Mixed Doubles

22

Mixed Doubles

    Oodles of tact had been in evidence and they’d all slung their ’ooks for the night: Honey, Phil and Jen were with Ann and Bernie—they didn’t have a spare room, but they had a fold-out sofa-bed, which Honey was using, and Phil and Jen had put their stretchers in the craft centre proper. Jack and Ted had simply rolled their swags and disappeared into the night.

    “That leaves us,” said Gil weakly.

     “Mm,” Rosemary agreed, looking up at him with those great big eyes.

    “Come here.”

    “You’re shaking,” she discovered in dismay.

    “Yes,” said Gil through his teeth, shaking like a leaf.

    “Come on, Honey said we could use her room,” she said on a firm note.

    Gil was about to make a joke along the lines of they’d have to, his stretcher would collapse if they tried to do anything on it, but found he couldn’t utter. He just let her take his hand in her little one—little capable one, he reflected dizzily—and lead him in there.

    Then they just fell on the bed and he was kissing her madly and somehow the pink tee-shirt was off and her jeans were down and his jeans were off and— Oh, God, Rosemary!

    … “Mm,” he managed to say an eternity later, rolling onto his back.

    “Mmm,” agreed Rosemary, snuggling up.

    After a long, long time she added: “That was won’ful.”

    Gil managed to take her hand and squeeze it very hard. “Mm.”

    They both woke up some time later.

    “Christ, did I drop off?” said Gil dazedly.

    “So did I,” she agreed.

    “You’ve got the excuse of jet-lag. Think I must just simply be past it, I’ve never done that in my life!”

    “Silly one,” returned Rosemary comfortably.

    “I could sort of make up for it by giving you a nice big kiss,” he ventured.

    “Yes, please!”

    They did that, after which Gil found he was somehow getting all interested again, especially since her little hand had found its way to— Ooh!

    “That was simultaneous, before, wasn’t it?” she ventured.

    “Mm,” he murmured into a tit. “Definition of it. –Oh, Jesus!” he remembered in dismay. “I completely forgot about precautions! Darling, I’m so sorry—”

    “I’m on the Pill, silly one,” she returned calmly.

     Gil sagged. “Thank God. Uh, nevertheless, a gent always asks first.”

    “That’s all right, you were carried away,” replied Rosemary serenely.

    That put it rather well. “Mm. Come here! Mmm-mm....”

    “Ooh!” she squeaked with a mad giggle. “Ooh, yes, do that, Gil, do that!”

    So she liked that, too? Jolly good! Gil got on with it...

    Quite some time later he murmured: “I suppose we should sort out something about rooms... Well, buy a big bed for our room?”

    “Mmm... Then it could go into our pink house,” she said dreamily.

    So it could! Gil smiled and pulled her firmly into his side. His good side, he seemed to have managed that okay, though he hadn’t consciously thought about it.

    “We’ll go into town and buy it today,” Rosemary decided firmly.

    “Absolutely!” he agreed. “Fancy a drink, darling?”

    There was no reply and he found she was fast asleep.

    Well, jolly good! Smiling, Gil closed his eyes.

    “That nice Jan Martin’s staying at the B&B again, did you know, Ted?” said Honey airily.

    Ted gave her an unpleasant look. “Don’t be artless, Honey; you know and I know that you’re brighter than that.”

    Honey reddened and gave a sheepish laugh. “Sorry! Most people think if you’re an untidy female getting on for middle age without a partner, you’ve got to be dim.”

    “Yeah.”

    “Um, I just thought she might suit you,” she admitted sadly.

    “Yeah.”

    “All right, I’ll shut up,” said Honey glumly. “But we do all care about you, Ted.”

    Ted sighed. Gil had sworn his life away vowing that he, Ted Prosser, had a permanent job with him. True, his old pal Bert Pringle, who was an architect in New Zealand, had mortgaged his soul swearing that Ted had a permanent job with him, allowing him to take up residency there when he first came out, but he and Bert had grown up together, that was a Helluva lot different. Bert of course didn’t have any practical jobs going—all that was contracted out—but he would have been happy to employ Ted in the office. This wouldn’t have entailed just filing and answering the phone, it would have entailed filing, answering the phone and being talked into doing the odd bit of engineering consultancy for them, which would gradually have developed into full-blown civil engineering and allowed the firm to take on much larger projects… Which Ted wasn’t up for, any more than he was up for full-time phone answering and filing. As Bert had been perfectly well aware of this from the word “go” he’d seen Ted and his hiking pack off with merely the words: “Come back when you get sick of the blisters and the rain.” It did rain a lot in New Zealand but that hadn’t really been a factor in Ted’s pushing off for pastures new—he was used to rain.

    He hadn’t just come over to Australia on the spur of the moment, though that was Bert’s claim: he’d come as a proper professional migrant, just squeaking in under the age restrictions—he’d been forty-four when the application went through and was now forty-five. Evidently Australia wanted highly qualified British civil engineers even if they didn’t have a specific job to come to, so long as they hadn’t reached their forty-fifth birthday. That cut out a Helluva lot of the highly qualified, hugely experienced people Ted knew, but apparently Australia didn’t want engineers who’d worked on engineering projects in places as diverse as Dubai, Canada, Egypt, Brazil, South Africa, Sweden— Forget it. He’d squeaked in. He hadn’t, of course, used his qualifications since he got here, unless you counted checking the bunkhouse designs for Gil, but that didn’t seem to matter; nevertheless Gil had said he’d better have a sponsoring employer and had filled in the relevant papers for him. Gil himself, incidentally, was here on the same basis as he was but then, he had a regular income from his pension and into the bargain family here ready to sponsor him. One of Australia’s main concerns, Ted had discovered in the course of his application, was whether you were intending to come over and then claim an Australian pension—superannuation, they called it. Never mind that their own regulations said you wouldn’t reach the eligible age for another twenty years— Forget it. The Australian bureaucracy was paranoid about foreigners—even white foreigners.

    “What?” said Honey, looking at his face.

    Ted twitched. “Uh—nothing,” he said lamely. “No, well, I was just wondering why it is that all the Australians I’ve met have been very pleasant people—with some veering towards the lovely goats’ milk soap side in certain cases, but nevertheless—but your faceless bureaucracy is completely paranoid and racist.”

    “Well,” said Honey thoughtfully, “you wouldn’t see the racism, ’cos you’re white, you blend in. And these days the faceless bureaucrats—faceless plus verbose and polysyllabic, you left those bits out—all shelter behind those number thingos you have to press on the phone and then it turns out to be a computer voice anyway. It’s only paranoid racists with Little Hitler complexes that really want to work at that sort of job and see, the ones that aren’t like that to start with soon get brainwashed.”

    Ted looked at her somewhat limply. She was bright, all right. Why couldn’t he settle for nice, bright, disorganised Honey? But there you were—just one of those things. He liked her, but not in that way, and he was positive it was mutual. “Yeah. Right,” he said feebly. “Um, and look, since the subject of me and females has come up”—Honey went very red, he wasn’t too sorry to see—“just in case Susan Pendleton wanders over looking innocent, I’m not here, okay?”

