Orla had been putting off Henry Millard with one excuse after another, but in the end she decided to face the inevitable. The sooner she went out with him and set everything straight, the sooner she’d get over her feelings of guilt about Eddie.
Henry, impeccably dressed as usual in an outfit that was sleek, dark and elegant, picked Orla up at eight, as agreed. In an effort to downplay what was clearly going on, Orla had dressed much less carefully than usual. The intended effect hadn’t quite worked out: she’d wanted to look ‘thrown together’, but had ended up looking rather vivid and louche. And it was far too late to change. Part of the ‘thrown together’ plan had involved leaving her clothing selection till the last minute, and she was just slipping on her last shoe when she heard a discreet knock on the door.
‘Oh, you look lovely,’ Henry said, a startled look on his face.
His look confirmed to Orla that she’d thoroughly misplayed her hand.
Armed with a torch, he conducted her solicitously to his car as though she were a breakable doll. Then they were purring down the hill towards Pigeon Bay.
‘Oh,’ Orla remarked, surprised. ‘For some reason I thought we’d be going up the hill.’
She saw him smile secretively, but he said nothing.
‘It’s a beautiful night,’ Orla continued. ‘Don’t you love the stars? Do you know there are Japanese tourists who come here just to see the stars?’
‘Pigeon Bay?’ Now he was obviously the surprised one.
Orla laughed. ‘I meant the South Island. Apparently lots of Japanese people have never seen stars because of the levels of light pollution in their cities.’
‘Really? I never thought to look at the sky in Tokyo.’
‘You’ve been there?’
Of course he had.
‘I think I’ve been everywhere,’ Henry replied, although his tone of voice conveyed dismay rather than pleasure. ‘Ever since I was divorced —’
‘Oh, you’re divorced?’ Orla interrupted. ‘With your wife being ill so long, I thought maybe she’d died.’
‘Dora, dead?’ he responded grimly. ‘She’ll be going strong till she’s a hundred and ten. Even then she’ll arrive at the pearly gates still smoking a cigarette and swigging from a gin bottle.’
Orla laughed and tried to picture her. An alive Dora, smoking, drinking and enjoying life. Then she had a sudden vision of Dora puckering up to kiss Henry: Eddie’s sensuous lips in glossy shocking-pink flashed into her mind.
‘Why did you snort like that?’ Henry asked in alarm.
‘Did I?’ Orla feigned innocence, and looked out of the window at the dark bush streaming past.
Soon Henry pulled up by the pier. Orla groaned inwardly: why was everyone always trying to get her on a boat? Yes, it was a fine night, but a gale could easily blow up, the waves would grow huge …
He started walking towards the dark hotel.
Orla followed him, very happy that the evening would be conducted on dry land.
‘Why is it so dark?’ she asked, as Henry opened the front door and they stepped into the gloomy hallway. There was only a single light on near the staircase. ‘And where is everybody?’
‘The staff have all been given time off in anticipation of the big opening next week,’ he explained. ‘Except for two of them, whose services I have retained privately for the duration of the evening.’
Services he had retained privately? Orla could just imagine Eddie saying ‘Whaaat?’
Grabbing Orla’s hand, Henry led her into the empty sitting room. It was unlit except for a huge fire roaring in the grate, and the flickering candles of an enormous candelabra sitting on a small table in the centre of the room.
Henry walked over to the small table and pulled out a chair. Then, gesturing that she should sit down, he said, ‘Go on, admit it. This is the private dinner you were afraid you were being invited to on the afternoon we met.’
‘Looks very much like it,’ Orla replied, taking her seat and surveying the table with its crisp, white tablecloth, and its single long-stemmed rose in an elegant vase. There was copious shining glassware and place settings for two.
‘Don’t worry,’ Henry said, taking a seat opposite her. ‘One of the staff I retained was the chef.’
‘I wasn’t worried about that,’ Orla said, wondering when the violinist would make an appearance.
Henry rang a little bell positioned on the table next to his wine glasses, and the nervous waitress from the party appeared with champagne. Orla sighed. She was obviously in for a lot of ‘spoiling’. Orla wondered what had happened to the Henry Millard who’d claimed he wasn’t a champagne kind of man.
An entrée of seafood quickly followed the champagne. It was paired with a matching wine, although Orla’s palate couldn’t discern whether it matched or not. Toying with her wine glass, Orla tried to think how to begin the conversation that would let Henry down gently.
The main course was eye fillet with a truffled something-or-other, again paired with a matching wine, this time red. Orla hated changing from white to red midway through a meal. She didn’t care if it were the sophisticated, fashionable thing to do —
‘Everything all right?’ Henry enquired, leaning towards her.
‘Lovely,’ she replied.
