Construction, Careers And Candidates

8

Construction, Careers And Candidates

    As the weather warmed both the B&B and the restaurant were getting busier, and David’s Mondays off were already a thing of the past. Bob Springer was going around with a continual smirk on his face like the cat that had got at the cream: not because of his business’s increased custom, but because Gil’s English mate’s bosses had paid him megabucks for an unused chunk of his property to build an unlikely ecolodge on. True, it would have a great view: the bit he’d sold was the entire end of the promontory that looked down Potters Inlet. But would any rich greenies, evidently the envisaged clientèle, ever come? There was nothing to do round here, unless you fancied a trip to the Blue Mountains. Well, you could get there easy enough in a day, sure. But it’d be a twenty-four hour job if you wanted to see much. Not that that, as Bob cheerfully informed all and sundry, was his worry! As to why the top boss in Britain had decided, in his wisdom, that the place was gonna be called “Blue Gums Ecolodge”… Presumably nobody had wised him up to the fact that Tasmanian blue gums were not native to this part of NSW?

    The embryo Blue Gums Ecolodge was, of course, the great subject of conversation in Potters Road. More or less. Depending on the personalities.

    “Dot,” murmured Nefertite over morning coffee, “how long has Gil Sotherland been out here?”

    “Um, a couple of months? It was winter when he came—hang on, it was just before Rose’s birthday, that’s right, ’cos he was here for that. ’Bout four months, then.”

    “I see. He and Phil—isn’t he a sweet boy?—he and Phil were telling me it was Gil who suggested Bob might like to sell a piece of his property to the English hospitality firm his friend is with, but he isn’t working on the ecolodge himself, is he?”

    “Nope. He was pretty shot up in Iraq, ya know: don’t think he’s up for hard yacker.”

    “Yes. And Jack?” she murmured.

    “Um, didn’t we say? Doing site foreman for the ecolodge. The actual construction work hasn’t started, but they’re levelling the site and bringing in materials. He’s not in charge, they wanted someone with project management skills for that. None of their own project managers were free so they’ve taken on Jack’s mate George MacMurray. Dunno if they’ll make him permanent, think this is a trial run. He was down at his dad’s the weekend YDI’s South Pacific rep and their pet architect came over from Auckland to see the site and they all got talking, ya see. George is managing the whole project from go to woe.” She eyed her drily. “See, the architect’s wife, she’s their main South Pacific project manager, only she’s due to have a baby round about Christmas. And though some dames might just dump it in child care, she’s not the type.”

    “That’s good,” replied Nefertite firmly.

    “I’d say so, yeah!” agreed Dot with a laugh.

    … “So?” said David as she came into the bedroom that evening.

    “Thought you were bushed?”

    “I am. This is a bed, I’m in it. Which of them did Nefertite ask you about today?”

    “Eh?”

    He rolled his eyes madly. “Which of the two not unattractive, available males of the right age that she’s been asking us about unceasingly since she got here did she mention, just between you girls, the minute I’d left for work, you unnatural woman?”

    Dot went over to the ensuite. “Both. Sucks to you, Miss Flaming Marple.”

    He quailed, but as she went into the ensuite without noticing he was doing it, stopped. When she came back he said: “If a third candidate might be needed, there’s always George MacMurray.”

    “Will ya stop gossiping! Anyway, thought you’d lined him up for Honey?” replied his wife.

    “Yes, but having observed the pair of them narrowly, it’s my expert opinion that she hasn’t noticed he’s alive and he’s still too knocked out by the bust-up with the wife to notice anything short of yer genuine Elle McPherson.”

    “Yeah. Dunno why you have to pair everybody off, anyway,” she noted, getting into bed and firmly switching the bedside lamp off. “You’ve got romance on the brain.”

    David smiled into the dark. “Must be all this matrimony. Decided it’s so good that everyone should have some!”

    “That’s us, ya clot,” she said sleepily. “Doesn’t suit everyone. What about your Aunty Susan?”

    At this David really did quail. “Mm,” he allowed. “But Nefertite’s a very different type.”

    There was no reply.

    “Dot?” he murmured.

    The only answer was a light snore.

    David smiled and closed his eyes. “Matrimony, not romance,” he murmured.

    Phil sat down at the old Jardine place’s battered kitchen table, looking mild. “You need to find something to do, Uncle Gil. Something solid to get your teeth into.”

    “Solid as in that muck you’ve piled on your toast?”

    Alas, this dart missed its target: Phil just grinned round a mouthful of peanut butter on toast, Honey giggled, and Jack, who’d turned up with some edging tiles to finish the verandah, said stolidly: “They all eat like horses at that age.”

    “Like pigs, I think you mean,” sighed Gil. “Suggest something solid I could do, then, Phil.”

    “Well, didn’t you say your friend Major Whatsisname, the horribly energetic regimental type, will want someone to manage his ecolodge?”

    “It’s hard to know which point to address first!” said Gil wildly to the company.

    Alas, Phil was unmoved, Honey merely giggled and Jack just said: “Not a bad idea.”

    “In the first instance— No, let me take the points in order.”

    “Don’t take them at all!” squeaked Honey, the giggles overcoming her.

    “No, shut up,” agreed Phil. “Or if you can’t do that, explain what’d be wrong with running the most luxurious, over air-conditioned ecolodge in the world.”

    “Hill Tarlington, which is his name, you’ve met him before, is not a regimental type!”

    “Always struck me as one,” replied Phil, unmoved.

    Gil breathed heavily.

    “Stop that, you’ll strain your lung,” said Honey, looking worried,

    “I won’t, but I’ve stopped,” he sighed. “Hill, or rather his employers, YDI, will want someone to manage their new ecolodge, at the stage when it’s up and running. At the moment, correct me if I’m wrong, Jack, the site has barely been levelled in preparation for it.”

