Posy Turns Up Trumps, And Hal Just Turns Up

21

Posy Turns Up Trumps, And Hal Just Turns Up

    A wet spring had come to Carter’s Bay. The Sir G.G. site, even though amazing progress had been made, had turned into a lake of mud. Jack’s section was likewise, though as Barry and his men had got the walls up, largely by dint of working in every pale ray of filtered sunlight regardless of whether it was nominally the weekend, this didn’t stop work going ahead. Thomas’s giant section was reported to be a giant bog and he was reported to have given up some notion of erecting a tent thereon. Jane’s section was also pretty much of a bog but no-one had heard her complain about it. She had discovered that some of the shrubby, pale green growth near the road was pussy willow and was delightedly bringing in great armfuls to the office. When placed in a horrible, shiny, massed-produced pale grey vase in the reception area they actually received the august nod from the Iceman himself. Yvonne came in the next day with a home-made chocolate cake for Jane: no-one needed to ask why.

    Shiva Perkins was now visibly very much weaker and Bruce Smith had advised them that it would be a good idea for her to have permanent care. Dorothy and Jack had had a painful interview with her and Rab in which the gravity of her case had been made pretty well clear to her: they and Rab had all felt far more shaken by it than she appeared to be. Indeed, Rab had said dazedly as they tottered round to the pub and absorbed neat whiskies afterwards: “She doesna seem to care.”

    “No. People who have an incurable illness sometimes get like that. They greet the idea of death with relief, almost: it means they can give up pretending to struggle. –I’m sorry, Rab,” said Dorothy remorsefully as his nice blue eyes slowly filled.

    “Aye,” he said, knocking back his whisky. “I get the idea.”

    Dorothy at this point did not point out that relatives of people who were dying of an incurable illness often indulged in aberrant behaviour, to wit, his father’s taking up with the blonde Angela, alienating all who knew him, and then abruptly dumping the girl. She certainly thought it, though. Added to which, even though Rab was not the brightest of the bright, it was pretty self-evident. Well, it certainly was to May Swadling and Yvonne Fitzgerald. May had been quite sympathetic, really. Yvonne had tried to be, but hadn’t succeeded. As to how the affaire had affected poor Beth, Dorothy didn’t have a clue. She was pretty well avoiding Jack and treating him with calm indifference when she couldn’t avoid him, but hadn’t she been doing that before he fell out of his tree? Dorothy rather thought she had.

    The next problem on the agenda was who to get in to look after Shiva. Jack efficiently hired a highly qualified nurse but Shiva took an instant dislike to her. And Rab reported resentfully that she left piles of dishes in the sink for him to do.

    “Those of us that thought our nice New Zealand nurses weren’t that sort, were obviously wrong,” concluded Dorothy with a sigh.

    Jack contacted the agency. Another terrifically capable nurse was produced—at a terrifically high price, of course. Shiva hated her, too, and Rab reported that she also left great piles of washing up, not to mention laundry, and it must—brilliantly—be the agency policy.

    The upshot of all this was that Beth knocked timidly at the top of Jack’s stairs one drizzly Saturday.

    “WHAT? –Oh; it’s you. Sorry, Beth,” he said sheepishly, reddening.

    “Ida said just to come up,” she apologised.

    Ida would, yeah. Jack sighed. “Uh-huh. What can I do for you, Beth?”

    “Well—um—I was thinking—maybe I could share Rab and Shiva’s house and help look after Shiva,” she said shyly, blushing.

    Jack went very red and replied grimly: “You got practical nursing experience, have ya?”

    “No, but Dorothy says—”

    “I’ll kill the cow,” said Jack under his breath,

    “No, she never suggested it: I thought of it for myself!” said Beth quickly.

    “You mean you thought you did, Beth. It’s very good of you, but you’ve got a full-time job to cope with. Quite a demanding full-time job, if the shouting we all hear floating down the corridor is any indication,” he said on a dry note.

    “It doesn’t mean anything. I don’t mind it,” said Beth placidly. “Really, I could manage.”

    “No. Thanks, but I won’t hear of it.”

    Beth tried timidly to argue but Jack was adamant.

    “Avon Goode says she’s lonely, though,” she murmured.

