Merry Eco-Christmas

8

Merry Eco-Christmas

    “We, um, thought the new ecolodge might be wanting a duck or two this Christmas,” said one of next-door’s chief permaculture nuts sadly as Jan collected her four ducks.

    “Um, no, they’re not open yet, Sabrina,” said Jan kindly, wondering for about the five-thousandth time whether the woman’s misguided parents had actually called their child Sabrina, or whether she’d voluntarily changed her name from something sensible to that. Sabrina Hutton was fiftyish, very thin, very plain, possessed of straight grey hair of the thin, chopped-off-raggedly-at-ear-level variety, and horribly keen. With the large, horse-like teeth that often went with keenness, especially in the female. And she did not strike as sensible.

    Admittedly the permaculture property was doing really well: their orchards were the best for miles around, their veges were nothing short of miraculous, and into the bargain they had enormous clumps of, um, stuff, that you’d never have thought would grow well down here. After all, in spite of the warm summers they were a thousand feet above sea level and the winter nights could be really frosty, but—well, that broad-leaved and extremely decorative thing over there that one of the luckier ducks was sitting under as of this moment was a taro plant, or she, Jan Harper, had never done her degree while working illicitly fulltime and sharing a very old house down King Street with sixteen other students next to a very old house shared by sixteen members of an extended Cook Islands family.

    Uh—yeah, admittedly they were doing well, and after a long struggle to get established had some very regular clients for their organic produce, but they denied themselves all indulgences of a normal kind, however small, and Sabrina’s partner in life, if equally keen on permaculture, was ten years younger then her and had two other female partners both at least twenty years younger than her. Over the years that they’d been her neighbours Jan had studiously avoided all conversation about this subject but she had gradually gathered the information that Sabrina actually approved of this arrangement and believed that men were naturally polygamous. Without at the same time being a Mormon.

    This sort of thing was only partly why the permaculture nuts were very unpopular locally: the main reason of course was that they were different, and a secondary reason that they didn’t buy any groceries locally, though as all the supermarkets belonged to national and in some cases international chains, none of the locals had a direct stake. But, true, shopping locally meant jobs at checkouts or as unpackers and shelvers for the locals.

    “Um, have they got a cook yet, Jan?” asked Sabrina wistfully. Sabrina loved cooking but the partner had decreed that all household tasks had to be shared equally by all members of the household—except him, reading not very far between the lines. Though it wasn’t a kibbutz as such: they weren’t Jewish any more than they were Mormons. Three of them including Sabrina were Rationalists, and as madly fervent as any Mormon missionary that had ever knocked at Mr and Mrs Harper’s front door in his neat suit and tie with his neat clone beside him, just when Mum was in the middle of the vacuuming or watching a sponge in the oven. One of the younger nubile females was a convinced and fervid crystal worshipper. One of the youngish males was a Jungian, and yep, that was definitely a religion, he hitched all the way to Auckland regularly once a month to his society’s meetings. The nicest one, an older guy called Tim who would have got on quite well with Pete if he’d ever been let off the leash, was a Quaker. Though of course in all cases their principal religion, the one that legally they oughta be putting on their census forms, was Permaculture.

    Jan looked at poor Sabrina with considerable sympathy: she’d earlier reported that she hadn’t been able to make Jan’s recipe for a vegetarian wholemeal pie yet, because it hadn’t been her turn to cook. “We haven’t heard that they’ve got a cook, no. They have been interviewing, though. Um, if any of the younger, um, lads need a part-time job, we heard that they’re desperate to get some knowledgeable gardeners.”

    Sabrina shook her head. “I’m afraid it wouldn’t sit terribly well with our permaculture philosophy, Jan. I could ask Terry, I suppose…”

    Terry, the bloody partner, was the head of the enterprise: a tall, thin drink of water with, fancy that, horse teeth. Jan couldn’t stand him: it wasn’t only the look in his bulgy blue eye and the two nubile concubines, he was intensely superior and treated everyone he met as his intellectual inferior. But actually, the hours he made poor Sabrina slave outside would have rendered him instantly loathable without the rest. Dawn to dusk was nothing, Jan knew for a fact she got up before dawn to get the cows in for milking, having to round them up herself because Terry didn’t like dogs. And when dusk came half the year she was out in the orchard lighting the smokers if it looked like a frost and half the year she was out hanging out organic insect traps for God knew what purpose, but they certainly worked, as far as catching flying pests went. Oh, and things that were supposed to scare the possums off. Jan didn’t think they had much effect but Pete and Wal and that dim mate of theirs getting out with the guns certainly did. Pete had offered to set bait the year the buggers had bred like crazy and decimated the organic fruit but the permaculture nuts didn’t believe in poison bait. He hadn’t offered the shooting as a counterproposal, of course: shooting possums was a natural reflex to types like Pete. Jan sincerely doubted that it had dawned on the permaculture nuts to this day that the reason the possum population had suddenly dwindled to almost nothing was Pete and Wal and their bloody hunting rifles.

    “Yes, why don’t you do that, Sabrina?” she agreed kindly, though without hope. “It would certainly mean a bit of pocket money for, um, the lads over Christmas.” –Other people might just have said “boys” but Jan always found her tongue seized up when it came to the point. The thing was, they weren’t boys as such, they were in their twenties, but Terry treated them like moronic teenagers and barely let them off the leash at all. There were real boys in the group, the oldest one being Sabrina’s and Terry’s, aged sixteen. However, he had an older brother, and that story was another reason for the tongue refusing to articulate the word “boy” in front of poor Sabrina. Her older son had stuck it out until he was legally an adult, about a year back, and then disappeared. Terry didn’t allow Sabrina a phone, though he himself had a mobile, so the boy hadn’t been able to ring her, but he’d sent her several postcards care of Jan and Pete. He was in South Auckland, working in a service station on the strength of the stints he’d put in locally for Ken Roberts during his weekends and evenings—one of the major causes of the huge rows he and his father used to have. And, incidentally, living with his pregnant Maori girlfriend and her family until they could afford a flat. As it was very hard not to read short postcard messages that were right under your nose, Jan was aware that he hadn’t asked after Wilhelm, the youngest of his father’s younger nubile concubine’s offspring: possibly because he didn’t realise the kid was his. Jan only knew because Sabrina had come over one day and burst into tears and let it all out, and Sabrina only knew because Babette, the concubine in question, had burst into tears and let it all out to her. Jan’s advice had been not to tell Terry. So far as she and Pete were aware they’d taken it. Well, Babette hadn’t been cast forth into the snow, so they must have: Terry didn’t believe in polyandry, only polygamy.

    In addition to the sixteen-year-old Jonathan and little Wilhelm, the group included several other kids. Jacinth was Sabrina’s youngest: a thin, pale girl of thirteen who was now going to the local secondary school against her father’s wishes: he’d thought she should be home-schooled but the EnZed educational authorities had taken one look at Sabrina and her so-called credentials and vetoed that one. Fortunately Jacinth had a best friend, a plump, cheerful Maori girl about three times her girth who had firmly rechristened her Jay.

    Four of the kids were Terry’s out of Kamala, the older concubine (not Indian: she was about the age to have had Flower-Power parents). Krishna was eleven, poor little sod, and generally covered in bruises from fighting such as Kiefer Roberts and Brad Pohaka at school for having a go at him about his name. Bryce was ten and generally had skinned knuckles from fighting the kids at school who’d called him Bruce. Ghillywaine (made up: right) was eight and generally covered in bruises from fighting such as Courteney Pohaka and Naomi Smith. Nokomis was six with a fighting weight of two normal six-year-olds and generally had skinned knuckles from teaching Callista Kitchen and Diana Te Hana the requisite lesson.

    Terry had so far fathered two kids on the younger concubine, Babette. Harmony was going on six and thus the right age to be a little friend to Nokomis but Nokomis didn’t think so, and Courteney Pohaka and Naomi Smith had duly stigmatized the pious and horribly self-righteous Harmony as a dork. Holmgren, named for one of the gods of Permaculture, was only four and as Terry refused to let the kids go to the local kindies or play centres, not to say refused to let the concubines socialise at the play centres with the other mums, hadn’t yet been exposed to the contumely of Liam Kitchen, Ewan Pohaka, Keanu Smith, et al.

    Jan cleared her throat and added: “Pete’s put up the Christmas tree for the clients in the main lounge: would the kids like to come over and see it?”

    “That’s very kind of you, Jan. I’ll ask Terry,” said Sabrina wanly.

    Right. The sod hadn’t let them come last year or the year before, so why would he— Yeah. True, it was only the usual hunk of nicked radiata pine, but the year the kids had come—three years back, Terry had been away on a permaculture nuts’ conference in Queensland, nice work if you could get it—they’d thought it was—well, Christmas.

