Looking-Glass Land

10

Looking-Glass Land

    Rick Weaver hadn’t accepted Shannon’s very casual invitation to come for Christmas for pretty much the reasons which her relatives and well-wishers had discerned. Okay, they’d seen quite a bit of each other over the past couple of weeks, and yeah, the sex was good, but he hardly knew the girl, really. And Mum and Dad would have thought it was really peculiar if he’d suddenly up and said, less than a week before Christmas, that he wasn’t coming home after all. Also, he was aware that girls chased him because of his looks and leery of giving them too much encouragement. He wasn’t sure that Shannon was in this category but he was afraid she might be. Anyway, spending Christmas with her at her parents’ place would have been too much, too soon. He’d been very annoyed when Alex revealed that he was going instead but had done his best not to show it, as also his relief when it turned out he was only going to share her brother’s tent. There was nothing in that. Poor old Alex: with all his brains and potential, turning into a charity case at his age!

    Nobody in the Weaver family was affected by the tsunami, but of course they all gave to the relief effort. Dad thought that Oxfam might be the best bet, because ninety-nine percent of anything that went to a United Nations agency got swallowed up in administration costs, but Oxfam was big and international with a good reputation, so they all gave to that. As well, Mum went and stuffed ten dollars in the collecting tin down the dairy before Dad could stop her: he was sure that’d only go to Mr and Mrs Mookerjee or, if Mrs Evans who helped out was left in charge of it, to the Kristel Evans Overseas Trip Fund. Rick came back down to Taupo in early January feeling a virtuous glow, compound of having made the right decision and having pleased the parents over the Christmas thing and of having given more to Oxfam than his father said he needed to. Plus a distinct glow of anticipation at the thought of seeing Shannon again.

    Blast! There was no answer at the front door. Um, well, maybe her dad was back at work? He looked uncertainly at the Jacksons’ big old shabby bungalow that needed a new coat of paint. Somebody must be home, because one of the front windows was open. He went round the back. The back door was closed. He knocked, but got no reply—but a kitchen window was open, too! Well, yeah, Taupo was only a small town but these days he didn’t think anybody went out leaving their windows open even in the smallest country towns. Added to which the place was overrun with tourists at this time of year: the caravan camps were full, it’d be asking to be burgled. He looked around doubtfully, not liking to call out in case he disturbed a neighbour. Hang on, hadn’t Shannon said something about her mother doing some sort of art in the shed? He hadn’t taken much notice: his own mother had been into quilting for a long time and had recently taken up “scrapbooking,” sort of a cross between the family albums and some pathetic version of collage, as far as he could see. His sister Angela’s little Janey and Sarah, who were seven and four, thought it was marvellous and joined in whenever they were over at Granny’s: cutting out, in other words, and just their level.

    There were two large sheds, painted the same odd shade of blue-grey as the house and both, like the house, in need of a new coat. One was obviously the garage, at the end of the short driveway. Rick went slowly over to the other. It had a garage door, which was down, and a small door as well, which was open. He looked in cautiously. Cripes. So was she a professional artist, then?

    “’Scuse me, Mrs Jackson—”

    Katy swung round with a gasp. “Who are you?”

    Rick went very red, in spite of himself. Most women had no difficulty in remembering who he was. “Sorry. We have met before. I’m Rick Weaver: I’m a friend of Shannon’s.’

    “Oh—yes,” said Katy vaguely, pushing a few wisps of hair off her forehead. “She’s not here, Rick, she’s over at the permaculture nuts’.”

    “Sorry: what?” said Rick feebly.

    “That just came out,” said Katy lamely. “Um, Taupo Organic Produce, it’s next-door to Pete and Jan’s. Um, sorry, to Taupo Shores Ecolodge.”

    “Oh, yes, the place with the great tomatoes. We got a few there, but they cost an arm and a leg compared to the ones at most of the roadside stalls.”

    “Yes,” agreed Katy mildly.

    “Um, well, when’ll she be back?”

    “I don’t know,” said Katy in a vague voice. “Their beans are lovely, too.”

    Rick stared at her.

    “Sorry; Jan does this lovely dish, kind of a salad, with green beans: I don’t know why, but I was thinking about it. Anyway, she’ll be there, if you want to go over.”

    “Yes, I will. Sorry for disturbing you,” he said feebly.

    “That’s okay,” she said in a vague voice.

    Rick escaped, with a grimace or two. She must be a professional artist: her fair hair was pinned up in an untidy bunch and looked as if she hadn’t brushed it for weeks, and she was wearing a paint-smeared tee-shirt that was miles too big for her over a pair of very shabby, knee-length khaki shorts. His mother wouldn’t have been seen dead in such rags even when she was gardening.

