Christmas Present

18

Christmas Present

    “You got back earlier last night than I thought you might,” said George in a casual voice, finding his old mate sitting in a dejected posture on the verandah steps at a surprisingly early hour on the Sunday.

    “Did I? Yeah. –These new steps?”

    “Yes, Jack and me put them in, once Dad had vetoed Susan’s suggestion of a graciously curved flight with handrails.”

    “Yeah.”

    “Pete, why did you come back at har’ past nine?” asked George bluntly.

    “They’ve got a busy day today, their first guests are arriving on Christmas Day instead of the twenty-seventh. Anyway, they’ve got one, too,” he revealed moodily.

    “Uh…”

     Pete jerked his head at the house, looking sour.

    “Uh… shit, one of her?” hissed Susan’s brother.

    “Yeah. Yellow-haired woman. She’s Phil’s girlfriend’s mother, but Honey seems to’ve known her for ages. Think Phil’s been working for her.”

    “Oh, right: the sandwich shop woman. –Ugh, ya mean she turned up and started bossing them around?”

    “Tried to, but actually Gil wouldn’t let her, I’ll say that much for ’im. The little girl was pissed off because she brought loads of stuff, after she’d told her not to, but actually,” he said with a reluctant smile, “Honey was pleased, she said they could put some of it in the bunkhouse fridge for the guests!”

    George was imagining Susan in the sandwich shop woman’s shoes. He grinned. “Sucks.”

    “Yeah.”

    “Jack bearing up okay?’

    “That’d be putting it too strongly, George. She started talking to him nicely but briskly, you know?”—George was shuddering, so he evidently did.—“Yeah. So he muttered something about stuff to check, and slid out. That gave Ted his excuse, so he said he’d give him a hand.”

    “Shit, so that left you and Gil and Honey and her?”

    “And the kids. Phil put the TV on but they were all yawning their heads off, so I thought I’d better go, and then Gil admitted they’d all been up since dawn, so she decided they’d better all have an early night.”

    George’s shoulders shook. “They teach ’em tactics in the British Army!”

    “Yeah. Well, he’s not all bad. Anyway, she’s going home on Boxing Day, got stuff to do before her and a mate push off to Tazzie for a couple of weeks, so it it’ll be a short agony.”

    “Right. And we’ve gotta get through her idea of a merry Christmas anyway, so it’s not gonna make much diff’, is it?” said Susan’s brother sourly.

    “No. Why are you up so early, anyway?”

    “Had these vague thoughts of getting out of it on the boat, only on mature consideration, I don’t need the aggro. Why are you?”

    “Ditto and ditto, ” Pete admitted.

    “Yeah.”

    A glum silence fell…

    “There is one point,” said George.

    “Yeah?” replied Pete dully.

    George’s nice brown eyes twinkled. “David’s promised me a copy of the Christmas CD!”

    “Carols from Kings,” replied Pete, looking sick.

    “No! Whaddare ya, mate? No, this is the real Chrissie CD. Five thousand ancient Elvis songs, the genuine article, before you start, not digitally enhanced with the balance up the Khyber and amazing effects in the background what the King never knew were there. Got the original Blue Christmas plus,”—his eyes shone—“Ah’m Dreaming of a Whay-ut Christmas, Nashville style!”

    “Hah, fucking hah,” replied Pete sourly.

    “No! Honest! He’s got mates in the music industry, they dredged them up for him—originally the collection was for Dot’s Uncle Jim, he’s a fan, ya see, only her Aunty Kate won’t let him play his Elvis stuff in the house. David made a few copies while he was at it.”

    Pete smiled reluctantly. “Sounds all right.”

    “More than all right! She hates the King!” he hissed.

    “Oh, boy,” said Pete feebly.

    “Yep! Well, she’ll get her revenge, ’cos we’ve all gotta go over to the B&B on Boxing Day in our nice frocks for a lovely classical music concert.”

    “If this concert includes Antigone Walsingham Corrant singing, I’d actually wear a nice frock for the privilege!” replied Pete with some feeling.

    “Ssh! You’ll wake the Sleeping Beauty! Well, yeah, if you’re into classical music she’s pretty good, or so they tell me, but the B&B’s full of the usual lot of genteel wrinklies. The sort that have heard of her, whilst never having heard of him, of course, that the experts tell me actually is your genuine musical genius. It’s like… I can’t describe it, really,” concluded George glumly, “only ya feel you’re drowning in it, mate.”

    “Right. Thanks for the warning.”

    “I’ll give you another one, if ya like: I skipped it last year and I still haven’t heard the last of it.” George got up. “Come on, let’s creep round the back and make some coffee and go for a bit of a walk, it might help to save our sanity.”

    They did that. The morning was lovely and fresh and the view above the creek over to the great ranks of blue hills off in the distance certainly made a bloke feel saner. George and Pete just sat there letting it soak into their pores for ages…

    “Hullo,” said George in mild surprise as Bernie Anderson emerged from the scrub and came to sit beside them. “Wouldn’t of thought you’d feel the need to escape, mate.”

    “Not from Ann, you clot! No, letting her have a sleep-in before the madness begins. Tomorrow’ll be unspeakable: Bob always insists we join them at the B&B for a jolly Christmas dinner, ho, ho, ho, with his genteel guests. Well, we are his business partners, can’t leave the poor bugger to face it on his own, wouldn’t be fair! Dot really loathes it, so David’s decided they’re just going to have a quiet dinner at home—well, young family, why the Hell wouldn’t they want to have their Christmas to themselves? He’ll make sure everything’s hunky-dory at the B&B, of course, and then nip home. But Ann and I will have to be on hand from about elevenish, all spruced up in our best, handing trays of nibbles and glasses of merry muck.”

    “Sounds bad,” conceded Pete kindly.

    Bernie sighed. “Yeah. There is one bright point, though.”

    “Yes, George was saying Nefertite’s going to sing on Boxing Day!”

