Technical Considerations

21

Technical Considerations

    Rosie’s got the day off, too, so she rings up mid-afternoon and asks me if I’m doing anything. Just as well I decided to leave Lucas to Daniel’s tender mercies in Uncle Jerry’s office and take this call in our office, eh? “I’m at work, so no, I’m sitting here twiddling me thumbs!”

    Right, Uncle Jerry told them about the crash—fancy that. She’s just been sitting there watching Yvonne and John pack for Queensland, she reports dully. Ouch. “Um, yeah, I’m sorry, Rosie, I keep forgetting you can’t do much. Um, well, I suppose dinner at a nice restaurant’s out?”

    It’d have to be D.D.-approved and she can’t face the fuss and palaver, not to say the ruddy getting dressed up, after the endless dressing-up on set.

    “Yeah. Pity the weather’s so foul, or we could have a barbie. –Oh, listen: I rung Molly last night and she’s thrilled.”

    Yeah, she rung Rosie and told her—good. Gonna sell her heap and fly up—well, good, didn’t fancy the idea of her and Micky driving on that road. Couldn’t I get away early?

    “Rosie, if it was you in your office at the uni and me suggesting you could slope off early— Right. Anyway, I couldn’t, even if I wanted to, see, cos we’ve got Lucas Roberts here.”

    Stunned silence.

    Clear throat. “Did you hear what I—”

    “Yes,” she croaks. “Derry’s Lucas Roberts? The Robson Green clone? That Lucas Roberts?”

    “I wouldn’t call him a clone of anyone and I dunno who this Green character is—” She’s telling me. Right, very popular English actor, been in several series, thrillers and romantic things, the modern-man type, specialises in what accent? “Lucas Roberts hasn’t got a regional accent!”

    “Not now,” she says drily.

    “What’s that supposed to mean?”

    “Dot, don’t tell me you haven’t spotted him!”

    “So I go: “Spotted what?” Sounding more pissed off with her than what I meant to, but about as pissed off as what I am.

    So she launches into the saga. Self-made, come up through the ranks, well, through the Double Dee accounts office, put himself through blah, blah, blah—

    “If he went to LSE he can’t be a total thicko!” I say angrily.

    “He’s very much not a thicko, Dot, that wasn’t what I was implying at all. But almost everything you see is deliberately learned or acquired. God only knows what the real man is, under it all. Not even bloody Dawlish himself has ever claimed convincingly to know that.”

    Gulp.

    “Um, I know he doesn’t look much, at first glance,” she goes uneasily, “only it’s the same sort of, um, subtle charm, I suppose, as Robson Green. Understated? –Yeah. Once you’ve noticed it, you’re pretty much caught.”

    “What’s that supposed to mean?” I snarl.

    “Only that then you can’t help noticing, Dot. Spotted the mouth, yet?”

    “Mm.” Deep breath. “Okay, he’s an understated Pommy dish, can we take it as read? The point is, he isn’t here to show off his charms, he’s here to look at the way we’ve configured our system, so I’d better get back to him before Daniel earbashes him to death.”

    “Yeah, um, Dot,” she warns, “anything you see or—or think you know about him won’t be the real man.”

    “Thanks, you’ve made that clear, Rosie. Why don’t you just go and get back to telling John and Yvonne that you won’t need suitcases full of woollen jumpers for Big Rock Bay?”

    “I have. They wouldn’t listen,” she says wanly.

    “Well, just make sure ya pack some sun-screen,” I say with a sigh. “Not that Isabelle won’t of got in plenty for the Pommy morons that—” Gasp!

    “What?” she’s saying in my ear. “Dot? Is anything wrong? Dot?”

    “Yuh—uh, hang on a mo’, Rosie. Sorry, Lucas, it’s just Rosie, she’s at a loose end, I’ll be with you in a minute.” (And why the fuck have you brought him in here, Daniel?)

    “No—please, carry on,” he says with that cool smile. “Daniel just wants me to see a different view of the system.”

    He could of shown you that by shutting down Uncle Jerry’s workstation and signing on again as someone else, in fact by signing on as himself, little pointy-headed—

   “Yeah, sorry, Rosie. I gotta go. I was just saying, Isabelle’ll have plenty of sunscreen in the motel shop but she’ll charge like a wounded bull for it, so pack your own. And while I think of it, don’t let Yvonne put Baby Bunting in any of those daft Po—um, English romper-suits she was showing me the other day without making real sure she’s slathered him in sunscreen, I mean, real thick, and well before ya let him go out in the sun. Even if it doesn’t look sunny.” She reckons she hasn’t forgotten what the Aussie sun’s like and thanks me with a smile in her voice and says she’ll think about dinner tonight—if Lucas is here maybe we better do something after all—and hangs up.

    Daniel’s showing him something, dunno what, so I get up and look over their shoulders. Right, input screens with the girls’ password on. “See, they think it’s the password, Lucas.”

    He’s got that, those really well-balanced shoulders shake slightly. “Of course, Dot!”

    “It’s a useful facility, though,” says Daniel seriously.

    He agrees it is and ask what happens if you lose the master password. I did ask the suppliers that and they wriggled like anything but eventually admitted that because everything’s encrypted you’d have to send your database files to the manufacturers in the U.S. and get them to extract your data at the cost of only megabucks. Megabucks and a half, I think was the implication, actually.

    “Like, Dot’s got this folder in her lockable drawer with a red tag on it,” Daniel admits.

    “It might not be the most secure system in the world, but it’s sensible. They’re in Uncle Jerry’s diary, too, that never leaves his person,” I explain.

    “Mm. Not stored in the computer, other than within the database software?”

    “Hell, no, Lucas!”

    He sighs. “One of our IT gurus had a special folder with all his passwords in it. Hackable-into only by all the other IT gurus in the world.”

    “Par for the course,” I go, not looking at Daniel at all.

    So now Lucas wants to see all the views we got, so we let him in as everybody from Betty up, and explain the set-up that Peta and her lot use, since he’s interested. It doesn’t take him more than two secs to realise that the reason we don't let those perfectly reliable people work directly with the accounts database is that the other moos’d be sending out invoices to all the incoming accounts that haven’t yet been checked off against the bank statements as paid.

    It’s pretty much afternoon tea-time—though no way am I gonna let any of them offer him cake, and actually, I think the shouting from Uncle Jerry’s office the other day sunk in, because no-one’s even suggested cake—but before we have it the boys from the security service arrive to collect the on-course cash. It’s already been checked, of course. No-one offers them cake, either, though believe you me, it has been known to happen. Dunno what their firm’s regs are about being distracted from their security duties by cake, but anyway, the way they work it, Pete stands guard, well, stands, the gun remains in its holster, while Barry eats, then they swap. Or Gianni and Fred, if it’s their day.

    “Those are the takings that have been checked,” I explain. “This arvo’s lot go into the safe. The combination for that’s not in my red-tagged folder, in case you were wondering.”

    “We have got security doors,” Daniel explains helpfully.

    Yes, that Deirdre or Betty will open without a second thought to admit smart-looking gents in London suits. Just as well the local yobs haven’t got the nous to have a decent shave and put one on, eh? “Yeah. Well, we don’t keep that much cash on the premises and on the weekends the boys count it and bank it straight away in the night-safe. Their records are usually pretty accurate and let’s face it, unless there’s a really huge discrepancy it’d be hard to prove the bank was wrong. Added to which, Uncle Jerry’d switch banks without a second thought.”

    “Like, he doesn’t need them any more,” Daniel explains helpfully. “The Japanese consortium— Um, never mind,” he mutters, going red.

    Very smoothly Lucas Roberts says he’d be really interested to see some of our online operations. He has had a brief look at the website, he adds.

    I just bet he has. Sussed us out good an’ proper. Never mind, Daniel’s thrilled to show him. Can he put in a bet? Sure, if he wants to give Uncle Jerry his moolah. Like, there are the Japanese races, goes Daniel helpfully, but of course you won’t— Oh, yes, he will! He recognises several of the horses, that’s an English horse, Daniel. (It sure is, it won the St Leger last year.) So Daniel shows him how to do it, like, explaining every step approx. two minutes after he’s grasped it for himself. The race’ll be on in five mins so we go back into Uncle Jerry’s office and put the big TV on and gee, somehow the office miraculously fills with—Pete and Barry too? Oh, really! Daniel explains the dishes are on the roof, dunno if that choice piece of the Aussie vernacular is generally recognised by the British side, but Lucas doesn’t look blank. Anyway, here they are— And they’re OFF!