    “We’d love to see them,” she said without hope and got out of it, because she couldn’t stand another minute of it.

    “Personally,” said Julia Roberts from the service station—the voluminous Mrs Roberts was the sort of person who did say “personally” even although the use of the first person would have indicated it was her own opinion, “I told Ken that enough’s enough and I’m not doing a huge roast dinner in our climate now that only Marsha’s at home.”

    Poor Marsha: was this a punishment for having wanted the boy from the fish and chips shop? thought Katy, not saying it. “No, it does seem superfluous, doesn’t it?” she agreed kindly. “A nice salad’d be much more sensible.”

    Mrs Roberts blinked, but rallied. “Well, yes! So I told Ken, we’d have some of that nice Virginia ham and a cold chicken and Mum’s recipe for potato salad: far too many calories, of course, but just for once can’t hurt, can it? And some of those nice cherry tomatoes, personally I think they always look nice, don’t they? And the Lions are doing fruit-cakes this year so we’re having one of those.”

    “They are nice,” said Katy placidly.

    “Yes, of course, though I’m not saying anything could be as good as poor old Aunty Stella’s Christmas cakes… I dunno, Katy, somehow it just doesn’t seem like Christmas without the poor old thing,” she said with a sigh, leaning on her counter and gazing wistfully into space what time a dozen hopeful last-minute customers for emergency sliced bread, more milk and more giant bottles of Coke because the relations were down for Christmas queued and shuffled and glared.

    Katy agreed sympathetically with this sentiment even though she knew Aunty Stella hadn’t passed on: the combined efforts of her kids and nephews and nieces had put her in a Home, where she was duly making the staff’s life Hell for them. The last accusation that the Jacksons had heard about had been murdering her budgie. No-one had murdered it, it had died a natural death some seven years previously, but— Yeah.

    “So then he said it had better not be from Chickin Lickin’!” revealed Mrs Roberts  indignantly.

    Katy twitched slightly. “Uh—oh! The chook! Why not, Julia? I think they’re quite nice. They’re those rotisserie ones, it’s not as if they’ve been roasted in fat.”

    “Exactly! He reckons they’re covered in dye!”

    Weren’t they all? “Um, well, chicken flavouring,” said Katy weakly. “It’s quite savoury. And they all do it these days, don’t they?”

    “Of course! So then he started going on about hormones! I said to him, if you imagine I’m going to go cap in hand to that permaculture person for a so-called organic chook at five times the price, you’ve got another imagine coming, Ken Roberts!”

    “Their poultry is lovely,” said Katy weakly.

    Given the family business, Julia and Ken were two of the very few locals who saw much of the permaculture nuts. Mrs Roberts produced a rich snort. “Lovely! I dare say! The man was standing out there on the forecourt the other day large as life and twice and natural with two of them, Katy!”

    Two of what Jan called “the concubines”—right. Katy smiled weakly. “I see.”

    “In public! Disgraceful! Even the Mormons don’t go in for that these days, we’re not living in the nineteenth century!”

    “No, exactly,” she agreed soothingly. “So what are you gonna do about a chook, Julia?”

    Mrs Roberts had bought a frozen one from the supermarket and she’d roasted it today so’s they could have it cold tomorrow. What, logically, was the difference between having your oven going on December 24th and having it going on Christmas Day itself? The climate wasn’t gonna change between the two days, that was for sure. Katy agreed weakly that was a good idea, bade her Merry Christmas, agreed she would pass on her congratulations on their engagement to Felicity and Murray, and tottered out with her bread and milk.

    Max was waiting for her beside Ran’s ancient Humber. “Do they always put the price of petrol up just before Christmas?” he asked, grabbing the shopping off her.

    “Yes,” replied Katy simply.

    Grinning, he shoved the shopping in the back and turned to open her door— Too late, she’d got in. Just like Ran! Grinning, he went round to the driver’s side.

    “What do you think of Alex Burton, Max?” asked Katy glumly as he drove off.

    Max had been expecting something like this ever since he and Ran had arrived to find Felicity and Murray in her room, Moyra in Sean’s rat-hole, upgraded with a new mattress, new blinds and a fan, as it was as hot in summer as it was cold in winter, and Sean and Alex camping in the back yard in Sean’s tent. But that didn’t mean he had any sort of a useful answer for her.

    “I’m not the font of all wisdom, Katy,” he replied cautiously.

    “You don’t need to be, Dan is!” returned Katy with some energy.

    Dan didn’t approve of Alex and he did approve of Rick, that had become very clear over the last two days, in fact he’d taken Max right down the back past the sacred potato patch in order to have a long moan to him where the tangle of cape gooseberries lurked beside the tangle of blackberries that Katy encouraged in spite of the fact that the rest of the country, particularly the agricultural and local government sectors, considered them noxious weeds. Or possibly because of it: Max was now beginning to get the measure of his mother-in-law-to-be.

    Max cleared his throat. “Yeah. Er, well, I’ve hardly spoken to Alex, really, but for one thing I think he had the nous to accept Ran’s invitation to come for Christmas while Rick Whatsisname didn’t.”

    “No, because he’s a jellyfish!” replied Katy fiercely.

    “What? Oh,” he said limply.

    “They’re not doing anything special this Christmas, but he always goes to his mum and dad’s! And for Heaven’s sake, Max, they’ve got his sister and her little kids coming over, and they seem to be completely besotted with the kids: I don’t reckon they’d even notice if he wasn’t there!”

    “Er—mm. Well, I think they might notice, Katy. Er, it is quite a big step to accept a girl’s invitation to Christmas with the family, and perhaps he didn’t feel ready for that.”

    Katy glared at the road. “No. Right. And Alex hasn’t got anywhere else to go, so you can’t draw any conclusions from him accepting—except that he told us himself he didn’t even notice last Christmas, he was sketching!”

    “Mm.”

    “Why on earth couldn’t she pick someone normal?” she cried.

    He and Ran had certainly been asking themselves that. Though, oddly, Sean had volunteered that Shannon always had been peculiar. Moyra, on the other hand, couldn’t understand it at all, because Shannon had always struck her as a such a solid, sensible little thing!

    “I think it’ll run its course, Katy,” he said kindly. “He doesn’t strike me as a stayer.”

    “How long will its course be, though?” she replied sourly.

    “I doubt if it’ll last the summer,” he said easily.

    “This isn’t Europe, that sort of measurement doesn’t mean anything out here,” replied Katy evilly.

    Max blinked. “Well, um, couple of months?”

    “Right, and then she’ll mope for the rest of the year, like she did after that awful Poulteny boy’s parents took him to Australia!”

    Max had to swallow. “Mm.” Sean had also cited the Poulteny boy. The poor little chap had only had one leg, which couldn’t have been said to have been his fault, but in addition to this he had been, apparently, an egghead, a nerd and a geek, completely besotted by UFOs and such-like, and in addition given to the wearing of round, gold-rimmed glasses that made him look even more of a dork. He and Shannon had both been thirteen at the time, but apparently that didn’t count.

    “Added to which, he came up to her shoulder!” revealed Katy aggrievedly.

    Shannon wasn’t tall now. “Oh, did he?” said Max on a weak note. “A slow developer, I suppose, Katy.”

    “Slow? Completely undeveloped! Heck, Michael Kitchen had a moustache at that age!”

    “Uh—oh. Barry Kitchen’s younger brother,” said Max limply. “I see.”

    “He had ginger hair and freckles and that very white skin you often see with ginger hair, and honestly, Max, I know the poor kid couldn’t help the leg, but he was like a horrid little gremlin or something!”

    He’d got that impression from Sean, mm. “Yes, well, there’s nothing wrong with Alex’s looks, at least.”

    “That doesn’t make it better!” retorted Shannon’s mother swiftly.

    No, quite.

    “Sorry, Max. You didn’t come down here to listen to the family moans,” said Katy glumly.

    “Of course I did, Katy!” he said with a laugh. “What else are relatives for?”

    “Yeah: hah, hah,” agreed Katy with a reluctant smile. “Um, are you all right in that bloody bunk of Shannon’s?”

    “Of course!”

    Yeah, well, probably a lie, but at least he was good-natured about it. In fact he was good-natured all round, and it wasn’t just because he was happy being engaged to Ran: Katy had noticed it before, he had that sort of nature. In fact Moyra had been right all along in claiming that Max was very sweet-natured, and a naturally happy person, and only needed to get free of those frightful girls like Angela Thingy for it to show. Moyra hadn’t also admitted that her only son was a bit of a follower, but Katy had seen that for herself. Moyra had stigmatized the two partners in his old firm as a pair of grasping Scrooges who didn’t care whose work they pirated, but Katy could see it wasn’t quite that: Max had admired them and their firm’s achievements, and for quite a long time had been happy to be led by them. Dan had had a muttering fit about how he was now letting Ran lead him by the nose, but it wasn’t exactly that: in the first place he was very happy in the work, in the second place Ran didn’t overtly boss him about, and in the third place, he wanted to fit in with what suited her.

