Dot In Sydney Again

13

Dot In Sydney Again

    I’m not gonna admit Uncle Jim was right and Rosie’s had a hidden agenda all along. But yeah, she is gonna make the ruddy film of The Captain’s Daughter. What she told me, Derry Dawlish offered to pay for her, John and the baby, plus Yvonne, their nanny, to come out to Sydney for the duration. Well, would you of turned down a free trip home? Don’t answer that. And don’t ask me why John agreed, or how she got him to agree, or—

    Well, anyway, like I say, I’m not gonna admit Uncle Jim was right. But I will go so far as to say that as usual, Rosie’s doing exactly what she wants to do. Yeah.

    Deanna’s come round to my flat for tea, self-invited. True, her first plan was to inflict the Mallorys on Aunty May and Uncle Jerry on Rosie’s first night home. Like, this is her first night back home since she had the baby. The baby that, thanks to Aunty May’s flying phobia, the proud grandparents haven’t even seen yet. He’d be, um, well, born last September, of course: ten months.

    “Quick, Dot, the News is on!”

    I’d rather stand here by the bench peeling carrots, thanks. Oh, all right. Fascinating. Bits of the airport behind a lovely close-up of flocks of other Press photographers snapping other Press photographers’ backs. Why do they always manage to get those huge grey fuzzy mikes in the shot, and, just by the by, don’t they ever wash those things? They always look filthy.

    “She’s coming!” she hisses.

    No, according to that phone call ruddy Betty took it upon herself to make to poor old Uncle Jerry on his emergency-only secret mobile number, she got here this morning.

    “Here she is!” she shouts, but I’m not saying a word, Rosie is wearing, I kid you not, a real fur coat. For God’s sake! What century does she imagine this is? And, just by the by, why the fuck did John let her? On second thoughts he probably bought it for her. The reporters are all shouting but it’s hard to hear them over Deanna’s running commentary.

    “Isn’t it gorgeous! I wonder”—Lily Rose! Lily Rose! Are you glad to be home?—“the one her and Rupy got off old Miss Hammersley?”—’s it true Adam McIntyre’s gonna be in—“Cos it’s a real Fifties one! Genuine mink!”—Lily Rose! Hold the baby up! (Don’t drop him, more like, why the fuck doesn’t John take him off her?)—“Ooh, isn’t he sweet? ‘Baby Bunting’, she’s calling him, isn’t that sweet? Ooh, doesn’t John”—smile! Is this your real Captain? (What? Even for a cretinous Aussie reporter, that is pretty bloody pathetic!)—“proud?”

    Eh? Oh, look proud of the baby, yeah, yeah… Thank Christ, he’s taken him off her! Oh, God, now she’s undoing the coat and she’s— Look, I cannot stand this!

    “Where are you going, Dot?”

    “Back to the kitchen, I cannot stand the sight of Rosie displaying her tits to the Oz media!”

    Even Deanna’s at a loss for words to justify the wriggling and, uh, ya can only calling tit-pouting, really, that’s now occupying the TV screen. “Um, film stars have to do that sort of thing,” she says weakly.

    “Yeah? They can do it without benefit of me, then!”

    That’s not the end of it by a long chalk: we get bits of Rosie’s arrival rehashed on those cretinous pre-news snippets they keep giving you at intervals before the Late News comes on; then of course we have to watch the Late News and NO, WE ARE NOT GONNA RING THEM UP ON ROSIE’S FIRST NIGHT HOME! Like that. Finally she decides she’ll sleep over but I’ve been expecting that.

    So next morning she’s up at crack of dawn getting the paper in. Why? I mean, she’s barely literate— Oh, God.

    “Here she is in her fur coat!” Look, cretin-head, they’ll of had that set up all ready to print, whaddam I saying, all ready and printed, weeks in adv—Forget it. Yeah, yeah, lovely, also the close-up of Mother and Baby, for God’s sake! It’s like one of those shots of the ruddy Royals except that they’ve left Prince Charles out of this one. It’s all in full colour, of course. Real rotten colour reproduction, why the papers bother with colour if that’s the best they can do, God only knows. Can she cut it out? She can burn it or use it as dunny paper, for mine!

    “Cut out as many fuzzy, out-of-focus, badly reproduced colour pics of Rosie in a tight blue lacy jumper batting her eyelashes over Baby Bunting’s blissfully ignorant head as ya like. Ya can cut out that really fuzzy B&W one of the flaming Prime Minister, too, if ya like.”

    “Hah, hah,” she says with her head in the kitchen drawer hunting for the kitchen scissors…

    “Um, you really don’t need to start a Rosie album, Deanna, cos Aunty May’s got everything ever publ—”

    “This is different! It’s my album!” she protests, very flushed.

    Aw. Is it? Righto, then. “Whaddever turns you on. And do me a big favour and put some marg on your toast alongside the Vegemite, would you?”

    “Have you got any of that omega oil stuff?”

    “Are you kidding? It costs seven times as much as the ordinary stuff! –Canola. It’s polyunsaturated. –If ya don’t count saturated in polystyrene from the pot,” I mutter.

    “What?”

    “It was on the News—Um, actually, think it mighta been that ABC science program, the really pathetic one that they’re running this year in place of that real good one they used to have. –Never mind. Canola’s good for you.”

    “In small quantities,” she says firmly.

    Yeah. Well, I’ve refrained from putting the peanut butter on the table this morning.

    “You can collect me after work,” she orders me as, having dropped her off at home to change—like, Bob Springer’ll care if she turns up at work in what she was wearing yesterday—I then drop her off at Mitre 10.

    “Eh? The flaming station’s only a hop, skip and jump—” I give in, ya guessed I would, didn’tcha? What with the good shoes and the been-pouring-for-weeks, not to mention the really means and the she can’t afford a cars—Come to think of it, it’s Wednesday: isn’t this the day Bob usually drives her to gym after work, why can’t he drive her to Aunt May and Uncle Jerry’s inst—Forget it.

    … Oh, Jesus! They’ve asked Aunty Allyson and Wendalyn as well! I mean, all Aunty Allyson’s lot: even poor old Uncle Harry’s here, sitting in the most obscure corner of the big fancy lounge-room that’s the only room big enough to hold a crowd this size, with a beer in his fist, trying to look as if he wasn’t here at all. At least Wendalyn hasn’t been cretinous enough to bring Sickening Little Taylor and Little Kieran, how do I know this? Well, (a) they’re not crawling, spewing and fighting all over Aunty May’s fancy body carpet overlaid with them fancy pale pink Chinese rugs, and (b) Wendalyn’s as of this min telling me what a hassle it was to get a baby-sitter mid-week. I’d of thought they’d all be booked up for Saturdays, rather than—Forget it. Logic never was her strong suit.

