Ructions

29

Ructions

    “WHAT?” bellowed Thomas.

    Posy gave a nervous laugh. “You heard!”

    “You’re NOT going off to become bloody Takagaki’s bloody GEISHA!” he bellowed.

    Posy put her little nose in the air. “You’re right, I’m not. That’s not what geishas do, at all. I’m going off to become Inoue’s official mistress: they have them, in Japan.”

    “I’m aware they have them in Japan and YOU’RE NOT BECOMING ONE!”

    “Yes, I am. Besides, everybody lives with people these days, don’t be so old-fashioned.”

    Breathing heavily, Thomas retorted: “That is not the bloody point, you tiny cretin.”

    Posy shrugged.

    “Look, Jap men are the male chauvinist pigs to end all male chauvinist pigs: do you want to spend the next five years as his bloody household slave and end up on the scrap heap at the end of it? Because believe you me, that’s what’s ahead of you!”

    “I won’t be his household slave at all: he doesn’t want me as a housekeeper. And as the alternative seems to be doing nothing at all for the next five years and ending up on the scrap heap anyway, I’m doing it. And you should talk about MCPs, you wouldn’t even have noticed I wasn’t here yesterday, if it hadn’t been for your bloody car!”

    “And that’s another thing—”

    “No, it isn’t. You said yourself it was a wire that came loose.”

    Thomas changed tack. “What about that scheme to set up a child-care service over the holidays? If you make a go of that, you’ll have your independence.”

    “There’s nothing to stop me baby-sitting for people’s kids if I want to. And I know you haven’t noticed it over the last twenty-odd years, but I don’t want my independence, thank you very much!”

    “Look, you fool, what’ll happen when he goes back to Japan? Because he will, they all do.”

    Posy’s neat mouth tightened mutinously. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Excuse me, I’ll just get my gear and then I’ll be out of your hair.” She pushed past him and hurried off to her room.

    Thomas sat down limply on his huge leather sofa and scratched his curls. “Bloody idiot,” he muttered.

    When she came downstairs he made one last attempt to stop her. “Look, Posy, it’ll be the Marty Williamson thing all over again—”

    “It won’t. He was a cretin,” she said briefly, hurrying over to the door.

    Thomas followed limply. “At least think about it!”

    “It doesn’t need thinking about. I don’t care if he wants me for five years or five minutes. He wants me, that’s what matters.”

    “You’re turning yourself into a DOORMAT for this Jap!” he shouted.

    “Thomas, I’ve been a doormat all my life,” said Posy grimly. “It’ll be a nice change to be one for a gentleman.”

    “He’s not a gentleman, you stupid little bitch, he’s a bloody Jap, it’s a whole different culture: that upper-class accent of his is bloody MEANINGLESS, he’ll treat you like DIRT!” he shouted.

    Ignoring him completely, Posy hurried out to her waiting taxi and drove away.

    “Bloody Hell,” said Thomas, sitting down limply on his front step.

    “Qu’est ce que c’est que ça?” spluttered Armand as he came into his sitting-room and barked his shins on his suitcases, piled up just where he was bound to fall over them.

    Simone replied in English: “Your baggages. I have made up my mind, as you wished. Please go. The keeds and I weell stay here.”

    Armand hadn’t really believed, when he issued his ultimatum, that Simone would decide in favour of divorce. He hadn’t really worked out, either, whether he wanted to divorce her or not. Certainly he was miserable as things were, but if things could go back to the way they always had been, they could be comfortable again! He had conscientiously tried not to think of Sammi in this context because, never mind if half the world was doing it, respectable people did not throw away a ten-year marriage merely because they found one of their workmates more attractive than their wife. The fact that Sammi had done nothing to encourage him on a sexual level had also been a considerable factor, here, but Armand was not sufficiently self-aware to realise it. Nor did he realise that Sammi was hanging back not only because she had no desire to get a reputation at Sir G.G. as a home-wrecker before she’d had a chance to show Alan Kincaid what an excellent registrar she could be, but also because her mother was due out for Christmas and she didn’t feel she needed to cope with Norma’s disapproval at this juncture.

    “You haven’t thought this out seriously, Simone!” he shouted in French.

    Simone replied in English: “Please take your baggages. We shall discuss later the sharing of the furniture. You may have l’homme Michelin.”

    Naturally the introduction of this last phrase incensed Armand and he screamed: “Half of everything is mine! And this house is mine, don’t think you’ll keep it or the kids!” In French, naturally.

    Simon replied in English: “Please take your baggages and go. You asked me to decide before Christmas and I ’ave decided.”

    “I’m not leaving my own house!” cried Armand in French, trembling.

    “Possiblay it is half my house. But if I go, it is because you throw me out and the court weell say I keep the kids,” replied Simone, still in English.

    “Parle français!” he screamed with tears in his eyes.

    “No, New Zealand is my home now,” said Simone detachedly. “There are your baggages. Go, please.”

    Armand screamed out an incoherent speech in which the concepts of never allowing her custody, unnatural wife, rotten mother, the influence of the dykey bitch Annick Pic, and Simone’s rotten cooking were all inextricably mixed.

    Simone replied detachedly in English: “I am not interested. Please take your baggages and go.”

    “LUGGAGE!” shouted Armand at the top of his lungs in English.

    “Oh, yes. Luggage. Thank you,” said Simone politely.

    Trembling, he screamed: “All right, you cold bitch, I’m going! Don’t think you’ll ever get custody of my kids! And I’ll sell the damned house out from under you if it’s the last thing I do!”

    “I don’t think you can. It’s in both our names,” said Simone detachedly in English.

    Armand gave an incoherent scream, grabbed up the two largest of his expensive suitcases, and staggered out with them. Considerately Simone picked up the other two and followed him downstairs. “Here you are,” she said unemotionally.

    Screaming out that she was as cold as a fish and he should have taken his mother’s advice and never married her in the first place, Armand slammed the front door in her face. Simone had been expecting this and had stood well back from it. Calmly she locked the door and put the chain on. Calmly she went upstairs.

    Then her legs gave way and she sank down onto l’homme Michelin trembling all over. She sat there for about twenty minutes until she was able to reflect that at least she’d done it. And for ten more minutes until she was capable of staggering into the kitchen and making herself a cup of coffee.

    The Carranos had gone down to her parents’ obscure backblocks farm for the holiday period. Lady Carrano gulped. The letter fluttered from her nerveless hand.

    Sir Jacob pounced. Even though it was his wife’s private correspondence, he read it through without asking if he could. His eyes bulged. A vein stood out on his forehead. “He’s done WHAT?” he roared.

    “What do you mean, ‘he’?” she said with a silly laugh. “What about her?”

    “Her! Stupid little Pommy tart!” he bellowed. “What in God’s name does he imagine he’s doing? Look, I tell ya what, Masako’s death must have knocked him right over the edge!”

    Polly began to revive. “That’s your official diagnosis, is it, Sir Jacob Freud?”

    “For God’s SAKE!” he bellowed. “Who was it who was going on about him and his thing about serious women?”

