No Guarantees

40

No Guarantees

    Gerhard had gone for a drive in order to think over his situation. He was enjoying his new job: he had a lot more responsibility, as a full professor, than he had hitherto enjoyed: more, he was aware, than he could hope for in a similar academic post back home. And it was certainly keeping him busy enough, even although his department would have no students until March of next year. He had appointed a Senior Lecturer, who was due to start in September, and two Lecturers, one of whom would be starting mid-year, in the new semester. And he and Jack were sharing the services of a competent Selection Librarian who was helping them choose their books, journals, and other learning resources. Not that Gerhard wouldn’t have been quite capable of choosing his own, but the development of his curriculum was proving more time-consuming than he had anticipated and so was the preparation of the lectures and tutorials he himself would give within it. And he was spending a considerable amount of time networking: he was very keen to see the Department of Economics develop a working relationship with some of the bigger local firms; and as he was aware that Alan very much approved of this integration of practice with theory and that his own keenness on it had been one of the deciding factors in his getting the job, he wasn’t prepared to skimp on the time he put into it. Work, then, was going well and on the whole, very smoothly. And he was pleased enough with his little townhouse, though at the back of his mind was the idea that it was only a stop-gap. Until he found what he was really looking for.

    It was the bust-up with Beth that had provoked Gerhard into stopping and thinking about what, in fact, he was really looking for. In the matter of his life, not just in the matter of housing.

    The day was pleasant enough when he set out: greyish skies, lots of cloud, a patch of blue here and there. The air was very damp: whether or not it was actually going to rain today, there was clearly a lot of rain around somewhere. This was, he had now realised, typical of the northern New Zealand climate at almost all times of the year. Naturally Gretchen had pointed it out to him, more than once; but he had come to the rueful conclusion that until you had lived through it for months on end, you had no grasp at all of what it really meant. Nothing—including your skin, your clothes and your house—ever felt really dry, except for a few days in midsummer. Gerhard had thought he was used to a damp climate. The very recent discovery that a pair of heavy brogues had gone mouldy at the back of the wardrobe in the spare room of his quite airy little townhouse had given him considerable pause for thought. Er—well, possibly those brogues had been damp when he’d put them in there. It had been a bad day: he’d made the mistake of agreeing to walk round Gretchen’s bloody golf course with her—he himself was not particularly fond of the game. It had started to rain when they were on the seventh green. In spite of the rain it had been a warm day, and Gerhard’s nylon raincoat had ended up wetter inside than it had been on the outside. Ugh. By the time he got home he’d been in such a bad mood that he’d merely hurled the brogues into the wardrobe.

    He had never really taken the relationship with Beth seriously: he could see as well as she that they had little in common. Nevertheless he had enjoyed her company, and enjoyed sex with her, and, he supposed with a rueful twist of the lips, had started to feel comfortable in the relationship. The old-slipper syndrome—quite. So although he was very far from broken-hearted he was both annoyed and disconcerted at being suddenly dumped. And, he admitted to himself with another twist of the lips, rather hurt in his amour-propre—yes. He was quite aware that it was the bust-up that was prompting him to think seriously about his decision to come out here and was doing his best not to let that influence his thinking too much.

    Well… If he went back, it would be more of the same. There was a lot he missed about Europe, not least the theatre and the concerts, but… Well, according to Jill, the skiing here was excellent, though the accommodation near the ski fields wasn’t up to European standards, by any means. Still, good skiing was a plus. And here it would certainly be possible to buy or build the house that one wanted, on a decent-sized piece of land. He was fed up, really, with city living. He’d quite like a garden… And Sir Jake had told him it was possible to have central heating put in, if you didn’t mind the masochistic lot that formed ninety-nine percent of the population telling you you were a softie. Polly had told him to ignore that and that lots of people had it, these days, so he’d realised that Jake was telling the truth. But as he didn’t mind being taken for a softie, that was all right. And most certainly conforming to the local norms in the matter of owning property rather than renting was the way to go if you ever wanted to see a return on— Yes. Never mind that. The point was, he could afford to settle here and he could afford to build what he wanted. But did he want to?

    Gerhard sat on the silver sand of Grey’s Beach—prudently on his folded-up nylon raincoat, not on the sand itself—and stared at the far from tropical view of greenish waves breaking in tumbled surf for quite some time without coming to any conclusion at all. Except that it was too soon to come to any conclusion and he needed to give it at least—at least—a full year. No, well, for the sake of any future appointments he might want, three.

    In the meantime, he should think seriously about building. It would be a good investment, if he decided not to stay. And at least building his own place would give him something to focus on. Perhaps up the Inlet, along from Jack’s? If you built facing the water you got the benefit of the northerly exposure. And, if unexciting, it was a pleasant enough view. But very few neighbours… On the other hand, he didn’t like Kingfisher Bay very much. The sections were far too small—or perhaps the houses were all too big for their sections! Whichever, he found it rather claustrophobic. Well, the Lees were thinking of building up the Inlet Road; it wouldn’t be long before there was quite a population up there. The next but one section along from Jack’s featured several gum trees: Jane Vincent had explained with a twinkle in her eye that these were technically invasive weeds and if you wanted the genuine native environment ought to be rooted out. But Gerhard liked their silver-grey foliage and their streaked white trunks; and they went well with the much lower, dark bushes which Jane had assured him were natives. Tea tree. Closer questioning had revealed that the Maori name was manuka (variously pronounced) and that these ones had pretty dark pink flowers: like the Pink Manuka Motel at Kingfisher Bay. And that you could get a lot of hybrids in the plant nurseries, these days. So: go for that sort of look? A few taller trees, plenty of flowering shrubs, a few large rocks… A split-level house, a little like Jack’s? And it would be a good investment: property prices up the Inlet were bound to rise as Sir G.G.’s full complement of staff gradually arrived…

    As his thoughts seemed to be going round in circles, Gerhard got up, sighing a little, and went back to the car. He was due to lunch at Revill’s: he had originally booked for two, in the expectation that Beth would be with him. Oh, well. The food was always good.

    He blinked a little at the sight of a hunched figure sitting on a rock about half a kilometre up Grey’s Beach Road. But probably it was a hiker—no, tramper, they called them here. Though it didn’t feature the ubiquitous backpack… Tight pink pants on long, slender legs, and a bulky dark anorak. And a bowed and miserable posture. He slowed and glanced at the figure dubiously, not prepared to stop unless it looked unlikely to mug him, unlikely to be suffering the effects of a hard drug, and, frankly, unlikely to foist itself on him for the rest of his— Mayli?

    Gerhard braked violently and sprang out of the car, not so much as pausing to ask himself why the Devil he was doing so.

    “Mayli?” he said, gently putting a hand on her shoulder. “What’s the matter?”

    Mayli could never afterwards decide what had made her burst out with the whole story to Gerhard Sachs. Maybe she would have burst out with it to anyone, after a lifetime of bottling most of it up; but… She didn’t really think so. Maybe it was because he was always very gentle and polite? Or maybe it was because he hadn’t said “Is anything the matter?” To which she was almost sure she would have replied “No.” Almost but not quite. There was, really, no answer. Or perhaps, she would realise many years later, no one answer. Gerhard himself, as she would eventually discover, had taken it quite for granted that she should tell him her life story. The details surprised him, of course, but he hadn’t been at all surprised by the fact that she’d told him. Was he used to young women dissolving in tears on his shoulder—though Mayli hadn’t quite done that—and telling him their troubles? Well, very probably, yes: he was a very attractive man with a very sympathetic manner. And of course had had years of dealing with secretaries and so on in his professional life. Well—it was just part of his being Gerhard, she supposed. He liked women, he was used to dealing with them and very good at it, and he was almost completely non-threatening in his manner. Unlike almost all of the men at Sir G.G. except Leigh Gore. And quite possibly the fact of his taking for granted that she should tell him was a factor in her having told him.

    The telling took quite some time. During it Gerhard got her into the BMW and turned the heater on. “I see. So you are on your way now to tell Alan?” he said gently.

    “Yes,” said Mayli, blowing her nose defiantly on his handkerchief. “Only I lost my nerve.”

    “I am not surprised: I would, too. But if you have seen him at home, you will realise that he is not really such a frightening personality,” he said kindly.

    “I haven’t, really. I mean, I’ve been round there a couple of times. Only with messages, or that sort of thing.” Mayli told him about her rescue mission when Alan had gone off to England leaving Catherine with no money.

    “I see. So that is one very strong reason for your disapproval off him, ja?”

    “Yes. Only it doesn’t justify what I did,” she growled.

    Gerhard put his cool hand on her clenched one. “No, but personally I am not so imbued with the Calvinist ethic as to believe that that matters. For me, to understand is the important thing. I think Alan is the same. And I am very sure that Catherine is the sort of person who can forgive without needing either justification or understanding!” he said with a smile.

    Mayli’s high forehead wrinkled. “Ye-es. I think you’re right. Only it’s hard to imagine anyone being able to…”

    “Oh, ja. Your nature is very different.”

    “Horrible,” she said in a low voice.

    “Rubbish. You did one bad thing in your life—vhat is that? I notice at work that you don’t gossip in corners about your fellow workers, that you are never spiteful, that you never repeat anything nasty that anyone tells you about another person, and that you do not pass judgement aloud even when the circumstances would seem to warrant it.”

    “No-o… Kitty says I’m introverted,” she reported dubiously.

    “Your little sister?’ he said with a smile. “She’s very bright, no? Well, yes, I would agree. But introverts can be quite as spiteful and horrible as extroverts—more, perhaps, in general. But you are not.” He patted her knee briefly and started the car.

    Mayli swallowed hard. “What about my car?” she said in a trembling voice as they shot past it.

