a Breed of Women (19 page)

Harriet smiled inwardly. How disappointed Cousin Alice would have been. But then, she herself was also disappointed. She had actually hoped that the theological student might have provided her with a little divine guidance in certain areas too. There was the hope in the back of her mind that sex might be as delightful with him as it was with Denny. It would solve a lot of problems if the excellence of the act was proven to be universal. As her encounter with the student had been so disastrous, she felt an urgent need for Denny’s return.

As the team reassembled, so did the order of things. Dick reappeared, Leonie started going steady with a boy called Selwyn, the team’s lock, and Denny and Harriet began to see each other again almost daily.

At the same time, she and Leonie were laying more positive plans for their trip overseas. Harriet was in to her second year of library training, doing cataloguing, which she didn’t find nearly as interesting as her first year of essays and research into such diverse areas as library architecture and children’s books. Nevertheless it went well, and she was now Mr Whitwell’s deputy. Harriet had become a popular figure with Weyville’s reading public, for she knew books better than any assistant the library had ever had, and would keep aside the right book for the right person. It was a busy and convivial place, and Harriet guessed that the number of approving comments from the library patrons probably swamped less flattering utterances that might have come Cousin Alice’s way.

Perhaps she had even created a mystery round herself. Maybe people really did give her the benefit of the doubt, the people who had seen her round with Denny, or going into the flat on party nights.

Whatever the facts of the matter, Cousin Alice didn’t comment adversely on much that she did, and she and Harriet were what amounted to friends.

With the end of her library course in about eight months, Harriet looked forward to a substantial pay rise, in addition to the one she had had when she became deputy. She might even be able to go abroad in about a year. Leonie was not as well paid, but she’d been working and saving for longer than Harriet, and thought she might be able to scrape up enough to go by then as well. Together they had gone to see a travel agent to start planning bookings.

Neither of them had mentioned this to Selwyn or Denny. Leonie’s feelings towards Selwyn were ambivalent. She liked him because he was good company, he liked being seen around with her, and didn’t ask very much. Although Harriet liked being with Denny regularly again and also enjoyed being part of the crowd, the doubts of the summer and the cooling of their relationship in the few months that followed were hardening into a resolution. Denny would have to go.

She hadn’t made up her mind when to tell him this, and was still turning it over in her mind when Cousin Alice announced that she’d like to go to a wedding in Gisborne, and thought that Leonie would like to spend the weekend with Harriet. She was quite happy to leave the two girls in the house alone if they thought they would be all right.

Having their agreement and assurances that all would be well, she
set off on Friday morning. That night the girls slept together in Cousin Alice’s big double bed, as there was only one bed in Harriet’s room.

They hadn’t meant to sleep together, but Harriet had sat on the edge of the bed for so long, shivering in her nightie while they talked, that in the end it seemed silly to sit out in the cold.

‘For God’s sake, cover yourself up, Harriet,’ said Leonie, opening the bedclothes so she could get in.

They talked on and on, about the places they would go to, how they would go to Greece, and join grape harvests in France, what clothes they would need, whether they would have enough money, and what they would do if they didn’t.

Eventually Harriet said, ‘Shall we put the light out?’

‘Yes, it’s stupid to go out in the cold again now that we’re so warm.’

‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Harriet when they were settled. ‘It’s Denny. I’m going to have to break with him soon if we’re going to go away. He just takes it for granted that I’ll go on being there.’

‘Mm, not like Selwyn, thank goodness. He knows marriage is the last thing on my mind. Still, I think you’re right You and he have had some good times haven’t you? It can’t go on forever.’

‘It could,’ said Harriet ‘but that’s just the thing, I don’t it want to. I don’t even know how much he wants it If only we could have talked …’

‘
If
you had, but you never have.’

‘Not really. Sometimes … oh, I don’t know. I think if we could maybe learn …’

‘But you’re not sure that you believe that, are you?’

‘No.’

‘Isn’t it just that you’re two people who like fucking, and if you ever stop liking it, there won’t be much going for you?’

‘Does it really look like that to you?’

