A Considered Decision

4

A Considered Decision

    “Has our conscientious Monday and Thursday shelver actually had a cuppa?” asked Dorothy Perkins in a casual tone, leaning on the Issues Desk.

    Janet was personing the Issues Desk, more properly speaking one section of the single long counter, while the juniors had their tea-break. “No, she’s looking at the 700s.”

    “I can see that: I may be almost in me dotage but me eyes are still sharp,” she croaked.

    “Shut up, Mrs Finlay’ll hear you!” hissed Janet.

    “Rubbish. Deaf as a post.”

    “Huh hup ree,” muttered Janet without moving her lips.

    “Huh? Oh: she lip-reads! Good on her. I presume Catherine’s looking at our mangy 700s in her tea break?”

    “Yes. I told her it was all right.”

    “Janet, she can have ten minutes to look at the 700s any time she wants. This is a shelver who shelf-tidies as she goes,” Dorothy reminded her Deputy sepulchrally.

    “Um—yeah!” said Janet with a nervous giggle, hurriedly wanding Mrs Fergusson’s two battered Barbara Cartlands. “That’ll be forty cents, I’m afraid, Mrs Fergusson.”

    Betty Fergusson paid the forty cents but said with a puzzled look on her plump, amiable face: “I got two for old Mrs Maitland last week and they were free.”

    Janet replied smoothly: “They’d have been large-print, though, Mrs Fergusson. All the large-print books are free.”

    “Are these for yourself, Betty?” asked Dorothy chummily.

    “No, actually they’re for old Miss Williams, from View Road. You know, near the Riabouchinskys’. I’ll drop them in on my way to work.”

    The two librarians nodded; they were aware that Betty Fergusson looked after the house, not to say, a large part of the time, the two kiddies, for Dr and Mrs Riabouchinsky. Well, she was “Dr” too, really: they both worked at what Janet at least referred to as “up the varsity” without a second thought. Dorothy had considerable reservations on the point, though she certainly used the phrase in order to aid the communication process.

    “Counts as Housebound Service,” said Dorothy briskly. “Give Betty the forty cents back, Janet.”

    Janet returned the forty cents to the protesting but beaming Mrs Fergusson and she bustled off with a cheery wave.

    “Old Miss Williams could have the Housebound Service, Dorothy,” said Janet in a feeble voice, wondering how to un-ring forty cents on the cash register.

    “Yeah, but Betty Fergusson does a five thousand percent better job than any of our dim-witted carriers; added to which you can bet a small fortune she’s on top of exactly which titles the old bird’s had. Likewise Mrs Maitland,” she added before Janet could say anything.

    “Mm.”

    Dorothy took a deep breath. She wrenched the wand out of her Deputy’s nerveless hand. “Go and help Catherine, for God’s sake. And report back: I’m busting to know what she’s looking for.”

    “Okay.” Janet edged out from behind the counter.

    “Oy!” hissed her boss.

    Janet came over to the public side of the counter. “What?”

    “Make her take a proper tea break as well.”

    “Righto. Um—Dorothy, we owe the cash register forty cents,” she gulped.

    “I’ll take it off what I punch in for the next customer. And if the ruddy thing won’t balance at the end of the day, see me.”

    “Righto. Ta, Dorothy,” she said thankfully, going off.

    Dorothy leaned heavily on the Issues Desk and sighed. Was there a Course she could send Janet on? Not in order to brighten her ideas up, per·se, but just to shake her out of her rut? The only known useful function of Courses, actually. Unfortunately she couldn’t think of one. Blow. Well, served her right for getting off the Library Association Branch Committee, didn’t it? She’d better get hold of the local WEA leaflets. Unfortunately the WEA tended to wind down towards the end of the academic year and go into abeyance during the summer holidays. The university was worse: all those classroomfuls of computers just up the way on University Drive standing empty for three months! Dorothy went into an “If-I-ruled-the-World” brood, coming to with a start as old Mr Potter approached the desk with a National Geographic in his crêpey hand. He’d had it out three times in the last two months but if he didn’t realise that, who was she to disabuse him? He launched into his usual reminiscences of how he won the War but Dorothy as usual, smiling and murmuring appreciatively and nodding brightly in all the right places, didn’t hear a word.

    “What are you looking for, Catherine? Can I help?” asked Janet, squatting down beside her.

    “Stuff on doing up old houses. My cousin told me to,” said Catherine, looking red and desperate. “Most of these seem to be American. And this one’s Australian, I don’t even understand half the words!”

