Enter Georgia

3

Enter Georgia

    Okay, I’m gonna do it. Derry Dawlish reckons I can be an actress, so maybe I can. And I don’t care what any of them say, I’m not gonna be talked out of it!

    And if ya wanna know why, take a look at what I’m leaving behind. Office life on the Fourteenth. It’s a secure job and it can’t be that bad? Oh, really? Listen, this is what the first day was like, and believe you me, it didn’t get better!

    The office just looks like any big office—open-plan, of course—but my eyes are glazing over already, boy, that’s a good sign. Not.

    “Here we are,” says Mr Forgotten-His-Name-Already. “This is Unpronounceable-Gonna-Forget-It-Immediately: she’ll look after you. This is the new girl,” he explains to her. “Georgia. Um—Leach. Georgia Leach. Send her up to Human Resources in about half an hour, will you?” He’s gone before I realise he’s going and so I can’t say Good-bye and thank you, Mr Forgotten-Your-Name-Already—probably just as well.

    “You’re over here,” goes Unpronounceable-Gonna-Forget-It-Immediately, looking at me without interest or, fancy that, any evidence of fellow-feeling. Okay, I look All Wrong, like, probably got “student” tattooed on my forehead, still. Well, heck, I’ve barely been working for a year since I finished my B.A., I haven’t been able to buy many clothes. Not and pay the rent. And anyway, do I wanna look like her? See, Unpronounceable-Gonna-Forget-It-Immediately is what you could call a stoutish girl, in fact my figure’s better than hers, but she’s never gonna admit by so much as a look that that’s true. Like, I’m just in a blouse and skirt, but she’s in this year’s approved office wear. A neat dark suit, it’d be a narrow suit on a thinner girl, smart black high-heeled black patent shoes with chunky soles, not quite platforms, and a necklace of tiny unidentifiable thingos on a thin silver chain above the wrap-over blouse that doesn’t go so far as to actually expose a strip of tummy above the lowered waistline of the skirt when she’s standing still, but it will if she raises an arm even slightly. So she dumps me down at a desk.

    “This is you,” she goes without interest.

    ’Tisn’t, actually, it’s a desk. “Yes. Thanks.”

    “You can go up to Human Resources in about half an hour.”

    “Yes, he said.” She’s moving off so I go desperately: “Um, where is it?”

    “Eh? Up on the Fifteenth, of course.” Like, I’m both dumb and mad, though neither factor seems to cause much emotion in her. Yes, well, if I’m dumb and mad, Unpronounceable-Gonna-Forget-It-Immediately, you’re dumber and madder, ’cos how am I supposed to know? By osmosis?

    So I go feebly: “I see. Um, so what floor is this?”

    Ooh, that’s done it! “The Fourteenth, of course!” she replies with amazement and scorn. And she clumps back to her own desk on the chunky high-heels. That angle she has to bend forward at to walk in them is real ugly, objectively. The legs are quite well shaped, in fact quite muscly. Netball? Exercise machines? But in that case, why hasn’t she lost weight all over? Like, me and Mandy Regan, we went on a diet together and went to the gym religiously for a whole year and I lost a lot of weight. I was fat all through my teens, but that was when I hadda live at home, and now Mum can’t force me to eat bread and pasta and sausages, ’cos I’m out of there for good, and I’m never gonna put it back on, I can tell ya! Mandy got down to a size 12 for her wedding but since then she’s more than put it back on, the excuse was Baby Anne with an E. (Like Anne of Green Gables, Mandy really loved the series, but I thought it was lame, the books were miles better.)

    So here I am at my new desk. I got the choice, twiddle my thumbs, or ponder the mysteries of Unpronounceable-Gonna-Forget-It-Immediately’s muscular legs and sallow skin. Ponder, ponder… Perhaps she’s Italian or Greek, there’s lots of both in Sydney.

    Ponder… Hey, this desk looks as if it belongs to someone else! Because there’s Someone Else’s pot-plant on it: one of those trailing ones, not a very big one in this instance, with juicy-looking variegated leaves, the sort of pot-plant that looks vaguely alien. In a small pale green plastic pot, no, sort of halfway between turquoise and pale green, it absolutely swears at the green and yellow of its leaves. Any other evidence? Yep: a battered wooden ruler with one corner of its first centimetre charred, the mind boggles, a well-chewed pencil, a well-chewed ball-point pen… Ooh, a small plastic pencil-sharpener in the shape of a strawberry, no office would actually supply those, actually I’ve never even seen fruit-shaped ones before, wish it was mine. Maybe I could nick it… Ugh! A horrid crumbling piece of, um, rubber? And a dirty ball of blue-tack. It’s one of those ugly, featureless grey office desks with a remove. There’s a computer on it, set at a real awkward angle, did Someone Else have something wrong with her neck? Well, if she didn’t before, she would have now. Hey, maybe that’s why she left! I’m leaving it severely alone, no way am I gonna be blamed for the entire office system going down—Ooh!

    The lady at the next desk, behind one of those low, grey-carpeted partitions that only shield you from your neighbour when you’re both sitting down, has pushed her ergonomic chair back and gone: “Hullo!”

    Hullo to you too, Lady. “Hullo.”

    “I’m Carrie. Carrie Brown.” Smile, smile. “What’s your name?”

    “Georgia Leach.”

    “Welcome to the Fourteenth, Georgia.”

    “Thanks.” –Not a lady exec. Well, yeah, she’s probably around forty, but see, if you’re a lady exec of that age you wear an executive zoot-suit of the worst kind, and she isn’t. Pair of faded lightweight cotton navy slacks, a faded blouse—it must be Dacron, it goes that funny greyish shade when it’s really old—and a pale pink cardy. Gee, it’s buttoned in the middle of her chest with two buttons, just like Jennifer Aniston and Invisible McBeal were wearing theirs about a year back! (Mr Simmonds from next-door, he calls her Fading-Away McBeal, but I thought of “Invisible” all by myself, so I’m sticking to it.) Unlike those two famous cardy-wearers, Carrie is a very well-endowed lady and so the effect’s not the same at all. Though I doubt if she’s wearing it like that on purpose, as an obscure joke.

    She gets up. “This is Lorrae, and this is Tracy,” she goes clearly.

    So I scramble up. The girls opposite us, behind more grey-carpet partitions, look up and smile. Lorrae’s opposite me, she’s looking up from the computer on her remove: she’s been checking her email. Boy, they must be lax here, at my job in Melbourne you got it in the neck if they found out your email consisted of messages in huge capital letters saying “HI, LORRAE, CHECK THIS OUT!!!” Lorrae’s one of those highly-coloured blondes. One of those girls that’ve never been seen in their natural, unadorned state since the age of about thirteen. Or twelve if she was anything like Marilyn Simmonds from next-door. Huge blue eyes, very heavily made-up, and the ears sport, gee, a pair of delicate crystal drops. Her necklace is a thin gold chain with one similar drop hanging from it. The suit’s plain black, natch. And the blouse is low-cut cream artificial silk, quite plain: worn out, not tucked in, and very short, so gee, the minute she moves her arm—Yep!