    “Do First Concubines have to be serious women, though, in Japan?” she said with a silly laugh.

    “YES!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs. “AND THIS ISN’T JAPAN!”

    “All the better,” said Polly brazenly.

    Sir Jacob took a very deep breath but at that moment his fluffy mother-in-law bustled in anxiously and asked him if everything was all right, Jake, dear, so he took another deep breath and said with tremendous restraint: “Yeah, it’s okay, Maureen. Just that Inoue’s got himself mixed up with some dumb Pommy ta— female.”

    Maureen Mitchell replied sympathetically: “Oh, dear. Some older men do go a bit silly when they lose their wives, don’t they? Look at poor Stu McIlwaine. He and Stella had been married for over forty years, you know: and then, seven months to the day after the funeral, he’s off to Napier and the next thing the family knows, he’s moved in with that awful bottle-blonde Potter woman.”

    “Napier, eh?” said Jake with relish. His wife bit her lip but Maureen just nodded earnestly, asked him if he felt like a nice cup of tea, as an afterthought asked Polly if she did, and bustled out again.

    “Well, it’s a consensus, then,” said Polly feebly.

    “Eh? Oh,” he said sheepishly. “Well, women like Maureen may not think, as such, but their instincts aren’t usually far wrong,” he added, rallying slightly.

    “Rubbish, Jake! Stella McIlwaine bullied the living daylights out of little old Stu for every minute of their married life. He was like a kid with a new bike when she died.”

    In spite of himself, Jake gulped.

    “I’m not saying that Masako was that bad. And of course it was an arranged marriage.”

    “What are ya saying, then?” he said on a dry note.

    Polly swallowed. “Um—actually I can’t see it: Posy’s certainly nothing like what he calls a serious woman. Do you remember how he went on about it when Wal Briggs took up with Livia Wentworth?”

    “Yeah, well, that’s worked out okay,” he said dubiously.

    “But Wal’s a very different type.”

    “Yeah. And they’re married, maybe it’s not the same thing…” He re-read Dorothy’s letter. “Um, well, maybe for First Concubine ya don’t need a serious woman, in Jap terms?”

    “Um—well, I suppose that’s possible.”

    The Carranos looked at each other dubiously.

    Beth scowled. “Good on her,” she said pugnaciously.

    Jack’s jaw dropped. “But—”

    “He terrifies me, but he’s got lovely manners and he’s nice and clean and he never bullies people,” said Beth pugnaciously.

    “What?” he croaked.

    “Not like some people.”

    “What’s that supposed to mean?” he gasped.

    “Nothing. But I’ve noticed, if you haven’t, that if he needs an urgent typing job done or something like that he manages to get it done without upsetting the entire typing pool and giving Juliette one of her headaches.”

    Jack reddened. “The woman’s hormones aren’t my fault!”

    “Shouting at her in the Admin area just because you were ratty over your stupid IT thingies was, though. And please go away, if you only came to gossip: I’ve got a lot of work to do and so has Thomas.”

    Jack glared at Thomas’s closed door but did lower his voice to a mere angry hiss. “For God’s sake, Beth! You can’t seriously think that a dumb little broad like Posy Baranski and a highly intelligent, upper-class product of one of the most conservative, restrictive cultures in the world are going to make a go of it?”

    “I don’t know. And I don’t believe you do, either. But I hope they do, I like Posy very much. And I’d like to get on with my work.”

    “Yeah, I heard ya the first time!” he snarled, stalking out.

    Beth got on with her work, scowling.

    “WHAT?” bellowed Dorothy, turning purple.

    “It’s only for a fortnight, Dot—”

    “Listen, buster, it is not my mission in life to be unpaid baby-sitter to your offspring’s offspring at a moment’s notice during my precious annual leave!”

    “But you like Murray. And you’re not planning to go away—”

    “HOW DO YOU KNOW?” she bellowed.

    Pouting, her brother returned: “Well, you aren’t.”

    Dorothy took a very deep breath, “Look, Jack, if you’d planned this holiday properly in advance, and asked me six weeks back, maybe we could have worked something out. But I’m not prepared to have Murray dumped on me just because you’ve taken a fancy to go on a tramping holiday down the bloody West Coast. –It’ll rain,” she noted by the by.

    “It’s not a tramping holiday, it’s a walking tour.”

    His sister returned coldly: “This side of the Mason-Dixon, it’s a tramping holiday. Go away, Jack: I am not prepared to listen to the suggestion for a second.”

    “But for Christ’s sake, if you’re home anyway—”

    “That is not the point, you selfish sod. And hadn’t it occurred that the poor kid might be looking forward to seeing something of his selfish sod of a grandfather over Christmas?”

    “I’ll be here for Christmas,” he said sulkily.

    Dorothy opened her front door and held it wide in a pointed fashion. “Get out, Jack.”

    Scowling, Jack stamped out.

    “This is potty,” warned Lady Carrano.

    Ignoring her completely, her husband got into the Group’s helicopter and, ignoring completely the additional facts that his daughter had burst into loud screams of rage and disappointment and that his sons were standing there bright red in the face with horrible pouts on their faces—made ’em look just like Her, yes—ordered the Group’s pilot to get on with it.

    “You sure?” returned the young man unemotionally.

    “Yeah! Geddon with it!” he snarled.

    Noting that it was his funeral, Sir Jacob’s employee got on with it.

    “Perkins tried what?” croaked Sol, turning an unlovely mottled purple shade.

    Mrs Winkelmann returned unemotionally: “Don’t get all stirred up. I just thought you’d better know.”

    “What, exactly, were his precise words, if you can recall them?” he asked grimly, after some deep breathing.

    “I can’t,” said Michaela simply. In the background, Euan Knox smothered a cough and Jimmy Burton gulped.

    Wishing not for the first time that his box-like commercial premises incorporated some nook, cranny or cupboard where it might be possible to have a private conversation, Sol pursued: “Okay, then, what did you say?”

    “I said that kids were a responsibility,” replied Michaela, completely unmoved.

    “And?” croaked her husband, with bulging eyes. In the background, Euan and Jimmy were now both having coughing fits.

    “He went very red.”

    Euan and Jimmy broke down in helpless splutters.

    “Uh—yeah,” gulped Sol feebly, swallowing. “He woulda done. Well, good for you, honey!”

    “Then I said that I like Murray but I’m not very good at keeping an eye on kids when I’m thinking about my pots. And he said he was sorry, and to forget he ever spoke.”

    “Uh-huh,” he noted grimly.

    Euan cleared his throat.

    “You coughed?” inquired his partner grimly.

    Euan eyed him blandly. “Yeah. Why not just admit Perkins is a tit, and let it go, Sol?”

    Before Sol could utter Jimmy Burton was agreeing: “Yeah: Michaela settled his hash okay. I don’t reckon he’ll try it on again in a hurry!”

    Groaning, Sol conceded: “I’ll let it go, then. This time.”

    “I would,” agreed Euan.

    Sol eyed him sourly but didn’t ask him how he’da felt iffen it hadda been Simone that Jack Perkins had tried the emotional blackmail on, or when was moving day, or anything of that sort. Richly though he deserved it.

