Ecolodge Days

9

Ecolodge Days

    Smoke billowed up from the direction of the landing stage. Nobody screamed “Fire, fire!” because Pete had volunteered to do a barbecue for New Year’s Eve and that was his version of it. Though, true, as Jan went into the main lounge and found Mr Kitson in there sniffing his inhaler and Mr and Mrs Bainbridge in there coughing, she felt like it. She apologised, assured them the fire was just getting started and the smoke’d die down, and tottered out to tell Pete it had better.

    He chucked another huge bunch of manuka sticks on it. “Gotta get it glowing, love.”

    “That manuka brush isn’t gonna do it, all it creates is ash! You’re asphyxiating the guests; didn’t you check the wind direction?”

    “Think it might of changed,” he said vaguely.

    Keith Arvidson bustled up, sharply-creased khaki safari shorts an’ all. “Let’s have a look at it!”

    Jan retreated. She was up for a fair bit, but not for macho fire-maker disputes between Keith Arvidson, who knew it all and had backpacked over it all making barbies as he went, and Pete, who’d been building fires, whether or not for actual barbies, since before the phrase “Good Keen Man” had entered into the EnZed vernacular—Hell, since before the famous Crumpie had done those famous Toyota ads!

    “Keith’s showing Pete how to build a barbie proper,” she said feebly to Erin Arvidson in the kitchen.

    Groupie Erin didn’t get it: she immediately plunged into a long, involved account of the time when, backpacked to Hell and gone along the Otcheekinokee trail, Keith had saved all their lives by building a barbie out of thin air with his bare hands tied behind— Yeah. Barbecued an ox on it, right. Or at the very least a wildebeest. Or possibly a monitor lizard, depending on the continent. Yeah. Jan just washed her hands and took a look at the tomatoes Janet had sliced for the salads before she took off home to feed the useless wimp she was divorced from and the two useless lumps he’d got on her twenty-odd years back. All of whom were foisting themselves on her for New Year’s Eve but were not volunteering to bring anything or make anything on the strength of it. Just showed that some were worse off than she was, eh? …Virtually minced. Shit. Uh—gazpacho? Erin came up to her elbow and immediately suggested gazpacho. Okay, let it be. “Let it be-ee, there will be an answer, let it—” Yeah. And no, Erin hadn’t been invited into the kitchen and yes, she and Keith were guests and were paying for the loft. And gee, yes, they had hired a 4WD and driven all the way up from Wellington, arriving only two hours since, but that wasn’t stopping ’em. Happy New Year to you, too. And since ya weren’t asking, Erin had asked if she could borrow an iron since there didn’t seem to be one in the… Yep.

    Libby came in coughing and gasping at that moment so Jan was able to stop pretending she’d wanted to make gazpacho and assure her the smoke was supposed to die down.

    “Yes! It’s all right, the wind’s changed!” she gasped.

    Jan handed her a paper towel and she blew her nose and coughed and blew her nose again. “Thanks,” she said weakly, putting it in the tidy. “The coals have started to glow,” she reported.

    “There!” said Erin pleasedly. “I knew Keith would sort it out for him!”

    Something like that. Feebly Jan asked where Stan Christensen was, since he’d volunteered himself as Libby’s partner for this evening—there was supposed to be square-dancing later on the “lawn” (scruffy piece of flattish grass near the landing stage), but gee, the answer was, him and Whit Corston were setting up the sound equipment.

    “They’re supposed to be on holiday—heck, you’re all supposed to be on holiday!” said Jan wildly. “You as well, Erin!” she added wildly as Erin briskly mixed up her special yoghurt dip. Goats’ yoghurt, in this instance: Bob’s latest effort at cheese hadn’t worked. Never mind: tomorrow as ever was Erin was gonna show him the Australian Italian way of making ricotta! Uh—Italian-Australian? Jayne claimed to have seen a version of this on TV not long before they left, in which the “Italian” girl, who by Jan’s calculations must be at least third-generation Australian, had used fig tree sap from off the handy fig tree out the back of her mum’s place to make the curds, but possibly they wouldn’t all end up poisoned, as Erin’s version didn’t do that. Not that Jan and Pete had a fig tree, but the permaculture place had several.

    “It’s a law, Jan!” said Libby, grinning widely. “Everyone has to pitch in when there’s a barbie, especially the macho men!”

    “Yeah,” Jan agreed feebly. Well, at least Libby was in a good mood and not brooding over Aidan Vine or alienating poor old Bob—though possibly the good mood was because Aidan was coming back in a few days— No, she wouldn’t think about that. “Um, what, Erin? Uh—no, there isn’t any tofu. Um, did I? Oh, yeah, you were here in winter last time. I did that Indian meal, didn’t I, with the pea curry that I cheat and use tofu in, instead of— Oh, didja? Um, ta. Um, yes, some friends of mine have had it in India, too,” she said very weakly indeed as Erin assured her she and Keith had had the dish in India with the paneer, and her tofu version (with the frozen peas, uh-huh) was every bit as good! Uh—shit, had the Arvidsons turned vegetarian? –Phew, no, it was just that sometimes Erin thickened this dip with tofu. Oh, heck, the runny yoghurt. Um, um—add cream cheese? She was just gonna investigate the fridge but Erin was already getting the arrowroot out and boiling up the jug. Uh-huh, just half a cupful would— Right. Okay. So be it. And if she could find a space to chill it in their fridges, good luck to ’er.

    “It’s funny, Dad doesn’t seem to have all that much for the barbie,” noted Libby.

    Jan’s jaw sagged. “Eh? He’s got mountains of protein out there, Libby!”

    “Yes, but it all seems to be chops or sausages,” said Libby, smiling at her.

    “Uh—yeah. Isn’t that what a barbecue—”

    Okay, they were both telling her. Not on the other side of the Tasman in the comfortably-off parts of Adelaide and Brisbane, it wasn’t, apparently. Bananas in foil were the least of it. T-bone steak? For a ruddy barbecue? Prawns, eh? (Rave on.) Spare ribs? Weren’t they only American? Chicken wings? Weren’t they only Chin— Chicken pieces, yet. Yep, you would have to be sure they cooked through, Erin. Rounds of fresh pineapple?

    “It’s very cheap in Queensland,” said Libby on a weak note. “They grow it there.”

    “I see. Don’t tell me any more, I can’t take it. Um, yes, I’m sure Keith has got a lovely way of doing mussels, Erin, but we’re so far inland and I have to say it, unless you’ve gathered them yourself you can never be sure shellfish is fresh in this countr—”

    Erin was off and running. Horror tale about that time they’d been backpacking round Britain and as they’d seen this really interesting TV series about the fish cook, perhaps Jan had heard of him (she had but she wasn’t letting on), and blah, blah, little village pub. Stomach pump an’ all, eh? Jan would have felt sorry for the man but for the fact that five minutes after they arrived Keith had had young Sean convinced that all the guests’ cars would, could and should be re-parked in the guests’ carpark much more efficiently and the deluded lad, who was only in his mid-twenties and still at the stage where most of them thought the alpha males actually knew, had come inside and started asking them for their keys.

    The dip was finished (it was a strange orange colour but Jan wasn’t asking) and Erin was briskly masherating walnuts in the food-processor for a different dip, most unusual (Jan wasn’t asking) when Jayne came in, looking gorgeous as ever, if slightly odd, in a large faded apron of Jan’s over a glamorous long yellowish thing. Yellow swirls on white.

    “Oh, good, you’re wearing it,” said Libby. She herself was in the dark blue outfit she’d worn on Christmas Day, though with, or Jan Harper was a Dutchman in his clogs, an older, softer bra under the navy cotton-knit top, and flat sandals instead of those crippling high-heeled jobs.

    “Yes,” agreed Jayne. “It fits me quite well, so long as you believe it’s meant to be three-quarter length!”

    “Cripes, Jayne, it isn’t another ruddy culotte thing that you can’t go to the toilet in without undressing like that bloody blue thing of yours, is it?” asked Jan.

    “No, thank goodness! Just a dress. It’s Libby’s, really, but she doesn’t like it.”

    “Say no more; chosen by Tamsin,” sighed Jan.

    “Of course!” said Jayne gaily. “Here.” She dumped the basket she was lugging on the table.

    “Lovey, when I asked you to pick a few zucchinis—” began Jan weakly.

    “No!” she said with a laugh. “These are from Tim, with Taupo Organic Produce’s compliments! He saw me picking and came to my rescue!”

    Jan cleared her throat. When last seen, their boundary with the permaculture property had been nowhere near their vege garden. Actually it was perilously near their goat paddock. Tim was a pleasant enough fellow, with a fairly sad history behind him which included a failed company and a failed marriage, not to say a stint in clink for having listened to his crooked moron of an accountant back when BrierleyCorp had had ’em all thinking they were gonna be overnight millionaires. But pleasant though he was, he was even more hopeless than Bob Kenny, and unlike Bob, reliably reputed to be terrified of women. Especially full-breasted, pretty women in floating long-skirted yellow swirly things, never mind the apron. It was hard to know which question to ask first, actually.

    “Picking what?” asked Libby.

    “Yeah. That,” croaked Jan.

