A Bunch Of Blue Ribbon

28

A Bunch Of Blue Ribbon

    Posy had been so overawed by being forcibly included in Inoue’s group that she hadn’t been able to utter very much at all. Well, it was better than talking too much, which she usually did when she was nervous. True, she usually did anyway, she recognised wryly. But she was usually worse when she was nervous. Old Mrs Adler had sustained the conversation cheerfully, with some help from Mitsuko until she had to go back to the poultry stall. Posy, Mrs Adler and Inoue had then spent some time checking out the second-hand clothes stall: apparently a second load always got put out after lunch. They finally retreated to the carpark in good order, Mrs Adler with a selection of cotton things which she was going to use for rag rugs, and Posy with a large shocking-pink tee-shirt which she did not reveal to her companions she would use as a nightgown. And Inoue merely carrying the old lady’s packages for her.

    “I’ve got Thomas’s car,” said Posy awkwardly.

    “All right then, dear! See you later!” said the old lady brightly.

    “Yes, of course: good-bye. Good-bye, Inoue,” said Posy numbly.

    “Good-bye, Posy,” he said politely.

    Posy stumbled off towards the red Jag, barely able to restrain the tears. Though God knew, she thought half-hysterically, what she’d expected!

    When she reached the car she felt too drained to even try to start it; not that she could have gone anywhere: half the population of Carter’s Bay seemed to be trying to leave the fair at the same time. She just sat there numbly.

    There was a burly figure in daggy fawn cords leaning against Dorothy’s car. It plus its bloody bike.

    “GET THAT THING OFF MY CAR!” she bellowed, galloping towards them.

    “Huh? Oh.” Thomas straightened without hurry and righted his awful old bike. “Can this go on your roof-rack? I need to talk to you. And scoop your great-nephew up before he’s collected by a bloody four-by-four, for God’s sake.”

    Very red, Dorothy scrambled back to grab Murray’s hand. He was just walking carefully along the backs of the line of parked cars in her wake, but bloody Thomas was right: anything could have backed out on him. She returned to her car with him on legs that shook a little.

    “Not as easy as it looks, is it?” said Thomas calmly.

    “No, and it doesn’t ruddy look particularly easy, either!” she snarled.

    “Quite. Have you got anything rubberised?”

    Dorothy gaped at him.

    “To tie the bike on with,” said Thomas unemotionally.

    “What? No! My roof-rack is not for tying bikes onto! If you want to tie it on, use your own bloody rubberised somethings!” she snarled.

    “Um…” Thomas felt in his pockets and to Dorothy’s extreme annoyance produced a coil of very strong-looking cord with which he proceeded to tie the bike on tightly. “Murray can go in the back,” he noted, bending down to his door.

    “He’s in the front,” Dorothy pointed out between her teeth.

    “Then he didn’t ought to be, the back is much safer for kids: don’t you know anything?”

    “Och, I’m no a babby, ye ken!” said Murray crossly.

    “Good for you, kid,” agreed Dorothy. “He’s not a baby, unlike some,” she noted sweetly. “You can go in the back.”

    “Very well, but in that case I’ll come home with you, I need to talk to you.”

    She sighed. “All right, get in.”

    Thomas was getting in already.

    Anne-Louise had announced firmly that she was going to help Miss Carpenter tidy up her stall. Simone knew that she had a crush on the pretty young teacher. Unfortunately it didn’t seem to suggest to her she ought to emulate Miss Carpenter’s gentle manner, not to mention her manners, or learn to play the piano, or anything of that sort. Wishing fervently she’d left when Dorothy had, she said weakly: “Okay. Eef Miss Carpenter wants to ’ave your ’elp.”

    “‘Course she does!” retorted Anne-Louise crossly in the vernacular.

    Simone smiled timidly at Miss Carpenter.

    Smiling back even more timidly,. Deirdre Carpenter murmured: “There isn’t anything much to do, really. I’ve done all the totals for Shane… He said he’d get some of the men to dismantle the stalls.”

    “We can pack these plates,” decided Anne-Louise.

    “Um—yes. They belong to some of the ladies who made the cakes… I said I’d take them home and wash them properly,” she said to Simone.

    Anne-Louise was packing them into a carton already.

    “Eugh… pair’aps I ’ave a last look at the clothes…” murmured Simone.

    “Don’t buy me a second-hand tracksuit!” ordered Anne-Louise.

    “Non; d’ac’. I can make you a vairy naice one, eet won’t take much material.”

    Anne-Louise stood up, panting slightly, and to her mother’s complete astonishment announced proudly: “Yeah! Mum does ace sewing! ’Er and Annick, they own a shop! She makes millions of dresses!”

    “I know: it’s a lovely shop: I bought a little green romper-suit for my little nephew there,” agreed Miss Carpenter with a smile.

    “Yes,” said Simone weakly. “Good. I ’ope he laikes it. –Okay, I come back vairy soon, Anne-Louise.” Grasping Pierre firmly by the sticky hand and mentally preparing herself to be completely deaf to anything he might start whingeing, she headed back to the second-hand clothes stall.

    … “Those were all donated by a lady from that big condo on the Point,” explained Rhonda Semple apologetically.

    Simone wasn’t surprised. She sorted through them eagerly.

    “I dunno what she spilt on them, but she’s ruined them,” added Mrs Semple in the same apologetic tones.

    So she had, yes: approximately a whole drawerful of silk lingerie. Simone sniffed at them experimentally.

    “They have been washed,” said Mrs Semple hurriedly.

    “Yes, of course. There ees steell the leetle smell…” Simone fingered the strange-looking stain. “I think she spills the… wax?”

    “Wax?” said Rhonda Semple blankly.

    “Yes… For to polish the furniture!”

    “Oh: furniture wax? No, it wouldn’t be that runny.”

    “Nah, stuff in a bottle,” said Simone in the accents of Sheryl Carew.

    “Oh! I geddit! Furniture polish! Yeah, it might be.” Mrs Semple sniffed a ruined puce silk half-slip gingerly. “Yeah, I think you’re right! In that case,” she noted sourly, “you can bet ya boots it wasn’t her that spilled it, it woulda been her cleaning lady: boy, I bet the fur flew, eh? I suppose you could cut them up,” she allowed dubiously.

    Simone thought she could both cut them up and salvage most of the very beautiful lace from them. She had never seen anything of this quality in the New Zealand shops and in fact was very sure that such garments were unobtainable here. In front of young Mrs Semple, however, she did not like to examine the labels narrowly, unaware that Rhonda wouldn’t have cared what they said, up to and including “Rue de la paix”. They were not in their present state instantly wearable: therefore they weren’t worth buying.

    “You steell ’ave quite a bit left, non? Eugh—maybe I take these off your ’ands, okay?” said Simone with immense cunning.

    “Yeah, sure. Take the lot, Simone. Fifty cents.”

    “Eugh—each?” said Simone cautiously, amazed that she was getting away with them for so little per item: some of them had only a small splash of the putative furniture polish.

    “Heck, no! Fifty cents the lot!” said Mrs Semple breezily.

    Forgetting that she was supposed to be a sharp businesswoman, Simone gasped in horror: “No, I cannot possibly! Eet ees too leetle!”

    “All right, a dollar the lot. Nobody else wants them. And the St Vincent’s don’t want frilly undies, they only want solid stuff.”

    “Eugh—yes. Okay. Ta, Rhonda.” Dubiously Simone paid over a dollar and let Rhonda bundle all the frillies—puce, pale green, dusky yellow, and duck-egg blue—into two large plastic carrier-bags for her. She retreated to Miss Carpenter’s stall on legs that felt a little weak. There was hundreds of francs’ worth of beautiful silk here, not to mention the lace!

    The vegetable stall was completely cleaned out, except for a pile of carrots in plastic bags.

    “No-one is-ah going to want-ah those,” pronounced Akiko definitely.

    “No, I don’t think so,” agreed Janet. “Um—take them, if you like, Akiko: they said I could have anything that was left.”

    “Mrs Ad-uh-ler has some growing. I know! We give-ah them to Spuh-routs! For their car-rot-uh juice!” she cried.

    “Good idea,” agreed Janet in some relief. She supposed she could have blanched and frozen some; but really, the mere idea of eating her way through kilos of frozen carrots for the next year…

    Akiko packed them competently into a carton. “Okay. You got your ur-car?”

    “Yes,” said Janet, smiling at her. “Do you need a lift?”

    “No, thank-ah you, Janet: Deirdre is giving-ah me a lift to collect-ah my car from-ah the garage.”

    “Oh, good. Thanks very much for your help, Akiko.”

    “No-ah sweat!” she said with a giggle. “See ya!”

    “Bye-bye,” agreed Janet. She herself had bought a very nice-looking butternut pumpkin, half a dozen cobs of corn—a corncob was almost a meal on its own, really, and she thought she might freeze three and eat the other three this week—and a large bunch of silverbeet: not because she particularly liked it, but because it had looked so fresh and nice and it was supposed to be good for you. And a bag of potatoes because you always needed potatoes, didn’t you? She put these neatly into a carton, carefully placing the silverbeet on top. Shane had said she needn’t stay to help dismantle the stall: he’d get some muscle to do that. So all she had to do now was give him the money! Janet gathered up her cash box and her neat returns sheets, and hurried off with them.

    When she came back a man was stealing her carton of veges!

    “STOP!” shouted Janet, not pausing to think, and breaking into a run, as best she could against the tide of departing fair attendees.

    The man stopped.

    “Those are mine!” screamed Janet, racing up to him.

    “Yeah, thought they were. Hi, Janet,” said Hal Gorman mildly, looking at her heaving bosom with great interest. Today Janet had taken on board Akiko’s advice that serving at a school fair vege stall would be a grubby job and she had better wear jeans and a tee-shirt. Akiko hadn’t succeeded in getting her into a pair of tight designer jeans (though she was working on it), but she had persuaded her that the tee-shirt would look really smart tucked in and worn with a belt. Janet hadn’t possessed an appropriate belt so Akiko had kindly donated one: very fake Southwest, tooled tan leather with a large silver and turquoise buckle. The tee-shirt was pale pink and it was not Janet’s own but Akiko’s, donated to her on the excuse that she, Akiko, had made a mistake over sizes and she was never going to get any wear out of it. And Mitsuko was even smaller, it was much too loose on her. As it was brand-new Janet had insisted on paying for it: Akiko hadn’t seen this coming, though telling herself she should have; but in the triumph of actually getting her to take it she had been able to overlook this small failure. In it, Janet’s neat bosom looked very attractive indeed, but the cunning Akiko had not made the mistake of pointing this out. And had indeed gone so far as to warn her sister, on pain of death, not to mention the fact. As a consequence, Mitsuko had had a giggling fit at the first sight of Janet in it but fortunately Janet hadn’t registered this as different from any other of Mitsuko’s giggling fits.

