A Tale Of Two Lakes

26

A Tale Of Two Lakes

I. Taupo Shores

    Pete and Bob sat silently on the jetty that was the furthest point of Taupo Shores Ecolodge’s Rewarewa Trail and stared blankly at the lake while their floats bobbed gently in the water. You could’ve called it coarse fishing if you liked. Nothing was biting, but on the other hand it sure as blazes wasn’t conversation.

    After a very long time Bob said grimly: “Where is she?”

    Pete sighed. “Still in California. Still doing that ruddy library job Patty found for her.”

    Bob took a very deep breath.

    “Look—” began Pete. “Oh, forget it,” he muttered.

    Bob breathed heavily for a bit.

    Eventually Pete noted: “It was all your fault.”

    “I KNOW THAT!” he shouted.

    Once the echoes had stopped ringing across the pewter expanses of the lake Pete added: “But as I was gonna say, if Libby was a bit more used to blokes she might of been able to cut you some slack. Or at least understood why you let the dame.”

    “I don’t even understand why I let her!” he cried.

    Pete sucked his teeth reflectively. “No. Well, you’d been holding back ever since Libby come over from Queensland, eh?”

    “Something like that,” he said sourly. “Since she come over the first time, if ya wanna know. –Well, couldn’t jump on ’er when there was just us in the ruddy ecolodge, could I?”

    Pete scratched his narrow jaw thoughtfully. “Dunno. Well, I see whatcha mean, and I’d probably of felt the same meself, but the distaff side has just happened to mention that the poor girl was probably expecting you to jump on ’er.”

    Bob gaped at him.

    “Don’t look at me,” he said, shrugging slightly. “According to the experts women’s notion of honour and men’s are different.”

    “Livia Flaming Briggs,” discerned Bob heavily.

    “Yeah—well, Jan and Jayne were in there, too, mind you. There was a lot more to it, mind, only that’s what it boils down to.”

    “She never gave me the slightest encouragement,” he said weakly.

    “No. Well, don’t think she knows how to,” said Pete fairly. “Nevertheless.”

    Bob glared at the lake. “I suppose flaming Vine woulda just jumped on ’er.”

    “He’s not as bad as we used to think, Bob,” said Pete fairly.

    Bob looked across the lake to where, if it had been a clearer day, you could’ve just caught a glimpse of the building site that was the old Turpin place, rapidly being turned into Taupo Harmonic Vitality. “Not saying he is. He was bloody decent helping us out with all them cakes and casseroles and stuff. What I am saying, he’d of jumped on ’er.”

    “Mm. Well, he is that type. Didn’t hang back when ’e first met ’er—no.”

    “No,” said Bob, swallowing. “Right.” He hunched himself into his parka and stared unseeingly at the lake.

    Pete just looked at his float that wasn’t doing anything, let time trickle past them for a bit, and made his mind a perfect blank. It wasn’t that hard: he’d had a lot pf practice.

    “Pete,” said Bob, swallowing.

    “Yeah?”

    “When you first met Jan— Well, I mean, heck, you used to put it about a bit in them days!”

    “Yeah?”

    “Well, um, well, shit, how did you, um, stop?” he said miserably.

    Pete cleared his throat. “Jan’s a different type from Libby, old matey. She come over to look at the goats, see, that was when I was thinking of selling them, and we just took it from there.”

    “So… You mean you didn’t fancy any other dames after that?” he fumbled.

    “Nope, I mean I wouldn’t of had the energy to do any other dames!” said Pete with some feeling.

    “Oh,” said Bob, going rather red. “Right. I getcha.”

    Pete stared dreamily at the lake. “Ye-ah…” he said slowly. “And after a bit, I suppose I didn’t really want any other ones. Well, it doesn’t turn off like a tap. And a bloke still likes to feel he could if ’e wanted to, eh? Only it’s different.”

    “Mm.”

    “Wouldn’t say it had much to do with the men’s honour crap, neither,” he added thoughtfully.

    Bob blinked. “Eh?’

    “Nah… That’s more conscious, eh? This isn’t.”

    “Right,” he said heavily.

    Pete stared dreamily at the lake. Finally he said: “Never really been in your shoes. Don’t think I’d of made any more of a fist of it than what you did. Abstinence, eh? What I’ve always felt, if a bloke can practise that, there’s something wrong with ’im!”

    “Ye-ah… Well, loads do.”

    “Must be undersexed, then. It’s the muck they put in the town water, ask me,” said Pete on a note of finality. “I better get back or she’ll be sending out a search party.” He reeled in. “You coming?”

    “Eh? Aw.” It dawned on Bob that they’d come over in his aluminium runabout. “Right.” He reeled in, detaching the piece of weed that had wound itself round his hook.

    Once the boat was on its way its familiar rhythm insensibly soothed him, and he asked nicely: “Patty coming out at Christmas, like she said?”

    Pete grinned happily. “Yep! Got a New Zealand passport now, sorted out the stuff she wants to keep: sending her books by sea, they’re on their way already. Got it all jacked up about getting her bird over, too. Been writing Jan huge long emails about all the diet stuff for David’s Harmonic crap, got keen as mustard. And she reckons them two gays are coming, what’s more! One’s gonna help with the office stuff and the other’s gonna take the exercise classes. She’s made ’im get the pieces of paper, too!” He shook slightly.

    “Eh?”

    Happily Pete plunged into an involved explanation of Rowan’s lack of academic qualifications and Patty’s triumph in finding a couple of courses he could do—both practical rather than written—which had, in the way of American courses, provided him with large, fancily printed certificates that he’d be able to put on the wall of the Taupo Harmonic Vitality gym to impress the lady exercisers!

    Bob didn’t really listen but he was sort of glad that it was working out for Patty and young Whatsisname, Vine’s kid, and that good old Pete was pleased about it.

    “Jayne said you’d be very welcome to come to lunch,” said Pete conscientiously as they reached the Taupo Shores landing stage.

    “Livia Briggs staying for it, is she?”

    “Not this time—though she is on ’er tod: Wal’s in Auckland, doing some more work with that fund he set up after the tsunami. Personally I don’t see why the ruddy Thais can’t pull their fingers out and build their own medical centres—God knows they can afford enough flash hotels for the tourists, not to mention their own flaming airline. However. But to go back to your original enquiry,” he said with a silly grin, “Livia isn’t staying for lunch, no: gonna go and let Vine try out a new low-fat recipe on ’er. But she’s not all bad, ya know.”

    “I know. Um—you got guests in, though, eh? –Yeah. Think I’ll pass it up, ta.”

    “Just as ya like.” Pete scrambled onto the landing stage.

    “I was thinking I might take off for Australia,” said Bob abruptly.

    “Eh?” he croaked.

    Bob looked defiant. “Australia. It’s on the other side of the Tasman.”

    “Don’t give me that! Why? –Well, no: sorry, Bob, not why, exactly. But Australia’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?”

    Bob shrugged. “Why not? Bit of a working holiday. See a bit of the country.”

    There was a fair bit of it to see, true.

    “Well, uh, what about Neil?” said Pete limply.

    “He’s a big boy now. And Tamsin’s looking after him,” replied Bob on a dry note.

    That last point was true, yeah. “But there’s your house,” said Pete feebly.

    “It won’t run away. Told the kids they can have it to themselves over the holidays.”

    It was only early August: unless Pete had it wrong, the ruddy varsity had just had a mid-year break, like the schools; why the Powers That Be thought freezing and pouring mid-July was a better option for the kids to be home with nothing to do than slightly less freezing August, which was when they’d had the holidays for most of his life, was beyond him. Copying the Aussies, probably, talking of which.

    “Um, which holidays would those be, Bob?” he croaked.

    Bob looked defiant. “Any ya like. They get a mid-term break—September, I think—but his professor might tell Neil to keep ’is nose to the grindstone. No, well, Christmas.”

