And They Lived Happily Ever After

PART VII

CUTTING ROOM

25

And They Lived Happily Ever After

    “It seems to me,” says Lucas at his smoothest, “that every time you let your Cousin Rosie drag you into a girls’ huddle, you end up in the shit.”

    Yeah. Something like that. Well, if I’d of listened to her in the last huddle, like, this lunchtime, I’d of dumped you, mate. And that woulda served you right for going off to have lunch in a blokes’ huddle with flaming D.D. and various hangers-on with their pocket calculators out and D. Walsingham, don’t ask me what he was doing in that lot, far’s I’m aware he can’t add two and two and make it come out four. Scrub that, can’t add one and zero and make it come out one. Scowl, scowl.

    “And I have to say,” he adds with a laugh—do ya, mate?—“that no-one could be blamed for being in a very bad mood after a whole morning spent on that bloody verandah with people shining lights into her face and Derry screaming—so any advice she may have given you will have been considerably jaundiced!”

    “It wasn’t only m—”

    Smooth as silk he goes: “Likewise any advice she may have given Molly.”

    “Right, well, that was only the usual advice about poor ole Euan being a spineless dreep that can’t help taking advantage of other people and then dropping them like a hot potato when they don’t measure up to the pseuds at Stratford or show themselves up by asking for a serviette at one of D.D.’s flaming gourmet dinners!”

    So he goes: “Mm. Very wise.”

    Scowl. “Molly wouldn’t know a gourmet dinner if it stood up and bit her.”

    “Why should she?” he replies tranquilly. “She’s a lovely girl, isn’t she? Lovely just as she is,” he says with a smile, think it’s genuine but I’m taking no bets.

    “Um, yeah. We think so.”

    “Of course! Oh, and a further reason for poor Rosie’s bad mood was that John had gone off to do some snorkelling. You have realised she’s terrified he’ll be eaten by a shark, I suppose?”

    “Look, mate, that ISN’T FUNNY! There are sharks in these waters, you Poms don’t know from—”

    “I do know. I don’t think it’s funny at all.”

    Baffled glare.

    He sighs. “What the Hell did she say?”

    “I said! She said never mind if he’d lapped up the sausages Molly done for him last night, that was his cosy down-home Scottish boy performance, and while he might have been genuinely grateful to her, and genuinely unhappy last night, just to bear in mind he was unhappy because he’d made a fool of himself and it was all entirely his own fault, and nothing he said to her over the sausages would mean a thing once the Stratford pseuds or the Hollywood directors got hold of him again. Then she told us this real boring story—well, Ann enjoyed it, but then she hadn’t hadda sit through it five times already—about how flaming unbearable he was when they asked him to read for a Hollywood costume thing. What he never got. After that he was equally dreadful, not so much the big Hollywood star but more the rising young genius of British Theaytre—that’s what she always says, Theay—”

    “Mm. And was Molly impressed?”

    “By ruddy Euan’s poor-little-me act? Too flaming right!”

    “No, Dot: judging by his sparkling good humour this morning, it’s glaringly apparent she was. By Rosie’s dire warning?”

    “Be fair: warnings, plural. No, she wasn’t. She just said that Rosie thinks no-one else is capable of seeing people clearly. So then Rosie started in on it not counting when your hormones start doing the fandango, only Molly said, quite calm, not nasty at all, that she had had Micky when she was seventeen, she thought she’d learned to be wary of her hormones, and went off to sit with Harriet and them.”

    “Good for her. Not that I hold any brief for Keel: I overheard him telling Isabelle that that revolting chicken curry she served up at lunchtime today was delicious.”

    “Uh—yeah. Well, he is in a good mood. But I getcha: no need to of said it, eh?”

    “Given that he’d just warned Derry, David and me that it was khaki slime made with ready-made curry powder—no.”

    “Right.” Suddenly it strikes me. “Hang on. You knew there might be something between me and Euan back when you told me about all that cuisine crap, didn’t you?”

    “No. I knew that Derry wanted there to be, and I have to admit I’d begun to hope there wasn’t.”

    I gotta swallow, he’s admitting he wanted me more or less right away, but at the same time I’m real angry and I’ve gone very red. “Don’t expect me to feel flattered, Lucas Roberts! Gee, and to think even John thought you were an honest person!”

    “Uh—really? That’s a compliment,” he says weakly. “But I wouldn’t have said that that was dishonest, exactly… Well, using what I knew to my advantage, yes. Don’t glare at me like that, Dot: it’s the male’s natural instinct to use all the tools available to him to pursue a mate! And I most certainly didn’t lie to you.”

    “No, a real good negotiator doesn’t lie, he produces bits of the truth when it’s gonna count in his favour!”

    “So I should have stood back and let the man have you?” he says, real dry.

    “Uh—no. That woulda been dumb.”

    “Quite. Not to say, unnatural.”

    “Um, yeah.”

    “So do you forgive me?” he goes with a little smile.

    Gee, Lucas, when the mouth does that, of course I forgive you! But I don’t say it hasn’t thrown an extra and rather unwelcome light on your personality. Well, I knew you were bloody sharp, yeah. But shit, I never suspected a thing. And maybe you had only just met me, but in my observation if something’s in a person’s essential character they’re gonna do it more to the people they live with, not less. Not that I’m contemplating living with you in the immediate future, Lucas, only… Well, a girl can’t help thinking.

    So I go: “Um, yeah. Well, it was just you, I guess.”

    “Me and the male drive!” he goes, pleased as Punch: boy, whatever the surface characteristics they sure all are the same underneath, huh? So he gives me a real long, lingering kiss, ooh, boy! I could just rip that real restrained navy shirt with the white, just lightly sketched in hibiscuses on it off that well-shaped, slim and very muscular bod of yours and— Only we can’t, it’s about sevenish in the evening and the reason we’re not already doing it is we’re expecting Molly to come on over, we’re all gonna go to the pub for tea. So he wanders over to the window and looks out at Sharon Wong’s pet banana palm. Kieran’s right, it’d have a lot more chance of producing bananas if she’d just leave it alone.

    Here she is. Heck, she’s in a sunfrock! White background, big pink flowers, lots of big green leaves—two shades, lime and a darker green.

    “Where’dja get that?”

    “Sharon gave it to me. She had it after she had Jess: she’d put on quite bit of weight. Only then she joined an aerobics class in town and took it all off!”

    Right: Jess is their youngest, she’s eight. Oh, well, your basic sunfrock style doesn’t date, does it? Or it certainly doesn’t in Queensland.

    Lucas tells her she looks very nice. Think he’s genuine, actually. Well, he’s smiling as if he is.

    “Yeah, ya do, Molly. We still gotta pick up Euan, or has he got that blue 4WD back?”  –The thing is, transport’s at a premium in Big Rock Bay and the nong left it parked outside his motel cabin two days back with the keys in it, so of course someone accepted the invitation.

    “No, he hasn’t.”

    “Flaming bloody Norah, he is the leading man, he is entitled to transport, surely?”

    “He didn’t want to make a fuss,” she says tranquilly.

    “Ya mean that’s what he told you!”

    So she goes, still real calm: “You don’t understand him at all, do you?”

    “Molly, he’ll of found out who took it and it’ll be someone he’s scared of, like Geoff Green or Gareth Parker, and he’ll of chickened out! Anyone else, he’d of pulled the Big Star turn all over the—”

    “He knows who took it, it was three of the camera crew.”