    “I’m—sorry! The stall’s—closed!” she gasped.

    “Yeah. I just thought I could carry this box for you.”

    “Oh. How did you know it was mine?” said Janet weakly.

    “Deduction,” said Hal succinctly.

    “Oh. I’m going home,” said Janet, blushing.

    “Sure. Your car in the field, is it?”

    “No, Shane let the helpers park over on the far side of the playground.”

    “Okay: lead on,” he said, smiling down at her.

    “It’s this way,” said Janet limply.

    Hal accompanied her silently. After a while, since she wasn’t making much headway against the tide of retreating fair attendees, he put a hand gently under her elbow, and walked a little ahead of her, cleaving a path effortlessly for them both.

    “Thank you so much!” gasped Janet breathlessly as they suddenly broke free of the crowds.

    “No sweat.” He looked at her closely. “You okay?”

    “I am a bit tired: I’ve been on my feet all day. And I don’t like crowds, much. Not when they’re all pushing,” said Janet faintly.

    “No.” He didn’t release her elbow but urged her on gently to where a row of cars were parked under some gnarled and unattractive dark trees.

    “This is it,” said Janet, unlocking her car.

    “Uh-huh. Want this in the—” Hal stopped. “Trunk. I know you guys call it something different: I’m sorry.”

    “Boot,” said Janet, smiling at him. “It’ll be all right in the back seat, thanks.”

    “Okay: sure.” He put it in for her and then said cheerfully: “Shall I drive?”

    Janet just stood there with the driver’s door half open, goggling at him.

    “You look all-in. Shall I drive?” repeated Hal patiently.

    “Um—haven’t you got your car?”

    “No: I got tired of paying megabucks for that hire car, I gave it back.”

    “Um—well, okay. Thanks. We could drop you off at your place first,” agreed Janet.

    Hal neither agreed nor disagreed with this statement. He simply opened the passenger’s door for her, waited while she came round and got in, and closed it carefully on her. Then he went round to the driver’s door, and, setting the seat back as far as it would go, drove off. Fortunately unaware that Janet was thinking anguished thoughts along the lines of never being able to get that seat back into position, it was too stiff for her: oh, dear: why on earth had she let him?

    Simone looked blankly at the almost-dismantled cake stall. Where were Deirdre and Anne-Louise? As she looked, the male back that had been bent over the pile of wood that had once been the stall straightened. “Hullo.”

    “’Ullo, Euan!” she gasped, turning scarlet.

    “Deirdre said to tell you that she’s taken Anne-Louise with her: she’ll drop her off at home after they’ve washed the plates. If that makes sense,” said Euan, trying to smile and to ignore the facts that his heart was hammering madly and he had the grandfather of all hard-ons.

    “Eugh—yes. Oh, dear. She’s bullied her into eet,” said Simone limply. Trying to smile and to ignore the fact that when he’d referred so casually to the inoffensive young teacher as “Deirdre” her whole body had been swamped by a wave of boiling, acid jealousy. And the fact that her heart was thundering in her breast and she had an absurd impulse to cast herself on his chest and bawl her eyes out.

    “How’re things?” said Euan awkwardly.

    Simone’s jaw shook and her eyes filled with tears. She looked at him helplessly.

    “Right,” he said grimly. “You got your car? Come on, then. –Gimme those.” He took her parcels, gave one bag to Pierre, and, grabbing Simone firmly by the arm, began to lead them to the carpark.

    There was a fair amount of noise coming from the side bar: trendies from Casa Meretricious that were too good for the Carter’s Bay Primary School Fair, obviously. Dorothy marched past it in silence, conscious of a hope that bloody Thomas would be side-tracked by it. He wasn’t, though. He accompanied her and Murray upstairs, whistling happily.

    “I see: you’ve got the side with the better view of the bay,” he said as she unlocked her front door.

    “Well, silted-up bay rather than Casa Meretricious—yes. Sit down or something,” said Dorothy with a sigh. “Murray, go to the toilet.”

    Thomas smiled a little as the little boy retorted crossly: “Och, I was goin’ anyway, I’m no’ a babby!” And marched off. “Not being a baby’s his latest theme song, is it?”

    “Yeah,” said Dorothy with a sigh. She staggered over to her Carrano-ized sofa and sank onto it. Surprisingly, Thomas the Tank Engine didn’t come and infest it immediately with his stertorously breathing, large, hairy presence. Instead he wandered over to the nearest set of French doors. “I see: you’ve gone open-plan, but kept the original French doors onto the balcony.”

    “Something like that,” she sighed.

    “Thought you had a black thumb? How much did these giant palms set you back?” he asked with a little smile.

    “I have; and, Nothing: those are Carrano giant palms. House-warming present. I warned her I’d kill them but she just said—”

    “That she’d buy you some more!” he finished with a laugh.

    Dorothy sighed. “Yes.”

    “I like it. Semi-tropical. The cane furniture’s new, isn’t it?”

    “Mm.” She had bought a whole suite, plus a glass-topped table and four chairs to go on the balcony. It was all coloured a dark green with a little dim maroon mixed into it, plus some natural cane colour. Dorothy wasn’t absolutely sure she shouldn’t loathe it as impossibly fake or down-market or something; but it toned perfectly with the new tulip-pattern linen of her miraculously metamorphosed sofa. The cushions on the new cane suite had been covered in some ’orrible tropical pattern but Lady Carrano had vetoed that with scarcely a passing glance, so now they were covered in a soft, dark green linen-look which of course exactly toh-yurned with everything else in the room.

    “Almost everything you see is Polly Carrano-approved, so if it strikes as tasteful, don’t give me the credit,” she warned.

    “It strikes as very tasteful,” returned Thomas seriously.

    Dorothy smiled limply.

    “Can I see the bedroom?’ he asked hopefully.

    “Why?”

    “I’m interested,” he said seriously.

    She shrugged. “That door. You have to go through it anyway to get to the ensuite. And don’t disturb Murray, thanks.”

    “It isn’t male etiquette to do so. But I could make sure he washes his hands.”

    “Er—well, thank you,” said Dorothy limply. She watched drily as he headed eagerly for the bedroom. Certainly the bed was her new four-poster. But otherwise she hadn’t done a thing to anything in there. In fact the candlewick bedspread was one her mother had once had: it had originally been pale pink but some time in the late Sixties Dorothy had had a decorating fit and dyed it dark orange, a pretty In shade of the late Sixties, especially if you’d painted the walls of your student flat bright purple to go with it, unbeknownst to your unfortunate landlord. The orange had since washed out in successive washes but about ten years ago she’d realised that it had reached the limit of its capabilities in that direction: the bedspread was now a sort of dull apricot.

    “You haven’t done a thing to that room, have you?” he said feebly, coming out again and heading for an armchair. It was a cane one: Dorothy watched dubiously as it creaked under his weight. Why did her nice new flat suddenly appear to have shrunk drastically?

    “Eh? Oh: no. It represents my unadulterated taste. Well, slightly adulterated, that candlewick bedspread was once a hearty dark tangerine,” she said unkindly.

    “I see. How old is the tallboy?”

    “About as old as I am: why?” she croaked.

    “Oak. Nice,” he said, smiling at her. “Swears at that bed.”

    “Uh—yeah. Part of a set. Mum and Dad had the matching twin beds in what was originally their second bedroom. They had a decorating fit some time in… I was still at school. About 1960, I think. Dad sanded them down within an inch of their lives, and painted them white. They bought new twin divans for their room, and used the headboards for those. Jack and me were favoured with the footboards as headboards for our divans, as the two youngest.”

    Thomas did not react to this horror story except to say: “Oh? You’ve got other siblings, then?”

    “One older sister: Kathleen. I don’t see much of her: she lives down in Invercargill. She’s in her late fifties.”

    “A grandmother?”

    “Yes, Murray isn’t my only great-nephew.”

    “I’m astounded Jack didn’t—” He broke off, glancing cautiously in the direction of the ensuite.

    Dorothy eyed him drily. “His spelling’s not so shit-hot.”

    “Yes. But I want to spell a one-syllable word. Well, you know what I mean. Starts with D and ends in M,P.”

    “Yes,” she admitted. “He would have tried, but he and Kathleen have never got on. She disapproved of his first marriage and let him know it—she’s the sort of person that makes a virtue of always saying exactly what she thinks,”—Thomas winced and nodded,—“and then she disapproved of his divorce.”

    “Logical,” he noted.

    “They all are, Thomas. But strangely enough she approved of his second marriage. Then she disapproved to the point of apoplexy of his second divorce.”

    “Got it,” he said placidly. The toilet was heard to flush: he got up, smiling, said: “I’ll see about those hands, then I’ll take a leak myself. Why don’t you put the kettle on, Aunty?” And went out, smiling.

    Dorothy took a deep breath. “Possibly because I’m bursting myself, when you idiots have finished with your male peer group, thanks,” she muttered. Nevertheless she went into her little kitchen, which was fitted in at the front end of her flat behind a much-blessed door which closed, with into the bargain a much-blessed serving hatch with a cover which pulled down, entirely concealing the mess in the kitchen from prying eyes. At the moment there was no mess in the kitchen: as Dorothy didn’t cook much there normally wasn’t, but that was hardly the point. She didn’t raise the hatch cover, as the kitchen had a funny little window which looked out over the bay and she didn’t need the extra light. Or the company.

    Less than two minutes later a large, stertorously breathing, hairy presence inserted itself through her kitchen door and coming right up to her elbow, breathed all over her.

    “Why is it that my flat has suddenly shrunk to approximately one tenth of its former dimensions?” demanded Dorothy wildly.

    “I have that effect,” he said modestly.

    “Yeah.” Dorothy had sworn to herself she wouldn’t but she found herself asking limply: “What in God’s name is that thing you’re wearing?”

