Rave Reviews

32

Rave Reviews

    David handed drinks, grinning. “Come on, Jim, you’re not driving!”

    Avoiding Kate’s eye, Jim McHale accepted a triple Johnnie. “Thanks, mate.”

    “This is too strong me for me, David,” announced Kate firmly, just as he thought he’d got away with it and was about to escape to the kitchen. Meekly he took it over to the tray of mixers Deanna had set out on the battered Thing that was doing duty for a sideboard in the late Uncle Martin Springer’s apology for a sitting-room. According to Bob the said Thing was gonna metamorphose into a glorious “Victorian” sideboard.

    Er—God. Was it that Bob had never heard of the mixer, or that marriage to Deanna had gone to his head, or that he’d just been too busy pulling the guts out of the kitchen and sanding down the floor in there and putting in new appliances and a brand-new sink and sanding down the old cupboards— Or quite possibly a combination of these factors. “There’s no soda, I’m afraid, Kate,” he said on a weak note.

    “Bung some ginger ale into it!” advised old Jim robustly, that triple couldn’t have touched the sides.

    “Er—yes. Whisky and ginger, then, Kate?” said David on a weak note.

    “Lovely!” she beamed.

    Feebly he poured a shot of ginger ale into her triple Johnnie, made sure his beloved didn’t want any ginger in her triple Johnnie—thought not—made sure that Ann was perfectly happy with her Bundy on the rocks—thought so—and tottered out, not asking Bernie if he was perfectly happy with his triple Johnnie because Bernie had already winked at him.

    In the kitchen Deanna was standing at the brand-new stove with tears dripping down her face and Bob was bum-up over the gigantic chest freezer. In which, to David Walsingham’s certain knowledge, there reposed a dozen lean cuisine dinners, a dozen frozen lasagnas for two, and one whole salmon that he’d got them in town at the very special fish shop recommended by Mrs Giorgopoulos down the road from Jerry and May Marshall. It hadn’t dawned on either Bob or Deanna, when they were planning for this blessed B&B of theirs, that neither of them could cook. Nor could Bernie or Ann.

    “Come on, can’t be that bad,” he said, putting his arm round his soon-to-be sister-in-law’s skinny frame.

    “It can!” sobbed Deanna, immediately burying her head in his shoulder.

    Well, yes, all indications from that saucepan were that it could, but David didn’t say anything, just removed it from the heat.

    Bob emerged from the depths of the freezer. “There’s fuck-all in here!” he announced loudly.

    “There should be a large salmon that I placed in there not two hours since, Bob. Unless you’ve got a giant pet cougar or some such that I don’t know about?”

    “Hah, hah. Grizzly bear, shouldn’t that be?” returned Bob with a sheepish grin. “Uh—well, yeah, but it’s started to freeze, mate!”

    “I’ll defrost it. Unless you’d prefer assorted lean cuisines or microwaved lasagna— Thought not, no.”

    “What are we gonna do?” wailed Deanna with a fresh burst of tears.

    David hugged her comfortingly. “It’s all right, I’ll cook.”

    “Ndo!” she sobbed juicily, lifting a tear-blotched, swollen face to his. “I’ve tried and tried and I can’t do proper cooking and we’re gonna go broke!”

    Well, at this stage they weren’t ready to receive guests or anything like it: they had the master bedroom habitable and semi-decorated, the sitting-room clean but definitely not gaudy, and the kitchen done up. Except for that gap round the back door where apparently the white ants had started chewing at the place, but Bob was on top of that, he claimed. On top of it with a handy piece of corrugated iron, at the moment, yes—but give him time.

    Calmly David replied: “Yes: I meant that, Deanna. I’ll come and cook for you.”

    She goggled at him in stunned amaze.

    “Eh?” croaked Bob.

    “Tonight can be a trial run.”

    “Yuh—Uh, no, mate, we all know you can cook: that lamb roast ya done for us last week at Dot’s place was out of this world!”

    “And the pudding,” contributed Deanna, sniffing juicily.

    “Thanks. Blow your nose,” prompted David kindly. “I’ll come and cook permanently, if you’ll have me.” They were both just goggling at him, so he explained: “Musical inspiration doesn’t strike all that often, and although it’s been interesting doing the film stuff I’ve had enough of that. It was a challenge, but I mastered it,” he said with a little smile.

    “Uh—right,” said Bob groggily. “Oh! I geddit. Time to move on, eh?”

