Final Curtain

33

Final Curtain

    Georgy sat on the front steps in the sun, drying her hair. She had spent some time under interrogation by Miss McLintock, but mercifully the lady owner of Number 12 had then recollected she had errands to run and had driven off in her little car to run them. Georgy had then spent considerable time communing with Manfred McLintock, but the dachshund had eventually waddled off to investigate the girl who was cleaning Number 3’s car. Georgy sort of knew the girl, she was nice: she was an art student from Christchurch, up here to do one of Pauline’s courses. Only she didn’t feel she knew her well enough to go down and talk to her, so she had just waved and smiled, and the girl had waved and smiled back. Georgy was unaware that this nice girl was shy of her, Georgy Harris, because she was Adam McIntyre’s girlfriend.

    At around the time that Georgy was dunking her head—not in the basin, in the downstairs laundry tub, because she was scared of waking Adam up—her brother-in-law was saying glumly to his wife over the breakfast table: “Suppose we really oughta go round there. Say goodbye.”

    Ngaio winced.

    “Well, don’tcha think, love?”

    Ngaio swallowed. “I don’t know. I suppose we have seen a bit of him... And he did take the boys to the z— you-know-what,” she amended with a harried glance at the oblivious Denny. “But, um… Well, wouldn’t it be kinder to let them have their last day together—just the two of them?”

    Ross looked sour. “Depends what his Lordship has decided, doesn’t it?”

    Ngaio swallowed again. “He can’t have decided anything... I mean,” she said weakly, “surely Georgy would have told us if—if he’s said anything to her? Um—well, if he wanted her to go overseas with him, or—anything,” she ended weakly.

    Ross sighed heavily. “She might of. And then again she might not, ya know what she is.”

    This was undeniable, and Ngaio just nodded numbly.

    “No,” he decided, suddenly getting up, “if he wants to say goodbye, he can come round here!”

    “Yes,” she said limply, sagging in her seat. “Um, aren’t you going in to the shop, though, dear?”

    Ross usually went in on Saturdays, because you did good business in the hardware trade—more the do-it-yourself stuff than the whiteware, of course—in Puriri on a Saturday; so he goggled at her. “Yeah: ’course. Why?”

    Ngaio swallowed. “If he does come round, you—you won’t be here,” she said faintly.

    “Oh!” he said with a laugh. “I geddit!”—He didn’t, noticed Ngaio sourly, look all that sorry about it. “Well, if he does come, it’ll probably be this arvo. Well, you know your mother reckons Georgy reckons he sleeps all blimmin’ morning.”

    “Yes, but he does work until around eleven at night, Ross,” objected Ngaio weakly.

    Ross sniffed faintly. “Yeah.”

    He went over to the door but she said: “Are you sure, Ross?”

    “Eh? Well, not a hundred percent, no, but I’d take a hefty bet that he won’t be out of his pit until gone twel—”

    “Not that!” she cried crossly. “That we shouldn’t go round there?”

    “Oh! Yeah, too right I am. Positive.” He went out, shuddering slightly.

    Ngaio sagged with terrific relief. It would be bad enough if he came round here, but going over to Georgy’s would just have been... the living end.

    At about the time that Georgy sat down on her front steps, Melinda said firmly: “No, Christopher.”

    Christopher’s hand retreated from the marmalade jar. He looked at her sadly.

    “Not the marmalade, idiot!” she said crossly.

    “Oh. Um—well, what?” he said with an innocent face.

    Melinda took a deep breath. She then recollected that Joel was still asleep, and let it out carefully. “No, we are not asking Adam and Georgy round for a farewell tea.”

    Christopher spread marmalade on his toast, looking dubious. “I thought if the idiot child could be encouraged to realize that we see Georgy as one of the family...” he murmured.

    Melinda sighed. “I know. But I don’t honestly think it would work, darling. And wouldn’t it be sheer torture for Georgy, knowing we were—well, watching her?”

    Christopher made a horrible face. “Yes, come to think of it. Oh, well, scratch Plan A.” He ate toast thoughtfully.

    Melinda watched him in some trepidation. Eventually she said weakly: “There isn’t a Plan B, I sincerely trust?”

    “Mm?” he said vaguely. “Oh—no. Not really.”

    At about the time Georgy was saying hullo to Mannie the dachshund, Hamish Macdonald was forcibly removing his daughter’s struggling, then screaming and sobbing form from her bicycle, informing her breathlessly that she was a wee eedjit, and that he KNEW it was Adam’s last Saturday, Elspeth, and that THAT WAS WHY he was forbidding her categorically—categorically—to go anywhere near Willow Plains, YES, even to say goodbye, what was WRONG with her, for God’s sake?

    “Is he up yet, dare one enquire?” said a mellifluous tenor from just below Mrs Mayhew’s front steps.

    Georgy jumped, gasped, and flung back the mass of auburn curls that had been draped down her knees.

    Ralph duly observed the performance with pleasure. He hadn’t deliberately crept up on her, true; but then he hadn’t bothered to make a noise, either.

    “Um—no!” she gasped. “Um—not when I looked, anyway.”

    Ralph was in his maroon jogging shorts with the white stripe down the sides, his maroon jogging singlet with the white stripe at the vee neck, his white jogging socks with the maroon stripe round the cuffs and his jogging Reeboks. He jogged up and down a bit. “Come for a jog?”

    “No, I don’t feel energetic, thanks,” said Georgy.

    Ralph stopped jogging. “Not feeling queasy, still?”

    Georgy went very red. She had been furious with Adam for ringing Ralph and telling him the whole story of their birth-control fiasco. She hadn’t realised, perhaps fortunately, that Adam had also poured out the whole story to Mac. And very fortunately she certainly hadn’t realised that Mac had relayed it to Derry, assorted lovers, assorted members of the French Department and whoever had happened to be wandering through the quad yesterday afternoon. Adam’s jaundiced assessment that she’d been capitalizing on the event ever since wasn’t far wrong. She had felt very sick yesterday but even she herself couldn’t have said if it was the effect of the morning-after pill or merely a combination of nerves and annoyance.

    “No. I’m okay, thanks,” she said gruffly.

    “Mm.” Ralph looked at her in a considering way. “This may smack of the ‘Far, far better thing’ bit, but I could pop in and—er—have a word with him,” he suggested delicately.

    “What about?” gasped Georgy in horror.

    Ralph waved an airy hand. “About what you’d like him to do about the future, of course.”

    “No!” she gasped.

    “Why not?” he said blandly.

    Georgy was now a glowing scarlet. “You couldn’t!” she gulped.

    “Of course I could! If Sidney Carton could do it, I most certainly can!”

    “Don’t be silly,” she said faintly.

    Ralph came a little closer. “What do you want?” he said in a low voice.

    Georgy’s lips trembled.

    “Don’t you know?” he said gently.

    “Yes— I— It’s just stupid, romantic ideas I must have picked up from Mum’s women’s magazines!” said Georgy bitterly.

    “Mm. Or from the ones at Hair 2000 in Puriri,” he noted.

    She didn’t respond. Ralph said very quietly: “Dearest Georgy, the desire to mate, nay, nest, is a perfectly normal human impulse, you know. Well, what else keeps the race going?”

    Georgy bit her lip hard. “Yes, but—but isn’t there— I mean, shouldn’t there be more to life than—than simply keeping the race going?” she said in a stifled voice.

    Ralph shrugged a little. “Possibly there should—if one can define who or what dictates the ‘should’. But I’ve certainly never discovered anything.”

    “No,” she said, swallowing. “I see.”

    He put a hand gently on her bare knee. “I will speak to him, if you’d like me to.”

    Georgy blinked hard. “Thanks. But I don’t think he’d take it very well.”

    “No,” he said with a little sigh. “Hates my guts, mm?”

    “No!” she gasped, turning scarlet all over again.

    Ralph patted the knee. “Yes, he does, sweetie, no need to lie to me, you know.” He sighed again. “Well, I won’t if you think it won’t help. –Look, possibly I could ring Derry? Sic him onto the idiot?”

    “No,” said Georgy, reddening again. Tears started to her eyes but she said firmly: “It’s got to come from him, Ralph. Don’t you see, it’s no good if—if…”

    Ralph saw what she meant, of course. But he certainly didn’t agree with her. What fools these mortals be, especially the ones with principles, he thought on an acid note.

    “Mm. I’ll be back in about half an hour, should you change your mind.”

    He jogged off, with a little wave of the hand.

    Georgy just sat there, hugging her knees, staring dully at the drive. She wasn’t really thinking. In fact, it would be true to say she’d stopped thinking some time back. Because what good did thinking do?

    “Bugger,” said Derry grimly, hanging up.

    “Oh?” returned Charles, raising his eyebrows.

    Derry made a ferocious face. “‘Adam and Georgy are unavailable at the moment.’”

    Charles looked dubiously at his watch.

    “Has anyone said anything to him on the subject of rushing in, and elephant-feet, and delicate little burgeoning feelings crushed?” wondered Roddy from over by the window.

    “Times without number,” returned Charles grimly.

    “Well, somebody’s got to!” cried Derry. He paced up and down. “Look, ring that Golden Lamb dump,” he suddenly ordered Charles.

    “Eh?”

    “They can come in to town and bloody well have lunch with us before the matinée,” he said, scowling horribly.

    “I see. You’ll no doubt line up Mac, and his Uncle Maurice, and—oh, yes, Livia and her lawyer chap, and—um—of course, Jake Carrano, to help persuade him?”

    “Just do it. –And you can include the Carranos. They might be of some use. Well, Polly might.”

    Over by the window, Roddy made a rude noise.

    “You can leave him out of it,” noted Derry, giving him an evil look.

    “I can leave myself out of it, too,” agreed Charles, leafing slowly through the phone book.

    “No, I need you.”

    “Moral support,” noted Roddy. “What else does he pay you for?”

    Charles sighed. “Apparently to watch me immolate myself. How many, then?” he asked Derry resignedly.

