Etiquette for a Dinner Party Page 5

  He’d had the brochure for a while. More than a while, a few months. He’d spent hours flicking through it, imagining the hard work already done. Branches of McKnight Finance everywhere. Australia. Asia. Television ads, magazine features on the self-made man. As he’d driven through the little towns on State Highway One, he’d pictured how his offices might look from the street.

  He sat in his car in his mother’s driveway for a moment, window down, wide awake in the dark and the quiet. There was a big orange moon; he felt a sand-dune heat from somewhere in the past. He wondered why the moon looked so close in Tauranga, so far away in Wellington. There’d be some theory, boyhood dreams versus the responsibilities of adulthood. Shit that he didn’t subscribe to. Besides, it was real, the difference. It was there, right in front of him.

  He would make the franchising decision this weekend.

  Jim let himself into the house. His mother usually waited up, made a cup of tea no matter how late it was. But he could hear snores coming from her bedroom. He threw the brochure on the kitchen table for her to ooh and ah over in the morning, and felt his way to his old bedroom. .

  ‘Hello Jim love, what time did you get in?’

  Rose put a cup of tea by his bed and pulled open the pale blue curtains. At least he thought it was her. It was her voice. But her hair was cut in a sexy-mature-woman sort of a style and she’d lost weight.

  ‘Just after midnight. You were out cold — snoring the place down,’ he said, squinting at her silhouette against the window.

  ‘I was exhausted. Spent all yesterday visiting vineyards, and I think I overdid the tasting.’

  Then again, not so sure. Steam curled up from the cup and she leaned over him, kissing his forehead. He smelled perfume just before she moved away.

  She picked up his socks from the floor. ‘And that wasn’t me snoring. It was Roger. I’ll throw these in the wash.’

  It was clearly not his mother. Roger. Roger. What was a Roger? A Roger was usually a man. Jim’s stomach tied itself into a knot. He tried hard to move, but every muscle refused.

  Over breakfast, Jim took a good look at her. It had been how long since he’d last seen her? Three months … maybe a little longer? Her hair had been coloured a nice sandy blonde and yes, it was definitely a Helen Mirren-in-Prime-Suspect sort of a cut. And she was wearing make-up — at least lipstick, the only makeup he ever noticed. The rest might have been natural.

  However she had achieved it, the effect was amazing. She was fifty-three but everything about her shouted forty-five. A very attractive forty-five.

  He found some initial comfort in the familiar collection of spreads in the middle of the table — Marmite, peanut butter and strawberry jam. But then he saw the margarine was on a butter dish. He never knew his mother had a butter dish; margarine didn’t look right on it. And there was the third breakfast plate, covered in crumbs.

  ‘Wine tasting — since when did you start drinking wine?’ He had practised this sentence as he’d lifted his heavy body out of bed and pulled on jeans and a shirt. Practised it in his head, making it sound casual, mature. They came out okay, the actual words. Considering.

  ‘Since I met Roger. Roger Greerson. You know — the vineyard Greersons, out at Te Puna? I’ve got some news, Jim.’

  His mother’s smile went all the way to her ears. Which he now noticed had diamond earrings in them.

  ‘Roger and I are an item, I suppose you’d say.’

  He picked up the jam jar, stabbed at its contents with his knife, and spread the thick blend of dark red fruit across his toast. It looked like road kill.

  ‘Mum. That’s great. How long have you … you know, been …’ Been what? Don’t take your mind there …

  ‘Oh, not long, probably about six months now.’

  The beige slipper on Rose’s right foot jiggled up and down like an oversexed rodent.

  ‘I was going to tell you over the phone a couple of times, but we always get sidetracked talking about the kids. He was here last night, but he shot off to the vineyard early this morning; he’s got stuff to do.’

  Like avoiding being smacked over in bed, Jim thought.

  ‘Though he said he’d call in later, say hello. He’s keen to see you again.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Jim. He finished jamming his toast. Blood and gore. One big accident.

  His mother poured more tea. Endless cups of tea were a part of his coming-home ritual and he believed, sincerely, that no one made a cup of tea like his mother. The first cup of tea he ever had was with her and his father, when he was twelve and on holiday in Auckland.

  This cup of tea tasted weak. As though not enough time had been put into it. He was sulking now, in a pathetic sort of a way. Although he recognised this, he didn’t rise above it. He just didn’t feel like it.

