Confession Time

17

Confession Time

    Pam put the receiver down steadily, went into the luxurious sitting-room of the Fanshaws’ luxurious so-called holiday home and then just sat on the sofa and trembled for some time. After all these years! What a fool she was: why in God’s name hadn’t she told David who his father was years since? When he was too young to care… Oh, Christ! If only he didn’t look so much like the bloody man! But they only had to lay eyes on each other to know. Likewise if that old mate of Aidan’s, Andrew Whatsisname, caught sight of David—except she’d made sure that wouldn’t happen by not telling Livia he was coming down for the weekend and then, when Joan Hutchins found out, explaining firmly that he wasn’t into the dinner-party scene. Unfortunately this hadn’t suggested to Joan that she might not be, either, so she hadn’t been able to get out of it, but still, at that stage it had seemed as if she was safe enough… Oh, bugger!

    And if she told David she’d have to tell Aidan, it’d be highly unnatural of the boy not to want to at least speak to his father, though it’d be understandable if he didn’t want to have anything much to do with him. Or her; why hadn’t she told him years back? But he’d always been a very level-headed boy, so possibly he’d understand her point of view. On the other hand, who knew what psychological forces might be at work in a child’s feelings about his father, especially a boy’s…

    When Susan came back from a foray to Taupo shops her mother was sitting on the sofa, crying.

    “Mum! What’s the matter?”

    Pam wiped her hand across her eyes. “Nothing.”

    “You’re not sick, are you?” said Susan fearfully.

    Pam took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together. This had been one of Susan’s worst fears, ever since the mother of a girl at school had died of leukaemia. “No, of course not. I’ve just had a shock, that’s all.”

    “Is Dad all right?”

    Bruce Jones at the age of fifty-one was horribly spry, indeed scrawny, a devotee of long-distance cycling, and remarried to a horribly spry and scrawny, deeply tanned female long-distant cyclist. As far as Pam knew—she didn’t keep in touch but Susan still saw a bit of her father—they’d spent their usual energetic holiday, this time free-wheeling round the Canterbury Plains with the occasional side-trip to the foothills of the Southern Alps on what they both called their “trusty treadlies,” ye gods! He’d be back at work now.

    “Yes; nothing to do with him, dear,” she said heavily. “Or—or anyone we know.”

    “Then what is it?” said Susan, sitting down beside her and taking her hand.

    “Well, um—” God! Where did you start? “Um, it’s to do with David’s father,” she said lamely.

    “Eh?” replied Susan blankly.

    Pam swallowed. “Mm.”

    “You always said it was just a one-night stand,” she reminded her on a dubious note.

    “It was. There was nothing between us. Um, it was after a stupid student party,” she admitted, swallowing again.

    Susan of course was a student, but she’d never been the sort that went in for drunken parties—and she’d never imagined Mum had been. She stared.

    “Um, it was our last year, we’d just got our exam results,” said Pam weakly. “They had a huge party at his flat, with all of our year invited. God knows what I drank—and smoked.”

    “Mum!” she gasped in horror.

    “I wasn’t a judge then,” said Pam drily.

    “Yes, but what if people find out?”

    “Uh—I’m not running for U.S. President,” she said, drier than ever. “And as, to name only a handful, Judge McLachlan, Kate Prosser, M.P., Professor Lomax and James Adams, Q.C., were all smoking it, too, not to mention your father, I doubt if anyone’s going to throw stones.”

    “Dad was smoking pot?” she gasped, ignoring irrelevancies.

    “As I remember it,” said Pam, eying her sardonically, “he was smoking pot and drinking tequila—not a combination I’d recommend, by the way—dressed in his underpants and a frilly lampshade, with his chest decorated with lipstick and shaving cream—or possibly ointment of some kind. White and out of a tube, anyway. I’ve no idea whose lipstick it was.”

    Susan just goggled at her.

    “Your lot are all so much more serious than we were,” said Pam with a sigh. “Not that we hadn’t all worked like stink. I suppose we felt we deserved a last fling… Oh, well.”

    Susan swallowed hard. “Yes. Who—who was it, Mum?” she croaked. “Not—not Judge McLachlan?”

    “Tony McLachlan?” said Pam with a sudden laugh. “No! He was a crabby reactionary even back then! Mind you, he got as pissed as anyone that night, but it was on port—bad port, the experts informed us, but nevertheless—and he was smoking, but not pot: cigars that he’d nicked from his old man. I think he’d nicked the port, too.”

    “Oh,” said Susan limply. She looked at her cautiously. “It was Professor Lomax, wasn’t it?”

    “No. I grant you Mike Lomax was the complete opposite of Tony, then as now. The limp, long-haired type that takes the rabidly leftist stance without even pausing to ask himself whether a government of the far left could ever run the country’s economy, no matter how correct their position on—was it blue whales, back then? Think it was, yeah—no matter how correct their position on—”

    “Mu-um!”

    “Sorry, dear,” said Pam, biting her lip. “It wasn’t Mike, I’ve always found him revolting. He had mouse-coloured ringlets down well below his shoulders and instead of that foul spade-shaped beard he sports these days, a sort of daggy Old Testament prophet look. Um, well, it was 1979,” she said feebly as her daughter goggled at her. “Or, uh—technically 1980? In any case results were just out. Well, nine months before David’s birthday, obviously,” she ended weakly.

    Susan was now very red. “Just tell me,” she ordered grimly.

    “The guy who was giving the party. Aidan Vine,” said Pam dully.

    Susan stared at her, frowning.

    “We’d been clerking together for years at Wal Briggs’s dump. Terrifically good-looking: the same sort of dark looks as David’s. I had the most tremendous crush on him… You’re too sensible to understand,” said Pam dully.

    “Aidan— Mum, you don’t mean Mrs Hutchins’s caterer, do you?” she gasped.

    “Uh—he has been fooling around doing cooking for the trendy Taupo set these holidays, yes. He’s actually a very eminent company lawyer over in Sydney. Well published, all that crap,” said Judge Easterbrook heavily. “He was always interested in cooking: he made a lovely meal for us clerks and Wal one time… He never looked twice at me: like I say, he was as good-looking as David. But not like him temperamentally: very up-himself. Both his father and grandfather were eminent Supreme Court judges, they owned a huge mansion in Remuera, and Aidan was getting around in a, um, fancy sports car, don’t know the make, but none of us other clerks could have dreamed of owning one, with a succession of glamorous bird on his arm. The last one had just dumped him, which was why he was at a loose end that night. And I did throw myself at him, so it wasn’t his fault.”

    “It must have been!” she cried, very flushed. “What about precautions?”

    “Back in those days,” said Pam with a sigh, “—it was before AIDS, I know you can’t imagine it—but back in those days all the boys expected the girls to be on the Pill. The sensible, responsible ones did have condoms on hand—mind you, they had to walk into a chemist’s and ask for them, there were no dispensers in the varsity bogs like there are these days—but I don’t think anyone ever claimed that Aidan Vine was sensible or responsible. And I wasn’t on the Pill, because I wasn’t one of those skinny, lipsticked, high-heeled tarts he used to get round with.”

    “Didn’t he even ask?” said her daughter angrily.

    Pam was remembering that night—which she hadn’t thought about for years—with an odd little smile on her face. “Yes, he wasn’t too drunk to ask. But I lied. Well, I thought it’d be all right, I was towards the end of my cycle.” She shrugged slightly.

    “I see…” said Susan slowly. “You really did have a crush on him, didn’t you?”

    Pam was now rather red. “Yes,” she said shortly.

    “It isn’t your fault, Mum, you were at the mercy of your hormones,” she said firmly.

    “It is my fault that I lied, you silly chook,” replied Pam wryly.

    “No, I mean, your body knew you wanted him, and so it was fertile,” said Susan on a clinical note.

    “That or I can’t count. No, well, you’re probably right. Anyway, the point is that he’s turned up here and he’s thinking of chucking in the law and going into some sort of catering business, and he wants to talk to David about his blessed food technology stuff!”

    “I see. It must be where David gets it from!” she beamed.

    Pam was conscious of a strong desire to strangle her sensible, level-headed daughter. “Susan, you idiot, neither of them KNOW!” she said loudly.

    “I get that, Mum,” she said kindly. “You wouldn’t have wanted to let on to Aidan, if it was a one-night stand and he was the glamour-boy of your year.”

    Pam turned a rich tomato shade but managed to reply: “No, that’s right.”

