Darling Buds Of May

30

Darling Buds Of May

    “I followed the ruddy film company round for two months last year like a bloody sheep, Jim,” said Ann wearily, “isn’t that enough—”

    Apparently it wasn’t. When the shouting had died down a bit Tony said uncomfortably: “Jim, if she really doesn’t wanna do it, I could just take pi—”

    He shouted about that, too, so they both just agreed meekly to do it jointly.

    “The second one’s in London,” Mr Hopkins then said cheerfully. “The paper won’t spring for that, I’m afr—”

    “Shut UP, Jim!” shouted Tony.

    Ann had gone very red. “It’s okay, Tony, he didn’t mean anyth—”

    “Not flaming half! Well, if he didn’t, that’s just as bad! What ruddy world do you live in, Jim?”

    “Eh? Look, I said you could have a stretch of paternity leave in the unlikely event Kirrian feels lively enough to get back to work in the next—”

    “Not that! And drop dead!” Very red in the face, Tony grabbed Ann’s arm and marched her out.

    “Um, sorry,” he then said.

    Yeah. So was she. “Uh—yeah. Thanks. No, well, he does live in a world of his own… What in God’s name does he expect me to write?” she burst out. “I mean, a premiere’s a premiere, whaddelse can ya say?”

    “Um, dunno. Um… write about who designed their gear?” he offered dubiously.

    Ann sighed. “I suppose.”

    “Anyway, it isn’t till June,” he said kindly. “Wouldn’t even be summer there yet, would it? Like, December take away six is June, eh?” he offered brilliantly.

    Ann didn’t groan, at least it proved he could do simple arithmetic. Heretofore she had been under the impression that he worked entirely on the barter system. As in half his Crunchie Bar of three weeks back equalled half her, Ann’s, rare and delicious jam donut with real jam and almost real cream in it. “Soon enough.”

    “Hey, I tell ya what it’ll be: Ole Fatty’ll want to get the premieres in before they all start going away for their summer holidays!”

    Ann had been under the vague impression that they all took their summer holidays in August; hadn’t that been why Lucas Roberts had been able to come out that month? However, she didn’t argue: for Tony, that was verging on the brilliant. “Yeah, that sounds about right. Um, ya reckon Melanie’d be able to give me the dinkum oil on the dresses?”

    “No, ’cos see, you’re the one that’s gonna break it, Ann!”

    Oh, God. He was probably right. Most unfortunately she couldn’t generously offer to let Kirrian come along with her to the interviews: at least, she could, but it wouldn’t work: Kirrian was now immured in that charming townhouse they were gonna have to give up ruddy soon with the very new product of last August’s endeavours. Little Brad. Oh, well. Marginally preferable to Kiefer or Harrison, wasn’t it? And if ya thought “Brad Giorgiadis” sounded slightly odd, whaddabout “Kiefer Giorgiadis”?

    Brightening, she said: “Maybe Dot’ll be back for it, whaddaya think?”

    Tony debated this knotty point for some time. ’Cos see, she was only a double, but then, on the other hand she was Lily Rose’s cousin; and then again, Ole Fatty had been real keen on getting shots of the three of them, hadn’t he—but then on the other hand again, Kirrian had read in an English magazine that Euan Keel was involved with someone else, now…

    Ann didn’t point out that Euan Keel and Dot Mallory had never in fact been involved, she just let him ramble on. Then she said: “Yeah. I tell ya who might be able to give me the gen, and that’s Rosie’s and Dot’s cousin, Molly. ’Member—”

    She didn’t need to go on: Tony had collapsed in a sniggering fit, nodding madly. He then rushed to his desk and brought up a digitised set of his pictures of all three Lily Roses with Euan Keel. Kindly Ann came and admired them, not asking whether Jim knew that this number of pics unused by the paper had got entered to the digital archives. Naturally he then had to give a second demonstration of his new screen-saver, which had very lately taken the place of the former screen-saver, a very lucky shot of Lily Rose in the puce Fifties Marilyn bathers, doing up Dot’s 21st-century bikini top for her, meanwhile Molly was slipping them into that floral 21st-century bikini of hers. Most of the males in the office were now using it as their screen-saver; in the case of the very computer-literate ones, clipped and enlarged and very slightly enhanced so as to be even better.

    Having agreed kindly that Baby Brad looked really cute—actually he looked like Winston Churchill with an almighty hangover—and received a reprise of this morning’s Baby Bulletin, she was at last enabled to totter back to her own desk. With of course the promise of even better pics of Baby Brad to come!

    Um, Molly was now working for Rosie’s Dad, that was right. Um… Heck. Ann got out her undigitised, hand-written address notebook. Um… no. Last August/September’s shorthand notepad? Bitter experience had taught her not to throw the things out, you never knew when you might have urgent need of one of those facts that had been blue-pencilled from the official record by her august Editor. They were filed in her bottom drawer. …Christ.

    … What? This was the most complete and utter— Ah, hah!

    “Hey,” she said to Speedy Gonzales at the next desk: “I’ve found that recipe for tree-tomato salad: want it? It’s real simple.”

    “No oil,” replied Ms Gonzales grimly.

    “No, it’s got yoghurt in it. Plain yoghurt, I sort of seem to remember… Um, must be.”

