Danielle Hawkins > Quotes

“I woke up horribly early the next morning to the sound of some sadistic bastard operating an electric hedge-trimmer just outside the window. I lay for a while hoping this prat would be struck by lightning or washed away in a bizarre flash flood. Neither happened, so I groaned and rolled out of bed.
My skull had shrunk so that my brain was in imminent danger of being squeezed out of my ears, my teeth seemed to be covered in wool and my tongue was far too big for my mouth.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Dinner at Rose's

“He really is a first-class waste of space, isn't he ?"
"Thank you" I said. It's nice when the people you love share your opinions.
"You're welcome," Dad said. "And the cartwheels would seem to imply that the new model's a good thing ?"
I looked at him with something close to shock. My father and I have a very satisfactory system in place, based on the unspoken agreement that I won't tell him about my love life and he won't ask. All that sort of carry-on is Mum's department, and she advises Dad on a need-to-know basis. "Um, yes," I said.
"Very good," said Dad and, clearly appalled at having strayed so far into this emotional minefield, he began to brush his teeth with most unnecessary vigour.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Dinner at Rose's

“I briefly considered bashing her to death with the soup ladle before reluctantly deciding that, as satisfying as that would be, it probably wasn't worth spending the next thirty years in prison. Instead I picked up the phone and went down the hall to my tiny toom, vindictively switching on every light as I went.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Dinner at Rose's

“I continued past the door of the Pink Room to look round her door. She was propped on her pillows with The Sentimental Bloke and Persuasion beside her on the covers and a torrid bodice-ripper in her hands. Nice Marty Holden from the Book Exchange had been bringing romance novels by the boxful and she was getting through two a day, switching to Jane Austen when her brain needed decontaminating.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Dinner at Rose's

“We didn't, after all, sing "Another One Bites The Dust" as the coffin was carried out; Hazel and the vicar had settled instead on the more traditional "How Great Thou Art". And Aunty Rose's old adversary the mayor was pressed into service as a coffin bearer to replace Matt.
Rose Adele Thornton, born in Bath, England, died in Waimanu, New Zealand, a mere fifty-three years later. Adept and compassionate nurse, fervent advocate of animal welfare, champion of correct diction and tireless crusader against the misuse of apostrophes. Experimental chef, peerless aunt, brave sufferer and true friend. She had the grace and courage to thoroughly enjoy a life which denied her everything she most wanted. The bravest woman I ever knew.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Dinner at Rose's

“Aunty Rose's scones were small windowless buildings - if you could manage to worry one down it sat and sulked at the bottom of your stomach for hours, impervious to the processes of digestion. I giggled, and she said haughtily, "My scones are very nice."
"We could bury you with a batch," I suggested as we went slowly back down the hall. "And if archaeologists opened your grave thousands of years in the future they'd find them there, just as good as on the day they were cooked."
"Ill mannered wench," Aunty Rose said. She sank onto the edge of her bed and reached up to touch my cheek as he had Matt's. "I'm glad the pair of you finally sorted yourselves out."
I smiled at her. "You sorted us out, didn't you ?"
"I swore I wouldn't interfere, but I couldn't stand it any longer."
"Thank-you," I said soberly.
"You're welcome. Honestly, Josephine, for an intelligent girl you can be appallingly dim at times. Couldn't you have fluttered your eyelashes at the poor boy ?”
― Danielle Hawkins, Dinner at Rose's

“I drank enough beer to spoil Sunday entirely, and to have a long and incoherent argument with Brendon about predestination versus free will, but I never got drunk enough to enjoy myself.”
― Danielle Hawkins, The Pretty Delicious Café

“I picked her up and carried her down the hall to the bathroom, just a pitiful skeleton with skin stretched over the top and a great red scar across her chest. She sank onto the plastic seat we had got from the hospital and closed her eyes as I washed her, leaning her poor bald head back exhaustedly against the back of the shower cubicle. "I'll just change the sheets," I said, "I won't be a minute - would you rather sit under the water, or shall I turn it off and wrap you up in a towel ?"
"Under the water," she whispered.
I had to strip the bed entirely, and two of the pillows were saturated. I replaced them with pillows from my bed, and while I was at it my duvet as well. Then I propped the poor woman up against the bathroom sink to dry and dress her, picked her up and carried her back to bed. Never have I been so grateful to be, after all, a strapping wench rather than a delicate wisp of a girl.
As I pulled the covers up under her chin she opened her eyes, looked at me sternly and said with nearly her old decision, "This is not the way I wish to be remembered, Josephine."
"I know," I whispered, the tears spilling unchecked down my cheeks. Nurses are supposed to be bright and matter-of-fact about these things: my bracing professional manner left a lot to be desired. "I'll get you some dinner."
"No," she said. "Just my pills, love."
Back in the kitchen I stood for a moment in a trance of indecision, wondering where the hell to start. It didn't really matter - when you're overcome with lethargy you just have to do something. And then the next thing, and then the next, and eventually, although you'd have sworn you were far too tired and depressed to accomplish anything, you're finished. I turned on the tap about the big concrete sink by the back door and began to scrub sheets and blankets.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Dinner at Rose's