    “Well, that, too! No, we’ve instituted a pre-Christmas get-together at which we manage to get rather drunk,” said Bernie with a grin. “Feel like coming over for it? Any time this evening—well, any time from five o’clock onwards, really: that’s when we shut the craft centre’s doors for two whole blissful days. If you come early it’ll be cold ham with sliced tomatoes and a bit of lettuce, washed down with something sparkling because by then Ann’ll need it, and if you come later it’ll be Christmas cake and mince pies, washed down with anything you fancy.”

    “We’ll come if she’ll let us: thanks, Bernie,” agreed George, grinning.

    “Thanks, Bernie. This what you did last year, was it?” asked Pete.

    “Oh, Hell, yes, Pete!”

    “That part wasn’t bad at all,” admitted George.

    “What you remember of it? No!” agreed Bernie with a laugh.

    “The rest was putrid. Well, my bits were. Gil and his lot managed to have a bloody good time.”

    “Sorry!” said another voice with a laugh in it, and Ted emerged from the scrub, grinning.

    “Is this a Christmas tradition?” asked Pete weakly.

    Ted sat down with them. “No, pure coincidence. Had a strong feeling that our kitchen was about to be very full of Sal Remington. Don’t tell me I’m a coward, I know it.”

    “That makes three of us,” admitted George. “We are gonna go back, only not just yet.”

    “Me, too.” Ted stared out at the hills and sighed. “Last Christmas wasn’t bad at all, really,” he admitted.

    “What ya mean is, now you appreciate it!” retorted George smartly.

    “Right… That was a nice evening at your place, Bernie.”

    Bernie agreed, and a ruminative silence fell on the bank above the creek…

    “So, did Nefertite give a concert on Boxing Day last year?” asked Pete cautiously.

    “She certainly did, Pete!” replied Ted with a laugh. “It was lovely! Even Jack seemed to enjoy it.”

    “Well, yeah,” George agreed. “Wouldn’t of thought it was his bag, at all. Doesn’t give much away, mind you, but I got the impression he enjoyed it, yeah. Well, uh, Jack’s a tit-man, ya know.” He paused to let the obligatory sniggers die away. “But I think he genuinely did like the music. Um, well, he said something really peculiar to me about better than the maggies, but it was definitely supposed to be a compliment.”

    Bernie smiled a little. “Haven’t you ever listened to the maggies, George? I mean stopped and listened?”

    “No,” he said blankly.

    “Cloth ears,” Pete explained with a sigh.

    “That lovely liquid gurgle. Not all that different from a good female operatic voice,” said Bernie mildly.

    “They’re flaming birds!” George objected, rather flushed.

    “Nevertheless,” replied Bernie tranquilly. “Jack’s got perfect pitch, you know.’

    “Eh? How the fuck can ya tell?”

    “Aside from the fact that I’ve heard him whistling Voi che sapete, note-perfect, having heard it once on David’s radio when he was helping him in the garden?”

    “That’d be enough, actually,” admitted Ted.

    “Mm,” Bernie agreed drily.

    “Okay, if you say so. Now tell me he’d know an ‘operatic voice’ if ’e fell over it,” said George on a sour note.

    “No, but if you told him it was, he’d know in future.”

    George got up, sighing. “Fascinating, Bernie. –Come on, Pete, lambs to the slaughter. And I know I might of said your stuffing sounded better than hers, only please don’t—”

    “No,” said Pete kindly.

    “We might see ya this evening, if we live that long,” said George morosely to the others, heading off into the scrub..

    “Won’t tomorrow be even worse than today?” offered Ted feebly after a few moments.

    “What, with George’s sister in the house?” replied Bernie. “Almost undoubtedly. Come over to the B&B with us, instead, Ted: Bob’s OAPs’ll ply you with globby Christmas eggnog and tell you how much they’re looking forward to Nefertite’s concert, in the intervals of turning on the TV to see if the bloody ABC’s broadcasting Carols from K—”

    “Knock it off.”

    Bernie knocked it off, and scrambled up. “I’d better go, Ann’ll be wondering if I've been kidnapped.”

    “By an OAP with a fistful of globby eggnog—yeah.” Ted got up but then just stood there, glowering at the view.

    “Um, Ted,” said Bernie very cautiously indeed—he’d got to know Ted reasonably well over the past year, but he wasn’t the sort to sob his little heart out on your shoulder—“you’re not regretting coming out to Australia, are you?”

    Ted shrugged.

    “Um, well, I realise the planning and construction stage of the horse trekking venture is over and it was that side of it that appealed—”

    “Do you?” he said grimly. “You’re about the only one that does!”

    Oh, shit. Bernie chewed on his lip.

    “Gil’s actually looking forward to teaching a load of trippers how to fall off his blasted horses,” said Ted sourly.

    “I know, but that doesn’t mean he won’t understand how you feel, Ted. And I wouldn’t say that there’ll be enough work for both him and Phil, and you and Jack as well.”

    “No. Well, I can clean the tack and Phil’s shown me how to currycomb the creatures, and there’s cleaning the bunkhouse, but it looks as if Phil and Jen are pretty much an item, now, so there’ll be her to help as well… Jack’s thinking of going down to Tasmania with George to work on the next ecolodge project.”

    “Mm. I’m sure he’d be glad to take you on, Ted, but, well, I think you could work at a much higher level, couldn’t you?”

    Ted shrugged. “Manage the site engineering for them? George has already suggested that.”

    “Well, then?” said Bernie kindly.

    “My idea was I’d come out to these parts for a couple of years and drift about a bit… I haven’t made it to the Outback yet. Actually I was thinking of doing some of that temping stuff that Jack did when he was in Sydney. The agency he worked for sounded okay.”

    “It’d be varied,” allowed Bernie.

    “Yeah, the work sounds okay, only the cost of living’s so high in Sydney…”

    “Dot’s and Deanna’s Aunty Allyson’s looking for a boarder,” murmured Bernie.

    This was not the first time the lady in question had been mentioned. “What?” he choked.