    “Good. And you mean tamarillo.”

    “Huh? Oh, yeah, ’course. Shall I write it—” All right, she’d email it to her. For fuck’s sake, the girl was at the next— Never mind. Carefully Ann typed it up and emailed it to her.

    Pleasedly Speedy Gonzales printed it out, cripes, that was a first.

    “Hey, Speedy.”—The unfortunate girl had given in on that point, because when she’d started grimly ordering them not to, the blokes had made her life unbearable. Hand on the hip and mincing around ordering people to call them Mary in high-pitched voices having been the least of it.—“Can you recall what Lily Rose’s dad’s firm was called? He’s a bookie. I don’t seem to have a note of it.”

    Noting by the by that Ann was hopeless, Speedy made a dive at her keyboard. Gee, the digitised Yellow Pages didn’t seem to have an entry for “bookies”. She was gonna do an Internet search for “online gambling” cross-referenced with “Sydney” but thought very much better of it, given that the Powers-That-Be did spot-checks on people’s Internet searches. Well, yeah, their jobs being what they were, they looked for some pretty gruesome stuff, on occasion, but Speedy hadn't been ordered to write a piece on Aussie online gambling, had she? Actually it might make quite an interesting piece: Ann made a mental note.

    “Ann! Pay attention! See, if we search under ‘Lily Rose’ as the primary term in this box and restrict it by ‘Father’ in this— Ann!”

    “Huh? Oh—um, right. Got it. What about ‘Family’ in that box?”

    “I’ll try that next, if this doesn’t— See?” she said smugly.

    Gee, there it was, a nice bit from the paper dating from around the time Lily Rose had come out… on her honey…

    “That’s your by-line!” Speedy was crying accusingly.

    Er, yeah. So it was. “Yeah, but it was yonks back, I can’t remember all the garbage I write. Grant & Marshall, eh? Great. Thanks, Speedy.”

    “No worries. But you could of done it yourself,” she said smugly. “Why are you writing it down? I can just email—”

    Oh, God. But Ann let her: Line of least resistance, or something. Or was it Anything for a quiet life? Something like that.

    She and Molly had briefly renewed acquaintance back in February at Miff’s wedding to Kenny Marshall—Ann had been there in her private capacity and had been careful not to breathe a word of it at the office. It was true that Pommy film directors’ ex-girlfriends were not News, unless the paper was desperate to fill its space, but then, combined with Lily Rose’s brother—No. Better safe than sorry. However, that had been several months back. But Molly did remember her and didn’t mind being rung at work, so that was okay.

    That pleasant voice with a friendly smile in it brought back that evening with poor bloody Euan Keel in his silly sarong clear as day, and Ann found she was suggesting lunch instead of dragging what she knew out of her over the phone. Molly didn’t think she could make it downtown in her lunch-hour, but that was okay, Ann was real sick of the noodle bar, so they agreed to meet at one of Molly’s local watering-holes. The lady at Micky O’Flynn’s was nicer, she explained, but it was a bit noisy, they always had the races on, and The Old Lion did much better lunches.

    So Ann set off for Outer Woop-Woop, her book of maps providently open on the seat beside her…

    Oh, cripes! This was it, all right, and it looked okay—well, done-up old Sydney pub, she was sure Molly’s intel that its grilled salmon steak with almonds was lovely would be correct, but where was she gonna park?

    “Sorry!” she gasped, tottering into the tasteful gloaming provided by peach-coloured fake oil lamps depending from brass chains to find Molly placidly drinking mineral water at a table for two amidst a crowd of bellowing lunchers. “Hadda wait until someone got a ticket and then grab their spot in the interval between the cop going away—Never mind!” she ended, collapsing onto the tasteful Federation terracotta nylon velvet seat of the almost-real carved dining chair. “Gee, they have gone to lot of trouble!” she added, looking round admiringly at the short, flower-patterned frosted-glass screens and their brass railings separating the clutches of tables, the real palms in huge brass spots, and the acres of Indonesian teak panelling.

    “Yes, it’s quite pretty. I like the green lamps on the bar,” said Molly placidly.

    Uh—yeah. Reading lamps, Ann had always thought they were. Oh well, they looked real Federation. “Is the salmon on?” she asked, seizing the menu.

    “Yes, and there’s blackboard specials as well. Let me get you a drink.”

    “Thanks. Better make it a mineral water, since I’m driving,” said Ann, quickly producing her wallet.

    “It’s all right, I’ll get them. Uncle Jerry’s paying me a lot,” said Molly placidly, going off to the bar.

    Uh—yeah. Well, enough to buy herself some decent clobber, clearly: she was in a very nice suit. Not your young upwardly mobile female exec’s sober black, unlike Ms Gonzales and the thousands of clones of her that infested downtown Sydney. It was, talking of Federation terracotta, a soft almost-terracotta shade: pale terracotta, if you could get that? Not tan. It really suited her: made those eyes look greener. They were, really, much more unusual than her famous cousin’s grey-blue or even than Dot’s very pretty blue. It was a bit of a pity that the pizzazz that characterised Lily Rose Rayne was replaced in her by that placid calm.

    “You’re looking very smart,” said Ann nicely when she came back.

    “Thanks. It’s a disguise,” said Molly with a grin, sitting down.