    “Those zucchinis that have self-seeded over near the goats’ paddock. You know, Libby, just outside it, where Milly got her head stuck and Dad had to reinforce the fence.”

    “Stick a bit of chicken wire over the gaps, I think,” said Jan limply, “but in essence, yeah. What was Tim doing over near the boundary, or is that a silly question?”

    “Very!” said Libby with a laugh. “He’s already given her a bucketful of free milk from Queen Anastasia herself!”

    “Uh—yeah. He isn’t responsible for naming the cows,” said Jan on a weak note. “His former boss’s kids named them all.”

    “Jan, he uses the names!” she gurgled.

    “Right. You got a point. –Well, Jayne?”

    “Mm? Oh! They’re thinking of planting nut trees along there, he was just checking the lie of the land and making a note of what’s there.”

    “It’ll be a short note—it’s all manuka scrub, Erin,” she explained kindly. “Um, tea-tree. So he spotted your basket contained two miserable misshapen zucchini and shot off to get you some real ones, did he?”

    “Mm,” she murmured, going very pink. “Um, well, I was explaining that Dad hasn’t got many this year and that was why I thought I’d try the wild ones and, um—”

    “We get it,” said Jan heavily. “Smiled at the poor bugger, didja?”

    “Well, yes, I suppose I— Stop it!” she cried as Jan and Libby both exploded in giggles. “They’re being silly, Erin,” she explained with an attempt at dignity. “He’s a nice man, but very shy.”

    Jan blew her nose. “He’d be sixty if a day, he’s an undischarged bankrupt, and all he owns is what he stands up in. There is more, but I think that’s enough, isn’t it?”

    “I’m not encouraging him, don’t be silly,” said Jayne weakly.

    Well, no, she didn’t have to do more than smile at ’em. The Bainbridges had arrived yesterday and old Bainbridge—he’d be seventy if a day—clearly thought she was the cat’s whiskers, though so far she’d only addressed three words to him, one of which was “Hullo.” Correspondingly Ma Bainbridge, sixty-sevenish, already loathed her. Made ya wonder just how merry and bright those bits of her Brisbane life without bloody Bill Dahlenburg in ’em had been, didn’t it? Because if suburban Brisbane was anything like suburban EnZed, and Jan Harper saw no reason whatsoever to suppose it wasn’t, it’d also be full of possessive matriarchs that didn’t let the weak little hubby so much as smile timidly at a pretty woman. Even if they no longer had sex themselves. In fact especially if, as far as Jan could see.

    “You don’t need to encourage them,” said Libby drily.

    “No, I don’t think you do, Jayne!” agreed Erin unexpectedly, seizing the basket. “I’ll just rinse these.”

    They wouldn’t need rinsing if they were Taupo Organic Produce’s superb organic zucchini, completely mulched up, herbicide-free yet weed-free as they were, but Jan let her, merely adding a rider that they wouldn’t need them all for this evening—but Erin was on top of that one, you betcha. Uh—more masherated walnuts ’ud go good in the zucchini salad, would they? Okay, if she said so. Jayne was agreeing with her but Libby was looking blank, so that notion Jan had had a while back that maybe she wouldn’t be totally hopeless on the cuisine side after all if she had some coaching was a non-starter.

    Jan found she’d unaccountably sat down. She got up and checked the trifles but someone had already piped the cream all round them, in elaborate rings composed of individually piped rosettes, into the bargain adding concentric rings of halved, no, quartered glacé cherries, tiny cubes of dried apricot, and silver cachous. Jesus! Apart from Janet, who was no hand with the piping bag, who the Hell was there that was that anal? And had access to Jan’s kitchen, that was.

    “Maeve did those, Jan, dear,” said Erin kindly.

    Right. Ma Kitson. Exactly.

    Erin was asking Jayne what had gone wrong with her father’s zucchinis this year, so Jan just tottered out under the pretence of checking what was happening down in the smoke and left them to it. –Forgot to get the seeds in, was One. Gratefully accepted a big box of lovely seedlings from Tim and then wandered off leaving them half done because some terrifically macho piece of crap had reared its much more appealing head, was Two. The ones that were neatly laid out with their poor little roots all exposed had croaked, fancy that.

    “She’s going good now, love!” the macho clot greeted her. “Hey, Keith’s got this good idea: see, ya soak the chops in a bit of red wine before ya put them—”

    Oh, good God: they weren’t at each other’s throats: they’d gone into a male peer group! Young Sean Jackson was in it, too, boots an’ all. Kindly he told Jan about the ace hamburgers his dad did on the barbie. Jan would have taken her oath that Dan Jackson didn’t even know what a hamburger looked like in its raw state. She smiled feebly. Pete was pointing out that Keith’s way of doing onions was real good, ya didn’t need the plate too hot— What? In the first place onions belonged to the vegetable world, hitherto deemed beyond the macho barbecue pale! In the second place, five hundred degrees Celsius was his usual standard and it wasn’t hot enough unless the chops burst into flames when he stuck them on it. Keith, looking superior, was explaining that if you had a more modern barbecue with a cover you could— Why would you want to use a flaming barbecue for a roast dinner when just over there, inside, in a proper kitchen, were two lovely modern ovens, both courtesy of Steve Garber at Taupo Hardware & Electrical?

    She agreed with it all, agreed that “someone” had better beat the gong and round ’em all up, and, though fully recognising that the suggestion was a sop to the female Cerberus’s non-barbie sensibilities, agreed that yes, she would bring out the salads now, and tottered off, a broken woman…

    Little lights had come on in the trees, the barbecue, thank Christ, was dead at last, though its last rites had included a macho dispute over whether “she” did oughta be “dowsed” or not, and the square dancing was in full swing. Unfortunately Stan Christensen and Whit Corston seemed to be under the impression that someone had to “call” it. Jan belonged to the EnZed generation that had been forced at the uncomprehending age of ten or so to partake in this esoteric delight—stumbling around on the uneven surface of the playground wondering why it was called “square” when they were standing in a circle—and the only calling they’d had had been Mr Brown and Miss Waywright (sic) taking it in turns to shout at them what they were doing wrong (“No! Take Michael Morse’s hand, Jan!”—“No! The OTHER way, Michael!”) and work the battered wind-up gramophone that kept winding down (“Re-hed Ri-i-ver Va-aa-lee-eeee-ergh”). Believing that you had to call it meant that at least half the time when you should have been dancing with your lady partner you were up there on that old crate that was doing duty for a dais shouting over the sound system. Which meant that your lady partner was free to fall into the clutches of, take your pick, the geriatric Kitson (no sign of the inhaler), the geriatric Bainbridge (no longer coughing), the obliging young Sean, the even more obliging Dave Thompson from that drunken fortyish crew that was infesting the bunkhouse, the even more obliging and drunker Jack Thompson (his brother), or their mate, the even more obliging and drunker, humanly impossible though this might have seemed, Wayne Mason.

    The senior Jacksons had come over in time for it, though not in time for the worst of the smoke (they’d been to Pete’s barbecues before) so Jan was able to groan to Katy: “I dunno what I expected when square dancing was mooted, but I don’t think it was Jayne and Libby dancing with the drunks and geriatrics while the blokes that had asked them to be their partners were up there bellowing dosey-dohs.”

    Katy was a good-natured blonde women about ten years Jan’s junior and very like her son, Sean, as to both the looks and the placidity. She just gave a tolerant laugh.

    Jan sighed. “Yeah… Don’t suppose you envisaged your Dan dancing with young Tamsin, either, for that matter.”

    “Of course I did!” she said with a laugh. “That’s what square dancing is, Jan!”

    “Apparently, mm.” Even though she was pretty sure Katy, who wasn’t a cook, didn’t want to hear it, Jan told her all about how the gazpacho got that way.

    “Never mind, it tasted yummy,” she said kindly, watching as Whit Corston stepped down from the dais and Stan Christensen stepped up. “Um, which one is which, again, Jan?”

    “Mm? Oh. Well, it doesn’t matter, because they’re due to leave in two days’ time. Whit—the one in the blue and red checked shirt—is the one that fancies Jayne. –We thought,” she added limply as Leanne, giggling girlishly, grabbed him before Jayne could extricate herself from old Bainbridge’s sticky clutches, and dragged him into the next, uh, square. Set? Whatever. “I am wholly responsible for that, ya know,” she added grimly.

    Katy gave a muffled giggle. “I thought your cousin Robyn and her husband were!”

    “Hah, hah.—Martyred husband, ya mean.—No, well, you know what I mean. I told Robyn that Leanne could come, agreed Pete’d drive off to the wilds of Waiouru to collect her, actually made him go… Oh, well, it’s only for three weeks, I suppose we can stand it.”

    “Mm. –Ta, Dan, it’s just what we need!” she said to her husband with a laugh as he surfaced from the scrum round the trestle table that was pretending to be a bar with a couple of brimming glasses.

