Dot And The Film Star

17

Dot And The Film Star

    Sweet flaming bloody Norah! A white evening suit? When everyone else is in jumpers and slacks? And it stuck out a mile he done it on purpose, who does he think he’s kidding? Well, Aunty May, possibly—yeah. Judging from the look on her face even Joslynne’s got the brainpower to spot him. Christ! Talk about fancying yourself!

    So he comes back in minus the fancy-dress and guess what he’s wearing now? A pale blue vee-necked jumper of Uncle Jerry’s that Aunty May bought him, he hates it. It is a lovely jumper but normal blokes don’t wear vee-necked jumpers without a shirt to show off the chest hair. Plus and the white evening trou’, Uncle Jerry’s and John’s trousers didn’t fit, blah, blah, all lies. Yeah, very pretty, Euan, ya look like a nana of a film star and the whole room’s spotted you, can’t ya see that? Aunty May’s totally taken in, she’s giggling like anything and warning him off Uncle Jerry’s cocktails, but gee, guess what? He giggles right back and thanks her for the warning but lets Uncle Jerry give him some frothy muck from out that shaker, him and ole Michael have shaken it up so much it’s gotta be warm by now.

    So he comes over to me and goes: “Hullo, wee Dot. What are you drinking?”

    “I’m not drinking none of that frothy muck of Uncle Jerry’s, for a start, and nor is anyone else!”

    So he looks at his glass, real disconcerted, and goes: “Oh. I thought I was joining in—doing the done thing.”

    Yeah, well, he sounds real lame, but though I’m not claiming I’ve got used to the looks and the eye-crinkling and them eyelashes and the smile, I have had time to recall very clearly all that stuff Rosie’s told me about him, plus and had time to watch him completely fooling ruddy D.D., the man’s been going round with a continual smirk under the beard, he actually believes Euan’s gonna fall for yours truly plus and believes none of us think the threesomes he’s been setting up for the photographers are deliberate.

    “Gee, Euan, I might even believe that if you hadn’t just explained how ya fooled D.D. tonight.”

    “But I—I did.”

    Anyone else ya would believe that droop to the mouth—yeah; only I seen him do exactly that in Ilya, My Brother, the scene where the girl—never mind. “All right, ya did. I’m drinking whisky, but I won’t have another, thanks, I’m driving.”

    “What? Oh—no,” he goes lamely, trying to smile. “So you drove yourself, wee Dot?”

    “Yeah. And?”

    “I—Nothing.” He chews on the lip. See, that goes over real good with the lady punters, and rather unfortunately yesterday arvo as ever was D.D. had him do it in close-up, the big scene where he realises he really his fallen for the Daughter, after kidding himself for months he’s only teasing her, because she’s a lot younger than him and he’s a high-up Royal Navy officer.

    “Well, you drive, don’t ya?” I say in this totally uninterested voice, if he thinks them tricks are gonna fool D.M. Mallory he’s got another think coming.

    “What?”

    “You drive! Rosie reckons ya used to drive a Porsche.”

    What’s he gone red for? And he can’t be faking that, no human being to my knowledge can produce a blush to order. “I see. Rosie’s told you the lot, hasn’t she?” he says grimly.

    “Uh—she told me she made ya sell the Porsche because you’d spent too much money on your cottage.”

    “And?”

    “Um, well,”—uneasily, can’t see why he’s so upset, it was the sensible thing to do—“Rosie’s got plenty of common, if she can be ruddy bossy. Um, she said ya don’t really like driving in London, well, I can sympathise with that, I don’t like driving in downtown Sydney.”

    “I’d believe that if you hadn’t just told me you drove yourself here,” he says in a tired voice.

    “Eh? This isn’t downtown, ya nana!” Shit, didn’t actually mean to call him that: I hardly know the bloke, after all, never mind plots to pull the wool over ruddy D.D.’s eyes.

    “Oh. No, well, the taxi did seem to drive for miles through the untamed bush: I began to wonder if the man was about to kidnap me and hold me for ransom.”

    So I go, pretty lame: “Yeah. Street trees, not untamed bush.”

    Suddenly he laughs. “Aye! Street trees! Untamed suburbia, then!”

    “Pretty much, yeah. Pity it wasn’t daylight, you’d of got the full benefit of the rendered monstrosities they go in for in these parts.”

    “Quite. E-er… would Jerry be mortally offended if I didn’t drink the rest of this and got maself a whisky, instead?”

    “Think he’s too far gone to notice if ya stood up and danced the highland fling, actually, Euan. Go on, it’s over there, in the square bottle with the black label.”

    That went over good: he’s grinning at me. “Och, weell you no’ come wi’ me and hold ma hand, wee Dot?”

    “Very funny. Oh, all right,”—why am I grinning like a nana? Charmed me, right—“come on, then.”

    So we go over and get him a Johnnie, Uncle Jerry doesn’t even notice us. Then—don’t ask me why—I let him take my elbow and steer me over to a, um, well, it’s not quite big enough to be a two-person sofa but it’s miles too big for an armchair, and we sit down on it. No, in it. And he goes, doing the wistful thing, I’ve seen him do that on screen five million times: “I don’t think I actually know all of these people, Dot.”

    “Uh—ya must. Well, you know everybody that’s in the film, don’tcha? And the bloke with the streaked hair, he’s the dialogue writer, ya know him? –Yeah. And the guy on the sofa over there, that’s Bernie Anderson—right, thought ya’d know him, in fact I think he did the production design bizzo for Ilya, My Brother.”—Why’s he grinning like that?—“Right.”

    “But who’s the lady with him?”

    Uh—don’t know her surname, blow. “Ann. She works for The Sydney Morning Star.”—He’s looking blank.—“Like, the one they chuck in the hibiscus tree at crack of dawn? Hasn’t she interviewed you yet? They’re following the filming. There’s her and Tony, the photographer—he done that threesome with the yellow frocks.”

    “Yes, of course. –I didn’t realise there was a reporter as well.”

    “Oh. Well, she’s been on set, off and on, but I think she mighta been busy getting an exclusive with Adam McIntyre round about the time you arrived.”

    “I see,” he says on a dry note; well, too bad, he isn’t as famous as Adam McIntyre, and what’s more, Rosie reckons he isn’t nearly as good an actor, either. Limited, ya know?

    “Before he went back to New Zealand,” I add kindly, and he goes: “Oh, of course!” Gee, that went down a treat: go to the top of the tact class, Dot Mallory.

    “Yeah, um, well, ya know Miff, do ya?”

    He eyes Miff listening to whatever unending stream of crap is coming out of Kenny’s mouth and goes: “Yes, and I also know Derry wouldn’t be too pleased by that. Who’s the good-looking young man, Dot?”

