More Volcanic Debris

20

More Volcanic Debris

    The phone rang just at the point where Bob was asking himself morosely what, if anything, he was gonna do about that carton of mixed veges the Throgmortons from the permaculture place had forced on him—mixed weird veges, he knew what beetroot were but not what to do with the bloody things, and he didn’t know what those knobbly brownish things were at all, nor those long, skinny things that looked like parsnips gone wrong. And he had seen those small pink yams in the shops but he was buggered if he knew how to cook them. Which left the kumaras and the potatoes and that huge ruddy cabbage, didn’t it? Bugger.

    Okay, if it was Neil he could ask him— Not if he didn’t know the fucking names, though. Okay, ask him, or rather ask him to ask Tamsin, how you cooked those pink yams that looked like little bits of gut.

    It wasn’t Neil, it was Greg Reilly, who ran a trucking business. Bugger, was he going to offer to buy the truck off him? Buy him out, in other words. Wouldn’t be the first time.

    “I told ya before, Greg, I’m not selling the tr—”

    “Not that. Um, the thing is, Dad’s had a stroke.”

    Shit! Poor old Vern! He’d always been such a spry old bugger, too. “I’m really sorry, Greg. How is he?”

    “Not too bad. Paralysed all down his left side but the doc seems to think the therapy’ll pretty much fix it. But he’s pretty well incapacitated for the foreseeable future. Won’t be driving that minibus of his, that’s for sure. Um, the thing is—”

    The thing was, Greg, who just by the by wasn’t the oldest son, Dave was, was a relentless organiser and he thought he’d organise Bob into buying the minibus off his Dad and taking over Vern’s runs for Taupo Shores Ecolodge and simultaneously selling him, ruddy Greg, the truck! Jesus!

    “I don’t mind doing Vern’s runs for him, but I’m not selling the truck,” said Bob grimly.

    Greg tried to persuade him that it’d be such a good thing for him economically but Bob just stonewalled him until he ran down.

    “Look, that’ll let Mum in for the maintenance of the minibus,” he whinged.

    “Then sell it to someone else. Yer bloody uncle’d buy it.”

    “Uncle Miser, yeah! Ta very much,” he returned bitterly.

    “Someone else, then. What about Pete and Jan?”

    “Jan reckons they haven’t got the capital,” he said sulkily.

    “Fair enough.”

    Greg then tried to persuade him that it’d work out best for all parties, especially Pete and Jan, if he, Bob, bought the thing but Bob just stonewalled him until he ran down.

    “You buy it,” suggested Bob on a dry note. “Then Pete and Jan can hire it off you plus driver, same like they did from Vern.”

    Jesus, he went on and on about his core business, bad as ruddy Coral!

    “Yeah, well, like I say, Greg, I’m up for driving it but that’s all. The hospital letting Vern have visitors? –Good, I’ll pop over this evening, then. Lemme know if ya want me to drive for ya.” He hung up before he could get another earful.

    Poor old Vern was sitting propped up on pillows with one of them tube things in his hand looking distinctly lopsided, but he wasn’t too bad on the whole: his wits didn’t seem to be affected, though his speech was very slurred. He advised Bob not to let Greg talk him into anything. No, well, that settled it, then. Mrs wasn’t on deck, evidently she’d been in this afternoon, so after a bit of thought Bob went round there.

    “I won’t stay: I just been in to see Vern. Just thought ya might like a few fresh veges. Me boss at Taupo Organic Produce gimme them,” he said quickly as she began to protest. “Nice big cabbage, if ya fancy it? Do ya like these funny little pink yam things?” She admitted she did, and that she could just do with some potatoes and the cabbage: shopping had been the last thing on her mind and there wasn’t a thing in the fridge. Good, that was pretty much what Bob had thought. He refused her kind offer of a cuppa—well, for one thing she didn’t need more aggro and for another, she’d been a decent enough wife to old Vern, within her lights, but he couldn’t stand her, personally: one of those women that made ya take yer boots off to cross her kitchen floor—and escaped.

    That left the really weird veges, some of the potatoes and, since Mrs Reilly didn’t do roasts these days, the kumaras. So he gave in completely and went round the fish and chips shop where, since Andy Drew, Jim Finch and Mal Witherspoon were all there waiting for theirs, he told them the news about poor old Vern. To which they responded with appropriate sympathetic interest, all concerned managing to overlook the facts that Mal was Cloris Witherspoon’s ex and knew all about that time Bob had been doing her and about that other time Andy had been doing her, and that Jim was Suzanne Finch’s ex and knew all about that time Bob had been doing her—and her yellow negligée, yeah.

    “See ya,” said Jim, going off with his chips, sausage and pineapple ring. Andy of course was back with Christine and the kids so he picked up his enormous packet of greasies and went off with it, and Mal was now shacked up with a solo mum down Pukeko Street, so he pushed off to her and her three kids with his enormous packet of greasies.

    Which left Charlie Slocombe behind the counter. “Saw Ken Roberts the other day.”

    “Aw, yeah? Down the service station?”

    “Nope, ’e come in here.”

