Terri Abroad

11

Terri Abroad

    Terri had followed Joanie Potts’s instructions to the letter. Unfortunately Joanie wasn't all that good at explaining things. So whether she was where she was supposed to be, or would be met by the people Joanie had assured her would meet her, goodness knew.

    It wasn’t that she hadn’t understood Joanie’s English: Dad had always made her speak English at home—over the dinner table, that sort of thing—and for a while, when he was in funds, had even sent her to school in England. Only then he’d gone into yet another wild-cat scheme and lost all his money and her maternal grandmother had made her come home to Spain, to her house, and go to the local high school. Terri had preferred that, really: she knew most of the girls, they all lived quite near, and she didn’t have to board. Her marks had taken a dive but Terri hadn't cared—until she was old enough to go to university or get a job and it dawned that she wasn’t really qualified for either. Her grandmother had made her go to a really strict coach for a year and then put her through her degree, forcing her to do English, since she had a head start on that. Terri hadn't said she didn’t have a head start on the classics of English literature, it was no use arguing with her. Her parents had busted up for good at around this time, but as they’d had a series of bustings up and reconciliations for as long as she could remember, it didn’t make much difference to her.

    After her mother’s Primo Seve had split up with his wife of twenty-odd years and settled down with Joanie, Dad had gone and foisted himself on them, claiming he could help serve their English customers. They did get a lot of those, their bar was on the coast near a big tourist hotel—not a very high-class hotel. Seve and Joanie hadn’t seemed to mind, and had allotted him the room that would normally be the waiter’s, a small, hot cupboard next to what would normally be the cook’s small, hot cupboard, and that was occupied by one, Manuel Ortega, who did cook when the customers wanted something Spanish instead of English fish and chips washed down with sangría, but also acted as chief barman and just general help. When she wasn’t busy fending off her grandmother’s and aunts’ attempts to find her jobs or a suitable husband, or working at the jobs they found, Terri had fallen into the habit of going to stay with Seve, Joanie, Dad and Manuel: there was always something she could do, even in the depths of winter, there was a lot of work in running a bar.

    Manuel had taught her to cook and to make lots of different drinks, Joanie had taught her to make English chips and sandwiches, and Seve, it had dawned on Terri after a bit, while not seeming to teach her anything, in fact had taught her what a decent, responsible older man with quite a sense of humour was like. He was responsible, though of course all the relatives on that side declared he wasn’t: he had been married very young and it hadn’t worked out, and how many people would have stuck with an unsuitable marriage as long as he had? His kids were grown up and his wife had her own money, they didn’t need him. And even though his background might have suggested he sit back and let Manuel do all the work of running the bar, he didn’t: he worked very hard at it. Just as well, because though he could cook like an angel, Manuel could never have coped with the paperwork: he was, Terri discovered with horror, barely literate. He could struggle through the headlines in the papers but that was about it. Most of his schooldays had been spent playing truant on the local fishing smacks. He was very keen to learn, however, and so Terri had been able to repay him for all his kindness by helping him with his reading.

    After a considerable period of this Manuel had embarrassingly proposed. Terri had croaked that although she was very fond of him, she felt there was too much of an age difference, and fortunately he seemed to accept this. Help! Admittedly she was overweight and prone to spots—caused by chocolate and cream, according to her mother’s side—but Manuel was very, very fat and, at a guess, over sixty. And, according to the custom of the countryside, shaved only once a week at the most and wore as his normal garb very old grey flannel trousers, a wide leather belt which emphasised the stomach, and a very elderly vest. They remained fast friends after the proposal, Manuel not seeming to bear her any grudge. Just as well—Terri didn’t have any real friends apart from Seve, Joanie and Manuel.

    It had been really, really stupid of her to go on that trip to North Africa with Pablo and Catherine, she now reflected, looking round the busy airport and wondering how on earth she was going to recognise these relations of Joanie’s. They weren’t real friends: Pablo was a local boy, his parents lived two houses away from Grandmother’s, and she’d known him all her life. Catherine, his French girlfriend, it had belatedly dawned on Terri, was bitterly jealous of her. For absolutely no reason, there had never been anything between her and Pablo: he’d asked her to come because he wanted to split the expenses. Catherine had nagged him unceasingly all the way and finally issued an ultimatum in Marrakech: leave with her or be dumped. Well, it had certainly taught Terri a lesson, but it was one she hadn't really needed to have reinforced with a horrible tummy-bug. She looked round the airport miserably. Why had she come? It’d be another disaster. Everyone would be English and they’d look down their noses at her like the girls at that horrible English school had because she wasn’t rich, and didn’t have parents rolling up on Parents’ Day in a horrible BMW or Rolls Royce. And even if they didn’t and they had found her a job as au pair the people were sure to want her to do English cooking, and she only knew fish and chips and sandwiches! And in any case she was positive it was the wrong airport, it wasn’t Heathrow or London Airport, she’d never even heard of it!

    “Hullo!” said a loud, cheerful voice. “Are you Terri Johnson?”

    Terri swung round. “Yes!” she gasped, goggling. Joanie had of course explained that her cousin Rosie was really the famous actress, Lily Rose Rayne—but there were two of them! And a little boy.

    “I’m Joanie’s cousin, Rosie Haworth, and this is my cousin Molly Leach, and her son Micky,” explained the lady who had spoken to her.

    “Yes! How do you do, Rosie? I’m so glad to meet you!” gasped Terri.

    “So am I!” she said with a laugh. “I was sure we were in the wrong place. I’d never realised there was an airport at Southampton. But John—my husband—he said there was and if Seve had put you on the plane there’d be no mistakes!”

    “Yes, I was sure I was in the wrong place, too,” admitted Terri, holding out her hand.

    “You gotta shake now,” explained the little boy.

    Smiling, Rosie shook hands. Molly followed her, saying: “Hullo, Terri,” so Terri, who was sure you said :”How do you do?”—and if you were very posh, like the girls at school, it was more like “How’djadoow?” as if it was one word, the English vernacular wasn’t easy—replied carefully: “Hullo, Molly.”

    Micky was holding out his hand, so she also shook that. “Hullo, Micky.”

    “Gidday, Terri!” he replied. Terri stared at him: she’d never heard that before! Was it “Good day?” But surely that was—was almost 18th-century? She’d been forced to take 18th-century English literature in her degree and hadn’t liked it at all.

    “No, John’ll carry your bag, Terri,” said Rosie with a smile as Terri then made to pick it up. “He’s just parking the car. We dashed straight in, we were a bit late.”

    “Yeah, there was loads of traffic on the road: see, we come all the way from Portsmouth!” Micky explained proudly. “Hey, they got a hovercraft in Portsmouth, you wanna come on it? It’s neat! Rosie won’t come, John reckons she’d up-chuck on it, she’s got a weak stomach!”

    Terri just looked at him in bewilderment.

    “Micky, don’t talk so fast,” said Molly placidly. “Terri isn’t used to an Australian accent.”

    “I haven’t got an accent,” he said dubiously.

    “Everybody’s got an accent,” she replied calmly, smiling. –Wasn’t she pretty? And so blonde—they both were! Oh, if only she was little and blonde and looked like Lily Rose Rayne! They were both as fair as Joanie and there was no doubt whatsoever that it wasn’t out of a bottle like the awful bleached blondes you saw so many of in Spain. It looked dreadful with their olive skins: made them look very sallow. Well, Terri had made a lot of mistakes in her time, but at least she’d never bleached her hair!