    “Mm? Oh, I vill arrange to have it collected. I don’t think you are fit to drife, today,” he said, gentle but firm.

    “Um—no. Um, thanks. Sometimes you sound quite German,” said Mayli shakily.

    “Yes,” he agreed mildly. “Now, I’m not quite sure where we are, so please tell me where to turn off for Alan’s farm.”

    Somewhat dazedly Mayli obeyed. They made their way cautiously along the rutted back road and turned again at the letterboxes.

    “Alan was telling me that they are adopting the little boy,” said Gerhard with a smile. “But even before the papers are signed, he insists on being called Kincaid.”

    “He really likes him,” she agreed in a small voice.

    “Ja. I think that proves the man cannot be all bad?” he said lightly. “Living with a man for the better part off two years would certainly give a child a very real notion off his true character. Though I’m sure he could not explain to us what that character is, or why he likes him.”

    “Mm.”

    Gerhard looked cautiously at the elegant profile and at the little frown, and said nothing more until they reached Alan’s neighbours’ farm. There were two little boys sitting on its gate so he waved and smiled. The boys grinned and waved back.

    “Who were they?” said Mayli blankly.

    “I don’t know,” he replied cheerfully. “But I have observed at home that little country boys who sit on a gate like it if the occasional passing traveller waves, so I do it here, too.”

    “Oh. I’ll do it, in future,” she decided firmly. “–This is it, down here.”

    “Ja, now I know where I am!” said Gerhard. Untruthfully, so far as his emotional state went. He was very much aware that his feelings towards Mayli were not as avuncular as his manner might indicate. He did not believe for an instant that the girl was consciously sexually aware of him, however. On the other hand, he was quite sure that if she wasn’t at some unconscious level aware of him as a heterosexual male she would not have poured out her story to him. Unlike some of the more unpleasant gossips at Sir G.G., Gerhard had never thought for an instant, in spite of the lack of evident boyfriends, that Mayli might be gay. In his experience, one could always tell. He had long since recognised that she had no more intention of encouraging him to admire her than she had of encouraging any of the other males at their mutual place of employment. This together with the fact that she was very much younger than him had made him decide not to pursue her—God knew he didn’t want to get the reputation of being a D.O.M. before he’d barely started his new job. But although it was true to say he’d been discouraged by her cool manner he hadn’t been blinded by it. Nor had he been blind to the fact that every new man she met reacted very strongly to her. She was unawakened, and possibly had had some unfortunate sexual encounters to put her off the whole idea, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t heterosexual. Heretofore Gerhard, though a very articulate person, had not bothered really to formulate most of these ideas clearly: he hadn’t needed to, he was simply aware that it was so. He did formulate them to himself as he listened to her story and as he drove her to Toetoe Bay Farm; and he did create several possible scenarios of what he might do, not just about her immediate problems, but about Mayli the sexual being. None of this showed in his manner.

    “It’s an automatic gate: one can control it from the push button; just a moment,” he said, hopping out at the gate. When they were through the gate he glanced at his watch, excused himself politely to Mayli, drew up and phoned Revill’s to cancel his table for lunch.

    “I’m sorry; I’m upsetting your plans!” she gulped.

    “No. The table was for me and Beth: we’ve broken up.”

    “I’m sorry,” said Mayli lamely.

    “No, no, do not be. It was pleasant, you know, but both of us knew that we were just marking time. –SHOO!” he shouted loudly at the animal that had come up to the fence and was mooing loudly at the car. “It isn’t going away: I thought ‘shoo’ was the right word?”

    “Um, yes. I never thought of it as a word,” she said in a confused voice.

    Smiling, Gerhard explained how one shooed away unwanted cows in German, and drove up to the front door.

    “You don’t need to come in,” she said in a small voice.

    “No. But I shall all the same.”

    “Thanks, Dr Sachs,” said Mayli through trembling lips.

    “Gerhard,” he corrected, touching her hand fleetingly. “Come on.”

    “Yes. Better get it over with,” she said grimly, getting out.

    He thought she might twitch away when he attempted to take her arm, but she didn’t. Gerhard led her up to the shiny black front door of Toetoe Bay Farm and rang the bell.

    Alan and Catherine had, frankly, been having one of those mornings. It had started far too early, with Catherine stumbling out of bed to milk Buttercup.

    “I’ll do it,” muttered Alan blearily.

    “No, you’re hopeless at it. I’m up now. Go back to sleep.” She had gone off before he could wake up sufficiently to point out that he wasn’t hopeless, he was getting quite good at it, that if he let her do it he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep because of the guilt, and that, finally, they ought to let Gerry Fermour take over the bloody milking definitively, for a remuneration. Damn. He was almost, in spite of the guilt, back to sleep when King Peng-Cat landed on his genitals with an almighty thump. Alan gave a bellow and sat up abruptly and King Peng-Cat flew across the room just in time to land with another almighty thump at Catherine’s feet.

    “What have you done to him?” she gasped.

    “You mean, what’s the brute done to me; thank God the duvet was on, I might have been maimed for life! –Cats have got nine LIVES!” he shouted, as she fussed over the brute.

    “You threw him!”

    “I did NOT! Goddammit, woman, he landed on my balls with approximately the weight of— Stop LAUGHING!”

    “Serves—you right—for—having—them!” she choked.

    Alan glared speechlessly, even though he was aware that this remark was not unconnected with King Peng-Cat’s own sexual status on the one hand, and on the other, with Dicky’s concern at Gerry’s recent suggestion that they get Biggles, to use the farmer’s own elegant turn of phrase, cut. Unless they wanted a bloody bull round the place upsetting the cows?

    “There, there! Poor boy,” she cooed, stroking the brute. “I must have left the bedroom door open,” she noted cheerfully.

    Alan glared speechlessly.

    “There’s lots of milk, she’s not nearly dry yet,” she reported happily.

    “Oh, goody,” he said acidly.

    “You’ll get into the habit of nodding off again in the weekends,” said Catherine comfortably, getting back into bed, still cradling King Peng-Cat.

    “Do NOT bring that bloody brute in the bed! It’s got fleas!”

    “No, he hasn’t, since you put that stupid collar on him. –It’s pongy, isn’t it, fella?” she cooed. “Poor boy. Did the nasty man throw you across the room, then?”

    “I did n— Oh, what’s the use.” Alan lay down and put a pillow on his head. Into the bargain pulling it down tightly over his ears with both hands.

    After some time he heard Catherine put the cat down on the bed. Alan turned hurriedly on his side.

    Catherine snuggled up to him with a smothered giggle and pressed against him. After a while one her hands crept round to his front.

    “Don’t dare to suggest any such thing,” said Alan through his teeth. “I feel about seventy years old and shaky with it.”

    Catherine tweaked him cheekily and laughed.

    Grimly Alan removed her hand.

    Catherine just laughed, and pressed herself all against his back and bum.

    Alan was just starting to feel that some time in the next twenty years—if he lived that long, right—he might just possibly get around to getting it up again, when the door banged open and Dicky’s voice said loudly: “Hey, Mum—”

    “How many times have I told you to KNOCK!” shouted Alan, sitting up abruptly.

    “Aw—yeah,” he said indifferently. “I forgot.”

    “If you forget in future, I think I can promise you— Stop LAUGHING!” shouted Alan.

    Catherine continued to laugh helplessly.

    “I think I can promise you some very unpleasant shocks,” said Alan through his teeth to the innocent Dicky,

    Catherine gave a helpless wail.

    “Yeah, hah, hah,” said Dicky indifferently. “Hey, Mum—”

    “What?” said Catherine feebly, groping under her pillow for a handkerchief.

    “Um, I think there’s an animal outside,” said Dicky cautiously.

    Alan goggled at him. “There are approximately—”

    “Not them.”

    “Where, Dicky?” said Catherine limply.

    “Um, sort of under my window.”

    “Just one moment,” said Alan grimly, grasping his wife’s arm as she prepared to get out of bed. “Exactly where did you find it, what is it, and why the bloody Hell didn’t you let on to us yesterday that you’d found it?”

    “I did NOT!” he shouted, turning bright puce.

    “That’s a lie,” said Alan grimly. “Do you want a damned good beating?”

    “NO! And I—” He broke off. After moment he admitted sulkily: “I only seen it last night, see? I never brung it or anything. And I gave it a saucer of milk. There was plenty!” he said aggressively.

    Alan groaned. “We do not need another stray cat.”

    “Balls, of course we do, Alan!” said Catherine brightly.

    Alan’s jaw dropped. She gave a shriek, and collapsed in helpless hysterics.

    “Ignore your mother,” said Alan grimly as Dicky stood uncertainly on one leg. “Is it a cat?”

    “No. It’s a hedgehog,” he admitted sulkily. “It was kinda grunting, see.”

    Catherine recovered herself. “Oh, dear,” she said faintly.

    Alan passed a hand over his bald pate. “God. Look, Dicky, they’re harmless enough, though they’re usually full of fleas and similar cooties; but sometimes if they come out and—and snuffle about in full view of human beings it means they’re sick.”

    “Yeah, but we could—”

    “No. Is it still snuffling?” he asked without hope.

    Dicky scowled. “Grunting. No.”

    Catherine gulped.

    “It’s NOT DEAD!” he shouted.

    Alan sighed. “It probably is. Don’t touch it, we don’t need you picking up anything from it. I’ll come and take a look.” Resignedly he got out of bed.

    The bloody thing was dead as a doornail, of course. Ignoring Dicky’s shouts that it wasn’t, and he was burying it alive, Alan got a spade and buried the thing in the orchard. His acid explanation that the alternative was to leave it there until it stank and attracted flies apparently carried no weight. He returned to the house, ignoring Dicky’s shouts that he was a murderer.