    “You’re very good-natured, Max,” she said with a sigh.

    “Uh—so they say!” replied Max, rather startled. “Was that a criticism or a compliment, Katy?’

    “A compliment. Why can’t Shannon fall for someone as nice as you, with a proper profession?”

    Oh, God. There was no answer to that, was there? He did his best with: “I’m sure it won’t last: Alex isn’t the kind to want to any sort of relationship,” and she sighed again, but seemed to accept it.

    “I bet it hasn’t dawned on those idiots from YDI that everyone expects to have Christmas Day off, out here,” said Jan to the clouds of duck feathers in the shed. Okay, the bloody place was unhygienic but it was better than clouds of feathers in the kitchen. Added to which, no health inspector was gonna turn up at Taupo Shores Ecolodge on Christmas Eve, was he?

    “I should koko,” agreed Pete mildly. Extra-mildly: that was a glass of the ecolodge’s best Scotch at his elbow. Oh, well, Christmas came but once a year, didn’t it?

    Jan pulled up an unhygienic old chair and sat down with a sigh.

    “That’s better, love, take the weight off,” he agreed. “Hey, are four ducks gonna be enough?”

    The main ecolodge was fully booked, there were half a dozen in the bunkhouse and in addition Wal and Livia Briggs were coming over for Christmas dinner. Complete with that black-haired Pommy dame that seemed to have landed herself on them again.

    “Yes: the younger ones are vegetarians.”

    “Eh? All of them? Even the ones in the bunkhouse?”

    “Long shed, more like,” corrected Jan placidly. Well, heck, it was a tin shed from Mitre 10 that Pete and a couple of mates had shoved a bit of gib-board lining in! True, it had bunks in it, but really, the vision that “bunkhouse” conjured up of old country homesteads—! It did look good in the ads, though, he was right about that. The thing had twelve bunks. Unisex, take it or leave it. “Not the couple from Melbourne. The other four are, though.”

    They weren’t a four as such: there were two young Swedes who’d come together, sort of male but Pete had a suspicion they were gay as well as vegetarian, and two fortyish Canadian women of the earnest, backpacking round the world with your Hitchhiker’s Guide to Up the Boo-Eye sort. The couple from Melbourne were a pair of university students with a combie van doing New Zealand on a shoe-string: Christmas in Taupo Shores Ecolodge’s bunkhouse was a special treat. A mixed bag, in short.

    “I wouldn’t count those two leathery-faced Canadian dames as young, only you’re right, younger is what they are in comparison to the usual lot in the main lodge,” he conceded. “So are those four with the safari boots that are crammed into Room 4 vegetarians, too?”

    “Yes. They all work for the same firm in Wellington. Or is it a government department? Anyway, they’re all into funny vege juice and running up the stairs at work instead of taking the lift and doing that fake rock-climbing at lunchtime.”

    “Fake?” echoed Pete feebly.

    “You know, Pete: on an artificial wall! The have them in the gyms. Max says they’re gonna install one at Fern Gully.”

    “Uh—oh! Cripes, ya mean they’ve got one of them in Wellington?”

    “They must do,” replied Jan mildly.

    Pete swallowed a grin. “Yeah. Still, four ducks aren’t gonna go far, ya know. They are good-sized ones, but it’ll be four pieces per duck.”

    “Sixteen.”

    “You, me, Wal, Livia, that Bettany dame, that’s five, um, five couples from the house—right: fifteen,” he concluded on sheepish note. “No, hang on: what about the two from the bunkhouse that aren’t vegetarians?”

    “Blow. I hadn’t counted on Bettany,” admitted Jan.

    Nor had anyone else. Just as well Wal Briggs was pretty easy going, eh? Not to mention had so much of the stuff he didn’t know what to chuck it away on. Pete thought over the current guest list. Mr and Mrs Sexton were still with them, because this year their daughter and her husband had taken their galumphing teenagers to Norfolk Island (must be mad: right), and their son and his wife were going to the in-laws down in Dunedin complete with the Sextons’ younger grandkids. Words to that effect. The Perrymans had gone: big family get-together in Tauranga, don’t ask why. Even though they weren’t Christians Mr and Mrs Sieff and the Beamer had hurried home to be with the grandkids: well, maybe it was Hanukah as well. However, their rooms had been filled by Mr and Mrs Hartshorne because this year the son and daughter-in-law had taken the kids to California to see Disneyland (more money than sense: exactly), and by Mr and Mrs Gifford, reasons unspecified as yet but probably because their daughter lived in Perth, Australia. The American widows, Mrs Silverstone and Mrs Doole, after two days of Jan’s cooking, had hurriedly confirmed their tentative booking for Christmas: they wouldn’t go on down to that place in the South Island after all, because Hedda and Gordy had said that although it was very comfortable it was real noisy the Christmas they spent there. So much for the snobby delights of Queenstown’s best, hah, hah!

    The other couple were Australians: yer genuine ecolodgers complete with backpacks and suede safari boots and, Pete’s guess woulda been, stunned to see the bunch they’d ended up amongst. They were, however, about the same generation as Mr and Mrs Sexton et al., and just as impressed as the pastel-haired American widows by Jan’s cooking.

    “What are you brooding over? That duck won’t pluck itself.”

    He came to with a jump. “Uh—no.” He got on with it. “Just thinking them over, but they’re all much of a muchness, so it’s hard to see which one ya give the chicken leg to.”

    “You’ll just have to carve them very carefully,” decided Jan.

    “Me?” he croaked.

    “In your disguise as mine genial host. Preferably before the punch hits.”

    “The punch plus what Wal’ll bring over,” he replied calmly.

    Well, yes!

    “I’ve got it: I’ll give him a ring: they’re sure to have a duck in the freezer!” he beamed.

    “You can’t do that!”

    “Balls; he can afford any number of ducks. And it’s them that’s wished Bettany on us. Got your mobile phone?”

    Of course she had: it was welded to her person, because he was more than capable of (a) leaving it in the flaming shed accidentally-on-purpose, (b) deliberately not answering it and (c) accidentally leaving it under a bush out in the wild blue yonder. She handed it to him and as usual he failed to dial anything that connected to anything.

    “Use the area code, Pete,” she said heavily.

    “Eh? Oh. Bugger.”

    “Or failing that, use the pre-programmed number—”

    “No programming, ta.” He pushed buttons. “Who’s this?” he said as someone responded. “Sounds like Japanese,” he reported in a puzzled voice.

    “Hang up!” screamed Jan.

    Looking mildly surprised, Pete pressed a button. “Are ya there?” he said. “Seems to’ve worked,” he reported, handing it to her.

    Grimly Jan used the pre-programmed number and Wal answered immediately. “It’s Jan, Pete wants to speak to you and I disclaim all responsibility, in fact I apologise in advance, Wal.”

    “Merry Christmas!” replied Wal Briggs with a laugh. “Put him on, I s’pose I can stand it!”

    “Be grateful,” said Jan grimly, passing it to him.

    Pete stuck his tongue out at her. “Yeah, gidday, can you let us have a duck?” he said.

    Jan shut her eyes, though it was no more than she’d expected, really.

    “Yeah,” he reported. “Do ya want him to defrost it?”

    “No, I’ll do it. You can drive over and get it. Or take the Tallulah Tub, if you insist.”

    “Don’t call her that! She’s looking real good! Okay, Wal, I’ll see you in a bi— Oy!”

    Jan had snatched the phone off him. “Wal, he’s to come straight back,” she said threateningly into it. “On second thoughts, let me speak to Livia.”

    “Of course, Jan!” Livia duly cried. “I’ll send him straight back, don’t worry for a moment, darling!”

    She would, too: never mind that fluffy manner, not to mention the fluffy hairdo, underneath Livia was solid steel.

    “All right, you can go. Just as soon as you finish that last duck.”

    “Yes, Mummy,” said Pete in a silly voice, but he got on with plucking the last duck.

    “Few feathers around,” he noted laconically, standing up scattering more madly.

    “Don’t do your Good Keen Man impersonation on Christmas Eve with twenty-five stomachs to fill tomorrow, please.”

    “Okay, I won’t. –Oh! That remark about five hours back, about YDI never finding staff that wanna work on Christmas Day—”

    “Mm. Wendy Pohaka pushed off hours back.”

    “Oh, right, gonna help with the hangi, is she? Or aren’t they having one this year?”

