Right And Wrong

8

Right And Wrong

    Molly went into Anna’s studio. “That was Rosie on the phone.”

    “Was it?” she said, looking up from her paints.

    “Yeah. She wanted to warn me that Euan’s been looking at his old cottage again.”

    “I thought that was all over? Or am I thinking of the wrong one?”

    “Yes to both!” said Molly with a laugh. “You are thinking of the wrong one, or certainly all wrong for me! If only he was more adult and not such a leaner… Oh, well. His looks are very different, but actually he reminds me of Costas.”

    “The Greek one that expected his mum to wait on him hand and foot?”

    “Yep. Soon as I realised he was trying to do the same to me, I dropped him like a hot potato, dishy though he was! Would you believe, he brought a load of washing round and dumped it on me the time his parents went back to Greece for a holiday?”

    “Yes,” said Anna calmly.

    Molly grinned. “Yeah. Well, Euan’s that type. Want lunch?”

    Anna looked at her drily. “Isn’t this the rôle Jack Powell warned you about?”

    “Men tend to do that, when they think a woman’s propping up another woman. Of course, when it’s them that’s involved, they take it as their due, and it isn’t propping up, it’s proper wifely support! Of course it never occurred to him to ask me who was paying for the cup of tea I made you!”

    “He fancies you, as well,” she said placidly. “They don’t see straight when they fancy someone—but you’re right, too. –I would like some lunch, thanks, if there’s some going.”

    “Of course there is! I might as well make enough cheese and Marmite sandwiches for all of us if I’m making some for Micky.”

    Anna smiled at her. “What, not a proper hot lunch, wee wifey?”

    “Geddouda here!” she choked, exiting to the kitchen giggling madly.

    Luke was under the impression he had found a secret spot. You went right down the back of Number 7 Moulders Way, pushed through the apology for a back hedge that lurked behind the small jungle that was the yard proper, hacked your way through the jungle of a vacant lot backing onto it, crossed George Street, crossed another vacant lot, climbed its crumbling stone wall, and there it was on the bare slope that rose to the cliff edge behind George Street. A kind of sheltered little dip. Very private. Ideal for sunbathing, when there wasn’t too much wind. Only it wasn’t secret at all, because here was the Georgia peach sitting in it with her corgi, hugging her knees! He would have just folded his tent and crept away but the dog spotted him and went: “Yip, yip, yip!”

    “Oh,” said the Georgia peach without interest. “It’s you.”

    Yeah, well, he was too old, too down-market and had shown no overt admiration of the peach’s charms. “Yeah. Sorry—I’ll go away again.”

    “Mm,” she said, turning her ahead away. Oh, Hell, had she been crying? At least half a dozen possible scenarios immediately presented themselves—each with about half a dozen possible solutions. He ignored them: he was used to the way his brain did that.

    “Is anything the matter, Georgia?” he said kindly. She was, after all, young enough to be his daughter—in fact his daughter was that age.

    “No! I’m just being stupid!” she said angrily.

    Luke didn’t run like the wind—though that was certainly one of those scenarios. He sat down. “What is it: the usual clash between the hormones and the career?”

    Georgia’s mouth opened and shut. Then she said: “All right, yeah, and who appointed you Sigmund Freud the Second?”

    “My American upbringing, I guess,” he said mildly. “Who is it? Max?”

    “Yeah. Not that he said anything definite, but he was Helluva keen for me to come home with him.”

    “Uh-huh,” he said noncommittally. “Lots of young women do juggle family and career quite successfully these days, Georgia.”

    “They do if the husband’s prepared to do an equal share, yeah. But he’s away at sea most of the time. He barely sees those kids of his!”

    “Yeah, that’s a point. But they do have a mother.”

    “Put it like this: who’s she gonna expect they can be dumped on if he’s at sea and she wants another holiday in the Bahamas or that?”

    “I think it was Bermuda,” he said mildly.

    “Same difference. Well?”

    “I get it: the wife that’s at home waiting for Max’s responsibilities to be dumped on her.”

    “Yes. And if we had kids of our own, how could a person that’s at sea possibly share half the responsibility for them?”

    “Yeah. Do you want kids?”

    “I don’t know. I never thought about it before. But most people want kids, and I’m pretty sure he’d want to start another family. And it’d be totally unfair to them to dump them on a nanny because he’s at sea and I’m acting—if we could afford one: you realise John doesn’t even get any rent out of Yvonne for that cottage, plus and he’s paying her a hefty salary?”

    “I thought it must be something like that—yes.”

    “Max was already making nesting noises,” said Georgia glumly. “I did ask him if he’d thought of what he might do when he left the Navy, but he was totally blank. So I thought I better break it off before the girls got any more used to me.”

    Luke looked at her with considerable approval. “Good for you. That was certainly the right thing to do.”

    “Yeah. Funny how doing the right thing doesn’t make you feel any better, though. Not that I was really in love with him, I suppose. If I had of been, wouldn’t I of been ready to give it all up for him?”

    Luke scratched his chin. “Ye-ah… Maybe. That is the popular conception of romantic love, isn’t it? At least for the woman. You don’t hear many people expressing the idea that the guy ought to give his career up for love, even in these liberated times.”

    “No,” she said sourly.

