Welcome To New South Wales

5

Welcome to New South Wales

    The huge crowd of idiots jostling pointlessly for position as their friends and relations came off the plane had cleared. Honey and her son looked limply at each other.

    “Are you sure you’d recognise him, Phil?” she said feebly.

    “Of course! I’ve known him all my life!”

    Yeah. Honey had been under the impression for the past eighteen months that he’d known him and disliked him. Well, uh, Phil had improved during his time in Australia, to the extent of ceasing to whinge about having to get up early to go to work and ceasing to criticise everything he saw in Australia and ceasing to whinge about Great-Uncle Dave’s dump and even starting to enjoy going up there in the weekends and just puddling about doing nothing when he got there—or actually pitching in and giving Bob and Deanna Springer and their friends a hand. In fact he’d learnt quite a bit about painting and wallpapering, not to say hard yacker, from Bob in the last couple of years—though he still couldn’t hit a nail in straight. But she hadn’t realized he’d improved to the extent of actually wanting to see an uncle that had told him exactly what he thought of him and advised him to pull his finger out, not to mention to the extent of making the effort to get up at crack of dawn to get out to Kingsford Smith to meet his plane—which had, of course, been late.

    “Well, um, maybe he’s, um, put on weight in the last few years,” she offered feebly, looking vainly for stout, lost-looking middle-aged Poms.

    “He can’t have done, he was out in Iraq and then in hospital,” said Phil in a worried voice, peering.

    Yeah, and since he was an officer probably all he’d done in Iraq was eat, drink and give orders before accidentally getting shot instead of his men, and probably they’d fed him up in hospital. In fact probably he’d been in a private hospital and instead of mince and nasty sausages and, um, the other awful stuff that Marg O’Donnell from the next-door flat had had to eat when she was in hospital for her varicose veins—having had a four-year wait to get them done, naturally—oh, yeah: tinned spaghetti and baked beans—instead of that sort of stuff, they’d stuffed him on roast chicken and ice cr—

    “My God!” gasped Phil, turning a horrid colour and grabbing her arm fiercely as a couple of air hostesses appeared pushing a bloke in a wheelchair.

    “Ow! –Is that him?”

    “Yes!” he gulped.

    “Well, don’t panic, I don’t think he’s critical, judging by the way those two bimbos are giggling and carrying on,” said Honey drily, valiantly concealing the fact that her knees were shaking as the moment of having to actually meet a military male Sotherland approached.

    “Um, no,” said Phil limply, releasing her arm. “You’re right. Sorry, Mummy.”

    Honey rubbed her arm, sighing. “Yeah.” There were actually four bimbos, all giggling: the other two were wheeling a trolley of luggage. She herself had never been on a plane but she had come to the airport to meet Marg after her fabled trip to Noumea when she’d ended up busting her ankle tripping over a fallen coconut palm when very drunk, so she knew bloody well that if you were female you did not merit this sort of attention. One sulking hostess and her favourite suitcase lost, Marg had rated.

    The cortège approached the gap in the barrier intended to cut off the general public from the emerging passengers. It had had a couple of bored-looking possible security guards or possible just airline or airport personnel of some kind standing by it but they’d disappeared, so either the plane had been wheeled away and was not in danger of terrorist attacks or Honey and Phil didn’t look like potential terrorists or— Forget it. Lip Service was one of Australia’s middle names. Right up there with Laissez-Faire, Lip Service was, yep.

    The man in the wheelchair looked quite slim and pretty fit, and he had a very silly grin on his face, so Honey awarded him a good glare as he was wheeled through the gap and the hostess who was mainly pushing as apposed to mainly stroking his arm cooed: “There you go, Gil, love!”

    “Ooh, you mean I can stand up now?” he said in a silly voice and they all collapsed in gales of giggles, Jesus!

    “Uncle Gil, are you all right?” asked Phil uncertainly.

    “Slightly pissed—steady the Buffs!” he said, getting up unsteadily. “Oops!”—making a grab at one of the hostesses. More gales of giggles. “Fit as a flea,” he said, grinning at his nephew. “Made the mistake of telling the troof about me collapsed lung on some of the bumf I had to fill in, so they’ve been treating me like an invalid the whole way!”

    “A royal invalid, I think you mean,” said Honey coldly.

    “Absolutely! Red carpet treatment!” he said with a laugh, holding out his hand. “You must be Honey! Lovely to meet you at last, Honey! Sorry I’m a bit pissed! Gil Sotherland.”

    “Yes, this is Uncle Gil, Mummy,” said Phil limply.

    At least he didn’t look like bloody Julian. Lovely sparkling pale blue eyes instead of those funny amber ones that Julian and Phil both had. Not nearly as good-looking, technically, but very attractive. Why couldn’t God have cursed one of the bloody Sotherlands with a pot belly, a blobby nose, a double chin and a squint? “Hullo, Colonel Sotherland,” said Honey on a grim note, not taking his hand.

    “Mummy, I’ve told you, he’s not like Grandfather!” hissed Phil, turning scarlet. “Call him Gil, and—and there’s no reason not to shake his hand!”

    “Not that, he’s an Army man, they always crush your hand, like those friends of Marg’s.”

    “We of the British Army, ma’am,” said Gil formally, the pale sapphire eyes twinkling, “do not crush a lady’s hand, I do assure you! Chap’d be drummed out of the regiment for that!”

    “Hah, hah,” said Phil uneasily. “He is pissed, I’m afraid, Mummy. But he won’t crush your hand, honest!”

    Reluctantly Honey put her hand into that of a horrible male Sotherland. Warm and dry and didn’t either crush hers or cling clammily. Okay: God was on their side, but then she’d always known that.

    “That’s not all your luggage, is it?” she said as the air hostesses were now, sounding rather like a flock of galahs that had just discovered a food source, tearing the pile of luggage on the trolley apart.

    “Rather not! Well, your grandmother sent some stuff for you, Phil.”

    “Is Granny in London, then, Uncle Gil?”

    “At this time of year? ‘Quelle bizarre d’idée, mon chou’,” replied Gil drily. “Ah—no, she and Dwight were in Paris on a brief stopover before the south of France and she seized the chance to do some shopping, think the story was. –Didn’t really listen, but Mummy always shops when she’s in Paris. Anyway, it’s all in that posh case that I’m letting Charlene have because she’s been looking after me like a ministering angel for untold hours.” –The tall, voluptuous red-haired hostess dissolved in giggles again, nodding madly.

    “Louis Vuitton: genuine,” explained the tall, voluptuous blonde hostess in tones of jealous awe.

    “I know,” agreed Gil sympathetically. “Ain’t life unfair, Heather?”—Immediately Heather dissolved in giggles again, nodding madly.—“So we’ll just dump it all into these carry-bags, shall we?” he ended cheerily.

