Dinner at Rose's (3 page)

‘Morning, Jo,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I was half expecting you not to show up.’

‘Thanks a lot,’ I said.

‘Oh, not because you’re unreliable; it’s just that I’ve lined up three locums in the last two months and they’ve all got cold feet at the last minute.’

‘Bloody hell, Cher, what’s wrong with the place?’

‘Nothing,’ she said with dignity. ‘Is there, Amber?’

Amber was staring vacantly into space and winding a strand of limp blonde hair around her right index finger. Hearing her name she started, sniffed and asked, ‘What?’

Cheryl sighed and turned back to me. ‘Come and look around, Jo.’

‘When are you due?’ I asked as I followed her down a beige-carpeted hall.

‘Ten days.’ She put her hands to the small of her back and rubbed it tiredly. ‘You’ve come not a moment too soon.’

‘So I see. Congratulations.’

‘Thank you. Right, here’s the consulting room – it’s all computerised. Amber’s in the process of getting all the files onto the computer; I expect it’ll take her about another five years.’ She lowered her voice and added, ‘You’ll have gathered she’s not one of the great minds of our age.’

I smiled. ‘So she’s mostly ornamental?’

To my surprise, Cheryl shook her neat auburn head. ‘Nope. I’ve never in my life seen anyone as good at getting money out of people as Amber is. You know they’ve tightened up the ACC laws?’

‘Has it hurt you very badly?’ I asked. The old Accident Compensation Corporation system was scarily easy to take advantage of and was, to be honest, well overdue for an overhaul, but the drastic cuts to physiotherapy subsidies had been pretty rough on anyone in private practice. It’s amazing how few appointments people need when they suddenly have to pay for them.

‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I was just on the verge of expanding and getting someone else to help before the new system came in, and it’s taken us back to a nice workload for one. Now, what else? Braces and straps and things are all in this cupboard – I see lots of shearers with lower back problems. Hypochondriacs and the people who just come in because they’re lonely have a red dot inside their files, but Amber’ll tell you who they are anyway. I don’t think I’ve got any creeps at the moment. You know – the greasy, hopeful ones who tell you they think they’ve pulled a muscle in their groin.’

‘You don’t get nearly as much of that in a hospital,’ I observed. ‘For the last eighteen months I’ve mostly been doing rehab with stroke patients.’

‘I’m sure it will all come back to you,’ said Cheryl. ‘You’ll be fine.’

I was mildly amused and just a little annoyed by this; I’m good at my job, and I work reasonably hard to keep getting better. Also, I remember pulling an all-nighter in our third year of university to help Cheryl get to grips with some pretty basic anatomy before the next day’s exam. ‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘Have you sorted out somewhere to live yet?’

‘Not yet. I’m staying with Rose Thornton in the meantime.’

‘The new accountant at Horne and Plunkett’s is looking for a flatmate,’ said Cheryl. ‘I’ll pass on your number if you’re interested.’

I wrinkled my nose doubtfully. ‘I was thinking more somebody’s farm cottage. I don’t know if I want to go flatting again.’

‘Josie, hon, you can’t leave your fiancé –’

‘He wasn’t,’ I protested.

‘As good as,’ said Cheryl impatiently. ‘Anyway, you can’t move from the middle of Melbourne to downtown Waimanu and live by yourself in someone’s farm cottage. You’ll go into a decline and slit your wrists.’

AS I TURNED
the corner of the house, lifting one side of the lawnmower to stop it scalping the edge of a flowerbed, saw Rose appear at the back door and wave her arms wildly. I turned off the mower and she carolled, ‘Josephine! Phone!’

‘Hello?’ I said breathlessly, taking the portable phone and leaning back against the veranda railing. Rose’s lawn sloped steeply away from the house in every direction and mowing involved spending most of your time shoving the mower up hills and over the roots of fruit trees.

‘Hello!’ a woman said in a bright, chirpy little voice like a sparrow. ‘It’s Sara Rogers here. Cheryl called me yesterday and mentioned you might be after a flat?’

‘That’s right,’ I answered.

‘Well, Andy and I – Andy’s my flatmate – have a room spare if you’d like to look at it.’

‘I would,’ I said. This was not strictly true, but on reflection I’d decided that perhaps Cheryl had a point. ‘Thank you.’

‘You don’t smoke, do you?’

‘No.’

‘Any pets?’

‘Nope.’

‘And do you listen to loud music?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Of course I do play the tuba, and I like to cook naked.’

There was an anxious silence while she digested this statement.

‘Sorry, I’m just being an idiot,’ I said. ‘How about I come round and we have a look at each other?’

‘Okay,’ said Sara, sounding a little wary, and not quite as chirpy. ‘When would suit you?’

‘WELL?’ ROSE ASKED
as I climbed out of the car the following morning.

I bent to pat a dog with one hand and the piglet with the other before making my way across the gravel to where she was taking sheets off the washing line.

‘All sorted.’ I took two corners of the sheet she was holding out and we doubled it over. ‘The house is fine, and they seem like fairly normal people. I’m moving in some time next week.’

‘It’s lucky I’m not easily offended, or I might assume it’s my cooking that’s driving you away so quickly.’

‘Not at all,’ I assured her. ‘Some may feel olives and broccoli are an unusual combination, but personally I think it’s a bold stroke of culinary genius.’

‘Thank you,’ she said graciously. ‘It’s nice to have one’s genius recognised. Oh, and I’ve just been speaking to your mother – if you can’t live without the tin of hair goo please let her know, and she’ll send it up.’

‘I can live without it. It turned out to be an inferior type of goo,’ I said. ‘What are you planning to do with the rest of the day?’

‘Ah,’ said Rose. ‘Yes. I’m glad you asked me that. What are
you
doing, sweet pea?’