    “Andy Johnstone; right! He’s shit-scared of—”

    “No, it was Murray, the red-headed boy that helps with those big, um, reels, are they? And his friend, the tall, thin one, I think his name’s Stan but they call him Ali G, and the fair boy, Spike, though I don’t think it’s because of the spiky hair.”

    “Uh—and they took it for them? I mean, not for Andy Johnstone?”

    “No, for them and their girlfriends. It’s quite a tight fit, with six.”

    “Lemme get this straight. You saw them in it, right? And at that point he pulled the ‘don’t want to make a fuss’ routine—right?”

    “Dot, leave it,” murmurs Lucas.

    “No, that’s all right, Lucas, they’ve been warning me about Euan ever since they asked me up here. I’ll tell you what happened, Dot, and you can decide for yourself. It was early this morning. Euan woke up early with a headache because of all that whisky he drank last night and he took some Panadol but then he said although he wanted to do it, his head was really thumping, so I said, why don’t we go for a swim. He didn’t want to and I couldn’t understand why, I mean, the water’s really lovely at that time of the morning. So then he admitted he’s terrified of sharks. So I said if we only went out to our knees it was highly unlikely they’d come in that close, because they can’t swim in water that shallow, and anyway, no-one’s seen a single shark all the time the cast’s been up here. So he said he wasn’t brave enough to go up to his knees but he’d risk it to his ankles. So that was what we did. Well, about halfway to the knees, really,” she says in her placid way. “There weren’t any sharks.”

    “No—um, hang on. This morning? Didja go in without your bathers, then?”

    “No of course not, that would’ve been rude. I had them with me, I was wearing them under my tee-shirt yesterday, because I thought people might be swimming. Not mine, of course, that lovely bikini Rosie lent me!” she adds with a laugh.

    “Gave ya, ya nong, she gave it to ya, Molly. Right, go on: where’d the 4WD come into it?”

    “I’m sure it was only a lend, and anyway, I can’t possibly keep anything that expensive. –It was after we’d had our swim and we were lying on his towel and I was trying to make him understand that even if there is a bit of cloud you need to use your sunscreen. They all came down the beach in it. And I said: ‘Isn’t that your four-wheel-drive?’ And he didn’t look up: he was lying on his front facing the waves, it was really peculiar, actually: I’d never seen anyone do that; the blood must of been running to his head, wouldn’t you think? Not that the beach slopes much. But he was watching the light reflecting off the water and waiting for the sun to come up. He just said: ‘Do you mean that blue jeep ? Aye, someone pinched it.’ So I said: ‘Well, heck, Euan, go and get it back!’ And he still didn’t look round, he just said: ‘I dinna want to make a fuss. I dare say their need was greater than mine. And I’m no’ used to driving a thing that high: I hated it, anyway. Och, no, well, that’s just an excuse, Molly. I’m unpopular enough already—not that they didn’t mostly loathe me, anyway: I suppose you’ve heard about that time that Rupy clocked me on the Henny Penny set? Fully desairved, I might add. If I make a fuss they’ll say I’m doing ma Big Star bit. Who is it, anyway? One of the younger actors, doing it to spite me? Or someone like Geoff Green or Andy Johnstone? No way am I gaein’ to face up to them!’ So I said: ‘No, it’s some of the boys from the camera crew,’ and he said: ‘Cheeky wee sods. Och, leave it, Molly. In the first place I dinna want to make a fuss, in the second place my name’ll be mud if I do make a fuss, and in the third place—in case your cousins haven’t already told you—I’m the world’s greatest chicken.’”

    There’s a stunned silence—not least because she’s perfectly caught Euan’s accent.

    Then Lucas goes: “I think that must be proof enough for even you, Dot. Molly, let me give you a warning.”

    The poor girl eyes him real wary and sticks out her chin and says: “What?”

    And Lucas goes, bland as all get out: “Never do that marvellous imitation of Euan’s accent in front of Derry: he’ll cast you in something frightful on the spot, and I’ll be the mug that has to figure out how to finance it!”

    So she grins, she’s really relieved, and goes feebly:  “Hah, hah. Um, well, he does need us to collect him. We better go, or there won’t be any chicken in a basket left.”

    So we go.

    And gee, guess what: just as we’re gonna pull in to Euan’s cabin we realise the blue 4WD is parked over the way outside one of the humbler cabins that’s got accommodation for six, and eight after Scott’s bunged a couple of extra stretchers in there, and Euan’s standing beside it talking to the boys that are just about to get into it.

    “Go on, Dot,” drawls Lucas: “tell us that this is all put on for Molly’s benefit.”

    “It could be.”

    “Shut up!” they both groan.

    All right, if you’re gonna be like that, I will. But I bet it is!

    Naturally we’ve all wound down our windows and it’s a real quiet evening apart from Varley Knollys’s flaming loud music again, only fortunately that’s a fair way up the meandering cream pavers.

    One of the boys is going real loud: “Yeah, okay, it is yours! Have it back, then, it’s a flaming rust-bucket with a Honda engine in it, anyway!”

    And Euan goes: “I don’t want it back, you wee chump, I was about to say if it is mine, keep it.”

    “Oh. Um—thanks,” he goes awkwardly.

    “Any time.” So he turns round and comes over to us. “Hi, I thought that was you. You were right, Molly, it was a crowd of lads that nicked ma jeep.”

    So I go feebly: “It’s not a Jeep: he was right, it’s a Jap rust-bucket with a ruddy Honda engine in it.”

    “Generically, Dot!” he says with a laugh, hopping in beside Molly. “And guid luck to them if they ever try to engage the blasted four-wheel drive!”

    “Couldn’t you?” asks Lucas coolly, turning and heading up the drive.

    “Aye, I could, only I couldn’t disengage it! I had the most terrifying drive all the way up to the pub, and then had to crawl to a big strong Australian in the bar and ask him if he could show me what I’d done wrong!”

    So go: “No wonder you didn’t care if they nicked it.”

    And Molly warns from behind me: “Shut up, Dot.”

    Beside me, I can feel Lucas’s shoulders shaking like anything. “Yes, shut up, Dot, darling,” he murmurs.

    All right, I will. I’m still only forty percent convinced Euan’s genuine, though.

    So we get to the pub and Molly’s real keen on the chicken in a basket and since she mentioned it, I could really fancy it, too. It’s Tuesday, so if he doesn’t join us in the chicken and chips Lucas’ll have to have either fish and chips or the pasta, so he decides on fish and chips—could he have the fish grilled, and just a few chips, please, Laverne, nice smile. Yes, with the salad. What he doesn’t know, see, is that to the Aussie mind, especially to those used to serving up giant meals to huge Aussie farmers, or even to quite small Chinese farmers, there is no such thing as a few chips. Euan reckons that he’s been thinking longingly of chicken in a basket ever since Molly suggested it. Yeah, right. Anyway, there is plenty left because the pasta tonight isn’t spaghetti, it’s penne, and that’s real popular, specially since she’s done it with a chicken sauce. Chicken Tonight, it’ll be. I expect she’ll of got a special deal on the frozen chicken from the wholesalers, that’s what Isabelle does when she puts on grilled chicken for the mob. She doesn’t do it often, because Scott’s hopeless at cooking it—he’s too impatient, thinks it oughta be quick, like steak—and so she has to stand over the barbies herself.

    So Euan thanks Laverne very nicely when she brings it and tells her it looks delicious.