    To the right, opposite Carrie’s desk, Tracy’s very similar, except that she’s very dark, with a complexion almost as sallow as Unpronounceable’s. Her shiny black hair’s very thick, naturally curly, I’d say: pulled up and mounded up on top of her head with a pair of wooden chopsticks sticking out of it, probably her and her hairdresser are both great fans of Phoebe from Friends. Her black suit jacket’s buttoned up so you can’t see if the blouse is gonna show the tummy-button, how disappointing. Her earrings are minute gold hoops and her necklace is a thin gold chain with another thin gold chain dangling from it, gee, isn’t that a bit last year’s-y? Black mark, Tracy. Yuck, gleaming dark purple lipstick, it’ll be some of that new stuff that’s supposed to last twenty-four hours, like, through the one-night stand, the ads almost go so far as to say it but not quite. Personally the whole notion of long-life lippie strikes me as disgusting, and Christ knows what they musta put in it. Her computer’s up but the screen-saver’s on and she isn’t working at it, she’s busily sticking on a nail. Ugh! The natural nail’s all pale and chopped off crooked! Phew, what a relief, there it goes under a giant purple elongated oval.

    So I go: “Hullo.”

    “This is Georgia,” explains Carrie.

    “Hiya,” they both say without interest. Up yours, too, I don’t wanna be in ya peer group.

    Then Lorrae’s phone rings and she picks up and goes: “Hullo? Oh—hi! Yeah, I got it!”

    Tracy begins putting her nail paraphernalia away and Carrie sits down again, so I do, too. “I’d better get on with it,” says Carrie nicely.

    “Mm,” I agree, though I dunno why I’m nodding, they haven’t given me anything to get on with. Added to which I don’t give a rat’s if she gets on with it or not.

    And Carrie’s ergonomic wheeled chair wheels her back out of sight behind the grey carpet partition.

    So I just sit here wondering vaguely if anyone’s ever gonna tell me what work I’m supposed to be doing. Why is it—maybe I better not nick the strawberry pencil-sharpener, or even rearrange it and its mates, in case Someone Else reclaims this desk—why is it that girls like Lorrae never get panda rings from their mascara, miles thicker than I ever apply it, whereas I always do? The only answer seems to be Life with a capital L…

    “How’d it go?” asks my older sister Molly eagerly, when I eventually fight my way back to her flat: a bus to downtown Sydney and then a train, sort of a dog-leg. Funnily enough there was a twenty-minute wait between them but after years of having to get to uni in Melbourne from the wrong side of the city via a bus, a tram and another bus, I just let it float by me.

    Well, Molly, I nicked a lovely strawberry pencil-sharpener. What can ya say? So I just go: “Not bad.”

    Yeah, well. So when the famous producer-director Derry Dawlish in person came out to Sydney all the way from London to see me I didn’t tell him to take a running. I wasn’t wearing anything special, because I never had anything special to wear, but he didn’t seem to mind. In fact he enveloped me in an enormous hug, ugh! Like being hugged by a giant warm whale.

    Then he came out with: “In repose that face is positively Hitchcockian, dear—the cool blonde, you know? Much more so than darling Rosie. But when you smile all the pizzazz of your famous cousin is suddenly apparent. Bright sunlight on snow, darling: quite dazzling! The figure’s just like Rosie’s, of course—well, minor variations.” –Looking hard at the tits.

    Ever had that impulse to cover them up them with both hands? And run screaming from the room—right. So I thought, better make it quite clear from the outset that no casting couches need apply. “Slaver all you like, none of it’s for you.”

    “Darling girl, at my age one enjoys the slavering for itself! I don’t say without wanting more, that would be manifestly silly, but one has learned to appreciate the small pleasures of life for what they are.”

    “Uh, yeah.” Was that filthy or not?

    “Tell me, if I was young and pretty—let’s say, as pretty as Euan Keel, would you?”

    Rosie’s co-star, I met him at the Sydney premiere. Fancies himself dead rotten, but not so irresistible as all that, specially not with that new bleach job he was sporting. “Depends what ya mean by would I.”

    “Put out for him, dear. Don’t let’s pretend,” he said in this real bored voice.

    “None of your business. Boy, have you got a hide like a rhinoceros, Derry Dawlish!”

    So he said, calm as calm: “Yes, I have. Just as well you’re clear about that from the outset, darling.”

    “Outset of what?”

    “What I trust will be a long and fruitful association. No, better than that: collaboration, Georgia, darling!”

    “In what?”

    “We-ell… Just at first, another telly series for Brian Hendricks. That’s Rosie’s telly producer, head of Henny Penny Productions. Ah… let’s just say that there’s an agreement between our companies, and that Brian and I see eye to eye over more than one question.”

    “I dare say ya do, but how long can he going on churning out Unlikely Captain’s Daughters? ’Cos there’s already been about six series—they’ve been making two a year, right? –Right. And he’s run through two actresses and made the mistake of marrying Rosie off to that gay actor, the one with the silly get-up at the premiere, and Adam McIntyre, he’s only done guest appearances—big mistake, big: huge—and anyway, he may be gorgeous but he’s too old for her boyfriend. And I thought so before I met him, see!”

    “Of course!” he said, smiling. “You see, twin souls, aren’t we?”

    Him and me? “Bull’s wool, Derry! Look, what exactly do ya want me to do? ’Cos I don’t want to be in the series of The Captain’s Daughter that bombs.”

    “Er—no. Well, it’s all confidential, Georgia, darling, and Brian will have to see you—though I can almost guarantee— No, well, there’s a new concept in the pipeline. If all goes to plan, scheduled to come out next year. I can’t tell you what, darling, it’s all terribly hush-hush, but I can promise you uniforms and quite a radical change from the current format!”

    “Eh? The current format’s full of uniforms! Everywhere ya look there’s a uniform! The only person that never seems to get into a uniform is the Captain’s Daughter herself, poor moo. Well, that was the Fifties for ya, you can keep them, for mine.”

    He just looked at me real hard.

    After a bit it started to dawn. “Will I get to wear a uniform?”

    He waggled his eyebrows at me.

    “Far out! Gee, it’ll be like JAG! Hey, I coulden be a lady marine, could—”

    “NO! It will not be like JAG!”

    “’Course it will, Derry. Can’t be bad, the thing was real popular out here, even before 9/11.”

    “It will be nothing like JAG!” he bellowed.

    “Then it’ll bomb.”

    He opened and shut his mouth a bit. Then he went: “I suppose you’re too young to have seen the documentary about Ark Royal. With the Rod Stewart voice-over, dear.”

