A Trip To The Country

16

A Trip To The Country

    Wal Briggs greeted her with: “Good God, ya can’t wear that. Get on back upstairs and change, for Chrissakes.”

    Livia went scarlet and gasped: “What’s wrong with it?” Forgetting to call him darling, and also an early-morning resolution that she was going to be very, very cool and sophisticated with him. Friendly, but—well, gracious. To Show him.

    He looked her up and down sardonically. Livia was in a picture hat (not as nice as Polly’s hat of yesterday but very nice), a full-skirted floating summer frock, quite Fifties-look, really (it made her feel dowdy and old-fashioned, but she wouldn’t admit this, even to herself), and very high-heeled sandals. All in shades of powder blue, the dress being floral, but all blue floral.

    “We’re not going to flaming Ascot, it’s a bloody racing stable, there’ll be horse shit everywhere. And in case you were thinking of those poncy jobs they have in Newmarket, forget it. You’re on the other side of the world, now. No-one goes in for that kinda carry-on, out here.”

    “Well, what shall I wear?” she gasped, still too stunned to consider her words or her effect.

    Wal reflected drily that she was a lot easier to take when she wasn’t thinking about the impression she was making, and said in a kinder voice: “Jeans and a blouse. Something like that. And flat shoes, for Chrissakes,” he added, glancing at the sandals. The sandals were very strappy and very pretty and had cost a small fortune and Livia felt for a moment she hated him. The more so since they set off her slender ankles delightfully and threw her well-shaped calves into relief just the way she thought sandals ought to.

    Wallace himself did not look like the smooth-suited gent of yesterday. Far from it. He had had a shave, true. Apart from that he was wearing a cotton shirt with crumpled denim shorts—not a trendy length or a trendy cut—and they showed a good deal of his heavily muscled, hairy legs, quite unlike the smooth, delicious shape of, say, pretty brown young Nigel’s legs, for instance, and Livia denied angrily to herself the swoopy feeling in her tummy the sight of Wal’s legs had immediately produced. The shirt was checked in red, blue and yellow, not a particularly charming combination, and it very obviously was not a particularly new shirt. It was short-sleeved and open over his hairy, heavy chest to reveal the fact that unlike, for instance, darling Maurie, he had a slight tum. Nothing like Rudi’s, for example, but not flat.

    All of Wal’s skin, what you could see of it for the hair, was very tanned, and this and the hair—and the legs—made Livia feel quite trembly.

    “Come on, stir ya stumps, s’posed to be meeting up with Jake down the end of the Southern Motorway,” he said on an irritable note.

    “Oh! Yes! Very well, darling, if you’re sure...”

    “Shall I ring ’em on their car phone and ask what Polly’s wearing?” he said—really in a very nasty voice and Livia began to feel quite cross. Quite cross. The more so since several Americans, guests in the hotel, passed them at that moment, and all the men were in those beautiful tailored-looking shirts and trousers that nice American men always wore: so clean-looking, you know?

    “I think you’d better, darling, one would hate to make a faux-pas, since we’re not going to Ascot,” she said, pointedly pronouncing it as it should be pronounced and not “Ass-cott,” the way he had.

    “All right, point me at a phone,” he said.

    They did have one in the lobby but Livia said: “You’d better come upstairs and use mine. Perhaps you could choose something for me to wear, too!” she added with a nasty little laugh.

    “All right,” he said. Totally poker-face!

   Tight-lipped, Livia led the way to the lift without saying anything.

   When the lift came several more well-pressed, sharply creased Americans got out and Livia murmured as the two of them got in: “Don’t Americans always look nice? Casual but smart, if you know what I mean!” and gave a little laugh.

    “No,” he said.

    Livia’s lips tightened again. She didn’t say anything at all until they got to the suite. Then she fumbled with her key but he just stood there! Maurice would have known what to do: Maurice was a gentleman, unlike Some People.

    “Bloody Hell,” said Wallace numbly inside the suite.

   Livia thought her sitting-room quite charming, sort of Marie Antoinette, really, a bit like a nice American hotel—only not as nice, of course—and she thought its shades of cream, pale blue and peach were very pretty.

    “I never knew there was so much ersatz crap in the whole country, let alone in one room,” he said.

    “It happens to be extremely comfortable,” said Livia with dignity. “Perhaps you haven’t been moving in quite the right circles, darling!” She gave an angry little laugh.

    Wal looked her up and down. “You’re quite bearable when you lapse into your natural bitchiness,” he said conversationally.

   Livia gave an indignant gasp but before she could say a word he stepped up to her and pulled her very hard against him, and kissed her!

    She was too stunned to react, she just let him.

    Then just at the very second she started to recover her wits he let go and stepped back.

    “Well?” he said.

    Livia’s heart was now pounding furiously and her head felt all muddled; so she didn’t know what on earth he meant, did he mean should they go to bed, or what? And just said helplessly: “Well, what?”

    “Where’s this bloody phone?”

    “What? Oh! Over there,” she said limply.

   He looked at it. It was one of those rather sweet old-fashioned looking ones, not really antique but very pretty: brass with cream bits. “You mean that goes? It doesn’t light up, play the Charleston and offer you a cigarette?”

    “No,” said Livia weakly. “It’s a real telephone. –Silly,” she added weakly.

    Wal went over to it and dialled without further ado. “It’s me,” he said.—Livia knew that was very rude, didn’t the man have any manners at all?—“I don’t care where the fuck you are, Carrano, and if the brats are spewing I don’t wanna know,” he said. “I’m trying to persuade Livia not to get herself up like the Queen Mother in drag.”—Livia gave an indignant gasp. She was a great fan of the darling Queen Mother: she thought she was a real lady: a gracious lady! When Livia was very old—a long way off—she thought she would like to be just like that. Always smiling, with really pretty clothes. Feminine.—“What’s Polly got on?” he said. “Oh. Hang on,” he said. He looked up and said: “Jake reckons Polly’s got on sort of pant things and a sort of top thing.”

    “How very illuminating, darling!”

    “Yeah. –Oy, yer Sir-ship,” he said—Livia went rather pink, that was definitely Not Nice: if a person had a title, they, well, had a title!—“put Polly on, for God’s sake. –Here,” he suddenly said to Livia, holding out the receiver.

    “Oh!” she gasped, rushing forward. As much as one in blue sandals like those could on thick fake Axminster in a fake Persian pattern of pale blues, peaches and terracotta on cream.

    “Polly, darling! I’m so sorry—Wal insisted—so masterful!” she gasped.

    Polly gave a little gurgle of laughter. “Is he being a pig? Don’t worry, Livia, he does that, it’s a stupid act he puts on with pretty women to show them that he isn’t impressed.”

    “I see!” she gasped.

    “It means he is, really: aren’t men babies?” she said.

    “Oh, absolutely, darling!” squeaked Livia with a little startled giggle.

    “Johnny and Davey—our twins, they’re five—are just the same. When they want to impress a little girl they stand on their heads and get very loud and silly, but the last thing they do is look at the little girl or actually speak to her, of course!”

    Livia gave an ecstatic giggle.

    “If you really want to get changed, I’m wearing cotton slacks and a tee-shirt,” added Polly with a smile in her voice.

    “Oh! Yes! Thank you, Polly, darling!” she gasped. “Slacks—yes.”

    “You’ll need a sunhat,” warned Polly.

    “A sunhat,” said Livia numbly.

    “Yes. And with your skin, I wouldn’t wear a sleeveless blouse.”

    “No—very well, darling.”

    She thought she heard Sir Jake say something and he must have, because Polly then said: “Jake says to remind you to wear flat shoes, we’ll doing a bit of walking on grass.”

    Or horse shit, thought Livia numbly. “Yes—I see. Thank you, Polly dear. We’ll see you, er—”

    “Down Papakura way: Wal knows where,” said Polly cheerfully. “Bye for now.”

