Executive Criteria

8

Executive Criteria

    The advertisement for University Librarian for Sir George Grey University had been run subsequent to the following conversation on the twelfth floor of the Carrano Building:

    “Hilary tells me that the Pacific-ahInstitute of Political Studies lib-rah-ree was-ah set up about-ah a year in ad-ah-vance of the-ah opening, sir.”

    “Hmm,” said Alan Kincaid thoughtfully.

    “You-ah may not-ah be aware of-ah this, sir, but it can-ah take six-ah months for-uh journals to arrive, out ur-here.”

    “I wasn’t aware of it, Ken, but now that you mention it, I’m not surprised. Some journals are available online these days, though, aren’t they?”

    “Yes, sir. But-ah if the student-ah body is permitted to-ah use such a facirrity, it-ah can be ver-ree costlee.”

    “All right, Ken, run the advertisement for University Librarian. And make damn sure it spells out loud and clear that anyone who isn’t thoroughly computer-literate needn’t apply.”

    “I shall-uh, but that-ah wirr not stop-ah them!”

    “True. You can have the pleasure of winnowing ’em out.”

    “I shall depute-ah it ur-to Ms Coffi,” he said with a smile. “At reast the fir-rust-ah round!”

    Alan smiled and nodded. Ms Coffi was a Find. Where she had come from, precisely, he hadn’t enquired. He’d walked in one morning and there she had been at the reception desk formerly occupied by Ms Blanchard: six foot of very dark brown, immaculately groomed, strikingly handsome female efficiency. She had got up and smoothly introduced herself as May Lee Coffee, presenting him with a firm schedule of his appointments for that day, a tentative schedule of his appointments for the next week, and a pile of sorted and, he was to discover, vetted and alphabetised CVs of applicants for Senior Administrator.

    Subsequently he discovered that she spelled the name Mayli Coffi. Ken reported that he believed her father had been an Italian American, and he thought her mother must have been a Maori, or possibly a Cook Islander: anyway, she had grown up here. As she certainly had the local accent, Alan had conceded this must be right. And had not made any jokes about coffee-coloured. Not that she was the café au lait shade that would have been considered coffee-coloured at home, but very much darker. Appointment of the office staff was Ken’s business, so Alan had not interrogated his new Personal Assistant about her previous experience. But he had asked her if she had come from the Carrano Group. No, was the answer. That was about all he knew of her, except that she was a wonderful secretary-receptionist, could write a reasonable letter without having to have every word dictated to her, and whether or not she could in fact spell, could certainly use the spell-checker on her word processing program competently. He did not particularly care for the scent she used, so he mentioned it to Ken, and Ms Coffi changed her scent. Apart from that the only flaw that Alan had so far discovered in her was that she thought that brown powder plus hot water constituted a cup of coffee. Ken took care of that one, too.

    Lady Carrano and Dr Davis, though they had both known the Puriri County Librarian for some years, had silently wondered why Dorothy was favouring them with an invitation to lunch at The Blue Heron Restaurant in Puriri. Well, not why The Blue Heron: its lunches were a lot better than its main rival’s, the Chez Basil. By the time they’d got to the pudding stage, no information had been forthcoming, so Jill was about to ask in so many words, but was pre-empted by Polly’s firmly telling Mike Collingwood she wouldn’t have any pudding, especially not anything with cream. Or chocolate: no.

    “I’ll have that cake thing with the cream and the chocolate, thanks, Mike,” said Jill with a twinkle in her eye. “Oh, and while you’re here, how many times in the last month has the Iceman brought Dorothy’s nice pink woman here?”

    “Don’t let her drive,” he ordered the table generally. “You mean Kincaid? Well, since they went back to their house—that is, since he got back from Offshore—he hasn’t. Satisfied?”

    “No. And keep that dessert trolley away from me,” warned Polly grimly.

    “I’ll have the black-bottom pie, thanks,” said Dorothy airily.

    Mike served Jill with the chocolate gâteau and Dorothy with the black-bottom pie and took himself and his dessert trolley away, grinning. Whereupon Polly revealed gloomily: “We went to L’Oie Qui Rit last night. Jake’s making the most of it while he can: it’s true that old Madame’s retiring. We had lobster Thermidor and a miraculous soup made of green peas and guess what, cream. I won’t tell you what he had for pudding, the mere thought of it makes me feel bloated. The food’s wonderful, of course, but all I can say is, thank God the old bat is going home to France.”

    “Jake’ll emigrate,” predicted Jill.

    “Very probably,” she said grimly. “No, well, I’m gearing him up to get all interested in backing Adrian Revill in a restaurant: maybe that’ll distract him.”

    Jill embarked on her chocolate cake. “Yum! Why are we here, Dorothy?”

    Dorothy embarked on her black-bottom pie. “God, this is rich. Um, well, I wanted to tell you that—um—I’ve applied for a job.”

    “You’ve got a job,” said Jill limply.

    “Yes, we were under the impression that you liked it,” agreed Polly feebly.

    “Hun shale,” explained Dorothy indistinctly.

    “Eh?” they said.

    Dorothy swallowed. “Gone stale.”

    “She means she’s suffering from burn-out,” translated Jill kindly. “Go on, Dorothy: what, where, and if possible, why?”

    “Well, I think the why is mainly burn-out,” she admitted, scrabbling in her handbag. “You won’t like it,” she warned, handing over a slip of newspaper.

    She was right. Lady Carrano’s jaw dropped and she gasped.

    Jill peered at the ad. “In case you haven’t realised it, that jaw-dropping is body language for ‘You’ve gone over to the other side’,” she informed the Puriri County Librarian limply. “Why, Dorothy?”

    “Well, I need a change.”

    “Career-wise, it’ll be a challenge,” conceded Polly lamely, handing the ad back.

    Dorothy returned with an uneasy smile: “Yes, well, granted that the university’s a fait accompli— Added to which, I’ve always thought that part of Carter’s Inlet is particularly hideous. Added to which again, I wouldn’t half like the chance to spread my wings. But it’s a pipe dream, really; I’ll never get it.

    “Of course you will!” they cried.

    “No. Look at me,” she said simply.

    They looked. Christmas being almost in sight, Dorothy was in one of her usual warmer-weather outfits, to wit, a navy and white cotton shirt-waister. It did nothing for her bony brown face and long brown neck. With it she was wearing, though these were not visible at this moment to her luncheon companions, medium-heeled plain navy court shoes. Almost unobtainable in the New Zealand of the Nineties, yes. Dorothy had had this particular pair for seventeen, yes, seventeen years. They had been re-heeled three times. They had been an excellent buy. As a concession to lunch with Lady Carrano she was wearing earrings. Plain disks of white plastic, about the size of a five-cent piece. As lunch at The Blue Heron was not a hatty occasion, she wasn’t wearing her hat, and her short greyish-brown frizz was revealed in all its glory.

