Tactical Moves

12

Tactical Moves

    “What?” gasped Penny Bergen in horror. “Not the post office?”

    Kevin leaned mournfully on her counter. “Yeah.”

    Tim emerged from the back regions, looking dry. “Sir George Grey?”

    “Yes.” Penny told him that Dr Kincaid had just arranged for Kevin and his lads to rip the interiors out.

    “They don’t want kauri desks or mahogany panelling. Industrial glass tiles and yuppie pale grey carpet. On the room dividers as well as the floors, it’ll be,” added Kevin sourly. “Um—I’ve signed an agreement and everything.”

    Penny scowled. “Can a company buy a post office?”

    “Yes,” said Tim definitely.

    “But don’t they belong to the Crown?” she cried.

    “That means the government. And in that case, the answer’s definitely yes,” he said sourly.

    “Yeah,” conceded Kevin. “And in any case it’s academic, Penny: Kincaid’s obviously got the right to do it, or he wouldn’t be doing it.”

    “Yeah,” agreed Tim sourly.

    Penny scowled. After a moment she said: “What about that sideboard?”

    “Mm? Oh—old Deakin’s? Kincaid’s gonna come and look at it.”

    “Just mind you charge him through the nose!” she said crossly.

    “Well, it’s not finished yet. But I’ll charge him a fair price. You types want an ice cream?”

    It was a very warm day: the Bergens accepted gratefully, and Kevin went next-door to Swadlings’ to get them.

    “That’s funny,” said May at the conclusion of his narrative.

    “Um, what is, May?”

    “Dr Kincaid. Doing it himself. Isn’t he a bit high up for that?”

    “Eh? Oh: ya mean to be arranging for yobs like me to pull the insides out of the post office? Uh—well, don’t ask me, May! Maybe his staff are still on holiday. Actually, come to think of it maybe he’s still nominally on holiday, and Mrs Burchett got fed up with him mooning round the place and told him to push off for the day.”

    This was an extremely likely scenario in most relationships, true. May, however, shook her head. “Not Mrs Burchett, Kevin, dear.”

    “Uh—well, no, I can’t see her telling him to do anything, frankly,” he admitted.

    “Was he wearing a suit?” asked May keenly.

    “Uh—yeah.”

    “Then he can’t be on holiday,” she said definitely.

    “No, you’re right.”

    “Maybe we ought to have a meeting of the Carter’s Bay Environmental Watch Committee?”

    “Uh—well, it’s too late to stop him, May.”

    “Not for that specifically, dear. Besides, we wouldn’t want to do you out of the job, would we?” she said brightly. “No, it’s just, if they’re making progress—!” She stopped, and looked at him expectantly, her head on one side.

    “Righto, May,” he said limply. “You’re right, we’d better have a meeting.”

    “I’ll get that lovely Janet to put up a notice in her library!” she decided.

    Kevin gulped. To his certain knowledge that library was used not just by the local yobs from Puriri but by, to name only two, Lady Carrano—he didn’t appear to actually read, though he sometimes turned up with her and the kids—and Kincaid himself. “Is that a good idea, May?”

    “Oh, yes, dear!” she said brightly. “We want to get people on our side, you know!”

    Kevin tottered off with his ice creams to report to the Bergens.

    “Good,” said Penny grimly.

    Kevin looked nervously at Tim.

    “You’ll draw up an agenda, will ya?” he drawled.

    “Uh—well, all right, why not?” he said defiantly.

    “Better think of somewhere to have it,” advised Tim, unmoved.

    “Um—well, the yard: in the bus-barn, why not?”

    “You’ll need to move all them desks from the post office out of the way,” he noted, unmoved.

    “Yes, so I will,” said Kevin grimly. “And if you’re interested in some more stripping, Penny, there’ll be plenty. Old office desks are going a bomb, lately.”

    “Oh—good. Righto, then, Kevin,” she said weakly.

    “Whassup with him?” said Tim as Kevin’s blue ute rattled off. “Face like a fiddle.”

    “Honestly, Tim! You know very well what’s up with him!”

    “No. Well, apart from his guilty conscience over this post office do.”

    “Not that! He’s jealous because Euan Knox is friends with that pretty little Akiko, and he hasn’t managed to get near her.”

    “As I heard it, Knox has been living in that French dame’s pocket for the last two weeks.”

    “Yes. But that’s not what I meant. They’re old friends. May was saying he spent a lot of time with Akiko—when was it? Well, a few years back, when she was helping the Carranos’ nanny and helping out at the crafts boutique in Kingfisher Bay in her spare time.”

    “Yeah. I dunno what else May told you, but she told me there was nothing in it.”

    “Yes. But that doesn’t mean poor Kevin’s getting anywhere with her.”

    “He’s a bit of a drip, really,” said Tim detachedly.

    Penny glared, but he merely retired to his workshop. After a few moments she followed him. “It does sound as if there’ll be a lot of work to do at Goode as Olde.”

    “Yeah. Well, if you think you can manage, Penny. But there’s the rest of the school holidays to be got through, yet. I don’t mind having one of them here, but I can’t keep an eye on both of them. They sort of… multiply the aggro,” he finished glumly.

    “Um—yes. It’s exponential. Well, I’ll do a bit for Kevin. I can take one of them with me.”

    Tim sighed. “Yeah.”

    “It is their holidays, poor little souls.”

    “Little sods, ya mean,” said their proud father.

    “Well, at least we’re free of them till Monday.”

    “If they don’t drive Mum and Dad barmy before then, yes. Um, well, you go over to the yard tomorrow, love, if ya feel like it.”

    “Thanks, Tim,” she said gratefully.

    Tim got on with his saddles, smiling a little.

    Alan had made the arrangements with Kevin Goode about ripping out the interior of the old post office in person partly because Ken Takagaki was having time off while his wife had her baby, and partly because he was edgy as Hell and felt the need to be up and doing.

    Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm had been very much what he had expected. Except that he hadn’t expected the day to be so swampingly humid. Dicky had woken them at five in a state of extreme over-excitement; after his presents had been opened and admired they had all tottered back to bed. Alan hadn’t slept: he was entirely unused to being woken at five in order to open presents, drink tea, eat chocolates and listen to Dicky’s screams of excitement.

    Christmas lunch had featured the Goddawful Noelle and her bloody wet boyfriend: didn’t he have a family of his own, for God’s sake? He did, but they had gone to Norfolk Island this year. Noelle managed to indicate very clearly without actually saying so that the dress her mother was wearing was unsuitable—a pink floral thing, a bit tight over the bust, Alan had no objections to it at all—that the food was unsuitable—cold duck, cold ham and lots of salads, what was wrong with that in this bloody humidity, for God’s sake?—and that the presents Alan had given Catherine and Dicky were entirely unsuitable. Alan had given Catherine a set of silverware. It was one of the things she most notably lacked. And he hadn’t wanted to give her anything too personal. He had reflected angrily that he might just as well have given her the damned string of pearls he’d been tempted by, and been done with it. The computer that Saskia had been threatening to send Dicky had arrived, so Alan had given him a lot of software to run on it, with a few very elementary introductory works on programming. He hadn’t wanted to give him anything too flashy or glaringly expensive. He had reflected angrily that he might just as well have gone all out and bought the kid that bloody bike that he’d been tempted by. Well—sod the sulky little bitch!

    Krish had expressed unqualified approval of Alan’s having had Mr Winkelmann fix up old Bob Kincaid’s little dinghy as a sort of general family present, but just as Alan was reflecting sourly that he’d done something right, then, Noelle had pointed out that Dicky was a rotten swimmer and Mum couldn’t swim at all. Alan had been driven to say through his teeth: “I’ll get them both life-jackets—okay?” Krish’s own present to Dicky had been a wicked-looking hunting knife of which Noelle had observed sourly: “I told you not to give him that. It’s not suitable for a boy of his age. –Mum, I told him not to give him that!” Dicky had gone bright red and burst into tears, shrieking: “It’s mine! It’s mine! I’m not gonna give it back!” Noelle and Krish had finally departed at five o’clock, laden with cake and mince pies. They couldn’t stay for tea, they were going to Krish’s Aunty Jan’s, and Noelle had so told her mother!

    As the little car vanished up Toetoe Bay Road Catherine had burst into overwrought tears. Alan hadn’t been precisely surprised at this but he had been taken aback and annoyed. The pavlova that she had prepared for dinner was put into the fridge along with the salmon mousse that would now not be needed. Alan certainly couldn’t have eaten a crumb, so on the whole he wasn’t sorry. He made the mistake of telling her so. Catherine burst into a fresh lot of tears, shouting: “No! You wouldn’t be! And she’s right, he’s gonna spend all summer with his head in that machine!” And rushed into her room, slamming the door.

    Alan hadn’t been at all sure what specific sin he had committed apart from that of not being hungry. He had fidgeted for about an hour, and finally taken her a cup of tea. Catherine was fast asleep, with tear stains on her cheeks. He had left the tea and crept out again. Electronic noises were coming from Dicky’s room but on inspection he, too, turned out to be fast asleep. Alan had washed up the remains of the dishes, fidgeted, turned the crapulous New Zealand television on, found some frightful American version of A Christmas Carol, turned it off again, fidgeted, tried the other channel—Christ, was that Albert Finney, and was that a genuine bald pate or actually the very fake wig it appeared to be? The man hadn’t made anything worth looking at since Tom Jones, and that, as if we needed reminding, hadn’t been yesterday!—and had gone to bed at nine o’clock.

    The atmosphere had not noticeably improved since, even though he’d bought life-jackets for Dicky and Catherine, and conscientiously spent time with Dicky outdoors, in the boat or generally mucking round. Alan’s was not by nature that of a mucker-rounder, and the mucking round had soon devolved into tearing the old sheds and outhouses down and tidying the place up. “Hard yacker” as Gerry Fermour had redundantly put it. As he was putting it Catherine had erupted from the house, agreeing: “Yes! The first chance he’s had for a real rest, and what does he do? Throws himself into something exhausting and pointless!”