    Uncle Jerry got the door and he’s shown us into the lounge-room and asked us nicely if we’d like a sweet sherry, what Deanna accepted, never got the point, and I of course refused in favour of a good slug of Black Label. He noted that my Uncle Jim corrupted me that last time I was over in SA but I managed to ignore that. Everyone seems to be here except Rosie and John. And Aunty May, but she’ll be in the kitchen slaving over the proverbial, even though with Uncle Jerry’s moolah they could of had it catered—Forget it. She’d never hear of it. Specially not for the family. Even Kenny’s here, looking morose while bloody Bryce bores on and on and on—Well, if ya go to Spiro Anastasiou Motors for ya latest 4WD, you’re ruddy well asking for it, aren’tcha? Wendalyn’s now noting sourly she told him not to buy that thing, yeah, yeah…

    “Hey, didn’t Rosie once go out with ole Spiro?”

    “Ssh!” she hisses, turning puce, goes well with her outfit. Like, the basic dress is strapless and um, sort of the corset-look, as to the top—well, stiffened and contoured—with a narrow skirt to the knee on one side and to mid-shin on the other, but over it she’s wearing a little puce cardy, just the top button done up. Think she’ll of been watching Friends. Uh—I tell a lie, Friends crossed with that local quiz thing they have around five/five-thirty, the hostess that turns up the letters has been wearing those corset-top things and crooked skirts, just lately. (No, I don’t tape it! I had a bad cold earlier this winter and stayed home so as not to give it to the whole office.) The hostess’s were evening dresses, but I wouldn’t take me dying oath that Wendalyn’s is. She’s had her hair streaked, too. It was never that blonde before. Wonder how much the shoes set her back? Because they exactly match the colour of the dress and I was under the impression this was only achievable if ya bought a white pair at a bridal emporium and got them specially dyed at immense cost. Like what she did for both rounds of bridesmaids—yep.

    “It wasn’t him, it was the son: Nicky,” she murmurs.

    “I know that! But didn’t she let the ole joker take her to some fancy club?”

    Her jaw drops. “When?”

    When? Well, before she met John, for a start. “Uh—kind of mid-Nicky, woulda been, thass how she met him.”—Wendalyn’s gone bright red, shit, must be the point at where tolerance stops in their neck of the 4WDed suburban woods. No, well, tolerance and prurience, though only where one’s rellies are concerned, I do concede that.—“Post-boxer,” I add in a low voice.

    “Oh! No, you’ve got it all wrong, Dot!”—Have I, just; wanna bet?—“He’d promised to take her and then when she wouldn’t go and share his flat he said he wouldn’t, and she was so looking forward to it”—looking forward to the food and the grog at a bloke’s expense, I’ll give ya that, yeah—“and she just happened to bump into Nicky and his father at the races and mentioned how disappointed she was, so the old man very kindly said he’d take her, because of course he owns it, you know!”

    Yeah, I did know, actually. And boy, is that circumstantial or is that circumstantial, and if you’d swallow that, Wendalyn, you’d swallow anything. Because later on, what Rosie said to me, see, she said it had disproved the myth that ancient Greek millionaires made wonderful lovers, and so much for Jackie O. And no, it wasn’t “awful”, what planet was I from, it was Wham, bam, and thank you, ma’am, like the rest of the male half of the population! And don’t ask me what lie she told Aunty May about that spiffy bracelet the old joker gave her as a consolation prize, because I never bothered to ask her.

    I’m not gonna enlighten her; if Rosie wanted her to know she’d of told her. So I just nod, and hiss: “Where are they?”

    “Um, I think Rosie’s in the kitchen with Aunty May.”

    “Come on, then!”—What the fuck is she hanging back for? That’s not like Wendalyn, at all! Uh—Rosie’s wearing a dress that’s even trendier than hers? Well, shit, she is a Household Name, as Rupy Maynarde would say.—Hey, he wasn’t on the News, wonder if he never came out with them?

    “I think John’s there, too!” she hisses.

    He is her husband, that could follow. “And?”

    “Well, of course he’s nice, isn’t he, but he’s awfully up-market!” she hisses desperately, even pucer that her dress.

    “Ya got a point, but if I don’t go and say Hi, she’ll think I’m mad.”

    She looks round desperately for help but none comes. Deanna’s got together with Martina, she’s Wendalyn’s sister, she’s about two years younger than me and she’s been working for ages but she’s still living at home. My guess’d be they’re talking about clothes. Martina’s got up even trendier than Wendalyn, only more the smart young office-worker look. Still with a touch of your Friends, though: there’s two knitting-needles in her madly-wispy-but-meant-to-be bun, and under the narrow black suit-jacket that little skinny knit in the does-nothing-for-her-skin shade of grey is just allowing a glimpse of just-above-the-tummy-button to show. Ugh. Bryce is still earbashing Kenny, serve him right. Aunty Allyson’s earbashing Joslynne and Marianne Gridley-Smythe at the same time. Mr Gridley-Smythe, sorry, Smythe, has joined Uncle Harry in that corner and they’re both trying to sink into the woodwork. Or possibly not woodwork: whatever artificial substance it is that these walls are made of, underneath the pale off-pink… um, render? Whaddever. A really nice touch is that round the doorways where most people do have wood she’s got these thingos covered with a kind of silky-look embossed wallpaper. White, matching the all-white furniture, some of it’s fine wool and some of it’s leather but it’s all sparkling white, and all huge and very comfortable, even Uncle Jerry’s never claimed it isn’t comfortable. He’s got a gin and something into Mum—and incidentally a hefty Black Label into Dad, who’s gonna drive them home don’t ask—and now he’s sitting on a white wool sofa with her, encouraging her to giggle like mad. Well, shows where Deanna gets it from. The twins aren’t in evidence and personally I’m not gonna ask where they are.

    “Well, don’t come if ya don’t wannoo.” And I go out to the kitchen. Yep, Aunty May’s nailed to the bench, all right, but there’s no sign of Rosie or John.

    “There you are, Dot, dear!”

    Yeah, here I am, Aunty May. “Hi, Aunty May, howsit?”

    Did anyone think she wasn’t gonna tell me? Like this morning they had a Press conference, yep, right in the lounge-room—well, had to, it’s poured all day—and Baby Bunting’s wonderful, so bright, and such a look of his father—not in that pic in this morning’s paper he hasn’t, unless John’s suddenly sprouted round pink cheeks and dimples. Though I’ll grant ya the blue eyes, where Rosie’s are grey-blue—not in the Sydney Morning Star, true—and blah, blah, blah.

    Finally even Aunty May has to pause to breathe, so I go: “Yeah, um, where is Rosie?”

