Loving Ways

by Gee, Maurice

  She made no answer – tipped a load of diced vegetables into the pan. I’ll have to be less personal, he thought.

  ‘How’s the harvest going? Is it a good year?’

  ‘Not bad.’

  ‘As good as last?’

  ‘Better. We lost a lot in the hail last year. Are you interested?’

  ‘Not the way you are, I guess. What comes after the Galas?’

  ‘Golden Delicious. Red Delicious.’

  ‘Then Sturmers. Then Grannies.’

  ‘We don’t have Sturmers now. Braeburns. If you want to do some picking you can. I’m short since Freda quit.’

  She surprised him, until he saw it was not friendliness. She wanted to get her crop in. And perhaps he need not be paid.

  ‘I’m thinking of going across to see your mother tomorrow.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I’d quite like to see Dad’s doctor too.’

  She turned from the stove. ‘What for?’

  ‘Well, to find out how he is. Get a report.’

  ‘Do you think I’m not doing a good enough job?’

  ‘No –’

  ‘Anyway, it’s none of your business. Can you look at me and honestly say it is?’

  She had been ferocious, then it was gone; she asked the question in a reasonable way. But he had seen his father, seen his anger, in her face. It had put a burning in her eyes and a new contour on her forehead; unfleshed her jaw; refined her. Genetic connection. Macpherson face. The old man need not fear that she did not descend from him.

  ‘I’ve been away for too long. I know I’ve got no rights,’ he said.

  She stirred the vegetables and meat, checked rice in a pan. ‘I look after him as well as I can.’

  ‘I can see.’

  ‘There’s no one else. My mother won’t help.’

  ‘Do you blame her for that?’

  ‘No, I don’t. She’s got her own life. So has Freda.’

  ‘Has May told you why she ran away from here?’

  ‘We don’t talk. But I’d run away too if he was my father.’ She turned and looked at him. ‘We’ve got a business arrangement. There’s nothing personal even if he is my grandfather.’ He saw her pause to consider that, and become a little puzzled by it.

  ‘You like him though?’ he said.

  ‘I love him. But what I mean … it’s not because we’re related. He could be any old man.’

  So by personal she meant having a sense of duty. Looked at that way, his visit was personal, even though he made it without love, or even liking.

  ‘He taught me how to run this place,’ Heather said. ‘There’s nothing else I want to do.’ She flashed a smile at him, and again he saw his father’s face – although his father grinned, never smiled. ‘I don’t even like apples. Not to eat, I mean.’

  Alan laughed. ‘I’m not sure what you do is grow apples here. Not the old way.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Her smile was gone.

  ‘Stringing them on wires. They look as if they’re chained to a wall. The inquisition.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said.

  ‘No, I probably don’t.’

  ‘If you want to help, you can set the table. Just placemats and forks. I hope you don’t mind eating in the kitchen.’

  ‘I do at home.’

  ‘Put out that bottle of soy sauce.’

  He obeyed. She had, as Freda had said, a taste for command.

  ‘We’re up with modern methods on this orchard,’ she said. ‘So don’t you come in and criticise.’

  There was no pudding, which did not displease him. He had stopped eating big meals after Phoebe – stopped doing anything to excess. There was though, he thought, something excessive about being here, about returning, and getting tangled up in people’s lives.

  ‘Is something amusing you?’

  ‘No. Nothing,’ he said. ‘You needn’t worry about me, you know. I’ve got no claim on anything here.’

  ‘You mean the orchard?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘That’s the way I see it too.’

  She met his eyes, showing a deep clearness in her own, and he saw that she dismissed him; had, perhaps, understood his lack of threat before he declared it. Although he was not pleased, he was amused. She was, he thought, cunning and simple; she read conditions well and knew how to move in matters of self-interest. He did not dislike her, yet would not spend much time with her if he could help it.

  ‘I can’t answer for my brother,’ he said.

  ‘David?’ She dismissed him too, with a shrug. ‘Let’s not talk as if Robert’s dead. He might be around for years yet.’