“He doesn't realise how much it hurts me when he's so curt," his mother said sorrowfully.
"He doesn't mean it," I said. "It's just calving. I expect every dairy farmer in the country is being rude to his mother just now."
"It's Rose, too," she told me. "He's such a dear boy Josie; it's tearing him apart to see her so unwell. Perhaps-" she paused and looked at me with a Madonna-like expression of patient and loving reproach - "perhaps it might help if you didn't expect him to dance attendance very spare minute, hmmm ?"
My hand clenched on the handle of my fork as I considered throwing it at her like a spear. I've got pretty good aim - I'd probably be able to get her in the side of the head from here. But the consequences wouldn't be worth the fleeting satisfaction. I dropped my eyes to my plate and nodded.
"You're a sweet girl. I know you don't mean to be selfish.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Dinner at Rose's

“The words "when you're better" hung between us like smoke from a snuffed candle - what if she wasn't going to get better ? Well, she just had to. I got up and divided the remaining dregs of wine in the bottle between our glasses.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Dinner at Rose's

“Percy had shrunk to the size of a chihuahua and was perched on the kitchen table watching me make a bacon and egg pie. I was trying to be surreptitious about the bacon but I could tell he,d noticed, which made conversation somewhat awkward.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Dinner at Rose's

“What do you think of this stuff?’ he asked.

I looked at the bottle and discovered that it contained a miracle udder liniment, guaranteed to reduce pain and swelling. ‘I’ve seen the ad in the Dairy Exporter, but that’s about it,’ I said. ‘Does it work?’ Personally I doubted that it would, since it’s a bit of a stretch to ask something you rub on the skin to kill the bacteria lurking in the tissues ten centimetres down, but I had learnt through bitter experience that belittling someone’s pet alternative treatment is almost as offensive as telling them their kid looks funny. (My all-time low was attending a cat after-hours wearing a T-shirt which read Homeopathy, making damn-all difference since 1796, and then learning that the cat’s owner was a certified homeopath.)”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

“Just leave him alone, I told myself miserably. He’s hoping you’re asleep. But I reached out a tentative hand for his, on the slim off-chance that I might be wrong.

His fingers closed around mine. ‘Feeling a bit better?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘That’s good.’

I wriggled across the mattress and propped myself up on one elbow to kiss him.

‘Sure you’re not going to spew?’ he asked, running a hand over my hair.

‘Pretty sure,’ I said.

‘I’m not sure pretty sure is sure enough.’ But I could hear that he was smiling, and he pulled me down on top of him. ‘Oh, what the hell. I like living dangerously.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

“Em answered the phone on the second ring. ‘Hello?’

‘Hey,’ I said. ‘It’s me. What’s up?’

‘That was Mark Tipene in your kitchen last night, wasn’t it?’

‘It was.’

‘Mark Tipene! The All Black!’

‘Yep,’ I said. ‘Did you find him on the Weetbix box?’

But she was not to be diverted. ‘And just how, pray, do you know Mark Tipene?’

I sat down cross-legged on the bench in the lunch room. ‘I fell over his feet at a party a few weeks ago. His cousin’s share-milking just out of town, and he was down here visiting. And then he came in to work and asked me out.’

My stepmother was temporarily stricken dumb, but I heard the sounds of laboured breathing down the phone.

‘Em,’ I said gently, ‘you sound like a stalker.’

‘You’re seeing Mark Tipene,’ she repeated.

‘Um. Yes. I think so,’ I said, looking across the lunch room at his picture and smiling wonderingly to myself.

‘Sweetie, he’s gorgeous.’

‘I know.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

“Watching someone else calve a cow is a bit like watching them fumble with a knot; it leaves you twitching to elbow them aside and have a go yourself.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

“He accepted the cake and bent his head to kiss me. ‘I’d better go home and let you get to bed.’

‘You could stay,’ I said impulsively. ‘If – if you want to . . .’

He looked at me, startled, and my cheeks burnt in shame. Hurriedly I added, ‘But you’ve probably got an early start or something.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I mean yes, I want to.’

