Christmas Cheer

6

Christmas Cheer

    Pete McLeod and Bob Kenny sat silently on the jetty that was the furthest point of Taupo Shores Ecolodge’s so-called Rewarewa Trail—the trail had one rewarewa along it—and stared blankly at the lake while their floats bobbed gently in the water. Coarse fishing—right. Or whatever came along. There was a story that Pete’s granddad had once caught a mighty thirty-pound trout here but Bob sincerely doubted that even Pete believed that one.

    “Not out with young Neil today?” said Pete, after twenty minutes’ peaceful silence had elapsed since their last exchange.

    “Nah, he’s got your Tamsin helping him. She’s quite an experienced diver, got ’er certificate.”

    “Uh-huh. Seems keen,” said Pete neutrally.

    “Which?” replied Bob flatly.

    “Well, I meant Tamsin, but apparently Neil does, too.”

    “She’s gonna go back to Australia, it’ll be like that bloody Christie girl from California.”

    Pete cleared his throat.

    “All right, say it!” said Bob crossly. “And like that flaming Rhoda woman from Seattle!”

    Actually Pete had being going to point out that Tamsin and Neil were only kids, but if the cap fitted— “Yeah.—Was it Seattle?—Yeah. Well, it was you what said it, Bob. And you didn’t have to do the woman.”

    After a moment Bob replied drily: “You’re wrong, there.”

    Pete scratched his chin. “Yeah. Well, we all been down that road in our time, Bob.”

    That was certainly true. Admittedly it had taken him a while to recover from that American cow, his second, walking out on him with that dykey bitch from Wellington, but old Pete had been a bit of ladies’ man in his time. “Mm,” agreed Bob.

    Pete waggled his line a bit and eyed him sideways. “Not biting.”

    Bob grunted.

    “Cloris Witherspoon’d have ya, ya know,” said Pete kindly. “Permanent helping, I mean.”

    Bitterly Bob returned: “Cloris Witherspoon is the sort of bitch that drinks frozen daiquiris and tells a bloke to do it with a towel under ’er bum!”

    Pete hadn’t known that, but he wasn’t surprised to hear it.

    “And she won’t— Never mind,” he said, turning a dull red.

    Pete raised his eyebrows a fraction but kindly didn’t comment.

    “Bad as bloody Coral, if ya wanna know,” he said sourly.

    Wincing, Pete replied kindly: “Then ya definitely don’t wanna permanent helping of it. Sorry I brought it up.”

    “Yeah,” said Bob sourly, glaring at the lake.

    Pete cleared his throat.

    Bob scowled. “If you were gonna mention ruddy Suzanne Finch—”

    “No,” he said quickly. That had been just after Bob and Coral split up for good. Mrs Finch, who was more than five years older than Bob, had been divorced for about ten years, and with good reason, that last kid definitely wasn’t old Jim Finch’s. On the strength of him making the mistake of being round at her place every night for a solid month she’d moved in, lock, stock and yellow frilly negligée. Bob had had to throw her out bodily—which was how the whole of Taupo knew about the negligée.

    “Um, actually I was gonna say that that Barbara Whassaname from Wellington that stayed at the ecolodge that winter, a bit back, she seemed like a nice woman,” he offered, not mentioning the point that she’d also seemed about ten years older than Bob.

    Bob snorted. “Wellington! Khandallah. Muggins didn’t realise, ya see, so I went down there to that address she’d given me and it was this huge great two-storeyed place— Never mind,” he said heavily.

    “Um, Bob,” said Pete cautiously—after all, he was old enough to be the bloke’s dad, actually he’d known his dad quite well, quite a decent type, old Jack Kenny—“she could still be a nice woman even if she did live in a flaming fancy suburb.”

    “This dame in an apron answered the door and said if it was about the garden could I go round to the back door. So Muggins went and said it wasn’t and could I see Barbara and she said that Mrs Campbell wasn’t up yet and if I liked to leave me name she’d take a message. What would you of done?”

    “Told ’er to say it was me and if Barbara was up for a nice fuck I’d be back around ten.”

    “Like Hell!”

    “Um, no,” Pete admitted. “Sorry. Um, when was that, again?”

    “Three bloody years back!” he shouted.

    Uh—shit. And there’d been no-one since? No wonder he was getting a bit edgy: he always had been a randy bloke, Bob Kenny, and why the Christ he’d ever taken up with bloody Coral— He’d been barely twenty-two when she led him up the aisle by that ring through his nose—or an even more sensitive part of his anatomy: yeah. Pete had been there in his time, too. Not that there weren’t a few around these parts ready, willing and able to console ’im. But apparently not the sort he wanted a permanent helping of—no.

    “Uh, she was the last, was she, Bob?’

    “YES!” he shouted. “And will ya SHUT UP?”

    Pete shut up. They stared at the lake while their floats bobbed up and down…

    After about twenty minutes of peaceful silence had elapsed Pete ventured: “You and Neil doing much for Christmas Day, this year?”

    “Not unless he volunteers to pay for that turkey he suggested, and cook it, stupid young tit,” replied Neil’s father morosely.

    “No. Right. So he’s not going to his mum’s?”

    Bob sighed. “Not going again, ya mean. No. Forget what the excuse is this year. Stocktaking, probably.”

