She thinks, Berloody cheeky, mate. First send the kid here, and then expect tea again — there's limits to tribal affinities, and is going to say something sharp and icy when the man takes off his helmet and holds it out to her.
"He did tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
"Uh uh."
Simon takes the helmet and holds it to her instead.
"About tea," says Joe, eyeing his disorderly son, who has spent the last two minutes dancing round him. He had come down as soon as he heard the bike, and Joe had wondered at his pallor.
He says, "You forgot to say, didn't you?"
Me?
"Yes, you… o crikey, I thought one simple message would be safe enough unwritten. Kerewin, e hoa, I had a brainwave when I sent this one here. Since you gave us tea yesterday, I'd get tea tonight. Did you like your lunch?"
"Yeah, superb. I haven't had muttonbirds for months, and I didn't think the season began for a while."
Joe grins. "Secret source. Well, those were for him staying here, whether he stayed this time or not. I know he stayed, I checked with Tainuis on my way home. So then I rushed and got tea ready. It's special. Wild pork and corn. I even bought a bottle of wine to go with it, and that's something for this beer drinker to do. Why didn't you?" swinging round on his son, "why not?"
He is annoyed that all his effort and anticipated joy may be wasted. "Why not, eh?"
Simon, unfazed, writes SURPRISE on his hand.
"I'll say it's a surprise, but a bloody nice one too," says Kerewin. "I was just thinking about lighting that cursed range and getting some sort of hash for tea, and here I am offered a feast. Wait two seconds while I change my rings to some suitable for dining out in," and she cackles, derisive of herself. "Are you really serious? You actually want me to come and have tea with you?"
"Hell, yes. It's not a joke or anything. Listen, bloody brat, do as you're told, not keep things for surprises. That sort of practice backfires."
The boy nods, about one affirmative for each word.
"Distinctly sarcastic," Kerewin watches him with glee. "Well, it's nice to get a surprise like this, so faulty memory or deliberation, it turns out well. How're we going?"
"O, I got the bike." He takes the helmet from the boy and hands it to her for the second time.
"Not berloody likely!" jumping back like it was a head offered her on a plate. "I mean, where does Simon go?"
"You don't like travelling on bikes?" asks Joe anxiously. "I'm careful, I'll go slow."
Kerewin pulls at her hair. "I keep thinking, the only times I've been on bikes, about what happens to this precious brainpan of mine should we come off."
"That's the helmet's worry… look, truly, I'll go slow. There's not likely to be any traffic till we get to town. And we stick Sim in front as usual. I get caught," shrug, "I get caught."
Okay," she says dubiously, and slides the helmet gingerly over her head. She puts on her denim jacket as they go through the
entrance hall. Sounds are distant and muted through the fibreglass. Joe is talking to Simon, and she can see Simon answer, but she can't follow what's being said. She gets smiles from both of them, whenever she looks their way.
Even behind the man's broad shoulders the wind struck into her face. Swept across her eyes, stinging them to tears, and whipped round those curls stranded outside the helmet. And it was cold. The blow of air against her face bit through her lips and chilled her teeth. The lack of balance she felt, no control over speed or direction, made her feel unaccustomedly small and powerless.
She shut her eyes until the bike stopped, because seeing only the dark was better than the blur that rushed past previously. Not fast, the man had said: then what was speeding like?
"Sheeit," says Kerewin, standing unsteadily. "Remind me to buy a car." She takes the helmet off: her mass of hair is crushed and subdued.
"You know what?" she asks the grinning Gillayleys. "My teeth are numb. What the hell does pork taste like when eaten with numb teeth?"
Unanswerable-
So here we go, walking creepfooted into the Gillayleys' den, following the hand-in-hand two of them.
A neat lawn bordered by concrete paths. No flowers. No shrubs. The places where a garden had been were filled with pink gravel.
The hallway was dim, an unshaded bulb dangling from the ceiling, no carpet. There was not a suspicion of dust anywhere, nor any sign of flowers.
Joe sprouted from a doorway.
"Kitchen," he says. "Come in."
The kitchen is gas-heated, square and bare, almost institutional in its unadorned plainness. Table and four straightbacked wooden chairs. Battered fridge with chipped enamel; stainless steel sink and bench; a scarred clean cooker. There's a decrepit Coronation tea caddy on a shelf over the bench, with a saucer holding soap and sink plug beside it, and at the end of the bench, there is a canvas-covered birdcage on a stand. She is surprised by that, although she can't say for why.
Joe invites,
"Sit down, make yourself at home," and goes on busying himself with the pots on the cooker.
Simon slides round the door. He has a way of edging into a room very close to the doorpost furthest from anyone. He goes to the birdcage, slips off the cover, and snaps his fingers. Joe looks round automatically, and the boy gestures to the cover. "I forgot, and it's your job anyway. Feed him while you're at it."
The bird is a budgie of inquisitive green: it has no sense of occasion or time, cracking its beak and twittering as though the day has just begun.
She looks at it politely while Simon deftly slips in seeds and shows where it runs up and down a ladder, and looks at itself in a mirror. She dislikes birds in cages.
"Get a bottle out of the fridge Haimona, and give it to Kerewin to open, eh."
A semidry white wine: the top snaps off and a very small cloud of whitish vapour oozes out.
Simon makes a noise like Frrrsh, flinging a hand way in the air.
"You'll go frrsh in a minute if you don't give us a hand," says Joe, coming over with a pile of plates and cutlery.
"Sorry. Forgetting my manners," says Kerewin. "Can I give you a hand with the spuds or something?" and Joe smiles, remembering his own offer.
"Nope. Just nourish up your appetite."
"Rightio."
"Haimona!"
So the boy brings the salt cellar and the pepper grinder. A butterdish. Mustard already mixed in a pipkin. A dark sort of sauce, smelling of plums. Pulped apple spread on a wooden plate. A bowl of salad greens that sends fingers of scent stealing all round the room. Garlic, a mild vinegar, lettuce, and is that chicory?
"This appetite is in danger of becoming uncontrollable."
"Zoom," says Joe, and whips across the room with a haunch of basted brown pork on a platter. He waves it back and forth directly under her nose. "Kapai?"
"Ahhh," mock swooning off her chair to be an untidy heap sprawling on the floor, and he nearly drops the lot, giggling.
She must enjoy this. And if bloody Haimona doesn't wreck things, maybe she'll want to come back again.
He scurries back to the stove, an incongruous movement for his wide-shouldered figure, and begins ladling out the corncobs.
Simon is already kneeling on his chair, sharpening his knife and fork together.
"Quit "at," growls Joe when the boy does it in earnest, making a sharp metallic squealing that sets all their teeth on edge. Simon stares back insolently, but stops the racket.
We'll fix you, tama, you keep behaving like this.
But he fills the three glasses smiling, and goes to his seat, and still standing, gives the toast. "Kia ora koe," to Kerewin. "Kia ora korua," she says in reply. While the wine goes down, she thinks
What's strange? No pictures, no flowers, no knicknacks I can see? Maybe, but not all homes have that sort of thing. Is it the barren cleanliness, the look of almost poverty? Contrast that with the brandnew 750 c.c. bike he's got and this wine liebfraumilch doesn't come cheap.