    “Was it dead?” said Catherine, yawning, as he stumbled back into the bedroom.

    “Yes. What’s the ti— God.”

    “You could go for a nice brisk ride!” said Catherine with a giggle.

    “Shut up.” Alan closed and locked the bedroom door.

    “Ooh, that looks hopeful!” she said with a giggle.

    “Shut up. Come here.”

    “Have you washed your hands?”

    “YES! Jesus Christ!”

    Giggling, Catherine allowed him to push her back on the bed and fall on top of her. In fact she allowed him to shove it right up her. Only pointing out breathlessly, as Alan concentrated like fury on not disgracing himself by exploding immediately: “You’d better hurry up before Dicky starts asking when’s breakfast.”

    “Shut up,” said Alan through his teeth. “Oooh,” he groaned.

    “Ooh, Alan!” said Catherine in a squeaky gasp. “Ooh, Alan!”

    “Don’t move,” said Alan through his teeth.

    Catherine’s face was bright red. “It’s awfully nice!” she gasped.

    Somehow this extremely unsophisticated and, indeed, inane utterance made Alan Kincaid grit his teeth even harder.

    “Al-lun!” gasped Catherine, shoving herself up at him.

    “I’ll come,” said Alan through his teeth.

    Apparently ignoring this, she gasped: “I can feel—your big round—tip!” Pushing herself up at him again. “Al-lun!” she gasped.

    “God,” said Alan through his teeth. “Don’t, Catherine! Uh—Christ. –God!” he cried at the phone shrilled six inches from his ear, Catherine’s body jerked in shock, and she shrieked and clenched terrifically on him.

    The phone went unanswered as Alan exploded violently while his wife was still clenching furiously on him and clawing at his back.

    “Hell,” he said weakly, an appreciable time later. “Sorry, darling. That was a bit quick.”

    “Mm. Good, though,” she murmured.

    Alan kissed her thoroughly. “Right,” he said, rolling off her slowly.

    “It felt,” said Catherine dreamily, “very swollen. You know: the tip.”

    “That was what made you come like the clappers, was it?” he murmured.

    “Mm. Probably.”

    “That and the phone. Pity we can’t train whoever it was.”

    “Help,” she said numbly, goggling at him.

    “If it was important they’ll ring back.”

    “Ye-es… What if it was Saskia?”

    “Darling, we are two hours ahead of Sydney. A-head,” said Alan slowly and clearly.

    “Ye-es… Does that mean it’s earlier or later there?”

    He groaned. “If I say earlier, will that make sense?”

    “Um, no. If we’re ahead of them, aren’t we earlier?”

    “Yes. That’s why it’s nearly seven fifteen here, and five fifteen and still pitch dark there.”

    “Oh,” she said obediently.

    “It wasn’t her,” he said definitely, kissing her nose.

    Catherine sat up abruptly, with a horrified gasp. “Yes, but Alan, she isn’t there! She’s here! It’s Easter! She was going somewhere plutey with the Whatsernames!”

    “Uh—oh, so she was. In that case she’ll ring us again. Calm down.”

    “But what if it was Noelle?” she worried.

    “Ring her. She’ll bite your head off for waking her up on one of the very few Mondays of the year when she can get a lie-in, but by all means: ring.”

    She hesitated.

    “It’s my bet it was bloody Normie Fermour ringing for Dicky—this has happened on previous occasions,” he reminded her, “but if it’ll set your mind at ease—”

    “Shut up.” Scowling, Catherine lay down again.

    Alan groaned and picked up the phone. After quite some time a very groggy Krish answered it. No, it hadn’t been them. Apologising, he hung up and reported. Catherine scowled. Sighing, he rang the Fermours. After quite some time Gerry answered, sounding cross. Yeah, he had finished the milking, as a matterafack, and yeah, they were having a bit of a lie-in, for once; and if it hadda been Normie he, Gerry, would take the hide off the little brute! There was an interval. Gerry reported that Normie was sleeping the sleep of the unjust, the little bugger. And the rest of them. Apologising profusely, Alan hung up. “I can’t think of any more likely callers that we could disturb at this hour of Easter Monday morning, but of course there’s any number of unlikely ones—”

    “Stop it!” she shouted, sitting up and bashing him fiercely with her pillow.

    “Shane Tamehana?” he said delicately.

    “They’re AWAY!” shouted Catherine, bashing him with the pillow.

    Alan gave in entirely, grabbed her, pillow and all, and rolled on top of her. “Ooh, you’re nice, Mrs Kincaid,” he said into her curls.

    “You’re squashing me. Um, Alan, have you thought about names?” said Catherine in a very small, very squashed voice.

    He took some but not all of his weight off her. “Mm? Oh—names. Noelle would be appropriate: pity you’ve used it already. Nicholas? Claus?”

    “Mm,” said Catherine. “Hamish? Robert, like Uncle Bob?”

    “Maybe. Is there any bacon?” replied Alan hopefully into her curls.

    “Um—I thought you reckoned it was full of cholesterol?”

    “That was before I’d had a nice fuck, Mrs Kincaid!” replied Alan with a chuckle, rolling onto his back.

    “Yes. Well, there is, because Jenny and me went into Puriri and Mr Mulford had a special. Real bacon, not packaged.”

    “Good. Let’s have bacon, eggs, and fried tomatoes.”

    “The tomatoes are pretty tasteless. They’re over, really. Um, well, if I put a bit of sugar on them when they’re cooking—yes, okay.”

    “Good,” said Alan, hugging her.

    They lay there in perfect peace for about five minutes.

    Then the phone rang again.

    Alan snatched it up.

    “It is me this time,” said Gerry Fermour’s voice apologetically. “Don’t look now, but I think the bloody power’s off. Been off for a while, judging by the pool of water under our fridge.”

    “Uh—what about your milking?”

    “That’s the farm generator, mate, and thank God I took Dad’s advice and left it in!” he replied strongly.

    “Yes. Christ,” muttered Alan. “Catherine, Gerry thinks the power’s off. Turn the bedside lamp on, would you, darling?” She did. Nothing happened. “Is it plugged in?” asked Alan.

    Catherine twisted and hung over the edge of the bed. “Not sure,” she reported in a strangled voice.

    “No,” said Alan vaguely, putting a hand on her bum. “Er—sorry, Gerry, what was that? –Try the light switch by the door, darling,” he said to Catherine. Grunting, she righted herself and got out of bed. Gerry was explaining the line must have come down in the wind last night and he’d rung and reported it but God knew when they’d get around to fixing it. Alan watched Catherine trying the light switch. “Yes. –Stop it, Catherine, you’ll forget which way’s on and which way’s off!” he said loudly. The phone made a choking noise as Catherine responded apologetically: “Oh. Yes. You’re right. Oh, dear.” Alan reported to Gerry that their power was also out, and said he’d ring up about it, too, for what good that would do.

    “Good. Hang on, mate, you got anything to cook on? Camping gas, anything like that?”

    Alan interrogated Catherine. They didn’t. Gerry very kindly offered their spare camping-gas burner.

    “Thanks very much,” said Alan, eyeing his spouse dubiously. She was just standing by the door in her crumpled nightie, watching him. “She’s scared witless of anything with a naked flame, but— Never mind. We’ll cope. I’ll come up and get it. And thanks, Gerry.”

    He hung up on Gerry’s sniggering fit, and reported.

    “We could use the microwave,” offered Catherine hopefully.

    “It works on ELECTRICITY!”

    “I thought you said it works on those micro wave thingies?”

    Alan took a deep breath. “It produces them. We plug it into the magic electricity in order to make it go. Don’t we?”

    “Yes. Oh, dear,” said Catherine lamely.

    “Look, I’ll ring the bloody electricity company, but I don’t think—” He duly rang. The story was the linesmen were very busy but they’d be out some time today. Hah, hah.

    Resignedly Alan got dressed and, ignoring Catherine’s injunction to walk, it’d do him good, drove up to the Fermours’. Gerry and Jenny were discovered peering cautiously into their large freezer.

    “Oh, my God,” said Alan.

    “I said in the first place, we oughta run this off the farm generator,” grunted Gerry, straightening.

    “We’ve just restocked ours,” croaked Alan.

    “Yeah, well, it’s always the way, mate. No, well, it’ll be all right for about twenty-four hours. Only judging by the look of our fridge, the power musta gone out not long after we went to bed. What time’d you go?” he demanded.

    “Uh—we were pretty early,” said Alan feebly. “Um, tennish. No, hang on, we put the light on and—um—had a drink, later,” he admitted sheepishly. “Elevenish.”

    Gerry winked. “Lucky you. Yeah, well, I’d say it probably went out not too long after that. We’re gonna have to eat up everything that was in the freezing compartment of our fridge, that’s for sure.”

    Alan nodded limply.

    “At least you got a fireplace. You won’t freeze.”

    “We’ve still got our wood-burner!” said Jenny indignantly.

    “Yeah, but guess who hasn’t bothered to chop any wood for it because Someone decided it wasn’t really worth the bother of stoking it up all day except in the middle of winter?”

    “What? Blow,” she said numbly.

    Alan swallowed a sigh and offered some of his wood.

    Gerry brightened. “Great—ta.”

    … “Darling,” said Alan firmly when Gerry had collected his wood and gone: “see this little gas bottle? This one: attached to it!” he said loudly as she looked at the spare.

    “Um—ye-es…”

    “This is the amount of fuel it has. When it’s all burned up, it is all gone—get it?”

    “It’s frightening,” she murmured.

    “I know,” said Alan with a sigh. “All I’m trying to say is, please don’t suggest that I turn it on and leave it on for you all day,”—Catherine had gone very red—“because we haven’t got enough fuel for that.”