    “She’s feeding Baby, dear; we thought the crowd in the lounge-room might be too much excitement for him.”

    I can see right over this here giant granite bench-top, and there’s nobody in the remodelled family room, in fact the highchair is right there in front of me, empty, so no, she isn’t. Oh! She can’t be: at ten months? Only potty dames like those whacko friends of Joslynne’s Mum’s do that—in the intervals of burning the bras that mighta helped control the sag, yeah. There was one that went on letting the kid suck the tit until it was five, I kid you not, there’s a Polaroid to prove it of them all at a Flower-Power type picnic. (Tupperware containers of bean salad where the rest of us would bung a few sausages on the barbie: right.) That particular kid’s since turned into a tight-arsed yuppy accountant, works in a huge great shiny downtown firm and owns a huge great shiny 4WD, a huge great shiny boat, and a very recent divorce from the shiny wife and two kids, so I guess it doesn’t prove anything, eh?

    “She’s just getting him up, dear,” she murmurs.

    “Oh! Right! Jeez, for a moment, there, I thought she’d gone as whacko as Jamuna Crowther!”

     “No, dear, he was weaned months ago. –Jane Crowther, she’s gone back to it.”

    “Glad to hear it.”

    “They’re at the end of the passage, dear: the big room with the pale turquoise ensuite.”

    Um, ye-ah… Does John want assorted cousins of his wife’s walking into his bedroom, though? She’s just standing there looking mild, so I trudge out.

    The door’s ajar, can’t see anything much except the fancy carpet, think this one might simply be Chinese hand-woven body-carpet. Very pale pink with tiny turquoise motifs, about sums it up. Aunty May is very fond of both turquoise and pale pi— Ya got that yonks back. Right. Of course I could just turn tail and run, there’s a door that’ll let me back into the giant lounge-room, I don’t have to go back through the family-room and demonstrate my rank cowardice to Aunty May— Get a grip, Dot Mallory!

    So I go Tap, tap.

    “Come in!” she calls cheerfully.

    So I go in. She’s perched on the edge of the bed. “It’s Dot,” I say lamely to her back view.

    “Hi, Dot!” she beams, turning her head. Jesus, she hasn’t got any make-up on—though her complexion is perfect, I’ve never even seen her with a spot—and she’s wearing beat-up jeans and a huge, shapeless, fuzzy blue tent that looks kinda— That thing Aunty May was knitting yonks back!

    “Cripes, you’re wearing it,” I croak.

    “Yeah, but don’t you worry: bloody Aunty Kate’s wised her up to what the girls are wearing these days, and now she’s slaving over a fiendishly difficult pattern in bloody baby-wool, can you believe it, that she reckons is gonna turn into a Friends-type twinset. No-one’s had the heart to tell her that forty years down the track no-one’ll be wearing them any more.”

    “Uh—no. They might of come back,” I croak.

    “Yeah. –What’s up?”

    “You look just the same,” I say lamely.

    “Well, I feel very nearly almost the same, though I have produced that in the interval!” she says with a laugh, pointing at it.

    “Mm.” He’s just lying on the bed, smiling—showing the dimples, just like in the flaming Sydney Morning Star—and why the fuck I feel like I’m gonna bawl—

    “He can sit up, but he won’t: he’s too lazy,” she says mildly. “Come and say Hullo.”

    “Um, yeah. Hullo, Baby Bunting,” I croak.

    “Wanna hold him?” she asks mildly.

    Far from saying the right thing I sit down limply beside him and burst into tears like a total nong. Rosie comes round to my other side and puts her arm round me and after a bit she says: “Don’t cry, he gets all agitato when people, make that when I, bawl in his vicinity.”

    “Mm! Sorry!” Gulp. “I thought I was over it. I dunno: we thought the terrorists might blow you up or something before he got here!”

    “I know,” she says mildly. “Did you know Uncle Jim rung me up and bawled down the phone?”

    “When?” I croak.

    “Um, woulda been when Baby Bunting was four days old, I think, Dot. ‘Es, ‘oo were!” she suddenly coos round me, and I jump a foot. Ooh, heck, he’s looking at me!

    “Yes, he focusses, he’s more than old enough to do that,” says the proud mother detachedly. “And he distinguishes different people; he’s getting more like a human being every day!”

    Yeah? That’s a real pity, in a way. Though you couldn’t imagine a son of John’s growing up to be evil. Or even mildly naughty, actually. “Mm. Oh—thanks,” I say as she gives me a grimy hanky. Think it’s one of Aunty May’s: it’s certainly got a wee spray of flowers embroidered in the corner. It smells of lavender, so I think it must be. “Um, that musta been while I was out. He never let on to me.”

    “No, thought not. It would have been while you still didn’t know if Nefertite was all right: that would’ve been making it worse.”

    “Yeah, ’course.” Sniff, blow. “He’s very nice,” I say like a total twit.

    “We think so!” she says with a laugh, getting up. “I’d better put his trousers back on him.”

    He seems to be enjoying lying there kicking without them, actually, but I don’t say anything.

    Of course she’s reading my mind, when didn’t she? “These’ll impede ya movements to a quantifiable degree, Baby Bunting!” she notes, getting him into the things.

    “Too right. Poor little squirt.”

    “Yep! –Yes, now ya got ya trousers on, eh? Trousers,” she says loudly and clearly, picking him up. Surely she can’t imagine he’ll be able to say that? Last we heard, he was saying something that coulda been interpreted as “Mum, Mum” by the charitable, and something else that was almost definitely “Da-da.” Uh—hang on, hang on…

    “Lovely pants, Baby Bunting!” I offer and sure enough, his mother collapses in giggles. He doesn’t seem to mind, in fact he says happily “Muh, Muh!” beaming all over his rosy-cheeked face, yep, them are dimples, all right, and how Aunty May can possibly delude herself that he looks in the least like—

    “Dot! Hullo, my dear!” Omigod, he does! He has! I mean, crikey! And John comes in, smiling like anything.

    So I go: “You have got dimples.” Dot Mallory! For cripes’ sake!

    “Only when he really, really smiles!” beams Rosie.

    Yeah. Right. Boy, was that a way to greet an up-market relative-by-marriage that you barely know.

    “So they tell me!” he says with a laugh. “It’s lovely to see you again, Dot. May I?”

    May ya what? May I just slide quietly under this king-size—do they have emperor-size? If so, it is—guest bed of Aunty May’s and disapp— Help! He’s kissed my cheek!

    I just stand here like a nana, goggling up at him. Well, I mighta mentioned that he’s kind of your dead ringer for Patrick Stewart only the nose is a bit straighter and he’s got more chin? And of course those very blue eyes. Go on, then: what sophisticated rejoinder would you of made?

