Clouds Of Cousins

2

Clouds Of Cousins

    The Haworths stood in Moulder’s Way, looking silently at the three unrenovated cottages which, it had just been revealed, were the property of John Haworth, Capt., R.N.

    After quite some time his wife managed to say: “John, it’s not that I mind that ya never told me you’re a bloated capitalist landowner, but what’s it gonna do to my sociological study of the village?”

    The Captain bit his lip. “Mm. Well, I’m not assigning blame, darling, but if you remember, you embarked on that, or at least decided to do it, without warning me.”

    “We weren’t even engaged back then!” cried Rosie, going very red.

    John shifted John Frederick Bernard Haworth, aka Baby Bunting, to his other shoulder and took her hand, squeezing it rather hard. “No. As I say, I’m not assigning blame.”

    “Greg’ll throw ten fits,” she warned glumly.

    Balls. Greg Singh was Rosie’s research assistant, the recently completed M.A. being a reliable indicator of his age, sophistication, and ability to stand up to Dr L.R. Marshall, M.A., Ph.D., Research Fellow at London University and, never mind the pink cheeks and golden curls, pretty hard case. Not that she hadn't needed to be, growing up in a typical Sydney suburb with ambitions to get a Ph.D. and be a sociologist. “Mm,” he agreed neutrally.

    “Look, even discussing anything to do with the cottages is a no-no, it’ll skew my results!”

    “Mm,” he murmured.

    “They are in it, ya know,” she warned, scowling at the cottages.

    Well, yes: the whole of Bellingford and Upper Bellingford was in the study, with the exception of their own old cottage, isolated on its own little bay over the hill from Bellingford proper, and the two new cottages he’d recently put up alongside it. “Yes, I know, Rosie. I’m sorry. The thing is, I thought that if I, um, well, just laid low and did nuffin’—not letting them or doing them up or anything—until you’d completed the research, it—”

    “Might not be noticed!” she snapped.

    “No: couldn’t affect the results,” he said glumly.

    Rosie drew a deep breath.

    “I know: skewing them in the opposite direction.” He got out the keys. The three cottages, like most of Moulder’s Way, were built to the same pattern: two storeys, two rooms up and two down, with the kitchen a lean-to at the back and the bathroom built over it. “Well, these are they, Rosie.”

    “Yeah. Which one do you think Colin could have?”

    John drew a deep breath. Rosie seemed to be convinced that R&R in deepest rural Hampshire would be sure to fix Colin up. “Whichever one he prefers. But he won’t be out of hospital for months yet. Remember how long your broken leg took to heal? And he had that bash on the head as well. –They’re all basically the same, Rosie. Oh, except that the third one’s kitchen was repainted in the Sixties.”

    Immediately Rosie dragged him off to look at it: Colin might like it better!

    In the kitchen of Number 11 Moulder’s Way, she looked round the nightmare of orange, lemon and green and announced with satisfaction: “This is nice and bright!”

    It was bright, all right. “Yes. Late Sixties, one would imagine,” he managed. The cupboard doors, in particular, were frightful: the inspired decorator had covered them in some sort of plastic substance in a swirly, not quite Paisley pattern in the three shades. No, actually four: there was a lime green in there, flickering hideously, as well as the dark green which featured amongst the orange and lemon in the flickering pattern of, possibly, boxes, on the floor. John opened a cupboard and investigated the dried, curling edges of this plastic sub—

    “Don’t,” said his wife in an iron voice.

    “But—Oh,” he said with a silly grin. “Pristine condition—no skewing of results: right.” He watched with considerable enjoyment as she bent over, giving a very good display of that perfect bum that bloody Derry Dawlish had featured in The Captain’s Daughter in all those shots of putatively Fifties bikinis, genuine Fifties one-piece bathing-togs, tennis panties under abbreviated tennis skirts, so-called play-suits calculated to have a more direct effect on the average red-blooded male than a double dose of Viagra, and outright knickers. The bum was still perfect, even though today it was merely clad in a pair of very old, very worn, and very soft black tracksuit pants. He put his hand on it, on the strength of them.

