Let's Go To The Hop

18

Let’s Go To The Hop

    The Environmental Watch Committee’s hop had come off at last, and Janet was in a pink dress. But as Akiko had rushed into Dorothy’s office that morning with a flustered speech of mixed apology and self-exculpation, Dorothy was prepared. Pink, it was. Revealing, it was not. Sexy, it was not. In fact sexy was the last word you would have applied to it. Right down there below exciting, was where sexy would have been.

    Akiko herself was stunning in a black sheath-dress with a great bunch of mixed fake pink and white chrysanths on one shoulder. Her sister, Mitsuko, who had just arrived two days since and ought to be looking bewildered, was pretty as a picture and completely self-possessed, in a white off-the-shoulder, polyester-knit loose top. It came to about the hips and below it the limbs were swathed in a skin-tight pink miniskirt to about four inches above the pretty little knees and below that again the feet were in high-heeled strappy sandals. And under the white thing there was very obviously only Mitsuko. She had very, very thick and bouncy black hair cut in a short pageboy bob which cunningly ended just above her pretty little earlobes.

    Dorothy herself was neat but quite gaudy. The previous weekend she had spread out her usual tennis-club-social gear on the bed and looked at it: to wit, one narrow-skirted but not tight shirt-waister, navy pin-stripes on white; one full-skirted shirt-waister, small navy dots on white, that looked like something out of the Fifties and in fact the pattern was (Butterick; very reliable); and one floral shirt-waister, same pattern, depressing hydrangea blues. Then she’d rung up Polly Carrano and let herself be talked into buying a tight black velvet skirt which showed her knees, three new pairs of tights, all sheer, though not all black, and a full-skirted, hip-length, bright red sort of top thing that she would have called a coatee had she had any hope at all that Lady Carrano would recognise the term. It could be worn open, over a tight black sweater or a white Calvin Klein tee-shirt, according to some, but Dorothy had pointed out acidly that she was no longer under thirty and it was no use Polly saying that nor was she, because Dorothy never had had assets like hers. So she was wearing it buttoned, with the stiffened collar up, and the large silver clips in the ears that Polly had recommended, and why the Hell she had gone to so much trouble for a Carter’s Bay hop she was not asking herself. And Polly, bless her, hadn’t asked her either.

    Dorothy sighed. In addition to not looking sexy or exciting, Janet was sitting beside old Mrs Adler, at a conservative estimate the oldest person in the room by fifteen years, and giving every sign of intending to remain there for the rest of the evening. Her usual practice at anything approaching a social event with persons of both sexes present. “Come on, we’ll go and socialise with Janet and Mrs Adler,” she said grimly to Jack, “and don’t for the Lord’s sake walk off and leave me with them.”

    “Okay. I’ll ask Mrs Adler to dance,” he said obligingly.

    That wouldn’t have surprised Dorothy in the least. Not in the least. “You will ask Janet to dance, on pain of never having me on hand to baby-sit your bloody descendants or feed your bloody descendants or hold things while you illegally screw things into the walls of flats you don’t own, ever again.”

    “You’re not baby-sitting,” he pointed out mildly.

    “Come on!” snarled Dorothy.

    Jack came. He did chat nicely to both Janet and Mrs Adler, and he did ask Janet to dance. Then he walked off and left them. Apparently in order to impress Colleen Fairlie with his sophisticated wit and Yankee clothes. Well, he’d catch cold at that or Dorothy K. Perkins was a Netherlandish person: that girl bore all the earmarks of one who had had it up to here with bloody unreliable males. The fact that she’d come to the hop with Sandra was a pretty reliable guide, wasn’t it? After about five minutes Baranski came in, hurried over to them, and started competing with Jack. He’d catch cold at it, too.

    Beth hadn’t thought she’d go to the hop. True, all the members of the G&S Society had urged her to go, and May Swadling had urged her to go several times, and her cousin Polly (gulp) had turned up at the flat apparently expressly to order her to go. Beth could see, now that she was meeting her in person, that married to Sir Jake Carrano or not, she was a really nice person. Though she was unable to approve of everything about her: Polly had been wearing, besides tooled leather high-heeled cowboy boots, and dark jeans that that after some covert staring Beth had discerned were real Levi’s with (gulp) a buttoned fly, a brown fur jacket. Beth, who knew nothing about furs and was sort of convinced no-one ought to slaughter defenceless animals in order to put the result on their backs, was unable to persuade herself it was not absolutely gorgeous and had to be real mink—what else would look that thick and shiny and rich? True, it was a freezing cold winter’s Sunday, but most of the populace were shrouded in old tracksuit pants and huge pilled jerseys. Well, Beth was, Sol was, and Dorothy certainly was.

    Polly hadn’t managed to persuade Beth to go, but Beth had begun to think she might, especially since Dorothy had said she was definitely going, she wouldn’t miss the spectacle of Adrian Revill dancing with old Ada Corcoran for all the tea in China: this had sort of given Beth a different perspective on why one might attend a small-town social thinly disguised as an Environmental Watch Committee fund-raiser. Dorothy had also said there would undoubtedly be masses of food because all the “ladies” without exception would bring a plate. Beth had actually heard the quotation marks around “ladies” and had collapsed in giggles. Dorothy had warned her sternly not to mention to Alan Kincaid what underlay her disguise, and Beth had collapsed in further giggles, this time of the helpless variety.

    There had been a slight setback when Sammi Wolfe had cornered her at work and given her an earnest spiel on being seen to support local cultural activities while at the same time not overtly supporting anything overtly opposed to Sir George Grey official policy (Sammi had actually used the words “local cultural activities” and “overtly”, the latter twice): very naturally Beth had decided if the terrifying Ms Wolfe was going to be there, she wasn’t. Then nice Leigh Gore had swung her back in the opposite direction by smiling his pleasant smile and saying mildly he thought it would be fun, and he’d heard rumours that Mrs Corcoran produced the best sponge roll north of the South Pole. Then Adrian and Anna had come to tea at Sol and Michaela’s and they seemed to sort of assume they’d all be going… Well, why not, after all? If it was really awful and she couldn’t think of anything to say to anyone, she could always come home again.

    Beth hadn’t had to spread out all her dresses and examine them for suitability, she didn’t own any dresses. A fact of which Jan Martin was critically aware, though she had not been prompted on that score to supply her with any, merely to nag her unceasingly on the subject of the not-niceness of jeans. After seeing Polly’s Levi’s Beth was feeling a bit gloomy about her own jeans, but she decided that if she washed the newest pair and put them on just before she went, ironed, they’d do. And she was definitely not going to wear those boring navy slacks she’d worn for her teaching job in Christchurch, not to mention to her interview at Sir G.G., in fact she didn’t care if she never laid eyes on them again! She didn’t have much of a choice in the way of tops. Tee-shirts, of various vintages and designs. Polly had been wearing a very tight, very pale pink angora jumper under the mink, tucked into the Levi’s. Beth put on her pale pink singlet-style cotton-knit top, tucked into her jeans…

    She glared at her reflection in the old wardrobe door, complete with oval mirror, that had been supplied to her flat on loan, courtesy of Goode as Olde. She didn't look nearly as good as Polly, that was for sure. Not only because that simple little angora jumper had probably cost the equivalent of her monthly salary. Beth was conscious of several very strong wishes, all of which she did her best to fight down, without much success. Number one was that she had something pretty to wear. Number two was that she had some money to spend on really nice clothes. Number three was that she had the guts to wear the pink singlet without a bra: Polly had not been wearing a bra under that angora jumper, she was positive. But a daughter of Jan Martin’s would no more have dreamed of “getting round without a bra in public” than she would have dreamed of walking down the main road of Carter’s Bay in her birthday suit. Number four, which Beth was most of all not admitting to herself, was that Jack Perkins would notice her at the dance. Because he hadn’t asked her to go with him, or even asked her if she was going!

