Administrative Considerations

6

Administrative Considerations

    Alan Kincaid had discovered, not entirely to his surprise, that the Board of Management of the Sir George Grey Enterprise Corporation appeared to consist solely of himself, Sir Jacob Carrano, Sir Jacob’s corporate lawyer, a stolid, bland-looking customer by name John Simpkins, and a Mr Inoue Takagaki who until very recently had been head of the Carrano Group’s Japanese operations. Mr Takagaki, in addition to being bright as Hell and sharp as a tack and speaking English as good as Alan’s own, had, like himself, a Cambridge degree, though he was probably some ten years his senior and had not been up in Alan’s time. Sir Jacob, or such was his claim, was merely a Director, with a watching brief only. The lawyer, or such was Sir Jacob’s claim, was there only as a Director, with a watching brief as to any legal matters that might arise: the Carrano Group’s Legal Division would deal with any specifics that John thought needed it. Mr Takagaki’s title was Executive Director and Alan by this time was in no doubt he was more than capable of executing anything. Alan himself was Chief Executive Officer, as well as Vice-Chancellor of the University. Sir Jacob thought breezily that they could second any other jokers they might need.

    However, Alan and Mr Takagaki, capable though they were, could not set up an entire university on their own. Not in the time-frame envisaged. Sir Jake had made various proposals, largely along the lines of seconding old So-and-so or young So-and-so from the Group, but Takagaki had competently blocked these. Neither he nor Alan wanted anything that was not on an official basis and did not include some official mechanism by which it could be undone, should it turn out to have been a mistake. Alan’s relief on discovering that Takagaki felt precisely as he did himself on these matters had been positively shattering. It had been something like two weeks after that that it had dawned on him that without any doubt whatsoever Sir Jake had appointed Mr Takagaki as ED precisely because of his ability to stand up to his ebullient self. Around about this point in time Alan stopped waking up in the middle of the night with sinking feelings about what might happen to the Sir George Grey Enterprise Corporation if the Carrano Group went under. If the Carrano Group went under the whole of the civilised world would have gone under and nothing would matter any more. Takagaki had since pointed out that Sir Jake had actually made money out of the crash of ’87 but by this time Alan hadn’t needed him to.

    “Appointing a Senior Administrator will take some of the pressure off you,” said Inoue Takagaki as they looked at the immense pile of curricula vitae which Ms Julie Blanchard, a secondment, had not visibly winnowed out for them although such had been her instructions.

    “Off you and me,” corrected Alan with a little smile.

    “Yes, but more yourself, I think. Especially if it’s someone who can speak to the Systems Manager in his own language.”

    “Mm. So far, if my arithmetic is right, we’ve had four applications for that: one French, one Pakistani and one Indian,” said Alan drily.

    Mr Takagaki’s dark almond eyes twinkled. “Well, yes. And of course your arithmetic is correct, so far as it goes, my dear Kincaid. But I have discovered.” he said with a tiny cough—Alan was instantly on the alert, he’d learnt to recognise Inoue Takagaki’s little coughs—“that Ms Blanchard has some forty more unsorted applications for that position in her office.”

    Alan’s nostrils flared. He said evenly: “In that case, she can go back whence she came.”

    “I am of your opinion. However, it may be somewhat difficult to ask her to draft and send out an advertisement for her own position.”

    “No, it won’t.” Alan pressed the intercom button. “Come in here, please, Ms Blanchard.”

    Inoue Takagaki sat back and watched and listened with tremendous interest.

    Kincaid said to the woman: “Sit down, please.” When she was seated he said: “It was good of you to come over to us to help us settle in, Ms Blanchard, but I think it’s time we let you go back to Sir Jake. At this stage we need someone with experience in university administration. Would you draft a job description along those lines, please,”—this was not a request—“and let me have it immediately. I’ll speak to Sir Jake.”

    “Yes, Dr Kincaid!” she gulped.

    “That’s all for the moment, thanks,” he said dismissively.

    Ms Blanchard tottered out on her spiked heels.

    “That was a point,” said Inoue Takagaki lightly, “on which Jake was immovable.”

    “Oh?” Alan dialled Sir Jacob’s direct line. Inoue sat there blandly.

    “No, everything is not going well,” he said coldly after Sir Jacob’s breezy greeting and enquiry had come over the line quite clearly. “Ms Blanchard has proved entirely inadequate for the tasks expected of her. I’m letting her go. She’s drafting a job description for the position now. She can carry out the secretarial tasks of which she is capable until her replacement is appointed, at which stage I’ll require him or her to appoint an entire office staff.”

    Sir Jacob apparently spoke at length. Mr Takagaki watched Kincaid’s face curiously. It expressed nothing.

    “I am not at all sure,” he said evenly, “that having Mr Takagaki’s son working directly for me would answer. I’ll get his opinion on it. But I agree in principle that I certainly need a competent Executive Assistant rather than a dim little jumped-up typist. And in any case the job will, of course, be advertised. By the way, we’ve yet to discuss your earlier suggestion of getting your wife’s cousin in as one of the members of the Academic Advisory Committee. I’ll let you know when we’ve made a decision. I won’t hold you up any longer. Good morning.” He hung up.

    “There about three other people in the world,” said Inoue Takagaki thoughtfully: “who would hang up on Jake Carrano.”

    “Indeed?” returned Alan coldly.

    “And one of them, I assure you, is not myself.”

    “Oh?”

    “His wife: she does it out of malice aforethought, I might add.”

    Alan Kincaid could see that, in the pretty lady who was Dr P.M. Mitchell in her professional life. He nodded.

    “Old Yakimoto.”

    Alan nodded expressionlessly.

    “And possibly Mr Kerry Packer, from the other side of the Tasman. Have you— Yes, of course you’ve heard of the Packer empire.”

    “I’m glad we’ve got that cleared up,” he said drily, “So, do we want to waste our time winnowing through these damned CVs?”

    “No. But bearing in mind there is also the growing pile of CVs from the applicants for Systems Manager—” Inoue shrugged.

    “Hm.” Alan rubbed his chin. “Carrano suggested your son might be interested in the position of EA. What do you think?”

    Inoue Takagaki replied with a judicious summation of Ken’s strengths and weaknesses, not excluding the fact that he had a Scottish wife who had recently emigrated to New Zealand, and taught at the Pacific Institute of Political Studies on Puriri Campus, of which Dr Hamish Macdonald, Lady Carrano’s aforementioned cousin, was Director.

    There was a pause when he’d finished.

    “Internecine, isn’t it?” said Alan Kincaid grimly.

    “Certainly. Not dissimilar to Japan, indeed.”

    “Mm. Do I gather that Ken’s committed to New Zealand, then?”

    “He would like to be; he and Hilary like the life. And there is the point that even at the most liberal schools children of mixed marriages still do not have an easy time of it in Japan.”

    Alan rubbed his chin. “Mm. I want someone who’s prepared to make a commitment, not another secondment.”

    “I understand that, Kincaid.”

    Alan hesitated. Then he said: “Look, I’m sorry, but I know almost nothing of Japanese cultural assumptions in these matters. I’d be very glad if you’d call me Alan, if you’d care to.”

    “Thank you, Alan. I would be very happy to do so and to have you call me Inoue. Our cultural assumptions are, though many of my countrymen would dispute it, and not a few of yours also, almost exactly the same as Western ones in these matters. However, at the level of the parole they are expressed differently.” He eyed Alan blandly.

    Alan smiled slowly. “Thanks, Inoue. That makes it very clear.”

    “I thought it would. –Jake asked me to call him by his first name about ten minutes after we’d met. Initially I made the mistake of taking him at face-value.”

    “Ouch!” said Alan, now frankly grinning.

    “Yes. Then I accompanied him and a group of European businessmen to meet old Yakimoto.”

    Alan raised his eyebrows a little.

    “At which point I learned my mistake!” said Inoue Takagaki, laughing.

    “I see… How much Japanese does he speak?” asked Alan curiously.

    Inoue thought this over carefully before he answered. “A limited amount. He has two vocabularies. One is very correct indeed, and very limited. The other is not at all correct, and rather wider. But I don’t think he has yet revealed its whole scope to me. And of course he understands far, far more than he speaks.”

    Alan nodded slowly. After a moment he said: “Could we perhaps ask Ken to come up for a chat, Inoue?”

    “Certainly; I’ll ring him now, if you like.”

    “Thank you.” Alan looked at his watch. “I can see him immediately, if he’s free. Otherwise any time this afternoon. Er, that isn’t any sort of test or trap, my dear fellow.”

    “I did wonder,” he said simply. “–May I?”

    Alan nodded, and he picked up the phone. “Ken,” he said in English, “Dr Kincaid would like a chat with you; can you come up now? Ten minutes? I think so: just a moment.” He raised his eyebrows: Alan nodded. “Yes, in ten minutes would be fine,” said Inoue to his only son in English.

