Progress Reports

Part IV. Troubleshooting

34

Progress Reports

    Alan had been so busy during January and February, with the preparations for moving to the new site and then the actual move, that he hadn’t had time to stop and think about his personal situation. Let alone count. Then in March they had the Official Opening, and what with the stir in the media about the choice of Chancellor and the number of Press that turned up for it, and the fact that the Chancellor had been expecting to meet Baranski and the bloody man was still somewhere in the Pacific—

    Catherine seemed very happy and busy, and was coping remarkably well with baking something like two dozen cakes a day. True, dinner sometimes had to be delayed because she had the oven full, but in any case the weather was far too humid for hot dinners to be at all desirable. Also true, Alan was beginning to get a bit fed up that she spent five nights out of seven closeted in the kitchen, but on the other hand he’d had a Hell of a lot of work to do in the evenings lately, so he supposed it evened out.

    By the end of the first week in March, he had managed to get home by five, and he had managed to count.

    “I think we’d better get married, don’t you?” he said grimly to the back view of what appeared to be an eye-level oven ritual worship ceremony.

    “Mm,” said Catherine vaguely. “Oh dear,” she muttered, not apropos of anything he’d said.

    Alan went heavily over to the dresser and reached his whisky bottle down. “Drink?” he said heavily.

    “No… June’s got a recipe for a lovely whisky cake!" she reported, brightening, but not looking round.

    “Leave my whisky alone,” said Alan in a steely voice.

    “Don’t worry: Gerry says it’s far too good for baking, anyway.”

    “Ge— Catherine, have you dragged Jenny Fermour into this bloody cake-baking business?” he demanded loudly.

    “No. She offered. It’s only carrot cakes. She’s got a really good food-processor, she does the carrots in that.”

    Yes, a really good food-processor bought with Gerry’s hard-earned! Alan did not say so. He did, however, say: “Has June Blake costed into her payments to her cake bakers a percentage of what their existing kitchen equipment cost them?”

    “Yes. It works out at less than a cent per cake. It’s in those papers you asked her for…” she said vaguely. “Oh, dear,” she muttered.

    “Catherine, are you pregnant?” said Alan, very loudly.

    Catherine turned slowly from the oven. “Um… I think so.”

    She must be. She hadn’t had a period since she’d come home. His lips tightened. “Have you been ignoring it in the hope that it’d go away, or in the hope that by the time I realised, it’d be too late to have an abortion?”

    “I wouldn’t have an abortion anyway,” she said mildly. “Um, I suppose I’ve been too busy to think about it. Um, I haven’t been feeling sick. Well, I did have that week when I was off-colour.”

    “Have you been to the doctor?” he asked angrily.

    “No-o…” she said vaguely, glancing at the oven.

    “For God’s sake! Pay attention, woman!” he shouted. “Leave that bloody cake to get on with it!”

    Catherine sat down at the table. “I wasn’t expecting you back yet.”

    Alan collapsed onto a chair, passing his hand over his head. “Nor were you expecting me to be able to count, I presume? Or was it a test?” he added hoarsely.

    “Um—no. What?” she said in bewilderment.

    “A test to see if I noticed you enough to realise or to care!” he shouted.

    “No, of course not. Um—well, maybe I was sort of ignoring it in the hope that it’d go away.”

    “God!” he said, downing the remains of the whisky in his glass in one gulp. “How far gone are you? –Will you stop looking at the bloody oven!” he shouted.

    “Sorry. Um, well, I don’t know. Um, I think it was that first time,” admitted Catherine guiltily.

    “What?”

    “On Christmas Day,” she said, swallowing.

    Alan stared at her, his mouth slightly open.

    “You forgot to use a thingy. And I forgot all about warning you,” she said glumly. “Um, I mean, it was so quick… I suppose that’s no excuse.”

    “God,” said Alan, passing his hand over his pate. “I’m sorry.”

    “Mm. Have another whisky. It doesn’t really matter, does it?” she said vaguely.

    “Matter? Our lives are about to be turned upside-down, woman!” he cried.

    “Ye-es. Well, babies do make a lot of mess and noise. It won’t be for a while yet.”

    Alan counted on his fingers. “Christmas Day… Hell, it’s due at the end of September, then?”

    “I suppose so.”

    He got up. “Get your handbag.”

    “What?”

    “Get your handbag, we’re going in to see Smith right now!”

    “It might not be him!” she gasped, apparently turned to a pillar of salt where she sat.

    “What in God’s name are you talking about?”

    “It might not be Dr Smith!”

    “Catherine, get up! I intend to establish once and for all if you are pregnant and exactly when the damned thing’s due!”

    “That lady doctor looks down her nose at you! I’m not going to her!” she cried.

    “Uh— Oh, Christ. Look, it’s a thousand to one that it won’t be Dr Nicholls, if that’s who you mean: she’s a senior partner in the practice and she specialises in geriatrics— All right, all right,” he said heavily as she began to tell him she didn’t like that young doctor that was usually there in the evenings, he had cold hands and he never listened. “I’ll make an appointment for you with Dr Smith.”

    “He does all the babies,” said Catherine happily.

    Rolling his eyes, Alan went out to the phone, rang the Puriri Medical Centre and made an appointment for her for the morrow. It was a choice of nine in the morning or five-thirty in the evening, so in spite of the bite it would take out of his working day he chose the morning slot. Because the thought of sitting through a whole day at work, wondering— After all, it was just possible that she wasn’t pregnant, but had something wrong with her. Possible but highly unlikely.

    “Stop counting,” said Catherine uneasily as he came back and sat down.

