Trivial Pursuits

27

Trivial Pursuits

    “We could go to the beach,” said Georgy dubiously. “Later on, I mean.”

    Adam yawned. “I don’t feel like it, really, darling.” He yawned again. “Actually I don’t feel like getting up, or even thinking about the day.”

    Georgy didn’t suggest going for a nice Sunday drive, as he disliked driving. Then she remembered. “We left the car in at varsity!” she gasped.

    He yawned again. “So we did.”

    “Do you think we should go in and get it, Adam?” said Georgy, swallowing.

    “A-ah... No, on the whole.” Adam yawned.

    Georgy looked down at his prostrate form dubiously. Was he always so... well, washed-out, really, after a first night? She supposed he could well be. In fact, now she came to think about it, he’d probably be worse after a London first night. After some moments’ hesitation, she said: “Do you feel like breakfast, yet?”

    “No.”

    “I could make some coffee.”

    Adam yawned. “Would it be drinkable, though?”

    “I’m getting better. I made some... Um, a couple of days ago, I think: that morning Mac didn’t said I needn’t come in. I made it for me and Miss McLintock.”

    “So?” he said without interest.

    “She came over and I made some coffee and she said it was very nice. Especially with the hot milk.”

    “And what you two spinster ladies didn’t drink, the dachsie finished up,” he drawled.

    Georgy went very red.

    “God, did it?” said Adam. “I must admit I’ve seen it having a go at Ralph’s tires, and one day it had something disgusting it must have found up in the fields somewhere, and another day it was gnawing on a soggy rag that turned out to be Michaela Whatsit’s gardening hat, but—”

    “Don’t be silly: that’s all apocryphal. Just because he stole that sandwich you were silly enough to leave on the front steps.”

    “Halfway up the front steps. Our front steps,” corrected Adam. “Well?”

    Georgy swallowed. “Um, he did drink up the rest of the warm milk. We put it in a saucer for him,” she added hurriedly.

    “He’ll have a heart attack before he’s forty,” drawled Adam, yawning again.

    “Dogs don’t live to be— Don’t be silly. Anyway, Miss McLintock said the coffee was lovely. But if you don’t want any, I don’t mind.”

    Adam just yawned again.

    “I think I’ll go for a little walk,” she said with a sigh.

    “Mm. Draw the damned curtains, would you, darling, I can’t bear the sight of that busy old fool.”

    Obediently she went over to the curtains, but pointed out: “The sun’s not coming in from this side.”

    “I meant bloody Ralph Overdale,” said Adam, pulling the sheet up over his face.

    Georgy bit her lip. She closed the curtains that she’d earlier opened in the hopes that the sight of the morning—the far-advanced morning—might liven Adam up, and went out.

    “Did you ring them?” asked Ngaio eagerly.

    Ross didn’t say “Why me?”, he’d already said that, and it hadn’t worked. “Yeah.”

    “What did they say?”

    “ׅ‘Adam and Georgy are unavailable at the moment, please leave a—’”

    “RO-OSS!”

    “In a poncy Pommy accent, of course.”

    “He can’t help the fact that he grew up in England!” said Ngaio vigorously.

    Ross sniffed slightly.

    After a moment she said: “Blow.”

    “Yeah. Well, bang goes one bright idea for putting him off the whole notion of Holy Matrimony.”

    After a couple of seconds she hollered: “ROSS CORNWELL!”

    “Well, let’s face it, a picnic up Carter’s Bay with our lot—”

    “Don’t be silly,” said Ngaio, pouting. “Anyway, it doesn’t have to be Carter’s Bay, it was just a thought.”

    “Well, we could wait a bit and ring them later. I suppose they were pretty late last night.”

    “Ye-es...

    “All right: we’ll go without ’em.”

    Ngaio scowled.

    After a few moments during which he watched her face without result, Ross hollered: “WELL, WHICH?”

    “Wait a bit,” said Ngaio sulkily

    They waited a bit.

    “God, are you up?” groaned Wal incredulously, peering at Panda over his top sheet.

    “Yeah, r’an’ you can get up, too!” she replied vigorously in the vernacular.

    Wincing, he peered at her. Clean tee-shirt—Christ.

    “Get UP, Dad!” shouted Panda. She marched over to the windows and hauled fiercely on the cords that operated his up-market dark green velvet curtains. A magnificent view of the harbour poured in, sunlight glinting off tiny wavelets, and all. Wal screwed his eyes tight shut.

    “Get UP, it’s LATE!” shouted Panda.

    Wal reached for his watch on the bedside table with his eyes shut. He opened one eye cautiously and squinted. Barely noon. “It’s the middle of the night,” he muttered.

    “It is NOT! Get UP, we’ll be late for MOTAT!”

    Groaning, he replied: “Rats.”

    Panda marched over to the bed and ruthlessly hauled off the one air-cell blanket. Astonishingly, the up-market apartment block that was costing Wal far more in rates, ground-rent and maintenance fees than the prestige of the address could possibly be worth, was actually air-conditioned. Wal only turned his on when he was desperate, however: he had been thoroughly brainwashed by Sister Anne in his youth. Comfort was sinful. Ninety-nine percent of New Zealand shared this prejudice: it wasn’t particularly a Catholic one.

    “Push off,” he sighed, putting an arm over his eyes.

    “Get up, we’ve got to collect Miss Wentworth!” she replied crossly.

    Wal groaned. “Livia won’t be up yet, for Christ’s sake.”

    “No, but we’ve got to get ready,” said Panda stubbornly.

    Wal groaned again.

    There was a short silence, and then she said in a small voice: “Have you got a headache?”

    “Yeah.” Wal registered the smallness of the voice. He took his arm off his face and squinted at her. “Why, have you?”

    “Just a bit of a one.” Panda hesitated. “Is it a hangover?”

    “Mine is, yeah. Did you drink any of that bloody fizz last night?”

    “Um—yeah. Well, everybody else was drinking it, and I’m nearly seventeen, I—”

    “Shut up,” he sighed. “If you drank that bloody fizz and now have a headache—yes, it’s a hangover.”

    “I thought it was,” said Panda, sounding pleased.

    He sighed. “Have you taken anything for it?”

    “No, there isn’t anything.” There was a pause. “There’s some condoms in that bathroom cabinet,” said Panda in a strangled voice.

    Wal opened one eye. “Must be relics of the last inhabitants, then.” He’d bought the flat off a legal acquaintance who’d recently re-married. This fellow had cheerfully admitted he was making Wal pay through the nose for the bloody place because he’d paid through the nose for the bloody place. He’d also cheerfully admitted that when the bloody land agents said “Five minutes from downtown” they meant five minutes on a Sunday afternoon when the entire city was deserted.

    “Yeah,” said Panda, swallowing. “Um—c’n I look in your bathroom, then?”

    “Yeah. –If there are any condoms in there, they’re mine,” he added nastily.

    Panda didn’t answer but her ears went very red as she went into his awful trendy ensuite.

    Wal had had the main bedroom redone: where previously it had been terribly masculine in shades of dark brown, and quite incredibly depressing, it was now less terribly masculine but still terrible, and pretty depressing, in shades of dark green and silver-grey, with a huge oblong abstract Thing over the bed, comprising a silver-grey background with a faint greenish streak on it. At least he couldn’t see it when he was in bed. The bedroom furniture was all Eighties-look fake-Thirties-look: chunky with unnecessary bulging curves. And all shiny silver-grey: some sort of plastic finish, possibly.

    Panda came back with a packet of Panadol. “Will these do?”

    “Yeah. Take two.” He took two of them off her and washed them down with a gulp from his bedside glass. It was very stale, it wasn’t last night’s, he’d been too zonked out to get himself a fresh glass of water, must be the night before’s. Panda washed down hers with a gulp after him.

    “There’s some vitamin B and C tablets in there, too: get ’em, will ya?”

    “Why?”

    “Just get ’em,” he groaned.

    Panda watched in astonishment as her father took six vitamin B tablets and three vitamin C. She reached for the bottles but he grabbed her hand and said weakly: “Uh—no, sweetheart, just take a couple. You weren’t on the grog all night like me.”

    “All right,” she said, going very red. After a moment he managed to work out it wasn’t the mention of the grog, it was the “sweetheart”. God.

    The phone rang and Amy snatched it up. “Miss Wentworth’s suite,” she said in a lowered voice—even though Livia was sitting up in bed not two feet away, sipping orange juice, quite wide awake.

    “Oh—er—one moment, please, Mr Thring,” she fluted. “It’s Mr Thring,” she hissed, putting her hand over the receiver: “he wants to speak to you!”

    Livia sighed. Why did Amy insist on calling him “Mr Thring”? Oh, well. She held out her hand for the receiver.

    “I could say you’re engaged, dear,” said Amy with an anxious look.

    “I’m not engaged!” snapped Livia.

    Amy gave her the receiver.

    “Hullo, Joel,” she said cautiously.

    “Livia, dear! Congrats on the show all over again!”

    Livia sighed. “You don’t need to say that. I’m hardly Dame Peggy.”

    “Er—no. Well, no, darling, you’re much, much, much prettier than poor Peggy could ever have been.”

    She sighed again. “Thank you, dear. Was there something?”

    “Er—well, ye-es... Have you seen the papers yet?”

    “No, Amy hasn’t been down— Why?” she said sharply.

    “Darling, there’s nothing! According to Christopher, there won’t be, until next week. He says—but of course one does not entirely take his word for it, darling, the man has a cruel streak—he says that the New Zealand Sunday papers are all put to bed, as it were, at least a week in advance.”

    After a moment Livia said weakly: “I suppose that’s possible.”

    “So one will not get a review until Saturday next, darling!”

    “Saturday?”

    “Well, this is the Christopher Black version, but yes, darling, the man had a ring of truth about him, it can’t have been just the Colgate smile: on Saturday the morning paper has an arts section!”

    “I’ll ring Mac!” decided Livia.

    “Er, yes, good idea, dear: horse’s mouth. I did try ringing Adam, but that silly machine of theirs was on.”

    “Oh?”

    “Yes, haven’t you struck that? It has one of those tray irritating messages: ‘Adam and Georgy are unavailable at the moment’, the sort that causes one to speculate, Why?”

    “Yes,” said Livia dully. “I suppose it does.”

    “Darling, is one in a post-first-night gloom? All anti-climactical?”

    “Yes. Aren’t you?”

    “We-ell... Not altogether, dear, I must admit.”

    “No. You don’t need to be: you were good,” she said dully.