    Derry counted under his breath, frowning.

    “Six,” said Roddy helpfully.

    “Shut up. Um—leave Joel out,” he said to Charles.

    “Six,” repeated Roddy unemotionally.

    Derry counted under his breath again.

    “You, me, Adam and Georgy, the Carranos. Six,” noted Charles laconically.

    “Get on with it.” Derry strode over to the door. He vanished.

    Charles rang The Golden Lamb.

    “If I was you, I’d make myself scarce before it comes back,” he then advised kindly. “Have you got the address of those people with the banana palms?”

    “And the bougainvillea. And the h’Old h’English h’oaks,” he said sourly. “Yes.”

    “Fine. Should the place look anything—anything—like a viable alternative to the garden behind the S.C.R.,” said Charles fervently, “book it.”

    “I told you that that Vice-Chancellor couldn’t be as green as he was cabbage-looking,” said Roddy smugly, going out.

    “Makes two of you, then,” noted Charles sourly.

    The uneven brick-paved, Sydney-lace-draped courtyard before The Golden Lamb was crammed with jostling, shouting, perspiring Press-persons. Adam’s lips tightened. His nostrils flared angrily. He didn’t have to put his sunglasses on, he was already wearing them. “Don’t say anything at all,” he muttered, taking Georgy’s arm in an iron grip.

    “Ow!” she gasped. “I wasn’t going to!”

    The reporters all shouted things like: “Adam! Adam! Is this your last lunch in New Zillund, then?” And: “Adam! When’ll you be back?” And: “Adam! Adam! Is it true you’re gonna do James K. Baxter?” And: “Adam! Adam! Is it true you and Derry Dawlish are gonna make a film here?” And: “Adam! Adam! Is it true Sir Jake Carrano’s backing your next film?” And: “Adam! Adam! What do you think of New Zillund cuisine?” And: “Adam! Adam! What do you think of Livia’s engagement?” but Adam, pulling Georgy along in his iron grip, ignored them completely, and they entered The Golden Lamb.

    “I suppose you have to expect that sort of thing when you’re with a famous fillum star that’s gonna play James K. Baxter!” said Georgy with a nervous giggle.

    “Shut up,” returned Adam grimly. “We’re with Mr Dawlish’s party,” he said grimly to the maître d’.

    “Of course, Mr McIntyre: this way, Mr McIntyre.” –Bow, scrape.

    Charles had ordered a shady table under the vines on the courtyard. The voice on the other end of the phone, on hearing who it was for, had tried to persuade him to a table inside—where, though the voice had not said so, many more customers would be able to see just who was gracing The Golden Lamb today—but Charles had pointed out coldly that as they weren’t air-conditioned Derry would very probably flake at an inside table in this humidity. The voice had given in, though sounding very puzzled.

    “There you are!” said Derry, too heartily.

    “Yes,” replied Adam immediately, “us and a crowd of yelping bloodhounds; I wonder who alerted them?”

    “It was this bloody place,” retorted Derry loudly and crossly, “and we’re not damn well coming here again, I can tell you!”

    Adam shrugged. “I suppose one can believe that or not, as one chooses,” he said to Georgy.

    Georgy went scarlet. She didn’t reply, but in said in a strangled voice: “Hullo, Derry. Hullo, Charles.”

    “Hullo, Charles. Where’s Rodney?” said Adam immediately in a silly voice.

    “Stale joke,” noted Charles, unmoved, as Derry heaved himself up and embraced Georgy with fervour, urging her to a seat by his side. “How are you, Georgy?”

    “Fine, thanks, Charles. How’s your rash?” replied Georgy, smiling shyly at him.

    Charles grinned. “Miles better, thanks. That stuff your mother recommended did the trick.”

    “What rash?” said Adam limply, sitting down.

    Georgy pinkened. “He had a heat rash and, um, I rang up Mum and—and she told me the best stuff to get for it.”

    “I had no idea you two were so close,” he drawled, resuming the shades.

    “Take those damned things off your nose, and behave!” snarled the great director.

    Charles here could not forebear to roll his eyes slightly.

    “Derry, it’s dazzling out here!” objected Adam.

    “Rubbish. We’re expecting the Carranos, what are they going to think if you sit there looking like a blinkered Don Johnson? –And why in God’s name, Georgy, darling, did you let him wear the Outfit?” he added.

    “I didn’t let him, I had nothing whatsoever to do with it!” retorted Georgy with some spirit, as Adam removed the very, very, very pale grey draped suit jacket to reveal the sleeveless black cotton-knit top that did indeed, expose the arms à la Mr Johnson.

    “Actually,” Derry admitted in a very casual voice, when Georgy was dubiously sipping The Golden Lamb’s idea of a rum and pineapple and finding it bore very little resemblance to Ralph Overdale’s version, Adam was gingerly sipping a soi-disant sherry and Charles was frankly on the whisky, “I asked Polly and Jake to turn up a little later: I want to talk seriously, Adam. To you and Georgy.”

    Adam looked a little blue around the mouth. He shrugged, however, and said: “Talk away.”

    Georgy put down her rum and pineapple with a hand that shook.

    Derry immediately put his hand over hers. “I have already mentioned this idea to Georgy, and she didn’t fancy it,” he said firmly, squeezing the hand, “so I thought I’d see if you could persuade her to see sense about it, Adam. After all, you know what the life’s like—both the benefits and the drawbacks: you’ll be able to give her a balanced view.”

    “What life?” said Adam in a tight voice.

    “The filming life, dear boy!” he said on an impatient note.

    “Derry,” said Adam grimly: “what in God’s name are you talking about?”

    “He wants me to do Titania,” said Georgy in a tiny voice, “only I said No.”

    “If I do it during their long vacation,” Derry explained earnestly to Adam: “she could easily fit it in. Three months, at the most,” he added airily.

    Adam made a rude noise.

    “I mean for her scenes,” said the great director, a trifle weakly.

    Adam took a sip of his sherry. “Well, possibly.”

    “Don’t take any notice of him, Adam, he knows I won’t,” said Georgy in the thread of a voice.

    Derry patted her hand. “Drink up your nice drink, Georgy.”

    “It isn’t very nice, actually,” said Georgy, but so faintly it was easy to pretend not to have heard her, so Derry did.

    “We’ll get you something else, then,” said Adam loudly. “Waiter!” he said loudly and crossly.

    The waiter was there in a flash.

    “Take this putrid thing away, Miss Harris hates it,” he drawled.

    “Um—okay, Mr McIntyre,” the waiter replied, shaken.

    “What would you like instead?” Adam asked. As he still had his shades on, it was hard to tell if he was looking straight at her.

    “Um—nothing, really; I’m fine,” she said faintly. “And I don’t want to go to sleep this afternoon.”

    “Nonsense, darling, it’ll buck you up. And if he’s been bullying you,” he said, directing a glare at Derry over her head, which the great director certainly caught, shades or not—“you’ll certainly be in need of it.”

    “Have a gin and lime,” suggested Charles kindly. “That’s refreshing.”

    “Um—yes, all right,” said Georgy weakly.

    “With plenty of ice,” said Adam to the waiter.

    It was virtually impossible to order a drink without ice, Downunder. “Um—ice. Yessir!” he gulped.

    “You would think,” noted Adam in wonder well before the man was out of earshot, “that no-one had ever sent back anything in this dump before.”

    “Look, Adam—” said Derry heatedly, leaning forward.

    “Derry, if Georgy has told you she doesn’t want to act in your nasty Anty-podean epic, far be it from me to persuade her otherwise,” he drawled.

    “She’s the perfect Titania, for God’s sake, Adam!”

    “I grant you that.”

    “Well?” he cried.

    Adam sighed. “She’s a free agent. –Mind you, it is a peach of a part,” he said to Georgy.

    “I know,” she whispered.

    Adam squeezed the hand that was nearer him.

    At this point Charles found he’d begun to count the male-authority-figure hand-squeezing that was going on, and forced himself to desist. Otherwise he might burst out laughing—or screaming, of course. It was humanly impossible not to watch, however.

    “I suppose you could just do the one rôle, if it appealed—no need to let him drag you into the whole damned rat-race,” said Adam.

    “No,” agreed Georgy faintly.

    “Would you like to be a full-time Nactress?” he demanded suddenly, frowning.

    Georgy swallowed. “Not really,” she admitted.

    Adam’s mouth twisted in a grimace of sour triumph. “I didn’t think so: no,” he agreed.

    Derry bent forward desperately. “I wasn’t suggesting— Well, just one rôle a year—or every two years!” he said desperately.

    “Until my neck gets all creased,” noted Georgy with a flash of humour.

    “I only said that in reference to young parts!” retorted Derry huffily.

    “My God, did he?” said Adam in awe.

    “Yes,” she admitted faintly.

    Adam gave a crack of laughter.

    “Look, stop it! I’m serious, dammit!” cried Derry.

    Adam took off his sunglasses and gave him a mocking look. “Oh, really?” He replaced the glasses.

    “Yes! She’d be wonderful: the film could be wonderful; Jesus, can’t you see it, Adam?” the great director cried in anguish.

    “I have seen it. Do you think your wee talent is capable of transferring that quality to the Big Screen, Derry, darling?”

    “That’s a bit—well, slightly—unfair,” admitted Charles.

    Derry was now very red behind the beard. “Everyone said I’d never catch Morag’s essence on screen, but you admitted yourself, Adam—”

    “Yes, and look at what’s happened to her!” he said strongly.

    Charles looked at him nervously, and Georgy looked at him blankly.

    “One arty hit with Derry, and she went straight into hairsprayed, over-lipsticked, over-dieted rubbish on the American afternoon soaps,” he explained.

    “I see,” said Georgy calmly. “This Morag didn’t have free will.’

    “She was a dumb little kid with a little talent from a small Scotch town who let herself be bowled over by the Hollywood thing; all right?” snarled the great director.