    “Ooh! Um, I know what this is.”

    “Temptation?” he murmured.

    “You’ll shock Baby Bunting!” she said with a laugh. “No, this pattern. It’s a quilt pattern.”

    Handiwork of any kind was a completely closed book to Rosie. John had to swallow. “Oh?” he managed to croak.

    “Yeah. I’ve seen a quilt with the very same pattern in Le Petit Cabinet de Carole!”

    This was the extremely arty-tarty crafts shop in the High Street. “That explains it,” he said, squeezing the bum gently.

    “Ooh! Um, better not, what if somebody came?”

    “It is our property, darling: Somebody would be trespassing,” he murmured, squeezing again. “Far from them doing us for indecent exposure or conduct unbecoming”—his wife gave a smothered gurgle—“we could do them for being a Peeping Tuh—Jesus!” he gasped as there came a thunderous knock at the front door.

    Rosie straightened hurriedly. “See? The village is full of Peeping Jesuses, what planet you been living on for the last thirty years?”

    “Planet Sea Duty,” Captain Haworth, R.N., admitted with a grimace. “Who the Hell—”

    “Ya won’t know if ya don’t answer it, John.”

    Resignedly he went off to answer the door.

    It was a middle-aged woman he’d never seen in his life, somewhat unsuitably clad, given the unseasonable weather and the rural obscurity of Bellingford, in a peacock-blue afternoon dress, complete with drapings over the large bust and a well-sized, glittering brooch on the shoulder. And the high-heeled shoes to match.

    “Oh! Good morning, Captain Haworth! It is you!” she trilled.

    “Yes. Good morning,” he said cautiously.

    “Actually it’s almost noon,” said his wife’s voice from just behind him. “Hullo, Mrs Mason,” she said, joining John in the doorway.

    “Good morning, Mrs Haworth!” beamed the woman. “I thought it was you! I said to John—my John, of course!” she assured John Haworth with a coy laugh: “that looks like the Captain and Mrs Haworth going up the path of Number 11: now, could it be? Because last summer we had some horrid people that tried to squat, you know!”

    Last summer the Haworths had been in Australia, filming The Captain’s Daughter, but Rosie agreed immediately: “Yes; down at Number 3.”

    John had to swallow—not because she’d caught up with local events to that extent, he was in no doubt she would have done so even without the excuse of the sociological study, she was that sort of person—but for God’s sake, Number 3 Moulder’s Way had three walls and part of a roof! Any squatters’d be welcome to it!

    Nodding, Mrs Mason added that the place was a disgrace, such a pity to see such an excellent site going to waste—and did they have any idea who owned it?

    Very probably Rosie did: she and Greg had done endless title searches—either of them would now have qualified for a decent job doing conveyancing in a country solicitor’s office. Oddly enough he had a feeling that Greg’s father would be quite pleased to learn the fellow had settled down to anything as sensible as conveyanc— Yes, well.

    “I’m afraid not,” he said as his wife was smiling blankly and shaking her curly head.

    “John owns this one and Number 7 and Number 9,” said Rosie helpfully. “Not as him, it’s a company or something, his accountant set it up.”

    “Of course!” she beamed. “So, you’re thinking of letting them, Captain?”

    “No,” said Rosie immediately.

    Mrs Mason’s face fell. “Not selling?” she ventured.

    “No, he doesn’t believe in letting property go out of the family,” said Rosie in a firm voice.

    This was true, but John had never expected her to retain it. Possibly not noticing his startled blink, Mrs Mason rejoined eagerly: “Very wise, very wise indeed, Captain! Well, just inspecting them, then? John—my John!”—coy laugh—“was saying they seem to be in very good condition. I must say it is rather a pity to let them stand empty.”