    “Eh?”

    “No, well, never mind. That was some of the inspiration for it.”

    “Um, was it? But what was it? This Ark thing?”

    “Uh—God,” he muttered. “Ark Royal, Georgia! The aircraft carrier!”

    “Oh, right, goddit. It’ll be a cross between JAG and the Starship Enterprise, then.”

    “That’s not funny!”

    “Yes, it is, you’re trying not to laugh.”

    He did break down and grin, and admitted: “I was envisaging trying that one on Brian. No, well, mum’s the word, darling, but uniforms will be worn by all.”

    “Ace. What about fancy frocks?”

    “Certainly fancy frocks! Not quite sure of the plot device as yet, but we thought perhaps a little modelling on the side? Or just Daddy’s good little daughter going to all the deb dances?”

    “Yeah, but she can’t do that if she’s at sea.”

    “No, well, we’ll think about it. Want to come home to England and meet Brian?”

    “If you guarantee to pay the fare, yeah. And back, if I flop.”

    “Of course, darling, that goes without saying! But you won’t flop. The camera loves Rosie: it’ll love you.”

    “I can’t dance, though.”

    “Not to worry; I don’t think we want any tapping, this time round.”

    “But it’s gotta have a hook for the audience, Derry!”

    He was terrifically pleased, he said: “Alone of her kind!” Then—dunno why—he asked me about the stuff I had to read at uni. I admitted I did English literature, so-called, and we did some Dickens and some Shakespeare. I didn’t much like any of what we did and the lecturers were real boring. He got me to admit I really like detective stories best. He didn’t sneer, he got quite enthusiastic. So I admitted that my absolute favourite is Dorothy Sayers, her style may be old-fashioned but her books are real solid, and heck, she was liberated, all right.

    That went down good. “Of course! If only one could find an actor who could do Lord Peter without coming over as hopelessly effete or gay or both. Well, Brian and I have been looking all our lives, dear!”

    So I said, sort of neutral: “Euan Keel’s blond enough, these days.”

    And we looked at each other and grinned like anything.

    So he said: “You will do it?”

    “I’ll come to England, yeah. And I’ll do any screen tests and that, that ya want. But I warn you, first thing I’ll do if you make me an offer is talk to Rosie’s agent.”

    He put his hand over his face and shuddered, but it was put on, ’cos he looked up and grinned like anything, and then he got up and held out his hand. “Shake on it.”

    So we shook on it.

    And I’m doing it, too right, ’cos the alternative is to stay and vegetate on the fucking Fourteenth with them other vegetables! And even if I don’t get to be the next Lily Rose Rayne, at least I’ll of given it a try!

    So I’m standing here in Heathrow Airport with my baggage like a nana, that dim Mr Crosby, call me Bill I don’t think, three times my age and oughta know better, tried to offer me a lift into the city but I gave him the brush-off, no sweat, why’s he think the fact that I’m a good-looking girl means I’m gonna want him? Then ole Ma Fungus-Face, she oughta get that off, there’s creams and all sorts these days, no need to torture yourself with hot wax, she come up and leered at me and said where were my rellies, dear? Weren’t they meeting me? Just as well she never spotted I look like Rosie, huh? Or she’d of glued herself to me like Superglue, that sort always does at the merest hint ya might know a celeb. No, well, I got the hair gelled right back and believe you me nothing about Ma Fungus-Face has inspired me to smile, or her endless blah as we ground our weary way across the world, what is wrong with fucking Qantas? Took them three hours to serve each meal, I kid you not, I seen their film a month back in Sydney, and them mingy small bogs that a human being can barely turn round in were awash before we were even halfway and them up-themselves la-de-da hostesses never bothered to tidy them up. Anyway, I said they were meeting me and I was an adult, thanks all the same. So with a mutter or two about you girls these days and no manners she shoved off, and good fucking riddance. I am an adult, and if Rosie doesn’t turn up I’ll grab the bus into town, they must got an airport bus, it isn’t Central Mongolia, and at least they all speak English.

    So this pale-faced guy comes up to me and goes: “Ms Leach?” He’s in a silver-grey zoot-suit, I’d put it down as fake Armani, and an unspeakable tie, bit like that yellowish abortion Richard Gere wore in Pretty Woman, why he’d imagine that a tie off a shoe salesman was tasteful or that a girl that could choose it was gonna turn into a gracious life-partner for him don’t ask me, the whole thing was tripe and played blatantly on our culturally ingrained acceptance of the Cinderella syndrome.

    “I might be. Depends who you are, mate.”

    Gee, he’s gone very red, Georgia Leach one, Pommy nerds in fake Armani and bad R. Gere ties zilch. “Jason Arbuthnot from Double Dee Productions.”

    “In that case I am Georgia Leach, yeah. Have you liaised with my cousins? ’Cos they were supposed to be meeting me, last I heard.”

    Goes into a tizz. Hadn't heard that, he was told off to meet me, Mr Dawlish and Mr Hendricks particularly don’t want any publicity at this stage, blah, blah. Is this because they don’t wanna end up with egg on their faces if I bomb in my screen test? Very probably, yeah. And they’ll of spoken to him in person. Not.

    “Look, somewhere along the vast chain of command in the vast Double Dee organisation some nit must of forgotten to ring my rellies, ’cos I’m being met.”

    Gulp, um, flounder, um… Do I know their phone number?

    Do I know their phone number? No, I don’t know it, it’s got five thousand digits in it, ya nerd! “I don’t know it, no. I have got it written down, if ya mean the number for Lily Ruh—”

    “Ssh!” he hisses, turning puce and looking round in a hunted way.

    “Keep ya hair on.” (What there is of it, it’s shaved very short, ugh, why don’t they look at the shape of their ugly heads before they do that?) “The paparazzi aren’t hanging round here, they’re hanging round the part of the airport where the VIPs go, because that’s where the VIPs expect them to be. But if you insist, the phone number for Captain and Mrs Haworth.” –She isn’t, she’s Dr, but he won’t get it.

    “Um, yes!” he goes, very relieved, stupid little nit. And outs with the mobile.

    So he rings the flat and gee, no-one answers. ’Cos for why? ’Cos they’re on their way to the airport, dickhead! So he goes: “Um, well, what should I— Should I wait with you?”

    “Don’t ask me, you’re an adult, presumably.”

    “I—I think I should… Um, yes. Um, wouldn’t you rather come and sit down, Ms Leach?”

    “No, ’cos I told my rellies I’d be here, in the general area where ya come out after ya’ve been through Customs, and can you see any seats near here? –No.”

    “Yes. I mean, no, um, I just thought you might like to sit down after such a long journey.”

