Etiquette for a Dinner Party Read online

  You and I cannot talk about why we are in France. My job, your determination to be with me. Instead, we talk about the need for a hangi list.

  It is after midnight. We are in Pascal’s spare bedroom, in the old stone cottage that is his weekend home. This is the darkest room I have ever been in; more black than the inside of my eyelids.

  ‘You don’t make a list for a hangi,’ you say.

  ‘I know that. But it’s easier if we leave them a list. Otherwise they won’t know what to do.’

  ‘It’ll sort itself out. Christ. Whoever heard of making a list for a hangi?’

  ‘Well, how else do we do it? We’ve talked nothing but hangi all day, and we’re no further ahead. Someone comes up with another crazy idea and …’

  ‘Look. I’ll come down here a couple of days before, and do it all then. Honestly, it’ll be fine.’

  ‘This was your idea.’ My words hang heavy in the dark.

  ‘Coming to France wasn’t.’

  Then you are asleep. .

  Three days out from the hangi, and you’ve gone to Bourgogne. I am in the Paris apartment alone when the phone rings.

  ‘Hi Anna, it’s Sabine, calling from Talcy.’ She sounds excited as we exchange greetings. ‘I’m at the bar. Anna, we have so many snails, it’s wonderful. They are hanging in the tree in a sack. They have been fasting for five days and now they are disgorging in the salt. They will be ready for the hangi.’

  ‘That’s fantastic, Sabine.’ I have seen disgorging. I try not to think about the stalactites of slimy snot dripping down from the bag. ‘They will be beautiful, I know.’

  ‘Yes, they will be. Delicious. Anna. I am really just ringing to talk to you about the chicken.’

  ‘The chicken.’

  ‘Yes. There is a big crowd here tonight. Well, you know, big for Talcy. And we are arguing. So I thought I’d just ring you. Everyone is getting organised for the hangi. And they want to know. For the chicken. Do you think poulet Provençal, or something local, maybe coq au vin?’

  I close my eyes. ‘Sabine, is Rob there, by chance?’

  ‘Yes, yes, he arrived today … oh, you mean, at the bar? No, Pascal is here, but not Rob.’

  ‘Could I speak to Pascal please?’

  ‘Of course, wait …’

  ‘Hi Anna, ça va?’ Pascal’s excitement bounces down the phone.

  ‘Ça va, Pascal. Listen. What’s this business about chicken?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Anna. I have already told them, no French dishes in a hangi. I will tell them again. Really, we are just playing with ideas, thinking about some of the possibilities …’

  ‘Pascal, there are no possibilities. Really, this type of thing just won’t work in a hangi …’

  ‘I hear you, Anna, please, don’t worry about it. I will sort it out.’ There is a buzz of conversation in the background — I hear the words ‘marinade’ and ‘brochettes de porc’. ‘See you Saturday morning. You are coming on the train, n’est-ce pas?’

  ‘Yes … Pascal — can you get Rob to ring me please?’

  But he is gone; the line is an empty buzz.

  That night I have one of those dreams that leave an open wound for days. I relive our final twenty-four hours in New Zealand — the farewell hangi that your people gave for us. I sit again with our friends, peeling potato and kumara and dropping them into the big yellow plastic bucket filled with cold water. The sun on my back is real, so warm. We are laughing at you men as you dig, preparing the hangi pit. You pass the spade frequently, feigning generosity when we can see you are all exhausted from the digging and keen for another beer.

  Next, we are standing around the steaming mound of dirt. You gently scrape away the soil from the sacking and the cloths. I watch you, already a leader among your people. And then I smell it: the steam and the dirt and the food combined; there is no other smell like it in the world. It is the smell that I remember first, when I wake next morning. .

  It is the first of May. It has snowed through the night and it is snowing now. The spade is standing upright in the frozen ground, where you left it yesterday afternoon, marking the spot for the hangi. Next to the spade sits the pile of firewood, a little white mountain.

  We are in Pascal’s kitchen in Bourgogne, you and I. All around us are packages of food wrapped in tin foil. Some of the food is raw, some cooked.