    “Mm. It’s quite popular, though,” said Janet cautiously. It was their fourth copy, the other three were out. And two previous copies had been pinched.

    “Well, what’s ‘Federation’?” asked Catherine desperately.

    Janet explained. She also explained what milk-paint was.

    “Oh. But he won’t want all these addresses!” she said, looking at the back.

    It depended whether he had enough money to send to Australia for the precise shade of paint he wanted, thought Janet, kindly refraining from saying it. “He might; and a book like this can give you some good ideas.”

    “Can it?”

    Janet nodded. Catherine put it carefully on her left-hand side. There were no other books on her left-hand side. Janet blinked a bit, but got down to it. She got out of Catherine more or less what the house was like. Catherine thought it was a bungalow because her cousin had said so, but from her description of it, it was clearly one of those nice old villas, like you saw in the really nice suburbs in town: round Mount Eden way, for instance. Nobly Janet concealed her horror at someone’s not knowing the difference between a villa and a bungalow and began to sort out books. “You don’t want anything that talks about ranch-style,” she said firmly.

    “This is beautiful, though…”

    “It’s American and it’s about those Frank Lloyd Wright houses, and it won’t suit his house, Catherine.”

    Catherine allowed Janet to lay the book on the growing pile of discards to her right. “Um, he did say he wanted the dining-room to be trad. He’s English,” she explained.

    “Ye-es… Some of these might give you some ideas, then, but our houses are quite different from English houses: they’re always two-storeyed,” said Janet firmly.

    Catherine nodded obediently.

    After quite some time Janet recollected that Catherine hadn’t had her tea break. She sent her off to have it, meanwhile herself heading purposefully for the “Just-Returned” trolley.

    “Well?” said a sepulchral voice in her ear.

    “Don’t do that! She’s looking for books on restoring old villas, her cousin asked her to. –Good, I thought I’d seen this come back.” Janet tucked it under her arm.

    “What cousin?” demanded Dorothy in a remarkably grim voice.

    “How do you mean?” returned her Deputy, very puzzled.

    Dorothy took a deep breath. It’d be a Course, all right, if it was the bloody WEA and wood-turning! “Wake up, you nana! Is it the cousin that’s coming out to grab the house off her?”

    Janet gaped at her in consternation. “Help! Um… it can’t be, or she wouldn’t be looking for books for him, would she?”

    Dorothy gave a rude snort.

    “Oh, dear: you’re right,” conceded her Deputy.

    “Yeah. Sprinkle the pages of that with a little strychnine, would you? He may be a finger-licker,” she said acidly, walking away from her.

    Janet looked limply at the trolley-full of “Just Returneds”. Oh, dear.

    … “He’s here!” she gasped, skidding to a halt before Dorothy’s desk.

    “Eh?”

    “Catherine’s cousin! It must be him!”

    “It’s a male and it’s talking to her, is it? Sure it isn’t flaming Jim Forrest?”

    “There was never anything in that!” gulped Janet.

    Only because Catherine had too much sense to encourage him. Dorothy gave her a wry look but said: “Well? Evidence?”

    “Um—he’s wearing a suit.”

    “Circumstantial,” she conceded.

    “Well, come and look for yourself!” said Janet crossly.

    Dorothy adjusted the pencil behind the ear and came. “That’s a suit, all right.”

    “Ssh!” hissed Janet.

    Mercy hissed out of the corner of her mouth: “I think that must be her cousin!”

    Dorothy returned amiably: “It’s a male, is the cousin male?”

    There was consternation amongst the bunch, nay, gaggle of Puriri County Library staff assembled behind the counter with their eyes on stalks.

    “One of you could ask him, of course,” noted Dorothy idly as Catherine appeared to be attempting to disengage herself from conversation with the man in the suit.

    Her junior staff melted away like dew in the morning.

    Janet remained where she was. “Ooh, who does he remind you of?”

    “Captain Picard, but with a damn sight better profile,” replied Dorothy cruelly.

    Janet reddened.

    Dorothy sighed and relented. “That’s English tailoring or I’m a Dutchman.”

    “I thought so!” agreed Janet as, looking horribly bored, the man walked away to the magazines table.

    “Get a bit closer and see if the lapels are hand-stitched, that’ll confirm it.”

    “Hah, hah.”

    “All right: go and ask him if you can help him.”

    “No,” said Janet, turning puce.

    Dorothy took a deep breath. “Janet, remember a very similar scene when a certain famous fillum star in person was standing right over there by that very magazines table, come out to visit his ageing mum and dad, and none of you wimps would go and ask if you could help him? And yours truly had to do it? And it was really him, and yours truly got to hold an actual conversation about books, B,O,O,K,S, with him?”