    “Don’t expect her to kiss ya back: she’s not a puce and magenta hag,” notes his wife mildly.

    “Of course she isn’t! Er—I suppose Rosie’s mentioned—yes, of course,” he says with a chuckle, taking in the fact that the bright red D.M. Mallory cheeks aren’t entirely due to having just greeted a scarcely-known relative-by marriage with a really footling remark and having been kissed on the cheek by the said dead ringer for Patrick Stewart. Boy, does he smell good! –Not Mr Stewart, no! No, well, possibly he does, too.

    “Um, sorry, John!” I gulp, dunno if I’m apologising for knowing that his wife refers to his past mature and very up-market lady-friends as puce and magenta hags, or what, really.

    “No, no, don’t apologise! I’m glad to know she’s begun to integrate her life with me into her real life,” he produces, crinkling the eyes up at the corners, boy, never knew he could do that!

    Uh? What?

    “He’s like that,” says Rosie mildly. “Ignore it, Dot, or ya’ll go mad. Feel up to holding Baby Bunting now?”

    “Um, yeah,” I croak. “Thanks,” I croak as she hands him to me.

    Mm, he’s very warm! Of course I am used to babies and little kids: I mean, I’m surrounded with rellies and old school friends all producing them madly—not Isabelle as yet, no, to Mrs McLeod’s intense and far too freely expressed disappointment. But I have to admit, as Baby Bunting Haworth smiles his dimpled smile at me—distinguishing me as a person, right—I feel very all-overish.

    “Muh, Muh!”

    Oh, shit! Maybe he isn’t distinguishing me as a person, after all! Something of the downright horror, not to say awful embarrassment that’s swamped me must be expressed on my mug because Rosie says quickly: “It’s all right: he says ‘Muh, Muh’ to anything with boobs.”

    “Squashy boobs,” corrects John mildly, so that mad blush what I thought might of started to disappear from my cheeks doesn’t.

    “John, honestly! Right in front of poor Dot? Anyway, it goes without saying!”

    “Only to those who’ve observed him addressing you and Yvonne impartially as ‘Muh, Muh,’ I think, darling.”

    Yeah, well, she’s right, he is like that. I suppose you get used to it. “Yeah, um, didja bring Yvonne?” Like, she used to be Rosie’s official Dresser: she worked for Henny Penny Productions Ltd, but now she’s decided she’d rather be nanny to Baby Bunting, can’t say I blame her, and only do a bit of dressing, like on the side. She doesn’t live with them when they’re at their cottage, she’s got a cottage next-door.

    “Yeah, she’s just having a bath and getting changed. Mum’s given her the yellow room.”

    Yikes, poor woman.

    “No, she likes yellow!” says Rosie quickly.

    So I go, real limp: “Gee, that’s good,” and John just collapses in hysterics. He laughs so hard he has to sit down on the bed, and then he just goes on laughing and laughing… After a bit I realise Rosie’s nipped over and closed the door.

    “He’s been holding it in,” she says mildly as he gets to the eye-mopping, nose-blowing stage.

    “Yes,” he admits weakly. “’Fraid so.”

    “Since the honeymoon, actually.”

    “Don’t, darling, you’ll start me off again!” he gasps. “Er, well, yes, Dot!” he admits, winking at me.

    Oh, shit, I’m gonna—Hastily I dump Baby Bunting on his mother. Then I fall all over their imperial pale pink and pale turquoise bedroom, laughing myself silly.

    Somehow after that all the fatuous stuff that came out of my mouth earlier doesn’t seem to matter, and the thought, Will Rosie tell him I bawled all over the shop? doesn’t seem to matter, either, and I manage to point out that Rosie better change into something suitable for a fancy family dinner, because if she wears her jeans Aunty Allyson’ll never let Aunty May hear the last of it, but not anything that’ll put Wendalyn’s nose out of joint for the next millennium.

    “I said she’d made a special effort,” he murmurs.

    “Yeah, ’course she has! And Martina, too, only she hadda come straight from work, so it’s a suit. But that weird bun with the like, knitting-needles, she had it done in her lunch-hour, ya see—at Snippet’s, it’ll’ve been: her friend Georgina works there. And Deanna, she’s wearing her new business suit and her new shoes.”

    “Heck, is Snippet’s still going?” asks Rosie with friendly interest, while John smiles this funny little smile.

    “Yeah, it’s been modernised it, it’s ace, now. Ya see their ads everywhere and they won some award last year, too.”

    “And did you make a special effort, Dot?” he murmurs, crinkling the eyes again.

    Why have I gone red like a total nana? “Um, not really, I often wear this trouser suit to work, only, um, well, this is a new jumper. Um, and the shoes are, too. At first Deanna said you shouldn’t mix black and brown, think she got it off ole Ma Pinchot, acksherly, only then she said it looked good. Acksherly, to tell you the truth”—why am I blahing on like this?—“the brown jumper was the only one in the shop that fitted me, all the ones that, um, went round me were far too long in the waist, and um, anyway, then I found the shoes so I thought it could be an outfit.”

    “Of course!” Rosie beams. “It looks great: you know who it reminds me of? Henny Penny’s Costume Designer! It’s just the sort of unusual colour combination that she’d wear”

    Shit, the up-market lady that looks like that lady lawyer on that TV thing with Leo McKern? The accolade.

    “And I love the brooch!” she beams, inspecting it narrowly.

    I wore it because I thought the dark brown jumper looked a bit dull under the black suit. I mighta known all the ladies at work’d have to admire it, and why the fuck didn’t I have the sense to take it off before I left work? “Um, yeah, it’s okay.” Blast! Now she’s urging John to look at it, too. I mean, it’s only up by my throat, it isn’t in a rude place, but that isn’t the point.

    So he goes: “Delightful, Dot, Most unusual. It wouldn’t be Cypriot work, would it?? I got one rather like it for Corky Corcoran’s daughter Linda—her fourteenth birthday, I think it would have been—when we called in at Cyprus that year.”

    “Was this when the Brits were having a go at the Turkish Cypriots?” enquires his wife with friendly interest.

    “No, darling, your grasp of history is very shaky. We’d been in the Middle East.”

    “Goddit,” she acknowledges.

    Now they’re both looking at me expectantly, blow.

    “Um, dunno,” I growl. “Um, I thought it was Greek.”

    “Greek Cypriot,” he says pleasedly, not noticing that Rosie is now trying to give him a warning look. “Of course! –Hurry up, Rosie. The pale blue dress, I think.”

    “Which of the many?” she groans, going over to the giant more than double, kind of double-double walk-in robe that’s a feature of the guest room, in fact of all Aunty May’s guest rooms in the new wing, and— Crikey!

    “Don’t blame me,” she says on a grim note. “You know my habits, Watson.”