    “Okay,” said Honey with a sigh. “She is a bit bossy, but she likes things to be nice and she’s quite an educated person, Ted: I thought— Oh, well. Where are you, or aren’t I allowed to know?”

    “Huh? Oh! Been entrusted with little Meggy Green on One Donkey and the Macdonald monsters on the ponies this afternoon: going to take them very slowly up to the ecolodge, where Alfie’s promised us an illicit non-organic afternoon tea behind the eco-punters’ backs. Well, the cream may be organic but the pastry horns are pretty much guaranteed not to be!”

    “Heck,” said Honey in awe. “Alfie must like you, Ted.”

    “I think he doesn’t dislike me, but it’s not me, it’s One Donkey!” he said with a laugh. “Like to come?”

    “I’d love to, but I can’t: Pete’s decided we oughta bottle this giant crate of peaches Ann’s Aunty Rae gave us, and there’s an awful lot of peeling: I promised I’d help him and Rosemary.”

    “Why not just shove the things in the freezer?”

    “I thought engineers were supposed to know that sort of thing?” returned Honey cheerfully. “They collapse or something. You have to cook them first, so they’d have to be peeled anyway. And Pete says bottled ones are much nicer.”

    Ted was about to say he wasn’t a refrigeration engineer but thought better of it. “It all becomes strangely clear. I won’t ask if he’s got the right jars, because I’m bloody sure he has. –Ow!” he gasped as a horn went BLAA-AAH! BLAA-AAH! out on the sweep. “That’ll be Steve Macdonald now: I told him if he brought ’em over any earlier than, uh, quarter of an hour from now,” he realised, looking at his watch, “he could take his choice of having them hogtied to the verandah posts or trussed up for that giant spit David’s got out the back of the B&B, but he only said he’d hold my coat for me! See ya!” he gasped, clapping his hands over his ears and hurrying out as the horn went BLAA-AAH! BLAA-AAH! again.

    Honey sat down at the kitchen table and looked at the giant crate of peaches sitting on it. “It was very kind of her, but there’s an awful lot of you, and we’re running out of storage space,” she said sadly. “Oh, well... But I’d’ve thought Jan Martin would’ve been ideal for him! She’s so nice!”

    Surprisingly enough the peaches returned no answer to this cross remark, so Honey took one and bit into it to spite them. “Ooh, yummy!” she beamed round the mouthful. She swallowed. “Organic!” she noted gleefully, collapsing in splutters. “Off—Ann’s—Aunty’s—trees!” she gasped. “Boy, they’re mad!”

    “Who are?” asked a deep voice from the back doorway.

    Honey wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. “You and all the other organic nutters, Pete,” she replied cheerfully.

    “Thanks!”

    “These peaches,” said Honey unsteadily.

    “What about them?” replied Pete crossly.

    “You said they were”—she gulped but managed to control herself—“organic.”

    “They are. Beautiful organic home-grown peaches,” he said grimly.

    “No,” said Honey unsteadily. “See, when the buds start, Ann’s Uncle Vern always sprays them, ’cos see, that’s when he reckons is the danger time for peaches. I dunno what from, but they can’t—be—organic!” she gasped, off again.

    Pete came and sat heavily at the table beside her. “No,” he said when the paroxysms had slackened off. “All right, you’re right, we’re all mad. But at least he doesn’t spray the fruit, like the commercial growers!”

    “Don’t start me off again,” warned Honey.

    Pete sighed. “I’m trying not to. Shall we make a start on these?”

    “There’s no hurry. Have one.” Honey chose a ripe peach and held it out to him.

    Pete hesitated. “I’ve just had lunch.”

    “We’ve all just had lunch. Do ya want it?”

    “Well, uh, we did say we’d bottle them…”

    “Was it written in stone?” asked Honey sweetly.

    “No,” he said, going very, very red. “Thank you, I would like a peach.”

    “Some people would say,” said Honey detachedly, as he bit into it, “that you oughta wise up to yourself, but personally I can see that you can’t help it.”

    “Thanks,” he said tiredly. “Uh—shit!” he gasped as peach juice ran down his chin.

    Honey bounded up, grabbed a tea-towel and shoved it at him. “Here.”

    Pete hesitated.

    “I know it’s a sacred tea-towel and it’ll have brown stains on it forever and a day, but is it written in stone that—”

    Pete grabbed the tea-towel and scrubbed his chin, his fingers and the portion of the table that was decorated with peach juice.

    Honey sat down again and finished her peach slowly. “Yours was juicier than mine.”

    “Have another,” he sighed.

    “I might.” Slowly she selected another peach. “Pete, I don’t wanna criticise you, and I can see we’re so different that anything I say won’t make any impression anyway,”—Pete was once again very red—“but don’t you think, if you keep on being so, well, up-tight and, um, obsessive, I’m afraid is the only word, it won’t do your health any good?”

    “George has already told me I wanna watch my blood pressure, thanks,” he said grimly.

    “So have you had it checked?” returned Honey calmly, biting into the peach. “Ooh! Sloppy! Gimme the tea-towel!” she gasped.

    Resignedly Pete passed her the tea-towel.

    “Really juicy!” she said, mopping her chin and smiling at him.

    “Yes. There’s some on your front.”

    Honey scrubbed at her tee-shirt in a perfunctory way.

    “Look, there will be a brown stain on that forever and a day unless you take it off immediately and soak it in—”

    “I don’t care,” she said calmly.

    Pete’s nostrils flared. “No, okay, I get it. But perhaps you might like to know that my blood pressure is completely normal and I’ve got the cholesterol count of a lad of eighteen. A fit lad of eighteen.”

    “That’s good, but unfortunately science doesn’t really understand these things as yet, does it? A friend of Barry and Kyle’s, he was very fit and he ate an organic vegetarian diet and did jogging and went to the gym, and he dropped dead of a heart attack when he was only fifty-two. When he was jogging, actually. They were terribly upset, of course, but Kyle admitted that he was a very up-tight sort of person. Very tense.”

    “I am NOT very tense!” shouted Pete.

    “Yes, you are, Pete,” said Honey calmly when the echoes had ceased ringing. “We can all see it. It’s very worrying.”

    “Thanks,” he said sourly.

    “We were wondering if you’d ever thought of giving up city life and the job at the uni.”

    “‘We’, who?” replied Pete unpleasantly.

    Honey blinked. “Um, well, me and Phil and Jen and Rosemary, really.”

    “Oh,” he said lamely.

    “George mentioned that you’re really relaxed when you’re on your boat but you don’t get out on it enough.”

    “He should talk: Couch Potato’s his middle name!”

    Honey just looked at him mildly, finishing her peach.

    “Uh—well, what on earth would I do if I gave up city life and the job at the uni?” said Pete on a lame note.