    Alan had been very glad to get back to work on January 2nd, even though Catherine had gasped: “What? But you haven’t had a proper holiday!” And Dicky had wailed: “Aw! But we were gonna go fishing! Al-unn-nuh! AW-UH! You promised!” Alan at this had been reduced to shouting: “I did not promise! I did NOT! Will you SHUT UP, you rotten little liar?”

    There was no-one to tell him that this sort of scene was taking place all over the country in households where the male parent or its substitute was due back at work this morning: and in the cases where the father figure was not due back, different but equally unpleasant scenes. The summer holidays were always like that.

    Ms Coffi came into his office in the Carrano Building about ten minutes after he’d got back from the meeting with Kevin Goode at the Carter’s Bay post office. “Dr Kincaid, I’m sorry to bother you before you’ve barely sat down, but I thought you should know at once: Professor Baranski’s here.”

    “What in God’s name is he doing here? I thought he’d gone home to England!”

    “No: evidently he’s been on holiday. From what I can gather,” she said cautiously, “he wants to talk to you about library resources.”

    Alan took a deep breath. “Get me Miss Perkins’s home number, would you? And—uh—have you given him a coffee?”

    She had. He asked for one for himself, and for ten minutes before she showed Baranski in. He sat back and drank the coffee very slowly. Possibly Baranski was a mistake. He was the best in his field, but he was a madman, there was no doubt of it. That was, thought Alan Kincaid, frowning over the excellent coffee, he found it convenient to pose as a madman. Well, there were ways of handling that type. And as there was no such thing as permanent tenure at Sir George Grey, they could get rid of him if they had to: not renew his contract or, if the worst came to the worst, pay the indemnity and terminate him.

    Thomas came in looking very mild. “Hullo, Kincaid,” he said mildly.

    Very possibly this extra-mildness had something to do with what he was wearing, though Alan did not make the mistake of seeing it as a propitiatory gesture on that account. He did not remark on the crumpled blue cotton shorts or the open Hawaiian shirt or yet the expanse of hairy chest the shirt displayed. Nor did he even wince at the sight of the rubber flip-flops the man had on his feet. “How are you, Baranski?” he replied, equally mild, rising to shake hands. “Good to see you again so soon.”

    Thomas’s clever bright blue eyes twinkled at the unemphatic “so soon.” He shook hands, explaining: “I’ve been on holiday. The thermal area’s interesting, but very touristified. So I’ve given it away. Thought I’d see about ordering a few titles—journals, so forth.”

    “I see. Your input will be very welcome, of course. But we’re still in the process of working out a strategy for learning resources. It may be more cost-effective, for some of the more in-demand titles such as Nature,” he said blandly—Thomas’s eyes twinkled again: he knew Kincaid knew he’d been published in Nature—“to network them on CD-ROM. Thus avoiding inter- and even intradepartmental duplication.”

    “Might get some of them online,” said Thomas the Tank Engine breezily.

    “That is a possibility, though I have yet to be convinced that undergraduate use of such a facility can be cost-effective.”

    “No. The little buggers’d be printing out reams from ’em, too. ’Specially the yellow ones, in my experience.”

    “That’s true in my experience, too,” said Alan steadily, “but I must ask you, Professor Baranski, not to use racist terms even in jest, even to those who might reasonably be supposed to understand precisely what sort of jest is intended, while you are a member of Sir George Grey University.”

    “I see,” said Thomas, unmoved. “That’s a sine qua non, is it?”

    “It is, yes. Your contract will confirm it.”

    “Oh, I don’t need confirmation: your word’s enough for me,” said Thomas blandly.

    “Thank you. Ms Coffi has given you coffee, I think?” he said coolly, not avoiding the homonym.

    “Uh—yes. Lovely thing, isn’t she? –Not to be racist,” he added drily. “Or even sexist: she’s one of those rare human creatures who are works of art in themselves. You see it in animals more than humans, usually.”

    “I think so, too.”

    “I wouldn’t mind another, though,” said Thomas casually.

    Kincaid, to his annoyance, didn’t even blink. “Certainly. I think I’ll have one, too.” He pressed his intercom and asked for the coffees. While they were waiting he said: “Apart from the overall strategic approach I do not, of course, have any responsibility for the university’s learning resources.”—Not half! thought Thomas, eyeing him with grudging admiration.—“I may be able to put you in contact with our University Librarian, Miss Perkins, but she isn’t officially on the strength as yet.”

    “When does she start?”

    “Monday week. She wasn’t intending to go away in the interval, but she may not wish to have her holiday interrupted.”

    Thomas rubbed his nose. “Or she may be one of us workaholics just itching to get on with the job and bored stiff with the hols.”

    “There is that possibility. –Thank you, Ms Coffi,” he said as she brought in fresh supplies, on a tray with a plate of biscuits.

    Thomas accepted a biscuit gratefully: he’d breakfasted around six in a tiny motel in the unpronounceable middle of nowhere; and said chattily over it: “These are the same biscuits as I was given by an old Maori lady down in the thermal area. See this bruise?”—Alan certainly did. On the brow, more or less above the left eye.—“She bashed me with her peg basket, because I’d invaded her back garden to look at the little geyser that had spouted in it. But when she found I was doing geothermal research, not rubber-necking or taking snaps for the papers, we got chatting, and she offered me,” he said, eyeing Alan Kincaid blandly, “afternoon tea. These biscuits, and gingernuts.”

    “I’d have expected scones and jam, at the very least,” he said calmly.

    Thomas gave in, and laughed. “These days it’s all packaged biscuits from the supermarket!”

    Alan smiled slightly. Not at Toetoe Bay Farm, it wasn’t.

    Thomas waited but he didn’t ask for further details, not even the geothermal ones. So he gave them to him to spite him.

    Alan was aware of what Baranski was doing. Though not vitally interested in it, one way or the other. He merely waited until it was over and said: “I’m rather busy, I’m afraid. Ms Coffi will ring Miss Perkins for you, though as I say, she may not be willing or able to see you. But if you care to draft a list of preferred titles, Ms Coffi will see she gets it.”

    Thomas thanked him, shook hands again and went out, reflecting that if you couldn’t have said that honours were pretty even, at least he’d more or less kept his end up. And that those rumours that Kincaid had once got up Belinda Gore must be wrong: it wasn’t that Belinda was a cold bitch, though she was, if good-looking enough: but Alan Kincaid lowering himself to seduce another man’s wife? No way. Though there was no doubt that women went gaga over him.

    In the outer office he leaned casually on lovely Ms Coffi’s desk and said: “So, what do you think of your new boss, Ms Coffi? Bit of a cold fish, isn’t he?”

    Ms Coffi replied calmly: “I really don’t know Dr Kincaid on a personal level at all, Professor Baranski. He seems a very fair man to work for.”

    Thomas scratched his untidy curls. “He’s that, all right. Known for it. But there are disadvantages in working under a man who’s scrupulously fair and unswervingly just, you know. I’m very sure he doesn’t know what the word ‘leeway’ means.” He watched her shrewdly.

    The lovely dark face was unmoved. “I hope not to require leeway from my employer, Professor Baranski.”

    “No, well, we’re all of us human,” said Thomas easily. He paused. “Except him. He was once vice-chancellor at the university where I’ve been working.”

    “Yes, he mentioned it when your CV came in,” she said politely.

    “Yes,” said Thomas limply. “Well, don’t say you haven’t been, warned: no leeway. As a leader of men, I’d put him down as a Captain Bligh.” He paused. “Personally, I’d rather work for a Captain Cook.” He had introduced this New Zealand icon deliberately. If you were Ms Coffi’s delightful colour, James Cook was either the object of adulation he was to most of the population or more or less a red rag to a bull: the harbinger of imperialist, racist domination.

    “Yes,” she said without interest. “Would you like me to try Miss Perkins’s number for you?”

    Thomas gave up. The girl was, if this was humanly possible, as cold and controlled as Kincaid himself. “Yes, please,” he said resignedly.

    She tried a couple of times without result. Would he like the number? He could try later, perhaps? Thomas wasn’t going to admit that he’d dashed back to Auckland without bothering to book himself accommodation, and thus had nowhere to go: he said breezily he thought he’d sit down and make a few notes, if they had a spare desk, and then try ringing again. Unmoved, Ms Coffi conducted him to a little hutch of an office, pointed out the phone, told him how to get a line, wrote down Miss Perkins’s number, told him how to get to the gents’, and exited. Adding that if he needed anything else, she was on extension 201.

    “Cor,” said Thomas the Tank Engine limply to the closed door.

    “Yes?” panted Dorothy.

    “Is that Miss Perkins?”

    “Yes!” panted Dorothy. “Look, if you’re selling anything—”

    “No. I’m with Sir George Grey, too.”

    “Oh,” she said limply. Come to think of it, it was a very up-market male Pommy voice, not altogether likely to be flogging off cut-price hairdos and make-overs, very cheap re-treads, flaming special-offer, delivered-to-your-doorstep except when they chuck it in the hedge or a puddle Auckland Stars, or lawnmowing services, all of which Dorothy had been rung by in the recent past at really convenient times: like when she’d only just put her key in the lock at six-thirty in the evening, or had a pot of hot oil on the stove poised for chips at six-thirty in the evening: like then.

    “My name’s Thomas Baranski: I’m the Dean of Environmental Resources,” said the voice. “I’d like to come and talk to you about some titles for the library.”

    “Um, I’m painting the flat,” said Dorothy limply.

    “Oh, sorry: did I interrupt you while you were up a ladder?” he replied cheerfully.

    Dorothy gritted her teeth: undoubtedly the up-himself Pommy had never so much as changed a light-bulb in his life! “No, two ladders, standing on a plank: that’s why it took me so long to get to the phone.”

    “In that case I’ll come and talk to you while you get on with it. What’s the address?”

    Automatically Dorothy gave him her address. He rang off before she could gather her wits sufficiently to shout: “But don’t come!”

    “Shit,” she said. The wall was half-done. Look, no way was she going to stop for an up-himself Pom that thought he owned the world! Uh, well, she’d finish this wall, at least.