    “Of course they’re having one, but her dad and uncles are doing it, ya nit, women aren’t allowed to operate the sacred hangi, it’s like the sacred pakeha barbecue! She’s gotta help her mum and aunties with the mountains of other stuff the womenfolk are doing, like jelly and trifles and five thousand mince pies that your side’ll only eat.”

    “What about Ma Barber?” he replied cautiously.

    Jan sighed. Wendy Pohaka was seventeen, unattached and very fancy-free, and Janet Barber was fiftyish, with two grown sons and a divorced husband that she saw more of than she had when they were married, great useless wimp that he was, and they came from different ethnic backgrounds with completely different standards in almost everything—certainly in sexual morality and popular music—but when it came to an EnZed Christmas they were two peas in a pod.

    “Call her Janet, she’s younger than you are, for God’s sake! Gone home to prepare enormous amounts of food for those two useless lumps of sons and that bloody wimp of a George Barber. Like jelly and trifles and five thousand mince—”

    “Get this down you,” he said handing her the glass he’d refilled and that she’d been about to blast him over.

    “Ta,” said Jan, giving in and sipping it. “Ooh! This is nice!”

    “Yeah, that bottle Jake gimme last time he was down. Never heard of the brand, so it’s gotta be a single malt from Crochan Na Glen Bummery, eh?”

    “Shut up,” said Jan, shaking slightly, though he wasn’t wrong: Jake Carrano’s ordinary tipple was Black Label, if you please. Well, so would she if she was a billionaire.

    “Aw, he rung earlier,” he recalled.

    “When?”

    “Uh—when you and Ma Bar—Janet were outside wrangling over whether any of them’d know the difference between spinach and silverbeet in your filo pie.”

    “Over that and whether a cold leek soup, so-called, would, could or should be served on Christmas Day,” said Jan with a sigh.

    “Vichyssoise?” Pete collapsed in sniggers.

    “All right, you know and I know that it’s a delicacy, but Ma Bar— Now you’ve got me doing it! Janet’s living in Fifties lower-middle EnZed, still. What did Jake RING about?”

    “Uh, sorry, love. Can they come down over New Year’s after all because young Katie Maureen’s got computer camp and the twins are going off on a tramping trip with a load of mates and Polly was bawling over it. –Well, they’re seventeen: hadda happen, eh? So I told him we’re booked up but if they don’t wanna stay with Wal and Livia—understandable, with that Bettany dame there—they can have the loft over the garage.”

    “Honestly, Pete,” said Jan weakly.

    “If that was on account of Jake’s status as New Zealand’s richest billionaire you can drop it, I’ve known ’im since—”

    “No, it was on account of that lumpy mattress, Pete.”

    “Uh—oh. Well, um, better nip into town—uh, well, soon as the shops reopen.”

    “That or ring Jake and tell him to bring his own matt— Don’t you dare!”

    Pete’s hand retreated from the mobile phone. “No, all right. Anyway, it’ll be a start on turning the loft into an emergency room in case we get overbooked, eh?”

    “Yes,” agreed Jan weakly. The loft itself was clean, dry and airy: that wasn’t the problem. And it had a little ensuite with a toilet, minute shower and miniscule basin: they’d both slept out there the year the ecolodge underwent extensive remodelling. The problem was the motors that tended to get stripped and trialled for ear-shattering hours underneath it.

    “Hey, it was fun that time we lived up there, eh?”

    Something like that, yeah. No stove, cooking over a camping-gas burner— Oh, well. “Yes, it was,” said Jan, smiling at him. “Thanks for plucking the bloody ducks, Pete.”

    “Shit, that’s okay! That ponce next-door’s bloody useless, eh? Calls himself a poultry farmer and refuses to pluck them!” He snorted.

    “Mm. At least he didn’t make poor Sabrina do them.”

    “Ya know, if she got shot of him, I reckon Tim’d have her,” he said thoughtfully.

    Jan thought so, too. Poor old Tim. “She’s besotted by ruddy Terry, and let’s not think about it, eh? I have decided to do a vichyssoise, half of them won’t know what it is but at least they’re in the socio-economic bracket that’ll recognize it as posh. So I’d better go and get on with it. And if I do the spinach and goats’ cheese filling for the filo pie now, then I’ll only have to pop it in the oven tomorrow, won’t I?”

    “Yep. Um, the one with the pine nuts?” he asked on a hopeful note.

    “Well, yes, but I dunno if there’ll be any left over, Pete; the vegetarians’ll have to have first go at it. You take care on the bloody lake, eh?”

    “There’ll be a moon,” he replied, vanishing.

    Something like that. Some time before dawn—yeah. Jan gathered up the ducks, closed her eyes to the mess of feathers, and retreated to the kitchen. That fucking Terry hadn’t done anything to the ducks except wring their necks. Oh, well, good, she’d rescue the liver and the giblets! The time she’d tried buying a dressed duck off them the bastard had kept those.

    She’d cleaned them, on the basis of do the worst job first, and was raising the cleaver over the neck of the one that looked awfully like the one Ghillywaine called Joan and had made a pet of, when a startled American voice gasped: “Oh, my!”

    Jan lowered the cleaver, gulping. “Hullo, Mrs Doole, what can I do for you?”

    Mrs Doole, possibly because it was Christmas Eve, was in a nice pine-green polyester trouser-suit with her huge amethyst and diamond brooch on the shoulder. She teetered in the doorway, smiling weakly. “I shouldn’t disturb you, Jan, honey. No, well, Sylvia’s reading her piece, you see, it being Christmas Eve and all, and then she has to do her meditation.”

    Jan just nodded. Mrs Sylvia Silverstone belonged to some strange semi-Christian sect that always read a piece, evenings, not from the Bible as such but from their own rewriting of it. Mrs Doole was just an ordinary lapsed Protestant like most of the English-speaking world, so what with the pieces and the meditation occupying her friend before every meal and in the evenings as well, she was often at a loose end.

    “I—well, I wondered if there was anything I could do to help, Jan, honey,” she said on a wistful note.

    Cripes! Jan looked weakly at the pristine trouser-suit. “Um, well, thanks very much—if you’re sure, Mrs Doole?”

    The apricot-haired Mrs Doole brightened terrifically. “Sure I’m sure! And call me Goldie, Jan, honey, everyone does back home, though where it came from, I’m sure I don’t know!”

    Weakly Jan suggested that she might like to roll out the pastry for the mince pies, cut them out, and put the filling in. And swathed her hurriedly in an apron.

    Happily Goldie Doole got on with it, favouring Jan with a terrific lot of information about the Christmas fare they used to have back home when she was a girl. No, not a farm, Jan, honey, just a little country town—Hicksville, her Sam used to call it. After a while she noticed that Jan had some kumaras on the bench and told her all about the “candied” sweet potatoes her mom always used to do, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Uh… oh! Goddit, baked in the oven, not candied as such. Her gran’s secret was to use brown sugar and maple syrup! No, not as a dessert, Jan, honey: with the turkey, of course!

    Feebly Jan admitted that she wasn’t intending her kumaras, um, sweet potatoes for that, she was going to do a k—sweet potato pie as well as a pumpkin pie—pause while Goldie exclaimed that she did so love a real home-baked pumpkin pie!—and it wasn’t really their season yet, but they had a sheltered corner where Pete grew them: these were early ones. Um, well, it was kind of an adaptation of a recipe, Goldie. Feebly she showed her Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book, admitting she’d got past the stage of following the recipes slavishly: now she just picked and chose and adapted them to suit. Oh, my! This did so remind Goldie of some of the recipes she’d seen on Julia Child—etcetera.

    “Yes. They might think it a bit odd if I served it like the book says, just as a pudding,” said Jan, forgetting her company, rather.

    “Honey, I know exactly what you mean!” she cried. “Sylvia and me were over in Australia in what they call the Alice, in their Red Centre, y’know? And we tried this real interesting little restaurant that served genuine native Australian foods, but using them in real innovative ways. And, well, crocodile and emoo-bird was the least of it! Kind of a culinary challenge!” She chuckled. “And for dessert they were offering this unusual ice cream, with ground acacia seeds in it. But Sylvia said it was a decorative garden shrub and wouldn’t touch it.”

    Jan gulped. She was with Sylvia: that was wattle: ugh!

    “No, you’re wrong,” she said complacently. “It was delicious. Not like anything I’d ever tasted before… Real delicate. Kind of nutty, but sweet… I dunno why, but it made me think of pollen.” She beamed at her. “It was a real unforgettable experience, but would you believe? We couldn’t find a supermarket that sold the seeds, at all!”

    In Alice Springs, the red-neck centre of the Red Centre? You wouldn’t, no!