  Later, when he looked into the sunroom, he saw her feeding his father mashed rice and vegetables from a porridge bowl. The old man ate like a child, pushing his mouth forward greedily. His false teeth clacked on the spoon. Heather wiped his mouth with a paper napkin.

  ‘Nice?’ she said.

  ‘Nice,’ Robert Macpherson replied.

  MAY

  I’m tired of peaches, May thought, it’s time I did some painting. She wanted to put land and sea together; paint the contest, paint the uneasy love between them – the knifing rock, the bursting wave, the overwhelming tide. Instead of fleshy orbs pumped with juice, and peonies, fat peonies, overblown, with leaves like lazy fingers holding them. Evan and she had chosen these subjects with care: committee decision. Something colourful and succulent (her word); something to sell. Maybe Junior Mott had a point.

  Evan was busy at the mould with another dish – fish dish – and Sally was in the showroom, humming like a pretty little housewife, feather-dusting. No customers yet. The season was winding down and soon they would let Sally go and be by themselves and May would sit in the upstairs studio and paint, and take her sketchpad out when it was fine, down to the estuary, mud and crabs and shrimps and lapping water and trees hanging on in rocky coves, or out to Wharariki and the islands pierced through. It opened out her mind and blew clean air in all the folds to think of Wharariki in the sun.

  ‘I’ll finish now,’ she said. ‘I’d better do lunch.’

  ‘What are you making?’

  ‘A salad. And a quiche. That should be enough.’

  He looked at her, head a little on one side, estimating. ‘Nervous?’ he said.

  ‘No.’ Then she smiled at him, because he knew. ‘Just a bit.’

  ‘I don’t think this one will want to fight.’

  ‘He’d better not. He’s a soldier, though. At least, he was.’

  ‘We’ll put out a white flag. Shall I call Christine as reinforcements?’

  ‘Leave her. Hold her in reserve.’

  She walked to the house, feeling easier in her mind. She had got through half a lifetime since Alan had gone away. That was statistical, near enough, and the years stood like a block of stone and would not be moved. How many times had her cells been renewed? Those early days, the memories, were reduced and locked away and she, the new May, held the key. There was no need to let them out.

  She made the quiche, made the salad – salade Nicoise – and found herself, when they were done, with time on her hands. She should go back and do another tile; or sell a vase, combat her possessiveness; but sat down with her sketchpad and drew herself rowing on the inlet. Put strength in her rigid arms and her bending back. Made it a buoyant tide, lifting the dinghy. I’ll do some tile paintings, she thought, six tiles, one of them with me – no, a woman – in the boat. Red roofs over here. Rocks and trees. Mud and rushes. A cabbage tree. She roughed it in, on a grid, and looked for Evan then to show it to. He had wanted her to try this sort of thing. She crossed the yard, avoiding a car turning wide for a parking space. Then she saw the driver was a man, and at once thought, Alan, and wanted to run and be with Evan when they met. She stopped and waited, turning over the pad to hide her drawing. Running was no use. She must not turn Evan into a shelter, but manage this alone, at least the first part. Remember, she told herself, ever
ything has changed, you’re someone new.

  He stepped out of the car and left the door hanging. A tall man, military of course, in a casual way – short-sleeved shirt, no tie – but over-neat for all that, too well pressed for her taste.

  ‘May?’ he said. ‘I’m Alan.’

  She transferred her pad, thrust out her hand. There would be no kissing. ‘Hello.’

  He wanted to kiss her; had expected to. She saw him readjust. But he was stubborn. He held her hand a moment before letting it go.

  ‘I would have recognised you,’ he said.

  ‘I find that a little hard to believe.’ Did not want to believe it. Surely she had changed.

  ‘I can’t tell what it is. It’s no one thing.’ Studying her. ‘How are you, May?’

  ‘Very well.’ Better than when you saw me last, she would have liked to say. She did not care for his assumption that they would be easy with each other. Yet she did not feel the resentment she had expected and she was pleased about that, pleased with herself. He’s not going to upset me, she thought, looking at him as though he were down a slope from her and must pick his way up. She could hold out her hand to help him, but would not. Not yet.