‘I suppose you’re wondering how I managed to get a whole hotel to myself,’ he continued, beaming at her.
‘Not really.’ Money changing hands, wouldn’t it have been? Like everything else.
Henry looked down at his plate and carried on sawing at his very rare steak.
Orla wanted to kick herself. What’s wrong with you? Stop being such a bitch. Just because this … isn’t a picnic on a windblown hilltop.
Oh God, how had she come to prefer the cub to the wolf? The unreliable, risk-taking, female-enthralling cub that hadn’t even bothered to call since the trip to Raupo Bay and the incident on the damp sand.
‘This room is so beautiful,’ Orla commented, trying to make an effort.
‘It is, isn’t it?’ Henry agreed, his eyes lighting up at her change in mood. ‘And wait till you see upstairs.’
‘Upstairs?’ she faltered. Whoa — this stallion had a bad case of the gallops.
‘I’m the only one staying here tonight, and I have the best room. The sea view from the big windows will take your breath away in the morning —’
‘In the morning?’
He nodded and smiled.
The waitress took away their dinner plates and returned with one of those pretentious desserts that consisted of a dozen or more small sponges, sauces, creams and whips, all distributed widely over a very large plate. A rich-looking, amber dessert wine was poured into Orla’s glass. Ignoring it, she tried to find the right words to start the unpleasant conversation. She really couldn’t put it off any longer.
‘So what have you been doing with yourself since I last saw you?’ Henry asked, as he attacked his dessert plate.
‘Um, making sourdough.’
‘Really? What inspired that?’
‘An empty bread bin,’ Orla said shortly. And added, still determined to be pleasant, ‘I’ve been using only wild yeasts, so it’s been quite an eye-opener.’
‘Uh huh,’ he said.
Orla looked up from her food to see Henry eyeing her longingly. If the candles had had dimmer switches, this would have been the time when he would have contrived to turn them right down.
Oh dear, Orla thought.
‘Have you finished?’ he asked, after watching her playing with her dessert for a few minutes.
Orla pushed her plate away. ‘Look, I think we should discuss—’
Ignoring her, Henry stood up and came towards her chair. He gently took her hand and led her to the fireplace. In front of the flames, he enfolded her in his arms and kissed her. Not hungrily this time, but with a kind of measured expertise.
‘Henry, I …’ But what was she going to say? I’ve been seeing your son? Rather a lot of him?
Henry took her by the hand and led her out the door towards the gleaming staircase. Orla thought she should put a stop to what was happening, but what could she do? She could hardly cling to the newel post. No, she’d have to wait till they were in his room, and then start the delicate dance of polite rejection.
His room was large and warm and, again, lit carefully with candles. Orla quickly suppressed an image of herself and Eddie jumping into bed beneath a single, blazing lightbulb.
‘Henry …’ she began, when he sat down on the bed as big as a continent and patted it.
‘We don’t need to say anything,’ he whispered, holding his finger up to his lips.
‘We do. I do.’
‘Let’s not spoil tonight. You can tell me tomorrow.’
‘No, there’s something you need to know,’ Orla insisted, feeling her mouth go dry. Would she really tell him about Eddie? Was there really anything to tell?
‘All right then,’ he said, reluctantly. ‘What is it?’
Orla swallowed hard, but the words stuck in her throat. The hurt expression in his eyes was too much for her.
‘Sit down beside me while you tell me,’ he said. ‘I won’t bite.’
She sat down on the bed, and he put his arm around her shoulder.
‘I just don’t feel this way about you,’ she murmured weakly.
His arm dropped. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘Physical.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Now his whole body had pulled away from her.
He was silent for a brief moment, but when he spoke again his voice was full of anger. ‘You could have fooled me! Why didn’t you say no when I kissed you? Why did you accept another invitation once I’d made my intentions clear?’
Why, indeed. Would men his age and type accept ‘tipsy experiment’ as an explanation? Or ‘I wondered if wolves could kiss’?
He stood up and began running his hands through his hair. ‘Is it because of Nick?’ he finally asked.
She stared at him. Nick?
He plunged on: ‘I mean, I wanted you to meet him, and I thought something might happen, there might be a spark … but then it seemed … Well, to be perfectly frank, it seemed there was more of a spark between you and me. In the breakfast room —’
‘It’s nothing to do with Nick,’ Orla cut him off.
Henry walked over to the windows and yanked the curtains open. Then he stood looking out at the night and Orla could feel anger pulsing off him in waves.
‘Well then, it must be Eddie,’ he concluded, without turning around.
At last Orla found her tongue. ‘It could be anyone. It could be a complete stranger. It could be a someone I met in the pub!’
‘But it is someone?’
She didn’t answer. How had she walked into that trap?