    “If you don’t want an abortion, of course that’s an end of it. But this is something that we should discuss rationally before taking the plunge, at our ages,” he said with a sigh.

    “Taking the plunge!” retorted Catherine with a terrific snort. “Haven’t you already done that?” She got up and began to be terrifically busy washing up cake pans. By hand.

    After a moment Alan poured himself another whisky.

    … She was, she was, of course she was. God. She and Bruce Smith congratulated each other, apparently equally thrilled. His nurse then came in and appeared almost as thrilled. Catherine then suggested eagerly that they could go round to the library: Janet and Mercy’d like to know!

    Alan refused Smith’s poker-faced offer of a nice strong cup of tea with loathing, and retreated to the car.

    “Couldn’t we?” she said hopefully, getting in beside him.

    Alan took a deep breath.

    “They’d be really pleased,” she said on a hopeful note.

    “I,” said Alan Kincaid with precision, “am too chicken. Sorry.”

    Catherine collapsed in helpless giggles. Emerging from them when they’d reached the bottom of The Hill to gasp: “Stop!”

    Alan braked savagely on the main drag. “What’s up? Are you feeling bad?”

    “No,” she said mildly. “I need to collect some stuff off June.”

    Gritting his teeth, Alan did what the locals called “a U-ie” on the main drag, and drove her to June Blake’s house. Yes, she told her over the bloody cup of tea and sample of a new cake the old bat was trying out, of course she told her. And her bloody granddaughter, since she was there. Er—no, was she the other old bat’s grand— Whatever the Hell. She told them.

    After that it didn’t seem to matter any more and he sat limply in the car in the large empty space marked “Mobile Library Turning Area: KEEP CLEAR” while she bustled in and told the whole of the Puriri County Library staff. Little Janet Wilson, all pink, actually came out to the car with her, and, admittedly turning even pinker as she did it, congratulated him to his face.

    “Cohabitation with Gorman is apparently doing her good,” he said acidly as they drove off at last.

    Catherine merely smiled smugly and said: “Of course.”

    They would have to have a serious talk, because there were serious issues that— Oh, God. Leave it, leave, leave it. As she said, it wasn’t for several months, yet. Less than seven, actually. He had been planning to take her to Europe this September: things would be relatively settled at the Sir G.G. site, the new intake wouldn’t yet be ready to pre-enrol, the new year’s lecturers and tutors would not be due to start for another three months; and it was a lovely time of year over there: they could have gone down the Rhine or perhaps done the valley of the Loire— Christ. Forget it.

    Inoue politely congratulated Alan on his good news.

    Alan looked at him thoughtfully. Then he said: “Inoue, I’d express conventional thanks, but frankly, I don’t know what I feel.”

    “No. For men of our age, it is a big step.”

    “Yes. She hasn’t even considered that I might not live to see the creature’s twenty-first! Well, Father was never a particularly well man, though I admit my grandfather and great-uncles lived to a ripe old age; but still, one never knows.”

    “No. Indeed, about anything,” said Inoue with a little frown. He wandered over to Alan’s office windows and looked out at the expanse of Sir George Grey.

    Alan hesitated, conscious of a wish not to know, if there was anything wrong between him and that dim little bimbo, Posy Baranski. Then he said: “What is it?”

    Inoue turned slowly. “Ah… There are certain rumours in certain circles, as yet not widespread, about—ah… certain Japanese banks.”

    Alan’s jaw dropped. “What?”

    “Ah—yes. Then, I have contacts in South Korea and Indonesia…”

    “Look, the political situation in Indonesia’s not perhaps all that it could be, but at the moment isn’t that bloody régime repressive enough to keep any rumblings under control?”

    “Ah… possiblee. It is not only that: these particular rumours—they are not even rumours,” he said with a frown. “Less than that. Very much public money, as of course you know, has been siphoned off into private hands.” He rubbed his smooth chin slowly. “It is not that there is political unrest on that account, although of course there is. No-o… Rather, there is a suggestion—just a suggestion, my dear Alan—that so much has been siphoned off that what we have fancied is a booming economy is, in fact, founded on—ah… sand?”

    “My God!” said Alan, going very white.

    Inoue just looked at him impassively.

    After a little his eyes narrowed and he said: “Look, this isn’t just a response to the Red Chinese taking over Hong Kong, is it? Investors getting jumpy?”

    “As you will have noticed, the markets are not responding adversely to the Hong Kong situation.”

    “No. In my opinion that’s suspicious in itself,” said Alan with a frown, “but then, I’ve no expertise in that area.”

    “I also expected the markets to have taken a dive, long-ah since. It is just possible that they are being, shall we say, artificially propped up by certain interests… Or that movements in most exchanges these days are merely a response, as some claim, to the status of the New York Stock Exchange. And there is no doubt that the American economy is very healthy indeed.”

    “Mm. Um—these banks—”

    “There is nothing definite. But I have decided to pull most of my funds out of Japan,” he said tranquilly.

    Alan gulped.

    “Well, there is not much for me there, on a personal level, you know, with Ken settled here.”

    “My dear man, if our Asian client-base goes broke, Sir G.G. may well go under!” said Alan loudly.

    “I know. There is no doubt that the Chinese economy is starting to boom, but… I think we should push that geothermal deal through.”

    “Draw in the Icelanders?” said Alan drily, rising an eyebrow.

    “Them and others: yes,” replied Inoue tranquilly.

    “Yes, well, it’s going ahead… Well, we don’t precisely lose, if we accept the Government’s offer for the power… I’ll take another look at the figures. May I ask what you are intending to do with your personal funds?”