    He hesitated; then he said lightly: “You that set on a career, Georgia?”

    “Dunno.” She hugged her knees and glared at the rough grass of the slope. Finally she said: “It isn’t that I’m mad keen on acting, as such. I know my family all think I’ve gone nuts over the idea of being a film star. But it isn’t that: I just want to do something! Heck, when I was stuck in that ruddy office on the Fourteenth, I felt like I was choking to death!”

    “I know the feeling, yeah,” he said wryly.

    “Yes, but you got out of it.”

    “Uh—oh, sure. Well, I guess that’s easier for a guy, too.”

    “I’ll say. You do sometimes hear of male backpackers being attacked—there’ve been a couple of cases of serial killers, back home. But it’s usually the girls.”

    “Yeah. Harder for a girl to pick up odd jobs too, I guess, apart from waitressing. Unless she wants to work on her back,” he said drily.

    “Exactly. It’s pointless to say girls can do anything blokes can, ’cos if you haven’t got the physique, there’s jobs you just can’t do! Shit, I can barely even lift Rick’s axe! Um, sorry, that’s Mandy’s husband, she’s my best friend from school. See, they’ve got a—um, don’t think you’d call them the same thing. It’s like, a chip-heater: like, you have to feed it with wood to heat the water. They get the logs delivered: they’re not all that big, but you still have to chop them up to feed the heater.”

    “I see. They live way out on the country, do they, Georgia?”

    “No, in Boronia, it’s an outer suburb of Melbourne.”

    “That right? I’ve seen a style of wood-burning furnace for heating water back home, but only in Hicksville. Uh, I mean—”

    “I get it. Outer Woop-Woop, we’d say.”

    Luke smiled. “That’s a good one!”

    “Yeah. Well, ya see what I mean?”

    “Uh-huh, precisely. Well, the acting’ll give you a chance to something a bit more exciting than working in a office, that’s for sure.”

    “Yeah. Well, challenging. The way Rupy and Rosie have described filming, it’s not exciting. But learning up all the techniques and that—that’ll be a challenge.” She brightened. “Hey, Brian Hendricks, he’s the owner of Henny Penny Productions, that’s the TV studios, he told me quite a bit about how they manage the different shows, and everything: now, that’s really interesting!”

    Luke looked at the Georgia peach in surprise. “I see! So you’d like to go into production, Georgia?”

    “Um, well, dunno. Don’t think they’d let me in, anyway—I mean, don’t you have to do management and that crap?’

    “You might have to, yes: some of those skills would be useful. On the other hand, television producing would have its own very specific need and methods. Uh—well, never thought about it before.” He scratched the whiskers. “We do have film and television schools in the States, but I don’t know if they have them here. But in any case, my feeling is that that would only be the artistic side. Producing is a business.”

    Nodding eagerly, she told him all about this Hendricks’s budget lines for his different productions. Luke listened with considerable interest, offering some opinions which the Georgia peach apparently took seriously on board.

    It was only when she and the corgi had gone off, she looking much happier and the little dog frisking, possibly picking up her mood, that it dawned: maybe he shouldn’t have said all that. Or any of it, really. Oh, shit. On the other hand Miss Georgia Peach didn’t strike him as the type that noticed other people all that much—well, too young to, for a start. But all the same, he’d watch it, in future.

    The sun was shining, the hollow was sheltered. Luke lay back and closed his eyes… She was a peach, all right. Helluva pity he wasn’t twenty years younger. Except that way back then he’d expected his life-partner to perform very much the sort of rôle that Max Lattimore apparently expected of his. Well—si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait, huh? Something like that…

    Euan hadn't dashed right over on the day Rosie had rung her, in fact he had Derry had gone into Portsmouth to speak to a land agent. Molly had had plenty of time to wonder if Rosie had been panicking and he wasn’t interested in seeing her again after all. Then he rang the next morning. She wasn’t sure whether she was glad or sorry, frankly, but she agreed he could come over.

    “Hullo, Euan,” she said composedly, opening the front door to a view of glamorous film star. He was looking thinner, it didn’t really suit him: he’d been pretty much his ideal weight in Queensland. The gear was pretty silly: white, rather draped trousers, and a crimson short-sleeved shirt with an all-over pattern of curly green leaves and curly white flowers. It had probably cost a fortune, it looked like silk. But at least he wasn’t hiding behind trendy sunnies.

    Euan went very red. “Hullo, Molly; you’re looking wonderful, as usual,” he said hoarsely.

    “Um, thanks,” said Molly weakly. Maybe this wasn’t going to be as simple as she’d over-optimistically told herself it was going to be. True, that bleach job, the same as he’d had in Sydney for the premiere, looked awfully, awfully silly. But…

     “Come in, Euan,” she said in a voice that came out a lot smaller than she’d meant it to.

    “Thanks.” He came in and sat on their bumpy apology for a sofa in the sitting-dining room.

    “Um, we use this room,” said Molly awkwardly. “My cousin Anna’s got the other downstairs room for her studio.”

    Euan licked his lips nervously. “Aye? Rosie said something about her being an artist.”

    “Yes. She paints on big sheets of board. She’s doing cottage studies at the moment. Usually she does more abstract stuff. Um, semi-abstract?”