    Ken Takagaki was there in precisely ten minutes. True, they were on the twelfth floor of the Carrano Building and his office was only a few floors below them, but still— He listened quietly to what Alan had to say—his father was not present for this chat—and explained clearly what he thought he could do for Alan. Adding that of course if he came over to the Sir George Grey Enterprise Corporation on a temporary basis it would have to be with the consent of the Group, but he did not anticipate any problems there: several of the junior execs at his level had been told to be prepared for this sort of secondment. And that if they were to think of making the position a permanent one he would be required to give a month’s notice.

    Alan passed his hand over his bald pate. “I see. And what would you like to do, Ken, setting aside other considerations?”

    Ken’s English was rather accented, but very fluent. “I would ur-rike to give it a try, Dr Kincaid. Tertiary institution-ah administration seems to me to be a challenging and developing-ah field. And my wife and I would-ah very much ur-rike to make a home-ah here.”

    Alan nodded. “Then could you see what you can do on a temporary basis? I do need someone immediately: the CVs are starting to come in already and your father and I have other things on our plates. If the job suits you, then by all means put in an application for the permanent position.”

    Ken Takagaki smiled. “I shall-uh be very happy to, sir, if it works out. I will need to tidy-ah my desk, but I can be with you tomorrow.”

    “I see. You do understand that if you should make an application for the permanent position you will be considered on the same basis as anyone else?”

    “Certainree, sir.”

    “Good. In that case I’d be damned grateful if you would start tomorrow, then.”

    Ken rose politely, bowed slightly, and said in the vernacular: “No puh-roblem-ah, Dr Kincaid!”

    “Thank you, Ken. Good morning,” said Alan, a trifle limply.

    “Good morning, sir,” he said, going.

    The door closed quietly after him.

    “‘No problem’?” muttered Alan. rolling his eyes. Well, he wasn’t the man his father was, but that was hardly to be expected. But he seemed capable enough. And almost anything would be better than Ms Julie Blanchard. B.Com. or not.

    He and Inoue had a business lunch with the architects which pretty well occupied his thoughts in his nominal lunch-hour. But round about the pudding stage it occurred forcibly to Alan Kincaid that very possibly the whole thing had a been a put-up job, and that the cunning Jake Carrano, with, without a doubt, the connivance of the cunning Inoue Takagaki, had intended him from the very first to have Ken Takagaki as his assistant. Well, if the boy was competent, it didn’t matter how he’d got him, and if he wasn’t he’d be out on his ear. Alan refused pudding and asked for cheese. When it came it was accompanied by crackers and a small bunch of grapes but by now he expected this. He made no remark, but ate indifferent local soft cheese that called itself Brie with crackers, and then the grapes by themselves.

    … “Well?” said Sir Jake with a twinkle in his shrewd grey eyes as Inoue and the Carranos relaxed that evening over pre-dinner drinks.

    “Well, he has seen through your little ploy, Jake. Not, I think, immediately, but by now, yes: I’m certain of it. Though I do not think,” he said judiciously, “that it will prejudice him against Ken.”

    “Like you thought,” pointed out his boss and old friend.

    “I didn’t expect him to be such a fair-minded man.”

    “Is he?” said Lady Carrano.

    “Yeah. Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen?” replied her spouse brutally.

    “No. Adrian Revill’s cooking for us tonight. And if you don’t agree to back him in a restaurant, I’m going on permanent strike.”

    Sir Jacob cringed in terror.

    “Hah, hah, very funny. –How much of this object has Alan Kincaid seen through, Inoue?” she added, ostentatiously turning her shoulder on her husband.

    “Oh, I think he has seen almost right through him to the bottom of his black heart, Polly!” he said with a laugh. “Though I admit I gave him a hint.” He reported the morning’s conversation in detail, not omitting Alan’s enquiry as to how much Japanese Jake spoke or his own mention of the parole.

    “Help!” said Polly, blowing her nose. “I wish I’d heard it, Inoue!”

    “You would have enjoyed it,” he agreed.

    “She’d have laughed. Given the game away,” said her husband tolerantly.

    Lady Carrano ignored that. “Where’s he living, do you know, Inoue?”

    “Well, no. I haven’t asked him,” he said apologetically.

    “Be one of those cultural assumption things,” noted Sir Jake.

    When he and Polly had finished spluttering, Inoue said: “Well, partly. I don’t think he would welcome such an inquiry from me. And also, I don’t like him enough to be interested.”

    “Oh,” said Lady Carrano, rather disconcerted.

    “You don’t like him, either,” noted her husband.

    “No, but— Well, I suppose he’s found somewhere decent to stay,” she said dubiously.

    “Just so long as it isn’t next-door to us,” noted the genial Sir Jacob in a hard voice.

    There was a somewhat guilty silence of agreement.

    Alan got home rather late that evening to complete chaos. It started, though he did not realise it at the time, as he drove past the Fermours’ gate. Gerry Fermour was leaning on it, with little Harry perched up beside him. They waved energetically. Alan waved back briefly.

    His own gateway was entirely—entirely—blocked by great heaps of sand and gravel. Alan drew up, got out, and looked at these grimly.

    Dicky came racing down to the gate. “Hi, Alan! You’re late!”

    “Good evening, Dicky,” said Alan grimly. “What’s this?”

    “The men brought it! Mum’s bawling!” he gasped.

    “Bugger,” said Alan under his breath.

    “Scott Fermour, well, he reckons if it rains it’ll all be washed away an’ you’ll have to buy another lot!” he gasped.

    The weather had improved greatly over the past few weeks but not to the extent of not raining every other day. Alan replied coldly: “Scott Fermour is correct on one point, but I can assure you I will not buy a second lot. The contractor will provide a second lot free if this is washed away, since it was he who dumped it here. That’s what a contract is.”

    “I geddit!” agreed Dicky.

    Perhaps he did: Alan had realised by now that though his knowledge of the wider world was minimal, he was bright enough. So he added: “Though very probably he will try to make me pay for another lot, if this is washed away.”

    “You won’t, though, eh?”

    “No,” agreed Alan. “Why is Catherine bawling, this time?”

    “Dunno.”

    “Did Noelle ring her again?” asked Alan cautiously. There had been, to his knowledge, two previous occasions on which phone calls from her only daughter had reduced Catherine to floods of tears. On the first she had refused to tell him what the call was about, so it had undoubtedly been about him. On the second occasion he had eventually got it out of her that Noelle had told her that if she didn’t understand Alan’s instructions about buying bedding she had to ask him for clarification. Even though Alan agreed in principle on that one, he didn’t feel much more charitable towards the bossy little bitch. He had given up on the idea of deputing the bedding and had driven Catherine, Dicky and incidentally Normie Fermour, the middle Fermour son, into Puriri on a Saturday morning and had himself purchased a double electric blanket with dual controls for his own bed, making sure it had the correct safety certificates, and a similar but single one for Catherine’s bed. She was terrified of the things but Alan had put his foot down where she was concerned. He knew she only switched it on before bedtime and switched it off before she got in, but it was a start. She still hadn’t given in over Dicky, and Alan had reflected silently that if there was any chance that the kid might wet the bed an electric blanket was probably not a good idea. As he only came halfway down his little bed, a hot-water bottle was really all he needed. And he had a real duck-down eiderdown. Its cover, Alan discovered some time later, was an old one, but it was what his cousin described as “proper eiderdown material”, and the filling was refurbished by Catherine herself every couple of years with down from their own ducks. And hens.

    “Nah, Noelle didn’t ring up,” said the little boy.

    “I see. Did anyone else come today, Dicky, besides the men with the stuff for the drive?”

    “Yeah, they come when I was at school,” he said glumly.

    “Yes. ‘They came’,” corrected Alan. “Who?”

    “Um—dunno. They’ve done something to the sitting-room floor,” he revealed.  “And your bedroom.”

    Alan winced. “I see. Well, I think first things first. Where am I going to park the car?”

    “Mr Fermour, he says you can park it up at his place. ’Cos if ya leave it in the road, tonight’ll be the night that a truck comes dawn an’ clobbers ya. Or a yuppie,” he said fairly.

    That explained the Fermours at the Fermours’ gate, then. “Quite. Come along, then.” Alan and Dicky had now developed a routine. Eagerly Dicky scrambled through the gate, over the mounds of sand and gravel, and sat down in the front passenger’s seat with his legs dangling in the road. He removed his gumboots. Alan placed them neatly on what was left of the verge for piles of sand and gravel, and got back into the car.

    It was impossible to turn. He had to drive down to the grassy area abutting the beach and turn there. Back at the Fermours’, Gerry waved and opened the gate.

    Alan drove through and stopped. “Thanks, Gerry,” he said, winding down his window.

    “That’s okay. Ya wanna leave it over there?”

    Alan nodded, and parked the car neatly.

    “I’ve only got my socks on,” Dicky reminded him as he said: “Out.”

    “You idiot, Dicky! Where are your sneakers?”

    “Dunno. Home. –I could go bare-foot.”

