First Rehearsal

6

First Rehearsal

    “NO!” hollered Mac.

    In the wings, Adam sighed. He glanced at his Robin, who’d also sighed, and smiled. “Rehearsals for moves are always like this,” he murmured.

    “Yes!” she gulped, nodding.

    “What’s your name?” asked Adam, giving her a nice smile which successfully hid from her his nosiness on the question of “Phyllis” versus “Phyllida”. Neither of which suited his round-faced Robin at all. In fact “Robin” would have been a bloody good name for her. “Though I could call you Robin for the run of the play,” he added with a twinkle.

    “Phil! Philippa!” she gasped, going very pink.

    Adam hadn’t thought of that one. “Philippa,” he repeated pleasedly. “That’s very pretty.”

    “Yee-uss,” she replied dubiously. “Well, it’s better than Prudence, I suppose.”

    “Er—yes. –Oh, is that your sister’s name?”

    Astonished that Adam McIntyre should have registered his Robin had a sister (though the whole scene had taken place in front of him), Phil nodded convulsively, swallowing. “We call her Pru, without an E,” she said, giving him what—embryo B.Com. or not—Adam registered was the sort of cautious glance that those from families not composed of thickos normally gave those who they rather felt might be thickos.

    “Like the man from The,” he agreed.

    “Yes!” gasped Phil, giggling ecstatically. She added in explanation of this tribal usage: “Gran’s got all these millions of old American magazines in her garage—she’s a hoarder, you see; and we all read them in the weekends and that.”

    “On rainy Sunday afternoons: yes,” agreed Adam with a reminiscent smile. “My father collects really bad old books published in the Thirties and Forties—with an occasional foray into the Twenties and Fifties. I used to spend most of my Sunday afternoons at home reading those.”

    “Ooh, has he got any Edgar Wallaces?” asked Phil eagerly, her eyes lighting up.

    “Quite a few, mm; but they’re pretty unreadable, I’m afraid.”

    “I know! Aren’t they awful?” she agreed pleasedly. “I found one in the Emporium; um—that’s—”

    “I think I know it: on the waterfront in Puriri?”

    “Yeah,” said Phil weakly.

    “My parents live in Kowhai Bay,” explained Adam.

    “So do we!” gasped Phil.

    Adam was going to ask her which street but at that moment he became came aware that Mac was bellowing: “OBERON! ADAM! What the fuck are you doing back there? Wake UP!”

    “I think we’re on again,” he said to his Robin.

    “Yes,” agreed Phil glumly.

    “Do, pray, hop before me,” he said, gesturing her on.

    Glumly Phil hopped. Adam followed meekly, swallowing a grin.

    “NO!” screamed Mac—as Adam had known he would. “God Almighty, what are ya, a robin or a herd of elephants?” he demanded of the luckless Phil.

    “I can’t act,” she replied glumly.

    “That is blindingly evident,” he returned heavily. “However, I am not requiring you actually to act: just to come on in a perky, hopping manner, as of a small, red-breasted, perky bird. Is that too hard?”

    “Yeah: maybe someone else had better be the Robin,” said Phil—as of one grasping at straws.

    Having snared his Robin, Mac was not now about to let her escape. “Georgy’ll show you,” he returned. “—Go on,” he said to her.

    Resignedly Georgy laid down her clipboard and went up the steps.

    “Have you been a robin before?” asked Phil glumly.

    “No. But he made me show the Bluebird.”—Wot, not “Blue bird”? thought Adam sadly—“so I suppose it’ll be the same. Perkier, though,” said Georgy gloomily.

    “Oh,” said Phil, even more gloomily.

    “Um—if you stand over there, Phil?” suggested Georgy kindly.

    “Oh! Yes, righto.” Phil moved over to where the fairies were standing in a depressed huddle.

    “Come on,” said Georgy glumly to Adam, not meeting his eye. They retired to the wings.

    “Give us a cue, Mac!” called Adam loudly. He winked at Georgy. She merely muttered: “Don’t.”

    Sure enough, Mac shouted: “Stop farting about and GET ON!”

    “I’ll count to three,” decided Adam. “We often do that in England,” he explained.

    “Don’t make me laugh,” she said in a grim voice: “a hysterical Robin’d really finish him off, I can tell ya.”

    Smiling a little, Adam said: “All right. Robin and Oberon—now!”

    Georgy went on with a tiny, perky, bird-like motion that wasn’t a hop but was— Adam was so stunned he almost forgot to come on himself. He followed her dazedly. She bobbed her head a little and then said to Phil: “Try it like that.”

    “That was good,” said Phil dazedly.

    “Yeah!” agreed the fairy leader, beaming at Georgy. In fact the fairies were all beaming at her. In fact, Adam realized with a certain shock, he was also beaming at her.

    “Well? Come on!” said Mac irritably.

    Georgy descended the steps again and Adam and Phil retired to the wings.

    “I’m sorry,” she said glumly.

    “Don’t be: he hasn’t started on me, yet, but I can see it in his eye,” he returned glumly.

    “You’re all right, you’ve just got to walk.”

    If he hadn’t by now decided that he rather liked his Robin, Adam would have been more than capable of withering her utterly at this crass remark. As it was, he just touched her warm, solid shoulder gently and said: “Never mind: you can practise it at home. I’m sure your sister’ll help, won’t she?”

    “Yeah, but the boys are gonna laugh. Oh, well,” said Phil heavily.

    “Come on.”

    They went on. Phil was observedly better, though only the charitable-minded would have said she bore much resemblance to anything avian.

    “Yeah—slightly better,” conceded Mac tiredly. “Get Georgy to give you some coaching.” –Adam thought involuntarily that if that was the result of botching your entrance, he’d bloody well botch his! Then he gave his head a tiny, annoyed shake.

    “Oy, you: cummere,” said his uncle to him in an evil voice.

    “What?” said Adam, going to the edge of the stage.

    “I know this is only a walk-through: but try to walk through it slightly more like a pissed-off male fairy king and slightly less like a teacup from Bond Street, will ya?” said his uncle in an evil voice.

    Georgy choked over her clipboard. None of the fairies reacted, however.

    “Nunky! This is my best semi-tropical gear!” Adam protested, holding out the legs of his crumpled cream slacks daintily between thumbs and forefingers.

    “It looks like it. For Chrissakes wear ya jeans next time round, I’ve got enough problems here without you making a spectacle of yourself for the benefit of the groundlings all over the campus!”

    “I think I will,” conceded Adam weakly.

    Georgy, though her own lower limbs were clad in such garb, hoped silently and fervently that his mother would have the sense to tell him jeans were quite hot in this climate if you weren’t used to it. Especially since even in his pretty, light silk clothes he looked awfully hot. Though at the same time like a teacup from Bond Street.

    She became aware that Mac had ordered them all back into the wings, they’d do it from the beginning. Adam and his Robin descended the steps, since there wasn’t room for them in the wings.

    “RIGHT!” bellowed Mac. “Ladybirds to the FRONT—not the front of the procession, cretins, front of STAGE!” he screamed as the two confused-looking girls came on.

    “Oh,” they said, retiring.

    “You might as well time this,” said Mac gloomily to Georgy.

    Georgy got out the stopwatch without saying that there was no point in timing it, the distances down in the quad were all different.

    The fairies came on, followed immediately by the Robin and Oberon. Georgy jumped. She pressed the stop-button convulsively.

    Mac had sunk into his chair to watch the entrance but now he got up and strode to where the footlights would be if they hadn’t all been taken away and locked up where hoons couldn’t smash them.

    “So ya can do it, if ya try,” he said evilly to his nephew.

    “Gosh, yes!” gasped the fairy leader, turning puce.

    “Shuddup, no-one was asking you,” said Mac immediately.

    Georgy had also turned puce. It had not merely been better, it had been… How did he manage to be so—so masculine, all of a sudden, just—just by walking on? Well, he was a professional, she told herself weakly, but… And at the same time you’d been in no doubt that he was the king, all right, and that underneath a good deal of surface charm and amusement he was hopping mad!

    “Do it like that, in future,” ordered Mac.

    “Very well,” agreed Adam.

     Mac eyed him narrowly, but he appeared genuine. “All right, everybody,” he decided: “we’ll take it again and then do a bit of the scene. And you lot,” he said to the fairies: “you saw how he came on, eh?”—They all nodded frantically.—“He was what ya might call convincing,” Mac pointed out clearly. “So just try and live up to him, this time round, eh?”—They all nodded fervently again, casting Adam admiring glances.

    He refrained—although it was a huge effort—from looking terribly, terribly modest.

    “Right, get on with it,” decided Mac, retiring to his Windsor chair. “And this time I’ll give you a cue. Um—what was Tom thinking of for Oberon’s theme, again?” he said to Georgy.

    “He hasn’t chosen it, yet. He was wondering about Queen Elizabeth’s Galliard, only that’s a bit too well-known.”