    He swallowed. “Aye. Molly, I—I’d better admit right from the outset that until yesterday I had no idea you were in England. Derry lured me down here to take another look at the cottage I used to own and then revealed you were here, he said, his voice shaking a little.

    Molly had always thought it was such a nice voice—fairly deep, but not a booming bass like Derry’s. Just deep enough, and quite soft. She’d never seen him on the stage: she had once wondered how on earth he made it audible at the back of the theatre. But presumably he’d learnt the trick of it in his acting classes. Along with quite a few other tricks that he’d picked up—yeah. Then or later. “I see. Does he want you to make another film for him?”

    “No—well, later, yes. More immediately it’s this bloody telly production he’s plotting with Brian Hendricks of Henny Penny.”

    “Yes. Georgia’s going to be in that,” said Molly, trying to smile. “They haven’t told her much about it. I gather it’s all very hush-hush?”

    “Aye.” Euan Keel was rather bitterly aware that he was a pretty feeble character, not to mention the ghastly nerves he was prey to—not only at moments like this, but at first nights, bloody premieres, most other public appearances—you name it. One of the things that had attracted him to pretty, curved, smiling Molly Leach was her normal calm manner. But suddenly he realised that she was as nervous and embarrassed as he was. He leaned forward. “Molly, I’ve been a selfish shit. I meant to contact you after I left Australia, but I—“ His voice shook. “I lost my nerve, I suppose,” he said wanly. “No, worse than that. The success of the fucking film went to my head, and I started doing my big star thing.” He made a sour face. “You’ll have heard enough about that from Rosie and Rupy, no doubt—not to mention the bloody performance I put on in Queensland! I mean, before we—” He swallowed hard. “Aye. Then when I realised what a damned fool I was, that I’d left it too late just to phone you casually or—or send you a bunch of flowers, I lost my nerve completely. And—and I kept telling myself it was just a holiday romance, it would’ve meant nothing to you anyway. And then Derry said you’d taken up with Lucas Roberts, so I…” He looked at her miserably.

    How much of this was just Euan feeling sorry for himself? Because there was no denying it, that had been a large part of the reason he’d turned to her in Queensland. It had only been a couple of months since his bust-up with Katie, and everyone else had been in couples—so much so that he barely even had anyone to talk to, if you thought about it. So first of all he did the movie star thing: Derry had strictly forbidden extraneous Press on set, but Euan deliberately invited a whole lot of them along to interview him and his well-publicised chest in his tropical beach gear. And managed to thoroughly alienate the entire cast and crew by his up-himself, Big Star carry-on. And then he plunged himself into the thing with her and went into a sort of down-home, cosy old Euan, just one of the people thing. Most people had found it a lot easier to take than the Big Star crap, true, but some of them had wondered aloud just how much of that was genuine, either. Though one or two with kinder hearts had told Molly that he was, in fact, just a simple Scottish lad whose dad had run a corner shop. Molly already knew that, actually: he’d told her that himself. But how deliberate had that been? She looked at him doubtfully.

    “I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes filling with tears.

    Very possibly this was genuine—at the moment. Unfortunately he was the sort of person who could persuade himself that any emotion he felt at the moment was genuine.

    “Um, yes, I mean, I assumed it was just a holiday thing, too, Euan, you don’t need to apologise. And—um, well, I was sort of seeing Lucas when you came out to Sydney for the premiere. I mean, we weren’t an item right then, but, um, we did go to it together.”

    “Yes. You looked lovely in that fawn satin dress,” he said glumly.

    Molly blinked. She didn’t think he’d even noticed her: he’d been in the front row of the circle with Derry Dawlish, and she and Lucas had been sitting quite a few rows back. “Um, thanks,” she said lamely.

    “Derry says you’ve broken up with him,” he said abruptly.

    “Mm. Everyone that said he was a cold fish was right,” said Molly with a sigh.

    “Aye, well, wee Dot couldn’t hack it with the man for more than five minutes, could she?”

    “No, that’s right. And—and really, she’s got more in common with him than me. I mean, they don’t want the same things in life, but their minds are quite alike: very clear. Good at maths and database stuff.”

    “That’s it,” he agreed, trying to smile “No, well, I’m very sorry for your sake that it didn’t work out with him, Molly. But I must say I don’t think you’d have been happy with him.”

    “No.”

    “And what about your little boy?”

    “Lucas was very good to him, but, um, I think he expected him to be like a well-mannered little upper-class English boy in a cap and blazer.”

    Euan’s jaw had dropped. “Molly, the man’s from an ordinary working-class background no different from mine! He canna have expected that!”

    “Yes: I think he’s entirely forgotten what it was like to be a kid.”

    “He must have! It can’t have gone down too well with your little boy, either, I would think?”

    Suddenly it dawned on Molly that he’d forgotten Micky’s name! “No. Micky,” she said calmly.

    Euan reddened. “Yes. I’m sorry. Molly, I couldn’t remember his name. Well, I’ve never met him.”

    “No,” she agreed. “He was staying with Aunty May, being stuffed with hamburgers and thickshakes and showered with video games, while we were in Queensland.”

    “I should have remembered—I’m sorry. Too self-absorbed,” he said grimly. “My besetting sin. Well, one of them.”

