The House Guest Read online

  None of which disturbed her cheerful goodwill, her pleasure in every aspect of her rewarding life.

  ‘Why the hell, Mum?’ said Murray each time she wheeled out her bike to ride to the appropriate church on Saturdays to check on the back view of Tina’s or Diane’s or whichever bridal gown would soon be viewed as it headed up the aisle.

  ‘I like to make sure it’s perfect, the pleats and gathers hanging straight and that. All it needs usually is a quick twitch but you have to know what you’re doing. It’s what people mostly see, the back. And it’s their big day. I like to have it all lovely with flowers and white and horseshoes and proper music and everything.’ Maureen’s grin was lopsided. ‘Then they fall into the sink and if they’re lucky he stays, but honestly …’

  She glanced around her kingdom, smiled at the hulking three-piece, the ziggurat bricks, the muffled Bernina and laughed aloud, ‘Where would I put him now?’

  Love of life and people flowed from her, as from Lisa. A trip to the dairy took her twice as long as most. There were babies to be clucked at, toddlers to be chatted up, old ladies ripe for escort at crossroads, high-tailed dogs with pricked ears to be applauded, old men who couldn’t understand the form which had arrived that morning and could Mrs, er, just … Of course she could and let’s do it right now.

  And what about Bernie whose husband had been made redundant for the second time, a fully trained machinist and now look at him. What did they think they were playing at in the Beehive, giving themselves a pay rise while people like Tony, decent hard-working voters like Tony … Oh, she could weep.

  Other people’s problems appalled her. She strode through life marvelling at her own good fortune. Her cropped hair hung straight, her eyes, triangular as Mrs Thatcher’s but more benign, snapped with happiness, her smile illuminated.

  Robin could see where Lisa came from; the clear skin, the smile, the goodwill. But when had Maureen taken root? Could she ever have run, jumped, danced all night, this solid planted woman? Moved with speed, skipped, appeared and disappeared in moments like her adorable wisp of a daughter? Maureen’s arms and legs now moved as though wading through swamp water. She soldiered on.

  ‘Cheers,’ she said, lifting her sherry glass. She only had four left now but fortunately the boys always had beer. Someone, the Barkers from Kelburn, wasn’t it?—had given them six for their wedding which had been a generous present in those days and it was sad two had broken but that’s life.

  ‘Cheers.’ United in fellowship the neighbours drank.

  Maureen turned to smile at Miss Bowman who had knocked back her sherry in two swift gulps and placed the dregs on the glass table beside her with a faint ping.

  Robin inspected his mother’s new perm. As she had told him, the last row hadn’t taken; the rollers had been too big. You can always tell when they skimp the bottom and Eileen had never liked that new girl.

  Did he love her, he wondered. Of course he loved her. It wasn’t her fault, her lost pitiful life. It was the scaffolding’s. But if she had been a man would he have greeted her with enthusiasm, shouted her a drink at the nearest pub as he would Maureen. Eileen’s maternal love had unexpectedly tightened, had pulled from both sides like the strings of an ancient sponge bag since he had told her about Lisa. ‘Engaged!’ Her laugh was merry. Merryish. ‘To Lisa!’ she gasped, her hands clutched in front of her chest like a supplicant squirrel. ‘Isn’t she very young?’

  ‘We’re not getting married for a while yet.’

  ‘Oh.’ Eileen picked up the faded velvet cushion from her chair, gave it a quick bang and replaced it. ‘Well dear, I hope you’ll be very happy’

  Robin put his arms around her. ‘Mum?’

  She pulled away, looked at him politely, touched her grey spectacle frames with a quick hand. ‘Yes, dear?’

  ‘And here’s to the happy couple,’ laughed Maureen. Miss Bowman lifted her empty glass, peered in it without hope and replaced it.

  ‘Engaged couple,’ murmured Eileen.

  ‘Engaged happy couple,’ crowed Maureen, happier than ever.

  Rob put his arm round Lisa. She smoothed her mini, her head was down. ‘That’s lovely, thank you.’ The nape of her neck where her hair parted, the deep pale hollow at the base destroyed him. He kissed it fiercely, would like to have bitten it.

  Her hands flew upwards, ‘Robin!’

  Murray leaned back. His walk shorts had water melons on them, the bottom button of his shirt had come undone, his navel was hairy. ‘Going to Bohème next week?’ he asked.