    “Eh?”

    “The good-looking chap with Miff.”

    Kenny Marshall? Good-looking? Ulp. I admit he was a real pretty little boy, and Aunty May’s got the smudgy Polaroids to prove it. Think my favourite’s the one in the bunny suit, with the ears lined in pink satin and the scowl.—Dance classes, same ones she made Rosie go to.—These days, however, he’s more a sort of large lump. No, well, the figure’s okay. Maybe it’s only the complete lack of grace and the frightful gear and the personality? That’s certainly lumpish. He’s got light brown hair, not yellow like Rosie’s and mine, but it curls in the same way, poor creep. At the moment it’s short back and sides, trimmed fairly short on top, could be meant to be a style, who knows? Grey eyes, same shade as Uncle Jerry’s, but a completely different shape, very long and, or so Isabelle and me have always agreed, cunning but not intelligent. He hasn’t got the ruddy rosebud mouth and believe you me, on a bloke it would not look good. But he missed out on Uncle Jerry’s mouth, too: it’s thin, wide, and sardonically curled and actually, if he wasn’t me uncle I’d really go for it. Kenny’s is wide, and well-shaped, yeah, and completely characterless. At the moment he’s got quite a tan because he tacked four weeks of annual leave on to last Christmas and managed to spin it out to six weeks and went up to Queensland and bludged off Isabelle and Scott. He thought. They were in the new place and since Double Dee Productions had agreed they could start putting up prefabricated cabins over on the field to the far left of the old house as ya look at it from the beach, that was what they made him do: help build fake Singapore bungalows with nice deep verandahs and nice Aussie colour-steel roofs. Hah, hah, hah. Oh, and lay nice little meandering paths in sandstone-tint concrete pavers between them, hah, hah, hah again. (The film people are gonna use the cabins, ya see, better than being in campervans, or trailers, think they call them, same diff’: there’s no other accommodation up there except the old pub, and it’s about 20 K away.)

    Think Euan’s noticed the stunned silence. “Well?”

    “Oh! Uh—never heard anyone call him that before, Euan. That’s my cousin Kenny—Rosie’s brother.”

    He swallows, so she’ll of mentioned him—yep.

    “Yeah. Um, well, you won’t of met my sister Deanna, either: that’s her over there with Aaron, he’s Derry’s—”

    “Derry’s under the impression the boy’s in bed with a temperature,” he croaks.

    “Great minds think alike, then.”

    “What? Oh! Yes,” he goes lamely. Hah, hah, Dot Mallory forty, up-themselves British actors lo—Scrub that, wouldja?

    “And the other dark girl, with Harry?” he goes dubiously. “She does seem familiar…”

    “Yeah, you’ll of met her on ya first day out here. That’s Joslynne.”

     “Of course, yes! She’s changed her hair,” he explains lamely.

    “Yeah, them yellow streaks on the black are new. Um, she’s not with Harry,” I add cautiously.

    “She’s certainly not his usual style.”

    Think I coulda guessed that from the accent alone, not to say from the way the creep thinks it’s funny to say “mate” every other word. “No, he’d go for something pretty up-market, would he?”

    “Mm.”

    “Think ya know everybody else.”

    “What? Oh—yes. I don’t know why I thought it would be more of a family party,” he says lamely. “Is the baby in bed?”

    “Of course he is! At this hour?”

    “Oh. I was hoping— Well, Rosie and Joslynne and I had a nice play with him, that first day,” he explains with what I think is a genuine sheepish smile.

    “If ya wanted to see him have his bath or be put to bed or like that, ya shoulda dumped flaming D.D. much earlier in the piece.”

    “How very true,” he agrees, real, real sour, what the fuck did I say?

    So after a moment I go: “If that was meant to be deep, Euan, all I can say is, isn’t Dawlish quite important to your career? No-one’s blaming you for that.”

    He looks at me wryly. “No? It’s felt like it for a very long time, Dot.”

    “If ya mean, since round about when ya first met Rosie, well, she is a pretty hard case, and types like Derry Dawlish don’t cut no ice with her. Added to which, though she does enjoy the acting, it’s not, uh,”—no way of putting this tactfully—“not her real work.”

    “Quite.”

    I can’t think of anything else to say that’s not gonna make it worse, bugger. So I look hopefully at Aunty May, but now her and John have joined up with Michael Manfred, he’s got a different cocktail shaker in his fist from the one Uncle Jerry was pouring muck from, and he’s pouring different muck into her glass and she’s giggling like anything. There’s a real strong smell of roast lamb, I’d say it must be done, but she doesn’t seem to have noticed.

    “Why in God’s name did Rosie invite him?” he mutters.

    Jump! “Who, old Michael?” I say in a very much lowered voice.

    “Mm. I thought she couldn’t— Though come to think of it, she did stay with him at the bloody Mountjoy Midsummer Festival, that time,” he says with a scowl.

    Eh? Wot? “Yeah. Um, I think she feels sorry for him!” I hiss.

    He looks sourly at the very flushed silver-rinsed Michael Manfred raising a glass of something revoltingly frothy to Aunty May. “Yes; been in the Business all his life, and now there’s nothing in his life but the Business.”

    He means the flaming acting profession, they all mean that when they say “the Business,” at first I thought it was put on but now it’s dawned that it’s their native vernacular, they don’t know they’re doing it. “Yeah.”

    “Possibly that’s why she kindly invited several of us,” he says sourly.

    At this point—dunno why—something Aunty Kate once said to me comes back to me very, very forcibly. “All men are grumpy before they’ve had their tea, Dot.” (Forgot to speak nayce and say “dinner”—yep.) In the context she told poor old Uncle Jim, who was grumbling about something, unavailability of motor-mower parts, think it was, that he’d feel much better after he’d had something to eat and he held the paper up real high and totally ignored her—but yeah, she was right: he was a box of birds after he’d got two chops and a pile of real mashed potato inside him, and even ate his frozen peas all up.

    So I get up. “That roast smells done to me. I’ll just—” No, I won’t, Aunty May looks totally incapable. And Rosie’s over there in a group with Joslynne, Rupy, Yvonne, Bernie, Harry, and Ann, all laughing their heads off. Anyway, her and Yvonne are both a dead loss in a kitchen. Oh, bugger it, I’ll do it myself. “I’ll just nick out to the kitchen, think it’s time this lot got some solid nosh down them.”

    “Yes, uh, may I come with you?” he says, getting up.

    Why? Well, Rosie did warn me he was a sheep. “Can ya cook?”

    “E-er, no.” He looks wanly round the room. Everybody else is talking, laughing and, frankly, pretty pissed, not to mention all the younger unmarried ones are in couples and it suddenly dawns on me: either Rosie invited him so as to lend verisimilitude to the fooling D.D. thing or she invited him so as to make him feel real left out, and guess which horse my money’s on? Well, bugger the woman, and her stupid schemes!

