Strategic Moves

44

Strategic Moves

    Penny Bergen hadn’t been round to the Sir G.G. site for a while—though of course, in common with most of the residents of the North Auckland area, she had driven past it several times, usually on damp Sunday afternoons with the kids whining in the back seat, to inspect progress. Since she’d last been this way it had sprouted a gatehouse and those barrier things like they had at level-crossings, and signs all over the show indicating visitor parking further in, and student parking down thataway, and please stop at the gatehouse, and “Main Entrance,” and “OUT Only”… Penny, a practically-minded woman, could not help reflecting that it was pointless, because you only had to drive five yards down the road and you’d find miles of free parking. Except for the bit that was marked bus stop. Out here? True, Alan Kincaid had the ear, not to say the taste buds, of the Puriri County Manager and the County Chairman, but buses weren’t Puriri County business, they were the ARA’s. Or was Sir George Grey envisaging instituting a private bus service for their students? On the whole, this last seemed all too likely. Well—so long as they didn’t propose re-opening the old Carter’s Bay bus depot… Making a mental resolution to have a word with Avon, Penny drew up obediently at the gatehouse. Since it was still raining, and the actual buildings were all a good distance from the road. And since she had her good shoes on.

    A burly man in a padded parka, dark green with maroon and gold stripes, and a large badge on the upper-arm, emerged from the gatehouse without hurry. “Hullo, Penny,” he said mildly.

    Ken Drew, from Elizabeth Crescent in Carter’s Bay. He’d been out of work for yonks. According to May, the only paid employment he’d had in the last seven years had been providing Sol Winkelmann with bait. And most of that had been out of the kindness of Sol’s heart. Penny smiled feebly. “Hullo, Ken. So you’re working here, now? I hope you’re not too cold in that hutch.”

    “No, it’s got a good heater,” he said with a grin. “Bill Scobie, he reckons Dr Kincaid in person told him to make sure I got one before winter.”

    “Yes—um—Bill Scobie?” said Penny feebly.

    “You know: lives in Station Road, a bit up from Barry Goode.”

    Penny nodded numbly. About ten years ago, according to May, Mr Scobie had been something professional in a very big firm in town. In one of those flashy glass buildings that blinded you when you were rounding that nasty corner down below Farmer’s, dear. Then the firm had gone spectacularly bust—this must have been, Penny had decided, during the big crash of the Eighties, though May hadn’t specified—and the Scobie family had had to sell their lovely house down in Castor Bay, and move up here. Which was why she had had to take that part-time job in the fish and chips shop—before they sold up.

    “Um, so Bill’s working here, too, is he, Ken?” she ventured.

    “Yeah, sure!” he grinned. “Building Administrator. That makes him my boss, see? That reminds me, he was saying their middle girl, she’s keen on riding, if you were thinking of starting up a club. Which building ya want?”

    “Um—where Dr Kincaid is,” said Penny very, very feebly indeed. Whatever it might be doing for the environment, very clearly Sir G.G. was doing something positive for the unemployment problems of Carter’s Bay.

    Ken pointed out Dr Kincaid’s building, pointed out the visitors’ parking lot nearest it, and kindly added that if she did get lost, all she had to do was follow the signs that said “To Security”, with a big arrow, and one of the blokes’d put her right. He thought she knew them: Dave Foster and Paul Cannon, today. Well, young Kyle Henare, he was on duty today, too: not in the office, on patrol. Only he was barely capable of telling anyone the time of day, he explained with a wink.

    Thanking him numbly, Penny drove off numbly. When last heard of, Paul Cannon, who had been a bank clerk until the last but three rounds of cutbacks at the BNZ, had been almost suicidally depressed and his wife had been at her wits’ end. And Dave Foster had been made redundant from one of the big factories in South Auckland at the age of fifty-one and had had to come up north and help out his younger brother at the Pink Manuka Motel. Which hadn’t worked out all that well, because the wives didn’t get on. And mostly what his brother wanted him to do was keep the grounds tidy and maintain the gardens and Dave, though willing, didn’t have a green thumb. True, she didn’t know Kyle Henare, but that scarcely counted.

    Dr Kincaid’s building was pretty shiny, but actually rather nice. Not overdone, y’know? His secretary was very, very shiny, in fact verging on the flashy. Not as smart as Mayli, and Penny wondered silently why he’d let her go. The outer office was of course ten times the size of Penny’s and Tim’s living-room and fifty thousand times as luxurious. Three sofas, and four matching armchairs. Penny and Tim had sweated blood to buy one second-hand suite. And they were never, ever going to be able to afford a La-Z-Boy chair for poor old Tim, that was for sure. Penny had had a mental picture of the furniture in Dr Kincaid’s outer office as being all leather, but it wasn’t: pure wool, in quiet shades of navy and a lighter blue tending towards turquoise. The occasional touch of a light apple green, in the pictures and the glass ornaments, just lightened and brightened this scheme. The coffee tables were heavy palest blue glass with little bubbles in it. The more she looked at them the more Penny was positive—positive—that they must have been commissioned specially. As she was early for her appointment she had plenty of time to look at them. There were lots of magazines, but although she picked one up she was too nervous to read.