    The Fermours’ drive was covered in heavy grey sharp-edged chunks of “road metal”. Gerry Fermour, astonished that any one should ask, had first said it was “gravel, of course”. Then he had admitted it was road metal. Then he had explained carefully that what it actually was, see, was crushed greywacke. Into the bargain he had explained where they quarried it, since Alan seemed interested. He had then added that he’d never met anyone that wanted to know that. Alan had replied coldly that what he meant was, he had never before met a Pom that wanted to know that. Gerry Fermour had broken down and grinned, at this point. Since then relations between the two men had been somewhat more harmonious than armed neutrality.

    “You will not go barefoot on this bloody road metal,” said Alan with a sigh.

    “You could carry me,” proposed Dicky unemotionally.

    “I’ll bloody have to, won’t I?” Alan got out. He wasn’t wearing his overcoat: he retrieved it from the back seat and put it on. It was a mild evening but on the whole he’d rather sacrifice the overcoat than his good pin-striped suit. He came round to Dicky’s side of the car.

    “Can I sit on your shoulders?”

    “Can my shoulders bear it?” replied Alan coldly.

    “Yeah!” he choked, evidently frightfully tickled by this witty sally. “You’re strong as anything, Alan!”

    Raising his eyebrows only slightly, Alan let him get on his shoulders. The process involved a lot of gasping and yelping from Dicky and one or two irritable shouts from Alan. It wasn’t helped by the fact that Gerry Fermour had lounged up alongside and was watching them sardonically. “You on?” said the farmer at last.

    “Yeah!” panted Dicky.

    “Stop grinning, Fermour, your one’s half his weight. Not to say, half his density,” said Alan coldly.

    Gerry Fermour grinned. Little Harry, who was only five, was, indeed, now sitting on his shoulders. “Not used to it. Hasn’t got a dad,” he excused Dicky.

    “True.”

    There was a short silence.

    “Thanks for letting me park up here, Gerry,” said Alan feebly.

    “No problem. Just mind you shut the gate after you.”

    “I promise,” said Alan solemnly.

    “Yeah.”

    They strolled slowly back to the gate. “Jenny did give Catherine a bell and warn her to watch what that nong did with his load, but by that time it was too late.”

    “I see. Well, thank her anyway, would you?”

    “Will do.”

    They had reached the gate. Mr Fermour was visibly hesitating. “What is it?” said Alan.

    “Uh—well, I was wondering if you’d do me a favour,” he said awkwardly.

    “If it’s within my powers, certainly. So long as it hasn’t got anything to do with the rear end of a cow.”

    Mr Fermour eyed him tolerantly. “You been watching that bloody vets thing on TV?”

    “I try not to!” he said with a laugh.

    “Jenny loves it. I keep telling her, it’s total crap. I mean to say, those jokers get out and help the bloody sheep to lamb! And the conditions the farmers keep their poor bloody cows in!”

    “Mm. Well, the North of England’s damned cold, they have to bring the cows indoors in winter. And it’s supposed to be the Fifties, isn’t it?”

    “My Dad was farming in the Fifties, mate! You coulda eaten your tea off his milking-shed floor!”

    “Ugh!” said Dicky in startled distaste.

    “The cows do poos on the floor!” contributed little Harry suddenly.

    Gerry Fermour cleared his throat. “So to speak.”

    “Yes!” agreed Alan, laughing.

    “Dad’s computer’s gone bung!” piped Harry.

    “Uh—yeah,” said Gerry Fermour, his thin, amiable face reddening slightly: “it has, actually.”

    Alan smiled. “I’ll come up this evening and take a look at it, Gerry. Is it actually dead, electrically speaking, or are you just not getting any data out of it?”

    “It won’t let me put anything in or get anything out.”

    “Ouch,” said Alan, raising his eyebrows slightly. “Er, I’ll ring you if I can’t make it this evening,” he said, belatedly recalling that the sand and gravel in the driveway were possibly not the only crises taking place at Toetoe Bay Farm.

    “Mum’s bawling again,” contributed Dicky helpfully.

    “That was the sub-text of my remark, yes,” agreed Alan calmly. He went through the gate.

    “We might see ya later, then,” acknowledged Mr Fermour.

    “Right. ’Bye. –If you so much as attempt to kick me, even in your stocking-feet, I’ll put you over my knee,” he said evilly to Dicky, as Harry kicked his father into action, crying gleefully: “Gee up, Dad!”

    “I wasn’t gonna!”

    “Mm.”

    They walked slowly down the lane, Dicky clutching Alan more or less by the temples and Alan hanging on tightly to his skinny legs.

    “We forgot my gumboots,” noted Dicky as they neared their front verandah.

    “Fuck your gumboots.”

    There was a short silence,

    “Don’t tell your mother I said that and if you pity me, please don’t repeat it. Or at least not in front of her.”

    “No. Or Noelle,” he agreed calmly.

    There was some good in Dicky Burchett, illegitimate offspring of Saskia and unofficial adopted son of Catherine. Alan squeezed his legs a little, not realising he was doing it. “Mm.”

    Catherine was sitting at the kitchen table, in the usual flowered apron over the usual pink tracksuit, sniffing and mopping at her eyes. She looked up at Dicky on Alan’s shoulders in numb surprise.

    “Alan gave me a ride on his shoulders!” he announced proudly.

    Catherine sniffed, and nodded. “Where are your gumboots?”

    “Only by the gate!” he said crossly.

    Alan swung him down to the floor. “We’ll fetch them later. What’s the matter, Catherine?”

    “The—the drive’s blocked.”

    “I know, I’m parked up at the Fermours’. Is that all?”

    “No,” said Catherine, her lower lip wobbling. “Everything’s gone wr-wrong!”

    “I see.” Alan removed his overcoat and handed it to Dicky. “Hang that up for me, please.”

    “He can’t reach the hook,” said Catherine faintly as he shot out.

    “Let him improvise.” Alan got his whisky down from the top shelf of the once-varnished dresser and poured for both of them, adding some tap water to hers. “Here. Drink it, and don’t argue.”

    Catherine sipped cautiously. Alan pulled out a wooden chair and sat down with a sigh. He sipped whisky slowly.

    “The electricity won’t work,” she said abruptly.

    “Oh?”

    “The men did something to it.”

    “Didn’t you pay the bill?”

    “Not that. The floor men. And I told them not to do your room, but they wouldn’t listen! And I rang the plumber like you said but he said it was a carpenter’s job and he wouldn’t listen when I said—”

    “Hush,” said Alan heavily. “Can you explain exactly what the floor men did?”

    “They took up the carpets in your room and the passage and the sitting-room—and they’ve put all the furniture in the passage; I asked them not to but they didn’t take any notice of me! And I said would they put them down the back but they just dumped them outside and I can’t move them, they’re too heavy!”

    He had seen the piles of carpet and sea-grass matting. “I’ll move them.”

    “They’re too heavy,” she repeated dolefully.

    Dicky reappeared. “Alan’s strong as anything, Mum!” he said on a scornful note.

    “How do you know?” said Catherine, sniffing dolefully.

    “He shifted that ole boat, all by himself!” revealed Dicky proudly. “An’ Mr Fermour an’ Krish, they couldn’t shift it!”

    “I did apply a long piece of timber and the principle of leverage,” murmured Alan as his second-cousin stared at him.

    “Not that old wooden dinghy?” she said faintly.

    “Yeah, he’s strong, Mum!” repeated Dicky.

    “You must be,” she said faintly.

    Alan shrugged. “Never mind that. Is that all that’s wrong, then, Catherine? The power’s off?”

    “The passage is full of furniture,” said Dicky fairly.

    “No,” said Catherine, mopping her eyes. Tears slid down her cheeks. “Something went bang, and the men were awfully angry, and they went away.”

    “Uh-huh. After they’d done some sanding, is that right?”

    “Mm,” she said, nodding.

    “What piece cf electrical equipment were you trying to run at the time?”

    After they had been through “Nothing” and “Not the stove”, Alan determined that the jug had just been switched on because the men had told her to make some coffee, and the iron was on but she’d been doing the ironing all afternoon and that the stove, again, was not on because he’d said not to use it until he’d had the wiring looked at.

    Alan took a deep breath. “The electric frypan I bought you. Right?”

    “Yes. I didn’t have it on high, though, Alan. Honest! I was only doing the onions, I was going to make you a nice stew!” More tears trickled down her cheeks.

    “Yes. It was the heavy-duty sander the men had. It must have overloaded the system. Finish that whisky.” Alan got up. “I’m going to check that everything’s off. Just stay there.”

    Negotiating the furniture in the passage required mountaineering ability. With some interference from Dicky he determined that three pieces of electronic gear had been left plugged in and switched on in the little boy’s bedroom. He switched them off. In Catherine’s room her electric blanket was carefully unplugged.

    “Yes,” said Alan to himself, standing there in her room with his hand on her awful faded green candlewick spread.

    “Come on, Alan!” urged Dicky, jumping slightly.

    Alan’s floor was half-sanded, while the sitting-room floor was apparently finished. The job did not look particularly expert: there were horrible scratch marks across the kauri grain and they hadn’t got the dark brown varnish out of the corners. Alan’s lips tightened.