    “Livia, darling,” sighed Joel: “you were lovely, very fairy-queen like, quite delish! Who cares if one or two of the more Bardish bits didn’t make sense?”

    “I do!” she snapped. “And you can just bet Adam does!”

    After a moment during which he tried not to gulp, Joel said weakly: “Darling, Adam isn’t like that. He’s a pro, after all: not one of yer sacred Bardologists!” He gave a nervous giggle. Livia didn’t react. “And this is only a piddling little student thing!”

    “Adam always cares, if it’s Shakespeare,” she said on a grim note. “I should never have agreed to do it.”

    Of course, she hadn’t agreed to, she’d forced herself on Mac. “Uh—silly, dear,” he said faintly. “The audience loved you! Lapped it up!”

    “Rubbish,” she said crossly.

    “Darling, have an Alka-Seltzer and cheer up: we’re booked solid for three weeks. One will barely have time to get one’s breath before one is off on the Piggy-Whiskers tour!”

    “All right for you,” she said sourly.

    “I thought the Australians were begging for your services?” he said cautiously.

    “Yes!” shouted Livia. “To do stupid chat-shows and quiz shows, and—” She choked. “It’s not serious acting!”

    “Darling, nor is Titania, it’s just a lovely, pretty part in a little summer frivol!” said Joel desperately. Livia didn’t reply but he thought he heard a sniffle. “Darling,” he said, sweating a bit: “if Liz Taylor can walk on to thunderous acclaim in OUDS productions of—um—Faust, was it?—whatever—then how can you be less than delish as—”

    “Shut up about Liz Taylor!” screamed Livia. “I never want to hear her name again!”

    She burst into noisy sobs, and slammed the receiver down.

    “Oops,” said Joel blankly, goggling at his silent receiver. He hung up slowly, wondering what on earth he’d said.

    Mac rang Adam and got the bloody answering machine. After the “tone” he drew a sizzling breath and said: “This is Mac. If you’ve got the sense you’re born with, Adam, which I take leave strongly to doubt, you’ll give bloody Livia a ring and tell her she was bloody marvellous in the bloody SHOW!” He hung up with a crash.

    Sir Ralph had debated going for a jog but he felt slightly below par. So he put on his maroon jogging shorts, plus a maroon tee-shirt, a pair of heavy white cotton socks, and his walking shoes, and went for a walk instead.

    This virtue was rewarded, because on reaching the top of the grassy slope of what was destined to become Willow Reach in the very near future he spotted a slim, red-headed figure lying on the grass in the sun a little way down the hill.

    “Hullo: recovering from the show?” he said, strolling over to her, smiling.

    Georgy jumped, and blinked at him through the new white-rimmed sunglasses.  “Yes. Well, and the party. How about you?”

    Ralph smiled down at her. Recovering? He felt instantly betterer, actually. She had damn good tits, and the way she was lying they were sticking up like two delicious pointed scoops of ice cream under that thin singlet thing. Was it new? It was white, with a narrow pale pink braid trimming the low neckline: hadn’t seen her in it before. Possibly it was his dirty imagination but the two scoops of vanilla ice-cream showed faintly rosebud at the tips. McIntyre must have chosen the thing for her. And he definitely must have chosen the shorts: they were new, too: those tight nylon-knit things to mid-thigh the kids got round in, these days. The cycling look, or some similar ad-man rubbish. You had to have perfect hips to get away with them and by God, she had ’em.

    Ralph was as stiff as a ramrod and he knew the maroon satin shorts did nothing to conceal this, but he didn’t kid himself Georgy would notice. Nevertheless he went on standing there for a bit, smiling down at her, as he replied: “Mm. I’m about at the three-quarters human stage. Thank God I didn’t drink much of that foul fizz your Senior Common Room laid on.”

    “Was it that bad?”

    “Worse,” he said definitely, smiling quizzically at her.

    Georgy squinted a bit, and shaded her sunglasses with her hand, and said: “Oh.”

    Ralph realized he was standing between her and the sun, so he came round to her other side and reclined beside her, propping himself on an elbow. “You shouldn’t stay out too long in this, with your skin,” he murmured.

    She sighed. “I know. I’ve got loads of sun-screen on.”

    After a moment he murmured: “Still in bed, is he?”

    “Yes. He’s very tired, after last night. He’s a very nervy person,” said Georgy glumly.

    “I think I had spotted that: yes.”

    “I suppose I am, too, only— Well, I didn’t have to actually act, that makes a difference.”

    “True.” Ralph lay on his back and gazed up at the Polaroid sky. “But given that he can’t have all that many Sunday afternoons left to spend with you before he goes off to do this play in Sydney—”

    “Don’t!” she choked.

    “The man’s a fool. Were I in his place,”—he turned his head and smiled lazily at her—“I assure you I wouldn’t leave your side for an instant. And I most certainly wouldn’t elect to spend a fine Sunday afternoon like this in bed.” He paused. “Not alone, that is.”

    Georgy went very red, and swallowed convulsively. After a moment she said, fiddling with a blade of grass: “Don’t say things like that.”

    “Why not? I’m a man, you’re a woman; you can’t imagine that McIntyre’s the only male in the world that fancies you dead rotten, surely?”—She swallowed noisily.—“Or do you imagine it switches off after fifty?” he said drily.

    “No, don’t be silly,” she said faintly.

    “I’m just honest. –A virtue you won’t find in many,” he added on a sour note.

    After a moment Georgy said: “I suppose not.”

    Ralph eyed her appreciatively. She was honest enough herself—and intelligent with it. Such a lovely change after—well, that bloody cow Sylvia, for example. He waited a little and then—since she still hadn’t run away—murmured: “Should I apologize humbly merely for being honest? Or cut it off, perhaps?”

    “No, don’t apologize,” said Georgy on a sigh. “I suppose you can’t help your animal nature.”—Ralph bit his lip.—“And you’re right: most people aren’t honest about anything, let alone—” she swallowed—“sex.”

    “Yes; let us not call it love,” agreed Ralph, lying on his back again. “Talking of which, need I assure you that if you need, well, anything, after McIntyre’s pushed off, I’m available? Ah—shoulder to cry on? Shelter for the night when Ma Mayhew comes back to reclaim her Conservative Horribles? Damn good sex?”

    “Don’t be silly,” said Georgy, very faintly.

    “Perhaps I should clarify that last point,” said Ralph, lips twitching. “By damn good sex I don’t mean pumping into you for hours on end until your poor little bod’s exhausted.”—Georgy was scarlet again; she was also goggling at him unbelievingly.—“I mean giving you a lovely come any time you want it, whatever way you want it.”

    “How can you possibly know—” She broke off.

    Ralph rubbed his chin. “It’s the logical conclusion: he’s a healthy young bull who’s been accustomed to—er—having his choice of the herd. In fact, having the heifers lining up for him, hasn’t it been?”

    Georgy bit her lip. “He isn’t always like that. It’s only sometimes. Um—well, I suppose you’re right, he is a healthy... Well, I usually enjoy it.”

    “All that any of us can reasonably ask: mm.”

    After a moment she said crossly: “And it’s none of your business, and you’ve got a dirty mind!”

    “Well, of course.”

    She swallowed.

    “We older gentlemen do understand, however, that—er—pleasuring the lady of our choice can be fairly important in a relationship,” he drawled.

    “I’ve got that, thanks!” she replied crossly, scrambling up.

    Ralph laughed, and got up. He pulled her plait teasingly. “Just remember what I’ve said: I won’t be running off to parts Offshore, I’ll be right here if you— Oh, Lor’!”

    Georgy had given a strangled sob and thrown herself against his chest.

    Ralph stroked her back slowly. He also pressed himself firmly against her wee belly, not to have done so would not only have required superhuman restraint, it would also have been blitheringly silly.

    After a while he managed to make out that she was sobbing: “He hasn’t—said—anything!”

    “No, I can well believe it,” he murmured.

    She gulped, sniffed and said gruffly: “Sorry.”

    “Don’t be. I meant it: shoulder to cry on, any old time.”

    She looked up at him doubtfully and he made a face and said: “Doesn’t mean I don’t still fancy you dead rotten.”

    “No,” said Georgy, wondering dazedly how much he’d paid for that gold filling.

    “Or that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy that,” he murmured.

    “Wha— Oh!” she gasped, going scarlet and pulling away from him.

    Ralph raised his eyebrows and drawled: “Are these hypocrisies necessary? Given that at this particular point in time you were probably ready to bawl on anything’s shoulder, didn’t the fact that I’m a man and you’re a woman and we’re both hetero and you turn me on like crazy make it a bloody sight better?”

    Georgy’s mouth opened very slightly. Ralph just waited. Well, actually he imagined a few things about that rosebud mouth and got stiffer than ever, and waited.

    Finally she said: “How on earth do you know these things?”

    He shrugged. “Combination of years of experience and—er—a refusal to indulge in the customary hypocrisies?”

    “It must be,” said Georgy, looking at him in some awe.

    “Would you rather I merely patted your back from a suitable distance and said “There, there, little girl,’ whilst pretending that neither of us had noticed the hard-on?” he said on an acid note.

    “No-o...” she said slowly. “On the whole, I wouldn’t.”

    “Thank God for that, for a terrifying minute there I thought you were going to go as mealy-mouthed on me as the rest of the bloody bourgeoisie!” He took her hand before she could formulate any sort of response to this and said: “Come on. Better get you out of the sun, mm?”

    “Yes.”

    Ralph walked very slowly by her side holding her hand, all the way down the rough grassy slope, along the rutted end of the old road, and up to the letterboxes of Willow Grove. Him and his towering prick.

    When they got there he released her hand and said lightly: “Well, you’d better run along before I carry you into my cave. –Oh, by the way, if the two of you really don’t have anything better to do this afternoon, I have the use of a friend’s beach house, if you’d fancy it? Horridly up-market, I’m afraid: it’s at Kingfisher Bay; but—?” He raised his eyebrows.

    “Thanks. I’ll ask Adam,” said Georgy shyly.

    “Do that.” Ralph turned away to his letterbox. Jammed with junk mail, as usual. He watched wistfully as she walked up the steep concrete drive ahead of him. Miss McLintock’s walking turd pottered over and she bent to pat him: ooh-er! Thank you, unnatural walking turd.

    “I’ll give ’em one more ring, and then we’ll go,” said Ross.

    “Righto.” Ngaio hung over his shoulder as he dialled.

    Ross sighed. Could have done it herself if she was that— He held out the receiver to her.

    “...at the moment, please leave a message after the tone. PEE-EENG!”

    Ngaio glared.