    “Mm. Well, Jan’s asked me to ask the both of you to come to us,” he said kindly.

    “No,” said Bob sourly.

    There was a short silence.

    Bob swallowed. “Sorry. Ta, Pete, but no, ta all the same.”

    Pete didn’t ask what the Hell was the matter, he knew bloody well what the matter was: he was a bloke of forty-seven that had hadn’t had it for three years.

    “Um, think Tamsin might already have asked Neil,” he said cautiously.

    Bob scowled and made no reply.

    Pete cleared his throat. “Have a heart, mate! She’ll have me guts for garters if ya don’t come! And it’ll be a really good spread: turkey and all the trimmings, baked ham with that crusty sort of topping, the lot!”

    “Um, who’s coming?” he croaked.

    “Well, all the guests, of course, that’s what they book in for. The lodge is full—well, all the rooms are taken, the one that can fit four at a pinch has only got a couple in it this year, so that’s a dozen of them—no, eleven, one dame’s by herself. The usual lot, mostly retirees that aren’t spending it with their grandkids ’cos their kids are in the income bracket that can take them to Noumea or Norfolk Island or Fiji or something.”

    “Not Fiji this year, Pete, they’ve been having another coup or something, haven’t they?”

    “Eh? Aw. Well, Rarotonga, them places. Most of them are that sort, just come for the food and bit of a wander down the short trails and a bit of a sail in the old Taupo Shores Tallulah; we only got one lot of the suede safari boot brigade, this year. Stan and Helen Gregson from Melbourne, Victoria,” he said with a certain relish. “Sixty-seven if a day, already done all the trails in Australia that have got nice B&Bs with gourmet nosh along ’em, done the Kilimanjaro climb the day after he retired—well, just about—and fully intend to get out across National Park with that faked-up ‘Native Flora of National Park’ map good ole Vern Reilly flogs off at a cool ten bucks a throw. Too serious about the tramping to take Vern’s day tour and leave it at that, ya see,” he explained redundantly.

    “Yeah. That It?”

    “Eh? Oh! Um, no, well, there are two American dames, but they’re not the sort with the wandering eyes and them clashing dinner-plate earrings,” he said kindly. “And the bunkhouse isn’t full: only got four kids in it. Two computer whizz-kids from Auckland on a tramping holiday: giving themselves a bit of a treat before they try walking from here to the far end of the Desert Road. Don’t worry, I’ve told ’em not to accept lifts, but they weren’t gonna, anyway—um, they’re girls,” he said on a weak note to Bob’s puzzled face. “Though ya do hear the occasional story of male trampers being done in, young Tamsin was telling us a shocker about some case they had in Australia. Anyway, I doubt if they’ll be trekking off all on their ownsome, because the other two in there are a couple of German lads—ordinary shorts, not them leather ones, before you ask—and they look sorta keen. If the symptoms are the same in yer Hitler Youth types,” he added cheerfully.

    “For Chrissakes, Pete! Four kids in the bunkhouse, can’t ya just say so?”

    “It’s the grandpa hormones,” said Pete calmly: “made ya loquacious. –Hah!” he spotted gleefully as Bob blinked. “Ya didn’t know I knew that one, didja?”

    “No, and I don’t believe for a moment it’s your own. Who’d ya get it off? Jan? Ya rich mate Jake Whatsisface?”

    “Nah, heard it on the TV,” said Pete insouciantly. “Very educational quiz programme, it was. Sort where they take ten minutes to admit they don’t know the answer to the simplest question and you’ve dropped off in yer armchair by then anyway, so they might just as well not bother.”

    Bob snorted.

    “Anyway, that’s it,” said Pete weakly as it filtered back to him what he’d actually been telling the bloke. “Just the guests, and us. And the girls, of course!” he added happily.

    “Yeah,” said Bob with a sigh.

    “Dare say there’ll be nothing there in a fancy frock and a Seattle hairdo that’ll make a pass at you, Bob,” he said kindly. “Or a yellow negligée,” he added, less kindly.

    “Shut up,” warned Bob, biting his lip.

    “Well, will ya come, or not?”

    “Um, Wal Briggs and that wife of his won’t be there, will they?”

    “Nope, they’re going up to Auckland to be with his son Stewart—Boxing Day’s the second anniversary of that fucking tsunami his second wife and one of the boys died in,” he reminded him.

    “Oh, shit, yeah, of course. Um, and—and what about those blokes that’ve been staying in that place next to them?” asked Bob hoarsely.

    Pete’s thin face was expressionless but inwardly he raised a mental eyebrow or fourteen. “No: well, might of invited them, they did seem quite keen on Jayne and Libby, but actually Aidan’s father’s taken sick, so they’ve both gone up to Auckland.”

    Bob Kenny might have been observed to sag where he sat. “Oh,” he said limply.

    “And no-one’ll force you into a flaming frilled shirt and the trou’ from the dinner suit that the jacket got the moth in thirty years back. –Not that I’m not guaranteeing young Tamsin won’t make yours truly get ’imself up like a dog’s dinner.”

    Bob’s wide, rather craggy face broke into a grin. “Right! I’ll be up for it, then! –And ta, Pete. It’s really decent of you and Jan.”