    I know what they were, yeah: every time I set eyes on Wendalyn in a another fancy new outfit I think of that pale orange thing she donated to you the summer before ya took off for England.

    “Most of them were provided by Henny Penny Productions,” John explains nicely. “And more latterly, some have been provided by Double Dee Productions. And a few she’s been forced into buying by Rabbit’s friends and relations!” he ends with a laugh.

    “Right. Goddit,” I croak. Crikey Dick! I mean to say—!

    “So should I wear one of the Harrods outfits?” she says in a snide voice. “–Ultra-nayce. Cashmere,” she explains deeply.

    “Eh?” I grope.

    Rosie collapses in sniggers, gasping: “See! No-one except Rabbit’s friends and relations have ever heard of it!”

    “Of course,” he says smoothly. “I think everyone will understand you’re doing it in a spirit of complete hypocrisy, Rosie, but that doesn’t mean they won’t appreciate the effort. The things Mother and Mrs Corky helped you choose at Harrods”—gulp, did they? Poor Rosie!—“will be more suitable for day-wear, darling. It’s just the weather for them. Um, let me see… Yes: this is the one.” He pulls out something soft-looking and rather fuzzy in very pale blue. Unless the Sydney Morning Star faked it up completely, which I’m not claiming it didn’t, about the shade of that lacy blue jumper she wore to have her photo taken with Baby Bunting.

    “Um, I thought you said that was an afternoon dress?” she replies suspiciously.

    “Yes, but very suitable for a family dinner,” he says calmly.

    So Rosie suddenly dumps Baby Bunting on me—Ooh, gasp!—and removes the blue fuzzy tent. Underneath it she’s wearing a very washed-out greyish-pink tee-shirt. So much for Glamour.

    “Take that off,” he says mildly.

    “I was gunnoo!” Scowl, scowl. And she takes it off and chucks it on the bed. Gee, her figure’s a lot better than it was when she left Oz. Much firmer round the middle.

    “Don’t say a word!” she orders me grimly.

    “Muh, Muh, that’s right! Um, I was wasn’t gunnoo. Um, well, acksherly I was gonna say you’ve lost a bit of weight: it suits—”

    “I’ve been eating salads for the last three months!” she snaps.

    “A slight exaggeration,” he murmurs.

    “Balls, John! And Rupy and me have been tapping our heads off, I admit it’s excellent exercise but the floors are gonna have to be re-surfaced!”

    “Nonsense, the floors at the cottage are old English oak. Do the world a favour, and get out of that bra, please,” he says briskly. “The new smooth one that Yvonne chose, I think.”

    Shit, does he always tell her what to wear, right down to the underclothes? Yep, must do, because once she’s found the right bra and put it on he says: “And I can see from here that the elastic on those knickers is just about shot: I won’t ask how you slipped them into your case past Yvonne and Rupy.” She gives him a real dirty look and he adds smoothly. “Or were you wearing them?”

    “Yes! All right, I’ll put on a new pair! –You wouldn’t believe the amount of money he makes me throw away on underpants!” she says crossly to me.

    “Nuh— Uh— Yuh— Um, you can afford it,” I croak.

    “It’s a complete waste of money, and I’m not gonna be earning like this for the rest of my life, ya know! What about Baby Bunting’s future?”

    I look numbly down at his unconscious head. Not the bubbly yellow curls that her and me have both got, lucky kid: Someone up there must love little male Haworths: a soft, thick, just slightly wavy light brown with golden lights in it. Plus and that delicious baby smell, mmm! “Eh?”

    “I said, if it was you about to have tea in your mother’s house,” she repeats loudly, “would you wear a pair of stupid tights and stupid high-heeled shoes?”

    (No.) “Um, probably, if it was a fancy do and she’d invited all the rellies,” I say weakly.

    “Hah, hah,” notes John mildly, sitting down beside me and his son. “This may go on for some time. There is yet the question of the face and hair. Not to mention the question of appropriate jewellery.”

    “Um, yeah. Well, with her skin she doesn’t need make-up, really. Only Wendalyn and Martina and Deanna are all made up to the nines. Um, and Joslynne. Um, well, she’s made an effort.”

    “She likes those dark purple and dark puce shades,” says Rosie with a smothered sigh.

    Yeah, I noticed. Specially round the eyes. Meanwhile the face, naturally yellowish like her mum’s, is smothered in a whitish goo. I think the inspiration, way back, might of been Cher, she has always admired her, but the total effect is more like a cross between KISS and Michael Jackson. She’s wearing jeans, but they’re nothing like those faded daggy things of Rosie’s: brand new, very dark denim, come to an inch above the pubic hair, are welded to the skinny buttocks and thighs, and flare out into impossibly wide legs machine-embroidered with sprays of purple flowers. There’s a belt, too: carved leather with a big silver buckle that probably isn’t meant to give the effect of a sneering Devil face. She’s wearing two tops, the underneath one is a very dark purple skinny-knit that comes to just the waist, this leaves a fair amount of Joslynne’s thin bod on display, including the small dagger tattooed beside the navel ring, and the topmost layer is a sort of Seventies-look black machine-lace blouse thing that she’s wearing open like a jacket. It’s got long sleeves and the knit’s got short ones. She’s got a new hair-do, can’t remember what it was last time Rosie was out here, think it mighta still been long. Anyway, in between it was short, but she’s grown it again and now it’s shoulder-length, dead straight, dyed black, which makes it a bit darker than her natural dark brown, and just slightly streaked with that kind of crimson shade of red that girls that red-streak their hair seem to favour. Which is better than she had it a while back, when it was all crimson. Well, heck, it’s the best-friends-because-you-live-next-door syndrome, okay? Which doesn’t mean that her and Rosie aren’t very fond of each other. She’ll of had to find a baby-sitter, too; she’s busted up with that creepy accountant-type that was living with her when Rosie and John came out before.

    So Rosie’s in the soft, fuzzy blue dress, it’s very plain: clinging, long-sleeved, with a skirt to mid-calf, split to the knee on one side with just one self-covered button above the slit, and I’m just wondering if he’s gonna get up and forcibly drag a brush through that tangled yellow mop when there’s a tap at the door and they both call out “Come in, Yvonne!” and Yvonne comes in and capably takes over.

    … Boy, is that professional or what! Even Rosie doesn’t dare to blink, squirm or mutter as she operates on the eyelashes. I thought she’d make them all black and spidery, well, you know the film-star look, but she doesn’t: they’re naturally a mid-brown shade and she just darkens it a bit and don’t ask me exactly what she does with the eyeshadow. because she’s got this, like, huge case of a million different shades, but it ends up looking totally ace and not overdone at all. She doesn’t put any foundation on her, just dusts the cheeks with a bit of blusher that they don’t need, they’re naturally pink, only as she steps back I can see that it’s got a faint shine to it, not exactly a glitter but almost. She does the mouth with a selection of weeny brushes… Gosh. Cherry-ripe isn’t in it!