    “Mum can do accents!” Micky informed her, beaming. “And birds! Hey, do a magpie, Mum!”

    “In the airport? Rave on,” replied his mother.

    “That’s the Australian vernacular for ‘Don’t be silly,’ Terri,” explained Rosie.

    “I see. Thank you, Rosie. I had thought my English was quite good,” she said ruefully.

    “It is!” Micky assured her. “You don’t sound much foreign. Not like… Um, who do we know that’s really foreign, Mum?”

    “Um… Joylene Mirza’s husband. He sounded like this: ‘I haven’t got an accent!’” she said indignantly in a terrifically Indian accent.

    “I remember him!” cried Micky, as Terri gasped, and Rosie choked.

    “The sad thing is,” said Molly, twinkling at them, “he was convinced he didn’t have, and got terribly annoyed if anyone didn’t understand him or, Heaven forbid, tried to correct him!”

    “How embarrassing, Molly!” cried Terri sympathetically.

    “Yes, it was. He was one of those short men who are always on their dignity and terribly ready to take offence. Besides being convinced they’re always right. –Actually, he reminded me of John Howard,” she said to Rosie.

    “Who?” said Micky foggily.

    “The Prime Minister of Australia, or he was when I last looked,” said a man’s deep voice of the “How’djadoow?” type.

    “Aw, him,” said Micky disgustedly. “I thought she meant a person.”

    “No!” choked Rosie, collapsing in giggles. Molly was already giggling helplessly. So Terri gave way, too. Even though this must be John, it was so rude of her, she hadn't even been introduced!

    “Three Giggling Gerties, eh?” said John to the disconcerted little boy, winking at him.

    He brightened. “Yeah! Too right! Hey, can we go on the hovercraft again, John?”

    “Not today old, chap, we have to get Terri home. We’ll go on it another day, I promise. –How’djadoow, Terri?” he said nicely, smiling at her and holding out his hand. “I’m John Haworth, Rosie’s husband.”

    “How do you do, John?” she said limply. He was bald, though very handsome—Joanie had said he was—but a lot older than Rosie. Ooh, help, he was heaving her bag up!

    “I’m so sorry, John: I’m afraid my suitcase is heavy,” she said quickly. “The Customs official was most suspicious: he thought I had a weapon in it.”

    “What have ya got?” demanded Micky.

    “Micky!” cried his mother.

    “That’s quite all right, Molly,” said Terri, smiling at the little boy. “I’ve got my special frying-pan, Micky. It’s the frying-pan I use for omelettes.”

    “Mum doesn’t do those,” he said dubiously.

    “No? It’s a special Spanish way of cooking eggs that I learnt from a man who helps Rosie’s cousin Joanie and her boyfriend, Seve, with the cooking.”

    “They got a bar, eh?”

    “Yes, a bar that also serves food.”

    “I getcha. Maybe you could cook some omelettes for us.”

    “Yes, of course! So I am to be your au pair, Molly?”

    “Help, no!” gasped Molly. “We’re only down here for the weekend!”

    “We don’t need an au pair,” explained Micky. “’Tisn’t the same as a daily, we know two of those. One’s Jessica, she works for Rosie and Rupy, ’cos they got a flat, see?”

    “Micky, you’re talking too fast again,” warned Molly.

    Even though she couldn’t understand half of what he said Terri had decided he was a dear little boy and it was an awful pity she wasn’t going to be working for them. “No, that’s all right, Molly, I think I understood most of it,” she said quickly. “He knows there is a difference between a daily and an au pair.”

    “Yeah, that’s it!” said Micky pleasedly. “Like, you’d live in the cottage, see, or like the flat. Jessica, she doesn’t do that. And, see, Lynne Carter, she—”

    “Yes, Lynne’s got her own cottage. That’s enough, I think, Micky, Terri doesn’t know everybody yet,” said John. “We thought that just to start with, Terri, you might like to look after my cousin Colin and also do some part-time work for our friend Euan.”

    “He’s got a cottage with a big tree, it’s neato!” explained Micky. “And see, Colin, ya won’t have to look after him much, only he needs someone to cook him a decent meal.”

    “I think I can do that. If—if he would like Spanish cooking?” she said, looking dubiously at John.

    “I can safely promise you he’d love it!” he said, smiling his lovely smile that made you forget he was so old.

    “And Euan’s a bit of a gourmet, he’s looking forward to some Spanish meals!” beamed Rosie. She had perfect teeth, as well! Not that Terri’s teeth weren’t okay. But she didn’t have the rest of it: the blonde hair and the lovely figure that was just curvy enough, or that wonderful complexion, just flushed with pink. Dad had come out with some rubbish about English skins when Seve took up with Joanie, but although Joanie was a pretty woman, Terri privately considered she was a bit washed-out looking. And the tourists from the nearby hotel were hideous, frankly: either very pale or bright pink—whether sunburn or natural, ugh! Meeting Rosie and Molly she realised that it hadn't been one of Dad’s stupid exaggerations, it was true!

    “Um, yes? That’s good, Rosie,” she said on a weak note. Did she mean he wanted some of his meals to be Spanish, or was it just English being imprecise, as usual? “I’m not sure that I know that name: may I ask how you spell it?”

    “Euan? It’s a Scotch name. E,U,A,N.”

    “Euan Keel: he was in Rosie’s film,” explained Micky. “He doesn’t talk real Scotch, though.”

    Euan Keel? She was going to be working for Euan Keel? Terri gaped at them. Finally she said very weakly indeed: “I had no idea that that was how it was pronounced.”

    “He’s been on the news, though,” offered Micky dubiously.

    “Yes, but on the Spanish news, they pronounced it Juan,” said Terri limply.

    “Hey, that’s dumb!” he choked, laughing hoarsely.

    “Don’t be rude, Micky,” warned his mother.

    “No, I think he’s right: that was very dumb,” said Terri, having worked out that this was “dumb” in the sense in which Miss Jackson from school had ordered Gwendolyn Matthews and Sally Poynter not to use the word on pain of a hundred lines.

    “Juan is a Spanish name, Micky,” explained John. “And I think it is the same name, as a matter of fact; I think Juan is the Spanish version of John while Euan is the Scottish version.”

    “Of John?” he said, staring.

    “Mm. And in French it would be Jean, you see.”

    “But it’s different,” he said, frowning.

    “Yes: different languages have different versions of names,” he said tranquilly. “The car’s not far, Terri: why don’t you girls stay here while we lads fetch it? Come on, Micky.”

    With that he set her suitcase down, grasped Micky’s hand firmly, and removed him, to the sound of: “Ladies don’t fetch the car, do they, John?”

    About twenty minutes later Micky reported in a loud hiss: “Hey, she’s asleep! She’s got jet-lag!”

    Terri had gone in the back, once they’d made quite sure that Rosie was the only person present who suffered from car, motion, or travel sickness—after a certain amount of confusion over terminology.

    “Yes; just like me,” whispered Molly.

    Micky nodded hard but hissed: “Is she gonna bawl?”

    In the front Rosie gave John a startled look. He made a little face but kept his eyes on the road.

    “Ssh! I don’t think so,” whispered Molly.

    There was a moment’s silence. Then: “It’s not so far from Spain! Australia’s loads further!” he hissed with a horrible concatenation of sibilants.

    “That’s right!” whispered Molly.