  When the others leave the room, we peek inside a package. So far, we have found boeuf Bourguignon, côtelettes d’agneau a la purée d’oignons, poulet Provençal, coq au vin and porc roti. And, of course, sautéed vegetables. We have barely started to investigate. All of them look beautiful, even those still raw. We control our giggling, like chastised children, then find another package to open.

  Pascal stomps into the kitchen. ‘It never snows this late in Bourgogne. Never.’ He stares out the window and huffs again.

  The oven is on; soon it will be hot enough to begin the long, slow process of cooking a feast for many people.

  LIFELINE

  Right after lunch on Thursdays is when you telephone your daughter.

  Most times you call her from your room, on your own telephone. For the sake of peace and quiet. But last night something unexpected happened. The kowhai outside the day lounge blossomed. July is too early for this. The wind will come any time and the thick, heavy flowers will be a buttery pool on the ground. For now, though, it is a violent yellow explosion — more flowers than you ever thought possible on a single tree.

  What you would very much like to do this afternoon, after your phone call, is sit and look at the tree.

  The wicker settee in the day lounge affords the best view. The settee sits directly facing the double French doors leading out to the veranda, then the garden with its wide green lawns and distant fountain. It is known as the grandstand seat and it is very popular after lunch, when the sun reaches the west side of the home.

  You will get to the settee first, before anyone else. And what you will do is pick up the telephone in the day lounge on your way — take it with you and make your call from there. It will be noisy, you can only imagine! But you and Lee talk every Thursday and she will worry if you don’t ring. .

  Lunch is chicken soup and salmon quiche. The soup is clear, with teardrops of fat on the surface. There are tiny slivers of white meat and custom-cut carrots which used to be frozen. Soup is messy to manage since your hands started to shake. You think about leaving it, about the advantage this would give you in getting to the telephone and the settee. Your sick kidneys will thank you for the lighter load too. But it won’t do to draw attention to yourself, not today. One is constantly being watched, monitored for unusual behaviour. Not by the staff — oh no, they’re no bother — but by the other residents. The home attracts nit-pickety types with a penchant for minding other people’s business. So you drink the soup and eat the quiche, and resist the urge to hurry.

  When you’re done, you put your knife and fork together on the plate. Then you fold the napkin carefully, as you always do, and put it to one side of the plate. Because you feel the eyes on you, you pick it up again, dab at the corners of your mouth. You leave faint red traces of lipstick on the linen. Sometimes they come out in the wash, sometimes they don’t. Finally, with no apparent haste, you push your chair back, rise, and leave the table.

  Slowly (as if you have a choice!) you take your usual route from the dining room towards the bathrooms. Listen — already behind you chairs are scraping against the lino, cutlery tinkling to the floor. There is a hum of voices which, up close, may or may not constitute conversation. You have noticed over the years that certain lunch dishes fuel soliloquies.

  You are ahead of the others — around the corner in the corridor before the first of them moves through the dining room doorway. You lean into the bathroom door and push hard — as hard as you can — against it. Then you step back, letting the door crash to a close. They will be thinking you are inside the bathroom. But you step quietly back from the door and, ignoring the pain th
at comes from pushing so hard, slip into the day lounge next door.

  The telephone sits on a glass-topped table just inside the doorway. The phone is made of a type of plastic and it is light to lift. But you have forgotten that it is an older type, with the handset attached to the main unit by a cord. You look at the phone, then at the settee nearby. It will reach. You pick up the telephone — one hand under the base of it, the other on top, ensuring the handset does not fall. You take the entire thing to the settee, and settle yourself in the middle of it with the telephone on your lap. The two cords connecting the telephone to the wall are stretched tight across the carpet.

  And that’s how they find you, the others, when they enter the day lounge. .

  They remind you of a flock of sheep, senseless in direction and firmly opposed to independent movement. They are on constant lookout for everything not right in the world.

  This afternoon, things are very not right. They slow, then stop before you. They take it in, this travesty of you having the settee. And the telephone.

  So they move in.

  ‘Will you be long?’ one says. The tiresome Madeira Wiseman, spokeswoman. Her tone is accusatory, not enquiring.

