Dancing Dot

19

Dancing Dot

    They were all wrong, see, Gray Hunter has come out, he’s not only gonna partner Rosie in Sisters, he’s gonna help the choreographer, Gil Morton, because D.D. reckons he hasn’t been putting enough pizzazz into the numbers—NOT THOSE NUMBERS, YOU CRETINS, THE BALLROOM NUMBERS! Unquote. Like what yours truly has mostly had to do because D.D.’s sets are humungously expensive and he won’t rebuild them in Pongo later on just because I’m a gibbon. Or a donkey on two legs, think the last one was.

    Anyway, Gray’s very nice. Of course he’s gay, well, an old mate of Rupy’s would almost have to be, eh? He’d be, um, fortyish? I’m no good at ages but I think that’d be right. Bald on top, short bristles round the lower part of the skull, Rosie reckons the shade’s magenta but I wouldn’t go that far. More maroon. He’s absolutely thrilled to be here, absolutely thrilled to be in the film, and, never mind the gayness, absolutely thrilled to be reunited with Baby Bunting. And to discover that Rosie did bring out the lovely squidgy Jamaica-y cushion he gave him when he turned six months. It’s got pineapples and boats on it, and the summer Rosie was pregnant her and Rupy had a Jamaica in the front garden of John’s cottage, geddit? John was at sea, whaddelse. They only managed a quick bit of a one this year, mostly eating and lying around on sunloungers, well, actually I think that’s what they both were, before they had to leave for Sydney in the rain. As far as I can see Gray didn’t realise it was winter out here, didn’t realise it rained in Sydney, didn’t realise how big Queensland is let alone how far it is to Isabelle and Scott’s place and didn’t realise what a big city Sydney is— No, well, he has been to Boulogne, that’s true, and his old Aunty Maybelle lives in a lovely cottage somewhere near Bournemouth, but Gray’s a Londoner born and bred. But he doesn’t use that fake Cockney accent the Brit. TV series have been full of the last few years, thank God.

    He’s a really super dancer. And even I can see that he can sure can choreograph—is that a word? Never mind, he’s injecting piles of oomph and pizzazz and that other D.D. word, zing? whaddever, into ruddy Gil’s choreography and D.D. is terrifically pleased with him. Unfortunately this seems to mean that I can manage more dancing than D.D. thought I’d be able to. Yes, you can, Dot! All right, I can. And on your head be it, mate.

    By the time Gray got here we’d already finished most of the crap in the blue Sisters dresses that I had to be in, like, in the so-called Raffles Hotel ballroom. As far as I can see none of them have any idea of what the real one looks like and heck, this side of the flaming planet there’ll be people in the audience, if the thing gets an audience at all, that have seen the real— Never mind, it’s all mad. However, there is one crucial dance with Euan, actually more of a standing smooch, that D.D. was gonna shoot all in close-up—and already had, it’s in the can, the lights hadda be changed fifteen times to get the right look on the side of Rosie’s cheek—but now that Gray’s here he’s decided he wants some middle-distance shots. Well, yeah, Rosie’s right, Euan’s legs look real good in what D.D. imagines was the correct tropic white evening wear for Naval types in the Fifties, it would be a pity to waste them. Mind you, not as good as Adam McIntyre’s, I seen the rushes for that little snippet he did where he nips into a rickshaw, oh, boy. The whole film’d be worth it just for that one shot.

    So the edict has gone forth. Dot will learn this new bit of dance Gray’s dreamed up for the ballroom, and she will learn this other dance, not for the ballroom. Think it’s on deck, during the big Chrissie party on H.M.S. Regardless, where Rupy and Rosie sing White Christmas as a duet at the sailors’ Chrissie concert, looking sentimentally into the camera in forty-five degree tropic heat and steaming Singapore humidity. Whether any sailors would actually invite the First Officer to sing, and whether any First Officer of a huge great warship actually would, is another story. Well, Rupy’s got a lovely tenor voice, it makes a great number. The point seems to be that Euan gets grindingly jealous and starts to realise he really does want the Daughter seriously. Though how it fits in between the big rows they keep having, I haven’t a clue. So tomorrow Dot will rehearse it and GET THE TEMPO RIGHT! All right, keep ya permanent-waved hair on, Great Director. Where? At David’s where? How come he rates a house when everyone else is in hotels— Goddit, goddit, no “cretinous Sydney hotel” could provide a sound-proof room with a grand piano in it, well, looking back on that Chrissie with Aunty Kate and Uncle Jim I can sympathise with their feelings when D.D. demanded one, yeah, too right. Hey, woulden it be simpler if we just practised in a nice practice room here at the studios, they got plenty, to a tape of the orchestra— No tape, no orchestral version, DO IT! All right, I will.

    Euan thought I could collect him at crack of dawn but I thought I couldn’t, so I’m not. He can get a taxi like the rest of humanity if the studios can’t provide a limo, and give Gray a ride. I do know Gray’s not in the same hotel as you Big Stars, Euan, and? The poor jerk went very red and muttered something, ulp. But D.M. Mallory didn’t give in, it’s in the wrong direction for me and I don’t wanna get stuck in downtown traffic.

    So here I am. Well, given it’s on the waterfront, I think I am: my God, who does the place belong to, Kerry Packer? On second thoughts, it may well do: us little people have now discovered that D.D. knows most of the world’s billionaires. One or two of them occasionally back him, yeah. As a tax loss, I’d say, wouldn’t you? So I park outside these humungous great steel gates and get out real slow. There’s a gate phone, fancy that. Maybe it’s the wrong pl—Uh, no. CRASH! Doh, ray, me, fah, so, lah, tee, doh! Bonk, bonk, bonk, CRASH! Well, the place might of cost a cool five mill.’ and holding to put up, but yep, that’s genuine jerry-built Sydney, all right, no sound-proofing need apply, we’re Aussies, thanks. The word is D.D. was stunned to hear the locals had never heard of double-glazing, neither, but given I’d never heard of it—

    Jesus, Dot Mallory, take a pull! Press the fucking bell! So I do and after pressing it three times the phone goes: “We don’t want anything.”

    “David! DAVID! It’s Dot, ya drongo! We’re supposed to be practising! Open the fucking gate!”

    Silence. Then he goes: “Practising what?”

    “Don’t be ruddy funny, it’s freezing out here! Practising fucking stupid ballroom dances, and OPEN THE GATE!”

    Silence, has the fucking thing gone dead? Then he goes: “Is it open?”

    “Eh?” Shove, shove, grunt, PUSH! “No.”

    “Damn. I don’t think I know how to work it… They put me into this terrifyingly high-tech place and seemed to assume I’d automatically know how to work everything.”

    Oh, come off it, David! It’s seven-thirty of a grey, cold, drizzly winter morning and frankly, you can sit on your bloody Angst! “Ya must know how to work it, you were in at the studios YESTERDAY!”

    “I mean from here… I’ll come out.”

    Good, do that, and let’s hope ya catch ruddy pneumonia! So I get back in the car, shiver, shiver.

    So he comes out with a coat over his shoulders and points a thingo at the gates. Yikes, is that the only way to open them? Cos what happens the day he gets home and finds he’s left it at the studios—I’m not asking, but I’ll look forward to it.

    “Um, you can bring the car right up to the house Dot,” he goes lamely.

    You’re right, there, mate. Gee, I’ve driven right past him. Well, might as well carry on and park, eh? The drive’s only short, anyway. Interesting pavers. Not pale Florentine-style like what most of the rendered dumps have, and not your rich genuine terracotta, sort of in between, wonder if they ordered them specially? Laid in a kind of herringbone pattern, boy that makes ya dizzy! The house is, at a guess, Florentine-Spanish. Rendered, but with definite Spanish tiles. You get a lot of that on the Sydney waterfront.

    So he comes up to my door just as I’m opening it and goes: “Isn’t it horrible? They claim it’s Florentine in style but any Florentine I’ve ever met would run screaming.”

    “Yeah. Got one of those layered gardens with a swimming pool in the top layer round the side looking over the water, has it?”

    “Uh—yes!” he goes with a startled laugh.

    “Right. So where are the owners?”

    “Tahiti. Let’s hope they’re whisky drinkers, Nefertite says the place has the dearest Johnnie in the known universe.”

    So I get out and go: “Yeah. How is she?”

    He brightens, not that you can hardly tell, with the five o’clock shadow, has he been punishing that poor piano all night? “Very well, and she’s coming out for a concert tour very soon, and looking forward to seeing you again, Dot!”

    Oh. Well, that’d be nice, except it’d be much nicer if it was just her and me. “Great. Lead the way.”

    So he leads the way. “I’m only using a couple of rooms,” he says lamely as we go into this giant entrance ha— God Almighty!

    “Uh—yeah. You’d need to. What is that?”

    “A copy,” he says dully. “I began to wonder if perhaps the owners were Italian—perhaps peasant stock from the South: I don't know about Sydney, but there’s a lot of them in Adelaide, mostly Calabrians, I think; but no, they’re Anglo-Celtic like the majority. Just completely lacking in taste. Bernie tells me that is genuine Carrara marble, however.”

    “Right.” I’m not asking a copy of what, I can see it’s not Michelangelo’s David, but it is a very large bloke in the nuddy showing off his muscles. The fig leaf is a tasteful touch, yep. It’s got these kinda blue lights down the bottom of it in amongst the mondo grass and the tiny round marble pebbles. “Hey, can’t ya turn them off, at least?”

    “I can’t find the switch. This is nothing, though, Dot, to those of us who have seen Napoleon’s tomb.”

    “Right. Um, has it got blue lighting?” I croak.

    He laughs. “Oh, Hell, yes!”—Uh, yeah, I’d sort of forgotten in the intervening period that he has got a sense of humour.—“Come through. Don’t leave your coat, we’d never find it again.”

    Ya right, there, mate. What with the huge curved staircase with the gold railings and the make-ya-dizzy black and white marble squares on the floor and them marble benches everywhere they couldn’t fit in another ten-foot carved cabinet and the, um, would they be Queen Anne easy-chairs standing around casually? With very shiny brocade upholstery in, um, wouldn’t call it magenta, no… Puce? Tones with that there orchid in that there very elaborate marble urn, yep. The chandelier’s all wrapped up in a big piece of canvas, gee, there is a God.

    “Tasteful, isn’t it?” he says, leading me into a huge—well, lounge-room? Who knows? Huge chunky white wool suites like Aunty May’s, but mixed with more of the Queen Anne stuff, covered in nasty little bits of gold decoration as to the bits that you’d expect to be wooden, millions more cabinets, inlay work, each one shinier and more elaborate than the last, huge vases and pots, some of them standing around on their ownsome, some on their own stands, some sitting on the cabinets and curly-legged coffee tables and, yikes, glass coffee tables as well… No more huge statues, but lots and lots of little ones… Statuettes! That’s the word! Not all of them are holding up lamps, by no means. The floor’s wooden, all little bits, not inlay, there’s a special word, with Persian rugs sitting about on it here and there, and apart from the one wall that’s entirely of glass, view of the harbour, yep, the walls are covered in a fruity blue brocade and laden, probably just as well, with pictures. Mostly modern, though there are some smaller, very dark ones that look old. Cripes, there’s abstracts and flower pictures and loads and loads of portraits and some really bad landscapes…

    David’s noticed I’m goggling at them. “This is my favourite,” he explains, going over to a sort of Picasso-inspired thing of a lady with an eye sticking up on top of her forehead, her face is sort of streaky green. Apart from that she’s wearing a real ordinary yellow twinset and a string of pearls. “Mrs Alison Lubecki,” he explains primly.

    “Huh?”

    “It’s apparently a portrait. I’ve never heard of the artist, I’m afraid.”