    Goldie was explaining how Sylvia had also refused to try the crocodile or the emoo-bird and just had the lamb chops. Ending firmly: “Well, in my book, you don’t come halfway round the world to eat the same food you can get back home!”

    How right she was! Jan smiled at her plump, elderly person and, though she’d had no such intention, asked her if she’d mind peeling the sweet potatoes.

    Happily Mrs Doole got on with it. Ring-encrusted, scarlet-tipped fingers and all. And good on her.

    Ran was in the kitchen, making pumpkin pie. As Max was in there helping her, she really didn’t need any more help. Shannon gave him a bitter look. “Shouldn’t you be in the garage with the male peer group, knocking back the frosties?”

    “Is that where they are?” replied Max, his eyes twinkling. “No, I’d rather be in here.”

    Unfortunately he was so gorgeous that you couldn’t stigmatize him as a feminized wimp. Shannon glared. “Can’t I do anything, Ran?”

    “Not unless you can make real custard.”

    “Whaddaya mean?” she said suspiciously.

    “Eggs, milk, cream, stir without going lumpy,” drawled Max.

    “What? Shit, what for? You can buy it in cartons down the supermarket!”

    “It tastes like it came out of a carton down the supermarket,” explained Ran. “Real custard’s gorgeous.”

    “Balls! Whose idea was that?” retorted Shannon, glaring at him.

    “Not mine!” he said with a laugh. “I’m a convinced supermarketeer!”

    “Hah, hah,” returned Shannon weakly.

    “Where’s Alex? With the male peer group morons?” asked her sister tactlessly.

    “No, him and Mum have gone in the shed,” said Shannon grimly. “They were talking about techniques and crap.”

    “You could talk about techniques and crap,” replied Ran mildly.

    “I couldn’t, I’m not an artist!” she snapped.

    “Where’s Moyra?” asked Max hurriedly.

    “Watching sickening carols from poncy Kings, whaddelse?” she snarled.

    “Oops!” he said, grinning.

    “I thought it was the fiftieth repeat of The Good Life Christmas Special,” said Ran, withdrawing a tray of mince pies from the oven. “Phew! Done!”

    “They look good,” admitted Shannon grudgingly. “It was The Good Life Christmas Special, but it’s over.”

    “Oh, you mean I’ve missed the pea-green incorruptible jumpers?” said Max with a laugh. “Never mind: next year! Can you peel chestnuts, Shannon?”

    “I’ve never even seen a flaming chestnut! Have you gone mad, Ran?”

    “No. –It’s a jar of chestnut purée, you idiot,” she said to her fiancé.

    “Crushed again!” said Max with wink at Shannon. “Well, what else are we having, darling? Could she make the fruit salad?”

    “I think it’s too soon,” admitted Shannon.

    “Yeah: the fresh fruit’ll go nasty if we leave it overnight, Max. But you could make the base, Shannon, and start the trifle as well, if ya like. The tins are all in the cupboard. You’d better add plenty of sugar, I could only find those modern tins of fruit in juice.”

    “Righto,” said Shannon gratefully. “Didja remember to get the cherry brandy?”

    “Par-don?” said Max in a silly voice,

    Shannon frowned. “Shuddup. Your mum liked it last time she was here.”

    “Yes,” agreed Ran, “she did. He made me get something called Cherry Heering, Shannon, it’s more up-market, but it tastes the same. It’s in the liquor cabinet, behind that blackberry nip Dad got on special, and with a bit of luck none of those male nongs that think it’s funny to try weird liqueurs will of found it.”

    Shannon directed a glare at Max’s smile. “If you think it’s funny you don’t need to have any. I’ll get the sherry for the trifle, too, if that’s what your poncy real custard’s gonna be for.” She marched out.

    Max sagged. “Oh, Lor’.”

    “Alex is an artist and so’s Mum, what did she expect?”

    Not cosy confabs in the shed, obviously. He smiled feebly. “Mm.”

    “That pumpkin has to be masherated, Max,” she warned.

    “Mm. Oh! More?”

    “Yes: get rid of those lumps.”

    Obediently Max attempted to batter the pumpkin into submission with Katy’s inadequate wire whisk. They’d had the saga of “Where the Hell’s the blender, Mum?” earlier. It was after that that Katy had drifted off and started talking to Alex about art.

    Shannon came back holding two bottles. Oh, Jesus! He grabbed his precious Amontillado back off her. “Not this,” he whispered.

    “It’s sherry, isn’t it?” she retorted pugnaciously.

    “No, it’s sour, Shannon,” said Ran peaceably. “Get the sweet stuff. –Is that pumpkin done?” she asked as Shannon went out again.

    Hurriedly Max got on with it. “Now I see why Felicity got out of it early on.”

    “Her all over,” replied Ran calmly, not responding to the hits at herself or at her sister.

    Shannon came back holding a bottle. “This is the only other sherry.”

    “I bought that for your mother,” said Max feebly.

    Shannon looked critically at it. “Pommy—that’d be right.”

    “Spanish,” he whispered.

    “MAX! Give over! And do that PUMPKIN!” shouted Ran.

    Max got on with it, not revealing that he had never tasted pumpkin pie and never wanted to. He tried not to watch what Shannon was up to but as it was a small kitchen didn’t succeed. The contents of six large cans of fruit went into a big cut-glass bowl. –No: plastic, that last tin had just connected with it, producing a dull clonk. Okay, cut plastic. Sugar, then stir vigorously, possibly breaking the fruit, but as those peach slices were large— She poured a generous dollop of Cherry Heering into it. Predictably it turned it pinkish. Ooh, now she was breaking up a cake! The pieces were going into another bowl—

    “Is that pumpkin smooth?’”

    “Sorry, darling!” he gasped. “Um, well, yes, pretty smooth.”

    “You can push it through a sieve,” decided Ran grimly. “Here.”

    Okay, he would. …Ooh, it was coming out in little worms!

    Shannon was inspecting a selection of small cardboard packets. “Isn’t there any green?”

    “Nobody likes it but you,” replied her sister. “The pineapple’s pretty neutral.”

    Shannon agreed. Max watched, mesmerised, as she made the jelly, stirring it vigorously. “So, um, is it all for the trifle?” he ventured. “The jelly and the little bits of cake with fruit?

    The Jackson sisters gave him identical amazed stares. “Yes!”

    “Okay, I’m ignorant.”

    “Had slaves working in yer kitchen all yer life, more like,” replied Shannon.

    “Exactly,” agreed Max’s fiancée before he could protest. “Shannon, you haven’t put the sherry on it, ya dill!”

    “Oh—no; shit.” Shannon sloshed sherry on the cake. “That enough?”

    “Um, dunno. Give it another dollop for good luck, eh?”

    More of the Harvey’s Bristol Cream went on the Madeira cake which Max had with his own eyes observed Ran buying at the supermarket, but by now nothing would have surprised him. Nothing at all.

    “Peaches,” Ran reminded her sister.

    “Yeah, but if I put them in now they’ll sop up the sherry, too.”

    “Um… yeah. Okay, they better wait.”

    So that was what that last, lonely tin of fruit was doing! Waiting to go in the trifle! …Oh, good God! “I get it,” said Max weakly: “the custard’ll go on the top, will it?”

    “Got it in fourteen,” replied Ran drily.

    “Yeah, go to the top of the class, Max,” agreed Shannon.

    The sisters looked at each other and suddenly burst out laughing.

    Phew! Max’s knees went all funny and he had to sit down on a despised high stool that had been banished to the kitchen because only Sean liked it. Possibly Christmas en famille wouldn’t be a total and complete disaster after all.

    “C’n we see the Christmas tree?” asked a young but determined voice as Jan was carefully piping cream round the trifle.

    Gasping, she swung round.

    “It’s a dear little girl!” discerned Goldie Doole, who after last night’s marathon—and Jan had never been so glad of anyone’s help in her life—seemed to have appointed herself unofficial kitchen-hand. “Hullo, honey!” she beamed. “Merry Christmas!”

    Nokomis’s hard grey gaze flickered over Mrs Doole in her silk Christmas poinsettia-ed blouse and Santa-red Christmas skirt under her apron and dismissed her. “Hullo.” The gaze switched to Jan. “C’n we see the Christmas tree?” she repeated.

    Jan looked limply at the sturdy, squarish figure, bursting out of a little faded cotton dress that had been Ghillywaine’s last year. As she was looking the ten-year-old Bryce and the four-year-old Holmgren appeared in the doorway behind their half-sister, wearing the sheepish male look that must be Y-chromosome linked, because it could appear on any of them, aged four to eighty-four. And if it wasn’t indicating “Do it for me, Mummy,” it was indicating “She led me into this,” like now.

    “Two little boys as well!” discerned Mrs Doole. “Merry Christmas, dears!”