    She brushed out the thick, wavy, chin-length auburn hair until it shone. That was that: she didn’t own any earrings or make-up. But, decided Beth grimly, shrugging herself into her grungy old greenish parka, she was going to spend some of her very next fortnight’s salary on some make-up! And practise with it at home until she got it right.

    Several people had offered her lifts—though not Jack Perkins—but she had refused them all on the excuse of not being sure she was going. It wasn’t raining so she didn’t pop along and ask Dorothy for a lift; she just set out on foot, in plenty of time. When she got there the first thing she saw—well, literally the first was Penny Bergen sitting at a little desk by the door, in a droopy green Laura Ashley floral frock decorated with narrow strips of écru lace that even Beth could see didn’t help it. But after Penny had firmly sold her tickets for the tombola (Beth didn’t know what that was) and for the hot supper (Beth had thought that was included in the price of the ticket she’d already bought, but paid up meekly)—after that, practically the first thing she saw was the two Takagaki girls looking like the pretty, dainty dolls they were. No-one could hope to compete with that. So perhaps it was just as well her meagre wardrobe had prevented her from even trying.

    This reflection did not make Beth feel better. She looked round. Sandra and Colleen weren’t wearing anything much different from what they did at work. Mind you, Colleen was so pretty it didn’t matter what she wore. Well, perhaps she didn't have many clothes. Beth went and joined them.

    After a while Colleen noted in an amused voice: “We thought Jack Perkins might give you a lift. After all, he does live next-door to you.”

    Beth reddened. “No.”

    Colleen eyed her drily. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t have him if they were giving him away with a bar of soap. He’s all yours.”

    “Don’t be silly,” said Beth in a tiny voice, turning crimson.

    “He’s okay,” said Sandra faintly.

    Colleen shrugged. “He’s incredibly Americanised, ya mean. –Did you bring a plate?”

    Beth shook her head. “I can’t cook. Um—well, I could have bought something, but, um…”

    Colleen’s eyes were on the door. “It wouldn’t have been cost-effective,” she said pointedly, as Sammi Wolfe came in, smiling brightly, with the Gautiers, Armand also smiling brightly and Simone looking depressed.

    Sandra broke down in sniggers.

    Beth gulped, and grinned sheepishly. “No, it wouldn’t.”

    “That’s her version of dressed-down for Carter’s Bay,” noted Colleen airily. Sammi was in a tight black skirt, which showed off her neat, well-muscled calves, and a black and white horizontally striped cotton-knit top, jazzed up with a bright red scarf at the neck.

    Beth and Sandra collapsed in guilty splutters.

    “Is that Armand’s wife?” added Colleen.

    “Yes; haven’t you met her?” said Sandra.

    “No. She doesn’t look exactly a box of birds, does she? He’ll have put the hard word on her to turn up.”

    “I’d think so,” agreed Beth. “I hardly know her, myself, but I think she’s very nice. Well, her kids were looking in Sol’s one day after school, this was before I started the job, and we sort of got chatting, and then we all had a cup of coffee with Sol and Jimmy. Oh, and Sol’s partner, Euan Knox, from the boatyard. Have you met him, Colleen? He’s very handsome.”

    Colleen shrugged. “No.”

    “Look, that’s him, over there,” said Sandra.

    “Never mind him. Let’s go and grab those chairs and talk about work!” said Colleen with a laugh. “Have you managed to get it into Thomas’s thick skull that if he wants books he’s going to have to pay someone to order them, preferably me?”

    Beth replied temperately: “He’s coming round to it, I think;” and the three of them retired to a row of chairs by the wall, to talk about work and wait for the supper.

    Euan hadn’t particularly wanted to come to the hop, but he was aware that he’d cop more flak if he didn’t than if he did. Added to which he wasn’t one to wear his heart on his sleeve: he was by now more than aware that he was very much in love with Simone, but he didn’t particularly fancy Carter’s Bay’s dissecting it over the breakfast cornflakes. Not to mention over May Swadling’s bloody counter. So when Sol said: “If you don’t want to come, you could always sit Grace for us,” he replied amiably: “I do want to come. Why don’t you take pity on Michaela and let her baby-sit?”

    Sol replied equally amiably: “I gotta socialise her to some extent, guy, or go crazy. I’ve told her it’ll be the only one, though, until Kev Goode’s vast commercial empire lays on its usual Christmas party.”

    “Hah, hah,” said Euan obligingly.

    They eyed each other with a certain wariness.

    Finally Euan said with a sigh: “I don’t bloody want to come: is that what ya wanna hear?”

    “No.”

    Euan hadn’t thought it was, actually. He sighed. “No. But if I don’t come, guess what rumour’ll go round?”

    So Euan had come: in fact he came with the Winkelmanns and Jane Vincent. When they got there the first thing they saw was Akiko and Mitsuko Takagaki looking like the cutest little dolls you ever laid eyes on, but did he even give them a second glance? Sol swallowed a sigh, but said nothing. The second thing they saw, natch, was Armand Gautier and Sammi Wolfe chatting nicely to a desperate-looking Barry Goode while a desperate-looking Simone just stood there lookin’ desperate, but that was pretty much what ya might have expected, and although anyone who knew him really well might have discerned that Euan’s pleasant mouth tightened fractionally, Sol didn’t guess that any but maybe a hundred, hundred fifty, say, of those present had spotted it.

    Jane immediately wandered off to say hullo to Adrian, and it was just as well that, speculations about Euan and Simone notwithstanding, the joint minds of Carter’s Bay were as close to pure as the driven snow as you could get whilst still bein’ capable of perpetuatin’ your kind, or that friendship would have had the grapevine a-buzzin’.

    Sol considerately led Euan and Michaela over to Mrs Adler and Janet and let ’em sit down and talk about raising ducks versus hens.

    “What a pity Mayli couldn’t come,” said Yvonne, after the usual compliments had been exchanged, Dorothy’s outfit had been admired, Yvonne’s frock had been admired, and Mr Fitzpatrick had been introduced and had escaped to an obscure corner which was filling with male wankers—quite slowly, given that this was an EnZed social.

    “Mm. Did she want to?” said Dorothy a trifle drily.

    Apparently the dryness passed Yvonne by, which on second thoughts was just as well. She explained earnestly that Mayli had wanted to, but she lived with an invalid mother, and it would have meant coming all the way from Mt. Albert.

    Dorothy hadn't known that Mayli Coffi had an invalid mother or that she lived in Mt. Albert. Good grief, even though it was motorway practically all the way now—depending on how close your bit of Mt. Albert was to St Luke’s—it must take her two hours to get to work. Which made four hours a day travelling time. She expressed this thought, not expressing the further thought that Yvonne must have worked a bloody miracle to get that much out of Mayli. Yvonne agreed that it was far too far to travel, and after a certain confusion in re St Luke’s had been sorted out, and Dorothy had mentally reminded herself that people who had grown up in Puriri County wouldn’t necessarily know that it was a shopping centre, not a church, even though it did tend to feature gigantic ads occupying entire sections of the Star—after this, then, Dorothy ventured: “I never knew she had an invalid mother, poor girl.”

    “No, well, she doesn’t talk about herself,” said Yvonne on a complacent note.

    She didn’t talk, period, as far as Dorothy could see. Well—presumably Yvonne’s motherly approach had succeeded where her attempts at matiness had failed.