    So I go up to the thing. Peer, peer. Yep, that is what its little like, plaque set into its elaborate gold frame says. “My bet would be it didn’t win the Archibald, that year.”

    “No!” he agrees with a laugh, gee, not even pretending he’s never heard of it, that’s a first, Pom.

    “So are the owners called Lubecki?”

    “No. McLoughlin. Percy and Gaynor.”

    “Goddit. Gee, do we have to do our practising in here, David?”

    “Well, the piano’s in here, unfortunately.”

    Yes, so it is. No, not white, though them sofas would certainly lead you to expect it. More inlay work. Incredibly shiny, yellow-browny with curly bits on the legs and flower patterns and what I’d class as curlicue patterns all over it. “Is it an antique?”

    “Victorian. It’s so over the top that it’s rather lovely!” he says with a laugh. “And as a matter of fact it’s got a beautiful tone.”

    Right, wouldn’t of been it you were bashing when I come, then. “Yeah. Um, this floor…”

    “Mm?”

    Oh, all right, I’ll show up me ignorance. “I know it’s not inlay work, like the piano and all them cabinets, but what is the word?”

    “Parquet,” he says simply.

    Sag. “’Course it is, yeah. Hey, they must sure like herringbone, eh? Have ya noticed the drive—”

    He has, he’s in hysterics. Finally he manages to gasp: “Half the production team’s been to the dump but apart from you, Bernie and Derry are the only ones to have spotted that, Dot!”

    Gee, that’s a compliment. “Yeah. Think Euan and Gray might of got lost. Any coffee?”

    “Of course. Come and see the high-tech kitchen!”

    So we do that. Well, it’s bigger, yeah, but it isn’t actually any worse than Aunty May’s: think there’s only the one 21st-century kitchen design. Blue-grey slate flooring, grey granite bench tops, featureless white Melamine cupboards—you got it. Yep, that is a big Kenwood, David, but ya got one of those, so don’t start your “poor little low-tech me” bit or I’ll scream. Yep, big juicer. Dare say it is a bore to remember to buy carrots, yeah, but I should be so lucky, I haven’t managed to afford a juicer, yet. This’ll be a bread-maker, cos it’s got on it. No, I don’t know how to use it, Jesus! They cost a fucking fortune! Um… Oh, goddit: George Foreman grill. I’ll forgive ya, David. “George Foreman grill,” I repeat, real slow. “Like, the fat drains out this thingo. Aimed at the slimming set that aren’t vegetarians, see? Only what I always wonder is, what happens if there’s more fat than the thingo’ll hold?

    “Quite,” he says, looking at the thing in horror.

    Well, what if? George, I’m not knocking it, in principle it’s a bloody good idea, specially given the average Australian male diet, but what if? Them fancy TV ads don’t explain that. Um… dunno, ’nother mixer gizzmo? Um… ’nother juicer? Right, this one’s an orange-juicer. Waffle-iron, ya do need a special mixture, or so they tell me, yep. Yeah, electric, technology automated waffle-irons quite some time since, David, whaddareya? Um… dunno. Um… slow-cooker? Whaddever. This is getting real boring, wish that coffee’d hurry up.

    He must have sensed the waves of boredom coming off D.M. Mallory, because he goes, real lame: “Sorry. I thought it was quite fun. I forgot you were never into cooking. I was going to show you the asparagus cooker.”

    “Very funny.”

    “I’m not joking. But it’s just a saucepan, really,” he says dully.

    “Oh, go on, I can stand it.”

    He gets it out. He’s right, it is just a pot. A tall one. Is it a foreign pot? You’d have a bit of trouble fitting your average Aussie asparagus stalk into that, mate, maybe ours comes longer—Oh, upright, eh? Steaming the tips, boy, that was a need-to-know! “I’ve never cooked it, meself. Mum always just dumps it in a pot, when she buys it. ’Bout twice a year, for Dad, she doesn’t waste it on the rest of them.”

    So he does this rave about asparagus with butter, blah, blah. So I go: “Marg. Butter’s bad for your cholesterol level.”

    Rave, rave, leave ya some pleasures in the sterile 21st-century automated plastic Wonderland. Oh, hah, hah, very amusing. Doesn’t alter the fact that butter is full of the wrong sort of fat, does it?

    “Very well, you don’t like asparagus,” he says tiredly, pouring the coffee.

    “I do quite like it, I just don’t rave about it.”

    “Mm. Come on through to the other room—and don’t worry about spilling anything in there, they’re the sort of people who—”

    “Just throw it out, yeah, got that.”

    So we sit down on a couple of the white giants. His coffee’s as good as I remembered it. Wish I could think of something to say. Wish the others’d get here, where the fuck are they? My watch can’t be wrong, I checked it against the radio.

    “Um, so what’s Nefertite gonna be doing?”

    He brightens, and explains. Not the where she’s gonna stay stuff, the music stuff. It’s all Greek to me, hah, hah. (Don’t say it. Gutless—right.)

    “Um, yeah. Some of those’d be modern, right?”

    Shit, he can’t hide the look of horror. So I say, real mild: “Like, I have discovered a few more composers since I last saw ya, but I been busy earning a living these past few years. And I don’t like modern music. It doesn’t sound like music to me. Sorry, but there it is.”

    “I could teach you to like it, Dot.”

    Is that an offer? “Acksherly, I don’t think you could, David. I’m sure you could teach me to appreciate it, yeah, but not to like it. I don’t think liking can be learnt, I think ya gotta have a bent that way, and I know I haven’t.”

    “I— As a matter of fact I entirely agree,” he says, biting his lip.

    That’s a first.

    “It can be interesting, one can appreciate it on an intellectual level, so to speak—without the emotional level.”

    Yeah, while not liking it, what’s the point of that? “That seems pointless to me. There’s a lot of music in the world: I’d rather spend my time listening to the stuff I like.”

    “At least you’re honest about it.”

    I try to be honest about most things, mate, only you wouldn’t of noticed that. “Yeah. Go on, put a CD on. Something with a tune in it.”

    “I could play something with a tune in it.”

    “Not Fifties!”

    “No. Sorry about the endlessly repeated Sisters the other day.”

    “Um, yeah. Um, I would of thought they could of got someone else to accompany us.”

    “So would I,” he says drily. “However, that’s the way Derry wanted it. Mozart?”

    “Yeah, I like Mozart.”

    “Good!” he says, suddenly laughing. So he sits down and plays…

    Gee, that’s lovely. He should play stuff like that all the time instead of that crash, crash— BOING-G-G! Jesus!

    “The bloody front gate!” he says over the music, not stopping.

    Why did I think it would just be a polite buzz? Um, think Rupy said their door-phone in the London flat is more of a buzz, maybe that’s why. “Right! Ya better stop!”

    He nods, and stops. “I’ll let them in. –The dance music’s on the piano, if you want to look at it.”

    Me? “I can’t read music!”

    “Oh. No.” He goes out.

    I go over to the piano anyway. Ugh, beetle-tracks… Suddenly I’m right back in that shabby room of his with the crumpled-up sheet music in the wastepaper basket. Well, shit! Thought I was over all that. I am over it, only frankly, I’d rather not of bumped into him again for another year or so. I go over to the window. Yeah, that’d be a swimming-pool under that giant tailored cover they musta put on it before they took off for Tahiti… Ugh, the harbour looks cold and grey.

    “Dot, darling! Isn’t it dire?”

    Jump, gasp! “Yeah—hi, Gray! Yeah, ’tis, isn’t it? Hey, didja catch that fig leaf on the statue in the hall?”

    “Absolutely, darling! Ooh, look, French rococo chairs in amongst the modern sofas!”

    Right, that’s what they’ll be, not Queen Anne. “Yeah. They got really horrible pictures, too.”

    He’s discovering them. “Ugh! So they have! Dot dear, one wonders, dare I say it, if Derry’s little place in the South of France is anything similar?” And we both collapse in agonising fits of the giggles, ooh, ow!

    “Sorry to disappoint you,” says David drily from the doorway. “The outside’s pretty horrible—pale pink, that right, Euan? –Go on in. But the interior’s quite tasteful, though one gets a trifle tired, at least I did, of the way each room is designed to throw just one or two priceless objets into relief.”

    “That puts it really well!” Euan admits with a laugh, coming in. “Ma God!”

    “The piano’s rather lovely, though, Euan,” says Gray, going over to it and running his hand over its side, smiling.

    “Aye, well, and some of those cabinets are beautiful, of their kind. But ma God, what a jumble!”

    “More money than taste,” Gray concludes cheerfully. Boy, is he right or is he right, never mind the maroon bristles and the five earrings in each ear and the flared jeans and the leather jacket and the tightly rolled handkerchief at the neck, sort of Western bikie.

    “Exactly,” says David. “Try the piano, Gray, it’s got a lovely tone.”

    “Than it’ll be wasted on me!” he admits with a laugh, nevertheless sitting down at it. “I won’t attempt Mozart,” he says coyly. “Any requests?”

    “Derry was muttering about a skating dance at one of your shows,” admits David. “Not the one you and Rosie did, Euan, and I got the impression, possibly erroneous, that in fact it was a different occasion. He couldn’t recall what the piece was.”

    Gray raises his eyebrows. Then he plays something. Ooh, that’s pretty, why has David collapsed in sniggers? Stupid wanker!

    “Don’t—glare—at me—Dot!” he gasps, mopping his eyes. “Was it really, Gray?”

    “It was if he was thinking of the skating dance Eva and Ziggy did, yes, though we were under the impression that he slept through it.”

    “It was Les Pâtineurs, wasn’t it?” asks Euan, grinning.

    “Of course, Euan dear,” says Gray calmly, and Euan and David both collapse in helpless sniggers.

    “It’s a famous ballet, Dot,” Gray explains kindly, “in which the dancers pretend to skate. Les pâtineurs—non? The skaters.”—Gulp. Goddit.—“The Royal Ballet puts it on quite often. Which certainly proves that Derry is tone-deaf!” he concludes happily.

    And after that we all feel so good that we get right down to it.

    Phew! Just as well I took Rosie’s advice and wore a tee-shirt under my jumper and a pair of tracksuit pants. She reckoned that with Gray in charge of it, even with no tapping we’ll be working up a sweat, and we sure are! Euan was wearing slacks but he’s taken them off to reveal, blush, baggy-kneed black tights. Come to think of it, Rosie did once say that was his aerobics gear. He’s got a long loose tee-shirt over them so they’re not rude at all, but I wasn’t expecting tights, see? Gray went and changed, he brought a proper practice bag with his gear in it, and his tights are real spiffy black ballet ones and he’s got one of those funny almost chestless singlets, bright lime green, over a tight black tee, but funnily enough, even though he’s really slim, the outfit’s not that impressive on him.

    I sort of see now what they meant about tempos because while I was learning when to turn and like that, Gray made David play slower. Now he’s doing it at the real pace, yeah, I get it. Whirl, turn—look up at him adoringly, dear!

    Pant, gasp! “She isn’t adoring him at this point: isn’t this in between two massive rows?”

    “Never mind, Derry has ordained adoring!” cries Gray with a laugh.

    Yeah. Well, I dunno what adoring is. I just look up at Euan. He’s smiling like anything but I can tell he isn't really seeing D.M. Mallory—just as well, cos frankly I dunno if I’d be able to bear it—he’s concentrating on the steps,

    “–two, three—No!” screams Gray. “You’re letting her lead, Euan!”

    “Oops, am I?” he says with a laugh, stopping. “Phew! Remind me never to enrol for your tap class, Gray, I’d be a shadder of me former self!”

    Gray gives him this real hard look, ugh! Calculated to make you feel like a specimen on a slide. “Dare I say it, Euan, dear, if rumour’s right and you’re going to be doing young Florizel for dear Aubrey later in the year, it’s precisely what you’ll need!”