    “Bye-bye, dear,” said Livia on a weak note.

    “Have you got a sunhat?” said Wal.

    “No. I’ve got a very nice straw... She means a beach hat, does she?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Oh, dear.”

    “Well, do ya best. Or rather,” he said, sitting down on a fake Marie Antoinette settee in pale peach and pale blue striped brocade: “don’t do ya best.”

    “Very well, darling,” said Livia numbly, going into her bedroom. She closed the door firmly but she had a pretty good idea that she could have left it wide open and—and done a strip tease, and he wouldn’t have cared. He was the oddest man!

Only maybe Polly was right—well, he had certainly kissed her, hadn’t he? Only he hadn’t seemed—well excited. No, well, physically he had, there was no mistaking that, and Livia hadn’t mistaken it, stunned though she had been at the precise moment, and her cheeks warmed at the thought of it and she had to take a deep breath. But emotionally—!

    What on earth would he consider down-market enough for a visit to a racing stable that was nothing like Newmarket? –Livia had never been invited to a racing stable at Newmarket in her life, but she wasn’t about to let him know that.

    Finally she wore the jeans that she’d brought as her working gear. She’d be far too hot in them, in this humidity, but too bad. They were brand new jeans, but she couldn’t help that. And a flat pair of sandals, also intended as working gear and also new, and rather strappy, but undeniably flat. The top was a real problem: she had lots of blouses, but… As working gear with the jeans she had fully intended wearing a leotard—pink, blue, lemon, white, peach or black, she had a selection. But in this weather they were all going to be useless, quite useless! She pirated a sleeveless pink cotton-knit top from a sun-suit. It came to two inches above her waist and with the sun-suit looked very cute. Livia was past caring whether Lady Carrano would think it appropriate to show two inches of one’s midriff on a Sunday visit to a racing stables—though it would not be true to say the thought did not enter her head. The smart denim cowboy shirt that went with the jeans would be too heavy in this weather. Oh, help! Blouses, tunics... Nothing was right! Damn!

    At this point there was a tap on the door and Livia screamed: “What do you WANT?” and Wal came in and said: “Calm down, the hotel isn’t on fire.”

    Livia glared and he said: “At this rate we might make it to Papakura by tea-time,” and Livia shouted: “I don’t CARE about your stupid Pappy-whatsit! My clothes are all WRONG!”

    “That looks all right,” he said, and Livia said crossly: “I can’t wear it like this, I’ll burn to a frazzle!”—and then wondered if she did mean frazzle.

    “What about this?” he said, picking up the denim shirt from the bed where she’d thrown it, and Livia said crossly: “It’s too heavy! I’d die!”

    “Yeah.” Wal investigated the wardrobe. Livia just sat down weakly on the bed and let him. Not even thinking he was being very masterful and masculine.

    “What about this?” he said at last.

    She looked at it limply. It was the white silk shirt she wore with a pair of very comfortable ancient stretch pants (mercifully hidden in a drawer at this moment) while she studied her lines. She’d picked it up second-hand years ago. It had lost most of its buttons, its cuffs were frayed and its collar wasn’t much better. It was clean, and Amy had ironed it, but that was about all you could say for it.

    “Come on!” he said, holding it out.

    Livia got up numbly and let him help her into it. Which he did quite impersonally. She didn’t know whether to be sorry or relieved, she was that mixed up!

    “That looks all right,” he said.

    It came nearly to her knees. She rolled the sleeves up to her elbows and looked up at him doubtfully. Without the heels she had to look up a fair way, he was about six foot. “It’s so old—it makes me feel dowdy.”

    “The horses won’t mind. Anyway, it doesn’t.”

    “Well…” Livia touched her neck uncertainly. “Perhaps a necklace?”

    “Rats. ’Tisn’t a ruddy garden-party. Which reminds me, you’re going to that, I suppose?”

    “What? Oh, of course! I’m looking forward to it tremendously, darling!” she said, groping for her usual eager, charming, light manner.

    Wal sniffed slightly and turned away. “Well, come on.”

    “No, wait: I need a hat!”

    “I’ve got a hat in the car; come on,” he said.

    “But- Well, what sort of hat?” she asked faintly.

    “Just a plain sunhat. Belonged to one of my daughters: found it in a cupboard the other day when I was sorting out junk.”

    Livia said in a very high voice: “I don’t want to trail round a horrid smelly stable full of horrid smelly horses in someone else’s used sunhat, thank you very much, Wallace Briggs!” and burst into tears.

    Wal came over to her and put an arm round her shoulders. “It would be used, if it was someone else’s, wouldn’t it?” he said mildly.

    Livia sobbed angrily.

    “Come on, not the end of the world. Why’d you’d say you’d come, if ya didn’t fancy it?” he said, giving her a large, crumpled and none too clean handkerchief from his pocket.

    Livia sobbed angrily into the handkerchief and said: “I thought it would be nice!”

    “Oh, like Newmarket, eh? What with Sir Jake being a Sir, and everything?”

    “YES! So what if I DID!” she shouted.

    “Elegant lunch alfresco afterwards with white linen and strawberries and champagne?” he said.

     Livia glared at him over the handkerchief.

    “Well, if Jake had a hand in it there’ll be a bottle of bubbly somewhere in there,” he admitted. “Only if Polly did the food, and I have a feeling she might’ve, their help doesn’t come on Sundays, it’ll be Vegemite sandwiches. –That’s Marmite, to you,” he added kindly.

    Livia goggled at him over the handkerchief and he said: “She’s a farm girl. Comes from a dump down the East Coast. Very ordinary family. Never thinks up-market if you leave her to her own devices: he has to push her into the silk gear and the diamonds and so on. She’d get round all day in scruffy old shorts if he let her.”

    “Like yours, I suppose!” said Livia acidly, lowering the handkerchief.

    Wal smiled a little. “That’s better. Why don’t you go and wash your face? And don’t bother to put too much of that muck back on, no-one’ll be looking at you.”

    Livia’s nostrils flared. She stalked into the bathroom.

    Wal investigated the dressing-table and said: “They’ll be looking at the horses. Forget about your public for one day and just try and enjoy yourself.”

    She washed her face without replying. Then she came back and said, standing behind him: “I’ll try. If you’ll try not to be horrid.”

    “I’m not horrid. But I’m no gent, either,” he sniffed interestedly at her scent bottle. “I like this.”

    “Yes. L’Air Du Temps,” said Livia faintly.

    “Mm,” he said, putting it down. “Eighty dollars a pop, don’t tell me.”

    “I don’t know how much that is. But I just hate cheap scent.”

    “So do I.” He hesitated and then said: “I’m no Maurie Black, either. Don’t expect me to play your silly little games.”

    “No,” said Livia faintly. There were many replies she could have made, but somehow...

    “Well, come on, I suppose you have to put some muck on the dial,” he said heavily.

    Livia didn’t reply. She sat down and put on a very light make-up while he watched with interest.

    “That’s very professional,” he said.

     “Is that a compliment, darling?” Her voice fluttered uncertainly: it hadn’t sounded like one.

    “No, just an observation. I like watching people who are experts at their job. Ready?”

    Livia was now in a state of quivering nerves mixed with the quivering excitement she’d been experiencing ever since she woke up, and she gasped: “No! I’m sorry, darling, I must just use the little girls’ room!”

    “Get a move on, then.”

    She hurried into the bathroom again.

    Yesterday Wallace had ridden with the Carranos and Inoue in Sir Jake’s silver Mercedes (one of those cars that Livia recognized) so she had no idea what he drove. But his suit of yesterday had led her to expect something nice. Well, if not a Jaguar or a Mercedes, perhaps a nice sports car, since he was a bachelor?

    It was a battered four-by-four, extremely dirty. Livia knew that some people, mostly younger people, drove those as second cars because one of the up-market young men in her soap had driven one for weekends, when he was towing his boat (not really, the actor couldn’t tow a boat); but…

    “I was gonna clean this today,” he said. “Seeing as it’s Sunday.”

