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Stuart Larcombe was in his early fifties. He was slim and tall and distinguished looking, a businessman at the top of his game. He usually dressed in a business suit, even in New Zealand’s summertime. For casual wear he chose a Polo shirt and chinos, especially when he went to a pub for a few drinks. Wearing a suit in a pub gave quite the wrong signals to other customers who saw the pub as a meeting ground for all levels of society and generally dressed down when they joined ‘the boys’ for a beer in the evening or after a game of rugby. Larcombe liked to think that he fitted in at any level but his private school accent marked him out as a well-educated Australian. Consequently people around him treated him with a certain reserve. Larcombe was not married, and spoke as if he never had been.
It was not so with Frank Copperfield, his companion in the bar. As a consequence of being a very good rugby player in his younger days he was popular and the centre of attention when he drank or partied. He still had an imposing figure and he and his wife Louise made an attractive and popular couple. He had been known in rugby as a ‘hard man’, a term of respect awarded to few. Frank was taller than Stuart Larcombe but heavier, and now sporting a beer belly that he tried to suck in to minimize the bulge. Where Stuart was dark haired and going grey at the edges as he entered his early fifties, Frank was florid and blonde. He kept his hair cut short to give the appearance of a military man but his shoulders were becoming rounded and he tended to hunch.
Where Larcombe was a financier and property developer used to Board Rooms and meetings around a table, Frank was a builder with calloused hands who met his workers one on one. Both men employed secretaries; Larcombe had offices in a new building in the centre of Wahanui while Frank had rented space in a warehouse cum office block near the harbour. Frank’s secretary had a helper, a salesman who sold new properties for Copperfield Building Limited. Frank largely left the paperwork to Clive the salesman and Pamela the secretary, although he always met his clients and kept in touch with them. He liked to take papers home each night to study them carefully in his office in the garage, which he kept locked when he was not at home. Supervising his carpenters and labourers, keeping in touch with his clients, planning and designing, and checking on sales and accounts kept Frank very busy. He was often tired and drank too much.
Frank was married to Louise and for him things had not been going well. Louise was anxious about everything to the extent that Frank now excluded her from the details of his work. She was four years younger than Frank’s forty six, still pretty and attractive. Her two children occupied most of her spare time; Kezia at sixteen was becoming a companion for her, and Alexander at seven was her baby.
Louise was a quiet person, a trained nurse, who could be vivacious but preferred to stay in Frank’s shadow. She did not enjoy being in a bar and did not like rugby but tolerated it for Frank’s sake. She was petite and came across as nervous, as if she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. She carried heavy baggage from her high school days, baggage she never talked about and still grieved about even twenty six years later. She tended to clean and tidy excessively, which was perhaps a result of her nursing training or at another level an attempt to clean out the past.
Louise was liked by everyone but she kept to herself especially as the children went through school. Alexander had meant the normal involvement in baby, toddler and newly at school activities but Louise was thankful those days had passed. The friend she talked to and saw most of was Charlotte Hoar.
Charlotte usually made the running in the friendship. Charlotte was out-going and breezy in contrast to Louise’s quiet pensiveness. She ran a shop selling fashion clothing for women. Being tall herself, she had an eye for elegant clothing for the more statuesque figure. Where Louise was dark haired and blue eyed, Charlotte had fair hair which she kept long enough to fall under her jawline but short enough to be manageable when she rode.
Her parents Tom and Alice Hoar had run a farm with sheep and pigs and a stud so horses had been part of her life since earliest times. She still went home regularly, enjoying exercising the horses that her parents now looked after when the stud lines were sold and the farm became a stables and riding school. Sometimes Louise wondered why Charlotte with her elegance bothered with her, had stayed with her after high school and Louise’s return after training, and through Louise’s disastrous marriage to Julian Ricciardello, but Charlotte seemed to find an element of stability in the friendship. Charlotte’s descriptions of her many boyfriends kept Louise in stitches and left her wondering if Charlotte was sometimes making things up. Charlotte obviously enjoyed sex even if Louise did not.