    “We were more or less inspecting them, mm,” agreed John in the faint hope of shaking the woman off, not to say getting home for lunch. “We think one of my cousins might like to stay in one.”

    “Well! A cousin! How very nice!”

    “Two,” contradicted Rosie. “We don’t know for sure they’re both nice.”

    It was Mrs Mason’s turn to blink.

    “One of them’s in hospital, John thinks he won’t be able to come for ages,” she explained with her blinding smile. “The other one could turn out to be anything, John’s never even met him. He’s an American, but he’s a drop-out sort of American, not like the rest of them that went over there.”—John opened his mouth to say that one had gone over there, his mother’s cousin Diane, and thought better of it.—“If he turns out to be noisy or anything like that, you’ll be sure and let us know, won’t you?”

    Hurriedly Mrs Mason assured them she was quite, quite sure that a cousin of the Captain’s wouldn’t be a noisy neighbour.

    “You never know,” rejoined Rosie darkly: “he might own a Harley.”

    “Darling, Luke doesn’t own a Harley, he’s on a walking tour,” said John feebly.

    This apparently washed over Mrs Mason: she immediately launched into the saga of “that awful Potter man” from Number 10.

    “Yes,” said Rosie with her lovely smile as the woman paused for breath, temporarily damming the flow: “they are terribly noisy bikes, aren’t they? But actually, in spite of that five o’clock shadow, Bob Potter’s always been very nice to me. He gave Baby Bunting a little ride on the bike, didn’t he, Baby Bunting?”

    “Mum, Mum,” replied the offspring sleepily from John’s shoulder.

    “Isn’t he a-dor-a-ble! But on the motorbike, Mrs Haworth? Was that wise?”

    “He just sat him on it, he didn’t actually make it go.”—Technical, approved her husband, biting his lip slightly.—“But it was fun, wasn’t it, Baby Bunting? Ya sat on a big bikey! –And I tell ya what, that can last him until he’s twenty-one!” she said threateningly to her husband.

    “Darling, he is twenty-one,” he floundered.

    “Eh? No, ya nana! Not twenty-one months, twenty-one years, and old enough to realise that ruddy Harleys lead to speeding and death!” she retorted vigorously.

    The unfortunate Mrs Mason was now completely reduced to silence—in fact she was looking helplessly from one to the other of them.

    “Yes. I gather the Australian roads are even more frightful than ours—very much longer distances, you see,” John said nicely to her. “And for my part, I’d be happy to see it his last ride on a Harley until he’s fifty-one, Rosie.”

    “Yes,” she said, the flush dying away. “Wouldja, John? Good on ya.”

    “Absolutely,” offered Mrs Mason, faint but pursuing. “So the Australian roads are worse than ours, then?”

    “I think so, Mrs Mason,” she agreed, grimacing.

    This of course gave the woman the opportunity to reply eagerly: “Oh, but please call me Rowena!”

    Rosie nodded happily. “I’m Rosie. Rowena’s a very pretty name; I don’t think I know of anyone else called Rowena.”

    “And I’m John,” said John quickly, before it could become glaringly apparent to the woman that his wife wasn’t going to bother.

    Bridling with pleasure, Rowena Mason agreed she’d call him John, remarking by the way that it was such a coincidence that their husbands were both called John, wasn’t it, Rosie? And so Baby Bunting was twenty-one whole months, was he? Wozza precious, den! And was he walking?

    This was a sore point: Rosie cousin Wendalyn’s little Kieran had walked very early, whereas Baby Bunting appeared to be taking after his Uncle Terence, who hadn't taken a step until he was two.

    “No,” said Rosie on a sour note. “He can stand, but he won’t try to walk.”

    “Darling, his Uncle Terence didn’t walk until he was—”

    “We know! –Sorry Rowena, didn’t mean to shout.”