    “Mm.” She hesitated. Did she really want to get involved with him again? Oh, dear. Her reason was certainly telling her not to, but her heart was racing and she had that zingy feeling all through her blood— The very feeling that had landed her in the shit innumerable times before, yes.

    “I—I’m not suggesting that we take up where we left off,” he said, licking his lips. “That wouldn’t be fair to you. But could we see a bit of each other, Molly?”

    “Um, you have got a fair few besetting sins, Euan. And—and the self-absorbed stuff is very hard to cope with.”

    “Yes,” he said, flushing painfully.

    “And—and we want different things in life, I think. Different lifestyles.”

    “But I dinna ken what I want!” he cried loudly.

    He had once told her something of the sort. Molly looked at him doubtfully. “Your career’s really taken off, hasn’t it?”

    “Och, you know verra well I went into acting because my mum pushed me into drama and voice lessons when I was little, and when I was offered a part it seemed the obvious thing to do, so I did it! And likewise when the audition in London came up: you know that, Molly!”

    “Um, yes.”

    “Letting myself do the first thing that offers because I can’t think what else to do—that’s another of ma fucking besetting sins,” he said sourly.

    “Mm.” Was he thinking of getting back together with her because nothing much else was offering and he couldn’t think what else to do, though?

    “All right, you despise me,” he said grimly, getting up. “Sorry I bothered you.”

    “Don’t be silly. Sit down again, we haven’t talked it through.”

    Euan sat down again. He still didn’t look happy but he had a hopeful look about him: if you were monitoring his pheromone count, thought Molly on a grim note, it would have shot up, for sure. Oh, dear! Did she really want this?

    “There isn’t just me to consider, there’s Micky as well. It’s been quite an upset, coming all the way to England and—and then me walking out on Lucas, after all. He’s pretending to take it in his stride, but he’s quite bewildered by it. Um, I have got an office job in London and he started school just before the break, he seems quite keen on it, so I—I thought we might stay on there. He doesn’t need any more upsets.”

    “Aye, that’s very understandable!” he said, smiling that wonderful smile that, according to Rosie, Derry Dawlish had said had entire theatresful of women “palpitating to mother him.” She could well believe it. Only did she really want to mother Euan? ’Cos it was hard enough mothering Micky, and he had to come first.

    “But I’m based in London, you know! I wouldn’t try to drag you off anywhere! Could we no’ see a bit of each other?” he said eagerly.

    “Only on a very casual basis, Euan,” said Molly in a very weak voice.

    “Aye, of course!” he beamed, lighting up a like a Christmas tree. Oh, help! Why was it they never listened to what you actually said? He was gonna get carried away. Unfortunately he was almost irresistible when he got carried away: it wasn’t just hormones, it was the little-boy charm, it was perfectly natural, even though he was capable of capitalising on it—and not only that: he was a person who could really, really enjoy life. Unlike Lucas Roberts.

    Euan then admitted regretfully that he couldn’t stay, Derry was over at Rosie’s place and he was due to collect him and then meet a land agent at Quince Tree Cottage—and if he left Derry on his ownsome he might snaffle up the cottage behind his back! But would she like to walk over with him?

    Molly hesitated. But Micky was over there this morning anyway, “helping” John with his sailing dinghy, and if she went over she could stop him inviting himself to lunch or them having to force him to go home. “I might as well, I can collect Micky. He’s spent three solid days over there getting in John’s way—he’s doing up his boat.”

    “Was he the wee boy helping John with the boat yesterday? I thought it was Gareth—Jack Powell’s grandson.”

    “Do you know Jack?” said Molly feebly, heading for the door.

    “Of course!” he said with a laugh. “The summer Rosie was pregnant and John was in the Gulf, he forced me to help dig their garden! –That was the first Jamaica!” he added happily.

    “I see. They’re having another this year,” said Molly feebly as they went down the front path.

    “Aye,” he agreed, holding the gate for her. “I was hoping they might: that’s why I’m wearing ma Jamaica shirt!”

    “I see,” she said weakly. “It’s not just a summer shirt, then?”

    “Och, no! Even a vain movie star doesna wear a Jamaica shirt in England in the summer time wi’oot a damn good excuse!”

    Molly was very pink. “Mm. Sorry.”

    He took her hand and said gaily: “Dinna apologise, wee Molly! I’m trying to do better, see?” The nice, rather curly mouth smiled at her. Then he produced the ultimate trendy sunnies from his top pocket and adjusted them on his very nice nose.

    “Um, that’s good, Euan,” said Molly weakly.

    In the shelter of the shabby curtains that were a feature of the front room of Number 7, Moulder’s Way, Luke had been an interested spectator of the arrival and departure. He admitted sourly to himself he was pretty glad it was Molly, not Georgia, the shirt had departed with. He strolled over there. As usual, the front door was unlocked.

    “Hey, Anna. That was a glamorous Gucci shirt just went down your front path.”

    “It must be Euan Keel. He was all done up like a film star.”

    “Uh-huh.”

    “He’s the one she reckoned she wasn’t gonna take up with again.”

    “Uh-huh.”

    “She reckons he needs a mother.”

    “There’s a fair bit of that about, Anna.”

    “I know. But I thought she didn’t want to do that.”

    “Don’t try to puzzle it out, Anna; that way madness lies.”