    He himself was in baggy khaki shorts that came nearly to his knees and an ancient saggy tee-shirt, but Rick nether made the comparison nor thought of doing so. Nor did he reflect that his female botany students also got round in such gear.

    Taupo Organic Produce was quite busy, with a small crowd round the shed and several cars parked in the driveway. None of them looked like Shannon’s: he frowned. Where the Hell was she? There was only one road: he couldn’t have missed her. He was about to give up when the crowd parted slightly and there was bloody Alex behind the table, serving people! He drove past the group, parked, and got out.

    “Good morning, sir,” said Alex smoothly as the last couple of retirees went on their way with a giant plastic bag full of tomatoes, another full of beans, and a plastic ice cream carton full of strawberries. “How can I help you? Lovely organic tomatoes?”

    “What the Hell are you up to, Alex?”

    “Serving.” Alex looked at his watch. “That was the last of the pre-lunchtime rush, I think. Very regular in their habits, organic tomato customers are.”

    “Look, you can drop the bullshit. Are you working for these organic weirdos?”

    “Oh, it’s more than just organic. Permaculture weirdos, or in the local vernacular, permaculture nuts.”

    “Yes! Why are you here?” he shouted.

    Alex looked at him drily. “There’s a global crisis, in case your lovely Christmas in the bosom of the family didn’t allow you to notice it.”

    “What? The tsunami? What’s that got to do with it?”

    Alex shrugged, and explained. Adding: “Shannon’ll be starting to get the lunch, so you’ll find her in the kitchen. Just go round the back, the back door’ll be open. But I should warn you, she’ll put you to work.”

    “She can’t put me to work, I’m supervising the Botany Club!” he replied crossly, marching off.

    He manifestly wasn’t supervising the Botany Club as of this minute. Alex shrugged again.

    Shannon wasn’t in the kitchen: it was occupied by a burly, silver-haired Maori man. Rick wouldn’t have thought Maoris’d go in for permaculture, but perhaps he just helped round the place. He opened his mouth to ask him where Shannon was but before he could speak the Maori said: “All right, where’s the flaming silverbeet?”

    “What?”

    “Didn’t Tim send you over? Don’t tell me he can’t spare a bit of silverbeet!”

    It was hard to respond briefly to this these two remarks in any way that would make sense. “I don’t know who Tim is. I’m looking for Shannon,” said Rick flatly.

    “Oh. Thought you were one of the younger blokes that had come back.”

    “Sorry, no idea what you’re talking about.”

    The Maori looked at him hard. Then he said: “Don’t you work here?”

    “No. I’m a friend of Shannon’s. Don’t you work here?”

    “Nope, just giving them a bit of a hand. The two blokes that used to help with the hard yacker have pushed off.” He scratched his head. “Dunno where Shannon’s got to. She went off to look for berries some time back.”

    “She certainly wasn’t down near the road picking those blackberries that these organic people’ve let smother their hedges,” said Rick on an acid note. “No wonder they’re unpopular locally!”

    “Think it’s a hedge of blackberries, actually,” he replied mildly. “Oh, there you are,” he said as a pretty older woman came in. She could have looked really nice if she’d worn a decent pair of jeans instead of those old baggy ones. Not to mention a bra under that singlet! Rick had no objection to that look on a girl of Shannon’s age, but this woman must be in her forties: Mum would’ve had ten thousand fits.

    “There’s no sign of Tim, silverbeet or not,” the Maori informed her. “This isn’t one of the young blokes come back, he’s a friend of Shannon’s.”

    “Hullo. I’m Polly,” she said mildly. “Jake, pop out and get a bunch of silverbeet off Alex. And don’t let him give you any bullshit about it being all tied up for the customers.”

    “Thought I was watching this here oven?” he retorted.

    “That was then. I’m back now.”

    “Henpeck ya death if ya give ’em half a chance: they’re all the same,” he said sadly, going out.

    “Ignore him,” advised Polly, looking at her watch. “I don’t suppose you know anything about baking bread, do you?”

    “No.”

    “Nor do I. Well, I vaguely remember the trendy middle-class liberated set in their granny frocks doing it around the time I was starting varsity, but our flat could never afford stone-ground wholemeal flour, not to say the amount of power it took to bake the stuff.” She opened the oven.

    “It smells good! Is it stone-ground?” he asked nicely.

    “Dunno. I said to Shannon, let’s use the bloody stuff up and that’ll shut Sabrina up and then we can buy them some nice sliced bread.”

    Rick looked at her limply.