    “Not start a business, I don’t think: that can be very stressful, unless you’re the sort of person that can take each day as it comes, like Bob.”

    Pete had been absolutely sure she was going to say “like Gil.” “Uh—yeah. Can’t say I’d fancy a B&B. Well, um, the horse trekking business isn’t very stressful, I suppose. And in any case Gil’s got his pension, and Jen’s got her sports medicine, it’s not as if the three of them are going to be on their uppers if they don’t make it pay for the first few years, is it?”

    “No, exactly. Phil was wondering about organic gardening.”

    “Uh—yeah, he mentioned it a while back. It’d be okay in the off-season, but when you’ve got guests in it’d be an extra load for him, on top of looking after the horses and taking the treks.”

    “Not for him, for you,” said Honey, smiling at him and wiping her hands and then her mouth on the tea-towel.

    “Me?”

    “Mm. –Hang on.” She got up, rinsed her hands at the sink, and dried them on a paper towel.

    It was true the tea-towel had been nearer to the table than the roll of paper towels, but... Pete swallowed a sigh. He picked up the tea-towel and got up.

    “I may be forced to throttle you if you rinse that,” said Honey mildly.

    “I fully realise that.” He crossed the back porch and shoved it into the washing-machine with the rest of the dirty laundry.

    “Have a medal! What tremendous restraint!” said Honey with a giggle as he came back and sat down again.

    “Yeah, hah, hah. The strain of not rinsing it’s making me tense as Hell, ya realise that, do ya?”

    She collapsed in giggles, nodding her mop of curls madly.

    “Yes,” said Pete with a sigh. Not only the strain of not doing that, the strain of not doing Honey, in fact not even making a move in that direction, was also beginning to tell. But he had no intention of making a move until he’d thought it over carefully and sorted out what he really wanted. He didn’t think she was the sort to take any kind of relationship lightly, and he did recognise that he wanted more than a one-night stand, himself. But Jesus, they were chalk and bloody cheese! Though she certainly wasn’t a bossy cow like Susan Pendleton, that type’d drive him mad in very short order. But Honey was so much the other way... Well, not a doormat, no, far from it, and this afternoon was proving that, wasn’t it? He certainly didn’t want a doormat, he knew himself well enough to know he’d ride roughshod over one of those, not to say be bored solid in under a fortnight. And Honey, unlike most, wasn’t brainwashed into a fervent desire to acquire more and more useless consumables, that was a huge plus. –What the fuck was that thing Susan had been on about the other evening? On and on and on... Something to do with gardening, it was the mention of organic gardening that had— Oh, yeah. A highly decorative watering can. The merits of china ones and painted tin ones had been examined at length, versus painting one yourself using a variety of craft styles, she had a craft book that showed you how to do genuine Moldavian palaver— At that point Andy had stomped off to bed, and who could blame him?

    “So what do you think?” ventured Honey on a cautious note.

    “I think, talking of gardening, that no suburban garden in the whole of fucking Sydney needs a tin watering can with hand-painted Moldavian palaver on it!” replied Pete with some vigour.

    “Was this Susan?” returned Honey with no evidence of surprise. “Yes,” she said as he nodded sourly: “she was on about it to me and Rosemary the other day, too. Though I don’t think it was literally Moldavian. She’s read a magazine article about some lady who does them; I think it was the same lady that’s got her kitchen dresser painted up like that as well, but I wasn’t really listening.”

    “Thank God for that!” Pete admitted with a silly grin. “Um, well, where did you have it in mind for me to do this organic gardening, Honey? Uh, not self-employed at it, if I’ve got it right? My garden’s only about the size of that nice rug Gil’s bought for your sitting-room.”

    “He’s been brainwashed by the rug shop ads on TV,” said Honey with a sigh. “Well, that is small, I thought George was joking when he told us about your front yard. I dunno exactly where you’d wanna do it, Pete, but I think Blue Gums would very glad to employ you.”

    “As a gardener?” croaked Pete.

    “No, as a producer of fully organic produce. Bob reckons it’s actually too windy up there to grow much, and anyway, they’ve made such a point about preserving the native vegetation, I don’t think they’d want a vegetable garden on the premises, let alone an orchard. But Alfie did tell me and Rosemary that it’s costing them a fortune to bring in organic produce from Sydney, and after a three hours’ journey in the heat it’s often wilted, that or they put it in a refrigerated van and that wilts it. And Vince did ask us if we knew of anybody in Potters Inlet that’d be willing to grow produce for them, only we don’t.”

    “Uh, buy a place? Well, I’d get a really decent price for my flat, horrible featureless cream-rendered townhouses are all the go in Sydney for the upwardly mobile, and it has got two bedrooms.”

    “So you do think it’s horrible?”

    “Yeah,” said Pete, passing his hand across his head. “Of course I think it’s horrible, Honey, but it’s what’s available for my age, marital status and socio-economic bracket, it’s a reasonably easy drive to work, and the place is very low maintenance.”

    “That’s good: George said he was afraid it had got to you to the extent that you couldn’t see how awful the place was.”

    “Just when did this cosy confab with George take place, may I ask?” said Pete with an arrested look on his high-cheekboned face.

    “Which one?”

    “About my bloody townhouse and my bloody blood pressure, for a start!”

    “It was two different times. He told us about your townhouse ages ago, when he said he was gonna ask you up here for Christmas.”

    “And the blood pressure?”

    “The evening Susan sent him over to see if we had a thingo to scrape lemons with.”

    Possibly the terminology should have been fair warning, here, but Pete rushed in with: “A grater? A lemon zester?”

    “I don’t think it was a grater, so it must have been one of the other thingos. Gil just said ‘Wot?’ and looked gormless and Phil said ‘Wot, wot, wot?’ and had a fit of the giggles and Jen said George was mad.”

    “Right,” said Pete feebly. “I won’t ask how my blood pressure crept into the picture.”

    “No, don’t, ’cos I can’t remember, ’cos then we all sat down and had a beer!” squeaked Honey, suddenly collapsing in giggles. “We were in between clumps of guests, there was only the Greens, and they had a beer as well and little Meggy sat on George’s knee.”

    “Uh—recently? Where was I?” he asked dazedly.

    Honey looked dry. “George said you’d told Susan you’d take Andy to the flicks in Barrabarra and it was up to you to explain how the flicks got beer on his breath.”

    “Oh—Sunday, that was. We did go to the flicks. George calls it the Bughouse—ever been there? Right, then you’ll know exactly what sort of thing was on. A very grainy Buster Keaton festival—all the kids screamed with laughter, didn’t seem to make any difference it was black and white and grainy—followed by very old porn for which the management didn’t bother to chase out the kids. Well, softish porn. Sort of thing that SBS shows documentaries about.”

    “In that case it could be anything up to and including a snuff flick,” replied Honey calmly.