    Yeah. Something like that. Pete just nodded and said he’d let Jan know. He didn’t have to wonder which one of the girls it was, ’cos after they’d been sitting there maybe another half hour—he’d rebaited his hook, but Bob hadn’t bothered—there was the sound of voices behind them in the bush somewhere and as he was explaining that some of the more adventurous retirees had wanted the five-K bush walk along the Rewarewa Trail, but they’d wanted it guided, Libby emerged from the scrub with the Kitsons and Ma Avery and Ma Gladstone in tow, and Bob went red as a beet, staggered clumsily to his feet, and gawped at her helplessly.

    “Here we are, Dad!” said Libby cheerfully.

    “Right, ya made it, eh?” Libby had only done this specific trail once before, that was, she’d walked it as a trail once, but she’d wandered down the path to the jetty several times. However, a child of two could have guided the walk with its eyes shut. Never mind, they’d wanted a guide and the very small print on the bottom of Taupo Shores Ecolodge’s brochure said that a guide was available on request, so a guide they’d got.

    Ma Kitson and the two other dames were cooing over the view and the fact that Pete and his friend were fishing and the fact that they had a boat—wasn’t his, it was Bob’s old aluminium dinghy, the one with the ruddy great dent in it where he’d whanged it on a post in the boat harbour on New Year’s Eve back in happier times—happier times when he’d been doing Cloris Witherspoon’s sister Melanie Hooper behind Coral Kenny’s back, to be strictly accurate. And Pete sincerely doubted that Bob was gonna offer any of them a ride in it before Hell froze over. No matter how many hints they dropped. He let Pa Kitson look at his fishing tackle, so-called, and watched out of the corner of his eye as Bob shambled up to Libby—red as a beet, still, not to mention with them symptoms that even Hitler Youth were capable of—and muttered: “Hullo, again. Hardly reckernized you.”

    No, well, Libby’s father noted drily, that’d be because she was out of them huge clashing earrings and bloody fancy frocks and whatnot that young Tamsin insisted on draping her and Jayne in, and in a pair of very tight old jeans and the yellow singlet that was one that Tamsin had made her buy and that had collected a lot of smears that wouldn’t come out the day she’d gone next-door to the permaculture place to pick pick-your-own loganberries. The place was terrifically sheltered, what with all the scientific planting that permaculture went in for, so all their berries were really advanced. She’d picked a lot of strawberries, too, but it was the loganberries that done the damage. Purplish to start off with, then went blue in the wash. That tit Neil had tried to tell Tamsin what chemicals were involved but it hadn’t gone down too good.

    “Hullo,” said Libby blankly.

    Pete winced. “Bob Kenny, love: Neil’s dad. You were out of it with the jetlag last time ya laid eyes on ’im.”

    “Oh, yes, of course,” said Libby, going very pink and smiling at him. “Sorry, Bob. I don’t remember a thing about the trip down: it wasn’t that it’s a very long flight, but we had to get up before dawn because of all the queuing at the airport.”

    “Yeah,” he muttered feebly. –Pete McLeod at this point experienced a strong itch in the region of his big toe. What the fuck was up with him? He’d had enough in ’is time, God knew! And he hadn’t gone all blushful when bloody Rhoda Whatserface from Seattle threw ’erself at ’im, far bloody from it!

    “Um, so you’re doing a bit of fishing with Dad?” offered Libby kindly.

    “Yeah. The truck’s in dock still,” he muttered.

    “I see,” she said kindly.

    “Yeah,” he said, gawping at the yellow singlet and what was inside it.

    Pete sighed. “Oy, Bob!” he said loudly. Bob jumped ten feet, he wasn’t too displeased to see. “What say you take Libby back in yer runabout, she can give Jan a hand with the lunch, and I’ll guide this lot back to the lodge. –Listen up!” he said loudly, though as there were only the four of ’em in the group possibly it wasn’t strictly necessary. “We can take the rest of the trail, ’bout two K,”—the two trails on the property had been very cunningly designed by Jan, with the help of Pete and an actual to-scale plan of the property, once he’d got over the sniggering fit: they wound round and round, cunningly not actually intersecting or within sight of each other—“or we can walk back down the track: take us straight to the lodge.”

    Fifteen hours of discussion resulted but they voted for the quick way. Yeah, well, Pa Kitson was in grey shorts, a pale lemon tee-shirt, them knee-socks and sneakers with the soles so thick you fell over them at the cost of twice an average bloke’s weekly pay packet, and Ma Kitson was in similar sneakers, turquoise slacks in that horrible stretchy nylon stuff that bagged round the knees and bum after a bit—hers were much too new to—a blue, white and turquoise floral blouse and a giant straw sunhat that she hadda keep grabbing at: there was a bit of a breeze off the lake. And Ma Avery and Ma Gladstone were similar, very similar, except they’d skipped the hats and their outfits were a palish orange that the experts might call apricot and a brightish green respectively and their feet were in nice sensible white shoes, bit like bowling shoes, and nice sensible flat white sandals respectively. True, yesterday the Gregsons had done this same trail in their giant suede safari boots, serious khaki shorts and fully-flapped khaki safari shirts topped with them cotton camouflage hats, but that was the ecolodge life for ya. Ya got used to it. He rounded them up and led them off, not letting Pa Kitson carry his fishing-rod, no. He might of been running an ecolodge for the last twenty-odd years but he wasn’t barmy yet.

