She, Susan and Rob had spread their rug on the ground not too far from the public toilets. Though well out of nappies, Susan was still occasionally caught short, especially when she was excited, and Louise didn’t want to have to spend her afternoon traipsing all over the Domain for the loos.
‘Nice car,’ Rob commented. It was a lovely, warm day and he was dying for a beer.
Daisy and Terry were sitting next to them, Daisy wearing the yellow halter-neck sun frock she’d made especially. It was an A-line with the waist starting quite high and concealed her little bump nicely.
‘Doesn’t Mrs Max look lovely,’ she said as the Jones family alighted from their car. ‘And what lovely children. I bet they’re well behaved.’
‘I bet they aren’t. No one has perfect children, Daisy,’ Louise said, keeping an eye on Susan, who had found an ants’ nest at the base of a tree and was poking it energetically with a stick.
‘Is that Allie and Sonny?’ Terry asked, shielding his eyes against the sun and watching a motorbike cruising down the hill. ‘Crikey, that’s an Indian Chief. When did Sonny get that?’
‘Beaut motorbike,’ Rob said in admiration, when Sonny and Allie joined them.
‘Yeah, it’s all right, eh?’ Sonny replied, and he, Terry and Rob wandered over to have a look at it.
‘You look a box of birds, Allie,’ said Daisy.
‘Do I?’
‘Good night out, was it?’ Louise asked knowingly.
Allie, her cheeks going pink, nodded.
‘Where was it, in the end?’
‘At his mum’s house, in Kitemoana Street.’
‘Really?’ Louise pulled a dubious face. ‘How was that?’
‘It was really good, actually. He’s got a huge family and they were nearly all there and there was a huge feed, a hangi, and guitars and all sorts. It was fun.’
‘Did you meet his parents?’ Daisy asked.
‘Well, his father’s passed away but I met his mother.’
‘Was she nice?’
Allie hesitated. ‘She’s, um, very straightforward. But, yes, she was nice.’
‘What sort of house do they live in? Was it…clean?’
‘Don’t be silly, Daisy. It was fine. Isn’t Irene here yet?’
As if on cue, Irene and Martin appeared, walking across the grass from the direction of the museum.
‘Oh…my…God,’ Louise said, unable to take her eyes off Irene.
Neither, it appeared, could anyone else as heads rapidly turned in her direction.
‘What the hell has she got on?’ Louise asked.
What Irene had on was an eye-watering flamingo-pink ‘play suit’. The shorts sat snugly on her waist but ended only inches below her buttocks, giving everyone an eyeful of her firm, bare thighs. The top was a sleeveless shirt, with several buttons undone to display plenty of cleavage, and tied under the bust to show off her enviably flat midriff. On her feet were matching pink high-heeled wedge sandals, and her hair was tied back with a pink-and-black-patterned chiffon scarf. Martin walked a few feet behind her, very unselfconsciously, Allie thought, given that nearly five hundred people were staring at them.
‘Hi!’ Irene called out as they approached.
Bug-eyed, Sonny, Terry and Rob managed to say hello.
Martin produced a rug from the bag he was carrying, laid it on the grass with a flourish, and he and Irene sat down.
‘Love your outfit,’ Louise said.
‘Yes, it’s fun, isn’t it?’ Irene replied. Catching the expression on Louise’s face, she laughed. ‘Well, someone has to make a spectacle of themselves today, so I thought it might as well be me.’
‘I really like it,’ Daisy said, enviously eyeing Irene’s flat stomach.
‘Hello, Martin,’ Allie said.
She’d met Martin several times before and, to her surprise, had found she rather liked him. Based on Irene’s frequent complaints, she’d been expecting some boring old bloke with no sense of humour and terrible dress sense, but he was only in his late twenties, and was actually quite nice-looking, even if he did wear glasses, and in her opinion his clothes always looked fine. Conservative, yes, but nicely cut and of very good quality.
‘Hi, Allie. How are you?’ Martin’s voice was warm.
‘Good, thanks. I don’t think you’ve met my boyfriend, Sonny Manaia?’ Boyfriend: even just the word gave Allie a warm and slightly smug feeling of pride and happiness.