    Jan took a deep breath. No use asking if Terry knew, the kids all loathed him. “Does your mum know you’re over here, Nokomis?”

    “Neh, she’s a dord,” replied Nokomis in the vernacular.

    “What did she say, Jan?” ventured Goldie.

    Jan cleared her throat. “She called her mother a—uh—D,O,R,K, Goldie, but it seems to come out D,O,R,D at that age in these parts.”

    “Honey, we don’t call our mom a dork,” said Goldie instantly to Nokomis. “That was real rude and unkind. You wanna see the Christmas tree, you say you’re sorry right now!”

    Looking mildly surprised, Nokomis replied: “Sorry.”

    “That’s better!”

    “Um, yeah, that’s a good girl, Nokomis,” said Jan kindly. “She is only six,” she explained.

    Goldie Doole, it was now apparent, didn’t give no quarter to no naughty kids: she replied instantly: “Six? That’s old enough to know when we’ve used a rude word. –So your name’s Nokomis, honey! That’s real pretty! That’s a Native American name, did you know that?”

    “Yeah,” replied Nokomis stolidly.

    “Um, you’d better come through,” said Jan feebly. She wasn’t gonna go into the ramifications of that one. For one thing, the name had been Sabrina’s suggestion: Kamala hadn’t been very well during the pregnancy and had had to spend a lot of time with her feet up—strangely enough Terry went easy on them when they were, as Pete put it, in calf to him—and Sabrina had read a lot to her. Not your actual Hiawatha, no, that would have been too close to main-stream literature. Largely weirdo shit mixed with populist comparative religion from the weirdo section of the Taupo Public Library. Babette had listened, too, so possibly that also explained “Harmony.”

    They went through to the main lounge, where the three children stared solemnly at Pete’s huge piece of over-decorated Pinus radiata. Goldie Doole, to Jan’s amusement, accepted this with perfect equanimity, but Mrs Sexton, who had started making cooing noises on sighting them, came over and whispered in Jan’s ear: “Do they like it, dear?”

    “Yes: that’s awe and absorption.”

    “I see! Would it be all right to offer them a mince pie, Jan?” she breathed.

    They’d eat anything even vaguely sweet, in fact last year Nokomis, then aged only five, had managed a gaspingly strong peppermint from old Mr McIntosh who, as the daughter and son-in-law who’d brought him had assured Jan and Pete, was still very active but tended to forget things. Things like how strong his “Very Strong Mints” were, apparently. The kid had turned purple but got it down her. You could say this for Nokomis, she wasn’t a quitter. Jan agreed the kids could have mince pies, not explaining that they wouldn’t know what they were, and the beaming Mrs Sexton fetched a plateful from the coffee table.

    Pete was officiating behind the small bar but he now came out from behind it with Cokes for them. “Merry Christmas, kids.”

    “Hey! Coke!” breathed Bryce, his boiled-lolly blue eyes bolting from his head.

    “Can’t hurt for once,” said Pete easily, avoiding Jan’s eye.

    “Um, Pete, Holmgren’s only four: I don’t think he’s ever had it before.”

    “I WANNA COKE!” he shouted. Holmgren either shouted or said nothing: Jan wasn’t sure if his home background could be blamed for this but she was blaming it anyway.

    “Yeah, you can have one. It’s strong, mind. Merry Christmas,” said Pete, handing him one.

    Gee, he got it down him, in spite of the eye-watering: he couldn’t be a quitter, either!

    Jan left them to it: there were a few here who were silly enough to give them anything, but Goldie Doole wasn’t gonna let that happen. She went back to the kitchen, finished the trifle, shoved it in the fridge, and got on with shelling the peas. Possibly a bit early: she and Goldie had only just shoved the potatoes, kumaras, and pumpkin in to roast in the second oven that, thank God, she’d given in and let Pete and his mate Steve Garber from Taupo Hardware & Electrical install for only a fraction more than etcetera. However, at least it was a sit-down job and probably an hour’s wait in a steamy kitchen wouldn’t hurt the peas.

    Pete lounged in, looking dry. “Hey, does anyone know they’re here?”

    “No. Well, it’s hopeless trying to get the truth out of Nokomis, but no.”

    He sniffed slightly. “Mm. In that case I’ll let them watch TV for a bit and then take them back in person. Might see if I can grab Tim.”

    “Yes, good idea. Um, what’s on?” said Jan in a weak voice.

    “Dunno. It’s square and it flickers, that’s enough. –The sod won’t let them have a TV,” he reminded her. “Anything I can do? I’ve left Sexton in charge of the bar. I told him the champagne and soft drinks are free, and the bar’s closed for spirits. Seemed simpler, eh?”

    “But our ads say they can have— No, all right, none of them’ll remember by the end of the day anyway. You could do the avocados, Pete. The ricotta with black pepper and garlic on eight and the prawn mixture on the rest. Put lemon juice on them after you cut them, or they’ll go brown.”

    “Right.” He rinsed his hands and got on with it.

    “Sabrina says avocado’d’ve got vi’min’ in them,” said a voice from the doorway.

    “Jesus!” he gasped.

     Nokomis fixed his tray of avocado halves with a steely eye. “Sabrina says avocado’d’ve got vi’min’ in them.”

    “Uh—yeah. Well, there’s a spare half, so I s’pose you can have it.”

    “Not with P,R,A,W,N, there’s the risk of allergies,” warned Jan.

    “No—right. Want yours with nice goats’ cheese, like these ones?” he asked cunningly.

    “Neh. Goad’ cheese is sicko.”

    Many people shared this opinion, and in fact Pete and Jan had giving up telling the clients the cottage cheese was goats’, because if they didn’t spot it was after tasting it, not knowing couldn’t hurt them, could it? He gave Nokomis a plain avocado half with a teaspoon to eat it with.

    Then it was “C’n I look in your fridge?” but Pete was fly to that one, thanks.

    “Not when Jan’s keeping food cool in it for a mob like this. Come on, I’ll take you and the boys home. Where are they?”

    “Mrs Doole tood them to the tawlet.”

    “Good for Goldie,” acknowledged Pete calmly.

    “Brave woman, more like,” retorted Jan. “If you’re going, Pete, bung some Gladwrap over those avocados, wouldja?”

    Pete did that, warning: “They will need to go in the F,R,I,D,G,E, love.”

    “Mm. Later. Hang on.” She went over to the cupboards and scrabbled in a top one.

    “What the Hell?” said Pete limply as she produced three gift-wrapped parcels.

    “In case,” said Jan heavily. She gave one to Nokomis. “Merry Christmas, Nokomis.”

    “Ooh, ta!”

    Pete stared as the kid hugged it fiercely. “Nokomis, you can open it, lovey.”

    “I’m gonna!”

    Okay, she was gonna. Goldie led the boys in at that point so they each got one, too. Bryce opened his immediately. It was only a paperback book, but he appeared to think it was the cat’s whiskers. And there was always the hope that he’d have the nous to hide it in their “hut”, so called, up the back where the property was still wild and unpermacultured, before fucking Terry could take it off him.

    “Jokes,” explained Jan. “He’s at that age. –You can open your present, Holmgren, dear.”

    “’SMINE!”

    “That’s right. You take the wrapping paper off, like Bryce did.”

    “He’s a dork!” said Bryce impatiently.

    Holmgren glared, but unwrapped his present. A yellow plastic truck. “TRUCK!”

    “Jan, ya meant well, but P,L,A,S,T,I,C?” croaked Pete. “Their dad won’t approve.”

    Jan gave him a dry look. “At least it’s not a G,U,N.”

    “Gun,” translated Bryce, though without interest.

    “I guess,” said Goldie Doole kindly, “he’ll’ve had the enjoyment, Pete.”

    Well, yeah, for the fifteen minutes between the ecolodge and his place! Or, uh— “Hey, Bryce,” he said cunningly: “what say we let Holmgren hide his truck in your hut, eh?”

    “Yeah, okay,” he agreed tolerantly.

    “’SMINE!”

    Uh—yeah. Well, maybe the kid wouldn’t let them, but they’d of tried. Pete collected them up and led them out, silently wondering if they were ever gonna know what was in Nokomis’s parcel, because she was still hugging it.

    “Honey, they’re not Jewish, are they?” said Goldie immediately.

    “No,” said Jan heavily. “Their father doesn’t believe in Christmas or—or anything, really, except permaculture. That’s a form of organic horticulture,” she added heavily.

    “I get it: a nutter, huh? That’s a real pity, Jan.”

    It sure was. Grimly Jan got on with Christmas dinner for twenty-five.

    “So you’re not a vegetarian?” said Ran as Alex Burton allowed Dan Jackson to carve him a hunk of turkey.

