Distant Thunder

32

Distant Thunder

    Alan woke groggily on Boxing Day and groped at the place next to his… She wasn’t there. He blinked, and sat up, peering at his watch. Six forty-five. Oh: milking Buttercup, no doubt. Yawning, he put his dressing-gown on and wandered down to the kitchen. She was sitting at the kitchen table, writing.

    “We’ll really have to think about getting someone in to look after the cows,” he said.

    “I like milking,” replied Catherine in a vague voice, writing busily.

    “Mm.” Alan came to drop a kiss on her hair. He looked dubiously at the table, which was laden with a lot of raw ingredients which he didn’t think, though his recollections were somewhat unclear, dated from yesterday. “Darling, what in God’s name are you doing?”

    “Writing down some recipes for June,” she murmured, sucking her pen. “If I say a pinch, will she know what I mean, though? I mean, everybody’s pinches are different, aren’t they?”

    “Mm. Make it a quarter teaspoon. Er—which recipes?”

    Catherine picked up the set of measuring spoons and looked at them earnestly. “I wouldn’t say a quarter teaspoon was the same as a pinch.”

    “No. Which recipes?”

    “The semolina orange cake that you really like, the one with the syrup, and the coffee cake recipe that I sort of made up—you know, I used that book Janet lent me but I put some of your real coffee in it, and in the icing as well. And that really peculiar green cake that Dicky likes. –With the peppermint fluff, Alan!”

    “Oh. Yes. I think that fluff’s technically marshmallow. Why?”

    “I promised June,” she said vaguely, writing.

    Alan smiled. “I see! Well, fair enough, darling: if you leave her in the lurch I suppose she deserves some of your secret recipes!”

    “No!” said Catherine in amazement, staring at him. “I’m not leaving her in the lurch! They’re for the business!”

    Alan groped for a chair and sat down. “What?”

    “For the business. June Blake Cakes. Mike said that a contribution like that was enough to make me a partner, and Mrs Tonks and June and Hayley agreed. So I am. We’ve seen a lawyer and everything.” Catherine wrote busily.

    Alan goggled at her bent head. “My God, you’ve gone into some sort of partnership without consulting me?” he croaked.

    “You’re not the only one that can do things,” said Catherine, writing.

    “Er—no.” He was, however, the only person at this table with a bank account! And thank God for it: if the cake bakers got themselves into debt someone would presumably have to bail them out. Unless she fancied going bankrupt.

    After a period of silent writing on Catherine’s part and silent thought on Alan’s he said very cautiously: “Sweetheart, isn’t this a bit of a commitment? I’ll have to be back at work in a few days, and Dicky’s on holiday for weeks yet. It’s not as if you had nice Mike and Molly on deck, you know. And we can’t ask Jenny to take him all the time.”

    “That’s all right, Hayley’ll come and get my cakes,” she said, writing.

    “Hayley Who?” said Alan in spite of himself.

    “Hayley Walker. She’s Mrs Tonks’s granddaughter. It’s funny, you know: her mother’s very dark, but Hayley’s quite blonde and so are their two boys, only little Dana’s really dark, you’d think she was a full-blooded Maori!” she said, looking up and smiling at him.

    “Er—yes, genes do that,” said Alan limply. “Catherine, it isn’t that I begrudge it, but how are you planning to pay for all the ingredients that these cakes will presumably take?”

    “June will pay. She’s worked it all out. She gives everyone the ingredients and then she pays them a certain amount for their power and everything. She’s worked that out, too.”

    “So she—um—has a circle of cake bakers in Puriri, does she?”

    “Sort of,” said Catherine, frowning over her recipes. “If I put ‘real vanilla’, will she know?”

    “No,” said Alan definitely. “Um—that peppermint fluff needed caster sugar,” he remembered, unable to stop himself.

    “Oh, yes!” she said pleasedly, making a note on a fresh sheet of paper.

    Alan sagged on his beautifully restored kauri kitchen table. “Catherine, if this June has a circle of women baking for her, does she need you?”

    “Yes, she needs someone who can promise to give it at least five hours a day, because most of them have got kids and so on.”

    “Five hours!”

    “Not all together,” she said placidly. “Anyway, I’m a partner, now.”

    “God,” he muttered. “Look, for Christ’s sake let me look at the Deed of Partnership!”

    “What? Oh, those papers? Um—all right. They’re still at The Blue Heron,” she remembered.

    Alan passed a hand over his bald pate. “Yes; we’ll fetch your stuff today.”

    “Mm. ‘Not duck eggs,’” said Catherine to herself in a firm voice, writing.

    “Darling, if that’s the peppermint fluff, don’t you cook it?’

    “Not very well. And you don’t want to take the risk of the clients suing you,” she said seriously.

    Not pointing out that in these days of the packaged, battery-raised, supermarket egg, only a tiny percentage of the population ever had the opportunity to cook with duck eggs, Alan said limply: “True. Shall I make some coffee?”

    “Yes, please. –Hang on,” she said, looking up at him as he staggered over to the sideboard.

    “Yes?” said Alan, getting down the coffee tin.

    “Could you measure how much actual coffee you put in that little thingy?” she said, handing him the measuring spoons.

    “Why?” he croaked.

    “For my coffee cake recipe, of course. It was one thingy full of coffee and only a cup of water.”

    Limply Alan measured and reported. He set the coffee-pot on the heat. “Are these spoons metricated?” he said in an idle voice.

    “Yes, of course,” replied Catherine briskly.

    Alan tottered back to the table and sat down limply.

    Catherine wrote busily, watching him from under her lashes. She didn’t think that she’d remind him, just yet, that he’d forgotten to use a thingy yesterday and so she might be pregnant. In fact, if her arithmetic was correct, there was every likelihood of it. In fact, she sort of felt like it—y’know?

    Gerhard had spent a peaceful but rather boring Christmas Day. Gretchen and Jill had left for the South Island at dawn on December 24th, in order to spend a fishing holiday with a friend who lived in Dunedin. Ugh. As a measure of desperation he had earlier written to one of his sisters in Germany and got her to send his stereo equipment and his CD collection out air-freight, so at least he didn’t have to fall back on the New Zealand television for Christmas entertainment. He used part of the day to think. Having come to certain decisions, some of which were not unconnected with the quality of Beth Martin’s hair and skin, and others of which were not unconnected with the lack of interest evinced by the astoundingly beautiful Mayli Coffi and the lovely Clara Macdonald, he wandered down to Kingfisher Parade mid-morning on Boxing Day.