    “Whaddaya reckon, Alan?” gasped Dicky.

    “I reckon they’ve blown all the fuses. Just stand back.” He opened the very, very old fuse box that lived on the passage wall near the front door. It did have some spare fuse wire in it, that looked as if it dated from Uncle Bob’s time. They had. On second thoughts Alan didn’t dare to touch the bloody thing. He was minimally competent, but— No. Better safe than sorry. He threw the master switch and heaved a sigh of relief.

    Dicky was astonished to find Alan’s recently-installed phone still worked. Briefly Alan explained. Dicky saw.

    The Blue Heron Motel in Pukeko Drive, Puriri, could accommodate them, certainly. Two cabins? Yes, the pleasant female voice agreed, not managing to conceal its surprise, two cabins could be managed. Alan booked two cabins, and rang off.

    “Pack a bag, we’re going to stay at the Blue Heron Motel until the bloody house has been re-wired,” he said briefly to his cousin.

    “What about Buttercup and Daisy?” she gasped.

    “And the hens and the ducks!” agreed Dicky.

    “Uh—we’ll have to ask the Fermours to look after the cows. There’s no way I’m going to drive you up here at crack of dawn,” decided Alan. “But you can feed the fowl when I bring Dicky up to school, okay?”

    “Ooh, are you gonna give me a ride to school in your car?” gasped Dicky.

    “Yes. –Go and make sure he packs what he needs,” said Alan.

    Catherine nodded, got up, grasped Dicky’s hand and pulled him out of the kitchen.

    Alan sat down suddenly and passed his hand across his face.

    When they were in the car, Dicky remembered Mr Fermour’s computer with a shrill cry of dismay. Firmly Alan decreed: “We’ll get settled in, and ring the Fermours about the cows. The computer can wait until tomorrow.” The Burchetts were silent.

    They were through Carter’s Bay and about five miles down the highway when Catherine said in a small voice: “Alan, won’t it cost an awful lot, staying in a motel?”

    “Mm? Oh, not very much.”

    Catherine gulped.

    About five miles north of the Kowhai Bay turnoff she said: “How shuh-shall we manage, though? With—with the plumber coming and everything?”

    Alan’s lips tightened. “You mean with the plumber not coming. In the first place, I’m going to cancel every damned order I’ve put in. It’s very clear nothing at all will happen at the house for six months if we leave it to the local tradespeople. And in the second place, I’m going to do what I should have done in the first place.”

    “What?” said Catherine in a tiny voice.

    Alan sighed. “Ask Sir Jake’s advice.”

    “Oh.”

    “Well, they do live just out of Puriri township, don’t they? They must know which of the local tradespeople will actually do the job they promise to do, not to say make a decent fist of it.”

    “Ye-es…. They can afford anything, though.”

    “True. –God, that place of theirs at Pohutukawa Bay is a bit much!” he said with a laugh.

    “Is it?”

    “Hell, yes. It’s about the size of Buck House, for a start, with suites in this, that and the other style—” With relish Alan described the Carrano mansion, its huge marble pillars and picture windows overlooking the sea, its Florida room, its two-storeyed, vaulted kauri entrance hall, and its drawing-room full of antique chinoiserie.

    “Help,” she said in awe,

    “Mm. I rather liked the main dining-room, though. Well, the full set of antique Spode on display helps! Late Georgian, I think. He’s got some very pleasant William IV silver in there, too.”

    “It sounds wonderful,” she said shyly.

    “I’d be scared to touch anything in there, if it was mine, quite frankly. But the colour scheme’s nice: dark greens with touches of gold, lots of polished wood: I thought it was mahogany but most of it’s Australian jarrah. Victorian. Balloon-back chairs: they’re mahogany. What do you think of those shades for our dining-room?”

    “The woodwork’s all kauri,” she said dubiously.

    “So it is. Well, keep the dark green and the gold. scrub the mahogany, more emphasis on the kauri. Buy an antique kauri sideboard?” he said with a smile.

    “Alan, they’re awfully expensive,” she said in a low voice.

    “What, Victorian stuff?”

    “That is antique, out here. Um… me and Jenny Fermour went for a drive one day. I can’t remember where the shop was, but I could ask her. We saw a sideboard and a Scotch chest. I can’t remember how much the sideboard was but the Scotch chest was six thousand dollars and Jenny said the drawer handles weren’t even the original ones.”

    “Six—” After a moment he said: “The money as such isn’t a consideration, but I don’t like to feel I’m being done. We’ll drive around and compare prices.”

    “Mm. Jenny says some of our furniture is really good. Maybe we could do it up.”

    “I think it may need French-polishing.”

    “Is that hard?”

    “Hard to do well, yes, I believe so. Possibly Sir Jake may put me onto the right firm of furniture restorers. But first, I think we’d better get the roof replaced and then the wiring done. And after that, the plumbing.”

    “Yes. –Jenny says she’d rip out the laundry and use the end bit of the kitchen instead, and turn the laundry into another bedroom and then sort of throw Dicky’s room and Noelle’s room into one—”

    “No!” he cried angrily.

    “Ssh. And make you a big new room, Dicky. –With part of his old room as a new bathroom,” she said to Alan. “Um, an ensuite, they call it.”

    “An ensuite for you? That sounds more like it!” he said with a laugh.

    Catherine hesitated, then admitted shyly: “It would be nice, not to have to traipse down to the bathroom in winter.”

    Suddenly Alan touched her knee lightly. “Yes. We’ll do it.”

    “What about my room?” wailed Dicky.

    “Would you like bunks in it?” returned Alan smoothly.

    “Hey! Yeah, ace! Can I?”

    “If you like,” said Alan carelessly.

    “Mighty!” he breathed. “Tha-anks, Alan!”

    “Alan, all this is going to cost a lot of money,” said Catherine faintly.

    “Shane Tamehana, he’s got bunks!” said Dicky aggressively.

    Alan raised an eyebrow at Catherine. She bit her lip, gulping. “I’ve got plenty of money,” he said mildly. “And if Dicky has bunks, then there’ll be room in his bedroom for a large table.”

    “What for?” he demanded.

    Alan sighed. “Largely, to get that antique train set of Uncle Bob’s up off the floor. Catherine, I suppose you realise that toys of that vintage are worth a small fortune?”

    “Um—no. Um, it wasn’t his. I mean, I think he bought it just after the War: he had a housekeeper in those days, and her grandsons used to play with it.”

    “Mm. That’s what I mean. Genuine Hornby,” said Alan dreamily. “I’ve got one just like it.”

    “Where is it?” gasped Dicky, jerking forward in the grip of his seatbelt.

    “Sit back. It’s in my father’s house in Edinburgh.”

    “Didn’t you say your father was dead?” ventured Catherine.

    “Yes. I own the house, now. But I’ve never really lived in it. It’s let, of course.”

    “Who plays with the train?” asked Dicky suspiciously.

    “Nobody. It’s in a locked trunk.”

    “Good. Let’s get it, then, Alan. Hey, if we had two lots of rails, we could go all down the passage an’ round the corner!”

    “Rounding the corner might not be possible, my rails are designed to lock into a circle. We’ll give it a go, though.”

    “Yay!” he cried.

    After a while Catherine said cautiously: “Really?”

    Alan smiled a little. “Mm. Aunt Elspeth will be thrilled to have the opportunity to poke round the house. She’ll send it out to me.”

    “Have you got a station, Alan?” asked Dicky.

    “No, that station is a hand-built artefact unique to your train set.”

    “Uncle Bob said his friend Mr Grey, the man with the pigs, made it,” offered Catherine.

    Alan laughed suddenly.

    “What?”

    “Nothing,” he said, smiling.

    At The Blue Heron he parked in front of the office. “I won’t be long.”

    “Aw-wuh!” cried Dicky. “Can’t I come with you?”

    “Do you want to?” said Alan feebly.

    “Ye-ah! ’Course!”

    Alan shrugged. “By all means come with me.”

    They disappeared into the little combined shop and office of the motel, Dicky hanging on to Alan’s hand. Catherine sat back in her seat. She felt quite limp.

    “You’re not gonna believe this,” warned Sir Jacob.

    Polly looked at him warily.

    Jake explained where Alan Kincaid was living, and with whom.

    “Dorothy’s nice Catherine?” she gasped.

    He shrugged airily.

    “Not living together?” she croaked.

    “Both adults, aren’t they? Why not?”

    “Ugh, Jake, that doesn’t sound too good. Are you sure?”

    “Uh—well, I didn’t hog-tie him and get him to admit ’e was doing the woman.”

    “That’s NOT FUNNY!”