    John turned his head and gave Rosie a swift wink. She grinned feebly.

    “Hey! Colin!” screamed Micky, dashing into his front room. “She’s here! We got her!”

    Colin heaved himself up out of his easy chair. “Good show,” he said feebly. He didn’t really need an au pair and he wasn’t too sure why Rosie had been so keen on foisting this unknown Spanish connection on him. However, if it’d help them out, why not? She could always use the place as a base while she looked round for a proper job. He just hoped to God she wasn’t a chatterer. He had tried not to wonder just how pair “au pair” was meant to be, but without all that much success: he didn’t want the woman living in his pocket. Oh, well, he supposed he could always try giving her a hint and if that didn’t work, tell John and Rosie he didn’t want her and since it was them that had bloody well foisted her on him, they could bloody well remove her.

    It would, of course, be too much to expect her to be a flashing-eyed Spanish beauty—

    It was. Far too much. She was medium height, taller than Rosie and Molly but not very tall, and very plump. Colin didn’t object to plumpness as such but these very generous curves were shrouded in a couple of black sacks, good grief! She was much, much younger than he’d envisaged: though why he’d been sure she’d be well into her thirties, God alone knew. But she could only be about Molly’s age. She wasn’t ugly, by any means, in fact the flashing dark eyes were present, and she had a very nice, neat nose—bit like the Australian cousins’, as a matter of fact—but he had never seen such a crop of spots on any creature over the age of sixteen! Ugh, God, was there a rash in there as well? Or was it some form of eczema? The hair might have been splendid but it was hard to tell: she’d pulled it back in a sort of plait. More a plaited pony-tail. It was very black and shiny and seemed to be very curly, so why she’d wanted to do that to it—! Seldom had he ever seen a female more determined to make nothing of herself.

    Rosie and John tactfully left them to it. Molly offered, smiling, to remove her son but over his loud complaints Colin said that he’d rather she made a cuppa, if she wouldn’t mind. She headed for the kitchen smiling. Nice, wasn’t she? He just hoped her ruddy film star was capable of realising what he’d got. He managed to show Terri to her room and point out the bathroom, with considerable hindrance from Micky. And to prevent Master Leach forcibly from assisting her to unpack.

    “One does not offer to help strange ladies unpack their suitcases,” he said firmly, bodily propelling him in the direction of the stairs.

    “Is it rude?”

    “Generally considered so—yes. On a par with looking into a lady’s handbag. Any lady,” he said firmly.

    “Not your mum!” he choked, finding this concept exquisitely ludicrous.

    “Yes, in fact especially your mum or even your wife. You ever seen John looking in Rosie’s handbag without asking her permission?”

    Um, no, was the reply. Colin steered him into the kitchen.

    “Do Spanish people drink tea?” Molly greeted them.

    “No idea. I have been on a holiday there: mostly drank very rough red wine, or beer.”

    “So they have beer in Spain?”

    “Yes, think all the world has beer, Molly.” His eyes twinkled. “Possibly not what the real ale aficionados consider beer: more like your Foster’s Lager.”

    “I like it,” she said calmly, pouring the hot water into his very new teapot. Nice Isabel Potter had found it in a dark corner of the ironmongery: not many people asked for these, these days. Colin had accepted it with shaking hands: a real brown teapot, just like Doddsy’s! The one that had poured him and his siblings the tea which Ma was unaware to this day that they’d drunk. She’d been as nutty about what kids should eat and drink as Ms Deane Jennings from Church Lane: the old woman would never have been allowed to look after them if she’d known of the tea.

    “Terri’s Dad, he’s English,” offered Micky.

    “Yes, a strong argument in favour of her being a tea-drinker!” agreed Colin with a laugh. “Want a Coke?”

    “Yay! Tha-anks, Colin!” He came and inspected the interior of the fridge. “Hey! You got a whole six-pack!”

    “Yes. Did some shopping,” admitted Colin. “Well—the universal fluid?”

    “Maybe Terri could have a Coke if she doesn’t like tea,” suggested the brilliant Micky. “Do they drink Coke in Spain?”

    “Definitely,” replied Colin.

    This apparently required more evidence. “Did you?”

    “Once or twice, when desperate and there was no beer in sight: on railway stations—that sort of thing.”

    “Yeah,” he said thoughtfully. “Is it teatime yet, Mum?”

    “What? No! We only had lunch in Portsmouth!”

    “It was neato, we had hamburgers. They got them in Spain, too,” he explained to Colin. “But that was ages ago, Mum!”

    “Possibly this could be tea,” said Colin feebly.

    “Colin, it’s barely three o’clock!” she objected.

    “Uh—conflict of vernaculars, Molly,” he said smiling. “Afternoon tea.”

    “I keep forgetting,” admitted Molly ruefully. “He doesn’t need anything, really, he had a huge lunch.”

    “I’ve got biscuits,” offered Colin meekly.

    “Ooh! Biscuits!”

    “Gee, how can we refuse?” said Molly with a gurgle. “Thanks, Colin!”

    Terri could hear them chatting and laughing together comfortably. She bit her lip. He didn’t really seem to need an au pair. Apparently Molly and Micky were based in London, but they seemed to spend most weekends with their cousin, next-door, and Molly certainly seemed to be very much at home. A desolate feeling came over Terri. She shouldn’t have come, it had been a really stupid idea. And although the notion of looking after Euan Keel’s house had been terribly exciting at first, the more she thought of it the more she got cold feet. Well, if you had been head over heels in love with a screen personality for some time, it was quite a jolt to the system to realise that you were going to meet him in person. Not the gloriously happy jolt you’d imagined in your dreams—your wildest dreams—because you were still you. Fat and spotty—quite. Her skin always broke out when she was nervous, so even if she was over this crop of spots by the time she had to meet Euan Keel, there was sure to be another lot. Though the rash might have gone by then if she avoided strawberries entirely. Terri sighed. She loved strawberries. With loads of cream and sugar. Grandmother had demanded angrily whether she had a death wish. Well, yes, she probably did. Normal people didn’t eat things they knew would give them rashes and spots and push people off balconies, did they? Tio Carlos was quite right, she was lucky not to be in jail.

    The kitchen door was ajar; she hesitated, then tapped timidly.

    “Come in: don’t stand on ceremony!” called Colin with a smile in his voice.

    Terri took a deep breath and went in.

    “He is a single man, of course,” said Mrs Mason, looking down her substantial nose.

    “Mm,” agreed Belinda Stout noncommittally. The woman was a pain, but they didn’t want to actively lose custom. Well, put it like this: they couldn’t afford to. There had been a horrible rumour going round lately of a health food shop opening up in the village! Though where, exactly, it was hard to see. Perhaps they’d buy out one of the families that still lived in the High Street. Not the top end where it was all renovated, up near where the Crosses lived—Velda was all right, one of the nicer newcomers—but further down, nearer the existing shops. Next-door to the ruddy Bakery, very likely.

    “I was looking for minted peas,” Mrs Mason noted. “But you seem to be out of them again, Mrs Stout.”

    Right. And the last time they’d put in an immense order for the ruddy things they’d just sat there in the freezer for months! You couldn’t win. She took a deep breath. Ten to one the woman had been too lazy to actually look. “Did you look in the big freezer down the back, Mrs Mason?”

    “Of course.”