Charlotte’s life had been turbulent as she changed partners frequently. No man seemed to be able to keep her for long, except for Nigel, her current partner.
Nigel Jones had been brought from Wales with his parents when they immigrated to New Zealand. A little younger than Louise and Charlotte, Nigel had attended primary school with them but when he was thirteen his parents sent him to a private boarding school, a school in Christchurch that his parents referred to as a ‘public school’ in the British way.
Nigel was at university in Christchurch when his parents decided to travel back to Wales. His mother Myfanwy had always regretted that her daughter had stayed in Wales and wished to visit her to see the two grandchildren while they were still little. The trip became permanent with Dai and Myfanwy staying in Wales while Nigel made a life for himself in New Zealand.
At school Nigel payed rugby, which was compulsory whether you enjoyed it or not. Saint George’s was a rugby school, attracting student enrolments through the school’s reputation for academic excellence and achievement in rugby. A small youth, Nigel was not suited to the game. Although he was fast on the field and gained standing because of his courage, he was easily singled out for ‘the treatment’ and spent much time off the field with his injuries. He played tennis, where again his lack of height militated against high attainment. He changed to squash racquets, at which he excelled. He won a school blue in Association Football, soccer, but there were no prizes for squash.
Being clever and studying hard at University brought Nigel excellent qualifications and fast promotion in his chosen field, local body administration. He worked in Dunedin and in Hamilton before becoming Chief Planning Officer for Wahanui. He had a business relationship with both Frank Copperfield and Stuart Larcombe, a relationship that had developed into a financially rewarding but rather shady enterprise. Nigel pushed Copperfield Building and Larcombe Enterprises paperwork through approval and inspection processes and was richly rewarded with bonus payments, euphemistically called ‘consultation fees’.
Stuart Larcombe was planning a party to thank the people who had made the current project possible: the architect, the contractors they would be using, the Mayor and Council Officers, bank manager, the Rugby Club management because their support was essential for the acquisition of a sports field at the foot of a hill, and various hangers-on. Frank seldom took Louise to such functions. She did not enjoy them and with Louise present he could not let his hair down with ‘the boys’, as he called the men friends with whom he had gone to school and played cricket and rugby. But Larcombe had insisted Louise be present.
“She won’t come, Stuart,” Frank had said. She doesn’t like this sort of thing.”
“I think she should be with you, Frank. I really want her to come,” Stuart had replied, leering meaningfully as he said the word ‘come’, a look not noticed by Frank. “How about I ask her myself? Will that help?”
Frank knew it would have the opposite effect; if Larcombe asked her to go Louise would run a mile. She was a very uptight lady
“Why the heavy trip?” he asked.
“Because I’ve got a wager to win,” Larcombe replied with another leer.
Frank was alarmed. Stuart had taken the drunken wager seriously. This was Frank’s chance to pull out. But Louise was never going to fall for Larcombe. She was man-shy, saw menace in every approach by a male. And to pull out of a bet meant social exclusion in the circles in which he moved.
“I’ll ask her,” he said. “Better coming from me.”
Frank thought back to a month ago and the drunken bet he had made when Frank was feeling frustrated and bitter. They had been at the pub, drinking together in a corner. It had been a stupid bet where his business partner Stuart Larcombe had exploited Frank’s sense of frustration and his state of near inebriation.
“Had a great one last night,” said Larcombe. “Just a young kid really but boy did she know how.”
Frank remained silent. He always felt a little uncomfortable when Larcombe crowed about his sex life.
“Are you getting any?” asked Larcombe.
“No,” Frank had said. “She’s absolutely frigid. Can’t stand being touched. I’d give a thousand bucks to anyone who managed to get my wife to have sex.”
“You’re on,” said Larcombe, holding out his hand.