    “I know!” he shouted. “Gee, I’m sorry, Beth,” he said lamely.

    “No—truly—I understand,” faltered Beth.

    “The thing is, Rab has to be out at his job all day. We thought this Mrs Marsh would be company for her, but Shiva doesn’t like her. She’s a good practical nurse, though, and—well, someone should be on hand, y’know?”

    “Yes. I know Avon pops in when she can. But Fiorella’s started Play Group now and they expect the mothers to take turns there. And then she has to do her shopping, and so forth.”

    “Yeah, sure. Janet Wilson’s been great, she sometimes comes up in her lunch-hour, but it’s quite a ways, it means she has to make the time up. I guess we’ll manage. It won’t,” said Jack, his mouth tightening, “be for all that much longer, realistically.”

    Beth’s eyes filled with tears. “No,” she whispered. “It was just an idea.” She went away quickly before he could see how upset she was, and get upset himself.

    She thought it over carefully for the rest of the Saturday and finally decided there was no harm in asking.

    Beth Martin did not imagine that it was her responsibility to find a carer for Jack Perkins’s dying daughter: she was not by nature a managing person, at all. She was, however, a humane and caring person; and she was too young, and had led far too uncomplicated an existence, growing up in Jan Martin’s ultra-respectable household in safe, respectable little Christchurch, to have learned that she might put herself at considerable emotional risk if she let herself get involved in other people’s troubles. And in fact, had the notion been put to her, her principles and her nature alike would have led her to spurn it with extreme distaste. She scarcely examined her own motives in this case at all: she was very concerned about poor little Shiva, and she liked Dorothy and knew that she was very upset over it all and that the worry of not finding someone Shiva liked who could spend time with her was making it worse for her. She now honestly believed that her feelings towards Jack were precisely the same. She had got over that silly crush. And it was obvious he couldn’t ever have really been interested in her. But she quite liked him, and it was bad enough knowing your daughter was dying without knowing she was lonely during the day while you had to be at work.

    On the Sunday morning, therefore, Thomas was very startled to hear a loud knock on the cabin roof of Buffalo Gal.

    “If that’s Sol Winkelmann with fish, I’ll kill him,” he announced. “WHAT?” he bellowed.

    No answer. Muttering, Thomas struggled up the companionway. “What do you want?” he said blankly to his PA.

    “Hullo. If it’s too early I can go away again.”

    “It’s not too early, we thought you might be bloody Winkelmann with bloody fish. Come aboard.” Thomas disappeared. Limply Beth followed.

    The interior of Buffalo Gal was quite big, for a boat. At the moment with Thomas, Kim and Posy in it, plus a great collection of suitcase and bags, plus a great collection of discarded clothes, both male and female, it appeared very cramped. “Hullo,” said Beth timidly.

    “Hullo, Beth,” said Kim immediately. “Can you work one of these bloody camping-gas things?”

    “Yes, it’s quite easy, if you’ve got the gas,” said Beth shyly.

    “We do know how to turn it on, thanks, that isn’t the problem. It’s producing something edible once it’s been turned on,” said Kim with a filthy look at Thomas.

    This was believable: the boat was filled with the unmistakable fine, acrid smoke of burnt toast. “Yes,” said Beth, wiping her eyes.

    “Open a bloody porthole, for God’s sake!” said Posy irritably to her brother.

    “Last time I did that you all whined about the draughts. Oh, very well.” He opened a porthole. A gale immediately blew in.

    “The other side!” screamed Posy.

    Shrugging, Thomas opened a porthole on the other side.

    “Shut this other one, Thomas, for Heaven’s sake!” said Kim irritably.

    “Shut it yourself, or are you helpless?”

    Tight-lipped, Kim shut the porthole.

    “Now the smoke won’t blow away, because there’s nothing to blow it,” said Thomas affably.

    “Oh, shut up!” she shouted.

    “Yes, shut up, Thomas. We were trying to make toast, Beth,” explained Posy.

    Beth nodded limply.

    “Then we were going to try bacon and eggs.”

    “It’s just a matter of regulating the heat. Turning the gas down with the little thingy,” explained Beth shyly.

    “‘Thingy’ is a popular word in the vernacular out there. At least, with nice middle-class females. Not sure about the rest,” Thomas explained to his female belongings.