    “Not at all, my dear! But it’s nothing at all to worry about, you know—” Many instances of slow walkers who had turned out brilliantly in later life were cited. “No, well, when they do start they’re into everything, of course—quite exhausting! But then, you’ve got your nanny, of course!”

    Doubtless the whole village knew the Haworths had a nanny, and very probably Rowena Mason had actually met Yvonne, but nevertheless she then urged Rosie on to divulge the whole story, which she did with great readiness, the facts of Yvonne’s coming from Jersey and being a qualified hairdresser and make-up artist and having been her Personal Dresser during the television series before she became their nanny all having to be exclaimed over.

    This was followed up with further details, solicited and unsolicited, about John’s two cousins. Rather fortunately Rosie didn’t know all that much, and certainly nothing about Colin’s love life, the which would have made an exceedingly juicy, not to say long story, but Luke Beaumont’s involved history, including the stint on a trawler, the canning factory in Canada, grape-picking in California—she’d got that wrong, it was Europe, but John, thinking of his lunch, didn’t bother to correct her—the obligatory ashram in India, the mining in Australia and the organic cotton farming in Central America, was faithfully retailed. Rowena Mason obviously didn’t know whether to express horror or not, the more so as Rosie then immediately assured her he had a degree in civil engineering from MIT. Ending: “Only he’s never done anything with it.”

    He got her away at last, but only at the cost of promising to come to tea with Rowena and John Mason tomorrow afternoon as ever was.

    “Rosie, I was looking forward to a Sunday at home with you and Baby Bunting!”

    “Oh, shit. Sorry. Well, um, afternoon tea won’t take all that long. I can’t see why ya don’t wanna go, it won’t be worse than afternoon tea with anybody else.”

    He took a deep breath. “Tell me in words of one syllable why you want to go, please!”

    “I haven’t been before,” said his wife simply.

    John felt his choler rise. “You mean it’ll give you the chance to inspect the woman’s house for your ruddy statistics!”

    “Ssh! Um, well, I will probably make a few notes afterwards, yeah. But I’d of accepted anyway: I like going to people’s places.”

    “Mm. Sorry, Rosie. Didn’t mean to be grumpy,” he said, taking her hand and squeezing it hard. “I need my lunch!”

    “Yeah,” she agreed mildly.

     They walked on in contented silence for few moments. Then she said: “I’m not absolutely sure that there’s anything for lunch.”

    “I can always dash up to the Superette,” he replied calmly.

    “Thanks, John. Me and Greg sort of got absorbed, all day yesterday. I was gonna ask Yvonne if she’d mind doing a bit of shopping, but I think I forgot. I do remember thinking about it.”

    “Mm. Never mind.”

    Rosie squeezed his hand and smiled him. “Wasn’t it interesting that her name’s Rowena?”

    Fascinating. “Yes,” he managed.

    They walked on in companionable silence, until, round about the top of Harriet Burleigh Street, Baby Bunting started to whinge. It was a horrible sort of “Mee-ah, mee-a-ah,” sound, calculated to drive the average adult insane in very short order.

    “Damp?” asked Rosie in a voice of doom.

    “I’d say both damp and hungry.—“Mee-ah, mee-a-ah! Mee-ah, mee-a-ah!”—“Ssh, Baby Bunting! Dada’s got you! Soon be home!”

    “Waa—aa-aaa!” he roared, suddenly turning purple.

    “Decided he hates Dada,” noted his mother.

    “Yes, the parental inability to magic up food from out of thin air can result in— Where are you going?” he gasped as she suddenly swerved towards a cottage gate.

    “Pam Melly’s place. Come on, John!”

    John just stood there and goggled with the roaring Baby Bunting on his shoulder as she headed up the short garden path of a completely strange cottage. No, well, the cottage itself wasn’t strange: mercifully unrestored, unlike its neighbours, but—

    “I don’t know any Mellys, Rosie.”

    “You do! Seaman Melly!” she retorted fiercely. “Come on!”