    Jan didn’t ask what the Hell was in them, she just seized hers thirstily. Because honestly! Leanne Gibson was proving a real trial. –Gibson was her ex’s name: God knew why they all retained it, in their shoes Jan would have ditched the bastard’s name along with the bastard himself. In this instance Mr Gibson had gone off to Rarotonga two Christmases back with his secretary, aged twenty-four. His pregnant secretary, as his note had informed Leanne. Well, to give him his due she came over as a nag and a complainer now so she probably had been while she was married to him, too, and she certainly didn’t give the appearance of a faithful little wife in a frilly pinny: in fact she gave the impression of a forty-fiveish swinger that was trying to look thirtyish and not succeeding. Dieted to scrawny, horribly tanned, never mind all the warnings about skin cancer, straight blonded hair to her shoulders with lots of wisps—meant wisps—lashings of make-up, and given to the wearing of extreme bikinis even when it was a distinctly overcast day, so long as there was the hope of a male turning up to admire her in them. Pete had duly got them all installed at the Turpin place and Leanne had accepted the large bedroom in the house with the kingsize bed as her right. True, neither Jayne nor Libby wanted it, but some might have said it would have been nice to have been asked. –Jayne was in the blue gingham frills in the back bedroom of the A-frame, claiming she liked gingham, Libby was in the top bunk in the front room, claiming she’d wanted a top bunk all her life, and Tamsin was nominally in the bottom bunk.

    So far Leanne had only made passes at Stan Christensen, Dave Thompson, Jack Thompson and Wayne Mason. Apparently it was Whit’s turn now.

    “Um, Pete was saying that those two men that were staying in the house next to Wal and Livia’s are coming back in the New Year,” said Katy cautiously as the levels in the glasses sank.

    Jan winced. “Yeah. She’s already found that out. And their socio-economic status.”

    “Um—Oh! Leanne?” said Katy feebly as the shrieks of laughter in Leanne’s set rent the mild lakeside air. “Um, has she? Um, I didn’t mean that.”

    “Oh. Uh, well, dunno whether we want ’em back or not, Katy!” Jan admitted with a feeble laugh. “The one that fancied Jayne seemed really nice, but I dunno about the other one. Well, he looked down his nose at Livia’s idea of cuisine, but you can’t wholly blame him for that. Um, Pete’s taken a scunner to him,” she admitted, swallowing.

    The Jacksons exchanged glances. “Oh, dear,” said Katy kindly.

    Put it well. “Mm. Dare say it’ll come to nothing. He’s a rich corporate lawyer from Sydney.”

    “Cripes,” said Dan unguardedly.

    Yeah, that put it well, too.

    … Little lights twinkled in the trees and over towards the boat harbour the New Year’s Eve fireworks display had already started. Hadn’t there once been a time when they waited until the witching hour to let them off? Oh, well. They were distinctly sporadic, anyway, or perhaps it was the angle. Some of the guests had gone out onto the landing-stage oohing and aahing but as it dawned how sporadic they were, had stopped. There was a temporary lull in the square dancing and someone had helpfully put on a recording of smoochy music, thus allowing bloody Leanne to smooch all over Stan Christensen. True, it did mean Whit Corston and Jayne could smooch together. Libby was being gripped tightly to old Bainbridge’s pacemaker but as Mrs was now absorbed in a group of older moos talking gynaecology, probably no-one cared. And why they were still interested in that at their ages, God alone knew: the unbroken habit of a lifetime, probably… Jan jumped and gasped as the little lights suddenly blinked off. Oops, on again. Ooh, off again! And on: what the—?

    “Bloody Sean,” discerned his father. “Came over and got the blinker off our Christmas tree. Thought he only wanted it for theirs. I’ll sort it, Jan.”

    From somewhere in the dimness beyond the sound equipment there came the muffled sniggers of the drunken young male peer group. There were exactly two of them in it, Sean and Neil, but gee, two was all it took, wasn’t it?

    “Um, it is a bit disconcerting,” admitted Jan feebly. “Ta, Dan.”

    Looking grimly pleased, Dan marched off to sort out the peer group. Though he hardly needed to: Tamsin, who’d been chatting nicely to the Arvidsons, was seen to get up and march over there. Subsequently Neil was seen to shuffle sheepishly onto the lawn in her grip and start doing what might have been a two-step if his feet had been moving.

    “Your Tamsin was on top of it!” reported Dan with a laugh. “Try this.”

    “Dan, it’s green,” said his wife faintly, peering at it in the dimness.

    “Don’t worry, it’s not kiwifruit liqueur. Think it might be that Japanese melon muck. Bottoms up!” he said encouragingly, pouring.

    “Couldn’t you have found a square bottle? Either a black label or a red one woulda done,” said Jan limply, tasting it. Ugh!

    “Seem to’ve run out of those,” he said, drinking. “Shit! Uh, yeah, think it is. Never mind! Happy New Year!”

    They drank to that, even though it wasn’t yet the witching hour.

    … Little lights were twinkling, not blinking, in the trees and it was very nearly the witching hour, in fact Pete could be seen drunkenly approaching the gong, which had been brought out for the occasion, and someone had taken off the smoochy music in favour of turning the radio on, what Jan hadn’t been aware was connected up to the bloody thing at all, so as they could get the benefit of the drunks in the studio playing a recording of other drunks blowing hooters and whistles. And counting backwards.

    “We thought Bob Kenny might be here,” said Dan on an airy note. “Since Neil’s here.”

    “Shut up, Dan,” warned Katy.

    “Yeah, shut up,” agreed Jan gratefully.

    “What about that rumoured ginger-haired dame?” he pursued, unmoved.

    “Shut up, Dan!” hissed his helpmeet.

    “She’s gone on down to Queenstown, and just drop it, will ya?” said Jan heavily.

    Unmoved, he pursued: “Sounded like another Whassname. That female from Seattle.”

    “Rhoda Hewitt,” said Jan heavily. “Yeah. She was. Satisfied?”

    “Well, it rounds out the picture,” he replied calmly.

    Jan took a deep breath to blast him but the hooters and whistles went off, Pete leapt at the gong, and BOINNGG! BOINNGG! BOINNGG! BOINNGG! BOINNGG!

     Right. Happy New Year. And Auld Lang Syne to you, too.

    The ecolodge basked in the mild morning sun. A duck waddled across the grass and launched itself onto the lake. The birds chirped in the trees and from a long way away came the very faint sound of an outboard. Pete wandered out onto the grass in his pyjama pants and wandered down to the shore. “Bugger,” he said under his breath, catching sight of the placidly bobbing duck. “Uh—I never saw ya.” He tested the water with his toe. “Why not?” Chucking the pyjama pants at the grass, he launched himself into the lake.

    The good old Taupo Shores Tallulah was moored at the landing stage, so as he seemed to be swimming in that direction, Pete thought that he might take ’er out for little spin before breakfast, why not? Or maybe just sit on ’er deck for a bit, contemplating the day, why not? He was at her bow when he heard voices, and then that bloody irritating giggle of Leanne’s. Shit, had she snared one of those Yanks, after all? Farewell present, maybe? They were due to leave today, and good riddance. He shrank into the launch’s side.

    “I suppose you had better go,” the bloody female said with another giggle. “Won’t your wife be getting up soon for one of those early runs of hers?”

    A man’s voice replied smugly: “Not with that herbal muck she took on top of that spiked punch she drank last night, I can promise you! But I had better get back, yes.”

    More giggles and she cooed: “Come here, big man!” and there was the sound of loud necking, but Pete barely heard this, his ears were still ringing. Keith Arvidson? He’d of said he was the last man on earth—! Him and Erin were yer typical smugly self-satisfied, comfortably-off baby-boomers that had been together for nigh on forty years and prided themselves on telling each other everything, not to say telling their audience that they did. Quite apart from the fact that Arvidson had struck him as the type that wasn’t interested in a bit of the other any more and had never been that interested in the first place! Shit.

    The lingering farewells were over, with a lot more giggling, from him as well as Leanne, and there was the sound of someone stepping onto the landing stage. Pete peered very cautiously round the bow. It was him, all right, striding away across the grass in the direction of the garage and poor bloody Erin. In what he’d been wearing last night when them, Leanne, the two Yanks and the middle-aged trampers from the boathouse were knocking back the punch. It was spiked, all right, Pete had with his own eyes seen first that tit Wayne Mason and then than tit Jack Thompson pouring vodka into it and later on Jack’s tit of a brother, Dave, pouring tequila into it. Shit.

    He waited but Leanne didn’t seem to be getting off the boat. Bugger. Taking a deep breath, Pete slid silently away, swimming underwater as far as he could. When he finally surfaced, puffing and blowing, he was a good long distance away, thank Christ. He headed off along the shore, doing a nice, quiet, unobtrusive breast-stroke. Shit.

    One good thing, he didn’t bump into Ma Kitson or Ma Bainbridge as he nipped through the back door of the ecolodge without benefit of them pyjama pants. As the back door opened onto the little back porch off the kitchen and good ole Michelle Callaghan was in there having a cuppa before she got on with the floors in the public areas and the public bogs, she copped an eyeful, but never mind she looked like Arnie Schwarzenegger in drag, she’d more than had her share in her time. She just whistled.

