Blameless Dances

23

Blameless Dances

    Having slept really well, Colin woke early, choked down a mug of dust, grabbed a piece of bread and, remembering at the last moment to scribble a note to Terri—“Terri: over at Green, have had breakfast, Colin”—rushed out.

    He’d just taken up the right proprietorial stance on the claypan, er, green—legs well braced, hands being rubbed before being shoved in pockets of bags—when Robert and Caroline arrived in their 4x4. Not from steep Church Lane, no: from the other direction, they must have tackled that difficult turn where Harriet Burleigh Street met the top end of George Street in an ’orribly tight Vee, or else they’d driven all the way down the High Street to the lower end of G— Never mind, they’d made it.

    Complete with another ladder, and buckets and buckets of paint, and a giant Ingin— Oh, right, that was the flat-bed sander Robert had hired! It’d certainly settle those frightful floors, yes (those that were left). Though getting it up the stairs might be difficult.

    He sprang forward as Caroline heaved an obviously heavy basket out. What the—? Glass cut to size for the small-paned windows in the conjoined Numbers 17 and 18. Right, and these were the glass-cutters in case the frames weren’t all quite—uh-uh, yeah. Putty? –Of course. The floors in the unnamed semi-detached cottages—they hadn’t decided what to call the restaurant or in fact found anyone to run it, yet—had now all been replaced, thanks to Jack’s having coincidentally happened across a load of timber that— Best not to ask, really. This huge sheet of blue plastic was what she was going to put down so as not to drop putty on the said floors. Fair enough. It had been huge sheets of grimy canvas back in his day—he’d spent several happy summers in his teens ignoring Pa’s hysterical orders to join the demos and helping Doddsy’s great-nephew, who was a jobbing builder, only finding out very much later that good old Ern had grossly underpaid him for his labour. No, well, sheets of this or sheets of that, all were good. He hauled it and the basket inside for her. Oh, not in here, this was the very old bit that still had the remains of lead-lighting—through here, instead.

    Gee, this was a lovely hole Jack had knocked in the party wall! He looked up nervously at the whacking great beam at the top of said hole. Caroline assured him it was sound! Uh—yeah. What he was wondering was what truck had it fallen off. Because it looked like genuine, solid English oak, and where the Hell would you get a free piece of timber that size and quality these d— Forget it. It didn’t have anyone’s name on it, did it? Actually—

    Smiling, he reached up—he wasn’t a particularly tall man but Jack had made the doorway to the same scale as the rest of the little higgledy-piggledy cottages—and wrote his name on it in pencil. “Go on,” he said, realising Caroline was watching him.

    Giggling, she tiptoed and just managed to write a very shaky “C. Deane Jennings.”

    Colin nipped out and got Robert. He was tall enough to sign his name properly on the beam.

    Then they just stood back and looked proudly at it for ages…

    The higgledy-piggledy cottages and the six row houses were now all, amazingly, the actual property of Bellingford Green Craft Enterprises. Directors and shareholders Colin Paul Haworth, Robert James Jennings, Caroline Margaret Deane Jennings and Kiefer Julian Deane Jennings (the last not a director, but he had one whole share). Landwich Holdings had sold the whole kit and caboodle outright, not even retaining the rights in the land so as to get ground rent. Old Landwich wasn’t interested and his son, Arthur Loomis, and the agent who looked after the family properties had admitted frankly to Colin that their village properties in Bellingford had without exception been millstones round the family’s neck for years, and they were only too glad to get shot of them. And would he like to buy the top end of Hogs—er, Medlars Lane? No? Damn.

    Arthur, who was quite a decent chap, had then dragged Colin off to his club and further admitted that Dad was living in the Dark Ages, that Landwich House was bringing in nothing because the old man refused to put in any facilities for the trippers, and that the family was going to be in for immense death duties. Then giving him a dinner that wasn’t even half as good as the merest quick snack of Terri’s but that undoubtedly cost fifty times as much as the most expensive thing she’d ever made. Colin didn’t point out that if the fellow was going to be in for huge death duties in a few years he shouldn’t be chucking his money away on inessentials like club dinners, good burgundy—it certainly was—and wonderful port. He liked Arthur but he knew, never mind the grumbling about his old-fashioned father, that he was pretty well a hidebound thinker. After school and Sandhurst or one of the universities one went into the Army or a luckless relative’s office in the City—or if the degree hadn't been too bad, the Foreign Office—and belonged to a decent club as a matter of course. Colin himself had once belonged to the Army & Navy. It seemed like several lifetimes ago.

    “I know!” he cried suddenly, snapping his fingers. “‘Higgledy-Piggledy, my fat hen!’”

    “Isn’t it ‘black hen’?” said Robert dubiously.

    “Nuh—uh—is it? ‘She lays eggs for gentlemen, Sometimes nine and sometimes ten, ‘Higgledy-Piggledy, my fat hen.’ Um, sounds right.”

    “I think that is right,” said Caroline uncertainly. “Is it a black hen in the illustration, perhaps, Robert?”

    Robert mouthed it over to himself, shaking his head. “Um, why, Colin?” he then said with a grin.

    “A name for the restaurant. My Fat Hen.”

    They looked dubious. After a moment Caroline said: “We certainly couldn’t call it My Black Hen, it could be taken as racist.”

    “Yeah, ’specially if this mum of the woman Molly knows decides to take it on!” said Colin with a laugh.

    “Isn’t it the friend, not the mum, that’s Black? Um, I mean the mum’s friend,” said Robert feebly.

    “Yuh—um, yes, she’s West Indian. The mum’s the one who runs the restaurant in Woking: she’s Anglo-Indian,” said Colin. “But what about My Fat Hen?” he asked meekly.

    “We’d have to check the book,” said Caroline firmly. “I’m not opposed to it on principle.”

    “Me neither,” said Robert, now frankly grinning. “Though I like Higgledy-Piggledy better.”

    “People wouldn’t be able to spell it, and these days a lot of people wouldn’t be able to pronounce it, either,” said Caroline very firmly indeed. “We’d better get started.”

    Meekly the menfolk agreed and went off, Robert to sand the floors in Number 23 The Green, which was in better condition than its neighbours and was going to be the bookshop—Jack had already knocked out the dividing walls downstairs—and Colin to Number 24, which he had secretly decided was going to be very crafty indeed and would be just the thing for the chair-bottomers! Jack’s “boys” had ripped out its sagging wall linings, Bob Potter lending his aid with a will, and Jack and the boys, with some unskilled help from Bob and Colin—“Lift it! Hold your end UP!” kind of thing—had relined it in some kind of plasterboard. The joins were all skilfully covered with strips of, um, well, something, and then actual plaster, it was a very professional job. The skirtings had mostly had to be replaced but Jack had had just the thing! Recycled. Colin’s present task was to paint the walls matte white—washable acrylic, Jack had vetoed any notion of plaster, they wanted something practical and easy-care. Anna had unexpectedly weighed in on his side. The task was possibly within Colin’s capabilities. Certainly he had a long-handled roller, a short-handled roller, and two trays in which to dip the same. Oh, and a very small roller to do the bits round the doors and windows. The furniture restorers were supposed to come down today and have a look at the place, and, if they fancied it, choose a colour for the skirtings, doors, and door surrounds. He got on with it.

    BOOM! The building shook.

    Colin dropped his roller with a gasp. That had come from next-door—the smithy! He rushed outside and rushed in through the gap where Jack had removed most of the smithy’s front wall.