    “No, let us, Gil, dear, you mustn’t lift stuff with your poor shoulder!” cried the shortish but shapely Chinese hostess as he made to lift the fancy case which they’d unearthed from underneath the pile of what Honey and Phil could now see were mostly their own flight bags.

    “And your poor chest!” cooed the tall, voluptuous Indian hostess.

    “Think that’s a quorum,” said Gil, grinning, as the air hostesses, as one air hostess, fell on the contents of the case.

    “Have you got a collapsed lung?” demanded Honey.

    “Yes,” said Gil succinctly.

    “Mummy, I said!”

    “You said he was better. I thought they might’ve re-inflated it, I’m almost sure they can do that.”

    “They can, but not in this instance: too shot up; but you only need one, y’know,” said Gil cheerfully. “Like kidneys: come with a spare.”

    “I never heard that about lungs,” she replied doubtfully. “I think it’s just as well the airline made you go in a wheelchair.”

    Gil looked at her in some amusement. Odd little character, wasn’t she? Rather sweet, though. Pretty enough to have taken a very much younger Julian’s fancy, too. Nowadays, of course, he wouldn’t look twice at anything that scruffy: she was in tired, droopy jeans and a droopy grey sweatshirt of the type that has a hood attached. As she was rather plump Gil didn’t think this was a jogging outfit, even though the chest did bear the interesting legend “Fulton’s Fitness Gym” in bright emerald dye. Perhaps she’d tried the fitness gym and dropped out? Julian had once, in a rare fit of drunken, lachrymose regret—he wasn’t one to look back, wasn’t Julian—described her hair as “an extraordinary mass of palest spun bronze” and though Father’s acid “Female looked like she’d been dragged through a gorse bush backwards” would also apply, Gil did see what his brother had meant. The madly untidy curls, about shoulder-length, were a most unusual shade of very, very light brown, with lights in them that were—well, bronze was perhaps not inapposite, if one considered that a freshly cast piece of bronze might have a greenish tinge to it. Well—extraordinary, yes. Julian hadn’t mentioned the eyes: they were dark brown, large and wide, and very innocent-looking. Oh, dear. Gil was in no danger of falling for his nephew’s mother but, slightly pissed though he was, he was conscious at this moment of one of the most piercing feelings of regret of his adult life. Never mind the bloody Army and bloody Northern Ireland, why in God’s name hadn’t he stopped bloody Father? Or—or rushed out to Australia as soon as he got a bit of leave, and at least made sure she was all right!

    “Are you sure you feel all right?” she asked.

    He blinked. “Uh—of course! Not supposed to carry heavy weights just yet or climb mountains, but I promise you I’m all healed up. Phil, can you grab that larger case, and if we take these bags, that’ll leave the trolley for the girls—”

    This wouldn’t do, however, and with a terrific fuss and flurry the air hostesses finally sorted out that Indira and Heather would see them to the carpark and they would all share the trolley.

    “We haven’t got a car,” said Honey faintly, as Phil was just giving her a helpless look.

    In spite of her exotic looks Indira sounded as Australian as Honey: she immediately cried: “No car? But how didja get here, Honey?”

    “Well, buses.”

    “I tried to make her take a taxi from the city, Uncle Gil,” said Phil quickly to his uncle’s frown.

    “Glad to hear it. Look, we’re not struggling on the buses with this damned crap Mummy bought for Phil—Armani jacket or not, Ju,” he said as the Chinese girl, whose accent was also Australian, tried to tell him that one of them was.

    “A taxi’ll cost and arm and a leg: Sydney’s very spread out,” said Honey anxiously.

    “Yes, and one has to admit it, taxis here are rapacious, Uncle Gil, it’s not like London!”

    “Shut up, Phil. We’ll take a taxi, Honey. Head for the taxi rank, girls,” he ordered firmly.

    “Yes, sir, Colonel!” agreed Heather with a loud giggle.

    And, with fond farewells from Ju and Charlene, they headed for the taxis.

    Whether a typical unimpressionable Sydney taxi driver was all that struck by the arriving traveller’s being packed tenderly into the back seat of his cab by two gorgeous air hostesses wasn’t absolutely clear, but although of course he didn’t go as far as getting out to help Phil and Honey with the luggage Honey thought she discerned a certain gleam in his eye as he watched them raise the lid of the boot in his rear-view mirror.

    “Where to, then?” he grunted as they drove away from the taxi rank with Honey in the front beside him and Phil in the back with his uncle.

    “Um, actually I’ve been thinking,” said Honey quickly, “and I don’t think you’ll be comfortable at our place, Gil.”

    “It isn’t a tent with a torn flap in fifty-degree heat, is it?”

    “N— Don’t be silly!”

    “Been raining for days, mate,” noted the driver stolidly.

    “Yes, it has, actually,” agreed Honey. “–He was wounded in Iraq and whatever you might think of the political rights and wrongs of it,” she said to the driver, “it isn’t fun for the soldiers on the ground, is it?”

    “Nah, that’s right. So where’d ya get it, mate?”

    “Near Basra. Somewhere in the bloody desert between Tell Us-About-It and Tell Al-How’s-Your-Father,” replied Gil affably.

    “I’m sorry, mate, my uncle’s had too much to drink,” said Phil quickly.

    “Yeah, I got that some time back,” he agreed. “That or that bird’s name really was Angel of the Morning. Near Basra, eh? With the British troops, then, were ya?”

    “Uh—yes, that’s right, oh Fount of All Wisdom.”

    “Uncle Gil, shut up!” hissed Phil.

    “That’s all right, mate, a bloke that’s been shot up by the bloody Iraqis deserves to be cut a bit of slack, though mind you, it’s more than time they brought our boys back, Howard’s feeble excuses for sucking up to Bush are getting bloody thin.—WATCH IT!—Sydney drivers,” he explained, apparently unmoved, in spite of the bellowing. “No, where’d ya get shot, I meant.”

    “In the lung, and that’s the point, see,” said Honey anxiously. “I think we’d better take him to a nice hotel. I don’t think our spare bed’ll do.”

    “Is this bed a two-foot stretcher covered in an Army blanket full of fucking Iraqi fleas?” asked Gil genially.

    “No. Stop making jokes!” said Honey desperately, very red.

    “Well, ya better make ya mind up soon, lady, ’cos there’s an intersection coming up,” the driver pointed out placidly.

    “The bed isn’t very wide but it has got quite a puffy mattress on it. But the flat’s not… fancy,” she ended in a small voice.

    “Shit, if ’e’s been in the Army ’e won’t want fancy!” scoffed the driver before either Gil or his nephew could utter.