    Just when he was mentally awarding himself a medal for this incredible restraint, Michaela upped and said: “Watch out, Euan, or he’ll be trying it on Simone, next.” So he concluded that there was no hope for none of ’em, then. That or no justice left in the world, or— Some of those.

    Inoue had come home for lunch to find Sir Jacob installed in the sitting-room of the large house he was renting in Kaingaroa Way, Kingfisher Bay. Apparently having ordered Posy to do that nice flounder he’d discovered in their fridge.

    In the kitchen, Posy swallowed hard. “Inoue, are you very angry?” she said in a small voice. “I think he truly does care about you.”

    “Yes,” he said briefly.

    She swallowed again, and didn’t dare to press the point.

    Lunch cheered Jake up to the point where he happily decided they could get rid of all that bloody furniture of the Whatsernames’, his expression, and put in some nice plain— Neither Posy nor Inoue listened, much. Inoue then forced him to ring his pilot, forced him to ring Polly at her parents’ farm and grovel to her, and—having forced him to admit that young Phil was gonna land ’er up the bach: what the ruddy Puriri County Council didn’t see they wouldn’t weep over, his expression—forced him to get into his Land Rover and go.

    He and Posy got into the fawn Jaguar and followed him up the Inlet road. By the time they got to the Carranos’ little bach, what with the loud arguments and protests that had preceded the drive, they had a wait of barely long enough for Sir Jacob to get them both inside and start trying to foist unwanted drinks on them, before the helicopter arrived. Inoue then pointed out on an acid note that that large cleared patch of land over the road from Jake’s bach had once been a small holiday camp, but Jake had bought it, razed it, flattened it and resown it in expensive lawn grass seed merely so that the Group’s helicopter could land on it once in a blue moon: usually when he was up to something behind his wife’s back. And Sir Jacob, remarking sourly that he might as well get on back: the nagging down there couldn’t be worse than it was up here, went.

    “Good gracious, I feel quite limp,” discovered Posy, clutching at her lover’s wiry arm.

    “He has that effect,” he agreed grimly.

    “Darling, will Polly be very cross with him?” she quavered.

    “Well, yes. But I think any wife would: he had promised faithfully to go down to the farm in time for Nanny’s wedding and stay there until the first week in January. There have been incidents of broken promises at previous Christmases,” he explained.

    Posy nodded feelingly. “I got that!”

    “But if,” said Inoue, carefully conducting her back to the Jag, “you mean, will Polly be very cross that he came up here to see if I had fallen out of my tree, I think the answer is No. She may pretend to be, but underneath I think she will be very glad to hear his report.”

    “I see.”

    “And since you are not asking,” he said, the chiselled nostrils flickering, “whether I shall take a blind bit of notice of anything either of them may say to me, the answer to that is definitely No.”

    “Whether it be good or bad, I suppose!” said Posy with a high, nervous laugh.

    Suddenly Inoue smiled. “Quite. –Please get in, Posy. As I am a very conventional man, as you know, I shall not attempt to kiss you until we are in the car.”

    Smiling limply, Posy got in. Inoue came round the car looking very composed, got in beside her and kissed her gently.

    Posy thereupon burst into snorting sobs.

    Inoue patted her back, looking detached. “It had to happen,” he said as the sobs abated. “Here.” He gave her his spotless handkerchief.

    “Thank you!” she gasped, blowing her nose.

    “It was not so very bad, I think,” he murmured.

    “No,” admitted Posy shakily, with a wobbly smile. “Oh, my God!” she gasped, suddenly sitting bolt upright.

    “What is it?”

    “The man! I completely forgot he was coming!”

    “The man who was to look at the washing-machine?”

    “Yes.”

    “Never mind, if he came and went away again, and does not contact us today, we shall call a different man.”

    “Inoue, darling, I don’t think there is more than one, up here.”

    “Never mind, my dear, we can try Puriri.”

    Posy subsided, though reflecting that it would be her who’d have to do it, and she didn’t have a clue where to start looking for a washing-machine man in Puriri that would both come and let you know if he came while you were out.

    Back at the huge white Tudor-Dutch mansion in Kaingaroa Way she hurried downstairs before Inoue could suggest that as he’d taken the day off they might do something interesting with it. He followed slowly. Posy was in the enormous laundry, fully tiled in hideous fake-Spanish pattern and as large as the living-room of a normal Japanese apartment. The giant washing-machine’s lid was raised. He came dubiously to inspect it. “So?”

    “I left the load in it, you see, darling, because there didn’t seem to be any point in taking it out… It seems to have done it,” she said limply.

    Inoue peered. Certainly the laundry was wet, and flattened against the sides of the bowl. “We could perhaps ring Mrs Manning and ask her expert opinion on whether a washing-machine that appears not to go could be on a time-switch?”

    “I never thought of that,” she said limply. “But it can’t be, surely? And Mrs Manning looked at it when she came, and said she couldn’t see why it wouldn’t go.”

    “No. So—the man came, after all?”

    “But darling, the house was locked! –Look, the outside door’s bolted!”

    It certainly was. The laundry of the acrimoniously divorcing Leadbetters’ palatial residence led directly onto a drying-green, and Inoue had pointed out that it was an invitation to burglars, and Posy must keep it locked at all times. And Posy had duly pointed this out to Mrs Manning, who was going to help her with the housework.

    They looked at each other blankly for a moment. Then Inoue gave a shout of laughter.

    “What?” groped Posy in bewilderment.

    “Jake!” he gasped.

    “Oh, no: surely, darling—”

    “Yes!” he gasped. “Did he make you show him the laund-ah-ry?”

    “Um, yes: he insisted on seeing the whole house. Buh-but he can’t have— I mean, he did ask what was wrong with the machine, because it was open, you see, and he could see it was loaded… No, surely, darling!”

    “It would be him all over. Did you leave him alone here for two minutes?”

    “No.”

    “Then it must have been while we were preparing the lunch.”

    “Inoue, he can’t have!”

    “Certainly. A Good Keen Man,” said Inoue with relish, “would have had more than time enough to creep down to our laund-ah-ry and secretly fix the machine. –Jake is the sort of man who knows about the insides of machinery,” he explained kindly.

    Posy gaped from him to the washing-machine.

    “But yes, I assure you. It was probably something quite simple that was wrong with it,” he explained kindly.

    “I can’t believe it… Yes, actually, I can,” she admitted weakly.

    “Yes. We shall write him a nice note of thanks,” said Inoue primly.

    Posy gave a smothered giggle.

    “That’s better. Come along,” he said, putting his arm round her.

    “Where to?” said Posy blankly.

    Inoue chuckled. He put a hand under her chin and kissed her slowly. As usual, Posy shuddered a little and pressed against him. “Guess,” he murmured, smiling.

    “In the afternoon?” she said with a giggle.

    “Mm…” He kissed her again. “That bed is so big, it would seem a pity not to use it. And if the doorbell goes, it will only be the man for the washing-machine, late, so we shall ignore it.”