    Now, folks, the thought has had time to percolate to the surface of the D.M. Mallory brain, what with various hints I’ve picked up and what with him admitting he told me about Euan being a gourmet in disguise on purpose, that Lucas is one of those males, of whom there are many—I’m not counting the fans, like that nong Craig Whatsisface from the supermarket that thinks he really did some of that kick-boxing himself—as I say, one of those males that don’t really like Euan. So I’m not all that surprised when he goes, at his blandest, after Euan’s tasted the chicken and agreed with Molly that it's really good: “Very convincing, Euan. Now tell us what you really think of it.”

    Okay, let’s admit at the outset that it is good tonight, Laverne’s chicken in a basket is usually pretty good. And the chips aren’t bad, either. Haven’t had time to dry out and go papery, kind of thing.

    Euan opens his mouth, smiling the down-home lad smile. Then he drops it and looks wry. Then he says: “Och, well, just don’t quote me.”

    “Wouldn’t dream of it. Go on.”

    Those brown eyes dance, I think he’s genuinely enjoying himself, for once. “Very good of its kind. The batter’s quite crisp and not too greasy, and well cooked, though the crumbs are very evidently commercial so-called breadcrumbs that were never anywhere near a loaf. The chicken itself isn’t smothered in ersatz chicken flavour from the industrial chemist, and it’s well cooked: still juicy but cooked right through, and not dry at all. Of course it’s relatively tasteless: battery-raised chicken always is. Those of you who’ve never had the advantage of an Aunty Jean with a brother-in-law who raised free-range chickens in his wee back garden won’t knew what the Hell I’m talkin’ aboot, here!” he adds, looking at Molly and me.

    “I thought chicken was just chicken,” she says weakly. “It all tastes the same. I mean, you’re right that this is really nicely cooked, but apart from that…”

    Cof. “Like, you won’t of had Aunty Kate bending your ear about free-range chooks, Molly, cos I think last time you were over in Adelaide was before they moved to Norwood and she found this place that’s real up-market. Free-range and organic, think that’s the word. Like, there’s two places, a special chicken place and a butcher, and it’s the butcher she goes to if she wants a whole chook for a really special occasion.”

    “Oh,” she says blankly.

    “Costs per kilo about five times what you’d pay for one chook on special at Cole’s or Woollies,” I explain kindly.

    “Well, I knew she was mad, but I never thought she’d throw that sort of money away on one chook!” she says forcefully.

    “Yeah. But Euan’s right, it tasted real great. That was the day she invited Lady Marion F.F. to dinner, just before I come home.”

    “Cause and effect!” she goes, laughing like a drain.

    “Hah, hah.”

    Lucas’s eyes are actually twinkling. “I agree with every syllable, Euan!”

    “I thought you would,” he goes mildly. “Do you remember that Goddawful dump Derry dragged us to in Rio? You were the only one who said that damned chicken stew tasted off, and refused to eat it.”

    “As I remember, you also refused to eat it,” he murmurs.

    So Euan goes calmly: “Yes, but I lied and said I was sticking to bottled water because I had a touch of Rio tummy.”

    “So did everybody else get sick?” asks Molly eagerly.

    “Sick as dogs! Especially Derry!” replies Lucas gleefully, suddenly giving in and laughing his head off.

    Euan just grins and confirms: “Yes.”

    So I go tactlessly:  “So didja make a film in Rio, then?”

    “E-er—aye. Rio Blues. It did win a prize at Cannes. No, well, ma part wasna very big. ”

    Gulp. “Sorry. I’ve never seen it.”

    “Nor’ve I,” agrees Molly cheerfully.

    “Well, it was a while back—eight years or so,” the poor joker says lamely.

    “We’d both still have been at school,” I announce. “Sixth Form—Year Twelve to the rest of the country. Don’t think I saw a single film all year, Mum thought I hadda keep my nose to the grindstone.”

    “Yes. And I was busy having Micky as well as swotting, of course,” she agrees calmly.

    Euan drops his piece of chicken. Fortunately onto his placemat, not the floor. “You don’t mean you were still at school when you had your wee boy?”

    “Um, yeah, didn’t I say?” she goes, looking vague.

    “Sure! We’re the same age,” I explain. He’s looking more stunned than ever so I add: “Aunty Buff, that’s her mum, she wouldn’t let her have an abortion—like, she hadda have her consent, she was only sixteen when she got pregnant—because she’s a ruddy Catholic.” At this moment I don’t give a damn if him and Lucas were both raised as good Catholic boys. In fact I rather hope they were: might give two of them the idea that not everybody approves of their fucking religion and that some people are made to suffer by it.

    “Yes,” says Molly calmly. “I’m glad I’ve got him now, of course. But it was really hard at the time: she made me go back to school, not that I didn’t want to finish Year Twelve, but then she completely took him over and I hardly got to look after him at all. Of course when I left school and went flatting and had him with me, that wasn’t easy either, but I was lucky, I had some really supportive flatmates.”

    “Yes, Terri and Siobhan,” I agree. “Siobhan was from a Catholic family, too: she was real sympathetic, and Terri, she was a nurse, she had a lot of night-duty, so that was good: it meant she could look after him during the day.”

    “Yes. And Lisa,” she agrees, smiling.

    “Yeah, but she was a nit, Molly!”

    “Yes, but she was supportive, within her lights.” She looks at Euan, he’s still looking stunned, and explains with that lovely smile that’s a dead ringer for Rosie’s: “She gave him some orange cordial ’cos we’d run out of rosehip, and he got high as a kite. It was only weak, mind you, but she didn’t know about food dyes.”

    “Which is strange,” I note, “because the horror stories about them have been splashed all over Woman’s Day for the last fifteen years or so, and it and the Weekly are the only things she ever reads.”

    “Looks at the pictures,” murmurs Molly. Our eyes meet and we both explode in giggles.

    So we all eat our chicken and chips in a basket hungrily and Lucas eats his grilled fish hungrily and takes a couple of chips from his giant pile, and then Molly looks up and smiles at Euan again and goes: “That was just so spot-on, what you said about the chicken! Not that I’ve ever tasted free-range chicken, but you were right about the batter and everything. Can you do it with the chips?”

    “Och, well, there’s nothing to say, Molly. The last real chip in the civilised world was prepared in Edinburgh by a man named Brown—Broon in the local dialect,” he says, his eyes twinkling like mad, “back in 1976.”

    So I go: “Eh?”

    “I was eight, Dot!” he says with laugh. “Mr Brown retired that year and a foreigner bought his shop—came from Glasgow,” he explains, and we all choke. “And from that day forth no potato was peeled, chopped or sliced in that shop. Giant packets of frozen ones. These taste just like them. Reconstituted.”

    “Yeah, like first they reduce them to dried fuzz in this giant potato fuzzer, see, and store them in bulk: drying reduces the amount of storage space needed by ninety-nine percent. And when they want chips they put some into a mixer and add water and extrude them in chip shapes.”

    “Aye, you’ve got it, Dot!” he says with a laugh. “Then they freeze them and store them for an aeon or two before letting them on the market! Och, well, the trick is, dinna let them go cold.” He eyes Lucas’s giant pile thoughtfully.

    “You’re right!” agrees Molly, all smiles.—Nothing.—“Lucas!” she says loudly. “Euan’s trying to say nicely if you don’t eat your chips while they’re still hot they’ll go all dry and fuzzy and horrible.”

    “Then I appreciate the thought, Euan, but I did ask for just a few chips,” the Pommy nong says feebly.

    “Yes. That does constitute a few chips, out here,” Molly explains kindly. “Just leave them, they won’t go to waste, Bri Smothers from over the ridge’ll collect them for his pigs. He gets all Laverne’s scraps and since our mob came up here, he’s been getting Isabelle’s as well.”