    “Yeah. George is still rushing round the country scrounging materials that’ll count as recycled like the bosses want, and hiring blokes; and the big diggers are due to come in on Monday and start quarrying the clay for this rammed-earth stuff they want.”

    “Quarrying?” said Honey faintly, staring at him in horror.

    “Digging, if ya like. It’s all clay, just about.”

    Honey was still staring at him in horror so Phil explained kindly: “We were under the impression that YDI wanted the site for its pristine untamed bush.”

    “Yeah. Only with a property that size, no-one’s gonna notice if they quarry a bit of clay, and the idea is, build a couple of natural rock pools in the holes.” Jack looked bland.

    “Highly natural,” said Phil weakly over his uncle’s sudden spluttering fit.

    “You goddit,” replied Jack calmly.

    Gil wiped his eyes and got up to rescue the jug, which was boiling its head off. “Remind us what this rammed earth is, again, Jack.”

    Obligingly Jack explained, adding, once his audience had grasped the point that it was kind of like adobe only not bricks: “They’re not gonna build the whole thing out of it, but young Max, the architect, he reckons it’ll give it a framework, kind of. Not technically the building framework,” he explained kindly.

    “Er—yes,” said Gil on a weak note. “It’ll set the theme, sort of thing.”

    “Yep. There’ll be quite a bit of sandstone—some of the walls as well as pillars—you get loads of that round Sydney, they tell me, and the downstairs floors’ll be sandstone, too.”

    “That’s a nice look!” approved Honey.

    “Yeah, that’s right. See, they already had a design for it: just looking for the right place to plonk it.”

    “Er, didn’t Dot say that the crap she found on the Internet claimed that to get a four-star rating an ecolodge has to be built in harmony with its natural environment, though, Jack?” said Gil feebly.

    “It’s a flat site,” he replied simply.

    Gil was about to pass mugs of coffee. He set them down hurriedly on the bench.

    “It’ll be mad, of course,” said Honey comfortably once his splutters had died away, “but that doesn’t mean you can’t work there, Gil.”

    “Setting aside the point that I don’t want to work there, and the additional point that YDI is wholly owned by some huge Jap corporation imbued with all the latest corporate management crap, to which they expect all the staff to play slavish lip service, it’ll be months before the thing’s built! And where in the name of all that’s wonderful are you going to find Australian workers ready, willing and able to do this rammed-earth rubbish in the twenty-first century, Jack?”

    “Not me: George. Well, dunno. I said to him, isn’t it more a sort of a hobby builder’s thing, and he reckons it is, but there was some university over in South Australia that built a big lecture theatre building out of it. Well, they must’ve had blokes to do it,” he said as the company stared at him.

    “Jack, South Australia’s thousands of kilometres away,” said Honey weakly.

    “Dare say. They got planes.”

    “Yes, but will people want to come that far to work? And I’d’ve said the South Australian climate’s miles more suited to rammed-earth construction than ours: it’s more like Arizona. I mean, this is a relatively humid climate: theirs is really dry. Will the stuff even dry out over summer? That good-looking young architect’s English, isn’t he? What’s he know about Australian conditions, for Pete’s sake?”

    The three foreigners eyed her somewhat drily, but Jack nevertheless conceded: “You got a point. Well, George more or less said that, too. Well, thing is, if the rammed earth’s just these giant arches, not great long walls, it’ll probably have more of a chance of drying out.”

    “Giant arches?” said Gil limply.

    Jack shrugged. “Yeah.”

    Okay, giant arches! “Be that as it may, the thing won’t be up for ages, so even if Hill does suggest I manage it”—he refrained from saying repeat his suggestion, no sense in encouraging them—“it won’t provide something solid to do over the summer, will it?”

    “No,” agreed Phil.

    “No,” agreed Jack. “What you could do, see, is read up on the hospitality stuff.”

    Gil glared.

    “Yes, good idea,” agreed Honey.

    Gil glared.

    “Absolutely. And there are probably online courses you could do!” added Phil eagerly. “You need the academic qualification, these days, Uncle Gil!”

    “Piece of paper, ’e means,” said Jack, just as Gil was about to blast this pretentious phrase to Kingdom Come.

    “I grant you that I would need the piece of paper if I wanted a career in hospitality management, more specifically in the management of poncy up-market ecolodges for the international environmentally-conscious set, but I don’t, it sounds utterly tarsome!”

    Jack scratched his chin. “Well, yeah,” he allowed fairly.

    “Mm,” admitted Honey, biting her lip. “Um, sorry, Gil, it just seemed… sort of neat, somehow. Meant, almost.”

    “Meant by that cretin Hill Tarlington, you mean!” he said with feeling.

    “Yes,” she said sympathetically. “Energetic people like him can never understand, really, can they?”

    “Understand what, Mummy?” asked Gil’s idiot nephew before he could leap up and strangle him.

    Gil sighed. “That there are times when one tends to run out of puff, Phil. Emotional puff—psychological, if you like—as well as physical.”

    “Emotional more than physical, really,” murmured Honey. “Only, if you’ve had a huge physical setback as well, that makes it worse.”

    “I see,” said Phil awkwardly. “Um—sorry, Uncle Gil. I just thought— Um, sorry.”

    “If you felt like it, you could always scout out materials for George,” offered Jack. “Don’t mean heave them round on yer tod, just scout them out. See, the ecolodge won’t get its four green leaves—not stars, Gil, ya had that wrong—it won’t get them if they start using new materials, they’ve gotta be recycled or renewable.”

    Heroically Gil managed not to point out that he had heard the “four green leaves” bit before and had consciously avoided using— “Uh-huh. I won’t ask how clay dug out of Potter’s Inlet is renewable.”

    “I wouldn’t, no,” Jack agreed stolidly.

    “Comes into the all-natural class, the eco-punters’ll be so excited by it they won’t stop to think!” said Phil cheerfully.