    Janet was pucer than ever.

    “He—can’t—eat—you,” said Dorothy heavily.

    “He looks as if he could,” she said defiantly.

    Dorothy took another look. “Uh—yeah.” It was twenty to twelve, that meant he had fifteen minutes until Catherine officially knocked off and most likely twenty-five minutes if she conscientiously made up for the time she’d spent in looking for his books. “Look, cousin or not, no stranger in town is gonna stand around in my library looking like that! Now do it, or I will!”

    Janet was still puce. Her lower lip quivered, but she said: “All right. But you can be really horrible, Dorothy!”

    “Ever thought of taking up wood-turning?” replied Dorothy genially.

    Janet goggled at her.

    “I’ll do it,” she said heavily. “Go and find Bridie and get her onto checking that order from our moronic serials subs agent.”

    “Kathleen can—”

    “Kathleen will not, Janet, she’s only a junior and it is Bridie’s responsibility to find out precisely where that five hundred smackeroos that’s gone missing, has actually gone to.”

    Janet vanished.

    Rolling her eyes, Dorothy went round the end of the counter. “Good morning. Do you need any help?” she said politely.

    Alan Kincaid replied coolly: “Good morning. I’m merely waiting for my cousin, thank you.”

    “Most of our merely-waiters find these thirty-year-old National Geographics intriguing,” offered Dorothy.

    “I see.”

    Dorothy put her head on one side. “There’s a nice shiny TLS sitting in my office as we speak, if you’re interested.”

    “Wonderful! You don’t take the TES as well, do you?”

    “Not officially, but me mates at the Pacific Institute of Political Studies Library,” said Dorothy, refraining from saying either “the PIPS Library” or “up the varsity”, “pass it on to me. Heavily defaced, of course. Want it?”

    “Life-saver!” said Alan with a laugh.

    Cor, thought Dorothy Perkins, tottering back to her cubbyhole. Captain Picard, and then some! And the profile was considerably better. He didn’t have the actual dimples in the cheeks when he smiled, but then you couldn’t have everything. Looked like a tartar, mind you, and undoubtedly was.

    “Wants the TLS and that very used TES,” she said to Janet.

    “How’d he know to ask for those?” she bleated.

    “He did not, Janet,” said Dorothy evilly, “but I used my extra-sensory, X-ray, reference librarian’s antennae, and prompted him. Grasped at ’em like a drowning man. –And think of a Course you want to do, because by God, you’re going on one!” She went into the cubbyhole and picked them up off her desk.

    “What?” said poor Janet feebly.

    Twenty-five minutes later, when Catherine, very flushed, had explained she’d had to make up the time, and Alan had got her as far as the door, she stopped him with a gasp. “Aren’t those the library’s newspapers?”

    “The horse-faced woman with the pencil behind her ear said I could keep them, this library can’t afford anything that’s in them.”

    Catherine gulped. “Dorothy. She’s the boss.”

    “She’d know, then. Not to say having the authority.”

    “Yes, well, she’s certainly not a scribe,” agreed Catherine.

    Alan dropped the two journals. “What?”

    Very red, Catherine scrambled after them. “I didn’t mean to— It just slipped out!”

    “Keep letting it just slip out, we may yet achieve something like conversation,” he said coldly.

    “I see,” she said, biting her lip and handing him back the papers. “You’ve been awfully bored out here, haven’t you?”

    Alan took her arm. “I’m awfully bored most of the time, whatever side of the world I’m on, unless I’m— Never mind.”

    “No, what?” said Catherine shyly as he led her out into a windy, grey day. “What are you interested in?”

    “Achieving, I suppose,” said Alan with a shrug. “Getting the job done in the most efficient way possible, if you like.”

    “Ye-es… Doesn’t it matter what the job is, though?” she said, frowning over it.

    “Not much, no.”

    “Oh.” said Catherine, looking horrified.

    “The car’s just down here.” He guided her down to it, unlocked it, and held her door open. “I’m also interested in Renaissance poetics,” he said abruptly,

    “Are you? Rhetoric and so forth? I find it baffling,” said Catherine, getting in.

    Alan went round and got in on his side. “What do you mean, baffling? Difficult to understand?”

    “No, not once you learn what the terms mean. Um, no… It’s hard to explain. Making the connection between a given rhetorical figure and the effect it has on you when you read it in a poem.”

    “Mm. If it wasn’t baffling there’d be a few thousand earnest pedagogues out of work.”