    Pete gulped. “Yeah. But it was pretty tame. We only watched for fifteen minutes or so and gave it away. We did think of staying for the midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Show but Andy decided Susan’d kill me, so we passed. Besides, it’s on every Sunday night, he tells me: he can go once she’s pushed off.”

    “Only every other month.”

    “Really? What do they have in the intervening months?” asked Pete eagerly.

    “Nothing.”

    “Oh, blow: I was hoping it might be something really good, like Terminator II or Barbarella!”

    “Yeah, or the King Kong with Faye Wray. Gil rang the manager and suggested that, but he said he didn’t think they’d get the audience these days, and gave him the name of a website where he could buy the video.”

    Pete’s jaw dropped. “If he’s in the habit of doing that, that could explain why he won’t get the audience!”

    “That’s what I thought. Um, as a matter of fact George did say that evening that Andy would be quite keen to sell part of his place, if it was to the right person.”

    “Eh?”

    “He doesn’t want neighbours that’d put up a glass-walled palace and roar up and down the road all night in their horrible four-wheel-drives with those booming stereos.”

    “N— Look, it’s the first I’ve heard of this, Honey!”

    “You’ve been busy over here, though, haven’t you, and I got the impression that he doesn’t want to mention it in front of Susan, and she’s usually there before you leave and after you get back, isn’t she?”

    “Uh—yeah. Unfortunately. Um, which bit does he want to sell, did George say?”

    “The part nearest to us. It’s quite rocky up the back but there’s some lovely sheltered spots further down.”

    “The soil’s terrible,” said Pete dazedly.

    “Mm, it all is hereabouts, isn’t it?” she agreed placidly.

    “I’d have to truck in loads of topsoil and manure... Why the Hell didn’t he mention it when we went to the pictures, though?”

    “I don’t know.”

    “Uh—well, we had fish and chips and he went to sleep coming back. But he could’ve mentioned it on the way over— Oh, no, he couldn’t!” Pete shook silently. “George’s Elvis CD,” he explained. “The one David gave him that Susan won’t let him play in the house.”

    Honey looked at him limply. “Honestly?”

    “Yes. We had it on rather loud, I’m afraid!” he said with a laugh,

    “Not that. Susan really won’t let him play it in the house?”

    “’Course not. She is that sort, thought you’d realised that?”

    “I hadn’t realised how far it went,” Honey admitted lamely. “Cripes.”

    “There’s a fair bit of it about.”

    “No wonder people get divorced!” she said with feeling.

    “Well, yeah, the general consensus is, how did Graham, the ex, stick it out so long? –Never mind her, just let’s thank God we don’t have to live with her. Organic gardening’s a great idea; I’ll think seriously about it. Uh—” He scratched his chin dubiously. “Dunno that merely providing the ecolodge with stuff would earn enough to keep me, though. I’d have to think about a wider market.”

    “Not if they were paying you a decent wage,” said Honey calmly. “See, from what Alfie said, they’d like it to be a permanent arrangement, that they could rely on.”

    “Mm... Alfie said this, not Vince?”

    “Um, it was Vince that asked us if we knew of anybody that’d grow stuff for them... Um, no, I think it was Alfie that said that about the permanent arrangement, Pete. Why?”

    “Because he’s only the cook,” said Pete grimly. “Vince is the manager, he’d be the one that’d have to put the arrangement to YDI’s Head Office for approval. Not to say carry the can if it didn’t work out.”

    “Ye-es... Head Office? He does hire the staff himself.”

    “I very much doubt that he sets the wages, though. –It’d be a change in lifestyle, all right: outside winter and summer, eh?” he said with a grin.

    “Yes; it’d be a very healthy life,” agreed Honey, managing to look both hopeful and anxious.

    At about this point it dawned forcibly on Pete Outhwaite that she didn’t want him to drop dead and she did seem very keen on having him up here! “Yep! –Tomatoes straight out of the garden, yum!” he said with a laugh.

    “Yes, those ones Ann gave us tasted incredibly different, didn’t they?” she beamed.

    “Uh-huh. I could have chooks, too,” he realised. He thought about it. “Permaculture!” he said, snapping his fingers.

    “Ooh, yes!” said a voice from the back door, and Rosemary came in, looking excited. “I've seen that on the telly! It’s totally delicious, all sorts of plants all mixed in together, quite tropical, really!” She sat down at the table, and took a peach. “Help!” she gasped as the juice ran down her chin.

    Pete bounced up and grabbed the roll of paper towels before Honey could move. “Here.”

    “Thank you.” Rosemary mopped her chin and prudently held the paper towel under it as she bit into the peach again. “Where would you do the permaculture, Pete?”

    “Well, uh, that’s one of the things I’ve got to investigate,” he said on a weak note. “Well, I’ll definitely think about it. Speak to Andy, too.”

    “Good,” Honey agreed.

    Pete was beginning to feel it would be, yes, really good. In fact all sorts of ideas were now fizzing away in his brain—

    “Sho wha’ ’bou’ the peaches?” asked Rosemary thickly. She swallowed the last mouthful. “Aren’t we going to bottle them after all?”

    Pete took an amazed breath and opened his mouth.

    “She’s joking, silly,” said Honey placidly. “Come on, Rosemary, let’s find some clean aprons or he’ll start yelling at us ’cos we’re getting peach stains on our twenty-year-old jeans.”

    “Of course!” agreed Rosemary, getting up with a laugh. “Mine are about five, actually.”

    “That works out, ’cos as a matter of fact mine are about fifteen!” Honey opened a drawer. “Ugh. You want the frilly one with the pink cabbages or the blue one with the scary daisies?”

    “Not the yellow one with those totally terrifying Van Gogh sunflowers?” returned Rosemary with a giggle.

    “I’ll spare you that. He can have it, he bought it.”

    “Then I’ll have the blue one, ’tis scary, but one can just support the nightmares, while one has to concede, the pink one makes one feel quite nauseous!

    “Okay. I don’t mind the pink one, it’s so feminine!” said Honey in a silly voice.

    Rosemary giggled again. “Even with those fifteen-year-old jeans, Honey, darling?”

    “Especially with the jeans,” returned Honey firmly. “Pete!”

    Pete came to. “Huh?”

    “Give us your orders, neither of us have ever bottled anything in our lives. –Why are you putting the oven on?”

    “For the jars. Do the bottling the easy way,” said Pete on a weak note. “Well, um, just stew the peaches in a heavy syrup, pour them into the hot jars and bung the seals on, really. Where’s the big preserving pan?”

    Honey and Rosemary looked at each other blankly. “Where you put it, I suppose,” Honey admitted.

    Pete searched in the lower cupboards, grunting slightly. “Ah!”

    “Um, Pete—help, that is a big pan—um, had you realised we’re running out of space?” said Honey cautiously.

    “It fitted in at the back of that cupboard okay.”

    “Not that, ya nana! For the jars!”

    “They fitted in that carton from the supermarket on the floor okay!” squeaked Rosemary.