  Confused, aching with lust, Robin shook his head, the single swipe of a tormented beast. ‘No.’

  ‘Me neither. I can’t understand for the life of me why all those arty-farty types go on about opera. Nobody likes good music more than me but I just like to get right into it, know what I mean?’ Murray’s hands waved, indicated total immersion. ‘The composer, the soloist, the orchestra and me. That’s it. That’s all I want. Nothing else. With opera you’ve got all these clowns mucking about, right?’

  Miss Bowman picked up her empty glass and stared through it. ‘Some people do find the sheer richness of opera overwhelming,’ she said. ‘The passion. The drama. You don’t have to like it, Murray’

  Murray glared. ‘I know that. I’m just trying to tell you why I don’t.’

  ‘And achieving it.’

  ‘They bang on. They won’t shut up.’ Murray’s eyebrows were about to leave home, storm out the door. ‘I don’t know where they’re coming from, those creeps. All that stuff.’

  ‘Verbal appraisal in the interval can be distracting.’

  ‘I didn’t mean the audience!’

  ‘Ah.’ Miss Bowman held out her glass. ‘Would you freshen my glass, please Murray? Thank you.’ There is always a solution. Even an archaic home-grown euphemism can be called into service.

  Robin watched her with attention. She was dying, this woman. What else could possibly be happening to her. What else could cause layers of fat, cushions of flesh to disappear, to melt away like snow from a rock face to reveal the indomitable old crag beneath. And still she bothered to take on the prick and demolish him. If they had all been in the same boat as children, as Bernie maintained, Miss Bowman’s craft would have made it. Clinker built or carvel, Miss Bowman would have taken charge; rationed the water, stripped off her shirt for a makeshift sail and set course for the headlands. She gave a large, expansive, reassembling heave and smiled at him. ‘I have never thanked you properly, or not properly enough, Robin,’ she said, ‘for supporting Emmeline so gallantly when Calvin was born.’

  ‘No, no I was glad. Very glad. Yes, I mean …’ Calvin stared at him. He was now flat on his stomach chewing a clown. His eyes were dark, his cheeks scarlet, a dribble of sick appeared. Emmeline mopped.

  ‘Why Calvin?’ asked Eileen.

  Emmeline’s smile was friendly. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Calvin Coolidge. Vermont. Good man, weaned on a dill pickle or no,’ said Miss Bowman, wondering if she should risk trying for a third. The sherry glasses were elfin in size.

  ‘I’d really like to hear those people who’re coming soon,’ said Maureen who had not been listening. ‘What’s their name? You know.’ Her fingers clicked, her face was tense with the effort of recall. ‘They’re coming soon. Two of them. They were here years ago. You know! Just the main centres, I think, though I’m not sure about Dunedin. They never seem to get anyone do they. Everyone said they were wonderful. No, no, not Kiri. I’d never be able to afford Kiri and anyway she’s not coming is she. I just can’t … They were married. Two of them. Man and wife.’ Her fingers clamped the air in desperation. ‘I almost had it. You know, Murray.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Cleo Laine,’ suggested Emmie, re-siting Calvin on his rug.

  ‘Cleo Laine. That’s it! That’s the name! Cleo Laine and her husband.’

  Oh the happiness, the relief of discovery and remembering. The room was filled with Maureen’s pleasure. It is better to have lost a
nd found than never to have forgotten at all. Her face fell. But what was the husband’s?

  Murray told them about his scholarship, how it didn’t mean a thing. It was useless, absolutely useless. He’d have to live at home, he couldn’t see any way round it. As for when he got to medical school, God knows. You just had to mortgage your life away unless you were rich or a Maori or preferably both.

  Emmeline lifted her head. ‘Murray,’ said Lisa.

  A jerk, a goddamn jerk. Robin, his nose deep in DB lager, considered the word goddamn. He had liked it ever since he heard Miss Bowman chasing a rottweiler down the drive years ago. Arm upraised, skirts tucked in, Miss Bowman had given it beans. The rottweiler, after one tentative stumpy wag, had disappeared at speed. It was a pity the word wasn’t in common use. It was forceful, explosive and to the point.