    … “Hullo,” said an up-itself Pommy voice. “What the Hell are you using a brush for?”

    The front door was open because of the smell of paint and because this was quiet little Puriri and because it was a very hot day to be standing on a plank in the middle of your sitting-room with all the curtains removed. “Hullo,” said Dorothy weakly, goggling at the bright green shirt printed with bright red and white Maori motifs and bright tan kiwis and bright yellow messages saying “Haere mai” and “Aotearoa”. Not to mention the hairy chest and muscular, hairy bare legs. This couldn’t be him: Poms always wore grey woolly socks under Roman sandals and their shorts always came at least to the knee-cap if not lower.

    “Good, isn’t it?” he said modestly, holding out the shirt’s skirts. “I bought it in Rotorua.”

    “I can see that!” she said with feeling.

    He looked down at it in a hurt way. “It doesn’t say that, though.”

    “It’s about the only thing it doesn’t say. Did you want something?”

    “Yes, I rang earlier. What the Hell are you using a brush for?” he repeated.

    Dorothy just looked at him with her mouth open.

    “Thomas Baranski,” he said, flourishing a hand at the chest. Jesus, was that a small green plastic tiki in there amongst the chest-hair?

    “Do you like it?” he said, holding up the chain supporting it for her inspection.

    Dorothy swallowed. The chain held not only a small green plastic tiki but, she now perceived, an even smaller paua shell, omigod, paua shell tiki as well. “No,” she said baldly. “And I’m using a brush to do the bits round the door. I’m not actually cretinous enough to voluntarily do the whole room with a one-inch brush: I’ve been using a roller for that. –There it is,” she added pointedly.

    “So it is,” he said mildly. “Do I gather that these native artefacts aren’t really usual wear in these here parts, even if you’re not naturally brown? –Oh: sorry, I’ve been told not to say that. I meant, even if you’re not a native.”

    She gulped, but managed to say: “Then you’ve met somebody who’s got your measure.”

    “Yeah. Kincaid,” he said, winking.

    Dorothy was reduced to a mere gulp.

    “You are the right Perkins, then,” he concluded.

    “Y— Um—yes. If you can hang on—”

    “Rubbish,” said Thomas mildly, wandering over to the roller. “I’ll give you a hand. Is this the second coat?”

    “Yes,” said Dorothy with a sigh. “Pale cream doesn’t actually go too well over the dark blue that some clot thought she’d trendily paint her sitting-room in, some fifteen years back.”

    “It would have gone good with the Conran-Habitat-mod sofa in white Indian cotton and the Conran-Habitat-mod plain glass and pine coffee table,” he allowed.

    “How the fuck did you—”

    “They’re in your back yard,” he pointed out.

    “Did you wander round the place having a good look before you wandered in without knocking?”

    “Yes,” said Thomas simply. “I haven’t seen a New Zealand flat before. You do say ‘flat’, not ‘apartment’, do you? Good,” he said as she nodded feebly. He picked up the roller, and dipped it in its tray experimentally.

    Limply Dorothy said: “Start on the far end of this wall, if you really want to.”

    Thomas obligingly went down to the far end of that wall. “Are you sick of friend Conran and all his works, or are you doing it up because the house agent told you dark blue was not a selling point?”

    “Uh—the latter,” said Dorothy feebly, falling to around the door again. “So what’s the verdict on the flat?”

    “Bigger than the run of the mill British flat, worse layout if equally uninspired in design, much more wasteful of space, nice to be on the ground floor with a bit of garden and not to have anyone on top of you. I liked Mrs Ngapuhi’s house better. That’s the only other private dwelling I’ve been in, so far.” He told her all about Mrs Ngapuhi’s house and her garden with the small geyser in it.—Dorothy knew this sort of thing occasionally happened in Rotorua so she didn’t automatically assume, as all of Thomas’s acquaintance back home in England would have, that it was apocryphal.—Ending: “Shall we have a lunch break?”

    “I suppose it is lunchtime,” she admitted, looking at her watch.

    “Yes. You’ve got paint in your hair as well as on your arm,” he said helpfully.

    “I doubt if it’ll show much amongst this silver bleach job,” she said with a sigh.

    “Did you have it done for the job interview?”

    “By God, there’s no flies on you, New Chum!” replied Dorothy nastily.

    “Not many, no. –Shall we?”

    “You can. I’m going to get it finished.”

    Thomas fell to again, merely noting mildly: “It may need a third coat.”

    “Well, it’s not flaming gonna get it! I wish I’d never started it! –And what’s more, it makes all the other rooms look shabby,” she added bitterly.

    “That’s the usual consequence,” he said simply.

    They painted in silence.

    After quite some time Dorothy said sheepishly: “Look, I’m sorry.”

    “Oh, don’t be: I broke up a relationship merely over straining paint, not long since. Though mind you, the writing was on the wall: she’d cleaned the windows.”

    “I gather,” said Dorothy, painting carefully along the skirting board where he’d missed it by about four inches, “that this deluded female moved in with you without first making it clear that it was no clean-ee windows, no sex?”

    Thomas gulped. “Uh—yes. Well, she was only a young thing,” he added, rallying.

    “Don’t elaborate,” said Dorothy with a sigh. “My brother Jack—he’s forty-five—broke up with the latest of a continuous string of dolly-bird girlfriends because she insisted on using her hair-drier when he had his computer on. He rarely turns his computer off.”

    “I see. I’m fifty-two,” said Thomas meekly.

    Dorothy sat back on her heels. “Really? I’d have put you down as a bit less than that.”

    “I’ve worn well,” he said modestly.

    “Yes. So has Jack. In his case, it’s lack of the usual responsibilities,” she noted drily.

    “Now, come on: this isn’t fair!” said Thomas with a laugh.

    Dorothy looked at him blankly. “You’re not going to claim you’re loaded down with two cars, a triple garage and a matching triple mortgage, are you?”

    “No, of course not. And stop dragging red herrings in front of me.” She was still looking at him blankly so he said: “Come on: how old are you?”

    “I didn’t realise you wanted to know,” she said limply. “I’m—” She paused. “Just had a birthday. Same as you: fifty-two. I don’t habitually make a secret of it.”

    “I see.” Thomas painted industriously. “What are your responsibilities?”

    “You mean apart from struggling to pay off two mortgages on this dump, do you? Oh—only the usual ones of a spinster of fifty-two in this society: apart from coping with, laugh and die, the bloody hot flushes, those of combining a full-time, what am I saying, ten-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week job with trying to get the flaming shopping and the flaming washing and the flaming gardening done, single-handed. Not to say— Well, never mind that, I’ll never have to see the ruddy town clerk’s oafish, illiterate face again, thank God!” she said viciously, jabbing at the skirting.

    Thomas came up gently behind her and took the brush out of her hand. “Come on: lunch,” he said mildly. “You’ve been going over this strip for the last fifteen minutes.”

    Dorothy sat down all of a heap. “Sorry.”

    “That’s okay. Sorry for interrupting your hols. So-called,” he said with a little smile, holding out his hand.

    Dorothy didn’t take it. “Have you finished that wall?” she said suspiciously.

    “Yes! Jesus, you have had some hopeless wankers working for you, haven’t you?”

    “Uh—not hopeless wankers, poor souls. Just the usual well-meaning ineptness, I suppose,” she said feebly. He was still holding out his hand, so she took it and allowed him to heave her not inconsiderable weight to its feet.

    Thomas pulled her hard against his sturdy frame, grinning. “I like you, Miss Perkins. –What the fuck is your first name?”

    Dorothy pulled away sharply, denying angrily to herself that her knees had gone all wobbly. Because it was pretty obviously a technique that had worked with, pretty obviously, a few hundred women in the past. “You can drop that. I’m not impressionable. Dorothy. And if you value your crown jewels,”—she paused: he was smirking, the deluded oik, obviously thinking she was about to tell him to keep them to himself, or words to that effect—“don’t call me Dot, or any morphological variation thereof.” She walked away without hurry. “It’s my bathroom, I intend to wash first.”

    Thomas collapsed in roars of laughter as she vanished into the passage.

    Dorothy found, as she locked the bathroom door firmly, that she was grinning like an idiot. Oh, dear, what an idiot. No, well, up his, she was most definitely not going to form one of the long queue of female admirers that Thomas Baranski was pretty obviously accustomed to have trailing after him everywhere he went. But if he could hack it—and there weren’t many males that could, pathetic little egos in need of constant reassurance that they were—she wouldn’t mind being friends: on your casual-mateship level and no more.

    With this in mind, she scrubbed herself very thoroughly and got into her usual faded red holiday shorts and a faded blue and white checked blouse, and brushed the new silver hairdo very firmly and vigorously indeed. It still waved fashionably but she wasn’t responsible for that: the bloody woman had put a light perm in it. She then anointed her brownish mug with an expensive cream, reflecting as she did so that someone ought to tell him that out here in the South Pacific it wasn’t necessarily all suntan, even if you did have a bony European mug. This expensive cream was a Polly Carrano-chosen one from the place that did facials for female execs and rich businessmen’s wives but it was the only thing in the bathroom cabinet that happened to have sun-block in it—and it was a very bright day.

    … “Absolutely not,” said Thomas firmly outside Georgie’s in Puriri.

    “It goes with your shirt, though. Oh, all right. This way.”

    “No,” said Thomas firmly outside The Primrose Café. “I require food, not dainty teas.”

    “Out here they don’t do—” Dorothy broke off; she’d just spotted Mrs Poltergeist Potter (daughter-in-law of the more famous Mrs Potter, Senior), Mavis Armidale of the Tui Glen Motel, next in price and hideousness to Wenderholm itself, and Lotte van Velden of the Friends of the Library in there with their heads together. No way.

    “Food?” he said politely.

    “Uh—dainty teas. That is, they do: they form a large part of the sustenance of the genteeler part of the older female section of the population; but they’re not known as such.”

    “Then how did you pick up the reference?” he said politely.