    “Yes. What the last honourable speaker said, madam Speaker,” Gil agreed. “Not if you don’t want me, of course, Honey.”

    “We do want you, Uncle Gil!” said Phil quickly. “The bed’s fine, honest, Mummy!” Quickly he told the driver the address, adding: “Mummy’ll tell you the best way to get there.”

    The driver sniffed slightly. “Don’t need to, me Aunty Beryl lives round that way. Nearly all old blocks of flats; yours an old block?”

    “Fairly old. Seventies, I think,” agreed Honey.

    “Right. Sounds like Aunty Beryl’s place. Gordonstoun,” he explained.

    Gil choked suddenly and put a hand over his mouth.

    In the front seat Honey was agreeing happily: “Oh, yes, I know! That’s a really nice block! Well, more of a complex, really, isn’t it? There’s Balmoral and Kintyre, as well.”

    “Yeah, that’s right. Mind you, Aunty Beryl’s heard they’re gonna knock Kintyre down, most of the tenants have been given notice and the owner-occupiers have been bought out. Urban redevelopment with choice living units for working couples that’ll set you back seven hundred thou’ a throw. Nice work if ya can get it, eh? I said to ’er, What’dja vote for that Labor nong for, if that’s all he’s gonna do for the battlers—“

    Gil just sat back and let his eyes close gently, as, with this, that, and a lot more extremely informative intel about the doings of the driver’s extended family, the iniquities of the local council, the iniquities of what was possibly the New South Wales state government, putatively Labour, the definite iniquities of the federal government, definitely Tory—er, Liberal, the definite iniquities of someone referred to as “Liddle Johnny” and who, it gradually dawned on his dazed senses, was the Prime Minister of Australia and governed the country by talk-back radio show, they crawled across miles and miles and miles of grey, semi-industrial Sydney under a leaden, drizzly sky.

    … “Uncle Gil, wake up!”

    Gil woke with a start. “Is this it?” he croaked.

    “As near as I can get, mate!” retorted the driver smartly.

    “Um, yes, sorry, that’s Marg’s boyfriend’s car in the drive,” said Honey apologetically.

    What it said, in large letters on the shiny white, liberally light-bedecked modern vehicle was “POLICE,” but Gil was quite ready to take her word for it.

    “See, he left it in the street one time and someone scraped it with their car keys,” explained Honey.

    The driver sniffed, but acknowledged: “Right.”

    Honey scrabbled in her purse. “We’re Number 2.”

    “Can’t get past the police car,” he reminded her tolerantly.

    “No, I mean, even if you could our parking slot’s blocked: see that orange car? It belongs to Mike Papadopoulos, he’s Christine’s boyfriend, she lives in one of the upstairs flats, only she needs her parking slot. He did ask, and I didn’t like to say no, even though it’s very noisy, because when he left it on the street—”

    “Keyed, eh?”

    “No, it was hit by a horrid Council recycling truck, and everyone knew it was them, ’cos quite a few of the older residents were home and they heard the bang, only they wouldn’t admit it, and no-one actually saw it. So we’ve all stopped recycling!” said Honey viciously. “They’re only doing it because they’ve discovered they can make money out of it, anyway, they don’t care about the environment, that horrible truck simply belches out pollution, and we were all spending hours sorting out our rubbish, it was getting to ridiculous proportions, and poor old Miss Barry, she lives upstairs, she’s on a pension, well, she was really stressed, because having to wash her cans and bottles for recycling was wasting gallons and gallons of water, and we’re supposed to be saving it!”

    “Yeah, illogical, in’it?” he said thoughtfully. “That’s another twenny,” he added.

    “Mm. Can you lend me some money, Phil?” asked Honey anxiously.

    Phil had been watching his uncle listen to this exchange. He came to. “You’re not paying, Mummy! How much it is it?”

    Honey and the driver told him, in chorus. Gulping, he admitted: “I might have to owe you, Mummy. I can manage most of it.”

    “I will pay you both back, only just at the moment I haven’t got any Australian money, because a very helpful Sheryl with an S at the travel agency advised me that your authorities don’t like people bringing currency in. I couldn’t discover whether or not it was true but I thought better safe than sorry,” said Gil apologetically. “Er, unless you take British pounds, driver? Or I’ve got some euros somewhere. Or Iraqi funny money?”

    “Hah, hah. Got any Yank dollars? –No. Well, I could get your pounds changed, at a pinch, but the bank’d take its whack, see?”

    “Mm. Pay him, Phil; I will pay you back.”

    And with the aid of ten dollars from Honey Phil paid the driver and they all got out, Phil anxiously helping his aged uncle and Gil letting him, though he didn’t really feel in need of assistance. Not even on account of the amount of grog he’d absorbed. The endless miles of featureless semi-industrial Sydney had chased the last vestiges of alcoholic fog away, alas. Had all those glorious Technicolor shots of a glorious blue harbour with a sparkling white-winged opera house and white wings of real yachts on the water beyond it been faked, then? Seldom had he ever seen a duller, more depressing sight than Sydney in July. And it was definitely not warm. Not warm.

    Yes, well. The little flat had featureless cream walls undefaced by so much as a poster—undoubtedly the sort of landlord who didn’t let one put things on the walls—and just about the worst furniture he had ever seen. The characterless, armless sofa was sort of no-colour. Possibly started off as oatmeal or some such? On the grey side of oatmeal? Not covered in any readily identifiable fibre. It was low and sort of squashed and sort of squarish. Off-square. Slightly lopsided. Small: a two-seater, though they’d have to be two who cared for each other. The glum side view of this sofa confronted one as one stepped in through the front door, which was, he now perceived, placed at the far right-hand side of the flat. Beyond the sofa was a box painted white—coffee-table, right. To its left, under the wide windows which were covered with unlovely pale grey metal Venetian blinds and edged with strips of immoveable oatmealish knobbly stuff, almost certainly the property of the landlord, was a narrow stretcher bed covered with a dark green duvet patterned in bright yellow sunflowers. At its foot was a neatly-folded brown checked rug. Set against the wall on the opposite side of the room was a slightly wider divan bed, covered with a bright red duvet patterned with what were possibly aeroplanes. At its foot was a neatly-folded rug in bright crocheted granny squares. There was very little room for anything else but against the far left-hand wall, which must be the party wall between this flat and Number 1, were a misshapen and hideous brown cupboard-thing that might have been intended as a sideboard, and a small, characterless brown plastic laminate table with unevenly stained wooden legs. Two white plastic chairs and one dark green one were drawn up to it.