    “Don’t look at me!” Ross hung up. Probably doing it right now. Lucky sods.

    “We could go round there and—”

    “Don’t be an idiot!” he cried.

    Ngaio glared.

    “Get the kids, we’re going,” he said tiredly.

    Ngaio got the kids. Ross stuffed the chillybin into the boot. On second thoughts he stuffed an extra couple of beers into the chillybin, taking out an orange and two bananas in order to do so—though there was little hope he’d be allowed to drink them, if he was driving.

    “Get IN!” he shouted. “We’re GOING!”

    They got in.

    They went.

    “Ring her now,” suggested Panda for the fourteenth time.

    Wal sighed and looked at his watch. “Yeah. Righto. But she may not feel like an outing to MOTAT—well, she certainly won’t feel won’t if she drank much of that diabolical plonk—”

    “DAD! You’re making EXCUSES!” shouted his youngest daughter.

    She was right, there. Yep. Excuses was what he was making, all right. He sighed, and dragged himself over to the phone.

    Panda perched on a stool that belonged to the foul breakfast bar. Somehow Wal had never got around to buying himself a kitchen table. In any case he rarely breakfasted, just gulped down a cup of instant and shot out the door.

    “Well?” she panted, as he hung up.

    “You were right there, are you deaf?”

    “I could only hear you!” she wailed. “What did she say?”

    Wal sighed. “We’ll pick her up at two, okay?”

    “I thought we were gonna have lunch at MOTAT!” she wailed.

    “Can’t imagine why.”

    “DA-AD!”

    Wal sighed. “Panda, Livia Wentworth is far too up-market to want to stuff her face on hotdogs and hamburgers and candyfloss and whatever other muck they dish up at MOTAT these days. And both she and I are too old—our digestions won’t stand it. Geddit?”

    Panda looked sulky. After a moment she muttered: “You are, ya mean.”

    “She’s at least my age,” he said tiredly.

    “She can’t be!”

    “She’s had plastic surgery, are you blind AND deaf?” he shouted.

    “Well, don’t shout at ME!” shouted Panda.

    Wal bit his lip. “No. Sorry. Well, she has. And—well, I gather she exercises and—you know: eats sensibly, and so on.”

    After a moment she said: “She could do one of those videos: you know, like Jane Fonda, Mum’s got that.”

    Wal’s jaw sagged. “Yeah—for older ladies,” he croaked.

    “Yeah! Why don’tcha suggest it, Dad?”

    “Because I want to live to see my next birthday,” he said faintly. “Elderly though I am.”

    She pouted.

    “You don’t really want lunch, do ya?” he croaked.

    “YE-AH!” she roared.

    Wincing, he said: “Well, see what there is. And don’t shove it under my nose. Whatever it is.”

    Panda investigated the fridge. She investigated the cupboards. She investigated the freezer. “There isn’t ANYTHING!” she shouted accusingly.

    Hurriedly Wal investigated the freezer. Whew! That hunk of venison that Jake’s brother-in-law had sent up was still there, thank God. Apart from that, though, she was more or less right. What was—? Oh, those trout he’d caught down Taupo that time. Forgotten they were in there. Be all right, though. Well, she wasn’t being offered them, either. He closed the freezer’s lid. “You’re right: there isn’t anything.”

    “But I’m sta-arving!” she wailed.

    Wal as near as dammit chucked her the car keys and told her to get on down the dairy, then. Remembering just in time she wasn’t as old as the rest of ’em, he gulped a bit and said weakly, as her big dark eyes looked up at him hopefully: “Uh... Look, tell ya what, I’ll take ya to the Captain Kidd place in Livia’s hotel—okay?”

    Panda’s face lit up like Guy Fawkes’. “Really?” she gasped.

    “Yeah—why not? You can make yourself sick on pizza or something. And don’t expect it to be like flaming Pizza Hut.”

    “No: Lissa Gilbert says it’s a real restaurant!” she breathed, eyes shining.

    Yeah, well, up Lissa Gilbert. “Uh—more or less, yeah. I’d better give Livia another bell—though I doubt from the sound of ’er if she’ll fancy pizza,” he said with a smile.

    He rang her but Amy reported she was in the bath. And she didn’t think... Sure enough, she came back with Livia’s thanks but no thanks. But he and dear little Panda must come straight up to the suite afterwards!

    Wal had had every intention of coming straight up to the suite afterwards. Pair of silly moos. “Yeah. Uh—look, would you like to join us, Amy?”

    This was a mistake. It took ten minutes by Wal’s watch of exclamations, gratitude, disclaimers, involved explications in re raw onion and Amy’s having to be very careful and the state of Amy’s digestion after all the excitement yesterday, and further expressions of gratitude—blah-blah—for Amy to get out an actual refusal

    “Can’t imagine why Livia hasn’t wrung that moo’s neck long since,” he noted grimly. “Type that’s her own worst enemy. Reminds me of your grandmother.”

    “Which one?”

    “Your MOTHER’S MOTHER!” he shouted.

    “I didn’t mean that, silly,” said Panda, unmoved, to her father. “I meant, didja mean my real grandmother?”

    “Yeah,” he said feebly. “Ya real grandmother, yeah.”

    “They’re all pretty bad,” she said on a judicious note.

    She had a point, there. “Yeah. As a matter of fact, I shoulda been warned the minute I laid eyes on the three of ’em. They say the daughter generally turns out as bad as the mother, and by Christ—!”

    “I won’t turn out like Mum, will I?” she said in horror.

    Wal smiled. “No. Not a chance of it. Cummere and give yer old Dad a hug.”

    “You’re soppy,” she said uneasily, not moving.

    “Come HERE and GIVE ME A HUG!” shouted Wallace. “Or I won’t take you to bloody MOTAT.”

    Panda came over to him, looking mutinous. “That’s blackmail,” she pointed out.

    “Yeah, r’isn’it?” said Wal in the vernacular. He enveloped her in a bear-hug.

    Suddenly she hugged him back very tight and said: “Can I stay with you?”

    “Eh? You are staying with me, aren’tcha?”

    “Yes,” she said, sniffing. “Only Mum said the minute you got another—um—girlfriend, you’d chuck me out on my ear.”

    “I see. This is the woman that’d have my cobblers served up on toast for breakfast with a bit of bacon if she thought she could get away with it—right?”

    Panda gave a stifled giggle. “You’re awful, Dad.”

    “Yeah.” He dropped a kiss on the washed hedgehog and released her. “I’m awful, and your mother’d tell any sort of lie to drive a wedge between the pair of us. I won’t chuck you out on your ear. Even if I do get a new girlfriend, which on the face of it seems about as likely as your mother getting her preferred breakfast.” He thought about it for a few seconds. “Less.”

    Panda giggled. She leaned heavily on the breakfast bar. “I wonder what her mother was like,” she said thoughtfully.

    “I hope you don’t mean who I think you mean.”

    “She’s quite nice,” she said thoughtfully.

    “She’s also old enough to have become as much like her mother as she’s ever likely to.”

    “Yes. Is she too old to have babies?”

    “Yes,” he groaned. “And before you ask, so am I.”

    “I thought men could go on doing it for ages and ages,” she said in astonishment.

    “I’m too old to have housefuls of howling kids and wet naps!” he groaned.

    “Um—Dad?”

    “What now?”

    “Don’t wear those grungy ole jeans ya wear on the boat, will ya?” she said anxiously.

    Wal’s jaw sagged. He goggled at Panda’s torn knees, torn thigh and torn calf (opposite leg).

    “Wear those new ones,” she said in a pleading voice.

    “Yeah,” he said, rolling his eyes a bit. “I’ll wear those new ones.”

    Georgy looked nervously at Adam. “Are you asleep, Adam?”

    “Yes,” he said with his eyes shut.

    “Um—Ralph said would we like to go up to a beach house with him, it’s at Kingfisher Bay.”

    “No,” he said with his eyes shut.

    “It would be fresh air... And you wouldn’t have to do the driving.”

    “No,” he said with his eyes shut.

    Georgy hesitated. “I’d quite like to...”

    Adam didn’t respond.

    She licked her lips. “He is a wolf, of course... I think his heart’s sort of in the right place, though.”

    “Plus his other organs, it would appear,” he said with his eyes shut.

    “Um... Yes,” said Georgy, blushing madly in the darkened bedroom. Adam didn’t see this, he had his eyes shut.

    She looked at him hopefully, but Adam didn’t react. Finally she said: “Well, would you like to come for a walk, later?”

    “No,” said Adam with his eyes shut.

    “Well, I quite would!” said Georgy in a voice that came out rather high.

    “Splendid. Off you trot,” he murmured, yawning.

    “I am a free agent, I’m not your slave, you know!”

    “Mm: I just said: you go, darling. Have a lovely walk.” Adam yawned hugely, still with his eyes shut. “God, I feel effete,” he muttered.

    “Don’t make an effort, will you!” said Georgy loudly.

    “Darling, I couldn’t make an effort if my life depended on it,” he murmured.

    “All right, I’ll go! By myself!”

    “Mm: lovely,” he murmured, yawning. He turned over and buried his face in his old-rose pillow.

    Georgy glared at the back of his black head. Then she walked out, lips tightly compressed. She walked right out of the flat, closing the front door very quietly behind her, down the steps, across the sweep—ignoring the puzzled dachshund—and up Ralph’s front steps.

    “I will come,” she said when he opened the door.

    “Splendid,” he murmured, trying to conceal his astonishment. “Er—isn’t he interested?”

    “You could say that,” said Georgy grimly.

    Fighting down an urge to laugh hysterically, not to say cheer, he refrained with a huge effort from putting an arm round her, and motioned her to precede him. Georgy went in, looking grim.

    Sir Ralph padded after her, shoulders shaking silently.

    “I couldn’t possibly wear that!” said Livia, sounding perilously near tears.

    “But Ollie—”

    “NO!” she shouted.

    “You look lovely in it, dear,” said Amy anxiously.

    “He hates all my dresses,” said Livia sulkily. She picked up her sarong and flung it down again with a distasteful moue.

    “Ollie— I mean, Livia, you look really lovely in that one!”

    “He’s SEEN me in it, and I’ll burn to a CINDER in something like that, what’s WRONG with you, Amy?” screamed Livia.

    “It doesn’t seem as humid today, dear,” she faltered.

    Livia’s eyes narrowed. “Did you really go outside? I mean, really outside?”

    “Yes, onto the footpath,” she quavered. “The man thought I wanted a taxi, I think he thought I was potty!”

    “It’s still windy, though,” she said grimly.