    “Or, to put it another way, let Derry Dawlish seduce her with offers of fame, fortune and an arty triumph,” murmured Charles wryly.

    “Quite!” agreed Adam with feeling.

    “And I’d suffer the same fate? Thanks,” noted Georgy dourly.

    “Darling, I didn’t mean—” Adam paused. “You don’t understand,” he said in a low voice. “The Hollywood thing can be very—very undermining. All the bloody adulation, and... No-one can tell how they’d react to it, until they’ve been through it.”

    “Possibly not. Did this Scottish girl want to do your film in the first place?” said Georgy to Derry.

    “Uh—well, yes,” he admitted limply.

    Charles leaned across his bulk: “Yes, she did, Georgy: I’m afraid she was an empty-headed little thing with a small talent; but terribly fresh-looking, at the time. To give him his due, Derry did capture that freshness.”

    “Which was what he wanted from her. After that,” said Adam thoughtfully: “used gloves come to mind.”

    “Yes. Well, I’ve got my career,” noted Georgy placidly.

    “Uh—yes,” agreed Adam weakly.

    “But the problem won’t arise,” she added, suddenly sounding very flat.

    “Why not?” he said in hard voice. “Why not do it? Screw a decent lump sum out of him: at least it’d give you some sort of bloody financial security!”

    Georgy swallowed. “I couldn’t. Not with— I mean, it was easy, acting in the play...” Her voice trailed off.

    Derry leaned forward again. “She means it was easy acting with you. Look, Adam, think it over seriously: the two of you would be magic on the screen! “

    Adam was very blue round the mouth again. “I see. Charming. This is a low plot that the two of you have schemed up between you, is it? Get Georgy to agree to doing Titania, then blackmail me into the Oberon. Thanks, but no thanks, Derry.”

    “But I haven’t agreed!” cried Georgy in anguish,

    “No,” said Derry bitterly, “she hasn’t. And believe me, Adam, if it was a choice  between the two of you, I’d take her over you!”

    “The legs notwithstanding,” added Charles coldly.

    Adam was now very red. “I see. Well, any way you look at it, it’s blackmail. –Look,” he said tightly to Georgy: “did you know he had this in mind for today?”

    “No,” she said miserably, tears starting to her eyes. “Honest, Adam.”

    Adam got up. “Strangely enough, I think I believe you. Excuse me,” he said to the table at large.

    After his Don Johnson back had vanished Derry managed weakly: “The reference to the legs was something of a tactical error, wasn’t it, Charles?”

    “Not after your stunningly tactful revelation that you’d choose Georgy over the Wonder Boy, no,” he replied drily. “I could’ve accused him of having had the teeth capped and he wouldn’t have noticed, after that.”

    “He isn’t that vain,” protested Georgy faintly.

    They goggled at her.

    “Well, he isn’t!” she said, going very red.

    “Georgy, love, one hates to disillusion you,” said Charles faintly, “but he was furious at being cast as understudy to your delightful self.”

    “Rats,” she said crossly. “He was furious at Derry trying to blackmail him!”

    “Well, that too,” said Charles limply.

    After a certain period of silent brooding had passed, Charles waved limply for the waiter and ordered another whisky.

    Derry ordered a double Cognac, so his next utterance failed to convince. “I think he was weakening.”

    After a certain period of goggling had passed, Charles conceded: “Some sort of slight leaning in the direction of weakening might have been observed around about the point where peaches of a part were mentioned—true. After that it wavered off and changed direction entirely,” he noted.

    “He did mention financial security,” Derry produced, very weakly.

    Charles shrugged. “If you can make anything of that. I’d like to know what.”

    Rallying, the great director offered with huge cunning: “Of course, it would give you a nice lump sum, Georgy darling.”

    They goggled at him.

    Eventually Charles sighed: “Just drop it, Derry. Georgy, I’d nip off now, if I was you,” he added kindly.

    “No! She’s lunching with me!” said Derry crossly. “Us,” he corrected himself limply.

    “I’m not very hungry,” said Georgy in a small voice.

    “Well, go,” said Charles kindly.

    “No— Um,” she explained, swallowing, “if I went up to varsity and Adam was there, he’d—he’d think I was chasing him.”

    Charles at this point experienced a strong desire to roll the eyes madly. And, quite possibly, scream.

    The great director, however, merely noted: “Vain sod. Well, you can just have a salad or something, Georgy. –Ah! Here are the Carranos!” He waved vigorously, though at a distance of about four yards there was little chance of Polly’s and Jake’s missing him.

    “Dunno what ’e expected us to do,” noted Sir Jacob, as they got into the Merc when the lunch was over at last.

    “No. Well, I imagine his original intention was for Adam to be there,” replied his wife placidly. “But even with that scenario I don’t know what he imagined we could do.”

    “Exactly. Poor wee Georgy, eh?”

    “Well, yes. –Of course,” she added, as he rolled a startled eye at her. “Only it would have been worse for her, don’t you think, if Derry had tried to talk her into the part in front of Adam?”

    “As well as in front of us, ya mean?”

    “Yes,” she said simply.

    Sir Jacob bent the great brain to it for approximately three-tenths of a second. “Yep,” he pronounced.

    Polly sighed.

    About five minutes later she came to and gasped: “Jake, where are you going?”

    “Home,” he said, continuing to point the car’s nose in the direction of the Bridge motorway.

    “But the matinée—!” she gulped.

    “Pooh,” he replied simply.

     Polly swallowed. “But darling, you told Derry we’d come.”

    “Over the phone—yeah,” he conceded. “Before him and Adam had this dust-up—yeah.”

    Polly swallowed.

    “You’ve seen it twice,” he pointed out.

    “Actually I’ve seen bits of it three times,” she admitted.

    “There you are, then,” he replied mildly, continuing to point the car’s nose in the direction of the Bridge motorway.

    Polly sank back in her seat with a sigh of simple relief. “Yes,” she agreed gratefully. “Here I am.”

    Adam had got through his last week with Georgy by ignoring the fact that it was the last week. Contretemps over matinées and morning-after pills and so on had helped, of course, in that they had given him other things to concentrate on. Well, very evident excuses for not concentrating on its being the last week. The fact that Georgy hadn’t accused him of concentrating on other things had enabled him to ignore the fact that it was the last week even more successfully. In Adam’s experience if you ignored problems for long enough they either went away or solved themselves. They did not, of course, always solve themselves in the way you might have wished, but that was the expectable result of taking the line of least resistance. He hadn’t admitted to himself that that was what he was doing, at least not in so many words, but there was certainly an awareness of the fact lurking somewhere at the back of his consciousness. Of course he didn’t take this fact out and examine it, that wouldn’t have fitted at all with the line of least resistance. Naturally he had also ignored Georgy’s possible feelings the entire week. Being angry with her over the morning-after pill had certainly helped with that.

    Now he played the matinée competently, still ignoring the fact that it was the last week. He had finished Pride and Prejudice: when he wasn’t on he sat in the male dressing-room chuckling quietly to himself over Christopher’s David of King’s. Joel and certain of the rude mechanicals who had a fair idea of the way things stood between him and Georgy looked at him limply from time to time. Nobody dared to say anything to him, though.

    Quince’s performance that afternoon was terrible. He forgot every other line. Sometimes he even forgot them after Georgy had prompted him. The other rude mechanicals had to work overtime during their play. After it Nigel drew him aside and said weakly: “Look, for God’s sake, if he does ditch her, you’re in there with a chance, aren’tcha?”

    “Shut up!” replied Stephen angrily, shaking him off. He strode off down the cloisters.

    Nigel just sank limply to a sitting position on the cold stone floor of the cloisters, wondering what in God’s name the final performance was going to be like.

    However, before the final performance was upon them, there was, of course, the rest of the afternoon to be got through. Adam had fully expected Derry to come round to the dressing-rooms after the show and was very disconcerted when he didn’t. He lingered for some time but eventually it was plain that he wasn’t going to show.

    Joel had also lingered, not because he expected Derry but because he was trying to get up his nerve to speak to Adam about dear little Georgy.

    “What are you waiting for?” Adam finally snarled.

    “Er—nothing, dear boy,” he said limply. “Er—well, I did sort of wonder if you had plans for this afternoon?”

    “What there is left of it,” noted Adam sourly, strapping his watch on.

    “Well, yes, curse of lee matinay,” said Joel uneasily.

    “No,” said Adam sourly.

    Joel gulped. “No? –Oh, I see: no,” he said weakly.

    “Phyllis Harding has issued an invitation to drinkies at the Yacht Club, however, if you—”

    “No!” gasped Joel.

    There was a short silence.

    “Maybe Georgy has plans?” said Joel feebly.

    Adam shrugged. “Go and ask her.”

    Joel took a deep breath. His nerve failed him again. “Very well,” he said feebly, tottering out.

    Adam put his hand to his mouth and bit very hard on a knuckle.

    Georgy didn’t have any plans. Joel wasn’t surprized. Livia, however, evidently had plans: she shot out of her cubicle, crying: “Darlings, of course you must come to us! Wallace insists!”

    “She means he would if he knew, dear,” Joel explained carefully to Georgy.

    Georgy bit her lip. “Would he really not mind, Livia?”

    “Of course not, darling Georgy! And Panda has promised to make scones for tea!”

    “I thought she couldn’t cook?” said Georgy dubiously.

    “Er—well, better than little me, I’m afraid!” gurgled Livia. “No, well, she’s found this marvellous mix, you see, Georgy: one just adds milk!”

    “I didn’t know you could get a mix, for scones,” said Georgy feebly.

    “Oh, yes, it’s delicious, Georgy,” quavered Amy, emerging from the cubicle laden with dressing-case, rugs, et al.

    “Jacky’s coming, too. Come along then, darlings!” said Livia briskly.

    “Um—in what?” said Joel limply. “Will we all fit in Christopher’s car? And I don’t know the way.”