    Lucas just looks at her weakly.

    So I go: “She has been staying at the farm.”

    “Aye,” says Euan feebly, “but we’ve been here twice as long and I wasna even aware there was a pig farmer in the area!”

    Molly grins at him. “Then you haven’t been up the back of Kieran and Sharon’s place in a westerly!”

    “I suppose home-cured bacon’s out?” says Lucas, gingerly eating a slice of tomato and a slice of cucumber and avoiding the beetroot that came with them.

    What? What century does the man imagine this is? “You’re joking! It’s illegal to kill your own livestock, mate!”

    “Yes, there are very strict hygiene regulations,” murmurs Molly.

    “Uncle Fergus—we called him Uncle, though strictly speaking he was no relation—would never believe it!” says Euan with a laugh.

    “If this is the guy that raised chooks—”

    “Of course, Dot!”

    “Chooks don’t count.” Pause. “Or maybe they do. Well, I dunno what the legal position is, acksherly. The only person I know of that raises chooks these days is a mad mate of Marianne Gridley-Smythe’s: she lives on one of those hobby farms and does spinning and knitting. Black sheep and angora goats; she was gonna have some alpacas but when she went to the stud the one she liked the look of spat at her.”

    “And does she kill her own chooks?” asks Euan.

    “Think so. Marianne’s chicken curry always tastes extra: maybe that’s why.”

    “Goat’s milk cheese?” suggests Lucas.

    So I go: “Ugh! Please! People are eating, here!”

    He looks at Euan and shrugs. Euan grins and shrugs.

    “Pair of wankers,” I note darkly to my relative.

    “I’ll say. That Christmas me and Micky came up to Sydney with Jamie Francis—it was the year you went to Aunty Kate’s, Dot—Joslynne’s Mum had us over for tea and she served up so-called fresh goat’s cheese, I’ve never tasted anything so disgusting in my life!”

    “Yep. Putrid.”

    “Ah bet your Mr Broon would agree wi’ us—aye, a sensible wee mon that knew a potato when he saw it wouldna touch a sicky goat’s cheese wi’ a ten-foot pole!” goes Molly with a laugh. Gee, that Sauvignon Blanc musta got to her, she normally doesn’t let on she can mimic accents. Well, not to people she doesn’t know very well.

    Euan’s jaw’s dropped, but he manages to croak: “Tattie.”

    “I knew there was a Scotch word for it!” she beams.

    Gee, he doesn’t correct this to “Scottish.” Maybe the wine’s gone to his head, too. “Molly, that was the best Scottish accent by a foreigner that I’ve ever heard! Can you do other accents, too?”

    “Do D.D.!” I hiss.

    So she goes, sort of in a lowered boom, and of course her voice is still a woman’s voice, but I tell ya, she sounds just like him: “What’s that supposed to be, a pair of gorillas in a mating dance? And get that reflector out of shot, man!” And Euan and Lucas both collapse. Their eyes stream, and they both have to blow their noses.

    Finally Lucas mops his eyes and says: “Do Derry in a sentence with the word ‘because’ in it, Molly.”

    So she immediately goes: “I hardly see that I need produce a sentence with the word becoss in it for your benefit, Roberts.”

    And Euan drops his hanky and gasps: “Ma God!”

    “Mm, I thought she might have noticed,” murmurs Lucas.

    “Noticed what?” says Molly blankly.

    Lucas looks real disconcerted but Euan says: “Lucas, it’s instinctive! He means the way Derry says ‘becoss’, Molly. Most people from the north of England do—think it’s particularly Yorkshire: have you noticed that Parky says it?”

    “She doesn’t watch TV much. –Parkinson, Molly. You know, it’s an English chat show, he always has these show biz personalities on that no-one’s ever huh—” Cof. “Like, sometimes he has someone famous like Billy Connolly or, um,” shit, can’t think of anyone, “well, Euan and Rosie have both been on it,” I admit feebly.

    “Thanks!” he says with a laugh. “The thing is, Molly, you instinctively picked up the traits in Derry’s accent that betray his shameful origins. It’s not that Yorkshire as such is shameful, but while in his circles it’s fine to be a working-class boy made good—grimy streets, Dad on the booze and out of work, and so forth—it’s hardly interesting when one’s father was a draper.”

    Swallow. Goddit. “Was he?” I croak.

    “Yes. One summer I stayed at the villa and his wife was in a really foul mood with him—well, he was behaving abominably, even for him—and gave me an earful! His dad did very well, ended up owning two shops and sending all of his children to university. Derry’s lost all traces of the accent per se, but just every so often there’s some wee thing like that that gives him away.”

    “I suppose no-one’s volunteering,” I ask wistfully, “to face up to him and the next time he says it, go: ‘Oh, so you’re from Yorkshire, Derry!’” Gee, no-one is, no. So I go: “Never mind, it’s a nice thought but if he did drop down dead in a fit I s’pose none of us’d get paid. Hey, she can do birds, too! Go on, Molly, do a magpie!”

    “I think my throat’s too dry,” she admits, choking down a last chip or two. So she rinses it with some more wine and suddenly does it. “Gurgle-urgle-urgle urgle!”

    The two of them jump ten feet and everybody looks round.

    Molly’s gone very pink. “Sorry, I’ve had too much to drink.”

    “How do you do it?” asks Euan intently.

    “I don’t know. I just do it. I can do other birds but they’re more of a whistle, usually.         –Don’t tell me to do a kookaburra, Dot, I’m not gunnoo, in front of all these people.”

    “Once she did it out in the bush: like, we were on a camping holiday; and a real kookaburra replied!” I tell them.

    “Magical!” says Lucas with a laugh.

    “Ye-es. No, of course it was magical that it responded, but I’m not absolutely sure what a kookaburra is,” Euan admits, is he doing the deprecating simple Scottish lad again? Uh—no, as a matter of fact I think he isn’t. Well, seven to four? “It’s the same word as in the Kookaburra Kafe, is it, Dot? I did have a steak there, it was splendid. But most unfortunately I let Derry bully me into admitting where I was headed that evening, and he insisted on coming with me. Not that he doesn’t appreciate an excellent piece of meat,” he adds with a sigh. “Och, well, dinna mind him! The bird in the sign at Kooka’s is pale blue neon, but I don’t suppose they are pale blue?”

    So I go: “Nah, mostly brownish," and Molly explains that they’re a big kingfisher. He gets it, that thing the bird at Kooka’s had in its big beak was meant to be a fish!

    “Laughing jackass, I think is the other name for them,” Lucas tells him kindly. “Or is that rather old hat, these days, Dot?”

    “Heck, yeah. Well, think I might of heard Grandma Leach call them that before she went gaga.”

    Euan’s looking blank again so Molly explains: “See, their call’s like a long, braying laugh: not musical at all, quite harsh. It’s really startling if you’re out in the bush and one suddenly does it.”

    “Would there be any around here?” he goes eagerly, but we don’t know. Molly thinks it might be too far north for them. I’ve heard them in the Botanic Gardens in Canberra but that’s a long way south of here.

    “If you work it out,” says Lucas slowly, “it’s like asking people from London or at the most, the Portsmouth area, like John and Rosie, what the bird life is in the south of Spain.”

    Well, not quite, we are still in the same country—but yeah, he’s got the point.

    Euan blinks. “Is it that far?”

    “Shit, yeah, didn’t you look at a map before ya came?”

    “E-er… not really, Dot. Should I have done?”