He suddenly whipped around to face her. ‘So it isn’t that you don’t feel “physical” towards me?’ he asked, with tight fury. ‘It’s just that you’re now feeling “physical” towards someone else?’
‘You don’t need to make it sound like that!’
His accusation did sound terrible. As if she were completely fickle and changed with the direction of the wind. And another thing: what was going to happen when he found out that it was Eddie? Deliberate deceit would be added to the growing list of heinous crimes.
‘Get out of my sight!’ he shouted.
Orla ran. Moving as fast as she could in her heels, she ran down the staircase and through the front door. She ran along the path and was swallowed up in the impenetrable darkness of the unlit bay.
‘Of course Henry came after me,’ Orla said to Rosa, as they shared a pot of tea in the afternoon sun the following day.
‘Just as well,’ Rosa remarked. ‘You couldn’t have run all the way home in your evening shoes.’
‘I might have made it to your place.’
Rosa took a sip of her tea and said cautiously, ‘So, just to be clear, you’ve actually been going out with Henry?’
Orla nodded. She could pretend otherwise, in fact she had been pretending otherwise, but, really, what was the point?
‘So what happened when he caught up with you?’
‘He opened the car door and ordered me to get in.’
‘Ordered?’
‘Yeah, pretty much. But I didn’t argue. A lot of the wind had gone out of my sails.’
‘And out of your lungs?’
‘That’s right,’ Orla agreed, and laughed.
‘So you made up?’
Yes. No. Not in the way Rosa meant.
‘When I got in the car he was quite contrite,’ Orla explained. ‘Said he hadn’t meant to sound so out-of-control. Not that he did, in my opinion. He’s got a pretty strict idea about what out-of-control means.’
‘Who wouldn’t, after living with Dora and Eddie?’ Rosa responded. ‘Over-compensating, I’d say.’
‘The funny thing is,’ Orla mused, ‘I preferred him when I thought he was a bit wild. Not mad-wild like Eddie, but … like a lone wolf in the forest.’
Rosa hooted. ‘A globetrotting lone wolf in an Armani suit and Berluti shoes!’
‘Wolves come in all shapes and sizes these days,’ Orla sighed.
‘Indeed they do,’ Rosa agreed. She poured herself another cup of tea and said, ‘Speaking of wolves, have you heard the latest scandal about Eddie?’
Orla froze.
‘It’s doing the rounds of the entire Peninsula.’
Please no, Orla panicked. Please don’t let anyone have seen us on the beach.
‘You must have heard that Eddie has been seeing the mother of a girl he previously dated,’ Rosa continued.
‘No, that was just a story he made up to —’
‘Word is that she’s pregnant.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah,’ Rosa grinned. ‘Wild-boy Eddie is going to be a dad at twenty-two. That’ll learn him.’
Orla’s head began to swim.
‘Who told you?’ she finally stammered. ‘Maybe they’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Maybe the father is someone else.’
‘Jack told me,’ Rosa returned firmly, ‘so I’m sure it’s true. He knows Laura Greenfield well. He’s been doing her garden for ages.’
Orla felt sick.
Noticing the expression on Orla’s face, Rosa said quite gently, ‘I know you used to have a thing for him. Lucky you came to your senses, huh?’
Orla glumly followed Rosa down the path to the barn. Archie and Kiri were close on Orla’s heels, although only moments ago they’d appeared dead to the world in the warm sun. Orla knew that Michael was out, so she wasn’t worried when Rosa began talking about him while they tackled the fading, overgrown perennials in the borders outside the barn.
Rosa picked up one of her earlier refrains. Michael was untrustworthy, an arch manipulator, virtually a Machiavelli or a Rasputin. Orla hardly heard a word after that. She couldn’t stop thinking about the depths of Eddie’s lies.
‘So how are things going with Michael?’ Orla heard Rosa asking. Rosa’s voice seemed like it came from a long way away. ‘He isn’t being a nuisance, is he?’
Orla could hardly force her mind away from Eddie.
‘Not at all. I like him,’ she managed to say. ‘We even went out for pizza.’
‘You did?’ Rosa looked amazed.
‘Sorry, I meant to tell you.’
‘God, I don’t mind. Where did you go?’
‘A picnic table at Duvauchelle.’
‘Sunset, wine and wisecracks, eh.’
Orla noticed that what Rosa had said was a statement rather than a question. She smiled briefly and replied, ‘He was very well-behaved.’
‘That would be a first,’ Rosa returned, and sighed heavily. ‘I just don’t want him here. I mean, he’s a good friend now, and he’s helped me a lot financially, but I’m always scared Jack will get the wrong idea.’
Wrong idea? Surely she was kidding?
Reluctantly, Orla realised she’d have to actually engage with the topic of conversation. ‘Jack can’t possibly be that insecure,’ she offered.