    “Silly one! Naturally Wallace is collecting me!” she fluted.

    “Yes: we’d better hurry, Livia,” said Amy, looking anxiously at her watch. Livia appeared not to hear this.

    “There won’t be room for us all, will there?” said Georgy feebly, preparing to follow Livia obediently.

    “What about Adam?” agreed Joel feebly.

    “Well, darlings,” said Livia coyly, “a little bird told me that darling Adam is as cross as a bear today! –Now, tell me frankly, Georgy, would you prefer us just to forget about the naughty boy?”

    “No!” gasped Georgy in horror. “I mean, he’d be furious, Livia!”

    “Yes, but darling, sometimes that can do a man good,” she objected.

    “Not Adam,” said Joel faintly.

    “No; um,” said Georgy, going even redder than she was already: “if we don’t ask him, he’ll be wild at being neglected.”

    “Is this better than being insulted at being invited?” wondered Joel.

    “Joel!” cried Georgy in horror.

    “Oh, no nasturtiums on the company, Livia, dearest: it’s the omby-onse,” he explained. “Well, teenage daughters? Scoh-nnes?” he said with a very long O and a musical N.

    “Pity about him,” said Georgy grimly. “If he’s too good for us, he needn’t come.”

    “Absolutely!” cried Livia with a terrifically long tinkle. “And it won’t just be scones, there’ll be delicious cold ham and tomatoes and all sorts of things: a proper high tea!”

    “It’s the language difficulty,” Joel explained crossly to Georgy. “Some of us thought she meant af-ter-noon tea.”

    Georgy certainly had. She gulped.

    “Darlings!” cried Livia, tinkling terrifically. “Wallace has forbidden us on pain of awful things, absolutely awful things. to call afternoon tea ‘tea!’ Hasn’t he, Amy?”

    “Absolutely awful!” said Amy with a sudden neigh.

   Joel winced. “I see. Well, shall I go and ask His Majesty?” he suggested bravely.

    They all looked at him gratefully.

    “It is a far, far better thing,” he noted, going off to put his head in the noose.

    But when he got there, Adam had disappeared.

    “Well,” Livia concluded, not daring to look at poor little Georgy, and reflecting grimly that it was exactly like Adam, he’d never been known to face up to anything when it was possible to run away instead, “we shall have our lovely tea without him, then, and serve him right!”

    “Yes. I’m awfully hungry,” admitted Georgy.

    “Splen-did!” she cried, putting an arm round her. “Come along, then, darling!”

    They went.

    When their party returned to the university Adam was already sitting at his dressing-table. He didn’t say anything as Joel crept in, disrobed silently and got into his dressing-gown. Out of the corner of his eye Joel could see Adam embarking on his make-up. He waited until the foundation was on, the face had taken on the greenish tinge that Mac had prescribed for Oberon, and Adam was beginning to apply the artful shading down the nose and under the cheekbones. Also under the jaw but that was superfluous, darlings, because unlike we less fortunate mere mortals, He did not have Sag. Then he said mildly: “Aren’t you doing Starveling tonight, then?”

    “What? Oh, bugger!” said Adam. He slapped cold-cream on it.

    Nigel was already present—they must have let him get away early from his late-afternoon stint at the service station, which Mac was unaware he’d been doing on matinée Saturdays. He noted mildly: “I’d have waited till he’d done the eyes.”

    “So would I,” noted Snug.

    Adam’s Oberon eye make-up was hugely elaborate, incorporating glitter and dewdrops and silver paint and God knew what. Joel had to bite his lip hard. He didn’t dare look at Adam. Adam said nothing but they could hear him breathing, because, oddly enough, a certain silence had now fallen in the male dressing-room.

    On the flagstones Helena was squeaking: “‘Call you me fair? That fair again unsay. Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!’” and the audience was starting to look puzzled, even though the thing had been going for only approx. five mins. Joel leaned in the staircase, sighing.

    Angie leaned opposite him, also sighing.

    “Shouldn’t you be supervising, darling?” he said dully.

    “Yes,” she sighed.

    Joel also sighed.

    “Shouldn’t you be in the male dressing-room or waiting for your cue, or something?” she said dully.

    “It’s the mechanicals before me. And even this,” he said, jerking his head in the general direction of down, “is preferable to the male dressing-room. Talk about cutting your atmospheres with a butter-knife!”

    “That possibly explains why Barbara and the other female hoon are sitting up on the grass with the musicians,” noted Angie dully.

    “Mm.”

    “Uh—why?” she said limply.

    “Adam is not flavour of the month. I think possibly there may be some solidarity with wee Georgy amongst the male half of the cast, darling.

    Angie sighed. “The female half’s pretty much the same. Well, the mothers keep asking me if I’ve heard anything—capital H. And Maisie keeps saying how pale and strained Georgy looks. Plus have I heard anything, capital H.”

    Joel forgot himself and groaned in sympathy.

    Mac shot down the staircase, face empurpled. “Get out of here!” he hissed.

    They didn’t bother to argue, they just exchanged resigned glances, and got.

    Titania’s train seemed to have been held up: Oberon’s lot had all got on and only some of her fairies had made it. Adam had to stand there like a birk with his arms crossed, emanating fairy-king-in-foul-mood, while Tom’s musicians played desperately. True, it was doubtful if the audience noticed anything, what with the Dong’s nose, and the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo doing a little caper that Joel—more or less out of self-defence, he had never seen a more wooden Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo, the girl just came on and stood—had taught her. Half of Livia’s little grey fairies had straggled onstage, looking lost. Furious hissing came from the wings; if you were listening carefully you would have got that it was Mac hissing: “Get ON!” and Livia hissing: “Wait! My dress! Wait!” but very likely no-one beyond the first two rows had caught it. Well, three.

    By the time Mac had started hissing: “Where are the gumnuts? Come here! Come HERE!” Joel had decided something had better be Done, so he tripped lightly up to a silver fairy, relieved it of the bladder Mac had grudgingly conceded on the Friday had better be used after all, and lightly bonked the Dong’s nose. Terrific roars of laughter from the audience. Somewhat encouraged, Joel tripped round the stage, lightly bonking various other, less and less polite portions of various other fairies’ and grotesques’ anatomies. Shyly at first, and then with mounting enthusiasm, fairies, elves and grotesques began to join in this new game...

    “Well, someone had to do something!” he protested virtuously, as Hermia’s tepid “Either death or you I’ll find immediately” brought Act II to a merciful close and Mac’s paw closed in a vice-like grip on his skinny arm.

   “Abtholutely, Mac, darling!” panted Livia, having come off the minute the lights went out, possibly expressly in order to take part in the inevitable row. Or possibly only because being immured in the bower under the spell of Oberon’s flower while the lovers maundered on incomprehensibly for fifteen minutes or so had driven her nearly to breaking point. “My dress was caught on a horrid nail on the stairs, Joel, dear, and I couldn’t move! It was dire!”

    Amy had ventured into the cloisters, possibly in order to support Livia in the inevitable row. “Absolutely!” she squeaked.

    “You got yourself up the bloody stairs just now with no trouble!” snarled Mac.

    “Yes, but darling Mac, only because a darling, darling boy came down with a big hammer and took the nail out for me!”

    Approximately three yards away, one of Patrick’s engineering students smirked, though at the same time turning maroon. His peers shoved him a bit.

    “One of the Mothu boys,” explained Amy.

    Mac gave up on that one. “That doesn’t justify you!” he snarled, rounding on Joel.

    “Well, one could have just stood there mumchance and motionless, like most of your cast, Mac, dear,” he noted.

    Mac choked. “You SET ’EM OFF!” he roared. Fortunately there was now so much noise arising in the quad as half the audience tried to explain to its neighbours who was now involved with whom that he wouldn’t have been heard beyond the second row.

    Joel pouted. “Not deliberately.”

    “Bullshit!” he choked. “If you hadn’t grabbed that second bladder and—and held the both of them up on your forehead like that, those bloody elves of Adam’s would never have locked horns!”

    “I am not responsible,” said Joel, pouting horribly, “for bloody elves of Adam’s.”

    “No, absolutely, Joel, darling!” agreed Livia.

    “GO AND GET CHANGED!” roared Mac.

    “I shall in a moment,” she said, petitely regal to the last inch. “But first I must just say, Mac, dear, that Joel is the hero of the night and deserves praise, not blame.”

    “Yes, indeed, Professor Mac,” quavered Amy.

    “Praise! HE’S DRIVEN ’EM ALL BARMY!” roared Mac.

    “Er—well, possibly they may have gone a little silly, yes. But never mind, Mac, dear, it’s ages before they all come on again: they’ll have had time to cool down!” said Livia cheerfully.

    In Joel’s opinion they’d have time to get even sillier, which judging from the merry mayhem which was proceeding from the female dressing-room in ever-increasing volume, they were well on the way to. Not to mention the bladder fight going on down the opposite end of the cloisters between a rustic and a green lizard.

    Mac’s lips thinned. “I’m warning you, Thring,” he said awfully: “no more farting around with bladders!” He strode off, past Mothu, and down the cloisters, to settle the green lizard. Which had been one of the principal offenders during the onstage hiatus. With a bladder it wasn’t even supposed to have.

    “Is that what they call damned with faint praise?” said Joel, pouting.

    “No,” said Georgy’s voice from behind them in the staircase: “I think it’s what they call a Pyrrhic victory, Joel. Is it safe to come up?”

    They agreed it was safe to come up, and she came up and vanished in the direction of the female toilets.

    “Poor little thing,” sighed Livia, ere she had barely vanished.

    “Could you speak to him?” suggested Joel without hope.

    Livia gulped. “Well, darling,” she said bravely, “one could, but Adam has never been known to take any notice of little me.”

    “He’d probably do the opposite,” put in Amy glumly.

    “He probably would, indeed,” sighed Joel, taking her arm. “Amy, dear, if I was very, very good, could I come into the cubbyhole and borrow some of Livia’s powder to take the shine off?”

