Page 54 of Kiwi Gold
“That doesn’t exactly make me fall off my chair in surprise,” I said. “It’s Torsten Drake.”
“Excuse me,” Larissa said. “I’m trying to tell you something?”
I gave an inward sigh and said, “Right. Tell away.”
“Like I said,” Larissa went on, “an interview. Asking all of us in turn what we did for work, whether we were married, whether we had kids. He liked that Lark was a lawyer, anyway, and that Liana’s getting her Ph.D. Not sure he was as impressed by me being a teacher, though heaven knows he should be, and it doesn’t say much for him, in my opinion. And as for Lexi, of course …”
Lexi said, “The most rubbish kind of job interview, is what it was. I told him, ‘Not married, no, but I’ve managed a fair few partners so far, and I change jobs as often as I can, too.’ Told him about working the container ship, and a few of the other jobs as well. Besides the waitressing, I mean. How I’ve shown off cars at the car show in a sparkly dress, and then, when that didn’t go over, how my first job out of school was packing sex toys. He wasn’t best pleased about the no-uni bit, either. His face got more and more horrified as I went, like any minute now, he was going to hear that his daughter was giving lap dances down at Calendar Girls. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
“If he was here to see you eat bacon and frittata and teacake,” Lark said, “he probably wouldn’t worry. But then, he saw you getting outside of that pile of fish and chips last night, too.”
“Maybe I cater to a fetish clientele,” Lexi said, “who prefer their dancers with some meat on their bones.”
Claire said, looking up from her waffle pursuit, “Auntie Lexi is a very good dancer.” She slid down from her seat, then, somewhat like an eel, and executed a pretty creditable bump and grind. I was laughing, and Lexi was jumping up, too, humming the notes to “The Stripper,” and bumping and grinding along with her. Lark was exclaiming, both potholder-clad hands clutching her frittata, and unfortunately for future marital bliss, Ewan was laughing.
“Stopher,” Lark told her husband. He tried to compose his face, but couldn’t quite do it, and then said, “That’s enough, now, Claire. Come finish your breakfast.”
“I can do it better if we have the music,” she informed him, scrambling up into her chair again. “Auntie Lexi is the most funnest babysitter, because we eat a thousand and a hundred of cookies and learn how to do dancing.”
Lark was glaring at her sister. “When?” she asked. “When was this?”
Lexi shrugged, picked off a corner of the teacake that was sitting in the middle of the table, and popped it into her mouth. “Who knows? You’ve asked me to babysit often enough. Could’ve been anytime.”
“That’s it,” Lark said, setting the frittata down in the middle of the table with a thump. “You’re not babysitting anymore.”
“Oh?” Lexi asked. “Liana stepping up, then?”
“I told you,” Liana said. “I can’t just now. I’m defending my dissertation in amonth.”
“And I’d love to help,” Larissa said, “if you’ll bring the kids to me. Itoldyou. Frank doesn’t like me being gone at night, especially now I’m pregnant, and—”
“And you never do anything Frank doesn’t like,” Lexi said. “Or can be parted from him. Except when you’re with us, I’ve noticed, because he’s somehow always mysteriously absent at these gatherings. Didn’t even turn up for New Year’s Eve. Why is that, exactly? Ewan’s here. Lachlan’s here.”
“I told you,” Larissa said, her tone a little stiff. “He’s golfing.”
It was more than that, I’d bet. Frank liked being the center of Larissa’s attention. Not much chance of that here. He also probably wasn’t best pleased about the whole “sperm donor” idea, either. Frank had a stick up his arse in general, if you asked me. A headmaster of the stiff and proper type, and, worse, in a private and very posh boys’ school. Frank so clearly wished he were an Oxford don. Let’s say that he wasn’t a fan of the often-inappropriate, sometimes-hilarious, emotion-and-estrogen overload that was my family.
“Are you seeing him again?” I asked. “Torsten? Or did he say?” Could they possibly really be feeling as breezy as they sounded, like they’d done all this for fun? Could feel a bit abandoning, maybe, if your father—sperm donor—met you and wanted nothing else to do with you, especially if your own dad had already walked out, and hadn’t always met his commitments afterward, from child-support payments to visits. Erratic, that was the word for Peter.
Of course, he’d walked out on me, too, andmybio-dad hadn’t even stuck around long enough to walk out, and I was fine, but I’d been used to it by then. “Also,” I asked, because all this wondering was well above my pay grade, “what did Mum say? Why isn’t Mum here this morning, for that matter?”
“She said that we’d probably want to talk amongst ourselves,” Lark said, starting to slice into the frittata and motioning the others to sit as if she were the boss. “And with you.”
“With me. Why, exactly?”
“Because you know him, of course,” Lark said. “And you’re a man. She said that you could advise us.”
Lexi rolled her eyes. “Behold the patriarchy.”
“Well, no,” Liana said. “Lachlanisa man, after all.”
“Cheers for noticing,” I said, thinking,I could have done this over the phone.Except that, of course, I couldn’t have, not really. Saudi Arabia was looking better and better, though, not to mention Mali.
“How is a man necessary here?” Lexi demanded. “What, Lachlan’s going to explain how a man feels about his sperm donation? About the discovery of his accidentalfourchildren? Oh, and his new grandchildren, too! Right, then. How does he feel, Lachlan?”
“Don’t know,” I said. “As I don’t have any children, and I’ve never made a sperm donation, for that exact reason. I don’t want to make any kids I’m not responsible for. Why don’t you ask Ewan? He’s donated sperm. So to speak.” There. Sounded good. Let me off the hook, too.
Lark said, “You mean you don’t want to be responsible for any kids.” Which was possibly true. “Even though you’re holding the baby right now. I don’t understand you, Lachlan. Why do you run away from responsibility like that?”