Rosa stopped work and considered what Orla had said. ‘I suppose you’re right. I’m just being paranoid, I guess. It’s just that Michael —’
‘Yes?’ Orla asked.
‘He’s always playing games.’
‘Frankly, it sounds to me like he’s learned the error of his ways.’
‘Pretending to.’
Orla silently mouthed ‘relationship baggage’ to herself and decided not to comment.
‘You couldn’t …’ Rosa began.
Rosa, who’d been doing her share of the work while half-kneeling on a cushion, sat back on her heels. She put her head on one side as if she were about to make a suggestion. ‘No, you couldn’t possibly,’ she eventually muttered, shaking her head.
‘What are you talking about? Couldn’t what?’
Rosa blushed. ‘Well, if not to reassure Jack — as you say, he probably hasn’t given Michael a second thought — but to reassure me …’
‘What? For goodness’ sake, spit it out.’
‘You know … maybe play up to Michael a little.’
‘Play up to him?’ Orla repeated.
‘I’m sure he’d go for it.’
‘Go for it?’ Orla couldn’t believe her ears.
Rosa looked like she’d tangled herself in a rope as she tried to explain her reasoning. ‘I mean, you wouldn’t have to do anything. Only be a bit flirtatious … then when he’s around us, Jack and me, I mean, he’d be so taken up with batting his eyelids at you that … that he wouldn’t have time for me … or he’d worry he’d offend you … or something like that.’
In spite of her low mood, Orla burst out laughing. It was so preposterous. Flirt with Michael? And what — he’d just stand there like a wooden post and not react? Did Rosa know him at all? Anyway, Orla had noticed that although Michael was friendly and attentive to Rosa and kept up his usual banter, he never stole secret looks at her, or watched her out of the corner of his eye, or did anything else to suggest he had some hidden agenda.
‘I think Michael knows he made big mistakes in the past,’ Orla reiterated, ‘but I think he’s sincere in his wish not to repeat them.’
‘Wow — that pizza picnic sounds like it went deep.’
Orla smiled, but didn’t reply, and they both started working again. Before long, Rosa began complaining of tiredness and struggled to her feet. Orla dutifully carried on weeding while Rosa set off up the path, accompanied by the excitedly circling dogs.
‘Hellooo,’ a voice called from somewhere up near the cottage about fifteen minutes later.
Michael. Orla watched him coming down the path to the barn with a bounce in his step. He was literally rubbing his hands together.
‘What’s got into you?’ she asked when he reached her.
‘I just made an offer on a property. Absolutely superb.’
‘You mean in Auckland?’ Michael was definitely the kind of guy who’d buy a place sight unseen.
‘No, here! On the opposite side of the harbour to Akaroa. Just past French Farm.’
Orla gulped, as she scrambled to her feet. Rosa would be furious.
‘It’s stunning,’ Michael went on enthusiastically. ‘Huge. Hectares of garden. Three houses on the property, a magnificent old French villa and two workers’ cottages. All done up to the nines. Expensive bathrooms everywhere.’
‘So you can shower in a different one every night?’ Orla asked.
He smiled. ‘It isn’t for me. It’s a business.’
‘You’re going to don an apron and walk around with a feather duster?’
He burst out laughing. ‘God no, I’ll be hiring staff.’
Orla was relieved. So the staff would run the place when he went back to Auckland. Rosa would be pleased.
‘Who said anything about going back to Auckland?’ Michael asked when Orla started wondering aloud about the availability of suitable staff.
‘I just took it for granted that —’
‘Don’t. More and more I’m thinking of putting Auckland behind me.’
‘Not because of Rosa, I hope.’
‘Rosa?’ he echoed. ‘Pregnant Rosa married to another man and as happy as a skylark?’
Had the conversation taken a dark turn? Was Michael being sincere or sarcastic? He was completely inscrutable behind his fashionable sunglasses, and Orla couldn’t be sure. She grabbed her gardening tools and began walking back to the cottage.
‘You should come and see the place,’ he carried on, following her up the path. ‘Before I confirm the purchase.’
Orla was taken aback. She stopped and turned towards him. ‘What for?’
‘See if you like it.’
‘Who cares what I think?’
‘I do.’
‘Why? I won’t ever live there. In fact —’
‘In fact what?’ he asked, when she hesitated.
‘I’ve been thinking of going home.’
‘Really?’ Michael took off his sunglasses and stared at her intently. ‘What’s brought this on?’
Trying to ignore the intensity in his blue eyes, Orla said crisply, ‘Well, I can’t stay forever. I don’t want to be holed up here when the weather changes.’
‘Oh, the weather,’ he nodded. ‘Nothing more important than the weather.’