    Ouch: Mavis had spotted her and was waving coyly. “I’m not illiterate,” she said vaguely. “Um—you’re right, we don’t wanna go in there,”—yikes, that was June Blake and Betty Fergusson in that far corner—“they don’t do food. This way.”

    “There won’t be anyone here that’ll recognise you, will there?” asked Thomas politely as they parked in The Blue Heron’s carpark.

    “On the contrary, I’m hoping that my influence will let that shirt in,” she said grimly, hoping that the influence would also let her red shorts in: why the Hell hadn’t she changed into a skirt!

    “If you won’t let us in, we’ll be forced to go to The Tavern,” she warned Mike Collingwood.

    “You don’t wanna do that, me spies tell me they’re only serving a choice of fried shark or hamburgers during the holidays. I can squeeze you into a corner of the courtyard.”

    “Lovely. And if you’d rather we didn’t go through the restaurant, I’ll quite understand.”

    Mike replied frankly: “I’d rather those shorts of yours and that shirt of his didn’t, yes. Hullo, Professor Baranski, how are you?”

    “Call me Thomas,” said Thomas cheerfully, shaking hands. “Good to see you again, Mike. Is there another way in?”

    “Yeah: through the kitchen. Go along to the motel: Huia’ll show you.”

    “Where’s Julie?” asked Dorothy with interest.

    Mike shrugged. “Dunno. She sent Huia instead.”

    “It’s all very down-home, isn’t it?” said Thomas brightly as she led him off.

    “Shut up!” she hissed. “Yes, it is, actually. Well, Julie and Huia Henare are, I have to admit. Julie’s worked for Molly Collingwood for years, since the days when she was Molly Pettigrew. I think Mike only keeps her on because—um—well, because he’s besotted about Molly, actually,” she ended weakly.

    “I see. –Hullo!” he said brightly as they entered the office-cum-shop.

    Huia Henare lifted a harried face from behind the cash register. “Hey, Dorothy!” she gasped. “Can you tell this lady that they gotta pay for extra coffee?”

    “Certainly. It’s The Blue Heron’s policy,” said Dorothy smoothly to a very large, cross-looking lady in a yellow and white floral sunfrock of the intimidating variety, “that while the packets of coffee and tea set out in the rooms are a courtesy from the management, extra coffee and tea may be purchased from the shop.”

    “Yeah: that’s right!” gasped Huia.

    “We only had five packets of coffee but six teabags,” said the woman crossly.

    “But ya can’t of drunk them already! –They only come this morning!” she said to Dorothy in a wail.

    “I expect they were thirsty. That does seem to be an oversight: I think you are entitled to six packets of coffee.”

    “But we don’t keep them in the shop, Dorothy!” hissed Huia loudly.

    “No, of course not. I’ll keep an eye on the shop, just in case of shop-lifters,” said Dorothy with a wicked gleam in her eye, “while you nip out the back and grab one, Huia.”

    “Righdy-ho. Ta, Dorothy!” she gasped, nipping.

    Dorothy wandered behind the counter and leaned on it, looking bland.

    Thomas went over to the shelves of chemist’s things and began to inspect them. After a few moments he said with interest: “I say, some of your brands of condoms are quite different from the ones we have in England!”

    “Really?” replied Dorothy, feeling that it was a pretty good effort on his part, and deserved a better response, only she couldn’t think of one.

    “Yes. These are all pretty tame, though. Not even any ticklers.”

    “No? I don’t think I’ve had those. Oh—unless you mean the sort that have an extra protrusion shaped like the male member? Generally a very bright pink.”

    “At home they’re generally a very bright yellow, one wonders whom they’re meant to encourage. No, the ones I was thinking of have a simple tassel, generally black, attached to the business end. They’re more common in France, mind you,” he said in a vague voice.

    “I expect they’re a proscribed import, we’re having a hate against the French because of their nasty bombs, at the moment,” said Dorothy briskly. –The sunfrocked woman was now bright red and visibly angry as well as embarrassed.

    Huia panted in again. “Janet says she’s absolutely sure Molly put six in that cabin! But ya can have one. Here!”

    The woman took it without a word and swept out.

    “Thomas was talking about rude thingies from the chemist’s shelf. That lady didn’t think it was nice,” explained Dorothy.

    “Were ya? Good on ya!” said Huia viciously. “Crikey, some of them! And you wait, she’ll be back tomorrow wanting more! And more free soap!”

    “Tell her she’s only entitled to free soap once,” said Thomas with a grin.

    “Ye-ah!” she choked ecstatically. “Good one!”

    “We’re just going through to the courtyard,” explained Dorothy. “Leave those!” she said sharply as Thomas’s hand went out to the racks of lurid paperbacks. “There’s a perfectly good public library down the road!” –Further paroxysms from Huia.

    “Ooh, a Free Library?”

    “No. You’re in the Antipodes, New Chum.”

    “She’s pulling ya leg,” said Huia tolerantly, recovering. “Some of them are free, eh? –Ya gotta pay for the videos, only they haven’t got any decent ones,” she explained clearly.

    “I see,” he said feebly.

    “Blame the town clerk, not me. Will you leave that mass pabulum and come on?”

    “Just a minute: how much is this one, Huia?”

    Huia helped herself to some bright purple bubble-gum and chewed juicily. Fumes of artificial grape juice mingled with her musk-like perfume and a smell of bleach which was possibly endemic to the shop. “They’re all the same price; Mike says it makes it easier, eh? Nine’een nine’y-nine.”

    “Twenty dollars to you,” translated Dorothy briskly.

    “What?” he yelped, hurriedly shoving it back.

    “I keep telling you, this is Downunder. And come on!”

    “Only the Aussies say that, really: she’s having you on,” explained Huia kindly, breathing artificial grape fumes all over him as he tottered past her.

    “I see,” he said weakly, tottering in Dorothy’s wake.

    … “What a little peach, though!” he said as they studied their menus.

    “Mm? Oh: Huia? Yes, beautiful, isn’t she? It’s the mixed blood: I believe the Hawaiians are typically very lovely for the same reason. –And don’t let Molly Collingwood catch you saying that or looking it or thinking it, because Huia’s only fifteen: it’d be statutory rape; and more to the point, Molly’d think you weren’t nice to know.”

    “I’m not,” said Thomas the Tank Engine simply.

    “I realise that, Baranski, but I’d rather like to be able to go on eating here.”

    Thomas smiled, but looked peacefully at his menu and said: “What do you recommend?”

    “Everything. There might be some specials, too.”

    The restaurant was very busy, though most people seemed to be at the pudding or coffee stage. Eventually, however, little old Janet in person bustled up to them, beaming. Dorothy greeted her pleasantly; but as usual when she saw Molly’s and Mike’s little old Janet, she had to swallow a sigh: she was a sort of foretaste, or maybe awful warning put it better, of what Puriri Library’s Janet could very easily become. Seventy if she was a day, bright as a button, still working, lived alone with her cat…

    “What’s up?” said Thomas as the little old waitress trotted off with their order.

    “Oh—nothing,” said Dorothy with a sigh. “I’ve been and gorn and deserted a lot of old mates, and I’m afraid they do feel as if I’ve let them down.”

    “Oh? Would this be at your old job?”

    “Yeah.” Glumly Dorothy told him something about her old job. He didn’t seem to be listening, so she stopped.

    “Go on,” he said mildly. “I’m listening.”

    “No, you’re not, and it’s not that interesting.”

    “Not intrinsically, no. Only in what it reveals of yourself. You had responsibilities, all right, didn’t you?”

    Dorothy felt herself redden like an idiot. “Not really. They’re all independent people.”

    “You mean they can move under their own motor power and are not physically joined to you like a Siamese twin?” he said, raising his untidy eyebrows.

    “Something like that.”

    “Mm. I thought there was a rumour of Mike with the wine list?”

    “He’ll probably recommend something he keeps under the counter for Jake Carrano,” said Dorothy without interest.

    “Oh, yes? Local? Leigh and I have tried quite a selection of local wines, now.”

    “This is the friend you were travelling with? ‘I wonder what happened to him’,” said Dorothy deeply.

    Thomas shrugged. “He met up with a man called Meyerbeer, remembered that at the age of about eight he thought he liked fly fishing, and wanted to go off with him to some secret spot this Meyerbeer’s guide claimed would yield fish at the expense only of standing crutch-deep in cold water for seventeen hours on end.”

    “Is it the trout season?” asked Dorothy without much interest.

    Thomas shrugged. “No idea. Meyerbeer’s guide claimed he could find fish. Meyerbeer proposed catching them a with a rod. That’s all I know.”

    “You’re not a fisherman, then?”

    “I have been known to hunt them on a fish-to-man basis, on their own territory. –I’ve done a lot of scuba diving. I’m a marine geologist, by trade,” he said, grinning.

    “I see. Are you intending to marine geol out here?” she asked politely.

    “Not quite, no.” Thomas told her a lot about the Faculty of Environmental Resources. During it Mike came up with the wine list and recommended something he kept under the counter for Jake Carrano.

    “Actually,” said Dorothy frankly, over the paw-paw starter that Thomas had insisted on as marking the fact that they were Downunder, “I can’t quite see Dr Kincaid appointing someone like you.”

    “Oh, I wore my suit for the interview.”

    “I’m sure.”

    Thomas ate paw-paw slowly. “This is good. Really ripe,” he said in surprise. “And it’s got lime on it. –Kincaid appointed me because I’m the best in my field.”

    “Are you? Then why aren’t you working for Rio Tinto Zinc for megabucks?”

    Thomas explained.

    Dorothy said faintly: “And the Iceman knows all this?”

    “Who?”

    “Uh—shit,” she muttered. “Alan Kincaid.” Limply she explained that it was an old nickname, picked up from someone who’d known him during his Cambridge days. Ending feebly, as he rubbed his hands gleefully: “I dare say half of England knows it.”

    “Yes, well, I can promise you they’re about to be reminded of it! –I’m sure he does know my history, to answer your last remark but thirteen, but he doesn’t care, because in the first place, though the bloody-mindedness wouldn’t appeal to him, the probity would.”