    “Oh, a trip to see the horses is much more fun!” trilled Livia.

    “What I thought.” He opened the door. “Get in.”

    She got in. He didn’t help her, though it was quite a step up, but by now she wasn’t expecting him to.

    Wal got in beside her. “Could take ’er to the carwash, but the roof leaks a bit.”

    Livia glanced up. She could see that it would, there was a patch of—of something, was it hessian? canvas?—over the hole, but—

    Wal started up. “Engine’s still sound, though!” he said loudly and cheerfully.

    Livia nodded and smiled, and put her sunglasses on, very glad she’d chosen the dark pair; she had a prettier pair, with the tinted look, but they’d be no good in today’s blazing sun.

    He headed for the motorway, telling Livia a lot about the vehicle’s engine which on the whole she didn’t want to know. But she listened quite happily, because that was the sort of thing masculine men did talk about, and at least he wasn’t ignoring her! Then on the motorway he told her a lot about the place where he went for “surf-casting”; she didn’t know what that was and thought it was something you did with boards. It was ages before she realized that it must be some kind of fishing.

    “It sounds dangerous, darling!” she squeaked.

    “Eh?”

    “It sounds DANGEROUS!” bellowed Livia above the appalling noise of the thing’s engine, pitching her voice quite easily to the back of Wembley Stadium.

    “Yes. Is,” he said, nodding. “Bloody dangerous. Especially if you’re a bloody fool and do it with the tide coming in when a gale warning’s been issued.”

    Livia stared at him in horror.

    “But I’m not a bloody fool!” he said loudly, grinning.

    “No, darling, of course not!” she cried, smiling a forced smile.

    Wal then told her how, once the rip got you, the waders would drag you under... Livia would definitely rather not have known.

    She looked round for the hat she was to wear, hoping to change the subject, and saw he had a bag of golf clubs in the back of the thing and said: “Ooh! Do you play golf, darling?”

    “Eh?”

    “I SAID, do you play GOLF?”

    “Yeah. Whenever I can fit in a game. So does Jake—he’s hopeless, though. Won’t take it seriously.”

    “I see. That must be very— That must be very IRRITATING, darling!”

    “Pretty much, yeah. Well, to the types that play for a hundred a hole, yeah.”

    Maybe the New Zealand ones weren’t worth as much as American ones, but remembering how many dollars she’d had to pay her surgeon, she gasped: “A hundred dollars a hole?”

    He shrugged. “Yeah. Some of ’em. Bad as the bloody Yanks.”

    “Yes. Do you play for money, darling?”

    Wal caught that, actually: there was nothing wrong with his hearing and he was used to his old Land Rover’s noise. But having discovered she could produce more than a squeak, he was amusing himself by making her do so. This time, however, he merely said: “Yeah. When forced. Prefer to play to beat my handicap, actually.”

    “Ye-es... What is that, Wal, darling?”

    “Eh?”

    Livia went rather red. But they might as well talk about golf: there was nothing to look at. The miles of very boring suburbia, lately rather ugly and semi-industrial, through which they had just passed had given way to what seemed like endless brownish fields. There had been a few hills, earlier (she would have been extremely startled and quite scared to learn they were volcanic cones, so it was just as well Wal hadn’t thought to explain), but now it was all this low, rolling farm country, not pretty at all, no lovely hedges or cottages. “What is a handicap, Wal?” she bellowed.

    Wal explained. Then he told her about his, and about certain glorious and inglorious episodes of his golfing life…

    Livia quite enjoyed it. It was nice hearing about the things he was interested in. And golf wasn’t scary like that dreadful surf-casting.

    Miles of dry, rolling country fled by them with here and there another suburban-looking settlement of wooden bungalows, or off-ramps with large signs in what must be Maori and was certainly incomprehensible, and at last the motorway more or less came to an end. Wal pulled over and stopped. “Look for a dairy,” he said.

    “What?”

    “Look for a dairy.” He got out. Livia stared at him. He lifted the thing’s lid and looked at its engine. Then he came back and sat down again.

    “Is anything wrong?”

    “No, thought she might be overheating. This bloody thing’s on the blink.” He thumped something on the dashboard.

    “Oh. What was that I had to look for again, darling?”

    “A dairy. He’ll be parked outside it while the kids stuff their gobs with ice cream.”

    Livia thought silently that that was very rude, not to say quite crude.

    They drove on slowly.

    “Is that one?” she said.

    “Yeah—hang on! See?”

    The little shop was on a corner and in the side street was parked a large fawn station-waggon and leaning against its tail eating an ice was Sir Jacob Carrano in a red tee-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts as horrible as Wal’s denim ones.

    They drew up just behind him.

    “Gidday,” he said, strolling up to Livia’s window. “You types want an ice cream?”

    “She won’t, they’re full of calories,” said Wal immediately.

    Livia looked longingly at Jake’s ice but said: “Oh, absolutely, darling: I simply mustn’t!”

    “You?” said Jake to his friend.

    “I don’t know that I dare, your wife once told me that the Antipodean male was typified by an inability to wean himself off them-there breast substitutes,” he drawled.

    Livia gasped, and goggled at him.

    “Milk products,” he explained briefly.

    She went very red and gave a terrifically airy, tinkling laugh.

    “Crikey, if ya took any notice of her you’d never do anything but sit there twiddling yer toes and contemplating yer navel with yer mind in knots—and she’d tell ya that meant something rude, too!” Jake said with a grin.

    “Yeah. Well, I don’t think I will, anyway, bit too early in the day for me.”

    “We’ve got some light-beer in the back,” said Polly, coming up to them with a smile and taking off her sunglasses. “Hi, Livia.”

    “Hullo, Polly, darling,” said Livia with huge relief as she discovered that Polly’s green slacks were really very ordinary and the pale yellow tee-shirt tightly tucked into them was extremely ordinary (what was inside it wasn’t, but then Nature was unfair, Livia already knew that), and that Polly was wearing very ordinary sneakers on her feet. And that Polly’s hair was in a big fat plait down her back. As a result she looked about twenty-two at the most, the more so as she wasn’t wearing any make-up, but Livia refused to contemplate this thought for one instant.

    “I could go one of those,” decided Wal.

    “Me, too,” said Jake, swallowing the last of his ice cream.

    At this point there was a piercing scream from the waggon and Livia jumped and gasped, but Polly said apologetically: “It’s Katie Maureen, she wants to get out. She can’t undo her child-restraint herself, thank goodness: her fingers aren’t strong enough.”

    “They can, though,” said Jake on a grim note as there was another scream and two little boys emerged from the waggon.

    “It’s all right, they got out on the footpath,” said Polly. “Come and say Hullo to Livia and Wal, darlings,” she said.

    The little boys came up shyly and leaned against their mother’s legs and Livia thought they were just adorable and said so. Wal Briggs noted with dry amusement that Davey and Johnny didn’t seem much impressed.

    Polly explained who Livia was and the two little boys stared at her solemnly. Then the dark-haired one said: “Have you got a bladder?”

    “Yeah, but it doesn’t work too good!” choked Wal.

    “Oh, like this one’s, eh?” said Jake, nodding at his wife, and grinning all over his face.

    “Go and get the beer,” she said crossly.—Jake winked at Livia, and ambled off.—“Davey means a silver bladder on a stick, Livia, for the show.”

    “Joel’s got one,” said the little dark boy.

    “I don’t think I carry a bladder, dear, I’ll have a lovely wand!”

    “Will you?” said Polly.

    “Yes, that clever Pauline showed me the drawings. –A big sparkling wand, dear!” she said to the dark twin.

    “Like a real fairy godmother,” he said.

    “Yes, exactly!” beamed Livia.

    “Fairy Queen Godmother,” murmured Wal, trying it out for size.

    “Are you a good queen?” said the little fair twin suddenly.