    “Well, heck, yeah: how could ya bear not to know exactly where you are? You looked at the map, Lucas, didn’tcha?”

    “Of course, but then I’m even more of a control-freak than you are, Dot,” he goes smoothly.

    This must really strike a chord with Molly, cos she’s collapsed in giggles.

    “Yeah, hah, hah: very funny.”

    “Oh, dear! Well, you are, Dot,” she says, wiping her eyes with her paper serviette. “When they came down to stay at the caravan park near us one summer she drove Dad mad by demanding a map and when he said he only had one in the glove compartment of the car, she made him get it and show her exactly where the caravan park was in relation to the house and where the house was in relation to the city; and then she dragged him outside and made him show her where nuh-nuh-north was!” She collapses in helpless giggles all over again.

    “If ya don’t know where north is, how can you orient yourself, ya nana?”

    “Normal people don’t want to, Dot!” she squeaks.

    “Aye, well,” says Euan quickly, “the flight from Sydney to Brisbane didna seem that long.”

    “No, but then those jokers chuck those planes around like nobody’s business,” I explain. “Go like bats out of Hell. And then ya got on the little plane, right? And then drove for ages though the bush? Um, well, and the celery fields, think they are. Ages, anyway.”

    “It is a long way, when you think about it,” Molly agrees.

    “Um, no. I mean, of course it must be. But Derry had a helicopter waiting when we got off the little plane,” he says on a weak note.

    “Ugh, did he make you go with him?” Molly says sympathetically.

    “Y—” He stops. “Um, no, Molly. Gareth made all the arrangements: he asked me whether I’d like to pick up a hire-car at the airport or come with Derry in the helicopter, and I’m afraid it was the better part of valour. I hate driving in strange cars on unfamiliar roads.”

    “The road’s all right. Until you get to Isabelle and Scott’s turn-off,” I admit fairly.

    “Aye, but what about finding the turn-off?” he says with a smile.

    “Eh? Ya just drive straight on until you see the pub and then it’s straight on again—”

    “I had a panic attack, Dot,” he says on a note of finality. “Mind you, then I got ma just desserts: Derry whiled away the flight by giving me the history of his inspiration for that bluidy Midsummer Night’s Dream he made with Adam and Georgy.”

    “It was rather tropical,” murmurs Lucas.

    “Aye, but the narrative didna improve the trip!” he says with feeling.

    “It must have been a wonderful view,” says Molly wistfully.

    So he smiles at her and goes: “Aye, it was that! Would you like me to ask Gareth if you can come back in the helicopter with us?”

    “Ooh, thanks, I’d love it, I’ve never been in a helicopter!” she beams. “Um, not if it’s going to upset all the arrangements, though. Was it full coming up?”

    “E-er… Well, I think so, Molly. I didn’t really notice.”

    “I don’t want to get someone chucked out,” she says firmly.

    “There usually aren’t many volunteers to accompany Derry,” Euan replies drily.

    “No, but I don’t want to get you in the shit with Mr Parker.”

    “Molly,” he says firmly: “shut up. If you want to go in the helicopter, I’ll arrange it. Terrifying though I freely admit Gareth to be. Shall we order dessert?”

    We do that and over them—it’s only fruit salad and ice cream tonight—he asks her if she’s ever done anything with her talent for mimicry.

    “I went in a talent show, once. See, back then I wanted to be like that old man in England that did the bird calls and the animal noises on TV, I think he started off in radio; anyway, I saw a documentary about him once. Only I went along to the TV studios and they just laughed at me, so I thought well, maybe if I can get on a talent show they’ll see I can really do it. Only when I was on it I realised that they didn’t really want you to have talent at all: they wanted you to be awful so as they could laugh at you. Anyway, I didn’t win a prize, they gave all the prizes to the singers. And it was a big mistake, because I met—” She breaks off.

    “Who?” asks Euan with interest.

    “Micky’s father,” she growls, very red.

    Crikey! She’s never let on about that before! “Shit, Molly, was he someone on TV, then?”

    “I see,” says Euan quickly before she can say anything. Yeah, perhaps he does see, he’s not slow on the uptake and when he isn’t concentrating entirely on himself, he can be quite sensitive. “I think perhaps it wasn’t all bad, then, because otherwise you wouldn’t have Micky.”

    “Yeah,” she says gratefully, smiling at him. “How do they do the animals and birds on TV these days?”

    He’s very taken aback, he doesn’t have a clue, though he thinks they do it all in the sound studios. So Lucas explains kindly: huge library of sounds, a great deal of it is electronic, etcetera. If she’d like to see the sound studios in Sydney he’d be happy to arrange it.

    So I go: “Don’t get ya hopes up: it’ll be like the day Joslynne and me went along with Rosie when she was recording some of the songs for the soundtrack and they didn’t tell us a thing. Just pointed proudly at their knobs and then told ya to—”

    “Shut up,” agrees Euan. “Understandable, really.”

    “Hah, hah!”

    “He’s got you there, Dot!” says Molly gleefully. “Well, I’ve never even seen a sound studio: it’ll still be interesting, to me!”

    “No, I’ll arrange something more in-depth,” says Lucas with a smile.

    Molly’s real pleased and beams at him and it suddenly strikes me that he’s beaming back at her, sort of… Well, more than as if he just likes her, y’know? I don’t; mean it’s a come-on or anything near it. Um, well, I can’t describe it but I know I’m right. As if he fancies her, and as if into the bargain he really, really likes her and thinks she’s a very nice person. Which of course she is. But heck, leaving aside the Euan complication, if I sure couldn’t hack it on a permanent basis with someone as button-down and, yeah, control-freak as Lucas, what on earth are the odds against Molly ever being able to? Ya right, about five hundred to one. Boy, that’s a cheering thought.

    So after we’ve dropped them off at Euan’s cabin and are heading slowly along the track to the farm he goes: “What’s up?”

    Jump! “Um, nothing, Lucas.”

    “Not nothing, Dot.”

    “I was just thinking about Molly’s future.”

    “Oh,” he says dubiously. “I—uh, I hate to throw cold water at this early stage but I’d sincerely doubt that, keen though he is at the moment, Keel’s at all serious.”

   That proves he doesn’t like him, see, cos it’s the up-market Brit vernacular to call a bloke by his surname when ya don’t really— Yeah.

    “Uh, yeah, not him.”

    “Oh? Is there someone else?”

    “Hell, no, that crush on the prof never went anywhere, I told you that, didn’t I? No, she wouldn’t of come up to Sydney if there had of been.”

    “No,” he murmurs. “Thinking generally, then?”

    “Eh? Aw—yeah.”

    “Dot,” he says cautiously, “I realise your cousin Rosie’s a horrible example—”

    “No, because even though you might say at first sight her and John have got nothing in common, acksherly underneath, like in the things that count, they’re real alike! And, um, their differences sort of um, mesh.”

    “Mesh very well, I’d say,” he says with as laugh in his voice.

    “Hah, hah! Not that! No, well, that too, ’tis important, eh?”

    “Sexual compatibility? In most relationships, yes,” he says simply. “But I didn't mean Rosie’s relationship with John: her habit of trying to arrange other people’s lives for them.”

    “Eh? Oh. I geddit. Um, but I wasn’t! I was just wondering… I think you’re right about Euan, I sure hope she doesn’t go and really fall for him.”

    “Mm. It’d be a waste,” he murmurs, peering into the dark of the track.

    Uh—well, yeah! But did I imply that? See, I was right, wasn’t I? So I go: “Acksherly, you’re right, cos she’s a real sweet person, with loads to offer.”