    “It’s The Captain’s Daughter look,” she tells me smugly, reducing the curls to something that looks meant. “But of course we have to exaggerate it for the cameras.” Gee, she’s got a funny accent.

    “She’s from Jersey,” explains Rosie.

    “Um—yeah, I think you mentioned it. Like Gerald Durrell’s zoo, right?”

    Yvonne’s very pleased that I remembered. Now the funny thing is that her own make-up, though it’s very professionally done, is much louder and she looks made-up, y’know? Her hairdo’s very fancy: her hair’s yellow, brighter than mine and Rosie’s, think she must touch it up. She’d be quite bit older than Rosie: in her late thirties, I’d say. The dress is a very bright blue, a very similar style to Wendalyn’s except that it’s in a fine wool knit, but it’s got a corset-like top, all right, plus and a matching cardy over it. Gee, the shoes, very high-heeled, are the exact same shade of bright blue. Leather, though, not dyed satin. Eat ya heart out, Wendalyn!

    “You do realise,” grumbles Rosie, “that I’ve got to give Baby Bunting his tea? This dress is gonna look good with mushed-up pumpkin and stewed apple all down it, isn’t it?”

    “You can wear one of your mum’s aprons, and hurry up, you’re keeping your guests waiting,” replies Yvonne severely. “Come on, Dot, I’ll take Baby Bunting!” And she grabs him and marches out.

    “The pearls,” says John mildly, producing a double strong of them from a large case and holding them out to her.

    “What if he makes one of his lightning grabs at them?”

    “The pumpkin and stewed apple will wash off. And the string won’t break, or I’ll know the reason why,” he says calmly, putting them round her neck. “There!”

    Rosie glares at her reflection in the mirror. “Very tactful.”

    “Exactly,” he says solemnly. “Coming, Dot?”

    “Uh—yeah!” And we all go out to the family-room, where Yvonne and Aunty May are now both putting him into his high-chair.

    Dazedly I watch as John produces a piece of elastic from the pocket of his elegant dark suit—not an evening suit, no, talking of tact, just a dark business suit—and attaches one end of it to the high-chair and the other end to a plastic spoon. “That should work.”

    “Oh, good, you found some: I thought there was some in the sewing room,” says Aunty May placidly while I’m just standing here with my mouth open.

    Rosie’s putting a big bibbed apron on. “There’ll probably be a fight. He’s getting very bloody-minded.”

    “Muh, Muh, Muh!” he pants.

    “Well, perhaps the bungee spoon’ll distract him, darling,” says John mildly.

    “Yeah. Stand well clear, John,” she warns. “And you, Dot, if you don’t want your business suit ruined.”

    “Muh, Muh, Muh!”

    “Yeah, here we go, Baby Bunting!” Spoon, spoon… “Mm, num-nums!”

    SPLAT! “Waa-waa-waa!” Gee, good shot, Baby Bunting. Just as well she put that apron on.

    “Dear, is he teething?” goes Aunty May.

    “Don’t think so, he hasn’t been flushed. Just bloody-minded,” she says over the infant’s wails.

    John hands him the spoon with the elastic on it and the wails abruptly stop. “Muh, Muh, Muh!”

    “Da-da, ya clot,” says his mother resignedly.

    “Look out!” I gasp.

    Biff! Clatter, clatter!

    “Sorry, Dot: we were all expecting it,” says Rosie calmly.

    “Mm,” admits Aunty May, even though she jumped, too. “I see what you mean, Rosie.”

    “Here you are, Baby Bunting!” says Yvonne quickly, grabbing the spoon and handing it back to him, as the rosebud lip starts to wobble.

    Biff! Clatter, clatter!

    “Um, he doesn’t seem to be dipping it in his bowl,” I note weakly.

    “No, it’ll take some time to dawn that this is food and that the real reason he wanted the spoon was to spoon it up for himself,” says Rosie calmly, approaching her spoon to his mouth. He opens, engulfs, and swallows automatically.

    John’s retrieved the plastic spoon on the elastic.

    Biff! Clatter, clatter!

    Blimey O’Reilly, does this go on every mealtime? “Yeah, but heck—”

    “Give him time,” says Yvonne mildly. “It’s no use forcing him. Mind you, sometimes he eats his way through his whole dinner before he realises he hasn’t spooned it up for himself, doesn’t he, Rosie?”

    “Yeah,” she confirms, shoving another spoonful into him. “Quick: bungee spoon!”

    Hurriedly Yvonne shoves the plastic spoon into his hand.

    Biff! Clatter, clatter!

    Why bungee— Oh: the elastic. It isn’t, strictly speaking, “Biff! Clatter, clatter!”, it’s “Biff! Bounce! Clatter, bounce, clatter!” And I collapse in hysterics.

    And so it goes on… Rosie manages to get almost all the food into him before he comes to and makes a grab at her spoon, ignoring the bungee spoon.

    “Waa-aaa!” he shrieks.

    “Here we go,” notes Yvonne heavily, picking up the bungee spoon, shoving it into his little fat hand, and then firmly assisting him to shove it into the stewed apple in his bowl.

    “Waa-aaa!” he shrieks again

    “Yes, you can do it by yourself, there you go!” she agrees, letting go. “–Stand well back, Dot.”

    Biff! Oh, heck!

    “It’s all right!” gasps Aunty May as John dashes for a cloth. “I am used to kiddies. Oh, thank you, John, dear.”

    “There’s some in her hair, John,” I warn feebly.

    “I see it,” he says, smiling.

    And with only one or two very minor disasters like some of it hitting the edge of the rug, even though there’s a huge square of plastic under the high-chair, and some of it hitting John on the shoulder, even though he was standing well clear, and some of it getting me but only on the shoes, it wipes off okay, the infant is finally fed. Aunty May offers him a Tommy-Tippee cup but he hurls it across the room, shrieking, so she gives up on that one and gets him a bottle. And once Yvonne’s competently wiped him down while Rosie does the high-chair, and Yvonne, Rosie and Aunty May have all removed the incredibly mucky and sticky aprons, and John’s got him a clean feeder, he’s presentable enough to be taken into the lounge-room for his bottle. Where Aunty Allyson immediately claims him: isn’t he a little angel! Yep, he looks like a little angel, all right, lying there in her arms sucking peacefully on his bottle. Though there is a small streak of pumpkin in his hair that they missed, if ya look closely.