    Julia Roberts didn’t let Ken eat greasies: Bob looked at him in some surprise. “That right?”

    Mr Slocombe sniffed slightly. “Yeah. Julia, she’s staying with her sister over in Hastings for a week. Their Marsha, she used to go out with our Keith until she put the kybosh on it.”

    “Aw, right,” he agreed.

    “Anyway, Ken was saying that that Fern Gully Ecolodge, they’re thinking of running their own tours.”

    Bob took a deep breath. “Instead of letting their guests sign up for Vern’s? Right, ta for that, Charlie.”

    Mr Slocombe sniffed again. “That Marsha, she’s working for Greg Reilly these days: office assistant, so-called.”

    Bob wide mouth tightened. “I get it.”

    “Thoughtcha might. Fancy a few oysters?”

    Involuntarily Bob looked up at the price board, and winced. “No, ta all the same, Charlie.”

    “On the house,” said Mr Slocombe unemotionally, popping half a dozen battered oysters into the fryer.

    “Well, ta,” said Bob limply. “Hey, don’t want some veges, do ya? Nice fresh ones, from Taupo Organic Produce. Um, well, there’s some really weird ones, but there’s a few kumaras going begging and some nice potatoes. Hang on, I’ll get ’em!” He rushed out to the waggon.

    As expected, Mr Slocombe rejected the strange brownish things that looked more like flower tubers than a vegetable, but happily accepted the potatoes and the kumaras. With a passing remark to the effect that he’d always thought beetroot came in tins, sliced.

    It was quite a fine evening so although it was already dark Bob drove down to the boat harbour to eat his fish and chips and oysters. A few lights were on here and there, reflecting off the water. He never tired of looking at boats, and it was quite easy to overlook the sight—and sound—of Mike Short getting on board his Darling Dolly with a tight-skirted dame in high heels.

    However, it had brought back the memory of that time on the lake when he took Libby over to look at the cistern in the Turpin house: very mixed memory, ya could say. Yeah, well… Okay, she was coming back, or so Pete reckoned, but to get right down to brass tacks, what the Hell did he have to offer her except an old wooden house with a corrugated iron roof that’d need replacing very soon and the overgrown section to go with it? Of course it was his parents’ old place and when he’d inherited it he’d sold that other place him and Coral had been in and that meant he’d been able to pay the mortgage off, but on the other hand he was barely managing to pay the rates and the electricity bill, these days. He hadn’t really realised just how much of his income had come from taking tourists on the lake for Mike Short until this last summer, when he hadn’t been able to do it… There was the section by the lake, but these days there were so many restrictions on building anything down there that it wasn’t worth much. At one stage he’d thought of selling it to Taupo Organic Produce, but they didn’t need the extra land—and it’d cost a fortune to get it into condition for their sort of stuff—and it was pretty plain, now he’d been working for them for a while, that Hugh Throgmorton couldn’t be making much out of the place, even though he did charge through the nose for the stuff he sent to the big cities.

    Bob wouldn’t have claimed, then or later, that he’d thought it all out logically, but somehow, as he finished the last few salty, crisp chips from the bottom of the packet and stared at the lights on the water, his thoughts seemed to have crystallised.

    “All right, bugger it,” he said under his breath. “Nothing else for it.”

    He went home and rang Coral.

    Jan looked limply at the Kennys. Limply she said: “It sounds good, actually. Um, I have been thinking for some time that the trips ought to be more organised, Coral, with set days, but, uh, that didn’t suit Vern too well. Well, he was semi-retired, really.”

    “Yes; that sort of thing doesn’t really work in a business situation,” said Coral briskly.

    “No,” agreed Jan faintly. “Um, can I just ask whose idea this was?”

    “Mine, actually,” said Bob meekly.

    “Yes, it was,” admitted Coral.

    Jan swallowed. Boy, did that serve her right for thinking in clichés! “Right. Um, well, Fern Gully have agreed not to compete with you, Bob, have they?”

    “Yes: their main concern was the irregularity of the schedule,” said Coral firmly.

    “She means the total absence of anything remotely resembling a schedule, but yeah,” agreed Bob.

    Jan looked limply at Bob in his grungy, faded jeans and droopy old khaki jumper over glimpses of an ancient grey tee-shirt. True, the manager at Fern Gully Ecolodge was a local, but how she’d ever come to an agreement with, let alone listened to a proposal from, anything that scruffy—

    “Don’t worry, I made him wear his good jeans and that new denim jacket Neil gave him for Christmas,” said Coral grimly.

    Twitching slightly, Jan allowed: “Good.”

    “And I wrote up a proper proposal,” she added grimly.

    “Yeah, it looks real professional, it was really decent of her,” put in Bob.

    “Um, yeah, well, that is the sort of thing Fern Gully’s top management expect. Um, Coral, they don’t have to get it okayed by the bosses in London, do they?”

    No, evidently that sort of decision was up to the local managers. Jan sagged. “Great. Well, we can work around the timetable you’ve set up for them, Bob, no problem.”