    Eh? Wot? Who? I’d say this Aubrey, whoever he is—um, think that’s a man’s name?—is quite famous, probably a pseud, and Gray doesn’t like him.

    “Aye, it is that!” he says, laughing. “Well, put it like this, Gray: I will come and tap, if you’ll have me, if it goes through. At the moment Aubrey’s still trying desperately to persuade Amaryllis to take Perdita’s mum!”

    “Our impression was,” says Gray, mopping his neck with this neato little towel he had in his practice bag—he's been dancing as hard as the both of us put together—“that’d she’d refused to do anything for him, let alone in gauze draperies. Or it was it the nice hubby that put his foot down?”

    “Where do you get this gossip?” he says in mock amazement, grinning like anything. “Don’t answer that!”

    David’s looking real lost, hah, hah, so I explain: “It’ll be off Rupy and Rosie. Like, I dunno what they’re talking about, but it’ll be a part in something, ya see.”

    “Ye—Uh, they’re talking about The Winter’s Tale,” he goes dazedly, gee, that right, Pom? Never heard of—Uh, no, hang on, think it’s Shakespeare.

    “Adam’s slated for Leontes, and his schedule tends to be rather tight, so I’d say bluidy Aubrey had better get off his butt pretty soon and cast the mum,” Euan adds. “And give up baying for the unattainable. Amaryllis dislikes Aubrey, and Jimmy, her husband, has refused categorically to hear of gauze draperies: it won’t happen!” He leans on the piano, grinning at him.

    “I see. Do you actually want to do Florizel?” he croaks.

    Euan scratches his jaw slowly. “Och, no, I dinna want to do it, I’m ten years too old for the rôle—and Gray’s right, two stone too heavy, of course.”—Shit, he’s admitting it? I look incredulously at Gray but he just winks at me.—“But I’m going to do it, because if I turn down a part with Aubrey, Stratford will blacklist me forever and a day, telly Shakespeare will blacklist me forever and a day—he’s doing it for television but making sure it’s stageable, and they’ve already got it booked in at Stratford—the Beeb will blacklist me ditto and, in short, I’d probably never work again!”

    Gee, David’s not that impressed. Dunno that I am, either. And I’m pretty sure that Gray isn’t—well, he has heard it all, whatever it might be, five million times before, he’s been in “the Business” all his life, whether performing or teaching, and his mum and aunties ditto.

    So David goes: “I can see you wouldn’t work in Shakespeare for a time, or at least until Aubrey Mattingforth’s star had waned and a new generation of directors had taken over.”

    “Aye: by which time I’d be ready for Lear, wi’oot the talent to put it over!” he says feelingly.

    “Probably, yes.”—Jesus, Pom, why spell it out? Poor old Euan!—“But would it affect your light comedy career?”

    Oh, dear, even I can see that Euan’s dumbfounded. Absolutely dumbfounded. I look quickly at Gray but he’s trying to look very neutral. Ouch! Finally Euan says limply: “Thanks for that, David. I hadn’t realised that I had a light comedy career.”

    Gee, ya know what? I really think it wasn’t meant to be a hit at him, after all! Cos David blinks and then says: “But of course you do! I thought you were terribly good in the guest rôle in the series—it’s so easy to overdo the Scottish thing, isn’t it, but you don’t, at all. And I’m probably the wrong sex to judge this, but I thought you managed to be both sexy and funny, and I can’t think of any male actor, offhand, who can manage that.”

    “Not Dudley Moore,” I put in. See, they had this really revolting old movie on TV real late, last January, think it was, when they assume because everyone’s on holiday and got the time to stay up late, you wanna watch the dreck of the silver screen.

    “Ugh!” goes Gray. “Er—no, Dot, dear, quite right,” he adds limply. “Not Dudley Moore.”

    “No. Thanks, Dot,” says Euan wryly.

    “I wasn’t comparing you to him, ya clot! I thought you were good in the series, too!” Why the Christ have I gone red as a tomato? I just been clutched in the man’s sweaty embrace for the last two hours!

    “Yes,” agrees David mildly, “and from what I’ve seen of the rushes so far, you’re very good in the film.”

    “Less of a Scotch nit, however, I hope,” he says wryly.

    “Uh—yes! I mean, no, I didn’t think— I mean, who in God’s name called you that?” he croaks.

    Give ya two guesses. Right, Euan replies wryly: “Rosie, for one. And Katie Herlihy, for two. –The series’ Stepdaughter, David, and my former girlfriend in what’s laughably called real life. The variant is ‘that Scotch git’, but I only got that when Rosie was really annoyed with me.”

    Huh? What for? Manifestly he’s a bit wet but he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Uh—well, for dumping Katie? For being a follower like the most of us, not a ruddy leader of men like J. Haworth, R.N.?

    “Ignore every syllable that falls from her lips, Euan dear,” Gray’s advising him earnestly. “Everyone thinks you were great in the series: why do you think Hendricks kept on casting you?”

    “Well, thank you, Gray!” he says with a laugh. “Shall we have some rest and refreshment?”

    “Yeah, let’s,” I agree.—Nothing.—“David! Whaddis there?”

    “What? Oh. Well, the film people loaded up the fridge with bottled water—”

    I’m heading for the kitchen.

    Uh—help, Euan's followed me. “Help!” he says with a laugh, looking round him. “It’s just like your Aunty May’s kitchen!”

    “Exactly. The generic 21st-century expensive kitchen. Don’t look at them gadgets: David explained what they all were but I wasn’t listening.”

    “He explained?” he says dazedly, peering at the electric waffle-iron.

    “Yeah, he may not look it but he’s deeply into fancy cooking. No, think you’d have to call it cuisine. Him and his sister, they had me to dinner once, when I was staying with Aunty Kate in Adelaide, and I admit he can really cook, but heck! Fancy food isn’t that significant!”

    “Only to foodies,” he says, peering at the waffle-iron.

    “Know what that is?” I ask, investigating the fridge. Cripes! Spring water and then some! There’s cartons more of it on the floor here, too: he won’t run out of it, that’s for sure.

    “No idea, Dot!” he admits with a laugh.

    “Good on ya. Well, I’d say he can spare a bottle or two of water.”

    He comes to peer into the fridge. “I thought you said he was a foodie?” he croaks.

    “No, that word’s not in my vocabulary: that was your translation, Euan.”

    He goes into a spluttering fit but then points limply at the contents of the fridge. Bottled water—right. And one small pot of yoghurt, open, with a spoon in it.

    “Yeah,” I admit. “The foodie bit’s his other hat. He doesn’t wear it so much.”

    “I get it! Come to think of it, when we were in Prague making Ilya, My Brother, we did go to a fancy restaurant where he and Derry went into a foodie huddle—yes.”

    “That’d be right,” I agree, handing him a bottle. “And was the food good?”

    “Quite good, I suppose. Actually, I thought your Aunty May’s roast lamb was better!” he admits with a laugh.

    “Yeah, she can really cook a roast, even when she forgets about it! I was gonna look for some bikkies but I don’t think I’ll bother. Anyway, doubt Gray’d let me eat them.”

    “You are so right, Dot! Isn’t he fierce?” he says with a laugh and a shudder.

    “You betcha boots. Well, Rosie lost a Helluva lot of weight when she started going to tap lessons regularly with him. Come on, better get back to it.”

    “Y—No, just a minute, Dot.”

    “What?”

    “I—Well, Derry seems to have forgotten to give me anything to do this weekend, think he’s planning to concentrate on Michael and Amaryllis, so, e-er… Would you fancy going out somewhere?”

    “What, to a ruddy club?”

    “No, of course not. E-er, well, I don’t know Sydney… The opera?”

    “Ya gotta be joking! Opera, I would be up for, yes. But mostly they don’t do opera. At the moment it’s some sort of daft musical based on the life of Peter Whatsisface, that singer, he was an Aussie. Um… Peter Allen?”

    “I thought he was gay?” he says dazedly. “Wouldn’t that have audience appeal to four percent of the population?”

    “And its mums, be fair.”

    “Aye, and its mums!” he says with a laugh and a shudder. “Och, I couldna, even for you, wee Dot!”

    Blush, blush. “I couldn’t either. Um, acksherly, I’ve just remembered: Saturday’s out, Bob Springer’s promised to take Deanna and me to this neato German restaurant. Um, well, it’s his birthday, but he thinks we don’t know. Um, he did say to bring someone…”

    “Och, and am I no’ someone?”

    Yeah, you are, you’re a Someone, Euan, that’s the ruddy point! “Um, it’s the place Uncle Jerry took us to not so long since. Before Rosie and John came out. Just them and Mum and Dad, and Tim and Narelle, and Deanna and me. They tried to make Kenny come but he wouldn’t. Um, sorry, Euan, Tim’s my oldest brother and Narelle’s his wife. Um, well, it calls itself German but I don’t think it is, really. I mean, you can have ordinary steak, you don’t have to have the German sausage or the sauerkraut. It’s in this like, um, historic house, sort of, I mean it is an old stone house”—why did I start to explain, he must think I’m the world’s greatest nong!—“sorta thrown together with this, like, um, conservatory. Like it’s got glass walls and a glass roof. Um, and there’s a huge salad bar and, um, you do have to queue for your meat, but it’s really nice. You choose the piece of meat or the sausage you want, see, and they do it the way you like. And you don’t have to drink beer, they’ve got lots of wine as well. Only I think you’d think it was pretty downmarket.”

    There’s a little silence. “Downmarket,” says Euan with a little sigh.

    “Like, um, after London and Paris and, um, Prague and um, Hollywood, I suppose.”

    “Beverly Hills,” he says with a grimace. “Where they wine and dine you—spring water and diet salad lunch you, in my case—in the glitziest Hell-holes I have ever laid eyes on. You may think this house is tasteless, but it’s got nothing on American bad taste—nothing. And the sad thing is that the people who go there pat themselves on the back because of it. Och, well, it takes all sorts… The biggest gourmet treat of my life up until the age of eighteen,” he says wryly, “was to have a sit-down tea at the Indian takeaway three bus-stops away from us. They did takeaways as well, you understand, but there was a nice restaurant with real white tablecloths and red paper napkins for those who could afford it. Then at eighteen I got a part in a play in a real theatre and after a rave opening night our director took the cast to Sunday dinner—lunch to you—at a posh Edinburgh hotel, and my eyes were opened to the world of wine snobs, ranks of cutlery, superior maître d’s, hors d’oeuvres, and fancy desserts with wee wings of toffee on them that no-one ate. I didn’t, either, I was conforming madly, of course, and I’ve regretted that toffee ever since!”

    I can only swallow.

    “I’d really love to try this German restaurant, Dot,” he says gently. “If you think Bob Springer wouldn’t mind if I joined you.”

    “Eh? Oh! He won’t mind, he’ll be wrapped. Oops, David’s started playing music, we better go back.”

    “Yes. What time shall I pick you up on Saturday?” he says, not moving.

    “Uh—maybe I better pick you up, that might be—”

    “No, I’ll pick you up, Dot.”

    Gee, will ya? Okay. Well, given that the whole thing’s probably a bloody big mistake— Except that Bob’ll be thrilled, that’s true. Not that he’s a fan as such, but thrilled to be going out with one of the film stars. And Deanna’ll be even more thrilled, specially since you’re not so Scotch in real life as you are in the series. “Okay. But um, Bob might not wanna take two cars. It’s way out in the outer suburbs.”

    “Well, I’ll collect you and we’ll take it from there,” he says, smiling. “Come on, then.”

    So we go back in and after him and Gray and me have drunk our spring water and dragged David off the Mozart, we get back to it.