    Eventually the secretary looked up with a smile and, reporting he was free, now, showed her into the lion’s den. Of course he was in a suit, dishier than ever, and gave her that cool smile and said, patently lying in his teeth, it was so nice to see her. And what could he do for her?

    Penny allowed her hand to be engulfed in a long, hard cool one that didn’t spread squashily all over hers, which made you want to throw up, and didn’t crush it to powder, which made you want to yelp—how did those executive-suited women stand it?—but merely shook it briefly and noncommittally. Then he asked her to sit down. The visitor’s chair was one of those deep ones that were possibly designed for very large men with extremely long legs and the posteriors to support them—they wouldn’t have fitted any other human being. Smiling a pale smile, Penny made to sit.

    “Not there, Mrs Bergen,” he said with that cool smile again. “Come and sit on the sofa. Would you like a cushion?”

    Dr Kincaid’s own office did feature leather-covered furniture but not the sort Penny had mentally envisaged, which was that hugely expensive modern pastel stuff with square-ish, flattish cushions instead of proper arms. May reckoned the style was ruination to your back, though how she would know, Penny couldn’t imagine. She herself had only gawped at the things in expensive magazines at her Remuera dentist’s, and in the shop window rather near her dentist’s where she always went and gawped when she had to visit him. Well, you could call it an extravagance if you liked but none of her family had very good teeth—whereas Tim’s lot all had giant white choppers like solid concrete—and it was no use skimping on your teeth, was it? She had recently discovered that Dorothy Perkins patronised the same dentist for exactly the same reasons, the which was a source of considerable consolation. Dr Kincaid’s sofa was dark brown shiny leather, buttoned. His floor was polished wood, probably recycled kauri, it had that soft golden look, and there was a large square Persian rug set between the desk and the sofa, which Penny would have killed for. One of those very dark crimson ones, y’know? The desk was a heavy old one: Victorian, probably. Kauri, too. There were several bookcases, and they matched the style of the desk. The walls were just a pale fawn and the curtains were, too: pale fawn velvet. However, on the wall opposite the sofa— Penny’s jaw dropped.

    “Do you like it?” he said with a smile.

    “It’s wonderful, Dr Kincaid!” she gasped.

    “I’m glad you think so. And please, call me Alan, if you would. Most of my visitors,” he said with a funny little smile, “either don’t notice it or conclude that it’s some quirk of the decorator’s. But actually, I chose it myself. Have a look at it, if you like, Mrs Bergen.”

    “Yes,” said Penny feebly, tottering over to it. “Penny.” She stood and gazed at it. Dr Kincaid’s wall decoration was a quilt. Tiny squares, hardly more than an inch across, in a multiplicity of shades, but dominated by black, dark navy, and crimson, and highlighted by touches of gold. Satin. Were they? Penny peered. No: only the occasional gold one was satin. The others were… Poplin? Satin-cotton? Something of the sort, yes. Cotton with a satin finish. Softer than real satin. Hand-sewn. If you stood back a little and half-closed your eyes you saw that, although close up the squares looked higgledy-piggledy and there was no discernible pattern, actually they were artfully placed so that the colours gradually shaded to black at the edges. The edge or frame was a padded, quilted strip in a matte-finish black cotton, about three inches wide. The tiny squares were not themselves quilted, but… Penny peered again. Yes: each corner of each square was sewn to the backing, so that the surface was very slightly raised, but not positively puffed.

    “Look at the back, if you like,” he murmured.

    Eagerly Penny did so. The back was a plain lightweight black cotton, and the stitching through the corners of the squares was finished by tiny, neat tassels of black thread.

    “Exquisitely done, isn’t it?” he said. “Sometimes, when I’m not expecting visitors, I turn it so that the back faces out. I’m afraid it’s given my new P.A. the gravest doubts about my sanity.”

    Penny turned, and laughed. “Silly! I would, too, if it was mine,” she said hungrily. “Where did you get it?”

    “From a woman who lives down near Clevedon and raises nanny goats. We were originally given the address as a source of goats’ cheese.”

    “Ugh!” said Penny, looking startled.

    “Mm. Come and sit down, Penny. Would you like a coffee? Or tea?”