    “No,” she muttered.

    “Darling, hadn’t you better get dressed?”

    “What? Oh—yes. Alan, do you think that phone call could really have been Saskia?”

    Alan had forgotten what the Devil Saskia had proposed doing at Easter with the Whatsernames. It was too early for the skiing season. But could he see her getting up at crack of dawn to ring her sister after a day doing whatever-it-was? Er—yes, actually. Probably had already jogged five miles before she rang. “Possibly, but if so, she’ll ring again.”

    “Or turn up for lunch,” she said glumly.

    “Well, that’s all ri— Oh.” Alan stared limply at the camping-gas burner.

    “You can’t make a quiche on one of those thingies, can you?” she pointed out.

    “No. Was that what you were planning?”

    “Mm. I will get dressed. But if you want bacon and eggs, you’ll have to turn it on,” she warned.

    Alan looked sourly at the camping-gas burner. “Yes.”

    Possibly attracted by the smell of bacon, Dicky resurfaced just as Alan was trying to persuade Catherine that the thing would not bite her if she adjusted the gas. “I was feeding Lightning,” he said virtuously before anyone else could utter.

    Lightning was the unlikely name of Dicky’s pony. “Tub of Lard” would be a much more appropriate name. Or “Pudding.” Alan returned mildly: “Good.”

    Cheering up visibly, Dicky explained: “He was hungry; he ate a carrot.”

    The creature would eat a carrot, or an apple, or a piece of cake, or Dicky’s leftover sandwiches from his school lunch, or anything at all that was vegetable based, make that vaguely vegetable based, at any time whatsoever. “Mm; good.”

    Dicky then appeared to notice the fact that his elders were cooking breakfast not on the ceramic stove-top but on a strange little burner which, because the combination of burner and saucepan had been too high for Catherine on the bench, Alan had been forced to place on his beautifully sanded and polyurethaned kitchen table-top. “Hey, neato!”

    “The power is out,” said Alan carefully. “This is not a toy. Get it?”

    “Yeah.” He thought it over. “Does that mean the TV won’t—”

    “Yes.”

    “Aw-wuh!” he wailed. “I was gonna watch—”

    “Tough. Go and wash your hands. Breakfast is almost ready.”

    “But what I am gonna do today?” he wailed.

    “Help me chop wood to replace the load that I gave Gerry,” said Alan drily.

    Dicky brightened. “Hey! I could go up an’ watch—”

    “Their power is out, too. There is no electricity, except for Gerry’s farm generator, down this road. Get it?”

    “Yeah,” he said sourly, trailing off to the bathroom.

    “It’s not his fault!” said Catherine vigorously.

    “True. It’s not mine, either.”

    “No, but you’re bigger than him. There’s no coffee, Alan.”

    “Eh?”

    “This thingy,” said Catherine, giving it a sour look, “will only do one thing at a time.”

    Alan sagged. “I know that, you hen. For God’s sake, I thought you meant there was no— Never mind,” he sighed, getting his coffee-pot out.

    “It won’t do toast,” she warned.

    Alan was about to say it would do toast, either on a griddle or if the bread was placed on a toasting fork and held to the naked— Silly him. “No. Bread will be fine. Is there any of your home-made?”

    “No, I was going to make some today. Well, tonight. If the electricity’s not fixed I suppose I’d better not, because it won’t keep once it’s riz, will it?”

    “I shouldn’t think so.” Alan foraged for bread. He looked dispiritedly at the result.

    “I was going to make scones for lunch!” said Catherine loudly.

    “Mm? Oh—for pudding?”

    “Um, sort of. After the quiche. With strawberry jam and cream. I’ve set the milk to separate. Blow.”

    “We can have it on shop-bought bread, I suppose. Um, darling, you do realise that the fridge is off? We’d better try to minimise opening and shutting its door.”

    “Mm. Help, I won’t be able to do any vacuuming or anything!”

    “No. And before you start—” He broke off. Dicky had come in and was reporting aggrievedly that there was no hot water and it wasn’t his fault.

    “The electricity heats the water,” said Alan very slowly and clearly. “It was still reasonable this morning, because it was hot last night. We have now used up the tank of hot water between us.”

    “Oh,” he said, apparently satisfied.

    Catherine was staring at Alan in horror.

    “What?”

    “Buh-but while you were up at the farm, I put a whole load of washing in the machine!”

    Alan took her by the shoulders. “Catherine: the washing-machine will not work without electricity,” he said clearly.

    Dicky at this point collapsed in sniggers.

    “But the water came in, I heard it!” she protested.

    “Very likely, yes.” Alan muttered under his breath about New Zealand consumer goods, fail-safes, and the like. “Is it going round, though?”

    “Nah!” choked Dicky ecstatically, falling all round the kitchen. “Hey, no wonder there’s no hot water left!” he noted brilliantly.

    Alan released Catherine. “Quite.”

    “Help, I was planning to do loads of jobs today,” she said.

    “Mm,” agreed Alan vaguely, dishing out eggs and bacon.

    “What about the tomatoes?” said Catherine somewhat lamely, looking at the three plates of bacon, eggs and bread.

    Alan had just put his coffee-pot on the flame. “What? Oh. Oh, well, bugger the tomatoes, darling. Sit down and eat.”

    Catherine did so. After a while she noted: “Actually we could manage quite well with just the thingy. Wouldn’t it make life simple?”

    “Yeah. No baths,” said Dicky thoughtfully.

    Alan took a deep breath. “No income, either.”

    “Eh?” they said.

    “Given that the ‘thingy’ requires my constant presence, in the case that she might want the flame on, off, lowered—” He stopped, Dicky was choking hysterically already.

    In the course of the morning Catherine discovered that Alan couldn’t shave, that Alan was perfectly right in saying that the vacuum-cleaner wouldn’t work, that Alan couldn’t do any work on his computer, and that there was still no hot water. Alan discovered that as the morning wore on she didn’t work up the courage to turn the camping-gas burner on herself, and that there were no volunteers to help him chop wood. Dicky discovered that the reason the stable light wasn’t working was that it ran on a line from the house and the electricity was out. Aw. Yeah. And that his gigantic transistor radio was working!

    At what seemed like half past forty-two but was actually only around ten, Normie Fermour turned up, looking as if things were about the same up at his place. Apparently his father’s word hadn’t been good enough for him: he had had to come and verify for himself that the Kincaids’ power was also out. Alan rang up Gerry on the spot and informed him that they had one of those, too. Gerry returned sourly that they had three—four, if ya counted her, and what were his lot doing? Generously Alan didn’t say that he himself had been chopping wood. He explained that Dicky and Normie were sulking in Dicky’s room with the ghetto-blaster on, and that Catherine was in the sitting-room with the fire going, reading a book, in the intervals of trying the light switch and thinking of ever more unlikely lunch dishes that the camping-gas burner wouldn’t do. Oh, and of wondering who that early phone call had really been.

    “Ye-ah!” he choked ecstatically. “Hey, you got a kettle?” he said in a lowered voice.

    “Er—yes. She’s discovered it boils much faster if one doesn’t fill it to the brim before placing it on the flame. Why, Gerry?”

    Gerry sighed. “She eliminated ours yonks back. Well, it was an old aluminium one of Mum’s, but it was still good. We’re boiling water in a pot: we’ve got an electric jug and a poncy electric kettle her mum gave us last Christmas, but funnily enough neither of ’em—” He stopped, Alan was choking hysterically already.

    After that Alan felt quite a lot better. Ruthlessly hoiking Dicky out of his room, and informing Normie that he could join them or go home, he went off to the stables and groomed his horse energetically. Setting Dicky and Normie to on the stout Lightning with every appearance of a father who was not prepared for a moment to assist them in this gigantic task. Whether they really believed he wouldn’t was a moot point. During the course of the exercise Normie discovered the stable light wasn’t working but Alan almost managed to ignore this.

    Catherine was discovered round about twelve-thirty placidly making sandwiches in the kitchen.

    “Sandwiches!” wailed Dicky in disgust.

    “Ugh,” agreed Normie.

    “You’d better go home, in that case,” noted Alan evilly.

    Normie hesitated. Apparently reading his mind, Catherine suggested he ring his mother first, to see what they were having. Normie reported they were having bacon, and Dad wanted to speak to Alan. Ignoring Dicky’s loud request to accompany Normie home, Alan went to the phone. Gerry wanted to know, firstly if Alan reckoned the camping-gas burner ’ud boil up a huge hunk of boiling bacon that she had bunged in the freezing compartment of the fridge—no; right; and secondly if Alan had ever roasted meat on a spit, because they had a leg of lamb—no; right. And would he send Normie home, they were giving up on the whole bit and taking the kids over to Jenny’s mum’s this arvo.

    When the dust had settled and Dicky had retreated to his room with a final shout of “I could SO have bacon twice!” Alan said cautiously: “Was Jenny the only one to buy this boiling bacon stuff?”

    Catherine replied very cautiously indeed: “Ye-es… I didn’t think it’d be up-market enough for you.”

    Alan marched over to the fridge and flung open the door of the freezing compartment. Bags and bags of bacon bones.

    “They’re for soup!” she said crossly.

    “It was a good idea at the time,” he said neutrally.

    “If this thingy can boil water it can do soup!”

    “Catherine, soup will use up too much gas. But the bacon bones will last—er—a relative while. Just don’t refreeze them, please.” He investigated the rest of the freezing compartment’s contents in silence.

    “The—the fish was for King Peng-Cat,” she faltered.

    “Was it, indeed?”

    “You hate gurnard.”

    So he did.

    “I was only going to give it to him once or twice a week, for a treat.”