    “Ye-es... Not as windy as it has been. I don’t think.”

    Livia breathed deeply through flared nostrils.

    “This blue one is lovely, dear.”

    “It’s too DRESSY and I can’t wear a hat in this awful WIND!” screamed Livia.

    “Well— Well, maybe you could ring dear Lady Carrano, and ask—”

    “NO! She’d say she only wears slacks to a place like that!”

    “Ye-es... Well—”

    “She can wear anything and get away with it! She’s got a beautiful figure, and she’s young!” cried Livia in anguish.

    “You can wear anything, Ollie: you’ve got a beautiful figure.”

    Suddenly Livia sat down plump on the end of the bed. “Go away, Amy, you’re not helping,” she said dully.

    Amy hesitated. “Ollie, dear, you’re crushing that lovely blue dress,” she said nervously.

    “Good,” said Livia dully.

    “Are you sure I can’t get you anything? Some of my herbal tonic?”

    “No, it tastes like hair-restorer,” said Livia dully.

    “We-ell... A nice glass of non-fat milk?”

    “NO! Go AWAY, Amy!” shouted Livia.

    Amy went.

    “What did you say?” said Charles limply.

    “Ferns,” replied Derry in a remarkably neutral voice.

    “Ferns,” said Charles limply.

    “Polly Carrano assures me that it would make a delightful wood near Athens.’

     Roddy at this looked up from his sketching and squeaked: “Ferns?”

    “Tree ferns, you idiot.”

    “Tropical rainforest near Athens,” muttered Charles.

    Derry ignored this.

    “There’s a statue of Queen Victoria in that park you fancied, did you know?” said Roddy neutrally.

    “‘Have a portrait of Queen Victoria,’” replied Derry deeply.

    Roddy sighed.

    “I thought you fancied those bloody... things with the roots in the park,” said Charles on a weak note, “for the tropical wood near Athens?”

    “Moreton Bay figs. Polly assures me,” said Derry blandly, “that the woods near Moreton Bay are full of them.”

    Charles took a deep breath but said nothing.

    “Unfortunately,” said Derry blandly, “they’re apparently also full of tiger snakes and carpet snakes and mosquitoes and—er—possibly cane toads, I gather it’s in Australia: Queensland.”

    “Fancy,” said Charles drily.

    “Highly desirable. Especially after South A-bloody-merica,” said Roddy into his large sketch pad. He held it up. “What do you think?”

    They looked at it.

    Finally Derry said: “It’s bloody dark, isn’t it?”

    “It is dark under those Moreton Bay figs: you’d be surprized.”

    “Rubbish. They’re dotted round the bloody park like—uh—bumps on bloody greensward,” said Charles on a weak note.

    “The impression when one gets under them, not to say amongst their roots,” replied Roddy blandly: “is of dark. Dark and eerie.”

    “Eerie isn’t bad,” conceded Derry. “Shove a bit of blue light in there: what do you think?”

    “I’ll have to get my blue crayon,” said Roddy resignedly.

    “Get it.”

    “Don’t you want him to go with you and look at these damn ferns?” asked Charles as Roddy exited, looking resigned.

    “No: I think Polly Carrano and I may be capable of looking at ferns unaided,” replied Derry with super-blandness.

    Charles sighed.

    Livia had put on a pair of blue cotton culottes. They were a very pale blue, and the stuff had a slub look which made it appear slightly unironed. Livia was aware that unironed was still very In, indeed that crumpled was still very In, but nevertheless every time she wore such a garment she was conscious of an uneasy feeling that the thing needed ironing.

    With them she was going to wear a pale blue silk shirt. It was real silk, and it was a man’s shirt, and it had that casual, sleeves-rolled-up look that was still very In. Livia didn’t know how other people managed it, and she had some time since decided crossly that all the pictures in the magazines must be faked, the models must be full of safety-pins, because, do what she would, she could never get her sleeves to roll up casually like that and stay rolled up! They’d keep coming down and she would feel cross and scruffy and untidy. So ingenious Amy had done marvellously clever things to this shirt—recently bought downtown at an extortionate price, absolutely extortionate—with needle and thread. The sleeves now both looked wonderfully casual and stayed in place. It was points such as this that made the mournful and migraine-ridden Amy more than worth her board and wages to Livia. True, Amy would not herself have thought of doing clever things to the shirt with her needle and thread: Livia had suggested it and shown her the way she wanted the result to look. They made quite a good team, really: Livia supplying the inspiration and Amy the practical skills.

    The shirt would sag off one shoulder, with most of its buttons undone, and it was destined to be held in place by a wide, tight, soft leather tie-belt, also in pale blue. Livia had tried several garments under it. The one she’d really wanted to wear was a white lacy slip-top. No, Wallace would make some rude remark about it, she was quite sure. The navy chiffon blouse that went with the green and blue outfit she’d worn on the day of the interview with the awful lady interviewer? No... too fancy. And Adam had been quite right about those appliqué-lace flowers, they didn’t move when she did. The pink sun-top looked all wrong. She rang Amy.

    Amy dashed in, panting. “Oh: yes, dear! Most appropriate!” she cried at the sight of Livia in her pale blue culottes and nothing else. “With the blue shirt?”—noticing it to hand. “Oh, good!”

    Livia revealed crossly that she’d tried everything under it.

    “They did have some nice little things in that boutique downstairs... Little tops, like the girls wear nowadays, dear: you know. Cotton. I think.”

    “Sleeveless?” said Livia through her teeth.

    “Yes; oh, dear, only now I come to think of it they had those funny Maori, um—squiggles on them, dear.”

    “Motifs. What colour were they?” said Livia through her teeth.

    “Um, the motifs or the— Um, all colours, really, dear.”

    “Ring them. Get them to send some up.”

    “Wuh-will they, dear, do you think? It is Sunday,” quavered Amy.

    “Yes!” snapped Livia.

    Amy went over to the phone.

    “And if they won’t, they’ll lose my custom, you can tell them that!” snapped Livia. “Sunday or not!” She stamped over the Axminster in her bare feet and stood at the window, frowning, arms crossed under the products of her plastic surgeon’s art.

    The boutique sent up Miss Dana (Dah-nah) in person with a load of tops and—just by the by—dresses, skirts and slacks. Miss Dana was one of those busty, long-legged, over-lipsticked, over-curled, over-scented girls who inevitably put on weight after the first baby, and Livia looked at her with mean pleasure and thought that in a few years’ time she’d be just like that woman that was the horse trainer’s wife: all floral sunfrocks and fat arms!

    Of course most of the tops were ghastly but she at last condescended to buy three: they were all just cotton vests, really—no, singlets, Livia corrected herself firmly in her head—but at least they had the In Look: one was bright pink, she had lots of things it would go with, and it had a white curlicue (or motif) which on Livia sat very nicely right between the products of her plastic surgeon’s art; one was black, and she only bought it for fun, because it had one white fern leaf that sat right on top of the left one and Miss Dana told her (with a nervous giggle) that it was supposed to be like an All Black’s shirt only more feminine; and the other was white but printed with an all-over pattern of small navy curlicues and—thankfully!—it just went perfectly with her blue things.

    Naturally she would only purchase these items at the customary twenty percent discount. Miss Dana, gulping, told her she was afraid they din’t do that, Muss Wentworth. Livia informed her, steely-sweet, that that was how it was always done, Overseas (she’d latched onto that expression, now, as being the magic one); but of course, if the boutique would rather she didn’t mention their name—? Gulping, Miss Dana conceded that she thought it would be aw right, just fuh once.

    Livia then offered kindly to let Amy choose a top. Amy immediately chose a foul khaki-ish thing with long sleeves but Livia more or less shut her eyes and let her have it. At the customary twenty per cent discount. Miss Dana didn’t even argue.

    Livia then thought that Miss Dana might throw in that pale blue scarf but as it was pure silk and hand-printed, Miss Dana thought she rilly cou’n’t do that, Muss Wentworth! Um—very weakly—um—yee-uss, that artist did do private commissions, as a matter uh fack—um—well, if Muss Wentworth rilly liked it… She let it go for half price. Livia hadn’t hoped for more than eighty percent but didn’t allow her triumph to show.

    The scarf was just an eight-inch wide strip, about two feet long, and even at half-price was daylight robbery, as Livia did not fail to point out to Amy; but, as she also did not fail to point out to Amy as the door closed behind Miss Dana, it exactly—exactly! matched the blue of her shirt! And its hand-printed Maori motifs were navy, and really it was quite smart, with its navy ends, didn’t Amy think?

    Amy obligingly thought so. She had a closer look and decided it looked a wee bit... Indian? Did Livia remember those pretty musliny things, and silk things, too, that used to be so popular a little while ago? Livia briskly rubbished this, pointing out that that was years ago and that the motif was definitely a Maori one. Amy agreed meekly to this proposition but looked doubtful. Neither of them realized the true curiousness of this scarf, which might with some accuracy have been said to be the product of global culture. Undoubtedly the motif was, or at least had originally been, a Maori one. It had probably been through several metamorphoses before it reached this scarf, as to an eye more accustomed to authentic Polynesian artefacts than were those of Livia, Amy or indeed any of the hotel’s Overseas clients, it had an oddly effete look. The “hand-printing” had been done by means of the batik technique. Indonesian, yes. The usual alternative was silk-screening. Both methods being very popular with New Zealand craftspersons. The Maori, of course, though they had had a variety of basket-weaving techniques which at the top end of their original market had produced chieftains’ cloaks of a reasonably tightly-woven consistency, had never developed fabric at all...

    “I bought this the other day,” said Livia in an off-hand voice that the experienced Amy recognized as indicating that she was none too sure of herself. “What do you think?”

    It was a white tennis visor. Amy announced with some relief that it would be just the thing to keep the sun off dear Ollie’s nose and forehead. Very casual—young-looking! she added on a desperate note as Livia still looked dubious.

    “Too young for me,” said Livia flatly, laying it down on her dressing-f-able.

    “No, dear! Of course, I could never wear something like that.”

    They were the same age. They’d been in the same class at school and had grown up together.

    “Shut up, Amy, you’re an idiot,” said Livia tiredly.

    Amy looked at her anxiously. After a moment she said: “I saw a very smart American lady wearing one in the elly-vay-dorr just the other day, dear...” She eyed her nervously. “Elly-vay-dorr” was a joke Ollie had made up, and usually she— But you never knew, with Ollie.

    To her relief Livia smiled reluctantly and said: “Oh, well... She wasn’t a golfy sort of American lady, was she?”