    Gee, his horse wins. Did anybody think it wouldn’t? Right, his card will be credited with that amount, see? He sees. And how is it done?

    Does he need to know this? The spider gathers the data from the databases mounted on the website and our employees get regular downloads of the files, that they load to one of our databases for verification that the bet was credited to our account. (One of the many: no way is Uncle Jerry putting all his eggs in one Internet-accessible basket.) Then, if that’s okay they verify the winner and authorise the payment and the payment file is uploaded to the bank. The credit will be in your account tomorrow, Lucas. But the website will already have posted a message telling you how much you’ve won (or lost) and on what. No, ya can’t see the verification process for your race, Lucas, that was a Japanese race and the Japanese office does them. We only verify the Australian, New Zealand, Hong Kong, European and American races here. Not on this floor, no, as he looks dazedly at the assorted faces beaming at him; upstairs, wanna see that office?

    So we go upstairs and he looks at the rows of desks and the busy bodies bent over them and says weakly: “No wonder you’ve computerised your personnel files, Dot.”

    “Sure. –Fran’s in charge of this office, she’ll tell you anything you wanna to know.” So I introduce them and she’s real pleased to have a visitor.

    “I can see why you can really do with a cafeteria,” he says thoughtfully as we take the lift down again.

    What? Oh, really, Daniel!

    “He was interested in how Jerry manages them,” he says, reddening.

    “Yes; unfortunately we already have a cafeteria at Double Dee!” says Lucas with a laugh.

    So I go limply: “Yeah.” Dunno when I’ve felt this limp, really. ’Member back in the old servo days them real limp rags Darien never wrung out before he went splat! on some unfortunate’s windscreen? Right. That limp.

    Daniel thinks maybe we oughta take him out for afternoon tea. (He’s pushed off to the bog and I gave the pointy-headed nerd a real hard look, so he didn’t go off with him in a male peer group.) I’m not opposed to this in principle but ye Gods, where, in our neck of the woods? I mean, The Old Lion is the only place within coo-ee that’s even halfway decent and we already took him there. He assured us he thoroughly enjoyed the salmon steak with almonds—all the trendified pubs do that sort of nosh these days, it’s why Daniel chose it instead of such handy watering-holes as Micky O’Flynn’s (Guinness, so-called Irish stew or Aussie meat pies, and Sky Channel blasting out over the bar—well, helpful if you wanna follow the races, we do sometimes go there for lunch if we know Uncle Jerry’s laying off heavily on something), or The Queen’s Head (Aussie meat pies with gravy, chicken and chips with gravy, and pokies. The chicken and chips are good, mind you).

    “Um, the rat-hole?” he suggests gloomily.

    This is just our name for it. It’s a corner milk-bar, well, started off that way. Most of its trade is cigarettes, these days, far’s I can see. “In that suit?”

    “No,” he concedes gloomily. “Um, well, Mrs Lyon’s?”

    Don’t ask me why it’s called that, the owner’s a Mrs Ng. Supposedly a coffee bar. Sells the driest cakes this side of the Great Sandy Desert. “Right, you’re volunteering to offer that suit a Great Sandy lamington, are ya?”

    “There isn’t anywhere else,” he notes gloomily. “Um, there might not be any lamingtons left.”

    “One can but hope. All right, I’ll offer him the choice.”

    Poor Daniel’s gone very red. “Ya can’t do that!”

    “Watch me.” Dunno why I feel so pissed off, but I do. Think it dates approx. from that phone-call of bloody Rosie’s, actually. Must be that, cos unlike poor little Shona I haven’t got my period, thanks all the same.

    So when he comes back I say: “We were thinking of taking you out for afternoon tea, Lucas, but Daniel chose much the nicest place for lunch, there’s not much round here. So it’s a choice, really, between really bad coffee and slimy vanilla slices amongst the smokers at the corner milk-bar, I better warn you me and Daniel call it the rat-hole, though we haven’t actually seen a rat there, and really bad coffee and dried-up lamingtons straight from the Great Sandy Desert at Mrs Ng’s coffee bar.”

    “Sorry!” gasps Daniel, turning puce, gee, surely he didn’t think I wasn’t gonna say it?

    “Where would you go, if it was just you?” asks Lucas with his nice smile.

    Cof. Daniel’s not gonna admit it, is he? So I go: “Um, none of the above. Not this arvo.”

    “No, um, see, we know Jerry’s laying off heavily—” He explains at great length exactly which horse and which race at which course it is. This isn’t hugely enlightening, though Lucas does recognise that Flemington is the course where we run our Melbourne Cup.

    “Yeah, um, we could always watch it in Uncle Jerry’s office, only given that we’ve had a basinful of that lot this week and given that he doesn’t encourage the staff to turn the TV on when he’s out, we’d probably nip out to Micky O’Flynn’s. I mean, it is a pub, but you can have a soft drink or a coffee, or acksherly, if she knows you Mrs Amato’ll do you a cup of tea. Um, she’s the publican’s wife, Lucas.”

    “She’s usually in the bar in the afternoons, they’re not usually very busy then,” explains Daniel helpfully. “And they have great Italian biscuits, eh, Dot?”

    “Yeah.”

    So Lucas tilts his head just very slightly to one side. Now, folks, the great sociologist—did I mention Rosie did a huge amount of psychology in her degree? Well, one of her degrees, might of been the one she signed on for as Joslynne—anyway, she’s wised me up that this is a submission-cum-propitiation gesture in your average European human. So this gesture from Lucas Roberts in real interesting, folks, real interesting. And he goes: “I see! It’s a genuine Irish pub, then, is it?”

    “Hah, hah. Ya wanna try it?”

    He’d love to. So we go.

    Dunno what sort of pic the idea of a publican’s wife at a big shabby old Irish pub in a fairly grubby part of Sydney surrounded by medium-height office blocks and small industry conjures up in your mind, but in case you were envisaging the blowsily welcoming type, forget it. Mrs Amato’d be fortyish, lovely slim figure, only the nose and the very black hair indicating she really is an Italian matron. Always very smart, today she’s in a peach twinset straight out of Friends and this neato silver pendant, like, one thinnish strip of metal hanging from a contoured silver wire? Yeah. Real Today. She gapes at Lucas but make a quick recover. Of course we can have a cup of tea! Biscuits? Of course, Daniel—not those packets on the counter, she’ll get us a fresh packet from out the back. Gee, that must be on Lucas’s account, for sure, but thanks anyway, Louise.

    So we sit down at our usual table, well placed to see the TV, and Lucas sighs deeply. And Daniel, the nit, not realising it isn’t that sort of sigh at all, goes: “Have ya got jet-lag? My Aunty Corinne, well, she had that when she went on her overseas trip, she reckons the only thing to do is to ignore it and get into the local routine as fast as possible.”

    “Aunty Kate reckons the opposite, but,” I note.

    “Not, it’s not jet-lag: I went straight to bed when I got to the hotel,” he says with a smile. “It’s pure pleasure, Daniel: I’ve come halfway across the world to an Irish pub, filled with Guinness ads and green shamrocks of every description”—yep, they got green shamrock placemats as well as the Guinness coasters, and green shamrock decorations on the walls, and green neon shamrocks above the bar, and green mosaic shamrocks in the lino—“with an Italian landlady named Louise!”

    Daniel’s just smiling uncertainly, so I go: “Yeah. The tea’s good, too. Genuine Lipton with its tags on.” And Lucas Roberts breaks down in the most awful spluttering fit. So I give in and collapse in giggles, too.

    Poor Daniel’s very flushed but trying to smile. So eventually I mop my eyes and say: “It doesn’t mean I don’t like Louise, or her tea, or appreciate it, Daniel.”

    “No. At the same time, she appreciates the phenomenon,” explains Lucas, all twinkles. Gee, that mouth really is something when he smiles.

    “Um, yeah. Um, there’s lots of Irish pubs in Sydney,” he offers uncertainly.

    And Lucas agrees nicely: “Of course, and statistically speaking one wouldn’t expect them all to be run by Irish publicans. –Is this our race?”

    So Daniel is immediately distracted and explains that ours is the next race, only this one that they’re gonna be calling now— Yeah. Right. Oozing tact from every pore, he oiled his way around the floor, isn’t that how the song goes? Only in Lucas’s case, he isn’t oily at all. Smooth, you betcha. Oily? No way.