    Directly in front of them and between the sofa and the other party wall was a narrow space about wide enough to hold one human being, with beyond it a bench of the divider sort which sometimes serves as a breakfast bar, and then a tiny kitchen, forming a dog-leg to the sitting-room proper. To the left of this kitchen a doorway led off to, presumably, the bathroom and Honey’s bedroom. The flat might have been reasonably convenient for one small human being who didn’t own much furniture but it was scarcely adequate for a couple, and with three in it— Oh, dear. He should have agreed to go to an hotel.

    Honey had gone in, dodged between the sofa and the wall, and dumped the suitcase against the bench. “That’s your bed, Gil, against the wall.”

    “Thanks, Honey.” He went over to it. Ooh, yes: aeroplanes! Navy blue aeroplanes on a red background.

    “Try it,” said Honey anxiously.

    Smiling, Gil sat on it. “Mm, very comfortable!”

    “It’s only two-foot-six. It was on sale. I’ve got some spare blankets if you feel the cold.”

    “Honey, stop worrying about me! I’ve bivouacked in just about the worst conditions known to mankind! Well, short of Death Valley.”

    “Yes, he has,” agreed Phil, lugging in the last of the bags. “I say, are these duty-frees, Uncle Gil?”

    “Yes, of course. Don’t open them, thanks, they’re for your mother.”

    “Me?” she said faintly.

    “Of course!” beamed Phil before his uncle could speak. “Come and sit down, Mummy.”

    “It’s cold in here; I’ll just put the heater on.”

    Gil looked round uncertainly. There was no electric fire in evidence. He watched uncertainly as Honey vanished behind the divider.

    VAH-ROOM!

    “My God, what is it?” he gasped, bounding up.

    Honey reappeared. “It’s the reverse-cycle, of course.”

    Gil looked wildly at his nephew.

    “Yes,” he confirmed placidly. “It is loud at first, isn’t it?”

    It was still loud. Gil staggered over to the divider.

    “Haven’t you seen one before?” asked Honey kindly. “That’s it.”

    The kitchen was very well appointed, if there was scarcely enough floor space for one person. To the right, a large, quite modern stove, brown and cream enamel, rather hideous, a stretch of bench top, and sets of cupboards in the same knotty-pine slats as the divider. To the left, a giant white fridge towered beside the passage doorway. There was no room for anything else on that side of the room, so there wasn’t anything. Directly in front of him, against the back wall of the flat, was the sink bench, topped by a small window, giving a view of nothing, as it was made of frosted glass, and to its left, high on the wall above a short stretch of bench, a huge slatted grey box.

    “It’s an air conditioner, isn’t it?” Gil discerned limply.

    “Yes,” said Honey, nodding. “Reverse-cycle,” she repeated.

    Reverse… Er… Oh, good grief! “You mean it’s a heater as well?” he croaked.

    “Mm. Haven’t you got them in Britain?”

    “Not to my knowledge,” he croaked. Reverse… Well, an air conditioner, indeed any sort of refrigerating unit, was technically a heat pump, yes, but nothing was being reversed, surely? However, somewhere within the thing’s depths an electric element had come on and warm air was definitely being belched out into the room. “Good show,” he croaked, tottering back to his bed and sitting down, plump, on it.

    “Are you all right, Uncle Gil?” asked Phil.

    No, he was rocked to his foundations, actually. He’d realized there’d be the accent, but good God, there was a whole different vocabulary and, really, a whole different set of concepts, wasn’t there?

    “Of course,” he managed. “Honey, my dear, come and open your duty-frees. And Phil, you’d better look at that crap your Granny sent.”

    Looking timid, Honey came and sat on the sofa. Well, lowered herself onto it with due caution: she must be used to the way the thing sort of, uh, folded itself up at either side of one’s person as one sank into it…

    “Wasn’t sure what you’d like, Honey, but I thought a decent brandy wouldn’t come amiss.”

    “Um, yes. Thank you. I don’t think I’ve had brandy. Um, well, in brandy snaps, I suppose,” said Honey dazedly, drawing the bottle out. “I see, real French.”

    Giving his uncle a minatory look, Phil came and took it tenderly off her, to place it in proud possession of the horrid brown plastic woodgrain table. “We’ll have it after dinner, I’ll show you,” he said firmly. “Go on: what’s the wine? –I should warn you, Uncle Gil, the Australians produce some really decent reds—”

    “Not a red,” said Honey faintly. “Real French champagne. It costs the earth.”

    “Well, not so much if it’s duty-free, but don’t worry about that!” Phil reassured her, taking it off her. He looked at it critically.

    “The Widder,” explained Gil meekly.

    “Ignore him. He means it’s Veuve Cliquot. You’ll like it, Mummy. We’ll save it for a special occasion: your birthday, perhaps.”

    “Yes,” said Honey faintly, withdrawing something else from the bag.

    “Hope you like it, Honey. An oldie but a goodie,” said Gil kindly.

    “But I— It’s too much, Gil,” said Honey limply.

    “On the contrary, it’s all within my allowed limit! Didn’t buy any cigarettes, you see, didn’t want to encourage bad habits.”

    “Yes, buh—but you should have got something for Phil or for yourself. Um, they don’t call them perfume, do they, but that men’s perfume stuff.”

    Gil looked wry. “They probably do call ’em perfume these days, Honey—almost sure Mr Ralph Lauren and Co. do. After-shave, think you mean; but of course I shouldn’t have!”

    “No,” agreed Phil, taking it off her and scrutinising it narrowly.

    “It’s the genuine article, you prat!” said his uncle crossly.

    “Just checking.” He handed it back to Honey, ordering: “Open it, Mummy.”

    Limply Honey opened the real French Arpège. She had seen it before, yes, at David Jones, where a bottle of this size cost more than she’d ever earned in a week.

    Gil watched limply as his nephew took the top off the bottle, made Honey hold her wrist out, and sprayed a little for her.

    “Mm, it’s gorgeous!” she breathed, the big dark eyes very wide. “Thank you very much, Gil! I haven’t had scent for ages and ages.”

    Gil didn’t ask what it had been, ages back, he just smiled rather shakily and said it was nothing, really, and he was glad she liked it. She went off carrying the bottle rather as if it was a sacred relic, with the avowed intention of putting it on her tallboy, so he then said in a vicious undertone to his nephew: “I could kill bloody Father!”

    “Me, too! And sodding useless Daddy: why couldn’t he have stuck up for her?”

    “Never stuck up for anyone in his life, Phil, including himself,” said Gil with a sigh. “I’ve long since realised he hasn’t got it in him.”

    “He might have tried!” said Phil bitterly.

    Too young to understand. Well, Gil couldn’t wholly relate to Julian’s entire lack of backbone, either, though he did make an effort not to condemn him for something that pretty clearly he couldn’t help.