    Amy giggled but looked anxiously at Livia.

    “Of course, Joel, dear: in fact, join us for the rest of the show,” she said graciously.

    Joel joined them on the spot. So relieved that he could have kissed the pair of them. Well, almost.

    By now even Maisie Pretty was so hardened to the sight of persons of any sex appearing anywhere and everywhere in any stage of undress that no-one made even a token protest as he went through the female dressing-room. In fact, no-one appeared to notice him. Apart from a very small grey fairy, who bonked him with a bladder at approximately the level of the knee, and giggled explosively.

    The earlier part of Act III, Scene 1 was greatly enlivened by the fact that the rude mechanicals and the greater portion of the rustics who had accompanied them onstage, officially only to sit meekly on the grass at the front, were all carrying bladders of one sort or another. Mostly another: Nigel had got hold of some packets of coloured balloons of the old-fashioned, or rubber variety, in the old-fashioned, or plain-sausage and squiggly-sausage shapes, and with great ingenuity the hoons had fastened these to sticks, rulers, in fact implements of any kind, preferably so as they stuck out suggestively. Or drooped suggestively, especially in the case of the plain sausages, which had been blown up in the old-fashioned or traditional way, with the main body swollen and bloated but the pointed or business end like a little tail or— Well, the post-AIDS generation needed no prompting to make the obvious connection even without the gestures that certain of the mechanicals and rustics managed to make. Indeed, it would have been to true to say that only the younger section of the little fairies didn’t get it.

    Mac was apoplectic, but this was as nothing to his emotions when Moth and Mustardseed popped out of Mothu cheerfully waving, in Moth’s case, a large blue plain-sausage balloon, and in Mustardseed’s, a large yellow squiggly-sausage balloon. The fact that the colours matched their costumes did not appear to console him at all.

    As Mothu rose jerkily at the end of the scene a shower of multicoloured spherical balloons, accompanied by a shower of muffled giggles, descended from his balcony, where many fairy heads might now be glimpsed. The audience clapped madly.

    Mac steamed up the staircase breathing fire and brimstone, only to be met by the innocent, injured faces of Patrick and his crew, with not a fairy in sight. Though a few stray balloons bobbed around the balcony floor, adding insult to injury.

    During Act III, Scene 2, which as usual dragged interminably, multicoloured spherical balloons bobbed about all over the shop. Many had been captured by members of the audience, too, and this didn’t actually help. The more so as, being old stock, they weren’t all that capable of standing up to rough handling and, particularly during the lovers’ interminable maunderings, tended to pop.

    True, Mac had wrenched Joel’s bladder off him before he went on to tease the two male lovers, but fortunately Joel was able to recuperate a pink plain sausage from near Georgy’s bush—there was a muffled gasp and a muffled giggle from behind the bush as he did so—and so the scene was not spoilt after all! Or, as Mac put it, it was COMPLETELY RUINED. Demetrius and Lysander protested that it hadn’t mattered, really: the audience had enjoyed it; but as they both forgotten most of their lines during it and Demetrius had at one point broken down in a giggling fit to boot, this failed to convince.

    Mac stood grimly at the foot of the staircase as Act IV was about to commence, grimly snatching bladders and balloons off the depleted train who composed the Bard’s “other Fairies attending”—not the Alice or the caterpillar, too distracting, and only half the littler fairies, too incapable of getting themselves off tidily. Not to say of not fidgeting when they were on. This worked, in that the actors got as far as the point where Oberon was about to waken Titania without benefit of balloons. Then Snug, Egeus and a goodly selection of the rest of the fairies let down another shower of balloons from the balcony.

    Thus ruining Adam’s “Now, my Titania: wake you, my sweet queen”, whether by malice aforethought it was not clear. Where the first lot to descend had been multicoloured in the sense of being pretty pinks, blues, reds and yellows, all these balloons were multicoloured in the sense of being murky streaked greens, horrid streaked purples, frankly blacks, or lurid “rainbows”, whether by malice aforethought or simply an accident of packaging not clear.

    Livia’s line wasn’t ruined: she simply waited until the audience had finished laughing themselves silly and the balloons had more or less bobbed off before fluting. “My Oberon! What visions have I seen!” She managed to make the line so meaningless that the audience failed to make the connection with the vision they had all just seen. But a muffled spluttering noise came from behind Georgy’s bush.

    Joel, professional or not, had got so carried away by it all that on his couplet “Fairy King, attend and mark; I do hear the morning lark” he picked up two hideous purplish balloons, one in each hand, bonked Adam rudely and repeatedly with them, and did a sort of modified Charleston over, under and between them. The audience went into hysterics and Oberon’s next four lines were lost.

    Livia, of course, simply waited until the noise had died down, her face expressing nothing whatsoever as she did so, before fluting, with great emphasis on the rhymes and the rhythms even though Mac had shown her innumerable times how not to:

    “Come, my lord; and in our flight,

Tell me how it came this night

That I sleeping here was found

With these mortals on the ground.”

    Joel followed them off, proceeding backwards, doing his modified Charleston over, under and between his balloons. The audience went into renewed hysterics and clapped deliriously.

    Quince had to be prompted six times in his ten-line prologue speech in V, 1, but Mac by that time was virtually past caring. He went off to the dressing-rooms to make sure that Livia was getting herself into her black costume in time for her entrance and to remind her that she was NOT TO FART AROUND AT THE END OF THE SHOW but to come on for her bows in the black dress.

    Livia of course agreed in a positively slavish manner with every word he said, or bellowed, but Joel wouldn’t have taken any bets. She’d had Amy iron the fluffy pink thing between IV and V.

    As he with his broom, Livia in her black and silver and Adam in his black and silver and a scowl waited in the farther stretches of the cloisters for the lights to go through miraculous changes, Tom’s musicians to strike up their very special intro followed by Kemp’s Jig followed by, in succession, Puck’s entrance and the King’s and Queen’s with their joint trains, Livia said in a careless voice to Adam: “Darling, where on earth were you this afternoon?”

    Joel quailed.

    Adam replied airily: “Where I was supposed to be.”

    There was a short silence.

    “Where was that?” said Livia limply

    Adam raised the eyebrows—what with the glitter and the dewdrops and the silver paint, a fearsome sight to see. “At the Yacht Club, of course. –Phyllis remarked your absence,” he added to Joel.

    Joel just quailed, he was past any other sort of reaction. Fortunately Theseus then finished flatly: “Sweet friends, to bed. A fortnight hold we this solemnity. In nightly revels and new jollity” and the lights went out and then started their series of miraculous changes, and two minutes after that, Joel could totter on. He was supposed to trip lightly across the upper lawn past the musicians, and down the stone steps and onto the flags, but what with all the rustics and ballet mothers adorning the steps and the state of his legs it was definitely a totter, dears.

    Hours and hours and hours later, Livia took her final bow, laden with bouquets, nay immersed in bouquets, and in the pink dress, of course, the lights went off, Mac hissed: “Get OFF!” and she got off at last. Mac strode on to make the Last-Night Speech.

    Hours and hours after that the whole cast lined up for one last bow, the audience clapped madly, they all bowed, and the stage lights went off. O,F,F. Phew.

    Joel had removed his make-up in Livia’s cubicle but had had to creep back to the male dressing-room because his clothes were there and he hadn’t had the forethought to ask a humble rustic to fetch them for him. He crept in. Adam was surrounded by, nay submerged in Press-persons and TVNZ-persons and local film-persons, and Derry and— Some of them swooped on Joel, tray flattering, if one hadn’t been exhausted and in a state of high anxiety and so past appreciating it.

    The mechanicals and rustics had long since changed and gone off to the All-Cast Last-Night Party, for which they had actually been permitted to hire—not merely use, hire—a large room in the Student Union building, by the time the last of the interlopers trickled off and Derry was able to say blankly to Adam: “Where the Hell are your parents?”

    Adam shrugged. “Tucked up in their virtuous beds, I imagine.”

    “JESUS, ADAM!”

    “What?” said Adam mildly, creaming his face. He had managed to get most of the make-up off, but it was still a bit greenish and silvery.

    “Didn’t you even offer them seats for the last night?” he choked.

    Adam replied without interest: “Yes. Dad refused.”

    Derry gulped.

    “Well, be fair, Derry darling,” said Joel nervously: “did you find another round bearable?”

    “Not particularly: could that have been because nobody was trying?” he said pointedly.

    Joel shrugged.

    “I grant you that an urge to ruin Adam’s scenes was understandable,” added the great director smoothly, if misguidedly, “but was that balloon business necessary?”

    “Darling Derry,” said Joel in amaze, “one had no idea that naughty fairies and rustics were going to drop balloons! None at all!”

    “Not that business: your business.”

    Joel shrugged.

    “Not that balloons per se are entirely a bad idea,” said the great director thoughtfully.

    “Particularly the dirty-purple ones that connect with your private parts,” noted Adam.

    “I’ll say this for you, you took it without a blink,” conceded Derry. He got up heavily. “Are you coming to this damn knees-up?”

    “Derry!” gasped Joel in horror. “One owes it to one’s public!”

    Before either Adam or Derry could reply the door opened and Angie said: “One’s public will have got down on all the nosh if one doesn’t stir the stumps. Are you lot coming?”

   Joel perceived she was accompanied by Georgy. He got up quickly. “Yes.”

    “I can’t stay for long,” warned Adam, carefully wiping cream off his eyebrows. “I have to get up at crack of dawn tomorrow.”

    None of his ill-wishers was capable of replying to this. Georgy, however, said simply: “Yes, the plane doesn’t leave until two, but he has to be at the airport by twelve, isn’t that silly? –You could just smile at the Press and so forth, Adam. Oh, and I suppose Mac’ll make a speech, again.”

    “Bound to,” he said, sighing. He got up and began to remove his black tights.

    Georgy came into the room. “Here’s the white spirit for your diadem.”