    Given that Jill was in a neat, lightweight navy not-linen pants suit with a neat navy and white striped polyester shirt under it, she would have said that Dorothy looked quite normal. One glance at their luncheon companion, however, would have been enough to convince anyone that what the two of them were wearing could only be classed as covering. Lady Carrano was in Clothes. Luscious warmer-weather, slightly-leisure but suitable-for-lunch gear. Very loosely speaking it could have been categorised as slacks and a jacket. Given that every male in The Blue Heron’s courtyard had been eyeing her up hungrily ever since she arrived, you would have had to have been blind or mad or both, so to categorise it. The slacks were widish and had cuffs, so cuffs must be In again. Either that or they’d be In next year. A very pale shade, sort of fawnish-greyish. Real silk mixed with real linen? Something like that. The jacket was a deep violet shade. Loose and very casual-looking, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, so that must still be In. The slacks were tightly belted at the waist, thus demonstrating the fact that all those lobster Thermidors hadn’t yet done her any harm. The thing under the jacket was a plain white tee-shirt. Plain before she put them into it. And whatever the fashion pundits might claim was momentarily In, a pair like that would never be Out. Not while the human race was composed of two sexes. Round the neck, loosely draped, was a very long drift of a gauzy scarf in shades of violet and grey. The greyish-fawnish suede sandals matched the clutch-bag exactly. Possibly she had just walked into a Ralph Lauren boutique during the last trip to the States and bought the lot? Apart from the artefact round the neck: a hunk of carved white jade on a grey suede string. Antique. Probably Chinese. Undoubtedly He had bought it for her.

    Jill cleared her throat. “You look neat and respectable, Dorothy.”

    “Maybe. But I’m not the executive type,” returned Dorothy with a grimace. “Ability doesn’t have anything to do with it, before you two say anything. They’ll look for relevant experience when they compare the résumés, and when they interview it’ll be that plus being the executive type. And before you say anything, I haven’t got all that much relevant experience, either.”

    “You’ve certainly got the ability,” said Jill firmly.

    “Yes. But would you like academic librarianship?” asked Polly dubiously.

    “Bob never seems to do anything except sit on committees and lurk in his office reading journals,” admitted Jill.

    Dorothy had known the university librarian in question for years: in fact she had sat on committees with him for years. “Yes. But I have a feeling this won’t be as academic as all that.”

    “In that case, is user-pays librarianship your thing?” asked Jill.

    “I could do a lot for them. I’ve been managing a budget for years. And I could certainly make their Tech Services cost-effective.”

    “Put it to them,” said Polly with a smile. “In those terms.”

    “I have. Um, well, Jack advised me to put forward a proposal, not just a résumé, so I did.”

    “Have you got an interview?” asked Jill keenly, leaning forward.

    “Yeah. Next week,” she admitted.

    “Well, good!” cried Polly.

    Dorothy did not point out that her luncheon companions had now apparently forgotten their scruples in re giant user-pays universities infesting the environment of Carter’s Inlet. “Not good. Look at the bloody ad. I’m telling you, it’ll be men in sharp business suits—or worse, women in sharp business suits—looking for an executive type in a sharp business suit.”

    “We’ll buy you a suit,” said Polly calmly.

    Dorothy gulped.

    “Isn’t that the object of the exercise?” asked Jill with a smile.

    “Um—well, I would like your advice, Polly,” she said feebly.

    And so off they went, ye gods, to Remuera. To the nayce Remmers boutiques, where all the nayce people shopped. Them and their triple-parked BMWs and Mercs. Jill could only conclude that her humble self had been invited in order to hold Polly back. Or possibly to stop Dorothy over-straining the plastic? She did her humble best.

    Polly thought a lovely dark violet creation at Mr John’s would look good on Dorothy but it didn’t so she bought it for herself, explaining afterwards that Mr John’s girl had looked so disappointed. All the girls at U2 looked disappointed but she managed to exit without buying anything. Dorothy wasn’t allowed to go into Fortunata’s, even though she claimed once to have bought a silk two-piece with a pleated skirt there. Jill and Dorothy both looked wistfully in Country Road’s window but were dragged away. The Wrong Look. Dorothy then wanted the House of Raymonde, but Polly replied acidly that her claim that her mother used to buy their things proved it, didn’t it, and dragged her away.

    Celeste’s had a delightful yellow suit, of a sufficiently conservative cut, but they finally got her to admit that although Dorothy could look good in it, it wouldn’t do for the interview: the women would be jealous of it and think it was too flashy and the men would be frightened of it. Just when they’d concluded that Dorothy was off the hook she forced her to buy it anyway. Pointing out that she was changing her image, and that when you found something that actually fitted you and you liked, you ought to grab it or you’d regret it bitterly. Just when Jill was on the point of thinking she’d have to remind Dorothy that in their humble socio-economic bracket the plastic was not infinitely stretchable, Celeste’s turned out to have the very thing. A linen-look, dark brown. Very smartly cut: it managed to give Dorothy a waist and hips, make her look as if she had a bust, and somehow make her look not so tall. Polly vetoed all the shirty blouses that Dorothy and Jill liked, and chose a burnt orange gauzy-looking thing with a frill down the front. It certainly looked good under the suit, but was it Dorothy? Even the new Dorothy? What was under it was very evidently Dorothy, so Polly dragged them off to Bennet’s and forced her to buy an orange slip. There were no shoes in the whole of Remmers that matched either the suit or the blouse. By this time exhaustion had set in, so they were allowed to totter into an air-conditioned coffee shoppe and consume cappuccinos and sponge cake. Lady Carrano had a mineral water: they could only conclude that being rich must automatically give you the stamina for prolonged shahping. Or possibly it came with practice.

    “Now: hair,” said Polly firmly.

    “What, now?” groaned Dorothy.

    “Not necessarily. But I think we should make plans. Let’s talk to Janine. She does Livia Briggs’s hair. And she’s the one that weaned Phyllis Harding off that yellow-crested cockatoo look.” This was a great recommendation, of course, so they immediately hurried off to see Janine. Go silver, get a decent cut, the advice amounted to. Busily Polly made a joint appointment for facials and hair for Dorothy and herself…

    “I would not say,” said Gretchen at the end of Jill’s report, “that buying clothes and changing one’s hair vill necessarily result in getting one a job. Howeffer, if it took Dorothy’s mind off her pre-interview nerves, it probably did some good.”

    Momentarily Jill ceased rubbing her aching feet, in order to look up and goggle at her. “You’re mad, woman! This the Nineties!”

    “If the Iceman is vhat you report him to be, he vill look for ability,” she replied calmly.

    “Ability is the sine qua non, you fool!” she snarled. “These days, it’s that plus the right executive look, to even be in the running!”

    Gretchen eyed her drily. “Then let us hope that Polly Carrano’s idea off the right executive look iss, indeed, right.”

    “‘Wolfe’,” said Alan Kincaid thoughtfully when the more official part of the interview was over. “I rather think I might know a relation of yours: Gordon Wolfe?”

    “Yes, Gordon’s my father,” said Sammi smoothly. –Norma and Gordon did not encourage their children, not even their older children, to call them by their Christian names; and in any case Sammi wouldn’t have wanted to, she had no impulse whatsoever to become a friend of either of her parents. But she did not allow any of this to show in her face.

    “Really?” said Alan Kincaid with a polite smile. “I thought perhaps he was. You have a look of him. A very distinguished career, if I may say so.”

    Sammi of course knew that A.H. Kincaid was pretty well Dad’s bête noire. She didn’t let that show, either. “Thank you.”

    Inoue Takagaki, his face as expressionless as ever, watched her carefully. He didn’t think, really, that she had grasped that Alan’s choice of phrase had pretty well dismissed Gordon Wolfe as a dreary old has-been.