    “Somehow he’s ended up with everything and Mummy with nothing!” added Phil with angry tears in his eyes.

    “Not quite everything. And it’s no thanks to bloody Father, apart from those efforts to put him into professions that never took, but I’d agree that in his way Julian is an expert at looking after Number One—always falls on his feet,” said Gil with a dismissive shrug.

    “You’re telling me! Well, he deserves to be married to that awful old American bat, and I hope she makes him suffer!”

    Unfortunately Gil didn’t have any expectations that Myra would do any such thing: once again bloody Julian had, of course, fallen on his feet; but as Honey came back at that moment he just nodded and shut up.

    It was still relatively early so Honey thought that after they’d had a cup of coffee Gil should have a nap to get over the jet lag and then they’d have lunch. Gil didn’t think he had jet lag but as she and Phil apparently had planned going to the supermarket while he napped, raised no objections. He didn’t think he would sleep with the “reverse-cycle” roaring like a Boeing before take-off but funnily enough passed out the moment he pulled the navy aeroplanes on their red background up over his ears.

    Lunch was evidently a treat. Gil registered Phil’s anxious expression and made a mental vow to be on his best behaviour—not that he hadn’t been going to be anyway, silly lad! Okay, a winter treat in Honey’s terms started with real pumpkin soup: she’d prepared that, it was lurking in her giant refrigerator and just needed to be warmed up—with a drizzle of cream. Very pleasant, if one liked pumpkin. Then came some pressed ham with two salads: a potato salad, also pre-prepared, and a salad of mixed greens, incorporating cos lettuce, one chicory, Honey explaining anxiously that “witloof” was very bitter, but she and Phil both loved it, and some crinkly reddish lettuce leaves which disappointingly tasted of nothing. They were all rather dear but it was miles and miles cheaper if you bought the lettuces whole rather than those packaged mixtures! Okay. Got it. The vinaigrette was astoundingly good; Gil would have bet his life that it contained nothing but Dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, olive oil and salt. A vinaigrette, in short. Okay, she’d got the recipe off a French lady that used to work in the uni office. Good for the French lady. Then they had a cheese course because Phil had said that that was what you did. Phil was giving him one of those warning looks, so Gil said mildly that he was fond of cheese.

    Honey beamed at him “It’s usually very dear, but guess what! It was on special this week!”

    Uh-huh. It looked like Camembert. It didn’t come in a little round wooden box, true, but then they were on the wrong side of the world for that. And she had taken it out of its plastic yesterday and put it in the cupboard. Uh-huh. It did call itself Camembert, yes. King Island Camembert. It looked reasonably ripe. Not running off the plate, as he preferred his Camembert, and not oozy, but discernibly getting on that way. It was completely tasteless.

    “Why?” mouthed Gil madly when Honey, refusing their help, had vanished beyond the divider with the cheese plates and the remains of the baguette. Well, baguette-shaped, relatively chewy loaf.

    Glaring, his nephew mouthed back: “Shut—up!” Aloud he said: “King Island is the best Australian cheese, Uncle Gil.”

    “I see,” he said limply.

    After this he was prepared for anything and this was what he got. Cut-glass bowls of fresh pineapple, neatly cut into one-inch chunks, drizzled with just slightly sweetened cream.

    “Honey,” said Gil dazedly, “this is wonderful! The pineapple’s so sweet! But you shouldn’t have, it must have cost you a fortune! You  must let me help pay for it—pay for the pineapple, at least: please!”

    “I told you he’d like it,” said Phil complacently.

    “Yes. I often just have it sliced but we made this recipe up, didn’t we, Phil? It wasn’t dear, honest, Gil. Pineapples are in season, you see, and these are Woolie’s own sweet ones.”

    “Poddon?” he croaked.

    Honey nodded the mop of curls hard. “Mm. I had so many disappointments with supermarket pineapples that it was ages before I tried them: I didn’t believe their ads, you see, but it’s true! They’re a non-acid variety raised especially for Woolie’s.”

    “Doh’ ni’y-ni’,” said Phil indistinctly with his mouth full.

    “What?”

     His nephew swallowed. “A dollar ninety-nine. They were on special: usually it’s about that for half a one, but they’re always very cheap.”

    “You’re not telling me you bought a whole pineapple for a dollar ninety-nine!” said Gil rather more loudly than he’d intended.

    “You’re in Australia now, mate!” His nephew collapsed in splutters.

    “Have some more, Gil,” said Honey, smiling.

    Okay, he would!

    “See?” whispered Phil as, after cups of the excellent coffee he’d made in the Italian coffee-pot warmly recommended by Sal Remington, his uncle consented to put his feet up while the other two did the dishes and went out like a light again.

    Honey nodded hard. “Is it just jet lag, do you think?” she whispered.

    Phil made a face. “That and the after-effects of being wounded, I think.”

    “We’ll have to look after him,” she murmured, looking down at Gil’s sleeping form worriedly.

    Phil put his arm round her. “Yeah,” he agreed comfortably.

    Honey had said vaguely that someone would meet them. They’d had to get up so early to catch the bus to Barrabarra that Gil hadn’t been compos mentis enough to enquire. Then when they were actually on the bus he’d passed out, in spite of his determination to stay awake and appreciate the Australian countryside. Well, the bits he’d been awake for had been dreary Sydney suburbia under a grey drizzly sky and then, as they headed into the hills, a stretch of what, if there’d been a date palm or two added to it, he’d have sworn was Iraq. Rocky and rather bare, the vegetation sparse and scraggy. There had been a glimpse of ranks of grey-blue hills marching off into the distance but unfortunately only a glimpse, and then it had come on to rain more heavily…

    He looked round dazedly at a scruffy little settlement with rather a Western look to it: a wide, steeply cambered road edged with small shops, several with false pediments, one actually calling itself a Trading Post, a big old single-storeyed pub with an immense, sagging verandah, and shabby wooden bungalows interspersed with a lot of wasteland. Several vehicles, all fairly new-looking but rather muddy, were parked at intervals along the street but there were no people in sight. It was no longer raining but the sky was still leaden.

    “Barrabarra,” explained Phil. “That’s an Aboriginal word for ‘bustling hive of activity.’”

    “Hah, hah,” replied Gil feebly.

    “They’re probably in Barrabarra Hardware,” said Phil to his mother.

    “Yeah, or the supermarket.”

    Gil looked around, but could perceive nothing resembling one of those. “Well, uh, do we head for it, or—uh, where’s this, uh, hardware place?”

    “Ironmonger’s to you!” admitted Phil with a grin. “This side, down that way.”

    Gil couldn’t see anything. Well, small shops with false pediments, a lot of wasteland, and, further on, on the other side, a large fawnish tin shed. Help, the supermarket?