    “Eco-punters?” said Gil faintly.

    “Bob called them that the other day.”

    “Y—Er, yes, I’m sure he did! No, I was under the impression that you were enthusiastically on the side of Blue Gums So-Called Ecolodge, now and forever, amen?”

    “I think you mean So-Called Blue Gums So-Called Ecolodge!” squeaked Honey, suddenly collapsing in giggles.

    “Yeah, okay, I do,” he said weakly as Phil suddenly joined her. “Well?”

    Phil wiped his eyes. “I suppose Tasmanian blue gums’d grow here if you planted them. Dunno what made you imagine I was taken in by the ecolodge bullshit, Uncle Gil. I just thought it might offer you the opportunity of a job hereabouts.”

    “I see. Well, uh, I don’t know the district at all, Jack, but I suppose I could, uh, well, buy a four-wheel-drive, get around a bit, yes. Look for piles of brick, that the style of thing?”

    “They really want fashioned sandstone blocks but they’ll settle for bricks, yeah.”

    “If you— I never spoke!” said Honey quickly.

    “What?” asked Gil mildly.

    “Um, well, isn’t recycling piles of old stones or bricks kind of despoiling our heritage, these days?”

    “Didn’t mean scrounge them as such, Honey!” said Jack quickly. “Find the owners and clear the site for them. Pay them a bit for the scrap if they dig their heels in, see?”

    Gil collapsed in agonised sniggers, clutching at his bad shoulder with his good hand.

    “A rose by any other name!” concluded Phil with a snicker.

    “Yes,” said Honey weakly. “—Gil, is the shoulder playing up?”

    “No,” he said quickly, taking his hand away from it.

    “Probably needs a new elastic support,” offered Jack.

    God, did the whole country know his business? Not that Jack wasn’t a thoroughly decent fellow, but—

    “You can see the doctor next week,” decided Phil,

    Very well, he’d see the doctor next week. And buy a four-wheel-drive, presumably. “Would George trust me to find the right sort of stuff, Jack?” he asked dubiously.

    “Think he’d want to vet it before you made the owners a firm offer, Gil.”

    “Mm. Well, it’s an idea.”

    “Ye-ah. Thing is, there is just the off-chance he’ll get most of the materials himself: he’s heard of a couple of old warehouses that are ready for demolition.”

    “Sandstone warehouses?” croaked Honey.

    “One of them is, yeah: really old. Hasn’t been classed as a historic building, though, and it’s unsafe, so they’re gonna pull it down and put up blocks of townhouses that he reckons’ll go for a mill’, min’.”

    “Typical!” she snorted.

    “Mm, well, scouting materials for George would seem problematic, then,” concluded Gil.

    “Isn’t there anything you want to do, Uncle Gil?” ventured Phil.

    Gil sighed. “Short of turning this place into an Aussie dood ranch with bunkhouses and authentic built-from-scratch stone stables and riding lessons for the city slick—” Oops, their faces had lit up.

    “Really?” gasped Phil.

    “Sounds good!” said Jack eagerly. “Quite a lot of Aussies go in for that sort of holiday. Ya wouldn’t need stables, though: horses stay outside all year round in these parts. Well—shove a bit of tarp over ’em in winter, and they’d need a bit of shade in summer. But heck, the Aussies race them in forty-three degree heat, ya know.”

    “What?” he croaked.

    “Yeah. Knew a bloke once, worked for a trainer that was bringing a New Zealand horse over for the Melbourne Cup: he reckoned his boss said the Cup was okay: early November, ya see; only he wouldn’t have a bar of the Adelaide races, never know when it’ll shoot up to thirty-eight, forty-odd over there.”

    “That’s in South Australia, Gil,” said Honey kindly.

    “Y— Uh, yes, I do have an elementary grasp of geography, thanks, never mind if I’d never heard of Wollon—” Honey had collapsed in giggles. “—Wollongong,” finished Gil feebly. “Forty-three?”

    “It can do, yes,” admitted Honey, recovering herself. “Not so much round here, but you do get the odd day that hot in summer. But there’ll be quite a few days when it’s hitting forty.”

    “Look, no way would I even contemplate exposing an animal to that sort of heat!”

    “Whatcha gonna do, then?” asked Jack with interest. “Air condition their stable?”

    Phil coughed suddenly.

    “Yes, highly amusing. Um, well, study the designs of good solid stone 19th-century stable blocks?”

    “That’ll keep you busy all summer in the bowels of the State Library of New South Wales,” said Honey with some relish.

    “If necessary, that’s where I’ll go!” replied Gil loudly.

    The echoes of his voice died away, leaving a tingling silence.

    “Uh—Hell. Sorry, Honey. Sorry, Phil. It is your property: I’ve no right to—”

    “Heck, no!” she cried. “It’s a great idea, Gil!”

    “Yeah, great!” agreed Phil eagerly. “Bob was thinking of a bunkhouse: he reckons a corrugated steel shed from Mitre 10’d be the go: a big one, of course.”

    “Start off that way, anyway: why not?” agreed Jack. “Bit of insulation in this climate, of course, line ’er with Gib board, bung a couple of showers in for ’em. Simple!”

    “Hot showers,” said Phil firmly. “Jen was saying she went on a cycling holiday with some friends that belong to a cycling club and it was frightful: the organisers had jacked up sports grounds for them to camp on, and all the ablution blocks had cold water!”

    “That was at Easter, though, Phil,” replied his mother fairly. “Cold showers wouldn’t be so bad in summer. But you could charge a lot more, Gil, if you had hot water.”

    “Yeah. Solar panels on the roof’d be the go, Gil!” urged Jack.

    “Er—yes.” –Who the Hell was Jen?

    “Can you afford it, though, Gil? ’Cos we haven’t got any money,” Honey reminded him.

    “Uh—well, I’d need to go into it carefully, Honey.”