    Thomas plucked at the half-unbuttoned greyish knit thing that was not covering his chest nearly well enough. “This? Found it in an old trunk when I was looking for something else. It used to be part of a set of thermal underwear. Then it got washed or something. So I cut it in half, used the legs for… Forget. That was ages ago. This is the top. But I cut the sleeves out of it.”

    “You know,” said Dorothy cordially, handing him the electric jug, “that’s exactly what it looks like! –Put water in that, plug it into the magic electricity that comes out of the wall, and turn it on. You can also rinse out the teapot. I’m going to the bog, since it appears to be free of male peer groups at last.”

    “I put the seat down,” said Thomas modestly.

    Pretending she hadn’t heard that, Dorothy went out.

    Whistling cheerfully, Thomas got on with making a pot of tea.

    … “If you’ve only come to watch ruddy basketball, you can push off again,” she groaned as Murray turned it on and Thomas’s eyes were irresistibly drawn to it.

    “What? No. Is there any ice hockey, Murray?”

    Murray changed channels. “No, it’s grid-iron,” he reported, switching back to the basketball.

    Thomas rolled his eyes frantically at Dorothy. Sighing, she said: “Rab likes watching anything that runs or jumps. The poor little creature’s picked up the idea that it’s manly—like the rest of the population. As there’s no ice hockey, perhaps you could go.”

    “No. What do you know about that anonymous fax business of Alan’s?”

    Dorothy blinked. “Uh—how did you—”

    “Alan told me.”

    “Oh. I know what Alan told me and what I got out of Sergeant Baxter.” Dorothy retailed the facts baldly.

    “Yes. The result,” said Thomas clinically, “was to bust up Alan and Mrs Burchett.”

    “How true. Thank you, Hercule.”

    “Just bear it in mind. Now, what do you know of some story about Alan’s dim, distant past involving a female called”—Thomas here produced a small pocket diary and consulted it gravely; Dorothy goggled at him—“Wendy Briggs. It would have been something over twenty years ago.”

    “How in God’s name—”

    He shrugged and repeated what Gerhard had told him at the fair. “Do you know anything more than that?”

    “No. Look, what in Hell are you on about? There were no crazed Briggses down at Wairakei when we were! I agree five thousand of those damned hospital administrators could have been her, or her with a sex-change, but the point is, whoever dunnit knew Alan’s home number!”

    “Yes. And knew it was a fax number.”

    “Look, if you’re so interested, go and talk to Sergeant Bax—” She broke off, smiling. “You can’t, he’s retired. They had a party for him last week: used the Puriri Community Centre, in Pohutukawa Bay. I think most of the population was there.”

    “You included, I presume,” he said on a sour note.

    “I’ve known him for years. So?”

    “Nothing. What’s his replacement like?”

    “Uh—I did meet him. Youngish chap, looked pretty thick.”

    “If he’s pretty thick I won’t bother. Didn’t it occur to you that in this Wendy Briggs story there is an actual candidate with a real spite against Alan?”

    “And a real wish, since I’m clinging tightly to the point you ordered me to cling to, to split up Alan’s relationship with Catherine?”

    “Given that one was beginning to get the impression that the man was almost happy, I’d say so, yes.”

    Dorothy looked at him uncertainly.

    “What else do you imagine was making him appear halfway human, if not simple happiness?”

    She reddened. “Ye-es…”

    “Leigh and I have known him for some time, off and on. I can assure you that in his heyday ‘human’ was about the last word you’d have used to describe him.”

    Dorothy licked her lips uneasily.

    “Well?” he said impatiently.

    “Ye-es. Look, Thomas, I know this is mad, but if we’re talking about real grudges and real opportunity, didn’t you once mention something about Leigh’s wife and Alan?” she croaked.

    Thomas glanced over at Murray’s little dark head, but it was oblivious. “Yes. Years back. If Leigh wasn’t Leigh I might say you had a point. But in the first place he is Leigh, in the second place Belinda hasn’t honoured him or anyone else with her sexual favours any time these last ten years, and in the third place, he’s resolved the whole thing very satisfactorily by leaving the bitch. –He’s happy, Dorothy: believe me, I know him too well not to know if there was anything wrong.”

    “Mm. Would you admit it, though?” said Dorothy drily.

    To her astonishment Thomas went red. “I would to you, yes.”

    She swallowed.

    “It wasn’t Leigh,” said Thomas steadily.

    “No. But where does that leave us?”

    “It won’t be impossible to find out which of those hospital administrators might have been Wendy Briggs. We can check their academic records, for a start. But let’s look at it from the other angle, for a moment. None of our staff who had the means had the motive, if—”

    “Goodness, Lord Peter Wimsey to the life!” said Dorothy nastily.

    “Thanks. See yourself as Harriet Whatserface, do you?” While she was still gasping indignantly, he repeated: “None of our staff who had the means had the motive, if we’re considering solely those who could be Briggs in person.”

    “Barring sex-changes,” she agreed drily.

    “Quite. So, let’s think about Briggs’s offspring.”

    “Eh?”

    “Isn’t that the next logical step?”

    “Not to me!” said Dorothy with feeling.

    “Look, way back in the Year Dot, or the Year Lacan Plus Two, if you like, Alan ruined this Briggs’s promising academic career.”

    “You mean she gave up Cambridge,” interpreted Dorothy very drily.

    “In most people’s terms that means ruined her career.”

    “Thomas, you know nothing at all about most people’s terms,” she sighed.

    He glared. “Very well, then. In the terms of those who aspire to Cambridge, get to Cambridge and then fail to make the grade!”

    “Don’t shout. –It’s all right, Murray,” she said to the little boy, who had turned his head and was watching them anxiously. “Thomas is just trying to tell me a silly story.”

    “Aunty Dorothy doesna like silly stories,” he said solemnly.

    “No, okay. I’ll try not to be silly,” said Thomas.

    “Guid,” he said, turning back to the television.

    “A,D,O,R,A,B,L,E,” said Thomas with a smile.

    Unaccountably Dorothy had to blow her nose hard. “Yes. –Get on with it, if you must,” she said grimly.

    “Where was I? Oh, yes: offspring. Someone who could have a legitimate grudge against Alan for having ruined their mother’s promising career.”

    Dorothy sighed. “Go on. If ya must.”

    “Um… Look, that Jill dame’s in her early forties, would you say?”

    “Yes. Why?”

    “Don’t be obtuse. Briggs would have been the same age. None of our staff who went to Wairakei are the right age and sex to be Briggs. How many of them could be her offspring?”

    “Nigel or Mayli,” said Dorothy in a bored voice.

    “Yes.”

    “I’ve met Nigel’s Mum: Stella Barrow. Clingy little blonde thing, enough to curdle anyone’s hormones, in my ’umble opinion, Lord Peter. She lives down in New Plymouth: came up express to make sure he was comfy in his new wee nest with his wee friend. If she’s ever so much as set foot in Cambridge, England, I’ll eat my new cane suite.” Dorothy rose abruptly and went to switch off the TV, which had suddenly started broadcasting a violent, luridly coloured physical struggle which was not basketball.

    “I like it, Aunty Dorothy!” he cried shrilly.

    “Yes, but it’s horrid, Murray. Grandpa doesn’t want you to watch it.”

    “What is it?” asked Thomas, coming over to them.

    “It’s a thing in shiny stretch-suits where the participants all commit mayhem on one another without anyone experiencing real pain,” she replied grimly.

    “Try the other channel,” he advised mildly.

    Dorothy did. “Ugh. Um—lovely, Murray.”

    “It’s for wee kiddies!” he complained indignantly.

    “What the Hell is it?” asked Thomas, peering.

    “Something horribly fey. English. Wee elves or something. It’s that or nothing, I’m afraid, Murray.”

    “Could I no’ watch a video?”

    “Uh— Hang on.” Dorothy went over to her bookcase and sorted through her meagre collection of videos.

    Thomas accompanied her, breathing heavily all down her neck. He chuckled. “Eclectic.”

    Dorothy replied grimly: “They would be, if you didn’t know that Janet donated The Muppet Movie because she thought it’d be nice for Murray, this Japanese thing about ghosts is one of Leigh’s, and despite his claims to the contrary unwatchable—almost as fey, in its tiny Oriental way, as that bloody Pommy thing on now,” she noted evilly, “and these two pieces of stodge are Jack-approved tripe that Murray hates, with every justification.”

    “I’m no’ goin’ tae watch them!” he cried.

    “No, of course not.” Dorothy grabbed a priceless early Doctor Who back just as the hairy paw was closing round it. “That’s mine!” she snapped.

    “Not the first series, is it?” he said wistfully.

    “No, but early enough.”

    “Put it on!” he urged.

    “I will, if it’ll shut you up on the subject of imaginary Briggses! Um, he’s seen it,” she said uneasily.

    “Anything would be preferable to a Jack-approved version of The Secret Garden,” he croaked.

    “I’m no’ goin tae—”

    “No, of course not!” agreed Dorothy hastily. “I haven’t got much, Murray. The video shop didn’t have anything yesterday that I thought Jack’d let you watch.”

    “It’s got that daft Pocahontas,” he ventured dubiously.

    “Yeah, but do ya wanna watch it? –I didn’t think so,’ she agreed as he shook his head. “Well, it’s Doctor Who that you’ve seen before, or those wee English fairies, I’m afraid.”

    “Doctor Who!” he cried.

    Dorothy gave him the first cassette. He operated expertly.

    Thomas pulled his armchair up close to the TV. A rapt silence fell…

    Dorothy sighed. Still, watching very old, grainy Doctor Whos was better than listening to Thomas as Lord Peter Bloody Wimsey. She thought about saying: “Don’t dare to ask to stay for tea,” but refrained, in case he hadn’t thought of it.

    “Don’t you want to be dropped off?” gulped Janet as they turned into Gilbert Street and it dawned that Hal hadn’t been heading for Kingfisher Bay.

    “No. I think you ought to put your feet up. Have you got any liquor in the house?”

    “Um—there’s some sherry.”

    “Uh-huh. Come on,” he said, pulling up outside her cottage: “let’s go get it, then.”

    Numbly Janet followed in his wake. At the door he asked if she had her keys,. Janet pointed out numbly he had them.