    Amy knew that Livia had a (completely ill-founded) dread of being considered to look like a golfy lady, so she said quickly: “Oh, no, dear! Not at all! Very smart: lovely pale yellow silk-knit top, matching pale yellow slacks—you know, those lovely American clothes; and those wonderfully sensible shoes the nice American ladies wear for travelling! White. Like the—” She broke off, unable to remember what those things were called. The word “beak” was the only one that came to mind.

    “Visor,” supplied Livia immediately. She picked it up and tried it on again.

    “Yes,” said Amy, sagging where she stood. “Visor. Very smart, dear. Smart but casual.”

    “I suppose it’ll have to do,” said Livia—sounding, however, quite pleased.

    “Yes, dear: lovely!” Amy got on with mechanically hanging up discarded garments, feeling somewhat dazed.

    Small wonder that after this marathon session, though she stayed on to greet Wal and Panda politely, she tottered off to her room and lay down on her bed with an eau-de-cologne-soaked cloth on her head. She didn’t have one of her migraines: she just felt... drained.

    “Get that locally?” said Wal, noticing the scarf casually knotted round Livia’s neck as they waited for the lights to change downtown.

    “Yes, dear: do you think it looks all right?”

    He glanced at it again. “Yeah: good. Ya look good.” The lights turned green and he let the clutch in.

    Livia’s knees went all shaky. She didn’t say anything, just clasped her hands very tightly on her casual white handbag.

    Georgy had expected—at least she had told herself that she expected—Sir Ralph’s friends to be at this up-market beach house. They weren’t. In fact, he said to her timid enquiry as he unlocked its front door, they were in Canada. Inspecting their first grandson.

    “Oh,” said Georgy faintly.

    Ralph’s lips twitched. He didn’t say anything more, just touched her shoulder very lightly to urge her inside.

    Georgy’s fit of temper had lasted—and Ralph Overdale had been fully aware of this—all the way to Carter’s Bay. In the little township it had started to wear off. During the short leg to Kingfisher Bay its last vestiges had evaporated. Now she felt distinctly nervous and was wondering why on earth she’d come.

    Ralph was fully aware of these sentiments. He felt that earlier he’d gone as far as it was sensible to go. He’d bide his time until bloody McIntyre left. Then he’d see. Unless, of course, she actually chucked herself at him: he wasn’t in the habit of looking gift-horses in their highly desirable mouths.

    Therefore he set himself placidly to get her eating out of his hand. Without, at the same time, getting too damned avuncular about it. He didn’t have much trouble with either of these goals: he’d had plenty of practice.

    “It’s a fernery, all right,” said Derry.

    “Yes, isn’t it?” agreed Polly placidly.

    The fernery was in a sort of semi-subterranean grotto. Privately Derry wondered if it was the site of a small abandoned quarry: if so, they’d done quite well with it. Given that the tree ferns were natives and grew like weeds. Privately Polly wondered if she ought to point out that the large hole in the hillside in which the fernery was situated was more than likely the site of the “hill’s” crater, but thought on the whole, she wouldn’t. Besides, it might not be. Though all the hills round here were volcanic. She’d take him up Mount Eden later, she thought with a little smile.

    “Quite steep,” he said.

    “Mm,” said Polly. Derry’s arm was already round her waist. “Lean on me,” he said, tightening it.

    “Mm,” said Polly, leaning on him a bit more.

    “Is it always full of Japs?” he said, as they descended into the fernery.

    “Mm,” said Polly. “’Specially on Sunday afternoons. They come up to the Museum. In bus-loads. –That white building on the top of the hill.”

    “Is it worth a visit?”

    Polly thought about it. “Are you interested in Maori artefacts?”

    “Er—no.”

    “Then I’d say it wasn’t. They’ve got some nice Chinese snuff bottles, though.” She thought about it. “Not good, but nice.”

    “Any netsuke?”

    “I’ve never found any.”

    “I’ll skip it,” he decided.

    “I would,” agreed Polly placidly.

    “Well, what first?” said Wal on a resigned note.

    “The old pump-house!” cried Panda.

    Even though there were notices all over the old pump-house explaining in enormous detail what the huge and mysterious machines inside it had been used for, Wal was damn sure Livia wouldn’t grasp a word. Not that he understood all that much, himself. He glanced at her feet. White wedgie sandals, reasonably low. Well…

    “Okay,” he said with a sigh.

    They went into the old pump-house. Wal had forgotten how many bloody steps there were, inside and out.

    Livia held his arm very tightly at the sight of the huge fly-wheel. “What is it?” she said faintly.

    “A fly-wheel.”

    Panda explained eagerly—and in enormous detail—what it had been used for.

    “I see, dear,” said Livia faintly.

    “Don’t like it, eh?” said Wal, lips twitching slightly.

    “No, dear,” she admitted faintly, gazing up at it.

    Wal didn’t know why, but even though the whole place was painted up and all the machines looked very spruce, he didn’t like it, himself.

    “No. I don’t like it, either: gives me the creeps,” he said.

    “Da-ad!” cried Panda in scornful astonishment.

    “Shut up. We’ll wait for you outside. The door we came in at, all right?”

    “All right,” she said, pouting.

    “And don’t be too bloody long about it.”

    He led Livia outside and stood her in the shade. “We’ll look at something nice, next,” he said. “Row of little shops and the old colonial cottage, eh? That’s pretty.”

    “Yes,” she agreed gratefully. “Um—Wallace, dear, I know little me is very ignorant, but I don’t think we have those, at home... What is a colonial cottage?”

    “Uh—you know: pioneer cottage.”—Livia looked blanker than ever.—“Dates from the days of the early settlers. First English settlers,” said Wal desperately.

    “Oh! Oh, I see, dear! ...When would that have been?”

    “Uh—eighteen-forties, I suppose.”

    Her mouth opened slightly.

    “Maybe a bit later. This particular cottage, I mean. There weren’t any white people here before Cook, ya know,” he said with a twinkle.

    “No-o…”

    “Captain Cook. 1769,” said Wal, grinning.

    “You know so much history, dear,” she said faintly.

    “Nope. All New Zealand kids learn about Captain Cook at school. Like you learn about the battle of Hastings, eh?”

    “1066,” said Livia automatically.

    “Yep.”

    Livia was silent, looking about her uneasily. Above them the sky was a hard, relentless blue. The complex of old brickwork, recycled Nissen huts and similar hangars that was MOTAT was a bustling scene of brightly-dressed family groups. Loud music came from an old calliope. Trams could be heard rattling and clanging, somewhere in the background a steam train was audibly getting up steam for its next trip and as they stood there, there was a loud blare from a horn and a red double-decker bus swayed slowly down the short main thoroughfare, the families scattering casually from under its very wheels. A scent of burnt onions, hot fat, candied sugar and dust mingled with a darker, grittier smell that reminded the dazed Livia vaguely of Euston Station in the bad old days of cheap lodgings and rotten parts…

    “No white people, hundred and fifty years or so back. Gives you a funny feeling, eh?” said Wal placidly.

    “Yes, dear,” she said gratefully. “It does.”

    He smiled, and slung his arm casually round her shoulders. “Funny,” he said: “I only ever think of it when I’m here, or out in the bush. Not that I get the chance to do much of that: sometimes go off on a hunting weekend with Jake.”

    “Ye-es... I suppose it’s because it’s very historical here, Wallace,” she said dubiously, looking up at him.

    “Mm,” said Wal with a little twitch of the lips. “I suppose it is.”

    Even although the “beach house” belonging to Ralph’s friends was two minutes’ stroll away from the beach, it had its own pool. Kingfisher Bay was full of such holiday homes, all huge. They all perched on the slope of manicured green, facing the water. One or two of them had started gardens but there were no trees apart from some small, windblown, and discouraged-looking kowhais along Kingfisher Parade, which lead from the Carter’s Inlet main road down to the waterfront, and thence to the slab-like excrescence that was The Royal Kingfisher Hotel on the easternmost point of the little bay. The marina was further west, in the centre of the curve of the bay. The whole place had an ersatz and artificial air which was due not only to the architecture of The Royal Kingfisher and of the soi-disant beach houses or the geometrical lines of the marina, but also to the fact that the whole bay had, of course, been scooped out by Carrano Development only a few years earlier.

    “This is a very nice drink,” reported Georgy, sitting up on an awninged sunlounger on the Beatsons’ north-facing pergola-ed patio before the Beatsons’ turquoise kidney-shaped patio pool.

    Ralph smiled. Mild rum punches—mixed with pineapple juice and a bit of extra sugar—usually went down well with young ladies of no sophistication whatsoever. “Yes, isn’t it?”

    “What’s in it besides the pineapple juice?” asked Georgy with interest.

    When he told her she said: “I don’t think I’ve ever had rum before.”

    Noting mentally that she couldn’t know Polly Carrano all that well, then: the rum punch usually flowed like water at her patio parties, he said: “Nice, isn’t it? Just a drop goes well with pineapple.”

    “Yes.” Georgy thought about it. “I think Ngaio—that’s my sister—I think she sometimes has a rum and Coke.”

    “That’s quite nice, too,” he lied, smiling warmly at her.

    “I’m not very fond of Coke. –Adam gave me a stout when we went to the pub at Carter’s Bay, only I didn’t like it,” she confided. “It’s strong, isn’t it?”

    Reconfirming his earlier opinion that the man was not only a Pommy wet but a tit, he said: “Mm. What drinks do you like, Georgy?”

    Georgy thought about it. “I haven’t tried very many. I like shandy.”

    Ralph Overdale made a mental note to get in some fizzy lemonade tomorrow, as ever was. “Mm. Er—have you had enough to eat?”

    Georgy lay back on her sunlounger, putting her hand on the little mound of tummy, just above the line of the bikini panties under the white nylon-knit shorts.—Ralph wriggled slightly.—“Yes, thanks,” she sighed. “It was lovely.”

    Ralph near as dammit told her he’d give her something even lovelier. He gnawed on his lip for a moment and managed to croak: “Good. Er—fancy a dip?”

    “I haven’t got my togs with me,” she said sadly, turning her head and making a little rueful face at him.

    He didn’t say the obvious. Or even that she was adorable when she made a little face like that. –And wasn’t it astounding that the human will could exercise such restraint? “Nor have I. But Murray and Jay always provide loads of guest ones: in the cabana—over there, see?” He nodded at it.

    Georgy looked at it with a little smile. “Is that what that is?”

    “Certainly! Hasn’t it got ‘cabana’ written all over it?”

    “‘Shed’,” she returned firmly, lips twitching.