    “Not by this lot,” promised Mac in what was almost a genial voice. “All right, then, I’ll just yell ‘Ta-TA!’ and you lot come on: geddit?” he said to the leading fairy.

    “Yeah,” she agreed.

    “All right—get off, then,” said Mac in what was almost a genial voice.

    They got. Mac cried “Ta-TA!”

    They came on again. Adam did it again. Georgy gulped.

    Adam said to a nearby fairy with an evil chuckle in his voice—and also an echo of Christopher Black when he was having a go at Melinda: Georgy swallowed convulsively: “‘I wonder if Titania be awaked; Then, what it was that next came in her eye, Which she must dote on in extremity.’”

    The fairy gave a startled giggle, and clapped her hand over her mouth.

    “GOOD! STOP!” yelled Mac.

    No-one had been going to go on: Puck was supposed to come on at that point, and the Puck understudy wasn’t there. So they’d all stopped anyway. Well, Adam had got as far as “Here comes—” because he wasn’t used to productions where people actually appeared at the very point in the script where the printer (in order not to break a line) had inserted yer actual stage direction. But he’d stopped too, after that.

    “I don’t suppose there’s a snowflake’s hope in Hell of getting her to react like that on the night?” said Mac to Georgy, more or less sotto voce.

    “No,” she murmured, eyeing the girl uneasily and hoping the poor thing hadn’t heard. “Um—well, I suppose she might, if he gave her a Look,” she added dubiously.

    Here Mac, who, pace Christopher Black’s claims to the contrary, was not stupid and did not live in a mock-Shakespearean world of his own, gave his Lecturer in Anglo-Saxon a very sharp look of his own.

    “Mm,” he said, rubbing his chin. “I’ll have a word with him. And in the meantime-, I suppose she might just manage to gasp and clap her hand over her mouth. -Not with any appearance of spontaneity, I grant you,” he added, though Georgy hadn’t spoken, “but one cannot have everything.” He got up and trod heavily over to the footlights. “Oy, cummere,” he said to Adam.

    “Yes?” said Adam obligingly, coming over to him.

    “Can you make that kid react like that again?” demanded Mac, sotto voce.

    Adam rubbed his chin.

    Georgy twitched sharply: it was exactly same gesture as Mac had just used, ooh, help! Was it genetic, or had he done it on purpose? Georgy still wasn’t sure about Adam’s intelligence but now she’d had a glimpse of his acting ability and what with the recollection he was eminent enough to have acted with that very well-known theatrical Dame, she wouldn’t have put anything much in the dramaturgical line past him. And it was now very clear to her that although Adam McIntyre looked as if he did intend to give a decent performance for them after all (if Georgy had been a Catholic she’d have gone off and lit some very large, grateful candles on the strength of this and as it was she was so relieved that she was very tempted to anyway)—well, that though he did intend to do his best, he didn’t much like his Uncle Mac. For which Georgy couldn’t blame him, she didn’t much like him either, of course. And she rather thought Melinda Black didn’t, though he was her own brother. And she knew Christopher Black didn’t: he’d made that very clear these past few weeks since Georgy had really started to get to know him. And Georgy very much liked Christopher. Though, not being a stupid or insensitive person, she was far from blind to his faults and had more than once thought that if she’d been his wife she’d have cracked him over the head with something long since. Like that heavy cast-iron mincer of Melinda’s, for example.

    “Well?” said Mac loudly and crossly, as Adam was merely looking thoughtful.

    “I doubt if she’s like the wise thrush, Nunky darling, but I’ll do me poor best,” he said.

    Georgy choked. So did the robin, so whatever else this particular embryo B.Com. was, she wasn’t totally uneducated, registered Adam in some surprize and not a little pleasure.

    “Yeah. OY! Cummere!” Mac said loudly to the fairy.

     She came. Mac looked narrowly at her chest. Good: a blue fairy, not a lizard or a grotesque, they wouldn’t go all feminine when Oberon spoke to ’em.

    “Listen, I know you didn’t mean to,” he said to her: “But can you react like that again when Oberon speaks to you?”

    “Um—I don’t know!” she gasped in horror.

    “Well, just sort of gasp and put your hand over your mouth,” he said. “Come on, try it now.”

    The blue fairy gave a faint gasp and put her hand limply over her mouth.

    “Something like that: yeah,” said Mac tiredly. “And listen: in order for him to get his moves right and deliver the line right, you’ve gotta be in the right place—see?”

    “Um—yes. Um—no—um, what is the right place?” she gasped.

    “WHERE YOU WERE WHEN HE SPOKE TO YOU, IDIOT!” roared Mac.

    The fairy gulped and stared at him helplessly.

    “You were— Just move back, everyone, would you?” said Adam nicely to the assembled multitude who had insensibly edged forward during the conversation and were now breathing down his and the fairy’s necks. They all gave him looks of dumb adoration—even the male fairies—and moved back. “You were here,” said Adam firmly to the blue fairy, “and my robin”—he smiled at her and Phil, flushing, duly smiled back—“was here; and I was here. -And you were there, and you were there,” he added to the two fairies who’d flanked his blue fairy. Well, one lizard and one Grot.

    “Yes; good,” ascertained Mac: “that’s blue fairy, blue fairy, lizard—are you silver or green, dear?—Oh, silver: good; Adam’s blue fairy, then Adam, and Robin, downstage left—no, THERE, Robin!” he shouted—Phil dodged back into position—“and Grotesque behind Adam. –You’ll mask her a bit, never mind, the audience will’ve seen quite enough of her,” he said to Adam.

    “Yes. Er, what sort of a Grotesque is she?” he asked cautiously.

    “What are you, dear?” said Mac to the grotesque.

    She was a normal-looking girl, not abnormally tall, short, fat or thin, and so far, in spite of the notice on her chest no-one had yet referred to her as a Grotesque. She’d been very pleased to get the part; now she wasn’t so sure. “Um—Pauline said I had to have a huge head and—um—a wee fat stomach!” she gasped.

    “She’s the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo,” explained Georgy helpfully.

    “Um—yes. I think so,” agreed the Grotesque uncertainly.

    “Well, that’ll be all right,” decided Mac. “What about the Dong?” he said to Georgy.

    “That’s Carolyn. You said she couldn’t come on in this scene because the nose would distract the audience from—um—everything,” ended Georgy on a weak note.

    “Oh, yeah. –Good,” he added briefly.

    “I suppose I wouldn’t have any Jumblies?” said Adam in a very weak voice that Georgy was quite sure was put on.

    “Yes. Us,” said two Grots who’d been mysteriously holding hands.

    “Oh, super,” he croaked. “Do you know,” he said weakly to Mac: “I wondered for a moment, there, if they might not be Tweedledum and Tweedledee? Silly me!”

    “Titania’s got them,” said Mac briefly.

    “Yes. And the caterpillar, and Alice,” agreed Georgy.

    “She’s got the cute fairies,” explained Adam’s leading fairy helpfully.

    “I’m sure my Yonghy-Bonghy-Ba will be very cute,” he protested in a tremendously partisan voice. On cue, his Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo his leading fairy dissolved into giggles.

    “Yes, well, never mind all that,” said Mac crossly. “We’ll do this scene once more and then—um—hang on.” He peered at his script. “Get off, and remember your PLACES!” he roared, not looking up. They got off.

    In the wings Adam could be heard reassuring his robin that a robin was very cute too and Phil and several of the fairies after her could be heard dissolving into giggles.

    “Right into the WINGS!” shouted Mac, not looking up. “And Adam and Robin, get RIGHT OFF!”

    Adam and Phil came down the steps on the prompt side, looking resigned.

    “Yes,” said Mac, looking up, “we’ll run through this scene, up to where Demetrius and Hermia come in, I want to make sure these cretins know when to stand back and shut up, and when to giggle and gasp.”

    “Won’t this be difficult, without a Puck?” murmured Adam.

    “I’ll read it,” said Mac briefly.

    Georgy sagged in her seat. She’d been terrified that Mac would make her do Puck; with Adam McIntyre? No way! Georgy had cringed all over at the mere thought. At the same time she’d experienced, though firmly ignoring it, a tremendous excitement at the thought of doing Puck to Adam’s Oberon. Now, in spite of her swamping relief she also experienced a sickening disappointment. She gripped her clipboard tightly and stared at the dusty floor in front of her, despising herself with the rational part of her mind and at the same time feeling frightened and bewildered by the strength of the emotions she was incapable of controlling. Chief among which was a surging excitement, a continual thrilling of the blood in her entire body, at merely being within the same four walls as Adam.

    They did the scene. Adam spoke his lines so well that the fairies did nothing but goggle at him.

    “NO!” screamed Mac.

    “Let them; why not?” said Georgy in a voice that came out rather hoarse.