    “Yes. I thought your subject was structuralism?” said Catherine abruptly.

    “Did you, indeed?” he murmured.

    “Yes; they made us read one of your books in Linguistics Two. It was awfully hard.”

    “Thank you.”

    “That wasn’t a compliment. There’s a skill in explaining complex ideas simply and clearly, and you haven’t got it.”

    “What?” he said numbly, staring at her.

    “One of our lecturers was wonderful at it, so I know what I’m talking about. Dr Mitchell.”

    Alan paused, about to switch on the ignition. “P.M. Mitchell? Yes, I knew she was out here.”

    “Yes. She said that your book—” Catherine broke off.

    “Go on.”

    “She said it didn’t say anything new but that in fact structuralism didn’t really say anything that hadn’t been said by all the rhetoricians four hundred years ago, or more, and its main interest was in its methodology.”

    “Did she, indeed?”

    Catherine nodded silently.

    “Mm. Well, I came to very much that conclusion myself, it’s why I gave it up.” Alan looked sideways at her. “Er… This may shock you. At the period when I wrote those books, I would never have got them published, and most certainly not by the presses which did publish them, if I’d attempted to explain anything simply and clearly.”

    “I see,” she said calmly.

    Alan Kincaid looked vaguely out at a vista of an unexciting street filled with newish and hideous concrete structures that were the Puriri County administrative complex. “It was a fascinating game… Do you see? Beating the bastards at their own game, doing it better than they could.”

    “Yes. You must be very clever,” said Catherine sincerely.

    “Uh—clever but hypocritical. Come on, shall we go?”

    “Do you know the way?”

    “Yes, I’ve checked the map.”

    “Oh, good. I know how to find it on foot but I’ve never been there in a car.”

    “Mm-hm.”

    They had turned into Pukeko Drive, on the western edge of the township, and she had explained that that was a pukeko—Alan had blinked, it was a bloody pink-legged swamp hen, walking along the grassy verse as if it owned Puriri County—when he said: “I’m now going to ask you something that will probably make me sound the world’s most abject tit, but I don’t know who on earth else to ask!”

    “Ask me anything,” she said shyly.

    He swallowed. “I’ve heard P.M. Mitchell read papers a couple of times, but the first time was well over ten years ago: I think she was still a student; and then I happened to be in Cambridge a few years back, when she spoke at a large conference. I looked in out of interest: it was a huge hall and I was near the back, having no official right to be there at all, and she was very heavily pregnant. If my eyes weren’t deceiving me…”

    “Yes?”

    “What’s her married name?” said Alan Kincaid tightly.

    “She’s married to Sir Jake Carrano,” replied his cousin timidly.

    “Jesus,” said Alan, wincing.

    “Didn’t you say you’d met him?” said Catherine in a puzzled voice.

    “Yes. They had me to dinner a couple of nights before I saw you. Christ.”

    “Do you mean you never realised it was her?” she gasped.

    “No.”

    “Oh, Alan,” said Catherine in sympathetic distress.

    “I think I must have made a complete ass of myself. No wonder bloody Carrano had a damned funny look in his eye.”

    “Did you— What did you do?” she asked fearfully.

    “I—uh—I suppose I treated her like just another corporate wife. Do you— No, you don’t understand. Oh, bloody Hell!” he said with a mad laugh.

    After a moment Catherine said uncertainly: “She’s very pretty.”

    “Yes. Very pretty and bright as Hell. Shit! –Oh, well,” he said with a sigh. “No harm done, I suppose. But do I apologise or not, when next we meet?”

    Catherine thought it over. “I would.”

    “Mm.” The road turned slightly to the left: Alan turned with it. More pukekos. Or, if Sir Jake was correct about the Maori plural, and he didn’t have much doubt he was, pukeko, plural. “You’re not such a hypocrite as me, though.”

    After a moment she said: “Do you mean you’d pretend you knew who she was all along?”

    “Uh-huh.”

    She thought about it. Alan watched her out of the corner of his eye. The road wound slightly to the right: he turned with it. There hadn’t been any houses for some time: quite possibly he’d misread the map.

    “I think she might see through you.”

    “Yes!” he gasped, shoulders shaking. “On second thoughts, you’re so damned right! –What were those birds?” he added slyly.

    “More pukekos. The creek’s just over there, on the left.”

    “Yeah.” The road wound to the left again. “Is this the right road?”

    “I think so. It all looks different, from a car.”

    Of course. Alan did not allow himself to smile. “I thought the plural of pukeko was pukeko?”

