Etiquette for a Dinner Party by Sue Orr Read Free Book Online Page A

and a half hours. He'd chucked the Wiggles CDs on to the floor of the car and found his own at the bottom of the glove box. Nick Cave, The Cure — he'd forgotten they were there. He grabbed blindly at the silver discs as he drove, shoving them into the player one after the other. The songs had taken him back to parties, old friends, girls.
    Julie had wanted to come too, bring the babies. Your mum loves seeing them, she said. She loves making a fuss. But he wanted to go alone. Julie gave him a look. He hung in there, gave her a look back. I want to spend some time with Mum, he said. I want to make a fuss of her for a change.
    He was not worried about his mother. His mother was fine; he rang her once a week to check that this was so. It was the business that was niggling away at him. He'd been thinking about franchising. Others were doing it — every day he read the headlines. Each time, he felt a prickle of resentment, as though he'd just missed out on a prize. So he'd taken the first steps, had a brochure made up. It was on the seat beside him.
    He'd had the brochure for a while. More than a while, a few months. He'd spent hours flicking through it, imagining the hard work already done. Branches of McKnight Finance everywhere. Australia. Asia. Television ads, magazine features on the self-made man. As he'd driven through the little towns on State Highway One, he'd pictured how his offices might look from the street.
    He sat in his car in his mother's driveway for a moment, window down, wide awake in the dark and the quiet. There was a big orange moon; he felt a sand-dune heat from somewhere in the past. He wondered why the moon looked so close in Tauranga, so far away in Wellington. There'd be some theory, boyhood dreams versus the responsibilities of adulthood. Shit that he didn't subscribe to. Besides, it was real, the difference. It was there, right in front of him.
    He would make the franchising decision this weekend.
    Jim let himself into the house. His mother usually waited up, made a cup of tea no matter how late it was. But he could hear snores coming from her bedroom. He threw the brochure on the kitchen table for her to ooh and ah over in the morning, and felt his way to his old bedroom. .

    'Hello Jim love, what time did you get in?'
    Rose put a cup of tea by his bed and pulled open the pale blue curtains. At least he thought it was her. It was her voice. But her hair was cut in a sexy-mature-woman sort of a style and she'd lost weight.
    'Just after midnight. You were out cold — snoring the place down,' he said, squinting at her silhouette against the window.
    'I was exhausted. Spent all yesterday visiting vineyards, and I think I overdid the tasting.'
    Then again, not so sure. Steam curled up from the cup and she leaned over him, kissing his forehead. He smelled perfume just before she moved away.
    She picked up his socks from the floor. 'And that wasn't me snoring. It was Roger. I'll throw these in the wash.'
    It was clearly not his mother. Roger. Roger. What was a Roger? A Roger was usually a man. Jim's stomach tied itself into a knot. He tried hard to move, but every muscle refused.

    Over breakfast, Jim took a good look at her. It had been how long since he'd last seen her? Three months . . . maybe a little longer? Her hair had been coloured a nice sandy blonde and yes, it was definitely a Helen Mirren-in- Prime-Suspect sort of a cut. And she was wearing make-up — at least lipstick, the only makeup he ever noticed. The rest might have been natural.
    However she had achieved it, the effect was amazing. She was fifty-three but everything about her shouted forty-five. A very attractive forty-five.
    He found some initial comfort in the familiar collection of spreads in the middle of the table — Marmite, peanut butter and strawberry jam. But then he saw the margarine was on a butter dish. He never knew his mother had a butter dish; margarine didn't look right on it. And there was the third breakfast plate,