    “But— Oh, all right. His entire court is besotted by ’im: yeah, all right. –Some of them’ll have masks or muck on their faces, thank Christ,” he muttered.

    “Yes. And Michelle’s good,” said Georgy. Adam’s leading fairy beamed.

    “Yes.” Mac strode up to the footlights. “Cummere,” he said. The fairy came. “Haven’t I seen you before?” said Mac in a puzzled way, staring at her.

    “Yes! I was Maria!” she gasped, turning puce.

    “Oh, yeah. Well, you were the only good thing in it,” he recognized. “Why didn’t I cast you in Cymbeline, last year?” he demanded. –Adam repressed a wince. Cymbeline! Ye Gods and little— Why did these amateurs imagine...?

    “Um—Mum and Dad took me to Norfolk Island for the Christmas holidays!” she gulped.

    “Oh. Pity. Well, carry on like you have been, Adam can bounce half his lines off you. –Damn sight better than talking to ’imself,” he muttered to himself.—Michelle was now puce with gratification.—“And you lot,” said Mac: “keep an eye on Michelle here, see? And take ya cue from her. If she looks surprized, look surprized. If she giggles, giggle. Geddit?”

    “Yes,” they all muttered, shuffling their feet.

    Mac sighed. He looked at his watch. “Once more,” he decided. “Georgy!”

Georgy jumped, and gasped. “What?” she said faintly.

    “Are you getting these moves and places down?”

    “Yes,” said Georgy, sagging again with that mixture of relief and other emotions.

    They ran through the scene again.

    “Ye-es...” said Mac. “Well, that was a lot better,” he informed them. The fairies brightened. “But not good,” he warned. The fairies looked dashed. Mac consulted his watch again. The fairies looked pleadingly at Michelle. In fact several of them looked with anguish at Michelle.

    Michelle stepped forward determinedly. “Mac, I’m sorry, but some of the fairies have to go, they’ve got waitressing and washing-up jobs,” she said firmly.

    “Yes!” gasped several of the anguished ones.

    “What? Blast! Oh, all right, get off, the lot of ya. And SEE GEORGY ABOUT YA NEXT REHEARSAL!” he bellowed.

    The fairies scrambled off ungracefully and huddled round Georgy. Mac came over and sagged against the stage.

    Adam squatted down and said conversationally: “How many of these naïve cherubic countenances are going to be covered with masks and muck, Nunky, dear?”

    “Sufficient,” replied Mac.

    “I’m so glad,” he sighed.

    “You can drop that. –Is Melinda expecting you home for tea?”

    Adam replied with a laugh in his voice: “Tea in the Antipodean sense?”

    “YES! An’ drop it!”

    “Yes, she is,” he admitted.

    “Just as well; Cherry hates unexpected guests.”

    Adam knew that; he smiled a little. Cherry McIntyre was a most determined woman with a will of her own and a sublime indifference to all of Mac’s fads, whims and fancies, most of Mac’s interests and, as far as his relations could make out, almost all of Mac’s tastes. Well, for the last thirty years she had relentlessly served him sausages, which he hated: a fair indicator, most of his relations considered. She did come to his shows, for in her way she was quite fond of him. But after the first years of marriage she had kept firmly out of anything and everything to do with the actual productions. Though she did go so far as to keep a meal for him if he was late home from rehearsals—which he always was. In summer it was always cold pressed ham, which Mac didn’t like, chopped lettuce, which Mac didn’t like, a cold tomato (Mac didn’t like tomatoes that had been kept in the fridge but Cherry was indifferent to this fad, whim or fancy), usually with cold tinned beetroot, which Mac hated, and always with a cold boiled potato which she never bothered to reheat for him. There was nothing to stop Mac from reheating it, of course, but even though his upbringing, with Rosie McIntyre for a mother, had been far from the archetypal one, he had been pretty well indoctrinated by his male peers, and so never lifted a finger in the kitchen. In fact he’d bought Cherry a dishwasher the moment they became generally available in New Zealand (that was, to persons other than the Governor-General or the American ambassador) in order not to have to do so. He usually poured Heinz mayonnaise over the plate to disguise the taste and ate the dinner anyway.

    “Well, lessee,” Mac went on, scratching his head. “Uh—tomorrow morning we’ve got, uh…”

    “Fairy moves: half-past eight,” supplied Adam promptly.

    “Yeah. Well, we won’t need you for— Hang on, yes, we will, if the Twilight Procession’s gonna be— Hang on. GEORGY!” he bellowed.

    Oh, long-suffering Georgy, thought Adam, as the meek little voice said: “What?” –It was quite a pleasant voice, really, in spite of the Goddamned accent, thought Adam, unaware that in this context he was no longer thinking of it as the Goddawful accent. Very clear. Quite a carrying voice. And, so far as their accents went, you could have said she was quite nicely spoken, really. Though they all without exception said “Yee-uss”, in fact his mother was starting to do it, so Adam supposed glumly it was the way she’d always said it back in the days before they’d migrated to Cambridge.

     Mac determined rapidly that Georgy had realized that all the fairies would have to be here for the eight-thirty rehearsal. He asked her to get hold of Tom, if she possibly could, for timing the procession. Georgy made a note. Mac then said generally to the hall: “See ya. And remember what I said about five million friends and relations: this will result in not only a closed set, but The Boot for the idiot concerned.” And walked out.

    Adam sighed. He wandered slowly into the wings on the prompt side. How was he going to get home? He took out his wallet. He wasn’t very good at foreign money, but— Damn, he shouldn’t have bought that cheese or those books!—Where the Hell had he left them, come to think of it?—Now he didn’t have enough money for a taxi: Mother and Dad had assured him it would cost at least a hundred dollars, if not more. Something about having to cross a bridge, which he hadn’t really listened to at the time. There was a ferry, he knew—but where did it leave from? The waterfront was extensive. And where did it get you to? Well, presumably the North Shore, but how much would a taxi cost from there? And it was no use banking on Mother or Dad having any extra cash in the house, Dad never had anything but a few loose coins in his pockets, and Ma seemed to be existing entirely on plastic credit these days. Well, so far in Adam’s company she’d paid for her petrol, her groceries and her morning paper in this fashion, so it certainly looked as if she was. Blast: he’d have to get a bus back and Mother had said they weren’t very frequent after five-thirty. What was the time? Adam looked at the thin gold creation on his right wrist. (Those who didn’t know him very well considered this a pure affectation, but there was some excuse for him, in that he was left-handed. Not all who knew this last considered it sufficient excuse, however.) Oh, bloody Hell! As to how to get to the ruddy bus terminus from here— Ugh. He thought he could get down through the park again, but he was damned if he could remember which way to turn once you got back to the main street. Hell and damnation, in fact.

    He put his wallet away, went slowly down the steps, and looked round for his Robin. Oh, thank Christ, there she was! Adam dashed up to her and said: “Look, you did say you live in Kowhai Bay, didn’t you?”

    “Yes.”

    “Well, do you think you could explain in words of one syllable, as to an idiot with no bump of direction,” said Adam with a self-deprecating grimace (he was very good at those) “how to get to the Kowhai Bay bus-stop from here?”

    Phil’s sister began: “It’s easy, you just—” but Phil interrupted her—going very pink—with: “Do you need a lift? I’ve got plenty of room.”

    “Yeah,” agreed the sister, also going very pink: “Come with us, there’s loads of room.”

    “Only I said we’d take Georgy,” Phil warned them.

    Adam was flummoxed. “Is it a very small car? Or—or have you got lots of luggage, or something?”

    “No, only Georgy,” explained Phil.

    “Um—I see. Oh, do you mean you’ll have to go out of our way drop her?” he asked, thinking he saw daylight. “That’s quite all ri—”

    “No, she lives in Kowhai Bay,” explained Pru-without-an-E.

    “Oh,” said Adam, flummoxed again. “Well, if you’re sure you’ve got room, Phil, I’d be everlastingly grateful: I don’t think I’ve got enough money for a taxi.”

    “Heck, no!” gasped Pru in horror.

    “No,” said Phil, swallowing. “Heck, I never heard of anyone taking a taxi all the way up there, did you, Pru?”—Pru shook her head mutely.—“No. Dad took a taxi to Taka’ once,” explained Phil earnestly, “because he was meeting Mum, ya see, and he was running late, and it cost—how much was it, Pru? It was something awful, anyway!”

    “Seventy-two dollars,” said Pru in a hollow voice.

    “It can’t have been!” gasped Phil.

    “Yes, it was, I remember. Dad said you have to pay for the round trip. Anyway,” she ended definitely: “It was seventy-two dollars. And forty-nine cents.”

    Adam replied weakly: “I see. Is—er—Takker—very far from Kowhai Bay?”

    “Heck, yes!” gasped Phil.

    “It’s miles!” gasped Pru.