    Bob looked glumly at Libby. “You used to boats?”

    “No,” she replied cheerfully. “I can walk back, if you like.”

    “Um, no!” he gulped. “Um, well, it’s just here. Come on.”

    The battered dinghy was tied up by the little wooden jetty’s steps. Libby nodded politely, followed him along to the steps, and looked up at him expectantly.

    Bob’s wide, high-cheekboned face flushed. “Um, ya can just step in. Um, want me to help you in?”

    Libby looked dubiously from the boat to the steps and back again. She went closer. She gulped. “Um, I think it might be easier if you got in first, Bob. It—it’s quite a step down, isn’t it?”

    Bob was six foot four and his lanky legs had been getting in and out of boats all his life. He looked puzzled but got into the runabout.

    It had rocked discernibly. Libby gulped. “I don’t think I can,” she said weakly.

    “Yeah, ya can! Nothing to it! Give us ya hand!”

    Feebly Libby bent down and gave him her hand.

    “Get in,” said Bob lamely.

    “I can’t!” she gasped.

    “Just step in.”

    “I can’t, Bob!” she gasped, clutching his hand convulsively. “It’s vertigo or something, my legs have seized up!”

    Bob looked at the well-rounded legs encased in the tight, faded denim, and at the point where they met, and at the rounded tummy above that, and swallowed hard. “Yeah,” he croaked. “Better lift you in, eh?”

    “Can you?” she said faintly. “I’m heavy.”

    “Rats.” Before she’d realised he was gonna do it, he’d grabbed her by the waist and dumped her into the boat. It wobbled, Libby wobbled wildly, and grabbed him.

    “Shit,” said Bob numbly, standing there in his flaming dented runabout with all of Libby McLeod plastered to his front.

    “I—can’t—move!” she gasped with her eyes shut.

    “Gee, that’s good news,” replied Bob involuntarily.

    Libby’s eyes opened in sheer astonishment. She gaped up at him.

    “Uh—sorry!” croaked Bob, turning from red to purple.

    Around this point Libby realised that he was a not unattractive man of the rangy, craggy type, that he had really beautiful blue eyes, like the sky over Lake Taupo, in fact, and that that wasn’t a hose-pipe in his pocket that was pressing against her tummy. “The boat’s wobbly,” she said lamely.

    “Yeah. Don’t do anything stupid and it won’t turn turtle. Just hang onto me and sit down slowly, okay?”

    “Mm.” Libby hung onto him but she didn’t really have to, he was hanging onto her, in fact, she realised as she was lowered to the floor of the boat, taking most of her weight.

    “There ya go,” he said, releasing her.

    “Thanks. Um, is your back all right?” asked Libby, blushing, as she looked up and involuntarily got a really good view of the bulge in his ancient jeans.

    “Me back? Yeah. Nothing wrong with it,” said Bob blankly. “Why?”

    “It was just—you were taking most of my weight, and they say you shouldn’t bend like that with a heavy weight!” she gasped.

    “Aw. Yeah.” Bob folded his long length of leg neatly into the boat, doing his best not to play knees-ies with her. “On the Australian TV, this’d be, would it?”

    “I should think so, but I don’t watch it that much,” replied Libby cheerfully, smiling as it dawned what they were in. “This is a tinnie!”

    “Eh?”

    “Your dear little boat!” Ecstatically Libby plunged into an account of one of the programmes she had watched: it was on the ABC, some of their documentaries were quite good, about two men that had gone right down the Murray-Darling river system in a tinnie! Bob’s knowledge of Australian geography was about as extensive as most New Zealanders’, though he had heard of the Murray-Darling, and he’d never known the Aussies grew rice and cotton at all, much less that the cretins were draining their main river system thereby and cutting off the water to South Australia down at the end of the line. He listened with interest, nodding occasionally and trying not to let his gaze dwell on the tits.

    “Cretins, eh? Get the politicians involved and you’ve had it,” he concluded kindly. “Never knew the Aussies were that short of water.”

    “Mm. I thought they could have commented more overtly, really: although you could see how dry the countryside was you did get the impression that it was just the people lower down whingeing about the people higher up taking all the water, like what always happens on a river.”—Not in New Zealand, it didn’t, with their average rainfall, but Bob just nodded politely.—“It was silly, really,” finished Libby with a laugh, rather flushed, “because of course it wasn’t just two men in a tinnie, it was them plus the ruddy ABC’s sound crew and camera crew!”

    “Right. Goddit. Like David Attenborough, eh? Alone in the bush with fifty other blokes with mikes and cameras!”

    “Exactly!”

    They grinned at each other.

    “Um, where are we?” said Libby feebly, looking about her and realising that they’d come a fair way out on the lake.

    Bob came to. “Uh—shit. Must of automatically started taking you over to the other side where the rich types live.”

    “That was a big mistake, then!” retorted Libby vigorously.

    “According to Neil you went to some flaming party over there and then you and ya sister went out with those lawyer types, so no, it wasn’t all that,” replied Bob sourly.