    Probably it is a great big mistake, yeah, but ya know what? I don’t wanna give up a chance to have a meal with Euan Keel away from bloody Rosie and Rupy, just for once! And I won’t be alone with him, so it’s worked out real well, hasn’t it?

    “What?” I croak, dropping the tube of Selley’s. Bob’s been and gone and invited the blasted twins for Saturday!

    “Yeah, well, it isn’t that fancy a place, Dot, and they are sixteen, after all: thought it was time they saw a bit of civilised adult life.”

    Deanna sniffs slightly. “It won’t be civilised if that football team’s there again.”

    “Eh? No, that was a one-off and they gave us the meal on the house and a free bottle of wine, they were very decent about it. Um, well,” he goes, looking at me uneasily, “if this Euan Keel type’s gonna let a pair of skinny teenage boys with their hair all jellied up put him off—”

    “Gelled!” she goes scornfully, thought she wasn’t gonna be able to resist that one.

    “Gelled,” he says, totally poker-face. “Well, if he is, Dot, don’tcha think you oughta be asking yourself if he’s the type you wanna be going out with?”

    “Yeah,” agrees Deanna with relish. Hasn’t got the brain-power to of thought of it for herself, of course.

    “Look, why does everybody think they have to run my life for me?”

    “Love-life,” she corrects smugly.

    “It isn’t! Why do ya believe that crap ya read in the papers?” I howl.

    “Then why invite him?” she returns smugly.

    “She’s got ya there, Dot,” notes Bob smugly. Look, mate, in five seconds I’m gonna tell you exactly how much she’s been seeing of dishy little square-sunglass-lensed Aaron!

    “Balls. He’s at a loose end and he doesn’t know anybody in Sydney.”

    “He knows Rosie and Rupy,” she objects.

    “They don’t like him, hasn’t that sunk in yet?” I howl.

    “Thought Rosie had a fling with him?” asks Bob foggily.

    “So?” I snarl.

    “Uh—okay, they don’t like him, take ya word for it. So is he still gonna wanna come or not?”

    I’m buggered if I know, actually. So I use Mitre 10’s phone and ring Euan. He does still wanna come. Can’t tell if it’s just manners or not. Right, well, in that case I’ll see him round seven. Yeah, Bob has booked for eight o’clock but this place is practically in Outer Woop-W— “Hey!” Bob’s wrenched the phone off me.

    “Yeah, gidday, mate, this is Bob Springer speaking. …Right!” What was that? Glare, glare, can’t hear what Euan’s saying but he’s certainly saying something. “You’re right there, Euan! No, well, she’s bats, of course, but they all are, aren’t they?” All what? Females? Mallory females? What is this male peer group up to? “Okay, mate, see ya then!” He hangs up and says to me: “Are you mad? Making the poor bloke drive round Sydney in ever decreasing circles just because ya fancy being picked up like a little lady? Or has the film-star stuff gone to ya head? We’ll pick him up. Seven-thirtyish. It’s on our way, or maybe you were overlooking the geography of Sydney.”

    Deanna’s gone rather red. “Yeah, but Bob, won’t that be a bit of a squash? I mean, if we’ve got the twins?”

    “We’ll take the waggon, plenny of room in that. No way is he gonna let Dot drive, and he doesn’t fancy driving on our roads in a strange car—can’t say I blame him—and before you start, Dot, no way am I gonna let you drive, either.”

    “I’m twenty-five, you macho moron!” I shout.

    “I know, and I’d like you to see your twenty-sixth birthday. I know you’re capable, it’s the thought of them hairpin bends and the morons coming round them at eighty K with their headlights on full. No, well, I know a safer route, we’ll take it coming back, but it’s longer, okay?”

    “No! I’m a perfectly safe driver!”

    “You and the half bottle of red ya put away all on your ownsome on top of a triple Johnnie—right.”

    Gulp. “I forgot I was driving, that time.”

    “Exactly. You can forget again, cos ya won’t be, see?”

    “Maybe Euan could drive Dot’s car,” says Deanna uneasily, beginning to edge away from the pair of us.

    “The poor bloke doesn’t wannoo, he’s seen what Sydney drivers are like, for Chrissakes, Deanna, and shut up!” he howls.

    So she edges right down the end of the counter and out from behind it and pretends to be very busy arranging the display of spanners down the far end.

    “Did you have a tube of Selley’s at one point?” asks Bob.

    “Huh? Oh!” Feebly I pick it up and hold it out to him. “Yeah, I’ll take this. Thanks.”

    “What for?” he says, taking it off me.

    “Something.” Glare, glare.

    Funnily enough this cuts no ice with an average Aussie bloke that’s known me since I was in naps. “What something?”

    “The fucking cistern’s leaking and are ya gonna sell it to me or NOT?”

    Not. He’s gonna come over and take a look at it this arvo.

    “Bob, it doesn’t need your expertise, it’s a stupid leak that I can—” Not. All right, waste your arvo looking at my leaky cistern, I give up. “All right, if you insist. See ya.” And I go over to the door and open—

    “Oy!” he bellows. Thought he’d gone back to reading the paper like he was when I come in, now what? “And don’t wear anything too fancy, this isn’t Hollywood Boulevard, ya know!”

    Deanna resurfaces from behind the spanners, very much perked up. “Rodeo Drive,” she corrects.

    “Yeah, them too neither. Just don’t, okay?”

    For Pete’s sake! I’m in seven-year-old jeans, they were a real good buy, and a very daggy once-blue, now grey parka over an even daggier khaki jumper, the sort that has little rolled bits hanging off it. Army Surplus. “Do I look like I’m gonna wear anything too fancy?”

    He eyes me drily. “Not over there, no. Ya do in here, though.” And holds the paper up.

    Sweet bleeding— Me and Rosie with Euan. Not the shot with the huge blue fans and those low-cut strapless Fifties dresses. Another one. Worse.

    “Look, you ape, that’s not even my dress, it belongs to flaming Derry Dawlish, and if you think I’d be seen dead—” Oh. He’s collapsed in splutters. Yeah, all right, Bob, heap big joke.

    “Twin Marilyns, it says,” reports Deanna helpfully.

    Bob gives a howl of: “Two pairs of ’em!” and collapses again.

    Yeah, well, that’s pretty indicative of what the whole of the male half of New South Wales will be saying. Who dreams up these bloody headlines?

    I’m just getting into the car when she dashes out. “Not the black dress!” she pants.

    “Huh?”

    Blah, blah, pic of Euan and me what? Oh! “That was Rosie’s dress. If ya wanna know, Euan thought it looked good.”

    Blah, blah, not a dance, blah, blah, blah. All right, Deanna, come over with Bob this arvo and vet me wardrobe, I don’t care. This’ll mean the pair of you will have to close the shop, mind you, but I don’t care about that, either!

    “I’m going. Yes, come! YES, I’ll wear it if you choose it!”

    I think she’s convinced, anyway she steps back, smirking, and chirps: “Good! See ya!”

    Unfortunately—yes. “See ya.” And I’m outa there.

    … Aw, yeah: there was something I was gonna buy besides that tube of Selley’s: a paper, cos I’ve stopped having it delivered, they kept leaving it in a puddle. Good thing it went completely out of me mind, eh?

    After the expectable argument over not wanting or intending to get all gussied up like a tart for a flaming German restaurant halfway to Outer Woop-Woop, I’m in it: Deanna’s choice. Today, it is. Well, yesterday. Marilyn it is not. I dunno why it’s black—I mean, I do, I bought it because it looked as if it might not stain at the Chrissie wing-ding Uncle Jerry insisted on throwing for the entire office at an actual restaurant, as opposed to the normal Chrissie wing-ding in the office, in office hours, arranged by the girls, which of course they still had. But I dunno why she chose me only little black number when she vetoed that black dress of Rosie’s. It doesn’t hug the tits crippling tight like today’s strapless efforts do—was it on Australia’s Most Sadistic Home Videos the hostess was wearing one that was so painful she hadda hunch her shoulders, couldn’t straighten up? Might of been Wheel of You’re Not Gonna Win A Fortune, come to think of it—one of those. They were making perfectly functional strapless dresses back in the Fifties, for Chrissakes, that didn’t squash you flat and didn’t produce a roll of flesh just above the bodice even on those that haven’t got one naturally and did show that your tits were a normal female shape. Well, not that pointed, no. But that ya did have two of them. What is wrong with today’s designers? Well, I dunno about Paree and other points north but I can tell ya what’s wrong with our lot: haven’t got a notion of the first principles of engineering, been gay all their lives, and are secretly convinced women oughta be flat like their boyfriends. Yeah. Anyway, my dress doesn’t do that. It hasn’t got shoe-string straps cos I bought one of those in Canberra and they kept slipping off me shoulders. Lack of engineering knowledge again—yeah. The top’s sort of draped, and makes a lowish but not revealing neckline, and ties in small bows on the shoulders. Neat ones. The skirt’s narrow, of course, but doesn’t dip down to the ankle on one side while revealing the thigh on the other. Probably why it was on sale. Deanna reckons the material’s crape. If she says so. According to its label it has to be dry-cleaned, that’s all I need to know.

    She found that ruddy gold pendant at the back of the drawer but eventually conceded that I didn’t have to wear it if I didn’t want to. So then she opened that huge great bag she brung with her and produced It. The Deanna touch. Like, basically a blouse except it doesn’t do up, made of gauze, totally see-through, exactly, and printed all over in a weird pattern of purple, blue, and pink flowers and leaves, and gee! It looked really, really stupid sitting on top of them bows on me shoulders so she hadda put it back in the bag again, hah, hah, hah. The total effect was too plain but she was stumped. Then she found the pair of red shoes that were a bad buy, I’ve got nothing they go with. Yes! They’ll be just the thing!

    I’ve still only got one hole in each earlobe for my gold keepers, so there wasn’t much she could do about— Jesus, little red bows in me ears? Tied them onto two little gold hoops? Of course, lots of the girls do that: Janyce Hardwycke— Round about that point I stopped listening. And put my gold keepers away carefully in their little box before she could knock them onto the floor in her excitement.

    By this time Bob had fixed the cistern, no sweat, found and fixed that not-mentioned rattle in the bathroom window, no sweat, and found a not-mentioned cupboard door in the kitchen that was loose and fixed it. So she told him he could collect her when he collected me and he went off meek as a lamb.

   The rest of the afternoon was spent torturing my head. Well, it doesn’t look like a Shirley Temple cut no more, that’s for sure. Sort of standing up and brushed, make that jellied, back off the face. She didn’t dare to cut any of it, she knows the film is, according to D.D., riding on my hair being exactly like Rosie’s down to the last curl. But she made bits of it stick up in spiky wisps, yes, sirree. Just when I was wondering why hers wasn’t in spiky wisps she banished me to the lounge-room and the TV, only don’t lean back, and vanished into my bathroom for hours and hours and—Yeah.

    So the hair’s loose, the bottom layer’s about the length it always was, to about a hand’s span above the waist, and cut off dead straight, Ma Pinchot-style, but as well there’s a fine top layer of spiky wisps, about ten centimetres shorter, and gee, at each side of the face there’s a much shorter wisp, very spiky, that only comes to the shoulder. I did ask if Ma Pinchot would kill her, but she just said “So what?” So possibly she’s getting over the ballay bit at last. Since the Deanna blouse wouldn’t do for me after all, she’s in it. Yeah, looks good over that black tee, Deanna— Oh, not a tee, beg ya pardon. Cost how much? On sale? Well, it’s your hard-earned. The skirt’s got two layers, the underneath one’s a solider fabric and it dips up to the right thigh—mid-thigh—and down to the left knee and the top one’s gauze again, and it dips down to the right ankle and up to the right knee and she’s convinced she’s Christmas in it, oh, deary, deary me. Dark purple. Tones with the blouse, right, so it was real self-sacrificing of her to offer it to me. The neck features five hundred very thin necklaces, basically coloured thread with tiny, tiny beads here and there, the one with tiny chunks of amethyst is actually pretty, why didn’t she just wear it, and the ears feature innumerable tiny silver hoops. She can’t walk in the shoes, they’re the strappiest sandals you ever saw. Has to sort of stagger. Her sheer-black-tighted toes must be freezing in them but pride feels no pain. Yeah, ace, Deanna. Real today! Beam, beam… Oh, well.