‘Something nasty, by the sound of it.’

‘It doesn’t matter if you’d rather not, but Edwin and Mildred are feeling the heat terribly, poor dears. Matthew is so busy I don’t like to bother him.’

I turned and looked over the back fence to where Edwin and Mildred, a pair of obese pet sheep, lay slothfully under an apple tree. ‘I’ll try,’ I said doubtfully, ‘but it won’t be pretty.’

‘I shall sharpen up the combs for you after lunch,’ said Aunty Rose happily. ‘Isn’t it marvellous to be such a multitalented young woman?’

Multitalented is not the word that would spring to the mind of anyone watching me shear. Long, smooth blows with the handpiece are utterly beyond me, so I just chip off bits of wool at random in a performance with no flair or style. And Rose’s rotten sheep were not only bigger than me but had no manners whatsoever. The climax was reached with Edwin lying on top of both me and the hand-piece, kicking me repeatedly in the stomach. Aunty Rose was no help at all. Overcome with laughter, she merely leant on the fence clutching her sides.

‘I hate you,’ I told her as the horrible Edwin staggered to his feet and lurched off, his rolls of fat wobbling and little tufts of long wool I had missed fluttering in the breeze.

‘Oh, sweet pea,’ gasped Rose when she was finally able to speak. She dabbed at her eyes with a scrap of white lacy hanky. ‘I wish I had a video camera. You’ve made my year.’

I wiped my streaming face on the hem of my singlet. ‘I always suspected you were a nasty person. Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, you know.’

‘Come and sit on the veranda and have a cold drink,’ she said.

After a bottle of Corona (complete with lemon wedge, as Rose was feeling guilty) on the veranda, shaded by the big magnolia and surrounded by fragrant crimson roses, I felt sufficiently revived to go and shower under that pathetic dribble of water. I spent two hours stretched at ease with
Cheaper by the Dozen
, which I had found in the Pink Room’s bookcase, and then rolled to my feet and went in search of Aunty Rose.

I ran her to earth under a large shrub in the back garden. ‘Can I borrow your gumboots?’ I asked.

‘Of course you can. Are you going to go and help Matthew milk?’

‘I thought I might.’

‘Take him a beer,’ said Aunty Rose. ‘Have fun.’

In Rose’s gumboots, which were three sizes too big for me and made me feel like a yeti, I slogged down the steep driveway, across the road and diagonally up through three paddocks to reach the Kings’ cowshed. This was a charmless structure built of concrete bricks painted mustard yellow, with a sweeping view down over the effluent ponds. Now, in late summer, the cowshed caught the breeze and was cool and pleasant to work in, but in winter and spring the wind whistled off the mountains to the south and slid icily down the back of your collar.

Near the top of the hill I paused and looked back towards Rose’s place, the house crumbling gently in its overgrown garden and the scrub reclaiming the little paddocks that ran down to the road. It was still and very peaceful in the hot afternoon sun and the only sign of movement was one lazily circling hawk.

From where I stood I couldn’t see the house I’d grown up in because it was around the brow of a hill. Five years ago my parents had had some sort of rush of blood to their heads, sold up and moved down to Nelson to milk goats. They didn’t make any money, but as ex–sheep farmers they were quite used to that.

I was glad I couldn’t see our old house because the new owners were very energetic, apparently, and had added a conservatory, a retaining wall and swathes of yuccas. It may have been delightful (although I doubted it), but it’s hard to view the improvements somebody else has made to a place you love. I could see just a corner of the back paddock and the creek where a wily old brown trout used to live, and these looked reassuringly the same. Turning away, I walked quickly up the last slope to the shed.

When I let myself in through the gate at the top of the pit Matt was teat-spraying a row of cows with a little Cambrian sprayer and singing along loudly to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ on the radio, only slightly out of tune. The cows shifted uneasily at the sight of a stranger and he looked up.

‘Afternoon,’ he said.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Beer?’

‘It would be rude not to. Let the row go, would you?’

I did, and the cows began to drift out. I removed a bottle of beer from each of my pockets and handed one over. ‘Bugger. I forgot to bring a bottle opener.’

‘Don’t worry. Pass it here,’ said Matt, whereupon he twisted the two tops together and opened them both.

‘Slick,’ I remarked.

‘It’s almost my only skill.’ He handed one of the bottles back and took a long swig from his. ‘Jose, you’re a legend.’

‘I know,’ I said modestly. ‘The cows look nice.’

‘How would you know?’

I grinned at him, unoffended. ‘Condescending prat.’

‘They
are
looking pretty good. I’ve been getting all serious with feed budgets. What have you been up to today?’

‘I’ve been highly productive,’ I said. ‘I’ve found somewhere to live and shorn the two most disgusting sheep on the planet.’

‘Mildred and Edwin? I’ve been putting that off for months.’

‘I hate to break it to you, but you’re doing it next time. It nearly killed me.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ he said. ‘Revolting overfed animals. Good effort.’

‘They don’t look very pretty,’ I admitted.

‘Who cares?’ He reached up to shut the gate at the front of the bail and the first cow shuffled into position. ‘It’s nice to have you home, by the way.’

‘Thanks.’ And a large aching lump in my throat, which had in the last month or so begun to appear at the most embarrassing times it possibly could, decided that now was an appropriate time to turn up. I took a hurried mouthful of beer to dissolve it, which was not a well-thought-out move because I promptly choked and Matt had to pound me on the back. ‘Th-thank you,’ I spluttered.

‘No problem.’ He removed the cups from the front cow on the left and began deftly to slip them onto the udder of the front cow on the right, a great fat red thing that looked about a hundred years old. With his eyes fixed on the cow he asked casually, ‘Been having a rough time, Jo?’