    Libby was now very red. “So what if we did? I don’t think it’s any of your business, is it?”

    “No, all right, lady, I’ll keep me big mouth shut,” said Bob very sourly indeed.

    Oh, heck! Libby bit her lip. He seemed like quite a nice man, he was Neil’s dad, and it had been very kind of him to bring them all the way down from Auckland. And she’d already offended him once today by not recognising him. “Sorry; I only meant that—that we’re entitled to see who we like,” she said in a voice that shook.

    “Yeah. Up-themselves lawyers from the Big Smoke—yeah. All right, you are. Sorry I spoke,” he said sourly, heading the boat for home.

    “Um, only one of them’s a lawyer,” said Libby in a tiny voice. “He works in Sydney, actually.”

    “All right, the Australian Big Smoke!”

    “Mm.” Libby swallowed. “I suppose he is pretty up-himself,” she said honestly. “The other one’s very nice, though; Jayne really liked him. It’s a pity he’s gone back to Auckland. Oh, well.”

    “Yeah, Pete said his dad was sick,” Bob conceded on a kinder note.

    “Um, no, not Andrew’s dad, Aidan’s. He is a New Zealander but he’s worked in Sydney for ages,” said Libby in a small voice, going rather red.

    Bob got it: the other bloke was the one that the sister had liked and the up-himself lawyer from Sydney was the one she’d fancied! He knew he ought to drop the subject but somehow he couldn’t. “Neil mentioned the four of you went to Rotorua.”

    “Yes, it was a lovely trip. We had the best part of a day there. And another day they took us to, um, another thermal area with a big long name—sorry, I can’t remember it.”

    Bob sighed. “Orakei Korako.”

    “Mm, I think so.”

    He made a big effort and asked nicely: “So what did ya like best?”

    Libby brightened. “The area round the lake where the big volcano exploded, it was really lovely!”

    Uh—fair bit of choice, there. The whole area was volcanic, from Taupo right over to the coast. No, further: White Island was an active volcano.

    “But it was frightening, too,” said Libby with a shudder. “Brooding dark grey hills on the far side of the lake, I couldn’t understand why they were so scary, and then Andrew said they were the remains of the volcano that had completely blown its top. Only about a hundred years ago.” She shuddered again.

    “Aw, right: Tarawera, that was. Buried the Pink and White Terraces and the Buried Village,” explained Bob automatically. “The geologists reckon that type goes up with an almighty boom and it’s all over. But we got the sort that blows up every now and then, too.” He idled the outboard and pointed down to the far end of the lake. “See down there?”

    “Yes; it’s so beautiful!” said Libby ecstatically.

    Bob blinked. “On a clear day—yeah. Ruapehu, that’ll be. Every so often she lets off steam with a big roar. Can’t see Ngauruhoe from here, that’s even prettier: smokes most of the time, drive past it at night and ya can see the glow, when it’s active. Goes off with a roar every so often, too. Um, like safety-valves, Libby,” he said feebly to her face of dawning horror.

    “That’s a volcano?” she gasped, looking at the glimmer of ice on the distant peaks.

    “Um, yeah, ’course; they all are, round these parts.”

    “Active,” said Libby in a trembling voice.

    “Yeah. It won’t hurt you, love,” said Bob, forgetting himself, rather.

    Libby went very red. “No,” she said lamely. “I see.” She looked round her blindly, and blinked. “Um, Bob, haven’t we come too far? Isn’t the ecolodge over there? Or—or is it currents or something?”

    Uh—shit: It was or something, all right. “Sorry; heading home like a flaming homing pigeon or something. Well, not home,” he said conscientiously: “back to the shed.”

    “Um, boatshed?”

    “Sort of. See over there?”

    Libby looked but could see nothing but low, dark bush. She shook her head.

    “Oh. Well, it’s there,” said Bob lamely, turning the boat’s nose for the ecolodge. “Along from the permaculture nuts—um, sorry, Taupo Organic Produce. My dad used to have a bach there but it fell down.”

    “Ugh, white ants?” said the Queenslander sympathetically.

    “Uh—no,” said Bob weakly. “Those are termites, right? No, we don’t get them in New Zealand, Libby. Dry rot. See, that’s its name but it’s the wet that causes it. Too much rain. Well, that and no concrete foundations,” he admitted.

    “I see. But you didn’t build another one?”

    “She wouldn’t let me,” said Bob, making a face. “Um, sorry: me ex. Coral.”

    “Yes, we’ve met her. We went to two of her shops,” said Libby nicely, smiling at him.

    Bob sighed. “Yeah, all she’s interested in. Not even interested in Neil any more. Well, hasn’t been since ’is balls dropped, poor little tyke; doesn’t like men, I’ve concluded.”

    Libby was now very flushed. “I see!” she gasped.

    “Uh—sorry, that just came out: been on me tod too long. Started talking to meself in the kitchen, too, Neil reckons I’m going barmy,” he admitted, pulling a face.

    “I talk to myself, too, when I’m at home,” confessed Libby.

    Bob brightened. “Right! Well, ya gotta have some rational conversation, eh?”

    “Yes!” she said with a laugh.

    “Yeah,” he echoed lamely, licking his lips. “Um, where was I?