    Belinda gave in. “We may have some out the back. Just hang on a minute.” She went out the back, wrenched open the freezing compartment of their private fridge-freezer, wrenched a bag of minted peas out, and slammed it shut.

    “I can let you have these,” she said grimly to Mrs Mason.

    “Oh. I wasn’t thinking of a packet that size… Haven’t you got anything smaller?”

    Belinda took a deep breath and managed to hold herself back. “I’m afraid not. They will keep.”

    “I never keep anything frozen for more than a month, Mrs Stout,” she said firmly. “Better safe than sorry, you know.”

    Mad. Not that she was the only one, by no means. However, Belinda gave her the benefit of the doubt. “Is it too big for your freezer, Mrs Mason?”

    That went over like a lead balloon. Very offended, Mrs Mason gave her chapter and verse on her giant chest freezer and its cubic capacity. –She had a thing that size—they cost the earth, of course—and never kept anything for more than a month in it?

    Mrs Mason then asked how much the peas were and—of course—told her that that was an extortionate price, just for peas. Belinda didn’t point out that it was four times the quantity of the small packets and if you divided it by four you’d see that you were only paying for the equivalent of three of them, not four. She just said that that was the retail price, and waited. Reluctantly Mrs Mason produced a fifty quid note. Jesus! For one small jar of instant coffee and what had been going to be one small bag of minted peas? No wonder the morons in the bank had started complaining about the amount of small change Murray always asked for. Why didn’t they do a market survey or something? Or if they were gonna kick up that sort of fuss about providing a necessary service, why couldn’t people order their change direct from the ruddy Royal Mint, and then perhaps the Powers That Be’d get some grasp of what cash was actually needed by the population of Britain! Mind you, it was marginally better than putting these two small items on the plastic—yeah. And there was a fair bit of that about in Bellingford, these days!

    Mrs Mason took her change but didn’t go. “I suppose Mrs Haworth does know about it.”

    Eh? Belinda blinked at her. Oh! Gone back to the last topic but twenty-four—there was a fair bit of that about, too. “I’d say so. It was her cousin Joanie Potts who sent her over: she’s her boyfriend’s cousin.” –And get out of that one, ya moo!

    She was completely unmoved. In fact she was extra-gracious. “In that case, of course there can be no objection!”

    “No,” agreed Belinda feebly.

    “I haven’t seen Mrs Haworth to speak to for some time,” she admitted regretfully.

    No, well, Rosie would’ve been steering well clear. “Um, I think she’s been busy. She had to go up to London to see her professor,” she offered weakly.

    She launched into a spiel. God knew how, but it involved Miller’s Bay being Captain Haworth’s private property, and whatever the rest of the village felt free to do, she wouldn’t dream of intruding! Belinda just made appropriate noises at intervals and she finally bade her a gracious “Goodbye, and thank you so much, Mrs Stout,” and pushed off. There was no-one waiting to be served; Belinda leaned heavily on the counter and said aloud: “God give me strength!”

    After a moment a small voice said from the recesses of the shop: “That was Mrs Mason, I think?” and Belinda jumped ten feet.

    “Oh,” she said limply, as the subject of Ma Mason’s recent interest came up to the counter, looking very shy. “Hullo, Terri, dear; I didn’t realise you were down there. It was her, yeah. Um, how much did you hear?”

    “She was talking about the peas being expensive,” she said awkwardly. “I did hear something about Joanie sending me over.”

    “Uh—yeah. Well,” admitted Belinda, smiling at her, “you missed the worst of it, dear, but she’s decided to approve, since it was Rosie’s idea. Not because she likes her—though oddly enough, she does seem to—but because she’s John’s wife and a Fellow of London University!”

    “Yes; my grandmother is that sort of woman, too,” said Terri. “She will never accept a person for what they are, but only because of their family or their social status.”

    Belinda beamed at her. “Right! There’s a fair bit of it around here! You been up to Linden Walk, Albert Street, round that way, yet? Over on the other side of the High Street, dear.”

    Terri reddened. “I’ve been up Dipper Street as far as Medlars Lane.”

    “One of the worst of them lives up there,” admitted Belinda. “Medlar Cottage.”

    “I saw it. It’s a lovely cottage,” said Terri.

    “It is, yeah! Linden Walk and Albert Street are further on, on the slope of the hill. It is a pretty area, but be warned: there’s a whole clutch of them up there!”

    “Yes? A clutch? I see!” said Terri, smiling.

    Belinda didn’t think there was much to smile about. She eyed her doubtfully.

    “As in a clutch of eggs, or of chicks, no?” she said.

    “Um—well, I suppose so. Everyone says it,” said Belinda lamely. “What are you looking for, dear?”

    “I have a list here, Belinda,” she said, producing it. “But I’m not sure of the English brands, I’m afraid.”

    “That’s all right, dear! We’ll manage!” She came out from behind the counter and took the list. “We haven’t got Spanish onions.”

    “I—I want onions, please. But we have many varieties of onions in Spain.”

    Belinda showed her the bin of brown onions. “We have got dried onions, if you’d rather. Packet onions?” she said to her blank face.

    “But why would one use dried onions?” she faltered.

    “People put them in stews and soups,” said Belinda kindly.

    “But first one must fry them in the olive oil, Belinda!” she cried.

    “We don’t stock olive oil, but we’ve got some nice rapeseed oil: all the modern ladies that are watching their weight use that,” replied Belinda firmly. “Deodorised, they call it. The thing is, dear, some of the weekenders do ask for olive oil. But most of the new people here are retirees, they don’t do Continental cooking. It wouldn’t be worth ordering it from the wholesalers, you see.”

    “I see,” she said limply, as Belinda consulted the list.

    “What sort of beans did you want, Terri? We don’t stock fresh veggies. We’ve got tinned beans, quite nice ones. And some nice mixed beans. And frozen, of course.”

    “Joanie didn’t know the English names,” said Terri. “They are dried beans, and may be white or… brown, I suppose.”

    Belinda bustled down to the shelves. “Red beans,” she said firmly. “Or these little lima beans are lovely!”

    “Er—yes. But do you not have the dried beans too, Belinda?”

    “These are dried, dear,” she said kindly, pointing to the picture on the tin.

    “Not in tins,” explained Terri feebly.

    “There’s no call for those round here, Terri, dear, you’ll have to try Portsmouth; but the tined ones are very tasty!” She picked up a plastic basket, put both tins of beans in it, and bustled off to the shelves. Terri just stood there numbly.

    The male peer group had convened in a convenient pub in Portsmouth. Reasonably convenient, given that Colin had had to book Graham Howell and his taxi to get over there and, having foolishly let him go while he went to the doc, had had a half-hour’s wait for another.

    “And how’s Terri?” said John, as his cousin accepted a whisky with a sigh.

    “Well, she seems to be settling in. Let Tom Hopgood foist boot leather on her the other day, got brave enough to go up to the Superette by herself and made the stunning discovery that that there is no olive oil to be had in Bellingford.”

    “What did she turn the boot leather into?” he asked, poker-face.

    “In my ignorance I would call it a Spanish stew, but whatever it was, it was superb.”

    “Serves me right for asking!” he said with a laugh.

    “Precisely,” replied Colin with satisfaction. He sipped whisky slowly. “She’s a bright girl, you know.”