    Yvonne then explained earnestly that of course Mayli could have stayed the night with her, if hadn’t been for the invalid mother. At about this point it time it occurred to Dorothy to wonder if the invalid mother was a total fabrication, designed to get the girl out of socialising with Yvonne, the rest of the Sir G.G. office staff, and the entire population of Carter’s Bay. She fought this unworthy suspicion down, however, and, as the cold supper was set out ready, though still swathed in Glad-wrap at this stage, turned the conversation to the always engrossing topic of food. Yvonne couldn’t believe that Adrian had made those lovely little tongue thingies over there: he was only a boy! Dorothy didn’t point out that he was at least in his mid-twenties and had been apprenticed to the best cook in the southern hemisphere at eighteen. Let alone mention the year studying la cuisine in France. She just smiled and agreed. And asked Yvonne what her plate was. Yvonne had only brought some asparagus rolls, dear; well, they were easy, but people liked them. Dorothy nodded and did not ask how the Hell she had managed to fit in the fabrication of four dozen asparagus rolls on fancy paper doilies between a full-time job that Dorothy with her own eyes had seen her leaving at her appointed hour of five-thirty and the preparation of a huge hot dinner for a useless lump of a husband and three huge, useless lumps of teenagers (only one of whom nominally still lived at home), in time for a do that started at seven o’clock.

    Jack had sustained the brush-off from Colleen Fairlie reasonably well. The girl was very pretty but there was no spark. He was beginning to think, actually, that it wasn’t just him. Maybe Dot was right and the disastrous marriage had simply put her off men for a while—but maybe not, either. When Beth arrived he chewed his lip for a while. He was Goddamned sure she'd been avoiding him lately, even though he had been a bit busy with settling Rab and Shiva into their house. But whenever he chanced to bump into her outside their block she bolted for her apartment like a rabbit for its burrow. Jack was entirely unused to this sort of behaviour in young women whom he fancied and it had never occurred to him that Beth was shy of him, and very uncertain about her feelings for him. He had asked her to the movies in town once but she’d said she had a lot of stuff to read for work and couldn’t possibly manage it. Then he’d gotten swamped with the Rab and Shiva stuff and by the time he’d raised his head from that she was doing her rabbit-hole thing. Jack looked at Beth’s figure in its pink top and at her magnificent hair gleaming under the lights. Then he went over and asked her to dance.

    Beth reddened. “Um—no, thanks. I can’t do these old-time dances.”

    It was only a two-step and Jack pointed this out on an irritable note. Adding: “We can just stand up and shuffle to it.”

    Beth was still very red. “No, um, I can’t even do that.”

    “Go on, Beth!” said Colleen with a smothered giggle. “A real American two-step with a real American! –Oh, no, sorry, you’re only naturalised, aren’t you?” she said airily.

    Jack gave her a look of dislike. Bitch. No wonder the husband had left her. “What about you, Sandra?” he said nicely.

    Sandra protested feebly, but did let him drag her onto the floor. She could do the two-step, in fact she was quite a good dancer; nevertheless it was about the most unexciting experience of Jack’s adult life. He dumped her back on the Fairlie bitch—there was now no sign of Beth—and escaped to where Tim Bergen was nominally in charge of what nominally purported to be a bar. No liquor licence. Great.

    “If we’da thought of it, we coulda had a keg out the back,” said Tim mournfully.

    “Yeah, right: ‘on the back of a truck,’” snarled Jack in the vernacular of his childhood.

    “Jack Swadling reckoned you would of forgotten that manifestation of popular culture,” said Tim mournfully.

    “If that phrase ever passed his lips, I’ll drink that bloody fluorescent orange muck!”

    “Nah, he said he reckoned you would of forgotten; and I re-phrased it for ya,” said Tim mournfully.

    “Hah, hah,” replied Jack weakly.

    “Some people have brought bottles,” noted Tim neutrally.

    “Yeah, only I’m not one of them.”

    “No. Um… Do ya know Jim Dymock?”

    “No.”

    “Oh. Um… Gerry Fermour?”

    “Uh—he in The Mikado, Tim?”

    “Yeah. That’s him over there. He’s got some beer—it’s under the table,” he elaborated kindly. “Only look out, Jenny won’t let the pair of you get away with getting actually drunk.”

    “Is this is a common trait amongst Kiwi matrons, that in the intervening years I’ve forgotten?”

    “It is amongst the ones of my generation, anyway,” said Tim gloomily.

    Jack bit his lip: poor guy, he guessed it was, at that.

    “That Baranski bloke, he reckoned he was gonna nip out and get a bottle of rum. Only he said something about Yo, ho, ho, so I dunno if he meant it.”

    Jack looked cautiously over at Thomas’s table. He was attempting to pour something into Leigh Gore’s glass of orange juice and Leigh, laughing, was trying to stop him. “That looks promising! Thanks, Tim! Uh, shall I bring you back a nice glass of orange juice?” he said pointedly.

    Tim’s eyes lit up: he nodded fervently. “Ta!”

    Jack wandered off to Baranski’s table, grinning.

    “You could dance with Avon,” said Kevin cautiously.

    Barry sighed. “There are other blokes here, Kev. Half my age, and not her brother. What’s wrong with them?”

    “She thinks Nev Thorogood’s an up-himself capitalist prick.”

    “Not him, then,” noted Barry drily.

    “Yeah. Um—Martin and Sim are too young for her.”

    “Not in years, possibly, but I take your point,” said Barry coldly.

    Kevin smiled weakly.

    “Well, crikey, there must be someone, Kev! What about Rab Perkins?”

    “I think she does quite like him. Though mind you, I heard her telling young Wallis he was soft.”

    “He’s that, all right.”

    “Mm. Well, she has been dancing with him, but she reckons that kilt makes him look like a nong.”

    “She’s not wrong, there,” Barry agreed drily.

    “No. Well, I think she’s a bit fed up with dancing with a nong in a kilt, Barry.”

    “And dancing with her elderly brother would make it better, would it?”

    “Or, alternatively, you could sit here on the sidelines like the death’s-head at the feast!” said Kevin, getting heated though he’d sworn to himself he wouldn’t.

    “Yeah, all right,” said Barry with a groan. “The place is swarming with cute little Japanese dolls,” he noted, as Mitsuko whirled past in the grip of—Christ, Gerry Fermour? Jenny’d love that.—“Why didn’t someone tell them to bring their brothers out for Avon?” He went off, not remembering until too late about poor old Kev’s crush on Akiko.

    Kevin had gone very red, though he didn’t really think Barry had been getting at him. He sat down slowly, trying not to look at Akiko chatting merrily with Sol Winkelmann and Bob and Ida Grey. And trying not to think about that story that Sol and Akiko had once been mixed up together, before he got engaged to Michaela.

    Leigh reeled back to his table after a strenuous tango with Juliette, gasping. “Whew! Fun!”

    Thomas gave him a jaundiced look.

    “Come on, Thomas! Surely you didn’t think there’d be actual bird here, did you?”

    Thomas gave him another jaundiced look.

    Laughing, Leigh sat down and mopped his forehead. “Mm-mm! Cold supper in a minute!”

    Thomas began wrathfully: “Cold? That Bergen woman made me pay—”

    “Yes, yes, the hot supper’s later,” said Leigh soothingly. “Me spies tell me they pinched the idea from the Puriri & District Lawn Tennis Club Annual Dance & Social, those ‘ands’ being ampersands, by the by.”

    “Very amusing.”

    “For God’s sake, man! Look, go and dance with poor old Yvonne, she’s dying to trip the light fantastic with you. Or even the shimmy,” he said feebly as the music started up again with something very like it and five hundred OAPs shimmied onto the floor.

    Thomas swallowed. “What in God’s name—”

    “Well, it’s either the shimmy or the Charleston,” admitted Leigh feebly.

    Their eyes met. They both broke down in helpless laughter.

    “That’s better,” said Leigh when they were at the nose-blowing stage.

    “Yes, well, I didn’t really expect there’d be bird, but I thought I’d have one more go at trying to get Colleen to notice me as a male, rather than as an impediment to her ordering the entire dendrological catalogue.”