    “It’s all right,” she said, squeezing her hand hard. “I could tell David if you don’t feel up to it. I think it’s quite romantic, really!”

    “It isn’t romantic, it’s stupid and—and selfish and unkind. I should have tuh-told—”

    “Don’t cry again, Mum.” Susan produced a much-creased tissue from the pocket of her shorts.

    “I’b ndot,” lied Pam soggily, blowing her nose hard. “I should have told both of them. I can see now that Aidan had a right to know, but back then… We were all terrifically into women’s rights, no-one ever mentioned men’s rights, really. And—and afterwards—well, it was the morning your grandpa had his first stroke, so it was all chaotic, but at work on Monday he didn’t even remember, so, um…”

    “Yeah,” said Susan kindly, squeezing her hand hard again.

    At this Judge Easterbrook gave in entirely and burst into tears on her little daughter’s slim shoulder. Eventually recovering enough to look up and say soggily: “Not the Supreme Court: bloody Sir Simon Vine was on the Court of Appeal.”

    “He would be,” responded Susan soothingly, patting her back. “But Aidan doesn’t want that, does he?”

    “Apparently not, unless this catering stuff’s a flash in the pan. –Sorry, that wasn’t meant to be a pun,” she said as Susan blinked.

    “No, of course not. Hang on, I’ll just get some clean tissues and then I’ll make a nice cup of tea, shall I?”

    “Mm. Ta, dear,” said Pam weakly.

    The tea Susan eventually produced was as horrid as her usual brew—whether she didn’t let the water boil or what, goodness knew—but after she’d got it down her Pam was capable of saying: “Thanks, dear, I do feel better. I’d better speak to Aidan first, I think. Uh—damn, I haven’t got his number.”

    “Mrs Hutchins’ll know. –Don’t worry: if she asks why I wanna know I’ll just lie,” said Susan cheerfully.

    Pam watched numbly as Susan rang Joan Hutchins on her mobile, lied to her about a dinner-party they weren’t planning, and got Aidan’s number. And dialled it.

    “Hullo, who’s that?” she said brightly as someone picked up. “I see!” she said with tremendous interest. “I didn’t know he had a daughter! …Is that right? Cool! So how old are you, Aprylle? No kidding! Me, too! –Hey, Mum, his daughter’s the same age as me!” she hissed, beaming. “—Susan Jones, my Mum’s Pam Easterbrook, Mum and Dad are divorced. …Yeah, half the girls in my class at school had divorced parents, too. Melanie Kean, well, she used to reckon it was neato, ’cos then you got twice as many grandparents! …Yeah, ’tis pretty slow. There is waterskiing, if you’re into that? –No, me neither. …Nah, we’re just staying in a place Mum borrowed. …Have you really? –Hey, Mum, they’ve got an ace old launch! Real wood!” she beamed.

    “Susan—” said Pam faintly.

    “Hang on. –Hey, listen, Aprylle, maybe we could jack something up for the weekend. I’ll let ya know, okay? Is your Dad there? ’Cos Mum wants to speak to him. –She’s getting him,” she said to Pam.

    “Did you have to make a bosom-bow of the girl?” said Pam limply.

    “She sounds all right.”

    “Darling, if she’s the one I think she is, he told me she’s into fabric art!”

    “Nah, she’s given that away, she’s gonna help him with his catering! –He’s coming, I can hear him shouting at her.” Forthwith she handed the cringing Pam the phone.

    “Stir it steadily, and keep the heat low!” said an all-too-familiar voice in Pam’s ear. “Hullo? Is that you, Pam?”

    “Yes. Hullo, Aidan,” gulped Pam, wishing she’d thought in time to tell the supportive Susan to shove off.

    “Look, can I ring you back? I’ve got a sauce at a very delicate point.”

    “No, it’s important. I need to speak to you. In private,” she gulped.

    In the dimness of the horrid teak-panelled, teak-floored passage of the McLintock house Aidan rolled his eyes. “Look, if you’ve kindly found me a job I appreciate the effort, but I am serious about giving up the law.”

    “Uh—no. Oh, did Wal mention that chair down at Victoria? They do need someone in your area. I think McIntosh is retiring next June.”

    “July, Wal said, but I’m honestly not interested. But thanks very much for thinking of—”

    “NO!” cried Pam desperately. “It’s not about work, Aidan, it’s personal!”

    “Er—well, anything I can do, Pam, of course. Oh! Aprylle said she spoke to your daughter: if you want to send the kid over—”

    “It’s nothing to do with Susan, will you stop second-guessing me, you’re are as bad as you were back then!” cried Pam crossly.

    There was a short silence. “Back when, Pam?”

    “Back when we both clerked for Wal,” said Pam limply. “I—I can’t say it on the phone, Aidan. Can I come over? Or is the sauce for a client?”

    Aidan couldn’t imagine it could be anything very drastic. Possibly she’d learnt something mildly scandalous about an old colleague, or ruddy Tom Jones had some skeleton in the closet—though all he could recall in that direction was a night getting pissed with Andrew and a red-haired guy who ended up working for Hyatt Menzies Worth, and painting his chest with lipstick and something disgusting, toothpaste, probably, at a very drunken party. Oh, and a lampshade on his head, that was right! “Uh—no, just for us. Look, Andrew won’t be back this evening: he rang to say he and the dame he’s got a crush on are dining in style at The Chateau, so why not bring your daughter over? There’ll be stacks of food, and I think Aprylle’d really like to meet her.”

    “I— Look, we’ll come,” said Pam limply. “But if you don’t want us to stay after all, we’ll go, all right?”

    “Of course,” said Aidan politely, making a comic face at the phone. “See you soon!”

    “This is mad,” said Pam, ringing off and handing the mobile back to Susan, “but he’s asked us to tea and I couldn’t see how to get out of it. His friend Andrew won’t be in: there’ll just be you and me and his daughter. Don’t get excited: there’s no telling how he’ll take it. He’s got every right to be furious with me for not having told him at the time. The more so,” she said, swallowing hard, “as it’s just dawned he hasn’t got any sons.”

    “He has now,” replied Susan stolidly, getting up. “Come on, you better wash your face.”

    Numbly Pam stumbled off to the luxurious ensuite of the Fanshaws’ palatial master bedroom.

    The front of the frightful McLintock house faced more or less due west, so Aidan opened the door to a vision of a haloed plump silhouette, supported by a smaller, secular figure.

    “Hullo, Pam,” he said with a laugh in his voice. “Still incapable of controlling that bird’s nest, I see!”

    “Eh? Oh,” she said, thrusting a hand through the curls, which immediately rioted more madly than ever. “Yes, I am, actually, but as it appears you still think appearances actually matter, possibly neither of us has grown up over the last—”

    “Mum!” interrupted the slighter figure loudly. Aidan could now see she was about Pam’s height, but very much slimmer, with short, wavy light brown hair in a smart, neat cut. From the paternal side, no doubt. Would she also be as anal as bloody Tom Jones?

    “Sorry,” said Pam, shoving the hand through the hair again.

    “She’s upset,” said the girl severely to Aidan. “She wants to talk to you about something serious.”

    “Yes. Just shut up, dear,” said Pam limply. “Can we—can we talk?”

    “If you insist,” said Aidan limply. “I was gonna offer you drinks.”

    “She doesn’t need alcohol!” said the girl loudly.

    “Er—no. Come in,” he said limply. “Is this private enough?” he said, showing Pam into the large room with the French windows.

    To his astonishment she looked warily over at the view of the Briggs house and said: “No. Isn’t there a study or something?”

    Shit: was it something about Wal that she didn’t want Livia to— “Yes; we can go in there if you prefer. –It’s Susan, isn’t it?” he said nicely to the girl.

    “Yes. Susan Jones.”

    “Yes, of course: I knew your father,” he said kindly. To his astonishment they both blenched visibly. Okay, maybe it was something to old Tom Jones’s discredit, then. “Aprylle’s in the kitchen, Susan. You might like to join her, and if she shows any signs of touching anything on the stove or in the oven, prevent her forcibly, mm?”

    “Righto. –Don’t drink, Mum,” she ordered, going before he could tell her where to find the kitchen. Well, it was a one-storeyed house, if large: she probably couldn’t get lost.

    “You become an alcoholic in your old age, Pam?” he said lightly, taking her arm gently.