    Christmas! Pete looked at him limply. How long was he planning to be away for? “Right, well, up to you,” he croaked.

    “Apparently, yeah,” replied Bob on a sour note, going.

    “There are plenty of women in Taupo that’d have him, you know, Pete,” said Jan mildly at the end of his somewhat heated report. Which had taken place regardless of the fact that the ecolodge’s main lounge was occupied not only by them plus Jayne and Andrew, but also by Mr and Mrs Jenkins (George and Daphne) from New Plymouth, the weather was so awful over there at this time of the year—why they thought it’d be better in Taupo, not clear—and Mr and Mrs Gifkins (Paul and Alice) from Australia, not friends of Erin Arvidson’s as such, but former guests of some people who ran a motel who were friends of— Forget it. Australians that Erin had put in contact with the ecolodge, rather stunned to discover how cold the middle of New Zealand at a thousand feet above sea-level was at this time of the year, but bravely getting out and about in their hired 4WD every day nevertheless.

    “I know that!” replied Pete angrily.

    “No, on a permanent basis, I mean.”

    “Aw. Well, yeah, ya not wrong there, love. Only he doesn’t fancy a permanent helping of any of them. –Ta, Andrew, don’t mind if I do,” he admitted as Andrew handed him a steaming mug of something vaguely resembling a rum toddy. He tasted it cautiously. “Where’s the alcohol?”

    “It’s in there,” replied Andrew mildly.

    “It’s in there drowning, yeah!”

    “You’re getting it on condition you swallow all the Vitamin C that goes with it,” explained Jan kindly.

    Oddly, this struck a chord with Paul Gifkins: he collapsed in sniggers.

    Resignedly Pete drank hot, sweet lemon juice flavoured with rum.

    “It’s very warming,” offered Alice Gifkins kindly. “We like rum: remember that time we were in Queensland, Paul?”

    “Yeah,” he said, wiping his eyes. “The rum was good. –September 2001,” he told the company wryly.

    After a moment’s reflection, the company got it, and gulped.

    “Stuck in a flamin’ caravan park listening to garbled reports of the world coming to a flamin’ end on a trannie that was dying,” he said reminiscently. “Good, it was.”

    “Stop it,” said his wife, biting her lip. “The people who ran the place were terribly good to us: they insisted we had to come over and have all our meals with them—and those girls that had the tent; remember them, Paul?”

    Paul did remember them and the company listened sympathetically to the Gifkinses’ account of their surreal holiday in Queensland at the time of 9/11. Complete with the Bundaberg rum, it was eventually revealed.

    The Jenkinses, on the other hand, had once had a holiday in Mexico—both couples were of course your average ecolodger: retired, enough superannuation to let them do more or less what they liked, given that what they liked was pretty average—this was northern Mexico: they’d gone over from El Paso, which was right on the border, it meant “the pass”, see? Rum was very cheap there—no, Bacardi, mostly. Well, no duty to pay, probably. They’d stayed with American relations of some friends, English originally—long explanation—just going over the border for a few day trips. And Evan and Mary Lou—she was a lovely woman and actually, part American Indian, though you wouldn’t guess it to speak to her, but she did have that very black, thick, straight hair—and yes, the Americans did really have names like that!—they had shown them how to make a real daiquiri with the Bacardi, and taken them to a restaurant, the sort that the Americans called a family restaurant, really nice, quite casual, but of course absolutely spotless, and the waitresses’ get-ups had been a bit of a shock, only after a bit they’d realised they all wore silly get-ups—no, very short frilly skirts, the tops were quite respectable—here George Jenkins winked at Pete and the latter had a coughing fit—and everybody seemed to be having before-dinner drinks, so they did, too. Margaritas. With tequila in them! And afterwards the manager, who was a very nice man, had come up to their table and explained how to make them! And he’d been so interested to hear they were from New Zealand because guess what! His Uncle Luther had been stationed out here during the War! No, well, they had tried to make them since—you could get tequila these days, though not all the wholesalers seemed to stock it, but George had found one that did—but somehow they never seemed the same.

    And since Jayne, who had been bustling in and out to the kitchen during this saga, now announced that lunch was ready, they adjourned to the restaurant and had it. All sitting round the big table, of course. Baked potatoes with sour cream—George! Just like we had in Texas, remember?—delicious braised leeks done in olive oil with a tiny bit of sage—Jayne admitting, smiling, that it was Jan’s recipe, she’d just followed orders, but the sage was her own addition—and the best chicken pie the Gifkinses had ever tasted. Miles better than at that B&B in the Blue Mountains that Maureen and Patrick Donovan had recommended, wasn’t it, Paul? Free range? Well, that must be the secret, then! With a nice Hawke’s Bay white wine that they didn’t really need after those toddies, but after all they were on holiday, and they wouldn’t be driving for a bit.

    The peach cobbler—Jan’s recipe—that followed having been duly admired and completely demolished, and the coffee having been poured for the guests back in the lounge, the hosts were able to retreat to the kitchen.

    “Well,” said Jan heavily, “there you are, Jayne. Completely typical. Nothing to choose between ’em: two lots of peas in a pod, never mind if they live something like two thousand miles apart. Do you think you can stand it?”

    “Of course!” said Jayne with a laugh. “I think they’re very nice.”

    “Mm,” agreed Andrew with a twinkle in his pleasant brown eyes. “Of course they are. Stop asking us if we can stand it, Jan!”

    Smiling feebly, Jan desisted. Okay, Pete was right in saying the pair of ’em were cut out to manage a flaming so-called ecolodge for middle-class retirees—far more than they themselves had ever been. Also right in saying that Andrew didn’t look as if he was regretting not having stayed on for the full time in Pongo that Jake had been expecting him to. Nor regretting having lost out on however many thou’ it was by not giving the Carrano Group the right sort of notice, either. In fact they wouldn’t even have suspected the latter if Janet hadn’t coincidentally come over with some story about the neighbours’ kid being sacked without notice from his so-called job at the supermarket—unpacking and stacking, about four hours a week if he was lucky—and she was sure he had a claim against them. Which he didn’t, he’d been employed as casual labour, but that had set Jan thinking. So she’d got the dinkum oil out of Jayne. Andrew appeared to have told her the lot, and Jan didn’t doubt for moment that in fact he had. He was one of the nicest men she, Jan, had ever met, and thank God Jayne had found him!

    “For what?” asked Pete.

    “Eh?”

    “You were thanking God for something.”

    Jan swallowed. “Help! Didn’t mean to say that out loud: going gaga in me old age. It’s all this being coddled and not having enough to do. Um, yeah, well, thank God Jayne met you, actually, Andrew.”

    “I’ll say!” he agreed with a laugh.

    “Mm!” agreed Jayne, very pink and smiling.

    Pete looked limply at his helpmate. “Right. That makes it unanimous. All right, if ya that bad, I’ll let you help Jayne with the tea tonight.”

    “It’s just a roast,” said Jayne feebly.

    “She can peel the kumaras,” he said instantly.

    “Kumara peeling,” muttered Jan. “No wonder people just give up and lapse into sitting and dozing interspersed with accusing the nursing-home staff of nicking their stuff!”

    “Shut up, it’s kumara peeling or nothing,” he warned.

    “Stop being silly!” ordered Jayne merrily. “You can make the pudding, Jan!”

    “Ooh, good! What?”

    “Dunno. You think of something, it’ll exercise your brain!” replied Jayne with a giggle.

    “Hah, hah. Um, well, the last report from the Good Keen Man was that the rhubarb he forgot to divide is going great guns down in that sheltered spot where he’d forgotten he ever planted it.”

    Andrew shot a look at Pete’s face and collapsed in sniggers.

    “Yeah, all right,” he said resignedly. “Spit it out, will ya, Jan?”