    “Exactly. Do—you—want—me?” said David clearly.

    “Aw, Hell, yeah, mate!”

    “It’d be wonderful,” admitted Deanna, sagging against him.

    “Good.”

    “Buh-but have ya talked it over with Dot?” croaked Bob.

    “Yes. We think we ought to have a separate place from yours, we don’t want to be on top of you. For the time being she’ll keep on working for Jerry, and we’ll stay in town during the week, come up in the weekends, give you a hand. Soon as you open I’ll stay up here permanently, and Dot’ll commute for a bit. We’ll keep the flat on for a while, but sell the house in Adelaide, have something to put into a house up here. I will have to get over there, sort things out, but that won’t take long.”

    “Yeah. Well, Kate’ll sell the house for ya, no sweat,” admitted Bob.

    David grinned at him. “Exactly!”

    Deanna blew her nose hard. “What about your cat?”

    “We’ve discussed that seriously, Deanna, and although we think he’s robust enough to take two moves, we don’t feel it would be fair on him. We were hoping you could look after him until we’ve moved up here.”

    “I’d love to!” she beamed.

    “Didn’t know ya liked cats, love,” said Bob numbly.

   “Of course I do!”

    “Good,” he said feebly. “Uh—well, you thinking of building from scratch or what, David?”

    “We thought a kitset house, like Bernie and Ann.”

    “Good, Gazza’ll give us a better deal if we can order two,” said Bob with simple satisfaction.

    “But do you want Federation-style?” asked Deanna, stowing David’s handkerchief away in her apron pocket.

    “Yes,” he said firmly. Actually they hadn’t discussed it. But if Bernie thought the style was bearable, presumably it couldn’t be too bloody frightful. “Ersatz but pretty” was what he’d actually said.

    “Good, then we’ll all match!” she beamed.

    “Of course,” said David nicely, not mentioning the fact that the old house they were standing in was, in Australian terms, genuine “Federation”—that was, dated from around 1901.

    “Yeah, uh, I don’t see how Dot’s gonna manage commuting every weekend, mate,” admitted Bob uneasily, getting the salmon out.

    Releasing Deanna, David came to prod it experimentally. “Not too solid—good. –Mm? Oh, that. Well, between you and me, Bob, when the patter of little feet eventuates, she won’t need to commute, will she?”

    Bob gulped, rather, but rallied to say: “No, she won’t. Good on ya, David, mate.”

    “Great!” beamed Deanna, cheering up tremendously. “But what about later? I mean, will she want to be stuck at home with them?”

    David smiled a little at the “them” but replied seriously enough: “We’ve decided to let later take care of itself, Deanna. But we think it’s quite possible that she’ll go into business for herself: database support and design, that sort of thing. Just go into town to see clients: the actual work can all be done on the computer. A couple of the people at Grant & Marshall might be interested in going into partnership with her, too. Well, we’ll see. Young Daniel will presumably want to start a family of his own some day: he might decide he doesn’t want the risk of working for himself. But one of the girls is very keen.”

    “Ooh, good! Is that Molly?” cried Deanna, now all smiles.

    “Er—no, actually,” said David in an odd voice. “I gather she’s got other plans. No, it’s Peta: she’s a bit older than Dot and Molly: I don’t know if you—”

    Deanna apparently hadn't noticed the odd voice, though David was aware that Bob had given him a sharp look. She had met Peta—of course!—and thought she was really nice and was sure she’d make a lovely business partner, and then, she might want to come up here to live, too! And even if she didn’t it wouldn’t matter, because lots of people had electronic offices these days, didn’t they, and only the other day she’d seen a TV program about these people that had moved permanently to Byron Bay, or near there—she thought it was Byron—and they were making a terrific success of their computer business!

    David just smiled and nodded and got on with preparing the salmon. She wasn’t taking any notice of anything he did, up to jumping and saying um, no, she didn’t think so, and wasn’t he going to cut its head off, then, when he asked her if they had a roasting dish big enough for it, so it was just as well he hadn’t actually believed Dot when she’d optimistically said that probably he could teach Deanna his tricks in the kitchen in case he had to work on his music just when they had guests booked in. Well, there was always the freezer, and next time he wrote to Aunty Ariadne he’d ask her which dishes she thought froze best— No, tell you what! He’d take Dot over to Greece, Mother was bursting to meet her anyway, and he might as well do it now, before the B&B was ready, and get the dinkum oil out of the old bat in person!