    Jayne unlooped the bow rope from its post and got aboard the MerriAndi, smiling. They weren’t responsible for the name, it had been hired from a man who’d bought it off a couple who’d sold it when their marriage broke up. It was a nice little launch but Merri and Andy had had it painted shiny black with a large, leaping red and silver marlin on either side of its nose, complete with a trail of white and silver curling spray leading back towards the stern, streamline-wise, and a bright red superstructure picked out in white, with matching red-piped white seat cushions. Not inconspicuous. It had a considerable turn of speed, unlike Pete’s Taupo Shores Tallulah, which was much larger and about eighty years older, and she and Libby usually made very good time across the lake. –The MerriAndi was a lot easier to drive but they kindly hadn’t said so to their father.

    Libby had already cast off at the stern. “Ready? Let’s go!” She gunned the engine and off they shot, in a shower of spray.

    “This is fun!” cried Jayne, as she usually did when Leanne wasn’t there moaning.

    “Too right!” cried Libby.

    The MerriAndi headed across the placid lake with both McLeod sisters grinning broadly.

    “Well, that was the last of Stan and Whit,” said Jayne as they neared the far shore.

    “Yeah. Good,” replied Libby simply.

    “Yeah!” Jayne agreed with a guilty giggle “They were nice, I suppose, but, um—”

    “Too American.”

    “Mm,” she admitted.

    “At least they didn’t drag us off for a farewell dip in a spa.”

    “No. Um, thermal pool, Libby,” she corrected. “Um, no. I suppose they weren’t any worse than, um, any other men.”

    “I think that was my point!” The larger Rotorua-Taupo area was full of thermal springs, many of which had been developed into spa facilities for the tourists. Normally one wore one’s bathers in these spas: it was a prudish country in which the lower-middle mores of the working-class British settlers who had emigrated in the nineteenth century in the hope of achieving the next rung of the social ladder still prevailed. The McLeod sisters felt right at home there. Stan Christensen and Whit Corston of course came from precisely the same sort of background, never mind that Stan was a well-off dentist and Whit a dealer in automotive parts who’d more than made his pile. However, they were both on holiday, footloose and fancy-free, and that apparently made the difference. They had got very familiar indeed in the pool they’d rented for the four of them and in fact had suggested an adjournment to a handy motel with thermal spas attached to the rooms. Libby and Jayne did quite like the two Americans and possibly they would have let the holiday friendship develop into something warmer, had it not been that Jayne couldn’t forget Andrew Barker and Whit’s round, undistinguished face and plumpish, middle-aged figure weren’t enough to make her do so, and Libby kept mentally comparing Aidan Vine’s dark good looks, and unusual dark grey eyes complete with their long, black curled lashes, with Stan’s pale, Scandinavian looks which included colourless lashes and washed-out blue eyes. And Aidan’s wit and intelligence with Stan’s painstaking American politeness and completely unoriginal mind. Leanne had made a real effort to take him off her hands—and Libby wouldn’t have minded if it had succeeded—but unfortunately Stan wasn’t interested. Though on the face of it Leanne seemed a much likelier type for him.

    “The goodbye lunch at Fern Gully Ecolodge was very nice,” offered Jayne.

    “Very expensive, you mean!”

     She bit her lip. “Mm. Still, I suppose with the rate of exchange, it wouldn’t be as much in American dollars.”

    “No, that’s true. Did you really enjoy the food?” asked Libby.

    “Um… Well, it was beautifully prepared, and the ingredients were all wonderfully fresh… I suppose I don’t really like those itty-bitty little piles.”

    “Me, neither. With swirls,” said Libby deeply.

    Their eyes met. They both broke down in helpless giggles.

    “Oh, dear! We’re hopeless!” concluded Jayne, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes.

    “What, because we’re not taken in by the latest foodie clichés?”

    “Um, I think I mean,” said Jayne thoughtfully, “not taken in by them and not really attracted to two nice, well-meaning men like Stan and Whit who—who were really trying.”

    “Ya mean not taken in by them, either,” said Libby cheerfully. “Yep, hopeless!”

    Their eyes met again. They collapsed in giggles again.

    The Kitsons had been waved on their merry way in their silver Lexus, and, the room having been cleaned by Michelle, inspected and given new towels and soap by Jayne on Jan’s behalf and had one of Janet’s special little flower arrangements put on its lowboy, the Johnstones had arrived in their silver Mitsubishi, been greeted and shown into it by Libby.

    She tottered out to the kitchen.

    “Get them settled in okay?” asked Jan.

    “Yes. Paying by MasterCard,” she said faintly.

    “Uh-huh. Anything up?”

    “No… Jan, they’re clones!” she croaked.

    “Eh? Oh, of the Kitsons? That’s only to be expected, Libby. That’s what your average ecolodge client is,” she said kindly.

    Libby tried to smile and failed. “When the Kitsons arrived Mrs Kitson said Janet’s flower arrangement was very tasteful.”

    “Most of them do,” replied Jan unemotionally.

    “Jan, Mrs Johnstone said the exact same thing! Those very words! And Mr Johnstone told me the mileage he’d got out of his car just like Mr Kitson did!”

    “That’d be right,” said Jan unemotionally. “You didn’t think the Kitsons and Bainbridges et al. were just the Christmas-New Year’s crowd, did you?”

    “I suppose I did,” said Libby weakly.

    “Nope,” she said unemotionally. “Did you tell them when afternoon tea was?”

    “I did, but I didn’t have to volunteer it,” said Libby wildly, “because Mrs Johnstone asked me, the same as Mrs Kitson did!”

    “Uh-huh,” said Jan unemotionally.

    “Jan, how do people get to be like that?” she demanded wildly.

    Jan gave in and grinned at her. “The majority of the great middle class of the civilised world, ya mean? Well, dunno. Never really been inclined that way, myself. I think it’s got something to do with never letting the brain cells function above the level of understanding a knitting pattern, though. Wearing a nice pair of polyester stretch slacks for the trip, was she?”

    “Black,” said Libby dully. “With a quite smart blouse: white with a pattern of long-stemmed red roses and black, um, squiggly stripes.”

    “Oh, right: one of the fashion-conscious ones.”

    “Don’t laugh; I feel sort of… drained.”

    “In that case sit down and try this.” Jan produced a bottle as Libby sank down onto a chair at the big old scrubbed table.

    “Um, what it is?”

    “No idea. Pa Kitson shoved it into Pete’s hand as a thank-you present when they got back from their shopping trip yesterday.” She poured and looked at the label. “Roi—eh? Roiano. Never heard of it. Stock. Well, they’re very well-known producers. Liqueurs, vermouth, that sort of thing. Go on, taste it. –Well?”

    “Um, odd,” said Libby weakly. “I think it is a liqueur.”

    Shrugging, Jan poured herself a belt. She tasted it. “Yep, odd’s the word. Well, bottoms up!”

    “It’s barely two forty-five,” said Libby weakly.

    Jan eyed her drily. “In that case the Johnstones were right on time, but gee, ya know what? Clones always are.”

    Libby gave her a glare and drank her glass of Roiano off.

    “Just keep telling yaself thank God you’re not one of ’em,” advised Jan, drinking. “Fancy a coffee? There might be some faint hope it’ll take the taste away.”

    “Real coffee?”

    “Yes, I think a pair of Kitson clones rate a cup of real coffee, Libby.”

    “In that case, thanks very much, if you’re really gonna make a pot.”

    “Of course I am, how else do you think I get through the day?”

    Libby had begun to wonder, actually. In her shoes, she had a strong feeling she’d be on the Roy-whatever-it-was permanently, not just on the coffee.

    The restaurant was very full, with several outside bookings, in fact the whole of the big table had had to be sacrificed, possibly not the word, for the guests, so both Jayne and Libby were doing waitress. Mrs Bainbridge and Mrs Johnstone had already told them they should be sitting down with everybody: it made the atmosphere so much more homey, and where was Pete tonight? “Dear Pete” in Mrs B.’s case, she’d been here longer. Leanne was sitting with the hard-drinking fortyish backpackers from the bunkhouse, looking, though she wasn’t a backpacker, right at home. The more so as a friend of theirs, Norm Fitzpatrick, had turned up unexpectedly and been squeezed into the bunkhouse on a stretcher of Pete’s. Norm was divorced and had turned up in a large, shiny ute with a large, shiny motorbike of the cross-country variety in the back of it.

    Tonight Jan had cooked a speciality which she quite often did when everyone was sick of turkey and ham or roast lamb and roast beef, according to the season, and she couldn’t stand the sight of another chook: Rabbit in Marsala. It was a classic Elizabeth David Italian dish but the punters of course didn’t know this, they just recognised it as fancy and quite unusual. The rabbits were nearly always those frozen Chinese ones but they didn’t know this, either. The result looked posh but it was easy: just a stew with a bit of Marsala to flavour it and some chopped eggplant and red pepper. Jan’s copy of the book dated from 1966 and had been picked up at a garage sale in Wellington circa 1980 for 75 cents, no kidding. It didn’t advise pre-grilling and skinning the peppers but Jan had verified empirically that if you did this you didn’t end up with nasty choking bits of tough pepper skin in your dish, so she always did, now. Pete had forgotten to get the peppers in on time this year and his eggplants had died from a goat attack, so she’d broken down and bought some from next-door; though she hadn’t broken down to the extent of doing the side dish of a grilled pepper salad that she sometimes offered with the dish. Instead she was simply serving it with brown rice, runner beans braised with a little olive oil and a sprinkling of marjoram, and a side salad of curly endive. Pete’s curly endives were going berserk, probably because, as Keith Arvidson had kindly told him, looking down his nose, they really should be tied up to blanch, he and Erin had seen the way the French farmers did that on a backpacking tour of northern France and Belgium. Mysteriously, Pete had countered this info with an offer of a trip in the Taupo Shores Tallulah and Arvidson had turned puce and retreated.