    So here’s Bob and the twins. Jimbo’s hair’s jellied into spikier more upstanding spikes and Danno’s is jellied into your more flattened, forward-pointing spikes. They don’t own any actual shoes except their despised school shoes so they’re in the giant sneakers that gnaw huge chunks out of Dad’s hard-earned even if Mum does only buy them at the sales. Danno’s in your slightly baggy, slightly too-long trou except Mum’s taken the hems up firmly, poor deluded woman. Silver-grey, dunno why. They’re both wearing their school parkas, not done up, of course, so I can see he’s got the Marlboro jacket on under it. ’Tis, it’s red and white with the logo on it. Second-hand, but Mum hates it anyway. Dunno whether he thinks it’s slightly James Dean or—Never mind. Think she probably made him wear that shirt, which explains why the jacket’s zipped right up. Jimbo’s slightly more today in that his very new jeans, he’s grown about ten centimetres recently and is taller than his annoyed twin, are very dark navy and very slightly flared. Or maybe that’s the effect of the skinny legs. He hasn’t got a fancy jacket so under the parka his top integument is a strangely clean baggy grey tee with “University of Nevada” in white. Of course no-one in the family has ever been anywhere near Nevada and we don’t even know anybody that’s been there, and in fact he bought it with his birthday money at Kmart. So he immediately goes: “Hey, c’n I wear your bikie jacket?”

    “Why not? ’Tis an evening jacket.” So I fetch it for him. He’s now taller than me but even so it’s gonna keep his kidneys real warm. That grey tee is hanging well down underneath it but it must be meant to because he beams.

    After a short fight with Deanna over whether I’m gonna wear me grungy parka or me good Canberra coat, I put the coat on and we pile into the waggon. Danno whiles away the drive into the city with a blow-by-blow account of his last great Nintendo win but did anyone expect anything more exciting?

    So we’re here. The Nintendo win wasn’t all that enthralling, actually, so I’ve had plenty of time to think such thorts as: maybe this was all a big mistake; maybe I shouldn’t have let her talk me into this dress, it’s too cocktail-dressy, really, certainly according to the nice lady in David Jones (well, it was on sale), and: maybe he’ll of changed his mind; and: God, please don’t let him wear anything silly like that white tail suit and I’ll believe in You forever. Like that.

    After five thousand taxis have pulled out Bob’s able to pull in, noting: “I can’t stop here, he better be ready.”

    So I point out: “Bob, he can’t hang round outside waiting for us, he might be recognised.”

    “By who?” he goes scornfully.

    Uh—right. That lost-looking Jap in the spiffy business suit? There’s nobody else out here, that’s for sure.

    Deanna’s nose is pressed to her window. “Ooh, there’s no concierge!”

    “Think ya mean no porter,” I note. “No, well, this isn’t the Hilton. That’ll larn Double Dee Productions, won’t it? Think I better wise that poor Jap up that if he wants a taxi he’s gotta go over to the next one and say: ‘You free, mate?’”

    “Don’t you dare,” she says weakly.

    Danno comes to. “I will!”

    “You won’t!” she shouts.

    Why the Hell not? Too bad if Euan comes out and sees our shame—yeah, that is her thought. So I go: “Gee, Deanna, can it hurt? Let him. Uh—whassa time? Uh—think it might still be okay to say konichiwa, Danno. That means—”

    “I know!” Cripes, he’s doing it. We watch limply. Deanna’s wound her window down.

    “Konichiwa,” he goes. “If you want a taxi, you have to go up to them, like, and tell them.”

    Fuck me, the Jap’s bowing to him! Maybe he’s got teenage boys of his own? “Konichiwa,” he says politely. “Arrigato gosaimas.”—Think it is. Never did get very far with those night classes.—“Thank you so much. I will go over there and tell them.”

    So Danno goes: “No worries! Have a good night. Hey, sayonara, too!” And comes over to us, looking smug. “See?”

    “Yeah,” I agree. “Good on ya, Danno, that’s one Ja—uh, Japanese businessman,”—the poor bloke’s obviously not deaf—“that’s gonna manage to get to where he wants to go, tonight.”

    “Right, now go in and find Dot’s film star,” adds Bob, leaning over Deanna.

    “She can do that herself, can’t she?” he says, getting in again. “Anyway, I don't know what he looks like.”

    Horrified gasp from Deanna. “You must do! The papers have been full of pictures of him and he’s been on the TV news!”

    “I never saw him,” he says indifferently. So much for fame.

    Half a dozen overdressed blue-rinsed ladies have just come out of the dump, think they must be Americans, they’re looking round in a lost way for the porter and/or concierge. We wait for a bit. Nothing happens except the ladies keep looking round and confer in low voices.

    “Hey, Danno, can you speak American?”

    “Very funny, Dot!”

    “I’ll do it,” says Jimbo.

    Before I can say I was joking he’s out of the car, bikie jacket and all. “’Scuse me, are you waiting for a taxi? Cos ya haveta go over to them and tell them.”

    The ladies seem to be thrilled, they’re all exclaiming at once and thanking him—gee, are they tipping him? He totters back, looking dazed. “Hey, they gimme money!”

    Bob’s shoulders are seen to shake. “It’s a tip, you silly joker.”

    Jimbo clambers back in and Danno immediately asks him how much it is.

    “Um… Dunno, it’s all funny money.”

    “It’ll be greenbacks,” says Bob, his shoulders are shaking again. “Give it here.”

    “Ya gotta give it back!”

    “Yes! I’m just gonna count it, you idiot!” Short silence, apart from the rustling of the notes. Then he goes feebly: “Shit, it is funny money. Uh—did those ladies have accents, Jimbo?”

    “Um, sort of.”

    I’ve given up entirely, I lean forward over the back of his seat. “Lessee. Heck. Um… euros?”

    Bob holds one up to the light, sort of sideways, and peers at it. “Could be.”

    “Ya mean it’s no good?” wails Jimbo.

    “What? No! Cretin! Take it to the bank tomor—uh, on Monday, and get them to change it.”

    “The local branch?” I croak.

    “Uh—oh. That nong Merv Jenkins wouldn’t know from euros, ya right. Uh… think they sorta ring up and check the rates of exchange… No, tell ya what, Jimbo, come round the shop round nine and I’ll run you into town, okay?”

    He can do this, it’s holidays, and he and Danno both accept eagerly.

    “Not that the main branch won’t gyp ya just the same,” I note.

    “Okay, we’ll go to flaming Cook’s, that do ya?”

    “No, Uncle Jerry says they really rip you off!”

    “The bank, then. What? All right, Deanna, not the NAB! Whatcha got against them, anyway, they’re all rip-off arti—”

    So she launches into the full saga of Janyce Hardwycke’s mum’s dreadful experience with the NAB, yeah, yeah… Sounds exactly and precisely like Scott Bell’s experience with the Commonwealth, except that his account held forty-five dollars and two cents while Ma Hardwycke’s held umpteen thou’.

    Meanwhile several taxis have pulled out from behind us full of blue-rinsed ladies, they can do this easily, it isn’t an entrance-way place like that flash dump in Adelaide, this is an older hotel, it’s just the kerbside. However, any minute now an airport bus with a trailer full of luggage is gonna want to pull in, as Bob points out crossly.

    “I’ll go and get him.” So I get out. Before I can take more than two steps he hurries out.

    “Hullo, Dot. I hope you haven’t been waiting long. I, um, I couldna decide what to wear.”

    “Hi. You look all right. We haven’t been waiting that long.”

    “Aye,” he says uneasily. “Is this right?”

    “Given we’ve got the twins, can it matter? But yeah, you look fine, it isn’t a dressy place.”

    “Not too casual?”

    Flipping heck, what do I have to say to convince the joker? “No. Well, that weatherproof parka looks as if it’s about to set off on a bush safari, but half of Sydney’ll be in identical ones. And that Aran jumper’s fine, only, um, ya might be too hot, the place’ll be centrally heated.”

    “I’ve got a tee-shirt underneath it. I suppose I could take it off in the Gents’. But would a tee-shirt be acceptable?”

    “Sure! Well, Bob’s in a short-sleeved knit golfing shirt but he’ll only match half the male guests, the other half’ll be in the tee-shirts.”

    “Hah, hah,” he says uneasily. “You look verra smart, Dot, I think I should have worn a suit.”

    “No! You look fine! This is my warm Canberra coat, it’s my business coat and Deanna made me wear it! Will ya get in the car before we’re clobbered by a flaming airport bus!”

    Behind us Bob’s shouting at the twins to get in the back—get in the BACK, Euan and Dot don’t want to snuggle up to you two! This would possibly be embarrassing if I wasn’t shouting myself. So we get in and he immediately goes: “Gidday, Euan, you wanna ignore her. Her sister’s just the same. Nobody’ll care if ya take ya jumper off in the place; they might notice if ya wore ya kilt, but I doubt it, on a Sat’dee night.”

    “Bob! Honestly! Shut up!”

    “It wasn’t me that was shouting me lungs out at the poor joker outside a flash downtown hotel, Dot,” he says mildly, revving ’er up and—oops. Not pulling out. Revving ’er up and—“Get out of the WAY, ya flaming moron! Jesus, Sydney drivers!” Pulling out and away.

    So Danno leans forward and goes: “Have you got a kilt?”

    “TWIN! Do your fucking seatbelt UP!” bellows Bob, not bothering to check which twin it is.

    He does his seatbelt up but persists: “Have you?”

    “Aye, but it’s in mothballs in ma flat in London, I haven’t worn it since my Aunty Jean’s silver wedding anniversary in Edinburgh,” Euan replies politely.

    “Is that clear enough?” I ask evilly.

    “Yeah,” he admits insouciantly.

    So Jimbo goes, leaning forward but not that far, he’s done his up, too: “Hey, they make ya wear make-up all the time, don’t they?”

    “In the films?” he replies calmly. “Yes, they certainly do.”

    “Yeah. What about underwater?”

    “That’s usually the stuntmen, and they don’t need to wear make-up, because their faces won’t be shown.”

    “Right,” he says thoughtfully. “But if ya hadda do a bit underwater, wouldja have to wear make-up?”

    “Yes: special waterproof make-up,” Euan replies seriously.

    “What? Geddouda here!” scoffs Bob.

    “Yes!” cries Deanna on an agonised note.

    “Yes. I didn’t do much underwater stuff in that Crusoe’s Rescue rubbish: I’m not a very good swimmer,” he says mildly, “and in any case the studios don’t like the actors to do anything risky: if they have an accident and can’t finish the film all the money they’ve been paid would be wasted. But I did do some underwater stuff, in the small tank at the studios, and I certainly had to wear waterproof make-up. And in one scene a beard as well.”

    “Waterproof glue, eh?” he says thoughtfully.

    “Yes.”

    “We seen that Crusoe’s Rescue,” volunteers Danno.—Ouch, what’s coming next?—“It was the real Robinson Crusoe, eh? Not like that Tom Hanks film.”

    “Aye, that’s right.”

    “That Tom Hanks film, it was lame,” he reveals.

    “Danno, we told you wouldn’t like it, it wasn’t an adventure movie!” cries Deanna.

    “It was sort of an adventure… Only it was lame.”