    Pam jerked away as violently as if she’d still been the gauche girl in her early twenties that he remembered. Aidan gaped at her. “My God, if that is it, Pam—”

    “No, don’t be blitheringly stupid! Susan’s the generation that accept their stupid little peers taking Ecstasy in the mosh pit but think their Aged Parents are about to become alcoholics if they so much as take a sherry before dinner!”

    “In that case, I’ll grab the decanter,” he said, grabbing it. “And if you can guarantee not to leap like a startled trout again, I’ll take your arm.”

    “No,” said Pam, swallowing. “I know you’re trying to be nice, but— Just lead the way.”

    Numbly Aidan led the way. It was a pity, really, ’cos that arm was very nice and squidgy!

    He got her sat down on one of the frightful over-buttoned leather sofas that were a feature of Judge McLintock’s study, and then realised that the bloody thing was much too deep for her. “Hang on, Pam, I’ll get you a cushion.” He hurried back into the sitting-room, trying to banish (a) the sensation of that lovely soft, squidgy arm, and (b) the memory of what he and Libby had done on that very sofa, one night when Andrew and Caroline had been out carousing. Because for one thing she was Pam Bloody Easterbrook, and for another, now that he’d got a good look at her it was obvious she’d been crying. Those beautiful, green-flecked, wide hazel eyes—that until meeting her again at the Briggses’ place he’d have sworn he’d forgotten completely—were distinctly red-rimmed.

    He grabbed a couple of cushions and hurried back. “Put these behind your back, this damned furniture’s built for the male judicial bum,” he said, bending over her.

    “I’ll do it!” said Pam crossly, grabbing a cushion off him.

    Aidan refrained from raising his eyebrows—he wasn’t about to leap on her, for God’s sake!—waited politely while she adjusted it and found it wasn’t sufficient, and handed her the other one.

    “Thanks,” said Pam gruffly, avoiding his eye.

    Swallowing a sigh—he did not want to know it, whatever it was, and especially if it was something that bloody Tom Jones deserved thumping for, though if the man was in front of him he’d be happy to thump him—Aidan grabbed a couple of chunky tumblers out of the horrible fake Queen Anne chiffonier and poured generous dollops of the brown fluid from the decanter into them.

    “What is this?” said Pam dazedly as he handed her one.

    He sat down heavily in a chunky buttoned leather armchair opposite her. “I have no idea. My brother-in-law bought it, decanted it, declared it a mistake, and abandoned it. Possibly something that calls itself New Zealand sherry? It is alcoholic: we’ve verified that empirically.”

    She tasted it cautiously. “I’d say it was sweeter than sherry.”

    “Than New Zealand sherry? Impossible!” replied Aidan, swallowing a laugh. He tasted his. “Fruity,” he noted. “Drink it up, it’ll do you good.”

    “That or render me instantly paralytic,” replied Pam, nonetheless drinking it.

    “Better?” asked Aidan kindly.

    “I feel a lot warmer inside,” she admitted, putting a cautious hand on her tummy. “If that counts as better.”

    Aidan looked at the hand on the plump tummy in a pair of tight jeans that, if asked, he would have maintained a women with her figure should not be in, and felt his ears go very red. “I’d say so,” he said feebly. “Uh—so you don’t wear your engagement and wedding rings, these days, Pam?”

    “What? Oh,” she said weakly, looking down at her hand. “No. Bruce laid claim to half the engagement ring when we busted up, so I threw the bloody thing at him and flushed the other one.”

    Aidan could envisage this scenario very clearly. What he couldn’t envisage was why the Hell she’d settled for Jones in the first place! “Uh-huh. What was it: incompatibility, like most, mutual infidelity, like me and Paulette, or finding out he had a bit on the side?”

    Her jaw hardened. “It was incompatibility, all right, but you’re not wrong: he was doing a skinny bird half his age from his bloody cycling club.”

    “I see. I always did think the man was a tit, and that confirms it. All right, tell me what he’s done.”

    “What?” said Pam foggily.

    “Isn’t this about some peccadillo of Jones’s from the dim, distant past come back to haunt him? Uh—if it’s one of Wal’s, I can tell you here and now his wife’s got no illusions about him and he’d say publish and be damned.”

    “No,” said Pam dazedly, staring at him. “Is that what you— No! And if bloody Bruce was in the shit— No, well, he is Susan’s father: I suppose I’d rally round.”

    Aidan smiled just a little. “Yes; you were always a rallier-round, Pam. Not that it did that ditsy blonde bit in the office much good, when she was already three months gone and the boyfriend had lit out for Sidders.”

    “Lindsay Walker,” said Pam dazedly. “I’d forgotten all about her!”

    “So had I, until just now. I suddenly saw her with her mascara streaked and you taking up that ruddy collection all round the office. –Most of those kids clerking for Wal had to really scratch to contribute as much as five dollars,” he added wryly.

    Pam tried to smile. “You put in a hundred-dollar note and I nearly passed out: I’d never even seen one before.”

    Blast! She looked at if she was going to bawl. Hurriedly he got up and refilled her tumbler. “Well, don’t bawl over it. That was at the stage when I was quids-in with bloody Sir Simon: he was still patting himself on the back that I’d gone into law.”

    “Mm.” Pam took a gulp of the horrible whatever-it-was and found she couldn’t say it. She put the glass down on the edge of the giant carved desk and fumbled in her purse. “This is a recent picture of my son, David.” She handed it to him, swallowing hard.

    So it was her son in trouble, not something from the… past. Aidan felt his cheeks go all goosey-flesh. Must be what the novelists meant when they described someone as going white, he registered with a part of his mind—he’d always thought it was merely a figure of speech. A bad figure of…

    “It was that stupid student party in our last year after our results came out,” said Pam rapidly.

    “What?” he said faintly.

    “That bloody party you threw at your flat. Everybody was high as kites, on booze or pot or both, and—” She broke off, gulping. “I know you don’t remember it, Aidan. But he is yours.”

    Aidan’s colour had come back in a rush. He was very, very angry. “I’d say there’s no doubt of that! That’s Sir Cornelius Vine’s bloody nose!”

    “Mm. His hair grows the same way as yours, too.” She drew a trembling breath and repeated: “I know you don’t remember it—”

    “I do fucking REMEMBER it!” he shouted. “You were unbelievably squidgy and wet as Hell and you swore you were on the Pill!”

    “Yes,” said Pam, very faintly. A tear trickled down her cheek and she wiped it away quickly with the back of her hand. “It was stupid, but I—I thought it’d be safe and—and I thought if I said I wasn’t, you wouldn’t duh-do it with me, ’cos all those sophisticated girls you went round with were.”

    “What?” he croaked. “You can’t have been that hen-brained!”

    “Yes,” she said simply, sniffing juicily.

    He drew a deep breath. “All right, you were. Just tell me one thing: why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

    “It was my fault,” said Pam in a very low voice. “And I honestly thought when you didn’t say anything on the Monday that you didn’t remember anything. And I—I was sure you wouldn’t want to know. And your father would’ve been wild with you. And—and back then, no-one had heard of men’s rights.”

    Aidan got up abruptly. “Pam, I’m so wild I can barely speak, let alone think!”

    “Mm,” said Pam miserably. “Sorry.”

    He paced up and down, scowling, eventually noticed the decanter, poured himself another slug, and downed it, shuddering. “How old is he?” he said abruptly.

    “Twenty-six last September,” said Pam miserably.

    Boy, that made it clear enough! Conceived at the end of December or in very early January, whenever it was the results came out that year. Funnily enough what his mind was now showing him, clear as daylight, was the bloody results sheets pinned up in the cloisters edging the quad, and sodding Tom Jones—why he thought his name’d be near the top of the list God knew—running a nasty nail-bitten finger down one of the lists, where the top two names were Easterbrook, Pamela Susan, and Vine, Aidan Cornelius. Alphabetical, their marks were exactly the same.

    After a period of heavy breathing he managed to say: “Did you say he’s lecturing now? Finished his Ph.D.?”

    “Yes. He got very high marks in Schol. in the Sixth Form so I let him go to varsity without a Seventh Form year. He was too young, really, but he’d only have mucked around if he had to repeat the work. By that time I could afford to help him out,” said Pam dully.

    “Don’t tell me you sent him to bloody Grammar!” –The forcing house usually made the Sixth-formers sit Schol. just for the practice, though they weren’t eligible for the scholarships.

    “Yes. Bruce had insisted we move to this bloody villa in Mount Eden, so as it was in the Grammar Zone…”

    “Right,” he said heavily. “You do realise there’s a huge and horrible portrait in oils of one of my great-uncles in the front hall there? He was a dead ringer for old Sir Cornelius, too: didn’t anyone ever remark on the likeness to the poor kid?”