    “Of course!” agreed Posy, giggling.

    He was usually very neat around the house, so she was rather surprised when he simply tore his clothes off and dropped them onto the bedroom floor. “Come along,” he said through his teeth.

    “Darling, is it urgent?” replied Posy with a laugh.

    “Hai. Get on the bed.”

    Somewhat surprised but not unwilling, Posy got onto the bed. She had had more than time to discover that Inoue’s idea of foreplay was entirely delightful and often lasted half the evening: so she was very surprised indeed when he simply got on top of her, kissed her very hard, and plunged it into her. Not surprised that he was ready, of course: he always was, and that was one of the most delightful things about him. After all, even though one knew a man couldn’t always control it, either way, it was not entirely flattering when it went limp at the sight of one, was it? Inoue’s was never limp at the wrong moments. And, Posy had discovered with secret delight, frequently very hard at what might have been said to be ra-ather the wrong moments: like when he had arranged for her to collect him from work and he came through into the Reception area looking, in his business suit, very neat and entirely proper, except for It; or when they were sitting in the horrid fake-Polynesian Kororareka Bar at the Royal K, genteelly sipping drinks with Thomas and Alan Kincaid and a bunch of visiting firemen. At such times Inoue’s leg frequently brushed against hers: Posy hadn’t thought he’d be that sort of man, at all! And when it was his turn to get drinks and he got up—table service at the Kororareka Bar was purely nominal—one could see perfectly well, provided that one looked, which Posy of course always did—that it was!

    Nevertheless she was very surprised indeed at his just plunging it into her, like that. For a moment she just lay there, clutching him.

    Then he gave a gasp, and Posy had just about time to think Good Heavens! before he grunted and groaned, and thrust a couple of times, very hard, and came like a thunderclap, with his usual terrific hoarse yell. –Thrilling, you know? But the first couple of times, just a teeny bit frightening. Posy had never before had a man who… would you say, let himself go? Well, something like that: let himself go like that. Audibly as well as physically, sort of thing.

    Then he just lay there panting on top of her for ages, and Posy hugged him tight and thought vague but pleased thoughts, barely on a verbal level at all.

    Eventually he said into her neck: “I am sorry.”

    “Don’t be, darling, it was lovely,” she said, hugging him.

    Inoue sighed, and rolled onto his back. “I had ah… planned,” he said slowly, “to come home for lunch, and then give you a nice fuck all afternoon.”

    “Yes, lovely, darling!” agreed Posy, very pink.

    “Not to… I could not hold back.”

    “That’s quite all right, darling, I perfectly understand!” she said quickly.

    “Well, possiblee… Though I admit, I do not completely understand, myself. But I can see it is mixed up with damned Jake’s attempt to interfere in my life,” he said, scowling horribly.

    Oops! thought Posy. “That’s quite likely, darling: he got you all stirred up and anxious, the silly man. And then, if you were expecting just to be alone with me for the afternoon, and um, then you had to wait until we’d got rid of him… It is quite natural, darling,” she ended anxiously.

    “Yes. You are so practical about sex, Posy,” he said with a sigh. After a moment he added: “It is we Japanese who are supposed to be the practical ones, and you Anglo-Saxons who are supposed to have the hang-ups over what should be a very simple physical act, no?”

    Help! thought Posy. “Darling, can one categorise human beings so rigidly?” she replied, squeezing his hand, and hoping to goodness it was the right thing to say.

    Inoue’s hand closed on hers, very hard. “No. Nor so simplistically. Thank God you can see it.”

    “Mm,” she agreed with a relieved sigh.

    He raised himself on his elbow and smiled down at her. “I shall do something very nice for you, now: okay?”

    “Yes, please, darling!” she said eagerly.

    Smiling, Inoue got between her pale, silky thighs. “Good,” he said into the bush.

    “Yes—” agreed Posy faintly. “Oh! Inoue! OH!” she shrieked, thrusting herself at him.

    “So,” he murmured, quite some time later, having drawn her gently against his shoulder and pulled the sheet up over her: “the buh-loody man had got you emotionally upset, too?”

    Posy panted for a moment. “Yes! I mean,” she said, breathing deeply, “I don’t know whether it was just the frustration of sitting through lunch and waiting to get rid of him, or—or thinking that he’d come to take you away from me, or—or what.”

    “Mm,” he said, his lips tightening.

    “Never mind, the result was good!” said Posy with a little gurgle of laughter.

    Inoue hugged her, smiling. “Indeed it was.”

    His Pottiness got back to the farm so late that night that his father-in-law, an extremely easy-going man, was driven to inform him he was a tit. Jake didn’t even tell Dave Mitchell he shouldn’t have sat up for him: he just nodded glumly. Polly was asleep, lying on her back snoring gently when he tiptoed into their room: he just crept in beside her.

    “Well?” she said evilly the next morning. “How was Inoue?”

    “The same as usual, the sarky bugger,” he replied sourly.

    His wife gave an unkind crack of laughter.

    “Oh: I fixed ’is washing-machine,” he recalled glumly.

    “And?” she said grimly.

    “Eh? Um…” He scratched his chin. “Actually I thought he didn’t seem too bad. They seem to be getting on quite well. Um—comfortable together, ya know? Well, of course he’s bossing the socks off the poor little bint—or should I say, bossing them onto her, he makes her wear the bloody things in the house; but… Well, she was nervy, of course…”

    “At the sight of you? I should ruddy well think so!”

    He smiled weakly. “Yeah. Um—had a nice flounder for lunch.”

    “I hope it choked you. Is that It?”

    “More or less, yeah. Um—she’s dyed her hair red.”

    Polly returned nastily: “She can’t have dyed it, you can’t dye black hair red.”

    “It’s red,” he said definitely. “Bit like Michaela’s. Not as ginger as Katie Maureen’s.”

    “Well, did he tell her to go red?”

    “Didn’t ask him. Or her.”

    “You astound me,” she said acidly, getting out of bed.

    Over a large breakfast incorporating fresh fruit and cornflakes mixed, at his wife’s insistence, with All Bran, followed by scrambled egg, mushrooms and sausages with, at his wife’s insistence, wholegrain toast, he admitted to his mother-in-law: “S’pose Inoue’s okay, really. At least she seems to be feeding him what he likes. Fish, and stuff.”

    “That’s good, dear. –Have some more mushrooms, Polly, dear.”

    Polly accepted more mushrooms, refused Maureen’s offer of butter to go with her wholegrain toast and, putting the mushrooms carefully on the toast, said: “What about Posy?”

    “I said: red hair,” he grunted. “Feeding him on fish.”

    “And socks in the house: quite.”

    “You must have noticed more than that, Jake!” protested Maureen.

    “Doing it on purpose,” said Dave Mitchell from behind his newspaper.

    “Yes, he is, isn’t he?” agreed Jake’s fluffy mother-in-law severely. “Come along, Jake!”

    “Um… Well, I thought it was all right. He was pretty much the same as usual. Didn’t order her around too much, I s’pose. Oh, yeah: he cooked the fish.”