    “I gather the poor girl’s been going through a pretty bad patch,” he said cautiously.

    “Yes.” Thomas shrugged. “Added to which, I don’t think she's interested in men.”

    Leigh ignored that. “Go on, go and dance with Yvonne. She’s been trying to work up the guts to ask you all evening.”

    Thomas looked over at Yvonne. She immediately smiled and waved frantically, giggling.

    “See? She only has to look at you and she—”

    “I’ll go and dance with her, but only in order to get away from you. And if there really is going to be a cold supper in a few minutes, don’t dare to get anything that even looks like a cold curried egg sandwich for me, thanks all the same.”

    He went off before Leigh could tell him he had no intention of getting him anything to eat at all: he was a big boy, now.

    Leigh poured a slug of Thomas’s rum into his fluorescent orangeade, grinning. Whew! Getting the bugger started, was the problem: he’d probably be all right now. Well, all right in that he’d dance with everything in the room over thirty-five that wasn’t Dorothy Perkins. Leigh swallowed a sigh. There was no point in brooding over it; but he’d get them together in the end, or his name wasn’t Leigh Gore! Well, she was too good for bloody Thomas, of course, but then what woman wasn’t?

    “Come on: dance,” said Adrian, grinning, as the lengths of once-clean newsprint vanished from the trestle tables, the steam above the tea-urns cleared, and the music, though possibly that wasn’t the name for it, struck up again.

    “What, me?” gasped Dorothy, a hand pressed to her flattish bosom.

    “Yeah. If ya can do the schottische, that is?”

    “’Talkin’ ’bout my gen-eray-shun,’” replied Dorothy drily, getting up.

    They danced. Mel Gibson was a wonderful dancer, but Dorothy already knew that: she’d been privileged to be pressed to the manly form at the odd Puriri & District Lawn Tennis Club Dance & Social. They forced ’em to learn, at Grammar. Good for Grammar.

    “Who the Hell is that bloke spinning the platters?” she said limply to him when it was, unfortunately, over.

    “Eh? Oh, the DJ! That’s Norm Parkinson from the Point, Dorothy,” said Adrian kindly.

    “The accountant? That owns that giant cream monstrosity in Seaview Cres.?” she gasped.

    “Yeah.”

    “What’s he doing here?” she gasped.

    “Spinning the platters,” said Adrian placidly. “They’re his. He’s got a great collection: known for it, in Carter’s Bay, Norm is. Him and Davina, that’s his wife, used to be ballroom dancing champions. –That’s her, over there, talking to Wallis,” he explained.

    Dorothy gaped: Mrs Parkinson weighed in, at a conservative estimate, at around sixteen stone—not all of it the hugely-shouldered, draped and frilled floral silk creation, either. Or the giant mohair stole: it was thirty years since Dorothy had seen one of those; in fact thirty years back, she’d owned one: a nice bright turquoise. Mrs Parkinson’s was a nice bright lime green.

    “Mum’s got a stole like that,” said Adrian dreamily. “Apricot, though.”

    “And?” replied Dorothy grimly. Adrian’s family was very up-market indeed, and lived in a, Q.E.D., Grammar Zone suburb.

    “She keeps it on the window-seat in the family room; ole Snaggle-Tooth likes to sleep on it—he’s the great-grandfather.”

    Mrs Revill bred black Persians: fearsome creatures, with huge yellow eyes. Dorothy replied grimly: “Got it, thanks, there’s no need to elaborate.”

    Smiling, Adrian explained: “Norm’s a very gregarious creature. And they both love dancing. I don’t think it would ever occur to him that it might be the wrong political move to turn up at an Environmental Watch Committee hop. Besides, his firm’s solid as a rock. He doesn’t need the Sir G.G. business.”

    “That’s just as well, because if Kincaid gets to hear of it, he may lose it,” croaked Dorothy.

    “Oh? Is that the pot calling the kettle black?”

    “What I do in my own time is my business.”

    “Yeah?”

    “No, well, I can always tell him I came as a spy.”

    “You and some others,” noted Adrian, eyeing Sammi Wolfe chatting graciously to a squirming Dan and Alison McIntosh.

    “Mm. Who are those unfortunates she’s fixed with her long grey beard and glitt’ring eye?”

    “Two of three. –No, sorry!” he said with a laugh. “Dan and Alison McIntosh. He works for Wrightson’s and yes, he will be managing the new branch when they re-open.”

    “Uh-huh. So they live in Carter’s Bay, do they?”

    “No. Down in Brown’s Bay. Alison’s currently kicking up like Hell over moving up here. Evidently Dan’s convinced it’ll do him good, PR-wise, to move.”

    “They’ll be talking real estate,” concluded Dorothy with a sigh. “I won’t go over there, then.”

    “Hell, no!” said Adrian in horror. “Come on over in our corner. We’ve got a bottle.”

    “Yes, but has it got anything drinkable in it?” she asked, weakly allowing herself to be led off.

    “Yes. I got it off Sol Winkelmann. Ignore the label.”

    “I will,” said Dorothy, as they came up to the table and she perceived the bottle was a large brown one with the remains of a DB beer label adhering to it.

    “Camouflage,” explained Adrian briskly. “Sit.”

    “Yes, but camouflage for what?” said Dorothy nervously, not sitting.

    “Hullo, Dorothy!” said Beth with a laugh. “Camouflage for that perry Sol and Michaela brought to—”

    Dorothy was sitting. Never mind that apart from Jane Vincent, they were all half her age. Or a lot less than half, in the cases of Martin and Sim. And presumably Wallis, if she was officially with them rather than glued to the massive Mrs Parkinson’s— “Oh. Got it,” she said limply. “Mrs Parkinson sings, doesn’t she?”

    “Who, Davina? Yeah, too right: mainstay of the contraltos,” said Adrian cheerfully.

    “Of course.” Dorothy looked round the crowded, bunting-festooned bus barn. After a moment she said limply: “Is this an Environmental Watch Committee do or a G&S Society meeting?”

    “We’ve decided there’s no difference, Dorothy,” explained Jane kindly, pouring her a large one.

    “Ta.” Dorothy downed half of it, shuddering.

    “What’s up?” said Adrian with a grin.

    “Yes—or is it just the perry?” said Jane.

    “No, the perry’s helping, Jane.” They were all looking at her kindly so Dorothy sighed and admitted: “I am exhausted—egg-zor-stead,” she explained clearly, “from having tribes of unknown relatives sprung on me.”

    “Haven’t they moved to Station Road?” said Beth kindly.

    “They have. Shiva can’t cook. She keeps ringing me up at work,” she said grimly.

    “Impossible. They don’t put phones into places people have just moved into. Not connected ones,” drawled Adrian.

    “She goes down the road and uses Barry Goode’s, you cretin!” she snarled.

    “God. Have another perry, Dorothy,” he said quickly.

    “Sorry, Adrian,” said Dorothy with a sigh. “It’s dreadful: the girl is completely clueless.”

    “Mm.” Adrian’s perfect clear eyes wandered thoughtfully over Shiva’s scrawny form, sitting at a table with her brother, Avon, and Kevin at the far side of the bus barn. “Has it occurred to you there might be something wrong with her?”

    “What—besides total incompetence and general incapacity?” she groaned.

    “Mm.”

    “She is very thin,” said the plump Anna on an anxious note.

    “Yeah,” agreed Martin hoarsely, blushing.

    “Uh—oh.” Dorothy sat up and stared hard at her niece. “No, it hadn’t, actually. Well, she is pretty much a type… Hell, you could be right.”

    “Not anorexia or bulimia as such, we don’t think,” said Sim hoarsely, blushing.

    “We wondered if she might have picked up something in India,” murmured Anna.