    Inoue was planning to invest some on the New York Stock Exchange, to increase his stake in the Carrano Group, and to put the rest into real estate as a long-term investment for the eventual benefit of his children. Not all, as at one time he had considered, in Queensland, but enough: the market there was driven almost entirely by Japanese investment and Japanese tourism, but with the Chinese economy going ahead in leaps and bounds and the growth of a large Chinese middle-class, tourism from China was bound to increase greatly there before long, and very probably investment as well.

    Alan passed his hand over his pate. “If we lose a considerable percentage of our Asian client-base, what the Hell do we do? Wait for the Chinese to come on board? Expand into the African market?”

    “Expanding into the African market could not hurt. Though that is not a particularly stable area, either. Very rich in resources, of course, but that is no use in the short term. Meantime, I think we should put some effort into developing the Chinese language side of our School of Languages and develop an ESL curriculum designed specifically for a Chinese clientèle; in the long run it will pay off. Ah… and investigate more, I think, the funding of scholarships by international aid agencies.”

    “Yes, well, that can’t hurt. We’d better put a bit more effort into marketing within the Pacific, then, though most of those countries are very poor… South America?” said Alan wildly.

    “There is considerable wealth there. They are focused largely on the United States, of course, when they consider educational opportunities. It would do no harm to cost things: perhaps consider the Spanish and Portuguese language side of things… Jake has excellent contacts in Argentina and Brazil. You may have heard Polly on the subject of his destroying the rainforests,” he said unemotionally.

    “Mm. Well, I’d be grateful if you’d do anything you can in that direction, Inoue. Ah: forestry,” recognised Alan, nodding.

    “Quite.”

    “Joint ventures?” Alan suggested, frowning over it. “Er—the into-China thing?”

    “Perhaps. Many educational institutions have gone into such things without first making very sure of the funding. I mean, of making sure of cash in hand,” he said tranquilly.

    “You mean the Chinese are notoriously bad payers, I take it? Yes. Well, we’d better have a meeting of the Board and go into it all very thoroughly, Inoue. Completely reconsider our position.”

    “It would be wise. But of course, these are not yet even rumours,” he murmured.

    “Inoue, if you’re pulling your funds out of Japan, I think we can say the writing’s on the wall.”

    “Hai.” Inoue then gave a pithy and extremely lucid summation of the current Japanese banking culture and exited, noting he’d get onto Jake straight away.

    Alan looked blankly before him for quite some time.

    Sir Jacob looked at the wedding invitation, and sniffed slightly. “Rush job.”

    “Don’t START!” shouted his wife. “And how can it possibly be a rush job, they got engaged months ago!”

    “Eh? No, ya nong, I meant that ’e hasn’t had these specially printed. Sort ya buy in packets—see?” Laboriously he pointed the details out to her, but Polly ignored him. “Thought it was what ya wanted?” he said airily.

    Her mouth tightened. “Only if he can really make Catherine happy.”

    “Has ’e made her give up the cake-baking thing with old June Blake, is that it?”

    “No.”

    He scratched his curls. “Um—going ahead with the stables, willy-nilly?”

    “N— Yes. Not that!”

    “All right, what, then?”

    Polly licked her lips. “Um, well, I had lunch at The Blue Heron today, and from what Mike was saying, it sounds as if Alan intends building on a whole wing at the back of the house, even though his alterations were one of the things that provoked that row they had.”

    “He’ll need to, with brats bawling and sicking all over the show,” he said incautiously.

    “What?” she gasped.

    “I’m surprised Mike didn’t tell ya. See? Rush job, like I say,” he added pleasedly.

    “Look, you’re making this up!” she said angrily.

    “I’m not. May Swadling told me yesterday arvo as ever was, when we were up at the bach. You were putting your feet up; me and the kids awarded ourselves an ice cream after all that hard yacker chopping back—”

    “YES!”

    “—all that ruddy greenery that some people reckoned wouldn’t have come on like billy-o because we had a dry February,” he finished inexorably. “According to May, it’s due late September.”

    “Sep— Why didn’t you tell me?” she gasped.

    Jake rubbed his chin. “Thought I’d wait and see if we got a wedding invitation. Well, May mighta been exaggerating. There’s no need to count on ya fingers: by my reckoning, not to say good ole May’s, it musta happened when they got back together at Christmas. Prolly due on the twenny-fifth of September.”

    “Shut up!” She did feverish arithmetic. “She must have known for over a month!”

    He obligingly shut up. Eventually, as she just sat there looking like a stunned mullet, he said kindly: “Me and May don’t reckon it was planned, no.”

    “I’d have said he was the type that planned everything down to the last microsecond.”

    “Yeah. She isn’t, though. And it does take two, ya know.” He watched as her brain whirled in speculation. “My strategy would be,” he concluded airily, “to keep well out of it. Well out.”

    Polly swallowed. “Yes,” she said in a small voice. “Actually, I think you’re right. The more you think about it, the more… Help.”

    Catherine blew her nose angrily. “He’s gone potty,” she reported sourly.

    Pottier, thought Jenny Fermour, tactfully not saying so. “Yes, well, you will need a bit more room, when the baby comes.”

    “We will not!” Angrily Catherine proved that with the new room Alan had already built on, they would have more than enough room for a baby. Then expanding her theme to incorporate Dicky’s annoyance at being informed that he would have his choice of rooms in the new wing, since the baby would have to have the room next to the master bedroom.

    “I told him,” she said darkly, “I’m not putting a tiny baby into a great big room all by itself.”