    “They’re on one of the suburban train lines, close to a good mall, and she’s a great cook. Solid old-fashioned stuff. Fabulous pineapple—”

    “Pineapple upside-down cake, I’ve heard about it, thanks!” he said loudly.

    “Ted, you’d be out all day, you’d only have to put up with the woman over the dinner table, realistically. You could lurk in your room in the evenings.”

    “She’s the sort that’d pester you with cups of tea or urge you to come and watch something nice on TV. –Nice and English,” he said evilly.

    “Parkinson,” agreed Bernie dreamily.

    “That or fucking Heartbeat, yes! Jesus, I saw some of the first series and said to myself it’s gonna die the death, how many of the telly-punters can possibly believe that a young woman doctor would take up with a country bobby? Never mind the swinging Sixties!”

    “Nowt so quare as fowk,” replied Bernie placidly.

    Ted sighed. “Yeah. Well, I might go down to Tasmania, get a bit in the bank, and then do some temping.”

    “Sounds reasonable,” replied Bernie temperately.

    They walked slowly along the cliff top as far as the faint track that led down to the old Jardine place.

    “The bloody horses’ hooves are gonna turn this into a damned trail, you know,” said Ted sourly.

    “Beaten track—yeah,” agreed Bernie mildly. “Um, look, I know this is none of my damned business, but just in case no-one’s mentioned it to you…”

    “What?”

    “Uh—Deanna mentioned to Ann that that pleasant Jan Martin who was here last year has booked in for this January.”

    “Then she’ll get a shock if Gil’s ditsy bird comes out, won’t she?” returned Ted very sourly indeed.

    Oh, lawks, so Jan Martin was part of the problem? “Is the bird coming?” he managed.

    “No idea. Think he’s had three letters from her this past year. Well, and a Paisley silk scarf for his birthday, back in uh, March, was it? She finished her bloody course but then took up some sort of a fast-track thing—some sort of cuisine, the place is called the Cambridge College of Cuisine.”

    Bernie had to swallow. “Was it in Cambridge?” he croaked.

    “No idea. Well,” he said weakly. “it may be. I suppose it’s not illegal to call oneself—” His eyes met Bernie’s and they both broke down in splutters.

    “We’ve been telling ourselves the course is so as she can help out with the guests’ meals,” Ted then admitted. “The last letter was in, uh, October, I think. He said it sounded as if the money from her grandfather’s estate hadn’t come through, but whether that means she's been hanging on in Britain waiting for it, or finishing this cuisine crap, or—well, God knows.”

    “Has she sent him out anything for Christmas?” croaked Bernie.

    “God knows.”

    Bernie made a face. “Right. But there’s no chance for Jan Martin there?”

    “No,” said Ted, going red. “Never looked twice at her.”

    Bernie took a deep breath. “Then I’d go for it, Ted.”

    “Me? In contrast to him? DSO and all!”

    “Oh, lawks, has he? Well, uh, this is what Ann’d call bloody Pommy garbage about class, Ted,” he murmured.

    “Yeah, but funnily enough the class includes the looks and the charm on his side, and none of the above on mine, doesn’t it? Well, a thousand years of breeding for it?” He shrugged.

    “A thousand?” said Bernie limply.

    Ted made a face. “1066 and all that. Phil told me that his stepmother—you know she’s a Yank? –Yeah; that she discovered they’ve got Plantagenet blood and came over with the Conqueror, two strong reasons for getting her hooks into his ‘Daddy’, we gather. –Don’t let’s discuss it, if you don’t mind, Bernie. I never deluded myself I had a chance, there.”

    Yes, but if he had deluded himself and had made an effort— Bernie swallowed a sigh but said nothing further.

    After he got home and fessed up Ann just said mildly: “You’re a clot, but ya tried.”

    “Mm. Fancy bangers for brekkie before the hordes arrive?”

    “Good idea, then we can just have yoghurt or something for lunch,” she approved.

    “Yoghurt when I have to face the entire complement of the B&B wielding paintbrushes?” he cried.

    “Nothing else for them to do in the arvo, they’ll of done their Chrissie shopping yonks back and posted it well before the cut-off date,” replied Ann calmly. “Well, not sausages twice in one day, Bernie!”

    “No,” he said weakly; he hadn’t actually been proposing that. “Have we got any nice rolls or, well, nice rolls, really?”

    “Nope, the supermarket had run out. Crussonts?”

    “What?” replied Bernie limply.

    “Cruss-sonts,” said Ann clearly. “Dot reckons they’re up-market, and I was gonna have them for Chrissie brekkie, only if ya fancy them for lunch, why not? With sliced cheese and ham like in the fancy coffee shops in town— Why are ya clutching your head?”

    “I thought I was used to the Antipodes,” said Bernie very, very faintly.

    “Nah, takes longer than that, mate. You gotta learn when to say ‘youse’, first. Well?”

    “Very well, let it be croissants with ham and cheese!” he said wildly. “I do beg your pardon: cruss-sonts.”

    “Righto. –Hey, I’ve worked it out,” said Ann slowly.

    “Mm?” replied Bernie, hoping that “it” wasn’t related to his mocking of her perfectly valid dialectal pronunc—

    “The rolls will’ve disappeared because all the dames for miles around will’ve latched onto the idea that it’s up-market to put a roll on yer side plate for Chrissie din-dins!” beamed Ann.

    Alas, Bernie Anderson at this collapsed in helpless hysterics.

    “Well, they will,” she said placidly.

    “Yes! Of course they will! Thank God you’re not one of those dames! Come here and give me a big Chrissie kiss!”

    Obligingly Ann did that.

    Susan was up and dressed when Pete and George got back—did anyone think she wouldn't be? “We’ll need more cutlery,” she said without preamble.

    “Um, what happened to that giant silver set that we all gave Mum and Dad for their twenty-fifth—”

    “Janice has got it!” she snapped.

    George subsided.

    Pete cleared his throat. “I could try the hardware place in Barrabarra. It’ll only be cheap stainless steel stuff, mind.”