    “Yeah, come on, why not?”

     So we go out to the kitchen.

    The lamb’s done, all right. “Get out of the way!” I pant, heaving it out.

    He gets the point and leaps aside while I set it down on the chopping board, panting.

    “You should’ve asked me to heave that out,” he says lamely.

    “’S’okay, I’m used to it, I always get the turkey out for Mum at Christmas. Mind you, I’ll admit this is about as heavy: a whole side, eh?”

    “Aye. It looks good.”

    It’d look better if them spuds weren’t sitting in that bowl of water on the bench, mate. They’re further on than the pumpkin, though, she hasn’t even chopped that, it’s just sitting there in solitary splendour on its base—a butternut, they’re nice if they’re ripe, otherwise they’re tasteless. A good dark orange-fleshed Jap is my favourite, bugger your ruddy Queensland Blues, they’re fuzzy and tasteless. “Like pumpkin?”

    He jumps. “E-er… well, no. We don’t eat it much, back home.”

    “Oh, right. Think Rosie did once say it’s not food to the English.”

    So he goes, real narked: “I am not English!”

    “All right, British.” The flush doesn’t die down—mind you, it’s pretty steamy in here, she forgot to turn the extractor fan on with the rest. So I turn it on, VRROOM! It’s one of those giant ones, like in a huge wind-tunnel over the stove. “Well, sorry, Euan, Scotch.”

    “Scottish,” he goes tightly.

    “Uh—right.”—Is it? If he says so.—“Scottish. Okay, we won’t bother with it, it’s boring microwaved anyway. Think we better do the spuds in batches, the microwave won’t like that many.”

    “Aye… Can you microwave potatoes?”

    “Well, yeah. Mind you, it’s pretty hit and miss. Tend to come out either semi-dehydrated or still partly raw, in my experience. Think we better boil them instead?”

    He blinks, presumably no-one ever asked him such a simple culinary question before. Funny sort of girlfriends he must of had. Well, Rosie can’t cook, she does instant mashed potato, can’t count her. No, the rest of them. “Aye, well, if that would be more reliable, Dot.”

    “Yes, but slower. Okay, might be the better part of valour. Hey, could you”—not cop a gander, no—“uh, have a look in the fridge and see if you can spot anything that looks like a pudding for tonight?” I find a pot and dump the potatoes in it with some fresh water and put them on one of the posh ceramic elements, turned up high. What does happen if ya let a giant pot of potatoes boil over on your flashy latest-model ceramic-topped stove that Uncle Jerry paid megabucks for? Well, Uncle Jerry goes berserk, presumably.

    He’s got his head in the fridge so I go: “See anything?”

    He clears his throat, oops, and backs out carefully with—

    “Oh, shit!”

    “It’d be a lovely fruit pie if it was baked, Dot!” he says with a laugh.

    “Too right.” My God, when did they get on the grog? Or was she intending to serve it hot? Peer, peer. “Think it’s technically a fruit shortbread, I’ve seen her do it before, only don’t quote me. Like, the fruit sits on top of it, ya see, and the crust comes up soft and puffy. No idea what temperature she puts it in at, though.”

    “I wouldn’t recommend asking her, Dot!” he says with a grin.

    “You said it, mate!”

    He gives a startled laugh so I go: “What?”

    “You really do say it! –I’m so sorry, Dot, but I spent several hours the other day with Derry, Harry and Varley Knollys, going over some of the dialogue in my scenes, and bloody Harry managed to begin or end every sentence with the word ‘mate’—I’m sorry!”

    “Jesus, don’t be, Euan, not your fault that the man’s a pathetic wanker. People do say it, yeah, but not the ones that have been brung up extra-nayce. Tell ya what, take a look in the freezer—other side of that huge, great— You got it. Any ice-cream, like that?”

    “Buckets of it. Literally. –No wonder Rosie has that enormous refrigerator at the cottage. All her British friends thinks it’s a joke, they’ve named it Battersea Power Station, but I see now: it’s normal to you, isn’t it?”

    “Pretty much. Well, normal to well-off suburban moos like Aunty May and Aunty Kate, yeah. There are some parts of the population that can’t afford a fridge the size of a small car.”

    He holds his head on one side and looks the giant fridge-freezer up and down. Then he says: “When I got rid of the Porsche I went back to my old car, a little old Morris Minor, I’ve had it forever, it was ma first car. I’d say this is bigger, Dot.”

    So I go into spluttering hysterics, well, all right, largely because he’s trying, poor sap, and I don’t want to disappoint him. He looks real pleased, don’t think he realises that I’m humouring him. Oh, well.

    I get the frozen peas out and bung some in a pot but there’s no point in putting them on yet, them spuds are gonna take at least twenny min. “We could go back in there.”

    “Don’t you want to?” he murmurs.

    “Not much, they’re all pissed.”

    “Mm. Not your scene?”

    “Not really. I can’t see the point of drinking yourself into a stupor, frankly.”

    “No,” he says with a wry smile. “Well, we older persons tend to do it to escape reality.”

    “Shit, it’s not confined to your age-group, mate!” Dunno why, but I tell him all about them hopeless flatmates of Isabelle’s.

    “Mm. Very little else in their lives… You do have that sort of working class here, then.”

    “Yeah. Certainly in the cities, yeah, Euan, though I’ve never actually heard anybody say anybody’s working-class.”

    “No, I think Rosie once told me that Australians only admit to two classes, the rich and the rest,” he says with a little smile.

    “Yeah, that sounds about right. God knows who they imagine they’re kidding.”

    “Themselves? Or is it easy to move from one class to another, here?”

    “Uh…” Gee, never thought about it before. Suddenly I remember ruddy Ralph Crozier and flaming up-market up-herself Leanne Pigskin-Gloves from Adelaide. “Well, it bloody well isn’t easy to move into Old Money, that’s for sure! They all send their kids to the swanky boarding schools, ya see, and then they all marry one another.”

    “Ugh!” he says, shuddering and laughing. “That’s very like home! And when it’s not Old Money?”

    “Um… Look, don’t quote me, I’d probably get lynched. But far’s I can see, if you’re pretty average and your Dad’s something pretty average, ya don’t get to meet the blokes that are doing law degrees or medical degrees, let alone marry them. Likewise that sort of bloke doesn’t bother to look twice at a girl with a mum and dad that both work in a factory, not unless she’s very bright and at uni with him, geddit? And no way would a girl from a nayce family look twice at an ordinary bloke that maybe’s a motor mechanic or like that. See, she’d be looking round for a dentist or an accountant or maybe a teacher, if she wasn’t quite in the doctor and top lawyer bracket.”