    “Shut up, you needn’t be bloody to Beth, they don't pay her to put up with that sort of thing,” said Posy immediately. She winked at Beth, who gave a startled laugh. “I see: it’s this little thingy, is it, Beth?”

    “Yes.”

    “Thomas claimed that with New Zealand camping-gas burners that was only for turning it on,” said Kim grimly.

    “I expect he was pretending to be impractical. He does that,” said Beth, avoiding her boss’s eye.

    Thomas came up very close to her. “Thanks,” he said with his sidelong smile.

    Beth went very pink and gave a flustered laugh. “Any time!”

    Smiling gently to himself, Thomas the Tank Engine said: “Come for brekkers, have you? There’s plenty. At least, there will be, if too many cooks don’t ruin it.”

    “No, thanks. Um—I—I really came to ask you something, Posy,” said Beth nervously.

    “Me?” returned Posy in surprise.

    “Mm.”

    Thomas perceived that his PA was eyeing his little sister with extreme caution. His burly shoulders shook a little: it was hardly surprising, given that Posy was in one version of her morning-after-the-night-before gear. The night before had merely featured some New Zealand so-called vodka and a fight between him and Kim, so it certainly wasn’t one of the extreme versions. The morning was chilly: September was not warm in northern New Zealand, especially on houseboats; so the gear consisted of a fully-zippered, fleecy teddy-bear suit of the sort not normally worn by those over the age of five. The super-duper American versions he could vaguely remember his daughters wearing had featured flaps in the bum, which were evidently standard in the U.S. model. Posy’s spared the world that, thank God. It was not pale blue or pink, like the junior versions: instead it was a vile beetroot shade. Not puce: technically beetroot: it had in fact been part of the costume that Betty Beetroot had been destined to wear in the ill-fated Beeb series and Posy, immediately perceiving its possible usefulness—she was quite practical, in many ways, was Posy—had simply liberated it. She and Betty Beetroot had been about the same height and as the suit hadn’t been intended to represent the bulbous part of the beetroot—Betty had been destined for an enormous globe supported on her shoulders and completely concealing her face—she had not even had to remove any padding. Betty had been plumper than Posy, so the thing was comfortably loose on her.

    “Yes. Um—you might not want to!” gasped Beth.

    “Would this be useful employment?” asked Thomas keenly.

    “Um—well, something to do,” replied Beth uneasily.

    Grasping his PA and his little sister each by an elbow, Thomas steered them bodily over to the unmade bunk in which Posy had been sleeping—it did duty as a sofa in the daytime: he and Kim had the enormous cabin which took up most of the forward section of the boat. “Sit,” he said, forcing them both bodily down onto it.

    Posy wrinkled her nose at Beth. “Macho, isn’t he?”

    “Um—yes!” said Beth, with a flustered laugh. “I suppose he is!”

    Whistling gently through his teeth, Thomas turned back to the sink-bench, elbowed Kim out of the way, expertly adjusted the camping-gas flame, and began expertly cooking an enormous panful of bacon. Kim went very red but said nothing, merely disappeared into their cabin.

    “Um—Thomas once mentioned that a friend of yours had died of AIDS,” said Beth, clearing her throat.

    “Oh, well, yes; more than one, actually,” replied Posy with no evidence of either surprise or disturbance.

    “Benny,” said Thomas to the pan.

    “Oh, yes, poor darling Benny! He was in that lovely series—when was it, Thomas? Back in the Sixties?”

    “Seventies. Flares.”

    “Oh, yes: of course, how could I forget! All those lovely flowered shirts. Well, in those days no-one was admitting on screen that anyone was gay, even when one patently was, so they cast him as a playboy or something ridiculous. Oh—except for that perfectly bloody film with lovely Susannah York and that old hag.”

    “Sixties,” said Thomas to the pan.

    “Was it? It was perfectly bloody, anyway. –Darling, it can’t have been, don't you remember when we went to Tom Jones and Mummy said you should never have taken me, I was much, much too young?”

    “Eh? Didn’t we go to that with George Banks and that foul Priscilla cow?”

    “Yes, but that’s what I’m saying, Thomas: I was only about nine when poor darling George was mixed up with Priscilla.”