Martin shook hands with Sonny. He already knew Rob and Terry.
‘Good day for it,’ he said.
‘What time’s the food?’ Irene asked. ‘I’m so hungry I could eat a baby’s bum through the bars of a cot.’
‘Irene!’ Daisy exclaimed, a hand protectively on her belly.
‘What? Oh, sorry, but I haven’t had anything to eat for hours.’
‘Looks like they’re getting it ready now,’ Terry said, nodding towards the vans where the caterers were unloading trestle tables, stacks of plates, serving utensils, boxes and trays of food and various other bits and pieces.
In fifteen minutes it had all been set up, and the word went around that everyone was to collect a plate and form orderly queues at the ends of the tables.
‘Look, there’s Miss Willow and Miss Button,’ Daisy said as they were waiting in line. She waved enthusiastically.
When they’d loaded up their plates with sandwiches, sausage rolls, savouries and cake, and grapes and watermelon from the enormous fruit platter, they returned to their rugs and sat down to enjoy it. Then there were cups of tea or coffee from several enormous urns, and cigarette smoke rose as everyone lounged about in the sunshine.
As the caterers began to clear away the picnic things, Mr Max, who had eaten his lunch with his own family and those of the very upper echelon of Dunbar & Jones’s management hierarchy, moved to the centre of the mosaic of rugs, blankets and deckchairs and made an announcement.
‘Shortly,’ he began, almost shouting so that everyone could hear him, ‘we’ll start the afternoon’s games off with an egg-and-spoon race, followed by a three-legged race, a sack race and then light-the-cigarette. Children will have their own special games, of course. For those of you who don’t want to tear up and down the sportsfield making fools of yourselves’—polite laughter from everyone—‘there will be cricket, quoits and croquet. Lastly, I’ve heard it rumoured, and this is mainly for the benefit of the little ones here today, that…’ he paused, stretching the moment out as long as possible, ‘that, yes, Santa Claus himself will be putting in an appearance!’
All around him, children, not all coached by their parents, let out an enthusiastic ‘Yay!’
Mr Max beamed. ‘Yes, that’s right! And, I believe he might just have a little something for all of you!’
A very hearty ‘Yay!’ this time.
‘So, grown-ups, perhaps we should now get under way. Oh, and thank you all very much for putting in such a lot of hard work during the year, and especially that concerning the preparations for Her Majesty’s arrival on Wednesday, which I’m sure you’re all looking forward to as much as my family and I are.’
There was a round of applause, and everyone made a move towards the sportsfield.
‘He’s a good sort, Mr Max, isn’t he?’ Daisy said. ‘And of course, hats, dresses and lingerie will win the prize again.’
Irene snorted. ‘Not likely. Accounts and typists have got some strong runners this year.’
‘Except that no one will be doing much actual running, will they?’ Allie countered. ‘Not while they’re balancing eggs or with their legs tied to someone else’s.’
The department whose individual members accrued the most points in the games would receive an engraved trophy and a free morning tea in the cafeteria for every person. After the competition’s inaugural year, there had been complaints that chocolates and condiments, for example, hadn’t had a hope of competing successfully against a department as big as, say, floorings, so now the departments had been divided up in
to more or less equal groups, which meant that Allie, Louise and Daisy were on the same team. Only Irene was in a different group.
As announced, the egg-and-spoon was first. There were several dozen heats in each event, but fortunately each race only covered fifty yards. Daisy, who refused to run properly in case she jiggled the baby, came last in hers, but Irene, who was a powerful runner once she kicked her sandals off, and who had very good hand-eye co-ordination, won hers.
None of them did well in the sack race, they were laughing so much, but Allie and Louise both came first in their heats in the three-legged race, although Allie whacked Sonny on the nose with her elbow and made his eyes water, and grazed her knee when she fell over at the end. The light-the-cigarette race was possibly the most fun, and the most dangerous, though it did preclude non-smokers. The idea was that teams of equal numbers lined up, a lit cigarette was handed to the first ones to go, who then belted down the field to their partner or team-mate waiting at the other end, who had to light a cigarette off the first one, without anyone using their hands. A bit of fun for those grabbing the opportunity for a quick cuddle, much hilarity for spectators, and the odd cigarette burn.