  Jim remembered the brochure. He looked around and saw it poking out from a pile of women’s magazines on a chair in the corner of the room. He put it back on the table while Rose prattled on.

  ‘Yes. Now. Roger. Well, Mary, his wife, she passed away about six years ago … Do you remember her Jim?’

  ‘Um yes, vaguely …’

  ‘Well, Roger joined the Bridge Club, that’s where we met. Properly, you know … I mean really got to know each other …’

  She went on about Roger, the vineyard, sauvignon blanc and how much Roger looked like Vince Martin, the guy off the tyre ads. And had Jim ever noticed that, Rose wanted to know.

  ‘Who?’ Jim asked.

  ‘That Vince Martin. The one that’s been on the Beaurepaires ad for such a long time. Or is it Tony’s Tyre Service. No, it’s definitely Beaurepaires. That’s the other tyre ad, isn’t it. The one where he says, Hi, I’m Vince Martin and this is a bald tyre.’

  ‘God … I mean … I, I don’t really know Mum. I wouldn’t have seen Roger Greerson for ten years, probably.’

  ‘Well you know who I mean, don’t you. Roger does a fantastic impersonation of him. It’s his party trick. That Vince Martin guy. Beaurepaires. He’s never changed his looks, never really aged.’

  Vince Martin, or Roger Greerson? Who had bought his mother new diamond earrings, evidently. To replace the ones she’d always worn, the ones he’d bought her back from overseas.

  Jim needed to get out. Away from the little kitchen table, from the third breakfast plate covered in Roger Greerson’s crumbs. This was how the three bears had felt after Goldilocks’ home invasion.

  ‘Mum. Let’s go out. Into town. Let’s go shopping.’

  ‘Oh … that would be lovely Jim, but no … Roger’s taking me out for lunch. You’re coming too, of course.’ Rose fiddled with her left earring. .

  It wasn’t that Jim didn’t want to see Roger, or have lunch with them. He just needed to go for a run. He went most weekends, on Saturday morning. So this had nothing to do with Roger, or Roger and his mother, or Vince Martin.

  He ran hard for half an hour, around the boundary of his old primary school with its sturdy brick buildings and spawn of prefabs. The gates were locked, the property off-limits outside school hours. Where did boys go now to smoke their first cigarettes, steal their first kisses?

  The wooden bungalows gave way to a new subdivision of brick houses. It was impossible to tell one from another. Sprinklers flicked at brown lawns and dogs slept in shrinking pockets of shade. The repetitive pattern carried Jim along and he lost track of time and place. He was surprised to find he had reached the edge of town, the road leading up to the old cemetery.

  The hill and the heat sucked the last of his energy but he kept up the pace. A pulse inside his brain accompanied the thump of his feet on melting tarseal. He came around the final corner and saw row after row of white headstones catching the sun. Before he remembered not to think about it, he thought about it. .

  He and Julie were five days into their honeymoon. They were in Greece, on the island of Paros. Their beach had long lines of white deckchairs. They were getting the hang of beating the Germans to the chairs each morni
ng — putting their towels on the best ones, reserving them for the day.

  Jim got a message to phone his mother.

  ‘Don’t come home,’ Rose said, when he rang, sweaty and sandy, from the foyer of the hotel. He remembered cold tiles under his feet, and how his whole body chilled.

  ‘You won’t make it back in time to say goodbye to him,’ she said. She was sobbing. ‘Don’t ruin your big trip, Jim.’

  But how could he not come home? They sat on planes for twenty-six hours. His mother was right: they were four hours too late. Instead, he organised a funeral. Managed his mother and sisters through the heartbreak.

  He and Julie had promised themselves they would go back and finish the trip. They never did. He’d started the business, then she’d got pregnant. After a while, they stopped talking about seeing the world together.

  But that’s what the headstones reminded him of. The deckchairs. Every time.

  Jim jogged into the cemetery and walked to his father’s grave. His mother had always kept it looking beautiful: flowers, little notes. He bent down next to a fresh bouquet and picked up the card:

  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 Ideas. 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.’

  THINGS TO SEE AND DO

  IN CHICAGO

  Ruth has been out and about all day, making the most of it. This is what everyone at home said she must do, whe
n 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.