    He looks at me limply. “That sounds incredibly like Britain.”

    “Rosie reckons that the social demarcations are more marked, there, but under the surface, the attitudes are pretty much the same. The easy-going Aussie thing is pretty much a myth. I know people come on that way, especially the blokes, when they meet you casually.”—He nods hard.—“Yeah. But that’s just manner. You foreigners might not be able to tell who’s who, but I think most of us do automatically place a person. But like I say, nobody would admit to that.”

    “I see… But your family—Rosie’s family—do strike as, e-er, as very easy-going.”

    “That’s mostly because we’re basic working-class come up in the world a bit—well, Uncle Jerry’s made his pile, see? But Mum’s and Aunty May’s dad, he was just a wharfie. Um, think you’ve got a different word, in Britain. Um, worked on the wharves?”

    He nods dazedly. “Aye. A docker.”

    “A lot of this suburb’s the same. People of Aunty May’s and Uncle Jerry’s generation that have worked pretty hard and done pretty well for themselves, but started off from small beginnings.”

    “So the Australian success story isn’t a myth?” he says with a smile.

    “To the extent that all the Brits that come out here expecting to make it aren’t gunnoo, by any means, it is. But it’s not impossible. Mind you, if they do make it, their kids, or even their grandkids, aren’t gonna be invited to marry into Old Money, by no means.”

    “Mm. But will their kids and grandkids take it for granted that they go to university and move in the professional classes?”

    Gulp. We are talking in British terms, aren’t we? I see what Rosie means, the usage is obviously natural to him. “Well, yeah. Think Rosie’d say that on the whole we’re much more socially mobile.”

    “Yes,” he says, smiling at me. “May I ask what your parents do, Dot?”

    Gee, s’pose I asked for that. “Dad’s a solicitor. Not a partner nor anything like it, just conveyancing and stuff for a whacking big downtown law firm. Like, to get your name on their letterhead you either have to belong to one of the legal families that own the firm, or top your year in law school. And Mum works part-time at the local library: she has got her quals but while the twins were growing up she just couldn’t manage full time.”

    Dunno why he seems to be interested in the twins but he’s asking, so I tell him. Then he says he hasn’t got any brothers or sisters. Um, yeah, did Rosie tell me he’s an only? Must of, cos I thought he was. His mum’s dead now—yes, she did mention that. So I just say I’m very sorry: I mean, what else can ya say? So he says he wishes she’d lived to see his first London success, and I just nod.

    Ping! Ping! Shit! –Only the fancy timer that I turned on so as not to forget the spuds.

    “Uh—the spuds,” I admit. I take a look at them. Well, yeah, they seem to be done. So I put the peas on.

    “They won’t take long. Um, don’t think I’m up for making gravy in that giant roasting dish of hers, it’s hard enough getting the lumps out in my little pan.”

    “I doubt any of that lot will miss it, Dot.”

    “No, you’re right, there! Um, you up for carving the ruddy thing at the table?”

    “E-er… Don’t despise me forever and a day, Dot, but no, I’ve never carved anything that size in ma life. Well, my Dad kept a corner shop, we couldn’t afford great roasts of lamb. The closest I ever got to something that size when I was growing up was a small leg, at Aunty Jean’s for Sunday dinner. –We called it dinner. But I’ve since learned that the nayce people”—making a face—“call it lunch.”

    “Right. We call it lunch if we eat it in the middle of the day even if it’s dinner, and if we eat it at night, we call it tea, except the nayce people—like Aunty Kate, ya met her, eh? Right—they call it dinner.” I grin at him. “So there you are!”

    Gee, Euan Keel’s gone into a helpless sniggering fit all over Aunty May’s bloody up-market, Year 2000, granite-benched, slate-floored kitchen. Can’t be bad, eh?

    “Och, the nuances of the vernacular are irrelevant!” he gasps finally, mopping his eyes. “They’re all the same!”

    “Yep, nayce is nayce, whaddever side of the world yer on. Um, think we oughta get Uncle Jerry to carve it, then?”

    “Ma God, no!”

    No—right. Well, I’m not such an expert on pissed middle-aged gents as he obviously is. “In that case, I better hack it up in here and just bung it on the plates.”

    “I don’t mind giving it a go, if I havena got an audience,” he says cheerfully.

    “Really? Thanks, Euan. Um, she has got a ruddy great silver dish with spikes on it that she puts the turkey on to carve it… Only it’d be more washing up.”

    “I could just put it on this chopping board.”

    “Yeah, why the Hell not!” And too bad if the pan’s still so hot the ruddy granite bench cracks under—No, it doesn’t. He heaves the flaming thing out onto the chopping board, no prob, his wrists must be pretty strong. “You ever done like boxing?”

    “Not boxing, no. I’d have liked lessons, but they cost too much, and Mum wasn’t keen on me getting my face smashed in. Fair amount of playground fist-fighting, at school. Why?”

    So I go in this real lame voice: “I was thinking your wrists look pretty strong.”

    “Mm. Well; since I left school I’ve done a fair bit of weight-lifting at the gym.”

    “Ya would, yeah,” I say sheepishly.

    “And—wait for it,” he goes, real dry, wouldn’t of thought he had it in him, “fencing.”

    For a moment I’m blank: did he maybe work on a—they don’t have sheep stations—on a farm? Oh! Oh, good grief! “Goddit. Hamlet, revenge.”

    “Yes. The bluidy RSC won’t cast you in anything much if you can’t fence, even these days,” he goes, real sour.

    Gulp. Like, Rosie has wised me up: they all say that, that’s the Royal Shakespeare Company. “Um, did they?”

    “Mm? Oh, aye. Rosie and Rupy would tell you that was ma Stratford In-group phase, Dot. I’d ignored some very good advice from Adam and jumped at the chance when I was offered a part at Stratford, and that was very nearly the end of my career. –Well,” he says, turning and smiling at me, “the white-hot light of English theatrical criticism does tend to shine upon Stratford, and if you get cast reasonably successfully they expect to see you in that sort of part forever more, and castigate you unmercifully if you try anything different. Very luckily for me I was offered a small part in a TV play that was an entirely different sort of thing, and it went over very well. So I shook the dust of the RSC for several years.”

    “Goddit. And did they make you fence?”

    “Aye, so it was just as well I’d shelled out all that money on the bluidy lessons instead of eating, wasn’t it?”

    Ye-ah… Hang on, didn’t Rosie say he went straight from a success in Edinburgh to a success in London? Yes, she ruddy well did!’

    “What?” he goes, real innocent-like.

    “Look, Euan, the way I heard it, you were a big success in Edinburgh and went straight on to a big success in London.”