    Sit down after such a long journey? “Mate, I just been sat down for twenny-four hours solid, having to force me way past two pairs of huge fat legs and then down the aisle past three fucking incompetent hostesses and their fucking aisle-blocking drinks carts and meal carts to stretch me legs to avoid the thrombosis, I don’t wanna sit down!”

    “Um, no,” he says lamely.

    So we just wait.

    He thinks he recognises five ladies and about sixteen blokes in naval uniform, possibly naval uniform, that one looks like a Customs bloke to me, mate, but he needn’t look at me, I never seen John in the flesh, only in Aunty May’s smudgy Polaroids. They know what I look like, I look enough like Rosie to pass for her twin, so they can find me, see? I’m not saying it, what’s the point? So we just wait.

    Uh—crumbs! Naval, it is. Pretty overpowering it is, those Polaroids of Aunty May’s didn’t convey a tenth—

    “Georgia, my dear! I’m John Haworth! I’m so sorry to be so bloody late: Rosie and Rupy got halfway to the airport and their taxi broke down, so they rang me and I shot out as fast as I could!”

    “No worries, John. Good to meet you.”

    He shakes hands, gee, his hand is real firm and not sweaty, even though he’s been hurrying. But it doesn’t crush mine, that’s a first. Like, Mr Forgotten-His-Name-Already at work on my first day, his sweaty hand almost crushed mine to bits, stupid five-foot-three in his riser shoes, insecure pale grey worm that he was.

    “And who’s this: a friend?” he goes nicely, smiling. Gee, his eyes are blue as the Sydney sky in midsummer! Well, yeah, Aunty May did mention that but I was taking it all with a huge handful of salt.

    Nah, John, this is a nerd. “Nope. Guy from Double Dee. Jason.” Jason Forgotten-Your-Surname-Already, actually.

    “Jason Arbuthnot, Captain Haworth!” he goes quickly, blushing like a peony as he shakes hands. Maybe he’s gay? Not that I care.

    So in two secs John’s picked up my bag, heck, I could do that, I got no decent clothes so it weighs nothing, or you could of made flaming Jason Arbuthnot do it, got some use out of the nerd—and we’re off.

    “Ugh! Thought it was summer?”

    “Ostensibly,” he goes, crinkling up the eyes like anything.

    “Summer uniform,” goes Jason hoarsely.

    “Right.” Gee, now that we’re outside he’s put the cap on, to die for! “Hey, Jason, you reckon that if it all goes to plan I’ll get to wear a neato uniform like that?”

    Why’s he gone red? I mean, it may be a deep, dark secret from the rest of the world but he works for the buggers, surely he knows? “Um, I duh-don’t know!” he gasps.

    John just smiles and says: “Not exactly like this, Georgia, unless you put in your thirty years.”

    “He’s a captain,” croaks Jason.

    “I know that, thanks, he is my cousin’s husband! Like on the Starship Enterprise, Captain Picard—hey, anyone ever told you you look like him, John? Um, what I was gonna say, he wears four little studs on his collar. And you got four—”

    Jason’s completely lost it because he cries: “He’s a senior captain in the Navy, he was in the Gulf and everything, you can’t possibly compare him to a stupid American television show!”

    “That’s all right, Jason, everybody does it!” he says with a kind laugh.

    “Sir, they don’t!” he protests, turning scarlet.

    Gee, these little dints are coming and going by John’s mouth like anything! If Aunty May wasn’t a mealy-mouthed older generation hen she’d of come out and said it: he is a dish. And I’d of been more prepared. “Those unfamiliar with the peculiarities of the Service, Jason. But thanks, anyway! –Come on, let’s grab a taxi.”

    “No, it’s all right, sir, they gave me a car!” gasps Jason. Why the fuck does he keep calling him sir? He’s not in the Navy!

    Yeah, well: will he ever find it again, is the next question. The driver was gonna wait over there, unquote, as long as he could— Right. What a tit, why didn’t he make the guy park in the spot marked X and take a note of it? A big black limo slides by slowly. Jason jumps, is that— Gee, no, it isn’t, don’tcha even know what car ya come in, Jason?

    A mob of tourists with cameras round their necks come out and start jostling for position, and a big tourist bus lumbers up, jostle, jostle— Oops, some of them have turned their heads and are staring real hard at us. “Look away!” hisses Jason in agony. Mate, if I do that they’ll recognise Rosie’s profile, that’s for sure. Gee, John’s murmuring: “I wouldn’t; have you noticed the profile, Jason?” And just as a couple of the moos start gasping: “Lily Rose! It is!” a bossy tourist-minder herds them all loudly onto the bus and they’re off! Phew.

    “Wonder if they’d ever of believed I wasn’t her?”

    Jason’s turned puce, he looks at John in agony.

    The blue eyes twinkle. “I doubt it, Georgia. Can you do the signature?”

    “Eh? Nah, never needed to do that.”

    The shoulders shake. Boy, has he got shoulders! And it isn’t all padding—actually I don’t think any of it’s padding. I know he’s miles too old for me, but heck! Lucky flaming Rosie!

    ’Nother big black limo. Is it? Blow me down flat, it is, and Jason politely opens the door for us and holds it for us to get in, wonder he doesn’t salute John. And we’re off. Jason’s looking agonised, why? Doesn’t he know the way? So I go: “Think ya might have to tell them the way, John.”

    His lips twitch but he gives the driver the address.

    After a bit he says: “Warmer, now?”

    Jump! “Who, me? Yeah, thanks, I am. How far did Rosie and Rupy get?”

    “They weren’t very clear, but I think it was about a quarter of the way.”

    Right, so what did he tell them to do? Stop panicking, not to try to get to the airport, and make their way home. Yeah, sensible, otherwise they could of been sitting by the side of the road forever waiting for us to pick them up. “So if they set off to meet me, who’s looking after the baby? Or did they have him with them?”

    “No, they left him with Doris Winslow, our neighbour on the second floor.”

    “Goddit.”

    Now the driver wants to know where to go, some people earn their money easily, don’t they? Personally I’d of said it was a driver’s job to know his way around the city he’s driving in. John directs him very nicely.

    “Hey, don’tcha have to go back to, um, was it the Admiralty, John? Like, your Pentagon. Where SECNAV and them hang out.”

    “First Lord, in our case,” he goes, ignoring nerdy Jason’s agonised expression. “No, we’ve put the meeting off until this afternoon: there were no very top brass involved, it was just a committee.”

    Right, goddit. A committee that pretty clearly, he’s the chair of. So I stare out the window. Real boring. Where are all the historic buildings? “We don’t go anywhere near the Tower of London and them, do we?”

    “No,” he says mildly. “Like to look at a map?”

    So I goggle at him. “Know how long I was in Sydney before anybody asked me if I’d like to orient meself on a map?”

    “My guess would be, the entire length of your stay, Georgia?”

    I nod hard. “Too flaming right, mate! In spades I’d like to look at a map!”