    … “Well?” said Alan, when Ms Wolfe, composed as ever, had taken leave of them.

    “She has not a subtle mind, I think,” returned Inoue.

    The rest of the appointments committee eyed him uneasily, but Alan replied coolly: “Not in your terms, no. Nor has Gordon Wolfe. But do we want a subtle mind in our Senior Administrator, Inoue?”

    “We want him to be capable, of course!” said the corporate lawyer, John Simpkins. “Him or her,” he amended feebly.

    Gavin Wiley, the local Vice-Chancellor, had been seconded for this round of interviews. For their sins, the rest of the appointments committee had now decided. “She’s very young,” he said dubiously.

    “Not as young as Beresford or Smellie,” replied Alan.

    “N— Uh—” Even Gavin Wiley couldn’t say, in this day and age: “But they’re men.” He floundered.

    The appointments committee re-examined Beresford’s and Smellie’s merits and demerits at length. Then Alan dragged them back to Ms Wolfe’s, eventually getting them to admit that she appeared far more capable, had a far more interesting and adventurous CV, and had the corporate experience which the others noticeably lacked.

    “They speak most highly of her capabilities at York,” he murmured.

    “Then why didn’t she stay with them?” said Wiley on a cross note.

    “I should imagine, because she found she could earn much more and do much more in the world of commerce, Gavin,” replied Inoue.

    Alan concluded, with some surprise, that Inoue agreed with him on this one: Ms Wolfe was head and shoulders above Beresford and Smellie. Quite some further time passed before he got the committee to concede this, however. Alan did not feel impatient. He was used to committees and he gained a certain enjoyment from manipulating them.

    “Then it’s between Ms Wolfe and Jorgensen?” said Simpkins.

    “I think so,” agreed Alan.

    Their seconded public servant said on a timid note—he was aware he was there on sufferance: “Jorgensen’s résumé is impressive. Far more relevant experience than Ms Wolfe.”

    “In Australia,” agreed Wiley.

    Alan by now had realised that the locals had two tones when they referred to their big neighbour. The reluctantly impressed, and the scornfully dismissive. True, the latter was more likely to be heard from men in pubs discussing the cricket or comparing what was termed football over there with rugby. Wiley was using the first of these tones, though Alan had heard him use the second.

    One of the men from the Carrano Group said uneasily: “Yeah. Um—this is probably hearsay, but l did hear something fairly nasty about what went on in Western Australia. Explains why Jorgensen wants to leave.”

    “So did I,” agreed Alan unemotionally. “The story seems to be fairly current in academic circles. And while I entirely agree that a person’s sexual preferences are their own affair, and irrelevant to their professional capabilities,”—he knew, and was silently enjoying the fact, that by this time Inoue must have noticed his conscious avoidance of the despised English generic “his”, or the more fashionable but hideous and a-grammatical “his or her”—“I’m afraid I do have to say I draw the line at staff who involve themselves with very young undergraduates. Whether or not, as I’m given to understand is the case here, the very young undergraduate attempts to commit suicide when the affaire’s broken off.”

    “The boy was only seventeen!” burst out the man from the Group.

    Alan eyed him sympathetically: Graham Young was about the right age to have a son of seventeen. “Quite.”

    Wiley was all red and ruffled. “Well, I certainly don’t think we ought even to consider a person of that sort! As you say, Alan, his sexual preferences are his own business. But there is such a thing as—as professional integrity!”

    Alan would not have called it precisely that, but he nodded seriously.

    “Absolutely,” said Simpkins. “And if anything unfortunate should occur, irrespective of the sexes involved, it could involve Sir George Grey in a very nasty damages suit.”

    “Yes, of course,” agreed Wiley in horror. “Was this boy living in a university hostel?”

    Once he’d dragged them off that one, which wasn’t for some time, as he wanted it to percolate to all of the thicker heads present just what the consequences of an unfortunate appointment might be, Alan got them back onto the subject of the actual careers and capacities of the other applicants.

    … “Wiley’s anti women in top administrative posts, of course,” he said with a sigh.

    He and Catherine were lying on the silver sand of Toetoe Bay. Dicky, the older two Fermour boys and Shane Tamehana were all shrieking and splashing in the water.

    “I see,” she murmured.

    “Not that I care about the sex of my registrar,” he said, lying on his back with his hands linked behind his head, staring up into pure blue through his sunglasses. “Ms Wolfe appears to have considerable commercial acumen. The others are mere accountants. She is a little young for the post, but we can always make it a short-term contract and get rid of her if she doesn’t suit.”

    “Mm. Um—what’s she like, Alan?”

    “Uh—oh: to look at?” He shrugged. “Quite handsome, I suppose. Um…. chiselled features, I suppose you’d say.”

    “Thin,” stated Catherine.

    “Well, thinnish, I suppose,” he said without interest. “Not very tall. –Looks a bit like her bloody father, actually!” he admitted with a tiny laugh.

    “Do you know him?” asked Catherine, frowning over it.

    “Used to, in my linguistics days. The man’s a moron. Gordon Wolfe. He’s at Manchester.”

    “Ooh, we had to read a book by him!” she gulped.

    “My God, not as part of Polly Mitchell’s course?” said Alan, taking off his sunglasses and goggling at her.

    “No. Professor Barlow set it.”

    Alan sniffed, replaced the sunglasses, and relaxed. “That figures. Well, he’s a tit.”

    “I see.”

    “His daughter, I should say, has very much the same sort of brain. Exact, quite sharp, but not,” he said, his mouth twitching, “what Inoue Takagaki characterises as subtle. But it’s suited to academic administration. And she’s got a lot of corporate experience.” He told Catherine quite a lot about Sammi’s corporate experience, ending: “It’ll be an unpopular appointment, of course. Academic administration is full of pompous males in double-breasted suits like Wiley. But I am in no doubt whatsoever that Ms Wolfe will cope.”

    “Mm.” Catherine sat up and hugged her knees.

    Alan squinted at her. “Your skin’s even paler than mine, and I thought I was a bleached Pom. Have you got plenty of sunscreen on?”

    “Yes. Um—so she was better than the man from Western Australia?”

    “Yes. But I wouldn’t have appointed him anyway. He—um…”

    “What?” she said, looking at him uncertainly.

    Alan swallowed. “Nasty story. I thought of you, actually, watching all those double-breasted suits react to it. They’re…” His voice faded out.

    “Yes?” said Catherine, looking at him anxiously.

    He smiled ruefully. “I was going to say ‘rather sweet, really’. I don’t think Carrano’s corporate lawyer would appreciate being thought rather sweet! And I can’t imagine where I picked the phrase up— Yes, I can!” he said with a tiny laugh. “Er, well, decent fellows.”

    “Um, yes. Um, I don’t say that, do I?” she said, very flustered.

    Alan grinned. “I can’t think where else I could have got it from!”

    “No—um—what was the story, Alan?”

    Alan grimaced, but told her. Not really consciously aware, though the realisation did hover somewhere on the edge of his mind, that in telling Catherine he was, metaphorically speaking, asking Mummy to kiss it and make it better. He was aware, though, of a considerable feeling of relief as she frowned and said: “Seventeen? That’s really horrid. No-one’s grown up at seventeen. Poor boy.”

    “Mm. I suppose one ought to feel some sort of pity for Jorgensen, too.”