    “We could wait for them in the milk bar,” said Phil on a hopeful note to his mother.

    Honey looked up and down the street and then up at the sky. “I think we’d better, we don’t want Gil standing around out here.”

    Gil was in the goose-down anorak that he had very nearly almost left out of his packing because of course Australia wouldn’t be cold. And the heavy sheepskin-lined boots that ditto. Somewhere up above Whoever It Was that had dozed off about the time that that Iraqi pointed his sub-machine gun his way must have come to—yeah. “I’m fine.”

    Ignoring this completely, she said: “Come on,” and headed off.

    “Can I at least carry one of those bags?” said Gil feebly to his nephew.

    Replying tersely: “No,” Phil hefted a zippered kitbag and a bulging shopping carrier, the sturdy striped red, white and blue sort generally seen being lugged around by street persons or at the very most impoverished immigrants, and marched off with them.

    Swallowing a sigh, Gil followed.

    Help, it really was a Town Like Alice-style milk bar! With a whole three booths, the padded seats covered in cracked pale green vinyl. Disappointingly, the tabletops were not a splatter-pattern plasticized substance dating from the Fifties, but a brown woodgrain plasticized substance dating from yesterday and closely related to Honey’s horrid dining-table.

    Honey sat down at one of the two horrid little brown plasticized tables before the smeared plate glass window.

    “I was hoping for a booth!” said Gil with a laugh, sitting down opposite her.

    “They are more comfortable, but if we sit here we’ll see them.”

    “Mm. Er, who, exactly, Honey?”

    “Dunno,” she said cheerfully.

    Phil cleared his throat. “Whoever had errands in the town today, Uncle Gil. Potters Inlet hasn’t got a proper supermarket. There is a shop that calls itself a supermarket but it’s very small and everything’s horribly overpriced. They don’t shop there except for emergencies.”

    That was very clear, except who were “they”? “Yes, um, these people who run the B&B?”

    “Yes, and the art and crafts centre: you’ll see!”

    “Er—yes. I still don’t see why we couldn’t have made an actual booking at the B&—”

    “No!” said Honey with immense scorn. “We know them! And there’s stacks of room at Uncle Dave’s place!”

    “I see,” he said feebly. He shot a quick glance at his nephew. Phil winked. Gil subsided, smiling feebly…

    Phil had consumed a hamburger and a large milkshake, Honey had had a pink-iced donut and a cappuccino, and Gil had had a vanilla slice—the generic vanilla slice of the British Commonwealth: slime flavoured with artificial vanilla, sandwiched between layers of an unidentifiable plasticized substance—and a cappuccino, and still there was no sign of whoever was supposed to be picking them up. No-one else was panicking, so Gil refrained, though he did ask without hope how far it was from here to Uncle Dave’s place. Okay, right. Got it. Very near in Australian terms.

    Phil had plunged into a description of the “ute” which he and several other persons had managed to get going though without, apparently, a warrant of fitness, assuring his uncle that it was okay just to drive it round Potters Inlet, so they would have transport over the weekend, news which Gil had received without cries of joy, when Honey said in tones of loud relief: “Here’s Ann!” And someone tapped on the window.

    Gil had time to register a pleasant, smiling face topped by untidy short brown wavy hair, a bulky brown and tan anorak, and a truly appalling pair of lilac trousers, and then she was in the milk bar, beaming at them. –Tracksuit trousers, possibly a few years younger than Honey’s ancient black ones.

    “Gidday! So ya got here!” she beamed.

    Dazedly registering this remark was addressed to him, Gil staggered to his feet. “Er—yes.” As she was holding out her hand, he offered feebly: “Gil Sotherland.”

    “How are you, Gil? I’m Ann Anderson!” she beamed, wringing his hand. “Awful, isn’t it? Only when I said did a person have to use their husband’s name or could we maybe both be Kitchener instead he went all hurt on me. So I shut my big mouth. But I gotta admit I get a few funny looks!”

    “See, Ann and Bernie, they run Springer House Art & Crafts Centre,” explained Honey.

    “He runs it, I just keep it clean and look after the garden and the poultry!” beamed Ann. “Not artistic,” she explained to Gil.

    The trousers alone would have told him that. He nodded dazedly.

    “Hey, can you types give me a hand?” Ann then said. “The B&B’s almost out of grog, so they gave me a huge liquor order and those bloody slabs weigh a t—”

    Phil was already on his feet. “Sure, no worries! –Uncle Gil can’t lift stuff, though.”

    “No, ’course ya can’t. So how are you feeling, Gil?” asked Ann with kindly concern.

    Unlike the previous “How are you?” this was apparently not a rhetorical question. “Very well, thanks, Ann,” he croaked. “These two idiots keep treating me like an invalid, but I’m hale and hearty, I promise you!”

    “And the rest!” replied Ann with a sort of tolerant, cheerful disbelief. “I’ve told five thousand macho idiots not to expect you to heave stuff round like they do, don’t worry! And Dot and Deanna are on the job, too!”

    “In that case you’ll be in cotton wool for the next century, Uncle Gil!” said Phil with a giggle. “Come on!”

    And with that they all set off for the supermarket. –It was the giant fawn tin shed.

    “My God,” croaked Gil, staring around it dazedly. It was a sort of super-supermarket, quite half of its enormous shiny space consecrated to liquor. Something along the lines of those frightful duty-free places one encountered shortly before getting on the Channel ferry on the French side. The liquor side and the grocery side had separate rows of check-outs, presumably to cope with the thousands of customers—though actually, only about a dozen shoppers were visible.

    “It serves quite a big district,” said Phil kindly.

    “It must do! Big and affluent!”

    “Not really. But Australians do do themselves well, in our terms.”

    “Do we?” said Honey blankly.

    “I wouldn’t have said so. I mean, this is just a Woolie’s,” said Ann.

    “Ann, I think that’s what we mean,” said Gil limply.

    “Rats,” she said cheerfully, producing a list from the pocket of her anorak. “I’ve got most of the stuff: it’s mainly the beer I can’t manage,” she explained.

    And with that they plunged into the gaping shiny maw of the Barrabarra supermarket’s liquor department…

    Okay, Gil didn’t need a bottle of an interesting-looking Coonawarra red, but— Far too dear: right. Okay, he didn’t need a bottle of an interesting-looking Hunter Valley red, but it was only a fraction of the pr— Still too dear. Okay, that was a New Zealand white, he’d put it back immediately! But this looked— Western Australian? Yes, well— Okay, no.

    “I vote for that Coonawarra red,” said Phil.

    “No!” said Honey crossly.

    “He can afford it, Mummy. He was a full colonel for ages,” he said tolerantly.

    “Yes, but he’s out of a job!”