    There was a great cloud of dust. He peered. Jack and Bob, with considerable help from Penn, had taken out the interior walls in here, but the front bedroom had then had to be properly shored up and the staircase and its landing strengthened or some such: well, there was a ruddy great steel post where no steels posts had been before, put it like that. He peered into the dim cave as the dust rose… Christ! The back room’s ceiling had come down!

    “Anybody there?” he shouted.

    “Hello!” came a faint reply.

    Jesus, was somebody under that lot? “Are you all right?” he shouted.

    “Yes,” said Penn mildly, clumping down the stairs.

    “What the fuck are you DOING?” he shouted.

    “Getting that ceiling down, I’ve had enough of waiting for Jack to stop lovingly lead-lighting that bloody dump down the street.”

    “He’s gone potty over it,” said Colin numbly. “Look, I dare say you know what you’re doing, though to my untutored eye it doesn’t bloody well look like it: but in future kindly let me know when you’re going to be in here doing dangerous jobs! If that lot had come down on you—or you’d come down with it, I’m not even going to ask how you brought it down,” he said evilly, glaring at the giant sledge-hammer she was holding, “and there’d been no-one around, we’d never have known a thing, you’d have died under a heap of rubble! And as it is, Robert and Caroline don’t appear to have heard a thing, incredibly enough!”

    “He’s running his sander and she’s probably got her Walkman on,” said Penn calmly.

    “Did you hear what I said?” replied Colin evilly.

    “Yeah. Sorry. Not used to being under your command, Colonel, sir.”

    “This isn’t funny, Penn. It was bloody irresponsible of you.”

    “All right! Now tell me I’m a bull at a gate, like my sodding relatives! In future I’ll co-ordinate all troop movements with you, okay?”

    “You’d bloody better. We haven’t signed a lease yet,” he reminded her grimly.

    Penn went scarlet. “How many smiths are you going to find willing to come and live in this dump?”

    “One. It doesn’t have to be a smithy: I’ve had five offers from other crafts- or tradespeople, actually.”

    “Name one!” she shouted furiously.

    “If you’d just admit your error, you wouldn’t need to keep shouting,” he said mildly.

    Her jaw sagged.

    “But I will name one. Freddy Wildsmith. He’s an iron-fashioner who works in—”

    Penn was choking. “He’s an art-tarty moron!”

    “Very likely. Nevertheless he seemed very keen to take over this house.” He eyed her blandly.

    After a moment Penn said: “All right, Colin, I apologise for being an idiot, and it won't happen again.”

    “Thank you. How much of that ceiling have you actually brought down?”

    “Um, most of it, it didn’t take much. Um, the beams are sound, I tested them first.”

    God! The vision of her balancing on the fucking beams while she wielded that sledge-hammer was just so—

    “Are you all right?” she gasped, grabbing his arm.

    “Damn. Uh—yes. Just a bit dizzy.”

    “Sit down,” said Penn, swallowing.

    “I’m not an invalid,” he said heavily.

    “You’re not a hundred percent, either, from what I’ve heard,” she said, gripping his arm in an iron fist. “Just sit down on the stairs for a bit.”

    Sighing, Colin allowed her to assist him to a sitting position on the stairs. After a while he said: “I’m okay. Better, really: didn’t pass right out that time. The bloody neurosurgeon claims he can’t see a thing.”

    “I see. It was the head injury you got in Iraq, I suppose?”

    “Yeah. Fell orf the back of a truck,” he said drily.

    Penn bit her lip. “That isn’t funny, Colin.”

    “I thought it was, a bit.”

    “Not really,” she said, swallowing hard. “Um, I really am sorry, I didn’t think. I mean, I’m used to doing stuff by myself.”

    “Yes.”

    Had Penn expected an apology in reply to this humble speech? She couldn’t have said, herself, but she was rather disconcerted when he didn’t climb down. “Yeah—uh, well, what about knocking off for a cuppa?”

    Colin looked at his watch. Good grief! “Good idea. Think it might have been partly the paint fumes, I seem to have been at it for some time. I’ll round up Robert and Caroline, if you’d like to boil the jug. The electricity’s on in Number 22, now: there’s a table in that foul family-room that we’ve been using.”

    Penn smiled. “So you think it’s foul, too? Glad to hear it. Any idea what you’re going to put in there?”

    “Not the cottage as a whole, no, but there’s a woman who’s a weaver who’s very keen to use the family-room: it gets plenty of light. I think we’d have to re-convert the laundry into a kitchen for the other tenants, but at least the plumbing’s in.”

    “What sort of weaver?” asked Penn neutrally, getting up and holding out her hand.

    Colin felt quite all right but he let the sturdy smith yank him to his feet. It was not at all an unpleasant experience, the more so as under the dust she was wearing, in addition to a pair of very old jeans moulded to the generous curves, a washed-out red vest over a black bra. Not a stiff bra. To his disappointment she then grabbed the denim jacket that was on the newel post and shrugged it on.

    “Eh? Oh: rugs and stuff. I rather like them. She lives in Pump Lane, I admit—”

    Pump Lane was a very choice little street, very near to Belling Close, just off Fuller Street, a long road which ran parallel with Dipper Street, meeting the High Street just east of the track to the Workingmen’s Club. There was no pump in Pump Lane any more, if there ever had been, but the residents were very keen on putting one in. It was thus hardly surprising that Penn should have given a hefty snort.

    “I admit she’s an amateur,” he said lamely. “I mean, she does sell her work…”

    “What does the hubby do?” she asked sardonically.

    He swallowed. The weaver’s husband was one of the very few regular London commuters amongst the in-comers. “City. Stockbroker.”

    “Yeah,” said Penn drily. “Well, it’s your project.” She walked off.

    Colin had been envisaging them walking companionably at least as far as— Bugger.

    Jack’s truck arrived just as they were about to get back to it. Followed by another truck, a tip-truck, with a giant load of old bricks. Recycled—quite. These were dumped on the site of Number 20, the first of the row houses, now demolished by Jack and his merry men—the demolition had made them very merry indeed and Colin could only conclude that Rosie was right in claiming it was a Y-chromosome-linked gene. Only two rather nice triangular buttresses remained. If the miniature jungle behind the houses was removed it would be a sunny, sheltered spot, particularly if someone (unspecified) mended that nice stone wall at the back, and Rosie was probably right in claiming that it would make a lovely little playground, if properly fenced off, but at the moment it was a lovely brick depository. Not only those from Number 20 but the ones from the smithy, as well.

    “What are all these for?” he croaked.

    “Yer never know,” replied Mr Powell.

    “Jack, that site is not going to be a brick depository,” he warned.

    “Only temporary. Any tea going?”

    “Make another pot, we’ve just had ours.”

    “Right. CHARLIE!” he bawled.

    He, the tip-truck driver, the driver’s mate, Ivan Coates, Fred Carter and Bob Potter all went into Number 22. Colin passed his hand over his forehead and sighed. How very right Robert had been in maintaining that Jack should be paid for the results, not by the hour. Thank Christ he’d listened to him! This did not, however, solve the problem of how to make Jack do what the project required rather than what he felt like.

    “Hullo!” piped an old, cracked voice.

    Colin jumped. “Hullo, Jim,” he said feebly.

    Old Mr Parker eyed the two trucks thoughtfully. “Where’s Jack?”

    “Tea-break,” said Colin heavily. “And before you start, those bricks were unsolicited.”

    “Yeah. You were warned.”