Orla ignored his sarcasm. She turned back and carried on walking. When she reached the outdoor table, she threw down her gardening tools and rubbed her back. God, it ached.
‘Fancy a massage?’ Michael enquired, as she groaned.
‘No, thanks.’
‘Maybe get one from the father-and-son combo?’ he suggested.
She turned on him. ‘Cut it out!’
‘Sorry,’ he responded, melodramatically tugging his imaginary forelock. Then he sat down at the table and stretched out as if he owned the place. ‘So what exactly are you going to do about Henry and Eddie?’
God, the cheek of it. It was none of his damned business.
‘How about a drink?’ he suggested.
‘I’ve been gardening all afternoon. I’m going in to have a bath.’
Michael pulled a coin from his pocket. Putting it on the back of his hand, he fixed her with his eyes and said, ‘Heads, Eddie; tails, Henry. Okay?’
‘Stop it! If you must know, I ended it with Henry last night. We’re just going to be … friends.’
‘Ha — she finally tossed the poor dog a bone,’ Michael cried.
It took Orla a second or two to twig that he was the poor dog. Really? Michael was trying to pretend that he was some skinny pariah shut out in the cold? It was sillier than her own notion of Henry Millard being a wolf.
‘Don’t be so self-dramatising,’ she retorted, and went indoors, shutting the door firmly behind her.
Orla waited to see whether Michael would follow her inside. He didn’t. When she peeked out the window, he was already ambling off to the barn. She washed her hands and grabbed her sourdough starter and scales. As she measured out the fresh flour and water to make a new leaven, she began to question what she’d just said to Michael. The truth was that she hadn’t been thinking of going home until she’d actually said it.
No, the real truth was that she’d been thinking about leaving ever since Rosa had told her about Eddie.
Orla made the leaven and left it to develop in a warm place near the stove. Then she started cleaning up the storm of flour. No matter how hard she tried, flour got everywhere. She imagined Connie could make sourdough in a cocktail dress and still be immaculate afterwards.
Why had Eddie told such a bald lie? And right to her face? She’d given him the opportunity to set things straight, and had respected what he’d told her …
Orla sighed and put away her cleaning equipment. The leaven would take hours, so she might as well take the opportunity to finish some work. She was still writing her article about Harry Head.
Orla had been enjoying writing about Harry. He was the most romantic character she’d ever heard of. The fact that he’d been dead for donkey’s years made no difference at all. Eat your heart out, Heathcliff, she thought savagely as she opened her laptop and began to type.
In 1867, Harry Head had made his way through the bush to the uninhabited and inaccessible Hickory Bay — or Waikerakikari as it was then called. He’d erected a clay-brick shack roofed with tree fern. Utterly alone, he’d set about hunting and gardening, dressed only in a sack with holes for his head and arms.
Harry had been born in Bristol, but he’d left England in his early twenties and gone to America. He’d lived with the Blackkeep Indians, learning their language and becoming acquainted with their customs. While with the Blackkeep, Harry liked to dress in a buckskin suit and beaded moccasins; and later on, at Waikerakikari, perhaps because his better clothing had worn out, he adorned his sack with a gaudy, tasselled, multi-coloured cord whenever he went for his long walks across the plains to Christchurch. On these walks, a distance of over fifty miles, Harry carried only a pocketful of sugar to sustain him.
Orla pushed back her chair and picked up her coffee cup. She liked to picture robust Harry in his tasselled sack marching to the quickly gentrifying city with his pocketful of sugar. She knew that when he got there, he went shopping in the curiosity shops, and brought home fascinating gewgaws to decorate the clay-brick shack. An overnight visitor to the shack reported that the gewgaws made the shack most homely, but that the shack was only for visitors — Harry’s own accommodation had no roof at all and he slept open to the stars.
The following afternoon, Orla had just put the concluding full-stop to her article when there was an unexpected knock on the door. She’d been concentrating so hard that she hadn’t heard a car or even footsteps on the path. She jumped up to open the door, and there was Rosa bearing cake.
‘Freshly baked,’ she said as Orla opened the door wider to let her in. ‘Our organic apricots and Plucky’s best eggs.’
‘Plucky?’ Orla asked blankly.
‘Head chicken at my place. She and her sisters used to live here. The coop attached to the barn was their childhood home.’
Rosa put the cake down on the table and said, ‘Shall we invite Michael up for coffee and cake? I’ve got something to tell you both.’
‘Tell us both?’ Orla repeated in alarm. What on earth could Rosa need to say that affected them both? The only thing they had in common was their accommodation. And in spite of what she’d announced to Michael the day before, Orla had realised that she had no intention of leaving. Not until she’d given her potential new career a good shake of the stick. Connie had prepaid her for the Hickory Bay work and had given her several new pieces to write. Why should two-, three-, multiple-timing Eddie sidetrack that?