‘I guess so. But what can I say? You think I’m prejudiced. God, that
I
should be, of all people. That’s the trouble, if it were Chas or Dick or anyone like that, you could say you’re just not suited for each other. It’s Denny being what he is makes it so hard.’

Harriet groped for her hand. ‘Thanks,’ she whispered. ‘It’s just telling him. I wondered if I might do it tomorrow night … you know, if you go out with Selwyn, we could maybe talk here, I could make him some tea and tell him.’

Harriet could feel Leonie’s stillness. ‘I expect you’d want him to stay the night.’

‘I didn’t mean that …’

‘No, I know you didn’t,’ said Leonie briskly. ‘It’s all right Probably be better though, wouldn’t it? I mean if I didn’t come back. Doesn’t put a time limit on you.’

‘Might persuade him it’s a better idea to come round here than spend the evening with the boys.’

‘Tricky cow, aren’t you? I’ll keep out of it then. That’s if you really, honest to God, cross your heart and hope to die promise me that you’re going to do it.’

Harriet laughed. ‘You know that’s the worst sort of promise to ask me to keep.’

‘You will though, won’t you?’

‘Yes, I will.’

‘I could hug you.’

The dark blanketed their quiet breathing.

‘At least I should kiss you goodnight,’ said Leonie at last. Her hand groped for Harriet’s. As they touched she flung herself into Harriet’s arms, her mouth seeking hers. They kissed in the gentle night, Leonie’s passion holding her to Harriet as if she could never let her go. Harriet felt her own deep cave pulsing as if she was waiting for Denny, and against her Leonie’s nipples were hardening.

Leonie jerked herself out of Harriet’s arms, and threw herself away to the other side of the bed.

‘Is that what it feels like to want somebody?’ she cried in a strangled voice.

‘Yes,’ whispered Harriet ‘That’s what it feels like.’

‘Forgive me, please say you forgive me.’

‘It’s all right,’ said Harriet ‘It’s all right, Leonie. We only kissed each other goodnight.’

‘You don’t want to go sleep in the other bed?’

‘No. I’ll stay with you all night Come on, give me your hand.’

‘I love you, Harriet,’ said Leonie. ‘I’ve never had a friend before.’

‘I never had a sister, but then neither did you.’

‘Yes. Yes, I think I did, sometime. I hardly remember. It doesn’t matter. I’ve got you.’

They dropped off to sleep, exhausted, lying on either side of the bed with only their hands clasped. When Harriet awoke, Leonie was already up and showering. Harriet went out into the kitchen and the kettle was just on the boil as she came out of the bathroom, fully dressed.

Neither of them mentioned the night before. There had been a frost in the night, and it lay in gleaming wedges across Cousin Alice’s lawn, sculpturing the monkey-puzzle trees to brilliant and fanciful shapes. They sat, eating breakfast, talking again about the trip.
On
the
Road
had just become available in New Zealand, and they were full of its force. There seemed never to have been a book like it before, and they saw their journey across the world as some sort of similar adventure. Somewhere on a Mediterranean shore, in time to come, they would sit sunburned and sandalled, and thank Kerouac.

Later they went to football, and Harriet returned with Denny. While she cooked him sausages and chips, he went around the house admiring things and picking them up. She found herself jumping as he picked up Cousin Alice’s Royal Doulton plates. It was hard to remember that he hadn’t been here before. It was all such familiar territory to her that it had not occurred to her that he might be fascinated with where she lived.

‘Someday you’ll have a house like this,’ he said. ‘All these beautiful things, I’ll get them for you. You wait and see.’

‘How do you propose to do that, Mr Moneybags?’ she asked as she put the food down in front of him.

‘I get what I want,’ he said, smiling.

‘I’ve heard that one before, too.’

‘You want me, don’t you?’

Faced with this inescapable question, Harriet looked down at her hands.

‘Time for us to settle things, isn’t it girlie?’ he said.

She thought that it would be easier to talk to him in the dark. She did try to talk to him while he had his meal, but he didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he pretended not to. She could eat nothing.

When he had finished they washed up, and she suggested they should sit and listen to the radio for awhile. Request programmes were on, she reminded him, although it was so long since she had spent a Saturday night at home that she had almost forgotten.

‘You want us to be just like any old married couple on a Saturday night?’