    “Oh, yes, dear!” gasped Livia, looking frantically at his mother.

    “Snow White had a bad queen,” he said.

    “Yes, she was horrible,” said Polly. “But that was in another country, Johnny.”

    “Yeah—and besides, the bitch is dead,” said Wal conversationally.

    “She’s dead!” said both twins with horrid satisfaction.

    “Yes. Livia’s the queen of a different country altogether,” said Polly in a strange voice.

    “Queen of the rainy country,” muttered Wal.

    “Look, shut up!” she choked.

    Livia didn’t think he’d been that bad and she looked at them both doubtfully and found to her surprize that they were both shaking and red in the face. It was obviously some sort of in-joke, in fact probably some sort of intellectual joke like Joel and that cousin of his had kept making all day yesterday, and Livia was a little flushed as she said to the boys: “Queen of Fairyland, dears.”

    Perhaps fortunately Jake came up at that moment carrying two cans of beer and the dearest little red-haired girl and Livia was able to cry: “Oh, what an adorable pet!”

    “I’m nodda a pet, I’m a person,” she said immediately, scowling.

    “I’m a person, too!” cried dark-haired Davey immediately.

    “I’m a boy,” said Johnny firmly.

    “Well, he’s got that, at last,” said his father with a hard look at his mother.

    “Yes. But you’re a person as well, Johnny,” said Polly, ignoring Jake.

    “I’M a person!” shouted the little girl.

    “That’ll do,” said her father with a grin. “Say Gidday to yer Uncle Wal. And this pretty lady’s Livia, she’s gonna be the fairy queen in Ginny and Vicki’s play.”

    The little girl didn’t say hullo, she said with an aggressive glare: “I godda badder.”

    “A— Oh, a bladder? Have you, darling? That’s nice,” cooed Livia.

    “Yeah, r’I bonked Big Mac wiv it,” she said with satisfaction.

    Jake chuckled richly and Polly gasped: “Ooh, help!”

    “Good on ya,” grinned Wal, opening his beer.

    Livia gasped: “Darling! Should you?” as he then let Katie Maureen sip from the can.

    “Only light-beer. She’s not getting much,” he said.

    She was making enough noise over it, though, gasping and grunting. She was a pretty little thing, but Livia couldn’t help thinking that she was like a little pig rather than a little girl.

    “She loves it. And Wal’s right, she’s not getting much, she’s not much good at drinking out of cans,” said Polly.

    “I am!” she gasped, lifting a bright pink face.

    “Yeah,” said Wal. “Finished dribbling in it, have ya?”

    “No! More!” she panted.

    “Nah, my turn now,” he said. He gave the top of the can a very casual wipe with the side of his hand and drank deeply.

    “I wanna BEER!” the dark twin suddenly cried in a piercing soprano—far higher than his little sister’s voice.

    “No, Davey, you don’t like it any more, remember?” said his mother.

    Livia looked at her dubiously and she said, smiling: “They both loved it when they were little, but they seem to have grown out of the taste for it. Probably Katie Maureen will, too.”

    “I LIKE it! Mummy, I LIKE it!” he cried.

    “Go on, then,” said Jake. He gave him his can and the little boy sipped eagerly, Then he made an awful face.

    “See?” said Jake drily.

    He turned very red and shouted: “It’s gone OFF!”

    “Yeah,” said Jake. He swooped on him and hoisted him onto his hip. “Gone off,” he agreed, giving him a noisy kiss.

    “Where did he get that one from?” said Polly faintly.

    “Uh—dunno. No, hang on, the ham Daph found in the back of the fridge when she came back from her aunty’s. Remember?”

    “Oh—that,” she said, looking guilty.

    “Yeah. Someone wrapped it up in plastic well before Christmas, ya see,” he explained to the company, “because she reckoned it was a crime to waste a nice little piece of ham like that. And put it in the back of the fridge. And forgot about it. Then the lady that helps in the house, she came back from her holidays—help, musta been the end of January—yeah, just before school started, that’s right—and found it. And contrary to popular legend,”—he looked drily at his wife—“New Zealand ham goes off if you leave it in the back of the fridge for two months.”

    “The ham went OFF!” cried the little blond boy. “It STUNK!”

    “Yeah, too right it did.”

    “Puppy woulda eaten it, only Daph said he’d be sick,” he explained earnestly to Livia.

    “Oh—I see, dear. You’ve got a puppy, have you? That’s nice.”

    “Neh, he’s Elspeth’s,” he said.

    “Oh,” said Livia limply.

    “Their cousin’s,” explained Polly. “Anyway, the ham was definitely off, wasn’t it, twins?”

    “YEAH!” they cried pleasedly.

    Livia couldn’t see what was thrilling about bad ham but she smiled at them anyway, they were so sweet.

    “Family life, eh?” said Wal on a dry note as they set off again. –Katie Maureen had been told she could NOT go with Wal and Livia, there was nowhere to put her child-restraint—this was true, there was no back seat in the Land Rover, whether because Wallace had removed it or because the thing had never had one Livia had no idea—and had been carried off red-faced and screaming by her grinning father.

    “I think they’re adorable,” she said firmly.

    “Yeah. Pretty much. So long as ya don’t have to wipe up their messes and deal with their tantrums on a full-time basis.”

    Livia gave him an angry glance and didn’t reply.

    “This is the Waikato,” he said informatively, after a little.

    “Is it?” she replied in a hard voice.

    “Yeah. More or less, yeah. Dairy country. Those are Jerseys.” –The field to their left was full of very pretty cows.

    “They look more like cows to me,” said Livia crossly.

    Wal didn’t reply and she felt a fool. This was pretty much his intention, she had no doubt.

    After a while they came to a little settlement, composed almost entirely of ugly bungalows, some brightly painted, some in a really dreadful yellow brick, and some very run-down and dilapidated, and turned off the highway onto quite a reasonable side road. They went down this road for some time. Here there were actually some hedges, but they were scrawny things with strands of wire, mainly rusting barbed wire, running through them and not pretty at all. Many of the fields had more of the pretty cows in them but Livia did not remark on these. Then they turned off onto another road and Wal swore and braked savagely.

    “Ooh!” gasped Livia, grabbing the door.

    “Sorry. Are you all right?”

    “Yes,” she said faintly, as the big fawn estate waggon ahead of them disappeared in a cloud of dust.

    “We’ll let his dust settle,” he said.

    “Yes,” said Livia faintly, thinking that was a good idea but hoping they wouldn’t lose him.

    “Bloody dry, isn’t it?” he said.

    “Yes. What on earth do the poor cows eat?”

    “Uh—well, dried grass, it’s hay, isn’t it? And they’ll probably be feeding out silage as well.”

    “Oh,” said Livia humbly. “I see, darling.”

    “That’s about all I know about cows. Except that you get milk from them,” he said with a twitch of his wide, rather crooked mouth. It was a generous, rather sensual-looking mouth and every time she looked at it Livia got that swoopy feeling in her tummy, so she didn’t. Much.

    “Well, I won’t ask you any more, then, darling!” she said, trying to be merry and bright.

    “No. Ask me anything ya like about criminal law, or selling papers on the city streets after school: me and Jake are townees,” he said with a grin.

    “I see! Have you known him long, darling?”

    “All me life. Literally. Grew up in the same orphanage.”

    “Really?” she gasped.

    “Yeah. There was three of us, we were great mates when we were kids: me and Jake, and John Westby—he wasn’t an orphan, his family lived down the road a bit. His father had a few acres further up, grazed a horse there, and grew a few apple trees. Made a packet out of it when they built the new high school.”

    “I see,” said Livia, faint but pursuing.

    “We all learned to ride by falling off the horse. Well, John’s mother made him have proper lessons with flaming jodhpurs and a silly hat, had ideas above her station because his dad was a doctor.”

    “I see... Was it a country town, darling?”