    An smiled. “That makes you sound very like Dot! How is she? Have you heard from her lately?”

    “Mm.” Molly raised her glass, twinkling at her. “Good news.”

    “Eh? Don’t tell me she’s gone back to that cold fish, Lucas Roberts!”

    “No. –I don’t think he is a cold fish, really: I think he could be very passionate underneath. But it’s not him. And it’s nothing definite—yet!” she added with a laugh.

    Ann looked uncertainly at the smile. Hadn’t Kirrian’s mag claimed that Euan Keel had a new girlfriend? Um, how wrong could Tony’s report of Kirrian’s report— Not that wrong, no, even under the influence of Baby Brad. But how vague could the mag have been? “Uh—well, um, don’t tell me she and Euan—”

    “No!” said Molly with her cheerful laugh. “He was never Dot’s type, really! Rosie reckons he’s totally immersed in his Shakespeare stuff and he’s taken up with a rising Shakespearean actress—not the Black one he was involved with before.”

    Uh—was he? Had he been? If she said so. “Um, well, um—Is it someone I know? Not a Navy mate of John’s?”

    “No. Think Greek,” said Molly on a smug note.

    “Gr—” Ann’s jaw hit the table. “David Walsingham?” she croaked. “I admit he seemed very struck, but—but I got the impression, uh, this was back towards the end of last year, that she wasn’t letting herself…” She swallowed hard. “I’m very glad,” she said firmly.

    “Good!” beamed Molly. “As I say, ’tisn’t definite yet, but they do seem to have got together.”

    “I’ll drink to it, anyway,” decided Ann, drinking. “So he’s over there?”

    “Yes: he had to go over to finish off the score for the film.”

    “Oh, of course!”

    “Shall we order?”

    Ann peered at the blackboard menu. She was gonna need glasses very, very soon, blast. Helpfully Molly read it out. The trout sounded good. Ooh, so did the lamb fillets in pistachio sauce. Oh, on sweet potato purée? She didn’t much like sweet potato… Molly settled it by saying she’d tried that, you couldn’t taste the pistachios. Had she had the trout? She had, and she’d thought it was lovely but Uncle Jerry had said it was a bit dry. Okay, the salmon it’d be.

    They went up to the counter and put their orders in, and on the strength of the news about Dot and David, indefinite though it was, Ann decided they’d better have a real drink. What would Molly fancy? Molly didn’t know much about drinks, she’d never been able to afford to drink, she admitted cheerfully.

    “That was a nice drink we had at the Big Rock pub, that time,” she added helpfully.

    Cripes, which of the many?

    “It had Coke in it, but I don’t know what else. It made the Coke taste much nicer.”

    “Bundy and Coke,” said Ann limply. Okay, call her silly, but she hadn’t been able to fancy it since. True, Bernie did write, every so often. Well, less often, lately. About once a month, actually. She did write back, but crikey Dick, what was there to say? An enthralling account of her interview with a football star and his fairly new but nevertheless very publicly betrayed wife, gallantly sticking by him? (Until the media’s attention was off them and the prick had re-signed with his club, at which point she’d quietly nick off to her lawyer.) His latest was that Dawlish had thought better of making a pic which rotated between Bermuda and Iceland. Too travel-dokko. Something like that. Ann’s latest was the interview with the father who’d nearly drowned trying to rescue the son that had stupidly been surf-casting in a howling gale. Yeah, well.

    Back at the table she sipped vodka, lime and lemon, and prepared to concentrate on the food—no sense in ruining a perfectly good lunch, eh?

    Once they’d got the salmon down them she asked her what she knew about the premieres. A very odd expression came over Molly’s round face.

    “A bone?” asked Ann in alarm.

    “No. Um, Dot’ll be home for the Sydney one,” she said in a strangled voice. “She’ll have finished her database stuff by then.”

    “Oh, good! So what’s she gonna wear?

    Why was the girl looking phased by this harmless question? “She, um, she was going to wear a silvery dress, um, well, based on one they made Rosie wear, I think it was in the TV series, not the film. Um, tight. Um, I think originally they copied it off a dress Marilyn Monroe wore.”

    “In?” said Ann, pen unashamedly poised over the notepad.

    “In? Oh! I’m sorry, Ann, I don’t know.”

    She was, reflected Ann idly, really much nicer spoken than either Rosie or Dot, wasn’t she? Well, both of them were of course consciously rejecting the tripe Putrid St Agatha’s had tried to brainwash them with, and who could blame them? But really, Molly would have made quite an appropriate and, um—gracious, really—gracious helpmate for Euan Keel, so it was a bit of a pity—

    “Um—oh. Never mind, I’ll ask her when she gets here! Hang on: when you say she was gonna wear this thing, do ya mean the last you heard, or they’ve changed their minds and decided to stuff her into something different?”

    Molly had gone puce and was looking agonised, what on earth was this all about? “I can’t tell you; I’m sorry, Ann!” she gasped.

    Couldn’t or wouldn’t? Ann’s bet woulda been the latter. It would have been going too far to say her reportorial instincts were now thoroughly aroused: that had been a double vodka and there had been a really large helping of chips with that slab of salmon. But she was aware there was definitely something up.

    “Well, never mind,” she said mildly. “What’s Rosie gonna wear?”