    “Or are you up for getting up at crack of dawn, bringing sixteen cows in, milking them, herding them out to the paddock again, making a mash for three dozen chooks, feeding them, collecting the eggs, and then kneading enough bread dough to feed a dozen mouths? Before ya get them breakfast, please note. ’Cos I’m not!”

    “Uh—no,” he croaked.

    “No, and nor should anybody else be in the flaming twenty-first century! I’m all for organic produce, but not for making yourself a slave to it! This whole set-up is mad, and believe you me, it’s gonna stop.”

    “Er—yes. I’d say Shannon would agree with you,” he said cautiously.

    “Of course she does! –What were you doing, growing it?” she demanded as the Maori came in with a huge bunch of silverbeet.

    “No, helping Alex explain to a posh dame with a Beamer that although lady’s fingers may be listed on the website, they aren’t ripe and so she can’t have any.”

    “Okra,” said Polly placidly to Rick. “Jake, didn’t Livia say that Bettany was coming over?”

     He shrugged. “Probably couldn’t get out of her pit.”

    “Wait and see,” she concluded. “—Well, don’t just stand there, wash it!”

    “It’s been— All right, I’ll wash it.” He went over to the sink and started washing the silverbeet. “Is the bread done?”

    “I think it needs a bit longer to brown on top. Either that or it’s collapsed because I opened the oven, in which case the chooks and ducks can have it.”

    “Goddit,” he conceded.

    “Any sign of Shannon?”

    “Nope, but one of the kids said something about loganberries.”

    “Then she’s possibly in the loganberry patch,” said Polly, smiling at Rick. “I’m afraid we don’t know our way around, so we can’t direct you.”

    “Oh. So you’re not neighbours?”

    “Friends of Pete and Jan’s,” said the burly Jake into the sink.

    “The people at the ecolodge? Right.”

    “The kids won’t thank you for slaving over a ruddy filo roll, ya know,” said Jake as Polly opened the big, high-shouldered old fridge.

     “No, but Sabrina may eat it.”

    “If it turns out,” he noted.

    “Jan says the recipe is infallible,” she replied, unmoved.

    “In her oven—maybe.”

    “Jake, what year did Mum finally break down and let you replace her old wood-burning stove?” she said with a sigh.

    “Nine’een nine’y-eight,” he replied, turning and winking at Rick.

    “Right. I am used to ancient ovens, and at least this one’s electric.”

    “According to her mum,” said Jake amiably to Rick, leaning on the bench, “an electric oven isn’t actually a patch on a wood-burning—”

    “For Heaven’s sake! Wash that silverbeet!’

    “It’s the grandpa hormones,” he said amiably to Rick, turning back to the sink. “Make ya loquacious.”

    “Uh—yeah.”

    “Siddown: take the weight off,” he said hospitably. “Dare say Shannon won’t be long. Either that or she’s lost and we’ll have to get the Jacksons to bring their dog over for the search party, ’cos the ponce that was running this place wouldn’t have a dog. –The silverbeet’s washed, before you start yelling.”

    Rick had sat down. Though wondering if it was the wrong move. He didn’t particularly want to chat to this odd middle-aged couple—presumably they were a couple. Well, mixed marriages weren’t that uncommon, though he didn’t personally know anyone that was in one except Andy Turner, and his wife wasn’t a Maori, she was Singapore Chinese. “Wouldn’t have a dog? What about the cows?” he said feebly.

    “Womanpower.”

    “Don’t sing,” said Polly quickly.

    Jake winked at Rick and intoned in a bass boom: “‘I am woo-man, I am invincible—’”

    “Go on,” she said coldly, as he’d stopped.

    “Forget the rest of it. No, well, bloody Terry only believed in it when he was working them to death; rest of the time he treated them like handmaidens: geddit?”

    “Mm,” agreed Rick.

    “Went down real well with young Shannon,” he noted ironically.

    “Yeah, it would of,” agreed Rick uneasily.

    “Right. You staying for lunch?”

    “Of course he is,” said Polly, smiling at him.

    “No, I—” Belatedly it dawned on Rick that he hadn’t introduced himself. The situation had just been so mad… Had he? Bugger: no, he didn’t think he had—but neither of them had let him get a word in edgeways! “That’s very kind of you, Polly, but haven’t you got enough mouths to feed?”

    “One more little one won’t hurt, and I’ve bought all this filo pastry, you see, and they haven’t got a freezer, so I’ll have to use it up.”

    Jesus, was that supposed to be an answer? “Um, well, thanks, if you’re sure,” he said feebly. “I’m Rick, by the way.”