    Rubbing his ear, Sir Jacob conceded it wasn’t. And he was sorry. And he’d put him onto Tim Green for the re-wiring, and the Purple Palladium—Polly winced—could no doubt do ’im a nice bathroom or two, as and when. And did she know Kevin Goode, who ran the recycling place in Carter’s Bay? She conceded she had heard of this gentleman. Well, his brother was a builder, just in a small way. Older than young Kevin. Did a decent job. He’d take care of their alterations, no need to fart round with a bloody architect! She agreed faintly. The mansion on the cliff-top at Pohutukawa Bay had taken months of discussion and argument with Sir Jacob’s pet architect, scrapping of plans, re-drawing of plans, more argument, more discussion… Oh well, so much the better. They might have a roof over their heads within the foreseeable future.

    “Well, um, if they’re living together, Jake, we’d better invite both of them to dinner, next time.”

    “You could try,” he said, eyeing her drily. “I’ll give ya fifty to one he won’t bring her, though.”

    “Why not?” she said, staring.

    “Because I said to him, better bring her along to that bloody shindig we’ve got planned for next Fridee, and he said ta very much—well, in the Pongo lingo, but— Sorry. He said thanks and all that, but she’s very shy, and he really didn’t think she’d fancy it.” He eyed her uneasily.

    Polly thought it over. After quite some time she said: “Jake, all this sounds very odd. I mean, he didn’t strike me as the type… I’m sure Dorothy said she’s got a little boy, too. Are you sure he meant to imply she’s that shy?”

    “Uh—mm. She’s the type that can’t handle tradesmen and—uh—” He described the scene that had greeted Alan on his arrival home the other night. Not omitting the heaps of gravel and the scratched kauri floors.

    “A person like that living with a person like him? Jill’s Iceman?”

    He eyed her drily. “Jill Davis is a man-hater from way back.”

    Polly bit her lip. “Does she have to be entirely wrong about his character on account of it?”

    “Not entirely, no. But leaving aside his character, and leaving aside the fact that Jill wouldn’t know S.A. if it stood up and danced the tarantella, give us your unvarnished opinion on whether or not living with ’im ’ud be entirely a bad thing.”

    There was a considerable pause. Then Lady Carrano said weakly: “I can’t say I like him. But he is awfully sexy.”

    Sir Jacob eyed her tolerantly. “Yeah.”

    “The meeting,” said Kevin Goode on a dry note, “will now come to order.”

    Penny Bergen, reddening, said quickly: “Don’t be silly. It isn’t a meeting.”

    “What is it, then?” asked Barry Goode, poker-face.

    “An informal get-together.” said Penny firmly.

    “Aw, one of them!” Barry got out a small piece of wood and began whittling. Kevin was already whittling. So was Euan Knox. May Swadling was knitting. Barry’s and Kevin’s sister, Avon, was crocheting. On the rug round which the company was gathered, little Fiorella Goode (Avon’s), was playing with some old plastic blocks kindly donated by May Swadling, who had been horrified to find that Fiorella had almost no toys, and certainly no plastic ones.

    The informal get-together was being held in Barry Goode’s sitting-room. This venue had been chosen more or less because Jack Swadling had pointed out that they could have it in theirs but if they did they’d have to share it with the kids watching the bloody Simpsons on TV; because Euan Knox lived over the boatshed where he and Sol Winkelmann conducted the boat-repairing business in which they were partners and didn’t have a sitting-room or even a sofa; because Kevin Goode at the moment didn’t have a sitting-room, he and his wife having recently spilt up noisily and acrimoniously; and because the Bergens hadn’t yet got round to doing up their sitting-room or even putting any furniture into it. As their friends were also the proprietors of small, more or less struggling businesses, they had fully understood and sympathised with this last.

    Jack Swadling wasn’t present, on the excuse that someone had to keep the shop going; but it would have been true to say that although all of those present fully sympathised with this point, only Euan Knox and Barry Goode fully understood it. Sol Winkelmann wasn’t present for rather similar reasons.

    The informal get-together went over various points at some length for some time but finally Kevin said firmly, and very loudly: “All right, let’s summarise. Kincaid’s got round you, Tim and Penny, with his order for an English gent’s saddle.”

    “And the hint about a pony for young Dicky,” noted Euan Knox.

    “Shut up, Knox. That’s the Bergens out.”

    Penny opened her mouth, caught Tim’s eye, and subsided.

    Kevin continued relentlessly: “And he’s got Tim and Daphne Green on side, of course, because Sir Jake’s got Tim the re-wiring job; and I know they don’t live up here, before anybody says so, but Daphne’s Aunty Kath does, and before anybody says anything, Ben and Kath Wilson are probably best placed of anybody in the whole of the Bay to get a good view of whatever unlikely monstrosity they plonk on that hunk of swamp.”

    “Irreplaceable piece of pristine wilderness,” corrected Euan Knox solemnly.

    “I thought I told you to shut up?” said Kevin mildly.

    Grinning, Euan got on with his whittling.

    “And anything Ben Wilson says, the whole of View Road, Fern Gully Crescent and Peninsula Road are likely to agree to,” continued Kevin. “Whole of the Point, really.”

    “I suppose he has got quite a lot of influence. He’s on the County Council, too,” agreed May Swadling sadly.

    Kevin had to swallow. “Uh—yeah. Right, May. He’s an influential joker. And he’ll have his eye on Tim Green landing a subcontract for some of the wiring over on the ruddy university site, what’s more.”

    This last statement was not addressed to her particularly, but May nodded brightly. “Kath was telling me that Tim Green wants to expand: he’s talking about taking that Anderson boy, I forget his name, into the business as a junior partner, and getting two new apprentices, and taking on quite big projects!” The knitting needles clicked briskly.

    “Um—yes,” said Kevin feebly.

    “That’s the Council and the better-off residents of Carter’s Bay sewn up, in case you were wondering where you were,” noted his brother.

    “Shut up, Barry. I was about to point out that you’re entirely stitched up, building on that extension to that dump of his at Toetoe Bay.”

    “What about you, Kevin?” said Avon crossly. “I suppose you’re not stitched up?”

    “I’m coming to that. In case nobody was looking, that was Sir Jake Carrano’s Merc with Sir Jake in person driving it, that pulled up outside my place the other day.”

    “Thought he had a Roller?” said Tim Bergen.

    “That’s the Group’s, on the books,” said Euan Knox unemotionally.

    “Thanks. We needed that clarification,” said Kevin grimly.

    “What did he bribe you with?” asked Tim.

    In conjunction with his recycling yard, Kevin also undertook furniture restoration. “Nothing specific. A blanket offer to take a look at that dump at Toetoe Bay and see what I can do for them.”

    “Have you?” asked Penny.

    “Not yet, but I’m thinking about it, because I’m as human as the rest of you!” said Kevin crossly. “What I’m saying is, if Jake Carrano’s visibly ganging up with this Kincaid type to that extent, what chance do us little people have of making any effective protest against this bloody university?”

    “Depends on whether we want the business or not,” noted Euan.

    “Well, I do!” said Barry Goode with feeling.

    “Yeah,” agreed Tim Bergen.

    “Well, yeah: we all do, that’s the ruddy point!” said Kevin loudly.

    There was a short pause.

    “I suppose you don’t!” said Penny crossly to Euan.

    Euan was, apart from Fiorella and Avon, the youngest of those present. It was not very long since he’d finished his M.E., but being a person entirely lacking, or so his family claimed, in worldly ambition, he’d elected not to take up an exciting career in a government department designing power stations that were destined never to be built because of successive government cutbacks not to say successive changes in successive governments’ policies, but had instead stayed on in Kingfisher Bay continuing what had started out as a holiday job with Sol Winkelmann. They had recently made the arrangement official, and a shiny new sign now hung over the beached old boathouse where Euan lived and worked, announcing: “Kingfisher Marine Pty Ltd.” It hadn’t made more work come in, true, but as Mr Winkelmann’s wife had painted it for them on an off-cut Kevin had had lying around, they weren’t any worse off because of it. Euan grinned, and ran his hand through his short, very thick, very pale hair. He was a striking-looking young man: the hair in combination with his matte tan and his very clear blue eyes was apt to turn the maidenly inhabitants of Carter’s Bay, not to mention a fair proportion of those not so maidenly and old enough to know better, very weak at the knees. “We could do with anybody’s business, actually,” he admitted.—Several persons present at the get-together nodded feelingly.—“Though Kincaid hasn’t said anything directly to us. But young Dicky reckons he’s been making noises about a boat.”

    “See!” cried Avon.

    “Shut up,” sighed Kevin. “You’re here on sufferance. Go and make a pot of tea.”

    “Kevin, dear!” protested May faintly.

    “I’ve got as much of a stake in this as any resident of Carter’s Bay,” said Avon firmly.

    Avon Goode was barely twenty. Fiorella was barely two. There were some that said that Barry Goode deserved a medal for taking on the pair of them. True, there were also some that said that he was doing pretty well for himself, getting an unpaid housekeeper, and if he really cared about them he’d see that she didn’t get round in rags and that the kid got proper food and went to Play Group like everybody else’s kids. This latter group was largely composed of persons who didn’t know the determined Avon Goode.

    “That’s quite right, dear, you have,” agreed May. “But I must say a cup of tea would be nice.”

    Avon grinned at her. “Righto, May. We’ll make one in a bit, okay?”