    There had been over a thousand men serving on John’s last ship. Numbly he tottered after her.

    Pam Melly looked no more than sixteen to John, but then, he knew he was past it as far as today’s fashions were concerned, not to mention the hairdoes: she seemed to have a knitting-needle in her untidy bun. She was very pleased to receive them, assured the Captain that Stan was at sea again, assisted capably in peeling the layers of padded waterproof trousers and waterproof nappy off the infant, provided a clean nappy—the same brand, John noticed dazedly—and into the bargain gave the still-whingeing Baby Bunting half a banana. It went into the gob immediately, the noise ceasing miraculously, and the big blue eyes shone.

    “We’ve been out too long,” explained Rosie, jigging the small Lily Rose Melly on her shoulder. “We stopped to chat with Mrs Mason—didja know her name’s Rowena? Isn’t that pretty?”

    Pam Melly thought it was very pretty and didn’t know of anyone called that…

    They did finally get away but it was a near-run thing: Pam had already told Rosie that there was stacks left over from her lunch.

    “Sir Walter Scott!” said John rather loudly.

    “Eh?”

    “One of the characters in Ivanhoe is called Rowena!”

    “Yeah, the dumb blonde that he ends up marrying. I can’t think of anyone else called Rowena, though, can you? And it wouldn’t of struck a chord with Pam or Mrs Mason, so I didn’t say it. –What’s up?”

    “Nothing, you incorrigible woman. It was an inspiration, the infant’s cheered up no end,” he admitted feebly.

    “’Course!” said Rosie cheerfully, taking his arm. “Come on!”

    Limply John came on: out of Harriet Burleigh Street and into the top, or westernmost end of the High Street, where there were no houses, through the gap in the hills and left, down the steep, unpaved track to their little south-facing bay. It took all of five minutes. Oh, well!

    There were no lights on in the cottage when he got home the following Monday. Denying to himself the anxiety that had immediately flooded him, John hurried inside. Yes, well. He switched the sitting-room lights on and the pair of them gasped, and straightened up from the blessed computers.

    “Go on, ask us if we’ve been buried in these computers all day,” his wife invited.

    Greg was looking sheepish. “I suppose we did forget to have lunch, Rosie,” he bleated.

    “Yeah, but given we didn’t forget to have a huge morning-tea with Sean, can it signify?”

    Sean Bates was not the long-lost brother of either of them, he was the blessed postie. They were at the end of his run, so— Forget it. He was the long-lost brother of both of them.

    Competently John sorted out that Rosie hadn’t thought what to have for dinner, produced the steak he’d got in Portsmouth, agreed there was enough for Greg (he hadn’t been intending to send him home to his lonely loft over the garage while they gorged themselves on steak, actually), squashed Rosie’s suggestion of sour cream with it with the remark that giving up the Lily Rose stuff was not an excuse for getting fat—not that there was any—and waited for Rosie’s inevitable squashing of Greg’s suggestion of yoghurt.

    “Leave it out, Greg! Your mum’s the only person in the entire universe that can make yoghurt taste good in anything!”

    Grinning, Greg replied: “Dad’s Jasmine Chicken’s not bad, either.”

    This did not indicate something very wrong with the nuclear Singh family, it merely indicated that Greg’s strict father was a professional cook: their restaurant, The Tabla, being conveniently situated just down the road from the Haworths’ London flat. Well, the flat that they shared with Rosie’s gay actor friend, Rupy Maynarde.

    Incautiously John agreed the jasmine chicken was wonderful, thus betraying he’d had it when he was in town last month for committee meetings at the Admiralty, provoking: “You wanker! Meantime Baby Bunting and me were stuck down at this dump, eating frozen fish fingers and flaming cabbage out of the garden because I couldn’t identify anything else of what assorted males have planted out there! And for sure there were no tomatoes, never mind that palaver that went on when you lot claimed you were planting them, there are no tomatoes!”