    “Oh: sure! They’re all on the same bunch!” Hal looked at Janet’s key ring, with the transparent plastic tag on it containing a tiny posy of dried flowers, and smiled.

    “I got it at Art For Art’s Sake in Puriri,” said Janet lamely.

    “Uh-huh.” He opened the front door and ushered her in. Numbly Janet went into the sitting-room, hoping very much that Bobby was outside in the back garden and not on the sofa, because he didn’t like men, especially not very big ones. Not that Hal had a loud voice: it was quite soft. But quite deep.

    “Now, you sit down, Janet. Where’s your sherry?”

    “In the sideboard,” said Janet feebly.

    Smiling, Hal went and got it plus two glasses. He poured a hefty one for her and, though he could drink anything and in his worst moments had been known to do so, a small one for himself.

    “Okay, get this down you!” he said with a smile.

    “Yes.” Janet was bursting: she hadn’t liked to use the staff toilets at the school but the girls’ ones were really disgusting. So she’d been once, after lunch, in the staff ones. “Um—sorry, I’ll have to go to the toilet, first!” she gasped, turning puce.

    “Sure. You go, Janet,” said Hal, smiling.

    Janet tottered out numbly. This was awful! Not that he wasn’t a nice man. But what did he want? Why had he wanted to come home with her?

    In the pretty little sitting-room Hal Gorman, happily unaware that in New Zealand society of the late Nineties spinsters of Janet’s age had long since given up considering themselves either marriageable or dateable, sat down on the pretty little checkered sofa and looked around him with great interest.

    When she came back in Janet stopped short with a gasp. Bobby was on Hal’s knee, purring! She could hear him right across the room.

    “Who’s this guy?” he said, smiling, and gently stroking the big furry grey back.

    “Bobby,” said Janet numbly. “After Bobby from Coronation Street.”

    Hal smiled. “Bobby, huh?” He tickled him gently under the chin.

    “He likes it if you scratch his head very gently, between the ears,” said Janet feebly, sinking into an easy chair.

    Obligingly Hal scratched Bobby’s head. “You’ll have to tell me what Coronation Street is, I guess we don’t have the same frame of reference,” he said mildly.

    “Um—no,” agreed Janet limply. “Oh!” she said as she realised he was waiting expectantly. “It’s an English TV programme. Mum always used to watch it.”

    “Uh-huh. Your parents still living, Janet?” he asked, scratching Bobby’s head.

    It didn’t occur to Janet to tell him it was none of his business, or even to ask why he was asking. She took a gulp of sherry. “Dad died years ago, he was quite old, a lot older than Mum. Mum and one of my aunties are living in Queensland, now—that’s in Australia. She had Dad’s insurance, you see, and Aunty Robyn sold her house. It’s a very popular place to retire to, if you can afford it.”

    “Sure, I get it. Like in the States, people retire to Florida.”

    “Yes, that’s it, it’s a warmer climate.”

    “Wouldn’t suit me; surrounded by old people? I like a mixture.”

    “So do I,” agreed Janet shyly.

    “So, you got any family here?”

    “Yes. My sister Helen lives down in Christchurch: she’s got three boys, they’re ten, thirteen and fifteen, now. And my brother Bob and his family live in Nelson. He’s an orchardist: apples. It’s one of the big apple-growing districts. Some of my cousins live up here: I see quite a bit of them. Um, well, I quite often baby-sit for them,” amended honest Janet.

    “I see.” Hal drained his sherry, having decided getting it down in one gulp was preferable to sipping the stuff. “So, what you doing for Christmas?”

    “Well, nothing really,” she said limply. “Last year was a bit hectic: I’d just bought this place… I thought I’d just take it easy.”

    “Uh-huh. Dorothy’s an old friend of yours, isn’t she? You’re not doing anything with her?”

    “She hasn’t suggested anything,” replied Janet dubiously.

    “No. Well, I only really know Jack, and he hasn’t suggested anything, either. Shall we join forces?” he said cheerfully.

    Janet gaped at him.

    “You and me? Christmas Day?” said Hal, raising his eyebrows. “Like, if I buy something and bring it along?”

    Janet was now a glowing puce. “Ye-es… I’m not much of a cook, I’m afraid, Hal.”

    “Nor am I. Well, living in Hawaii, I guess maybe you get lazy—well, I sure did! Used to buy a lot of fruit, it’s real cheap, there, and maybe if I felt like cooking, get a big fish from the market and throw it on the barbecue. Had an upstairs apartment, but it had a balcony: I kept the barbecue out there. Sometimes I’d buy a steak. Apart from that, I guess I only cooked coffee!”

    “Mm. It’s hard to make the effort, for one,” she murmured.

    Hal didn’t think he’d implied that, at all. He looked at her with interest and said: “Yeah, that’s right. I used to eat Chinese a fair bit: there’s a lot of Chinese restaurants in Hawaii, and where I was living, there were a lot of Chinese families.” He told her all about Belinda Ho and her family and her laundry business.

    Janet listened with great interest, concluding: “It sounds quite different from here. Almost everybody lives in the suburbs, here.”

    Hal had noticed that. He agreed, and added that most folks did in Honolulu, too, but there were patches of more traditional urban high-density dwellings, very interested to see that Janet did not even blink at his phraseology. He then asked if he might look at her books. Limply Janet said of course he could. Cradling the purring Bobby against his large chest, Hal wandered over to the bookshelves. He was aware that the Christmas Day issue was unresolved: he was waiting to see if she’d refer to it voluntarily. The bookshelves featured lots of novels, mainly English: no out-and-out rubbish of the Harlequin variety, he noted with approval, but a fair scattering of historical romance. Non-fiction was represented by half a shelf of biographies, mostly of well-known novelists, with a couple of the “chronicles of an average life” type and a couple of feminist tomes; a small clutch of history, mostly local New Zealand stuff; a shelf of the more literate sort of travel book; a shelf of poetry and plays, fairly obviously her college textbooks; and, in a low two-shelf bookcase, almost a whole row of shiny coffee-table books—travel, crafts, and birds. Nothing that could have been classed as art. And certainly nothing that could have been classed as challenging.

    “Um—well, I suppose we could have a barbecue,” said Janet in a trembling voice.

    Hal turned without haste, smiling. “Sure, why not? It’s not the weather for roast turkey or ham, is it?”

    “No. Most people do have hot roast Christmas dinners, though.”

    He swallowed. “Yeah. You got much of a yard in back?”

    “Yes, it’s the old orchard. Oh, for a barbecue? Yes, there’s plenty of room. Um,” said Janet, licking her lips, “I haven’t actually got any barbecue equipment.”

    “I can bring some, no sweat,” he said easily. Not mentioning that he’d have to buy some for the purpose: he’d left his on the balcony of his Honolulu apartment, it had seemed wholly ridiculous to pack up a cheap portable barbecue and cross the Pacific with it.

    Janet had now had time to think several thoughts, mainly that he was lonely and homesick, poor man, and that, in the wake of an invitation to Akiko and Mitsuko to drive home with them from the last Mikado rehearsal, he probably wanted her to ask the Takagaki girls. So she said firmly: “I could ask some more people if you like. Maybe Akiko and Mitsuko would like to come.”

    “Sure, if you like, Janet. I guess they’re your friends, huh?”

    “Yes. They’re very nice,” said Janet in a small voice.

    Hal looked at her thoughtfully. Then he said: “Nice enough, sure. Personally, I can never get past that cultural giggly thing with Oriental girls. I knew enough of them in Honolulu, too. But it still drives me nuts.”

    “Oh,” said Janet faintly. “It’s just— It doesn’t really mean anything.”

    “I know. I keep telling myself that, but somehow, I don’t seem to listen to myself!” he said with a laugh.

    “Yes. Wuh-well, shall I ask them?” she faltered.

    Hal decided, although the idea of spending Christmas alone with quiet, sweet little Janet was real appealing, especially if she wore a tee-shirt that showed her tits like today’s one did, he’d been going too fast for her. So he said nicely: “Why not? Make a little party of it, huh?”

    Janet nodded obediently.

    “I’ll just take a look at your yard.”

    “Oh; yes, righto.” She led him out to the kitchen and opened the back door.

    “Wow,” said Hal, staring.

    “Yes, it’s huge,” she murmured.

    “It’s great! A real old orchard!” He wandered out into it, smiling. Janet followed dazedly, the more so since he was still cradling Bobby.

    Hal decided that the “yard” would be just great for a Christmas barbecue, shook hands warmly with the flustered Janet, and, assuring her that the walk would do him good, he needed the exercise, took himself off.

    Janet tottered back inside and automatically made herself a nice cup of tea. When she was sitting limply on the sofa sipping it she found the strength to croak: “Was that why he came?”

    Bobby was having a nice wash. He ignored her.

    Janet looked at him without seeing him. She was conscious of a sneaky and unworthy hope that Akiko and Mitsuko, giggly or not, would have other plans for Christmas. Though if she did have him all to herself, she recognised dully, she’d never be able to think of anything to say to him.

    Having ushered Simone firmly into the front passenger’s seat of her car, Euan buckled Pierre into the back seat, dumped the packages on the floor at his feet, and got into the driver’s seat. Simone was trembling and wiping her eyes: he said nothing, just negotiated them carefully out of the field and onto the road to the roundabout. And thence to the Inlet road.

    “Where are we going?” she faltered as he drove past the Kingfisher Bay turnoff.

    “Somewhere where the whole of bloody Carter’s Bay can’t hear us,” said Euan grimly.

    A little way down the road he turned hard right onto a rutted track and bumped across some scruffy waste ground.

    “Where are we?” cried Pierre. “Are we going to ‘ave a peeckneeck?”

    “Not today. We’re just above the boatyard. You can get out and play if you like, Pierre, but don’t go too far.”

    Happily Pierre got out.

    “All right, what’s up?” said Euan grimly.

    Simone burst into tears.

    Euan’s pleasant mouth was very tight. He wasn’t at all sure, though he knew she liked him, that Simone fancied him as much as he fancied her. He’d now worked out, too, that he was a bit younger than she was. In his opinion that didn’t matter a damn but he knew that for most New Zealanders it would matter. He wasn’t at all sure how the French would see it. After hesitating for a while he put his arm round her very cautiously. Simone turned and sobbed into his shoulder. Euan patted her back gingerly with his free hand.