    “Well, yeah!” agreed Honey feelingly. “Where on earth are we gonna store the peaches when you’ve done them?”

    “Well, uh, there must be some room,” fumbled  Pete.

    Honey shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

    “Uh—look, can ya start peeling them? We’ll face that when we come to it.”

    Not neglecting to exchange glances, Honey and Rosemary sat down at the table and began peeling peaches.

    Behind their backs Pete did the rounds of the cupboards, aware that he was being very, very quiet about it but unable to stop himself.

    “And?” said Honey when he’d unobtrusively closed the last cupboard door.

    “All right, we’re out of space.” Pete sat down heavily at the table. “Um... the laundry gets too hot and steamy with the machine or the shower on. What about the big steel cupboard in the bunkhouse?”

    “Full of duvets, Pete, dear,” said Rosemary promptly.

    “Yeah. –Dunas. Added to which it hasn’t got a lock, it was second-hand,” noted Honey. “It’s a good cupboard, though: I’ll ask Gil to buy another one.”

    “Where could it go, though?” asked Rosemary.

    They watched Honey hopefully as she thought about it. “It’ll have to go in Ted’s room,” she decided. “It was his idea to push off to Tazzie with George next month, after all. And Jack’s going back to Andy’s as soon as Susan’s gone home.”

    “We could use it as a proper store room!” beamed Rosemary. “Like a still-room!”

    “Yeah, good one!”

    After a moment Pete realised they were both looking at him. Not with expressions of meek feminine expectation, no.

    “What?” he said defensively.

    “We’re waiting for you to raise sane and sensible objections,” explained Honey.

    “What the last honourable madam speaker said, Mr Speaker!” squeaked Rosemary in, more or less, Gil’s very phrase. She and Honey collapsed in gales of helpless giggles.

    “Yeah, hah, hah,” said Pete weakly. “Sounds like a goer to me.”

    “The accolade!” gasped Honey helplessly

    “Absolutely!” gasped Rosemary .

    Pete watched weakly as, even though the roll of paper towels was right there in front of them, they both picked up the skirts of their aprons and mopped their eyes with them.

    “Hopeless cases!” said Honey cheerfully, catching his eye.

    Pete grinned sheepishly. “Yeah.”

    “This time you can come, George,” stated Susan flatly.

    “It’s classical stuff, I won’t understand a note of it,” he sighed.

    “It’s a very light programme.” Susan proved at length that Nefertite intended offering a very light programme this evening but George didn’t listen.

    “People keep telling me that that nice Jan Martin’ll be there,” noted Pete.

    “Shut up, you’ve never even met the woman!” snapped George.

    “Nevertheless, people keep telling me she’ll be there.”

    “Right, and since Ted’s got dibs on ’er, whaddaya want me to do? Fight ’im for ’er favours?” he snarled.

    Pete honestly didn’t think he’d meant this as a dig at his sister, but poor Susan had gone very red. Oops. “I was under the impression that Ted had lost interest quite some time back,” he said mildly. “Well, it’s been a year and he hasn’t attempted to contact her, has he? But cut your nose off to spite your face by all means, George.”

    “Who the fuck are ya talking about?” sighed Andy.

    “Jan Martin!” snapped Susan, still very flushed. “You met her, Dad, she was here for Christmas last year, she came round to the Andersons’ place on Christmas Eve!”

    “Aw, yeah: whisky drinker,” the old man remembered. Ignoring his daughter’s loud snort he added: “Seemed all right to me, George.”

    “Anything that drank whisky’d seem all right to you. I’m not coming, I’m not interested in classical music and that’s flat!” George walked out.

    “Don’t look at me!” Andy adjured his remaining offspring. He got up and walked out.

    “Well, I’m going, I wouldn’t miss Antigone Walsingham Corrant in concert for anything, but I don’t count, don’t tell me,” said Pete heavily. “I’m gonna walk over. I’ll see you later, unless you want to walk?”

    Susan frowned. “No, I’ll take the car.”

    So be it. Pete walked out, humming.

    Ted had taken the line of least resistance and gone to the concert with the others. It wasn’t that he wasn’t very keen to hear Nefertite again—he was, very—but he didn’t particularly want to meet Jan Martin again, that had been last Christmas’s mistake, and he was bloody sure the woman was up here chasing Gil, and he didn’t want to be buttonholed by Susan, that was this Christmas’s mistake. Rather unfortunately when he got there it dawned that he was the only unattached male and all the other B&B guests were in couples except Jan. When Pete came in by himself he sagged with relief and went over and said: “Hullo, Pete. So the others didn’t come?”

    Pete eyed him drily. “Let me put it this way. Susan told George he had to come so he turned her down flat and walked out, Andy just walked out, and she’s driving over with a horrible frown on her face. Unless the frock she was gonna change into’s worked a miracle.”

    “I have seen a frock do that, but only one that set yours truly spelt M,U,G back two thousand nicker,” replied Ted very, very drily.

    Pete gulped. “Shit! What was it for?”

    “Bodily adornment,” replied Ted very, very drily.

    “No, um, what the fuck did she wear it to?”

    “Così fan’ tutte at Covent Garden. I’m not saying it was worth it, it was a modern production and the staging was stupid, but the music was good. –We had opera in common,” said Ted drily. “That and sex. Apart from that she liked spending the dough I earned.”

    “Yeah,” acknowledged Pete, swallowing.

    “Well, uh, if we sit right at the back will Susan buttonhole us?”

    “She won’t buttonhole me, mate, I can guarantee it.”

    “What the Hell’s she got against you?” asked Ted feebly.

    Pete scratched his short, bristly hair. “Dunno, really. Mate of George’s?”

    “I am familiar with that syndrome,” he acknowledged. “Well, um, male peer group, then?”

    “Safety in numbers,” agreed Pete. They sat down on a couple of kitchen chairs right at the back.

    “Lot here,” ventured Pete after a while.

    “Uh-huh. Be the restaurant’s clients,” Ted explained. “And I think Bob said a clutch were coming over from Blue Gums, too.”

    “Right. –Cripes, four of the bunkhousers.”

    “Um, where? Oh, yes.” Ted looked dubiously at Mr and Mrs Johnstone—Kev, short for Kevin, and Alice—and Dr and Mrs Poniatowski—Den, short for Dennis, and Coral. They had made a booking for four and had arrived together in the one four-wheel-drive, possibly the only middle-aged, affluent punters in the world to bother about saving irreplaceable fossil fuel. Their idea of culture was the Three Tenors.

    “Den and Coral and Kev and Alice,” murmured Pete.

    After a moment Ted got it and went into a muffled sniggering fit.