    “That’s a good sign,” said Maureen placidly.

    “It may only be a reaction to Masako never letting him touch anything that looked like basic ingredients,” noted Polly.

    “Shuddup, Madam Freud,” he said sourly. “I’m telling you: he looked all right!”

    Suddenly Maureen gave a loud giggle. “I think it really is all right, Polly, dear! I mean,” she said eyeing her large son-on-law tolerantly, “that’s all they’re capable of, really, isn’t it?”

    Polly knew that if pushed, Jake was capable of being quite articulate. However, she also knew that he wasn’t always ready to let himself be pushed. “Yes,” she admitted with a reluctant smile. “You’re right.”

    Rab sat on Dorothy’s Carrano-ized sofa, looking sulky. “Avon says I ought tae stand up for masel’ more,” he reported gloomily.

    Noting with interest the recurrence of the Avon motif in Rab’s everyday conversation, Dorothy replied kindly: “I dare say she’s right, Rab. But not everyone’s built that way, are they? And not many people are capable of standing up to Jack.”

    “No,” he agreed gratefully. “And I simply canna take the time off: the summer’s our busiest time at Ching’s! It wouldna be fair to Sid. And if I did ask for time off, he’d nae doot give me the sack, and I couldna blame him.”

    “Mm.”

    “But Dad willna take any notice of me and he says he’s goin’ anyway!”

    “He would.” Dorothy thought it over. Rab watched her respectfully. “Look, say he does go,” she said at last, “would you be able to jack up child-care for Murray?”

    “No, because everything closes for the holidays. I mean, the Play Group closes doon, and there’s no after-school care. Not that there was much, and it was verra dear. And Avon said it wasna suitable for the younger kids.”

    “That scrimmage in the old Baptist chapel, nominally supervised by bloody Rhonda Semple and that idiot sister of hers? No, it certainly wasn’t: anything under eleven years of age or ten stone in weight went there at its own risk.”

    “Aye, well, they only dae it during the term,” he said sadly.

    “Mm.” On the whole Dorothy didn’t think it would do Rab any harm to have to assume the responsibility for Murray if bloody Jack pushed off for a couple of weeks: only the kid was right: there bloody well wasn’t anywhere Murray could go. “What about Puriri?” she said without hope.

    “Sid says there isna a thing. One year the Nanny School in Pohutukawa Bay ran a Summer School, but they’re not daein’ it this year.”

    “Mm. I think your best bet might be to find someone who could come and live in, Rab. Make Jack pay her, of course.”

    “Aye…” he said, looking helpless.

    He was actually six-foot-four and healthy as a horse, with shoulders on him like a navvy. Dorothy got up, putting a very brisk expression on her face. “Right, well, I’ve got things to do. Start with the Nanny School, Rab: they may well have some pupils eager for a holiday job.”

    He got up reluctantly. “Aye, I could dae that,” he said sadly.

    “Yes. See ya!” said Dorothy brightly.

    Looking sad, he replied: “See ya,” and went away.

    Dorothy sat down limply. “Gin, gin,” she whispered.

    There were no Good Samaritans in this particular parched, sandy desert, so after some time she got up and, as per bloody usual, got the drink herself. …The trouble was, if you only decided to go on holiday ten days or so before Christmas, it was impossible to book yourself in anywhere, because every bloody thing was booked up! Logically, there was no reason why Dorothy shouldn’t stay home in her lovely new flat for her few precious days’ annual leave and let bloody Jack choke on it. But somehow she didn’t have the stamina for it.

    There were, of course, one or two places where she could go. Her sister Kathleen down in Invercargill would no doubt welcome her warmly. Then she could spend the entire holiday listening to bloody Kathleen’s gripes about the man she’d been married to for forty years, who was as much of a useless, wet twit now as he had been forty years back, no more and no less, while the two of them baby-sat the everlasting grandkids. Ian’s brats were all spoilt rotten because he was a nonentity like his father and his wife was a fool who thought that kids should be allowed free expression, and Paulina’s brats were both repressed little bed-wetters because Paulina was a steam-roller of personality like her mother who believed that endless pre-school and after-school and holiday and weekend courses in this, that, and the other stimulated kids’ mental development and helped them to Succeed at school. Actually it stunted their creativity and turned them into bed-wetters; and her husband, almost but not quite as wet and feeble as her father and brother, after eleven years of pointing this out to her had given up on the whole bit, got a job nominally teaching English in the Cook Islands, and pushed off there to do the beachcombing thing. Considerately sending the kids an envelope full of coloured snapshots of him and a plump Polynesian girl in sarongs doing it. The beachcombing, not It, though there was very little doubt they were doing that as well. The snaps had not been addressed to Paulina but there was no doubt that she was the intended audience. On the whole, Invercargill would not be a judicious choice, at this juncture.

    Then there were her old school friends, Jude and Mavis. Jude was an ebullient personality who at school had been Captain of the hockey team and Head Girl. She had married a small, bright-eyed, rather doggy little man who to the unprejudiced eye had “bum-pincher” written all over him. Jude had never realised that he was; nor, as her whole neighbourhood could have told her, that he had been cheerfully cheating on her for years with anything in skirts. And not a few in, successively, pink pedal-pushers, purple flares with coloured braid on ’em, stone-washed almost-designer jeans, and, the family having gone up-market and moved to a very nayce suburb on the occasion of his last promotion, actual designer jeans tightly-belted to the dieted, aerobicized, and sun-lamped sinewy form. There was no doubt he’d be there for the entirety of the hols: he was the horribly uxorious type with it. Nor was there any doubt that, flattish and unremarkable though it was, Dorothy’s bum would be favoured in the usual way if they merely met in the ruddy passage with poor old Jude two feet away slaving over a hot stove. She was a fabulous cook of the solid, Mum’s-recipe-that-never-fails variety, was good old Jude. God.

    Mavis, if anything, was worse. Mavis was a good Christian: so genuinely good that you couldn’t even manage to loathe her for it, alas—not even though it was clear to all who knew her that in her quiet, sweet-mannered way she was as ruthless and determined as your average steel trap. Back in their mutual schooldays she had tended to push the Christianity down Dorothy’s throat, rather; but though marrying two years out of school, since then she’d been on innumerable Courses of the Consciousness-Raising sort, and would now tell Dorothy very, very kindly about the really inspiring, forward-looking lady preacher (Mavis did not say “lady” but it was certainly present in every nuance of her tone) who was coming to speak at their church tonight—but of course they would understand if Dorothy preferred to stay home, and there was a really good nature programme on TV… The hubby was a nonentity and apparently completely under Mavis’s thumb: he actually allowed her to explain to guests over the dinner-table that they worked at their marriage without blenching. He never managed to look proud of her, however, and Dorothy always found herself wondering what, if anything, was behind the air of quiet complacency that characterised him. Or if he even liked Mavis.

