Dinner at Rose's

by Danielle Hawkins

  ‘A couple of weeks? She’s got one more chemo appointment, and then it’ll take a little while for her to stop feeling like crap.’

  He grunted in that eloquent way boys do – I’ve met some who could carry on entire conversations without articulating a single word – and dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

  ‘If you pick out a new girlfriend you can spend all your time at her place,’ I suggested. According to my source (i.e. Amber, who was part of the group that spent their Friday nights at the Frisky Possum, Waimanu’s leading – and only – cafe-bar) both Anna Williams and Ngaire Swainson were showing signs of interest in my young flatmate.

  ‘Yeah, but then you’ve got to talk to them.’ He shook his head as he considered the unreasonable demands of girlfriends. ‘Pretend to be interested in their new haircut, tell them they look skinny – all that crap.’

  ‘Andy, you’re such a gentleman,’ I said. ‘So sweet and sensitive. It warms my heart, it really does.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, and grinned.

  ‘I’d have thought that getting your leg over would have made up for having to talk about clothes and hair.’

  ‘Man, you’re crude,’ said Andy admiringly.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said in turn.

  ‘HEY, JOSIE,’ SAID Kim as I opened Rose’s kitchen door. ‘Need a hand?’

  ‘No thanks, I’m good.’ I put my bag down and turned to scratch Percy behind the ears. It seemed the least I could do, considering he had got up out of his warm bed in the woodshed to escort me from the car to the house. ‘Hi, Hazel. How was your trip?’

  ‘Come in, Josie dear,’ she said reproachfully. ‘There’s a cold draught blowing onto poor Rose’s feet.’

  I closed the door, shutting out a wistful pig, and Aunty Rose looked at me from her seat on the chaise longue with just a flicker of a smile.

  ‘The trip was good, thank you,’ Hazel went on, ‘although the heat was a little trying. And Nan’s not the easiest of women. Very selfish and demanding.’ Well, maybe. And maybe not.

  ‘Your room’s all ready, sweet pea,’ said Aunty Rose.

  ‘Thank you.’ I went across the kitchen to kiss her hello and got a waft of Chanel No. 5. ‘You smell so nice. I wish I had a signature scent.’

  ‘You do,’ said Kim. ‘That anti-flamme stuff. Sort of pepperminty.’

  I grimaced – not really a fragrance redolent of feminine beauty and allure.

  ‘Your mother called,’ Aunty Rose told me. ‘She had a good flight home, and she says your father and the dog have both put on about a stone in her absence.’

  I smiled. They would have, too – Dad and Toby the Jack Russell, when left to their own devices, spent their evenings sitting side by side on the couch and eating chips by the jumbo-sized packet. Dad flicked every second chip up in the air and Toby caught it. ‘Poor things,’ I said. ‘She’ll have them both on skim milk and salad for a month.’ It really was lucky that my father tolerated and even enjoyed being micromanaged. I asked him once how he put up with it and he smiled sweetly and said, ‘I can get my own way if I need to, young Jo, don’t you worry.’

  ‘It was kind of her to come,’ said Hazel. ‘But perhaps a little exhausting for you, Rosie, to have someone coming for such a long visit when you’re unwell.’ She looked at me sternly, just to make sure I was taking the hint. I looked back with my very best blank expression, and she added, ‘I’m afraid, Josie, that you won’t be able to expect Rose to cook and clean for you while you’re here.’

  ‘Mum!’ Kim protested.

  Aunty Rose smiled. ‘That’s right, Josephine,’ she said. ‘I won’t have you just lazing around the place demanding Marmite omelettes. Now, my chickens, I’m going to be a truly awful hostess and totter off to bed.’ She pushed herself to her feet and her sister gave a little breathless shriek of horror.

  ‘Rosie. Oh, Rosie, your hair!’ A good handful of silvery strands glinted against the dark green velvet of the chaise longue.

  ‘Yes, Hazel, it’s falling out,’ Rose said calmly. ‘I shall be as bald as an egg in about a week.’ And she stalked out of the kitchen and down the hall.

  Hazel looked after her with the wounded, puzzled expression of a kicked puppy. Then a look of saintly forbearance crossed her face and she looked gravely from Kim to me. ‘Girls,’ she said, ‘Rosie needs all our patience and understanding just now. This nasty chemotherapy is making her feel very low.’