    “Yes. But he was the one that was grown up. He should never have let it start.”

    “That’s what I feel,” said Alan with a sigh.

    Catherine nodded sagely.

    Alan sat up, smiled, and said: “Come on, let’s go for a dip!”

    “I’m a rotten swimmer.”

    “I know that!” he said, laughing. “I’ll let you bob up and down in the shallows.”

    Catherine got up slowly. “Don’t try to teach me to swim properly.”

    “Er—no. Very well. –Have people, in the past?”

    “Yes. Everybody,” she said glumly.

    Alan laughed, grabbed her hand, saying: “I won’t, I promise. And not merely because I’m not everybody!”, and towed her down to the shallows.

    Catherine was quite pleased to be towed into the water by Alan. And rather surprised that he did just let her bob up and down and splash around aimlessly. Though not at all surprised that after a while he went for a very energetic swim, crossing the little bay several times. But her chief emotion was an uneasy feeling that this Ms Wolfe, with whom she knew Alan would have to work very closely in future, was probably very pretty as well as very slim and very capable. Oh, dear.

    “Had your interview?” asked Jill with twinkle in her eye, coming into the Puriri County Library just in time to return her armload of books before they closed.

    Dorothy leaned on the Returns desk, and groaned. “Yeah. Don’t ask.”

    “All right, I won’t. Listen, I’ve had a theory—well, Gretchen’s analysis of your chances prompted it, I’m afraid. Is it the Germanic influence in American society that’s produced the horribly efficient, sharp-business-suited executive stereotype?”

    “Uh—dunno. Is it a specifically American stereotype?”

    “Oh, I don’t think We can take the credit for it,” Jill assured her.

    The Oxbridge accent had been very much in evidence: Dorothy smiled a little. “But Dr Kincaid’s English, isn’t he?”

    “Him? Naturalised silicon-coated, positronic-brained, sharp-business-suited, button-down-collared Yank to his frozen backbone,” she said sourly.

    “You really don’t like him, do you?” discovered Dorothy, eyeing her in fascination.

    Jill sighed. “No. Look, just on the off-chance that you may have to work for the shit, let me tell you a little story about a certain Wendy Briggs and the long ago…”

    All Dorothy said at the end of it was: “He sounds like the ruddy town clerk. I’ll watch out for him.”

    So Jill concluded she might be capable of dealing with him, after all.

    “‘Perkins’,” said Alan Kincaid thoughtfully when the more official part of the interview was over. “You still have relations out here, do you?”

    Jack Perkins eyed him drily. Forewarned was forearmed, and Dot had sent him a fax that was probably actionable, containing the full gruesome details of some Limey dame’s story about what he was really like. And in any case, he’d met the type before: take away the Limey accent, and academic administration in the States was full of ’em. But Jeez, what a jerk!

    “Yeah, that’s right,” he said laconically.

    There was a short pause. Jack refrained from bursting into over-elaborate elaboration. He was familiar with that particular pitfall of the pseudo-post-interview situation.

    Inoue Takagaki said smoothly: “One of the applicants for University Librarian is a Ms Perkins. I think, your sister, possibly?”

    “She was thinking of applying,” he drawled.

    “Then I think I am giving away no secrets when I say it must be she,” he said, poker-face.

    “I don’t think you are, Takagaki, no,” agreed Professor Michaels calmly. “Given that my wife bumped into her at Taka’ shops yesterday arvo and she said she’d applied for it.”

    Very fortunately Jack Perkins had known Bill Michaels since the days of his own M.E., so he was forearmed, and didn’t break down in helpless sniggers in front of Kincaid.

    “Yes, well, as I say,” said Alan smoothly, “your application was by far the most interesting of those we received.”

    They had already discussed it at length, so Jack merely replied: “It depends what you want, Kincaid.”

    “Mm. Tell me: if we decided not to go that route, would you still be interested in the position?”

    “No,” said Jack flatly.

    “I see.”

    After the regulation exchange of politely meaningless, though not necessarily functionless remarks, they then let Jack out. He managed not to tear his tie off until he was actually in the ground-floor lobby of the Carrano Building. “What—a—jerk,” he said through his teeth.

    He wandered out into a blowy, early summer’s day, registering vaguely that something was missing. Not the wonderful old harbourside clutter of docks, warehouses and railway lines that he remembered from his childhood, no: he’d been back several times on flying visits in the last twenty years and he no longer looked for those. Nor the dark, gritty smell of mixed diesel oil, ferry smoke and shunting-engines: he’d got used to their absence, too, at least on the conscious level. Uh—oh: the humidity. Must be only around forty percent. Better make the most of it, then.

    Shoving his tie in his jacket pocket, Jack wandered down to the ferry wharf, whistling under his breath. There was one ferry that the cretins had left. –In spite of the fact that just over the Tasman the Sydney Harbour ferries did a roaring trade all year round, bringing in thousands of commuter dollars every working day and tens of thousands of tourist dollars something like nine months of the year, the local jerks had discontinued all but the one. Oh, it went every hour, did it, and he’d just missed it? Well, that was expectable. Jack bought a ticket, wandered through onto the end of the wharf, and sat down on a bollard. It was a bloody wonder they hadn’t discontinued them, too.

    When the ferry finally came he went right down the back, no sense in pretending he wasn’t here to indulge himself, and prepared to hang over the pointed stern, watching the wake.

    “Gidday again,” said a sepulchral voice in his ear.

    “Uh—oh,” said Jack with a sheepish grin. “Hullo again, Bill.”

    “Glorious day, eh?” noted the local Dean of Engineering amiably, sitting down beside him.

    “Yeah. Have you types been deliberating over me for all of”—Jack looked at his watch—“fifty minutes?”

    “Forty. A sane man nips into the nearest bar and gets a swift Scotch down him after a day in Kincaid’s company,” Bill Michaels assured him blandly.

    Jack smiled feebly. “Yeah.”

    “Yes, well, we did talk it over—” Bill broke off. He watched narrowly as three teenage boys came racing down the wharf and leapt onto the ferry, which was now making loud chugging noises, without benefit of the gangplank.

    “They still do it,” said Jack with a little sigh.

    “Yep. And I dunno about the rest of the population, but personally I still watch them do it in mixed hope that they’ll make it safely and then discover the thing’s arriving, not departing, and gruesome anticipation of their being crushed to death between its side and the wharf.”

    “Yeah,” said Jack, grinning all over his thin face.

    “Had them teeth done in Yankland, didja?” asked the burly engineer.

    Jack Perkins swallowed. “All right: I flaming did, I admit the soft impeachment, Michaels! Possibly my Nonconformist ancestors are revolving in their graves as we speak, but I couldn’t see any reason for suffering with crooked buck teeth for the second half of my life as well as the first! –California. Beautiful work, huh? Where all the movie stars go,” he said, grinning and displaying the teeth to their best advantage.

    Bill Michaels unashamedly approached his face and peered—thus affording Jack sufficient proof he had indeed got himself round a Scotch. “Yeah. Lovely.

    “Uh-huh. And if you don’t mind,” he said as the ferry made louder chugging noises and bumped the wharf a few times, “I’m gonna stare mindlessly at the wake, now. Unless it’ll put the kybosh on my chances of the job?”