    “Nothing! I mean, she isn’t— I mean, I told them I wouldn’t—” She broke off, gulping.

    Thoughtfully Ann ate that last dried-up-looking chip. Mm, quite crisp and salty! “Okay, don’t bother to say anything, if you don’t want to get yourself in the shit, but I’d translate that as Rosie’s refused to come out for the flaming premiere—well, she is a rotten traveller, I remember that now, it’s why she wouldn’t fly up to Big Rock Bay from Brizzie, isn’t it?—and Double Dee have tried to bribe you into pretending to be her but you’ve turned them down.”

    Instead of refuting this brilliant deduction Molly burst out: “Yes, and it’s absolutely dreadful, Ann! Now they’ve got onto Georgia! And I’m sure I never even mentioned her—I mean, I only spoke to Mr Dawlish a couple of times the whole time I was up there—and Rosie and Dot wouldn’t’ve mentioned her, why should they? And anyway, last time Rosie saw her she didn’t look all that like us!”

    Ann Kitchener at this point barely refrained from raising her eyebrows, pursing her lips and emitting a loud whistle. And as it was, the eyebrows went up and the lips pursed silently before she could stop them.

    “Another cousin?” she murmured in what she sincerely hoped was the tried-and-true, unobtrusive reporter’s murmur that was just enough encouragement to prompt them to go on and not sufficient interruption to stop the flow.

    Ooh, goody, it was, ’cos she was going on: “No—I mean, yes, she is Rosie’s and Dot’s cousin, of course. She’s my little sister. And I don’t want to sound like Mum, but it’s true she was the size of a house last time Rosie saw her! And I don’t know how Mr Dawlish could possibly of got to hear of her!”

    Well, there’d be one or two contenders. Euan Keel struck Ann forcibly as a blabbermouth, no Rupy Maynardes need apply. Added to which, Suck-Up was pretty much Mr Keel’s middle name, wasn’t it? So if he thought Derry Dawlish would be pleased by some morsel he’d picked up from poor Molly during their thing— Yeah.

    “Have you got a picture of her?” she murmured.

    Nodding, Molly produced her wallet and handed over a dog-eared pic, explaining that it was Georgia and Deanna when they were both sixteen.

    Deanna hadn’t changed, she’d been skinny with her hair scraped back even then. The other girl was shorter, and yeah, the mum, in the way of mums, was right, “the size of a house” put it well. Pretty with it, though. Short fair curls—right.

    “Her and Mandy Regan,”—Ann didn’t ask—“they decided to lose weight together, you see, so they joined one of those clubs and started going to the gym. Georgia lost a lot of weight, I can’t remember what it was in kilos but Mum said it was about three stone, and she’s never put it back.”

    That would make her look like the three of them—yep.

    “Only who could’ve told them?” she wailed.

    “Uh—look, judging by Dawlish’s past form, Molly, he’d be quite capable of getting a firm of private detectives onto Rosie’s entire family,” said Ann kindly. And not untruthfully, except that she was now convinced Dawlish wouldn’t’ve needed to.

    “Um, yes. You’re right,” she said, swallowing. “Georgia looks much more like Rosie facially than me, you see, and—and she thinks it’s funny, Ann! I can’t make her see that she could get into real trouble: I mean, they could be sued for—for misrepresentation or something, couldn’t they? Dot warned me not to do it ’cos I could be sued for megabucks. You know: by the TV networks, or them.”

    Too right! Ann shuddered. “Good on her.”

    “I did contact Rosie, I thought maybe she could stop Double Dee, but… Well, um, I have to say it,” she said pinkening discernibly, though she was pretty flushed already, “she’s really lost interest in the film. She emails me quite often, and it’s usually about her sociology or John and Baby Bunting, or what’s happening in the village.”

    Huh? Oh, right, they lived in a village somewhere on the south coast of England, didn’t they? “Yes,” she said smiling at her. “I geddit. Can’t blame her, really! So you didn’t get any joy out of her?”

    “She only said there was nothing she could do, but she’d phone Georgia if I thought it might help. And she did, only Georgia won’t see it!”

    Yeah, well, if she was only the same age as Deanna Mall—uh, whatever the girl’s name was, now. And quite possibly as dim as her, too.

    “I shouldn’t have told you,” said Molly, swallowing hard.

    “Huh? Oh, Hell, that’s okay, Molly, I won’t breathe a word! Jim’s only expecting blather about the frocks and who’s gonna be who’s escort, so that’s what he’ll get!”

    “Thanks,” she said gratefully. “Um, I don’t suppose,” she said, licking her lips nervously, “that you could speak to Georgia, could you, Ann?”

    Wot, her? She was only a humble reporter of other people’s glamorous and exciting— Oh, why the Hell not? It wouldn’t do any good, of course: a girl of about twenty-one that was offered the chance to be Lily Rose Rayne for a night in a model frock, laden with hired-for the-night diamonds? Uh, was the girl even up here—weren’t they from Melbourne?

    Molly was terrifically grateful. And yes, Georgia was here, she’d come up to start a new job, she’d had enough of Melbourne and Mum’s nagging and she was staying with her and Micky for a bit. She then wistfully supposed that Ann wouldn’t be interested in seeing what she did at work, would she?’