    Penny subsided onto the leather sofa. “Actually, I would like a cup of tea, if it isn’t too much bother, Alan.”

    “Not at all.” To Penny’s horror, he then went over to the sideboard that stood against the wall with the windows in it—the office was, of course, huge—and got out the tea things and started making it himself! “I usually have a cup at around this time,” he said. “Elevenses, we call it back home. No-one does, here.”

    “Um, no. I don’t think I’ve heard the term,” said Penny limply.

    “No. –We do buy fresh cheese from Alison Hollister—that’s her name—but that’s not why we go to see her!”

    “No. Um, does she exhibit?”

    “She sometimes has a quilt or two in a pleasant little crafts shop down that way, and you’ll very occasionally see them in Galerie 2, at Kingfisher Bay. Mrs Grey would like her to produce more, but each quilt takes a very long time. The placement of the squares is not haphazard, you know: she works it all out very carefully on paper first. Then, if she can’t find exactly the right shades she’s looking for she tends to put the work aside. Apparently on the assumption,” he said, turning and giving Penny Bergen a genuine smile, “that they’re bound to turn up in the end. It doesn’t make for a commercial enterprise, but the result is always miraculous.”

    Penny nodded hard. “It’s art, really.”

    “I quite agree. –This is Ceylon: I hope you like it,” he said, putting the tea on a tray and bringing it over to the sofa.

    “Yes,” said Penny feebly. Ceylon? Didn’t most tea come from there? When she tasted it, it just tasted like tea, really. Well, quite a nice fresh brew. Nothing like Earl Grey, for example, which Penny, though she knew it was up-market, privately considered was sicky. Why she had assumed that Dr Kincaid—Alan—would have Earl Grey tea, she didn’t know.

    “So,” he said, handing her a plate of biscuits. “What did you want to see me about, Penny?”

    Penny took a biscuit and bit into it automatically. She blinked. Homemade?

    “That’s one of Catherine’s biscuits," he said mildly. “They only get offered to people who admire my quilt.”

    Penny bit her lip. “I see. It’s—it’s a test, isn’t it?” she ventured.

    “Something very like that,” admitted Alan calmly. “Not that that’s why I put it there.”

    “No, of course not.” Penny swallowed wonderful buttery homemade biscuit. Did it have golden syrup in it? She could just remember Gran making something of the sort. “It’s about the pony club I’ve been thinking of starting up.”

    “Mm?”

    Penny explained about the difficulty of finding a suitable field. He immediately offered part of the university land. Yes, he said calmly, he understood that they’d want to put up jumps. Eventually most of that land would be used for their horticultural experiments, but in the meantime the pony club would be welcome to it. There would be some activity going on, with the glasshouses going up, but he thought the pony club field could be at a sufficient distance for that not to matter. –The heated houses would be solar powered, and if Penny was interested he would be very happy to show her the plans. There would be no risk of effluent going into the Inlet, they had all that under control. Dazedly Penny agreed that she would like to see the plans, yes. But she hadn’t really come about the field. No charge? Er—well, yes, thank you very much, Dr— Alan. Um, well… Somewhat lamely she repeated Tim’s theories about the risks of leaving the ponies out all year round next to the university.

    “So, you’ll be looking for stabling?” he said.

    Penny nodded limply. “Sharp” was his middle name, all right, not that she hadn’t known it all along.

    “Mm.” Alan rubbed his chin slowly. “I’ve been thinking about doing a bit of breeding.”

    “A stud-farm?”

    “Something along those lines. What about breeding quarter horses?” he said mildly.

    Penny’s jaw dropped.

    “They’re intelligent, easy to train, and not too big. Your pony-clubbers could graduate to them.”

    “Y— Um, well, there might be one or two other breeders in New Zealand, but— Would you show them?”

    “Dressage, I think. It should be quite easy to train them for it. What about palominos?” he said with a smile.

    “They are lovely horses.”

    “Yes, I think so. I haven’t really broached the idea with Catherine, yet, but she has decided that once the baby’s come, she’ll let me teach her to ride, and she would like, quote, one of those lovely honey-coloured horses with the kind faces!” Alan grinned at her.

    “Yes,” said Penny very limply indeed. “She must have meant a palomino.”

    “Mm. Well, if I get into that, I’ll eventually have to enlarge the stable block quite considerably. But in any case, there’d be plenty of room for your ponies. How many were you thinking of?”

    “Three. We thought that would be a good number for the ones that can’t afford their own or are just trying it out to see if they like it before they commit themselves to buying. Um, the thing is,” said Penny, clearing her throat, “Tim and me haven’t got any spare capital.”

    “Then what do you envisage?” he replied calmly.

    “I was thinking,” said Penny, swallowing hard, “of a joint venture. I’d do all the work, of course. Give the riding lessons, and look after the ponies.”