  THE WEEKEND PASSED pleasantly, in a quiet and uneventful sort of way. Aunty Rose managed to sleep quite a lot of the time – when she was up we played Mah-jong at the kitchen table with the country and western station on the radio as background noise and drank multiple cups of tea. Aunty Rose’s kitchen was the homiest place in the world. It had red velvet curtains (only a little bit tatty) at the windows and the walls were painted pink. She had a huge wood stove and about an acre of scrubbed wooden table, sheepskin rugs scattered at random across the floor and the griffon overseeing the lot from his perch on the back of the chaise longue.

  ‘I really do admire Dolly Parton,’ she remarked, as ‘Jolene’ drew to a close. She was wrapped in her crimson dressing-gown, and had wound her remaining hair into a loose chignon that cunningly disguised the large bald spot at the back where her head pressed against her pillow as she slept. ‘I saw her interviewed on the television a few weeks ago – she looked at the interviewer with a wicked little glint in her eye and told him that it cost a lot of time and money to look as cheap as she does.’

  ‘Graeme thinks she’s a classless bimbo,’ I said, and shook my head. ‘You’d think that would have set off a few alarm bells, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Aunty Rose gravely. ‘You had a narrow escape there, my girl.’

  I grinned at her. ‘Didn’t I just?’ And it occurred to me for the first time that perhaps I had. Being shafted by my boyfriend and my best friend had hurt so horribly that for months I couldn’t bear to think about it (although, unfortunately, I couldn’t think about anything else either, which meant the inside of my head really wasn’t the happiest place). But actually I wasn’t at all sure I’d have wanted to spend the rest of my life with Graeme the Snob. And that had to be a fairly major breakthrough. Not on the scale of Newton and his apple, I know, but still.

  ‘Hurry up,’ I said. ‘It’s your turn.’

  ‘Where’s the book?’ Aunty Rose asked. ‘I’m sure I’ve got an Imperial Dragon, or something really exciting.’

  ‘I’m sure you haven’t.’ The woman cheated like you wouldn’t believe; she was always inventing new combinations of tiles and claiming that they were worth vast numbers of points.

  Chapter 13

  MATT TOOK AUNTY Rose to her final chemo appointment on Tuesday. They were late home, and Aunty Rose, her face grey, crept straight into bed. Back in the kitchen Matt rubbed his face with his hands. ‘Thank God that’s the last one,’ he said.

  ‘When are they going to check her again?’ I asked.

  ‘Two weeks’ time.’

  ‘And with any luck, that’ll be that.’

  ‘Yeah. I don’t know why I’m so knackered – I haven’t done anything all day.’

  ‘Well, hanging out in the oncology ward doesn’t really top my list of fun things to do either,’ I said.

  ‘It’s somewhere up there with shovelling out the calf sheds,’ he agreed.

  ‘Or massaging Dallas Taipa’s feet.’

  ‘Now that would be pretty bloody grim.’

  ‘His socks . . .’ I said dreamily. ‘They’re sort of crunchy.’

  He grinned. ‘You’re really living life on the edge, aren’t you? Dallas’s feet during the day, emptying the spew bowl by night . . .’

  ‘I expect it’s character building,’ I said. ‘We can feel all noble and superior about what great people we are. That’s always nice.’

  ‘Well, you can, anyway. All this housework and nursing and feeding that horde of animals – you shouldn’t have to be doing all this, Jo.’
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  ‘I want to,’ I said. ‘I want to help. But if I’m getting a bit carried away and intruding you’ll tell me, won’t you?’

  ‘Intruding?’ he said. ‘Don’t be an idiot. I thought you were smart enough not to listen to my mother.’ Hazel had yet to do anything even vaguely helpful, as far as I could tell, and had instead taken to making gentle comments about the extra work a house guest was giving poor dear Rosie.

  ‘But it occurs to me that I might grow up into my mother, if nobody tells me to pull my head in.’

  ‘Your mother’s a legend. But you’re nothing like her.’

  ‘Gee,’ I said drily as the phone started to ring. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Hello?’ Matt said, picking it up. ‘Hang on – she’s just here.’ He handed it over.

