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The door opened and Aunty Jane put her head round it. She had a long, doughy face with a prominent nose--the family-nose--and her greying hair was still piled up from getting a set yesterday, at that place near the dairy which could sometimes be a bit iffy, but good lately. Just a little extra something for after Christmas. She was an elderly, self-sacrificing spinster. As I recall, she'd moved from Masterton to stay for a while in the house with her brother and sister-in-law two years before. Aunty Jane wore newish gold-rimmed glasses. She leaned further into the bedroom and spoke in a high, girlish voice.

'John, how would you be for tea?'

Her nephew sat up, still in his pyjamas. With small gestures he tried brushing his hair down flat.

'Right...'

His legs--she was sure they were getting even longer. He'd been stretched out on that orange bedspread again just staring at those wee toys of his and whatnot up on the shelves. While she'd been frantically rushing round to do for him and do. Aunty Jane saw the clean clothes on his chair where she'd left them first thing this morning.

'Why don't you put some shorts on?'

Suddenly she thought of the beans--had she got any salt in? Better add a sprinkle. She turned, but then she poked her head back round the door, to check the boy was actually coming. Because he was like that, spoiled. His mum had always gone along with anything, and his father...but oh dear. Too late now. Aunty Jane stumped off along the passageway, her powerful shoulders and her back bent. To anyone who saw her on rare occasions off her property--at the hairdressers or shopping at the nearby supermarket, but almost never in town--she looked like a hopeless drudge pushing an invisible wheelbarrow. A patch of sun through the bathroom doorway lit up her faded floral dress. Dust motes swirled into the sunlight from the red brusella as her brown shoes shuffled. It was such a lot of work for her old bones, she was tired. Thank goodness for unthawing the bread in the toaster and the brown-sauce mix from the packet. Thank goodness.

The dining-room was connected to the kitchen by a breakfast bar that had been converted, with a row of cupboards above, now, and down both sides. Just shortly before John's mum died. Yes, Aunty Jane thought, just before it was--at that spot near Porirua with no centre-line where anyone could cross--she'd chosen the woodgrain finish on the walls. Aunty Jane put the chops on the plates and took them round to the table from the kitchen. Then she drained the saucepans of boiled new potatoes, peas and beans and brought them in with a clatter and began to dish up. And John was coming up the passageway.

'That's the boy.'

Most of the dining-room was crowded up with the table and the extra furniture, but she'd brought some yellow freesias in anyway for prettying along her windowsill. Probably see them from the street. Funny how her kitchen and dining-room were at the front of the house, and not how she'd have wanted it--and bother, had she forgotten the mustard? On the bench by the sink. When she came back, he was sitting beside the telly they'd left in the corner.

'And how's John today?'

'All right. How's Aunty Jane?'

'Oh, bearing up under the strain.'

He hadn't even shaved. Unpresentable, after spending nearly all day shut up like that. Only came out when she'd asked him to help shift the set in here from the living-room. Well, now she wouldn't let on that she'd left that remote-thing on the other side of the breakfast bar. From when she was looking at the telly at bit, while the chops were doing--very handy to have a set in the dining-room. 'Twenty-three was the high,' the weather-girl was saying when she'd switched it off. Nearly thirty in Christchurch. Like January already, Aunty Jane thought, and gosh, soon be 1982.

'That's right, boy, you go ahead.'

He was already cutting into his chop. Aunty Jane picked up her knife and fork and ate with her elbows in.

'Got bitten by the painting bug,' she said. 'I spent the whole day going all round the windows in the living-room. And the skirting boards.'

'When do they come, those men?'

And he hadn't lifted a spoiled finger to help. John was scooping his peas like an American, she wished he wouldn't do that but, oh well. Couldn't have learned that put-on in England.

'I suppose they'll come when it suits them. They'll lay the carpet next week, or maybe the week after. Orangey-brown--nice, but what a bother. Probably have to plane something off the bottom of the doors. And the same lot, they've said they'll take away the chairs for the reupholstering.' She thought of something. She put down her knife and fork. 'If it's so much excitement, you could go down to Wellington again. See what jobs are doing.'

He looked annoyed, of course.

'I tried that. It's no good.'

'With your qualifications? Well...'

But she couldn't see him working for the government, really. And she was glad, in a way. Aunty Jane had wanted to be a teacher when she was little. Ended up taking care of her mother. Twenty five years. Twenty five, she could nearly see them stretched out around her. Like cellophane after opening some useless presie. And not that she had a choice, after all, if Brian suddenly needed to marry John's mum and they should have their own place, and what about me not getting a life that's too precious to waste? But it was done. She bent her knife flat against the plate and scraped up the brown sauce and got it all on the back of the fork. She'd done it, and nothing for it but the satisfaction. Not like people who can take everything for granted and leave their troubles behind. Aunty Jane licked a dab off her finger.

And then someone was coming--who? Aunty Jane raised herself and turned to look out through the net curtains. Who? Getting out of his car to check the letterbox. On the way down to the back, to the Malleys', in his black t-shirt and jeans.