    “Yes,” said Alan with a sigh. For the next two years, apparently.

    “Alan, I can’t think of anything to do with this stuff!”

    “No. Never mind. These things happen.”

    “Mm. Um, I promised June I’d do the sponges for Revill’s for dinner tonight,” she said in small voice.

    “I suggest you ring up Revill and tell him that he’ll have to exert himself and actually make half a dozen sponges that’ll be cut up into slices that he’ll tart up and call something unlikely, at a price per slice sixteen times what he pays June for a whole cake, not to say thirty-two times what you’re paid per half dozen,” said Alan coldly.

    “Not really half a dozen,” said Catherine faintly.

    “I can, appearances to the contrary,” said Alan, looking hard at her belly, “count.”

    “Mm. Um, it’s three sponge sandwiches, made in six tins,” said Catherine weakly. “I think he just adds flavoured cream and those sort of toffee wing-shapes Anna was telling me about.”

    “I’m sure he does. Ring—him.”

    “I did,” she gulped. ‘I can’t get through, I think there’s something wrong with the phones as well.”

    “Rubbish, I’ve been on and off the phone all morning.”

    “Um, his.”

    Grimly Alan went into the passage and dialled. She was right. Grimly he ran Directory Enquiries and after the usual long, long, delay, got a voice that, after another long, long delay admitted there was a mobile number as well, yes. Breathing heavily, Alan wrote it on the telephone pad.

    Catherine had come up to his elbow. “But if his phone’s dead—”

    “Shut up.” Alan dialled the number. Revill answered almost immediately. With tremendous pleasure Alan informed him that his half-dozen sponge cakes would not be available today and why. “The lines, that is, the physical wires,” he said very clearly to his wife, hanging up, “are inactive at The Quays today. One of the wires must be broken, see? A mobile phone does not work on physical wires. It works on waves which travel through the air without the aid of wires. Our physical telephone here, with wires, dials a number which connects by the magic of modern technology to a machine which relays our conversation to the mobile phone through the air. On the aforesaid waves.”

    “Not like the microwave, then!” said Catherine crossly.

    “No. Um, sorry,” said Alan, biting his lip.

    “We could have toasted sandwiches—not that!” she said as he opened his mouth. “I’ve still got Uncle Bob’s Quicksie maker!”

    This long-handled, primitive implement would certainly make toasted sandwiches, yes. “Er—one of us will have to stand holding it over the naked flame.”

    “All right, BE like that!” she shouted, bursting into tears.

    Sighing, Alan put his arms round her. “Come on, don’t be silly.”

    “I’m not silly!” she sobbed.

    “Look, I’ll happily toast the sandwiches for you, darling, but had you thought that it’ll have to be one at a time, and we’ve got no way of keeping them hot? We’ll have to serve lunch in relays.”

    Catherine sniffed miserably. “Dicky has sandwiches every day, during the week.”

    “Yes. Pace the bloody sponges, I’d suggest taking you in to The Quays, but the power could come on at any moment,” he said uneasily.

    “No, I haven’t even had a proper wash.”

    “No. Well, toasted sandwiches in relays, then!”

    Catherine snuffled. “Mm.”

    They had started toasting the sandwiches in relays and were keeping them more or less warm by wrapping them in clean tea-towels, and Dicky had emerged from his room and was looking hopeful, when there was the most Godalmighty crash from the direction of the louvered doors to the laundry.

    Catherine sprang backwards with a gasp and Alan, dumping the Quicksie maker on the bench, sprang to wrench the doors open.

    King Peng-Cat shot out, covered in milk, and simultaneously a great white flood spread out onto the kitchen floor…

    Catherine normally put the milk to separate for cream in the laundry. Some of them had been under the impression that the whole household was trained not to leave those louvered doors open at any time.

    “WHO LET THAT BRUTE IN THERE?” shouted Alan terribly. “SHUT UP! I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT! GET THE MOP!” he shouted at Dicky.

    “It wasn’t ME!” wailed Dicky shrilly, bursting into tears.

    “GET THE MOP!”

    Hurriedly Catherine fetched the mop. “It could have been me,” she said guiltily as Alan wrenched it off her and began mopping. “I did look in once or twice to see if the machine had—um—come on.”

    “Get me the bucket, please,” said Alan through his teeth.

    “Oh—yes. Sorry.” She fetched the bucket.

    Quite some time later, the floor was clean, the large plastic bowl which Catherine used for the milk had been placed in the sink with strict orders from Alan not to use it again until it could be scalded, the washing-machine had been tenderly wiped down, both Catherine and Dicky had stopped sniffling, and Alan was refilling his coffee machine. And Catherine was just gingerly starting to reheat the toasted sandwiches, when there was a loud ring at the front door.

    “I’ll get it!” Dicky shot out before anyone else could move.

    The front door was opened by the little boy. Neither Gerhard nor Mayli had expected this and there was a moment’s silence.

    “Hullo, Dicky,” said Mayli with a shaky smile.

    “Hullo!” he beamed. “Hey, ya know what? Our electricity’s off!”

    Mayli looked at Gerhard in dismay.

    “Better now than later,” he said firmly. “It’s Dicky, isn’t it?”

    Dicky eyed him warily. “Yeah.”

    Gerhard was opening his mouth to say: “May we see Alan, please?” when Alan’s voice called from the hinterland: “Who is it, Dicky?”

    In the way of his kind, Dicky had opened his front door only far enough to allow of the insertion of his own slender person. Now he opened it wide. “You can come in.” Before they could utter he had raced down the passage, calling: “It’s Alan’s lady!”

    He skidded to a halt in the kitchen. “And a man,” he admitted.

    Alan had sat down to wait for his coffee-pot to hiss. He got up uncertainly. “Mayli?”

    “Yeah! And a man!” he gasped, hopping.

    “Why didn’t you ask them to— Oh,” said Alan lamely as Gerhard’s voice said: “He did. I hope we’re not intruding?”

    “We—we could come back later,” faltered Mayli. “It’s your lunchtime; I’m sorry.”

    “No, that’s all right,” said Catherine with a smile. “Um, Alan, can you grab this thingy? –Ta,” she said with relief as he took the Quicksie maker off her. “It could be any time, our power’s been off all morning, and then the cat got into the bowl of milk I’d set to separate. Would you like to sit down? Are you hungry?”

    Alan had now realised that Mayli’s eyelids were very swollen. He was about to suggest that they go into the sitting-room, but thought better of it. “Yes, sit down and join us: the coffee’s nearly ready, and Catherine’s made mountains of toasted sandwiches.”

    “We sort of thought my sister Saskia might turn up, because the phone rang this morning and we don’t know who it was,” explained Catherine, pulling out chairs for them. “Sit here, Mayli. I’m sorry: I know I know you, only I’ve forgotten your name,” she said simply to Gerhard.

    Gerhard had been to the Kincaids’ house once before: not for dinner, merely for drinks after work with Alan, Thomas, Leigh, Dorothy, and a couple of the professors. He smiled his nice smile. “Gerhard Sachs.”

    “Our Professor of Economics,” murmured Alan. “Were your hands clean, forty hours back before the bloody cat got into the milk?” he said mildly to Dicky.

    “Yeah! You made us wash them after we’d groomed Lightning!”

    “Forty hours back, mm. Very well. Sit. Eat.” Alan unwrapped the heated sandwiches. “Start on these.”

    “Yes, I think we could all start,” said Catherine placidly. “Are you hungry, Gerhard?”

    “Yes, very!” he said with a laugh. “Thank you so much—if you’re sure?”

    “Yes. We’ve got loads of food to eat up, we think the power’s been off since about midnight.”

    Gerhard took a sandwich. “Ja? It was on in Kingfisher Bay.”

    “We think it’s just our local line,” said Alan, pouring coffee. “Milky, one sugar—yes?” he said to Mayli.

    “Um, yes, thanks, Dr Kincaid,” she said faintly.

    “‘Alan,’” corrected Alan firmly.

    Dicky choked down a huge mouthful of sandwich. “Alan’s computer, it won’t work, because of the power, see,” he said eagerly to Mayli. “So me an’ Alan, we been working round the place all morning! Hey, you wanna see my horse, Mayli?”

    “Later,” said Alan briefly, squeezing his skinny shoulder. “How do you like your coffee, Gerhard?”

    “Black, two sugars, thank you.”

    Alan passed him a coffee, sat down and composedly took a toasted sandwich.

    Catherine passed the sandwiches to Mayli, explaining: “They’re mainly cheese and tomato, with chutney. But there was some rice to use up, so I put that in them, too. The ones with the brown bread are different, they’ve got cottage cheese and chutney with some cold lamb. Alan’ll do them in a minute.”

    “Apparently,” agreed Alan calmly.

    Dazedly Mayli took a cheese, tomato and chutney sandwich.

    With Alan officiating at the Quicksie maker, the pile of sandwiches was rapidly reduced. Catherine and Gerhard chatted cosily, mainly about recipes, and Dicky imparted much unwanted information about his pony, his bike, and the recent adventure of the hedgehog. Alan by now was very sure that there was something wrong with Mayli but said nothing. The meal finished with a large bowl of cold stewed apple, which Catherine explained had been waiting in the fridge because she’d planned to make an apple meringue tonight, with yesterday’s cream. Over it Dicky recited the saga of the cat in the milk bowl in great detail.

    “Well,” said Alan with a sigh as they sat round, replete, “let’s forget the very idea of washing up with only this bloody single burner to heat water on, and have another coffee and a civilised liqueur in the sitting-room, shall we?”

    “Aw-wuh! I was gonna show Mayli an’ Gerhard Lightning!”

    “Later,” said Alan very firmly.