    “That old idiot, George Kelly?” she snapped.

    Pete looked helplessly at George.

    “Um, well, he might stock it, Susan.”

    “Don’t suggest going down there on the off-chance, George: ring him first!”

    Okay, he would. George subsided again, though not without a glance at his watch and a wince.

    “There are things to do,” said Susan evilly in response to the glance and the wince.

    “Yeah,” he muttered.

    “First,” she said grimly, just as Pete was opening his mouth to ask if there was anything he could do, “you can both have a proper breakfast.”

    Okay, they would.

    It was muesli, of course, but Pete usually had muesli anyway, he didn’t mind. George refused point-blank to have prunes on his as well as sliced banana, but all concerned recognised this was only a token protest—a last flicker of dying manhood, as it were—and he was allowed to get away with it. Andy created a slight diversion by coming in, inspecting the mug of healthful decaffeinated coffee with non-fat milk that she’d poured for him and tipping it into the sink, but after he’d made himself a pot of tea he sat down meekly enough and let her put a plate of healthful wholegrain toast spread with low-cholesterol marg and Vegemite in front of him. George and Pete were allowed the choice of Vegemite or raw sliced tomato on theirs, astonishingly enough. George rejected the tomato with a wince but Pete joined Susan in it. She didn’t let him have salt, of course, but a sprinkle of ground kelp with a sprinkle of pepper wasn’t too bad. Well, you could taste the pepper.

    “What does that grey muck taste like?” asked George in a lowered voice as Susan, having briskly finished her portion, bustled out to inspect the contents of the sideboard in the dining-room.

    “Mould?” suggested Andy sardonically.

    “Nothing, actually,” reported Pete thoughtfully. “It is full of iodine, though—very good for you.”

    Cautiously George sprinkled a bit on his hand and licked it off.

    “Aren’t you afraid of going mouldy?” asked his father sardonically.

    “Yeah. –You’re right, Pete, doesn’t taste of anything,” he agreed.

    “Uh-huh. Um, is there anything in the sideboard?” he hissed.

    George looked cautiously at his father.

    “Dunno; haven’t opened it since his mother died and I sold the house in town,” Andy explained. Pete tried to smile, and failed. “Right,” acknowledged Andy sardonically.

    They didn’t have long to wait.

    “Dad! Where’s all the china?”

    “Your sister’s got most of it.”

    “I know she’s got Mum’s good Royal Doulton set”—Pete winced, he hadn't been expecting it to be quite that bad—“but where’s the willow pattern?”

    “Last I saw of it, it was in that sideboard. That was when your mum was still alive, before you start.”

    “You’re hopeless, Dad! It can’t just have vanished!”

    “Um… Well, I gave the tea-set to your Cluny.”

    “I know that, Dad!” she screeched. “Not the tea-set! The second-best dinner-set!”

    “It had vegetable dishes and everything,” George explained glumly to Pete. “Not that ya want vegetable dishes—nevertheless.”

    “Aw, yeah,” Andy remembered, “and a soup tureen. Gave that to your Stacy, that’s right.”

    Stacy’s father’s jaw sagged. “Why?”

    “She liked it. Said she might put a plant in it. The lid was busted anyway, the knob came off it.”

    “Well, what’s happened to the rest of it?” said Susan loudly and angrily.

    “Dunno. Must of chucked it out… Don’t remember that, though. No, well, ya could give Jack a bell”—Pete and George goggled at him in frozen horror—“and ask him if ’e remembers if there was any china in it when he moved it when he relined that room.”

    Susan’s mouth tightened. She marched over to the phone. As was the custom with dwellings of its vintage, this convenience had been handily placed in the front passage equidistant from any place in the house where you might be likely to be with the intervening doors closed when it rang, but Jack had bought a long extension cord and put an extension in the kitchen, since that was where the old man usually sat during the day if Susan wasn’t infesting it. Where the second phone itself had been acquired from was not clear.

    “Good morning. That is Jardine Holiday Horse Treks, is it? –I see. How nice to speak to you, Sal.”—George and Pete exchanged glances of frozen horror but didn’t dare to utter.—“This is Susan Pendleton; their neighbour Andy MacMurray is my father. …Goodness, it’s no trouble, you’re very welcome, Sal! –Of course, that would be lovely! Around two? –Lovely! But only if you and Honey aren’t needed there, of course! Actually I was wondering if I could speak to Jack Jackson? –It is rather urgent, yes, I think he may have packed away all of my father’s good china when he was working on the dining-room here. –Yes, I will wait: thank you so much, Sal.”

    A certain interval ensued. Susan whiled it away by glaring at George and Pete, and they whiled it away by staring glumly at the table. Andy insouciantly poured himself a mug of stewed tea, though, true, he avoided her eye as he did it.

    Anybody who might have thought Jack would have the right answer and it would all be hunky-dory was wrong.

    “What?” she gasped. She rounded on her father. “He says you told him to give it to the Scouts for their bring and buy!”

    “Scouts? What Scouts?” croaked George.

    “Barrabarra. Steve Macdonald’s boys belong. Uh—aw, yeah, might of done,” Andy recalled hazily.

    “The good serving dishes as well?” she choked.

    “Well, Hell, Susan, I don’t need a cupboardful of china! Um—well, yeah, if Jack reckons that’s what happened to it, that’s what happened to it.”

    Susan spoke sharply to Jack but the answer was clearly a lemon. “Very well, you merely did what Dad told you, let’s leave it at that. –What? Don’t you dare to wish me merry Christmas, Jack Jackson, we’ve got seven guests coming for Christmas dinner tomorrow, plus the four of us, and no china!” she screeched.

    The phone quacked agitatedly in response, what time George and Pete sedulously avoided everyone’s eyes and Andy stared thoughtfully out of the window.

    “Plastic?” she said sharply. “I really don’t think—”

    The phone interrupted her. Pete and George glanced at each other in frozen horror and then quickly looked away again.