    Gee, he’s got one. Right, goddit, the river runs through the old part of the city, and that’s where the Tower of London is—gee, Buckingham Palace is only over there, that’s not far—oh, right, and their flat is way out here. “And where’s north?”

    “The top of the map,” croaks Jason.

    “No! Jesus flaming Christ, whaddareya?”

    John points. “That’s north, Georgia. If you feel disoriented for a while it’ll be because the sun moves in the southern half of the sky in the northern hemisphere.”

    Uh… Gee, right, goddit. “That is gonna feel weird, I think.”

    … Cripes! Is this it? Old-fashioned brick apartment block, about six storeys, I think. Right, they’re on the fifth floor, that’s the top. So I go: “Do ya got, like, ground floors here?”

    “Yes; it’s not like the American system,” he says mildly.

    “Oh!” goes Jason. “That’s what you—Um, yes.”

    So we get out, John thanking Jason very nicely for meeting me. Just as well: I don’t feel grateful to the nerd at all. But I go: “Yeah, thanks for the lift.” So John says he won’t hold him up, makes sure the driver knows the way back to Double Dee from here and lets them go.

    “Gee, what a nerd!”

    “They can’t usually help it, at that age, Georgia,” he says, the eyes twinkling a bit.

    “Right, and some of them don’t realise they oughta try.”

    “He was trying, poor fellow. Come on, mustn’t keep you standing around on a summer’s day!”

    “Hah, hah,” I go feebly as he grabs my elbow—ooh!—and picks up my case with the other hand and urges me in. Hideous, all brown panelling and a real old-fashioned lift with open grille-work. So up we—Oops, no, we don’t: someone’s cried: “Hold the lift, please!”

    Okay, right, this is Ole Ma Never-Wanna-Hear-Ya-Name-Again, how do you do, too, and Ole Man Gonna-Forget-Your-Handle-Immediately-Mate, pleased to meet you. And I look so like Rosie, do I? Gee, never knew that. They get off before we do, thank Christ.

    So I go: “Jesus, are they all like that?”

    “Yes, the neighbourhood is full of the retired professional classes,” he says mildly.

    Uh—yeah. Served me right for asking, really.

    Help, the flat’s more of the same! What are they doing with all that lolly of Rosie’s? That ole sofa in the sitting-dining room has gotta be older than I am! Right, now we’ll pop my bag—don’t think I ever heard a grown man of fifty-odd say “pop” in that sense before—in the spare roo—Oh. Well, yeah, this is better, since you’ve pointed it out, John! Real pretty. Like, not stylish, no, but pretty. Okay, I will use the bathroom, if you insist, and yeah, I would like a cuppa, actually.

    So when I come back he’s in the kitchen, boy is it small, and he goes: “Doris will be up with Baby Bunting and a pink-iced cake in a minute. I hope your diet can stand a slice of pink-iced cake, Georgia.”

    Is he taking the Mick? “It can stand one, yeah, but this had better be a one-off, I put on weight without hardly turning round.”

    “Mm, runs in the family, I know; and we’re all determined to eat a much healthier diet on the strength of it. The only trouble is”—he is taking the Mick, by Jeez!—“we can’t start this morning because Doris bought the cake especially to celebrate your arrival.”

    “Yeah, hah, hah.”

    He gives me this wry look. “Life’s like that.”

    Help, Doris from downstairs is a little old lady! Quite on-the-ball looking: she’s wearing a shiny pink tracksuit and a thin purple knit top, but she must be at least in her seventies. Evidently Baby Bunting’s been an angel all morning. Possibly not a baby-sitting lie, he does look quite angelic. Okay, them smudgy Polaroids of Aunty May’s were spot-on, he is a very pretty little boy and yes, his dimples are exactly like his father’s. Can he walk? Nope, can stand, but otherwise just crawling, only most of the time he prefers to roll or just sit.

    “And it would be doing us all a tremendous favour, Georgia,” says John with a smile, picking him up, “if you’d refrain from comparing his progress, or lack thereof, with that of Wendalyn’s little Kieran.”

    Jesus, I was just thinking— “Whaddareya, a mind-reader?”

    Old Doris has collapsed in giggles, yeah, very funny, Doris.

    Baby Bunting suddenly joins in with a gurgle, ooh!

    “Yes, isn’t it funny, Baby Bunting?” goes John, hugging him and smiling like anything. He gives his rosy cheek a kiss and suddenly I feel real peculiar—blast! So I look away and what do I see? Old Doris giving them this real soppy look.

    So she outs with her hanky and blows her nose and goes: “They are lovely together, dear, aren’t they?”

    “Um, yeah.” Now I’m as red as a beet, I could kill the silly old bat!

    “I’m afraid we’re all hopeless sentimentalists since the advent of Baby Bunting!” says John cheerfully. “Now, there was a rumour of pink-iced cake, I think, Doris?”

    Right, that really makes me believe ya didn’t notice a thing, John, I don’t think. But funnily enough I do feel less of a nong and so I let Doris boss me into putting out the plates, she seems to know where everything is, and getting a drink of milk for Baby Bunting. So she goes: “That’s right, dear, that’s his very own mug!” I dunno whose else I would of imagined it to be, Doris, but ya right, I never knew it lived in that cupboard, but given this kitchen has got six cupboards, count them, six, I don’t think it could of taken me long to find it. Oh, well. For an old lady she isn’t bad, really.

    … John’s dashed back to work, and me and Doris are holding the fort—no, thanks, Doris, I’m not jet-lagged, I don’t need a nap (and actually I could baby-sit Baby Bunting on me own, I’m not incapable) when Rosie and Rupy finally make it. Jesus, what is she wearing? Wouldn’t you think, after all those fab frocks she wore for the part— Nope. Ancient jeans, at a guess I’d put them at over ten years old, and a faded pink tee. Are those white bunny rabbits on each tit? Yep, they sure are. Well, yeah, it shows off the equipment, but with what she must’ve got paid for the film, why get round in gear that’s only fit for the rag-bag?

    So now I get to meet Rupy Maynarde all over again, that’s a treat. Not. I mean, anyone that had seen him in the TV series and claimed he wasn’t gay would have to have their head read, not looking at anyone, Mum. I didn’t even need the gear he wore to the premiere to confirm it, though it sure did. Yeah, giggle, giggle, lovely to see you again, too, Rupy.

    Baby Bunting has to be changed into his best before lunch. So the poor little sod gets put into this truly frightful romper-suit. Very pale yellow with white smocking on it. I’m just gonna give them my unvarnished opinion of it when it occurs that maybe ole Doris gave it to him, ’cos it’s got doting elderly admirer and/or genuine grandma written all over it.

    “Miss Hammersley gave it to him,” says Rosie heavily.

    “The lady next-door that’s putting on the lunch for us? Right, goddit.”