    The nag Uncle Jerry was laying off on wins, too right. So Louise comes over and admits: “Tony had a fiver on that horse, now he’s gonna think he’s God’s gift to the tipster world.”

    “Right, we’ll expect a lynch mob by next Saturday arvo, then, Louise.”

    “Yes!” she agrees with a laugh and a sigh. “I dunno why they all think he has to know about horses, just because he runs a pub. –There’s plenty of those biscuits, Daniel, if you want a packet for your mum?”

    She means buy a packet, of course, so he does, and Lucas very nicely buys a packet in case he gets peckish in the night. With that figure? Come off it! And he didn’t even have sugar in his tea! And we head back to the— Shit! Coming down in torrents!

    “Shall we make a dash for it?” says Lucas, turning up his collar.

    God, in that light grey suit? It’s not pale grey, that’d be tending towards oily, it’s light grey, geddit? Too bad if ya don’t. “No, stay there, I’ll nip back and get the car.”

    “You haven’t got your umbrella,” notes Daniel, officious little pointy-headed—

    “No, but a drop of rain isn’t gonna—”

    “I’ll do it. Gimme ya keys.”

    “Have you got your umbrella?” I snarl.

    “No, but—”

    “Then I’ll—”

    Suddenly this horrible Pommy drawl goes: “Why not let him assume his male rôle? Or is it an Australian custom to cut the balls off?” By God, I coulda sworn that was David Fucking Up-Himself Walsingham himself, there!

    Poor Daniel’s gone bright red. Probably as red as me, in fact.

    “Yeah, as a matter of fact it is, and I’m bloody sorry, Daniel. I don’t acksherly want to ruin my good coat in this lot, and since you’ve got your raincoat—Thanks,” I growl, handing him the keys. He grabs them and shoots off without a word.

    Silence. The Sydney rain pelts down.

    “I do hope you’re not waiting for me to apologise,” he says coolly.

    Deep breath. “No, I’m trying to cool down enough to apologise meself.”

    “That’s all right!”

    Jesus, is the wanker laughing? Amazed glare.

    “Derry warned me—though I’ll refrain from repeating his exact phrase—that you were as hard a case as Rosie, and to take no prisoners,” he explains, not bothering to put on the charm at all.

    Gulp.

    “Dealing with the opposite sex of course isn’t easy, whether or not it’s in a work situation,” he says, staring thoughtfully at the rain. “But given that the poor little fellow was totally lost when we laughed at your lovely Irish-Italian pub, I felt that refusing to let him fetch the car was going too far.”

    I’m about to lose it again. “Didja, just?”

    “Mm,” he murmurs, suddenly smiling at me. “How the Hell old is he, Dot? Seventeen?”

    Gulp. “No, um, he’s nineteen going on twenty, he done a computer college course after he finished school.”

    “Yes,” he says, wincing horribly.

    “Boy, ya think your IT job applications were hopeless, you oughta seen the ones we got! Every single one we interviewed except him told us we oughta be using bloody Access, except one cretin that had worked with MYOB—dunno if you got that in England, but it won’t do a tenth of what we need.”

    “Mm. And Daniel didn’t tell you you ought to be using Access?”

    “No, he was too cowed to,” I admit with sigh. “He wasn’t our first choice, between you and me and that lamppost over there that delivery van’s backing into,”—he jumps, didn’t realise I’d realised he was watching it—“but when the first choice pulled out Uncle Jerry and me talked it over and decided he might be young and malleable enough to learn. And if he wasn’t we’d get rid of him.”

    Suddenly he gives me a real, genuine, smile. “I gather he’s come a long way, baby?”

    So I grin—yeah, all right, he’s charmed me. “You said it. He’s even daring to make jokes off his own bat, now.”

    He raises his eyebrows at me. “And understands yours almost half the time?”

    “Be fair. At least half.”

    So he collapses in helpless sniggers, even has to out with this sparkling white hanky and mop his— Shit, are my eyes deceiving me, or has it got his initials on it, not in chaste navy like John’s but in white on white?

    “Oh, God! I was once one of them myself, Dot,” he admits, blowing the nose.

    “Um, yeah, I suppose we all been through it. I guess you got boys of your own about that age, now?”

    “Uh—no,” he says, blinking at me. “How old do you think I am, for God’s sake?”

    Blast! I’ve gone red as fire! “Dunno,” I growl. Well, given that ya just did a Walsingham on me, fifty-odd? “Um, I’m hopeless at ages.”

    “Thirty-eight,” he goes, frowning. “I have been with Derry forever, that’s true: perhaps Rosie might have given you the wrong impression?”

    No, mate, she gimme the right impression. “Um, sorry. Um, no, see whatcha mean: for Daniel to be your son you’d of had to have him when you were about eighteen— Um, yeah. Sorry.”

    He stares at the rain, shit, is he mad with me? Then that Adam’s apple moves as he swallows, don’t do that, Lucas, cos it makes me tummy go all swoopy and I can’t handle it on top of everything.

    “I did marry at eighteen,” he says with a sigh. “Looking back, I think she imagined that marrying someone who worked for Double Dee was going to turn her into a film star. She was about my age—we were in the same class at school. What we call a comprehensive school, but I don’t think you have the same system here—”

    “No, but I know what you mean.”

    “Yes,” he says with a little smile. “The English papers, mm?”

     Right, ya didn’t miss that one. “Mm.”

    “Anyway, she suckered me into believing she was pregnant, so we got married. Don’t say how could I possibly have believed her: I was a young idiot. She had me believing that she’d miscarried a month after the wedding, but her sister revealed the truth after they’d had a row. So I walked out on her. I’ve always been a take-no-prisoners type, Dot,” he adds with a grimace: “didn’t need that hint from Derry.”

    “Eh? Oh!” Blush, blush. “No. Goddit.”

    “And in those days,” he says with a sigh, “I’d never learned compassion, or realised that most people need to be—well, given, a certain amount of leeway. Cut some slack? Mm.” He stares at the rain, with a wry twist to his mouth.

    Right. Goddit. Reading between the lines, you said some pretty cutting things to her before you walked out, and however much she might have wanted to try again, you wouldn’t have a bar of it.

    “After that I was very leery of involvements and threw myself into work and study. Double Dee were very good to me: gave me time off to finish my degree. So ten years back, when I’d started to establish myself in the company, I got married again.”

    Don’t think I want to know this, thanks.

    “This was very different: I’d gone up in the world,” says Lucas Roberts in a very odd tone. So I look up at him doubtfully. Is he gonna tell me his marriage isn’t working or something? Cos I don’t think I wanna know that, either. “Her father was a stockbroker. Well—suffice it to say it didn’t work out. I neglected her, and she duly cheated on me. It lasted for five years of rows followed by indifference. No kids.” He grimaces.

    “I—I’m awfully sorry, Lucas,” I croak.

    “Thanks. Most of my colleagues privately consider it served me right,” he says drily.

    Gulp. Yeah, I can see that, actually.

    After a bit I say cautiously: “I think I see. Now ya try harder to cut people some slack—that it?”

    He looks round at me and smiles a bit. “Yes. Try to run a human office—all that sort of thing. We are quite a happy ship at Double Dee, and our permanent staff have never realised, thank God, how very precarious the film business is.”

    Swallow. Er—yeah. Never thought about it. Yeah, suppose it is, though judging by that suit, the company’s not having any problems. “Yeah—um, sorry, Lucas, if I’d known you were coming I’d’ve looked up your website.”

    Suddenly he grins. “Our website’s full of flimflam, Dot! That's what the film production business is, very largely! No, well, we’re solid enough but it's been an uphill battle. If Derry has a film that does well commercially his one idea is to plough all the profits into the next. That damned so-called Russian thing that he filmed in and around Prague cost us a fortune, though it was well received at Cannes. But to name only one, he put an immense amounts into researching authentic peasant costumes, of which he then showed very little. Well—one piece of peasant embroidery’s much like another, isn’t?” He shrugs.

    “Yeah. The company wouldn't produce them on its own, though, would it? I mean, ya got, like, backers?” Backers that are always threatening to pull out, if Rosie’s got it halfway right.

    “Of course, yes. The motivations of backers are many and mysterious, but in essence they can be boiled down to three. One, they want to make money; two, they want a tax loss; three, their wives insisted.”

    “Got it! Um, I think someone mentioned that you got a backer in New Zealand, is that right?”