    Round about the place where Neil’s balls dropped. Libby swallowed. “Um—oh, yes; the holiday house that fell down—sorry, I’ve forgotten your word.”

    “Bach. It woulda cost a fair bit to put up a proper one, with foundations and all, though I coulda scrounged some of the timber, but anyway, she said it was a waste of money and I owed her something, and if I had money to throw at a stupid bach it could go into her shop.”

    “I see. I must say, I’m not wholly unsympathetic to her point of view, Bob,” said Libby seriously. “Wives are expected to work for their keep alone, aren’t they? Well, keep and uniforms, I suppose,” she amended drily.

    “Some flaming uniforms! Um, no, you’re right: no wages, eh? But in case you’re imagining she never got any spending money, it wasn’t like that at all, she managed the finances. Gave her me week’s earnings, and that was it. Well, she let me have a few dollars every week, yeah, but I didn’t need much. Gave up smoking when Neil was on the way. But anyway, she started the shop when he was only little, was soon making more than I was. Turned out lucky for me in the end, ’cos her lawyer looked at the figures and said she’d put all her dough into the shop plus what I’d been able to give her and I’d been the mug what paid off the mortgage and coughed up for all the household expenses, so if I wanted the house I’d better keep it and she could keep the shop and we could call it quits, and if she tried to go to court it was her that’d lose on the deal, so she settled for that. Um, sorry, blahing on. Done without the bach for a bit, and then after a while I managed a tin shed from Mitre 10. Then after we split up, me and Neil put up the boatshed for the launch. –What him and Tamsin are on as we speak,” he noted. “Well, he is me son and I don’t begrudge it, but it doesn’t seem to have dawned that taking tourists out on the lake every summer was part of my income.”

    “Oh, heck,” said Libby, looking at him sympathetically.

    “Yeah. Well, couldn’t say I do it professionally, just roll up to Mike Short’s place and if ’e needs an extra boat, I’m it. But every little helps.”

    “Mm. So—so what else do you do, Bob?” she asked shyly. “Is it mostly delivering stuff, like for Taupo Organic Produce?”

    “Sort of. Not for them so much, they got their regulars. Greg Reilly, he drives a truck, he takes most of their heavier stuff to Auckland for them—and quite a bit down to Wellington, these days: this new boss, he’s found more clients down there—and Dave Reilly, he’s CAF, Central Air Freight, he flies the fragile stuff up to Auckland. I was doing a bit of a run over to Rotorua, there’s one restaurant there that was taking their stuff,” he added glumly, “but young Greg, he decided he could fit it in and undercut me. I used to do a fair bit of furniture removal stuff, worked for old Norm Stevens, he was a decent old bloke, but see, he wanted to retire and this bigger firm, they bought him out. Um, do ya know what goodwill is? –Yeah,” he said as she nodded. “That was what they were interested in, and his warehouse. They kept the new truck but they weren’t interested in the old one, let me have ’er for a really good price, to give them their due.”

    “I see. So that's what you mostly do?”

    Bob moved his wide shoulders uneasily. “More or less, these days. Few odd jobs. –I used to be an electrician,” he suddenly revealed. “You know: certified.”

    Libby’s jaw had sagged. “Um, I dunno what it’s like over here, but in Australia that’d be a very good living,” she croaked. “Almost as good as a plumber: they’re always in demand.”

    “Yeah. I could do domestic stuff but I don’t fancy it.” He looked at her flushed and sympathetic face and suddenly burst out with it. “See, started off with a pretty good job in the forestry up Tokoroa way, in the plant room. Um, where they have all the big machines that drive the place, Libby. Generators for the big, um,”—looking again at the pink cheeks, the wide dark eyes and the curves and moderating his choice of phrase—“saws and chipping machines and stuff. Anyway, to cut a long story short there was a lot of maintenance work involved and one of the blokes got overconfident and electrocuted himself. Bloody horrible, it was.” He looked at her appalled face. “Thought he could do it without turning the power off. Some blokes get like that, after a while: take it for granted, get careless,” he said lamely. “Anyway, the supervisor, he shouted at us to turn the lot off—busted one of the big saws, cutting the power in the middle of a job, the boss went ropeable—and jabbed him in the chest with the strychnine, only it was too late and he’d got too big a dose anyway.”

    “Strychnine?” she faltered.

    “From the first aid box, love,” said Bob with a sigh, leaning on his elbow and gazing unseeingly at the lake while the outboard idled.

    “But—but isn’t a poison?”

    “Eh? Oh.” His gaze returned to the round face and the pink cheeks and the curves. Fuck, shouldn’t’ve mentioned it: looked as if she was gonna bawl. Not the sort of thing to say to a nice lady that had only been a librarian all her life; why’d he opened his big mouth? “Um, no, Libby, only if you swallow it. A shot of strychnine straight to the heart is supposed to restart it after electric shock. Only not with the dose Jim Ramsden had,” he ended sourly.

    Libby blinked back tears. “How—how dreadful. I’m awfully sorry, Bob.”

    “Yeah. Well, it was a fair while back. Only after that I never fancied the trade again. Gave it away. Coral was furious with me, of course: it was a good steady job.”