    “Aw-wuh! But whadd’ll I do?”

    “Go for a ride.”

    “Alan! That’s mean! You know he can’t manage the saddle by himself!” objected Catherine.

    “I can SO!”

    Alan grabbed him by his jersey just as he was about to rush out. “No. The adults are going to have a nice sit-down. You can go for a ride on your bike. See if you can spot the linesmen. And don’t go farther than the letterboxes, okay?”

    “Huh! I can go much farther than—”

    “Because by the time you get back, our digestions will have settled down sufficiently for us to stagger out to the stables with you,” finished Alan smoothly.

    “Yay!” He rushed out, pursued by a shout from Alan of: “AND PUT YOUR PARKA ON!”

    Gerhard chuckled.

    Alan eyed him drily. “Oh, at least eighty percent of ’em. Come on through.”

    “What?” asked Catherine in bewilderment as they followed him through to the sitting-room. “Eighty percent of what?”

    “Eighty percent of our co-workers would never believe it, to see Alan in his domestic setting,” explained Gerhard smoothly.

    “No,” agreed Mayli shakily. “You—you really love her,” she said in a strangled voice to Alan.

    Gerhard’s eye met Alan’s fleetingly. “Ja, off course. And the little boy. Sit on this nice sofa, Mayli—ja?”

    Mayli subsided onto the sofa, bursting into a storm of tears as she did so.

    Sitting down beside her, Gerhard put his arm round her.

    Catherine was looking distressed. Alan shook his head slightly at her, and went to get the brandy and a couple of liqueurs.

    After some time Mayli was able to sip some brandy.

    “Drink it up, Catherine. Once can’t hurt, never mind the preggy,” said Alan firmly, as Catherine just sat there with a glass of Cherry Heering in her fist, looking anxiously at Mayli.

    “Oh—yes. It’s much nicer than the brandy,” she noted, sipping.

    “Er—mm. But the brandy is more medicinal,” he said firmly. “Now, Mayli, if you’re feeling a bit better, you’d better tell us.”

    “Yes. That—that awful fax, Dr Kincaid. That was me,” she said baldly. “And I’m really sorry.”

    Catherine’s mouth opened in shock.

    Alan had been expecting something like this. He gave her a warning look. “I see. I thought we got on quite well, Mayli? Though I admit my conduct that weekend merited that and more.”

    “Yes. I mean, we do. I mean,” she said, twisting her long, strong hands together on her thin pink-trousered knees, “I was all—all mixed up.”

    “It is to do, somewhat, with her mother’s illness,” said Gerhard in a low voice.

    “Yes. Only I know no-one can be blamed for that,” said Mayli dully. “It’s all right, Gerhard, I’ll tell him.”

    “I think that would be best,” he agreed mildly.

    “Yes. Um—the thing is, Dr Kincaid, Mum used to know you ages ago—before I was born; and she—she sort of luh-let me think,” said Mayli in a trembling voice, “that there was—was more between you than—than there really was.”

    Alan replied mildly: “What was your mother’s maiden name, Mayli?”

    “Um—well, she was never married, she just calls herself Coffi… Briggs,” said the girl glumly. “Wendy Briggs. –I know you don’t remember her!” she burst out. “And—and that was partly why!”

    “Uh—no, I don’t. I do seem to have some vague recollection of Thomas’s mentioning the name—er—at the last school fair, was it? You weren’t there, darling,” he said as Catherine opened her mouth.

    “No, we were still having our row. I see; you mean she was one of Alan’s girlfriends?” she said to Mayli. “He’s had lots and lots of them: new names keep resurfacing all the time. Half the time he can’t even remember what they looked like. He’s never been the sort of man who takes women seriously, you see.”

    Alan’s jaw had dropped.

    “Lots of them were those really smart professional ladies that wear suits, too,” said Catherine to Mayli.

    “Um—yes. Mum’s not like that. She admitted to me,” she said hoarsely, “that Jill was telling the truth, and that she never even was his girlfriend! She just had a crush on him.”

    Catherine nodded understandingly.

    Mayli’s hands shook. She blew her nose. “It was when you were at Cambridge. You were a lecturer,” she said to Alan.

    “Cambridge? Oh, good grief. Would we be talking about a friend of Jill Davis’s? Er—do you even know Jill, Mayli?”

    “Yes. Dorothy brought her over to our place. She told me what really happened.” Mayli blew her nose again. “I should have known; I’ve always seen that Mum’s just like Georgette—my sister, she’s married now. It’s just the sort of dumb thing she used to do. Um, well, Mum had a crush on you—she was a student, you see. Only you didn’t take any notice of her. I think,” she said, the beautiful high brow creasing, “that Jill must be right: you never even noticed her. But she got all worked up. –It’s just like Georgette and the man in the shoe-shop, and I must have been blind as a bat not to see it!” she noted in a bitter aside.

    Gerhard patted her shoulder gently. “Never mind that, my dear. Tell them about your mother.”

    “Yes. Sorry. Well, um, she went to see you in—in your office, I think it was, and sort of threw herself at you. But you—um—gave her the brush-off.”

    Alan’s face was very red. “I’m sorry, but— Wait. Is she Black?”

    “No, that’s my father’s side. Mum’s blonde and quite small.”

    “Uh—oh, good God! That girl!”

    “So you did!” cried Catherine accusingly. “I bet you told her she was a silly hen!”

    “No,” said Gerhard quickly. “Ve gather that it vas something much crueller and much more cutting than that. But you see, Alan can scarcely have been thirty at the time—late twenties, perhaps? Few off us have learned to be kind at that age. And most especially, not when we are embarrassed and feel ourselves to be at fault.”

    “Yes,” agreed Mayli. “Well, I was pretty horrible to Georgette when the shoe-shop man’s wife came round and— Um, never mind. Only I do understand, now. Only I—I suppose I sort of brooded on it. Mum went and chucked herself in the river, you see. And—and for ages we believed that she really had tried to commit suicide. Only Jill says she did it just down from some men who were fishing. Kitty once did something stupid like that,” she revealed sourly. “She was fourteen. Me and Mum both said she couldn’t go to the school dance with Kyle Andrews. Well, he was eighteen, you see, it was his last year at school. She swallowed a whole bottle of aspirin tablets. But she left the empty bottle on the kitchen table with a note where I’d be bound to see it after I got back from the dairy.”

    “Lots of girls are silly at that age,” agreed Catherine, nodding. “My Noelle went really potty when she was fifteen. She reckoned she was going to leave school the minute she turned sixteen and work in Woolie’s, because half the people who did have qualifications were out of work anyway.”

    “There is a sort of logic in that,” returned Mayli cautiously.

    “Yes, but it eventually turned out she thought that she was going to marry David Patterson and support him through his medical degree. His sister was in her class, you see. It turned out he’d been pulling her leg. Mr Patterson was absolutely furious with him when he found out. But she didn’t do anything like taking aspirins after his father made him come round and apologise. She—um—went the other way. Gave up all her sports and her Girls’ Brigade and plunged herself into swot. That lasted,” said Catherine with a twinkle in her eye, “until she was in the Sixth Form, and they had a dance with all the boys from—”

    “Yes, all right, darling. We get the picture,” said Alan mildly.

    “I’m only saying that lots of girls are silly. And,” said Catherine, giving him a hard look, “most men don’t know what to do about it when they are.”

    “Quite.”

    There was a little pause.

    “Mum gave up her degree,” said Mayli hoarsely. “She didn’t want to stay at Cambridge after that.”

    “Oh, Hell!” said Alan in dismay.

    “It’s all right, really,” she said, smiling awkwardly. “She wouldn’t have had us if she’d stayed at university.”

    “No, that’s true, I suppose,” he said slowly. “Er—did you always know of the connection? When you applied for the job, I mean?”

    “Yes. Mum told me not to,” she said dully. “Only I sort of thought— Well, I didn’t really think I’d get it. But then I thought maybe I could puh-pay you back.”

    “I see.”

    “Alan, it’s understandable!” said Catherine urgently.

    “What? Yes. Was the weekend at Wairakei the first opportunity you had to attack me, or were you biding your time until you could do something that could hurt me emotionally rather than professionally?” he asked.

    “Alan! Honestly!” cried Catherine.

    “It’s all right, Mrs Kincaid,” said Mayli with a wan smile. “My mind works a bit like that, too. I suppose I did want to hurt you emotionally. And— I don’t know. I just saw the opportunity.”

    “Mm.” Alan was thinking about that weekend. Hospital administrators and others getting off with hospital administrators and others all over the show… Poor damned girl. “You wanted to hurt me in the same sort of way as I’d hurt your mother—yes.”

    “Yes. And I—I honestly believed at the time,” said Mayli to Catherine, “that you’d be better off without him. I can see now that I—I just wanted to buh-believe—”

    “Ssh. It’s all right, I understand. Alan can be really blighting even these days; I can well imagine he was absolutely awful to your mother. –Alan, you could make some coffee, now; I could just do with some.” Numbly Alan got up and tottered out. As he went Catherine was saying kindly to Mayli: “Did she go off the rails a bit, after she’d gone home from the varsity?”

    “Well, yes. She—she had lots of other boyfriends and—and then she threw herself at my father—”

    Alan shut the kitchen door firmly and leaned against it. Jesus! Talk about your sins coming home to roost! How many years must it— Jesus! He still couldn’t remember the bloody girl’s face; just a vague impression of intensely silly blondeness. That must have been his Delphine period, looking back. Yes, the sophisticated Delphine and Lacan. Not to say the conviction that he, A.H. Kincaid, was God’s gift to English linguistics… He would never have dreamed of looking twice at a dim little undergraduate. God.

