The Boy in the Olive Grove (13 page)

AT BREAKFAST
next morning Mum didn’t respond to my four attempts at conversation. I left for work as soon as I could and let myself into a factory that was tidy, ship-shape and not in need of any input from me.

Outside, Lisette had her caravan set up beside the fence so that customers could stand on the footpath to order their drinks. There was gravel under it, and grass seed sown on the land behind it. I introduced myself to her barista nephew.

‘Kent Brand,’ he said, shaking my hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Bess. Have a coffee on the house. We set all this up over the weekend. It’ll take a while for people to know we’re here, I guess. But we’ve got plans for the lawn to bring in the punters. Tables. A putting green. A few croquet hoops too could be fun. And a big sandpit for the kids.’

‘Sounds exciting. It could be good for the factory too. Great coffee, by the way.’

Kent Brand. Friendly, not exactly a babe magnet, but not bad. Could
he
be the olive grove boy? He sort of fitted, except that I hadn’t known him since I was ten.
Oh, for heaven’s sake
— was I going to go around for the rest of my life trying to make every man I met fit the slot of OG boy? Pathetic.

I used the couple of minutes before the men arrived to morph myself into Bess, Competent Factory Boss. I fired up the computer to check the bidding on the table: $599. Close, but no sale. The slacker could come up with the last dollar or forget it. Then, as I watched, the bid changed to $600. I left it. Let them sweat.

Clint was the first one in, and stopped by the office to fill me in with more Jason details. ‘Bernie and he have arranged it between them. He’ll do this week for work-experience wages. Same hours as Bernie. Friday afternoon’s decision time. You’re going to have to decide if you want to hire him.’ He looked worried, and this time I didn’t blame him.

‘Dad’s going to come in and do that. I’ll keep right out of the way. Come to think of it, I won’t be around on Friday anyway.’

Clint nodded. ‘Good thinking, boss. Dunno why, but you’re not in the kid’s fan club.’

‘Should I buy lunch for him again today?’

‘No. You’re paying him. Don’t overdo it. He needs to be one of the men. We sort our own lunches. He’s got to do the same.’

‘Clint,’ I said, ‘you are one wise man. That’s a very valuable lesson in boy-brain.’ He didn’t reply to that, just went off to start his day looking chuffed. He’d be an expert on boy-brain, thanks to Nick. He’d been such a ghastly kid, and now—
Stop it. Do not go there.

Eddy, thank god, provided me with something else to focus on. ‘Morning, Bess. Come and have a gander at this.’

He sounded excited, and led me over to where the men were clustered around the jigsaw, looking at something that pleased the lot of them. They made way, watching me, half expectant, half anxious.

‘Oh wow!’ I picked up a delicately made donkey. Its lugubrious expression, painted with such care, was instantly endearing. I put it down, picked up the pair of oxen, then the figure of Mary. Her expression was both weary and proud. ‘These are amazing, Maurice. I absolutely love them. I know you made them — but who painted them?’

The guys all beamed at him as he said, ‘I did. Can’t paint on paper. I can do this type of thing, though.’

‘They’re utterly gorgeous.’

‘Thing is,’ Maurice said, ‘can we sell them? The set, I mean.’

I couldn’t stop looking. ‘It seems a crime to put them up for sale.’

‘Harden up, boss,’ Eddy said. ‘Put it on Trade Me. Nativity scene. We put a price on it of … How many hours did this take you, Maurice? Counting the painting.’

‘Eight,’ Maurice said. ‘Nine, maybe.’

‘Right. We cost it out at nine hours’ work, full commercial rates.’

I goggled at him. We’d never sell it at that price, but I wasn’t going to go against him, not when he was being all decisive and showing leadership. ‘Okay. I’ll take them back to the office to photograph them. Clint and Eddy — you’re okay with the tables? Good. Maurice and Alton, can you keep working with the docked ends? Make whatever you like.’

I set up the scene for the photographs with care. I also took close-ups of each of the pieces — it was probably a waste of time, but there wasn’t anything else much for me to do. When it was all done and on line, I checked the table sale. It still sat at $600, but what the hey, it was Christmas. I clicked
sold
and posted the last one up. Two down, two to go.