    “That looks nice,” bleated Mrs Cooper, looking admiringly at the rabbit that Tony Gledhill and Barry Whittington at the next table had ordered. “Look, dear, that looks nice! –What is that, Jayne?” she asked.

    Politely Jayne replied: “It’s rabbit, but I’m afraid that dish has to be ordered in advance, Mrs Cooper.” All the guests’ room had the menus for the following day placed conspicuously near the phone and all the menus advised if a dish had to be ordered in advance.

    “But we never knew that!” she bleated. “Rabbit; that does sound nice, dear,” she said to Mr Cooper.

    “Um, yes. Well, maybe there’ll be enough,” he said, looking hopefully at Jayne.

    Gee, how many pieces did the silly man imagine a rabbit could be chopped into? “No, I’m very sorry.” She looked uneasily over at Table 4, an outside booking for four, for the rabbit. They hadn’t turned up yet, and if they never did there would be enough for the Coopers, only they weren’t very late, yet.

    Looking sad, Mr Cooper explained that he didn’t like the sound of the vegetarian pie, really. Jayne blinked; Jan’s lovely vegetarian pie, which had a miraculously crisp wholemeal crust, wasn’t on the menu tonight. “Oh! The filo pastry silverbeet roll? It’s got fetta cheese in it, it’s very tasty.”

    “He wouldn’t like it, it’s Greek,” explained Mrs Cooper.

    Jayne and Libby were now both getting quite used to the female partners at the ecolodge speaking for the males; Jayne nodded politely. “The Beef Stroganoff’s very nice,” she offered, kindly not favouring them with Jan’s intel that it was as easy as falling off a log, and a real old stand-by. And that if you had one of those fabulous rice cookers—the ecolodge had several—the accompanying rice came up fluffy as all get out without any effort whatsoever. “You could have it with the white rice or the brown rice.”

    “Russian, isn’t it?” said Mrs Cooper suspiciously. “Full of sour cream. He doesn’t like that.”

    No. Right. The only things she’d heard Mr and Mrs Cooper order without hesitation were Jan’s scones at afternoon teatime. “The Pork Cutlets Dijonnaise are lovely,” she said faintly. “Um, they should really be ordered in advance, but there are some spare ones.”

    “He never eats pork,” said Mrs Cooper dismissively.

    That was it, then. Jayne looked at them limply.

    “Isn’t there any chicken on the menu?” asked Mrs Cooper, frowning.

    “Not tonight, I’m afraid.”

    “There isn’t much,” ascertained Mr Cooper, examining the menu closely.

    “No, it’s just a small restaurant,” said Jayne faintly.

    Mrs Cooper was looking at what the four ladies at the next table were having. They weren’t exactly a group: they were two sets of two widows, Mrs Albright and Mrs Cunninghame from Wisconsin, which was snowed in at this time of year, January in the sun was just a tremendous treat, and Mrs Avery and Mrs Gladstone from Auckland, who’d been here since Christmas and were only too thrilled to show them the ropes.

    “That looks nice.”

    “Y—um, they’re all having the Beef Stroganoff,” said Jayne limply.

    At this Mrs Albright looked up, beaming, and said cheerfully—the tables were quite close together, she must have heard every syllable: “It’s real delicious, and a classic dish, y’know? Why, I swear I’ve seen it on Julia Child!”

    “It’s lovely: very tender!” contributed Mrs Gladstone in her vernacular, nodding kindly at the Coopers.

    “It does look nice,” noted Mr Cooper.

    “Don’t be silly, you hate sour cream.”

    “Dairy sour cream: it doesn’t taste sour at all,” contributed Mrs Cunninghame kindly.

    “Too many calories,” said Mrs Cooper definitely.

    Jayne was stumped. “I’ll leave you to think about it,” she said faintly, and fled to the kitchen.

    “Christchurch,” discerned Jan drily. “We’ve had a few like that from there. They’d be much happier with pressed ham and shredded lettuce à la Janet, but they’d feel they weren’t getting their money’s worth. –Don’t stop stringing those runners, ta,” she added to Pete.

    He winked at his daughter. “Slave-driver, see?”

    “I can see that beer at your elbow, Dad!” returned Jayne with a laugh. “Mr Gledhill and Mr Whittington asked me to compliment you on the rabbit, Jan.”

    “Glad to hear it. All those lunches I’ve done for the pair of them over the past few years have paid off.”

    “We get a few Auckland gays that come down for the grub,” Pete explained.

    “Y—um, yes,” said Jayne weakly. “Paid off, Jan?”

    “Got a holiday booking out of them, lovey,” said Pete. “We don’t make much on the food.”

    “I see,” she said, smiling at him. “Could you take them on the boat tomorrow, Dad?”

    “Yeah, no sweat. Don’t suppose Leanne’ll want to come with them!” He went into a sniggering fit.

    “Very funny,” said Jan heavily. “No sign of those morons that booked Table 4, I suppose, Jayne?”

    “Not yet.”

    Pete snorted. “Give the Coopers their share of the rabbit and let’s hope it chokes them.” He brightened. “Yeah: give ’em the pieces of back with all the ribs in ’em!”

    “Shut up,” said Jan, trying not to laugh. “And don’t include any of those hoary beans, thanks. –Just put them aside, they won’t be wasted.”

    “What’ll ya do with them, though?”

    “Puree!” said Jan and Jayne with one voice. They looked at each other and laughed.

    Pete grinned to himself. “Puree, eh?” he said mildly. “Good show.”

    The crowd from the bunkhouse at the long table was keeping Libby busy: with the Arvidsons, Leanne and the newly arrived Norm there were ten of them, and with a couple from the Southern Stars Motel who’d rung this morning desperate for a decent meal, that made a round dozen. The couple were, for a change, middle-aged retirees of the nice sort, and would probably have fitted in better with another couple of their own age but, gee, Mr and Mrs Cooper had preferred not to share their table. And the Johnstones and Bainbridges were already sitting together. Jan had thought, though Tony Gledhill and Barry Whittington would have been quite happy to share and would probably have been able to tell them a lot about what they were eating, it might be better not to: you never knew with the nice middle-aged sort. On arrival Mr and Mrs Duckworth didn’t strike as particularly homophobic, but better safe than sorry. They watched with interest as the more adventurous trampers surrounding them ordered either the chilli corn fritters with tomato puree and coriander or Jan’s home-bottled, grilled eggplant slices and artichoke halves in olive oil and garlic for starters, but plumped for the salmon mousse themselves. This old standby was a recipe of Jan’s mum’s, using tinned salmon and, in its original form, commercial mayonnaise, though Jan usually used yoghurt with a good tablespoonful of Dijon mustard instead, but it still went over really well with the nice sort. Oddly enough Erin Arvidson had also chosen it, though Keith had gone for the chilli corn fritters. Libby didn’t like him so she didn’t bother to tell him the chilli was optional and actually only there as Jan’s sop to the Cerberus of the Thai stir-fry generation.

    “The ones that didn’t order the rabbit have decided on their mains at last. Leanne wanted to know if she could have the Beef Stroganoff without the sour cream, so I said no. So that’s the silverbeet and fetta in filo for her and one of the ladies, and the pork for that new man. And the Beef Stroganoff for the other lady that didn’t want the rabbit. Dave Thompson wanted to know why there are only three starters but four mains, only I think that was a joke,” she reported conscientiously to Jan.

    “Yeah, I’m laughing. That It?”

    “So far. The people from the Southern Stars are still arguing over whether the pork’s gonna disagree with his stomach. Oh, hang on: the backpackers have run out of wine.”

    Jan raised her eyebrows but didn’t bother to comment. “Grab a couple of bottles from the fridge in the passage, then.”

    “I’ve forgotten which one they had,” said Libby lamely.

    “You’ll never make a sommelier, then.”

    “The Chardonnay, lovey. How kaylied are they?” asked Pete.

    “Um, I don’t think they are, really. Well, there’s eight of them with Leanne, that’s not all that much each out of two bottles.”

    “No. In that case it had better be the stuff they ordered, not that muck from Hawke’s Bay. Hang on, I’ll get it.”

    “Don’t you dare take it through to the restaurant in those jeans,” warned Jan as he ambled out. “Any sign of those morons that booked Table 4, Libby?”

    “No. We could have given it to the people from the Southern Stars after all.”