    Since Springer House’s sitting-room was only the size of an average nice suburban lounge-room Jan Martin, seated in the front row but unobtrusively over to the side, was perfectly well aware of the male sniggering going on at the back. Her lips tightened and she kept her head turned determinedly away from them. Last Christmas she’d thought Ted Prosser was really nice. Not particularly good-looking, and of course without a fraction of Gil’s charm, but nice, you know? She had given him her phone number but he hadn’t tried to contact her at all during the year. Jan had thrown herself into work, telling herself grimly she was a culturally brainwashed, feeble feminine idiot, and when the job as Library Manager of the whole system came up, decided grimly to go for it, there was no point in stagnating in a small branch when she had the ability, was there? She’d always realised she had no hope of Gil: he was out of her league, though she hadn’t denied to herself she’d come up here last year because of him, but she had really thought Ted liked her! Okay, more fool she, and why the Hell she’d bothered to come back—! Well, she had wanted to hear Antigone Walsingham Corrant again, and if you stayed at the B&B the concert was included in the price. And as she’d been too busy this year to plan for a holiday the alternative was going down to The Entrance with Mum and her old school friend, crony would be a better word, Valerie O’Sullivan. Valerie was a widow but apart from that she always made Jan think of Miss Mountshaft from The Good Life—the one Margot was always sucking up to, that ran the drama society and so forth. Horribly competent and hearty, and holier-than-thou with it. The sort whose favourite phrase was “Why don’t you—?” with “If I was you, dear—” running it a close second. Ugh.

    Jan had caught herself almost saying “Why don’t you—?” to bloody Felicity Halliday only a month back, and had brought herself up short. Irritating though Felicity was, she was an excellent, conscientious cataloguer who didn’t mind doing all the ghastly local ephemera—products of minute historical and genealogical societies, seventy-five-year anniversary and in some cases twenty-five-year anniversary publications of local schools and so forth—that nobody else in the entire world catalogued and for which, therefore, ready-made entries could not be found on any online system in the entire— Yeah. She didn’t balk at the foreign-language stuff, either, of which they were buying a lot more these days for their multicultural collection. Nor, unlike all other cataloguers Jan had ever met, had she had a dummy-spit when Jan had said if they couldn't find anyone to translate the Vietnamese titles for her they’d just catalogue them as “One Vietnamese novel” and bung barcodes on them.

    “Excuse me,” said a foreign accent. “May I ’ave a look at your pro-gramme?”

    It wasn’t a programme, exactly, it was a printout from the B&B’s website. Jan didn’t try to explain this, she just handed it over to the foreign accent in the superbly cut but casual gear that was exactly like the stuff that that up-market Italian lady, a Medici or something, used to wear to cook in, in that TV series—cripes, it was probably real Armani, come to think of it. It was just her luck that the accent and the Armani had to be attached to a female. Why couldn’t she have ended up sitting next to a total dish? Say, since we were in the realms of fantasy anyway, something that looked like Robert Redford? Mature but gorgeous, y’know? The foreign dame was now jabbering to the dame on her other side in yer dago lingo but Jan, whose French was quite good, tried to close her ears and not to reflect that they were actually probably Swiss, not French, the rhythms were more like the Germanic languages— Not listening, and not thinking! Especially not about Ted Prosser or Robert Redford—or Gil Sotherland, who as a matter of fact this evening was looking particularly doable in a loose, open-necked, collarless pale blue shirt of the limp, expensive-looking, probably-silk variety. As opposed to the limp after having been in the washing-machine subsequent to its purchase at Kmart variety, that all the Aussie blokes— Yeah. Out of her league, and that English bird he’d recently acquired most certainly underlined that, she was in a wisp of pale lemon stuff that had probably cost the equivalent of Jan’s monthly salary. –And after this she wouldn’t have Ted Prosser if he was handed to her on a plate! He might at least have come over and said Hullo!

    Behind the scenes, alas, the concert didn’t look as if it was going to go to plan. In the B&B’s kitchen the scheduled accompanist sneezed helplessly. “Help!” he gasped. “AAH—SHOO! Help!”

    “It’ll be hay fever, David,” Jack advised him helpfully.

    “Thanks for that, Jackson,” said Bob sourly. “Now what are we gonna do?”

    “She’ll just have to sing without an accompanist,” said Dot comfortably.

    David eyed her wildly above his wad of paper towels. “How long have we— AAH-SHOO! AAH-SHOO! –God. How long have we known each other?”

    “Never mind that,” said Deanna firmly. “Can you sing them without him doing the accompanying, Nefertite?”

    “Um, I haven’t practised this programme without an accompanist,” she faltered.

    “Sing something else,” said Bob brutally.

    “But—but what?” she faltered.

    “She needs to know what she’s—AAH—SHOO! Christ! What’s she doing, you cloth-eared oik,” said David sourly. “I know that other—AAH-SHOO! AAH-SHOO! God, what is it? I know other singers can do it extempore or, once a year—AAH-SHOO! AAH—SHOO! AAH—SHOO! –I give up.”

    “Serves ya right for trying to be funny in the middle of an attack of hay fever,” said his wife brutally.

    “I’ve dever had it before,” said David soggily. Tears oozed out of his eyes. “Shit,” he muttered, mopping them. “It’s—” He stopped, as his nose was running. “Udbelievable,” he finished weakly, having blown it.

    “Have some more paper towels,” said Deanna briskly. “What we’ll do, we’ll draw up a little list of songs you can sing without him, Nefertite, and you can have a copy and Bob can have a copy and he’ll tell the punters there’s a change of programme and what they’re gonna be, okay?”

    “What if I can’t pronounce them?” said Bob feebly.

    “Nefertite’ll tell you how to,” said his helpmeet firmly. “Grab the phone pad, Dot.”

    Dot came to. “Right! Good plan!” She handed Deanna the phone pad with its attached pen and said to her spouse: “What the Hell didja breathe?”

    “Air,” replied David soggily. “I feel awful. Really fuzzy. It couldn’t be flu, could it?”

    Bob eyed him drily. “Not if you’re”—“AAH—SHOO!” gasped David.—“As I was about to say before so rudely interrupted, not if you’re sneezing like that, mate. Probably some bloody piece of native flora that’s in bloom: where the fuck didja go on that fucking postprandial stroll of yours, so called?”

    “David said it was postprandial,” Nefertite explained kindly to Jack.

    “Yeah, got that,” he agreed. “Thinks ’e’s funny. I’ll nip down the all-night chemist, get you some antihistamines, David.”

    “I don’t take—AAH-SHOO!—drugs,” ended David lamely.

    “You can flaming well take these,” retorted Dot grimly “You’re not allergic to them, are you?”

    “They make my head feel as if it’s floating three feet behind my shoulders: is that—Aah—SHOO! –Blast. Is that allergic?” he finished on a weak note.

    “Yeah,” replied Dot stolidly, “but so what, they got the muck in them that they make Ice or Ecstasy or something out of, they make everyone feel like that. They dry you up, though.”

    “Yeah. Get him some, Jack,” said Bob, feeling for his keys. “Take the waggon and stand not upon the order of your whatsit. Oy, hang on! Got any dough?”