When the men stopped for their morning cuppa, I stayed in the office. I’d let Jason settle in for another day before I joined them. It could get lonely, being the boss. But I got to work on the email instead, deleting spam, ditching junk, writing replies to three queries about Dad’s health — and damn near deleting the request for a quote from an insurance company.

I skimmed through it, printed it and ran out to catch the guys as they were heading back to work. ‘What do we do about this?’ I waved the paper at them.

Deadpan, Eddy said, ‘Swat flies with it?’

‘Funny guy. It’s a request for an insurance quote.’ I ran my eyes down the page. ‘Ladder-backed chair to match the remaining seven. This is a replacement for one smashed in the Christchurch earthquakes. They can supply a piece of the broken one for colour matching.’

‘Let’s see.’ Alton took the paper and put it on the table so the others could look at it too. ‘You’re the chair man, Alton,’ Clint said. ‘How many hours, d’you reckon?’

Alton raised his voice. ‘Bernie, could you and Jase match the colour? Not much point making it if we can’t get the finish right.’

Bernie, bless him, turned to Jason. ‘What do you think, mate? It’ll be a hard call. You reckon we’re up for it?’

Jason turned so that I was completely out of his sight before he said, ‘I reckon we are.’

‘That’s great, thanks,’ I said. ‘Can you let Eddy know how many hours you’ll need for the finishing?’

There was a silence as we waited for Jason to repeat my request to Bernie, but all he did was turn another few degrees away from me and keep his mouth shut. What the hell was biting him?

Eddy stepped in. ‘I’ll get the costing to you a.s.a.p., Bess.’

Damn it. I foresaw trouble ahead with Jason. In the end, there wasn’t much I could do except avoid confrontation, be polite and do my best to treat him the same as I did the others.

Hostility was turning out to be the lesson of the year.

My desk was tidy, all the emails dealt to. I was logging on to Facebook when Alton knocked and came in. ‘You busy, Bess?’

‘My friends can wait.’ I waved him to a chair. ‘What’s up?’

‘Well, I wondered …’ He put the miniature table he’d made on my desk. ‘I’ve got nothing on at the moment. I thought … how about I take this, go back to those places in town that Eddy went to? The ones that said we weren’t up with current trends. I can show them this. I’ll show them Eddy’s drawings again too, and tell them we’ve got orders from Auckland.’

‘Alton! That’s a brilliant idea. When will you go?’

He grinned. ‘No time like the present. I’ll scoot home, get tidied up first.’

I thought for a moment. ‘You’ll need the drawings. I’ll have to print them out, though they won’t look nearly as professional as they do onscreen.’

‘What about the tablet? Eddy said that was great.’

‘It’s Mum’s. She wasn’t pleased when she found out I was using it here.’

‘Ah,’ he said. There was a lot of understanding in that
ah
. ‘It’s not going to be a good look, though, fronting up with just photocopies.’ He frowned. ‘Listen, I might be able to borrow a tablet from my neighbour for today. But would the budget stretch to us buying one for the firm?’

‘Oh, man, why didn’t I think of that ages ago! We need it, we’ll buy it. Can you pick one up while you’re in town?’

‘Sure can, boss.’

He rang the neighbour, who said yes, just bring it back in one piece. I emailed the file to Alton’s address, and he left with the firm’s credit card in one hand and his beautiful little table in the other.

At lunchtime the men sat outside in the shade of the tree at the back of the premises. I took myself off for a run — a circuitous route to the rose gardens and back — then bought a coffee and a filled roll from Kent in the caravan.

‘How’s it going?’ I asked.

‘Slow but okay, I think. How’s things in there?’ He tipped his head towards the factory.

‘Slow but okay, I think,’ I said, and we laughed.

I checked Facebook while I ate, but there wasn’t any real news that Clodagh, Charlotte and I hadn’t talked about over the weekend. There was the usual nothing from Hadleigh. Surely he’d contact me for Christmas? It hurt even to think that he mightn’t.