    “Well, yeah, actually: I would, Molly. Um, not if it’s all databases, though.”

    “No, that was what Dot used to do. Daniel and Peta are filling in for her.”

    Phew! Happily Ann accompanied her back to work.

    It was pretty much all computers, of course. Very little human interest there. But Jerry Marshall was on deck, and happily gave her an interview. He seemed to be doing really well—really well. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? But the suit and tie alone were a fair indicator, and all the workers seemed happy—she got a tour of the whole place and everybody grinned at him and called him Jerry, so— Yeah. The only question remaining being, what was May Marshall gonna spend it all on? ’Cos she’d done as much to that house as was possible within the laws of post-Newtonian physics. And Ann had already heard the full story of how she loathed flying and hadn’t even made it to England for the birth of her first grandchild—several times—so she obviously wasn’t gonna spend it on trips to Venice or Japan like most of them did. Oh, well, perhaps they’d turn out to be the only middle-aged couple in the whole of Oz to actually give some to their kids when they needed it?

    “What? Sorry, Jerry,” she croaked, turning red. “Um, I was just wondering how Kenny and Miff are getting on?”

    Very pleased, he told her. May had helped them do the flat up. Miff had a job as receptionist at the hairdresser’s at their Mall: it didn’t pay much but it gave her something to do and made her feel she was contributing, and they were saving up for a house. He believed in encouraging young people to stand on their own two feet, but—with a wink—after they’d got the deposit together he’d weigh in with a lump sum.

    “Uh—yeah! Well, good on ya,” said Ann somewhat feebly.

    “Might as well: May’d only chuck it away on redoing the ensuites or more fucking Chinese rugs,” he said cheerfully.

    Er—yeah. Ann smiled weakly, nodding. She then let a little fellow in a zoot-suit press a disc of something into her palsied hand—he could email it to her, he suggested, but that was N.B.G., she didn’t have a business card on her and she couldn’t remember her email address—well, heck, the things were full of abbreviations and stupid symbols you could never find on your keyboard. Digital what? Oh: pics of some of their screens—only the public ones! he added quickly, with a glance at his boss—and some digital photos he’d taken of their offices, like, some of them were in their publicity brochures! he explained proudly. Ann already had a folder of those, so she just nodded meekly. Well, supposing that Jim wanted to decorate her human-interest story on a successful Aussie online gambling firm with pics, there’d be plenty of choice. Though oddly enough she had a feeling that he’d prefer to decorate it, appropriately or not, with a pic of Jerry Marshall with his famous daughter.

    “Yeah, thanks, um—Daniel, isn’t it? Yeah, thanks, Daniel, that’s great, all our stuff’s computerised these days. Well, I’ll see you and Georgia later, Molly.”

    Nodding fervently and thanking her fervently, Molly showed her— Oops, let herself be overtaken in the showing-the-visitor-out stakes by a middle-aged moo in a pale jade three-piece trouser suit. One of the ones that had been the bane of Dot’s life, or she, Ann Kitchener, was a Dutchman in his— Yeah.

    She looked limply at smiling Georgia Leach. Georgia Peach, more like. She was, actually, prettier than Rosie, though very, very like her. Ann would have said that Rosie’s face was symmetrical until laying eyes on Georgia. But the rosebud mouth was her to the life. And those perfect little pearly teeth, yep. The eyes weren’t blue-grey like Rosie’s, but the same grey-green as her sister’s—but gee, in these days of tinted lenses— Added to which, once they’d slathered her in make-up, what was gonna come over on your average fuzzy news snippet? Well, exactly: Lily Rose Rayne at her premiere, what else?

    “Georgia,” she said without hope, “you could get in for real trouble if you agreed to this mad scheme. I mean, real trouble. Legal trouble.”

    “They can’t sue me, Ann, I haven’t got any money!” she said happily.

    Right. Ann had now gathered that she was just twenty-two. She’d finished her B.A. at the end of last year, had a huge row with the mum because she’d refused to go into teaching, and had used the word-processing skills the kids all seemed to have these days to get a very ordinary office job. Well, yeah, she’d done a Course, she had the official bit of paper to prove that she’d— Never mind, she’d managed to get a job: good on her. Then incensing the mum by chucking it in to come up here—right. Most of what she’d saved during the last few months going on the fare—right again.

    “Georgia, you could end in gaol,” said Molly tearfully.

    “Oh, pooh! Look, legally that’s probably true, Molly, but look at me! The young Lily Rose, right?” she said with an awful simper. “What horrible big TV network’s gonna want the bad publicity of being responsible for this innocent face ending up behind bars?”

    Ann thought of the paper’s Owners, and winced. They’d put anything behind bars and never think twi—She took another look at that face. Uh—the kid was probably right, actually: it’d be terrible publicity for them: there’d probably be protests. Not Protests, no: popular protests. The great morning chat-show audience-participated audience would never let the chat-show hosts hear the last of it! And fortunately for Georgia the local TV networks picked up in the evening, regular as clockwork, in fact frequently at midday as well, what the chat-shows had had in the mornings.

    “Um, she is right, you know,” she said weakly to Molly. “I agree it’s completely stupid, and she may well be threatened with prosecution, but I’d say gaol is highly unlikely.”