  ‘You found the place all right?’

  ‘Oh, yes. No trouble.’ He was startled that she should want that sort of conversation, and she rather liked the sidelong look he gave, assessing her.

  ‘It’s an interesting drive over the hill.’ She spoke with pleasure, almost elation, punishing him without the need to.

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Lovely views. Come and meet Evan.’

  ‘Yes, I’d like to. He’s your …’

  ‘Partner. Both sorts. Business and – ‘ could not find a word – ‘other things.’ Her clumsiness destroyed her control. ‘Come on,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve met your daughter, Heather. She’s an interesting girl.’

  ‘Woman,’ May said. ‘Yes, she is. Evan’s not her father, if that’s what you want to know.’

  Then they were inside and the men were shaking hands, and you couldn’t tell, as you sometimes could with women, whether they were going to like each other. She would prefer that they did. And she saw suddenly that Alan had not assumed she would be easy with him, but had suggested, requested it. She understood how difficult this meeting was for him.

  ‘We built all this from scratch, Evan and me,’ she said.

  ‘It’s very impressive.’

  ‘I’ll take you on a tour later on. Come across to the house.’

  ‘Can I have a look in there first? Are those the things you make?’

  She followed him into the showroom, where Sally was trying out her German on some tourists, but stopped at the entrance and let him find his way. Evan came up beside her.

  ‘Maybe we’ve got a customer,’ he whispered.

  ‘I think he’s nervous.’

  ‘I don’t believe in nervous lieutenant-colonels.’

  ‘He’s retired.’

  She took his hand and squeezed and felt the pressure returned. They conspired in a way that made her want to grin: juvenile.

  ‘Left turn,’ Evan whispered. ‘He’s got a ramrod up his bum.’

  ‘Give him a chance.’

  Sally took the German couple past them to the counter and wrapped a fish plate for them, explaining how to get it home unbroken. Alan had the showroom to himself. He stopped at the end wall, where her paintings hung. She grew tense. As always, she feared interest and indifference equally. His hands were clasped behind his back – Duke of Edinburgh. He leaned forward from the hips to read her signature.

  ‘You did these?’

  ‘Yes,’ May said.

  ‘Are they local scenes?’

  She left Evan and walked to his side. ‘Most of them.’

  ‘They’re good. No one told me you painted.’

  ‘I don’t do much. Half a dozen a year.’

  ‘Did you go to art school?’

  ‘No. Just the polytech, for half a year. I’m a dropout.’

  He went two pictures back, past the spit, past the inlet, to Wharariki beach, $650, middle-sized. ‘Where’s this?’

  ‘They’re the Archway Islands at Wharariki. On the coast, south of Farewell Spit.’

  ‘I like it. It’s full of – fight, I suppose.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘I mean the sea against the land. But restful, in the end. Long term. You need a kind of tension to be still.’

  ‘Is that what you see?’

  ‘I think so. I’d like to buy it.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’ She was embarrassed.

  ‘It is for sale? I mean, it’s got a price.’

  She looked at his rounded, freckled forehead. Macpherson eyes. Macpherson jaw. And his big-lobed Robert Macpherson ears. She was not sure she wanted close connection, or her painting going off with him. Yet she could not keep down her pleasure at what he had seen.

  Evan bustled up. Stop it, Evan, don’t rub your hands, May pleaded. ‘That’s one of her best ones.’

  ‘I didn’t know I had a talented sister.’

  ‘She’s creative. She’s done a really big one of Wharariki, not for sale. It’s in the house. All these are for sale.’

  ‘I’d like to see it.’

  ‘Come and I’ll make some coffee,’ May said. Evan, keep quiet, stop trying to sell me, she warned with her eyes.

  ‘Shall I pack up this painting?’ he said to Alan.

  ‘Yes. Please.’

  ‘No. Later,’ May said. ‘I’ll be calling you for lunch soon. Please leave it.’

  She took Alan outside and waited while he fetched a bottle of wine from his car.