    “There are no large red, ripe fruits of the tomato plant ready to drop into the hand, true,” John agreed, opening the front door again. “Those pyramid-like structures laden with vines are, however, tomato plants.”

    “Thought you claimed they were bean poles?”

    “Not in the tomato patch,” he said, exiting hurriedly before she could throw something at him.

    Behind him he could quite clearly hear his wife saying exasperatedly: “Now where the fuck’s he gone?” And Greg replying limply: “Yvonne’s place. To get your son.”

    John hurried next-door, his shoulders shaking helplessly.

    The immediate post-prandial period in the Haworth home was of course enlivened by Rosie’s order to put the frying-pan in the ruddy dishwasher, John, it was what it was there for. And it wasn’t until quite some time later, when Greg had pushed off to his loft over the garage to watch sports on TV and they were sitting cosily in front of the fire, Rosie having pointed out loudly that, never mind if the calendar said it was June, this was the south coast of England, and John not having pointed out that he was going to light it anyway, that the Captain got around to saying nicely: “Was there any post today, darling?”

    “Uh—oh. Yeah, actually, think there might of been a large, official-looking envelope from an insurance company or something addressed to you, John. Where did I—?”

    He got up and helped her look.

    “They won’t be behind the curtains in the dinette, Jo—Oh. How the Hell did they get— Never mind, ya found them, Captain Leave-No-Stone-Unturned, good on ya!”

    “I think this might be from your cousin Wendalyn, darling.”

    “Ya mean it’s only got the exact postage in five hundred brightly-coloured Australian stamps? Right, that’s an Aunty Allyson gene. Awful round curly green writing?”—Silently he held it out. “Yeah. I don’t want it, it’ll be full of pics of Little Kieran and skiting as to how advanced Little Kieran is compared to Baby Bunting.” Scowl, scowl. “Like usual.”

    “I thought Little Kieran was sweet,” he said with a smile.

    Rosie was quite clearly affected by this smile, but nevertheless—taking no prisoners, as ever—retorted with: “Of course he is, John, he isn’t old enough yet to be ruined by ruddy Aunty Allyson and start acting out like Sickening Little Taylor!”

    “I’m not perfectly sure I know what ‘acting out’ means, darling, but you’re right, I’m afraid. But at the moment he’s sweet.”

    “Well, you read it, then, John.”

    He opened the fat envelope and a pile of Polaroids slid out and scattered all over the Persian rug. At the moment the rug was occupied by Tim, John’s big black retriever: he looked round at them mildly as they scrambled for the snaps.

    There was a short silence.

    “Are they?”

    “Er, no; actually they mostly seem to be of Sicken— Now you’ve got me doing it! Of Taylor in her ballet tutu. Oh, and tap costume,” he added weakly. “That’s new.”

    “That’d be right,” agreed Rosie, shuddering faintly and picking up another letter. “Cripes!”

    “Anything wrong, darling?”

    “I don’t think so. Um, ’member when we stopped over in Perth on our honeymoon?”

    As a matter of fact, he hadn't forgotten it completely: “Yes, wasn’t it lovely?” he said mildly. “A beautiful city. So that’s from one of your Western Australian relatives?”

    “Mm.” She swallowed. “Anna. Aunty Julia’s Anna, John.”

    He lowered Wendalyn’s letter and the pile of snaps. “Something wrong, Rosie?”