    Eventually she sniffed hard; he fished in his pocket and gave her his handkerchief.

    “Ta,” said Simone soggily, blowing her nose with her head against his chest.

    Euan smiled very faintly at this use of the vernacular. “What’s he done?”

    “Eet—eet is not only his fault,” she said faintly.

    “No, I guess it isn’t. Most relationships are more complicated than that. But what has he done?”

    Simone wiped her eyes. “He—first he geeves me an… eultimatum?”

    “An ultimatum; right. What was it?”

    “I must geeve up the shop.”

    Euan had more or less seen that coming. “Yeah?”

    “And I must look after the keeds properly.”

    “That’s balls, you already do,” he said with remarkable mildness. “Or what?”

    “Or what? Oh! Or he weell get a divorce. He says I have… I theenk the English expression is ‘let him down’. Betrayed him? –Non, non,” she said to herself. “Disappointed him.”

    “Yeah, let him down’s right.”

    “I am not a proper wife nor a proper mother.”

    “That It?”

    “Eugh… He sleeps in the bedroom and I sleep in the sitting-room. This is to peunish me.”

    Euan of course already knew this. “Mm. Is it a punishment?”

    “No, it’s a relief,” she said simply.

    “Yes,” he said, sagging. “I see.” He paused. “What do you want, Simone?”

    “Me? I… I do not want to be married to him,” she said in a very low voice. “I ’ave never wanted it. I let myself do eet because… because I am a weak person. And—and because no-one else wanted me, I theenk. But that ees no h’excuse.”

    “Yes, it is. It’s natural to want to be wanted.”

    “Ye-es… Annick is vairy understanding. But she ’as said to me that it meust be admitted that I was weak to allow myself to do eet.”

    “Yeah. So what? We can’t all be as strong-minded as her: some of us just aren’t born that way,” said Euan sturdily.

    “Yes,” said Simone with a great sigh. “I truly theenk that.”

    “Mm. So,” he said swallowing, “are you going to get a divorce?”

    “I want to. But I don’t know… He threatens that he weell take the children.”

    Euan looked over at where Pierre was playing what was possibly cops and robbers, dodging in and out of some low, scruffy bushes with an imaginary gun. “He won’t have a hope of doing that, Simone: New Zealand courts always favour the mother. And you looked after them by yourself all that time before he came out here, and set up a home for them and everything: he won’t have a leg to stand on. And if he goes for joint custody,” he said, very dry, “he’ll find that looking after two kids isn’t that bloody easy without a household slave at home to do all the hard yacker!”

    “Ye-es… I’m sorry, Euan, I don’t understand all those words.”

    “Eh? Oh, Sorry.” Euan explained carefully what he’d meant.

    “Yes,” said Simone, blowing her nose. “I see. But can—eugh—a French marriage, can it be dissolved in your New Zealand courts?”

    Euan gulped. “Dunno. Look, I’ll find out.”

    “You do not have to!” she gasped, turning scarlet.

    He looked at her steadily. “Yes, I do, Simone.”

    Simone’s heart trembled in her breast. She looked away from him.

    “Look,” said Euan hoarsely, “I know it’s too soon, and I know we haven’t seen very much of each other, but if you do leave him, would you think about living with me?”

    “Eugh… Immediately?”

    “Whenever you wanted to. If you wanted to wait until the divorce came through, you could do that, but… Um, look,” he said, swallowing, “I can understand you don’t want to give him any ammunition: you don’t want it to look as if it was you that left him for another bloke. Mind you, that doesn’t count for that much these days with the courts, if you’ve been a decent mother to the kids. I was just thinking of your position with the Immigration Department.”

    “Yes? I apply already for New Zealand citizenship,” she said uncertainly.

    He gulped. “Really?”

    “Yes. Me and Annick, the both. When we decide that the shop is truly what we want.”

    “And—and is it going ahead?”

    “Yes. Eet weell take some time before we qualify. But do you think a divorce weell stop eet?”

    “Uh— Shit, I dunno, Simone! Look, I’ll see a lawyer. Um, well, actually, I’ll see Dad’s cousin, Alex. He’s with a big law firm in town. We’ll get it all straight, okay?”

    “Yes. Thank you vairy much. Eef—eef eet weell not affect the—the custody, I would laike to live weeth you, please,” she said shyly, very flushed.

    “Yes. Um—wouldja? Great,” he croaked.

    Simone looked up at him timidly and saw that those very clear blue eyes had filled with tears. “I love you, Euan,” she said softly.

    Euan swallowed and smiled shakily. “Good.” Simone gave him back his handkerchief: he looked at it blankly, then, with a shaky laugh, blew his nose. “That’s all right, then,” he said. “I love you, too.”

    “Mm.”

    “Can I kiss you?” he said hoarsely.

    “Yes, please. I think Pierre weell have to get used to it,” said Simone in a remarkably firm voice.

    Smiling shakily, Euan bent his head and kissed her.

    The kiss went on for quite some time. Eventually he stopped: they were both panting.

    “Whew,” said Euan weakly,

    “I never feel like that weeth Armand!” said Simone fervently.

    “Glad to hear it. Um—look, we better sort it all out, see what the legal position is, before we decide when you’re gonna come and live with me, okay?”

    “Ye-es… Yes, okay, of course!” she said quickly as he looked at her uncertainly. “But Armand ’as said that I meust—eugh—decide before Christmas.”

    “Eh?”

    “Yes. Before Christmas. He says it weell be… neater, I think, in English. Neater for the children if their Christmas is—eugh—the way that theengs weell be in the future. Does that makes sense?”

    “Insofar as I get your meaning: yes,” said Euan drily. “But it doesn’t bloody make sense, no! Cripes, doesn’t he understand that life isn’t that cut and dried?”

    “Cut and dried…” she said thoughtfully. “Ah. No, he does not, for, you see, that’s Armand all over!”

    Right, thought Euan, not sorry to hear it. All the better. “All right. Tell him you’ve decided you want a divorce and he can get out of the house before Christmas.”

    “But he says I can’t have the ’ouse, because it was his monnay!”

    “Now, look—”

    “At dhuh most, I get a share, for he weell sell eet!” she cried.

    “Will he? I don’t think he can sell it out from under you while the kids are minors. Anyway, we’ll get it straight; and just don’t believe anything he tells you, in the meantime. Just refuse to move out: make him go. Can you do that?”

    “Eugh… Probablay not, if I just tell him. But I can make him so angry that I theenk he weell go.”

    Euan winced a little. “Mm.”

    “I do not think,” said Simone in a trembling voice, “that I am a naturally manipulative person.—I looked that word up in the dictionary.—My circumstances ‘ave forced me to be so. I do not admire that trait, either.”

    “No. Sorry. All right, manipulate the bugger into flinging out in a rage, God knows he’s asked for it.”

    “Ye-es… I can see that that would be the sensible thing to do. But it is based on a false premise.”

    Euan had to swallow. “You looked that one up, too, didja?”

    “No, for my formal English is really quite good!” said Simone with a tiny laugh. “It’s the vernacular usage which is so ’ard! You are assuming that I like that ’ouse and wish to keep it.”

    “Uh—yeah. I suppose I am.”

    “But I do not like it vairy much. The thing I like about it is being next to Sheryl.”

    Euan rubbed his chin. “Mm. The thing is,” he said, going very red under that matte tan, “I haven’t got much money—well, none, really. I’ve never had any capital, I went into business with Sol straight from varsity. I don’t own anything except a share in the boatyard business, my bike, and the clothes I stand up in. Um—sorry, that’s a saying,” he said lamely as she looked in a startled way at his pale blue tee-shirt.

    “I see. So, it would be sensible for me to try to retain the ’ouse.”

    “Look, I wouldn’t suggest it, if it wasn’t for the kids!” he said loudly, going very red.

    “Of course: I understand, Euan.” Simone thought it over. “Clearly the shop will soon make monnay: we are doing very well, but one cannot expect to do as well all year as during the pre-Christmas rush.”

    “No.”

    “We shall think about it, non?” she said, smiling at him. “Eef I keep the ’ouse, pair’aps Annick may come to stay and she weell pay a leetle rent. She could ’ave the big bedroom, it could be a studio for her…. Yes. Then we have the steudy as our room, okay?” she said, smiling at him.

    Euan went very red. “You and me? Yeah: great,” he said hoarsely.

    “Kiss me once again, and then I think we better go home, okay?”

    Obediently Euan kissed her once again.

    Other, luckier people had given the ruddy fair away and were heading firmly for home, but Barry’s little sister had dragged him off forcibly to look at bloody little cactuses. Probably shoved into their pots yesterday with not a root system amongst ’em. She had some notion that she was gonna put them in fancier pots and add some doo-hickeys and sell them as miniature cactus gardens through Galerie 2.

    “They don’t sell crap,” said Barry firmly. “And Ida Grey’s not a sucker, either.”

    “Aw right, maybe Sprouts can display them for me!” she retorted fiercely.

    Not if that Paul was on form, they couldn’t.

    “Or the Saddlery!” she added fiercely.

    Barry sighed. “How many do ya want?” he said resignedly. Not pointing out that the whole of Carter’s Bay was clearly gonna be inundated with bloody little cactuses for weeks, no-one was gonna want to buy Avon’s version of the same, even in fancier pots—which were gonna come from where, by the way?

    “I’ll pay you back!”

    Yeah, yeah. Resignedly Barry shelled out ten dollars. It bought several cardboard traysful of the bloody things. Three sorts. How many varieties did ya need before you had anything that could be defined as a cactus garden, miniature or not? Oh, well. Ignoring Avon’s screams about not squashing them, he stacked them up and said: “I’ll put them in the van. Any other crap you wanna buy?”

    “I’ll just go back to the white elephant stall: there were some things there I might get: if I painted them up, I could turn them into really interesting pots!”

    “Most of them are plastic, they won’t take paint.”

    They would: special craft paint, because she’d read in a magazine, see! Oh, God. That’d only set her back an arm and two legs! But Barry gave up. “Okay, I’ll wait for you in the van. Um—look: gimme Fiorella, she looks as if she’s had it.”