To cheer myself up, I posted the photos of Maurice’s nativity figures on my page.
Check these out, guys. They’re beyond-words beautiful.
After that, I couldn’t think of anything more to do. It was all very well keeping up a front of being in control and knowing how to steer the ship, but in reality I didn’t have a compass, or even a bloody map.

 

‘
HEY, MUM
.
Do you want me to cook tonight? I could make a quick—’

‘If you want to eat, then you’ll have to. I won’t be in.’ She looked up from where she was kneeling in the garden. ‘Surely you know by now that I always dine out on Mondays.’

I’d not observed this pattern myself, but never mind. ‘That’s nice. Is it a meeting or social?’ I strove for a friendly tone, despite the surge of rising blood pressure and the itching desire to ask if she had a boyfriend.

‘It’s not something that would remotely interest you.’

I left her alone with her bright flowers and went inside to invite myself to dinner at Dad and Iris’s again. Only a few months ago I’d have eaten a burger under a bridge rather than be anywhere near my stepmother. Life’s a bucket of surprises, that’s for sure.

I was still seething about Mum when I got there, but when I spat it all out, Dad laughed fit to split his operation open. ‘It’s a share club. They were big a few decades ago, but Clarissa’s stuck with hers like a dog with a bone. She’s right into all that wheeling and dealing, and to give her her due she’s damn good at it. It’s never made her happy, though. Now, come and tell me what’s happening at work.’

I fired up their computer and showed him the photos I’d put on Facebook of Maurice’s nativity figures.

‘Waste of time,’ he snapped. ‘You can’t charge this out. All those hours with nothing to show for them.’

I swung round to eyeball him. ‘Just like those tables we’re giving away for less than cost, for example?’

He glared right back at me, then deflated. ‘Okay. You’ve made your point.’

‘Dad, listen. There was no work for Maurice and Alton, but I didn’t want them to hang about feeling useless. I told them to make toys with the docked ends. Maurice made the nativity scene. I know it’s not what you’d have done, but I couldn’t see what else to do.’ I didn’t mention Alton’s rep trip, or tell him about the miniature table — there was only so much the guy could take.

He sniffed and patted my hand. ‘You’ve got a good heart, Bess. A good head, and a good heart.’

Iris rolled her eyes at me, but she was smiling.

We’d just finished dinner when there was a knock on the door. It was Alton, looking fit to burst. ‘Sorry to barge in, but I figured you’d be here, Bess. We’ve got another order! A coffee table with drawers. Cautious interest from the other places.’

I beamed at him. ‘Fantastic. Was it your table that made the difference?’

‘Yeah, I reckon it was. Satherthwaites — they placed the order — the boss there said the design was right. Clean, classic and modern was what he said.’

We sat there, grinning at each other while Dad and Iris looked bewildered.

‘Have you told the men?’ I asked.

‘Not yet. No time. Had the kids’ school barbecue tonight. It’s all been full-on.’

‘We’ll tell them now.’ I reached for the phone, and caught Dad’s eye. ‘Alton made a miniature—’

‘It’s in the car. I’ll show you.’

Dad cleared his throat. Iris hid a smile behind her hair.

Alton came back, removed the table from its carrying case and put it in Dad’s hands. We all watched as he turned it over, looked at it from every angle — then finally smiled. ‘Beautiful. Top-class work. Well done, Alton. One of Eddy’s designs, is it?’

‘Yep. He’s got the eye. He’s good.’

Dad sighed. ‘No lathe work though.’

Alton kept quiet.

I said, ‘Bernie seems to think Jason will work out.’

Dad perked up again. ‘I’ll put Eddy in charge of the design side from now on. Can you talk it over with him tomorrow, Bess?’

‘You’ll probably hear him from here,’ I said. ‘He’ll be that excited.’

Alton stood up. ‘Home time for me. By the way, Bess, I got the tablet. It’ll be all fired up and ready to go by the morning. I’ll bring it in first thing.’

‘What tablet?’ Dad asked, as soon as Alton had gone. He looked furious all over again. ‘Have you been wasting money on one of those rubbishy computer pad things?’