    “Thanks, darling,” he said in an absent voice.

    “Er—well, we’ll run along, shall we?” said Joel brightly.

    “No, dammit, I’m cursed if I’ll make a bloody entrance!” said Adam irritably. “Wait for me!”

    Not daring to exchange glances, his ill-wishers waited, perforce.

    After that the Last-Night party went pretty much as one might have expected. Well, pretty much as Joel had, anyway. Round about the time that Ralph Overdale, who was there on the invitation of God Knew Whom, very likely his own, airily offered to drive Adam and Georgy home and Adam accepted, Joel went definitively on the brandy. Not that he hadn’t been pretty much on it, anyway.

    “Thanks very much, Ralph,” said Adam, getting out at the foot of Mrs Mayhew’s steps.

    “Not at all,” replied Ralph with tremendous courtesy. “Do you need a lift to the airport tomorrow?”

    “No,” he said, making a face: “Dad’s picking us up at some ungodly hour for a last breakfast with them, then they’ll run me out there. Thanks all the same, Ralph.”

    “In that case I’ll say goodbye and good luck now,” said Ralph solemnly. “Goodbye and good luck.”

    “Oh! Thanks frightfully!” said Adam with an airy laugh, bending down to his door and holding out his hand. Ralph rolled the window right down and shook it solemnly.

    “Come on, darling!” added Adam breezily, holding Georgy’s door wide.

    Georgy had just been sitting there numbly in the back seat. Adam and Ralph had chatted airily about the play and the theatre and the world of film all the way home. True, Adam had been sitting beside her and not beside Ralph, but he might just as well not have been.

    “Oh!” she said, jumping. “Yes—um—thanks, Ralph.”

    “Think nothing of it. See ya round,” replied Ralph laconically.

    “Um, yes,” she said, gulping, and getting out.

    “Night-night!” said Ralph brightly, driving on up to his own flat.

    “Come on, darling, I’m dead,” said Adam, yawning, as Georgy just stood there.

    She went limply up the steps.

    Adam followed, unlocked the door and let her in.

    “What about the car?” she said in a tiny voice.

    “Mm? Oh. Um—well, ask Dad, Georgy, he’ll sort it out for you. I’ll leave the keys—here.” He fished them out of his pocket and dumped them on the pie-crust telephone table beside the pink Princess phone.

    “Thanks,” said Georgy idiotically.

    Adam yawned. “God, last-night parties on top of doubling as Starveling and the bloody matinée—I’m tempted just to turn in without even washing.”

    Georgy didn’t say anything.

    He yawned again and wandered through the sitting-room towards the bedroom. “Darling, do me a tremendous favour and get me a glass of skim milk, would you?” he called.

    “Okay,” said Georgy hoarsely. She went down the pink cabbage-rose tunnel of the little passage and into the kitchen. There she mechanically poured him a glass of cold skim milk—Adam wouldn’t buy the full-cream kind. You had to put out a plastic ticket of the correct shade with your tokens in order to obtain skim milk (or yoghurt, or indeed, grapefruit juice) from the milkman. Adam had been very annoyed with Georgy when, after a week of living at Willow Grove, one of the other inhabitants had kindly informed him of this fact: he’d been putting up with, or rather not drinking, the full-cream variety, which was what Georgy, having grown up with it, thought of as milk, for the entire week.

    When she brought the milk through to the bedroom, turning off the lights as she came, Adam was in the shower: she could hear the water running. Georgy put the milk neatly on the small bedside table on his side of the bed. They had had to buy this table, plus the lamp which stood on it, plus the elaborate electric alarm clock which stood on the floor at her side of the bed. Oh, dear: what on earth was going to happen to all the stuff that he’d bought? He hadn’t so much as mentioned it. She sat down limply on her side of the bed.

    “Darling, not even undressed?” he said lightly, coming in in his good silk dressing-gown.

    “What? Oh,” she said weakly. She got up. “You did bring all your make-up and everything home, didn’t you?”

    “Yes, I left it in the front hall by the phone, darling: what did you imagine was in the carry-all I was lugging up Ma Mayhew’s steps?” he said with a light laugh.

    “Um—nothing. I mean, I didn’t… Um, Adam, what’s going to happen to all your furniture and stuff?” she said weakly.

    “Mm?” he replied vaguely, sitting down on his side of the bed and picking up his glass of milk. “Darling, do turn that main light out, would you? It’s like the main sound-stage at Twentieth-Century Fox with that thing blazing at us!” He switched the bedside lamp on.

    Georgy went over to the door and turned out Mrs Mayhew’s crystal chandelier.

    “Um—the furniture, did you say, darling?” he said, sipping the milk. “Well, the bed’s Ma’s, of course: no doubt she’ll reclaim it.”

    “Yes,” gulped Georgy.

    “No panic, the lease runs for another two months yet,” said Adam, sipping the milk.

    “But I can’t stay here by myself!” she gasped, turning scarlet.

    “Why not? Might as well make use of it: Pritchard and Pritchard Junior won’t refund the dough, you know!” said Adam with a little laugh. “It was three months or nothing.”

    “Yes—um—Pritchard & Taylor, I think,” said Georgy feebly. “Um—no.”

     There was a short silence.

    “Aren’t you going to have a shower?” he said, yawning.

    “Um—yes. Um, I’ll wait until you’ve cleaned your teeth.”

    Adam didn’t react to this odd remark, as he had now discovered that if you turned on any of the other taps in Mrs Mayhew’s townhouse while the shower was running, you were immediately either scalded or frozen. Georgy apparently accepted this as not only normal but inevitable. Rather as she accepted the fact that things fell down, not up, when you dropped them.

    “I can’t stay here with no bed, though,” said Georgy in a tiny voice.

    He glanced round at her. She was just standing stock-still on Mrs Mayhew’s Axminster, midway between the door to the sitting-room and the door to the ensuite. “Darling, I’m quite sure Ma has no intention of snatching the bed from under your divine bod the minute I’m out the door,” he drawled.

    Georgy’s eyes filled with tears. “No,” she said in a stifled voice.

    Adam noticed the voice but pretended to himself he hadn’t. “I’ll give Dad all the papers, he’ll sort out when to collect beds and return keys to Pritchard, Pritchard & Grandson, and so forth.”

    “Mm.”

     There was a short silence.

    “Only what about the rest of your stuff?” gulped Georgy.

    “For God’s sake! It’s yours! It’s crap anyway! Do whatever you like with it!” Adam got up and strode into the bathroom. He turned the cold water on viciously in the basin. “Burn it, if you like!” he said loudly. “Give it to the helpful Roberta! I don’t care, it’s served its purpose!”

    Georgy had a feeling that she also had served her purpose, though she did realize that Adam would not have been so unkind as to make this last remark in order to reinforce the fact. She went numbly over to the dressing-table which he’d bought at Forrest Furnishings in The Arcade, and blindly sorted out his things, aligning them neatly on one side of the table-top, and putting her own few belongings on the other side.

    Adam came back, yawning. “The ong sweet’s all yours,” he murmured, getting into bed.

    “Ta. Um, don’t forget to pack these brushes and things, will you?” said Georgy hoarsely.

    “Of course not; I am used to packing myself up and getting myself from point A to the antipodes of point A, you know,” he said, yawning. “Do hurry, darling, I’m just about dead beat.”

    Georgy hurried into the bathroom. Then she hurried out again, whisked her cotton nightie out from under her pillow, not looking at him, and hurried back.

    Adam reflected idly that he should have bought her some really decent lingerie, while he was at it. Oh, well, too late now. Besides, judging by the boutique opposite his Cheese Shop, there was no really decent lingerie in the entire country.

    When Georgy came out of the bathroom he’d turned the bedside light off. She groped her way cautiously in the dark to the bed and silently got in. She had thought he might pretend to be asleep—in fact, part of her had been hoping he would—but he rolled over immediately and hugged her. “Just a simple one, mm?” he said into her neck. “Too beat for anything fancy.”

    “Just a simple one” meant that he would fuck rather hard for a few minutes and not bother about her. Nor would he bother about whether she was ready or not when he put it in there. Georgy couldn’t help thinking of what Ralph had said to her on this topic, even though she knew that wasn’t really fair: at least eighty percent of the time Adam did bother about her. In fact on occasion he bothered about her too much, insisting she have a come even when her body felt too flogged to be capable of it.

    “Yes. Go on,” she said faintly.

    He kissed her in a perfunctory way, hauled her nightie up, and mumbled at her breasts. Then he pushed his hand between her thighs. “All tight down here?” he murmured.

    Georgy didn’t say anything. She couldn’t help it if she wasn’t ready, and she didn’t know how to make herself feel ready—if that was what he was expecting. His remark had filled her with guilt that she wasn’t ready, but even if she had consciously realized this, she wouldn’t have been capable of telling him about it.

    Adam rolled on top of her and kissed her eagerly. Georgy put her arms round him and did her best to respond. Even though she felt more like crying, and besides could hardly breathe, he was putting so much of his weight on her. Just when she was thinking she couldn’t take any more and would have to ask him to let her breathe, he rolled off, sat up and fumbled for a condom.

    “Are you going to do it?” she said in a tiny voice.

    “No, I’m going to stand on my head,” he replied in annoyance. Georgy bit her lip.

    “Yew are moy gurlfriend, we are un bee-ud, don’chew thunk the local norm would undicate we oughta do ut?” he said in a horrible imitation of the local accent.

    Georgy thought miserably she ought to say laughingly at this point: “Who’s this local Norm, when he’s at home?” or words to that effect, but couldn’t. “Yes,” she whispered.

    “‘Yee-uss’, indeed!” said Adam gaily. He rolled on top of her, putting most of his weight on her again, and probed for her.

    After some time, during which he panted and muttered a little and tried to get in there, still with most of his weight on her, Georgy said very faintly: “You’re squashing me.”