    “More than two-thirds of the distance to town, I think,” said Georgy, coming up to them with a plastic carrier bag. “Is this yours?” she asked Adam, meeting his eye for a fleeting second and then glancing away again.

    “Oh, yes; thanks so much,” he said in relief. “I disclaim all responsibility for that, though,” he added with a shudder, looking at the bundle of grey-blue velveteen she had under her left arm.

    Pru and Phil giggled obligingly but Georgy only said: “I think I might try washing it. –Here.” She handed him his bag but was careful to avoid eye contact and hand contact. Adam wouldn’t have been averse to either. He began to feel annoyed with her all over again.

    Georgy then said: “Are we going?” Not looking at Adam. In fact pointedly not looking at Adam.

    “Yes—he’s coming with us!” explained Phil on a gasp.

    “Haven’t you got a car?” said Georgy in amazement, staring at him.

    “Yes. She’s in London,” replied Adam in considerable annoyance, not pausing to think that at least she was looking at him. And not realizing that he’d inadvertently referred to Myrtle as he thought of her, not as he wished people he scarcely knew to believe he thought of her. “Where I very much wish I was at this precise moment!”

    They all stared at him. Phil said: “But isn’t it the middle of winter over there?”

    “Yeah, isn’t it freezing?” gasped Pru.

    Georgy began: “Your mother said you’d just got over a frightful cold, surely you don’t—” She broke off, reddening.

    “How in God’s name do you know my mother?” said Adam weakly.

    “Mum goes to Garden Club with her,” volunteered Pru, who was older than Phil, noticing Georgy’s agonized expression.

    “Yeah,” agreed Phil, who was younger, not noticing. “Hey, is it true you can’t even see a blade of grass from your flat?” she demanded of Adam.

    “What? Yes, I suppose so!” he replied impatiently.

    “Ugh!” she said fervently.

    “Kowhai Bay’s a very small place,” said Georgy in a strangled voice.

    “It must be,” agreed Adam through tight lips.

    “Aren’t you in Ridge Road, too?” Phil asked Georgy blithely.

    “Yes. Next-door,” said Georgy in a stifled voice, red to the roots of the auburn hair.

    “Up or down?” croaked Adam.

    “Um—down. So what?” she replied crossly.

    “Argh!” cried Adam, clutching his forehead theatrically. The girls all goggled at him—Georgy, however, he noted in spite of his pose, very crossly. “The tweedy, horn-rimmed Anglo-Saxon lecturer that Ma warned me about!”

    “She is NOT!” cried Pru loudly, going very red. –She wasn’t as old as all that, in fact she was only a few months older than Barbara Michaels and would be one of Georgy’s Third-Years this coming academic year.

    “Your mum musta been pulling your leg, Adam,” said Phil numbly.

    “I don’t think they say ‘mum’ in England,” said Georgy nastily.

    Poor Phil went very red, and gaped at her in consternation.

    “I didn’t mean— I only meant he calls her ‘Mother’ or ‘Ma’; I think it’s an affectation!” gasped Georgy.

    “It’s an affectation you pick up in the snobbier parts of Cambridge when you’re a snot-nosed little Colonial trying very hard to keep up with the Jones-Smythes next-door,” agreed Adam, in a voice that, dramaturgical abilities notwithstanding, came out much sourer than he’d intended it to.

    “Yes. I’m sorry. He was only ten,” said Georgy in a low voice, not meeting anyone’s eye. It was not at all clear to whom she was apologizing, but Adam felt quite a lot better.

    “Ugh,” said Phil sympathetically.

    “Poor little boy,” said Pru thoughtfully.

    Georgy went very red once again.

    “Stupid little boy, you mean; I should have had the courage of my convictions and thumped the little Pommy buggers at school on the nose!” said Adam cheerfully. “Come on, I’m starving!” This was not strictly accurate, he was not accustomed to dining at sevenish, but he had a fair idea his companions were used to dining considerably earlier.

    Sure enough, Pru immediately said: “Yeah, come on, Phil, Mum’ll be wondering where on earth we are.”

    And Phil replied: “No, she won’t, she said she’d keep the boys off our share of the chicken if Mac dragged on interminably, remember?”

    Adam laughed suddenly. The girls all looked at him in a puzzled way. “Was thems her very words?” he asked.

    “Yeah: Mum doesn’t go much on all this drama-club stuff of Pru’s!” admitted Phil, grinning suddenly. She led the way to the door.

    “She’ll kill herself when she hears Mac’s dragged Phil into it!” predicted Pru, following her.

    Oh dear, a suicidal ma: the two of ’em seemed remarkably cheerful on the strength of it, thought Adam, smiling. He was about to impart this thought to Georgy, but refrained: she’d only bawl him out for saying “ma” instead of “mum”. –Incidentally, just wait until he got hold of Ma! Giving him the impression—! (Melinda had been utilizing an extreme sort of reverse psychology: at least that was how she’d phrased it to herself. So that the real Georgy would sort of spring on him as a delightful surprize. It hadn’t dawned that possibly her efforts to mislead her son about their intellectual neighbour might have inspired him with a determination to avoid her forever.)

    “Come on,” he said to Georgy. Tweed suits and— He’d kill Ma! he thought, as the delicate little face looked up into his and she said seriously: “I was just checking. Sometimes they leave things behind. And we had an awful fright one year, someone left a cigarette burning. They’re not supposed to smoke, but…”

    “Mm. Well I suppose they don’t, do they? Not tobacco, that is!”

    “Um—no!” she gasped, turning very pink.

    “I was a student once, myself,” he murmured.

    “I know, Christopher told me.” Unaware of the shock her use of his Aged P’s given name had induced in Adam, she continued blithely: “So was I, but I never did any of those trendy things. I never even knew anybody that did. Well, not personally—you know!” she ended with a little smile, peeping up at him shyly.

    Adam forgot she probably hated and despised him and decided in a rush that she was sweet as Hell! Unaware that his sapphire eyes were very bright, or that he’d flushed a little and that his long mouth had taken on a very tender expression, he looked into the big grey-green eyes and said gently: “Yes. Mother mentioned that you’d worked very hard to get your degree.”

    “Um—I suppose so,” said Georgy, suddenly self-conscious all over again and looking away from him. “Um—I think it’s okay,” she added uncertainly, as Phil called from the door: “Come on!”

    Adam wanted to take her elbow but didn’t dare to. “Can I carry that velveteen abortion for you?” he said abruptly.

    “No thanks, I’m not helpless,” replied Georgy in a very hard voice, not looking at him.

    Adam was used to females who were not only totally sure of themselves, but who knew exactly when and how to give you the come-on. If they were interested, they made damn sure you knew it. He looked down at the bent auburn head uncertainly. Did she like him or didn’t she? Was it just shyness, or...? He couldn’t tell. Though he was a good ten years her elder and far more experienced in relations between the sexes, he felt quite at sea with Georgy. The more so since he now felt very plainly that he was very interested and wanted her to be, too. Though somewhere at the back of this feeling were two diametrically opposite feelings. One of these was a nasty, snobbish sentiment that Adam had met in himself before and that sneered: “A little Anty-podean varsity lecturer? Really, Adam!” And the other was possibly associated with the hurts Adam had received in other emotional encounters that had gone beyond the merely physical—though he was very far from being able to realize this—and it was saying: “Slow down, hold off, don’t get involved.”

    He did recognize, however, with a spurt of annoyance directed at both himself and Georgy, that she was making him feel as uncertain and nervous as a tongue-tied schoolboy. In the one personal area in which he’d been reasonably confident of himself, too! Well, not in long-term relationships, he amended with an automatic mental shudder. He’d been shuddering at any thought of his marriage for so long, that it was now more a matter of habit than anything: he was unaware that the shudder was more distaste than remembered pain.

    God knew the thing with Livia had been pretty foul, too, he thought, with another shudder, and had more or less spelled out the dangers of encouraging those whom he didn’t fancy in any but a physical way, but— Well, there hadn’t been anyone for a very long time that he’d wanted to encourage who hadn’t immediately been encouraged! Usually smiling into their eyes was enough. Adam became aware of a certain disgust with himself at this point, but it was true enough. Though God knew they hadn’t fallen for him, it had been Adam McIntyre, Big Star. Well, that and Adam McIntyre’s physical attributes, he supposed glumly.

    He accompanied the girls to the car, brooding on these and other points, not realizing that he was brooding and that they were all respectfully silent. Only when they began to insist that he take the front seat of Phil’s ancient yellow Volkswagen did he come to and make a laughing protest.

    “No: you’ve got the longest legs,” said Pru definitely, climbing into the back seat.

    “Yes,” agreed Georgy, climbing into the back seat after her. She had a very cute behind, especially in those tight jeans. Adam felt a surge of lust.

    “Come on!” said his Robin cheerfully.

    Adam jumped. “Right!” He got into the front seat next to her.