    “I wasn’t going to,” she said placidly. “I just hope Micky doesn’t suffer. I’ve started a new picture. What do you think?”

    Luke came eagerly to look. Faux-naïf, again. He grinned. “Fiona seen these cottage pictures yet?”

    “No. She’d probably start nagging me to do more semi-abstract stuff. But I just feel like doing cottages, for a bit.”

    “You keep on with them, Anna, honey. I know a gallery on Fifth Avenue that’d pay you five thousand, minimum, for each of these.”

    “Hah, hah,” said Anna placidly, getting on with it.

    He wandered back to Number 7 shaking his head slightly. He did, but if he contacted them it’d be real awkward to explain why they’d come hot-footing it over to rural Hampshire, England, on the say-so of Luke Beaumont, no-good drop-out. Hell.

    John had had a sufficiently busy, not to say demanding day, going into Portsmouth in the company of Master Leach to collect the new canvas for his sailing dinghy. Not to say a couple of new lifejackets and a small plastic mac that at first Micky declared he wouldn’t need, it was summer, and then, as it dawned that it was a yachting waterproof and they were buying it from a yachting shop, agreed to have—provided it was the same as John’s! The shop assistant offered a sou’wester and after checking that John had one exactly like it, he accepted that, too. What about Terence? ’Cos he wouldn’t have one on a sub! John thought he might but didn’t say so: Micky was dying to meet a real submarine commander. So they bought one for him. Though privately, John doubted he’d turn up at all: this was the second—no, third time he’d threatened to come down. He wasn’t with the parents any more: he’d had a short stint in northern France with a girlfriend and another short stint in Scotland with a different girlfriend. Terence’s leaves generally tended to be like that.

    They got back to the cottage around sixish to find a distinctly desultory Jamaica in the front garden. Rupy was supine in a hammock in his white “terry-claath robe”, so pronounced, Rosie was supine in the big swing in her ditto, Molly was apparently asleep on a sunlounger with one of the big natural straw Jamaica hats over her face, Greg was asleep on the straw mats with his mouth open, what time Baby Bunting prepared to insert one of Rupy’s hideous artificial flowers into it, and Euan Keel was asleep on the remaining sunlounger wearing his, John’s, very own terry-claath robe, with the initials on the breast pocket to prove it.

    “They’re having another Jamaica,” noted the percipient Master Leach.

    “Were. Seem to have drunk it,” he said, eyeing the table laden with empty jugs and glasses.

    “Yeah!” he choked, apparently finding this an exceedingly witty sally.

    John stepped delicately between the swing and the hammocks and grabbed the puce cabbage just as it was about to be stuffed into the oblivious Greg’s open gob. His son let out an eldritch screech and the two matrons sat up with simultaneous gasps. Those with the Y chromosome slept on, however.

    “About to choke Greg with a puce cabbage,” he explained, swooping on him and holding him against his shoulder. “There, there, old chap: it was a good game, but you mustn’t put things in people’s mouths.”

    “Wan’ G’EG!” he screeched.

    “No. No Greg. No flowers in Greg’s mouth. No.”

    Scrreech!

    “Jeez, he can make a noise, eh?” noted Micky.

    “Mm. What the Hell has he been drinking?” he said to Rosie.

    “Only lemon-barley water and a bit of orange juice—real juice.”

    “Not this screeching object! –Ssh! Bye, Baby Bunting! –Greg,” he said, nodding at him.

    “Uh—well, he was trying different combos, John.”

    “To see what they were like,” he deduced heavily.

    She nodded happily.

    “I see. –Hush, Baby Bunting, Dada’s got you. Who’s a good boy?” He held him up very high. The object screeched again, turning purple. “Very well, plan B, Baby Bunting can come inside and have his nappy changed and go down for a nap.”

    Scrreech!

    His mother had her hands over her ears and was nodding hard, so they did that.

    “Any letters, Rosie?” he said, having forced Micky to go to the toilet and provided him with a huge glass of milk, in that order.

    She brightened. “Yes, there’s a letter from Joanie!”

    This was Rosie’s cousin on her father’s side: the flat in London had originally been Joanie’s. She’d settled in Spain with her boyfriend some years back. “Good. –Move up.” Rosie moved up in the swing. He sat down and pulled her legs onto his lap. “Don’t ask for any of this,” he warned, raising his glass of beer to his lips.

    “After their idea of exotic drinkie-poos all arvo? You gotta be kidding!”

    His shoulders shook. “Well, what’s the news from Spain? May I read it?”

    To his surprise, Rosie hesitated.

    “Not if there’s something private in it, of course, darling.”

    “No, um, the thing is, it’s their Cousin Terri. Well, she’s Seve’s cous—” She broke off: John was choking hysterically, gasping: “More cousins?”

    “Yeah,” she said with a silly grin, when he was at the mopping and blowing stage. “What was it we said? A clutch of cousins? It’s more like a—a conglomeration!”

    He fortified himself with the beer. “Give it here.”

    The gist of it was, Seve’s cousin—not a full cousin, according to Joanie; he thought she possibly meant a second cousin—who was only half Spanish, English on her father’s side (whether they were supposed to conclude this made it better he wasn’t absolutely positive, but given Joanie was English, probably), was very keen to come over to England as an au pair. And did they knew of anyone who needed one?