    He accepted Bob’s offer of the roasting pan that had come with the new oven and got on with the salmon, unaware that he was humming. Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters!

    The dinner was in the oven, an appropriate smell of slowly roasting fish together with a hint of onion and lemon was pervading the battered old wooden house—they hadn't had any bay leaves, let alone any fennel, otherwise David would have added some—and it was time! So they all settled down to watch the Ne— Well no, not watch the News, in fact Deanna was crying: “Whadda they wanna show that for?” as the announcer laboriously mispronounced something about Iraq. To watch the Arrivals at the premiere! Even though most of them already knew most of them and were fully aware that however glamorous they might look on the screen they were quite otherwise in real life.

    It was true that Bernie and David had both received pressing invitations to attend. The more so as Derry Dawlish apparently hadn’t believed a single, solitary word either of Bernie’s personal resignation and apology before he left England, or of his official written resignation. Nor, apparently, his repeated verbal ones long-distance and again once the Great Panjandrum had hit Sydney and the S had hit the F, or would have done, if anybody had cared. David hadn’t bothered to tell Derry he wasn’t interested in any more film work: no further work had as yet been mooted, so sufficient unto the day were the ravings thereof.

    Bernie had thought that Ann might like to attend—well, excuse to get dressed up in a pretty frock—but she had shuddered and said: “With that lot? No way!” Possibly the shuddering had been rather more than the thing had warranted, but Bernie, very relieved that she didn’t after all require him to immolate himself, hadn’t noticed.

    David had thought that Dot might like to attend: she wouldn’t have to wear anything dreamed up by Double Dee, since they did not, contrary to their very evident suppositions, own her soul, and if she had been so silly as to sign anything about frocks and premieres, let them sit on it—in fact why not wear your lovely lemon silk caftan, darling? But Dot, very pink, had said sturdily: “No way. I would quite like to see the film all through, but I’ll just go to a commercial screening. I’ve had more than enough of Derry Dawlish and all the film crowd to least me several lifetimes. And acksherly, last time I talked to D.D. he told me I was a selfish little toad and I told him he was a silly great fathead.” At which David had collapsed in a wheezing fit, barely able to gasp: “Did you acksherly, darling Dot?” and to tickle her unmercifully on the strength of it.

    Possibly Kate McHale would have liked to attend but as even May and Jerry Marshall hadn’t been favoured with extra tickets for the bloody thing she wasn’t able to. This, as her friends and relatives silently acknowledged, was probably just as well, because poor old Jim most certainly didn’t want to go. The Marshalls had received tickets but May hadn’t been terribly keen—though of course she wanted to see Rosie’s film! But not very keen on having to sit anywhere near Derry Dawlish: she didn’t think, really, he was a very nice man. So in the end they had decided to give it away. And had in fact given their tickets to Kenny and Miff. As far as was known Miff was thrilled to be attending a premiere and had immediately co-opted May for a shopping trip for the frock, and Kenny didn’t mind one way or the other and was looking forward to the free booze at the party afterwards. It didn’t seem to have occurred to either of them that there could be a certain embarrassment in attending a premiere of Miff’s ex-lover’s film in a blaze of world-wide publicity—though it had certainly occurred to Bernie Anderson and David Walsingham, and, as enquiry would reveal, also to Ann Kitchener, Dot Mallory, Sally and Andy Mallory, and even to Deanna Mallory Springer. In fact she had a shuddering thought at the mere idea of it. Bob Springer hadn't thought about it at all, but this surprised none of his acquaintance.

    “There’s Amaryllis!” cried Dot, beaming, as there was a brief glimpse of Amaryllis looking fairy-like in lemon and silver gauze, matched the lemon and silver head—right. Bernie’s and David’s eyes met but neither of them spoke.

    “There’s Rupy!” shouted Deanna as he was briefly glimpsed smiling at—No, it had flashed by, and the camera was now focused on—

    “What?” gasped Kate. “You said Rosie wasn’t coming out for it!”

    “No,” said Dot faintly.

    Derry Dawlish, beaming and nodding, and crying something that went unheard in the hubbub, was seen to escort Lily Rose, smiling graciously in a skin-tight strapless white thing, with diamonds flashing here and here, up the red—

    Then they were back at the studio and the two announcers agreed happily that that had been Lily Rose, reminded the audience happily that there would be a full coverage of the premiere after the Late News, and went happily on to cover the latest news about Israel building a bloody wall to keep the Palestinians out…

    And there was stunned silence in the Springers’ shabby sitting-room.

