Etiquette for a Dinner Party (14 page)

It is the first of May. It has snowed through the night and it is snowing now. The spade is standing upright in the frozen ground, where you left it yesterday afternoon, marking the spot for the hangi. Next to the spade sits the pile of firewood, a little white mountain.

We are in Pascal's kitchen in Bourgogne, you and I. All around us are packages of food wrapped in tin foil. Some of the food is raw, some cooked.

When the others leave the room, we peek inside a package. So far, we have found boeuf Bourguignon, côtelettes d'agneau a la purée d'oignons, poulet Provençal, coq au vin and porc roti. And, of course, sautéed vegetables. We have barely started to investigate. All of them look beautiful, even those still raw. We control our giggling, like chastised children, then find another package to open.

Pascal stomps into the kitchen. 'It never snows this late in Bourgogne. Never.' He stares out the window and huffs again.

The oven is on; soon it will be hot enough to begin the long, slow process of cooking a feast for many people.

Right after lunch on Thursdays is when you telephone your daughter.

Most times you call her from your room, on your own telephone. For the sake of peace and quiet. But last night something unexpected happened. The kowhai outside the day lounge blossomed. July is too early for this. The wind will come any time and the thick, heavy flowers will be a buttery pool on the ground. For now, though, it is a violent yellow explosion — more flowers than you ever thought possible on a single tree.

What you would very much like to do this afternoon, after your phone call, is sit and look at the tree.

The wicker settee in the day lounge affords the best view. The settee sits directly facing the double French doors leading out to the veranda, then the garden with its wide green lawns and distant fountain. It is known as the grandstand seat and it is very popular after lunch, when the sun reaches the west side of the home.

You will get to the settee first, before anyone else. And what you will do is pick up the telephone in the day lounge on your way — take it with you and make your call from there. It will be noisy, you can only imagine! But you and Lee talk every Thursday and she will worry if you don't ring. .

Lunch is chicken soup and salmon quiche. The soup is clear, with teardrops of fat on the surface. There are tiny slivers of white meat and custom-cut carrots which used to be frozen. Soup is messy to manage since your hands started to shake. You think about leaving it, about the advantage this would give you in getting to the telephone and the settee. Your sick kidneys will thank you for the lighter load too. But it won't do to draw attention to yourself, not today. One is constantly being watched, monitored for unusual behaviour. Not by the staff — oh no, they're no bother — but by the other residents. The home attracts nit-pickety types with a penchant for minding other people's business. So you drink the soup and eat the quiche, and resist the urge to hurry.

When you're done, you put your knife and fork together on the plate. Then you fold the napkin carefully, as you always do, and put it to one side of the plate. Because you feel the eyes on you, you pick it up again, dab at the corners of your mouth. You leave faint red traces of lipstick on the linen. Sometimes they come out in the wash, sometimes they don't. Finally, with no apparent haste, you push your chair back, rise, and leave the table.

Slowly (as if you have a choice!) you take your usual route from the dining room towards the bathrooms. Listen — already behind you chairs are scraping against the lino, cutlery tinkling to the floor. There is a hum of voices which, up close, may or may not constitute conversation. You have noticed over the years that certain lunch dishes fuel soliloquies.

You are ahead of the others — around the corner in the corridor before the first of them moves through the dining room doorway. You lean into the bathroom door and push hard — as hard as you can — against it. Then you step back, letting the door crash to a close. They will be thinking you are inside the bathroom. But you step quietly back from the door and, ignoring the pain that comes from pushing so hard, slip into the day lounge next door.

The telephone sits on a glass-topped table just inside the doorway. The phone is made of a type of plastic and it is light to lift. But you have forgotten that it is an older type, with the handset attached to the main unit by a cord. You look at the phone, then at the settee nearby. It will reach. You pick up the telephone — one hand under the base of it, the other on top, ensuring the handset does not fall. You take the entire thing to the settee, and settle yourself in the middle of it with the telephone on your lap. The two cords connecting the telephone to the wall are stretched tight across the carpet.

And that's how they find you, the others, when they enter the day lounge. .

They remind you of a flock of sheep, senseless in direction and firmly opposed to independent movement. They are on constant lookout for everything not right in the world.

This afternoon, things are very not right. They slow, then stop before you. They take it in, this travesty of you having the settee. And the telephone.