    The door at the end of the block of little shops was opened by Beth in person, her deep red hair all over the place, and her well-curved person clad in, apparently, two garments, of which one was a pair of bright green satin shorts of the sort that had been in vogue for persons of sporting inclinations about ten years earlier, and one an abbreviated yellow singlet, possibly designed for a girl about three sizes smaller than she. Gerhard greeted her with considerable enthusiasm.

    “Hullo. Um, Clara’s not here, I’m sorry!” gasped Beth, blushing.

    “But I don’t want Clara!” said Gerhard with a little laugh. “I was wondering, if you are free, would you care to spend the day vith me, Beth? Perhaps have a little picnic: nothing at all energetic?”

    “Me?” said Beth numbly.

    “Absolutely, you!” he said with his nice smile.

    “Um, a picnic?” croaked Beth.

    “Yes; I thought perhaps we could take the car, and just potter until we find somewhere that looks nice?”

    “Um, that sounds lovely,” said Beth weakly. “Um, I haven’t really got any food in the flat.”

    “No? That doesn’t matter at all: I did quite a lot of shopping in Puriri before the break,” he said, again with that lovely smile.

    Beth looked numbly at his perfect teeth, thinking that he was obviously a terribly organised person and in fact, even though his English was excellent, probably terribly Germanic. “Um—yes. Did you? Um, good.”

    “So, vill you?”

    Suddenly Beth thought, blow it! Why not, after all? She hardly knew him, but he seemed a nice man, and heck, no-one else was asking her out on picnics! And Clara would be out all day: she had happily accepted, goodness only knew why, an invitation from the large Mrs Parkinson to join her, Norm, and their son’s family for what sounded to Beth like a perfectly gruesome day involving lunch round the pool, a trip to some special beach that evidently the Parkinsons always went to on Boxing Day afternoon, and then back to “wee nibbles” and drinks, and just a few neighbours round for a barbecue. Very obviously Clara was far more gregarious than her cousin: she had genuinely been looking forward to this awful fate. And she seemed genuinely to like the large Mrs Parkinson. Beth couldn’t understand why: to her, the good-natured Davina was both intimidating and boring. Clara, on the other hand, maintained she had had a very interesting life. Beth couldn’t see what was so interesting about being a chorus girl in Australia and then coming home to New Zealand to work in an accountant’s office, subsequently marrying one of the junior accountants and becoming ballroom dancing champion with him. –The last two not necessarily in that order, but Beth wasn’t interested enough to get it straight. Of course Beth had been warmly invited to make one of this party, but she’d told a string of lies and got out of it. So really, she only had herself to blame, as she’d already told herself several times this morning, if she was all alone with nothing to do.

    “Um, well,” she said, blushing again, “I’d love to.”

    “Great! Shall I fetch the car? Or would you like to come up to my place to collect it? I’m only in Karaka Grove.”

    “Um—yes, okay, I’ll come with you,” said Beth, wondering if he really meant it after all. If he had, why hadn’t he come in the car?

    “Okay. But I warn you, it’s a horrible hire car with a rattle in it!”

    “Yes,” said Beth limply, thinking that his English was awfully good and it was depressing, really, when foreigners spoke English that well. Considering that she herself knew two words of German, one of which was “halt” and the other of which was “nein”. “Um, shouldn’t I get changed, though?”

    “No, no: you should not!” he said with a tiny laugh.

    Beth looked down at herself numbly. “Um, I was wearing these because I was just going to go for a bit of a walk up the hill,” she croaked.

    “Yes? They are very attractive. Shall we go?”

    Numbly Beth asked him to wait, not realising it would have been politer to ask him upstairs until it was too late, got her purse, hastily went to the toilet and combed her hair, on second thoughts grabbed up her bathing-suit, a towel and her beach bag, and hurried downstairs again.

    A leisurely drive and a very pleasant picnic, with all sorts of goodies that Beth had never tasted before, then eventuated. Beth was very nervous at first, but he seemed completely at ease and didn’t try to draw her out and make her chat socially, or anything gruesome like that, so after a while she began to relax, and, not realising that of course he was drawing her out, told him quite a lot about the research she had done for her M.Sc.

    Gerhard could see that Beth was naïve, but he could also see that she was intelligent. And that her pearly-pink skin was quite extraordinary and that if the tits were not positively extraordinary, they were not half bad. The hair was definitely extraordinary: he’d have bet his entire salary for the forthcoming year it was tinted if he hadn’t with his own eyes very recently encountered her cousin Michaela in an enormous washed-out tee-shirt that might once have been black but was currently a rusty greenish-grey, ragged khaki shorts that reached almost to her knees but were not anything like street-credible on that account, and ancient Roman sandals that looked as if they might have originally have belonged to your actual Ancient Roman, sitting on the sea-wall opposite her husband’s emporium, chatting to said husband and to Beth herself. With the identical hair. No-one could possibly have suspected Michaela Winkelmann of tinting her hair.

    He had stopped and chatted to them for a while, but then Jack Perkins had joined them, and Gerhard had quietly taken himself away. He had already decided, though recognising it was on somewhat short acquaintance, that Jack Perkins was, to use a phrase the man might well have used himself, a pain in the ass. Bright as Hell—yes, certainly. Nevertheless a pain in the ass. And very possibly a pain in the ass that never picked up a book from one year’s end to the next. Boring, to put it simply.

    He wouldn’t have bet very much on Beth’s being in the habit of picking up many books from one year’s end to the next, either: but, he decided silently as she inspected a packet of cheese dubiously and asked him if it was blue-vein, she was still quite young and fairly evidently pretty malleable; and it might not be too late to—well, shape her tastes? Supposing one was interested enough to wish to bother, of course! he amended his thought hastily.

    “Er, that’s Blue Castello, Beth,” he murmured. “Try it.” It was Danish: he had bought it because it was the very best available. The locally-made blue-vein cheese was horrible. And the local shops had never heard of Roquefort.

    Dubiously Beth tried it. “Mm! This is quite nice! Usually I don’t like blue-vein cheese!” she beamed.

    Quite. Gerhard did not remark on this, just offered her some grapes with which to finish the meal. Beth ate them eagerly, remarking naïvely that they were lovely grapes and hadn’t they been awfully expensive? They were Californian and they had been outrageously expensive but he lied happily, and poured the last of the champagne for her. It was not vintage champagne: though he was not a mean man, he had been unable to force himself to pay the New Zealand prices for that. But it was fairly drinkable. And Gretchen had warned him about fizzy white New Zealand wine.