    “Mm…” Alan got up, went to his desk, and fetched a pen and a writing block. “One Shetland for the littlies, I think that would go down rather well, don’t you? And two larger ponies. Then there’s Dicky’s Lightning, and my Blaze. Named for the markings on his forehead, we gather, not for his speed. That would leave one stall free for the first palomino… Dare I ask,” he said, looking up with a twinkle in his eye, “if you’ve costed this, Penny?”

    “No,” said Penny, going very red. “I just got all enthused and—and rushed off at a tangent, is what Tim’d probably say.”

    “Mm. No idea of whether you’d like it to be a partnership or a company structure?”

    “No. Um, owning the ponies? No.”

    “I’ll need to talk to my lawyer—and my accountant. Why don’t you think about coming into the stud-farm venture, Penny? Then we can put the ponies through as its assets… Yes. Make it a joint stud-farm and riding stables, you see?”

    “Yes, but we haven’t got any money!” said Penny, rather loudly.

    “I realise that. I don’t need your money: the farm’s mine outright, and I’ve always earned far too much. I do need someone with expertise and probity.” He smiled, just a little.

    Penny had gone very red. “I have been riding since I was four.”

    “Yes. I think your work with the environmental group and the choral society proves the rest,” he murmured.

    “I suppose I could still cook their accounts!” said Penny with a mad laugh. “Um—if you want to see the saddlery’s books—”

    Alan Kincaid was conscious of a very strong desire to see the saddlery’s books. He did now know that Tim made saddles not only for people all over the greater Auckland metropolitan area, which was sizeable, but also for people all over the country. Nevertheless, it was a mystery to him how the two of them managed to make ends meet. Heroically he replied, however: “No, I think it would best to keep the two enterprises quite separate. Look, I’ll do some costing of the stud-farm idea, and if you’d like to put something on paper, I’d be very happy to look at it. Er—perhaps I should say that while I am looking for somewhere to put some of my capital, I’m not envisaging that the thing should be a tax-loss venture. I wouldn’t want you to think you might lose through it. And of course, as a working director you would be paid a salary.”

    “Yes. Um, Tim needs me in the shop part of the time,” she croaked.

    “Yes, of course. One of the things you might like to consider would be whether it might be more cost-effective in the longer term to hire a part-time assistant for the saddlery.” Alan hesitated, then said honestly: “I have discussed some of these ideas with Jake Carrano, and he’s pushing for a full-blown country club. I don’t deny that in, say, ten years’ time I might like to move in that direction. But not just at present, while I’m doing a demanding full-time job and while we’re starting our family.”

    “No, of course not,” agreed Penny warmly. “That is an idea, though!” Her eyes shone. “How much of that land do you actually own?”

    “A good deal. Both sides of the road. Though Catherine’s never used the fields on the southern side, and as far as I can make out old Uncle Bob Kincaid must have stopped farming them just after the War. Then, we own all the land at the back of the house, over the rise, and about a quarter of a mile up the coast. It’s never been farmed, at all. I’d like to keep some of the bush.”

    “Yes, of course.” Penny’s eyes narrowed. “What about road access?”

    “That is a problem. If we used the land to the north for the country club, which would be the sensible move, given that the stables are on the northern side of the farmhouse, we’d have to put in a private road, through the farm proper. I wouldn’t for an instant envisage putting it between the house and the sea. But if we used the far side of the property, that would be along the boundary with Gerry Fermour’s place. Wouldn’t want to disturb his cows. Though we’d leave as much bush as possible as a screen.”

    “Ye-es… I don’t know that area very well, but isn’t that where your cow paddock is?”

    Alan winced. “Mm. It would mean cutting a slice off Buttercup’s paddock, I’m afraid. She wouldn’t like that.”

    “N— Um— Buttercup?”

    “Buttercup, too,” he said calmly. “No: I meant Catherine. Actually, she doesn’t much like change at all, so anything I do will have to be done gradually.”

    Penny nodded seriously. “Yes. Tim’s like that, too. Um… Move the cow paddock first?”

    Alan’s shoulders shook silently. “That very underhand move has already occurred to me, I must admit! Do you think she’d buy the argument that the orchard needs fertilising, and allow me to move the cows there?”

    “Why not? If you let the grass grow nice and long, you’d have a very good argument for putting them in there. Sort of on a temporary basis, at first, y’know?”

    Grinning, Alan agreed.

    “Eh?” said Tim limply.

    “It’s just an idea!”

    He swallowed. “Yeah. Uh—look, who in God’s name wants palomino quarter horses in Godzone? Even if it is the Nutty Nineties!”