    “Uh—oh. Yes, probably right: it was in the Long Vac.”

    “Exactly!”

    Thomas turned round from the bench and eyed Beth mockingly. “She does this. Oy: you’re wandering from the point,” he said to his sister.

    “You remember, Beth: the hag’s name was George, too! Terribly dykey; well, of course female gays had to be, back then, didn’t they? –Not that I’m saying Monica Davitt is an improvement,” she said to Thomas.

    “For God’s sake, Posy; Beth’s never left her native shores in her life: the poor girl thinks you're potty! –It’s the style, Beth, you’ll get used to it.” he said heavily. “Only the dykey ones were dykey, Posy: I distinctly remember Susannah York getting round in filmy blue nylon shorty jim-jams.”

    “Yes, of course, darling, but she was a bride. Well, that’s what I’m saying: Monica—”

    Thomas took pity on Beth. “You were talking about Benny,” he said firmly.

    “Of course. Ignore him, Beth,” she said, patting Beth’s hand. “Have you got a friend who’s got it, darling? Because I do know exactly what it’s like.”

    “That’s true enough. She was a tower of strength to poor bloody Benny. His damned arty-tarty friends had long since deserted him.”

    “Thomas, that isn’t true,” said Posy with dignity. “All his friends from the Business stood by him; at least, of course they all would have, but they all had tours and so forth that year.”

    “When she says the Business she means the bloody British theatre, and for God's sake don’t be so obscure! –Benny,” he said heavily.

    Posy patted Beth’s hand again. “Yes. Go on, Beth.”

    “Um—it—it isn’t AIDS, and she—she isn’t a friend of mine, really: it—it’s Jack Perkins’s daughter,” stumbled Beth.

    “Shiva. By his first wife. Cirrhosis of the liver. Terminal. She’s in her mid-twenties,” said Thomas to the bacon.

    Posy exclaimed in horror and somewhat to Beth’s surprise, instead of wandering off the point, immediately dragged all the details out of them. “Of course I’ll come and help!” she cried when Beth broached the point timidly.

    “She—she just needs someone to keep her company and—and talk when she feels livelier: you know,” said Beth uneasily, now feeling that it had been a mistake and that Posy would be hopeless.

    “You might think,” said Thomas to his pan, “that Posy’s got too much bloody ego ever to be a decent carer. But that’s not so: it’s largely manner. Perhaps she’s not ruthless enough ever to be a professional nurse, and I’m not saying she’s got enough stickum ever to finish that sort of qualification; but surprisingly enough she has got the sort of detachment that caring needs, and the ability to subdue her own ego while she’s on the job. –Rare, that,” he said, turning the bacon carefully.

    “The thing is, Beth,” said Posy, patting her hand again, “that one has to remember what the person needs.”

    “Exactly,” murmured Thomas.

    “Poor darling Benny really only needed a presence, as well as help with practical things. Bedpans, and thermometers and taking his pills at the right time, not that they ever did him any good, poor lamb.”

    “Um—yes!” said Beth, very started to find that Posy was practical enough to realise that bedpans were an item on the agenda. “Um—she isn’t that sick, yet: she can still walk to the bathroom, only sometimes you have to support her, if she feels weak.”

    Posy nodded. “Benny was like that when I first took over.”

    Beth licked her lips anxiously, but said: “I see. Um—I think she quite likes it if you can read to her from a magazine.”

    “Benny used to like that, too. Nothing demanding.”

    “The Woman’s Weekly. Liked to hear her read the ads,” said Thomas simply.

    “Yes,” agreed Posy serenely as Beth’s jaw dropped. “He did quite a lot of advertising work, at one stage. He had those smooth features that sometimes appeal to very young girls and older women.”

    “Um—I see. Um—well, I think Shiva does like that sort of magazine, actually. Um—sometimes Avon Goode reads to her, but—um—I was round there one day and Avon kept interrupting herself to explain that what it said in the magazine was all rubbish and—and eventually Shiva started to cry. She—she didn’t burst out, or anything, but—”

    “Of course, darling. Just very weak, and not capable of saying she hated it and didn’t want to have to think!” This time Posy squeezed Beth’s hand very hard and Beth found she was saying with tears in her eyes: “It’s absolutely awful, Posy.” And telling Posy a great deal that she hadn’t, really, intended to say.