    “Down the hatch!” he said with a laugh, raising his glass. “What is it?” he added in alarm as she gave a distinctly wan smile.

    “Nothing. Um—your English is just so good,” she said on a depressed note.

    “Ah.” Gerhard looked at her sideways. After a moment he said without emphasis: “I’m a lot older than you.”

    “Yes, but I bet your English has been that good for years!” she retorted with feeling.

    “Vell, yes. Try not to let it depress you,” he said on a dry note.

    “Yes!” agreed Beth with a sudden laugh, smiling at him.

    What with the smile of about five thousand watts, and the lovely straight teeth, not too large—he would have been considerably annoyed to know that the teeth had already received the Jack Perkins seal of approval—Gerhard felt all warm and happy, all of a sudden. A sensation with which the humidity of northern New Zealand on Boxing Day had very little to do. He smiled warmly back at her and said: “So! Now, shall we pack up and drive around some more? Or if it’s not too hot for you,”—he had brought a beach umbrella and made sure Beth used a sunscreen cream, even though the day was overcast—“would you like to stay on for a little and perhaps have some music, Beth? I have my cassette player, here. But the sound quality isn’t very good, I’m afraid. What would you fancy? I brought some Bach and some Mozart. And if you like Early Music, I have some of that.”

    Beth knew very little about music. And she wasn’t at all sure, from this speech, if he found the weather too hot and wanted to go—after all, to him Christmas fell in winter, and then, the European summers weren’t as hot as ours, were they? She looked at him uncertainly, licking her lips. “Um, I do quite like Bach. Um… Well, I quite like Mozart, too. Um, I don’t know. What would you like to do?”

    Gerhard was conscious of a certain irritation: didn’t the girl have any initiative? At the same time, he was quite aware that this reaction was, really, quite unfair. As he had just pointed out, he was a lot older than she was: setting aside, for the moment, any consideration of gender rôles, why should she be expected to take the lead? And, then, why expect everyone to be born with the same dose of initiative and decisiveness that he and all of his energetic, hard-working siblings had inherited from their energetic, hard-working parents?

    For quite some years now Gerhard Sachs had professed—not infrequently aloud—a certain disdain for the pushy, go-getter type, male or female, that was endemic to the corporate world he’d inhabited for much of his working life as an agricultural economist. Now he was conscious of a feeling that there was something to be said, after all, for the decisiveness of, to name only three from his very recent past, Brigitte, Suzanne or Lotte, none of whom would have hesitated for an instant to put forward her own suggestion. Nay, ram it down his throat!

    “Um, if you’re too hot, we’d better go back to the car,” proffered Beth uneasily, as he still hadn’t responded.

    “Vhat? Oh!” Gerhard looked out at the sea. Grey-green and not particularly appetising, under a cloud of humidity. “No, no: it is not very hot, is it? Very humid, though.”

    Beth agreed limply. And agreed limply that it would be music, then. And let him choose what to play. After that agreeing that it would be nice to take a dip, yes, and that the lunch had had time to settle. Reflecting once again how good his English was.

    Gerhard was not surprised to find that her bathing-suit was very old-fashioned; in fact, a plain dark green which she revealed she had had since her last year at school. She called it “togs”, proving that Jill’s statement that they did so out here had not been a leg-pull after all. In it, her full-breasted, wide-hipped figure looked nothing short of fabulous, so Gerhard did not at all regret the fact that it was not particularly cutaway anywhere. She was a steady swimmer; he himself was much faster and very much more stylish, but he had a strong suspicion that if it had come to an endurance contest, she would have won hands down.

    They were both quite invigorated by the dip and lay on their towels afterwards listening to more tapes and chatting happily.

    On the drive home, which Gerhard was careful to make leisurely and reasonably circuitous, but not too circuitous, they found a dairy that was actually open. Beth squeaked, and remarked on it. Left to himself, Gerhard would have driven past it. Hurriedly he stopped, recalling certain remarks of Jill’s. “Would you like an ice cream?” he asked carefully. She beamed and accepted. So that hadn’t been a leg-pull, either. Well, neither the claim that it was a local custom, nor the local terminology. Beth chose something called “hokey-pokey” which was really odd. Little crunchy bits of something in it. Gerhard thought it over and then didn’t ask her if it was a New Zealand speciality: he had now ascertained that she had never set foot outside her native shores and knew almost nothing of any lifestyle different from her own. He made up his mind silently to ask someone later. Possibly not Jill.

    When they eventually got back to Kingfisher Bay the cunning Gerhard suggested coffee at his flat: it would take the taste of that “hokey-pokey” away!

    Somehow, Beth found she was giggling so much that she’d accepted without asking herself whether she really wanted to. His flat didn’t have much furniture in it, so they ended up sitting on the bed. Even though it was only late afternoon, Gerhard suggested a nip of brandy with the coffee—because it was Christmas! Giggling, Beth agreed.

    After that, when he put his arm round her and kissed her gently, Beth found she didn’t mind. She didn’t mind when he went on kissing her, either. Even though she recognised, really quite clearly, that though he was very nice she wasn’t in love with him.

    Gerhard wasn’t in love with Beth, either. But she had a lovely skin, wonderful hair, a sweet personality and really, quite a luscious body. Why shouldn’t he award himself the Christmas present of soft, smiling, palest pink Beth? He got his hand inside the yellow singlet, verifying instantly that she wasn’t wearing a bra, and squeezed her gently. She went bright red and gasped, so he went on doing it. It was now very evident to the experienced Gerhard that Beth was not experienced, but he didn’t mind that, at all. It would be a refreshing change, actually.

    It was lucky they were on the bed, because frankly he doubted he could have got her from the sitting-room to the bedroom without some objections surfacing. Or at least, some second thoughts. As it was, it wasn’t long before he had his hand inside those green satin shorts. She was wearing knickers but they were pretty soft ones: in no wise prophylactic, you might have said, so he got his hand inside those, too. In fact pulling them and the shorts down somewhat. She didn’t put her hand on him, so after some time, during which he kissed her hungrily and Beth responded gratifyingly, and his hand remained inside her pants, Gerhard picked up her hand and put it on him.

    After a further period during which Beth rubbed his trousers timidly and didn’t unzip them, he simply sat up, smiled into her flushed face, and suggested they remove all these horrid clothes—mm?

    “Yes, um, are you sure you want to?” gasped Beth.

    He was quite sure, actually. “Ja.” He pushed the yellow singlet right up to her neck, bent down, and mumbled his face between her breasts.