    “He’s going into all that!” she replied huffily. “And there’ll be the riding lessons as well! And don’t you dare to breathe a word about the country club idea!”

    “No,” he said limply. “Um, look, talking of pristine native wilderness being taken over by yuppiedom—”

    “At least a country club’s ninety percent the natural environment!” she retorted hotly. “Isn’t it better than covering the farm with horrible dark brick yuppie hutches?”

    “Yes, well, it is a lot better, of course, love, but don’t you—”

    She didn’t. Whatever it was, she didn’t: no. God Almighty! Partnerships with Dr Kincaid? Flaming palomino stud farms cum dressage centres up the boo-eye, to Hell and gone, at Toetoe Bay? It was the beginning of the flaming end, that was what.

    “And guess what! He says the university can provide a free Web page to all of—”

    Yeah, yeah. The beginning of the flaming end.

    Alan came home to a quiet house. He was rather late: it was nearly dark. The passage light was out. Dicky’s room was also darkened, so the promised visit to Shane Tamehana’s, spending the night, must have eventuated: hooray. A light showed from the kitchen, so after hanging his overcoat up and putting his briefcase neatly away in his study, he went down there. There was, as usual, a delicious scent of baking cakes, but she was sitting at the polyurethaned kitchen table, just staring into space.

    “Darling, are you all right?” he said in alarm.

    “Yes,” said Catherine, blinking at him. “Are you home already?”

    Alan bent and kissed her cheek lightly. “As you see. What’s up?” He pulled a chair out and sat beside her.

    “Nothing, I don’t suppose,” said Catherine slowly.

    “Balls, darling. There’s obviously something troubling you. Are you quite sure you’re well?”

    “Mm,” she said, putting a hand on the bulge. “We’re fine.”

    Alan got up and grabbed his whisky bottle from the dresser. “That’s good to hear. Fancy a wee sip?”

    “No, it’s too strong.”

    She usually said that. Smiling, he sat down again with the bottle and a glass. “So?”

    Catherine licked her lips. “Polly Carrano was here this afternoon. With her little girl.”

    “Well, that’s nice, darling. –Oh: do you want to call Hamish-Mayli Katie Maureen instead?”

    “No. Polly said they might want to sell their Shetland pony.”

    “Oh? How old is Katie Maureen, again?”

    “She’s only about eight, I think, but she wants a horse. Polly said they won’t need to keep the pony for any more kids. She’s had her tubes done. She actually told me that,” said Catherine, swallowing.

    “This is the Nineties!” replied Alan with a laugh. “Er—oh, God, have you gone off the whole idea, sweetheart? Want to have yours done, after Hamish-Mayli?”

    “No,” she said baldly.

    Alan sipped whisky. He eyed her blandly. “Was the expression ‘quarter horse’ mentioned, dare I ask?”

    “Yes, it was, Alan Kincaid, and what are you up to?” she cried loudly, very flushed.

    “Well, what did Polly say?” asked Alan, trying not to laugh.

    “It isn’t funny! Don’t you dare laugh! She said she’d be very happy to let the Shetland pony go to a good home and she wouldn’t let Jake make us pay, and if you do bring out some quarter horses, they’d be very interested in one for Katie Maureen. And I don’t even know what they are!” she cried loudly.

    “Er—no. Sorry, darling.” Alan explained what a quarter horse was. “The idea is—and it is just an idea—that Penny Bergen and I set up a company to operate a combined riding school and stud-farm.”

    “What, here?”

    “It seems the logical choice.” Coolly Alan elaborated.

    “But they’d be tramping through our place to get to their horses, Alan!”

    “No, no.” Alan described the piece of land at the university site that he had in mind for the pony club.

    “But?” said Catherine, looking at him hard.

    Alan rubbed his chin. “In the fullness of time, we might think about developing some of the land up the back—beyond the rise, the house wouldn’t be overlooked—putting in some proper jumps, and a nice paddock or two, and—um—perhaps access for vehicles, over by the fence. Not for a long while yet, darling, and if you don’t like it we won’t go ahead with it.”

    After a moment Catherine said cautiously: “How long?”

    “Um, well, a year or two, I suppose,” said Alan lamely. “If it looks as if there’s a demand for riding lessons, you know.” He waited in fear and trembling but, thank Christ, Jake seemed to have had the sense to say nothing to Polly about the country club idea.

    Catherine was counting on her fingers. “I think it’s a good idea. Then you can think about retiring,” she said approvingly.

    Alan’s jaw dropped.

    “Polly says they’re not very tall. She thinks you must have meant a palomino quarter horse, when you were talking about one for me, Alan,” she said kindly.

    Alan nodded numbly. After quite some time he managed to croak: “Darling, have you started the dinner, or have you been brooding on this all afternoon?”