    He looks at the piece of meat on the end of his carving fork. “Aye—well, to a reasonable success in London, I was verra lucky.”

    “Right. So when were you fencing instead of eating?”

    “After the success in London folded, I’d failed to get into RADA, that’s the big London acting school, and the RSC had laughed at my first audition for them, Dot. I was out of work for nearly two years. Who in God’s name told you I was an instant success?”

    “Um, Rosie,” I mutter. “Ages ago.”

    “Aye, well, I don’t think, lookin’ back, she was all that interested in what I told her about my early days.”

    Actually I don’t think she was, no, cos she’d already met John and decided, never mind if she never saw him again, that you weren’t the sort of bloke she’d ever want to get serious with, Euan. Ouch.

    “I geddit. Sorry. Um, maybe we better mash the spuds.”

    “That would be nice,” he says nicely.

    Yeah, it would, only that’s a real big pot with enough spuds in it for this mob… So I get the big mixer out of its cupboard and put the right thingos in it, think this is the most expensive model available, she’s got more attachments here than even Aunty Kate had. He’s done real good with that meat, he’s got two huge dinner platefuls of it. But if I ask him to drain the water from the spuds he’ll think I’m doing the helpless little woman bit, blow. Uh—hang on, lateral thinking! So I drag the pot over to the side of the stove and spoon the spuds out with a slotted spoon into the mixer, easy-peasy. Oops, quite a lot of potato water’s dripped on the ceramic stove top. Wipe, wipe. Right. Now we can put the mixer on. WHEE-VRROOM! Christ! Peer, peer… Well, it’s masherating them. Maybe it’s s’posed to make a noise like that.

    I’m just gonna take the meat through to the dining-room when it strikes me: has she even set the table in there yet? So I shoot down the passage and through that door, avoiding the lounge-room, and gee, the table’s set with a lovely white cloth, plus and lovely turquoise linen placemats on top of that, matching the rolled-up serviettes in their fancy silver holders, and there’s two, count them, two sets of silver candlesticks with festive brand-new red candles in them, unlit, plus and a whacking great silver bowl filled with red roses in the middle of the table and no cutlery whatsoever. Or glasses—shit. Where the fuck does she keep the good glasses? And come to think of it, what dinner plates should I be using? Oh, who gives a rat’s, I’ll do me best, can’t say fairer than that. So I forage in these giant featureless teak cupboards, might be technically sideboards or some such, and find enough of everything to feed fifteen times tonight’s crowd. I’m just heaving a pile of plates out when Euan comes in with the meat and grabs them off me—ooh! Uh—bodily contact, blush, blush, what a total nong, D.M. Mallory, we’ve had enough of that these past few days, what with all those posed pics for D.D.! Somehow it’s different when ya standing in yer aunty’s bloody fancy dining-room alone with a regimental-sized teak dining table.

    So he goes: “Alone together at last in a room full of eggs.”

    “Eh?”

    “The Wrong Box. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen it!”

    Never heard of it. Is it very intellectual? “No.”

    “One of the few British comedies that managed both to be funny and to avoid being vulgar. You could do me a favour and mention it to Derry,” he murmurs, setting out plates.

    Gee, mate, I might never have heard of your ruddy English comedy but there aren’t that many flies on D.M. Mallory. “Why?”

    He turns round, crinkling up the brown eyes, they’re twinkling like anything, yep, those lashes are tangled, all right. “Red rag to a bull! He hates it! No, well, adores it, that’s the trouble, he’s terrified that the Daughter won’t come anywhere near it.”

    “Oh.”

    “Dot, haven't you realised? This is Derry’s first foray into comedy!”

    “Cripes.”

    “That puts it really well,” he murmurs, looking thoughtfully at the table. “Have we got everything? Water glasses?”

    “Eh?”

    So he goes, grin, grin: “Never mind, it’d only be more washing up! Where’s the wine?”

    Eh? Bummer. Not that any of that lot need it. “Um, dunno. Might be in the fridge, still.”

    “A white? With lamb?” he goes doubtfully—polite, though.

    “Don’t look at me, I never even heard of this Wrong Box of yours. Um,” why I have gone red like a real clot, it was only ruddy Alan Fairbright, “I did once have a pink wine with lamb. Um, sorry, he called it something else, I think.”

    “A rosé? I’m no wine buff but I think that might be rather nice with lamb.”

    “Um, yeah, it was okay. I dunno where Uncle Jerry keeps his wine.”

    “No. We’d better call them all in and ask him.”

    “Yeah—um, hang on, what about the veggies?”

    Blow me down flat, he goes over to the cupboards and finds some dishes that he says are vegetable dishes and says we’ll put them in these. Pretty sure Aunty Kate hasn’t got none of these, wonder if he’s right? Though she has got a fancy dish that… Oh, well, too bad. So we do that, and call the mob in.

    They’re all so far gone that nobody notices there isn’t any gravy except ruddy Kenny and I just tell him to shut up. It’s a red, not a white, and John quietly takes it off Uncle Jerry and opens it for him, so I’d say never mind he’s been flirting with Aunty May all night, he probably isn’t pissed after all. And in that case he is only pretending not to notice the absence of gravy. Never mind, the lamb’s ace, and I’ve put plenty of real butter in the mashed potatoes, they’re not bad.

    By the time we’re ready for pudding Aunty May’s capable of saying, real surprised: “But Dot, I made a lovely fruit shortbread!” as I wheel in the ice cream and the tinned peaches, tinned pineapple and tinned apricots that are masquerading as a fruit salad.

    “No, ya never. Ya might of thought ya did, yeah, but ya never got round to putting it in the oven.”

    Oops, Euan’s held up real well up till now but at this he yelps: “Aye, we found it in the fridge!” and collapses in helpless hysterics.

    So she goes: “Oh, dear,” and at that Uncle Jerry joins Euan in the hysterics.

    “Dot, you could have put it in the oven!” hisses Deanna, does she think the rest of them have suddenly gone deaf or what?

    “And asked who what temperature and for how long?”

    Gee, that’s done it, John suddenly gives a helpless yelp, and this finishes off the rest of them, specially the blokes. Though mind you, Rosie and Ann both have to mop their eyes.

    Aunty May’s still pretty incapable even after the pud so John shepherds them all back into the lounge-room and I nip out to the kitchen to put the dishwasher on and make some real coffee. Like, usually they have Instant but there is a coffee-pot somewhere…

    “This.”

    “Jesus! Don’t do that!”—Rosie’s crept up behind me in her wheelchair. She’s waving a coffee pot.—“If they’ve got one, why don’t they use—Oh, forget it.”