    Michaels replied placidly: “Go ahead. You’ve already got my vote. None of the rest of ’em could tell us anything but what they’d already done. Which we knew, already. Plus the obligatory pompous clichés about developing potential and fostering research, blah-blah. You’re the only one that put forward any sort of vision of what you might actually do with the job, not to say anything smacking of the new and exciting. But it isn’t up to me, mate, and in case it hasn’t dawned, it isn’t up to Takagaki either, or those po-faced types from the Carrano Group. And don’t even bother mentioning that feeble-ized Public Service type: he was there as a sop to Cerberus. Not that Cerberus isn’t already sitting up begging with his tongue hanging out, waiting to lap up the overseas exchange this user-pays Sir George Grey is gonna generate. And before you ask, No: it isn’t up to Jake Carrano, though I will admit you could have knocked me down with a feather when that first dawned. Nope: the final say is Kincaid’s, first, last and sideways. And rather you than me that ends up working for him!”

    Jack Perkins replied calmly: “Yeah, I kinda thought he might strike you like that, Bill. Why’d you agree to be on his appointments committee, then?”

    Bill squirmed round on the hard wooden, genuine ferry seat that the cretins hadn’t yet thought of ripping out in favour of a piece of eminently breakable poly-something crap, and unashamedly leaned his arms on the rail and his chin on his arms, staring at the wake. “Thought there might be some faint hope of influencing him in the direction of a faintly human appointment.”

    Jack Perkins had thought so. He smiled a little, but said nothing, just turned round to lean an elbow on the rail, and dreamily watch the wake.

    After quite some time Bill asked mildly: “What you gonna do now?”

    “Huh? Oh: as of right now this minute? Uh—ride back on the ferry, I guess, Bill.”

    “Only Yanks say ‘I guess’. In fact, it hasn’t even rubbed off the TV onto the majority of the cloth-eared population,” he said with a sigh. “Well, I’ve got the waggon at the wharf. Wanna run up to Carter’s Bay and take a dekko at your putative future place of employment?”

    “Uh—yeah. Sure,” said Jack, rather startled. It would take the best part of two hours to get there, even with this new motorway that Dot had ear-bashed him about. “If you haven’t got anything better to do?”

    Bill scratched his chin.—It was not until this precise moment that Jack Perkins registered that he’d removed his tie, too. He smiled a little.—“If I go home Angie’ll start moaning again about whether she’s got enough experience and quals to apply for one of the ESL junior lecturer jobs that she claims Kincaid’s about to advertise any moment now. Either that or there’ll be a letter from one of the girls, not saying they’re about to produce a grandkid for ’er. –Oh, it’s all go at our place, mate,” he said, as Jack shook slightly. “And there won’t be any tea: since she started this blasted job at the Polytech she’s decided that I can cook. The more so since they run classes right up to Christmas and we don’t.”

    “Oh? I don’t think they did in my day.”

    “No. They finish the normal semester’s work—we’re all on them, now, mate: you oughta feel right at home,” he added snidely: “and then they start these special classes for the extra-feeble-minded Japs and Malaysians that can’t hack it in the full-blown ones. Oh, think there’s probably a few Vietnamese in there, somewhere, too.”

    “Uh-huh. What about Indonesians?”

    “The powers-that-be ’ud like to, but the Aussies got in first. Rumour has it their tertiary institutions even provide showers for Muslim ablutions. All our lot have come up with so far are fail-safe locks on the doors of the female bogs that efficiently lock the muggers in with the victims.”

    Jack swallowed and smiled feebly. He’d sorta kinda forgotten in the last twenty-odd years just how much of a hard case Bill Michaels was. Didn’t mind who he insulted, neither. Not to say what toes he trod on. Salt of the earth, mind you. For those that could take it salted.

    “Well?” he said.

    Jack jumped slightly. “Oh—sure! I’d like that, Bill: thanks.”

    “It’ll take a while,” Bill warned as they commenced the long, long trek down the covered Devonport wharf.

    “Uh-huh,” said Jack vaguely.

    Bill was considerately silent while he enjoyed it, not even mentioning what they’d done to the old pub.

    “Christ!” gulped Jack as they emerged into the sunlight and the refurbished pub burst upon his horrified gaze.

    “It is a long time since you saw your native shores, isn’t it, matey?”

    “Uh, the last couple of times I was back, I did grab a ride on the ferry, but I didn’t get off… Jee-sus,” he said in awe, looking round at trendy Devonport in all its nasty glory.

    “Angie likes the bloody crafts shops. Never come here meself, if I can help it.”

    Jack nodded mutely, wincing.

    Bill then noted, looking over at a large, battered station-waggon: “Oh, shit.”

    A skinny girl in torn jeans was leaning on the station-waggon. Chewing. Jack did some rapid mental arithmetic, which, coupled with Bill’s remarks about letters from the girls and grandkids, gave him sufficient supporting evidence to deduce: “That’s not one of yours, is it?”

    “No. Neighbour’s kid,” he said glumly. “Dunno if you remember Ma and Pa Marks: well, he died and she sold the place, yonks back. These bloody up-market Veneerings bought it and trendy-vilified it. Uh—actually their name’s McLeod. She’s a legal beagle, currently Associate-Prof at varsity, even more currently pushed off on a visiting fellowship to The Hague, don’ ask me why they wanted her; and he’s a computer bod, currently down in Wellington seconded to some government project, don’ ask me why they wanted him. That’s Wallis. W,A,L,L,I,S. Sole offspring.”

    “Sure, ya get marriages like that in the States, too,” he drawled. “No time to produce more’n the one, huh?”

    “Yeah, and at that she was timed for between terms, poor little bugger,” agreed Bill. “Eighteen. Not impressionable. Supposed to be starting varsity next year. Doesn’t know what she wants,” he said out of the corner of his mouth as they came up to Wallis McLeod.

    Jack smiled and nodded silently. She didn’t look eighteen to him, or anything like it, but then, on the one hand he was getting old, and on the other hand, even with the global village thing, New Zealand kids on the whole were not so—“mature” was the wrong word—mature-seeming, yeah: not so mature-seeming as their American counterparts. They were marginally less fashion-conscious, too, though Jack realised that it was a fine distinction. Well, put it like this: there was probably a larger percentage of ’em that weren’t as brain-washedly enslaved to what passed for fashion these days. Wallis almost definitely fell into this percentage. The jeans looked naturally tattered, not artfully torn. And naturally faded, not stone-washed at immense expense to the consumer. Or to Mom and Pop, according. Her tee-shirt was a grubby once-white, tucked into the jeans. What was in the tee-shirt was not remarkable in any way. Nor was her face: small, oval, neat-featured, and at the moment very sulky as well as chewing. The hair was very short: spiky over the brow, almost shaven above the neat little ears, and an unremarkable dark brown. Astoundingly enough there were no earrings in the ears.

    She greeted Bill with the sour remark: “I read that book. It was dumb.”

    “I did warn you that no translation gets the flavour of the original.”

    Wallis scowled, though not ceasing to chew.

    “What was it?” asked Jack, cannily not addressing the remark to either of them, but somewhere in between.

    “Les Liaisons dangereuses,” replied Bill. “The film was on TV a few nights back: Angie and Wallis had a row over whether it was flaming cretinous or not. Wallis maintained it was, before you ask.”

    Jack shot the scowling Wallis a curious glance, before saying: “And did you watch it, Bill?”