    “A shed from Mitre 10 won’t set you back too much. Solar panels are around ten thou’, Bob reckons, but we could read up on installing them, do most of it ourselves, that’d save a fair whack,” said Jack thoughtfully. “Dare say we could get a bit of shelter for the horses up for you from some recycled stuff. Well, old Andy’s place is covered with old sheds, start there, eh? Clear it up for him at the same time, why not?”

    “Er, won’t George want anything that’s recyclable for his Blue Gums project, though, Jack?” replied Gil feebly.

    “You copped a gander at them sheds of Andy’s?” he returned drily.

    “Parts of them are recyclable, but not trendy recyclable, Uncle Gil.”

    “Yes, got that,” he said feebly. “As I was saying, I’d need to go into the costs carefully. Perhaps set it up progressively: half a dozen places the first year, see how it goes, then perhaps double the size of the bunkhouse.”

    “You wouldn’t want too many no-hopers on horses,” said Jack thoughtfully. “Well—strung out along a trail? If you’ve got a dozen it won’t be easy to see what the ones at the end of the string are up to.”

    “No, that’s right. Well, Phil’s reasonably confident on a horse, he could help. You ride, Jack?”

    Jack scratched his chin. “Sort of. Never had any lessons. Spent a few working holidays on a farm in me late teens, and I just had three months in the Outback a bit back: there was a lot of riding in that. Mind you, helps to have a horse that knows what it’s doing.”

    “Of course! Well, if you’re interested, that’s three possibles to keep a dozen doods in order!”

    “Don’t ask me if I ride,” said Honey glumly.

    Gil blinked. “Sorry, Honey! Do you?”

    “No, of course not, I haven’t got any skills,” she said glumly.

    “You have!” said Phil loyally. “You know a lot about antiques!”

    “Higgledy-piggledy, picked up here and there. Unconsidered trifles,” she said glumly. “Um, and I don’t want to throw cold water, Gil, but what about feeding them? Bob and Deanna were in an awful fix before David decided to come and cook for them, because neither of them can cook.”

    A disconcerted silence fell.

    Eventually Phil said: “Mummy, your basic cookery’s fine: it wouldn’t have to be gourmet stuff like David’s. It’d be a different market entirely.”

    “I’m not that good at quantities for three, I don’t think I could cook for a whole bunkhouse full.”

    “Then barbies?” he suggested.

    “Phil, I always burn stuff on a barbie!”

    “No, for them, I mean. Let them do it themselves. Jen said that on the cycling tour the food was all-inclusive but the organisers just had rows of barbecues and you chose what you liked—it was usually sausages or chops, they only had steak one night—and cooked it yourself. Well, some people grumbled because they’d been under the impression that cooked meals would be provided, but we’d just need to make sure we advertised it as food provided, cook your own!”

    “Yeah, and some nights you could do a hangi!” agreed Jack eagerly.

    They looked at him blankly.

    “Oh. Bugger,” he muttered. “Think the Aussie equivalent’s damper bread and a stew done in a camp oven. Um, well, it’s a Maori thing. Ya dig a great big hole, light a fire in it, bung in a load of rocks and when they’re good and hot and the flames have died down, bung in a lot of cabbage leaves and green flax mats if ya being particular, or wet sacks if you’re not, and then the food—ya can just wrap it in cabbage leaves, too, only these days they often use foil, works okay. Then ya cover it up with more sacks and the dirt and leave it for hours.”

    “I’ve read about a similar thing, in, uh, think it was Hawaii,” said Gil feebly as the other two were just staring blankly.

    “Probably, yeah,” he conceded. “Polynesian-style cooking, see? Might not sound like much, but it’s bonzer, the meat comes out really sweet and tender.”

    “Um, I thought there were no native large animals in New Zealand?” ventured Honey.

    “Nah. Well, nice hunk of roast moa, eh?” he responded genially.

    They looked at him blankly.

    Jack cleared his throat. “They’re extinct, now. Giant flightless bird. Like a huge emu.”

    There was a short silence.

    “Don’t,” Gil warned his nephew unsteadily.

    Abruptly they all, Jack included, burst into roars of laughter.

    “Boy, that done me good!” concluded Jack, mopping his eyes. “Nothing to stop you doing a hangi, though. Lamb, bit of beef, chicken—or pork, that’s nice: the Maoris latched onto pork pretty quick.”

    “I have heard of a similar Aboriginal way of cooking,” said Honey slowly, “but not so elaborate. Just burying the food in the hot ashes, I think. But a hangi’d be something quite unusual! And as a matter of fact emu is supposed to be very tasty: very lean, a dark meat.”

    “Don’t dare to set us off again,” warned Gil.

    “No, well, I think it’d be very expensive to buy, Gil. Marg was saying she had it once in the Alice, just to try, but that was a fancy restaurant that specialised in Australian native produce.”

    “Right. Farmed croc meat an’ all, was there? –Mm. We definitely wouldn’t want to be fancy. Well—barbies for dinner, the occasional hangi at the end of a trek, perhaps salads for lunch? Or packed lunches if they’re out all day. Do you think you could manage simple breakfasts and lunches, Honey, with all hands pitching in?”

    “I could do the work, but I don’t think I’d be any good at—at estimating the quantities and stuff like that.”

    Gil rubbed his chin. “Mm. Well—buy a couple of huge freezers like those giants of Bob’s, fill them up with, er, sliced bread and, uh, well, sliced bread, really! And cupboardsful of Marmite, peanut butter and marmalade—No?”

    “No!” she gasped. “You’d be overrun with ants, Gil!”

    “Not if they weren’t opened, Honey. –Ya do need to keep anything opened in the fridge here, Gil,” Jack explained kindly. “It’s cockies as well as ants, the country’s full of the buggers. Think maybe it doesn’t get cold enough to keep the populations down. Besides, leave a jar of peanut butter out in summer in these parts, it’d be running off the bench all by itself. –And ya mean Vegemite, not Marmite, but we’ll take it as read, eh?” he finished with a grin.