    “Yes. A very nice chap. He backed that Midsummer Night’s Dream we did a few years back, with Adam McIntyre and Georgy Harris. No, well, partly because his wife insisted, partly as a tax loss, but actually, it’s made money for him: the critics loathed it but the public lapped it up. –The man’s got the Midas touch, said to have made money out of the big crash of the Eighties! We’ve issued it on video and we’ve just put it out on DVD—we’re very careful about the reproduction rights to our films: usually retain them and release the videos ourselves, in conjunction with a commercial distributor. The video’s done very well, both generally and with the schools, funnily enough: easy way of introducing the kids to Shakespeare.”

    “Right. It’d go down a lot better than Love’s Labour Lost, though mind you I quite enjoyed that film, myself.”

    “Me, too,” he agrees.

    Like, in the wake of certain comments by L.R. Marshall in particular, not to say something that Euan incautiously come out with at the studio during one of the endless waits for D.D. to get off his bum and roll ’em, I’m waiting for him to go on to express reservations about Mr Branagh, but he doesn’t. Is this because he hasn’t got any or because he’s far too cautious to say anything about a British cultural icon to someone he doesn’t know from the other side of the world, or what?

    So after a bit I go: “This Midas touch guy, he wouldn’t have money in The Captain’s Daughter, would he?”

    He smiles at me. “As a matter of fact, he does. He wasn’t one of our initial backers, but after Rosie broke her leg Derry flew over there and more or less went down on his knees to him. He agreed, but only on condition Derry could work things out with Rosie.”

    Right. In other words, I could of asked for megabucks times three to do all her standing and walking bits. Not to mention, the dancing bits that were never mentioned at the outset!

    “Something wrong?” he murmurs.

    “Yeah, the way you can draw up a contract!”

    The eyes twinkle. “We are paying you twice what we envisaged.”

    “Yeah, for sitting or walking, but I been over that contract with a fine-tooth comb and now I realise that I been suckered into doing all this ballroom dancing crap!”

    “I didn’t draw it up myself,” he murmurs, “but it’d be something like ‘other on-screen duties not requiring facial shots as the director may require’?”

    “Something very like that. What if he requires me to dangle meself from a ruddy trapeze suspended fifty foot above the studio floor?”

    So he goes, totally poker-face: “We have insured you.”

    “Thank you very much!”

    “You should have asked John Haworth to vet the contract for you,” he murmurs.

    “Eh?”

    Grinning, Lucas launches into the saga of John dictating—more or less literally—the terms of Rosie’s contract with Double Dee. Boy, oh boy, oh boy, I knew he was good, but— Yeah, Uncle Jerry’s right: if only he’d agree to come into the firm!

    “What?” says Lucas, as at the end of it I just sigh deeply instead of grinning. “Not funny after all?”

    “Eh? Oh—no! I mean, course it was funny: the biters bit, eh? Serve ya right! Um, no, Uncle Jerry was just saying the other day that if only John’d come into he firm he’d be the one to settle those moos in the main office.”

    His shoulders shake and he nods, grinning, but then he says: “And he doesn't fancy it?”

    “Um, think the picture is he owes the Navy several amore years, yet. Um, dunno if he’s literally signed up to X number of years or not, but being John, if he thought he owed them he’d never cut it short, geddit?”

    “Of course. How long has be he been in?”

    “I dunno. I mean, I do know he started straight from school but I think he would’ve gone to, um, whatever you call your naval academy—sorry, been exposed to too much Yank culture on the box.”

    “That’s all right,” he says vaguely. “Would Marshall envisage taking him in at director level?”

    “I guess he would. Um, I think he might be thinking about the future of the firm, cos Kenny, that’s Rosie’s brother, he’s not interested. And Rosie’s real bright but the business just doesn't appeal to her.”

    “Mm… John’d be what—fiftyish?”

    “Fifty-one, I think.”

    “Yes. Perhaps when he tuns fifty-five, mm?” he says kindly.

    Yeah, I think Rosie’s secretly planning on that, not that she’s said as much, but reading between the lines— “Yeah, hope so.”

    He smiles a little. “But wouldn’t bringing him in put paid to your own ambitions, Dot?”

    Blink. “Me? Look, no way would I be up for anything involving managing that load of moos! Its not just that they’re totally fixed in their ways and pretty thick with it—it’s been a terrific effort to get them onto the new system, even though I’ve set up the screens to look as much like the old screens as possible. But it’s the taking offence at the drop of hat, and the ganging up on you—not to say on any weaker staff member, Rosie reckons they’re like a flock of hens, peck the weaker members to death. And never mind women’s rights, no way are they gonna take it from a woman, specially a younger woman.”

    “Yes. But they can’t hang on forever, can they? And I didn’t mean that you’d need to take on that rôle. Aren’t you aiming at director?”

    “Uh—well, to tell you the truth, Lucas, I never thought of it.”

    “You’re clearly very valuable to the firm. I had no real idea, until you showed me that roomful of people beavering away in your upstairs office, of the scope of your IT operations.”

    “Um, ye-ah… There wasn’t much IT involved, once we’d got the website properly spidered. I mean, their processes are similar to what Peta and her lot do for the account customers. They verify everything on a clone of our main database and then send us the files. We did think of spidering their database every night but that would’ve meant they’d’ve had daily deadlines, and the workflow’s not that even, it wouldn’t’ve been fair on them.”

    “No,” he says, smiling at me. “Cutting them some slack, mm?”

    So I go: “I'd just call it being fair to them, Lucas.”

    “Yes,” he says, still smiling. “In your shoes I’d be aiming at director, Dot.”

    I just betcha would, mate, cos you’ve got “ambition” written all over ya! “Were you, at my age?”

    “Should one ask a lady’s age?” he replies primly.

    “Hah, hah. Twenty-five.”

    “Then, yes: very definitely. I’d finished my accountancy qualifications and embarked on a management degree—and was convinced I knew it all! Fortunately Derry wouldn’t have dreamed of letting me in at that level, back then!”

    Right, D.D.’s not as dumb as he looks and actually, he doesn't look that dumb. So, as there’s still no sign of Daniel and it’s still pelting down, I ask him about the company and he explains that D.D. is nominal CEO, while in fact Lucas, his position is Executive Director, he carries out most of the functions of CEO. Think I could’ve guessed that, mm. They’ve got two other directors: D.D.’s wife and sister. Right, they started off as a Mom and Pop company. Miriam, the sister, was in merchant banking, but she got tired of fighting the male establishment and decided to come and sort out the financial mess her brother was making. Linda, his second wife, started out doing the financial stuff but she was very glad to hand it over. Miriam’s retired, now, but she taught him all he knows. The eyes twinkle. Right, apart from your accountancy and management degrees, this’d be, Lucas Roberts, would it? But I just say mildly: “I see, she trained you up and then you took over from her.”

    “Yes. –Hullo, is that Daniel hooting at us?”

    It is, and he triple parks for a mo’ and we shoot into the car.

    “What took you so long?” I gasp. Ouch, talk about foot-in-mouth, D.M. Mallory: now Lucas’ll think I was bored!

    “The laneway’s flooded and they were evacuating the parking lot,” he explains.

    Jesus! “Uncle Jerry’s—”

    “No, ’s’all right, he took it to Randwick,” he says soothingly.

    Phew! “The Merc,” I explain to Lucas. “Closer to his heart than both his kids combined.”

    “Of course! Derry’s like that about the Rolls!” he grins.

    That’d be right, they’re all the same. “Right. And has he got kids?”

    “Six. All long since grown up. The first two were by his first wife, Kate: they busted up when he threw in what at that stage looked like quite a promising career as a character actor to go into directing. Long before I knew him: he’d’ve been in his twenties. He married Linda about eight years after that, I think, and the other four are hers.” His eyes twinkle. “They’ve all firmly avoided going into films, the theatre, or in fact anything to do with the arts. Let’s see: two teachers—his oldest son’s a headmaster—two accountants, one male, one female: they’re in partnership, doing quite well for themselves, one civil engineer, one forensic pathologist. That’s John, his second son—Linda’s first—and for quite a while Derry was convinced he was going to be God’s gift to transplant surgery. I think you can imagine the scene when he chucked in the surgery in favour of cutting up dead bodies for a living!”

    We can, vividly, even Daniel’s shuddering and laughing, and tells us, as we drive round the corner and get caught in the one-way streets, about his Uncle Garry’s reaction to his son, Baz—Lucas blinks, think he thought that name was an Aussie joke that hadn't made it past the comic strips—chucking in the cost-accounting and going into hydroponic lettuce with a mate. In which there is decent money, yeah, but I’d say Uncle Garry was probably right and it is a deadly life.