    “Yes. Well, he hasn’t noticed, obviously, but there’s a clause in our agreement that specifies completion dates for the stages of the work and spells out that if he doesn’t meet them, the agreement’s null and void.”

    Mr Parker sucked his teeth. “There ain’t a builder in England what’s ’eard of completion dates, Colin.”

    “No, but there very soon will be one.”

    “Look, if you bring in a firm from Portsmouth you’ll put the whole village’s backs up. Though personally, I’m on your side.”

    “Thanks, Jim. I won’t do that, but I will bring in some ex-Army sappers, though.”

    Mr Parker gulped.

    “The work on the smithy’s come to a complete halt, and Penn took it upon herself to bring down the back room’s ceiling this morning. Wonder she didn’t kill herself.”

    “I’ll say! And what about yer insurance?”

    Colin looked at the old man with great approval. “Quite. Rob and Owen’ll do an excellent job and what’s more they’ve got a grasp of engineering principles: the dump may not actually fall down, in spite of Penn’s best efforts.”

    “Right. Now tell us ’ow yer gonna keep ’er out of it.”

    He sighed. “No idea. I have spoken to her.”

    “Yeah. She could give you a hand with the painting, maybe?”

    “Um, she’s not actually on the workforce, Jim,” he said uneasily.

    “So what? You can do with a few volunteers, can’t yer? I’m up for it meself! Don’t ask me to ’elp young Robert, though, me chest don’t like dust no more.”

    “No, I won’t,” he said, smiling at the old man and frantically wondering what the Hell he could set him to. “Uh, well, there’s a few hundred broken windows that need the old bits of glass and putty dug out, Jim, but it’s not exciting.”

    “Lead me to it!” he said with a grin.

    “Right, then; thanks very much. Um, well, I’ve got paint all over Number 24, though it is supposed to be quick-drying. Robert and the dust are in 23—well, want to try 21?”

    Kindly not pointing out that 22, where the tea-drinkers were, also needed its windows doing, Jim agreed to this. No, he didn’t need tools, he had his with him. What about something to put the bits in, though? Fortunately Caroline had thought of that, so they fetched one of her cartons, unfolded it (it was an old one but she’d carefully flattened it for storage), set it up again, resealed its bottom with the tape she’d also brought, and Jim set to. Apparently happily: he was whistling.

    Colin went back and looked at his paint job. Ugh. Well, possibly it was just drying unevenly. The downstairs was done: he went upstairs and got on with it.

    He gave Mr Powell a good half hour, and then winkled him out. Jack thought he could have a word with him in there but Colin thought he couldn’t. Looking mildly surprised, Jack ambled out with him.

    Colin produced a copy—not an original, that was in Susan Walsingham’s safe—of their agreement. “Jack, I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.”

    “Eh?”

    “You’re doing excellent work, but you’re not keeping to the agreed time-frame,” he said firmly.

    “Eh?”

    Colin pointed to the paragraph in question. Jack read it over. He went very red.

    “I know that it’s almost impossible to get a lead-lighter in the whole of southern England without paying a fortune, and we’re grateful for the work you’re putting in down at Numbers 17 and 18, but the smithy’s a more urgent priority. If necessary those windows can have temporary panes in them.”

    “Look—”

    Colin let him carry on at length. Then he let the silence lengthen. This tactic worked just as well with Mr Powell as it did with the chaps in the regiment: Jack went red again and began to look desperate. After years of having to distance himself from the men he was in charge of Colin managed to avoid any shred of empathy. “Yes,” he said flatly. “Working on a managed project isn’t like working for oneself.”

    “Look, this isn’t one of Robert’s flaming poncy industrial projects!” he shouted.

    Colin let the echoes ring. And die away. Then he said mildly: “I’d say it is, though of course on a much smaller scale. On the sort of project he’s used to they normally have to manage building contractors and sub-contractors, plumbers, electricians and goodness knows what. Heating and lighting experts, I dare say.“

    “Are you gonna give the plumbing work to some poncy outfit from Portsmouth, is that it? Well, ya needn’t expect them to keep to yer flaming timetable!” he snarled.

    “No. I’m sorry, Jack. Didn’t mean to give you that idea, at all,” he lied. “I’d like to see this project lead to some decent plumbing jobs in the district for you.”

    After a minute Jack admitted: “All right, so would I. If ya want me to get on with the smithy just say so.”

    “As a matter of fact I think the work on the smithy is a waste of your expertise. Not that I want Penn to knock down any more ceilings all on her ownsome,” he added lightly.

    Mr Powell, he was pleased to see, turned a sickly greenish colour and gasped: “Eh? She never!”

    “Mm. This morning as ever was. Don’t worry, I’ve torn a strip off her,” he said mildly.

    “Yeah,” said Jack limply. “Good. What was it, that fucking back room?”

    “Yes. She did say something about the roof over tea, but Robert pointed out in no uncertain terms that our insurance doesn’t cover her mucking about on roofs.”

    “There’s nothing wrong with the roof!” he choked. “Me and Fred spent hours up there!”

    “I know: it’s looking great. Er—well, something about a block and tackle to haul very large pieces in or out? Well, it sounded like crap to me, and not worth you wasting your time over. Likewise the rest of it: she doesn’t need a building job, let alone the sort of beautiful joinery work you’ve put in on those floors in Number 23, where you knocked the walls out. I’d rather you got on with some of the trickier jobs in the other houses: the plumbing, finishing the floors, replacing the window frames, that sort of thing. Replacing the lost doors.”

    “Um, yeah, I can get you some nice doors, no sweat. But if the smithy’s urgent—”

    “No, I think we’ve asked far too much of you, Jack. I’ll get a couple of ex-Army boys in.”

    After a moment Jack said on a sour note: “I suppose if I say I can manage it, you’ll say I haven’t met this fucking deadline of yours.”

    “Yes,” said Colin baldly.

    “But it was only because I was doing the lead-lighting!”

    “I realise that. Nevertheless a deadline is a deadline. Though if you’re that keen on the smithy I suppose my chaps could plumb in the new toilets and sinks.”

    “No!” he said in alarm. “That’s a qualified plumber’s job!”

    “You could always supervise.”

    “No,” he said grimly. “I’ll do it. Or am I late with that, too?”

    “Not yet,” replied Colin calmly.

    Jack was very red again. “All right, I take yer point. I’m fucking glad I was never under you in your bloody regiment, that’s all! But if your Army blokes knock a ruddy great hole in the smithy’s roof, I’m not gonna mend it for yer, see?”

    “I’ll make it clear that any work you’ve done is not to be touched. And they do know to ask if in any doubt—they were under me in the regiment for some time,” he said on a dry note. “Well, if you’re working today, Jack, I’d say those holes in the floors in Numbers 21 and 22 are the first priority.”

    “But me and Charlie were gonna— Oh, well, the boys are here, might as well.” He strode off, yelling: “HEY! FRED! IVAN! Get out here!”

    Pretty pissed off—yes. But at least he hadn't downed tools and walked off the job entirely, as Robert had predicted. Colin didn’t kid himself that relations with Jack would ever be the same again, even once the man had calmed down. Oh, well—penalty of command, wasn’t it? The world was divided into those who would behave like responsible adults under any circumstances and those who would play around like kids until Mummy or Daddy smacked their hands, and Jack Powell, alas, was one of the latter. He made a wry face and went back to the ’orrid sloping ceilings of the first floor rooms of Number 24.