    “Eh? Hell, no. North Shore.” Livia looked blank so he elaborated: “North Shore of the city. Over the Harbour Bridge. The bridge wasn’t built back then, of course, so it was pretty isolated where we were. There were ferries, though.”

    “I see. So—so you’re both orphans, then?”

    “Yep. Brought up by the good nuns,” he said cheerfully. “Boy, that Sister Anne could pack a wallop,” he added reminiscently.

    “You mean they beat you?” gasped Livia.

    “Only when we bloody well asked for it. Sister Anne used to do it with a stick, think it was a bit of dowelling, but old Sister Mary-Theresa had a leather strap. Ooh, boy.”

    “That’s dreadful, Wallace!” gasped Livia.

    “No, it isn’t. We were a pack of real horrors. Deserved all we got.”

    She swallowed.

    “Better get going,” he decided, starting the engine again.

    “Oh—yes,” she said faintly. “We mustn’t get lose:

    “Can’t get lost on this road. Far as I remember it only goes to the stables.”

    “Yes... Isn’t it a bit far off the beaten track?” she ventured.

    “What for?” he replied with a grin.

    “To get the horses to the race track!” cried Livia sharply.

    Wal smiled a little. “I think they start at crack of dawn when they’re racing in town—give them a bit of a rest before they have to race. –I keep telling ya, this isn’t flaming England!”

    Livia didn’t really know how the horses got to the races there, either, but she’d never been on a road as bad as this in her life, so she said faintly: “No, it certainly isn’t.”

    After what seemed an interminable drive past brambly hedges smothered in pale fawn dust—Livia glanced back and saw they were raising the most tremendous cloud behind them—they came to some neat railed fencing and a wide white gate, where the big estate-waggon was drawn up, waiting for then.

    “This is it,” said Wal.

    “Ye-es... “ Livia didn’t know what she’d expected, but… There was a house, set back a bit from the road at the end of a gravel drive. Was it gravel? Some sort of rough grey stones, weren’t they just the sort of stones horses picked up in their feet? –Livia’s knowledge of horses was mainly gained from the Enid Blyton books she’d read as a child, in which knowledgeable, capable children removed stones from horses’ hooves with the implement in their pen-knives. She had never even seen a real horse until she was well into her twenties, but she was silently determined she would never tell Wal Briggs this. She’d had to learn to ride for a film she’d been in, where she was one of the girls who mysteriously vanished one by one from a spooky-looking country mansion (which any girl with any sense would never have gone within five hundred yards of). She’d been terrified of the horses and never had learnt to ride well, but fortunately the director, who’d hired her because at that stage she’d worn her hair silver-blonde, very long, and just slightly rippled all down her back, and because she’d sworn blind she could ride, had never noticed. Being a “townee”, himself.

    The house was just a wooden suburban bungalow, painted a rather ugly yellow with a white trim, no different from all the thousands of bungalows they’d passed in the suburbs. It looked quite incredibly grotesque, just sitting there in the field. The more so as there was very little garden outside it. No shrubs, just a few flowers by the front steps. Livia couldn’t see at this distance but they were very bright: she thought they might be petunias. Her mother had been very fond of petunias, she’d grown them in window-boxes as well as in the front garden of their tiny semi-detached “villa”. Mrs Warbutt (such was Livia’s real name), who would have immolated herself rather than been less than ladylike, had determinedly called it a villa even though it was hardly big enough to turn round in and the front garden was about a yard square.

    Wal stuck his head out his window and bellowed: “You get on, I’ll get the gate!”

    “RIGHT!” bellowed Sir Jacob.

    Wal got out and opened the gate. Sir Jake drove through. They followed. Wal got out again and closed the gate. It seemed a superfluous precaution, there were only two horses visible and they were in a fenced-off field. Probably all the other horses were in their stable.

    The other horses weren’t in their stable, the stables were empty except for a boy in jeans, with a bucket. The stables were not pretty, they were very ugly. The yard was concreted—very ugly—and Wallace pointed out slyly that Livia should thank God for that.

    The horses were in a field which was quite some distance away. Everyone called it a paddock and Livia silently absorbed this term and thought she should use it, too, but as she wasn’t sure whether was a racing persons’ term or merely a New Zealand one, didn’t quite dare.

    The man who was the trainer was not dressed as had been the bit-part actor who had appeared briefly in Livia’s soap as the trainer of the older hero’s horses. He had worn very smart breeches, a well-cut checked tweed jacket with a belt at the back and leather-patched elbows, a yellow waistcoat, a dark green Viyella shirt and a silk cravat. This trainer wore very grimy wrinkled jeans and a checked cotton short-sleeved shirt that was even older than Wal’s. Much more faded. And not even proper riding boots! The actor had had very shiny ones that reached almost to his knees.

    His name was Bri and he spoke in a drawl that at first Livia thought was put on, worse than Wallace when he was drawling in order to annoy, or making one of his silly jokes, but after a while decided couldn’t be, no-one could keep it up for that long. He, Wal and Jake conferred laconically but at some length over their horse and his food and exercise and then over most of the other horses in the paddock, and Livia, though she thought the horses were very pretty and the paddock, being greener than most of the ones they’d seen, reasonably pretty, too, became very bored, not to say very hot, and was very glad she’d had the sense to wear the hideous straw sunhat Wal had produced for her.

    Polly’s hat, incidentally, was almost as hideous but Livia was quite sure that she didn’t look as sweet in hers as Polly did in hers. Katie Maureen also wore a sunhat, which she declared crossly was “sissy”, and the little boys had been put into darling little cotton caps with neck-flaps. Johnny’s was green and Davey’s was red, matching their little tee-shirts, and Livia thought they looked adorable and rather unwisely had said so in front of Katie Maureen, provoking a bellow of: “They’re STUPID!”

    After more walking over paddocks and more horses—they were all outside in the heat, poor things, though some of them were standing under trees: not pretty trees like our English trees, dark, ugly trees, decided Livia—after this, then, they finally went up to the house. By this time Livia would have killed for a chilled glass of Evian but the trainer’s wife came out of the back door smiling and said: “Just in time, I’ve just put the kettle on,” so they had to go into her hot, stuffy front room, which was very full of hideous modern overstuffed furniture with squashed-looking arms, all the pieces huge, especially the armchairs, and drink hot, strong tea.

    The trainer’s wife was about his own age, mid-forties, and Livia privately considered that she was an object-lesson of a woman who had Let Herself Go. Her untidy curly brown hair was rapidly greying and she hadn’t bothered to do anything about it. She was rather plump, with very plump arms, well displayed by her awful pink and lilac floral cotton sundress, and she clearly hadn’t bothered to do anything about that, either. She was clean, Livia gave her that, but really: rubber flip-flops in the house?

    However, she had seen Livia’s soapie, and was thrilled to meet her, so Livia—feeling crossly that she should never have believed Wallace when he’d said no-one would look at her—was very charming to her and allowed her to take a photo of her with her large Polaroid camera—training horses in New Zealand must be a fairly lucrative occupation, the house was crammed with expensive gadgets in addition to the upholstery giants—standing out by the front steps in front of the petunias, smiling. Holding Katie Maureen’s hand, she had insisted on being in the picture, too.

    They finally got away, to the sound of repeated assurances from Mrs Bri—he called her Mo, it must be a joke, and Livia hadn’t caught what her real name was, no-one had introduced anyone properly—that her sister would be green as grass when she heard who’d come to visit them today, Livia was her favourite actress! And if only she’d known she’d have made them a proper afternoon tea!

    “Was that afternoon tea?” said Livia to Wal as they drove off in Jake’s wake. They hadn’t even had lunch, yet.

    “No,” he said, slowing down to let the cloud of dust get well ahead of them. “Didn’t you hear ’er? If she’d known you were coming, she’d have made you one!’

    “No, but I mean—”

    “Yeah. Well, they’d’ve had their lunch hours ago, they get up around five.”