    Alex’s rather cool grey eyes twinkled. “Don’t you mean ‘So you’re not a vegetarian on top of the rest?’, Ran?”

    “Yeah. Knock it off, Ran,” growled Shannon.

    “Just because I got to the age of twenty-nine before realising that I’d allowed my family’s and teachers’ expectations to set me on a career path that in fact held no attraction for me, and dropped out to do my own thing, I don’t have to be a vegetarian, Ran,” explained Alex.

    “Yeah; hah, hah,” agreed Katy unexpectedly.

    “Though I admit it’s a natural expectation,” added Alex smoothly.

    At this Sean collapsed in sniggers, gasping: “Serves ya right, Ran!”

    Ran had remained completely unphased throughout. “Sorry!” she said cheerfully to Alex.

    Dan dumped a turkey leg on Sean’s plate. “Ya got it: now don’t whinge when ya find it’s full of strings,” he advised tersely.

    “I’m not a kid any more, Dad,” replied his son mildly.

    “Pass that cranberry sauce to somebody else, for Pete’s sake!”

    “Not Aunty Moyra,” replied Sean to the sub-text: “she doesn’t like the skins and stuff.”

    Poor Moyra went red and protested disjointedly.

    “Have the jelly instead, Moyra: it’s lovely,” said Murray Fine kindly. –Dan eyed him drily, reflecting that it was probably just as well that Ran hadn’t unilaterally proposed, seconded and accepted herself to do a baked ham instead of turkey, because “F,I,N,E” was probably another spelling of “Fein” and somewhere in his not-too-distant ancestry the family’d be Jewish, and he didn’t think it had dawned on Felicity, yet.

    Cranberry sauce, cranberry jelly and gravy were all duly passed and after Sean had stopped hogging the platter of roast potatoes, they were passed, too. Alex admiring not the potatoes, which would have been tactful, given that Ran and Shannon, with some assistance from Max, had been slaving in the steaming-hot kitchen all morning, but the flaming pottery platter. Dan swallowed a sigh.

    The tactful Murray then admired the roast potatoes, and Ran beamed, but Dan’s idiot of a son capped that one by explaining helpfully: “See, Aunty Moyra, she likes potatoes straight out of the garden, just boiled, but Dad’s potatoes haven’t done too well this year, he got over-keen and put too much manure on them, they don’t like that. Pete McLeod came over and told him he was a nong, only by then it was too late.”

    Dan took a deep breath, as poor Moyra went red and protested disjointedly.

    “Have some chestnut purée, Mummy,” said Max quickly.

    Moyra jumped. “Oh! Yes, thank you, darling, it looks delicious.”

    “Only out of a tin, Moyra,” said Ran uneasily.

    “Darling, it always is! Fortnum’s is full of them at this time of year! Mm!” she approved, tasting it. “Lovely!”

    Christmas dinner at the Jacksons’ was then able to proceed in harmony. Possibly only Max noticed the quality of the so-called champagne, that was, its very poor quality, but Dan thought he caught Murray valiantly concealing a wince as the first taste passed his lips.

    Then Dan’s son, having consumed his third helping of turkey and admitted he’d better leave room for pudding, so he wouldn’t have another slice, went and asked Alex: “So what didja do last Christmas?”

    “Nothing. I was sketching, but I can’t tell you precisely what I did on the 25th of December, because I’d lost track of what day it was.”

    “Oh—right. So what did you do last Christmas, Murray?” pursued Sean.

    There was a little pause, during which Dan Jackson had time to wish very heartily that he was ten thousand miles away.

     Then Murray replied mildly: “Well, nothing, Sean, the family doesn’t celebrate Christmas.”

    “Eh? Hasn’t your sister got kids?”

    “Yes; the kids get presents for Hanukah, not Christmas,” said Murray, still mild.

    There was a tingling silence. Dan didn’t think it was because any of his extended family was anti-Semitic, it was because they were all so marinated in the lapsed Protestant norms of the flaming British Commonwealth that it hadn’t occurred to them that someone else might not be.

    Then Max said calmly: “I thought you might be Jewish. Did your forebears change the spelling of the name when they came to New Zealand?”

    Murray looked dry. “Very shortly after. My grandfather was an Austrian Jew: he came out here in 1935. It didn’t do him much good, though: he was interned for the duration of the War.”

    “But surely—!” gasped Moyra in horror.

    “Being Jewish didn’t count,” said Murray drily. “He was engaged to a New Zealand girl. She waited for him: it can’t have been easy, though I gather her friends were very sympathetic and entirely on her side. He’d never been a practising Jew, but he went back to it in his old age. Grandma didn’t mind: her family were Methodists, but her attitude was that God was God whatever guise you worshipped Him under. Dad wasn’t brought up to be religious but he married a Jewish girl. Mum’s family’d be about as religious as yours, Dan, I suppose,” he said with a little smile.

    “Right: weddings and funerals and celebrate Christmas, or Hanukah. If you people pass your plates down, we can take this lot out. That is, if anyone’s got room for pudding?” said Dan, mentally calling down blessings on Max’s head from any Supreme Being that cared to respond.

    Everybody came to and began to pass plates and chat again. Felicity was still looking like a stunned mullet, but so be it: if she wasn’t interested enough in the poor joker as a person to even find out about his family background—

    Livia’s Christmas get-up of course beggared description, but Pete had been expecting that. So did the Bettany female’s but he’d been expecting that, too. Though he hadn’t been expecting the solid tan. After they’d all had a glass of punch the two of them pushed off to “help” poor Jan in the kitchen, and Pete croaked: “What the fuck’s the Bettany female been doing to herself, Wal?”

    “Eh? Been working in Australia, didn’t I explain? Sort of back and forth, think they have these three-month visas or something—”

    “Not that! She looks sort of… baked,” he ended weakly.

    “Well, yeah, she has been getting the sun.”

    “So it’s natural?” he croaked.

    Wal Briggs’s shrewd little brown eyes twinkled. “More than what you might think. Her dad was Maltese. Arab blood, we think; noticed the nose? Plus some Italian, plus God knows what: real mixture, the Maltese are. She looks really pale after an English winter, you’d never realise she wasn’t ordinary English, but she tans really easily. Don’t mention the dad, by the way: he took up with her mum because he wanted to marry a rich Brit and get a British passport while he lived off her money, but then he found out she was only an insurance clerk that had won an all-expenses-paid trip. So he dropped her like a hot potato.”

    “Shit.”

    “That describes him really well. It was years before Bettany even found out about him: the mum’d never talk about him when she was little. Wasn’t so much the unmarried mother thing, though mind you England wasn’t as swinging as all that, but being suckered and dropped by a foreigner that was distinctly on the brown side.” Wal made a face.

    “I get ya.” Pete poured him a triple whisky, neat, on the strength of it.

    Wal would drink anything and he knew Pete knew it. He looked at the bottle and grinned. “This a cure for what ails me?”

    “Something like that. One of Jake's.”

    “No kidding.” Wal knocked it back. “Merry bloody Christmas!” he concluded, grinning.

    “Yeah. Uh, Wal, what’s the female come back for?”

    “The mum died a bit back and she’s spending the insurance money.”

    “Uh—yeah. Apart from that. Unless it’s only the free board and lodging?”

    “Partly. No, she’s got the idea that because Livia came out here and nabbed yours truly—”

    Livia hadn’t been young when she’d nabbed him, true, but— “Hasn’t it sunk in that Livia was pretty?” he croaked. “Well, still is.”

    “Yeah: nobbad for her age, eh? Good bone structure,” he said smugly. “Looks after herself, of course. No, well, it can’t’ve. But Bettany isn’t too bad.”

    “Too bad for what?”

    “Shut up!” he hissed, shoulders shaking. “She’s not my type, but some’d say she’s a very handsome woman.” Before Pete could demand incredulously “Who?” he added quickly: “No, well, we all know you don’t fancy a long nose on a woman, but there’s some as does.” He rubbed his own ugly, bulbous nose, looking dry. “Well, must be, or it woulda died out.”

    “I can’t think of any joker that’d be keen to perpetuate it round these here parts,” said Pete at his driest. “Not at her age.”

    Wal sighed a little. “No, well, next best scenario, a job?”

    “Fern Gully is hiring, but the London office have sent out some ponce in a Dacron safari suit that’ll only look at qualified professional hospitality persons. Though she’s got qualification Number One: Pommy,” noted Pete, as Sexton came over to them.

    To report there was no more orange juice, apparently. Were the dames all drinking Buck’s Fucking Fizz, then? True, it’d take the taste of fizzy New Zealand white away. Hard to say, really, whether it was better or worse than that Australian fizzy white the wholesalers were always trying to flog—

    “Oy, Pete!” said Wal loudly.