    “I think so, too.”

    “Yeah, only the thing is, I’m not saying it was a mistake to get her up here, and she is having a lovely time—and I don’t mean just the thing with Euan, before you start—only the thing is, I don’t think what she’s got to offer is the sort of thing you sophisticated foreign types are looking for, or can even see, for the most part. And we already know the local yobs can’t see it.”

    There’s a short silence. Then he murmurs: “See it in her or in you, Dot?”

    “In her, of course! Cripes, we may look alike, but we’re real different personalities, Lucas!”

    “Yes, I had noticed that,” he says thoughtfully. “Though I’d say you could both be very determined and quite… obstinate, I suppose is the word.”

    “Yes, you’re right.”

    “Mm.” He frowns at the track. “Were you intending me to take that ‘sophisticated foreign type’ personally?”

    Ouch! So I go, real casual: “Not really. But you’re sure an example of the type.”

    He takes a deep breath. “I thought I’d told you enough about my life for you to be able to see that I’m not, Dot.”

    “Look, forget your origins, mate, even if the rest of Britain can’t! I’m talking about the things you like, and the way you prefer to live! Like, white-embroidered white hankies from Bond Street? That flaming Beamer you drive back home? And that shiny flat of yours sounds even worse than Euan’s poncy palace!” Short silence. “Not that I’ve ever see either of them.”

    “All right, Rosie's given you an earful,” he says heavily.

    “Okay, she has.”

    After a moment he says: “Then perhaps she’s also told you about Adam’s and Georgy’s place in Hampstead?”

    “Nuh—Um, isn’t that near London?”

    “It’s in London Dot,” he says in a shaken voice,

    Oh, is it,? Pardon my ignorance, I’m sure. “Yeah? I thought Rosie said they live in the country, well, on the outskirts of a village: fancy place with loads of lawns that he doesn’t mow.”

    “They have got a country place, yes, but they use that mostly for weekends and holidays. Most of the year they’re at the house in Hampstead: it’s much handier if they’re in a London show or filming.”

    “Aw. Right,” I go blankly. “What about it?”

    “It’s a big two-storeyed brick place, dates from the Thirties, I think: nice garden—I’m quite sure he doesn’t mow its lawn, either—big rambling rose round the front porch. That’s the sort of place I’d really prefer.”

    Talking of pipe-dreams of the affluent middle-classes—yeah. But shit, he could afford a house any old day, in fact if he sold the poncy flat he could probably afford two! Rosie reckons it’s in an incredibly expensive block with an even better view of the river than Euan’s has got. He put on a dinner party for her and John, plus D.D. and his sister, and not only it was fully catered, he’d hired a butler for it as well. “So why haven’t you bought one?”

    “Because I really don’t fancy rattling round in a large two-storeyed house by myself.”

    Gulp. No, ya wouldn’t. Poor old Lucas. “No,” I mutter.

    We’ve pulled in by the steps up to our loft before it dawns: is he implying that he’d really fancy a cosy life with Molly in an old brick house with flaming rambling roses round its door? So I go, real cautious: “It does sound like a real nice house, but, um, buying a house doesn’t change a person’s essential character, Lucas.”

    “Thanks, Dot,” he says, real dry.

    Uh—yeah, let’s drop the subject, eh?

    The subject was dropped and a pleasant evening was had by all. The next morning was real good: D.D. decided, having ordered everyone to be on set before crack of dawn, that he wasn’t gonna film a very typical Singapore beach scene only remotely connected to the plot—waves breaking gently, red sails in the sunset (sunrise), blah, blah—no. Instead, he was gonna re-do Euan’s scenes in front of the hideaway, oh, no!

    Oh, yes. First it would be all the close-ups with Rosie and this time, try to come over as something slightly more cheerful than last week’s mouldy bread pudding, Euan! Bread pudding? Personally at that point I was waiting for the man to say “becoss.” And I know Molly was: she winked and me and mouthed “Bee-coss,” but unfortunately he didn’t.

    So the entire day was spent re-doing those exhausting scenes in front of the bungalow, on the verandah of the bungalow, and just far enough down the beach from the bungalow to be within— Yeah. Jesus! Well, lucky for some: Amaryllis and Jimmy didn’t need telling twice: they got right into their hire-car and shoved off for the day. And Ann announced that she’d already sent her editor a lot of tripe about this scene and since she was up here she was gonna see a Big Something if it killed her, were there any takers? Which there were, Rupy and Gray had been dying to see a Big Something ever since Rosie mentioned them to them, so they piled into Bernie’s hire-car with her, and surprisingly enough Tony and Kirrian decided to go, too. This was probably connected with Kirrian’s remark the other day that her mum had rung up to say that the publicity shots were lovely, of course, but couldn’t they send her a nice pic Tony had taken of something that they’d seen? (The inside of their motel cabin—right.) Anyway, off they all went. And the rest of the cast mysteriously disappeared, too, and gee, who did that leave? Ya right: me and Rosie and Euan.

    John and Molly sat down on a rug at a cautious distance—out of shot, right—under his big umbrella and pretended to look supportive, but what they were really doing, of course, was playing with Baby Bunting.

    If you’re wondering what Lucas did, don’t ask me: all I know is he had his laptop out and a frown on his forehead the minute the word “re-shoot” passed the Great Director’s lips and then he disappeared in the general direction of our room and wasn’t seen again all day.

    So a new day has dawned and I go: “Wasn't there a rumour that Rosie’s gotta be back at her uni job next Monday morning as ever was?”

    “Yes, but I’ve contacted her professor, and as the first week of the academic year is usually wasted anyway, he’s conceded we can have her for another week, proved that were indemnify them for her salary.”

    Gulp. So much for easy-going British academic institutions. Well, true, this particular prof is a mad-keen Yank in Buddy Holly specs. “Right. So he’s called his first departmental monthly meeting for the Monday of the second week of term, then?”

    “The Tuesday,” he says mildly and yours truly shuts up definitively.

    “What’s Derry filming this morning?” he says with a laugh in his voice.

    “Dunno. Depends what the rushes from yesterday were like, really.”

    “Mm.”

    So we get on set and gee, D.D.’s all smiles the rushes were excellent, Euan’s performance has improved no end, bonhomie all round. He doesn’t actually spell it out that it’s because of the thing with Molly but he does radiate extra good-humour at her. Well, plus and threatens to have a word with her later, he’s heard about her talent for mimicry and as  Adam’s example had more than demonstrated, unquote, it can go hand-in-hand with real acting ability, unquote. Molly just smiles that serene smile of hers at him, if he thinks he’s gonna cut any ice there he's got another think coming. Sufficient unto the day, however.

    By lunchtime he’s still in a frightfully good mood, in fact he’s even told me that I walked across “the sands” arm-in-arm with Euan as if I had some notion that the female bum didn’t have to look like the back of a Number 49 bus. –Rear-view shots, yes. Gazing mistily out into the red sails in the sunset. Something like that. Well, don’t ask me, I’m only the body.

    So everything’s hunky-dory and Isabelle’s laid on an extra-special spread today (got a load of real cheap pineapples direct from the cellar door, kind of thing), and so we all head for the big tent arrangement they've put up behind the motel (well out of shot, right). It’s not too bad, they’ve got big fans positioned round the sides of it, like, mostly the sides are rolled up and the fans— Okay, not a need to know. And given it’s been a long morning I will have a nice big helping of barbied chops, thanks, Scott, and, um, those chips do look good, so maybe just a few—mounds, right, thanks, Janelle (lady from the neighbourhood), and a good big helping of salad to counteract them. Um, not the macaroni salad, though it does look nice, thanks anyway, Barb (’nother lady from the neighbourhood), um, not either of the rice salads, though they do look nice, thanks, Kathleen (’nother ditto), um, yeah, thanks, Cherie (ditto), the lettuce, tomato and cucumber salad. Got Paul Newman’s on it, has it? Glad to hear it.

