Etiquette for a Dinner Party (19 page)

Aro Street first. John walked from Philosophy House to the steep left-hand turn up Durham Street. His briefcase swung as he surveyed yard after yard. He crossed the road and walked back. At the intersection of Aro Street and Willis Street he paused and put his briefcase on the footpath. He rubbed his eyes, and pushed his hair back from his forehead. Karori had been a challenge, but it was nothing compared to this area. Nothing.

He worked through the day, standing at each gate and itemising all the features. He then crossed the road, or stood in the middle of it if there was no traffic. That way he gained a panoramic perspective.

Some of his gardens required very little attention. A pot plant here, a gnome there. One beautiful cottage was crying out for minimalism, its intricate wrought iron archway and stunning climbing roses more than enough. John saw that unfortunately the tenants had crowded the frontage with children's playthings and tiny pots of plant seedlings. He carefully removed them, one by one, to the footpath outside the property. Back to the middle of the road, where he looked again.

'It's looking good, really lovely.' The passer-by was a woman in her early thirties. She wore a long black vinyl coat and her curly dark hair swung around her face. She was pushing a stroller, her baby cocooned in pink crocheted wool.

'Hey thanks. Do you think so?' He smiled at her, stroking his chin.

'Yeah. Really good. I like things sort of plain too.'

'Thanks.' He moved on.

And what was this mess? River stones forming a large circle. They were meant to represent a pond. Black tyres cut in half and stretched out to resemble — what were they meant to resemble? Swans? He couldn't help it.

'Jesus Christ' he said aloud. 'Jeeeesus Christ.' He walked in circles, then, with delight, pointed to the sky.

There was a skip across the road. He lifted the swans, one by one, and threw them in it. Much better.

On he went, into the afternoon, then the evening. At some point it got dark and he lay down in the dirt under a tree in Aro Park and slept. .

John prefers not to be disturbed as he works. This is not because he is rude; it is just that there is so much to get through. Confused people keep interrupting him, telling him to get off their property. Minutes lost mean delays; he will need to come back later when they are out.

Oh, he doesn't mind delays, not much, but his world is growing, growing, and other gardens wait.

His hair is matted now, growing down past his collar and eyebrows. Layers of gardens are settling on his face. There is a stench if you get close enough. And if you do, and if you look into his eyes, they will not look back at you. They will be looking past you, to the next garden.

Now and again, as he works his way around the winding streets, he comes across a
For Sale
sign in a garden. He stops and squints at the sign, at the words describing private havens, expansive views, indoor and outdoor flows. He pulls the sign down, and throws it into the road. Then he sets to work on the property; clearing and cleaning. Whatever is necessary.

A woman drives by — she is staring at him. Her mouth is hanging open; she is shocked. She slows down, looking for a space to park.

John has not seen her; he is too busy to bother with passers-by. He finishes another garden and stops for a rest. His hand reaches to his pocket, he touches the snow globe. Then, with his face to the sun and his eyes squeezed shut tight, he cries out. It is a cry of joy.

The book-keeper's wife wanted to host a dinner party. It would not be too large an affair — six guests at the most, she suggested — a small gathering to break the monotony of long winter evenings. She put a red circle around the fifth of August on the calendar on the kitchen wall.

She was not fond of the calendar. It featured animals in human poses. The photos had been digitally altered: August had a small Russian Blue cat with its green eyes crossed. But it had been a gift to the book-keeper from their six-year-old daughter, whom he loved more than words could tell, so there was no question of removing it.

She had been thinking about the dinner for some time. She had frequently been to luncheons for book-keepers' wives where invitations to dinner parties were traded. She had always said no (but thank you for asking) as the book-keeper did not like socialising. It would not be right to accept an invitation in the knowledge that it could not be reciprocated.

So she was very careful about choosing the right moment to talk to the book-keeper about her need to host a dinner. She waited until one Sunday evening when he appeared relaxed, more receptive than usual to new ideas.

He had just put their daughter to bed, snuggled in with her and whispered her a story — a ritual that both delighted and saddened the wife in its exclusive complicity. He came out of the little girl's bedroom and the wife took a deep breath, then asked. He seemed startled at first by the proposal, but he came round to it remarkably quickly. That might be nice, he said, face flushed, pushing his lank hair back off his forehead. Those were his exact words.