    “Leaving aside Avon’s stake in Carter’s Bay,” said Kevin loudly as discussion threatened to break out again, “he’s managed to nobble the lot of us!”

    There was dead silence in Barry’s dingy sitting-room in dingy Station Road, Carter’s Bay. –There was no longer any station in Carter’s Bay and most of the spur railway line had long since been torn up.

    “Hasn’t he?” insisted Kevin loudly.

    “Mm,” admitted Penny Bergen, biting her lip.

    Euan sucked his teeth. “Yep. Fair to say: yep.” He handed Fiorella the piece of wood he’d been working on. “There ya go. Fiorella: it’s a bear, see?”

    “Bear!” she cried pleasedly,

    Barry Goode noted dispassionately: “Looks more like a pig, to me.”

    “You’re SILLY, Bawwy!” she shouted.

    “Nyah, nyah,” said Euan to his host, grinning.

    Barry handed his small niece the piece of wood he’d been whittling.

    “’Raffe!” she cried excitedly.

    Barry cleared his throat. “No, um, ’s a doggy, Fiorella. A doggy with a long neck.”

    Euan collapsed in sniggers.

    When the company was over that and Kevin had given the little girl his handiwork and Fiorella was placidly introducing Doggy and Bear to the boat, not appearing to care about such niceties as comparative scales or the fact that both Doggy and Bear were too big to fit in the boat, Kevin admitted glumly: “So I reckon we’re stuffed.”

    “Yeah,” agreed Tim Bergen.

    “No!” said his wife crossly.

    “Thought he’d started work on that saddle?” said Barry unemotionally.

    “N— Yes, he has— That isn’t the point, Barry! I don’t say we should—um—should boycott Dr Kincaid, that’d be stupid.”

    “Only if cutting off your nose to spite your face is stupid,” noted Euan.

    Ignoring the fact that Euan Knox sometimes made her knees go all weak—though only when she wasn’t expecting to bump into him—Penny retorted crossly: “Shut up, that’s what I mean! But we can at least have a—a watching brief!”

    “Absolutely!” cried Avon.

    “Sort of an environmental watch committee?” said Kevin dubiously.

    “What good will that do?” asked Barry.

    “Look, stop it!” cried Penny angrily. “Don’t be in it, if you’re not interested! It’ll do what good we want it to, that’s what! Okay, we can’t stop them building the beastly place—”

    “We certainly can’t stop them building the new bridge,” agreed Barry. “They’ve started it.”

    “Everyone agrees it’s high time we had a new bridge: that old one’s a disgrace!”

    “Well, go on, Penny,” he said mildly, as she appeared to have ground to a halt.

    Penny took a deep breath. “At least we can keep an eye on what they’re up to and make sure their drains don’t run directly into the Inlet and so forth!”

    “It’s not a bad idea. Make sure they don’t encroach on the bird sanctuary, either,” agreed Euan. “Did you see those ads in the paper?”—They all looked blank.—“Fellowships in ornithology.” They still all looked blank, so he elaborated. When the depths of Alan Kincaid’s depraved cunning finally penetrated there was an outraged outcry.

    “Yeah, well, shows he’s got a bit of nous,” concluded Euan an a sour note. “Pre-emptive strike, eh?”

    “Surely we can stop that, at least?” cried Avon.

    “How?” said Euan instantly.

    Nobody knew, least of all Avon.

    “I suppose…” said Barry. He stopped: they were all looking hopefully at him.

    “Go on, Barry!” urged May, nodding brightly over the knitting.

    “Um… Well, any ornithologists that get jobs at the new university may have an axe to grind, I grant you. But most of them are pretty sound types. You know: in the Forest & Bird Society, and so forth. It strikes me that this Kincaid might be biting off a bit more than he’s gonna be able to chew, with this fellowship idea.”

    “Get them on our side, you mean, Barry?” cried his little sister.

    Barry eyed her tolerantly. “More or less. What I mean is, I think they might be on our side in any case. Natural allies.”

    “Ye-ah!” she breathed, eyes shining.

    “But look, you types, don’t cheer yet,” he said as a general hubbub of pleased self-congratulation broke out. “The varsity itself’s the thin end of the wedge.”

    “Right. Developments,” said Euan, wrinkling his matte tan, straight nose. “Lovely yuppie suburbs.”

    “Then we do need a watch committee!” cried Penny.

    Barry admitted: “Yeah. –Sol heard any more about what Carrano’s got up his sleeve for your side of the Inlet?” he asked Euan.

    “No,” admitted Euan glumly. “All we know is, it’s in five-acre—well, however many hectare—blocks.”

    “Sure? Not smaller?”

    “No. Sol had a moody fit last week, so he went into town and had a look at the plans. No change there. But they’ve got all the sections marked, now, and bloody ‘For Sale’ notices all up the Inlet road.”

    “That’ll be where the professors will live!” said May brightly.

    There was a nasty silence. Some of those present had a feeling she wasn’t far wrong.

    “Them and their flaming great cruisers, yeah,” agreed Euan.

    “Well, you and Sol’ll do all right: when you’re not towing them off the sandbanks for immense sums you’ll be hitting them up for repairs to their bottoms,” noted Barry sourly.

    “Unless they dredge the Inlet,” said Kevin tightly.

    “They can’t!” cried Avon.

    Kevin replied irritably: “Jake Carrano’s convinced he can do anything, hasn’t that sunk in?”

    “He might be convinced, but that doesn’t mean he can. Not if people are determined not to let him get away with it,” said Penny grimly.

    “Jack says it would spell the end of the bird sanctuary: the wading birds wouldn’t have a habitat any more,” said May.

    There was another nasty silence of agreement.

    Finally Euan said grimly: “Jack hasn’t heard anything along those lines, has he, May?”

    May shook her head. “No. But he keeps saying some people said that Sir Jake would never get away with dredging out Kingfisher Bay, and now look at it!”

    They all thought of the yuppie second homes, the retirement mansions, the multi-storey tourist hotel, and the massed ranks of yachts and cruisers in the scooped-out semi-circle in the Inlet that Sir Jacob had for obscure reasons named “Kingfisher Bay”, and winced.

    “Yeah, all right then, Penny,” said Kevin grimly. “The Carter’s Bay Environmental Watch Committee is hereby formed. Anyone fancy seconding that?”

    By the time the usual arguments over what really constituted parliamentary procedure had died down and Avon and May were serving tea or instant coffee made by Avon and home-made ginger gems contributed by May, they more or less had a chairperson and a secretary. And, rather as an afterthought, a treasurer.

    … “You were a lot of help!” said Kevin Goode witheringly to his older brother as the sounds of the Bergens’ aged station-waggon and Euan’s Harley Davidson died away on the mild evening air.

    “I’ve said I’ll be a member. You’ll need a few Indians as well as chiefs, ya know,” Barry replied placidly to the new Chairperson.

    “Look, letting May Swadling do treasurer instead of you is bloody daft, Barry: the woman can’t add two and two without the aid of a pencil and a pile of Heralds!”

    Barry replied placidly: “True. But I shouldn’t think the Treasurer of the Carter’s Bay Environmental Watch Committee will ever need to add more than one and one. And if she does I’ll lend her my pocket calculator. –Where are you off to?” he added in surprise as Kevin, frowning, headed down the cracked front path.

    “I’m going for a walk, I need to think,” said Kevin grimly.

    Barry watched dubiously as his brother’s untidy bright gold curls and untidy bright gold beard disappeared down Station Road.

    Avon popped up like the genie just behind him. “Barry—”

    “Don’t do that,” he said limply, sagging against the door jamb.

    Ignoring that, she said: “What sort of wood is that giraffe made of?”

    “It isn’t a— Never mind. Pine, edible.”

    “That’s all right, then. What about those things that Euan and Kevin made her?”

    “Kev’s was a bit of pine, too. Um… think Euan had a bit of manuka stump. The leaves are sort of edible,” he said dubiously. “Early settlers made tea of them.”

    “I won’t risk it.” Avon marched off. Barry waited. The expected shrieks of rage and deprivation rose on the mild evening air of Station Road.

    He sighed, and sagged in the doorway. What the fuck they imagined this environmental watch committee was going to do, against the might of the Carrano Group—! Not to mention the bloody government backing the show to the hilt for the overseas exchange it was going to generate. Oh, well. It might ginger Kevin up a bit: he’d been very moody since his marriage bust up—well, since well before that. They’d married very young and it had gone wrong almost from the beginning, when it dawned on her that Kevin wasn’t kidding when he said he didn’t want to become a land agent like Dad, he wasn’t really interested in joining Barry in the building trade, and he’d sooner die than become a cost accountant like their other brother, Ron. Then when he’d started the recycling business on the site of the old bus barn in Carter’s Bay the relationship had really taken a dive. She’d refused to come up here to live. Then she’d said she’d move as far north as Puriri, but only if he bought a decent house. Kevin didn’t have any cash, he’d sunk it all in the business. Dad had lent him a lump sum but he’d had to get a huge mortgage on top of it. The worry about not being able to make the payments hadn’t done all that much for domestic relations. She’d finally given him the push about four months since. Retaining the bloody house, of course.