    And you can see exactly why Rosie, who’s not only doing the Captain’s Daughter crap, but also a full-time job as Research Fellow in sociology, in case you’ve forgotten it, really needs Yvonne to be on deck all week! Or if ya can’t ya need ya head read.

    Rupy Maynarde did come out with them, but he’s staying at the Hyatt, claiming he didn’t want to intrude on the family. He turns up just as Aunty Allyson, Mum and Aunty May are all fighting over who’s going to put Baby Bunting to bed. Well-timed, really. He’s brought a huge great bunch of flowers for Aunty May, very nice of him, only someone should of warned him that the house is full of floral offerings sent to Rosie by assorted famous directors and great stars and producers and crap. Never mind, she’s thrilled, anyway, and rushes off to put them on the dining table.

    “Hullo at last, Dot,” he grins.

    “Yeah hi, Rupy. Good to meet you,” I say limply. Really, after all those quite intimate email exchanges, it’s a weird feeling meeting him in person, y’know? Though of course he looks just like he does on screen, in fact he’s actually wearing a dark navy blazer with gold buttons, gulp. Miedium height, slim, very fair hair. He does look a bit older in person, and this’d be because he’s actually turned forty, though you’d never know it. Funnily enough his character, Commander, doesn’t come over as gay—though I admit he doesn’t come over as rabidly macho, either—but in person you immediately realise he is. Like, he doesn’t simper or speak in a funny voice like some of them do, or end every sentence with a question, but nevertheless it’s obvious.

    “Did I miss the bungee spooning?” he asks cheerfully.

    “Uh—yeah,” I croak. “And the food-splattering.”

    “Ugh!” he says with a laugh. “Never mind, it may prompt Rosie to get something done about those foul brown panelled walls at the flat.”

    Rupy is still sharing the flat with them—well, they’re not there more than half the time and since John’s officially based in Portsmouth, now, when Rosie comes up to town to do a bit of TV work her and Rupy keep each other company. Put it like this: it suits them, and even the ruddy English tabloids haven’t managed to make anything out of it. So I go: “Yeah: strip the panelling off and paint them white while you’re away, so the flying pumpkin’ll make a really good impression when ya get back.”

    He’s agreeing, as Rosie comes over to us, dunno whether to protect me or him, actually. “Did you get a taxi?”

    “Yes; I didn’t think the gorgeous Aaron could be trusted to negotiate me through the wilds of suburbia, dear, tempting though the thought was. –Derry’s driver, Dot,” he explains. “He usually managed to get lost when he drove us in London, didn’t he, Rosie?”

    “Yeah, but then he’s not a Londoner born and bred like some!” she says with a laugh. “Well, he’s a Canadian, Dot,” she explains cheerfully. “We think Derry keeps him on because he’s so good-looking and he likes to be surrounded by beautiful people.”

    “Um, yeah. We saw him ion the News with a very pretty girl.”

    “Miff. Can’t act,” explains Rupy heavily. “He treats her like a belonging, dear. Not a favourite belonging, either. Makes you blush to be in the same room with him, really.”

    “I see. Um, does she want to act?”

    “No, alone of all the hundreds girlfriends for the past millennium, she doesn’t, actually. We think that’s why he’s kept her on for a while: less exhausting,” he explains, making a face.

    Boy, that makes it clear. What a creep, eh? Not that I expected— But some of his films are real sensitive: wouldn’t you of thought— No, apparently not.

    So we have dinner, not in the family-room, in the huge fancy dining-room that’s part of the new wing, in fact these doors at the far end of the extended lounge-room can be thrown open and yeah, yeah. Well, I have seen it all approx. a million times before, though I admit I’ve never had to eat in here. Nor have the rest of the Mallorys—Tim and Narelle have now turned up, a bit late, Someone couldn’t find his car keys. Wendalyn and Martina haven’t, either, and if it was anyone else but Aunty May you’d suspect her of relegating us to the family-room because none of us count, only you’d have to be nuts to think any such thing. And as a matter of fact she can be heard explaining to Rupy over the starters that the family-room is much cosier, only there’s such a crowd of us tonight, we couldn’t all fit in.

    She’s put me between ruddy Kenny and Wendalyn, so after a bit he goes: “What is this, do ya reckon?”

    So I snarl, sort of lowered, on account of the guests: “No idea, and she’s your mother, haven’t you ever had it before?”

    “No. Don’t think so.”

    Dickhead. Which reminds me: where’s the unfortunate—uh, not Karen, that was a bit back. Um, Catherine, I think. There’s no way in the world Aunty May won’t of told him to bring her. “Why didn’t you bring Catherine?”

    “What? Aw—her. We broke up yonks ago, what country you been living in?”

    Uh—was she before Karen, then? “Um, sorry, think I meant Karen.”

    Wendalyn leans forward: “That was ages ago, Dot, you’ve got them mixed up!”

    I look at Kenny, but he’s just eating, the dickhead.

    “Is there someone, these days?” she goes sympathetically across me.

    “No, if it’s any business of yours. Pass me the salt.”

    So poor Wendalyn gives up and passes him the salt. Not that we haven’t known the dickhead all our lives, but honestly! You can see why Aunty Allyson told me sadly last time we met that he’s a disappointment to his poor father. She actually said that, not ”to poor Jerry”, because I’m the younger generation, it’s that old syndrome again—Ya got that. Sorry, sorry.

    “It’s a new recipe, she got it off Aunty Kate,” Wendalyn then explains in a lowered voice.

    Right. ’Nuff said. I’ll eat every last crumb—uh, smear of it.

    Bryce is on Wendalyn’s other side, of course. He leans forward. “The sauce has got avocado in it, I think, Dot.”

    Gee, he’s right. It’s not green, see, that was what was fooling me. So it isn’t the cream gone off or—Right. He’d be quite a good cook if Wendalyn’d ever let him near the stove as opposed to that humungous great barbie they got on the patio.

    “I geddit; thanks, Bryce. And, um, is this grapefruit?”

    “Thash ri’,” he confirms cheerfully round it.

    “Thai citrus salad,” explains Wendalyn in a low voice .

    Eh? Avocados come from South Ameri— I’m not gonna say another word.

    So we eat up our Thai citrus salad—more or less, Kenny leaves all his grapefruit segments and his lime slice and all his tangelo slices and most of the rest of them leave their lime slice, their curly pale green lettuce, their curly red lettuce and their tickly dark green Japanese salad greens—and go on to traditional Aussie roast lamb. Jesus, it’s a whole side, well, she has got a humungous—I tell a lie, two humungous great ovens—done real traditional (hah, hah, I don’t think), with port and rosemary and tangelos, and stuffing balls with more of the same mixed into them. Well, yeah, tangelos are in season but that doesn’t mean they’re not the dearest citrus fruit except for limes. Fortunately, in spite of the hours she’ll of spent slathering it with the mixture of port and juice, she hasn’t managed to ruin the meat. And the roast veggies are good. She’s overcooked the beans but then her generation usually does.