    “Aye, the whole movie-going world would agree with you on that one, Danno!” says Euan with a laugh. “My thing was pretty lame, too.”

    “Yeah,” he agrees thoughtfully, “noddall that much happened. Only I suppose if it was a desert island, not much would. Rosie says that that Man Friday, he couldn’t speak English, is that right?”

    “Mm,” he agrees drily. “It held the filming up like you wouldn’t believe.”

    Mysteriously, this strikes a real chord and Danno chokes ecstatically: “Ye-ah!” and falls about, as much as he can with his seatbelt on, laughing hoarsely. Jimbo automatically joins in.

    So I go feebly: “Sorry. That was Danno. The other one’s Jimbo.”

    “Aye, I get it!” he replies cheerfully.

    “And while we’re on the subject of it being too late for intros, ya know Deanna, and that’s Bob.”

    “Leave it out, Dot,” sighs Bob.

    So he goes: “Aye, it’s lovely to meet you, too, Bob!”

    Gee, that goes down real well. Maybe tonight isn’t gonna be an unmitigated disaster after all.

    Later. No-one’s recognised him, thank God. Well, they’re all far too busy stuffing their faces and knocking back the booze to notice anyone. The central heating hit in a mighty wave the minute we stepped into the joint, so he did take his jumper off. In the Gents’, mind you, but as Jimbo insisted on accompanying him, I’d say he needn’t have bothered trying to avoid the embarrassment. (Not a crush: that Coke he was apparently told not to drink before they left.) The place is chocker, just as well Bob booked. So far Euan hasn’t appeared to be phased by the lady in the laced bodice and full skirt with the fake Heidi plaits that handed us our huge plastic menus and explained the process of queuing for the meat and helping ourselves to the salads, or by the fact that she then took our orders for the baked potatoes or chips and optional veggies, or by the twins making quite sure that if they opted for veggies (I know they have to be forced to eat them at home—nevertheless) they could also have salad (which they usually refuse to eat at home—right), or by the actual queuing (though he was by the size of the slabs of meat your average Aussie joker considers a reasonable piece of steak), or by the man in the embroidered braces and striped apron that took your orders for how you wanted your steak done not understanding “blue”, or by Jimbo wanting to know how many of the giant sausages he could have, or by Deanna requesting her grilled salmon steak well done, or by Bob loudly assuring the twins that that man who was coming up for a second helping of salad wasn’t getting away with it, you can have as many helpings of salad as you want, yes, Danno, including the potato salad. Or by Danno’s awed “Gee, it’s better than McDonald’s!” I think he was slightly phased by the slices of watermelon included in the salad bar but he made a pretty quick recover. He did help himself to the nice leaves of cos and those small pointed white leaves that are very bitter regardless of the fact that the whole of Oz treats the both of them as decoration when it sees them on a salad bar, but after all, he is a foreigner.

    Of course most of the males are in knit golfing shirts or tee-shirts, and those that aren’t are in shirts without jackets and mostly without ties, so he can see for himself that he isn’t sticking out like a sore thumb. If anybody is, it’s me, in this ruddy cocktail dress. He told me black suited me when I explained that Deanna made me wear it, and her and Bob both smirked, pair of bloody nongs.

    So I wait until Danno and Jimbo are wolfing down the sausages in the happy belief that we didn’t notice them shrinking at the sight of the unexpected sauerkraut that appeared next to them, unrequested, and go: “How’s the steak, Euan?”

    “Excellent,” he says with a dazed smile.

    “Yeah, they do a bonzer steak here,” agrees Bob mildly.

    “Adam did say to be sure to try your Australian steak, but I must say, the steak at the hotel was rather disappointing.”

    “What, that poncy place where you’re staying? Ya don’t wanna eat there, mate!”

    “No, places like that don’t do real food,” I explain kindly to the stranger in our midst.

    Bob swallows juicily and points his knife at him. “Go down the block—turn left—uh, yeah, left, as ya come out the front—and take the first on ya left. Looks like a little dark alley, don’t let that put you off. ’Bout halfway down it on the other side—um, that building site might still be there—yeah, think ya might have to pass the building site—then on that side, you’ll find a place that can do you a really decent steak.”—Euan’s nodding politely.—“Kooka’s,” he finishes helpfully.

    “I’m sorry: what?” the poor joker croaks.

    “Honestly, Bob!” Quickly I explain: “That is what its neon sign says, but that isn’t really its name. Everybody’s always called it that, ya see—well, all the macho morons that learnt about it as soon as they were old enough to borrow their dad’s razor. The Kookaburra Kafe, is its real name.”

    Unfortunately I pronounced this last phrase before the brain was properly into gear, so the poor joker tries to smile, and croaks: “Café?”

    “Uh—nope. K,A,F,E. Well, it’s been there forever, you wouldn’t get such a silly name—” He’s choking helplessly. “–these days,” I finish lamely.

    “Thass right,” agrees Bob placidly. “Try that sauerkraut, Jimbo, ya won’t like it but it’ll be a new experience for ya.”

    “Hah, hah,” replies Jimbo fiercely, glaring. Actually I think he meant it. Oh, well.

    “If you like steak they say The Hog’s Breath is good, too,” says Deanna kindly.

    “Yeah,” I agree, not realising until I look up from my sausage that Euan’s mouth is open and his fork is suspended halfway to his gob. “Um, that’s a relatively new place,” I go lamely. “Think it might be a chain, think I’ve seen one in Adelaide.”

    “Yeah, their steaks are good,” agrees Bob, not noticing anything. “Dunno that I can tell you how to get there from your dump, though. Well, just grab a taxi, ask ’im to take you to The Hog’s Breath—he’ll know.”

    “He’ll know unless he’s an Iranian straight off the plane,” I note heavily.

    “Yeah?” he replies mildly. “Never had one of those. Had a Turk, once. Quite a decent joker. He’d had the nous to get himself a book of maps, too.”

    “When were you taking taxis in town?” demands Deanna suspiciously.

    “Well, the last time was when I had that flaming tooth out.”

    “I told you you should have let me—”

    “Yeah, all right. And the time before that was an RSL dinner with poor ole Mick Skinner. Don’t look at me, it was all his idea. Want me to go on?”

    “No,” she says repressively, where do they learn this put-down-the-bloke-in-your-life stuff? Well, yeah, Mum does a modified version of it when Dad gets too bad, but nothing like that! Is it genetic rather than acquired? Because in the dead ringer stakes it was Aunty Kate and Aunty Allyson in a photo finish, there!

    “Dot?”

    Jump! “Huh?”

    Bob’s looking at me enquiringly. “I said, how are the snags?”

    “Great, Bob! They really have got caraway seed in them, I think they must be real German sausages, all right!”

    “Goodoh,” he says comfortably. “These are good, too.”

    Er—yeah. Thyme and chilli. Oh, well, possibly Germans do like chilli. Surprisingly enough Deanna didn’t tell him what chilli would do to his digestion, but perhaps that’s only because her generation believes that food oughta have chilli in it?

    So the twins have gone to get more salad and Bob’s gone to supervise them and Deanna’s gone to supervise him, and Euan holds up his wine glass with a smile. “Here’s to The Lowenbrau!”

    Er… yeah. I have a suspicion that he knows that “Low-En-Brow” is not how it oughta be pronounced, though how else ya could pronounce it, don’t ask me; but I think he’s genuine at the moment, so I only reply: “I’ll drink to that!” It’s a shiraz. Bob likes shiraz, so we’re having it. I’d say it isn’t bad. So we drink and I go: “Do ya like the wine?”

    “Yes, very much, though I don’t know anything about wine.”

    “Thought Rosie said you were a wine buff? Something about what ya kept in your fridge?”

    “Uh—no. I suppose I usually buy anything that looks expensive and that the shop suckers me into believing is good.”

    “Gee, ya must be normal after all!”

    “Thanks!” He looks around smiling but after moment the smile fades and he says, real grim: “So this is a test, then?”

    “Eh?”

    “Bringing me here,” he says. “A test.”

    Guess what, I’ve gone bright red. Now he’ll think I’m lying, Hell’s teeth! “No! And don’t flatter yourself I’d bother!”

    “I’m sorry, Dot,” he goes, biting his lip. “I— Damn. I suppose I’m too bluidy self-absorbed, but I do keep having the impression that I’m on trial.”

    Oh, God, poor joker! It’s bloody Rosie, of course. She measures every bloke against the standard of John, not even consciously, I don’t think, and of course none of them come near him in the leader of men stakes. No, well, and partly it’s because, never mind the casual mateship, Aussies are on the whole bloody suspicious of foreigners and especially of Poms. And partly it’s gotta be because, let’s admit it, having had L.R. Marshall continually put me on my guard against the poor bloke for the last umpteen years, it’s almost impossible not to test him.

    So I go, real lame: “I think it’s mostly Rosie. She’s like that. She doesn’t mean to compare every bloke to John: she does it unconsciously. And, um, everyone’d deny it, but Aussies do tend to be, um, a bit suspicious of, um, the British.”—Cringe.—“Um, I think it might be a hangover from the old Colonial days: expecting to be put down, or something. And, um, what I’ve noticed is that most people, like, um, well, Bob’s a case in point: they don’t realise that foreigners might not be used to the same way of life and, um, it might feel like they’re testing you but they’re not, they’re taking it for granted that if it’s normal to them, it’ll be normal to you.” Swallow.

    “I see… No, well, I realised some time since that Rosie’s like that… And certainly Bob seems very—very genuine.”

    “’Course he is! He’s a real decent bloke!”

    “Yes,” he says, smiling at last, phew! “Of course he is. But will he despise me if I can’t get through this huge piece of meat?”

    Gee, tricky question. “Um… I think he’ll probably conclude—mind you, without thinking about it—that in the first place you’re a poor foreigner that’s not used to being served up a decent piece of meat, and in the second place, you’re watching your weight because you’re an actor.”

    “Aye: no’ a real man, I’ve met that one before.”

    Gee, it would of been from the blokes, then, Euan, because no way the distaff side is gonna conclude that! “Musta been blind or jealous, don’t let it worry ya.”

    “No!” he goes with a startled laugh. “Thanks, Dot!”

    Yeah. Any time. Clear throat. “Does all this seem weird and foreign and as if it might be a test?”

    “E-er…Only if ma paranoia runs away wi’ me, wee Dot!” he goes, grinning, boy has he cheered up. That one musta gone straight to the ego. Or, um, gulp, come to think of it, the libido? “No, well, it’s different. More… I know it’s the wrong word, but it’s what I feel, so I’ll say it: more egalitarian!”—Um, sure. Well, it’s good you’re saying what ya feel, Euan.—“And everybody seems so clean and bright!” he says with a laugh.

    “Yeah, the aftershave’s coming off ’em at twenny paces, the days of the genuine Aussie bloke in sweat and a battered trilby are long since gone, Euan.”

    “No! You wee donkey!” he goes, laughing like anything. Gee, am I? I’ll take that as a compliment! “No, well, it is winter, I’d have expected them to be more… subfusc.”

    So I go: “Nope, that word definitely isn’t in the Aussie vocabulary, Euan!” and he laughs like a drain. Well, can’t be bad, eh? Phew! Think I’ll finish this here giant baked potato with the sour cream and dill, after all. Ooh, yum! “Hey, try ya baked potato, Euan, this sour cream mixture is extra!”

    “Calories,” he says, making a face. “Well, just a taste…” An amazed look comes over his face. “This is verra guid! What’s in it?”

    “Sweet gherkins. Ya must have them in Britain, surely?”

    “Aye, of course! Och, I thought they were capers, I just hate capers!” he says happily, taking an enormous forkful of mainly sour cream lightly supported by potato. “Mm!”