    During the long drive up to Kowhai Bay Phil and Pru chattered cheerfully. Adam at first made a show of chattering cheerfully but after a while forgot. Georgy had scarcely said a word since they got into the car. And she certainly hadn’t said a word to him. Did that mean— What did it mean?

    Georgy stared miserably at the back of his head. Her blood was still fizzing madly, as it had been since she’d first looked up into his face that afternoon, but she couldn’t think of a thing to say to him. What an inept idiot she was! He must think she— Who cared what he thought, anyway! And what did it matter, he was Mister Big Star from Overseas, he was going to vanish again in a few weeks and she’d never— Well, so what; who cared? Mooning over a film star like a stupid, stage-struck teenager!

    Georgy scowled, wrenched her gaze away from his black hair—it wasn’t curly, it was wavy, she betted he had it done, she betted it wasn’t natural—and stared blankly out of the window. Since they were on Daylight Saving it was still light.

    She came to round about Dairy Flat. Phil was pointing out it was Dairy Flat. Pru was pointing out it was the most dangerous stretch of road: people speeded. As in front of them at a distance of about five hundred yards there was a blue Sunny, and behind them there was nothing at all, and coming towards them there was nothing at all, though a small white van had passed them about five minutes ago, it wasn’t surprising that Adam merely replied limply to this gambit: “Oh, really?”

    Oh, rallih! thought Georgy crossly to herself.

    Then he said in a smart-alick voice: “Where are the cows?”

    “There aren’t any,” replied Phil simply, before Georgy could say sourly “In the byres.” This was just as well, because on second thoughts Georgy couldn’t have said what a byre was to save her life. She did know they didn’t have any such thing out here, though: animals lived in the fields all year round, and she was pretty sure Adam McIntyre didn’t know this.

    Some distance further on Pru pointed out the turn-off to Waikaukau Junction on their left and told Adam rather a lot that Georgy, with sour satisfaction, was quite sure he didn’t want to know, about the new Development going up further down the Waikaukau Junction Road.

    “There’s a dairy factory down there,” Georgy added sourly.

    “Ah. To process the milk from the non-existent cows,” Adam replied.

    “Yes.”

    “What do they make it into?” he asked with terrific affability. “New Zealand Brie?”

    “No. Town milk,” said Georgy sourly.

    Adam couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so he didn’t. Almost immediately, however, Phil pointed out the turnoff to Pohutukawa Bay on their right and he was able to say: “Oh, yes: the Carranos live there, don’t they? I met him on the plane—that’s how I got to know Katie Maureen,” he added over his shoulder to Georgy. “Polly and the children met him at the airport.”

    “I know. Your mother told my mother over the back fence,” said Georgy sourly.

    By now even Phil and Pru had spotted that something was wrong between their travelling companions. They didn’t comment. Though Phil gamely pointed out the caravan park on their right as they drove into Puriri proper.

    “Is it all right if we drop you here?” asked Phil awkwardly at the top of Ridge Road. “I’m not much good at U-turns.”

    “We could drop you off further down and nip down Weka Street, only it’s a bit steep for the good old Vee-Dub,” added Pru apologetically.

    “This’ll be fine,” Adam assured them quickly, hopping out before they could change their minds. He held the door for Georgy. “It isn’t far, is it, Georgy?”

    “No,” she said, not looking at him. She’d gone all shaky when he’d said her name, how blitheringly stupid! She got out, not looking at him, thanked the girls—so did Adam, much more gracefully, Georgy noticed with sour gloom but not surprize—and they drove away.

    “It’s a beautiful evening,” he said.

    “Yes.”

    They started down Ridge Road.

    “That’s the purple house, all the residents hate it,” said Georgy dully.

    It was purple, all right. Adam had been so hot and sweaty when he’d come up that he hadn’t really noticed it. The air was cooler now, though still distinctly humid.

    “It’s purple, all right,” he agreed.

    “It belongs to a man who’s made a lot of money out of—um—something purple, I forget,” said Georgy.

    “Er—cosmetics? Underwear?” said Adam, staring at the purple house. Stucco? Yes, stucco. Not in any discernible style. Most of it was two-storeyed, he could see that much.

    “No. Nothing like that. Nothing you’d expect to be purple. Um—I know. Purple spa pools,” said Georgy.

    “What?”

    “They’re not purple themselves, I don’t think. It’s his gimmick. All his advertising’s purple. I believe they’re very popular. He’s got a lot of—um—purple bathroom-supplies shops, they’re all over the place, they’re called The Purple—um—something.”

    “Palace?”

    “Ye-es... Or is it Palladium? Well, something silly,” said Georgy. “The spa pools are the main feature—I’ve never been into one, but Mum has. She said there was a huge purple spa pool with purple water, all bubbly, sort of, in the middle—you know. And lots of little purple fountains.”

    There was a little purple fountain in the middle of the purple house’s front lawn, actually. In fact the drive, which was quite short, divided around this small patch of lawn precisely in order to emphasise, Adam felt quite sure, the small purple fountain with its purple water. “I see.”

    “And he’s got purple cars—well, him and his second wife. She’s only about twenty.”

    Adam raised his eyebrows. “Another reason for the residents’ dislike?”

    “The wife or the cars?” replied Georgy uncertainly.

    “Both—either!” he said with a laugh.

    Georgy replied seriously: “Both, I think. They don’t think cars ought to be purple. Well, his is a screaming bright purple, it is a bit much; but hers is nicer, sort of paler—one of those fuzzy shades, you know.”

    “Fuzzy?”

    “On cars. There’s a name for it,” said Georgy, going rather pink, “only I’ve forgotten it. Sort of silvery.”

    “Oh! I know,” said Adam with a smile. Georgy didn’t respond. “And they don’t like the wife?” he said.

    “No-o... She’s all right. Well, she’s pretty dumb, but quite good-natured.”

    “She does speak to you, then?”

    “She speaks to me,” allowed Georgy.

    “Oh?”

    “Well, most of the other residents won’t speak to her, I don’t think,” she admitted.

    “Poor little soul! Immured in a purple house surrounded by residents who won’t speak to her!”

    “Ye-es. Well, she goes out a lot. She does a lot of shopping.”

    “I see. Spending his hard-earned. Did the residents by any chance know the first wife?”

    “No, that’s what so silly: he only moved here after, um, he’d left his first wife. Only the thing is, Cheryl was—um—Miss Spa Pool. And they ran away together while he was still married to the other lady, and there was a big scandal. She was in the Miss New Zealand contest, too, that made it worse, because they’re all supposed to be—um—pure, or something,” ended Georgy on an uncertain note.

    “Yes, I know. Wasn’t there some sort of kerfuffle a while back when the Miss World turned out to be—God knows what—married? Something dreadful like that!”

    “Yes,” said Georgy with a smile, “I think there was. Anyway, Cheryl’s all right, really.”

    That was the second time she’d said it. “Cheryl? With a hard ‘ch’, not a ‘sh’?” he asked interestedly.

    “Yes,” said Georgy in a stifled voice.

    “That’s a good one, I’ll add it to my collection. I met an American woman called Poppy in Honolulu.”

    “You can’t count Americans,” objected Georgy. “They always have peculiar names.”

    “True!” he gasped. They both burst out laughing.

    “Oh, dear,” said Georgy, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Poor Cheryl. I always try to talk to her when I see her down the beach or anything, because—  Well, you know. But she’s awfully dumb, it’s terribly hard going. And she thinks I’m weird because I don’t read magazines and—um—don’t have coloured claws—you know.”

    “Or dinner-plate earrings or shoulders like an American footballer’s. –You’d look very silly in those,” he informed her. “You haven’t got the height for them.”

    “Nor has Cheryl,” murmured Georgy, biting her lip.

    “I see!” gasped Adam.

    “The worst thing is, the cars have got rude names!” confided Georgy abruptly. “I mean, of course the residents’d mind anyway about the house being purple; and about the scandal, and everything—they weren’t married when they first came here, and they had a huge wedding in their back garden,” she explained—“Oops,” said Adam, grinning—“only the cars sort of—um—rub it in.”

    “Names? Oh: their number plates?”

    “Yes. –Look!” gasped Georgy, as one of the purple garage doors swung up. She pulled him hurriedly away from the driveway.

    A fluorescent purple Rolls backed slowly down the short drive. A round, cheerful face looked out at them from the driver’s seat and said cheerfully: “How are ya, Sweets?”

    “Fine, thanks!” gasped Georgy, turning puce.

    Smiling, the owner of the purple house flipped a hand at her and drove off up Ridge Road.

    “He always calls me that,” explained Georgy weakly. “I don’t think he knows my name.”

    And he probably thinks it suits you, thought Adam, not saying it. What he did say was, somewhat incredulously: “TEASER? That’s his car?”