    A mild May sun shone on Bellingford. Across the lane in the semi-detached cottages Caroline checked, measured, rechecked, cut glass carefully, rechecked, and puttied, listening to an Andrew Lloyd Webber CD on her headphones and humming tunelessly along with it. In Number 21, which was now the first of the row houses, old Jim Parker worked carefully on the broken windows in the back parlour while Jack grimly mended the holes in the front parlour’s floors. Next-door in Number 22 the middle-aged Fred Carter supervised young Ivan Coates’s efforts to do likewise whilst effortless mending the worst bits himself. Behind them in the converted family room Penn, having finished the washing up which the men, as usual, hadn't seemed to perceive needed doing, grimly cleaned the kitchen area. Robert had finished sanding the downstairs floors in 23 and vacuumed up all the dust. He lugged the heavy sander upstairs, reflecting sourly that Caroline was right in saying (a) that the big sander wouldn’t get into the corners and (b) that he’d have to do the stairs with the little sander, in fact he’d probably have to use a drill with sanding attachments and even that wouldn’t get into the corners properly. When Bob Potter came in looking hopeful he gratefully gave him the small sander and got him started on the stairs, firmly providing him with the spare dust mask and deliberately refraining from asking if he’d had any experience sanding. Upstairs in Number 24 Colin swore as paint dripped off his long-handled roller and onto his face from the sloping ceilings. At the end of the row a jackdaw flew into the smithy through the giant gap in its front wall, perched on Penn’s pile of rubble, looked round in a surprised way, and flew out again.

    Jim had almost finished the back windows when Jack came in and started bending his ear about Colin.

    “Yeah,” the old man interrupted him. “What are yer, blind? Dunno what made yer imagine ’e was as soft as them women yer do the plumbing for.”

    “What’s that supposed to mean?” he shouted, bright red.

    It hadn't been supposed to mean anything but Jim was quite pleased with the way it had come out. “If the cap fits!” he said jauntily. “Any of your boys capable of shoving a bit of glass in a ’ole?”

    “The frames haven’t been looked at yet,” he said grimly.

    “Then why dontcher look at ’em, Jack?’

    “Because he told me to do the fucking floors!” he shouted.

    “You need to learn to prioritise yer tasks, that’s what,” said the old man smugly.

    “I suppose yer got that orf ’IM!” he bellowed.

    “Nope, ’eard it on the telly. Open University. If you’re just gonna stand there shouting I’ll do next-door.”

    Jack swallowed. “Have you finished the upstairs?”

    “’Course. And the front room, if you ’aven’t noticed. I dunno if you’ve looked at the bog up there, I mean where someone’s nicked it, but there’s a nest in it—jackdaw, I’d say. Still, at least they ’ad an inside lav, more than yer can say for most of Bellingford until 1970 or so.”

    “That place with the family-room’s got one!” he said crossly.

    “Never said it didn’t.” Jim went out. Jack glared round him impotently.

    Colin had almost finished the back bedroom when Penn came in and said glumly: “Haven’t you got anything I could do?”

    He lowered the long-handled roller carefully. “Look out! –Sorry. Uh, well, don’t go into the smithy again until my sappers have checked it, Penn.”

    “Sappers,” said Penn very faintly.

    “Ex. If they okay it, you can clear that rubble out. Into the skip, thanks, not what’s left of Number 20.”

    “Yeah,” she said feebly. “Um, but when are they coming?”

    Colin looked at his watch. “In about two hours’ time.”

    “Does Jack know?” she croaked.

    “He knows he’s missed his deadline by two and a half days, yes,” he said calmly. “He doesn’t know that Rob and Owen will take over the work on the smithy this afternoon, though I have told him I’m getting them in to do it.”

    Penn licked her lips uneasily. “Colin, this is just a small village.”

    “Yes. That’s why I gave him the two extra day’s grace.”

    She frowned. “Where are they coming from, though?”

    “Only London. I rang them this morning when I realised Jack wasn’t working on the smithy. Though I don’t deny I sounded them out about their availability some time back.” He gave her a dry look. “Round about the time I pointed out to Jack that lead-lighting the restaurant wasn’t a priority and he ignored me.”

    “Right. Well, if he has a fit, you’ve only got yourself to blame.”

    “He’s already more or less had a fit, but if he’s silly enough to have another, he’ll just have to get over it, if he wants the work.”

    “Have you embarked on this project in order to make enemies for yourself?”

    “No. I’ve found that compromising at the start of any undertaking only lands one in deep shit further on.”

    “You’re a bloody hard man, aren’t you, Colin?” said Penn conversationally.

    “I don’t think so. I am a rational man, though. I have found the part of humanity that tends not to be does regards that as hard—yes.”

    “No wonder you get on so well with Caroline and Robert!” she said with feeling.

    “Yes: they’re both extremely rational people: it’s a pleasure to work with them,” replied Colin coolly.

    “And it’s not to work with the rest of us that are merely human!” cried Penn bitterly.

    Oh, Lor’, there were tears in her eyes! Colin went rather red and said quickly: “Don’t be silly, I’m used to that. I don’t think any the worse of you warm-hearted, impulsive creatures—in fact I rather envy you.”

    “And the rest,” said Penn shakily.

    “No, I do. In Jack’s case, he isn’t used to working for a boss, or to having to fit in with other people who are working to a timetable.”

    “But if you can see that, can’t you make allowances for him?”

    “I’ve been making allowances for him for nearly six weeks,” said Colin, trying to sound neutral and not critical. “He’s done, if you want the hard figures, forty percent of the tasks I’ve asked him to do. And contrariwise, sixty-two percent of the observed or calculated time he’s spent on the project has been spent in carrying out tasks he was supposed to be doing at this stage.”

    Her jaw sagged. “Sixty— For God’s sake! Have you had a stop-watch on him? And what on earth is calculated time, when it’s at home?”

    “No stop-watches were involved. The calculated time is the time we think he’s spent rushing around the countryside collecting raw materials. Largely unsolicited raw materials.”

    “Colin, surely a lot of the stuff he’s got will come in handy later?”

    Refraining with a huge effort from mentioning the principles of lean manufacturing, he returned: “Not all of it, by any means. Robert’s worked out exactly what’s needed for the row-houses and the restaurant and Jack’s got a copy of it. I admit he’s not used to working methodically. Nevertheless I don’t think that thirty-eight percent of project time not spent on the project is acceptable. I did speak to him several times about approaching deadlines but he just shrugged it off. He does know that we’ve got people lined up who’d like to be able to start showing their wares this summer.”

    “I suppose you’ve got coach tours lined up as well!”

    “Not until late August,” said Colin calmly. “Their schedules are mostly arranged well in advance and of course they need to advertise this kind of tour. But we did find a couple of smaller firms who were keen to bring clients on a tour of Bellingford’s old cottages—Mrs Granville Thinnes assures me the gardens will be at their best at that time—finishing off with Devonshire teas. I don’t think anybody’ll be impressed by lovely lead-lighting if we can’t produce scones with cream and jam because there’s no kitchen.”

    Penn bit her lip. “Um, no. Um, well, I admit I’ve been telling some of my regular clients I’m hoping to be in my new quarters by early July.”

    “Yes. I don’t think I’ve been unfair: Robert worked out Jack’s time-frames very carefully with him—doubling, I might add, his own over-optimistic estimates.”

    “All right, I’m convinced; the man needed a boot up the bum,” she said limply. “Could I maybe humbly paint a bit of wall until your sappers arrive?”

    “Sure, if you don’t mind getting paint on your clothes.”