While Orla ran through her thoughts, Rosa went down to the barn. Orla put the jug on and put coffee cups and plates on the table. She was just pouring milk into a pretty little jug when Rosa and Michael came through the door.
‘Yum, cake,’ Michael enthused. ‘Don’t worry about my figure when you cut my piece.’
‘I never worry about your figure,’ Rosa returned, as she grabbed the knife.
‘Ooh, nasty,’ Michael responded.
Rosa began to cut the cake while Orla poured hot water into the coffee plunger.
‘Got any cream or mascarpone?’ Michael asked.
Orla shook her head. She was embarrassed to admit her fridge and cupboards were almost bare.
‘So what’s the big news?’ Michael asked, after he and Orla had made appreciative noises about the lovely cake. ‘Triplets, is it?’
Rosa glared at him. ‘Melanie has broken up with Ben, and she’s coming to stay for a while.’
Before Orla could ask who Melanie and Ben were, Michael said drily, ‘That’s Rosa’s best friend who hates me, and the boyfriend she picked up on a beach here last summer.’
‘She doesn’t hate you,’ Rosa retorted. ‘And that description of how she met Ben makes her sound like —’
‘Like what?’ Michael pressed.
‘Look, I was there. So stop casting aspersions.’
Michael held up both hands and laughed. ‘No nasturtiums here.’
Orla looked at him. ‘Nasturtiums?’ Surely a man with his smarts hadn’t misunderstood what Rosa said?
He leaned over and whispered, loudly and clearly so that Rosa could hear. ‘Stop casting nasturtiums — that’s what we used to say when we were together.’
Rosa looked angry. ‘Don’t refer to our relationship, Michael Ashton. It’s in the past and I want you to keep it there.’
‘Have I done anything to resurrect it?’ Michael asked Orla with wide-eyed innocence.
Orla didn’t know what to say. She was glad when Rosa began talking again.
‘The problem is that the spare bedroom down at our cottage is about to be done up for the baby. The builder is coming first thing tomorrow. He’s putting in French doors to the back veranda —’
‘French doors for a baby!’ Michael exclaimed.
‘Not just for the baby,’ Rosa snapped. ‘It’ll be much nicer for me, too. The doors will let in much more light and warmth than the tiny window that’s there now. And I’ll be able to feed the baby on the veranda in a bit of sunshine.’
‘So what you’re saying is that there’s nowhere at your place for Melanie to sleep,’ Orla put in.
Rosa turned to Orla and looked apologetic. ‘That’s right.’
‘Oh well, I suppose she’ll just have to sleep with me,’ Michael said with a dramatic sigh.
Rosa threw a cushion at him.
‘It’ll just be for a couple of nights,’ Rosa carried on.
‘Or I could move in with Orla,’ Michael teased. ‘I so enjoyed the couch that first summer.’
Rosa turned to Orla and said, ‘Don’t listen to him — it’s a proper sofa bed. Melanie will be very comfortable.’
Michael slapped his thighs. ‘Done and dusted, then. I don’t know what you needed me for.’
‘To tell you how to behave,’ Rosa shot back. ‘I want you to show her a bit of sympathy, Michael. Her relationship with Ben was serious.’
‘So what happened? Did he dump her or something?’
‘I don’t know. She’s telling me all about it when she gets here.’
Michael took out a cloth and began polishing his sunglasses. Then he put them on and said, ‘Can I go now, Mum?’
Orla smothered a giggle.
Rosa dismissed him with a wave of the hand.
‘I’ll get everything ready,’ Orla said helpfully.
‘That’d be great,’ Rosa replied. ‘I’m picking Melanie up from the airport tomorrow afternoon. You can come along if you fancy a trip.’
‘I’d love to come.’ Orla was delighted. The trip would be a complete change from all her recent anxieties. Number One being Eddie. She still hadn’t got him out of her head.
The next afternoon when Rosa called in to collect Orla, Michael was lounging at the table finishing off his lunch and reading a boating magazine.
‘So where are you two girls off to?’ he asked.
‘I told you, we have to pick up Melanie.’
‘You didn’t tell me.’
‘You left, remember? But how did you think she was going to get here?’
Michael turned his eyes on Orla. ‘I thought you might come down and see my potential purchase this afternoon.’
Rosa, who’d been starting along the path to her car, froze in her tracks. She whirled around and said, ‘Purchase?’
‘Yes. A house on the French Farm road.’
‘You’re buying a house here?’ Rosa looked dumbfounded.
‘Mansion,’ Michael corrected himself. Then he smiled at her pleasantly.