    Pam gulped. “I didn’t know about the portrait. Um, I don’t think they let the boys use the front hall, though.”

    Aidan passed his hand over his face and sat down heavily. “No, probably not.”

    “I’m sorry,” repeated Pam lamely. Surreptitiously she extracted a tissue from her purse and blew her nose as quietly as she could.

    Aidan leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. “Jesus,” he said indistinctly. “All these years…!” A vision of what they might have had together was dancing in his brain. He looked up and said bitterly, without stopping to think: “Do you realise what we could have had together?”

    Pam’s mouth trembled but she stuck her chin out and replied firmly enough: “You didn’t even like me. We’d have fought like cat and dog—we did already.”

    “Was that a reason for not telling me I had a SON?” he shouted.

    “No,” she admitted faintly. “I’m sorry. I— Nobody ever thought of men’s rights, back then—”

    “Pam, if you say men’s rights once more, I will strangle you!” said Aidan through his teeth.

    “Duh-did I say that before? Um, sorry. But, um, nobody did. And I was sure you wouldn’t want the baby. You were right at the beginning of your career,” she ended dully.

    “So were you!” he said angrily. “I’d have married you, didn’t that occur?”

    “You might have, but you wouldn’t have wanted to. Anyway I didn’t want to marry a man who didn’t love me,” said Pam dully. “And your father would have been furious.”

    “For Christ’s sake! Sir Fucking Simon can’t have been a consideration!” he said with a mad laugh.

    “Yes. Well, your family and… stuff,” ended Pam lamely. She looked miserably into her lap.

    Aidan just stared at her for some time. Eventually, swallowing hard, he managed to say: “Couldn’t you have told me after he was born?”

    “It—it was sort of done by then,” said Pam in a small voice. “You’d moved on, and I had a job, too, and—”

    “Least said, soonest mended,” concluded Aidan grimly. “I can’t believe… You of all people! You always seemed so—so full of principles! How could you be so—so bloody cruel and selfish?”

    “I said! No-one ever thought about men’s rights and—and they might have been principles but it was all theory!” cried Pam loudly. “Cast your mind back: we weren’t much older than Susan and your daughter are now! I was completely incapable of empathising with your point of view or—or even of seeing that you might have a point of view! In fact I couldn’t see you as a human being at all—I was as dazzled by the looks and the fancy clothes and the bloody sports car as any of the bimbos in the office, if you must know. –And you ignored me on the Monday morning and I could see it hadn’t meant anything to you!”

    “Me? You ignored me, you silly bitch! I came into the fucking office and you were standing by the photocopier in that bloody washed-out yellow tee-shirt that was tight as Hell and I said: ‘Hullo, again, Pam,’ and you said: ‘Wal’s out for blood so your notes on Slade vs. Regina had better be ready,’ and I concluded that you were embarrassed and felt the whole thing had been a mistake and had as low an opinion of A.C. Vine as you’d ever had and I’d better just keep my big mouth shut and my head down, so I did!”

    Pam goggled at him. “You can’t have been that insecure!”

    “YES!” shouted Aidan furiously. “Of course I was that insecure, I was only a kid, too! And may I point out that when I woke up next day you’d cleared out? How good do you think that made me feel?”

    “Oh, Christ,” said Pam limply. “Didn’t you— No. That was the morning Dad had a stroke and my brother got hold of Wal and he came round to the flat to fetch me. We did try to wake you up but you were out of it. It—it must have been that pot you smoked after—afterwards.”

    “Hash,” said Aidan feebly. “Hell.”

    Then there was a long silence.

    “I presume you haven’t told him?” said Aidan grimly at last.

    “No.”

    He took a very deep breath. “And would you ever have told either of us if I hadn’t rung up wanting to see him about his subject?”

    “No,” admitted Pam bleakly. A tear trickled down her cheek. She sniffed hard and wiped it away with the back of her hand.

    “JESUS!” he shouted. “And I thought I’d married the greatest bitch ever born!”

    More tears were trickling down Pam’s cheeks but she managed to say: “It wasn’t spite. There just didn’t seem to be any point in—in stirring things up.”

    “In other words you still can’t empathise with my point of view or bloody well concede that I’ve a right to any feelings at all!”

    Pam sniffed hard. “I’ve never been able to cope with very good-looking people.”

    “That must go down really well on the bench!” retorted Aidan angrily.

    “No—I mean, the sort that tend to come up before me aren’t. But anyway it’s different when it’s professional. I just… Well, in the first place I never saw you as human, really, and then in the second place I—I suppose I was afraid of you.” More tears ran down her cheeks and she scrabbled in her handbag.

    “Afraid of me,” echoed Aidan in a stunned voice.

    “Mm,” replied Pam, scrabbling in her bag.

    “How could you possibly be afraid of me, you demented female? You ran rings round me in old Fuzzipeg’s tutes, you hammered me in the finals of the Debating Club tournament, and you walked off with the class prize for— Bugger,” he said, as she burst into loud tears. “Look, it’s done now. Don’t bawl.”

    Pam bawled harder than ever.

    Aidan searched his pockets. “Shit,” he muttered. He went over to the desk and began pulling out drawers noisily. “Here,” he said in relief, finding a box of pale blue tissues in a bottom drawer next to a half-bottle of whisky. “Have some tissues. –Pam!” he said loudly, bending over her, as the offer had no effect except to make her cry harder. “Have some tissues!”

    She groped blindly for them and he shoved them into her hand and collapsed onto the sofa beside her.

    Pam blew her nose desperately but the tears devolved into gulping sobs.

    “God,” said Aidan under his breath. He put a cautious arm round her heaving shoulders. “Don’t bawl. It’s broke and can’t be mended. I suppose I forgive you.”

    Pam sobbed and gulped for some time.

    Sighing, Aidan edged closer and tightened his grip. “Okay, you’re an idiot and personal relations were never your forte. Now stop crying.”

    The sobs slackened off. Aidan sagged slightly. “Have some more tissues,” he said feebly.

    “Mm. Ta.” Pam mopped and blew fiercely. “You don’t know,” she said faintly.

    “What?” replied Aidan, bending his head to hear her.

    “How much I wanted to dump it all on you. But it was all my fault: I deliberately lied about being on the Pill. I know you don’t believe me, but I did feel it wouldn’t have been fair on you.”

    “Yeah,” said Aidan, sighing, and leaning his head on her heated, curly one. “I see. –This was in addition to being afraid of me, presumably?”

    “Mm. ’Course,” she said soggily.

    Christ Almighty! At this point Aidan Vine felt himself very strongly to be one with the entire bewildered, beleaguered male half of humanity, who would never understand the distaff side if they lived to be two hundred—nay, lived two hundred lifetimes with the creatures!

    After quite some time he said limply: “Pam, I can only say you’re a very silly cuckoo. Up-myself though I freely admit I was at the age of twenty-four or so.”

    “Mm,” agreed Pam soggily. “Twenty-three.”

    Aidan winced. “Quite.”

    There was another long silence. Aidan left his head against hers, not really aware he was doing it, but vaguely aware of an odd sort of comfort.

    “I—I meant to be very adult about it,” said Pam at last in a trembling voice.

    “Huh!”

    “I see quite a lot of squabbles over paternity, you know. DNA tests don’t always solve everything, by any means.”

    “Pam, shut—up,” said Aidan firmly.

    To his surprise she sighed deeply, but did shut up.

    Aidan sat there with his arm round her, thinking. He was still bloody stunned, but the brain-box seemed to have got back into some sort of gear. And he had now become aware that she smelled rather nice, that she felt very nice, and that to see it all go to another Tom Jones would be a bloody waste. Not that he intended anything precipitate—or anything at all, until he’d seen how things went. But—well, they were both free, they were both human, and if they were going to have to face up to the fact that they had a son in common…

    “Listen,” he said at last. “It’ll be very much up to David, of course. I’ll understand if he’s not interested in having anything to do with m—”

    “I’ll make sure he knows it wasn’t your fault!” said Pam quickly.

    “Didn’t I just tell you to shut up?” replied Aidan mildly. “It’s not a question of blame. He’s a grown man, he may simply not be interested. But if he can stand me, perhaps we could all, uh, well, see something of one another? All three of us, Pam.”

    Pam looked up at him doubtfully. “You can’t stand me, though.”