    “Yes; it is rude, isn’t it?” asked Georgy serenely, looking up at him with a trusting expression.

    “Very,” said Adam in a shaken vice.

    “That’s what your father says,” she admitted.

    “What in God’s name is hers called?” asked Adam in awe.

    Georgy replied in a strangled squeak: “KIDDO!”

    “Rubbing—salt—in—the wound!” gasped Adam, falling about Ridge Road laughing helplessly.

    “Yes, exactly,” said Georgy, smiling at him.

    “I’m beginning to like your purple man,” said Adam, blowing his nose.

    “I don’t expect you would if you really met him. I expect you’d think he’s vulgar. And I suppose he is. But I don’t think he’s a bad man. He seems genuinely fond of Cheryl.”

    Adam began to walk slowly on. “And vice versa?”

    “I can’t tell,” said Georgy honestly. “Well, I don’t know much about love and that sort of thing anyway,”—Adam had to swallow; his heart hammered wildly—“but she’s so dumb that it’s hard to tell if she’s genuine about anything. I think she’s as fond of him as she is of her poodle. But I’m not sure how much that is: she doesn’t always remember to feed it, the lady that does housework for them told me it’s often ravenous.”

    “A purple poodle?” asked Adam, ignoring irrelevancies.

    “N-n... Well, very pale lilac.”

    “Lovely!” he sighed. “You’re right, of course,” he added with a sideways glance: “I wouldn’t be able to stand him if I had to spend more than five minutes in his company, I’m quite sure. And in a way I can sympathize with the residents over the house. Only— Well, what a collector’s item!”

    “Exactly!” cried Georgy. “I bet it’s unique!”

    Adam betted those cars’ names were unique. He didn’t insist on this point, however. Not with one who on her own admission didn’t know much about love and that sort of thing. He looked down at her and wondered if she was a virgin and wanted very much to ask her this. “Yes,” he said, smiling at her: “I bet it is.”

    They walked on slowly in the warm evening. Georgy was glad he’d enjoyed the purple house and its purple people. She couldn’t think of anything else to say to him, however.

    Adam wanted to ask her out but was terrified of scaring her off. He rather thought now that perhaps she didn’t dislike him, but she was such a shy, odd creature—probably bolt like a startled filly if he showed any indication of moving too fast.

    He had thought this last thought in a distinctly lordly way and was both astounded and furious to find that his hands were trembling slightly as he said: “Georgy?” He shoved them into his trouser pockets.

    “What?” she said shyly, not looking at him.

    “Um—it’s much easier to talk to you when you’re looking at me, you know!” said Adam, rather loudly.

     Georgy went very red but looked up at him.

    “Look,” he said, swallowing, “you know Polly Carrano, don’t you?”

    “Ye-es... Only a little bit: she wasn’t teaching last year and we’re in different faculties.”

    “Mm. But you do know her. Well, you were baby-sitting Katie Maureen.”

    “Yes,” said Georgy. She was suddenly struck by the awful thought that maybe he’d fallen for Polly and wanted a—a confidante, or something.

    “What is it?” said Adam, looking at her expression.

    “Nothing. Go on, what about Polly?”

    “They’ve asked me to some restaurant with them on Saturday, and Joel can’t come, he’s found a cousin he’s supposed to look up and she’s invited him to dinner that night; would you care to come with me?”

    “Me?” said Georgy faintly.

    “Yes. Er—Polly said the food’s excellent but the place is unassuming. I don’t think you’ll be expected to wear your tarara or your mink.”

    “Is it—is it some place in town with a French name?”

    “Er—yes, I believe so,” said Adam; why in God’s name was she stalling him like this?

    “I can’t— It’ll be that place that Rod said charges over a hundred dollars for each person!” gasped Georgy”

    “I dare say it might well do. You won’t be expected to pay. And who the Hell is Rod?” he added angrily. “The boyfriend?”

    “What?”

    “Is this Rod who apparently knows the best restaurant in town intimately your boyfriend?” demanded Adam loudly.

    “Don’t be silly, I haven’t got a boyfriend. He’s just someone from work. He’s married, his wife’s lovely,” said Georgy.

    “Oh,” he said lamely.

    “He knows the Carranos, I expect that’s how he… Anyhow, I can’t possibly go to a place like that,” she finished in a small voice.

    “Why not?” demanded Adam with flared nostrils.

    “It’s wicked,” whispered Georgy faintly.

    “What?”

    “With people starving all over the world... It’s wicked, Adam: I can’t!” said Georgy, suddenly getting loud and looking defiantly into his face.

    “Oh, good God, is that all?” he said limply, brushing his hair off his forehead.

    “ALL?” cried Georgy dangerously.

    “I’m sorry; it’s not that I—I’m denigrating your principles—”

    “What is it, then?” retorted Georgy, doing some nostril-flaring of her own.

    “I thought— Well, look, if I asked you out to some ordinary place where the food doesn’t cost a bomb—McDonald’s or something—would you come?”

    “Not to McDonald’s, my nephews make me take them there, the food’s horrible. Um—yes, I think I would,” said Georgy, suddenly turning puce and looking away from him.

    Adam swallowed. “Good.”

    “Only—not to that sort of place,” she said faintly.

    “No. I see.”

    “Thank you for asking me,” she said faintly.

    “What? Oh, good God!”

     He heard her swallow. She didn’t look at him. Adam stared anxiously at her bent head, not knowing what to say next. He would have said something, though; only suddenly there was a loud bellow from the other side of the street: “HULLO, GEORGY!”

    Adam jumped about ten feet but, he was glad to see, she did, too. She looked across the street and waved. Adam looked across and smiled involuntarily. Two little girls—they’d be perhaps twelve or thirteen—were waving madly at Georgy. One was very thin and quite tall, with black hair pulled tightly back in a pony-tail. It was obvious she was European, as yards of skinny arms and legs were displayed by her red cotton singlet (not unlike Georgy’s rather awful greenish one) and an abbreviated pair of blue shorts. With flip-flops, Adam was pretty sure they were rubber. Her companion was a brown-skinned girl, she must be a Maori, thought Adam dubiously (he’d been stunned at the variety of Polynesian faces in the city streets, though his mother had explained that the city had the largest Polynesian population of any metropolis). She was about as wide as her friend was tall. She was also wearing a cotton singlet—hers was bright pink—with shorts. White, and skin-tight, the sort that came well down the thigh and possibly might originally have been designed as cycling shorts. And flip-flops. The girls were accompanied by a large black dog.

    “Hullo, Elspeth! Hullo, Whetu!” cried Georgy gamely. –Adam wondered how you spelled the last, and made a mental note to ask her.

    “We’re taking Puppy for a walk!” called the tall, skinny European girl loudly.

    He was a hefty Labrador, and it was pretty clear he was taking them. Well, he certainly looked as if he had more sense than the two of them put together.

    At this point the broad, brown Whetu tugged at her friend’s arm, and they went into an excited confabulation, with much whispering, glancing, and giggling.

    “I’m sorry,” said Georgy in a stifled voice to Adam.

    “That’s okay: they’re rather cute.”

    “Ye-es... Um, would you mind if they came and said hullo?”

    “No; get ’em over here,” he said, grinning.

    “Ye-es... Um—Elspeth! Whetu!” –Adam deduced from this pecking order not that Georgy was racist but that the White girl was the ring-leader in the companions’ exploits. In which, most of Kowhai Bay could have told him, he was far from incorrect.

    The girls were goggling hopefully.

    “Come and—and say hullo!” called Georgy.

    They came, with much excited panting and gasping. Whetu did not neglect to go into a terrific giggling fit when Adam shook her hand. Elspeth didn’t, but she turned puce and looked as if she was about to burst.

    “They live in Kowhai Bay Road,” explained Georgy.

    “I see. Is this your dog?” he said to Elspeth—not because he’d deduced from anyone’s demeanour that he was, but because the round, brown Whetu—she was actually very pretty, under the puppy-fat—was still shaking and wheezing and appeared incapable of speech.

    “Yes. His real name’s Pompadour Paduoy of Perenworth, but we call him Puppy!” she revealed in a rush.

    “How wise,” he replied, twinkling at her. Her accent was underlain by something—Scottish?

    Yes, it was, for she then said in a very Scottish voice: “Aye, it is.”

    “Are you from Scotland?” he asked, smiling at her.

    “Aye. We came out here when I was nine.”

    “I see.”

    “We saw you in that film!” gasped Whetu, momentarily recovering the power of speech. She was then immediately covered in confusion.

    “Oh, did you?” he replied politely, but with no enthusiasm.

    Whetu nodded violently.

    “Aye, it was no’ bad,” said Elspeth. “Most of the kids at school said it was ace,” she added in the local vernacular.

    Adam began to feel slightly dizzy. What with the mixed accents and what he was pretty sure was—well, modified rapture, to say no more.

    “Mirry said it was shallow,” Elspeth then revealed.