    “Oh.” Catherine looked round dazedly. “I haven’t been brooding, I’ve been thinking. Baby horses would be very nice!”

    Alan looked sideways at the bulge. His lips twitched. “Mm.”

    “They were here for ages. She helped me with the cakes. When they went, it was quite late. I did the afternoon-tea things in the machine.”

    Alan got up and went over to the dishwashing machine. They were in it, all right. Without comment, he set it going.

    “Did I forget again?” said Catherine without surprise. “Oh, well. Um—I suppose I just sat down and started to think. What would you like for tea?”

    “Well, darling, since we’re free of the blessed brat, why don’t you put on a pretty dress, and we’ll try Revill’s?”

    Catherine gulped.

    “Darling, the food’ll be marvellous, and I guarantee that no bitches in executive suits or large shoulders will look down their noses at you!” he said, putting his hand tightly over hers.

    “No, um, the thing is, I don’t know if I can get into them!” she gasped.

    “Oh, Lord. Come along, then, we’ll try them on.”

    They tried them on. It wasn’t just the bulge: all of Catherine’s good clothes were Hellishly tight around the bust. Eventually they decided it would have to be the decent black maternity suit which Alan had forced her to buy only last weekend. Not a “model frock”, or anything like it: merely from a pleasant little shop in Takapuna which Jenny Fermour had told him about. Catherine’s pinkish skin glowed above the black. Smiling, Alan found a pink silk scarf which he had forced upon her at some earlier stage, and arranged it carefully so that it puffed becomingly from the breast pocket of the suit. Catherine was most impressed.

    “Mm. Wear your pearls, darling. –I’ll just have a shower and change into a decent suit. And do me the favour of repeating fifty times: ‘I must not unbutton this jacket,’ will you?”

    Catherine was wearing a bra under the suit. None of her blouses fitted her, and all her slips were much too tight. Alan had recently scoured the damned lingerie boutiques in vain for a pretty lacy slip-top that would actually fit. Apparently the New Zealand assumption was that you wouldn’t want to buy one of those unless you were a size 10 or less. Catherine was now about a size 18, and holding.

    “I will, but it won’t work: you’ll have to watch me like a hawk,” she said mildly.

    “That’ll be a strain.” Alan vanished into the ensuite, smiling.

    When he came out she had brushed her hair and put some make-up and the pearl necklace on, and was sitting at her dressing-table, murmuring: “I must not unbutton this jacket; I must not unbutton this jacket.”

    “Come on, Mrs Kincaid. Put your new coat on, that’s what it’s for. –Darling, do we need to take Revill’s cakes?”

    “What? Oh: no, that’s all right, Polly dropped them off on her way home. When you get to know her,” said Catherine slowly, “she’s quite an ordinary person, isn’t she?”

    Alan wouldn’t have claimed that for an instant—not an instant. In fact the more he got to know her, the more he wondered how in God’s name Jake stood it. He didn’t argue, however.

    He got her into the Jag and halfway to Carter’s Bay before she had a fit of the jitters. Quite a triumph, really.

    “There are loos at Revill’s: it is a civilised place. If you need to go, I will find the ladies’ one for you and place myself in a conspicuous spot, impossible to overlook, for when you come out.”

    “My eyes go blurry,” she admitted, swallowing.

    Alan now knew that. Not just in posh restaurants when she was afraid of losing her escort: in any public place or large—large-ish—gathering. “Mm.” He squeezed her knee hard. “Now, there probably won’t be many dishes on the menu, darling. But there’s almost sure to be a choice between beef and some kind of poultry. And he offers a fish course: don’t choose it as a main, it won’t be enough.”

    “All right,” said Catherine blankly.

    They drove on. Alan could feel the jitters emanating from her. He just waited.

    “Alan, I’m sure it will be full of posh ladies," she said in a squashed voice.

    “On a damp July night, mid-week? I very much doubt it. In any case, you look blooming, darling.”

    “Blooming?” said Catherine in a bewildered voice.

    “Blooming,” said Alan firmly. “Warm and glowing. I’ve read about pregnancy agreeing with some women, but never actually witnessed it before. If young Revill’s eyes don’t stand on stalks, I’ll eat my hat. –His dear little blonde girlfriend’s the same type as you, sweetheart, have you never noticed? Any smart bitchy ladies will be utterly and completely eclipsed, I do assure you.”

    Catherine just gulped.

    Alan drove on, smiling.