  ‘No,’ you say. Usually you choose not to engage. But it would be rude to ignore her completely.

  ‘You’ve had it for half an hour already.’

  You say nothing. Madeira likes to tell everyone she is named after an exotic island off Portugal, the Pearl of the Atlantic is how she describes it. One time, you left a gardening book on the day lounge table. It was open on page seventy-seven: ‘Madeira Vine: a devastating weed capable of destroying all plant life around it.’

  ‘That’s a hazard, that cord. Not allowed.’ Madeira is not going to let up. Behind her, the others are nodding, looking at the cords, nodding. Like the little dog toys in the rear windows of cars.

  ‘Not if you look where you’re going, Madeira,’ you say, with as much patience as you can muster.

  They shuffle off elsewhere, calling you names like Duchess and Queenie. They are getting on your wick. You think about going to your room to make your phone call. But your ankles are swollen and your body is too tired to move again and anyway, why should you? You got there first.

  The tree is still beautiful. You close your eyes and it becomes a firework against a black sky — the expensive grand finale at the end of the show. The winter sun tightens your skin, reminding you it is day. When you open your eyes, you see that a breeze is touching the yellow flowers, just slightly.

  ‘If you have something to say, then come back here and say it,’ you call after miserable Madeira. She doesn’t. The place is teeming with cowards. They talk behind your back any old time.

  You rearrange yourself on the settee for more comfort and sit forward to push the buttons for Lee’s number. But the telephone jumps out of your lap and crashes onto the carpet. One of Madeira’s friends is lying next to it. The telephone cord spirals around her left leg like a varicose vein escaping her support stockings. Her friends are delighted — an incident! — and rush to help her up. They give you looks that say I told you so. The woman is not hurt. You untangle the cord, retrieve the phone and get on with your call. .

  The phone rings once, then Lee speaks.

  ‘Mum,’ she says. ‘I was thinking what’s the time, Mum should be ringing, and here you are.’

  She’s hundreds of kilometres away but her voice is crisp and close, as though she’s right here next to you on the settee, soaking up the sun. She’s hitched her skirt up to let the sunlight touch her legs. Her toenails are painted bright red and she stretches her feet right out to a ballerina’s pointe. Out, then in. Pull that skirt up as high as you like, Lee, you tell her. Never mind the sheep.

  ‘How are you dear?’

  ‘Good, Mum, good. How about you?’

  ‘Not so bad. How are the children?’

  ‘Much better. Sam’s over the worst of the flu — Nina got it too, but not as bad. I kept her home for three days. But she’s back at school today.’

  Lee kicks off one of her shoes, then the other. The shoes are on the mat in front of you, just as they landed. You imagine what Madeira Wiseman might have to say about that.

  ‘I’m glad she’s better,’ you say.

  ‘Me too. She made you a card while she was at home …’

  ‘She made me a card?’ Nina, who is six, sits at her little plastic table. She has long straight hair the colour of rust and as she leans forward to concentrate, it falls around her face.

  She sucks on one side of her bottom lip until she changes crayons, then she sucks on the other.

  ‘Your lip will hurt if you keep doing that.’ You lean forward, touching the little girl’s arm. Gently, you place your thumb on her chin so that her mouth opens.

  ‘Sorry … Mum?’

  ‘What dear?’

  ‘She made you a card, Mum. I’ve posted it to you. It’s a Nina classic. Rainbows.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Eighty. She says there are eighty rainbows, for all your birthdays so far.’

  ‘A card with eighty rainbows. I can’t wait to see it.’ You’re laughing now, thinking about all those rainbows crammed on to Nina’s card. They will fill every gap — front, inside and back — Nina cannot abide a quiet, empty space. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘I’ve posted it to you. I sent it Tuesday afternoon.’

  ‘It should be here today then. Or maybe tomorrow.’ .

  They form a line in front of you. The woman who tripped over the telephone cord has recovered, but she glares at you as she leans in for the support of Madeira Wiseman. If you didn’t know better, you might think that they are forming a queue to use the telephone. But they have no one to call. You know this, everyone knows this. They are alone and this is why they are always together.