    “See? And in any case Double Dee isn’t gonna pretend I’m Rosie,” she said smugly. “I’m gonna have a contract to be her double, see? And they aren’t gonna say ‘This is Lily Rose,’ or ‘Do you want an interview with Lily Rose?’ or anything like that. All I’ve gotta do is get out of the limo and let Derry Dawlish take me up the red carpet into the theatre. He’s just gonna say: ‘No interviews, dears,’ and I’m not gonna say anything, all I have to do is smile.”

    “I believe that in law,” said Ann heavily, “there’s a question of intent.”

    “Yes, but they have to prove it,” retorted Georgia Peach immediately.

    Right. Ann gave up. The girl was, after all, not her responsibility.

    Georgia then rushed off, to return with a positive portfolio of pics of the gear. It was an exclusive, really: Ann supposed she oughta be thrilled. The dress was a genuine Fifties Dior design! And see, the diamonds were gonna be lent for the occasion— Gee, Ann had been right all along. Oh, diamonds and pearls, mixed, beg ya pardon. Right, she sure wouldn’t look in the least like Nicole at her last premiere. (Or at any of her premieres, or ever: not with those curves.)

    “Nuh, uh, thanks, Georgia,” she croaked as the portfolio was then warmly pressed into her palsied hand. “Um, but Jim might wonder where they came fr—No, scrub that. Thanks, it’s a really great scoop.”

    “She was in two minds about agreeing to do it until cunning old Mr Dawlish sent those pictures. She’s really keen on clothes,” explained Molly in a lack-lustre voice.

    “So would you be, if you’d been three stone overweight all through your teens!” she retorted swiftly. “See, Mum wasn’t interested in me, otherwise she might of bothered to see I had a proper diet,” she explained to Ann. “But by the time I was thirteen, Micky had come along and she was totally absorbed in him. Like, bossing the pants off Molly and making her go back and finish Year Twelve and never letting her do hardly a thing for her own kid,” she elaborated redundantly. “Not that I minded: it sure took the pressure off me!”

    “Yes,” agreed Molly.

    “Yeah. And I was an accident, anyway. Dad wanted to use birth control but Mum was having one of her rabidly Catholic fits and wouldn’t let him,” explained Georgia blithely.

    Cringing, Ann managed to nod, though not to smile.

    And that was pretty much that. They pressed her to stay for tea but Ann refused—she didn’t feel she could take any more of it, quite frankly.

    Next day Tony asked her kindly how it had gone but after a certain amount of guilty goggling Ann realised he hadn’t meant—uh, no. “The lunch with Molly?” she said feebly. “Pretty good. She was in a nice suit but she hasn’t really changed. Um, well, actually she was able to let me have, um, some, um, copies of the pics of Lily Rose’s dress. Not on her, on a model.”

    “No problem!” He leapt on the portfolio, so excited that he didn’t think to ask what the fuck Lily Rose’s obscure cousin that hadn’t even done stand-in for her was doing with a whole set of full-colour pics of the gear for the premiere, and explained eagerly how with the power of Whatever at his fingertips, the program had some very unlikely name which Ann was refusing grimly to retain, he could put Lily Rose’s face— Yeah, yeah. Just a pity he couldn’t do it with the video clip of the actual premiere, ’cos then, she, Ann (Muggins) Kitchener, wouldn’t’ve had to go through—

    “Eh? Oh, um, yeah, ace, Tony. Hey, maybe you could do something with these, too,” she recalled, fishing in her purse for the disc little Zoot-Suit had given her. “I did a bit of an interview with Jerry Marshall while I was—”

    “Ooh, pics of Lily Rose?”

    “No. ’Specially not of her in bathers.”—Tony just grinned.—“No, uh,”—she lowered her voice even though Speedy Gonzales was not as of this instant in the office—“while I was at it I thought I might work up a little story about successful Aussie online gambling firms. Well, one. Local interest: Sydney, see?”

    “Good one!” he approved cheerfully, seizing the disc.

    Yeah. Something like that. Ann watched dully as he rushed off to his desk and his blessed program with his booty. Oh, to be that simple-minded. Not to say, one-track minded.

    The phone rang just as Ann was about to desert her desk in search of a shot of caffeine. Barely nine-thirty ack emma—right.

    After a certain amount of dazed incomprehension she realised that the composed soprano that was telling her it was Deanna Springer, Dot Mallory’s sister, was—

    “Oh! Deanna! Hi, how are you? And congratulations, if it’s not too late for that.”

    Evidently it wasn’t, and Deanna thanked her very nicely and asked nicely if she, Ann, would like to come to lunch and spend the day with them on Saturday? She and Bob were now out at old Uncle Martin’s place—wot?—but that was all right, they’d be in town, they had to collect some stuff and they’d be staying overnight at Dot’s place, and she could come with them or follow them, if she wanted to drive her own car, she allowed.

    Ann wasn’t sure why her but she accepted gratefully anyway: heck, what else did she have to do? She spelled out that she did know where Dot’s flat was, yes, and finally managed to hang up, though not without being told exactly what to wear. Oh, well, most hostesses didn’t bother: it made a change from floundering around and then choosing the wrong gear entirely.