    “Mm.” Ralph got up, grinning. “Come on, wanna try these guest togs?”

    “Ye-es...”

    He saw that she’d gone very red. “It is men’s and ladies’ separate: Murray and Jay aren’t swingers.”

    “Not that,” said Georgy, swallowing.

    “Er...” Couldn’t have her period again, not if his arithmetic was correct.

    “They might all be cutaway,” said Georgy on a desperate note.

    “Eh? Oh!” he said with a laugh. “And you’re not?”

    “No. My togs,” said Georgy, even redder, “are very old-fashioned.”

    “I’m glad to hear it,” he said lightly. “Can’t abide that modern perversion. There’ll be plenty of choice, I think. Have a look, anyway.” He went into the men’s side shaking all over with suppressed laughter.

    “Aw-wuh!” cried Panda.

    “Shut up. Colonial cottage next,” said Wal firmly. “You can choose after that, if you like.”

    “All right, then. Can we get some hokey-pokey from that ace sweet-shop?” she said, face lighting up.

    “What with?”

    Panda glared at him. Livia pulled on his arm and looked up at him pleadingly.

    “Yes!” he said loudly. “For Christ’s sake, if you want to stuff your face with muck, yes!”

    “It’s not muck, Dad, it’s the genuine old-fashioned recipe!”

    “Yeah, yeah. After the cottage, right?”

    “Yeah, righto,” she said mildly.

    “They were ferns, all right,” acknowledged Derry, holding tightly to Polly’s waist as they ascended the fernery’s steps.

    “Yes,” agreed Polly, smiling. “What do you think? Too pretty-pretty?”

    “Mm...” Derry scratched his beard. “’Tis, a bit. And it’d be damn difficult getting the lights and cameras in there. Might ruin the place. Those tree ferns as such aren’t bad, though. Can you get ’em in pots?”

    “Pungas?” said Polly faintly. “I don’t think so.”

    “Pity. –Hold on!” he said, as they emerged onto the plaza between the glasshouses.

    “What?” said Polly blankly.

    “Look!”

    Polly looked blank.

    Derry took her face between his large hands—it would not have been true to say he did so unwillingly—and turned her head firmly back and forth. “Look, woman! The palace of Theseus!”

    Polly looked: oblong lily pond with fat goldfish swimming in it (mostly hiding from curious kids under the lily pads), heavy creeper-hung arcade, fake Victorian statues on plinths... All baking in the sun. “Yes,” she said weakly. “I suppose I’ve never really noticed it before.”

    She took another look at the high, curved roofs of the two old-fashioned glasshouses and added, rallying: “Crystal Palace of Theseus!”

    Derry put his arm round her waist again. For support. ‘”Do you think they’d let me put lights in those?” he said, nodding at the glasshouses. “For the night-time sequences.”

    “Not a doubt of it, I should say,” Polly returned blandly. “Provided you offer them a small fortune, of course.”

    “Bugger: wouldn’t they do it for the honour and glory?”

    “No chance: what if your lights burned the leaves of their precious banana palms? Or their even more precious but curiously disappointing Victoria waterlily.”

    “Oh, got one of those, eh? Leaves big enough for a child of two—” Polly was shaking her head. “Oh. Never mind, let’s have a look at it anyway. Which one?”

    “This one,” she said, nodding to their left.

    Derry drew her slowly in that direction. “What’s in the other one?”

    “That’s the cool-house. Begonias. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of begonias.”

    “Oh. Oh—so this is the hothouse?”

    “Yeah. Be warned.”

    The warning didn’t do any good: approximately two seconds after they’d entered the hothouse Derry’s whole body was drenched in sweat and he was gasping for air.

    Polly led him out again. “You thought it was humid out here, didn’t you?” she said drily.

    “Yes!” he gasped. “Ooh, look: cactuses!” he gasped.

    Polly looked critically at the big cactuses growing in the sun against the outer integument of the hothouse.

    “Yes. Athenian cactuses. Defaced with the graffiti of generations of rude Athenian mechanicals,” she noted detachedly.

    Derry looked again. So they were. He shut his eyes for a moment…

    Georgy had found one bikini bottom that wasn’t cutaway: bright pink and frilled, with large white spots. Quite possibly it was a child’s one, but it fitted, so she was wearing it. Several of the bikini tops had fitted, but they were all of the two triangles plus piece of string variety. Finally she chose one which at least had a solid-looking lining—the others weren’t lined at all.

    “Pow!” said Ralph as she appeared in them. Georgy swallowed. “Like ’em?” he added airily, gesturing at his yellow fluorescent trunks.

    “Yes,” croaked Georgy, wondering frantically why men’s togs were always so rude and how men could bear wearing anything that rude in public. “Very smart.”

    Sir Ralph knew exactly what she was thinking. He also knew that, though it wasn’t bad for his age, the bod could scarcely bear comparison with Adam Bloody McIntyre’s. He was, however, an excellent swimmer. “You much of a swimmer, Georgy?” he asked.

    “No,” admitted Georgy.

    “Then I won’t suggest a race. Certainly not after that lunch!”

    “Yes; um—it isn’t too soon, is it?”

    Couldn’t she see it was scarcely too soon? No,” he said with a laugh in his voice. He trotted down to the springboard, bounced, and threw himself in.

    Georgy was duly impressed. She walked slowly down towards the shallow end, watching as he churned up the pool. At the same time as she was impressed, she was thinking dubiously that he wasn’t fat, exactly—but it was a pity he had sort of a tummy. He was nice and tanned... But he was quite hairy, though. Not like Adam: it was pretty on Adam. Only somehow Sir Ralph’s was— She swallowed involuntarily.

    Ralph Overdale was blessed or cursed, depending on the point of view, not to say age, sex and relative sophistication of the onlooker, with a heavy pelt between the pectorals, then lower, another heavy pelt, most of which Georgy couldn’t see, but also, running down into the latter, a line of hair that started just below his navel. The fluorescent yellow trunks showed this off to perfection.

    Georgy got into the water unaware either that she was pouting a little or that she was a little drunk, and splashed about busily for some time, ignoring him and his professional-type real swimming.

    “Exhausted?” said Wal on a sly note as Livia yawned with her hand over her mouth.

    “Oh—no, dear,” she lied valiantly, swallowing another yawn.

    He peered past her out of the window of the tram. “Don’t think this trip is too long. The bloody bus ride lasts forever, though: think it goes round the field where they’ve got all those clapped-out planes. Or does it go to the zoo? Both, probably. Well, could give that a miss, eh?”

    Livia swallowed. “Is that the double-decker bus, Wallace?”

    “Yeah. Very historical,” he said sardonically.

    “I suppose it is to the children, dear,” she said valiantly. She  peered towards the front of the tram. “I think Panda’s talking to the driver.”

    He groaned. “Along with a dozen ten-year old boys: yeah.”

    “She does seem to know a lot about... all these technological things.”

    “Mm. Well, better than knowing nothing about anything except boys and make-up like her bloody sisters, I suppose.”

    “Yes,” said Livia, looking at him cautiously.

    Wal eyed her mockingly. “Do you really think so?”

    “Yes,” she said with a little sigh. “At least she’ll be able to make a career for herself.”

    At this point certain strictures of Lady Carrano’s came back forcibly to Wal Briggs. “Yeah,” he said, not looking at her. “Look, shall we give it away after this? We’ve seen the bloody vintage cars, and New Zealand’s answer to the bloody Wright brothers, and she’s already earbashed the tram driver to death—oh, and we’ve spent half an hour listening to that fucking steam organ thing—well, at least we managed to get a seat for that. What do you think? Shall we go and find somewhere decent for afternoon tea?”

    “Yes—well, that would be nice, dear—but isn’t it a little late?”

    Wal looked at his watch. He sighed. “How right you are. Doubt if there’ll be a single scone left at the Rose Garden Kiosk by now.”

    “Er—no,” said Livia uncertainly. “Perhaps there’s somewhere Panda might like to go, though.”

    “Perhaps there is, but I’m not asking her, I’ve had enough of sticky kids chucking muck all over me for one day.”

    “Would you like to come back to the suite, Wallace?” she ventured.

    “Can the hotel lay on scones and tea? –Don’t answer that,” he sighed.

    “They can manage tea... I’ve never asked them for scones. Does it have to be scones, Wallace?”

    Wal smiled ruefully. “I could just fancy a decent scone... Gwenda always used to lay ’em on for afternoon tea on Sundays—her one good point, actually. Admittedly she usually laid on her bloody mother as well,” he added with a shudder.

    “Oh,” said Livia in a small voice.

    “Don’t suppose you can rustle up a batch of homemade scones at the drop of a hat?” he said, lips twitching.

    “No. I can’t cook at all, Wallace,” she said in a voice that was meant to be airy but that shook a little.

    Wal replied calmly: “Nor can I. Well, I can singe a decent steak. Panda can’t even do that much. Never mind, let’s go home anyway.”

    After a moment Livia said: “To—to your flat, Wallace?”

    “Mm. I do know enough to warm the pot, first,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

    “Mummy always insisted on that... A cup of tea sounds wonderful,” admitted Livia with a tiny sigh.

    Wal put his arm casually along the back of the tram seat and touched her shoulder gently. “Righto. We’ll do that, then.”

    “Lovely,” said Livia faintly.

    Adam came to around four-thirty. He got up and wandered round the flat looking more and more aggrieved as it rapidly became clear that there was no sign of Georgy. He peered out of the front windows but she wasn’t on the sweep with the dachshund; nor was she sitting on their front steps, or sitting on Miss McLintock’s front steps chatting to Miss McLintock, who was weeding her potted petunias. Nor, he discovered, peering from the bedroom windows at the hillside, was she visibly out there walking or sunbathing.

    Well, where the Hell was she? There was no note either on the fridge door underneath the scarlet ladybird magnet which he had bought for the purpose at the Emporium in Puriri, or on the bench held down by a jar (more typically Georgy’s style); and there was no note appended to the feline Horaces on Mrs Mayhew’s telephone notepad, either. It then dawned on him that she’d said something about Ralph Overdale and a… beach house?

    No, ridiculous, she must have just gone for a walk!

    Adam stood by Mrs Mayhew’s piecrust telephone table amidst Mrs Mayhew’s pink cabbage roses, biting his lip. Finally he marched into the bedroom, looking very grim, and pulled on a pair of jeans (not even bothering to ascertain whether they were clean or yesterday’s jeans) and a tee-shirt (though that was clean, it was out of his clean tee-shirt drawer) and, pausing only to slip his feet into his blue sandals and grab his keys and his sunglasses, marched out, scowling.