  Of course he loved his mother. He was goddamn programmed to love his mother. Only sons of widowed mothers are set in concrete. He drank deeply, caught Miss Bowman’s eye and drank again. He watched the bubbles in his beer as they slid up the sides of blue plastic. In glass they come up the middle as well. He glanced at his watch, smiled weakly, stared at Lisa. ‘No, no, I’ll just perch here, Eileen,’ she said settling herself on the wide arm of the sofa. The inside of her thigh was pale, secret, there was a blue vein. Oh sweet fuck. ‘I’m quite happy here,’ she said offering him a plate of stuffed dates. He shook his head.

  ‘Oh come on, Robbie.’

  ‘No, no thanks. I don’t like dates.’

  ‘How can you not like dates? It’s like not liking coconut or something. Everyone likes dates.’

  ‘No thanks,’ he said to the succulent shine of her lips. ‘Not for me. I just don’t like them.’

  Maureen and Eileen discussed the fence between their houses which was a worry. They agreed it was on its last legs. That’s the thing about wooden fences. They don’t last for ever. The two women, their faces earnest, discussed the problem. Did the boys think there was any point in them patching it up a little? It would be lovely if it would just see them out.

  Murray looked thoughtful, pulled his lower lip. ‘No,’ he said, ‘not a chance. Not an earthly.’

  The women looked more worried.

  Robin said he would have a look at it.

  Miss Bowman said it was a pity it wasn’t on her side. A slap of paint would see her out. She held out her glass. ‘“No moaning at the bar,”’ she said.

  Eileen, hands clasped once more, looked puzzled. Maureen who had caught the drift if nothing else threw back her head to laugh. ‘Look, its Christmas,’ she said, ‘and who needs a fence anyhow? Have another sherry.’

  They talked about Robin’s new second-hand car. Did he like the colour? Was it warm and comfortable? They hoped it hadn’t got power windows. Eileen had been in a taxi with them recently and she wanted to put down the window to get rid of the air freshener which she always thought was worse than the nicotine and indeed most things. And when you got nicotine plus Summer Meadow it was beyond anything and she was fiddling about for hours trying to get the window down and the man got quite shirty. It was hopeless since taxis had been deregulated. Hopeless. Half of them can’t speak English and they won’t let on either. Just shoot off trying to pretend they know where you mean and half the time they haven’t a clue.

  Lisa was still handing and smiling and handing again. Murray, without a glance or a word, dug a fist full of peanuts with a quick downward scoop and flung them into his mouth.

  ‘’Nother beer?’

  ‘Thanks.’ Robin watched the large munching mouth, the angry eyebrows, the huge convoluted ears. Not a lovable face. Not a face to inspire confidence and trust when the doctor could finally see his way clear to see you now. A white coat might be a help but not much, and anyway did they wear them now? He sighed.

  They discussed the problem of the milkman’s unreliability. None of them trusted those cardboard packs and what other alternative was there.

  Miss Bowman yawned.

  Calvin gave a piercing wail.

  Emmeline lifted him from the floor, heaved up her sagging T-shirt and buttoned the screaming child to her breast. The evening sun fell on the threads of orange draped like saffron stigmas across the naked skull.

  The women gazed with pleasure at this maternal phenomenon which they would not have been able to practise in their day. Not feeding, not in public. Not with men.

  Robin, who had last seen Emmeline’s breasts overlaid with Calvin’s cord-attached, flayed-rabbit body, watched with interest. Murray, torn between the professional detachment of a medical student and disgust at the crassness of the woman, swigged his beer and kept his head down.

  He helped himself to another fistful of nuts. ‘When’re you and Lisa getting married?’

  ‘When she’s eighteen.’

  ‘That’s not for years.’

  ‘Just over one.’

  Torn once more between the rival put-downs of baby snatching and the bloody stupidity of waiting, Murray was silent.

  The clock whirred, clicked, heaved itself together and chimed seven.

  ‘Look at the time,’ said Eileen leaping to her feet.

  Three

  The wedding. Yes, the wedding. They had been sleeping together for eight months but the wedding had to wait until April. Lisa insisted on Easter.

  She sat on his knee on the back porch, her head against his chest, his hands cupping her breasts as she explained her reasons.

  ‘Its traditional. I’ve always wanted to be an Easter bride.’

  ‘But that’s England.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It’s spring there. Resurrection. New life.’