    Dorothy looked at Shiva, frowning. “It’s all been a shock to her system, you know. She had no idea what New Zealand would be like and as far as I can gather, she’s had almost no education, so her general knowledge is practically nil. She’s—well—got no intellectual resources upon which to draw, to help her with the culture shock.”

    “Yes. We don’t think it’s just culture shock,” said Adrian.

    Dorothy sighed. “All right. I’ll drag her off to the doc next week.”

    “Mm: Bruce Smith,” he said, smiling at her.

    “Yes. If anyone can get that sulky little piece to communicate, it’ll be Bruce.”

    “Yeah. After that you might get her to take the kid to him.”

    “What do you imagine is wrong with him?” said Dorothy wildly.

    “We don’t think anything is, specifically.”

    “No,” agreed Anna with an anxious smile. “We just thought— Well, a check-up can’t do any harm.”

    “No, you’re right, of course. Put it like this,” said Dorothy, her narrow jaw hardening as she looked at her niece, now sitting in a drooping heap while Avon danced with Nev Thorogood from Buttercup Meadows, Kevin let Penny Bergen steer him competently round the floor, and Rab whirled round with Akiko: “if it turns out that Shiva’s got something fatal, we’ll award Murray to you and Anna, Adrian.”

    Adrian replied insouciantly: “Ta. We’d love to have him.”

    “He is a dear little boy!” said Anna with an embarrassed laugh.

    Giving them both a warning look, Jane considerately re-filled Dorothy’s paper cup.

    “Well?” said Leigh with a twinkle in his eye, on Thomas’s return after an eightsome reel with little Mitsuko Takagaki.

    “That was a strange experience,” he admitted.

    “Yeah. Global village. Not that.”

    Jack Perkins had installed himself at their table; whether it was male solidarity as such or the hope that his sister wouldn’t come and foist unlikely partners on him, Leigh wouldn’t have liked to bet. Bit of both, possibly. He agreed: “Yeah. What we want to know is, she did she fall for you like a ton of bricks?”

    “Or like her sister didn’t,” explained Leigh.

    “Yuh. That,” agreed Jack, pouring the very last dregs from Thomas’s bottle into his ginger ale.

    “No. Think she thinks I’m a bloody granddad. Well, I am,” Thomas admitted glumly. “Twice. Badly behaved Yank brats.”

    Jack sniggered.

    Thomas was feeling in his pockets. “Where the— Ah!” He produced his tombola tickets.

    “Is that next?” said Leigh feebly.

    “Yes, that’s why the superannuated DJ is playing Danny Boy to a rhythm that not even this lot could dance to. –Here we go,” he said, as Barry and Kevin Goode wheeled out a huge thing shrouded in a sheet.

    “Is that a tombola?” asked Leigh weakly.

    “Don’t ask me.”

    “Almost certainly not. It’s usual at these socials, though,” admitted Jack as a giant multicoloured disk divided into many numbered segments was unveiled. “Or it was, thirty years back. They spin it. Don’t ask me how it works; and if the number of subdivisions on it bears no relation to the numbers on your tickets, I’m not responsible.”

    “Why in God’s name did you buy all those tickets, Thomas?” asked Leigh feebly.

    “My lady admirers begged me to. How could I refuse?”

    “By telling ’em you’d run out of change,” said Jack brutally.

    “Ssh!” hissed Thomas as, to the accompaniment of an ear-shattering groan from the mike which was perfectly unnecessary but which appeared to be usual at these occasions, the wheel was spun. “A frozen chicken?” he croaked, as Juliette Macbeth’s husband, grinning sheepishly, shambled up to receive it.

    Jack scratched his head. “Far’s I recall, that’s traditional.”

    “It can’t be very traditional. How long have they been deep-freezing chickens?” retorted Thomas brilliantly.

    “Refrigeration began in the last century, don’t youse lot learn nothing at your Pommy schools?” replied Jack, looking sadly at his ticket.

    “That’s beside the point. When did they start deep-freezing chickens?” repeated Thomas sternly.

    “Uh—’bout 1965, far’s I recall, Thomas,” said Jack airily.

    Thomas and Leigh both collapsed in helpless splutters.

    The wheel then being spun a second time, Thomas hurriedly attempted to pull himself together and sort out his tickets. “I’ve won!” he shouted. He bounded up to the wheel. At the same time, someone else was claiming they’d won. After a considerable amount of confusion, those in charge managed to make Thomas understand that the ticket he’d thought had won was for the fourth raffle—see, the fourth raffle! The frozen chicken was awarded to a blushing lady in an elaborately draped yellow satin dress. Thomas’s table perceived he was following her back to her seat. Help; surely he didn’t intend to argue the point?

    “How drunk is he?” muttered Jack frantically.

    “Uh—I didn’t think, that drunk. Actually, I didn’t think as drunk as me. Actually I’m wondering how the Hell I’m going to get home tonight,” admitted Leigh.

    “Sleep at my shack.”

    “Thanks, Jack.”

    Thomas was then observed to be returning with the blushing yellow-satin-frocked woman and a sheepish-looking male attachment in tow. Babs and Lame Higgins. Lame was a plumber, he was a mate of Sol’s, wasn’t that right? Lame agreed. They were going to explain things, Thomas revealed.

    “It’s easy, really!” gasped Babs, giggling, and shaking her giant, jangling earrings terrifically.

    “Yeah, only ya gotta understand,” said Mr Higgins seriously, “that the official printed tickets, they got the number of the raffle on—ya see?”—They conceded they saw.—“Only they ran out of those, so they whipped up few more.”

    “Yes?” they said cautiously.

    Mr Huggins explained, poker-face, that the Bergen kids had got in on the act and the little one couldn’t write numbers, so the ones colour-coded in green felt-tip were all for raffle number five.

    “One of mine’s colour-coded in blue felt-tip, though,” noted Thomas. “Is this significant, or is one of the Bergen kids colour-blind?”

    Babs Higgins obligingly collapsed in giggles and Mr Higgins obligingly unveiled the paper bag he was carrying. Only beer, but Leigh and Jack fell upon it gratefully. Not to say thankfully: it wasn’t every husband that could stolidly produce a bottle of beer after his wife had just collapsed in giggles over one of bloody Thomas’s considerably less witty sallies.

    “Eating out of his hand,” concluded Dorothy grimly.

    Blushing, Janet agreed: “Yes.”

    Dorothy swallowed a sigh. “Oh, well. Come on, let’s buy some more raffle tickets.” Suiting the action to the word, she got up and collared Penny Bergen, who was waving a great swatch of them around hopefully, while Norm spun a platter of— Dorothy wasn’t absolutely sure but she thought it was the Tijuana Brass. Possibly Whatsisname and the Tijuana Brass. Positively modern. She returned to Janet’s side and forced tickets on her, Mrs Adler, and Akiko and Mitsuko, who were now also sitting with Mrs Adler. Possibly it was the done thing, to sit with your elderly landlady, at socials in Japan? Or possibly they merely found all the males on offer this evening boring, parochial and inane, not necessarily in that order?

    “You ah-win!” squealed Akiko, grabbing her sister’s arm fiercely.

    “I hope you fancy cooking chicken for tea tomorrow,” noted Dorothy to Mrs Adler.

    “Not this one, dear. I think it’s a bottle of something.”

    Ooh, so it was! It was shaped like a bottle of champagne. It had a great big gold label on it like a bottle of champagne, and a great big cork like a bottle of champagne, and a great big bow round its champagne-bottle shoulders— It was a ruddy bottle of bubble-bath. Dorothy reflected she should have known that the entrepreneurial Penny Bergen would never chuck good fund-raising funds away on champagne.