    From the other side of the drive the middle-aged Miss McLintock looked up from her petunias, smiled nervously, and waved. Adam pretended he hadn’t noticed her and walked down the drive, tight-lipped.

    Left or right? –What the fuck did it matter, either way was equally uncomfortable, dusty and hideous. And equally probable. Or improbable. He turned left, towards the golf course, and began to stumble in his soft Italian sandals along the coarse stones and clay ruts of Elizabeth Road, looking for her.

    Expressing great concern for Georgy’s fair skin, Sir Ralph had rubbed sunscreen cream rather slowly all over her back and the backs of her legs. Georgy had giggled rather during this process but Ralph didn’t kid himself it was because of him: it was because of those last two hefty slugs of rum lightly flavoured with pineapple juice. He had then graciously allowed Georgy to do his back and legs. This had been very nearly Nirvana: she apparently was under the impression that the cream needed to be massaged in... He offered her another drink, but she hesitated.

    “Go on, it’s Sunday,” he murmured, as if it didn’t matter one way or the other, really, but fully aware that this might well remind her that it was a Sunday that bloody McIntyre had refused to spend in paying her the attention that was her due.

    “Well, just one, then: after, all it’s mostly pineapple juice, isn’t it?” she said happily.

    Yes, wasn’t it, he agreed. He handed it to her, smiling, and sat down slowly, meditating ways and means. Not that he intended more than a little accidental-on-purpose body-contact, mind you.

    “Happy?” he murmured.

    “Yes, this is lovely,” sighed Georgy. She leaned back on her sunlounger, adjusted her sunglasses on her nose and said: “Wouldn’t it be lovely to live like this all the time?”

    “You could,” murmured Sir Ralph.

    “No, I have to work,” she sighed.

    His lips twitched. “Rubbish. I grant you the Australasian male isn’t typified by his—er—enterprise in such matters, but isn’t there some enterprising gent on the horizon who’d be willing to lay a place like this—cabana an’ all—at your tiny toes?”

    “No, there isn’t: people don’t set up mistresses here, this isn’t Paris in the Naughty Nineties!” she said with a loud giggle.

    At this juncture Ralph persuaded her to get out of the damp togs in favour of a sarong—there were plenty in the cabana, Murray and Jay might not have been swingers but they certainly liked a relaxed lifestyle. He had to demonstrate how to tie it, but funnily enough he didn't mind that.

    “I learned how to tie them from a sweet little Oriental thing in Bali: I’m an expert,” he explained. “And to save you the trouble of asking, no, I didn’t actually get up her: even though this was pre-AIDS the place struck me forcibly as a prime candidate for the pox-hole of the Pacific Rim.”

    “Yes,” said Georgy, swallowing hard. “I’ve always sort of wondered about that.”

    “Demonstrates the unprejudiced lucidity of your mind,” said Ralph airily.—She looked at him sideways.—“Or that it’s as dirty as mine,” he conceded.

    She swallowed again. “I suppose so.”

    Ralph looked at her with a twinkle. “We could get on rather well, Dr Harris,” he pointed out.

    “No,” said Georgy faintly. “You know I’m in love with Adam.”

    “Vain sod though he is: yes,” agreed Ralph coldly.

    “Don’t.”

    “Come on, Georgy: what about that unprejudiced lucidity?”

    “It doesn’t seem to have stopped me falling for him like an idiot schoolgirl!” said Georgy loudly.

    “Well, no. But it never does, in my experience.”

    She looked at him dubiously.

    “Truly,” he said, with a tiny grimace.

    “Oh. Are you— No, I’m sorry! It’s none of my business.”

    “Put it like this,” said Ralph Overdale with a little sigh: “There’s one lady who’s of a suitable age and definitely of the right persuasion, but who just happens to be under the delusion that she’s madly in love with another bloke. –I leave aside the point that fairly recently I blotted my copybook rather publicly.”

    She gave him a look of horrified sympathy and he laughed a little and said: “Oh, not the TV ad, she’s the sort that takes that kind of thing in her stride! Didn’t I say she was of the right persuasion? -No,” he said, grimacing: “I let the green-eyed monster get the better of me, and— Well, never mind. Suffice it to say, I’ve never been the only pebble on her beach. Then…” He sighed. “Well, every man has to have his daydreams, I suppose. There is a young lady whom I would accept gratefully, nay with the sacrifice of my immortal soul, were she to be handed to me on a platter. But unless God or Mephistopheles gets into the act she won’t be: she’s younger than you are and fully aware that I’m a dirty old man.”

    “You’re not,” said Georgy faintly.

    Ralph looked at her in some amusement. “How would you define it, then?”

    “Um—well, I don’t know that I can, but I don’t think you are. I was reading The Country Wife the other day, Adam says he might play Horner, Derry Dawlish is thinking of making a film of it. I think you’re sort of like what Horner might have been when he was a bit older.”

    “That or—dead—of the pox!” gasped Ralph, laughing helplessly. “Thank you, Georgy,” he said at last, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand: “That was most salutary.”

    “It was sort of meant to be a compliment,” she said awkwardly.

    “I know that, sweetheart: all the more reason why it was salutary,” he said, grinning. “You’re a tonic.”

    “I’m glad someone thinks so,” said Georgy on a sour note.

    Ralph’s lips twitched. He got up, fetched them each another rum, on second thoughts fetched one of the large palm-leaf fans Jay kept around the place more or less for the purpose, and sat down beside her thighs, smiling. He sipped his drink and fanned her slowly, not saying anything.

    “That’s awfully nice,” admitted Georgy. “This patio’s very sheltered, isn’t it?”

    “Mm. Lie back, why don’t you?”

    Georgy lay back on the sunlounger. Ralph moved a bit—a token bit—to let her readjust her position, but not so much that her thigh wouldn’t be squashed against him after she’d done so.

    Eventually Georgy said in a dreamy voice: “This is wonderful...”

    “Mm. Wert thou mine, oh admirable Georgy, this fate could be yours every Sundee arvo.”

    “Not when your friends come back from Canada,” said Georgy logically, taking off her sunglasses and looking at him seriously.

    “Er—no,” admitted Ralph, blinking a bit behind his own shades. “Er—I could buy you a beach-house, though. Just to recline and be fanned in.”

    “Oh, yeah. I’ll have that one next-door,” she said. “With the triple garage.”

    “Nonsense, paltry: it’s only got one swimming pool!”

    She giggled loudly.

     He ran one hand along her shin.

    “Don’t do that,” she said faintly.

    “Why not? You like it, I like it, and it’s harmless.”

    She swallowed loudly. “Just fan me,” she said weakly.

    “Certainly. I like it, you like it, and it’s certainly harmless.” Ralph went on fanning her.

    Georgy leaned her head back against the headrest, closed her eyes, and sighed.

    “Can we get higher?” asked Derry eagerly.

    “Not without a helicopter, no,” replied Polly calmly.

    “Bugger.” Derry looked around crossly. “You can see too much of the city,” he said in a grumpy voice.

    “Yes. That’s why most people come up here in daylight hours,” conceded Polly fairly.

    Derry looked blankly around the flat parking area at the summit of the sufficiently low, grassy, upturned pudding basin that was misnamed Mount Eden. “What do they come up here for not in daylight hours, Polly?”

    “Snogging,” said Polly simply.

    Derry went into a loud sniggering fit amidst three busloads of Japanese and American tourists. Lady Carrano remained unmoved, but then he hadn’t for a moment thought she wouldn’t.

    “What’s that over there?” he said when he’d recovered.

    “The harbour.”

    “NO!”—Polly looked at him drily.—“That hill thing. –The further one,” he said hurriedly.

    “That’s still Rangitoto,” she said soothingly.

    “No! In front of it. The further one of the two. On the other side of the harbour from us.”

    Polly told him it was North Head. Derry looked thoughtful. “Can we go up it?”

    “Yes. Well, I think legally some of it might still be Navy land.”—Derry looked at her wildly.—“Something to do with the defence of the harbour during the War,” said Polly blandly.

    “That was fifty— Look, forget it. Do we have to have permission to go up there?”

    “No. But there is a lot of scrambling involved.”

    “I can scramble!” said Derry indignantly.

     Polly merely looked bland.

    “Look, I grant you I wouldn’t fancy scrambling up this thing—”

    “They’re all more or less the same shape. Volcanic cones,” she explained kindly.

    “You can take me over there next,” said Derry in a firm voice.

    A small red M.G. drew up in a cloud of dust beside Adam as he limped back down Elizabeth Road and a light tenor voice with a laugh in it said: “Need a lift?”

    “Get knotted, Overdale,” said Adam through his teeth.

    “Ooh! Lovely English manners!” squeaked Tom.

    “It’s him, isn’t it?” spotted the fawn-headed boy in the passenger’s seat.

    “Yep. Pansy sandals, limp an’ all,” agreed Tom cheerfully.

    “Hey, was that a real Luger you had in that film?” the boy asked immediately.

    “No. A fake. Moulded aluminium. Or as the Yanks say, ‘molded aluminum’,” replied Adam very coldly.

    “Yeah, r’I thought so,” he returned simply.

    “Looked too light in the hand, eh?” agreed Tom.

    “Yeah. Andrew’s an idiot,” he declared obscurely.

    “True. –Get in, for God’s sake, McIntyre, this may not be Samaria but all the same I’ve no intention of being sued by your estate.”

    “In where?” replied Adam in a cold voice.

    “He can squash up. –Squash up, Michael, I doubt if any cops will catch us between here and Willow Grove.”

    “Plains,” corrected the fawn-headed boy, edging over towards Tom. “Is that enough room?” he said as Adam limped up to his door.

    “No.”

    “Get in anyway,” said Tom in a bored voice.

    Rather flushed, Adam squashed in beside the boy. Tom did the seatbelt up around both of them: Adam had to put his right arm along the back of the seats. He felt a tit, which obviously was what Tom Overdale had intended.

    “Where’s Georgy?” Tom asked cheerfully, starting the car.

    “Your guess is as good as mine.”

    “Eh?” cried Tom above the engine noise.

    “You heard,” said Adam sourly.

    “A little bird tells me,” said Tom above the engine noise, “that Sir Ralphy’s gone up to an up-market dump at Kingfisher Bay today. I don’t suppose—?”

    “Heck! She wouldena gone with him!” cried the boy Michael in scornful astonishment.

    “Not if she’s got the sense she was born with, no,” conceded Sir Ralph’s brother blandly. “Has she?”

    “Probably not,” said Adam tightly.

