Etiquette for a Dinner Party (11 page)

Eventually, I did get a grip. I stopped the whole silly fossicking in the handbag business, zipped it up, and started the walk back to the car.

There was a little ritual I'd fallen into, on these visits back home. I parked down the other end of town, by the Lemon and Paeroa bottle. I waited in the car until all the tourists had had a laugh and taken their photos. Then I went over and checked my name was still on it.

We did it on our last day of primary school. All the others had been proud and brave, slashing their names deep into the brown paint halfway up the bottle for the world to see. Not me. Mine was at the very bottom, where the bottle met the base; small and neat, almost like a proper engraving.

Sam Walker Dec 1974.

Erin and Julie and the others said I was scared of getting into trouble, but that wasn't it. Part of me wanted to scratch hard and bold into the centre of the bottle too. But another part had had enough of Paeroa. I told them that my name would be there forever; that theirs would only last until the next time the bottle was painted.

For twenty years, I was right. Then, some time after the millennium celebrations, the powers-that-be decided the bottle needed moving back further off the road. It got spruced up with a new paint job, a cheesy lemon-shaped rubbish bin, and a lemon mosaic showing you the best spot to take your photos.

My name was gone for good, but I still parked down by the bottle. I liked wandering up one side of the main street, looking at the old shops, then back down the other.

So there I was, making my way back to the car, when I saw John Beveridge in the Nissan showroom. John was my boyfriend in Form Two, though he never knew it. Don't ask me why, I went in.

He strutted over, straightening his tie, and started his pitch.

'She's a beauty, isn't she. Brand new model, just in.' His hands in his pockets, jiggling away. Then out again, as though he'd remembered the training manual bit on body language. I realised he hadn't recognised me.

Finally, he looked at me properly.

'Excuse me. Jesus Christ. Sammy Walker?'

The moment was gorgeous, every time. Like stepping into a hot bath.

'Yes, yes I am . . .'

'It's me. John . . . John Beveridge. We went to school together. Christ, you've changed . . .'

And then it was a rush of handshakes, big clammy hands grasping my Country Road linen shirt across the shoulders, then off again, smiling and more jiggling.

Keep it in your pants, John, I thought. He had a mullet haircut which actually suited him, as much as a mullet can suit anyone. Mullets were the thing among Paeroa men. The girls went for botched Jennifer Aniston cuts.

'Sammy Walker, eh? I'll be buggered! What are you doing with yourself these days . . . ?'

'Actually, I'm in Auckland, working for a law firm . . .'

'A lawyer — that's amazing.' .

By morning tea time the sleet had stopped. It was still freezing, but the rule was Outside If Not Raining. We were on the wooden seats outside the classroom. Gabrielle Baxter tucked her Chicks hair back behind her ears and took the little crosses out of her ears. I watched as she carefully clipped the little silver backs onto the stalk parts of the earrings.

'They're called butterflies, the back bits,' she said. Butter, I thought. Gabrielle Baxter is all butter voice and butter hair. I imagined, just for a moment, licking her pale butter skin.

I held the tiny crosses in the palm of my hand. There were little diamonds in them. They were the most beautiful things I had ever seen. If you had to have sex to get some, it would be worth it.

'Can I have a look after Sammy, Gabrielle?' This of course was Erin, who had somehow managed to wedge herself in between me and Gabrielle. She always did this. We were jammed in tight together, the three of us, but I wasn't moving because I'd been sitting there first so why should I? And also, it had annoyed me how Erin had said
Gabrielle
, as though she had been her first friend. In the end Gabrielle moved over a bit to make more room.

'Yeah but don't lose them. They're Mum's.'

I remembered what she'd said about her mother dying next month. I looked sideways at Erin, but she didn't say anything. She had the butterfly back off one of the earrings and she was pushing the little silver stalk of the main part hard against her earlobe. Her ear was going bright red, but when she pulled it away there was just a mark, no hole.

'I'm getting my ears pierced,' Erin said. 'For my birthday.'

This was news to me.

'Me too,' I said, though I knew I wouldn't be allowed. I could just see Gabrielle Baxter and Erin walking around school with their earrings in. Not only that, Erin had straight black hair and I knew the next thing would be them walking around school with earrings and Chicks hairdos, the blonde Suzanne and the brunette Judy. In this picture, I was somewhere alone in the background; all skinny legs, no bright McKenzies-bra chest, and dunny-brush haircut. The misery in me was overwhelming. I hated Erin's guts.

Erin gave Gabrielle her earrings back. We were swinging our legs backwards and forwards. Four ugly black stinky gumboots — one, two, three, four notes climbing up the page on Mr Frank's music sheets, then beautiful slingback, beautiful slingback. Gabrielle Baxter's slingbacks were tan leather, with a black trim round the open part of the top of the shoe. The strap round the back of the heel was also black leather. We kept the timing up for ages, not saying anything.

I was thinking about how amazing it was that out of all the schools in New Zealand, Pekapeka Primary had got the Baxters. But there was also this horrible tight feeling in my stomach, which felt worse when I thought about Erin.

'Is your mother really that sick?' Erin said, after a while. I couldn't believe that she had asked. Just like that. I tucked my feet in under the seat, waiting, and so did Erin. Only the slingbacks kept swinging.