    “Jesus!” he said angrily, rolling off her and flopping onto his back. “Don’t give me any encouragement, will you?”

    Georgy’s eyes filed with tears. She blinked them back and after a moment managed to whisper: “What shall I do, then?”

    “Any one of the things I’d fondly imagined I’d taught you this last month would do!” said Adam angrily.

    As he’d always taken the initiative this reply wasn’t much help. She just lay there limply.

    After some time he said crossly: “Don’t you want it, then?”

    “Um—yes. Um—I don’t know what to do,” she said weakly.

    Adam took a deep breath. “Well, at least let me do something,” he said with huge restraint.

    “I was!” she cried.

    “Of course!” he said cordially. “Lying there with your thighs like iron, telling me I was squashing you!”

    “I didn’t know my thighs were like iron,” she said blankly.

    “For Christ’s sake, Georgy! It’s our last night: can’t we just have a simple fuck without making a bloody song and dance about it?” he said angrily.

    Tears slid down Georgy’s cheeks and she wiped them away stealthily. “I’m not; I said you could do it.”

    “Oh, thanks very much!”

    “Well—well, what shall I do?” she said in a shaking voice. “Shall I hold it?”

    “I suppose that might be a start,” he said grimly.

     Georgy held it. Adam didn’t move, or say anything. Finally she said: “It hasn’t gone limp.”

    “I know that!”

    “Well—well, I thought you meant... Um...” She released him.

    Adam waited but she didn’t move. “Look, for God’s sake, Georgy, kiss me or something!” he said angrily. “Don’t just lie there like a log of wood!”

    Georgy put her lips timidly on his. Immediately Adam kissed her fiercely, rolled her onto her back, and got on top of her again. “Look, for Christ’s sake just let me!” he said in her ear. He bit the ear delicately.

    “Ow! Um—yes, go on.”

    He tried again. “Look, Georgy, I can’t, when you’re all closed up!”

    “I’m not doing it on purpose!” she cried.

    “Uh—no.”

    “Push harder,” said Georgy in a small voice.

    Adam pushed harder. Finally she said: “Ow!” and he rolled off her, got up and went into the bathroom.

    Georgy just lay there, feeling very scared. Had he lost his temper? What was he doing? Finally he came back and said: “This ointment stuff’ll have to do, we don’t seem to have any Vaseline.”

    “What?”

    He sighed. “Put your legs apart.”

    Georgy did so. He anointed her carefully, not to say clinically. The ointment was cold and she gasped, and then felt guilty for having done so. He then anointed the condom carefully. “If you had the slightest grasp of elementary arithmetic, I could probably dispense with this damn thing,” he noted.

    “Ye-es...”

    “Don’t worry, I don’t want another scene like last week’s,” he said grimly. “Now, for God’s sake kiss me or something, will you?”

    He rolled on top of her again, and kissed her, fumbling at her breasts. Not surprizingly, Georgy was no more aroused than she had been before, but the ointment helped and this time, after she’d restrained some squeaks and gasps, he got in. His arms shook; he said: “Hang on!” and collapsed on her with all his weight.

    “Christ,” he said in a muffled voice into her shoulder.

    Georgy replied in squashed tones: “Did you come?”

    “No,” he said tiredly. “Can’t you tell?”

    “Not always,” she admitted.

    Adam sighed. He remained motionless in her for some time but as he took some of his weight off her she was at least able to breathe. She was too upset and by now also far too bewildered and scared to think that possibly she might think about enjoying it. She just waited, not knowing what he wanted next, or what he was going to do next, or if he was going to do anything at all.

    Then he sighed again, only on a different note, and nibbled at her neck, and kissed her wetly. Then he fucked hard for what to Georgy felt like an hour but was probably about five minutes, and came with a loud series of yells and gasps. Georgy, in a numbed, obedient fashion, held his back tight, because on previous occasions he’d told her to.

    Then he just rolled off her, flopped onto his back and began to snore.

    It was only at this point that it dawned hazily on Georgy that possibly the amount-of indifferent fizz and what he himself had described as “proto-Portuguese” brandy he’d drunk at the party might have had some effect on his performance. But she didn’t ask herself if perhaps his attitude might have been calculated, whether or not subconsciously, to force her into some sort of emotional outburst which would have brought about a confrontation between them, and thence some sort of resolution of their situation. She was incapable of analysing either his attitude or her own. And certainly incapable of realizing that, since she’d been incapable of the expected and possibly required emotional outburst, Adam had felt very anti-climactical indeed and that that had also been a factor in the inadequacy of his performance.

    As to what sort of a resolution Adam had been hoping for... Even without the bad brandy and the indifferent fizz he would probably wouldn’t have been able to say.

    Georgy removed the condom and cleaned and dried him as she had once before. This time, however, when she got back into bed she didn’t snuggle up to him. She felt instead that she hated him. She turned away from him, curled up right on the edge of the bed as far away from him as she could get, and cried soundlessly into her pillow for a long time.

    After that Adam’s snores kept her awake for another couple of hours. She finally fell into an exhausted sleep as a dim grey light was starting to filter past the edges of Mrs Mayhew’s floral Sanderson linen curtains.

    Christopher had ignored Melinda’s warnings that it was far too early and, since they would have to leave for the airport shortly after ten, got to Willow Grove when he was ready to. The only signs of life at Willow Grove at just after eight o’clock of a warm March Sunday morning were a skinny young couple in matched shorts, singlets, huge sneakers and fuzzy headbands backing a trailer-sailor out of their double garage and into the drive. Christopher had drawn up on the other side of the road; he kept well clear, until they’d managed this operation and disappeared up Elizabeth Road in a cloud of dust. Then he drove up the drive, reflecting as he did so that any noise his elderly car was making as it objected to the slope was nothing to the racket produced by the trendy 4WD of the matched pair. As they had both observedly worn earrings and as they had both had cropped hair it had been, Christopher told himself acidly and untruthfully, impossible to ascertain whether they were in fact a breeding pair. He would have been considerably annoyed could he but have known that his reaction to these not atypical denizens of Willow Plains was the twin of Ralph Overdale’s.

    He knocked and rang without result. But he wasn’t particularly phased: he’d expected it. He could hear the phone ringing in the flat: more than likely Melinda doing her bit.

    “They’re probably asleep,” said a detached contralto.

    Christopher jumped slightly, and turned. A large auburn-haired woman in jeans and a khaki shirt was watching him expressionlessly. “They’re probably asleep,” she repeated.

    “Yes. They are expecting me, however,” he returned courteously.

    “Oh.” She scratched the auburn mop. “I could nip round and yell outside their bedroom window,” she suggested.

    At this munificent offer Christopher was flooded with a pure, unholy glee. “Please do so. You could yell that Adam’s father is here, if you like,” he added generously.

    “Righto.” She disappeared round the higher side of the flat. Christopher waited in delicious anticipation.

    Sure enough, pretty soon her deep and considerably resonant voice could be heard bellowing: “OY! GEORGY! ADAM! WAKE UP! YOUR FATHER’S HERE, ADAM!”

    “Oh, frabjous day,” he noted.

    After a bit more yelling on the auburn-haired contralto’s part—she would make a wonderful Valkyrie, decided Christopher—and a bit more leaning on the doorbell on his, he heard a small, clear soprano sav: “It’s all right, Michaela, he’s getting up. Thanks.”

    Then the front door opened and Georgy in her horrible housecoat said breathlessly: “Hullo, Christopher!”

    “Thanks,” said Christopher to the solid Michaela, as she reappeared; she just nodded, and strode off busily. “Hullo, Georgy, my dear,” he said, coming in. “Is he out of his pit?”

    “Yes, he’s just having a shower. I’ll just put my jeans on and then I’ll give you a hand with the bags.”

    “Thanks. –This ready to go?” he said, indicating the one that stood by the phone.

    “Yes!” gasped Georgy breathlessly, flying off towards the bedroom.

    Christopher made a face, picked up the bag and took it down to the car. By the time he’d got up the steps again Georgy had lugged two suitcases out to the hall and was apparently setting off for more.

    “Are you ready?” he demanded evilly, when his son finally surfaced.

    Adam shrugged and held up his small in-flight bag. “Certainly. Wilbur Smith, an’ all. –Got your keys to the flat, darling?” he said airily to Georgy.

    “Um—no; um, I’m not invited, am I?” she said blankly to Christopher.

    He took a deep breath and managed merely to reply: “Yes, of course, Georgy. Hop in.”

    Adam dug in his pocket. “Have my keys, on second thoughts,” he said. He closed the front door, came down the steps and handed Georgy his door keys.

    “Yes—um—ta,” she said weakly.

    Christopher had not, of course, envisaged that the morning would be much more promising than that. So there was really little excuse for his then yelling at his son: “GET IN THE BLOODY CAR, ADAM, BEFORE I THROTTLE YOU!”

    Adam shrugged, and got in the back. Next to the pile of luggage that they hadn’t been able to fit in the boot.

    “Get in the front, Georgy,” said Christopher with tremendous restraint.

    Georgy got meekly into the front.

    “Get this down ya,” said Jake firmly.

    Picking it up in his palsied hand, Joel duly downed the restorative. “Well, that was it, really, darlings,” he croaked, coughing a bit. “Artless chat over the brekkie things, and bye-bye. Not a tear in sight.”

    ”Jo-el!” cried Jill angrily.

    “Er—yeah, that is a bit unilluminating, old man,” said Jake weakly.

    Joel groaned. Since the conversation was taking place on the Carranos’ patio he then looked weakly at his host and said: “Sorry, Jake. Wee Georgy insisted on waiting the very-nearly two hours to watch the plane take off. –Not in the hope that it would explode as it did so, alas,” he added sourly.

    “JO-EL!” bellowed Elspeth in horror.

    Everyone was so much in sympathy with Joel’s sentiments that they were incapable of telling her to shut up.

    Finally Jill said weakly: “Well, here you are, anyway.”