    “It is very pretty,” says Doris dubiously. “Well, when we were young, everyone put their bubs in that sort of thing for best. Daft, really, wasn’t it? Even our sort, that didn’t have the nannies and laundrymaids to look after the ruddy things!”

    Blink. Look twice at ole Doris in her brave bright pink tracksuit and screaming purple top.

    … Right, I geddit: Miss Hammersley is an upper-class old lady. Very tall and thin, know who she reminds me of? The lion lady, did you ever see that film? They kept putting it on for us kids at these flicks the Church used to run down at the Community Centre until the Council tried to charge them megabucks for the hire of the dump and they gave it away.

    Was the word pâté bandied about some ten hours since? Well, if so, it gave totally the wrong impression, because what she’s got is smears of brown paste on plain crackers. The rest of the lunch is very similar. Well, the quiche isn’t bad. The salad is like one of Mum’s worst efforts: very thinly sliced lettuce decorated with thin slices of tomato and segments of hard-boiled egg. English salad dressing on the side. Looks yummy, think it’s a Heinz one, but just looking at it you can put on ten pounds round the hips, so thanks, but no, thanks.

    So we’re allowed to escape at long last, the coffee was pretty weak, bit like Aunty Allyson’s, she uses a wanking percolator, and Doris trots off downstairs back to Buster. That I know now is her corgi, and the reason she didn’t bring him upstairs is that the flat’s Tim’s territory. Not that he’d hurt Buster, but he’s so big he makes Buster nervous. Unquote.

    Far from looking as if he’s about to attack a corgi, Tim’s asleep on the rug, doesn’t seem to have moved since we left. Rupy thinks I’d like to look at their albums. What?

    “We took these snaps during the filming of the last series Rosie was in, last summer. Country houses galore and Adam and Euan posing in their spiffing—”

    I’m over there like a shot. Like wow! Adam McIntyre in a uniform is even more gorgeous than he was in his evening clothes at the premiere! “Hey, know what? If it had been down to me, I’d of had him get the Captain’s Daughter in the film instead of ruddy Euan Keel!”

    He gives a mean snigger and hisses: “And so say all of us, Georgia, darling!”

    So we look at albums until it’s time to get changed for afternoon tea, don’t they do anything but eat? Ooh, the Ritz’s tea place? John’ll meet us there if he can manage to get away. And Mr and Mrs O’Connor from the ground floor have volunteered to baby-sit Baby Bunting.

    Okay, Rupy, I am up for wearing something nice of Rosie’s, since you’re suggesting it, yeah. …My God! Look at them all! If she’s got all this ace gear, why does she get round looking like a rag-bag? This pink linen-look suit’s not bad—right, a Fifties style, she scored it off Henny Penny Productions. Like, made them write it into the contract for the TV series that she could have a certain proportion of the clothes. Ya can’t understand why, Rupy, because she hardly ever wears them? Well, the Rosie of five years or so back would of done it so as not to have to waste her own lolly on clothes, but I’ll spare ya that one. Added to which I’ll spare ya the tale of what she used to do so as not to have to spend her own money on drinks or restaurant meals—not that it was a hardship to her.

    Okay, given Rosie’s in that fab pink silk suit, I won’t wear the pink linen-look one, ’cos I don’t wanna look like her flaming shadow! I’ll wear this pale caramel one, it’s even tighter, really shows off the waist. And the bust and the bottom—yep. But I’m not gonna wear a ha—Oh. Ace little feather pillbox, all tawny shades, with a dinky little spotted veil, just tones with these here, gulp, crocodile shoes and bag. Well, Rupy’s a Pom, there’s some excuse for him, but surely Rosie must know they’re a protected species? Genuine Fifties, Rupy opens the bag to prove it. Mmm! This here’ll be genuine Fifties scent it smells of, will it? He flattens me, or thinks he does, with: “Yes. Genuine Fifties French scent: the bag belonged to Miss Hammersley’s Mummy.” Okay, Rupy, given that it’s an ace little bag, sort of tube-shaped, with a real cute gold catch on it shaped like, fancy that, a weeny crocodile, I’ll use it. Done. And let’s hope there’s no animal righters hanging round outside the Ritz’s tea place.

    So now he’s gotta do our faces for us, I kid you not! He makes a miles better job of it than I could and no, it isn’t overdone at all. It is the Lily Rose look, of course: all dewy eyes with brown mascara and just a smidgen of blue-grey round Rosie’s and just a smidgen of fifteen shades of green and brown round mine, ’cos they’re grey-green, until he’s got it just right, and cherry lips. That makes twice someone’s used a lip-brush on me: the first time, of course, was the professional make-up artist before the premiere, when the great Derry Dawlish fooled the Press of the world into believing I was Rosie. Without uttering a word to that effect, ya gotta hand it to him, he’s a smooth operator.

    Gee, we’re ready. So can we— No, Rupy has to rush off and change! Again? Miss Hammersley comes in, all ready to go, and agrees with Rosie that the upper classes did spend a lot of their time changing their clothes before the War, and even after it, especially in the Season. Well, she’d know, for sure. And come to think of it, Lord Peter Wimsey’s always changing his clothes and having baths, isn’t he? And after that it seems real appropriate that we get into a taxi and toddle off to the bally old Ritz, tally ho! Even if we have collected up good ole Doris in a screaming yellow summer coat and a flower-bed of yellow, orange and white on her head on the way.

    It’s fancy, all right, but not as flash as I thought it was gonna be. Quite comfortable, in a way. It's pretty busy—hats galore. Almost as silly as the Cup. Though what’s under them, by and large, sure isn’t as glam as what you see at the Cup, what a load of hags! And now I come to look at the gear, though a handful of them are really, really smart, most of the outfits are pretty ghastly.

    So Rosie tells me I’ve got to forget the diet for one afternoon. All right for her, she’s given the Captain’s Daughter stuff away. I don’t want Dawlish telling me I’m too fat to be a star. And I don’t care if the cakes and the little tarts are ace.

    “Yummy strawberry tarts at this time of year, I think!” goes Rupy. “Ambrosia for the mouth!”

    You what? Never mind, it’ll be a gay thing. “How the Hell do you stay so slim?”

    Smirk, smirk. “Lots of dancing, Georgia. Tap classes, mostly. You’d better come!”

    “I can’t dance.”

    “Then you can go in the Beginners’ class. And there’s a lovely ballroom dancing class, too: you’d better learn that as well. ’Cos whatever the new series is like, there’s sure to be dances in it, Brian Hendricks won’t miss a chance to get his stars into evening gear!”

    “If it’s all modern I won’t need to learn b—”

    “You will. It’ll be full of stately ’omes. Granted the upper classes don’t spend all their leisure hours waltzing, but there’ll be a mixture, you see: modern stuff for the younger set—the debs and debs’ delights—and waltzes and the Grand Old Duke of York, with an occasional two-step or tango, for the golden oldies. And don’t try to tell me the tango’s Out, I’m positive I’ve seen lovely Catherine Zeta Jones doing it on the big screen!”