    “So you were already married by then?” said Libby dazedly. She’d been imagining him as a very young man, little more than a boy, a bit like Neil but ganglier.

    “Eh? Well, yeah, got married when I was twenty-two.”

    “That’s very young,” said Libby in a small voice.

    “Young and stupid. Oh, well… Could of done domestic wiring stuff, there were a couple of blokes that would’ve hired me, but when I handed in me notice they said they always needed blokes in the forestry, so I took it. It’s hard yacker but fourteen hours a day out in the trees takes your mind off yer troubles like you wouldn’t believe.”

    “Fourteen? Surely that’s illegal?” she gasped.

    Bob shrugged. “With overtime, in the good weather, if ya lucky—yeah, ’bout that. Otherwise about eight, but you’ve probably got two hours’ drive at either end of it, depending on where they’re logging, most of the middle of the North Island’s covered in forests, ya see. So I done it for quite a few years, then they put me on the timber trucks, that was real good!” He grinned at her.

    Libby had clapped a hand over her mouth. “We saw one coming back from that Orakky place!” she gasped.

    “Yeah? Used to be nothing but forests and timber trucks down that road, when I was a kid. Hardly ever see ’em, these days. Had a couple of logs on, did ’e?” he grinned.

    “A couple! It was gigantic!”

    Bob’s shoulders shook. “Pretty much, yeah. Well, not small. Ya don’t wanna get stuck behind one of them on a dirt road, I can tell ya!”

    “Or at all, I’d be afraid the logs’d roll off on top of me!” she said with a shudder.

    If they rolled they’d roll to the side, she meant slide back onto her, but Bob just nodded.

    Libby looked around her. “Um, what’s the time?”

    Bob came to with a jump. He squinted at the sky. “Gone eleven, I’d say. Better get going if you’re supposed to be helping Jan.”

    “Yes. Not that I’ll be much use,” she said as he headed in to the ecolodge’s landing stage.

    “So you’re not a cook?”

    “No. I can’t even microwave efficiently.”

    “’Bout the same as me, then,” he admitted. “And Neil’s idea of cooking is to order a large pizza, eat three-quarters of it and turn the leftovers to concrete in the microwave next day. What about your sister?”

    “She’s a good cook. Only bloody Bill wouldn’t let her cook half the things she wanted to, and complained about what he did let her make, so since he died she’s mostly just done microwaving, or those frozen oven-ready things. And lots of fruit and salads. He was the sort of man that complained it wasn’t a meal unless it had hot potatoes in it.”

    “In Queensland’s climate?”

    “Yep.”

    “Sounds more like my parents’ generation,” he offered feebly.

    “He was,” said Libby sourly.

    Bob swallowed.

    “But it was more than that… Even though they lived in a suburb it was kind of a small-town mentality. A lot of Australia’s still like that. Bad English food—the relics of empire. We were given a collection of old cookery books at the public library where I used to work and my boss said they weren’t worth cataloguing but we’d list them on the email mailing list in case any other library wanted them, and I got the job of listing them. It was fascinating. One was all about ways to do eggs, and there honestly wasn’t one recipe in it that I’d’ve given house-room. The others were full of recipes for Colonial Goose and boiled puddings.”

    “Jesus, really? Mum used to do Colonial Goose! Nice leg of mutton, bit of stuffing—? Yeah. I’d of burnt them,” he offered.

    “Mm, that was my instinct, too, but they were actually fascinating social documents.”

    Bob smiled. “I get you. Way of life that’s vanishing from the cities, eh?”

    “Yes. Most of the people under forty that I know only do stir-fries and microwaving.”

    “Right. Jan’s cooking must be a real treat for ya, then,” he said smoothly.

    To his immense gratification Libby broke down in giggles, nodding madly. “Yeah!”

    Bob grinned slowly. It wasn’t half bad. ’Specially the bits that were shaking.

    “Um, did he utter, Libby?” asked Jan cautiously ten minutes later as Libby rinsed her hands and prepared to follow orders.

    “Yes, he told me a lot about his jobs. The forestry jobs sounded like terribly hard work, but great experiences. Imagine driving one of those huge timber trucks! And about the dreadful time a man was electrocuted.”

    Jan dropped the zucchini she was preparing. “Blast!” She picked it up and went to rinse it. “He told you about that?”

    “Mm. It seems to have really rocked him, poor man.”

    “Well, yeah! I was under the impression he never talks about it! Pete only knows about it because it was all over the district at the time.”

    “Jim Ramsden,” agreed Janet, nodding. “A terrible tragedy. He wasn’t from round here, they lived in Tokoroa. His wife left the district altogether, poor woman. Three little kiddies, they had. Poor Bob was only young at the time, of course; I think their Neil would’ve been about three. He went very silent, poor man.”

    “Mm,” said Libby, blinking hard. “But perhaps he’s getting over it. Um, he doesn’t seem to be very busy just now.”

    “No,” said Jan with a sigh: “the ruddy truck’s in dock again. I wish we could give him some work, but we’re paying young Sean a pittance as it is. Well, there’s always casual work with the permaculture nuts. –Shouldn’t call them nuts, really, since the chief nut’s gone and the Throgmortons have taken over. Um, did Bob mention Christmas Day?’

    “No,” said Libby blankly.