Orla kept her mouth shut. There was a moment when she thought an argument might erupt, but Rosa, pinch-lipped, looked at the time on her cell phone and said, ‘I haven’t got time for this now. Come on, Orla, let’s get going.’
‘Tomorrow then, Orla?’ Michael called after them. ‘I’ll make an appointment with the agent for tomorrow.’
The trip into town was very enjoyable. Rosa drove well, clearly knowing every bend in the road and expertly passing the few dawdlers that held them up. And the scenery was very pretty in the afternoon sun: the harbour was a shimmering blue, and the fields were golden and dotted with picturesque bales of hay. To Orla, it looked like a Van Gogh painting of Provence. She saw little curly-haired goats gambolling on a clay escarpment, a herd of sweet, small sheep, some of them absolutely white and some pitch black, munching grass in a rock-strewn paddock, and whole families of suicidal pukeko making mad dashes across the road. Here and there, elegant horses looked down their noses at all the passing noise.
They arrived at the airport half an hour early and sat down for a coffee in one of the cafés near the arrivals lounge.
‘I just can’t believe it,’ Rosa fumed. ‘Michael buying a house here! What for?’
‘I think it’s quite a lot larger than an average house. He told me he’s running it as an accommodation business,’ Orla explained, even though she sensed that Rosa’s question was rhetorical.
‘It’ll ruin him,’ Rosa said darkly. ‘The tourists haven’t come back since the earthquake.’
‘I’m sure that won’t last,’ Orla replied. ‘Maybe he’s being smart, getting in early. When the tourists increase, won’t the property prices go up?’
‘But why does he need a business here at all? There are plenty of nice places north of Auckland for him to play resort-owner at.’
It was a question Orla had no answer to. She felt she didn’t know Michael well enough to know what he was really up to. If anything. Maybe it was all as it seemed. Maybe he wouldn’t even stick around once the business was up and running.
The automatic doors of the arrivals lounge opened and passengers began flooding through.
‘Oh, there she is,’ Rosa announced, and her face brightened. She abandoned her coffee and hurried towards her friend, Orla following at a discreet distance.
Orla was very surprised at how Melanie looked. She hadn’t expected Rosa to have a friend who was so curvaceous, or so scantily dressed, even though it was still warm for autumn. Melanie wore a plunging — front and back — acrylic-knit top over a very short skirt. No leggings, no jacket. Just lots of jangling jewellery. She was surprisingly pretty, though, with big blue, long-lashed eyes and a mass of unruly red tresses. Her beautifully shaped full lips, somewhat inclined to pout, made Orla think of Eddie.
After Rosa did the introductions, they all went off to the luggage carousel. Then, as they walked to the car with her copious supply of bags and suitcases, Melanie regaled them with one melodramatic story after another, accompanied by attention-grabbing hand gestures and loud hoots of laughter.
When they’d returned to Lilyfields, Melanie’s suitcases had been carted up to the sofa bed in the bedroom and Jack’s latest handiwork on the kitchen admired, Michael appeared at the cottage door. Orla was startled to see two such outspoken extroverts suddenly turn so cool.
‘Hello, Michael,’ Melanie said, with only the hint of a smile.
‘Melanie,’ Michael responded with a curt nod.
‘Now come on, you two,’ Rosa chided. ‘We’re not going to be like that the whole time, are we?’ She grabbed Melanie’s heavily jewelled hand and Michael’s large brown one and joined them together like she was betrothing them. ‘Now shake on it and repeat after me: I pledge not to fuck up Rosa’s enjoyment.’
Melanie and Michael repeated the pledge as instructed and smiled at each other. It seemed to Orla that the tension between them had lessened.
At that moment, Archie and Kiri appeared from somewhere in the garden and rushed up to greet the new visitor. Melanie was overjoyed to see them and, kneeling down, encircled both of the panting, excitable young dogs in her arms and began covering them with loud, smacking kisses.
‘Aren’t you glad to see Mummy?’ Melanie asked, holding Kiri’s face in her hands and looking deeply into her eyes.
Orla looked questioningly at Rosa.
‘Yes,’ Rosa confirmed. ‘Kiri is Melanie’s dog.’
‘And mean Rosa won’t let Baby come to Auckland,’ Melanie pouted.
‘I certainly won’t,’ Rosa declared. ‘Kiri has never been on a lead in her life. And she doesn’t like nasty little apartments in high-rises.’
‘Do you think I do?’ Melanie retorted.
‘You don’t count,’ Rosa laughed. ‘You’re human. But you’re welcome to have Kiri stay with you while you’re here. Now come and see what I’ve done to the garden.’
Rosa and Melanie went outside, and Michael and Orla were left staring at each other. Orla was about to make a joke about the dog hairs that had adhered to Melanie’s lipstick during the kissing session when she realised Michael was holding her gaze.