    John could think of quite a few people who needed one, but what was this Teresa Johnson, aka Terri, actually like? The letter was completely unclear on that point, though it did manage to make the point that she’d had a hard time recently.

    “Was this hard time boyfriend trouble?” he said cautiously, lowering the letter.

    “Well, partly: Joanie told us about that in her last letter. You must remember; what’s happened to the elephant who never forgets?”

    Eh? Oh! The elephant had spent most of the day shopping with Micky Leach. He refrained from saying so in front of Micky’s mother. “Well, even Homer nods: I suppose an elephant may doze off occasionally, when it’s listening to its wife’s cousin’s waffle. Was there more to it?”

    “She’s been sick. She went on a trip somewhere in North Africa with a couple of friends and they left her flat somewhere weird. Not Casablanca, that other place in that movie with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day, she was really good in that.”

    “The Man Who Knew Too Much. Hitchcock. Marrakech.”

    “The elephant doesn’t nod off all that often,” she said to Molly. “Only if it’s a modern movie.”

    John waited until his wife’s cousin’s choking fit was over “Hah, hah. Was the poor girl stranded?”

    “Not exactly, but she was pretty broke because she had to pay for the whole room herself, instead of only a third of it. So she bought food in the market and came down with a horrible bug. She did manage to get home okay, but she was in bed for ages with it, and lost about three stone. But Joanie reckons she could afford to lose it. Only then her granny fed her up, so she put it all back on and then some,”—John had turned over: it did say something like that, so he didn’t bother to read on—“and then she went into a depression—”

    “No wonder!” agreed Molly feelingly.

    “Yeah: and so they sent her off to an aunty in Barcelona to get over it, but instead she took up with a real creep that told her a string of lies, and when she found out none of it was true she pushed him off the balcony.”

    John turned over hastily. Good Christ, so she had! Oh—he survived. The fall had been broken by the canopy over the bar below and in any case had only been from the first floor.

    “The aunty’s hubby’s in the Guardia Civil, so that was all right,” said his wife with the utmost placidity.

    Er… So it had been. “Got it.” He glanced through the rest of it but Joanie didn’t seem to say what, if anything, this Terri had ever done to earn a crust. Or how old she was. Oh, well.

    “Joanie says she’ll have to give a month’s notice at her job but she might like to come over in early October. Is it all right if she comes to us just at first?’ asked Rosie.

    “Oh, Hell, yes, darling! And we must all try and think of someone who really needs an au pair, mm?”

    “Yeah. I can’t think of anybody... But Joanie will have got Aunty June on the job, too: maybe she’ll know of someone.”

    “Can she cook?” asked Molly.

    John twinkled at her. “Terri, is this? I hope you don’t mean Joanie. And I have to say it, she takes after her mother!”

    “Aunty June’s afternoon teas are good,” said Rosie tolerantly. “And Joanie can do good chips, now. She makes neato sandwiches, too.”

    “Shut—up!” he choked, laughing like a drain.

    Molly was now all smiles. “Is this for the bar that her and Seve run, Rosie?”

    “Yes, and it’s not that funny!” she said, glaring at John. “And as a matter of fact Joanie doesn’t say if Terri can cook—but she must be able to, if she wants to be an au pair.”

    “Mebbe I could use her,” said Euan sleepily.

    They jumped.

    “Euan, you usually eat out. And you can cook, when you try,” objected Rosie.

    “It’s too much bother, though, especially after a day on set being screamed at by Derry or Aubrey. I have got a very reliable daily in town, though. But I’ll need someone to look after the cottage!” he smiled.

    Rosie’s face lit up. “And Colin’ll need someone to look after his cottage, when he comes!”

    John hesitated but didn’t say that Colin hadn't made up his mind to come down, yet.

    “That might be your solution, Rosie,” said Molly eagerly.

    “Mm! What do you think, John?” she asked hopefully.

    “Anything that’ll get a decent meal into Colin sounds good to me!” he said cheerfully. “Talking of which, had any thoughts about dinner?”

    “In between the strange tropical combos?” she said, poking Greg cautiously with her toe. He snored on. “Nope!”

    “A barbecue?” suggested Euan.

    “That requires some form of singeable protein,” returned John mildly.

    “Well—uh—shoot up to Hopgood’s?” He looked at his watch. “Och, Hell!”

    “Have a look in Battersea Power Station,” said Rosie, yawning.

    “Okay!” Euan got up and went inside.

    After a moment Molly said: “Does he know what it is?”

    “Mm?” replied Rosie, yawning again. “The fridge? Of course: it was Katie that called it that in the first place.”

    John looked at Molly’s face. “I’m afraid there is a fair bit of history there, Molly.”

    “Yes, of course. Um, surely he won’t need an au pair for a weekend cottage?”

    “Never been know to do a hand’s turn around the place,” said Rosie simply.

    “He—ah—to a certain extent he’s outgrown his origins, Molly,” murmured John.

    “Yes. I suppose I should have seen that in Queensland. He did sort of expect to be waited on—I don’t mean me, but the ladies who served the food for the crews, and the nice lady at the pub.”

    “Yeah,” agreed Rosie. “Know about the gourmet stuff?”