So they move in.

'Will you be long?' one says. The tiresome Madeira Wiseman, spokeswoman. Her tone is accusatory, not enquiring.

'No,' you say. Usually you choose not to engage. But it would be rude to ignore her completely.

'You've had it for half an hour already.'

You say nothing. Madeira likes to tell everyone she is named after an exotic island off Portugal, the Pearl of the Atlantic is how she describes it. One time, you left a gardening book on the day lounge table. It was open on page seventy-seven: 'Madeira Vine: a devastating weed capable of destroying all plant life around it.'

'That's a hazard, that cord. Not allowed.' Madeira is not going to let up. Behind her, the others are nodding, looking at the cords, nodding. Like the little dog toys in the rear windows of cars.

'Not if you look where you're going, Madeira,' you say, with as much patience as you can muster.

They shuffle off elsewhere, calling you names like Duchess and Queenie. They are getting on your wick. You think about going to your room to make your phone call. But your ankles are swollen and your body is too tired to move again and anyway, why should you? You got there first.

The tree is still beautiful. You close your eyes and it becomes a firework against a black sky — the expensive grand finale at the end of the show. The winter sun tightens your skin, reminding you it is day. When you open your eyes, you see that a breeze is touching the yellow flowers, just slightly.

'If you have something to say, then come back here and say it,' you call after miserable Madeira. She doesn't. The place is teeming with cowards. They talk behind your back any old time.

You rearrange yourself on the settee for more comfort and sit forward to push the buttons for Lee's number. But the telephone jumps out of your lap and crashes onto the carpet. One of Madeira's friends is lying next to it. The telephone cord spirals around her left leg like a varicose vein escaping her support stockings. Her friends are delighted — an incident! — and rush to help her up. They give you looks that say I told you so. The woman is not hurt. You untangle the cord, retrieve the phone and get on with your call. .

The phone rings once, then Lee speaks.

'Mum,' she says. 'I was thinking
what's the time, Mum should
be ringing
, and here you are.'

She's hundreds of kilometres away but her voice is crisp and close, as though she's right here next to you on the settee, soaking up the sun. She's hitched her skirt up to let the sunlight touch her legs. Her toenails are painted bright red and she stretches her feet right out to a ballerina's pointe. Out, then in. Pull that skirt up as high as you like, Lee, you tell her. Never mind the sheep.

'How are you dear?'

'Good, Mum, good. How about you?'

'Not so bad. How are the children?'

'Much better. Sam's over the worst of the flu — Nina got it too, but not as bad. I kept her home for three days. But she's back at school today.'

Lee kicks off one of her shoes, then the other. The shoes are on the mat in front of you, just as they landed. You imagine what Madeira Wiseman might have to say about that.

'I'm glad she's better,' you say.

'Me too. She made you a card while she was at home . . .'

'She made me a card?' Nina, who is six, sits at her little plastic table. She has long straight hair the colour of rust and as she leans forward to concentrate, it falls around her face.

She sucks on one side of her bottom lip until she changes crayons, then she sucks on the other.

'Your lip will hurt if you keep doing that.' You lean forward, touching the little girl's arm. Gently, you place your thumb on her chin so that her mouth opens.

'Sorry . . . Mum?'

'What dear?'

'She made you a card, Mum. I've posted it to you. It's a Nina classic. Rainbows.'

'How many?'

'Eighty. She says there are eighty rainbows, for all your birthdays so far.'

'A card with eighty rainbows. I can't wait to see it.' You're laughing now, thinking about all those rainbows crammed on to Nina's card. They will fill every gap — front, inside and back — Nina cannot abide a quiet, empty space. 'Where is it?'

'I've posted it to you. I sent it Tuesday afternoon.'

'It should be here today then. Or maybe tomorrow.' .

They form a line in front of you. The woman who tripped over the telephone cord has recovered, but she glares at you as she leans in for the support of Madeira Wiseman. If you didn't know better, you might think that they are forming a queue to use the telephone. But they have no one to call. You know this, everyone knows this. They are alone and this is why they are always together.

They watch you and listen, then they turn to each other and nod. You are struck, almost overwhelmed, at the form loneliness can take. They are blocking your view of the tree — but you will deal with that in a moment, deal with it kindly, when you have finished your call. .