    When he eventually went back with the coffee Catherine gave him a warning look. “It’s all quite clear, now. Mayli was very mixed up. We’ve decided she’d better give up the job. Even if you think you can forgive her, it wouldn’t be sensible for her to keep on. She’s going to have a wee holiday and then maybe she can work for Gerhard, instead.”

    “Yes. We shall need a competent P.A. in the department,” agreed Gerhard smoothly. “That smells wonderful, Alan. Thank you so much.”

    Limply Alan distributed coffee and refilled their glasses.

    “I’ve told Mayli that you wouldn’t dream of prosecuting,” said Catherine firmly.

    “What? Good God, no! Er—look, is your mother all right, Mayli? Does she know you’ve come over here today?”

    “Don’t ask any more questions, Alan: I’ll explain it all later,” said Catherine quickly. “Mayli’s father turned up out of the blue, it’s all been very traumatic for them. But we think he’ll take Mrs Coffi home to America, he’s quite well off.”

    “Yes. Kitty wants to go, too,” said Mayli faintly.

    “That’s good: she can go to one of those lovely American universities like the one Jack Perkins was at,”—Alan’s jaw sagged: as far as he was aware Catherine was terrified of Perkins and had exchanged at the most five words with him—“and be in a sorority and meet lots of nice boys that expect a girl to do a degree.”

    “Yes. Dorothy thinks so, too,” said Mayli in the thread of a voice.

    Alan could see the girl was exhausted. “Yes, well, that sounds fine. Drink that up, Mayli.”

    “Ja, and then I take you home,” said Gerhard firmly.

    “I duh-don’t think— He’ll be there,” she said faintly.

    “Yes; maybe we go to my place, I have plenty of room,” he said mildly. “We talk about it in the car, okay?”

    She nodded mutely.

    “My God,” said Alan to his wife five minutes later as they waved the BMW off.

    “Don’t dare to say anything smart, Alan.”

    “I certainly shan’t. It appears to have been my propensity for saying smart things that started the whole bloody mess.”

    “Yes.” Catherine shut the front door. “That stupid bobby-calf’s mooing at their car, I told you he’d started doing that. Come into the sitting-room, I think I’ll have another of those Cherry Whatsits—just a drop.”

    Alan followed her silently. He poured her a tiny Cherry Whatsit and himself a large Cognac. “Jesus,” he said limply, having downed half of it.

    “I think it’s all working out for the best. Gerhard seems to be taking care of her. He’s nice, isn’t he? –He found her by the road, sitting on a rock. I think I know which one he meant: down Grey’s Beach Road. He’s broken up with that nice Beth Martin. I think Mayli will suit him very well. She’s so lovely and elegant, but at the same time he can teach her lots of things!” she said, smiling happily.

    “Uh—yes. Er, well according to the gossips, he certainly seems to have taught young Beth a few— Sorry.”

    “Not just that. Well, that, too,” she said fairly.

    “Yes. Catherine, I honestly can’t remember a word I said to the woman!” he said desperately.

    “What? Oh; Mayli’s mother? No, I don’t suppose you can. You were in your clever-clever mood.”

    “I—” Alan stopped. After a moment he said with difficulty: “I suppose I was always in it, back in those days.”

    “Yes.”

    “It’s taken a lifetime to learn not to do it. Or to do it as little as possible,” he said with a sigh.

    “Yes.”

    “Catherine—” Alan stopped.

    “What?”

    “Thank God you were here,” he said shakily.

    Catherine looked at him dubiously. “Me? I don’t think I did anything.”

    “Yes. You—you were a tower of strength.”

    “Was I? Well, I suppose I wasn’t as affected by it as you.”

    “No. Weren’t you? No, well, thank God for that. –God, I can’t even remember what I said to the woman!”

    “Girl,” corrected Catherine calmly.

    “What?”

    “Girl. She would only have been a girl at the time. Mayli was saying—I think it was while you were making the coffee—that she was only about nineteen.”

    “Jesus,” he muttered.

    “You couldn’t know that she was so unstable and so immature that she’d go off the deep end. Some people just are silly.”

    “Yes, but I could have been kinder!” he said forcefully.

    “Yes,” agreed Catherine calmly. “I suppose that wasn’t in your nature. Any more than it was in hers not to make scenes. A lot of it’s play-acting, with that sort of silly girl. Only they don’t know when to stop,” she added thoughtfully.

    “My God, how can you be so detached?” he gasped.

    “I don’t know,” said Catherine simply. “She went on throwing herself at the wrong men, you know. Mayli’s father was married: he told her that from the start but she went ahead and got pregnant anyway. And her sisters have both got different fathers. What I mean is, not the same as Mayli’s father and not the same as each other, either. Neither of them married her: I don’t know what happened to the middle sister’s father but the little girl’s father went back to his wife.”

    Alan swallowed. “This still doesn’t excuse my conduct.”

    “No. But like I said, it was your nature. And I really think you have learned to be kinder. I mean, the way you were back then, you’d never have dreamed of living here with me and Dicky, for a start, would you? Let alone deciding you wanted to marry me.”

    After a moment Alan said: “No. I was an up-myself young prick back in those days.”

    “Yes. You’ve improved a lot. Don’t blame yourself; lots of people get worse as they get older, not better. Look at Mr Deakin.”

    Alan gaped at her. “Who?”

    “You don’t know him. He’s the man with the Rhode Island Reds that never gives us eggs for the poultry stall.”

    “Y— Darling, that’s irrelevant.”

    “No, it isn’t. Uncle Bob knew him years ago, and he used to say that he was always a mean little bugger even when he was a schoolkid. His, um, his unpleasant characteristics have got more pronounced; and as far as anyone knows, he’s never tried to do anything to improve them.”

    “I see,” said Alan limply.

    Composedly Catherine retailed the story of Kevin Goode and Penny Bergen, Mr Deakin, and the chook house.

    Alan just looked at her limply.

    “Have another brandy,” she suggested kindly.

    “No, I’m turning into an alcoholic.”

    “Would you like a lie-down?”

    Alan sighed. “No. I’m all right.”

    Catherine glanced out of the window. “Good. Dicky’s come back: he’ll be wild when he finds out we let them go. You could go for a ride with him to make up for it.”

    Sighing, Alan got up. “Is it all right?” he said uncertainly.

    “Yes. I’ve never had any illusions about you, I don’t think,” she said calmly.

    “No, but— Well, for all I know any number of other disasters from the past could crawl out of the woodwork: I never noticed that one while it was happening, how many more might there be?” said Alan with a mad laugh.

    “It was a pretty big coincidence, really, you coming out here after Mayli’s mother had moved here. I shouldn’t think there’ll be any more.”

    “Catherine, that’s not the point!”

    ‘No; but it is for all practical purposes.”

    “Practical purposes: yes,” said Alan wryly. “–You realise you’ve gone and lost me my perfect P.A.?”

    “What? Oh: yes. She would have been uncomfortable staying on.”

    “Whereas I’d have coped perfectly well?” he said drily.

    “I think so. You’d have classed it as all over and done with. But most people can’t do that, Alan.”

    Alan grimaced. “No. I see.”

    “Go on, go and take him for a ride.”

    “Mm.” Alan went slowly over to the door. “Darling, I’m really sorry. I— Well, it can’t have been nice for you, detached an’ all though you are.”

    “That’s all right. And I didn’t do much at all. I think it was just as well she didn’t come on her own. It sounded as if she was in a real state when Gerhard found her. I think he’s been wonderful.”

    “Mm. Er—darling, he is twice her age,” he said cautiously.

    Catherine nodded serenely. “Yes. I think she probably needs an older man. Well, it’s facile to say she’s never had a father, but that probably does come into it somewhere.”

    “Ye-es… Look, don’t leap to too many conclusions, mm? I’m pretty sure he was still in Beth Martin’s pocket as recently as last week.”

    “Yes. I don’t think that counts,” said Catherine mildly. “I really think, from the way he looked at her, that—well, he may not be technically in love with her. But,” she continued happily, apparently unaware that her husband was goggling at her, “I’d say he’s decided she’s what he wants. Dorothy was telling me he’s the pedagogical type! Like Leigh Gore. Well, actually I wasn’t sure which one he was, when she was telling me—Gerhard, I mean—only now I can see she was right. Mayli’ll be a lovely project for him. She’s young enough to be able to change to suit him. –Not fundamentally!” she said on a scornful note as he opened his mouth. “Well, it’s obvious from the nice way she talks and the effort she makes with her clothes and make-up and everything that she’s the sort of girl that’s keen to better herself!”

    “Upwardly mobile,” said Alan very limply indeed. “Yes. Look, darling: you’re very probably right, but just don’t leap to conclusions, mm? There—er—are no guarantees in life, you know.”

    “I know that!” she said scornfully.

    “Mm. Come here.”

    Catherine came over to him and Alan hugged her strongly.

    “Mayli is a very pretty name,” she thoughtfully.

    Alan jumped. “Oh—yes.”

    “If it’s a girl. ‘Mayli Kincaid.’ Um… I’m not sure. We’ll have to think about it some more.”

    “Yes,” said Alan, very weakly indeed. “We’ll think about it some more.”

    Gerhard Sachs was, of course, even more practical and detached a personality than Catherine Burchett Kincaid: he, too, could see that there were no guarantees in life. Nevertheless he thought it was a pretty hopeful sign that Mayli let him take her home to his townhouse and install her in the spare bedroom. Other people who had moved in a bare five months earlier without any furniture of their own might not yet have furnished their spare bedroom, but Gerhard’s now sported a neat divan bed with a white spread, a neat modern white chest of drawers, one severe black metal bedside lamp, and simple fawn curtains. Plus the oatmeal carpet which had come with the place. Mayli looked around its uncluttered simplicity and sighed. “This is nice.”