    “Dad’s a Pom, ya know,” she reminds me mildly, holding it up to the light and peering into its innards. “Without the Italian and Greek immigrants the Anglo-Celtic Aussie majority would never have known actual coffee.”

    “True. Any mould?”

    “No, but I’d rinse it under the hot tap just for luck, Dot.”

    “I was gunnoo.” Grab.

    “You and Euan seem to have hit it off,” she notes in this extra-mild voice, watching me operate on the coffee-pot.

    “Ya mean, we’re the only ones that aren’t pissed.”

    “That as well.”

    “Rosie, I’m not gonna gratify the dearest wish of flaming Derry Dawlish’s heart, make that of his flaming PR machine!”

    So she goes, real neutral, y’know? “No, well, you can’t say you haven’t been warned,” and wheels herself out.

    Sweet flaming bloody Norah! Rellies! I tell ya!

    Nothing much else happens for the rest of the evening except that Aunty May does inflict several volumes of smudgy Polaroids on various victims, who thought she wouldn’t? Mainly on Rupy, though Aaron comes in for a share, largely with the ones with our mob in them, fortunately Deanna hasn’t got the brain-power to see that she’s doing it on purpose or to mind or, actually, to realise that this does not have to be the norm and probably isn’t in more civilised places.

    Euan joins in, sitting on the arm of Aunty May’s big chair, so guess what? She starts pointing out: “That’s Little Dot, wasn’t she sweet as a kiddie?” Like that.

    So then he makes a boo-boo—like, some of us are at the point of wanting him to make a boo-boo—cos he goes: “This is a cute one! Little Dot riding her big fuzzy toy doggie!” So she puts him right: Uncle George’s Molly—he laughs and cries: “Really? Aren’t they alike?”, that goes down good—riding her fuzzy toy wombat. Ulp. Can’t even raise a smile. Serve him right.

    Anybody that thought I might get out of having to give him a lift home was wrong, see. Everybody else sorts themselves out and that leaves— Yeah. So we get in the car and go. He reminds me that he’s in Derry’s hotel, it’s not the one Derry had the “bluidy reception party” at. Yeah, I know that, Euan!

    So he takes a deep breath and goes: “Dot, could we mebbe go to your place first? I think we need to have a talk.”

    Do ya, mate? Well, so do I, and it wasn’t me that was cooing over flaming Polaroids of the party of the other part holding up invisible-to-the-Polaroid-eye seashells in her bathers aged six! So I go: “Yeah, righto,” and head for the flat.

    He didn’t realise it was so near. Does that mean he hasn’t had time to rehearse his speech or is he just being polite or— Forget it.

    So we go in and he goes: “This is nice.” Smile, smile.

    Well, it isn’t, particularly, because the car and the mortgage have been eating up all my salary and actually I’ve been too busy at work to go shopping for furniture, what with all the training that I hadn’t calculated on, on top of the design and the implementation and everything. Plus and I didn’t realise first off that that nice bloke sells database design software, like ya buy it and then ya design and build your own database, or they do it for you at the cost of only megabucks, you have to specify everything, so why not just do it in the first place? Like what I ended up doing. It is real easy software to use, yeah, only—Forget it. The suite come from Eddy’s Easy Pick, up behind Mitre 10, just as well Bob Springer was on hand with the loan of his station-waggon and its trailer, cos D.M. Mallory spelt M,U,G, hadn't realised it was real easy to pick and impossible to get home because Eddy doesn’t deliver—like that.

    So I go: “Ya don’t have to be polite, Euan, I haven’t had time to think about interior decorating and acksherly, I got the suite at Eddy’s Easy Pick. Like, second-hand. Plus and, I don’t think I’m any good at it. Cos any touches ya might discern that look like real interior decorating, they were Deanna’s idea.”

    So he looks round and admires— Yep, that pot-plant, it’s a kind of succulent, D.M. Mallory thought it was ugly and that that pot (pot sold separately) was real peculiar, only Deanna spotted—uh-huh. Nope, that there was foisted on me by Joslynne’s Mum and I agree, it is an ace rug. That is one of those recliner chairs, yeah, like out here we call them Lazy Boy or words to that effect, it was originally a brand name but I don’t think that’s entirely registered with the Australian public. And it was Deanna’s idea to put that thingo on it (given it’s shabby as all get out and I got it off the verge last time we had a hard rubbish collection). Think she calls it an afghan, and yeah, she did make it, like I say she’s the one with all the artistic talent in the family. She gimme that lamp for Chrissie, Euan. (Sigh.) Like, I can only tell what I don’t like.

    So he goes: “I see! I’m the same, Dot, in fact I gave in entirely and got a decorator to do the flat, and it’s horrible!” Dry look. “Rosie may have mentioned it.”

    Ulp, think she did send me a rude email back in the by and by, yeah. I can’t recall the specifics but I do recall it was ru— All white in the main room and bedroom with touches of your spindly black wrought-iron, eh? Yeah, well, Rosie’s about as artistic as me but that woulda gone down real well, I don’t thi—All black ensuite? Yeah, now ya come to mention it, Black Holes of Calcutta were mentioned in that re—

    “She called it the Back Hole of Calcutta, Dot.”

    —regard. Gulp, desperate smile. “Sounds like her! Um, sit anywhere, Euan, the sofa’s more comfortable than what it looks and the Lazy Boy chair’s okay, only the foot bit won’t go down.” So he sits on the sofa. Which means I got the choice of sitting beside him or perching on a chair at a polite distance like a right nana. So I perch on a chair.

    And he goes: “I’ve been trying to get a quiet word with you for a while, Dot, only it’s not easy, when Derry’s filming.”

    “You said it!” Damn, that sounded like I wanted to have a quiet word with him, too.

    “E-er, well…” Rumples the curls. Seen him do that on the Big Screen, you betcha. That scene in Ilya, My Brother. In the girl’s cottage. Quite.

    “What is it?”

    Shit, he’s spotted me! “Um, nothing, Euan. Um, only, well, you musta heard this a million times before, but sometimes it feels real weird talking to a person that you’ve seen on screen and they go and use the same gesture and—and everything.”

    “Yes,” he says tiredly. “Not every tiny nuance and gesture that actors use is deliberate, Dot: some of it—most of it, in my case—is merely instinctive. I suppose, if you want to get technical, we give the character what we instinctively feel to be the right gesture.”

    Actually I don’t wanna get technical, no. “Yeah. Sorry.”

    “It doesn’t necessarily mean we’re insincere when we’re not in front of the camera.”

    “No.” I’ve gone bright red, what else? Shit!

    He gives me this real dry look, y’know? Like what I have seen him do before, yeah, only not on screen. “Though in my case, as I think Rosie may have warned you, a large part of the time I am insincere.”

    Yikes!