    “Isn’t David the living proof that I can, very much so, and always could?” replied Aidan with a sigh. “Can we both stop pretending about that, at least?”

    “I’m not pretending!” said Pam crossly.

    “Pam, what else were you doing at that bloody photocopier in that bloody tight yellow tee-shirt but pretending you didn’t give a damn about me? For whatever motives!” he added impatiently.

    “Um, yes,” said Pam in a low voice, chewing on her lip. “That was nearly thirty years ago, though.”

    “Well, mine’s still here,” said Aidan lightly. “I do concede I chased the wrong type for years and I married the wrong type entirely—but what with good old Andrew pointing out some home truths and a bit of honest examining of my own, uh, physiological reactions, to put it crudely, over the years, I can state quite categorically that I don’t care if I never see another bony-hipped, lipsticked bitch for as long as I live.”

    “Oh,” said Pam numbly.

    “I won’t say,” said Aidan, his lips twitching, “that the night we made your boy was the crowning sexual experience of my life, but I will say it came bloody close. Now tell me you had anything half as good with bloody Tom Jones!”

    “Um, no. But aren’t we too old for all that? Well, I am,” said Pam on a glum note.

    “I’m not, and we are the same age. But let’s not be precipitate. What I’d like is to see a bit of both of you—and your Susan, too, of course!” he added with a smile. “Family dinners, the odd picnic lunch, night at the flicks together, that sort of thing—completely low-key. See if we can stand each other’s company for more than ten minutes at a time, eh?”

    “Um, yes. I—I suppose that’d be okay… But I dunno about family dinners, though. Stoves and raw ingredients hate me.”

    “That’s okay, they seem to love me!” said Aidan cheerfully. “But I meant eat out, as well. Semi-civilised!”

    “It’ll be semi, all right,” said Pam with a wince, thinking of some of the Auckland chop-houses. “David can cook, though.”

    Aidan smiled. “Good,” he said simply.

    “Yes, but, um, what about your nice Libby?” said Pam in a low voice.

    He made a face. “We’ve busted up. It was nice—and she is my type,” he added, squeezing her shoulders lightly, “but, uh, there was something lacking. Can’t define it. I thought maybe it was partly because she’s been kindly humouring my interest in good food, but… Dunno. We had a fair amount in common, but it didn’t seem to be enough.”

    “Oh,” said Pam numbly. “I really liked her.”

    “She really liked you, too,” replied Aidan with a smile. “Proves you must be likeable, doesn’t it? Anyhow, I’m not proposing rushing into any sort of relationship or taking up where we left off, or anything bloody puerile like that.”

    Judge Easterbrook was suddenly conscious of an overwhelming desire for it to be something just like that. “No,” she said in a flattened tone. “Very sensible.”

    Aidan looked down at her doubtfully but as she was glaring into her lap all he could see was curls. “If I give you the crawling horrors, just say so,” he said lightly.

    “Don’t be a fool,” replied Pam gruffly.

    “Mm,” said Aidan, leaning his cheek on the curls. “Bit of a second chance for us, isn’t it?”

    Pam swallowed. “Yes,” she admitted in a small voice.

    “Still afraid of me?” he asked lightly.

    She gulped. “Just a bit, if you wanna know!”

    “Mm. Can’t help my bloody face. We’ll work on it, okay? –I should warn you, half of Sydney finds me insufferable.”

    “And I know exactly which half it is!” said Pam with sudden vigour. “Old Gordy Sieff’s given me an earful! They’re not worth wasting your time on, Aidan!”

    “No,” he said wryly. “I’d come to that conclusion myself. Cor, Dad was right all along.”

    “He was when he said you’d find company law in Sydney a steaming cesspit, yes!” she retorted fiercely.

    “Alliterative, too,” he said weakly. “When the Hell did I tell you that?’

    “Um, not me especially, all of us. When we all went for a drink after we’d been up to see the results in our last year. We went to the lounge bar in the Big I, and I didn’t know what to order and Andrew suggested a sweet Vermouth and Bruce suggested rum and Coke and you said this was a special occasion and they had no sense of the fitness of things, and ordered a frozen daiquiri for me. It was lovely!” she said with a laugh. “I still order one for special occasions!”

    Absurdly, Aidan felt his eyes prickle with tears. “Do you?” he said huskily. “I’m glad.”

    “Anyway,” said Pam happily, not noticing his emotion, “we were all talking about our career plans, and that was when you said that Sir Simon had said that. One or two that had envisaged themselves standing up in court before him started to think better of it, I think!”

    “Mm. –Had you ever been to the Big I before?” he asked idly.

    “No,” said Pam simply.

    No. Right. The big hotel a hop, skip and jump from the university had practically been a home away from home to him throughout his degree, especially that little downstairs bistro or whatever they’d called it, that did splendid home-made pizzas up until very late. His arm tightened round her.

    “Gosh, I haven’t had a frozen daiquiri for ages,” said Pam in a dreamy voice.

    “In that case, if David decides he can stand my company, we’ll all have a hotel meal in town—or over in Rotorua, if you like—and you can have as many as you fancy!” He waited for her to raise some sensible objection, but golly, she didn’t. “Sound good?” he asked cautiously.

    “Mm, lovely. –I think David’ll be okay,” she said abruptly. “He’s very sensible and level-headed.

    Unlike both his parents, then. So much the better.

    They sat on silently for quite some time.

    “Uh—there’s a duck in the oven: I’d better check on it,” said Aidan at last.

    Pam blinked. “Heck, I was half asleep!”

    “Uh-huh. Relaxation of tension. Come on, you can wash your face in my unspeakable ensuite. Andrew and I tossed for the master bedroom, and I lost. –Do you know Judge McLintock, by the way?”

    “Yes. Not very well, but we’ve met at various does.”

    “Then tell me this,” said Aidan affably, ushering her politely into the passage. “Through there. –Is he as completely devoid of taste as this unspeakable house would lead one to assume?”

    Pam was looking in a stunned way at the dark brown teak, brown sheepskin and brown velvet horrors of the judge’s master bedroom. “I dunno, men’s clothes are a closed book to me. Um, well, expensive-looking dark suits and silk ties like the rest of them. Sorry.”

    “Uh-huh.” Politely he stepped forward and opened the door of the ghastly ensuite.

    “Ugh!” gasped Pam, recoiling.

    “Exactly,” said Aidan smoothly.

    “What is it? she croaked.

    “Khaki.”

    “I can see that!”

    “Slate. Possibly Indian; it was very In, twenty-odd years ago. The swan-shaped gold taps are a nice touch, don’t you think?”

    “The wife must have chosen it all,” said the liberated Judge Easterbrook in a stunned voice.

    “No, Livia tells me that he redecorated several years after she died.”

    “In that case either he let a gay decorator have his head or he’s got no taste. Um, no: if he let the decorator do it it’d have to be both.”

    “Logical as ever, Pam!” said Aidan with a sudden laugh. “God, I’ve missed that!”

    Pam looked up at him uncertainly.

    “Yes, honest.”

    “It drives most people mad,” she said dubiously.

    “Then I can only say,” said Aidan lightly. “that, given time, I hope to demonstrate that I’m not most people. Feel free to use all the facilities. –That soap’s rather nice, by the way: not a McLintock leftover.”

    “Thanks. Um, could I have a shower?”

    Help, could he bear the thought of her naked in his shower? Putrid though, objectively speaking, those slabs of khaki slate were! “Yes, of course. Don’t hurry: I’m about to show those two kids how to skin and degrease a half-done duck and roast the skin separately to the requisite dry crispness.”

    “Pearls before swine!” said Pam with a sudden guffaw. “Their generation eats stir-fries, not food!”

    Smiling, Aidan replied: “Exactly,” and closed the bathroom door on her.

    Of course it was much too much to hope that her kid wouldn’t have let it all out to his kid: the minute he walked into the kitchen they both looked at him with big goggle-eyes.

    “Yes, your mother’s spilled the beans,” he said heavily to Susan.

    “Is she all right?”

    “Yes. Had a good cry, now risking her sanity by taking a shower in the master bedroom’s hideous ensuite.”

    “Not really: he’s kidding. ’Tis hideous, though. It’s, like, slate but not blue, like normal: sicky yellowy brown, he reckons it’s khaki,” explained Aprylle helpfully. “Didn’t we have a bathroom done in that once, Dad?”

    “In one of those ever-dearer monstrosities your mother decided we needed in order to reinforce our socio-economic status? Yeah, that’s right.”