    “That’s show biz,” said Jan with a sigh. “They may yet turn up, depending on whether they’re the up-market sort that walk in late and drunk for Japanese puppet troupes that’ve come all the way from Kyoto to put on one show in Auckland and walk out the minute the curtain’s down, incidentally passing the Japanese manager of the troupe in the doorway without so much as a look, let alone a smile and thank you, let alone a bow. No, well, they were out for the Adelaide Festival that year and I think they did a week in Sydney, but all the same!”

    “Yes, how appallingly rude,” said Libby in awe. “Did you bow?”

    Jan smiled a little. “I did, but as I was with Polly and Jake Carrano and he burst into Japanese, into the bargain bowing until his nose touched his knee, I didn’t really need to! –Give those bottles to Libby, Pete.”

    “I’d better open ’em for her.”

    “Not on a busy night with two of our Auckland gays dining,” said Jan heavily. “She can open them at the table like in a real restaurant.”

    “Um, I’m not very good at working those screw tops,” said Libby uneasily.

    Jayne had come in with some dirty plates. “I am.”

    They goggled at her.

    “You a secret drinker?” said Pete on a weak note.

    “I suppose I am,” replied Jayne with the utmost serenity. “I used to have lunch every week with Margie Shirvington and Heather Dewhurst and usually Jill McKewan as well. Bill didn’t know about it. We always had wine. We used to take it in turns to be hostess. It was a good opportunity for them to try out new recipes, they did a lot of business entertaining for their husbands, you see.”

    “And you didn’t?” said Pete feebly.

    “Yes, but he wouldn’t let me do new recipes. –I’ll do it. Libby,” she said, seizing the wine. “Who’s it for?”

    “Those over-aged backpackers from the bunkhouse.”

    “They call them trampers over here, have you noticed?” said Jayne with her lovely smile, going out.

    In her wake silence fell in Taupo Shores Ecolodge’s roomy kitchen.

    “See?” said Libby at last.

    “Yeah. Every word you or Tamsin wrote was gospel,” conceded Jan. “In fact not strong enough!”

    “If only I could have the bugger at the end of me fist for two seconds,” said Pete wistfully.

    “It’s a nice thought, but actually he was pretty hefty before he got sick,” admitted Libby. “I don’t know that you could have flattened him.”

    Pete raised his eyebrows at his life-partner and Jan cleared her throat. “Don’t take any bets. He’s not only fit as a flea and strong as a horse, he’s got science.”

    “Used to box a bit,” said Pete with a grin. “Mug’s game. –Did someone mention coriander about fifteen hours back?”

    “Oh—yeah,” said Jan feebly. “Could you pick a wee bit, love? ’Cos if you don’t, the wankers for Table 4’ll turn up and all order the corn fritters with it.”

    “And if I do they won’t,” explained Pete amiably, ambling out.

    “Wiry type. Usually much stronger than they look,” said Jan in a very casual voice. “Bob Kenny’s something of the same type—taller, of course.” Libby made no reply. Jan eyed her sideways. “Nip off and see whether that pair from the Southern Stars actually want to eat tonight, wouldja?”

    Gasping: “Ooh, help, yes!” Libby disappeared.

    Jan made a face but didn’t take her attention off the pork chops she’d put in the pan.

    … The two Auckland gays were having their curly endive salad as a separate course—Jan’s rich friends had apprised her that this was a normal custom in the more civilised parts of the world like Paris, France, so she wasn’t completely astounded by it, only surprised that there was someone out here that knew that besides Polly and Jake Carrano, whose income was more than the whole country’s—and everyone else was still either eating their mains or finishing their wine or arguing over what to have for pudding or all three, so Jayne and Libby were sitting at the kitchen table with plates of rabbit in Marsala in front of them.

    “The Coopers could have had this,” said Jayne on a weak note.

    “Balls,” replied Jan cheerfully. “Have some more runner beans. –Please. Or I’ll have to turn the rest of them into a salad for lunch tomorrow.”

    “Rabbit food, hah, hah!” offered Pete through a mouthful of Beef Stroganoff. –He’d refused the rabbit on the grounds that that sauce of Jan’s was good but them frozen domestic rabbits had no taste compared to the wild ones, a fair enough comment. And also that it was a Helluva pity about the myxy, but they seemed to be coming back, also a fair enough comment if you dated back far enough to realise what he meant. Jan had explained that it was why the country was no longer overrun with rabbits—Pete here choked and muttered arcanely about the King Country, but she managed to ignore that—but oddly enough Jayne and Libby were on top of that one before the words were even out of her mouth. Oh, right, even worse in Australia, eh? Jayne in fact mentioned the words “rabbit-proof fence” to which Jan returned faintly: “I thought that was a myth? Wasn’t there an arty film called that?” Placidly Jayne replied No, and Yes, in that order. The two of them then revealed that neither of them could remember what that last batch had been called that was supposed to have escaped from its quarantine station all by itself, but it seemed to have done the trick, was it South Australia that it had got out into and decimated the rabbit population? They thought so, yes. –Eh? How could a batch of rabbit poison—all right, virus or whatever it was—get out? Jan’s bet would have been a human agency. Pre-empting any possible protest by the thick-witted public and/or attempt by the thick-witted authorities to prevent them using their wonderful new whatever-it-was—quite.

    “Hare’s good,” added Pete thoughtfully through another mouthful of Beef Stroganoff.

    “That’ll do,” replied Jan in an iron voice.

    “Wal knows a bloke that goes hunting quite regularly down the South Island somewh—”

    “That’ll do.”

    “Do you mean shooting, Dad?” said Jayne faintly.

    “Yeah, ’course, ya wouldn’t hunt hares with ya bare ha— Bugger, don’t tell me those wankers for Table 4 have turned up after all!” he said as some cretin rang the bell that was installed by the restaurant door just in case no-one was on duty in there when some cretin came in very late expecting food.

    “It’s my table, I’ll go,” said Libby through a mouthful of rabbit.

    “Ya won’t; I’ll do it. These jeans aren’t dirty— Ooh!” he gasped as Jan leapt on him and swathed his nether regions in a clean white apron. “They’re just old,” he finished in a very weak voice.

    “Yeah, like the rest of you. Go on, then,” she said tolerantly.

    Winking at his daughters, Pete ambled out.

    “Oh, it’s you,” he said to the wankers that were sitting at Table 4 looking at the menu. “Why’d ya book under the name of Harrison, then?”

    The fat bloke that he didn’t think he’d met before, though he might of, wasn’t a particularly memorable-looking bloke, looked down his fat nose and replied: “Because my name is Harrison. We ordered the rabbit for four, if you remember. May I see the wine list, please?”

    “You can see it, yeah,” allowed Pete, handing him one. “Dunno that you’ll be any the wiser, though. You’re an Aussie, aren’tcha? Most of our stuff’s local. –The reason this table’s set for four,” he noted, “is that you booked for four.”

    “Yes,” said the dame with the flashing earrings—these days the kids had a new word for that flashing junk, pity he couldn’t remember it, eh? “I decided to come down with them at the last minute, but I’m sure you can squeeze me in!” Batting the eyelashes at him, ugh!

    “Well, yeah, we can feed ya,” allowed Pete, “ but it won’t be rabbit unless one of ya mates wants to sacrifice theirs.” –The other dame looked quite reasonable. Almost human. Pity it wasn’t her that was cosying up to bloody Aidan Vine, then. Well, not if ya took her feelings into account, no. “Very sorry to hear about your dad,” he added conscientiously.

    “Thank you, Pete,” the wanker said nicely. “But there’s no need, we all cordially loathed him.”

    “Uh—yeah. Wal did give us that impression, actually,” he said feebly. “Hang on, I’ll get ya some more cutlery.” There was loads in the antique kauri dresser that was in the restaurant so as the clients could ooh and aah over it. They wouldn’t if they knew what state it had been in when him and Bob Kenny and ole Paul Masters found it that day in a deserted farmhouse to Hell and gone up the King Country, talking of infested with bloody rabbit holes that ya stuck ya foot in when ya were carrying a bloody heavy— Yeah. But what with one thing and another he had just happened to have some spare bits of kauri hanging round, so fixing the busted door and replacing that shelf that some moron had done a bit of yer homemade pokerwork on with the actual poker, musta been pissed out of ’is mind at the time, hadn’t been a problem. It had made a lovely winter project during those long, peaceful months when the ecolodge had only just been getting going and they’d had no customers at all except for one fisherman that had freely admitted he didn’t care whether it was the season or not, he’d only come down to get away from the wife. They hadn’t caught any, of course, that was illegal. Just collected a few that had happened to leap out of the stream and into their— Yeah.

    “What a beautiful dresser!” said the dame with the earrings and stuff enthusiastically.

    “Yeah; ta. Bit of an antique. Dates back to me great-grandfather’s time,” said Pete laconically. Well, it did. His great-grandfather had never set eyes on it in ’is puff, but he hadn’t actually said he had, had he?

    “Caroline, you don’t need an antique kauri dresser,” drawled bloody Vine in that up-himself voice of his.

    “You’d have to change all your décor to suit it!” added the comfortable-looking female with a cosy laugh. –Well, that sort could be nice to have around the place, or they could be bloody maddening. He’d give you evens, on present showing.