Frank was surprised. He thought for a second then shook the hand. “But no drugs and no secret potions, legal or not. Just persh... just pershway ”
“Persuade her. Don’t worry, Frank. No dirty tricks,” Larcombe said. “Just the old Larcombe charm. She will get a thrill, and you might get lucky from then on. I’ll organise a party and do it then, when everyone is relaxed and happy. A party will give her an excuse.”
Later, Frank had been agitated and very concerned. What had he done? He had been drunk, it was true, but you don’t gamble with your wife as the stake. That guy in the book he had to read at school did, the one that became the mayor of wherever it was. So, was Louise worth only a thousand dollars to him?
He had loved Louise but recently they seemed to have grown apart. On the other hand, truth will out when you are drunk. Had they passed the point of no return in their marriage?
But it wasn’t going to happen.
‘She’s too upright and too uptight,’ he thought. He liked the phrase and rolled it around in his head. ‘Too upright and too uptight.’
He thought that summed up Louise in a nutshell; her upbringing had given her very old-fashioned values and she was a nervous wreck all the time. There was no way Larcombe could win the wager. Louise need never know about it. And if she did, Frank was certain she would keep the experience as a deep dark secret, so he would be safe.
Louise had been delighted when Frank asked her to the party, which was just after the New Year. She had a pretty blue outfit that was too much for ‘ordinary’ social events but just right for the wife of the businessman at a thank you social.
“Wake up you dozy so-and-so,” said Larcombe. “Where have you been for the last five minutes?”
“Thinking,” said Frank as he came back to the present. “Thinking what I’m going to spend my thousand bucks on when I win,”
Larcombe read Frank’s expression.
‘He regrets the wager, thinks it will never happen,’ he thought. ‘He’ll have to learn to play games with the big boys. I’ll have to sideline him or he’ll be like the shepherd looking for the wolf all night.’
Larcombe had played this trick several times in the past. Each time he set someone up, the husband was certain the wife would never come across, but Larcombe had not failed yet. He got a thrill out of the conquest and a thrill out of watching the man squirm. Even though the men thought they could safeguard their wives, there was always a way of separating the ram from the ewe no matter how vigilant the shepherd. At the thought of a shepherd looking after his sheep, Nigel Jones sprang to mind. It would be better to sideline him as well.
David Bannister was pleased with himself. David was square faced with dark curls hanging over his brow, a tall Lord Byron. He was a teacher, had been all of his life, a job that gave him access to clubs and sports groups. He enjoyed a strong social life and had been President of the Wahanui Rugby Club. He had supported Frank Copperfield’s plan to turn a rugby field into a shopping mall. The field was at the foot of a hill, shaded and damp and cold to play on. The Council had been willing to create another rugby field for junior players further out of town. It was a win-win situation, a no-brainer, even though it was strongly opposed by Club members. Bannister pushed a deal through, the Club was richly rewarded, and so was Bannister. Opposition soon faded away as the new sports field was developed and turned out to be a far better venue.
Life was good for Bannister. He had worked his way through Wahanui High School from being a classroom teacher, to Head of Physical Education and part time maths teacher. He was now the school’s Deputy Principal. Both he and the Principal, Ray Jackson, had been invited to a celebration party in the New Year. Ray Jackson would be cruising at that time and was not able to attend, happily leaving David to represent the school and the youth of the district.
Bannister’s wife had left him, taking the children, Roland and Amber, with her. Although there had been speculation that David had been caught having an affair, his reputation carried him through a difficult social time. He had been on his own for some years now and in his fifties was seen as a senior by younger associates. As a coach of sports and gymnastics he earned a well-deserved reputation for developing the sporting skills of both boys and girls. He gave much individual attention to students in his normal classes but especially so to the students in his sports teams and individual endeavours. He had assistants who taught some physical education classes as well as other subjects so there always competition among students to get into Mr Bannister’s teams and coaching schools.
Wahanui High School students were formidable competitors in the Inter-School Tournaments. They won far more than any other school throughout the South Island, including the much vaunted Wahanui Boys and Girls Colleges. Bannister was highly regarded by all.