  They watch you and listen, then they turn to each other and nod. You are struck, almost overwhelmed, at the form loneliness can take. They are blocking your view of the tree — but you will deal with that in a moment, deal with it kindly, when you have finished your call. .

  ‘So Mum … what do they say?’ Lee’s voice has changed. The light-heartedness has gone. There is no sidetracking Lee when she wants to talk serious business. You know you should be grateful, but this conversation can take place on another Thursday, when you are alone.

  ‘What do who say?’ You try to divert her anyway.

  ‘The doctors. What did they say.’

  You stretch your own legs out now, next to hers. Your ankles have disappeared, swallowed by the disease. She points her toes again and you try to copy her. But the skin is stretched tight, ready to split. You contemplate telling a lie but she can see for herself how things are. Your legs, your skin.

  ‘There’s plenty of time, Lee. Early days.’ If you don’t look at her, she won’t see the lie.

  ‘But you will need one. A new kidney.’

  ‘Yes. I will need a kidney transplant.’

  You let the moment sit between you. That’s what the doctor did for you. The sheep are nodding again. They are quite still, watching you and listening and waiting to hear what will happen next.

  ‘Mum, I will give you the kidney.’

  There is a sound that comes from deep inside you. It comes out as laughter but really you are not sure that’s what it is. Not sure at all.

  ‘No, Lee, no. You have two children. You will not be giving me one of your kidneys.’

  ‘Yes. Yes I will, Mum. Yes I will.’ Her voice is breaking up.

  ‘No, and that’s the end of it Lee.’ .

  Now that the call is over, they have moved away. You put the telephone on the floor at your feet, next to Lee’s shoes, and you sit and look at the tree in peace. The breeze that came before has gone and the flowers are still. The tree is at its perfect best.

  After a time, you stand. You wait for a moment, for the pain in your legs to pass. As you make your way out of the day lounge, you see that they are up to something. Madeira Wise
man is at the centre of things, of course. They huddle around the little glass-top table, where the telephone usually sits. The cords for the telephone lie slack on the carpet. They are frantically pushing the telephone plugs into the wall sockets.

  They stop as you pass by. Each of them looks up at you with wide empty eyes, mouths hanging open. And so they should be frightened, you think, playing the silly games that they do. You leave them to it. You have mail to collect.

  THE ITALY STAR

  I never meant to find it, the thing on Gran’s bookshelf. I wasn’t looking for bad stuff. But after it happened, I couldn’t pretend. When you’re ten, you can’t ignore something that could ruin your grandmother’s life.

  It was like a big red birthday card. It was in Pop’s Big Trip Box. The box is full of stuff from when Pop went overseas with the RSA, to visit the places he fought at in the war.

  The red was the colour of blood. I sniffed it. The smell was smoky like your clothes after Guy Fawkes night. On the front there was a big picture of a windmill. It was also red and the only reason you could see it was because of the black background.

  Then, up above, there was writing from another country. Big fat black letters with fancy bumps and twirls. MoulinRouge 1974 was what it said.

  Inside, on the left, there was more writing with a heading that said La Carte. On the other side there was a photo that had been stuck to the cardboard. It was of a row of ladies. They wore frilly, short skirts and their legs looked like they were covered in black chicken wire. Their arms were joined up and each one of them was kicking a leg high in the air. It was amazing that these ladies all had exactly the same legs, and they could get the timing right for the photo. I thought about how much practice that would have taken. Like our whole class doing a high-jump together.

  You’re probably thinking that you wouldn’t get worried, looking at something like that. Well, you’re wrong because there were two big problems.

  The first problem was that even though the ladies had these fancy costumes on the second half of their bodies, they had nothing on their tops. Not even singlets. Not even bras. There were boobs everywhere. I looked from left to right, then back along the line again. I felt a bit sick from the shock; it was the same feeling as the time I burst in on Gran when she was in the bath. Gran had a terrible look, all her wrinkles rushing towards the middle of her face. Her hands flew up to her boobs but not before I saw them. They were different to the boobs in the photo. That’s all I want to say about that.