    “Oh, she could manage that!” said Andrew Whatsisface, laughing a bit. Blow, in that case she probably wasn’t his sister. Didn’t look like the kind of look a bloke’d give his sister and that look he was getting back certainly didn’t look like the look a sister— No.

    “How much would you want for it?” asked the flashing-earringed dame, fluttering the eyelashes again.

    Pete scratched his narrow jaw. “We-ell… See, we don’t use it all that much”—she brightened—“only it’s supposed to give the place ambiance. Well, all this part’s new, ya see. –Newish,” he amended, eying the kauri sleepers that were holding its roof up. Wattle and daub, in between ’em: he’d got a book from the library that told ya how to do it, you could get all sorts if ya knew to ask, the dames there only hadda get onto their computers to Wellington, and if they didn’t have it in the great big library there they’d get it for ya from anywhere in the country! It was after they’d got the rest of the ecolodge up and five thousand of ’em had told Jan she ought to provide restaurant meals—they’d been using the far end of the lounge for dining, they hadn’t had the bunkhouse either back then, so they’d fitted ’em in easy enough. The project had taken a while, mind you: best part of a year. There’d been him and Paul Masters and Paul’s nephew that had lost his job with the government cutbacks, and a mate of his that had lost his job with the government cutbacks, only wanted their keep and a few beers, and a bit of help from young Murray Gibson over his varsity holidays, he hadn’t been able to find a paying job except Friday and Saturday nights for Ken Roberts at the service station so he’d settled for a decent lunch and a few beers. Wal had reckoned he was gonna help, only that wasn’t long after he’d taken up with Livia, so he’d been otherwise occupied most of the time.

    “Two thousand?” suggested the fat Harrison.

    “New Zealand dollars, Don?” drawled Vine, raising those eyebrows of his at him.

    “Uh—okay, two and a half.”

    “Thing is, we’d need to put the cutlery in something,” said Pete slowly. The dame was still looking hopeful—actually both dames were—and Harrison looked as if he was about to up the ante slightly, but Vine was looking distinctly dry, so he’d probably spotted him. Andrew Whatsit was smiling, so he probably had, too. “Uh, well, to you… Ten thou’.”

    “What?” she gasped. The other dame just gasped.

    “Okay, ten and a half.”

    Vine and his mate both broke down in sniggers and the fat bloke broke down and cracked a smile.

    “It’s not for sale. We like it,” explained Pete redundantly.

    “Yes,” said Andrew feebly, wiping his eyes. “Pete, let me introduce you—”

    Okay, Pete let him introduce him. The comfortable-looking dame was Vine’s eldest sister, Candy, the fat bloke was her husband, and the other dame was Vine’s cousin. Okay, she’d been to the funeral, but did that mean she hadda come down here with them? Apparently—yeah. The sister was gonna go back to Auckland in a few days to finish clearing out the house and Harrison was gonna go back to Perth in a few— Yeah, yeah.

    Flashing Earrings ordered the filo pastry roll for her main, no doubt under the impression, dames like her always were, that filo pastry was up-market, that it wasn’t slathered in butter, that it didn’t contain starch, and that fetta cheese was good for you. Okay, fine: by his calculations that’d leave two nice, juicy pork chops that he could have for his lunch tomorrow. Andrew and Fatty chose the chilli corn fritters for starters, Candy chose the salmon mousse, Pete woulda staked his life on that one, Flashing Earrings chose the poncy bottled eggplants and artichokes, possibly under the impression that because they were slathered in olive oil they wouldn’t be fattening, and gee, Vine did, too. The wine list had Harrison stumped so Andrew took it off him and after Flashing Earrings had vetoed anything white and fizzy—she was right, it’d be undrinkable, but did she have to say it that loud? The two American dames had just talked the two dames from Auckland that were sitting with them into having a bottle, just for fun, with their pudding—after that, he was allowed to order a Chardonnay to go with the starters and the most expensive red on the list, which incidentally wasn’t local, it was from a dozen cases of Coonawarra that Jake had given Pete and Jan eighteen months back on the occasion of them being together for twenty years. Since they rather liked it themselves Pete had set the price so high that only three bottles had so far been ordered by customers. It was getting better with age, too, what was more.

    He went out to the kitchen and gave Jan the order, advising her to leave them last two chops in the fridge.

    “Don’t imagine you’re having pork chops for breakfast. Are they having a wine? You were out there long enough to ferment, bottle and age it!”

    “Two. Well, so far. Chardonnay with the starters.”

    “Give them the Hawke’s Bay stuff, Dad!” advised Jayne with giggle.

    Pete looked drily at the empty glass beside her empty plate. “Don’t have any more booze, them tables of yours are gonna need clearing in a minute and the customers might want ya to write down their pudding orders right. They chose the good stuff: an unwooded one, must of had prior experience of them oaked things that peel ya tongue, and a bottle of the Coonawarra red to go with the rabbit, and before anyone speaks, I better tell you who they are.”

    “Friends of Polly’s and Jake’s that the big-mouths told about the Coonawarra red?” suggested Jan.

    “No! Well, wouldn’t need to tell ’em, it’s on the wine list, if ya can fight ya way through them local reds that can call themselves anything but are all far too sweet and too acid at the same time. Um, no, it’s Andrew Whatsisface and Aidan Vine come back, and Vine’s relations,” he admitted glumly.

    Jayne went very pink and swallowed hard and Libby went very pink and gulped down the last of her glass of red, one could only hope Jan hadn’t run mad and let ’em have the— He turned the bottle on the table to face him. No. Phew! A so-called Merlot from Gisborne.

    “Harrison?” said Jan faintly.

    “Eh? Aw. Yeah. That’s the brother-in-law. There’s him and his wife, that makes four, and some flashing-earringed dame that’s a cousin. She’s the fifth. Wants the silverbeet in filo.”

    Jan shrugged. “There’s two end pieces left.”

    “Lean ’em against each other with a few coriander fronds and a splash of olive oil and she’ll lap it up.”

    Normally this would have reduced Libby, at least, to strangled giggles, but now she barely smiled. And Jayne looked as if she hadn’t heard a syllable.

    “I’ll do that,” said Jan on a grim note. “Jayne, I think you’d better check your tables, see if they’re ready to order pudding yet, or more grog in the case of that lot from the bunkhouse. And Libby,” she said as Jayne went out obediently, “check on Tony Gledhill and Barry Whittington and see if they'd like cheese before their pudding. Tell them I’ve got a nice Stilton, or there’s fresh goat’s.”

    “It’s not on the menu,” said Libby, getting up uncertainly.

    “No, because our customers generally don’t know what real food is, but they’re an exception. And just in case, don’t shout it out, okay?”

    “No,” said Libby with a feeble smile. “I won’t.” She went out.

    “Ya didn’t tell her how much to charge ’em,” said Pete feebly.

    “They won’t ask. They may ask technical questions about the cheeses that she can’t answer, but they won’t ask the price.”

    Silence fell. Jan looked blankly at the pan for the fritters and Pete just looked blank.

    “Um, get that wine,” said Jan, coming to.

    “Eh? Aw. Yeah. Um, the cousin’s one of them dames with flashing earrings,” he warned. “Looked as if she didn’t mind if they were blood relations, if yer take my— Yeah. And before you ask, she was eying up Andrew as well.”

    “He struck me as a nice guy.”

    “Weak as water, I’d of said.”

    “Jayne’s had one husband that treated her like a doormat, she doesn’t need another!”

    “Mm. Hey, what say I give them a bottle of something really horrible and, uh—”

    “They send it back,” said Jan drily.

    “No, um, well, it’d be a test.”

    “Neither Jayne nor Libby is likely to be impressed by their sending back a bottle of bad plonk, Pete, they've just been lapping up that Gisborne red that set us back four bucks a bottle from the cellar door!”

    “Um, no, see, the way they send it back might indicate…” His voice trailed off.

    Jan sighed. “That Andrew’s a nice fellow and Aidan’s an up-himself prick?”

    “I dunno, Jan,” said Pete miserably.

    Jan bit her lip. “You can’t protect them, love, they are grown women. Go on, get the wine. And do us all a favour and open that red and let it breathe. Possibly Jake’s right and the rest of the population of Australia has never heard of that strange European custom, but I wouldn’t take a bet that Aidan Vine hasn’t.”

    Nor would Pete. He went glumly off to the shed, removed the broken bar stool that was sitting on the cunning pile of old Feltex, peeled back the Feltex and hauled up the trapdoor, and went down into the tiny cellar that that him and a few old cobbers had put in with a bit of help from Bob Kenny and a digger hired from Miser Ron Reilly. It was just big enough to hold a few wine racks, three chairs, and a barrel of real Portuguese port that Jake Carrano had got them from where Pete wasn’t asking, and that wasn’t gonna be broached until his and Jan’s twenty-fifth or until they had something else to really celebrate, whichever came first, at the moment he had a feeling it might be Tamsin’s wedding. Here they were. He counted them tenderly but they were still all there. “One,” he said, taking it off the rack. “And if they bloody dare to order another I’ll tell ’em that was the last of it!”