    Catherine thought that one over. “The plural of pukeko,” she said carefully, “is pukeko. The plural of peookekkoh,” she said through her nose in the local dialect, “is peookekkohs.”

    “I get you!” gasped Alan helplessly. “Sorry!” he gasped as they veered into the verge, narrowly missing a duck. “So you speak Maori?”

    “No. I’m not deaf or stupid, though.”

    “I’m beginning to think you’re not, no,” he murmured as a single-storeyed collection of cabins hove in sight. Topped by a large, pale blue neon sign depicting a long-legged bird that was probably not a pukeko. “My God, it’s a motel?”

    “The restaurant’s next to it.”

    “Well, quite!”

    Catherine looked at him anxiously. “Dorothy sometimes goes there for a treat.”

    “For dinner or lunch?”

    “Both.

    “Hm.” Alan drew into the carpark of The Blue Heron Restaurant. It featured, on this grey windy day, one dark green Alfa, three shiny Japanese four-wheel-drive box-like things, one nasty Honda sports thing, one black Porsche, three station-waggons, various models, and an assortment of newish-looking Japanese sedans, various models.

    They got out and he took his cousin’s elbow lightly. “When we get inside, if I play ‘Spot the owner of the trendy vehicle’ too loudly, feel free to shut me up,” he said.

    “Um—I sort of know whose that green sports car is.”

    “Er—the Alfa?” She looked blank so he pointed to it. She nodded. “Ah. Any more?”

    “Ye-es… I think that funny little beetle-thing belongs to a German lady that lives in Kowhai Bay.”

    The black Porsche, right.

    He waited for her to ask him nervously if she looked all right but to his surprise she didn’t. She wasn’t wearing the pink tracksuit, though he had fully expected it. She was wearing a neat pair of black jersey-knit slacks, not a fashionable cut, with the pink tracksuit’s zippered top. What might be under the top had not yet been revealed.

    Once they were seated in the restaurant, which was quite pleasant inside, with a view of bushes and a little stream, a gentleman immediately tried to attract her attention. A burly, bearded fellow in an… Oxford blazer? Couldn’t be, surely? Waving back shyly, she identified this personality as that “John” who was “Mr Winkelmann’s friend”. Alan looked blank. She reminded him that Mr Winkelmann kept the boating-supplies store at Kingfisher Bay.

    “Uh—oh: Dr Something? Like me, not a medico?” said Alan limply.

    Catherine nodded hard.

    “So those people must be from Puriri Campus, then?”

    “I suppose so. See those ladies with them?”

    “Er—mm.” One was an overpoweringly handsome Polynesian woman, you might have missed her if you were blind and lost in a snowstorm.

    “Well, the one in the grey suit, she owns the little beetle car.”

    The Porsche’s reputed owner was blondeish and square as to face and figure. You wouldn’t have needed the snowstorm to miss her.

    Alan ordered, out of vulgar curiosity, the potato, cream cheese and Brie soup for himself. Catherine couldn’t decide on a starter, so the handsome maître d’ who was helping out with the waiting persuaded her that the nutballs in a basil sauce were always popular with their lady clients. Largely because three brown ducks had waddled by the window as they sat there, Alan ordered the duck with green peppercorn sauce for his main course. Catherine plumped for the chicken pie.

    At this point there was a slight interruption: the burly, bearded “John”, conditionally Dr Something, strolled over to them with his hands in the pockets of his grey flannel bags. It was an Oxford blazer, by gosh and by golly. “Hullo,” he said amiably. “Dicky’s mother, right?”

    “Yes. Hullo,” said Catherine shyly, going bright pink.

    “Hullo,” said Alan grimly in the local vernacular.

    “John Aitken,” he said instantly, sticking out a hand but not allowing the flicker of a smile to glimmer behind the beard.

    “Alan Kincaid. Delighted to meet you, John. Dicky’s mother’s name is Catherine Burchett,” said Alan grimly.

    John Aitken shook hands with Catherine, grinning. “This has broken my record of waiting unavailingly for Antipodean introductions,” he noted plaintively.

    Alan smiled reluctantly.

    Grinning, John advised: “Order the Sémillon blanc they keep under the counter for Jake Carrano. –Local. You’ll like it,” he promised.

    “Fine!” said Alan, laughing. “Thanks, John.”

    “Any time. Bone appateet,” he advised, strolling off.

    Alan shook helplessly. His cousin, looking very pink but also very relieved, smiled and stripped off the Goddawful pink track-suit top.

    “Um—this old jumper’s a bit tight,” she said apologetically to the goggling Alan.