    “Ja, no pink cabbage roses,” agreed Gerhard calmly. “Have a rest, okay? The bathroom is just next-door. We can talk later, if you feel up to it.”

    “Yes. Thanks very much,” she said awkwardly.

    He twinkled at her. “Don’t thank me, I’m getting an excellent P.A. out of it, you know! I shall be in the sitting-room if you need me.” Forthwith he vanished, closing the door gently after him.

    Mayli looked around her uncertainly. There seemed to be nothing for it but to lie down…

    She came to about three hours later. Someone had put a white duvet over her as she slept. She went very quietly into the bathroom, used the toilet, and washed her face and hands. There was a comb in her purse: she retrieved the purse and combed her hair. Then she went uncertainly into the sitting-room.

    Gerhard’s sitting-room was almost as plain as his spare bedroom. The ubiquitous oatmeal carpet, the same type of fawn curtains, here drawn back, very narrow white Venetians, an ultra-plain black leather suite with not a puff, bulge or button about it, a plain white metal standard lamp, a severe-looking TV on a black metal framework, one long white cabinet against the inside wall, and a couple of large, plain pieces of modern pottery in subfusc shades. Mayli was, of course, unaware that this look, far too severe to the New Zealand eye, was very much the modern German style. She thought, however, that it was very restful. Gerhard, in a plain lightweight fawn jumper that was about the same shade as the curtains (and that the innocent Mayli did not recognise as Cashmere, and therefore not cheap), and the heavy pale grey cotton slacks he had worn earlier, was sitting on the sofa reading a journal.

    “Hullo,” she said awkwardly.

    “Ah, there you are. You feel better, no?”

    “Yes. Thanks.”

    “Good. Sit down, Mayli. Shall we talk?”

    She nodded jerkily, “I think we’d better.”

    “Good.” Gerhard waited until she had sat down in one of the leather armchairs. Then he said: “I think, if you were to move out of your house, that your father would move in—ja?”

    “Yes,” she said, licking her lips nervously. “Mum wants him to.”

    “Yes. Then they can sort out what to do about the house and so forth, and make their arrangements for the move to the States in comfort, ja?”

    “Mm. Um—Kitty’s got mid-year exams.”

    “Yes, well, they will have to sort out whether they go before then, or wait until she has sat them. She will have to sit SATS if they go to the States, you know? And it might be better if she has as long as possible with their curriculum before she does so.”

    “Yes.”

    Gerhard was quite pleased to see that she evidently knew what he was talking about. He had had more than enough time to discover that most New Zealanders knew nothing of any school system outside their own, in spite of the relentless barrage of information on the British and American TV shows they got. It was true that this barrage was unstructured and that much of the informational content featured as mere background—nevertheless. “Yes. So—my spare room is yours for as long as you wish. There is plenty off closet space, so I think you could bring as many clothes as you like. If you would care to stay?”

    After a moment Mayli said hoarsely: “I would, but—but what if I do something mad again?”

    “Well, is there anything about me to provoke your madness?” he replied mildly.

    “No,” she said, the big dark eyes filling.

    Gerhard got up and came to sit on the arm of her chair. “Don’t cry. If you wish for it, I could make very careful enquiries and find out if there is a really good psychiatrist in the city. Someone you might talk to, you know?”

    Mayli was silent, her head bowed.

    “Sometimes they can help. Though, mark, I do not subscribe to the theory that talking everything out is an instant cure. Nor does a really good psychiatrist, for sure!” he added with a tiny laugh.

    She looked up at him in bewilderment. “Oh. I thought that was what they—what they did.”

    “No, no: this is the silly idea one gets from the popular media! Well, probably there are no very good ones in this country, at all. But we could see. One talks, and perhaps for many months, one plays little verbal games, you know? For some people, this goes on for years. The psychiatrist does not mind: he—or she, off course—gets rich while you imagine you successfully deceive him. Then, maybe, one day you actually say something that is—not the factual truth, for off course you have been telling that all along—but, shall we say, quite near to the factual truth plus what, on at least one level, you actually feel about it. And this is, you see, progress.”

    There was a considerable silence.

    Then Mayli looked up at him and said in some awe: “How did you know? I’d do exactly that: I mean, give the facts but—but sort of not really the truth, at the same time.”

    “Possibly I know because I am like that, too. I think many people are, certainly the very intelligent ones. The stupid ones I think do not consciously realise when they play these little mind games.”

    Mayli nodded.

    Gerhard merely perched there looking mild.

    After quite some time she said: “Wouldn’t it be an awful waste of time? And—and money?”

    Gerhard did not smile. Disturbed though she was, she was also, of course, an intensely practical woman, and he had always seen this in her. “Ja, very probably. Possibly it is the sort of diversion that only well-off Viennese or New Yorkers really have the time or the money for? For many off the rest off us, just getting on with life acts… Not as a cure, that is too simplistic,” he said thoughtfully. “But it seals over the wound, ja? So successfully that for many, it never breaks apart again.”

    “I see. Only what if it does?”

    “I think, one cannot predict, you know? Excellent psychiatric treatment can help. On the other hand, one can undergo this and still something can precipitate another crisis.”

    “Mm. Um—well, what do you think I should do?”

    “I think, not make any precipitate decisions, okay? Maybe if I find a very nice man—or lady, off course—that you could see, you could think later about whether you wish to.”

    “Ye-es… I don’t much like ladies,” she said in a low voice.

    Very possibly most of the rest of Sir G.G. would have expected her to say she didn’t like men. Gerhard Sachs, however, was not surprised at all to hear she didn’t like ladies; he thought that was pretty apparent, from the way she refused to hobnob with Juliette et al. at the office. “No, many women are cows,” he agreed cheerfully.

    Mayli blinked.

    “Very occasionally one finds an intelligent one who can rise above her hormones and her social conditioning—like Dorothy and Jane, ja? Or one who is both womanly on the surface and truly kind underneath.”

    “Yes. Like Mrs Kincaid,” she growled.

    “Yes.”

    “Um—I like Akiko, too.”

    That did surprise Gerhard, a little. So she was capable of seeing beneath the surface cultural traits to the sensible little person that was Akiko Takagaki? Well, good. “Yes, me, too. Well, as I say, no need for precipitate decisions. You may stay here as long as you like. Have a little holiday as Mrs Kincaid suggests. I would say, take all the leave you have owing—and off course Alan would give you compassionate leave also, there would be no problem. Then, if you want to, you could come and work for my department.”

    “Yes. Are you sure?” she said earnestly.

    Gerhard didn’t know whether she meant about working for him or staying in his flat, but as he was sure about both he said calmly: “Yes.”

    “Thanks,” she said shakily.

    He patted her shoulder lightly and got up. “People will talk, but if you do not care, nor do I.”

    “Um, about me staying here? Yes, I suppose they will. Um, what if—if— I mean, I know you’ve broken up with Beth, but—um—”

    “You mean, what if I want to bring a bird home? Well, I think I can refrain from that, I am not young and—er—intemperate any more!”

    “No, but that isn’t fair on you!” she said strongly.

    “No, well, life is not fair, at all. But at the moment I am not thinking about birds at all,” he said serenely.

    Mayli looked at him dubiously and decided he must be more upset over losing Beth than he was letting on. “I see.”

    “What I should like to do,” said the cunning Gerhard casually, “is buy a house. Or perhaps build—I think, up the Inlet. The section next but one to Jack’s appeals. And if you are on holiday for the next few weeks, perhaps you would like to help with that? I really know nothing about the New Zealand property market.”

    Mayli nodded eagerly. “Yes, I’d like to. Properties up the Inlet are really going to increase in value as our staff come on board!”

    “Ja. Good. So for the time being that is what we shall do, okay? With the proviso that there is absolutely nothing definite about any off these arrangements and that if we find we do not like them, or we are at all unhappy in them, we tell each other, okay?”

    “Yes. Thanks.”

    There was a little silence.

    “Why are you doing all this for me, Gerhard?” said Mayli, licking her lips.

    “Oh… Well, I suppose Othello’s occupation is gone… No, well, you have met my sister and her friend Jill,” he said, wrinkling his straight nose. “Jill has told me to my face that I see Beth as my little pupil rather than my lover! Maybe I need another pupil? Also, off course, I am rather lonely, out here in a strange land. I am used to city life, and—well, I think it will be nice to have some company in the flat.”

    “Yes. Tell me about your family,” she demanded abruptly.

    He was very glad to see she had emerged sufficiently from her self-preoccupation, natural though that was, to be able to make the enquiry. “Ja, certainly. But first we make a cuppa, okay? Come on out to the kitchen.”

    He led her out to the kitchen and, competently showing her where all the tea things were, began to tell her about his family—first, just about the Sachs tribe, and then as they sat and sipped tea, very casually about his broken marriage.

    Mayli was still too stunned by events, not to say by the emotional turmoil that she’d been going through, to think anything much. But she did register that, for the first time in a very long while, she felt at peace. She wasn’t absolutely sure, because a lot of it was just the relief of confessing to Dr Kincaid. And of not being sacked on the spot. But she thought that some of it was because of Gerhard. He was, really a very restful sort of person to be with. You could feel at home with him.

    Gerhard of course was still very much aware that no precipitate decisions should be taken. As he talked, he watched her approvingly, confirming that in addition to the innate elegance she had nice table manners, that she expressed herself, if inevitably in the local vernacular, very much at the polite end of its spectrum, that she moved gracefully and was a pleasant presence in his house. Good. Very promising. The rest could take its time.

Next chapter:

https://conquestofcartersbay.blogspot.com/2023/05/leighs-easter.html