    “Yes. Oh! Told Alan,” recognised Jenny limply. “Yes.”

    “It can have a bassinet in our room. And if it bawls all night and keeps him awake, too bad!”

    “Mm.” Jenny licked her lips uneasily. “Catherine, isn’t he pleased?” she said a low voice.

    “Don’t ask me!” she said angrily. “If you call rushing round madly designing flipping new wings, and drawing up specifications”—this last with awful scorn—“for horrible swimming pools the kids’ll drown themselves in, and talking about stupid private schools, then maybe he is pleased! He was up till all hours last night going over his stupid drawings!”

    “Well, maybe that does constitute pleased, in his terms,” said Jenny feebly.

    “I dare say,” she said grimly.

    “Um, well, he if builds on a wing at the back of that new spare room, then a pool will fit in quite nicely in the L," ventured Jenny cautiously.

    “We don’t need a pool! We’re right on the beach!”

    This was true, in fact she and Gerry had pointed this very fact out to each other only last night. Jenny nodded feebly.

    “He’ll get a surprise when he starts digging there, that’s all,” Catherine noted grimly.

    “Oh, help: yeah! That’s where your Uncle Bob had that asphalt patch for the cows, eh?”

    “Yes. If the master architect had bothered to stop and work it out, the place in front of his stupid new stables where he’s gonna put his feeble-ized garage is right where the old milking shed that he pulled down was. And that asphalt that Uncle Bob put down to keep the cows’ feet dry is right next to it, under what he thinks is a lawn!”

    “Mm.”

    “He went out yesterday,” reported Catherine with relish, “and poked a stick into the ground, where he reckons he’s gonna get Mr Goode to build on his stupid verandah. And he said: ‘Ooh, good, this’ll take the foundations nicely.’” She gave an evil smile. “If he’d gone two inches further over he’d have hit the asphalt!”

    Jenny winced and didn’t venture the opinion that a verandah all down the new wing, facing onto the pool, would be really nice. Limply she said: “Have you thought about the honeymoon?”

    “He can’t get away. They’re having a crisis or something at work.”

    “I thought it was all going really well?” said Jenny feebly.

    Catherine shrugged.

    “Well, um, couldn’t you go somewhere nice a bit later? What about the May holidays?”

    “They don’t have them any more.”

    Jenny had overlooked this fact. “Oh, no,” she agreed lamely. “Um, well, mid-semester break?”

    “That’s only for the students. Anyway, I don’t want to go somewhere weird with horrible foreign food.”

    Jenny did not rubbish this prejudiced and jingoistic statement. She just nodded feebly.

    Dorothy was aware that Jill had invited her and Angie to dinner at The Blue Heron express to get the Good Gen about Catherine’s and Alan’s wedding. However, since Jill had insisted it was her treat, she went. Gretchen was also present. This was soon explained, however: she was there because it was Jill’s treat.

    Since she was there for the porpoise, and it was Jill’s treat, Dorothy obliged. “Pale blue. Not a suit, a two-piece,” she said kindly, as little old Janet proffered menus.

    “Oh, was this Catherine’s wedding?” she said brightly. “Yes, she looked lovely! They had the reception here, you know!”

    “There, see?” said Dorothy as she toddled off again and Angie broke down in giggles: “you didn’t need to invite me at all. But since I’m here, I’ll have a look at the wine list, ta.”

    “Blue outfits apart, was it or was it not rather sudden?” said Jill over the starters. Dorothy was having the salmon caviar puffs. Since Jill was paying. Possibly not technically puffs in the trendy Nineties, and they were something French on the menu, but to her generation they were puffs. As compared to éclairs, which were longer.

    “Relatively. Though they’ve been engaged for a while. But it was only a Registry Office do, they didn’t need to book a church,” said Dorothy vaguely. Boy, these were yummy!

    “Dorothy,” said Angie uneasily, “I don’t think they’ve heard.”

    “What? Oh! She’s definitely preggy: she told Janet—and incidentally the rest of the library staff—in person. Two minutes after Bruce Smith confirmed it, if I had it right,” said Dorothy without interest. Why hadn’t she asked for two starters? Because there was an oyster thing that would probably have gone quite well with those delightful but ephemeral— “Huh?”

    “Why didn’t you tell us?” said Jill dazedly. “Come to that, why didn’t bloody Polly tell us?”

    —puffs. “I am telling you. Polly probably didn’t want the aggro, Jill,” she said kindly. “Those puffs were delicious. Very light,” she said pointedly.

    “Good,” replied Jill dully, tasting her pâté. “I cannot see the Iceman as a proud parent,” she stated with a frown.

    “You haff seen him giving a very good imitation off one at Carter’s Bay Primary School Fair,” said Gretchen clinically.

    “Shut up,” she sighed.

    “Did Janet bawl, Dorothy?” asked Gretchen clinically.

    “Twice. Once when Alan kissed the bride, and again when they departed in a hail of rice. Hal provided the rice. He didn’t bawl. Get it?”

    “’Ey ’ab a paishe boy?” ventured Jill through the pâté.

    “No: Alan himself evidently informed the little boy that nothing on God’s earth would force him to force a fellow male into a bloody pastel kilt. And the daughter wasn’t a bridesmaid. Well, she was wearing a sort of stretch-jersey thing in bright red, so I’m pretty sure she wasn’t,” said Dorothy, re-reading the menu that she had firmly retained.

    “Did Catherine wear a hat?” asked Gretchen clinically.

    “No,” replied Dorothy firmly, not thinking about it.