    “I don’t wear clothes!” said Penn with a robust laugh. “Want me to spell you with the long roller?”

    “You sure? Bless you! I don't think my shoulders’ll recover from this little lot for a week.”

    Penn was shoving the roller back and forth carefully in the paint tray. She paused. “Right: now tell me you didn’t break a shoulder when you fell off the back of that truck!”

    “I cracked it, yes. It healed in no t—”

    “Masochist,” she said grimly.

    “Bollocks! –Have you ever used a paint roller before?”

    “Yes. Did the whole of the dump I’m living in on the understanding that I’d pay for the paint and the fucking landlord wouldn’t pay me for the labour.”

    “In that case that big roller’s all yours and I’ll just do some tiny delicate bits round the doors and windows.”

    “Yeah, do,” said Penn pleasedly.

    Smiling a little, Colin got on with it.

    … The mild May sun shone on Bellingford as the furniture restorers emerged onto the square from Church Lane. “Isn’t it exciting?” said Ruthven Harris.

    Gary Shurrock, who did the wooden chair-bottoming, agreed, speculatively eyeing the enormous mounds of unsolicited timber Jack had dumped on the green.

    “Come on, it’s this one!” urged Ruthven.

    Gary had paused by a huge hunk of willow. Where had this come from? And what did they imagine they were going to do with it? “I could take this off their hands. Even If I can’t use it for chairs, it—”

    Ignoring him, Ruthven forged eagerly ahead.

    “Hullo, Colonel Haworth,” he said numbly to the paint-spattered, ragged figure on the stairs.

    “Colin,” said Colin, grinning at him. “It’s Ruthven, isn’t it? Glad you could get here. Don’t touch the walls, will you? This stuff’s supposed to be quick-drying but we’ve worked out that those trials were done in the Sahara.”

    “Yes, um, we tried out a varnish that was like that,” he said numbly, “GARY! Sorry, he’s found an interesting block of wood,” he explained. “Gary! Oh, there you are. Say hullo to Colin, we’re here to look at the shop, not steal his wood!”

    “Hi, Gary. You can steal any wood you see out there except the piles of planks covered in sheets of plastic,” said Colin. “They’re what we actually ordered. The other junk, er—”

    “Fell orf the backs of trucks!” said Penn with a laugh. “Hullo, I’ve seen your shop in Portsmouth, it’s great! I’m Penn Martin.”

    “Our smith,” said Colin, grinning broadly.

    Ruthven and Gary were thrilled to meet Penn and thrilled to discover she did restoration work. They inspected Number 24 eagerly, agreeing that they would need all the downstairs, and it seemed about the right size for the shop, but they would need a shed. For storage and in case they got any very big pieces that they couldn’t work on in the shop. Colin hadn't thought of that. Feebly he led them outside to the jungle of weeds behind the row of cottages.

    “Bulldozer,” said Penn briskly. “Scoop the lot out.”

    “I’ll see what Rob and Owen think. Is there enough room for your shed here, Ruthven?”

    Apparently the furniture restorers needed a shed the size of an aeroplane hangar.

    “Use the whole space,” said Penn briskly. “Well, not behind the smithy, you’d have inflammable stuff, wouldn’t you?”

    “But would you be willing to put up a shed for us, Colin?” asked Gary.

    “Of course.”

    “He isn’t the average landlord!” said Penn with a laugh as their jaws sagged.

    The furniture restorers agreed, brightening. Though Ruthven did note that they’d have to check out their insurance situation very carefully before agreeing to anything, if the smithy was right next-door. Gary then took a few measurements and explained that they’d need heavy vehicle access—Colin had to swallow: of course they would! Why the Hell hadn't he thought of that?—and they returned happily indoors for a gloating session and an argument over whether maroon high gloss would look as good on the skirtings and door-surrounds as Ruthven seemed to think…

    “Promising!” said Penn with a laugh as the pair departed, waving. There was a slight hiatus on the green as Ruthven wrenched Gary away from one of Jack’s hunks of dead tree, and then they headed for Church Lane, the butcher’s shop and “those fab Spanish sausages he’s started making,” unquote, and the choice precincts of Belling Close.

    “I suppose it is lunchtime,” admitted Colin.

    “Long past: my tummy’s rumbling!” she said with a laugh.

    Involuntarily Colin looked at the rounded tummy in question. His ears went rather red. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Come on, let’s round up the workers.”

    In the semi-detached restaurant Caroline was just finishing off. She had done all the panes and was neatly setting out the paint she intended doing the frames with once the putty had dried. It was modern putty, she explained kindly, but she would leave it until tomorrow, yes. A light blue might be nice for the sills inside, what did Colin think? He thought that those who ran it might like a say. Caroline took a deep breath and asked if he had spoken to Terri about becoming the chef.

    Appreciatively Colin noted the avoidance of the word “yet”. “No: I’m hoping that Euan will offer her a completely different position, Caroline,” he said with smile.

    “But that needn’t stop her working!”

    “Exactly, or is this position chained to his kitchen sink?” said Penn on a grim note.

    “Look, Terri hasn’t got the energy of ten women like you two. Like each of you two. If they have kids I think she’ll be busy enough with them and the household—two households: he leads a fairly complicated life.”

    “But she’s an intelligent young woman with a skill she should be using!” objected Caroline.

    Colin sighed. “It isn’t just a matter of intelligence. She loves little kids. During the week, when Euan’s away and I don’t need her, she spends half her time—” He broke off.

    “What?” they said innocently.

    Oh, God! “With Bunting and Yvonne,” he said lamely.

    Caroline eyed him drily. “I think you mean with that unofficial play group that Yvonne and Juliette have started up. Did you really think Rosie wouldn’t tell me about it? It doesn’t matter, Kiefer’s starting school next term. Well, if that’s what Terri enjoys, I take your point.”

    “Maybe she’d like to be in charge of our playground!” offered Penn brightly.

    “That’s an idea!”

    “Lunch!” said Colin loudly, walking out on the pair of them.

    Terri had made a giant pot of the Habas à la Asturiana which had become one of Colin’s favourite dishes, with a mountainous green salad and the crusty bread they’d got in Portsmouth a week back and stored in Euan’s freezer—well, he wasn’t using a fraction of its space. Once Colin had put the Stilton back in the pantry and produced the nice crumbly hunk of cheddar he’d also got in Portsmouth the faces all brightened and they sat down to it, washed down with beer or, in Caroline’s case, mineral water.

    The afternoon was more of the same—well, no more confrontations with Jack, thank God. Rob Cowan and Owen Bridges turned up around two, as promised. Just as well: they discovered that two of those beams in the smithy that Penn claimed to have checked were unsound. They shored them up immediately with some of the stout steel posts they’d brought on their large truck. Owen was a qualified electrician: he then inspected all the wiring and turned everything off while he replaced all the fuses. These urgent jobs done, they inspected everything that Colin suggested they might look at and drew up a schedule for the Colonel’s ratification. Colin didn’t even glance in Jack’s direction. He compared it carefully with his existing schedule and explained which jobs Jack and his boys were slated to do. Penn, and Bob when Robert had finished with his services, would take orders from them, okay? Even the intrepid Penn didn’t dare to joke as the two wiry, energetic men agreed: “Right, sir!” and marched into the smithy to get on with it.

    Around four-thirty Robert came to say that they were packing up for the day.