‘Perhaps we’ll never be an old married couple at all,’ she said sharply.

‘Come on, girlie,’ he said, leading her by the hand. ‘I know where that big double bed is. I went and had a look. D’you know it’s eight
months since you and I slept next to each other all night? You think I haven’t been counting?’

‘I’ve had enough of this,’ he went on as they undressed. ‘You’ve got to tell all these fellas where you and I stand. I know they won’t like it, but they’ll get used to it You think my people will be crazy about you for a daughter-in-law? Maybe you do. Lots of pakehas do, they think they’re a big white catch. Well, I tell you, girlie, you’re some catch all right, and you’re what I want for my own, but not for the colour of your skin. I’ll have a bit of explaining to do to the family, they had a girl or two lined up for me up home. I went back at Easter and I thought to myself, perhaps I should decide for them, and I went through a bit of hell for them too, and for you. And I come hurrying back here to be with you, because there was no way I wanted it to be anyone but you. I looked round me in the church in Kaikohe, and the girls all had white hats on, and I thought about you in your white hat that I bought for you to wear at Christmas, and I thought, yeah, okay Denny. You told me I bought that hat for myself, and I did too. I bought it for my woman to be in church with me, the one I picked.’

Harriet gazed at him in fear. Fear for him or herself, it was hard to tell. She only knew that he was saying all the things that should have been said long ago. Why had he waited so long? Perhaps it was not too late.

Her mind turned to Leonie lying in the dark beside her. ‘I love you Harriet,’ she’d said. Maybe there was some way that she and Leonie loved each other that excluded Denny, or any men. Perhaps somewhere, far away, they would discover what it was.

‘I love you.’ He’d never said that. Just, ‘I want you.’ Did they mean the same thing?

She reached for the light above her head. ‘Don’t turn it out,’ he said harshly. ‘I want to watch us do it.’

‘I’ve got things to talk to you about too,’ she said.

‘They can wait,’ he said, rising on her.

This was how Cousin Alice, who had been prevented from getting to the wedding by a car breakdown, and who had spent hours in a small town waiting for repairs, walked in and found them in her bed.

In the morning, before she and Denny headed north in the
pick-up
, Harriet called on Mr Whitwell at his home and then visited Leonie.

At Mr Whitwell’s house, a plain, ageless woman answered her knock. She led Harriet down to a threadbare room, lined with books
from ceiling to floor, where Mr Whitwell was sitting reading a book about the Carthaginians. He introduced the woman as his sister. At another time, Harriet might have paused to reflect that this was the first intimation she had ever had of Mr Whitwell’s domestic arrangements. As it was, she was so barely able to return an audible greeting that Mr Whitwell, noting her distress, asked his sister to leave.

When she told him what had happened the previous evening, he shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘Ah yes, Harriet,’ he sighed, placing his long slender fingers together, ‘yes, the conflict of body and mind. Here,’ and he rose to his feet, and went to one of the bookshelves. He scrabbled round for a moment, and produced a book. ‘Take it. Frost. Put down by some of the critics, but never mind that, revered by others. Read ‘The Road Not Taken’.

‘I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence: / Two roads diverged in a wood …’ and his voice broke. ‘Take the thing and get out of my sight.’ He pushed the book into her hands, and opened the door. She saw that he was convulsed with silent shaking tears. ‘Get out. I’d have helped you, you fool,’ he said, his voice rising. As she went down the passage, he shouted after her, ‘I wouldn’t have cared whether he was black, green or pink. Fool!’

And the door slammed behind her.

Harriet had rung Leonie and warned her of her arrival, and the fact that she was leaving town and why. The woman who answered the door told Harriet that Leonie was ill and had asked that she be left to sleep, as it was Sunday morning. Harriet pushed past her.

Leonie was lying with her face to the wall.

‘Leonie. Please,’ said Harriet. ‘Please speak to me.’

The other girl rolled over in the bed, turning a stony face on her.

‘I don’t want you in here.’

‘There’s nothing I could do,’ said Harriet.

‘We could go away, you and me,’ said Leonie. ‘That was what we were going to do.’ Her voice, hard as it was, held a hint of pleading.