Dinner at Rose's (48 page)

The one bright spot in this encounter was when Graeme slid his bare foot up my shin under the counter, and I got to use the what-the-hell-do-you-think-you’re-doing-you-sleazy-little-philanderer look I had worked up during the drive to the airport in hope of just such a moment. I must have nailed it, because he went a dirty puce colour and accused me of taking the remote-control garage-door opener with me when I left. (I didn’t, but I would have if I’d thought of it.)

Kim is studying Media Arts at Waikato University. On reflection Otago, while it had the benefit of being a long way away from her mother, was also a long way away from Andy. Last time she came home her hair was bright crimson. However, she points out that she has yet to pierce her nipples, fail her exams or fall pregnant, so it could be much worse.

Hazel has given up on Reiki and started a pottery course at the high school. For my birthday I got an earthenware ashtray. It was going to be a coffee cup, but she hasn’t mastered cups yet. We use it to hold the pig-scratching fork.

Stu is going out with a Scandinavian personal trainer called Bjorn. Apparently he’s not all that bright, but he looks like a Norse god and helps little old ladies across the street and is hung like a stallion. The mind boggles.

Brett and Clare’s fourth baby is due any day. Clare is resigned; she says she’s forgotten what a good night’s sleep is like anyway so it won’t make any difference. Brett says that if one more person claps him on the back and says, ‘Haven’t you figured out what causes that yet?’ he will fly into a berserker rage. He will also beat Scott to a pulp if he dares make one more joke about the irony of impregnating your wife the day before your vasectomy.

Scotty is still looking for the girl of his dreams. However, he
has
cut off his rat’s tail, which can only increase his chances.

I hear that Cilla is going out with a nice young sheep farmer from the coast. She waves to Matt on the road, but when she and I meet she mostly pretends not to have seen me.

Matt and I live in Aunty Rose’s house. We’ve got a new roof and a new shower, and one of these days we might even be able to afford insulation. It would be much more sensible to flatten the place and start again, but we couldn’t do it. And even if we could have brought ourselves to do it, just think of the possible psychological damage to Percy and the dogs.

Sometimes I am sure I catch a whiff of Aunty Rose’s perfume, or see just a flicker of crimson satin as her dressing-gown whisks around a corner. And she must have been responsible for me coming home at Labour Weekend with two tiny, feeble courgette seedlings from Mitre 10. We’ve been getting about twenty-seven bloody courgettes a day for the last three months and Matt threatens divorce if I ever make another courgette quiche. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mean it.

Acknowledgements

T
HANK YOU VERY
, very much to Louise Thurtell and Ali Lavau for being the kindest, most constructive publisher and editor anybody could ever ask for.

Thank you to Kelly Forster for wanting to read, and then liking, my writing. Giving a friend your manuscript is even worse than bringing your new boyfriend home for parental inspection, and if she hadn’t been so encouraging I’m sure I would never have got any further.

And most of all thank you to Jarrod for being so nice about me spending any spare time bent over the laptop, and for managing the first fifty pages and quite enjoying them even if there weren’t any battle scenes.