    “You don’t mince words, New Chum,” said Dorothy limply.

    “I don’t hide the fact that I’ve got a few principles, if that’s what you mean. In the second place—you’re going to finish that, are you?”

    “Yes.”

    “Pity. In the second place,” he said, watching sadly as she finished her paw-paw, “he knows he can get what he wants from me. At least for a certain period. Once he’s pulled in a few good people and got the place’s reputation established and has five years’ worth of eager little fee-paying students signed on the dotted line, he may quietly not renew my contract.”

    “Mm. Would you mind?”

    Thomas rubbed his chin. “I’d miss the work. But on the whole, no, I don’t think I would.” He told her about his and Leigh’s vague plans for their retirement.

    Dorothy smiled, and said: “Well, you might find a market. At the moment the only competition up Carter’s Bay way is Sol’s Boating & Marine Supplies.”

    “Really? Could you take me there?” he said plaintively.

    “You’re a big boy, Baranski, you can take yourself.”

    “But you can’t possibly do anything else this afternoon, you’ll have to wait for your paint to dry!”

    “Uh—yeah. Well, you’ll see it at its busiest, that’s for sure. Um—and we could take a look at the university site, too… Okay. But you’ll go where and when I say.”

    “I will if you’ll stop calling me Baranski.”

    “What do your friends call you?”

    “Thomas the Tank Engine.”

    Dorothy choked.

    “I’d forgotten you were literate,” he admitted.

    “Yeah!” she gasped helplessly, fanning her face with her hand. “Help! –It’s the shape,” she said limply.

    “I know. I’ve always been chunky. Call me Thomas, I dislike being called Tom as much as you do being called Dot.”

    “All right: Thomas,” said Dorothy weakly.

    Thomas smiled intimately into her eyes and said in a low voice: “Confidentially, I’m having second thoughts.”

    “About what?” said Dorothy in a bored voice.

    His bright blue eyes twinkled. “About this canard en daube.”

    “Don’t. I dunno what it is, but Molly’s a superb cook.”

    When it came it was surrounded by little green leaves. Thomas poked at them with his fork. He watched dubiously as Dorothy tried it. “Well?”

    “It’s ambrosial.”

    Thomas tried it dubiously. It was ambrosial. The wine wasn’t bad, either.

    They were offered cheese but decided just to have pudding: Dorothy because she couldn’t resist Molly’s puddings and Thomas, who would normally have had both, because he and Leigh had been caught that way before in New Zealand restaurants.

    “Molly’s got a new pudding,” offered Janet, beaming.

    “Is there any left, though?” asked Dorothy cautiously.

    Evidently there was, because the regulars had had their favourites. Ignoring the dubious look on Thomas’s face, Dorothy said firmly: “We’ll have it.”

    “Look, we’ve had fruit once,” he objected as the elderly little waitress retreated happily.

    “This won’t be fruit,” said Dorothy confidently.

    It wasn’t. Hot passionfruit soufflé, served on a swirl of bright yellow passionfruit sauce, with a drizzle of the seeds for decoration.

    “My God!” said Thomas in awe, after a period of reverently silent eating had passed.

    “Yes. Her puddings do sometimes make you feel like that,” said Dorothy complacently, pushing her empty plate away.

    Thomas sighed deeply, and pushed his empty plate away. “How does she— Wait here,” he ordered, getting up.

    Dorothy waited placidly, merely digesting.

    … “It’s fascinating,” he reported at long length, returning with a strange bottle of bright yellow something and two shot glasses.

    “Uh-huh. You’re a cook, are you?” said Dorothy, looking sideways at the bottle.

    “Definitely not. An elephant’s child.”

    “Oh!” she said, laughing. “What’s that?” she added, recovering. “I thought you wanted to talk about journals and so forth?”

    “I do. While I think of it: here.” He produced a much-folded list from his back shorts pocket.

    Dorothy took it in a palsied hand. “Ta so much.”

    “Have you got an email address?” he said, opening the bottle and sniffing at it cautiously. “Ooh!”

    It couldn’t be that exciting, it had a screw-top. Dorothy eyed it with disfavour. “Not at the moment, no. Fax me. You’ve got my number.”

    “Have I?” he said vaguely, pouring into the little glasses. “Molly and Mike made this themselves. They got the idea out of a book. I must say, I wouldn’t mind seeing the book: I’ve only had it on Guadeloupe. It’s the secret ingredient in that pudding sauce.”

    “What is it?” said Dorothy without any evidence of keenness.

    “Maracudja.”

    “Serves me right for asking.” He urged a glass of the yellow fluid on her. Resignedly she tasted it. “Blimey O’Reilly!” she gasped.

    “Yeah,” said Thomas, grinning. “According to Mike you can’t get the requisite strength of rum here, so he added a slug or two of vodka.”

    “Passionfruit liqueur,” said Dorothy limply. “You can buy it in the bottle store at The Tavern in poncy bottles with real labels. Next to the kiwifruit liqueur.”

    “I can imagine.” Thomas rolled a mouthful slowly on his tongue. “Mmm.”

    Most of the other customers had now pushed off—or staggered off under the weight of the regular puddings, in some cases. Pretty soon Mike came over to them, grinning, and pulled up a chair. “Good stuff, eh?” He had a shot glass in his hand. Dorothy watched resignedly as Thomas obligingly filled it. “He knew what it was, ya know,” said Mike, grinning.

    “Don’t explain the obscure workings of your little macho peer group, please: my short-term memory doesn’t retain ’em for more than two seconds,” she sighed.

    Mike and Thomas merely sniggered slightly, and lifted their glasses to each other.

    The level in the bottle had sunk quite considerably by the time Molly bustled out, beaming. “Well, did you like the new pudding, Dorothy?”

    “It was superb, Molly, indescribably superb,” she groaned, “but why did you let him see that bottle?”

    Molly gave a high-pitched giggle. “I couldn’t stop them, dear! You know what men are!”

    “Uh—yeah,” said Dorothy groggily. Crikey, that was a first: Molly Collingwood supposing that her humble spinsterish self knew what men were?

    Molly was saying that she would just have a sip, Mike, dear, now that they’d all gone. Mike removed the shot glass that had been mysteriously adorning the top pocket of his short-sleeved white shirt and filled it for her. Molly sat down with a sigh. “Did you notice that the duck was different, Dorothy?” she said hopefully.

    God, recipes, now? “Uh—yes, I did, Molly, but I couldn’t say what you’d done to it. Except that the jelly used to be pink.”

    “I’ve changed the recipe. Well, the classic dish is very nice, of course, but it doesn’t seem to suit our summer weather, really.

    Dorothy sat back and drank passionfruited rum and let the garbage about dry white wines and lemongrass (wot?) and a lime leaf and just a touch of blah-blah wash over her…

    “I’ll drive,” said Thomas firmly.

    “Y— Uh—do you know the way?”

    “No, and I’m reliably informed I’m the world’s worst navigator. On the other hand, I’m awake. And Molly says I can’t miss it, you just get on the motorway and—”

    Dorothy began in alarm: “But—”

    “And do turn off where it says Opononi Bypass.”

    “Yeah,” she said limply. “Right. The signs are really confusing up here.”

    “Yes, I’ve found that,” he said tranquilly, starting up and driving away.

    On reflection Dorothy didn’t think she’d go into the implications of that one. She might be rather full of passionfruit wallop and she might not know him at all well, but she had grasped that Thomas Baranski’s was a subtle and devious mind.

    She woke with a start as he drew up and asked: “Is this it?”

    “Uh—sorry.”

    “That’s quite all right: you have been painting all day, after all.”

    “And all day yesterday and the day before. –Where the fuck are we?”

    “I was asking you,” he said patiently.

    “Um… Oh! This is the bloody Carter’s Bay roundabout! I know where we are!”

    “Yes. Do you know how to get onto it, off it, and to where we want to go? –Where do we want to go, again?”

    There was a chance, recognised Dorothy groggily—just an outside chance—that if she let him loose in Sol’s Boating & Marine Supplies he and Sol Winkelmann would go into a macho peer group and not emerge from it for hours and hours and— Just a chance. “Thataway. Round the roundabout. NOT THAT TURNOFF! Turn right—RIGHT, cretin! And left—LEFT! Jesus! …This is Carter’s Bay. How the Christ do you navigate underwater?”

    “With me little compass strapped to me little wrist.”

    She stared groggily at the muscular and hairy wrist. “Uh—yeah,” she said, blinking.

    Thomas took the hand in question off the wheel and laid it casually on her thigh.

    Dorothy gave it a good wallop.

    “Is it me or just men in general?” he said plaintively, putting it back on the wheel.

    “Both. More specifically it’s a combination of once bitten, twice shy, and a determination not to have any complications in my life. Especially now I’m starting a nice, new, shiny job that pays more than I ever dreamed of earning.”

    “That doesn’t sound like a life at all, to me.”

    “I’m sure it doesn’t. Types like you seem to have the emotional stamina, not to mention the hormonal stamina, to cope. I don’t. And when I say types I use the word in the generic sense.” She gave the post office a bitter look. Its cream Edwardian frontage was now adorned by a huge sign announcing “Refurbishing of the Carter’s Bay Post Office”, gracefully credited to, guess what, a division of Carrano Ruddy Development. “That was a nice Edwardian post office, once. –Straight ahead, and when I say turn, turn.”

    “It’s not me that’s destroying your priceless Edwardian heritage,” he said mildly.

    “Shut up. Most of my ancestors only got here just over a century ago.”

    “Oh, yes, I was forgetting that.” He drove on. When Dorothy bellowed: “TURN LEFT!” he turned. And so forth.

    … “This is going to be open for business when?” he croaked.

    “Stage One,” said Dorothy with a sigh, “will be open for business on the first of March next year. Or whenever the powers-that-be have declared that the university year will commence. Some really handy date like the twenty-ninth of February, probably.”

    Thomas counted on his fingers. “Not possible. So what’s where?” he said, staring around the wilderness of half-poured concrete slabs, gaping holes, and pre-stressed pillars.