    “Good. Um, there’s two day-tours a week over to Rotorua in the summer, Coral thinks we can fill the minibus twice, easy.”

    “Well, it is the big attraction in the wider area,” said Jan nicely.

    “Yeah, um, not that,” he said, clearing his throat and glancing uneasily at his ex.

    Briskly Coral produced a copy of the proposal. “Naturally we haven’t finalised the catering details, Jan, but it will affect any agreement Bob makes with you.”

    “See, um, their chef, he doesn’t do packed lunches,” said Bob. “He’s got a helper that they been letting do them, only the clients have been complaining that hers aren’t as good as yours. Um, and they been sending their clients up to Waitomo Caves in the four-wheel-drive, only they get a lot of demand for it, they want one day for that. Only in summer, though.”

    “Uh-huh.” Jan flipped past the preliminary bumf and found the nitty-gritty. Uh—she’d given him a “Hangi Under the Stars” evening on top of the “Antiques and Boutiques” tour. Well, that was relatively feasible, because the driver didn’t have to do anything on the tour except take them to the boutiques, and he didn’t have to do anything for the hangi provided that Pete could be jacked up to prepare it in advance—it was pretty clear Coral had never made a hangi in her well-ordered pakeha life. Okay, that sleeping dog could be let lie until crunch-time. But two days per week the full-day Rotorua trip, one day the full-day Waitomo Caves trip, two days the full-day National Park trip, one day the full-day “Antiques and Boutiques” tour—the man wasn’t superhuman, for Christ’s sake! “This doesn’t leave you a free day at all, Bob.”

    “Nah, only see, all I have to do on the Waitomo day is drive them there and back.”

    “That doesn’t leave you a rest day. It’s not sensible.”

    “It’d only be for the summer.”

    “I still don’t think it’s sensible to risk overtiring yourself. What’s your feeling, Coral?”

    Fortunately this was the right tack to take: Coral looked judicious and after a pithy examination of Bob’s age, health and strength, poor Bob duly writhing, and a lucid and telling dissection of the insurance issues involved, came down on Jan’s side. Waitomo was out and if Fern Gully wanted to send twice as many clients up there per week they’d have to bite on the bullet and buy another 4WD. Which on what they charged they could well afford to. True, finding someone completely reliable to drive it was another matter, but that wasn’t their worry, was it? And also true, finding someone completely reliable could be the thin end of the wedge and lead to them running their own tours, but there was no point in anticipating trouble, Bob. And Taupo Shores Ecolodge’s situation could well have changed by that time, too.

    “Yes. The latest is, Jayne and her boyfriend might want to take it over,” said Jan feebly.

    “Yes, Tamsin told me,” replied Coral briskly. “I think that sounds an excellent plan, Jan. You’d be able to pass on all your culinary tips to Jayne, and that’d mean continuity for the regular clients.”

    “Um, yeah,” said Jan feebly, not pointing out that in the nature of things their older clients would drop off the twig in any case. “Um, I see, your idea is that we provide all the lunches?”

    Coral nodded. “In general terms that is what we discussed with Fern Gully, yes. They’re very keen on it, Jan, and very ready to come to a mutually satisfactory agreement over prices.”

    Jan frowned over it. The minibus seated seven plus the driver. Eight packed lunches, six days a week, for the entire summer season… Well, the bus might not be filled every time, but with a regular timetable, what was the betting it would be? And heck, there were their own treks to take into consideration, too: this summer they’d ended up running at least two a week where the punters wanted picnic lunches, even if they were only going down the Rewarewa Trail to the jetty… And quite a few lunchtime cruises on the Tallulah Tub as well: they’d proven extremely popular with the less energetic type of ecolodge client… And of course the bunkhousers often ordered packed lunches.

    “Hang on. Um, look, if our rooms are full, with the two rooms that’ll take four we could have sixteen in the main building and a dozen in the bunkhouse. And possibly two in the loft, but let’s say we discount those against the two bigger rooms, eh? Twenty-eight mouths to feed. It won’t be every day, because some of them like to hive off in their cars and be independent, but nevertheless. Then if some days there’s an extra minibus load from Fern Gully to make lunches for, that’s eight more—You do need a lunch, Bob, don’t be an idiot!—Help, that makes thirty-six.”

    “You don’t provide the same lunches for the trampers in the bunkhouse, surely?” said Coral in naked horror.

    Jan sighed. “No. I’d like to, but we can’t afford to. But it all involves planning and preparation, Coral.”

    “They do have to order in advance, though, don’t they?”

    “The bunkhousers? Yeah, the day before. It’s usually just sandwiches and a muffin or two and a bit of cake if there’s some going spare and some fruit and tomatoes. We used to offer thermoses but these days they all want bottled water.”

    “Yes, well, that’s twelve, maximum, that can be prepared the day before. Then, the extra seven from Fern Gully would only be for the one day on which they’d filled the Rotorua trip completely,” responded Coral briskly.

    “Or any of the other trips completely,” objected Bob.

    “No. The agreement we discussed is that Fern Gully’s clients have first choice of the Rotorua trip one day and Taupo Shores’ clients have first choice the other.”