    “He did go on about food, at one stage… Not really, Rosie,” she said weakly.

    “Well, be warned: he can do the foodie bit with the worst of them. Much worse than Lucas: D.D. reckons he’s got a natural palate. –Hey!” she said sharply as Euan came out of the cottage beaming, with a large, plastic-wrapped package in his hands. “If those are those ruddy Scotch trout making a reappearance, they can go back whence they came!”

    “But grilled trout are delicious, Rosie! And I can defrost them in the microwave, I’m a good defroster!” he said with a laugh. “But not if you’re saving them for a special occasion, of course.”

    “Saving them for someone who can appreciate them, Euan, so by all means, let’s have them!” said John cheerfully. “Oh, they’re not Scottish: that’s Rosie’s lack of geography. North of England: remember the place where Paul filmed you all in his bloody lake scene?”—Euan nodded, shuddering and grinning.—“Mm. Quite near there. –Go for it,” he concluded. “The garden’s full of tomatoes and lettuces—use whatever you like.”

    “Fine!” He bustled off.

    Silence reigned in Jamaica. Molly looked uneasily at her relatives but didn’t speak.

    “Gone into his down-home, simple Scotch lad thing,” said Rupy sleepily.

    They jumped and gasped.

    “Am I right or am I right?” he said, yawning widely.

    No-one claimed he wasn’t right, so he concluded: “I’m right.”

    Terence had actually made it down to Bellingford, but didn’t seem to have stayed long. He was now in town, in his ’orrible flat. He had eagerly invited Colin over, but as the frightful building the place was in featured a huge flight of steps, the answer was a lemon. So he’d come over to the nursing-home this evening to keep him company. Colin hadn’t admitted that he usually dropped off, with the aid of the fucking pills he still had to take at night, at around eight-thirty. Or that he wasn’t supposed to have alcohol with the fucking pills. Pretty little Angela—Nurse Garrity, in front of Matron—had hovered looking disapproving, but given the gi-normous fees the place charged they pretty much let their inmates do what they liked so long as Doctor hadn't ordered otherwise in so many words, so she’d gone away again. Colin had now discovered that most of the inmates were recovering from plastic surgery or overdoses of addictive substances of one kind or another. Or several kinds. It was impossible to hold any sort of conversation with them—well, the ones with the plastic surgery mostly couldn’t move their faces and the detoxifying lot had the brains of cabbages, by and large. He’d been doing a fair amount of reading. And a lot of just dozing.

    “Greg gave us a wonderful meal,” Terence revealed, sitting back at his ease in Colin’s floral armchair that he still couldn’t sit in with any comfort himself, with a glass of what was supposed to be Colin’s whisky in his fist. “Four different kinds of curry. Meat, um, lentils or something, an orange thing, think it might’ve been pumpkin, and an incredible spinach thing—really creamy. Plus all the trimmings, of course!”

    Colin gave him an ironic look. “Conscience money.”

    “Eh?”

    “Haven’t you heard? John left him in charge, more or less, a couple of days back, while he went into Portsmouth with Molly’s kid, and the fool let them fill him with ’orrible tropical drinks and passed out on the front lawn.”

    Terence collapsed in a wheezing fit.

    “How’s the jail bait?” asked Colin, having mopped his eyes and fortified himself with a gulp of whisky. See, what he’d decided was, the alcohol could do in place of the pills!

    “She appears fine—she’s given Max Lattimore the push, by the way. Due to start rehearsals for the telly show very soon. –Wonder how Greg gets the meat to taste so rich and creamy?” he said idly.

    “If this recipe was anything like the wonderful curry he did the day I was there for Jamaica lunch, I can tell you that. Simmers it very slowly for hours in about a pound of clarified butter. Even beef from the dreaded Tom Hopgood becomes palatable, that way. You’d better watch your cholesterol count. –You can pour me some of my own whisky, thanks.”

    “Scrooge,” said Terence amiably, pouring him one.

    Colin eyed him sideways. “So the jail bait’s free again, is she?”

    “Give over,” said Terence heavily. Colin gave him an uncertain look and he added: “Anyway, far’s I could see, she seemed to be spending most of her time with Luke.”

    “The man’s our age,” said Colin feebly.

    “Yeah. Well, dunno that there’s anything in it, on her side. Dare say there might be the usual on his.” He looked dry. “She informs me that he’s got a very clear mind. Well, don’t look at me! According to family gossip, the said mind’s bummed around the world for twenty years smoking, sniffing and quite possibly injecting all the illegal substances known to man!”

    “There’s a few in here like that; their minds are more or less slush.”

    Terence shrugged. “I believe you. Wasn’t me that said it, it was Georgia. The way I heard it, Pete Beaumont’s had to bail him out of jail in Mexico, Argentina and Australia. Or was it Denmark? Uh—no, think that was a giant fine, Henry paid that—the oldest brother—and told him it was the last time.”

    “I see,” he said slowly. “Um—Australia or New Zealand?”

    Terence shrugged again. “Could’ve been both. Oh—yes, of course: New Zealand was the magic mushrooms incident! Years back. They had a clutch of weirdies that hived off into the rainforest and, um, not sure whether you eat them or smoke them—whatever it was, they did it. Splashed all over the papers. I copped an earful because I was home on leave at the very moment when Cousin Diane rang Mother and bawled down the phone about couldn’t she possibly use her influence with Sidney—he was out there at the High Commission,” he said to Colin’s blank face.