    Janet was explaining earnestly to Mitsuko it was bubble-bath. Did they have that in Japan? Mitsuko and Akiko were trying to explain Japanese bathing customs to Janet, help… Janet had seen that series, maybe they hadn’t had it in Japan, it had had Richard Chamberlain in it with a beard, Janet hadn’t thought it suited…

    There was, of course, no way in which Dorothy could forcibly prise Janet away from the two girls and old Mrs Adler and drag her over and lay her at Leigh’s feet, because the silly man was sitting with bloody Baranski; and if she, Dorothy, went over there, never mind if Leigh was a colleague and Jack was her own brother, and never mind if she had Janet in tow, the whole of Carter’s Bay would instantly assume she had done so in pursuit of Thomas. And without any doubt whatsoever, so would he. Hell. In fact, Hell and damnation.

    Barry had nobly danced with Avon. She hadn’t seemed particularly grateful. He’d kindly asked Shiva Perkins but she hadn’t wanted to. After that he’d managed to slide out and help with getting the tea urns ready, and then help with bringing them in and putting out the cold supper. Then he’d just skulked for a bit. Then he’d helped Kev with the raffles. Unfortunately he couldn’t just give the whole thing away and clear off home, he’d promised yonks ago to help Kev clear up the bus barn afterwards. Added to which presumably someone would have to drive Avon home. Bugger.

    After the raffles he’d managed to spend some time in putting the wheel away and tidying up the corner where he put it. Then he sort of skulked for a bit. Several fierce matrons now had the hot supper fiercely under control, they didn’t need his help, though Ada Corcoran told him kindly that he could help with the tea urns in a bit, dear, she’d call him when she needed him. Barry mooched off and found an old chair that was unoccupied by a human bum, possibly because it was one of the ones that Kev used for standing paint pots and varnish pots on, and sat down thankfully on it.

    After a bit Jane Vincent came up and said neutrally: “Hullo.”

    “Hullo,” replied Barry warily. They had exchanged greetings, earlier.

    “If you’re skulking in this corner, can I join you?”

    “Uh—yeah,” said Barry, blinking a bit and grinning sheepishly. “There’s another chair there, if ya don’t mind a few lumps. They’re dry.”

    Jane pulled it up and sat on it with a sigh.

    “Had enough, have ya?” said Barry kindly.

    “Yes. It’s not the lateness of the hour, so much as the inanity and repetitiveness of the social interchanges.”

    “Uh—yeah!” he agreed with a startled laugh.

    Jane stared dreamily in front of her for some time.

    Eventually Barry said: “Your boss seems to be enjoying herself okay.”

    “Yes, Moana doesn’t notice inane repetitive social interchanges.”

    “Ya mean she thinks they’re normal. Like the rest of them.”

    “Mm.”

    “I was surprised to see Armand Gautier here,” admitted Barry.

    “Yes, I thought it’d be beneath him,” agreed Jane placidly. “I think Sammi Wolfe put the hard word on him. Good PR.”

    “Half of them probably would agree with her. The other half think they’re both spying for Sir G.G.”

    Jane nodded mildly. They stared placidly in front of them for some time.

    “That’s a reel,” noted Barry. “You wanna dance a reel?”

    “‘Reeling and writhing and fainting in coils,’” replied Jane dreamily. “Not much, thanks all the same. Don’t let me stop you, though, Barry.”

    “There’s no-one here I want to dance with.”

    “Mm. Um—well, you might take pity on little Janet Wilson,” said Jane noncommittally.

    “I already did. That was a pretty inane interchange. I could go and repeat it, if you insist.”

    “I don’t insist,” said Jane mildly.

    “Good.”

    They sat there gazing placidly before them.

    Sol hadn’t let Michaela retreat to a corner, but he hadn’t been so stupid as to force her to exchange social nothings, either. He’d let her sit quietly with Euan and Mrs Adler talking poultry for a bit, then he’d removed her firmly. He’d talked to quite a few people, holding tightly to her elbow, and then left her for a while in the safe company of middle-aged Ida Grey from the crafts boutique and her very pleasant husband, Bob, both of whom Michaela knew well and liked. She wasn’t much of a dancer, though she had been forced to learn at school: he’d come back after a while and danced a reel with her. Then he’d tried to teach her to tango but had given up rather fast and finished it with Ida, while Bob and Michaela watched admiringly. Then he’d sat with them for a bit and chatted, before spotting Beth over at Adrian’s table and taking her over there. Most of them were younger than Michaela but she knew and liked them, and none of them would be silly enough to force her to talk. Michaela appeared perfectly happy, so Sol went off and socialised for some time, returning to her side when the cold supper was put out. And making sure she didn’t hang back and let everybody else grab. Well, she did, of course, she didn’t like scrimmages, not even for food—and Sol was very interested to see that Anna and Beth were both the same. He and Adrian went and scrimmaged capably on their behalves. Sol would have forced Martin and Sim to do likewise, only he could see that Adrian had that well in hand. Well in hand. The boys deposited relays of food in front of Beth, Michaela, Anna and Wallis apparently indiscriminately. Ignoring Wallis’s protests that she was perfectly capable of getting her own nosh. She wasn’t: she was hanging back with the other three, noted Sol in some amusement. After the cold supper he’d left Michaela there, digesting, while he socialised some more.

    “Hot supper soon, hon’,” he noted, rotating back to her side.

    “Good,” said Michaela simply.

    “Meanwhile, you wanna dance this last reel with me?”

    “Just because I’ve got Scotch blood, doesn’t mean I’m any good at it,” replied Michaela seriously.

    Adrian got up. “Come on, let’s all dance it! Come on, Martin, you can dance it with Beth.”

    “I can’t, really,” said Martin awkwardly, flushing.

    “Never mind, nor can I!” replied Beth with a laugh, getting up.

    “We did learn at school,” said Sim uncertainly.

    “Good, then you can show Wallis how,” said Adrian unemotionally.

    “Yeah, go on, Wallis, might as well be hanged for sheep as a lamb,” agreed Sol.

    This seemed to go down rather well: she laughed gruffly and got up, saying: “Oh, all right.”

    “Come on, Anna,” said Adrian, leading her inexorably onto the floor.

    “In his way,” said Sol thoughtfully in his wife’s ear as the dance ended, everyone of course very flushed and laughing, “Adrian’s a real little Napoleon. Master of tactics, huh?”

    “He’s a manipulator, you mean,” she replied calmly.

    “Uh—yeah.”

    “Jane went away,” said Michaela.

    Sol had noticed that, yeah. “She was over in that dark corner, with Barry Goode, hiding.”

    “Yes.”

    He looked at her anxiously. “Had enough? I’m sure Jane wouldn’t mind if we collected her and went home.”

    “No, I’d like some hot supper,” said Michaela placidly.

    Sol’s knees went all funny. Gee, if it wasn’t a twenty-mile drive he’d go right on in to Temple tomorrow and thank the Almighty. “Yeah. Who ya wanna sit with, honey?”

    Michaela looked round slowly. Sol watched her somewhat nervously. Ida and Bob Grey, both pretty gregarious people, had joined up with a crowd of mostly retirees of around their own ages, all chattering nineteen to the dozen. There was no sign of May Swadling—oh, she’d be out in back, with the hot supper. Eventually she said: “Can we go back and sit with Mrs Adler again? She knows lots about ducks. I’m sure our soil’s too salty. And what if I dig a pond and the salt water from the Inlet seeps into it?”

    “Lead on, MacWinkelmann,” he said mildly.

    Looking pleased, Michaela led on.

    “What is this?” said Thomas plaintively, coming up to Dorothy’s side uninvited.

    “A hot supper dish,” she replied repressively.

    Thomas peered at it. It was sort of reddish. With squashy-looking things in it. Sort of in gravy, or sauce. Not meat, probably.