    She was pretty sure that he didn’t like her, Dorothy, but whether it was his Christian principles or his fear of Mavis that prevented his openly showing this, she couldn’t tell. If Mavis had been totally honest—which Dorothy had never been in much doubt she was incapable of being: godly hypocrisy was ingrained in her—it was odds-on she would have had to admit that she neither liked Dorothy nor approved of her. Did she see her as a brand to be snatched from the burning? Or was she merely sorry for her? Or was it a combination of both? Of course, she actively enjoyed doing good to the less fortunate, but could that entirely explain the too-frequent invitations to join them on a weekend camping trip (they had a huge array of tents and a giant, luxurious campervan), or to come to dinner, it would just be them and their friends the Dennisons and another very nice couple from their street: they didn’t go to our church but she was sure Dorothy would like them, he was quite an intellectual. Mavis said that sort of thing in spite of all the Courses. Or possibly, this being the Nineties, because of them.

    This year Dorothy was warmly invited to join Mavis and hubby and daughter and daughter’s two kids on a camping trip to Waikaremoana. (Mavis had always said “Waikaremoana”, not “Lake Waikaremoana”, like us yobs, but these days she was saying it with a Maori accent as well.) Daughter had married at twenty, but as he was a Bible-basher, too, and as they both spent every Saturday evening and most long weekends in Mummy’s pocket it couldn’t have been to escape from Mummy. In spite of everything Dorothy really liked good old Mavis, but she could not stomach the thought of more than ten minutes in hubby’s company. (Mavis did not call him that, of course: it would have been patronising, objectifying, sexist and non-Nineties: nevertheless it was there in every nuance of her tone). And she couldn’t stomach more than five in daughter’s hubby’s. So that was out.

    Dorothy’s tummy was rumbling in spite of those gins. So, although she’d sworn she wouldn’t, it was taking gross advantage of her pleasant neighbour and his girlfriend, she ventured downstairs, using the small, narrow and bloody dangerous back staircase which came up at the far end of the passage that separated her flat from the four remaining original bedrooms, and poked her nose into the kitchen. There was the most glorious smell. In fact if Dorothy’s nose had been more selective, it might have discerned, as its owner dimly realised, that there was a variety of glorious smells.

    “It’s canard Chasseur, mainly,” said Sim kindly as she sniffed. “Want some?”

    Even though Jacko was perched on a stool at the big scrubbed kitchen table, eating something meaty-looking out of a large pudding bowl, Dorothy hesitated.

    “Come in, Dorothy,” said Anna kindly, looking up from her stirring. “Sim, take those firsts out: those people’ll be wondering if we’re watching that pawpaw grow.”

    “Et minceur, et tropicale,” said Sim with a wink, seizing two bright, aesthetic-looking creations and hurrying out with them.

    “What were all those bows and things?” asked Dorothy limply.

    “Little curly bits of peel: first he peels them and then he put them in ice-water. Some of those were lime peel, I think. And the bright red wings are thingies he makes with sugar and cochineal. Like toffee, sort of. They mostly don’t eat them, Adrian says it’s because it’s never dawned that you can. They look good enough to eat, don’t they?” said Anna with a laugh.

    “Yeah. Were those genuine pieces of banana palm they were on?” she asked limply.

    “No! Wooden plates!”

    “Eh?”

    “He got them at some arty-tarty craft shop in town,” explained Jacko, scraping out his plate with a bit of bread. “Not bad,” he pronounced. “Once he got them he had a fit of conscience, mind you. Said they were South American or something. Slave-labour.”

    “I see.”

    “Then he got over it,” said Anna placidly. “They are very pretty, and the pawpaw looks wonderful on them. But it’s a bit extravagant, because they’re not suitable for anything else.”

    “Uh—no.” Dorothy came further into the kitchen, looking round cautiously. “Where is he?” she hissed.

    “You may well hiss,” agreed Anna calmly. “He’s in the restaurant, talking to a man and lady that not only know his parents very well, he knows Sir Jake Carrano as well.”

    Dorothy nodded numbly.

    “Want some stew?” asked Jacko stolidly.

    “Um—yeah. It smells great,” she admitted.

    “Yeah. Went a bit runny, and ’Is ’Ighness threw a wobbly.”

    “God,” she said, blenching.

    “Yes. But Jacko told him not to be a tit!” beamed Anna.

    Dorothy looked from the wizened, grimy old Jacko to the pink-cheeked, glowing Anna, and grinned suddenly. “Did you? I wish I’d seen it!”

    The old man merely replied unemotionally: “I’d grab some before he comes back, if I was you. –I’m going out for a smoko,” he added.

    “Righto,” agreed Anna.

    “In the big black pot,” said Jacko to Dorothy, going.

    Dorothy investigated cautiously. “Is it duck?”

    “Yes, and of course it’s very expensive, that’s why he was so cross that the sauce went runny. But it’s beautifully tender and the customers won’t know the difference. Have as much as you like, Dorothy. And there’s some lovely whipped potato: take what’s left, if it gets cold he won’t serve it up to them, he’ll do another lot, and it’ll only go to waste.”

    Dorothy heaped a plate with Adrian’s wonderful mashed potato, God knew what he did to it but it tasted like mashed potato ought to taste, and topped it off with a mountain of duck. Plus a judicious helping of the runny sauce. Anna then urged fresh peas, this season’s, on her, but recognising that enough was enough, and she’d be lucky to get through this lot as it was, and that, in season or not, real peas cost the earth, The Earth, these days, Dorothy refused, thanked her fervently, and slid out. Her heart nearly stopped when a white-aproned figure appeared in the back passage as she was creeping towards the old back stairs, but it turned out to be only Martin. Then her heart really did almost stop. “What are you doing here?” she gasped.

    Martin scowled. “Working.”

    Dorothy could see that, he had his white apron, his white shirt, and his little bow-tie on. “I thought your Mum was arriving tonight?” she gasped.

    “So? No-one else is offering to earn my next year’s tuition for me,” he replied sourly, vanishing in the direction of the kitchen.

    Dorothy crept silently up the back stairs with her piled plate, reflecting that there were possibly worse things in the world than being single, very nearly almost fifty-three, and without anywhere to go to in the Christmas Hols to escape your horrible relations. Poor bloody Mrs Wolfe! Possibly it served her right for not having offered to put the little sod through varsity herself, but then, in the first place it sounded as if she was pretty well under her husband’s thumb, and in the second place it didn’t sound as if the husband was the sort who would have been generous enough with the housekeeping to let her save up enough to do it. And in the third place, why shouldn’t Martin bloody well work? He was young and able-bodied. And these days, lucky to have a job at all.

    Dorothy sat down at her old, or inside, dining-table with a sigh, and got herself round a huge plate of mash and canard Chasseur. Since the gin was on the table she poured herself one to go with it.

    … God, that was better! But there was no way—no way!—she was gonna make herself into a doormat for bloody Jack or bloody Rab. Because it would most certainly be the thin end of the wedge if she did so, and at her age, she felt she deserved not to have other people’s wedges inserted at all. At—all. And if nobody else was gonna look out for her, she was gonna ruddy well do it herself! So there.