    Grinning, Jan concluded: “So we might just see what Jane Grigson’s got to say about rhubarb, eh?”

    Jayne was already on her feet reaching for the book.

    “Come on,” said Pete to his very nearly almost son-in-law as soon as the divorce was absolute and Jayne agreed to a date, which of course hadda fit in with Tamsin’s blah-blah-blah what no sane bloke was any longer listening to—like that. “This is where us blokes get out of it.”

    Andrew went out into the porch with him and assumed a parka and gumboots with him and went outside with him, but said once they were out there: “And do what, Pete?”

    “Well, anything! Nothing! I mean, those recipes are good, but they’ll be set to yammer on for the whole afternoon! Um, well, dunno. Still a bit nippy to sow cabbages and caulis outside. Could do some trays in the shed?”

    “Uh—Pete,” said Andrew, swallowing, “I don’t think we really need cabbages, do we?”

    “You’ve been letting them get to ya,” he spotted unerringly. “We’ll need something to feed the goats on, if flaming Bob gives ’em back!”

    Andrew looked at him in horror. “Hell. Will he?”

    “Well, who else is gonna look after them if he’s pushed off to Australia? Miser Ron Reilly? Neil isn’t gonna come down twice a day from Auckland to milk them, that’s for sure!”

    “God,” he muttered. “All right, let’s sow cabbage seeds.”

    “It’s okay, I’ll look after them: they’re used to me,” said Pete kindly, relenting. “I’ll have stacks of time on me hands.”

    Andrew wasn’t too sure that either Jan or Jayne would approve of this plan but he smiled feebly and agreed.

    “Um, what about the dog?” he asked feebly as they prepared trays and trays with the appropriate soil mix.

    “Mm? Uh—shit, he’s got really used to Bob!” said Pete in dismay.

    Well, quite. In fact Bob had taken Peter home with him. It wasn’t that Andrew disliked the Dalmatian, but a dog was quite a tie, and neither he nor Jayne would have much time to walk him.

    “Well, um, Tamsin and Neil’ll be down for the holidays, I suppose they can look after him over Christmas,” offered Pete into the dismayed silence.

    “When is the man actually proposing to leave?” asked Andrew grimly.

    Pete wasn’t too pleased with ruddy Bob himself, so he wasn’t that upset to realise that Andrew was really pissed off with him. “Dunno, but I got the impression, pretty soon.”

    “Mm. Well, better sort it out.” He produced his mobile phone.

    Pete told him the number and listened with a certain satisfaction to Andrew’s end of the conversation that followed. There was a word for it. When it wasn’t propitiation? Anyway, whatever the adjective from propitiation was, that was what Andrew wasn’t. Hah, hah, hah, serve bloody Bob right. Looking very dry, he accepted the phone from Andrew and let Bob crawl to him over the matter of the goats.

    The seeds were soon sown so they wandered outside and inspected the vegetable garden. Whereupon it dawned on Pete that he hadn’t got his onions in. Pukekohe Long Keepers.

    “What about Californian Reds?” asked a voice from out of the undergrowth.

    Leaping, Pete gasped: “Shit, must you?”

    “Sorry,” said Sean, appearing from the undergrowth. “This path needs clearing,” he noted by the by. “Californian Reds,” he repeated.

    “You’d of got that out of that book of yours, would you?” returned Pete nastily.

    “Yes,” agreed the blond young man, unmoved. Andrew clapped a hand over his mouth, so he winked at him. “Lovely in salads. Or raw in a hamburger if the fancy takes ya.”

    Pete gave in. “Yeah, all right, Californian Reds, as well, only to get onions, ya gotta plant something first, geddit? How many did you let go to seed last year so as you could get the seed?”

    “I’d ignore that, Sean: I don’t think one does with modern varieties,” said Andrew quickly, as the poor boy had gone very red. “There is a garden centre, isn’t there? Do they sell seeds?”

    “Yeah, or ole Steve Garber’ll have a few of the basics,” admitted Pete. “We could get down there—if you wanna be in the doghouse for going off and leaving them on their tods regardless of the fact that once they start on recipe books they won’t notice World War III starting up, let alone us not being round the place. –And you can wipe that grin off yer mug,” he ordered the now broadly grinning Sean. “Molly told you to get out from under her feet, did she? Whatcha done now?”

    “Nothing! Well, her sister’s come down from Wanganui for a week. They’re talking about sewing,” he admitted.

    Pete collapsed in sniggers.

    “Jan and Jayne are talking about recipes,” said Andrew kindly.

    “Yeah, got that,” admitted Sean, with a feeble smile. “Well, could all go down the Garden Centre, yeah: why not?”

    Pete rubbed his chin. “Or one or two of us could stay here and dig the onion bed over— No, you pair of nanas!” he shouted as their faces both fell ludicrously. “I was joking!”

    “Pete, I will,” said Andrew on an anxious note. “It won’t dig itself.”

    “Don’t be a tit: it’s not me that’s got the weak heart! –Jan was complaining we’re all coddling her, but him and Jayne, they’re keeping me in cotton wool as well!” he told Sean exasperatedly.

    “Well, yeah, Dad said he thought they might be,” he admitted. “Same as old Uncle Andy when Aunty Freda hadda have her op. –My great-uncle, he is: Dad’s uncle,” he explained to Andrew. “Nobody’d let him do a thing. He got real fed up.”

    “Yeah,” said Pete limply. “Well, there you are. Come on, we’ll take the four-wheel-drive, and if it should happen to park itself by the pub for half an hour, there’s no need to tell any of them: goddit?”

    Everybody having got it, they went.

    Sean’s subsequent fervent digging of the onion beds had to be seen to be believed, but possibly, reflected Andrew drily, he was the only one to realise that it was a mixture of guilts: the pub on a working afternoon behind his wife’s back, the getting out of it with him and Pete without mentioning his whereabouts to his wife, and the not having stayed behind to do the digging in the first place. Oh, and very probably the not having realised that the onion seeds—and the seed peas, as a matter of fact—needed to be bought. Combined with the almost complete neglect of the vegetable garden and the grounds that had been going on over the weeks Bob had been here—yes. He did the clear the path as well—yes.

    As it turned out the book—or possibly books, plural—had let them down badly in the matter of rhubarb, so it was one of Jan’s mum’s good old standbys. Apple and rhubarb “meringue”. Hot: it was done in a deep enamel dish, the rhubarb and apple being stewed with lots of sugar, then the fluffy egg-white topping being added and the whole put into the oven until it was browned. The result was delicious, even to those, like Andrew, who weren’t actually all that fond of rhubarb.

    “Happy?” murmured Andrew, snuggling up that night in Room 1. –Pete’s and Jan’s new cabin was only in the design stage yet, though Sir Jake Carrano had apparently decreed he’d send a team down to put it up as soon as the weather improved, and no arguments.

    “Mm,” agreed Jayne, yawning.

    He got very close, spoon-fashion, and put both arms round her. “Tired?”

    “Mm. Even with only two couples in it keeps you busy,” she said sleepily.

    “Yes,” said Andrew, smiling into the curls at her neck. “Go to sleep, then, sweetheart. Nighty-night.”

    “Nigh’,” she murmured.

    He was almost off when she said: “Bake the rhubarb in the oven first, that’s the secret.”

    “What?” he gasped.

    The only answer was a light snore.

    Okay, she was talking in her sleep about the best way to cook rhubarb, bless her! Andrew fell asleep with a smile on his face.