    “What’s left of ’im!” noted Sir Jake heartlessly.

    Joel winced, attempted a pale smile, and failed.

    “I won’t pass you these, then,” said his hostess, passing a tray of small edible things to Jill and Elspeth.

    Joel shut his eyes briefly. “No, don’t, Polly, dear. Er, where’s Gretchen?”

    “Chickened out.” explained his host tolerantly.

    “Couldn’t take the post-mortem,” agreed Jill. “I did warn her it was now or later, but she muttered something about sufficient unto the day.”

    “Both she and Jill,” Joel explained to his hosts with his eyes shut, “chickened out of the Last-Night party last night. –No blame attaches,” he added in a hollow voice, feeling his eyelids gingerly in case they might explode on contact.

    His host and hostess were exchanging guilty glances but Joel of course missed these. Finally Polly said in a small voice: “Sorry we didn’t make it either, Joel.”

    “No blame, darlings,” he repeated faintly. Ugh, the actual eyeballs had swollen, that was wot.

    “Heck, I woulda gone!” cried Elspeth in astonishment.

    “Shut up,” sighed Jake.

    “Have another pineapple juice,” said Polly quickly.

    Elspeth accepted another pineapple juice but asked keenly, after the first gasping fit was over and the level in the tall tumbler had sunk by about four inches: “Did you all watch the plane take off, Joel?”

    “Er—not quite. Well, Melinda didn’t come to the airport with us, didn’t I make that clear?” he said cautiously.

    “Didn’t make anything much clear,” grunted Sir Jacob.

    “Er—sorry. No, well, as I said: bright chat over the brekkie table—”

    “Three times,” groaned Jill.

    “Four,” corrected Polly.

    “Eh?” he said.

    “You’ve told us three or possibly four times,” explained his cousin heavily, “that the Blacks indulged in bright chat over the breakfast table.”

    “And Adam,” added Elspeth keenly.

    “He is a Black!” certain people shouted.

    Elspeth stuck her chin out and said stoutly: “He calls himself McIntyre, though.”

    “Shut up,” sighed Jill. “Or I’ll leave you here and you can explain to your father why you were here in the first place.”

    Joel took his hands cautiously away from his throbbing skull. “If everyone’s finished shouting,” he said hoarsely, “I’ll continue. Yes, Adam also indulged in bright chat—though his was airy, rather than bright—airy chat, then, over brekkies.”

    “What did you have?” asked Elspeth keenly.

    “Er—black coffee, dear,” he murmured. Jill choked.

    “Want another one of those pick-me-ups?” offered Jake in an ’orribly ’earty voice, grinning.

    “No, one will suffice this fragile frame, thank you, Jake,” he whispered.

    “What was in it?” asked Elspeth eagerly.

    “Shut up, Elspeth,” sighed Polly.

    As no-one added anything, it apparently percolated that she wasn’t going to learn the recipe for her Uncle Jake’s pick-me-up today. Scowling, she said: “Well, go on, then, Joel.”

    Joel closed his eyes again. “Elspeth, darling, how many times? That was It: I,T. It. No tears, lamentations, gnashings of teeth—have I left anything out?”

    “Wailings?” offered Jill drily.

    “Ah, thank you. No wailings,” he said heavily to Elspeth.

    “His mother must have cried!”

    “His mother looked bloody pleased to see the back of him, dear,” he said acidly.

    “Oh.”

    There was silence on the Carranos’ patio. Joel felt the eyelids again.

    “Didn’t Georgy cry at the airport?” said Elspeth sadly.

    “No,” he groaned. “No-one cried.”

    After a moment Polly said weakly: “You can’t just leave it at that, Joel. What did they do?”

    Wincing, Joel said: “Checked in lee bag-ahdge interminably. Even First Class he had to pay extortionate amounts in excess bag-ahdge. Found the place where they disappear through screens and barriers two hours before the thing’s due to take off. –They do that, dear,” he said acidly to Elspeth.

    “I know! I’ve seen Uncle Jake off mill-yuns of times!” she said huffily.

    “Sorry, sorry,” he whispered. “Um—what next? Adam spurned the idea of airport coffee. Georgy had to dash off to the loo.”

    Silence.

    “What next?” said Polly limply.

    “Christopher asked Adam for his book back but Adam said he hadn’t finished it and he’d post it from Aw-stry-lee-ah and Christopher said if he lost it he needn’t come home again. And that it was pronounced “Oss-tray-lee-a” on this side of the Tasman and “Uh-stray-ya” on the other— Is that correct, dear?” he suddenly asked Polly.

    “More or less, yes,” she said limply. “Depending slightly on the schooling of the speaker.”

    “Geelong,” said Sir Jacob thoughtfully. “Whass that other one?” he enquired of his spouse.

    “Dunno,” she said simply,’

    “What happened?” demanded Elspeth crossly.

    Joel took a deep breath. “Nothing, darling, which is what I am trying to explain. Georgy came back from the loo. And they announced that passengers had to go through the whatsit. So Adam said,”—at this point they all hung on his words with breathless interest but Joel was really too hungover to appreciate it—“‘Well, that’s me. Thanks for putting up with me, everyone.’” He paused.

    “What?” said Polly in a shaken voice.

    “Is that all?” croaked Jill.

    “Wait,” replied Joel, holding up a frail and palsied hand. “While Christopher was still looking dumbfounded, he then kissed yours truly on the cheek—just as well no Press-persons were around, one supposed dully,” he added dully, “wished one good luck with Piggy-Whiskers, kissed Georgy on the cheek, said ‘Bye-bye, darling, all the best,’ and then held out his hand to his dumbfounded Pa.”

    “What did Professor Black do?” gasped Elspeth—no-one else was capable of speech.

    “He shook it, dear, what else?” replied Joel testily. “By the time Adam had shown his ticket and gone through the whatsit, he was looking as if he’d like to knock those perfect teeth of his down that perfect throat of his, but by then it was Too Late.”

    “He can’t just have— Didn’t he hug Georgy or anything?” gulped Polly.

    “NO!” he shouted.

    “I thought she was his girlfriend,” said Elspeth in bewilderment.

    “So did some of us others, Elspeth,” agreed Joel grimly.

    Silence fell.

    Suddenly Elspeth shouted: “He’s a PIG!” and ran into the house.

    “Sorry,” said Jill lamely. “She turned up at our place, and— Sorry.”

    “That’s all right,” said Polly dully. “We’re used to her.”

    Jake got up hurriedly and began dispensing drinks all round. Stiff ones.

    After a long period of silence had elapsed, Polly said dully: “I suppose she’s better off without him, really,”

    Sir Jacob then ventured: “How was she in the car coming back, Joel?”

    “Silent. Pale. And before anyone asks me, Has she gone home to have a good cry, the answer is Yes.”

    After a moment Polly said weakly: “Where to, though, Joel?” and Jill looked at her gratefully.

    “The flat. And nobody ask me anything else. I don’t know anything else,” he said grumpily, crossing his arms on his chest and closing his eyes definitively.

    Jake got up. “Think you’d better have another pick-me-up, after all.”

   “No,” said Joel sourly with his eyes closed. “I shall stay down, thank you, Jake.”

    Jake ignored this and got him one anyway, though his audience silently considered that only a man of his ebullience would have gone so far as to force it on the poor little man. In fact his wife muttered: “Tactless brute.”

    After that silence descended on the patio again.

    Georgy had, indeed, gone home to have a good cry but she had not at first done so. She felt completely numbed. She had felt numb all morning, in fact. This might have had something to do with almost no sleep the night before but she was past realizing that. After moving round the flat like an automaton tidying things away for some time, she went into the bedroom and made the bed. Then she lay down on the bed but couldn’t sleep. So she got up and went into the sitting-room and turned on the portable television that Adam had spent an immense sum on in Ross’s hardware and appliances shop. It seemed to be a choice between cricket and soccer, so she turned it off again. Then she picked up a book and put it down. Then she wandered back into the kitchen and did some more tidying and made herself a cup of tea, even though she wasn’t particularly fond of tea. After drinking it and washing and drying the crockery, including Mrs Mayhew’s rose-china teapot, she drifted back into the sitting-room and turned the TV on again. Now it was a choice between ice-hockey and soccer. Georgy went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed without taking her sneakers or jeans off.

    After a very long time she got up and, moving very slowly and stiffly, closed the curtains. Then she lay down again.

    About four hours later she woke up with a thumping headache. After going to the toilet and choking down some Panadol she returned to the bed. This time she peeled the covers back and put her cheek on a pillow. The pillow smelled of Adam’s expensive French aftershave. Georgy began to cry in a series of hard, gasping sobs.

    When the plane took off Adam experienced a tremendous sense of release. There was no-one beside him. He put his seat back a little, loosened his seatbelt as soon as the sign went out, put his in-flight bag on the spare seat next to him, and rang for the hostess. He knew it was an odd request, but could he possibly have a glass of milk and a brandy?

    When these were forthcoming he poured a little of the brandy into the milk and drank it slowly. Then he tilted the seat back further, adjusted the air conditioning so it was comfortable, adjusted the woolly from his in-flight bag over his chest just in case, and went to sleep. He slept all the way to Sydney, about four hours.

    Possibly Jacky had been on the job, or possibly it was the small Sydney repertory company making the most of their guest lion, but there was a terrific Press reception at the airport. Adam was terribly charming to everybody. The people from the repertory company took very good care of him, drove him to his hotel, explained the time difference, made sure he had everything he needed, came back after he’d showered and changed and took him out to cocktails and an early dinner, since Adam declared he was ravenous, and generally gave him a wonderful time.

    Adam enjoyed every moment of it and fell into bed at about ten-thirty Sydney time, went out like a light, and slept like a babe.

    It would have been very difficult to say whether, at the back of his mind, just before he fell asleep, there did in fact hover a recognition that he had thoroughly fulfilled all the gloomiest prognostications of his ill-wishers on the other side of the Tasman.