    “Yes. Good for it,” he replied feebly. It was pale grey angora, though possibly at one stage in its history it had been pale blue. The sleeves came to about three inches above the wrists and had undoubtedly shrunk in the wash. In fact undoubtedly the whole thing had shrunk in the wash. Good for it. She was, at a conservative estimate, a thirty-six D. Alan admitted to himself he had no objection to this.

    “I hope you realise I hold no brief for this local Sémillon blanc,” he said.

    “Mm,” replied Catherine vaguely, her gaze fixed on the window.

    Alan turned his head to look. Oops. A brown mother duck accompanied by half a dozen or so little balls of brown and yellow fluff. “Look, shall I change my order?”

    “Um, not unless you want to,” she said blankly.

    “N— Well, do you mind my eating duck in front of its relatives?”

    “No. We eat meat in front of Buttercup and her calves.”

    “When you eat meat at all—mm. Very well, if you’re sure.”

    “Yes,” said Catherine, pinkening and smiling. “But thanks, Alan.”

    … “Vell?” said Gretchen in a low voice as John Aitken returned to the table of Puriri Campus personalities.

    He waggled his eyebrows slightly.

    His wife, who was the overpoweringly handsome Polynesian woman, and like himself a lecturer at the Pacific Institute of Political Studies, said crossly: “Don’t do that! Was it, or is Jill seeing things?”

    “He introduced himself as Alan Kincaid; that proof enough for you?” replied John drily.

    “But that iss that nice pink woman from the Puriri Library!” objected Gretchen.

    “What in God’s name is she doing with him?” croaked Jill.

    The table of Puriri Campus personalities endeavoured to scrutinise Alan’s and Catherine’s table narrowly without appearing to do so.

    “Ve ask Dorothy,” decided Gretchen, when this scrutiny had produced no result in their joint academic brain. “She vill know.”

    “Yeah,” they all agreed feebly.

     … “So, will you?” said Alan in a low voice.

    Catherine stared at him numbly. “You mean me and Dicky can go on living there?”

    “Yes!” he said impatiently.

    “But, um— Will there be room?” she said numbly.

    “I thought I’d use Uncle Bob’s room, it’s empty, isn’t it?”

    “Y— Um—”

    “We have already noted the fact that I haven’t produced offspring,” said Alan drily. “And any time Dicky wants to have Shane over, I shan’t object. So long as I don’t have to share a room with either of them.”

    “Silly,” she said faintly.

    Alan waited but she didn’t say anything else. “Catherine,” he said tightly, leaning over the table and putting his hand over the small, neat one that had started to pleat the Blue Heron Restaurant’s genuine cloth tablecloth, “do you want to look after my house or not?”

    “Yes, um— What about your wife? Won’t you have to ask her?” she gasped.

    Alan stared at her. “We were divorced about twenty years back. I thought I’d explained?”

    Catherine’s mouth opened slightly, but no sound came out of it.

    “I see. All New Zealand men over the age of thirty are married, is that it?”

    “Twenty-four,” she said faintly.

    “Uh—God. Yes, all right, twenty-four, I’m sure you’re right. I admit there have been times in the past twenty years when I could have done with a hostess. But I’m not married. I’m sorry if this is going to upset the local demographic statistics.”

    “No,” she said faintly. “Um—well, your friend, then.”

    Alan blinked.

    “I don’t mind if it’s a man or a lady,” said Catherine in a high voice, “but won’t they want some say about who looks after the house?”

    “Jesus,” said Alan Kincaid faintly. He passed his hand over his forehead. “Jesus—Bleeding—Christ.”

    Catherine was very pink but she looked him timidly in the face.

    “You hen,” said Alan faintly with his eyes shut and his face screwed up. “You purblind hen, Catherine!”

    “I didn’t mean— Well, lots of people are gay these days!” cried Catherine indignantly. “And I said a man or a lady!”

    “You did, indeed,” said Alan feebly.

    “Sorry,” gulped his cousin.

    “No. I am, I shouldn’t have called you a hen.”

    “No—um—men always feel insulted if you think they’re gay when they’re not, don’t they?”

    “It’s got something to do with the essential link between the ego and the libido,” replied Alan, staring at her.

    “Oh.”

    “Er—where the Hell were we?” he muttered. “Oh. Yes. I have no housemate of any sex whatsoever. Not even a cat.”

    “Oh.”

    He coughed. “I will just mention, solely to reassure you, the names Annabelle, Monique, Vivienne and, in the slightly less recent past, Jacqui—J,A,C,Q,U,I, feminine—and Paula.”

    “Oh. How recent?”