    “Rick,” she agreed. “You’re Shannon’s botanist friend, then! It’s lovely to meet you.” She smiled warmly at him.—It was a lovely smile and she was a very pretty woman, so why on earth didn’t she make something of herself?—“And in case this macho object hasn’t introduced himself, he’s Jake.”

    “He’ll of got that, ya nana,” said Jake amiably, leaning on the bench. “See, Rick, you might think—and I might think, and actually any rational human being might think—that if you’ve got a huge organic property that grows more veges than you can eat, the sensible thing’d be to freeze a lot for the family, eh?”

    “Mm,” he agreed.

    “Right. Only bloody Terry, he didn’t believe in that. You eat what’s in season, see? Never mind if it’s pumpkin soup and cabbage for two solid months.”

    “Go and set the table, Jake,” said Polly heavily.

    Winking at Rick, Jake began opening and shutting drawers and gathering up cutlery. “Oy, is that bread burnt enough?” he asked mildly, going out.

    Polly shot to the oven with gasp, but the bread seemed to be okay. It certainly looked and smelled okay.

    “Um, is there anything I can do?” asked Rick lamely as the two loaves were turned out onto a large wire rack.

    “Make the salad? Wash your hands first.”

    Obediently Rick got up, washed his hands, and followed Polly’s instructions about the salad. Jake came back halfway through and warned her not to use the permaculture nuts’ vinegar in the dressing but she replied placidly: “I’m not that mad, I’ve brought a jar of Jan’s vinaigrette.”

    Vinaigrette. So she wasn’t— Well, the clothes must belie her, to a certain extent. And Jake didn’t speak like an uneducated Maori—that was quite a distinct accent, but he just sounded like any ordinary Kiwi. Well, on the coarse side as to his choice of phrase, but—yeah. It could hardly be a marriage of equals, like Mum and Dad’s, but they certainly seemed comfortable enough together.

    The salad was ready but without its dressing, Polly’s two large spinach and cottage cheese filo rolls were in the oven—they looked marvellous and Rick reflected that in fact they looked better than the ones Mum bought from the delicatessen in the mall and she could probably make her own, too, if she put her mind to it—when Shannon finally appeared, carrying a large basket of fruit and looking very hot and cross.

    “Tim’s mooning over the cows again! Doesn’t he ever do any work around the place?” she burst out, dumping the basket on the table.

    “I think he gets up around four: he’ll have put in four hours’ solid yacker before breakfast,” said Polly soothingly.

    “Yeah. And I thought Jan told him he could do the cows?” added Jake.

    “Exactly!” agreed Shannon on a vicious note. “But that hasn’t stopped him!”

    “I think he’s upset over the tsunami, Shannon,” said Polly cautiously. “Loathsome though Terry was, he was his colleague, wasn’t he? And I think he was fond of Kamala. Well, it doesn’t sound as if she had much personality, but he’s very fond of her kids, isn’t he?”

    “Yeah. He’ll be worrying about what’s gonna happen to all of them, too,” added Jake. “Cut the poor bugger a bit of slack, eh? –Your mate’s here,” he added by the by.

    “Yeah. I didn’t expect you back this soon,” said Shannon in a vague voice to Rick.

    She’d sounded exactly like her mother! He blinked. “Um, yes. I said I’d be back today.”

    “We’ve all lost track of time, really,” said Polly with a smothered sigh. “Our daughter’s at computer camp and we’d completely forgotten we were supposed to collect her next week, hadn’t we, Jake? But luckily she reminded us when she rang us yesterday.”

    “Yeah. Well, hadn’t forgotten the date we were supposed to collect her; but like she says, lost track of time: didn’t realise it was next week,” he explained.

    “Darlings, perfectly natural!” said a breathless voice from the doorway.

    Rick looked numbly at an overdressed, flashy woman with a mass of black curly hair that couldn’t possibly be its natural colour, at her age. Surely she wasn’t one of the permaculture lot?

    “Sorry to be so late! I just popped in at the mall to do a little bit of shopping for the poor darlings!” she beamed.

    “Bettany, you shouldn’t have,” said Polly, as she dumped her armfuls of shopping on the table next to Shannon’s fruit.

    “Yeah, the more so as the poor little tykes don’t even understand what a mall is,” noted Shannon grimly.

    “Darling, that’s terrible!” said the flashy woman with apparently complete sincerity. “I just got a few things—plenty big enough, I think, based on what you said about their ages and sizes, Polly, darling! Nothing extravagant, but pretty!” She began diving into the bags.

    Rick just sat back numbly as Shannon and Polly joined in eagerly…

    Pete collapsed in helpless sniggers as Jake concluded his narrative.