    Beth gave a mad giggle and a gasp. Extremely encouraged, Gerhard pulled the shorts and knickers down with one swift, very practised movement, mumbled his face over her belly, and nuzzled gently between her thighs.

    Beth gave a yelp and writhed ecstatically, so he concluded she liked it. “Good?” he said after a few moments of more yelping and writhing.

    “Yes! Ian hardly ever did that!” she gasped.

    More fool Ian, whoever he was, concluded Gerhard smugly. “I do it a lot, okay?” he said, sitting up and rapidly stripping his clothes off.

    “Mm.”

    After that, he wasn’t surprised that she didn’t object when he peeled her garments right off her and rolled half on top of her. Kissing her rather a lot as he did so,

    “You’re a good kisser!” gasped Beth as they paused for breath.

    Naïve and perhaps redundant though this remark was, Gerhard Sachs was very pleased by it. In the first place, it was the first opinion she’d actually volunteered since he’d first kissed her. In the second place, it confirmed the idea that this “Ian”, whoever the Hell he might have been, had been useless. And in the third place—

    Gerhard’s mind was the sort that rarely stopped thinking but at this moment it did so. He flushed very deeply and said thickly: “Good. Kissing you is very nice, Beth.” And rolled right on top of her and gave himself the pleasure of squashing that pale, pearly, soft body and then of parting those soft thighs and letting his tip just touch—

    “Gott!” he gasped, hastily stopping. “Too good, eh?” he said to her.

    “Mm. You could do it, if you like. Have you got a condom?” said Beth in a strangled voice.

    “Yes, off course. Okay, I put one on.” He did so, rolled on top of her again, and said, nibbling her ear gently: “Okay? Sure you are ready?”

    “Who, me?” said Beth in a bewildered voice.

    Gerhard was just about capable of raising a mental eyebrow in the direction of the unlamented Ian before he kissed her warmly and plunged into her. He had meant to just slide it in gently, he was now damned sure that, the unlamented Ian or not, she was bloody inexperienced; but somehow it became a plunge.

    “OH!” shrieked Beth, grabbing his back fiercely and thrusting herself onto him.

    “Ja: can you?” he gasped.

    Beth flung her head back and shrieked again and it was obvious she not only could, she was: he was just about capable of registering as much before he let go and exploded in her.

    … “One or two off us needed that, I think?” he said feebly quite some time later.

    “Yes!” panted Beth.

    Gerhard smiled, and pulled her head onto his shoulder.

    After a period of just breathing on both sides, she said muzzily: “Was that simultaneous?”

    “Vhat? Oh. Well, yes, within the limits off the laws off physics, I think it probably was!”

    “I never had one like that before,” she said in a pleased voice.

    No, and the unlamented Ian probably hadn’t bothered to see she had “one” at all. Not correcting her phraseology, he murmured: “I am collecting statistics, but so far I cannot give you the definitive conclusion. But I think possibly it is not as often simultaneous as the popular media would have us believe.”

    “Early statistics indicate that, do they?” said Beth with a gurgle in her voice.

    Grinning very much, Gerhard agreed: “Ja, they do!” He kissed her nose gently. It was a very nice nose, small and straight, like those of her cousins Polly and Clara. “Vill you let me go on gathering these statistics, Beth?”

    Blushing, Beth replied in small, gruff voice: “Yes; if you’d really like to?”

    Gerhard didn’t say “Couldn’t you tell?”: it was pretty damned obvious she couldn’t. “Yes, please, I’d like to very much,” he replied meekly.

    “Okay!” she said gruffly, nodding.

    “Good, good, good,” he said, drawing her very closely into his side.

    Beth thought in a dazed way that she shouldn’t, really: she wasn’t in love with him and she didn’t think he was with her; and then, it was probably Clara that he really admired… But somehow, she didn’t lodge any of these objections. He was so handsome, and very good at it, and much, much gentler than that pig of an Ian, and he had a really good body. And, well, if he really wanted to, why shouldn’t she?

    At a somewhat advanced hour of the morning of the 27th of December, therefore, Angie Michaels was stunned to discover Beth examining Gerhard’s milk-box, two doors up. She waved feebly.

    Beth waved vigorously and cried: “Hullo, Angie!”, grinning all over her face, so Angie found the courage to totter up there.

    “I don’t think he knows the milk can be delivered,” she croaked. –That was clearly Gerhard’s dressing-gown. Posh, was the only word.

    “No, well, there isn’t any,” said Beth cheerfully.

    “I can let you have some, if he’s run out,” said Angie feebly.

    Beth accepted gratefully, explaining that Gerhard drank his coffee black but she liked it white, and accompanied her back to her place to fetch it. Tasteful grey silk dressing-gown and all.

    After she’d gone, with a cheery thanks and a happy grin, Angie just sat down limply. All thoughts of the unfortunate Jack apart, would she have been that insouciant, thirty years back, on being discovered in her boyfriend’s dressing-gown looking for his morning milk by a middle-aged neighbour? Er—on second thoughts, don’t answer that! At least she hadn’t looked down her nose at the poor kid from under her bloody pink curlers like bloody Ma Franklin used to do, when Bill had that scungy flat in Balmoral…

    Oh, dear. Poor Jack.

    “Where the Hell is she?” demanded Thomas crossly.

    Leigh eyed him neutrally. “No idea.”

    “Either that or the bloody woman’s sworn you to secrecy,” he noted sourly. “She told me she wasn’t going away these hols!”

    “Did she?” replied Leigh neutrally.

    “I thought you were on my side,” said Thomas bitterly.

    “Did you?” replied Leigh neutrally.

    Thomas the Tank Engine said a Very Bad Word and stomped out.

    “Good riddance,” noted Leigh placidly. He returned to his little kitchen and the cookery book over which he had been poring when Thomas had rudely interrupted him. Those who claimed that any fool could cook were wrong. Those who claimed that anyone who could read a cookery book could cook were also wrong. Bother.

    Thomas stomped down the front stairs of The Quays, which Adrian on his arrival had asked him very politely if he would mind not doing, in view of his garments, which consisted of a pair of rubber flip-flops, the remains of a pair of elderly jeans, cut off something above the knee, and a large belt supporting an enormous knife and what appeared to be some diving weights. The huge compass on the wrist was good, too.

    “Where is the cow?” he said bitterly to Sim, who was passing through the hall carrying a tray as he hit the ground floor.

    “Dorothy? No idea.” Sim looked at him with disfavour. “A reasonable standard of dress is expected by the management of The Quays.”

    “I’m not staying for poncy LUNCH!” shouted Thomas furiously.