    “Yes, Joanie wrote us that. Been sat on by the grandmother most of her life—the mother pretty much ignored her: one of those very beautiful women who take no interest in anything outside themselves. The English school was just starting to give her a decent grounding when the father went bust and the grandmother—who’s more than wealthy enough to have paid the fees, I might add—took her away from it and shoved her into the local school. The degree wasn’t much—bits and pieces: compromise between what the bloody grandmother insisted on and what she wanted to take, we gather. And don’t ask why she didn’t stand up to the woman,” he ended drily.

    “No, I won’t,” replied Colin on a grim note. “She doesn’t strike me as the type that can stand up to bullying.”

    “No. Rosie seems determined that now she’s got her—sorry, old man, if you thought it was you that had got her—she’s going to lose weight, get rid of the spots, and generally fulfil her potential.” John looked dry. “What that might be, undetermined.”

    “Yeah.”

    “No heavy fats, no chocolate, including those biscuits from Belinda, and no beer,” he said, eyeing Colin thoughtfully.

    “Right, this régime’s gonna do me good, too, is it?”

    “Yes,” he said succinctly.

    It was really stupid—no, pathetic, totally pathetic—to have cold feet about meeting this Spanish au pair Rosie had found for him. Euan had told himself this repeatedly but, as usual, hadn't managed to convince himself. He had suggested that Derry might like to pop down to the cottage with him but Derry was due—on pain of death, one gathered—to go over to the South of France and stay with his wife in the villa for a week. Euan had had some of that: he didn’t volunteer to accompany him, even though Derry would have liked him to. But either Linda would ignore Derry for the whole visit, and vice versa, or they would snipe unceasingly at each other, not failing to air the dirty linen of thirty years of marriage. There was no-one else who might have come down to Bellingford with him. He’d long since lost touch with all his Edinburgh friends except Gordy Russell, and though Gordy was a nice enough fellow, and quite a competent actor, his wife didn’t like Euan. And somehow, though it was about twelve years since he’d moved to London, he hadn't made any English friends. Not real friends. Loads of theatrical acquaintances, yes. Now that he’d pretty well made it they had two attitudes to him: crawlingly sycophantic or seethingly jealous. Either or both. Adam McIntyre and his wife, Georgy Harris, were the exceptions, but, it had had more than time enough to dawn, they’d just been being kind when they’d let him hang out with them. Probably been wishing him at Jericho all the time: it was blindingly obvious they didn’t really need anybody else: they were sufficient unto each other. Lucky bloody them.

    He didn’t enjoy driving on the motorways but it seemed bloody daft not to take the car, since he’d splashed out and bought it with his Captain’s Daughter money. Not another Porsche, after the one Rosie had made him sell, that time. He was very glad she had: they were too small and low to the ground, it was terrifying to be stuck on a motorway behind a giant truck in a car that low—or, worse, sandwiched between two giant trucks! The new car was a BMW, not a sports model but a solid-looking saloon. Crash bags everywhere a car could have crash bags. Possibly it didn’t match the image—though it had cost a bomb—but he was fed up with the image, in any case. Besides, after bloody Aubrey Mattingforth had made him go two stone under his ideal weight and bleached him all over for fucking Florizel, a part for which he was, at a kind estimate, ten years too old, and if you were being strictly truthful fifteen years too old, it would have been very hard to say what the fuck the image was, any more. Added to which he didn’t care.

    He had a good look at the map and decided not to go down the bloody M3 to Southampton—Katie Herlihy, after that first time they’d come down together, when she’d let him choose the route, had always insisted it was quicker that way. That first drive had been pretty near to Paradise, even though the Porsche had encountered quite a few trucks. The subsequent ones had been pretty well sheer Hell, and it wasn’t entirely the M3’s fault, either. Um… He knew the way to Epsom, more or less. Well, been to the Derby with Derry often enough: he always insisted on making up a party for it: grey toppers, the lot. Quite fun—and Euan had always liked horses. Derry customarily dropped a packet but although remarking that Euan was a mean Scot, didn’t force him to bet huge sums. So he hadn't had to wriggle out of it. Um, well, Epsom, um… Would that get him to Guildford? Because if he got that far, then it looked like almost a straight run to Portsmouth. Though there was that time—he’d been by himself, not with Katie—when he’d ended up in Chichester. Though it wasn’t far from there to Portsmouth. And if he did get lost again there was no-one to see him do it, was there? He shoved his bag in the back, remembered at the last minute to ring his daily and tell her he’d be away for a week, and went.

    Nobody recognised him when he had to stop for petrol, but actually it was sheer relief not to be recognised. Until fairly recently he’d only occasionally been recognised by a fan: he had done quite a lot of telly work, but nothing that had real popular appeal—except of course for his supporting rôle in Rosie’s series as “Macfarlane the Sexy Scot,” as one tabloid had labelled it. Fortunately the nickname hadn’t caught on: the first day back on set after the piece had come out had been quite embarrassing enough. His performance in Derry’s Ilya, My Brother had been very well received by the critics but very far from a box-office hit. He hadn't experienced what it was like to be besieged by a crowd of fans until the film of The Captain’s Daughter had come out. Just at first it had been wonderful to be a famous film star and have people rushing to get your autograph, but it had palled very quickly. Thank Christ he’d had the sense to get an unlisted phone number!

    He made it to Guildford but then got hopelessly lost. So he found a nice hotel and had lunch there quietly by himself, unrecognised. It was wonderful to be able to afford to. Euan thought of the very first time he’d eaten at a posh hotel, and swallowed a grin. He’d been eighteen: green as grass, in his first professional rôle in Edinburgh, and the director had taken the whole cast of the play out to celebrate a ravingly successful first night. It had been the first time he’d seen a full silver service with all the fol-de-rol. Carnations in little glass vases, real table napkins—quite.

    The meal was acceptable, if not startling, and he was damned hungry. He asked them not to provide the chips that went with the steak, so they brought a dish of boiled potatoes. Grimly he ignored them and ate steak that was a bit more done than he liked it and a green salad that was better than the British salads he remembered from his youth, but that was about all you could say of it. He didn’t have a glass of wine, there was no sense in asking to become a road statistic, was there? Not that the wine list looked particularly tempting. Possibly cheese or pudding wouldn’t have done all that much harm, but he didn’t want to start overeating just because he’d finished the stuff for Aubrey. So he just had a cup of bad coffee. Why was it the English could not make coffee? It was so easy to buy a nice Italian coffee-pot! He’d made the mistake of buying a horrible—and horribly expensive—percolator for himself, until David Walsingham, who’d done the music for both those two films of Derry’s, had wised him up. Walsingham was an up-himself shit—though he’d improved since taking up with Rosie’s cousin Dot—but he did know about food and drink. When he was filming in Australia Euan had seriously thought of Dot: she was so pretty, and bright, and cute; but fortunately he’d recognised that it would never have worked. She was far too strong-minded—bossy, even. He’d have done what he’d done with the equally strong-minded Katie: let her believe that he fully entered into all her plans: taking the line of least resistance, which was one of his besetting sins, and, another of his besetting sins, conforming to the norm of whatever group he happened to be in—never mind if it was a group of only two. He might even have managed to maintain the masquerade for some time, but soon or later it would all have come crashing down around their ears.

    Euan was rather wryly aware that he was getting too fond of his besetting sins—running the risk of becoming proud of them, in fact. He made a face at the awful coffee and abandoned it, leaving only a very moderate tip.