    “It isn’t that funny,” said Jan weakly.

    “Give over, love! The Bettany female in conjunction with poor old Tim?”

    Jan looked at Polly. They both sighed.

    “Pete, he was terrified of her,” said Polly heavily.

    Abruptly Jake joined Pete in the sniggers. Gasping finally: “She hadn’t forgotten him, mind! Had a poncy carry-bag all to ’imself!”

    Pete went into further paroxysms.

    “Look, stop it!” cried Polly loudly. “It was just a nice cotton shirt—nothing fancy, at all! And a couple of pairs of underpants, because—”

    Pete gave a joyous yelp, slapping his knee ecstatically.

    “Polly, didn’t she realise that could embarrass the poor man?” croaked Jan.

    “Because,” said Polly, glaring, “you’d given me a telling description of their washing and I’d mentioned it to Livia!”

    Jake blew his nose hard. “See?” he said to his old cobber.

    “Well, yeah,” agreed Pete, eyeing Polly in some awe.

    “You can drop that!” she snapped. “I didn’t mean Bettany to go out and spend her money on them, but it made her feel good and they certainly need some clothes!”

    “Yeah, all right,” said her husband heavily.

    “And I didn’t invite her over today: she invited herself,” she added lamely.

    Jake scratched his chin. “Mm. Well, s’pose it was a counterirritant.”

    “What to?” croaked Jan.

    “Me, for a start,” he admitted.

    “Well, yeah,” agreed Pete. “Far’s poor old Tim was concerned—yeah. Had one Helluva job to get him to agree to see Jake at all, love.”

    “Yeah. Hardly even noticed I was there, at lunchtime,” said the billionaire airily.

    Pete choked slightly. “No, all right,” he said to Jan’s glare. “Well go on, Jake: what ’e tell ya?”

    “In between the Mozart bits, Jake,” prompted his wife.

    “Hah, hah. Um, well, you and Jan know as much as he does, Pete, far’s the legal position with the property goes. But if I did buy it, then he’d be willing to stay on, but he doesn’t want any financial responsibility,”

    “Doubt if he’d need to have any, with the Carrano Group running it,” said Jan feebly.

    “Clot! No, you know what I mean: doesn’t wanna manage the budget. He can make decisions about the horticulture side and the cows okay—”

    “He’s not interested in the poultry, though, except for their manure,” put in Polly.

    “As I was saying,” said Jake pointedly, “he can make them sort of decisions, in fact he seems to’ve made a lot of them anyway, though mind you he always hadda get Terry’s okay, but the minute it involves costs he panics.”

    “Jake,” Polly urged, “give him a decent farm management program—”

    “Will ya shut up! No, well, you’re thinking of him as like one of your brothers, sweetheart,” he admitted. “He isn’t. Got no stamina. Kind of run out of puff.”

    “Mm,” she said, biting her lip.

    “Now don’t bawl,” he said, patting her knee. “Hey, grab that bottle, wouldja, Pete?”

    They were sitting in the loft over the ecolodge’s garage, reasonably safe from interruption by assorted guests. As it contained a bar fridge, a battered lowboy, two small, hard, metal chairs and a matching table which were technically a patio set, and the kingsize bed with its new mattress, they were all sitting on the bed. Obligingly Pete got up and grabbed the bottle off the lowboy. It was gin: Jake and Polly always had been into gin but it wasn’t his and Jan’s tipple. He poured them all generous slugs and, at his helpmeet’s suggestion, added some mixer. The bar fridge only held a bottle of bitter lemon, so that was what they had. It wasn’t bad, surprisingly enough.

    “So can you use it as a tax loss, Jake?” asked Jan, smiling at him.

    He sniffed slightly. “Maybe. Seems to be making a profit, actually, if them books of Terry’s aren’t lying.”

    “Which they well may be,” noted Pete.

    “Which they well may be,” he agreed. “Given that they’ve all been living off the land, there should be a bit more cash in hand. That or a lot more bought stuff in the kitchen cupboards. There’s a lot of wages listed, too. Tim doesn’t think the women were ever paid a red razzoo. I’d say you’re right, and Terry just siphoned it off.”

    “But what about the tax department?” said Jan dazedly.

    “No problem: it all balances at the end of the financial year and he fills in his forms like a good little boy. If your annual wages don’t come to a taxable amount for any one person, the tax department doesn’t give a damn where the money’s gone. Nice little scam, eh?”

    “But—no PAYE?”

    “Nope. Under a taxable amount every fortnight, Jan.”

    “Jesus,” said Jan in awe. “Was he claiming to have paid wages to all three women?”