    Yeah, ya loathe capers. Boy, oh boy, oh boy…

    “What is it?” he says in alarm.

    “Nothing. Just a thought. I mean, I once had a real flash dinner with a bloke that liked capers…” It’s like looking down a long, long tunnel: a tiny little figure of a girl in a borrowed blouse, with lovely Nefertite being kind and never realising I didn’t understand more than a word in ten of what she was saying, and bloody David cooking that wonderful meal, sort of very, very, very far away…

    “I see,” he says kindly.

    “Uh—no, ya don’t! He wasn’t my boyfriend!”

    “Does that count?” he murmurs.

    Ugh. Not all that much, no. Not as dumb as he looks, eh? “Not all that much, no. It was ages ago, only… Um, well, something happened recently that, um, brought it all back.” Why the fuck did I start this speech?

    “Aye… Well, I’m no sage, but in my experience, Dot, you canna go back.”

    “No, I guess you’re right.”

    He makes a face. “Just after I busted up with Katie, I dashed back to Edinburgh—well, Dad wasna verra well, though he wouldna let on, silly old sod: Aunty Jean rang me. But he was okay—just a bad cold that he’d been neglecting. Anyway, I bumped into an old girlfriend—an actress I’d known when I was in ma early twenties. She’d been through a divorce and—well! We went out a couple of times, and of course spent the first evening gossiping about old times: it was as if the years didn’t count. But the next time—! We had nothing in common—nothing. She’d long since left the theatre and had two kids who were already around seven and eight, and naturally they were her main interest, and after that the house she’d managed to salvage from the wrecked marriage, and her job in an accountant’s office—och, well, the details dinna matter! And I could only reciprocate wi’ tales of Stratford or damned Derry, and she couldna manage much more than a sort of bored pity in response. We ended the evening wi’ a belt of a good single malt for old times’ sake, and that was that. Salutary.”

    “Yeah, you’d moved in different directions.”

    He smiles ruefully at me. “Aye, that was it. Though for quite a while, there, I felt I hadna moved at all!”

    “Yeah, but that was because the acting stuff was all in the past to her.”

    “Exactly! It’s taken me several months to recognise it, though.”

    Has it? Just when did this bust-up take place? I can’t ask him, even if I was going to, because the others have come back. Gee, Bob must of talked Deanna into a second helping of salad, no wonder they took so long.

    So he goes: “We sussed out that salad bar good an’ proper, Dot.”

    “Yeah.” What in God’s name has he let them have? “Hey, Jimbo, ya do know that thing’s got raw mushrooms in it, do ya?”

    “Yeah!” he goes crossly.

    All right, he knows. Neither of them’ll eat carrots in any form unless forced, why has Danno got a mound of carrot salad, for Pete’s sake? It’s not bad, actually: got pine-nuts and currants in it. And that there is a mound of tabbouleh on Jimbo’s plate next to the mushroom thing, he hates parsley, in fact last time I was round at Tim and Narelle’s when they were, he refused point-blank to touch the tabbouleh the poor woman had slaved over chopping up by hand because this footling Pommy cookery programme done it that way, rather than bung the stuff in the food pro— “Don’t eat that, Danno!”

    He stops, fork halfway to the gob, glaring over it.

    “Those probably are tinned shrimps in it, Dot,” begins Bob, “they’ll be Thai or something, but they won’t hurt—”

    “No, it’s the pineapple, the stupid little jerk’s allergic to pineapple!”

    Bob reaches over and grabs Danno’s plate. He does a forensic examination of the rice salad. “Tinned,” he reports. “You allergic to tined pineapple, Danno?”

    “No, only raw!” he says angrily, glaring at me.

    “The doc said it was the acid or something, where’s the proof that tinning kills pineapple acid, Bob?”

    “Ya right.” Ignoring Danno’s glares, he carefully removes every piece of tinned pineapple from his rice salad, putting them onto his own plate. “Go on.” Quickly Danno shovels in the rice salad before we can decide that there’s something else in it he isn’t allowed to eat.

    Meanwhile Jimbo is making the discovery that the rest of the modern world already has, that those little tickly Japanese salad greens are real horrible. “Jimbo, leave those awful Jap salad greens, nobody likes them,” I go kindly.

    “I do!” Deanna protests indignantly.

    “Okay, only ballay dancers like them. Even the trendies in weird sunnies that we sometimes used to get at Leila’s used to leave them on the side of their plates.”

    He looks sideways at Euan’s mound of healthful green salad that he’s hardly touched as yet. Well, mound of green salad plus cherry tomatoes, ya can’t avoid them at a salad bar.

    “Och, I fully intend leaving them, Jimbo, I only took them because they were all mixed in with the curly lettuce that I like!” he says with a laugh. Yeah well, possibly that’s true, bearing in mind some of bloody Rosie’s strictures, but never mind, he means well.

    “Righto, I will,” Jimbo decides thankfully. He embarks on his mayonnaise-y egg salad instead, but Deanna comes to and cries: “Bob! Why did you let him take all that egg salad?” so he stops and eyes her cautiously. Like, he’s wondering if he should shovel it all in now or risk having her wrench it off him if he leaves a bit for later so as to fully savour that rich, creamy Praise mayonnaise-y taste.

    “Thought I stopped him,” Bob admits. Not as if it’s a matter close to his heart, though.

    “No, ya stopped me,” goes Danno sourly.

    “Knew I stopped someone. Come on, Deanna, they burn the calories off at that age just growing legs, one helping of egg salad isn’t gonna hurt him!”

    “There must be at least three whole eggs in there,” she goes grimly.

    “Be fair: four.”

    “Shut up, Dot!”—Boy, is this like old times!—“That’s pure saturated fat and cholesterol,” she goes evilly.

    “Yeah. This is a treat, leave the kid alone,” says Bob firmly. “Are you gonna eat those bits of ham?”

    “What? Oh—no, I didn’t realise there was ham in that tomato sal—” He’s reached over, grabbed her plate, and is scraping the bits of ham off the edge of it onto his own plate. She looks at Euan in agony, but, get a load of this, he merely winks at her. Just as if he really was an ordinary Aussie bloke. Can he possibly have absorbed that sort of behaviour pattern so fast? Well—observing just that sort of thing is the actor’s stock-in-trade, at least for those that take it seriously and don’t just do drawing-room comedy like Rupy or silver-rinsed parts like Michael Manfred. But has he had the opportunity? Cos he’s been immured in the studios with ruddy D.D. for well over ninety percent of the time he’s been here. Anyway, it’s worked, cos she gives a feeble laugh and concentrates on the tomato part of her tomato salad.

    Danno then does his best to embarrass the entire table, as if Bob and the ham wasn’t enough, by noting to his twin: “Hey, didja notice? He did say ock.”

    Jimbo can’t speak, his cheeks are bulging and he’s barely managing to chew. He looks fixedly at Bob.

    Gee, he’s gone a bit red, that’s a first! “Eh?” he goes weakly.

   “He did! Just then!” insists Danno.

    So Euan goes “Och, did I?” And get this, this time he winks at Bob!

    “Um, yeah, think ya did, actually, mate. Sorry,” he says feebly. Jimbo’s still looking fixedly at him, so he’s more or less forced to admit, since the alternative is to strangle the kid: “Uh—well, I reckoned ya wouldn’t, see. Um, well, don’t know that many Scotch people—well, can’t count old Misery-Guts Macintosh down the road, he’s been out here for forty years.”

    “There’s that Bill McLeod that Aunty Kate thought might be related to Isabelle’s dad’s family only he wasn’t.”

    “In Adelaide? Leave it out, Dot!”

    “No, Uncle Jim met him that time they come over for that awful musical at the Opera House.”

    “That man he brought over to the shop,” Deanna prompts helpfully.

    “Aw, yeah, that joker. No, well, be that as it may, I thought ya never said it in real life. I mean, I’ve heard it on the TV enough, only— Well, anyway, I let them two sucker me into making a stupid bet on it,” he admits. “Sorry.”

    “Och, dinna apologise, Bob!” Euan chokes, breaking down and laughing himself silly. Yeah, really, his eyes start to ooze and he has to grope for his hanky and blow his nose and mop them.

    Jimbo’s now managed to choke down his mouthful so he goes: “So?”

    Bob’s got a silly smile on his dial, well, wouldn’t anyone, in the circs? “Eh?”

    “Cough it up! A bet’s a bet!”

    “A bet’s a bet!” agrees Danno.

    Grinning feebly, Bob hands over a tenner.

    “He hasn’t said ‘ock aye’ yet,” notes Jimbo thoughtfully.

    “How much did you have on that?” asks poor Euan feebly.

    “Nothing,” the twins admit regretfully.

    “In that case,” I order grimly, “drop the subject.”

    “Can we ask him something about something else?” goes Danno.

    “No!”

    “No, no, Dot! Of course they can!” he says, smiling nicely.

    “Go on, then, since Euan says ya can.”

    “We only wanted to know if ya know Sean Connery.”

    “No,” he says simply. Their faces fall ten feet.

    “Look, you pair of little pointy-headed nerds, there are millions of people in Scotla—”

    “No, it’s all right, Dot, it was quite a logical question!” he goes quickly.

    “Yeah, they’re both Scotch and both actors!” goes Jimbo quickly before I can tell him to keep it shut.

    “Scottish. He says ya don’t say Scotch, ya say Scottish, and acksherly, if you ever listened instead of gluing yourselves to ya flaming Nintendo every waking hour of the day, ya might realise that Uncle Jerry says that, and Scotch is the stuff he drinks!” Oops, went too far, their faces are both very red.

    So Bob goes mildly: “Yeah, she’s right. Mind you, I never heard Jerry Marshall call it anything but Johnnie, but he drinks it, all right.”

    They just about have the wit to realise that he’s inviting them into his male peer group, here, so they snigger quickly with relieved expressions and get back to stuffing themselves with salad.

    So I wait a bit while everybody eats salad and the twins have involved themselves, in between the giant mouthfuls, in an argument over whether you can have “legal plays” in Nintendo as one, Vaughan Mulligan, doyen of the school Nintendo Club, reckons, and then I go: “Hey, thanks, Bob. Sorry I went a bit over the top, there.”

    He just says mildly: “Yeah. Well, everybody says it.”

    “Yes, of course they do. And I shouldn’t have corrected you, Dot,” says Euan, looking anxious. “I’m sorry.”

    “Heck, don’t apologise, Euan, I’d rather get it right.”

    “She’s like that,” says Bob mildly and Euan smiles suddenly and says: “Aye, I see that now!” and they grin at each other, what are they on about, pair of silly wankers?

    Even Jimbo and Danno have finished those mounds on their plates except for the Japanese salad greens and most of that carrot salad and tabbouleh, I knew they wouldn’t like them, so after Deanna’s prompted them to put their knives and forks together if they’ve finished, the Heidi lady comes up and takes all our plates and gives us the menus back, what would we like for dessert?

    “We’re not having dessert, thanks,” says Deanna firmly.

    Horrified gasps and Bob and the twins begin to object but Deanna reminds the Heidi lady that she rung up and made a special arrangement. Oh, of course! And who’s the birthday boy? So the secret’s out, Deanna explains that Bob is, and she grabs the menus back and shoots out.

    The twins are looking bewildered and Euan’s trying not to laugh when they wheel it in. Plus and the German barbershop quartet—well, they’re in lederhosen and there’s four of them. “Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you—” Gee, the roar, and I mean roar, of dining Aussies enjoying themselves has died down and everybody’s looking at our table and grinning. “Happy birthday dear Bo-hob, Happy birthday to you!” We hadda join in, see, cos Deanna was singing and nodding at us like anything, just as well we did, cos the quartet only sung “dear Huh-huh”. Though the cake does say: “Happy Birthday Bob.” So he blows the candles out and the quartet disappears and the roar resumes, phew!