    “It’s ninety to one a good home-cooked something or other, but by all means avoid it, Thomas,” she said politely.

    Scowling, Thomas took some.

    Dorothy emanated some “Shove off from just by my elbow, mate” thought-rays at him but they didn’t work. Though she was in no doubt they’d reached him.

    “Well, what’s this?” he said plaintively.

    “Poie,” replied Dorothy in the vernacular.

    “What sort of pie?” said Thomas limply.

    “Dunno.” Dorothy helped herself to a piece.

    Scowling, Thomas also took a piece.

    “Quiche,” she said briefly as his fork hovered uncertainly over the next dish.

    “I can see that. Uh—hang on, not flan?”

    “Youse can call them flans if youse like.”

    “Don’t youse mean, if youse loike?”

    Dorothy had to bite her lip. She moved on. Unfortunately, he followed. “What’s this?”

    “Thomas, I care not if all these viands are strange to your collegiate palate.”

    “Or even if they choke me.”

    “You said it, wee New Chum, not I.”

    Moodily Thomas spooned grey sludge onto his plate.

    “Hot mushroom sauce thing. Very popular at Antipodean socials.”

    “Shut up. And where did all that collegiate crap come from?”

    “I think it had something to do with your pretence that you find our food unfamiliar, Thomas.”

    “But I do!”

    “He does. Normally he eats mixed takeaways,” said Leigh from Dorothy’s other, or blessedly Baranski-less, side.

    “Eh?” she croaked.

    “He’s been coming on like the Frightful Foodie personified, has he? That’s his other hat,” Leigh explained. He kindly elaborated on this theme, even though he saw that Dorothy had immediately grasped his point. “He doesn’t know what normal food is,” he finished.

    “That’s very clear, thanks, Leigh. Have some curried chicken?”

    “Thank you.” Leigh allowed Dorothy to spoon khaki-coloured sauce with small bits of chicken in it onto his plate.

    “It’s soaking into your quiche,” warned Thomas.

    “Or flan,” noted Dorothy. Her plate was full: she walked off. Even though what she should have done, of course, was grab Leigh and drag him off, curried chicken and all, to lay him at Janet’s feet. God knew how she was gonna face Polly. Though it was perfectly true that she’d done all she could. Polly would never believe it for an instant, however.

    … “Come on: would one dance hurt?” said Thomas, some half an hour later, trying to smile.

    Dorothy put her hand on her stomach. “After all those flans? Yes, it would. Risky in the extreme. Thanks all the same.”

    “She’s just being silly,” explained Mrs Adler placidly before Thomas could open his mouth. “Off you go, Dorothy, dear.”

    In spite of the Mrs Adler-ese, the woman was by no means—by no means—unintelligent. Dorothy, therefore, refrained both from argument and from giving her a bitter look. She got up and allowed Thomas to drag her onto the floor.

    “That’s better,” he said, pulling her as close as was possible within the laws of physics.

    “Isn’t this supposed to be a polka?” said Dorothy limply.

    “No. Norm hasn’t got any polkas. At least, he has, he and Davina are very fond of them, but he thought they might be a bit too much for some of the older citizens, so he didn’t bring them.”

    “I see,” said Dorothy limply.

    After quite some time of merely pressing her to his manly form had passed, Thomas ventured: “Look, couldn’t we start again?”

    “There wasn’t anything to start, but apparently that didn’t sink in,” replied Dorothy in horribly neutral tones.

    “No. Look, I’m no good at platonic relationships!” he said crossly.

    “Have you ever had one?” she asked curiously. “With a woman, I mean.”

    Thomas thought about it. “No,” he said honestly. “They either love me or loathe me.”

    Dorothy had thought so. “Mm.”

    “And I reciprocate, don’t say it!”

    “I wouldn’t dare,” she said mildly.

    “Much!”

    They shuffled in silence for a bit.

    “Look, dammit, I’ll try!” he said crossly.

    “Oh, I wouldn’t want you to put any effort into it, Thomas.”

    “Don’t be like that,” he said glumly. “Um—would it help if I said I was bloody sorry about the bloody Mandy thing?”

    “The what? Oh! Was that her name? Not much, no. I can see you’re sorry but I can also see it’s a ‘sorry because the results didn’t turn out good’ sort of sorry. Not true penitence, I think is the phrase I’m looking for.”

    “Yes, you set yourself about as high as that!” he said bitterly.

    Dorothy didn’t reply.

    “Um—well, what if I said I’d try the platonic thing?”

    “That entails not coming on to me,” said Dorothy heavily.

    “I’m not!” he replied indignantly.

    “Well, something is,” said Dorothy at her driest.

    “That’s physiological,” replied Thomas on a smug note.

    They all had ’em, why in God’s name did they have to be so smug about the fact? Hormone-driven, yes. She sighed. “I’m sure. Is squashing me against it like that physiological, too?”

    “Uh—no.” He relaxed his grip a little.

    “Thank you,” said Dorothy grimly.

    “You liked it, really,” murmured Thomas with a little smile in his voice.

    Sometimes she overlooked how bloody charming he could be. When he wasn’t being bloody irritating, of course. She swallowed. “The point is, I have tried to tell you I don’t need that.”

    “You think you don’t,” he said with a sigh. “Um—well, all right. Can we try just being friends?”

    “I don’t think it’ll work, but I’ve never tried to be anything else.”

    “It’s up to me, you mean?” said Thomas sourly.

    “Yes.”

    “Very well, I’ve said I’ll try, what more do you want?”

    “If you really want to know, but I have a suspicion you don’t, it’s less, not more. –The absence of sulks,” explained Dorothy sweetly.

    “Yes, well, given that I’ve never felt so much like having a good sulk in my life— And it may not interest you to know it, but I never even knew what a sulk was, before I met you!”

    Never even knew what rejection was, more like. “Mm. Well, you could show your good intentions by doing a Good Deed, Thomas.”

    “What?” he said suspiciously.

    “Get Leigh, tactfully and unobtrusively, to dance with Janet.”

    “Who?”

    “Janet Wilson! I was sitting right next to her three minutes ago!”

    “It feels more like three agonising hours back. Uh—does she fancy him?”

    “Not specifically, as far as is known.”

    “Uh—well, if you just want her to dance, I could ask her myself,” he said foggily.

    “Boy, your side really do understand nothing at all about these matters, do ya?” discovered Dorothy in a kind of awe.

    “No, but that may possibly be our socialisation rather than our hormonal predisposition,” replied Thomas smartly.

    Dorothy laughed weakly. “Sometimes I forget you’re quite intelligent. –I meant nothing by it! Well, only that the vast majority aren’t. –Certain persons think that Leigh and Janet, if put forcibly together in the same cage for three years and fed on pheromones, might get it together. I’m not one of them, but I’m preserving an open mind on the subject.”

    “Well, I’ll try. Um—short of saying: ‘Leigh, why not dance with that pleasant-looking dark girl?’ I can’t see how to, though.”

    “That would probably work. Unless he’s falling-down drunk.”

    “He was pretty merry earlier, on my rum, and I’m not claiming he’s fit to be in charge of a vehicle, but anyone that ate that much hot supper and then danced the tango with old Mrs Corcoran is not falling-down drunk.”

    “That’s what I thought,” said Dorothy pleasedly. “Um—was it a tango?”

    “Yes. I grant you when Leigh does it, it’s more like a mango—mangled tango,” he explained unnecessarily, Dorothy was already choking. “But yes, it was.”

    “Not a rumba?”

    “No. You’re not much of a dancer, are you?”

    “No,” agreed Dorothy calmly.

    Thomas smiled, and surreptitiously pressed her against it again.

    Dorothy could feel he was doing it, but she let him. Well, no such thing as instant conversion. Wait and see. If he could manage best behaviour, then all right, she was willing to be mates. But nothing more, he’d have to accept that.