'Yes. She has cancer in her head.' The butter had gone from Gabrielle's voice; instead the sound was hard and flat. I wondered if she was going to cry but her eyes were dry and her face was just the same.

'Can't the doctors fix it?'

God, Erin
, I thought.
Trust you.
I held my breath, waited for the answer.

'Nup. It's eating her brain up. Soon there'll be nothing left.'

I was thinking about someone's brain being eaten by little worms, though I had no idea if cancer came in worms or something else. Gabrielle's mouth had turned into a little pink straight line and her eyebrows had sunk a bit towards her eyes, as though she had a headache. She shook her hair, then blew upwards towards her fringe, like you do when you're really hot and there's no breeze.

'I don't care, you know. I don't care that she's going to die.' It sounded like she meant it.

The next few days turned out to be not much fun after all. For a start, it was confirmed that I was not getting my ears pierced. I brought it up that first night, after I had washed and dried and put away the dishes. This seemed a good time to ask.

Mum was sitting at the kitchen table, making our lunches for the next day.

'Of course not,' she said. She didn't even look up from the breadboard.

'Why not?'

'You know why. Only tarts get their ears pierced.'

'No they don't. Gabrielle Baxter has pierced ears.'

She was spreading Vegemite across thick slices of white bread smeared with butter. She put the knife down.

'Gabrielle Baxter is . . .'

I thought she was going to say
a tart,
but then she got that look, the one that means she was going to talk about people less fortunate than ourselves. People in Africa, or China, or sharemilkers. Her head tilted to one side, and she breathed out heavily through her nose, almost like a little snore.

'You know that Gabrielle Baxter's mother is very sick, Sammy . . .'

'So? She's got these cross earrings, little silver ones that match her necklace.'

'That poor kid . . .'

I was not getting it. There was Gabrielle Baxter with earrings and being called 'a poor kid', so apparently she was not a tart. It seemed there was a new category of people who could have their ears pierced — girls whose mothers were due to die shortly. I looked at Mum sighing, breathing sadly over the sandwiches, and I wished that she had cancer too.

I tried another approach.

'If they're crosses, she probably believes in God.'

'Mmm . . .' Mum started another pile of sandwiches. I could tell she wasn't really listening.

'So how could someone who believes in God be a tart?'

'You're not getting your ears pierced.'

It got worse. The next day at school, Erin and Gabrielle spent all morning tea and lunchtime whispering. When I went over to them, they'd stop and stare at me.

'What are you talking about?' I asked, just the once. They were on the jungle gym, hanging upside down. Erin had the usual shorts on under her dress, but Gabrielle wore these amazing witch's britches. They were red, and they had black lace trims. My stomach ached for witch's britches and earrings.

'Nothing,' said Erin, her black pigtails dangling nearly to the ground. Then she looked at Gabrielle, and giggled. They both giggled, their faces red from hanging. I stood there a bit longer, waiting.

Julie Bray and the others were playing hopscotch over the other side of the playground. Julie saw me and waved out.

'Come and play Sammy.' Her voice carried clear across all the other noise. The boys were playing bullrush. The local boys were out in the middle, doing the tackling, and the sharemilker boys were the runners. One after the other, the new boys were being knocked to the ground and sat on by the entire group. The little kids had the big skipping rope out. They were chanting 'Oliver Cromwell lost his shoe, at the battle of Waterloo . . .' while the rope smacked hard against the asphalt.

I pretended I hadn't seen Julie. I went to the girls' toilets and waited until the bell rang for the end of lunchtime. I felt like crying, but I knew that if I did Gabrielle and Erin would come in. So instead I locked the door of one of the toilets and sat on the edge of the seat holding my stomach.

The next day Erin had red witch's britches too. She and Gabrielle hung upside down through morning tea and lunch, and from a distance their witch's britches looked like clothes on the washing line. I was dying to know were they new or had she borrowed them from Gabrielle.

I could have put John right, explained that I was not a lawyer, just a secretary. But it had given him a bit of a thrill, thinking that a girl from Pekapeka Primary could become a lawyer, so I let him have the moment.

He usually went across to the Masonic for a beer and a pie for lunch, and would I like to come? Neither the beer nor the pie appealed, but I said yes. I liked the whole idea of it. You know, just running into an old schoolmate and being invited out for a pie. I imagined laughing about it at work on Monday.

As we crossed the road, I took a quick look at his hands to see if he wore a wedding ring. I was home for just two days, catching up with Mum and Dad. I didn't need the drama of small-town gossip about me and someone else's husband. But John's finger was bare and there was no telltale crease to suggest he'd slipped the band off. Exclusively a city man's trick, I thought.

Inside the Masonic it was easy to forget it was the middle of the day. Tattered dirty canvas blinds hung low over the sash windows. The big barn of a room was warm and still. On the back wall, a huge television screen played horseracing from somewhere in Western Australia. The smell was old beer; in the carpets, polished hard into the table tops. It was a comfortable smell; I didn't mind it at all.

Two old men in Swanndris and gumboots stood at one of the leaners in the middle of the room. Each had a copy of
Best Bets
and a pen. They were watching the screen and didn't look our way. Apart from them, the bar was empty.

'The usual,' John said to the guy pouring. 'Pie and a lager, Sammy? My shout.'

'Thank you John. Very kind.'

I hadn't eaten a pie in years, but now I was really craving one. Either was fine by me, I told John, when he asked steak or potato top.