  ‘But we’re not having a baby straight off.’

  ‘No, no. “The Lord is risen.” Chickens. Lambs. All that.’

  ‘Oh I’m not fussed about that. It’s just that it’s traditional. And it’ll have to be tiny. We’ll have to pay. Mum can’t, not with Murray’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ The heart does sink. You can feel it sliding down, slipping into the left shoe. Still it was worth a go. ‘Why have the whole works? All that money. Why don’t we save it for somewhere to live?’

  ‘But I can’t not have a wedding!’

  It crippled them, leached them dry as export sphagnum moss, but she had it, that was the main thing, and was happy. She had the church and the vicar and ‘Here Comes the Bride’ and The Prophet (‘For life goes not backwards, nor tarries with yesterday’) and the friends and the caterers and the biggest triumph of all which was the wedding frock. For weeks Maureen had lived and breathed white satin. Had draped and pinned and ruched and fitted and redraped again. ‘It’s lovely to have a size eight to play with,’ she said. ‘So many of my ladies are sixteen or more. With one or two I don’t use the tape even. The gap would be too awful. I just take a quick guess. You get quite good at it after a while.’

  The girls from A Bench all came though Dr Biddle couldn’t make it at the last minute; a few of Robin’s ex-colleagues from zoology who shared his enthusiasm for the bush; one or two from the English department but not many. Karen from botany greeted the bridal party with wide-armed enthusiasm. ‘Baby fucker,’ she whispered in Robin’s ear and moved on to kiss the bride.

  The bridesmaid, Sandy, yes Sandy, wore pink and seemed happy. The bride was adorable. She had her wedding, her day, her apotheosis. She was a bride. Robin watched her across the hall; pink-nosed with delight, lips damp, eyes aglow. Literally aglow, he couldn’t take his own from her as she danced from guest to guest. Yes, the ruching was lovely wasn’t it, Mum had spent hours. Would Aunty Mavis like a chair? Was she sure? Oh well then, as long as she was sure. Hello! Hi! Great to see you guys. Thanks. Yeah, Mum made it. Well yeah, but she trained as a cutter. Hi. You made it then! Cheers. Good to see ya.

  He found himself beside Emmeline. Rake-thin, relaxed, she leaned against the wall and watched. Her scarlet jacket fitted and flared above black leather jodhpurs and dusty boots, her bush of hair was tied back. Rake
helly, that was the word, Hellfire Club, moonlit hell-for-leathers beneath gibbous moons. He was pleased to see her.

  ‘How’s the actress?’

  ‘Actor, dumb-bum. Actor.’

  She really did look most unusual. ‘I just wanted the kneejerk reaction.’ He rubbed the shoulders of his rented suit against the wall beside her; it was a bit tight across the shoulders. ‘I like the way the non-sexist bias flips about. There’s a sneaky policy change. Cabinet Ministers have affairs with actresses, not actors. Unless of course they do. Ever noticed that?’

  ‘Sure. That’s part of the fun.’

  ‘“In this day and age”?’

  They grinned at each other, surrounded by noise and food and ritual practices and happiness.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Still battling on. You know what she said yesterday?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I wonder which bit’s going to drop off next.’ Emmeline sniffed, flicked her hand to her nose.

  He glanced around looking for his glass. She handed him hers. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It affects me like that too. That’s why I’m drinking like a fish.’

  ‘You are not drinking like a fish!’ he snapped.

  ‘Small fish.’ She demonstrated, guppy fingers gulping. Calvin, hair flaming at knee level, eclair drooping in one hand, hurtled towards his trousers.

  Emmie swooped, swung him high in the air. ‘Not on the wedding pants, honbun.’

  ‘Hi, Calvin.’

  The brief glance was framed by cream and chocolate. ‘Hi.’

  Surely he saw beneath the disguise. ‘You remember me, Calvin.’

  The child was busy, twisting and turning towards the mangled chocolate eclair held beyond reach. ‘Nah.’

  Deflated, Rob ran his hand over the orange bullet head. It was like caressing Miss Bowman’s boot-wiper.

  ‘How’s your thesis?’ asked Emmie, unleashing Calvin once more.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I keep asking what it’s called. Bit of a giveaway not to remember. Something about Henry James, isn’t it? Too long. Heavy in the bottom. I like thin books.’