    “Yes, I see she has.”

    Weak smile. He’s waiting, so I mutter: “Something like that.”

    “Mm. Blame it on the fact that I’m a boy from a corner shop who’s made it but is full of insecurities on the strength of it, if you like. I was quite bright, but we never had a book in the house.” He shrugs. “Dad read the racing pages and the labels on the stuff he sold—period. I’m not saying he wasna good to me: he was, within his lights, but of course he didn’t understand when Mum discovered I had acting talent and encouraged me to be in the school play and the wee shows the church put on at Easter and Christmas—nativity plays, that sort of thing—and to use the public library. Dad thought reading was a waste of time, but he didna stop me, so long as I helped out in the shop. Then Mum got me into a children’s acting group: I was a bit old for it, fourteen, and it was bluidy lucky for me that I was used to standing up for myself with my peers and giving as good as I got!”

    “Um, yes, the fist-fighting,” I mutter.

    “Aye. –Sorry, I didn’t mean to give you the entire biography. Like I say, I know I play rôles incessantly, and I also know,”—that nice, rather curly mouth tightens—“that desperately conforming to the norms of the nearest In group is ma besetting sin. Though at least I’m capable of realising it!”

    I never said that, but as it’s pretty obvious he must know that Rosie’s said it to me, I don’t point out that I never accused him of it.

    “I suppose this evening was a case in point,” he says with a horrid little grimace. “If I say that I actually enjoy looking at snaps of cute little plump, curly-headed kiddies, at least when I know and like two of them in their current metamorphosis, I’m quite sure you won’t believe me, but it’s the truth. Toy wombats and all.”

    “Um, yeah.” (Lamely.) “Um, that wasn’t me or Rosie, it was Uncle George’s Molly. She does look like us. Um, like, most Aussie kids don’t have toy wombats, and it was real mean of John to laugh like that, but, um, the thing is—”

    “He doesn’t like me, don’t spell it out.”

    “No! Um, acksherly, I don’t think he dislikes you. I was only gonna say,”—boy, do I sound pathetic or what?—“that acksherly,”—I wish you’d stop saying acksherly, Dot Mallory!—“um, that most Aussie kids don’t have toy wombats, like, it’s usually teddy bears or like that, same as British kids. Um, only Molly’s Uncle Bri, he lives in New Zealand, he was over on holiday and he bought that for her. Like, um, tourists do.”

    Suddenly he laughs. “Of course they do! I’m so sorry, Dot, I was taking out my damned Angst on you: quite unjustifiably! The only thing you’ve ever done to deserve it is be born Rosie’s cousin!”

    “Yeah, I get a lot of that, even without the Angst.”

    “Of course you do! I rather think, certainly from what your aunty was saying, that you could be quite a merry wee Dot, if left to yourself!”

    Um, could I? Cripes. “Um, maybe. The rest of the family, they’re always telling me I’m a bossy-boots, worse than Ro—” Gulp. “Rosie.”

    “Impossible!”

    “Yeah, hah, hah. Anyway, I suppose that’s my besetting sin: galloping in and taking charge, regardless of whether anyone wants me to.”

    “Lucky anyone,” he says with a little sigh.

    Eh?

    “Anyway, Dot, I won’t bore on, but I thought I’d better make it clear that I do recognise I am a damned poseur and a compulsive rôle-player.” He rumples the curls again. “Though for what it’s worth, I am trying not to rôle-play at this moment.”

    So I growl: “Um, yeah. Thanks.”

    “What I was trying to say,” he says wryly, “before I got side-tracked by my damned ego, is that I recognise none of this stupid pantomime we’re putting on for Derry was your idea, Dot.”

    Um—what? Oh, right, right, the gruesome threesome (Rupy’s name for it); thought he meant the flaming movie for a minute, there. Me brain’s not working properly, possibly it’s got something to do with Euan Keel sitting in my un-interior-decorated lounge-room larger than life, why has the room shrunk? He is quite tall but he isn’t that big, Tim’s taller than him and the place doesn’t shrink when he’s here. “No, Rosie thought it up.”

    “Aye. She didn’t admit as much to me, but part of it was in order to protect you from me, wasn’t it?”

    Of course I’m as red as a beet. “She didn’t mean anything by it!:”

    “No, I don’t think she did: she’s very kind-natured, in spite of those brains of hers. Well, mebbe I’m prejudiced, but in my experience highly intelligent people—Derry’s certainly a case in point—don’t tend to be kind to the rest of us.”

    Why am I all of a sudden thinking of ruddy David Walsingham? “Boy, ya right there, Euan. Specially when they’re highly educated as well.”

    “Yes. Rosie’s the exception. E-er—I probably shouldn’t say this, but Rupy told me that he once overheard John accusing her of not allowing other people free will.” He looks wry again. “It was in the context of me and my last girlfriend, Katie Herlihy, since you’re not asking, Dot.”

    Gulp. “Um, yeah, um, from the way I heard it—mind you, I only got her emails to go on, plus a few remarks from Rupy and, um, Aunty Kate’s Final Royal Commission Report,”—he’s grinning, phew!—“Rosie might of wanted to boss the whole show, but she never acksherly managed it.”

    “No: she was rather busy having Baby Bunting during most of it!” he says with a laugh. “No, but— Well, in the first place, I’m not a damned predator, whatever mistaken impression you might have got to the contrary.”

    “She never said that!”

    “No, but it would have been natural enough if you’d drawn that conclusion.”

    The only conclusion I drew was that you were so ruddy attractive I might go and fall for you, but I can hardly say that, can I? “No, I didn’t.”

    “Well, that’s good.” He takes a deep breath. “And in the second place, Dot, although I went along with Rosie’s daft suggestion initially, I’ve had time to think it over, and look at my own motives. Everyone who’s ever worked for Derry would do almost anything to throw a rub in the way of his damned schemes, so I’ll admit that was a strong motive.”

    “Yeah, ’course!”

    “Mm. But as well, there was the conforming to the In group thing.” I must be looking blank because he raises his eyebrows at me and explains: “Lily Rose Rayne was in it, not to mention Dr L.M. Marshall, Fellow of London University and eminent sociologist, so I wasna going to be left out—get it?”

    Ulp! “Yeah.”

    “Regardless of what your feelings might have been.”

    “Yeah, um, I’d agreed to it, too, Euan. Well, mostly to spite ruddy D.D. over the gruesome threesome crap.”

    “Mm. And?”

    “All right, if ya wanna know! And because I was real mad because Rosie reckoned he really does want to throw us together in a blaze of publicity for the flaming film!”

    “Aye, I thought that might be it. I’d have been furious, in your shoes, too.”

    So I go, real weak: “Oh, wouldja? Good.”