    So I manage to wedge meself in at the end of a long bench at a table full of cameramen and sound-men and their assistants—They are all men! I’m sorry, but 21st century or not, the film industry, is, apparently, like that!—and look round for Molly and Euan, I kinda lost them somewhere in the scrum—

    Sweet bleeding Jesus! Already? Like, I knew Lucas was planning a working lunch with D.D., he warned me very nicely that he wouldn’t be able to sit with me—but D.D. has just imperially waved Euan to his table and he’s walked off and left Molly to it!

    She comes over and joins me. She doesn’t seem to mind—looks as composed as ever. In her shoes, I’d be really seething, y’know? Seething.

    I haven’t had a chance all day to talk it over privately with Lucas, and we had tea at the pub with a crowd of people, but once we get back to our loft I can't stop meself.

    “If I was her, I’d of been real pissed off with him.”

    “Mm? Oh—that. When your future’s in your producer-director’s hands, you don’t tell him to take a running jump when he orders you to sit at his table at lunchtime,” says Lucas, sounding completely neutral.

    “I guess. But why didn’t he ask Molly to come, too?”

    “That would have exposed her to Derry at his most inspired,” he says smoothly.

    “Hah, hah.” Suspicious look. “What was the inspiration about?”

     Those cool grey eyes look at me calmly. “The ending, Dot."

    “What? Not again!”

    “No, this time he means it. We’ve done some predictions based on a nice little survey we ran, and the conclusion is that if we go with a twist to the ending with Adam in leathers as in Rupy’s brilliant scenario—which I have to confess I’d adore to see, myself—it’ll go down well with the art film crowd but lessen the thing’s popular appeal by about thirty percent. This might not be a total disaster: Adam is still a terrific drawcard at the box office; but once Derry had seen the cold, hard figures of what that thirty percent actually represents he realised that it would completely put the kybosh on his plans for the next art epic—already on the drawing-board,” he says with a little smile. “A study of a lower-middle, almost completely personality-less grandmother who gets Alzheimer’s and ends in an old folks’ home. It’ll have even less popular appeal than Ilya, My Brother and the critics are almost guaranteed to adore it. Then we showed him what ending the film with a grumpy modern hubby scenario, either Adam or Euan, would do to the box office, and he just about passed out. –Cut it by a minimum of fifty percent, Dot,” he explains with a little smile.

    “Shit.”

    “Precisely. But our predictions are it’ll be a roaring box office success if he runs with the scenario where the Modern Girl decides there’s no romance left today and then Euan hops on the bus, smiling that little smile of his that goes straight to the hearts of those with maternal instincts. –It’s something to do, according to Derry, with its being slightly wistful with a touch of yer barrer boy—don’t tell me Euan’s not a cockney, we have all pointed it out to him. And we have got a lot of figures on his appeal to the male half of the audience, and he is popular with them, too, God knows why.”

    “Um, no,” I agree, “cos in real life, I’ve noticed that blokes don’t tend to like him much.”

    “Quite. Well—it’s the hint of the barrer boy, I think: the punters see themselves in his place, an ordinary chap that’s made it?”

    “Um, yeah, I suppose—well, not that all his rôles have been like that, by any means—but yeah, when he’s on screen there is something a bit cheeky about him, isn’t there? And in a way he’s ordinary-looking, too: he’s very good-looking without having any particularly outstanding feature that you can put your finger on.” –Not looking at that perfect mouth of yours, Lucas Roberts.

    “Yes, the living proof that there’s hope for all us blokes!” he says with a laugh. “I think it is that. Anyway, the figures prove it! So Derry has at last agreed to the bus scenario. The specific inspiration that Molly was spared was about the actual shots he’d use. –I’m afraid this means a bolt back to Sydney rather soon, Dot: of course the body that mounts onto the bus will be yours, but he needs to grab Rosie for the close-ups before she has to get back to the university.”

    “Yeah, sure.”

    “Um, Euan will be coming, too, of course… Dot, I suppose Molly does realise that he has to get back early in September, too, does she?”

    “Um, dunno. Does he?”

    “Yes: he’s committed to Aubrey Mattingforth for several months.”

    “Um, ya mean his Shakespeare stuff, do ya? –Right. Are they putting it on right away?”

    “Nuh—At Stratford? No: hasn’t anyone explained it to you?”

    Might of. They’ve explained an awful lot to me these past couple of months and none of it was that riveting, when ya come right down to it. Specially Rupy’s and Gray’s plans for what they’re gonna wear to the premiere. (Ya don’t wanna know, trust me.)

    So he explains that Florizel, Perdita’s dim prince in The Winter’s Tale, is only one of the parts that Euan’s got, it’s an on-going series they’re making for TV—oh, yeah, think Rosie did mention that—and blah, blah. Right, Adam’s got most of the solid parts, think I might of guessed that. Huh? Later plays—oh, right, right— Prospero? Will A. McIntyre be up to that? Something must be showing on my face because he goes: “There’s no need to play him as a complete old dodderer that’s lost it, Dot. After all, his daughter Miranda is very young.” This is true, but lots of old blokes have had kids, but I don’t say it. Then he explains that blokes would of retired earlier back in Shakespeare’s day, people didn’t live so long. Yeah, but heck, Adam’s only in his early forties! So he goes, calm as anything: “A little older than that, Dot.” Gulp! He sure doesn’t look it! So he tells me how very good he was as Cymbeline at Stratford a couple of years back. Gee, where have I heard that before? Uh—hang on, this isn’t a general report, he actually went to the thing.

    “Yeah. Thought your flat was right in London?”

    “Er—yes, that’s right, Dot,” he goes, looking at me doubtfully. “Why?”

    Why? “Rosie reckons—mind you, geography isn’t her bag—that Stratford’s a fair drive from London.”

    “Mm: Warwickshire.”—Or, Greek.—“Sorry, Dot, I don’t get it.”

    “Well, heck, ya mean to tell me ya went all that way to see a play? Or were ya, like, on your holidays?”

    “In this instance I was, yes, but I quite often make it to Stratford.”

    Goddit, it’s an up-market thing to do. Well, Aunty Kate making Rosie and Rupy take her there was a fair indicator, yeah, but I geddit: it’s not just for the culture-vulture sector of the tourists, it’s for British culture-vultures, too.

    After a minute he says: “Um, actually I didn’t really mean to get you started on Molly and Euan, Dot.”

    “Um, no, sorry, didn’tcha? No. Well, if it’d been me in her shoes being dumped like that in the middle of the lunch tent with everybody watching— Forget it. We all know he’s shit-shared of D.D. And she didn’t actually seem to mind.”

    “No, she’s very sweet,” he says with a little smile that I don’t think he knows he’s wearing. “Um… I know you and Rosie had your heads together this afternoon, and from something very tactful that John Haworth said I think the subject might have been the two of us.”

    Part of the time, yeah. Well, heck, D.D. was filming long shots of the beach and poor Amaryllis and Michael, him in full uniform and her in full-skirted translucent nylon in pale lemon and pale mauve—D.D. reckons the combo was very Fifties—what were we supposed to do, sit under the umbrella with our mouths sewn shut? And most of the time John wasn’t even there, him and Jimmy were boozing up on the office verandah with Scott: how did he even— Oh, forget it.