    “Um, yeah, only what if, um, say all Jan’s lot wanted to go on the lake with Pete for lunch or do the trails, and then ya got a lot of Fern Gully types that wanted the tour, um, whichever one it was—see?”

    “Mm, he’s right,” admitted Jan, biting her lip, as Coral frowned horribly. “It might not happen very often, but it could happen.”

    “I see. You would have to have the capacity to provide thirty-six packed lunches per day.”

    “Yes,” said Jan limply.

    “Well, let’s look at your maximums up to now, Jan, and how you organised them. What about this summer? Vern was pretty busy, wasn’t he? What was your busiest day, packed-lunches-wise?”

    Jan looked at her limply. “I dunno, Coral! I mean, I just do it as it comes along. I don’t, uh, track it.”

    “Ordinary people don’t,” agreed Bob with a glare at his ex.

    “You must have some facts and figures,” said Coral grimly, managing to ignore him.

    “No. Only of what Fern Gully paid us, and what we paid Vern,” said Jan limply. “There’s no records for lunch orders. I mean, half the time I’m feeding them anyway, if they opt for lunch in the dining-room.”

    “Then how did you decide on what figure to charge Fern Gully for allowing their people to join one of your tours or treks?” she asked keenly, leaning forward.

    “She thought of a figure and doubled it, will ya drop it, Coral!” said Bob crossly. “The point is, Jan, can ya manage three dozen bloody packed lunches in a single day? And my answer is No!”

    “Twelve the night before,” corrected Coral grimly.

    “Coral, she’s making the bloody dinners the night before!” he said loudly. “Real fancy cooking, there’s hours of work in it!”

    “There’s no reason why Janet shouldn’t do the trampers’ lunches,” said Coral grimly.

    Oh, God. “Coral, she’s mean,” said Jan limply. “I know it’s not coming out of her pocket, but she acts as if it is! If I left it up to her they wouldn’t get anything nice, poor souls, and ditto for Fern Gully’s clients, what’s more!”

    “I’m not proposing she should do the lunches for Fern Gully’s clients, don’t be silly. Put it like this: you draw up a list of exactly what she’s to put in the sandwiches, and all she has to do is follow it.”

    Jan looked at her weakly: the woman didn’t understand at all! Possibly because she had no interest in food herself: Bob had always looked half-starved back when she’d first known them. “Look, it’s usually sandwiches of wholemeal bread with marg. She’d cut the bread as thin as is humanly possible and put the meanest scraping of marg imaginable on it. Trampers don’t need that: they need substantial doorsteps. And as for the fillings—! Well, you’ve been favoured with one of Janet’s cheese and Vegemite sandwiches, Bob: tell her,” she ended limply.

    “Um, yeah,” said Bob, looking sheepish. “Thought it was just because she doesn’t like me. Um, well, see, she’s right about cutting the bread real thin: it was kind of like, lacy. –Great bread, though, Jan!” he added kindly. “Um, and then I think she musta used one of them fancy cheese slicers.”—Jan was nodding.—“Yeah,” he said gratefully. “’Cos it wasn’t sliced cheese, like that stuff ya can buy in packets, but thin as all get out. Um, see-through, practically. And ya couldn’t even taste the Vegemite. –Honest!” he added quickly as Coral frowned and opened her mouth.

    “I see,” she conceded. “But surely she could be trained?”

    “No,” said Jan heavily. “I have tried, over the past umpteen years. You have to stand over her every minute and if you’re wasting your time doing that you might as well make the things yourself. And she’s quite capable of lying and telling me there aren’t any muffins left rather then give them to the bunkhouse lot. Or the Fern Gully types, for that matter. And I apologise for ever having been such an idiot as to ask the woman to make you a snack, Bob!”

    “Heck, that’s okay,” he said, grinning. “That piece of chicken ya gimme after was extra!”

    “Yes, well, never mind your stomach, Bob,” said Coral grimly. “Think, Jan. What would be the maximum number of packed lunches you’ve coped with?”

    “Um, well… There was one day Pete had a bunch of them on the boat, and Libby took some down the Rewarewa Trail and Sean had another lot down the Rimu Trail… Um, sorry, Coral: that’s the long one, ten miles, um, about sixteen K,” she amended feebly. “And Vern had a full minibus. Well, eight in the bus, um, I think Libby had four: that’s five, including her: thirteen—no, hang on, that was the day that two from Fern Gully tacked themselves on to her lot: fifteen; and Sean had four of our lot and four of Fern Gully’s, they must’ve really been running out of stuff for them to do that week—uh, sorry, not relevant. Eight more. What’s that?”

    “Twenty-three,” said Coral firmly. “How many did Pete have on the boat?”

    “Um, dunno. I don’t usually do the same sort of picnic lunch for them, more a selection of cold chicken and stuff. Um, well, say we had twelve in the main building, how many does that leave?”

    “Minus something,” said Bob feebly.

    “Don’t start that, Bob. None,” said Coral sternly. “How many of the ones that went with Vern were yours?”

    “Uh—dunno. Seven, max’.”