    “Can you describe this two-piece outfit in more detail?” she pursued clinically.

    “No.” Dorothy laid the menu aside, and sighed deeply. “She carried a bunch of flahs, Gretchen.”

    “A bride would,” said Angie faintly.

    “Oo wash besh man?” asked Jill through the pâté.

    “Inoue.”

    Jill and Gretchen were seen to gulp. Angie already knew, so she didn’t gulp, merely helped herself to a little more of something very cold, white and fizzy from the bottle which Dorothy had blandly suggested be ordered.

    “And who gave the bride avay?” asked Gretchen.

    All eyes were fixed breathlessly on Dorothy. “Uh—have you types got a bet on, or something? It was Gerry Fermour: happy?”

    “Ja,” said Gretchen limply. “Ve could not imagine who.”

    “Jim Forrest, was her bet,” said Jill drily.

    Dorothy choked on a mouthful of something very cold, white and fizzy.

    Over the mains—Dorothy was having the pheasant, why not?—Jill ventured: “How did the pink woman look?”

    “Radiant,” said Dorothy drily. Angie choked. “I’ll have a little more of that Reserve Bin claret, since it’s here,” added Dorothy genially. “Mm, strong, isn’t it?” she said airily, sipping. “He looked coolly composed, since you’re not asking.”

    “Not when he kissed her, surely?” said Angie limply.

    “Uh—well, probably not, no. Well, Queen Polly was sitting next to me, on my Janet-less side, and if ya must know, she gulped when he done it. So it was probably what the experts would call torrid. Okay?”

    “This trout iss certainly okay,” said Gretchen with satisfaction.

    “Yeah. I’ve never had pheasant before, but I’d say this was okay, too. –Okay?” she repeated loudly.

    Jill shrugged. “I suppose. I won’t ask if he looked disposed to be a kindly and supportive hubby, because you won’t know. In fact I won’t even ask if he looked uxorious.”

    “Have another mineral water, Jill!” said Angie with a laugh. “Leigh’s opinion was that they both seemed very happy.”

    “So her eyes vere not red?” asked Gretchen clinically.

    “Er—Leigh never mentioned it, certainly,” said Angie with a wary look at Dorothy.

    “Not red,” she said firmly.

    “That iss probably a very good sign. On the other hand, would not one haff expected— Er, neffer mind,” said Gretchen lamely.

    Jill speared the last piece of Molly’s angelic chicken crêpes with ambrosia sauce, and sighed. “Yeah. I don’t suppose you noticed anything during the reception, did you?”

    “The food was good,” reported Dorothy, sitting back in her chair with a sigh. “I wonder what that gravy had in it? Wine, I suppose.”

    “Did he ignore her during his own bloody wedding reception?” she said loudly.

    Dorothy blinked. “Eh? Not noticeably. Look, how bad can it be? At least he’s marrying her, not rushing back to England leaving her in the lurch. Or with merely an icy cheque in the hand,” she noted drily. “Shall we have pud?” She waved at little old Janet.

    Jill sighed.

    “She has got a point, Jill,” said Angie kindly.

    “Mm. What do you think of him, Angie? As a man, I mean.”

    Angie reddened. “Me? Um—”

    “See?” said Gretchen clinically. “I tell you, he hass that effect on them all, it’s hormones!”

    Angie was redder than ever. “Don’t be silly. Um, well, I suppose he is a hard type, but—um, don’t they say that the harder they come, the harder they fall?”

    Gretchen opened her mouth to correct this, and thought better of it. “Ja, exactly.”

    Angie looked warily over at the far side of the room where Mike Collingwood in his maître d’ clobber was gracefully explaining the menu to a party of tourists. “Look, if you ask me, it’s just like her and him!” she hissed.

    “See? I tell you this months and months back!” said Gretchen pleasedly to her housemate. “Don’t you agree, Dorothy?”

    “Mm,” said Dorothy vaguely, poring over the menu. “I’ve had the black-bottom pie loads of times. Not that it isn’t always good. Maybe I’ll be more adventurous… The passionfruit soufflé’s on tonight: have that, Angie, it’s superb. Um…”

    Jill sighed heavily.

    “Ten years ago—ja, thank you, Janet, I vill haff a menu—ten years ago, or thereabouts, Jill, you said that Mike Collingwood—”

    “Shut up, Gretchen,” she warned.

    “Oh, Janet’s known it all for years!” she said happily. “You said he vas a cold fish, all set to make the poor little woman’s life a misery.”

    “Yes, that’s right, you did, Jill!” said the little old waitress brightly. “You were sitting over there, where the fireplace is now, I can see it as clearly as I see you now! And that’s worked out perfectly, hasn’t it? You see, the thing is, they complement each other. –Why not try the Pineapple Blitz Torte, Dorothy? It’s sort of a sponge and meringue sandwich with pineapple and cream in the middle. Mike found a new liqueur for her to try and she puts a drop of that in the cream. It’s quite special.”

    “Is it more special than the passionfruit soufflé, though, Janet?” asked Angie with a grin.

    Janet thought about it. The passionfruit soufflé won by a short nose, so Angie voted for that.

    “I’ll have the pineapple thing,” decided Dorothy, “on the condition that you’ll admit I’ve nobly sung for me supper, and you know as much as I do about the wedding. And a lot, lot more about how it’ll turn out.”

    Jill sighed. “Yeah. –You wait,” she muttered.

    Gretchen was just going to point out that she’d said that about Mike and Molly, when Janet did it for her.

    Giving in almost entirely, Jill conceded: “True. All right, I’ll try this new date tart thing.”