    Tom was wearing sunglasses. He raised his eyebrows above them, but said nothing.

    When they got to Willow Grove Adam said weakly: “How do you know Ralph was intending to go up to Kingfisher Bay, Tom?”

    “He rang us. Just before lunch, wasn’t it, Michael?”

    “Nah. Just after.”

    “After yours, yes. –Your first,” said Tom pointedly. The boy just grinned. “Yes,” said Tom to Adam: “Ralph rang us, enquiring whether we’d care to accompany him, but for some strange reason, we declined.”—The boy made a rude noise.—“Quite,” agreed Tom smoothly. “He then imparted the news that he was thinking of inviting you and Georgy. I dare say it was about lunchtime.”

    “I wasn’t up, I was damn’ tired,” said Adam on a cross note.

    “Heck, weren’tcha? Heck! Me an’ Andrew, we got up at har’ past five—”

    “That’ll do,” said Tom, not trying particularly hard not to laugh. “Adam was up till God knows when last night, working. Not to say partying.”

    “That reminds me, where were you?” said Adam, staring.

    “We looked in for a few minutes but Jemima wasn’t feeling up to partying, so we came home.”

    “Yeah, she’s gonna have a baby!” said the boy eagerly, beaming.

    “Oh,” said Adam limply, thinking of Jemima’s slender waist. “I see. Congratulations, Tom,” he added hurriedly.

    “Oh, it was easy,” replied Tom, smirking.

    Adam got out. “I don’t suppose you know the phone number of this place at Kingfisher Bay?” he asked weakly.

    “No, but I know the owner’s name.” Tom wrote it down for him. Then he drove off without handing out any of the sort of good advice that it had crossed his mind for a fleeting minute to give him.

    “You don’t like him, eh?” spotted the fawn-headed Michael as the choice precincts of Willow Plains disappeared into their dust and the M.G. headed towards the haven of scruffy Blossom Avenue.

    “No,” replied Tom simply. “What did you think of him?‘”

    Michael’s brow wrinkled in thought. “Not much,” he pronounced at last.

    Tom couldn’t have put it better himself.

    “This is nice,” said Livia with a sigh, relaxing in the grasp of Wal’s pale grey leather sofa.

    Wal gave the curtains at the picture windows an evil look. “Some of it.” The green silken curtains featured a huge puffy bunch over the centre point of the windows: the stuff was then brought over to the sides in swathes, to fall in a series of puffs, loops and swatches.

    Livia followed his glance. “They don’t look as if they’d draw,” she said weakly.

    “No, they don’t. Don’t go with the rest of the room, either,” he noted.

    “Well... It is very modern, dear,” she murmured. “Is that chimney-piece actually steel, Wallace?”

    Wal had taken up a proprietorial position on what passed for the hearth. He gave the gleaming, unadorned fire-surround a light kick. “Yep. Foul, eh? Chimney draws like a pig, too.’’

    “Yeah. We tried lighting a fire, once, only we were just about asphyxiated,” reported Panda glumly. “We just close the venetians at night, eh, Dad?”

    “What? Oh! Yes, dear, of course,” said Livia weakly. The venetians, stylistically speaking, screamed at the curtains: they were of the very, very narrow modern variety, very pale grey. The floor was also very pale grey. Possibly a plastic finish? Really horrid. True, it was liberally scattered with rugs in geometric designs in pale grey, pale green and black, but these were fairly horrible, also. Especially the one Wal was standing on.

    “The colour scheme’s very pretty, really,” she said weakly.

    “Yeah. It’s just what’s been done with it, eh?” said Wal, grinning all over his crumpled, ugly face.

    Livia gave in and said weakly: “Yes. Why don’t you change it, Wallace?”

    “Him!” scoffed Panda. “He did have the bedroom done up, the main bedroom, I mean: come and look, that’ll show ya his idea of interior decoration!”

    Wal began: “Panda, I don’t think Livia—” but Livia had stood up obediently.

    Panda duly dragged her off to the master bedroom.

    “Oh, dear,” she said faintly.

    “Yeah: weird, eh? It’s worse at night when he’s got the curtains drawn: it’s like being in a dark green cave or something.”

    “Yes.” Livia looked round the bedroom dazedly. It wasn’t anything you could put your finger on, really. Well, there was nothing intrinsically wrong with dark green and pale grey... Possibly if the duvet cover hadn’t been dark green as well...

    Panda led her back. “Shell-shocked,” she reported cheerfully to her father.

    “Yeah. For God’s sake let her sit down and take the weight off her feet.”

    Livia sank back into the pudgy embrace of the sofa. It was very comfortable, even if it did look, as Panda had already remarked, like a fat grey ghost.

    “Yes; I am rather tired,” she murmured.

    Wal gave her a sharp look. “I’ll get that cuppa. You,” he said to his daughter, “can put biscuits on a plate. You capable of that?”

    “Yeah!” she said crossly, glaring. “I know, I’ll use that ace plate that Polly gave you!”

     Wal replied heavily: “Just don’t break it.”

    “I won’t!” Panda flounced out.

    “Earl Grey or Queen Mary?” he said to Livia with a twinkle in his eye. “The Queen Mary’s just an Indian tea. Nice, though.”

    “Yes, let’s have that,” said Livia. “—Oh!” She smiled sheepishly.

    “Yep. If Sister Anne could see me now!” He winked, and went out to the kitchen, grinning.

    Livia leaned back into the pudgy grey sofa, feeling a very odd mixture of emotions indeed.

    Ralph had wielded the palm-leaf fan for some time; nevertheless Georgy murmured, with very pink cheeks: “It is awfully hot today, isn’t it?”

    It was with all that rum inside you: yes. Especially if you weren’t used to it.

    “Mm. Awfully.” He peeled back the sarong delicately from her knees, exposing just a little thigh, and fanned that.

    “Ta: that’s nice,” she sighed.

    “Mm.” He went on fanning her.

    Soon Georgy sighed and plucked at the sarong where it crossed her bosom and murmured, ever so slightly slurred: “I feel awfully sticky.”

    He edged a little closer and fanned briskly at her bosom.

    “Ooh!” she squeaked. “Don’t! Ooh!” She gave a high-pitched giggle.

    “Here.” He held the edge of the sarong delicately away from her chest and fanned briskly.

    “Don’t,” said Georgy half-heartedly.

    “Rats. You like it, I like it and it’s harmless.”

    Georgy giggled.

    “Drink up,” he said finally, abandoning the fan and picking up her glass.

    “What? Oh—thanks,” she said confusedly. She drank up the rest of her rum.

    He stroked her shoulder just a little, then suddenly laid his head in her lap.

    “What—what are you doing?” said Georgy in a high, scared voice.

    “Nothing,” he murmured.

    There was silence on the Beatsons’ up-market patio.

    Ralph Overdale smiled to himself. After a little he began to stroke her thigh—over the sarong, actual contact might have scared her off. He went on stroking it for some time: she didn’t encourage him, but on the other hand she didn’t scream: “Stop!”

    A bloody machine had answered the phone at these Beatson people’s place. Well, that could mean any one of a number of things! In desperation Adam rang Ralph Overdale’s home number but a machine answered there, too.

    He stomped into the sitting-room and threw himself onto the pinkish-mauveish velvet sofa, scowling hideously.

    “Is this the summit?” panted Derry, scrambling up North Head in Polly’s wake.

    “I’ve no idea,” replied Polly politely. She waited for him. Derry scrambled up to her, panting. “I think I’m lost,” she explained in a vague voice.

    Derry glared.

    “I haven’t been here all that often, and when I do come I’m generally not the navigator,” she explained in a vague voice. “Anyway, there’s Rangitoto, out there: is that the view you wanted?”

    Derry just panted.

    “Isn’t the grass slippery?” noted Polly conversationally.

    Derry both panted and glared.

    “It’s very dry at this time of year, of course.”

    “And—windy!” he panted, clutching at his short, dark curls.

    “Mm.”

    Derry clutched his curls and surveyed the view.

    There was a brief pause.

    “It’ll be a windy Dream,” she noted detachedly.

    Suddenly Derry pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Polly responded, though not with anything that could have been call mad pash.

    “You’re exquisite,” he muttered eventually.

    “Thanks. I’m also married. And if you want any cash out of Jake, which I imagine you do after those super-tactful leading questions last night, this had better not go any further.”

    Derry released her. “I think you’re the most bloody infuriating woman I’ve ever met,” he said feebly.

    “Your circle must be fairly limited, then,” replied Polly calmly. She thought about it for a split second. “But then, I suppose it is,” she allowed fairly.

    “Yes,” said the great director limply. “I suppose it is.”

    “Where are they all coming from?” demanded Ross aggrievedly.

    “Same place as us, I suppose,” returned Ngaio in a grumpy voice.

    Ross glared at the traffic, hands clenched on the wheel .

    “It’ll be worse south of Puriri,” she noted detachedly.

    Ross glared at the traffic, hands clenched on the wheel.

    “We should have left earlier,” she pointed out.

    Ross didn’t reply.

    “Half of these’ll be those yuppie types from Kingfisher Bay,” said Ngaio on a glum note.

    Ross didn’t reply.

    “We could stop off at Mum’s,” offered Ngaio dubiously.

    Ross didn’t reply.

    “Ross?”

    “Yeah, we could stop off there if you wanna spend an evening being earbashed about Georgy and Adam!” he said loudly.

    Ngaio was silent.

    Ross glared at the traffic, hands clenched on the wheel.

    Ralph hadn’t gone any further. Oh, he’d thought about it, all right. But, though he rather thought Georgy might be softened up enough to let him do a little something, he was pretty sure it’d end in tears. And, much worse, it might end in her never letting him get near her after bloody McIntyre had vanished into the Grate Offshore. And he most particularly didn’t want that, in spite of those other interests in his life.

    So eventually he just looked up, smiled gently at her, and said: “I suppose we’d better be getting you home, mm?”

    And Georgy smiled at him muzzily and said: “Yes; I s’pose it is rather late. Do I have to get changed?”

    “No: borrow that, Jay won’t mind.”

    “All right. I’ll wash it and give it back to you.”

    “Mm.”

    “Jay is the lady, isn’t she?” said Georgy uncertainly,

    Ralph got up, smiling. “Yes: Jay is the lady. I think I’ll change: don’t wanna shock Miss McLintock’s dachsie by appearing in the wilds of Willow Grove in a skirt!”

    Georgy giggled obligingly.

    She went to sleep in the car going home but then Ralph Overdale hadn’t really expected that she wouldn’t.