    Stunned except for two of those present, it gradually began to dawn on David and Bernie, looking at Dot’s and Ann’s very flushed cheeks. Neither of them needed to utter, because Kate McHale pounced.

    “Dot! You know something, don’t you? Don’t tell me Rosie went behind John’s back—”

    “No,” muttered Dot, squirming. “’Course not.”

    “I really don’t think,” said Bernie, looking weakly at Ann’s red cheeks and agonised expression, “that she would. She does adore him, you know. Come on, Ann, spill the beans.”

    Before his beloved could speak, Kate took a very deep breath and said grimly: “I don’t think you need to, Ann. If it wasn’t Rosie and Dot’s right here with us, then that leaves one contender, doesn't it? And I’d be the last to claim that Buff deserves very much from any of those children, but I must say it’s completely beyond the pale of Molly to lend herself to that sort of deception! Do you realise that was a CNN reporter?”

    If they hadn’t before, they did now. There was a very awkward silence and then Jim McHale said uneasily: “Leave it out, Kate. All grown women now, aren’t they?”

    Quickly Bernie said: “I’m afraid I agree with Kate, Jim, that is, if Buff is Molly’s mother? But you know, I really don’t think it was her. Didn’t you notice how symmetrical that girl’s face was? Quite extraordinarily so.”

    “Um, yeah,” muttered Ann, swallowing hard. “It wasn’t Molly, Kate.”

    “Ann, my dear, you don’t need to spare my feelings.”

    “Nuh—Yuh—” Ann looked wildly at Dot.

    “There is one other contender, Kate,” said David very quickly, finding that his strong desire to laugh had quite evaporated. Poor darling Dot! The poor little soul was looking all pink and distressed, and God knew she had enough common sense for three, why should she be criticised on account of her potty relatives? “I don’t think you’ve seen her since her teens, have you? Georgia, Molly’s younger sister. She’d be about Deanna’s age, I think.”

    “But—” Kate broke off, staring at him,.

    “Mm. They tell me the girl’s lost about three stone. I agree, Bernie: she does have a quite extraordinarily symmetrical face. Until she smiles, it’s a much colder sort of beauty than Rosie’s, though they are very alike.”

    “Little Georgia?” croaked Kate.

    “She would be Deanna’s age, yeah,” put in Jim. “’Member them both getting round in their panties that time we went up to Queensland and couldn’t find the Big Pineapple?” She looked at him numbly. “The bloke at the caravan park had the sprinklers on—you remember, love!”

    “N—Yes! And we did find it!” she snapped. There was a short silence during which everyone avoided everyone else’s eyes and David Walsingham, for one, found himself again possessed by an awful desire to laugh. “Little Georgia? I thought she was in Melbourne!”

    Dot swallowed loudly. “She came up quite recently, Aunty Kate. She’s been staying with Molly. She does look awfully like Rosie, these days. But we dunno how Derry Dawlish found out about her. She, um, she thought it was a great joke.”

    “We did try to make her understand that if the media get hold of it she could be in real hot water,” said Ann quickly.

    “Yuh— But Ann, aren’t you in the media?” she croaked.

   “Eh? Aw—that. Well more or less. Well, I haven’t given in my notice yet. No well, maybe it could of been a scoop for the paper, but heck, it’d of been a nine days’ wonder, and the only result would’ve been to get silly young Georgia in the shit.” Too late, Ann realised that the ultra-nice Mrs McHale probably wouldn’t appreciate this last word. She looked feebly at Bernie.

    “Added to which, I don’t think either of them really believed the silly little thing’d go through with it,” he murmured.

    “No,” said Ann limply, no longer sure whether she had or she hadn't.

    “Good Heavens,” muttered Kate dazedly.

    Bob got up quickly. “Drinks all round, I think. Come on, Kate, give us your glass. If it’s only us that knows, it doesn’t matter, does it? And like Ann says, it’d only be a nine days’ wonder anyway.”

    Numbly she let him give her a triple Johnnie with the ginger ale merely waved at it.

    “It’ll be all the same in a hundred years, Kate,” concluded Jim hopefully, letting Bob give him another.

    “Well, yes, if Georgia doesn’t end in gaol!” she said sharply.