    So he draws up outside the building, yeah, this is good, Daniel, we could nip out here, but where are you gonna park at half after afternoon tea-time in a busy Sydney business district? He’ll ask Louise if he can leave it in the pub’s parking lot, since it’s an emergency. That parking lot, so-called, is big enough for her car, the hubby’s or a helper’s car, two clients’ cars and one quarter of the giant beer tanker. Unless the helper’s left a load of crates in it. Oh, go on, you can only try, and thanks, Daniel.

    So we go up in the lift and— Don’t have to use my security key, Deirdre’s on the watch for us. Did I know that the carpark— Yes, Daniel’s rescued my car. We finally escape to our office, but not before she’s told Lucas an awful lot about the on-going problems with the carpark.

    We sit down and I sketch out the configuration for incorporating Lucas’s contracts database that’s been floating around at the back of my mind since he first brought the topic up. See, you have to watch it before you get carried away linking databases, because there’s a restriction on the number you can link each one to. He’s got it, no sweat. Wants to know if we could show wages history and contract history per person. Um, the wages database is linked to the personnel database— Um, yeah, let’s say we run wages in your accounts database, Lucas, you wouldn’t have such a complex system of incoming payments as we do, that’s for sure. What? Ulp, a given person could be working on two contracts at once, could they? Er…

    No, look, you could work it similar to the way we do, to get statistics for each game or track or whatever Uncle Jerry has decreed he wants to get stats on. Run a list of your films, or jobs—operations, whatever—behind a, um, we call it our Ops field. You know, related firm or job, paste its name into each wages record. This record also links to the contract. Ye-ah, right, a link field’s not a repeating field, the wages for each contract the person’s on would have to be generated separately… Right, horrible implications for tax! Ouch. Lemme think about it.

    He starts drawing configurations based on a single wage payment incorporating amounts due from more than one contract… Nope, can’t see how to do it other than allowing two link fields. This would not be impossible, Lucas. Yeah, search over both fields in the one search box, no sweat, this is a feature of the software. He rubs his chin. Mm… The thing is, Double Dee produces a lot of training videos and short films under a different trading name: it’s possible that some of the people they use all the time, typically actors who do a lot of voice-overs, could be employed for more than two productions during a given pay period. Realistically, probably not more than four different contracts, he would think, but theoretically, the number is unlimited. Ouch.

    “How does your current system handle it?”

    Grimly he goes: “Manually, and very badly. The wages clerks have to work out the amount due for each contract on paper—well, with their calculators—and then create wages records incorporating all amounts. They attach a word-processed slip breaking it down by each contract.”

    Yikes.

    Um, hang on… Lateral thinking again. “Look, we could manage the final calculations at form level.” He doesn’t get this so I explain. Each wages transaction is a simple entry for the individual contract. Then search on the period concerned, and the printable form combines the amounts due, calculating the combined tax, and prints the payslip for each person.

    He likes that: the wages clerks can enter the data straight from the timesheets; but how will it affect tax reporting? Um, shit. Well, that could be managed at the form level, too, but I can understand, as an accountant, he wants the hard data in the computer. Like this month, Mary Bloggs earned $750.00 gross and we took off $450.00 in PAYG. Yeah.

    “Ye-es,” he goes slowly, rubbing that delightfully understated chin again.

    “Um, databases are intended to do precisely that sort of thing, Lucas. It’s a matter of learning to rely on them, rather than wanting a field for everything.”

    “Yes. I’ll think about it. Well, what have we got so far?” He grabs a pen and sketches the configuration of the set of databases: Contracts, Accounts (incorporating wages), Personnel, Suppliers— Whew! Has he got it or has he got it!

    “Mm…” he says slowly. “You’re satisfied with just running this list of Ops and pasting the names into your records, are you?”

    “Um, yeah. More or less. Acksherly, we run the list behind several databases; I’m the only one with the power to update it.”—He’s got it: master password, mm?—“Right.”

    “Mm… Look, we store a huge amount of data relating to each job or film, Dot. Some of it in word-processing files, some of it on paper, and far too much of it in various people’s heads,”—think he means especially D.D.’s but he’s too circumspect to say so.—“I think it would be very useful—in fact I’ve been trying to talk Derry into this for years—to track all that in a database. Didn’t you mention this software can handle huge amounts of text?”

    “Sure, it’s one of its specialities: whole documents, though it’s a facility we haven’t needed ourselves. It’s used a lot in America for tracking legal documents—case histories, so forth. Or you can digitise the document, just view the graphic image, or even link to the document itself and open it, provided it sits in a permanent place on your system. But if you’re on top of your IT gurus, you’ve solved that one in advance!”

    He grins at me. “Yes. This is beginning to sound very exciting! We’d be able to bring up all the specifications—the management contracts, etcetera, for every operation!” He scribbles on his diagram. “Here: the hierarchy is Accounts on top, next level Contracts, next level Ops—no?”

    “Um, no, Lucas, the thing is, you can’t have a three-tiered relationship. Each database can be a secondary database, but there’s no third level.” Is this gonna put him off entirely?

    “Right…” he says slowly. “Let me think… We’d want to bring up Ops data in Contracts: we might have several hundred contracts per film, of course, so ‘many to one’—yes. So Ops is secondary to Contracts, mm? Sits behind it. Then in Accounts, let’s says we’re picking up on your configuration of one record per wages due for each contract—right, that record would need to link directly to Ops, too. So, Ops is secondary in relation to both Accounts and Contracts—no problem there, is there?”

    “No, that’s right. It’d certainly solve the problem of updating the dratted validation lists.” –And why didn’t I think of that? Blow!

    “Hmm… Yes. I think there are some details from Ops that Contracts could certainly pick up on. For example, things like projected finish date of the film, target dates we’ve set for location filming—you could show those up in Contracts, could you?”

    “Sure, no prob, display any of the fields from the secondary database in the primary one. In the input screens as well as the report screens. And search on it, of course.”

    He beams. “This is marvellous, Dot! You’ve no idea how much time-consuming consulting of damned paper files goes on for each individual contract!”

    Goddit. “Good. Um, the thing is, you’d have to be very careful that when you switched to the system, your database didn’t rely on paper files to start off a new Op. I mean, if you typed up projections in word-processing and had to transfer the dates from that to the database, it’d become a burden, see? The thing to do would be to start off with the database forms: input the crucial dates and so forth, and then print out your projections from that. The software can do calculations based on dates, no sweat. Like, you input your start date in one field, the next field asks you how long it’s gonna take, you enter the number of days, any number, like 365 for a year, and the database pops the calculated date into the next field.”

    “Can you show me?”

    Uh—right. We only use that function for wages: like, we have weekly or monthly pays: only the execs are paid monthly, and I tell ya, I did it hard waiting for my money, until I got used to it! So I get up a wages input form and show him. Any date in the “Period Begins” field—hit the function key for today’s date—no, not a macro, it’s standard with the software, Lucas—put 14 in the “Period Length” field and bingo! “Period Ends” comes up a fortnight hence. Easy-peasy. He plays with it for a bit. Good. What other calculations will it do?

    Help, where do I start? So I get out the manual and we’re buried in it when Daniel comes back: the pub carpark was full— Yeah, yeah. He comes and hangs over our shoulders.

    We’re still buried in it when Uncle Jerry comes in.

    “The last race was a bloody wash-out—Oh, hullo.”—Sharp look at Lucas.—“No problems, I hope, Dot?”

    “No, and if you’d looked at your ruddy diary you’d realise that this is Lucas Roberts from Double Dee Productions in England.” Pointed stress on the “England.”

    So Lucas get ups, smiling, and Uncle Jerry shakes hands, totally unphased. “Jerry Marshall. Good to meet you, Lucas. Hope Dot and Daniel have been looking after you properly?” Wanker! What does he think we’ve been doing?

    “Wonderfully, in fact I’ve taken up far too much of their time: Dot’s practically configured our system for us!” he says with a laugh.

    So Uncle Jerry goes, real genial: “We’ll charge you a consultancy fee for that, then,” and it dawns. Shit. What a dill! Yes, that is what I’ve been doing all day, isn’t it? It’s dawned on Daniel, too: he’s looking at me in horror.

    Uncle Jerry isn’t letting anything show, of course. Tells us to bring Lucas through for a drink as soon as we’ve finished up here. So we finish up pretty quick. Uncle Jerry pours Johnnie into him, insists he has to come to dinner with them this evening, and competently packs him off back to his hotel.