    “Yeah,” he said firmly, disappearing.

    “Oh, dear, we mustn’t let him pay for them,” worried Nefertite.

    “No, I’ll pay him back,” agreed Dot. “Come on, what can ya sing without him?”

    “Jingle Bell Rock!” suggested Bob, collapsing in sniggers.

    “Shut up, Bob, ya not funny,” said Dot grimly. “Can’t ya see she’s got nerves? You sing lots of stuff by yourself, Nefertite,” she prompted. “I mean, stuff that’s meant to be sung by itself. Whatchamacallums, are they? Um, madrigals?”

    David had a choking fit on top of a sneezing fit.

    “You’ll choke to death if ya don’t watch yaself,” noted Dot drily. “All right, that was wrong.”

    “Bore thadd one—AAH—SHOO! God!—voice,” he explained thickly,

    “She did remember they’re for unaccompanied voice, though, David,” murmured his soft-hearted sister. “Well, um...”

    It took a while, and Deanna despatched Bob to apologise and offer free drinks, but finally a suitable list was drawn up, Bob came back complaining that they’d all accepted the bloody offer, noted that he couldn’t pronounce any of this lot and was shut up by both his wife and sister-in-law, was instructed by Nefertite and made to practise by his wife and sister-in-law, and that was that. Everyone ignored David when he pointed out he felt better, which was just as well, because as Nefertite, Bob and Deanna went out he had another tremendous sneezing fit.

    “We might as well go home,” said Dot.

    “Supper!” he gasped, his eyes streaming.

    “Think they’d run Bob and Deanna in for unhygienic food provision if ya tried to cook anything with your eyes and nose doing that, mate. Come on, we can rescue Ann from Rose and watch a video.”

    “Whadd of?” he asked soggily, pressing his fingers cautiously to his top eyelids. “God, my eyeballs are actually swollen,” he muttered.

    “Doesn’t matter, mate, ’cos you aren’t gonna watch it, you’ll be in bed.”

    “Bud if id’s ondly hay—AAH-SHOO! AAH-SHOO!”

    “Plus and the streaming eyes and nose and the stuffed-up sinuses and the fuzzy head that go with it, haven’t you ever seen those hay fever ads?”

    “Er—not hay fever ads, addihistab—AAH-SHOO! AAH-SHOO! I give up,” he muttered, trailing in her wake as she marched out.

    As Bob had predicted, none of the punters seemed to mind that it wasn’t the advertised programme—in fact most of them wouldn’t have realised it wasn’t if they hadn’t let on, he’d have taken a bet—and in the interval, which they were having because the original programme had said there’d be an interval, never mind that the buggers had already drunk the free grog he’d been intending to distribute during it, he and Nefertite were able to escape to the kitchen. For about five seconds in his case: his wife sent him back with instructions to open the champagne. Yes! Open the champagne, Bob! All right, he would. Not that you were allowed to call it that any more, but it was the same stuff: acid as Hell and fizzy as all get out: they’d be burping all through the second half. Especially flaming Simon McIntosh, seventy-three if a day in his walk-shorts and knee-socks, and addicted to flaming after-dinner—uh, not mints—indigestion tablets. It’d be them what gave him the burps in the first place—right. He’d brought his own magnetic pillow, too—too right. Sure enough, the bugger was the first to line up for it! Jesus!

    “Did David and Dot go home?” worried Nefertite in the kitchen.

    “Must of,” agreed Deanna cheerfully.

    “But Deanna, Jack won’t know where he is when he gets back with the antihistamines!” she worried.

    Deanna was just gonna tell her he wasn’t that thick when Jack himself came in and said it for her.

    “Took ’em over to their place,” he added. “Still sneezing his head off. Said it feels the size of a pumpkin. He’s starting to look bloated, too.”

    “Oh, dear, it sounds like an allergic reaction,” worried Nefertite.

    “It is. That’s what hay fever is. Don’t worry, the antihistamines’ll fix him, that’s what they’re for. Anti histamine, see? It means it stops the bloating,” he said kindly. “It’s histamines that produce allergic reactions in the body.”

    “Oh, good,” she said in relief. “Daffy Owens and I were in Greece once and I took the chance to take him out to the aunties’ country house—I expect David’s told you that it’s a dump, Deanna, but he was keen to go—but it was a disaster, there was some sort of yellow daisy in bloom that he had an allergic reaction to, and we had to cancel the next concert.”

    “Help,” said Deana in horror. “Couldn’t someone have filled in for him?”

    “Nah, ’cos they’d of practised together, Deanna,” Jack explained kindly.

    “Mm,” agreed Nefertite. “It was mostly duets, you see. Not necessarily written as duets: a lot of them were arranged for us.”

    “Oh, right. –I was thinking we ought ask Daffy to stay next time he comes out, but maybe he’d be allergic to our flowers, too.”

    “I think he’d be all right: Aunty Ariadne got some really good stuff for him from her chemist and he always carries some, now. Um, I’d have told you what it is, Jack, but I only know it in Greek,” she said apologetically.

    “See, their Aunty Ariadne, she’s a bit of a battle-axe but she’s really on the ball,” said Deanna kindly before Jack could utter.

    “Uh, yeah, I know that,” he said as Bob came back looking cross.

    “I’ve poured four bottles of fizz and Phil gave me a hand and opened two more and it’s vanished down their flamin’ gullets already! –Hey, poor old Gil can’t open a bottle properly, d’jew know that?”

    “Yeah,” agreed Jack, making a face. “The left arm’s got no strength in it: the tendons are shot to Hell.”

    “But—” began Deanna. She looked from her left hand to her right.

    Bob demonstrated in mime.

    “Mm,” she said, biting her lip. “I see. Hold it in one hand and pull the cork with the other.”

    “Yeah; pull like buggery, love, dunno whether it’s just Aussie champagne corks, but they can be tighter than a duck’s bum. It’s your left hand that creates the resistance you’re pulling against.”

    “That’s very technical, Bob!” said Nefertite with a smile.

    “True, though,” noted Jack.

    “Of course!” she beamed. “But do you have to pull on a champagne bottle cork?”

    “Usually, and once the ruddy thing moves the left hand’s stopping the bottle from following the cork across the room, Nefertite,” explained Bob kindly.

    “Pretty much!” admitted Jack with a laugh. “Chill it really good, that usually stops it going off with a bang. You fancy a nice cold drink before you get back, Nefertite? –She won’t want alcohol,” he said as Bob suggested opening a bottle of fizz for them. “Orange juice?”

    Agreeing placidly she’d love an orange juice, Nefertite sat down at the table while Jack delved in the Springers’ fridge. Behind his back Bob and Deanna exchanged glances, and smiled a little.