    Dorothy led the way. She pointed to a giant slab of poured concrete with half-formed pillars sticking out of it. “That’s yours. Follow me.” She pointed to a giant slab of poured concrete at the bottom of a giant hole. “This is my library. They’re building the bottom storeys first, you’ll be glad to learn. Including the basement.”

    Thomas began unwisely: “No-one could actually have—”

    “The architect DID!” she shouted. There was a short pause. “Well, it is a pre-requisite in his so-called profession,” she admitted. “But fortunately they’ve had a few structural engineers in on it. The result won’t be lovely, but it will be load-bearing.”

    “Will it need to be, with all these journals you’ll be networking on CD-ROM?”

    “Uh—have you been talking to Kincaid?”

    “Yes. What’s the arrangement for learning resources funding to the faculties?”

    “Each faculty will have its own budget and be responsible for allocation of funds within it, within certain limits. –He must have told you this!”

    “Some of it. Go on.”

    “Um—well, you’ll have to pay the salaries of those bods you’ve actually hired. Outside of that, you can chuck it away on having four copies of Nature trundled slowly across the wide Pacific if you like. Or spend it on ball-point pens.”

    “Have you read my CV?” he replied suspiciously.

    “No. Why?”

    “Oh—forget it. Just creeping paranoia.”

    “They tell me the Iceman is enough to give any dean that: yep. The bottom line is, you make your faculty pay. The assumption seems to be that in order to do so you will have to purchase a certain number of books and journals, but personally I question this form of reasoning. The library’s own budget will be responsible for certain basic services such as one copy of the Oxford English Dictionary and one copy of one encyclopaedia of science and technology, and the catalogue,” she said blandly.

    “Very funny, Dorothy.”

    Dorothy shrugged. “What you buy goes where you want it to go, so if it ends up on your desk, that’s your affair. We exist to serve.”

    “Look, I’m trying to have a serious conversation, here!” he said angrily.

    Dorothy looked at him in some surprise. So he was. “Sorry, Thomas. Uh—well, seriously, each faculty’s subject area is to be its own responsibility, and the library itself will only purchase basic reference material, none of which will be for loan, so it will be things like dictionaries, encyclopaedias and indexes. They won’t necessarily be in print form, of course. But in order to avoid unnecessary duplication of resources, I’ve put forward a scheme for coordinating the acquisition of several sorts of titles: particularly undergraduate texts, which will be needed in multiple copies, and the very expensive sort of post-grad research stuff, which very definitely won’t be needed in multiple copies.”

    “How does it work?” said Thomas promptly.

    Reflecting that he’d asked, so on his head be it, she told him.

    “Mm. This presupposes that this giant online library management system will actually be available from the time the orders start coming in, doesn’t it?”

    “You mean from two months back, then. No; no faculty orders will be placed for several months. By that time we’ll have a copy of the software running, or I personally will know the reason why. Then we’ll run the correlation routine, finalise the results, and place the first order. After that the correlation routine will run every month during the rest of the setting-up period. Those deans that don’t look at its results will be out of luck. Yours truly isn’t going to play policeman: you’re all big boys and girls. If you don’t realise that Jim Bloggs over the way has just ordered a luscious big CD-ROM copy of Nature that your lot could very well share with the expenditure of comparatively minor sums, and you order your own copy, we’ll assume that you’ve read our correlation report and oh, dear: out of your budget it will come.”

    “But at this rate I’ll spend the next bloody year reading bloody library correlation reports!” he cried.

    “Only if you’re really concerned to run your user-pays faculty cost-effectively, Thomas,” said Dorothy soothingly. “Otherwise you’ll just chuck the moolah away like the rest of the academic world. But at Sir G.G. this means that you won’t have any money left to buy a nice shiny bathysphere. –I did point out to Dr Kincaid that the library routines should have been set up at least two years in advance and that your average qualified academic librarian is capable of selecting a basic book stock. He agreed, actually. But the Board,”—she looked bland—“wants it all pushed though, you see; they want to see results for their money.

    “Yeah. Look, couldn’t you select the basic book stock anyway?” he said plaintively.

    Dorothy replied readily: “Most certainly. But it’ll cost.”

    “What do you mean?” he said, frowning.

    “I mean that the library will provide a fully qualified selection librarian to select in any of the areas of environmental resources that you care to name. But you will pay for her, him or it.”

    “What?”

    “This selection librarian’s salary. You will pay it. You will also pay for the cataloguing and processing of all learning resources that you order.”

    “WHAT?” he shouted.

    “Yes. Dat ain’t my job, buster. My job is making sure that the process is carried out in the most cost-effective way possible. –This probably goes some way towards explaining the size of what you thought was a whopping great faculty budget,” she noted kindly.

    “Jesus CHRIST!” he shouted.

    “I’m sure the other deans will share dem sentiments.”

    Thomas stomped around the wasteland of the university site, breathing hard and muttering imprecations. Then he shouted: “This was HIS fucking idea, I suppose!”

    “I cannot tell a lie,” said Dorothy modestly, laying a hand to her bosom: “I did it with my little ’atchet. He was thrilled by it. I think it’s why I got the job, looking back. That and the silver hair.”

    “YOU COW!” he shouted.

    Dorothy bowed modestly.

    “Jee-SUS!” shouted Thomas. He stomped around the wasteland of the university site. “Look,” he said at last, breathing hard, “suppose I decide I don’t want to chuck my budget away on having my books and journals put on your fucking catalogue: then what?”

    “The choice is entirely yours. Rid your mind of the preconceived notion of the library as combined policeman and mother hen. But before you get carried away, I will just point out that Kincaid’s vision of a university is founded on two principles: user pays and accountability. At the end of the financial year he will point to the big hole in your budget and say: ‘Where dem dollars gone?’ And if you can’t produce the precise number of dollars in volumes, or failing the physical volumes, bibliographic records showing verifiable location data,” she said drily, “I should say the S will hit the F with a roar. Unless that happens to be the year your faculty makes a million-dollar profit, in which case he won’t care.”—Thomas glared, breathing heavily.—“Accountability goes hand-in-hand with user pays, you see. It’s sort of a twin peaks philosophy, so to speak,” she said on an apologetic note.

    He gulped, failed to control himself, and went into a helpless wheezing fit, gasping: “You unspeakable bitch!”

    “Thanks,” said Dorothy simply.

    “What did you do, swot up his bloody university management texts before your interview?”

    “Yes,” said Dorothy simply. “Well, before I wrote a proposal to go with my CV. His maths was beyond me, but once I’d written down ‘user pays’ and ‘accountability’ and stared at them for a bit everything became strangely clear to me.”

    “Yeah.”

    “I’ve never actually been able to see why the academic world should not assume responsibility for its actions like us humbler citizens,” she said mildly, strolling down towards the shore.

    Thomas reached her side without haste and took her arm. “This job’ll give you a lovely chance to get your own back, then,” he noted, tucking it firmly into his substantial side.

    “Yes,” said Dorothy feebly.

    They reached the shore, and he gasped: “This isn’t deep enough!”—goggling at two inches of sand followed by five feet of mud followed by fifteen feet of mangroves. The tide was more or less in and the water began more or less where the mangroves did.

    Dorothy felt as if she might be in too deep already. She tried stealthily to draw her arm out of his but he just pressed it even more firmly against him. “Um—deep enough for what? Oh: your bathysphere!”

    “Yes. I can’t set up a Department of Marine Geology without deep-water access!”

    “Tell Kincaid that, Thomas. If the university moves quickly it might pick up one of the properties out on the Carter’s Bay Peninsula before land prices sky-rocket definitively.”

    “Where?” he demanded grimly.

    “Uh—” Dorothy pointed vaguely with her free arm. “Back thataway.”

    “Right. You can show it to me. And then we’ll go and see this boating-supplies fellow, and I’ll sound him out about suitable deep-water moorings.”

    “Okay,” she said limply.

    They headed back to the car, her arm still clamped to his side. “Kincaid must have thought his dreams had come true when you rolled up for your interview,” he said thoughtfully.

    Dorothy reddened. “Why?”

    “Why? He wants a university librarian not merely imbued with the ideals of bloody user pays and bloody accountability, which your proposal already indicates you are, but able to handle his combined deans with both hands tied behind her, and bingo! You walk in?”

    She swallowed. “Thanks. I think. But I don’t actually subscribe to user pays. More your free-education type.”

    “Then dare one ask, what the fuck are you doing working for him?”

    “What are you?” she retorted angrily,

    Thomas replied dreamily: “Oh, playing with my toys.”

    “All right, that makes two of us!”

    “Added to which, I intend to inculcate the idea of ‘environmental’ whilst overtly preaching the ‘resources’ bit,” he explained dreamily. He watched while this sank in.

    “For God’s sake, Thomas! You realise he’s dragging them in from all points of the compass with the argument that they can go back home and exploit their bloody countries’ resources cost-effectively?”

    “Yes,” said Thomas succinctly.

    Dorothy broke down and laughed until she cried. Thomas produced a flag-like and none-too-clean handkerchief: she leaned against the car and blew her nose hard. “Oh, dear,” she said weakly.

    “You can hold me hand while I do it,” he offered plaintively.

    “Bullshit. Get in.”

    Grinning, Thomas got back into the car. He wasn’t absolutely sure that Dorothy had realised that she’d automatically let him get back into the driver’s seat. He found he didn’t quite dare to comment on it.

    … “Male peer groups,” said Dorothy, quite some time later, as Mrs Winkelmann joined her on the low seawall over the road from Sol’s Boating & Marine Supplies.

    “Yes,” agreed Michaela placidly.

    They stared placidly at the ranked aquatic hardware of Kingfisher Marina for a while.

    When Michaela still hadn’t asked her who Thomas was or what he did, let alone what connection he was to herself, Dorothy found herself saving limply: “Thomas is going to be joining Sir G.G. He’s a marine geologist.”

    “Yes, Sol just said. I’m not quite sure what those are,” she confessed placidly. “Well, I know what geology is: I like rocks.”