    “Look, it was her usual warning, she just can’t understand when anybody takes up with a bloke that’s not a clone of John!”

    “A little more than that, I think.”

    “You don’t wanna know.”

    “I do: I’d like to have an opportunity of refuting it,” he goes coolly.

    Uh—yeah. “Um, I suppose that’s only fair. Not that I’m taking any notice of her, mind! Um, well, like I say, it was pretty much her usual warning… Well, she’s said it before. She said even if I went back to Britain with you,” I’ve gone very red, the bloke hasn't asked me, or even hinted at it—“I’d never be able to hack your sort of lifestyle. I thought she just meant you’re too up-market for me,”—he opens his mouth and then shuts it again—“but she said it wasn’t just that: you’re too, um, button-down.” Swallow.

    “Button-down? Oh. I see.”

    “Um, yeah. She said, suppose for a moment we were sharing my flat: you’d take one look at the crap I’ve got in it and do an Alan Fairbright on it. Um, sorry, Lucas, he was that guy that I was living with for a bit ni Canberra.”

    “The one who fancied featureless pale grey plasticised cupboards? I see.”

    “She said it, not me,” I go glumly.

    “But you agree with her. Thanks,” he says tightly.

    “Um, well, I can see the cupboards are tasteless, I’m not that bad. Only they’re his version of 21st-century taste, see. You’d rip out the crap and replace it with real taste, only—” Shit.

    “Only?” he prompts.

    “Okay, I admit Rosie’s right: I wouldn’t appreciate it and more than that, I wouldn’t care if it was good or not. And I would probably tell you it was a waste of money.”

    “Did Rosie say that?”

    “Yeah, but she was right, cos acksherly, I did tell Alan that.” Well, it was. All that hard-earned on flaming kitchen cupboards? Who cares what colour or style ya kitchen cupboards are, for Chrissakes? Uh—yeah. Well, there you are.

    He passes his hand over his hair. “I don’t think— No, she’s right, of course. I do like things to be nice—providing I can afford to improve them.”

    Exactly. “Right. And admittedly I haven’t had much time to do anything about the Sydney flat or much spare cash, but Deanna’s right: you can do a lot with a lick of paint and some cheap material from Spotlight or like that. And I wasn’t spending every weekend or evening on work, only see, what I was doing was reading up on other database systems, cos I’d got all interested. And she was real keen to come on over and give me a hand: I mean, she’d sketched out a colour scheme and everything, she thought we should take our inspiration from that rug that Marianne Gridley-Smythe gimme, only I just lied and told her I had work to do. Cos see, what I really wanted to do was read my database books in peace.”

    “Mm. I see, not work, but things of the mind, Dot.”

    Crikey, he actually gets it! “Yes, that’s right. Dad says if I haven’t learned to strike a balance in life by now I’d better watch it or it’ll be too bloody late, but the thing is, I always have been an all-or-nothing person.”

    “I’d have said I was, too… I suppose my immediate environment, whether it’s a matter of demonstrating to myself and others how much I’ve come up in the world, or a matter of aesthetics, or a mixture of both, is very important to me.” He goes back to the window again and after a bit he says in real tight voice: “So do you think we’re basically incompatible after all, Dot?”

    Swallow. “Dunno. I’d of said we got quite lot in common.”

    “If I did ask you to live with me, could you bear it? I know I can’t change,” he says, staring out of the window.

    “Um, I think if you spent too much time on the up-market crap I’d get real mad at ya, but most of the time I think I could bear it, yes: cos see, I wouldn’t actually care. But could you bear that? I mean, you’d know, every time ya showed me a nice cushion or your new wallpaper or something and I said ‘Yeah, real pretty,’ that even if I truly did think it was pretty, I didn’t fundamentally give a shit.”

    So he turns round and goes: “I can see that after twenty years or so that would get very irritating, yes. But twenty years is a fair stretch of time, isn’t it? And I have to say it, Dot: I appreciate the fact that you’ve answered me honestly. But I think you’re intellectualising it, aren’t you?”

    Me? That’s pretty hot!

    “Do you want me enough to live with me?” he says grimly.

    There are a lot of feelings in there, like, actually it’s a terrifying thought, he can be bloody intimidating. And twenty years of having to admire up-market crap doesn’t actually appeal all that much. But he is terrifically attractive and terrifically good at sex and I really like his mind—

    “–No,” he concludes flatly.

    “For Pete’s sake, I was thinking about it seriously!”

    “If you had to think that long the fundamental need wasn’t there,” he says dully.

    “Don’t be flaming ridiculous, we’re not a pair of stupid kids!”

    ‘Well, no, and that’s why I know enough to recognise when it isn’t there, Dot. –It’s all right, I wasn’t at the stage of making a serious offer, just as the stage of—well, of wondering what if, I suppose.”

    “Um, yeah.” The thing is, if he wasn't gonna make a serious offer is the fundamental whatsit there in his case? Sex apart. “Right. Um, well, in that case, better call it a day, eh?”

    “For God’s sake, Dot! I didn’t mean—”

    “Yes, ya did. I have thought about it, if ya wanna know, and acksherly, the sound of that two-storeyed house with roses round its flaming porch is real off-putting.”

    The poor joker’s mouth has sagged open. “What?” he gropes.

    “Even more so than your up-market flat which I admit I've only got Rosie’s version of, but I gotta admit, it sounds cold as Hell.”

    “It is rather minimalist, I suppose— What is all this about roses round the porch?”

    “What you said the other day! A house like Adam and Georgy’s!”

    “Buh-but—It would mean a—a garden-suburb sort of lifestyle very like the Sydney one that you’re used to, Dot!”

    Oh, God. The idiot. See, what it is, it’s the flaming yellow curls and the short. And the tits—yeah. “Lucas, I’d curl up and die if I hadda be shut up in a suburban house and garden, however pretty, with roses round its flaming door.”

    “I wasn’t envisaging immuring you in it at the mercy of domesticity,” he goes feebly.

    Not flaming half! ’Course he was, they’re all like that! And yeah, I admit Baby Bunting’s a real argument in favour of it, but heck: on a full-time basis? No way! I’d be out of my skull with boredom, ya gotta be an Aunty May to actually enjoy full-time domesticity. And, just by the by, that sort of woman is born, not made. Not made.

    “Maybe ya weren’t, though I think at the back of ya mind ya were. Anyway, let’s just agree to call it a day, huh? It’s been real good, but fundamentally I’m not what you’re looking for, and you’re not right for me. I’ll kip on Isabelle and Scott’s couch: no-one seems to be using it at the moment.”

    “What? You don’t have to walk out this moment!”

    I do, actually. All-or-nothing, that’s me. “Yeah, I better. It’d be real stupid to let it drag on, wouldn’t it? I’ll just get my toothbrush and stuff.”

    So I go and grab my stuff. He’s still just standing there in the main room when I come back. “At least let me drive you, Dot!”

    “No, that’s okay, it’s a lovely night for a walk. See ya.”

    And I’m out of there. Well, shit, what is the point in letting it drag on?

    … And on thinking it over, the writing was on the wall when I found out he knew all along there was a risk I might get mixed up with Euan and said all that stuff about him being a gourmet on purpose. Well, good negotiating skills—fine. And yeah, I concede that a bloke does what a bloke’s gotta do. But that was real underhand, I’ve decided is the only word: underhand. And I really can’t stand that. Y’know?