At two-thirty, the games adjourned for afternoon tea and everyone collapsed onto their rugs. Irene, noticing that Vince Reynolds had moved his rug closer to hers and Martin’s, even though he had brought his trout of a wife Cynthia with him, set about tidying her hair and applying fresh lipstick. Sonny and Allie lay on their backs, surreptitiously holding hands, staring up at the sky and telling each other what shapes the clouds were. Rob was talking to Terry about cars while Louise and Daisy had taken Susan for a walk to the toilet. Ted Horrocks was tucking into a slice of fruit cake and telling his wife that it wasn’t a patch on hers, and Ruby Willow and Beatrice Button were trying to decide whether the caterers had used real tea or those dreadful new bags Lipton had put out. The latter, they suspected.
Max Jones was sitting quietly, watching everyone and congratulating himself on another successful staff Christmas party and wishing it could always be like this—everyone happy and working together and having a good time.
Keith Beaumont, who had come with his wife and was sitting on the outskirts of the managerial party, had worked himself into a state of considerable anxiety. Max Jones had been staring at him on and off all day. Did he somehow know? He couldn’t, Keith was sure of it, but that dread was still there, eating away at him like a particularly virulent cancer. And he couldn’t even go and place a bet to alleviate his discomfort because it was Sunday and nothing was running. The best he could do was to keep on topping up his orange squash with gin and hope that no one would notice. Nora had, and had been giving him some very quizzical looks, which only reminded him of the extent to which he was letting her down.
Irene waited until Cynthia had turned away to talk to someone, then caught Vince’s eye; he raised one eyebrow, then nodded almost imperceptibly. Then he got up, brushed off his trousers and sauntered towards the toilets. Irene gave it a minute, announced that she was absolutely bursting and walked off after him.
Allie, sitting up and ferreting through her handbag for her cigarettes, saw the whole thing. Appalled, she glanced at Martin. He was lying propped on one elbow with his ankles crossed, stripping the leaves off a twig and looking after his wife. He turned his head and met Allie’s gaze.
She swallowed, wanting suddenly, desperately, to say that she was sorry.
‘It’s all right,’ Martin said, sitting up. ‘I know.’
Allie stared at him.
‘Well, I know about these little “entanglements” she has.’ He gave a rueful little smile. ‘But, you see, I don’t want to lose her.’
Irene followed the little concrete path around the back of the toilet block to the ladies’ entrance, smiling at Daisy, Louise and Susan as they came out, and out of the corner of her eye saw Vince standing a short distance away, half concealed behind some bushes. She waited until the others had gone, then hurried over to him, her sandals crunching over dead leaves and desiccated undergrowth.
He drew her further into the shelter of the bushes. ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘I thought I was never going to give her the slip.’ Running his hands up and down her back, he covered her face with kisses. ‘What about your husband? Did he notice?’
Irene laughed. ‘No, he never notices anything I do.’
Plucking feverishly at the knot of fabric under her bust, Vince said, ‘Quick, we’ve only got about five minutes.’ He yanked open her shirt and pushed her bra up, groaning as her breasts were exposed.
‘Five minutes for what?’ Irene said, startled.
Vince’s hand snaked down and cupped her pubic bone. ‘For this, darling, for this.’
‘What? No, not here!’
‘We’ll be all right, love, it’ll only take a minute.’ He grabbed her hand and pushed it against his erection. ‘See?’
‘But someone might catch us!’ Irene was uncharacteristically disconcerted: she’d assumed they’d only be having a slap and a tickle, not that he would want this. Not here.
‘Oh, God, Irene, please,’ he begged. He grasped her hands. ‘Look, I’m going to talk to my wife. I can’t keep on like this, seeing you every day and not being able to have you. I’m going to tell her I want a divorce.’
Irene’s mouth fell open. ‘A divorce?’
Vince nodded. ‘We’ll run away. I’ve got money put aside. We’ll go to Australia—I’ve got contacts there.’ His face lit up. ‘Or what about America? Would you like to go to America, Irene? We could make a fortune—they say anyone can there!’ He shook her, but not too hard. ‘Don’t you understand? I love you! And I have to have you!’