    “You just said Libby had four and Sean had four,” she replied sternly.

    “Um, well, some of Vern’s musta been from Fern Gully, or maybe Southern Stars, they do sometimes ring up and ask if we’ve got room,” admitted Jan. “Or maybe they wanted to go on the boat, we quite often get enquiries from the motels about that.”

    Coral pounced.  “How much do you charge them?”

    “Um, the same as our own guests, Coral,” said Jan feebly.

    “Ya never calculated the motels in, Coral,” noted Bob.

    “That’ll do! All right, Jan, that makes twenty-three plus some on the boat with Pete: it’s irrelevant at the moment where they came from. Say Pete had half a dozen: that’s twenty-nine without the trampers from the bunkhouse.”

    “Yes. They all hived off to National Park very early.”

    “With packed lunches?”

    “Um, not all of them, no. Sometimes they like to build a campfire and do their own sausages. It would have been about six, as far as I remember.”

    “Thirty-five?” suggested Bob.

    “I can count, thank you!” snapped his ex.

    There was a short silence.

    “Well, if you managed, that, Jan,” said Coral, taking a deep breath, “I’d say the scenario is quite feasible. Bearing in mind that it won’t be those numbers every day, by any means.”

    “No: some days our lot all opt to go off in their cars,” said Jan on a weak note.

    “Largely because you haven’t offered them an alternative programme, I think,” she said kindly but firmly.

    “Um, Coral, if you’re imagining Pete’s boat trips can be timetabled, um, I have to say it, don’t!” gulped Jan.

    “’E won’t wear it, Coral,” explained Bob.

    “Why not?” she demanded grimly.

    Bob looked limply at Jan and found she was looking limply at him. He cleared his throat. “Can ya just take me word for it, for once?” he said loudly. “He’s that sort of bloke, and let’s just leave it at that, eh?”

    Not leaving it at that, Coral plunged into a cogent and well-ordered argument for timetabling regular launch trips. She was right all the way, and if they scheduled them properly, favouring Bob’s free day, it would take the pressure off Jan and mean she wouldn’t have to cope with a load of minibussers from Fern Gully as well as their own lot.

    She finally ran down and Jan and Bob just looked at each other limply.

    “She hasn’t got it,” said Bob at last.

    “No,” agreed Jan heavily. “It’s no use trying to timetable Pete, Coral. He’ll just… wander off and be utterly elsewhere.”

    “Yeah,” agreed Bob, perhaps unwisely.

    Coral glared. “But this is his business!”

    Jan sighed. “Yeah, but we didn’t start it for it to be a millstone round his neck. And there is the small point that he was twenty years younger when we did start it.”

    “’E’s got fed up,” explained Bob, perhaps unwisely.

    Coral glared.

    “The rest should work okay,” said Jan quickly.

    “Three dozen bloody lunches? Do me a favour!” replied Bob bitterly.

    “Uh—well, it has been done, as we’ve just proved,” Jan admitted. “Look, if they’ve booked in advance I’ll be able to plan around them. Do a less elaborate dinner, just put on a buffet lunch in the dining-room—that sort of thing.”

    Coral brightened. “See? I told you planning is everything!” she said to Bob.

    “Ya told me more than that,” he muttered. “Uh—no, okay, Coral, I’ve said I’m ruddy grateful and I am. Well, uh, see how it goes, eh, Jan?”

    “No!” said Coral quickly. “There needs to be a formal agreement in place for your own protection, Bob!”

    “Not between us,” he objected, very flushed.

    “Yes,” she said grimly. “Jan needs to know exactly where she stands.”

    “Uh—well, yeah, it would be easier, Bob. I mean, Vern was pretty reliable in summer, but there were days in the off-season when we had a bunch in that could just have done with a tour but he couldn’t manage it because he was driving Mrs and her cronies on a shopping expedition or something.”

    Bob scratched his grizzled head. “Ye-ah… How would that work out? I was sort of thinking I’d be able to do more with the truck during the off-season.”

    “You’ll need to reassess your priorities, Bob. You haven’t been doing well enough with the truck to justify giving those customers first call on your time, have you? Ideally, though, your visitors would need to book more than one day in advance,” said Coral firmly to Jan. “That is, not the day before, but the day before that.”

    “Um, but the weekenders, Coral?” she said limply.

    “Hmm. Not the weekends, then. Saturday can be an exception, and we’ll take it that there’s a regular tour on Saturday.”

    “Yeah, but there won’t be, not in the winter,” said Bob feebly.

    “Nevertheless you’ll have a written agreement that Jan has first call on your time on Saturdays. And if they want a Sunday tour they’ll need to book on the Saturday: that seems reasonable. –Don’t go on about your deliveries, Bob,” she said as he opened his mouth again. “He only gets the leftovers,” she said to Jan. “Now, let me see… Yes: there should be a minimum number of bookings required to make a tour viable.”

    “Um, but won’t the fully-booked trips compensate for that? I’ve always assumed that telling people they can’t have their trip after all is such bad PR that it’s worse than losing a bit on the individual tour.”