    “That’s good, because you wouldn’t be served,” said Sim coldly.

    “Get STUFFED, you stupid little wanker!” shouted Thomas loudly. Pushing rudely past two nicely dressed middle-aged ladies who were hesitating politely in the entrance, he stomped out.

    Jack hung up with a crash. The Goddamned answering machine again. It wasn’t even Dot, it was this Goddamned la-de-da computer voice of the sort which Dad used to call “fake just out from Home”—or, when there were no ladies present, something very much ruder which entailed a reference to towels on the bed which Jack in his innocent youth hadn’t got. “Where the Hell is she?” he snarled.

    “Mrs Manning will have to dae it, Dad,” ventured Rab.

    “SHUT UP! The bitch is taking her VACATION!” he howled.

    “Och, Hell,” he muttered.

    “Look, Rab, couldn’t you ask Avon again?”

    “No, I couldna. Her mother and father are taking her to—”

    “Norfolk Island, all RIGHT!” shouted Jack. “It’s possibly the most boring place in the world, nothing to do but buy duty-frees and avoid the bloody Australians it’s always full of, but if that’s their idea of a treat for the girl, so be it!”

    “She’s never been overseas,” he said mildly.

    “You said ‘overseas’,” replied his father nastily.

    “Huh?”

    “Forget it,” said Jack between his teeth. “The kid strikes me as about as responsible as the baby-sitter from Hell, anyroad. I got a better idea.” He marched out.

    Rab heard the Caddy being started up. Then he heard Jack reversing it furiously out of the enormous garage. Wheels squealed on the turning circle. Rab winced. The Caddy was heard taking off up the drive with a roar. Gradually the noise of its engine died away into the distance and peace descended on Lone Pine Tree Cove.

    Rab got on with what he’d been doing before Jack started bending his ear about Aunty Dorothy, to wit, making himself and Murray a plate of very large sandwiches. Peanut butter, lettuce, the substance which he sometimes still called boloney, not that Nancy-Indira had let him have it, much, but that New Zealand called luncheon sausage, American mustard, sliced tomato, and dill pickle. Very sustaining. Then he wandered slowly along to the family-room where Murray, oblivious to all the shouting and phone-slamming and Caddy-engine-torturing, was placidly watching a video of The Return of The Jedi. Not in the viewing room, no. There had been a demarcation dispute on Boxing Day because Rab wanted to watch sports, Murray wanted to watch sports with Rab, and Jack wanted to watch a video of the Drottningholm Theatre’s production of Così Fan’ Tutte. Unobtainable in New Zealand but Randi had got it for him, no sweat. Kindly providing him at the same time with an email address for the reliable supplier she had found. Since then somehow the really good TV in the viewing room had become Jack’s preserve and Rab and Murray had installed Rab’s larger but fuzzier second-hand set in the family-room. Neither of them minded this banishment from the viewing room: Rab’s expressed opinion was that it was “like an underground cave” and Murray had, on having his opinion solicited by Dorothy, volunteered that it was “a wee troll’s hoose.” Dorothy had entirely agreed, in fact venturing to suggest that if you listened, you could probably hear the three Billy Goats Gruff going over the bridge above it. Which had gone down really well, especially as at that precise moment Jack could be heard pounding along the upstairs passage howling: “Who the Hell turned my computer off? Jesus God Almighty, my fax is connected to—” Etcetera, etcetera, and so forth.

    “Oh, good, this is the right place,” said Thomas the Tank Engine as the door of the cute little cottage in Gilbert Street was opened by Arnold Schwarzenegger, khaki shirt, camouflage trousers, and all. Christ, he even had a headband on, what in God’s name— Maybe there was more to Dorothy’s anaemic little friend than met the eye—though it certainly must be a Hell of a lot more—and they were playing really kinky grown-up games? “Is that a machete?” he added cheerily.

    “Hey, Thomas. No, it’s a pruning saw,” said Hal mildly.

    Thomas grinned at him. “Yes. Is there a technical name for those leg-pockets?”

    “No idea. I just call ’em leg-pockets. You want Janet?”

    “No, she’s all yours. I just came to see if she knows where Dorothy is.”

    Hal scratched his curls with the hand that didn’t hold the pruning saw. “Wish you hadn’t told me that. Now I got the irksome responsibility of deciding whether I’m justified in not relaying the message and sparing her the agony of lying. Always supposing she does know.”

    “It’ll do you good,” returned Thomas blandly.

    Hal smiled slowly. “Guess it might just, at that. –Hey, Janet!”

    There was a vague squeaking noise from somewhere in the hinterland.

    “It’s Thomas!” shouted Hal. “He wants to know, you know where Dorothy is?”

    There was a panting noise from behind him, and Janet appeared, very flushed. “Hullo, Thomas!” she gasped.

    “Hullo, Janet,” replied Thomas, eyeing her with interest. One tight blue tee-shirt, very faded, and one pair of ve-ry tight red and white striped shorts he would have taken his dying oath weren’t in her wardrobe.

    “Don’t look at me!” gasped Janet, tucking the tee-shirt even more tightly into the shorts in a distracted manner. Thomas blinked in spite of himself. “We’ve been working in the garden!”

    “These are her grubbies,” explained Hal unemotionally.

    “Lucky you,” acknowledged Thomas smoothly. “Don’t tell me, if you’ve taken a blood oath, Janet.”

    “What? Oh! You mean she did go away after all?”

    “Yes. Did she say she wasn’t going to?”

    “She said you wouldn’t get her down to her sister’s in Invercargill kicking and screaming in chains,” reported Janet faithfully.

    “Would or wouldn’t?” asked Hal clinically.

    “Wouldn’t.”

    “That makes it pretty clear,” admitted Thomas. “But didn’t she mention any other possibilities?”

    “Um, not exactly. Well, she was pretty rude about Mavis. She was at school with her. Well, she likes her, really. She can’t stand her hubby. Husband,” corrected Janet, blushing at having been betrayed into this non-Nineties usage. “I think they were going camping, anyway, and Dorothy reckons her leg hates camping.”

    “Honey, Dorothy’s the kind that’d say she had a leg even if she didn’t, just for the pleasure of using the phrase,” pointed out Hal kindly.

    Thomas eyed him in some respect, and nodded.

    Janet had gone pinker than ever. “Yes! But she really has, it was very bad one very wet winter, and she gave in and had it X-rayed, and the doctor said it was arthritis!”

    “That’d be bad for camping,” agreed Hal seriously.

    “Yes,” said Thomas with a sigh. “That was all the possibles, was it, Janet?”