    “Very well, Jack, if Gil agrees. –Don’t be ridiculous, nobody said anything about joined at the hip! –Yes. All right. Thank you,” she said in a strangled voice. “Goodbye.”

    She hung up.

    Andy eyed the next generation sardonically but the pair of yellow-bellied cowards just stared at the table. “Go on, what’s ’e suggested?” he drawled.

    “Jardine Holiday Horse Treks will lend us their bunkhouse plates,” she said stiffly.

    “Sounds all right.”

    “They’re plastic!” she wailed, bursting into tears and rushing out of the room.

    There was a short silence. Andy sucked his teeth. George and Pete stared at the table.

    “That’s about as good as it’s gonna get,” concluded the old man. He got up. “I’ll be outside, I won’t say if anyone wants, me, ’cos ya won’t want me, geddit?”

    “Yeah,” they agreed weakly.

    Andy went out. George and Pete looked at each other limply. Finally George decided: “Think I’ll have a piece of toast and marmalade. There’s only her gritty bread, but the marmalade’s okay, it’s some of David’s—homemade. Sweet orange, he still can’t get over how cheap navels are here. Want some?”

    “Um, yeah, actually, I wouldn’t mind,” conceded Pete weakly.

    “’Nother coffee? Genuine instant?”

    “Thanks, George, I think we’ll need the caffeine,” conceded Pete weakly.

    The phone rang just as the first mouthfuls were approaching the gob.

    “Yeah gidday, Gil. …Thanks,” agreed George feebly. “Very decent of you. Um, but you’ve got people coming early, haven’t you? Won’t they need— For two dozen, eh?” he said weakly. “Yeah, that will be enough to go round. …Um, cutlery? Well, uh, yeah, actually: there is a shortage on that front, ’cos see, me sister Janice got down on Mum’s good set— Well, yeah, thanks, that’s great. –Um, well, ya can speak to ’er if ya like, Gil, but I oughta warn you she’s bawling. –Um, well, the plastic bit. Um, and possibly having to accept the offer from Jack,” he admitted, clearing his throat. He gave Pete an agonised look but he merely ate toast and marmalade stolidly. “Hang on, Gil, I’ll get her.” He laid the receiver down.

    “Personally I’d tell ’im she’ll ring ’im back,” noted Pete, swallowing. “Then I’d speak to ’er after I’d eaten me toast and marm—”

    “That’s because you know nothing whatsoever about women!” George went out. Pete looked puzzled but finished his toast and marmalade. On second thoughts he started in on George’s slice, as well.

    Susan marched in looking grim and red-eyed. She picked up the receiver. “Are you there, Gil? This is Susan. It’s very kind of you to lend us your crockery, but are you sure you can spare so much?”

    That was about it, really, because then Gil clearly poured oil and she ended up all smiles, cooing at him. She hung up, thanking him so much, and rounded on her brother. “Get on with those dishes! I need the sink cleared!”

    George had sat down and was looking in a wounded way at his empty plate. He stumbled up and began collecting up sticky plates and mugs, not pointing out that that had been his piece of toast and marmalade that had just disappeared down Pete’s throat.

    “I won’t ask what you were eating,” said Susan nastily to Pete. “Don’t you think we’ll be having enough refined sugar over the next few days?”

    Unfortunately the pause that followed this enquiry indicated it hadn't been rhetorical after all. “Um, yeah,” he muttered.

    “That’s that marmalade of David’s. It is very sweet,” put in George, looking virtuous.

    Ignoring this, Susan announced: “Gil’s sending Phil over with the plates and their spare cutlery. It’ll all need to be washed, so you two can do that.”

    “It’ll be cle—I never spoke!” said George hurriedly.

    Ignoring this, Susan snapped: “Where’s Dad gone?”

    “Outside, and leave him alone. Didja have to go on about Mum’s silver and stuff?”

    Susan gave an indignant gasp. “Me? I never mentioned the silver!”

    “Actually it was you that specifically mentioned that, George,” said Pete in an apologetic tone which failed to disguise from George that this was a hit in return for the marmalade hit.

    “Arse-licker,” he retorted sourly.

    “Don’t use that language, thank you!” said his sister sharply.

    “Well, what are you gonna do, Susan?” said George very, very weakly as she marched over to the passage door.

    “Vacuum the sitting-room and the dining-room.”

    “Susan, I can do that!” said Pete quickly.

    “Can’t any of you men understand the simplest instruction? Get on with those dishes!” she snarled, marching out.

    George cleared his throat.

    “Shut up. Get on with those dishes,” said Pete with a sigh.

    “Yeah. I was only gonna say, from this end it sounded like an order, not an instruction. –Now what are ya doing?”

    “Wiping the table,” said Pete meekly.

    “Aw. Right.” George filled the sink with his usual amount of far too much hot water and squirted his usual amount of far too much detergent into it.

    “Hey,” he said thoughtfully once Pete had been told to leave that mug, it was a leaner, and was meekly drying the assorted bread and butter plates, two clearly from a two-person set of cup, saucer and plate, of which Andy still had one cup as well as both saucers and the plates—fawn and a sicky, almost powder blue—one very heavy white thing bearing a small coat of arms which included the microscopic legend “Royal Hotel Ballarat”—Andy had never been to Ballarat and had no idea how the plate had been acquired—and one dainty white bone china, decorated with a huge pink rose and which Susan had naturally appropriated to her use, though noting crossly than this must have been a good plate, once. Pete now had a sneaky look at its bottom but to his huge relief it was not old Royal Doulton but Royal Albert.

    “Um, yeah, what?” he said, hurriedly putting the plate in the cupboard.

    “Gil musta poured oil, eh?”

    “What? Oh—too right! Well, okay, he can handle women as well as men,” Pete allowed.

    “Yep! Pity we can’t sort of keep ’im in the cupboard, trot ’im out at need, eh?”

    “Like, um, give ’er a dose?”

    “Yeah.”

    Pete broke down in splutters.