    Revill’s was not precisely full on a damp July night, mid-week. Adrian was doing maître d’, and greeted them fervently even though they hadn’t booked, showing them to an excellent table. Four other tables were occupied: two Japanese businessmen with two beefy locals at one table, four obvious American widows, doubtless from the Royal Kingfisher, at another, two prosperous-looking middle-aged men, professionals of some kind, with their wives at a third, and a couple in perhaps their late thirties who looked vaguely familiar. After a little Catherine murmured: “See that man and the lady in the blue dress? They own that lovely big boat called Thunderbird. It’s often at the marina.”

    “Mm. Now, have a look at your menu, darling.”

    … “Guess Who wants to see the wine list?” reported Sim in the kitchen, grinning.

    Anna had just come in from The Quays’ dining-room. Now very tentatively named “The Quarter Deck.” Since “The Mess”, though naval, gave quite the wrong impression. “Who?”

    Martin looked up from a sauce, grinning. “Guess! Adrian’s triumph!”

    “Hah, hah,” noted Adrian. “Concentrate on that sauce, for God’s sake.” He peered anxiously into a large pot.

    “Adrian, you’re not still fussing over those funny-looking chooks, are you?” said Anna. “Who is it, Sim?”

    “Guess!” said Sim, shaking all over.

    “We-ell… Someone local? From Sir George Grey?”

    “Yes.”

    Anna wrinkled her brow. “I don’t know. It can’t be Leigh. And Thomas often eats here. And Jack Perkins, if he can get a baby-sitter. That’s most of the likely ones. Or the ones that can afford it. Not that nice Chinese man?”

    “No,” said Sim smugly.

    Jacko had been silently chopping walnuts, since Adrian was apparently under the impression that the diners in Revill’s were going to order a Froggy cake thing that was composed almost entirely of them and butter. The cake was done: it was in the fridge. These ones were for decoration. There was to be a “drift” of them, rather like a soft carpet, on which just a few whole halves, caramelised, a touch of Adrian’s own, would sit. These had to be, not minced, but very, very, very finely— The old man had pointed out that he got the point and Adrian had subsided. “Kincaid,” he said unemotionally.

    “Adrian told you!” cried Sim angrily, as Anna gasped.

    “Yeah. Anna was never gonna guess. Mrs B— Kincaid with him, is she?”

    “Yes, of course!” said Adrian on a cross note.

    “She never heard of anyone making soup out of watercress, Adrian,” said Sim slyly. “She only uses it in salads.”

    “That’s a plus,” grunted Jacko. “Most of ’em have never heard of it at all. Tried to foist oysters on ’er, didja?”

    Sim went very red. “So what?” he said defiantly.

    “Never heard of a pregnant woman fancying, them, meself. There’s always a first time, though,” he noted drily.

    “Ugh!” said Anna with a shudder. “I can’t face them at all, and I’m not!”

    “Look, leaving aside the peculiarities of your digestion, and Mrs Burchett’s, damn it, Kincaid’s status in the sprogging stakes, what do they want for their MAINS?” said Adrian loudly and angrily.

    “The guinea fowl Chasseur. She’d never heard of it and he was astounded to hear you could get it at all in this benighted country. Just as well you did it, eh?” said Sim in a horrible mixture of vernaculars. “And he’ll start with oysters, but she’ll skip the hors d’oeuvres, she thinks it’d be too much. They’ll both have the watercress soup, and the sole, now that she fully understands what beurre noir is. –Don’t look at me, he told her. And he wants to see the wine list,” he repeated loudly, “so if I was you I’d go and—”

    Adrian had shot out.

    “—do my sommelier act,” finished Sim, unmoved.

    “How’s she looking, Sim?” asked Anna.

    Sim thought it over seriously. “Glowing,” he said solemnly.

    “Oh, good!” she beamed.

    “What about him?” said Martin with a laugh in his voice.

    “Uxorious,” replied Sim firmly.

    Martin was heard to gulp.

    “That takes you off with a hiss and a roar,” noted Jacko. “Wanted something, didja?” he said politely to Anna.

    She gave a horrified gasp. “Yes! My Table Five wants four of Martin’s meat and potato pies, and two grilled flounders, and Table Three wants three pumpkin soups and a pâté!”

    Martin began dishing out pumpkin soup, grinning. “Put the chits up, Anna.”

    Anna put the slips of paper up on a nail, though noting: “I’m not gonna forget, there’s only three tables filled.”

    “Leigh and Moana are having tea at home, tonight,” agreed Jacko.

    “Has anyone seen Dorothy?” asked Anna.

    “Sulking,” said Martin briefly.

    “Oh, dear,” she murmured.

    “I’d better get back to it,” said Sim uneasily.

    No-one objected, and he slid out.

    Anna was just picking up the tray of soup and pâté when Wallis dashed in, panting.

    Jacko got up. “If some funny joker’s been giving you a hard time—”

    “Nah!” she said witheringly. “I can handle those types! No, it’s a man, he reckons he wants a Scott’s Pick and he’s had one here before, and I dunno what it is!”