They had never had a dinner party before. But she felt confident that with more than a month to prepare, the occasion could be a success. The first task was to decide on the guest list.

The book-keeper said it would be best to limit the party primarily to other book-keepers — people he worked with. His wife agreed absolutely that her husband should have someone at the table with whom to share a conversation. She had heard how dinner parties could lapse into unpleasant silences if one or more of the guests felt uncomfortable. She assumed that this could also happen with hosts.

But more than one book-keeper, she pointed out, could intimidate other guests; especially those not as clever with numbers as her husband. So a compromise was reached. The book-keeper would invite one colleague sophisticated enough in manner and palate to cope with a dinner party.

Maybe, she suggested, the book-keeper should choose someone more senior than himself — someone who might look favourably upon promoting him if the dinner went well. He said that he had already considered this idea, and the wife said she thought as much.

She had her own thoughts on who should come to the dinner party. It had not escaped her attention that their circle of acquaintances was small. In fact it comprised, exclusively, book-keepers and their wives.

She would never say so out loud, but in the company of these people she felt as though she was trapped in a cage of tall, thin roman numerals; surrounded by people for whom life was black or white, or red if things were not going well.

So, to the dinner party guest list of one book-keeper and wife, thus far, the wife added a second person: her daughter's school teacher.

This school teacher loved and nurtured the children in her care. The wife liked the way the teacher laughed with the children when something funny happened. She had tried doing this at home with her daughter — getting a joke ready, practising it, then telling it — but her own giggles always ended up sounding like the canned glee of a television show. Maybe it was because the teacher was so young — twenty, compared to her own forty-three years — and genuinely amused by the same things that could make a child choke on big, deep belly laughs.

And hadn't she — the teacher — said to her one day that she would like to discuss her daughter sometime, when the mother had a minute to spare? So yes, the school teacher (and her husband, if she had one) would be invited to dinner.

The wife asked her the very next day at school, and the teacher said she and her husband, who was a policeman, would be delighted to accept.

A policeman!
thought the wife. The type to respect order: right and wrong. The ideal dinner company for a bookkeeper. Things were working out well.

That left just two chairs around the big, buffed mahogany dinner table to fill.

The wife thought carefully about this during the following week. She knew very few people well enough to describe them as friends. Certainly not well enough to casually drop into the conversation, Oh, and by the way would you and your husband like to come over for a meal sometime? Or, we're having a few people round on the fifth of August, how about you join us? Although she was aware that was how many dinner parties came about.

In the end though, there was no decision to make. Much to the wife's amazement and pleasure, a very suitable person presented herself as an obvious dinner party guest.

The wife had an appointment with her doctor. The complaint was not a serious one; in fact she considered it embarrassingly trivial. She had, for no good reason at all, started crying. Just like that. One minute shopping, the next sobbing. She thought it was probably allergy-related, and that a pill would fix it.

It surprised her when the doctor had different ideas. It could be stress, or even depression, the kindly GP said. Oh no, it can't be that, replied the wife. I don't get depressed.

How is your family? asked the doctor. Your little girl? And at that, the wife cried.

Would you like me to see her sometime? asked the doctor, watching the wife with keen eyes that knew what to look for.

Oh yes. In fact, why don't you and your husband come for dinner on August the fifth? the wife asked. The doctor replied that she would gladly come to dinner, and her husband, the school principal, would come too.

How perfect said the wife. Company for the school teacher. .

Deciding on a menu was not as difficult as the wife imagined it might be. She purchased several respected cookbooks and contemplated meal combinations. She even remembered that some people had dietary restrictions, so she rang each guest to check whether they might be vegetarians, vegans, averse to seafood, allergic to peanuts, almonds or kiwifruit.

She told the book-keeper to check these things with the guest from his firm, but the book-keeper said he was far too busy with end of financial year accounts, and it would be best if the wife dealt with this dinner party business.

She sensed he was no longer interested in the occasion — whenever she mentioned it he would sigh in an accusing way and change the subject. The wife was pleased, therefore, that she had already issued the invitations. It would be most incorrect of them to cancel, now that other people had reserved the date in their diaries.