    “Georgia’s not the tango type, you clot,” says Rosie amiably. “But he’s right in principle, Georgia: Brian and Derry will expect you to be able to dance. And it is excellent exercise.”

    Given that she’s helping herself to a bloody great éclair as she speaks, I’m ignoring her. Everybody else is filling their plates, too. There don’t seem to be any fruit tarts so I won’t have—Oh. ’Nother trolley. Okay, one strawberry tart.

    The tea’s not bad, if ya like tea. Wish I’d of had the guts to ask for coffee instead but no-one else did, in fact Miss Hammersley and the waiter had a very lowering conversation, almost completely incomprehensible, about brands of tea before they ordered.

    Suddenly Rupy hisses: “Look out!”

    Oops. Fat old dame, white hair and hideous floral two-piece, beaming with excitement. “Do excuse us, but it is Miss Rayne, isn’t it?” American. Presumably the Poms that haunt the Ritz’s tea place know it’s real bad manners to accost a celeb when she’s having her afternoon tea. Or else they haven’t woken up to the fact that it is her.

    “We nearly died—didn’t we, Hester?—when we saw there were two of you!” Second fat old American dame, with toffee-coloured hair and hideous jade trouser-suit. “But then I said, of course, you must be the cousin who was Miss Rayne’s double in the movie!”

    “No, she’s another cousin,” says Rosie quickly. “Did you enjoy the film?”

    So Floral-Two-Piece Dame goes: “We just adored it, didn’t we, Ellen? Such a wonderful portrayal of Fifties life! But then, that is what one would expect from Derry Dawlish! We go to all his movies!”

    Jade Trouser-Suit has to put her two cents’ worth in: “We surely do! We love the series, too! It’s such a coincidence seeing you, because you’ll never guess: we’re going to tour all those darling villages and lovely country houses! Isn’t that right, Hester?”

    “Yes, we’re booked on The Captain’s Daughter Tour!” She opens this giant bag, like, five times the size of your average handbag and looks heavy as Hell to lug round with you, smothered in pockets and zips and God knows what, and outs with a brochure. Meantime Jade Trouser-Suit is leering at Rupy and asking if she may ask, isn’t he Commander?

    Way over by the door I can just see a couple of naval uniforms just come in. Will he hang back until the smoke has cleared, or will he come over and break it up? Or will he come over but let it run its course?

    Rupy’s signing autographs and saying he’s so glad they enjoyed the film, and the series does have quite a following in America now, blah, blah. He must be used to it, of course. The other hag’s got Rosie signing now… Is it John, or not? Ole Doris is thoroughly enjoying herself, she’s telling them some crap about one of the song and dance numbers from the film. Miss Hammersley is looking politely interested and my guess is she’s suffering agonies.

    Phew! They’ve gone at last! “Gee, Rosie, couldn’t you of got rid of them sooner?”

    “It happens all the time,” she says mildly. “I thought they were interesting: Hester was from Nantucket, John’s got friends there.”

    “Interesting? They were two standard American tourists with more money than sense, how could they possibly be interesting?”

    “Of course they were. They exemplify a certain stratum of American society that the popular media don’t show: nice manners, no extreme opinions, quite well read, as far as anyone is these days: a little more than Book of the Month Club, readers of the latest Booker Prize contenders; and lap up the fake English-culture shows like the Daughter and those later Morse things likes nobody’s business!” she says with her lovely smile.

    “Upper-middle, we’d say,” goes Doris comfortably.

    “Well, yeah! That street your mum and dad live in is full of clones of them, Rosie, it beats me how you can possibly find them interesting!”

    “That’s partly why,” she says serenely, waving in the direction of the naval uniforms lurking on the far side of the room.

    There’s such a crowd here now that I can’t see. “Is that John?”

    “No, worse luck, it’s his brother, Terence.”

    Ri-ight… Don’t think anyone’s ever mentioned him, in my hearing.

    So the two of them come over to us, grinning like anything—gee, they’re both really handsome, bit old, though—and one of them goes: “Rosie, darling! It is you!”

    To which she replies, calm as all get out: “You can drop that, Terence, ya wanker; I saw you spotting us surrounded by autograph hunters and deciding to wait until the coast was clear.”

    “Caught out!” he goes, grin, grin. “How are you, Tuppence?” Holds out his mitt to Miss Hammersley. Shit, if he calls her that, he’s gotta be almost as old as John, though he doesn’t look it, ’cos he’s still got his hair. Light brown, silvering at the temples, slightly wavy—one of those very English cuts, I’d say it was an upper-class English cut but for the fact that Rupy’s got his in the identical style. His is blond, but I don’t think it’s just because of that that the style looks better on Terence. –Rupy’s got up but the ladies haven’t, so I don’t, either.

    Terence reckons it’s lovely to see Doris again and shakes her hand, too, and then he shakes Rupy’s hand and looks at me and goes: “And this must be one of the Australian cousins!”

    Was that supposed to be the Pommy idea of wit? If so, it isn’t funny, mate. Can’t tell from Rosie’s reaction, she just goes mildly: “Yes. This is Georgia Leach. This is John’s brother Terence, Georgia.”

    So he comes round to my chair and holds out his hand. Shit, I’ve got a teacup in one mitt and my empty cake-plate in the other— Phew! Rupy’s taken the teacup off me. Good on ya, Rupy, I owe ya one. So I shake hands with Terence. He’s better-looking than John, much more regular features, similar lovely smile—straight bottom teeth as well as top teeth, though. What a pity his eyes aren’t that lovely sky-blue, just grey. Only three rank bars—goddit, lower rank. Um, doesn’t Commander Riker wear three buttons on his collar? I’m not gonna stick my neck out and ask if he’s a Commander, though, I don’t wanna look like a nong if I’m wrong.

    His mate’s introducing himself to Rupy, meanwhile: manly handshakes. He isn’t looking that impressed by Rupy or asking him if he was Commander in the film so in spite of the dark good-looks, maybe he isn’t gay. Terence introduces him to everybody else. Max Lattimore. Terence thinks Rosie met his parents last summer.

    “Of course!” cries Rupy before anyone else can speak. “Lattimore Court! You remember, darling, it was part of the Rutherford Manor sequence! That wonderful yew hedge! Paul filmed us billing and cooing in front of it, you were in that pink and blue floral that you wore to go on the artificial lake at that other stately ’ome, I forget its name, and then he filmed Katie and Euan flirting in front of it—she was in her pastel blue dinner dress and he was in his white tux—and cut to close-up of that lovely statue of the lovers, somewhere else entirely!”

    Not surprisingly this speech is followed by a short silence.