    “Yeah,” said Jake simply.

    The former accountant stuttered.

    Kindly Jake made her another gin and bitter lemon.

    “Ta,” she said weakly. “Um, so you met Rick, Polly?”

    Polly and Jake exchanged cautious glances. “Mm,” she agreed. “We thought your description of him seemed spot-on, Jan.”

    “What description?” asked Pete with foreboding.

    “Well, apart from the looks bit, Pete,” said Polly with a laugh, “the more conventional than he realises he is bit, and the too conventional for Shannon bit!”

    Pete tried to smile but failed. “Right. Um, is he too conventional for Shannon?”

    “We got that impression,” admitted Polly. “Possibly you can’t entirely blame him for taking one look at Bettany and blenching,”—“No,” muttered Pete, wincing—“but he very clearly dismissed Tim as a doddering old gardener—he was tolerant and sort of dismissive to him, and of course Tim’s so meek, he just sat there and took it—and took one look at me in this old singlet,”—“At the boobs in it without a bra, she means,” interpolated Jake—“Exactly; and one look at Jake in his brown,”—Jake winked at Pete—“and dismissed us a pair of liberal Leftie leftovers from the Seventies.”

    “He must be blind,” said Jan feebly.

    “No, he’s just from a nayce home in Epsom, Jan,” she replied composedly.

    “Oh—right, Grammar Zone: yeah. Didn’t he notice that rock on your left hand?” she croaked.

    Polly looked at the beautiful big square emerald in its frame of diamonds and smiled a little. “I don’t think so, Jan. Or if he did, he assumed it was costume jewellery.”

    “Like Bettany’s,” said Jake with a wink at Pete. Pete shuddered. “She’s a bloody good sort, ya know. Not everyone would’ve bothered to go down the mall and buy clothes for the kids.”

    “Um, yeah,” Pete conceded feebly. “Well, it’s the rallying-round thing, eh? But yeah, it was good of her. Um, no news of Wal’s boy yet, I suppose? –No. Right,” he said sourly as Jake shook his head.

    “Have another gin, Pete,” he said kindly. “Uh—bugger,” he ascertained, looking at the bottle.

    Pete heaved himself up. “Get a few in from the storage shed, eh? Go round the side of the garage, they won’t spot us.”

    “Righto,” Jake agreed, getting up.

    In their absence Jan looked dubiously at Polly. “Do you think Shannon thinks Rick’s too conventional?”

    “It was hard to tell: I think she’s still very peeved because he wouldn’t come for Christmas,” replied Polly with her customary placidity. “He wouldn’t stay for the afternoon: he said he had to get back to his students and although he could see this was a worthy cause—he was perfectly serious about it, I don’t think he’s got much sense of humour—he didn’t have the time to help, he had his own responsibilities. She was narked by the refusal to help but impressed by his taking his responsibilities seriously.”

    Jan looked at her limply. “And what about Alex?”

    “It has dawned on her that he thinks the whole permaculture thing’s a riot, if that’s what you mean. And it is getting up her nose, yeah.”

    “I know,” said Jan sourly. “Um, but at the same time she’s pleased he’s helping out.” She looked at Polly’s face. “Isn’t she?’

    “I would say,” she said slowly, “that she’s pleased that he’s helping, but annoyed that he’s chosen to look after the stall rather than get out on the land and help Tim with the hard yacker.” She eyed Jan drily. “Like a real man.”

    “She told him herself to get out there and serve the customers— No, I suppose I get you,” she said heavily. “So was he talking about opera and stuff with Tim again?”

    Polly replied drily: “Not in front of Rick, or possibly it might have dawned that there’s more to Tim than meets the eye—depending on just how nayce that nayce Epsom home really is. But he was after he pushed off, yeah. However,” she said with a little smile, “you’d have to be blind or very, very young to take Alex’s impression of the effete aesthete even halfway seriously, Jan.”

    Jan looked at the little smile with a sinking feeling. “Shannon is very, very young.”

    “Not very, very. She took it seriously enough to be annoyed with him for putting it on. Whilst, I’d say, not being capable of seeing that it is a real facet of his personality. Not the limp-wristed bit, of course! But definitely the aesthetic bit. The fact that Jake was joining in didn’t seem to suggest anything to her, poor kid.”

    Jan bit her lip. There was certainly nothing limp-wristed about Jake. She looked hopefully in her glass but no more alcohol had miraculously appeared therein, bugger. “Um, I dunno that I dare to ask you this, Polly. Which of them do ya reckon she fancies?”

    “Both,” replied Lady Carrano placidly.

    “I knew it!” she groaned.