    “No, mate, I’ve got more sense. I lurked in me study. –Reading job applications, actually,” he said with a tiny smile.

    “Uh-huh,” agreed Jack unemotionally. “So your vote is that the book’s as flaming cretinous as the movie, is it?” he said to Wallis.

    “No. But it was dumb.”

    “This is Jack. We’re going up Carter’s Bay,” said Bill in lieu of introductions at this point.

    Jack Perkins was aware that in spite of the global village, introductions were still very much not a New Zealand thing. He was also aware that Bill Michaels was educated enough, worldly enough, and self-aware enough to know better. He was also aware, though admittedly he had forgotten it over the past twenty-odd years, that Bill did this sort of thing on purpose. So he said merely: “Hi, Wallis.”

    “I’ll come, too,” she said to Bill.

    “All right, get in the back,” he agreed unemotionally, unlocking the driver’s door.

    … “So you haven’t seen it before?” he asked as, having bumped over stretches of swampland, they got out near the shore of Carter’s Inlet and Jack goggled numbly at the embryo Sir George Grey.

    “No: I only got here yesterday,” said Jack feebly. “It’s miles from anywhere!”

    “Miles from nowhere, ask me,” agreed Bill cheerfully. “See over there?” He pointed to the far side of the tranquil inlet.

    “Uh—yeah,” said Jack feebly, staring at an expanse of very flat scrubland. He’d forgotten how very flat it was in these parts.

    “All that’s been subdivided into what in your day were called five-acre lots, mate. If I was you I’d buy one or two up quick with them Yankee dollars you’ve no doubt got tucked away for a rainy day.”

    “Uh-huh,” said Jack neutrally. “Would this be before Sir Jake Carrano does it?”

    “No: Carrano Development already owns the entire foreshore,” said Bill heavily. “Oh—with the exception of one five-acre lot: see that cabin, there?”

    Jack peered.

    “There!” said Wallis scornfully, pointing.

    “Uh—oh. That A-frame thing?” he said weakly.

    “Yeah,” agreed Bill. “That’s owned by the type that runs the local fishing gear shop and boat-repair place. He’s a Yank, actually.”

    “Very funny,” replied Jack weakly.

    “Yes, he is. His name’s Sol. Sol Winkelmann. He’s okay,” said Wallis grudgingly.

    “I gotta admit,” said Jack with a sudden laugh, “that that’s a Yankee name, all right, Wallis!”

    “Well, apart from his bit, and Jake Carrano’s own bach, further up,” said Bill, “me spies tell me that no-one’s grabbed any of those lots, yet. I’d be in there, if I was you.”

    “Uh, what’s the road like, over there?”

    Bill scratched his chin. “’Bout the same as it was forty years back. Except for the first five K or so, up to the turn-off to the Royal K.”

    “Mm-hm,” said Jack, casting a glance at the glass slab of the hotel, glowing in the rays of the westering sun, and wincing.

    “And the turn-off to the motorway,” agreed Wallis.

    “Yeah,” conceded Bill, putting a heavy, hairy hand on her skinny shoulder: “that’s it. –Seen enough?” he said to Jack.

    “I guess so. Uh—which site is Engineering?” he said feebly, looking at the immense craters and scattering of concrete pylons that represented Sir George Grey University.

    “That whacking great hole nearest to us, matey. Bury the main-frames good and solid, in case of earthquakes, is the general idea. –CD Engineering. Wholly owned and operated by Carrano Development,” he explained blandly.

    “Don’t explain,” said Jack heavily. “Do you think Kincaid’d let me have a look at the plans?”

    Bill scratched his chin. “You mean the real plans, do ya? Not the pretty pics ’e’s trotted out for the Press?”

    “Yeah,” said Jack, trying not to swallow.

    “Almost certainly not,” replied Bill with a twinkle in his eye.

    “Uh-huh,” he said noncommittally. “Well, thanks very much for bringing me out here, Bill.”

    Bill began to lead the way slowly back to the car. “Fancy fish and chips?”

    “Real New Zealand fish and chips?” he said weakly.

    “Well, you saw Carter’s Bay, Jack! Too right!” replied Bill with a laugh. “Uh—hang on, what’s Dorothy doing tonight? Expecting you for tea, is she?”

    “No: she’s on duty at the library.”

    Bill looked at his watch. “In that case, I got a better idea. Nip on down to Puriri, get enough for Dorothy as well.”

    “Yeah! Come on, Jack!” cried Wallis.

    Blinking slightly—she had barely addressed him directly during the last two hours, and certainly not by his name—Jack followed her back to the waggon.

    Bill broke the speed limit all the way down the motorway. Possibly because getting off it and into Puriri entailed a huge looping detour through miles of farmland, thus making the trip almost as long as taking the main north highway would have been. They finally limped into Puriri township behind half the population of the North Island.

    “It’s so busy because Thursday’s late-night shopping up here,” said Wallis abruptly.

    Jack went all limp. Truly: he could feel his flesh kinda sagging off of his bones. “I get it.”

    “Here we are,” said Bill, suddenly swerving to the left, shooting down between two hideous lowish, greyish concrete structures and pulling up violently in a slot marked “KEEP CLEAR. MOBILE LIBRARY TURNING AREA. “You wanna nip in and ask her?”

    “Y— Uh, you’re in the mobile library turning area.”

    “Yeah, I done it for the pleasure of hearing you say ‘Mobil library’ like a dyed-in-the-wool Yank, Jack! Can you see anything the size of a small house on wheels trying to turn? No! Now get out before I change me mind about what I said to Kincaid about that job!”

    Jack got out meekly, even though Bill was grinning widely. As he crept in through the door marked: “STAFF ONLY” he could hear Wallis saying: “Isn’t he a real American, then?” and Bill replying: “Nah, but you’d never guess it to hear him, wouldja?”

    Half an hour later, which was pretty good going, given the queue in the chip shop and the size of their order, they were all sitting round in the Puriri County Library’s workroom, eating ’em. Possibly Dorothy might have had an ear cocked for customers, but Bill Michaels, for one, wouldn’t have taken a bet on it. He was damn sure little Janet Whatserface wouldn’t have heard anything much less than a full-scale invasion by the Klingons, and probably not that: she’d gone bright pink at the sight of Jack and been unable to take her eyes off him, let alone utter, since. Nobody what didn’t know young Wallis would have guessed it, but Bill had a pretty fair idea that she’d fallen for him, too. Little Mercy that stamped books had gone all goggly-eyed and pinkish round the edges. An older hen in a blue-checked smock with a notice on one tit that said “ASK ME” was in your jellyish, giggling state. A skinny little kid whose name Bill hadn’t caught but who had “student helper” written all over her was pretty similar. Given that she weighed in at about a quarter of the smocked female’s fighting weight. What the fuck did Jack Perkins have? And way back in the wild blue yonder, when Jack had been doing his M.E. and a youngish Dr Michaels had had the thankless job of knocking some basic engineering facts into him, the smart-arsed little sod that he’d been, had he had droves of females falling for him in—uh—droves? Actually, Bill couldn’t remember. Maybe he had had, but in the general mêlée of hairy engineering undergrads surrounded by adoring little girls, no one engineering undergrad had stood out all that much: not to the pedagogical eye, at any rate.