    … “You were damned good,” said Thomas thoughtfully to his sister as, having consumed a plateful of toast, bacon and egg with every appearance of hunger, Beth departed gratefully, promising to fix a time with Dorothy for Posy to go round and meet Shiva.

    “I suppose it’s a knack. And I have had quite a lot of practice. There were Tommy and Aziz as well as Benny, you know, and then, poor darling Lucy Ryder—now, that was really tragic!”

    Kim had come back for breakfast, but hadn’t taken part in much of the conversation. Now she said limply: “You don’t mean the Lucy Ryder?”

    “Of course, darling! A frightful thing: she came from a non-theatrical family, you know—lower-middle stodge at its worst—and they completely disowned her when they found out what she had. –I’m surprised you remember her.”

    “Mummy was totally fixated on her,” she said feebly.

    “Didn’t she have a stint in Hollywood?” said Thomas.

    Posy nodded. “But of course English actresses weren’t In, and she absolutely hated Hollywood, and so she came home.”

    “Then she did those bloody films for Derry Dawlish after he’d had that belting row with the Royal Court lot, and if you ask me, that was where she picked up the bloody infection,” said Thomas grimly.

    “Darling, surely not! That was in the mid-Seventies, surely?” Posy counted on her fingers. “Um—I’m not sure. No, well, darling Lucy died in 1986. Not long after the AIDS scare began, surely; was it, darling?” she said to Thomas. He shrugged. “Well, she was the first of my friends who we knew for sure had it,” she explained.

    “We never knew what happened to her,” said Kim feebly.

    “No, well, she had a row with Dawlish—we gather because he wanted to add her to his harem,” said Thomas, absent-mindedly starting on the washing up, “and she didn’t want to be added—and she walked out, breaking her contract and leaving him in the lurch, a quarter of the way through his latest epic. He was quids-in with the bloody film Establishment by that stage, must have been after the Oscar, not to mention three BAFTA awards, so the poor girl was blacklisted.”

    “She was sick by then, anyway,” said Posy with a sigh. “She didn’t do anything except a couple of horrid commercials after that. –Thomas, that reminds me, did you know that that frightful Livia Wentworth woman is living out here? Polly Carrano actually knows her!”

    Abruptly Thomas stopped doing the washing-up. “No, and I’m not interested. Why am I doing this when the place is full of female slaves?” he wondered loudly. He went out, to the accompaniment of a furious shout from Kim.

    After a moment Posy said: “Leigh Gore tells me he’s in a bloody mood because he’s been chasing that nice Dorothy Perkins for months and she won’t look at him.”

    “Thanks,” said Kim, very white.

    “I thought you’d better know.”

    “You don’t like me, either, do you?” said Kim through trembling lips.

    Posy looked at her with the detachment that characterised Thomas himself and of which, as he had just explained to Beth, she was more than capable. “I don’t think we’ve got much in common, Kim, but I do like you as a person. But I don’t think you’re right for Thomas. You can’t stand up to him in the right way. That’s pretty obvious already, isn’t it? And he is terribly, terribly clever. He may go on about female slaves but he really only likes people who are as clever as he is.”

    “What do you MEAN?” shouted Kim, now bright red.

    Posy tilted her head to one side—another of her little-girl gestures. “We-ell… I know you’ve got a Ph.D., and so forth, darling, but Thomas would say that that’s only a bit of paper. He likes… Well, I’m not very clever myself, and he’s not very good at putting up with me for more than a few days, as you’ve probably noticed. He likes people with original minds.”

    “Original MINDS? I've published in NATURE!” shouted Dr Foster, bounding to her feet.

    “Yes, so has he. He once said it was populist crap,” she murmured.

    “One week when HE wasn’t in it, you mean! I’ve had ENOUGH!” shouted Kim, rushing out.

    When she hauled her bags up on deck Thomas was sitting at the seaward end of their row in the marina, dangling his feet over the edge, fishing.

    “I’m GOING!” she screamed furiously.

    Thomas the Tank Engine waved insouciantly.

    “Get KNOTTED!” screamed Kim furiously. “And there are NO FISH in this SWAMP!” She staggered off furiously, weighed down by her mountains of baggage.