    “Yeah,” agreed George, grinning. “Didn’t she vacuum those rooms just the other day?”

    “Yes. This’ll be a Christmas vacuuming, George,” he sighed.

    “Right. Well, uh, that’s it,” he admitted, letting the water out. “We could probably scrape up eleven plates, ya know, if we tried.”

    “Eh?”

    “They wouldn’t all be dinner plates,” George allowed.

    “No, and they wouldn’t all be china, either! Those bloody enamel things of his must be older than I am!”

    “Uh—well, they’ve been here as long as I can remember, yeah, and it belonged to me granddad, originally, so, um, yeah.”

    “What the Hell did they do up here?” asked Pete idly, leaning against the bench.

    “Uh… Gran did a lot of knitting, grew a few veggies… Dad reckons me Aunty Sue used to play tennis, that flattish bit out the back was a tennis court in the bye and bye. I can remember the old net still being there but nobody ever played on it during my lifetime. Granddad never did anything but sit and smoke, to my knowledge. Well, drove the family up here in the good old Ford—then later on he had a Humber, that’s right. More than enough effort, the roads were shocking in those days.”

    “So they only used it as a weekender?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Um, so was your grandfather a wharfie?” asked Pete cautiously.

    “Eh? No, what gave ya that idea?”

    “Well, mainly Andy’s tales of the great Waterfront Strike.”

    “Aw, that! Nah, Dad was a red-flag-waving pinko, all right, but ’e never actually worked on the wharves, and Granddad was in the public service and voted Liberal all ’is days.”

    “Ugh, for the fucking Menzies government?’

    “Yeah. Went spare when Dad turned Commie, but evidently Gran just told the pair of them she wasn’t having any politics in the house!” he said with a laugh. “So they used to argue on the verandah or down the pub—here or back in Sydney, according. Dad was living at home when he came back from the War: Hellish housing shortage back then, ya see. He was only young, anyway. Got called up in 1943, when he turned eighteen.”

    “I see,” said Pete with a sigh. “Jesus, our generation’s had it easy, George.”

    “Too right…”

    They leaned on the bench, gazing ruminatively into space…

    “What do you two think you’re doing? There’s work to be done!”

    Blinking, the two philosophers came to and agreed there was and what did she want them to do next?

    “Hullo,” said Dot in surprise, looking at the empty spaces of the Jardine kitchen, which at the moment contained Gil and a beer. “Where are they all?”

    “Sal and Honey have been dragooned into helping Susan Pendleton make five million mince pies, and poor little Jen went with them out of a muddled sense of female solidarity, or possibly in the hope that she’d stop her mother from trying to talk Susan into a small amount of red icing on top of each, topped with a small decoration of silver cachous, in place of the more traditional sprinkling of icing sugar. Want more? –No. Hullo, Rose!” he beamed as Dot set the little girl down and she tottered over to him. “Gonna come to Uncle Gil?”

    “I wanna stand UP!” she shouted.

    Wincing, Gil conceded: “Okay, Terrible Twos, you can stand up.”

    “I’m NOT TERR’BLE!” she shouted.

    “You did ask for that,” noted Dot, grinning. “The blokes got out of it ten hours back, did they?”

    “More or less. Well, poor Phil had to take one of our plastic dinner sets over to Susan—and thereby does hang a tale, yes!” he said with a laugh as Dot’s jaw dropped. “Then Jack dragooned them into getting that bloody awning over the barbecue area fixed in place for all eternity, or at least until the sun dwindles into a red dwarf.”

    “Right. –Thought it was a patio,” said Dot, sitting down companionably beside him.

    “I stand corrected. Patio. –I’ll never remember to call it that; I’ve always been under the impression that a patio had to be attached to a house,” he said plaintively.

    “Funny bugger,” replied Dot calmly.

    Gil smiled. “Fancy a beer?”

    “Yeah, love one. –Thanks.” she said as he fetched her a bottle from the fridge and courteously opened it for her. “So wouldn’t they let you help?”

    “No,” said Gil sadly. “Entailed reaching up, or—I dunno, breathing, I think. Anyway, the awning got done and we had lunch. Then Ted remembered that the bunkhouse would need some beds made up, so they went off to do that and, um, was it put out towels and soap? Think so. Then he realised that we didn’t have the fire extinguisher our risk management plan said did oughta be sitting in there next to the guests’ electric kettles and toasters, so they piled into the ute and rushed down to Barrabarra Hardware for that. The reason I wasn’t included relates to chains of command and the dictates of the male peer group, but possibly you can’t— Yes, you can!” he conceded, as Dot was grinning and nodding. “When they got back, as everything else seemed to be done Phil got them onto a couple of the quieter nags and led them off to post the pokerworked signposts Deanna made for us all along the trails.”

    “Couldn’t you of gone, too?”

    “No: by that time Sal was whipping us up a batch of something special for Christmas. It entailed masherated biscuits and, um, I think cocoa as well as chocolate, and, um, squashing stuff into pie tins. I was allowed to chop up some marshmallows into small cubes for it but I can’t honestly tell you what it is, Dot.”

    “Be a slice,” said Dot, grinning at him. “Rocky Road, maybe. Comes as sweets, too. But the slice is real easy, even Mum can make it. Didn’t entail fluff in a ruddy double boiler and whipping the muck till yer arm falls off, did it?”

    “No, nothing like that! Uh, think something was melted, possibly the chocolate, but definitely no fluff.”

    “Right: Rocky Road, then. The fluffy one’s gorgeous, mind you—one of Aunty Allyson’s. Pale green, ya think its gonna be lime, see, and then it turns out to be peppermint!”

    “Ri-ight. This a slice, too, Dot?”

    “Yep!” she said happily.

    “It’s a different world,” he muttered dazedly.

    “’Tis if ya can’t cook, too right,” she agreed comfortably.

    “No, Dot, I don’t think we even have slices, back in Blighty!”

    “Thought they were universal.”

    “I don’t think so. Sal’s turned out pink and brown,” he fumbled.