    “Um, I think so.”

    “Could she have booked in at a motel somewhere?” suggested Hal.

    “They’re always very full up at this time of year,” objected Janet dubiously. “You have to book well in advance. –It’s not like America,” she explained kindly.

    Hal, Thomas was interested to see, took this without a blink. “Uh-huh. Well, the only other possibility I can suggest, Thomas, is that she’s borrowed the Carranos’ bach while they’re in Honolulu.”

    “No! If she’d done that, Jack ’ud see her driving past!” objected Janet.

    “Oh, yeah,” he conceded.

    “Look, am I missing a reference or fourteen? I thought she was merely avoiding yours truly. What’s all this about Jack?” demanded Thomas.

    “Heck, don’t you know?” gasped Janet.

    “Possibly alone of Carter’s Bay, no, I don’t,” he said on a note of annoyance.

    “Look, come out in back, Thomas, and we’ll have some of Janet’s real great home-made lemonade, you’ll like it,” said Hal kindly.

    Limply Thomas let them lead him through the cottage—dinky was the only word—well, tasteful but dinky—and sit him down in a real old deck-chair: wooden frame with a canvas seat: she had a whole set of them.

    “Wonderful, huh?” said Hal as he lay back on the base of his spine with his eyes shut. “’Bout as old as she is, I think. Her mom dumped them on her, shortly before she took off for Queensland, Australia, and the hygienic joys of an air-conditioned retirement unit; that’s kind of like what we call a Florida condo, back on the mainland,” he explained kindly.

    Thomas opened one eye and peered at him. Hal’s face was expressionless, but he winked. Grinning, Thomas closed the eye again. “You’re all right, Gorman,” he said with both eyes closed.

    “Thanks. You’re not as black as painted by some, neither, Baranski,” returned Hal unemotionally.

    “I’m afraid I don’t know of anybody that could do it,” said May Swadling with a finality that was all the more horrid because of the note of vague inattention clearly discernible in it.

    “Oh. Thanks anyway, May,” said Jack with a sigh. “I guess that’ll just be the cookie— biscuits, and the Coke, then. Oh, and better make it two cartons of milk, while I think of it.”

    May of course was feeling anything but vague, and as soon as she’d served Mr and Mrs Fielding’s grandson, Maurice, and his little friend, Andy, who was also staying with the Fieldings, Senior, in their palatial retirement home while their respective parents lived it up at Club Med in Noumea, she shot out the back and made sure her Jack knew every detail.

    Jack Swadling had bits of the motor-mower spread all over the kitchen table on large sheets of newspaper but he wasn’t too preoccupied to listen. “Typical,” he summed up.

    “Exactly!” agreed May with deep feeling.

    “That’ll be the bell,” he noted as the bell on the counter, that the locals rarely bothered with, then rang sharply.

    Replying brilliantly: “He must have come back, then!” May vanished.

    Jack grinned, but then shook his head, pulling a sour face as he got on slowly with sharpening, oiling, and reassembling the mower.

    Angie poured tea. “You won’t want this on a sticky day like this,” she warned. Akiko nodded and giggled, so she handed her a cup immediately. “Well,” she continued her narrative: “the upshot of that was—well, the first upshot—that Thomas ended up letting Janet feed him. Cold chicken and a lettuce and tomato salad, plus potato salad because she had a ten-kilo bag to use up.”

    “I could-ah guess ur-this, Angie!” gurgled Akiko.

    Grinning, Angie conceded: “You’re all right, kid. Where was I? Oh, yeah, the second upshot. Hal and Thomas went off best of pals and did blimmin’ boatie things on that ruddy great sea-going launch he conned Sir G.G into buying for him to put his toys on.”

    “Ye-es… Is this-ah all bad?” she asked cautiously.

    Reminding herself sternly that the poor girl was after all, a foreigner, Angie replied: “Well, maybe not, but for God’s sake: poor little Janet’s barely snared Hal before the great soft idiot goes off to play with Baranski’s boys’ toys!”

    “Yes, I see. I guh-rant you, it is rath-ah early.”

    Angie cleared her throat. “It’s part of the Good Keen Man syndrome, I suppose. Even though neither of them are Kiwis.”

    “That is-ah ver-ree clear,” she said on a grim note, finishing her tea. “Thank-ah you so much, Angie, I must-ah go, now. I must-ah pack for my horriday.”

    Yikes, thought Angie as the neat little figure went neatly downstairs and got into its neat little car. That went over like a lead balloon. Was it just the reference to Good Keen Men as such? Was Akiko regretting having let on to her that she fancied the type? Or what?

    Jack Perkins was not by nature a quitter. And in this particular matter he was grimly determined not to quit. He didn’t pause to ask himself why this should be so, but went right on looking for somebody to sit Murray during the two weeks he’d be away. Having failed with Akiko, who had long since competently arranged to spend two weeks on a tour of the South Island, he fell back on Mitsuko. Possibly unfortunately for Jack, Col Michaels was spending the day with her when he called at Mrs Adler’s.

    “Yeah?” said Col through an apple, opening the door to him in nothing but a bright sarong round the hips. “We don’t buy at the door, not even Christianity or the Encyclopaedia Britannica in the shiny, American, computer-produced edition, ta.”

    It had not as yet dawned on Jack that Col could see the pink Caddy behind him and so knew perfectly well who he was. “I’m not selling anything. Mitsuko in?” he replied shortly.

    Col eyed him thoughtfully. “Depends who you are, really.”

    “Jack Perkins, I’m with Sir George Grey, she knows me!” snapped Jack.

    “Never heard of ya,” drawled Col untruthfully. “OY! WEE WIFEY!” he bellowed. “There’s a Yank here that says he knows you!”

    A short period elapsed and then Mitsuko scurried up to the door, panting. “Please excuse! I was in-ah kitchen!” she gasped.

    Possibly she had been but if so, it had apparently been in a bright sarong and a shocking-pink bikini bra. At around this point it began to dawn on even the self-centred Jack Perkins that these were two young people who had believed themselves blissfully alone in the house in the middle of the Christmas-New Year break.

    “Uh—hi, Mitsuko,” he said on an uncomfortable note. “Could I have a word?”

    “Of course, Jack! Good-ah morning!” she gasped, bowing. “Please come-ah in!”

    They went into the sitting-room. Jack looked in a numbed way at Mrs Adler’s perfectly-preserved Thirties suite.

    “Sit, it won’t break,” said Col neutrally.