    Barry sighed again. Not that his own marriage, or Dad’s first marriage, come to think of it, had been anything to write home about, either; but Jesus, Kevin was only twenty-seven! A bit young to be making a mess of it already. Well, at least they hadn’t had any kids…

    Mr Goode, Senior, had had four kids by his first wife: Barry, who was now forty; Megan, thirty-eight, currently shacked up with a female lover over in Sydney; Angela, married to a Catholic bastard by whom she’d had six kids already and, at thirty-six, another one on the way; and Ron, at thirty-four smugly ensconced in Pakuranga with a like-minded yuppie wife, a Mazda, a shiny little four-wheel-drive, and one point-seven kids. And a giant mortgage. Barry had been nearly nine when his parents had decided to call it a day. All he could remember of those early years was a series of bitter rows. Well, one long row, really; over what, goodness only knew. Sheer incompatibility, probably. Dad had remarried after a few years. Chloe, his second, was all right: a bit of a bimbo, with a brain like a gnat, but fond enough of Dad. She’d had Kevin straight away and then, more or less as an afterthought, Avon, and Dad admitted himself that if he’d been sober at the time it wouldn’t have happened at all. The name was Chloe’s choice. Chloe was now forty-eight, which if you could count meant there was just on eight years between her and Barry, but what the Hell, if she was what the old joker wanted… She was currently on at him to retire—he was sixty-six—and take off for Queensland, but Dad was resisting. Not that he didn’t fancy the idea of lying on a Queensland beach eyeing up the lovelies, but he was still pretty fit and enjoyed his job and was making a mint at it. He only showed the properties he was interested in; he left all the boring stuff and the hard sell to the staff of the six very thriving branches of Goode Real Estate.

    Barry closed the front door slowly. He needed to have a talk to Avon. They were more or less living off a mixture of expensive health-food items, when Avon remembered to shop, which most of the time she didn’t, and expensive takeaways. It had been takeaways tonight, she hadn’t remembered to shop: the money he’d given her this morning was still under the honey jar on the table. –Sugar was bad for you, honey was good. Barry had given up pointing out that they were both natural products. He’d gone over to unsweetened tea, he couldn’t stomach tea with honey. Coffee with honey was just marginally drinkable if you made it pretty strong. Sighing, he went along to Fiorella’s room.

    “Ssh!” hissed his sister as he peeped in.

    Barry hadn’t been going to say anything. Fiorella was now asleep, the long lashes dark on the rosy cheeks. Adorable. Pity, really, that she was bidding fair to become as obstreperous, stubborn and unmanageable as her mum. He jerked his head at his sister. Avon came out into the passage, closing the door very carefully after her, and followed him to the kitchen.

    “What?”

    Barry said bluntly: “Avon, you and Fiorella are costing me a fortune.”

    Avon went very red and stared at him in a stunned way.

    “I know I’ve never mentioned it before, but this is it. I’m putting my foot down. It’s not that you’re not both welcome, but I really can’t afford to live the way you do, Avon. Driving down to Puriri five nights out of seven to Ching’s or The Tavern is not on, okay? And I can’t afford organic this, that and the other and special flour for the times you do bother to cook. Either you do the shopping I ask you to, and buy us something basic and cheap to eat, or you’ll have to take Fiorella and shove off.”

    Avon’s lower lip wobbled. “Me and Kevin could share a place.”

    “Not in Carter’s Bay, you couldn’t. But by all means look. But bear in mind that he’s got even less dough than me, he certainly can’t afford to buy takeaways at the rate you do.”

    To his astonishment Avon did not burst into tears or shout or scream. She only said meekly: “I’m sorry, Barry. I will try harder. Only Mum never let me do anything when I was living at home. And—and she never seems to budget or—or anything. I sort of haven’t got the hang of—of managing things.”

    “No,” said Barry heavily, not mentioning the fact that when she left home she’d only been seventeen anyway. Or Chloe’s up-market version of housekeeping: never used the oven, if the microwave couldn’t do it she didn’t buy it, and her and Dad ate out somewhere really decent two nights a week and somewhere reasonable another two. Fair enough, Dad could afford it. But he couldn’t. “I know. It’s partly my fault: I should have made the situation clear before this. And given you some—um, guidelines, I suppose. Don’t look like that: I won’t send you back to Dad and Chloe.”

    “They’re… self-sufficient,” said Avon in a tiny voice. “What I mean is, they don’t need anyone else in their lives. They couldn’t wait to get shot of me, and… You know.”

    “Well, Dad’s at that stage in his life. And Chloe’s never been all that domesticated, has she?”

    “No.”

    Barry sighed. “We’ll go over the books tomorrow, all right? Maybe if you see how most of my cash is tied up in raw materials and wages for the blokes, and so forth, you’ll—um, manage it all a bit better, eh?”

    Avon nodded convulsively, biting her lip.

    “Yeah.” Barry swallowed. “Um—I still owe untold thou’ on that big load of slate I had to get in for that bloody Sykes character that skipped the country two years back.”

    “That swindler?” she gasped.

    Barry made a face. “Yeah. Had me building a place for him out on the Point. Well, you don’t want to hear all that.”

    “Didn’t he pay a deposit?”

    “Yeah, but Muggins, here, took it as evidence of good faith and ordered untold thou’ worth of blue slate on the strength of it. Not to mention bloody great slabs of marble for his bloody bathroom. Carrano Development took that off me at cost, better than losing on it,” he admitted, making another face.

    “Heck, it’s just like that old Jean Gabin film!” she gasped.

    Barry blinked. True, he’d been pleased that his little sis had wanted to come with him to the occasional showing of the University Film Society on Puriri Campus—they made you pay a bit extra if you weren’t a student, but it was still miles cheaper than the commercial flicks. Once they’d started going he’d been horrified to discover the depths of Avon’s ignorance of almost anything you cared to name, but more especially anything related to history. He’d tried to get her to read more, but without all that much success. Well, didn’t they reckon kids that had been brought up on TV and Rambo movies had no attention span? Something like that. She lapped the film society stuff up, though, even the more modern German and Polish crap that was definitely not Barry’s bag, so maybe there was hope for her yet.

    “Uh—yeah. Well, bloody Sykes was no Dietrich, but—uh, yeah, fair enough, Avon, you see it in those terms if that’ll help you to understand.”

    “Why didn’t you explain?” cried his little sister angrily.

    Barry bit his lip and refrained from saying he just had. “Been living on me tod too long, I suppose. You know: used to playing it close to the chest.”

    A determined look came over Avon’s little heart-shaped face. “Yes. Well, you won’t need to from now on, Barry, you’ve got me and Fiorella on your side!”

    Cripes, thought Barry Goode numbly, was that a threat or a promise? “Ta,” he said feebly.

    “We could look at the books now!” she said eagerly.

    “Uh—no, I’m whacked, Avon. Been up since five.”

    “I’ll make you a cup of tea, shall I?”

    “Uh—ta. Not herbal,” said Barry feebly.

    “No.” Avon admitted: “I suppose we could switch to raw sugar, honey is a bit expensive.”

    “Yeah. Good idea.” Barry sat down heavily at the kitchen table,

    “May Swadling was saying that you can save a small fortune by not using disposable nappies,” she said dubiously.

    He winced. “Yeah, but May Swadling’s the sort of woman that if they hadn’t already invented domestic slavery, she’da thought of it for herself.”

    Avon laughed suddenly. “Yes!”

    “Anyway, Fiorella’s almost potty-trained,” said Fiorella’s uncle with super-optimism.

    “Yes. Um, very lean red meat’s good for you in small quantities.”

    “Uh-huh.”

    “I’ll go shopping tomorrow!” she said with horrid determination. “Me and Fiorella’ll get the early bus down to Puriri and go to the supermarkets!”

    Barry winced. “We’d better make out a list, then.”

    Beaming, Avon rushed off to get pen and paper.

    Barry sighed, and shook his head. The thing was, if he asked some local cow to came and give the kid a few lessons in basic home cooking, she’d want to take over. Added to which, Avon wasn’t the type to take being told what to do. Oh, well. Keep plugging on, eh? But belt-tightening was definitely in order. And he didn’t mind admitting that that job Sir Jake Carrano had found for him at Toetoe Bay Farm had come just at the right moment.

    Barry thought it over. When Avon came back he admitted it to her, too. She went very red but nodded hard.

    “So just—uh—take it easy over this Environmental Watch Committee stuff, will ya, Avon?”

    Avon promised earnestly.

    Well, her heart was in the right place. Barry drank unsweetened tea without milk because Avon had forgotten to put the tokens out this afternoon and Fiorella’s teatime bottle had used up the last of it. Fortunately May had brought a carton for the meeting. …Ask May to give Avon a few hints? Uh—no. No, they’d manage.