    Alan raised his eyebrows slightly. “I see Monique whenever I’m in France, which is reasonably often; Annabelle drops in on me whenever she’s in my neck of the woods, which is reasonably often, she’s based in New York; and Viv and I have one of those ‘See you next weekend if neither of us is doing anything better’ relationships.”

    After a moment his cousin said firmly: “You might, yes, but I bet she doesn’t!”

    “Yes, she does. Not possessive at all. Her career interests her far more than I do,” said Alan, his mouth twitching slightly, “but thank you for the compliment.”

    Catherine looked suspicious but said: “If that’s true it sounds awful. What about the others?”

    “Jacqui decided she wanted me to buy her a huge house in the Cotswolds and marry her, not necessarily in that order, and I decided I didn’t want to, about five years back. She’s since married another fellow and bought the very house in question.”

    “Pooh!” replied his cousin with utter disbelief.

    “True as I sit here trying to decide on the lime pie. Will it have gooey custard underneath it and fluffy meringue— Sorry,” he said as his cousin turned pale green.

    “That’s all right! I hate lemon meringue pie, it makes me feel sick!” she gasped.

    “Two of us. Must be because we’re related. Er—oh: Paula. She’s a Nacktress. She decided about—seven years ago? Something like that—that she’d take a part in some dreckish Hollywood epic that required her to display her tits for the delectation of the prurient middle classes. Does the expression ‘mini-series’ mean anything to you? No? Good. I was sort of making up my mind that I really did need a hostess, at that point: entertaining the Chancellor and his wife, dinners for visiting Japanese firemen, that sort of thing—you know. I put it to her in words of one syllable that the great Anglo-American public could have her tits, or she could have me and a decent house and a decent life in respectable upper-middle, academic-Establishment circles—don’t worry if you don’t get a nuance or two, they’re irrelevant—and she held out for—er—having her cake and eating it.” He shrugged. “So I told her I meant it and had my private number and the flat’s locks changed.”

    Catherine looked at him in horror.

    “She didn’t believe I meant it, you see. And in particular the bit about flashing one’s tits not constituting a career, as such.”

    “That’s terrible!” she cried.

    “I thought so,” he replied calmly.

    “That’s not what I meant!”

    “Look,” he said, his nostrils flaring: “don’t believe me, if you like, but that sort of thing goes over like a lead balloon in the circles in which I move in my professional life.”

    His cousin was very flushed. “Those upper-middle, academic-Establishment circles? I just bet it does! The poor lady!”

    “Now say she was well out of it,” suggested Alan coldly.

    “Um…” Catherine’s flush faded. “Well, no. I duh-don’t see how she could… Did she really have to tuh-take her clothes off, Alan?”

    “Er—yes. For that sort of rôle in that sort of thing it’s more or less de rigueur, these days.”

    “Ugh.”

    “Mm. But don’t pity her too much: she did have an alternative,” he said drily.

    “Yes, but if you were that rude to her, I don’t suppose she fancied it,” she said shrewdly.

    “No.” Alan picked up the menu that the maître d’ had dropped off for their consideration. “Is Pavlova a pudding?”

    “What? Oh: it’s traditional.” Smiling, Catherine explained.

    “Fluffy meringue,” concluded Alan coldly.

    “Yes, but it’s lovely!” she gasped, giggling. “I can make it, though: it’s easy.”

    “Mm. Look, before he comes back,”—the maître d’ had been detained at a table near the door—“will you live in my house and look after me, or not?”

    Catherine had overlooked the fact that she hadn’t yet given him an answer. She looked at him limply.

    “Um—oh, damn,” said Alan, biting his lip. “I won’t bring home trains of floozies, okay? I promise.”

    One would be more than enough, thought Catherine glumly. “Well, um, what would you do if I said no?” she said timidly.

    Alan hadn’t really thought about that. He stared at her in consternation. “Uh—I don’t know. Get rid of the bloody place, I suppose. I’m damned if I want to live out there by myself.”

    “Oh. We think it’s lovely,” she said in a small voice.

    “It is lovely, but I don’t think I could take the solitude: I’m used to city life. But—er—well, if I had the prospect of coming home to a nice warm house and a nice hot dinner, and you—and Dicky, of course, and Buttercup and Daisy!” he said with a little laugh, “I think I’d rather like it!”

    Catherine looked at him weakly and knew—though she had known from the very first, really, in fact from the instant that he’d walked round the corner of the house and found her on the back step—that she was incapable of saying no to him. “All right, then,” she said feebly.