II. Californ-aye-ay

    The American Library Association’s conference—it wasn’t the conference, only a small one, the California branch and some of their mates from neighbouring states, but it was huge enough for Libby—had been held near a lake. Not on it but near enough for the delegates’ partners to have a lovely bus trip to it arranged for them, a trip which, in the manner of conference trips, the actual delegates missed out on, so what was the point of holding it there at all? Well, so as people’s partners could go on lovely trips instead of sitting round the pool at their palatial motels or hotels in the sun—yeah. Libby hadn’t come with a partner as such: she’d come with another delegate. Bruce. Somehow she’d had the idea that Americans were never called Bruce—well, there was Bruce Willis, of course, but somehow you couldn’t count him. But Bruce Boothby was a Bruce as well.

    Oddly enough Bruce Boothby, though he was a librarian, wasn’t gay, in fact he was about as attractive as the actual Mr Willis, if anybody merely human could be. And knew it. Well, remember the character in that lovely series, Moonlighting? Very like that. Not a person you could envisage, if you were being strictly honest, putting up with for as much as five minutes in real life: no wonder that lovely blonde lady used to lose her cool with him. Jayne had said the character was like a naughty little boy that you couldn’t help loving but Libby had felt quite strongly that he was more like a naughty little boy that your hand itched to give a good spanking. And it was only because Mr Willis was so gorgeous that you put up with him at all. Bruce Boothby was very like that. And a good dozen years younger than Libby, so when he suggested they could drive to the conference together in his car she assumed he only wanted someone to share the petrol expenses with, and agreed.

    Bruce was very bright, and though he was only thirty-one, was in charge of all the library’s IT functions—of which there were many: they were far more into downloading and automatically converting records from here, there and everywhere than either of Libby’s two Australian libraries had been, and far more into improving their own system and linking their catalogue records to this, that, and the other—whole texts whenever possible, digitised copies of pictures and photographs—that sort of thing. Videos that opened with a blare of music, making you jump ten feet—that sort of thing, too. He had been very pleased to find that Libby was database literate: their old cataloguer, who had just retired, hadn’t been, and in his opinion she had been holding them back. Looking at their wonderful system with astonished admiration, Libby hadn’t seen how she could possibly have been, but she had nodded meekly and said: “I see.” The position Patty had found for her wasn’t replacing this retired cataloguer: another person had got that job, but she, Bruce informed Libby with a grimace, was only interested in politics and power plays. Libby could see that for herself, actually: Rebekah Wyatt Holmes was pretty clearly the library world’s answer to Condoleezza Rice. Power suits, did they call them? Something like that. Terrifying. Much worse than the ones Patty had to wear at Chaparra Homestead. Ms Wyatt Holmes didn’t actually catalogue at all, she managed. So, as in spite of all their downloading there was quite a lot of original cataloguing to do, because they collected heavily in the local history of their own area, loads of booklets and pamphlets, that sort of stuff, and somebody had to do it, Libby was It. At least for a year, until someone came back from maternity leave. Bruce, he very soon revealed, had started off as a cataloguer, so he guessed they’d have a lot in common? It was quite true that one always felt a fellowship with another cataloguer—a real one, who took the job seriously and always read the rules and the rule interpretations and checked online to see if the Library of Congress might have changed a heading since they last had to use it—so as it was obvious that in spite of the charming little-boy stuff Bruce Boothby was the sort of person who reads the manuals, Libby smiled innocently at him and agreed.

    Of course Bruce had loads of girlfriends, but as he treated them all with a kind of impudent scorn, which didn’t seem to put them off at all, it wasn’t that surprising that he wasn’t taking one of them to the conference. He had been married: it had been one of those high-school romances and according to Bruce, he’d been blinded by sex, blonde hair and the assumptions of his parents’ socio-economic group. To which, he explained carefully to Libby over tequila, lime and salt after work one Friday, he no longer paid even lip service. –Licking salt off his lips as he said it and giving her a cheeky look. Libby wasn’t so blinded by the cheeky look, the good looks or the boyish thing that she couldn’t see that on the contrary, poor Ellie Boothby might have got very fed up on discovering that their baby Bradley wasn’t the only kid she was expected to mother in their house. He’d stayed out too late one Friday evening after work with one too many luscious brunettes, Bruce explained soulfully, giving Libby the eye—that was his Hispanic period—so Ellie had upped stakes, complete with Bradley, and gone to live with her Aunt Marion in Las Vegas. Well, no, Marion wasn’t anything in a casino, or a CSI; she wasn’t even Marry-ann the Librarry-ann—Libby collapsing in smothered giggles at this point—actually she ran a garden centre which, given the Nevada climate, did quite well, people were always having to replace their turf and their garden plants.

    “And do you see anything of Bradley?” she asked severely, recovering herself.

    “No: I’ve found I can’t attain the hypocrisy necessary to persuade myself I’m cut out to be a père de famille,” replied Bruce, looking both cheeky and wry.

    “Then it was very irresponsible of you to have him, poor little soul,” said Libby severely.

    “Libby, darling!” he gasped, clapping a hand to his heart—or at least to his hugely expensive silk tie. “You’ve noticed!”

    Libby merely replied: “Yeah. Thanks for the drink. See you on Monday,” and walked out.

    This had happened to Bruce Boothby before, but not often and certainly not from plump brunettes more than ten years his senior. He was so stunned that for a moment he just sat there. Then he recovered his wits and ran after her. “Libby, darling!” he panted in her ear on the sidewalk: “I was envisaging breakfast tomorrow! Or at the very least fifteen minutes’ glorious cunnilingus on your chesterfield!”

    Libby went very red but managed to reply: “I haven’t got a chesterfield, so get knotted. Or conversely, piss off and do it on your own chesterfield by yourself, I don’t care which.”

    At which point Shirley Boscawen from work drove by in her execrable pink convertible and screeched: “Libby, honey! I’m going your way, do you need a ride?” And Libby accepted and vanished with her.

    Bruce really had been envisaging breakfast, not to say his other offer, so he had marched back into the bar simmering, and meditating tactics.

    As he’d managed the library staff’s conference bookings their rooms were adjoining ones, so he immediately suggested that the interconnecting door be unlocked. Then having the wind taken out of his sails by Libby’s saying interestedly but not in the least meaningfully: “Ooh, isn’t that handy? Yes, let’s, that’ll be cosy.” He did wander through into her room in bare feet, pants and shirt—he was not unaware of his resemblance to Mr Willis and had a vague recollection of a scene in which the film star had appeared thus—but whether or not the original had succeeded with this ploy, he certainly didn’t. Before he could say wasn’t the whole idea of going down to the welcoming dinner a bore and maybe they should try Room Service she’d asked kindly if he couldn’t find his socks and bustled through to look in his valise. About two seconds after that one of their colleagues, whom he’d cunningly booked into a quite different hotel, called to say they were just coming over and would see them in the poolside bar. After which a cosy library-gossipy time was had by all, right down to finding their correct table amongst the carefully labelled place settings and vases of yellow roses and silver-grey eucalypt foliage, and there meeting up again with Sally-Ann and Fiona from San Diego and Jimmy, Annette and Consuelo from Reno: You made it! Great! Yeah, something like that. Rowena from San Diego hadn’t come with the others this time, probably just as well, though if she had, Bruce certainly wouldn’t have taken up with her again, that was last year but one’s news.

    The conference ran for a weekend plus a week, splitting up at the end into special-interest seminars which by the Friday had less attendance, as people who’d come from furthest away trickled off home, but in order for Libby to see something of the country Bruce had cunningly suggested they book in at the actual lake for the next weekend. Unfortunately she was determined to go to the last cataloguing special-interest seminar on the Friday afternoon. His own subjects were over, and after all he was an ex-cataloguer, so he went, too. It was quite interesting if you were a proponent of free-text searching and the electronic book but as, in spite of his prowess with IT and databases—or perhaps because of it—he wasn’t, he found he didn’t agree with anything the speakers said. And in fact found he was on his feet quite a lot of the time, arguing with them.

    Which meant that by the time they got to the lake it was nearly dark, already.

    “I’m awfully tired,” said Libby, yawning widely. “Don’t conferences take it out of you?”