    Very much later that evening he was to reflect that no test of his had been needed, because the Harrison party pretty much managed to shoot themselves in the foot. Or at least that was the impression he got as Libby returned from the restaurant looking wilder and wilder with each trip. She wouldn’t let on what they’d said, though she admitted it wasn’t anything they’d said to her, but— Yeah.

    Aidan had expressed polite pleasure at seeing Libby again, though this hadn’t managed to hide his amusement at seeing that she was waiting in the restaurant. And what he’d said as he tasted the eggplants and artichokes in olive oil and garlic was: “Mm, not bad at all. A first-class olive oil might improve them, and a touch of fresh thyme to finish the dish, but not bad. Go on, Caroline, take the plunge!” Then he tasted the Chardonnay and said: “Yes, well, the lack of over-oaking almost compensates for the blandness; what do you think, Don?”

    By this time Libby was so annoyed that she barely heard the fat Australian say: “Completely characterless. ’Tis better than over-oaked, I suppose.” Then they started yacking on about some Western Australian whites.

    Surprisingly enough, when she collected their plates the fat man said: “Those fritters weren’t bad. Tell the cook to try a beer batter, it’d be lighter.” Andrew said quickly that they were delicious and to thank Jan very much, so at least he had some manners!

    The plump lady that was Aidan’s sister said that the salmon mousse was delicious, too, but as she moved away Libby overheard Aidan saying: “Candy, darling, there’s no need to go overboard: I could see from here that that bloody mousse had tinned salmon in it. These days they do know better even in these backblocks, you know.”

    Libby marched out to the kitchen, simmering.

    When she put the rabbit in front of them he tasted it and said: “Coniglio al Marsala! I thought so! It’s the Elizabeth David recipe, isn’t it, Libby?”

    To which Libby replied grimly: “I don’t know.”

    Unfortunately she wasn’t very good at balancing lots of dishes, so she had to go back for the last one, which was Andrew’s, and as she approached the table she heard the fat Don say: “Italian food for the English,” at which Aidan gave a loud laugh. Then they started talking about some place on the Murray where you got real Italian food, Libby had had heard of that man, everybody had, he’d been on TV, so they weren’t as fancy as they thought they were!

    After they’d had the salad as a separate course, bloody Aidan warning them not to if it had balsamic vinegar in it—which it didn’t, so up his—he had the cheek to ask for a cheese course! Unfortunately Libby now knew it was available and she wasn’t very good at lying, so they got it. Hardly surprisingly, by the time they were ready for dessert, what with two extra courses and all that jabbering not to say criticising, there wasn’t much left.

    “It’ll have to be the pav, can’t pass up a genuine Kiwi pav!” said Aidan with a laugh.

    “There’s none left,” said Libby with grim satisfaction.

    “We were rather late, I’m afraid,” said Andrew in a nervous voice.

    “We did book,” said the fat brother-in-law sourly. “Is there any Key Lime Pie left?”

    “Yeah, one slice,” replied Libby with grim satisfaction.

    “Be warned, Don, it’ll just be standard EnZed lemon meringue pie,” drawled Aidan.

    Andrew had gone very red. “Shut up, Aidan. I’ll have it if you don’t want it, Don.”

    “It’s all yours,” he said, shrugging.

    “The American ladies said it was better than anything they’ve had Stateside,” said Libby grimly.

    Aidan looked down his nose. “That would be difficult. Perhaps you’d better tell us what there is.”

    “Strawberry shortcake and about two helpings of passionfruit soufflé.”

    “Two helpings?” he said, looking down his nose. “Isn’t it hot, then?”

    “Eh? No,” said Libby blankly. “It’s cold. Um, like a custard.”

    He raised his eyebrows. “I’d call it a mousse, then. You’d better have it, Candy, it’ll match that salmon thing you liked.”

    “Um, no, I’ll have the strawberry shortcake, thank you, dear,” she said to Libby, giving her a nervous smile.

    “I’ll risk it, too,” said Don in a bored voice. “Choose something, for God’s sake, Aidan; didn’t you say we had to drive round the bloody lake to get home?”

    “Mm. I’ll pass, thanks,” he said to Libby with a shrug. “Perhaps I could see the wine list? I might have a liqueur. How about you, Caroline?”

    “Are there any liqueurs?” she asked, raising her eyebrows so that she looked just like him.

    “I don’t know if there are on the wine list,” said Libby honestly. “But there’s loads behind the bar.”

    “An Amaretto, then, if that’s possible.”

    “I’ll ask Dad.”

    “Fine, do that, and,” said Aidan with a laugh in his voice, “while you’re at it ask him if he can manage a Benedictine. Unless there might be any real port, as in from Portugal?”

    “Yeah, but it’s in a big barrel in the cellar and you can’t have any, they’re saving it!” replied Libby loudly, marching off.

    Behind her Aidan burst into yelps of laughter, gasping: “Touché!” and Andrew said crossly: “Serve you right! You’ve been asking for that all evening! They’re doing their best, and I thought everything was lovely!” Which maybe suggested he didn’t, but at least he wasn’t a rude, ungrateful pig!

    Pete took one look at her face and ordered her and Jayne down to the Tallulah, he’d run them home—no arguments! He’d be there in ten minutes.

    He went into the restaurant, where only Table 4 was now occupied, and said flatly: “Sorry, the kitchen’s closed. You want coffee and liqueurs, we can stretch a point and serve you in the guests’ lounge.”

    At this Andrew Barker went very red and Aidan Vine actually looked a bit shame-faced. And the fat bloke caved in and said: “I’m afraid we miscalculated how long the drive down from Auckland would take. Coffee and liqueurs will be fine, thanks, Pete.”

    So that was that.

    The ecolodge basked in the mild morning sun. Pete emerged dripping from the lake and grabbed his discarded pyjama pants.

    “Hullo,” he said, wandering up to the back of the garage. “What are you doing here?”

    “Milking the goats,” replied Bob unemotionally.

    “Aw—right,” he agreed vaguely, towelling himself in a perfunctory way with the pyjamas.

    “Hadn’t you better put some clothes on?” said Bob unemotionally. “Thought you were running an ecolodge full of guests?”

    Pete shrugged. “Yeah.” He climbed slowly into the pyjama pants. “Fed up with the bloody ecolodge lark, tell ya the truth,” he admitted.

    Bob already knew that. “Yeah. Can’t young Sean take over from ya?”

    “No,” said Pete with a sigh. “He hasn’t got the capital to buy us out. Been a student for umpteen years, like your Neil. And before you start, Dan’d like to be able to help him out, but he’s spent the last thirty years bringing up four kids, he hasn’t been able to put much by.”

    “Wasn’t gonna start. Has Sean tried the bank?”

    “Yeah. To cut a long story short he couldn’t even afford the piece of land that he’d’ve had to buy to comply with the fucking regulations about section sizes round here. So we’ve paid for the materials for the house, he’s contributing the labour, and they’ll live in it rent-free as part of his wages. But I gotta admit that at the moment he seems much more interested in the idea of using their front room as a crafts shop and managing that than in the ecolodge.”

    Both Bob and Neil had got that impression—yeah. “Um, yeah. Well, Molly does that glass-blowing stuff, eh? And his mum’s into the arty stuff, too, it’s not that surprising, Pete.”

    “No, but it’s bloody disappointing! Our idea was, give him five years, and when he was ready to buy we’d make him an outright gift of a decent percentage—Jan worked all that out—and accept a ruddy great mortgage for most of the rest.”

    “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Uh, bloody Coral’s really interested in putting money into the crafts shop, Pete.”

    “I see. Neil been shooting ’is mouth off, eh?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Well, she’d see it was managed on a proper commercial footing, that’s for sure,” Pete allowed heavily.

    “Yeah. Um, evidently she reckons it’d be a boost for the restaurant as well.”

    Pete took a deep breath. “That’d be good, if we could cope with more customers, but Jan’s up to her ears as it is!”

    “Ye-ah… Um, I sort of got the impression that Tamsin might be interested,” he said cautiously.

    Pete’s jaw dropped. “Tamsin?”

    “She is your granddaughter, Pete.”

    “Uh—” Pete and Jan hadn’t thought of Tamsin in connection with the business. Well, she was only just twenty-one, she was doing a weird sort of degree over in Oz, and all she’d shown any interest in since she’d got here was Bob’s ruddy son!

    “Her and Neil were talking about it round at our place the other night.”

    “I see,” he said feebly. “Would this be after Coral and Neil had talked about it?”

    “Coral and Neil and Tamsin as well,” he corrected. “Yeah.”

    Cripes, the kid had taken the girl to meet his mum? Non-maternal though the whole of Taupo freely admitted Coral Kenny to be.

    “Yeah, well, we can’t do anything without making sure what Sean wants,” he said limply. “But, uh, it’s food for thought, Bob. She’s a capable little kid, I’ll give ’er that.”

    “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” said Bob mildly. “You wanna give us a hand?”

    “Righto, then,” Pete agreed, grabbing Milly and squatting down to it. He didn’t mention that them ponces from the Big Smoke had come back, because he didn’t think Bob’d be pleased to hear it. Promising though, if looked at from the right angle, last night had been.

Next chapter:

https://summerseason-anovel.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-chef-and-guide.html