    Coral thought this one over, pulled it apart to examine its component parts, decided the figures should be looked at very carefully in order to establish just what the minimum cost-covering number was and just what the average minibus load consisted of, but finally conceded that Jan had a point and the ecolodge did rely very strongly on word of mouth. Jan sagged.

    After a few moments, however, it dawned, and she had another a look at the proposal. And at the firm look round Coral’s mouth. Okay, it was clear enough: Taupo Shores Ecolodge would take all the risks plus into the bargain doing extra catering for Fern Gully’s bookings and Bob would basically be paid per trip, not per individual booking, because they would still be Taupo Shores tours. And not on an hourly rate like Vern. Unlike Vern, he would be a contracted supplier and would therefore be responsible for the minibus’s petrol—good, that’d be one lot of paperwork the less—and, presumably, maintenance. Not that Vern hadn’t been responsible for its maintenance anyway. That was, he’d polished it and vacuumed the dust of National Park out of its inside and Ken Roberts down the service station had looked after its mechanical parts. The figure Coral proposed that Bob should charge was a lot higher than Vern’s highest daily pay had ever been, however. She looked to see what the woman had suggested they rook Fern Gully’s clients for, but there was nothing there.

    “Um, this figure you’ve got for Bob’s charges is a bit steep, Coral,” she said uneasily.

    Bob cleared his throat.

    “It is a fair price, Jan,” said Coral on a kindly, superior note. “As you’ll see there, I’ve costed in petrol and maintenance and the usual costs incurred by a small business operator.” She fixed her with a steely eye. “And of course there’s no guarantee for Bob that he would get any custom at all.”

    “Leave it out, Coral!” he choked, turning puce.

    “Uh—I think all she means is that there’s no guarantee our clients’d actually want the trips, Bob,” said Jan quickly.

    “Of course!” she snapped, her cheeks turning about the colour of her name.

    “Mm. That is the risk you take,” admitted Jan. “Well, uh, what we charge Fern Gully, inclusive of lunch, of course, would have to cover this rate to Bob. You haven’t included a figure for that.”

    Bob cleared his throat again.

    “No: ultimately that would be up to you and Fern Gully,” replied Coral. “But we did have a very satisfactory preliminary discussion about it: I made precisely that point. The figure would be based on your current charge for an all-day tour but taking into consideration your overheads and the different situation you’d be in vis-à-vis Bob as sub-contractor, and the reliable schedule you’d be offering—”

    “For Pete’s sake, cut to the chase!” said Bob loudly. “Triple what ya charge now,” he said to Jan.

    Jan’s jaw sagged. “Eh?”

    In spite of being interrupted, Coral looked smug. “Certainly. Plus your agreed service charge to Fern Gully, of course.”

    “You—you mean they’re gonna pay us to run the tours for them?” croaked Jan.

    “Naturally,” she said, looking smug. “At the moment Bob hasn’t got the capacity to run a full-scale tour business.”

    “Or the dough,” said Bob frankly.

    Coral sighed. “Including that, Bob.”

    “Don’t worry, I could never do all that advertising stuff you do,” Bob assured Jan. “And I don’t want to.”

    “No,” she said feebly. “Can we just get this straight? Fern Gully’s gonna pay us to make money from their clients with the tours?”

    “It’s to their advantage to have a reliable leisure service provider in the district, Jan. You must know they’ve been having difficulty in finding sufficient recreational activities for their clientele. And if you were wondering about the charge for their clients”—Jan nodded mutely—“that, frankly, is not a matter of great concern to them, as of course the clients will be paying.”

    “Um, yeah, they do now. I mean, Fern Gully pay us, but they put it on the clients’ bills… Uh, but they’d still have the bother of ringing up and making the bookings, wouldn’t they?”

    “As we envisage it, that wouldn’t change,” agreed Coral, “but it’s to their advantage, you see? They’re very happy to absorb that cost.”

    “Yeah. Well, I dare say they shove on a service charge anyway, and their clients are so rich it doesn’t matter to them… Well, so long as they don’t pass the service charge on to us.”

    “Of course not, Jan!”

    “No,” said Jan limply. “Triple?”

    “You’re providing a personal, customised service that their clientèle want, Jan.”

    “And a great lunch,” said Bob. “See, what it really is, is double your current tour charge for the trip, plus another lot for lunch.”

    Er… yeah. She’d always thought of the tours as just old Vern and his minibus… And heck, three or four extra lunches if she was doing lunches anyway were nothing… And it couldn’t have dawned on the Kennys that her so-called costing of the original charge to Fern Gully’s clients for a trek with lunch had simply been the moving of the decimal point…

    “Coral, what if Fern Gully’s lot get together with our lot and compare prices?”

    “Leave this to me,” Coral ordered her ex in a steely voice. “In the first place the tours are first and foremost a service to your clientèle, and Taupo Shores Ecolodge bears all the advertising costs. But in the second place, comparing the prices of commercial tours in the wider Rotorua-Taupo district, it’s clear you’ve been grossly undercharging your guests, Jan.”

    “Yeah. And them others, they don’t even have the nice lunches, either!” added Bob.