    “So was your mum into fancy houses?” said Susan with interest. “Dad was, too.”

    “Yeah, we lived in some wanking dumps,” said Aprylle indifferently. “Hey, Dad, I think that duck’s done: I can smell it.”

    “It’s cooking, you twit, that’s why you can smell it; but I am going to operate on it, and you two are going to learn something. Er—it may be fairly greasy: find an apron for Susan, would you?”

    “Like, he has got aprons, only he couldn’t find any of those neato butchers’ aprons in Taupo, so they’re all ladies’ ones,” explained Aprylle, vanishing.

    “Um, Pam is okay,” said Aidan awkwardly to Susan.

    “Good. –She should of told you,” she said firmly.

    “I think so, too, but let’s drop it, okay? Water under the bridge. She seems to have convinced herself it was entirely her fault.”

    “Mm, she’s a bit like that. She does shoulder her responsibilities.”

    “Always did,” he agreed, as Aprylle returned with one of the worst of the aprons. “Right: put that on,” he said, grabbing the oven gloves and opening the eye-level oven…

    “Boy, he can sure cook!” said Susan as she drove them both home some hours later.

    “Yeah,” agreed Pam.

    “So that’s what duck’s like,” she said thoughtfully.

    “Uh—you must have had it before! What about Peking Duck, when we had a Chinese meal?”

    “Nah; don’tcha remember, Dad always said it was too dear?”

    Pam winced. “Well, um, later, then, dear, when it was just us and David.”

    “No, ’cos you always ordered the chicken with cashews, and he always ordered the sweet and sour pork, so I—”

    “Had to order the prawns,” remembered Pam heavily. “It’s not Chinese unless you have prawns.”

    “Yeah, ’course! –We haven’t been out for a Chinese meal for ages,” she noted wistfully.

    Pam bit her lip. “Um, no. I’ve been so busy… Sorry, dear.”

    “That’s okay,” said Susan kindly. “Me and David and Kylie sometimes went together. Um, ya do know he’s busted up with her, do ya?”

    “Don’t tell me she wouldn’t let him in the kitchen!” returned Pam with feeling.

    “Nah!” Susan braked carefully at the junction of two perfectly empty roads. “Nah, she’s not like Roseanne or Heather or that dim Leah.”

    “Their names are Legion,” murmured David’s mother.

    “The silly nits go for his looks and then they find out he’s about as exciting as a rock underneath, and all he’s interested in is ruddy food technology and mucking round in the kitchen. Well, and a bit of wind-surfing,” said Susan fairly.

    “Mm, well, even in the twenty-first century the average dollybird’s not into that.”

    “No, ya need the strength in the shoulders, women’s physiology isn’t right for it. Though anyone can develop their upper back if they—”

    “Susan, please,” said Pam tiredly.

    “—put the effort into it,” finished Susan relentlessly. “Anyway, they’ve busted up. She told him he was a one-eyed pig.”

    “Prig?” echoed Pam doubtfully.

    “No, pig!”

    That’d be right, Kylie didn’t have much of a vocabulary. Pam sighed.

    Susan promptly reiterated her offer to tell David about his father, but Pam was adamant. Possibly her daughter was right in then pointing out that this was her brainwashed Presbyterian conscience speaking and she ought to examine her motives when she felt she ought to martyr herself, but Pam, though conceding she was quite possibly correct, shut her up firmly. It was her fault; she’d tell him.

    David looked at her numbly.

    “I’m sorry,” repeated Pam dully.

    He went on looking at her numbly. Finally he said: “What’s wrong with him?”

    Pam’s jaw sagged slightly. “Uh—nothing. He—like I said, he’s a company lawyer, a big-shot in Sydney, but he wants to give it up.” He was still looking blank: she added feebly: “Call it mid-life crisis, if you like.”

    “If there’s nothing wrong with him,” said David, taking a very deep breath, “why didn’t you tell me about him before?”

    Pam gulped. “Help, did you think…” Her voice trailed off.

    “You said it was an accident, just a one-night-stand, and he wasn’t really a friend: I assumed he must have been rough trade.”

    “No, a—another clerk at Wal’s. I—I suppose I didn’t tell you about him because it was completely my fault, and he never knew you were on the way. He was only my age, and—” Why the Hell was it so much harder to tell him the details than it had been to tell Susan? Or to remind Aidan of them, actually. “It was after our final results came out; Aidan threw a huge party at his flat and—and he’d just broken up with his last dollybird, and I—I threw myself at him.” David was still looking pretty blank: she added loudly: “You’ve got his looks, you silly chook, you must know that dim girls’ll throw themselves at them!”

    “Regardless of the person behind the looks—yeah,” said David Easterbrook very drily indeed. “Big-Mouth’s told you that I’ve broken up with Kylie, I presume? –Yeah,” he said as she nodded. “It’s all right, Mum, you don’t have to give me the gory details: I do understand. I just never saw you as that sort of dim girl, frankly.”

    Pam swallowed hard. “I was very young, and horribly naïve and inexperienced. You modern kids all seem so much older and more sophisticated than we were. Well, Mum never uttered the word ‘sex’ in her life, could’ve have something to do with it, I suppose.”

    “Yes. –What’s he like?”

    “Um, well, physically he’s very like you, except that he wears his hair longer. Um, not long: very conservative.”

    “Yes. Not his hair, Mum,” he said patiently.

    Pam swallowed. “I don’t know that you’ll like him,” she said honestly. “He—he had me and Susan over to tea, he was very decent to us, actually… But he can be very superior and—and irritating. It’s a defence mechanism, I realise that now. When we were young I just thought— Well, he’d done the Grammar shtick, in the top half-dozen in the country in Schol., he’s from a well-to-do legal family, and he used to drive a sports car that ten years of our miserable clerks’ pittances wouldn’t have paid for; I just thought he was up-himself. And I—I couldn’t see past the looks, I admit that. But—but if you go to see him and he looks down his nose or—or drawls something bloody offensive, just remember he’s feeling insecure underneath.”

    David looked at her limply. “Yeah. –I dunno that I want to meet him, now,” he added drily.

    Pam just swallowed.

    “If you didn’t even like him— No, I suppose I understand, Mum.”

    Pam blew her nose hard. “Mm.” He wasn’t asking why she hadn’t had an abortion; well, perhaps when it was you that was the foetus in question, you didn’t? “He won’t remember this, but one day he had a framed photo in at work that one of his cretinous mates had knocked off his desk at the flat: he was going to get a new piece of glass cut for it. Dunno why he was showing it to us— Oh, yeah, that girl with the frizzy bleach job asked him who it was. I think he kept it because it showed his mum: she died just after he left school. It was one of those awful posed studio portraits. Her and the kids. He’d have been about eight, I think: adorable short shorts and scrubbed knees. Quite round in the face: very like you at that age. His youngest sister would only have been about two: she was on their mother’s knee. Plump, with a mop of tiny black curls. In an expensive smocked frock, the sort that that bloody shop in Remmers used to specialise in. Handmade by Filipino slaves, I think. Um, sorry, dear, I’m not making sense. It was just… I was very struck. I suppose that’s why I wanted to have you, when I found out I was pregnant. Well, very largely,” she finished in a small voice.

    “I see,” he said kindly.

    “Mum wept buckets, of course, and it didn’t help that it was just after Dad had his first stroke, but once she was over the shock and it dawned that the neighbours didn’t give a damn—in fact Mrs Hutchinson immediately started knitting for you—she was a huge support.”

    David had heard this bit before: he just nodded kindly.

    “Um, sorry, not relevant. You won’t be wild with Aidan, will you? Like I say, it was pre-AIDS, and I swore I was on the Pill.”

    “Yeah. I can only say, thank Christ I didn’t believe Kylie when she swore the same thing,” returned David drily.

    Pam gulped, and tried to smile.

    David took a deep breath. “Does he want to see me?”

    “Yes. But he said it’s entirely up to you. Um, and just ignore anything Susan might say about not having any other sons, won’t you?”

    “I plan to ignore every syllable she utters, Mum,” he said lightly.

    He sounded, for once, horribly like his father: Pam repressed a wince. “Yeah.”

    David thought about it, while his mother watched him nervously. Eventually he said: “Does Bruce know?”

    “Um, well, I’ve never told him. It’s possible he guessed, once you were in your teens and the resemblance to Aidan began to show. When you were little you had quite a button nose… But he never brought the subject up. Um, Aidan and all the smart set used to call him Tom Jones: Bruce always loathed them.”