    “Five o’clock?” she gasped.

    “Yeah. Morning exercise for the horses, mucking out, all that.”

    “It must be a hard life,” she murmured.

    “Yeah. Better than being a cow-cockie, though.”

    “What, darling?”

    “C— Oh! Dairy farmer,” he said with a laugh.

    “Mm...” Livia sneaked a glance at her watch.

    “Hungry?” he said.

    “Yes, I am, rather, it must be the fresh air... I hadn’t realized it was so late.”

    “No. I told Jake we shoulda started earlier.”

    “Ye-es... Didn’t they have to drive a fair way to get into the city, though?”

    He shrugged. “Forty minutes, maybe, the rate he drives.”

    He wasn’t driving very fast on this awful road. “Oh.”

    “No, well, maybe a bit longer with Polly squawking at him to slow down. Doesn’t stop her driving like a bat out of Hell in that bloody Lamborghini of hers, mind you.”

    “Lamborghini? Has she?” she gasped.

    “I see you’ve heard of ’em,” he responded drily.

    “Yes. Joel did say that Jake—” She stopped.

    “Rich as Croesus. And before you ask, I’m not.”

    “I wouldn’t dream of asking!” cried Livia angrily.

    “I’m comfortable, that’s all. All by the sweat of me brow, what’s more. –Well, so is Jake’s, you’d have to be cracked to begrudge him it. Or her.”

    “Of course.”

    “To begrudge him her,” he said heavily

    She swallowed. “Do you, Wallace?” She looked up at him timidly.

    Wal made a face. “Not so much her—well, she’s a lovely piece. Only I couldn’t cope with the intellectual garbage, night and day.”

    “I don’t think... I mean, they seem very suited in many ways, darling!” said Livia with an uneasy laugh.

    “She likes ’em macho and he likes ’em sexy and bright with it—right.”

    “I wouldn’t exactly…  I suppose you’re right.”

    “Mm. But she’s...” Wal made a face.

    “What?”

    “I dunno that I can explain it. All I know is, I couldn’t handle it.”

    “She is terribly clever, I can see that...”

    “Yeah.” He scratched his thin pepper-and-salt hair with one hand while steering with the other. “I dunno. The things she comes out with at times... You’d think she was totally alienated from Jake, and his lifestyle, and everything he stands for… Shit, I said I couldn’t explain it!”

    “I see,” said Livia uncertainly. “But she does love him?”

    “Yeah. Only—well, do you reckon she’d be a comfortable person to live with?”

    Livia went very pink. She had a feeling it was important to answer honestly, as he was being very earnest, so she really tried to think hard. It was difficult, because she wasn’t used to thinking much about other people and their relationships. Finally she said: “She is lovely, of course—very charming. Only... No, I don’t think she’d be very comfortable to live with, I think you might find yourself wondering what on earth she was thinking of you, sometimes.”

    “You’ve got it!” he said with a huge sigh.

    “Mm,” she murmured, wondering if he was a bit in love with Polly himself—it wouldn’t be surprizing, she was lovely. And charming. And in spite of the intelligence and the feeling you sometimes got of what on earth was she thinking of you, really a very—very natural person? Something like that; that wasn’t quite it, though...

    Livia wished silently that she was a lot more like Polly, and a lot nearer Polly’s age, and wondered just exactly what type of woman Wal did admire, and whether that kiss back at the hotel had meant anything at all, and continued to wonder over the next few miles whether Wal was a bit in love with Polly.

    “Take ya pants off, then,” recommended Jake, yawning.

    They’d had a lovely picnic by the side of a river—Polly had brought lovely chicken and avocado pitta-bread sandwiches, not Marmite like silly Wallace had said—with champagne but also lots of chilled Evian, it was wonderful. Now the children in their dear little swimsuits but still with their hats on were paddling in the shallows. Polly wanted to paddle too, but her pale green pirate pants wouldn’t roll up more than a couple of inches.

    There was no-one else in sight, and no houses for miles, but all the same! thought Livia, propping herself on her elbow under their willow tree—the river was lined with willows, almost like an English river!—and staring at Jake.

    “All right, I will, if no-one minds?” said Polly.

    “Be my guest,” said Wal in a bored voice.

    Livia didn’t say anything, she couldn’t make her voice work, somehow. She just smiled a forced smile, and nodded.

    Lady Carrano took off her green slacks. The tee-shirt was quite long but it didn’t hide the fact that she was wearing very plain white cotton knickers. A bikini cut, but not cutaway in the legs, as all Livia’s own underwear was these days. Didn’t she care about keeping up with the times, then?

    “Take the lot off, no-one’ll give a stuff,” said her husband. Polly ignored that. She put her sunhat on and stepped into the water. “Ooh, it’s quite warm!” she said.

    Livia looked at her enviously but with no intention of emulating her.

    Polly and the children paddled and squealed a bit and splashed a bit and found interesting pebbles and small bits of stick. Sir Jake lay flat on his back with his eyes closed and soon began to snore.

    Livia bit her lip.

    “I could give him a good dig in the ribs,” offered Wal, yawning.

    “No! Of course not, darling, don’t disturb him!” she gasped.

    “You okay? Not too hot?” he said.

    Livia had taken off her shirt in the shade of the willow. “No, I’m fine, thank you, darling,” she lied.

    “Go on, get out of those jeans and have a paddle.”

    “No! I couldn’t possibly!”

    “No-one’ll care if you’ve got rude pants on,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

    “Rude— Of course I haven’t! What do you think I am?” she gasped.

    “No idea,” he said in a bored voice, lying flat on his back and closing his eyes. Livia glared at him but he didn’t react.

    Polly and the children paddled, squealed and splashed, and found interesting pebbles and sticks. Jake snored. Wal lay flat on his back with his eyes closed. Livia sulked.

    The river rippled, insects swooped over it, bees buzzed and cicadas—Livia had had to ask what the noise was—sang their endless zizzy song that made you think there was something wrong with your ears. Livia sulked and sweated in her jeans.

    Finally she got up—Wal didn’t stir—rolled her jeans up as far as they would go, put her shirt and sunhat back on, it was baking out in the sun, and, removing her sandals at the very edge, stepped cautiously into the water.

    “Nice, isn’t it?” said Polly with a laugh.

    “Yes!” she admitted, giggling. “Terribly childish, though, darling!”

    “I’ve always liked paddling, I don’t see what age has got to do with it. –It might be sex-linked, though,” she added, glancing at the torpid forms on the bank. “I’ve never met a man who liked paddling, have you?”

    “Um... Well, no, darling, now you come to mention it, I haven’t!” said Livia, somewhat startled, and remembering that time with Rudi, it had been a lovely day, she’d paddled but he had walked along the sands further up, sulking. Serve him right for wearing expensive hand-sewn brogues to the seaside! thought Livia pleasedly, conveniently forgetting the facts that (a) she had been very impressed by the shoes at the time and (b) most of the paddling had been for effect, to show Rudi what a sweet, natural girl she really was.

    “Look,” said little fair-haired Johnny shyly, holding up a wet leaf.

    “Very pretty, darling!” smiled Livia.

    He went on holding it out.

    “Is it for me?”

    “’Es,” he said.

    Livia took it. “Thank you very much, darling, it’s a beautiful leaf!”

    Johnny jumped a bit, and splashed away about four yards, where he abruptly jumped a lot.

    “That’s an alternative to standing on the head!” said his mother with a laugh in her voice.

    “What? Oh! Good gracious, I see what you mean, dear!” she gasped.

    “You’re honoured, he’s got exacting tastes. Well, for ages he only liked ladies who let him wear their bras, Jake was in a terrific state over it!” gurgled Polly.

    Livia’s jaw dropped. “Not really, Polly?”

    “Yes, it was fascinating. I read up loads of books on child psychology but none of them were the least help, they all trotted out the theories that were popular at the time of writing, without really trying to analyse the phenomenon at all.”

