting. Why had she come, let alone stayed. Why did he not hate her. Because she might be useful. Or something. He watched the sparrows. They had calmed down too. There was plenty for all.

  ‘You can stay for an egg if you like,’ he said eventually.

  ‘There aren’t any, unless you’ve any others.’

  ‘No.’

  She was unconcerned. ‘That’s it then.’

  ‘I’ve got some bread. Cheese. Lots of jam.’ Acres of jam going sugary on shelf after shelf.

  ‘I like marmalade.’

  ‘There’s plenty.’ He paused, watching her. She was sitting beside him again. At ease, cross-legged, attentive. He was tempted to tell her about his hiccough attacks. Resisted. Felt infinitely tired. The thought of stoking up a rage after two wasted opportunities exhausted him. He didn’t believe her story but there would be time, time tomorrow when he felt better. But then she’d have to stay the night. Oh God. He looked at her bleakly.

  She smiled for the first time. The slow secret smile of those who smile seldom. Who don’t squander the product.

  ‘Who owns the house where you live?’

  ‘My Aunt Bertha.’ She turned, her hair moving beneath the silly little cap.

  He remembered her, a piratical figure in trousers. ‘Mrs Boniface.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Well then. Get the police. He has no legal right … this man.’

  ‘Not legal, no.’

  ‘There must be someone to advise you. Some man.’

  ‘Man?’ She stretched her legs in front of her and inspected the dungarees, sucked her finger and rubbed at something. Licked it again and rerubbed. ‘My sister’s married to a naval officer. William Flynn.’

  He saw the large amiable shape outlined against the pittosporum at the back door, the hands proffering two tin containers and plastic pottles of congealed custard. She had admired the fernery. ‘A Mrs Flynn brought us Meals on Wheels when my wife was sick. Sophie Flynn.’ How on earth had he remembered that.

  ‘That’s her.’

  It couldn’t be. She was lying again.

  ‘God, what a prick the man is,’ she said.

  There was no reaction.

  ‘Go to your sister. Your brother-in-law,’ he said finally. Authority would get him out of this. Navy blue arm-swinging authority, fixed bayonets and gaiters would solve this mess.

  ‘He’s at sea.’

  Arnie sighed. Everything was impossible. His decision to use her as a catalyst for self-slaughter was ridiculous. He could see that now. He was too tired and would be tomorrow. He’d run out of puff. Even his rage at Win’s betrayal in leaving him had lessened.

  ‘You’ll have to go,’ he said.

  ‘Actually,’ she said, giving the word the attention of a small child, ‘I’ve been lying to you.’

  The face was still wooden. ‘Why?’

  ‘The man I live with … Ben,’ she bent forward laughing, ‘is a genuine ex-Californian no-hoper. Well, sort of. He’s a good painter but he’s too tired to move over, let alone hit anything. William loathes him,’ she added smugly.

  ‘Why did you lie to me?’

  ‘My cat’s disappeared. I haven’t seen him since this morning.’

  He waited.

  ‘I’ve been searching all the backyards in the road. The door was open, like I said. I thought he might have slipped in, you know how cats do. He’s … I’m very fond of Chester. And then you came home and I thought he’ll think I’ve pinched something and he’ll never believe I’m looking for Chester, so I lied. I made it up.’

  ‘Do you always lie?’ As if it mattered. Arnie wanted her to keep talking, to tell him more things, to continue.

  ‘Only to irritate William.’

  ‘You’re different to your sister.’

  The slow smile reappeared. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am.’

  Sophie and Mary sat with their feet up after lunch, their behinds deep in deckchairs, their legs propped on the balustrade of the verandah. Their eyes followed the Kestrel as, predestined as a tram, she left Devonport ferry wharf and shoved across the harbour. There was no sign of Chester. Sophie offered advice. ‘Contact the SPCA, put notices in shops, the papers.’

  ‘It’s Sunday, dumb-bum.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘An old man thought I’d pinched something. This morning, when I was looking for Ches. Well, the door was open …’ She was silent. Not the ashes, not now. And any
how Sophie was half asleep.

  Chester-loving Sophie had stopped listening. She was thinking.

  ‘Why on earth did Mum and Dad get married in the first place?’ she said later, knocking aside a lone blowfly left over from summer.

  Mary picked up the rubber swat which lay to hand. Caught on the wing, the fat black thing now whizzed in circles, thread legs kicking. The swat moved again. Silence. ‘God knows,’ she said, righting herself.

  ‘It’s odd, isn’t it, how you can never be sure of anything.’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘Yes.’ Sophie paused. ‘And Mum, of course. But Dad, say.’ The pause was longer. ‘Remember the Portuguese generals?’