  ‘You never answer your mobile,’ was Graeme’s greeting.

  ‘No,’ I agreed. ‘There’s no service here so I keep it switched off most of the time.’

  ‘Which would seem to defeat the purpose of having a mobile,’ he said.

  ‘What’s up?’ I asked, seeing no point in discussing my mobile phone usage with Graeme.

  ‘Why didn’t you pay your share of the mortgage on the first?’

  ‘Didn’t I?’ I asked, taken aback.

  ‘No, Jo, you didn’t.’ He was using his patient and superior voice, the one that always set my teeth on edge.

  ‘I’ll look into it tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s not good enough,’ said Graeme. ‘I shouldn’t have to run around checking up on you.’

  ‘Look, I said I was sorry. It’s on automatic payment – it should have gone through. I’ll check it out.’

  ‘As soon as possible, please. I’ve had to cover it – I had a call from the bank.’

  ‘When are you having an open home?’ I asked.

  ‘Had one on the weekend.’

  ‘Just last weekend?’

  ‘No,’ said Graeme testily. ‘The one before.’

  ‘As in nine days ago?’

  ‘Yes, Jo, as in nine days ago.’ There it was again. Superior.

  ‘And how did it go?’ I asked sweetly.

  ‘Not bad – a couple of people looked interested.’

  ‘Graeme,’ I said, ‘this is a fascinating little story, but I happen to know you were wandering up and down some beach on a romantic getaway that Sunday.’ Thank you, Chrissie, for publicising every minute detail of your life on Facebook.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he spluttered.

  ‘You must think I’m really, really stupid. But I’ve got to say I’m getting pretty bloody tired of subsidising your love nest. If you want the house you can damn well buy me out.’

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘So you decided you’d just stop your half of the payments?’

  ‘No,’ I said angrily. ‘I didn’t. Although maybe if I did stop paying you’d stop sabotaging every offer anyone makes.’

  ‘You just make sure you put that money in tomorrow. I’ll get a lawyer if I have to, Jo. Don’t think I won’t.’

  ‘Man, you’re a prick,’ I said, and slammed the phone down.

  ‘That sounded like fun,’ Matt remarked. He had withdrawn tactfully to the sink and started to concoct a cup of Milo while this happy little conversation was taking place.

  ‘Yep,’ I said. I swiped my eyes crossly with the back of a hand – I would not cry over this anymore. They were mostly tears of rage, anyway.

  ‘Drink?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘How many sugars?’ he asked.

  ‘Three,’ I said firmly.

  He smiled. ‘Does sugar help?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course. Didn’t you know that?’

  ‘I think it might be a girl thing. I’ve always preferred whisky.’

  ‘Tempting,’ I said, ‘but not worth it when you’ve got to go to work the next day.’ I sat down cross-legged on the chaise longue. ‘I think I’m going to have to go to Melbourne and kick him for a while, and I really don’t want to.’

  ‘Can’t you get a friend to do it for you? Or a lawyer?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said. ‘We were just going to halve everything rather than pay a lawyer thousands of dollars to do it for us, but I’d really like to get the house sold and he seems to have decided he doesn’t want to.’

  ‘So you can just keep on paying half the mortgage while he moves the next model in?’ said Matt. ‘What a guy.’

  ‘What really pisses me off is that he’ll be getting Chrissie to pay half his share of the mortgage. He’s insanely tight.’

  ‘Jo?’

  ‘Mm?’ I accepted the cup of exceedingly sweet Milo and took a sip.

  ‘Why on earth did you stay with this loser for five years?’

  ‘Stupid, probably,’ I said morosely. ‘Oh, I don’t know. He’s very charming when he wants to be . . .’

  ‘And he’s a doctor.’

  ‘Contrary to what you seem to think, I don’t go out with people because they’re doctors.’

  ‘The last couple have been.’

  ‘I’ve only ever had two boyfriends,’ I protested. Surely the nice boy in my physio class with whom I spent a few excruciating weeks about ten years ago didn’t count. ‘I’m not sure that’s a large enough sample size for you to be making these sweeping generalisations.’