    Comfortably Jim returned to this: “No, well, got no sense, but that’s hardly surprising, after the way ruddy Buff neglected the kid. Granted she was an accident, but ya kids are ya responsibility whether or not ya planned to have ’em, eh?”

   “Jim, really,” she said weakly: “washing the family’s dirty linen in public—!”

    Jim winked at David. “Boy, that isn’t dirty linen, Kate! Remind me to tell you about Buff and George’s Frankie some time, David! No, well, ’tisn’t public, is it? All in the family!”

   “Yes,” agreed David quickly. “And Bernie and Ann are Deanna’s and Bob’s partners—as good as family! And when you look at it objectively, Kate”—he was aware that Dot was now looking at him in frozen horror—“what other treats has a little girl like that had in her life, to compare with being Lily Rose Rayne for an evening, in a model frock with real diamonds at her neck?”

    “You’re right, of course, David, dear,” she approved, smiling. “Oh, dear! I can just see our Megan doing something that silly at that age!” –Jim here opened his mouth but thought better of it.

    “Yes,” said Dot shakily. “Oh, dear.”

    “Dot, dear, what is it?” cried her Aunty Kate, bounding up as the fat tears rolled slowly down Dot’s cheeks.

    “I—don’t—know!” she sobbed.

    A gleam lit up in Kate’s eye, though she didn’t neglect to bend over her niece, patting her shoulder and awarding her her own pristine handkerchief. “David, is she?”

    David had got up uncertainly. “Not to my knowledge, Kate,” he said feebly. “We thought we’d wait until the band of gold was on her finger,”

    “No, I’m just—happy!” sobbed Dot.

    “Well, shit, that’s nothing to bawl about, Little Dot!” cried her Uncle Jim cheerfully. “Oy, Bob, turn that crap off, couldja?”—Weakly Bob turned the sacred footy report off.—“That’s better. Who gives a toss about mad film stars anyway?” he said breezily. “Isn’t it about time we had a toast to these young couples? Come on, Bob, trot it out!”

    “But didn’t you say we better drink it— Okay.” Bob shot out to the kitchen, to return in very short order with a bottle of sparkling something. It had a gold top to it, anyway. David eyed with foreboding and then found that Bernie was also eyeing it with foreboding. Their eyes met and they grinned sheepishly.

    Deanna had bounded up in search of glasses and Ann had thankfully joined her. So very soon Jim was enabled to give the toast. “To the young couples! God bless ’em, and may all their troubles be little ones!”

    Heroically his wife remained silent, and they all drank.

    … The salmon had almost disappeared, even Bob admitting he’d better not have a fourth helping or he’d have no room for pud, and the pudding bowl was completely scraped clean, Deanna explaining, some would have said redundantly, that it looked really easy when David made it but she was sure there was a secret to it, and David had made coffee in spite of Dot’s faint protest that some people might find it too strong. And they were all back in the sitting-room trying to pretend it wasn't too strong and counteracting it with something very strange that Bob had found at Liquorland in the corner with the funny liqueurs and had meant to serve at their engagement party but had forgotten about.

    And there it was: the full bit in glorious, smudged, as received halfway to Outer Woop-Woop coloured pixels.

    “Couldn’t of been Molly, ’cos that’s definitely her,” noted Jim. “Wouldja call that dress fawn? Pretty, though.”

    “Who’s that man she’s with?” gasped Deanna as Molly in form-fitting embroidered fawn satin, trendily dipping up to the knee at one side and down to the ankle at the other, was escorted up the red carpet by a smiling, elegant man in a plain dinner jacket. Well, anything would have looked plain after Rupy’s attire, true.

    Dot had dropped her liqueur glass—fortunately empty. “It can’t be! Is he even out here?”

    David cleared his throat.

    “Did you know? You knew!” she cried.

    “No, darling, I only had an inkling. Oh: sorry, everybody: that was Lucas Roberts from Double Dee Productions, the Executive Director of the company.”

    “But I thought—” Kate broke off quickly.

    “Yes,” agreed David smoothly. “No, well,” he said, ignoring Bob’s choking fit as best he might, “I did know that they’ve been corresponding by email for a while. There was some problem with the accounts that none of your IT offsiders could solve, Dot, darling, and so she had an inspiration and contacted him. Well, she knew him from Queensland, of course; and apparently, alone of the entire cast, crew and complement of hangers-on, wasn’t shit-scared of him.”