    The food had brightened him up, however, and he found the right road without much difficulty, and turned the BMW’s snout for Portsmouth. It was a fine, crisp autumn day: he let the windows down, but was still far from regretting the Porsche. Never mind the media’s endless images of Rodeo Drive: open-topped cars did not make one glamorous, they gave one raging sunburn and blinding headaches. They possibly did pull endless bird, but Euan had always had that. He’d lost interest in the mindless sort in his mid-twenties, the ambitious sort terrified him and the bossy sort had to be very, very pretty—like Katie and Dot, yes—for him not to run like the wind. What was left? Well, the domestic sort, he supposed, but his lifestyle didn't throw up many of those. And those he had met tended to be either mindless or naggers. Or bossy naggers, like Gordy’s wife. Molly was the only woman he’d met in a very long time who was bright, pretty, not ambitious and not bossy. And he liked her: he’d liked her from the very beginning!

    Euan drove on happily, not asking himself why, if he liked Molly that much, he hadn’t asked her to come down to his cottage with him, at least for the weekend.

    Terri got up early that morning. Colin was still asleep—she knew now that he often slept late, because his bad leg meant that he often found it hard to drop off. Rosie, Belinda Stout and Mrs Mason had all told her she ought to make him take his painkillers. Terri, however, knew she was incapable of making anybody take anything. Added to which, it was his business, wasn’t it? She made herself some coffee and toast, very quietly, with the kitchen door closed. Then she washed her dishes, rinsed the coffee-pot she’d bought for him in Portsmouth—he hadn't had a coffee-pot, how could anybody possibly live without real coffee?—refilled it, put it on the stove and left him a note. “Dear Colin, The ground coffee and the water are in the pot. Please turn the heat to ‘High’ and the coffee will make itself for you. I shall see you at lunchtime. Please do not fear to eat the last of the marmalade, as I shall buy some more on my way home. Terri.” Was that exact enough? Last time she had left a note saying there was coffee in the pot, Colin had said he’d looked and there wasn’t, so he’d just had dust—which was what he called instant coffee. On investigation she’d realised he meant there was no made coffee in the top part! But she wouldn’t have dreamed of leaving him cold coffee that he’d have to heat up in a pan! Besides, it would be horrid, reheated coffee was terrible! The note would have to do—she couldn’t see how to make it clearer. She picked up her basket and let herself out of the cottage very quietly.

    The High Street was quiet: most of the shops weren’t open yet. Certainly not the stupid Bakery. Wouldn’t it be lovely to be able to buy hot rolls for breakfast? Apparently one didn’t, in England. However, Mr Hopgood was just opening up, so Terri crossed over, smiling. He was very pleased to see her and told her that Maureen had tried out that stew recipe with the wine and the olive oil, it was lovely!

    “Good, I’m so glad. And did she manage to find the shop with the chorizos, Mr Hopgood?”

    “Tom,” he corrected. “No, so she just used some salami instead. It was good and garlicky!” he assured her, grinning.

    Terri smiled uncertainly. That was not the whole point of chorizos. “I see. I have here the recipe from my cousin’s cook. But I’m not sure it’s quite correct, because he can’t write very well.”

    “No, well, Spanish, isn’t he?” said Tom kindly, holding out his hand for it.

    “No, I meant in Spanish! You see, he had to tell it to my cousin Seve and then he had to translate it, so that Joanie could write it down in English.”

    Grinning broadly, Tom acknowledged that he’d got it, and read it over to himself. “Jesus,” he said numbly. “Smoked?”

    “Seve thought that you might want the complete instructions.”

    Tom nodded numbly. “Uh—yeah. Well, I’ll need ’em, yeah.” He rubbed his broad chin. “Uh—well, Jack Powell’s been known to smoke a few fish, maybe he could give me a hand.”

    “Yes, I’m sure!” she said eagerly. “There’s a man who smokes fish?”

    “Off and on,” admitted Tom. “I can give you his number.”

    “Oh, excellent! Thank you very much!”

    Obligingly Tom wrote it down on a piece of butcher’s paper for her. “Haven’t seen him up at Euan Keel’s cottage, then?”

    “No,” said Terri, reddening.

    “Thought ’e might’ve asked him to do a bit more to it—apparently not. Today’s the day he’s due, eh?”

    “Yes,” said Terri a trifle limply, though she did know that villages were all like that. “I would like some lean beef, please, Mr—Tom. And some soup bones.”

    “Georgia and Roger back, are they?” said Tom amiably, heaving a hunk of beef onto the chopping block.

    “No—the cousin with the little dog?” said Terri, smiling. “He sounds so sweet! No, I have not met her yet.”

    “Uh-huh,” he grunted, attacking the meat. “You could have a dog yaself!” he said loudly.

    “But I—I do not live in my own house,” said Terri feebly.

    “Don’t think Colin’d mind: he seems pretty easy-going,” said Tom, casually dumping four kilos or so of beef onto the scales. “Call it six pound, okay?”

    Terri could see, though she found the English measures very confusing, that it was considerably more than that. “No—”

    “Six pound,” he said firmly. “Beef bones do yer? For soup, are they?”

    “Initially, I shall make a stock. Then I shall use some for soup, yes.”

    He smiled at little at the correct English, but fetched some beef bones and obligingly sawed them up. She was thrilled to see they had marrow in them. Well, he liked it himself, but Maureen reckoned it was fattening. He wouldn’t have said it to everyone, but after all she was Rosie’s cousin—well, near enough—and a really nice girl, it wasn’t everyone that’d go to all the bother of writing to their relations abroad just because you’d expressed a casual interest in the way they made sausages over there. Well, yeah, Rosie had got Maureen her mum’s recipe for apricot chicken all the way from Australia—but there ya were! “Marrow’s supposed to be fattening, ya know, Terri.”

    “Yes, but I shall be careful not to have it every day. And it will greatly enrich the stock.”

    Sweet, wasn’t she? And not bad-looking now she was over that strawberry allergy. Just as well their season was over, he didn’t think Mr Euan Fancy-Pants Keel’d want a face like that opening Quince Tree Cottage’s door to him. Which reminded him.

   “Uh, Maureen was wondering about a few quinces, Terri. That is, if you don’t need them,” he added quickly, going rather red in spite of himself.

    “I shall have to ask Mr Keel, of course,” she said seriously.

    Tom blinked. Not only because of the “Mr.” “Uh—yeah. ’Course.”

    “But I think it will be perfectly all right!” she beamed.

    Good, ’cos otherwise Maureen’d have to do what she’d done ever since her old Gran had grudgingly coughed up her recipe for quince jelly: nip round to Medlars Lane when the dump was empty and Ma Granville Thinnes might be expected not to be spying from her front windows. The first being easy and the second not: Guess Who was the mug that hadda keep watch on the High Street and report when the cow had driven herself in to Portsmouth in that Beamer her and him drove to the imminent danger of— Yeah, well. He thanked Terri, assured her he would give the Spanish sausages a go—why not, every man had to have a hobby—parcelled up her meat and bones, throwing in a couple of chicken carcasses for good measure—he wasn’t a poulterer but he’d given in: the ruddy retirees more or less lived off chicken breasts and lamb chops—and came to the door to see her off, unaware that he was beaming all over his face.