    So I go: “Sorry.”

    “Yeah. Don’t go, Daniel, you’d better hear this, too. Siddown.”

    So we sit down on his black leather couch, visitors’ bums for the use of, and look at him nervously. Mind you, he hasn’t put himself behind his big desk, but then, that’s not his style.

    “Of course I don’t mind you showing the bloke the system—so long as he’s not one of our rivals!” Jolly grin.

    “No, they just produce films,” says Daniel quickly.

    Uncle Jerry eyes him tolerantly. “Yeah. The thing is, Dot, your experience is valuable.”

    “Um, yeah, sorry.”

    “She is officially on leave,” goes Daniel, tiny pointy-headed twit!

    “Yeah, that’s not my point. I was only joking when I told him we’d charge him a consultancy fee—”

    “Only joking, but making bloody sure he got the point,” I note.

    “Exactly. Well, he’s not slow, I’ll say that for him. Bit of a tight-arsed, button-down accountant type, though, isn’t he?”

    Daniel’s still isn’t squashed, he goes: “Deirdre reckoned he wasn’t an accountant.”

    “Deirdre’s got porridge between her ears, Daniel. Just shut up and listen. A bit of free advice is one thing, but ya don’t practically configure the bloke’s system for him, Dot!”

    “No, um, it’s hard to talk about his needs without seeing how the software could— Um, yeah. I do take your point.”

    “Good. Managing that sort of juggling act—striking a balance between some useful advice and doing the job for him—is one of the things a good exec has to learn.”

    “Mm. It was stupid. I got carried away.”

    “So did I, Jerry!” says Daniel quickly. Gee, is this subordinate loyalty or something? Good for you, Daniel, never knew ya had it in ya!

    “I know,” he says mildly.

    “I’ll make the time up!” he goes quickly, tiny twit!

    “Don’t be an idiot, I told you to look after the bloke. –No, but my point is, how many hours did you put into designing our system, Dot?”

    So Daniel goes jauntily: “Unpaid overtime!” Boy, has he cheered up.

    “Shut up, Daniel,” says Uncle Jerry mildly. “He doesn’t get any more out of you for free, Dot—and do us a favour and don’t talk about the nitty-gritty over dinner tonight.”

    “Um, right. Um, he’s real bright, Uncle Jerry. Don’t think he’s gonna need any more advice, acksherly. I never seen anyone pick up on anything so quick.”

    “Yeah, she only hadda tell him once about secondary databases,” agrees Daniel in awe.

    “Balls. –No, I believe you, Daniel. No, the thing is, however bright he is, a bloke at that level—ED, isn’t it?—isn’t gonna spend his time fiddling around designing and testing databases. If he does decide to go with the system, I think you can expect to be head-hunted, Dot. But just bear in mind, before ya get carried away, that his firm may look glamorous, but have you looked at our trading figures lately?”

    Yeah, I have, actually, and you’re already a multimillionaire, not to mention the whack your Jap mafia mates are getting. “Yeah. Goddit. Nowhere they can expand to, really.”

    “Right. Whereas we could go public within the year— No, well, don’t want to, and don’t plan to. When I reach retirement age might be the time, but ya needn’t start counting on your fingers yet.”

    “But our IT operations won’t really change significantly, will they?” goes Daniel. “I mean, we might be bigger but it’ll be the same processes.”

    He’s right, actually.

    “Right. Well, if you want variety you’d better offer your services to the bloke that sells the software, Dot, only let me just say this: he’s got a franchise—maybe not literally, but in essence—and that means he’s at the mercy of the Yank Head Office. And between you and me, although he’s doing okay, I don’t think he’s got much idea of advertising himself. Added to which, that firm’s your typical one-man-band that’s outgrown itself. Remember the cock-up with that set-up that dame of his showed you? He’d been fiddling with it behind the scenes and didn’t let her know. That sort of bloke, however well-meaning, can’t bear to delegate and doesn’t know how to delegate and isn’t really a manager, Dot: he’ll want to keep all the exciting design jobs to himself.”

    “Mm. I think you’re right.”

    “She could be a consultant!” goes Daniel eagerly.

    “Not with this software, you tit, because that bloke’s got the monopoly!”

    “Oh.”

    After a few scowling, silent moments, I say: “So where are you going with this, Uncle Jerry?”

    He goes over slowly to the Johnnie. “In the first instance, I’m warning you not to give Roberts any more help unless we’ve got a contract with him. And in the second instance, I’m saying, if he does head-hunt you, think it over before you make a decision.”

    “Mm. Um, I don’t think he will; I mean, the software is used in Britain, too; but… Well, say he did, would you let me go on leave without pay?”

    “I let you take your annual leave early to do this film crap and look what happened,” he says unemotionally, coming over to us with the Johnnie. “Give me your glasses.”

    “Um, she’s driving,” mutters Daniel.

    “Not now, she isn’t. I’m not saying Betty’s great bum’s gonna land on our accounts database again—and I can promise you that if it does I’ll sack the cow,” he goes cheerfully, not noticing that Daniel’s looking agonised—Jesus, didn’t it dawn that I told him the crash was her fault and that that was why he picked her for Canteen So-Called Manager? “But I am asking you what you envisage, Dot. Waltzing off to England for six months—and I’d say it’ll take all of that—while Daniel does your job for you? Letting me contract your consultancy services to the bloke while I get in someone else on short-term contract that’s gonna upset everything we’ve set up so carefully because it isn’t the way he or she is used to working?

    Daniel begins helpfully: “Like that time that lady from the suppliers come to tell us about using an intranet: she reset—”

    “I get it,” I assure him sourly.

    They do intranets in computer colleges (sort of), so he goes: “I still think we could make real good use of an intranet, then we wouldn’t need all those user licences.”

    “Right, you’ll sweat blood designing the flaming HTML input screens that the software providers haven’t realised are crucial to any realistic intranet operation, will ya?” I snarl.

    No, he won’t, and he subsides.

    “We’ve made all those decisions, Daniel,” Uncle Jerry reminds him, kindly but firmly. “I’m not telling you what you ought to decide, Dot; I’m just telling you to look carefully at your options.”

    “Yeah. I will.”

    “I know how to run a diagnostic and rebuild a database, now,” goes Daniel.

    Uncle Jerry sits down heavily. “Yeah. The trouble with life is, Daniel, that the next thing it throws at you is never the one you’re expecting. Let’s just drink to a tea room, eh?”

    Weakly we drink to a tea room.

    Uncle Jerry’s let Daniel escape to his train. He rings Aunty May about dinner with Lucas. It was gonna be fillet steak—oops. But she could slice it up for a lovely stir-fry!

    All you can say for Aunty May’s so-called stir-fries is that she leaves the chilli out of them. So I go: “Fried cabbage soused in soy sauce—kind of a ‘Welcome to Oz’ dinner this’ll be, will it?”

    “Shut up, Dot! Look, May, I think it might be better if we take him out.” The phone yacks at him for ages. “Bugger her bloody leg, if Her Majesty doesn’t fancy it, we’ll leave her at home with the flaming fillet steak! What? Yes, I’m sure she will ruin it, May, but too bloody bad!” Yack, yack, yack… “All right. –All right, yes. Yes, of course Dot’s coming, too.” Yack, yack… “Deirdre what? Look—Yes. Look—JUST SHUT UP FOR TWO SECS, MAY!” Presumably she’s shut up because he goes tiredly: “The Merc was at Randwick with me. The carpark there was only under four inches of water, all right? –Good. See ya.” And hangs up with a sigh.

    “Deirdre rung her—right?”

    “Shut up, Dot.”

    All right, I will.

    “Get your coat. And while we’re on the road, just try to think of somewhere to take this Lucas Roberts type that won’t let the side down, won’t encourage their customers to queue for ruddy Rosie’s autograph, and will let the wheelchair in, because on top of everything else that’s happened this week, I can’t face poor old John putting his back out trying to carry her!”

    “No, um, busting her leg wasn’t her fault, Uncle Jerry.”

    “Just get your coat,” he repeats tiredly.

    So I do that.

    We’re nearly at their place when he goes: “Not sulking, are you?”

    Jump! “No, ’course not. Trying to think of a restaurant… Um, the thing is, Rosie’s pretty fed up with all the dressing-up D.D. makes her do. Acksherly, I can’t think of any place where the doors are wide enough for the wheelchair and that hasn’t got a step up or down. I mean, I can, only they aren’t fancy enough for him.”