    When Thomas returned to the cabin Posy had done the washing-up and was sitting curled up on her made-up bunk, fully dressed, reading a magazine. “What did you say?”

    “What do you care?” said Posy into the magazine.

    “Nothing, you’re quite right. Tempestuous, in her way, but brainless,” he said with a shrug.

    “She said she'd published in Nature,” replied Posy indifferently.

    “Proves it, then,” said Thomas the Tank Engine nastily.

    Posy didn’t reply.

    Thomas wandered over to her. “What is that?”

    “An American Vogue. I think it’d be too much for Shiva.”

    “Uh—yeah,” he said a trifle limply, used though he was to her.

    “I’ll take her the Woman’s Weeklies, and some of those lighter American things.”

    “Mm.”

    “I’m quite looking forward to it,” she said placidly.

    Used though he was to her, Thomas found he had to sit down at this point. “Are you? Good,” he said numbly.

    Posy just nodded serenely into her magazine.

    “She’s absolutely wonderful with her,” reported Dorothy in a shaken voice.

    Polly Carrano nodded thoughtfully.

    “I’d have thought she’d be chattering all day, exhausting the poor kid—but apparently not.”

    “I see,” she said slowly.

    “She—uh—well, don’t ask me exactly what she does. She seems to know when Shiva feels like talking or being read to, and when she wants to just lie quietly. And—um—she avoids the pitfall of bright chat,” said Dorothy with a horrible grimace.

    “I know: that one always falls into at Glen Osmonde old folks’ home.”

    Dorothy grimaced. “Yeah.”

    “How is Shiva?” asked Polly firmly.

    “Her dumb relatives dumbly assumed that because she was up in an armchair the other day doing some crochet and talking brightly about refurbishing Murray’s room, she was in remission. Posy assured us she wasn’t and that there was often a bright spot before the end,” said Dorothy tightly.

    Polly freshened her cup of tea. “What did Bruce say?”

    “He agreed with bloody Posy.”

    “Mm.”

    “Very typical of long-term illnesses, apparently.”

    “Yes. Mrs Bathurst at Glen Osmonde was the same. She made woolly dolls, do you remember?”—Dorothy nodded glumly.—“Yes; the twins and Katie Maureen were all favoured. Katie Maureen’s one’s a sort of sicky lilac: she calls it Hatchet Face, don’t ask me which macho idiot came out with that in her hearing, but she’s very fond of it nevertheless. Mrs Bathurst was very bright and chirpy not very long before she died, starting a new doll, icky pale green, and planning a whole family of them. She’d even bought the wool.”

    Dorothy sighed. “Yeah. How long before she died, may I ask?”

    “Three weeks, Dorothy,” said Polly gently.

    Dorothy at this broke down in snorting snobs all over Polly’s charming little upstairs sitting-room.

    “Ta. What a clot,” she said soggily, accepting a Carrano hanky and blowing her nose on it. It smelled just like one of Janet’s: lavender bags. “I barely know the girl.”

    “No, but she is family. And I suppose you can remember when she was born?”

    “Yeah. Actually, I was there the day she walked,” said Dorothy with a sigh. “Though most of the time I can’t intellectually connect that staggering, damp-bottomed, plump little object with the Shiva of today.”

    “No, but possibly you’re making the connection emotionally,” she said calmly.

    “Mm. –How come you can say that sort of thing so calmly but sodding Glen Osmonde reduces you to bright chat, too?”

    “Dunno. Maybe I’m human after all.”

    “Yes, well, I admit I was starting to wonder if Posy was. But Bruce says many natural carers are like that, and all the best nurses are. They need that bloody detachment.”

    “Mm,” she murmured.

    “Bruce says she won’t last the spring out,” she said abruptly.

    Polly just nodded.

    It was a mild spring day and although he’d come straight from Honolulu, Hal Gorman found it quite pleasant. Puriri was pretty much of a dump, he noted as drove through it, but Jack had warned him about that. The city itself hadn't been much different from downtown Honolulu—fewer high-rises, if anything. The countryside was about as green but not nearly as pretty. Though the harbour sure was beautiful.