    Not nearly enough! Well, sure there had been the minor episodes of Amelia Cartwright from San Bernardino, Monday lunchtime—Mr Cartwright had stayed the weekend but had had to get back to work—Jodie Whitmore from Fresno, Wednesday night (and Thursday morning), and Mandy Leigh Rosales, rather quickly, Friday lunchtime—Mr Rosales being due to pick her up Friday afternoon—but none of them had been the purpose of the expedition, at all.

    “Yeah, sure,” he agreed easily. “Maybe we should just have dinner in our rooms, huh?”

    “It looks nice, though,” she said, looking admiringly at the ranch-style hotel. “Homey.”

    Uh—he guessed that was the Aussie equivalent of down-home? “Sure, but they got Room Service, anything that’s on the menu in the dining-room should be available, Libby.”

    “I’m not really hungry,” she admitted, yawning again.

    Bruce did make one more effort when they got to their rooms: adjoining rooms, both opening onto the verandah with French doors, why she winced at the sight of them he had no idea, but he didn’t feel it was all that auspicious. He tapped at her French doors and wandered into her room in just his robe over his shorts with a bottle in his hand but Libby came through from her ensuite in her robe with, clearly, a serviceable pair of pyjamas under it, and said, yawning: “Can’t you find a bottle opener? Look in that drawer. And could you turn the light out for me on your way out?”

    To which Bruce replied very feebly indeed and with no sign of Willis-like repartee about him: “You aren’t going to bed already, are you?”

    “Yes, I’m bushed.”

    And that was that.

    Bruce lay awake that night for ages meditating tactics.

    Next morning, not too early, he ordered up a delicious breakfast for two and tapped at her door. She wasn’t there. Shit! Uh—gone for an early morning walk? He already knew she wasn’t a runner. Or breakfasting in the dining-room? He checked it out but she wasn’t. Two attractive, slim girls in delightful summer outfits were breakfasting, however, and gave him the eye, but Bruce barely noticed them. He stomped out and asked around. Okay, the guy on Reception had seen her going for a walk. Thataway. He dithered but finally went back and ate some cold breakfast before setting out in pursuit of her.

    She was discovered sitting hugging her denim knees on a tiny patch of sand by the lakeshore. Brightening, he joined her. Libby was kindly welcoming, rather as if she was a maiden aunt and he was a favourite nephew. Well, shit! What did he feel like doing today? Jesus!

    “Well, all kinds of nice things, Libby,” he said, essaying a meaning twinkle, Willis-style.

    This failed miserably: she was staring at the lake. “Mm… Dad runs an ecolodge by a lake.”

    Okay, if that was what she wanted to talk about— He prompted her nicely and got quite a lot of intel about this place—not in Australia, like he’d thought, but New Zealand.

    “It’s not this warm there, though,” she ended, turning her head and smiling at him.

    “No? I guess it is warm, huh?” replied Bruce, promptly removing his tee-shirt. “You feel like coming in for a dip?”

    “No, I haven’t got my bathers with me,” replied Libby innocently.

    “Well, me neither, but need that stop us?” said Bruce with a laugh, removing his jeans.

    Libby looked away hurriedly. “If you go in in your underpants—sorry, I’ve forgotten what Americans call those funny ones—then you’ll end up with horrid soggy underpants.”

    Very possibly many sophisticated lines could have been offered as a counter to this—and would have been by Mr Willis, there was very little doubt—but what Bruce Boothby actually said was, very lamely: “Uh, boxer shorts, I guess.”

    “Oh, yes.”

    After that it kind of seemed too late to offer to take them off here and now, so he splashed into the lake. He thrashed up and down for a while, aware that he was behaving like a four-year-old showing off to a little girl in the sandpit but unable to stop himself.

    “Was that nice?” asked Libby kindly, as he emerged, panting and dripping.

    “Sure! Great!” he gasped, throwing himself down beside her.

    “You should have brought a towel.”

    “Impulse swim!” he gasped, panting.

    “Mm.”

    The view from ground level, as she was sitting up and looking at the lake, was really quite something, so he looked up at her for some time and finally said: “Boy, this sure is a great view.”

    “Yes, it’s a pretty lake, isn’t it?”

    “Not the lake!” said Bruce with a meaning laugh, beginning to feel on comfortably familiar ground.

    “It’s all right, you don’t have to flirt with me,” said Libby placidly.

    “What?” he croaked, as his ears rang—yeah, literally rang.

    “Just have a rest. It must be quite tiring, keeping up that act with all the pretty girls,” said Libby thoughtfully. “But I’m not a girl, so it’s okay, I don’t expect it.”

    “What act?” gasped Mr Boothby indignantly.

    “That naughty little boy that knows what it’s all about thing. Maybe you aren’t conscious of yourself doing it,” she said kindly. “But you do.”

    He was now a glowing scarlet shade and felt about two feet tall and the erection, which had been doing real good and which he had been working up to reminding her was there, had shrunk to the size of a pea. “I dunno what you came up here for, Libby,” he said angrily, “but you sure do know how to cut ’em off, don’t you? Are all you Aussie girls this hard?”

    “I just said, I’m not a girl. And if you felt I was cutting them off, I’m sorry: I didn’t mean to. I thought it’d be a nice rest for you, not having to bother to flirt and all that stuff.”

    The stunned Mr Boothby just lay flat on his back on the little stretch of sand, gazing up at her: curves, curls and all. After a very long time he croaked: “You really mean that, don’t you?”

    “Yes, of course.”

    “Okay, now tell me you really believe that a nice rest was what I came up here for!”

    “I couldn’t see any other reason. And you told me yourself it’s a lovely restful place. And I can see it is.”

    Funnily enough, what with all that gazing, and the curves and all, he was no longer the size of a pea, though he did still feel flabbergasted. So he said: “Libby, honey, you must be blind! Can’t you see that’s not what I came up here for—gee, that that’s not what I’m up for?”

    Libby looked round at him, saw what he meant, gulped and turned scarlet.

    “See?” said Bruce with a laugh in his voice. “You’re right about these shorts being awful soggy: now if I took ’em off—”

    “Don’t be silly,” said Libby in a strangled voice. “I’m miles too old for you.”

    Uh—Amelia Cartwright from San Bernardino, to his certain knowledge, was forty-two and managed a whole library system and that hadn’t stopped her for an instant, and Mandy Leigh Rosales was thirty-nine with a son of turned eighteen but that hadn’t stopped her, either. Was it because Libby was an Aussie?

    “It doesn’t feel that way to me, Libby, honey. You must have noticed how keen I am! Gee, that last happy hour we had together I was just dying for you! Uh, that day goddamned Shirley Boscawen gave you a ride home: I coulda killed the bitch.”

    Libby looked at him in amazement. “The day you said all those rude thingos? I thought it was just a joke.”

    Instead of making a smooth and sophisticated reply, Bruce gave an anguished cry of: “No!”

    “Well, I’m sorry. It must be different cultural assumptions, Bruce,” she said kindly.

    Bruce sat up, breathing heavily. “Yeah, mustn’t it? Look, I mean it, Libby, I’m real keen!”

    “Don’t be silly. What about all those ladies at the conference?” she replied calmly.

    His face flaming, the sophisticated Mr Boothby stuttered: “They were nothing—it was just physical—I duh-didn’t realise you’d noticed! They meant less than nothing!”

    “I dunno that I would have noticed, except I saw that lady coming out of your room on Thursday morning,” said Libby thoughtfully, “but quite a lot of people told me about them.”

    “They would! Uh, but shit, Libby, like I say, they meant nothing: less than nothing! It was just physical, and—and I only went with them because you were ignoring me!” he ended desperately.

    “No, I wasn’t, I had breakfast and dinner with you all those times.”