    “Oh! That Sidney! Thought you were on about Australia again, for a moment. Did she?”

    “Torn between family solidarity and natural distaste, old boy, but eventually family solidarity won it by a nose—I tell a lie: a whisker—and she did put in a call to him, yes. He poured oil, as you can imagine,”—he made a face; Colin made a face in agreement with it—“but the upshot was, if the New Zealand police wanted to shove darling Luke in clink, there was nothing the Commission could do about it.”

    “You mean he gave them a medal and asked them if they couldn’t possibly throw away the key,” he translated drily.

    “Yeah.”

    “I’ve hardly met the man, but I have to admit, I can’t see it,” said Colin slowly.

    “Maybe he’s grown up, at last,” said Terence without interest. “Didn’t seem to be on the booze at the Mountjoy Muddled Festival. Though granted it’s not illegal in this country. It’s not illegal in India for foreigners, I believe, but evidently he—”

    “Never mind that. How much of this crap is just family spite, Terence?”

    “No idea. Could all be,” he said in a bored voice. He sipped and sighed. “Your Uncle Matthew’s been on the blower again,” he admitted glumly.

    “Then I can only apologise for him,” said Colin grimly. “I’ve told him in words of one syllable I’m not interested in the bloody City and I wouldn’t touch his merchant bank with a bargepole.”

    “Mm. Uh—the poor old boy wants an heir, Colin,” he said on an apologetic note.

    “Then he shouldn’t have taken up with that bitch Annabel Cartwright at the age of more than old enough to know better,” replied Colin sourly. “Don’t look at me like that: I’m not entirely unsympathetic, but I’m not volunteering. I can tell you who would be ideal, and that’s Uncle William’s third daughter: Barbara. You won’t have noticed her: she’s not gloriously pretty and lipsticked to the eyebrows. Works as a business analyst: doing bloody well at it. But how can she count? She’s a girl. –You seem oddly interested, in spite of your ostensible protests, Terence.”

    “I’m not interested,” he said, scowling. “Just want to get him off my back.”

    “Understandable. Have you thought any more about what you are going to do? Fifty’s not that far off, in case you haven’t looked.”

    “I had a meeting at the Admiralty a week back, as a matter of fact,” he said, scowling. “Kenneth Hammersley let me know that they’re giving me a desk job after my next six months’ sea duty. The sub’s being decommissioned, and apparently that makes two of us.”

    “I’m Hellish sorry, Terence.”

    “No, well, I’d made it very clear that I don’t want to command anything bigger,” he said with a shrug.

    “Mmm… But do you?”

    “No, actually. Not a leader of men,” he said, making a face at him. “Only ever wanted to potter about in subs. Father threw a fit, y’know: no Haworth had ever been a submariner, no way to a solid career, me boy, huff and puff.” He shrugged. “Largely guilt, I’ve long since concluded: the parents never paid much attention to me. And thank God for it!” he admitted with a laugh.

    “Yeah,” agreed Colin, reflecting that it was just as well that Terence had such a sunny temperament: other younger brothers might have bitterly resented Bernard’s and Miriam’s exclusive concentration on John, the blue-eyed boy. “Uh—John said anything to you about Australia?” he said cautiously.

    “Yes: I know about the secret plan to take over Jerry Marshall’s betting business, you can speak plainly!” said Terence with a grin.

    “Very funny. Well, what about it? Go into it with him?”

    “Colin,” he said feebly, running his hand through his thick, just silvering, light brown locks, “I honestly cannot do sums! I’d hate it!”

    “No. Okay. Would you consider going out to Australia anyway?”

    Terence looked sour. “Why? It’s full of Australians.”

    “Uh—the ones mostly nearly connected to you are without exception gorgeous,” croaked Colin.

    “Shut up. You always did have one thing on your mind!” He helped himself to more whisky, not asking Colin if he wanted one.

    Colin waited until he’d sunk half of it and then said baldly: “What’s up?”

    “Nothing.”

    “Terence, I’ve known you all your life, don’t try to kid me. What is it? Not Georgia, after all?”

    “No,” he said sourly. “She’s only a kid. Tough little article, too.”

    Oh, God. Not Molly? She’d taken up with that film star chap—or more exactly, gone back to him, if he’d sorted out Rosie’s and Rupy’s gossip correctly.

    “Is it Molly?”

    “Shut up,” said Terence grimly.

    “Look, I gather that Euan Keel’s track record—”

    “Shut UP!” he shouted.

    Colin subsided, gnawing on his lip.

    “I’m going,” he said grimly. “Nothing you need, is there? –Right. May manage to get in again before our next stint—not sure.”

    Colin made a last-ditch effort. “Look, Terence, don’t give up before you’ve start—”

    “You didn’t see the way Molly was looking at him!” he said bitterly.

    “But it’s only early days—”

    Terence walked out.

    Oh, shit! Colin sank back limply on his pillows. He didn’t know when he’d seen Terence so shook. Certainly not over either of the cows he’d married. Hell.

    It really helped that five minutes later Matron in person stalked in and discovered the whisky.