    Er, there was the thought that ruddy Georgia might also be invited. After all, they were cousins and she was Deanna’s age— At this point Ann very nearly remembered a previous engagement. Anything would do. Going to the footy with Tony and his equipment would do! Having to write the footy column because Pete Andrews was off sick— Anything!

    … This was it. Block of stepped brick townhouses. The garden, what there was of it for the ruddy brick pavers—didn’t they heat the place up like an oven all summer?—was looking dead and mournful, but after all Dot had been away for getting on for six months. Ann rang the bell, wishing for the Nth time that she’d had the guts to ring Deanna back and ask if young Georgia would be there, hopefully not having to explain how she knew—

    “Shit!” she gasped, as the door opened.

    “Flattering,” replied Bernie weakly.

    Ann had gone as red as a tomato. “What are you doing here?” she gasped.

    “Immediately, waiting for a lift up to Potters Inlet to spend the day with Deanna and Bob Springer, the same as you.”

    “You might at least have let me know you were coming,” she said numbly.

    “It was a last-minute decision. I meant to ring you last night, but I shut my eyes for forty winks and the jet-lag took over.”

    “Um, yeah. Are you staying here, then?”

    “No,” replied Bernie with a little smile. “I’m in a nice motel just a few blocks away. I took Dot’s advice and didn’t chuck my money away on a downtown hotel.”

    “Um, yeah.”

    “Come in. Bob and Deanna have just popped round to her parents’ place to collect something.”

    Limply she followed him into the sitting-room.

    “Avoid the recliner chair unless you want to put your feet up, its footrest won’t go down,” said Bernie kindly.

    “Yeah.” Numbly Ann sat down on the sofa.

    Bernie took a battered easy-chair at right-angles to it, smiling a little. “Sorry it’s a norful shock, Ann.”

    “No, I— Well, it is, rather,” said Ann, going red as a tomato all over again.

    “Mm. I don’t know if you know about it, but this place that Deanna and her husband own at Potters Inlet is being turned into a B&B.”

    “Um, yeah, she did mention that, in amongst the— Um, yeah.”

    “Dot showed me the snaps she sent over,” he said with a smile.

    “Um, yeah. Did she?”

    “Yes. And it suddenly struck me—call it mid-life crisis if you like,” said Bernie cheerfully, “that my future need not be limited to churning out arty dreck for Derry Dawlish.”

    After a moment Ann managed to say: “Bernie, just because you didn’t like the idea of doing that thing with Bermuda and Iceland—”

    “No, I didn’t; in fact I absolutely hated it: both places were very beautiful in themselves and I found I had no impulse whatsoever to render them on the silver screen. I was immensely relieved when Derry decided against the idea; so relieved that I didn’t ask myself what, exactly, I was relieved about. It wasn’t until I was looking at smudgy Polaroids of dark Australian bush that it dawned: never mind the aesthetic cringe, I was just simply bloody relieved at not having to start work on another film.”

    “Yeah, um, but it’s what you do,” said Ann numbly.

    “It’s what I have done for the last umpteen years, yes. Back in the bye and bye, around the time I chucked in that Oxford degree,” said Bernie with a twinkle in his eye, “and went to art school, I had ambitions to be a painter.”

    Ann gulped. “Bernie, it is middle-aged spread!” she said urgently.

    “Mm,” he murmured.

    The echo of Ann’s own voice came to back her. “Uh—no. Mid-life crisis.”

    “Well, yes, but isn’t that God’s warning that your organism can’t stand another moment of whatever it is you’ve been doing and you’d better change your ways bloody quick if you don’t want it to start deteriorat— What it is?” he said quickly as Ann went a sickly yellow colour.

    “Are you sick?” she croaked.

    “No! Good God, no: I’m as fit as a flea— No, truly, Ann! That’s why I want to make a change now; while I’m still fit enough to take it on, you see.”

    “Yes. But what, exactly?” she croaked.

    “Running the crafts shop down the road from Bob and Deanna’s B&B!” he said cheerfully.

    “Oh. So there is one?” said Ann feebly.

    “No!” he said with a laugh. “We’re going to build one: work up a little arts centre, see? Long weekends with a bit of coaching in fabric art from Deanna, and in painting and sketching from me!”

    Ann’s jaw had sagged.

    “Dot assures me that Sydney is full of the affluent middle-aged middle classes who just lap up that sort of thing.”

    “Well, yeah, I gotta admit that’s right. All those TV shows like The Great Outdoors and so forth, they’re always showing that sort of place… And if Dot thinks so, too… I suppose you could run week-long courses, too,” said Ann numbly.

    “Exactly!” he said gaily.

    Ann just looked at him numbly. After a bit she managed to croak: “But how well do you know Bob and Deanna?”

    “I’d met Deanna briefly before, but not Bob. That’s what this weekend’s about. If we discover we can’t stand each other I’ll look round for another place.”

    “Um, yeah. Will you? Um, I only met him at Miff and Kenny’s wedding, but I thought he seemed a very nice joker. I can’t imagine that you won’t get on.”

    “Good! That’s what Dot said!”

    “Good.”

    Bernie looked at her with a little smile. “So, do you think it could work?”

    Ann licked her lips. “Only if you really, really commit to it.”

    “I’m prepared to do that,” he said calmly.

    “Are you? Um, good.” She swallowed. “What about that flat of yours in London?”