    “You can buy Marmite here, but Mummy and I like Vegemite,” said Phil comfortably.

    “Just stop,” begged Gil faintly. “All I wished to say was, huge supplies so as we don’t run out!”

    “Yes. Good,” agreed Honey, smiling at him. “What about washing all the sheets and stuff?”

    “Giant cupboardsful of linen, couple of huge washing-machines, a drier for emergencies?”

    “Mm. We’d need lots of washing lines, too. Long lines’d be more sensible than Hills Hoists, really.”

    “Bloody sight cheaper, too,” agreed Jack.

    Okay, they were on the same wavelength, there: Gil just nodded obediently.

    “Sounds good!” said Jack, rubbing his hands. “How many horses?”

    “Well, uh—shit. Assuming that we’d need a couple for the teachers and/or guides, and one each for the punters, have to start off with eight or nine, I think, Jack.”

    “Mm. That’d be your big expense, then.”

    “Haven’t you got some contacts, though, Uncle Gil?”

    Gil attempted to wither him with a look but the blithering idiot didn’t realise he was doing it. “No,” he said repressively.

    “But when the regiment played those Australian chaps, you said that one of them told you all about his father’s stud!”

    “Farm,” he said repressively. “With a bit of horse breeding on the side.”

    “Well, exactly! Some of the older ponies, that they don’t use for polo any more: that’s what you need!” he beamed.

    Gil passed his good hand over his face, as Honey and Jack both gaped at him.

    “Polo ponies?” she said faintly. “Isn’t polo that game that Prince Charles plays?”

    “Yes, but nobody is suggesting we ask H.R.H. for his cast-offs, Honey!”

    “No, what I’m suggesting is, you get in touch with that Australian chap or his father,” said Phil happily.

    “Aren’t they used to rushing round the paddock in little short bursts, though?” said Honey weakly.

    “Yes, but it’ll be no problem to get them used to nice gentle treks,” Phil assured her happily. “They’re very amenable to being handled, you see, and highly intelligent.”

    “Lovely: now all I have to do is remember that chap’s name,” said Gil on an acid note.

    “It must be possible to contact the Australian team,” replied his idiot nephew happily.

    “Have you ever played with Prince Charles?” asked Honey faintly.

    “No! Neither with nor against! Well, uh, there probably is an association, and possibly they can put us onto someone with old polo ponies looking for a good home with some gentle exercise and in short, Phil, you brought the subject up so you are deputed to look into it! And do not do it on your mother’s phone!”

    “I’ll use my mobile. But I’ll have to do some Internet research first.”

    “Jen could probably help with that,” said Honey kindly.

    “Yes, good idea. She’d be interested in helping out during the holidays, too,” he said on a hopeful note.

    Gil took a deep breath. “Look, before I run barking mad, who is this Jen?”

    The heirs to the Jardine property stared at him. “You’ve met her!” said Honey crossly. “Jen Remington! Sal’s daughter!”

    Oh, good grief. Gil thrust his hand through his hair. “Sorry. You may not recall, but her mother introduced her as Jenny.”

    “She hasn’t called herself Jenny for years,” said Phil tolerantly.

    “Jenny’s out, Jen is in,” elaborated Honey. “There’s a trendy actress that those peculiar gossip people on TV always call Jen. Without a surname, usually.”

    “On the morning shows?” asked Jack.

    “Yes. I usually watch them when I’m home with a cold: they’re sort of mind-numbing, really, aren’t they?”

    “Yep, sure are! That job I had in the Outback, on a cattle station, it was, really nice people, well, we usually used to get up at sparrow-fa—um, sorry, crack of dawn, grab a coffee and put in a bit of hard yacker, than come inside a bit later for breakfast—see, the farmer’s wife, she had enough to do without getting up at five to feed us lot. She always used to have the TV on, she said it made you feel you were connected to the world. I s’pose it did, in a way, only sometimes when those Hollywood gossip types got going you’d get a really weird, unreal feeling, y’know?”

    “Absolutely!” agreed Honey with feeling.

    Gil took a deep breath. “Can we skip the irrelevancies?”

    “You brought Jen up,” replied Honey simply.

    “Yes, my mistake. I’d just like to get it clear whether you both—Phil! Pay attention! I’d like to get it clear whether you both are in favour, provisionally, of investigating the possibility of turning this place into a combined riding school and dood ranch, on a proper financial footing.”

    “Yes, of course, no provisionally about it, Uncle Gil, thought you’d realised that?”

    Gil took another deep breath. Phil would possibly be better off helping manage a combined riding school and dood ranch than spending the rest of his days as a sandwich maker and deliverer, but could he, Gil, stand it? “Good. That’s one. Honey?”

    “Mm, definitely! Um, they are friendly, are they?” she asked nervously.

    Eh? Who? Doods? Gil just stared at her with his mouth slightly open.

    “Yes,” said Jack definitely. “Very friendly. You seen that film Pretty Woman?”

    Honey nodded hard. “Mm. With Julia Roberts. You couldn’t believe it when you thought about it, but at the time it was very convincing. Marg has got a video of it.”

    “Right. Well, there was a polo match in that, and she went and stood right by the horse and it was tame as anything.”

    “Oh, yes! I remember!” she beamed.

    Gil goggled at her but she was apparently completely taken in. He goggled at Jack but the bloody fellow just looked back blandly. “Yes,” he said weakly. “Polo ponies are very tame and friendly, Honey. Like Phil says: used to being handled.”

    “That’s all right, then!” she beamed.

    Gil tottered to his feet. “Good show. Well, uh, what about those edging tiles, Jack?”

    “Right you are,” he agreed obligingly, following him out.

