Dinner at Rose's
Authors: Danielle Hawkins
| Dinner at Rose's |
| Danielle Hawkins |
| Allen Unwin Pty Ltd (2012) |
A beautifully written, funny, intelligent and heartwarming novel about a young woman who leaves the city for her home town where she falls in love with a wonderful man - and does much more besides.
In the wake of an unfortunate best-friend-and-boyfriend-caught-having-sex-in-a-chair incident, Jo Donnelly flees her civilised city life to take up a temporary job at the physiotherapy clinic in her small home town.
Jo is ineptly assisted at work by a receptionist who divides her time between nail care and surfing the internet. Meanwhile, her new flatmate is a joyless couch potato who hogs the TV and is vigilant in her quest to prevent excessive electricity consumption. Life would seem a bit grim if not for Jo's eccentric honorary Aunty Rose, who lives up the valley with her pet piglet, four dogs and two sheep.
Rose was a wise and infinitely patient friend to both Jo and her bona fide nephew, Matthew, while they were growing up. And when Rose is hit by illness Jo moves in to...
First published in 2012
Copyright © Danielle Hawkins 2012
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Copyright Act 1968
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Arena Books, an imprint of
Allen & Unwin
Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218
Email: [email protected]
Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia
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ISBN 978 1 74237 939 5
Text design by Ruth Grüner
Set in 12/15 pt Granjon by Post Pre-press Group, Australia
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
I
TURNED UP
a steep rutted driveway ten kilometres south of town, navigated around a huge pothole and a wheelbarrow full of marrows, and pulled up on the dusty gravel beside the house. Instantly a pack of dogs appeared, barking hysterically.
Opening the car door a crack I bellowed, ‘Get out of it!’ and they sank to their bellies in a servile and unattractive manner, panting hard. Now that they were stationary I counted four.
‘Sweetest of peas!’ cried Aunty Rose, sailing around the corner of the house with a half-grown ginger piglet at her heels. ‘How are you, my love?’
‘Very good,’ I said. ‘It’s lovely to see you.’ Aunty Rose was six foot two and built like a tank, and I had to reach up to hug her. I don't have to reach up to hug many people, being almost six foot tall myself, so this made a pleasant change.
She smiled at me fondly. ‘Likewise,’ she said. Her voice was as rich and plummy as a fruitcake, every vowel beautifully rounded. It made one think of elocution lessons and cucumber sandwiches and tea with the vicar. Come to think of it, it made one use the word ‘one’ in one’s thoughts. Accents are terribly contagious.
‘Have you been doing anything exciting?’ I asked.
‘I’ve been
frightfully
busy. That incompetent library committee has taken most of my time this week, and the garden is running amok. I shall enlist your services, dear child.’
‘No worries,’ I said. ‘You can pay me in marrows.’
‘Bloody marrows!’ said Rose. ‘Every year I plant just a couple of tiny, feeble zucchinis, and they spend the first two months trying to die and needing half-hourly watering. And then I go out to buy milk and they transform into triffids.’
‘Why keep planting them?’
‘It’s a sickness,’ she said gloomily. ‘I probably need counselling.’
‘Perhaps you could go to meetings. You know – “Hello, I’m Rose Thornton, it’s been two days since my last courgette.” ’
‘A fine idea,’ she said. ‘Come in. It must be time for a G and T by now.’
WE STRETCHED OUT
side by side on the veranda in a pair of ancient deckchairs, drinks in hand. Rose’s house was the original homestead of a station long since split into several smaller farms. Set on the crest of a ridge, it’s an old villa with high ceilings and a steep roof, utterly charming but decayed beyond the point of repair. There is an alarming tilt in the veranda which matches the sag in the kitchen floor, the door in the living room has to be wedged shut with a 1972 copy of the
Woman’s Weekly
to block the draughts whistling down the hall, and little piles of borer dust accumulate in every cupboard. The paint is peeling, the fretwork is decidedly tatty and there are at least three leaks in the roof. But there is also a huge crimson climbing rose taking over the veranda and the view out over the ranges is spectacular. In the four years since I’d last been here nothing had changed, which gave me a nice warm feeling of security.
I took a large mouthful of my gin and tonic, and choked. ‘Is there
any
tonic in here, Aunty Rose?’
‘A dribble,’ she said, taking a cautious sip of her own drink. ‘Hmm, perhaps I was a tad heavy on the gin. How are your parents?’
‘Mum’s got a quality-control audit tomorrow, so she’s cleaning the milking shed with a toothbrush. Dad’s good.’
‘Is he still playing the guitar?’
‘Yes,’ I said sadly.
‘It could be worse. Imagine if he’d taken up the bagpipes.’