    “Exactly. Most of the larger tour operators have an arrangement with a restaurant or hotel.”

    “Watery sliced ham, watery lettuce, squashed tomato, dead cucumber slices and tinned beetroot with bought mayonnaise,” said Bob with relish.

    “Yes. Don’t go on about the beetroot, again, thanks. –He’s right, though,” she said to Jan.

    “See, the Throgmortons gimme some raw beetroot—” He met Coral’s eye and subsided.

    “Coral, I really can’t charge our guests the Fern Gully price,” said Jan feebly.

    “No; I quite see where you’re coming from, Jan,” she said kindly. “I think two thirds of the charge to Fern Gully would be comparable.”

    Help. Jan just looked at her limply.

    “Um, see, there’s petrol and stuff,” said Bob glumly, looking at her face.

    “Uh—oh. Right. Yes, what we paid you would have to cover the petrol: we’ve been reimbursing Vern for it.”

    “Exactly; and not passing the full costs on to your clients!” said Coral swiftly.

    “Shuddup, Coral, I think she knows that,” muttered Bob.

    “Mm,” admitted Jan. “Um, look, Bob, you do realise that we’d want you to start virtually right away, if it’s gonna come off at all? We’re fully booked for Easter.”

    “Exactly!” said Coral quickly. “So is Fern Gully!”

    “Um, I can’t put the prices up yet, though, Coral, we’ve advertised the tours to all our current clients at the old prices.”

    Coral pounced. “Yes, but you haven’t to Fern Gully’s, have you? And one would expect prices to go up for the new season!”

    “She means the bloody ski season,” warned Bob.

    “Well, uh, I suppose for the new financial year,” said Jan feebly.

    “That would be up to you, but I’d certainly think about finalising the new pricing structure as soon as possible,” said Coral on a brisk note.

    “You could pay me a bit less at first,” said Bob kindly.

    “Ignore him, he’s got no grasp of commercial realities,” ordered Coral grimly. “—I thought I told you to leave that side of it to me, Bob?”

    “Jan and Pete are mates,” he replied stubbornly, sticking his chin out. “I'm not gonna rook them.”

    “Don’t worry, it won’t come to that,” said Jan kindly. “Um, but you do realise that, never mind this schedule, the custom may just not be there? Especially at first.”

    “Yeah, that’s okay,” he said easily.

    “Bob, there’ll be weeks with no tour customers at all, over winter!”

    “I know. Taupo Organic Produce can use me, though, ’cos there’s too much work for Tim and they can’t get the student helpers like they do over the Christmas holidays.”

    “I have verified that with Hugh Throgmorton,” added Coral.

    Bob had turned puce, so undoubtedly she had. Considerately Jan didn’t look at him. “Well, uh, I’d like to talk to Fern Gully, but um, yeah, in principle it all sounds great.”

    “Good. I’ll have a draft agreement for you to look at tomorrow,” said Coral firmly.

    Mm. That meant she already had a draft of it on her computer, but never mind. Jan thanked her—once again—for all her help, and saw her on her way down the recently upgraded drive to Crafts on Taupo Shores trying not to wonder whether she’d warned Sean and Molly she was gonna descend on them today.

    As the business meeting had been taking place in the kitchen—mercifully, Janet was out doing the shopping this morning—Jan went back there and sat down limply at the table. Bob was still sitting there, looking limp, too.

    “Sorry,” he growled. “I hadda ask her advice, I had the basic idea but I couldn’t work it all out for meself. And I hadda ask her for the dough to buy the minibus.”

    “That’s okay, she’s saved me a Helluva lot of work.”

    “Don’t worry, I’ll still look after the goats.”

    “Uh—yeah,” said Jan feebly. “Well, the tours never start very early. And if you don’t go haring off over the desert when the clients point at something like Vern used to, you should be back in good time for milking.”

    “Yeah. Um, do ya usually do lunches for the Antiques and Boutiques lot?” he asked cautiously.

    “No,” said Jan simply.

    “Thought Coral had it wrong.”

    “Mm. I think Vern usually just dropped them at a coffee bar—let them choose, usually, I think. Those are really only half-day tours, actually, only what with starting late and stopping wherever they fancied…”

    “Right.”

    Silence fell.

    “She gets the bit between her teeth,” said Bob dully at last.

    Jan sighed. “Yeah. Oh, well, if you start now, Bob, there’ll be loads of time to get used to the idea and to sort your schedule out. And I suppose next summer Jayne may be here and I can pass the lunches on to her…”

    “That’s the ticket!” he encouraged her.

    “Mm… Oh, that reminds me: any news about Tamsin’s ruddy dog, yet?”

    “I’ve told her and Neil I don’t mind looking after it but I can’t afford to feed it,” he said grimly.

    “Good. And?”

    Bob scratched his grizzled curls, looking rueful. “She’s bought a dozen bloody great cartons of its favourite tins of dog food. Got them cheap, at one of them warehouse-type supermarkets up in Auckland—no frills, do they call them? Anyway, they were cheap to start with but she made the bloke an offer for a bulk buy.”

