Page 47 of Kiwi Sin
Honor said, “Rubbish. Gray and Daisy will be in one bedroom of the yurt. Got another one right next door.”
I didn’t know how to say,But they’ll be having relations.I’d grown up with my parents having relations in the sameroom,and I’d never been embarrassed, but Outside—it was embarrassing, and the yurt’s bedrooms didn’t have walls that went to the ceiling. I’d been in this house sometimes, cooking or cleaning, and I’dheardthem, even though they were upstairs! Also, Daisy sometimes got silent and felt sort of … prickly when there were too many people around, especially Mount Zion people, and most especially her sisters. It was worse now, with Prudence here, and I could sense, as if Daisy had come out and said it, how much she was looking forward to those weeks with just her and Gray, not having to think about us, because we’d be with Honor.
Gray said, “The answer’s obvious. Oriana lives in the caravan and goes to work. Independence, eh. Good for her. But possibly cook some dinners for us, still, Oriana, if you don’t mind. This idea’s sounding good to me.”
“It is?” I wanted to. The caravan was like a tiny little house, everything in miniature. The beds folded out from the walls, one of them above the other, and the table had built-in benches. It was down in the garden, and waking up to birdsong and the clucking of chooks every day, amongst the flowers … it would be heavenly.
And the crew from Mount Zion would be remodeling the main house.
Stop it.It wasn’t allowed, and I didn’t do things that weren’t allowed. And anyway, what was I going to do? Ask Gabriel if he’d kiss me like in that film? I’d die of mortification, and he probably would, too.
“There you are, then,” Honor said. “Apply for the job. Good practice anyway, applying. Use me as a reference. I’m a bloody good reference, let me tell you. If you get to that point and I’m your reference, you’ll get the job.”
* * *
The photographer,whose name was Laila Drake, rang me the next day.
I said, “Oh! I didn’t think you’d call me,” and then wished I could grab the words back. I’d gone on a bit, in my cover letter, about how much I loved working with kids, how I’d been trained in infant CPR and so forth. As much as I could, anyway, without coming out and saying, “I was fully responsible for up to five infants at a time in the Mount Zion nursery.” You see how hard it was to write anything specific enough.
“What, because you’re young?” Laila asked. “Or because you don’t have the right experience?”
“I’m … I have the right experience,” I somehow managed to say, wiping my palms on my overall legs and feeling glad she couldn’t see me, with my sweaty hands and my probably beetroot-red face. “But Iamyoung. I’m seventeen.”
“Why did you apply?” she asked, which, again, wasn’t the question I’d been expecting.
“Because I love babies.” I tried to think what else to say, and couldn’t.
“You realize this will be hard work,” she said. “Not just cuddling a baby. It’s cleaning as well, and it’s an extremely responsible position.”
“I know how to clean,” I said, wishing again that I could just come out andtellher. “I—”
The phone wasn’t in my hand anymore, because Iris had taken it. She said, “This the photography lady, then, calling about O?” I didn’t hear what Laila said, but it couldn’t have been much before Iris said, “Reckon you should ask me instead. She’ll never tell you she’s good. Probably because she doesn’t know. In the garden with me right now, isn’t she, weeding the vegie beds and mucking out the chicken coop and the alpacas’ shelter, and in half an hour, she’ll be up at the house, cooking dinner for her family and probably cleaning toilets as well. You won’t do better. That’s all I’m saying, and I shouldn’t say that. Losing the best helper I’ve ever had, like as not, once you get your hands on her.”
I’d been holding out my hand, whispering,“Iris.It’s aninterview!”with no results. Now, she listened a minute, then said, “Right,” and handed the phone back to me.
“Hi,” I said. “This is Oriana. Sorry about that. That was Iris. I didn’t mean to—”
Laila said, “Reckon you’d better come and see me in person. Now I’m evenmorecurious. Come … oh, call it tomorrow.”
“I have school.” I knew it made me sound like a child, but there was no help for it.
“And I have babies to photograph,” she said cheerfully. “Come after five o’clock. Be warned, there’ll be children there still. A dog, too.”
“That’s OK,” I said. “I like children. And dogs.”
The weather was fine the next day when I found a carpark and began walking up the hill to the address I’d memorized, the breeze tugging at the gauzy, wide-legged, red-flowered trousers I’d sewn myself, with their wide tie belt. I checked to make sure my loose white T-shirt was still tucked into them and wondered again if I didn’t look too frivolous. Daisy had said, “It’s polished but casual. You’re not applying for an office job,” and I’d gone with that, because what did I know?
At five-thirty precisely, I stood on the doorstep of, oddly, a church, looking at a discreet brass sign screwed into the stone to the left of the enormous doors.
Laila Drake Photography
It looked so official.
I took a breath and rang the bell.
Therewerechildren. Girls. Two of them—twins, probably—aged about six, eating their tea in a shabby little lounge, overseen by a white dog with three legs whose hair fell in his eyes in a comical fashion. Laila, who was small and dark and neat and had a knot of hair as big as any in Mount Zion at the back of her head, said, “Let me show you the studio and explain what we do here.”
The little girl with the shorter hair, whose name was Amira, said, “You have to be very careful with the babies, because they’re just tiny. You can never,everdrop a baby.”