    “It’s better than Bjorn or Beegee,” replied David in a detached tone.

    “Yes,” said Pam on a very weak note. David and Bruce had no musical tastes in common—well, nor did she and Bruce, for that matter.

    “I suppose I’d better see him and get it over with.”

    “Mm. Try not to resent him for something that’s not his fault, dear.”

    “It must be partly his fault, Mum, whether or not you were the Pill generation.”

    “No! I said—”

    “Yeah. Calm down. Where is it he’s living, again?”

    “Um, well, the house along from Wal and Livia’s: just turn right at the top of our road. Um, blow, I don’t know the numbers. Wal and Livia’s is the weird Mexican-style place, you can’t miss it. Just go past it and you’ll see a horrible dark brick wall, that’s it. There’s a big wrought-iron gate but it isn’t a security gate.”

    “Right,” he said, getting up. “You know, I always wondered if Wal might be my father,” he said mildly.

    “I thought he was as old as the hills and twice as ugly. I was only into beautiful young men, in those days,” said Pam with a sigh.

    “You were a dim dollybird, weren’t you?” said her son affably, going out.

    Pam sagged where she sat. “I suppose I deserved that,” she admitted, making an awful face.

    David didn’t know the area at all but he presumed, as he turned right at the top of their road and headed along parallel with the lake shore past giant plutey sections, catching only glimpses of the water at intervals, that he couldn’t get lost. Many of the houses were hidden behind huge walls or hedges, or shrubs and trees that shouted their owners’ attitude to environmentalism and native vegetation. Largely a negative one. He was used to this in the city: but out here? He made a face.

    It was very hard not to assume, as the copper beeches, Australian silver-dollar trees, exotic varieties of cypress and so forth flowed past his dazed eyes, that his natural father must still be as up-himself as he’d been back when Mum had fallen for him. Because honestly! Choosing to rent one of these excrescences? On the other hand, Mum had, too, though her road was slightly less obnoxious. But then, he’d been wondering for a bit if that was the writing on the wall: Judge Easterbrook going over definitively to the Establishment side. Wanting to stay on the “good” side of Taupo for her Christmas holidays did seem to suggest that the suspicion she might now be thinking of getting it together with this Aidan Vine type again wasn’t wholly unfounded, either. Well, Hell: top company lawyer in Sydney, from one of the wealthy legal families here? Ugh! It had been bad enough with Bruce nagging her to move to ever more affluent suburbs and give up her legal aid work and cultivate the right people and “invest in” a decent car—but this type sounded miles worse! Richer, that was for sure, he concluded, as at long last what was undoubtedly the Briggs Mexican-style place hove into view. The section would have swallowed up twenty normal Auckland suburban lots and the house itself, from what he could see of it, was more the size of a barracks than any sort of living unit. Jesus!

    He trudged on past it. Right: high dark brick wall. Beyond it nothing was visible but the tops of trees. The giant double wrought-iron gates revealed these to be a mixture of copper beeches, Australian silver-dollar gums, exotic varieties of cypress and the odd native cabbage palm, as to the canopy, with the undergrowth a mixture of native manuka, stunted azaleas, and something with small, round, dark green leaves that he couldn't identify but was bloody sure wasn’t a native: it had tiny red berries in winter and was quite popular in the suburban gardens he’d grown up with. And a lot of lawn which, like all the New Zealand suburban lawns, of course was not a native grass. He went in and followed the winding drive slowly. Christ! That there was a Western Australian grass tree! Admittedly they grew with excruciating slowness, but this one looked suspiciously as if it was sulking, and who could blame it? The house was now in sight. David winced. If the Auckland suburban developments built of this brick round about the early Eighties hadn’t already shown that very dark brown brick was pretty depressing en masse, this dump would have done it.

    He squared his shoulders, went up to the front door and rang the bell.

    Nothing happened.

    He’d just rung it again when a man’s voice yelled: “Hold your horses, will you?” Then the door opened to reveal a tall, dark bloke in a frilly floral apron. David just stared numbly at him.

    Aidan stared numbly back. He’d thought it was Aprylle, dashing back to collect something she’d forgotten—she’d taken the car, heading for Taupo Organic Produce, not five minutes since.

    “Uh—sorry,” he croaked, trying to pull himself together. “I thought it was my daughter.”

    “No,” replied David drily. “It’s your son.”

    “Yes,” said Aidan feebly, holding out his hand. “How are you, David?”

    “Okay, I suppose,” admitted David, shaking.

    Aidan bit his lip. Aussies always said “How are you?” and he’d forgotten until this very instant how disconcerting he’d found it when he first went over from New Zealand. The conventional reply, he’d eventually determined, was “How are you?” Preferably using the person’s name, another thing which New Zealanders in his day had rarely done. Or most certainly not those from Pam’s neck of the woods. A son of Sir Simon Vine did know better, of course. Which meant that after several years of disconcerting or putting off all the New Zealanders he met by saying “How do you do, [Name]?” he’d then spent several years disconcerting all the Aussies he met by ditto. Possibly preferable—or Sir Simon would certainly have maintained as much—to the usual inane Kiwi “Hullo.”

    “Yeah,” he agreed to his son’s “I suppose”. “It must be like seeing your future in a glass darkly. I feel rather as if I’m looking at the past.” He looked wryly at his dark head. As his mother had mentioned, David’s hair grew in the same way as his in the front. However, he was wearing it in a very short, modern, rather spiky cut. True, Aidan had once seen a publicity shot of Harrison Ford at a premiere or some such in a similar style, but that didn’t mean that he’d’ve been seen dead in it. “Well, you won’t lose the hair, if that’s something your generation still cares about,” he added drily.

    “It probably will be, when I’m your age.”

    “Mm. Uh—come in, David. Do you mind the kitchen? I’d better check the pot I’ve got on the stove.”

    “Mum said you’ve been doing some cooking for the local ladies,” said David as they headed down a passage.

    “Yes. –In here,” said Aidan. “I’ve got a dinner party on tonight: the hostess ordered a very special dessert, not specifying what. I always did like cooking, and as I want to chuck in the law, I’m looking around for something else to do.” He inspected the double-boiler on the stove top and took it off the heat.

    “If that’s chocolate, maybe you’d better not stop,” said his son, coming to look.

    “It’s ready. –This is a real cheater’s recipe. Impresses the ladies no end, and easy as falling off a log! Spoonfuls of a Crema di Mascarpone—based on an Elizabeth David recipe: I make it with either mascarpone or ricotta or even a mixture of cream cheese and cottage cheese, if nothing else is available—served with a few posh berry fruits or some fresh peach slices on a little dark chocolate saucer. That’s what all these demitasse saucers are doing on the table!” he said with a twinkle, carefully pouring the melted chocolate.

    “Do you put anything in the chocolate?”

    “Depends who it’s for, really, David! No, well, slosh of kirsch today, as there’s a touch of it in the cream. I like it with peaches, though you may not.”

    “I thought I could smell it. I’ve never tried it with peaches.”

    “Well, you may have the opportunity to, if Aprylle manages to buy some.”

    “Is that your daughter?”

    “Mm, the younger one. Didn’t Pam mention her?”

    “She said she was staying with you but she didn’t mention her name. Um, she’s pretty upset,” he said awkwardly.

    Aidan sighed. “I think she deserves to be, doesn’t she?”

    “Um, yeah. Not that she hasn’t always done her best for me. And Bruce—well, these days I can see him for the tit he is, but within his lights, he was always pretty decent to me. I never wanted to be a Scout, mind you, but he was the sort of father who insisted I join. And helped me to learn the knots and all that crap. And—uh, well, saw to it that I had whatever shit the school reckoned I needed, that sort of thing. Um, Mum might have said he was mean, and I suppose he was, over some things, but not that sort of stuff. And he did take us on outings and holidays. They were always horribly educational, mind you, but at least he took us, and didn’t ignore us when we got there. There were kids at school whose parents’d cart them off to God knows where and then ignore them for the entire holiday. And quite a few that’d park them on the grandparents while they swanned off to Rarotonga or Surfers’, kind of thing.”

    “Same as in my day, then,” said Aidan drily. “Well, I’m glad he was a conscientious father to you. Made a better fist of it than I would have, by the sounds of it. Not that I was given much of a say with the girls, but there were enough times when I could have been home and stayed at work instead.”

    “Yeah. So you’re divorced, too?”