    Outside Gil breathed deeply for a few minutes.

    “You okay? The lung not playing you up?”

    “Physically I am very much okay, thanks. Mentally I am shaken to the core—to the core. Pretty Woman?”

    “Aw. That.”

    “Yes, that! There are so many points that I— Let’s get the worst over first, shall we? What gave you to suppose that the creature letting assorted glamorous actresses lean on its flank was a polo pony at all?”

    “Nothing. I mean, never did suppose it.”

    “Right! Number Two, have you actually seen the bloody thing?”

    Jack eyed him drily. “Think the whole world’s seen the bloody thing, Gil. See, the male half got dragged by the distaff side.”

    “Very well, Number Three: admittedly there was a scene with polo in it, yes, but what in God’s name inspired you to bring it up?”

    Jack gazed into space. “Dunno, really. Well, just popped into me mind, ya know? Well, between you and me that there verandah post, Susan Pendleton, she’s got a video of it, too.”

    “Uh—oh! George MacMurray’s sister? So what?” he said blankly.

    Jack sniffed slightly. “Made me watch it one night. She decided we’d have a nice night in, candles on the table with the overcooked steak and them tasteless little yellow summer squash things, bottle of something white and fizzy that only didn’t call itself champagne ’cos the Frogs are prepared to sue the pants off the Aussies if they try that one on again, lovely movie what she chose.”

    “Don’t go on,” said Gil faintly, covering his eyes with his hand. “It all becomes strangely clear.”

    “It was bad,” he conceded. “I remember the polo bit ’cos it was the only interesting thing in it. Well, thought the scene in the bath was gonna be a goer, only it was a real fizzer.”

    It must have been: Gil had also seen the bloody thing but he couldn’t remember a scene in a bath at all! “Right,” he conceded feebly. “Er—you and Susan still an item, Jack?”

    “Nah. Reason I pushed off to Western Australia, really. See, I was only using the granny flat back of the garage for a bit, you couldn’t of said we were living together, not as such, only they always think they own you, eh? And I made the mistake of doing this Garven woman that I was building a pool cabana for. Never meant to, exactly, only—”

    He gave him further details. Gil laughed till he cried.

    “Yeah,” said Jack on a sour note. “Well, Susan’s not all bad, and she’s got over it, I think. Well, much as they ever do, ya know? –Yeah. Last time she came up to chew poor old Andy’s ear she did kind of have that look, you know: as if she wouldn’t half mind a bit.”

    “I think I know what you mean,” conceded Gil.

    “Yeah, hah, hah. Only I dunno that I want to, again. Well, I’m not saying it wasn’t good while it lasted, only she’s so flaming ladylike, what with the big candles in the bathroom and them stinky leaves in the bath and stuff.”

    “And the tasteless yellow summer squash: exactly. Though I don’t think you’re going to find one that doesn’t overcook a decent piece of steak, Jack. Not on this earth, at any rate,” he said kindly.

    “Funny joker,” replied Jack sourly. “Anyway, who made you sit through flaming Pretty Woman?”

    “Er—the circumstances weren’t altogether different from yours,” he admitted.

    “Fancy that.”

    Gil’s shoulders shook slightly. “Somehow I missed its first appearance and then horrid Desert Storm happened on purpose to spite me, so as soon as the regiment came back a kind friend got a video of it for poor me because I’d been missing everything. –Jilly,” he said reminiscently. “Not wholly unlike Ms Roberts in appearance. Legs up to here.” Jack choked slightly, he was not displeased to see. “Mm. The evening wasn’t all that dissimilar to yours, if I remember rightly—there were several evenings,” he clarified: Jack choked again—“but it wasn’t steak, not even overcooked, it was a stir-fried creation with three different and quite distinct types of Japanese mushroom, all ’orrid, healthful tofu, even more tasteless than summer squash, and assorted pieces of weed. I think some of them were yer actual seaweed. Oh, yes: preceded by a soup of seaweed and tofu in hot water!” he remembered brightly.

    “Geddouda here!”

    “No, true, alas. When she produced the strange little square Japanese dishes and the chopsticks I was hoping for sake—dull the pain,” he explained: Jack choked again—“but no, the wine guru in whatever emporium of See Them Coming she patronised had persuaded her that a nice dry Riesling would just hit the spot with fake Jap stir-fry.”

    “Was it?” asked Jack faintly.

    “Well, it wasn’t German. American, I think. Acid as buggery.”

    “So ya left it,” he said sardonically

    “No, I drank it in order to dull the pain, Jack, in especial as Jilly was the sort of young lady who believes that it ain’t nice to do it before dinner.”

    “They’re all like that, Gil. Mind you, if ya do manage to do it, it has been known to soften ’em up like nobody’s b—”

    He stopped, as Gil had collapsed in streaming hysterics already.

    “Yes,” he conceded, wiping his eyes. “I did manage not to sleep through the whole thing, largely by dint of topping up my brandy glass. Well, the music was good. Some of it. Well, the Roy Orbison bit and the Traviata bit, really. What did happen in the end, Jack?”

    “Eh? Thought you didn’t sleep through it?”

    “I didn’t sleep through all of it. The brandy eventually won.”

    “Aw, right. Well, in the end he comes poncing along her street standing up in this huge white stretch limo waving his brolly. Think she’d told him to get choked because, uh, not sure. Didn’t fancy a fully furnished apartment in, uh, well, coulda been New York or LA. Held out for marriage, this was after she’d not only done him unceasingly for a week, she’d let him pick her up off the street, but that’s Hollywood for ya, eh?”

    “So, er, the stretch limo and the brolly constituted a proposal of lawful matrimony?” he groped.

    “Yeah. Well, Susan bawled her eyes out and said wasn’t it lovely, so they must of, eh?”

    Alas, at this tender conclusion to the tale Gil collapsed in streaming hysterics again.