    Jack Perkins at forty-five was slim and wiry, with a very deep tan and short, thick, very silver hair. Had it not been for that trip on the ferry in a nice fresh northerly Bill might have suspected it of being a Sir’s. As it was, he merely suspected it of being one of those strand-by-strand jobs. Like that English cricketing git on the bloody ads. Cripes, how could you respect a bloke, however good his cricket, what went on ads showing the entire cricketing world his strand-by-strand job? Be that as it might, the Perkins head of hair was apparently convincing to the distaff side. Likewise the tan. The actual features were not all that striking—in fact, he looked bloody like his sister: bit horse-faced. Thinnish, longish features. Longish nose. On him, unfortunately, it didn’t look too bad.

    … “Why didn’t you take me?” cried Angie Michaels in anguish, much later that night.

    Bill got into bed, yawning. “Didn’t think Jack’d want to hear about your bloody ESL. Added to which, didn’t think young Wallis’d want to hear any more about your bloody ESL. Added to added to which, aren’t fish and chips off your diet sheet?”

    Angie had recently started a new diet. It featured a lot of carrot juice and peeling all the skin off the chicken for hours on end before you bunged it in the microwave: ugh. “Just for once wouldn’t have hurt!” she said angrily.

    Bill shrugged.

    Angie pouted for a while, but all that happened was that her husband told her to turn the bloody light off, he was shagged out.

    “Will he get it?” she said at last into the dark.

    Bill yawned. “Dunno. Depends if Kincaid spotted him for a genuine engineering joker, under all that Nineties yackety-yack and Yank accent.”

    Angie gulped. “Oh. Is he?”

    “We-ell… He was, twenty-odd years back, love. He’s changed a Helluva lot more than I would’ve thought a Kiwi engineer could, to tell you the truth. One with his ability, that is: you can’t count the types that go into admin and never produce anything worth reading after they’ve turned thirty. Jack’s… Well, I suppose he was always a pushy little bugger. Had the nous to get on out of it after his degree and get over to Caltech, ya know? But I’d say his instincts are still in the right place. –Just. Well, never tried to talk nicely to wee Wallis, ate greasies from up Sir John Marshall Av’ with the best of ’em: geddit?”

    “But— Oh. Yes, I see. Yes, a real American would definitely have been kindly condescending to Wallis!”

    Bill yawned again. “You got it. And for God’s sake don’t say anything to the kid, but I think she’s fallen for him.”

    “Really? Wallis?” There was a short silence while she thought this over. Bill waited in fear and trembling. Then she said: “Oh, well. A crush won’t do her any harm. And she’ll get over it, they all do at that age.”

    Bill sagged. “Right.”

    “Bill, maybe coming home will be the making of Jack,” she said seriously.

    “Eh? Uh—well, I think you mean his salvation, don’tcha? Yeah, might be. That or him and Kincaid between the pair of them will turn the whole of Carter’s Bay into a silicon nightmare before they vanish back to the future in quest of more power and bigger salaries and the latest bloody moronic catch-phrase.”

    “At least the place is providing jobs!” she said tartly.

    “Yeah,” agreed Bill mildly. He thought about it for a while and then put a stealthy paw on her thigh but Angie walloped it and said: “Don’t! I’ve got to get up at crack of dawn for a blimmin’ nine o’clock class in town, in case it’s escaped your notice!”

    So he didn’t.

    It was not until the next day, when Dorothy, who was having the morning off to take Jack for a drive round Puriri and environs on the strength of having spent the evening eating greasies in the library’s back room, had pointed out half a dozen trendy villas that it came to Jack Perkins in a rush what Bill Michaels had meant by saying Wallis’s parents had “trendy-vilified” the next-door house. He laughed so much that Dorothy stopped the car in alarm. “Are you okay?”

    Jack nodded helplessly, wheezing.

    “What in God’s name’s the joke?”

    After quite some time he managed to tell her.

    Dorothy went into a helpless wheezing fit.

    “He’s one of the good guys. Always was,” said Jack thoughtfully.

    “Yeah!” she gasped helplessly, fanning her face with her hand.

    “You’ve met his wife, huh? Like her?”

    She nodded helplessly.

    “Good. Let’s try to see a bit of them, if I get the job.”

    Dorothy blew her nose. “Yes. If.” She looked at him sideways.

    “Dot,” he said heavily: “I’m telling you: I can’t tell you more than I did last night: Kincaid is unreadable!”

    “Yes,” she said mournfully. “Oh, dear.”

    Jack looked at her drily. “Cheer up: you may not get a second interview.”

    Dorothy cleared her throat. “I have. That was his secretary on the phone when you were in the shower. They’re sending written confirmation, but— It’s next Wednesday,” she said dully.

    “Well, great! Musta been on the strength of your proposal!” said her brother bracingly.

    Dorothy ran her hand through the new silver hair that made her look horribly like Jack. “Right. It can’t have been that awful first interview, that’s for sure! I was so far down that bloody great board table that I could barely see the Iceman, let alone say anything sensible! And bloody Bob kept sort of prompting me kindly: it was crawlingly embarrassing. You know: the proudly anxious parent showing off what the toddler can do.”

    “Cheer up, Dot: Kincaid doesn’t strike me as the type to short-list more than two or at the most three: you’re in there with a real chance!”

    “Yes,” said Dorothy heavily.

    Jack brooded for a while. “Look, leaving aside this Iceman crap, what do you really think of him, Dot? Think he’d be a good guy to work for?”

    “Uh—this is partly what I’ve gathered from Jill Davis,” she warned. “I think he’d be coldly—no, more than that—ferociously just in everything he did, Jack. But I don’t think he’d be swayed by any sort of personal consideration in any sort of decision making.”

    “Yeah,” said Jack slowly. “I’d say you’re right. Well, I can work with that!”

    He rang Kincaid up later that morning and asked to have a look at the real plans. There was a moment’s silence and Jack thought he’d had it. Then Kincaid, smooth as ever, agreed.

    Jack Perkins was never to know whether it was that phone call that did the trick. But he rather thought it was. Because he got the job. They rang later that very afternoon and told him.

    “You were right: this isn’t an up-market barbecue,” said Dorothy numbly, looking at the smoking fire on Dr Davis’s patio in up-market Kowhai Bay.

    “No, we don’t usually have them. The main purpose of this one is to eat up all the sausages I bought on special. Siddown,” said Jill graciously.

    Dorothy looked round desperately. Lady Carrano was squatting on an upturned bucket—designer jeans an’ all. Gretchen was bending over the fire, poking it with a long piece of bent wire. There was a deckchair free, but it looked as if it dated from the Fifties. Make that the Thirties. “That deckchair belonged to my parents,” said Jill helpfully.

    “Uh—yeah.” Dorothy sat down beside Polly. “Where’s Jake?” she asked cautiously. You never knew with married people: possibly they’d had a row.

    “In Japan. Eating dolphin, very likely,” she replied serenely.

    Dorothy smiled feebly. “Yeah.”

    Jill had wandered off to the house. She wandered out again, carrying a bottle of champagne and a nifty little wire grill, in which were enclosed a dozen sausages.

    “That iss too many sausages,” pronounced Gretchen disapprovingly.

    “Somebody’s got to eat them!” said Polly with a laugh.

    “Ja, but she jams them up too tight: they vill not cook, Polly.”

    “Oh: right. –Take some of those sausages out of that dinky little grill this instant, Davis!” she ordered sternly.

