Classical Music by Cowley Joy

Author:Cowley, Joy
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780143008293
Publisher: Penguin New Zealand
Published: 2010-12-22T05:00:00+00:00

8

Bea

The wind has disappeared, not a breath to stir the morning. Funny that. It came up roaring an hour before the funeral and went down right after. Erueti says it’s a Maori tradition for the sky to weep for a great man or woman. He doesn’t say anything about wind.

She doesn’t mention last night and neither do I but I can still feel the glow on my hand where he kissed me when I handed him the keys this morning. Not on the back of the hand like a finger-nibbling Frenchman, but a long kiss in the cup of the palm with his nose at my wrist and his breath bathing my entire hand. That was the first thing I thought. Breath. The day I checked in and saw his perfect ears, small, whorled like the inside of a seashell, I wanted to breathe into them. Silly really. But perfect ears are as rare.

‘Do you think they’ll be suitable?’ Diddy says. She is talking about her footwear.

‘You know the farm, Diddy. You know your shoes. Erueti did offer the horses.’

‘For crying out loud, Bea, I haven’t been on a horse in forty years. I’m too bony. My coccyx would fuse to the animal and we’d become a centaur.’

‘He’s got a four-wheeled motorbike he’d lend us.’

‘After hearing how Dad rolled the tractor on that slope? No thanks. I’ll walk.’

We pause at the intersection, indicators flick, flick, flick, and I think of last night and the softness at the back of his neck in contrast to the skin of his chin hardened by shaving. It’s always so lovely in a man, this combination of softness and hardness. And the surprise of hair. Sometimes on the shoulderblades or abdomen. Hair thick as a hearth rug. Or a few silk threads. Covering a map where fingers can walk.

‘Are you listening, Bea?’

‘I’m sorry. I was.’

‘Spare me the details,’ she says.

It’s more than a year since I visited the farm. For Diddy it’s been six years. She’ll see some major changes, but nothing ever stays the same. That’s the way it is. At least she’s in a happy mood. The last two days she’s been as jittery as an addict doing cold turkey, ping, ping, nerves sounding off like banjo wires. Relaxed now, must have slept well. Knowing her, she won’t talk about what happened. Well, if she thinks she spoiled. It was funny. We laughed and laughed and he pulled my head down to rest on his shoulder. Even his arms were soft against me. I like that in a lover, a bit of plumpness. Some women make a fuss of muscle and bone but heck, if I wanted that I’d hug a kitchen chair.

‘Tell me the names of the Rawiri children,’ she says.

‘I told you yesterday.’

‘I’ve forgotten.’

‘It doesn’t matter because they won’t be home. The girls are Riperata and Kiriana. The boy is Ed who is married to Ruth and they have a boy and a girl, Ranui and Tania. Ed is short for Eduardo.

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