    “They’re all the same,” concluded the grinning Jack. “Better get down to it, eh?”

    “Mm? Oh, the tiling! By all means, Jack!” Helpfully Gil picked up an edging tile.

    “Gotta mix the mortar up first, ya nana.”

    Ooh, yes, so you did! What a nana he was! Gil watched, smiling, as Jack efficiently mixed the mortar.

    Nefertite had got as far as the big clump of bushes, just after the bend in the driveway, when she heard the two men talking and laughing. She’d only stopped to get her breath: she didn’t want to appear in front of them sweaty and gasping for breath and—and looking unfit. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop at all, but as neither of them bothered to lower their voices…

    It was Sunday morning and everyone was busy. Dot had gone over to the B&B to help David with the lunch preparations: the restaurant was booked out. Nefertite would have offered to look after Baby Rose but Ann had come over to claim her and it had dawned that this was their usual arrangement and that Ann really looked forward to it. She was in her late thirties and she and Bernie hadn’t been married long and—well, it seemed mean to deprive her, she obviously adored the little girl. Over at the art and crafts centre Bernie was very busy looking after the customers. There was nothing, really, that she wanted to buy and Bernie had already told her with a laugh that his landscapes were just daubs—pot-boilers for the punters, and she wasn’t to throw her dough away on them on any account! They were a little better than that but Nefertite didn’t like conventional European-school landscapes, especially not ones that showed Australian gum trees, so she was quite happy to obey this injunction. There was a very different offering in a naïve style, a beachside cottage under a bright sky, that she really liked, but it was too dear: not for what it was, but she didn’t think Dot would approve of her spending that much. The pottery on display was quite pleasant but not terribly original or exciting, and in any case she had nowhere to put it. Likewise the patchwork quilts. She would have bought one of the lovely big double ones as a combined thank you and Christmas present for Dot and David but they already had a really lovely one on their bed: one of Deanna’s. There was nobody else, really… Pandora’s tastes never had coincided with hers—remember that lovely lemon silk caftan she’d spurned some years back? Goodness, getting on for ten years! Nefertite had given it to Dot, in the end: it had been that Christmas in Adelaide…

    She had wandered out of Springer House Art & Crafts Centre and slowly down the steep, rough drive, thinking rather wistfully of the long ago, and the might have been… It had seemed, that year, as if Michael Warren might really be interested, but no, he’d gone back to the wife, rich Americans always did, they didn’t see Europeans as real people… And a couple of years later Gianni dalla Rovere had made an offer but it didn’t include divorcing the very Catholic wife, so— And in any case Italians only had two attitudes to the women they married, didn’t they? You were either a trophy or a combined mother-substitute and household slave. She hadn’t really intended to come along to the Jardine place, she’d just sort of kept on walking down the road and then she’d decided she might as well— Well, she could always talk to Honey, she was lovely.

    In the shelter of the bushes Nefertite did a few breathing exercises and tried to tell herself she was making too much of the thing: men, even nice men, did talk about women like that: she wasn’t naïve enough to suppose they didn’t, but… Well, it had been immediately obvious on meeting him that Gil Sotherland was used to women and had had his share; not that there’d been anything overtly sexual in his manner to her, but one could always tell. He was a type, in any case, with which she was not unfamiliar. She wasn’t surprised that he’d only really noticed the music in Pretty Woman: that and the chillingly horrid episode in the clothes boutique when the poor girl tried to go shopping on Rodeo Drive were about all she remembered, herself. And, well, it was a women’s film, no wonder neither of them had enjoyed it!

    And, well, putting down the girlfriend who’d slaved to produce a lovely meal for you was typical male peer group behaviour. Bonding or some such. Men with Gil’s sort of background did it without even thinking twice about it, let alone stopping to wonder how much the poor girl had paid for the horrid mushrooms and the wine and how long it had taken her to do the shopping… But she hadn’t thought, really, that Jack was that sort of man at all! He’d seemed so thoroughly nice! Decent. And, really, that story about the woman who wanted the pool cabana was just so— And it was quite clear that whatever he might say, he did realise that he had had an obligation to the Susan woman! Couldn’t he at least have said “I’ve found someone else, sorry, but I think we’d better cool it”? And offered to move out of her granny flat? …What was a granny flat, anyway? Did they have them in England? She tried translating it into Greek but it made even less sense.

    After quite a while she came to and realised the voices had stopped. She stepped out cautiously from the shelter of the bushes. The two male backs were bent absorbedly over the verandah. Jack seemed to be showing Gil how to do it, whatever it was…

    Nefertite bit her lip and retreated silently down the drive. It was pointless to think that either of them might be interested— And she wasn’t interested! Good Heavens, when you came right down to it, Gil Sotherland was from the same sort of background as the Unlamented Corrant: did she want another one of them?

    As for Jack: he was such a disappointment! Well, it—it was cultural or something: she’d been taken in by that easy manner and the slow drawl and what had seemed at the time like a kind smile. It sounded as if the Susan woman was going to grab him back… He’d accused her of being ladylike and having big candles in the bathroom and stinky leaves in the bath… Tears dazzled in Nefertite’s eyes. What was wrong with big candles in the bathroom and lovely lavender or mint in the bath? Eau de Cologne mint, which was very hard to get unless you knew a keen gardener, was really wonderful: soothing… And candles created an ambiance and—and made you feel pampered! Men could be so crude and—and uncaring! And the Susan woman would grab him back, because he was the sort of man who’d give in. Even if he didn’t really care, he’d give in because of the sex. Not that we all hadn’t done that in our time. ...She was probably one of those thin women who jogged every morning and always ate a sensible diet and never gave in to cravings for huge steaks or fish and chips after the show. And never, ever ate chocolate. –Incidentally, there had been no chocolate in Pretty Woman, had anyone else noticed that? What sort of man didn’t give a woman chocolates?