    “I told dratted Pete to invite him. I hope he did,” she said grimly.

    “Of course he will have, Jan, dear,” Janet assured her. “Shall I slice the beans?”

    Jan winced. “No, don’t, thanks, Janet, we’re having them whole in a salad, for a starter. Um, I think you’d better lay the tables. Would you like to do some special little flower arrangements? Since it’s nearly Christmas.”

    Mrs Machiavelli’s usual ploy worked very well, and Jan sagged. “She’s invaluable at the preparation stage, of course, but she can’t cook. I trusted her to boil the beans once—never again. They came out like little limp slices of khaki felt.”

    Libby broke down in giggles.

    “It wasn’t funny at the time, with a party of foodies from Hamilton expecting haricots verts vinaigrette, green bean salad to youse.”

    “No,” said Libby weakly. “Um, did you want the broad bean patch dug over, Jan?” –Bob had come up to the ecolodge with her and as Jan had immediately asked him to lunch, insisted on doing something for her.

    “Yes, fortunately!” said Jan with a laugh. “Sean’s a bit snowed under, trying to get his house up. Cut these zucchinis into pieces for me, would you? Like this: about three pieces per, cut diagonally.” She showed her the sample.

    Libby’s eyes twinkled but she said meekly: “I think I can manage that,” and got on with it.

    “Ever had a fruit fool?” asked Jan as they worked.

    “No. I don’t even know what it is.”

    “Right. Well, when Jayne gets back from the perma—from Taupo Organic Produce with the strawberries, I’ll show you. –By the way, remind me to ask Bob what the Hell’s happened to his loganberries. Didn’t mention gardening to you, did he?” said Jan without much hope.

    “No,” replied Libby blankly.

    “No,” she said heavily. “He’s let it go, along with everything else. I dunno what happened exactly, but that Barbara dame was apparently the last straw. Um, three years back, Libby,” she said lamely, not having meant to say any such thing, it had just come out: she was getting as much of a gabster as Pete, talk about the granny and grandpa hormones! “She was one of our guests and we thought something might come of it—well, she had an unscheduled week at his place after the week she’d booked in for here. He went down to Wellington—to see her, we assumed—came back stony-faced and silent, and hasn’t mentioned her name since.”

    “Oh, heck. Maybe she was one of those ladies that just want a holiday fling,” said Libby in dismay.

    “That was the conclusion we came to, yeah,” agreed Jan sourly. “Poor old Bob. The marriage was bloody rocky for years, but he’s been pretty much adrift since Coral gave him the heave-ho. An object lesson in marrying in your early twenties, isn’t it? He and Coral were both too young to know their own minds. She actually thought she wanted a hubby and standard suburban domesticity, poor thing. Dunno what he wanted, but my guess’d be a word of three letters starting with S and ending in X, like all of them at that age. As it turned out Coral wasn’t the girl to give it to him. –Oh, all Taupo knows,” she said to Libby’s frown.

    “Heaven preserve me from small-town gossip!” she said bitterly.

    Er—yeah. Well, Jan did share them sentiments. Unfortunately Pete’s big mouth meant that Libby’s private life hadn’t been all that well preserved from the small town in question. Though it was true to say that, like Janet, most of ’em had been extremely sympathetic. Ma Roberts down the service station had even said vigorously: “I blame that frightful Alison McLeod! Never trust a woman who puts her kiddies in lemon socks and white sandals on a blistering summer’s day when all they’re doing is visiting their grandma, Jan, dear!”

    Lunch went down so well with all concerned, and Bob seemed so pleased about the invitation to Christmas dinner that Jan actually found herself feeling optimistic about the thing, and let Pete trudge off into the untamed wilderness that very night as ever was—well, the Crown land next-door—to cut down a nice big specimen of Pinus radiata for the Tree.

    “It’s a forest giant,” she quavered as the deluded clot finally resurfaced, together with young Sean, who was in it boots and all—the male peer group, right—and hauled it into the ecolodge’s main lounge, whereupon those guests who were still up—it wasn’t early—duly gasped.

    “High ceiling,” he said airily.

    Well, yes, the beautiful gabled golden kauri ceiling was a great feature, and luckily the average ecolodge client didn’t think to ask where the Hell he’d got that amount of kauri from.

    “Pete, it’ll never stay upright in a bucket!”

    “Aw. Nah. Uh—I know: that ole copper!”

    “It’s got my herbs in it, you moron.”

    “I’ll transplant them, Jan,” said Sean quickly. “Do it tomorrow, eh?”

    Jan agreed feebly and giving in entirely, let Pete open something special—something unspeakable, more like—and give the toast.

    “Here’s to it! Mud in yer eye and here’s hoping we don’t lay eyes on any more poncy lawyers this summer!”

    Poor Libby had turned purple, and Jayne had clapped her hand over her mouth in dismay.

    “Pete!” snapped Jan.

    “Eh? Aw, okay, then. Here’s to a Merry Christmas and may yer geese never grow thinner!”

    Jan didn’t ask what the Hell the pair of them had lubricated the tree-cutting with, she just thanked Heaven for small mercies and drank to a Merry Christmas.

Next chapter:

https://summerseason-anovel.blogspot.com/2022/10/god-rest-ye-merry.html