    Jan swallowed. “She would. Oh, well, it’s just as well there’s someone in the family with—uh, was it commercial acumen Coral said?”

    “What, that I haven’t got, ya mean? Um, no, wasn’t it a grasp of commercial realities?”

    “Tamsin’s got that, all right,” agreed Jan drily.

    Bob gave her a wry look. “Whose family, Jan, yours or mine?”

    “Well, heck, Bob, let’s face it, is there any difference, any more?” said Jan wildly. “We might just as well throw our lots in together and call ourselves Taupo Shores Reliable Leisure Service Providers Inc., and be done with it!”

    “Right, with ruddy Coral as head honcho. If I could of thought of a way to swing it without her I’d of done it, only I heard that Fern Gully, they were thinking of setting up their own tours.”

    “Shit. Well, good on ya, Bob: a pre-emptive strike!”

    “Yeah,” he said on a dry note. “Something like that. Anyway, the dog’s coming over next week, so if the Throgmortons don’t want me to take anything up to Auckland I’m gonna have to bite on the bullet and make a special trip, eh?”

    “Mm. Um, I think it’s a pretty placid thing, but it is used to having Jayne for company most of the day,” said Jan uneasily.

    “Thought of that. Pop it in the front seat of the minibus with me, eh? Stop one of the fancy dames from Fern Gully sitting there.”

    Jan choked slightly. “I think they have regulations about carrying dogs in vehicles these days, Bob, but I can fully sympathise with your feelings! Um, well, you know what our clients are like,” she added uneasily. “Are you gonna be able to stand it?”

    “Six days a week, in summer,” said Bob ruefully. “I gotta stand it. That or sell the house.”

    Oh, Christ. “Mm. Like a coffee?”

    “Yeah, ta, I wouldn’t mind,” he said gratefully.

    Jan got up to make it. From their point of view the plan was excellent—trust Coral for that. Too many lunches might be the only problem but she’d face that when she came to it. Well, think about freezing a supply of muffins and cakes well in advance, as well. And homemade bread: it froze well and she could make some over winter. And not having to go over those blessed petrol receipts of Vern’s would be a huge boon! It wasn’t just a matter of reimbursing him, everything had to go in the computer…

    “Fancy a hunk of fruit-cake?” she said cheerfully. “There’s masses, I was teaching Tamsin how to make it the last weekend they were down.”

    He didn’t refuse, so she got the cake tin down. “Uh—well, there was masses, Pete must’ve been having a go at it. Never mind, plenty left for two!” She cut it up and put it on a plate. “Help yourself, Bob,”

    “Ta,” he said gratefully, tucking in. “Nobbad!” he approved. “Where is Pete?” he asked as the coffee-pot hissed.

    Jan removed the pot from the heat. “No idea. Haven’t seen him since around five this morning. I got up to go to the bathroom and when I came back realised the bed was chilly because he wasn’t in it. Then I heard noises in our sitting-room and found him fossicking in his fly-fishing junk. So I went back to bed.”

    Bob chewed thoughtfully. “The boat’s gone,” he offered.

    “So she has, Bob!” replied Jan cordially, putting plenty of milk in his coffee because she knew that he only liked real coffee with plenty of milk.

    “Ta,” he said, accepting the mug. “Could be in clink as we speak, then,” he noted without particular excitement.

    “Exactly,” said Jan with a certain grim relish. “And this is the bloke Coral imagined was gonna stick to a blimmin’ timetable? Huh!”

    Smoke billowed up from the direction of the landing stage. Nobody screamed “Fire, fire!” because they were aware that bloody Pete was smoking an eel. Possibly several eels. There were only two blue-rinsed couples staying at the moment and Mr Walters and Dr Grainger had both expressed interest in watching him do it, so on their heads be it. Jan went into the main lounge to check on the ladies and, aw, gee, Mr Walters was in there sniffing his inhaler and both Mrs Walters and Mrs Grainger were coughing. She apologised, assured them it was gonna die down, closed the windows and tottered out to tell Pete it had better die down NOW.

    “Pete! PETE!” she shouted, coughing. “Get that fire doused NOW! You’re asphyxiating the guests!”

    “Ya have to have smoke if you’re smoking,” he replied calmly.

    “Balls!” said Jan angrily. “The smoke goes in the smokehouse, even I know that!”

    “Smoker in this instance,” he said on a smug note.

    Dr Grainger at this point removed his handkerchief from his nose and mouth long enough to say: “It’s not cold smoking, Jan.”

    “Godda get the smoker going, love, then she’ll be jake,” said Pete cheerfully.

    “The main lounge is full of smoke: will ya just STOP IT, Pete!” she shouted. “Nobody can do anything about Jayne going off to England with Andrew Barker, it’s done, she’s gone, so just LEAVE IT OUT and GROW UP!”

    He ignored her so she grabbed a handy bucket that was standing by full of water and possibly eel guts, who cared, and heaved it—heaved it— There was a frightful pain in her chest and then nothing…

Next chapter:

https://summerseason-anovel.blogspot.com/2022/08/rallying-round.html