Dinner arrangements continued through the month of July while the book-keeper added, subtracted and adjusted amortisation for goodwill. Each night he would take one break to eat a quick meal and put their daughter to bed. Together he and the child would stand in front of the heavy oak bookcase and the daughter would choose the book her father would read to her. The wife saw that the books were becoming longer, more complicated in plot and language. Her daughter was evidently a gifted listener, she thought proudly. That was, perhaps, what the school teacher wanted to discuss with her at the dinner party.

As the fifth of August drew near, the book-keeper's piles of documents grew and grew, taking over the house entirely. The wife walked from room to room, staring in dismay at the total intrusion of other people's fiscal positions into their home. Columns of black and red numbers swamped every horizontal surface. She did not dare move anything; she knew from previous attempts to tidy up that this was not a sensible thing to do. One person's profit could become another's burden, with disastrous outcomes for all.

The wife saw that the book-keeper was indeed under a great deal of pressure. So, one night, she offered to read to their daughter at bedtime.

Immediately she saw what a serious miscalculation she had
made. The book-keeper was leading their daughter by the hand into her bedroom
with
Financial Accounting: A Decision- Making Approach
, by Ling, Lembke
and Smith, under his arm. He turned to her, his face ruby red in anger and
perspiration oozing out of his high forehead. The veins on his neck bulged
out so far she could see the tiny stress knots pulsing away.

No, he said, almost raising his voice. This is just for us. Me and her. .

The guests were due to arrive at six-thirty, but the wife knew it was considered polite to be a little early. The trouble was, she was not sure how early a little early was. She had been to the library to research dinner party etiquette, but this had not been particularly useful — the more books she read, the greater number of appropriate arrival times she found. So she set the table at four o'clock.

The meal — a flavoursome casserole — was cooked and warm in the oven. Rice had been rinsed and was ready to steam. Entrees of little salmon mousses and dessert — Florida Key lime pie and cream — were in the fridge. Dinner would be served at seven; she expected the evening to draw to a close with dessert and coffee at about nine. Assuming, of course, that schedules were followed.

A seating plan and running order for the evening was on the kitchen bench, next to stacks of baguettes and dinner rolls bought that morning from an artisan bakery in town. She had nibbled on one of these rolls while preparing dinner, and could not see what all the fuss was about. The crust was so hard her gums had bled. Perhaps that was why French women were so thin, she thought. She checked the sheet of paper again, to ensure everything was in order.

At one end of the table would be the book-keeper, at the other end herself. According to one theory, this would ensure that the two hosts would between them keep the bonhomie of the evening alive. The wife was not sure whether such a theory would apply in the case of her and the book-keeper, but at least the guests would see that she had made the effort.

This meant, of course, that she was unable to follow the accepted protocol of alternating males and females around the table, but she could not fathom how to satisfy the two rules when one had six dinner guests. Finally, she deemed it most important to keep a direct line of sight on the bookkeeper during the meal.

So. Between them would sit (to her right) the bookkeeper's senior, the school teacher and the principal. Then, to the right of the book-keeper: the senior's wife, the doctor and, finally, completing the circle, the policeman.

The wife drifted through the dining room again and again, stopping now and then to adjust a knife, to wipe a spot off the table with the corner of her apron. Earlier she had felt nervous and exhausted, drained of the effervescence required to be a good hostess. But now she felt entirely differently about things, as though this lovely evening belonged to someone else and she was a mere observer of a social occasion, with all its rules and customs. According to one of the books — it might have been
Margaret, Duchess of Argyll: My Dinner Party—
a successful dinner party was ninety per cent dependent on good preparation. The wife was satisfied she had come close to, if not exceeded, this threshold of social adequacy.

The guests arrived together, as it turned out, and being small-town people, they all knew each other. The wife was overwhelmed when they each presented her with a small gift. How kind! she said, and put the flowers and chocolates on the small wooden table that had been polished that day. The guests all kissed her on the cheek; the women barely brushing her skin so as not to leave lipstick marks. The bookkeeper finished some final paperwork for the evening, and joined them for introductions.

The conversation flowed easily about the big round table. The wife functioned superbly, clearing dirty dishes as though by magic, replacing them with yet another delectable offering. The guests offered to help but no! she would exclaim, honestly, it's no trouble at all, everything is under control.