    Quince Tree Cottage was deserted and peaceful, exactly as she’d left it. There was very little furniture in it—presumably Mr Keel did realise that? Today, however, the bed was supposed to be delivered, and one of the reasons Terri had come over so early was that she was determined not to miss it. She opened most of the downstairs windows to air the place and hurried upstairs to do those windows, too. It was wonderful up here, you could lean out of the window right into the old tree… Terri came to with a jump, realising she’d been day-dreaming amidst the scent of the ripe quinces. The stock needed to go on, and she’d grill those peppers and make a nice salad, just in case he got here in time for lunch. It was such a pity there was no greengrocer in Bellingford! The ones in Portsmouth had quite a wide selection of fruit and vegetables, however—though the fruit seemed terribly dear in comparison to what it was at home. And unfortunately she hadn’t been able to buy any Seville oranges. The lady in that shop had thought she wanted them for marmalade and had been stunned when Terri had said no, for soup. It was an excellent soup recipe, one of her grandmother’s—one of the recipes that Grandmother always did herself, not permitting Maria, who worked for her, to go near it. Naturally it required a good beef stock. Oh, well, she could do something else.

    The bones were simmering, the larger portion of the beef was in a marinade, the peppers were grilled, peeled, and in the fridge, and she was just wondering whether she should rush over to Colin’s to give him his lunch when there was a loud knock at the door. Out in the lane a large van was visible. Thank goodness, the men with Mr Keel’s bed! Terri rushed to the door.

    Help, the bed was huge! The two men brought it in, and then, shouting at each other, managed to get the mattress upstairs. Then there was silence up there. Terri went up timidly. They were standing in the larger bedroom, scowling. The mattress was against the wall.

    “Thank you so much! That is excellent!” she said quickly.

    They didn’t smile, in fact they scowled. Help, hadn't she said the right thing?

    “Look, lady,” said the bigger one in menacing tones: “that bed’ll never go in ’ere!”

    “Buh-but—” Terri looked limply from the upright mattress to the floor space. It seemed to her that there was room for it. “He said, it should, um,”—help, had he said “go” or “be”? “Go” didn’t seem grammatically correct, did it?—“um, that it should be under the window,” she said limply.

    “Dare say ’e might of, lady, only if you got a way of getting it up that apology for a staircase and in ’ere, I’d like to ’ear it!”

    “Yuh-yes?” she faltered. “Oh! The—the wooden part of the bed is—is too big?”

    The smaller, thinner man at this said: “Yeah. See, the mattress, it bends, only reason we got it rahnd that fucking corner at the top of the stairs. Beds don’t—or not when I went to school!” he ended on a note of triumph.

    Terri stared at him perplexedly. “Oh! I see. Buh-but what shall we do? The bed cannot stay down there!”

    “It can’t ruddy well come up ’ere, that’s for sure!” replied the larger man aggressively.

    “He told me it must be in here. I—I think he will be very angry,” faltered Terri.

    The thinner man sniffed. “Shouldn’t of let ’im buy it in the first place.”

    “But I did not let him buy it!” she cried. “I am just the au pair!”

    “Well, someone should of stopped ’im,” he said drily.

    “He is a spinster,” said Terri wanly.

    There was a short silence.

    “You mean a bachelor. We say ‘bachelor’ in England,” said the larger man on a more tolerant note. “Foreigner, are yer?”

    “I am half English but I grew up in Spain.”

    “Got bigger bedrooms over there, do they?” he said drily.

    Terri looked round the little upstairs room with its low, sloping ceiling, and thought of her grandmother’s gloomy, high-ceilinged house and nodded vigorously.

    “Yeah,” he said drily. “Well, nothing short of dismantling it’s gonna get that bedstead up ’ere. But that’s not our job, see? We deliver and we put it where we’re told. If it’s ’umanly possible,” he noted.

    “That’s right,” agreed the thinner man. “Only it ain’t. And guess whose fault it’d be if we knocked chunks orf that new plaster of yours?”

    “Not if you were doing your best, I think,” said Terri uncertainly.

    He snorted. “And a half! We orf, then, Bert?”

    “Yeah. Well, she can sign we delivered it and it won’t go up the fucking stairs.”

    Limply Terri signed where he said and showed them both out, not daring to offer them a cuppa. Oh, dear, and she’d thought that English people were so kind and friendly! Maybe it was only the villagers. She looked sadly at the huge bedstead. It must be a king-size bed: what had possessed him to buy a thing that size? Though it was only a divan bed, it wasn’t as if it had a giant headboard and footboard like Grandmother’s beds. Maybe she could—er, no. A very silly idea.

    Well, at least it had come, she could stop worrying that it wouldn’t be delivered, and go over to Colin’s to give him his lunch. She turned off the heat under the stock, conscientiously closed all the windows, collected the portion of the meat that was for Colin, and hurried off.

    Colin was sitting in his garden, with a glass of beer—the weather was still very mild, according to the locals. It wasn’t nearly as warm as it was at home at this time of year, but at least he was wearing a warm sweater. “Forgotten something?” he said mildly to her.

    “No, I have come to give you your lunch.”

    “I thought you’d gone over there for the day.”

    “But no! Naturally I would not desert you!”

    He scratched his beard. “Er—yes. We’d better work out some sort of schedule, I think, Terri. You find out what hours Euan’s going to expect you to be on deck for him, and I’ll work in with that.”

    “Ye-es… I’m sorry, Colin, I don’t quite understand. Mr Keel has not asked me to be on his boat.”

     Colin gaped at her. “Oh! On deck! Sorry, Terri, it’s a figure of speech. No boats involved. It just means—um, well, available.”

    “Yes. How very silly of me!” she gasped.

    “No, it’s a silly expression. Well, shows we’re a nation of sailors after all, eh?”

    “I’ve read that in a book,” said Terri thankfully.

    “And never expected it to be proven in quite such a painful way, eh?” he said, twinkling at her. “Bread and cheese’ll be fine for me, don’t worry.”

    “You have finished the Stilton and there is only cheddar,” replied Terri.

    “Fine: let it be mousetrap,” he said, grinning.

    “Are there mice? I’ll buy a mousetrap immediately.”

    “No, mousetrap cheese means ordinary cheddar.”

    Terri took a deep breath. “Very well, Colin: in that case please hold your horses, for I shall be on deck with a meal of bread and mousetrap very soon.”

    Colin gave a shout of laughter and she went into the cottage, looking very pleased with herself.

    What with the English metaphors and the discovery that he hadn't touched the marmalade even though she’d told him it was all right—Why was he so polite? Didn’t he realise that food was there to be eaten?—it wasn’t until she was hurrying back to Quince Tree Cottage that it dawned that perhaps she could have asked Colin what to do about the huge bed that wouldn’t go upstairs. Oh, dear! But on the other hand, he might have tried to move it— No, with his bad leg, that would never do. She hurried into the cottage, tried not to look at the bedstead, and went into the kitchen. The stock smelled all right, but she’d boil it up again in any case…

    Euan got to the cottage in the late afternoon. He had managed to navigate himself through Portsmouth without any trouble and this had gone a slight way towards counteracting the resurgent nervousness at having to deal with this Spanish au pair. What if she was the sort of cretin that mooned at you? Or had virtually no English? Or both? He parked clear of the quince—he didn’t want muck all over the car, as had happened on the fatal occasion on which he’d ignored Katie’s advice about parking—and went up the short, cracked crazy-paving path.