'It's young Peter. I think, everyone in that family's got their own car now? What would you say, John?'

But he said nothing. Just picking at his potatoes, fussy like that.

'Your mum didn't think he'd come up to much, but he's finished his apprenticeship. You see, he got himself into a bit of strife a while back. Pinched for driving over the limit. Still going out on the randan, like--I think it's the Irish in him but, I don't know.'

The engine, short of its muffler, roared down the right-of-way beside them toward the Malleys' house. After a long while John said:

'So he's what...an electrician now?'

'His mother come over and told me. After he'd finished his time. I made her coffee and I thought, when's this woman going to leave? She went on and on about how you'd been in the same class at school together. Well, I wouldn't know about that.'

When Aunty Jane brought the dessert round--she'd gone and opened a whole can of Watties peaches for having with the ice cream, and with extra cream on top--she saw he was just staring down at the telly. Just blank where they'd parked it. Off. No please or thank you's--just this sort of carry on. Itching to get a look at the overseas news, always, ever since he got back. After all his time gallivanting around. And he didn't give two hoots about the troubles they'd had with the Boks here, when you couldn't even talk to your own neighbour, but...he watched so carefully after someone blew up a wee shop in Oxford Street. Aunty Jane clattered the bowls onto the tabletop. 'Oxford Street!' he'd said, so happy, and pointing at the screen till she'd looked--at all those different people. Hard to believe that was England. 'Been there,' he'd pointed. It looked like a Maori pa at bargain day.

'Well, there's the international track series on tonight,' Aunty Jane said. 'From Mount Smart.'

'Right...'

Aunty Jane started to cut her peaches with the edge of her spoon. She had a thought and put the spoon down.

'Those darkies can't run faster than John Walker.'

That got him looking up. Looking tired, awake half the night with his wee radio turned down low. Never see his nibs out mowing the lawn...but, never mind. He liked to play his little games.

'Eat,' she said. 'That's the boy.'

And he shovelled down the muck and thought in the last few weeks nothing had happened, absolutely nothing, but still he couldn't get anything done. Why did she have to smell of wool from her tights and the socks up to her knees? And why wasn't there any mail, didn't anyone write these days except the finance company? And first night back, God, there was that movie on TV about Buzz Aldrin lying around in his swimming-pool all down-hearted. Return to Earth. Your time's up and that's it. One moment you're there and the next...you might as well be...just on a year ago I'd be, where? Winter-holidaying in Amsterdam. All the time in the world now and I still can't seem to get anything done.

He laboured to finish the bowl. He put the last of the ice cream into his mouth and chewed. Return to Earth. That guy at the Palmy dole office saying, 'Have you got School C.? What about U.E.? Really? And did you actually go to varsity at all?'--and I told him what I'd come back with from London and he looks just stunned. Lost. 'Oh, you'd probably like to meet my wife. She was a student in Toronto for a while.' Some job he's got, stuck out here with her--out in a place like this and with his mortgage, married to his monster from outer space. Who wants anything to do with people...these narrow people? And it's incredible, how much I really seemed to put into each of those days and in the evenings I'd go out. And now nothing gets done, ever.

Aunty Jane was bringing in some bread and butter, and some tea on a tray. Because he still looked like he needed feeding up. She went to a cupboard and took out a jar of jam-preserves, checked the date on the clear seal and started to pull off the rubber band. A bit mouldy on top, but if it was scraped that'd be all right. He was just staring down at his plate. What wasn't he happy with now?--but what a bother. Fussy. Aunty Jane began to cut her slice of bread up into little pieces. That girl who rang for him earlier. Said she was an old friend, from before he went away to varsity overseas. Aunty Jane reached out to the middle of the table for the mustard bottle. Nipped that in the bud smartish. She stuck a finger into the bottle's neck and licked off a dab of mustard. Lovely.

'Hullo, here's Fifi!'

Aunty Jane pushed her chair away from the table.

'Have you been out in the garden, have you?' The cat purred up against her leg. 'Look what you've brought in before din-dins. You're all messy on the paws, you are! You are! There's a Fifi!' Aunty Jane lifted the cat with her strong forearm, careful of the dirt. 'Say hullo to John. Say hullo!'

She looked across to where the boy hadn't moved. Well, not to worry.

'Cup of tea?'

'No. Thank you.'

'You should put some shorts on if you're too hot.'

He was getting up to go back to his room. Messy paws. Aunty Jane resisted the urge to cuddle the cat--his mother's animal. She thought of the accident and how it had brought him right back from over there, it did. And the moral was, people ought to drive around more carefully. She asked:

'What would you like to eat tomorrow?'

'I don't know.'

'Oh, you poor thing.' Aunty Jane laughed. 'You've got no preferences?'

'No.'

'Never mind. We'll manage.'

She watched him shuffle off down the passageway. We'll manage. A look of quiet achievement came into her grey eyes as she saw him go, a token, back then, that I'm not sure I can do justice to even if I attempt to describe it. And the brown dust starting to come up from the brusella with each step he took.

Copyright Ian Richards, 2008

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