    The second half of the concert went down as well as the first and under cover of the applause and the congratulating of oneself, one’s partner and one’s neighbour for having come up here for it—there was a lot of that went on when Nefertite sang, the Springers had discovered—Bob and Deanna agreed privily that as this lot wasn’t gonna get the delicious nosh David had been gonna prepare it could be little bits of cheese on crackers. And free coffee but no more free grog, had Deanna copped a gander at the gents’ jewellery on them blokes from Blue Gums? Deanna had missed that but she’d noticed the Gucci loafers on the aforesaid and the Armani on both sexes so she just nodded and went out to the kitchen.

    “Phew!” said Bob to Ted, who happened to be nearest—possibly about to nip out the door. “Thought I was in for an argument there.”

    “I think she’s accepted that she can’t cook,” replied Ted with a smile. “Talking of which, where the Hell are Bernie and Ann tonight?”

    Choking slightly, Bob explained: “Ann’s babysitting Rose, and Bernie hadda go into town to collect some cousins from Pongo that’ve landed themselves on them.”

    “Uh—but they haven’t got a spare room, where are they going to put them? I know Phil and Jen camped in the crafts centre, but that was just for a couple of nights.”

    “Tent in the back yard, mate,” said Bob with relish.

    “In this weather?’

     Bob shrugged. “It’s cooler at night. Their own fault for turning up without warning, eh? Think they’re only young—might be his cousin’s kids, come to think of it. Working holiday.”

    “Oh! I went into that before I came over here. In that case they’ll be between the ages of eighteen and thirty, and don’t ask me why your government assumes that one doesn’t want a working holiday if one’s over thirty.”

    “Supposed to be gainfully employed paying taxes, mate.”

    “Yes, but why prevent people who actually want— Forget it. All bureaucracies are mad.”

    “Uh-huh.” From here Bob had a really good view of Jan Martin being talked at by flaming Simon McIntosh’s better half. Aimée. She’d brought a magnetic pillow, too. She’d be telling her the music was lovely and almost as good as the production of Cats they’d seen in London on their overseas trip when they were chucking away his super hand-over-fist while their kids were struggling to get a loan to buy a two-bedroomed hutch in West Sydney.

    “Ever seen Cats?” he asked abruptly.

    Ted blenched. “Christ, no!”

    Bob eyed him thoughtfully. Cagey bloke, Ted Prosser, but that had been a genuine not-thought-out-with-both-hands-beforehand reaction if ever he’d heard one. “Right. You oughta get together with Jan Martin, ’cos when Pa McIntosh asked her if she’d seen it that was her reaction, too.”

    “Very funny, Bob.”

    “No, honest. Mind you, forewarned is forearmed,” said Bob, blocking the doorway so’s the bloke couldn’t escape, “so she’s probably agreeing with Ma McIntosh that Nefertite’s singing is almost as lovely as Cats—the London production, they didn’t feel the Sydney one’d be worth going to after that, though they went to The Lion King, don’ ask me why they didn’t take the grandkids that are stuck out West Sydney somewhere, but the words ‘too mean’ spring to mind—”

    “Can I get past?” asked Ted tightly.

    “No. What I was gonna say, Jan’s a really nice woman and you’re a tit.”

    “Thanks. I’m not looking for the same things she is, if you must have it.”

    “What are you looking for, Ted?” asked Bob, blocking the doorway.

    “I don’t fucking know, but I know what I’m not looking for, and can I get out?” he hissed.

    Shrugging, Bob stood aside. “Be my guest.”

    Ted marched out looking furious and Bob shook his head very, very slowly.

    “Water in the ear, dear?” asked a silly voice.

    Bob jumped ten feet where he stood. “Oh, it’s you,” he said feebly as Gil appeared from behind him. “Thought you’d slung your hook.”

    “No, just been to the loo. Rosemary and I thought we’d better not desert Honey, just in case Pete Outhwaite hasn’t got the nous to see a good thing when it’s under his nose.”

    “Another one?” groaned Bob.

    Gil glanced round the room. “Ted?”

    “Boy, no flies on you,” agreed Bob sourly. “Yeah. Took one look at that nice Jan Martin and slid out. Tried to stop ’im—well, probably done more harm than good, ’cos I went and asked him what was wrong with ’er and what the fuck was ’e looking for, words to that effect.”

    “The answer would have been a lemon, I gather?” said Gil lightly.

    “Yeah.”

    “Mm. He’s had a really rotten run of luck, Bob. Uh, has he mentioned bloody Gulf Syndrome to you?”

    “No,” said Bob, looking puzzled.

    “No. Well, just take it from me that it’s not just middle-aged spread, as Ann would call it, in his case.”

    “Right, and not mention this Gulf Syndrome, whaddever it is when it’s at home.”

    Gil smiled at him. “No, there’s a terribly good chap.”

    Bob sighed. “The silly bugger’s gonna push off to Tazzie and—well, shit!”

    “Mm.” Gil looked at Honey and Pete standing together and smiled. “That looks okay. Perhaps we might go. Though Rosemary seems to be quite happy talking to that blue-rinsed woman.”

    “No, um, do us a huge favour, mate, and rescue poor Jan from Ma Mc—Christ, he’s joined up with ’er!—From the ruddy McIntoshes, wouldja?”

    “Er—not unwilling to oblige, Bob, but, uh, might not be tactful, on the whole. And, well, always a bit hard to rescue a lady without giving the wrong impression, unless one’s actually wearing a cassock.”

    “Ya think? You wanna get an earful of Deanna’s cousin Frankie’s story! No, well, okay, Gil, take your point, ya better not; she was keenish before, come to think of it.”

    “Thanks. What is Frankie’s story?”

    “Well, ’e was a priest, went into it straight after school, but the tits sent him to a Catholic girls’ school in Outer Woop-Woop, ’is second job, think it was—” He paused, as Gil had collapsed in splutters. “Wasn’t actually what you mighta thunk, ’cos ’e was a conscientious boy, Frankie, and where you or me might justa done ’er—she was in Year Twelve, wasn’t technically a crime—’e went and told ’is bishop, see?”

    “Jesus!”

    “Yep. Anyway, tra-la-la and five thousand Hail Mary’s on yer knees and a stint with the brothers and ten thousand candles later Frankie’s a brand from the burning and they’re gonna ease ’im back into it slowly, so they give ’im a job as warden in a boys’ remand home, and the lawyer that does the bizzo for the boys when they go to court just happens to be a lady lawyer.” He winked and Gil collapsed in splutters again.

    “Yep. That was Frankie!” said Bob with satisfaction.

    “Bob, it wasn’t like that!” said Deanna from behind him.

    “Not ’alf.”

    “His wife’s very nice, and very—very earnest about good works, Gil,” Deanna explained.

    “Very earnest about doing Frankie, too,” noted Bob. “Them crackers are their lot, are they, love?”

    “Yes, there were only the two packets,” replied Deanna calmly.

    “Serve ’em right! Come on, then.” Winking at Gil, Bob took her elbow gently and plunged into the fray.

    Gil looked at Honey and Pete but as it really did seem to be all right, he collected Rosemary and they vanished into the night...

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