    Colin’s meagre skills hadn’t been wanted so he was meekly checking and listing stores on the green. At least it had given him a chance to sit down. “But—”

    “It’s the Yacht Club dinner and dance tonight: had you forgotten? We want to have a wash and a bit of a rest and give Kiefer his supper,” he said with a smile.

    “Oh, good God, I’d forgotten all about it!”

    Penn wandered over from the skip with a piece of moulding that was still good. “Don’t go.”

    “I have to go, it’s my cousin Terence’s birthday party. And I was supposed to bring a partner!” he remembered in dismay.”

    “Take Terri,” said Penn.

    “No, she’s going with Euan.”

    “Take Penn!” said Robert with a laugh, going. “See you later!”

    Colin was about to make a joking remark when he realised the sturdy smith was very red. “Would you like to, Penn? It’s just a crowd of John’s local friends, really.”

    “I haven’t got anything to wear,” she growled, still a glowing red.

    “I’m quite sure Terri will be able to lend you something,” he said, smiling. “I’d love it if you would come, Penn:”

    “No, you wouldn’t,” she growled. “And I can’t dance to save my life.”

    “That’ll make two—no, three of us!” he said with a laugh. “Poor Rosie’s the size of a house! We’re just going in order to sit and watch other people make fools of themselves on the floor and guzzle a nice dinner at John’s expense! Can you do that?”

    “Um, yes,” she said smiling uncertainly. “Um, thanks.”

    “Great! That’s settled! Uh—God, I seem to have locked in this position: the bloody knee’s gone again! –It’s not mine. British Steel, I think.”

    Penn held out her hand and for the second time that day Colin experienced the delicious sensation of being hauled up by Penn Martin.

    “Uh—thanks, Penn!” he said as his chest came into contact with those extremely generous curves. Wow!

    “Can you walk?”

    “Dunno. Better lean on you, eh?” he said, grinning, and flinging an arm round her shoulders before she could move.

    Penn put an arm round his waist and looked up at him uncertainly.

    “I may never move again!” said Colin with a laugh.

    “Look, is this a joke?”

    “Er—no,” he said feebly. “Hang on.” He put all his weight on his good leg and managed to get the bad hip going. “The muscles stiffen up round—never mind. Just help me across the green, should loosen up in a bit.”

    They’d got as far as the track when Terri appeared. “Oh, dear! I knew it! He has overdone it again!”

    “Stiffened up a bit, that’s all,” said Colin with a grin. “A hot shower’ll fix me up. Penn’s coming to the Yacht Club with me: do you think you can lend her a dress?”

    “But of course! It will be a pleasure, Penn!” she beamed.

    Penn thanked her but objected that Terri was smaller then she was. Terri explained calmly that she’d lost lot of weight, and they adjourned to Number 11 Moulder’s Way, Colin silently hoping very much that the borrowed plumage wouldn’t turn out to be one of those black tents of Terri’s.

    “It’s a bit different from last time!” said Rosie happily as the couples circled on the floor.

    The Yacht Club had a lot of members who were, frankly, old fogies, so this was a two-step. John’s eyes twinkled as he watched. Rupy and a Yacht Club lady were showing the rest of them how to do it. Terence’s and Molly’s was a two-step, all right. Georgia’s and Greg’s was, but only because she was leading. Caroline’s and Robert’s was what in the long ago John’s dance teacher would have called correct but stiff. Colin’s and Euan’s were two-steps but their partners’ weren’t.

    “It certainly is!” he agreed. They had been to the Yacht Club together in the interval but he was in no doubt she meant the last time they’d come here with Euan.

    Rosie watched Colin and Penn, smiling. “I thought he might invite Anna,” she murmured.

    “I didn’t. –Nothing to do with the fact that she didn’t want to come.”

    “All right, Captain Omniscient. And you were right, Euan did ask Terri.”

    “Yes. I like that dress,” he said with a smile.

    He meant he liked Terri in it, and he wasn’t the only one by any means! It was black, with a square neckline, very plain, with a long, tight skirt. Terri’s measurements were now about thirty-six, twenty-eight, thirty-eight, and the young fellows at the Yacht Club, largely Naval lieutenants, didn’t seem to mind at all. The glowing embroidered scarf she’d tied round those generous hips in a very Spanish look wasn’t doing any harm, either. Her hair had grown and was now a hand’s span above her waist, the most glorious silky black cloud.

    “Ever noticed how Mediterranean girls have that very shiny black hair?” he mused. “You never see it on English girls.”

    “No, because Mediterranean girls’ black hair doesn’t come out of a bottle!” she retorted swiftly.

    “It isn’t that. The hair has a completely different quality.”

    “Yeah, all right, Captain Omniscient.”

    He put his hand over hers. “You all right, darling?”

    “Yes, but I’m sick of the bulge,” Rosie admitted with a sigh. “You missed this bit last time.”

    He’d only got home for the ninth month, true, but she was almost in the ninth month. He didn’t argue, however. “Mm. Never mind, not long to go. Penn looks good in that dark red dress of Terri’s, doesn’t she?”

    “Goodness, yes! So she does!” discovered Rosie. “Even though she hasn’t got that shiny Mediterranean hair!”

    “No, see, that’s what I mean! It is black, but it’s more soft and feathery.”

    “God, put some champagne in it, Captain Omniscient!” she said with a laugh and a groan.

    On the floor Euan said to his partner with a smile: “This is nice, isn’t it?’

    “Don’t talk!” she gasped. “Or I shall step on your foot!”

    “What, just for talking?”

    Terri trod on his foot. He gasped.

    “I’m so sorry! Could we sit down?”

    “No: you can step on ma foot all night but I’m no’ givin’ in!” he said with a laugh, holding her more tightly to him. “Can ye no’ try to follow me?”

    “I am trying!” she gasped.

    Euan just smiled and held her tightly. She was just about the worst dancer he’d ever had the privilege with.

    On the floor Colin suppressed a gasp.

    “Look, I can’t do this,” said his partner grimly. “I did warn you.”

    “Okay, let’s just shuffle,” he said obligingly. He stopped two-stepping and pulled Penn very tightly against him, every glorious last curve of her, ooh-er! “That better?” he said with a smile in his voice.

    Penn had been trying to tell herself all evening that Colin in his dress uniform was not overpowering, and that she was a simpering female idiot to feel like this about him in it. It hadn't worked. “I can shuffle, yeah.”

    “Good; not lifting the feet will probably protect mine.”

    “Hah, hah. These shoes of Molly’s are too high for me.” –Her feet had been far too small for Terri’s shoes, and so Molly had come to the rescue.

    “Mm. Shuffling will help.”

    “Well, hang on to me!” hissed Penn in despair.

    “Oh, I’m doing that,” he assured her. He felt her gulp. Smiling, he held on to her…

    Terence and Molly rotated back gracefully to their party’s table just as the dance ended. “How do you do that?” she said in awe.

    “Same like you only backwards,” he replied, grinning. He held her chair for her.

    “Thanks,” said Molly very weakly indeed. True, John had held Rosie’s when they sat down to dine and Colin had held Penn’s. Euan had tried to hold Terri’s but she’d dropped her bag and by the time he’d retrieved it for her it was too late. Georgia had pulled her own chair out before Greg had been able to move, if he had been going to, and Caroline likewise before Robert could likewise. Molly had admitted weakly to herself that actually, she’d have been more comfortable with that. Terence’s manners were even worse—better! Better, than Lucas’s.

    She sat down and said: “No, I meant time it so we got back here just as the music stopped.”