    “Yeah, treating me like I was a favourite dim nephew or something!” said Bruce loudly and bitterly. “And who was that guy you had lunch with, Tuesday and Wednesday?” –He hadn’t intended to bring this up at all but it was too late, now.

    “Dennis Guilfoyle. He works for a big art library.”

    “Okay, now tell me he’s gay!” he said furiously.

    “I don’t think he is, actually.”

    “I’m sure he isn’t! Where did you and him vanish to, Tuesday afternoon? –Don’t dare to say you were at the cataloguing session, because I looked there!”

    Libby was now as flushed as he was. “Okay, we were in his room. He’s married and he was quite up-front about it, and everybody else was doing it, and why shouldn’t I?”

    “Because you came with me!” cried Bruce.

    There was a short silence.

    “Bruce,” said Libby feebly, “I could say that you came with me, and you vanished with that Amelia lady in the wonderful tailored khaki linen suit on Monday lunchtime, but I have to admit I assumed that was what you’d come for.”

    “You gave me the cold-shoulder all weekend!”

    “This is nuts,” said Libby limply, thrusting a hand through her curls.

    “Thanks very much!” returned Bruce bitterly.

    “I didn’t mean that,” she said feebly. “Well, maybe I did. But you’ve been getting off with other ladies unceasingly for a week, it’s completely unconvincing to say you wanted me all the time.”

    “I did,” he said glumly. “That was what I was trying to explain. You were ignoring me, or worse, treating me like a nephew, and so I just… let myself,” he finished in a low voice, glaring at the lake.

    “Let yourself,” echoed Libby in an odd voice.

    “Yeah. Don’t claim you don’t know what I mean.”

    “Um, I think I do. Only I sort of didn’t think men, um, let themselves.”

    He stared at her, frowning. “Uh—sure. All the time.”

    “But physiologically, don’t you necessarily take the initiative?”

    “Uh—no,” he said feebly. “Well, Hell, the physical impulse has gotta be there, sure! But that isn’t the same thing at all. See, uh—well, say a woman really comes onto you—well, Hell, I can see you’re not that sort, Libby, so how can I— Well, gee, take Amelia, huh? Okay, first she gives me the eye, ya know what that is, I guess?”

    “Theoretically, though I’m not sure how they do it,” replied Libby honestly.

    Bruce had to swallow. “No. Right. Then, uh, well, couldn’t see you round, so when she said let’s have lunch together, I said okay. Then we’re eating lunch and she’s looking into my eyes and half the time, uh, well, it’s sexual signals, I guess, Libby. Uh, well, her mouth’s sort of slightly open and, uh, she’s licking her lips every so often and—well, gee, you know!”

    “Not really. Deliberately?” she asked dubiously.

    “Uh… I guess it’s instinctive, more than deliberate, but she could stop herself if she wanted to, geddit?”

    “Mm,” she said, nodding.

    “Uh-huh. So next thing,” said Bruce, swallowing in spite of himself, “she’s rubbing my shin with her foot. –Under the table,” he elaborated limply as she didn’t say anything. “That—uh—that is a fairly strong signal,” he added feebly.

    “I can see that, but did you enjoy it?

    “Well, Hell, yeah! I mean, uh—well, okay, let’s admit,” said Bruce, feeling he was very red, like a stupid kid, but unable to control it, “that guys like being touched by women. But more than that: it’s a recognisable sign that she wants you, see? –Yeah. Two reasons to enjoy it. So, uh, in the specific case of goddamned Amelia the next move was to slip her sandal off and slide the foot right up my leg, if you wanna know!”

    Libby looked at him uncertainly, licking her lips uneasily. At this moment, what with what he’d been describing and all, Bruce Boothby felt he might explode. He didn’t tell her not to do that, though, because he had a pretty good idea she didn’t have a clue she was doing it. “Yeah, onto my groin, okay?” he said grimly. “That’s pretty much the point at which your average guy gives in and lets himself go along with it; see?”

    “Mm.”

    “Other dames,” said Bruce with a sigh, “have other variations on it. But I gotta say it, Libby, when a woman touches you there, there’s hardly one man in a thousand that wouldn’t go for it.”

    “No. I see. Most men, in other words.”

    “Only the straight ones,” replied Bruce very drily indeed as it penetrated that possibly he wasn’t the only guy she was thinking of in the context.

    “Yes. Duh-do you ever think, I mean at—at times like that, that maybe you could stop, Bruce?” she asked in a trembling voice. “I mean, would a—a straight man thuh-think that?”

    “Uh… Well, yeah. Not that I generally do, I just see the green light, and— Uh, yeah. Only a guy could think he might stop, and there have been a couple of instances in my own experience where I did think just that, for various reasons, but to be totally frank, thinking it didn’t connect with any decision-making process, and,” he said, frowning over it, “the thought didn’t even seem real to me. Well, uh, maybe that’s a naïve way to describe it, and there are all sorts of chemical and hormonal responses involved—”

    “No, it doesn’t seem naïve at all, it’s very illuminating. Thank you,” said Libby simply.

    Bruce tried to smile. “Guys are pretty much hormone-driven, I guess. Once it’s up, it’s, uh, gotta go somewhere,” he finished feebly.

    “Mm.”

    “Uh, look,” he said, taking a deep breath, “I’m not too sure it’s me we’ve been talking about here, Libby.”

    “Not entirely,” said Libby, turning deep crimson and looking away from him.

    “No.” He put a hand over one of hers. “It’s okay, I won’t ask. But since I’m here and you’re here, and I want like crazy to—and I’m real sorry about doing those dames at the conference, even if you don’t believe me—and—and I really did plan the whole week around you, couldn’t we?”

    “Well, um, why me, that’s what I can’t understand,” said Libby limply, not looking at him.

    “I guess no-one can understand these things, when it comes right down to it.”

    “Is it just because they usually give in and when I didn’t your vanity was piqued?”

    He tried to smile insouciantly and failed. “Could be, I guess,” he croaked. “It doesn’t feel like it from where I’m sitting, though. Well, I was mad as Hell when I realised you’d gotten off with that art librarian guy, that’s for sure, if you call that piqued vanity. –Shit, how old was he?” he asked before he could stop himself.

   “Fifty-five,” replied Libby mildly.

    Bruce choked.

    “You are too young for me, you know,” she said mildly.

    “Maybe, but Jesus, Libby, I’m not proposing setting up house and having ten kids together: couldn’t we just try it?” he cried.

    Oh, dear: there were tears in the rather pretty but rather weak pale blue eyes that weren’t like his namesake’s at all. “Yeah, okay. Not here, it’s too near the path. Shall we go back to the hotel?” said Libby kindly.

    Never mind she was speaking like an elderly maiden aunt, she was speaking like an elderly maiden aunt that was about to let him do it! “Sure!” he gasped. He put a hand under her chin. “Just a kiss first, huh?” Libby didn’t object, so he kissed her. Oh, boy!

    Back in his room he tore off the jeans he’d pulled on over the soggy shorts, tore the shorts off, pushed her onto the bed, kissed her like crazy, managed to get the tee-shirt and bra off of her, managed to get the jeans and panties off of her, managed to kiss her like crazy a bit more and then sat up, very flushed, and admitted: “Libby, if I don’t do it right now I might just come, this is too good—”

    “Okay. Use a condom,” replied his maiden aunt kindly.

    Bruce pulled one on with shaking fingers, hurled himself at her, kissed her furiously and got up there. At which point the maiden aunt gave a shriek of: “Oh, Bruce!”, put her legs right up, and fucked like crazy.

    Quite some time late he concluded, lying on his back with his hands linked behind his head and a big fat smirk on his face: “You needed that, huh?”

    “Yes,” said Libby very faintly, smiling at him.

    They’d had a drink and were sitting back against the pillows companionably when she said: “Bruce…”

    “Uh-huh?”