    Alan was a trifle shaken to find himself filled with an overwhelming relief. “Good,” he said limply. “That’s that, then. We’ll decide on a salary later, okay?”

    “Y— Um, but if Dicky and me are living in your house—”

    “Later. Ah, here’s the maître d’. Now we’ll find out about this lime pie!”

    Limply Catherine let herself be talked into the lime pie. When it came, it was delicious: a thick, soft paste filling: very sweet and very tart at the same time. She wished she had the courage to ask for the recipe, but probably they wouldn’t give it to her anyway…

    On the way out yet another fellow of around her own age waved to her! Alan gripped her elbow very firmly. “Who the Hell was that one?”

    “Um—Mr Forrest,” said Catherine in a flustered voice. “Jim, really.”

    Unlocking the car, he said grimly: “‘Jim, really’?”

    “He—um—used to talk to me in the library sometimes.”

    Alan took a deep breath. “How many of these male smilers and wavers that you don’t really know, have tried to tell you their wives don’t understand them?”

    “Only him. Mr Forrest,” said Catherine in astonishment. “How did you know?”

    Alan shut his eyes for a moment. “Get in.”

    “But how did you?”

    “Look, just GET IN!”

    She got into the car obediently.

    Alan got in beside her, muttering about keepers and not fit to be out alone.

    “He’s not my boyfriend,” she said on a dubious note.

    Alan retorted without thinking: “He’d better not be!”

    After a moment Catherine said: “Aren’t I allowed to, then?”

    “Wh— Oh, good God,” he said limply. “Of course. Your private life is your own affair.”

    “Actually I haven’t got a private life.”

    Alan started the car, refraining with an effort from saying this evidently wasn’t for want of trying on the part of Mr Forrest.

    “Do your seatbelt up, you’ll get in for trouble,” she said anxiously.

    Alan did his seatbelt up. The carpark was fuller now and he had to back out at an awkward angle, which would not have been so awkward without the seatbelt. He said nothing.

    They were about three miles out of the township heading north, the sea a dull leaden grey to their right, the soggy farmland a sullen green to their left, when he found the courage to say: “Catherine, have you always been quite safe on the property?”

    “Of course; it’s safe as houses round our way,” she said in astonishment. “We’ve never even had the letterboxes broken into!”

    “No. Good.” Alan took a deep breath. “l was thinking more along the lines of unwanted attentions from—er, well, predatory males like Mr Forrest.”

    “He’s very respectable, he owns Forrest Furnishings in Puriri.”

    “He’s not very respectable if he came onto you!” shouted Alan.

    “Oh,” she said in a small voice. “Do you mean made a pass at me?”

    “Er—yes,” he said, a trifle dazed to find she still thought in the vernacular of forty years back.

    “Oh. Well, there was only him. He wasn’t horrid about it. Um—I suppose he’s nice enough, but I don’t much like him, really. But I might have, if he hadn’t been married. Only I couldn’t: it would have been nasty.”

    “Yes.” Alan hesitated. After a moment he admitted: “I might have been less rude to Paula, if she’d given some indication of understanding that the thought of sharing her body with the whole of the English-speaking public revolted me.”

    “I thought that was it,” said his cousin tranquilly.

    Alan swallowed hard.

    After that neither of them spoke for some time.

    Eventually she said: “Alan?”

    “Mm? –Oh, look, a bobby-calf pen!” he said with a laugh.

    “Yes. it belongs to a farm down that road. Um—when will you move in?”

    “Er… The place needs so damned much done to it. But— Well, as soon as I buy a decent bed, if that’s okay with you?”

    Catherine nodded hard.

    “Good,” he said cheerfully. “So, are there any decent furniture stores in Puriri?”

    “Yes,” said Catherine, biting her lip. “Forrest Furnishings.”

    Alan gulped. “It’s a small community, isn’t it?”

    “Mm!”

    “Don’t you dare to laugh. I don’t want to drive off the cliff.”

    “No,” said Catherine, turning puce and shaking helplessly. “I’m sorry!” she gasped.

    “That’s all right. Actually,” said Alan, narrowing his eyes, “we could go shopping together: I’d like to see Mr Forrest Furnishing’s face if we walked in and asked to see a selection of double beds.”

    There was an instant in which he thought in dismay that that was both too crude and too unkind for her to take. Then she collapsed in helpless giggles, gasping: “Ooh, Alan! You are horrible! Yes, let’s!”

    “Yeah,” said Alan, grinning: “let’s be horrible together.”

Next chapter:

https://conquestofcartersbay.blogspot.com/2023/05/more-mature-decision-making.html