    “Puts it in a nutshell,” goes Terence, raising his eyebrows at Max.

    “Yes!” he agrees with a grin. “Mummy did say that the yew hedge had been on television, now I come to think of it, but we were somewhere in the Gulf when her letter arrived, it didn’t make all that much impression, I’m afraid!”

    So Rosie goes: “Are you in subs, too?” Look, it isn’t fair! She’s already got one of her own, and I can see Terence has got it pretty bad for her, brother-in-law or not, and why should she have Max as well? And I never even knew that Terence was in subs, let alone that that was how ya said it!

    Max is absolutely thrilled to be asked and beams all over that darkly handsome face of his. Real close shave but you can tell he’s got a heavy beard, why is that look so attractive when the deliberate designer stubble, read, five-o’clock shadow, makes ya wanna spew? Yeah, Rosie, ya struck the right note, there; I may be a lot younger and less experienced than you, and not a famous film star with American fans wanting my autograph in the middle of the Ritz’s tea place, but I have realised that blokes love it if you ask them about their work. And they both pull up chairs real close to hers and start talking Navy-talk nineteen to the dozen. While I’m stuck between Doris and Rupy.

    Thank Christ, here’s John at last! Maybe he’ll give them their marching orders, stupid pair. Or at least maybe they’ll cool it with his wife right in front of him.

    … No. They do push off, eventually, but that’s because they’ve got an appointment, not because of anything John said or looked. In fact he just looked tolerant. No, that’s not right. Tolerantly amused. I never knew Rosie all that well back home, but from what I do remember, that was pretty well par for the course and all I can say is, why does he put up with it?

    Just as we’re leaving these three up-market, I mean real up-market and real, real well-dressed dames swan in, hats an’ all. Not to mention the French perfume coming off them at thirty paces. And it’s: “John, darling!” and “Darling, where have you been hiding yourself?” And “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard about Whatsisface’s posting! But John, darling—” They completely ignore the rest of us. I’m broadcasting hate rays at the bitches—and their clothes: they make, as if ya need telling, me and Rosie both look like dressed-up kids. One’s basically in white, with a tiny black stripe allowed to appear in the silk scarf round the big white hat and a tiny black edging allowed to appear on the silk flower in the buttonhole of the to die-for short jacket over the to-die for narrow dress. The other two have gone for colours. One’s in avocado, don’t ask me if that’s In this year, all I can say is, with that dark auburn hair pulled back in a big fat bun, not a hair out of place, it looks totally ace. Number three’s dark-haired, rather a sallow skin with a wide, cat-like face that I’d say accurately reflects the personality. American accent, not that that counts for anything, she’s not even from the same planet as them two tourist ladies. She’s in what at first glance I thought was a linen suit, silly me. Raw silk, dyed a very rich apricot. The wide-brimmed hat’s stiffened gauze with an edging of grosgrain ribbon, all in the exact same shade of apricot. And that wide-lipped mouth doesn’t match, that’d be overdone and tasteless, it’s a much brighter orangey-red shade.

    The gushing at John and the total ignoring of the rest of us has been going on for some time—and he’s been lapping it up, I might add—when, believe it or not, the cat-faced bitch actually comes out with: “And how are you, Rosie? Still looking as young as ever, how do you do it?” And it dawns: she was ignoring Rosie on purpose. My God!

    Rosie’s unphased, she just goes: “Hi, Wanda. I’m good, thanks.”

    And we’re allowed to escape, still with no intro.’s, please note, and they go on in.

    “Those were some of John’s greatest fans,” Rosie goes drily as we stagger out, “and the reason he didn’t introduce you is that believe you me, ya don’t wanna know them.”

    “I have met that bitch Wanda Makepeace Hooten before,” notes Rupy neutrally.

    “Yeah, but she wasn’t gonna break down and admit she remembered you, Rupy, it just about killed her to have to admit she remembered me! And she only went that far because she wasn’t gonna let herself down in front of John!”

    “Exactly. So I didn’t break down and admit I remembered her,” Rupy goes grimly, boy he looks wild.

    “That is the only tactic to adopt with that sort of woman,” murmurs old Miss Hammersley.

    John’s politely given her his arm. He looks at her with a rueful smile. “Quite. And I think you had met Lilian Hornsby-Gore and Jennifer Fenwick before, Tuppence?”

    “I dare say they genuinely didn’t remember me, John. It was some time back, when George Hornsby-Gore was Kenneth’s First Officer and Graham Fenwick was still trying to persuade Sir Harry to turn that place of theirs into a conference centre.”

    “Mm. I can only apologise abjectly for all of us,” he says meekly.

    So I can’t stop myself, I burst out: “Bullshit! You were ruddy well enjoying yaself!”

    Rosie smiles at him, how the fuck can she? “Yes. He’s like that. That’s the other side of his character, Georgia. Not the cosy down-home hubby bit.”

    I’ve gone red as fire, of course.

    “Well, yes, Georgia,” agrees Rupy. “It’s one of the things they have in common, you see.”

    Eh? Oh! Cripes, see what he means. She encourages the blokes and he encourages the bitches like that Wanda dame. But does that mean the other one has to like it?

    “It’s not that I like it, Georgia,” goes Rosie, smiling—okay, the woman’s a mind-reader, as well—“but I do accept that it’s part of his nature, to enjoy the company of his many lady fans.”

    “Ditto,” he goes, solemn as anything.

    I’m still red as a beet. “Yeah,” I growl, “I geddit.” Boy, Aunty May doesn’t know the first thing about that marriage, silly bloody moo!

    … It has been a pretty long day, yeah, so I give in and have a bit of lie-down before tea at the Indian restaurant in their street—I mean dinner. I’m gonna call it that from now on. At The Tabla, given I’m in another one of Rosie’s ace Fifties outfits, a young couple think I’m actually her and want my autograph. She’s not phased, she just goes in the broadest Aussie accent this side of the Black Stump: “Yeah, go on, Lily Rose, give them yer autograph.”

    Okay, if that’s the way she wants it! So I write: “Best wishes, Lily Rose Rayne.”

    Rosie and Rupy have collapsed in giggles, and even John’s grinning. He refills our glasses and raises his in a toast: “To Georgia, the new Daughter, and Rosie the matron!”

    I’ll drink to that! And what’s more by the time I’m—not Rosie’s age, no: she doesn’t look it, even in that real smart slip-look dress with her hair brushed up and back, lessening the Lily Rose look considerably, but she must be over thirty—by the time I’m twenty-five it’s gonna be me in a model frock and super hat looking down my nose at everybody in the Ritz’s tea place to the manner born!

    “No, I won’t have any more spinach, thanks, John, it’s ace but it’s got too much butter in it.”

    “Just as you like, Georgia,” he goes amiably.

    Yeah. Well, it’ll be just as I like from now on, you betcha upper-class English boots, mate!