  ‘Perhaps not.’ He yawned, stretching his arms above his head. ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard the dread tale?’ I asked, surprised.

  ‘Only Mum’s version, and that probably bears more resemblance to Days of Our Lives than to anything else.’

  I smiled. ‘Actually, it was all fairly dramatic. I got home from work early one day and found him and my best friend having wild sex in a chair.’

  Matt laughed. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to sound like an unsympathetic prat, but I’ve always wondered what happens in a situation like that.’

  ‘You mean, do you politely withdraw and wait for them to finish up, or start screaming and throwing things?’

  ‘That’s the one. Which did you do?’

  ‘I just stood there with my mouth open. Probably drooling in shock.’ I started to laugh a bit hysterically. ‘He saw me first, and he went purple, and she didn’t notice . . .’ I lost it completely and had to bury my face in a cushion until I recovered from a fit of the giggles. ‘I’ve never seen anyone look so stupid in my whole life.’

  ‘What a dickhead,’ said Matt.

  ‘Who? Me?’

  ‘No, you muppet. Him. You’re pretty great, you know.’

  A great surge of heat rose from the soles of my feet to the tips of my ears. It must have been appallingly obvious; I may as well have waved a sign saying I AM CURRENTLY RECALLING EVERY DETAIL OF OUR NIGHT TOGETHER. Repressing with some difficulty the urge to bury my face again I said hastily, ‘I think the worst thing is feeling like there’s no place for me in my own life anymore. For months I was telling Chrissie about how he was all grumpy and stressed out, and she was pouring me glasses of wine and being sympathetic and sleeping with him every time I turned my back. They’re apparently besotted with each other, and they’re living in my house and having all the people I thought were my friends over for drinks, and everyone thinks it’s all just wonderful. It’s like I never existed at all.’

  ‘People are just miserable cowards,’ said Matt, eyes fixed firmly on the floor. He too was looking a little warm around the ears. ‘They probably think it’s pretty crappy, but no-one has the balls to say anything. So they just rewrite history and decide you guys were never particularly good together and you’ve probably been wanting to leave and come home for years anyway.’

  ‘Only one person ever gave me a hug and said the pair of them deserved to be strung up,’ I said. That was Graeme’s English friend Stu from work, the campest gay man I have ever met and also one of the kindest people in the world. I wrinkled my nose. ‘Sorry. You shouldn’t look all nice and kind – it just encourages me to bore you to death.�
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  ‘You’re not. And I asked.’

  I smiled at him. ‘That’ll teach you.’

  He smiled back. ‘Well, I’m sorry your life has fallen apart, but it’s very convenient that it happened when it did.’

  ‘That’s very consoling. Thank you so much.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’m good like that.’

  He let himself out and I threw myself down flat on the chaise longue.

  So I wasn’t over Matt after all, I thought drearily. The only reason I had ever thought I might be was that I had forgotten, not having seen him for years on end, how great he was. And he was attached to a lip-glossed, pearl-earringed Farmer Barbie, and I was only his old mate Jo, a good stick but about as appealing as Shona at the Four Square who weighs a hundred kilos and has a mole with a long hair growing from the middle just below her right eye. Crap. I hate having to admit that my mother is right.

  Matt and I never had one of those idyllic childhood friendships that gradually deepen into love. I suspect those friendships only exist in romantic novels, anyway. We played together at home but ignored one another at school, fed the calves and went eeling and swam in the creek and pestered Aunty Rose, and we used to fall out at least once a week. We developed periodic crushes on one another in our teens, although never at the same time, and by the end of high school had decided that we were probably quite good mates after all. And then when he was twenty and I was twenty-one we had a spectacular one-night stand, and he went to Scotland the next day, and with the exception of his father’s funeral we hadn’t managed to be in the same country at the same time since.

  Chapter 14

  The night before Matt went to Scotland

  FROM MY BEDROOM at the end of the hall I heard someone pounding on the door, followed by my flatmate Neil’s voice raised in complaint. ‘I’m coming, keep your hair on!’ Then, ‘Jo! Visitor!’

  I marked my place in Pathology of the Spine with a pen, and rolled off my bed.

  Neil had lost interest in the guest and vanished, leaving him standing in the hall with his enormous pack leaning against the wall beside him.