    Gil’s jaw dropped.

    “He’s got a pension, silly,” said Phil comfortably. “Not one of those horrid Centrelink ones: a proper British Army one.”

    “Absolutely! And I have to buy something! This is a grog shop!”

    “Hah, hah,” replied Honey grimly.

    “It’s one of those male syndromes, he’ll go all sad!” warned Ann with a giggle.

    “I certainly will, Ann!” agreed Gil gratefully.

    “Buy some beer, if you’ve gotta buy something,” said Honey grimly to her relative by marriage.

    “Beer’s not the same, Honey!”

    “Nah, they buy that anyway!” explained Ann, collapsing in helpless guffaws.

    “Absolutely!” agreed Phil, seizing a carton of the Coonawarra red and heaving it into his uncle’s trolley.

    “Phil!” shouted his mother, turning purple.

    “Don’t fuss. –The Scotch is over thataway, Uncle Gil.”

    “Good show. I’ll go and suss it out. Oh—anybody fancy rum toddies?”

    Honey merely glared and Phil cleared his throat. “No?” said Gil in surprise.

    “Y— N— I mean of course I do, Uncle Gil, but they won’t have much choice.”

    “No!” said Ann with a sudden loud laugh. “Gee, that takes me back! Bernie had never heard of Bundy when he first came out! It’ll be Bundy or Bundy, Gil: they make it, up in Queensland,” she explained kindly. “Bundaberg rum.”

    “Made from the superfluity of sugar cane they’ve got up there: exotic, isn’t it?” said his nephew with a laugh.

    “Go on, Gil,” said Ann, grinning at him. “You can come with me, Honey, and double-check I’m buying the right foreign beer that David’s put on the list.”

    “Foreign beer?” she gasped in naked horror.

    “Yeah. Well, Bob’ll charge the buggers through the nose for it, no worries, but yeah. Can ya grab the list? And if he’s got German or something, can ya make absolutely sure it is? ’Cos last time I put me foot in it and got something that I thought was German but turned out to be American. Well, the name looked German. Tasted like gnat’s piss. –This way. Come on, Phil.” And with a wink at Gil, Ann led the pair of them away, leaving him to forage in the strange delights of Mr Woolworth’s Australian liquor emporium. It had, he gradually discovered, strange lacunae—not in only in the rum section, make that the Bundy section…

    “Who do you imagine’s gonna carry those cases of wine?” asked Honey heavily as they reconvened at the check-out.

    “Cheaper by the dozen,” replied Gil brazenly. “Well, Phil: he’s a sturdy lad.”

    “All the way home on the bus?”

    “No, no: the plan is to cellar it up here.”

    “Uncle Gil,” said Phil, trying not to laugh, “it’s a great idea in principle, but in summer it hits forty-odd up here for days on end!”

    “That’s cool!” said Gil with a laugh.

    “Eh? No, forty degrees Celsius,” he said weakly, as his uncle collapsed in sniggers.

    “He’s pulling your leg, Phil,” said Ann tolerantly. “I should think they teach them about Fahrenheit and Celsius in the British Army.”

    “Something like that!” agreed Gil, blowing his nose. “No, well, we’ll just have to drink it up before summer, won’t we?” he said brazenly. “Hic! Ooh, pardon me. Not grog,” he said quickly: “onion-flavoured cheese, there’s a lady over here with little bits of it on sticks!”

    “Yes—hic! Cripes! Pardon me!” agreed Ann. “There’s another one down that way, too. She’s got beer-flavoured cheese as well. I got a packet to try: see? Not for the B&B.”

    “No, David’s a purist!” grinned Phil. “—Their chef,” he explained.

    “Yeah: this is just for me and Bernie, we only eat ordinary nosh,” said Ann comfortably.

    “Right,” agreed Phil, heaving an enormous pack of cans out of her trolley and into his uncle’s.

    “Er, this is possibly overkill, old chap,” admitted Gil, eyeing it askance.

    “No, it’s miles cheaper if you buy a slab,” he said cheerfully.

    Good God, so that was— No wonder Ann hadn’t been able to heave the bloody things about! “Right,” he said feebly. “Got it.”

    Ann was inspecting the contents of his trolley. “Oh, good, ya found the Bundy. You’ll need lemons if you’re gonna make hot toddies.”

    Wasn’t she wonderful? “Ooh, yes! And now I come to think of it, if this is a Woolie’s, won’t they have pineapples?”

    “No, you’re buying too much!” cried Honey in anguish,

    “Not if he’s on a huge great fat Pommy Army pension, Honey,” said Ann kindly. “Nip in now, Gil; we’ll guard ya trolley.”

    Happily Gil nipped. Though he did avoid Honey’s eye as he did so.

    … “That was Potters Inlet,” explained Phil helpfully as they shot through it.

    “Yes,” said Gil dazedly. One wide, steeply cambered main road edged with a scattering of small shops, a big old single-storeyed pub with a sagging verandah, and a few shabby wooden bungalows interspersed with a lot of wasteland. “Isn’t the holiday house in it?”

    “Just out of it, technically.”

    “Right,” he said dazedly as the laden station-waggon ground up a low hill. “Up here, is it?”

    “Bit further on,” said Ann comfortably.

    “Right.”

    A shortish stretch of low hill country topped with scattered scrawny eucalypts was passed, with glimpses of a rough driveway and a tumbledown house on their left, and then Ann swung into a gap in the three-foot clay verge, also to their left. “Hang on!” she advised cheerfully.

    “What about your suspension?” said Gil faintly as the station-waggon ground up a steep track.

    “Never heard of it!” she replied with a laugh.

    Er—yeah: it did feel rather like that, mm.

    The track turned sharp right and the view of clay bank, scraggy grey-green undergrowth, untidy grass and rather a lot of rocks gave way to a view of a tumbledown bungalow built of largely unidentifiable materials and topped by a surprising red roof. Less surprising in that large sections of suburban Sydney also had red roofs, but surprising in context.

    “Um, we did warn you it was pretty basic, Uncle Gil,” said his nephew on a nervous note.

    “Cobblers!” replied Gil breezily, getting out. “Pretty basic is a torn tent in fifty-degree heat, y’fool! This is luxury!”

    “Hah, hah,” said Phil weakly. “Um, I know it doesn’t look like it but we have fixed the verandah, haven’t we, Mummy?”

    “Yes. Well, Jack did most of it, actually. It used to be wooden but Bob said there was no reason it shouldn’t have concrete, ’cos half the country’s sitting on concrete slabs.”

    “Jack?” replied Gil, looking at the verandah with a smile. Its floor was concrete, all right: surrounding the house on three sides, the front section partly floored with coloured tiles: very evidently a work in progress. Its posts were white-painted wood sitting in neat little metal holders which held them perhaps an inch above the slab.