    Dorothy had known her for quite a while: Michaela had lived in Puriri and used the free parts of its library for many years before she married him; but nevertheless she had to swallow. “Uh—same sort of minerals stuff, only underwater. Nodules,” she hazarded.

    “Oh,” said Michaela placidly.

    They sat placidly for a while.

    “A lady’s bought Next-Door Cove,” volunteered Michaela.

    “Really? The whole five-acre lot?”

    “Yes. Her name’s Jane. She’s with Sir G.G., too. She’s an ornithologist.”

    “Oh, one of the Fellows! –That’s a pre-emptive strike,” she noted idly.

    “What?” said Mrs Winkelmann blankly.

    Dorothy endeavoured to explain. It wasn’t that Michaela was thick, she was just focussed almost entirely on her pottery. Well, these days the focus had broadened a bit to include her husband and baby. But she was definitely not interested in anything churned out by the popular media: which sort of made you reflect on how much your own habits of speech, ironic or not, had been influenced by said media—ouch.

    At the end of the speech Michaela said calmly: “I see. I don’t think it’ll work: Jane’s nice.”

    “Good.”

    “Sol says,” she ventured, “that if they don’t all do what he wants—um—is suborn a word?”

    “Yes.”

    “If they try to suborn his user-pays stuff, he’ll sack them.”

    “Dr Kincaid? That’s very likely indeed, Michaela,” she agreed grimly. “I think Thomas is more than aware that if he suborns him, Kincaid’ll give him the push. Is your ornithologist lady, though?”

    “Sol says he doesn’t think so, only that might only be because she hasn’t thought it out yet.”

    “Uh-huh,” conceded Dorothy. Boy, that sentence summed up both Sol Winkelmann and his new neighbour in a nutshell!

    “She’s going to build an A-frame like ours. She doesn’t mind if it’s really a garage,” said Michaela peacefully, staring at the bay. “Look.”

    Dorothy looked. There was nothing to see, except flaming rows of up-market aquatic high-tech and— Oh. Gold flakes of westering sun reflected off the waters of the Inlet. “Mm,” she said, swallowing. “Sort of a reminder of things that fundamentally matter, isn’t it?”

    There was a longish silence.

    “They matter to me,” said the potter cautiously.

    Dorothy looked at her with great liking. “Yes. Well, in spite of my new sharp business exec-type position, not to say this silver-bleach job your cousin Polly talked me into, they matter to me, too. In fact,” she admitted with a little smile, “I’m probably one of them as Kincaid’ll have lined up for the old heave-ho, in a few years’ time.”

    “Sol said that,” said Mrs Winkelmann placidly.

    Dorothy swallowed hard. She just betted he had—yep.

    … “I haven’t got anywhere to stay,” said Thomas meekly as they neared Puriri.

    “I dare say Mike and Molly Collingwood’ll fit you in,” replied Dorothy hard-heartedly.

    “Mike doesn’t like me,” he said mournfully. “Even though I recognised his maracudja.”

    Dorothy had noticed that. “Yeah. You’re not clean-cut enough for him. He used to be a cop. Detective Chief-Inspector.”

    Thomas nearly drove off the road. “Sorry,” he croaked. “I think he must have read my pot-smoking, demo-attending, anti-Establishment history on my forehead,” he admitted.

    “Yes. It is writ there rather large.”

    He wrinkled his nose and did not reply.

    “You can’t stay with me, wee New Chum,” said Dorothy cordially, “because my place stinks of paint and even I’m not staying with me, I’m sleeping next-door at Dick White’s and he’s only got two beds. Mind you, you could share his, he’s the one that’s gay.”

    “Very funny. –Could I camp in your backyard?” he said plaintively. “Or build me a willow cabin at your gates?”

    “No. But come to think of it,” said Dorothy, her shoulders shaking slightly: “I do know of somewhere that might be available.”

    Thomas ended up in Janet’s old flat, paying megabucks to Potter for the privilege of sleeping on a thin sheet of foam plastic over a wire stretcher. Hah, hah. He came round to Dorothy’s for breakfast but Dorothy wasn’t all that surprised. Thomas, she was glad to see, was surprised to see that she and Dick White were sitting companionably under his grapefruit tree, eating theirs, when he got there.

    “You’re welcome to raid my fridge, but I don’t cook,” she said firmly.

    Dick White was a primary-school teacher but that didn’t mean he was thick. When Thomas, looking vague, had pushed off in the direction of the city to suss out the university library, he said: “What was that, some sort of tactical move to get Most Favoured Faculty treatment from the Sir G.G. library?”

    “Something very like that,” agreed Dorothy grimly.

    “Your wholly accountable, user-pays philosophy must have been a shock to him, then,” he said placidly.

    “A shock and a half,” agreed Dorothy with grim satisfaction.

    Moana had seen the advertisement for the meeting of the Carter’s Bay Environmental Watch Committee on the Puriri Library noticeboard and had duly announced to Jane that they’d better go. –The two Ornithological Research Fellows had very temporary office accommodation on Puriri Campus. Very temporary: their offices clearly belonged to someone else. The big advantage was that they had access to the university’s online catalogue. The drawback was that all the books and journals that were of interest to them were down on the City Campus. However, there was a daily van delivery.

    Jane agreed happily that they’d better go to the Environmental Watch Committee meeting. The more so since her first research project would entail plotting the bird life of the sanctuary at the far end of Carter’s Inlet, as part of a large environmental survey that Sir George Grey was to undertake. It would be a good opportunity to tell people about the survey.

    Moana herself was about to launch two projects. The first entailed getting the cooperation of TVNZ, which had not been hard, when they’d realised that Sir George Grey would provide the funding: a national bird population survey. The idea was that keen bird-spotters all over the country would rise at crack of dawn and record all the birds they saw in their gardens, for an extended period. The Aussies had had a similar project a few years back. Moana already had the excited cooperation of the Forest & Bird Society, but they would need more than that. When the schools went back, the project would be launched with a lot of fanfare on the TV, and the schoolkids would be roped into it. It might be a bit premature, but she could mention the project if the atmosphere seemed propitious. Jane nodded humbly in agreement with this: she knew Moana was very excited about the project, especially as she’d never expected to get Dr Kincaid’s okay to so ahead with it. She tactfully didn’t mention Moana’s other, more serious research project, which when you thought about it smacked horribly of the edible, egg-producing pukeko thing that Moana had joked about to Adrian. It involved experiments with cross-breeding of wild and domestic ducks in order to produce a leaner domestic duck that could be raised in New Zealand but would also be suited to the subtropical and tropical conditions of some of their Pacific neighbours. According to Dr Kincaid it was very relevant. And it was true that Moana was very interested in the genetics of cross-breeding. And in waterfowl. However, since she had initially broached the topic of waterfowl genetics at the time of her initial application for the fellowship, the focus of the project had shifted quite considerably…

    “Hullo,” said Wallis shyly, standing on one leg.

    Janet lifted a harried face from inspection of Mercy’s issue screen. They had had to let old Mrs Tonks go, even though the Issue screen said all her books were overdue. This time the wand was firmly plugged in, so it wasn’t that. “Hullo; how are you?” she said, smiling.

    This indicated to Wallis, though neither of them had mentioned the other’s name, that Janet had recognised her. She gave a relieved smile and said: “Mrs Michaels said you, um, might need—um—shelvers or something.” –Wallis called her “Angie” to her face and would not have admitted if tortured with hot irons that she thought of her as “Mrs Michaels”.

    “Oh, dear: have you come up all the way from Devonport for that?” said Janet in dismay.

    Wallis went very red. “No, I was coming anyway,” she growled.

    This of course revealed very plainly to Janet that she had. “Oh, dear,” she repeated.

    “You should of rung, first. The thing is, the holidays are our slow period,” explained Mercy sympathetically. “Half of our staff are on holidays, eh, Janet?”—Janet nodded.—“Lots of people go away, ya see,” clarified Mercy.

    “I thought you might need more shelvers because people’d be taking books out for the holidays.”

    “Ya would think that, eh?” agreed Mercy. “Only they don’t, ya see.”

    Wallis always had done. She nodded limply. “So you don’t need me?”

    “No,” said Mercy definitely.

    “Um—well, no, not really, Wallis,” faltered Janet.

    “The town cl— um, the County Manager, I mean, he came round yesterday—was it? Um, no, the day before. He came round and told Janet that she isn’t allowed to take anybody on, anyway,” said Mercy helpfully.

    Janet was now a glowing red. “Yes. But that was permanent staff, Mercy.”

    “Oh. –But we don’t need shelvers, anyway,” she said definitely to Wallis.

    “No. I see. Thanks anyway.” she growled.

    “Wait: if you’re looking for a holiday job, Wallis,” said Janet, “I do know of someone who needs someone to strip furniture.”

    “I can do that!” she said eagerly. “I’ve helped Bill Michaels, loads of times!”

    “Ye-es… I’m sure you could!” she said quickly. “But the thing is, it’s up at Carter’s Bay.”

    “No sweat!”

    Janet looked at her in a flustered way, not liking to say that what with having to change buses, and the infrequency of the service to Carter’s Bay, it would take her over two hours from Devonport. And if she missed the early morning bus, there wouldn’t be another all the way to the Bay.

    “Have ya got transport?” demanded Mercy keenly.

    “Sort of. I can jack something up.” She looked hopefully at Janet.

    Limply Janet gave her the details.

    “Thanks, Janet!” she beamed.

    “You could take her up now, eh? You did all that overtime yesterday,” noted Mercy.

    “Um, Mercy, we’ve got to fix the system!”

    “Why? The town clerk won’t thank ya for it,” she said stolidly. “You go, Janet. We can manage. If it tells me the books are overdue, I’ll just ignore it!” she added breezily.

    “Um, well, you better had, I think. Mrs Tonks only borrowed those books yesterday: I issued them to her myself,” said Janet limply.

    “No prob’!”