    “Quite. Well, Hungry Jack’s,” he says with a sigh.

    Right. He had lunch there with Rosie and Joslynne very recently: Rosie had the day off while D.D. was filming me standing, walking and dancing. It had to be some place like that, they had Baby Bunting and Joslynne’s Davey with them—the primary schools are back: earache, think the story was. No-one recognised Rosie, this is true. John just about had kittens when he realised they’d let Baby Bunting have a thin fry, but evidently he just clutched it in his fist and sucked it a bit.

    “I think their burgers are better than McDonald’s—tastier—but no, it’d go over like a lead balloon. Well, with John, too.”

    “Mm. House of Pitta?” he suggests glumly.

    Er… Not far from them. Started up when the suburb started going up-market, and it’s still very popular. It did start off as Lebanese, this is true. Or Lebanese with standard Aussie choices as well, kind of thing. About sixteen generations back in its history. The original owners either sold it or put in a manager—anyway, they’re not there any more and it keeps losing its chefs. Joslynne and me went there with her Mum quite recently, actually: Mr Smythe wouldn’t come, he usually won’t go out to dinner with her when she suggests it. Of course in revenge she won’t go to business dinners with him and his banking pals. “Not unless you want gritty hummous out of a packet not stirred up properly and the driest, hardest falafel this side of the Great Sandy Desert.”

    “The chef’s changed again, I presume?” he says with a sigh. “Uh—well, doesn't leave us much choice, does it? Fasta Pasta is about it, in our neck of the woods.”

    It’s a family-style restaurant: big chain. Terrifically popular. “Their pasta is very good.”

    “Exactly. And their coffee’s great. Too down-market, though.”

    “Yeah.”

    Depressed silence.

    “Hog’s Breath?” I go.

    “Uh—drive into town?’

    “The rain’s slackened off.

    “Yes—not that, I was thinking about parking. And what about wheelchair access?”

    “Dunno.”

    “Me, neither. Oh, the Hell with it, Dot, we’ll take him to Fasta Pasta and he can like it or lump it! I could just do with their tagliatelle Milanese.”

    “Yeah? I like the one with the ham and cream sauce, forget what it’s called but I’ll know it when I see it. It’s good on tagliatelle, too. Or penne—it’s good with penne.”

    “No, I like the seafood mixture with penne.”

    And we while away the rest of the drive with more sparkling dialogue on this level.

    When we get there Rosie’s in her old jeans (Aunty May actually unpicked the seam of the leg that’s in the cast, anyone else would of just slit it, but however) and she’s looking mutinous, so just as well we didn't decide on somewhere fancy. Aunty May tries to object that if we want pasta she can easily whip up— No. Uncle Jerry’s gonna grab a shower and then it’ll be drinks all round and we’ll get off and get some solid nosh into us the minute Lucas gets here.

    Aunty May thinks I might like a shower, too, and as a matter of fact , now that I come to think about it, I would, I feel as if I’ve been slowly stewing in one of them fancy slow-cookers like she does her special goulash in for about a month. Rosie generously offers me her second most comfortable pair of jeans. Right, I’ll be up for that and I don’t care if Smoothly-Understated Lucas Roberts is in the zoot-suit to end all zoot-suits cos frankly, he will never be mine and I’m bushed.

    “Have this,” says Rosie generously as I come out of the ensuite of the third guest bedroom.

    Jump! “What are you doing in here?”

    “Giving you this. Have it—keep it.”

    It’s a pale pink angora short-sleeved jumper. I’m not even gonna ask where the fuck it came from. “Sit on it, Rosie.”

    “It’s very Friends,” she offers without hope.

    “It is when ya hold it up like that, yeah. I can see from here that it’s two sizes too small to look anything like anything that ever went near Friends when it’s on me.”

    “But it’s your size,” she offers without hope.

    “I think that’s what I mean. If ya wanna give it to someone, give it to Deanna.”

    “It’s not her colour.”

    “It’s not anyone’s colour over the age of two. Find me a tee-shirt, for God’s sake, it’ll be hot in Fasta Pasta anyway.”

    “Mum’ll get all tearful if you wear a tee-shirt,” she warns.

    Oh, God. “Now what?”

    Aunty May’s been hogging Baby Bunting and she arranged to go over to Aunty Allyson’s with him when she knew today was the day Rosie was free. Ouch. “Ya know what she is, Rosie, why do you let it get to you?”

    “Because life’s like that,” she replies sourly.

    “Yeah.” I happen to know that’s not the only thing that’s the matter: the reason her and Joslynne cornered poor old Uncle Jerry at lunchtime the other day was that she wanted to winkle out of him anything he knows about John’s plans for the near future. Like, a while back he admitted to Rosie that it wasn’t official yet but Admiral Hammersley, that’s their London neighbour old Miss Hammersley’s brother, has jacked up a shore job in Portsmouth for him, so as he can be with her and Baby Bunting for the next few years. Given that her sociological study of the village is gonna take at least another four years. But the thing is he hasn’t confirmed it. She’s afraid he might change his mind, because she let out to him that her and his father (an unlikely combo, yeah) had been keeping something from him for his own good while he was at sea (it was stupid—some stupid piece of gossip the English papers had got hold of), and then she let out that she thought his father was gonna try and wangle him a shore job, and apparently it didn’t go down too well. Wangle it and not let on to him, see? Something like that. Well, it seemed clear enough when she explained it. Now she’s afraid he’ll think his father had a finger in the Portsmouth pie, and as he can’t bear anything that smacks of underhand, he might not accept it after all. As to why she hasn’t faced up to John and asked him straight out—well, would you? Anyway, it's making her edgy as Hell. And of course Uncle Jerry told her flat out that he didn’t know a thing and as John is her husband, she’d better ask him.

    So I go: “Okay, scrub the tee-shirt. Something relatively light-weight and comfortable.”

    So she produces a lacy yellow knit that she scored off Henny Penny Productions, with only a very slight grey mark down the sleeve. So that makes two of us in battered jeans and form-fitting lacy knits with Lily Rose Rayne hairdoes, doesn’t it? John immediately spots it, of course, those sky-blue eyes twinkle like anything, but he doesn’t say anything, just gets me a Johnnie.

    Naturally when Lucas arrives he is in a zoot-suit—charcoal, not pin-striped, different shirt and tie but equally tasteful and understated—but Uncle Jerry just tells him robustly it’s been a Hell of a week and we’ve settled for Fasta Pasta, not explaining what it is. And after Lucas has been awarded a Johnnie we go. Yvonne’s baby-sitting: she took one look at Smoothly-Understated Lucas Roberts and slid out of the room, actually, so there’s no fear that she might resent being left behind. We can’t all fit in the Merc with Rosie’s leg so we take the waggon, John firmly driving. Rosie’s in the back with the leg stretched out, Aunty May’s been forced to go beside the driver, and that leaves me, Uncle Jerry and Lucas. So Uncle Jerry goes, real bland: “Hop in, Lucas.” Cunningly he waits until he’s in and then says: “You’d better go in the middle, Dot, you’re the smallest.”

    So I go: “Thanks but no thanks: no way are you two gonna have a male Pommy peer group across me. Go on, get in, you can carry on about the changes to the London street scene to your heart’s content.”

    He gives me a dry look but gets in, and we go.

    Yes, well, Fasta Pasta is nice, bright and clean, it’s full of family groups all shouting their heads off as usual, it offers its usual range of Australian beers and light-beers, plus Coke on tap, and a huge selection of alcoholic coffees, Irish and Jamaican are the least of it, and after you’ve grabbed your table and consulted your plastic menus you do gotta go over to the counter and order (and pay for) your meal, yeah. Likewise the bar for the drinks. Lucas is completely undisturbed by the whole bit and God only knows what he’s thinking.

    Given the beers on top of the pre-dinner drinks, a good time is had by all. The pasta is good—very good. Dunno if it’s Italian, but it’s good. Yeah, Aunty May, you probably could do this creamy, hammy sauce with tagliatelle, ’tis nice, eh? The seafood with the penne’s good too, is it, John? That’s good, and we’ll overlook the fact that your wife told you a horror story about seafood in Aussie restaurants as ya chose it. Ya right, Uncle Jerry, the Milanese is a good choice—tasty. And if you say that mixture ya chose is delicious, Lucas, we’ll believe you but personally I wouldn't touch Aussie anything that advertises itself has having eggplant in it cos guess what? There’ll be one slice to a kilo of spaghettini. And just thank ya lucky stars they haven’t eked it out with pumpkin.