    … Oh, dear, where was she? She’d walked all the way back up the hill to David’s driveway!

    “Hullo,” said Ann mildly, opening the crafts centre’s back door to Nefertite’s tap. “You could just walk in, ya know: it’s open house here! –What’s up?” she added in surprise as the visitor stepped in from the trellised blue shade of the back verandah and she saw the mascara streaks under the eyes.

    “Nothing,” she said, sniffing. “It’s just— What’s wrong with big candles in the bathroom and lovely lavender or mint in the bath?” she burst out.

    “Uh—nothing, if you can afford them,” said Ann feebly. “Well, I’ve always been a bit scared to have candles in the house myself: I’m the sort of clot that’d knock them over and set the place on fire, or leave them burning and ditto, but I’m up for a nice scented bath. Do you like those bath pearl things?”

    “Mm, lovely,” she said, blowing her nose hard.

    “Me, too. Never had them before, but Bernie bought some for me. Come and sit down and have a cuppa,” said Ann comfortably.

    Nefertite sat down but said: “There you are! He’s so nice! You’re so lucky, Ann!” And blew her nose hard again.

    Oh, boy, thought Ann. How old had David said she was? Couple of years older than him, was it? And leaving her old life and coming out here to a completely different sort of existence, all on her ownsome— Shit.

    “Yeah, Bernie’s okay,” she conceded. “First time I met him—well, not immediately, actually I kind of liked him first off!” she admitted with a laugh. “But after a bit, when I started to think about him, I sort of wondered could I hack it, because he came on as so English. Um, you mightn’t notice it, because you’re used to it. But he did kind of stick out like a sore thumb here. Most of our blokes are a bit cruder, to tell you the truth.”

    “Cruder,” she said, blowing her nose again. “Yes, that puts it well. Even if they don’t express themselves crudely, precisely…”

    Yikes! Was it something specific, then? Not just general culture shock and finding her occupation gone and stuff? “Nefertite, if some bloke’s been rude to you, you better tell me,” she said firmly.

    “I overheard them. I didn’t mean to listen, I was puffed, so I—I just stopped—”

    “Ya wanted to get your breath and not show yaself up in front of their side: yeah, too right!”

    “Yes,” she said gratefully. “To be fair, they weren’t really crude. Just… disappointing.”

    Ann was now looking at her in some alarm. “Well, what the Hell did they say to you?”

    “They didn’t say anything to me, they didn’t realise I was there. They were having one of those male conversations,” she admitted, swallowing. “I do know men are like that. Actually it was a bit like being back in Greece with my awful cousins, when I was young.”

    Oh, cripes! “Nefertite, two blokes chatting aren’t gonna mince words,” said Ann cautiously. “I mean, heck, a male peer group? Ya shoulda heard the stuff that went on in the office when I worked for the Morning Star! Poor old Mary Gonzales got called Speedy, and when she started in to tell the buggers where they got off and to call her Mary, they went poncing round the place for months with a hand on one hip fluting ‘Call me Mary!’”

    “I know: the hetero men in the orchestra and the chorus were just the same, and the stage hands, of course… Sorry. I was making too much of it. –Would you say big candles in the bathroom and lavender or mint in the bath are too ladylike?”

    Oh, God! “Look, a bloke might say they were to another bloke, but that’s just their dim peer group thing. It doesn’t mean they don’t like a woman to use that sort of stuff. It’s like the lacy bra syndrome. Half the time they ask what are you wearing a bra for anyway, only when they take your top and off and find you’re in the ruddy thing, it turns the idiots on!”

    “I’ve noticed that,” she admitted, smiling weakly.

    Ann was rather relieved to hear it. “There you are, then. And, um, well, I think you might be making the wrong sort of assumptions about our blokes, Nefertite, a bit like I did about Bernie. See, I thought he was too English for me, so you might be thinking they’re too Aussie for you, but it’s only because you haven’t got used to the, um, style here, yet.”

    “But he’s a New Zealander!” she blurted.

    Oh, cripes! Good-looking, laconic, laid-back Jack Jackson? Well, he was a really gorgeous hunk, there was no denying that, but talk about your huge cultural gap! Did the man even know what an opera was?

    “I see,” she gulped. “Well, heck, most of them aren’t that much different from your typical Aussies—in fact, your typical small-town Aussies, Nefertite.”

    “Wasn’t that terribly sensitive film The Piano made by a New Zealander, though?”

    Uh—had it been? Ann had been dragged by an old school friend who’d just dumped the hubby and was being very independent and free woman and intellectual on the strength of it. Well, she might have gone by herself, if she’d happened to have an evening or preferably a Saturday arvo with nothing better to do. Being gainfully divorced, the friend hadn’t needed to work and she’d chosen an evening session during the week and after the first half hour of the thing, Sam Neill not nearly as exciting as what she’d hoped, Ann had dozed off.

    “Well, uh, there must be some sensitive types, then, only you aren’t gonna find them in Potters Inlet, Nefertite!” she said desperately.

    “No. I didn’t mean... I’ve seen enough of that sort, anyway.”

    “Yeah, ’course ya have! You need to cut him some slack. Get to know him a bit better and get used to the norms, eh?”

    “I don’t think he’s interested. I’m not his type. That Susan woman’s thin, isn’t she?” she said bitterly.

    Uh—which of the five million Susans in Australia— Oh, shit. “Would this be Susan Whatserface that’s old Andy MacMurray’s daughter that Jack’s reputed by the male peer group to have done some time in the last two years?”

    “Mm.”

    “She’s a scrawny hag, ladylike to her fingertips, and you’re worth fifty of her!” said Ann fiercely.

    To her horror, these kind words had the completely opposite effect to what she’d intended, and Nefertite burst into snorting sobs.

Next chapter:

https://theroadtobluegums.blogspot.com/2022/11/tis-season-of-hard-rubbish-collection.html