    The question was not wholly unjustified: Anna had been supposed to meet the Haworths at the train terminal after they’d crossed the Nullarbor Plain, Aunty Julia having been unable to, having a long-standing date with a plumber who was to fix the flood she was getting under her kitchen window every time she let the bath water out. They waited for some time but there was no sign of Anna, so John finally rang Julia. She was extremely annoyed, had no idea what had happened to Anna, grimly rubbished any suggestion her daughter might have had an accident, and ordered them to get a taxi, giving him the exact and precise directions as to the route the man had to take so as not to gyp them. They had three days in Perth and never saw Anna at all. No, she hadn’t been in a ghastly accident or been mugged or kidnapped. Just never turned up. Julia eventually got her on the phone and shouted that she had to apologise to them, then forcing the receiver into the unfortunate Rosie’s hand and standing by while the apology was offered, but on her grabbing the receiver back, Anna hung up on her. Julia then demanded angrily of her niece what she’d said to her, and poor Rosie, being pretty out of it after the long trip across Australia—she wasn’t much of a traveller at the best of times, and as John had since ruefully admitted to himself, it hadn't been the best of times by any means, she’d been pregnant with Baby Bunting—went and told her. “She said ‘I’m awfully sorry, Rosie, but I lost my nerve. Mum’s always kidding herself that I can do things that I can’t.’”

    All indications to the contrary, Anna was not a girl just out of school, she was, according to Rosie, forty-odd. But it was very clear—and in case it hadn't been clear to John Rosie had helpfully explained it—that Julia was “the sort that never can see that if a person can’t do a thing they can’t, and no amount of being told they can or to pull themselves together will make them capable of it.” Quite. He had asked cautiously what precisely she thought Anna had lost her nerve about, and Rosie had thought it over and then replied seriously: “Well, there’s several contenders. Driving all the way to the railway terminal and then out to Aunty Julia’s, that’s one. Looking for two people that one she doesn’t know and the other she can’t remember what she looks like on a large railway station she’s never been to before, that’s two. But I gotta admit the strongest contender is being shit-scared of having to meet a senior Royal Navy Captain a good ten years older then her. ’Cos how could she know he’s absolutely adorable and would never, never look down his nose at her?” After which the conversation had become considerably less serious…

    “Ya never did get to meet her, didja?” she now said, scanning the letter. “I never seen her flat, either, I mean, it’s thousands of K to WA from Sydney, and I was always broke ’cos of doing my degree, I could never afford to go over there.”

    “Yes, I know, darling,” he said patiently. “Would you rather I read the letter for myself?”

    “No, ’s’okay, I’ll summarise.”—His lips twitched but he refrained.—“Like, ya know how fancy Aunty Julia’s flat’s garden is, don’tcha?”

    “A little piece of Bali in Perth,” he murmured, the sky-blue eyes twinkling.

    “Yeah: there’s a fair bit of it about in Oz, though I dunno that I’d say that bright blue and pink concrete garden walls are particularly Balinese. But ya gotta have them, plus those statues and a funny wooden sofa. And believe you me, artistic it might be, but it’s horrendously uncomfortable! And how she can bear it without cushions with her bony bum don’t ask me! And all those big-leaved tropical plants, they look ace, but they take gallons of water to keep looking that good—not to mention the fountain. When the whole country’s short of water? Anyway, the thing is, she’s always doing things to the garden and making it good, like that new bright blue pergola with the gold bits on the ends of the roof bits—that looked ace, eh? Only it is only a courtyard garden, there’s only so much even she can do. So,”—she swallowed—“she started in on Anna’s place.”

    “Oh, Christ. So, uh, what was Anna’s reaction, darling?”

    “She sold the dump.”

    He swallowed in spite of himself.

    “The thing is, she can’t stand up to Aunty Julia!”

    “No. –I see, so this is to let you know her new address!”

    “Um, no. See, Aunty Julia really done her nut when she found out: Anna didn’t tell her at all, and she went round there to plant something or root something out and there was this strange couple in the flat! So then she rung Anna’s school. She’s an art teacher, ’member? And she was in class and they put her on to that awful wanker she’s been mixed up with for yonks, forget his name, um, not Brian.” She fumbled with the letter.

    “Bruce,” he murmured.

    She smiled at him. “Elephant! Yeah, that’s it. The place has gone all modern. It’s a private school, John, what your mob call a public school. He is the headmaster, only they don’t call him that. And guess what he ups and tells her? He knows that Anna’s given up her flat, and Aunty Julia isn’t to worry, because he’s leaving the wife and he’s going to marry her at last!”