    “Uh—thanks.” Jack sat. Col lounged on the hearth-rug, looking bored. Even though he was half Jack Perkins’s age a vague idea did begin to glimmer through the Perkins self-preoccupation that the kid was doing it with malice aforethought.

    “Well, I guess I better come right to the point, huh?” he said, would-be bright, as Mitsuko sat down neatly opposite him and looked expectant.

    “It might help us gain some understanding of your intent, yeah,” drawled Col.

    Very clearly the little jerk was doing it on purpose. Jack’s mouth tightened.

    “Yes, please! How-ah can I help-ah you, Jack?” gasped Mitsuko.

    “Well, I’m looking for someone to stay in the house for a couple of weeks, use the facilities and so on, and keep an eye on Murray while Rab’s at work,” said Jack easily.

    “In the near future, would this be?” drawled Col.

    “Uh—yeah. Well, I’d planned to leave New Year’s Day. Catching an evening flight.”

    “Go on, tell him, Wee Wifey,” drawled Col.

    “Ver-ree sorry, Jack, but no can-ah do!” she gasped. “Mrs Ad-uh-ler, she come back day aft-ah New Year Day, I promise be in-nah house, have all-ah nice for her!”

    “Yeah, and after we’ve got the old duck settled back in, me and Mitsuko have got a date with a pup tent and a couple of li-los down the coast a bit. She’s got a few days’ leave,” said Col in a completely neutral tone.

    “Yes, we no go far, no leave Mrs Ad-uh-ler all on ownsome too long!” she gasped.

    “Far enough, though,” said Col pointedly. “Sorry.”

    “Pardon me, very sorry,” added Mitsuko humbly. “May I make respeck-ah-fu’ suggestion? Possiblee you could-ah ask Dorothy?”

    Col made a choking noise.

    Jack looked at the meek little Oriental face, the eyelids modestly lowered, and took a deep breath. “I’ll overlook that, Mitsuko.” He got up. “I guess I’ll see you back at work. Have a great vacation.”

    “Thank you,” replied Col calmly. “This way.” He showed him out, his face expressionless, and returned to the sitting-room.

    Mitsuko was lurking in the lee of Mrs Adler’s brocade curtains, peering through the net ones.

    “Still there?” he asked.

    “Yes, I think he is-ah just-ah sit, ur-fuming!” she squeaked.

    “Serve the bastard right,” said Col brutally. “Come on, let’s go back to the kitchen, the full possibilities of that nice big table probably need to be tried out before we clean the place up for the old dame.”

    Giggling, Mitsuko scurried off to the kitchen in his wake.

    Michaela thundered into the boating-supplies store, panting. “He’s—done—it!” she gasped.

    Sol looked up in alarm. “Honey, you didn’t run all the way from Sol’s Cove, did you?”

    “Nah! From—boat!” she gasped.

    “Get your breath.”

    Michaela panted for a few moments. Sol came and removed Grace from the papoose on her back—Grace was really getting too big to be carried like that but of course Michaela was strong as an ox, and it was convenient. And so far Grace hadn’t lodged any objections. “Sit,” he said, shoving a chair under her behind.

    “Mummy run,” explained Grace.

    “Yeah. What happened, Grace? Housey all burn down?”

    “Very—funny!” gasped Michaela.

    “Bonzo had a mat,” Grace was explaining.

    “Yeah? Shit, he didn’t grab her Linus blanket again, did he?” he said to Michaela in alarm.

    “No. Dunno what she’s on about. –It’s Jack Perkins! He’s done it!”

    Sol’s eyes bulged. “Not Jane?”

    “No! You’ll never guess,” said Michaela smugly.

    “Uh—no, I don’t think I will. We know that so far he’s been turned down by Yvonne, hard though it is to credit; by Juliette—”

    “They’re both away.”

    “Exactly. Where was I? Oh, yeah: Clara, she’s spending the public holidays with the Chongs and working the other days; Beth; Simone and Euan—after I’d put the hard word on him, I grant ya that; Ida because for like the same reason, added to which she’s of Jane’s opinion where men and responsibility are concerned, in spite of them fluffy little robin looks of hers; May Swadling—wish I’da been a fly on the wall for that one,” he noted wistfully; “Davina Parkinson—”

    “They’re going away, too.”

    “Exactly. Rhonda Semple and that dim sister of hers—”

    “They’ve gone up the Hokianga, their brother’s got a farm up there: Tom Wilson knows him.”

    “Exactly. Where was I? Oh, yeah: Moana Curtis: according to Leigh Gore she merely hadda look at him and he faded into the distance; Hal Gorman on behalf of Janet Wilson, boy must she be besotted; Angie Michaels on behalf of liberated non-grandmothers everywhere—”

    “Yeah!” said Michaela with a choke of laughter.

    Jimmy Burton had finished serving a guy with a great coil of rope. “You,” he pointed out helpfully, coming up to their sides.

    “Us,” agreed Sol mildly.

    “Adrian Revill on behalf of him and Anna,” added Jimmy helpfully.

    “Yeah. Think I’da given ten years of my life to have heard that one,” he admitted regretfully.

    “Mum wouldn’t either, she said there’s no easy way out with a family and it’s about time he learned it,” noted Jimmy dispassionately. “Ole Mrs Corcoran, she would of, only she won’t have any room, her son Bob and his family are due tomorrow.”

    “Sure; and Gail and Ern Bates have gone up to the Bay of Islands, right?”

    “Yeah,” he agreed, nodding earnestly.

    “Shee-ut, that leaves young Teddi Bates, don’t it?” whispered Sol.

    “No!” said Michaela with a scornful laugh.

    Sol sagged. “You relieve our minds something unbelievable, there, honey.”

    “Yes, well, actually it’s almost as bad," said Michaela judiciously. “Give up?”

    “No!” said Jimmy before Sol could capitulate all over his not-nearly-polyurethaned-enough wooden floor. “Um… Avon Goode’s gone to Norfolk Island with her mum and dad. Um—Barry Goode?”

    “He’d do it real reliably, too,” admitted Sol regretfully. “Nope: the Kingfisher and Carter’s Bay Incorporated Spy Network done tole me Jack got on round there but the house was all locked up. Well, woulda been, Barry’s spending all his time either round at Toetoe Bay, measuring up for them unnecessary stables, or scouring the length and breadth of the North Island for something vaguely resembling sandstone what we think, though there is some disagreement in the K&CBISN over this one, Kincaid musta got the idea for out of some Aussie book.”

    “Give up?” said Michaela placidly.

    “I sure do,” whispered Sol.