‘Okay, um, cool,’ I said, going abruptly from hot with embarrassment to cold with terror as I realised that, in fact, this was all moving way too fast for me. I didn’t really want him to stay; I wanted him to kiss me goodnight and go away. Then I would be free to lie awake half the night, reliving every second of the evening, overanalysing his every word and agonising about how much he really liked me. The lying-awake-and-obsessing stage is an important one in any new relationship – you’re not supposed to just skip it.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

“He moved over to make room for me and I slid under the covers beside him. There was a short silence, and he ran his hand up my leg from knee to hip. ‘I thought you didn’t like these,’ he said, tracing the lacy hem of the scarlet knickers.

‘Oh, well, I thought you might.’

‘I do. Please pass on my thanks to your stepmother.’

‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘I think not.’

‘Spoilsport.’

‘You could always tell her yourself.’

‘Fair enough,’ he said serenely. ‘I will.’

I kicked him.

‘Stop that,’ he ordered, rolling over and pinning my legs with his.

‘You’re so hot,’ I said.

‘Thanks,’ said Mark, smiling. ‘I work out.’

‘I meant your body temperature, you weenie.’ I lifted my head off the pillow to kiss his nose, which was nice and handy.

‘What’s your dad like?’ he asked.

I was a little startled by this abrupt change of subject. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘he’s about six foot seven, a fundamentalist Christian, collects guns, very protective of his daughters . . . Ow!’

‘We’ll try that again, shall we?’

‘Biting people is not cool,’ I said sternly.

‘Toughen up, McNeil, it didn’t even break the skin.’

‘I can see the headlines now. Innocent Girl Bitten by Crazed All Black. Wound Turns Septic. Major Surgery Required . . .’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Amputation at the neck.’

‘The ultimate solution.’

‘So,’ he repeated patiently, ‘what’s your dad like?’

‘Lovely,’ I said.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

“What’s up?’ he asked.

‘Would you mind if I went on maternity leave a bit earlier than I was going to?’

‘When were you thinking?’

‘Another few weeks?’ I asked tentatively.

Nick sat back in his chair and looked at me. ‘I thought you were planning to stop on the side of the road somewhere between calvings to produce this child, and then tie it on your back and keep going,’ he said.

‘There’s been a slight change of plan. I’m going to go and live with Mark instead.’

‘Are you now? Well, that would have to be a step in the right direction.’

‘Mm,’ I said, feeling my cheeks get hot. It would have been nice to think I’d succeeded in hiding the shambles of my love life from my colleagues behind a facade of dignified calm, but evidently I hadn’t.

‘So presumably you won’t be coming back to work,’ he said.

I shook my head. ‘I’m so sorry to be leaving you in the lurch.’

‘That’s alright,’ said Nick. ‘We’ll manage. Although I must say it would have been a lot more considerate of you to get yourself knocked up by someone local.’

‘Then you’d never have got rid of me,’ I pointed out.

‘Well, there is that,’ he said, returning to his paperwork.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

“I don’t know why I’m wasting my breath,’ he said. ‘You’ve never listened to anything I’ve said in your life.’

‘I have too!’ I cried, stung.

‘When?’

I groped for an example and, luckily, found one. ‘I’ve never put my feet on the dashboard since you told me the airbag would ram my knees through my brain if I was in a crash.’

‘Huh,’ said Lance, sounding pleased. ‘Well, there you go.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

“Crikey,’ I said.

‘I’m told that this place has all the warmth and charm of a lawyer’s waiting room,’ said Mark.

It did, too. The walls and flooring and kitchen cabinets were all beige, and the furnishings black. The only touch of colour was provided by two big canvases on the far wall, each one sporting a single red squiggle on a white background. I find it hard to be impressed by art that looks like it took longer to hang straight on the wall than it did to produce. However, those whose living rooms are a symphony of plum and orange are in no position to criticise anybody else’s interior design. And perhaps he loved it.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

“Helen, what would you like to drink?’ Saskia asked. ‘Wine, beer, cider, juice, soft drink . . . ?’

‘Wine, please.’

‘Red or white?’

‘White.’

She opened the fridge. ‘Sav, chardonnay, pinot gris or riesling?’

‘Pinot gris, please,’ I said, slightly dazed by the number of options.

‘Mission Estate or Greywacke?’

‘Whichever’s closest.’

‘They’re both equally close,’ she said inexorably.

‘Greywacke,’ I said, and accepted my glass feeling I had earned it.

‘Excellent choice,’ said Saskia, pouring one for herself.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

“You know, I reckon you’ve had a narrow escape. I was reading an article about early-onset arthritis in rugby players, and apparently the whole lot of them are cripples by the time they get to sixty. And they’re the ones who are sixty now; they played a hell of a lot less games forty years ago.’

‘But they patch them up a lot better these days,’ I pointed out.

‘There’s still not much you can do about having no cartilage left in any of your joints.’