    “Um, he’s been doing some work for Andy MacMurray, next-door.”

    “He’s a very decent chap, Uncle Gil,” explained Phil. “We did explain we couldn’t pay him but, um, he insisted,” he ended weakly.

    “He’s got the time, why not?” said Ann cheerfully, hauling something out of the waggon.

    Gil came to. “Oy! You stop heaving stuff around! Leap to it, Phil.”

    “Only your fruit,” said Ann with a grin, handing Gil the bulging plastic carry-bag. “Don’t put it right at the back of the fridge.”

    “Um, I sort of wasn’t planning to refrigerate it at all, Ann.”

    “He’s English,” explained Honey briefly with her head in the back of the waggon. “How much Bundy did you buy, Ann?”

    “None this week.”

    “None?” croaked Honey, looking round in horror.

    “Recriminations are generally reputed to butter no parsnips, Honey,” said Gil quickly. “Let’s just admit that all that rum’s mine and leave it at that, mm? Likewise the cartons of wine.”

    “Yeah. Well, except for the Hunter Valley Sémillon, don’t ask me why the punters’ve been knocking that back, but apparently they have,” said Ann cheerfully. “That and New Zealand Sauvignon blanc, but Bob gets that from his wholesalers. How much Red Label did you buy, Gil?”

    “Er, well, they had a special offer if one bought two bottles—well, half a dozen,” admitted Gil, clearing his throat. “It doesn’t go off, even in forty-degree heat.”

    “In that case the other half dozen’ll be Bob’s,” she decided, heaving out a bag. “Um… cripes. Who’s the Cointreau drinker?”

    “I thought Honey might like it,” replied Gil temperately, taking the bag from— Not. Honey had sprung forward and snatched it away.

    “Go inside. Start unpacking stuff,” she ordered.

    Meekly Gil went inside.

    Oh, gosh. The obliging Jack’s renovations had clearly only got as far as the verandah. The front door opened onto a shabby, bare-floored hallway: to the right a door gave onto a fair-sized sitting-room. Its chief furnishings were some broken-down upholstered things that looked like nothing so much as large, tired grazing animals. The floor was bare, unvarnished boards. The rear wall featured a large fireplace while those at the front and side of the house had French doors giving onto the verandah. With a very great deal of work it would be a lovely room. He tottered on down the passage, passing to the left two smaller rooms which were shabby, sparsely furnished bedrooms, and to the right a small, dark cave possibly intended as a dining-room but containing nothing, and going through an end door to discover— Ooh, ’eck.

    The kitchen. It was, he saw as his blurred eyes refocused, relatively clean: it was just that the dark cream paint which covered almost every surface in it was very, very old.

    Phil had lugged his slab of beer in and dumped it on the bench. “Can you open the fridge, Uncle Gil? And I’ll dump this down the bottom. The door won’t stay open by itself.”

    Limply Gil opened the door of the big old high-shouldered fridge. “This’d be the original Frigidaire, would it?”

    “Not quite!” He dumped his beer in the bottom and straightened, panting slightly. “Actually, ’tisn’t as old as some! Round here half the houses still have old Outback-style gas-driven fridges,” he revealed on a malicious note.

    “I’m not asking,” warned Gil. “Why put the beer in the refrigerator at all, old chap?”

    “Australian. Tastes better properly chilled.”

    QED. Gil passed a hand over his forehead. “Yeah. Look, just tell me before I run barking mad: why did Ann warn me not to put the fruit at the back of the thing?”

    “It’s uneven: the stuff at the back tends to freeze. But it does work jolly well! –Did you buy a pineapple?”

    “Mm,” admitted Gil feebly, withdrawing it from the bag.

    Promptly Phil placed it tenderly towards the front of the fridge on top of his beer.

    “I see,” said Gil heavily. “Australian. Tastes better properly chilled.”

    His nephew merely grinned and retorted: “You better believe it, mate!”

    “Yes. Do us an immense favour and haul that Scotch in, old man, because I am about to go barking mad,” he whispered feebly.

    “Roger, wilco, Colonel!” Phil exited, grinning.

    Gil sat down limply on one of the battered chairs—mismatched chairs—drawn up to the battered little wooden kitchen table, almost the only thing in the room—and he did include the fridge in this—that was not painted dark cream. Its top wasn’t painted at all and its legs were a flaking pale green. And at a conservative estimate it was older than he was and almost as old as the fridge. Though none of them were nearly as antique as the lino. Linos, plural. There were four visible—just-visible—patterns. He vaguely remembered having seen one in an elderly relative’s potting shed in about 19—

    “It used to be worse,” said Honey kindly.

    —1969. “Yes!” he gasped, jumping. “Um, was it?”

    She put a carrier-bag on the sink bench. “Yeah: there were a couple of enclosed sleep-outs where the side verandahs are but the white ants had been at them, so Bob and Jack knocked them off. They were really horrible. The rest of the house is quite solid: it’s a mixture of brick and stone and a bit of wattle and daub.”

    Gil tried to smile and failed. “Mm.”

    “We did warn you,” said Honey awkwardly.

    He pulled himself together. “Yes, of course you did! Honey, my dear, have you been managing to keep warm in the place?”

    Blushing at the endearment—sweet, wasn’t she?—Honey replied: “Yes, though mind you, Bob made us throw out Uncle Dave’s heater, he said it was a fire hazard. We got a little blow heater at Target, they’re really cheap, but we’ve mostly been using the fireplace in the main room. It works really well: Bob thinks it was the original fireplace, it’s really solid. What I mean is, the original house was only one room. It’s a lovely cool room in summer. the walls are really thick.”

    “I see.”

    “Um, Jack’s had a go at the stove, he reckons we could light a fire in it, too,” she said, eyeing it cautiously, “only I don’t know how to use it as a stove.”

    No? Fancy that! The thing was black cast-iron, clean but not shiny, had only a couple of visible patches of rust and should properly have been in a museum. “I’d doubt there’s a living human being in the entire country that knows how to use it as a stove, Honey.”

    “No, David does,” replied Honey, smiling: “his old Greek aunties have got one in their country house!”

    “David? Oh—the B&B’s chef? Greek, is he?” said Gil in a hollow voice.

    “Half.”

    Right. That put paid to any idea of persuading her to let him shout them to a meal at the B&B’s restaurant.

    Honey was explaining that David had offered to show her how to use the stove but it had sounded so complicated she’d turned him down and Bob had told him he was a nong and given them his old microwave because the B&B had a couple of big new ones—

    Right. Good show. And at least the place had electricity! And he was not going to ask about the plumbing. Sufficient unto the day.

Next chapter:

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