    “No!” cried Jimmy. “Um… No. Um… Kevin Goode?”

    “Bull’s wool, Jimmy,” said Michaela placidly. “It’s not a him, anyway. It’s a her.”

    “Um… Mrs Fein?”

    “Jimmy, she’s got the whole tribe here for—uh—cain’t be Christmas,” said Sol blankly. “What’s that Jewish holiday, again?”

    “Shut up,” replied Jimmy, grinning.

    Sol’s eyes twinkled. There was a time when that remark woulda covered J. Burton in confusion. “Yeah, well, the house is bulging at the seams, she’s even put the Volvo out to grass—sorry, parked it at the curb: those young cousins from Wellington, they’ve got stretcher-beds in the garage and have turned it into a girls-only sorority or dorm, or whatever you Kiwis call ’em.”

    “House of Hell,” said Jimmy, grinning.

    Sol winked. “Yeah. Give up?”

    “Um… Yeah. No, hang on! Deirdre Carpenter!”

    “I expect she would have, but she’s gone down to her parents’ place for Christmas,” said Michaela placidly. “Give up?”

    “Yeah,” said Jimmy sadly.

    “Wallis,” said Michaela smugly.

    Their jaws sagged.

    “I thought that’d surprise you.”

    “Isn’t she away?” said Jimmy groggily.

    “No. Well, her father came back from Wellington for Christmas and made her come home. Then they had a big row because he wants to sell the house while her mother’s in The Hague. She said that that thingy she had, I can’t remember if it was a fellowship or some other thingy, well, it’s been extended,” said Michaela, frowning over it. “And her father’s going to work in Wellington so he wants to buy a flash flat there.”

    “Uh—permanent, Michaela?” asked Sol groggily.

    “I don’t know. But he said the house was a white elephant. And he wants to get his—um—something out of it. Well, Wallis said the word, only I’ve forgotten it," said Michaela placidly. “But what it meant was, money.”

    “It usually does,” conceded Sol. “That why they had the row?”

    “Um—I think it was more because Wallis thought he ought to ask her mother first.”

    “Y— Uh—surely it’s in both their names in these liberated unisex Nineties?” croaked Sol. “You shoulda gotten the Good Gen out of Wallis, honey,” he reproved her.

    “I thought I’d leave that for you,” she said placidly.

    Promptly Jimmy collapsed in sniggers.

    “Yeah,” said Sol, grinning like a nana. “Right. –Come to think of it,” he admitted when the noise had died away, “the spy network—not that one, the other one,” he said as Jimmy muttered initialisms to himself—“it advised me some time back that wee Wallis—appearances to the contrary, don’t say it—seemed to think the sun shone outa Jack Perkins’s a— ears.”

    “Bill Michaels, he means,” Jimmy translated with a sort of kindly scorn.

    “Yeah,” Michaela agreed with the identical kindly scorn. “Anyway, she’s doing it. She’s gonna stay in the house.”

    “That Rab, he’ll have her doing the housework before ya can say knife,” predicted Sol.

    Jimmy produced a small notebook and a pencil, and licked the pencil. “Any takers?” he offered.

    “Yeah!” choked Michaela ecstatically. “Five cents says he won’t, Wallis thinks he’s the nong to end all nongs!”

    “See?” said Jimmy unemotionally to his boss.

    Shaking slightly, Sol conceded he saw.

    “I don’t think she knows anything about kids,” said Michaela thoughtfully.

    “Nah, she hasn’t got any brothers or sisters, eh?” agreed Jimmy.

    “In that case, Guess Who she’s gonna be calling on for help and advice,” predicted Sol.

    “She’ll have a hard job doing that when she’s up at her Secret Spot digging clay,” noted Jimmy fairly.

    “Uh-huh. Reminds me, Michaela, honey, when you take Grace on up to the Secret Spot, just be sure you put her sunbonnet on her and plenty of sun-screen on all her exposed parts, okay?”

    “Yeah,” she agreed placidly.

    Sol winked at Jimmy and—since the both of them had been holding it in for some time—they collapsed in snorting, helpless hysterics.

    Michaela grinned amiably, though admitting: “I like Wallis. But anyway, Jane’ll be home most of the time: she can ask her.”

    Sol’s and Jimmy’s eyes met.

    “Her and that Sally of hers, won’t it be?” murmured Sol.

    “Yeah!” he choked.

    This time, all three of them collapsed.

    … “All the same!” concluded Sol to Mrs Grey, some time later, as the shopkeepers of Kingfisher Bay were packing up for the day.

    “Poor little Wallis,” agreed Ida. “Still, perhaps he’s paying her.”

    “Yeah, or maybe he’s just offered her the use of that there family-room and that cave he’s got the good TV in and the half-built spa and them bushes where the pool’s gonna be once he can find a really reliable pool firm that’ll build a free-form thing to Olympic specifications, edge it with environmental punga trees and them special trucked-in rocks, plus and, not colour it bright turquoise like what they extrude ’em ready-made in,” said Sol with relish.

    Ida had heard most of this before so she merely replied grimly: “No, well, the longer it takes the better, if you ask me: neither of those two Perkinses strike me as capable of keeping a proper eye on that little boy.”

    Sol winced. “No, you’re right, there, Ida. Well, Jack has taught him not to fall into the Inlet. Added to which, ya gotta wade out over thirty yards for it to reach your waist, even iffen you are knee-high.”

    “Just as well,” said Mrs Grey grimly.

    “Hullo,” said Col Michaels mildly. “Thought you might be here.”

    Dorothy had been sitting placidly on the small semicircle of sand that was Kowhai Bay proper, reading a book under a large faded sun-umbrella that was the property of J. Davis, M.A., Ph.D. She yelped.

    “Sorry,” said Col with manifest untruth. He spread his towel beside Dorothy’s and sat down.

    “Col, perhaps-ah Dorothy rather be by herse’f!” gasped Mitsuko.

    “Hi, Mitsuko. Siddown, I’ve had over a week by myself, ta,” said Dorothy placidly.

    Nodding and smiling, Mitsuko spread her towel and sat down.

    “Now the only question is,” said Col calmly, “who you’re house-sitting for. And judging by that umbrella, it’s Davis and Sachs.”

    “All right, you know it all,” admitted Dorothy heavily. “Your mother was right about you.”

    Col merely winked, and offered to tell her in detail exactly who Jack had asked to house- and baby-sit, and who was the eventual sucker that had agreed. Weakly Dorothy let him. After all, she had had ten whole days completely free of Carter’s Bay gossip. Not to say its personalities.

Next chapter:

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