    “Uh-huh. Put them glacé cherries in it, did she?”

    “Yes, Honey was allowed to chop those.”

    “Rocky Road,” confirmed Dot, nodding.

    “Rocky ROAD!” shouted Rose.

    “Yeah, Gramma makes that, eh?”

    “Rocky ROAD!”

    “No Rocky Road today, it’s nearly Christmas. You can have one of Daddy's special little mince pies for tea tonight,” said Dot comfortably.

    “Rocky Roa’,” she muttered. “Can I’ve a d’ink, Gil?” she asked plaintively.

    Dot watched drily as the male sucker’s heart very evidently completely melted and he offered Rose her choice of what was in their fridge. Naturally she chose beer but after a certain amount of expostulation on Gil’s part she was allowed a taste of her mother’s, Dot explaining calmly that they grew out of the taste for it, and then a glass of real juice.

    “Real juishe!” she gasped over it, making an awful face.

    “Rose, darling, if you don’t like it—”said Gil anxiously.

    “Nah, I like it!” she lied valiantly.

    “That pineapple?” asked her mother on a tolerant note. “She usually has orange, at home.”

    Gil looked at her in dismay. “Omigod, Dot, it’s too acid for her, isn’t it?”

    “Well, she’s getting it down her. Might give ’er the runs, but given the muck David gives her, I’d doubt it,” she said dispassionately.

    “Daddy’s at the B’n’B!” she gasped.

    “Yes, that’s right, darling,” agreed Gil. “He’s working very hard, isn’t he?’

    “Big chook,” she said vaguely.

    “She means the turkey. Hadda bung it in our fridge, the B&B’s are full of other crap. –Yeah, the turkey’s like a big chook, isn’t it, Rose? Daddy’s gonna cook it tomorrow.”

    “It’s fascinating how her mind makes connections, but she’s not quite up to having a connected conversation yet,” discovered Gil.

    “Something like that. She’s bloody rational in her way: doesn’t bother to express inessentials.”

    Rose finished her juice, gasping for breath. “Can I’ve a look at your tree, Gil?”

    Gil looked helplessly at Dot.

    “Christmas tree.”

    “But we haven’t got one this year!” he gasped, as Rose staggered determinedly over to the passage door.

    “Yes, ya have, we saw Jack and them coming back with it.”

    “What? When was this?”

    “Just now. Before lunch. Well, before ours, mighta been after yours. It was in the back of the ute,” she clarified.

    “Circumstan—Oh, Hell!” he gulped as there came a wail of: “No TREE-EE!” He leapt up and bolted for the sitting-room.

    Rose was standing in the doorway gaping at the scene of neatly-made stretcher beds, pile of presents in a corner, and absence of tree, tears rolling down her cheeks. “No TREE-EE!” she wailed.

    “No—don’t cry, Rosy-Posy!” he gasped, scooping her up. “Did you see the tree in Phil’s ute?”

    “Tree!” sobbed Rose against his shoulder.

    Gil looked at Dot in dismay. “Where in Hades can the morons have left it?”

    “Well, it’s not in the ute now. Pine needles galore, but no actual T,R,E,E. –Don’t cry, Rose!” she said loudly. “We’ll find it!”

    Light belatedly dawned in Gil’s dim bachelor mind. “Oh, Christ, is that why you came over, Dot?”

    “Yeah: saw it in the back of the ute, she got all excited, and so I hadda promise we’d come over and see it. Well, nothing else to do, David’s been over at the B&B since seven-thirty, and Nefertite’s practising scales and gargling. Maybe I oughta be making five million mince pies, but the kitchen’s quite hot enough by itself in this weather, without that sort of crappola! Um, try the bunkhouse?”

    “Yes,” agreed Gil, patting Rose’s back. “There, there, darling, we’ll find the tree! –Shit, I suppose it is for us, not for Susan?” he said to Dot.

    She shrugged. “Dunno. These early guests of yours, they got kids?”

    “Oh, of course! The bloody Grovers! Honey was upset earlier because their kids’ll be away from home for Christmas Day! That’ll be it! Come on!”

    And off they went to the bunkhouse.

    “TREE-EE!” screeched Rose joyfully.

    Gil sagged. So it was. It didn’t have any ornaments on it, but it was standing upright in a corner of the guests’ sitting-dining room and that seemed to be sufficient, to the uncritical two-year-old mind. He set her down carefully and she staggered over to it and just looked up at it.

    “Um—” Gil took another look at her absorbed little face. “No,” he decided.

    “Only T,W,O,” Dot reminded him, grinning.

    “Yes. Uh—well, the ornaments are here,” he discovered, inspecting the boxes and bags on the dining tables.

    Dot’s big blue eyes shone.

    Her round, pink-cheeked face looked so like Rose’s smaller, pink-cheeked face— Gil had been intending to put in some quiet work on the accounts this afternoon—adding up what they’d spent, quite. He thought very much better of it. “Like to help decorate it?”

    “Ooh, yeah!” she beamed.

    “Come on, then!” he said with a laugh. “Come on, Rose, darling, we’re going to put lovely, shiny ornaments on the tree, and you can help!”

    “Tree!” she beamed.

    Exactly. Tree. Gil gave a great sigh. Never mind whether the horse treks made money or not, and never mind if Rosemary didn’t come out at all or came out and hated it, it was worth it and he’d stick it out, because Honey and Phil both needed him, and there were adorable Dot and the completely irresistible Rose, and lovely Ann, not to mention darling innocent, earnest little Jen, and—well. It was a Helluva lot better to be doing something that kept you busy and with people who needed you and whom you really liked, than—than not!

    “Ma’ritash,” explained Ann drunkenly. “Shome peo’le like ’em.”

    Susan was seen to blench. “Er—yes. Thank you, Ann, just a small one.”

    “Keep that muck away from me, I’ll have a beer!” said George jovially.

    “Yeah, me, too, thanks,” agreed Pete.