    Beaming, Janet assured her she’d like it. It was very sweet, but the cream was quite plain, except for a drop of hazelnut liqueur. It was one of Catherine’s, actually: she always made it for them now, on a Saturday!

Dear Bill, wrote Angie, obedient to orders,

    You wanted a progress report, so here it is. Criticise the mode of expression all you like, I’m no literary bod, but just refrain on the subject of the content, none of it’s my fault!

    Further to what I wrote to you about the Sir G.G. Opening, the general opinion at Sir G.G. is that Alan is not over the fact that Thomas didn’t get back from his Pacific nodules in time for it, and is biding his time. To do what, exactly, not specified. Leigh and I haven’t noticed anything more on the Thomas and Dorothy front. I’d say he’s probably still sulking because she sided loudly, firmly, and publicly with Alan over the business of the Opening. “Puerile attention-getting device” was the phrase, did I mention it before? Never mind, it was so good it’s worth mentioning again.

    What else? The engineering building is up, but empty apart from the sub-sub-, probably several subs, basement, which Jack has assured us for arcane reasons will not be flooded every other spring although it’s well below the level of the Inlet. Sol tells me that means it’s well below sea level, too. The SP’s are sitting in it all shiny and nice, Bill. Our building’s really pleasant but you won’t want to hear that. The courses are going well, given that ninety percent of the intake’s English application forms appear to have been filled out for them by an official translator and their spoken English is sixty times worse than we thought it might be and their written is six hundred times worse than we imagined it possibly could be. It doesn’t seem to make any difference whether they’re Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, or Fijian. Or Fijian-Indian in the case of Mr Gupta. But Mrs Mookerjee’s written English is really good; it’s just her every word that’s incomprehensible. She’s huffily convinced she’s speaking perfect English, poor dear, so it’s really, really difficult to help her improve it. Those two ‘mature’ students that Business Studies accepted from the Cook Is. are a disaster, I knew they would be. Well, I ask you: Polynesian laissez-faire on top of a bowdlerised edition of the NZ educational system? Don’t worry, I wouldn’t say so to anyone but you or Leigh.

    The rest of our ESL teaching bods, with the notable exception of Ms Leah (2 syllables) Barnard, are as woolly-mindedly lefty-liberal as you predicted they would be, oh Great White Master. It’s impossible to have a conversation with them, let alone a chat. Ian Barker was actually involved as Mediator (capital M) in a racial discrimination case at his last place of employment, would you believe? I’d told Polly this, with all the gruesome details, so at the Opening she was able to ask him with that blinding smile of hers whether it wasn’t possible that the lecturer in question had only been discriminating against the complainant on the score of he couldn’t string two words of written English together and make them make sense, not on the score of his race as such. Hurriedly amending this, before the poor sap could open his mouth, to “his slash her, of course.” Very fortunately for all concerned he thought she was just another corporate wife and responded with kindly superiority. Also very fortunately Dorothy spotted from afar what she was up to and came and took her forcibly away.

    I can’t tell you about Jack’s engineering stuff, except to say that the systems are all actually up when one needs them, probably a first in the known universe. His office is still in the old P.O. at Carter’s Bay, so we don’t see all that much of him. I did have him over for a meal the other night. He not only came, he was on time and brought me a bunch of roses, wasn’t that sweet? Don’t say it was just the manners he must have learned Stateside, I know all that, nevertheless it was sweet. That febrile American-ness of his is not my bag, as you know (I know he was born here, Bill, but it seems to have worn off), but we managed to have a pleasant enough evening. I had no idea he carries pics of his two little girls in his wallet, but he does, and got them out and told me all about them and what Randi’s last letter said about their progress at school, and so forth. Bill, the poor man’s miserable, it’s terribly sad. I even started to wonder if he’d be better off getting back together with Randi. I know he says she’s a moron, but half the engineers we know seem to have plumped for supportive little moronic wifeys, preferably that can cook. Incidentally, I don’t think she is a moron, she went to a very good university and lectures in English. I think she probably is limited, but why on earth that should matter I don’t know: as far as I could tell he was hardly ever home anyway! Well, perhaps that was why.

    I didn’t mention Beth, I figured poor Jack’s had enough on his plate this last year or so without this particular schnozz getting in on the act. As to whether the thing with Gerhard is going to go anywhere— All I can tell you is, he seems keen enough, if something on the idly amused side, and she seems keen enough, plus still rather overawed by his European sophistication. Make what you can of that, even Yvonne hasn’t reached any firm conclusion!

    I did mention Wallis, however. Jack seemed to be quite stunned that anyone could think that anyone might read anything into the fact that the girl sleeps in his house five nights out of seven. No, well, usually only four, he usually does manage to get home at a reasonable hour on a Friday and let her get off back to The Quays. And he’s apparently capable of getting Murray off to school on Monday mornings. Most days he goes to Day Care at Sir G.G. after school but Wallis doesn’t have any classes on Monday, so she picks him up after school and they usually do something fairly mindless together like making peanut butter sandwiches and pretending to go eeling. True, no-one but Inoue Takagaki’s ever caught an eel in the bloody Inlet, but never mind: if she’s convinced Murray he can catch an eel, so much the better. Anyway, Jack concluded that anyone who thought there was anything in it could perform the appropriate act upon themselves. I did agree, but as it was May Swadling in person who told me that People (unspecified) were beginning to talk, I pointed out that he was better off forewarned. Possibly letting Wallis drive the old black Merc was not a tactful move on his part but at least he’s providing her with transport in which to cart his grandson round, so I didn’t mention that one.