    Carter’s Bay, he instantly recognised on arriving, was the dump to end all dumps, Jack hadn’t been wrong about that. Though possibly Jack was right in saying that Progress was reaching out its long arm, he noted, drawing into the huge, shiny, and obviously very new Toyota auto sales yard. Immediately a salesman shot out to greet him. From which Hal Gorman unerringly deduced that (a) they were on the ball here and (b) they didn’t have many customers as yet, Progress couldn’t have gotten to that point yet. He asked the way to the Sir George Grey University offices and incidentally the price of a new Toyota. Not managing to conceal his horror when Bryce Carew told him.

    Jack had, off and on over the twenty-odd years he’d known him, said some pretty bitter things about the standard of efficiency to be expected in the land of his birth, so on the one hand Hal shouldn’t have been surprised to find that the Sir George Grey University offices were apparently fast asleep on a mild spring morning; but on the other hand, Jack had also written a glowing encomium of Alan Kincaid’s efficiency and inability to suffer fools gladly—together with a scathing condemnation of his up-himself-ness: that was Jack all over. So take it for all in all Hal would have expected someone to be on duty in the rather nasty pale grey reception area in what Jack had been right in saying was a beautiful old example of Edwardian architecture.

    There was, however, a bell marked “Please Ring For Attention”, so he rang.

    After quite some time a girl emerged, sniffing, from the hinterland beyond the pale grey carpet-covered screens and the featureless pale grey filing cabinets. Blondish, shortish curly hair, pretty in an undistinguished way, too much lipstick, badly cut brown fake-linen suit of the too-smart variety, too much garish junk jewellery, cream blouse much too satin and shiny for office wear—typing pool? deduced Hal Gorman without consciously realising he was automatically analysing and as automatically dismissing Miss Teddi Bates in a few split seconds. –Mayli had not fallen out of her tree and offered Teddi that job working in Dr Kincaid’s office: she had, on due consideration of her keyboard skills, offered her a job in the typing pool, which as it featured no-one more terrifying than Juliette Macbeth, Teddi had accepted gratefully.

    “Good morning!” said Hal brightly, wondering silently why Sir George Grey allowed red-eyed little girls from the typing pool to person its front desk. Boyfriend trouble, doubtless. Someone should tell her to keep it at home: it didn’t suit the corporate image. On the other hand, maybe someone just had, that was why the poor kid’s eyes were like that.

    “Yes?” said Teddi soggily.

    “I’m Hal Gorman,” said Hal with his easy grin.

    “Um—yee-uss?” she said on a long, wavering, nasal note. By now Hal had encountered this at countless counters, from the Hertz stand at the airport through the various cafeterias, coffee “lounges”, et al. that he’d stopped off at between the airport and Carter’s Bay. He guessed it was the norm. It sure wasn’t attractive, though.

    “Uh—I guess maybe I’m not expected today, I didn’t let anyone know exactly when I’d get here—well, didn’t know it myself!” he said with the easy chuckle that had charmed countless ladies behind counters, be they South Sea Lolitas or not.

    “Oh,” she said blankly. “Um—can I help you, then?”

    “Uh—” Hal looked at his watch. “Shit, I think I forgot to— Do you have the time?”

    “What? Oh,” she said dully, looking at her own watch. “Ten past eleven.”

    Right. That meant that Goddamned plane had gotten in at crack of dawn, which he had sort of gathered as the rising sun chased it across the wide Pacific. “Thanks. And—uh—what day is it, if you wouldn’t mind?” he said, carefully re-setting his watch.

    “Tuesday, of course,” she said without interest.

    “Uh—oh,” said Hal limply. “Yeah. I just crossed the International Date Line.”

    “Oh.”

    There was a short silence.

    “Uh—look, would Jack Perkins—uh—Dr Perkins—be in?” said Hal on a desperate note. Surely to God they must have a note somewhere that he was due some time this month!

    “No,” she said—looked as if she was gonna bawl, Hell.

    “No? Well—uh—the boss? Dr Kincaid?” said Hal with a smile, concealing the fact that given his druthers, he’d rather not.

    “He won’t be in till later.”

    “Oh. In that case, maybe I could see his PA.”

    “She’ll be in later.”

    “Well, okay: then Jack’s—I mean Dr Perkins’ secretary?”

    “I don’t think she'll be in today.”