    Except for the skinny one in the New Age version of Seventies flares, think they’re black georgette, and the matching tunic—tell ya what, she’ll of bought it on Mr Smythe’s credit card to spite the bugger!

    So after a bit I say to Wendalyn in a very low voice: “That’s a great outfit Joslynne’s Mum’s wearing.”

    And whaddaya know, she confirms in a very low voice: “Yes, it’s new. From David Jones.”

    Right. Serve him right. They’re not sitting together—Aunty May has known them since Rosie and Joslynne were thirteen, of course—he’s between Aunty Allyson, serve him right, and Tim. Talking about cars, well, as Tim doesn’t know beans about orchids, it’s gotta be. But I have to admit I’m not at all sure why Aunty May’s inflicted Marianne G.-S. on poor Rupy. She does know quite a lot about the theatre but not the sort of stuff he generally acts in.

    The pudding’s lemon meringue pie, ugh, help, it makes me wanna sp—Oh! Thank God! She’s telling everyone loudly it’s pineapple, not lemon. If it was anyone else you’d think it was a pre-emptive strike because pineapple upside-down cake is Aunty Allyson’s specialty, but since it’s Aunty May, it isn’t. Now she’s telling Rupy the supermarket was full of pineapples—see?

    “Goob, eh?” says Bryce across Wendalyn through a mouthful of it. “Tashty bu’ no’ too shwee’.”

    “Bryce! Honestly!” she hisses.

    “Uh,” I agree, swallowing. “Yeah, ’tis, Bryce. Much nicer than lemon meringue pie, don’tcha reckon?”

    “Yeah,” he confirms, swallowing. “Miles.”

    “I like lemon meringue pie,” says Kenny imperturbably across me.

    “You would,” I note in spite of myself.

    “This pineapple thing’s not as good,” he announces, having eaten every last smear of it.

    “Ssh!” hisses Wendalyn, going very red.

    “Yeah,” I agree. “Shuddup, Kenny. If ya can’t say something pleasant, do us all a favour and keep the gob closed.”

    His father leans forward from the foot of the table. “Is Kenny being offensive again?”

    “No! Will ya drop it, Dad!” he retorts angrily,

    Gee, that got to him—didn’t think anything could. Well done, Uncle Jerry!

    “All I said was that this pineapple thing’s good but it’s not as good as lemon meringue pie!” he says loudly and angrily.

    “Mum always makes lemon meringue: can’t stand it,” says Bryce—think that was an attempt to pour oil, only he’s too thick to see—

    Yep, that’s done it.

    “No! It’s lovely!” cries Martina in astonishment.

    “Ugh!” cries Rosie. “It’s revolting!”—She hasn’t noticed that John’s trying to give her a warning look.—“It makes ya wanna—”

    “Rosie!” says Uncle Jerry sharply.

    “Dear, she never has liked—”

    “Yeah: always did claim it made her wanna spew,” agrees Tim.

    “Tim!” gasps Narelle in horror.

    “Dot’s the same.”

    “That’ll do, thank you!” she snaps.

    “This is great, May,” says old Uncle Harry unexpectedly. “Better than Allyson’s upside-down cake. Sick of that.”

    “Harry!” she cries, bright red. Aunty May’s also bright red.

    “Marianne tried her hand at that once,” notes Mr Smythe in this awful detached voice he puts on. “Pineapple disaster cake, more like.”

    “It was not!” she cries, almost as red as Aunty Allyson and Aunty May.

    “Mum, it was awful!” cries Joslynne.

    “Couldn’t of been as bad as that lemon meringue thing Mum tried once,” notes Tim, the cretin.

    “What’s that supposed to mean, Timothy Mallory?” she goes dangerously.

    Dad joins in. “Come on, Sal, ya can’t pretend it wasn’t burnt on the top and raw on the—”

    And so it goes on… At least four sets of dirty family linen get well washed and into the bargain Uncle Jerry has another go at Kenny. True, ya can’t wholly blame him, but he might of refrained: it is only Rosie’s second night home. And it is the first time Rupy’s met the Marshalls.

    “Come again!” says Rosie with a laugh as I finally manage to make my escape. “We’ll have another family fight!”

    “Four, wasn’t it?”

    “Our lot, your lot, Aunty Allyson’s lot, Joslynne’s lot— Depends whether you count Wendalyn and Bryce as part of Aunty Allyson’s lot, really!”

    “Yeah. Um, so ya got anything planned for tomorrow?”

    “First, wait for the rain to stop. Second, wait for the Great Director to rung me and indicate his pleasure. Third, stand by to stop Mum and Yvonne actually coming to blows over Baby Bunting.”

    “Uh—yeah. Well, I thought they seemed to be getting on fine, Rosie.”

    “Mm. Probably spend the next two months ganging up against yours truly,” she admits, making a face.

    The thought had crossed my mind. “Yeah. Well—see ya.”

    “See ya, Dot,” she says mildly. And that’s that.

    Deanna’s gone home with Mum and Dad, of course, and boy, am I glad to be a solo bachelor girl again! Um, no: don’t think I will check my email. Think I’ll just crawl into bed and thank my lucky stars I’m not a suburban mum with nothing on my mind but unlikely new recipes to ruin good lamb on the one hand, or one-upmanship in the dessert stakes and the grandkids stakes on the other hand, or, on a third hand and a generation closer, keeping the second hubby well under the thumb whilst competing grimly in the best-dressed stakes with the famous cousin that hasn’t actually noticed I’m competing… Oh, dear! No, well, John is awfully nice, so if I hadda change places with anyone it’d probably be Rosie—and Baby Bunting is extra awfully nice, never mind the pumpkin tossing—but Jesus, how can she hack the Lily Rose Rayne bit?

    Next day. It’s pouring again. Well, true, Marianne Gridley-Smythe says that the weather patterns are changing, and to ignore any attempted brain-washing of the populace by the scientific puppets trotted out by the Establishment—not sure whether she meant the Aussie Establishment or the global one, if it matters. But as far as my memory goes it always did pour in Sydney, in winter.

    So I get to work, gee, nobody’s pinched my parking-slot in the basement carpark. Uncle Jerry’s car’s not here, dare say, in view of the dirty-linen airing last night, he musta had a few extra Johnnies to top off the first lot and the wine and the brandy, after I’d gone.

    And I get upstairs and they all burst out with it, Deirdre and Betty in fact are practically in hysterics.

    Rosie slipped on the front path this morning and she’s in hospital with concussion and a broken leg!

    “Shit,” I say, standing here numbly in the office with my mouth open.