  Small waves glinted below them, reassembled themselves, glinted again. It was mild for June. Mary’s eyes closed. ‘What?’

  ‘That’s the only definite statement I ever remember him making. “All Portuguese generals are fat.” He said that, one Sunday.’

  Mary’s eyes did not open.

  Sophie saw the knife slicing the top off the forequarter for cold tomorrow, dividing the chined chops beneath with speed. She couldn’t remember how the generals cropped up. Conversation was limited at River Bend Orchard. Usually the four of them sat in silence at meal times, the bracket clock ticking on the sideboard and the Doyenne du Cornice trees lined in rows beyond the window.

  ‘I wondered at the time how he knew,’ said Sophie.

  ‘He didn’t.’

  ‘No. But at least he said something.’

  The unease of childhood returned, the carver’s fingers on the steel. And outside the pear trees and the dusty heat for miles. The slow cycle from bare branches to laden to naked once more gave their mother no comfort. Not a drop.

  ‘He must’ve thought it was a safe topic,’ said Sophie eventually.

  ‘Hh.’

  Sophie heaved herself upright. ‘Hang on,’ she said to Mary who hadn’t moved. ‘I’ll get Mum’s letter.’ She was not swift footed, Sophie. Unlike Mary she did not dart, leap, appear and disappear with speed. She had her own grace however; she flowed. She was a comely woman. Vague, but comely.

  She returned and flopped into the vacant deckchair, wriggled, rearranged the fullness of her skirt, attentive to its placement as a sitting hen. The letter, her busy mother’s letter, hung from her hand.

  ‘Dad told me,’ she said, waving the letter slightly to indicate the connection, ‘that he could tell from the tone of her voice which one of us Mum was talking to. If it was you her voice brightened. He could tell, he said, even from the packing shed.’

  ‘Balls.’

  Sophie’s voice was mild. ‘That’s what he said. I mean, I don’t mind or anything.’

  The ferry had berthed, slipped alongside the city wharf, made it dead on time.

  Mary realigned her moccasins on the balustrade, shifted them from side to side in quick irritation. ‘It was thirty years ago! Grow up. Why on earth did he tell you? It’s a dumb thing to tell anyone. Let alone a quaking bog.’

  ‘Bog?’ Sophie’s smile lightened the faint heaviness of her face, brightened her eyes. Like Mary’s it achieved a lot, but more often. ‘He wasn’t being, you know, nasty or anything. He just thought it was interesting.’

  ‘Hopeless.’ Mary snorted. ‘And typical.’

  A white-fronted tern dived, wings cranked back, beak poised. Surfaced again. Wheeled upwards for another go. ‘And anyway you don’t like him. I do.’

  ‘Dear old Soph.’

  ‘And don’t call me Soph.’

  Mary didn’t bother to reply.

  Sophie had always liked her name. Nana Barnsley had told her it was a nice comfortable name but even this had not put her off. But Soph is not the same; amputation has killed it.

  She did not know where her mother found the name. It never occurred to her that her father could have had any part in the decision. It was considered suspect at Primary and weird at High. Now there are hundreds. The name has caught on.

  ‘Sophie,’ she used to murmur to herself as a child, as though her doppelgänger, her spirited other half, would appear from behind the speckled mirror and melt into her, whereupon both she and life itself would be a great deal better. She desired the end but disliked the process, the staring into that face, the concentration, the nothingness. The hairs on the back of her neck pricked as the unknown stared back. ‘Sophie,’ she insisted to its blankness. ‘Your name is Sophie. Sophie Driscoll. You live with your nice kind mother and your father and your sister Mary at River Bend Road Orchard, Greytown.’ The face remained doubtful.

  Mary, two years younger and sensible beyond her years, thought she was mad. ‘Get into bed, Soph!’ she said, clutching her winceyette nightie with elves on it tight round her and taking a running jump at hers.

  ‘I prefer to be called Sophie,’ Sophie told the now-returning ferry.

  ‘All right,’ said Mary who never would. The letter hung from Sophie’s hand. She should have insisted years ago. But it was not too late. Her feet tapped in affirmation. She will tell William when his ship comes home. She is thirty-three for heaven’s sake.

  The Commodore always called her Sophie.

  ‘What does Mum say?’ asked Mary.

  ‘They’re coming up.’

  ‘Oh!’ Mary scratched her nose and inspected the result. ‘When?’

  ‘After the last of the Granny Smiths are in. Before the pruning. Next month.’