    “Uh—sorry, Mr Sexton,” he said weakly. “Eh? Yeah: Charles, of course. Well, um, do they want more orange juice?”

    “It is pretty warm in here,” said Wal tolerantly.

    “Humid, more like. Ever heard of thing called a dehumidifier?”

    “Yes,” said the wealthy retired barrister calmly.

    “Oh. Uh—might be worth looking into. Uh—sorry, Charles: orange juice. There’s plenty more in the shed but it won’t be chilled.”

    “Open the good champagne, Pete,” drawled Wal.

    “There isn’t any,” he admitted. “Well, one bottle per table to have with the din—”

    “There’s a dozen in chillybins in the car,” said Wal heavily. “Provided you can find anyone hefty enough to drag them in, because Livia’ll kill me if my back does it and Jan’ll kill y—”

    “Hey, you young blokes!” shouted Pete. “Any volunteers to drag in a dozen champagne from Wal’s car?”

    Gee, there were. Even the two Swedes were volunteering, so the teetotalism couldn’t go with the vegetarianism or the gayism, eh? Well, merry Bollinger Christmas!

    “That was a real good Christmas dinner, as near-disasters go,” said Dan acidly to his only son, well into the afternoon, when the younger girls were having a well-earned rest, Felicity was having a less well-earned but probably needed rest and Katy and Moyra had retired to the master bedroom to watch some sickening epic on the new combined DVD-video player that Dan had broken down and bought with his hard-earned after (a) Katy had started moaning about the fuzzy “reception” she was getting from the video player during such sickening epics as Pretty Woman and (b) it had made his precious copy of The Titfield Thunderbolt look all fuzzy.

    “I wasn’t to know Murray was Jewish,” Sean replied mildly.

    “Didn’t the name suggest anything, perchance?” His son didn’t react. Dan sighed. “Anyway, it wasn’t only that—actually I like Murray: seems a really good sort.”

    “Yeah: pity he hadda take up with her,” agreed Felicity’s younger brother.

    “As I was saying, it wasn’t only that. I coulda done without flaming Alex. Why’d ya have to go and make it worse?”

    “I only asked him what he was doing last Chr—” Inadvertently he met his father’s eye. “Well, all right, I was having a go.”

    “Yeah. I’d say he’s more than a match for ten ten times your size, Sean,” he said heavily.

    “Yeah: he’s a bit of a hard case, eh?” he said thoughtfully. He eyed him sideways. “Shannon is too, ya know, Dad: if she does take up with him they might make a go of it.”

    “Bullshit!”

    Sean shrugged. Silence fell in the garage.

    “Uh—where are they?” asked Dan, making an effort to rouse himself.

    “Lying down. Sleeping it off.”

    “Not the girls, you birk! Assorted blokes that are hopelessly wrong for them!”

    “Um, not Max?” he said cautiously.

    “NO! Well, um, where’s he got to, too?”

    “He’s taken them over to look at the lake. –They wanted to,” he explained as his father was looking completely blank.

    “If you say so.”

    Silence fell again in the Jackson garage.

    “Fancy a cold one, Dad?”

    “After all that fake champagne? Not to mention those fancy liqueurs Moyra gave us!”

    “And the single malt Max gave ya—yeah. Well, do ya?”

    “Go on, ya talked me into it.”

    … “The turkey was good, eh?” said Sean reflectively as the levels in the cans sank.

    “Mm? Yeah, was—yeah. Uh, what didja mean, if Shannon takes up with him?”

    “She hasn’t yet, or she’d of gone in the tent with him,” said Sean simply. “See, I reckon she only invited him to make that Rick Weaver jealous.”

    “Uh—cripes. Well, uh, which one did she invite first?”

    “Rick, of course,” he said placidly.

    Dan sagged,

    Sean had thought that one might go over rather well. He drank beer silently, not allowing himself to smile. And not pointing out that if A was true B was not necessarily untrue. Or that Shannon couldn’t stay Dad’s funny little pet all her life and that it was about time he resigned himself to the fact she was grown up and hadda make her own messes like the rest of them.

    “Oy,” said Dan slowly at last.

    “Yeah?” replied Sean, trying to look neutral.

    “Did you—now, this may only be the galloping paranoia of approaching old age—”

    “Goes with the Alzheimer’s, yeah,” he agreed calmly.

    “Y—Shut up! Did you by any wild chance ask Murray about last Christmas because you thought it was about time Felicity realised he was Jewish?”

    Sean shrugged.

    “By God! You devious bastard!”

    “Well, not only that: I thought I better bring it out in the open, ’cos none of the rest of them seemed to have realised it, either. Well, Max had, but he’s bright,” said Dan’s only son tolerantly.

    “Didn’t it occur that it would have been better left buried for all time?”

    “No,” replied Sean simply.

    Dan breathed heavily.

    “Have another one, Dad,” suggested Sean mildly.

    “Sean, don’t dare to manage me,” he warned.

    “Somebody’s gotta!” choked Sean, breaking down in helpless sniggers at last.

    Dan sighed. Bright though he was, the silly young sod didn’t realise that bringing things out in the open and recognising other people’s right to know didn’t actually work in real life.

    “Dad,” said Sean cautiously to the brooding silence, “would it of been better to of left it until he wanted to have the first boy circumcised—or Bar-Mitzvahed, if she thought the other was only medical?”

    “Probably, yeah,” said Dan heavily. “Only you’re too young to be able to see it. Go on, get them in,” he groaned.

    Tolerantly Sean got up to get his paranoid, gaga old man another frostie.

    Pete appeared in the bedroom doorway looking cautious. “They’re back.”

    Jan roused, blinking. “What’s the time?”

    “’Bout six. Don’t worry, a sandwich and a glass of mineral water around seven-thirtyish’ll be the most any of them’ll be able to manage after that great spread! Uh, no, thought you might wanna know: the kids have come back. With Krish and Ghillywaine, this time.”

    “Pete, it’s their teatime!” she gasped, bolt upright. “He’ll kill them!”

    Pete cleared his throat. “No, ’e won’t: he’s not there. Gone off to another conference.”

    “What? Sabrina never mentioned it!”

    “No, uh, when didja speak to her? Twenny-third, right?” She nodded groggily and he said: “Well, according to Tim he took off just a bit later that day. Dumped the four-wheel-drive at the airport—this means they’re without transport, incidentally—flew up to Auckland and caught a direct flight to Bangkok. Well, direct: via Sydney, Darwin, Singapore—”

    “Pete! Stop blathering! He can’t have gone overseas, he’d have had to book months back for a flight at this time of year!”

    Pete looked very, very dry.

    “Oh, good God,” said Jan limply. “You mean the sod never mentioned it to Sabrina?”

    “You got it. That’s not all: guess who he’s taken with him?”

    “Babette,” said Jan heavily.

    “No, she’s really out of favour,” he said significantly.

    “Will ya just spit it out, Pete!”

    “Sorry, love. He found out Wilhelm’s not his some time back but the sod must’ve been saving it up for an appropriate moment, which apparently came round about the time Sabrina was handing over those ducks. He’s taken Kamala and that younger sister of hers that came down on what some of us thought was only a holiday—must be doing her, as well,” he noted by the by. “Babette’s been in floods of tears ever since—Tim finally got it out of her that the sod ordered her to be gone by the time he gets back.”

    “Pete, she’s got nowhere to go! Her family are strict Brethrens or something: they’ve disowned her!” she gasped.

    “Yeah, the sort that don’t let their girls wear lipstick. So she hadda latch onto bloody Terry that won’t let her wear lipstick either. Yeah, well, her and Harmony and Holmgren and little Wilhelm are supposed to be out of it within the next two weeks.”

    “That’s terrible.”

    “Mm. Um, well, at least we can give the kids some tea, eh?”

    “What? Oh! I’ll say!” Jan swung her legs off the bed, looking determined. “Where are they?”

    “Out on the patio. Nokomis is showing Goldie and assorted moos that stuffed toy ya got her. Whaddis it?”

    Jan smiled weakly. “It’s a Christmas bear, Pete.”

    “It’s white,” he said groggily.

    “Yes: not a teddy bear, a Christmas bear, they were on special at the supermarket—well, it’s an American idea, I think. I was afraid it might be a bit young for her.”

    “No, it’s gone down a treat.”

    “Good.”

    “Got anything for Ghillywaine and Krish?”

    “Good Heavens, the poor little brutes must think—” Jan rushed past him.

    Pete followed slowly, scratching his narrow jaw. Babette had no dough, because bloody Terry didn’t dole out cash money to the concubines—or to poor Sabrina, come to that—and Tim had just told him that he only had nine dollars sixty-five in change to his name… Shit.

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