    Livia reflected it was no doubt that sort of—of detached attitude, really—yes, detached—that made Wallace feel that Polly would not be a comfortable person to live with. “Weren’t you worried, though, dear?”

    “No. Well, as none of the so-called experts advanced a viable theory as to what the cause was, and none of them gave any suggestion as to what to do about it, except to say to let him, there wasn’t much point in being worried, was there? Added to which none of the so-called experts has explained the causes of homosexuality even halfway convincingly—not when you consider the North Atlantic grey seals do it, too,”—here Polly picked up Katie Maureen and hugged her, since she’d begun to wail: “Maa-mee-ee, pick me aa-up,”—“and I couldn’t see that wearing bras was necessarily connected to it in any way. Not from the evidence advanced, anyway!” she ended with a twinkle.

    “Johnny done that,” said Katie Maureen.

    “Yes, for ages, eh?” agreed Polly, kissing her.

    “I godda bra!” she said to Livia.

    Livia rolled her eyes at Polly.

    “That isn’t a lie, for once: she wanted one so I gave her an old one of mine. She keeps it in the dress-up box, don’t you, sweetheart?”

    “Yeah. It fits,” she said earnestly to Livia.

    “I see, darling,” she said faintly.

    “Teddy can wear it,” she said brightly.

    “Um—oh, your teddy bear?” Katie Maureen nodded firmly so Livia murmured: “I’m sure he—she—can.”

    “He’s a boy,” said Katie Maureen firmly.

    “I think we’d better change the subject, you look quite flummoxed, Livia!” gurgled Polly.

    “Yes—well—I mean, how can it— Oh, dear, never mind.”

    “There’ll be some logic in there,” said Polly, kissing the red head, “but not a logic that anyone over the age of about four could possibly grasp.”

    “No,” she said, smiling. “She’s four, then, is she, Polly?”

    “NO! I’m FREE!” she bellowed.

    “Yes.—Don’t shout, darling, no-one’s deaf.—She is three. But the twins have lived almost entirely in their own little worlds with their own logic right up until recently: they’ve only started to get socialized by their peers now that they’re going to school. In a way it’s an awful pity, they’re learning to be conformists.”

    “Yes—but—I suppose one must learn to cope with life!” gasped Livia.

    “Mm. The trouble is, Davey’s pig-headed but he’s a bit of a conformist anyway, and Johnny’s soft as butter, though he’s got quite an original mind, so neither of them’s likely to stand up against peer-group pressure for long. By the time they reach their teens they’ll be conforming madly to all the latest pathetic crazes without ever stopping to ask themselves what the Hell they’re doing it for.”

    “But— Well, children do, don’t they? And they’ll grow out of that stage, dear! All teenagers go through it!” gasped Livia.

    “Will they?” said Polly drily. “How many adults do you know who don’t conform to one boring norm or another?”

    Livia opened her mouth. Some theatre people were quite— Then she closed it again and looked helplessly at her.

    Polly looked dry. “Quite. Oh, well, there’s always this one, she’s tough as old boots, nothing’s going to make her conform to anything unless she wants to,” she said, kissing Katie Maureen again.

    “Go a swim,” she decided, struggling.

    “Yeah, go on, then.” Polly put her down and she squatted in the eight inches of water, splashing. “Go on, swim.”

    “I am!” she panted.

    “Pooh.” Polly held her round the tummy and she kicked frantically. “I don’t think it’s deep enough. KATIE MAUREEN! I don’t think it’s DEEP enough, darling!” she boomed above the splashing.

    “YES!” shouted Katie Maureen. “I’M SWIMMING!”

    “See?” said Polly drily.

    “Um—yes,” admitted Livia, swallowing. “I think I do, dear.”

    “Can I go in deep?” panted Davey eagerly, splashing up to them.

    “No, not without an adult, darling, it’s a river, rivers aren’t safe, you could get swept out to sea like Scuffy the Tugboat. –JAKE!” she cried.

    “I’m a tugboat! I’m a tugboat!” the little boy cried eagerly.

    “Yes. Don’t splash like that, Davey. DAVEY! Don’t splash Livia like that! JAKE!”

    Livia was about to offer to get him but at that point Wal got up and wandered over to the bank. “Whaddaya want?” he said, yawning and stretching.

    “Davey wants to go out deeper for a swim. Can you take him, Wal?” panted Polly, hanging on like grim death to the furiously splashing Katie Maureen.

    “Depends. Is he the one that can swim?”

    “They all can, but he’s the good swimmer.”

    “All right,” said Wal, removing his shirt. Livia went bright red but was unable-to look away, he had a tattoo on his left upper-arm, it was the sexiest thing! Hitherto she had firmly believed that only rough sailors did that and that it was nasty. A belief firmly shared by middle-class pakeha New Zealand, actually. But then, at one stage Wal Briggs had been a rough sailor: he’d figured that after two years on the Cook Strait ferries he’d be able to put himself through the remainder of his law degree, easy. It had turned out to be one year, followed by four years overseas in the merchant marine, Wal had got the taste of the sea in his blood. But after that he’d decided to settle for law and a decent income.

    He splashed into the river and took the little boy by the hand. “Come on, Davey, have a proper swim.”

    “Yeah. You can be a big ship, I’m Scuffy the Tugboat.”

    “Not if I can help it, mate,” he muttered. “Uh—yeah, okay, Davey, you be a tugboat and I’ll be a big liner. What’s the name of a big liner?”

    “QEII!” he said proudly.

    “Uh—yeah, QEII,” agreed Wallace numbly. “Okey-doke, I’ll be the QEII—shut up, Polly, it’s not that funny—and you can push and pull me into deep water, eh?”

    “Yeah! Out of the harbour!”

    “Yeah.” They proceeded into deeper water where Wallace in his shorts and Davey in his little swim-suit immersed themselves. Livia watched anxiously but they did both seem able to swim.

    Katie Maureen had given up and was paddling again. Or rather, persecuting her other brother with a long strand of greenery.

    Polly came up, smiling, and said: “He’s good with kids, isn’t he? Of course, ours have known him all their lives, he’s like an uncle.”

    “Yes. He—has he got children of his own, Polly?”

    “Well, yes,” said Polly, trying not to laugh. “Um—three boys and four girls. And there was another boy, only he wasn’t his, that’s why Wal divorced his last wife.”

    “I see. Do they live with their mothers, Polly?”

    “Um—the two youngest girls do, yes. They’d be in their late teens. The older girls are flatting, now, and the boys are all grown up.” She paused. “He’s got two grandchildren, actually,” she said uncomfortably.

    “I see,” said Livia faintly.

    “He’s been married three times. I’d say he’s thoroughly got over the fatherhood bit by now. That stuff about not wanting to ride in the waggon with ours was pretty well genuine. Men of their age are too old, really, to have little kids,” said Polly in that detached way of hers.—Livia swallowed.—“Jake couldn’t cope without Nanny and Akiko.” She twinkled at her. “But nor could I! I’m afraid we’re a bit spoilt, really.”

    “Yes,” said Livia faintly. “I mean— But of course Jake adores yours, darling!” she gasped.

    “Yes, he does, only they get on his nerves at times. He’d never cope with being cooped up in a small house with them.”

    “No. I see,” said Livia slowly.

    Polly thought she did. She was obviously not an educated woman, and not a woman capable of any very deep or sustained thought. But she was sharp enough.

    “Darling, what an exhausting afternoon!” Livia said to Wal with a laugh as they headed back to the city on the main north highway.

    “Yeah; and it’ll get worse before it gets better: we’ll hit the flaming Sunday drivers once we’re on the motorway,” he said on a sour note.

    “Darling, aren’t we Sunday drivers?” ventured Livia.

    Wal grinned suddenly. “Nah! Everyone else is! Geddit?”

    They both laughed. Most of Livia’s was relief that he hadn’t taken her remark all wrong. She didn’t know what his was and didn’t dare to think about it, really.