    “You can look,” said Ann, peering at them drunkenly, “but I think we’ve run out of chilled ones.”

    “We can always nip home and get some of ours,” said Phil kindly, as George and Pete were seen to blench.

    “Don’t bother, Phil, we’re not staying long,” said Susan firmly just as George and Pete were opening their mouths gratefully.

    George and Pete subsided. Andy, who had come in silently, nodded silently at the company and sat down silently, didn’t actually subside, but than he hadn’t looked all that up anyway. Quickly Gil got up and handed him a whisky.

    “Thanks. Mud in yer eye,” he grunted, taking a swallow. “Where’s Bernie?”

    “Feeding the chooks; Ann forgot to, earlier.”

    “Right,” he grunted.

    As Sal wasn’t staying long either, but unlike Susan didn’t manage to drag her lot away with her, though she did, at Gil’s urging, take the four-wheel-drive, after a while that left Gil, Honey, Phil, Jen, Jack and Ted, plus the Andersons.

    “Now the party can really begin!” beamed Ann. “Hang on!” She delved in the freezer. “Not mince pies,” she explained, producing a tray of small pies. “Party pies.”

    “Ooh, yum!” cried Honey, brightening.

    Bernie, who hadn’t spoken for some time, was delving in a cupboard. “Ah! With tomato sauce!” he beamed, waving a bottle of it.

    And when Ann had told him to turn the fan-forcing on to hurry the bloody oven up a bit and it had been on for at least five minutes, the party pies were bunged in. And after a few more drinks and several packets of crisps that Ann had been saving—or to be strictly accurate, several people reflected, hiding—they had them, steaming hot.

    “I see! Little meat pies!” discovered Gil.

    “Yeah. Well, Pete’d probably tell ya they were TVP—textured vegetable protein, made from soybeans, mostly, I think,” said Jack on a tolerant note, “but yeah. Don’t think I’ve heard ’em actually called party pies, but that’s what they are.”

    “Yeah. Grab another before they all vanish, Gil,” advised Bernie. “You might as well shove that other packet in the oven, Ann.”

    Amiably Ann got a packet out of the freezer. Ooh, yes, it said “Party Pies” on it! “They only had those mingy sossie rolls down the supermarket, eh, Bernie, so we didn’t bother.”

    “Right,” agreed Bernie comfortably. “Anybody for another beer?”

    “Run out of the cold stuff,” Ted remained him kindly.

    “Oh, yes. Nice cup of tea?”

    “That’d be lovely!” beamed Honey.

    So they ended the evening—or rather, started Christmas Day—with nice cups of tea and more genuine party pies with tomato sauce. True, Bernie did then offer to put on a lovely CD of Carols from Kings but as Ann immediately offered to choke him with it, didn't.

    “I dunno what it is, Gil,” she said thoughtfully, showing him out the front way, “because I know they’re supposed to be real music, but I just can’t stand Carols from Kings! I mean, they’re sort of… mournful,” she ended on a note of numbed wonderment.

    “Exactly, Ann! Never got the point that Christmas is meant to be merry: it’s the Anglican syndrome!” replied Gil with a laugh. “I say, since I’ve been a very, very good boy and not put up any ’uge awnings or lifted anything heavier than a Christmas tree bauble, or even breathed, could I possibly give you a weeny Christmas Day kiss?”

    “Eh? ’Course ya can, ya nana!” said Ann cheerfully, proffering her cheek.

    “Merry Christmas, Ann, and thank you for—well, just for being you!” said Gil with a smile, kissing the cheek softly.

    “Um, thanks,” said Ann blankly. “Merry Christmas, Gil.”

    Smiling, Gil went down the decorative steps of Springer House Art & Crafts Centre and, since the macho men seemed to be walking home, headed for the drive— Not.

    “Get in, Uncle Gil! You’re not going to walk all the way back!”

    “It’s no distance, you idiot, and I’ve been eating and drinking all day and with more of it tomorrow, or rather, later today— Oh, very well,” he said as Jen joined her orders to Phil’s, “but I’ll get fat!”

    Nobody was listening, of course, and Honey squished up against Phil and Jen got out of the ute and ordered Gil to get in—but then that left her— No, she was going to sit on his knee! She weighed about a feather. Gil breathed in the pure scent of herbal shampoo and decided that this afternoon’s decision to stick it out in Australia no matter what had definitely been the right one.

    Christmas Day under first Sal Remington’s and then Susan Pendleton’s aegis of course did its best to change his mind, but Gil held out stoutly. It was, after all, a relatively short agony. And the Grovers turned out to be not so bad at all, and humbly grateful to be there paying them for two extra days and thrilled with the tree. Well, the kids, at twelve and fourteen, didn’t allow themselves to appear thrilled, but they pretty obviously were: they immediately put all their presents, which were still wrapped, underneath it before solemnly sitting down to open them. With, even though Anita admitted they’d been drinking Coke all morning, huge glassfuls of cold Coke from the bunkhouse fridge. Anita was overcome to discover half a cold ham in there for them but Honey explained kindly that they’d had lots of extra food.

    True, Christmas was slightly marred by the fact that, though Rosemary had sent him a card in good time, this year there was no brightly wrapped parcel. Oh, well: the card said: “PS. Have to spend Xmas at home but will see you soon, XXX x 100 million”. Fingers crossed. And tomorrow evening there’d be the treat of hearing Nefertite sing. But meantime, the human spirit could only take so much. Thanking Susan firmly for the delightful day, Gil slung his ’ook. Jack, not entirely to his surprise, seized the opportunity to copy him. Though Ted, oddly enough, seemed quite content to stay, in fact, oddly enough, he seemed to quite like the woman.

    “Go the back way, eh?” grunted Jack as they breathed in lungfuls of warm, Susan-less Australian air.

    “Absolutely, Jack!”

    They did that. There was no need to mention that that had been a very merry Christmas, because they were both perfectly well aware that they shared them sentiments.

Next chapter:

https://theroadtobluegums.blogspot.com/2022/11/aftermath.html