Feeling unexpectedly flustered, she turned away. She busied herself rearranging the dirty dishes on the bench.
Michael cleared his throat and said, ‘So I’ve made an appointment for the agent to show us the property tomorrow afternoon at three. Is that all right?’
‘Fine,’ Orla murmured.
There was a pause, then he said, ‘You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.’
Orla turned back and insisted that she did want to come. And it was true. She’d been looking forward to it. He sought her eyes again, as if trying to find confirmation of something he needed to know.
‘There haven’t been any visitors while I was at the airport, have there?’ Orla asked, to cover up her renewed bout of awkwardness.
‘Eddie, you mean?’ Michael shot back. ‘No,’ he said crisply, and then he turned on his heel and walked out.
That evening they all ate at Rosa’s. That is, all of them except Michael, who’d mysteriously uncovered some business matter that required his urgent attention. The food was excellent and the mood jolly. Having had a little too much to drink, and inspired by all the generous hospitality that had been bestowed on her since she’d arrived in the bay, Orla offered to host a barbecue at Lilyfields the following Saturday.
‘Saturday?’ Rosa repeated. ‘Are you sure? You do know it’s Friday tomorrow?’
Orla nodded, although she hadn’t had a clue what day it was when she’d made her suggestion.
‘Wonderful,’ Jack said. ‘I’m already looking forward to it. I haven’t had a meal there since …’ He frowned and couldn’t finish his own sentence.
At home in bed, with Melanie rustling and snuffling on the sofa bed as if a guinea pig had invaded the room, Orla lay awake and wondered what had possessed her. All that preparation. The shopping, the cleaning, the food! Had she lost her mind? When had she last cooked a full meal for five — presuming Michael deigned to come? And their appetites! They’d expect little snacky things with their drinks and a proper dessert, not to mention local marinated meats rather than her usual stack of burnt sausages.
She informed Michael about what she’d done as they drove to see his property the following afternoon.
‘Don’t panic,’ he responded. ‘I can help.’
‘I have enough sourdough to sink a battleship,’ she admitted, looking out at the silky sheen on the sea.
‘Good. As long as it wouldn’t sink a battleship,’ he joked.
Orla laughed. She enjoyed the teasing comfortableness they had with each other. No weird duplicity or sudden flashes of anger. In fact, she felt like rolling down the window and singing.
Orla caught her breath as Michael drove up the steep, tree-lined driveway to the … what would you call it? Mansion was appropriate to the size, but not at all descriptive of the style. It spread out rather than imposed, in a glorious sprawl of ornate verandas through a beguiling, fragrant garden. As soon as she stepped out of the car, the perfume of the still bountiful flowers fell over her like a veil.
The agent arrived two minutes later, and while he breathlessly repeated his sales spiel to Michael, perhaps afraid that his customer might change his mind, Orla wandered through the garden picking late roses. She knew she wasn’t stealing: she knew without a doubt that Michael would buy this princess, and that people would throw any kind of money at him just to stay here.
After she’d seen the main house, which was as wonderful inside as out, the agent unlocked a renovated shepherd’s cottage at the back of the property. It nestled amid trees on a hillock overlooking the lapping blue water of a tiny bay. Orla stepped inside — and oh, it was perfect. She was in danger of gushing mindlessly as she took in the creamy walls, the lime-washed floorboards, and the driftwood tones of the artisan furniture. How she loved pale! Not cold pale, but warm, sun-bleached pale like this. Exactly like this.
‘What do you think?’ Michael asked, and she knew he was watching her face. ‘Too overdone?’
‘Not at all — I love it.’ Her voice came out sounding as breathless as the agent’s.
‘We’ll take it,’ Michael said triumphantly to the agent, who looked as startled as a rabbit. ‘Just kidding,’ he added, slapping the agent on the back. ‘I was taking it anyway.’
On the drive home, Michael suggested detouring to the butcher-cum-deli at Akaroa. There he loaded a basket with smoked salmon, specialty sauces and expensive cheeses, one boasting spidery green veins of nettle, before buying half the meat in the shop. Next it was the wine shop, followed by the supermarket, where liberal ‘essentials’ were speedily purchased. Before Orla knew it, they were back in the car and on their way back to the bay.
Sharing a coffee in the late afternoon sun, Michael, ever inscrutable behind his sunglasses, stretched out and said, ‘Wonderful day. Hard to believe autumn’s over.’
Orla looked askance at him. He was ribbing her again about Henry Millard … autumn and spring, father and son. Was he fishing for information? Well, two could play at that game. ‘In spite of the lovely weather, the smell of bonfires, and the endless rain of withered leaves and sycamore seeds, autumn is finished. Most definitely.’
‘Good,’ he replied happily. ‘Autumn’s quite overrated.’