    “Um, suppose you were a—a guy,” said Libby cautiously, “that, um, maybe liked one lady, and another lady, that was very attractive, um, made the first move, a bit like you described earlier.”

    “Uh-huh?” He reached for the bottle and gave her another shot of Jack Daniels.

    “Thanks. This is funny stuff,” said Libby, sipping it. “Well, say you—the guy—was in the kitchen and maybe she did, um, whatever those ladies do. Like, was it opening her mouth and licking her lips?”

    Bruce had the grace to gulp. “Well, yeah. And?”

    “And, um, then she—maybe this was without even asking her to. Um, undid your jeans and, um, you know.”

    “Held it?” said Bruce with a little smile, taking her free hand and putting it on him.

    Libby pinkened. “Um, no. Well, probably she did to start with.”

    Yo, boy! “Honey, are you trying to ask what would be a typical guy’s reaction if this attractive lady like what you described started in to suck a guy’s penis?”

    “Yes. Thank you. Americans are so articulate,” said Libby in considerable relief. “Say he maybe didn’t even fancy her all that much.”

    “But she was attractive? Honey, I sincerely doubt there’s a guy in the world that would push her away. That what you wanted to know?”

    “Mm. Thank you, Bruce.”

    Bruce sighed a little. “That is truly irresistible to a guy, Libby. And I gotta say it, she musta been some dame.”

    “I think she was very experienced. They get them like that sometimes, at the ecolodge.”

    “Mm-hm.” He poured himself another slug and sipped it slowly, glancing at her cautiously. She was just staring in front of her. “This the boyfriend?” he said lightly at last.

    She jumped. “No! Just—someone. Well, he did sort of, um, like me, but, um, I was involved with someone else most of the time.”

    “Uh-huh. But it was your kitchen?”

    “Did I mention the kitchen?” said Libby weakly. “Not exactly. It was the ecolodge’s kitchen.”

    Gee, it was all pretty clear, now. “Mm. Well, don’t condemn him for it,” he said on a dry note. “Not unless his name’s Superman?”

    “No,” said Libby, biting her lip. “But he is a bit… like you, I suppose.”

    “Likes women?” said Bruce very lightly indeed.

    “Mm.”

    “Uh-huh,” he concluded.

    “Uh-huh what?” she demanded, going very red.

    “Well, in the first place, if he’s a guy a bit like me, we wouldn’t expect him to think he couldn’t and not let himself; and in the second place, Libby, honey, maybe it isn’t clear to you, but it sure is to me, that’s the type you go for.” He raised his eyebrows at her and made a comical little face.

    Libby drank Jack Daniels blindly.

    “Mm?” murmured Bruce with a tiny laugh.

    “Maybe it is,” admitted Libby in a small voice.

III. Back to Taupo Shores

    The ecolodge basked in the mild morning sun. Andrew wandered outside, stretched and yawned, and strolled down to the landing stage. “Idyllic,” he said to himself, smiling. He looked across the silvery-blue lake in the direction of Taupo Harmonic Vitality. Chaparra Homestead had decided not to take the project on themselves but to have a formal agreement with Aidan and David to supply products and co-advertise their facilities, or some such expression, but this was apparently satisfactory to all parties. The first stage of the building was well under way: the main accommodation and dining block, and, linked to it by a covered walkway, the block containing the gym and the big teaching kitchen. And large areas had been rotary-hoed, appropriately manured, and sown with herbs, all sprouting like billyo. In preparation, apparently, for the first round of lavender wraps, sage teas, and what-not, in spring of next year.

    “Who’d have thought it?” he said with a little laugh. “Well, good on you, Aidan—and thank God for Pam and David!” His gaze slowly became unfocused, though the smile was still there. “Mm—a sausage, I think,” he murmured at last. “With wholemeal toast and grilled tomatoes—why not?”

    The ecolodge basked in the mild morning sun. Further along the lakeshore, near where the very much upgraded path to Pete’s and Jan’s new little house debouched onto the jetty end of the Rewarewa Trail, a duck waddled across the grass and launched itself onto the lake. Pete wandered out in a jersey over his pyjamas and wandered down to the jetty. “Bugger, not again,” he groaned, catching sight of the duck. “All right, take off for Turangi if ya like,” he said as it paddled off in a vaguely southerly direction. “Or alternatively come back here, we’ll try out that new oven on ya.”

    “On who?” asked an interested voice from behind him.

    Gasping, he spun round. “Don’t do that!”

    “Sorry, Dad,” said Libby, smiling at him. “Who are you gonna try the oven out on?”

    “One of Molly’s ruddy ducks. Does that kid of hers leave the gate of their run open, is that it?”

    “I don’t think so, he’s very good about the ducks.”

    “All right, ruddy Sean, then,” said Pete heavily, sitting down on the edge of the jetty.

    Libby came and sat beside him. “Maybe it’s a rogue duck.”

    “It’s that all right, blasted creature!”

    “No, I mean maybe it’s an escapee from somewhere—one of her original ones, didn’t you say they all swam away when she first came down here? Or maybe one from Taupo Organic Produce, from years back. Escaped to freedom and the great outdoors,” she explained, tipping her head back and breathing deeply. “Mmm! Doesn’t it smell good?”

    “Sure does. Uh, a solitary duck? They don’t interbreed with the wild ones, ya know.”

    “It’s better to be solitary and free than penned up with your fellow ducks,” replied Libby seriously.

    Pete patted her denim knee. “Yep; I’ve always thought so, lovey.”

    She bit her lip. “It wasn’t a figure of speech.”

    “No, but if the cap fits,” he said mildly.

    “Mm…” said Libby vaguely, gazing at the lake.

    After some time Pete cleared his throat. “Tamsin reckons Neil heard from Bob just the other day.”

    “I know,” replied Libby placidly.

    “Uh—well, he’s thinking of coming back some time in the New Year.”

    “Yes, Neil said.”

    “Well, uh, whaddaya think, Libby?”

    Libby stared silently out across the lake for some time. Then she said: “Well, I think quite a lot of things, Dad. Don’t go leaping to conclusions, will you?”

    “No,” agreed Pete on a glum note.

    “We-ell…” Suddenly she gave a little laugh. Pete looked at her hopefully. “I was talking to Wal the other day, and he said that when Aidan and Andrew first came down and hired the McLintock house, him and Jan both drew the same parallel: because there was Aidan with his friend, and the sister and her husband, and a Caroline as well, a cousin, not a sister, but it was close enough, and there were you and Jan across the way with a houseful of unmarried daughters! And then, us actually being called Jayne and Elizabeth?” She laughed again.

    “Eh?” he groped.

    “Um, sorry, Dad: it’s in a book. But if you extend the parallel, they had it all wrong, because in the book the Jane does end up with the really sweet man, but the Elizabeth ends up with his friend—”

    “Lovey, you’re not still thinking about Aidan, are you?” he said in dismay.

    “No!” said Libby with a cheerful laugh. “Of course not! We were all wrong for each other! That’s what I’m trying to say: it wasn’t like the book at all, and to assume that Aidan was the hero figure was wrong, too. He is very up-market, and Mr Darcy, that was his name, was, too. But you see, in the book the Elizabeth takes a real scunner to him because he’s so up-himself, and it isn’t for ages and ages, until he proves himself by doing something really decent for her and her family, and she begins to realise what he’s really like, that she falls for him after all.”

    As this muddled speech had progressed Pete had looked more and more troubled. “Libby, love, life isn’t like a book,” he croaked.

    “No, that’s what I’m saying!” agreed Libby, smiling at him. “If there is any parallel, it’s with me and Bob, not me and Aidan!”

    Poor Pete just looked at her limply.

    “Wal laughed like anything when he got it,” she added helpfully.