    Leigh danced nicely with Janet. It was a waltz: his waltzing wasn't expert but it was a lot better than his tango—make that mango. Thomas and Dorothy both watched breathlessly. So did Mrs Adler and Akiko, with whom they were now sitting.

    “He is-ah ver-ree nice man,” said Akiko into the breathless silence.

    “Uh—yeah,” croaked Dorothy.

    “Of course, he’s used to a different type,” noted Mrs Adler.

    Dorothy held her breath, but Thomas didn’t say anything. She didn’t think, even though the old lady was perfectly capable of accepting the fact, that Mrs A. would want to hear that Leigh’s wife had been a B,I,T,C,H.

    “More of an intellectual type. You know: a university type,” explained Mrs Adler.

    “Belinda did do a degree, but I don’t think she’s picked up a book since,” said Thomas, scratching his untidy curls.

    “That isn’t the point, Thomas,” said Mrs Adler firmly.

    “Janet’s done a degree, too. English lit., before you ask. And she’s always got her head in a book,” said Dorothy.

    “Yes, but-ah she—” Akiko broke off.

    “Go on, Akiko, there’s just us girls here,” said Thomas with a grin.

    Akiko gave the predictable giggle but did go on: “Janet reads ah-many books, but she does not app-uh-ly ver-ree much of-ah what-ah she reads, to her normuh rife.”

    “That’s quite right,” agreed Mrs Adler. “She was reading a funny book the other day—did she say it was African, Akiko?”

    Akiko nodded. “North-ah African-nuh, Mrs Aduh-ler.”

    “Yes, that’s right, dear. And she was telling us about one of the characters—well, of course they lead very different lives from us, over there, don’t they? It’s all drugs and stuff, isn’t it? But we said to her, anyone could see that a man like that was never going to be faithful to his nice little wife—didn’t we, Akiko?”

    Akiko nodded hard. “And Janet-ah agree with us! But then Mrs Aduh-ler, she says it is just-ah rike Bri-an-uh Hawes from-ah the garage, and Janet is so surprise’, she say she never think of-ah that!”

    “You know, Thomas: the bloke that runs the service station up on the corner of the main north highway,” explained Dorothy.

    “He’s certainly got philanderer written all over him. Don’t tell me Janet couldn’t see it?”

    “Yes, but-ah this is-ah the point, Thomas!” cried Akiko.

    “She could see it in him—well, I don’t know that she would have seen it, herself,” said Mrs Adler fairly, “but everyone knows what he is, of course. And she could see it in this character in her book.”

    “But she could no-ah put-ah the two togeth-ah!” cried Akiko.

    “That’s right, dear,” she confirmed placidly.

    Thomas’s jaw sagged. “I get it. Crumbs,” he said, looking at the placid old lady in awe.

    Mrs Adler merely nodded serenely.

    “That’s Janet to a T. Was Leigh’s wife like that?” asked Dorothy.

    Thomas jumped, abruptly recalled to the actual subject of the conversation. “Uh—no. Not in the least. Her mind made connections like that auto— Oh, I see. Well, Belinda’s mind would certainly make that sort of connection even if there was nothing inherently unpleasant in the situation. Though more so if there was.”

    Mrs Adler and Akiko both nodded seriously.

    “Uh… Belinda Gore was very, very pretty in her younger days. With sixteen times Leigh’s determination. She made a dead set at him,” said Thomas, watching Leigh and Janet carefully avoiding having to reverse at a corner.

    “Yes. Maybe he needs that sort, even if he doesn’t know it himself,” said Mrs Adler.

    “Yes. That is anoth-ah thing that Janet cannot guh-rah-sup. We say to her, ver-ree often the second-ah wife, she is young-ah and puh-retti-ah, but underneath-ah, a man will rook for the same-ah type.”

    “Yes. The same character traits will be there,” murmured Mrs Adler.

    “Yes. This-ah may not be-ah self-evident: the youth and the puh-rettiness will-ah hide them,” agreed Akiko. “But nevertheress, they-ah wirr be present, nine times out of-ah ten.”

    “Yes, well, I’ve had a very similar conversation with Janet in the past. Even little Rosemary that thought the photocopier was gonna explode if you left it switched on overnight grasped that one with no difficulty whatsoever,” said Dorothy with a sigh.

    “Mm,” murmured Mrs Adler, as the dance ended and Leigh and Janet, looking very pleased with themselves, began to make their way slowly through the throng in their direction.

    “It was only,” revealed Dorothy rather too early next morning, which was Saturday—why in Hell they couldn’t have had the do on the Saturday was beyond her—“that they’d both suddenly been struck by the inspiration that Thomas would make the perfect Mikado.”

    “Shall I make you a nice strong cup of coffee, Dorothy?”

    “Ta, Polly,” said Dorothy with a groan as Lady Carrano bustled over to the flat’s neat kitchenette. “We all ended up going round to Mrs A.’s—well, me, Janet, and the two Takagaki girls, plus Beth, Jack, Leigh and Thomas—and trying out the sake Mitsuko brought in duty-free. Just to make sure it hadn’t gone off in our climate.”

    “I am familiar with that syndrome.”

    “Yeah,” conceded Dorothy, holding her head. “I thought the bloody stuff wasn’t supposed to give you a headache?”

    “A Western myth. Jake reckons the Japanese get right royal hangovers. Though I don’t know whether that’s some sort of weird male justification of the binges he goes on with Inoue whenever he’s over there.”

    “Inoue goes on binges?” croaked Dorothy.

    “Yes. It’s a Japanese male tradition.”

    “God,” she muttered.

    Polly clattered in the kitchenette for a while, and reappeared, smiling. “I should warn you, I’ve got Jake with me.”

    Dorothy looked round wildly.

    “Idiot. No, he’s stopped off downstairs for the obligatory male peer group with Sol. Katie Maureen’s in it, too: she’s too little to know she shouldn’t be, bless her!” she said with a laugh. She sat down on the sofa. “Come on, Dorothy: Leigh and Janet!”

    “That was all. I told you, there was nothing I could do about the bloody pink dr—”

    “Yes, yes,” she said soothingly.

    Dorothy sagged. “Mm. I didn’t manage to get Janet alone, but I’d say the verdict is he’s a nice man.”

    “So is that all? He’s a nice man and they both think Thomas ought to be the Mikado?”

    “As far as is known, yes.”

    “I’d say that was progress of a sort, but I can see there’s a ‘but’ in it.”

    Dorothy sighed. She repeated, as best she could for the hangover, the Mrs Adler-Akiko-Thomas joint theory in re Belinda Gore’s type as versus Janet’s.

    “Mm… Janet’s one of those very quiet people who seem like doormats, but who can be very determined, in many ways,” said Polly thoughtfully.

    “Uh—you’re right, actually. Well, take the business of the cottage.”

    “Yes.”

    “Are we reserving judgement, then?” said Dorothy, rubbing her temples experimentally.

    “Yes.”

    Once half a cup of Polly’s excellent coffee was inside her she felt strong enough to admit that Beth hadn’t seem interested in anyone.

    “Not Jack?” said Beth’s cousin hopefully.

    “No-o… I’m pretty sure she does fancy him, but he’s scared her off. Well, she wouldn’t dance with him.”

    “Blow. What about Kevin Goode, did she notice him?”

    “No. I sort of got the impression, too, that he’s still hung up on Akiko.”

    “Oh, dear.”

    “Adrian and Anna seem really happy together,” volunteered Dorothy.

    “Oh, good! Two out of how many? No, well, I’m very glad. But still—!”

    “Yeah.”

    A depressed silence fell.

Next chapter:

https://conquestofcartersbay.blogspot.com/2023/05/winter-blues.html