    Ignoring Avon’s screams to be careful, he tucked the trays of cactuses up in one arm and took Fiorella’s hand firmly in his. “Right. If you’re more than half an hour me and Fiorella are gonna go home, have a cuppa, and watch TV.”

    “Watch TV!” agreed Fiorella eagerly.

    “I won’t be that long!” She vanished.

    Sighing, Barry began the long trudge back to the van, at the speed of a tottery and tired pre-schooler.

    When he got there, Kincaid was leaning against it. Christ: he hadn’t side-swiped the Jag when he parked, had he? Barry looked round frantically but he couldn’t even see it. “Gidday,” he croaked.

    “Hullo, Goode. I wanted a word, if I may.”

    “Yeah, sure. –Hang on, I’ll just dump these.”

    “Let me take the little girl,” suggested Kincaid.

    “Uh—sure. Ta.” Somewhat numbly he let him take Fiorella’s hand. He watched even more numbly as the bloke picked her up. Fiorella didn’t yell, in fact she smiled.

    “You’ve got a lot of cactuses,” ascertained Dicky with interest, popping up at his elbow as he dumped the trays of cactuses in the back.

    “Uh—yeah,” said Barry, jumping slightly. “Hullo, Dicky: where’d you spring from?”

    “Over there: I was looking at the horse-float!”

    “Oh, yeah: be for the pony rides.”

    “They were ace.”

    Once round the playing field, at least, the playing field minus the large area that had been taken out for the hangi. Well, Fiorella had certainly been ecstatic over the experience. “Yeah.”

    “Did Fiorella have a ride?” asked Kincaid, hugging her.

    Barry had to swallow: the bloke had even remembered her name! “Yeah: loved it,” he admitted. “Ya been on a horsey, eh, Fiorella?”

    “I been on a horsey!” she squeaked.

    “S,W,E,E,T,” said Kincaid solemnly.

    “Uh—yeah,” agreed Barry limply. Maybe a day spent at Downunder school fairs had a softening effect on the Pommy brain, maybe that was it?

    “I reckon it was the best thing,” said Dicky solemnly. “Even better than the coconut shy.”

    “Did you hit anything?” asked Barry.

    “No,” he admitted cheerfully. “But Alan hit three!”

    “Mm, then I stopped. I played cricket in my far-off schooldays. Would you like a coconut or two, Goode?” said the bloke on a very dry note.

    “Uh—”

    “Say, one: I may be able to foist one on the Fermours,” he noted.

    “Mr Fermour, he never hit one!” explained Dicky, hopping.

    “I see,” said Barry with a reluctant grin. “Uh—they’re ripe ones, are they? Not green?” he said as Kincaid looked totally blank.

    “I’ve got no idea. I know absolutely nothing about coconuts.”

    “They don’t have them in England,” explained Dicky.

    “Eh? –Not in your circles, ya mean,” said Barry drily, and then wished he hadn’t.

    But Kincaid only replied: “We do have coconut shies, but I think the practice of actually eating what you hit may be confined to these—er—Southern shores.”

    Barry got that: North versus South, he meant. Not letting on, he said stolidly: “Split it open with an axe: Gerry Fermour’ll show ya how. And don’t drink the milk, I don’t think they’ll be green ones. Probably make ya sick, if ya do. The flesh’ll be okay.”

    “I see,” said Alan resignedly. “Here: give him one, Dicky.”

    “Ta.” Barry shoved the coconut in the van. “Um—that it? You just looking for someone to victimise with a coconut?”

    “No. I wanted to ask you, talking of pony rides, if you could put up a stable block for me.”

    Barry’s jaw sagged.

    “Well?”

    “Well, yeah, I could. Um—ya got any plans?”

    “No, I was going to ask you about them.”

    “Uh—well, could do some research… Yeah, I can draw you up a plan, no sweat. Um, look, Dr Kincaid,” said Barry, turning red, and knowing he was about to cut his own stupid throat: “out here, horses don’t need stables, really. If you wanna get a pony for Dicky it’ll be fine outdoors all year. Just put a bit of tarp on it in winter.”

    “I do know that. Nevertheless I’d prefer to stable it. And I want to get a horse for myself, too.”

    “Um—you sure?”

    “Yes.”

    Barry took a deep breath. “When?”

    “As soon as possible. Could you start right after Christmas? Well, first week of January?”

    Barry could start tomorrow, actually. “Um—yeah, I reckon. What say I do a bit of research, draw up a few preliminary plans, and give you a bell this week, okay?”

    “Good.” Solemnly he produced a card and wrote on it. “That’s my direct line at work.”

    “Ya mean a miracle occurred and they came?” croaked Barry.

    “Yes. We were having eight new lines installed, but I admit they didn’t give the impression they needed the custom.”

    “They wouldn’t! Um—well, I’ll give you a bell.”

    “Fine. I do have some ideas on how I’d like the outside to look, but I’ll leave the rest to you. Oh: I’d like the design to allow for the possibility of building on a small flat at one end of the block.”

    “Okay, sure,” said Barry dazedly. “Keep one end wall blank, then. Um—how many—” Bugger, he couldn’t remember what the fuck you called the things! “How many horses do you want to put in it?” he said lamely.

    “Allow for six. Six loose-boxes, and a tack room, of course.”

    Six? Was the bloke starting up a racing stable? “Righto,” he croaked.

    “Thanks very much, Goode.”

    “My pleasure," said Barry numbly.

    “Bye-bye, Fiorella,” said Kincaid solemnly, handing her back.

    “Bye-bye!” she squeaked, waving.

    “Yeah. See ya,” said Barry numbly, buckling her into her seat.

    “Boy,” said Fiorella solemnly.

    “Yeah, that was a boy.” And a brain-softened Pom, he thought dazedly. He went round and got in on the driver’s side. “Glory hallelujah, eh?” he said to Fiorella:

    Fiorella was quite into repeating things you said, these days. It could be disconcerting. “Glory loo-yah,” she agreed happily.

    “Jesus, I’ll be able to afford to buy you something decent for Christmas,” he realised, sagging. “And your ruddy mum, eh?”

    “Ruddy mum,” agreed Fiorella.

    “Mm. –Cactus gardens!” said Barry with a laugh.

    In the Jag Alan said solemnly to Dicky: “I feel like Diogenes.”

    “Have you got a tummy ache?” he asked anxiously.

    “No, nothing like that. I’ve just found the world’s last honest man.”

    Dicky wrinkled his brow. “You’re honest, Alan!”

    Alan’s nostrils flared for an instant. “Possibly. Within my lights. I do try to be honest with you, Dicky. And with Catherine,” he added, reddening.

    “Yeah,” said Dicky mildly.

    “I meant Mr Goode. –Haven’t you ever heard of Diogenes?”

    “Nah.”

    Alan started the car. He began to tell him about Diogenes…

    Posy had sat in the red Jag for a long time, watching other people struggling to get out of the carpark. When the crowd eventually thinned she sighed, and attempted to start the car. Nothing happened. Going very red, she went carefully through the sequence, mouthing it over to herself in the way that, long ago, her driving instructor had taught her. Nothing happened. This was dreadful! Was there a New Zealand AA? And if so, would you have to belong or something, and did Thomas? And how on earth did one contact them, in any case?

    She looked round frantically for help. Wasn’t there a nice man anywhere? On the other side of the muddy field three cars were still parked, but there was no sign of their owners. To her right, a horse-float was visible, but just as Posy was starting to open her door it drove off. There was nothing to her left. One elderly Morris Minor was parked near the gate. That was all. Biting her lip, Posy decided she’d better stay where she was until another driver turned up. Or would it be better to go to the school? Um… She looked at the mud with dislike. No, she’d stay here, these cars must belong to someone, at least she’d be sure of getting help if she just waited.

    Posy waited. The idea of abandoning bloody Thomas’s bloody red Jag to its fate became more and more tempting as she did so. But she’d never be able to walk all that way back!

    After a while she tried the radio but couldn’t get anything. Help, did that mean the Jag’s battery was dead? She tried again to start the beastly car but nothing happened. Its battery must be dead. In that case would even a nice man be able to get it going? Um… She thought she remembered something Thomas had once said about starting a battery by connecting it to another car. Was that right? It didn’t sound very likely.

    Aeons went by and nobody came. Desperately she got out and went over to the Morris Minor, which was nearest. It was in very good repair, in fact it looked as if it had been done up, so it couldn’t have been abandoned in the field. There was nothing about it that indicated whether its owner was likely to turn up within the next five minutes or even the next five hours. Sighing, she trudged back to the Jag and again tried to start it. Nothing.

    She was blowing her nose hard and telling herself she was being stupid, there were houses not so very far away, after all, and if nobody came in the next ten minutes she’d try the school and if there was no-one left, go to the nearest houses for help, when a fawn Jaguar, not unlike Thomas’s in style, bumped into the field and drove towards her. Posy stared at it with her mouth slightly open. It drew in neatly beside her and Inoue Takagaki got out and came round to her door.

    “Are you all right?” he said.

    “Yes. I mean, no, the beastly thing won’t start! What are you doing back here?” she gasped.

    “Mrs Adler discovered that we had your parcel with hers. So we gave you time to get home and then rang you, but there was no answer. We had a cup of tea,” he said, unsmiling, “and then rang you again. It then occurred to Mrs Adler that possibly you might have had trouble with the car. I did not think so, but as she was worried, said I would check. Presumably she has second sight,” he ended with precision.

    At this point Posy broke down in loud sobs.

    “Hell,” said Inoue Takagaki through his teeth.

    Through the sobs Posy gasped: “I’m—sorry—Mr—Takagaki!”

    If she’d called him Inoue, as Inoue himself was later to realise very clearly, the whole thing might have taken a completely different turn. As it was, he came quietly round the car and got in beside her. “You may address me as Inoue,” he said calmly, putting a cool hand briefly over her hot and sweaty one.

    “Yes! Sorry!” gasped Posy, trying to control herself.

    Inoue gave her his handkerchief and merely waited until the sobs had died down.

    “Thank you,” she said, having blown her nose. “What a beautiful handkerchief,” she added.

    It was very ordinary: white, with his initials embroidered in navy blue in one corner. “Yes? I think it looks very ordinary,” he said noncommittally.

    “No, I mean the quality. It feels wonderful,” said Posy, blushing.

    “It should do. I have a regular order for them from a shop in Bond Street. I am glad to know that you can appreciate quality.”