    “That is good new—No?”

    “No! Listen, she’s been mixed up with the wanker for something like twelve years, wasting the best years of her life while her biological clock’s rusting away, the poor thing must almost be due for the menopause, and don’t tell me women can still have babies in their forties, the whole idea’s nauseating! And it multiplies the possibilities of having a Down’s Syndrome kid!”

    “I know. But given the circumstances, isn’t it the best possible scenario?”

    “No! John, you don’t understand at all! Hang on, I’ll read it to you. Um… Here. ‘I was really wild, because he suddenly said out of the blue “Why don’t we regularise it, darling? You’ve been such a good, patient little darling all these years, I really think it’s time I put things right for you.” As you can imag—’”

    “What?” he shouted, bounding out of his chair and holding out his hand for it. His wife watched approvingly while he read it over to himself, his chest heaving furiously. “The man’s a shit!” he shouted.

    “Good word for him.”

    “Of all the patronising—”

    “You said it! So she’s coming over here!” beamed Rosie.

    “Uh—so she is! Well, that’s splendid! And I tell you what, if she wants to bring her portfolio, I’m sure Fiona will be able to arrange for a couple of galleries to look at it!”

    Rosie eyed him drily. His sister was married to a wealthy City gent and no doubt would be thrilled to assist Anna: not enough to fill her days with, in her huge detached house at Wimbledon. “Yeah, great. –Well, go on!” she prompted. “Put it in the dreaded Diary.”

    Anna wasn’t due for a while, but she had given them all the details of her flight. Feebly John got up and made a note in the diary that sat on his big desk. Then they both settled down to their correspondence again.

    After a while Rosie admitted in a weak voice: “It’s just as well you’ve got the cottages, Captain Capitalist Landowner. We’d never fit them all in here, or at the flat. Um, you don’t mind being landed with all these cousins, do you?”

    “No, of course not! Cuckoo! Besides, two of them are mine.”

    Rosie beamed at him. “What would be the collective noun for cousins? A clutch?”

    Or a collision, or a calamity? –Nonsense! Someone walking over his grave! “A clutch of cousins!” he said with a smile. “Yes: I like it!”

Enter Georgia

3

Enter Georgia

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

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

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

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

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

    “This is you,” she goes without interest.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Hullo to you too, Lady. “Hullo.”

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

    “Georgia Leach.”

    “Welcome to the Fourteenth, Georgia.”

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

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

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

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

    So I go: “Hullo.”

    “This is Georgia,” explains Carrie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “Outset of what?”

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

    “In what?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

    He just looked at me real hard.

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

    He waggled his eyebrows at me.

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

    “NO! It will not be like JAG!”

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

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

    “Then it’ll bomb.”

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

    “Eh?”

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

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

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

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

    “That’s not funny!”

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

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

    “Ace. What about fancy frocks?”

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

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

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

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

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

    “I can’t dance, though.”

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

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

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

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

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

    And we looked at each other and grinned like anything.

    So he said: “You will do it?”

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

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

    So we shook on it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “Um, no,” he says lamely.

    So we just wait.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “Ugh! Thought it was summer?”

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

    “Summer uniform,” goes Jason hoarsely.

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

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

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

    “He’s a captain,” croaks Jason.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    His lips twitch but he gives the driver the address.

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

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

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

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

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

    “Goddit.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “The top of the map,” croaks Jason.

    “No! Jesus flaming Christ, whaddareya?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “Gee, what a nerd!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “Yeah, hah, hah.”

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

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

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

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

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

    Baby Bunting suddenly joins in with a gurgle, ooh!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “I can’t dance.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Suddenly Rupy hisses: “Look out!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Not surprisingly this speech is followed by a short silence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    I’ve gone red as fire, of course.

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

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

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

    “Ditto,” he goes, solemn as anything.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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