    Terence smiled at her and admitted: “Mixture of experience and luck, really, Molly. Like another glass of fizz?”

    Molly hesitated. Then she admitted: “It’s a bit sour for me, really.”

    Their table was unoccupied: John and Rosie had gone off to chat to acquaintances. He made a face. “Mm: John’s taste: brut. Have something nice instead. What would you have at home?” he said nicely. He watched with surprise as her lovely face turned puce. “Molly, has some wine snob been filling your head with rubbish about drinks?”

    “Lucas Roberts,” said her little sister with brutal frankness, sitting down with a sigh. “Greg’s a really hopeless dancer!”

    “It was heroic of him to come at all,” said Molly with a smile. “–She’s right, actually, Terence. Lucas was a wine snob, I s’pose.”

    Georgia snorted. “Suppose! Have a piña colada, Molly. –She loves anything with pineapple juice in it, Terence.”

    Molly agreed she’d love one, and Georgia agreed to make it two. Terence went off to the bar smiling a little. Though also conscious of a certain itching round about the knuckles of the right fist—as of knuckles that were longing to connect with this bloody Lucas’s stupid face.

    “Ya don’t wanna judge all English blokes by ruddy Lucas, ya know,” said Georgia before the poor man was scarcely three metres away.

    “Ssh! I’m not!” she hissed, going very red.

    “Not much. Why’d ya wear that dress?”

    Molly was in the fawn satin she’d worn to the Sydney premiere of The Captain’s Daughter, and later to Lucas’s frightful dinner. “It’s my best one.”

    “For Pete’s sake! Haven’t you bought yourself a nice dress for evening does? Brian must’ve started paying you by now, surely!”

    “Shut up, Georgia,” she said with sigh. “The flat’s costing me a fortune and Micky’s grown out of three shoes sizes since we came to England. That means, just to put you fully in the picture,” she said as Georgia opened her mouth, “sneakers, gumboots, school shoes, footy boots, and slippers. –Don’t say he doesn’t need slippers, poor little mite: this is England!”

    “Everyone needs slippers in England!” agreed Euan with a laugh, pulling Terri’s chair out for her. “Sit here, while I drag ma puir feet off to the bar. What’ll you have?”

    Terri was very flushed. “I think you should sit down, not me, Euan.”

    “Why should he sit down? Is he weak?” asked Georgia nastily.

    “No!” she said with a startled laugh. “No, actually he is very strong, Georgia: Mrs Granville Thinnes has bought a small car, a runabout, because she is so busy these days—”

    “Busy pestering Colin,” interrupted Euan drily.

    “Nevertheless, that is still busy. And she drove it into the ditch, and Euan got it out for her!”

   Euan flexed his biceps, grinning. “Aye, by brute force! Well, brute force, a log, and the application of the principle of leverage. Ma G.T. was terrifically impressed and I scored a coffee and two shortbread biscuits.”

    “But not a pheasant!” squeaked Terri. She clapped her hand to her mouth and collapsed in giggles.

    Euan’s faces was all smile. “No. –I should sit down,” he explained, “because Terri’s idea of a two-step is step one, stand on your partner’s foot, step two, apologise, repeat until partner gives in.”

    “Well, yes, sadly,” admitted Terri.

    “Aye. It may work on the Spanish or the Sassenachs, but we Scots are made of sterner stuff. Do ye want a drink, woman, or no’?”

    Terri would fancy a Campari and soda, so Euan, though shaking his head and noting that it was a foreign drink, woman, went off to get it, having ascertained that the other ladies were being looked after.

    “He seems in a very good mood, Terri,” said Molly, smiling at her.

    Terri went rather red. Euan had invited her to the party very casually, also very casually adding that he and Molly had broken it off by mutual consent. “Yes. Well, he is pleased that Derry liked his idea about buying the farmhouse.”

    “What?” gasped Georgia. “But what about that wonderful house in Albert Street?”

    Terence surfaced with their drinks. “What house is this?”

    “The Arvidsons’ old house; the modern-looking place on the north side of Albert Street,” explained Molly. “Derry Dawlish has bought it.”

    “Oh, yes, I know it.” He distributed drinks and sat down. “Handsome place. Don’t know that I’d call it wonderful, exactly, Georgia.”

    “Nor would I,” said Molly in some relief.

    “I agree with Georgia,” said Terri, smiling at her. “Derry thinks that it’s wonderful, too, but you see, although he greatly admires it, it does not suit his temperament and he has not been happy in it.”

    “I’m not surprised!” said Molly with feeling. “It’s so cold!”

    “It is not!” cried Georgia. “It’s very elegant!”

    “Yes, but elegant in a very cool style, I think, Georgia,” said Terri.

    “Um, well, yes,” she agreed uncertainly. “I thought that was why Derry liked it!”

    “Sí. But you see, Derry has great aesthetic appreciation, but temperamentally he is very… I think the word is robust.”

    “I’d have said coarse,” said Molly drily.

    “No,” they both said.

    She smiled a little. “If you say so.”

    Terence lifted his glass in a pointed manner. “I couldn’t live in the place, personally: far too cold for me. Cheers!”

    “Cheers,” agreed Molly, smiling at him, and not asking herself why she was so relieved that he agreed with her on that one. “How’s Kitchener, Terri?”

    Terence listened with a smile in his eyes as the beaming Terri told Molly all about what turned out to be a ruddy corgi.

    Colin had led Penn out onto the balcony after their dance, explaining that he needed to cool off. Penn wasn’t that surprised, but she didn’t think that cooling off was entirely the object of the exercise. She went and leaned her elbows on the railing: the Yacht Club was, surprisingly enough, actually on the shore and the water was just below. “It’s nice out here.”

    Colin came up very close. “Mm. You can’t appreciate it at this hour, but this floor’s definitely a decking and the rest of the place is cream picked out in dark blue. Terence is planning something similar for his pub: ’orribly nautical.”

    “Don’t be so disillusioned!” said Penn with a laugh. “It couldn’t be worse than fake Tudor!”

    “I’d call it fake stockbroker Tudor,” he said thoughtfully.

    She gave a snort of laughter.

    “Mm.” He came up close and put his arm round her waist. “Warm enough?”

    The borrowed dress had long sleeves; Penn replied drily: “I’m probably warmer than you are.”

    “That’d be impossible,” replied Colin primly, getting just about as close as the laws of Newtonian physics allowed and pressing his highly interested piece of meat against her generous bum. Gosh.

    Penn swallowed hard. “I don’t think you ought to be doing that.”

    “It’s doing it of its own accord,” he said plaintively.

    “Right. It’s breathing down my neck of its own accord, too, is it?”

    “Mm-mm. Definitely,” he said, breathing down her neck. “You smell incredibly wonderful.”

    “It’s Terri’s soap, you idiot,” said Penn weakly.

    “No, it isn’t, it’s you,” replied Colin, giving in entirely and putting his arms right round her and getting two generous handfuls. Ooh-er!

    “This is silly, we hardly know each other,” said Penn in a strangled voice.

    “This is making a start on getting to know each other much, much better,” he explained.

    “Look, you’re mad, we’re gonna have to be working together, more or less, for the foreseeable future, and I’m gonna be your tenant, for God’s sake!”

    “Mm-mm,” he said into her neck.

    “Added to which,” said Penn crossly, “if you must know, my track record—”

    “It can’t possibly be as bad as mine and no, I don’t want to know, as a matter of fact. Unless there’s some sod you’d like me to punch in the face for you? I’d be very glad to do that,” he explained.