    Georgy went very red and explained: “That’s—um—her stepmother.” Elspeth, Whetu and she all knew this was not strictly accurate, as this lady was not yet married to Elspeth’s father, but none of them was capable of explaining the relationship succinctly, the more so as there was a baby involved, so they all looked at Adam in a sort of combined pleading and apology which he found totally disconcerting.

    “Well, she was right,” he said limply.

    “It was only meant to be entertainment,” said Georgy limply.

    “And to make money,” added Adam sourly.

    “I liked that TV series better,” decided Elspeth.

    “Which one?” croaked Adam.

    “Um—on Sunday afternoons, it was a repeat,” explained Elspeth with super-clarity, looking at Georgy. “That lady was really good in it.”

    “Sunday— The repeat of Emma?” said Georgy.

    Elspeth nodded violently. “You were good,” she added to Adam.

    “Thank you,” he said weakly.

    “I liked it when you told that lady off,” she added, lapsing rather from her former standard of critical appraisal.

    “Oh—good,” he said weakly.

    “Mum watched that,” volunteered Whetu.

    “Yeah, me and Mirry watched it together,” agreed Elspeth.

    “I hope Mirry approved?” murmured Adam.

     Elspeth went very red. “She liked some of it!” she gasped.

    “A lady of discernment,” he noted drily to Georgy.

    Georgy was also very red. “Um—well, we’d better be getting home, we haven’t had our tea yet,” she said to the girls.

    “Heck, we had ours a-ages ago!” gasped Whetu. “Eh, Elspeth?”

    “Yeah,” agreed Elspeth in the vernacular. “Mirry and me had ours, we didn’t wait for Dad, she said he was a dratted pest.”

    After this fascinating glimpse into the private lives of the residents of Kowhai Bay they departed, with fervent farewells, Elspeth not failing to ascertain before she went that she’d probably see Georgy down at the beach early in the morning, and that Adam quite often fancied a dip before breakfast, too (a downright lie, but if Georgy was going to be down there—), and Whetu not failing to go into another stifled giggling fit.

    “Phew!” said Adam with a laugh.

    “Mm. It’s their age. Elspeth’s really very bright,” she said awkwardly.

    “She must be, if she preferred Emma to that bloody film!”

    “Yes. She admires her—her stepmother very much, mind you, I think part of that might have been—” Georgy broke off, very red.

    “Parroting, mm. It’s all right, I can take it. I am the son of Christopher Black, you know,” he added acidly.

    “He’s very proud of you, he’s got videos of all your TV things!” gasped Georgy.

    “What?” said Adam, standing stock-still.

    “Hasn’t he let on?” asked Georgy, not as if she was surprized.

    “No. Are you pulling my leg?”

    “No! He told me: he said he was a sentimental fool, but you were his only son and he thought you weren’t making a bad fist of it after—all. Don’t!” she gasped.

    Adam turned away from her. He stared blindly out over Kowhai Bay.

    After a while Georgy said: “He keeps them locked up in his study.”

    He managed to reply: “In that mahogany cabinet?”

    “Mm.”

    “I thought that was where he kept his—his notes. For the thing he’s working on. And his—his bloody medal.”

    “Yes, he does. And your videos.”

    Adam swallowed.

    “You’d better not let on I told you,” said Georgy anxiously.

    “No,” he said, walking on blindly. Georgy scurried after him.

     After a little Adam realized he was going too fast for her and abruptly slowed his pace.

    “I’m sorry about—about Elspeth and Whetu,” she said.

    “What? Oh, Lord, don’t apologize—perils of suburban life, eh?” he said, managing a smile.

    “Yes,” agreed Georgy thankfully.

    They walked on in silence.

    As his parents’ driveway hove in sight Adam said abruptly: “Georgy—”

    “What?”

    Swallowing, he said: “If I wrote out a cheque for—for Oxfam or—” What else would she approve of?—“Greenpeace or something,” he said a trifle lamely, “would you come with me on Saturday?”

    “To that restaurant?”

    “Yes,” he croaked,

    Georgy was filled with a burning desire to go out with Adam. At the same time the mere thought of going out with Adam terrified her. The thought of having to go somewhere really fancy and expensive with Polly and her husband (whom she had never met) also terrified her, because she didn’t have anything to wear. And because she didn’t approve of filthy capitalists, on the one hand, and because she was no good at talking to strange men, on the other.

    “Have you got a lot of money?” she replied abruptly.

    “Yes. I get a percentage from that bloody film. It’s made millions. My tax bracket is something incredible: my accountant thinks I should emigrate to Jersey or the Caymans— I’m sorry, Georgy, I’m spouting rubbish. I have got a lot of money: most of it’s just sitting the bank slowly making more money that the government takes in tax.”

    “If I had a lot of money I’d do something worthwhile with it,” declared Georgy stoutly, though not looking at him.

    “Mm. Well, will you?”

    On the whole, Georgy decided, she would rather go to McDonald’s and eat tasteless hamburgers that were cold at the bottom. (New Zealand laissez-faire had definitely got the upper hand in the local McDonald’s outlets.) On the whole, Georgy decided, she would rather die than have to go to an expensive restaurant with no proper clothes and make social conversation with rich people that she scarcely knew.

    Therefore Georgy said huskily, bravely looking up into his face: “Yes.”

    Adam went very red. “Thank you.”

    Georgy also went very red.

    “Have you met him?”—Georgy shook her head.—“Well, he’s a very pleasant fellow, I think you’ll like him.”

    “Do you mean—it’s just them?” squeaked Georgy.

    “And us, yes. They were going to ask some friends of theirs, but they’re engaged for that evening.”

    “Oh,” said Georgy numbly.

    “I’ll protect you!” said Adam with a twinkle.

    “I think you’ll have to: I’ve never met a big businessman—or a millionaire,” said Georgy in a hollow voice. “No, on second thoughts, I think you’ll have to protect him, I tend to get awfully rude when I’m nervous.”

    “I think I had noticed that,” he said gently.

    Georgy went very red again.

    “I tend to get awfully superior,” said Adam with a smile in his voice.

    Startled, Georgy looked up, met his eye, gasped “Yes!” and went into a helpless giggling fit.

    “That’s better,” said Adam, grinning. “It’s a date, then!”

    “All right.” She looked at him dubiously.

    “Come inside, I’ll write that cheque out now,” he said, lips twitching.

    “All right. Only won’t it be an English bank?” she said, following him down his parents’ steep drive.

    Adam stopped, and grasped her elbow firmly, doing his best to ignore the blush. “Yes, but I assure you they’ll be able to cash it. Anyway, Oxfam’s Oxford-based. Or would you rather choose a different charity?

    “Well—Corso?”

    “Is that a local one?”

    “No, it’s for relief services oversea— Oh, I see what you mean,” she said in a small voice. “Yes, it is.”

    Adam felt extremely cheerful all of a sudden, in fact he was swamped by a wave of good cheer and said: “Whatever you like! And we’ll drink a toast to it over our escargots!”

    “I’m not going to eat snails,” said Georgy in a remarkably firm voice.

    “No,” agreed Christopher, emerging from behind a hibiscus bush. “She can barely bring herself to stamp on the bloody things, even when they’re ravaging her silverbeet. –Good evening, Georgy, I see you’ve met the non-thinking man’s sartorial dream.”

    “Mac’s already pointed out that this whole get-up’s a mistake,” said Adam in a bored voice.

    “I think you’ll be too hot in jeans,” said Georgy immediately, looking up at him anxiously.

    Christopher Black was extremely annoyed to find that his predominant emotion as Georgy did and said this was a searing jealousy. He wasn’t particularly surprized, he already knew he fancied dear little Georgy like anything, he wasn’t totally past it. But he was extremely annoyed.

    “Mm. Well, I’ve got some blue cotton trousers,” said Adam, smiling at her.

    “Yes, cotton would be better—if it’s light-weight?”

    “Yes. And a cotton shirt,” said Adam with a sigh. “This thing’s sticking to me.”

    Georgy had noticed. “Yes.”

    “Do I stink?” he asked in alarm.

    Nicely brought-up people in New Zealand never said that. Georgy of course knew this, but she also knew that English people did: she’d read it in books. Well, upper-class sorts of English people. She also recognized that New Zealand was relentlessly lower-middle-class (although in case she hadn’t, Christopher had already informed of her this fact, and had been very startled when Georgy had merely replied calmly: “Yes. Petit-bourgeois.”) In spite of her mental sophistication on this point, however, Georgy blushed brightly and said hoarsely to Adam: “No.”

    Adam thought she was terribly sweet and looked at her with amusement and as if he thought she was terribly sweet and Christopher experienced a strong desire to shove his son’s perfect teeth down his throat for him.

    He came up to Georgy and, since Adam had released her, took her arm possessively and said to her, nodding at the teeth in question: “See all that whiter-than-white dentition?”