‘They can replace knees and hips.’

‘Not shoulders. Or fingers. How many of them has he dislocated?’

‘I don’t know. A few.’

‘There you go. Those’ll all be buggered in another ten years. You would have ended up wiping his bum for him.’

‘I wouldn’t have minded,’ I muttered.

He passed me out a handful of bolts and shuffled along to the next corner. ‘You’re pathetic. And there’s another reason you should have been heading for the hills.’

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Do you know what the All Blacks’ motto is?’

‘“Feed your backs”?’

‘Nope. It is – and I kid you not – “Subdue and penetrate”.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Google it then.’

‘Maybe it didn’t sound so dodgy a hundred years ago when they came up with it,’ I said weakly.

‘Of course it did. It’s not like human biology’s changed since then. Very shady people, rugby players.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

“And then I met this really great girl on the weekend, and I wanted to see a bit more of her.’

‘I – I’m not that great,’ I stammered, and then gave myself a swift mental kick. There was just no need to take gaucheness to these new and previously unscaled heights. Or depths. ‘You know, it’s going to be really embarrassing if you were talking about someone else.’

‘I wasn’t,”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

“Dentists don’t really approve of eating between meals, but if you must snack at least let it be dairy. Or bread. But never raisins – the very thought almost prostrates them with horror.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

“You were in second-stage labour for more than five hours?’

‘That’s not bad, for a first baby. I was lucky.’

‘Proper full-on contractions?’ I asked. ‘For all that time?’

Em nodded.

‘And it wasn’t that bad?’

She shook her head, smiling.

‘Dad?’ I asked suspiciously. ‘Is this true?’

‘Not having been the one doing it, I couldn’t tell you. But I must say it didn’t look like a whole lot of fun from where I was standing,’ said Dad.

‘I knew it!’

‘It’s just the price humans pay for walking on our hind legs and having large brains,’ said Dad. ‘Very poor design, really – mothers with narrow pelvises and babies with big heads. I read somewhere that childbirth used to kill about one woman in ten. The rate of stillborn babies would have been much higher again, of course.’

‘One in ten?’ Mark repeated faintly.

‘About that. Not really a problem if you’re thinking survival of the species, but pretty rough on the individual. Don’t worry, Helen, medicine’s come a long way in the last couple of hundred years.’

‘Dad, I’m not scared I’m going to die. I’m just scared it’s going to hurt a lot.’

‘And she’ll probably get torn from arsehole to breakfast,’ Caitlin put in, carefully pushing her green beans to the side of her plate.

Mark choked.

‘Pardon me?’ Em said.

‘Granny said it.’

‘Granny,’ said Em grimly, ‘is an old witch.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

“I’m so jealous,’ said Keri. ‘No more work, living with Mark Tipene . . . Shopping with Mark Tipene’s credit card . . .’

‘That’s right,’ I said, wiping my eyes. ‘I’ll just float from lunch date to hair appointment to Pilates class.’

‘You might want to wash the cow shit off your neck first,’ Nick said. ‘Pass the pizza, would you, Richard?’

‘I’ve been in the clinic all afternoon,’ I said. ‘Could you not have mentioned the cow shit earlier?’

‘It’s only a little smear. And it brings out your eyes.’

‘Thank you. That’s so sweet.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

“Exhausted by this burst of conversation, we relapsed into silence and gulped thankfully at our drinks in preparation for the next round. Some people, I am told, actually enjoy this first-date mutual appraisal disguised as casual conversation, but I think I’d rather go to a preschool ukulele concert. Or a Brazilian waxing appointment.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

“Hi, Joe,’ I said. ‘What’ve you got?’

‘How the hell would I know? That’s why you’re here. Come on.’ A greeting which, although hardly warm and welcoming, pleased me. It’s so disappointing to describe someone in graphic detail as being a total prat and then have them make a liar of you by being perfectly charming.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

“Do you know what you’re doing?’

It would have been nice to reply with, ‘Well, I’ve never done an operation before, but I’ve seen heaps on Grey’s Anatomy and I’m really keen to give one a crack,’ but the only time I manage witty repartee is in the privacy of my own bedroom, when I’m imagining how the conversation might have gone if only I was brave. ‘Yes,’ I said gravely, drawing anaesthetic into a syringe. ‘I’ve done lots of caesareans. My last job was at a small-animal practice in England.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

“This information was surprisingly comforting. ‘Thanks, Em,’ I said. ‘Hey, what did Lachlan Johnson do?’

‘He rubbed poo in another child’s hair. His own poo. He brought it to school in a little container.’

‘What – “Here’s one I prepared earlier”?’

‘Exactly,’ said Em solemnly. ‘It was a premeditated act.”
― Danielle Hawkins, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast