Marley's Ghost

17

Marley’s Ghost

    Two whole days had passed since the evening George, Pete and old Andy had got pickled sitting on the verandah while Pete got the final update on the personalities of Potters Road. They were still in the doghouse, of course: women like Susan Pendleton didn’t forgive you for getting pickled, or for letting your old dad get pickled, or for letting your mate let his old dad get pickled, in a mere two days. However, since they’d managed to spend most of those two days on the boat pretending to fish—there would have been less pretence if anything had been biting—it hadn’t been too bad. Only today she’d caught them, bright and early. Okay, Andy would not spend the day on the boat swilling beer at his age. Okay, Pete would not lead George and his dad into bad habits. Uh, could you lead—? Never mind. Okay, George would come down to Barrabarra to the supermarket with her today. No, he would not drive! And they were NOT going to buy booze!

    After Susan’s smart 4WD had swirled down the drive in a cloud of dust Pete and Andy just sat there on the verandah for a bit.

    Eventually the old man said: “Well, it’s peaceful without her.”

    “Yeah.”

    “She can’t drive that bloody thing, ya know—kill ’erself one of these days. Can’t be told, of course.”

    “No. Uh—is it new, Andy?”

    “Yeah. She let the boy have her old car. I say ‘old’, she’d had the thing about two years. Well, she’s not mean, I’ll give ’er that.”

    Not mean in the sense the Wicked Witch of the West hadn’t been mean? “No. Godfrey, is this?”

    “Yeah. Poor little sod. Wanted to spell it G,O,D,E,F,R,O,I, too, wouldja believe? The tit put his foot down, I’ll give ’im that.”

    Pete already knew that “the tit ”was Graham Pendleton, Susan’s ex, so he just nodded.

    “Little Hermia’s gone to England,” the old man added moodily.

    “That’s the youngest one, right? –Mm. Um, something arty, was it, Andy?”

    “Picture restoration,” he agreed. “Always wanted to do it, ever since she was a kid. Evidently if ya wanna get into it seriously England’s the place to do yer course. Probably never see ’er again: they do do some of it here—art labs, they call the dumps—but there’s not so much call for the picture stuff, she reckons it’s mostly artefacts.”

    “She’ll come back for holidays, though,” he said kindly.

    “Hasn’t come back this Christmas, has she?” retorted Andy sourly.

    “No, but it isn’t the time of year when they have their long holidays. There wouldn’t be much point in flying out all the way for a day or two. They get their long break in August. And if she’s working, that’s when most people take their annual leave, too.”

    “Yeah. Well, she won’t be out next August, ’cos that’s when ’er bloody mother’s planning to fly over and drag ’er round Europe,” he said sourly.

    Ouch! Would a girl of Hermia’s age want to be dragged round Europe by her mother? “Well, silver lining: if she’s in Europe persecuting poor Hermia she won’t be here, Andy.”

    “Right. George’ll be starting that job down in Tazzie in February,” he reminded him.

    “They’re breaking ground that soon? –Right.”

    The old man sighed. “Dare say Jack might stay on, if the flamin’ horse treks start to make money. They are fully booked all January and they’ve got a load of students booked for most of February, and some retirees that imagine life begins at sixty-five on the back of a ruddy horse. I said to Gil, I hope you’ve got a giant insurance policy, mate, ’cos you’re gonna need it!”

    Pete nodded numbly. “Christ, yes!”

    “Well, he has, but that’s more expense, ya see. I don’t reckon they’ll even break even next year, let alone start to recover the set-up costs.”

    No flies on old Andy MacMurray, eh? Pete looked at the old man with considerable respect and said: “No, I think you’re right.”

    “There’s Ted, as well. Well, he’s been working on the ecolodge all year, but he’s put a Helluva lot of time into helping Gil. Not just the hard yacker, he’s a bright joker, ya know. Jack’s okay for anything up to about garage size, but that’s about his limit. You know: peg ’er out with a bit of string, type of thing, do the rest by eye with a bit of help from ’is plumb bob. Mind you, he can put up anything you care to name, given the plans. But Ted’s got an engineering degree, used to run his own company. It was him that drew up the real plans for Gil.”

    “I see. But will he want to stay on, do you think, Andy? I mean, puddling around with horses and idiot trekkers in Akubras?”

    The old man rubbed his chin slowly. “You got a point. It’s Gil and the boy that like the horses. Don’t think Ted had ever so much as had ’is leg across one before he come here. I won’t say I’m quite sure of the vernacular”—he eyed him drily—“but the word is ’e was a scholarship boy: ring any bells?”

    Pete winced. “Yeah, horrible ones! Well, yeah, Andy, he would’ve been a working-class lad, same like me, and got a scholarship to a good secondary school.”

    “Private?”

    “Mm.”

    “So what school did you go to?”

    Pete’s eyes twinkled. “Bells Road High. Played cricket—they were convinced I hadda be good at it, since I came from Yorkshire—and Australian Rules. That I’d apparently been in the country long enough to understand.”

    “Any good at either of ’em?” asked the old man, unmoved.

    “Well, I wasn’t bad at cricket but I’ll never carry me bat out for Yorkshire. Loathed Australian Rules, hadn’t been exposed to it early enough, ya see. Preferred swimming and athletics, really. And I really loved gym work, but in those days that was considered sissy, only fit for girls, and a very last resort on pouring wet days when the footy field was under ten centimetres of water at sports period.”

    “Yeah.”

    “Um, talking of horses, I was hoping to sign up for a few lessons.”

    “Dare say they won’t mind including you if they’ve got a horse free. Gil’s planning on running the classes on the mornings when Phil’s taken the more advanced ones on a trek.” He sucked his teeth, looking very dry.

    “Um, yes?”

    “See, ’e’s drawn up this huge great timetable, only I don’t think it’s dawned that if none of them are advanced, all his red codes and green codes and yellow codes aren’t gonna—”

    He didn’t need to go on, Pete had already collapsed in a wheezing fit.

    “Yeah,” concluded the old man drily. “Well, they’ll learn. Learn or go under. I dare say they’ll be around the place if you wanna wander over; personally I’m for a cuppa and a sandwich.”

    Andy had refused point-blank to eat Susan’s healthful breakfast of muesli sprinkled with prunes and chopped banana and topped off with plain yoghurt. Which had not meant that she’d allowed him any alternative other than a piece of wholemeal toast spread very, very thinly with cholesterol-lowering marg and Vegemite. “Um, yeah,” said Pete uneasily.

    “White bread and cold spaghetti,” he said with relish.

    “Yeah, very funny, Andy. There isn’t any spaghetti, for a start.”

    “There’s a cupboard full of tins,” he returned unemotionally, getting up.

    “You’re gonna open a tin for it?” croaked Pete.

    “I can afford a bloody tin of spaghetti, mate!”

    “Not that,” said Pete feebly.

    The old man eyed him drily. “Ya can come at the idea of a cold spaghetti sandwich if there’s some left over—just—only not at the idea that anyone could deliberately open a tin to make one?”

    “You said it!” replied Pete with some vigour, recovering himself.

    “You oughta wise up to yourself, mate. Life isn’t flamin’ food technology. X grammes of this plus Y grammes of that doesn’t always add up to Mixture Z and what’s more, most people don’t want it to,” Andy advised him, ambling indoors.

    What was that supposed to mean? Pete stared at the spot where he’d been, his high-cheekboned face gradually reddening.

    On the front sweep of Jardine Holiday Horse Treks a handsome young cowboy was sitting on a beautiful golden steed. The thing was tossing its head and, uh, champing at the bit was probably the technical term, but the rider appeared indifferent to this carry-on. Managing it effortlessly, was probably the technical term. Sitting on it like a rock or something. Pete approached with considerable caution.

    “Oh—hullo, Phil: it’s you,” he said, very, very lamely.

    “Hi, Pete!” said Phil cheerfully, turning his head and smiling at him.

    Pete winced. “Don’t you have to, um, watch where you’re going?” he said faintly. “And, um, put both hands on the—I mean hold the reins with both hands?”

    “No! It’s not like driving a car, you know! Goldie’s got more sense than I have, haven’t you, boy?” he said with a laugh, patting the thing’s neck. Pete already knew that its name was Golden Boy, shorted to Goldie over the past year, that it was a present from some demented relative on the English side with more money than sense, and that it was a gelding. Just standing meekly under a tree with Phil patting its nose and no saddle or anything on it, it hadn’t seemed so, well, daunting, was possibly the word. Alive. Feisty.

    “Are they always that edgy?” he croaked, standing well back from the thing’s feet and teeth.

    “What? He’s just a bit fresh, needs some exercise!” said the boy with a laugh.

    Right.

    “Hey, Jen!” Phil then bellowed. “I’m OFF!”

    After a moment a slim, pretty brown-haired girl appeared in the doorway, panting. “Tell ya what, we oughta make sure there’s a vehicle on the premises every time anyone takes the horses out!” she panted. “Then if there is an accident we’ll be able to get them down to Barrabarra.”

    “I’ll say!” agreed Pete with feeling.

    “Balls,” said Phil mildly. “You might say, we oughta make sure there’s a horse saddled up every time someone uses the cars, ’cos if there’s a ditto then ditto. But if you think it oughta go in the risk management brochure, I don’t mind. –This is Jen, Pete,” he explained.

    Pete was going to skirt the horse and shake hands but Jen closed the door and came over to him, to his considerable relief.

    “Are you compiling a risk management brochure, Jen?” he asked with interest, having shaken.

    “Yes. Vince from Blue Gums—have ya met him? –Yeah. Well, he showed us theirs and I thought just in case of a personal injury suit we better have one. Issue one to all personnel, ya know?”

    “Yes, that seems a very sensible precaution, Jen,” he approved.

    Jen beamed. “Yeah,” she agreed happily, handing Phil a small plastic bottle of water.

    He looked mildly surprised, but put it in a saddlebag. “I’m not going off into the untamed bush, you know,” he remarked.

    “Yes, you are, ya nit! Nobody goes out without water, all right?”

    “All right,” he agreed amiably.

    “Okay, I’m off,” warned Jen. “Sure there’s nothing else we need from the supermarket?”

    Phil smiled at her. “Well, since she can’t hear us, a bottle of Cointreau for Mummy?”

    “Yeah, ’course: good one!” Jen produced a piece of folded paper from her jeans, unfolded it—an enormous list was displayed—produced a pen, also from her pocket, and asking simply: “How do ya spell it?” added Cointreau to the list.

    “Er—Jen,” asked Pete as she shoved the pen and the list away again, “what about your handbag?”

    “Got me wallet!” she replied cheerfully, patting her other pocket. She strode over to the old ute that was neatly parked at the edge of the sweep with its nose headed towards the drive. “See ya!”

    “See ya!” agreed Phil.

    “’Bye Jen, nice to meet you,” said Pete feebly as she got in and drove off. The horse, to his huge relief, didn’t budge, though the old ute was pretty noisy.

    “I’m off, unless there’s anything I can help you with, Pete?” said Phil nicely.

    “Uh—no, it’s all right, Phil, I wanted a word with Gil.”

    “Just go round the back, he’s round there somewhere. See ya!”

    Pete couldn’t see how he did it, he didn’t say gee-up or visibly clap his heels into its sides, but suddenly the bloody horse was in motion. He watched limply as they, um, possibly not technically galloped, but moved rapidly across the sweep and disappeared round the corner of the house.

    “Well, all right, Andy,” he said sourly under his breath, “I may be rigid in me thinking, but that’s one bright idea that’s gonna be reconsidered, I can tell ya! Heavy vehicle licence—yeah. Any sort of boat with a motor—yeah. But I’ll never cope with one of those! The ruddy things are—are alive!”

    His muttering died away and there was complete silence on the sweep of the old Jardine place, apart from the incessant zinging of the cicadas.

    “All right, that’s me problem,” conceded Pete Outhwaite very sourly indeed.

    After a certain period of just plain scowling, he marched round the house, still scowling, and crossed the back yard—

    From the house there came a shrill scream and a shriek of: “Stop it, you beastly thing, STOP IT!” and then a loud burst of sobs, and Pete was across the back yard, through the porch, in the kitchen and leaping to the resc— Leaping to turn the fucking blender off at the wall. The fountain of yellow muck that was spattering all over the kitchen ceased abruptly.

    Honey looked at him numbly, the tears rolling down her cheeks. “Thank you,” she said faintly.

    Pete rubbed a hand over the short, grey-brown bristles round the bald patch—he’d long since given up pretending he had any hair. And bald and shaven was supposed to be in, wasn’t it? Not that it had ever done him any good. “Ya need to put the lid on tight and hold it down as well, to be sure.”

    She must be Honey, Phil’s mum. And quite aside from the inability to work what was probably the most common kitchen aid in the world after the electric kettle and the toaster, what did she think she was doing in what would very shortly be the kitchen of a commercial establishment offering meals, with that mass of madly untidy hair, bare feet, shorts, an inadequate pink vest, and those tits? Uh—with no apron, he meant! No apron.

    Honey sniffled loudly. “Now ya tell me,” she said wanly. “Look at the mess!”

    “Electric blenders are apt to do that unless you put the lid on—”

    “You SAID! Shut UP!” she shouted.

    Pete gulped. “Well, they are,” he said feebly.

    “It doesn’t say that in the bloody instructions!” she retorted evilly, scrubbing her hand across her eyes.

    “Uh—well, no, they’d be in Chinese Business English,” he admitted.

    “Mm.”

    “Um, what were you trying to make?”

    “Does it matter, now? Mango ice cream. Gil bought this fancy ice cream maker, you see, and it’s got a book of nice recipes, and he bought a whole tray of mangoes—he still hasn’t grasped that fruit goes off in our weather. So I thought I’d make some as a surprise.”

    “This’ll be a surprise, all right,” he allowed, looking at the disaster area the navy and white kitchen had turned into. “Never mind, it’ll be quite easy to get off.”

    “It won’t, it’s on the ceiling as well!” cried Honey, suddenly bursting into renewed sobs.

    “Uh—now, come on, don’t cry.” Pete went over to her and very gingerly touched the bare, plump shoulder with the narrow pink strap hanging off it. “Don’t cry,” he repeated. “It’s fresh, a wet sponge’ll get it off in no time.”

    “I can’t reach!” sobbed Honey.

    The kitchen was a lean-to, like most of its generation, and its ceiling was bloody low. She was short, barely up to his shoulder, but he could have actually touched the lower part of the ceiling, and he was only five foot eleven. “’Course ya can, just stand on the kitchen steps or a chair,” he said soothingly.

    “I can’t! I’ll fall off!” She gave a rending sob.

    “You won’t fall off!” said Pete in amaze. “What’s gonna make you fall off?”

    “Mee-he-hee!” she wailed.

    “Look, don’t cry! It was a shock, that’s all, but it’s not a tragedy. Um, here, have my handkerchief,” he said desperately.

    To his relief she took it and blew her nose hard.  “I will fall off,” she said faintly. “I’ve done it before. I’ve got awful lumps on my shins where I fell off a chair trying to change a light bulb. It hurt so much I could hardly walk for two weeks. But I had to, it was just before Christmas and I had to do my Christmas shopping and get stuff posted.”

    Pete’s jaw sagged. It was hard to know what aspect of this speech to reply to first, really. “Fell off a chair?” he said faintly.

    “Mm,” said Honey, sniffing and blowing her nose again. “It wobbled,” she said, not looking at him, “and I fell off. I knew I would, but there was nobody else to change the stupid light bulb.” She looked up suddenly, glaring. “Now tell me a person can’t get vertigo from standing on a chair!”

    “No,” said Pete dizzily, looking into the huge brown eyes. “Uh, no, you manifestly did.” He became aware that his hand was still on her shoulder. Not to mention that he had the biggest hard-on of his adult life, Christ! He released her and stepped back hurriedly. “Well, look, in that case why don’t I do the ceiling and the tops of the walls and you do the lower bits, okay?”

    “Mm. Thanks,” said Honey, sniffing hard and putting the handkerchief in the pocket of her shorts. “Um, who are you?”

    “Pete Outhwaite,” said Pete lamely, going very red—though he was pretty flushed already. “Mate of George’s. –George MacMurray,” he said as she was just looking up at him blankly.

    “I see. So George is back, is he?”

    “Yeah, that’s right. Asked me up for Christmas.”

    “He does know that Susan’s here, does he?” she quavered.

    Pete made a wry face. “He does now, yeah.”

    “Ooh, heck. Poor Susan: she can’t see that she rubs people up the wrong way.”

    “You said it.”

    “She’s asked us over for Christmas dinner, and Gil thought we’d better accept, ’cos we turned her down last year.”

    “Yes, I know. You’d be Honey, then, that right ?”

    It was Honey’s turn to go red. “Yes—sorry! Honey Jardine!” she gasped.

    Pete smiled and held out his hand. “Good to meet you, Honey.”

    “Um—yes!” she gasped, still very flurried, putting hers into it.

    Cripes. Pete’s blood thundered in his ears and he felt himself kind of go red all over—like he’d been dipped in boiling oil, ya know? “What?” he said numbly.

    “The sponges,” repeated Honey shyly, looking up into the high-cheekboned, oval face and wondering if his nose had been broken at one stage, it was rather lumpy, and why he was scowling like that—help, maybe he didn’t want to clean the ceiling, after all! “Um, I said the sponges are in that cupboard, Gil bought a whole lot of new ones. And there’s loads of paper towels, too: he said it was silly to stint on something like that. Um, but you don’t need to help, Pete!” she added quickly.

    “’Course I do! Nothing else to do, anyway. Susan’s dragged poor old George off to the supermarket, meanwhile forbidding him to buy booze. Well, if I go back to Andy’s joint he’ll tell me I’m an anal neatnik that ought to wise up to himself and start learning how other people tick—not in so many words, but he made his meaning ruddy clear, the cunning old bugger that he is—”

    “Yes, he’s very clever,” she said seriously, nodding.

    “Right; and if I take the line of least resistance and go down to the boat, the minute she gets home Susan’ll accuse me of—well, not sure what, just generally going on the boat and drinking beer, but it’ll be a crime, you can bet your boots!”

    “Yes, she is that sort of lady,” Honey agreed. “I see, so you did bring your boat, did you, Pete? George said he was hoping you would.”

    “Yeah, only since then me and George made the mistake of taking old Andy on ’er and doing a bit of fishing and—”

    “Drinking beer!” finished Honey with a sudden loud giggle. “Yes!”

    “Yep,” agreed Pete happily. “Rest of the male half of Australia’s doing it, dunno why it hadda be a crime when we did it, but there you are! Didn’t catch anything, but I’m damned if I know whether that would have made it better or worse, beecoss I tell you frankly, Honey, women like Susan are beyond me!”

    “Mm,” agreed Honey sympathetically, smiling at him and wondering if she was only imagining that hint of Yorkshire in his voice. “They merely conform to the norms of their sex and social milieu, I think, Pete.”

    “Well, yeah, maybe it’s the ‘merely’ that gets to me,” he conceded drily. “Right, lead me to these paper towels and sponges!”

    “Oh!” said Honey with a jump, coming to. “Yes. In the cupboard under the sink.”

    In his place she’d just have sponged the muck off, but Pete Outhwaite not only wiped it off with the paper towels, he then washed the ceiling, walls and cupboards, using three fresh sponges in the process, and, rejecting the other cleaners Gil had bought at the supermarket, a squirt of the orange oil one. The kitchen certainly smelled lovely when he’d done it. He worked awfully fast, too.

    “Thank you very much,” she said feebly when he’d finished.

    “No problem!” replied Pete, grinning at her.

    “Are—are you always so efficient?” ventured Honey weakly.

    There was a short silence.

    “Well, yeah,” said Pete, clearing his throat. “I suppose I am. One of my besetting sins. Aspect of the anal neatnik thing. Most people can’t stand me round the house. Well,” he said heavily, “I’ve been a widower for going on twenty years—got worse, you see. Though Janet always said I was a better housekeeper and cook than she was. We used to share stuff,” he said with a little sigh.

    “I see,” said Honey in a tiny voice, wondering what the wife had died of. How terrible! He looked about George’s age, so twenty years ago he must only have been in his twenties.

    “Uh—well,” said Pete, coming to with a blink, “water under the bridge. But the more eccentric characteristics do tend to take over when one lives alone, I suppose.”

    “Mm,” she said, nodding the mop of pale bronze curls hard. “I was getting pretty mad, I think: obsessive over small things like always putting my rubbish bin in a particular spot on the verge, I used to get really upset if someone else had taken it, and always having to put the coffee into the mug and then take the spoon out before I poured the water in, and never having marg if I was having peanut butter even if there was only a scraping of peanut butter left—only then Phil came out to live with me and all of it seemed pointless!”

    Pete nodded numbly. It sounded pointless, all right. After a minute he admitted: “I always put my bin in a particular spot, too.”

    Honey bit her lip. “Mm.”

    “And I—well, if you’re working it helps to have a regular routine, I suppose… I always do my laundry first thing on Monday, rain or shine. I’ve got a drier, though.”

    “Have you?” said Honey, swallowing. “I never had a regular day for doing it, I always used to let it pile up, but, um, when I had decided to do it I’d do it even if it came on to pour and hang it out regardless. I used to tell myself that it could do with a good rinsing. Only Phil thought that that was silly—and it was! So he decided we ought to do it on Saturday, only if it was pouring, do it the next day, but not be rigid about it.”

    “Uh-huh. And the rubbish bin?”

    Honey beamed at him. “It’s a cliché, isn’t it, but he won’t let me put it out at all! Well, those wheelie bins aren’t heavy, once you’ve got them going, but it’s overcoming the initial inertia! And you see, old Mr Habib at the flats, well, he’s a nice old man but he’s totally obsessive, and he always arranges all the bins with their lids facing you. Um, with the handles against the wall, you see. And we’re Number 2, so ours is always wedged in between his and Marg’s, and you just can’t get at it! You have to heave his out first, and then heave ours out, it’s awful! Was, I should say,” she amended, suddenly smiling at him.

    “Yes,” said Pete limply. He had never even noticed that the initial inertia of his dustbin had to be overcome. Pete Outhwaite was forty-eight. It was only at this point in his life that he began to get some faint glimmering of what it must be like to be one of the other sex. And this in spite of the fact that he’d hauled the Phans’ old fridge out of the garage for Julie when their last hard rubbish collection was due. –It was only a small one, and presumably her husband had shoved it out there—well, perhaps with his brother’s help, he was a slight man—but he’d been off on one of his not-infrequent business trips and as there was one hard rubbish collection per twelve months in their suburb—

    “Couldn’t you speak to this Mr Habib, though?” he suggested feebly.

    Honey stared at him. “Of course not! He never listens, obsessive people never do!”

    No. Well, QED. Pete went rather red. “True. Well, good thing your son came out, eh?”

    “Yes,” she said seriously, nodding again. “Gil keeps saying how much good it’s done Phil, and how much he’s improved, but I think it’s done me good. –You wouldn’t know what to do with a lot of mangoes that are gonna go off before we can turn round, would you?”

    “Mango chutney, mango pickle—though that’s better with green ones—and mango ice cream?”

    “You’re joking! I’m not going near that thing again!” said Honey with feeling, giving the blender a look of loathing.

    “I’ll do it, if you like.”

    Perhaps with the example of David Walsingham just up the road Honey shouldn’t have, but she goggled at him. “Can you?”

    “Yes. Well food technology is my subject, but I can cook, yes. Like I say, I’ve got nothing else to do.”

    “Well, um, if you’d really like to?” said Honey uncertainly.

    “Yes, of course! Let’s see the recipe.”

     She handed him the booklet and watched nervously as he read the recipe.

    “Perfectly straightforward, standard ice cream recipe,” he announced.

    “Is it? Um, good. Um, but I’ve already wasted loads of eggs,” she said uneasily.

    “Then we’ll do one of the recipes without eggs. Better for you, anyway: less cholesterol. Have you got plenty of milk powder?”

    “Yes, loads, Gil said we’d better stock up for emergencies. Not real ones, he just meant if we ran out of milk at an awkward time.”

    “Right. Well, that’s good, though we could just do a water ice.”

    “Um, isn’t that just for lemons?”

    “No.” Happily Pete explained, in the intervals of asking her for an apron, inspecting the ice-cream maker and approving of it, rinsing the blender, and laying out all the utensils and ingredients neatly on the kitchen table, exactly what a water ice was and the difference between it and the various types of ice cream…

    Gil came into the kitchen in search of a cuppa at around ten-thirty and stopped dead, his jaw dropping. George’s mate Pete, in an old floral apron of Honey’s over his jeans, was in the act of withdrawing a set of cooked jars from the oven—George had warned him the man was a maniac but he hadn’t thought he’d meant it literally—and Honey was sitting at the table, peeling mangoes. The kitchen was pervaded by the most glorious, spicy smell.

    “Hullo, Gil!” she beamed. “Guess what! Pete knows what to do with all those mangoes!”

    “Jolly good. Hi, Pete,” he croaked, tottering to a seat.

    “Hi, Gil,” replied Pete equably. “Now, don’t touch those, they’re very hot,” he warned Honey.

    “No, I won’t. None of them seem to have cracked.”

    “No, they must all have been in good nick.”

     Okay, they were on the same wavelength. “What are you making?” asked Gil very, very weakly.

    “Mango chutney: he did it all!” beamed Honey. “Well, I cut things up, once he’d showed me the right size.”

    “Used some of your onions, I’m afraid,” said Pete.

    “Use as many onions as you like… Mango chutney? You mean like Major Grey’s? I thought that was a delicacy,” croaked Gil.

    “Depends where you’re living, I think,” returned Pete drily.

    “It’s really economical, Gil,” said Honey eagerly, “’cos in the supermarkets it’s over seven dollars a jar, now! And you got that whole tray of mangoes for—how much was it, again?”

    “Fifteen dollars,” said Gil limply. “The price of two jars of chutney. So that’s what the wonderful smell is, is it?”

    “Yes. Used your spices, and the root ginger from the fridge, I’m afraid,” Pete confessed.

    “Uh—”

    “That was Jen’s, she was gonna make a stir-fry, but it’s okay, she won’t mind,” said Honey comfortably. “Phil got the spice set for the new cook, only we haven’t got one yet, have we, Gil?”

    “No. Right. Er, what’s that humming noise?”

    “It’s the ice-cream machine, of course!” beamed Honey.

    Oh, of course. Ted, Phil and Jen had all told him he’d been mad to buy it. The fact that Honey hadn’t had more or less confirmed their diagnosis. Jack had expressed great interest but confessed, though he could see how to get it going, that he wouldn’t be up for making the mixture itself. “Ice cream as well? Wonderful,” said Gil weakly.

    “Keep well clear,” Pete warned him.

    “Yes,” agreed Gil faintly, watching as the man set his steaming saucepan of, presumably, mango chutney, on a chopping board on the table and then proceeded to fill his hot jars neatly with ladlefuls of the mixture.

    “That’s awfully neat, Pete,” approved Honey. “I’d be spilling it everywhere!”

    “Added to which, I don’t think she’d be capable of lifting that big pan full of thousand-degree chutney safely, and may I say I’m very, very glad it isn’t her that’s doing it and in short, thanks awfully, Pete!” said Gil with a weak laugh.

    “That’s all right. Nothing else to do.”

    “No, ’cos see, him and George and Andy, they’re all in the doghouse ’cos they went on the boat and drank beer yesterday!” said Honey eagerly.

    Gil coughed suddenly. “Right. Susan, is this? Mm. Er, some of us wondered, when George said you might be coming up, Pete, and then she turned up— No,” he conceded as Pete made a sour face. “Sorry.”

    “It’s a pity, because she’s lonely,” said Honey seriously.

    “Honey, my dear, she’s the sort of woman who makes a rod for her own back,” he said heavily.

    “I know, but I think a lot of it’s because she’s unhappy. She’s the sort of lady who likes things to be nice, and she’s very house-proud: you’ve got a lot in common with her, really, Pete,” she said, looking at him hopefully.

    Pete turned purple, Gil was interested to see. “No, thanks!”

    “Blow,” she said sadly. “It was just an idea… It seemed ideal.”

    “Not to the weaker sex, Honey,” said Gil with a laugh in his voice. “Well, those look super, Pete: how soon can we eat it?”

    Trying not to look gratified, Pete replied gruffly: “Gotta mature in the jars. Give it two months.”

    “Two months?” cried Honey in horrible disappointment.

    “What the last honourable speaker said, Mr Speaker,” agreed Gil.

    “Um, well, a month, maybe,” Pete conceded weakly. “But there’s a bit left over, you could have it today.”

    Gil looked at his neat little saucer of leftover chutney and smiled a little. “Yum! We’ll do that! Would this have been your mum’s practice in your youth, Pete?”

    Pete looked limply at his saucer. “S’pose it was, yeah. Always used to help her with the jam and chutney, the girls weren’t interested. Dad thought I was a bit odd, but he liked to see me giving Mum a hand, so he just used to ruffle me hair—had some in those days,” he added wryly—“and say: ‘Reet, lad, and when tha’s doon that, tha can ge’ oot wi’ football.’ –More or less!”

    His audience nodded and smiled and Honey then said eagerly: “I like your hair like that, I think it suits you! Don’t you think so, Gil?”

    Trying very hard not to laugh—the man seemed a really decent chap and it was pretty evident he had a chip on his shoulder the size of Epping Forest—Gil squeaked: “Ooh, yes, you look lovely, Pete!”

    “Hah, hah,” he returned, grinning sheepishly. He dumped his pan in the sink and filled it with cold water. “How’s that chopping going, Honey?”

    “Well, it’s not very neat,” replied Honey dubiously.

    “Never mind, dare say they’ll eat it, eh?” he said cheerfully. “—Pity to waste a hot oven,” he explained to Gil.

    Er—yes. Was it? The stove was new, everyone having voted that no cook was going to want to use the antique one. Gil had kept a packet of fish and chips warm in the oven on a couple of occasions last winter but apart from that and Ted’s one vainglorious attempt at bread, he was damn’ sure it had never been used. “So the oven’s okay, is it?” he said weakly.

    “Yeah, not bad, for an electric oven. Ya didn’t think of getting an industrial one?”

    “No, the sight of David’s terrifying one at Springer House scared the seven wits out of all of us, I’m afraid, Pete.”

    “Pity,” he said simply, getting a dish of pastry out of the fridge and putting it in to cook.

    “See, you can weigh the pastry down with like, dried beans or rice, on some baking paper, but he reckons it can make the base too damp if it’s for a cold flan, so if it bubbles up a bit he’ll just prick it with a fork,” said Honey sunnily.

    “Yuh—uh—” Gil would have sworn half those words weren’t in her vocabulary, let alone the concepts. “What was that dish?”

    There was a short silence, during which Honey looked hopefully at Pete.

    “A really nice French flan dish. Ovenware,” he said limply. “Didn’t you know you had it?”

    “Er—no. Well, David gave us a list but I thought I’d removed most extraneous items from it,” he said feebly.

    “Wasn’t under the impression that one of you could cook, was ’e?” replied Pete drily.

    Somewhat to Gil’s relief, Honey broke down in delighted giggles at this, so he was able to reply limply: “I doubt it.” After which he just sat back and watched limply as Pete efficiently washed his chutney pan and the implements he’d been using with it, wiped the bench and the table, neither of which appeared to need it to the layman’s eye, and embarked on a small pan of sauce using some Rose’s lime juice, a quantity of sugar and the squashier bits of Honey’s sliced mango. Then the mixture went into the food-processor, Honey for this operation getting up and moving away. Gil didn’t ask, he had a fair idea what might have happened. Though at least she hadn’t superheated Ted’s coffee-pot yet, like Nefertite had done with that one of the B&B’s. Which reminded him…

    “Er, would I be horribly in the way if I made a ’umble cuppa, Pete?” he ventured meekly.

    “Yes!” squeaked Honey. She broke down in a paroxysm of wheezing giggles.

    Pete looked foolish. “Well, um, don’t wanna use the stove, do ya?”

    “Perish the thought! Boil the jug, pour the water on the teabags.”

    “We were gonna have one when he’s finished,” explained Honey, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes.

    “Okay, I’ll wait; but what is it?”

    What it was, was a mango pie for which Pete had seen a recipe in an English cookery book and which he didn’t guarantee, with apologies for the Rose’s lime juice.

    “I have seen beautiful limes in the shops, Pete, but never bought them, as I’ve no idea what to do with them. Jen’s best contribution was maybe put in stir-fries, and the others were as much at a loss as I. Though Ted said something arcane about Thai food, but he can’t even cook two sausages.”

    “He can cook one, you see!” squeaked Honey collapsing again.

    Pete looked at her and smiled slowly. “I geddit. Been baching, has ’e?”

    “Mm. Mind you, I’m just as bad, I kept running out of stuff when Phil first came. It’s not that they sell quantities for one, but quantities for two are quite common, chops and things, but of course we’d eat it all the first day.”

    Judging by the look on his face Pete Outhwaite didn’t think she was bad, at all. Gil’s eyes twinkled but he merely said nicely: “The combination of lime and mango sounds lovely, Pete, but, um, if it’s a pie, doesn’t it all have to be cooked?”

    Not entirely to his surprise, Pete plunged into the full bit. Flans, tarts, French this and thats, glazes, pastry creams, raspberries and strawberries—where did they come from?—apricot jam and brushing with little pastry brushes were all in there somewhere. But Gil did finally gather that—though Pete did not guarantee this recipe—using fresh fruit in an open flan or tart was not an entirely unknown technique and you then poured the sauce, possibly not its technical name, over it. Once it had cooled down a bit. And in their climate put the pie in the fridge—how wise. But it should be served at room temperature. Uh-huh. With cream. Well, that was a non-starter, he and Honey had used all the cream for their ice cream, but Gil just laid low and said nuffin, like Brer Rabbit.

    And after five thousand thirsty ones had come in and been shouted at crossly by Honey for daring to think the beautiful mango pie might be for smoko, they were at long last allowed to pour the hot water on the teabags and have it. With the scones that Pete had whipped up at the last moment, to shove in the oven as the pastry came out. The acidulated Australian jam was an insult to them but after an examination of its label and a short dissertation on all the crap printed thereon, Pete did let them have it.

    “It’s his subject, you see!” beamed Honey. “Food technology, he teaches it at the uni!”

    “But it doesn’t seem to stop him cooking like an angel,” said Gil cheerfully, completely ignoring the astonished looks that he was now getting from both Ted and Jack. “Got that ice-cream maker going, too, no sweat.”

    Fortunately this effort at diversion worked—or put it like this, both Ted and Jack realised it was supposed to be a diversion and pretended to be diverted by it, and the moment passed…

    “Gil,” said Ted heavily as the workers retreated to the privacy of the barbecue area up by the bunkhouse, “you do realise that that fellow’s the complete control freak, do you?”

    “Well, hadn’t absolutely realised it during his visit the other day, but after seeing the way he cleared up after himself this morning and the surgical precision with which he laid stuff out before embarking on the tasks he’d set himself, and calling to mind certain remarks of George’s, yes.”

    “Him and Honey are chalk and cheese, then,” said Jack grimly.

    “Yes, but my dear chaps! She likes him!” said Gil with a little laugh.

    “Look,” warned Ted grimly, “a relationship with a type like that—of either sex, I’ve had some with my ex—is doomed to complete disaster!”

    “It’s too soon to talk about a relationship, Ted—well, she was kindly proposing him for Susan, earlier: to his face, yes.”

    Jack went into a spluttering fit.

    “Yeah,” said Gil, grinning broadly.

    Ted was rather flushed. “Look, Gil, it isn’t funny! Honey and that—that manic personality?”

    “George calls him a maniac, yeah,” remembered Jack, ceasing to splutter.

    “Mm, but think about relationships with manic personalities you two’ve had.”

    “Rosalie?” said Jack dubiously.

    “Her or Susan Pendleton, Jack.”

    “Uh—yeah. Well, shit, Ted’s right, it was a disaster, it wasn’t just the thing with Desirée Garven, the woman was driving me mad!”

    “Yes. But though temperamentally you’re very different from Susan, you are quite an organised type, you know, Jack—like to be in charge of your life. And you’re very capable. You too, Ted, before you start.”

    “I’m not a fucking control freak, thanks,” said Ted sourly.

    “No, didn’t mean that at all. My feeling is that to, let’s say a pretty normal person who’s reasonably competent and capable, a relationship with someone who’s far too much that way—super-competent, has to be in charge of his or her environment to the point of mania—control freak, if you like—a relationship with one of those won’t work, largely because they don’t leave you your area of expertise: they tend to take it over as well. And they most certainly tell you how to do it better, whatever it is!”

    There was a considerable silence.

    “Bloody Rosalie never actually took over my stuff… But she sure as Hell told me how to do it better! Talk about your back seat driver!” said Jack with feeling. “Cripes, I even put the flaming dustbin out wrong!”

    “How can you put a dustbin out wrong?” asked Ted blankly.

    “Dunno, matey. But I done it.”

    “Yes. She invaded your sphere of expertise, you see?” said Gil.

    “My ex was that sort, all right,” admitted Ted sourly. “And that’s my point. He’ll take over completely—well, Hell, he was giving a bloody good imitation of it just now!—and drive Honey mad.”

    Gil nodded. “Mm, I think he probably would take over completely, at least in the purely practical sphere. But think of it, my dear fellows: what is Honey’s area of expertise around the house?”

    They thought of it.

    After quite some time Jack managed: “She has been on her own, running her own show for years, ya know. She might not do it efficiently, but she does it.”

    “Yes, I can see there may well be some adjustments to be made, but does she like any of it? Or, fundamentally, care about it?”

    “Well, no,” Jack admitted on an uncertain note..

    Ted was frowning over it. “No, but… I don’t think it’s a question of whether she likes it, Gil. She’s used to doing it her way, whatever it is, and if he takes over and does it better, that’s still invading her space.”

    “Yeah,” agreed Jack anxiously.

    “You’re right,” replied Gil calmly, “but I rather think that Pete’s the sort of person who does a thing thoroughly or not at all.”

    “Well, yeah!”  said Ted loudly and crossly.

    “I mean, he thinks about what he’s doing, Ted.”

    “Uh—ye-ah… But it’s not a question of intelligence, this sort of thing’s more instinctual.”

    “Yes: psychological,” added Jack anxiously.

    “Mm. Um, driven by the ego, not the id, Gil.”

    “I agree: but I’d say Pete’s the sort of person, and I grant you they’re rare, who stops and thinks about whatever the Hell his instincts are prompting him to.”

    Ted rubbed his nose. “Um, well, you could be right… But she isn’t, Gil!”

    “No. But I think he’s bright enough and self-aware enough to notice when it’s getting to her, and back off.”

    The other two still didn’t look convinced, though they did look slightly more cheerful.

    “Let’s hope so,” said Ted. “She’s had one bloody disaster with your prick of a brother, she doesn’t need another!”

    “No,” agreed Jack. “Well, she didn’t seem to mind him taking over in the kitchen.”

    “No, exactly!” said Gil with a smile. “How many women do you know that would have just sat there at the table letting him get on with it? And not only that, admiring it while he did it!”

    There was a short silence.

    “All right, you got a point,” conceded Jack. “Mind you, Deanna lets David get on with it, but that’s his job. Dot does let him cook, but she’s in charge of the rest of it.”

    “I’ve never seen chalk and cheese work—but, okay. Reserve judgement,” conceded Ted.

    “Mm, good. And listen: if he offers to cook for us over the holidays, since this cook Dot and Deanna’s Aunt Kate was threatening doesn’t seem to be putting in an appearance, let’s let him, okay?”

    “Trial run: yeah, righto,” agreed Jack.

    “Yes, but Honey doesn’t want to do it anyway,” Ted objected.

    “If the last honourable speaker would refer to his copy of the written question, that is part of my point,” said Gil solemnly.

    “Yeah, all right. Can’t hurt.”

    “Mm. And be good chaps and cut him some slack, okay?”

    “I had no intention of not—” Ted broke off. “All right, maybe I did.”

    “I wasn’t gonna cut him much, either,” admitted Jack. “Yeah, okay, Gil.”

    Gil sagged. Phew!

    Pete had gone over to the B&B to get some special wax off David to put on the top of his chutney once it had cooled down properly. Honey hadn’t even known that you did put wax on chutney. She just sat on at the kitchen table feeling sort of stunned. He was nice, but—well, heck, talk about efficient! Though it would be lovely to have proper chutney: they could have it with ham, either with salad or in ham sandwiches, that’d be nice, and with cold meat, too. And it was very nice with cheese, they could offer vegetarian sandwiches with cheese and chutney and lettuce and stuff! The supermarket had had bean sprouts but they didn’t look very nice, and Phil had said they didn’t keep, you really had to buy them fresh every couple of days, or make your own. Only of course he didn’t know how to do it. Maybe Pete would know how to make sprouts!

    When the phone rang she jumped ten feet where she sat.

    “Jardine Holiday Horse Treks,” she said tentatively. It was Gil’s phone and it was better if you said that, because it was the number he’d put in their ads—including the ones on a couple of websites, she wasn’t sure how, but he and Ted between them had managed it, though they didn’t yet have their own web page. Only she wasn’t used to it yet. Added to which she wasn’t at all sure what to do if it was a customer.

    “Hullo, this is Anita Grover,” said an agitated female voice. “We’re booked in from the twenty-seventh. For a week.”

    “Um, yes?” faltered Honey.

    “A party of four. Two adults and two children.”

    She’d stopped, evidently expecting some reply, so Honey croaked: “Um, yes, Mrs Grover?”

    “He’s arranged to let his brother have the house while we’re away: they’re coming down from Katherine,” she said grimly, “and Marie just rang to check that we’re expecting them to arrive on Sunday night. The thing is, they’ve got four kids, and her sister and her two are coming with them—huge teenagers, there’s no way we can fit them in the house! Not with us there as well. They weren’t supposed to get here until we’d left, on Boxing Day, I knew it’d all go wrong if I left it to him! They’re bringing a couple of those blow-up mattresses, but we’ve just put in a patio and a gazebo, with some expensive ground-cover—well, let’s face it, it’s pointless trying to establish a lawn with the water restrictions, isn’t it?—and there’s no way I’m letting them pitch a tent on that, even if there was room for it, with the pool!”

    “Um, no,” said Honey feebly.

    “And there are strict regulations about parking in our street—it’s a cul-de-sac, it’s a very nice new development, and that sort of thing is controlled—I said to him, your brother’s got absolutely no idea, has he?—so they’ll have to put one car in the garage and the other in the drive—and he wouldn’t take my advice and go for the garage with the ready-made loft, so that’s that, isn’t it? The design allows for it, mind you, but no, five thousand extra would have broken the bank, and now look what it’s let us in for!”

    “I see, you haven’t got room for them.”

    “No. And it’s no use asking those people next-door,” said Mrs Grover grimly. “The Andersons on the other side are very nice, but they’ve got her parents coming.”

    “I see.”

    “So I was wondering—I know it’s an awful imposition—but could we possibly come two days early?”

    “Um, the first people are due on the twenty-seventh, they wanted to settle in and stay over New Year’s,” said Honey in a muddled voice. “Um, two days early?”

    Mrs Grover swallowed hard. “It would mean arriving on Christmas Day—but we’d bring all our own food, you wouldn’t have to do a thing!”

    Honey didn’t think she’d have been able to say no anyway, but the swallow was certainly a factor in her saying kindly: “Well, it doesn’t matter to us, really, Mrs Grover. The bunkhouse is ready. They might not have finished the barbecue area, they’re still mucking round finishing off their silly brick wall and fussing over an awning over the far side—not the side where the barbies are, because Jack said they didn’t want it to catch fire. We’ve put a fridge in the bunkhouse, we thought it’d be useful for cold drinks, but I’ll take some of the bottles out, you can use it for your food.”

    “Ruh-really?” she quavered. “You mean we can come?”

    “Yes, that’s okay. I’ll tell Gil you’re in a pickle: he won’t mind,” said Honey kindly.

    “Oh, thank you!” she gasped, sounding as if she was going to burst into tears.

    “No problem. There won’t be any organised rides or like that, though. Um, and our neighbours have invited us over for Christmas dinner, we might not be home. But if you’re not here by then we’ll just leave the bunkhouse unlocked.”

    “Thank you so much,” said Mrs Grover, sniffing and now sounding as if she was smiling through tears.

    “That’s okay. We’ll see you on Monday, then. And—and take care on the roads, won’t you?”

    “Yes. We’ll set off first thing tomorrow, and if we have to sleep in a lay-by, serve him right, he can suffer, him and his back! Thank you so much, Mrs—I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

    “Honey Jardine. Just call me Honey.”

    “Honey, then! I’m Anita. I can’t tell you what a relief this is, Honey! Of course we’ll pay for the extra days, please tell your husband not to worry about that!”

    “Um, my brother-in-law, not my husband. Yes, I will. Is there anything you’d like us to put in the fridge for you?”

    “Well, just some milk, if you can manage it. You do provide tea-making facilities, don’t you?”

    Thankfully Honey responded with some information she was sure of: “Yes, there’s four power points and four electric jugs, and it’s all included in the price. The milk and sugar as well.”

    “I thought that was right. We’ll see you on Monday, then! Thanks again, Honey! Good-bye!” she said brightly.

    “Bye-bye,” replied Honey feebly. “Help,” she said to her humming receiver. She hung it up slowly. “Um, Grover,” she muttered. “Blow, where’s the pen gone? One of them’s nicked it again!”

    “Nicked what, Honey?” said a cheerful voice. And Jen came in, lugging four bags crammed with shopping.

    “The phone pen.”

    Jen sniffed. “We’ll have to chain it to the phone pad. –Here.” She produced her own pen from her pocket.

    “Thanks. Grover. Was it? Um, Anita, anyway,” decided Honey, writing: “Anita. Coming on Xmas Day instead.”

    Jen was looking over her shoulder. “Eh?”

    “Yes, she just rung up in a panic because her husband’s brother and his family are coming down from Katherine earlier than they thought—that’s in the Northern Territory, isn’t it? Yeah, I thought so. They’re gonna use their house while they’re away, you see. And there’s her sister and her two huge teenagers as well, so they won’t have room for them, and I think she meant her back yard’s filled up with the pool and the new patio and some fancy ground-cover, and, um, not a pergola, one of those other things you see on those home shows where they’re always turning people’s nice old back yards into horrible building sites, and they end up with no space and no grass for the children to play on.”

    “Revolting, eh?” agreed Jen.

    “Yes,” said Honey gratefully. “So she asked me if they could come on Christmas Day and bring all their own food. I did tell her they couldn’t have organised rides. But the bunkhouse is all ready: it would have been awfully mean to tell her they couldn’t come. And they’re going to pay for the extra days.”

    “Sounds okay,” said Jen mildly. “She give you any idea when to expect them?”

    “No; I expect it’ll depend on how busy the roads are. So I said we’d be having Christmas dinner with Susan but we could leave the bunkhouse unlocked: that’ll be okay, eh?”

    “Hell, yeah, we’re not gonna get burglars in Outer Woop-Woop on Christmas Day!” replied Jen breezily. “Wanna gimme a hand to lug the stuff in, Honey?”

    All the shopping was inside when the phone rang again. Gratefully Honey let Jen answer it.

    “Deanna,” she reported, hanging up with a grin. “Just to let us know there’s a bloke called Pete over there that she’s sending back to us. That that mate of George’s that turned up this morning?”

    “Yes,” said Honey, going very, very pink. “See all these beautiful jars of chutney?”

    “No,” she said blankly.

    “Under the tea-towel.” Honey raised it carefully.

    “Crikey!”

    “Yes,” said Honey on a proud note. “He made it from those silly mangoes of Gil’s.”

    “Ya don’t think he’d like to be our cook, do ya?”

    “He’s a professional, he’s a lecturer in food technology at the uni, but actually I was wondering if he’d like to, just to tide us over. Only it’d be an awful cheek to ask him,” she finished glumly.

    “He can always say no! I’ll ask him!” said Jen sturdily. She sniffed the chutney. “Gee, it smells real!”

    “I know!” agreed Honey proudly.

    To Honey’s mystification—she wasn’t a shy girl—Jen then stood on one leg, and said: “Um, Honey…”

    “Mm?”

    Jen swallowed. “Mum didn’t ring, did she?”

    “No, and stop fussing. If Sal wants to come up, she’s very welcome,” said Honey firmly.

    “Yeah, but heck, it’s Saturday already and Monday’s Christmas Day, it’s a bit on the nose!”

    “If she was stocktaking and doing accounts yesterday she probably decided to have a nice sleep-in for once.”

    “Knowing her, she got up at crack of dawn to get down the markets and buy up all that stuff I told her not to,” replied Sal Remington’s daughter grimly, “and now she’s stuck in traffic trying to get home!”

    “Or maybe her old Aunty Kath’s got worse, Jen.”

    Jen sighed. “I’ll ring her.”

    Jen’s end of the conversation went: “Hi, ’s’me. –Yeah, all right, ya do. How’s Aunty Kath? …Oh, good. –Well, all right, not good, Mum, but at least she’s sitting up and taking notice! And the nursing-home staff’ll be used to it, it’ll be water off a duck’s. So where are you? …Oh. …Yeah, okay. See ya.”

    She rang off and smiled weakly at Honey. “She went round to see Aunty Kath this morning and the old bat’s sitting up eating chocs and accusing the nursing-home staff of nicking her pearl necklace that she gave to Aunty Barb’s Claudia when she got married. The leg’s still pretty bad and she called Mum Gwen again, but Mum concluded she’s not gonna go this weekend. But she’s not up to outings, and anyway, that time back in October when Aunty Barb had her over for Uncle Paul’s birthday party the old bat turned the oven timer off and the dinner was ruined, and when she told her off she went and wet her pants on a good easy chair.”

    “Um, elderly people often can’t help incontinence,” she murmured.

    “No, but heck, she’s got a point, you don’t need that in your lounge-room for Christmas!”

    “No.”

    “And Mum says the nursing-home’s all done up with streamers and a tree and they’re gonna have a turkey and Christmas cake and everything.”

    “Good! So what was Sal doing when you rang, Jen?”

    Jen swallowed. “Driving up here, actually.”

    “Oh, good,” said Honey placidly.

    “She reckons she left a message on your voice-mail.”

    “On the machine thingo? I don’t think the phone rang,” said Honey dubiously, eying Gil’s answering machine.

    “Knowing her, it’ll of been at crack of dawn.” She turned the playback on. There were two messages, the first timed at six—zero—five—a.—m. Honey swallowed in spite of herself, but it wasn’t Sal, surprisingly enough. “Hullo, Gil, this is Guy. Thinking of coming out there, might suss out Hill’s ruddy ecolodge. Merry Christmas!”

    “Who’s he?” asked Jen simply.

    “Dunno. He must be one of his friends from the regiment, there’s loads of them. Well, that’s nice!”

    “Yeah,” agreed Jen, smiling at her. “This must be Mum.”

    Timed at six—five—seven—a.—m. “This is Sal Remington. I’m just popping out to the markets, Honey, and then I’ll look in on Aunty Kath and if she’s okay I’ll see you around twelve-thirty today, Saturday. If not, I’ll ring again. ’Bye!”

    Honey looked at her watch and asked feebly: “Where was she when you rang, Jen?”

    “Didn’t say. Half an hour out of Barrabarra, by my calculations. Well, that’s Mum for ya!”

    “She did say she definitely would like to come, Jen,” murmured Honey.

    “And the rest! Oh, well. –I told her not to buy any seafood, we don’t wanna risk food poisoning up here, and she knows Susan’s asked us over, but what’s the betting she arrives with an esky full of prawns?”

    “It is a long drive,” said Honey dubiously.

    “Well, yeah! I’ll bloody well bury them myself!” threatened Jen.

    “Mm,” said Honey limply, reflecting that however mad Verity Jardine Corbett was—and there was no doubt that she was mad—at least she hadn’t been the sort of managing mother that was very hard to take. “Well, um, I think I’d better give Gil the messages... Maybe I shouldn’t of said Anita and her family could come early without consulting him, though. He is very easy-going, but…”

    “He won’t mind! Come on, I’ll come with ya!” said Jen companionably, putting an arm round her.

    And they went out, abandoning the kitchen to Pete Outhwaite’s beautiful pots of chutney and the tea-towel which Honey had dropped carelessly on the table beside them.

    The door wasn’t locked so Pete, having tapped politely, went in. He stopped stock still. “What the—”

    “Who done dat dere?” said an amused voice from behind him.

    To his fury Pete felt himself go very red. He took a deep breath. “Yeah,” he said, turning to face bloody Gil Sotherland. “Something like that.”

    “Don’t panic: we’ve discovered that the cockies that were nesting in the innards of the fridge and have no doubt migrated under the cupboards since I dosed it with Mortein don’t come out during the day,”

    “No, they like the dark. And we’ve got fly screens,” said Honey, appearing beside him. “Sorry, Pete, that was me, I was showing them to Jen. They won’t’ve got contaminated, will they?”

    “No, not in that short space of time. I’ll just do the wax. Have you got a double boiler?”

    “Almost definitely not!” replied Gil cheerfully.

    “In that case a stainless steel basin over a pot of water’ll do.”

    “We’ve got lots of plastic ones… I don’t think there’s a stainless steel one,” admitted Honey.

    “What’s it all in aid of, Pete?” asked Gil nicely.

    Grimly Pete replied: “Melting the wax without sending the kitchen up in a sheet of flame.”

    Honey backed off. “Is it dangerous?”

    “Not if you’re sensible about it.” He began searching in cupboards.

    Finally, with the aid of a Pyrex measuring jug and a small pot which Honey explained they only used for boiling eggs, a facsimile of a double boiler was managed and the wax carefully melted and poured onto the top of the chutney. When it was cool they could put the lids on, but not until then.

    “It’s a long-drawn-out process, isn’t it?” said Gil with interest.

    Pete eyed him suspiciously. “Yes.”

    “Why not just use the lids?” asked Jen.

    Sighing, Pete explained about seals.

    Gil then invited him nicely to stay for lunch, explaining that they merely intended cheese doorsteps, but the leftover chutney looked as if it’d hit the spot with the cheese, be a lovely change from Vegemite. Washed down by tea, coffee, or beer, as he preferred.

    “Uh—no, better get back, thanks all the same,” he replied, looking to Gil’s experienced eye very like a horse that was about to shy.

    “What, to Susan’s nagging?” he replied with a smile.

    “Uh, think she’ll get worse if I don’t turn up. And poor old George has been bearing the brunt of it all morning.”

    “But what about your lovely pie?” cried Honey.

    “Um, no, meant that for your dinner, Honey.”

    “Then you must promise to come over and help us eat it,” said Gil firmly.

    “Yes, do, if you’d like to,” agreed Honey, going very pink but looking at him hopefully.

    It was very plain to Gil that the combination of pinkness and hopefulness won the day, and Pete accepted the invitation. And, with renewed thanks from Gil for producing such wonderful things from all those mangoes, he was allowed to escape, with a pot of the chutney for Andy forced into his hand by Honey.

    After a moment Jen said in an uncertain voice: “He doesn’t seem to like you, Gil.”

    “No,” Gil agreed simply. “I don’t think he does, Jen.”

    “What’ve you ever done to him, though?” cried Honey crossly, very flushed.

    “Nothing. Don’t think I’ve said anything, either. Well, been bloody careful not to, actually. Think it’s the class thing,” admitted Gil ruefully.

    “What?” cried Honey indignantly. “That’s ridiculous! He’s been out here for years, since he was nine, the silly man!”

    “Mm. Dare say the parents’ attitudes might have rubbed off on him, Honey.”

    “Yeah,” agreed Jen. “That’ll be it. Well, blow! We were thinking of asking him to fill in as cook. Maybe he won’t want to work for you.”

    Gil rubbed his chin, looking rueful. “You have a point. Well, uh, tonight’s dinner will no doubt demonstrate our joint incompetence: perhaps he’ll see it as an opportunity to leap to our rescue.”

    “I thought we were just gonna have salad and some of that nice ham you got?” said Honey blankly.

    “Well, precisely!”

    To his relief, she collapsed in giggles, nodding madly, and gasping: “Got it!”

    Andy was on the verandah when Pete got back. Not smoking, Susan had long since confiscated his pipe. Just sitting. “Been down the boat?” he greeted him mildly.

    “No. Over at the Jardine place.” Pete sat down heavily beside him. After a moment he said: “What is the set-up with that ponce Gil Sotherland and Honey, anyway?”

    Raising a mental eyebrow or fourteen, Andy replied mildly: “Wouldn’t call him a ponce at all. Can’t help the way ’e talks, ya know.”

    “No,” growled Pete, going very red. “All right, he can’t.”

    Andy gazed thoughtfully at the low scrub that constituted his front garden. “Think George has told you most of it. And before you start, Honey and young Phil were both thrilled when he suggested the horse trekking stuff. Well, Honey doesn’t wanna do the ruddy cooking, Ann Anderson was saying she come over to her place, really upset, when them male ning-nongs he’s got helping him tried to shove her into it, but Gil sorted that, no sweat: been advertising for a cook.”

    “Um, yeah, George mentioned that.”

    “Uh-huh. Anyway, Gil’s okay, but there’s nothing between them. Treats her like a sister. Well, she is, eh? Sister-in-law.”

    “‘That eternal blister, Marriage with deceased wife’s sister’—or divorced brother’s wife, in this case—became legal quite some time ago,” replied Pete grimly.

    “Yeah, but he doesn’t want her like that, are you blind, mate? –Your mum and dad keen on Gilbert and Sullivan, eh?”

    “Uh—yeah,” said Pete feebly.

    “Dad used to be, too, had a huge collection of ole seventy-eights. Then when LPs came in I got most of them: the dinkum D’Oyly Cartes, ya know? George has put them on CDs for me. We could listen to some if ya like. Have to wait until Susan’s gone out, mind: her idea of music is flaming mucked-up Victor Hugo set to sentimental saccharine tripe.”

    “That’d be nice,” said Pete feebly.

    There was a short silence. Then the old man said: “Honey Jardine must be about the most disorganised woman that ever lived. Not entirely easy-going, mind: got some very firm ideas in that untidy noddle of hers. But she’s definitely not into the consumer rubbish that most of them go for.”

    “Has she ever been able to afford it?” replied Pete drily.

    “No, but that doesn’t make much difference: you can always tell if they’re that type. And she isn’t. Not house-proud, and not interested in living in a shiny suburban palace with wall-to-wall body carpet. Or whatever the current fad is. Cream render, was it?”

    “It was what was available!” said Pete loudly and angrily.

    “Yeah. Something like that,”

    “Look, I—” He broke off, scowling.

    “Gil doesn’t hassle her, ya see. Well, not that interested in consumer crap himself. Think he just wants a life where he can be busy and out in the open air.”

    “He’s bloody lucky to be able to afford it!” said Pete bitterly.

    The old man sniffed. “Well, ’e can, but only just. Said it was just as well horses don’t need stables out here, because with the cost of buying them—went and put up twelve bunks, ya see, told ’im he was making a rod for ’is back but it didn’t sink in—and two ponies in case there were little kids, and all the stuff the bunkhouse had to have, he couldn’t afford to put up a decent stable. He wouldn’t let Honey and Phil mortgage the place to help out. He hasn’t got the capital, see, but he has got the income to keep them going—got a decent pension: not retired, invalided out. Didja notice he can barely move ’is left arm?”

    “Uh—no,” said Pete blankly, wondering what George had left out of the intel about Gil.

    Unemotionally Andy told him about Gil’s wound.

    “Shit. One lung?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Poor bugger.”

    “Yeah.”

    “So, um, you don’t think he’s just playing at this horse trek stuff, then, Andy?”

    “Don’t think ’e knows what the word means.”

    “No,” said Pete limply. “I see.”

    “You wanna get rid of some of those preconceived notions of yours,” said Andy mildly. “So have they managed to get a cook?”

    “What? Oh—she didn’t say. Um, well, we were pretty busy… Well, I was.”

    “Yeah? This woulda had something to do with that jar in your fist, would it?”

    “Yes,” said Pete lamely, handing it to him. He told him about using up the mangoes.

    Andy of course belonged to an older generation of Australians, who’d grown up on meat and three veg followed by tinned peaches with packet jelly or packet custard. He had no interest in tropical fruits. “Right,” he said drily. “Honey wanted you to do all this, did she?”

    “I think she was pleased,” replied Pete on a defiant note.

    “Mm. Just watch yaself. Helping out’s one thing. Taking over lock, stock and barrel’s another. She may be disorganised but that doesn’t mean she’ll wanna be organised by you.”

    “Oh, get choked!” snapped Pete, getting up and leaving him to it.

Next chapter:

https://theroadtobluegums.blogspot.com/2022/11/christmas-present.html