    “Funny joker,” discerned Jacko grimly, not resuming his seat.

    “No, he’s just ordinary, only what is it?”

    No-one knew, and Anna, belatedly remembering her tray, shot out with it. After some head-scratching Jacko ventured it might be in that book of Adrian’s dad’s.

    “Well, where is it?”

    All three of them were in the middle of the frantic search when Adrian came back. “He wants a decent claret— What the fuck’s going on?”

    They all tried to explain.

    “We did those for a joke,” said Adrian, staring.

    “Yeah, but he doesn’t want anything else!” said Wallis in what was perilously near a wail.

    “Uh—look, it’s not bloody John Aitken, is it?”

    “No, I know him.”

    “The book’s upstairs in our bookcase. I’ll get it. You go down cellar and get,” said Adrian, rapidly scribbling on an order pad, “a bottle of this from the cellar. Over on the far left, at the back. The exact year, mind.” He vanished. Wallis, grasping the scrap of paper fiercely, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, also vanished.

    “All go, isn’t it?” said Martin with a grin.

    “If I was you,” replied the old man stolidly, “I’d fry up them flounder, pronto-ish.”

    Gulping, Martin put the pan on the heat.

    Stolidly Jacko got on with chopping nuts very, very, very fine.

    … “So?” said Alan with a smile as they headed home.

    “It was wonderful,” sighed Catherine. “An experience, really.”

    “Rather than just a meal? I do so agree!”

    “That meat was lovely. What was it, again?”

    “Pintade Chasseur. Sorry; guinea fowl.”

    “Mmm…  I know! We could raise some!”

    “Ye-es. I’m not against it in principle,” said Alan with a laugh in his voice, “but could we be hard-hearted enough to kill them?”

    “We kill the ducks.”

    Those that they didn’t take tenderly to the vet to have their feet fixed—yes. “Yes. And I agree that ducks present an appearance likely to soften the flint-heart on the hunt for its dinner. But guinea fowl are even more so. We saw some at the zoo, but you probably don’t recall. Grey birds, about the size of a hen: plump-looking, slightly speckled—no?”

    “No-o… Oh! Not those smooth round ones with the turned-down bottoms?”

    Alan gulped. “Bottoms in the sense of derrières?”

    “Yes: not with sticking-out tails like ducks.”

    “Those would be they, yes. Could you kill one? I don’t think I could.”

    “No,” she admitted sadly. “They’re incredibly cuddly-looking.”

    “Yes. Well, scrub that idea. I’m sure Adrian would give you the recipe for that marvellous bombe thing, but I think you might go mad trying to get the one flavour inside the other.”

    “I wouldn’t even try,” she said in a dreamy voice. “It was superb. The brown one must have had cream in it, don’t you think?”

    “Cream and egg,” he agreed.

    “Yes. But what was in the yellowish one?”

    Alan was firmly of the opinion that “the yellowish one” had been a champagne water-ice. “No idea,” he lied.

    “Whatever it was, it was superb. That man in the striped suit, with the very red face, he had two helpings.”

    “I can’t say I blame him.”

    They drove on peacefully.

    “Nearly home,” said Catherine contentedly as they turned out of Grey’s Beach Road and into the back road that led to their letterboxes. There were now only two letterboxes. One was the Fermours’ neatly lettered one, and one was the wooden one in the shape of a little gabled house. It now sported a heavy coat of gloss paint: white house, red roof. Rather unevenly applied, as the hand applying it had been Dicky’s. And very new, very neat lettering, applied by Alan under Dicky’s supervision: “Kincaid, A, C & R.” And some way under that, “RD”. And under that again a professional metal sign in black and yellow saying “Herald”.

    “Mm. Happy?” said Alan.

    “Yes,” said Catherine with a deep sigh. “Just so long as you don’t go mad on this quarter-horse idea, Alan.”

    “No. I promise. We’ll bring in a palomino mare in foal for you, and if the Carranos can’t be persuaded to wait until the foal grows up, a yearling for Katie Maureen. That’ll be enough, for a while.”

    “Mm. Will you and Penny be able to do it all, though?”

    “I don’t think so. No, it would be silly to claim we could. She’s got too many other responsibilities, and so I have I. We’ll think about getting in someone to look after the horses, but not just a stable-lad. Someone with a bit of nous, who can do the books.”

    “That sounds very sensible!” approved Catherine. “I’m really looking forward to it!”

    “That’s grand, darling,” said Alan, very weakly indeed.

Next chapter:

https://conquestofcartersbay.blogspot.com/2023/05/our-attitudes-queer-and-quaint.html