    “No, um, Molly isn’t scared of anybody, much, she’s been through too much… You know, I think they might be just right for each other,” said Dot slowly, beginning to smile.

    David didn’t care, frankly, but he was very glad to see the smile. “Yes, I think so. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to get your hopes up: the rumour machine at Double Dee wasn’t sure whether he’d be coming out here or not.”

    “But he did! He wanted to see her again!” cried Deanna ecstatically. “Isn’t it romantic?”

    “Yeah. Look, here’s Euan,” said Bob quickly. “Looks smart, dun’ ’e?”

    “Y—What’s he done to his hair?” she cried.

    Phew! David sat back limply in his chair. He hadn't really been at all sure how Dot would react to Lucas’s defection—which was why he hadn’t worked up the guts to mention the rumours earlier. He was pretty sure, now, of her affection for him—but that wasn’t quite the same thing as liking it when a very recent boyfriend waltzed off to pastures new. And whether the resemblance between her and Molly would have made it better or not he was buggered if he knew. He let the renewed pantomime of Georgia as Lily Rose on Derry’s fat arm float by him…

    Jim came quietly into the kitchen as he was rinsing plates. “Bloody good meal; thanks, David.”

    “Any time, Jim!” he said with a smile.

    “Yeah…” He fidgeted around rearranging dirty dishes. “Nefertite know about this B&B stuff, yet?”

    “Yes, we phoned her the other night and she’s given her loud approval, Jim!” he said with a laugh.

    “That’s good. What about the concert tour crap?” he asked cautiously.

    “Definitively given it away, Jim. She wants to teach. Had an invitation from the conservatorium here, as a matter of fact.”

    “In Sydney?” he said limply.

    “Yes. It wouldn't be full-time or anything like it; she doesn’t want that. Dot’s very keen for her to come and share the house with us.”

    “Two women in the same house? No, scrub that!” he said with a laugh. “They get on real well, don’t they? I can’t see Nefertite ever wanting to take over from anybody!”

    “No. And as neither of them can cook, they won’t be fighting over the kitchen.”

    Jim went into a painful spluttering fit, emerging from it to gasp: “Ya right, there!”

    “Mm. –We might as well do these dishes, don't you think?”

    “Righto. You wanna wash?” Amiably he picked up a tea-towel, and they got on with it.

    … “Hey, David?”

    Carefully David placed the sixth of Bob’s and Deanna’s cut-crystal, excruciating-to-drink-from, wedding-present champagne flutes upside down on the bench. “Mm-mm?”

    Jim dried it briskly. “What is this fucking film about, anyway?”

    David has to swallow. “The Captain’s Daughter? Uh—the Fifties, Jim?” he ventured.

    “I won’t bother, then.”

    “You’ll be lucky! No, well, Dawlish would claim it was about more than the Fifties.”

    “That’d be more than enough for me, mate!” Jim assured him, shuddering.

    “Well, yes! But… I suppose in the end,” he said with a little smile, “it’s about romance.”

    “Yeah,” he said glumly.

    “No, Jim,” said David, his eyes twinkling. “It is a love story, of course, but I didn’t mean that. Derry doesn’t make films that are meant to be taken at face-value. When I say it’s about romance, I mean just that: about the nature of romance: what is romantic love?”

    Jim McHale held a cut-crystal whisky tumbler up very high and rubbed industriously at an invisible spot on it. Then he sniffed faintly. David, frankly, quailed.

    “Right,” he said. “About the nature of romance. I tell ya what, mate, if ’e’s solved that one ’e’s solved one of the greatest mysteries of the fucking universe!”

    David didn’t think for a moment Derry had solved it, or that such had been his intention. Merely, he had posed the question. And suggested one or two possible answers which need not be taken at face-value. He was about to say so. Then he met Jim’s very knowing little eye.

    “Exactly,” he said drily.

    Jim grinned. “Fancy a quick belt while they’re not looking?”

    Nobody was driving tonight, but their life-partners would definitely not approve. Well, Kate McHale bloody well wouldn’t, and David Walsingham had a very strong feeling that his darling Dot wouldn’t, either. Nor would she approve of the stereotyped fashion in which her uncle-by-marriage had put his suggestion. “Why not?” he agreed calmly.

    Jim gave the toast. “Fucking film stars and all their works. Perdition to ’em!”

    David grinned. “Yep: here’s to real life!”