Irene slid her arms around his neck, so that her face was only inches away from his. She felt overwhelmed by his admission. He might have been half-joking the last time he’d said it, but he meant it now, she was sure of it. ‘I love you, too, Vince, I really do,’ she said, and kissed him urgently.
‘Then let me make love to you, Irene.’
She wanted to say yes, desperate to savour that heady sensation of victory and power as her body reduced him to a gasping, quivering mess, but, oh Christ, not here, not in the bushes outside the Auckland Domain public toilets.
‘If you really loved me you’d wait until tomorrow,’ she murmured into his ear, her body pressed hard against him. ‘We could go down to the basement again at lunchtime.’
He groaned in frustration. ‘I can’t wait until then. At least help me, Irene,’ he said, grasping her hand again and pushing it down the front of his trousers.
And, overcome by visions of the two of them running off together, to a place where they could start a new life and make plenty of money and buy everything they wanted—a big house, a flash car, clothes and maybe even jewels for her—she did what he wanted.
‘That wasn’t bad, was it, for a work do?’ Allie said. ‘Wasn’t Mr Max good with the kids?’
‘Yeah, he’s not a bad bloke. For a boss,’ Sonny replied.
‘I really enjoyed myself. The races were a laugh.’
‘Not as much fun as last night, though.’
Allie smiled. ‘No, it wasn’t, was it?’
The picnic had finished and they were having an ice cream at Mission Bay on the way home.
‘Everything all right?’ he asked, nodding down at her stomach.
‘A bit sore this morning, but my you-know-what started, so that’s all right.’
‘Jesus, I’ll say,’ Sonny said, and breathed an enormous sigh of relief.
Allie looked at him. ‘I thought you said you weren’t worried?’
‘I lied.’
‘But what about what you said about not being able to fall just before a period? Did you just make that up?’
‘No. But, you know, sometimes what you want isn’t what you get.’
Allie thought about that for a minute. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. I suppose anything can happen sometimes, things you’ve never even thought about
.’
‘You’ve got ice cream on your nose.’
‘Have I?’ Allie nearly went cross-eyed trying to see.
Sonny wiped the little blob of hokey-pokey off with the tip of his finger. Then he kissed her, tasting it on her lips. ‘We would have been all right, though, Allie. No matter what.’
Part Two
Fire
Chapter Twelve
Monday, 21 December 1953
In the kitchen of her parents’ house in Grey Lynn, Daisy did her best to force down a piece of dry toast, but gave up after only a few bites.
Her mother, standing over her in her dressing gown, frowned. ‘You have to eat something, Daisy. You can’t go to work on an empty stomach.’
‘I know, Mum. I’ve tried, I really have.’
‘What about a boiled egg?’
At the thought of the runny yellow yoke and the possibly undercooked white, all watery and stringy, Daisy gagged. Her hand over her mouth, she shook her head.
Agnes Farr shook her own head, but in despair. Daisy had bitterly disappointed her, but now that it had happened, she was determined that the wedding would go ahead with as much dignity as possible, even if people did suspect why her daughter was walking down the aisle at such short notice. Daisy’s dress was going to be tasteful and elegant, the flowers would be perfect, the food memorable and the whole day something that would do the Farr family proud.
‘A cup of tea, then? With sugar,’ she suggested.
Daisy shoved her chair back and lurched out of the kitchen, heading for the toilet. The door slammed and Agnes heard her retching. She put the kettle on.
When Daisy came back, her face pale and her hands shaking slightly, she said, ‘At least I got it out before work this time.’
Agnes didn’t answer. Daisy might have been stupid enough to get herself in the family way, but that didn’t mean that the pair of them had to sit around discussing it as though it were some happy, planned event mother and daughter could share. She would talk about the wedding, yes, but not the baby. It was wrong, and it was humiliating, having a daughter so simple-minded and…lustful that she could fall into such an old trap. On the other hand, Daisy had to look after herself. If she didn’t, that would be just one more thing for people to talk about.
Fire Page 19