  Their mother, Erin, did not write often as she was busy. She was busy in the packing shed because their father was useless and she had to organise the packers and the pickers and the outdoor staff, to say nothing of the business side of things. Not only was their father useless but their mother had to do all the cooking and the house as well which was enough in all conscience let alone at her age. ‘But it’s the so-called slack time now the last of the Grannys are in and I’m thinking he and I might come up soon, how about that?’

  ‘Hh.’ said Mary. She paused. ‘Have you noticed her bottom teeth lately?’

  ‘No.’

  Mary’s eyes were on the ferry wharf again. ‘They’re getting more and more horselike. Leading a life of their own down there. Huge.’

  ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

  Useless people should not be useless; Sophie knew this, had always known it. It was their fault. As Erin (and William) said, someone has to get the show on the road. Life is hard for the forceful. They have so much to do, their own tasks, organising the useless, and then there is all the checking up required, the gleeful pouncing on sins of omission. Life for those in charge is exhausting and never-ending and frustrating beyond words. Sophie had learnt this at her mother’s knee.

  She did not blame anyone for her failure to seize life and knock it into shape. After all, look at Mary. She eyed her sister, a quick sideways glance. Mary was slim, almost wiry. Yesterday in the middle of winter she’d worn Sea Island cotton. Today it was Ben’s paint-stained dungarees. She lived in chaos or had since Ben moved in. She had thrown up a well-paid job and taken up beachcombing. She searched the wild black sands of west coast beaches and came back with the boot of the Morris crammed. She cleaned the pieces of driftwood and gave them names. Kare kare, Kotuku, Spume. Sometimes she added a spinifex. People bought them and ikebana was a help. No one could call her unenterprising and she and Sophie had had the same parents had they not, the same upbringing. There was nothing different at all. Except that right from the start Mary could make Erin laugh, sing even. She would drag her mother to the piano, the wet saucepan still dangling from her hand. ‘Play “Irish Eyes” Mum. Please.’ Later Mary took over, hamming up the old songs. ‘Girls were made to love and kees,’ she roared till the shivery grass in the mug on the upright shook and Tip the collie howled with delight or pain.

  ‘Stop it, stop it,’ cried her mother, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘I’ll wet my pants!’ But Mary was ruthless.

  ‘Give me some men who are stout-hearted men / And I’ll soon give you ten thousand more,’ she bellowed as her
mother begged for mercy.

  Sophie and their father watched smiling and hesitant from the doorway. Sophie’s fingers were stretched wide. Such moments were rare. Next day was the spraying and more incompetence on his part with smudge pots unlit and subsequent frost losses. Keith Driscoll certainly seemed ineffective to his offspring but their mother would not accept this either. It was his own fault. He had ruined himself. Gone to pot to spite her. He could have done anything! Anything. Look at his hands. He still had the hands. He could have done anything.

  It is difficult to be a successful orchardist. If you survive natural disasters of drought, flood, frosts and disease, other people have too and the result is a glut. Arms folded to her chest, Erin had the answer. ‘He won’t help himself. Never has.’

  Her heartbreaking impotent frustration went back as far as they could remember.

  Sophie and Mary had played in the packing shed since they were babies. It was (and still is) a large unlined building, the roof cathedral high, the old grader clanking away at the back in the apple season. Their father lifted them up to watch the sorting process whereby each apple found its ordained slot to slip through, tripped its leather trapdoor and flopped down to lie with its own kind in segregated pens: Small, Medium, Large.

  Their father smelled of apples and sweat and was patient, stepping around and over them as they played on the floor, restowing them and their Dinky toys and clapped-out dolls beneath the smoko table when they strayed too near the grader. Tip hunted for fleas beside them. Mary chose the games, marshalled her battery of cars, let Sophie be the bowser lady as she roared up for petrol and burned off again with phantom brakes squealing. Sophie read comics till her sister’s return to base.

  Their cot hung high above them in the rafters, cocooned in cobwebs and lit by the skylight. The Plunket wickerwork pram hung alongside. ‘No more of that nonsense, thank God,’ Erin told Esther, the most reliable of the pickers. Bunches of dusty oreganum dried ten years ago hung lower down. Pieces of obsolete machinery lay rusting in a heap of mangled iron at the back. Pre-cut pine slabs waiting to be made into apple boxes lay in teetering piles alongside. It was not a tidy shed. Their mother, as she said frequently, had given up on appearances. She had enough on her plate keeping her head above water. She banished the children from the shed at the height of the season. They were in the way. They retreated to the rough grass beneath the Golden Queens and watched out for wasps. ‘Don’t blame me if you get stung,’ she told them. ‘I’ve warned you.’