    As to how the poor little kid gets to Sir G.G. from Carter’s Bay Primary School the other four days a week… Well, it has been sorted out, but not without blood, sweat and tears from all concerned. Posy Baranski’s helping out at the Day Care Centre four afternoons a week, so that let her out. The fifth is her day for going in to some bloody Cordong Blue class in town that one of the corporate wives Polly knows recommended, so that cuts that out, too.

    Well, Monday Wallis collects him, as I said. Rab Perkins started off doing Tuesdays but Avon found out they were buying junk food at Swadlings’ and stopping off for a paddle in the Inlet on the way, so she’s taken it over herself. Wednesdays and Thursdays are Simone’s days for picking her kids up and delivering them to Day Care, so she collects Murray, too. (The other days she has the afternoon off from the boutique, just in case you were expecting me to say those were Armand’s days for being responsible for his own offspring.)

    Friday was really difficult, because that’s the afternoon Alan has a regular meeting with his Deans. Which explains why Jack can regularly get home on time on a Friday, get it? If only our departmental meetings— Oh, well. Leigh’s style is different; and I’d hate to work directly for Kincaid, I have to admit. Simone was going to volunteer to have him come home with them on a Friday but I think Annick pointed out it was the thin end of the wedge, so she didn’t after all. Mind you, Murray and Pierre seem to have become best friends: a huge relief to all concerned. Dorothy’s in on the Deans’ meeting, before you start. Polly was about to launch a full-blown scheme for tearing up the motorway, collecting him and tearing back home again before her lot had driven Bob Grey mad, but Jake put his foot down. Good to know he still can. Michaela volunteered but Sol pointed out she’d forget whenever she was potting up a storm, so she crept back into her shell.

    Finally, and you are never going to believe this, Thomas solved it. We all thought, though admittedly we’re a bit isolated up at Sir G.G. from what goes on back in the old P.O., that he merely sleeps through Jack’s ear-bashings, but apparently not. He pointed out that Beth may not be able to drive a car but she can certainly manage a boat. And that in the first place Beth’s time is in his hands and in the second place he owes her untold hours anyway. So on Fridays Murray gets the tremendous treat of being collected by Beth, swaddled in a life-jacket, and run over to Sir G.G. across the Inlet by Beth in Thomas’s own dinghy. It’s just an ordinary aluminium one, he got it off Sol. I think he discovered that that lovely wooden launch of his isn’t too convenient when the tide’s out in the Inlet. Naturally fifteen other kids from the school immediately wanted to get in on the act but Beth had the sense to see that it ought to be Murray’s special treat. So she occasionally takes Pierre and him for a ride before they cross, but that’s all.

    Thomas often sails across to work anyway: he moors the dinghy down behind where the grey Thing used to be. You won’t remember. Where the fish and chips shop used to be. It’s got an outboard as well as oars. I can’t think of any more sailorly details.

    That building site, which is what the preceding paragraph started out to be about, has now developed into a definite mall. Not finished, of course, but it’s got a horrible Nineties-type extraneous rounded arch at the front, and definite boutiques opening off a large central hall, and a mezzanine, and what looks like a place for escalators that stupid kids and/or the suicidal can chuck themselves off, what do these cretins imagine they’re designing these things for? Blessedly, the colour scheme is yet to be revealed to us. It’s successfully blocking off most of the view of the water but my spies, well, mainly Sol Winkelmann in this instance, tell me that upstairs at the back it’s going to have a café with picture windows so as to get the full benefit of the northern exposure. Plus and tinted plate glass to counteract the northern exposure, was the way he put it. This café may well be on course to ruin the rest of Sprouts’ lunch trade, yes. You could cut the atmosphere in there with a knife these days, and every other time you go in, Jacki’s eyes are red. The sandwiches are as good as ever, though; so as the Caff ones on the site are pretty much Caff standard, I usually manage to nip over there several times a week.

    Amazingly, the developers have left a fair pathway down the side, which suddenly blossomed with intricately patterned pavers and tubs of flax only last weekend. Rumour has it that the up-market brick walls are creating an awful wind-tunnel effect, regardless of the little nooks let into them for creeping rosemary, but only bewildered foreigners such as Gerhard have remarked on this, so you’ll be glad to know that I told him that that’s an engineering principle generally applied in NZ to all pedestrian passageways between buildings and all CBD’s that human beings have to work in, and he retired happy.

    What else? We still see a fair bit of Col up here because the thing with Mitsuko is still going on. Still not serious. Though funnily enough he does actually seem to like the girl, more than can be said for his attitude to most, or now I come to think of it, all of his former girlfriends. Well, if it does develop into anything, I won’t object: those half-Japanese kids of Hilary Takagaki’s are adorable.

    Akiko’s had a brief fling with one of the foresters. I’d have said he was as unsuitable for her as he was for Sammi Wolfe, but possibly she’s trying out the Good Keen Man type. It lasted about three weeks. Talking of Sammi, the whole of Sir G.G. has been breathlessly watching her and Armand for months, but so far they’ve all been disappointed, so sucks. Would you believe bloody Yvonne actually went round to his place, unannounced, on a Saturday evening? Her excuse was she’d just done all this baking and as he was living a poor, lonely bachelor life—! God knows if Armand eats bloody NZ rock cakes but he accepted them politely, apparently. Sammi was not there and there was no evidence at all of feminine occupation but Yvonne reports that he seems to be coping very well, for a man. Unquote.