    “Yes. I mean, are you?” she said groggily.

    “Yes.”

    Posy hesitated. “Mummy and Daddy had… it sounds snobby to say they had very high standards. They had an appreciation of the finer things of life, I suppose is what I mean. Daddy always said I had appalling taste,” she admitted weakly.

    “Did he? In most things, I think he was not wrong,” said Inoue placidly.

    “No,” agreed Posy humbly, sniffing.

    “May I ask, are your parents still living?”

    A black tear ran down Posy’s cheek. “No. Mummy died three years ago. And it’s about ten since Daddy went. The old house was sold: I haven’t been back to Cambridge, since. I don’t see much of my sisters. They’re all married and—you know. Settled. They’re all older than me. They’ve never approved of me. Thomas is the only one who’s ever taken any notice of me, really. I suppose neither of us ever had very much in common with the others… We were always the rebels,” she ended faintly, aware that she was boring on.

    “I see. Ah… Once one has become a rebel, it is not always easy to change.”

    “No,” she agreed, blowing her nose again. “You’re right. And… Well, it was my own fault. Daddy said I threw my chances at a decent education away. But I knew I didn’t have a first-class brain like Thomas, and it seemed pointless to struggle to get a Second, and end up teaching school or in an office. And I wouldn’t have been any good at either. –I’m sorry: I mean a second-class degree,” she said, reddening.

    “Yes. I got a First, myself.”

    After stunned moment Posy croaked: “At Cambridge?”

    “Yes.”

    “No wonder your English is so perfect,” she said limply.

    “Thank you. But it does not necessarily follow. I have an ear for languages.”

    Posy nodded fervently.

    Inoue’s well-modelled mouth twitched, just slightly. “Now: what is wrong with this car?”

    “It won’t go. It’s just dead.”

    “Yes? Please try to start it, Posy.”

    Posy demonstrated, and looked at him hopefully.

    “It may have a flat battery. Did you leave it with its lights turned on?”

    “Um—I don’t know!” she gasped. “Can you—can you fix it?”

    “No. I am not interested in cars. I will drive you home: come along.” He got out.

    Numbly Posy stumbled out. “Thomas’ll kill me if I leave his Jag here!” she gulped.

    “I think that is an exaggeration. It should be quite safe here. But if it is not, I shall point out to him that if he had brought you to the fair himself, the whole thing would never have happened. –Please,” he said, opening the fawn car’s door.

    Posy got in numbly.

    She was very silent as they drove through the settlement.

    Inoue glanced at her as they neared the waterfront and said: “Should you care for a drink? We could look in at The Quays.”

    “Um—yes, I’d love a brandy, actually,” said Posy with a sigh, “I must look a fright, though!” she added with an uneasy laugh.

    “Yes,” said Inoue succinctly.

    She gulped, and scrabbled in her handbag.

    “Your-ah mascara has run,” he said. “May I say that as you have very neat features, there would seem to be no need to wear such a heavy make-up?”

    She went very red and did not reply.

    “Akiko has her faults, but she has quite nice style,” said her uncle neutrally.

    “Yes,” said Posy flatly. She peered at her face in her little mirror. “I suppose she’s always been well off.”

    “Ah… During much of my brother’s life and certainly during all of Akiko’s, our family has been quite well off: yes,” he said slowly. The street was quite parked up: he slowed and began looking for a parking space.

    “It makes a difference,” said Posy on a grim note, beginning to operate on the black tear-marks. “But then, she’s got natural taste, as well.”

    “That is so.” He drew in beside a white Mitsubishi.

    “Mummy was never into make-up, I have to admit. Her tastes were very conservative,” said Posy with a smothered sigh. “But she didn’t look at all like me. Well, the red hair, I suppose,” she said, sighing again.

    There was an infinitesimal pause.

    “Your hair is-ah naturally red?” said Inoue in a carefully controlled voice.

    He was normally so controlled anyway that Posy didn’t register that this was slightly different. “Mm. More or less. Well, it’s very dark, a bit like Beth’s. Straight, though. Mummy used to wear hers very long, coiled up in a big French roll. When she was older it went pure white. I had mine long for a while but I’m such a different type, I just looked silly with it up, and anyway, that style was really Out, for ages. So I cut it. Caroline, that’s my oldest sister, she’s got black curls like Thomas’s and I always envied them, so I went black… That was years and years ago. Then I had a natural-look fit, about five years back. But then I was up for a part in a telly thing so I went black again. Not that I got the part.”

    “And this black, it is a permanent dye?”

    “Um—this? Not really. It’s supposed to last about six washes… I usually re-do it after three or four. It needs doing at the moment,” she ended dully. Help, she was boring on again, why couldn’t she keep her big mouth shut?

    “Forgive me for saying so, but I think with your pale skin, you would be much more attractive as a red-head. Especially if the colour is that deep mahogany of Beth’s.”

    Posy gaped at him.

    Inoue looked back at her, his face expressionless. “Though I am prejudiced: Jake would tell you that I fully share my son Ken’s passion for porcelain skin and Spode-red hair.”

    Posy just went on gaping at him.

    “Have you not met my daughter-in-law, Hilary?”

    “Um—yes! Of course! My hair’s darker than that. At least, it used to be,” she said numbly. “Um—did you say Spode?”

    “Ah—yes. certainly. Jake has quite a nice little collection.”

    “Good grief. Mummy adored it. She had a tea-set that bloody Caroline got down on… Thomas said it ought to be in a museum, but I think that was because he wouldn’t have minded having it himself. I know the exact shade you mean: I can see that tea-set as if it was right here…” Posy stared blankly in front of her. Finally she said: “My hair’s more mahogany. When I was at school the girls used to say I tinted it, but I didn’t: I never needed to.”

    “I see.”

    “If—if you think I’d look better with it red, I’ll go back to it,” said Posy in a trembling voice.

    There was a short silence. “But you would not do so of your own initiative?” he murmured.

    She licked her lips. “I—I haven’t got much initiative; I suppose that’s my trouble!” she said with an awkward laugh.

    “Ah. Possibly you will have heard a lot of Western clichés about the nature of Japanese marriages and the behaviour of Japanese women. My wife, Masako, was full of initiative and rarely took on board any suggestion that I, or anyone else made to her. She was a very strong character.”

    “I see,” said Posy in a tiny voice.

    “I found it very boring. Not to say tiring. Though she was an admirable manager.”

    “Um—yes.”

    “I think I should have used a verbal expression. ‘She managed my household most competently’. Yes?”

    “Mm,” said Posy, nodding.

    “I wish you to understand that I am not looking for another wife,” said Inoue levelly.

    “Um—no!” gasped Posy. “Of course not!”

    “And I certainly do not require another relationship with a strong woman. However, I dislike living by myself and I am very fed up with the Royal Kingfisher.” He paused; Posy just looked at him numbly. “If you should care for it, I should like to—ah… put a proposition to you.”

    He had stopped: after a moment Posy said in a trembling voice: “You mean technically a proposition, do you?”

    Inoue’s lips twitched. “Quite. I see you are not wholly uneducated, after all.”

    “I’m a picker-up of unconsidered trifles,” she said faintly.

    Presumably that was one of the trifles: his lips twitched again. “Yes. I do not object to that. I am looking for someone who would be content to—ah—look after me.”

    “Inoue, I’m the world’s worst housekeeper!” gasped Posy, turning scarlet.

    “Thank you for telling me, Posy. But of course I would have a capable daily.—I forget what the acceptable expression is, here.—I would neither expect you to clean the house for me, nor ask it of you.”

    “Um—what, then?” she said numbly.

    “To make the house pretty, welcome me home to a hot bath and a hot dinner, that sort of thing. Play hostess at small dinners: it is not the Japanese custom to entertain business friends at home, but in New Zealand I would wish to be able to return hospitality on a small scale. And although I would manage the household’s finances, I would require you to be responsible for seeing the bills were paid, arranging to have the plumber come at need: that sort of thing.”

    She nodded numbly.

    “And of course, to share my bed. Would you care to think it over? There is no hurry.”

    Posy merely gulped.

    “Does the idea not appeal?” asked Inoue calmly.

    “Of course it appeals,” she said in a shaken voice. “You must have noticed I fancy you dead rotten!”

    “Yes, I had noticed, for I am neither a boy nor a fool. Though I would not have phrased it like that.”

    “No. I—I’ve met some dear people, but I must admit," said Posy, her voice shaking, “that some of the people I’ve spent my time with since I—well, virtually since I left school, I suppose—have been what you’d call scum.”

    Inoue was going to contradict this, quite gently, for she could see she was very disturbed, when she added: “Or Lady Carrano would, at any rate!”

    “I do not think Polly would, for she has a very kind heart. She might well consider them to be scum, without expressing the thought, however.”

    “Yes. –I saw her at The Quays’ grand opening: I suppose you’d say she spoke kindly to me,” she said drearily.

    Inoue’s clever dark eyes were watchful. “But you did not think she was kind?”

    “I wouldn’t say that. The thing is, Inoue, I’m the sort of person that lovely people like her feel they have to speak kindly to!”

    “I see. I should like to help you remedy that, Posy,” he said politely.

    Posy stared. “You mean you’d help me to learn to be a lady?”

    “Relearn, I think. Certainly. And advise you on your appearance and dress—if you should wish for it?”

    “Did you advise your wife?” she gulped.

    “No, indeed. She had no taste in dress at all, but that did not mean she either welcomed or sought comment from me. –Ask Ken, if you like: he will tell you; the whole family admits Masako had no taste whatsoever.”

    “I see.” Posy cleared her throat. “Won’t your son and daughter-in-law mind, Inoue?”

    “Mind?” he said blankly.

    “If I become—I know it’s not your geisha, I’m not completely ignorant. An official mistress, I suppose?”

    “They will not mind, no. On the one hand, they are very broad-minded and on the other hand, the arrangement is not completely unusual, in Japan.”

    “I see. But she’s not Japanese.”

    “No, but she is very broad-minded,” he said mildly. “But will you mind? Or your brother?”

    “Thomas!” said Posy with a snort. “He probably won’t even notice! No, well, he certainly won’t mind, he’ll be glad to get me off his hands. And I won’t mind: in fact it sounds like Heaven! Um—are you sure?”