    “Mm. More recently than Pam, technically, but Paulette and I had virtually lived separate lives for years. Um… shit. The last holiday we had together would’ve been the year Aprylle was thirteen—she’s twenty now. The following year I wanted to go to Canada to see my brother and get in some decent skiing and Paulette wanted Tahiti. –Five times as humid as Queensland and fifty times as expensive—however. So I gave the girls the choice and Fenella voted for Tahiti with her mother and Aprylle voted for Canada with me and her Uncle Bobby.” He shrugged.

    “I see,” said David uncomfortably.

    No, he was much too young to, but Aidan didn’t point this out. “Well, that’s the chocolate saucers done. We could go through to the living-room, if you like. Want a coffee?”

    “I wouldn’t mind, if you’re making one—thanks. What about the dishes, though?”

    Aidan had just run some hot water into the chocolate pot and dumped it in the sink. “You didn’t come over to help with the dishes, did you?”

    David went rather red. “No, but as I can’t think of a bloody thing to say, I might as well!”

    “Yeah. Sorry. I can’t think of a bloody thing to say, either. Well, I’d apologise, only you wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t happened, would you, so an apology doesn’t seem apposite.”

    Apposite? The joker talked like a bloody book! Oh, well, maybe Mum was right and he was nervous underneath. Or insecure—whatever. He didn’t strike David as either, but after all, he didn’t know him, did he? “No,” he said, sounding sourer than he’d meant to.

    “I—I am really sorry that Pam had to go through it, though,” said Aidan uncomfortably.

    David sighed. “Forget it. She’s always been as stubborn as a mule.”

    “Mm.” He grabbed the coffee-pot, and filled its bottom compartment with water. “How long ago did she bust up with Jones?”

    “Um… I was twenty-one. Five years ago—it’ll be six, this year. Susan was only fifteen, but things had been pretty bad between them for a while and when Mum found out he was involved with this skinny woman cyclist from his club she decided the poor kid’d be better off if they split up for good and all.”

    “A cycling club?” said Aidan dazedly. “He used to ride a bike to lectures, that’s right…”

    “Yeah: once he could afford it, he went in for it in a big way. Well, did the thing properly,” said David with a sigh. “That was one of his sayings: if a thing’s worth doing it’s worth doing well.”

    “Including skinny women cyclists, presumably,” said Aidan acidly, tipping coffee carefully into the pot’s coffee compartment.

    “Yeah,” he agreed sourly. “Mind you, the one he’s married to now’s a different one.”

    Aidan was screwing the coffee-pot together. He damn nearly dropped it. “Eh?”

    “Yeah.” David poured the water out of the chocolate pan, rinsed it under the hot tap, put it on the bench and, putting the plug in the sink, turned the water on again. “If you ask me, he decided that the sort of skinny woman cyclist that lets ya do her behind your wife’s back isn’t the sort ya want to marry.”

    “That’d be ruddy Tom Jones all over!” said Aidan with feeling.

    “Yep,” agreed his son with satisfaction, finding the detergent under the sink and putting a good squirt into the water. “—Mum said your set used to call him that.”

    “Uh—yeah. Don’t think I had a set, precisely,” replied Aidan feebly.

    “It might not have felt like it to you, because you were in it. Think Mum felt pretty strongly it was, because she was left out of it. Sports cars and dollybirds, wasn’t it?”

    “All right, David, I was a cretin and never let on to myself how much I admired and wanted your mother, because she didn’t have the skinny lipsticked dollybird look!” said Aidan loudly and angrily. “That what you wanted to hear?”

    David turned the water off. “Dunno that it was, no, but I’d agree you were a cretin, all right. You wanna dry?”

    “Uh—yes. Rinse them in the second sink first, I think,” said Aidan limply, removing a colander and the breakfast dishes from it.

    “Oh, right: double sink. That flaming villa we used to live in before the divorce had a double sink,” he said dully.

    “This the one in the Grammar Zone?”

    “What else? Not that Grammar was bad.”

    “Play cricket?” asked Aidan idly, finding a clean tea towel in a drawer.

    “Wouldn’t call it that. Stood on the field missing everything that came my way and got told I wasn’t putting any effort into it. Unjustly: I’ve got Mum’s eye for games.”

    “Oh, good grief!” said Aidan with a sudden loud laugh. “You poor sod! God, I’d forgotten all about— Wal jacked up a ruddy office tennis team to take on some of the younger legal eagles that played regularly—think he thought the clerks weren’t getting enough fresh air and exercise. Andrew and I weren’t too bad, we’d both played at Grammar—that’s my old friend Andrew Barker, who’s sharing this dump with me—and one of the typists was really good, all her family were very athletic, and she roped in a friend, and one of the other clerks and his girlfriend were keen, and the other boy was favoured with some scrawny dame in her thirties Wal roped in from another firm—think he was doing her behind the current wife’s back, looking back—and that made four sets of mixed doubles for the poncy types that played every weekend to slaughter. Which would have been quite bad enough!” he said with a smothered laugh. “But then the typist’s friend sprained her ankle, and there was only Wal’s middle-aged secretary and Pam who were the right sex, so Wal told poor old Pam off to do it! He partnered her with Andrew, and I was privileged to see their first and last match. She just stood there, with her hand out holding the racquet!”—He demonstrated with the tea towel, stiff as a stock, and David grinned feebly.—“And no matter how hard we screamed ‘Move, Pam!’ from the sidelines, she never managed to get anywhere near a ball! Not that Andrew minded, he’s not a competitive sort of bloke. Wal was pretty pissed off, though: think he’d had some vision of us underdogs slaughtering the favourites and rubbing their up-market noses in it! –Mind you, he was doing bloody well by then, not all his cases were criminal work any more, but the legal Establishment couldn’t swallow the bitter pill of a coarse fellow like him, who paid no lip-service whatsoever to any of the crap they lived their lives by, and had represented some of the worst crims in the country, making it in their sacred profession. –Anyway, that was Pam and tennis!” he finished with a laugh.

    “Yeah,” said David feebly. “Well, that’s what I’ve inherited. I can see the ball coming, I know what to do, but—”

    “Can’t move! Exactly! She told Wal she could feel her brain sending messages to her arm and legs, but she couldn’t make them move, and the poor man nearly exploded!”

    “It’s true, though,” said David with a smile.

    “Of course! Pam never told a lie in her life!”

    They looked at each with identical smiles on their faces.

    “Yeah,” said David lamely, as it penetrated that this was a man he didn’t know, who’d merely happened to accidentally sire him. “You wanna start drying these, Aidan?”

    “Uh—sure,” said Aidan feebly, grabbing the nearest dish.

    Pam looked limply at her son. “Was that it? Me fouling up their ruddy tennis tournament?”

    “Um, no: after that we had some coffee—he’s got an Italian pot, he makes really good coffee, I told you those pots were the best, you oughta make an effort to use that one I got you—and he asked me about work and we talked over some ideas about what he might do. He’s thinking about a cookery school—not for professionals, the sort of place that charges fancy dames with more money than sense megabucks to live in for a week learning genuine cordon bleu or Vietnamese cookery from an expert. There’s a place further along the lake that’d be a really good site: after Aprylle came home he took us down there. Well, dunno if he’d get zoning permission for a commercial venture, but it’s worth investigating.”

    “Is he interested in Vietnamese food?” said Pam dazedly.

    “That was only an example,” replied her son kindly. “I think it’d be ruddy seasonal. You might manage to fill half a dozen courses a year but that’d be about it. It’s a pity there aren’t any thermal pools on the site, because personally I’d think he’d do better with an up-market spa: you know, with wraps and massages, and advice on diet and skin care and so forth.”

    “Wraps?” echoed Pam in a bewildered voice.

    “Yes: they slather them in warm mud or the herb of the moment, and wrap them up in plastic sheets to let them bake gently!”

    “Ugh!”

    “Ladies like your mate Livia adore it. The cookery side wouldn’t be so much fun, though: carrot sticks and celery juice!”

    “Revolting,” she said limply. “Um, but did you like him, David?”

    “He seems okay,” replied David calmly. “I didn’t take a scunner to him, if that’s what you mean. Well, talks like a book, but I suppose that’s just his upbringing.”

    “Yes,” said Pam limply. “You’re—you’re so psychologically centred, David!”

    “Chalk one up to you then, Mum,” replied her son calmly.

Next chapter:

https://summerseason-anovel.blogspot.com/2022/08/fancys-fiddle.html