    Jill obeyed, though remarking as she did so: “You’re still not getting it. Five thousand times more efficient than your husband’s regiment of real barbecue equipment though it is.”

    “She bought it in Bognor,” said Polly mournfully to Dorothy.

    Dorothy had now noticed an open champagne bottle on the patio and several empty glasses. “Yes, I know. Are you types celebrating?” she asked cautiously.

    “No: Jill bought this shtuff on special at The Tavern’s bottle store, vith a coupon that our beer purchases had entitled her to use for a discount,” explained Gretchen on a severe note. “Vithout, you undershtand, having grasped that although one may be entitled to a discount, one does not need to purchase. It iss not champagne; I am afraid its appearance iss wholly mish— Pardon. Mishleading,” she said carefully.

    Dorothy had now noticed that over by the French doors there were two more champagne-shaped bottles, presumably empty, as they were bottom-up in a lavender bush. “Right. Got it.”

    “A toast,” proposed Jill solemnly, when their glasses were brimming. Largely genuine old EnZed peanut butter glasses, discerned Dorothy dazedly: where in God’s name had they come from?

    “They collect them. School fairs, mainly,” said Lady Carrano’s contralto in her ear.

    “Uh—right.”

    “A TOAST!” said Jill loudly. “Since Dorothy’s here, it’ll be perdition to the Ice—”

    “I’ll make it, said Dorothy firmly. “Shut up, youse lot.”

    “Ja: ve drink to Jack’s new yob, eh?” said Gretchen kindly, if somewhat drunkenly.

    “Him!” said Dorothy crossly. “Bugger that! He’s been earning megabucks in Yankland these last twenty years!”

    “Vell, uh, who?” said Gretchen groggily.

    “Not that terrifying female exec that the Iceman’s appointed as registrar?” croaked Jill. “We saw her in The Deli, frightening the bejasus out of poor Moana Baxter with a demand for—“

    “No!”

    “–ricotta,” finished Jill remorselessly.

    “No. Look, shut up, you drunks. This toast,” said Dorothy portentously, raising her glass: “is to Me.”

    There was a short pause.

    “Sharp-business-suited female exec of the year,” said Dorothy with relish.

    “Dorothy!” screamed Lady Carrano. “You mean you’ve got it?”

    “Yeah: don’t tell me your spies haven’t—”

    “Hooray!” screamed Lady Carrano, leaping up and dancing a short fandango. “To Dorothy! Drink up, everybody!”

    Gleefully they drank to Dorothy, sharp-business-suited female exec of the year, and Sir George Grey University Librarian-elect.

    Catherine’s jaw dropped. “Our Dorothy Perkins? You’ve appointed our Dorothy?”

    Alan’s mouth twitched slightly. “Mm. Do you think it’s an unwise choice?”

    “No; I never thought they’d have that much sense!” she said dazedly.

    His shoulders shook slightly. “Thank you. ‘They’, immodest though it sounds, is actually me.”

    “I suppose you have your committees at an oblong table?” said his second cousin pointedly.

    At that Alan broke down and laughed until he almost cried. “Yes,” he said, mopping his eyes. “Metaphorically, at any rate. Er—listen, Catherine. Now that I’ve started appointing senior staff, I really should think about doing a little entertaining.”

    “You have too many business lunches as it is: you’ll get fat,” she said severely.

    Not with this new régime of bean salads and lentil cutlets, he wouldn’t. Not that Catherine’s bean salad was not miraculous; God knew what she did to it, but it tasted like food.

    “Er—no, not that,” he murmured. “One or two little dinners.”

    Catherine’s mouth opened in horror. Oh, dear, thought Alan.

    “You—you mean have them here?” she gasped.

    “Catherine, the house is looking much, much better—”

    “I couldn’t!” she gasped.

    “You already know Dorothy Perkins,” he said without hope.

    “Buh-but there’s that Japanese muh-man, and—and the lady that’s got all those degrees,” she said faintly.

    “Inoue. Yes, I would like to invite him. I believe Ms Wolfe is staying on here over the summer, though of course she won’t be taking up her appointment until—”

    “I can’t feed a Japanese man and a smart lady in a suit!” she wailed, bursting into tears.

    Oh, God, thought Alan. Not that he hadn’t half expected this. He attempted without success to persuade her that she could feed a Japanese man and a smart lady exec: in fact her cooking was good enough to feed anyone, even Jake and Polly Carr— Oh, God. Completely the wrong thing to say. What a fool he was.

    “No, very well,” he said with a sigh, when at long last he’d got her to stop bawling, blow her nose, and allow him to make her a nice cup of tea. “If you can’t, you can’t.”

    “I cuh-couldn’t talk to them,” said Catherine soggily.

    Alan had gathered that was the problem; he might be demonstrably pretty thick, but he wasn’t that thick. “No.”

    Catherine sipped tea. “Maybe I could just sort of serve the dinner?” she ventured timidly.

    He went very red. “No! Certainly not!”

    “I’m sorry, Alan,” she said in a tiny voice.

    “No, I am,” he said, frowning. “I do normally try not to expect people to be what they can’t be. Twenty years in administration has at least taught me that much. Well, that and to seat my committees at oblong tables,” he said with a wry smile.

    Catherine smiled shakily. “Mm.”

    … Jenny Fermour had listened silently to Catherine’s report of Alan’s dreadful suggestion. Now she said slowly: “Catherine, don’t you think you’d better ask yourself what you want from this man?”

    Catherine went very red. She gave her a sulky, defiant look.

    “Actually,” said Jenny in a surprised voice, “there are very few people around who consciously try not to expect other people to be what they can’t be. Most people are just the opposite, aren’t they? Always trying to force people to be what they just can’t be. No wonder so many marriages come to grief.”

    “Y— Um, ye-es… But don’t you see, he realises that I can’t?”

    “Yes,” said Jenny on a grim note. “He realises that you’re content to lurk in his kitchen like a stupid little mouse.”

    “You know I can’t talk to people,” she said in a small voice.

    “Well, I’m not in the same class as Lady Carrano when it comes to throwing casual garden parties for five hundred,” she said on a caustic note, “but personally I’ve always found that Mum’s advice was spot-on: if you’re the hostess, just wear a pretty dress and smile nicely at them, and let them get on with it, and see that they have plenty to eat and drink. –It worked that time Gerry went all up-market and joined that stupid Young Farmers’ movement!” she reminded her.

    “Jenny, you were terrified!” said Catherine crossly.

    “Yes, but I did it, didn’t I?” replied Jenny, sticking out her chin.

    “You’re braver than me,” she said in a soggy voice.

    “Yeah, well, like I said,” said Jenny drily: “you think it over. Maybe he does recognise you can’t change your essential nature: but does that necessarily mean you can’t change yourself a bit? Smarten up your ideas a bit? If that’s what he wants.”

    Catherine’s lips trembled. She pleated her old flowered apron, saying nothing.

    “At least if you put on a nice dress and tried to be polite to the people he works with, he might notice you’re a woman,” said Jenny with deliberate cruelty.

    Catherine got up, tears trickling down her cheeks, and rushed off home. But on the whole, Jenny Fermour, thinking the scene over carefully, didn’t consider she’d done too badly.

Next chapter:

https://conquestofcartersbay.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-shores-of-erewhon.html