    “I’ve put it on the market,” he said calmly.

    “Al—already?” she croaked.

    “Yes. Well, it wasn’t difficult, the local land-agent’s office is just around the corner and in fact his sister lives downstairs.” He looked at her numbed expression. “Uh—I think possibly you may have certain misconceptions about London, Ann: I know Dot did before she came over. It’s not all grimy high-rises, very far from it, it’s more like a whole lot of small villages just run together.”

    “Um, yeah. Is it? Yeah. I see, so you didn’t have to go into the city and make an appointment or—No. Right.”

    “He thinks it should go within the week,” said Bernie placidly.

    Within the week? Ann just looked at him numbly.

    “I know it’s a shock, but I hope you’ll be pleased once you’ve got over it.”

    “Yes. What about your stuff?” she croaked.

    Bernie perceived that she was, indeed, in shock. He got up and came to sit by her on the sofa, taking her hand gently. “I loathe every stick of furniture I’ve put in the place, so I’ll sell that—in fact George, the agent, is arranging that for me: so there’ll just be the bits and bobs of ornaments and a few nice pieces of pottery and my little collection of paintings that I picked up on my travels. Nothing good, just things I liked—naïve art, mostly.”

    “Um, yeah. And your paints and brushes and stuff, I s’pose,” she croaked.

    “No, I brought them with me!” he said gaily. “And my crayons!”

    A tear trickled down Ann’s cheek. “You—you really…”

    “Yes,” said Bernie, raising her hand to his lips and kissing it softly. “I really. And I’m very sorry I didn’t warn you.”

    “Mm. –Blast!” she muttered, scrubbing at her cheeks with her free hand.

    Bernie released her and gave her his handkerchief.

    “Thanks,” she said, mopping her cheeks. “It’ll all be very Australian, Bernie,” she warned shakily. “And the summers’ll be very hot. I know the Springers’ place is just above the water, but that won’t make any difference when the temperature’s hit thirty-eight for three days on end.”

    “Thirty-eight?” he echoed limply.

    Ann blew her nose hard. “That’s a hundred in the old measurements.”

    “Yes. Well, we’d better have air conditioning,” he said briskly.

    She swallowed. “Yeah. Um, we?”

    It was Bernie’s turn to swallow. “Sorry. Freudian slip. Um, well, I don’t want to rush you into it, but I’d like it very much if you’d come and live with me, Ann, and help run the shop.”

    “What about in the winter?”

    “Roaring log fires, or I gather that’s the idea!”

    “Um, yeah. But there won’t be so much casual custom from passing tourists.”

    “No. Oh, I see: you won’t have anything to do. No, um… I don’t know,” he said lamely. “God knows I don’t want you to be bored.”

    “No…” said Ann in a vague voice. “We could have chooks, I’ve always wanted… Hey, what about ducks?”

    “Er—yes, certainly. Any kind of poultry you want. And a garden, if you’d like that.”

    “My pot-plants all died…” said Ann in a vague voice. “Hey, we could ask Aunty Rae, she’s shit-hot on gardening, and she lives up that way! Well, further out, but you pass the turn-off to Potters Inlet!”

    “Yes,” said Bernie shakily “So—so you will think about it?”

    “Um, yeah!” she gulped, recalled to herself. “Um, ’course I will.”

    She didn’t sound very sure about it. Bernie looked at her dubiously. “Don’t let me talk you into anything, Ann. I know you’ve got a fulfilling career and a life here in the city—”

    “Eh?”

    Reddening, he repeated: “You’ve got a fulfilling career and a life here—”

    “You’ve gotta be joking, mate! Know what I was gonna do today if Deanna hadn’t of rung me?”

    “No, what?” he said limply.

    “Sleep in, wash a pile of undies by hand ’cos it isn’t my washing day—we’ve got shared facilities at the flats and boy, I can tell you it palls having to do your washing at eight o’clock on Wednesday night or not at all—and, in the unlikely event I was feeling energetic, nag myself into going to the supermarket and buying something to fill that void in my fridge. Period.”

    “Y— I— Period?” he echoed weakly.

    “Yeah, the sleeping-in would of taken up a good part of the day. And at that I’d probably have put off the undie washing until tomorrow.”

    He swallowed hard. “I see. But I—I suppose I really meant your career, Ann.”

    “Bernie, have you actually read The Sydney Morning Star?” replied Ann forcefully.

    “Er—well—”

    “Mate, it’s not a career, it’s a job! And one, may I add, that ruddy Speedy Gonzales is aching to move up to!”

    “Y— Um, I see. So—so you do fancy the idea of moving to Potter’s Inlet?”

    Fancy it? The idiot! It only sounded like Paradise on earth! Ann opened her mouth. She managed to croak: “Idiot.” And then she burst into snorting sobs.

    “I see,” said Bernie shakily. “Don’t, Ann—don’t, darling,” he said, hugging her very tight.

    Ann sobbed something incoherent into his shoulder.

    “Yes,” said Bernie on a grim note. “I missed you like Hell, too. I couldn’t for the life of me think how to—to arrange something that’d give us both a life that wouldn’t end up with one of us bored to tears— What?”

    “I said,” said Ann, sniffing juicily but smiling: “shut up and kiss me, ya silly bugger!”

    So Bernie did that.