    Incidentally, it doesn’t seem to have dawned on Yvonne that Alan has virtually demoted her since the move to the site: he’s got something much more up-market as the outer line of defence in his building. Yvonne was given the option of personing the switchboard of the entire show, or continuing to do reception at the P.O. She didn’t want either, because remaining at the P.O. would have meant she missed out on eighty percent of the gossip, and the mere idea of looking after the new giant phone system turned her rigid with terror. Dorothy reckons that Alan was perfectly well aware of both these factors, and on the whole it seems all too likely. The poor deceived moo then leapt at his ‘alternative’ suggestion that she might like to look after the Admin lot, so she’s now doing Reception for them. Looking after two floors instead of the lot of us, I’d call that a demotion. (Alan’s fell intent from the word “Go”, according to Dorothy.) God knows what Sammi said, if anything, to this move, but at least Yvonne appears to be coping OK. And she and Juliette and Merri can still have those cosy kaffee klatches every morning and afternoon teatime.

    Little Teddi Bates is doing temporary reception for the lot left at the P.O., and loving every moment of it. This probably has something to do with the fact that that deluded bunch of males are treating her like a little pet (rather than a human being, get it?) and that Hal Gorman in particular makes a habit of offering her something delish for afternoon tea every other day; but at least they’re all happy. It’s turned into a sort of engineers’ home away from home, but that was to be expected. They’re sort of tolerating Beth, not treating her absolutely as one of the boys—she frequently gets left out of their ruddy trips to the pub—but almost. That is, they don’t mind their language in front of her to any noticeable degree and they don’t make her get them unending cups of coffee. Jack’s secretary couldn’t stand it: she left. He’s looking for another, but it’ll be a very strange woman that can come up to his job specifications: on the one hand, five-ten or over, curvaceous, gorgeous, and very, very efficient with it, and on the other hand, can put up with being treated almost but not quite like one of the boys and ignored as a nubile female throughout the working day. The two hands don’t match but this doesn’t seem to have dawned. So far he’s interviewed about fifteen unsuitables and Teddi’s had to take on an “assistant” (her best friend from school, but never mind) to help with the extra letter-answering and stuff he’s dumped on her.

    Alan’s stables are up, by the way, and he’s bought a horse for himself and a pony for Dicky. Barry Goode was looking almost cheerful last time I spoke to him, so he must have been paid something pretty hefty for the job.

    What else? Nothing to report on the Moana and Leigh front, alas. Well, they seem to spend a fair amount of time together talking about books or music but it all seems to be pretty public time, according to the reports from The Quays not to say personal observation at The Quays. Adrian’s got a yummy schnitzel thing now that the weather’s colder. It’s got a slice of ham with it, all crumbed up together. It must be down-market, though: he only serves it in the lunchy dining room. (Report from Martin, not personal observation: the prices are too steep in the main restaurant. It seems to be doing very well, nevertheless: always full of people like Ralph and Phoebe Overdale or the frightful Harding woman.)

    Mark still seems to be seeing a fair bit of that girl from Hawke’s Bay with the well-off Daddy. Deane: apparently with an E on the end of it, it passes for a girl’s name these days. I can remember back when Dean was not considered a name, not even for a male, but didn’t favour her with this information. What can I say? Pretty dumb, thinks Mark is actually intelligent, kow-tows to his superior male medical status overtly, while being on course to rule him with a rod of iron for the rest of his life. He’s changed his sacred after-shave, believe it or not. After what I spent on the little bugger last Christmas! Very keen on going to the gym and is dragging Mark along. I don’t think the gym visits will mean he’ll give up that bloody golf club with the Contacts, though. Didn’t ask because I didn’t have the strength.

    Hal’s given me lots of addresses in Hawaii, so if you’re still interested we could probably graft off half a dozen easy-going engineering types for the entire mid-year break. Jake says we’d better book something soon, evidently it is quite popular for mid-winter holidays with the Yanks.

    Rehearsals for The Mikado are now in full stagger and Penny reckons we’re actually going to do it at the beginning of the second semester. Someone seems to have told her about all those stints I did as wardrobe mistress for the ruddy University Drama Club so she’s unilaterally seconded me to be in charge of theirs, while Ida Grey supplies the measuring and cutting expertise. Not that anyone would need to superintend Ida like that load of awful sewing moos we always had, but Penny has further decreed that Ida is not going to be made to do all the sewing: them as aren’t being supplied with genuine Japanese kimonos by the Takagaki family are going to be responsible for sewing their own. Added to which she’s been stupid enough to decree that while the female chorus all have to be in pigtails and the Bergen idea of the Japanese idea of school uniforms for their first appearance, they later have to change, oh, yes, change, into kimonos. Hasn’t anybody ever told the bloody woman that having mass changes in amateur dramatic productions multiplies the aggro by a factor of five thousand? Not to mention all the bloody wigs that Guess Who will have to keep track of! Had a moan to Leigh about it but he went all dreamy-eyed and countered with an exact description of his mum in her “Sun whose rays” kimono. Penny wasn’t best pleased to hear that I’d probably be off to Hawaii for the mid-year break but I told her, you want the A. Michaels expertise, it goes with it, take it or leave it. Unfortunately she decided she’d take it.

    That’s definitely all the news for now and as someone has to go and look at five thousand army-surplus Panama hats at Goode as Olde that might do for the chorus, I’d better go and do it.

Your martyred but ever-loving,

Angie.

    Bill rang Angie the day this letter arrived and admitted he’d already booked their flights and a hotel, and her ticket was in the mail. He did add that he wouldn’t mind being put in touch with those mates of Hal Gorman’s, but on the whole Angie felt much, much better.

Next chapter:

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