    “Didja know they both fancy her, too?”

    “Shut up,” she groaned. “No, don’t, on second thoughts. While they’re not here you can tell me whether Jake’s serious about buying the blasted place.”

    “If that’s the only solution, yes. Well, he’s got so much dough it means nothing to him, Jan. But I have to say it: he’ll either just appoint some luckless minion from the Group to check on the finances, and forget about the place, or a year or two down the track he’ll get an inspiration about how to make it pay megabucks.” Jan was looking at her in horror. “Your guess is as good as mine. Dood ranch?” suggested Polly in a horrible fake American accent.

    “Eh?”

    “A dude ranch. Turn it into a kind of model farm for the affluent middle classes to gawp at on their holidays. Not the ones that come to you, so much, Jan: their sons and daughters and their little kids. Lovely dude ranch holidays amongst the permaculture.”

    “Jesus! Can’t you stop him?”

    “It hasn’t happened yet. But unless it involves despoliation of the environment or actual loss of livelihood for a community, I don’t usually interfere.”

    Jan knew that. She sighed.

    “We don’t even know yet who the place’ll go to,” Polly reminded her.

    Jan sighed again. “No.”

    “Jake’s been through all the papers in Terry’s office with a fine-tooth comb and he’s got onto his lawyer, but the man won’t tell him anything.”

    He wouldn’t tell Sir Jake Carrano anything? The man must be mad!

    Polly put a kind hand on hers. “We’ll just have to wait, Jan.”

    “Yeah,” she agreed heavily. It was the waiting that was starting to get everybody down—combined with the not knowing, of course…

    “Goldie’s moving on,” she reported dully.

    Polly blinked. “Oh! Goldie Doole? What a pity.”

    “Yes. They cancelled the Queenstown leg of their trip but they can’t change their bookings for Honolulu.”

    “I see,” she said sympathetically. “Um, well, I dunno how much use she’d be, but Bettany’s at a loose end. And if we could get her out from under Wal’s feet I think it’d be a blessing, Jan.”

    “Can the woman cook so much as a boiled egg?” said Jan limply.

    “Um, I doubt it,” she admitted. “She’s like Livia: always lived in scungy flats or theatrical digs, eating a mixture of the landlady’s singed toast and baked beans and whatever the current boyfriend was up for shelling out for.”

    “Then I can’t use her,” she said flatly. “Michelle Callaghan’s on deck for the beds and the bogs—completely reliable, as usual, bless her—and Janet’s back chopping veges and helping Michelle with the vacuuming and dusting. I admit Wendy’s taken off with the latest boyfriend, but nobody was expecting anything else. There must be something Bettany can do next-door, surely?”

    “I suppose she could help Alex. She’d better not help with the gardening, there’s the Tim complication. –Shit-scared of her,” she reminded her.

    “Oh! Yeah, I was forgetting. Poor old Tim… Well, yeah, let’s sic her onto Alex, he’s a big boy, he can take care of himself,” said Jan on a dry note.

    “Okay, done. You want some artichokes?”

    “Have they got some going begging?” replied Jan cautiously.

    “Oodles. The nice middle-class lot that buy organic tomatoes don’t know what they are.”

    “Okay, trot ’em over. Our lot won’t know either—we’ve got another pair of Yanks coming to fill Goldie and Sylvia’s room—but too bad, the four of us can have ’em.”

    “Good,” said Lady Carrano placidly.

    Jan did wonder vaguely at some point during the subsequent proceedings whether young Dr Weaver would ever realise who Polly and Jake were and how much of a tit he’d feel when he did so, but what with the new bottle of gin and the blackcurrant liqueur Pete had got at the wholesalers some time back but chickened out on trying, and the combination of the two… It was just as well Polly had vetoed à la carte and ordered her to do vegetarian lasagna and salad all round this evening!

    It took a couple of days. Rick went back to his botany students in a very bad mood after lunch at the permaculture place, even though the lunch itself had been excellent: that Polly woman could certainly cook. But Shannon had seemed completely uninterested in him and in fact had talked to the kids over lunch, ignoring him almost completely. Bloody Alex seemed totally at home in the dump, that didn’t help.

    But then Shannon rang him that evening and came over and they had a joyous reunion in his tent. True, she then went back to the permaculture place, claiming she needed to be there because of the kids, but things were definitely looking up!

    Next day she asked him to tea and the Polly woman wasn’t there, though she’d evidently done some cooking and baking. The awful Bettany was there and volunteered, giggling coyly, to stay overnight, if Shannon wanted to have the whole night off. Shannon did, so that was good. Bloody Alex was there, but no sane woman would have left him in charge of a houseful of kids all night—so Bettany couldn’t be as mad as she looked.