    Weakly Janet let her very junior Circulation Assistant, who had only done two modules of the three-module Library Technicians’ course and at that had scraped through with straight C’s, bully her off the premises in Wallis’s company. As they went Mercy might have been observed out of the corner of the eye to be unwrapping some chewing-gum and inserting it into her mouth, a practice utterly forbidden in Dorothy’s day. As she did it their part-time processor emerged from the back regions, leaned on the counter next to her, and began to gossip, also a practice utterly forbidden in Dorothy’s day. Oh, dear.

    Unlike Sammi Wolfe, Janet did not desert her protégée at the moment of truth. She came with her into Kevin’s big bus barn and explained. Kevin agreed he needed someone to help with the stripping, because Penny wasn’t getting round to much at all, what with the school holidays, and, merely warning Wallis that it was piece-work, and hard yacker, agreed to take her on. She could start now, if she liked. Wallis’s little oval face lit up, so he gave her the stripper, the stripping knife, and the sandpaper, and let her make the acquaintance of the dreaded Windsor chairs.

    At knocking-off time Kevin explained that they were having a meeting of the Carter’s Bay Environmental Watch Committee this arvo: did she wanna stay on for that? Wallis agreed sunnily, not mentioning the fact that she’d have to get back to Devonport tonight. He thought that in that case she could give him a hand to set some seats out. Happily Wallis fell to.

    Those who had expected the meeting of the Carter’s Bay Environmental Watch Committee actually to accomplish something were, of course, disappointed. However, a fair crowd turned up, and Penny Bergen managed to get names and addresses out of most of them, in order to start compiling a mailing list. Moana and Jane both managed to describe their research projects, to general acclaim. Though a voice from the crowd wanted to know what the ultimate purpose of the survey of the Inlet was. Fortunately Moana was able to respond smoothly to that one: Jane, having assumed that environmental surveys were a purpose in themselves, merely stood there with her mouth open. The meeting agreed that they must keep an eye on the movements of Sir George Grey University and of the Carrano Group. Though no-one came up with any very clear idea of exactly how this was to be done. Or, in view of the national bird survey and the environmental survey of the Inlet, exactly what fell activities on the part of Sir George Grey were to be expected.

    One result of the meeting was that Janet discovered with horror that Wallis was still up here, took her home to tea—frozen lean cuisine done in the microwave—and let her sleep on her sofa-bed.

    Another result of the meeting was that Martin got bawled out good and proper. He turned up hopefully at Sammi’s new house for breakfast the next morning: Adrian still hadn’t got a stove and the boys had discovered that because of his late nights at the restaurant he didn’t generally get up until quite late. Incautiously he told her about the meeting over the muesli and wholemeal toast. “But everyone went!” he protested as his sister turned purple.

    “You CRETIN, Martin!” shouted Sammi. “What about my job? What’s it going to look like if you get yourself mixed up with these Green nutters?”

    “But no-one knows I’m your brother,” he said sulkily.

    Sammi told him a good many things, free, gratis and for nothing. Like: everyone knew everyone’s else’s business in these damned villages; and: he’d better get himself signed up for A-Levels, and she didn’t CARE what they called them here; and: they needn’t think they were going to turn themselves into dumb little drop-outs at her expense—etcetera.

    Martin ended up slamming out of the house, leaving his toast half-finished. It had been horrible, anyway. And she only had low-calorie jam, that was horrible, too.

    Sammi paced around breathing fire and brimstone for a while. Then, taking a deep breath, she went over the road and asked very nicely if she could possibly use Sheryl Carew’s phone, because hers wasn’t on yet.

    “Hullo?” gasped Catherine.

    Sammi was a little taken aback: she knew Dr Kincaid was single. And although he was clearly as hard as nails and cold as Hell, had rather fancied him. Dishy. The baldness was really quite attractive, especially since he didn’t let the fringe of hair round the sides grow longish, which was revolting as well as ageing, but shaved it really short and bristly: quite sexy.

    “This is Sammi Wolfe. I’m Dr Kincaid’s Senior Administrator. I wonder, could I speak to him, if it’s not inconvenient?”

    This was the sort of speech that always threw Catherine, because it was both horribly competent-sounding and confusing as to whether it required the answer “Yes” or the answer “No.”

    “Yes! I mean, no, it isn’t— I mean, I’ll just get him!” she gasped.

    Sammi raised her well-shaped eyebrows a little. She could hear voices in the background and— Quacking? No! Yes, it was, though, because a man’s voice said irritably: “If there’s something wrong with the bloody creature’s foot we’ll take it to the vet, but I will NOT have ducks in the house: get it OUT!” Then he came on the line, sounding his normal cold, hard, competent self.

    “Is anything wrong?” asked Catherine timidly as he came back into the kitchen. “That administrator lady doesn’t start until Monday, does she?”

    “Nothing’s wrong,” said Alan with a strange little smile.

    Catherine looked at him dubiously.

    “Uh—where’s the bloody duck?”

    “Dicky took her outside. He’s put her in a box.”

    “I see. You do want me to take it to the vet, I gather?”

    “Yes, please, Alan,” said Catherine in a tiny voice.

    Alan hesitated; then he said: “Catherine, you do realise that if there’s something seriously wrong with that foot it’s highly likely the vet will just tell us to wring the creature’s neck?”

    “Yes. She’s the great-grandmother duck,” said Catherine in a tiny voice.

    “God,” muttered Alan, passing his hand over his bald pate.

    “I know we eat them, but it’s not the SAME!” she cried.

    “Yes. Don’t shout, don’t bawl, and don’t blame me,” he said heavily. “We’ll do our best for it, okay?”

    “Mm,” said Catherine, sniffing, but nodding.

    “Good. And then I’ll take you over to Puriri Campus, you can meet Dr Curtis: she’s into ducks, too.”

    “No!” she gasped in horror.

    “Yes. –Oh,” said Alan with a strange little smile: “if she invites you to join the bloody Carter’s Bay Environmental Watch Committee, I’d really rather you didn’t. Though of course you’re a free agent: if you feel strongly about it, I won’t stand in your way.”

    Catherine looked at him limply. “Um—I don’t like clubs and things.”

    “Good.”

    “Alan, if—if you’re up to something, I—I don’t want to be involved,” she said in a trembling voice.

    Alan poured himself the last of the coffee. With his free hand he reached across and patted hers. “I’m not really up to anything, darling. Finish your toast and we’ll go.”

    Catherine had gone bright red. She ate her toast numbly.

    Alan hadn’t realised he’d called her “darling”. He sipped coffee, his cool grey eyes twinkling. “Ms Wolfe was ringing to warn me that the Environmental Watch Committee is getting its act together: they had a meeting last night. Apparently both my Ornithological Research Fellows were at it. Its purpose,” he explained kindly. “is to protect the local environment from encroachments by Sir George Grey University.”

    “Ye-es… So she thought you’d better know about it? Well, that was very—very proper of her, wasn’t it?”

    “Oh, entirely.” He smiled a little. “It doesn’t seem to have dawned on the conscientious Ms Wolfe, any more than it has on the locals, that setting up a committee at this stage is hardly a tactical move.”

    “Isn’t it?” gulped Catherine.

    “No. They’re faced with a fait accompli. If they really wanted to protect their precious environment from the march of progress,” he said drily, putting his cup down, “they should have moved the minute Sir Jake announced his plans. –The development of our entire site’s long since been approved,” he explained. “Though ‘Watch’ committee’s a good name for it,” he added on an acid note. “All they can do is watch. It’s too damned late for effective action.”

    “Alan, sometimes you can be really horrible!” said Catherine in a shaking voice.

    “Yes,” he said, getting up. “Bring that duck, and come on. You’ll have to show me how to get to the vet’s. Hurry up: I’ve got a meeting this morning.”

    They had reached the site of the new bridge over the Inlet before she said: “If you—if you don’t care about the environment and—and you think their committee’s funny—”

    “I didn’t say that,” he murmured.

    “Don’t lie. I know you do!” she said sharply.

    Alan’s shoulders shook slightly. “I’m not denying it.”

    “Then why do you care about our duck?” said Catherine in a shaking voice.

    Before Alan could answer that, Dicky said scornfully from the back seat: “Don’t be dumb, Mum!”

    “Mm,” murmured Alan. “Don’t be dumb.”

    “It’ll serve you right if they all go on monos against you!” she cried.

    There was a short silence. Heroically Alan managed not to laugh.

    “I don’t mean that,” said Catherine, sounding squashed.

    Suddenly Alan put his hand on her knee: blue floral, she had a selection of faded floral cotton dresses for summer wear. “Demos,” he said mildly. “They may well do, but although they may succeed in attracting some minor media attention, there is nothing they can do to me, or to Sir George Grey, I do assure you.”

    Catherine swallowed loudly. “Oh.”

    Alan squeezed the knee gently. “Mm.” Her leg was very soft, and he was very stiff, and on the whole he didn’t know whether to be sorry or glad that the presence of Dicky and the duck in the back seat prevented his doing anything about either of these factors. He left the hand there.

    Catherine’s ears burned and she felt very hot and trembly all over. She sat very still, feeling confusedly that she ought to say something more about the environmental people being in the right of it and Alan being wrong, but unable to think of a thing. But since she now knew Alan rather well, she was conscious of a sort of fear—well, a hope—that he wasn’t doing it on purpose to distract her. Because he’d be more than capable of it.

    When they got to the vet’s Dicky got out immediately and rushed into the office with the duck in the box.

    “Alan,” said Catherine in a trembling voice, as he just sat there with his hand on her knee: “If this is—is one of those tactical move thingies of yours, it isn’t funny.”

    “Mm? Oh!” Alan gave a strange little laugh, and withdrew his hand. “No.” He looked at her uncertainly. “You don’t think I’m that bad, do you?”

    “Yes,” said Catherine bravely, sticking her rounded chin out. “I do.”

    He opened his mouth again but before he could speak Dicky reappeared, shrieking: “Alan! Mum! Come on!”

    Alan got out without saying anything more. Just as well, probably. Not that— Well, he hadn’t ever really thought she was thick. He wasn’t surprised that she could see through him. But… Jesus, did she really think he was that low?

Next chapter:

https://conquestofcartersbay.blogspot.com/2023/05/april-showers.html