  ‘I brought this. I thought you might like …’

  ‘Yes. Thank you. Not with lunch or else I’ll want to sleep all afternoon. How’s Dad?’

  He made a small grimace, surprising in a face that would normally be still. She remembered him still-faced as a boy.

  ‘I’d managed to forget him,’ he said.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘I went to see his doctor. Find out the prognosis.’

  ‘They’re cagey, doctors. But it’s some sort of heart degeneration, isn’t it? He’s running down. They can’t do surgery even if he’d have it. How’s Freda getting on with him?’

  ‘She seems all right.’ His gesture was surprising too: of bewilderment, in a man used, she would say, to being sure. ‘There’s a lot of new people to take in.’

  ‘Don’t let them get you down. Sit there. I’ll get coffee. Look at the view.’

  Bossy, she thought, that keeps him off. And it kept her from being agitated. There was a little hum of satisfaction in her at his response to her painting. She put the wine in the fridge, made coffee, took the tray to the lounge and asked him how he liked it.

  ‘Black. No sugar.’ He nodded at the painting on the wall. ‘I like that too. But I like mine.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘This looks like an earlier one. You hadn’t quite got yourself together.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Still the girl slinking in the trees. See? The rocks, they’re sly. And the holes in the islands don’t go anywhere.’

  ‘They don’t anyway.’ Girl slinking in the trees? The words rang in her and made her want to cry. Ugly and beautiful – made her want to cry. She put his coffee down and went to the bathroom, where she wet a flannel and washed her face. Be still, she said. Just talk business with him. Talk about Dad.

  ‘I’m sorry, did I upset you?’ he asked when she came back.

  ‘No, I’m all right. How’s your coffee? Tell me about Dad.’

  ‘I think you know more than me.’

  ‘I only found out he was sick a couple of days ago. What did he want to see you for?’

  He sipped and put his mug down, slopping coffee on the table. Apologised. He did not look like a man who made mistakes; he’s off balance, she thought. He’s closer than he likes, closer to someone, to me. It’s got him spilling things. She
imagined that normally his physical movements would be sure, and economical, just sufficient but decisive with it. I’ve put his timing off, she thought; or is there something he’s got to say that he doesn’t want to? If he can say ‘girl in the trees’ he can say anything. If he can say ‘slinking’.

  ‘He wanted to see me and talk about things. But he’s confused. He says one thing and then he says the other.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Heather. And you. I think Heather is remarkable. The way she runs the orchard and looks after Dad.’

  ‘Is it about the orchard, who gets it when he’s gone?’

  ‘Partly that. He wants Heather to have it. I think that’s in his will.’

  ‘Do you object?’

  ‘No, not for a moment.’

  ‘You know it’s worth millions, don’t you? There’s enough for everyone to have a bit.’ She did not want to talk about this. She wanted him to hurt her again, with another image; and please her, uncover her childhood: give her words like slinking – so lovely, catlike, secret, promising. But she had shifted him away from that and did not know how to move him back.

  ‘It’s hard to make people understand,’ he said. ‘But I walked away from all that years ago. I can’t walk in now and say some of it’s mine.’

  ‘Are you well off? Are you rich?’

  ‘No. I’ve got enough. I get by.’

  ‘Money overcomes all arguments. I feel the same as you, but I’d take some of it if it came my way.’

  ‘I wouldn’t.’ Again he was clumsy with his mug. ‘It’s not for Heather’s sake, although I like her. But it would cancel everything out.’

  ‘Doesn’t coming back cancel things?’

  ‘Not completely. It makes changes.’

  ‘Are you married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No children?’

  ‘No. Even if I had I wouldn’t want it.’ He half turned away and seemed to look at the inlet, but May could tell his focus was somewhere else. He was, she thought, grave and remote in his nature: it fitted with her memory of him, although she would add a string – selfish, cold, indifferent, callous, on and on, for the time back there – but he had been pulled in close, closer than he liked, by his journey south, by his journey home, and his gravity was disturbed. A little pain perhaps? A little excitement at the promiscuity of relationships and desires?