    Just in case anyone thought they were gonna order pudding they aren’t, see, cos Uncle Jerry has an inspiration (the Irish coffee on top of the beers on top of the Johnnies possibly aiding, here): the one thing House of Pitta can do is desserts! So we pile back in the waggon and head off there. Two blocks up the street—right.

    ’Tisn’t as full as Fasta Pasta, but pretty busy for midweek. Lucas looks around with a little smile on his mug. Then he says: “The same system, is it, Dot?”

    “Huh? Um—well, yeah, s’pose it is, in essence, yes.”

    “And they’ve got a separate section for the ices,” he says pleasedly.

    Huh? Oh—means ice creams—right. “Yes. Not so popular at this time of year, of course. When ya get home ya can tell them that you got the entire spectrum of the places real Australians eat in one day.”

    He grins at me. “But we didn’t go to the rat-hole!”

    What have I gone red like a total nana? “No.”

    “What can you recommend?” he says smoothly.

    Jump! “Um, well, the cakes are all good. Um, acksherly I think I’ll have an ice cream. Three scoops. They make their own, sometimes if you come in during the afternoon they’ve got the big mixers going: the noise is deafening.”

    He thinks he’ll join me, so we go over to that counter. Right, I’ll have… Gee, it’s hard to choose; well, they put real strawberries—Ooh, they’ve got raspberry today! Right: raspberry, chocolate, um… Caramel, that’s always real creamy. A coupe, yes, please. And Lucas has coffee, mango, and lemon water-ice. Well, to each his own.

    “I don’t know who I’d tell, though,” he says as we grasp our coupes carefully and turn for our table.

    “What?”

    “Who I’d tell about the spectrum of places real Australians eat,” he says with a wry look.

    “Oh!” Of course, he busted up with the wife. “Well, rell—” Cof. “Your relations?”

    His mother’s living in Florida—her choice. Oh.

    Quickly he says: “I’ll tell Derry! It’ll give him the chance to counter with one of his foodie’s horror-tales!”

    “Um, yeah. Euan Keel told me that Derry and David Walsingham did the foodie thing when they were in Prague.”

    “Oh, Hell, yes! They all did! I was over there for a few days: chewing Derry’s ear about the budget blow-out. He insisted on taking us to some completely obscure restaurant that did some special sort of dumplings. Or were they meatballs? Meat dumplings, possibly! Walsingham immediately compared them to God-knew-what that he’d had when he was researching folk music in deepest Belarus, and Keel countered with an exact description of some dish served at a little place he’d discovered in Paris—somewhere on the Left Bank. He’s quite a gourmet.”

    “What?” I croak.

    “Euan Keel. He’s quite a gourmet. Though certainly not a cook, like Walsingham!” He looks at me uncertainly. “Is something wrong?”

    “No. It’s nothing. Come on.” And I push my way through the throng.

    Gee, over the puddings he mentions this dump he claims Euan found on the Left Bank and Rosie goes: “Oh, yeah. Some dump run by Czechoslovak Jews, that it? He dragged me there, that Christmas we were in Paris, and made me eat some foul cabbage soup with dumplings in it. It was putrid.”

    Right. So there you are. So much for Euan and that performance in David’s kitchen. Not to mention, come to think of it, the prolonged performances in Aunty May’s kitchen and at the German restaurant. Rosie was right all along.

    Lucas reckons it’s the best ice cream he’s had since he was in Italy. Yeah, maybe. I believe what he said about Euan because he didn’t realise what he was saying would mean anything to me—but that apart, I don’t think I’d take his word for a thing. Not a thing.

    He decides to grab a taxi back rather than let John drive him. So we wait until the thing arrives for him and then we all push off. I’m yawning my head off so John gets Rosie inside and then drives me home, ignoring Aunty May’s protests that of course I can stay the night.

    After a bit he says: “I don’t know Lucas Roberts at all well, but I rather like him. I know Rosie doesn’t care for him, but that’s a matter of incompatible temperaments. Not to mention,” he adds with a laugh in his voice: “a complete refusal to flirt with her!”

    Cof. “Yeah. They usually do, if they’re hetero.”

    “Exactly, Dot!”

    “Yeah. Um, would you say he was an honest person, John?”

    Slowly he says: “That’s quite a hard question to answer, Dot. In business I would say he’d be completely trustworthy in the financial sphere. As a negotiator… He wouldn’t be dishonest, but he’d certainly use every trick in the book and would disclose as little as possible.”

    “Um, yeah, I’d sort of got that impression, too. He's obviously very sharp… Um, what about in a more personal sphere?”

    “As I say, I don’t know him well, but my impression is that he’s a man who shows very little of himself. I don’t think he’d reveal his true thoughts or feelings easily.”

    Right. I had that impression, but—yeah. “He did mention that he was married twice, but, um, those were just facts. Like, I was stupid, I thought Daniel could be his son—I mean I thought he was about the right age to be his dad. Like, I thought he must have kids.”

    “It’s a natural assumption,” he says kindly.

    Something like that—yeah.

    “May I ask if you liked him, Dot?”

    Since it’s you I don't mind replying, John. “Acksherly, I dunno. I mean, I can see he’s a dish, like in an understated way. And he’s real bright, that sticks out a mile. I didn’t dislike him: I mean, you always know if you’re not gonna be able to stand a person, don’t you? Only the thing is, it’s very hard to tell if you like a person when he isn’t giving anything away, isn’t it?”

    “Yes, exactly,” he says in his quiet way.

    I’m waiting but of course, being John, he doesn’t warn me off. Well, he doesn’t need to, I’ve seen for myself that, dish though he is, there is no way that I could take a relationship with Lucas Roberts. He’s the type that would never lose his rag and yell at you, geddit? He’d retire into an icy shell and just freeze you to death. Ugh.

    We’re nearly home when he goes: “Dot, it’s none of my business, but I could see there was something up when Lucas mentioned Euan. I don’t know what Rosie’s said about him, but I can guess. She’s been very upset over the relationship with Katie Herlihy breaking up, even though she could see it was never going to go anywhere. She does know there were faults on both sides, but she isn’t admitting that to herself. Katie’s very young and she’s both very straightforward and rather intransigent: she was incapable of realising that Euan’s incessant rôle-playing, which I admit can be very irritating, is due entirely to his insecurities. He’s been through a very bad patch over the last eighteen months or so, with two Hollywood offers falling through. If he’s been playing the simple Scottish lad for you—well, it’s a rôle that does come very naturally to him.”

    “It’s convincing, too,” I note sourly. “I can see you’re right, John, but just at the moment I kind of sympathise with Katie.”

    “Mm. You are rather alike,” he murmurs.

    Right, well, that’s that, then!

    We pull in and he goes: “Where is your car?”

    “Huh? Oh—heck, Daniel left it God knows where: the carpark was flooded.”

    “Yes, one of the girls rang May about it,” he says tranquilly. He gets out and comes up to the front door with me. “I’m taking Rosie in to the studios tomorrow morning: do you need a lift?”

    “No, thanks, John. He’s finished my bits for now.”

    “In that case I’ll make sure Jerry collects you.” I’ve unlocked the door so he pushes it open for me. “Goodnight, Dot.”

    “Night-night, John.”

    I feel I ought to say thank you to him or something but he’s gone before I can think of how to put it. Thank you for being so decent and trying to show me that Euan’s a real dreep that needs to be cut some slack? And for not criticising me when I indicated I couldn’t manage it? Well, yeah. Thank you for confirming my impression that it’d be bloody silly to get mixed up with Lucas Roberts? I suppose. Well, he’s so dishy that if he’d asked I would of said Yes, but with John backing up my instinctive feeling that it’d be a real stupid move, maybe I’ll have the willpower not to, if he does ask.

    So I’ve closed the front door and I’m just standing here in my too-narrow passage with the tears trickling down my cheeks like a total nong.

    It isn’t fair! It’s not that I’m in love with John Haworth: he’s too old and he’s not really my type, but heck! Why should Rosie have someone that nice, while all I do is keep falling for blokes that are totally unsuitable for me, and not only that, that everyone who knows me can see are totally unsuitable for me? Cos for sure, with her flaming history, Rosie’s never done anything to deserve him! And what’s wrong with me, that I can never find anyone that hasn’t got hang-ups and that falls for me when I fall for him?