    Sammi had picked Norma up at the airport around six o’clock. She had only had a wait of forty-seven minutes until the passengers from her mother’s plane got through Customs and Agriculture, and this, she silently recognised, was a miracle. Nevertheless, in order to get to the airport at the nominal time of the plane’s arrival, she had had to leave Carter’s Bay at two-thirty in the afternoon, and so had missed almost an entire afternoon’s work. She was not in the best of moods on account of it. Nor was she at all pleased that bloody Martin had declared mutinously that he was going to be working tonight. Nor that bloody Martin had rejected with scorn her cunning suggestion that he use the second, and very much smaller, of her two guest bedrooms for the duration of Norma’s stay. In fact he had shouted: “NO! Some of us aren’t such bloody hypocrites as you are, Sammi Wolfe! And it was you that never offered me and Sim room and board, you can bloody well explain why not to Mother!” Then rushing out, slamming the door as he went. Highly unfair: for of course Sammi had not actually chucked him and Sim out. She had merely not objected when they found accommodation elsewhere. So it was a great pity that Martin hadn’t given her the time to say so.

    Sammi was, though she was not admitting it to herself, very much on edge about Armand. The whole of Karaka Grove—in fact the whole of Kingfisher Bay—knew that he had left Simone. But he certainly hadn’t shown any signs of turning to Sammi on account of it. He was avoiding her at work. Out of working hours she never saw him: he was reported by Juliette, Yvonne, and Dorothy’s Faculty Liaison, Nigel, to have taken one of the unsold units at Casa Meridionale that Carrano Development had decided to let out as flats because they’d been hanging fire. Sammi was aware that these three personalities disliked her: which was fair enough: she didn’t like them, either. After quite some time of dithering, she had sunk to the level of asking nice Moana Curtis if it was true. Moana had looked at her with what even Sammi, not particularly attuned to others’ emotions at the best of times, had realised was considerable sympathy which she was trying to hide, and replied that it was true, yes.

    Norma greeted Sammi both effusively and tearfully. Whether the tears were partly because Martin hadn’t come to the airport to meet her, Sammi didn’t bother to ascertain. Then she launched into a long tale about the food on the plane. Sammi had expected her to launch into a long tale about how things were at home, but as she was equally uninterested in both topics, didn’t bother to interrupt her. Besides, it was better than going on about Martin not coming to the airport to meet her.

    In the carpark she first said dazedly: “Is this your car, then, dear?” as Sammi unlocked the BMW. Then, as they waited in the queue to get out of the carpark: “It’s very light, isn’t it, dear? Well, I suppose this is the sub-tropics, after all!”

    Sammi glanced at her watch. “It’s about six-fifteen, Mother.”

    But it couldn’t possibly be, it had been later than that when they left Sydney!

    “You have to re-set your watch, Mother,” said Sammi grimly. “It’s a bit like when you go to France. What does your watch say?”

    “But I set it on the plane…” she quavered.

    Not asking whether that had been between London and Paris, Paris and Rome, Rome and Bahrain, or what, Sammi said grimly: “What does it say now?”

    “Um… Eight-twenty-two, dear.”

    In that case it was four hours ahead of Sydney time. Sammi didn’t ask. “It’s six twenty-three here, Mother,” she said briskly.

    Norma reset her watch, looking confused.

    Briskly Sammi paid, drove out of the carpark, and headed for the grass farm and the city. Ignoring Norma’s remark that it was very odd that Martin hadn’t come to meet her.

    … “Where are we, dear?” she quavered.

    They were less than ten minutes from the airport. “What?” said Sammi in a cross voice.

    “Sammi, dear, this is all farmland,” she quavered.

    It was the grass farm, certainly. And they had passed a depressed-looking cow in a field, a little further back, yes. Sammi sighed. “We head for the city at this intersection, Mother. See the sign?”

    “Oh, yes…” Norma peered about her. “It’s still very light, dear!”

    It would be, it was now six thirty-seven on a summer’s evening. Sammi sighed.

    … “There aren’t many houses, dear. Or even factories.”

    “No,” said Sammi shortly. “That wasn’t Heathrow, Mother.”

    Norma smiled limply.

    “How’s Dad?” asked Sammi resignedly.

    Cheering up, Norma began to tell her.

    … “Where are we, dear?”

    “The suburbs, Mother. We skirt the city.”

    “Oh… Is it all garden suburbs, dear?”

    “What? Oh. You could call them that, I suppose.”

    Norma peered. “Bungalows…”

    “Yes.”

    “Do you know, it reminds me of the photos that dear old Great-Aunty Clare took in India!”

    Balls. Sammi let her babble on about her bloody Great-Aunty Clare and bloody bungalows in Simla and similar crap. Why not? It was better than trying to make conversation with her. Or having her go on about bloody Martin.

    … “I can’t understand why Martin didn’t come to the airport!”

    Evidently not, no. Gritting her teeth, Sammi drove on.

    … “Sammi, dear, are you sure this is the right way?”

    “Yes.”

    … “This can’t be right, dear!”  she gasped. “What’s all this water?”

    “The harbour. We have to cross it, Mother.”

    “Buh-but it’s enormous!” she quavered.

    “Well, quite big, I suppose, the city’s quite sprawling.”

    “You said it wasn’t nearly as big as London, or home,” she quavered.

    “No, it isn’t.”

    “But we’ve been driving for miles, Sammi!”

    Yes, through all those bloody garden suburbs. If each family in a city of over half a million souls had a suburban section which was a fifth to a quarter of an acre in size, then how many hundreds of thousands of acres could you expect— Yes, well. “Just enjoy the view, Mother. We are not lost,” she said heavily.

    “No… But surely you don’t come all this way to work every day, dear!”

    “No!” she snapped.

    There was a short silence.

    “I’m sorry, Mother, I thought you realised. I don’t work in the city. Sir George Grey is well north of the conurbation. North of this bridge.”

    “Ye-es…” Norma peered about her in confusion. Part of this might be due, Sammi realised quite clearly, to the fact that the westering sun was now low in the northern half of the sky. She made no attempt to explain this phenomenon, merely took the left-hand lane as they drove northwards onto the Harbour Bridge.

    Norma looked about her in confusion. “It doesn’t feel right,” she murmured.

    “Mother, we are heading north,” said Sammi clearly.

    “Ye-es… If you say so, dear. It is very pretty, isn’t it?”

    “Mm.”

    “It’s quite busy.”

    “Yes, it’s the tail-end of their rush hour.”

    “I see, dear.” She peered about her. “I see! That’s the city!”

    Sammi swallowed a sigh. “Mm.”

    “What a pity that Martin couldn’t come to meet me.”

    Sammi ignored her.

    … “Where are we now, Sammi?”

    “Heading north, Mother. How’s Paul?” said Sammi grimly.

    Norma began to tell her about bloody Paul and his dim wife and their bloody cottage, blah-blah. Sammi sighed and closed her ears.

    … “It’s so far out of the city, dear!”

    “Mother, I explained all that,” said Sammi through her teeth.

    “Ye-es… But all this countryside!”

    Sammi ignored her.

    … “We must be nearly there, now, Sammi, surely!”

    “No. This is Puriri, that we’re just coming into.”