    The door opened to the most wonderful smell! Euan smiled. “Hullo!” he called. Nothing. He went in. The bedstead he’d ordered in London was leaning against the wall. Oh, Hell! He looked round limply. He’d sort of overlooked the fact that the cottage no longer possessed the furniture he’d once put in it. Damn, he’d have to buy some more, what a bore. The call of the wonderful smell was, however, too strong for him and he went through to the kitchen. A huge pot stood on the stove. He raised the lid, and smiled. Without giving it an instant’s thought, he outed with the mobile phone and dialled bloody Derry at the villa.

    “Allô! Qui est à l’appareil?” he shouted angrily.

    “It isn’t a local, Derry, it’s me, Euan. Guess where I am?” he said, grinning.

    “The fucking woman’s let Marie-Noëlle leave!” shouted Derry.

    “Hullo and good evening to you, too,” agreed Euan, grinning. “Had a row, did they?” Marie-Noëlle was Derry’s cook. As Linda was supremely uninterested in cuisine, and Derry was hardly ever there, it wasn’t surprising she’d left.

    “She’s on a bloody low-fat vegetarian diet,” he revealed grimly.

    “Then in Marie-Noëlle’s shoes, I’d have left, too. I’m standing in the kitchen of Quince Tree Cottage next to a pot of real, genuine beef stock!”

    “Get FUCKED!” shouted Derry, hanging up.

    Euan grinned. The phone wasn’t even back in his pocket before it rang again. “Hullo, Derry,” he said smoothly.

    “I’ll come over there!”

    “No, you won’t, Derry.”

    “But I can’t eat bloody low-fat yoghurt! Listen, I’ll come over there and we can talk about the new Daughter—map out a strategy. My feeling is—”

    “No, you won’t, Derry.”

    “But we need a foil for the Daughter!”

    “I thought the twin was going to be a foil for the Daughter?”

    “That was just a stupid idea of Brian’s,” he lied grimly.

    “I thought it was a bloody good idea. You’ll need to do something different to keep your audience, especially if you insist on continuing the one-hour episode format. I’d like to discuss it, and I do have some ideas about a foil for the Daughter, but this week,” he said firmly, “I am on holiday. And do not come. Bye-bye!” He hung up.

    The phone rang again. Euan looked at it. As programmed, it reported faithfully: “Bloody Derry.” Heartlessly he switched it off.

    He looked around a trifle blankly. Ah! A note! He grabbed it up. “Dear Mr Keel, I am at Medlar Cottage. Mr Granville Thins has seen a fox. I shall not be long, Yours sincerely, Terri Johnson.” Apparently she hadn't yet been wised up to the fact that though it was pronounced “Thins” it was spelled “Thinnes.” Well, at least she seemed to be able to write English.

    He dithered, and then went down there.

    There was no answer when he knocked. He went round to the back where the mean old bastard kept his famous pheasants. Right at the back of the property two backs were bent over, doing something with a roll of wire netting.

    “Good afternoon,” he said drily. “I think you’ve got my au pair.”

    Mr Granville Thinnes straightened. “Mr Keel! Good afternoon! Miss Johnson was so good as to give me a hand.”

    The view of broad bum shrouded in a black tent was now replaced by a view of a flushed, round-faced, smiling young woman in a black tent. “Mr Granville Thinnes has seen a fox!”

    “Yes,” said Euan, smiling in spite of himself. “So I gather.”

    The thin, shrivelled-looking Mr Granville Thinnes stated grimly: “I had no idea there were foxes round here.”

    No, but if he ever spoke to the people from Mill Lane or even Dipper Street—or to anybody, apart from the choicest of the retirees—he would have had. The foxes came from up the top of Upper Mill Lane. Euan knew precisely which of the inhabitants up there encouraged them. He eyed him drily. “Aye, well, now that they’ve discovered you, your poultry will need proper fox-proofing. If you’ve finished with Miss Johnson, I’d quite like to have her back.”

    “He needed someone to hold the end of the wire netting for him,” explained Terri.

    “Right. Mrs Granville Thinnes out, is she?”

    Mr Granville Thinnes agreed that she had gone over to Portsmouth, admitted he could manage now, thanked Terri for her help, said how pleased they were to see Mr Keel back in Medlars Lane, didn’t offer a brace of pheasant as a thank-you for the use of Euan’s au pair, and let them go.

    “I’m sorry, Mr Keel,” said Terri in a small voice.

    “That’s okay!” said Euan with a laugh, opening the front gate of Medlar Cottage for her. “The thing is, the old bastard’s too mean to offer his pheasants locally.”

    “I know. Tom Hopgood has told me. But I—I could not refuse to help,” she said anxiously.

    Euan looked at the big, worried dark eyes and smiled. “Och, of course you couldna! No-one could! But I just didn’t want to give him the impression that we loved him!”

    “No. The bed has come but the bedstead will not go upstairs,” she said abruptly.

    “Aye, I saw,” replied Euan mildly. “I measured the bedroom but I didna think of the stairs. We’ll work something out.”

    “The man said that nothing short of dismantling will get it upstairs,” she reported on a dubious note.

    “Then I’ll dismantle it,” replied Euan calmly.

    “Oh! Is that the verb?” said Terri in tones of huge relief.

    He smiled. “Yes. What’s that wonderful stock you’re making for?”

    “I thought you might like a clear soup. But as there were no Seville oranges in Portsmouth, it cannot be the recipe for orange soup which my grandmother has taught me.”

    “What a pity!” he said with a laugh. “But a plain consommé would be fine.”

    “Yes,” said Terri thankfully, sagging. “So you do use that word, in England?”

    “Aye—well, I certainly do,” said Euan, not pointing out that as a matter of fact, he was a Scot. His eyes twinkled. “Who was it: Rosie? Did she just say ‘Eh?’ or give you the full Australian ‘What the Hell’s that, when it’s at home?’”

    Terri bit her lip, trying not to laugh: he had sounded very like her. “No, it was not her, but the woman in the greengrocery in Portsmouth.”

    “Where you failed to buy the Seville oranges—aye!” He opened the front door for her. “Go in, Miss Johnson.”

    She thanked him nicely and went in, and Euan, who had determined he would keep things on a formal basis with the Spanish au pair, never mind if she was some sort of connection of Rosie’s, said nicely: “No need to stand on ceremony: shall we make it Terri and Euan?”

    “Thank you, Euan,” she said meekly.

    Euan looked at his meek, plump, olive-skinned au pair in her black tent and said cheerfully: “Now, Terri: lead me to this bedstead and we’ll see what needs to be done!”

    “It is just there,” said Terri limply.

    “Och, no! Is that it?” he said in astonishment.

    Gratifyingly, his Spanish au pair collapsed in giggles.

    “What was that?” croaked Isabel Potter, her eyes bolting from her head.

    Jim scratched his chin. “Either I’m dreaming or it was Euan Keel buying a hammer and a set of spanners.”

    Isabel nodded hard, her eyes bolting from her head. “He was with Terri,” she croaked.

    “Ya mean, he was with Terri and he was smiling,” he corrected drily.

    Isabel nodded hard, her eyes bolting from her head.

    “Looks like we might be in for an interesting autumn,” he drawled.

    Isabel nodded hard, her eyes bolting from her head.

    “Yeah, well, if she humanises him a bit, it’s probably all that that can be hoped for.”

    “Jim, he offered us some quinces off his own bat!” she croaked.

    “He’ll probably make her pick them, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

    “What about Molly?” she croaked.

    Jim had overlooked that complication. “Oh, well, wait and see!” he concluded, grinning.