    “Well, look, honey, I don’t wanna be rude,” said Hal, getting as close to ruffled and annoyed as one of his placid temperament could—it had been a very boring flight and a very long drive and the food and drink he’d managed to pick up at those cafeterias and coffee lounges sure had been weird—“but is there anyone I could speak to?”

    “No, there’s only me here,” she said, sniffing slightly.

    “Well, Jesus! What’s the matter with the place?” said Hal Gorman in loud exasperation, running his hand through his just-silvering chestnut curls. “Ten after eleven on a working Tuesday? They all gone to a funeral, or what?”

    “Yes,” she said, the lip wobbling and a black mascara-ed tear trickling down the cheek, “as a matterafack, they have.”

    “Omigod,” said Hal, sagging limply on the counter. “Honey—now look, don't cry! I wouldn’t for the world have said—”

    “No. ’S aw right,” said Teddi bravely, trying to smile.

    Hal looked round but he couldn’t see how the Hell you got round to her side of the counter. But as it wasn’t glassed off or anything he simply hoisted his ass onto it, swung his legs over, and dropped down on her side. And, regardless of the countless warning notices about “Desirable Non-Sexist Behavior in the Workplace Environment” and “Your Responsibilities as a Member of Campus” and even (from the odd—in Hal’s opinion real odd—men’s group) “Your Rights and Appeal Procedure if Accused of Sexual Harassment” that had regularly infested his in-tray and decorated the walls of the men’s rooms at the various academic establishments his presence had adorned over the past twenty-odd years, put his hefty arm round her.

    Naturally Teddi Bates burst into a storm of tears and sobbed it all out on his burly chest.

    When those of the staff who weren’t Jack’s near relatives got back from the funeral at around one o’clock, Hal and Teddi were cosily eating lunch together in the Admin area: bought by Hal at Teddi’s orders from Swadlings’ (personed by Mrs Bates today, both May and Jack had gone to the funeral). Hot pies and a Sally Lunn. Plus coffee from the office machine. At the precise moment that Alan walked through from Reception Hal was in fact answering the university main phone, which he had capably switched through from Yvonne’s handset at the front desk, as follows: “Sir George Grey, may I help you?” In a sort of baritone coo.

    Alan watched silently.

    “I’m so sorry, Dr Kincaid is in a meeting," he cooed. “Whom may I say called? …Sir Jake Carrano’s secretary? Certainly. Any message?”—He scribbled.—“Thank you. Have a nice day!” he cooed.

    “Hey, there. This sure is fun,” he said mildly, ignoring the fact that Teddi had gone a sort of green colour and was looking as if she wanted to die.

    “Good afternoon, Dr Gorman. We weren’t expecting you today,” replied Alan levelly.

    “No: should have wired you, I guess. Thing is, I had the phone company disconnect me, I wanted to get my bills squared away. Lena Chong from next-door, she was letting me use her phone, only I didn’t like to make international calls on it, didn’t seem fair. I’m real sorry to hear about Jack’s little girl,” he added simply.

    “Yes, a tragic thing. Jack won’t be in this week, of course. If you’d like to come upstairs when you’ve finished your lunch, we’ll get you settled in.” He nodded coolly and went on his way.

    Once the dust had cleared and such luminaries as Thomas, Professor Armstrong, Leigh, the forestry fellows, the ornithologists and, last but by no means least, Ms Wolfe and Armand Gautier had disappeared, certain persons sagged on the pale grey woollen ergonomic chairs of the Admin area, and Teddi croaked: “Do ya think he noticed?”

    “Noticed we got a juicy-looking Sally Lunn on a desk in the working area? Or noticed us eating meat pies off of the desk in a working area? Noticed I’ve unofficially switched the official phone through to here?”—Yvonne gasped.—“Or noticed you’re alive, Teddi?” replied Hal with the utmost mildness.

    Not surprisingly, Teddi collapsed in ecstatic and overwrought giggles forthwith. In which she was immediately joined by all the other females present.

    Hal Gorman, needless to state, was quids in with Yvonne, Juliette, and the entirety of the Admin staff from that moment on.

Next chapter:

https://conquestofcartersbay.blogspot.com/2023/05/karaka-grove-sees-some-changes.html