‘Let me do the punch,’ said Shannon, who had come up to me as I stood and ladled the mixture of home brew and fruit cocktail into the glasses I’d put out. She was wearing the same outfit as when she arrived, black polo-neck sweater and black trousers. I mean, probably another set of clothes but that looked exactly the same. I don’t know much about clothes, but something told me that hers were of the discreet and exclusive type.
‘Thanks, but I’m quite capable,’ I said.
‘No,’ said the little lady and shoved me aside. ‘Off you go and talk to old friends, while I’ll go round with the glasses and get to know everyone a bit better.’
‘OK,’ I said. I didn’t bother to explain to her that they were Carl’s friends, that I didn’t have friends. But anyway, it was nice to see them all give Carl a hug in the doorway, slap him on the back as though he’d got something stuck in his throat, grin and say some laddish thing they’d worked out on the drive up, a little bit high, a bit shy and ready for a drink.
Me they shook hands with.
Of all things, this was perhaps the biggest difference between my brother and me. These were people whom Carl hadn’t seen for fifteen years, but they’d seen me every other day at the service station, year in and year out. And yet still they felt as though he was the one they knew, not me. Standing there and watching him now, how he relished the warmth and nearness of our friends, things which I had never enjoyed – did I envy him? Well, I guess we all want to be loved. But would I change places? Would I be willing to let people get as close as Carl did? It didn’t seem to cost him anything. But for me the price would have been too high.
‘Hi, Roy. Not often we see you with a beer.’ It was Mari Aas. She was looking good. Mari always looked good, even when she was wheeling her twins around when they had gripe. And I know how much that annoyed the women in town who had been hoping they might finally get to see little Miss Perfect having a hard time of it like the rest of us mere mortals. The girl who had everything. Because as well as the silver spoon in her mouth she was born with, and a brain that got her top marks at school, and the respect that came with her surname Aas, she had the looks to match it all. From her mother Mari Aas inherited the dark glow in her skin and feminine curves, and from her father the blonde hair and the cold, blue, vulpine eyes. And maybe it was those eyes, her sharp tongue and air of superiority and coolness that had kept the boys at an oddly respectful distance.
‘Funny we don’t run into each other more often,’ said Mari. ‘So how are you, really?’
That really was a signal that she didn’t want the standard just-fine-thanks answer, but that she cared, she wanted to know. And I think she really meant it. By nature Mari was friendly and helpful towards people. But still she gave this impression of looking down on you. Of course that might be on account of the fact that she was 180cm tall, but I do remember one time when the three of us were in the car driving home after a dance – me driving, Carl drunk, Mari angry and pissed off – and her saying, ‘Carl, I can’t have a boyfriend who drags me down to the level of everyone else in this town, you do see that?’
But even if she wasn’t happy about the level, it was obvious that it was here she wanted to be. Though she’d been even smarter than Carl at school, she didn’t have the same drive as him, that burning desire to head on out and be somebody. Maybe because she was already up there, floating around on the surface in the sunshine. So it was mostly about staying there. Maybe that was why – after it was over with Carl – she’d just taken a short course in political science – or poshlitical science as the locals called it – and then come straight back home with Dan Krane and an engagement ring. And while he started work as editor of the local Labour Party newspaper, she was apparently still working away on a final paper she was clearly never going to finish.
‘Doing OK,’ I said. ‘Did you come alone?’
‘Dan wanted to look after the boys.’
I nodded. Knew that the grandparents next door would have been delighted to help out with the babysitting but that Dan had insisted. I’d seen his expressionless, ascetic face at the service station when he pumped up the tyres on the costly-looking bike he was going to use in the Birken long-distance race. Pretended he didn’t know who I was but his animosity was palpable, simply because I shared a lot of DNA with the guy who’d slept with the woman who was now his lawful wedded wife. Oh no, Dan probably didn’t entertain any burning desire to come up and celebrate the return of a home-town boy who was also his wife’s ex.
‘Have you met Shannon?’ I said.
‘No,’ said Mari, scanning the already packed room where we’d shoved all the furniture to one side and everyone was standing. ‘But Carl is so fixated on looks she’s bound to be so pretty you can’t mistake her.’
From the way she said this it was obvious what she thought of all talk about appearances. When Mari gave the speech on behalf of the school-leavers for her year the headmaster had introduced her by saying that she ‘wasn’t only intelligent but also a striking beauty’. Mari had started her speech by saying: ‘Thank you, headmaster. I wanted to say a few words of thanks for all you’ve done for us these past three years, but I didn’t know quite how to express myself, so let’s just say that you have been remarkably lucky in your appearance.’ The laughter had been isolated, the line delivered with a little too much venom, and as the daughter of the chairman it wasn’t really clear whether she’d been kicking upwards or downwards.
‘You must be Mari.’
Mari looked round before she looked down. And there, three heads below her, Shannon’s white face and white smile smiling up at us. ‘Punch?’
Mari raised an eyebrow. Looked as though she thought this slight-built figure had challenged her to a boxing match until Shannon lifted the tray higher.
‘Thanks,’ said Mari. ‘But no thanks.’
‘Oh no. You lost at rock paper scissors?’
Mari looked blankly at her.
I coughed. ‘I told Shannon about the custom of driving and the—’
‘Oh that,’ Mari interrupted with a thin smile. ‘No, my husband and I don’t drink.’
‘Aha!’ said Shannon. ‘Because you’re alcoholics or because it’s not good for your health?’
I saw Mari’s face stiffen. ‘We aren’t alcoholics, but on a worldwide basis alcohol kills more people annually than wars, murders and drugs put together.’
‘Yes, and thank goodness for that,’ said Shannon, smiling. ‘That there aren’t more wars, murders and drugs, I mean.’
‘What I’m trying to say is that alcohol isn’t necessary,’ said Mari.
‘I’m sure it isn’t,’ said Shannon. ‘But at least it’s got the people who’ve come here tonight talking a bit more than when they arrived. Did you drive up?’
‘Of course,’ said Mari. ‘Don’t the women drive where you come from?’
‘Sure they do, but only on the left.’
Mari gave me an uncertain look, as though asking if there was some joke here she didn’t get.
I coughed. ‘They drive on the left in Barbados.’