Fish 'n' Chip Shop Song and Other Stories by Carl Nixon

Author:Carl Nixon [Carl Nixon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781869417611
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2012-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

The previous evening Richard had arrived unexpectedly at Mark’s fiftieth birthday party. Of course Richard was invited but Mark had not expected his son to materialise. On the phone Richard had mumbled something about exams, had clearly intimated that he would not be making the trip up from Dunedin.

But arrive he did, and there was a girl with him. They had stood outside on the terrace, not mixing, notably apart from the other guests. Both appeared to smoke constantly. Smoking is not a habit that Mark is comfortable with. His son, as a medical student, a future doctor, should know better.

The girl kept on a long brown overcoat buttoned down the front. Mark’s first impression was of a short solid frame — what in a less correct era men would have openly referred to as child-bearing hips. She was not fat but approaching that condition. Richard himself had on what looked like a second-hand jacket over a pair of jeans, tattered and dangling at the heel. His one concession to propriety was a mismatched tie. He looked tired. Dark creases loitered beneath his eyes and he appeared to have lost weight. There was an unfamiliar gauntness to his face.

Mark had found himself irritated by his son’s appearance. Couldn’t Richard have made more of an effort? Surely with a bit of forethought it would have been possible to borrow or even buy some more appropriate clothes. After all, the deputy mayor was here as well as several trustees of the gallery. Would a simple haircut have been too much? His son’s hair was moppish, frizzled above the ears, and his sideburns were long. It was completely unnecessary to have Richard looking like a refugee among his guests. How long could he be expected to cling to this bohemian image of the down-at-heel student before entering a more mature phase of his life?

‘Hello Richard. Are you enjoying yourselves?’ They did not embrace or even shake hands. Mark had felt the girl’s scrutiny.

‘Sarah, this is my father. This is Sarah.’

‘It’s nice to meet you, Sarah. Please call me Mark.’

‘Hello.’

He had wondered what happened to Richard’s last girlfriend. A pleasant enough young woman, although he couldn’t immediately remember her name. This new girl’s hair was too short, cut in a no doubt fashionably jagged bowl but left long at the back, and a natural black that went well with her dark skin. Despite her hairdresser’s efforts, however, she was undeniably pretty. Her face was a symmetrical oval, her eyes large. Large dark eyes. He thought of the Tahitian women in Gauguin’s later work, posed semi-nude alone and in small groupings. It was a full face, yet it still managed to be strong. A face to match her body.

‘When did you get in to town?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘I hope you didn’t miss anything important on your course just for my birthday.’

‘I was coming up anyway.’

‘I see.’ There was an awkward pause. ‘Where are you staying?’

‘With friends.’

‘You know that you’re always welcome to stay here. Both of you. I’ve got room.

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