    “Yes,” said Georgy shyly.

    “He’s got his mother and me to thank for that. We spent a flaming fortune on his ruddy teeth when he was about thirteen.”

    “Braces,” said Adam laconically.

    Christopher looked sour. “Not to mention— Well, I won’t mention it.”

    “My wisdom teeth came through early—had ’em all hauled out. Subsequent dentists have wondered why,” he drawled.

    “They’d have ruined your flaming mouth architecture, you beauteous idiot,” said his father irritably. “—Daft ’aporth,” he muttered.

    “Ooh!” cried Georgy, clutching his forearm fiercely. “You said it! What does it mean, Christopher?”

    Christopher looked down into the sweet little oval face looking up into his all shining and eager and could cheerfully have wrung the necks of both his fatuous idiot of a son and whatever fate or god it was that had decreed that at this precise moment in time he himself should be nearly seventy years old.

    “What?” he croaked, barely restraining himself from saying “What, sweetheart?” He would have been both annoyed and astounded to discover that the emotion he experienced when Georgy looked at him like that was very little different from that experienced by the owner of the purple abortion near the top of Ridge Road when Georgy smiled timidly at him or his wife or his wife’s absurd poodle.

    “‘Daft apeth’,” repeated Georgy carefully. “What’s an apeth?”

    “A halfpenny—less than one cent, I suppose,” said Christopher dazedly.

    “A hay— Oh!” cried Georgy, blushing and laughing. “Half a penny! Oh, I’m stupid, I thought it was spelled A,P,E,T,H!”

    “Ah! And cognate with the word ‘ape’, of course: a dialect word of the Midlands signifying a small simian,” he said with a twinkle.

    “Yes: they used to say it all the time on Coronation Street,” said Georgy, now very—and, in Christopher’s opinion—deliciously—pink.

    “God, that’s not still going out here, is it?” said Adam, coming up rather close on her other side.

    “No, I don’t think so. Well, it can’t be, or Mum’d watch it. Then she’d tell me all about it!” explained Georgy with a twinkle.

    Adam laughed. “Come on, we’d better go in, Ma’ll be keeping things hot or cold or both for me. And I mustn’t forget that cheque for your charity.”

    “Oh—yes!” gasped Georgy.

    “Yes, run along, sweetheart,” said Christopher, releasing her arm reluctantly and quite unable to resist the appellation. “And make sure it’s a hefty cheque, this bugger can afford it!”

    “I know,” she agreed, smiling.

    Christopher was abruptly visited by that scorching jealousy again. So much so that he could barely smile in reply.

    Adam led Georgy along the path to the back of the house.

    “Did you hear what he called me?” she said in a shaken voice when they were out of earshot.

    Adam was also rather shaken. “Yes. Gone soft in his old age, I’ve never heard him call any girl that in my life. Either that or he truly appreciates you,” he added, glancing at her with a twinkle.

    “Yes! I mean, No!” gasped Georgy in dreadful confusion.

    Laughing, Adam took her arm again and said: “Come on—let’s hurry, I’m starving, and I’m sure you must be!”

    Melinda watched numbly as her son produced an enormous chequebook that he must have had hidden in the depths of his suitcase, because she’d certainly never laid eyes on it before, opened it on the kitchen table, and said to Georgy: “Let’s see: four of us—did you say two hundred a pop?” Georgy nodded mutely. “Eight— No, say a round thousand.” Adam wrote out a cheque. He gave it to Georgy.

    “You haven’t filled in— Not pounds!” she gasped in horror.

    “Pounds, shillings or ounces,” said Adam with the enormous release of one who had been burning to get that off his chest all day.

    “It’s too much! I never meant— A pound’s about three dollars!”

    “Darling, this bloody watch cost more than that,” said Adam in some irritation.

    Georgy went very red. This was not because of Adam’s conspicuous consumption, but because of the unaccustomed appellation, but Adam didn’t realise this. Melinda, however, in spite of her shock at seeing her son stroll in at the back door with Georgy, not to mention her shock at the subsequent cheque-writing business, did.

    “You fill in the name,” added Adam, handing her his Parker.

    “Isn’t that illegal?” gasped Georgy.

    “No,” said Melinda, pulling herself together with an effort, “but that dratted pen of Adam’s certainly is; don’t even think of writing with it, Georgy, he’s left-handed and writes in drunken beetle-tracks.”

    “Like his father,” agreed Adam, reaching out his left hand. “Give it here. How do you spell it?”

    “I,T,” said his mother with satisfaction.

    Choking, Georgy gasped: “No! C,O,R,S,O!”

    Adam wrote it carefully. It was drunken beetle-tracks, all right. Only somehow Georgy was so overcome by seeing him write with his left hand, which had some black hair on the wrist that in her saner, or pre-Adam McIntyre existence, she would have immediately decided was revolting, that she went all trembly and didn’t comment.

    When Adam had promised he’d pick her up for the bloody rehearsal at about a quarter to eight tomorrow and Georgy had first baulked and then given in, and when Adam had told her not to forget about Saturday and Georgy, clutching her cheque tightly, had gasped that she wouldn’t, and when Adam had said should he walk her to her front door and Georgy had gasped that he shouldn’t, and she’d nip over the fence, and had gasped a farewell to them both and had shot out, Melinda just sat down limply on a kitchen chair and said: “Well!”

    Adam was peering anxiously out of the back window. “There she goes—I wish she’d let me— She’s all right,” he said in relief.

    Melinda swallowed. “Darling—” she said hesitantly.

    “What?” Adam turned from the window and gave her a beaming smile. Full frontal and about five million watts—the money they’d spent on those teeth! Still, Melinda supposed groggily, it had paid off.

    Blinking, she said: “Darling, I can see you like her, but—but do bear in mind she’s an inexperienced, unsophisticated little thing, won’t you?”

    “I’m neither entirely blind nor totally crass, thank you, Ma,” he replied, grinning.

    Melinda swallowed again. “No.”

    “She’s got such delicate features!” said Adam enthusiastically.

    “Yes,” said Melinda limply.

    “And she’s very intelligent!” he added with what his dazed mother foggily perceived was even greater enthusiasm. From Adam? Who’d apparently lived all his life without ever perceiving that women of the opposite sex even had minds?

    “She doesn’t think in clichés, it’s most refreshing! By the way, what was all that crap you gave me about tweed suits and moustaches?”

    “What?” said Melinda faintly.

    “Never mind, I’ve met her now,” said Adam smugly.

    “Yes,” said Melinda faintly.

    Adam, who in spite of his chosen profession, was far from a demonstrative man, then came round behind her chair, kissed her temple hard, and said: “I’ve got some Brie for you, Ma. And believe you me, I had to play Cheese Shop, New Zealand-style, for a good half-hour in order to get it!” he added with a laugh.

    “Oh—um—wouldn’t they admit they didn’t have the brand you wanted?” said Melinda groggily.

    “No, mother o’ mine,” replied Adam cheerfully with his head in his carrier-bag: “they wouldn’t admit they had it!” He pulled out a flattened paper packet. “Et voilà!”

    “Thank you, dear,” said Melinda limply.

    “Well, that’s the first rehearsal over,” noted Christopher sourly, climbing into bed that night. “More or less successfully,” he added even more sourly.

    “Yes,” agreed Melinda, watching him warily from her twin bed. (A softer mattress.)

    Christopher lay back on his pillows. He adjusted the sheet carefully over his bony form.

    “Do you want the fan on, dear?” she asked.

    “No, don’t think so: not that warm, is it?”

    Melinda agreed.

    Christopher switched off the light.

    Melinda lay there waiting.

    “However, one has yet to see whether it’ll be all right on the night!” he said loudly and acidly.

    Wincing, Melinda murmured: “But Adam—”

    “Our Adam, my angel, has about as much sensitivity as a tank, as much notion of how his behaviour affects those around him as a ditto, and about as much experience of young women of delicacy of mind and sensitivity of spirit as Ma Harris’s bloody chook-house!” said Christopher loudly and angrily.

    “Less: Georgy often goes out there, she likes the—”

    “SHUT UP!” shouted Christopher.

    “—hens,” finished Melinda mildly.

    Christopher lay there breathing very heavily through his nose for quite some time.

    Melinda could hear him. She lay there listening. Finally she said: “Darling—”

    “Shut—up,” said Christopher through his teeth. They were still his own, with a few gaps. They were as strong as Adam’s and what was more had all grown in straight. Quite a record for a New Zealander of his generation.

    “I was only going to say,” said Melinda on a resigned note: “don’t you think they may be the making of each other?”

    “No, I do not,” said Christopher tightly. “Shut up and go to sleep.”

    “She isn’t Peter Pan, you know!” said Melinda crossly.

    “SHUT UP!” he yelled.

    This time, Melinda did.