    “Sorry about that, mate. They sprung it on me,” he says to Euan.

    “And on us!” agrees Danno eagerly, the tiny pointy-headed twit!

    “Aye, well, and on me!”

    Deanna’s giggling like anything. She opens her handbag. “Happy birthday, Bob.”

    So I open my handbag and get it out. “Happy birthday, Bob.”

    Euan’s grinning like anything. He reaches into his pocket. “Happy birthday, Bob.”

    Bob’s overcome. Well, not even surprised that Deanna and me are giving him a birthday present on his secret birthday, but really overcome that Euan is. Deanna’s is a lovely tie (when’s he gonna wear that? You may well ask), and I give him a lovely aftershave (she told me the brand). So what’s Euan giving him? I watch in fear and trembling. It’s not a very big package. Help, if it’s something expensive like a watch, I’ll die of embarrassment. Whew! It’s only a key-ring. Bob picks it up, looks at it closely— Why’s he collapsed in dirty sniggers?

    The twins may only be sixteen but they’re old enough to recognise a dirty male snigger. “Ooh, what is it?” they cry. “Show me!”

    “I picked it up in Hawaii on ma way oot,” admits Euan, grinning like a nana, don’t think he expected it to go down this well.

    “Yeah!” Bob splutters helplessly. “You two are too young for this,” he tells Danno and Jimbo. The wails die down a bit and he admits: “It’s not all that rude,” under Deanna’s ferocious glare. “Took me by surprise, that’s all. Yeah, ya can— Yeah, of course ya can look at it, ya pair of drongos!”

    After they’ve gone red and sniggered me and Deanna finally get to look at it. “Feeble,” I decide.

    She’s tilting it so as to get the effect of the topless hula girl. She’s gone red but agrees: “Feeble,” and hands it back to Bob.

    So he has another really good look at it and does it the tremendous honour of transferring all his keys to it. Gee, instead of urging him to cut the cake the twins watch in respectful silence, there may possibly be something, a very little something, to be said for the male peer group after all.

    Then they get cake. It’s not a patch on anything that ever came out of Aunty Kate’s oven, to name but one, but yeah, for bought birthday cake it’s real nice.

    By this time, apart from that party of real sozzled middle-class trendies that came in real late, most tables are now more or less at the coffee stage so we order some, the twins having to be to assured that the restaurant does not keep the cake, and the lights blink in warning, and we all settle back for the entertainment! Gee, didja think it was just a restaurant with Heidi ladies and flavoured sausage and sauerkraut? No way, this is NSW! So the quartet comes in, plus and the backing band, well, a pianist, a guitarist, and a bloke with a saxophone, and we have a round of German drinking songs. Think they are. Well, several tables full of drunken Aussies are waving tankards of beer, so—Yeah. But then a fat joker in huge lederhosen and a little green hat with a bunch of something in it comes on and make the announcement that everyone’s been waiting for. Siegfried and his Saw. APPLAUSE! Huge excitement, one table with tankards is actually throwing stuff. Bits of bread roll, I think.

    So I hiss: “I didn’t warn you, I thought I’d give you the surprise!” And Euan hisses back, he’s grinning all over his face: “More like a norful shock!” And Siegfried plays his saw.

    Have you ever seen it? It’s really, really neat. Like, he uses a violin bow and he bends the saw to change the sound. It sounds great. Well, you couldn’t listen to it with pleasure for an extended period—no. But it’s a real full tone and real tunes. Everyone listens with beaming faces and the applause is deafening.

    What could top that? Nothing could, so in spite of the twins’ protests that those people over there are still eating, we go.

    Right, Bob does take the back road. The twins are asleep before we even reach the turn-off to it. I’m fairly sleepy myself, what with all those early starts that bloody Dawlish insists on so as we can waste all of the morning as well as the rest of the day, but who could doze off when they’re wondering exactly how Bob is gonna manage dropping us all off: is he gonna blatantly insist on dropping Euan off at my place or is he gonna dump him back at his hotel first, thus nipping any other possibility in the bud—Like that. Plus and, what’ll Euan’s reaction to either of these moves be? Like, will he refuse to let Bob leave him at my place? Which on his showing up to now is more than likely. Or, contrariwise, will he say he doesn’t want to be dumped at his hotel? And, interesting thort, even if he doesn’t want to be dumped all on his ownsome will he have the guts to say so?

    … Why in God’s name are they talking about Bob’s ambition to run a poncy B&B for the overfed middle classes somewhere up in the Blue Mountains? Or even down in Tazzie near a really good trout lake? Euan’s really interested in this last; at least, he’s putting up a good facsimile of it—Oh, trout in Scotland, too? Fascinating. Bob, you’re never gonna do it unless you get off your arse and dump Mitre 10 and do it. Even though ya won’t ever get back what you’ve put into the place. Oh, well, speeding through the dark miles past the back of beyond, s’pose it does induce that sort of mood, yeah.

    So Euan goes slowly: “Aye… I do see your point, Bob. I think in your shoes I might just give it a go as soon as a suitable place turns up. Though don’t look at me, God knows I’ve never made up ma mind to anything in ma life!”

    What bullshit! So I go: “What about being an actor, and then leaving Edinburgh and trying your luck in London?”

    “No: I went into acting because Mum got me into that wee group and then the teacher got us all these auditions and I got the part, Dot. I don’t say I didn’t enjoy it, but none of it was my idea. Let alone my decision.”

    “Oh. What about London, then?”

    “Same sort of thing. Roddy—our director—suggested I audition for this part and rang his friend in London, so I went doon and auditioned for it. And since I got it, it seemed—och, well, you must have had similar experiences, Dot! It seemed the natural thing to do, to take it.”

    “Of course it did!” agrees Deanna quickly in this extra-kind voice, sounds like ruddy Aunty Kate being gracious, does she think I’m gonna flatten the joker or what?

    “Um, can’t say I have had similar experiences, no.”

    “That job for flaming Dick McKenzie at the servo,” goes Bob.

    “Heck, no, Bob: I hadda talk him into that, he didn’t want to take on a girl at all!”

    “Oh. Like me, huh?” he recognises feebly.

    “Yeah. And it took me ages to find that job at Leila’s.”

    “Right. And don’t give us the saga about the statistics job in Canberra, thanks: we all know you always wanted that since you could walk.”

    “Yeah. Well, Euan doesn’t. –See, I always wanted to do something with maths, and it seemed the obvious move to go into government stats, only it was real boring, all red tape and following set procedures. So when it seemed like Uncle Jerry might need me, I give it away, geddit?”

    “Aye… But did Jerry offer you the job on a plate, Dot?”

    “Yeah, but I was looking for something else anyway. And I checked it out good an’ proper before I took it, I didn’t want a nothing-job.”

    “She is pretty get-up-and-go,” Bob concedes. “But me and Deanna get what ya mean, Euan; don’t we?”

    She oughta, considering she jumped at the chance to work for him. “Yes. But what did you really want to do, Euan?”

    So the poor bloke goes, real lame: “Och…”

    “Gee, leave the bloke alone, Deanna, he didn’t come out her to the other side of the world to bare his soul to a load of people he barely knows up beyond Outer Woop-Woop!”

    “No, it’s all right, Dot!”—Ya reckon? Not with her doing her Oprah impersonation, it ruddy well isn’t.—“I suppose there was nothing I really wanted to do, Deanna, it’s why I let myself drift into acting. No, well, at one stage I wanted to be a jockey, but Mum wouldna hear of it. I think Dad would have let me—he’s always liked his bet… Anyway, we didna know anybody at all who knew anybody who’d done that, I was a city kid. I did get as far as talking to the teacher who did the careers stuff at school, but he threw ten fits at the idea. Evidently,” he says on real sour note, “if you’ve got the brains to mebbe get into university you’re not allowed to be a jockey. I did ask him what the university was supposed to lead on to, when you’re hopeless at science, but all he could come up with was possibly teaching.”

    “Sounds just the same as here, none of them teachers have got the faintest what the real world’s like,” agrees Bob immediately. –This is one of this theme songs, because the careers advisor supported the ex-wife in her campaign to turn Kyle into a tight-arsed accountant, see? Though in principle I wouldn’t say he was wrong.

    “So have you always like horses, Euan?” Deanna asks kindly.

    “Aye, well, I always thought I did! I hadna seen any in real life until I was old enough to go to the races with Dad. Riding lessons were out of the question, of course, when I was a kid. But I did eventually learn: I landed a part in a TV series that required riding—so I had to get maself some lessons, fast!” He laughs a bit. “There was me, one scowling little fat boy aged around eleven, six terrifically keen little girls—the youngest would have been around six and the oldest twelve—and two young upper-middle matrons who’d decided they wanted a change from the aerobics classes! The little boy was the slowest learner, by far, but I ran him a close second. I never did manage to jump anything higher than a log, but fortunately the part didna require that. Or not from me: there were a dozen stuntmen who did all the exciting bits. But I did love the lessons.”

    Bob’s real interested. Turns out this dump was run by two terrifyingly competent middle-aged sisters. Gee, it only took three divorces all up, too. Like, one of them had two failed marriages, ouch. Like, it was her and the first husband running the place first off, the other sister was a civil servant, she was only a sleeping partner in the business back then. They’re all agreeing that you do need a partner, ya can’t run a place like that on your own. Personally I’d think the divorces prove the opposite, that you’re far more likely to bust up over trying to run that sort of business—however. Yeah, Bob, what say you and Euan did get together and run a combined B&B and riding school? As if. Oh, dude ranch, eh? Now ya talking. Not.

    “This is Australia, ya pair of nanas: any sort of dude ranch here, the punters’ll be looking for fake cowboy shirts and your genuine Aussie outback mustering in flaming R.M. Williams hats!”

    “Akubras,” corrects Bob. “So?”

    “Well, apart from the fact that that’ll go real well with your long weekends for the overfed barristers and doctors and their wives from the Big Smoke that fancy the dishes of guest soaps and the kangaroo steaks in wine sauce with funny skinny Japanese mushrooms on the side, how convincing is Euan gonna be on an Aussie dude ranch, for Pete’s sake?”

    “No, well, couldn’t afford the size of place to run a proper dude ranch, anyway,” the moron replies cheerfully. “So, make it a nice B&B with riding? Every B&B needs its own special draw-card, these days!”

    “Yeah, yeah. Rave on.”

    “Och, well, it’s a nice dream!” says Euan with a laugh.

    “Yeah, right. All other considerations aside, can either of ya cook?”

    No. So there you are.

    … Uh—shit, where are we? “Where are we?”

    “Your place. Out ya hop.”

    What? My place? Where’s Euan? So I croak: “What? Where’s Euan?”

    “Dropped him off at his hotel. You were dead to the world,” replies Bob cheerfully, the stupid, mutton-headed, blind—

    So I go: “Gee, thanks for that, Bob. Looks like I’m never gonna get to do it with a genuine overseas fillum star, dunnit?”

    “The way ya sister tells it”—beside him, she’s blissfully snoring with her mouth open—“he’d decided you were never gonna get to do it anyway, because, whatever yer ruddy cousin may say, he’s a decent type that doesn’t take advantage of dim Aussie kids from the other side of the world with a crush on him.”

    “I have NOT got—”

    “Shut up, you’ll wake the sleeping beauties,” he says mildly.

    Shit, from behind me comes a sepulchral voice: “I’m noddasleep.” Danno, I think.

    “All right, the other two,” says Bob cheerfully.

    “I am not a kid and I have not got a crush on him,” I note evilly, getting out.

    “Yeah. Thanks for the aftershave,” he says cheerfully, driving away.

    Flaming bloody Norah!