    By the time they neared the city in a steady stream of traffic that at least was moving, nothing like the traffic jams Livia had been in when fortunate friends with cars had taken her driving in England on Sunday afternoons, she was in such a state of nerves that she could barely think. Every time he spoke she twitched, she couldn’t help it, it was partly wanting him, which by now she was admitting to herself she did quite dreadfully, and partly wondering if he was going to ask her out tonight or—or if he even wanted to! She’d given up trying to read him, or second-guess him, or... anything.

    “One Tree Hill,” he said.

    “What?” gasped Livia, twitching.

    “That hill. With the monument of top of it. And the one tree. One Tree Hill. Means we’re nearly there.”

    “Oh, I see.”

    “I’m just thinking... Yeah, might as well go right into the city, won’t be much traffic there,” he decided.

    “Just as you like, darling,” said Livia faintly.

    They drove on. At every off-ramp lots of cars left the motorway, but the traffic didn’t seem to thin much. Finally there was a toot on the horn from the big fawn estate waggon in front of them, Jake drew out into the centre lane, and Wal drew over sharply into the left lane.

    “Ooh!” gasped Livia. “Aren’t they coming with us?”

    “Nah, gotta get the kids to bed—getting late.” He glanced at the sky. “Be dark soon.”

    At home it would have been early evening and would have stayed as light as this for a long time. But Livia had noticed it had got dark very suddenly the previous night—and had been somewhat disconcerted by it. It wasn’t at all like England in midsummer. Well, perhaps it wasn’t exactly midsummer, right now, but it certainly felt like it! She had once been on a summer holiday to the north of Scotland—a big mistake, camping was horribly uncomfortable and most unfortunately both dear Bill and dear Jamie had somehow got the idea into their heads that she was their exclusive property—and it had stayed light even later up there.

    She looked at her watch and said faintly: “I suppose it is quite late. Almost dinnertime.”

    “Eh?”

    “Almost DINNERTIME!” she cried, feeling herself blush like an idiot and wondering if he was teasing her again.

     Wal glanced at his watch. “Yeah.”

    Livia was silent. She stared out blankly, not recognizing that they were now on the road that bisected the city campus, and jumped when Wal turned left and then suddenly did a U-turn across the road, to pull up outside her hotel.

    “Here you are,” he said neutrally.

    “Yes. Thank you, darling, it was lovely,” said Livia without conviction.

    “Thought you reckoned it was exhausting, before?” he drawled.

    “I— Well, yes, it was! But the kiddies are very sweet, really!” she gasped with a desperate tinkle.

    “Sweet but exhausting,” he agreed drily.

    “Yes,” said Livia faintly. She felt all at once as if she might burst into tears, which she was definitely not going to do, and also that she wanted to shout at him and slap his face really hard.

    “You hungry?” he said.

    Livia’s heart leapt. “Well, quite hungry, darling! I must have a shower before I do anything else, though; I feel all icky!”

    “Yeah. Funny, isn’t it, spend an afternoon in the company of a crowd of kids and you feel as if the little monsters have been spewing and smearing ice cream and muck all over you, even if they haven’t, eh?”

    Livia hesitated. “I suppose— Well, I think it’s largely the weather, darling!” She caught his sardonic eye. “Oh, dear, it’s exactly like that, I can’t wait to get out of every stitch I’ve got on!” she admitted with a shudder.

    Wal rubbed his ugly nose. “Yeah. Tell ya what, I’ll change and meet you back here, eh? That Captain Kidd Room does quite decent pizzas.”

    The Captain Kidd Room was not even the main dining-room, it was more a sort of supper bar. And Livia disliked pizza. However, she could always suggest something different, once he got here! So she smiled her nicest smile and breathed that that would be lovely, and Wal said he’d be back in half an hour or so, and leaned across her and opened her door. Livia’s heart hammered crazily as he did so. For two pins she could have leapt on him then and there, but she was definitely not the sort of woman who did things like that! So she didn’t.

    “Half an hour, then, darling!” she cooed from the curb.

    “Yeah. And don’t wear anything too fancy,” he said, revving the thing’s engine. He flipped a hand at her and drove away.

    In the suite Amy was sitting on the Marie Antoinette sofa looking depressed. “Did you have a nice day, Ollie?” she said dully.

    “Yes! And don’t call me that!” snapped Livia.

    “Oh. No. Sorry, Livia. Was the stable nice? Where was it?”

    Livia sat down suddenly on a large pale peach brocade wing chair. “I don’t know. Miles and miles out in the country. Down the most frightful road, choked with dust! I’m absolutely exhausted,” she ended on a dull note worthy of Amy herself.

    “It’s this dreadful humidity,” sighed Amy.

    “Yes.”

    There was a short silence.

    “Did you go out?” said Livia with an effort.

    “I went to that nice church near Jacky’s motel. Then I thought I’d walk back, it was such a beautiful morning,” said Amy with a sigh.

    “That’s nice,” Livia replied dully.

    Amy sighed again. “It was dreadfully hot... I thought I was going to pass out on the way back.”

    Livia looked dubiously at her clothes. Amy was wearing her navy Courtelle skirt but at least she had a short-sleeved cotton blouse on with it. So she only said: “Would you turn the shower on for me? Nice and cool.”

    “Yes,” said Amy with another sigh, getting up. “At least this nice hotel is air-conditioned.”

    “That’s something,” she agreed dully.

    Amy went through to the bathroom. When she came back she said: “Did he ask you out, Ollie, I mean Livia?”

    Livia sighed. “He’s meeting me back here in half an hour. He wants to go to that Captain Kidd place.”

    “Jacky and I went there last night. His pizza had raw green peppers on it and they gave him indigestion. I had the fish, it was dreadfully greasy so I—”

    “Didn’t eat the batter, yes,” agreed Livia tiredly, hauling herself up.

    “I could ring him and cancel it, dear, if you’re too tired,” said Amy anxiously.

   Suddenly Livia shouted: “I’m not too tired and you can’t ring him, he hasn’t given me his NUMBER! Go AWAY, Amy, you’re driving me MAD!” Then she burst into tears, rushed into the bedroom, and slammed the door.

    “Oh, dear,” said Amy sadly to herself. She looked at the handbag Livia had dropped on the floor and picked it up and put it on a rococo occasional table. Then she looked dubiously at Livia’s closed door. Then she murmured: “Oh, dear,” again and betook herself to her own room with its air conditioning, its fridge that she had now discovered, and the paperback copy of The Raj Quartet, the book of the series, that she’d picked up at Heathrow. Amy liked long books, she did a lot of reading during rehearsals, because Livia usually liked her to be there in case there was something about a costume or her hair or so on that needed to be noted down. Amy had expected the book to be rather more like the series than it was turning out to be and she had also expected it to be rather more like The Far Pavilions, with which she had got it slightly confused, but nevertheless was very pleased with it, because it was ever so long and would probably last her through most of this trip.

    Livia sobbed face-down on her over-stuffed pale blue satin eiderdown for about five minutes. Then she sat up, sniffing, slowly removed her sticky clothes and walked into the bathroom.

    By the time she’d had her shower she felt a little better. Enough so as to sit down at her dressing-table and examine her face narrowly and put a lot of Vitamin E cream on it. Then she just put her elbows on the dressing-table and stared blankly at her own reflection. She felt... confused. Muddled.

    After some time of blank staring, something Adam had said when he was being really bitchy about her wanting to come out here with him floated to the surface of mind: “Why in God’s name do you want to go there? People walk with their heads downwards there, darling.” Then he’d given her one of those superior looks of his, so Livia had presumed it must be a stupid quote from one of those stupid intellectual books he was always reading.

    ... “People walk with their heads downwards, there.” Yes, thought Livia in a sort of dull surprize, that’s exactly how I feel: as if I’d been walking with my head downwards, all day.