    “Did ’e?” the unfortunate man croaked. “Well, uh—well, yeah, that was really decent of Bob, to take over the ecolodge when Jan got crook. Did this joker in the book…” Blow, why had he started that sentence? “Um, did ’e blot ’is copybook, too?”

    “No, in those days that would have been beyond the pale,” replied Libby calmly.

    Pete’s jaw dropped. She’d had hysterics all over poor old Michelle, she’d rung up Jayne in England and bawled down the phone to her for the best part of an hour, and then she’d walked out with her duds in one suitcase, leaving half her new clothes behind, and it had been the best part of a week before the frantic Bob—not that he deserved much sympathy—but still, it had been the best part of a week before he found out she’d only gone over to the Southern Stars. Then she’d refused to go anywhere near the ecolodge and had been threatening to go back to Australia, which she would have done if Pete hadn’t rung Patty and poured the lot out to her and she’d come up with the idea of getting Libby over there where she could look after her. Which everyone had been doubtful about except Libby herself. But of course it had turned out really good: in fact it had done both of them loads of good. Really taken Patty out of herself, and given Libby a new lease on life into the bargain. And what was more the Yank library had been really pleased to get her: it hadn’t been a charity case, by no means. She’d actually emailed Jan to say she felt she had marketable skills.

    “Libby, I gotta say this,” he croaked. “We all had the impression you thought it was beyond the pale, too.”

    “Mm. I didn’t know enough about men to understand, you see. I put myself in his place: if one of the male guests had made a pass at me in the kitchen I’d’ve slapped his face.”

    Pete cleared his throat uneasily. “Bit more than a pass, I’d of said. Ruddy stupid to let it get that far. Mind you, if the dame chucked herself at ’im—”

    “Yes. It’s all right, Dad. I do understand that he let it go too far and he couldn’t resist.”

    “Yeah,” said Pete limply. “Well, always liked women a bit too much, ya see.”

    “Exactly! They’re the same type! I didn’t see it because superficially they’re so different!” said Libby on a triumphant note.

    Uh—was she on about this ruddy book again? “What, Bob and this bloke in the book?”

    “No, Bob and Aidan. And not only that: Bob and Terry Harrigan!”

    Cripes, who was he? One of the Yank ones? Patty had given them some pretty full reports in her emails—in fact at one point Jan had told him not to be a fuddy-duddy and said something bloody mad about ewe-lambs and horned rams—he’d thought she was on about Merinos, actually, ’cos it was around then that Bob had sent them a postcard from somewhere in Australia with a picture of The Big Merin— Never mind that.

    “Who?” he asked feebly.

    “The New Zealand librarian guy I had the thing with,” said Libby dismissively.

    What? Was it Jayne or Tamsin that had said he was a horrible smoothie in a smooth suit? Well, both, probably. Pete gaped at her. “Thought ’e was a type in a zoot-suit?”

    “Yes! Like Aidan!” said Libby with a little choke of laughter.

    “Well, yeah! Libby, you’re off-beam here. I don’t know Aidan that well, but I’d say him and Bob had nothing in common! Not a thing! Well, both quite tall, I s’pose. Darkish. Um, thinnish,” he finished limply.

    “Tall, dark and handsome, you clot!” said Libby with a laugh. “Terry was, too. Plus, and this is the point, they’re all the type that like women!”

    Most blokes that weren’t actually gay liked— Oh. Slowly Pete’s jaw sagged. “If ya mean the type that can’t resist when it’s offered on a plate—”

    “Of course!” she said eagerly.

    He swallowed hard.

    “See?” said Libby mildly.

    “Yeah, I do.” Pete just sat and contemplated this thought and the lake, for some time.

    “All those external things, the superficial things, like having a degree, and wearing smart clothes and liking fancy food and shiny cars with silly names, and liking opera and so forth, they sort of got in the way: that’s why I couldn’t see that Bob was exactly the same type as Aidan, underneath.”

    Pete twitched. “Uh—never heard ’e fancied opera, no. Um, well, how much do those things matter to you, though, Libby?”

    “I don’t know. I do know I could never hack Aidan’s sort of life: everything has to be perfect, and never mind whether it’s cordon bleu or organic and harmonic, it’s got to be the best of its kind! And he’s used to a horribly up-market lifestyle: it just doesn’t appeal.”

    Well, Bob certainly wasn’t used to one of them, no. He eyed her uncertainly. “Mm… What about the degree stuff?”

    “I’m not sure. Well, having a degree doesn’t mean you’ve ever opened a book, these days. And I don’t think that sort of thing matters as much I used to when I was younger. But I don’t know that I could stand living with a person that never picked up a book from one year’s end to the next—that was determinedly non-intellectual, I think is what I mean.”

    Yeah? There was a fair bit of that about, in Taupo. “Uh, look, Libby,” he said cautiously, “when it comes down to brass tacks the intellectual stuff isn’t important. Bob’s a really good bloke.”

    “I do know that, after the way he helped us out,” said Libby mildly. “But I did ask you not to leap to conclusions, didn’t I? I like him, and I find him very attractive: I’ve admitted that to myself, at least! I wouldn’t admit it, to start off with, because he wasn’t from the flaming professional classes. –I never realised before what an awful snob I was.”

    “No, well, with a bloody mother like yours there’s some excuse for ya!” said Pete fiercely.

    “Maybe not an excuse, but certainly a reason,” replied his daughter mildly.

    Pete scratched his narrow jaw, thinking it over. Finally he offered: “Wouldn’t say Bob never picks up a book from one year’s end to the next. Got quite a lot of books in ’is sitting-room. Though some of ’em could be Neil’s, I s’pose.”

    “What sort of books?” she asked on a hopeful note.

    “Never noticed,” he admitted. “Too determinedly non-intellectual, ya see.”

    “Mm. Well, does he use the library much?”

    Pete winced. What Bob Kenny had been in the habit of picking up from the library a few years back had not been books. Or even them aerobics videos the place seemed to be full of. Angela Davies. Did shelving and book-mending for them part-time for a few years. Plump blonde solo mum, about Bob’s age, which at the time woulda been… Well, when his marriage was going from bad to worse, so, uh, mid-thirties? One of those fuzzy-haired women that always looked untidy—his glance fell involuntarily on Libby’s mop of untidy dark brown curls and he winced again. Angela had come to Taupo in quest of a laidback lifestyle and a chance to keep bees. She’d managed both but hadn’t managed to tie Bob down to a permanent relationship or anything remotely like it, so she’d eventually given the lot away, bees and all.

    “You can stop making faces, I can see he never darkens its doors,” said Libby heavily.

    “Uh—no, wasn’t making faces because of— I mean, didn’t think I was making— Well, I mean, I dunno that he does use it much, but Jan reckons they haven’t got much and it’s all very well saying they can get anything for ya from the big library in Wellington, but ya gotta know what ya want!”

    “Yes: it is much nicer to be able to browse,” replied Libby, smiling, to his relief.

    “Uh-huh. Well, look, Neil’s left a key with me. Why not go round there, suss out his books, if ya think that’s important?”

    Libby’s jaw had sagged.

    “Look, if we’re talking brass tacks here, Libby, why not? Well, flaming heck: he’s still keen, he rung Neil from Sydney and about the only ones he asked after were you and Peter!”

    Libby had gone very pink but she stuck her chin out and admitted: “I know.”

    “So?”

    She took a deep breath. “All right, I will! I’ll go now: gimme the key!”

    Pete got up quickly, never mind it was only about seven o’clock of a mild December day and she hadn’t had her breakfast yet. Besides, if she got there before eight there was some faint hope that Mrs Miser wouldn’t be glued to her front curtains— No, there wasn’t. Never mind. He found the key and waved her off in the old 4WD that Andrew didn’t need because he had a shinier one of his own.

    “Fingers crossed,” he concluded as it headed down the new path.

Next chapter:

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