    The day after that Rick went over around lunchtime, meeting a steady stream of middle-aged drivers heading away as he did so. Alex was on the stall again. He served the last couple: quite young, for a change. They bought the usual piles of tomatoes, and a bag of sweetcorn cobs.

    “So they’ve got corn?” he said to Alex.

    “Considered in more civilised climes to be fit only for pigs and cattle—but, yes,” he drawled.

    “Don’t be a clot,” replied Rick tiredly.

    “If you’ve come for lunch, corn is what we’re having. Shannon’s cooking, Lady Carrano’s taken the girls shopping,”

    “What are you talking about?” said Rick in a bored voice.

    Alex gave him a malicious glance. “Only to Taupo, to supplement those pink things Bettany bought ’em the other day. Proper sneakers were mentioned. Pity they came down in the helicopter or Polly could have given them the treat of the Carrano Roller: as it is it’s only Pete’s four-wheel-drive.”

    Rick glared at him. “What the fuck are you on about?”

    “They come in the helicopter!” explained one of the little boys, emerging from the interior of the shed.

    “What? Who?” he said impatiently.

    “We seen it, me an’ Bryce an’ Nokomis, an’ we sat it in an’ everything, see! I sat in the pilot’s seat!”

    “Mm,” murmured Alex. “Tell him who it belongs to, Krish.”

    “Jake, of course!”

    “Jake Carrano,” said Alex maliciously. “Jake and Polly Carrano, Rick. Pete’s known them ever since Jake was just ordinary, apparently.”

    Rick was very flushed. He marched away toward the house, not saying anything.

    Alex looked after him mockingly but said mildly to Krish: “Come on, you can lock the cash away; it’s about time for lunch.”

    Proudly Krish locked the money in the cash box and tucked it under his arm.

    Alex held him back as he was about to make a dash for the house. “No hurry. Let’s pick a few flowers and vines for Shannon to put in a vase, eh?” He strolled to the side of the drive and began picking. A nasty little smile hovered round his mouth.

    In the kitchen Rick said without preamble: “What the Hell’s all this about those people coming in a helicopter?”

    “Eh? Oh, the Carranos. Yeah, they did. The kids were thrilled.”

    “Why didn’t you TELL me they were the Carranos?” he shouted.

    Shannon shrugged. “Thought you knew. Pete’s known him for years.”

    “I didn’t know, nobody TOLD me, and why didn’t YOU tell me?” he bellowed.

    “I just said. Whaddareya so hot under the collar f—”

    “You let me make a complete idiot of myself!” shouted Rick furiously.

    There was a short silence.

    “If you made an idiot of yaself, I don’t think that was down to anybody but you, was it?”

    “I thought he was just a Maori!” shouted Rick, too enraged to stop and consider his words.

    There was another silence, longer this time.

    “He is a Maori, yeah,” said Shannon in a very bored voice. “Didja want something or didja only come over to make racist remarks?”

    “Don’t be ridiculous! You know what I mean!”

    “I know exactly what ya mean, yeah, Rick, and why don’t you push off back to Epsom and your mum and dad’s pockets?”

    “Look, if you’re still wild because of Christmas—”

    “Push off, Rick,” said Shannon in a very bored voice.

    “What are you on about? Look, don’t be silly—”

    “It was a mistake—all right? Let’s just leave it at that. I admit I was dazzled by your looks. But underneath you’re a real nerd, Rick. Go away.”

    “What?” he said angrily. “Look—”

    “Go AWAY!” shouted Shannon.

    From the doorway a deep voice said hesitantly: “Anything wrong?’

    “Yeah,” said Shannon in some relief. “This nerd won’t go when he’s been told to, Tim.”

    Tim came in slowly. He was a thin man, but quite a bit taller than Rick. “You better go,” he advised, looking down at him thoughtfully.

    “She’s being ridiculous! –All right, I’m going!”

    Tim held the door wide. “Good. Don’t come back, we’re getting a watchdog.”

    Rick marched out, scowling.

    “Are we getting a dog?” said Shannon feebly.

    Tim scratched his short grey hair. “Might be. Pete knows a bloke with a young dog. Anyway, he went.”

    “Yeah,” said Shannon gratefully. “Thanks, Tim.”

    “Um, looks aren’t everything,” he said awkwardly.

    “No,” said Shannon, swallowing. “I did know that, really. I only thought— Oh, well. You know. Anyway, ta.”

Next chapter:

https://theecolodgesbythelake-anovel.blogspot.com/2021/10/crisis-management.html