    “I bet,” she said feebly, swallowing. “Uh—no, I’m hefty enough to do any punching out that’s needed, thanks.”

    “It’d be a pleasure,” he explained, squeezing gently.

    “Yeah—I mean, no. I mean, don’t be silly,” said Penn very weakly indeed.

    “My track record—though I realise you don’t wanna know either,” he said, sort of just gently stroking them as opposed to actual squeezing, ’cos that was nice, too, “includes one failed marriage to an over-scented, over-lipsticked and very expensive bitch who thought I should be undyingly faithful to her while she slept with anything she fancied, not necessarily while I was overseas with the regiment. I married her because she was as hot as Hell for it, I was as hot as Hell for it—generally impedes thought in the male, especially those aged twenty-six; my Colonel, a very sane man, told me exactly what he thought of the engagement plan, I might add, but that didn’t stop me— Where was I? Oh yes: hot as Hell for it,” he said, dreamily pressing it into her curves again, “and as well she was spectacularly pretty: dazzlingly blonde. Later revealed to be naturally a mousy fawn. However. She cost me a fortune, largely a fortune that I didn’t have, and I was in hock for years after the divorce.”

    “Colin—”

    “Shut up, might as well get it over with. She was followed in rapid succession by torrid affaires with—uh, well, their names were Legion, but they were all the same type, though not all blondes. Got my majority—that’s an Army term,” he explained kindly; Penn gulped, hah-hah!—“and slowed down slightly, since the career looked as if it might going somewhere after all. I suppose the next serious thing—well, that I thought was going to be serious—was when I did the first tour with the regiment in Germany: got heavily involved with a German actress—genuine blonde, the coolly handsome sort. Turned out she thought I was going to devote myself to her career and domesticity in a nice big suburban box in Bonn, while I was labouring under the delusion that she’d accepted that soldiering entails going where you’re sent when you’re sent. Big acrimonious bust-up,” he said with a grimace in his voice. “Then it was an Italian Common Marketeer: we had nothing in common but sex, and there was plenty of that.”

    “Look—”

    “Shush, nearly there. Fell heavily for a really lovely-looking Serbian woman, discovered just in time that she was looking for a meal ticket for herself, her four kids, her seven siblings and her old parents. Which I might’ve come at, but the father turned out to be a bloody criminal—former general under the old régime. We had him in clink and she fondly imagined little Colin was the mug that was going to get him out. That taught me such a lesson that on my next home leave I took up with a thrice-divorced old girlfriend who was looking for number four. She was keen, I have to admit: I didn’t go out looking for her. It went wrong because we went to a party of old friends in London and I went home with another old friend entirely.”

    Penn shook silently. The sensation, from his end, was not unpleasant at all. “Yeah, go on, laugh,” he said resignedly.

    “Sorry!” she gasped. “And I thought I was hopeless!”

    “See? I was really chastened after that and went back to Germany and did a German divorcée. She was a really nice woman, actually, but it fell apart because she found out about the general’s daughter. I was very drunk the night we met, but not too drunk not to perform, rather unfortunately, and she kept coming back for more: it got rather embarrassing, because she was marred to a chap I was at school with.”—Penn gulped, the more so as she’d expected him to say she was half his age.—“I eventually had to tell her I was serious about Brigitte, the divorcée, and she told me what she thought of me and flung off home in a huff, but by that time it was too late: a kind friend had told Brigitte about her. I didn’t have time to ask myself if I really minded, because an American journalist arrived to report on how we ran our lovely Briddish regiments. Boy, did I show her.”

    “Did she get anything published?” she said feebly.

    “Oh, yes: she was one of those typically determined Americans, fully imbued with the Protestant work ethic.”

    “And the rest!”

    “Well, yeah, the two aren’t incompatible in the American female, apparently. She had this silly idea—” he said on a plaintive note.

    “I am warning you, Colin!”

    “Do that, mm. Where was I?” he said, squeezing. “Oh, yes: she had this silly idea that nicely brung up Briddishers only knew the missionary position and only—”

    “Shut up,” said Penn in a stifled voice.

    Colin kissed the curls at her neck very gently. “Sort of in between that, in fact off and on for some time, I was doing a very macho lady brigadier who was about as keen on no-ties sex as I was, but didn’t get as much opportunity, if y’see what I mean. Well, most of the chaps she met were under her—sorry, that didn’t come out right. Army chaps. Well, technically she was my superior officer, too, but different outfits, you see? Home leave before our stint in Iraq was next. Let’s see: one of my sister’s old school friends, very married but if she didn’t care I certainly didn’t, a Scottish cousin—Ma’s side—who had a mania for going on top but the most glorious dark auburn, uh, hair,”—he cleared his throat—“and a fund-raising colleague of my brother-in-law’s who was a definite mistake, she took it terrifically seriously—fund-raisers on the whole are ’orribly serious—and started making plans for our future brilliant joint careers in fund raising and buying new junk for her flat.”

    “While you’d done nothing, of course, to give the poor woman that idea that it was serious!” she said indignantly, trying to pull away.

    “Only the usual things,” said Colin on a glum note, not letting go. “Thought I was showing her a bloody good time and it was mutual. –No, honest!” he said as she was still stiff with indignation.

    “Huh!”

    “S’pose you don’t want to hear about who I got up in Iraq, then,” he said sadly.

    “Iraq?” she gasped.

    “Yes. In between the shooting at Iraqis bits,” he explained. “It was only two lady journalists—telly ones, at that—you can’t count them.”

    Penn began militantly: “You mean women jou— Not together?” she choked.

    “No,” he said sadly. “Ooh, that would’ve been good! No—at different times. One Australian and one Canadian. The Canadian was rabidly disapproving of our lot, but not so much of me personally, if you see what I—”

    “Shut up, you vain idiot!” she growled.

    “And the Australian was rather sweet—quite a dainty little person. Not the Germaine Greer type at all. Even with the glorious example of Rosie on the box one still sort of mentally expects that—you know? She wasn’t,” he said with a smile in his voice.

    Penn was unexpectedly filled with a surge of boiling hatred of the dainty little Australian journalist. She said nothing.

    “That’s about it,” he said meekly.

    “I should ruddy well think so,” she managed.

    “Just in case you were imagining I was gay,” he said meekly, pressing it against her again.

    She took a deep breath. “Funnily enough I never imagined that, Colin.”

    “No? Good. Since I landed in ’orspital—“

    “I don’t wanna know!” said Penn loudly.

    “That’s good!” admitted Colin with a laugh. “No-one special. Sort of proving I could again,” he said, taking her earlobe very gently between his teeth. “Want to?” he said in the ear. He put his tongue in there just in case she was gonna say no.

    “I think you know bloody well that I want to. If that lot doesn’t put you clearly in the class of experienced womaniser, I don’t know what would!”

    “Good. Turn round, then.”

    Penn turned round and gave him a good glare.

    Colin pulled her urgently against him and kissed her hard. After a moment Penn pressed herself fiercely to him and kissed him back hotly.

    “Help,” he said feebly after some time, relaxing his grip.

    “You’d better say now if you wanna stop!” she said angrily.

    “No! Jesus, what gave you that idea? Look, let’s just pile into Emerald and get out of this dump!”

    “All the way back to Bellingford?”

    “It’s not that far. You got a better idea?”

    She did have: she hadn’t brought the boat over, she was booked into a motel in Portsmouth.

    That sounded excellent, so they sloped off into the night, hand in hand.