    Norma peered about her in bewilderment.

    “Over this rise: you’ll see.”

    “Oh! I see, dear! But that’s the sea again,” she said in bewilderment.

    “Yes. That’s Puriri township below us.” Sammi drove down to it in the gathering dusk, wishing she hadn’t bothered to bring Mother this way—she hadn’t noticed the scenery, in any case—but had just taken the motorway all the way to Carter’s Bay. “The supermarkets are just through there. And there’s quite a decent delicatessen,” she said without hope.

    “It must be very late, dear.”

    “What? No! look at your watch, Mother!”

    Norma peered at her watch in the gloom. “Dear, it’s so dark… Barely eight-thirty,” she discerned dazedly.

    “Yes; the city traffic held us up,” said Sammi grimly, not adding that coming the more scenic way had, too.

    “It must be later than that, dear! It’s so dark! And this is their summer!”

    “No! Mother, this is not England! This is practically sub-tropical: you said so yourself! They have virtually no twilight!” said Sammi, very loudly.

    “Oh,” said Norma in a cowed voice.

    … “More farmland,” she ascertained dazedly, peering.

    Sammi did not reply.

    “Dear, it’s so deserted!”

    “Rubbish, Mother,” said Sammi briskly.

     Norma subsided, for the nonce.

    … “I can’t understand why Martin didn’t come to the airport with you, dear! Especially since he must have known how late we’d be getting back!”

    “Mother, Martin is still at work. At the restaurant,” she said clearly.

    “Ye-es… Couldn’t those people have let him have one night off?”

    The little bastard hadn’t asked them, of course. Sammi replied sourly: “You would think so, wouldn’t you? Why don’t you ask him that?”

    “Ye-es… Well, perhaps I will!”

    … “This is Carter’s Bay,” she said grimly.

    Norma peered about her numbly.

    “It’s not far, now.”

    “Sammi, it’s deserted!” she gasped.

    “There’ll be people at the pub,” said Sammi indifferently.

    Norma was silent.

    … “There are no street lights,” she quavered.

    “Mother, just stop worrying!” said Sammi loudly.

      … Norma gasped and shrank as a giant tourist coach lumbered past them.

    Sammi drew a deep breath. “We’re nearly there: that was a coach heading for the big tourist hotel. See the lights? That’s the intersection.” Thankfully she swung the BMW to the right and headed down into Kingfisher Bay.

    … “Very nice, dear,” approved Norma dazedly.

    Sammi was past caring what she thought of the place. “Good. Your room’s this way. That’s my room. Now, you’ve got your own bathroom, Mother: see?”

    Norma saw. She sank limply onto the bed. The place was huge!

    “Dinner in ten minutes,” said Sammi firmly, going over to the door.

    “Yes. Which is Martin’s room, dear?”

    Sammi took a deep breath. “Never mind him. Just hurry up and have a wash, you’ve had a long journey,” she said grimly, going out.

    Norma looked about her dazedly. It was so modern! Much, much worse than Sammi’s London flat. After quite some time she tottered into the bathroom. It was entirely black. With a giant mirror and gold-plated taps. Dreadful. Worse than the flashiest sort of hotel. The towels weren’t black: they were sparkling white, obviously brand new. Norma felt them gingerly. Straight out of the packet: girls these days didn’t know anything, really… And of course she couldn’t be told!

    … She looked dubiously at a plate full of strange lettuce, topped with steaming rice, plus something horridly yellow that might have been meat, under the yellow stuff. “Dear, it—it looks very nice… What is it?” she faltered.

    “Malaysian-style. Rice with chicken. But I got the idea for the salad from a little Vietnamese place in London. You put it under the rice, you see. It’s got mint and coriander in it. In—” Sammi broke off abruptly. She had almost said that Inoue liked it.

    “I think it might be too spicy for me, dear.”

    “Mother, that is absolute balls. In the first place, it’s composed of white rice, chicken and coconut cream, you could hardly get anything milder. –That’s a Japanese salad plant. It’s good for you,” she said grimly as Norma poked at it with her fork. “And you don’t have to eat the pieces of chilli.”

    “Mm.” Wanly Norma began to eat it. It was terribly yellow. And spicy.

    “There are no spices in this,” said Sammi clearly, serving her a tiny glass dish in which reposed two pale round things and a small scoop of ice cream.

    Norma tasted it wanly. Chinese or something, she’d had these pale things at a Chinese restaurant at home: she’d forgotten what they were called, Gordon liked them. They were horribly scented.

    “No,” said Sammi firmly as she suggested the washing-up. “I’ve got a dishwasher. The days of female servitude are over, Mother.”

    Norma swallowed, and tried to smile. “Yes, of course.”

    “Drink it,” said Sammi heavily as Norma tried to tell her she couldn’t possibly touch coffee this late. “It’s decaffeinated.”

    Norma drank it, and allowed Sammi to give her a glass of Kahlua.

    Sammi sat back and sipped Kahlua with a sigh. Not that she’d expected things to go any better: Mother always had been a trial.

    “Sammi dear, we did think… Well, by this time… Have you met any nice men, dear?”

    “No,” said Sammi baldly.

    Norma gulped. “Wuh-well, what about Alan Kincaid?”

    Sammi stared. “You told me yourself he was a horrible man!”

    “Yes. Not that. I mean, do you like working for him, dear?”

    Sammi told her a lot, very rapidly, about Alan’s intelligence and efficiency.

    “Um—well, perhaps he isn’t so bad, after all!” She looked at her hopefully.

    “He is not my type,” said Sammi coldly.

    “No,” she muttered sadly. “Isn’t there anyone else, Sammi?”

    “No.” Sammi got up. “We’d better go to bed: you look all in.”

    “Ye-es… Shall we give Martin just ten more minutes, dear?”

    “NO!” shouted Sammi, at the end of her tether. “We won’t give bloody Martin ten more minutes, because the bloody little sod lives at the bloody restaurant! And don’t blame ME, I’m not his bloody keeper! And he’s your son, not mine!”

    “But he never told me,” said Norma dazedly.

    “No, quite.” Sammi opened the door. “Good-night, Mother.”

    Norma tottered to her feet. “You might at least kiss me good-night, Sammi!”

    Resignedly Sammi pecked her cheek. “Good-night. Sleep in, Mother, I’ve left a note of my number at work on the fridge.”

    “But—”

    Sammi switched the sitting-room light off. Numbly Norma tottered off to bed. Oh, dear: it had been a mistake to come, Gordon had been right all along!

    Sammi could hear, as she cleaned her teeth, that Mother was bawling in her room. But she didn’t go in to her: that was Mother all over. Didn’t know what she wanted or why, nagged everyone to death until she got it, and then bawled all over the show when she found she didn’t want it after all. Too bad. Everyone had to grow up some time, and it was about time she found out that bloody Dad was the only idiot in the entire world that was prepared to put up with her shenanigans! Sammi went to bed, grimly unrelenting.

Next chapter:

https://conquestofcartersbay.blogspot.com/2023/05/christmas-cheer.html