    “Aye. E-er… Dot,” he says, going red, “what I really wanted to say is, the damn thing’s preventing us really getting to know one another, and I’m really sorry about it.”

    All I can say is: “Oh,” real lame. I’m bloody sure I’ve gone redder than he has.

    “I—I realise we’re from worlds apart, though I don’t think our backgrounds are so very different, are they? But practically speaking…” His voice trails off and he stares glumly at Marianne Gridley-Smythe’s rug. “If I say I’d really like to get to know you better, Dot, you’ll think it’s another damned rôle, or I'm saying it because of something Rosie said, or because Derry wants it…”

    Swallow.

    “Or because it seems to be the indicated thing at the moment, given the available cast, and doing the indicated thing’s what I’m best at!” he adds, real bitter, shit.

    “Yuh—Um, I gotta say it, Euan, I think there could be a bit of that in it, yeah. Cos I’m nothing special. I know I do look quite like Rosie but I haven’t got her brains or her talent.”

    “Leaving aside the fact that I think you are something special, Dot, I think it’s the fact that you haven’t got a bluidy PhD. in sociology and that you’re not Lily Rose Rayne, the darling of Page Three, that’s part of the appeal. I mean, dammit, I’m ordinary, too!” he ends, very loud.

    “Mm.” Why am I gonna bawl, what a total nit!

    “Och, Hell, dinna cry, wee Dot!” So he jumps up and comes to kneel by my chair and gives me his hanky.

    “Thanks.” Blow, blow, sniff. Sniffle. Blow. “Sorry. I can see you are ordinary underneath.”

    “Isn’t that what counts?”

    Not when ya this close and I can see the eyes are solid brown but the lashes aren’t, the ends of them are actually gold, gee, ya big screen never got that across, D.D., and the skin isn’t perfect, there’s quite a few pits and freckles, on screen they smother him in Max Factor, of course, and there’s a weeny scar in one eyebrow, souvenir of them fist fights or—Yeah. “Um, what? Um, fundamentally, maybe, but—but other things sort of have a bigger impact in real life than, um, than what they probably ought to. Um, sorry, don’t think that makes sense.” Blow, sniffle, blow.

    So he puts his hand on top of mine—ooh!—but it isn’t to take the hanky back, he leaves it there, now I can’t think at all, Euan!—and goes: “No, it makes perfect sense, Dot. It was verra largely the other things that went wrong between me and Katie. Well, we bought a weekend cottage in John’s village, did Rosie—? Aye. And I made the mistake of letting her believe that I was into the DIY stuff, the same as she was. Sorry, that not making sense? Do-it-yourself: stripping paint and that sort of goddawful boring crap. Rôle-playing, see? She was into it, so I pretended—Aye. And then… I don’t know. Too many to mention, I think, but it was largely the non-fundamental things.”

    “Yes. With me and Alan Fairbright it was them, too. Like, mostly. Only after a while I realised that all that smooth year 2000 crappola he’d put in the flat, like, featureless grey Melamine everything, that was really him: like, he was quite bright and good at his job but his soul was really grey and featureless, too.”

    “I see. It sometimes is the little things that show you what a person’s soul is like, yes,” he says with a sigh.

    “Yeah.” I wish me hormones would stop doing the hula-hula, cos I can't think no more with you this close, Euan.

    He licks his lips nervously and says in a low voice: “Adam said something obscure about visiting firemen just before he left.”

    Eh?

    “I think it was a warning not to let you get involved with an insecure idiot that thought he fancied being Derry Dawlish’s big star of the new millennium,” he goes, making a face.

    “Oh.”

    “He had the sense to get out of Derry’s clutches, himself,” he adds sourly. “He’s doing this guest spot out of the kindness of his heart, and Derry has to pretend he doesn’t know it.”

    Not sure where he’s going with this, or is it just that me brain’s not working properly?

    He’s very red again. “The point I’m trying to make, wee Dot, is that much though I’d like a holiday fling, I’m not that bluidy low.”

    Ulp. Aren’tcha? What if I am, though?

    “I—I just wanted to make sure,” he goes lamely, getting up, “that you realise that’s it not you—it’s not that I don’t want to. I do, very much.”

    “Oh.” Blush, blush, actually I can see that, mate, the way you’re just standing there— Thank God, he’s sat down again, didn’t think me nerves were gonna hold out, there.

    “Hell,” he goes, running his hand through the curls. “I’m really sorry, Dot. But it wouldn’t be fair to you.”

    “No, um, coulden I be the judge of that?”

    “Actually, no,” he says, getting up again, gee, didn’t know he could look that grim. Or sound that firm, as a matter of fact. “I’d better call a taxi.”

    Well, bugger, he really means it! Well, bugger. Cos at the back of my mind I had this idea that when a bloke comes home with you, whatever crap might come out of his mouth he’s really only got one idea of how the evening’s gonna end. Plus and, I had the corresponding idea that the party of the second part understood that if ya let a bloke come into your flat at this hour, at the back of your mind you’re feeling that you wouldn’t half mind it. Well, so long as he doesn’t admit he’s got something catching or he’s really gay—y’know? Well, bugger!

    He can’t figure out the ruddy Yellow Pages, he’s not alone in that, so I find a taxi number for him. He thought they’d of been in much bigger print than that, actually so did I.

    So now we can just sit down and wait for thirty-five min or so…

    “Wanna coffee?”

    “Not really,” he says glumly.

    Look, Euan, this is ruddy crackers, I can see you wanna do it—! But I’m not gonna say it: if he’s decided he doesn’t want to, well, who’s gonna be the villain in the morning if he lets me talk him into it? Right, D.M. Mallory. I may be a mug but I’m not that much of a mug, and we do have to get through the next month— Shit!.

    “So, um, are we still putting up a front for D.D., or what?”

    He makes a face. “My feeling is that having started the gruesome threesome bit, we play it for all it’s worth. It should dawn on Derry fairly soon why we’re doing it and drive him out of his skull.”

    “Yeah, but if it’s what he wants?”

    “No, no: what he wants—and from his far from subtle hints I can tell you Rosie’s guess was perfectly correct—what he wants is for you and me to have a passionate affaire all over the media, with the appropriate kinky undertones in place but remaining undertones.”

    Could this be bad, actually? “Um, yeah.”

    “So we’ll play the other thing for all it’s worth! No photo ops unless it’s all three of us!” He takes a look at my face. “I’m sorry, Dot, not if you don’t want to.”

    Shit, I said I would, so I bloody well will. And at least Rosie’ll be there to act as a—as a buffer, between the pair of us. “I don’t mind.”

    “Good,” he says glumly.

    So I put a CD on and we just sit here not listening to it. Gee, the taxi’s here. Oh, goody.