    “Well, yes. I very much admire your type, and the fact that your hair is really red is definitely a factor,” he said with a twinkle. “But these things are not written in stone, and if you find you dislike the arrangement, of course you must break it off.”

    Posy didn’t think she’d do that: how often did you get offered Heaven on a plate? But she said huskily: “Yes. You, too.”

    “Yes. You will find I can be very demanding and critical.”

    “Mm,” she said, looking at him admiringly. “I don’t think I’ll mind: it’ll be so lovely just to have someone take some notice of me!”

    Inoue wasn’t surprised to hear it. “Good. That’s settled, then. Thank you, Posy. Well, shall we have a drink?”

    “Yes!” she said, jumping. “Lovely!”

    “And then— No, please wait, I shall open the door for you, my European education took place at the time when gentlemen still did—or, rather, when the concept of gentlemanly behaviour was not as dead as the dodo. As I was saying, and then we could perhaps go back to my hotel and discuss it in depth?” His lips twitched.

    “Do you mean, go to bed?” asked Posy hoarsely.

    “Well, yes. If you think you would like to?”

    She nodded very hard.

    Inoue’s shoulders shook slightly but he didn’t comment. “Good.” He opened his door but she said hoarsely: “Hang on.”

    “Yes?”

    “I—I think you ought to know,” she said bravely, holding up her little pointed chin, “that Thomas made me go to the doctor and have a complete check-up. So—um—I haven’t got anything catching. I mean, he checked for AIDS and everything.”

    Inoue returned with the utmost gravity: “Thank you very much for telling me, Posy. I can assure you that I have nothing catching, either. I have a thorough annual check-up. All of the senior execs in the Carrano Group do so: pour—”

    “Pour encourager les autres!” cried Posy in delight. “Darling, how gorgeous!”

    “Yes,” he said, smiling very much. “I thought you might appreciate it.”

    “Mm. I won’t call you ‘darling’ in public if you’d rather not,” she said hastily.

    “How shall I put it? I would very much like you to do so, but I would also very much like it if you could refrain from addressing ah… all and sundry the same way.”

    “Yes,” said Posy nodding very, very hard. “I’ll really try.”

    Inoue thought she would. He got out, smiling, and came to open her door for her. Posy thanked him with automatic politeness: he hadn’t really thought, in spite of all those years consorting with “scum”, that she wouldn’t. Clearly there was something worthwhile under the awful appearance and the silliness: he had been right to trust old Mrs Adler’s instincts.

    They went off down Orangapai Road arm-in-arm, European-fashion, quite like an old established couple.

    Four whole episodes of grainy Doctor Who and another pot of tea later Thomas sighed, stretched, and said: “That’s better.”

    “Than what?” replied Dorothy, reflecting sourly on the fact that those had been her last tea-bags, and Swadlings’ only stocked two brands, Lipton’s and ’Orrible; and while she didn’t mind Lipton’s she preferred Twining’s Queen Mary, especially now that her budget could afford it—barring that Carrano-ized Visa account, natch. And while Twining’s was obtainable at the Puriri supermarkets, they were now closed until Monday 9 a.m. At which time she had a meeting with Alan scheduled.

    “Than it was B.D.W.,” replied Thomas smartly.

    “Yeah.”

    “Is that all, Aunty Dorothy?” asked Murray sorrowfully.

    “Yes, it attained closure. Um, the story ended, Murray,” said Dorothy feebly.

    “Aye, but have ye no’ got mor-ruh?” he cried.

    “No, the shop only had those, Murray.”

    “Where did you buy them?” asked Thomas, examining one narrowly.

    “If I give you the address and a map, will you go away?”

    “No, we haven’t finished talking.”

    Dorothy had been afraid of that. “I got them in town.” She told him where. He didn’t know that shop. Dorothy didn’t look interested.

    Murray was changing channels again. “Is he allowed to watch that?” asked Thomas idly.

    “Aye!” he cried crossly.

    “Bloody Hell, man, of course he is: it’s the five hundredth re-run of Bewitched, where have you been the last thirty years?”

    He eyed it critically. “It looks like crap.”

    “It is crap. And it reinforces an undesirable stereotype of the female rôle as being confined entirely to caring for house and hubby. Whilst at the same time reinforcing a popular sit. com. stereotype of the male as wimpish, inept and incapable: the which dates back to the time of steam radio, if you’re interested. Nevertheless it’s harmless in comparison to fluorescent stretch-suits inflicting torture on one another for the sake of it.”

    “I don’t know that I would say it’s harmless in comparison. Especially if those were the stretch-suits you referred to earlier, what didn’t experience actual pain.”

    Dorothy glared. “That one reinforces the idea that violence is acceptable and normal, whilst discouraging the notion that one’s opponent can possibly suffer in the way one’s little fat ego can: not to say the concept of pity itself. I’d vote for Samantha refraining from wiggling her nose at the bloody dinner in favour of slaving over a hot stove like Mrs Average, any old day. And will you kindly drop it?”

    “Okay,” he said amiably. “Any more tea?”

    “NO! Those were my last tea-bags!” she snarled.

    “I’ll nip down to Swadlings’ and get you some more,” he said mildly.

    Dorothy bit her lip. “Ta.”

    “Before I do, we haven’t yet discussed Mayli as a possible for the Briggs offspring. –I’ll grant you that Nigel doesn’t seem likely, if his mum’s a genuine Kiwi. What about Mayli? How old is she?”

    Dorothy shrugged. “Young enough to be Jill Davis’s daughter, supposing that she’d dropped out of Cambridge well before finishing her degree and got up the spout almost immediately.”

    “That scenario isn’t improbable.”

    Dorothy choked.

    “Of Briggs, you ape!” he shouted.

    “Ssh! –No,” she conceded weakly, blowing her nose. “Oh, boy: and for a minute, there, I was thinking that I’d actually rather watch Bewitched!”

    Thomas ignored that. “Genetically, it’s feasible," he said grimly. “If the father was Black—”

    “Yeah, yeah.”

    “Well?”

    “They tracked Alan all the way out here to Godzone, just so’s she could send him anonymous faxes?”

    To her irritation, he merely looked smug and replied: “Not necessarily.”

    “Balls. Go away. No, better: go and get me those tea-bags. I would rather watch Bewitched: it’s less bathetic.”

    Thomas sighed, but got up. “Lipton’s or Colonial Bohea?”

    Dorothy bit her lip. “That’s very good: I just call it ’Orrible. –Capital O,” she explained.

    Thomas grinned. “Well?”

    “Lipton’s. Thanks.”

    “We exist to serve. Anything else you need?”

    “Well, a whole Saturday’s grocery shopping, more or less. Barring the silverbeet I picked up at the fair. Oh, and the sweetcorn.”

    “What do you do with that?”

    “Eat it,” replied Dorothy in astonishment, goggling at him.

    “I always thought it was entirely American. I remember having a cob—no, I tell a lie—a piece of cob—forced onto my plate together with ersatz Fried Chicken Maryland, years ago.”

    “We just eat it, cob-wise,” said Dorothy heavily.

    Unfortunately at this point Murray turned his head and squeaked: “We’re goin’ tae have it for our supper!”

    “Yeah,” admitted Dorothy with a groan. “Do ya wanna stay for what I call tea, Murray calls supper and you probably call dinner?”

    “Not if it contains sweetcorn, I don’t. –Yes, I do.”

    Dorothy stared at him.

    Thomas explained mildly: “I don’t call it dinner if it contains sweetcorn. Yes, I do wish to stay, thank you very much.”

    “In that case, you’d better get some genuine cholesterol, it’s much nicer than marg. –Butter.”

    “Unsalted?”

    “There won’t be any.”

    “Oh. But if there is?”

    “All right. And in the unlikely event that there’s that muck called Continental butter, don’t touch it with a barge-pole.”

    “Very well,” he said, looking uncertain.

    “Thomas, if you’re going to stand there giving as convincing a performance of the wimpish, inept, incapable suburban male as Samantha’s poor TV hubby ever did in his heyday, I’ll leap up and clock you!”

    “No. I mean, sorry. Was I? God. Um, no: I think there were some nuances there that I didn’t get. Sorry,” he said humbly.

    Dorothy breathed hard. “Just ask May, all right?”

    “Yes. Thanks. Butter and tea-bags. Anything else?”

    “Um—blow,” she said, glancing at Murray. “Another carton of milk. And something for pudding. Ask May.”

    “Yes. Certainly. See ya!” He exited hurriedly.

    Dorothy drew up a cane armchair beside Murray’s and instantly became absorbed in the rest of Bewitched. Only when it was over did she realise that Thomas only had his bike. And as her car keys were safely in her pocket— Hard cheese.

    “Is that I Dream of Jeannie?” she croaked as he changed channels.

    “Aye, it is that!”

    Oh, well, embarras de richesses. Happily Dorothy settled down to watch it with him.

    … “What about Mayli?” said Thomas hopefully over the corncobs and salted butter, some time later.

    “Drop it, Thomas. The girl’s mother’s a hopeless invalid: don’t you dare to interrogate her,” she warned grimly.

    “Mm? Oh; no, of course not, I won’t breathe a word to the girl…”

    He was staring into space but Dorothy came to the conclusion that he was doing it to be mysterious: there was a male gene that did that, she’d noticed it before. She got up to get the pudding, generously overlooking the fact that she had assumed her sit. com.-appointed female rôle.

    Thomas asked to stay after a bleary-eyed Jack had groggily collected Murray, but Dorothy was adamant and chucked him out. Possibly she’d overlooked something or other there, too, because he retreated in good order. In fact, if she stood lurking behind her balcony door, she could hear him whistling all the way up Orangapai Road…

    Not that she was doing that, of course! Hurriedly she sat down and turned the box on again. Bloody sports. Charming. Dorothy turned the bloody thing off and picked up a good book. Ruth Rendell: overdue at her erstwhile library, Janet was probably about to send her an overdue. Oh, well, even Wexford was preferable to Thomas’s version of the great detective.

    … Mayli? Balls, she was saner than the lot of them! …Er: too sane and controlled? Rubbish: this was Thomas-induced paranoia. Resolutely Dorothy buried herself in her Ruth Rendell.

Next chapter:

https://conquestofcartersbay.blogspot.com/2023/05/ructions.html