    By the time bedtime rolled around they’d knocked out a definite list of basics they needed from the supermarkets. Well, it was a start, even if the kid didn’t manage to stick to it.

    Barry Goode went to bed feeling marginally better than he had when he’d got up that morning. Carter’s Bay Environmental Watch Committee, or not.

    Ken Takagaki had competently sorted out the CVs and drawn up a short list for the Senior Administrator’s position, plus a longer short list if Dr Kincaid didn’t like the look of his probables. He also had a tentative short list for Systems Manager but he thought before they went into that, Dr Kincaid might be interested to look at this proposal.

    Alan glanced through Jack Perkins’s proposal, his eyebrows raised very high. “Interesting. Does he check out?”

    Ken had checked all of Jack Perkins’s references and his list of publications and had to boot consulted with Professor Michaels, the Dean of Engineering at the university. He did not reveal that as Bill Michaels in his off-duty moments had been known to spend a boozy afternoon on Jake Carrano’s patio with Jake, Inoue, and other like-minded gentlemen of their generation, the Takagakis knew him quite well and he had had no trouble in getting him to do the Sir George Grey Enterprise Corporation the favour.

    Alan tapped his fingers on the proposal “Hm.”

    “He is-ah a New Zealander; that-ah is why he wants to come-ah back, I think.”

    Alan Kincaid’s long mouth twitched a little. “Mm. I’ll re-read it carefully, Ken, but you might make some preliminary arrangements for getting him over here for a chat.”

    “Certainree, sir. Or would it be more convenient-ah for ur-you to see him in America, if you go to Europe-ah to interview these-ah other candidates?”

    “No. At the moment I don’t like the look of any of the Americans, I won’t be making a stopover there. I think I might do the preliminary interviews for the Dean of Environmental Resources at the same time; that’s a key position.”

    Promptly Ken handed him the list of the possibles for that.

    … “Going back to England?” gasped Catherine in horror, a couple of days later. “But what shall we do? We can’t stay here!”

    “Of course you can stay at the motel,” he said patiently. “I won’t be going just yet, but I wanted to give you plenty of warning. It’s even possible you may be back in the house by the time I have to go.”

    “C’n I come, Alan?” gasped Dicky.

    “No. It’s a business trip.”

    Dicky subsided slightly, but was apparently uncrushed. “C’n we come to the airport with you?”

    “Uh—look, we’ll sort all that out nearer the time.”

    Dicky looked unbelieving.

    “I’ll pay the Collingwoods for the motel room in advance, if that’s what’s worrying you, Catherine.”

    “You’ll miss the school fair!” objected Dicky.

    Alan got out his diary. “If this date you’ve given me is correct, I won’t.”

    “But— What about Christmas?” said Catherine faintly.

    “I’ll be back well before then. I’ll only be away for a week or ten days.”

    “All the way to England, just for a week?”

    “I said, it’s business.”

    “Will it be a jumbo?” asked Dicky keenly.

    “Something like that, yes.”

    “Ace!”

    “All right?” he said to his second cousin.

    Catherine gulped, but nodded.

    “Is it all right?” he said, when Dicky had rushed off to inflict the news of Alan’s coming trip on Mrs Collingwood in the motel office.

    “Yes. I suppose those big planes are safe enough,” she admitted.

    “Air travel’s a damn’ sight safer than road travel.”

    “Yes. I don’t much like that, either.”

    “No, I recognise that,” said Alan with a little smile. “Well, what shall we do for dinner tonight?”

    “I thought I’d just cook something here.”

    “Good,” he said with a sigh. “Actually, I’m bloody tired. –Is it all right if I lie down?”

    “Yes, of course.”

    Catherine went over to the motel unit’s little kitchenette, and Alan lay down on her bed. After some time she came over to him. “Alan, you’re not overdoing it, are you?”

    “Not really,” said Alan with his eyes shut.

    He heard a faint sniff. Then she began fumbling with his shoe-laces.

    “What—”

    “You can’t have a proper rest with your shoes on. –They’re done up so tight!” she gasped. “They can’t be comfortable like this, Alan!”

    “Of course they are. Er—well, sign of an anxious personality, is one theory.”

    “Doing your shoelaces up too tight? I should think it is, yes. You can have an early night,” she said, dropping his beautiful handmade brogues on the floor.

    “Mm.”

    Catherine pulled the duvet up over him.

    “Don’t let me sleep through dinner,” he said, yawning.

    “No,” she said with a sniffle.

    Alan caught her wrist. “I’m all right!” he said with a faint laugh.

    “You can’t be, it’s not like you to have a lie-down before tea.”

    “I didn’t sleep much last night, we’ve had an interesting proposal from— Well, never mind all that, it’s work. But if we go down that path it may change things somewhat. Change the administrative structure, at any rate. I suppose my brain was all fired up, mulling over the possibilities.”

    “Yes. Well, you mustn’t have coffee after dinner any more, you’re too old,” she said severely, going back to the stove.

    Thanks, thought Alan wryly. He yawned and closed his eyes. The next thing he knew a high-pitched voice was shrieking: “Alan! ALAN!”

    “What— Oh,” he said feebly.

    “It’s tea-time! Mum says you can have yours in bed!” said Dicky loudly into his face.

    “I haven’t gone suddenly deaf just because I’ve had a nap before dinner,” said Alan acidly. “Where is she?”

    “Talking to Mrs Collingwood. –She says the risk is, terrorists sometimes grab those big jets and hold ya hostage!”

    “I suppose it’s too much to hope you haven’t repeated that to your mother? –Don’t answer that,” he sighed, struggling to a sitting position. What the— “Dicky, where the bloody Hell are my trousers?” he said loudly.

    Dicky fell around the room laughing. “Me and Mum took them off! She said you’d insist on getting up and working after tea, so she’s hidden them!”

    “Look, for God’s sake, this isn’t even my room!” said Alan loudly, very flushed. Not that he thought of himself as a blushing violet. But for God’s sake, he barely knew the woman!

    “Mum says you’ve got nice legs,” reported Dicky dubiously.

    She wasn’t the first lady to have remarked on the point, admittedly. “Really?” he said coldly.

    “I think they’re pretty hairy,” pronounced Dicky.

    “Uh-huh. How would you like a nice, shiny fifty-cent piece, Dicky?”

    This exquisitely witty sally tickled Dicky so much that he again fell all round the motel room laughing himself silly.

    “What’s the joke?” said Catherine, reappearing with a bunch of flowers in her hand.

    “I’ve just tried to bribe him to give me my trousers back,” said Alan grimly.

    “Well, you’re not getting them. You can have your tea in bed and stay there.”

    “It isn’t my bed!” said Alan loudly.

    “That’s okay: I’ll sleep in your room.”

    He sighed. “Very well.”

    They duly had dinner in Catherine’s and Dicky’s motel unit, Alan in the bed. Dicky came and sat beside him, propped against the pillows. Alan let him have the television on, it was the line of least resistance. Catherine sat in the small wooden-armed easy chair beside the bed.

    He had the most absurd dream that night: he couldn’t remember all the details when he woke up in her bed, but it was something about sailing across the Pacific to America, one of the sailors being Mickey Mouse; but it wasn’t clear whether they were actually heading for Disneyland or not. Dicky was aboard, and so was Catherine, and Alan spent most of the voyage alternately trying to persuade Mickey Mouse there was no need to clap on sail as the engine would do it nicely, and Catherine to stop cooking and come and get into his bed. What he intended them to do in the bed wasn’t absolutely clear in the dream itself, or possibly his subconscious mind refused to contemplate it, but he certainly had a hard-on when he woke up.

    By the time he got under the shower it had not worn off. Maybe this whole motel thing was a mistake. Maybe the whole house thing was a mistake, come to that. Hell and damn. Well, possibly he could manage a weekend in Paris with Monique? If she was available. Bossy cow, when you came to think of it. Well, most Frenchwomen were. Catch up with Annabelle in New York? Talking of bossy cows. Uh—well, yes, if he flew that way, and if she was in New York at the moment he happened to be passing through…

    As they sat down to breakfast in Catherine’s cabin he was not quite at the stage of offering her and Dicky a trip to Disneyland. And certainly not, though the thought had fleetingly crossed his mind, of suggesting to Catherine that perhaps they might have a somewhat closer living arrangement than that of employer and housekeeper. Then Dicky spilt a bowl of milky cornflakes all over the little table and the milk ran off the edge and onto the legs of Alan’s nice pale grey suit of which he was particularly fond…

    He reflected grimly, changing into a less attractive suit, that it served him bloody well right: what a bloody fat-headed idea. The woman was a hen, there was no getting away from it. And the mere idea of her playing hostess to—well, Sir Jake and Lady Carrano, for instance! God. Or the Chancellor, when they got one. Christ, no. The current arrangement would do. And he would not let it get out of hand.

    He drove Dicky to school and himself all the way into the city without allowing himself to wonder why the possibility that it might get out of hand had crossed his mind.

Next chapter:

https://conquestofcartersbay.blogspot.com/2023/05/grass-roots-stuff.html